



JESUS THE CHRIST

A Study of the Messiah and His Mission
according to Holy Scriptures both
Ancient and Modern

By

JAMES E. TALMAGE

One of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints


PUBLISHED BY THE CHURCH

SIXTH EDITION

TWENTY-EIGHTH TO THIRTIETH THOUSAND INCLUSIVE

Salt Lake City, Utah

Deseret Book Company

1922

Copyright

September 1915, December 1915, April 1916
and November 1916

By

JOSEPH F. SMITH

Trustee-in-Trust for the
Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints

Copyright, October, 1922

By

HEBER J. GRANT

Trustee-in-Trust for the
Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints


Printed in the United States of America




PREFACE.


The scope of the subject presented in this work is expressed on the
title page. It will be readily seen that the author has departed from
the course usually followed by writers on the Life of Jesus Christ,
which course, as a rule, begins with the birth of Mary's Babe and ends
with the ascension of the slain and risen Lord from Olivet. The
treatment embodied in these pages, in addition to the narrative of the
Lord's life in the flesh comprizes the antemortal existence and
activities of the world's Redeemer, the revelations and personal
manifestations of the glorified and exalted Son of God during the
apostolic period of old and in modern times, the assured nearness of the
Lord's second advent, and predicted events beyond--all so far as the
Holy Scriptures make plain.

It is particularly congruous and appropriate that the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints--the only Church that affirms authority
based on specific revelation and commission to use the Lord's Holy Name
as a distinctive designation--should set forth her doctrines concerning
the Messiah and His mission.

The author of this volume entered upon his welcome service under request
and appointment from the presiding authorities of the Church; and the
completed work has been read to and is approved by the First Presidency
and the Council of the Twelve. It presents, however, the writer's
personal belief and profoundest conviction as to the truth of what he
has written. The book is published by the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints.

A characteristic feature of the work is the guidance afforded by modern
scriptures and the explication of the Holy Writ of olden times in the
light of present day revelation, which, as a powerful and well directed
beam, illumines many dark passages of ancient construction.

The spirit of the sacredness inherent in the subject has been a constant
companion of the writer throughout his pleasing labor, and he reverently
invokes the same as a minister to the readers of the volume.

JAMES E. TALMAGE.

Salt Lake City, Utah,
September, 1915.




PREFACE TO THE SIXTH EDITION.


The second edition of this work appeared in December, 1915, and the
third in March, 1916. The third edition presented several minor
alterations in wording and contained additional notes and references.
Succeeding issues, including the fifth which was printed on India paper,
and the present edition are practically uniform with the third.

JAMES E. TALMAGE.

Salt Lake City, Utah,
October, 1922.




CONTENTS.

Chapter 1.

INTRODUCTION.

Historicity of Jesus the Christ.--Scope and purpose of the present
treatise

Chapter 2.

PREEXISTENCE AND FOREORDINATION OF THE CHRIST.

Antemortal existence of spirits.--Primeval council in heaven.--Rebellion
of Lucifer.--His defeat and expulsion.--Free agency of man insured.--The
Beloved Son chosen to be the Savior and Redeemer of mankind

Chapter 3.

THE NEED OF A REDEEMER.

Spirits of diverse capacities.--Entrance of sin into the world
foreseen.--God's foreknowledge not a determining cause.--Creation of man
in the flesh.--Fall of man.--Atonement necessary.--Jesus Christ the only
Being eligible as Redeemer and Savior.--Universal resurrection provided

Chapter 4.

THE ANTEMORTAL GODSHIP OF CHRIST.

The Godhead.--Jesus Christ the Word of power.--Jesus Christ the
Creator.--Jehovah.--The Eternal I AM.--Proclamations of Jesus Christ by
the Father

Chapter 5.

EARTHLY ADVENT OF THE CHRIST PREDICTED.

Biblical prophecies.--Revelation to Enoch.--The Prophet predicted by
Moses.--Sacrifices as prototypes.--Book of Mormon predictions

Chapter 6.

THE MERIDIAN OF TIME.

Significance of the designation.--Epitome of Israel's history.--Jews in
vassalage to Rome.--Scribes and rabbis.--Pharisees and Sadducees.--Other
sects and parties

Chapter 7.

GABRIEL'S ANNUNCIATION OF JOHN AND OF JESUS.

Angelic visitation to Zacharias.--Birth of John the
forerunner.--Annunciation to Mary the Virgin.--Mary and Joseph.--Their
genealogies.--Jesus Christ heir to the throne of David

Chapter 8.

THE BABE OF BETHLEHEM.

Birth of Jesus Christ.--His presentation in the temple.--Visit of the
magi.--Herod's evil designs.--The Child taken into Egypt.--Birth of
Christ made known to Nephites.--Time of the birth

Chapter 9.

THE BOY OF NAZARETH.

Jesus to be called a Nazarene.--At the temple when twelve years of
age.--Jesus and the doctors of the law.--Jesus of Nazareth

Chapter 10.

IN THE WILDERNESS OF JUDEA.

John the Baptist.--The voice in the wilderness.--Baptism of Jesus.--The
Father's proclamation.--Descent of the Holy Ghost.--Sign of the
dove.--Temptations of Christ

Chapter 11.

FROM JUDEA TO GALILEE.

John Baptist's testimony of Christ.--First disciples.--The Son of Man,
significance of title.--Miracle of transmuting water into
wine.--Miracles in general

Chapter 12.

EARLY INCIDENTS IN OUR LORD'S PUBLIC MINISTRY.

First clearing of the temple.--Jesus and Nicodemus.--John Baptist's
disciples in disputation.--John's tribute to and repeated testimony of
the Christ

Chapter 13.

HONORED BY STRANGERS, REJECTED BY HIS OWN.

Jesus and the Samaritan woman.--Among the Samaritans.--While at Cana
Christ heals a nobleman's son in Capernaum.--At Nazareth Christ preaches
in synagog.--Nazarenes attempt to kill him.--Demons subdued in
Capernaum.--Demoniacal possession

Chapter 14.

CONTINUATION OF OUR LORD'S MINISTRY IN GALILEE.

A leper healed.--Leprosy.--Palsied man healed and forgiven.--Imputation
of blasphemy.--Publicans and sinners.--Old cloth, old bottles, and the
new.--Preliminary call of disciples.--Fishers of men

Chapter 15.

LORD OF THE SABBATH.

Sabbath distinctively sacred to Israel.--Cripple healed on Sabbath
day.--Accusations by the Jews and the Lord's reply thereto.--Disciples
charged with Sabbath-breaking.--Man with a withered hand healed on
Sabbath day

Chapter 16.

THE CHOSEN TWELVE.

Their call and ordination.--The Twelve considered individually.--Their
characteristics in general.--Disciples and apostles

Chapter 17.

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT.

The Beatitudes.--Dignity and responsibility in the ministry.--The Mosaic
law superseded by the gospel of Christ.--Sincerity of purpose. The
Lord's Prayer.--True wealth.--Promise and re-assurance.--Hearing and
doing

Chapter 18.

AS ONE HAVING AUTHORITY.

Healing of centurion's servant.--Young man of Nain raised from the
dead.--John Baptist's message to Jesus.--The Lord's commentary
thereon.--Death of John Baptist.--Jesus in house of Simon the
Pharisee.--Penitent woman forgiven.--Christ's authority ascribed to
Beelzebub.--The sin against the Holy Ghost.--Sign-seekers

Chapter 19.

"HE SPAKE MANY THINGS UNTO THEM IN PARABLES."

The Sower.--Wheat and Tares.--Seed growing secretly.--Mustard
Seed.--Leaven.--Hidden Treasure.--Pearl of Great Price.--Gospel
Net.--The Lord's purpose in parabolic teaching.--Parables in general

Chapter 20.

"PEACE, BE STILL."

Candidates for discipleship.--Stilling the storm.--Quieting the demons
in region of Gadara.--Raising of daughter of Jairus.--Restoration to
life and resurrection.--A woman healed amidst the throng.--Blind see and
dumb speak

Chapter 21.

THE APOSTOLIC MISSION, AND EVENTS RELATED THERETO.

Jesus again in Nazareth.--The Twelve charged and sent out.--Their
return.--Five thousand people miraculously fed.--Miracle of walking upon
the water.--People seek Christ for more loaves and fishes.--Christ the
bread of life.--Many disciples turn away

Chapter 22.

A PERIOD OF DARKENING OPPOSITION.

Ceremonial washings.--Pharisees rebuked.--Jesus in borders of Tyre and
Sidon.--Daughter of Syro-Phoenician woman healed.--Miracles wrought in
coasts of Decapolis.--Four thousand people miraculously fed.--More
seekers after signs.--Leaven of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and
Herodians.--Peter's great confession, "Thou art the Christ"

Chapter 23.

THE TRANSFIGURATION.

Visitation of Moses and Elijah.--The Father again proclaims the
Son.--The apostles temporarily restrained from testifying concerning the
transfiguration.--Elias and Elijah.--The Lesser and the Higher
Priesthood

Chapter 24.

FROM SUNSHINE TO SHADOW.

Youthful demoniac healed.--Further prediction of Christ's death and
resurrection.--The tribute money; supplied by a miracle.--Humility
illustrated by a little child.--Parable of the Lost Sheep.--In Christ's
name.--My brother and I.--Parable of the Unmerciful Servant

Chapter 25.

JESUS AGAIN IN JERUSALEM.

Departure from Galilee.--At the Feast of Tabernacles.--Another charge of
Sabbath desecration.--Living water for the spiritually thirsty.--Plans
to arrest Jesus.--Nicodemus protests.--Woman taken in adultery.--Christ
the light of the world.--The truth shall make men free.--Christ's
seniority over Abraham.--Sight restored on Sabbath day.--Physical and
spiritual blindness.--Shepherd and sheep-herder.--Christ the Good
Shepherd.--His inherent power over life and death.--Sheep of another
fold

Chapter 26.

OUR LORD'S MINISTRY IN PEREA AND JUDEA.

Jesus rejected in Samaria.--James and John reproved for revengeful
desire.--The Seventy charged and sent.--Their return.--A lawyer's
question.--Parable of Good Samaritan.--Martha and Mary.--Ask and
receive.--Parable of Friend at Midnight.--Criticism on Pharisees and
lawyers.--Parable of Foolish Rich Man.--The unrepentant to
perish.--Parable of Barren Fig Tree.--A woman healed on the
Sabbath.--Many or few to be saved?--Jesus warned of Herod's design

Chapter 27.

CONTINUATION OF THE PEREAN AND JUDEAN MINISTRY.

In the house of one of the chief Pharisees.--Parable of the Great
Supper.--Counting the cost.--Salvation even for publicans and
sinners.--Parable of the Lost Sheep repeated.--Of the Lost Coin.--Of the
Prodigal Son.--Of the Unrighteous Steward.--Of the Rich Man and
Lazarus.--Of the Unprofitable Servants.--Ten lepers healed.--Parable of
the Pharisee and Publican.--On marriage and divorce.--Jesus and the
little ones.--The rich young ruler.--First may be last and last
first.--Parable of the Laborers

Chapter 28.

THE LAST WINTER.

At the Feast of Dedication.--Sheep know the Shepherd's Voice.--The
Lord's retirement in Perea.--Lazarus raised from the dead.--Jewish
hierarchy agitated over the miracle.--Prophecy by Caiaphas, the high
priest.--Jesus in retirement at Ephraim

Chapter 29.

ON TO JERUSALEM.

Jesus again foretells His death and resurrection.--Aspiring request of
James and John.--Sight restored near Jericho.--Zaccheus the chief
publican.--Parable of the Pounds.--The supper in the house of Simon the
leper.--Mary's tribute in anointing Jesus.--Iscariot's protest.--
Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem.--Certain Greeks seek
interview with Jesus.--The Voice from heaven

Chapter 30.

JESUS RETURNS TO THE TEMPLE DAILY.

A leafy but fruitless fig tree cursed.--Second clearing of the
temple.--Children shout Hosanna.--Christ's authority challenged by the
rulers.--Parable of the two sons. Of the Wicked Husbandmen.--The
rejected Stone to be head of the corner.--Parable of the Royal Marriage
Feast.--The wedding garment lacking

Chapter 31.

THE CLOSE OF OUR LORD'S PUBLIC MINISTRY.

Pharisees and Herodians in conspiracy.--Cæsar to have his due.--The
image on the coin.--Sadducees and the resurrection.--Levirate
marriages.--The great commandment.--Jesus turns questioner.--Scathing
denunciation of scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!--Lamentation over
Jerusalem.--The widow's mites.--Christ's final withdrawal from
temple.--Destruction of temple predicted

Chapter 32.

FURTHER INSTRUCTION TO THE APOSTLES.

Prophecies relating to destruction of Jerusalem and the Lord's future
advent.--Watch!--Parable of Ten Virgins.--Of the Entrusted Talents.--The
inevitable judgment.--Another and specific prediction of the Lord's
impending death

Chapter 33.

THE LAST SUPPER AND THE BETRAYAL.

Judas Iscariot in conspiracy with the Jews.--Preparations for the Lord's
last Passover.--The last supper of Jesus with the Twelve.--The traitor
designated.--Ordinance of washing of feet.--Sacrament of the Lord's
Supper.--The betrayer goes out into the night.--Discourse following the
supper.--The High-Priestly Prayer.--The Lord's agony in Gethsemane.--The
betrayal and the arrest

Chapter 34.

THE TRIAL AND CONDEMNATION.

The Jewish trial.--Christ before Annas and Caiaphas.--The illegal night
court.--The morning session.--False witnesses and unrighteous
conviction.--Peter's denial of his Lord.--Christ's first arraignment
before Pilate.--Before Herod.--Second appearance before
Pilate.--Pilate's surrender to Jewish clamor.--The sentence of
crucifixion.--Suicide of Judas Iscariot

Chapter 35.

DEATH AND BURIAL.

On the way to Calvary.--The Lord's address to the daughters of
Jerusalem.--The crucifixion.--Occurrences between the Lord's death and
burial.--The burial.--The sepulchre guarded

Chapter 36.

IN THE REALM OF DISEMBODIED SPIRITS.

Actuality of the Lord's death.--Condition of spirits between death and
resurrection.--The Savior among the dead.--The gospel preached to the
spirits in prison

Chapter 37.

THE RESURRECTION AND THE ASCENSION.

Christ is risen.--The women at the sepulchre.--Angelic
communications.--The risen Lord seen by Mary Magdalene.--And by other
women.--A priestly conspiracy of falsehood.--The Lord and two disciples
on the Emmaus road.--He appears to disciples in Jerusalem and eats in
their presence.--Doubting Thomas.--The Lord appears to the apostles at
the sea of Tiberias.--Other manifestations in Galilee.--Final commission
to the apostles.--The ascension

Chapter 38.

THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY.

Matthias ordained to the apostleship.--Bestowal of the Holy Ghost at
Pentecost.--The apostles' preaching.--Imprisoned and delivered.--
Gamaliel's advice to the council.--Stephen the martyr.--Saul of Tarsus,
his conversion.--Becomes Paul the apostle.--The record by John the
Revelator.--Close of the apostolic ministry

Chapter 39.

MINISTRY OF THE RESURRECTED CHRIST ON THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE.

The Lord's death signalized by great calamities on western
continent.--The Voice of the Lord Jesus Christ heard.--His visitations
to the Nephites.--The Nephite Twelve.--Baptism among Nephites.--The
Mosaic law fulfilled.--Address to Nephites compared with Sermon on the
Mount.--Sacrament of bread and wine instituted among Nephites.--Name of
Christ's Church.--The Three Nephites.--Growth of the Church.--Final
apostasy of Nephite nation

Chapter 40.

THE LONG NIGHT OF APOSTASY.

The great falling away as predicted.--Individual apostasy from the
Church.--Apostasy of the Church.--Constantine makes Christianity the
religion of state.--Papal claims to secular authority.--Churchly
tyranny.--The Dark Ages.--The inevitable revolt.--The Reformation.--Rise
of Church of England.--Catholicism and Protestantism.--The apostasy
affirmed.--Mission of Columbus and the Pilgrim Fathers predicted in
ancient scripture.--Fulfilment of the prophecies.--Establishment of
American nation provided for

Chapter 41.

PERSONAL MANIFESTATIONS OF GOD THE ETERNAL FATHER AND OF HIS SON JESUS
CHRIST IN MODERN TIMES.

A new dispensation.--Joseph Smith's perplexity over sectarian
strife.--The Eternal Father and His Son Jesus Christ appear to and
personally instruct Joseph Smith.--Visitation of Moroni.--The Book of
Mormon.--Aaronic Priesthood restored by John the Baptist.--Melchizedek
Priesthood restored by Peter, James, and John.--The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints.--Divine manifestations in Kirtland
Temple.--The Lord Jesus Christ appears.--Specific authority of olden
dispensations conferred by Moses, Elias, and Elijah.--The Holy
Priesthood now operative on earth

Chapter 42.

JESUS THE CHRIST TO RETURN.

Ancient predictions of the Lord's second advent.--Modern revelation
affirms the same.--Today and tomorrow.--The great and dreadful day near
at hand.--Kingdom of God and Kingdom of Heaven.--The Millennium.--The
celestial consummation

Index




CHAPTER 1.

INTRODUCTION.


It is a matter of history that, at or near the beginning of what has
since come to be known as the Christian era, the Man Jesus, surnamed the
Christ, was born in Bethlehem of Judea.[1] The principal data as to His
birth, life, and death are so well attested as to be reasonably
indisputable; they are facts of record, and are accepted as essentially
authentic by the civilized world at large. True, there are diversities
of deduction based on alleged discrepancies in the records of the past
as to circumstantial details; but such differences are of strictly minor
importance, for none of them nor all taken together cast a shadow of
rational doubt upon the historicity of the earthly existence of the Man
known in literature as Jesus of Nazareth.

As to who and what He was there are dissensions of grave moment dividing
the opinions of men; and this divergence of conception and belief is
most pronounced upon those matters to which the greatest importance
attaches. The solemn testimonies of millions dead and of millions living
unite in proclaiming Him as divine, the Son of the Living God, the
Redeemer and Savior of the human race, the Eternal Judge of the souls of
men, the Chosen and Anointed of the Father--in short, the Christ. Others
there are who deny His Godhood while extolling the transcendent
qualities of His unparalleled and unapproachable Manhood.

To the student of history this Man among men stands first, foremost, and
alone, as a directing personality in the world's progression. Mankind
has never produced a leader to rank with Him. Regarded solely as a
historic personage He is unique. Judged by the standard of human
estimation, Jesus of Nazareth is supreme among men by reason of the
excellence of His personal character, the simplicity, beauty, and
genuine worth of His precepts, and the influence of His example and
doctrines in the advancement of the race. To these distinguishing
characteristics of surpassing greatness the devout Christian soul adds
an attribute that far exceeds the sum of all the others--the divinity of
Christ's origin and the eternal reality of His status as Lord and God.

Christian and unbeliever alike acknowledge His supremacy as a Man, and
respect the epoch-making significance of His birth. Christ was born in
the meridian of time;[2] and His life on earth marked at once the
culmination of the past and the inauguration of an era distinctive in
human hope, endeavor, and achievement. His advent determined a new order
in the reckoning of the years; and by common consent the centuries
antedating His birth have been counted backward from the pivotal event
and are designated accordingly. The rise and fall of dynasties, the
birth and dissolution of nations, all the cycles of history as to war
and peace, as to prosperity and adversity, as to health and pestilence,
seasons of plenty and of famine, the awful happenings of earthquake and
storm, the triumphs of invention and discovery, the epochs of man's
development in godliness and the long periods of his dwindling in
unbelief--all the occurrences that make history--are chronicled
throughout Christendom by reference to the year before or after the
birth of Jesus Christ.

His earthly life covered a period of thirty-three years; and of these
but three were spent by Him as an acknowledged Teacher openly engaged in
the activities of public ministry. He was brought to a violent death
before He had attained what we now regard as the age of manhood's prime.
As an individual He was personally known to but few; and His fame as a
world character became general only after His death.

Brief account of some of His words and works has been preserved to us;
and this record, fragmentary and incomplete though it be, is rightly
esteemed as the world's greatest treasure. The earliest and most
extended history of His mortal existence is embodied within the
compilation of scriptures known as the New Testament; indeed but little
is said of Him by secular historians of His time. Few and short as are
the allusions to Him made by non-scriptural writers in the period
immediately following that of His ministry, enough is found to
corroborate the sacred record as to the actuality and period of Christ's
earthly existence.

No adequate biography of Jesus as Boy and Man has been or can be
written, for the sufficing reason that a fulness of data is lacking.
Nevertheless, man never lived of whom more has been said and sung, none
to whom is devoted a greater proportion of the world's literature. He is
extolled by Christian, Mohammedan and Jew, by skeptic and infidel, by
the world's greatest poets, philosophers, statesmen, scientists, and
historian. Even the profane sinner in the foul, sacrilege of his oath
acclaims the divine supremacy of Him whose name he desecrates.

The purpose of the present treatise is that of considering the life and
mission of Jesus _as_ the Christ. In this undertaking we are to be
guided by the light of both ancient and modern scriptures; and, thus
led, we shall discover, even in the early stages of our course, that the
word of God as revealed in latter days is effective in illuming and
making plain the Holy Writ of ancient times, and this, in many matters
of the profoundest imports.[3]

Instead of beginning our study with the earthly birth of the Holy Babe
of Bethlehem, we shall consider the part taken by the Firstborn Son of
God in the primeval councils of heaven, at the time when He was chosen
and ordained to be the Savior of the unborn race of mortals, the
Redeemer of a world then in its formative stages of development. We are
to study Him as the Creator of the world, as the Word of Power, through
whom the purposes of the Eternal Father were realized in the preparation
of the earth for the abode of His myriad spirit-children during the
appointed period of their mortal probation. Jesus Christ was and is
Jehovah, the God of Adam and of Noah, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, the God of Israel, the God at whose instance the prophets of the
ages have spoken, the God of all nations, and He who shall yet reign on
earth as King of kings and Lord of lords.

His wondrous yet natural birth, His immaculate life in the flesh, and
His voluntary death as a consecrated sacrifice for the sins of mankind,
shall claim our reverent attention; as shall also His redeeming service
in the world of disembodied spirits; His literal resurrection from
bodily death to immortality; His several appearings to men and His
continued ministry as the Resurrected Lord on both continents; the
reestablishment of His Church through His personal presence and that of
the Eternal Father in the latter days; and His coming to His temple in
the current dispensation. All these developments in the ministration of
the Christ are already of the past. Our proposed course of investigation
will lead yet onward, into the future concerning which the word of
divine revelation is of record. We shall consider the conditions
incident to the Lord's return in power and glory to inaugurate the
dominion of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, and to usher in the
predicted Millennium of peace and righteousness. And yet beyond we shall
follow Him, through the post-Millennial conflict between the powers of
heaven and the forces of hell, to the completion of His victory over
Satan, sin, and death, when He shall present the glorified earth and its
sanctified hosts, spotless and celestialized, unto the Father.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints affirms her possession
of divine authority for the use of the sacred name, Jesus Christ, as the
essential part of her distinctive designation. In view of this exalted
claim, it is pertinent to inquire as to what special or particular
message the Church has to give to the world concerning the Redeemer and
Savior of the race, and as to what she has to say in justification of
her solemn affirmation, or in vindication of her exclusive name and
title. As we proceed with our study, we shall find that among the
specific teachings of the Church respecting the Christ are these:

(1) The unity and continuity of His mission in all ages--this of
necessity involving the verity of His preexistence and foreordination.
(2) The fact of His antemortal Godship. (3) The actuality of His birth
in the flesh as the natural issue of divine and mortal parentage. (4)
The reality of His death and physical resurrection, as a result of which
the power of death shall be eventually overcome. (5) The literalness of
the atonement wrought by Him, including the absolute requirement of
individual compliance with the laws and ordinances of His gospel as the
means by which salvation may be attained. (6) The restoration of His
Priesthood and the reestablishment of His Church in the current age,
which is verily the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times. (7) The
certainty of His return to earth in the near future, with power and
great glory, to reign in Person and bodily presence as Lord and King.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] As to the year of Christ's birth, see chapter 8.

[2] See chapter 6.

[3] The Holy Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and
the Pearl of Great Price constitute the standard works of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. These will be cited alike as
Scriptures in the following pages, for such they are.




CHAPTER 2.

PREEXISTENCE AND FOREORDINATION OF THE CHRIST.


We affirm, on the authority of Holy Scripture, that the Being who is
known among men as Jesus of Nazareth, and by all who acknowledge His
Godhood as Jesus the Christ, existed with the Father prior to birth in
the flesh; and that in the preexistent state He was chosen and ordained
to be the one and only Savior and Redeemer of the human race.
Foreordination implies and comprizes preexistence as an essential
condition; therefore scriptures bearing upon the one are germane to the
other; and consequently in this presentation no segregation of evidence
as applying specifically to the preexistence of Christ or to His
foreordination will be attempted.

John the Revelator beheld in vision some of the scenes that had been
enacted in the spirit-world before the beginning of human history. He
witnessed strife and contention between loyalty and rebellion, with the
hosts defending the former led by Michael the archangel, and the
rebellious forces captained by Satan, who is also called the devil, the
serpent, and the dragon. We read: "And there was war in heaven; Michael
and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his
angels."[4]

In this struggle between unembodied hosts the forces were unequally
divided; Satan drew to his standard only a third part of the children of
God, who are symbolized as the "stars of heaven";[5] the majority either
fought with Michael, or at least refrained from active opposition, thus
accomplishing the purpose of their "first estate"; while the angels who
arrayed themselves on the side of Satan "kept not their first
estate",[6] and therefore rendered themselves ineligible for the
glorious possibilities of an advanced condition or "second estate".[7]
The victory was with Michael and his angels; and Satan or Lucifer,
theretofore a "son of the morning", was cast out of heaven, yea "he was
cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him".[8] The
prophet Isaiah, to whom these momentous occurrences had been revealed
about eight centuries prior to the time of John's writings, laments with
inspired pathos the fall of so great a one; and specifies selfish
ambition as the occasion: "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer,
son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst
weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascent
into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit
also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I
will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most
High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the
pit."[9]

Justification for citing these scriptures in connection with our present
consideration will be found in the cause of the great contention--the
conditions that led to this war in heaven. It is plain from the words of
Isaiah that Lucifer, already of exalted rank, sought to aggrandize
himself without regard to the rights and agency of others. The matter is
set forth, in words that none may misapprehend, in a revelation given to
Moses and repeated through the first prophet of the present
dispensation: "And I, the Lord God, spake unto Moses, saying: That
Satan, whom thou hast commanded in the name of mine Only Begotten, is
the same which was from the beginning, and he came before me,
saying--Behold, here am I, send me, I will be thy son, and I will redeem
all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost, and surely I will do it;
wherefore give me thine honor. But, behold, my Beloved son, which was my
Beloved and Chosen from the beginning, said unto me--Father, thy will be
done, and the glory be thine forever. Wherefore, because that Satan
rebelled against me, and sought to destroy the agency of man, which I,
the Lord God, had given him, and also, that I should give unto him mine
own power; by the power of mine Only Begotten, I caused that he should
be cast down; and he became Satan, yea, even the devil, the father of
all lies, to deceive and to blind men, and to lead them captive at his
will, even as many as would not hearken unto my voice."[10]

Thus it is shown that prior to the placing of man upon the earth, how
long before we do not know, Christ and Satan, together with the hosts of
the spirit-children of God, existed as intelligent individuals,[11]
possessing power and opportunity to choose the course they would pursue
and the leaders whom they would follow and obey.[12] In that great
concourse of spirit-intelligences, the Father's plan, whereby His
children would be advanced to their second estate, was submitted and
doubtless discussed. The opportunity so placed within the reach of the
spirits who were to be privileged to take bodies upon the earth was so
transcendently glorious that those heavenly multitudes burst forth into
song and shouted for joy.[13]

Satan's plan of compulsion, whereby all would be safely conducted
through the career of mortality, bereft of freedom to act and agency to
choose, so circumscribed that they would be compelled to do right--that
one soul would not be lost--was rejected; and the humble offer of Jesus
the First-born--to assume mortality and live among men as their Exemplar
and Teacher, observing the sanctity of man's agency but teaching men to
use aright that divine heritage--was accepted. The decision brought war,
which resulted in the vanquishment of Satan and his angels, who were
cast out and deprived of the boundless privileges incident to the mortal
or second estate.

In that august council of the angels and the Gods, the Being who later
was born in flesh as Mary's Son, Jesus, took prominent part, and there
was He ordained of the Father to be the Savior of mankind. As to time,
the term being used in the sense of all duration past, this is our
earliest record of the Firstborn among the sons of God; to us who read,
it marks the beginning of the written history of Jesus the Christ.[14]

Old Testament scriptures, while abounding in promises relating to the
actuality of Christ's advent in the flesh, are less specific in
information concerning His antemortal existence. By the children of
Israel, while living under the law and still unprepared to receive the
gospel, the Messiah was looked for as one to be born in the lineage of
Abraham and David, empowered to deliver them from personal and national
burdens, and to vanquish their enemies. The actuality of the Messiah's
status as the chosen Son of God, who was with the Father from the
beginning, a Being of preexistent power and glory, was but dimly
perceived, if conceived at all, by the people in general; and although
to prophets specially commissioned in the authorities and privileges of
the Holy Priesthood, revelation of the great truth was given,[15] they
transmitted it to the people rather in the language of imagery and
parable than in words of direct plainness. Nevertheless the testimony of
the evangelists and the apostles, the attestation of the Christ Himself
while in the flesh, and the revelations given in the present
dispensation leave us without dearth of scriptural proof.

In the opening lines of the Gospel book written by John the apostle, we
read: "In the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God, and the
word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were
made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made.... And
the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory,
the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and
truth."[16]

The passage is simple, precise and unambiguous. We may reasonably give
to the phrase "In the beginning" the same meaning as attaches thereto in
the first line of Genesis; and such signification must indicate a time
antecedent to the earliest stages of human existence upon the earth.
That the Word is Jesus Christ, who was with the Father in that beginning
and who was Himself invested with the powers and rank of Godship, and
that He came into the world and dwelt among men, are definitely
affirmed. These statements are corroborated through a revelation given
to Moses, in which he was permitted to see many of the creations of God,
and to hear the voice of the Father with respect to the things that had
been made: "And by the word of my power, have I created them, which is
mine Only Begotten Son, who is full of grace and truth."[17]

John the apostle repeatedly affirms the preexistence of the Christ and
the fact of His authority and power in the antemortal state.[18] To the
same effect is the testimony of Paul[19] and of Peter. Instructing the
saints concerning the basis of their faith, the last-named apostle
impressed upon them that their redemption was not to be secured through
corruptible things nor by the outward observance of traditional
requirements, "But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb
without blemish and without spot: who verily was foreordained before the
foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for
you."[20]

Even more impressive and yet more truly conclusive are the personal
testimonies of the Savior as to His own pre-existent life and the
mission among men to which He had been appointed. No one who accepts
Jesus as the Messiah can consistently reject these evidences of His
eternal nature. When, on a certain occasion, the Jews in the synagogue
disputed among themselves and murmured because of their failure to
understand aright His doctrine concerning Himself, especially as
touching His relationship with the Father, Jesus said unto them: "For I
came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that
sent me." And then, continuing the lesson based upon the contrast
between the manna with which their fathers had been fed in the
wilderness and the bread of life which He had to offer, He added: "I am
the living bread which came down from heaven," and again declared "the
living Father hath sent me." Not a few of the disciples failed to
comprehend His teachings; and their complaints drew from Him these
words: "Doth this offend you? What and if ye shall see the Son of man
ascend up where he was before?"[21]

To certain wicked Jews, wrapped in the mantle of racial pride, boastful
of their descent through the lineage of Abraham, and seeking to excuse
their sins through an unwarranted use of the great patriarch's name, our
Lord thus proclaimed His own preeminence: "Verily, verily, I say unto
you, Before Abraham was, I am."[22] The fuller significance of this
remark will be treated later; suffice it in the present connection to
consider this scripture as a plain avowal of our Lord's seniority and
supremacy over Abraham. But as Abraham's birth had preceded that of
Christ by more than nineteen centuries, such seniority must have
reference to a state of existence antedating that of mortality.

When the hour of His betrayal was near, in the last interview with the
apostles prior to His agonizing experience in Gethsemane, Jesus
comforted them saying: "For the Father himself loveth you, because ye
have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God. I came forth
from the Father, and am come into the world again, I leave the world,
and go to the Father."[23] Furthermore, in the course of upwelling
prayer for those who had been true to their testimony of His
Messiahship, He addressed the Father with this solemn invocation: "And
this is the life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God,
and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. I have glorified thee on the
earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O
Father glorify thou with thine own self with the glory which I had with
thee before the world was."[24]

Book of Mormon scriptures are likewise explicit in proof of the
preexistence of the Christ and of His foreappointed mission. One only of
the many evidences therein found will be cited here. An ancient prophet,
designated in the record as the brother of Jared,[25] once pleaded with
the Lord in special supplication: "And the Lord said unto him, Believest
thou the words which I shall speak? And he answered, Yea, Lord, I know
that thou speakest the truth, for thou art a God of truth, and canst not
lie. And when he had said these words, behold, the Lord shewed himself
unto him, and said, Because thou knowest these things, ye are redeemed
from the fall: therefore ye are brought back into my presence; therefore
I shew myself unto you. Behold, I am he who was prepared from the
foundation of the world to redeem my people. Behold, I am Jesus Christ.
I am the Father and the Son. In me shall all mankind have light, and
that eternally, even they who shall believe on my name; and they shall
become my sons and my daughters. And never have I shewed myself unto man
whom I have created, for never has man believed in me as thou hast.
Seest thou that ye are created after mine own image? Yea, even all men
were created in the beginning, after mine own image. Behold, this body,
which ye now behold, is the body of my spirit; and man have I created
after the body of my spirit; and even as I appear unto thee to be in the
spirit, will I appear unto my people in the flesh."[26] The main facts
attested by this scripture as having a direct bearing upon our present
subject are those of the Christ manifesting Himself while yet in His
antemortal state, and of His declaration that He had been chosen from
the foundation of the world as the Redeemer.

Revelation given through the prophets of God in the present dispensation
is replete with evidence of Christ's appointment and ordination in the
primeval world; and the whole tenor of the scriptures contained in the
Doctrine and Covenants may be called in witness. The following instances
are particularly in point. In a communication to Joseph Smith the
prophet, in May, 1833, the Lord declared Himself as the One who had
previously come into the world from the Father, and of whom John had
borne testimony as the Word; and the solemn truth is reiterated that He,
Jesus Christ, "was in the beginning, before the world was", and further,
that He was the Redeemer who "came into the world, because the world was
made by him, and in him was the life of men and the light of men."
Again, He is referred to as "the Only Begotten of the Father, full of
grace and truth, even the Spirit of truth, which came and dwelt in the
flesh." In the course of the same revelation the Lord said: "And now,
verily I say unto you, I was in the beginning with the Father and am the
firstborn."[27] On an earlier occasion, as the modern prophet testifies,
he and an associate in the priesthood were enlightened by the Spirit so
that they were able to see and understand the things of God--"Even those
things which were from the beginning before the world was, which were
ordained of the Father, through his Only Begotten Son, who was in the
bosom of the Father, even from the beginning, of whom we bear record,
and the record which we bear is the fulness of the gospel of Jesus
Christ, who is the Son, whom we saw and with whom we conversed in the
heavenly vision."[28]

The testimony of scriptures written on both hemispheres, that of records
both ancient and modern, the inspired utterances of prophets and
apostles, and the words of the Lord Himself, are of one voice in
proclaiming the preexistence of the Christ and His ordination as the
chosen Savior and Redeemer of mankind--in the beginning, yea, even
before the foundation of the world.


NOTES TO CHAPTER 2.

1. Graded Intelligences in the Antemortal State.--That the spirits of
men existed as individual intelligences, of varying degrees of ability
and power, prior to the inauguration of the mortal state upon this earth
and even prior to the creation of the world as a suitable abode for
human beings, is shown in great plainness through a divine revelation to
Abraham: "Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences
that were organized before the world was; and among all these there were
many of the noble and great ones; and God saw these souls that they were
good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said: These I will make
my rulers; for he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that
they were good; and he said unto me: Abraham, thou art one of them; thou
wast chosen before thou wast born." (P. of G.P., Abraham 3:22, 23.)

That both Christ and Satan were among those exalted intelligences, and
that Christ was chosen while Satan was rejected as the future Savior of
mankind, are shown by the portions of the revelation immediately
following that above quoted: "And there stood one among them that was
like unto God, and he said unto those who were with him: We will go
down, for there is space there, and we will take of these materials, and
we will make an earth whereon these may dwell; and we will prove them
herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their
God shall command them; and they who keep their first estate shall be
added upon, and they who keep not their first estate shall not have
glory in the same kingdom with those who keep their first estate; and
they who keep their second estate shall have glory added upon their
heads forever and ever. And the Lord said: Whom shall I send? And one
answered like unto the Son of Man: Here am I, send me. And another
answered and said: Here am I, send me. And the Lord said: I will send
the first. And the second was angry, and kept not his first estate; and,
at that day, many followed after him" (verses 24-28).

2. The Primeval Council in the Heavens.--"It is definitely stated in the
Book of Genesis that God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our
likeness;' and again, after Adam had taken of the forbidden fruit the
Lord said, 'Behold, the man has become as one of us;' and the inference
is direct that in all that related to the work of the creation of the
world there was a consultation; and though God spake as it is recorded
in the Bible, yet it is evident He counseled with others. The scriptures
tell us there are 'Gods many and Lords many. But to us there is but one
God, the Father' (1 Cor. 8:5). And for this reason, though there were
others engaged in the creation of the worlds, it is given to us in the
Bible in the shape that it is; for the fulness of these truths is only
revealed to highly favored persons for certain reasons known to God; as
we are told in the scriptures: 'The secret of the Lord is with them that
fear him; and he will show them his covenant.'--Psalms 25:14.

"It is consistent to believe that at this Council in the heavens the
plan that should be adopted in relation to the sons of God who were then
spirits, and had not yet obtained tabernacles, was duly considered. For,
in view of the creation of the world and the placing of men upon it,
whereby it would be possible for them to obtain tabernacles, and in
those tabernacles obey laws of life, and with them again be exalted
among the Gods, we are told that at that time, 'the morning stars sang
together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.' The question then
arose, how, and upon what principle, should the salvation, exaltation
and eternal glory of God's sons be brought about? It is evident that at
that Council certain plans had been proposed and discussed, and that
after a full discussion of those principles, and the declaration of the
Father's will pertaining to His design, Lucifer came before the Father
with a plan of his own, saying, 'Behold [here am] I; send me, I will be
thy son, and I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost,
and surely I will do it; wherefore, give me thine honor.' But Jesus, on
hearing this statement made by Lucifer, said, 'Father, thy will be done,
and the glory be thine forever.' From these remarks made by the well
beloved Son, we should naturally infer that in the discussion of this
subject the Father had made known His will and developed His plan and
design pertaining to these matters, and all that His well beloved Son
wanted to do was to carry out the will of His Father, as it would appear
had been before expressed. He also wished the glory to be given to His
Father, who, as God the Father, and the originator and designer of the
plan, had a right to all the honor and glory. But Lucifer wanted to
introduce a plan contrary to the will of his Father, and then wanted His
honor, and said: 'I will save every soul of man, wherefore give me thine
honor.' He wanted to go contrary to the will of his Father, and
presumptuously sought to deprive man of his free agency, thus making him
a serf, and placing him in a position in which it was impossible for him
to obtain that exaltation which God designed should be man's, through
obedience to the law which He had suggested; and again, Lucifer wanted
the honor and power of his Father, to enable him to carry out principles
which were contrary to the Father's wish."--John Taylor--_Mediation and
Atonement_, pp. 93, 94.

3. The Jaredites.--"Of the two nations whose histories constitute the
Book of Mormon, the first in order of time consisted of the people of
Jared, who followed their leader from the Tower of Babel at the time of
the confusion of tongues. Their history was written on twenty-four
plates of gold by Ether, the last of their prophets, who, foreseeing the
destruction of his people because of their wickedness, hid away the
historical plates. They were afterward found, B.C. 123, by an expedition
sent out by King Limhi, a Nephite ruler. The record engraved on these
plates was subsequently abridged by Moroni, and the condensed account
was attached by him to the Book of Mormon record; it appears in the
modern translation under the name of the Book of Ether.

"The first and chief prophet of the Jaredites is not mentioned by name
in the record as we have it; he is known only as the brother of Jared.
Of the people, we learn that, amid the confusion of Babel, Jared and his
brother importuned the Lord that He would spare them and their
associates from the impending disruption. Their prayer was heard, and
the Lord led them with a considerable company, who, like themselves,
were free from the taint of idolatry, away from their homes, promising
to conduct them to a land choice above all other lands. Their course of
travel is not given with exactness; we learn only that they reached the
ocean, and there constructed eight vessels, called barges, in which they
set out upon the waters. These vessels were small and dark within; but
the Lord made luminous certain stones, which gave light to the
imprisoned voyagers. After a passage of three hundred and forty-four
days, the colony landed on the western shore of North America, probably
at a place south of the Gulf of California, and north of the Isthmus of
Panama.

"Here they became a flourishing nation; but, giving way in time to
internal dissensions, they divided into factions, which warred with one
another until the people were totally destroyed. This destruction, which
occurred near the hill Ramah, afterward known among the Nephites as
Cumorah, probably took place at about the time of Lehi's landing in
South America--590 B.C."--The author, _Articles of Faith_, xiv:10-12.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] Rev. 12:7; see also verses 8 and 9.

[5] Rev. 12:4; see also Doc. and Cov. 29:36-38; and 76:25-27.

[6] Jude 6.

[7] P. of G.P., Abraham 3:26.

[8] Rev. 12:9.

[9] Isa. 14:12-15; compare Doc. and Cov. 29:36-38; and 76:23-27.

[10] P. of G.P., Moses 4:1-4; see also Abraham 3:27, 28.

[11] For a further treatment of the preexistence of spirits see the
author's "Articles of Faith" x:21-30.

[12] Note 1, end of chapter.

[13] Job 38:7.

[14] Note 2, end of chapter.

[15] Psalm 25:14; Amos 3:7.

[16] John 1:1-3, 14; see also 1 John 1:1; 5: 7; Rev. 19:13; compare Doc.
and Cov. 93:1-17, 21.

[17] P. of C.P., Moses 1:32, 33; see also 2:5.

[18] 1 John 1:1-3; 2:13, 14; 4:9; Rev. 3:14.

[19] 2 Tim. 1:9, 10; Rom. 16:25; Eph. 1:4; 3:9, 11; Titus 1:2. See
especially Rom. 3:25; and note the marginal rendering--"foreordained"--
making the passage read: "Whom God hath foreordained to be a
propitiation."

[20] 1 Peter 1:19, 20.

[21] John 6:38, 51, 57, 61, 62.

[22] John 8:58; see also 17:5, 24; and compare Exo. 3:14. Page 37.

[23] John 16:27, 28; see also 13:3.

[24] John 17:3-5; see also verses 24, 25.

[25] Note 3, end of chapter.

[26] B. of M., Ether 3:11-16. See also 1 Nephi 17:30; 19:7; 2 Nephi 9:5;
11:7; 25:12; 26:12; Mosiah 3:5; 4:2; 7:27; 13:34; 15:1; Alma 11:40;
Hela. 14:12; 3 Nephi 9:15.

[27] Doc. and Cov. 93:1-17, 21.

[28] Doc. and Cov. 76:13, 14.




CHAPTER 3.

THE NEED OF A REDEEMER.


We have heretofore shown that the entire human race existed as
spirit-beings in the primeval world, and that for the purpose of making
possible to them the experiences of mortality this earth was created.
They were endowed with the powers of agency or choice while yet but
spirits; and the divine plan provided that they be free-born in the
flesh, heirs to the inalienable birthright of liberty to choose and to
act for themselves in mortality. It is undeniably essential to the
eternal progression of God's children that they be subjected to the
influences of both good and evil, that they be tried and tested and
proved withal, "to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord
their God shall command them."[29] Free agency is an indispensable
element of such a test.

The Eternal Father well understood the diverse natures and varied
capacities of His spirit-offspring; and His infinite foreknowledge made
plain to Him, even in the beginning, that in the school of life some of
His children would succeed and others would fail; some would be
faithful, others false; some would choose the good, others the evil;
some would seek the way of life while others would elect to follow the
road to destruction. He further foresaw that death would enter the
world, and that the possession of bodies by His children would be of but
brief individual duration. He saw that His commandments would be
disobeyed and His law violated; and that men, shut out from His presence
and left to themselves, would sink rather than rise, would retrograde
rather than advance, and would be lost to the heavens. It was necessary
that a means of redemption be provided, whereby erring man might make
amends, and by compliance with established law achieve salvation and
eventual exaltation in the eternal worlds. The power of death was to be
overcome, so that, though men would of necessity die, they would live
anew, their spirits clothed with immortalized bodies over which death
could not again prevail.

Let not ignorance and thoughtlessness lead us into the error of assuming
that the Father's foreknowledge as to what _would be_, under given
conditions, determined that such _must be_. It was not His design that
the souls of mankind be lost; on the contrary it was and is His work and
glory, "to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man."[30]
Nevertheless He saw the evil into which His children would assuredly
fall; and with infinite love and mercy did He ordain means of averting
the dire effect, provided the transgressor would elect to avail himself
thereof.[31] The offer of the firstborn Son to establish through His own
ministry among men the gospel of salvation, and to sacrifice Himself,
through labor, humiliation and suffering even unto death, was accepted
and made the foreordained plan of man's redemption from death, of his
eventual salvation from the effects of sin, and of his possible
exaltation through righteous achievement.

In accordance with the plan adopted in the council of the Gods, man was
created as an embodied spirit; his tabernacle of flesh was composed of
the elements of earth.[32] He was given commandment and law, and was
free to obey or disobey--with the just and inevitable condition that he
should enjoy or suffer the natural results of his choice.[33] Adam, the
first man[34] placed upon the earth in pursuance of the established
plan, and Eve who was given unto him as companion and associate,
indispensable to him in the appointed mission of peopling the earth,
disobeyed the express commandment of God and so brought about the "fall
of man", whereby the mortal state, of which death is an essential
element, was inaugurated.[35] It is not proposed to consider here at
length the doctrine of the fall; for the present argument it is
sufficient to establish the fact of the momentous occurrence and its
portentous consequences.[36] The woman was deceived, and in direct
violation of counsel and commandment partook of the food that had been
forbidden, as a result of which act her body became degenerate and
subject to death. Adam realized the disparity that had been brought
between him and his companion, and with some measure of understanding
followed her course, thus becoming her partner in bodily degeneracy.
Note in this matter the words of Paul the apostle: "Adam was not
deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression."[37]

The man and the woman had now become mortal; through indulgence in food
unsuited to their nature and condition and against which they had been
specifically warned, and as the inevitable result of their disobeying
the divine law and commandment, they became liable to the physical
ailments and bodily frailties to which mankind has since been the
natural heir.[38] Those bodies, which before the fall had been perfect
in form and function, were now subjects for eventual dissolution or
death. The arch-tempter through whose sophistries, half-truths and
infamous falsehoods, Eve had been beguiled, was none other than Satan,
or Lucifer, that rebellious and fallen "son of the morning", whose
proposal involving the destruction of man's liberty had been rejected in
the council of the heavens, and who had been "cast out into the earth",
he and all his angels as unbodied spirits, never to be tabernacled in
bodies of their own.[39] As an act of diabolic reprisal following his
rejection in the council, his defeat by Michael and the heavenly hosts,
and his ignominious expulsion from heaven, Satan planned to destroy the
bodies in which the faithful spirits--those who had kept their first
estate--would be born; and his beguilement of Eve was but an early stage
of that infernal scheme.

Death has come to be the universal heritage; it may claim its victim in
infancy or youth, in the period of life's prime, or its summons may be
deferred until the snows of age have gathered upon the hoary head; it
may befall as the result of accident or disease, by violence, or as we
say, through natural causes; but come it must, as Satan well knows; and
in this knowledge is his present though but temporary triumph. But the
purposes of God, as they ever have been and ever shall be, are
infinitely superior to the deepest designs of men or devils; and the
Satanic machinations to make death inevitable, perpetual and supreme
were provided against even before the first man had been created in the
flesh. The atonement to be wrought by Jesus the Christ was ordained to
overcome death and to provide a means of ransom from the power of Satan.

As the penalty incident to the fall came upon the race through an
individual act, it would be manifestly unjust, and therefore impossible
as part of the divine purpose, to make all men suffer the results
thereof without provision for deliverance.[40] Moreover, since by the
transgression of one man sin came into the world and death was entailed
upon all, it is consistent with reason that the atonement thus made
necessary should be wrought by one.[41] "Wherefore, as by one man sin
entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all
men, for that all have sinned ... Therefore as by the offence of one
judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness
of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life."[42]
So taught the apostle Paul; and, further: "For since by man came death,
by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die,
even so in Christ shall all be made alive."[43]

The atonement was plainly to be a vicarious sacrifice, voluntary and
love-inspired on the Savior's part, universal in its application to
mankind so far as men shall accept the means of deliverance thus placed
within their reach. For such a mission only one who was without sin
could be eligible. Even the altar victims of ancient Israel offered as a
provisional propitiation for the offenses of the people under the Mosaic
law had to be clean and devoid of spot or blemish; otherwise they were
unacceptable and the attempt to offer them was sacrilege.[44] Jesus
Christ was the only Being suited to the requirements of the great
sacrifice:

1--As the one and only sinless Man;

2--As the Only Begotten of the Father and therefore the only Being born
to earth possessing in their fulness the attributes of both Godhood and
manhood;

3--As the One who had been chosen in the heavens and foreordained to
this service.

What other man has been without sin, and therefore wholly exempt from
the dominion of Satan, and to whom death, the wage of sin, is not
naturally due? Had Jesus Christ met death as other men have done--the
result of the power that Satan has gained over them through their
sins--His death would have been but an individual experience, expiatory
in no degree of any faults or offenses but His own. Christ's absolute
sinlessness made Him eligible, His humility and willingness rendered Him
acceptable to the Father, as the atoning sacrifice whereby propitiation
could be made for the sins of all men.

What other man has lived with power to withstand death, over whom death
could not prevail except through his own submission? Yet Jesus Christ
could not be slain until His "hour had come", and that, the hour in
which He voluntarily surrendered His life, and permitted His own decease
through an act of will. Born of a mortal mother He inherited the
capacity to die; begotten by an immortal Sire He possessed as a heritage
the power to withstand death indefinitely. He literally gave up His
life; to this effect is His own affirmation: "Therefore doth my Father
love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man
taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it
down, and I have power to take it again."[45] And further: "For as the
Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in
himself."[46] Only such a One could conquer death; in none but Jesus the
Christ was realized this requisite condition of a Redeemer of the world.

What other man has come to earth with such appointment, clothed with the
authority of such foreordination? The atoning mission of Jesus Christ
was no self-assumption. True, He had offered Himself when the call was
made in the heavens; true, He had been accepted, and in due time came to
earth to carry into effect the terms of that acceptance; but He was
chosen by One greater than Himself. The burden of His confession of
authority was ever to the effect that He operated under the direction of
the Father, as witness these words: "I came down from heaven, not to do
mine own will, but the will of him that sent me."[47] "My meat is to do
the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work."[48] "I can of
mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just;
because I seek not mine own will but the will of the Father which hath
sent me."[49]

Through the atonement accomplished by Jesus Christ--a redeeming service,
vicariously rendered in behalf of mankind, all of whom have become
estranged from God by the effects of sin both inherited and individually
incurred--the way is opened for a reconciliation whereby man may come
again into communion with God, and be made fit to dwell anew and forever
in the presence of his Eternal Father. This basal thought is admirably
implied in our English word, "atonement," which, as its syllables
attest, is _at-one-ment_, "denoting reconciliation, or the bringing into
agreement of those who have been estranged."[50] The effect of the
atonement may be conveniently considered as twofold:

1--The universal redemption of the human race from death invoked by the
fall of our first parents; and,

2--Salvation, whereby means of relief from the results of individual sin
are provided.

The victory over death was made manifest in the resurrection of the
crucified Christ; He was the first to pass from death to immortality and
so is justly known as "the first fruits of them that slept."[51] That
the resurrection of the dead so inaugurated is to be extended to every
one who has or shall have lived is proved by an abundance of scriptural
evidence. Following our Lord's resurrection, others who had slept in the
tomb arose and were seen of many, not as spirit-apparitions but as
resurrected beings possessing immortalized bodies: "And the graves were
opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of
the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and
appeared unto many."[52]

Those who thus early came forth are spoken of as "the saints"; and other
scriptures confirm the fact that only the righteous shall be brought
forth in the earlier stages of the resurrection yet to be consummated;
but that all the dead shall in turn resume bodies of flesh and bones is
placed beyond doubt by the revealed word. The Savior's direct
affirmation ought to be conclusive: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, The
hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the
Son of God: and they that hear shall live.... Marvel not at this: for
the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear
his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the
resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the
resurrection of damnation."[53] The doctrine of a universal resurrection
was taught by the apostles of old,[54] as also by the Nephite
prophets;[55] and the same is confirmed by revelation incident to the
present dispensation.[56] Even the heathen who have not known God shall
be brought forth from their graves; and, inasmuch as they have lived and
died in ignorance of the saving law, a means of making the plan of
salvation known unto them is provided. "And then shall the heathen
nations be redeemed, and they that knew no law shall have part in the
first resurrection."[57]

Jacob, a Nephite prophet, taught the universality of the resurrection,
and set forth the absolute need of a Redeemer, without whom the purposes
of God in the creation of man would be rendered futile. His words
constitute a concise and forceful summary of revealed truth directly
bearing upon our present subject:

"For as death hath passed upon all men, to fulfil the merciful plan of
the great Creator, there must needs be a power of resurrection, and the
resurrection must needs come unto man by reason of the fall; and the
fall came by reason of transgression; and because man became fallen,
they were cut off from the presence of the Lord; wherefore it must needs
be an infinite atonement; save it should be an infinite atonement, this
corruption could not put on incorruption. Wherefore, the first judgment
which came upon man, must needs have remained to an endless duration.
And if so, this flesh must have laid down to rot and to crumble to its
mother earth, to rise no more. O the wisdom of God! his mercy and grace!
For behold, if the flesh should rise no more, our spirits must become
subject to that angel who fell from before the presence of the eternal
God, and became the devil, to rise no more. And our spirits must have
become like unto him, and we become devils, angels to a devil, to be
shut out from the presence of our God, and to remain with the father of
lies, in misery, like unto himself; yea, to that being who beguiled our
first parents; who transformeth himself nigh unto an angel of light, and
stirreth up the children of men unto secret combinations of murder, and
all manner of secret works of darkness. O how great the goodness of our
God, who prepareth a way for our escape from the grasp of this awful
monster; yea, that monster, death and hell, which I call the death of
the body, and also the death of the spirit. And because of the way of
deliverance of our God, the Holy One of Israel, this death, of which I
have spoken, which is the temporal, shall deliver up its dead; which
death is the grave. And this death of which I have spoken, which is the
spiritual death, shall deliver up its dead; which spiritual death is
hell; wherefore, death and hell must deliver up their dead, and hell
must deliver up its captive spirits, and the grave must deliver up its
captive bodies, and the bodies and the spirits of men will be restored
one to the other; and it is by the power of the resurrection of the Holy
One of Israel. O how great the plan of our God! For on the other hand,
the paradise of God must deliver up the spirits of the righteous, and
the grave deliver up the body of the righteous; and the spirit and the
body is restored to itself again, and all men become incorruptible, and
immortal, and they are living souls, having a perfect knowledge like
unto us in the flesh; save it be that our knowledge shall be
perfect."[58]

The application of the atonement to individual transgression, whereby
the sinner may obtain absolution through compliance with the laws and
ordinances embodied in the gospel of Jesus Christ, is conclusively
attested by scripture. Since forgiveness of sins can be secured in none
other way, there being either in heaven or earth no name save that of
Jesus Christ whereby salvation shall come unto the children of men,[59]
every soul stands in need of the Savior's mediation, since all are
sinners. "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God", said
Paul of old,[60] and John the apostle added his testimony in these
words: "If we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves, and the
truth is not in us."[61]

Who shall question the justice of God, which denies salvation to all who
will not comply with the prescribed conditions on which alone it is
declared obtainable? Christ is "the author of eternal salvation unto all
them that obey him",[62] and God "will render to every man according to
his deeds: to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for
glory and honor and immortality, eternal life: but unto them that are
contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness,
indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man
that doeth evil."[63]

Such then is the need of a Redeemer, for without Him mankind would
forever remain in a fallen state, and as to hope of eternal progression
would be inevitably lost.[64] The mortal probation is provided as an
opportunity for advancement; but so great are the difficulties and the
dangers, so strong is the influence of evil in the world, and so weak is
man in resistance thereto, that without the aid of a power above that of
humanity no soul would find its way back to God from whom it came. The
need of a Redeemer lies in the inability of man to raise himself from
the temporal to the spiritual plane, from the lower kingdom to the
higher. In this conception we are not without analogies in the natural
world. We recognize a fundamental distinction between inanimate and
living matter, between the inorganic and the organic, between the
lifeless mineral on the one hand and the living plant or animal on the
other. Within the limitations of its order the dead mineral grows by
accretion of substance, and may attain a relatively perfect condition of
structure and form as is seen in the crystal. But mineral matter, though
acted upon favorably by the forces of nature--light, heat, electric
energy and others--can never become a living organism; nor can the dead
elements, through any process of chemical combination dissociated from
life, enter into the tissues of the plant as essential parts thereof.
But the plant, which is of a higher order, sends its rootlets into the
earth, spreads its leaves in the atmosphere, and through these organs
absorbs the solutions of the soil, inspires the gases of the air, and
from such lifeless materials weaves the tissue of its wondrous
structure. No mineral particle, no dead chemical substance has ever been
made a constituent of organic tissue except through the agency of life.
We may, perhaps with profit, carry the analogy a step farther. The plant
is unable to advance its own tissue to the animal plane. Though it be
the recognized order of nature that the "animal kingdom" is dependent
upon the "vegetable kingdom" for its sustenance, the substance of the
plant may become part of the animal organism only as the latter reaches
down from its higher plane and by its own vital action incorporates the
vegetable compounds with itself. In turn, animal matter can never
become, even transitorily, part of a human body, except as the living
man assimilates it, and by the vital processes of his own existence
lifts, for the time being, the substance of the animal that supplied him
food to the higher plane of his own existence. The comparison herein
employed is admittedly defective if carried beyond reasonable limits of
application; for the raising of mineral matter to the plane of the
plant, vegetable tissue to the level of the animal, and the elevation of
either to the human plane, is but a temporary change; with the
dissolution of the higher tissues the material thereof falls again to
the level of the inanimate and the dead. But, as a means of illustration
the analogy may not be wholly without value.

So, for the advancement of man from his present fallen and relatively
degenerate state to the higher condition of spiritual life, a power
above his own must cooperate. Through the operation of the laws
obtaining in the higher kingdom man may be reached and lifted; himself
he cannot save by his own unaided effort.[65] A Redeemer and Savior of
mankind is beyond all question essential to the realization of the plan
of the Eternal Father, "to bring to pass the immortality and eternal
life of man";[66] and that Redeemer and Savior is Jesus the Christ,
beside whom there is and can be none other.


NOTES TO CHAPTER 3.

1. God's Foreknowledge Not a Determining Cause.--"Respecting the
foreknowledge of God, let it not be said that divine omniscience is of
itself a determining cause whereby events are inevitably brought to
pass. A mortal father, who knows the weaknesses and frailties of his
son, may by reason of that knowledge sorrowfully predict the calamities
and sufferings awaiting his wayward boy. He may foresee in that son's
future a forfeiture of blessings that could have been won, loss of
position, self-respect, reputation and honor; even the dark shadows of a
felon's cell and the night of a drunkard's grave may appear in the
saddening visions of that fond father's soul; yet, convinced by
experience of the impossibility of bringing about that son's reform, he
foresees the dread developments of the future, and he finds but sorrow
and anguish in his knowledge. Can it be said that the father's
foreknowledge is a cause of the son's sinful life? The son, perchance,
has reached his maturity; he is the master of his own destiny; a free
agent unto himself. The father is powerless to control by force or to
direct by arbitrary command; and, while he would gladly make any effort
or sacrifice to save his son from the fate impending, he fears for what
seems to be an awful certainty. But surely that thoughtful, prayerful,
loving parent does not, because of his knowledge, contribute to the
son's waywardness. To reason otherwise would be to say that a neglectful
father, who takes not the trouble to study the nature and character of
his son, who shuts his eyes to sinful tendencies, and rests in careless
indifference as to the probable future, will by his very heartlessness
be benefitting his child, because his lack of forethought cannot operate
as a contributory cause to dereliction.

"Our Heavenly Father has a full knowledge of the nature and disposition
of each of His children, a knowledge gained by long observation and
experience in the past eternity of our primeval childhood; a knowledge
compared with which that gained by earthly parents through mortal
experience with their children is infinitesimally small. By reason of
that surpassing knowledge, God reads the future of child and children,
of men individually and of men collectively as communities and nations;
He knows what each will do under given conditions, and sees the end from
the beginning. His foreknowledge is based on intelligence and reason. He
foresees the future as a state which naturally and surely will be; not
as one which must be because He has arbitrarily willed that it shall
be."--From the author's _Great Apostasy_, pp. 19, 20.

2. Man Free to Choose for Himself.--"The Father of souls has endowed His
children with the divine birthright of free agency; He does not and will
not control them by arbitrary force; He impels no man toward sin; He
compels none to righteousness. Unto man has been given freedom to act
for himself; and, associated with this independence, is the fact of
strict responsibility and the assurance of individual accountability. In
the judgment with which we shall be judged, all the conditions and
circumstances of our lives shall be considered. The inborn tendencies
due to heredity, the effect of environment whether conducive to good or
evil, the wholesome teachings of youth, or the absence of good
instruction--these and all other contributory elements must be taken
into account in the rendering of a just verdict as to the soul's guilt
or innocence. Nevertheless, the divine wisdom makes plain what will be
the result with given conditions operating on known natures and
dispositions of men, while every individual is free to choose good or
evil within the limits of the many conditions existing and
operative."--_Great Apostasy_, p. 21; see also _Articles of Faith_,
iii:1, 2.

3. The Fall a Process of Physical Degeneracy.--A modern revelation given
to the Church in 1833 (Doc. and Cov. Sec. 89), prescribes rules for
right living, particularly as regards the uses of stimulants, narcotics,
and foods unsuited to the body. Concerning the physical causes by which
the fall was brought about, and the close relation between those causes
and current violations of the Word of Wisdom embodied in the revelation
referred to above, the following is in point. "This, [the Word of
Wisdom] like other revelations that have come in the present
dispensation, is not wholly new. It is as old as the human race. The
principle of the Word of Wisdom was revealed unto Adam. All the
essentials of the Word of Wisdom were made known unto him in his
immortal state, before he had taken into his body those things that made
of it a thing of earth. He was warned against that very practise. He was
not told to treat his body as something to be tortured. He was not told
to look upon it as the fakir of India has come to look upon his body, or
professes to look upon it, as a thing to be utterly contemned; but he
was told that he must not take into that body certain things which were
there at hand. He was warned that, if he did, his body would lose the
power which it then held of living for ever, and that he would become
subject to death. It was pointed out to him, as it has been pointed out
to you, that there are many good fruits to be plucked, to be eaten, to
be enjoyed. We believe in enjoying good food. We think that these good
things are given us of God. We believe in getting all the enjoyment out
of eating that we can; and, therefore, we should avoid gluttony, and we
should avoid extremes in all our habits of eating; and as was told unto
Adam, so is it told unto us: Touch not these things; for in the day that
thou doest it thy life shall be shortened and thou shalt die.

"Here let me say that therein consisted the fall--the eating of things
unfit, the taking into the body of the things that made of that body a
thing of earth: and I take this occasion to raise my voice against the
false interpretation of scripture, which has been adopted by certain
people, and is current in their minds, and is referred to in a hushed
and half-secret way, that the fall of man consisted in some offense
against the laws of chastity and of virtue. Such a doctrine is an
abomination. What right have we to turn the scriptures from their proper
sense and meaning? What right have we to declare that God meant not what
He said? The fall was a natural process, resulting through the
incorporation into the bodies of our first parents of the things that
came from food unfit, through the violation of the command of God
regarding what they should eat. Don't go around whispering that the fall
consisted in the mother of the race losing her chastity and her virtue.
It is not true; the human race is not born of fornication. These bodies
that are given unto us are given in the way that God has provided. Let
it not be said that the patriarch of the race, who stood with the gods
before he came here upon the earth, and his equally royal consort, were
guilty of any such foul offense. The adoption of that belief has led
many to excuse departures from the path of chastity and the path of
virtue, by saying that it is the sin of the race, that it is as old as
Adam. It was not introduced by Adam. It was not committed by Eve. It was
the introduction of the devil and came in order that he might sow the
seeds of early death in the bodies of men and women, that the race
should degenerate as it has degenerated whenever the laws of virtue and
of chastity have been transgressed.

"Our first parents were pure and noble, and when we pass behind the veil
we shall perhaps learn something of their high estate, more than we know
now. But be it known that they were pure; they were noble. It is true
that they disobeyed the law of God, in eating things they were told not
to eat; but who amongst you can rise up and condemn?"--From an address
by the author at the Eighty-fourth Semiannual Conference of the Church,
Oct. 6, 1913; published in the Proceedings of the Conference, pp. 118,
119.

4. Christ Wrought Redemption from the Fall.--"The Savior thus becomes
master of the situation--the debt is paid, the redemption made, the
covenant fulfilled, justice satisfied, the will of God done, and all
power is now given into the hands of the Son of God--the power of the
resurrection, the power of the redemption, the power of salvation, the
power to enact laws for the carrying out and accomplishment of this
design. Hence life and immortality are brought to light, the gospel is
introduced, and He becomes the author of eternal life and exaltation. He
is the Redeemer, the Resurrector, the Savior of man and the world; and
He has appointed the law of the gospel as the medium which must be
complied with in this world or the next, as He complied with His
Father's law; hence 'he that believeth shall be saved, and he that
believeth not shall be damned.' The plan, the arrangement, the
agreement, the covenant was made, entered into and accepted before the
foundation of the world; it was prefigured by sacrifices, and was
carried out and consummated on the cross. Hence being the mediator
between God and man, He becomes by right the dictator and director on
earth and in heaven for the living and for the dead, for the past, the
present and the future, pertaining to man as associated with this earth
or the heavens, in time or eternity, the Captain of our salvation, the
Apostle and High-Priest of our profession, the Lord and Giver of
life."--John Taylor, _Mediation and Atonement_, p. 171.

5. Redemption from the Effect of the Fall.--"'Mormonism' accepts the
doctrine of the fall, and the account of the transgression in Eden, as
set forth in Genesis; but it affirms that none but Adam is or shall be
answerable for Adam's disobedience; that mankind in general are
absolutely absolved from responsibility for that 'original sin,' and
that each shall account for his own transgressions alone; that the fall
was foreknown of God, that it was turned to good effect by which the
necessary condition of mortality should be inaugurated; and that a
Redeemer was provided before the world was; that general salvation, in
the sense of redemption from the effects of the fall, comes to all
without their seeking it; but that individual salvation or rescue from
the effects of personal sins is to be acquired by each for himself by
faith and good works through the redemption wrought by Jesus
Christ."--From the author's _Story and Philosophy of 'Mormonism,'_ p.
111.

FOOTNOTES:

[29] P. of G.P., Abraham 3:25. For a fuller treatment of man's Free
Agency, see the author's "Articles of Faith," iii:1-10, and the numerous
references there given.

[30] P. of G.P., Moses 1:39; compare 6:59. Note 1, end of chapter.

[31] Note 2, end of chapter.

[32] Gen. 1:26, 27; 2:7; compare P. of G.P., Moses 2:26, 27; 3:7;
Abraham 4:26-28; 5:7.

[33] Gen. 1:28-31; 2:16, 17; compare P. of G.P., Moses 2:28-31; 3:16,
17; Abraham 4:28-31; 5:12, 13.

[34] Gen. 2:8; compare statement in verse 5--that prior to that time
there was "not a man to till the ground"; see also P. of G.P., Moses
3:7; Abraham 1:3; and B. of M., 1 Nephi 5:11.

[35] Gen. chap. 3; compare P. of G.P., Moses chap. 4.

[36] See "Articles of Faith," iii:21-32.

[37] 1 Tim. 2:14; see also 2 Cor. 11:3.

[38] Note 3, end of chapter.

[39] See page 7.

[40] Note 4, end of chapter.

[41] Note 5, end of chapter.

[42] Rom. 5:12, 18.

[43] 1 Cor. 15:21, 22.

[44] Lev. 22:20; Deut. 15:21; 17:1; Mal. 1:8, 14; compare Heb. 9:14; 1
Peter 1:19.

[45] John 10:17-18

[46] John 5:26

[47] John 6:38

[48] John 4:34

[49] John 5:30; see also verse 19; also Matt. 26:42; compare Doc. and
Cov. 19:2; 20:24.

[50] New Standard Dictionary under "propitiation."

[51] 1 Cor. 15:20; see also Acts 26:23; Col. 1:18; Rev. 1:5.

[52] Matt. 27:52, 53.

[53] John 5:25, 28, 29. A modern scripture attesting the same truth
reads: "They who have done good in the resurrection of the just; and
they who have done evil in the resurrection of the unjust."--Doc. and
Cov. 76:17.

[54] For instances see Acts 24:15; Rev. 20:12, 13.

[55] For instances see B. of M., 2 Nephi 9:6, 12, 13, 21, 22; Helaman
14:15-17; Mosiah 15:20-24; Alma 40:2-16; Mormon 9:13, 14.

[56] For instances see Doc. and Cov. 18:11, 12; 45:44, 45; 88:95-98.

[57] Doc. and Cov. 45:54.

[58] B. of M., 2 Nephi 9:6-13; read the entire chapter.

[59] P. of G.P., Moses 6:52; compare B. of M., 2 Nephi 25:20; Mosiah
3:17; 5:8; Doc. and Cov. 76:1.

[60] Rom. 3:23; see also verse 9; Gal. 3:22.

[61] 1 John 1:8.

[62] Heb. 5:9.

[63] Rom. 2:6-9.

[64] No special treatment relating to the Fall, the Atonement, or the
Resurrection has been either attempted or intended in this chapter. For
such the student is referred to doctrinal works dealing with these
subjects. See the author's "Articles of Faith," lectures iii, iv, and
xxi.

[65] A comparison related to that given in the text is treated at length
by Henry Drummond in his essay, "Biogenesis," which the reader may study
with profit.

[66] P. of G.P., Moses 1:39.




CHAPTER 4.

THE ANTEMORTAL GODSHIP OF CHRIST.


It now becomes our purpose to inquire as to the position and status of
Jesus the Christ in the antemortal world, from the period of the solemn
council in heaven, in which He was chosen to be the future Savior and
Redeemer of mankind, to the time at which He was born in the flesh.

We claim scriptural authority for the assertion that Jesus Christ was
and is God the Creator, the God who revealed Himself to Adam, Enoch, and
all the antediluvial patriarchs and prophets down to Noah; the God of
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; the God of Israel as a united people, and the
God of Ephraim and Judah after the disruption of the Hebrew nation; the
God who made Himself known to the prophets from Moses to Malachi; the
God of the Old Testament record; and the God of the Nephites. We affirm
that Jesus Christ was and is Jehovah, the Eternal One.

The scriptures specify three personages in the Godhead; (1) God the
Eternal Father, (2) His Son Jesus Christ, and (3) the Holy Ghost. These
constitute the Holy Trinity, comprizing three physically separate and
distinct individuals, who together constitute the presiding council of
the heavens.[67] At least two of these appear as directing participants
in the work of creation; this fact is instanced by the plurality
expressed in Genesis: "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after
our likeness"; and later, in the course of consultation concerning
Adam's act of transgression, "the Lord God said, Behold, the man is
become as one of us."[68] From the words of Moses, as revealed anew in
the present dispensation, we learn more fully of the Gods who were
actively engaged in the creation of this earth: "And I, God, said unto
mine Only Begotten, which was with me from the beginning: Let us make
man in our image, after our likeness." Then, further, with regard to the
condition of Adam after the fall: "I, the Lord God, said unto mine Only
Begotten: Behold, the man is become as one of us."[69] In the account of
the creation recorded by Abraham, "the Gods" are repeatedly
mentioned.[70]

As heretofore shown in another connection, the Father operated in the
work of creation through the Son, who thus became the executive through
whom the will, commandment, or word of the Father was put into effect.
It is with incisive appropriateness therefore, that the Son, Jesus
Christ, is designated by the apostle John as the Word; or as declared by
the Father "the word of my power".[71] The part taken by Jesus Christ in
the creation, a part so prominent as to justify our calling Him the
Creator, is set forth in many scriptures. The author of the Epistle to
the Hebrews refers in this wise distinctively to the Father and the Son
as separate though associated Beings: "God, who at sundry times and in
divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath
in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed
heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds."[72] Paul is even
more explicit in his letter to the Colossians, wherein, speaking of
Jesus the Son, he says: "For by him were all things created, that are in
heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be
thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were
created by him, and for him: and he is before all things, and by him all
things consist."[73] And here let be repeated the testimony of John,
that by the Word, "who was with God, and who was God even in the
beginning, all things were made; and without him was not anything made
that was made."[74]

That the Christ who was to come was in reality God the Creator was
revealed in plainness to the prophets on the western hemisphere. Samuel,
the converted Lamanite, in preaching to the unbelieving Nephites
justified his testimony as follows: "And also that ye might know of the
coming of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Father of heaven and of
earth, the Creator of all things, from the beginning; and that ye might
know of the signs of his coming, to the intent that ye might believe on
his name."[75]

To these citations of ancient scripture may most properly be added the
personal testimony of the Lord Jesus after He had become a resurrected
Being. In His visitation to the Nephites He thus proclaimed Himself:
"Behold, I am Jesus Christ the Son of God. I created the heavens and the
earth, and all things that in them are. I was with the Father from the
beginning. I am in the Father, and the Father in me; and in me hath the
Father glorified his name."[76] To the Nephites, who failed to
comprehend the relation between the gospel declared unto them by the
Resurrected Lord, and the Mosaic law which they held traditionally to be
in force, and who marveled at His saying that old things had passed
away, He explained in this wise: "Behold I say unto you, that the law is
fulfilled that was given unto Moses. Behold, I am he that gave the law,
and I am he who covenanted with my people Israel: therefore, the law in
me is fulfilled, for I have come to fulfil the law; therefore it hath an
end."[77]

Through revelation in the present or last dispensation the voice of
Jesus Christ, the Creator of heaven and earth, has been heard anew:
"Hearken, O ye people of my church to whom the kingdom has been
given--hearken ye and give ear to him who laid the foundation of the
earth, who made the heavens and all the hosts thereof, and by whom all
things were made which live, and move, and have a being."[78] And again,
"Behold, I am Jesus Christ the Son of the living God, who created the
heavens and the earth; a light which cannot be hid in darkness."[79]

The divinity of Jesus Christ is indicated by the specific names and
titles authoritatively applied to Him. According to man's judgment there
may be but little importance attached to names; but in the nomenclature
of the Gods every name is a title of power or station. God is
righteously zealous of the sanctity of His own name[80] and of names
given by His appointment. In the case of children of promise names have
been prescribed before birth; this is true of our Lord Jesus and of the
Baptist, John, who was sent to prepare the way for the Christ. Names of
persons have been changed by divine direction, when not sufficiently
definite as titles denoting the particular service to which the bearers
were called, or the special blessings conferred upon them.[81]

_Jesus_ is the individual name of the Savior, and as thus spelled is of
Greek derivation; its Hebrew equivalent was _Yehoshua_ or _Yeshua_, or,
as we render it in English, _Joshua_. In the original the name was well
understood as meaning "Help of Jehovah", or "Savior". Though as common
an appellation as John or Henry or Charles today, the name was
nevertheless divinely prescribed, as already stated. Thus, unto Joseph,
the espoused husband of the Virgin, the angel said, "And thou shalt call
his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins."[82]

_Christ_ is a sacred title, and not an ordinary appellation or common
name; it is of Greek derivation, and in meaning is identical with its
Hebrew equivalent _Messiah_ or _Messias_, signifying the _Anointed
One_.[83] Other titles, each possessing a definitive meaning, such as
_Emmanuel_, _Savior_, _Redeemer_, _Only Begotten Son_, _Lord_, _Son of
God_, _Son of Man_, and many more, are of scriptural occurrence; the
fact of main present importance to us is that these several titles are
expressive of our Lord's divine origin and Godship. As seen, the
essential names or titles of Jesus the Christ were made known before His
birth, and were revealed to prophets who preceded Him in the mortal
state.[84]

_Jehovah_ is the Anglicized rendering of the Hebrew, _Yahveh_ or
_Jahveh_, signifying the _Self-existent One_, or _The Eternal_. This
name is generally rendered in our English version of the Old Testament
as LORD, printed in capitals.[85] The Hebrew, _Ehyeh_, signifying _I
Am_, is related in meaning and through derivation with the term _Yahveh_
or _Jehovah_; and herein lies the significance of this name by which the
Lord revealed Himself to Moses when the latter received the commission
to go into Egypt and deliver the children of Israel from bondage: "Moses
said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and
shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and
they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? And
God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say
unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you."[86] In the
succeeding verse the Lord declares Himself to be "the God of Abraham,
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." While Moses was in Egypt, the
Lord further revealed Himself, saying "I am the LORD: and I appeared
unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty,
but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them."[87] The central fact
connoted by this name, _I Am_, or _Jehovah_, the two having essentially
the same meaning, is that of existence or duration that shall have no
end, and which, judged by all human standards of reckoning, could have
had no beginning; the name is related to such other titles as _Alpha and
Omega_, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.[88]

Jesus, when once assailed with question and criticism from certain Jews
who regarded their Abrahamic lineage as an assurance of divine
preferment, met their abusive words with the declaration: "Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am".[89] The true
significance of this saying would be more plainly expressed were the
sentence punctuated and pointed as follows: "Verily, verily, I say unto
you, Before Abraham, was I AM;" which means the same as had He
said--Before Abraham, was I, Jehovah. The captious Jews were so offended
at hearing Him use a name which, through an erroneous rendering of an
earlier scripture,[90] they held was not to be uttered on pain of death,
that they immediately took up stones with the intent of killing Him. The
Jews regarded _Jehovah_ as an ineffable name, not to be spoken; they
substituted for it the sacred, though to them the not-forbidden name,
_Adonai_, signifying _the Lord_. The original of the terms _Lord_ and
_God_ as they appear in the Old Testament, was either _Yahveh_ or
_Adonai_; and the divine Being designated by these sacred names was, as
shown by the scriptures cited, Jesus the Christ. John, evangelist and
apostle, positively identifies Jesus Christ with Adonai, or the Lord who
spoke through the voice of Isaiah,[91] and with Jehovah who spoke
through Zechariah.[92]

The name _Elohim_ is of frequent occurrence in the Hebrew texts of the
Old Testament, though it is not found in our English versions. In form
the word is a Hebrew plural noun;[93] but it connotes the plurality of
excellence or intensity, rather than distinctively of number. It is
expressive of supreme or absolute exaltation and power. _Elohim_, as
understood and used in the restored Church of Jesus Christ, is the
name-title of God the Eternal Father, whose firstborn Son in the spirit
is _Jehovah_--the Only Begotten in the flesh, Jesus Christ.

Jesus of Nazareth, who in solemn testimony to the Jews declared Himself
the _I Am_ or _Jehovah_, who was God before Abraham lived on earth, was
the same Being who is repeatedly proclaimed as the God who made covenant
with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the God who led Israel from the bondage
of Egypt to the freedom of the promised land, the one and only God known
by direct and personal revelation to the Hebrew prophets in general.

The identity of Jesus Christ with the Jehovah of the Israelites was well
understood by the Nephite prophets, and the truth of their teachings was
confirmed by the risen Lord who manifested Himself unto them shortly
after His ascension from the midst of the apostles at Jerusalem. This is
the record: "And it came to pass that the Lord spake unto them saying,
Arise and come forth unto me, that ye may thrust your hands into my
side, and also that ye may feel the prints of the nails in my hands and
in my feet, that ye may know that I am the God of Israel, and the God of
the whole earth, and have been slain for the sins of the world."[94]

It would appear unnecessary to cite at greater length in substantiating
our affirmation that Jesus Christ was God even before He assumed a body
of flesh. During that antemortal period there was essential difference
between the Father and the Son, in that the former had already passed
through the experiences of mortal life, including death and
resurrection, and was therefore a Being possessed of a perfect,
immortalized body of flesh and bones, while the Son was yet unembodied.
Through His death and subsequent resurrection Jesus the Christ is today
a Being like unto the Father in all essential characteristics.

A general consideration of scriptural evidence leads to the conclusion
that God the Eternal Father has manifested Himself to earthly prophets
or revelators on very few occasions, and then principally to attest the
divine authority of His Son, Jesus Christ. As before shown, the Son was
the active executive in the work of creation; throughout the creative
scenes the Father appears mostly in a directing or consulting capacity.
Unto Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham and Moses the Father revealed Himself,
attesting the Godship of the Christ, and the fact that the Son was the
chosen Savior of mankind.[95] On the occasion of the baptism of Jesus,
the Father's voice was heard, saying, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I
am well pleased";[96] and at the transfiguration a similar testimony was
given by the Father.[97] On an occasion yet later, while Jesus prayed in
anguish of soul, submitting Himself that the Father's purposes be
fulfilled and the Father's name glorified, "Then came there a voice from
heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it
again."[98] The resurrected and glorified Christ was announced by the
Father to the Nephites on the western hemisphere, in these words:
"Behold my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, in whom I have
glorified my name: hear ye him."[99] From the time of the occurrence
last noted, the voice of the Father was not heard again among men, so
far as the scriptures aver, until the spring of 1820, when both the
Father and the Son ministered unto the prophet Joseph Smith, the Father
saying, "This is my beloved Son, hear him!"[100] These are the instances
of record in which the Eternal Father has been manifest in personal
utterance or other revelation to man apart from the Son. God the
Creator, the Jehovah of Israel, the Savior and Redeemer of all nations,
kindreds and tongues, are the same, and He is Jesus the Christ.


NOTES TO CHAPTER 4.

1. Names Given of God.--The significance of names when given of God
finds illustration in many scriptural instances. The following are
examples: "Jesus" meaning _Savior_ (Matt. 1:21; Luke 1:31); "John,"
signifying _Jehovah's gift_, specifically applied to the Baptist, who
was sent to earth to prepare the way for Jehovah's coming in the flesh
(Luke 1:13); "Ishmael," signifying _God shall hear him_ (Gen. 16:11);
"Isaac," meaning _laughter_ (Gen. 17:19, compare 18:10-15). As instances
of names changed by divine authority to express added blessings, or
special callings, consider the following: "Abram," which connoted
_nobility_ or _exaltation_ and as usually rendered, _father of
elevation_, was changed to "Abraham," _father of a multitude_ which
expressed the reason for the change as given at the time thereof, "for a
father of many nations have I made thee" (Gen. 17:5). "Sarai," the name
of Abraham's wife, and of uncertain distinctive meaning, was substituted
by "Sarah" which signified _the princess_ (Gen 17:15). "Jacob," a name
given to the son of Isaac with reference to a circumstance attending his
birth, and signifying _a supplanter_, was superseded by "Israel" meaning
_a soldier of God, a prince of God_; as expressed in the words effecting
the change, "Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel, for as
a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed."
(Gen. 32:28; compare 35:9, 10.) "Simon," meaning _a hearer_, the name of
the man who became the chief apostle of Jesus Christ, was changed by the
Lord to "Cephas" (Aramaic) or "Peter" (Greek) meaning _a rock_ (John
1:42; Matt 16:18; Luke 6:14). On James and John the sons of Zebedee, the
Lord conferred the name or title "Boanerges" meaning _sons of thunder_
(Mark 3:17).

The following is an instructive excerpt: "_Name_ in the scriptures not
only = that by which a person is designated, but frequently = all that
is known to belong to the person having this designation, and the person
himself. Thus 'the name of God' or 'of Jehovah,' etc., indicates His
authority (Deut. 18:20; Matt. 21:9, etc.), His dignity and glory (Isa.
48:9, etc.), His protection and favor (Prov. 18:10, etc.), His character
(Exo. 34:5, 14, compare 6, 7, etc.), His divine attributes in general
(Matt. 6:9, etc.), etc. The Lord is said to set or put His name where
the revelation or manifestation of His perfections is made (Deut. 12:5,
14:24, etc.). To believe in or on the name of Christ is to receive and
treat Him in accordance with the revelation which the scriptures make of
Him (John 1:12; 2:23), etc."--Smith's _Comprehensive Dictionary of the
Bible_, article "Name."

2. Jesus Christ, the God of Israel.--"That Jesus Christ was the same
Being who called Abraham from his native country, who led Israel out of
the land of Egypt with mighty miracles and wonders, who made known to
them His law amid the thunderings of Sinai, who delivered them from
their enemies, who chastened them for their disobedience, who inspired
their prophets, and whose glory filled Solomon's temple, is evident from
all the inspired writings, and in none more so than in the Bible.

"His lamentation over Jerusalem evidences that, in His humanity, He had
not forgotten His former exalted position: 'O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou
that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee,
how often would I have gathered thy children together ... and ye would
not!' (Matt. 23:37). It was this Creator of the world, this mighty
Ruler, this Controller of the destinies of the human family, who, in His
last moments, cried out in the agony of His soul, 'My God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me?'" (Mark 15:34.)--From _Compendium of the
Doctrines of the Gospel_, by Franklin D. Richards and James A. Little.

3. "Jehovah" a Name Not Uttered by the Jews.--Long prior to the time of
Christ, certain schools among the Jews, ever intent on the observance of
the letter of the law, though not without disregard of its spirit, had
taught that the mere utterance of the name of God was blasphemous, and
that the sin of so doing constituted a capital offense. This extreme
conception arose from the accepted though uninspired interpretation of
Lev. 24:16, "And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall
surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone
him: as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he
blasphemeth the name of the Lord, shall be put to death." We take the
following from Smith's _Comprehensive Dictionary of the Bible_, article
"Jehovah": "The true pronunciation of this name, [Yehovah] by which God
was known to the Hebrews, has been entirely lost, the Jews themselves
scrupulously avoiding every mention of it, and substituting in its stead
one or other of the words with whose proper vowel-points it may happen
to be written [_Adonai_, Lord, or _Elohim_, God].... According to Jewish
tradition it was pronounced but once a year by the high priest on the
day of atonement when he entered the Holy of Holies; but on this point
there is some doubt."

FOOTNOTES:

[67] See "God and the Godhead," in the author's "Articles of Faith,"
lecture ii.

[68] Gen. 1:26; and 3:22.

[69] P. of G.P., Moses 2:26; and 4:28.

[70] P. of G.P., Abraham, chaps. 4 and 5.

[71] See page 10; John 1:1; and P. of G.P., Moses 1:32.

[72] Heb. 1:1, 2; see also 1 Cor. 8:6.

[73] Colos. 1:16, 17.

[74] John 1:1-3.

[75] B. of M., Helaman 14:12; see also Mosiah 3:8; 4:2: Alma 11:39.

[76] B. of M., 3 Nephi 9:15.

[77] B. of M., 3 Nephi 15:4, 5.

[78] Doc. and Cov. 45:1.

[79] Doc. and Cov. 14:9; see also 29:1, 31; 76:24.

[80] Exo. 20:7; Lev. 19:12; Deut. 5:11.

[81] Note 1, end of chapter.

[82] Matt. 1:21; see also verses 23, 25; Luke 1:31.

[83] John 1:41; 4:25.

[84] Luke 1:31; 2:21; Matt. 1:21, 25; see also verse 23 and compare Isa.
7:14; Luke 2:11. See further P. of G.P., Moses 6:51, 57; 7:20; 8:24. B.
of M., 1 Nephi 10:4; 2 Nephi 10:3; Mosiah 3:8.

[85] The name appears thus in Gen. 2:5; see also Exo. 6:2-4; and read
for comparison Gen. 17:1; 35:11.

[86] Exo. 3:13, 14; compare with respect to the fact of eternal duration
expressed in this name, Isa. 44:6; John 8:58; Colos. 1:17; Heb. 13:8;
Rev. 1:4; see also P. of G.P., Moses 1:3 and the references there given.

[87] Exo. 6:2, 3. Note 2, end of chapter.

[88] Rev. 1:11, 17; 2:8; 22:13; compare Isa. 41:4; 44:6; 48:12.

[89] John 8:58.

[90] Lev. 24:16. Note 3, end of chapter.

[91] Isa. 6:8-11; and compare John 12:40, 41.

[92] Zech. 12:10; compare John 19:37.

[93] The singular, "Eloah," appears only in poetic usage.

[94] B. of M., 3 Nephi 11:13, 14; also 1 Nephi 17:40 and observe from
verse 30 that the Redeemer is here spoken of as the God who delivered
Israel. See further Mosiah 7:19. Chapter 39 herein.

[95] P. of G.P., Moses 1:6, 31-33; 2:1; 4:2, 3; 6:57; compare 7:35, 39,
47, 53-59; 8:16, 19, 23, 24; Abraham 3:22-28. See chapter 5 herein.

[96] Matt. 3:17; also Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22.

[97] Matt. 17:5; Luke 9:35.

[98] John 12:28.

[99] B. of M., 3 Nephi 11:7.

[100] P. of G.P. Joseph Smith 2:17.




CHAPTER 5.

EARTHLY ADVENT OF THE CHRIST PREDICTED.


The coming of Christ to earth to tabernacle in the flesh was no
unexpected or unheralded event. For centuries prior to the great
occurrence the Jews had professed to be looking for the advent of their
King; and, in the appointed ceremonials of worship as in private
devotions, the coming of the promised Messiah was prominent as a matter
of the supplication of Israel to Jehovah. True, there was much diversity
in lay opinion and in rabbinical exposition as to the time and manner of
His appearing; but the certainty thereof was fundamentally established
in the beliefs and hopes of the Hebrew nation.

The records known to us as the books of the Old Testament, together with
other inspired writings once regarded as authentic but excluded from
later compilations as not strictly canonical, were current among the
Hebrews at and long before the time of Christ's birth. These scriptures
had their beginning in the proclamation of the law through Moses,[101]
who wrote the same, and delivered the writing into the official custody
of the priests with an express command that it be read in the assemblies
of the people at stated times. To these earlier writings were added the
utterances of divinely commissioned prophets, the records of appointed
historians, and the songs of inspired poets, as the centuries passed; so
that at the time of our Lord's ministry the Jews possessed a great
accumulation of writings accepted and revered by them as
authoritative.[102] These records are rich in prediction and promise
respecting the earthly advent of the Messiah, as are other scriptures to
which the Israel of old had not access.

Adam, the patriarch of the race, rejoiced in the assurance of the
Savior's appointed ministry, through the acceptance of which, he, the
transgressor, might gain redemption. Brief mention of the plan of
salvation, the author of which is Jesus Christ, appears in the promise
given of God following the fall--that though the devil, represented by
the serpent in Eden, should have power to bruise the heel of Adam's
posterity, through the seed of the woman should come the power to bruise
the adversary's head.[103] It is significant that this assurance of
eventual victory over sin and its inevitable effect, death, both of
which were introduced to earth through Satan the arch-enemy of mankind,
was to be realized through the offspring of woman; the promise was not
made specifically to the man, nor to the pair. The only instance of
offspring from woman dissociated from mortal fatherhood is the birth of
Jesus the Christ, who was the earthly Son of a mortal mother, begotten
by an immortal Father. He is the Only Begotten of the Eternal Father in
the flesh, and was born of woman.

Through scriptures other than those embodied in the Old Testament we
learn with greater fulness of the revelations of God to Adam respecting
the coming of the Redeemer. As a natural and inevitable result of his
disobedience, Adam had forfeited the high privilege he once
enjoyed--that of holding direct and personal association with his God;
nevertheless in his fallen state he was visited by an angel of the Lord,
who revealed unto him the plan of redemption: "And after many days an
angel of the Lord appeared unto Adam, saying: Why dost thou offer
sacrifices unto the Lord? And Adam said unto him: I know not, save the
Lord commanded me. And then the angel spake, saying: This thing is a
similitude of the sacrifice of the Only Begotten of the Father, which is
full of grace and truth. Wherefore, thou shalt do all that thou doest in
the name of the Son, and thou shalt repent and call upon God in the name
of the Son for evermore. And in that day the Holy Ghost fell upon Adam,
which beareth record of the Father and the Son, saying: I am the Only
Begotten of the Father from the beginning, henceforth and for ever, that
as thou hast fallen thou mayest be redeemed, and all mankind, even as
many as will."[104]

The Lord's revelation to Adam making known the ordained plan whereby the
Son of God was to take upon Himself flesh in the meridian of time, and
become the Redeemer of the world, was attested by Enoch, son of Jared
and father of Methuselah. From the words of Enoch we learn that to him
as to his great progenitor, Adam, the very name by which the Savior
would be known among men was revealed--"which is Jesus Christ, the only
name which shall be given under heaven, whereby salvation shall come
unto the children of men."[105] The recorded covenant of God with
Abraham, and the reiteration and confirmation thereof with Isaac and in
turn with Jacob--that through their posterity should all nations of the
earth be blessed--presaged the birth of the Redeemer through that chosen
lineage.[106] Its fulfilment is the blessed heritage of the ages.

In pronouncing his patriarchal blessing upon the head of Judah, Jacob
prophesied: "The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver
from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the
gathering of the people be."[107] That by Shiloh is meant the Christ is
evidenced by the fulfilment of the conditions set forth in the
prediction, in the state of the Jewish nation at the time of our Lord's
birth.[108]

Moses proclaimed the coming of a great Prophet in Israel, whose ministry
was to be of such importance that all men who would not accept Him would
be under condemnation; and that this prediction had sole reference to
Jesus Christ is conclusively shown by later scriptures. Thus spake the
Lord unto Moses: "I will raise them up a Prophet from among their
brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he
shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to
pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak
in my name, I will require it of him."[109] The system of sacrifice
expressly enjoined in the Mosaic code was essentially a prototype of the
sacrificial death to be accomplished by the Savior on Calvary. The blood
of countless altar victims, slain by Israel's priests in the course of
prescribed ritual, ran throughout the centuries from Moses to Christ as
a prophetic flood in similitude of the blood of the Son of God appointed
to be shed as an expiatory sacrifice for the redemption of the race.
But, as already shown, the institution of bloody sacrifice as a type of
the future death of Jesus Christ dates from the beginning of human
history; since the offering of animal sacrifices through the shedding of
blood was required of Adam, to whom the significance of the ordinance,
as "a similitude of the sacrifice of the Only Begotten of the Father",
was expressly defined.[110]

The paschal lamb, slain for every Israelitish household at the annually
recurring feast of the Passover, was a particular type of the Lamb of
God who in due time would be slain for the sins of the world. The
crucifixion of Christ was effected at the Passover season; and the
consummation of the supreme Sacrifice, of which the paschal lambs had
been but lesser prototypes, led Paul the apostle to affirm in later
times: "For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us."[111]

Job in the day of dire affliction rejoiced in his testimony of the
coming Messiah, and declared with prophetic conviction: "I know that my
redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the
earth."[112] The songs of David the psalmist abound in oft-recurring
allusion to the earthly life of Christ, many circumstances of which are
described in detail, and, as to these, corroboration of the utterances
is found in New Testament scriptures.[113]

Isaiah, whose prophetic office was honored by the personal testimony of
Christ and the apostles, manifested in numerous passages the burden of
his conviction relating to the great event of the Savior's advent and
ministry on earth. With the forcefulness of direct revelation he told of
the Virgin's divine maternity, whereof Immanuel should be born, and his
prediction was reiterated by the angel of the Lord, over seven centuries
later.[114] Looking down through the ages the prophet saw the
accomplishment of the divine purposes as if already achieved, and sang
in triumph: "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and
the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called
Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince
of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no
end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to
establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even
forever."[115]

Immediately prior to its fulfilment, the blessed promise was repeated by
Gabriel, sent from the presence of God to the chosen Virgin of
Nazareth.[116] As made known to the prophet and by him proclaimed, the
coming Lord was the living Branch that should spring from the undying
root typified in the family of Jesse;[117] the foundation Stone insuring
the stability of Zion;[118] the Shepherd of the house of Israel;[119]
the Light of the world,[120] to Gentile as well as Jew; the Leader and
Commander of His people.[121] The same inspired voice predicted the
forerunner who should cry in the wilderness: "Prepare ye the way of the
Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God."[122]

Isaiah was permitted to read the scroll of futurity as to many
distinguishing conditions to attend the Messiah's lowly life and atoning
death. In Him the prophet saw One who would be despized and rejected of
men, a Man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, One to be wounded and
bruised for the transgressions of the race, on whom would be laid the
iniquity of us all--a patient and willing Sacrifice, silent under
affliction, as a lamb brought to the slaughter. The Lord's dying with
sinners, and His burial in the tomb of the wealthy were likewise
declared with prophetic certainty.[123]

Unto Jeremiah came the word of the Lord in terms of plainness, declaring
the sure advent of the King by whom the safety of both Judah and Israel
should be assured;[124] the Prince of the House of David, through whom
the divine promise to the son of Jesse should be realized.[125] Under
the same spirit prophesied Ezekiel,[126] Hosea,[127] and Micah.[128]
Zechariah broke off in the midst of fateful prediction to voice the glad
song of thanksgiving and praise as he beheld in vision the simple
pageantry of the King's triumphal entry into the city of David.[129]
Then the prophet bewailed the grief of the conscience-smitten nation, by
whom, as was foreseen, the Savior of humankind would be pierced, even
unto death;[130] and showed that, when subdued by contrition His own
people would ask, "What are these wounds in thy hands?", the Lord would
answer: "Those with which I was wounded in the house of my
friends."[131] The very price to be paid for the betrayal of the Christ
to His death was foretold as in parable.[132]

The fact, that these predictions of the Old Testament prophets had
reference to Jesus Christ and to Him only, is put beyond question by the
attestation of the resurrected Lord. To the assembled apostles He said:
"These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you,
that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of
Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. Then
opened he their understanding, that they might understand the
scriptures, and said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved
Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day."[133]

John the Baptist, whose ministry immediately preceded that of the
Christ, proclaimed the coming of One mightier than himself, One who
should baptize with the Holy Ghost, and specifically identified Jesus of
Nazareth as that One, the Son of God, the Lamb who should assume the
burden of the world's sins.[134]

The predictions thus far cited as relating to the life, ministry, and
death of the Lord Jesus, are the utterances of prophets who, excepting
Adam and Enoch, lived and died on the eastern hemisphere. All save John
the Baptist are of Old Testament record, and he, a contemporary of the
Christ in mortality, figures in the early chapters of the Gospels. It is
important to know that the scriptures of the western hemisphere are
likewise explicit in the declaration of the great truth that the Son of
God would be born in the flesh. The Book of Mormon contains a history of
a colony of Israelites, of the tribe of Joseph, who left Jerusalem 600
B.C., during the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah, on the eve of the
subjugation of Judea by Nebuchadnezzar and the inauguration of the
Babylonian captivity. This colony was led by divine guidance to the
American continent, whereon they developed into a numerous and mighty
people; though, divided by dissension, they formed two opposing nations
known respectively as Nephites and Lamanites. The former cultivated the
arts of industry and refinement, and preserved a record embodying both
history and scripture, while the latter became degenerate and debased.
The Nephites suffered extinction about 400 A.D., but the Lamanites lived
on in their degraded course, and are today extant upon the land as the
American Indians.[135]

The Nephite annals from the beginning thereof down to the time of our
Lord's birth abound in prediction and promise of the Christ; and this
chronicle is followed by a record of the actual visitation of the
resurrected Savior to the Nephites, and the establishment of His Church
among them. Unto Lehi, the leader of the colony, the Lord revealed the
time, place, and manner of Christ's then future advent, together with
many important facts of His ministry, and the preparatory work of John
the forerunner. This revelation was given while the company was
journeying in the wilderness of Arabia, prior to their crossing the
great waters. The prophecy is thus written by Nephi, a son of Lehi and
his successor in the prophetic calling: "Yea, even six hundred years
from the time that my father left Jerusalem, a prophet would the Lord
God raise up among the Jews; even a Messiah; or, in other words, a
Savior of the world. And he also spake concerning the prophets, how
great a number had testified of these things concerning this Messiah, of
whom he had spoken, or this Redeemer of the world. Wherefore all mankind
were in a lost and in a fallen state, and ever would be, save they
should rely on this Redeemer. And he spake also concerning a prophet who
should come before the Messiah, to prepare the way of the Lord; yea,
even he should go forth and cry in the wilderness. Prepare ye the way of
the Lord, and make his paths straight; for there standeth one among you
whom ye know not; and he is mightier than I, whose shoe's latchet I am
not worthy to unloose. And much spake my father concerning this thing.
And my father said he should baptize in Bethabara, beyond Jordan; and he
also said he should baptize with water; even that he should baptize the
Messiah with water. And after he had baptized the Messiah with water, he
should behold and bear record, that he had baptized the Lamb of God, who
should take away the sins of the world. And it came to pass after my
father had spoken these words, he spake unto my brethren concerning the
gospel which should be preached among the Jews; and also concerning the
dwindling of the Jews in unbelief. And after they had slain the Messiah,
who should come, and after he had been slain, he should rise from the
dead, and should make himself manifest, by the Holy Ghost, unto the
Gentiles."[136]

At a later time Nephi writes, not as his father's scribe, but as a
prophet and revelator voicing the word of God as made known to himself.
He was permitted to behold in vision and to declare to his people the
circumstances of the Messiah's birth, His baptism by John and the
ministration of the Holy Ghost with its accompanying sign of the dove;
he beheld our Lord moving as a Teacher of righteousness among the
people, healing the afflicted and rebuking spirits of evil; he saw and
bore record of the dread scenes of Calvary; he beheld and predicted the
calling of the chosen Twelve, the apostles of the Lamb, for so these
were designated by Him who vouchsafed the vision. Moreover he told of
the iniquity of the Jews, who were seen in contention with the apostles;
and thus concludes the portentous prophecy: "And the angel of the Lord
spake unto me again, saying, Thus shall be the destruction of all
nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, that shall fight against the
twelve apostles of the Lamb."[137] Soon after the defection whereby the
distinction between Nephites and Lamanites was established, Jacob, a
brother of Nephi, continued in prophecy of the assured coming of the
Messiah, specifically declaring that He would minister at Jerusalem and
affirming the necessity of His atoning death as the ordained means of
human redemption.[138] The prophet Abinadi, in his fearless denunciation
of sin to the wicked king Noah, preached the Christ who was to
come;[139] and righteous Benjamin, who was at once prophet and king,
proclaimed the same great truth to his people about 125 B.C. So taught
Alma[140] in his inspired admonition to his wayward son, Corianton; and
so also Amulek[141] in his contention with Zeezrom. So proclaimed the
Lamanite prophet, Samuel, only five years prior to the actual
occurrence; furthermore he specified the signs by which the birth of
Jesus in Judea would be made known to the people of the western world.
Said he: "Behold, I give unto you a sign; for five years more cometh,
and behold, then cometh the Son of God to redeem all those who shall
believe on his name. And behold, this will I give unto you for a sign at
the time of his coming; for behold, there shall be great lights in
heaven, insomuch that in the night before he cometh there shall be no
darkness, insomuch that it shall appear unto man as if it was day,
therefore there shall be one day and a night, and a day, as if it were
one day, and there were no night; and this shall be unto you for a sign;
for ye shall know of the rising of the sun, and also of its setting;
therefore they shall know of a surety that there shall be two days and a
night; nevertheless the night shall not be darkened; and it shall be the
night before he is born. And behold there shall a new star arise, such
an one as ye never have beheld; and this also shall be a sign unto you.
And behold this is not all, there shall be many signs and wonders in
heaven."[142]

Thus the scriptures of both hemispheres and in all ages of ante-meridian
time bore solemn testimony to the certainty of Messiah's advent; thus
the holy prophets of old voiced the word of revelation predicting the
coming of the world's King and Lord, through whom alone is salvation
provided, and redemption from death made sure. It is a characteristic of
prophets sent of God that they possess and proclaim a personal assurance
of the Christ, "for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of
prophecy."[143] Not a word of inspired prophecy relating to the great
event has been found void. The literal fulfilment of the predictions is
ample attestation of their origin in divine revelation, and proof
conclusive of the divinity of Him whose coming was so abundantly
foretold.


NOTES TO CHAPTER 5.

1. The Antiquity of Sacrifice as a Prototype of Christ's Atoning
Death.--While the Biblical record expressly attests the offering of
sacrifices long prior to Israel's exodus from Egypt--e.g. by Abel and by
Cain (Gen. 4:3, 4); by Noah after the deluge (Gen. 8:20); by Abraham
(Gen. 22:2, 13); by Jacob (Gen. 31:54; 46:1)--it is silent concerning
the divine origin of sacrifice as a propitiatory requirement prefiguring
the atoning death of Jesus Christ. The difficulty of determining time
and circumstance, under which the offering of symbolical sacrifices
originated amongst mankind, is recognized by all investigators save
those who admit the validity of modern revelation. The necessity of
assuming early instruction from God to man on the subject has been
asserted by many Bible scholars. Thus, the writer of the article
"Sacrifice" in the Cassell _Bible Dictionary_ says: "The idea of
sacrifice is prominent throughout the scriptures, and one of the most
ancient and widely recognized in the rites of religion throughout the
world. There is also a remarkable similarity in the developments and
applications of the idea. On these and other accounts it has been
judiciously inferred that sacrifice formed an element in the primeval
worship of man; and that its universality is not merely an indirect
argument for the unity of the human race, but an illustration and
confirmation of the first inspired pages of the world's history. The
notion of sacrifice can hardly be viewed as a product of unassisted
human nature, and must therefore be traced to a higher source and viewed
as a divine revelation to primitive man."

Smith's _Dic. of the Bible_ presents the following: "In tracing the
history of sacrifice from its first beginning to its perfect development
in the Mosaic ritual, we are at once met by the long-disputed question
as to the origin of sacrifice, whether it arose from a natural instinct
of man, sanctioned and guided by God, or was the subject of some
distinct primeval revelation. There can be no doubt that sacrifice was
sanctioned by God's Law, with a special, typical reference to the
Atonement of Christ; its universal prevalence, independent of, and often
opposed to, man's natural reasonings on his relation to God, shows it to
have been primeval, and deeply rooted in the instincts of humanity.
Whether it was first enjoined by an external command, or was based on
that sense of sin and lost communion with God, which is stamped by His
hand on the heart of man--is an historical question, perhaps insoluble."

The difficulty vanishes, and the "historical question" as to the origin
of sacrifice is definitely solved by the revelations of God in the
current dispensation, whereby parts of the record of Moses--not
contained in the Bible--have been restored to human knowledge. The
scripture quoted in the text (pp. 43, 44) makes clear the fact that the
offering of sacrifices was required of Adam after his transgression, and
that the significance of the divinely established requirement was
explained in fulness to the patriarch of the race. The shedding of the
blood of animals in sacrifice to God, as a prototype "of the sacrifice
of the Only Begotten of the Father," dates from the time immediately
following the fall. Its origin is based on a specific revelation to
Adam. See P. of G.P., Moses 5:5-8.

2. Jacob's Prophecy Concerning "Shiloh."--The prediction of the
patriarch Jacob--that the sceptre should not depart from Judah before
the coming of Shiloh--has given rise to much disputation among Bible
students. Some insist that "Shiloh" is the name of a place and not that
of a person. That there was a place known by that name is beyond
question (see Josh. 18:1; 19:51; 21:2; 22:9; 1 Sam. 1:3; Jer. 7:12); but
the name occurring in Gen. 49:10 is plainly that of a person. It should
be known that the use of the word in the King James or authorized
version of the Bible is held to be correct by many eminent authorities.
Thus, in Dummelow's _Commentary on the Holy Bible_, we read: "This verse
has always been regarded by both Jews and Christians as a remarkable
prophecy of the coming of the Messiah.... On the rendering given above,
the whole verse foretells that Judah would retain authority until the
advent of the rightful ruler, the Messiah, to whom all peoples would
gather. And, broadly speaking, it may be said that the last traces of
Jewish legislative power (as vested in the Sanhedrin) did not disappear
until the coming of Christ and the destruction of Jerusalem, from which
time His kingdom was set up among men."

Adam Clarke, in his exhaustive Bible Commentary, briefly analyzes the
objections urged against the admissibility of this passage as applying
to the Messiah's advent, and dismisses them all as unfounded. His
conclusion as to the meaning of the passage is thus worded: "Judah shall
continue a distinct tribe until the Messiah shall come; and it did so;
and after His coming it was confounded with the others, so that all
distinction has been ever since lost."

Prof. Douglas, as cited in Smith's Dictionary, "claims that something of
Judah's sceptre still remained, a total eclipse being no proof that the
day is at an end--that the proper fulfilment of the prophecy did not
begin till David's time, and is consummated in Christ according to Luke
1:32, 33."

The accepted meaning of the word by derivation is "Peaceable," and this
is applicable to the attributes of the Christ, who in Isa. 9:6, is
designated the Prince of Peace.

Eusebius, who lived between 260 and 339 A.D., and is known in
ecclesiastical history as Bishop of Cæsarea, wrote: "At the time that
Herod was king, who was the first foreigner that reigned over the Jewish
people, the prophecy recorded by Moses received its fulfilment, viz.
'That a prince should not fail of Judah, nor a ruler from his loins,
until He should come for whom it is reserved, the expectation of
nations.'" (The quoted passage is founded on the Septuagint rendering of
Genesis 49:10).

Some critics have held that in Jacob's use of the word "Shiloh" he did
not intend it as a name or proper noun at all. The writer of the article
"Shiloh" in Cassell's _Bible Dictionary_ says: "The preponderance of
evidence is in favor of the Messianic interpretation, but opinions are
very divided respecting the retention of the word 'Shiloh' as a proper
name.... Notwithstanding all the objections that are urged against it
being so regarded, we are of the opinion that it is rightly considered
to be a proper name, and that the English version represents the true
sense of the passage. We recommend those who wish to enter more fully
into a question which cannot well be discussed without Hebrew criticism,
to the excellent notes upon Gen. 49:10 in the 'Commentary on the
Pentateuch' by Keil and Delitzsch. Here the text is thus rendered: 'The
sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between
his feet, till Shiloh come, and the willing obedience of the nations be
to him.'

"Notwithstanding the slight put upon the Messianic interpretation by
some writers, even those from whom we should scarcely expect it, we see
this explanation confirmed and not weakened in the events of history.
The text is not taken to mean that Judah should at no time be without a
royal ruler of his own, but that the regal power should not finally
cease from Judah until Shiloh had come. The objections founded on the
Babylonian captivity, and similar intermissions, are of no force,
because it is the complete and final termination which is pointed out,
and that only happened after the time of Christ." See further _The Book
of Prophecy_, by G. Smith, LL.D., p. 320. See also _Compendium of the
Doctrines of the Gospel_, by Franklin D. Richards and James A. Little,
article "Christ's First Coming."

3. Nephites and Lamanites.--The progenitors of the Nephite nation were
led from Jerusalem, 600 B.C., by Lehi, a Jewish prophet of the tribe of
Manasseh. His immediate family, at the time of their departure from
Jerusalem, comprized his wife Sariah, and their sons, Laman, Lemuel,
Sam, and Nephi; at a later stage of the history, daughters are
mentioned, but whether any of these were born before the family exodus
we are not told. Beside his own family, the colony of Lehi included
Zoram, and Ishmael, the latter an Israelite of the tribe of Ephraim.
Ishmael, with his family, joined Lehi in the wilderness; and his
descendants were numbered with the nation of whom we are speaking. The
company journeyed somewhat east of south, keeping near the borders of
the Red Sea; then, changing their course to the eastward, crossed the
peninsula of Arabia; and there, on the shores of the Arabian Sea, built
and provisioned a vessel in which they committed themselves to divine
care upon the waters. Their voyage carried them eastward across the
Indian Ocean, then over the south Pacific Ocean to the western coast of
South America, whereon they landed (590 B.C.).... The people established
themselves on what to them was the land of promise; many children were
born, and in the course of a few generations a numerous posterity held
possession of the land. After the death of Lehi, a division occurred,
some of the people accepting as their leader, Nephi, who had been duly
appointed to the prophetic office; while the rest proclaimed Laman, the
eldest of Lehi's sons, as their chief. Henceforth the divided people
were known as Nephites and Lamanites respectively. At times they
observed toward each other fairly friendly relations; but generally they
were opposed, the Lamanites manifesting implacable hatred and hostility
toward their Nephite kindred. The Nephites advanced in the arts of
civilization, built large cities and established prosperous
commonwealths; yet they often fell into transgression; and the Lord
chastened them by allowing their foes to become victorious. They spread
northward, occupying the northern part of South America; then, crossing
the Isthmus, they extended their domain over the southern, central and
eastern portions of what is now the United States of America. The
Lamanites, while increasing in numbers, fell under the curse of
darkness; they became dark in skin and benighted in spirit, forgot the
God of their fathers, lived a wild nomadic life, and degenerated into
the fallen state in which the American Indians--their lineal
descendants--were found by those who rediscovered the western continent
in later times. See the author's _Articles of Faith_ xiv:7, 8.

4. The First Gospel Dispensation.--The gospel of Jesus Christ was
revealed to Adam. Faith in God the Eternal Father, and in His Son the
Savior of Adam and all his posterity, repentance of sin, water baptism
by immersion, and the reception of the Holy Ghost as a divine bestowal
were proclaimed in the beginning of human history as the essentials to
salvation. The following scriptures attest this fact. "And thus the
Gospel began to be preached, from the beginning, being declared by holy
angels sent forth from the presence of God, and by his own voice and by
the gift of the Holy Ghost" (Moses 5:58). The prophet Enoch thus
testified: "But God hath made known unto our fathers that all men must
repent. And he called upon our father Adam by his own voice, saying: I
am God; I made the world, and men before they were in the flesh. And he
also said unto him: If thou wilt turn unto me, and hearken unto my
voice, and believe, and repent of all thy transgressions, and be
baptized, even in water, in the name of mine Only Begotten Son, who is
full of grace and truth, which is Jesus Christ, the only name which
shall be given under heaven, whereby salvation shall come unto the
children of men, ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, asking all
things in his name, and whatsoever ye shall ask, it shall be given you"
(Moses 6:50-52; read also 53-61). "And now, behold, I say unto you: This
is the plan of salvation unto all men, through the blood of mine Only
Begotten, who shall come in the meridian of time" (62). "And it came to
pass, when the Lord had spoken with Adam, our father, that Adam cried
unto the Lord, and he was caught away by the Spirit of the Lord, and was
carried down into the water, and was laid under the water, and was
brought forth out of the water. And thus he was baptized, and the Spirit
of God descended upon him, and thus he was born of the Spirit and became
quickened in the inner man. And he heard a voice out of heaven, saying:
Thou art baptized with fire, and with the Holy Ghost. This is the record
of the Father, and the Son, from henceforth and for ever" (64-66).
Compare Doc. and Cov 29:42.

FOOTNOTES:

[101] Deut. 31:9, 24-26; compare 17:18-20.

[102] "Articles of Faith," xiii:7-10.

[103] Gen. 3:15; compare Heb. 2:14; Rev, 12:9; 20:3.

[104] P. of G.P., Moses 5:6-9. Note 1, end of chapter.

[105] P. of G.P., Moses 6:52; study paragraphs 50-56; see also Gen.
5:18, 21-24; Jude 14. Note 4, end of chapter.

[106] Gen. 12:3; 18:18; 22:18; 26:4; 28:14; compare Acts 3:25; Gal. 3:8.

[107] Gen. 49:10.

[108] Note 2, end of chapter.

[109] Deut. 18:15-19; compare John 1:45; Acts 3:22; 7:37; see also a
specific confirmation by our Lord after His resurrection, 3 Nephi 20:23.

[110] Note 1, end of chapter.

[111] 1 Cor. 5:7. For references to Christ as the Lamb of God, see John
1:29, 36; 1 Peter 1:19; Rev. chaps. 5, 6, 7, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 19, 21,
22; also B. of M., 1 Nephi 10:10, and chaps. 11, 12, 13, 14; 2 Nephi
31:4, 5, 6; 33:14; Alma 7:14; Mormon 9:2, 3; Doc. and Cov. 58:11;
132:19.

[112] Job 19:25; see also verses 26-27.

[113] Instances: Psalm 2:7; compare Acts 13:33; Heb. 1:5; 5:5. Psa.
16:10; compare Acts 13:34-37. Psa. 22:18; compare Matt. 27:35; Mark
15:24; Luke 23:34; John 19:24. Psa. 41:9; compare John 13:18. Psa. 69:9
and 21; compare Matt. 27:34, 48; Mark 15:23; John 19:29; and John 2:17.
Psa. 110:1 and 4; compare Matt. 22:44; Mark 12:35-37; Luke 20:41-44; and
Heb. 5:6. Psa. 118:22, 23; compare Matt. 21:42; Mark 12:10; Luke 20:17;
Acts 4:11; Eph. 2:20; 1 Peter 2:4, 7. The following are known
specifically as Messianic Psalms: 2, 21, 22, 45, 67, 69, 89, 96, 110,
132; in them the psalmist extols in poetic measure the excellencies of
the Messiah, and the certainty of His coming.

[114] Isa. 7:14; compare Matt. 1:21-23.

[115] Isa. 9:6,7.

[116] Luke 1:26-33.

[117] Isa. 11:1 and 10; compare Rom. 15:12; Rev. 5:5; 22:16; see also
Jer. 23:5, 6.

[118] Isa. 28:16; compare Psa. 118:22; Matt. 21:42; Acts 4:11; Rom.
9:33; 10:11; Eph. 2:20; 1 Peter 2:6-8.

[119] Isa. 40:9-11; compare John 10:11, 14; Heb. 13:20; 1 Peter 2:25;
5:4; see also Ezek. 34:23.

[120] Isa. 42-1; see also 9:2; 49:6; 60:3; compare Matt. 4:14-16; Luke
2:32; Acts 13:47; 26:18; Eph. 5:8, 14.

[121] Isa. 55:4; compare John 18:37.

[122] Isa. 40:3; compare Matt. 3:3; Mark 1:3; Luke 3:4; John 1:23.

[123] Isa. 53; study the entire chapter; compare Acts 8:32-35.

[124] Jer. 23:5, 6; see also 33:14-16.

[125] Jer. 30:9.

[126] Ezek. 34:23; 37:24, 25.

[127] Hos. 11:11; compare Matt. 2:15.

[128] Mic. 5:2; compare Matt 2:6; John 7:42.

[129] Zech. 9:9; compare Matt. 21:4-9.

[130] Zech. 12:10; compare John 19:37.

[131] Zech. 13:6.

[132] Zech. 11:12, 13; compare Matt. 26:15; 27:3-10.

[133] Luke 24:44, 46; see also verses 25-27.

[134] Matt. 3:11; Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16; John 1:15, 26, 27, 29-36; see
also Acts 1:5, 8; 11:16; 19:4.

[135] Note 3, end of chapter.

[136] B. of M., 1 Nephi 10:4-11.

[137] B. of M., 1 Nephi chapters 11 and 12; see also 19:10.

[138] B. of M., 2 Nephi 9:5, 6; 10:3. See also Nephi's prophecy
25:12-14; and chap. 26.

[139] B. of M., Mosiah 13:33-35; 15:1-13.

[140] B. of M., Alma 39:15; 40:1-3.

[141] B. of M., Alma 11:31-44.

[142] B. of M., Helaman 14:1-6; compare 3 Nephi 1:4-21.

[143] Rev. 19:10.




CHAPTER 6.

THE MERIDIAN OF TIME.


Unto Moses, with whom the Lord spake "face to face, as a man speaketh
unto his friend,"[144] the course of the human race, both as then past
and future, was made known; and the coming of the Redeemer was
recognized by him as the event of greatest import in all the happenings
to which the earth and its inhabitants would be witness. The curse of
God had aforetime fallen upon the wicked, and upon the earth because of
them, "For they would not hearken unto his voice, nor believe on his
Only Begotten Son, even him whom he declared should come in the meridian
of time, who was prepared from before the foundation of the world."[145]
In this scripture appears the earliest mention of the expressive and
profoundly significant designation of the period in which the Christ
should appear--the meridian of time. If the expression be regarded as
figurative, be it remembered the figure is the Lord's.

The term "meridian", as commonly used, conveys the thought of a
principal division of time or space[146] thus we speak of the hours
before the daily noon as ante-meridian (a.m.) and those after noon as
post-meridian (p.m.). So the years and the centuries of human history
are divided by the great event of the birth of Jesus Christ. The years
preceding that epoch-making occurrence are now designated as time
_Before Christ_ (B.C.); while subsequent years are each specified as a
certain _Year of our Lord_, or, as in the Latin tongue, _Anno Domini_
(A.D.). Thus the world's chronology has been adjusted and systematized
with reference to the time of the Savior's birth; and this method of
reckoning is in use among all Christian nations. It is instructive to
note that a similar system was adopted by the isolated branch of the
house of Israel that had been brought from the land of Palestine to the
western continent; for from the appearance of the promised sign among
the people betokening the birth of Him who had been so abundantly
predicted by their prophets, the Nephite reckoning of the years,
starting with the departure of Lehi and his colony from Jerusalem, was
superseded by the annals of the new era.[147]

The occasion of the Savior's advent was preappointed; and the time
thereof was specifically revealed through authorized prophets on each of
the hemispheres. The long history of the Israelitish nation had unfolded
a succession of events that found a relative culmination in the earthly
mission of the Messiah. That we may the better comprehend the true
significance of the Lord's life and ministry while in the flesh, some
consideration should be given to the political, social, and religious
condition of the people amongst whom He appeared and with whom He lived
and died. Such consideration involves at least a brief review of the
antecedent history of the Hebrew nation. The posterity of Abraham
through Isaac and Jacob had early come to be known by the title in which
they took undying pride and found inspiring promise, Israelites, or the
children of Israel.[148] Collectively they were so designated throughout
the dark days of their bondage in Egypt;[149] so during the four decades
of the exodus and the return to the land of promise,[150] and on through
the period of their prosperity as a mighty people under the
administration of the judges, and as a united monarchy during the
successive reigns of Saul, David, and Solomon.[151]

Immediately following the death of Solomon, about 975 B.C. according to
the most generally accepted chronology, the nation was disrupted by
revolt. The tribe of Judah, part of the tribe of Benjamin, and small
remnants of a few other tribes remained true to the royal succession,
and accepted Rehoboam, son of Solomon, as their king; while the rest,
usually spoken of as the Ten Tribes, broke their allegiance to the house
of David, and made Jeroboam, an Ephraimite, their king. The Ten Tribes
retained the title Kingdom of Israel though also known as Ephraim.[152]
Rehoboam and his adherents were distinctively called the Kingdom of
Judah. For about two hundred and fifty years the two kingdoms maintained
their separate autonomy; then, about 722 or 721 B.C., the independent
status of the Kingdom of Israel was destroyed, and the captive people
were transported to Assyria by Shalmanezer and others. Subsequently they
disappeared so completely as to be called the Lost Tribes. The Kingdom
of Judah was recognized as a nation for about one hundred and thirty
years longer; then, about 588 B.C., it was brought into subjection by
Nebuchadnezzar, through whom the Babylonian captivity was inaugurated.
For three score years and ten Judah was kept in exile and virtual
bondage, in consequence of their transgression as had been predicted
through Jeremiah.[153] Then the Lord softened the hearts of their
captors, and their restoration was begun under the decree of Cyrus the
Persian, who had subdued the Babylonian kingdom. The Hebrew people were
permitted to return to Judea, and to enter upon the work of rebuilding
the temple at Jerusalem.[154]

A great company of the exiled Hebrews availed themselves of this
opportunity to return to the lands of their fathers, though many elected
to remain in the country of their captivity, preferring Babylon to
Israel. The "whole congregation" of the Jews who returned from the
Babylonian exile were but "forty and two thousand three hundred and
three score, beside their servants and their maids, of whom there were
seven thousand three hundred thirty and seven." The relatively small
size of the migrating nation is further shown by the register of their
beasts of burden.[155] While those who did return strove valiantly to
reestablish themselves as the house of David, and to regain some measure
of their former prestige and glory, the Jews were never again a truly
independent people. In turn they were preyed upon by Greece, Egypt, and
Syria; but about 164-163 B.C., the people threw off, in part at least,
the alien yoke, as a result of the patriotic revolt led by the
Maccabees, the most prominent of whom was Judas Maccabeus. The temple
service, which had been practically abolished through the proscription
of victorious foes, was reestablished.[156] In the year 163 B.C., the
sacred structure was rededicated, and the joyful occasion was thereafter
celebrated in annual festival as the Feast of Dedication.[157] During
the reign of the Maccabees, however, the temple fell into an almost
ruinous condition, more as a result of the inability of the reduced and
impoverished people to maintain it than through any further decline of
religious zeal. In the hope of insuring a greater measure of national
protection, the Jews entered into an unequal alliance with the Romans
and eventually became tributary to them, in which condition the Jewish
nation continued throughout the period of our Lord's ministry. In the
meridian of time Rome was virtually mistress of the world. When Christ
was born Augustus Cæsar[158] was emperor of Rome, and the Idumean,
Herod,[159] surnamed the Great, was the vassal king of Judea.

Some semblance of national autonomy was maintained by the Jews under
Roman dominion, and their religious ceremonials were not seriously
interfered with. The established orders in the priesthood were
recognized, and the official acts of the national council, or
Sanhedrin,[160] were held to be binding by Roman law; though the
judicial powers of this body did not extend to the infliction of capital
punishment without the sanction of the imperial executive. It was the
established policy of Rome to allow to her tributary and vassal peoples
freedom in worship so long as the mythological deities, dear to the
Romans, were not maligned nor their altars desecrated.[161]

Needless to say, the Jews took not kindly to alien domination, though
for many generations they had been trained in that experience, their
reduced status having ranged from nominal vassalage to servile bondage.
They were already largely a dispersed people. All the Jews in Palestine
at the time of Christ's birth constituted but a small remnant of the
great Davidic nation. The Ten Tribes, distinctively the aforetime
kingdom of Israel, had then long been lost to history, and the people of
Judah had been widely scattered among the nations.

In their relations with other peoples the Jews generally endeavored to
maintain a haughty exclusiveness, which brought upon them Gentile
ridicule. Under Mosaic law Israel had been required to keep apart from
other nations; they attached supreme importance to their Abrahamic
lineage as children of the covenant, "an holy people unto the Lord,"
whom He had chosen "to be a special people unto himself, above all
people that are upon the face of the earth".[162] Judah had experienced
the woful effects of dalliance with pagan nations, and, at the time we
are now considering, a Jew who permitted himself unnecessary association
with a Gentile became an unclean being requiring ceremonial cleansing to
free him from defilement. Only in strict isolation did the leaders find
hope of insuring the perpetuity of the nation.

It is no exaggeration to say that the Jews hated all other peoples and
were reciprocally despized and contemned by all others. They manifested
especial dislike for the Samaritans, perhaps because this people
persisted in their efforts to establish some claim of racial
relationship. These Samaritans were a mixed people, and were looked upon
by the Jews as a mongrel lot, unworthy of decent respect. When the Ten
Tribes were led into captivity by the king of Assyria, foreigners were
sent to populate Samaria.[163] These intermarried with such Israelites
as had escaped the captivity; and some modification of the religion of
Israel, embodying at least the profession of Jehovah worship, survived
in Samaria. The Samaritan rituals were regarded by the Jews as
unorthodox, and the people as reprobate. At the time of Christ the
enmity between Jew and Samaritan was so intense that travelers between
Judea and Galilee would make long detours rather than pass through the
province of Samaria which lay between. The Jews would have no dealings
with the Samaritans.[164]

The proud feeling of self-sufficiency, the obsession for exclusiveness
and separation--so distinctively a Jewish trait at that time--was
inculcated at the maternal knee and emphasized in synagog and school.
The Talmud,[165] which in codified form post-dates the time of Christ's
ministry, enjoined all Jews against reading the books of alien nations,
declaring that none who so offended could consistently hope for
Jehovah's favor.[166] Josephus gives his endorsement to similar
injunction, and records that wisdom among the Jews meant only
familiarity with the law and ability to discourse thereon.[167] A
thorough acquaintanceship with the law was demanded as strongly as other
studies were discountenanced. Thus the lines between learned and
unlearned came to be rigidly drawn; and, as an inevitable consequence
those who were accounted learned, or so considered themselves, looked
down upon their unscholarly fellows as a class distinct and
inferior.[168]

Long before the birth of Christ, the Jews had ceased to be a united
people even in matters of the law, though the law was their chief
reliance as a means of maintaining national solidarity. As early as four
score years after the return from the Babylonian exile, and we know not
with accuracy how much earlier, there had come to be recognized, as men
having authority, certain scholars afterward known as scribes, and
honored as rabbis[169] or teachers. In the days of Ezra and Nehemiah
these specialists in the law constituted a titled class, to whom
deference and honor were paid. Ezra is designated "the priest, the
scribe, even a scribe of the words of the commandments of the Lord, and
of his statutes to Israel".[170] The scribes of those days did valuable
service under Ezra, and later under Nehemiah, in compiling the sacred
writings then extant; and in Jewish usage those appointed as guardians
and expounders of the law came to be known as members of the Great
Synagog, or Great Assembly, concerning which we have little information
through canonical channels. According to Talmudic record, the
organization consisted of one hundred and twenty eminent scholars. The
scope of their labors, according to the admonition traditionally
perpetuated by themselves, is thus expressed: _Be careful in judgment;
set up many scholars, and make a hedge about the law_. They followed
this behest by much study and careful consideration of all traditional
details in administration; by multiplying scribes and rabbis unto
themselves; and, as some of them interpreted the requirement of setting
up many scholars, by writing many books and tractates; moreover, they
made a fence or hedge about the law by adding numerous rules, which
prescribed with great exactness the officially established proprieties
for every occasion.

Scribes and rabbis were exalted to the highest rank in the estimation of
the people, higher than that of the Levitical or priestly orders; and
rabbinical sayings were given precedence over the utterances of the
prophets, since the latter were regarded as but messengers or spokesmen,
whereas the living scholars were of themselves sources of wisdom and
authority. Such secular powers as Roman suzerainty permitted the Jews to
retain were vested in the hierarchy, whose members were able thus to
gather unto themselves practically all official and professional honors.
As a natural result of this condition, there was practically no
distinction between Jewish civil and ecclesiastical law, either as to
the code or its administration. Rabbinism comprized as an essential
element the doctrine of the equal authority of oral rabbinical tradition
with the written word of the law. The aggrandizement implied in the
application of the title "Rabbi" and the self-pride manifest in
welcoming such adulation were especially forbidden by the Lord, who
proclaimed Himself the one Master; and, as touching the interpretation
of the title held by some as "father", Jesus proclaimed but one Father
and He in heaven: "But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master,
even Christ; and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father upon
the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven. Neither be ye
called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ."[171]

The scribes, whether so named or designated by the more distinguishing
appellation, rabbis, were repeatedly denounced by Jesus, because of the
dead literalism of their teachings, and the absence of the spirit of
righteousness and virile morality therefrom; and in such denunciations
the Pharisees are often coupled with the scribes. The judgment of the
Christ upon them is sufficiently expressed by His withering imprecation:
"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!"[172]

The origin of the Pharisees is not fixed by undisputed authority as to
either time or circumstance; though it is probable that the sect or
party had a beginning in connection with the return of the Jews from the
Babylonian captivity. New ideas and added conceptions of the meaning of
the law were promulgated by Jews who had imbibed of the spirit of
Babylon; and the resulting innovations were accepted by some and
rejected by others. The name "Pharisee" does not occur in the Old
Testament, nor in the Apocrypha, though it is probable that the
Assideans mentioned in the books of the Maccabees[173] were the original
Pharisees. By derivation the name expresses the thought of separatism;
the Pharisee, in the estimation of his class, was distinctively set
apart from the common people, to whom he considered himself as truly
superior as the Jews regarded themselves in contrast with other nations.
Pharisees and scribes were one in all essentials of profession, and
rabbinism was specifically their doctrine.

In the New Testament the Pharisees are often mentioned as in opposition
to the Sadducees; and such were the relations of the two parties that it
becomes a simpler matter to contrast one with the other than to consider
each separately. The Sadducees came into existence as a reactionary
organization during the second century B.C., in connection with an
insurgent movement against the Maccabean party. Their platform was that
of opposition to the ever-increasing mass of traditional lore, with
which the law was not merely being fenced or hedged about for safety,
but under which it was being buried. The Sadducees stood for the
sanctity of the law as written and preserved, while they rejected the
whole mass of rabbinical precept both as orally transmitted and as
collated and codified in the records of the scribes. The Pharisees
formed the more popular party; the Sadducees figured as the aristocratic
minority. At the time of Christ's birth the Pharisees existed as an
organized body numbering over six thousand men, with Jewish women very
generally on their side in sympathy and effort;[174] while the Sadducees
were so small a faction and of such limited power that, when they were
placed in official positions, they generally followed the policy of the
Pharisees as a matter of incumbent expediency. The Pharisees were the
Puritans of the time, unflinching in their demand for compliance with
the traditional rules as well as the original law of Moses. In this
connection note Paul's confession of faith and practise when arraigned
before Agrippa--"That after the most straitest sect of our religion I
lived a Pharisee."[175] The Sadducees prided themselves on strict
compliance with the law, as they construed it, irrespective of all
scribes or rabbis. The Sadducees stood for the temple and its prescribed
ordinances, the Pharisees for the synagog and its rabbinical teachings.
It is difficult to decide which were the more technical if we judge each
party by the standard of its own profession. By way of illustration: the
Sadducees held to the literal and full exaction of the Mosaic
penalty--an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth[176]--while the
Pharisees contended on the authority of rabbinical dictum, that the
wording was figurative, and that therefore the penalty could be met by a
fine in money or goods.

Pharisees and Sadducees differed on many important if not fundamental
matters of belief and practise, including the preexistence of spirits,
the reality of a future state involving reward and punishment, the
necessity for individual self-denial, the immortality of the soul, and
the resurrection from the dead; in each of which the Pharisees stood for
the affirmative while the Sadducees denied.[177] Josephus avers--the
doctrine of the Sadducees is that the soul and body perish together; the
law is all that they are concerned to observe.[178] They were "a
skeptical school of aristocratic traditionalists; adhering only to the
Mosaic law."[179]

Among the many other sects and parties established on the ground of
religious or political differences, or both, are the Essenes, the
Nazarites, the Herodians and the Galileans. The Essenes were
characterized by professions of ultra-piety; they considered even the
strictness of Pharisaic profession as weak and insufficient; they
guarded membership in their order by severe exactions extending through
a first and a second novitiate; they were forbidden even to touch food
prepared by strangers; they practised strict temperance and rigid
self-denial, indulged in hard labor--preferably that of agriculture, and
were forbidden to trade as merchants, to take part in war, or to own or
employ slaves.[180] Nazarites are not named in the New Testament, though
of specific record in the earlier scriptures;[181] and from sources
other than scriptural we learn of their existence at and after the time
of Christ. The Nazarite was one of either sex who was bound to
abstinence and sacrifice by a voluntary vow for special service to God;
the period of the vow might be limited or for life. While the Essenes
cultivated an ascetic brotherhood, the Nazarites were devoted to
solitary discipline.

The Herodians constituted a politico-religious party who favored the
plans of the Herods under the professed belief that through that dynasty
alone could the status of the Jewish people be maintained and a
reestablishment of the nation be secured. We find mention of the
Herodians laying aside their partisan antipathies and acting in concert
with the Pharisees in the effort to convict the Lord Jesus and bring Him
to death.[182] The Galileans or people of Galilee were distinguished
from their fellow Israelites of Judea by greater simplicity and less
ostentatious devotion in matters pertaining to the law. They were
opposed to innovations, yet were generally more liberal or less bigoted
than some of the professedly devout Judeans. They were prominent as able
defenders in the wars of the people, and won for themselves a reputation
for bravery and patriotism. They are mentioned in connection with
certain tragical occurrences during our Lord's lifetime.[183]

The authority of the priesthood was outwardly acknowledged by the Jews
at the time of Christ; and the appointed order of service for priest and
Levite was duly observed. During the reign of David, the descendants of
Aaron, who were the hereditary priests in Israel, had been divided into
twenty-four courses,[184] and to each course the labors of the sanctuary
were alloted in turn. Representatives of but four of these courses
returned from the captivity, but from these the orders were
reconstructed on the original plan. In the days of Herod the Great the
temple ceremonies were conducted with great display and outward
elaborateness, as an essential matter of consistency with the splendor
of the structure, which surpassed in magnificence all earlier
sanctuaries.[185] Priests and Levites, therefore, were in demand for
continuous service, though the individuals were changed at short
intervals according to the established system. In the regard of the
people the priests were inferior to the rabbis, and the scholarly
attainments of a scribe transcended in honor that pertaining to
ordination in the priesthood. The religion of the time was a matter of
ceremony and formality, of ritual and performance; it had lost the very
spirit of worship, and the true conception of the relationship between
Israel and Israel's God was but a dream of the past.

Such in brief were the principal features of the world's condition, and
particularly as concerns the Jewish people, when Jesus the Christ was
born in the meridian of time.


NOTES TO CHAPTER 6.

1. The Sanhedrin.--This, the chief court or high council of the Jews,
derives its name from the Greek _sunedrion_, signifying "a council." In
English it is sometimes though inaccurately, written "Sanhedrim." The
Talmud traces the origin of this body to the calling of the seventy
elders whom Moses associated with himself, making seventy-one in all, to
administer as judges in Israel (Numb. 11:16, 17). The Sanhedrin in the
time of Christ, as also long before, comprized seventy-one members,
including the high-priest who presided in the assembly. It appears to
have been known in its earlier period as the Senate, and was
occasionally so designated even after Christ's death (Josephus,
Antiquities xii, 3:3; compare Acts 5:21); the name "Sanhedrin" came into
general use during the reign of Herod the Great; but the term is not of
Biblical usage; its equivalent in the New Testament is "council" (Matt.
5:22; 10:17; 26:59) though it must be remembered that the same term is
applied to courts of lesser jurisdiction than that of the Sanhedrin, and
to local tribunals. (Matt 5:22; 10:17; 26:59; Mark 13:9; see also Acts
25:12.)

The following, from the _Standard Bible Dictionary_, is instructive:
"Those qualified to be members were in general of the priestly house and
especially of the Sadducean nobility. But from the days of Queen
Alexandra (69-68 B.C.) onward, there were with these chief priests also
many Pharisees in it under the name of scribes and elders. These three
classes are found combined in Matt. 27:41; Mark 11:27; 14:43, 53; 15:1.
How such members were appointed is not entirely clear. The aristocratic
character of the body and the history of its origin forbid the belief
that it was by election. Its nucleus probably consisted of the members
of certain ancient families, to which, however, from time to time others
were added by the secular rulers. The presiding officer was the high
priest, who at first exercized in it more than the authority of a
member, claiming a voice equal to that of the rest of the body. But
after the reduction of the high priesthood from a hereditary office to
one bestowed by the political ruler according to his pleasure, and the
frequent changes in the office introduced by the new system, the high
priest naturally lost his prestige. Instead of holding in his hands the
'government of the nation,' he came to be but one of many to share this
power; those who had served as high priests being still in esteem among
their nation, and having lost their office not for any reason that could
be considered valid by the religious sense of the community, exerted a
large influence over the decisions of the assembly. In the New Testament
they are regarded as the rulers (Matt. 26:59; 27:41; Acts 4:5, 8; Luke
23:13, 35; John 7:26), and Josephus' testimony supports this view. The
functions of the Sanhedrin were religious and moral, and also political.
In the latter capacity they further exercized administrative as well as
judicial functions. As a religious tribunal, the Sanhedrin wielded a
potent influence over the whole of the Jewish world (Acts 9:2); but as a
court of justice, after the division of the country upon the death of
Herod, its jurisdiction was limited to Judea. Here, however, its power
was absolute even to the passing of sentence of death (Josephus, Ant.
xiv, 9:3, 4; Matt. 26:3; Acts 4:5; 6:12; 22:30), although it had no
authority to carry the sentence into execution except as approved and
ordered by the representative of the Roman government. The law by which
the Sanhedrin governed was naturally the Jewish, and in the execution of
it this tribunal had a police of its own, and made arrests at its
discretion (Matt 26:47).... While the general authority of the Sanhedrin
extended over the whole of Judea, the towns in the country had local
councils of their own (Matt. 5:22; 10:17; Mark 13:9; Josephus, B. J. ii,
14:1), for the administration of local affairs. These were constituted
of elders (Luke 7:3), at least seven in number, (Josephus, Ant. iv,
8:14; B. J. ii, 20:5), and in some of the largest towns as many as
twenty-three. What the relation of these to the central council in
Jerusalem was does not appear clearly.... Some sort of mutual
recognition existed among them; for whenever the judges of the local
court could not agree it seems that they were in the habit of referring
their cases to the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem. (Josephus, Ant. iv, 8:14;
Mishna, Sanh. 11:2)."

2. Talmud.--"The body of Jewish civil and religious law (and discussion
directly or remotely relating thereto) not comprized in the Pentateuch,
commonly including the _Mishna_ and the _Gemara_, but sometimes limited
to the latter; written in Aramaic. It exists in two great collections,
the _Palestinian Talmud_, or _Talmud of the Land of Israel_, or _Talmud
of the West_, or, more popularly, _Jerusalem Talmud_, embodying the
discussions on the Mishna of the Palestinian doctors from the 2d to the
middle of the 5th century; and the _Babylonian_, embodying those of the
Jewish doctors in Babylonia, from about 190 to the 7th century."--_New
Standard Dict._ The Mishna comprizes the earlier portions of the Talmud;
the Gemara is made up of later writings and is largely an exposition of
the Mishna. An edition of the Babylonian Talmud alone (issued at Vienna
in 1682) comprized twenty-four tomes. (Geikie.)

3. Rabbis.--The title Rabbi is equivalent to our distinctive
appellations Doctor, Master, or Teacher. By derivation it means Master
or my Master, thus connoting dignity and rank associated with politeness
of address. A definite explanation of the term is given by John (1:38),
and the same meaning attaches by implication to its use as recorded by
Matthew (23:8). It was applied as a title of respect to Jesus on several
occasions (Matt. 23:7, 8; 26:25, 49; Mark 9:5; 11:21; 14:45; John 1:38,
49; 3:2, 26; 4:31; 6:25; 9:2; 11:8). The title was of comparatively
recent usage in the time of Christ, as it appears to have first come
into general use during the reign of Herod the Great, though the earlier
teachers, of the class without the name of Rabbis, were generally
reverenced, and the title was carried back to them by later usage. Rab
was an inferior title and Rabban a superior one to Rabbi. Rabboni was
expressive of most profound respect, love and honor (see John 20:16). At
the time of our Lord's ministry the Rabbis were held in high esteem, and
rejoiced in the afflations of precedence and honor among men. They were
almost exclusively of the powerful Pharisaic party.

The following is from Geikie's _Life and Words of Christ_, vol. I, chap.
6: "If the most important figures in the society of Christ's day were
the Pharisees, it was because they were the Rabbis or teachers of the
Law. As such they received superstitious honor, which was, indeed, the
great motive, with many, to court the title or join the party. The
Rabbis were classed with Moses, the patriarchs, and the prophets, and
claimed equal reverence. Jacob and Joseph were both said to have been
Rabbis. The Targum of Jonathan substitutes Rabbis, or Scribes, for the
word 'prophets' where it occurs. Josephus speaks of the prophets of
Saul's day as Rabbis. In the Jerusalem Targum all the patriarchs are
learned Rabbis.... They were to be dearer to Israel than father or
mother--because parents avail only in this world [as was then taught]
but the Rabbi forever. They were set above kings, for is it not written
'Through me kings reign'? Their entrance into a house brought a
blessing; to live or to eat with them was the highest good fortune....
The Rabbis went even further than this in exalting their order. The
Mishna declares that it is a greater crime to speak anything to their
discredit, than to speak against the words of the Law.... Yet in form,
the Law received boundless honor. Every saying of the Rabbis had to be
based on some words of it, which were, however, explained in their own
way. The spirit of the times, the wild fanaticism of the people, and
their own bias, tended alike to make them set value only on ceremonies
and worthless externalisms, to the utter neglect of the spirit of the
sacred writings. Still it was held that the Law needed no confirmation,
while the words of the Rabbis did. So far as the Roman authority under
which they lived left them free, the Jews willingly put all power in the
hands of the Rabbis. They or their nominees filled every office, from
the highest in the priesthood to the lowest in the community. They were
the casuists, the teachers, the priests, the judges, the magistrates,
and the physicians of the nation.... The central and dominant
characteristic of the teaching of the Rabbis was the certain advent of a
great national Deliverer--the Messiah or Anointed of God or in the Greek
translation of the title, the Christ. In no other nation than the Jews
has such a conception ever taken such root or shown such vitality.... It
was agreed among the Rabbis that His birthplace must be Bethlehem, and
that He must rise from the tribe of Judah."

Individual rabbis gathered disciples about them, and, inevitably,
rivalry became manifest. Rabbinical schools and academies were
established, each depending for its popularity on the greatness of some
rabbi. The most famous of these institutions in the time of Herod I.
were the school of Hillel and that of his rival Shammai. Later,
tradition invested these with the title "the fathers of old." It appears
from the trifling matters over which the followers of these two
disagreed, that only by opposition could either maintain a
distinguishing status. Hillel is reputed as the grandfather of Gamaliel,
the rabbi and doctor of the law at whose feet Saul of Tarsus, afterward
Paul the apostle, received his early instruction (Acts 22:3). So far as
we have historic record of the views, principles or beliefs advocated by
the rival schools of Hillel and Shammai, it appears that the former
stood for a greater degree of liberality and tolerance, while the later
emphasized a strict and possibly narrow interpretation of the law and
its associated traditions. The dependence of the rabbinical schools on
the authority of tradition is illustrated by an incident of record to
the effect that even the prestige of the great Hillel did not insure him
against uproar when once he spoke without citing precedent; only when he
added that so had his masters Abtalion and Shemajah spoken did the
tumult subside.

4. Sadducean Denial of the Resurrection.--As set forth in the text, the
Sadducees formed an association numerically small as compared with the
more popular and influential Pharisees. In the Gospels the Pharisees are
of frequent mention, and very commonly in connection with the scribes,
while the Sadducees are less frequently named. In the Acts of the
Apostles, the Sadducees appear frequently as opponents of the Church.
This condition was doubtless due to the prominence given the
resurrection from the dead among the themes of the apostolic preaching,
the Twelve continually bearing testimony to the actual resurrection of
Christ. Sadducean doctrine denied the actuality and possibility of a
bodily resurrection, the contention resting mainly on the ground that
Moses, who was regarded as the supreme mortal lawgiver in Israel, and
the chief mouthpiece of Jehovah, had written nothing concerning life
after death. The following is taken from Smith's _Dictionary of the
Bible_, article "Sadducees," as touching this matter: "The denial of
man's resurrection after death followed in the conception of the
Sadducees as a logical conclusion from their denial that Moses had
revealed to the Israelites the Oral Law. For on a point so momentous as
a second life beyond the grave, no religious party among the Jews would
have deemed themselves bound to accept any doctrine as an article of
faith, unless it had been proclaimed by Moses, their great legislator;
and it is certain that in the written Law of the Pentateuch there is a
total absence of any assertion by Moses of the resurrection of the dead.
This fact is presented to Christians in a striking manner by the
well-known words of the Pentateuch which are quoted by Christ in
argument with the Sadducees on this subject (Exo. 3:6, 16; Mark 12:26,
27; Matt. 22:31, 32; Luke 20:37). It cannot be doubted that in such a
case Christ would quote to His powerful adversaries the most cogent text
in the Law; and yet the text actually quoted does not do more than
suggest an inference on this great doctrine. It is true that passages in
other parts of the Old Testament express a belief in the resurrection
(Isa. 26:19; Dan. 12:2; Job 19:26; and in some of the Psalms); and it
may at first sight be a subject of surprize that the Sadducees were not
convinced by the authority of those passages. But although the Sadducees
regarded the books which contained these passages as sacred, it is more
than doubtful whether any of the Jews regarded them as sacred in
precisely the same sense as the written Law. To the Jews Moses was and
is a colossal form, preeminent in authority above all subsequent
prophets."

5. The Temple of Herod.--"Herod's purpose in the great undertaking [that
of restoring the temple, and of enlarging it on a plan of unprecedented
magnificence] was that of aggrandizing himself and the nation, rather
than the rendering of homage to Jehovah. His proposition to rebuild or
restore the temple on a scale of increased magnificence was regarded
with suspicion and received with disfavor by the Jews, who feared that
were the ancient edifice demolished, the arbitrary monarch might abandon
his plan and the people would be left without a temple. To allay these
fears the king proceeded to reconstruct and restore the old edifice,
part by part, directing the work so that at no time was the temple
service seriously interrupted. So little of the ancient structure was
allowed to stand, however, that the temple of Herod must be regarded as
a new creation. The work was begun about sixteen years before the birth
of Christ; and while the Holy House itself was practically completed
within a year and a half, this part of the labor having been performed
by a body of one thousand priests specially trained for the purpose, the
temple area was a scene of uninterrupted building operations down to the
year 63 A.D. We read that in the time of Christ's ministry the temple
had been forty-six years in building; and at that time it was
unfinished.

"The Biblical record gives us little information regarding this the last
and the greatest of ancient temples; for what we know concerning it we
are indebted, mainly to Josephus, with some corroborative testimony
found in the Talmud. In all essentials the Holy House, or Temple proper,
was similar to the two earlier houses of sanctuary, though externally
far more elaborate and imposing than either; but in the matter of
surrounding courts and associated buildings, the Temple of Herod
preeminently excelled.... Yet its beauty and grandeur lay in
architectural excellence rather than in the sanctity of its worship or
in the manifestation of the Divine Presence within its walls. Its ritual
and service were largely man-prescribed; for while the letter of the
Mosaic Law was professedly observed, the law had been supplemented and
in many features supplanted by rule and priestly prescription. The Jews
professed to consider it holy, and by them it was proclaimed as the
House of the Lord. Devoid though it was of the divine accompaniments of
earlier shrines accepted of God, and defiled as it was by priestly
arrogance and usurpation, as also by the selfish interest of traffic and
trade, it was nevertheless recognized even by our Lord the Christ as His
Father's House. (Matt. 21:12; compare Mark 11:15; Luke 19:45.).... For
thirty or more years after the death of Christ, the Jews continued the
work of adding to and embellishing the temple buildings. The elaborate
design conceived and projected by Herod had been practically completed;
the temple was well-nigh finished, and, as soon afterward appeared, was
ready for destruction. Its fate had been definitely foretold by the
Savior Himself."--From the author's _House of the Lord_, pp. 54-61.

6. State of the World at the Time of the Savior's Birth.--At the
beginning of the Christian era, the Jews, in common with most other
nations, were subjects of the Roman empire. They were allowed a
considerable degree of liberty in maintaining their religious
observances and national customs generally, but their status was far
from that of a free and independent people. The period was one of
comparative peace--a time marked by fewer wars and less dissension than
the empire had known for many years. These conditions were favorable for
the mission of the Christ, and for the founding of His Church on earth.
The religious systems extant at the time of Christ's earthly ministry
may be classified in a general way as Jewish and Pagan, with a minor
system--the Samaritan--which was essentially a mixture of the other two.
The children of Israel alone proclaimed the existence of the true and
living God; they alone looked forward to the advent of the Messiah, whom
mistakenly they awaited as a prospective conqueror coming to crush the
enemies of their nation. All other nations, tongues, and peoples, bowed
to pagan deities, and their worship comprized nought but the sensual
rites of heathen idolatry. Paganism was a religion of form and ceremony,
based on polytheism--a belief in the existence of a multitude of gods,
which deities were subject to all the vices and passions of humanity,
while distinguished by immunity from death. Morality and virtue were
unknown as elements of heathen service; and the dominant idea in pagan
worship was that of propitiating the gods, in the hope of averting their
anger and purchasing their favor.--See the author's _The Great
Apostasy_, 1:2-4, and notes following the chapter cited.

FOOTNOTES:

[144] Exo. 33:11; see also Numb. 12:8; Deut. 34:10; compare P. of G.P.,
Moses 1:2, 11, 31.

[145] P. of G.P., Moses 5:57; for later mention of the "meridian of
time," see 6:56-62; and 7:46; and compare Doc. and Cov. 20:26; 39:3.

[146] "Meridian: ... figuratively, the highest point or
culminating-point of anything; the zenith; as the meridian of
life."--"New Stand. Dict."

[147] B. of M., 3 Nephi 2:8; compare 4 Nephi 1:1, 21; Mormon 8:6; Moroni
10:1.

[148] Gen. 32:28; 35:10.

[149] Exo. 1:1, 7; 9:6, 7; 12:3, etc.

[150] Exo. 12:35, 40; 13:19; 15:1; Numb. 20:1, 19, 24, etc.

[151] See mention throughout the books of Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and
2 Kings, and references therein.

[152] Isa. 11:13; 17:3; Ezek, 37:16-22; Hos. 4:17.

[153] Jer. 25:11, 12; see also 29:10.

[154] Ezra 1:1-4; the author, "House of the Lord," pp. 47-53; also
"Articles of Faith" xvii:1-22.

[155] Ezra 2:64-67.

[156] "House of the Lord," pp. 51-53.

[157] Josephus, Ant. xii:6 and 7; 2 Maccabees 2:19; 10:1-8; also John
10:22.

[158] Luke 2:1.

[159] Matt. 2:1. Page 106.

[160] Note 1, end of chapter.

[161] Deut. 7:6; see also 10:15; Exo. 19:5, 6; Psa. 135:4; Isa. 41:8;
45:4; compare 1 Peter 2:9.

[162] Note 6, end of chapter.

[163] 2 Kings 17:24.

[164] John 4:9; Luke 9:51-53. Pages 172, 183 herein.

[165] Note 2, end of chapter.

[166] Bab. Talmud, Sanhedrin, 90.

[167] Josephus, Ant. xx, 11:2.

[168] Note the emphasis given to this distinction in John 7:45-49; see
also 9:34.

[169] Note 3, end of chapter.

[170] Ezra 7:11; see also verses 6, 10, 12.

[171] Matt. 23:8-10; see also John 1:38; 3:2.

[172] Matt. 23:13, 14, 15, 23. etc., read the entire chapter; compare
Mark 12:38-40; Luke 20:46; see also as instances of special denunciation
of the Pharisees Luke 11:37-44. Note also that the lawyers, who were
professionally associated with the scribes, are included in the sweeping
criticism: verses 45-54. See pages 552-560 herein.

[173] 1 Maccabees 2:42; 7:13-17; 2 Maccabees 14:6.

[174] Josephus, Antiquities, xvii, 2:4.

[175] Acts 26:5; see also 23:6; Philip. 3:5.

[176] Exo. 21:23-35; Lev. 24:20; Deut. 19:21; contrast Matt 5:38-44.

[177] Note 4, end of chapter.

[178] Josephus, Antiquities xviii, 1:4.

[179] "New Stand. Dict.," under "Sadducees."

[180] Josephus, Antiquities xviii, 1:5.

[181] Numb. 6:2-21; Judges 13:5, 7; 16:17; Amos. 2:11, 12. Page 87.

[182] Matt. 22:15, 16; Mark 12:13.

[183] Luke 13:1, 2; see also John 4:45; Mark 14:70; Acts 2:7.

[184] 1 Chron. 24:1-18.

[185] Note 5, end of chapter.




CHAPTER 7.

GABRIEL'S ANNUNCIATION OF JOHN AND OF JESUS.


JOHN THE FORERUNNER.


Associated with the prophecies of the birth of Christ are predictions
concerning one who should precede Him, going before to prepare the way.
It is not surprizing that the annunciation of the immediate advent of
the forerunner was speedily followed by that of the Messiah; nor that
the proclamations were made by the same heavenly embassador--Gabriel,
sent from the presence of God.[186]

About fifteen months prior to the Savior's birth, Zacharias, a priest of
the Aaronic order, was officiating in the functions of his office in the
temple at Jerusalem. His wife, Elisabeth, was also of a priestly family,
being numbered among the descendants of Aaron. The couple had never been
blessed with children; and at the time of which we speak they were both
well stricken in years and had sorrowfully given up hope of posterity.
Zacharias belonged to the course of priests named after Abijah, and
known in later time as the course of Abia. This was the eighth in the
order of the twenty-four courses established by David the king, each
course being appointed to serve in turn a week at the sanctuary.[187] It
will be remembered that on the return of the people from Babylon only
four of the courses were represented; but of these four each averaged
over fourteen hundred men.[188]

During his week of service each priest was required to maintain
scrupulously a state of ceremonial cleanliness of person; he had to
abstain from wine, and from food except that specifically prescribed; he
had to bathe frequently; he lived within the temple precincts and thus
was cut off from family association; he was not allowed to come near the
dead, nor to mourn in the formal manner if death should rob him of even
his nearest and dearest of kin. We learn that the daily selection of the
priest who should enter the Holy Place, and there burn incense on the
golden altar, was determined by lot;[189] and furthermore we gather,
from non-scriptural history, that because of the great number of priests
the honor of so officiating seldom fell twice to the same person.

On this day the lot had fallen to Zacharias. It was a very solemn
occasion in the life of the humble Judean priest--this one day in his
life on which the special and particularly sacred service was required
of him. Within the Holy Place he was separated by the veil of the temple
only from the Oracle or Holy of Holies--the inner sanctuary into which
none but the high priest might enter, and he only on the Day of
Atonement, after long ceremonial preparation.[190] The place and the
time were conducive to the highest and most reverential feelings. As
Zacharias ministered within the Holy Place, the people without bowed
themselves in prayer, watching for the clouds of incense smoke to appear
above the great partition which formed the barrier between the place of
general assembly and the Holy Place, and awaiting the reappearance of
the priest and his pronouncement of the benediction.

Before the astonished gaze of Zacharias, at this supreme moment of his
priestly service, there appeared, standing on the right of the golden
altar of incense, an angel of the Lord. Many generations had passed in
Jewry since any visible presence other than mortal had been manifest
within the temple, either in the Holy Place or the Holy of Holies; the
people regarded personal visitations of heavenly beings as occurrences
of the past; they had come almost to believe that there were no longer
prophets in Israel. Nevertheless, there was always a feeling of anxiety,
akin to that of troubled expectancy, whenever a priest approached the
inner sanctuary, which was regarded as the particular abode of Jehovah
should He ever again condescend to visit His people. In view of these
conditions we read without surprize that this angelic presence troubled
Zacharias and caused fear to fall upon him. The words of the heavenly
visitant, however, were comforting though of startling import, embodying
as they did the unqualified assurance that the man's prayers had been
heard, and that his wife should bear him a son, who must be named
John.[191] The promise went even further, specifying that the child to
be born of Elisabeth would be a blessing to the people; many would
rejoice at his birth; he would be great in the sight of the Lord, and
must be guarded against wine and strong drink;[192] he would be filled
with the Holy Ghost, would be the means of turning many souls to God,
and would go before to make ready a people prepared to receive the
Messiah.

Doubtless Zacharias recognised in the predicted future of the yet unborn
child the great forerunner, of whom the prophets had told and the
psalmist had sung; but that such a one should be offspring of himself
and his aged wife seemed impossible despite the angel's promise. The man
doubted, and asked whereby he should know that what his visitant had
spoken was true: "And the angel answering said unto him, I am Gabriel,
that stand in the presence of God; and am sent to speak unto thee, and
to show thee these glad tidings. And, behold, thou shalt be dumb, and
not able to speak, until the day that these things shall be performed,
because thou believest not my words, which shall be fulfilled in their
season."[193] When the highly blessed though sorely smitten priest at
length came from within and appeared before the expectant congregation,
already made anxious by his delayed return, he could but mutely dismiss
the assembly and by signs indicate that he had seen a vision. The
penalty for doubt was already operative; Zacharias was dumb.

In due time the child was born, there in the hill country of Judea[194]
where Zacharias and Elisabeth had their home; and, on the eighth day
following the birth the family assembled in accordance with custom and
Mosaic requirement, to name the babe in connection with the rite of
circumcision.[195] All suggestions that he be called after his father
were overruled by Zacharias, who wrote with decisive finality: "His name
is John." Thereupon the dumb[196] priest's tongue was loosed, and being
filled with the Holy Ghost he burst forth in prophecy, praise and song;
his inspired utterances have been set to music and are sung in worship
by many Christian congregations as the Benedictus:

    "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and
    redeemed his people, and hath raised up an horn of salvation for
    us in the house of his servant David; as he spake by the mouth
    of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began:
    that we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of
    all that hate us; to perform the mercy promised to our fathers,
    and to remember his holy covenant; the oath which he sware to
    our father Abraham, that he would grant unto us, that we being
    delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without
    fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of
    our life. And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the
    Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to
    prepare his ways; to give knowledge of salvation unto his people
    by the remission of their sins, through the tender mercy of our
    God; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us, to give
    light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
    to guide our feet into the way of peace."[197]

The last words Zacharias had uttered prior to the infliction of dumbness
were words of doubt and unbelief, words in which he had called for a
sign as proof of authority of one who came from the presence of the
Almighty; the words with which he broke his long silence were words of
praise unto God in whom he had all assurance, words that were as a sign
to all who heard, and the fame whereof spread throughout the region.

The unusual circumstances attending the birth of John, notably the
months of dumbness passed by the father and his sudden recovery of
speech on the bestowal of the fore-appointed name, caused many to marvel
and some to fear, as they asked: "What manner of child shall this be?"
When, a man grown, John raised his voice in the wilderness, again in
fulfillment of prophecy, the people questioned as to whether he was not
the Messiah.[198] Of his life between infancy and the beginning of his
public ministry, a period of approximately thirty years, we have of
record but a single sentence: "And the child grew, and waxed strong in
spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his shewing unto
Israel."[199]


THE ANNUNCIATION TO THE VIRGIN.

Six months after the visitation of Gabriel to Zacharias, and three
months prior to the birth of John, the same heavenly messenger was sent
to a young woman named Mary, who lived at Nazareth, a town in Galilee.
She was of the lineage of David; and though unmarried was betrothed or
espoused to a man named Joseph, who also was of royal descent through
the Davidic line. The angel's salutation, while full of honor and
blessing, caused Mary to wonder and to feel troubled. "Hail, thou that
art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among
women";[200] thus did Gabriel greet the virgin.

In common with other daughters of Israel, specifically those of the
tribe of Judah and of known descent from David, Mary had doubtless
contemplated, with holy joy and ecstasy, the coming of the Messiah
through the royal line; she knew that some Jewish maiden was yet to
become the mother of the Christ. Was it possible that the angel's words
to her had reference to this supreme expectation and hope of the nation?
She had little time to turn these things in her mind, for the angel
continued: "Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And,
behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and
shalt call his name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the
Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of
his father David: and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever;
and of his kingdom there shall be no end."[201]

Even yet she comprehended but in part the import of this momentous
visitation. Not in the spirit of doubt such as had prompted Zacharias to
ask for a sign, but through an earnest desire for information and
explanation, Mary, conscious of her unmarried status and sure of her
virgin condition, asked: "How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?"
The answer to her natural and simple inquiry was the announcement of a
miracle such as the world had never known--not a miracle in the sense of
a happening contrary to nature's law, nevertheless a miracle through the
operation of higher law, such as the human mind ordinarily fails to
comprehend or regard as possible. Mary was informed that she would
conceive and in time bring forth a Son, of whom no mortal man would be
the father:--"And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost
shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow
thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall
be called the Son of God."[202]

Then the angel told her of the blessed condition of her cousin
Elisabeth, who had been barren; and by way of sufficient and final
explanation added: "For with God nothing shall be impossible." With
gentle submissiveness and humble acceptance, the pure young virgin
replied: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to
thy word."

His message delivered, Gabriel departed, leaving the chosen Virgin of
Nazareth to ponder over her wondrous experience. Mary's promised Son was
to be "The Only Begotten" of the Father in the flesh; so it had been
both positively and abundantly predicted. True, the event was
unprecedented; true also it has never been paralleled; but that the
virgin birth would be unique was as truly essential to the fulfilment of
prophecy as that it should occur at all. That Child to be born of Mary
was begotten of Elohim, the Eternal Father, not in violation of natural
law but in accordance with a higher manifestation thereof; and, the
offspring from that association of supreme sanctity, celestial Sireship,
and pure though mortal maternity, was of right to be called the "Son of
the Highest." In His nature would be combined the powers of Godhood with
the capacity and possibilities of mortality; and this through the
ordinary operation of the fundamental law of heredity, declared of God,
demonstrated by science, and admitted by philosophy, that living beings
shall propagate--after their kind. The Child Jesus was to inherit the
physical, mental, and spiritual traits, tendencies, and powers that
characterized His parents--one immortal and glorified--God, the other
human--woman.

Jesus Christ was to be born of mortal woman, but was not directly the
offspring of mortal man, except so far as His mother was the daughter of
both man and woman. In our Lord alone has been fulfilled the word of God
spoken in relation to the fall of Adam, that the _seed of the woman_
should have power to overcome Satan by bruising the serpent's head.[203]

In respect to place, condition, and general environment, Gabriel's
annunciation to Zacharias offers strong contrast to the delivery of his
message to Mary. The prospective forerunner of the Lord was announced to
his father within the magnificent temple, and in a place the most
exclusively sacred save one other in the Holy House, under the light
shed from the golden candlestick, and further illumined by the glow of
living coals on the altar of gold; the Messiah was announced to His
mother in a small town far from the capital and the temple, most
probably within the walls of a simple Galilean cottage.


MARY'S VISIT TO HER COUSIN ELISABETH.

It was natural that Mary, left now to herself with a secret in her soul,
holier, greater, and more thrilling than any ever borne before or since,
should seek companionship, and that of some one of her own sex, in whom
she could confide, from whom she might hope to derive comfort and
support, and to whom it would be not wrong to tell what at that time was
probably known to no mortal save herself. Her heavenly visitant had
indeed suggested all this in his mention of Elisabeth, Mary's cousin,
herself a subject of unusual blessing, and a woman through whom another
miracle of God had been wrought. Mary set out with haste from Nazareth
for the hill country of Judea, on a journey of about a hundred miles if
the traditional account be true that the little town of Juttah was the
home of Zacharias. There was mutual joy in the meeting between Mary the
youthful virgin, and Elisabeth, already well advanced in life. From what
of Gabriel's words her husband had communicated, Elisabeth must have
known that the approaching birth of her son would soon be followed by
that of the Messiah, and that therefore the day for which Israel had
waited and prayed through the long dark centuries was about to dawn.
When Mary's salutation fell upon her ears, the Holy Ghost bore witness
that the chosen mother of the Lord stood before her in the person of her
cousin; and as she experienced the physical thrill incident to the
quickening spirit of her own blessed conception, she returned the
greeting of her visitor with reverence: "Blessed art thou among women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me, that the
mother of my Lord should come to me?"[204] Mary responded with that
glorious hymn of praise, since adopted in the musical ritual of churches
as the Magnificat:

    "My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in
    God my Saviour. For he hath regarded the low estate of his
    handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall
    call me blessed. For he that is mighty hath done to me great
    things; and holy is his name. And his mercy is on them that fear
    him from generation to generation. He hath shewed strength with
    his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their
    hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and
    exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good
    things; and the rich he hath sent empty away. He hath holpen his
    servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy; as he spake to our
    fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed for ever."[205]


MARY AND JOSEPH.

The visit lasted about three months, after which time Mary returned to
Nazareth. The real embarrassment of her position she had now to meet. At
the home of her cousin she had been understood; her condition had served
to confirm the testimony of Zacharias and Elisabeth; but how would her
word be received at her own home? And especially, how would she be
regarded by her espoused husband?[206] Betrothal, or espousal, in that
time was in some respects as binding as the marriage vow, and could only
be set aside by a ceremonial separation akin to divorce; yet an espousal
was but an engagement to marry, not a marriage. When Joseph greeted his
promised bride after her three months' absence, he was greatly
distressed over the indications of her prospective maternity. Now the
Jewish law provided for the annulment of a betrothal in either of two
ways--by public trial and judgment, or by private agreement attested by
a written document signed in the presence of witnesses. Joseph was a
just man, a strict observer of the law, yet no harsh extremist; moreover
he loved Mary and would save her all unnecessary humiliation, whatever
might be his own sorrow and suffering. For Mary's sake he dreaded the
thought of publicity; and therefore determined to have the espousal
annulled with such privacy the law allowed. He was troubled and thought
much of his duty in the matter, when, "behold, the angel of the Lord
appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear
not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her
is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt
call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins."[207]

Great was Joseph's relief of mind; and great his joy in the realization
that the long predicted coming of the Messiah was at hand; the words of
the prophets would be fulfilled; a virgin, and she the one in the world
most dear to him, had conceived, and in due time would bring forth that
blessed Son, Emmanuel, which name by interpretation means "God with
us."[208] The angel's salutation was significant; "Joseph, thou son of
David," was the form of address; and the use of that royal title must
have meant to Joseph that, though he was of kingly lineage, marriage
with Mary would cast no shadow upon his family status. Joseph waited
not; to insure Mary all possible protection and establish his full legal
right as her lawful guardian he hastened the solemnization of the
marriage, and "did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took
unto him his wife: and knew her not till she had brought forth her
firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS."[209]

The national hope of a Messiah based on promise and prophecy had become
confused in the Jewish mind, through the influence of rabbinism with its
many vagaries, and its "private interpretation"[210] made to appear
authoritative by the artificially sustained prestige of the expositors;
yet certain conditions had been emphasized as essential, even by the
rabbis, and by these essentials would be judged the claim of any Jew who
might declare himself to be the long expected One. It was beyond
question that the Messiah was to be born within the tribe of Judah and
through the line of descent from David, and, being of David He must of
necessity be of the lineage of Abraham, through whose posterity,
according to the covenant, all nations of the earth were to be
blessed.[211]

Two genealogical records, purporting to give the lineage of Jesus are
found in the New Testament, one in the first chapter of Matthew, the
other in the third chapter of Luke. These records present several
apparent discrepancies, but such have been satisfactorily reconciled by
the research of specialists in Jewish genealogy. No detailed analysis of
the matter will be attempted here; but it should be borne in mind that
the consensus of judgment on the part of investigators is that Matthew's
account is that of the royal lineage, establishing the order of sequence
among the legal successors to the throne of David, while the account
given by Luke is a personal pedigree, demonstrating descent from David
without adherence to the line of legal succession to the throne through
primogeniture or nearness of kin.[212] Luke's record is regarded by
many, however, as the pedigree of Mary, while Matthew's is accepted as
that of Joseph. The all important fact to be remembered is that the
Child promised by Gabriel to Mary, the virginal bride of Joseph, would
be born in the royal line. A personal genealogy of Joseph was
essentially that of Mary also, for they were cousins. Joseph is named as
son of Jacob by Matthew, and as son of Heli by Luke; but Jacob and Heli
were brothers, and it appears that one of the two was the father of
Joseph and the other the father of Mary and therefore father-in-law to
Joseph. That Mary was of Davidic descent is plainly set forth in many
scriptures; for since Jesus was to be born of Mary, yet was not begotten
by Joseph, who was the reputed, and, according to the law of the Jews,
the legal, father, the blood of David's posterity was given to the body
of Jesus through Mary alone. Our Lord, though repeatedly addressed as
Son of David, never repudiated the title but accepted it as rightly
applied to Himself.[213] Apostolic testimony stands in positive
assertion of the royal heirship of Christ through earthly lineage, as
witness the affirmation of Paul, the scholarly Pharisee: "Concerning his
Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according
to the flesh;" and again: "Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of
David was raised from the dead."[214]

In all the persecutions waged by His implacable haters, in all the false
accusations brought against Him, in the specific charges of sacrilege
and blasphemy based on His acknowledgment of the Messiahship as His own,
no mention is found of even an insinuation that He could not be the
Christ through any ineligibility based on lineage. Genealogy was
assiduously cared for by the Jews before, during, and after the time of
Christ; indeed their national history was largely genealogical record;
and any possibility of denying the Christ because of unattested descent
would have been used to the fullest extent by insistent Pharisee,
learned scribe, haughty rabbi, and aristocratic Sadducee.

At the time of the Savior's birth, Israel was ruled by alien monarchs.
The rights of the royal Davidic family were unrecognized; and the ruler
of the Jews was an appointee of Rome. Had Judah been a free and
independent nation, ruled by her rightful sovereign, Joseph the
carpenter would have been her crowned king; and his lawful successor to
the throne would have been Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.

Gabriel's annunciation to Mary was that of the Son of David, on whose
coming the hope of Israel rested as on a sure foundation. The One, thus
announced, was Emmanuel, even God who was to dwell in flesh with His
people,[215] the Redeemer of the world, Jesus the Christ.


NOTES TO CHAPTER 7.

1. John the Baptist Regarded as a Nazarite.--The instruction of the
angel Gabriel to Zacharias, that the promised son, John, was to "drink
neither wine nor strong drink," and the adult life of John as a dweller
in the desert, together with his habit of wearing rough garb, have led
commentators and Biblical specialists to assume that he was a "Nazarite
for life." It is to be remembered, however, that nowhere in scripture
extant is John the Baptist definitely called a Nazarite. A Nazarite, the
name signifying _consecrated_ or _separated_, was one, who by personal
vow or by that made for him by his parents, was set apart to some
special labor or course of life involving self denial. (See page 67).
Smith's _Comp. Dict, of the Bible_ says: "There is no notice in the
Pentateuch of Nazarites for life; but the regulations for the vow of a
Nazarite of days are given (Numb. 6:1-2). The Nazarite, during the term
of his consecration, was bound to abstain from wine, grapes, and every
production of the vine, and from every kind of intoxicating drink. He
was forbidden to cut the hair of his head, or to approach any dead body,
even that of his nearest relation." The sole instance of a Nazarite for
life named in the scriptures is that of Samson, whose mother was
required to put herself under Nazarite observances prior to his birth,
and the child was to be a Nazarite to God from his birth (Judges 13:3-7,
14). In the strictness of his life, John the Baptist is to be credited
with all the personal discipline required of Nazarites whether he was
under voluntary or parental vows or was not so bound.

2. Circumcision, while not exclusively a Hebrew or an Israelitish
practise, was made a definite requirement through the revelations of God
to Abraham, as the sign of the covenant between Jehovah and the
patriarch. (Gen. 17:9-14.) This covenant was made to include the
establishment of Abraham's posterity as a great nation, and provided
that through his descendants should all nations of the earth be blessed
(Gen. 22:18)--a promise which has been proved to mean that through that
lineage should the Messiah be born. Circumcision was a binding
condition; and its practise therefore became a national characteristic.
Every male was to be circumcized eight days after birth (Gen. 17:12;
Lev. 12:3). This requirement as to age came to be so rigidly enforced,
that even if the eighth day fell on a Sabbath the rite had to be
performed on that day (John 7:22, 23). All male slaves had to be
circumcized (Gen. 17:12, 13) and even strangers who sojourned with the
Hebrews and desired to partake of the Passover with them had to submit
to the requirement (Exo. 12:48). From the _Standard Bible Dictionary_ we
take the following: "The ceremony indicated the casting off of
uncleanness as a preparation for entrance into the privileges of
membership in Israel. In the New Testament, with its transfer of
emphasis from the external and formal to the inner and spiritual side of
things, it was first declared unnecessary for Gentile converts to the
gospel to be circumcized (Acts 15:28), and afterward the rite was set
aside even by Jewish Christians." It became customary to name a child at
the time it was circumcized, as is instanced in the case of John, son of
Zacharias (Luke 1:59).

3. Zacharias' Affliction.--The sign for which Zacharias asked was thus
given by the angel: "Behold, thou shalt be dumb, and not able to speak,
until the day that these things shall be performed, because thou
believest not my words, which shall be fulfilled in their season." (Luke
1:20.) From the account of the circumcision and naming of the boy, John,
it is held by some that the afflicted father was also deaf, as the
company "made signs" to him as to how he would have his son named (verse
62).

4. Jewish Betrothal.--The vow of espousal, or betrothal, has always been
regarded as sacred and binding in Jewish law. In a manner it was as
binding as a marriage ceremony, though it carried none of the particular
rights of marriage. The following succinct statements are taken from
Geikie's _Life and Words of Christ_, vol. I. p. 99: "Among the Jews of
Mary's day it was even more of an actual engagement [than it later came
to be]. The betrothal was formally made with rejoicings in the house of
the bride under a tent or slight canopy raised for the purpose. It was
called the 'making sacred' as the bride thenceforth was sacred to her
husband in the strictest sense. To make it legal, the bridegroom gave
his betrothed a piece of money, or the worth of it, before witnesses,
with the words, 'Lo, thou art betrothed unto me,' or by a formal writing
in which similar words and the maiden's name were given, and this in the
same way was handed to her before witnesses."

5. Genealogies of Joseph and Mary.--"It is now almost certain that the
genealogies in both Gospels are genealogies of Joseph, which if we may
rely on early traditions of their consanguinity involve genealogies of
Mary also. The Davidic descent of Mary is implied in Acts 2:30; 13:23;
Rom. 1:3; Luke 1:32, etc. St. Matthew gives the legal descent of Joseph
through the elder and regal line, as heir to the throne of David; St.
Luke gives the natural descent. Thus, the real father of Salathiel was
heir of the house of Nathan, but the childless Jeconiah (Jer. 22:30) was
the last lineal representative of the elder kingly line. The omission of
some obscure names and the symmetrical arrangement, into tesseradecads
were common Jewish customs. It is not too much to say that after the
labors of Mill (_On the Mythical Interpretation of the Gospels_, pp.
147-217) and Lord A. C. Hervey (_On the Genealogies of Our Lord_, 1853)
scarcely a single difficulty remains in reconciling the apparent
divergencies. And thus in this as in so many other instances, the very
discrepancies which appear to be most irreconcilable, and most fatal to
the historic accuracy of the four evangelists, turn out, on closer and
more patient investigation, to be fresh proofs that they are not only
entirely independent, but also entirely trustworthy."--Farrar, _Life of
Christ_, p. 27, note.

The writer of the article "Genealogy of Jesus Christ" in Smith's _Bible
Dict_, says: "The New Testament gives us the genealogy of but one
person, our Savior (Matt. 1; Luke 3).... The following propositions will
explain the true construction of these genealogies (so Lord A. C.
Hervey): 1. They are both the genealogies of Joseph, i.e. of Jesus
Christ, as the reputed and legal son of Joseph and Mary. 2. The
genealogy of Matthew is, as Grotius asserted, Joseph's genealogy as
legal successor to the throne of David. That of Luke is Joseph's private
genealogy, exhibiting his real birth, as David's son, and thus showing
why he was heir to Solomon's crown. The simple principle that one
evangelist exhibits that genealogy which contained the successive heirs
to David's and Solomon's throne, while the other exhibits the paternal
stem of him who was the heir, explains all the anomalies of the two
pedigrees, their agreements as well as their discrepancies, and the
circumstance of there being two at all. 3. Mary, the mother of Jesus,
was probably the daughter of Jacob, and first cousin to Joseph her
husband."

A valuable contribution to the literature of this subject appears in the
_Journal of the Transactions of the Victoria Institute, or Philosophical
Society of Great Britain_, 1912, vol. 44, pp. 9-36, as an article, "The
Genealogies of our Lord," by Mrs. A. S. Lewis, and discussion thereof by
many scholars of acknowledged ability. The author, Mrs. Lewis, is an
authority on Syriac manuscripts, and is one of the two women who, in
1892, discovered in the library of St. Catherine's monastery on Mount
Sinai, the Syriac palimpsest MS. of the four Gospels. The gifted author
holds that Matthew's account attests the royal pedigree of Joseph, and
that Luke's genealogical table proves the equally royal descent of Mary.
Mrs. Lewis says: "The Sinai Palimpsest also tells us that Joseph and
Mary went to Bethlehem, to be enrolled there, because they were both of
the house and lineage of David."

Canon Girdlestone, in discussing the article, says in pertinent emphasis
of Mary's status as a princess of royal blood through descent from
David: "When the angel was foretelling to Mary the birth of the Holy
Child, he said, 'The Lord God shall give Him the throne of His father
David.' Now if Joseph, her betrothed, had alone been descended from
David, Mary would have answered, 'I am not yet married to Joseph,'
whereas she did answer simply, 'I am an unmarried woman,' which plainly
implies--if I were married, since I am descended from David, I could
infuse my royal blood into a son, but how can I have a royal son while I
am a virgin?'"

After brief mention of the Jewish law relating to adoption, wherein it
is provided (according to Hammurabi's Code, section 188), that if a man
teach his adopted son a handicraft, the son is thereby confirmed in all
the rights of heirship, Canon Girdlestone adds: "If the crown of David
had been assigned to his successor in the days of Herod it would have
been placed on the head of Joseph. And who would have been the legal
successor to Joseph? Jesus of Nazareth would have been then the King of
the Jews, and the title on the cross spoke the truth. God had raised Him
up to the house of David."

6. The Inner Sanctuary of the Temple.--The Holy of Holies in the Temple
of Herod retained the form and dimensions of the Oracle in the Temple of
Solomon; it was therefore a cube, twenty cubits in each principal
measurement. Between this and the Holy Place hung a double veil, of
finest material, elaborately embroidered. The outer of the two veils was
open at the north end, the inner at the south; so that the high priest
who entered at the appointed time once a year could pass between the
veils without exposing the Holy of Holies. The sacred chamber was empty
save for a large stone upon which the high priest sprinkled the
sacrificial blood on the Day of Atonement; this stone occupied the place
of the Ark and its Mercy Seat. Outside the veil, in the Holy Place,
stood the altar of incense, the seven-branched candlestick, and the
table of shewbread.--_The House of the Lord_, p. 59.

FOOTNOTES:

[186] Luke 1:19, 26; see also Dan. 8:16; 9:21-23.

[187] Luke 1:5; compare 1 Chron. 24:10.

[188] Ezra 2:36-39.

[189] Luke 1:8, 9; read the entire chapter.

[190] Lev. chap. 16; Heb. 9:1-7; see also "House of the Lord," p. 59,
and compare pp. 24 and 39. Note 6, end of chapter.

[191] Page 45. For other instances of children promised in spite of
barrenness due to age or other causes, see Isaac (Gen. 17:16, 17 and
21:1-3); Samson, (Judges, chap. 13); Samuel (1 Sam. chap. 1); son of the
Shunammite (2 Kings 4:14-17).

[192] Note 1, end of chapter.

[193] Luke 1:19, 20.

[194] Luke 1:57; compare verse 39.

[195] Note 2, end of chapter.

[196] Note 3, end of chapter.

[197] Luke 1:68-79.

[198] Luke 1:65, 66; see also 3:15.

[199] Luke 1:80.

[200] Luke 1:28.

[201] Luke 1:30-33.

[202] Luke 1:35; see also preceding verses, 31-33.

[203] Page 43; and Gen. 3:15.

[204] Luke 1:42; read verses 39-56.

[205] Luke 1:46-55.

[206] Note 4, end of chapter.

[207] Matt. 1:20, 21; read 18-25.

[208] Matt. 1:22-23; compare Isa. 7:14; see also 9:6.

[209] Matt. 1:24, 25.

[210] 2 Peter 1:20.

[211] Gen. 12:3; 18:18; 22:18; 26:4; compare Acts 3:25; Gal. 3:8.

[212] Note 5, end of chapter.

[213] For instances see Matt. 9:27; 15:22; 21:9; 20:30, 31, with which
compare Luke 18:38, 39.

[214] Rom. 1:3; 2 Tim. 2:8; see also Acts 2:30; 13:23; compare Psa.
132:11; see also Luke 1:32.

[215] Matt. 1:23.




CHAPTER 8.

THE BABE OF BETHLEHEM.


THE BIRTH OF JESUS.

Equally definite with the prophecies declaring that the Messiah would be
born in the lineage of David are the predictions that fix the place of
His birth at Bethlehem, a small town in Judea. There seems to have been
no difference of opinion among priests, scribes, or rabbis on the
matter, either before or since the great event. Bethlehem, though small
and of little importance in trade or commerce, was doubly endeared to
the Jewish heart as the birthplace of David and as that of the
prospective Messiah. Mary and Joseph lived in Nazareth of Galilee, far
removed from Bethlehem of Judea; and, at the time of which we speak, the
maternity of the Virgin was fast approaching.

At that time a decree went out from Rome ordering a taxing of the people
in all kingdoms and provinces tributary to the empire; the call was of
general scope, it provided "that all the world should be taxed."[216]
The taxing herein referred to may properly be understood as an
enrolment,[217] or a registration, whereby a census of Roman subjects
would be secured, upon which as a basis the taxation of the different
peoples would be determined. This particular census was the second of
three such general registrations recorded by historians as occurring at
intervals of about twenty years. Had the census been taken by the usual
Roman method, each person would have been enrolled at the town of his
residence; but the Jewish custom, for which the Roman law had respect,
necessitated registration at the cities or towns claimed by the
respective families as their ancestral homes. As to whether the
requirement was strictly mandatory that every family should thus
register at the city of its ancestors, we need not be specially
concerned; certain it is that Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem, the
city of David, to be inscribed under the imperial decree.[218]

The little town was crowded at the time, most likely by the multitude
that had come in obedience to the same summons; and, in consequence,
Joseph and Mary failed to find the most desirable accommodations and had
to be content with the conditions of an improvised camp, as travelers
unnumbered had done before, and as uncounted others have done since, in
that region and elsewhere. We cannot reasonably regard this circumstance
as evidence of extreme destitution; doubtless it entailed inconvenience,
but it gives us no assurance of great distress or suffering.[219] It was
while she was in this situation that Mary the Virgin gave birth to her
firstborn, the Son of the Highest, the Only Begotten of the Eternal
Father, Jesus the Christ.

But few details of attendant circumstances are furnished us. We are not
told how soon the birth occurred after the arrival of Mary and her
husband at Bethlehem. It may have been the purpose of the evangelist who
made the record to touch upon matters of purely human interest as
lightly as was consistent with the narration of fact, in order that the
central truth might neither be hidden nor overshadowed by unimportant
incident. We read in Holy Writ this only of the actual birth: "And so it
was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she
should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and
wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there
was no room for them at the inn."[220]

In vivid contrast with the simplicity and brevity of the scriptural
account and of its paucity of incidental details, is the mass of
circumstance supplied by the imagination of men, much of which is wholly
unsupported by authoritative record and in many respects is plainly
inconsistent and untrue. It is the part of prudence and wisdom to
segregate and keep distinctly separate the authenticated statements of
fact, in so momentous a matter, from the fanciful commentaries of
historians, theologians, and writers of fiction, as also from the
emotional rhapsodies of poets and artistic extravaganzas wrought by
chisel or brush.

From the period of its beginning, Bethlehem had been the home of people
engaged mostly in pastoral and agricultural pursuits. It is quite in
line with what is known of the town and its environs to find at the
season of Messiah's birth, which was in the springtime of the year, that
flocks were in the field both night and day under the watchful care of
their keepers. Unto certain of these humble shepherds came the first
proclamation that the Savior had been born. Thus runs the simple record:
"And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field,
keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord
came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and
they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for,
behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all
people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour,
which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you: Ye shall
find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And
suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host
praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth
peace, good will toward men."[221]

Tidings of such import had never before been delivered by angel or
received by man--good tidings of great joy, given to but few and those
among the humblest of earth, but destined to spread to all people. There
is sublime grandeur in the scene, as there is divine authorship in the
message, and the climax is such as the mind of man could never have
conceived--the sudden appearance of a multitude of the heavenly host,
singing audibly to human ears the briefest, most consistent and most
truly complete of all the songs of peace ever attuned by mortal or
spirit choir. What a consummation to be wished--Peace on earth! But how
can such come except through the maintenance of good will toward men?
And through what means could glory to God in the highest be more
effectively rendered?

The trustful and unsophisticated keepers of sheep had not asked for sign
or confirmation; their faith was in unison with the heavenly
communication; nevertheless the angel had given them what he called a
sign, to guide them in their search. They waited not, but went in haste,
for in their hearts they believed, yea, more than believed, they knew,
and this was the tenor of their resolve: "Let us now go even unto
Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath
made known unto us."[222] They found the Babe in the manger, with the
mother and Joseph near by; and, having seen, they went out and testified
to the truth concerning the Child. They returned to their flocks,
glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen.

There is meaning as deep as the pathos that all must feel in the
seemingly parenthetical remark by Luke. "But Mary kept all these things,
and pondered them in her heart."[223] It is apparent that the great
truth as to the personality and mission of her divine Son had not yet
unfolded itself in its fulness to her mind. The whole course of events,
from the salutation of Gabriel to the reverent testimony of the
shepherds concerning the announcing angel and the heavenly hosts, was
largely a mystery to that stainless mother and wife.


REQUIREMENTS OF THE LAW STRICTLY OBSERVED.

The Child was born a Jew; the mother was a Jewess, and the reputed and
legal father, Joseph, was a Jew. The true paternity of the Child was
known to but few, perhaps at that time to none save Mary, Joseph, and
possibly Elisabeth and Zacharias; as He grew He was regarded by the
people as Joseph's son.[224] The requirements of the law were carried
out with exactitude in all matters pertaining to the Child. When eight
days old He was circumcized, as was required of every male born in
Israel;[225] and at the same time He received as an earthly bestowal the
name that had been prescribed at the annunciation. He was called JESUS,
which, being interpreted is Savior; the name was rightfully His for He
came to save the people from their sins.[226]

Part of the law given through Moses to the Israelites in the wilderness
and continued in force down through the centuries, related to the
procedure prescribed for women after childbirth.[227] In compliance
therewith, Mary remained in retirement forty days following the birth of
her Son; then she and her husband brought the Boy for presentation
before the Lord as prescribed for the male firstborn of every family. It
is manifestly impossible that all such presentations could have taken
place in the temple, for many Jews lived at great distances from
Jerusalem; it was the rule, however, that parents should present their
children in the temple when possible. Jesus was born within five or six
miles from Jerusalem; He was accordingly taken to the temple for the
ceremonial of redemption from the requirement applying to the firstborn
of all Israelites except Levites. It will be remembered that the
children of Israel had been delivered from the bondage of Egypt with the
accompaniment of signs and wonders. Because of Pharaoh's repeated
refusals to let the people go, plagues had been brought upon the
Egyptians, one of which was the death of the firstborn throughout the
land, excepting only the people of Israel. In remembrance of this
manifestation of power, the Israelites were required to dedicate their
firstborn sons to the service of the sanctuary.[228] Subsequently the
Lord directed that all males belonging to the tribe of Levi should be
devoted to this special labor instead of the firstborn in every tribe;
nevertheless the eldest son was still claimed as particularly the Lord's
own, and had to be formally exempted from the earlier requirement of
service by the paying of a ransom.[229]

In connection with the ceremony of purification, every mother was
required to furnish a yearling lamb for a burnt offering, and a young
pigeon or dove for a sin offering; but in the case of any woman who was
unable to provide a lamb, a pair of doves or pigeons might be offered.
We learn of the humble circumstances of Joseph and Mary from the fact
that they brought the less costly offering, two doves or pigeons,
instead of one bird and a lamb.

Among the righteous and devout Israelites were some who, in spite of
traditionalism, rabbinism, and priestly corruption, still lived in
righteous expectation of inspired confidence, awaiting patiently the
consolation of Israel.[230] One of these was Simeon, then living in
Jerusalem. Through the power of the Holy Ghost he had gained the promise
that he should not see death until he had looked upon the Lord's Christ
in the flesh. Prompted by the Spirit he repaired to the temple on the
day of the presentation of Jesus, and recognized in the Babe the
promised Messiah. In the moment of realization that the hope of his life
had found glorious consummation, Simeon raised the Child reverently in
his arms, and, with the simple but undying eloquence that comes of God
uttered this splendid supplication, in which thanksgiving, resignation
and praise are so richly blended:

    "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according
    to thy word: for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou
    hast prepared before the face of all people; a light to lighten
    the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel."[231]

Then under the spirit of prophecy, Simeon told of the greatness of the
Child's mission, and of the anguish that the mother would be called to
endure because of Him, which would be even like unto that of a sword
piercing her soul. The Spirit's witness to the divinity of Jesus was not
to be confined to a man. There was at that time in the temple a godly
woman of great age, Anna, a prophetess who devoted herself exclusively
to temple service; and she, being inspired of God, recognized her
Redeemer, and testified of Him to all about her. Both Joseph and Mary
marveled at the things that were spoken of the Child; seemingly they
were not yet able to comprehend the majesty of Him who had come to them
through so miraculous a conception and so marvelous a birth.


WISE MEN SEARCH FOR THE KING.

Some time after the presentation of Jesus in the temple, though how long
we are not told, possibly but a few days, possibly weeks or even months,
Herod, king of Judea, was greatly troubled, as were the people of
Jerusalem in general, over the report that a Child of Prophecy--one
destined to become King of the Jews--had been born. Herod was
professedly an adherent of the religion of Judah, though by birth an
Idumean, by descent an Edomite or one of the posterity of Esau, all of
whom the Jews hated; and of all Edomites not one was more bitterly
detested than was Herod the king. He was tyrannical and merciless,
sparing neither foe nor friend who came under suspicion of being a
possible hindrance to his ambitious designs. He had his wife and several
of his sons, as well as others of his blood kindred, cruelly murdered;
and he put to death nearly all of the great national council, the
Sanhedrin. His reign was one of revolting cruelty and unbridled
oppression. Only when in danger of inciting a national revolt or in fear
of incurring the displeasure of his imperial master, the Roman emperor,
did he stay his hand in any undertaking.[232]

Rumors of the birth of Jesus reached Herod's ears in this way. There
came to Jerusalem certain men from afar, wise men they were called, and
they asked, "Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen
his star in the east, and are come to worship him."[233] Herod summoned
"all the chief priests and scribes of the people," and demanded of them
where, according to the prophets, Christ should be born. They answered
him: "In Bethlehem of Judea: for thus it is written by the prophet, And
thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes
of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my
people Israel."[234]

Herod sent secretly for the wise men, and inquired of them as to the
source of their information, and particularly as to the time at which
the star, to which they attached such significance, had appeared. Then
he directed them to Bethlehem, saying: "Go and search diligently for the
young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may
come and worship him also." As the men set out from Jerusalem on the
last stage of their journey of inquiry and search, they rejoiced
exceedingly, for the new star they had seen in the east was again
visible. They found the house wherein Mary was living with her husband
and the Babe, and as they recognized the royal Child they "fell down,
and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they
presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh."[235]
Having thus gloriously accomplished the purpose of their pilgrimage,
these devout and learned travelers prepared to return home, and would
have stopped at Jerusalem to report to the king as he had requested, but
"being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod,
they departed into their own country another way."[236]

Much has been written, beyond all possible warrant of scriptural
authority, concerning the visit of the magi, or wise men, who thus
sought and found the infant Christ. As a matter of fact, we are left
without information as to their country, nation, or tribal relationship;
we are not even told how many they were, though unauthenticated
tradition has designated them as "the three wise men," and has even
given them names; whereas they are left unnamed in the scriptures, the
only true record of them extant, and may have numbered but two or many.
Attempts have been made to identify the star whose appearance in their
eastern sky had assured the magi that the King was born; but astronomy
furnishes no satisfactory confirmation. The recorded appearance of the
star has been associated by both ancient and modern interpreters with
the prophecy of Balaam, who, though not an Israelite had blessed Israel,
and under divine inspiration had predicted: "there shall come a Star out
of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel."[237] Moreover, as
already shown, the appearance of a new star was a predicted sign
recognized and acknowledged among the people of the western world as
witness of Messiah's birth.[238]


THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT.

Herod's perfidy in directing the magi to return and report to him where
the royal Infant was to be found, falsely professing that he wished to
worship Him also, while in his heart he purposed taking the Child's
life, was thwarted by the divine warning given to the wise men as
already noted. Following their departure, the angel of the Lord appeared
to Joseph, saying: "Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and
flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod
will seek the young child to destroy him."[239] In obedience to this
command, Joseph took Mary and her Child, and set out by night on the
journey to Egypt; and there the family remained until divinely directed
to return. When it was apparent to the king that the wise men had
ignored his instructions, he was exceedingly angry; and, estimating the
earliest time at which the birth could have occurred according to the
magis' statement of the star's appearing, he ruthlessly ordered the
slaughter of "all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the
coasts thereof, from two years old and under."[240] In this massacre of
the innocents, the evangelist found a fulfilment of Jeremiah's fateful
voicing of the word of the Lord, spoken six centuries earlier and
expressed in the forceful past tense as though then already
accomplished: "In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and
weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would
not be comforted, because they are not."[241]


BIRTH OF JESUS MADE KNOWN TO THE NEPHITES.

As heretofore shown, the prophets of the western hemisphere had foretold
in great plainness the earthly advent of the Lord, and had specifically
set forth the time, place, and circumstances of His birth.[242] As the
time drew near the people were divided by conflicting opinions
concerning the reliability of these prophecies; and intolerant
unbelievers cruelly persecuted those, who, like Zacharias, Simeon, Anna,
and other righteous ones in Palestine, had maintained in faith and trust
their unwavering expectation of the coming of the Lord. Samuel, a
righteous Lamanite, who, because of his faithfulness and sacrificing
devotion had been blessed with the spirit and power of prophecy,
fearlessly proclaimed the birth of Christ as near: "And behold, he said
unto them, Behold I give unto you a sign; for five years more cometh,
and behold, then cometh the Son of God to redeem all those who shall
believe on his name."[243] The prophet told of many signs and wonders,
which were to mark the great event. As the five years ran their course,
the believers grew more steadfast, the unbelievers more violent, until
the last day of the specified period dawned; and this was the "day set
apart by the unbelievers, that all those who believed in those
traditions should be put to death, except the sign should come to pass
which had been given by Samuel the prophet."[244]

Nephi, a prophet of the time, cried unto the Lord in anguish of soul
because of the persecution of which his people were the victims; "and
behold, the voice of the Lord came unto him, saying, Lift up your head
and be of good cheer, for behold, the time is at hand, and on this night
shall the sign be given, and on the morrow come I into the world, to
shew unto the world that I will fulfil all that which I have caused to
be spoken by the mouth of my holy prophets. Behold, I come unto my own,
to fulfil all things which I have made known unto the children of men,
from the foundation of the world, and do the will, both of the Father,
and of the Son; of the Father, because of me, and of the Son, because of
my flesh. And behold, the time is at hand, and this night shall the sign
be given."[245]

The words of the prophet were fulfilled that night; for though the sun
set in its usual course there was no darkness; and on the morrow the sun
rose on a land already illumined; a day and a night and another day had
been as one day; and this was but one of the signs. A new star appeared
in the firmament of the west, even as was seen by the magi in the east;
and there were many other marvelous manifestations as the prophets had
predicted. All these things occurred on what is now known as the
American continent, six hundred years after Lehi and his little company
had left Jerusalem to come hither.


THE TIME OF THE BIRTH OF JESUS.

The time of Messiah's birth is a subject upon which specialists in
theology and history, and those who are designated in literature "the
learned," fail to agree. Numerous lines of investigation have been
followed, only to reach divergent conclusions, both as to the year and
as to the month and day within the year at which the "Christian era" in
reality began. The establishment of the birth of Christ as an event
marking a time from which chronological data should be calculated, was
first effected about 532 A.D. by Dionysius Exiguus; and as a basis for
the reckoning of time this method has come to be known as the Dionysian
system, and takes for its fundamental datum A.U.C. 753, that is to say
753 years after the founding of Rome, as the year of our Lord's birth.
So far as there exists any consensus of opinion among later scholars who
have investigated the subject, it is to the effect that the Dionysian
calculation is wrong, in that it places the birth of Christ between
three and four years too late; and that therefore our Lord was born in
the third or fourth year before the beginning of what is designated by
the scholars of Oxford and Cambridge, "the Common Account called Anno
Domini."[246]

Without attempting to analyze the mass of calculation data relating to
this subject, we accept the Dionysian basis as correct with respect to
the year, which is to say that we believe Christ to have been born in
the year known to us as B.C. 1, and, as shall be shown, in an early
month of that year. In support of this belief we cite the inspired
record known as the "Revelation on Church Government, given through
Joseph the Prophet, in April, 1830," which opens with these words: "The
rise of the Church of Christ in these last days, being one thousand
eight hundred and thirty years since the coming of our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ in the flesh."[247]

Another evidence of the correctness of our commonly accepted chronology
is furnished by the Book of Mormon record. Therein we read that "in the
commencement of the first year of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah,"
the word of the Lord came to Lehi at Jerusalem, directing him to take
his family and depart into the wilderness.[248] In the early stages of
their journey toward the sea, Lehi prophesied, as had been shown him of
the Lord, concerning the impending destruction of Jerusalem and the
captivity of the Jews. Furthermore, he predicted the eventual return of
the people of Judah from their exile in Babylon, and the birth of the
Messiah, which latter event he definitely declared would take place six
hundred years from the time he and his people had left Jerusalem.[249]
This specification of time was repeated by later prophecy;[250] and the
signs of the actual fulfilment are recorded as having been realized "six
hundred years from the time that Lehi left Jerusalem."[251] These
scriptures fix the time of the beginning of Zedekiah's reign as six
hundred years before the birth of Christ. According to the commonly
accepted reckoning, Zedekiah was made king in the year 597 B.C.[252]
This shows a discrepancy of about three years between the commonly
accepted date of Zedekiah's inauguration as king and that given in the
Book of Mormon statement; and, as already seen, there is a difference of
between three and four years between the Dionysian reckoning and the
nearest approach to an agreement among scholars concerning the beginning
of the current era. Book of Mormon chronology therefore sustains in
general the correctness of the common or Dionysian system.

As to the season of the year in which Christ was born, there is among
the learned as great a diversity of opinion as that relating to the year
itself. It is claimed by many Biblical scholars that December 25th, the
day celebrated in Christendom as Christmas, cannot be the correct date.
We believe April 6th to be the birthday of Jesus Christ as indicated in
a revelation of the present dispensation already cited,[253] in which
that day is made without qualification the completion of the one
thousand eight hundred and thirtieth year since the coming of the Lord
in the flesh. This acceptance is admittedly based on faith in modern
revelation, and in no wise is set forth as the result of chronological
research or analysis. We believe that Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem
of Judea, April 6, B.C. 1.


NOTES TO CHAPTER 8.

1. The "Taxing."--Regarding the presence of Joseph and Mary in
Bethlehem, far from their Galilean home, and the imperial decree by
compliance with which they were led there, the following notes are
worthy of consideration. Farrar (_Life of Christ_, p. 24, note), says:
"It appears to be uncertain whether the journey of Mary with her husband
was obligatory or voluntary.... Women were liable to a capitation tax,
if this enrolment also involved taxation. But, apart from any legal
necessity, it may easily be imagined that at such a moment Mary would
desire not to be left alone. The cruel suspicion of which she had been
the subject, and which had almost led to the breaking off of her
betrothal (Matt. 1:19) would make her cling all the more to the
protection of her husband." The following excerpt is from Geikie's _Life
and Words of Christ_, vol. 1, chap. 9; p. 108: "The Jewish nation had
paid tribute to Rome through their rulers, since the days of Pompey; and
the methodical Augustus, who now reigned, and had to restore order and
soundness to the finances of the empire, after the confusion and
exhaustion of the civil wars, took good care that this obligation should
neither be forgotten nor evaded. He was accustomed to require a census
to be taken periodically in every province of his vast dominions, that
he might know the number of soldiers he could levy in each, and the
amount of taxes due to the treasury.... In an empire embracing the then
known world, such a census could hardly have been made simultaneously,
or in any short or fixed time; more probably it was the work of years,
in successive provinces or kingdoms. Sooner or later, however, even the
dominions of vassal kings like Herod had to furnish the statistics
demanded by their master. He had received his kingdom on the footing of
a subject, and grew more entirely dependent on Augustus as years passed,
asking his sanction at every turn for steps he proposed to take. He
would, thus, be only too ready to meet his wish, by obtaining the
statistics he sought, as may be judged from the fact that in one of the
last years of his life, just before Christ's birth, he made the whole
Jewish nation take a solemn oath of allegiance to the emperor as well as
to himself.

"It is quite probable that the mode of taking the required statistics
was left very much to Herod, at once to show respect to him before his
people, and from the known opposition of the Jews to anything like a
general numeration, even apart from the taxation to which it was
designed to lead. At the time to which the narrative refers, a simple
registration seems to have been made, on the old Hebrew plan of
enrolling by families in their ancestral districts, of course for future
use; and thus it passed over quietly.... The proclamation having been
made through the land, Joseph had no choice but to go to Bethlehem, the
city of David, the place in which his family descent, from the house and
lineage of David, required him to be inscribed."

2. Jesus Born Amidst Poor Surroundings.--Undoubtedly the accommodations
for physical comfort amidst which Jesus was born were few and poor. But
the environment, considered in the light of the customs of the country
and time, was far from the state of abject deprivation which modern and
western ways would make it appear. "Camping out" was no unusual exigency
among travelers in Palestine at the time of our Lord's birth; nor is it
considered such to-day. It is, however, beyond question that Jesus was
born into a comparatively poor family, amidst humble surroundings
associated with the inconveniences incident to travel. Cunningham
Geikie, _Life and Words of Christ_, chap. 9, pp. 112, 113, says: "It was
to Bethlehem that Joseph and Mary were coming, the town of Ruth and
Boaz, and the early home of their own great forefather David. As they
approached it from Jerusalem they would pass, at the last mile, a spot
sacred to Jewish memory, where the light of Jacob's life went out, when
his first love, Rachel, died, and was buried, as her tomb still shows,
'in the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem.' ... Traveling in the East
has always been very different from Western ideas. As in all
thinly-settled countries, private hospitality, in early times, supplied
the want of inns, but it was the peculiarity of the East that this
friendly custom continued through a long series of ages. On the great
roads through barren or uninhabited parts, the need of shelter led, very
early, to the erection of rude and simple buildings, of varying size,
known as khans, which offered the wayfarer the protection of walls and a
roof, and water, but little more. The smaller structures consisted of
sometimes only a single empty room, on the floor of which the traveler
might spread his carpet for sleep; the larger ones, always built in a
hollow square, enclosing a court for the beasts, with water in it for
them and their masters. From immemorial antiquity it has been a favorite
mode of benevolence to raise such places of shelter, as we see so far
back as the times of David, when Chimham built a great khan near
Bethlehem, on the caravan road to Egypt."

Canon Farrar (_Life of Christ_, chap, 1) accepts the traditional belief
that the shelter within which Jesus was born was that of one of the
numerous limestone caves which abound in the region, and which are still
used by travelers as resting places. He says: "In Palestine it not
infrequently happens that the entire khan, or at any rate the portion of
it in which the animals are housed, is one of those innumerable caves
which abound in the limestone rocks of its central hills. Such seems to
have been in the case at the little town of Bethlehem-Ephratah, in the
land of Judah. Justin Martyr, the Apologist, who, from his birth at
Shechem, was familiar with Palestine, and who lived less than a century
after the time of our Lord, places the scene of the nativity in a cave.
This is, indeed, the ancient and constant tradition both of the Eastern
and the Western Churches, and it is one of the few to which, though
unrecorded in the Gospel history, we may attach a reasonable
probability."

3. Herod the Great.--The history of Herod I, otherwise known as Herod
the Great, must be sought in special works, in which the subject is
treated at length. Some of the principal facts should be considered in
our present study, and for the assistance of the student a few extracts
from works regarded as reliable are presented herewith.

Condensed from part of article in the _Standard Bible Dictionary_,
edited by Jacobus, Nourse, and Zenos; published by Funk and Wagnalls
Co., 1909:--Herod I, the son of Antipater, was early given office by his
father, who had been made procurator of Judea. The first office which
Herod held was that of governor of Galilee. He was then a young man of
about twenty-five, energetic and athletic. Immediately he set about the
eradication of the robber bands that infested his district, and soon was
able to execute the robber chief Hezekiah and several of his followers.
For this he was summoned to Jerusalem by the Sanhedrin, tried and
condemned, but with the connivance of Hyrcanus II [the high priest and
ethnarch] he escaped by night.--He went to Rome where he was appointed
King of Judea by Antony and Octavius.--For the next two years he was
engaged in fighting the forces of Antigonus, whom he finally defeated,
and in 37 B.C. gained possession of Jerusalem.--As king, Herod
confronted serious difficulties. The Jews objected to him because of his
birth and reputation. The Asmonean family regarded him as a usurper,
notwithstanding the fact that he had married Mariamne. The Pharisees
were shocked at his Hellenistic sympathies, as well as at his severe
methods of government. On the other hand the Romans held him responsible
for the order of his kingdom, and the protection of the eastern frontier
of the Republic. Herod met these various difficulties with
characteristic energy and even cruelty, and generally with cold
sagacity. Although he taxed the people severely, in times of famine he
remitted their dues and even sold his plate to get means to buy them
food. While he never became actually friendly with the Pharisees, they
profited by his hostility to the party of the Asmoneans, which led at
the beginning of his reign to the execution of a number of Sadducees who
were members of the Sanhedrin.

From Smith's _Comprehensive Dictionary of the Bible_: The latter part
"of the reign of Herod was undisturbed by external troubles, but his
domestic life was embittered by an almost uninterrupted series of
injuries and cruel acts of vengeance. The terrible acts of bloodshed
which Herod perpetrated in his own family were accompanied by others
among his subjects equally terrible, from the number who fell victims to
them. According to the well-known story, he ordered the nobles whom he
had called to him in his last moments to be executed immediately after
his decease, that so at least his death might be attended by universal
mourning. It was at the time of his fatal illness that he must have
caused the slaughter of the infants at Bethlehem" (Matt. 2:16-18).

The mortal end of the tyrant and multi-murderer is thus treated by
Farrar in his _Life of Christ_, pp. 54, 55:--"It must have been very
shortly after the murder of the innocents that Herod died. Only five
days before his death he had made a frantic attempt at suicide, and had
ordered the execution of his eldest son Antipater. His death-bed, which
once more reminds us of Henry VIII., was accompanied by circumstances of
peculiar horror; and it has been asserted that he died of a loathsome
disease, which is hardly mentioned in history, except in the case of men
who have been rendered infamous by an atrocity of persecuting zeal. On
his bed of intolerable anguish, in that splendid and luxurious palace
which he had built for himself, under the palms of Jericho, swollen with
disease and scorched by thirst, ulcerated externally and glowing
inwardly with a 'soft slow fire,' surrounded by plotting sons and
plundering slaves, detesting all and detested by all, longing for death
as a release from his tortures yet dreading it as the beginning of worse
terrors, stung by remorse yet still unslaked with murder, a horror to
all around him yet in his guilty conscience a worse terror to himself,
devoured by the premature corruption of an anticipated grave, eaten of
worms as though visibly smitten by the finger of God's wrath after
seventy years of successful villainy, the wretched old man, whom men had
called the Great, lay in savage frenzy awaiting his last hour. As he
knew that none would shed one tear for him, he determined that they
should shed many for themselves, and issued an order that, under pain of
death, the principal families of the kingdom and the chiefs of the
tribes should come to Jericho. They came, and then, shutting them in the
hippodrome, he secretly commanded his sister Salome that at the moment
of his death they should all be massacred. And so, choking as it were
with blood, devising massacres in its very delirium, the soul of Herod
passed forth into the night."

For mention of the Temple of Herod see Note 5, following Chapter 6.

4. Gifts from the Wise Men to the Child Jesus.--The scriptural account
of the visit of the wise men to Jesus and His mother states that they
"fell down and worshipped him," and furthermore that "when they had
opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and
frankincense, and myrrh." The offering of gifts to a superior in rank,
either as to worldly status or recognized spiritual endowment, was a
custom of early days and still prevails in many oriental lands. It is
worthy of note that we have no record of these men from the east
offering gifts to Herod in his palace; they did, however, impart of
their treasure to the lowly Infant, in whom they recognized the King
they had come to seek. The tendency to ascribe occult significance to
even trifling details mentioned in scripture, and particularly as
regards the life of Christ, has led to many fanciful suggestions
concerning the gold and frankincense and myrrh specified in this
incident. Some have supposed a half-hidden symbolism therein--gold a
tribute to His royal estate, frankincense an offering in recognition of
His priesthood, and myrrh for His burial. The sacred record offers no
basis for such conjecture. Myrrh and frankincense are aromatic resins
derived from plants indigenous to eastern lands, and they have been used
from very early times in medicine and in the preparation of perfumes and
incense mixtures. They were presumably among the natural productions of
the lands from which the magi came, though probably even there they were
costly and highly esteemed. Such, together with gold, which is of value
among all nations, were most appropriate as gifts for a king. Any
mystical significance one may choose to attach to the presents must be
remembered as his own supposition or fancy, and not as based on
scriptural warrant.

5. Testimonies from Shepherds and Magi.--The following instructive note
on the testimonies relating to Messiah's birth, is taken from the _Young
Men's Mutual Improvement Association Manual_ for 1897-8: "It will be
observed that the testimonies concerning the birth of the Messiah are
from two extremes, the lowly shepherds in the Judean field, and the
learned magi from the far east. We cannot think this is the result of
mere chance, but that in it may be discerned the purpose and wisdom of
God. All Israel was looking forward to the coming of the Messiah, and in
the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem, the hope of Israel--though unknown to
Israel--is fulfilled. Messiah, of whom the prophet spake, is born. But
there must be those who can testify of that truth, and hence to the
shepherds who watched their flocks by night an angel was sent to say:
'Fear not, behold I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be
to all people; for unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a
Saviour, which is Christ, the Lord.' And for a sign of the truth of the
message, they were to find the child wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying
in a manger in Bethlehem. And they went with haste and found Mary and
Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger; and when they had seen it, they
made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child.
God had raised up to Himself witnesses among the people to testify that
Messiah was born, that the hope of Israel was fulfilled. But there were
classes of people among the Jews whom these lowly shepherd witnesses
could not reach, and had they been able to reach them, the story of the
angel's visit, and the concourse of angels singing the magnificent song
of 'Peace on earth, good will to men,' would doubtless have been
accounted an idle tale of superstitious folk, deceived by their own
over-wrought imaginations or idle dreams. Hence God raised up another
class of witnesses--the 'wise men from the east'--witnesses that could
enter the royal palace of proud King Herod and boldly ask: 'Where is he
that is born king of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east,
and are come to worship him'; a testimony that startled Herod and
troubled all Jerusalem. So that indeed God raised up witnesses for
Himself to meet all classes and conditions of men--the testimony of
angels for the poor and the lowly; the testimony of wise men for the
haughty king and proud priests of Judea. So that of the things
concerning the birth of Messiah, no less than of the things of His death
and resurrection from the dead, His disciples could say, 'these things
were not done in a corner.'"

6. The Year of Christ's Birth.--In treating this topic Dr. Charles F.
Deems (_The Light of the Nations_, p. 28), after giving careful
consideration of the estimates, calculations, and assumptions of men who
have employed many means in their investigation and reach only
discordant results says: "It is annoying to see learned men use the same
apparatus of calculation and reach the most diverse results. It is
bewildering to attempt a reconciliation of these varying calculations."
In an appended note the same author states: "For example: the birth of
our Lord is placed in B.C. 1 by Pearson and Hug; B.C. 2 by Scalinger;
B.C. 3 by Baronius and Paulus; B.C. 4 by Bengel, Wieseler, and Greswell;
B.C. 5 by Usher and Petavius; B.C. 6 by Strong, Luvin, and Clark; B.C. 7
by Ideler and Sanclemente."

FOOTNOTES:

[216] Luke 2:1; see also verses 2-4. Note 1, end of chapter.

[217] Note marginal reading, Oxford and Bagster Bibles.

[218] Note 1, end of chapter.

[219] Note 2, end of chapter.

[220] Luke 2:6, 7.

[221] Luke 2:8-14.

[222] Luke 2:15.

[223] Luke 2:19.

[224] Luke 4:22; Matt. 13:55; Mark 6:3.

[225] Gen. 17:12, 13; Lev. 12:3; compare John 7:22. Page 88.

[226] Luke 2:21; compare 1:31; Matt. 1:21, 25.

[227] Lev. chap. 12.

[228] Exo. 12:29; 13:2, 12; 22:29, 30.

[229] Numb. 8:15-18; 18:15, 16.

[230] Luke 2:25; see also verse 38; Mark 15:43; compare Psa. 40:1.

[231] Luke 2:29-32. These verses are known in Christian hymnology as the
Nunc Dimittis; the name has reference to the first two words of the
Latin version.

[232] Note 3, end of chapter.

[233] Matt. 2:2; read 1-10.

[234] Matt. 2:5, 6; compare Micah 5:2; John 7:42.

[235] Note 4, end of chapter.

[236] Note 5, end of chapter.

[237] Numb. 24:17.

[238] B. of M., Helaman 14:5; 3 Nephi 1:21. Pp. 52, 101 and 721 herein.

[239] Matt. 2:13.

[240] Matt. 2:16.

[241] Matt. 2:17, 18; compare Jer. 31:15.

[242] Page 49.

[243] B. of M., Helaman 14:2; read 1-9.

[244] B. of M., 3 Nephi 1:9; read verses 4-21.

[245] B. of M., 3 Nephi 1:12-21.

[246] Marginal reading, Oxford and Bagster Bibles, Matt. 2:1.

[247] Doc. and Cov. 20:1; compare 21:3. Note 6, end of chapter.

[248] B. of M., 1 Nephi 1:4; 2:2-4.

[249] B. of M., 1 Nephi 10:4.

[250] B. of M., 1 Nephi 19:8; 2 Nephi 25:19.

[251] B. of M., 3 Nephi 1:1.

[252] "Standard Bible Dictionary," edited by Jacobus, Nourse, and Zenos,
pub. by Funk & Wagnalls Co., New York and London, 1909, p. 915, article
"Zedekiah."

[253] Doc. and Cov. 20:1; compare 21:2




CHAPTER 9.

THE BOY OF NAZARETH.


Joseph, Mary, and her Son remained in Egypt until after the death of
Herod the Great, which event was made known by another angelic
visitation. Their stay in the foreign land was probably brief, for Herod
did not long survive the babes he had slain in Bethlehem. In the return
of the family from Egypt the evangelist finds a fulfilment of Hosea's
prophetic vision of what should be: "Out of Egypt have I called my
son."[254]

It appears to have been Joseph's intention to make a home for the family
in Judea, possibly at Bethlehem--the city of his ancestors and a place
now even more endeared to him as the birthplace of Mary's Child--but,
learning on the way that Herod's son Archelaus ruled in the place of his
wicked father, Joseph modified his purpose; and, "being warned of God in
a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee: and he came and
dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was
spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene."[255]

While Archelaus, who appears to have been a natural heir to his infamous
father's wickedness and cruelty, ruled in Judea,[256] for a short time
as king, then with the less exalted title of ethnarch, which had been
decreed to him by the emperor, his brother Antipas governed as tetrarch
in Galilee. Herod Antipas was well nigh as vicious and reprobate as
others of his unprincipled family, but he was less aggressive in
vindictiveness, and in that period of his reign was comparatively
tolerant.[257]

Concerning the home life of Joseph and his family in Nazareth, the
scriptural record makes but brief mention. The silence with which the
early period of the life of Jesus is treated by the inspired historians
is impressive; while the fanciful accounts written in later years by
unauthorized hands are full of fictitious detail, much of which is
positively revolting in its puerile inconsistency. None but Joseph,
Mary, and the other members of the immediate family or close associates
of the household could have furnished the facts of daily life in the
humble home at Nazareth; and from these qualified informants Matthew and
Luke probably derived the knowledge of which they wrote. The record made
by those who knew is marked by impressive brevity. In this absence of
detail we may see evidence of the genuineness of the scriptural account.
Inventive writers would have supplied, as, later, such did supply, what
we seek in vain within the chapters of the Gospels. With hallowed
silence do the inspired scribes honor the boyhood of their Lord; he who
seeks to invent circumstances and to invest the life of Christ with
fictitious additions, dishonors Him. Read thoughtfully the attested
truth concerning the childhood of the Christ: "And the child grew, and
waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was
upon him."[258]

In such simplicity is the normal, natural development of the Boy Jesus
made clear. He came among men to experience all the natural conditions
of mortality; He was born as truly a dependent, helpless babe as is any
other child; His infancy was in all common features as the infancy of
others; His boyhood was actual boyhood, His development was as necessary
and as real as that of all children. Over His mind had fallen the veil
of forgetfulness common to all who are born to earth, by which the
remembrance of primeval existence is shut off. The Child grew, and with
growth there came to Him expansion of mind, development of faculties,
and progression in power and understanding. His advancement was from one
grace to another, not from gracelessness to grace; from good to greater
good, not from evil to good; from favor with God to greater favor, not
from estrangement because of sin to reconciliation through repentance
and propitiation.[259]

Our knowledge of Jewish life in that age justifies the inference that
the Boy was well taught in the law and the scriptures, for such was the
rule. He garnered knowledge by study, and gained wisdom by prayer,
thought, and effort. Beyond question He was trained to labor, for
idleness was abhorred then as it is now; and every Jewish boy, whether
carpenter's son, peasant's child, or rabbi's heir, was required to learn
and follow a practical and productive vocation. Jesus was all that a boy
should be, for His development was unretarded by the dragging weight of
sin; He loved and obeyed the truth and therefore was free.[260]

Joseph and Mary, devout and faithful in all observances of the law, went
up to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover. This religious
festival, it should be remembered, was one of the most solemn and sacred
among the many ceremonial commemorations of the Jews; it had been
established at the time of the peoples' exodus from Egypt, in
remembrance of the outstretched arm of power by which God had delivered
Israel after the angel of destruction had slain the firstborn in every
Egyptian home and had mercifully passed over the houses of the children
of Jacob.[261] It was of such importance that its annual recurrence was
made the beginning of the new year. The law required all males to
present themselves before the Lord at the feast. The rule was that women
should likewise attend if not lawfully detained; and Mary appears to
have followed both the spirit of the law and the letter of the rule, for
she habitually accompanied her husband to the annual gathering at
Jerusalem.

When Jesus had attained the age of twelve years He was taken by His
mother and Joseph to the feast as the law required; whether the Boy had
ever before been present on such an occasion we are not told: At twelve
years of age a Jewish boy was recognized as a member of his home
community; he was required then to enter with definite purpose upon his
chosen vocation; he attained an advanced status as an individual in that
thereafter he could not be arbitrarily disposed of as a bond-servant by
his parents; he was appointed to higher studies in school and home; and,
when accepted by the priests, he became a "son of the law." It was the
common and very natural desire of parents to have their sons attend the
feast of the Passover and be present at the temple ceremonies as
recognized members of the congregation when of the prescribed age. Thus
came the Boy Jesus to the temple.

The feast proper lasted seven days, and in the time of Christ was
annually attended by great concourses of Jews; Josephus speaks of such a
Passover gathering as "an innumerable multitude."[262] The people came
from distant provinces in large companies and caravans, as a matter of
convenience and as a means of common protection against the marauding
bands which are known to have infested the country. As members of such a
company Joseph and his family traveled.

When, following the conclusion of the Passover, the Galilean company had
gone a day's journey toward home, Joseph and Mary discovered to their
surprize and deep concern that Jesus was not with their company. After a
fruitless search among their friends and acquaintances, they turned back
toward Jerusalem seeking the Boy. Their inquiries brought little comfort
or assistance until three days had passed; then "they, found him in the
temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and
asking them questions."[263] It was no unusual thing for a twelve year
old boy to be questioned by priests, scribes, or rabbis, nor to be
permitted to ask questions of these professional expounders of the law,
for such procedure was part of the educational training of Jewish
youths; nor was there anything surprizing in such a meeting of students
and teachers within the temple courts, for the rabbis of that time were
accustomed to give instruction there; and people, young and old,
gathered about them, sitting at their feet to learn; but there was much
that was extraordinary in this interview as the demeanor of the learned
doctors showed, for never before had such a student been found, inasmuch
as "all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and
answers." The incident furnishes evidence of a wellspent boyhood and
proof of unusual attainments.[264]

The amazement of Mary and her husband on finding the Boy in such
distinguished company, and so plainly the object of deference and
respect, and the joy of seeing again the beloved One who to them had
been lost, did not entirely banish the memory of the anguish His absence
had caused them. In words of gentle yet unmistakable reproof the mother
said: "Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I
have sought thee sorrowing." The Boy's reply astonished them, in that it
revealed, to an extent they had not before realized, His rapidly
maturing powers of judgment and understanding. Said He: "How is it that
ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?"

Let us not say that there was unkind rebuke or unfilial reproof in the
answer of this most dutiful of sons to His mother. His reply was to Mary
a reminder of what she seems to have forgotten for the moment--the facts
in the matter of her Son's paternity. She had used the words "thy father
and I;" and her Son's response had brought anew to her mind the truth
that Joseph was not the Boy's father. She appears to have been
astonished that One so young should so thoroughly understand His
position with respect to herself. He had made plain to her the
inadvertent inaccuracy of her words; His Father had not been seeking
Him; for was He not even at that moment in His Father's house, and
particularly engaged in His Father's business, the very work to which
His Father had appointed Him?

He had in no wise intimated a doubt as to Mary's maternal relationship
to Himself; though He had indisputably shown that He recognized as His
Father, not Joseph of Nazareth, but the God of Heaven. Both Mary and
Joseph failed to comprehend the full import of His words. Though He
understood the superior claim of duty based on His divine Sonship, and
had shown to Mary that her authority as earthly mother was subordinate
to that of His immortal and divine Father, nevertheless He obeyed her.
Interested as were the doctors in this remarkable Boy, much as He had
given them to ponder over through His searching questions and wise
answers, they could not detain Him, for the very law they professed to
uphold enjoined strict obedience to parental authority. "And he went
down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them: but his
mother kept all these sayings in her heart."

What marvelous and sacred secrets were treasured in that mother's heart;
and what new surprizes and grave problems were added day after day in
the manifestations of unfolding wisdom displayed by her more than mortal
Son! Though she could never have wholly forgotten, at times she
seemingly lost sight of her Son's exalted personality. That such
conditions should exist was perhaps divinely appointed. There could
scarcely have been a full measure of truly human experience in the
relationship between Jesus and His mother, or between Him and Joseph,
had the fact of His divinity been always dominant or even prominently
apparent. Mary appears never to have fully understood her Son; at every
new evidence of His uniqueness she marveled and pondered anew. He was
hers, and yet in a very real sense not wholly hers. There was about
their relation to each other a mystery, awful yet sublime, a holy secret
which that chosen and blessed mother hesitated even to tell over to
herself. Fear must have contended with joy within her soul because of
Him. The memory of Gabriel's glorious promises, the testimony of the
rejoicing shepherds, and the adoration of the magi must have struggled
with that of Simeon's portentous prophecy, directed to herself in
person: "Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also."[265]

As to the events of the eighteen years following the return of Jesus
from Jerusalem to Nazareth, the scriptures are silent save for one rich
sentence of greatest import: "And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature,
and in favor with God and man."[266] Plainly this Son of the Highest was
not endowed with a fulness of knowledge, nor with the complete
investiture of wisdom, from the cradle.[267] Slowly the assurance of His
appointed mission as the Messiah, of whose coming He read in the law,
the prophets, and the psalms, developed within His soul; and in devoted
preparation for the ministry that should find culmination on the cross
He passed the years of youth and early manhood. From the chronicles of
later years we learn that He was reputed without question to be the son
of Joseph and Mary, and was regarded as the brother of other and younger
children of the family. He was spoken of both as a carpenter and a
carpenter's son; and, until the beginning of His public ministry He
appears to have been of little prominence even in the small home
community.[268]

He lived the simple life, at peace with His fellows, in communion with
His Father, thus increasing in favor with God and men. As shown by His
public utterances after He had become a man, these years of seclusion
were spent in active effort, both physical and mental. Jesus was a close
observer of nature and men. He was able to draw illustrations with which
to point His teachings from the varied occupations, trades and
professions; the ways of the lawyer and the physician, the manners of
the scribe, the Pharisee and the rabbi, the habits of the poor, the
customs of the rich, the life of the shepherd, the farmer, the
vinedresser and the fisherman--were all known to Him. He considered the
lilies of the field, and the grass in meadow and upland, the birds which
sowed not nor gathered into barns but lived on the bounty of their
Maker, the foxes in their holes, the petted house dog and the vagrant
cur, the hen sheltering her brood beneath protecting wings--all these
had contributed to the wisdom in which He grew, as had also the moods of
the weather, the recurrence of the seasons, and all the phenomena of
natural change and order.

Nazareth was the abode of Jesus until He was about thirty years of age;
and, in accordance with the custom of designating individuals by the
names of their home towns as additions to their personal names,[269] our
Lord came to be generally known as Jesus of Nazareth.[270] He is also
referred to as a Nazarene, or a native of Nazareth, and this fact is
cited by Matthew as a fulfilment of earlier prediction, though our
current compilation of scriptures constituting the Old Testament
contains no record of such prophecy. It is practically certain that this
prediction was contained in some one of the many scriptures extant in
earlier days but since lost.[271] That Nazareth was an obscure village,
of little honor or renown, is evidenced by the almost contemptuous
question of Nathanael, who, on being informed that the Messiah had been
found in Jesus of Nazareth, asked: "Can there any good thing come out of
Nazareth?"[272] The incredulous query has passed into a proverb current
even today as expressive of any unpopular or unpromising source of good.
Nathanael lived in Cana, but a few miles from Nazareth, and his surprize
at the tidings brought by Philip concerning the Messiah incidentally
affords evidence of the seclusion in which Jesus had lived.

So passed the boyhood, youth, and early manhood of the Savior of
mankind.


NOTES TO CHAPTER 9.

1. Archelaus Reigned in Herod's Stead.--"At his death Herod [the Great]
left a will according to which his kingdom was to be divided among his
three sons. Archelaus was to have Judea, Idumea, and Samaria, with the
title of king (Matt 2:22). Herod Antipas was to receive Galilee and
Perea, with the title of tetrarch; Philip was to come into possession of
the trans-Jordan territory with the title of tetrarch (Luke 3:1). This
will was ratified by Augustus with the exception of the title given to
Archelaus. Archelaus, after the ratification of Herod's will by
Augustus, succeeded to the rule of Judea, Samaria, and Idumea, having
the title of ethnarch, with the understanding that, if he ruled well, he
was to become king. He was, however, highly unpopular with the people,
and his reign was marked by disturbances and acts of oppression. The
situation became finally so intolerable that the Jews appealed to
Augustus, and Archelaus was removed and sent into exile. This accounts
for the statement in Matt. 2:22, and possibly also suggested the point
of the parable (Luke 19:12, etc.)."--_Standard Bible Dictionary_, Funk
and Wagnalls Co., article "Herod." Early in his reign he wreaked summary
vengeance on the people who ventured to protest against a continuation
of his father's violence, by slaughtering three thousand or more; and
the awful deed of carnage was perpetrated in part within the precincts
of the temple. (Josephus, Antiquities xvii, 9:1-3.)

2. Herod Antipas.--Son of Herod I (the Great) by a Samaritan woman, and
full brother to Archelaus. By the will of his father he became tetrarch
of Galilee and Perea (Matt. 14:1; Luke 3:19; 9:7; Acts 13:1; compare
Luke 3:1). He repudiated his wife, a daughter of Aretas, king of Arabia
Petrea, and entered into an unlawful union with Herodias, the wife of
his half-brother Herod Philip I (not the tetrarch Philip). John the
Baptist was imprisoned and finally put to death, through the anger of
Herodias over his denunciation of her union with Herod Antipas. Herodias
urged Antipas to go to Rome and petition Cæsar for the title of king
(compare Mark 6:14, etc.). Antipas is the Herod most frequently
mentioned in the New Testament (Mark 6:17; 8:15; Luke 3:1; 9:7; 13:31;
Acts 4:27; 13:1). He was the Herod to whom Pilate sent Jesus for
examination, taking advantage of Christ being known as a Galilean, and
of the coincident fact of Herod's presence in Jerusalem at the time in
attendance at the Passover (Luke 23:6, etc.). For further details see
Smith's, Cassell's, or the Standard Bible Dictionary.

3. Testimony of John the Apostle Concerning Christ's Development in
Knowledge and Grace.--In a modern revelation, Jesus the Christ has
confirmed the record of John the apostle, which record appears but in
part in our compilation of ancient scriptures. John thus attests the
actuality of natural development in the growth of Jesus from childhood
to maturity: "And I, John, saw that he received not of the fullness at
the first, but received grace for grace; and he received not of the
fullness at first, but continued from grace to grace, until he received
a fullness; and thus he was called the Son of God, because he received
not of the fullness at the first." (Doc. and Cov. 93:12-14).
Notwithstanding this graded course of growth and development after His
birth in the flesh, Jesus Christ had been associated with the Father
from the beginning, as is set forth in the revelation cited. We read
therein: "And he [John] bore record, saying, I saw his glory that he was
in the beginning before the world was; therefore in the beginning the
Word was, for he was the Word, even the messenger of salvation, the
light and the Redeemer of the world; the Spirit of truth, who came into
the world, because the world was made by him, and in him was the life of
men and the light of men. The worlds were made by him: men were made by
him: all things were made by him, and through him, and of him. And I,
John, bear record that I beheld his glory, as the glory of the Only
Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, even the Spirit of
truth, which came and dwelt in the flesh, and dwelt among us" (verses
7-11).

4. Missing Scripture.--Matthew's commentary on the abode of Joseph, Mary
and Jesus at Nazareth, "and he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth:
that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, he shall be
called a Nazarene" (2:23), with the fact that no such saying of the
prophets is found in any of the books contained in the Bible, suggests
the certainty of lost scripture. Those who oppose the doctrine of
continual revelation between God and His Church, on the ground that the
Bible is complete as a collection of sacred scriptures, and that alleged
revelation not found therein must therefore be spurious, may profitably
take note of the many books not included in the Bible, yet mentioned
therein, generally in such a way as to leave no doubt that they were
once regarded as authentic. Among these extra-Biblical scriptures, the
following may be named; some of them are in existence to-day, and are
classed with the Apocrypha; but the greater number are unknown. We read
of the Book of the Covenant (Exo. 24:7); Book of the Wars of the Lord
(Numb. 21:14); Book of Jasher (Josh. 10:13); Book of the Statutes (1
Sam. 10:25); Book of Enoch (Jude 14); Book of the Acts of Solomon (1
Kings 11:41); Book of Nathan the Prophet, and that of Gad the Seer (1
Chron. 29:29); Book of Ahijah the Shilonite, and visions of Iddo the
Seer (2 Chron. 9:29); Book of Shemaiah (2 Chron. 12:15); Story of the
Prophet Iddo (2 Chron. 13:22); Book of Jehu (2 Chron. 20:34); the Acts
of Uzziah, by Isaiah, the son of Amoz (2 Chron. 26:22); Sayings of the
Seers (2 Chron. 33:19); a missing epistle of Paul to the Corinthians (1
Cor. 5:9); a missing epistle to the Ephesians (Eph. 3:3); missing
epistle to the Colossians, written from Laodicea (Col. 4:16); a missing
epistle of Jude (Jude 3).

5. Nazareth.--A town or "city" in Galilee, of which Biblical mention is
found in the New Testament only. Josephus says nothing concerning the
place. The name of the existing village, or the Nazareth of to-day, is
_En-Nazirah_. This occupies an upland site on the southerly ridge of
Lebanon, and "commands a splendid view of the Plain of Esdraelon and
Mount Carmel, and is very picturesque in general" (Zenos). The author of
the article "Nazareth" in Smith's _Bible Dict._ identifies the modern
En-Nazirah, with the Nazareth of old on the following grounds: "It is on
the lower declivities of a hill or mountain (Luke 4:29); it is within
the limits of the province of Galilee (Mark 1:9); it is near Cana (John
2:1, 2, 11); a precipice exists in the neighborhood (Luke 4:29); and a
series of testimonials reaching back to Eusebius represent the place as
having occupied the same position." The same writer adds: "Its
population is 3000 or 4000; a few are Mohammedans, the rest Latin and
Greek Christians. Most of the houses are well built of stone, and appear
neat and comfortable. The streets or lanes are narrow and crooked, and
after rain are so full of mud and mire as to be almost impassable." At
the time of Christ's life the town was not only regarded as unimportant
by the Judeans who professed but little respect for Galilee or the
Galileans, but as without honor by the Galileans themselves, as appears
from the fact that the seemingly contemptuous question, "Can there any
good thing come out of Nazareth?" was uttered by Nathanael (John 1:46),
who was a Galilean and a native of Cana, a neighboring town to Nazareth
(John 21:2). Nazareth owes its celebrity to its association with events
in the life of Jesus Christ (Matt. 2:23; 13:54; Mark 1:9; 6:1; Luke
1:26; 2:4; 4:23,34; John 1:45,46; 19:19; Acts 2:22).

FOOTNOTES:

[254] Matt. 2:15; compare Hos. 11:1.

[255] Matt. 2:19-23. Note 5, end of chapter.

[256] Note 1, end of chapter.

[257] Note 2, end of chapter.

[258] Luke 2:40.

[259] Note 3, end of chapter.

[260] Compare His teachings after He had reached manhood, e.g. John
8:32.

[261] Deut. 16:1-6; compare Exo. 12:2.

[262] Josephus; Wars of the Jews, ii, 1:3.

[263] Luke 2:46; read 41-52.

[264] Compare Matt. 7:28, 29; 13:54; Mark 6:2; Luke 4:22.

[265] Luke 2:35.

[266] Luke 2:52.

[267] Note 3, end of chapter.

[268] Matt. 13:55, 56; Mark 6:3; Luke 4:22; compare Matt. 12:46, 47;
Gal. 1:19.

[269] For illustrative examples see Joseph of Arimathea (Mark 15:43);
Mary Magdalene, so known from her native town of Magdala (Matt. 27:56);
Judas Iscariot, possibly named after his home in Kerioth (Matt. 10:4;
see page 225 herein.)

[270] Matt. 21:11; John 18:5; 19:19; Acts 2:22; 3:6; see also Luke 4:16.

[271] Note 4, end of chapter.

[272] John 1:45, 46.




CHAPTER 10.

IN THE WILDERNESS OF JUDEA.


THE VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS.

At a time definitely stated as the fifteenth year of the reign of
Tiberius Cæsar, emperor of Rome, the people of Judea were greatly
aroused over the strange preaching of a man theretofore unknown. He was
of priestly descent, but untrained in the schools; and, without
authorization of the rabbis or license from the chief priests, he
proclaimed himself as one sent of God with a message to Israel. He
appeared not in the synagogs nor within the temple courts, where scribes
and doctors taught, but cried aloud in the wilderness. The people of
Jerusalem and of adjacent rural parts went out in great multitudes to
hear him. He disdained the soft garments and flowing robes of comfort,
and preached in his rough desert garb, consisting of a garment of
camel's hair held in place by a leathern girdle. The coarseness of his
attire was regarded as significant. Elijah the Tishbite, that fearless
prophet whose home had been the desert, was known in his day as "an
hairy man, and girt with a girdle of leather about his loins;"[273] and
rough garments had come to be thought of as a distinguishing
characteristic of prophets.[274] Nor did this strange preacher eat the
food of luxury and ease, but fed on what the desert supplied, locusts
and wild honey.[275]

The man was John, son of Zacharias, soon to be known as the Baptist. He
had spent many years in the desert, apart from the abodes of men, years
of preparation for his particular mission. He had been a student under
the tutelage of divine teachers; and there in the wilderness of Judea
the word of the Lord reached him;[276] as in similar environment it had
reached Moses[277] and Elijah[278] of old. Then was heard "The voice of
one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his
paths straight."[279] It was the voice of the herald, the messenger who,
as the prophets had said, should go before the Lord to prepare His
way.[280] The burden of his message was "Repent ye, for the kingdom of
heaven is at hand." And to such as had faith in his words and professed
repentance, confessing their sins, he administered baptism by immersion
in water--proclaiming the while, "I indeed baptize you with water unto
repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes
I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and
with fire."[281]

Neither the man nor his message could be ignored; his preaching was
specific in promise to the repentant soul, and scathingly denunciatory
to the hypocrite and the hardened sinner. When Pharisees and Sadducees
came to his baptism, prating of the law, the spirit of which they ceased
not to transgress, and of the prophets, whom they dishonored, he
denounced them as a generation of vipers, and demanded of them: "Who
hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" He brushed aside their
oft-repeated boasts that they were the children of Abraham, saying,
"Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance: and think not to say
within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you,
that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto
Abraham."[282] The ignoring of their claims to preferment as the
children of Abraham was a strong rebuke, and a cause of sore affront
alike to aristocratic Sadducee and rule-bound Pharisee. Judaism held
that the posterity of Abraham had an assured place in the kingdom of the
expected Messiah, and that no proselyte from among the Gentiles could
possibly attain the rank and distinction of which the "children" were
sure. John's forceful assertion that God could raise up, from the stones
on the river bank, children to Abraham, meant to those who heard that
even the lowest of the human family might be preferred before themselves
unless they repented and reformed.[283] Their time of wordy profession
had passed; fruits were demanded, not barren though leafy profusion; the
ax was ready, aye, at the very root of the tree; and every tree that
produced not good fruit was to be hewn down and cast into the fire.

The people were astonished; and many, seeing themselves in their actual
condition of dereliction and sin, as John, with burning words laid bare
their faults, cried out: "What shall we do then?"[284] His reply was
directed against ceremonialism, which had caused spirituality to wither
almost to death in the hearts of the people. Unselfish charity was
demanded--"He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none;
and he that hath meat, let him do likewise." The publicans or
tax-farmers and collectors, under whose unjust and unlawful exactions
the people had suffered so long, came asking: "Master, what shall we do?
And he said unto them, Exact no more than that which is appointed you."
To the soldiers who asked what to do he replied: "Do violence to no man,
neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages."[285]

The spirit of his demands was that of a practical religion, the only
religion of any possible worth--the religion of right living. With all
his vigor, in spite of his brusqueness, notwithstanding his forceful
assaults on the degenerate customs of the times, this John was no
agitator against established institutions, no inciter of riot, no
advocate of revolt, no promoter of rebellion. He did not assail the tax
system but the extortions of the corrupt and avaricious publicans; he
did not denounce the army, but the iniquities of the soldiers, many of
whom had taken advantage of their position to bear false witness for the
sake of gain and to enrich themselves by forcible seizure. He preached,
what in the now current dispensation we call the first or fundamental
principles of the gospel--"the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
the Son of God,"[286] comprizing faith, which is vitalized belief, in
God; genuine repentance, which comprizes contrition for past offenses
and a resolute determination to turn from sin; baptism by immersion in
water at his hands as the hands of one having authority; and the higher
baptism by fire or the bestowal of the Holy Ghost by an authority
greater than that possessed by himself. His preaching was positive, and
in many respects opposed to the conventions of the times; he made no
appeal to the people through the medium of miraculous
manifestations;[287] and though many of his hearers attached themselves
to him as disciples,[288] he established no formal organization, nor did
he attempt to form a cult. His demand for repentance was an individual
call, as unto each acceptable applicant the rite of baptism was
individually administered.

To the Jews, who were living in a state of expectancy, waiting for the
long-predicted Messiah, the words of this strange prophet in the
wilderness were fraught with deep portent. Could it be that he was the
Christ? He spoke of One yet to come, mightier than himself, whose
shoe-latchet he was not worthy to loosen,[289] One who would separate
the people as the thresher, fan in hand, blew the chaff from the wheat;
and, he added, that mightier One "will gather the wheat into his garner;
but the chaff he will burn with fire unquenchable."[290]

In such wise did the predicted herald of the Lord deliver his message.
Himself he would not exalt; his office, however, was sacred to him, and
with its functions he brooked no interference from priest, Levite, or
rabbi. He was no respecter of persons; sin he denounced, sinners he
excoriated, whether in priestly vestments, peasant garb, or royal robes.
All the claims the Baptist had made for himself and his mission were
later confirmed and vindicated by the specific testimony of Christ.[291]
John was the harbinger not alone of the kingdom but of the King; and to
him the King in person came.


THE BAPTISM OF JESUS--TO FULFIL ALL RIGHTEOUSNESS.

When Jesus "began to be about thirty years of age," He journeyed from
His home in Galilee "to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him. But
John forbad him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest
thou to me? And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now;
for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered
him."[292]

John and Jesus were second cousins; as to whether there had existed any
close companionship between the two as boys or men we are not told. It
is certain, however, that when Jesus presented Himself for baptism, John
recognized in Him a sinless Man who stood in no need of repentance; and,
as the Baptist had been commissioned to baptize for the remission of
sins, he saw no necessity of administering the ordinance to Jesus. He
who had received the confessions of multitudes now reverently confessed
to One whom he knew was more righteous than himself. In the light of
later events it appears that at this time John did not know that Jesus
was the Christ, the Mightier One for whom he waited and whose forerunner
he knew himself to be. When John expressed his conviction that Jesus
needed no baptismal cleansing, our Lord, conscious of His own
sinlessness, did not deny the Baptist's imputation, but nevertheless
pressed His application for baptism with the significant explanation:
"Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness." If John was able to
comprehend the deeper meaning of this utterance, he must have found
therein the truth that water baptism is not alone the means provided for
gaining remission of sins, but is also an indispensable ordinance
established in righteousness and required of all mankind as an essential
condition for membership in the kingdom of God.[293]

Jesus Christ thus humbly complied with the will of the Father, and was
baptized of John by immersion in water. That His baptism was accepted as
a pleasing and necessary act of submission was attested by what
immediately ensued: "And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up
straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him,
and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon
him: and lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom
I am well pleased."[294] Then John knew his Redeemer.

The four Gospel-writers record the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the
baptized Jesus as accompanied by a visible manifestation "like a dove;"
and this sign had been indicated to John as the foreappointed means by
which the Messiah should be made known to him; and to that sign, before
specified, was now added the supreme testimony of the Father as to the
literal Sonship of Jesus. Matthew records the Father's acknowledgment as
given in the third person, "This is my beloved Son;" while both Mark and
Luke give the more direct address, "Thou art my beloved Son." The
variation, slight and essentially unimportant as it is though bearing on
so momentous a subject, affords evidence of independent authorship and
discredits any insinuation of collusion among the writers.

The incidents attending the emergence of Jesus from the baptismal grave
demonstrate the distinct individuality of the three Personages of the
Godhead. On that solemn occasion Jesus the Son was present in the flesh;
the presence of the Holy Ghost was manifest through the accompanying
sign of the dove, and the voice of the Eternal Father was heard from
heaven. Had we no other evidence of the separate personality of each
member of the Holy Trinity, this instance should be conclusive; but
other scriptures confirm the great truth.[295]


THE TEMPTATIONS OF CHRIST.

Soon after His baptism, immediately thereafter as Mark asserts, Jesus
was constrained by the promptings of the Spirit to withdraw from men and
the distractions of community life, by retiring into the wilderness
where He would be free to commune with His God. So strong was the
influence of the impelling force that He was led thereby, or, as stated
by the evangelist, driven, into solitary seclusion, in which He remained
during forty days, "with the wild beasts" of the desert. This remarkable
episode in our Lord's life is described, though not with equal fulness,
in three of the Gospels;[296] John is silent thereon.

The circumstances attending this time of exile and test must have been
related by Jesus Himself, for of other human witnesses there were none.
The recorded narratives deal principally with events marking the close
of the forty-day period, but considered in their entirety they place
beyond doubt the fact that the season was one of fasting and prayer.
Christ's realization that He was the chosen and foreordained Messiah
came to Him gradually. As shown by His words to His mother on the
occasion of the memorable interview with the doctors in the temple
courts, He knew, when but a Boy of twelve years, that in a particular
and personal sense He was the Son of God; yet it is evident that a
comprehension of the full purport of His earthly mission developed
within Him only as He progressed step by step in wisdom. His
acknowledgment by the Father, and the continued companionship of the
Holy Ghost, opened His soul to the glorious fact of His divinity. He had
much to think about, much that demanded prayer and the communion with
God that prayer alone could insure. Throughout the period of retirement,
he ate not, but chose to fast, that His mortal body might the more
completely be subjected to His divine spirit.

Then, when He was hungry and physically weak, the tempter came with the
insidious suggestion that He use His extraordinary powers to provide
food. Satan had chosen the most propitious time for his evil purpose.
What will mortals not do, to what lengths have men not gone, to assuage
the pangs of hunger? Esau bartered his birthright for a meal. Men have
fought like brutes for food. Women have slain and eaten their own babes
rather than endure the gnawing pangs of starvation. All this Satan knew
when he came to the Christ in the hour of extreme physical need, and
said unto Him: "If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be
made bread." During the long weeks of seclusion, our Lord had been
sustained by the exaltation of spirit that would naturally attend such
all-absorbing concentration of mind as His protracted meditation and
communion with the heavens undoubtedly produced; in such profound
devotion of spirit, bodily appetites were subdued and superseded; but
the reaction of the flesh was inevitable.

Hungry as Jesus was, there was a temptation in Satan's words even
greater than that embodied in the suggestion that He provide food for
His famishing body--the temptation to put to proof the possible doubt
implied in the tempter's "If." The Eternal Father had proclaimed Jesus
as His Son; the devil tried to make the Son doubt that divine
relationship. Why not prove the Father's interest in His Son at this
moment of dire necessity? Was it proper that the Son of God should go
hungry? Had the Father so soon forgotten as to leave His Beloved Son
thus to suffer? Was it not reasonable that Jesus, faint from long
abstinence, should provide for Himself, and particularly so since He
could provide, and that by a word of command, _if_ the voice heard at
His baptism was that of the Eternal Father. _If_ thou be in reality the
Son of God, demonstrate thy power, and at the same time satisfy thy
hunger--such was the purport of the diabolical suggestion. To have
yielded would have been to manifest positive doubt of the Father's
acknowledgment.

Moreover, the superior power that Jesus possessed had not been given to
Him for personal gratification, but for service to others. He was to
experience all the trials of mortality; another man, as hungry as He,
could not provide for himself by a miracle; and though by miracle such a
one might be fed, the miraculous supply would have to be given, not
provided by himself. It was a necessary result of our Lord's dual
nature, comprizing the attributes of both God and man, that He should
endure and suffer as a mortal while possessing at all times the ability
to invoke the power of His own Godhood by which all bodily needs could
be supplied or overcome. His reply to the tempter was sublime and
positively final: "It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but
by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."[297] The word
that had proceeded from the mouth of God, upon which Satan would have
cast mistrust, was that Jesus was the Beloved Son with whom the Father
was well pleased. The devil was foiled; Christ was triumphant.

Realizing that he had utterly failed in his attempt to induce Jesus to
use His inherent power for personal service, and to trust in Himself
rather than rely upon the Father's providence, Satan went to the other
extreme and tempted Jesus to wantonly throw Himself upon the Father's
protection.[298] Jesus was standing upon one of the high parts of the
temple, a pinnacle or battlement, overlooking the spacious courts, when
the devil said unto Him: "If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down:
for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and
in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy
foot against a stone." Again appears the implication of doubt.[299] _If_
Jesus was in fact the Son of God, could He not trust His Father to save
Him, and particularly so as it was written[300] that angels would guard
Him and bear Him up? Christ's reply to the tempter in the wilderness had
embodied a scriptural citation, and this He had introduced with the
impressive formula common to expounders of sacred writ--"It is written."
In the second attempt, the devil tried to support his suggestion by
scripture, and employed a similar expression--"for it is written." Our
Lord met and answered the devil's quotation with another, saying: "It is
written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God."[301]

Beside the provocation to sin by wantonly placing Himself in danger, so
that the Father's love might be manifested in a miraculous rescue, or by
refusing so to challenge the Father's interposition demonstrate that He
doubted His status as the Beloved Son, there lurked an appeal to the
human side of Christ's nature, in thought of the fame which an
astounding exploit, such as that of leaping from the dizzy height of the
temple turrets and alighting unhurt, would surely bring. We cannot
resist the thought, though we be not justified in saying that any such
had even momentary place in the Savior's mind, that to act upon Satan's
suggestion, provided of course the outcome proved to be such as he had
indicated, would have been to insure public recognition of Jesus as a
Being superior to mortals. It would have been a sign and a wonder
indeed, the fame of which would have spread as fire in the dry grass;
and all Jewry would have been aflame with excitement and interest in the
Christ.

The glaring sophistry of Satan's citation of scripture was unworthy a
categorical reply; his doctrine deserved neither logic nor argument; his
misapplication of the written word was nullified by scripture that was
germane; the lines of the psalmist were met by the binding fiat of the
prophet of the exodus, in which he had commanded Israel that they should
not provoke nor tempt the Lord to work miracles among them. Satan
tempted Jesus to tempt the Father. It is as truly a blasphemous
interference with the prerogatives of Deity to set limitations or make
fixations of time or place at which the divine power shall be made
manifest as it is to attempt to usurp that power. God alone must decide
when and how His wonders shall be wrought. Once more the purposes of
Satan were thwarted and Christ again was victor.

In the third temptation the devil refrained from further appeal to Jesus
to put either His own power or that of the Father to the test. Twice
completely foiled, the tempter abandoned that plan of assault; and,
discarding all disguise of purpose, submitted a definite proposition.
From the top of a high mountain Jesus looked over the land with its
wealth of city and field, of vineyard and orchard, of flocks and of
herds; and in vision He saw the kingdoms of the world and contemplated
the wealth, the splendor, the earthly glory of them all. Then saith
Satan unto Him: "All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall
down and worship me." So wrote Matthew; the more extended version by
Luke follows: "And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give
thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to
whomsoever I will I give it. If thou therefore wilt worship me, all
shall be thine." We need not concern ourselves with conjecture as to
whether Satan could have made good his promise in the event of Christ's
doing him homage; certain it is Christ could have reached out, and have
gathered to Himself the wealth and glory of the world had He willed so
to do, and thereby have failed in His Messianic mission. This fact Satan
knew full well. Many men have sold themselves to the devil for a kingdom
and for less, aye, even for a few paltry pence.

The effrontery of his offer was of itself diabolical. Christ, the
Creator of heaven and earth, tabernacled as He then was in mortal flesh,
may not have remembered His preexistent state, nor the part He had taken
in the great council of the Gods,[302] while Satan, an unembodied
spirit--he the disinherited, the rebellious and rejected son--seeking to
tempt the Being through whom the world was created by promising Him part
of what was wholly His, still may have had, as indeed he may yet have, a
remembrance of those primeval scenes. In that distant past, antedating
the creation of the earth, Satan, then Lucifer, a son of the morning,
had been rejected; and the Firstborn Son had been chosen. Now that the
Chosen One was subject to the trials incident to mortality, Satan
thought to thwart the divine purpose by making the Son of God subject to
himself. He who had been vanquished by Michael and his hosts and cast
down as a defeated rebel, asked the embodied Jehovah to worship him.
"Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan for it is written,
Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. Then
the devil leaveth him, and behold, angels came and ministered unto
him."[303]

It is not to be supposed that Christ's victorious emergence from the
dark clouds of the three specified temptations exempted Him from further
assaults by Satan, or insured Him against later trials of faith, trust,
and endurance. Luke closes his account of the temptations following the
forty-day fast as follows: "And when the devil had ended all the
temptation, he departed from him for a season."[304] This victory over
the devil and his wiles, this triumph over the cravings of the flesh,
the harassing doubts of the mind, the suggested reaching out for fame
and material wealth, were great but not final successes in the struggle
between Jesus, the embodied God, and Satan, the fallen angel of light.
That Christ was subject to temptation during the period of His
association with the apostles He expressly affirmed.[305] That His
temptations extended even to the agony in Gethsemane will appear as we
proceed with this study. It is not given to the rest of us, nor was it
given to Jesus, to meet the foe, to fight and overcome in a single
encounter, once for all time. The strife between the immortal spirit and
the flesh, between the offspring of God on the one hand, the world and
the devil on the other, is persistent through life.

Few events in the evangelical history of Jesus of Nazareth have given
rise to more discussion, fanciful theory, and barren speculation, than
have the temptations. All such surmizes we may with propriety ignore. To
any believer in the holy scriptures, the account of the temptations
therein given is sufficiently explicit to put beyond doubt or question
the essential facts; to the unbeliever neither the Christ nor His
triumph appeals. What shall it profit us to speculate as to whether
Satan appeared to Jesus in visible form, or was present only as an
unseen spirit; whether he spoke in audible voice, or aroused in the mind
of his intended victim the thoughts later expressed by the written
lines; whether the three temptations occurred in immediate sequence or
were experienced at longer intervals? With safety we may reject all
theories of myth or parable in the scriptural account, and accept the
record as it stands; and with equal assurance may we affirm that the
temptations were real, and that the trials to which our Lord was put
constituted an actual and crucial test. To believe otherwise, one must
regard the scriptures as but fiction.

A question deserving some attention in this connection is that of the
peccability or impeccability of Christ--the question as to whether He
was capable of sinning. Had there been no possibility of His yielding to
the lures of Satan, there would have been no real test in the
temptations, no genuine victory in the result. Our Lord was sinless yet
peccable; He had the capacity, the ability to sin had He willed so to
do. Had He been bereft of the faculty to sin, He would have been shorn
of His free agency; and it was to safeguard and insure the agency of man
that He had offered Himself, before the world was, as a redeeming
sacrifice. To say that He could not sin because He was the embodiment of
righteousness is no denial of His agency of choice between evil and
good. A thoroughly truthful man cannot culpably lie; nevertheless his
insurance against falsehood is not that of external compulsion, but of
internal restraint due to his cultivated companionship of the spirit of
truth. A really honest man will neither take nor covet his neighbor's
goods, indeed it may be said that he cannot steal; yet he is capable of
stealing should he so elect. His honesty is an armor against temptation;
but the coat of mail, the helmet, the breastplate, and the greaves, are
but an outward covering; the man within may be vulnerable if he can be
reached.

But why proceed with labored reasoning, which can lead to but one
conclusion, when our Lord's own words and other scriptures confirm the
fact? Shortly before His betrayal, when admonishing the Twelve to
humility, He said: "Ye are they which have continued with me in my
temptations."[306] While here we find no exclusive reference to the
temptations immediately following His baptism, the exposition is plain
that He had endured temptations, and by implication, these had continued
throughout the period of His ministry. The writer of the epistle to the
Hebrews expressly taught that Christ was peccable, in that He was
tempted "in all points" as are the rest of mankind. Consider the
unambiguous declaration: "Seeing then that we have a great high priest,
that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast
our profession. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched
with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like
as we are, yet without sin."[307] And further: "Though he were a Son,
yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered."[308]


NOTES TO CHAPTER 10.

1. Raiment of Camel's Hair.--Through the prophet Zechariah (13:4) a time
was foretold in which professing prophets would no longer "wear a rough
garment to deceive." Of the raiment of camel's hair worn by John the
Baptist, the Oxford and other marginal readings render the expression "a
garment of hair" as more literal than the Bible text. Deems (_Light of
the Nations_, p. 74, note) says: "The garment of camel's hair was not
the camel's skin with the hair on, which would be too heavy to wear, but
raiment woven of camel's hair, such as Josephus speaks of (B. J. i,
24:3)."

2. Locusts and Wild Honey.--Insects of the locust or grasshopper kind
were specifically declared clean and suitable for food in the law given
to Israel in the wilderness. "Yet these may ye eat of every flying
creeping thing that goeth upon all four, which have legs above their
feet, to leap withal upon the earth; even these of them ye may eat; the
locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the
beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind." (Lev. 11:21,
22.) At the present time locusts are used as food by many oriental
peoples, though usually by the poorer classes only. Of the passage
referring to locusts as part of the Baptist's food while he lived as a
recluse in the desert, Farrar (_Life of Christ_, p. 97, note,) says:
"The fancy that it means the pods of the so-called locust tree (carob)
is a mistake. Locusts are sold as articles of food in regular shops for
the purpose at Medina; they are plunged into salt boiling water, dried
in the sun, and eaten with butter, but only by the poorest beggars."
Geikie (_Life and Words of Christ_, vol. 1, pp. 354, 355) gives place to
the following as applied to the Baptist's life: "His only food was the
locusts which leaped or flew on the bare hills, and the honey of wild
bees which he found, here and there, in the clifts of the rocks, and his
only drink a draught of water from some rocky hollow. Locusts are still
the food of the poor in many parts of the East. 'All the Bedouins of
Arabia, and the inhabitants of towns in Nedj and Hedjaz, are accustomed
to eat them,' says Burckhardt. 'I have seen at Medina and Tayi, locust
shops, where they are sold by measure. In Egypt and Nubia they are eaten
only by the poorest beggars. The Arabs, in preparing them for eating,
throw them alive into boiling water, with which a good deal of salt has
been mixed, taking them out after a few minutes, and drying them in the
sun. The head, feet, and wings, are then torn off, the bodies cleansed
from the salt, and perfectly dried. They are sometimes eaten boiled in
butter, or spread on unleavened bread mixed with butter.' In Palestine,
they are eaten only by the Arabs on the extreme frontiers; elsewhere
they are looked on with disgust and loathing, and only the very poorest
use them. Tristram, however, speaks of them as 'very palatable.' 'I
found them very good,' says he, 'when eaten after the Arab fashion,
stewed with butter. They tasted somewhat like shrimps, but with less
flavour.' In the wilderness of Judea, various kinds abound at all
seasons, and spring up with a drumming sound, at every step, suddenly
spreading their bright hind wings, of scarlet, crimson, blue, yellow,
white, green, or brown, according to the species. They were 'clean,'
under the Mosaic Law, and hence could be eaten by John without offence."

Concerning the mention of wild honey as food used by John, the author
last quoted says in a continuation of the same paragraph: "The wild bees
in Palestine are far more numerous than those kept in hives, and the
greater part of the honey sold in the southern districts is obtained
from wild swarms. Few countries, indeed, are better adapted for bees.
The dry climate, and the stunted but varied flora, consisting largely of
aromatic thymes, mints, and other similar plants, with crocuses in the
spring, are very favourable to them, while the dry recesses of the
limestone rocks everywhere afford them shelter and protection for their
combs. In the wilderness of Judea, bees are far more numerous than in
any other part of Palestine, and it is, to this day, part of the homely
diet of the Bedouins, who squeeze it from the combs and store it in
skins."

3. John's Inferiority to the Mightier One He Proclaimed.--"One mightier
than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose"
(Luke 3:16), or "whose shoes I am not worthy to bear" (Matt. 3:11); this
was the way by which the Baptist declared his inferiority to the
Mightier One, who was to succeed and supersede him; and a more effective
illustration would be difficult to frame. To loosen the shoe latchet or
sandal thong, or to carry the shoes of another, "was a menial office
betokening great inferiority on the part of the person performing it."
(Smith's _Dict. of the Bible_.) A passage in the Talmud (_Tract.
Kidduschin xxii:2_) requires a disciple to do for his teacher whatever a
servant might be required to do for his master, except the loosing of
his sandal thong. Some teachers urged that a disciple should carry his
humility even to the extreme of carrying his master's shoes. The
humility of the Baptist, in view of the widespread interest his call
aroused, is impressive.

4. The Order in which the Temptations Were Presented.--But two of the
Gospel-writers specify the temptations to which Christ was subjected
immediately after His baptism; Mark merely mentions the fact that Jesus
was tempted. Matthew and Luke place first the temptation that Jesus
provide for Himself by miraculously creating bread; the sequence of the
later trials is not the same in the two records. The order followed in
the text is that of Matthew.

5. The Devil's "If."--Note the later taunting use of that diabolical
_if_ as the Christ hung upon the cross. The rulers of the Jews, mocking
the crucified Jesus in His agony said, "Let him save himself _if_ he be
the Christ." And the soldier, reading the inscription at the head of the
cross derided the dying God, saying: "_If_ thou be the king of the Jews,
save thyself." And yet again, the unrepentant malefactor by His side
cried but, "_If_ thou be Christ, save thyself and us." (Luke 23:35-39.)
How literally did those railers and mockers quote the very words of
their father the devil (see John 8:44). See further, page 658 herein.

6. Baptism Required of All.--Baptism is required of all persons who live
to the age of accountability in the flesh. None are exempt. Jesus
Christ, who lived as a Man without sin in the midst of a sinful world,
was baptized "to fulfil all righteousness." Six centuries before this
event, Nephi, prophesying to the people on the western continent,
foretold the baptism of the Savior, and thus drew therefrom the
necessity of baptism as a universal requirement: "And now, if the Lamb
of God, he being holy, should have need to be baptized by water, to
fulfil all righteousness, O then, how much more need have we, being
unholy, to be baptized, yea, even by water.... Know ye not that he was
holy? But notwithstanding he being holy, he sheweth unto the children of
men, that according to the flesh, he humbleth himself before the Father,
and witnesseth unto the Father that he would be obedient unto him in
keeping his commandments" (B. of M., 2 Nephi 31:5, 7). See _The Articles
of Faith_, vi:18-29.

FOOTNOTES:

[273] 2 Kings 1:8.

[274] Note 1, end of chapter.

[275] Matt. 3:1-5; compare Lev. 11:22; see also Mark 1:1-8. Note 2, end
of chapter.

[276] Luke 3:2.

[277] Exo. 3:1, 2.

[278] 1 Kings 17:2-7.

[279] Mark 1:3.

[280] Mark 1:2; compare Isa. 40:3; Mal. 3:1; Matt. 11:10; Luke 7:27.

[281] Matt. 3:11.

[282] Matt. 3:7-10; see also Luke 3:3-9.

[283] Compare a later instance, in which Christ similarly taught (John
8:33-59).

[284] Luke 3:10; compare Acts 2:37.

[285] Luke 3:10-15.

[286] Mark 1:1.

[287] John 10:41.

[288] John 1:35, 37; Matt. 11:2; Luke 7:18.

[289] Note 3, end of chapter.

[290] Luke 3:17; see also Matt. 3:12; compare Mal. 3:2.

[291] Matt. 11:11-14; 17:12; Luke 7:24-30.

[292] Luke 3:23.

[293] For treatment of Baptism as a universal requirement, see the
author's "Articles of Faith" vi:18-29. Note 6, end of chapter.

[294] Matt. 3:16, 17; compare Mark 1:9-11; Luke 3:21, 22.

[295] Shortly before His death, the Savior promised the apostles that
the Father would send unto them the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost
(John 14:26, and 15:26). See the author's "Articles of Faith" ii:20-24.

[296] Matt. 4:1-11; Mark 1:12, 13; Luke 4:1-13.

[297] Matt. 4:4; compare Deut. 8:3.

[298] Note 4, end of chapter.

[299] Note 5, end of chapter. Page 658 herein.

[300] Matt. 4:6; Psalm 91:11, 12.

[301] Matt. 4:5-7; compare Deut. 6:16.

[302] Pages 6-9.

[303] Matt. 4:10, 11; compare Exo. 20:3; Deut. 6:13; 10:20; Josh. 24:14;
1 Sam. 7:3.

[304] Luke 4:13.

[305] Luke 22:28.

[306] Luke 22:28.

[307] Heb. 4:14, 15.

[308] Heb. 5:8.




CHAPTER 11.

FROM JUDEA TO GALILEE.


THE BAPTIST'S TESTIMONY OF JESUS.

During the period of our Lord's retirement in the wilderness the Baptist
continued his ministry, crying repentance to all who would pause to
hear, and administering baptism to such as came duly prepared and asking
with right intent. The people generally were greatly concerned over the
identity of John; and as the real import of the voice[309] dawned upon
them, their concern deepened into fear. The ever recurring question was,
Who is this new prophet? Then the Jews, by which expression we may
understand the rulers of the people, sent a delegation of priests and
Levites of the Pharisaic party to personally question him. He answered
without evasion, "I am not the Christ," and with equal decisiveness
denied that he was Elias, or more accurately, Elijah, the prophet who,
the rabbis said through a misinterpretation of Malachi's prediction, was
to return to earth as the immediate precursor of the Messiah.[310]
Furthermore, he declared that he was not "that prophet," by which was
meant the Prophet whose coming Moses had foretold,[311] and who was not
universally identified in the Jewish mind with the expected Messiah.
"Then said they unto him, Who art thou? that we may give an answer to
them that sent us. What sayest thou of thyself? He said, I am the voice
of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as
said the prophet Esaias."[312] The Pharisaic envoys then demanded of him
his authority for baptizing; in reply he affirmed that the validity of
his baptisms would be attested by One who even then was amongst them,
though they knew Him not, and averred: "He it is, who coming after me is
preferred before me, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to
unloose."[313]

John's testimony, that Jesus was the Redeemer of the world, was declared
as boldly as had been his message of the imminent coming of the Lord.
"Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world," he
proclaimed; and, that none might fail to comprehend his identification
of the Christ, he added: "This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a
man which is preferred before me: for he was before me. And I knew him
not: but that he should be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I come
baptizing with water."[314] That the attestation of the ministering
presence of the Holy Ghost through the material appearance "like a dove"
was convincing to John is shown by his further testimony: "And John bare
record saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and
it abode upon him. And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize
with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the spirit
descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with
the Holy Ghost. And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of
God."[315] On the day following that of the utterance last quoted, John
repeated his testimony to two of his disciples, or followers, as, Jesus
passed, saying again: "Behold the Lamb of God."[316]


THE FIRST DISCIPLES OF JESUS.[317]

Two of the Baptist's followers, specifically called disciples, were with
him when for the second time he expressly designated Jesus as the Lamb
of God. These were Andrew and John; the latter came to be known in after
years as the author of the fourth Gospel. The first is mentioned by
name, while the narrator suppresses his own name as that of the second
disciple. Andrew and John were so impressed by the Baptist's testimony
that they immediately followed Jesus; and He, turning toward them asked:
"What seek ye?" Possibly somewhat embarrassed by the question, or with a
real desire to learn where He might be found later, they replied by
another inquiry: "Rabbi, where dwellest thou?" Their use of the title
Rabbi was a mark of honor and respect, to which Jesus did not demur. His
courteous reply to their question assured them that their presence was
no unwelcome intrusion. "Come and see," said He.[318] The two young men
accompanied Him, and remained with Him to learn more. Andrew, filled
with wonder and joy over the interview so graciously accorded, and
thrilled with the spirit of testimony that had been enkindled within his
soul, hastened to seek his brother Simon, to whom he said: "We have
found the Messias." He brought Simon to see and hear for himself; and
Jesus, looking upon Andrew's brother, called him by name and added an
appellation of distinction by which he was destined to be known
throughout all later history: "Thou art Simon the son of Jona; thou
shalt be called Cephas." The new name thus bestowed is the Aramaic or
Syro-Chaldaic equivalent of the Greek "Petros," and of the present
English "Peter," meaning "a stone."[319]

On the following day Jesus set out for Galilee, possibly accompanied by
some or all of his newly-made disciples; and on the way He found a man
named Philip, in whom He recognized another choice son of Israel. Unto
Philip He said: "Follow me." It was customary with rabbis and other
teachers of that time to strive for popularity, that many might be drawn
to them to sit at their feet and be known as their disciples. Jesus,
however, selected His own immediate associates; and, as He found them
and discerned in them the spirits who, in their preexistent state had
been chosen for the earthly mission of the apostleship, He summoned
them. They were the servants; He was the Master.[320]

Philip soon found his friend Nathanael, to whom he testified that He of
whom Moses and the prophets had written had at last been found; and that
He was none other than Jesus of Nazareth. Nathanael, as his later
history demonstrates, was a righteous man, earnest in his hope and
expectation of the Messiah, yet seemingly imbued with the belief common
throughout Jewry--that the Christ was to come in royal state as seemed
befitting the Son of David. The mention of such a One coming from
Nazareth, the reputed son of a humble carpenter, provoked wonder if not
incredulity in the guileless mind of Nathanael, and he exclaimed: "Can
there any good thing come out of Nazareth?" Philip's answer was a
repetition of Christ's words to Andrew and John--"Come and see."
Nathanael left his seat under the fig tree,[321] where Philip had found
him, and went to see for himself. As he approached, Jesus said: "Behold
an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile." Nathanael saw that Jesus
could read his mind, and asked in surprize: "Whence knowest thou me?" In
reply Jesus showed even greater powers of penetration and perception
under conditions that made ordinary observation unlikely if not
impossible: "Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the
fig tree, I saw thee." Nathanael replied with conviction: "Rabbi, thou
art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel." Earnest as the man's
testimony was, it rested mainly on his recognition of what he took to be
a supernatural power in Jesus; our Lord assured him that he should see
yet greater things: "And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto
you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending
and descending upon the Son of man."


"THE SON OF MAN."

In the promise and prediction made by Christ to Nathanael, we find the
significant title--The Son of Man--appearing for the first time,
chronologically speaking, in the New Testament. It recurs, however,
about forty times, excluding repetitions in parallel accounts in the
several Gospels. In each of these passages it is used by the Savior
distinctively to designate Himself. In three other instances the title
appears in the New Testament, outside the Gospels; and in each case it
is applied to the Christ with specific reference to His exalted
attributes as Lord and God.[322]

In the Old Testament, the phrase "son of man" occurs in ordinary usage,
denoting any human son[323] and it appears over ninety times as an
appellation by which Jehovah addressed Ezekiel, though it is never
applied by the prophet to himself.[324] The context of the passages in
which Ezekiel is addressed as "son of man" indicates the divine
intention of emphasizing the human status of the prophet as contrasted
with the divinity of Jehovah.

The title is used in connection with the record of Daniel's vision,[325]
in which was revealed the consummation, yet future, when Adam--the
Ancient of Days--shall sit to judge his posterity;[326] on which great
occasion, the Son of Man is to appear and receive a dominion that shall
be everlasting, transcendently superior to that of the Ancient of Days,
and embracing every people and nation, all of whom shall serve the Lord,
Jesus Christ, the Son of Man.[327]

In applying the designation to Himself, the Lord invariably uses the
definite article. "_The_ Son of Man" was and is, specifically and
exclusively, Jesus Christ. While as a matter of solemn certainty He was
the only male human being from Adam down who was not the son of a mortal
man, He used the title in a way to conclusively demonstrate that it was
peculiarly and solely His own. It is plainly evident that the expression
is fraught with a meaning beyond that conveyed by the words in common
usage. The distinguishing appellation has been construed by many to
indicate our Lord's humble station as a mortal, and to connote that He
stood as the type of humanity, holding a particular and unique
relationship to the entire human family. There is, however, a more
profound significance attaching to the Lord's use of the title "The Son
of Man"; and this lies in the fact that He knew His Father to be the one
and only supremely exalted Man,[328] whose Son Jesus was both in spirit
and in body--the Firstborn among all the spirit-children of the Father,
the Only Begotten in the flesh--and therefore in sense applicable to
Himself alone, He was and is the Son of the "Man of Holiness,"
Elohim,[329] the Eternal Father. In His distinctive titles of Sonship,
Jesus expressed His spiritual and bodily descent from, and His filial
submission to, that exalted Father.

As revealed to Enoch the Seer, "Man of Holiness" is one of the names by
which God the Eternal Father is known; "and the name of his Only
Begotten is the Son of Man, even Jesus Christ." We learn further that
the Father of Jesus Christ thus proclaimed Himself to Enoch: "Behold, I
am God; Man of Holiness is my name; Man of Counsel is my name; and
Endless and Eternal is my name, also."[330] "The Son of Man" is in great
measure synonymous with "The Son of God," as a title denoting divinity,
glory, and exaltation; for the "Man of Holiness," whose Son Jesus Christ
reverently acknowledges Himself to be, is God the Eternal Father.


THE MIRACLE AT CANA IN GALILEE.

Soon after the arrival of Jesus in Galilee we find Him and His little
company of disciples at a marriage party in Cana, a neighboring town to
Nazareth. The mother of Jesus was at the feast; and for some reason not
explained in John's narrative,[331] she manifested concern and personal
responsibility in the matter of providing for the guests. Evidently her
position was different from that of one present by ordinary invitation.
Whether this circumstance indicates the marriage to have been that of
one of her own immediate family, or some more distant relative, we are
not informed.

It was customary to provide at wedding feasts a sufficiency of wine, the
pure though weak product of the local vineyards, which was the ordinary
table beverage of the time. On this occasion the supply of wine was
exhausted, and Mary told Jesus of the deficiency. Said He: "Woman, what
have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come." The noun of address,
"Woman," as applied by a son to his mother may sound to our ears
somewhat harsh, if not disrespectful; but its use was really an
expression of opposite import.[332] To every son, the mother ought to be
preeminently the woman of women; she is the one woman in the world to
whom the son owes his earthly existence; and though the title "Mother"
belongs to every woman who has earned the honors of maternity, yet to no
child is there more than one woman whom by natural right he can address
by that title of respectful acknowledgment. When, in the last dread
scenes of His mortal experience, Christ hung in dying agony upon the
cross, He looked, down upon the weeping Mary, His mother, and commended
her to the care of the beloved apostle John, with the words: "Woman,
behold thy son!"[333] Can it be thought that in this supreme moment, our
Lord's concern for the mother from whom He was about to be separated by
death was associated with any emotion other than that of honor,
tenderness and love?[334]

Nevertheless, His words to Mary at the marriage feast may have conveyed
a gentle reminder of her position as the mother of a Being superior to
herself; even as on that earlier occasion when she had found her Boy,
Jesus, in the temple, He had brought home to her the fact that her
jurisdiction over Him was not supreme. The manner in which she told Him
of the insufficiency of wine probably suggested an intimation that He
use His more than human power, and by such means supply the need. It was
not her function to direct or even to suggest the exercize of the power
inherent in Him as the Son of God; such had not been inherited from her.
"What have I to do with thee?" He asked; and added: "Mine hour is not
yet come." Here we find no disclaimer of the ability to do what she
apparently wanted Him to do, but the plain implication that He would act
only when the time was right for the purpose, and that He, not she, must
decide when that time had come. She understood His meaning, in part at
least, and contented herself by instructing the servants to do
whatsoever He directed. Here again is evidence of her position of
responsibility and domestic authority at the social gathering.

The time for His intervention soon arrived. There stood within the place
six water pots;[335] these He directed the servants to fill with water.
Then, without audible command or formula of invocation, as best we know,
He caused to be effected a transmutation within the pots, and when the
servants drew therefrom, it was wine, not water that issued. At a Jewish
social gathering, such as was this wedding festival, some one, usually a
relative of the host or hostess, or some other one worthy of the honor,
was made governor of the feast, or, as we say in this day, chairman, or
master of ceremonies. To this functionary the new wine was first served;
and he, calling the bridegroom, who was the real host, asked him why he
had reserved his choice wine till the last, when the usual custom was to
serve the best at the beginning, and the more ordinary later. The
immediate result of this, the first recorded of our Lord's miracles, is
thus tersely stated by the inspired evangelist: "This beginning of
miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory;
and his disciples believed on him."[336]

The circumstances incident to the miraculous act are instructive to
contemplate. The presence of Jesus at the marriage, and His contribution
to the successful conduct of the feast, set the seal of His approval
upon the matrimonial relationship and upon the propriety of social
entertainment. He was neither a recluse nor an ascetic; He moved among
men, eating and drinking, as a natural, normal Being.[337] On the
occasion of the feast He recognized and heeded the demands of the
liberal hospitality of the times, and provided accordingly. He, who but
a few days before had revolted at the tempter's suggestion that He
provide bread for His impoverished body, now used His power to supply a
luxury for others. One effect of the miracle was to confirm the trust of
those whose belief in Him as the Messiah was yet young and untried. "His
disciples believed on him"; surely they had believed in some measure
before, otherwise they would not have followed Him; but their belief was
now strengthened and made to approach, if indeed it did not attain, the
condition of abiding faith in their Lord. The comparative privacy
attending the manifestation is impressive; the moral and spiritual
effect was for the few, the inauguration of the Lord's ministry was not
to be marked by public display.


MIRACLES IN GENERAL

The act of transmutation whereby water became wine was plainly a
miracle, a phenomenon not susceptible of explanation, far less of
demonstration, by what we consider the ordinary operation of natural
law. This was the beginning of His miracles, or as expressed in the
revized version of the New Testament, "his signs." In many scriptures
miracles are called signs, as also wonders, powers, works, wonderful
works, mighty works,[338] etc. The spiritual effect of miracles would be
unattained were the witnesses not caused to inwardly wonder, marvel,
ponder and inquire; mere surprize or amazement may be produced by
deception and artful trickery. Any miraculous manifestation of divine
power would be futile as a means of spiritual effect were it
unimpressive. Moreover, every miracle is a sign of God's power; and
signs in this sense have been demanded of prophets who professed to
speak by divine authority, though such signs have not been given in all
cases. The Baptist was credited with no miracle, though he was
pronounced by the Christ as more than a prophet;[339] and the chronicles
of some earlier prophets[340] are devoid of all mention of miracles. On
the other hand, Moses, when commissioned to deliver Israel from Egypt,
was made, to understand that the Egyptians would look for the testimony
of miracles, and he was abundantly empowered therefore.[341]

Miracles cannot be in contravention of natural law, but are wrought
through the operation of laws not universally or commonly recognized.
Gravitation is everywhere operative, but the local and special
application of other agencies may appear to nullify it--as by muscular
effort or mechanical impulse a stone is lifted from the ground, poised
aloft, or sent hurtling through space. At every stage of the process,
however, gravity is in full play, though its effect is modified by that
of other and locally superior energy. The human sense of the miraculous
wanes as comprehension of the operative process increases. Achievements
made possible by modern invention of telegraph and telephone with or
without wires, the transmutation of mechanical power into electricity
with its manifold present applications and yet future possibilities, the
development of the gasoline motor, the present accomplishments in aerial
navigation--these are no longer miracles in man's estimation, because
they are all in some degree understood, are controlled by human agency,
and, moreover, are continuous in their operation and not phenomenal. We
arbitrarily classify as miracles only such phenomena as are unusual,
special, transitory, and wrought by an agency beyond the power of man's
control.

In a broader sense, all nature is miracle. Man has learned that by
planting the seed of the grape in suitable soil, and by due cultivation,
he may conduce to the growth of what shall be a mature and fruitful
vine; but is there no miracle, even in the sense of inscrutable
processes, in that development? Is there less of real miracle in the
so-called natural course of plant development--the growth of root, stem,
leaves, and fruit, with the final elaboration of the rich nectar of the
vine--than there was in what appears supernatural in the transmutation
of water into wine at Cana?

In the contemplation of the miracles wrought by Christ, we must of
necessity recognize the operation of a power transcending our present
human understanding. In this field, science has not yet advanced far
enough to analyze and explain. To deny the actuality of miracles on the
ground that, because we cannot comprehend the means, the reported
results are fictitious, is to arrogate to the human mind the attribute
of omniscience, by implying that what man cannot comprehend cannot be,
and that therefore he is able to comprehend all that is. The miracles of
record in the Gospels are as fully supported by evidence as are many of
the historical events which call forth neither protest nor demand for
further proof. To the believer in the divinity of Christ, the miracles
are sufficiently attested; to the unbeliever they appear but as myths
and fables.[342]

To comprehend the works of Christ, one must know Him as the Son of God;
to the man who has not yet learned to know, to the honest soul who would
inquire after the Lord, the invitation is ready; let him "Come and see."


NOTES TO CHAPTER 11.

1. Misunderstanding of Malachi's Prediction.--In the closing chapter of
the compilation of scriptures known to us as the Old Testament, the
prophet Malachi thus describes a condition incident to the last days,
immediately preceding the second coming of Christ: "For, behold, the day
cometh, that shall burn as an oven, and all the proud, yea, and all that
do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them
up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor
branch. But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness
arise with healing in his wings." The fateful prophecy concludes with
the following blessed and far-reaching promise: "Behold, I will send you
Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of
the Lord: and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children,
and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite
the earth with a curse." (Malachi 4:1, 2, 5, 6.) It has been held by
theologians and Bible commentators that this prediction had reference to
the birth and ministry of John the Baptist, (compare Matt. 11:14; 17:11;
Mark 9:11; Luke 1:17), upon whom rested the spirit and power of Elias
(Luke 1:17). However, we have no record of Elijah having ministered unto
the Baptist, and furthermore, the latter's ministry, glorious though it
was, justifies no conclusion that in him did the prophecy find its full
realization. In addition, it should be remembered, that the Lord's
declaration through Malachi, relative to the day of burning in which the
wicked would be destroyed as stubble, yet awaits fulfilment. It is
evident, therefore, that the commonly accepted interpretation is at
fault, and that we must look to a later date than the time of John for
the fulfilment of Malachi's prediction. The later occasion has come; it
belongs to the present dispensation, and marks the inauguration of a
work specially reserved for the Church in these latter days. In the
course of a glorious manifestation to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery,
in the temple at Kirtland, Ohio, April 3d, 1836, there appeared unto
them Elijah, the prophet of old, who had been taken from earth while
still in the body. He declared unto them: "Behold, the time has fully
come, which was spoken of by the mouth of Malachi, testifying that he
(Elijah) should be sent before the great and dreadful day of the Lord
come, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the
children to the fathers, lest the whole earth be smitten with a curse.
Therefore the keys of this dispensation are committed into your hands,
and by this ye may know that the great and dreadful day of the Lord is
near, even at the doors." (Doc. and Cov. 110:13-16.) See also _The House
of the Lord_, pp. 82-83.

2. The Sign of the Dove.--"John the Baptist ... had the privilege of
beholding the Holy Ghost descend in the form of a dove, or rather in the
_sign_ of the dove, in witness of that administration. The sign of the
dove was instituted before the creation of the world, a witness for the
Holy Ghost, and the devil cannot come in the sign of a dove. The Holy
Ghost is a personage, and is in the form of a personage. It does not
confine itself to the _form_ of the dove, but in _sign_ of the dove. The
Holy Ghost cannot be transformed into a dove; but the sign of a dove was
given to John to signify the truth of the deed, as the dove is an emblem
or token of truth and innocence."--From Sermon by Joseph Smith, _History
of the Church_, vol. 5, pp. 260-261.

3. The Testimony of John the Baptist.--Observe that the Baptist's
testimony to the divinity of Christ's mission is recorded as having been
given after the period of our Lord's forty-day fast and temptations, and
therefore approximately six weeks subsequent to the baptism of Jesus. To
the deputation of priests and Levites of the Pharisaic party, who
visited him by direction of the rulers, probably by appointment from the
Sanhedrin, John, after disavowing that he was the Christ or any one of
the prophets specified in the inquiry, said: "There standeth one among
you whom ye know not; he it is who coming after me is preferred before
me." On the next day, and again on the day following that, he bore
public testimony to Jesus as the Lamb of God; and on the third day after
the visit of the priests and Levites to John, Jesus started on the
journey to Galilee (John 1:19-43).

John's use of the designation "Lamb of God" implied his conception of
the Messiah as One appointed for sacrifice, and his use of the term is
the earliest mention found in the Bible. For later Biblical
applications, direct or implied, see Acts 8:32; 1 Peter 1:19; Rev. 5:6,
8, 12, 13; 6:1, 16; 7:9, 10, 17; etc.

4. "Come and See."--The spirit of our Lord's invitation to the young
truth seekers, Andrew and John, is manifest in a similar privilege
extended to all. The man who would know Christ must come to Him, to see
and hear, to feel and know. Missionaries may carry the good tidings, the
message of the gospel, but the response must be an individual one. Are
you in doubt as to what that message means to-day? Then come and see for
yourself. Would you know where Christ is to be found? Come and see.

5. The Eternal Father a Resurrected, Exalted Being.--"As the Father hath
power in himself, so hath the Son power in himself, to lay down his life
and take it again, so he has a body of his own. The Son doeth what he
hath seen the Father do: then the Father hath some day laid down his
life and taken it again; so he has a body of his own; each one will be
in his own body."--Joseph Smith; see _Hist, of the Church_, vol. 5, p.
426.

"God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted Man, and sits
enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret. If the veil was
rent to-day, and the Great God who holds this world in its orbit, and
who upholds all worlds and all things by his power, was to make himself
visible,--I say, if you were to see him to-day, you would see him like a
man in form--like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as
a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion, image, and likeness of
God, and received instruction from, and walked, talked and conversed
with him, as one man talks and communes with another."--Joseph Smith;
see _Compendium_, p. 190.

6. Waterpots for Ceremonial Cleansing.--In the house at Cana there stood
in a place specially reserved, six waterpots of stone "after the manner
of the purifying of the Jews." Vessels of water were provided as a
matter of prescribed order in Jewish homes, to facilitate the ceremonial
washings enjoined by the law. From these pots or jars the water was
drawn off as required; they were reservoirs holding the supply, not
vessels used in the actual ablution.

7. "The Attitude of Science Towards Miracles" is the subject of a
valuable article by Prof. H. L. Orchard, published in _Journal of the
Transactions of the Victoria Institute, or Philosophical Society of
Great Britain_, 1910, Vol. 42, pp. 81-122. This article was the Gunning
Prize Essay for 1909. After a lengthy analytical treatment of his
subject, the author presents the following summation, which was
concurred in by those who took part in the ensuing discussions: "We here
complete our scientific investigation of Bible Miracles. It has embraced
(1) the _nature_ of the phenomenon; (2) the _conditions_ under which it
is alleged to have occurred; (3) the character of the _testimony_ to its
occurrence. To the inquiry--Were the Bible miracles probable? science
answers in the affirmative. To the further inquiry--Did they actually
occur? the answer of science is again, and very emphatically, in the
affirmative. If we liken them to gold, she has made her assay and says
the gold is pure. Or the Bible miracles may be compared to a string of
pearls. If science seeks to know whether the pearls are genuine, she may
apply chemical and other tests to the examination of their _character_;
she may search into the _conditions and circumstances_ in which the
alleged pearls were found. Were they first found in an oyster, or in
some manufacturing laboratory? And she may investigate the _testimony_
of experts. Should the result of any one of these examinations affirm
the genuineness of the pearls, science will be slow to believe that they
are 'paste'; if all the results declare their genuineness, science will
not hesitate to say that they are true pearls. This, as we have seen, is
the case of the Bible miracles. Science, therefore, affirms _their
actual occurrence_."

8. The Testimony of Miracles.--The Savior's promise in a former day
(Mark 16:17-18), as in the present dispensation (Doc. and Cov.
84:65-73), is definite, to the effect that specified gifts of the Spirit
are to follow the believer as signs of divine favor. The possession and
exercize of such gifts may be taken therefore as essential features of
the Church of Christ. Nevertheless we are not justified in regarding the
evidence of miracles as infallible testimony of authority from heaven;
on the other hand, the scriptures furnish abundant proof that spiritual
powers of the baser sort have wrought miracles, and will continue so to
do, to the deceiving of many who lack discernment. If miracles be
accepted as infallible evidence of godly power, the magicians of Egypt,
through the wonders which they accomplished in opposition to the
ordained plan for Israel's deliverance, have as good a claim to our
respect as has Moses (Exo. 7:11). John the Revelator saw in vision a
wicked power working miracles, and thereby deceiving many; doing great
wonders, even bringing fire from heaven (Rev. 13:11-18). Again, he saw
three unclean spirits, whom he knew to be "the spirits of devils working
miracles" (Rev. 16:13-14). Consider, in connection with this, the
prediction made by the Savior:--There shall arise false Christs, and
false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch that,
if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect (Matt. 24:24).
The invalidity of miracles as a proof of righteousness is indicated in
an utterance of Jesus Christ regarding the events of the great
judgment:--"Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not
prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy
name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I
never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity" (Matt. 7:22-23).
The Jews, to whom these teachings were addressed, knew that wonders
could be wrought by evil powers; for they charged Christ with working
miracles by the authority of Beelzebub the prince of devils (Matt.
12:22-30; Mark 3:22; Luke 11:15).--From the author's _The Articles of
Faith_, xii:25, 26.

FOOTNOTES:

[309] Luke 3:4.

[310] John 1:21; compare Mal. 4:5. Note 1, end of chapter.

[311] Deut. 18:15, 18; see page 45 herein.

[312] John 1:22, 23; compare Isa. 40:3.

[313] John 1:25-27.

[314] John 1:29-31.

[315] John 1:32, 34; also verses 35, 36. Note 2, end of chapter.

[316] Note 3, end of chapter.

[317] John 1:35-51.

[318] Note 4, end of chapter.

[319] The name thus given was afterward confirmed, with accompaniments
of promise; Matt. 16:18.

[320] To the apostles the Lord said on a subsequent occasion: "Ye have
not chosen me, but I have chosen you" (John 15:16; see also 6:70).

[321] A favorite situation for rest, meditation, and study; 1 Kings
4:25; Micah 4:4.

[322] Acts 7:56; Rev. 1:13; 14:14.

[323] Job 25:6; Psalms 144:3; 146:3; see also 8:4 and compare Heb.
2:6-9.

[324] Ezek. 2:1, 3, 6, 8; 3:1, 3, 4; 4:1; etc.

[325] Dan. 7:13.

[326] Doc. and Cov. 27:11; 78:15, 16; 107:54-57; 116.

[327] Doc. and Cov. 49:6; 58:65; 65:5; 122:8. Observe that in modern
revelation the title is used only as applying to the Christ in His
resurrected and glorified state.

[328] Note 5, end of chapter.

[329] Page 38.

[330] P. of G.P., Moses 6:57; 7:35; see also 7:24, 47, 54, 56, 59, 65.
Observe that Satan addressed Moses as "son of man" in a blasphemous
attempt to coerce Moses into worshiping him by emphasizing the mortal
weakness and inferiority of the man in contrast with his own false
pretension of godship. (Moses 1:12.)

[331] John 2:1-11.

[332] "The address 'Woman' was so respectful that it might be and was,
addressed to the queenliest."--(Farrar, "The Life of Christ," p. 134.)

[333] John 19:26.

[334] On a few occasions Jesus used the address "Woman" in a general
way: Matt. 15:28; Luke 13:12; John 4:21; 8:10; etc.

[335] Note 6, end of chapter.

[336] John 2:11.

[337] The absence of all false austerity and outward show of abnormal
abstinence in His life furnished an imagined excuse for unfounded
charges of excess, through which He was said to be a glutton and a
winebibber. (Matt. 11:19; Luke 7:34.)

[338] Matt. 7:22; 11:20; 12:38; 16:1; 24:24; Mark 6:14; Luke 10:13; John
2:18; 7:21; 10:25; 14:11; Acts 6:8; 8:6; 14:3; 19:11; Rom. 15:19; Rev.
13:13; etc.

[339] John 10:41; Matt. 11:9.

[340] For example Zechariah and Malachi.

[341] Exo. 3:20; 4:1-9. Note 8, end of chapter.

[342] Note 7, end of chapter.




CHAPTER 12.

EARLY INCIDENTS IN OUR LORD'S PUBLIC MINISTRY.


FIRST CLEARING OF THE TEMPLE.

Soon after the marriage festivities in Cana, Jesus, accompanied by His
disciples, as also by His mother and other members of the family, went
to Capernaum, a town pleasantly situated near the northerly end of the
Sea of Galilee or Lake of Gennesaret[343] and the scene of many of our
Lord's miraculous works; indeed it came to be known as His own
city.[344] Because of the unbelief of its people it became a subject of
lamentation to Jesus when in sorrow He prefigured the judgment that
would befall the place.[345] The exact site of the city is at present
unknown. On this occasion Jesus tarried but a few days at Capernaum; for
the time of the annual Passover was near, and in compliance with Jewish
law and custom He went up to Jerusalem.

The synoptic Gospels,[346] which are primarily devoted to the labors of
Christ in Galilee, contain no mention of His attendance at the paschal
festival between His twelfth year and the time of His death; to John
alone are we indebted for the record of this visit at the beginning of
Christ's public ministry. It is not improbable that Jesus had been
present at other Passovers during the eighteen years over which the
evangelists pass in complete and reverent silence; but at any or all
such earlier visits, He, not being thirty years old, could not have
assumed the right or privilege of a teacher without contravening
established customs.[347] It is worth our attention to note that on
this, the first recorded appearance of Jesus in the temple subsequent to
His visit as a Boy, He should resume His "Father's business" where He
had before been engaged. It was in His Father's service that He had been
found in discussion with the doctors of the law,[348] and in His
Father's cause He was impelled to action on this later occasion.

The multitudinous and mixed attendance at the Passover celebration has
already received passing mention;[349] some of the unseemly customs that
prevailed are to be held in mind. The law of Moses had been supplemented
by a cumulative array of rules, and the rigidly enforced requirements as
to sacrifices and tribute had given rise to a system of sale and barter
within the sacred precincts of the House of the Lord. In the outer
courts were stalls of oxen, pens of sheep, cages of doves and pigeons;
and the ceremonial fitness of these sacrificial victims was cried aloud
by the sellers, and charged for in full measure. It was the custom also
to pay the yearly poll tribute of the sanctuary at this season--the
ransom offering required of every male in Israel, and amounting to half
a shekel[350] for each, irrespective of his relative poverty or wealth.
This was to be paid "after the shekel of the sanctuary," which
limitation, as rabbis had ruled, meant payment in temple coin. Ordinary
money, varieties of which bore effigies and inscriptions of heathen
import, was not acceptable, and as a result, money-changers plied a
thriving trade on the temple grounds.

Righteously indignant at what He beheld, zealous for the sanctity of His
Father's House, Jesus essayed to clear the place;[351] and, pausing not
for argument in words, He promptly applied physical force almost
approaching violence--the one form of figurative language that those
corrupt barterers for pelf could best understand. Hastily improvizing a
whip of small cords, He laid about Him on every side, liberating and
driving out sheep, oxen, and human traffickers, upsetting the tables of
the exchangers and pouring out their heterogeneous accumulations of
coin. With tender regard for the imprisoned and helpless birds He
refrained from assaulting their cages; but to their owners He said:
"Take these things hence;" and to all the greedy traders He thundered
forth a command that made them quail: "Make not my Father's house an
house of merchandise." His disciples saw in the incident a realization
of the psalmist's line: "The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up."[352]

The Jews, by which term we mean the priestly officials and rulers of the
people, dared not protest this vigorous action on the ground of
unrighteousness; they, learned in the law, stood self-convicted of
corruption, avarice, and of personal responsibility for the temple's
defilement. That the sacred premises were in sore need of a cleansing
they all knew; the one point upon which they dared to question the
Cleanser was as to why He should thus take to Himself the doing of what
was their duty. They practically submitted to His sweeping intervention,
as that of one whose possible investiture of authority they might be yet
compelled to acknowledge. Their tentative submission was based on fear,
and that in turn upon their sin-convicted consciences. Christ prevailed
over those haggling Jews by virtue of the eternal principle that right
is mightier than wrong, and of the psychological fact that consciousness
of guilt robs the culprit of valor when the imminence of just
retribution is apparent to his soul.[353] Yet, fearful lest He should
prove to be a prophet with power, such as no living priest or rabbi even
professed to be, they timidly asked for credentials of His
authority--"What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these
things?" Curtly, and with scant respect for this demand, so common to
wicked and adulterous men,[354] Jesus replied: "Destroy this temple and
in three days I will raise it up."[355]

Blinded by their own craft, unwilling to acknowledge the Lord's
authority, yet fearful of the possibility that they were opposing one
who had the right to act, the perturbed officials found in the words of
Jesus reference to the imposing temple of masonry within whose walls
they stood. They took courage; this strange Galilean, who openly flouted
their authority, spoke irreverently of their temple, the visible
expression of the profession they so proudly flaunted in words--that
they were children of the covenant, worshipers of the true and living
God, and hence superior to all heathen and pagan peoples. With seeming
indignation they rejoined: "Forty and six years was this temple in
building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?"[356] Though
frustrated in their desire to arouse popular indignation against Jesus
at this time, the Jews refused to forget or forgive His words. When
afterward He stood an undefended prisoner, undergoing an illegal
pretense of trial before a sin-impeached court, the blackest perjury
uttered against Him was that of the false witnesses who testified: "We
heard him say, I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and
within three days I will build another made without hands."[357] And
while He hung in mortal suffering, the scoffers who passed by the cross
wagged their heads and taunted the dying Christ with "Ah, thou that
destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself, and
come down from the cross."[358] Yet His words to the Jews who had
demanded the credentials of a sign had no reference to the colossal
Temple of Herod, but to the sanctuary of His own body, in which, more
literally than in the man-built Holy of Holies, dwelt the ever living
Spirit of the Eternal God. "The Father is in me" was His doctrine.[359]

"He spake of the temple of His body," the real tabernacle of the Most
High.[360] This reference to the destruction of the temple of His body,
and the renewal thereof after three days, is His first recorded
prediction relating to His appointed death and resurrection. Even the
disciples did not comprehend the profound meaning of His words until
after His resurrection from the dead; then they remembered and
understood. The priestly Jews were not as dense as they appeared to be,
for we find them coming to Pilate while the body of the crucified Christ
lay in the tomb, saying: "Sir, we remember that that deceiver said,
while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again."[361] Though
we have many records of Christ having said that He would die and on the
third day would rise again, the plainest of such declarations were made
to the apostles rather than openly to the public. The Jews who waited
upon Pilate almost certainly had in mind the utterance of Jesus when
they had stood, nonplussed before Him, at the clearing of the temple
courts.[362]

Such an accomplishment as that of defying priestly usage and clearing
the temple purlieus by force could not fail to impress, with varied
effect, the people in attendance at the feast; and they, returning to
their homes in distant and widely separated provinces, would spread the
fame of the courageous Galilean Prophet. Many in Jerusalem believed on
Him at the time, mainly because they were attracted by the miracles He
wrought; but He refused to "commit himself unto them," realizing the
insecure foundation of their professions. Popular adulation was foreign
to His purpose; He wanted no motley following, but would gather around
Him such as received the testimony of His Messiahship from the Father.
"He knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man: for he
knew what was in man."[363]

The incident of Christ's forcible clearing of the temple is a
contradiction of the traditional conception of Him as of One so gentle
and unassertive in demeanor as to appear unmanly. Gentle He was, and
patient under affliction, merciful and long-suffering in dealing with
contrite sinners, yet stern and inflexible in the presence of hypocrisy,
and unsparing in His denunciation of persistent evil-doers. His mood was
adapted to the conditions to which He addressed Himself; tender words of
encouragement or burning expletives of righteous indignation issued with
equal fluency from His lips. His nature was no poetic conception of
cherubic sweetness ever present, but that of a Man, with the emotions
and passions essential to manhood and manliness. He, who often wept with
compassion, at other times evinced in word and action the righteous
anger of a God. But of all His passions, however gently they rippled or
strongly surged, He was ever master. Contrast the gentle Jesus moved to
hospitable service by the needs of a festal party in Cana, with the
indignant Christ plying His whip, and amidst commotion and turmoil of
His own making, driving cattle and men before Him as an unclean herd.


JESUS AND NICODEMUS.[364]

That the wonderful deeds wrought by Christ at and about the time of this
memorable Passover had led some of the learned, in addition to many of
the common people, to believe in Him, is evidenced by the fact that
Nicodemus, who was a Pharisee in profession and who occupied a high
place as one of the rulers of the Jews, came to Him on an errand of
inquiry. There is significance in the circumstance that this visit was
made at night. Apparently the man was impelled by a genuine desire to
learn more of the Galilean, whose works could not be ignored; though
pride of office and fear of possible suspicion that he had become
attached to the new Prophet led him to veil his undertaking with
privacy.[365] Addressing Jesus by the title he himself bore, and which
he regarded as one of honor and respect, he said: "Rabbi, we know that
thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that
thou doest, except God be with him."[366] Whether his use of the plural
pronoun "we" indicates that he was sent by the Sanhedrin, or by the
society of Pharisees--the members of which were accustomed to so speak,
as representatives of the order--or was employed in the rhetorical sense
as indicating himself alone, is of little importance. He acknowledged
Jesus as a "teacher come from God," and gave reasons for so regarding
Him. Whatever of feeble faith might have been stirring in the heart of
the man, such was founded on the evidence of miracles, supported mainly
by the psychological effect of signs and wonders. We must accord him
credit for sincerity and honesty of purpose.

Without waiting for specific questions, "Jesus answered and said unto
him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he
cannot see the kingdom of God." Nicodemus appears to have been puzzled;
he asked how such a rejuvenation was possible. "How can a man be born
when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and
be born?" We do Nicodemus no injustice in assuming that he as a rabbi, a
man learned in the scriptures, ought to have known that there was other
meaning in the words of Jesus than that of a mortal, literal birth.
Moreover, were it possible that a man could be born a second time
literally and in the flesh, how could such a birth profit him in
spiritual growth? It would be but a reentrance on the stage of physical
existence, not an advancement. The man knew that the figure of a new
birth was common in the teachings of his day. Every proselyte to Judaism
was spoken of at the time of his conversion as one new-born.

The surprize manifested by Nicodemus was probably due, in part at least,
to the universality of the requirement as announced by Christ. Were the
children of Abraham included? The traditionalism of centuries was
opposed to any such view. Pagans had to be born again through a formal
acceptance of Judaism, if they would become even small sharers of the
blessings that belonged as a heritage to the house of Israel; but Jesus
seemed to treat all alike, Jews and Gentiles, heathen idolaters and the
people who with their lips at least called Jehovah, God.

Jesus repeated the declaration, and with precision, emphasizing by the
impressive "Verily, verily," the greatest lesson that had ever saluted
the ears of this ruler in Israel: "Verily, verily, I say unto thee,
Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into
the kingdom of God." That the new birth thus declared to be absolutely
essential as a condition of entrance into the kingdom of God, applicable
to every man, without limitation or qualification, was a spiritual
regeneration, was next explained to the wondering rabbi: "That which is
born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is
spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again." Still
the learned Jew pondered yet failed to comprehend. Possibly the sound of
the night breeze was heard at that moment; if so, Jesus was but
utilizing the incident as a skilful teacher would do to impress a lesson
when He continued: "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest
the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it
goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." Plainly stated,
Nicodemus was given to understand that his worldly learning and official
status availed him nothing in any effort to understand the things of
God; through the physical sense of hearing he knew that the wind blew;
by sight he could be informed of its passage: yet what did he know of
the ultimate cause of even this simple phenomenon? If Nicodemus would
really be instructed in spiritual matters, he had to divest himself of
the bias due to his professed knowledge of lesser things.

Rabbi and eminent Sanhedrist though he was, there at the humble lodging
of the Teacher from Galilee, he was in the presence of a Master. In the
bewilderment of ignorance he asked, "How can these things be?" The reply
must have been humbling if not humiliating to the man: "Art thou a
master of Israel, and knowest not these things?" Plainly a knowledge of
some of the fundamental principles of the gospel had been before
accessible; Nicodemus was held in reproach for his lack of knowledge,
particularly as he was a teacher of the people. Then our Lord graciously
expounded at greater length, testifying that He spoke from sure
knowledge, based upon what He had seen, while Nicodemus and his fellows
were unwilling to accept the witness of His words. Furthermore, Jesus
averred His mission to be that of the Messiah, and specifically foretold
His death and the manner thereof--that He, the Son of Man, must be
lifted up, even as Moses had lifted the serpent in the wilderness as a
prototype, whereby Israel might escape the fatal plague.[367]

The purpose of the foreappointed death of the Son of Man was: "That
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life";
for to this end, and out of His boundless love to man had the Father
devoted His Only Begotten Son. And further, while it was true that in
His mortal advent the Son had not come to sit as a judge, but to teach,
persuade and save, nevertheless condemnation would surely follow
rejection of that Savior, for light had come, and wicked men avoided the
light, hating it in their preference for the darkness in which they
hoped to hide their evil deeds. Here again, perhaps, Nicodemus
experienced a twinge of conscience, for had not he been afraid to come
in the light, and had he not chosen the dark hours for his visit? Our
Lord's concluding words combined both instruction and reproof: "But he
that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made
manifest, that they are wrought in God."

The narrative of this interview between Nicodemus and the Christ
constitutes one of our most instructive and precious scriptures relating
to the absolute necessity of unreserved compliance with the laws and
ordinances of the gospel, as the means indispensable to salvation. Faith
in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, through whom alone men may gain
eternal life; the forsaking of sin by resolute turning away from the
gross darkness of evil to the saving light of righteousness; the
unqualified requirement of a new birth through baptism in water, and
this of necessity by the mode of immersion, since otherwise the figure
of a birth would be meaningless; and the completion of the new birth
through baptism by the Spirit--all these principles are taught herein in
such simplicity and plainness as to make plausible no man's excuse for
ignorance.

If Jesus and Nicodemus were the only persons present at the interview,
John, the writer, must have been informed thereof by one of the two. As
John was one of the early disciples, afterward one of the apostles, and
as he was distinguished in the apostolic company by his close personal
companionship with the Lord, it is highly probable that he heard the
account from the lips of Jesus. It was evidently John's purpose to
record the great lesson of the occasion rather than to tell the
circumstantial story. The record begins and ends with equal abruptness;
unimportant incidents are omitted; every line is of significance; the
writer fully realized the deep import of his subject and treated it
accordingly. Later mention of Nicodemus tends to confirm the estimate of
the man as he appears in this meeting with Jesus--that of one who was
conscious of a belief in the Christ, but whose belief was never
developed into such genuine and virile faith as would impel to
acceptance and compliance irrespective of cost or consequence.[368]


FROM CITY TO COUNTRY.

Leaving Jerusalem, Jesus and His disciples went into the rural parts of
Judea, and there tarried, doubtless preaching as opportunity was found
or made; and those who believed on Him were baptized.[369] The prominent
note of His early public utterances was that of His forerunner in the
wilderness: "Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."[370] The
Baptist continued his labors; though doubtless, since his recognition of
the Greater One for whose coming he had been sent to prepare, he
considered the baptism he administered as of somewhat different
significance. He had at first baptized in preparation for One who was to
come; now he baptized repentant believers unto Him who had come.

Disputation had arisen between some of John's zealous adherents and one
or more Jews[371] concerning the doctrine of purifying. The context[372]
leaves little room for doubt that a question was involved as to the
relative merits of John's baptism and that administered by the disciples
of Jesus. With excusable ardor and well-intended zeal for their master,
the disciples of John, who had been embroiled in the dispute, came to
him saying: "Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou
bearest witness, behold, the same baptizeth, and all men come to him."
John's supporters were concerned at the success of One whom they
regarded in some measure as a rival to their beloved teacher. Had not
John given to Jesus His first attestation? "He to whom thou bearest
witness" said they, not deigning even to designate Jesus by name.
Following the example of Andrew, and of John the future apostle, the
people were leaving the Baptist and gathering about the Christ. John's
reply to his ardent followers constitutes a sublime instance of
self-abnegation. His answer was to this effect: A man receives only as
God gives unto him. It is not given to me to do the work of Christ. Ye
yourselves are witnesses that I disclaimed being the Christ, and that I
said I was one sent before Him. He is as the Bridegroom; I am only as
the friend of the bridegroom,[373] His servant; and I rejoice greatly in
being thus near Him; His voice gives me happiness; and thus my joy is
fulfilled. He of whom you speak stands at the beginning of His ministry;
I near the end of mine. He must increase but I must decrease. He came
from heaven and therefore is superior to all things of earth;
nevertheless men refuse to receive His testimony. To such a One, the
Spirit of God is not apportioned; it is His in full measure. The Father
loveth Him, the Son, and hath given all things into His hand, and: "He
that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth
not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on
him."[374]

In such a reply, under the existent conditions, is to be found the
spirit of true greatness, and of a humility that could rest only on a
conviction of divine assurance to the Baptist as to himself and the
Christ. In more than one sense was John great among all who are born of
women.[375] He had entered upon his work when sent of God so to do;[376]
he realized that his work had been in a measure superseded, and he
patiently awaited his release, in the meantime continuing in the
ministry, directing souls to his Master. The beginning of the end was
near. He was soon seized and thrown into a dungeon; where, as shall be
shown, he was beheaded to sate the vengeance of a corrupt woman whose
sins he had boldly denounced.[377]

The Pharisees observed with increasing apprehension the growing
popularity of Jesus, evidenced by the fact that even more followed after
Him and accepted baptism at the hands of His disciples than had
responded to the Baptist's call. Open opposition was threatened; and as
Jesus desired to avert the hindrance to His work which such persecution
at that time would entail, He withdrew from Judea and retired to
Galilee, journeying by way of Samaria. This return to the northern
province was effected after the Baptist had been cast into prison.[378]


NOTES TO CHAPTER 12.

1. Sea of Galilee.--This, the largest body of fresh water in Palestine,
is somewhat pear-shape in outline and measures approximately thirteen
miles in extreme length on a northerly-southerly line and between six
and seven miles in greatest width. The river Jordan enters it at the
northeast extremity and flows out at the south-west; the lake may be
regarded, therefore, as a great expansion of the river, though the
water-filled depression is about two hundred feet in depth. The
outflowing Jordan connects the sea of Galilee with the Dead Sea, the
latter a body of intensely saline water, which in its abundance of
dissolved salts and in the consequent density of its brine is comparable
to the Great Salt Lake in Utah, though the chemical composition of the
waters is materially different. The sea of Galilee is referred to by
Luke, in accordance with its more appropriate classification as a lake
(Luke 5:1, 2; 8:22, 23, 33). Adjoining the lake on the north-west is a
plain, which in earlier times was highly cultivated: this was known as
the land of Gennesaret (Matt. 14:34; Mark 6:53); and the water body came
to be known as the sea or lake of Gennesaret (Luke 5:1). From the
prominence of one of the cities on its western shore, it was known also
as the sea of Tiberias (John 6:1,23; 21:1). In the Old Testament it is
called the sea of Chinnereth (Numb. 34:11) or Chinneroth (Josh. 12:3)
after the name of a contiguous city (Josh. 19:35). The surface of the
lake or sea is several hundred feet below normal sea-level, 681 feet
lower than the Mediterranean according to Zenos, or 700 feet as stated
by some others. This low-lying position gives to the region a
semi-tropical climate. Zenos, in the _Standard Bible Dictionary_, says:
"The waters of the lake are noted for abundant fish. The industry of
fishing was accordingly one of the most stable resources of the country
round about.... Another feature of the sea of Galilee is its
susceptibility to sudden storms. These are occasioned partly by its
lying so much lower than the surrounding tableland (a fact that creates
a difference of temperature and consequent disturbances in the
atmosphere), and partly by the rushing of gusts of wind down the Jordan
valley from the heights of Hermon. The event recorded in Matt. 8:24 is
no extraordinary case. Those who ply boats on the lake are obliged to
exercize great care to avoid peril from such storms. The shores of the
sea of Galilee as well as the lake itself were the scenes of many of the
most remarkable events recorded in the Gospels."

2. The Four Gospels.--All careful students of the New Testament must
have observed that the books of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, treat the
events of the Savior's sayings and doings in Galilee with greater
fulness than they accord to His work in Judea; the book or Gospel of
John, on the other hand, treats particularly the incidents of our Lord's
Judean ministry, without excluding, however, important events that
occurred in Galilee. In style of writing and method of treatment, the
authors of the first three Gospels (evangelists as they and John are
collectively styled in theologic literature) differ more markedly from
the author of the fourth Gospel than among themselves. The events
recorded by the first three can be more readily classified, collated, or
arranged, and in consequence the Gospels written by Matthew, Mark, and
Luke are now commonly known as the Synoptics, or Synoptic Gospels.

3. Thirty Years of Age.--According to Luke (3:23) Jesus was about thirty
years of age at the time of His baptism, and we find that soon
thereafter, He entered publicly upon the work of His ministry. The law
provided that at the age of thirty years the Levites were required to
enter upon their special service (Numb. 4:3). Clarke, _Bible
Commentary_, treating the passage in Luke 3:23, says: "This was the age
required by the law to which the priests must arrive before they could
be installed in their office." Jesus may possibly have had regard for
what had become a custom of the time, in waiting until He had attained
that age before entering publicly on the labors of a Teacher among the
people. Not being of Levitical descent He was not eligible to priestly
ordination in the Aaronic order, and therefore, certainly did not wait
for such before beginning His ministry. To have taught in public at an
earlier age would have been to arouse criticism, and objection, which
might have resulted in serious handicap or hindrance at the outset.

4. Throngs and Confusion at the Passover Festival.--While it is
admittedly impossible that even a reasonably large fraction of the
Jewish people could be present at the annual Passover gatherings at
Jerusalem, and in consequence provision was made for local observance of
the feast, the usual attendance at the temple celebration in the days of
Jesus was undoubtedly enormous. Josephus calls the Passover throngs "an
innumerable multitude" (Wars, ii, 1:3), and in another place (Wars, vi,
9:3) states that the attendance reached the enormous aggregate of three
millions of souls; such is the record, though many modern writers treat
the statement as an exaggeration. Josephus says that for the purpose of
giving the emperor Nero information as to the numerical strength of the
Jewish people, particularly in Palestine, the chief priests were asked
by Cestius to count the number of lambs slain at the feast, and the
number reported was 256,500, which on the basis of between ten and
eleven persons to each paschal table would indicate the presence, he
says, of at least 2,700,200, not including visitors other than Jews, and
such of the people of Israel as were debarred from participation in the
paschal meal because of ceremonial unfitness.

The scenes of confusion, inevitable under the conditions then
prevailing, are admirably summarized by Geikie (_Life and Words of
Christ_, chap. 30), who cites many earlier authorities for his
statements: "The streets were blocked by the crowds from all parts, who
had to make their way to the Temple, past flocks of sheep, and droves of
cattle, pressing on in the sunken middle part of each street reserved
for them, to prevent contact and defilement. Sellers of all possible
wares beset the pilgrims, for the great feasts were, as has been said,
the harvest time of all trades at Jerusalem, just as, at Mecca, even at
this day, the time of the great concourse of worshippers at the tomb of
the Prophet, is that of the busiest trade among the merchant pilgrims,
who form the caravans from all parts of the Mohammedan world.

"Inside the Temple space, the noise and pressure were, if possible,
worse. Directions were posted up to keep to the right or the left, as in
the densest thoroughfares of London. The outer court, which others than
Jews might enter, and which was, therefore, known as the Court of the
Heathen, was in part, covered with pens for sheep, goats, and cattle,
for the feast and the thank-offerings. Sellers shouted the merits of
their beasts, sheep bleated, and oxen lowed. It was, in fact, the great
yearly fair of Jerusalem, and the crowds added to the din and tumult,
till the services in the neighboring courts were sadly disturbed.
Sellers of doves, for poor women coming for purification from all parts
of the country, and for others, had a space set apart for them. Indeed,
the sale of doves was, in great measure, secretly, in the hands of the
priests themselves: Hannas, the high priest, especially, gaining great
profits from his dove cotes on Mount Olivet. The rents of the sheep and
cattle pens, and the profits on the doves, had led the priests to
sanction the incongruity of thus turning the Temple itself into a noisy
market. Nor was this all. Potters pressed on the pilgrims their clay
dishes and ovens for the Passover lamb; hundreds of traders recommended
their wares aloud; shops for wine, oil, salt, and all else needed for
sacrifices, invited customers; and, in addition, persons going across
the city, with all kinds of burdens, shortened their journey by crossing
the Temple grounds. The provision for paying the tribute, levied on all,
for the support of the Temple, added to the distraction. On both sides
of the east Temple gate, stalls had for generations been permitted for
changing foreign money. From the fifteenth of the preceding month
money-changers had been allowed to set up their tables in the city, and
from the twenty-first,--or twenty days before the Passover,--to ply
their trade in the Temple itself. Purchasers of materials for offerings
paid the amount at special stalls, to an officer of the Temple, and
received a leaden cheque for which they got what they had bought, from
the seller. Large sums, moreover, were changed, to be cast, as free
offerings, into one of the thirteen chests which formed the Temple
treasury. Every Jew, no matter how poor, was, in addition, required to
pay yearly a half-shekel--about eighteen pence--as atonement money for
his soul, and for the support of the Temple. As this would not be
received except in a native coin, called the Temple shekel, which was
not generally current, strangers had to change their Roman, Greek, or
Eastern money, at the stalls of the money-changers, to get the coin
required. The trade gave ready means for fraud, which was only too
common. Five per cent. exchange was charged, but this was indefinitely
increased by tricks and chicanery, for which the class had everywhere
earned so bad a name, that like the publicans, their witness would not
be taken before a court."

Touching the matter of the defilement to which the temple courts had
been subjected by traffickers acting under priestly license, Farrar,
(_Life of Christ_, p. 152), gives us the following: "And this was the
entrance-court to the Temple of the Most High! The court which was a
witness that that house should be a House of Prayer for all nations had
been degraded into a place which, for foulness, was more like shambles,
and for bustling commerce more like a densely-crowded bazaar; while the
lowing of oxen, the bleating of sheep, the Babel of many languages, the
huckstering and wrangling, and the clinking of money and of balances
(perhaps not always just), might be heard in the adjoining courts,
disturbing the chant of the Levites and the prayers of priests!"

5. The Servility of the Jews in the Presence of Jesus.--The record of
the achievement of Jesus, in ridding the temple courts of those who had
made the House of the Lord a market place, contains nothing to suggest
the inference that He exercized superhuman strength or more than manly
vigor. He employed a whip of His own making, and drove all before Him.
They fled helter-skelter. None are said to have voiced an objection
until the expulsion had been made complete. Why did not some among the
multitude object? The submission appears to have been abject and servile
in the extreme. Farrar, (_Life of Christ_, pp. 151, 152) raises the
question and answers it with excellent reasoning and in eloquent lines:
"Why did not this multitude of ignorant pilgrims resist? Why did these
greedy chafferers content themselves with dark scowls and muttered
maledictions, while they suffered their oxen and sheep to be chased into
the streets and themselves ejected, and their money flung rolling on the
floor, by one who was then young and unknown, and in the garb of
despised Galilee? Why, in the same way we might ask, did Saul suffer
Samuel to beard him in the very presence of his army? Why did David
abjectly obey the orders of Joab? Why did Ahab not dare to arrest Elijah
at the door of Naboth's vineyard? Because sin is weakness; because there
is in the world nothing so abject as a guilty conscience, nothing so
invincible as the sweeping tide of a Godlike indignation against all
that is base and wrong. How could these paltry sacrilegious buyers and
sellers, conscious of wrongdoing, oppose that scathing rebuke, or face
the lightnings of those eyes that were enkindled by an outraged
holiness? When Phinehas the priest was zealous for the Lord of Hosts,
and drove through the bodies of the prince of Simeon and the Midianitish
woman with one glorious thrust of his indignant spear, why did not
guilty Israel avenge that splendid murder? Why did not every man of the
tribe of Simeon become a Goel to the dauntless assassin? Because Vice
cannot stand for one moment before Virtue's uplifted arm. Base and
grovelling as they were, these money-mongering Jews felt, in all that
remnant of their souls which was not yet eaten away by infidelity and
avarice, that the Son of Man was right.

"Nay, even the Priests and Pharisees, and Scribes and Levites, devoured
as they were by pride and formalism, could not condemn an act which
might have been performed by a Nehemiah or a Judas Maccabaeus, and which
agreed with all that was purest and best in their traditions. But when
they had heard of this deed, or witnessed it, and had time to recover
from the breathless mixture of admiration, disgust, and astonishment
which it inspired, they came to Jesus, and though they did not dare to
condemn what He had done, yet half indignantly asked Him for some sign
that He had a right to act thus."

6. Jewish Regard for the Temple.--The Jews professed high regard for the
temple. "An utterance of the Savior, construed by the dark-minded as an
aspersion upon the temple, was used against Him as one of the chief
accusations on which His death was demanded. When the Jews clamored for
a sign of His authority He predicted His own death and subsequent
resurrection, saying, 'Destroy this temple, and in three days I will
raise it up,' (John 2:19-22; see also Matt. 26:61; 27:40; Mark 14:58;
15:29). They blindly regarded this remark as a disrespectful allusion to
their temple, a structure built by human hands, and they refused to
forget or forgive. That this veneration continued after the crucifixion
of our Lord is evident from accusations brought against Stephen, and
still later against Paul. In their murderous rage the people accused
Stephen of disrespect for the temple, and brought false witnesses who
uttered perjured testimony saying, 'This man ceaseth not to speak
blasphemous words against this holy place.' (Acts 6:13.) And Stephen was
numbered with the martyrs. When it was claimed that Paul had brought
with him into the temple precincts, a Gentile, the whole city was
aroused, and the infuriated mob dragged Paul from the place and sought
to kill him. (Acts 21:26-31.)"--The author; _House of the Lord_, pp. 60,
61.

7. Some of the "Chief Rulers" Believed.--Nicodemus was not the only one
among the ruling classes who believed in Jesus; but of most of these we
learn nothing to indicate that they had sufficient courage to come even
by night to make independent and personal inquiry. They feared the
result in loss of popularity and standing. We read in John 12:42, 43:
"Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but
because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be
put out of the synagogue: for they loved the praise of men more than the
praise of God." Note also the instance of the scribe who proffered to
become a professed disciple, but, probably because of some degree of
insincerity or unfitness, was rather discouraged than approved by Jesus.
(Matt. 8:19, 20.)

8. Nicodemus.--The course followed by this man evidences at once that he
really believed in Jesus as one sent of God, and that his belief failed
of development into a condition of true faith, which, had it but been
realized, might have led to a life of devoted service in the Master's
cause. When at a later stage than that of his interview with Christ the
chief priests and Pharisees upbraided the officers whom they had sent to
take Jesus into custody and who returned to report their failure,
Nicodemus, one of the council, ventured to mildly expostulate against
the murderous determination of the rulers, by stating a general
proposition in interrogative form: "Doth our law judge any man before it
hear him and know what he doeth?" He was answered by his colleagues with
contempt, and appears to have abandoned his well-intended effort (John
7:50-53; read preceding verses 30-49). We next hear of him bringing a
costly contribution of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred-weight, to be
used in the burial of Christ's then crucified body; but even in this
deed of liberality and devotion, in which his sincerity of purpose
cannot well be questioned, he had been preceded by Joseph of Arimathea,
a man of rank, who had boldly asked for and secured the body for
reverent burial (John 19:38-42). Nevertheless Nicodemus did more than
did most of his believing associates among the noble and great ones; and
to him let all due credit be given; he will not fail of his reward.

9. "The Jews" or "A Jew."--We read that "there arose a question between
some of John's disciples and the Jews about purifying" (John 3:25).
Bearing in mind that the expression "the Jews" is very commonly used by
the author of the fourth Gospel to designate the officials or rulers
among the people, the passage quoted may be understood to mean that the
Baptist's disciples were engaged in disputation with the priestly
rulers. It is held, however, by Biblical scholars generally, that "the
Jews" in this passage is a mistranslation, and that the true rendering
is "a Jew." The disputation concerning purifying appears to have arisen
between some of the Baptist's followers and a single opponent; and the
passage as it appears in the King James version of the Bible is an
instance of scripture not translated correctly.

10. Friend of the Bridegroom.--Judean marriage customs in the days of
Christ required the appointing of a chief grooms-man, who attended to
all the preliminaries and made arrangements for the marriage feast, in
behalf of the bridegroom. He was distinctively known as the friend of
the bridegroom. When the ceremonial requirements had been complied with,
and the bride had been legally and formally given unto her spouse, the
joy of the bridegroom's friend was fulfilled inasmuch as his appointed
duties had been successfully discharged. (John 3:29.) According to
Edersheim, (_Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah_, vol. 1, p. 148), by
the simpler customs prevalent in Galilee a "friend of the bridegroom"
was not often chosen; and (pp. 663-4) the expression "children of the
bridechamber" (Matt. 9:15; Mark 2:19; Luke 5:34, in all of which
citations the expression is used by Jesus), was applied collectively to
all the invited guests at a wedding festival. He says: "As the
institution of 'friends of the bridegroom' prevailed in Judea, but not
in Galilee, this marked distinction of the 'friend of the bridegroom' in
the mouth of the Judean John, and 'sons (children) of the bridechamber'
in that of the Galilean Jesus, is itself evidential of historic
accuracy."

11. The Atonement Money.--In the course of the exodus, the Lord required
of every male in Israel who was twenty years old or older at the time of
a census the payment of a ransom, amounting to half a shekel (Exo.
30:12-16). See pages 383 and 396 herein. As to the use to which this
money was to be put, the Lord thus directed Moses: "And thou shalt take
the atonement money of the children of Israel, and shalt appoint it for
the service of the tabernacle of the congregation; that it may be a
memorial unto the children of Israel before the Lord, to make an
atonement for your souls" (Exo. 30:16; see also 38:25-31). In time, the
tax of half a shekel, equivalent to a bekah (Exo. 38:26), was collected
annually, though for this exaction no scriptural authority is of record.
This tax must not be confused with the redemption money, amounting to
five shekels for every firstborn male, the payment of which exempted the
individual from service in the labors of the sanctuary. In place of the
firstborn sons in all the tribes, the Lord designated the Levites for
this special ministry; nevertheless He continued to hold the firstborn
males as peculiarly His own, and required the payment of a ransom as a
mark of their redemption from the duties of exclusive service. See Exo.
13:12, 13-15; Numb. 3:13, 40-51; 8:15-18; 18:15, 16; also pages 95, 96
herein.

FOOTNOTES:

[343] Note 1, end of chapter.

[344] John 2:12; compare Matt. 4:13; 9:1.

[345] Matt. 11:23; Luke 10:15.

[346] Note 2, end of chapter.

[347] Note 3, end of chapter.

[348] Page 114; Luke 2:46-49.

[349] Page 113. Note 4, end of chapter.

[350] Exo. 30:11-16. Note 11, end of chapter.

[351] John 2:14-17.

[352] Compare Psalm 69:9.

[353] Note 5, end of chapter.

[354] Matt. 12:38, 39; compare 16:1; Mark 8:11; John 6:30; 1 Cor. 1:22.

[355] John 2:19; read verses 18-22.

[356] Note 6, end of chapter.

[357] Mark 14:58. Page 624 herein.

[358] Mark 15:29, 30.

[359] John 10:38; 17:21.

[360] John 2:19-22; compare 1 Cor. 3:16, 17; 6:19; 2 Cor. 6:16; see
further Col. 2:9; Heb. 8:2.

[361] Matt. 27:63. Page 665.

[362] As Canon Farrar has tersely written, "Unless the 'we remember' was
a distinct falsehood, they could have been referring to no other
occasion than this." ("Life of Christ," p. 155.)

[363] John 2:23-25.

[364] John 3:1-21.

[365] Note 7, end of chapter.

[366] John 3:2; read verses 1-21.

[367] Numb. 21:7-9.

[368] Note 8, end of chapter. See "Articles of Faith," v:1-5.

[369] John 3:22; compare 4:2.

[370] Matt. 4:17; compare Mark 1:15.

[371] Note 9, end of chapter.

[372] John 3:25-36.

[373] Note 10, end of chapter.

[374] John 3:27-36.

[375] Matt. 11:11.

[376] Luke 3:2,3.

[377] Matt. 14:3-12.

[378] Matt. 4:12.




CHAPTER 13.

HONORED BY STRANGERS, REJECTED BY HIS OWN.


JESUS AND THE SAMARITAN WOMAN.

The direct route from Judea to Galilee lay through Samaria; but many
Jews, particularly Galileans, chose to follow an indirect though longer
way rather than traverse the country of a people so despized by them as
were the Samaritans. The ill-feeling between Jews and Samaritans had
been growing for centuries, and at the time of our Lord's earthly
ministry had developed into most intense hatred.[379] The inhabitants of
Samaria were a mixed people, in whom the blood of Israel was mingled
with that of the Assyrians and other nations; and one cause of the
animosity existing between them and their neighbors both on the north
and the south was the Samaritans' claim for recognition as Israelites;
it was their boast that Jacob was their father; but this the Jews
denied. The Samaritans had a version of the Pentateuch, which they
revered as the law, but they rejected all the prophetical writings of
what is now the Old Testament, because they considered themselves
treated with insufficient respect therein.

To the orthodox Jew of the time a Samaritan was more unclean than a
Gentile of any other nationality. It is interesting to note the extreme
and even absurd restrictions then in force in the matter of regulating
unavoidable relations between the two peoples. The testimony of a
Samaritan could not be heard before a Jewish tribunal. For a Jew to eat
food prepared by a Samaritan was at one time regarded by rabbinical
authority as an offense as great as that of eating the flesh of swine.
While it was admitted that produce from a field in Samaria was not
unclean, inasmuch as it sprang directly from the soil, such produce
became unclean if subjected to any treatment at Samaritan hands. Thus,
grapes and grain might be purchased from Samaritans, but neither wine
nor flour manufactured therefrom by Samaritan labor. On one occasion the
epithet "Samaritan" was hurled at Christ as an intended insult. "Say we
not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil?"[380] The
Samaritan conception of the mission of the expected Messiah was somewhat
better founded than was that of the Jews, for the Samaritans gave
greater prominence to the spiritual kingdom the Messiah would establish,
and were less exclusive in their views as to whom the Messianic
blessings would be extended.

In His journey to Galilee Jesus took the shorter course, through
Samaria; and doubtless His choice was guided by purpose, for we read
that "He must needs go" that way.[381] The road led through or by the
town called Sychar,[382] "near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave
to his son Joseph."[383] There was Jacob's well, which was held in high
esteem, not only for its intrinsic worth as an unfailing source of
water, but also because of its association with the great patriarch's
life. Jesus, travel-warn and weary, rested at the well, while His
disciples went to the town to buy food. A woman came to fill her
water-jar, and Jesus said to her: "Give me to drink." By the rules of
oriental hospitality then prevailing, a request for water was one that
should never be denied if possible to grant; yet the woman hesitated,
for she was amazed that a Jew should ask a favor of a Samaritan,
however, great the need. She expressed her surprize in the question "How
is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of
Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans." Jesus,
seemingly forgetful of thirst in His desire to teach, answered her by
saving: "If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to
thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would
have given thee living water." The woman reminded Him that He had no
bucket or cord with which to draw from the deep well, and inquired
further as to His meaning, adding: "Art thou greater than our father
Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his
children, and his cattle?"

Jesus found in the woman's words a spirit similar to that with which the
scholarly Nicodemus had received His teachings; each failed alike to
perceive the spiritual lesson He would impart. He explained to her that
water from the well would be of but temporary benefit; to one who drank
of it thirst would return. "But," he added, "whosoever drinketh of the
water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I
shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into
everlasting life." The woman's interest was keenly aroused, either from
curiosity or as an emotion of deeper concern, for she now became the
petitioner, and, addressing Him by a title of respect, said: "Sir, give
me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw." She
could see nothing beyond the material advantage attaching to water that
would once and for all quench thirst. The result of the draught she had
in mind would be to give her immunity from one bodily need, and save her
the labor of coming to draw from the well.

The subject of the conversation was abruptly changed by Jesus bidding
her to go, call her husband, and return. To her reply that she had no
husband Jesus revealed to her His superhuman powers of discernment, by
telling her she had spoken truthfully, inasmuch as she had had five
husbands, while the man with whom she was then living was not her
husband. Surely no ordinary being could have so read the unpleasing
story of her life; she impulsively confessed her conviction, saying:
"Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet." She desired to turn the
conversation, and, pointing to Mount Gerizim, upon which the
sacrilegious priest Manasseh had erected a Samaritan temple, she
remarked with little pertinence to what had been said before: "Our
fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is
the place where men ought to worship." Jesus replied in yet deeper vein,
telling her that the time was near when neither that mountain nor
Jerusalem would be preeminently a place of worship; and He clearly
rebuked her presumption that the traditional belief of the Samaritans
was equally good with that of the Jews; for, said He: "Ye worship ye
know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews."
Changed and corrupted as the Jewish religion had become, it was better
than that of her people; for the Jews did accept the prophets, and
through Judah the Messiah had come. But, as Jesus expounded the matter
to her, the place of worship was of lesser importance than the spirit of
the worshiper. "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship
him in spirit and in truth."

Unable or unwilling to understand Christ's meaning, the woman sought to
terminate the lesson by a remark that probably was to her but casual: "I
know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he
will tell us all things." Then, to her profound amazement, Jesus
rejoined with the awe-inspiring declaration: "I that speak unto thee am
he." The language was unequivocal, the assertion one that required no
elucidation. The woman must regard Him thereafter as either an imposter
or the Messiah. She left her pitcher at the well, and hastening to the
town told of her experience, saying: "Come, see a man, which told me all
things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?"

Near the conclusion of the interview between Jesus and the woman, the
returning disciples arrived with the provisions they had gone to
procure. They marveled at finding the Master in conversation with a
woman, and a Samaritan woman at that, yet none of them asked of Him an
explanation. His manner must have impressed them with the seriousness
and solemnity of the occasion. When they urged Him to eat He said: "I
have meat to eat that ye know not of." To them His words had no
significance beyond the literal sense, and they queried among themselves
as to whether some one had brought Him food during their absence; but He
enlightened them in this way: "My meat is to do the will of him that
sent me, and to finish his work."

A crowd of Samaritans appeared, coming from the city. Looking upon them
and upon the grain fields nearby, Jesus continued: "Say not ye, There
are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you,
Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to
harvest." The import of the saying seems to be that while months would
elapse before the wheat and the barley were ready for the sickle, the
harvest of souls, exemplified by the approaching crowd, was even then
ready; and that from what He had sown the disciples might reap, to their
inestimable advantage, since they would have wages for their hire and
would gather the fruits of other labor than their own.

Many of the Samaritans believed on Christ, at first on the strength of
the woman's testimony, then because of their own conviction; and they
said to the woman at whose behest they had at first gone to meet Him:
"Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard him
ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the
world." Graciously He acceded to their request to remain, and tarried
with them two days. It is beyond question that Jesus did not share in
the national prejudice of the Jews against the people of Samaria; an
honest soul was acceptable to Him come whence he may. Probably the seed
sown during this brief stay of our Lord among the despized people of
Samaria was that from which so rich a harvest was reaped by the apostles
in after years.[384]


JESUS AGAIN IN GALILEE: AT CANA AND NAZARETH.

Following the two days' sojourn among the Samaritans, Jesus, accompanied
by the disciples who had traveled with Him from Judea, resumed the
journey northward into Galilee, from which province He had been absent
several months. Realizing that the people of Nazareth, the town in which
He had been brought up, would be probably loath to acknowledge Him as
other than the carpenter, or, as He stated, knowing that "a prophet hath
no honour in his own country,"[385] He went first to Cana. The people of
that section, and indeed the Galileans generally, received Him gladly;
for many of them had attended the last Passover and probably had been
personal witnesses of the wonders He had wrought in Judea. While at Cana
He was visited by a nobleman, most likely a high official of the
province, who entreated Him to proceed to Capernaum and heal his son,
who was then lying at the point of death. With the probable design of
showing the man the true condition of his mind, for we cannot doubt that
Jesus could read his thoughts, our Lord said to him: "Except ye see
signs and wonders, ye will not believe."[386] As observed in earlier
instances, notably in the refusal of Jesus to commit Himself to the
professing believers at Jerusalem, whose belief rested solely on their
wonder at the things He did,[387] our Lord would not regard miracles,
though wrought by Himself, as a sufficient and secure foundation for
faith. The entreating nobleman, in anguish over the precarious state of
his son, in no way resented the rebuke such as a captious mind may have
found in the Lord's reply; but with sincere humility, which showed his
belief that Jesus could heal the boy, he renewed and emphasized his
plea: "Sir, come down ere my child die."

Probably the man had never paused to reason as to the direct means or
process by which death might be averted and healing be insured through
the words of any being; but in his heart he believed in Christ's power,
and with pathetic earnestness besought our Lord to intervene in behalf
of his dying son. He seemed to consider it necessary that the Healer be
present, and his great fear was that the boy would not live until Jesus
could arrive. "Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way; thy son liveth. And the
man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his
way." The genuineness of the man's trust is shown by his grateful
acceptance of the Lord's assurance, and by the contentment that he
forthwith manifested. Capernaum, where his son lay, was about twenty
miles away; had he been still solicitous and doubtful he would probably
have tried to return home that day, for it was one o'clock in the
afternoon when Jesus spoke the words that had given to him such relief;
but he journeyed leisurely, for on the following day he was still on the
road, and was met by some of his servants who had been sent to cheer him
with the glad word of his son's recovery. He inquired when the boy had
begun to amend, and was told that at the seventh hour on the yesterday
the fever had left him. That was the time at which Christ had said, "Thy
son liveth." The man's belief ripened fast, and both he and his
household accepted the gospel.[388] This was the second miracle wrought
by Jesus when in Cana, though in this instance the subject of the
blessing was in Capernaum.

Our Lord's fame spread through all the region round about. During a
period not definitely stated, He taught in the synagogs of the towns and
was received with favor, being glorified of all.[389] He then returned
to Nazareth, His former home, and as was his custom, attended the
synagog on the Sabbath day. Many times as boy and man He had sat in that
house of worship, listening to the reading of the law and the prophets
and to the commentaries or Targums[390] relating thereto, as delivered
by appointed readers; but now, as a recognized teacher of legal age He
was eligible to take the reader's place. On this occasion He stood up to
read, when the service had reached the stage at which extracts from the
prophetical books were to be read to the congregation. The minister in
charge handed Him the roll, or book, of Isaiah; He turned to the part
known to us as the beginning of the sixty-first chapter, and read: "The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the
gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to
preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the
blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable
year of the Lord."[391] Handing the book to the minister, He sat down.
It was allowable for the reader in the service of the Jewish synagog to
make comments in explanation of what had been read; but to do so he must
sit. When Jesus took His seat the people knew that He was about to
expound the text, and "the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue
were fastened on him." The scripture He had quoted was one recognized by
all classes as specifically referring to the Messiah, for whose coming
the nation waited. The first sentence of our Lord's commentary was
startling; it involved no labored analysis, no scholastic
interpretation, but a direct and unambiguous application: "This day is
this scripture fulfilled in your ears." There was such graciousness in
His words that all wondered, and they said, "Is not this Joseph's
son?"[392]

Jesus knew their thoughts even if He heard not their words, and,
forestalling their criticism, He said: "Ye will surely say unto me this
proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in
Capernaum, do also here in thy country. And he said, Verily I say unto
you, No prophet is accepted in his own country." In their hearts the
people were eager for a sign, a wonder, a miracle. They knew that Jesus
had wrought such in Cana, and a boy in Capernaum had been healed by His
word; at Jerusalem too He had astonished the people with mighty works.
Were they, His townsmen, to be slighted? Why would He not treat them to
some entertaining exhibition of His powers? He continued His address,
reminding them that in the days of Elijah, when for three years and a
half no rain had fallen, and famine had reigned, the prophet had been
sent to but one of the many widows, and she a woman of Sarepta in Sidon,
a Gentile, not a daughter of Israel. And again, though there had been
many lepers in Israel in the days of Elisha, but one leper, and he a
Syrian, not an Israelite, had been cleansed through the prophet's
ministration, for Naaman alone had manifested the requisite faith.

Then great was their wrath. Did He dare to class them with Gentiles and
lepers? Were they to be likened unto despized unbelievers, and that too
by the son of the village carpenter, who had grown from childhood in
their community? Victims of diabolical rage, they seized the Lord and
took Him to the brow of the hill on the slopes of which the town was
built, determined to avenge their wounded feelings by hurling Him from
the rocky cliffs. Thus early in His ministry did the forces of
opposition attain murderous intensity. But our Lord's time to die had
not yet come. The infuriated mob was powerless to go one step farther
than their supposed victim would permit. "But he passing through the
midst of them went his way." Whether they were overawed by the grace of
His presence, silenced by the power of His words, or stayed by some more
appalling intervention, we are not informed. He departed from the
unbelieving Nazarenes, and thenceforth Nazareth was no longer His home.


IN CAPERNAUM.

Jesus wended His way to Capernaum,[393] which became to Him as nearly a
place of abode as any He had in Galilee. There He taught, particularly
on Sabbath days; and the people were astonished at His doctrine, for He
spoke with authority and power.[394] In the synagog, on one of these
occasions, was a man who was a victim of possession, and subject to the
ravages of an evil spirit, or, as the text so forcefully states, one who
"had a spirit of an unclean devil." It is significant that this wicked
spirit, which had gained such power over the man as to control his
actions and utterances, was terrified before our Lord and cried out with
a loud voice, though pleadingly: "Let us alone; what have we to do with
thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee
who thou art; the Holy One of God." Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit,
commanding him to be silent, and to leave the man; the demon obeyed the
Master, and after throwing the victim into violent though harmless
paroxysm, left him. Such a miracle caused the beholders to wonder the
more, and they exclaimed: "What a word is this! for with authority and
power he commandeth the unclean spirits, and they come out. And the fame
of him went out into every place of the country round about."[395]

In the evening of the same day, when the sun had set, and therefore
after the Sabbath had passed[396], the people flocked about Him,
bringing their afflicted friends and kindred; and these Jesus healed of
their divers maladies whether of body or of mind. Among those so
relieved were many who had been possessed of devils, and these cried
out, testifying perforce of the Master's divine authority: "Thou art
Christ the Son of God."[397]

On these as on other occasions, we find evil spirits voicing through the
mouths of their victims their knowledge that Jesus was the Christ; and
in all such instances the Lord silenced them with a word; for He wanted
no such testimony as theirs to attest the fact of His Godship. Those
spirits were of the devil's following, members of the rebellious and
defeated hosts that had been cast down through the power of the very
Being whose authority and power they now acknowledged in their demoniac
frenzy. Together with Satan himself, their vanquished chief, they
remained unembodied, for to all of them the privileges of the second or
mortal estate had been denied;[398] their remembrance of the scenes that
had culminated in their expulsion from heaven was quickened by the
presence of the Christ, though He stood in a body of flesh.

Many modern writers have attempted to explain the phenomenon of
demoniacal possession; and beside these there are not a few who deny the
possibility of actual domination of the victim by spirit personages. Yet
the scriptures are explicit in showing the contrary. Our Lord
distinguished between this form of affliction and that of simple bodily
disease in His instructions to the Twelve: "Heal the sick, cleanse the
lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils."[399] In the account of the
incidents under consideration, the evangelist Mark observes the same
distinction, thus: "They brought unto him all that were diseased, and
them that were possessed with devils." In several instances, Christ, in
rebuking demons, addressed them as individuals distinct from the human
being afflicted,[400] and in one such instance commanded the demon to
"come out of him, and enter no more into him."[401]

In this matter as in others the simplest explanation is the pertinent
truth; theory raised on other than scriptural foundation is unstable.
Christ unequivocally associated demons with Satan, specifically in His
comment on the report of the Seventy whom He authorized and sent forth,
and who testified with joy on their return that even the devils had been
subject unto them through His name; and to those faithful servants He
said: "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven."[402] The demons
that take possession of men, overruling their agency and compelling them
to obey Satanic bidding, are the unembodied angels of the devil, whose
triumph it is to afflict mortals, and if possible to impel them to sin.
To gain for themselves the transitory gratification of tenanting a body
of flesh, these demons are eager to enter even into the bodies of
beasts.[403]

Possibly it was during the interval between the rebuking of the evil
spirit in the synagog and the miracles of healing and casting out devils
in the evening of that Sabbath, that Jesus went to the house of Simon,
whom He had before named Peter, and there found the mother-in-law of His
disciple lying ill of fever. Acceding to the request of faith He rebuked
the disease; the woman was healed forthwith, rose from her bed, and
ministered the hospitality of her home unto Jesus and those who were
with Him.[404]


NOTES TO CHAPTER 13.

1. Animosity Between Jews and Samaritans.--In any consideration of the
Samaritans, it must be kept in mind that a certain city and the district
or province in which it was situated were both known as Samaria. The
principal facts pertaining to the origin of the Samaritans and the
explanation of the mutual animosity existing between that people and the
Jews in the time of Christ, have been admirably summarized by Geikie
(_Life and Words of Christ_, vol. i, pp. 495-6). Omitting his citation
of authorities, we quote: "After the deportation of the Ten Tribes to
Assyria, Samaria had been repeopled by heathen colonists from various
provinces of the Assyrian empire, by fugitives from the authorities of
Judea, and by stragglers of one or other of the Ten Tribes, who found
their way home again. The first heathen settlers, terrified at the
increase of wild animals, especially lions, and attributing it to their
not knowing the proper worship of the God of the country, sent for one
of the exiled priests, and, under his instructions, added the worship of
Jehovah to that of their idols--an incident in their history from which
later Jewish hatred and derision taunted them as 'proselytes of the
lions,' as it branded them, from their Assyrian origin, with the name of
Cuthites. Ultimately, however, they became even more rigidly attached to
the Law of Moses than the Jews themselves. Anxious to be recognized as
Israelites, they set their hearts on joining the Two Tribes, on their
return from captivity, but the stern Puritanism of Ezra and Nehemiah
admitted no alliance between the pure blood of Jerusalem and the tainted
race of the north. Resentment at this affront was natural, and excited
resentment in return, till, in Christ's day, centuries of strife and
mutual injury, intensified by theological hatred on both sides, had made
them implacable enemies. The Samaritans had built a temple on Mount
Gerizim, to rival that of Jerusalem, but it had been destroyed by John
Hyrcanus, who had also levelled Samaria to the ground. They claimed for
their mountain a greater holiness than that of Moriah; accused the Jews
of adding to the word of God, by receiving the writings of the prophets,
and prided themselves on owning only the Pentateuch as inspired;
favoured Herod because the Jews hated him, and were loyal to him and the
equally hated Romans; had kindled false lights on the hills, to vitiate
the Jewish reckoning by the new moons, and thus throw their feasts into
confusion, and, in the early youth of Jesus, had even defiled the very
Temple itself, by strewing human bones in it, at the Passover.

"Nor had hatred slumbered on the side of the Jews. They knew the
Samaritans only as Cuthites, or heathens from Cuth. 'The race that I
hate is no race,' says the son of Sirach. It was held that a people who
once had worshipped five gods could have no part in Jehovah. The claim
of the Samaritans that Moses had buried the Tabernacle and its vessels
on the top of Gerizim, was laughed to scorn. It was said that they had
dedicated their temple, under Antiochus Epiphanes, to the Greek Jupiter.
Their keeping the commands of Moses even more strictly than the Jews,
that it might seem they were really of Israel, was not denied; but their
heathenism, it was said, had been proved by the discovery of a brazen
dove, which they worshipped, on the top of Gerizim. It would have been
enough that they boasted of Herod as their good king, who had married a
daughter of their people; that he had been free to follow, in their
country, his Roman tastes, so hated in Judea; that they had remained
quiet, after his death, when Judea and Galilee were in uproar, and that
for their peacefulness a fourth of their taxes had been remitted and
added to the burdens of Judea. Their friendliness to the Romans was an
additional provocation. While the Jews were kept quiet only by the
sternest severity, and strove to the utmost against the introduction of
anything foreign, the Samaritans rejoiced in the new importance which
their loyalty to the empire had given them. Shechem flourished: close
by, in Cæsarea, the procurator held his court: a division of cavalry, in
barracks at Sebaste--the old Samaria--had been raised in the territory.
The Roman strangers were more than welcome to while away the summer in
their umbrageous valleys.

"The illimitable hatred, rising from so many sources, found vent in the
tradition that a special curse had been uttered against the Samaritans,
by Ezra, Zerubbabel, and Joshua. It was said that these great ones
assembled the whole congregation of Israel in the Temple, and that three
hundred priests, with three hundred trumpets, and three hundred books of
the Law, and three hundred scholars of the Law, had been employed to
repeat, amidst the most solemn ceremonial, all the curses of the Law
against the Samaritans. They had been subjected to every form of
excommunication; by the incommunicable name of Jehovah; by the Tables of
the Law, and by the heavenly and earthly synagogues. The very name
became a reproach. 'We know that Thou art a Samaritan, and hast a
devil,' said the Jews, to Jesus, in Jerusalem.... A Samaritan egg, as
the hen laid it, could not be unclean, but what of a boiled egg? Yet
interest and convenience strove, by subtle casuistry, to invent excuses
for what intercourse was unavoidable. The country of the Cuthites was
clean, so that a Jew might, without scruple, gather and eat its produce.
The waters of Samaria were clean, so that a Jew might drink them or wash
in them. Their dwellings were clean, so that he might enter them, and
eat or lodge in them. Their roads were clean, so that the dust of them
did not defile a Jew's feet. The Rabbis even went so far in their
contradictory utterances, as to say that the victuals of the Cuthites
were allowed, if none of their wine or vinegar were mixed with them, and
even their unleavened bread was to be reckoned fit for use at the
Passover. Opinions thus wavered, but, as a rule, harsher feeling
prevailed."

That the hostile sentiment has continued unto this day, at least on the
part of the Jews, is affirmed by Frankl and others. Thus, as quoted by
Farrar (p. 166 note): "'Are you a Jew?' asked Salameh Cohen, the
Samaritan high priest, of Dr. Frankl; 'and do you come to us, the
Samaritans, who are despised by the Jews?' (_Jews in the East_, ii,
329). He added that they would willingly live in friendship with the
Jews, but that the Jews avoided all intercourse with them. Soon after,
visiting Sepharedish Jews of Nablous, Dr. Frankl asked one of that sect,
'if he had any intercourse with the Samaritans?' The women retreated
with a cry of horror, and one of them said, 'Have you been among the
worshipers of the pigeons?' I said that I had. The women again fell back
with the same expression of repugnance and one of them said, 'Take a
purifying bath!'" (idem, p. 334). Canon Farrar adds, "I had the pleasure
of spending a day among the Samaritans encamped on Mount Gerizim, for
their annual passover, and neither in their habits nor apparent
character could I see any cause for all this horror and hatred."

2. Sychar.--The town where dwelt the Samaritan woman with whom Jesus
conversed at Jacob's well, is named Sychar in John 4:5; the name occurs
nowhere else in the Bible. Attempts have been made to identify the place
with Shechem, a city dear to the Jewish heart because of its prominence
in connection with the lives of the early patriarchs. It is now
generally admitted, however, that Sychar was a small village on the site
of the present Askar, which is, says Zenos, "a village with a spring and
some ancient rock-hewn tombs, about five eighths of a mile north of
Jacob's well."

3. The Nobleman of Capernaum.--The name of the nobleman whose son was
healed by the word of Jesus is not given. Attempts to identify him with
Chuza, the steward of Herod Antipas, are based on unreliable tradition.
The family of the nobleman accepted the teachings of Christ. "Joanna the
wife of Chuza Herod's steward" (Luke 8:3) was among the grateful and
honorable women who had been recipients of our Lord's healing ministry,
and who contributed of their substance for the furtherance of His work.
Unconfirmed tradition should not be confounded with authentic history.

4. The Targums are ancient Jewish paraphrases on the scriptures, which
were delivered in the synagogs in the languages of the common people. In
the time of Christ the language spoken by the Jews was not Hebrew, but
an Aramaic dialect. Edersheim states that pure Hebrew was the language
of scholars and of the synagog, and that the public readings from the
scriptures had to be rendered by an interpreter. "In earliest times
indeed," says he, "it was forbidden to the Methurgeman [interpreter] to
read his translation, or to write down a Targum, lest the paraphrase
should be regarded as of equal authority with the original." The use of
written targums was "authoritatively sanctioned before the end of the
second century after Christ. This is the origin of our two oldest extant
Targumim--that of Onkelos (as it is called) on the Pentateuch; and that
on the Prophets, attributed to Jonathan the son of Uzziel. These names
do not indeed, accurately represent the authorship of the oldest
Targumim, which may more correctly be regarded as later and
authoritative recensions of what, in some form, had existed before. But
although these works had their origin in Palestine, it is noteworthy
that in the form in which at present we possess them, they are the
outcome of the schools of Babylon." (_Life and Times of Jesus the
Messiah_, vol. i, pp. 10, 11.)

5. Capernaum.--"The name Capernaum signifies, according to some
authorities, 'the Village of Nahum,' according to others, 'the Village
of Consolation.' As we follow the history of Jesus we shall discover
that many of His mighty works were wrought, and many of His most
impressive words were spoken in Capernaum. The infidelity of the
inhabitants, after all the discourses and wonderful works which He had
done among them, brought out the saying of Jesus, 'And thou, Capernaum,
which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be cast down to hell.' (Matt.
11:23.) So thoroughly has this prediction been fulfilled that no trace
of the city remains, and the very site which it occupied is now a matter
of conjecture, there being even no ecclesiastical tradition of the
locality. At the present day two spots have claims which are urged, each
with such arguments of probability as to make the whole question the
most difficult in sacred topography.... We shall probably never be able
to know the exact fact. Jesus damned it to oblivion, and there it lies.
We shall content ourselves with the New Testament notices as bearing on
the work of Jesus.

"We learn that it was somewhere on the borders of Zabulun and Nephtali,
on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, (compare Matt 4:13, with
John 6:24). It was near or in 'the land of Gennesaret' (compare Matt
14:34, with John 6:17, 21, 24), a plain about three miles long and one
mile wide, which we learn from Josephus was one of the most prosperous
and crowded districts of Palestine. It was probably on the great road
leading from Damascus to the south, 'by the way of the sea,' (Matt.
4:15.) There was great wisdom in selecting this as a place to open a
great public ministry. It was full of a busy population. The exceeding
richness of the wonderful plain of Gennesaret supported the mass of
inhabitants it attracted. Josephus (B. J., iii, 10:8) gives a glowing
description of this land."--Deems _Light of the Nations_, pp. 167, 168.

6. Knowledge Does Not Insure Salvation.--James of old chided his
brethren for certain empty professions (James 2:19). Said he in effect:
You take pride and satisfaction in declaring your belief in God; you
boast of being distinguished from the idolaters and the heathen because
you accept one God; you do well to so profess, and so believe; but,
remember, others do likewise; even the devils believe; and, we may add,
so firmly that they tremble at thought of the fate which that belief
makes sure. Those confessions of the devils, that Christ was the Son of
God, were founded on knowledge; yet their knowledge of the great truth
did not change their evil natures. How different was their
acknowledgment of the Savior from that of Peter, who, to the Master's
question "Whom say ye that I am?" replied in practically the words used
by the unclean spirits before cited, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of
the living God" (Matt. 16:15-16; see also Mark 8:29; Luke 9:20). Peter's
faith had already shown its vital power; it had caused him to forsake
much that had been dear, to follow his Lord through persecution and
suffering, and to put away worldliness with all its fascinations, for
the sacrificing godliness which his faith made so desirable. His
knowledge of God as the Father, and of the Son as the Redeemer, was
perhaps no greater than that of the unclean spirits; but while to them
that knowledge was but an added cause of condemnation, to him it was a
means of salvation.--Abridged from _The Articles of Faith_.

FOOTNOTES:

[379] Note 1, end of chapter.

[380] John 8:48.

[381] John 4:4; for incidents following see verses 5-43.

[382] Note 2, end of chapter.

[383] Gen. 33:19; and Josh. 24:32.

[384] Acts 8:5; 9:31; 15:3.

[385] John 4:44; compare Matt. 13:57; Mark 6:4; Luke 4:24.

[386] John 4:48; read verses 46-54.

[387] John 2:23, 24.

[388] Note 3, end of chapter.

[389] Luke 4:14, 15; read verses 16-32.

[390] Note 4, end of chapter.

[391] Luke 4:18, 19; compare Isa. 61:1, 2.

[392] Luke 4:22; compare Matt. 13:55-57; Mark 6:3; John 6:42.

[393] Note 5, end of chapter.

[394] Luke 4:32; compare Matt. 7:28, 29; 13:54; Mark 1:22.

[395] Luke 4:33-37; and Mark 1:23-28. Note 6, end of chapter.

[396] The Jews' Sabbath began at sunset Friday and ended with the
setting of the sun on Saturday.

[397] Luke 4:41; compare Mark 1:34; 3:11, 12; 5:1-18; Matt. 8:28-34.

[398] Pages 6, 7.

[399] Matt. 10:8; see verse 1; compare 4:24; Mark 1:32; 16:17, 18; Luke
9:1

[400] Matt. 8:32; Mark 1:25; Luke 4:35.

[401] Mark 9:25.

[402] Luke 10:17, 18; compare Rev. 12:7-9.

[403] Matt. 8:29-33; Mark 5:11-14; Luke 8:32-34.

[404] Matt. 8:14, 15; Mark 1:29-31; Luke 4:38, 39.




CHAPTER 14.

CONTINUATION OF OUR LORD'S MINISTRY IN GALILEE.


A LEPER MADE CLEAN.

Early in the morning following that eventful Sabbath in Capernaum, our
Lord arose "a great while before day" and went in quest of seclusion
beyond the town. In a solitary place He gave Himself to prayer, thus
demonstrating the fact that, Messiah though He was, He was profoundly
conscious of His dependence upon the Father, whose work He had come to
do. Simon Peter and other disciples found the place of His retirement,
and told Him of the eager crowds who sought Him. Soon the people
gathered about Him, and urged that He remain with them; but "he said
unto them, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also: for
therefore am I sent."[405] And to the disciples He said: "Let us go into
the next towns, that I may preach there also: for therefore came I
forth."[406] Thence He departed, accompanied by the few whom He had
already closely associated with Himself, and ministered in many towns of
Galilee, preaching in the synagogs, healing the sick, and casting out
devils.

Among the afflicted seeking the aid that He alone could give came a
leper,[407] who knelt before Him, or bowed with his face to the ground,
and humbly professed his faith, saying: "If thou wilt, thou canst make
me clean." The petition implied in the words of this poor creature was
pathetic; the confidence he expressed is inspiring. The question in his
mind was not--Can Jesus heal me? but--Will He heal me? In compassionate
mercy Jesus laid His hand upon the sufferer, unclean though he was, both
ceremonially and physically, for leprosy is a loathsome affliction, and
we know that this man was far advanced in the disease since we are told
that he was "full of leprosy." Then the Lord said: "I will: be thou
clean." The leper was immediately healed. Jesus instructed him to show
himself to the priest, and make the offerings prescribed in the law of
Moses for such cases as his.[408]

In this instruction we see that Christ had not come to destroy the law,
but, as He affirmed at another time, to fulfil it;[409] and at this
stage of His work the fulfilment was incomplete. Moreover, had the legal
requirements been disregarded in as serious a matter as that of
restoring an outcast leper to the society of the community from which he
had been debarred, priestly opposition, already waxing strong and
threatening against Jesus, would have been augmented, and further
hindrance to the Lord's work might have resulted. There was to be no
delay in the man's compliance with the Master's instruction; Jesus
"straitly charged him, and forthwith sent him away." Furthermore He
explicitly directed the man to tell nobody of the manner of his healing.
There was perhaps good reason for this injunction of silence, aside from
the very general course of our Lord in discountenancing undesirable
notoriety; for, had word of the miracle preceded the man's appearing
before the priest, obstacles might have been thrown in the way of his
Levitical recognition as one who was clean. The man, however, could not
keep the good word to himself, but went about "and began to publish it
much, and to blaze abroad the matter, insomuch that Jesus could no more
openly enter into the city, but was without in desert places: and they
came to him from every quarter."[410]


A PALSIED MAN HEALED AND FORGIVEN.

It must be borne in mind that no one of the evangelists attempts to give
a detailed history of all the doings of Jesus, nor do all follow the
same order in relating the incidents with which they associate the great
lessons of the Master's teachings. There is much uncertainty as to the
actual sequence of events.

"Some days" after the healing of the leper, Jesus was again in
Capernaum. The details of His employment during the interval are not
specified; but, we may be sure that His work continued, for His
characteristic occupation was that of going about doing good.[411] His
place of abode in Capernaum was well known, and word was soon noised
about that He was in the house.[412] A great throng gathered, so that
there was no room to receive them; even the doorway was crowded, and
later comers could not get near the Master. To all who were within
hearing Jesus preached the gospel. A little party of four approached the
house bearing a litter or pallet on which lay a man afflicted with
palsy, a species of paralysis which deprived the subject of the power of
voluntary motion and usually of speech; the man was helpless. His
friends, disappointed at finding themselves unable to reach Jesus
because of the press, resorted to an unusual expedient, which exhibited
in an unmistakable way their faith in the Lord as One who could rebuke
and stay disease, and their determination to seek the desired blessing
at His hands.

By some means they carried the afflicted man to the flat roof of the
house, probably by an outside stairway or by the use of a ladder,
possibly by entering an adjoining house, ascending the stairs to its
roof and crossing therefrom to the house within which Jesus was
teaching. They broke away part of the roof, making an opening, or
enlarging that of the trapdoor such as the houses of that place and time
were usually provided with; and, to the surprize of the assembled crowd,
they then let down through the tiling the portable couch upon which the
palsied sufferer lay. Jesus was deeply impressed by the faith and
works[413] of those who had thus labored to place a helpless paralytic
before Him; doubtless, too, He knew of the trusting faith in the heart
of the sufferer; and, looking compassionately upon the man, He said:
"Son, thy sins be forgiven thee."

Among the people there assembled were scribes, Pharisees, and doctors of
the law, not only representatives of the local synagog but some who had
come from distant towns in Galilee, and some from Judea, and even from
Jerusalem. The official class had opposed our Lord and His works on
earlier occasions, and their presence in the house at this time boded
further unfriendly criticism and possible obstruction. They heard the
words spoken to the paralytic, and were angered thereat. In their hearts
they accused Jesus of the awful offense of blasphemy, which consists
essentially in claiming for human or demon power the prerogatives of
God, or in dishonoring God by ascribing to Him attributes short of
perfection.[414] These unbelieving scholars, who incessantly wrote and
talked of the coming of the Messiah, yet rejected Him when He was there
present, murmured in silence, saying to themselves: "Who can forgive
sins but God only?" Jesus knew their inmost thoughts,[415] and made
reply thereto, saying: "Why reason ye these things in your hearts?
Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be
forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk?" And
then to emphasize, and to put beyond question His possession of divine
authority, He added: "But that ye may know that the Son of man hath
power on earth to forgive sins, (he saith to the sick of the palsy,) I
say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine
house." The man arose, fully restored; and, taking up the mattress upon
which he had been brought, walked out before them. The amazement of the
people was mingled with reverence, and many glorified God, of whose
power they were witnesses.

The incident demands our further study. According to one of the
accounts, the Lord's first words to the afflicted one were: "Son, be of
good cheer;" followed directly by the comforting and authoritative
assurance: "Thy sins be given thee."[416] The man was probably in a
state of fear; he may have known that his ailment was the result of
wicked indulgences; nevertheless, though he may have considered the
possibility of hearing only condemnation for his transgression, he had
faith to be brought. In this man's condition there was plainly a close
connection between his past sins and his present affliction; and in this
particular his case is not unique, for we read that Christ admonished
another, whom He healed, to sin no more lest a worse thing befall
him.[417] We are not warranted, however, in assuming that all bodily
ills are the result of culpable sin; and against such a conception
stands the Lord's combined instruction and rebuke to those who, in the
case of a man born blind, asked who had sinned, the man or his parents
to bring so grievous an affliction upon him, to which inquiry our Lord
replied that the man's blindness was due neither to his own sin nor to
that of his parents.[418]

In many instances, however, disease is the direct result of individual
sin. Whatever may have been the measure of past offense on the part of
the man suffering from palsy, Christ recognized his repentance together
with the faith that accompanied it, and it was the Lord's rightful
prerogative to decide upon the man's fitness to receive remission of his
sins and relief from his bodily affliction. The interrogative response
of Jesus to the muttered criticism of the scribes, Pharisees, and
doctors, has been interpreted in many ways. He inquired which was
easier, to say, "Thy sins be forgiven thee," or to say, "Arise, and take
up thy bed, and walk." Is it not a rational explanation that, when
spoken authoritatively by Him, the two expressions were of allied
meaning? The circumstance should have been a sufficient demonstration to
all who heard, that He, the Son of Man, claimed and possessed the right
and the power to remit both physical and spiritual penalties, to heal
the body of visible disease, and to purge the spirit of the no less real
malady of sin. In the presence of people of all classes Jesus thus
openly asserted His divinity, and affirmed the same by a miraculous
manifestation of power.

The charge of blasphemy, which the rabbinical critics formulated in
their minds against the Christ, was not to end as a mental conception of
theirs, nor to be nullified by our Lord's later remarks. It was through
perjured testimony that He finally received unrighteous condemnation and
was sent to His death.[419] Already, in that house at Capernaum, the
shadow of the cross had fallen athwart the course of His life.


PUBLICANS AND SINNERS.

From the house Jesus repaired to the seaside, whither the people
followed Him; there He taught them again. At the close of His discourse
He walked farther and saw a man named Levi, one of the publicans[420] or
official collectors of taxes, sitting at the custom-house where the
tariff levied under Roman law had to be paid. This man was known also as
Matthew, a name less distinctively Jewish than is Levi.[421] He
afterward became one of the Twelve and the author of the first of the
evangelical Gospels. To him Jesus said, "Follow me." Matthew left his
place and followed the Lord. Some time later the new disciple provided a
great feast at his house, in honor of the Master; and other disciples
were present. So obnoxious to the Jews was the power of Rome to which
they were subject, that they regarded with aversion all officials in
Roman employ. Particularly humiliating to them was the system of
compulsory taxation, by which they, the people of Israel, had to pay
tribute to an alien nation, which in their estimation was wholly pagan
and heathen.

Naturally, the collectors of these taxes were abhorred; and they, known
as publicans, probably resented the discourteous treatment by
inconsiderate enforcement of the tax requirements, and, as affirmed by
historians, often inflicted unlawful extortion upon the people. If
publicans in general were detested, we can readily understand how bitter
would be the contempt in which the Jews would hold one of their own
nation who had accepted appointment as such an official. In this
unenviable status was Matthew when Jesus called him. The publicans
formed a distinct social class, for from the community in general they
were practically ostracized. All who associated with them were made to
share in the popular odium, and "publicans and sinners" became a common
designation for the degraded caste. To Matthew's feast many of his
friends and some of his fellow officials were invited, so that the
gathering was largely made up of these despized "publicans and sinners."
And to such an assemblage went Jesus with His disciples.

The scribes and Pharisees could not let pass such an opportunity for
faultfinding and caustic criticism. They hesitated to address themselves
directly to Jesus, but of the disciples they asked in disdain: "Why
eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?" The Master heard, and
replied with edifying incisiveness mingled with splendid irony. Citing
one of the common aphorisms of the day, He said: "They that be whole
need not a physician, but they that are sick." To this He added: "I am
not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." The
hypercritical Pharisees were left to make their own application of the
rejoinder, which some may have understood to mean that their
self-righteousness was arraigned and their claims to superiority
derided. Aside from the veiled sarcasm in the Master's words, they ought
to have perceived the wisdom enshrined in His answer and to have
profited thereby. Is not the physician's place among the afflicted ones?
Would he be justified in keeping aloof from the sick and the suffering?
His profession is that of combating disease, preventing when possible,
curing when necessary, to the full extent of his ability. If the festive
assembly at Matthew's house really did comprize a number of sinners, was
not the occasion one of rare opportunity for the ministrations of the
Physician of Souls? The righteous need no call to repentance; but are
the sinners to be left in sin, because those who profess to be spiritual
teachers will not condescend to extend a helping hand?


THE OLD AND THE NEW.

Shortly after the entertainment provided by Matthew, the Pharisees were
ready with another criticism, and in this they were associated with some
of the Baptist's adherents. John was in prison; but many of those who
had been drawn to his baptism, and had professed discipleship to him,
still clung to his teachings, and failed to see that the Greater One of
whom he had testified was then ministering amongst them. The Baptist had
been a scrupulous observer of the law; his strict asceticism vied with
the rigor of Pharisaic profession. His non-progressive disciples, now
left without a leader, naturally fell in with the Pharisees. Some of
John's disciples came to Jesus, and questioned Him concerning His
seeming indifference in the matter of fasting. They propounded a plain
question: "Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, but
thy disciples fast not?"[422] To the friends of the now imprisoned
Baptist our Lord's reply must have brought memories of their beloved
leader's words, when he had compared himself to the Bridegroom's friend,
and had plainly told them who was the real Bridegroom.[423] "Jesus said
unto them, Can the children of the bridechamber fast, while the
bridegroom is with them? as long as they have the bridegroom with them,
they cannot fast. But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be
taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days."[424]

If the questioners were able to comprehend the true import of this
reply, they could not fail to find therein an implied abrogation of
purely ceremonial observances comprized in the code of rabbinical rules
and the numerous traditions associated with the law. But to make the
subject clearer to their biased minds, Jesus gave them illustrations,
which may be classed as parabolic. "No man also," said He, "seweth a
piece of new cloth on an old garment: else the new piece that filled it
up taketh away from the old, and the rent is made worse. And no man
putteth new wine into old bottles: else the new wine doth burst the
bottles, and the wine is spilled, and the bottles will be marred: but
new wine must be put into new bottles."[425]

In such wise did our Lord proclaim the newness and completeness of His
gospel. It was in no sense a patching up of Judaism. He had not come to
mend old and torn garments; the cloth He provided was new, and to sew it
on the old would be but to tear afresh the threadbare fabric and leave a
more unsightly rent than at first. Or to change the figure, new wine
could not safely be entrusted to old bottles. The bottles here referred
to were really bags, made of the skins of animals, and of course they
deteriorated with age. Just as old leather splits or tears under even
slight strain, so the old bottle-skins would burst from the pressure of
fermenting juice, and the good wine would be lost. The gospel taught by
Christ was a new revelation, superseding the past, and marking the
fulfilment of the law; it was no mere addendum, nor was it a reenactment
of past requirements; it embodied a new and an everlasting covenant.
Attempts to patch the Judaistic robe of traditionalism with the new
fabric of the covenant could result in nothing more sightly than a
rending of the fabric. The new wine of the gospel could not be held in
the old time-worn containers of Mosaic libations. Judaism would be
belittled and Christianity perverted by any such incongruous
association.[426]


FISHERS OF MEN.

It is improbable that the disciples who followed Jesus in the early
months of His ministry had remained with Him continuously down to the
time now under consideration. We find that some of those who were later
called to the apostleship were following their vocation as fishermen
even while Jesus was actively engaged as a Teacher in their own
neighborhood. One day, as the Lord stood by the lake or sea of Galilee,
the people pressed about Him in great numbers, eager to hear more of the
wondrous words He was wont to speak.[427] Near the place were two
fishing boats drawn in upon the beach; the owners were close by, washing
and mending their nets. One of the boats belonged to Simon Peter, who
had already become identified with the Master's work; this boat Jesus
entered, and then asked Simon to thrust out a little from the land.
Seating Himself, as teachers of that time usually did in delivering
discourses, the Lord preached from this floating pulpit to the multitude
on shore. The subject of the address is not given us.

When the sermon was ended, Jesus directed Simon to launch out into deep
water and then let down the nets for a draught. Presumably Andrew was
with his brother and possibly other assistants were in the boat. Simon
replied to Jesus: "Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken
nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net." It was soon
filled with fishes; so great was the haul that the net began to break,
and the busy fishermen signalled to those in the other boat to come to
their assistance. The catch filled both boats so that they appeared to
be in danger of sinking. Simon Peter was overcome with this new evidence
of the Master's power, and, falling at the feet of Jesus, he exclaimed:
"Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord." Jesus answered
graciously and with promise: "Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch
men."[428] The occupants of the second boat were Zebedee and his two
sons James and John, the last named being he who with Andrew had left
the Baptist to follow Jesus at the Jordan.[429] Zebedee and his sons
were partners with Simon in the fishing business. When the two boats
were brought to land, the brothers Simon and Andrew, and Zebedee's two
sons James and John, left their boats and accompanied Jesus.

The foregoing treatment is based on Luke's record; the briefer and less
circumstantial accounts given by Matthew and Mark omit the incident of
the miraculous draught of fishes, and emphasize the calling of the
fishermen. To Simon and Andrew Jesus said: "Come ye after me, and I will
make you to become fishers of men." The contrast thus presented between
their former vocation and their new calling is strikingly forceful.
Theretofore they had caught fish, and the fate of the fish was death;
thereafter they were to draw men--to a life eternal. To James and John
the call was no less definite; and they too left their all to follow the
Master.


NOTES TO CHAPTER 14.

1. Leprosy.--In Biblical usage this name is applied to several diseases,
all, however having some symptoms in common, at least in the earlier
stages of the malady. The real leprosy is a scourge and a plague in many
oriental lands to-day. Zenos, in _Standard Bible Dict._, says: "True
leprosy, as known in modern times, is an affection characterized by the
appearance of nodules in the eye-brows, the cheeks, the nose, and the
lobes of the ears, also in the hands and feet, where the disease eats
into the joints, causing the falling off of fingers and toes. If nodules
do not appear, their place is taken by spots of blanched or discolored
skin (Mascular leprosy). Both forms are based upon a functional
degeneration of the nerves of the skin. Its cause was discovered by
Hansen in 1871 to be a specific bacillus. Defective diet, however, seems
to serve as a favorable condition for the culture of the bacillus.
Leprosy was one of the few abnormal conditions of the body which the
Levitical law declared unclean. Elaborate provision was therefore made
for testing its existence and for the purification of those who were
cured of it."

Deems, _Light of the Nations_, p. 185, summing up the conditions
incident to the advanced stages of the dread disease, writes: "The
symptoms and the effects of this disease are very loathsome. There comes
a white swelling or scab, with a change of the color of the hair on the
part from its natural hue to yellow; then the appearance of a taint
going deeper than the skin, or raw flesh appearing in the swelling. Then
it spreads and attacks the cartilaginous portions of the body. The nails
loosen and drop off, the gums are absorbed, and the teeth decay and fall
out; the breath is a stench, the nose decays; fingers, hands, feet, may
be lost, or the eyes eaten out. The human beauty has gone into
corruption, and the patient feels that he is being eaten as by a fiend,
who consumes him slowly in a long remorseless meal that will not end
until he be destroyed. He is shut out from his fellows. As they approach
he must cry, 'Unclean! unclean!' that all humanity may be warned from
his precincts. He must abandon wife and child. He must go to live with
other lepers, in disheartening view of miseries similar to his own. He
must dwell in dismantled houses or in the tombs. He is, as Trench says,
a dreadful parable of death. By the laws of Moses (Lev. 13:45; Numb.
6:9; Ezek. 24:17) he was compelled, as if he were mourning for his own
decease, to bear about him the emblems of death, the rent garments; he
was to keep his head bare and his lip covered, as was the custom with
those who were in communion with the dead. When the Crusaders brought
the leprosy from the East, it was usual to clothe the leper in a shroud,
and to say for him the masses for the dead.... In all ages this
indescribably horrible malady has been considered incurable. The Jews
believed that it was inflicted by Jehovah directly, as a punishment for
some extraordinary perversity or some transcendent act of sinfulness,
and that only God could heal it. When Naaman was cured, and his flesh
came back like that of a little child, he said, 'Now I know that there
is no God in all the earth but in Israel,' (2 Kings 5:14, 15.)"

The fact that leprosy is not ordinarily communicable by mere outward
contact is accentuated by Trench, _Notes on the Miracles_, pp. 165-168,
and the isolation of lepers required by the Mosaic law is regarded by
him as an intended object lesson and figure to illustrate spiritual
uncleanness. He says: "I refer to the mistaken assumption that leprosy
was catching from one person to another; and that the lepers were so
carefully secluded from their fellowmen lest they might communicate the
disease to others, as in like manner that the torn garment, the covered
lip, the cry, 'Unclean, unclean' (Lev. 13:45) were warnings to all that
they should keep aloof, lest unawares touching a leper, or drawing unto
too great a nearness, they should become partakers of this disease. So
far from any danger of the kind existing, nearly all who have looked
closest into the matter agree that the sickness was incommunicable by
ordinary contact from one person to another. A leper might transmit it
to his children, or the mother of a leper's children might take it from
him; but it was by no ordinary contact communicable from one person to
another. All the notices in the Old Testament, as well as in other
Jewish books, confirm the statement that we have here something very
much higher than a mere sanitary regulation. Thus, when the law of Moses
was not observed, no such exclusion necessarily found place; Naaman the
leper commanded the armies of Syria (2 Kings 5:1); Gehazi, with his
leprosy that never should be cleansed, (2 Kings 5:27) talked familiarly
with the king of apostate Israel (2 Kings 8:5).... How, moreover, should
the Levitical priests, had the disease been this creeping infection,
have ever themselves escaped it, obliged as they were by their very
office to submit the leper to actual handling and closest
examination?... Leprosy was nothing short of a living death, a
corrupting of all the humors, a poisoning of the very springs, of life;
a dissolution, little by little, of the whole body, so that one limb
after another actually decayed and fell away. Aaron exactly describes
the appearance which the leper presented to the eyes of the beholders,
when, pleading for Miriam, he says, 'Let her not be as one dead, of whom
the flesh is half consumed when he cometh out of his mother's womb.'
(Numb. 12:12.) The disease, moreover, was incurable by the art and skill
of man; not that the leper might not return to health; for, however
rare, such cases are contemplated in the Levitical law.... The leper,
thus fearfully bearing about the body the outward and visible tokens of
sin in the soul, was treated throughout as a sinner, as one in whom sin
had reached its climax, as one dead in trespasses and sins. He was
himself a dreadful parable of death. He bore about him the emblems of
death (Lev. 13:45); the rent garments, mourning for himself as one dead;
the head bare as they were wont to have it who were defiled by communion
with the dead (Numb. 6:9; Ezek. 24:27); and the lip covered (Ezek.
24:17).... But the leper was as one dead, and as such was shut out of
the camp (Lev. 13:46; Numb. 5:2-4). and the city (2 Kings 7:3), this law
being so strictly enforced that even the sister of Moses might not be
exempted from it (Numb. 12:14, 15); and kings themselves, as Uzziah (2
Chron. 26:21; 2 Kings 15:5) must submit to it; men being by this
exclusion taught that what here took place in a figure, should take
place in the reality with every one who was found in the death of sin."

For the elaborate ceremonies incident to the cleansing of a recovered
leper see Lev. chap. 14.

2. Blasphemy.--The essence of the deep sin of blasphemy lies not, as
many suppose, in profanity alone, but as Dr. Kelso, _Stand. Bible
Dict._, summarizes: "Every improper use of the divine name (Lev. 24:11),
speech derogatory to the Majesty of God (Matt. 26:65), and sins with a
high hand--i.e. premeditated transgressions of the basal principles of
the theocracy (Numb. 9:13; 15:30; Exo. 31:14)--were regarded as
blasphemy; the penalty was death by stoning (Lev. 24:16)." _Smith's
Bible Dict._ states: "Blasphemy, in its technical English sense,
signifies the speaking evil of God, and in this sense it is found in
Psalm 74:18; Isa. 52:5; Rom. 2:24, etc.... On this charge both our Lord
and Stephen were condemned to death by the Jews. When a person heard
blasphemy he laid his hand on the head of the offender, to symbolize his
sole responsibility for the guilt, and rising on his feet, tore his
robe, which might never again be mended." (See Matt. 26:65.)

3. Publican.--"A word originally meaning a contractor for public works
or supplies, or a farmer of public lands, but later applied to Romans
who bought from the government the right to collect taxes in a given
territory. These buyers, always knights (senators were excluded by their
rank), became capitalists and formed powerful stock companies, whose
members received a percentage on the capital invested. Provincial
capitalists could not buy taxes, which were sold in Rome to the highest
bidders, who to recoup themselves sublet their territory (at a great
advance on the price paid the government) to the native (local)
publicans, who in their turn had to make a profit on their purchase
money, and being assessors of property as well as collectors of taxes,
had abundant opportunities for oppressing the people, who hated them
both for that reason and also because the tax itself was the mark of
their subjection to foreigners."--J. R. Sterrett in _Stand. Bible Dict._

4. Fishers of Men.--"Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men,"
said Jesus to fishermen who afterward became His apostles (Matt. 4:19).
Mark's version is nearly the same (1:17), while that of Luke (5:10)
reads: "From henceforth thou shalt catch men." The correct translation
is, as commentators practically agree, "From henceforth thou shalt take
men alive." This reading emphasizes the contrast given in the text--that
between capturing fish to kill them and winning men to save them.
Consider in this connection the Lord's prediction through Jeremiah
(16:16), that in reaching scattered Israel, "Behold, I will send for
many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them;" etc.

5. "Thy Sins Be Forgiven Thee."--The following commentary by Edersheim
(_Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah_, vol. i, pp. 505, 506) on the
incident under consideration is instructive: "In this forgiveness of
sins He presented His person and authority as divine, and He proved it
such by the miracle of healing which immediately followed. Had the two
been inverted, [i.e. had Christ first healed the man and afterward told
him that his sins were forgiven] there would have been evidence, indeed,
of His power, but not of His divine personality, nor of His having
authority to forgive sins; and this, not the doing of miracles, was the
object of His teaching and mission, of which the miracles were only
secondary evidence. Thus the inward reasoning of the scribes, which was
open and known to Him who readeth all thoughts, issued in quite the
opposite of what they could have expected. Most unwarranted, indeed, was
the feeling of contempt which we trace in their unspoken words, whether
we read them: 'Why does this one thus speak blasphemies?' or, according
to a more correct transcript of them: 'Why does this one speak thus? He
blasphemeth!' Yet from their point of view they were right, for God
alone can forgive sins; nor has that power ever been given or delegated
to man. But was He a mere man, like even the most honored of God's
servants? Man, indeed; but 'the Son of Man.' ... It seemed easy to say:
'Thy sins have been forgiven.' But to Him, who had authority to do so on
earth, it was neither more easy nor more difficult than to say: 'Rise,
take up thy bed, and walk.' Yet this latter, assuredly, proved the
former, and gave it in the sight of all men unquestioned reality. And so
it was the thoughts of these scribes, which, as applied to Christ, were
'evil'--since they imputed to Him blasphemy--that gave occasion for
offering real evidence of what they would have impugned and denied. In
no other manner could the object alike of miracles and of this special
miracle have been so attained as by the 'evil thoughts' of these
scribes, when, miraculously brought to light, they spoke out the inmost
possible doubt, and pointed to the highest of all questions concerning
the Christ. And so it was once more the wrath of man which praised Him."

FOOTNOTES:

[405] Luke 4:42-44.

[406] Mark 1:38.

[407] Mark 1:40-45; Matt. 8:2-4; Luke 5:12-15.

[408] Lev. 14:2-10. Note 1, end of chapter.

[409] Matt. 5:17.

[410] Mark 1:45.

[411] Acts 10:38.

[412] Mark 2:1-12; compare Matt. 9:2-8; Luke 5:17-24.

[413] Compare James 2:14-18.

[414] Note 2, end of chapter.

[415] See another instance of our Lord reading unuttered thoughts. Luke
7:39-50.

[416] Matt. 9:2. Note 5, end of chapter.

[417] John 5:14. Page 208.

[418] John 9:1-3.

[419] Compare John 10:33, and 5:18; Matt. 26:65, 66.

[420] Note 3, end of chapter.

[421] Matt. 9:9-13; Mark 2:13-17; Luke 5:27-32.

[422] Mark 2:18-22; Matt. 9:14-17; Luke 5:33-39.

[423] Page 164.

[424] Mark 2:19, 20.

[425] Mark 2:21, 22.

[426] See "The Great Apostasy" 7:5.

[427] Luke 5:1-11; compare Matt. 4:18-22; Mark 1:16-20.

[428] Note 4, end of chapter.

[429] Page 140.




CHAPTER 15.

LORD OF THE SABBATH.


THE SABBATH DISTINCTIVELY SACRED TO ISRAEL.

The observance of the Sabbath as a holy day was prominent among the
Lord's requirements of His people, Israel, from a very early period in
their history as a nation. Indeed, the keeping of the Sabbath as a day
of surcease from ordinary toil was a national characteristic, by which
the Israelites were distinguished from pagan peoples, and rightly so,
for the holiness of the Sabbath was made a mark of the covenant between
the chosen people and their God. The sanctity of the Sabbath had been
prefigured in the account of the creation, antedating the placing of man
upon the earth, as shown by the fact that God rested after the six
periods or days of creative work, and blessed the seventh day and
hallowed it.[430] In the course of Israel's exodus, the seventh day was
set apart as one of rest, upon which it was not allowed to bake, seethe,
or otherwise cook food. A double supply of manna had to be gathered on
the sixth day, while on other days the laying-by of a surplus of this
daily bread sent from heaven was expressly forbidden. The Lord observed
the sacredness of the holy day by giving no manna thereon.[431]

The commandment to celebrate the Sabbath in strictness was made definite
and explicit in the decalog, written by the hand of God amidst the awful
glory of Sinai; and the injunction was kept before the people through
frequent proclamation.[432] It was unlawful to kindle a fire on that
day; and record is made of a man who was put to death for gathering
sticks on the seventh day.[433] Under the administration of later
prophets, the holiness of the Sabbath, the blessings promised to those
who sanctified the day unto themselves, and the sin of Sabbath
desecration were reiterated in words of inspired forcefulness.[434]
Nehemiah admonished and reproved in the matter, and attributed the
affliction of the nation to the forfeiture of Jehovah's favor through
Sabbath violation.[435] By the mouth of Ezekiel the Lord affirmed that
the institution of the Sabbath was a sign of the covenant between
Himself and the people of Israel; and with stern severity He upbraided
those who heeded not the day.[436] To the separate branch of the
Israelitish nation that had been colonized on the western hemisphere,
regard for the sanctity of the Sabbath was no less an imperative
requirement.[437]

The observance demanded, however, was the very opposite of affliction
and burden; the Sabbath was consecrated to rest and righteous enjoyment,
and was to be a day of spiritual feasting before the Lord. It was not
established as a day of abstinence; all might eat, but both mistress and
maid were to be relieved from the work of preparing food; neither master
nor man was to plow, dig or otherwise toil; and the Weekly day of rest
was as much the boon of the cattle as of their owners.

In addition to the weekly Sabbath, the Lord in mercy prescribed also a
sabbatic year; in every seventh year the land was to rest, and thereby
its fertility was enhanced.[438] After seven times seven years had
passed, the fiftieth was to be celebrated throughout as a year of
jubilee, during which the people should live on the accumulated increase
of the preceding seasons of plenty, and rejoice in liberality by
granting to one another redemption from mortgage and bond, forgiveness
of debt, and general relief from burdens--all of which had to be done in
mercy and justice.[439] The Sabbaths established by the Lord, whether of
days, of years, or of weeks of years, were to be times of refreshing,
relief, blessing, bounty, and worship.

To the many who profess to regard the necessity of toil as a part of the
curse evoked through Adam's fall, the Sabbath should appeal as a day of
temporary reprieve, a time of exemption from labor, and as affording
blessed opportunity of closer approach to the Presence from which
mankind has been shut out through sin. And to those who take the higher
view of life, and find in work both happiness and material blessing, the
periodical relief brings refreshment and gives renewed zest for the days
that follow.

But long before the advent of Christ, the original purpose of the
Sabbath had come to be largely ignored in Israel; and the spirit of its
observance had been smothered under the weight of rabbinical injunction
and the formalism of restraint. In the time of the Lord's ministry, the
technicalities prescribed as rules appended to the law were almost
innumerable; and the burden thus forced upon the people had become well
nigh unbearable. Among the many wholesome requirements of the Mosaic
law, which the teachers and spiritual rulers of the Jews had made thus
burdensome, that of Sabbath observance was especially prominent. The
"hedge," which by unwarranted assumption they professedly set about the
law,[440] was particularly thorny in the sections devoted to the Jewish
Sabbath. Even trifling infractions of traditional rules were severely
punished, and the capital penalty was held before the eyes of the people
as a supreme threat for extreme desecration.[441]


THE HEALING OF A CRIPPLE ON THE SABBATH.

In view of these conditions, we are not surprized to find our Lord
confronted with charges of Sabbath violation relatively early in the
course of His public work. An instance attended with many great
developments is recorded by John,[442] whose narrative covers the
incident of a very impressive miracle. Jesus was again in Jerusalem at
the time of one of the Jewish festivals.[443] There was a pool of water,
called Bethesda, near the sheep market in the city. From the recorded
description, we may understand this to have been a natural spring;
possibly the water was rich in dissolved solids or gases, or both,
making it such as we would call today a mineral spring; for we find that
the water was reputed to possess curative virtues, and many afflicted
folk came to bathe therein. The spring was of the pulsating variety; at
intervals its waters rose with bubbling disturbance, and then receded to
the normal level. Mineral springs of this kind are known today in many
parts of the world. Some believed that the periodical upwelling of the
Bethesda waters was the result of supernatural agency; and it was said
that "whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in
was made whole of whatsoever disease he had." The Bethesda pool was
wholly or partly enclosed; and five porches had been built for the
shelter of those who waited at the spring for the intermittent bubbling
up of the water.

On a certain Sabbath day, Jesus visited the pool and saw many afflicted
folk thus waiting. Among them lay a man who for thirty-eight years had
been grievously afflicted. From the man's statement of his helplessness
we may infer that his malady was paralysis, or possibly an extreme form
of rheumatism; whatever his affliction, it was so disabling as to give
him little chance of getting into the pool at the critical time, for
others less crippled crowded him away; and, according to the legends
regarding the curative properties of the spring, only the first to enter
the pool after the agitation of the water might expect to be healed.

Jesus recognized in the man a fit subject for blessing, and said to him:
"Wilt thou be made whole?" The question was so simple as almost to
appear superfluous. Of course the man wanted to be made well, and on the
small chance of being able to reach the water at the right moment was
patiently yet eagerly waiting. There was purpose, however, in these as
in all other words of the Master. The man's attention was drawn to Him,
fixed upon Him; the question aroused in the sufferer's heart renewed
yearning for the health and strength of which he had been bereft since
the days of his youth. His answer was pitiful, and revealed his almost
hopeless state of mind; he thought only of the rumored virtues of
Bethesda pool as he said: "Sir, I have no man, when the water is
troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another
steppeth down before me." Then spake Jesus: "Rise, take up thy bed, and
walk." Immediately strength returned to the man, who for nearly four
decades had been a helpless invalid; he obeyed the Master, and, taking
up the little mattress or pallet on which he had rested, walked away.

He had not gone far, before the Jews, that is to say, some of the
official class, for so the evangelist John employs the term, saw him
carrying his bed; and it was the Sabbath day. To their peremptory
reprimand he replied out of the gratitude and honest simplicity of his
heart, that He who had healed him had told him to take up his bed and
walk. The interest of the inquisitors was instantly turned from the man
toward Him who had wrought the miracle; but the erstwhile cripple could
not name his Benefactor, as he had lost sight of Jesus in the crowd
before he had found opportunity for question or thanks. The man who had
been healed went to the temple, possibly impelled by a desire to express
in prayer his gratitude and joy. There Jesus found him, and said unto
him: "Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come
unto thee."[444] The man had probably brought about his affliction
through his own sinful habits. The Lord decided that he had suffered
enough in body, and terminated his physical suffering with the
subsequent admonition to sin no more.

The man went and told the rulers who it was that had healed him. This he
may have done with a desire to honor and glorify the Giver of his boon;
we are not justified in ascribing to him any unworthy purpose, though by
his act he was instrumental in augmenting the persecution of his Lord.
So intense was the hatred of the priestly faction that the rulers sought
a means of putting Jesus to death, under the specious pretense of His
being a Sabbath-breaker. We may well ask of what act they could possibly
have hoped to convict Him, even under the strictest application of their
rules. There was no proscription against speaking on the Sabbath; and
Jesus had but spoken to heal. He had not carried the man's bed, nor had
He attempted even the lightest physical labor. By their own
interpretation of the law they had no case against Him.


OUR LORD'S REPLY TO THE ACCUSING JEWS.

Nevertheless, the Jewish officials confronted Jesus with accusations.
Whether the interview took place within the temple walls, on the open
street, at the market place, or in the judgment hall, matters not. His
reply to their charges is not confined to the question of Sabbath
observance; it stands as the most comprehensive sermon in scripture on
the vital subject of the relationship between the Eternal Father and His
Son, Jesus Christ.

His first sentence added to the already intense anger of the Jews.
Referring to the work He had done on the holy day, He said: "My Father
worketh hitherto, and I work." This remark they construed to be a
blasphemy.[445] "Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because
he not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was his
Father, making himself equal with God." To their spoken or unuttered
protest, Jesus replied, that He, the Son, was not acting independently,
and in fact could do nothing except what was in accordance with the
Father's will, and what He had seen the Father do; that the Father so
loved the Son as to show unto Him the Father's works.

Be it observed that Jesus in no way attempted to explain away their
construction of His words; on the contrary He confirmed their deductions
as correct. He did associate Himself with the Father, even in a closer
and more exalted relationship than they had conceived. The authority
given to Him by the Father was not limited to the healing of bodily
infirmities; He had power even to raise the dead--"For as the Father
raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth
whom he will." Moreover, the judgment of men had been committed unto
Him; and no one could honor the Father except by honoring the Son. Then
followed this incisive declaration: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He
that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath
everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed
from death unto life."

Christ's realm was not bounded by the grave; even the dead were wholly
dependent upon Him for their salvation; and to the terrified ears of His
dumbfounded accusers He proclaimed the solemn truth, that even then the
hour was near in which the dead should hear the voice of the Son of God.
Ponder His profound affirmation: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, The
hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the
Son of God: and they that hear shall live." The murderous rage of the
Jews was rebuffed by the declaration that without His submission they
could not take His life: "For as the Father hath life in himself; so
hath he given to the Son to have life in himself." Another utterance was
equally portentous: "And hath given him authority to execute judgment
also, because he is the Son of man." He, the Son of the exalted and
glorified Man of Holiness and now Himself a mortal Man,[446] was to be
the judge of men.

No wonder they marveled; such doctrine they had never before heard nor
read; it was not of the scribes nor of the rabbis, of neither the
Pharisaic nor Sadducean schools. But He reproved their amazement,
saying: "Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all
that are in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come forth; they
that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have
done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation."[447]

This enunciation of the resurrection, so plainly made that the most
unlettered could understand, must have offended any Sadducees present,
for they emphatically denied the actuality of the resurrection. The
universality of a resurrection is here unquestionably affirmed; not only
the righteous but even those who merit condemnation are to come forth
from their graves in their bodies of flesh and bones.[448]

Then, renewing His solemn asseveration of the unity of His Father's will
and His own, Christ discussed the matter of witnesses to His work. He
admitted what was a recognized tenet of the time, that no man's
unsupported witness of himself was sufficient; but, He added: "There is
another that beareth witness of me; and I know that the witness which he
witnesseth of me is true." He cites John the Baptist, and reminds them
that they had sent a delegation to him, and that John had answered them
by bearing testimony of the Messiah; and John had been a burning and a
shining light, in whose illuminating ministry many had temporarily
rejoiced. The hostile Jews were left to see that the witness of John was
valid under their strictest construction of the rules of evidence;
"But," He continued, "I receive not testimony from man ... But I have
greater witness than that of John: for the works which the Father hath
given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me, that
the Father hath sent me. And the Father himself, which hath sent me,
hath borne witness of me."

Then in terms of unqualified condemnation, He told them they were devoid
of the Father's word, for they refused to accept Himself whom the Father
had sent. With humiliating directness He admonished these learned men of
the law, these interpreters of the prophets, these professional
expounders of sacred writ, to betake themselves to reading and study.
"Search the scriptures," said He, "for in them ye think ye have eternal
life: and they are they which testify of me." Convictingly He
continued--that they who admitted and taught that in the scriptures lay
the way to eternal life, refused to come to Him, of whom those same
scriptures testified, though by coming they might obtain eternal life.
"I receive not honour from men," He added, "But I know you, that ye have
not the love of God in you." They knew that they sought for honor among
men, received honors from one another, were made rabbis and doctors,
scribes and teachers, by the bestowal of titles and degrees--all of men;
but they rejected Him who came in the name of One infinitely greater
than all their schools or societies--He had come in the supreme name of
the Father. The cause of their spiritual ignorance was pointed out--they
relied upon the honors of men, and sought not the honor of real service
in the cause of God.

He had spoken of the authority of judgment that had been committed to
Himself; now He explained that they should not think He would accuse
them before the Father; a lesser one than He would accuse, even Moses,
another of His witnesses in whom they professed such trust--Moses whom
they all were said to believe--and, driving home the full effect of His
powerful arraignment, the Lord continued: "For had ye believed Moses, ye
would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his
writings, how shall ye believe my words?" Such was the illuminating
instruction combined with burning denunciation that these men had called
forth by their futile attempt to convict Jesus on the charge of Sabbath
desecration. This was but one of many evil machinations by which they so
determinedly plotted, and strove to attach the stigma and invoke the
penalty of Sabbath-breaking upon the very One who had ordained the
Sabbath and was in truth and verity the one and only Lord thereof.


THE DISCIPLES CHARGED WITH SABBATH-BREAKING.

We may profitably consider in this connection other instances of good
work done by our Lord on Sabbath days; and this we may do without undue
regard to the order of the events in time. We again find Jesus in
Galilee, whether prior to or after His visit to Jerusalem at the time of
the unidentified feast, on which occasion He wrought the miracle of
healing at the Bethesda pool, matters not. On a certain Sabbath, He and
the disciples walked through a field of grain,[449] and, being hungry,
the disciples began to pluck some of the ripening ears; rubbing out the
kernels between their hands, they ate. There was no element of theft in
what they did, for the Mosaic law provided that in passing through
another's vineyard or corn field one might pluck grapes or corn to
relieve hunger; but it was forbidden to use a sickle in the field, or to
carry away any of the grapes in a vessel.[450] The permission extended
only to the relief of present need. When the disciples of Jesus availed
themselves of this lawful privilege, there were Pharisees on the watch,
and these came at once to the Master, saying: "Behold, thy disciples do
that which is not lawful to do upon the sabbath day." The accusers
doubtless had in mind the rabbinical dictum that rubbing out an ear of
grain in the hands was a species of threshing; that blowing away the
chaff was winnowing; and that it was unlawful to thresh or winnow on the
Sabbath. Indeed, some learned rabbis had held it to be a sin to walk on
grass during the Sabbath, inasmuch as the grass might be in seed, and
the treading out of the seed would be as the threshing of grain.

Jesus defended the disciples by citing a precedent applicable to the
case, and of much greater import. The instance was that of David, who
with a small company of men had asked bread of the priest Ahimelech; for
they were hungry and in haste. The priest had none but consecrated
bread, the loaves of shewbread which were placed in the sanctuary at
intervals, and which none but the priests were allowed to eat. In view
of the condition of urgent need the priest had given the shewbread to
the hungry men.[451] Jesus also reminded the critical Pharisees that the
priests in the temple regularly did much work on the Sabbath in the
slaughtering of sacrificial victims and in altar service generally, yet
were held blameless because of the higher requirements of worship which
rendered such labor necessary; and added with solemn emphasis: "But I
say unto you, That in this place is one greater than the temple." He
cited the word of God spoken through Hosea, "I will have mercy, and not
sacrifice,"[452] and reproved at once their ignorance and their
unrighteous zeal by telling them that had they known what that scripture
meant they would not have condemned the guiltless. Be it remembered,
"The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath."[453]

His reproof was followed by the affirmation of His personal supremacy:
"_For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day!_" What can we
gather from that declaration but that He, Jesus, there present in the
flesh, was the Being through whom the Sabbath had been ordained, that it
was He who had given and written in stone the decalog, including
"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy," and, "the seventh day is
the sabbath of the Lord thy God"?


A PHARISAICAL PLOT.

Again on a Sabbath, Jesus went into a synagog, and saw in the
congregation a man whose right hand was withered.[454] There were
Pharisees present, and they watched to see whether Jesus would heal the
man, their purpose being to accuse Him if He did so. The Pharisees
asked: "Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath days?" Our Lord countered
their poorly veiled purpose by asking: "Is it lawful to do good on the
sabbath days?" and extended the question, "or to do evil? to save life,
or to kill?" They held their peace, for the question was double-edged.
To reply in the affirmative would have been to justify the work of
healing; a negative answer would have stultified them. He put another
question: "What man shall there be among you, that shall have one sheep,
and if it fall into a pit on the sabbath day, will he not lay hold on
it, and lift it out? How much then is a man better than a sheep?"

As the Pharisees could not or would not reply, He summed up the whole
matter thus: "Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days." He
called upon the man with the withered hand to stand forth before the
congregation. Grief and anger were mingled in His penetrating and
sweeping glance; but, turning with compassion toward the afflicted one,
He commanded him to stretch forth his hand; the man obeyed, and lo! the
hand "was restored whole, like as the other."

The discomfited Pharisees were furious, "filled with madness" Luke says;
and they went out to plot anew against the Lord. So bitter was their
hatred that they allied themselves with the Herodians, a political party
generally unpopular among the Jews.[455] The rulers of the people were
ready to enter into any intrigue or alliance to accomplish their avowed
purpose of bringing about the death of the Lord Jesus. Aware of the
wicked determination against Him, Jesus withdrew Himself from the
locality. Other accusations of Sabbath-breaking, brought against Christ
by Jewish casuists, will be considered later.[456]


NOTES TO CHAPTER 15.

1. Rabbinical Requirements Concerning Sabbath Observance.--"No feature
of the Jewish system was so marked as their extraordinary strictness in
the outward observance of the Sabbath, as a day of entire rest. The
Scribes had elaborated from the command of Moses, a vast array of
prohibitions and injunctions, covering the whole of social, individual,
and public life, and carried it to the extreme of ridiculous caricature.
Lengthened rules were prescribed as to the kinds of knots which might
legally be tied on the Sabbath. The camel-driver's knot and the sailor's
were unlawful, and it was equally illegal to tie or to loose them. A
knot which could be untied with one hand might be undone. A shoe or
sandal, a woman's cup, a wine or oil-skin, or a flesh-pot might be tied.
A pitcher at a spring might be tied to the body-sash, but not with a
cord.... To kindle or extinguish a fire on the Sabbath was a great
desecration of the day, nor was even sickness allowed to violate
Rabbinical rules. It was forbidden to give an emetic on the Sabbath--to
set a broken bone, or put back a dislocated joint, though some Rabbis,
more liberal, held that whatever endangered life made the Sabbath law
void, 'for the commands were given to Israel only that they might live
by them.' One who was buried under ruins on the Sabbath, might be dug
for and taken out, if alive, but, if dead, he was to be left where he
was, till the Sabbath was over."--Geikie, _Life and Words of Christ_,
chap. 38.

2. The Unnamed Feast.--There has been no little discussion as to the
particular festival referred to in John 5:1, at the time of which Jesus
healed the cripple at the pool of Bethesda. Many writers hold that it
was the Passover, others that it was the feast of Purim, or some other
Jewish celebration. The only semblance of importance attaching to the
question is the possibility of learning from the fact, if it could be
proved, something of the chronological order of events at this period of
our Lord's life. We are not told which feast this was, neither the year
nor the time of the year when it occurred. The miracle wrought on the
occasion, and the doctrinal discourse delivered as a result thereof,
depend for their value in no degree on the determination of date.

3. Shewbread.--The name means "bread of the presence," signifying that
it was placed in the presence of Jehovah. The bread so sanctified
consisted of twelve loaves, made without leaven. They were to be
deposited in the Holy Place in two columns of six loaves each. Zenos, in
_Stand. Bible Dict._ writes: "They were allowed to remain there for a
whole week, at the end of which period they were removed, and eaten by
the priest upon holy ground, i.e. within the precincts of the sanctuary.
For other persons than priests to eat of the loaves of the shewbread was
regarded as sacrilegious, for they were 'holy.'" See Exo. 25:30; Lev.
24:5-9; 1 Sam. 21:1-6.

4. The Sabbath Was Made for Man and Not Man for the Sabbath.--Edersheim
(vol. i, pp. 57, 58) says: "When on his flight from Saul, David had,
'when an hungered,' eaten of the shewbread and given it to his
followers, although, by the letter of the Levitical law, it was only to
be eaten by the priests. Jewish tradition vindicated his conduct on the
plea that 'danger to life superseded the Sabbath law,' and hence, all
laws connected with it.... In truth, the reason why David was blameless
in eating the shewbread was the same as that which made the Sabbath
labor of the priests lawful. The Sabbath law was not one merely of rest,
but of rest for worship. The service of the Lord was the object in view.
The priests worked on the Sabbath, because this service was the object
of the Sabbath; and David was allowed to eat of the shewbread, not
[solely] because there was danger to life from starvation, but because
he pleaded that he was on the service of the Lord, and needed this
provision. The disciples, when following the Lord, were similarly on the
service of the Lord; ministering to Him was more than ministering in the
temple, for He was greater than the temple. If the Pharisees had
believed this, they would not have questioned their conduct, nor in so
doing have themselves infringed that higher law which enjoined mercy,
not sacrifice."

FOOTNOTES:

[430] Gen. 2:3.

[431] Exo. 16:16-31.

[432] Exo. 20:8-11; 23:12; 31:13-15; 34:21; Lev. 19:3; 23:3; Deut.
5:12-14.

[433] Exo. 35:3; Numb. 15:32-36.

[434] Isa. 56:2; 58:13; Jer. 17:21-24.

[435] Neh. 8:9-12; 13:15-22.

[436] Ezek. 20:12-24.

[437] B. of M., Jarom 1:5; Mosiah 13:16-19; 18:23.

[438] Lev. 25:1-8; compare 26:34, 35.

[439] Lev. 25:10-55.

[440] Page 64.

[441] Note 1, end of chapter.

[442] John, chapter 5.

[443] Note 2, end of chapter.

[444] See another instance, pages 190-192.

[445] Pages 191 and 201. For further justification of this act of
healing on the Sabbath, see John 7:21-24.

[446] Page 142.

[447] Compare Doc. and Cov. 76:16, 17. See page 24 herein.

[448] Page 25.

[449] Matt. 12:1-8; compare Mark 2:23-28; Luke 6:1-5.

[450] Deut. 23:24, 25.

[451] Note 3, end of chapter.

[452] Hos. 6:6; compare Micah 6:6-9.

[453] Mark 2:27. Note 4, end of chapter.

[454] Matt. 12:10-13; Mark 3:1-6; Luke 6:6-8.

[455] Page 68.

[456] For instances, see Luke 13:14-16; 14:3-6; John 9:14-16.




CHAPTER 16.

THE CHOSEN TWELVE.


THEIR CALL AND ORDINATION.[457]

The night preceding the morn on which the Twelve Apostles were called
and ordained was spent by the Lord in solitary seclusion; He had
"continued all night in prayer to God."[458] Then, when day had come,
and while many people were gathering to hear more of the new and
wonderful gospel of the kingdom, He called to come closer some who had
theretofore been devotedly associated together as His disciples or
followers, and from among them He chose twelve, whom he ordained and
named apostles.[459] Prior to that time none of these had been
distinguished by any special delegation of authority or appointment;
they had been numbered with the disciples in general, though, as we have
seen, seven had received a preliminary call, and had promptly responded
thereto by abandoning wholly or in part their business affairs, and had
followed the Master. These were Andrew, John, Simon Peter, Philip,
Nathanael, James, and Levi Matthew. Prior to this eventful day, however,
none of the Twelve had been ordained or set apart to their sacred
office.

The three Gospel-writers who make record of the organization of the
Twelve place Simon Peter first and Judas Iscariot last in the category;
they agree also in the relative position of some but not of all the
others. Following the order given by Mark, and this may be the most
convenient since he names as the first three those who later became most
prominent, we have the following list: Simon Peter, James (son of
Zebedee), John (brother of the last-named), Andrew (brother of Simon
Peter), Philip, Bartholomew (or Nathanael), Matthew, Thomas, James (son
of Alpheus), Judas (also known as Lebbeus or Thaddeus), Simon
(distinguished by his surname Zelotes, also known as the Canaanite), and
Judas Iscariot.


TWELVE CONSIDERED INDIVIDUALLY.

_Simon_, named as the first apostle, is more commonly known as
_Peter_--the appellation given him by the Lord on the occasion of their
first meeting, and afterward confirmed.[460] He was the son of Jona, or
Jonas, and by vocation was a fisherman. He and his brother Andrew were
partners with James and John, the sons of Zebedee; and apparently the
fishing business was a prosperous one with them, for they owned their
boats and gave employment to other men.[461] Peter's early home had been
at the little fishery town of Bethsaida,[462] on the west shore of the
Sea of Galilee; but about the time of his first association with Jesus,
or soon thereafter, he, with others of his family, removed to Capernaum,
where he appears to have become an independent householder.[463] Simon
Peter was a married man before his call to the ministry. He was well to
do in a material way; and when he once spoke of having left all to
follow Jesus, the Lord did not deny that Peter's sacrifice of temporal
possessions was as great as had been implied. We are not justified in
regarding him as unlettered or ignorant. True, both he and John were
designated by the council of rulers as "unlearned and ignorant
men,"[464] but this was spoken of them as indicating their lack of
training in the schools of the rabbis; and it is worthy of note, that
the members of that same council were amazed at the wisdom and power
manifested by the two apostles, whom they professed to despize.

In temperament Peter was impulsive and stern, and, until trained by
severe experience, was lacking in firmness. He had many human
weaknesses, yet in spite of them all he eventually overcame the
temptations of Satan and the frailties of the flesh, and served his Lord
as the appointed and acknowledged leader of the Twelve. Of the time and
place of his death the scriptures do not speak; but the manner thereof
was prefigured by the resurrected Lord,[465] and in part was foreseen by
Peter himself.[466] Tradition, originating in the writings of the early
Christian historians other than the apostles, states that Peter met
death by crucifixion as a martyr during the persecution incident to the
reign of Nero, probably between A.D. 64 and 68. Origen states that the
apostle was crucified with his head downward. Peter, with James and
John, his associates in the presidency of the Twelve, has ministered as
a resurrected being in the present dispensation, in restoring to earth
the Melchizedek Priesthood, including the Holy Apostleship, which had
been taken away because of the apostasy and unbelief of men.[467]

_James_ and _John_, brothers by birth, partners in business as
fishermen, brethren in the ministry, were associated together and with
Peter in the apostolic calling. The Lord bestowed upon the pair a title
in common--Boanerges, or Sons of Thunder[468]--possibly with reference
to the zeal they developed in His service, which, indeed, at times had
to be restrained, as when they would have had fire called from heaven to
destroy the Samaritan villagers who had refused hospitality to the
Master.[469] They and their mother aspired to the highest honors of the
kingdom, and asked that the two be given places, one on the right the
other on the left of Christ in His glory. This ambition was gently
reproved by the Lord, and the request gave offense to the other
apostles.[470] With Peter these two brothers were witnesses of many of
the most important incidents in the life of Jesus; thus, the three were
the only apostles admitted to witness the raising of the daughter of
Jairus from death to life;[471] they were the only members of the Twelve
present at the transfiguration of Christ;[472] they were nearest the
Lord during the period of His mortal agony in Gethsemane;[473] and, as
heretofore told, they have ministered in these modern days in the
restoration of the Holy Apostleship with all its ancient authority and
power of blessing.[474] James is commonly designated in theological
literature as James I, to distinguish him from the other apostle bearing
the same name. James, the son of Zebedee, was the first of the apostles
to meet a martyr's violent death; he was beheaded by order of the king,
Herod Agrippa.[475] John had been a disciple of the Baptist, and had
demonstrated his confidence in the latter's testimony of Jesus by
promptly turning from the forerunner and following the Lord.[476] He
became a devoted servant, and repeatedly refers to himself as the
disciple "whom Jesus loved."[477] At the last supper John sat next to
Jesus leaning his head upon the Master's breast;[478] and next day as he
stood beneath the cross he received from the dying Christ the special
charge to care for the Lord's mother;[479] and to this he promptly
responded by conducting the weeping Mary to his own house. He was the
first to recognize the risen Lord on the shores of Galilee, and received
from His immortal lips encouragement of his hope that his life would be
continued in the body, in order that he might minister among men until
the Christ shall come in His glory.[480] The realization of that hope
has been attested by revelation in modern days.[481]

_Andrew_, son of Jona and brother of Simon Peter, is mentioned less
frequently than the three already considered. He had been one of the
Baptist's followers, and with John, the son of Zebedee, left the Baptist
to learn from Jesus; and having learned he went in search of Peter,
solemnly averred to him that the Messiah had been found, and brought his
brother to the Savior's feet.[482] He shared with Peter in the honor of
the call of the Lord on the sea shore, and in the promise "I will make
you fishers of men."[483] In one instance we read of Andrew as present
with Peter, James and John, in a private interview with the Lord;[484]
and he is mentioned in connection with the miraculous feeding of the
five thousand,[485] and as associated with Philip in arranging an
interview between certain inquiring Greeks and Jesus.[486] He is named
with others in connection with our Lord's ascension.[487] Tradition is
rife with stories about this man, but of the extent of his ministry, the
duration of his life, and the circumstances of his death, we have no
authentic record.

_Philip_ may have been the first to receive the authoritative call
"Follow me" from the lips of Jesus, and we find him immediately
testifying that Jesus was the long expected Messiah. His home was in
Bethsaida, the town of Peter, Andrew, James, and John. It is said that
Jesus found him,[488] whereas the others concerned in that early
affiliation seem to have come of themselves severally to Christ.
We find brief mention of him at the time the five thousand were
fed, on which occasion Jesus asked him "Whence shall we buy bread, that
these may eat?" This was done to test and prove him, for Jesus knew what
would be done. Philip's reply was based on a statement of the small
amount of money at hand, and showed no expectation of miraculous
intervention.[489] It was to him the Greeks applied when they sought a
meeting with Jesus as noted in connection with Andrew. He was mildly
reproved for his misunderstanding when he asked Jesus to show to him and
the others the Father--"Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast
thou not known me, Philip?"[490] Aside from incidental mention of his
presence as one of the Eleven after the ascension, the scriptures tell
us nothing more concerning him.

_Bartholomew_ is mentioned in scripture by this name only in connection
with his ordination to the apostleship, and as one of the Eleven after
the ascension. The name means son of Tolmai. It is practically certain,
however, that he is the man called Nathanael in John's Gospel--the one
whom Christ designated as "an Israelite indeed, in whom is no
guile."[491] He is named again as among those who went fishing with
Peter after the resurrection of Christ.[492] His home was in Cana of
Galilee. The reasons for assuming that Bartholomew and Nathanael are the
same persons are these: Bartholomew is named in each of the three
synoptic Gospels as an apostle, but Nathanael is not mentioned.
Nathanael is named twice in John's Gospel, and Bartholomew not at all;
Bartholomew and Philip, or Nathanael and Philip, are mentioned together.

_Matthew_, or _Levi_, son of Alpheus, was one of the seven who received
a call to follow Christ before the ordination of the Twelve. He it was
who gave a feast, for attending which Jesus and the disciples were
severely criticized by the Pharisees,[493] on the charge that it was
unseemly for Him to eat with publicans and sinners. Matthew was a
publican; he so designates himself in the Gospel he wrote;[494] but the
other evangelists omit the mention when including him with the Twelve.
His Hebrew name, Levi, is understood by many as an indication of
priestly lineage. Of his ministry we have no detailed account; though he
is the author of the first Gospel, he refrains from special mention of
himself except in connection with his call and ordination. He is spoken
of by other than scriptural writers as one of the most active of the
apostles after Christ's death, and as operating in lands far from
Palestine.

_Thomas_, also known as Didymus, the Greek equivalent of his Hebrew
name, meaning "a twin," is mentioned as a witness of the raising of
Lazarus. His devotion to Jesus is shown by his desire to accompany the
Lord to Bethany, though persecution in that region was almost certain.
To his fellow apostles Thomas said: "Let us also go, that we may die
with him."[495] Even as late in his experience as the night before the
crucifixion, Thomas had failed to comprehend the impending necessity of
the Savior's sacrifice; and when Jesus referred to going away and
leaving the others to follow, Thomas asked how they could know the way.
For his lack of understanding he stood reproved.[496] He was absent when
the resurrected Christ appeared to the assembled disciples in the
evening of the day of His rising; and on being informed by the others
that they had seen the Lord, he forcefully expressed his doubt, and
declared he would not believe unless he could see and feel for himself
the wounds in the crucified body. Eight days later the Lord visited the
apostles again, when, as on the earlier occasion, they were within
closed doors; and to Thomas the Lord said: "Reach hither thy finger, and
behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side."
Then Thomas, no longer doubting but with love and reverence filling his
soul, exclaimed "My Lord and my God." The Lord said unto him: "Thomas,
because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that
have not seen, and yet have believed."[497] Of Thomas no further record
appears in the New Testament aside from that of his presence with his
fellows after the ascension.

_James_, son of Alpheus, is mentioned in the Gospels only in the matter
of his ordination to the apostleship; and but once elsewhere in the New
Testament by the appellation "son of Alpheus."[498] In writings other
than scriptural he is sometimes designated as James II to avoid
confusing him with James the son of Zebedee. There is acknowledged
uncertainty concerning the identity of James the son of Alpheus as the
James or one of the James's referred to in the Acts and the
Epistles;[499] and a plenitude of controversial literature on the
subject is extant.[500]

_Judas_ is called _Lebbeus Thaddeus_ by Matthew, _Thaddeus_ by Mark, and
_Judas the brother of James_ by Luke.[501] The only other specific
reference to this apostle is made by John, and is incident to the last
long interview between Jesus and the apostles, when this Judas, "not
Iscariot," asked how or why Jesus would manifest Himself to His chosen
servants and not to the world at large. The man's question shows that
the really distinguishing character of the apostleship was not fully
comprehended by him at that time.

_Simon Zelotes_, so designated in Acts,[502] and as _Simon called
Zelotes_ in Luke's Gospel, is distinguished by both Matthew and Mark as
the _Canaanite_. The last designation has no reference to the town of
Cana, nor to the land of Canaan, neither is it in any sense of
geographical signification; it is the Syro-Chaldaic equivalent of the
Greek word which is rendered in the English translation "Zelotes." The
two names, therefore, have the same fundamental meaning, and each refers
to the Zealots, a Jewish sect or faction, known for its zeal in
maintaining the Mosaic ritual. Doubtless Simon had learned moderation
and toleration from the teachings of Christ; otherwise he would scarcely
have been suited to the apostolic ministry. His zealous earnestness,
properly directed, may have developed into a most serviceable trait of
character. This apostle is nowhere in the scriptures named apart from
his colleagues.

_Judas Iscariot_ is the only Judean named among the Twelve; all the
others were Galileans. He is generally understood to have been a
resident of Kerioth, a small town in the southerly part of Judea, but a
few miles west from the Dead Sea, though for this tradition, as also for
the signification of his surname, we lack direct authority. So too we
are uninformed as to his lineage, except that his father's name was
Simon.[503] He served as treasurer or agent of the apostolic company,
receiving and disbursing such offerings as were made by disciples and
friends, and purchasing supplies as required.[504] That he was
unprincipled and dishonest in the discharge of this trust is attested by
John. His avaricious and complaining nature revealed itself in his
murmuring against what he called a waste of costly spikenard, in the
anointing of the Lord by Mary but a few days before the crucifixion; he
hypocritically suggested that the precious ointment could have been sold
and the proceeds given to the poor.[505] The crowning deed of perfidy in
the career of Iscariot was his deliberate betrayal of his Master to
death; and this the infamous creature did for a price, and accomplished
the foul deed with a kiss. He brought his guilty life to a close by a
revolting suicide and his spirit went to the awful fate reserved for the
sons of perdition.[506]


GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TWELVE.

A survey of the general characteristics and qualifications of this body
of twelve men reveals some interesting facts. Before their selection as
apostles they had all become close disciples of the Lord; they believed
in Him; several of them, possibly all, had openly confessed that He was
the Son of God; and yet it is doubtful that any one of them fully
understood the real significance of the Savior's work. It is evident by
the later remarks of many of them, and by the instructions and rebuke
they called forth from the Master, that the common Jewish expectation of
a Messiah who would reign in splendor as an earthly sovereign after He
had subdued all other nations, had a place even in the hearts of these
chosen ones. After long experience, Peter's concern was: "Behold, we
have forsaken all, and followed thee; what shall we have
therefore?"[507] They were as children to be trained and taught; but
they were mostly willing pupils, receptive of soul, and imbued with a
sincere eagerness to serve. To Jesus they were His little ones, His
children, His servants, and His friends, as they merited.[508] They were
all of the common people, not rabbis, scholars, nor priestly officials.
Their inner natures, not their outward accomplishments, were taken into
prime account in the Lord's choosing. The Master chose them; they did
not choose themselves; by Him they were ordained,[509] and they could in
consequence rely the more implicitly upon His guidance and support. To
them much was given; much of them was required. With the one black
exception they all became shining lights in the kingdom of God, and
vindicated the Master's selection. He recognized in each the
characteristics of fitness developed in the primeval world of
spirits.[510]


DISCIPLES AND APOSTLES.

Discipleship is general; any follower of a man or devotee to a principle
may be called a disciple. The Holy Apostleship is an office and calling
belonging to the Higher or Melchizedek Priesthood, at once exalted and
specific, comprizing as a distinguishing function that of personal and
special witness to the divinity of Jesus Christ as the one and only
Redeemer and Savior of mankind.[511] The apostleship is an individual
bestowal, and as such is conferred only through ordination. That the
Twelve did constitute a council or "quorum" having authority in the
Church established by Jesus Christ, is shown by their ministrations
after the Lord's resurrection and ascension. Their first official act
was that of filling the vacancy in their organization occasioned by the
apostasy and death of Judas Iscariot; and in connection with this
procedure, the presiding apostle, Peter, set forth the essential
qualifications of the one who would be chosen and ordained, which
comprized such knowledge of Jesus, His life, death, and resurrection, as
would make the new apostle one with the Eleven as special witnesses of
the Lord's work.[512]

The ordination of the Twelve Apostles marked the inauguration of an
advanced epoch in the earthly ministry of Jesus, an epoch characterized
by the organization of a body of men invested with the authority of the
Holy Priesthood, upon whom would rest, more particularly after the
Lord's departure, the duty and responsibility of continuing the work He
had begun, and of building up the Church established by Him.

The word "apostle" is an Anglicized form derived from the Greek
_apostolos_, meaning literally "one who is sent," and connoting an envoy
or official messenger, who speaks and acts by the authority of one
superior to himself. In this sense Paul afterward applied the title to
Christ as one specially sent and commissioned of the Father.[513]

The Lord's purpose in choosing and ordaining the Twelve is thus
enunciated by Mark: "And he ordained twelve, that they should be with
him, and that he might send them forth to preach, and to have power to
heal sicknesses, and to cast out devils."[514] For a season following
their ordination the apostles remained with Jesus, being specially
trained and instructed by Him for the work then before them; afterward
they were specifically charged and sent forth to preach and to
administer in the authority of their priesthood, as shall be hereafter
considered.


NOTES TO CHAPTER 16.

1. Judas Lebbeus Thaddeus.--This Judas (not Iscariot) is designated in
the authorized version of Luke 6:16, and Acts 1:13, as "_the brother_ of
James." That the words "the brother" are an addition to the original
text is indicated by italics. The revised version of these passages
reads in each instance "_the son_ of James," with italics of
corresponding significance. The original reads "Judas of James." We are
uninformed as to which James is referred to, and as to whether the Judas
here mentioned was the son, the brother, or some other relative of the
unidentified James.

2. The Meaning of "Apostle."--"The title 'Apostle' is likewise one of
special significance and sanctity; it has been given of God, and belongs
only to those who have been called and ordained as 'special witnesses of
the name of Christ in all the world, thus differing from other officers
in the Church in the duties of their calling' (Doc. and Cov. 107:23). By
derivation the word 'apostle' is the English equivalent of the Greek
_apostolos_, indicating a messenger, an ambassador, or literally 'one
who is sent'. It signifies that he who is rightly so called, speaks and
acts not of himself, but as the representative of a higher power whence
his commission issued; and in this sense the title is that of a servant,
rather than that of a superior. Even the Christ, however, is called an
Apostle with reference to His ministry in the flesh (Hebrews 3:1), and
this appellation is justified by His repeated declaration that He came
to earth to do not His own will but that of the Father by whom _He was
sent_.

"Though an apostle is thus seen to be essentially an envoy, or
ambassador, his authority is great, as is also the responsibility
associated therewith, for he speaks in the name of a power greater than
his own--the name of Him whose special witness he is. When one of the
Twelve is sent to minister in any stake, mission or other division of
the Church, or to labor in regions where no Church organization has been
effected, he acts as the representative of the First Presidency, and has
the right to use his authority in doing whatever is requisite for the
furtherance of the work of God. His duty is to preach the Gospel,
administer the ordinances thereof, and set in order the affairs of the
Church, wherever he is sent. So great is the sanctity of this special
calling, that the title 'Apostle' should not be used lightly as the
common or ordinary form of address applied to living men called to this
office. The quorum or council of the Twelve Apostles as existent in the
Church to-day may better be spoken of as the 'Quorum of the Twelve,' the
'Council of the Twelve,' or simply as the 'Twelve,' than as the 'Twelve
Apostles,' except as particular occasion may warrant the use of the more
sacred term. It is advized that the title 'Apostle' be not applied as a
prefix to the name of any member of the Council of the Twelve; but that
such a one be addressed or spoken of as 'Brother ----,' or 'Elder ----,'
and when necessary or desirable, as in announcing his presence in a
public assembly, an explanatory clause may be added, thus, 'Elder ----,
one of the Council of the Twelve,'"--From "The Honor and Dignity of
Priesthood," by the author, _Improvement Era_, Vol. 17, No. 5, pp.
409-410.

3. "Of Alpheus;" or "Son of Alpheus."--In all Bible passages specifying
"James son of Alpheus" (Matt. 10:3; Mark 3:18; Luke 6:15; Acts 1:13) the
word _son_ has been supplied by the translators, and therefore properly
appears in _Italics_. The phrase in the Greek reads "James of Alpheus."
This fact must not be given undue weight in support of the thought that
the James spoken of was not the son of Alpheus; for the word _son_ has
been similarly added in the translation of other passages, in all of
which _Italics_ are used to indicate the words supplied, e.g. "James
_the son_ of Zebedee" (Matt. 10:2; see also Mark 3:17). Read in this
connection Note 1 on the opposite page.

FOOTNOTES:

[457] Matt. 10:1-4; Mark 3:13-19; Luke 6:12-16.

[458] Luke 6:12.

[459] Luke 3:13; compare John 15:16; see also Acts 1:22.

[460] John 1:42; compare Matt. 16:18.

[461] Mark 1:16-20; Luke 5:10.

[462] John 1:44; 12:21.

[463] Matt. 8:14; Mark 1:29; Luke 4:38.

[464] Acts 4:13.

[465] John 21:18, 19.

[466] 2 Peter 1:14.

[467] Doc. and Cov. 27:12. Page 768 herein.

[468] Mark 3:17.

[469] Luke 9:54. See also Mark 9:38, for instance of John's impulsive
zeal.

[470] Mark 10:35-41; compare Matt. 20:20-24.

[471] Mark 5:37; Luke 8:51.

[472] Matt. 17:1-2; Luke 9:28-29.

[473] Matt. 26:36, 37.

[474] Doc. and Cov. 27:12. Page 768 herein.

[475] Acts 12:1, 2.

[476] John 1:35-40; see page 140.

[477] John 13:23; 19:26; 20:2.

[478] John 13:23, 25.

[479] John 19:25-27.

[480] John 21:7, 21-23.

[481] Doc. and Cov. Sec. 7; compare B. of M., 3 Nephi 28:1-12.

[482] John 1:35-40.

[483] Matt. 4:18, 19.

[484] Mark 13:3.

[485] John 6:8.

[486] John 12:20-22.

[487] Acts 1:13.

[488] John 1:43-45.

[489] John 6:5-7.

[490] John 14:8, 9.

[491] John 1:45-51; see page 141.

[492] John 21:2, 3.

[493] Page 194.

[494] Matt. 10:3.

[495] John 11:16.

[496] John 14:1-7.

[497] John 20:24-29. Page 689 herein.

[498] Acts 1:13. Note 3, end of chapter.

[499] Acts 12:17; 15:13-21; 21:18; 1 Cor. 15:7; Gal. 1:19; 2:9, 12; and
the Epistle of James.

[500] Concerning the James's mentioned in the New Testament, the opinion
of Bible scholars is divided, the question being as to whether two or
three individuals are indicated. Those who hold that there were three
men of this name distinguish them as follows: (1) James the son of
Zebedee and brother of John the apostle; all scriptural references to
him are explicit; (2) James the son of Alpheus; and (3) James the
brother of the Lord (Matt. 13:55; Mark 6:3; Gal. 1:19). If we accept
this classification, the references given in the previous footnote on
this page apply to James the Lord's brother. Both the Oxford and Bagster
Bible "Helps" treat James the son of Alpheus and James the Lord's
brother as one person, the expression "son of" being understood in its
general sense only (see page 280). The Bagster designation is: "James
II, apostle, son of Alpheus, brother or cousin to Jesus." (See Note 3,
end of chapter.) The Nave "Student's Bible" states (page 1327) that the
question as to whether James the Lord's brother "is identical with James
the son of Alpheus is one of the most difficult questions in the
biographical history of the Gospels." Faussett (in his "Cyclopedia
Critical and Expository") supports the contention that but one James is
meant; and other acknowledged authorities treat the two as one. For
detailed consideration of the subject the reader is referred to special
works.

[501] Note 1, end of chapter.

[502] Acts 1:13; compare Luke 6:15.

[503] John 6:71; 12:4; 13:26.

[504] John 12:6; 13:29.

[505] John 12:1-7; compare Matt. 26:6-13; Mark 14:3-9.

[506] Matt. 27:5; compare Acts 1:18; see also John 17:12; Doc. and Cov.
76; 31-48; 132:27.

[507] Matt. 19:27.

[508] Matt. 10:42; John 21:5; 13:16. compare verse 13; 15:14, 15.

[509] John 15:16.

[510] Pages 8 and 17.

[511] Doc. and Cov. 18:27-33; 20:38-44; 107:1-9, 23, 24, 39.

[512] Acts 1:15-26.

[513] Heb. 3:1; see Note 2, end of chapter.

[514] Mark 3:14, 15.




CHAPTER 17.

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT.


At some time very near that of the ordination of the Twelve, Jesus
delivered a remarkable discourse, which, in reference to the place where
it was given, has come to be known as the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew
presents an extended account occupying three chapters of the first
Gospel; Luke gives a briefer synopsis.[515] Circumstantial variations
appearing in the two records are of minor importance;[516] it is the
sermon itself to which we may profitably devote attention. Luke
introduces in different parts of his writings many of the precious
precepts given as parts of the sermon recorded as a continuous discourse
in the Gospel written by Matthew. In our present study we shall be
guided principally by Matthew's account. Some portions of this
comprehensive address were expressly directed to the disciples, who had
been or would be called to the apostleship and in consequence be
required to renounce all their worldly interests for the labors of the
ministry; other parts were and are of general application. Jesus had
ascended the mountain side, probably to escape the crowds that thronged
Him in or near the towns.[517] The disciples gathered about Him, and
there He sat and taught them.[518]


THE BEATITUDES.[519]

The opening sentences are rich in blessing, and the first section of the
discourse is devoted to an explanation of what constitutes genuine
blessedness; the lesson, moreover, was made simple and unambiguous by
specific application, each of the blessed being assured of recompense
and reward in the enjoyment of conditions directly opposite to those
under which he had suffered. The blessings particularized by the Lord on
this occasion have been designated in literature of later time as the
Beatitudes. The poor in spirit are to be made rich as rightful heirs to
the kingdom of heaven; the mourner shall be comforted for he shall see
the divine purpose in his grief, and shall again associate with the
beloved ones of whom he has been bereft; the meek, who suffer spoliation
rather than jeopardize their souls in contention, shall inherit the
earth; those that hunger and thirst for the truth shall be fed in rich
abundance; they that show mercy shall be judged mercifully; the pure in
heart shall be admitted to the very presence of God; the peacemakers,
who try to save themselves and their fellows from strife, shall be
numbered among the children of God; they that suffer persecution for the
sake of righteousness shall inherit the riches of the eternal kingdom.
To the disciples the Lord spake directly, saying: "Blessed are ye, when
men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of
evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad:
for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets
which were before you."[520]

It is evident that the specified blessings and the happiness comprized
therein are to be realized in their fulness only beyond the grave;
though the joy that comes from the consciousness of right living brings,
even in this world, a rich return. An important element in this splendid
elucidation of the truly blessed state is the implied distinction
between pleasure and happiness.[521] Mere pleasure is at best but
fleeting; happiness is abiding, for in the recollection thereof is joy
renewed. Supreme happiness is not an earthly attainment; the promised
"fulness of joy" lies beyond death and the resurrection.[522] While man
exists in this mortal state he needs some of the things of the world; he
must have food and clothing and provision for shelter; and beside these
bare necessities he may righteously desire the facilities of education,
the incidentals of advancing civilization, and the things that are
conducive to refinement and culture; yet all of these are but aids to
achievement, not the end to attain which man was made mortal.

The Beatitudes are directed to the duties of mortal life as a
preparation for a greater existence yet future. In the kingdom of
heaven, twice named in this part of the Lord's discourse, are true
riches and unfailing happiness to be found. The kingdom of heaven was
the all-comprizing text of this wonderful sermon; the means of reaching
the kingdom and the glories of eternal citizenship therein are the main
divisions of the treatise.


DIGNITY AND RESPONSIBILITY IN THE MINISTRY.[523]

The Master next proceeded to instruct with particular directness those
upon whom would devolve the responsibility of the ministry as His
commissioned representatives. "Ye are the salt of the earth," said He.
Salt is the great preservative; as such it has had practical use since
very ancient times. Salt was prescribed as an essential addition to
every meat offering under the Mosaic law.[524] Long before the time of
Christ, the use of salt had been accorded a symbolism of fidelity,
hospitality, and covenant.[525] To be of use salt must be pure; to be of
any saving virtue as salt, it must be salt indeed, and not the product
of chemical alteration or of earthy admixture, whereby its saltiness or
"savor" would be lost;[526] and, as worthless stuff, it would be fit
only to be thrown away. Against such change of faith, against such
admixture with the sophistries, so-called philosophies, and heresies of
the times, the disciples were especially warned. Then, changing the
figure, Jesus likened them to the light of the world, and enjoined upon
them the duty of keeping their light before the people, as prominently
as stands a city built upon a hill, to be seen from all directions, a
city that cannot be hid. Of what service would a lighted candle be if
hidden under a tub or a box? "Let your light so shine before men," said
He, "that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is
in heaven."

That they should make no error as to the relationship of the ancient law
and the gospel of the kingdom which He was elucidating, Jesus assured
them that He had not come to destroy the law nor to nullify the
teachings and predictions of the prophets, but to fulfil such and to
establish that for which the developments of the centuries gone had been
but preparatory. The gospel may be said to have destroyed the Mosaic law
only as the seed is destroyed in the growth of the new plant, only as
the bud is destroyed by the bursting forth of the rich, full, and
fragrant flowers, only as infancy and youth pass forever as the maturity
of years develops. Not a jot or a tittle of the law was to be void. A
more effective analogy than the last could scarcely have been conceived;
the jot or yod, and the tittle, were small literary marks in the Hebrew
script; for present purposes we may regard them as equivalent to the dot
of an "i" or the cross of a "t"; with the first, the jot, our English
word "iota," signifying a trifle, is related. Not even the least
commandment could be violated without penalty; but the disciples were
admonished to take heed that their keeping of the commandments was not
after the manner of the scribes and Pharisees, whose observance was that
of ceremonial externalism, lacking the essentials of genuine devotion;
for they were assured that by such an insincere course they could "in no
case enter into the kingdom of heaven."


THE LAW SUPERSEDED BY THE GOSPEL.[527]

The next section of the sermon deals with the superiority of the gospel
of Christ over the law of Moses, and contrasts the requirements of the
two in particular instances. Whereas the law forbade murder, and
provided a just penalty for the crime, Christ taught that one's giving
way to anger, which might possibly lead to violence or even murder, was
of itself a sin. To maliciously use an offensive epithet such as "Raca"
laid one liable to punishment under the decree of the council, and to
call another a fool placed one "in danger of hell fire." These
objectionable designations were regarded at that time as especially
opprobrious and were therefore expressive of hateful intent. The
murderer's hand is impelled by the hatred in his heart. The law provided
penalty for the deed; the gospel rebuked the evil passion in its
incipiency. To emphasize this principle, the Master showed that hatred
was not to be atoned by a material sacrifice; and that if one came to
make an offering at the altar, and remembered that he was at enmity with
his brother, he should first go to that brother and be reconciled, even
though such a course involved the interruption of the ceremonial, which
was a particularly grievous incident according to the judgment of the
priests. Differences and contentions were to be adjusted without delay.

The law forbade the awful sin of adultery; Christ said that the sin
began in the lustful glance, the sensual thought; and He added that it
was better to become blind than to look with evil eye; better to lose a
hand than to work iniquity therewith. Touching the matter of
divorcement, in which great laxity prevailed in that day, Jesus declared
that except for the most serious offense of infidelity to marriage vows,
no man could divorce his wife without becoming himself an offender, in
that she, marrying again while still a wife not righteously divorced,
would be guilty of sin, and so would be the man to whom she was so
married.

Of old it had been forbidden to swear or take oaths except in solemn
covenant before the Lord; but in the gospel dispensation the Lord
forbade that men swear at all; and the heinousness of wanton oaths was
expounded. Grievously sinful indeed it was and is to swear by heaven,
which is the abode of God; or by earth, which is His creation and by Him
called His footstool; or by Jerusalem, which was regarded by those who
swore as the city of the great King; or by one's own head, which is part
of the body God has created. Moderation in speech, decision and
simplicity were enjoined, to the exclusion of expletives, profanity and
oaths.

Of old the principle of retaliation had been tolerated, by which one who
had suffered injury could exact or inflict a penalty of the same nature
as the offense. Thus an eye was demanded for the loss of an eye, a tooth
for a tooth, a life for a life.[528] In contrast, Christ taught that men
should rather suffer than do evil, even to the extent of submission
without resistance under certain implied conditions. His forceful
illustrations--that if one were smitten on one cheek he should turn the
other to the smiter; that if a man took another's coat by process of
law, the loser should allow his cloak to be taken also; that if one was
pressed into service to carry another's burden a mile, he should
willingly go two miles; that one should readily give or lend as
asked--are not to be construed as commanding abject subserviency to
unjust demands, nor as an abrogation of the principle of
self-protection. These instructions were directed primarily to the
apostles, who would be professedly devoted to the work of the kingdom to
the exclusion of all other interests. In their ministry it would be
better to suffer material loss or personal indignity and imposition at
the hands of wicked oppressors, than to bring about an impairment of
efficiency and a hindrance in work through resistance and contention. To
such as these the Beatitudes were particularly applicable--Blessed are
the meek, the peace-makers, and they that are persecuted for
righteousness' sake.

Of old it had been said: "Love thy neighbour, and hate thine
enemy";[529] but the Lord now taught: "Love your enemies, bless them
that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which
despitefully use you, and persecute you." This was a new doctrine. Never
before had Israel been required to love their foes. Friendship for
enemies had found no place in the Mosaic code: indeed the people had
grown to look upon Israel's enemies as God's enemies; and now Jesus
required that tolerance, mercy, and even love be meted out to such! He
supplemented the requirement by an explanation--through the course
indicated by Him men may become children of God, like unto their
Heavenly Father to the extent of their obedience; for the Father is
kind, long-suffering and tolerant, causing His sun to shine on the evil
and on the good, and sending rain for the sustenance of both just and
unjust.[530] And further, what excellence has the man who gives only as
he receives, acknowledges only those who salute him with respect, loves
only as he is loved? Even the publicans[531] did that much. Of the
disciples of Christ much more was expected. The admonition closing this
division of the discourse is an effective and comprehensive summary of
all that had preceded: "_Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father
which is in heaven is perfect._"[532]


SINCERITY OF PURPOSE.[533]

In the matter of alms-giving the Master warned against, and
inferentially denounced, ostentation and hypocritical display. To give
to the needy is praiseworthy; but to give for the purpose of winning the
praise of men is rank hypocrisy. The tossing of alms to a beggar, the
pouring of offerings into the temple treasure chests, to be seen of
men,[534] and similar displays of affected liberality, were fashionable
among certain classes in the time of Christ; and the same spirit is
manifest today. Some there be now who cause a trumpet to be sounded,
through the columns of the press perchance, or by other means of
publicity, to call attention to their giving, that they may have glory
of men--to win political favor, to increase their trade or influence, to
get what in their estimation is worth more than that from which they
part. With logical incisiveness the Master demonstrated that such givers
have their reward. They have received what they bid for; what more can
such men demand or consistently expect? _"But" said the Lord, "when thou
doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: That
thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret
himself shall reward thee openly!"_

In the same spirit did the Preacher denounce hypocritical prayers--the
saying of prayers in place of praying. There were many who sought places
of public resort, in the synagogs, and even on the street-corners, that
they might be seen and heard of men when saying their prayers. They
secured the publicity they sought; what more could they ask? "Verily I
say unto you, They have their reward," He who would really pray--pray as
nearly as possible as Christ prayed, pray in actual communion with God
to whom the prayer is addressed--will seek privacy, seclusion,
isolation; if opportunity permits he will retire to his chamber, and
will shut the door, that none may intrude; there he may pray indeed, if
the spirit of prayer be in his heart; and this course was commended by
the Lord. Wordy supplications, made up largely of iterations and
repetitions such as the heathen use, thinking that their idol deities
will be pleased with their much speaking, were forbidden.

It is well to know that prayer is not compounded of words, words that
may fail to express what one desires to say, words that so often cloak
inconsistencies, words that may have no deeper source than the physical
organs of speech, words that may be spoken to impress mortal ears. The
dumb may pray, and that too with the eloquence that prevails in heaven.
Prayer is made up of heart throbs and the righteous yearnings of the
soul, of supplication based on the realization of need, of contrition
and pure desire. If there lives a man who has never really prayed, that
man is a being apart from the order of the divine in human nature, a
stranger in the family of God's children. Prayer is for the uplifting of
the suppliant. God without our prayers would be God; but we without
prayer cannot be admitted to the kingdom of God. So did Christ instruct:
"your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him."

Then gave He unto those who sought wisdom at His feet, a model prayer,
saying: "After this manner therefore pray ye:

_"Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed by thy name."_ In this we
acknowledge the relation we bear to our Heavenly Father, and while
reverencing His great and holy Name, we avail ourselves of the
inestimable privilege of approaching Him, less with the thought of His
infinite glory as the Creator of all that is, the Supreme Being above
all creation, than with the loving realization that He is Father, and
that we are His children. This is the earliest Biblical scripture giving
instruction, permission, or warrant, for addressing God directly as "Our
Father". Therein is expressed the reconciliation which the human family,
estranged through sin, may attain by the means provided through the well
beloved Son. This instruction is equally definite in demonstrating the
brotherhood between Christ and humanity. As He prayed so pray we to the
same Father, we as brethren and Christ as our Elder Brother.

_"Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven."_ The
kingdom of God is to be a kingdom of order, in which toleration and the
recognition of individual rights shall prevail. One who really prays
that this kingdom come will strive to hasten its coming by living
according to the law of God. His effort will be to keep himself in
harmony with the order of the kingdom, to subject the flesh to the
spirit, selfishness to altruism, and to learn to love the things that
God loves. To make the will of God supreme on earth as it is in heaven
is to be allied with God in the affairs of life. There are many who
profess belief that as God is omnipotent, all that is is according to
His will. Such a supposition is unscriptural, unreasonable, and
untrue.[535] Wickedness is not in harmony with His will; falsehood,
hypocrisy, vice and crime are not God's gifts to man. By His will these
monstrosities that have developed as hideous deformities in human nature
and life shall be abolished, and this blessed consummation shall be
reached when by choice, without surrender or abrogation of their free
agency, men shall do the will of God.

_"Give us this day our daily bread."_ Food is indispensable to life. As
we need it we should ask for it. True, the Father knows our need before
we ask, but by asking we acknowledge Him as the Giver, and are made
humble, grateful, contrite, and reliant by the request. Though the sun
shines and the rain falls alike upon the just and the unjust, the
righteous man is grateful for these blessings; the ungodly man receives
the benefits as a matter of course with a soul incapable of gratitude.
The capacity to be grateful is a blessing, for the possession of which
we should be further grateful. We are taught to pray day by day for the
food we need, not for a great store to be laid by for the distant
future. Israel in the desert received manna as a daily supply[536] and
were kept in mind of their reliance upon Him who gave. The man with much
finds it easier to forget his dependence than he who must ask with each
succeeding day of need.

_"And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors."_ He who can thus
pray with full intent and unmixed purpose merits forgiveness. In this
specification of personal supplication we are taught to expect only as
we deserve. The selfish and sinful would rejoice in exemption from their
lawful debts, but being selfish and sinful would exact the last farthing
from those who owe them.[537] Forgiveness is too precious a pearl to be
cast at the feet of the unforgiving;[538] and, without the sincerity
that springs from a contrite heart, no man may justly claim mercy. If
others owe us, either in actual money or goods as suggested by debts and
debtors, or through some infringement upon our rights included under the
broader designation as a trespass, our mode of dealing with them will be
taken into righteous account in the judgment of our own offenses.

_"And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil:"_ The first
part of this petition has occasioned comment and question. We are not to
understand that God would ever lead a man into temptation except,
perhaps, by way of wise permission, to test and prove him, thereby
affording him opportunity of overcoming and so of gaining spiritual
strength, which is the only true advancement in man's eternal course of
progress. The one purpose of providing bodies for the preexistent
spirits of the race, and of advancing them to the mortal state, was to
"prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the
Lord their God shall command them."[539] The plan of mortality involved
the certainty of temptation. The intent of the supplication appears to
be that we be preserved from temptation beyond our weak powers to
withstand; that we be not abandoned to temptation without the divine
support that shall be as full a measure of protection as our exercize of
choice will allow.

How inconsistent then to go, as many do, into the places where the
temptations to which we are most susceptible are strongest; for the man
beset with a passion for strong drink to so pray and then resort to the
dramshop; for the man whose desires are lustful to voice such a prayer
and then go where lust is kindled; for the dishonest man, though he say
the prayer, to then place himself where he knows the opportunity to
steal will be found! Can such souls as these be other than hypocrites in
asking God to deliver them from the evils they have sought? Temptation
will fall in our way without our seeking, and evil will present itself
even when we desire most to do right; for deliverance from such we may
pray with righteous expectation and assurance.

_"For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever.
Amen."_ Herein we acknowledge the supremacy of the Being whom we
addressed at the beginning as Father. He is the Almighty in whom and
through whose provision we live and move and have our existence.[540] To
assert independence of God is both sacrilege and blasphemy; to
acknowledge Him is a filial duty and a just confession of His majesty
and dominion. The Lord's Prayer is closed with a solemn "Amen," set as a
seal to the document of the supplication, attesting its genuineness as
the true expression of the suppliant's soul; gathering within the
compass of a word the meaning of all that has been uttered or thought.
_So let it be_ is the literal signification of _Amen_.

From the subject of prayer the Master turned to that of fasting, and
emphasized the important truth that to be of avail fasting must be a
matter between the man and his God, not between man and his kind. It was
a common thing in the Master's day to see men parading the fact of their
abstinence as an advertisement of their assumed piety.[541] That they
might appear haggard and faint, this class of hypocrites disfigured
their faces, went with unkempt hair, gazed about with sad countenances.
Of these also the Lord said, "Verily I say unto you, They have their
reward." Believers were admonished to fast secretly, with no outward
display, and to fast unto God, who could see in secret and would heed
their sacrifice and prayer.


TREASURES OF EARTH AND OF HEAVEN.[542]

The transitory character of worldly wealth was next contrasted with the
enduring riches of eternity. Many there were and many there are whose
principal effort in life has been that of amassing treasures of earth,
the mere possession of which entails responsibility, care, and
disturbing anxiety. Some kinds of wealth are endangered by the ravages
of moths, such as silks and velvets, satins and furs; some are destroyed
by corrosion and rust--silver and copper and steel; while these and
others are not infrequently made the booty of thieves. Infinitely more
precious are the treasures of a life well spent, the wealth of good
deeds, the account of which is kept in heaven, where the riches of
righteous achievement are safe from moth, rust, and robbers. Then
followed the trenchant lesson: _"For where your treasure is, there will
your heart be also."_

Spiritual light is shown to be greater than any product of physical
illuminants. What does the brightest light avail the man who is blind?
It is the bodily eye that discerns the light of the candle, the lamp, or
the sun; and the spiritual eye sees by spiritual light; if then man's
spiritual eye be single, that is, pure and undimmed by sin, he is filled
with the light that shall show him the way to God; whereas if his soul's
eye be evil, he will be as one full of darkness. Solemn caution is
expressed in the summary, "If therefore the light that is in thee be
darkness, how great is that darkness!" Those whom the Master was
addressing had received of the light of God; the degree of belief they
had already professed was proof of that. Should they turn from the great
emprise on which they had embarked, the light would be lost, and the
succeeding darkness would be denser than that from which they had been
relieved.[543] There was to be no indecision among the disciples. No one
of them could serve two masters; if he professed so to do he would be an
untrue servant to the one or the other. Then followed another profound
generalization: _"Ye cannot serve God and mammon."_[544]

They were told to trust the Father for what they needed, taking no
thought of food, drink, clothing, or even of life itself, for all these
were to be supplied by means above their power to control. With the
wisdom of a Teacher of teachers, the Master appealed to their hearts and
their understanding by citing the lessons of nature, in language of such
simple yet forceful eloquence that to amplify or condense it is but to
mar:

"Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they
reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are
ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one
cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider
the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they
spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not
arrayed like one of these."

The weakness of faith was reproved in the reminder that the Father who
cared even for the grass of the field, which one day flourishes and on
the next is gathered up to be burned, would not fail to remember His
own. Therefore the Master added: _"Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and
his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."_


HYPOCRISY FURTHER CONDEMNED.[545]

Men are prone to judge their fellows and to praise or censure without
due consideration of fact or circumstance. On prejudiced or unsupported
judgment the Master set His disapproval. "Judge not, that ye be not
judged," He admonished, for, according to one's own standard of judging
others, shall he himself be judged. The man who is always ready to
correct his brother's faults, to remove the mote from his neighbor's eye
so that that neighbor may see things as the interested and interfering
friend would have him see, was denounced as a hypocrite. What was the
speck in his neighbor's vision to the obscuring beam in his own eye?
Have the centuries between the days of Christ and our own time made us
less eager to cure the defective vision of those who cannot or will not
assume our point of view, and see things as we see them?

These disciples, some of whom were soon to minister in the authority of
the Holy Apostleship, were cautioned against the indiscreet and
indiscriminate scattering of the sacred truths and precepts committed to
them. Their duty would be to discern the spirits of those whom they
essayed to teach, and to impart unto them in wisdom. The words of the
Master were strong: "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither
cast ye your pearls before, swine, lest they trample them under their
feet, and turn again and rend you."[546]


PROMISE AND REASSURANCE[547]

That their supplications would be heard and answered followed as a rich
promise. They were to ask and they would receive; they were to knock and
the door would be opened. Surely the Heavenly Father would not be less
considerate than a human parent; and what father would answer his son's
plea for bread by giving him a stone, or who would give a serpent when a
fish was desired? With greater certainty would God bestow good gifts
upon those who asked according to their need, in faith. "_Therefore all
things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to
them: for this is the law and the prophets."_

The straight and narrow way by which man may walk in Godliness was
compared with the broad highway leading to destruction. False prophets
were to be shunned, such as were then among the people, comparable in
their pretense to sheep, and in their reality to ravening wolves. These
were to be recognized by their works and the results thereof, even as a
tree to be judged as good or bad according to its fruit. A thorn bush
does not produce grapes, nor can thistles bear figs. Conversely, it is
as truly impossible for a good tree to produce evil fruit as for a
useless and corrupt tree to bring forth good fruit.

Religion is more than the confession and profession of the lips. Jesus
averred that in the day of judgment many would pretend allegiance to
Him, saying: "Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy
name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye
that work iniquity." Only by doing the will of the Father is the saving
grace of the Son obtainable. To assume to speak and act in the name of
the Lord without the bestowal of authority, such as the Lord alone can
give, is to add sacrilege to hypocrisy. Even miracles wrought will be no
vindication of the claims of those who pretend to minister in the
ordinances of the gospel while devoid of the authority of the Holy
Priesthood.[548]


HEARING AND DOING.[549]

The Sermon on the Mount has stood through all the years since its
delivery without another to be compared with it. No mortal man has ever
since preached a discourse of its kind. The spirit of the address is
throughout that of sincerity and action, as opposed to empty profession
and neglect. In the closing sentences the Lord showed the uselessness of
hearing alone, as contrasted with the efficacy of doing. The man who
hears and acts is likened unto the wise builder who set the foundation
of his house upon a rock; and in spite of rain and hurricane and flood,
the house stood. He that hears and obeys not is likened unto the foolish
man who built his house upon the sand; and when rain fell, or winds
blew, or floods came, behold it fell, and great was the fall thereof.

Such doctrines as these astonished the people. For His distinctive
teachings the Preacher had cited no authority but His own. His address
was free from any array of rabbinical precedents; the law was superseded
by the gospel: _"For he taught them as one having authority, and not as
the scribes!"_


NOTES TO CHAPTER 17.

1. Time and Place of the Sermon on the Mount.--Matthew gives the address
early mention, placing it even before the record of his own call from
the seat of custom--which call certainly preceded the ordination of the
Twelve as a body--and before his account of many sayings and doings of
the Lord already considered in these pages. Luke's partial summary of
the sermon follows his record of the ordination of the apostles. Matthew
tells us that Jesus had gone up the mountain and that He sat while
speaking; Luke's account suggests the inference that Jesus and the
Twelve first descended from the mountain heights to a plain, where they
were met by the multitude, and that Jesus preached unto them, standing.
Critics who rejoice in trifles, often to the neglect of weightier
matters, have tried to make much of these seeming variations. Is it not
probable that Jesus spoke at length on the mountain-side to the
disciples then present, and from whom He had chosen the Twelve, and that
after finishing His discourse to them He descended with them to the
plain where a multitude had assembled, and that to these He repeated
parts of what He had before spoken? The relative fulness of Matthew's
report may be due to the fact that he, as one of the Twelve, was present
at the first and more extended delivery.

2. Pleasure Versus Happiness.--"The present is an age of
pleasure-seeking, and men are losing their sanity in the mad rush for
sensations that do but excite and disappoint. In this day of
counterfeits, adulterations, and base imitations, the devil is busier
than he has ever been in the course of human history, in the manufacture
of pleasures, both old and new; and these he offers for sale in most
attractive fashion, falsely labeled, _Happiness_. In this
soul-destroying craft he is without a peer; he has had centuries of
experience and practise, and by his skill he controls the market. He has
learned the tricks of the trade, and knows well how to catch the eye and
arouse the desire of his customers. He puts up the stuff in
bright-colored packages, tied with tinsel string and tassel; and crowds
flock to his bargain counters, hustling and crushing one another in
their frenzy to buy.

"Follow one of the purchasers as he goes off gloatingly with his gaudy
packet, and watch him as he opens it. What finds he inside the gilded
wrapping? He has expected fragrant happiness, but uncovers only an
inferior brand of pleasure, the stench of which is nauseating.

"Happiness includes all that is really desirable and of true worth in
pleasure, and much beside. Happiness is genuine gold, pleasure but
gilded brass, which corrodes in the hand, and is soon converted into
poisonous verdigris. Happiness is as the genuine diamond, which, rough
or polished, shines with its own inimitable luster; pleasure is as the
paste imitation that glows only when artificially embellished. Happiness
is as the ruby, red as the heart's blood, hard and enduring; pleasure,
as stained glass, soft, brittle, and of but transitory beauty.

"Happiness is true food, wholesome, nutritious and sweet; it builds up
the body and generates energy for action, physical, mental and
spiritual; pleasure is but a deceiving stimulant which, like spirituous
drink, makes one think he is strong when in reality enfeebled; makes him
fancy he is well when in fact stricken with deadly malady.

"Happiness leaves no bad after-taste, it is followed by no depressing
reaction; it calls for no repentance, brings no regret, entails no
remorse; pleasure too often makes necessary repentance, contrition, and
suffering; and, if indulged to the extreme, it brings degradation and
destruction.

"True happiness is lived over and over again in memory, always with a
renewal of the original good; a moment of unholy pleasure may leave a
barbed sting, which, like a thorn in the flesh, is an ever-present
source of anguish.

"Happiness is not akin with levity, nor is it one with light-minded
mirth. It springs from the deeper fountains of the soul, and is not
infrequently accompanied by tears. Have you never been so happy that you
have had to weep? I have." From an article by the author, _Improvement
Era_, vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 172, 173.

3. Salt of the Earth.--Dummelow's _Commentary_, on Matt. 5:13, states:
"Salt in Palestine, being gathered in an impure state, often undergoes
chemical changes by which its flavor is destroyed while its appearance
remains." Perhaps a reasonable interpretation of the expression, "if the
salt have lost his savor," may be suggested by the fact that salt mixed
with insoluble impurities may be dissolved out by moisture, leaving the
insoluble residue but slightly salty. The lesson of the Lord's
illustration is that spoiled salt is of no use as a preservative. The
corresponding passage in the sermon delivered by Jesus to the Nephites
after His resurrection reads: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, I give
unto you to be the salt of the earth; but if the salt shall lose its
savor, wherewith shall the earth be salted? The salt shall be
thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden
under foot of men." (3 Nephi 12:13.)

4. Reference to Publicans.--Observe that Matthew, who had been a
publican, frankly records this reference (5:46, 47) to his despized
class. Luke writes "sinners" instead of "publicans" (6:32-34). Of
course, if the accounts of the two writers refer to separate addresses
(see Note 1, above), both may be accurate. But we find Matthew's
designation of himself as a publican in his list of the apostles (10:3)
and the considerate omission of the unenviable title by the other
evangelists (Mark 3:18; Luke 6:15).

5. Relative Perfection.--Our Lord's admonition to men to become perfect,
even as the Father is perfect (Matt. 5:48) cannot rationally be
construed otherwise than as implying the possibility of such
achievement. Plainly, however, man cannot become perfect in mortality in
the sense in which God is perfect as a supremely glorified Being. It is
possible, though, for man to be perfect in his sphere in a sense
analogous to that in which superior intelligences are perfect in their
several spheres; yet the relative perfection of the lower is infinitely
inferior to that of the higher. A college student in his freshman or
sophomore year may be perfect as freshman or sophomore; his record may
possibly be a hundred per cent on the scale of efficiency and
achievement; yet the honors of the upper classman are beyond him, and
the attainment of graduation is to him remote, but of assured
possibility, if he do but continue faithful and devoted to the end.

FOOTNOTES:

[515] Matt. chaps. 5, 6, 7; Luke 6:20-49. See also the version of the
Sermon as delivered by Jesus Christ after His resurrection, to the
Nephites on the western continent; B. of M., 3 Nephi, chaps. 12, 13, 14.
See also chapter 39 herein.

[516] Note 1, end of chapter.

[517] Matt. 4:23-25; read these verses in connection with 5:1; see also
Luke 6:17-19.

[518] Note 1, end of chapter.

[519] Matt. 5:3-12; compare Luke 6:20-26; and B. of M., 3 Nephi 12:1-12.

[520] Matt. 5:11,12; compare Luke 6:26; B. of M., 3 Nephi 12:11,12.

[521] Note 2, end of chapter.

[522] Doc. and Cov. 93:33.

[523] Matt. 5:13-20; compare Luke 14:34-35; B. of M., 3 Nephi 12:13-20.

[524] Lev. 2:13; compare Ezra 6:9; Ezek. 43:24.

[525] Note the expression "covenant of salt," indicating the covenant
between Jehovah and Israel, Lev. 2:13; Numb. 18:19; compare 2 Chron.
13:5.

[526] Note 3, end of chapter.

[527] Matt. 5:21-48; Luke 6:27-36; compare B. of M., 3 Nephi 12:21-48.

[528] Exo. 21:23-25; Lev. 24:17-22; Deut. 19:21.

[529] Compare Lev. 19:18; Deut. 23:6; and Psa. 41:10.

[530] Compare the lesson taught in the Parable of the Tares, Matt.
13:24-30.

[531] Note 4, end of chapter; see also pages 193 and 201.

[532] Note 5, end of chapter.

[533] Matt. 6:1-18; compare Luke 11:2-4; B. of M., 3 Nephi 13:1-18.

[534] Consider the incident of the gifts of the rich and the widow's
mite, Mark 12:41-44; Luke 21:1-4.

[535] Page 18.

[536] Exo. 16:16-21.

[537] Note the lesson of the parable of the Unmerciful Servant, Matt.
18:33-25.

[538] Compare Matt. 7:6.

[539] P. of G.P., Abraham 3:25; see pages 14, 15, herein.

[540] Acts 17:28.

[541] Compare the instance connected with the parable of the Pharisee
and the Publican, Luke 18:10-14.

[542] Matt. 6:19-34; compare Luke 12:24-34; 16:13; 18:22; B. of M., 3
Nephi 13:19-34.

[543] Luke 11:34-36.

[544] Compare Gal. 1:10; 1 Tim. 6:17; James 4:4; 1 John 2:15.

[545] Matt. 7:1-5; Luke 6:37, 38, 41, 42; compare B, of M., 3 Nephi
14:1-5.

[546] Matt. 7:6; compare B. of M., 3 Nephi 14:6.

[547] Matt. 7:7-23; Luke 6:43-44, 46; 11:9-13; 13:24-30; compare B. of
M., 3 Nephi 14:7-23.

[548] "Articles of Faith," x:1-20; and xii:1-30.

[549] Matt. 7:24-29; Luke 6:46-49; compare B. of M., 3 Nephi 14:24-27.




CHAPTER 18.

AS ONE HAVING AUTHORITY.


Matthew's account of the invaluable address, known to us as the Sermon
on the Mount, is closed with a forceful sentence of his own, referring
to the effect of the Master's words upon the people: "For he taught them
as one having authority, and not as the scribes."[550] A striking
characteristic of Christ's ministry was the entire absence of any claim
of human authority for His words or deeds; the commission He professed
to have was that of the Father who sent Him. His addresses, whether
delivered to multitudes or spoken in relative privacy to few, were free
from the labored citations in which the teachers of the day delighted.
His authoritative "I say unto you" took the place of invocation of
authority and exceeded any possible array of precedent commandment or
deduction. In this His words differed essentially from the erudite
utterances of scribes, Pharisees and rabbis. Throughout His ministry,
inherent power and authority were manifest over matter and the forces of
nature, over men and demons, over life and death. It now becomes our
purpose to consider a number of instances in which the Lord's power was
demonstrated in divers mighty works.


THE CENTURION'S SERVANT HEALED.[551]

From the Mount of Beatitudes Jesus returned to Capernaum, whether
directly or by a longer way marked by other works of power and mercy is
of little importance. There was at that time a Roman garrison in the
city. A military officer, a centurion or captain of a hundred men, was
stationed there. Attached to the household of this officer was an
esteemed servant, who was ill, "and ready to die." The centurion had
faith that Christ could heal his servant, and invoked the intercession
of the Jewish elders to beg of the Master the boon desired. These elders
implored Jesus most earnestly, and urged the worthiness of the man, who,
though a Gentile, loved the people of Israel and out of his munificence
had built for them a synagog in the town. Jesus went with the elders,
but the centurion, probably learning of the approach of the little
company, hastily sent other envoys to say that he did not consider
himself worthy to have Jesus enter his home, from which sense of
unworthiness he had not ventured to make his request in person.[552]
"But," ran the message of supplication, "say in a word, and my servant
shall be healed." We may well contrast this man's conception of Christ's
power with that of the nobleman of the same town, who had requested
Jesus to hasten in person to the side of his dying son.[553]

The centurion seems to have reasoned in this way: He himself was a man
of authority, though under the direction of superior officers. To his
subordinates he gave orders which were obeyed. He did not find it
necessary to personally attend to the carrying out of his instructions.
Surely One who had such power as Jesus possessed could command and be
obeyed. Moreover, the man may have heard of the marvelous restoration of
the nobleman's dying son, in accomplishing which the Lord spoke the
effective word when miles away from the sufferer's bed. That the
centurion's trust and confidence, his belief and faith, were genuine, is
not to be doubted, since Jesus expressly commended the same. The
afflicted one was healed. Jesus is said to have marveled[554] at the
centurion's manifestation of faith, and, turning to the people who
followed, He thus spake: "I say unto you, I have not found so great
faith, no, not in Israel." This remark may have caused some of the
listeners to wonder; the Jews were unaccustomed to hear the faith of a
Gentile so extolled, for, according to the traditionalism of the day, a
Gentile, even though an earnest proselyte to Judaism, was accounted
essentially inferior to even the least worthy of the chosen people. Our
Lord's comment plainly indicated that Gentiles would be preferred in the
kingdom of God if they excelled in worthiness. Turning to Matthew's
record we find this additional teaching, introduced as usual with "I say
unto you"--"That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit
down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. But
the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there
shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."[555] This lesson, that the
supremacy of Israel can be attained only through excellence in
righteousness, is reiterated and enlarged upon in the Lord's teachings,
as we shall see.


A YOUNG MAN OF NAIN RAISED FROM THE DEAD.[556]

On the day after that of the miracle last considered, Jesus went to the
little town of Nain, and, as usual, many people accompanied Him. This
day witnessed what in human estimation was a wonder greater than any
before wrought by Him. He had already healed many, sometimes by a word
spoken to afflicted ones present, and again when He was far from the
subject of His beneficent power; bodily diseases had been overcome, and
demons had been rebuked at His command; but, though the sick who were
nigh unto death had been saved from the grave, we have no earlier record
of our Lord having commanded dread death itself to give back one it had
claimed.[557] As Jesus and His followers approached the town, they met a
funeral cortege of many people; the only son of a widow was being borne
to the tomb; the body was carried according to the custom of the day on
an open bier. Our Lord looked with compassion upon the sorrowing mother,
now bereft of both husband and son; and, feeling in Himself[558] the
pain of her grief, He said in gentle tone, "Weep not." He touched the
stretcher upon which the dead man lay, and the bearers stood still. Then
addressing the corpse He said: "Young man, I say unto thee, Arise." And
the dead heard the voice of Him who is Lord of all,[559] and immediately
sat up and spoke. Graciously Jesus delivered the young man to his
mother. We read without wonder that there came a fear on all who were
present, and that they glorified God, testifying that a great prophet
was amongst them and that God has visited His people. Reports of this
miracle were carried throughout the land, and even reached the ears of
John the Baptist, who was confined in the prison of Herod. The effect of
the information conveyed to John concerning this and other mighty works
of Christ, now claims our attention.


JOHN BAPTIST'S MESSAGE TO JESUS.

Even before Jesus had returned to Galilee after His baptism and the
forty days of solitude in the wilderness, John the Baptist had been
imprisoned by order of Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee and
Perea.[560] During the subsequent months of our Lord's activities, in
preaching the gospel, teaching the true significance of the kingdom,
reproving sin, healing the afflicted, rebuking evil spirits and even
raising the dead to life, His forerunner, the God-fearing, valiant John,
had lain a prisoner in the dungeons of Machærus, one of the strongest of
Herod's citadels.[561]

The tetrarch had some regard for John, having found him to be a holy
man; and many things had Herod done on the direct advice of the Baptist
or because of the influence of the latter's general teaching. Indeed,
Herod had listened to John gladly, and had imprisoned him through a
reluctant yielding to the importunities of Herodias, whom Herod claimed
as a wife under cover of an illegal marriage. Herodias had been and
legally was still the wife of Herod's brother Philip, from whom she had
never been lawfully divorced; and her pretended marriage to Herod
Antipas was both adulterous and incestuous under Jewish law. The Baptist
had fearlessly denounced this sinful association; to Herod he had said:
"It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife." Though Herod
might possibly have ignored this stern rebuke, or at least might have
allowed it to pass without punishment, Herodias would not condone. It
was she, not the tetrarch, who most hated John; she "had a quarrel
against him," and succeeded in inducing Herod to have the Baptist seized
and incarcerated as a step toward the consummation of her vengeful plan
of having him put to death.[562] Moreover, Herod feared an uprising of
the people in the event of John being slain by his order.[563]

In the course of his long imprisonment John had heard much of the
marvelous preaching and works of Christ; these things must have been
reported to him by some of his disciples and friends who were allowed to
visit him.[564] Particularly was he informed of the miraculous raising
of the young man at Nain;[565] and forthwith he commissioned two of his
disciples to bear a message of inquiry to Jesus.[566] These came to
Christ and reported the purpose of their visit thus: "John Baptist hath
sent us unto thee, saying, Art thou he that should come? or look we for
another?" The messengers found Jesus engaged in beneficent
ministrations; and, instead of giving an immediate reply in words, He
continued His labor, relieving in that same hour many who were afflicted
by blindness or infirmities, or who were troubled by evil spirits. Then,
turning to the two who had communicated the Baptist's question, Jesus
said: "Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard;
how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf
hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached. And
blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me."

The words of John's inquiring disciples were answered by wondrous deeds
of beneficence and mercy. When the reply was reported to John, the
imprisoned prophet could scarcely have failed to remember the
predictions of Isaiah, that by those very tokens of miracle and blessing
should the Messiah be known;[567] and the reproof must have been
convincing and convicting as he called to mind his own citations of
Isaiah's prophecies, when he had proclaimed in fiery, withering
eloquence the fulfilment of those earlier predictions in his own mission
and in that of the Mightier One to whom he had borne personal
testimony.[568]

The concluding sentence of our Lord's answer to John was the climax of
what had preceded, and a further though yet gentle rebuke of the
Baptist's defective comprehension of the Messiah's mission. "Blessed is
he, whosoever shall not be offended in me," said the Lord.
Misunderstanding is the prelude to offense. Gaged by the standard of the
then current conception of what the Messiah would be, the work of Christ
must have appeared to many as failure; and those who were looking for
some sudden manifestation of His power in the conquest of Israel's
oppressors and the rehabilitation of the house of David in worldly
splendor, grew impatient, then doubtful; afterward they took offense and
were in danger of turning in open rebellion against their Lord. Christ
has been an offender to many because they, being out of harmony with His
words and works, have of themselves taken offense.[569]

John's situation must be righteously considered by all who assume to
render judgment as to his purpose in sending to inquire of Christ, "Art
thou he that should come?" John thoroughly understood that his own work
was that of preparation; he had so testified and had openly borne
witness that Jesus was the One for whom he had been sent to prepare.
With the inauguration of Christ's ministry, John's influence had waned,
and for many months he had been shut up in a cell, chafing under his
enforced inactivity, doubtless yearning for the freedom of the open, and
for the locusts and wild honey of the desert. Jesus was increasing while
he decreased in popularity, influence, and opportunity; and he had
affirmed that such condition was inevitable.[570]

But, left in prison, he may have become despondent, and may have
permitted himself to wonder whether that Mightier One had forgotten him.
He knew that were Jesus to speak the word of command the prison of
Machærus could no longer hold him; nevertheless Jesus seemed to have
abandoned him to his fate, which comprized not only confinement but
other indignities, and physical torture.[571] It may have been a part of
John's purpose to call Christ's attention to his pitiable plight; and in
this respect his message was rather a reminder than a plain inquiry
based on actual doubt. Indeed, we have good grounds for inference that
John's purpose in sending disciples to inquire of Christ was partly, and
perhaps largely, designed to confirm in these disciples an abiding faith
in the Christ. The commission with which they were charged brought them
into direct communication with the Lord, whose supremacy they could not
well fail to comprehend. They were personal witnesses of His power and
authority.

Our Lord's commentary on John's message indicated that the Baptist had
no full understanding of what the spiritual kingdom of God comprized.
After the envoys had departed, Jesus addressed Himself to the people who
had witnessed the interview. He would not have them underrate the
importance of the Baptist's service.[572] He reminded them of the time
of John's popularity, when some of those then present, and multitudes of
others, had gone into the wilderness to hear the prophet's stern
admonition; and they had found him to be no reed, shaken by the wind,
but a firm and unbending oak. They had not gone to see a man in
fashionable attire; those who wore soft raiment were to be looked for in
the court of the king, not in the wilderness, nor in the dungeon where
John now lay. They had found in John a prophet indeed, yea, more than a
prophet; "For," affirmed the Lord, "I say unto you, Among those that are
born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist: but
he that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he."[573] What
stronger testimony of the Baptist's integrity is needed? Other prophets
had told of the Messiah's coming, but John had seen Him, had baptized
Him, and had been to Jesus as a body servant to his master. Nevertheless
from the day of John's preaching to the time at which Christ then spoke,
the kingdom of heaven had been rejected with violence, and this even
though all the prophets and even the fundamental law had told of its
coming, and though both John and Christ had been abundantly predicted.

Concerning John, the Lord continued: "And if ye will receive it, this is
Elias, which was for to come. He that hath ears to hear, let him
hear."[574] It is important to know that the designation, Elias, here
applied by Jesus to the Baptist, is a title rather than a personal name,
and that it has no reference to Elijah, the ancient prophet called the
Tishbite.[575] Many of those who heard the Lord's eulogy on the Baptist
rejoiced, for they had accepted John, and had turned from him to Jesus
as from the lesser to the Greater; as from the priest to the great High
Priest, as from the herald to the King. But Pharisees and lawyers were
present, those of the class that John had so vehemently denounced as of
a generation of vipers, and those who had rejected the counsel of God in
refusing to heed the Baptist's call to repentance.[576]

At this point the Master resorted to analogy to make His meaning
clearer. He compared the unbelieving and dissatisfied generation to
fickle children at play, disagreeing among themselves. Some wanted to
enact the pageantry of a mock wedding, and though they piped the rest
would not dance; then they changed to a funeral procession and essayed
the part of mourners, but the others would not weep as the rules of the
game required. Ever critical, ever skeptical, by nature fault-finders
and defamers, hard of hearing and of heart, they grumbled. John the
Baptist had come amongst them like the eremitic prophets of old, as
strict as any Nazarite, refusing to eat with the merry-makers or drink
with the convivial, and they had said "He hath a devil." Now came the
Son of Man,[577] without austerity or hermit ways, eating and drinking
as a normal man would do, a guest at the houses of the people, a
participant in the festivities of a marriage party, mingling alike with
the publicans and the Pharisees--and they complained again, saying:
"Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and
sinners!" The Master explained that such inconsistency, such wicked
trifling with matters most sacred, such determined opposition to truth,
would surely be revealed in their true light, and the worthlessness of
boasted learning would appear. "But," said He, "wisdom is justified of
all her children."

From reproof for unbelieving individuals He turned to unappreciative
communities, and upbraided the cities in which He had wrought so many
mighty works, and wherein the people repented not: "Woe unto thee,
Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were
done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented
long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, It shall be more
tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you. And
thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to
hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been
done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say unto
you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of
judgment, than for thee."[578]

Seemingly faint at heart over the unbelief of the people, Jesus sought
strength in prayer.[579] With the eloquence of soul for which one looks
in vain save in the anguish-laden communion of Christ with His Father,
He voiced His reverent gratitude that God had imparted a testimony of
the truth to the humble and simple rather than to the learned and great;
though misunderstood by men He was known for what He really was by the
Father. Turning again to the people, He urged anew their acceptance of
Him and His gospel, and His invitation is one of the grandest
outpourings of spiritual emotion known to man: "Come unto me, all ye
that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke
upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye
shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is
light."[580] He invited them from drudgery to pleasant service; from the
well-nigh unbearable burdens of ecclesiastical exactions and traditional
formalism, to the liberty of truly spiritual worship; from slavery to
freedom; but they would not. The gospel He offered them was the
embodiment of liberty, but not of license; it entailed obedience and
submission; but even if such could be likened unto a yoke, what was its
burden in comparison with the incubus under which they groaned?


DEATH OF JOHN THE BAPTIST.

Reverting to John Baptist in his dungeon solitude, we are left without
information as to how he received and understood the reply to his
inquiry, as brought by his messengers. His captivity was destined soon
to end, though not by restoration to liberty on earth. The hatred of
Herodias increased against him. An opportunity for carrying into effect
her fiendish plots against his life soon appeared.[581] The king
celebrated his birthday by a great feast, to which his lords, high
captains, and the principal officials of Galilee were bidden. To grace
the occasion, Salome, daughter of Herodias though not of Herod, came in
and danced before the company. So enchanted were Herod and his guests
that the king bade the damsel ask whatever she would, and he swore he
would give it unto her, even though the gift were half of his kingdom.

She retired to consult her mother as to what she should ask, and, being
instructed, returned with the appalling demand: "I will that thou give
me by and by in a charger the head of John the Baptist." The king was
astounded; his amazement was followed by sorrow and regret;
nevertheless, he dreaded the humiliation that would follow a violation
of the oath he had sworn in the presence of his court; so, summoning an
executioner, he immediately gave the fatal order; and John was forthwith
beheaded in the dungeon. The headsman returned, carrying a dish in which
lay the ghastly trophy of the corrupt queen's vengeance. The bloody gift
was delivered to Salome, who carried it with inhuman triumph to her
mother. Some of John's disciples came, secured the corpse, laid it in a
tomb; and bore the tidings of his death to Jesus. Herod was sorely
troubled over the murder he had ordered; and when, later, the marvels
wrought by Jesus were reported to him, he was afraid, and said: "That
John the Baptist was risen from the dead, and therefore mighty works do
shew forth themselves in him." To those who dissented, the terrified
king replied: "It is John, whom I beheaded: he is risen from the
dead."[582]

So ended the life of the prophet-priest, the direct precursor of the
Christ; thus was stilled the mortal voice of him who had cried so
mightily in the wilderness: "Prepare ye the way of the Lord." After many
centuries his voice has been heard again, as the voice of one redeemed
and resurrected; and the touch of his hand has again been felt, in this
the dispensation of restoration and fulness. In May, 1829, a resurrected
personage appeared to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, announced himself
as John, known of old as the Baptist, laid his hands upon the two young
men, and conferred upon them the priesthood of Aaron, which comprizes
authority to preach and minister the gospel of repentance and of baptism
by immersion for the remission of sins.[583]


IN THE HOUSE OF SIMON THE PHARISEE.

"And one of the Pharisees desired him that he would eat with him. And he
went into the Pharisee's house, and sat down to meat."[584]

From the place of this incident in Luke's narration of events, it
appears that it may have occurred on the day of the visit of John's
messengers. Jesus accepted the Pharisee's invitation, as He had accepted
the invitations of others, including even publicans, and those called by
the rabbis, sinners. His reception at Simon's house appears to have been
somewhat lacking in warmth, hospitality and honorable attendance. The
narrative suggests an attitude of condescension on the part of the host.
It was the custom of the times to treat a distinguished guest with
marked attention; to receive him with a kiss of welcome, to provide
water for washing the dust from his feet, and oil for anointing the hair
of the head and the beard. All these courteous attentions were omitted
by Simon. Jesus took His place, probably on one of the divans or couches
on which it was usual to partly sit, partly recline, while eating.[585]
Such an attitude would place the feet of the person outward from the
table. In addition to these facts relating to the usages of the time it
should be further remembered that dwellings were not protected against
intrusion by such amenities of privacy as now prevail. It was not
unusual at that time in Palestine for visitors and even strangers,
usually men however, to enter a house at meal time, observe the
procedure and even speak to the guests, all without bidding or
invitation.

Among those who entered Simon's house while the meal was in progress,
was a woman; and the presence of a woman, though somewhat unusual, was
not strictly a social impropriety and could not well be forbidden on
such an occasion. But this woman was one of the fallen class, a woman
who had been unvirtuous, and who had to bear, as part of the penalty for
her sins, outward scorn and practical ostracism from those who professed
to be morally superior. She approached Jesus from behind, and bent low
to kiss His feet as a mark of humility on her part and of respectful
homage to Him. She may have been one of those who had heard His gracious
words, spoken possibly that day: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Whatever her motive in
coming, she had certainly come in a repentant and deeply contrite state.
As she leaned over the feet of Jesus her tears rained upon them.
Seemingly oblivious of her surroundings and of disapproving eyes
watching her movements, she shook out her tresses and wiped the Lord's
feet with her hair. Then, opening an alabaster box of ointment, she
anointed them, as a slave might do to his master. Jesus graciously
permitted the woman to proceed unrebuked and uninterrupted in her humble
service inspired by contrition and reverent love.

Simon had observed the whole proceeding; by some means he had knowledge
as to the class to which this woman belonged; and though not aloud,
within himself he said: "This man, if he were a prophet, would have
known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him: for she is
a sinner." Jesus read the man's thoughts, and thus spake: "Simon, I have
somewhat to say unto thee," to which the Pharisee replied, "Master, say
on." Jesus continued, "There was a certain creditor which had two
debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty. And when
they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me
therefore, which of them will love him most?" But one answer could be
given with reason, and that Simon gave, though apparently with some
hesitation or reserve. He possibly feared that he might involve himself.
"I suppose" he ventured, "that he, to whom he forgave most." Jesus said,
"Thou hast rightly judged," and proceeded: "Seest thou this woman? I
entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet; but she
hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her
head. Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in
hath not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil thou didst not anoint:
but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment."

The Pharisee could not fail to note so direct a reminder of his having
omitted the ordinary rites of respect to a specially invited guest. The
lesson of the story had found its application in him, even as Nathan's
parable had drawn from David the king a self-convicting answer.[586]
"Wherefore," Jesus continued, "I say unto thee, her sins, which are
many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven,
the same loveth little." Then to the woman He spake the words of blessed
relief: "Thy sins are forgiven." Simon and the others at table murmured
within themselves, "Who is this that forgiveth sins also?" Understanding
their unspoken protest, Christ addressed the woman again, saying, "Thy
faith hath saved thee; go in peace."

The latter part of the narrative brings to mind another occasion on
which Christ granted remission of sins, and because of opposition in the
minds of some hearers, opposition none the less real because unvoiced,
had supplemented His authoritative utterance by another
pronouncement.[587]

The name of the woman who thus came to Christ, and whose repentance was
so sincere as to bring to her grateful and contrite soul the assurance
of remission, is not recorded. There is no evidence that she figures in
any other incident recorded in scripture. By certain writers she has
been represented as the Mary of Bethany who, shortly before Christ's
betrayal, anointed the head of Jesus with spikenard;[588] but the
assumption of identity is wholly unfounded,[589] and constitutes an
unjustifiable reflection upon the earlier life of Mary, the devoted and
loving sister of Martha and Lazarus. Equally wrong is the attempt made
by others to identify this repentant and forgiven sinner with Mary
Magdalene, no period of whose life was marked by the sin of unchastity
so far as the scriptures aver. The importance of guarding against
mistakes in the identity of these women renders advisable the following
addition to the foregoing treatment.

In the chapter following that in which are recorded the incidents last
considered, Luke[590] states that Jesus went throughout the region,
visiting every city and village, preaching the gospel of the kingdom and
showing the glad tidings thereof. With Him on this tour were the Twelve,
and also "certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and
infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils, and
Joanna the wife of Chuza Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others,
which ministered unto him of their substance." Further reference is made
to some or all of these honorable women in connection with the death,
burial, and resurrection of our Lord, and of Mary Magdalene particular
mention appears.[591] Mary Magdalene, whose second name is probably
derived from her home town, Magdala, had been healed through the
ministrations of Jesus from both physical and mental maladies, the
latter having been associated with possession by evil spirits. Out of
her we are told Christ had cast seven devils,[592] but even such
grievous affliction affords no warrant for the assertion that the woman
was unvirtuous or unchaste.

Mary Magdalene became one of the closest friends Christ had among women;
her devotion to Him as her Healer and as the One whom she adored as the
Christ, was unswerving; she stood close by the cross while other women
tarried afar off in the time of His mortal agony; she was among the
first at the sepulchre on the resurrection morning, and was the first
mortal to look upon and recognize a resurrected Being--the Lord whom she
had loved with all the fervor of spiritual adoration. To say that this
woman, chosen from among women as deserving of such distinctive honors,
was once a fallen creature, her soul seared by the heat of unhallowed
lust, is to contribute to the perpetuating of an error for which there
is no excuse. Nevertheless the false tradition, arising from early and
unjustifiable assumption, that this noble woman, distinctively a friend
of the Lord, is the same who, admittedly a sinner, washed and anointed
the Savior's feet in the house of Simon the Pharisee and gained the boon
of forgiveness through contrition, has so tenaciously held its place in
the popular mind through the centuries, that the name, Magdalene, has
come to be a generic designation for women who fall from virtue and
afterward repent. We are not considering whether the mercy of Christ
could have been extended to such a sinner as Mary of Magdala is wrongly
reputed to have been; man cannot measure the bounds nor fathom the
depths of divine forgiveness; and if it were so that this Mary and the
repentant sinner who ministered to Jesus as He sat at the Pharisee's
table were one and the same, the question would stand affirmatively
answered, for that woman who had been a sinner was forgiven. We are
dealing with the scriptural record as a history, and nothing said
therein warrants the really repellent though common imputation of
unchastity to the devoted soul of Mary Magdalene.


CHRIST'S AUTHORITY ASCRIBED TO BEELZEBUB.[593]

At the time of our Lord's earthly ministry, the curing of the blind,
deaf, or dumb was regarded as among the greatest possible achievements
of medical science or spiritual treatment; and the subjection or casting
out of demons was ranked among the attainments impossible to rabbinical
exorcism. Demonstrations of the Lord's power to heal and restore, even
in cases universally considered as incurable, had the effect of
intensifying the hostility of the sacerdotal classes; and they,
represented by the Pharisaic party, evolved the wholly inconsistent and
ridiculous suggestion that miracles were wrought by Jesus through the
power of the prince of devils, with whom He was in league.[594]

While the Lord was making His second missionary tour through Galilee,
going about through "all the cities and villages, teaching in their
synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every
sickness and every disease among the people,"[595] the absurd theory
that Christ was Himself a victim of demoniacal possession, and that He
operated by the power of the devil, was urged and enlarged upon until it
became the generally accepted explanation among the Pharisees and their
kind. Jesus had withdrawn Himself for a time from the more populous
centers, where He was constantly watched by emissaries, whom the ruling
classes had sent from Jerusalem into Galilee; for the Pharisees were in
conspiracy against Him, seeking excuse and opportunity to take His life;
but even in the smaller towns and rural districts He was followed and
beset by great multitudes, to whom He ministered for both physical and
spiritual ailments.[596]

He urged the people to refrain from spreading His fame; and this He may
have done for the reason that at that stage of His work an open rupture
with the Jewish hierarchy would have been a serious hindrance; or
possibly He desired to leave the rulers, who were plotting against Him,
time and opportunity to brew their bitter enmity and fill to the brim
the flagons of their determined iniquity. Matthew sees in the Lord's
injunctions against publicity a fulfilment of Isaiah's prophecy that the
chosen Messiah would not strive nor cry out on the street to attract
attention, nor would He use His mighty power to crush even a bruised
reed, or to quench even the smoking flax; He would not fail nor be
discouraged, but would victoriously establish just judgment upon the
earth for the Gentiles, as well as, by implication, for Israel.[597] The
figure of the bruised reed and the smoking flax is strikingly expressive
of the tender care with which Christ treated even the weakest
manifestation of faith and genuine desire to learn the truth, whether
exhibited by Jew or Gentile.

Soon after His return from the missionary tour referred to, an excuse
for the Pharisees to assail Him was found in His healing of a man who
was under the influence of a demon, and was both blind and dumb. This
combination of sore afflictions, affecting body, mind, and spirit, was
rebuked, and the sightless, speechless demoniac was relieved of his
three-fold burden.[598] At this triumph over the powers of evil the
people were the more amazed and said: "Is not this the son of David?" in
other words, Can this be any other than the Christ we have been so long
expecting? The popular judgment so voiced maddened the Pharisees, and
they told the almost adoring people: "This fellow doth not cast out
devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of devils." Jesus took up the
malicious charge and replied thereto, not in anger but in terms of calm
reason and sound logic. He laid the foundation of His defense by stating
the evident truth that a kingdom divided against itself cannot endure
but must surely suffer disruption. If their assumption were in the least
degree founded on truth, Satan through Jesus would be opposing Satan.
Then, referring to the superstitious practises and exorcisms of the
time, by which some such effects as we class today under mind cures were
obtained, He asked: "If I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your
children cast them out? therefore they shall be your judges." And to
make the demonstration plainer by contrast, He continued: "But if I cast
out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come upon
you." By the acceptance of either proposition, and surely one was true,
for the fact that Jesus did cast out devils was known throughout the
land and was conceded in the very terms of the charge now brought
against Him, the accusing Pharisees stood defeated and condemned.

But the illustration went further. Jesus continued: "Or else how can one
enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he first
bind the strong man? and then he will spoil his house." Christ had
attacked the stronghold of Satan, had driven his evil spirits from the
human tabernacles of which they had unwarrantably taken possession; how
could Christ have done this had He not first subdued the "strong man,"
the master of devils, Satan himself? And yet those ignorant scholars
dared to say in the face of such self-evident refutation of their own
premises, that the powers of Satan were subdued by Satanic agency. There
could be no agreement, no truce nor armistice between the contending
powers of Christ and Satan. Offering a suggestion of self-judgment to
His accusers, that they might severally decide on which side they were
aligned, Jesus added: "He that is not with me is against me; and he that
gathereth not with me scattereth abroad."

Then, the demonstration being complete, and the absurdity of His
opponents' assumption proved, Christ directed their thoughts to the
heinous sin of condemning the power and authority by which Satan was
overcome. He had proved to them on the basis of their own proposition
that He, having subdued Satan, was the embodiment of the Spirit of God,
and that through Him the kingdom of God was brought to them. They
rejected the Spirit of God, and sought to destroy the Christ through
whom that Spirit was made manifest. What blasphemy could be greater?
Speaking as one having authority, with the solemn affirmation "I say
unto you," He continued: "All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be
forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be
forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man,
it shall be forgiven him: but whosover speaketh against the Holy Ghost,
it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the
world to come."

Who among men can word a more solemn and awful warning against the
danger of committing the dread unpardonable sin?[599] Jesus was merciful
in His assurance that words spoken against Himself as a Man, might be
forgiven; but to speak against the authority He possessed, and
particularly to ascribe that power and authority to Satan, was very near
to blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, for which sin there could be no
forgiveness. Then, in stronger terms, which developed into cutting
invective, He told them to be consistent--if they admitted that the
result of His labors was good, as the casting out of devils surely was,
to be likened unto good fruit--why did they not acknowledge that the
power by which such results were attained, in other words that the tree
itself, was good? "Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or
else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known
by his fruit." With burning words of certain conviction He continued: "O
generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out
of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." By the truths He had
made so plain it was evident that their accusing words were drawn from
hearts stored with evil treasure. Moreover their words were shown to be
not only malicious but foolish, idle and vain, and therefore doubly
saturated with sin. Another authoritative declaration followed: "But I
say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give
account thereof in the day of judgment."


SEEKERS AFTER SIGNS?[600]

The Master's lesson, enforced though it was by illustration and analogy,
by direct application, and by authoritative avowal, fell on ears that
were practically deaf to spiritual truth, and found no place in hearts
already stuffed with great stores of evil. To the profound wisdom and
saving instruction of the word of God to which they had listened, they
responded with a flippant request: "Master, we would see a sign from
thee." Had they not already seen signs in profusion? Had not the blind
and the deaf, the dumb and the infirm, the palsied and the dropsical,
and people afflicted with all manner of diseases, been healed in their
houses, on their streets, and in their synagogs; had not devils been
cast out and their foul utterances been silenced by His word; and had
not the dead been raised, and all by Him whom they now importuned for a
sign? They would have some surpassing wonder wrought, to satisfy
curiosity, or perhaps to afford them further excuse for action against
Him--they wanted signs to waste on their lust.[601] Small wonder, that
"he sighed deeply in his spirit" when such demands were made.[602] To
the scribes and Pharisees who had shown such inattention to His words,
He replied: "An evil and adulterous generation[603] seeketh after a
sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the
prophet Jonas."

The sign of Jonas (or Jonah) was that for three days he had been in the
belly of the fish and then had been restored to liberty; so would the
Son of Man be immured in the tomb, after which He would rise again. That
was the only sign He would give them, and by that would they stand
condemned. Against them and their generation would the men of Nineveh
rise in judgment, for they, wicked as they were, had repented at the
preaching of Jonas; and behold a greater than Jonas was among them.[604]
The queen of Sheba would rise in judgment against them, for she had
journeyed far to avail herself of Solomon's wisdom; and behold a greater
than Solomon stood before them.[605]

Then, reverting to the matter of unclean and evil spirits, in connection
with which they had spread the accusation that He was one of the devil's
own, He told them, that when a demon is cast out, he tries after a
season of loneliness to return to the house or body from which he had
been expelled; and, finding that house in order, sweet and clean since
his filthy self had been forced to vacate it, he calls other spirits
more wicked than himself, and they take possession of the man, and make
his state worse than it was at first.[606] In this weird example is
typified the condition of those who have received the truth, and thereby
have been freed from the unclean influences of error and sin, so that in
mind and spirit and body they are as a house swept and garnished and set
in cleanly order, but who afterward renounce the good, open their souls
to the demons of falsehood and deceit, and become more corrupt than
before. "Even so," declared the Lord, "shall it be also unto this wicked
generation."

Though the scribes and Pharisees were mostly unconvinced, if at all
really impressed by His teachings, our Lord was not entirely without
appreciative listeners. A woman in the company raised her voice in an
invocation of blessing on the mother who had given birth to such a Son,
and on the breasts that had suckled Him. While not rejecting this
tribute of reverence, which applied to both mother and Son, Jesus
answered: "Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and
keep it."[607]


CHRIST'S MOTHER AND BRETHREN COME TO SEE HIM.[608]

While Jesus was engaged with the scribes and Pharisees, and a great
number of others, possibly at or near the conclusion of the teachings
last considered, word was passed to Him that His mother and His brethren
were present and desired to speak with Him. On account of the press of
people they had been unable to reach His side. Making use of the
circumstance to impress upon all the fact that His work took precedence
over the claims of family and kinship, and thereby explaining that He
could not meet His relatives at that moment, He asked, "Who is my
mother? and who are my brethren?" Answering His own question and
expressing in the answer the deeper thought in His mind, He said,
pointing toward His disciples: "Behold my mother and my brethren! For
whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is
my brother, and sister, and mother."

The incident reminds one of the answer He made to His mother, when she
and Joseph had found Him in the temple after their long and anxious
search: "How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about
my Father's business?"[609] In that business He was engaged when His
mother and brethren desired to speak with Him as He sat amidst the
crowd. The superior claims of His Father's work caused Him to let all
minor matters wait. We are not justified in construing these remarks as
evidence of disrespect, far less of filial and family disloyalty.
Devotion, similar in kind at least, was expected by Him of the apostles,
who were called to devote without reserve their time and talents to the
ministry.[610] The purpose on which the relatives of Jesus had come to
see Him is not made known; we may infer, therefore, that it was of no
great importance beyond the family circle.[611]


NOTES TO CHAPTER 18.

1. The Two Accounts of the Miracle.--In the commentary on the miraculous
healing of the centurion's servant, as given in the text, we have
followed in the main Luke's more circumstantial account. Matthew's
briefer statement of the officer's petition, and the Lord's gracious
compliance therewith, represents the man as coming in person to Jesus;
while Luke refers to the elders of the local synagog as presenting the
request. There is here no real discrepancy. It was then allowable, as in
our time it is, to speak of one who causes something to be done as doing
that thing himself. One may properly be said to notify another, when he
sends the notification by a third party. A man may say he has built a
house, when in reality others did the work of building though at his
instance. An architect may with propriety be said to have constructed a
building, when as a matter of fact he made the design, and directed
others who actually reared the structure.

2. Jesus Marveled.--Both Matthew and Luke tell us that Jesus marveled at
the faith shown by the centurion, who begged that his beloved servant be
healed (Matt. 8:10; Luke 7:9). Some have queried how Christ, whom they
consider to have been omniscient during His life in the flesh, could
have marveled at anything. The meaning of the passage is evident in the
sense that when the fact of the centurion's faith was brought to His
attention, He pondered over it, and contemplated it, probably as a
refreshing contrast to the absence of faith He so generally encountered.
In similar way, though with sorrow in place of joy, He is said to have
marveled at the peoples' unbelief (Mark 6:6).

3. Sequence of the Miracles of Raising the Dead.--As stated and
reiterated in the text the chronology of the events in our Lord's
ministry, as recorded by the Gospel-writers, is uncertain. Literature on
the subject embodies much disputation and demonstrates absence of any
near approach to agreement among Biblical scholars. We have record of
three instances of miraculous restoration of the dead to life at the
word of Jesus--the raising of the son of the widow of Nain, the raising
of the daughter of Jairus, and the raising of Lazarus; and on the
sequence of two of these there is difference of opinion. Of course the
placing of the raising of Lazarus as the latest of the three is based on
certainty. Dr. Richard C. Trench, in his scholarly and very valuable
_Notes on the Miracles of our Lord_ definitely asserts that the raising
of the daughter of Jairus is the first of the three works of restoration
to life. Dr. John Laidlaw, in _The Miracles of our Lord_, treats this
first among the miracles of its class though without affirming its
chronological precedence; many other writers make it the second of the
three. The incentive to arrange the three miracles of this group in the
sequence indicated may, perhaps, be found in the desire to present them
in the increasing order of apparent greatness--the raising of the damsel
being an instance of recalling to life one who had but just died,
("hardly dead" as some wrongly describe her condition), the raising of
the young man of Nain being the restoration of one on the way to the
tomb, and the raising of Lazarus an instance of recalling to life one
who had lain four days in the sepulchre. We cannot consistently conceive
of these cases as offering grades of greater or lesser difficulty to the
power of Christ; in each case His word of authority was sufficient to
reunite the spirit and body of the dead person. Luke, the sole recorder
of the miracle at Nain, places the event before that of the raising of
the daughter of Jairus, with many incidents between. The great
preponderance of evidence is in favor of considering the three miracles
in the order followed herein, (1) the raising of the young man of Nain,
(2) that of the daughter of Jairus, and (3) that of Lazarus.

4. Tetrarch.--This title by derivation of the term and as originally
used was applied to the ruler of a fourth part, or one of four divisions
of a region that had formerly been one country. Later it came to be the
designation of any ruler or governor over a part of a divided country,
irrespective of the number or extent of the fractions. Herod Antipas is
distinctively called the tetrarch in Matt. 14:1; Luke 3:1, 19; 9:7; and
Acts 13:1; and is referred to as king in Matt. 14:9; Mark 6:14, 22, 25,
26.

5. Machærus.--According to the historian Josephus (Antiquities xviii;
5:2), the prison to which John the Baptist was consigned by Herod
Antipas was the strong fortress Machærus.

6. Christ an Offender to Many.--The concluding part of our Lord's
message to the imprisoned Baptist, in answer to the latter's inquiry,
was, "Blessed is he whosoever is not offended in me." In passing it may
be well to observe that whatever of reproof or rebuke these words may
connote, the lesson was given in the gentlest way and in the form most
easy to understand. As Deems has written, "Instead of saying 'Woe to him
who is offended in me,' He puts it in the softer way 'Blessed is he who
is not offended.'" In our English version of the Holy Bible the word
"offend" and its cognates, are used in place of several different
expressions which occur in the original Greek. Thus, actual infractions
of the law, sin, and wickedness in general are all called offenses, and
the perpetrators of such are guilty offenders who deserve punishment. In
other instances even the works of righteousness are construed as causes
of offense to the wicked; but this is so, not because the good works
were in any way offenses against law or right, but because the
law-breaker takes offense thereat. The convicted felon, if unrepentant
and still of evil mind, is offended and angry at the law by which he has
been brought to justice; to him the law is a cause of offense. In a very
significant sense Jesus Christ stands as the greatest offender in
history; for all who reject His gospel, take offense thereat. On the
night of His betrayal Jesus told the apostles that they would be
offended because of Him (Matt. 26:31; see also verse 33). The Lord's
personal ministry gave offense not alone to Pharisees and priestly
opponents, but to many who had professed belief in Him (John 6:61;
compare 16:1). The gospel of Jesus Christ is designated by Peter as "a
stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, even to them which stumble at
the word, being disobedient" (1 Peter 2:8; compare Paul's words, Romans
9:33). Indeed blessed is he to whom the gospel is welcome, and who finds
therein no cause for offense.

7. The Greatness of the Baptist's Mission.--The exalted nature of the
mission of John the Baptist was thus testified to by Jesus: "Verily I
say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a
greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the
kingdom of heaven is greater than he" (Matt. 11:11; compare Luke 7:28).
In elucidation of the first part of this testimony, the prophet Joseph
Smith said, in the course of a sermon delivered May 24, 1843, (_Hist. of
the Church_, under date named): "It could not have been on account of
the miracles John performed, for he did no miracles; but it was--First,
because he was trusted with a divine mission of preparing the way before
the face of the Lord. Who was trusted with such a mission before or
since? No man. Second, he was trusted and it was required at his hands,
to baptise the Son of Man. Who ever did that? Who ever had so great a
privilege or glory? Who ever led the Son of God into the waters of
baptism, beholding the Holy Ghost descend upon Him in the sign of a
dove? No man. Third, John at that time was the only legal administrator
holding the keys of power there was on earth. The keys, the kingdom, the
power, the glory had departed from the Jews; and John, the son of
Zacharias, by the holy anointing and decree of heaven, held the keys of
power at that time."

The latter part of our Lord's statement--"notwithstanding he that is
least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he" (John), has given
rise to diverse interpretations and comment. The true meaning may be,
that surpassingly great as was John's distinction among the prophets, he
had not learned, at the time of the incident under consideration, the
full purpose of the Messiah's mission, and such he would surely have to
learn before he became eligible for admission into the kingdom of
heaven; therefore, the least of those who through knowledge gained and
obedience rendered, would be prepared for a place in the kingdom of
which Jesus taught, was greater than was John the Baptist at that time.
Through latter-day inspiration we learn that "it is impossible for a man
to be saved in ignorance" (Doc. and Cov. 131:6), and that "The glory of
God in intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth" (Doc. and Cov.
93:36). The Baptist's inquiry showed that he was then lacking in
knowledge, imperfectly enlightened and unable to comprehend the whole
truth of the Savior's appointed death and subsequent resurrection as the
Redeemer of the world. But we must not lose sight of the fact, that
Jesus in no wise intimated that John would remain less than the least in
the kingdom of heaven. As he increased in knowledge of the vital truths
of the kingdom, and rendered obedience thereto, he would surely advance,
and become great in the kingdom of heaven as he was great among the
prophets of earth.

8. John the Baptist the Elias that was to Come.--In the days of Christ
the people clung to the traditional belief that the ancient prophet
Elijah was to return in person. Concerning this tradition the Dummelow
_Commentary_ says, on Matt. 11:14: "It was supposed that his [Elijah's]
peculiar activity would consist in settling ceremonial and ritual
questions, doubts and difficulties and that he would restore to Israel
(1) the golden pot of manna, (2) the vessel containing the anointing
oil, (3) the vessel containing the waters of purification, (4) Aaron's
rod that budded and bore fruit." For this belief there was no scriptural
affirmation. That John was to go before the Messiah in the spirit and
power of Elias was declared by the angel Gabriel in his announcement to
Zacharias (Luke 1:17); and our Lord made plain the fact that John was
that predicted Elias. "Elias" is both a name and a title of office.
Through revelation in the present dispensation we learn of the separate
individuality of Elias and Elijah, each of whom appeared in person and
committed to modern prophets the particular powers pertaining to his
respective office (Doc. and Cov. 110:12, 13). We learn that the office
of Elias is that of restoration (Doc. and Cov. 27:6, 7; 76:100; 77:9,
14). Under date of March 10, 1844, the following is recorded (_Hist. of
Church_) as the testimony of the prophet Joseph Smith:--

"The spirit of Elias is to prepare the way for a greater revelation of
God, which is the Priesthood of Elias, or the Priesthood that Aaron was
ordained unto. And when God sends a man into the world to prepare for a
greater work, holding the keys of the power of Elias, it was called the
doctrine of Elias, even from the early ages of the world.

"John's mission was limited to preaching and baptizing; but what he did
was legal; and when Jesus Christ came to any of John's disciples, He
baptized them with fire and the Holy Ghost.

"We find the apostles endowed with greater power than John: their office
was more under the spirit and power of Elijah than Elias.

"In the case of Philip, when he went down to Samaria, when he was under
the spirit of Elias, he baptized both men and women. When Peter and John
heard of it, they went down and laid hands upon them, and they received
the Holy Ghost. This shows the distinction between the two powers.

"When Paul came to certain disciples, he asked if they had received the
Holy Ghost? They said, No. Who baptized you, then? We were baptized unto
John's baptism. No, you were not baptized unto John's baptism, or you
would have been baptized by John. And so Paul went and baptized them,
for he knew what the true doctrine was, and he knew that John had not
baptized them. And these principles are strange to me, that men who have
read the Scriptures of the New Testament are so far from it.

"What I want to impress upon your minds is the difference of power in
the different parts of the Priesthood, so that when any man comes among
you, saying, 'I have the spirit of Elias,' you can know whether he be
true or false; for any man that comes having the spirit and power of
Elias, he will not transcend his bounds.

"John did not transcend his bounds, but faithfully performed that part
belonging to his office; and every portion of the great building should
be prepared right and assigned to its proper place; and it is necessary
to know who holds the keys of power, and who does not, or we may be
likely to be deceived.

"That person who holds the keys of Elias hath a preparatory work.

       *       *       *       *       *

"This is the Elias spoken of in the last days, and here is the rock upon
which many split, thinking the time was past in the days of John and
Christ, and no more to be. But the spirit of Elias was revealed to me,
and I know it is true; therefore I speak with boldness, for I know
verily my doctrine is true."

9. At the Pharisee's Table.--The expression "sat at meat," as in Luke
7:37 and in other instances, is stated by good authority to be a
mistranslation; it should be rendered "lay" or "reclined" (see Smith's
_Comp. Dict. of the Bible_, article "Meals"). That sitting was the early
Hebrew posture at meals is not questioned (Gen. 27:19; Judges 19:6; 1
Sam. 16:11; 20:5, 18, 24; 1 Kings 13:20); but the custom of reclining on
couches set around the table seems to date back long before the days of
Jesus (Amos 3:12; 6:4). The Roman usage of arranging the tables and
adjoining couches along three sides of a square, leaving the fourth side
open for the passage of the attendants who served the diners was common
in Palestine. Tables and couches so placed constituted the _triclinium_.
In reference to the ceremonial of the Pharisees in the matter of
prescribed washing of articles used in eating, Mark (7:4) specifies
"tables"; this mention is conceded to be a mistranslation, as couches or
literally beds, are meant by the Greek expression. (See marginal
reading, "beds" in Oxford Bible, and others.) A person reclining at
table would have the feet directed outward. Thus it was a simple matter
for the contrite woman to approach Jesus from behind and anoint His feet
without causing disturbance to others at the table.

10. The Woman's Identity not Specified.--The attempt to identify the
contrite sinner who anointed the feet of Jesus in the house of Simon the
Pharisee with Mary of Bethany is thus strongly condemned by Farrar (p.
228, note): "Those who identify this feast at the house of Simon the
Pharisee, in Galilee, with the long-subsequent feast at the house of
Simon the leper, at Bethany, and the anointing of the feet by 'a woman
that was a sinner' in the city, with the anointing of the head by Mary
the sister of Martha, adopt principles of criticism so reckless and
arbitrary that their general acceptance would rob the Gospels of all
credibility, and make them hardly worth study as truthful narratives. As
for the names Simon and Judas, which have led to so many identifications
of different persons and different incidents, they were at least as
common among the Jews of that day as Smith and Jones among ourselves.
There are five or six Judes and nine Simons mentioned in the New
Testament, and two Judes and two Simons among the Apostles alone;
Josephus speaks of some ten Judes and twenty Simons in his writings, and
there must, therefore, have been thousands of others who at this period
had one of these two names. The incident (of anointing with ointment) is
one quite in accordance with the customs of the time and country, and
there is not the least improbability in its repetition under different
circumstances. (Eccles. 9:8; Cant. 4:10; Amos 6:6.) The custom still
continues."

The learned canon is fully justified in his vigorous criticism;
nevertheless he endorses the commonly-accepted identification of the
woman mentioned in connection with the meal in the house of Simon the
Pharisee with Mary Magdalene, although he admits that the foundation of
the assumed identification is "an ancient tradition,--especially
prevalent in the Western Church, and followed by the translation of our
English version" (p. 233). As stated in our text, there is an entire
absence of trustworthy evidence that Mary Magdalene was ever tainted
with the sin for which the repentant woman in the Pharisee's house was
so graciously pardoned by our Lord.

11. The Unpardonable Sin.--The nature of the awful sin against the Holy
Ghost, against which the Lord warned the Pharisaic accusers who sought
to ascribe His divine power to Satan, is more fully explained, and its
dread results are more explicitly set forth in modern revelation.
Concerning them and their dreadful fate, the Almighty has said:--"I say
that it had been better for them never to have been born, for they are
vessels of wrath, doomed to suffer the wrath of God, with the devil and
his angels in eternity; concerning whom I have said there is no
forgiveness in this world nor in the world to come.... They shall go
away into everlasting punishment, which is endless punishment, which is
eternal punishment, to reign with the devil and his angels in eternity,
where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched, which is their
torment; and the end thereof, neither the place thereof, nor their
torment, no man knows, neither was it revealed, neither is, neither will
be revealed unto man, except to them who are made partakers thereof:
nevertheless I, the Lord, show it by vision unto many, but straightway
shut it up again; wherefore the end, the width, the height, the depth,
and the misery thereof, they understand not, neither any man except them
who are ordained unto this condemnation." (Doc. and Cov. 76:31-48; see
also Heb. 6:4-6; B. of M., Alma 39:6.)

12. An Adulterous Generation Seeking after Signs.--Our Lord's reply to
those who clamored for a sign, that "An evil and adulterous generation
seeketh after a sign" (Matt. 12:39; see also 16:4; Mark 8:38) could only
be interpreted by the Jews as a supreme reproof. That the descriptive
designation "adulterous" was literally applicable to the widespread
immorality of the time, they all knew. Adam Clarke in his commentary on
Matt. 12:39, says of this phase of our topic: "There is the utmost proof
from their [the Jews'] own writings, that in the time of our Lord, they
were most literally an adulterous race of people; for at this very time
Rabbi Jachanan ben Zacchi abrogated the trial by the bitter waters of
jealousy, because so many were found to be thus criminal." For the
information concerning the trial of the accused by the bitter waters,
see Numb. 5:11-31. Although Jesus designated the generation in which He
lived as adulterous, we find no record that the Jewish rulers, who by
their demand for a sign had given occasion for the accusation, ventured
to deny or attempt to repel the charge. The sin of adultery was included
among capital offenses (Deut. 22:22-25). The severity of the accusation
as applied by Jesus, however, was intensified by the fact that the older
scriptures represented the covenant between Jehovah and Israel as a
marriage bond (Isa. 54:5-7; Jer. 3:14; 31:32; Hos. 2:19, 20); even as
the later scriptures typify the Church as a bride, and Christ as the
husband (2 Cor. 11:2; compare Rev. 21:2). To be spiritually adulterous,
as the rabbis construed the utterances of the prophets, was to be false
to the covenant by which the Jewish nations claimed distinction, as the
worshipers of Jehovah, and to be wholly recreant and reprobate.
Convicted on such a charge those sign-seeking Pharisees and scribes
understood that Jesus classed them as worse than the idolatrous heathen.
The words "adultery" and "idolatry" are of related origin, each
connoting the act of unfaithfulness and the turning away after false
objects of affection or worship.

13. The Mother and the Brethren of Jesus.--The attempt of Mary and some
members of her family to speak with Jesus on the occasion referred to in
the text has been construed by many writers to mean that the mother and
sons had come to protest against the energy and zeal with which Jesus
was pursuing His work. Some indeed have gone so far as to say that the
visiting members of the family had come to put Him under restraint, and
to stem, if they could, the tide of popular interest, criticism, and
offense, which surged about Him. The scriptural record furnishes no
foundation for even a tentative conception of the kind. The purpose of
the desired visit is not intimated. It is a fact as will be shown in
pages to follow, that some members of Mary's household had failed to
understand the great import of the work in which Jesus was so
assiduously engaged; and we are told that some of His friends (marginal
rendering, "kinsmen,") on one occasion set out with the purpose of
laying hold on Him and stopping His public activities by physical force,
for they said "He is beside himself." (Mark 3:21); furthermore we learn
that His brethren did not believe on Him (John 7:5). These facts,
however, scarcely warrant the assumption that the desire of Mary and her
sons to speak with Him on the occasion referred to was other than
peaceful. And to assume that Mary, His mother, had so far forgotten the
wondrous scenes of the angelic annunciation, the miraculous conception,
the heavenly accompaniments of the birth, the more than human wisdom and
power exhibited in youth and manhood, as to believe her divine Son an
unbalanced enthusiast, whom she ought to restrain, is to assume
responsibility for injustice to the character of one whom the angel
Gabriel declared was blessed among women, and highly favored of the
Lord.

The statement that the brethren of Jesus did not believe on Him at the
time referred to by the recorder (John 7:5) is no proof that some or
even all of those same brethren did not later believe on their divine
Brother. Immediately after the Lord's ascension, Mary, the mother of
Jesus, and His brethren were engaged in worship and supplication with
the Eleven and other disciples (Acts 1:14). The attested fact of
Christ's resurrection converted many who had before declined to accept
Him as the Son of God. Paul records a special manifestation of the
resurrected Christ to James (1 Cor. 15:7) and the James here referred to
may be the same person elsewhere designated as "the Lord's brother"
(Gal. 1:19); compare Matt. 13:55; Mark 6:3. It appears that "brethren of
the Lord" were engaged in the work of the ministry in the days of Paul's
active service (1 Cor. 9:5). The specific family relationship of our
Lord to James, Joses, Simon, Judas and the sisters referred to by
Matthew (13:55, 56), and Mark (6:3), has been questioned; and several
theories have been invented in support of divergent views. Thus, the
Eastern or Epiphanian hypothesis holds, on no firmer basis than
assumption, that the brethren of Jesus were children of Joseph of
Nazareth by a former wife, and not the children of Mary the Lord's
mother. The Levirate theory assumes that Joseph of Nazareth and Clopas
(the latter name, it is interesting to note, is regarded as the
equivalent of Alpheus, see footnote page 224) were brothers; and that,
after the death of Clopas or Alpheus, Joseph married his brother's widow
according to the levirate law (page 548). The Hieronymian hypothesis is
based on the belief that the persons referred to as brethren and sisters
of Jesus were children of Clopas (Alpheus) and Mary the sister of the
Lord's mother, and therefore cousins to Jesus. (See Matt. 27:56; Mark
15:40; John 19:25.) It is beyond reasonable doubt that Jesus was
regarded by those, who were acquainted with the family of Joseph and
Mary as a close blood relative of other sons and daughters belonging to
the household. If these others were children of Joseph and Mary, they
were all juniors to Jesus, for He was undoubtedly His mother's firstborn
child. The acceptance of this relationship between Jesus and His
"brethren" and "sisters" mentioned by the synoptists constitutes what is
known in theological literature as the Helvidian view.

FOOTNOTES:

[550] Matt. 7:29; compare Luke 4:32; John 7:46.

[551] Luke 7:1-10; compare Matt. 8:5-13.

[552] Note 1, end of chapter.

[553] John 4:46-53; see page 177.

[554] Note 2, end of chapter.

[555] Matt. 8:11, 12; see also Luke 13:28, 29; compare Acts 10:45.

[556] Luke 7:11-17.

[557] Note 3, end of chapter.

[558] Matt. 8:17; compare Isa. 53:4.

[559] Luke 20:36, 38; compare Acts 10:42; 2 Tim. 4:1; 1 Peter 4:5; Rom.
14:9.

[560] Matt. 4:12; Mark 1:14; Luke 3:19, 20; see Note 2, chap. 9, page
119, and Note 4, end of this chapter.

[561] Note 5, end of chapter.

[562] Mark 6:17-20.

[563] Matt. 14:5.

[564] Matt. 11:2. Note a similar liberty allowed to Paul when in
durance, Acts 24:23.

[565] Luke 7:18; Matt. 11:2.

[566] Matt. 11:2-6; Luke 7:18-23.

[567] Isa. 35:5, 6.

[568] Matt. 3:3; compare Isa. 40:3; Matt. 3:7; compare Isa. 59:5; Luke
3:6; compare Isa. 52:10.

[569] Matt. 13:57; 24:10; 26:31; Mark 6:3; 14:27; John 6:61. Note 6, end
of chapter.

[570] John 3:30.

[571] Note that Jesus compared the sufferings of John while in prison as
in part comparable to those He would Himself have to endure, in that
they did unto John "whatsoever they listed" (Matt. 17:12; Mark 9:13).

[572] Luke 7:24-30; see also Matt. 11:7-14; compare Christ's testimony
of John Baptist delivered at Jerusalem, John 5:33-35.

[573] Luke 7:28; see Note 7, end of chapter.

[574] Matt. 11:12-15; compare 17:12; Luke 1:17.

[575] Note 8, end of chapter.

[576] Matt. 3:7; Luke 7:30.

[577] Page 142.

[578] Matt. 11:20-24; compare Luke 10:13-15.

[579] Matt. 11:25-27; compare Luke 10:21, 22.

[580] Matt. 11:28-30.

[581] Mark 6:21-29.

[582] Mark 6:14-16.

[583] "Articles of Faith," x:18; also chapter 41, herein.

[584] Luke 7:36; see further, verses 37-50.

[585] Note 9, end of chapter.

[586] 2 Sam. 12:1-7.

[587] Matt. 9:2-6; Mark 2:5-7; page 191 herein.

[588] Matt. 26:6, 7; Mark 14:3; John 11:2.

[589] Note 10, end of chapter.

[590] Luke 8:1-3.

[591] Matt. 27:55, 56, 61; 28:1, 5; Mark 15:40, 47; 16:1, 9; Luke 23:49,
55; 24:10, 22; John 19:25; 20:1, 13, 18.

[592] Mark 16:9; Luke 8:2.

[593] Matt. 12:24-45; compare 9:33, 34: see also Mark 3:22-30; Luke
11:14-26.

[594] Matt. 9:34.

[595] Matt. 9:35.

[596] Matt. 12:14-15.

[597] Matt. 12:17-20; compare Isa. 42:1.

[598] Matt. 12:22, 23.

[599] Note 11, end of chapter.

[600] Matt. 12:38-45; compare 16:1; Mark 8:11; Luke 11:16, 29; John
2:18; 1 Cor. 1:22.

[601] Doc. and Cov. 46:9; compare 63:7-12.

[602] Mark 8:12.

[603] Note 12, end of chapter.

[604] Jonah chaps. 1-4.

[605] Kings 10:1; 2 Chron. 9:1; compare Luke 11:31.

[606] Matt. 12:43-45; Luke 11:24-26.

[607] Luke 11:27, 28.

[608] Matt. 12:46-50; Mark 3:31-35; Luke 8:19-21.

[609] Luke 2:49. Page 114 herein.

[610] Matt. 10:37; compare Luke 14:26.

[611] Note 13, end of chapter.




CHAPTER 19.

"HE SPAKE MANY THINGS UNTO THEM IN PARABLES."


Throughout the period of Christ's ministry with which we have thus far
dealt, His fame had continuously increased, because of the authority
with which He spoke and of the many mighty works He did; His popularity
had become such that whenever He moved abroad great multitudes followed
Him. At times the people so thronged as to impede His movements, some
with a desire to hear more of the new doctrine, others to plead at His
feet for relief from physical or other ills; and many there were who had
faith that could they but reach Him, or even touch the border of His
robe, they would be healed.[612] One effect of the people's eagerness,
which led them to press and crowd around Him, was to render difficult if
not impossible at times the effective delivery of any discourse. His
usual place for open-air teaching while He tarried in the vicinity of
the sea, or lake, of Galilee was the shore; and thither flocked the
crowds to hear Him. At His request, the disciples had provided a "small
ship," which was kept in readiness on the beach;[613] and it was usual
with Him to sit in the boat a short distance off shore, and preach to
the people, as He had done when in the earlier days He called the chosen
fishermen to leave their nets and follow Him.[614]

On one such occasion He employed a means of instruction, which, prior to
that time, had not been characteristic of His teaching; this consisted
in the use of parables,[615] simple stories to illustrate His doctrines.
Some of these we shall here consider briefly, in the order most
advantageous for treatment, and as best we know, in what may have been
the sequence in which they were given.


"A SOWER WENT FORTH TO SOW."

First in the order of delivery is the Parable of the Sower. It is a
splendid type of our Lord's parables in general, and is particularly
valuable for its great intrinsic worth and because we possess a
comprehensive interpretation of it by the divine Author. This is the
story:

    "Behold, a sower went forth to sow; and when he sowed, some
    seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them
    up: some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth:
    and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of
    earth: and when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because
    they had no root, they withered away. And some fell among
    thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them: but other
    fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an
    hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. Who hath ears to
    hear, let him hear."[616]

This new way of teaching, this departure from the Master's earlier
method of doctrinal exposition, caused even the most devoted of the
disciples to marvel. The Twelve and a few others came to Jesus when He
was apart from the multitude, and asked why He had spoken to the people
in this manner, and what was the meaning of this particular parable. Our
Lord's reply to the first part of the inquiry we shall consider
presently; concerning the second, He asked "Know ye not the parable? and
how then will ye know all parables?"[617] Thus did He indicate the
simplicity of this the first of His parables, together with its typical
and fundamental character, and at the same time intimate that other
parables would follow in the course of His teaching. Then He gave the
interpretation:

    "Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower. When anyone heareth
    the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh
    the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his
    heart. This is he which received seed by the way side. But he
    that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that
    heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it; yet hath he
    not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when
    tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and
    by he is offended. He also that received seed among the thorns
    is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the
    deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh
    unfruitful. But he that received seed into the good ground is he
    that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth
    fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some
    thirty."[618]

Further exposition may appear superfluous; some suggestion as to the
individual application of the contained lessons may be in place,
however. Observe that the prominent feature of the story is that of the
prepared or unprepared condition of the soil. The seed was the same
whether it fell on good ground or bad, on mellow mold or among stones
and thistles. The primitive method of sowing still followed in many
countries, consists in the sower throwing the grain by handfuls against
the wind, thus securing a widespread scattering. Running through the
Galilean fields, were pathways, hard trodden by feet of men and beasts.
Though seed should fall on such tracts, it could not grow; birds would
pick up the living kernels lying unrooted and uncovered and some of the
grains would be crushed and trodden down. So with the seed of truth
falling upon the hardened heart; ordinarily it cannot take root, and
Satan, as a marauding crow, steals it away, lest a grain of it perchance
find a crack in the trampled ground, send down its rootlet, and possibly
develop.

Seed falling in shallow soil, underlain by a floor of unbroken stone or
hard-pan, may strike root and flourish for a brief season; but as the
descending rootlets reach the impenetrable stratum they shrivel, and the
plant withers and dies, for the nutritive juices are insufficient where
there is no depth of earth.[619] So with the man whose earnestness is
but superficial, whose energy ceases when obstacles are encountered or
opposition met; though he manifest enthusiasm for a time persecution
deters him; he is offended,[620] and endures not. Grain sown where
thorns and thistles abound is soon killed out by their smothering
growth; even so with a human heart set on riches and the allurements of
pleasure--though it receive the living seed of the gospel it will
produce no harvest of good grain, but instead, a rank tangle of noxious
weeds. The abundant yield of thorny thistles demonstrates the fitness of
the soil for a better crop, were it only free from the cumbering weeds.
The seed that falls in good deep soil, free from weeds and prepared for
the sowing, strikes root and grows; the sun's heat scorches it not, but
gives it thrift; it matures and yields to the harvester according to the
richness of the soil, some fields producing thirty, others sixty, and a
few even a hundred times as much grain as was sown.

Even according to literary canons, and as judged by the recognized
standards of rhetorical construction and logical arrangement of its
parts, this parable holds first place among productions of its class.
Though commonly known to us as the Parable of the Sower, the story could
be expressively designated as the Parable of the Four Kinds of Soil. It
is the ground upon which the seed is cast, to which the story most
strongly directs our attention, and which so aptly is made to symbolize
the softened or the hardened heart, the clean or the thorn-infested
soil. Observe the grades of soil, given in the increasing order of their
fertility: (A) the compacted highway, the wayside path, on which, save
by a combination of fortuitous circumstances practically amounting to a
miracle, no seed can possibly strike root or grow; (B) the thin layer of
soil covering an impenetrable bed-rock, wherein seed may sprout yet can
never mature; (C) the weed-encumbered field, capable of producing a rich
crop but for the jungle of thistles and thorns; and (D) the clean rich
mold receptive and fertile. Yet even soils classed as good are of
varying degrees of productiveness, yielding an increase of thirty,
sixty, or even a hundred fold, with many inter-gradations.

Some Bible expositors have professed to find in this splendid parable
evidence of decisive fatalism in the lives of individuals, so that those
whose spiritual state is comparable to the hardened pathway or wayside
ground, to the shallow soil on stony floor, or to the neglected,
thorn-ridden tract, are hopelessly and irredeemably bad; while the souls
who may be likened unto good soil are safe against deterioration and
will be inevitably productive of good fruit. Let it not be forgotten
that a parable is but a sketch, not a picture finished in detail; and
that the expressed or implied similitude in parabolic teaching cannot
logically and consistently be carried beyond the limits of the
illustrative story. In the parable we are considering, the Teacher
depicted the varied grades of spiritual receptivity existing among men,
and characterized with incisive brevity each of the specified grades. He
neither said nor intimated that the hard-baked soil of the wayside might
be plowed, harrowed, fertilized, and so be rendered productive; nor that
the stony impediment to growth might not be broken up and removed, or an
increase of good soil be made by actual addition; nor that the thorns
could never be uprooted and their former habitat be rendered fit to
support good plants. The parable is to be studied in the spirit of its
purpose; and strained inferences or extensions are unwarranted. A strong
metaphor, a striking simile, or any other expressive figure of speech,
is of service only when rationally applied; if carried beyond the bounds
of reasonable intent, the best of such may become meaningless or even
absurd.


THE WHEAT AND THE TARES.

Another parable, somewhat closely related to the foregoing as to the
actual story, dealing again with seed and sowing, and, like the first,
accompanied by an interpretation, was delivered by the Master as
follows:

    "The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good
    seed in his field: but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed
    tares among the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was
    sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares
    also. So the servants of the householder came and said unto him,
    Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then
    hath it tares? He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The
    servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather
    them up? But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye
    root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until
    the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the
    reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in
    bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn."[621]

When Jesus had retired to the house in which He lodged, the disciples
came, saying: "Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field."

"He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son
of man; the field is the world; the good seed are the children of the
kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; the enemy
that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and
the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and
burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of
man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his
kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall
cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of
teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of
their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear."[622]

By the Author's explication, the sower was Himself, the Son of Man; and,
as the condition of wheat and tares growing together was one that shall
continue until "the end of the world," those who were ordained to carry
on the ministry after Him are by direct implication also sowers. The
seed as here represented is not, as in the last parable, the gospel
itself, but the children of men, the good seed typifying the honest in
heart, righteous-minded children of the kingdom; while the tares are
those souls who have given themselves up to evil and are counted as
children of the wicked one. Inspired by zeal for their Master's profit,
the servants would have forcibly rooted up the tares, but were
restrained, for their unwise though well-intended course would have
endangered the wheat while yet tender, since in the early stages of
growth it would have been difficult to distinguish the one from the
other, and the intertwining of the roots would have caused much
destruction of the precious grain.

One cardinal lesson of the parable, apart from the representation of
actual conditions present and future, is that of patience,
long-suffering, and toleration--each an attribute of Deity and a trait
of character that all men should cultivate. The tares mentioned in the
story may be considered as any kind of noxious weed, particularly such
as in early growth resembles the wholesome grain.[623] Over-sowing with
the seed of weeds in a field already sown with grain is a species of
malignant outrage not unknown even in the present day.[624] The
certainty of a time of separation, when the wheat shall be garnered in
the store-house of the Lord, and the tares be burned, that their
poisonous seed may reproduce no more, is placed beyond question by the
Lord's own exposition.

So important is the lesson embodied in this parable, and so assured is
the literal fulfilment of its contained predictions, that the Lord has
given a further explication through revelation in the current
dispensation, a period in which the application is direct and immediate.
Speaking through Joseph Smith the Prophet in 1832, Jesus Christ said:

    "But behold, in the last days, even now while the Lord is
    beginning to bring forth the word, and the blade is springing up
    and is yet tender. Behold, verily I say unto you, the angels are
    crying unto the Lord day and night, who are ready and waiting to
    be sent forth to reap down the fields; but the Lord saith unto
    them, pluck not up the tares while the blade is yet tender, (for
    verily your faith is weak,) lest you destroy the wheat also.
    Therefore, let the wheat and the tares grow together until the
    harvest is fully ripe, then ye shall first gather out the wheat
    from among the tares, and after the gathering of the wheat,
    behold and lo! the tares are bound in bundles, and the field
    remaineth to be burned."[625]


THE SEED GROWING SECRETLY.

Matthew records the Parable of the Tares as immediately following that
of the Sower; Mark places in the same position of sequence a parable
found in his writings alone. It is presented in outline form, and by
critical expositors would be classed rather as a simple analogy than a
typical parable. Read it:

    "And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast
    seed into the ground; and should sleep, and rise night and day,
    and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. For
    the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then
    the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. But when the fruit
    is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because
    the harvest is come."[626]

We have no record of the disciples asking nor of the Master giving any
interpretation of this, or of any later parable.[627] In this story we
find effectively illustrated the fact of the vitality of the seed of
truth, though the secret processes of its growth be a mystery to all
save God alone. A man having planted seed must needs leave it alone. He
may tend the field, removing weeds, protecting the plants as best he
may, but the growth itself is dependent upon conditions and forces
beyond his power to ultimately control. Though it were Paul who planted
and Apollos who watered, none but God could insure the increase.[628]
The one who sowed may go about his other affairs, for the field does not
demand continuous or exclusive attention; nevertheless, under the
influences of sunshine and shower, of breeze and dew, the blade
develops, then the ear, and in due time the full corn in the ear. When
the grain is ripe the man gladly harvests his crop.

The sower in this story is the authorized preacher of the word of God;
he implants the seed of the gospel in the hearts of men, knowing not
what the issue shall be. Passing on to similar or other ministry
elsewhere, attending to his appointed duties in other fields, he, with
faith and hope, leaves with God the result of his planting. In the
harvest of souls converted through his labor, he is enriched and made to
rejoice.[629] This parable was probably directed more particularly to
the apostles and the most devoted of the other disciples, rather than to
the multitude at large; the lesson is one for teachers, for workers in
the Lord's fields, for the chosen sowers and reapers. It is of perennial
value, as truly applicable today as when first spoken. Let the seed be
sown, even though the sower be straightway called to other fields or
other duties; in the gladsome harvest he shall find his recompense.


THE MUSTARD SEED.

    "Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of
    heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and
    sowed in his field: which indeed is the least of all seeds: but
    when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a
    tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the
    branches thereof."[630]

This little story, addressed to the assembled multitude, must have set
many thinking, because of the simplicity of the incident related and the
thoroughly un-Jewish application made of it. To the mind taught by
teachers of the time the kingdom was to be great and glorious from its
beginning; it was to be ushered in by blare of trumpets and tramp of
armies, with King Messiah at the head; yet this new Teacher spoke of it
as having so small a beginning as to be comparable to a mustard seed. To
make the illustration more effective He specified that the seed spoken
of was "the least of all seeds." This superlative expression was made in
a relative sense; for there were and are smaller seeds than the mustard,
even among garden plants, among which rue and poppy have been named; but
each of these plants is very small in maturity, while the
well-cultivated mustard plant is one of the greatest among common herbs,
and presents a strong contrast of growth from tiny seed to spreading
shrub.

Moreover, the comparison "as small as a mustard seed" was in every-day
use among Jews of the time. The comparison employed by Jesus on another
occasion evidences the common usage, as when He said: "If ye have faith
as a grain of mustard seed ... nothing shall be impossible unto
you."[631] It should be known that the mustard plant attains in
Palestine a larger growth than in more northerly climes.[632] The lesson
of the parable is easy to read. The seed is a living entity. When
rightly planted it absorbs and assimilates the nutritive matters of soil
and atmosphere, grows, and in time is capable of affording lodgment and
food to the birds. So the seed of truth is vital, living, and capable of
such development as to furnish spiritual food and shelter to all who
come seeking. In both conceptions, the plant at maturity produces seed
in abundance, and so from a single grain a whole field may be covered.


THE LEAVEN.

    "Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is
    like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures
    of meal, till the whole was leavened."[633]

Points of both similarity and contrast between this parable and the last
are easily discerned. In each the inherent vitality and capacity for
development, so essentially characteristic of the kingdom of God, are
illustrated. The mustard seed however, typifies the effect of vital
growth in gathering the substance of value from without; while the
leaven or yeast disseminates and diffuses outward its influence
throughout the mass of otherwise dense and sodden dough. Each of these
processes represents a means whereby the Spirit of Truth is made
effective. Yeast is no less truly a living organism than a mustard seed.
As the microscopic yeast plant develops and multiplies within the dough,
its myriad living cells permeate the lump, and every bit of the leavened
mass is capable of affecting likewise another batch of properly prepared
meal. The process of leavening, or causing dough "to rise," by the
fermentation of the yeast placed in the mass, is a slow one, and
moreover as quiet and seemingly secret as that of the planted seed
growing without the sower's further attention or concern.[634]


THE HIDDEN TREASURE.

    "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a
    field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy
    thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that
    field."[635]

This and the two parables following are recorded by Matthew only; and
the place assigned them in his narrative indicates that they were spoken
to the disciples alone, in the house, after the multitude had departed.
The quest for treasure-trove is always fascinating. Instances of finding
buried valuables were not uncommon in the time of which we speak, since
the practise of so concealing treasure was usual with people exposed to
bandit incursions and hostile invasion. Observe that the fortunate and
happy man is represented as finding the treasure seemingly by accident
rather than as a result of diligent search. He gladly sold all that he
possessed to make possible his purchase of the field. The hidden
treasure is the kingdom of heaven; when a man finds that, he ought to be
ready to sacrifice all that he has, if by so doing he may gain
possession. His joy in the new acquisition will be unbounded; and, if he
but remain a worthy holder, the riches thereof shall be his beyond the
grave.[636]

Casuists have raised the question of propriety as to the man's course of
action in the story, inasmuch as he concealed the fact of his discovery
from the owner of the field, to whom the treasure, they say, rightly
belonged. Whatever opinion one may hold as to the ethics of the man's
procedure, his act was not illegal, since there was an express provision
in Jewish law that the purchaser of land became the legal owner of
everything the ground contained.[637] Assuredly Jesus commended no
dishonest course; and had not the story been in every detail probable,
its effect as a parable would have been lost. The Master taught by this
illustration that when once the treasure of the kingdom is found, the
finder should lose no time nor shrink from any sacrifice needful to
insure his title thereto.


THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE.

    "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man,
    seeking goodly pearls: who, when he had found one pearl of great
    price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it."[638]

Pearls have always held high place among gems, and long before, as
indeed ever since, the time of Christ, pearl-merchants have been active
and diligent in seeking the largest and richest to be had. Unlike the
man in the last parable, who found a hidden treasure with little or no
search, the merchant in this story devoted his whole energy to the quest
for goodly pearls, to find and secure which was his business. When at
last he beheld the pearl that excelled all others, though it was, as of
right it ought to have been, held at high cost, he gladly sold all his
other gems; indeed he sacrificed "all that he had"--gems and other
possessions--and purchased the pearl of great price. Seekers after truth
may acquire much that is good and desirable, and not find the greatest
truth of all, the truth that shall save them. Yet, if they seek
persistently and with right intent, if they are really in quest of
pearls and not of imitations, they shall find. Men who by search and
research discover the truths of the kingdom of heaven may have to
abandon many of their cherished traditions, and even their theories of
imperfect philosophy and "science falsely so called,"[639] if they would
possess themselves of the pearl of great price. Observe that in this
parable as in that of the hidden treasure, the price of possession is
one's all. No man can become a citizen of the kingdom by partial
surrender of his earlier allegiances; he must renounce everything
foreign to the kingdom or he can never be numbered therein. If he
willingly sacrifices all that he has, he shall find that he has enough.
The cost of the hidden treasure, and of the pearl, is not a fixed
amount, alike for all; it is all one has. Even the poorest may come into
enduring possession; his all is a sufficient purchase price.


THE GOSPEL NET.

    "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast
    into the sea, and gathered of every kind: which, when it was
    full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good
    into vessels, but cast the bad away. So shall it be at the end
    of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked
    from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of
    fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."[640]

Men of many minds, men good and bad, all nationalities and races, are
affected by the gospel of the kingdom. The "fishers of men"[641] are
skilful, active, and comprehensive in their haul. The sorting takes
place after the net is brought to shore; and, as the fisherman discards
every bad fish while he saves the good, so shall the angels who do the
bidding of the Son of Man separate the just and the wicked, preserving
the one kind to life eternal; consigning the other to destruction.
Unwise efforts to carry the application of the parable beyond the
Author's intent have suggested the criticism that whether the fish be
good or bad they die. The good, however, die to usefulness, the bad to
utter waste. Though all men die, they die not alike; some pass to rest,
and shall come forth in the resurrection of the just; others go to a
state of sorrow and disquiet there to anxiously and with dread await the
resurrection of the wicked.[642] Similarity of application in the
present parable as in that of the tares, is apparent in the emphasis
given to the decreed separation of the just from the unjust, and in the
awful fate of those who are fit subjects for condemnation. A further
parallelism is noticed in the postponement of the judgment until the
"end of the world," by which expression we may understand the
consummation of the Redeemer's work, subsequent to the Millennium and
the final resurrection of all who have had existence on earth.[643]

Following His delivery of this, the last of the group of parables
recorded in the thirteenth chapter of Matthew, Jesus asked the
disciples, "Have ye understood all these things?" They answered, "Yea,
Lord." He impressed upon them that they should be ready, like
well-taught teachers, to bring, from the store-house of their souls,
treasures of truth both old and new, for the edification of the
world.[644]


CHRIST'S PURPOSE IN USING PARABLES.

As before stated, the Twelve and other disciples were surprized at the
Lord's innovation of parabolic instruction. Prior to that time His
doctrines had been set forth in unveiled plainness, as witness the
explicit teachings in the Sermon on the Mount. It is noticeable that the
introduction of parables occurred when opposition to Jesus was strong,
and when scribes, Pharisees, and rabbis were alert in maintaining a
close watch upon His movements and His works, ever ready to make Him an
offender for a word. The use of parables was common among Jewish
teachers; and in adopting this mode of instruction Jesus was really
following a custom of the time; though between the parables He spake and
those of the scholars there is possible no comparison except that of
most pronounced contrast.[645]

To the chosen and devoted followers who came asking the Master why He
had changed from direct exposition to parables, He explained[646] that
while it was their privilege to receive and understand the deeper truths
of the gospel, "the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven" as He expressed
it, with people in general, who were unreceptive and unprepared, such
fulness of understanding was impossible. To the disciples who had
already gladly accepted the first principles of the gospel of Christ,
more should be given; while from those who had rejected the proffered
boon, even what they had theretofore possessed should be taken
away.[647] "Therefore," said He, "speak I to them in parables: because
they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they
understand." That the state of spiritual darkness then existing among
the Jews had been foreseen was instanced by a citation of Isaiah's
words, in which the ancient prophet had told of the people becoming
blind, deaf, and hard of heart respecting the things of God, whereby
though they would both hear and see in a physical sense yet should they
not understand.[648]

There is plainly shown an element of mercy in the parabolic mode of
instruction adopted by our Lord under the conditions prevailing at the
time. Had He always taught in explicit declaration, such as required no
interpretation, many among His hearers would have come under
condemnation, inasmuch as they were too weak in faith and unprepared in
heart to break the bonds of traditionalism and the prejudice engendered
by sin, so as to accept and obey the saving word. Their inability to
comprehend the requirements of the gospel would in righteous measure
give Mercy some claim upon them, while had they rejected the truth with
full understanding, stern Justice would surely demand their
condemnation.[649]

That the lesson of the parables was comprehensible through study, prayer
and search was intimated in the Teacher's admonishment: "Who hath ears
to hear, let him hear."[650] To the more studious inquirers, the Master
added: "Take heed what ye hear: with what measure ye mete, it shall be
measured to you: and unto you that hear shall more be given. For he that
hath, to him shall be given: and he that hath not, from him shall be
taken even that which he hath."[651] Two men may hear the same words;
one of them listens in indolence and indifference, the other with active
mind intent on learning all that the words can possibly convey; and,
having heard, the diligent man goes straightway to do the things
commended to him, while the careless one neglects and forgets. The one
is wise, the other foolish; the one has heard to his eternal profit, the
other to his everlasting condemnation.[652]

Another example of the merciful adaptation of the word of truth to the
varied capacities of the people who heard the parables is found in the
psychological fact, that the incidents of an impressive though simple
story will live, even in minds which for the time being are incapable of
comprehending any meaning beyond that of the common-place story itself.
Many a peasant who had heard the little incident of the sower and the
four kinds of soil, of the tares sown by an enemy at night, of the seed
that grew though the planter had temporarily forgotten it, would be
reminded by the recurring circumstances of his daily work; the gardener
would recollect the story of the mustard seed whenever he planted
afresh, or when he looked upon the umbrageous plant with birds nesting
in its branches; the housewife would be impressed anew by the story of
the leaven as she mixed and kneaded and baked; the fisherman at his nets
would think again of the good fish and the bad and compare the sorting
of his catch with the judgment to come. And then, when time and
experience, including suffering perhaps, had prepared them for deeper
thought, they would find the living kernel of gospel truth within the
husk of the simple tale.


PARABLES IN GENERAL.

The essential feature of a parable is that of comparison or similitude,
by which some ordinary, well-understood incident is used to illustrate a
fact or principle not directly expressed in the story. The popular
thought that a parable necessarily rests on a fictitious incident is
incorrect; for, inasmuch as the story or circumstance of the parable
must be simple and indeed common-place, it may be real. There is no
fiction in the parables we have thus far studied; the fundamental
stories are true to life and the given circumstances are facts of
experience. The narrative or incident upon which a parable is
constructed may be an actual occurrence or fiction; but, if fictitious,
the story must be consistent and probable, with no admixture of the
unusual or miraculous. In this respect the parable differs from the
fable, the latter being imaginative, exaggerated and improbable as to
fact; moreover, the intent is unlike in the two, since the parable is
designed to convey some great spiritual truth, while the so-called moral
of the fable is at best suggestive only of worldly achievement and
personal advantage. Stories of trees, animals and inanimate things
talking together or with men are wholly fanciful; they are fables or
apologues whether the outcome be depicted as good or bad; to the parable
these show contrast, not similarity. The avowed purpose of the fable is
rather to amuse than to teach. The parable may embody a narrative as in
the instances of the sower and the tares, or merely an isolated
incident, as in those of the mustard seed and the leaven.

Allegories are distinguished from parables by greater length and detail
of the story, and by the intimate admixture of the narrative with the
lesson it is designed to teach; these are kept distinctly separate in
the parable. Myths are fictitious stories, sometimes with historic basis
of fact, but without symbolism of spiritual worth. A proverb is a short,
sententious saying, in the nature of a maxim, connoting a definite truth
or suggestion by comparison. Proverbs and parables are closely related,
and in the Bible the terms are sometimes used interchangeably.[653] The
Old Testament contains two parables, a few fables and allegories, and
numerous proverbs; of the last-named we possess an entire book.[654]
Nathan the prophet reproved King David by the parable of the poor man's
ewe lamb, and so effective was the story that the king decreed
punishment for the wealthy offender, and was overcome by sorrow and
contrition when the prophet made application of his parable by the
fateful words, "Thou art the man."[655] The story of the vineyard, which
though fenced and well-tended yet brought forth only wild, useless
fruit, was used by Isaiah to portray the sinful state of Israel in his
attempt to awaken the people to lives of righteousness.[656]

The parables of the New Testament, spoken by the Teacher of teachers,
are of such beauty, simplicity, and effectiveness, as to stand
unparalleled in literature.


NOTES TO CHAPTER 19.

1. The First Group of Parables.--Many Bible scholars hold that the seven
parables recorded in the thirteenth chapter of Matthew were spoken at
different times and to different people, and that the writer of the
first Gospel grouped them for convenience in recording and with prime
consideration of their subjective interest. Some color is found for this
claim in Luke's mention of some of these parables in different relations
of both time and place; thus, the parables of the Mustard Seed and the
Leaven are given (Luke 13:18, 21) as directly following the healing of
the infirm woman in the synagog, and the rebuke to the hypocritical
ruler. While we must admit that Matthew may have grouped with the
parables spoken on that particular day some of other dates, it is
probable that Jesus repeated some of His parables, as He certainly did
other teachings, and thus presented the same lesson on more occasions
than one. As a matter of fact each parable is a lesson in itself, and
holds its high intrinsic value whether considered as an isolated story
or in connection with related teachings. Let us give heed to the lesson
of each whatever opinions men may promulgate as to the circumstances of
its first delivery.

2. Local Setting for the Parable of the Sower.--Dr. R. C. Trench, in his
excellent work _Notes on the Parables of our Lord_ (p. 57, note), quotes
Dean Stanley's description of existing conditions in the place where the
Parable of the Sower was given by Jesus; and as there is reason to
believe that the environment has changed but little since the days of
Christ, the account is here reproduced: "A slight recess in the hillside
close upon the plain disclosed at once in detail, and with a conjunction
which I remember nowhere else in Palestine, every feature of the great
parable. There was the undulating corn-field descending to the water's
edge. There was the trodden pathway running through the midst of it,
with no fence or hedge to prevent the seed falling here or there on
either side of it, or upon it--itself hard with the constant tramp of
horse and mule and human feet. There was the 'good' rich soil, which
distinguishes the whole of that plain and its neighborhood from the bare
hills elsewhere, descending into the lake, and which, where there is no
interruption, produces one vast mass of corn. There was the rocky ground
of the hillside protruding here and there through the corn-fields, as
elsewhere, through the grassy slopes. There were the large bushes of
thorn, the 'nabk' ... springing up, like the fruit-trees of the more
inland parts, in the very midst of the waving wheat."

3. Tares.--This term occurs nowhere within the Bible except in this
instance of the parable. Plainly any kind of weed, particularly a
poisonous sort, such as would seriously depreciate the garnered crop,
would serve the Master's purpose in the illustration. The traditional
belief commonly held is that the plant referred to in the parable is the
darnel weed, known to botanists as _Lolium temulenium_, a species of
bearded rye-grass. This plant closely resembles wheat in the early
period of growth, and exists as a pest to the farmers in Palestine
to-day; it is called by the Arabians "Zowan" or "Zawan" which name, says
Arnot, citing Thompson, "bears some resemblance to the original word in
the Greek text." The writer of the article "Tares" in Smith's Dictionary
says: "Critics and expositors are agreed that the Greek plural
_zizania_, A.V. 'tares,' of the parable (Matt 13:25) denotes the weed
called 'bearded darnel' (_Lolium temulentum_), a widely-distributed
grass, and the only species of the order that has deleterious
properties. The bearded darnel before it comes into ear is very similar
in appearance to wheat, and the roots of the two are often intertwined;
hence the command that the 'tares' should be left till the harvest, lest
while men plucked up the tares 'they should root up also the wheat with
them.' This darnel is easily distinguishable from the wheat and barley
when headed out, but when both are less developed, 'the closest scrutiny
will often fail to detect it. Even the farmers, who in this country
generally weed their fields, do not attempt to separate the one from the
other ... The taste is bitter, and, when eaten separately, or even when
diffused in ordinary bread, it causes dizziness, and often acts as a
violent emetic.'" The secondary quotation is from Thompson's _The Land
and the Book_, ii, 111, 112. It has been asserted that the darnel is a
degenerated kind of wheat; and attempts have been made to give
additional significance to our Lord's instructive parable by injecting
this thought; there is no scientific warrant for the strained
conception, however, and earnest students will not be misled thereby.

4. The Wickedness of the Sower of Tares.--Attempts have been made to
disparage the Parable of the Tares on the ground that it rests on an
unusual if not unknown practise. Trench thus meets the criticism (_Notes
on the Parables_, pp. 72, 73): "Our Lord did not imagine here a form of
malice without example, but adduced one which may have been familiar
enough to His hearers, one so easy of execution, involving so little
risk, and yet effecting so great and lasting a mischief, that it is not
strange, where cowardice and malice meet, that this should have been
often the shape in which they displayed themselves. We meet traces of it
in many quarters. In Roman law the possibility of this form of injury is
contemplated; and a modern writer, illustrating Scripture from the
manners and habits of the East, with which he had become familiar
through a sojourn there, affirms the same to be now practised in India."
In a subjoined note the author adds: "We are not without this form of
malice nearer home. Thus in Ireland I have known an outgoing tenant, in
spite at his eviction, to sow wild oats in the fields which he was
leaving. These, like the tares in the parable, ripening and seeding
themselves before the crops in which they were mingled, it became next
to impossible to extirpate.";

5. The Parable of the Seed Growing Secretly.--This parable has given
rise to much discussion among expositors, the question being as to who
is meant by the man who cast seed into the ground. If, as in the
parables of the Sower and the Tares, the Lord Jesus be the planter,
then, some ask, how can it be said "that the seed should spring and grow
up, he knoweth not how," when all things are known unto Him? If on the
other hand the planter represents the authorized teacher or preacher of
the gospel, how can it be said that at the harvest time "he putteth in
the sickle," since the final harvesting of souls is the prerogative of
God? The perplexities of the critics arise from their attempt to find in
the parable a literalism never intended by the Author. Whether the seed
be planted by the Lord Himself, as when He taught in Person, or by any
one of His authorized servants, the seed is alive and will grow. Time is
required; the blade appears first and is followed by the ear, and the
ear ripens in season, without the constant attention which a shaping of
the several parts by hand would require. The man who figures in the
parable is presented as an ordinary farmer, who plants, and waits, and
in due time reaps. The lesson imparted is the vitality of the seed as a
living thing, endowed by its Creator with the capacity to both grow and
develop.

6. The Mustard Plant.--The wild mustard, which in the temperate zone
seldom attains a height of more than three or four feet, reaches in
semitropical lands the height of a horse and its rider (Thompson, _The
Land and the Book_ ii, 100). Those who heard the parable evidently
understood the contrast between size of seed and that of the fully
developed plant. Arnot, (_The Parables_, p. 102), aptly says: "This
plant obviously was chosen by the Lord, not on account of its absolute
magnitude, but because it was, and was recognized to be, a striking
instance of increase from very small to very great. It seems to have
been in Palestine, at that time, the smallest seed from which so large a
plant was known to grow. There were, perhaps, smaller seeds, but the
plants which sprung from them were not so great; and there were greater
plants, but the seeds from which they sprung were not so small."
Edersheim (i, p. 593) states that the diminutive size of the mustard
seed was commonly used in comparison by the rabbis, "to indicate the
smallest amount such as the least drop of blood, the least defilement,
etc." The same author continues, in speaking of the grown plant:
"Indeed, it looks no longer like a large garden-herb or shrub, but
'becomes' or rather appears like 'a tree'--as St. Luke puts it, 'a great
tree,' of course, not in comparison with other trees, but with
garden-shrubs. Such growth of mustard seed was also a fact well known at
the time, and, indeed, still observed in the East.... And the general
meaning would the more easily be apprehended, that a tree, whose
wide-spreading branches afforded lodgment to the birds of heaven, was a
familiar Old Testament figure for a mighty kingdom that gave shelter to
the nations (Ezek. 31:6, 12; Dan. 4:12, 14, 21, 22). Indeed, it is
specifically used as an illustration of the Messianic Kingdom (Ezek.
17:23)."

7. The Symbolism of Leaven.--In the parable, the kingdom of heaven is
likened unto leaven. In other scriptures, leaven is figuratively
mentioned as representing evil, thus, "the leaven of the Pharisees and
of the Sadducees" (Matt. 16:6, see also Luke 12:1), "the leaven of
Herod" (Mark 8:15). These instances, and others (1 Cor. 5:7, 8) are
illustrative of the contagion of evil. In the incident of the woman
using leaven in the ordinary process of bread-making, the spreading,
penetrating vital effect of truth is symbolized by the leaven. The same
thing in different aspects may very properly be used to represent good
in one instance and evil in another.

8. Treasure Belonging to the Finder.--As to the justification of the man
who found a treasure hidden in another's field and then, concealing the
fact of his discovery, bought the field that he might possess the
treasure, Edersheim (i, p. 595-6) says: "Some difficulty has been
expressed in regard to the morality of such a transaction. In reply it
may be observed, that it was, at least, in entire accordance with Jewish
law. If a man had found a treasure in loose coins among the corn it
would certainly be his if he bought the corn. If he had found it on the
ground, or in the soil, it would equally certainly belong to him if he
could claim ownership of the soil, and even if the field were not his
own, unless others could prove their right to it. The law went so far as
to adjudge to the purchaser of fruits anything found among these fruits.
This will suffice to vindicate a question of detail, which, in any case,
should not be too closely pressed in a parabolic history."

9. Superiority of our Lord's Parables.--"Perhaps no other mode of
teaching was so common among the Jews as that by parables. Only in their
case, they were almost entirely illustrations of what had been said or
taught; while in the case of Christ, they served as the foundation for
His teaching.... In the one case it was intended to make spiritual
teaching appear Jewish and national, in the other to convey spiritual
teaching in a form adapted to the stand-point of the hearers. This
distinction will be found to hold true, even in instances where there
seems the closest parallelism between a Rabbinic and an Evangelic
parable.... It need scarcely be said that comparison between such
parables, as regards their spirit, is scarcely possible, except by way
of contrast" (Edersheim, i, pp. 580-1). Geikie tersely says: "Others
have uttered parables, but Jesus so far transcends them, that He may
justly be called the creator of this mode of instruction" (ii, p. 145).

10. Parables and Other Forms of Analogy.--"The parable is also clearly
distinguishable from the proverb, though it is true that, in a certain
degree, the words are used interchangeably in the New Testament, and as
equivalent the one to the other. Thus 'Physician, heal thyself' (Luke
4:23) is termed a parable, being more strictly a proverb; so again, when
the Lord had used that proverb, probably already familiar to His hearers
'If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch'; Peter
said 'Declare unto us this parable' (Matt. 15:14, 15); and Luke 5:36 is
a proverb or proverbial expression, rather than a parable, which name it
bears.... So, upon the other hand, those are called 'proverbs' in St.
John, which if not strictly parables, yet claim much closer affinity to
the parable than to the proverb, being in fact allegories; thus Christ's
setting forth of His relations to His people under those of a shepherd
to his sheep is termed a 'proverb,' though our translators, holding fast
to the sense rather than to the letter, have rendered it a 'parable'
(John 10:6; compare 16:25, 29). It is easy to account for this
interchange of words. Partly it arose from one word in Hebrew signifying
both parable and proverb."--Trench, _Notes on the Parables_, pp. 9, 10.

For the convenience of readers who may not have a dictionary at hand as
they read, the following definitions are given:

_Allegory._--The setting forth of a subject under the guise of some
other subject or aptly suggestive likeness.

_Apologue._--A fable or moral tale, especially one in which animals or
inanimate things speak or act, and by which a useful lesson is suggested
or taught.

_Fable._--A brief story or tale feigned or invented to embody a moral,
and introducing animals and sometimes even inanimate things as rational
speakers and actors; a legend or myth.

_Myth._--A fictitious or conjectural narrative presented as historical,
but without any basis of fact.

_Parable._--A brief narrative or descriptive allegory founded on real
scenes or events such as occur in nature and human life, and usually
with a moral or religious application.

_Proverb._--A brief, pithy saying, condensing in witty or striking form
the wisdom of experience; a familiar and widely known popular saying in
epigrammatic form.

11. Old Testament Parables, Etc.--"Of parables in the strictest sense
the Old Testament contains only two" (2 Sam. 12:1-; and Isa. 5:1-).
"Other stories, such as that of the trees assembled to elect a king
(Judges 9:8), and of the thistle and cedar (2 Kings 14:9), are more
strictly fables. Still others, such as Ezekiel's account of the two
eagles and the vine (17:2-), and of the caldron (24:3-) are allegories.
The small number of parabolic narratives to be found in the Old
Testament must not, however, be taken as an indication of indifference
toward this literary form as suitable for moral instruction. The number
is only apparently small. In reality, similitudes, which, though not
explicitly couched in the terms of fictitious narrative, suggest and
furnish the materials for such narrative, are abundant."--Zenos, _Stand.
Bible Dict._, article "Parables."

By applying the term "parable" in its broadest sense, to include all
ordinary forms of analogy, we may list the following as the most
impressive parables of the Old Testament. Trees electing a king (Judges
9:7-); the poor man's ewe lamb (2 Sam. 12:1-); the contending brothers
and the avengers (2 Sam. 14:1-); story of the escaped captive (1 Kings
20:35-); the thistle and the cedar (2 Kings 14:9); the vineyard and its
wild grapes (Isa. 5:1-); the eagles and the vine (Ezek. 17:3-); the
lion's whelps (Ezek. 19:2-); the seething pot (Ezek. 24:3-).

FOOTNOTES:

[612] Mark 3:10; compare Matt. 9:20, 21; 14:36; Mark 6:56; Luke 6:19

[613] Mark 3:9.

[614] Luke 5:10; page 197 herein.

[615] Note 1, end of chapter.

[616] Matt. 13:3-9; compare Mark 4:3-9; Luke 8:5-8.

[617] Mark 4:13.

[618] Matt. 13:18-23; compare Mark 4:13-20; Luke 8:11-15.

[619] Note 2, end of chapter.

[620] Pages 254 and 274.

[621] Matt. 13:24-30.

[622] Verses 36-43.

[623] Note 3, end of chapter.

[624] Note 4, end of chapter.

[625] Doc. and Cov. 86:4-7; read the entire section.

[626] Mark 4:26-29.

[627] Note 5, end of chapter.

[628] 1 Cor. 3:6.

[629] Read the Lord's early promise of souls as the hire of the
appointed harvesters: John 4:35-38; see also Matt. 9:37, 38; Luke 10:2.

[630] Matt. 13:31, 32; compare Mark 4:30-32; Luke 13:18, 19.

[631] Matt. 17:20; compare Luke 17:6.

[632] Note 6, end of chapter.

[633] Matt. 13:33; compare Luke 13:20, 21.

[634] Page 288. Note 7, end of chapter.

[635] Matt. 13:44.

[636] Compare Matt. 6:19, 20.

[637] Note 8, end of chapter.

[638] Matt. 13:45, 48.

[639] 1 Tim. 6:20.

[640] Matt. 13:47-50.

[641] Matt. 4:19; Mark 1:17; Luke 5:10.

[642] John 5:29; see also B. of M., Alma 40:11-14; and the author,
"Articles of Faith," xxi:24-39.

[643] See chapter 42.

[644] Matt. 13:51, 52.

[645] Note 9, end of chapter.

[646] Matt. 13:10-17; compare Mark 4:10-13; Luke 8:9, 10.

[647] Matt. 13:12; compare 25:29; Mark 4:25; Luke 8:18; 19:26.

[648] Isa. 6:9; see also 42:20; 43:8; Ezek. 12:2; John 12:40; Acts
28:26, 27.

[649] See the author's "Articles of Faith," iii:12, 13; B. of M., 2
Nephi 9:25-27; Rom. 2:12; Doc. and Cov. 45:54; 76:72.

[650] Matt. 13:9, 43; see also 11:15; Mark 4:9.

[651] Mark 4:24, 25.

[652] Read again Matt. 7:24-27; Luke 6:46-49.

[653] Note 10, end of chapter.

[654] Note 11, end of chapter.

[655] 2 Sam. 12:1-7, 13.

[656] Isa. 5:1-7.




CHAPTER 20.

"PEACE, BE STILL."


INCIDENTS PRELIMINARY TO THE VOYAGE.

Near the close of the day on which Jesus had taught the multitudes for
the first time by parables, He said to the disciples, "Let us pass over
unto the other side."[657] The destination so indicated is the east side
of the sea of Galilee. While the boat was being made ready, a certain
scribe came to Jesus and said: "Master, I will follow thee whithersoever
thou goest." Prior to that time, few men belonging to the titled or
ruling class had offered to openly ally themselves with Jesus. Had the
Master been mindful of policy and desirous of securing official
recognition, this opportunity to attach to Himself as influential a
person as a scribe would have received careful consideration if not
immediate acceptance; but He, who could read the minds and know the
hearts of men, chose rather than accepted. He had called men who were to
be thenceforth His own, from their fishing boats and nets, and had
numbered one of the ostracized publicans among the Twelve; but He knew
them, every one, and chose accordingly. The gospel was offered freely to
all; but authority to officiate as a minister thereof was not to be had
for the asking; for that sacred labor, one must be called of God.[658]

In this instance, Christ knew the character of the man, and, without
wounding his feelings by curt rejection, pointed out the sacrifice
required of one who would follow whithersoever the Lord went, saying:
"The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son
of man hath not where to lay his head." As Jesus had no fixed place of
abode, but went wherever His duty called Him, so was it necessary that
they who represented Him, men ordained or set apart to His service, be
ready to deny themselves the enjoyment of their homes and the comfort of
family associations, if the duties of their calling so demanded. We do
not read that the aspiring scribe pressed his offer.

Another man indicated his willingness to follow the Lord, but asked
first for time to go and bury his father; to him Jesus said: "Follow me;
and let the dead bury their dead." Some readers have felt that this
injunction was harsh, though such an inference is scarcely justified.
While it would be manifestly unfilial for a son to absent himself from
his father's funeral under ordinary conditions, nevertheless, if that
son had been set apart to service of importance transcending all
personal or family obligations, his ministerial duty would of right take
precedence. Moreover, the requirement expressed by Jesus was no greater
than that made of every priest during his term of active service, nor
was it more afflicting than the obligation of the Nazarite vow,[659]
under which many voluntarily placed themselves. The duties of ministry
in the kingdom pertained to spiritual life; one dedicated thereto might
well allow those who were negligent of spiritual things, and
figuratively speaking, spiritually dead, to bury their dead.

A third instance is presented; a man who wanted to be a disciple of the
Lord asked that, before entering upon his duties, he be permitted to go
home and bid farewell to his family and friends. The reply of Jesus has
become an aphorism in life and literature: "No man, having put his hand
to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God."[660]

From Matthew's record we draw the inference that the first two of these
candidates for discipleship offered themselves to our Lord as He stood
on the shore or in the boat ready to begin the evening voyage across the
lake. Luke places the instances in a different connection, and adds to
the offers of the scribe and the man who would first bury his father,
that of the one who wished to go home and then return to Christ. The
three incidents may be profitably considered together, whether all
occurred in the evening of that same eventful day or at different times.


STILLING THE STORM.[661]

The instruction to launch forth and cross to the opposite side of the
lake was given by Jesus, who probably desired a respite after the
arduous labors of the day. No time had been lost in unnecessary
preparation; "they took him, even as he was, into the ship," and set out
without delay. Even on the water some of the eager people tried to
follow; for a number of small boats, "little ships" as Mark styles them,
accompanied the vessel on which Jesus was embarked; but these lesser
craft may have turned back, possibly on account of the approaching
storm; anyway, we do not hear of them further.

Jesus found a resting place near the stern of the ship and soon fell
asleep. A great storm arose,[662] and still He slept. The circumstance
is instructive as it evidences at once the reality of the physical
attributes of Christ, and the healthy, normal condition of His body. He
was subject to fatigue and bodily exhaustion from other causes, as are
all men; without food He grew hungry; without drink He thirsted; by
labor He became weary. The fact that after a day of strenuous effort He
could calmly sleep, even amidst the turmoil of a tempest, indicates an
unimpaired nervous system and a good state of health. Nowhere do we find
record of Jesus having been ill. He lived according to the laws of
health, yet never allowed the body to rule the spirit; and His daily
activities, which were of a kind to make heavy demands on both physical
and mental energy, were met with no symptoms of nervous collapse nor of
functional disturbance. Sleep after toil is natural and necessary. The
day's work done, Jesus slept.

Meanwhile the storm increased in fury; the wind rendered the boat
unmanageable; waves beat over the side; so much water was shipped that
the vessel seemed about to founder. The disciples were terror-stricken;
yet through it all Jesus rested peacefully. In their extremity of fear,
the disciples awakened Him, crying out, according to the several
independent accounts, "Master, Master, we perish"; "Lord, save us: we
perish"; and, "Master, carest thou not that we perish?" They were
abjectly frightened, and at least partly forgetful that there was with
them One whose voice even death had to obey. Their terrified appeal was
not wholly devoid of hope nor barren of faith: "Lord, save us" they
cried. Calmly He replied to their piteous call, "Why are ye fearful, O
ye of little faith?"

Then He arose; and out through the darkness of that fearsome night, into
the roaring wind, over the storm-lashed sea, went the voice of the Lord
as He "rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the
wind ceased, and there was a great calm." Turning to the disciples, He
asked in tones of gentle yet unmistakable reproof: "Where is your
faith?" and "How is it that ye have no faith?" Gratitude for rescue from
what but a moment before had seemed impending death was superseded by
amazement and fear. "What manner of man is this," they asked one of
another, "that even the wind and the sea obey him?"

Among the recorded miracles of Christ, none has elicited greater
diversity in comment and in attempt at elucidation than has this
marvelous instance of control over the forces of nature. Science
ventures no explanation. The Lord of earth, air, and sea spoke and was
obeyed. He it was who, amidst the black chaos of creation's earliest
stages, had commanded with immediate effect--Let there be light; Let
there be a firmament in the midst of the waters; Let the dry land
appear--and, as He had decreed, so it was. The dominion of the Creator
over the created is real and absolute. A small part of that dominion has
been committed to man[663] as the offspring of God, tabernacled in the
very image of his divine Father. But man exercizes that delegated
control through secondary agencies, and by means of complicated
mechanism. Man's power over the objects of his own devizing is limited.
It is according to the curse evoked by Adam's fall, which came through
transgression, that by the strain of his muscles, by the sweat of his
brow, and by stress of his mind, shall he achieve. His word of command
is but a sound-wave in air, except as it is followed by labor. Through
the Spirit that emanates from the very Person of Deity, and which
pervades all space, the command of God is immediately operative.

Not man alone, but also the earth and all the elemental forces
pertaining thereto came under the Adamic curse[664] and as the soil no
longer brought forth only good and useful fruits, but gave of its
substance to nurture thorns and thistles, so the several forces of
nature ceased to be obedient to man as agents subject to his direct
control. What we call natural forces--heat, light, electricity, chemical
affinity--are but a few of the manifestations of eternal energy through
which the Creator's purposes are subserved; and these few, man is able
to direct and utilize only through mechanical contrivance and physical
adjustment. But the earth shall yet be "renewed and receive its
paradisaical glory"; then soil, water, air, and the forces acting upon
them, shall directly respond to the command of glorified man, as now
they obey the word of the Creator.[665]


QUIETING THE DEMONS.[666]

Jesus and the disciples with Him landed on the eastern or Perean side of
the lake, in a region known as the country of the Gadarenes or
Gergesenes. The precise spot has not been identified, but it was
evidently a country district apart from the towns.[667] As the party
left the boat, two maniacs, who were sorely tormented by evil spirits,
approached. Matthew states there were two; the other writers speak of
but one; it is possible that one of the afflicted pair was in a
condition so much worse than that of his companion that to him is
accorded greater prominence in the narrative; or, one may have run away
while the other remained. The demoniac was in a pitiful plight. His
frenzy had become so violent and the physical strength incident to his
mania so great that all attempts to hold him in captivity had failed. He
had been bound in chains and fetters, but these he had broken asunder by
the aid of demon power; and he had fled to the mountains, to the caverns
that served as tombs, and there he had lived more like a wild beast than
a man. Night and day his weird, terrifying shrieks had been heard, and
through dread of meeting him people traveled by other ways rather than
pass near his haunts. He wandered about naked, and in his madness often
gashed his flesh with sharp stones.

Seeing Jesus, the poor creature ran toward Him, and, impelled by the
power of his demon control, prostrated himself before Christ, the while
crying out with a loud voice: "What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou
Son of the most high God?" As Jesus commanded the evil spirits to
leave, one or more of them, through the voice of the man, pleaded to be
left alone, and with blasphemous presumption exclaimed: "I adjure thee
by God, that thou torment me not." Matthew records the further question
addressed to Jesus: "Art thou come hither to torment us before the
time?" The demons, by whom the man was possessed and controlled,
recognized the Master, whom they knew they had to obey; but they pleaded
to be left alone until the decreed time of their final punishment would
come.[668]

Jesus asked, "What is thy name?" and the demons within the man answered,
"My name is Legion, for we are many." The fact of the man's dual
consciousness or multi-personality is here apparent. So complete was his
possession by wicked spirits that he could no longer distinguish between
his individual personality and theirs. The devils implored that Jesus
would not banish them from that country; or as Luke records in words of
awful import, "that he would not command them to go out into the
deep."[669] In their wretched plight, and out of diabolical eagerness to
find abode in bodies of flesh even though of beasts, they begged that,
being compelled to leave the man they be allowed to enter a herd of hogs
feeding nearby. Jesus gave permission; the unclean demons entered the
swine; and the whole herd, numbering about two thousand, went wild,
stampeded in terror, ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and
were drowned. The swineherds were frightened, and, hastening to the
town, told what had happened to the hogs. People came out in crowds to
see for themselves; and all were astounded to behold the once wild man
of whom they had all been afraid, now clothed, and restored to a normal
state of mind, sitting quietly and reverently at the feet of Jesus. They
were afraid of One who could work such wonders, and, conscious of their
sinful unworthiness, begged Him to leave their country.[670]

The man who had been rid of the demons feared not; in his heart love and
gratitude superseded all other feelings; and as Jesus returned to the
boat he prayed that he might go also. But Jesus forbade, saying: "Go
home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done
for thee, and hath had compassion on thee." The man became a missionary,
not alone in his home town but throughout Decapolis, the region of the
ten cities; wherever he went he told of the marvelous change Jesus had
wrought on him.

The testimony of wicked and unclean spirits to the divinity of Christ as
the Son of God is not confined to this instance. We have already
considered the case of the demoniac in the synagog at Capernaum;[671]
and another instance appeared, when Jesus, withdrawing from the towns in
Galilee, betook Himself to the sea shore, and was followed by a great
multitude comprizing Galileans and Judeans, and people from Jerusalem
and Idumea, and from beyond Jordan (i.e. from Perea), and inhabitants of
Tyre and Sidon, amongst whom He had healed many of divers diseases; and
those who were in bondage to unclean spirits had fallen down and
worshiped Him; while the demons cried out: "Thou art the Son of
God."[672]

In the course of the short journey considered in this chapter, the power
of Jesus as Master of earth, men and devils, was manifest in miraculous
works of the most impressive kind. We cannot classify the Lord's
miracles as small and great, nor as easy and difficult of
accomplishment; what one may consider the least is to another of
profound import. The Lord's word was sufficient in every instance. To
the wind and the waves, and to the demon-ridden mind of the man
possessed, He had but to speak and be obeyed. "Peace, be still."


THE RAISING OF THE DAUGHTER OF JAIRUS.[673]

Jesus and His attendants recrossed the lake from the land of Gadara to
the vicinity of Capernaum, where He was received with acclamation by a
multitude of people, "for they were all waiting for him." Immediately
after landing, Jesus was approached by Jairus, one of the rulers of the
local synagog, who "besought him greatly, saying, My little daughter
lieth at the point of death: I pray thee, come and lay thy hands on her,
that she may be healed; and she shall live."

The fact of this man's coming to Jesus, with the spirit of faith and
supplication, is an evidence of the deep impression the ministry of
Christ had made even in priestly and ecclesiastical circles. Many of the
Jews, rulers and officials as well as the people in common, believed in
Jesus;[674] though few belonging to the upper classes were willing to
sacrifice prestige and popularity by acknowledging their discipleship.
That Jairus, one of the rulers of the synagog, came only when impelled
by grief over the impending death of his only daughter, a girl of twelve
years, is no evidence that he had not before become a believer;
certainly at this time his faith was genuine and his trust sincere, as
the circumstances of the narrative prove. He approached Jesus with the
reverence due One whom he considered able to grant what he asked, and
fell at the Lord's feet, or as Matthew says, worshiped Him. When the man
had started from his home to seek aid of Jesus, the maiden was at the
point of death; he feared lest she had died in the interval. In the very
brief account given in the first Gospel, he is reported as saying to
Jesus: "My daughter is even now dead: but come and lay thy hand upon her
and she shall live."[675] Jesus went with the imploring father, and many
followed.

On the way to the house an incident occurred to hinder progress. A
sorely afflicted woman was healed, under circumstances of peculiar
interest; this occurrence we shall consider presently. No intimation is
given that Jairus showed impatience or displeasure over the delay; he
had placed trust in the Master and awaited His time and pleasure; and
while Christ was engaged in the matter of the suffering woman,
messengers came from the ruler's house with the saddening word that the
girl was dead. We may infer that even these dread tidings of certainty
failed to destroy the man's faith; he seems to have still looked to the
Lord for help, and those who had brought the message asked, "Why
troublest thou the Master any further?" Jesus heard what was said, and
sustained the man's sorely-taxed faith by the encouraging behest: "Be
not afraid, only believe." Jesus permitted none of His followers save
three of the apostles to enter the house with Himself and the bereaved
but trusting father. Peter and the two brothers James and John were
admitted.

The house was no place of such respectful silence or subdued quiet as we
now consider appropriate to the time and place of death; on the contrary
it was a scene of tumult, but that condition was customary in the
orthodox observances of mourning at the time.[676] Professional
mourners, including singers of weird dirges, and minstrels who made
great noise with flutes and other instruments, had already been summoned
to the house. To all such Jesus said, on entering: "Why make ye this
ado, and weep? the damsel is not dead but sleepeth." It was in effect a
repetition of His command uttered on a then recent occasion--Peace, be
still. His words drew scorn and ridicule from those who were paid for
the noise they made, and who, if what He said proved true, would lose
this opportunity of professional service. Moreover, they knew the maid
was dead; preparations for the funeral, which custom required should
follow death as speedily as possible, were already in progress. Jesus
ordered these people out, and restored peace to the house.[677] He then
entered the death chamber, accompanied only by the three apostles and
the parents of the girl. Taking the dead maiden by the hand He "said
unto her, Talitha cumi; which is, being interpreted, Damsel, I say unto
thee, arise." To the astonishment of all but the Lord, the girl arose,
left her bed, and walked. Jesus directed that food be given her, as
bodily needs, suspended by death, had returned with the girl's renewal
of life.

The Lord imposed an obligation of secrecy, charging all present to
refrain from telling what they had seen. The reasons for this injunction
are not stated. In some other instances a similar instruction was given
to those who had been blessed by Christ's ministrations; while on many
occasions of healing no such instructions are recorded, and in one case
at least the man who had been relieved of demons was told to go and tell
how great a thing had been done for him.[678] In His own wisdom Christ
knew when to prudently forbid and when to permit publication of His
doings. Though the grateful parents, the girl herself, and the three
apostles who had been witnesses of the restoration, may all have been
loyal to the Lord's injunction of silence, the fact that the maiden had
been raised to life could not be kept secret, and the means by which so
great a wonder had been wrought would certainly be inquired into. The
minstrels and the wailers who had been expelled from the place while it
was yet a house of mourning, and who had scornfully laughed at the
Master's assertion that the maiden was asleep and not dead as they
thought, would undoubtedly, spread reports. It is not surprizing,
therefore, to read in Matthew's short version of the history, that the
fame of the miracle "went abroad into all that land."


RESTORATION TO LIFE AND RESURRECTION.

The vital distinction between a restoration of the dead to a resumption
of mortal life, and the resurrection of the body from death to a state
of immortality, must be thoughtfully heeded. In each of the instances
thus far considered--that of the raising of the dead man of Nain,[679]
and that of the daughter of Jairus, as also the raising of Lazarus to be
studied later--the miracle consisted in reuniting the spirit and the
body in a continuation of the interrupted course of mortal existence.
That the subject of each of these miracles had to subsequently die is
certain. Jesus Christ was the first of all men who have lived on earth
to come forth from the tomb an immortalized Being; He is therefore
properly designated as "the first fruits of them that slept."[680]

Though both Elijah and Elisha, many centuries prior to the time of
Christ, were instrumental in restoring life to the dead, the former to
the widow's son in Zareptha, the latter to the child of the Shunammite
woman,[681] in these earlier miracles the restoration was to mortal
existence, not to immortality. It is instructive to observe the
difference in the procedure of each of the Old Testament prophets
mentioned as compared with that of Christ in analogous miracles. By both
Elijah and Elisha the wonderful change was brought about only after long
and labored ministrations, and earnest invocation of the power and
intervention of Jehovah; but Jehovah, embodied in flesh as Jesus Christ,
did nothing outwardly but command, and the bonds of death were
immediately broken. He spoke in His own name and by inherent authority,
for by the power with which He was invested He held control of both life
and death.


A REMARKABLE HEALING BY THE WAY.[682]

While Jesus was walking to the house of Jairus with a great crowd of
people thronging about Him, the progress of the company was arrested by
another case of suffering. In the throng was a woman who for twelve
years had been afflicted with a serious ailment involving frequent
hemorrhage. She had spent in medical treatment all she had owned, and
"had suffered many things of many physicians," but had steadily grown
worse. She worked her way through the crowd, and, approaching Jesus from
behind, touched His robe; "For she said, If I may touch but his clothes
I shall be whole." The effect was more than magical; immediately she
felt the thrill of health throughout her body, and knew that she had
been healed of her affliction. Her object attained, the blessing she
sought being now secured, she tried to escape notice, by hastily
dropping back into the crowd. But her touch was not unheeded by the
Lord. He turned to look over the throng and asked, "Who touched my
clothes?" or as Luke puts it, "Who touched me?" As the people denied,
the impetuous Peter speaking for himself and the others said: "Master,
the multitude throng thee and press thee, and sayest thou, Who touched
me?" But Jesus answered: "Somebody hath touched me: for I perceive that
virtue is gone out of me."

The woman, finding that she could not escape identification, came
tremblingly forward, and, kneeling before the Lord, confessed what she
had done, her reason for so doing, and the beneficent result. If she had
expected censure her fears were promptly set at rest, for Jesus,
addressing her by a term of respect and kindness, said: "Daughter, be of
good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace," and as Mark
adds, "be whole of thy plague."

This woman's faith was sincere and free from guile, nevertheless it was
in a sense defective. She believed that the influence of Christ's
person, and even that attaching to His raiment, was a remedial agency,
ample to cure her malady; but she did not realize that the power to heal
was an inherent attribute to be exercized at His will, and as the
influence of faith might call it forth. True, her faith had already been
in part rewarded, but of greater worth to her than the physical cure of
her illness would be the assurance that the divine Healer had granted
the desire of her heart, and that the faith she had manifested was
accepted by Him. To correct her misapprehension and to confirm her
faith, Jesus gently subjected her to the necessary ordeal of confession,
which must have been made easier through her consciousness of the great
relief already experienced. He confirmed the healing and let her depart
with the comforting assurance that her recovery was permanent.

In contrast with the many cases of healing in connection with which the
Lord charged the beneficiaries that they should tell none how or by whom
they had been relieved, we see here that publicity was made sure by His
own action, and that too, when secrecy was desired by the recipient of
the blessing. The purposes and motives of Jesus may be but poorly
understood by man; but in this woman's case we see the possibility of
stories strange and untrue getting afloat, and it appears to have been
the wiser course to make plain the truth then and there. Moreover the
spiritual worth of the miracle was greatly enhanced by the woman's
confession and by the Lord's gracious assurance.

Observe the significant assertion, "Thy faith hath made thee whole."
Faith is of itself a principle of power;[683] and by its presence or
absence, by its fulness or paucity, even the Lord was and is influenced,
and in great measure controlled, in the bestowal or withholding of
blessings; for He ministers according to law, and not with caprice or
uncertainty. We read that at a certain time and place Jesus "could there
do no mighty work" because of the people's unbelief.[684] Modern
revelation specifies that faith to be healed is one of the gifts of the
Spirit, analogous to the manifestations of faith in the work of healing
others through the exercize of the power of the Holy Priesthood.[685]

Our Lord's inquiry as to who had touched Him in the throng affords us
another example of His asking questions in pursuance of a purpose, when
He could readily have determined the facts directly and without aid from
others. There was a special purpose in the question, as every teacher
finds a means of instruction in questioning his pupils.[686] But there
is in Christ's question, "Who touched me?" a deeper significance than
could inhere in a simple inquiry as to the identity of an individual;
and this is implied in the Lord's further words: "Somebody hath touched
me: for I perceive that virtue is gone out of me." The usual external
act by which His miracles were wrought was a word or a command,
sometimes accompanied by the laying on of hands, or by some other
physical ministration as in anointing the eyes of a blind man.[687] That
there was an actual giving of His own strength to the afflicted whom He
healed is evident from the present instance. Passive belief on the part
of a would-be recipient of blessing is insufficient; only when it is
vitalized into active faith is it a power; so also of one who ministers
in the authority given of God, mental and spiritual energy must be
operative if the service is to be effective.


THE BLIND SEE AND THE DUMB SPEAK.[688]

Two other instances of miraculous healing are chronicled by Matthew as
closely following the raising of the daughter of Jairus. As Jesus passed
down the streets of Capernaum, presumably on His departure from the
house of the ruler of the synagog, two blind men followed Him, crying
out: "Thou son of David, have mercy on us." This title of address was
voiced by others at sundry times, and in no case do we find record of
our Lord disclaiming it or objecting to its use.[689] Jesus paused not
to heed this call of the blind, and the two sightless men followed Him,
even entering the house after Him. Then He spoke to them, asking:
"Believe ye that I am able to do this?" And they replied, "Yea, Lord."
Their persistency in following the Lord was evidence of their belief
that in some way, though to them unknown and mysterious, He could help
them; and they promptly and openly confessed that belief. Our Lord
touched their eyes, saying: "According to your faith be it unto you."
The effect was immediate; their eyes were opened. They were explicitly
instructed to say nothing of the matter to others; but, rejoicing in the
inestimable blessing of sight, they "spread abroad his fame in all that
country." So far as we can unravel the uncertain threads of sequence in
the works of Christ, this is the earliest instance, recorded with
attendant details, of His giving sight to the blind. Many remarkable
cases follow.[690]

It is worthy of note that in blessing the sightless by the exercize of
His healing power, Jesus usually ministered by some physical contact in
addition to uttering the authoritative words of command or assurance. In
this instance, as also in that of two blind men who sat by the wayside,
He touched the sightless eyes; in the giving of sight to the blind
indigent in Jerusalem He anointed the man's eyes with clay; to the eyes
of another He applied saliva.[691] An analogous circumstance is found in
the healing of one who was deaf and defective of speech, in which
instance the Lord put His fingers into the man's ears and touched his
tongue.[692] In no case can such treatment be regarded as medicinal or
therapeutic. Christ was not a physician who relied upon curative
substances, nor a surgeon to perform physical operations; His healings
were the natural results of the application of a power of His own. It is
conceivable that confidence, which is a stepping-stone to belief, as
that in turn is to faith, may have been encouraged by these physical
ministrations, strengthened, and advanced to a higher and more abiding
trust in Christ, on the part of the afflicted who had not sight to look
upon the Master's face and derive inspiration therefrom, nor hearing to
hear His uplifting words. There is apparent not alone an entire absence
of formula and formalism in His ministration, but a lack of uniformity
of procedure quite as impressive.

As the two men, once sightless but now seeing, departed, others came,
bringing a dumb friend whose affliction seems to have been primarily due
to the malignant influence of an evil spirit rather than to any organic
defect. Jesus rebuked the wicked spirit--cast out the demon that had
obsessed the afflicted one and held him in the tyranny of
speechlessness. The man's tongue was loosened, he was freed from the
evil incubus, and was no longer dumb.[693]


NOTES TO CHAPTER 20.

1. Storms on the Lake of Galilee.--It is a matter of record that sudden
and violent storms are common on the lake or sea of Galilee; and the
tempest that was quieted by the Lord's word of command was of itself no
unusual phenomenon, except perhaps in its intensity. Another incident
connected with a storm on this small body of water is of scriptural
record, and will be considered later in the text (Matt. 14:22-26; Mark
6:45-56; John 6:15-21). Dr. Thompson (_The Land and the Book_ ii:32)
gives a description founded on his personal experience on the shores of
the lake: "I spent a night in that Wady Shukaiyif, some three miles up
it, to the left of us. The sun had scarcely set when the wind began to
rush down toward the lake, and it continued all night long with
constantly increasing violence, so that when we reached the shore next
morning the face of the lake was a huge boiling caldron. The wind howled
down every wady from the north-east and east with such fury that no
efforts of rowers could have brought a boat to shore at any point along
that coast.... To understand the causes of these sudden and violent
tempests, we must remember that the lake lies low--six hundred feet
lower than the ocean; that the vast and naked plateaus of the Jaulan
rise to a great height, spreading backward to the wilds of the Hauran,
and upward to snowy Hermon; and the water-courses have cut out profound
ravines and wild gorges, converging to the head of this lake, and that
these act like gigantic funnels to draw down the cold winds from the
mountains."

2. The Earth Before and After Its Regeneration.--That the earth itself
fell under the curse incident to the fall of the first parents of the
race, and that even as man shall be redeemed so shall the earth be
regenerated, is implied in Paul's words: "Because the creature itself
also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious
liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole Creation
groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they,
but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we
ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the
redemption of our body" (Rom. 8:21-23). The present author has written
elsewhere: "According to the scriptures, the earth has to undergo a
change analogous to death, and to be regenerated in a manner comparable
to a resurrection. References to the elements melting with heat, and to
the earth being consumed and passing away, such as occur in many
scriptures already cited, are suggestive of death; and the new earth,
really the renewed or regenerated planet, which is to result, may be
compared with a resurrected organism. The change has been likened unto a
transfiguration (Doc. and Cov. 63:20, 21). Every created thing has been
made for a purpose; and everything that fills the measure of its
creation is to be advanced in the scale of progression, be it an atom or
a world, an animalcule, or man--the direct and literal offspring of
Deity. In speaking of the degrees of glory provided for His creations,
and of the laws of regeneration and sanctification, the Lord, in a
revelation dated 1832, speaks plainly of the approaching death and
subsequent quickening of the earth. These are his words:--'And again,
verily I say unto you, the earth abideth the law of a celestial kingdom,
for it filleth the measure of its creation, and transgresseth not the
law. Wherefore it shall be sanctified; yea, notwithstanding it shall
die, it shall be quickened again, and shall abide the power by which it
is quickened, and the righteous shall inherit it.' (Doc. and Cov.
88:25-26.)"

The vital Spirit that emanates from God and is coextensive with space,
may operate directly and with as positive effect upon inanimate things,
and upon energy in its diverse manifestations known to us as the forces
of nature, as upon organized intelligences, whether yet unembodied, in
the flesh, or disembodied. Thus, the Lord may speak directly to the
earth, the air, the sea, and be heard and obeyed, for the divine
affluence, which is the sum of all energy and power may and does operate
throughout the universe. In the course of a revelation from God to
Enoch, the earth is personified, and her groans and lamentations over
the wickedness of men were heard by the prophet: "And it came to pass
that Enoch looked upon the earth; and he heard a voice from the bowels
thereof, saying: Wo, wo is me, the mother of men; I am pained, I am
weary, because of the wickedness of my children. When shall I rest, and
be cleansed from the filthiness which is gone forth out of me? When will
my Creator sanctify me, that I may rest, and righteousness for a season
abide upon my face?" Enoch pleaded: "O Lord, wilt thou not have
compassion upon the earth?" Following further revelation as to the then
future course of mankind in sin and in the rejection of the Messiah who
was to be sent, the prophet wept with anguish, and asked of God "When
shall the earth rest?" It was then shown unto him that the crucified
Christ shall return to earth and establish a millennial reign of peace:
"And the Lord said unto Enoch: As I live, even so will I come in the
last days, in the days of wickedness and vengeance, to fulfil the oath
which I have made unto you concerning the children of Noah; and the day
shall come that the earth shall rest, but before that day the heavens
shall be darkened, and a veil of darkness shall cover the earth; and the
heavens shall shake, and also the earth; and great tribulations shall be
among the children of men." And the glorious assurance followed "that
for the space of a thousand years the earth shall rest." (P. of G.P.,
Moses 7:48, 49, 58, 60, 61, 64.)

A partial description of the earth in its regenerated state has been
given through the prophet Joseph Smith in the present dispensation:
"This earth, in its sanctified and immortal state, will be made like
unto crystal and will be a Urim and Thummim to the inhabitants who dwell
thereon, whereby all things pertaining to an inferior kingdom, or all
kingdoms of a lower order, will be manifest to those who dwell on it;
and this earth will be Christ's." (Doc. and Cov. 130:9).

That Jesus Christ, in the exercize of His powers of Godship, should
speak directly to the wind or the sea and be obeyed, is no less truly in
accord with the natural law of heaven, than that He should effectively
command a man or an unembodied spirit. That through faith even mortal
man may set in operation the forces that act upon matter and with
assurance of stupendous results has been explicitly declared by Jesus
Christ: "For verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of
mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder
place; and it shill remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you"
(Matt. 17:20; compare Mark 11:23; Luke 17:6).

3. The Land of the Gergesenes.--Attempts have been made to discredit the
account of Christ's healing the demoniac in "the country of the
Gadarenes" (Mark 5:1; Luke 8:26) on the claim that the ancient town of
Gadara the capital of the district (see Josephus, Wars, iii, 7:1), was
too far inland to make possible the precipitous dash of the swine into
the sea from that place. Others lay stress on the fact that Matthew
differs from the two other Gospel-historians, in specifying "the country
of the Gergesenes" (8:28). As stated in the text, a whole region or
section is referred to, not a town. The keepers of the swine ran off to
the towns to report the disaster that had befallen their herd. In that
district of Perea there were at the time towns named respectively
Gadara, Gerasa, and Gergesa; the region in general, therefore, could
properly be called the land of the Gadarenes or of the Gergesenes.
Farrar (_Life of Christ_, p. 254 note) says: "After the researches of
Dr. Thompson (_The Land and the Book_, ii:25), there can be no doubt
that Gergesa ... was the name of a little town nearly opposite
Capernaum, the ruined site of which is still called Kerza or Gersa by
the Bedawin. The existence of this little town was apparently known both
to Origen, who first introduced the reading, and to Eusebius and Jerome;
and in their day a steep declivity near it, where the hills approach to
within a little distance from the lake, was pointed out as the scene of
the miracle."

4. Jesus Entreated to Leave the Country.--The people were frightened
over the power possessed by Jesus, as demonstrated in the cure of the
demoniac, and in the destruction of the swine, which latter occurrence,
however, was not in pursuance of His command. It was the fear that
sinful men feel in the presence of the Righteous. They were not prepared
for other manifestations of divine power, and they dreaded to think who
among them might be directly affected thereby should it be exerted. We
must judge the people mercifully, however, if at all. They were in part
heathen, and had but superstitious conceptions of Deity. Their prayer
that Jesus leave them brings to mind the ejaculation of Simon Peter in
his witnessing one of Christ's miracles: "Depart from me: for I am a
sinful man, O Lord" (Luke 5:8).

5. "Dead," or "At the Point of Death."--According to Luke (8:42) the
daughter of Jairus "lay a dying" when the grief-stricken father sought
help of the Lord; Mark (5:23) reports the man as stating that the girl
lay "at the point of death." These two accounts agree; but Matthew
(9:18) represents the father as saying: "My daughter is even now dead."
Unbelieving critics have dwelt at length on what they designate an
inconsistency if not a contradiction in these versions; and yet both
accounts embodied in the three records are plainly true. The maid was
seemingly breathing her last, she was in the very throes of death, when
the father hurried away. Before he met Jesus he felt that the end had
probably come; nevertheless his faith endured. His words attest his
trust, that even had his daughter actually died since he left her side,
the Master could recall her to life. He was in a state of frenzied
grief, and still his faith held true.

6. Mourning Customs Among Orientals.--Observances that to us seem
strange, weird, and out of place, prevailed from very early times among
oriental peoples, some of which customs were common to the Jews in the
days of Christ. Noise and tumult, including screeching lamentations by
members of the bereaved family and by professional mourners, as also the
din of instruments, were usual accompaniments of mourning. Geikie,
citing Buxtorf's quotation from the Talmud, gives place to the
following: "Even a poor Israelite was required to have not fewer than
two flute players and one mourning woman at the death of his wife; but
if he be rich all things are to be done according to his quality." In
Smith's _Dictionary of the Bible_, we read: "The number of words (about
eleven Hebrew and as many Greek) employed in scripture to express the
various actions characteristic of mourning, shows in a great degree the
nature of Jewish customs in this respect. They appear to have consisted
chiefly in the following particulars: (1) Beating upon the breast or
other parts of the body. (2) Weeping and screaming in an excessive
degree. (3) Wearing sad-colored garments. (4) Songs of lamentation. (5)
Funeral feasts. (6) Employment of persons, especially women, to lament.
One marked feature of oriental mourning is what may be called its
studied publicity, and the careful observance of prescribed ceremonies
(Gen. 23:2; Job 1:20; 2:8; Isa. 15:3; etc.)."

7. "Not Dead, but Sleepeth."--That the daughter of Jairus was dead is
placed beyond reasonable doubt by the scriptural record. Our Lord's
statement to the noisy mourners that "the damsel is not dead but
sleepeth" told that her sleep was to be of short duration. It was a
rabbinical and common custom of the time to speak of death as a sleep,
and those who laughed Jesus to scorn for His statement chose to construe
His words in a sense of such literalism as the context scarcely
warrants. It is noticeable that the Lord used a strictly equivalent
expression with respect to the death of Lazarus. "Our friend Lazarus
sleepeth," said He, "but I go that I may awake him out of sleep." The
literal construction placed upon these words by the apostles evoked the
plain declaration "Lazarus is dead" (John 11:11, 14). In the Talmud
death is repeatedly designated as sleep--hundreds of times says
Lightfoot, a recognized authority on Hebrew literature.

8. Why Did Jesus Make Inquiries?--We have already considered many
instances of Christ's possession of what man would call superhuman
knowledge, extending even to the reading of unuttered thoughts. Some
people find difficulty in reconciling this superior quality with the
fact that Jesus often asked questions even on matters of minor
circumstance. We should realize that even complete knowledge may not
preclude the propriety of making inquiries, and, moreover, that even
omniscience does not imply ever-present consciousness of all that is.
Undoubtedly through his paternal heritage of divine attributes, Jesus
had the power of ascertaining for Himself, by means not possessed by
others, any facts He might have desired to know; nevertheless we find
Him repeatedly asking questions on circumstantial detail (Mark 9:21;
8:27; Matt. 16:13; Luke 8:45); and this He did even after His
resurrection (Luke 24:41; John 21:5; B. of M., 3 Nephi 17:7).

That catechization is one of the most effective means of mind
development is exampled in the methods followed by the best of human
teachers. Trench (_Notes on the Miracles_, pp. 148-9), thus
instructively points the lesson as illustrated by our Lord's question
concerning the woman who was healed of her issue of blood: With little
force "can it be urged that it would have been inconsistent with
absolute truth for the Lord to profess ignorance, and to ask the
question which He did ask, if all the while He perfectly knew what He
thus seemed implicitly to say that He did not know. A father among his
children, and demanding Who committed this fault? himself conscious,
even while he asks, but at the same time willing to bring the culprit to
a full confession, and so to put him in a pardonable state, can he be
said, in any way to violate the law of the highest truth? The same
offense might be found in Elisha's 'Whence comest thou, Gehazi?' (2
Kings 5:25) when his heart went with his servant all the way that he had
gone; and even in the question of God Himself to Adam, 'Where art thou?'
(Gen. 3:9), and to Cain, 'Where is Abel thy brother?' (Gen. 4:9). In
every case there is a moral purpose in the question, an opportunity
given even at the latest moment for making good at least a part of the
error by its unreserved confession."

9. The Blind See.--In his treatment of the miraculous healing of the two
blind men who had followed Jesus into the house, Trench (_Notes on the
Miracles of our Lord_, p. 152) says: "We have here the first of those
many healings of the blind recorded (Matt. 12:22; 20:30; 21:14; John 9)
or alluded to (Matt. 11:5) in the Gospels; each of them a literal
fulfilment of that prophetic word of Isaiah concerning the days of
Messiah: 'Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened' (35:5). Frequent
as these miracles are, they yet will none of them be found without
distinguishing features of their own. That they should be so numerous is
nothing wonderful, whether we regard the fact from a natural or
spiritual point of view. Regarded naturally they need not surprize us if
we keep in mind how far commoner a calamity is blindness in the East
than with us. Regarded from a spiritual point of view we have only to
remember how commonly sin is contemplated in Scripture as a moral
blindness (Deut. 28:29; Isa. 59:10; Job 12:25; Zeph. 1:17), and
deliverance from sin as a removal of this blindness (Isa. 6:9, 10; 43:8;
Eph. 1:18; Matt. 15:14); and we shall at once perceive how fit it was
that He who was the 'light of the world' should often accomplish works
which symbolized so well that higher work which He came into the world
to accomplish."

10. Imputation of Satanic Agency.--Observe that in the matter of healing
the dumb demoniac referred to in the text, Christ was charged with being
in league with the devil. Although the people, impressed by the
manifestation of divine power in the healing, exclaimed in reverence,
"It was never so seen in Israel," the Pharisees, intent on counteracting
the good effect of the Lord's miraculous ministration, said "He casteth
out devils through the prince of the devils." (Matt. 9:32-34.) For
further treatment of this inconsistent and, strictly speaking
blasphemous charge, see pages 265-269.

FOOTNOTES:

[657] Mark 4:35.

[658] "Articles of Faith," x:1-20--"Men called of God."

[659] Page 87.

[660] Luke 9:57-62; see also Matt. 8:19-22.

[661] Matt 8:23-27; Mark 4:35-41; Luke 8:22-25.

[662] Note 1, end of chapter.

[663] Gen. 1:28; P. of G.P., Moses 2:26; 5:1.

[664] Gen. 3:17-19.

[665] Note 2, end of chapter.

[666] Matt. 8:28-34; Mark 5:1-19; Luke 8:26-39.

[667] Note 3, end of chapter.

[668] Compare Rev. 20:3.

[669] Revised version, "abyss" instead of "deep."

[670] Note 4, end of chapter.

[671] Mark 1:24; Luke 4:34, also verse 41; see page 181 herein.

[672] Mark 3:7-11; compare Luke 6:17-19. See page 187.

[673] Mark 5:22-24, 35-43; Luke 8:41, 42, 49-56; Matt. 9:18, 19, 23-26.

[674] John 11:45; compare 8:30; 10:42.

[675] Note 5, end of chapter.

[676] Note 6, end of chapter.

[677] Note 7, end of chapter.

[678] Mark 5:19-20; Luke 8:39. Page 312.

[679] Page 251.

[680] 1 Cor. 15:20, 23; see also Acts 26:23; Col. 1:18; Rev. 1:5; and
"Articles of Faith," xxi:24-27.

[681] 1 Kings 17:17-24; 2 Kings 4:31-37.

[682] Mark 5:25-34; Matt. 9:20-22; Luke 8:43-48.

[683] "Articles of Faith," v:11-13.

[684] Mark 6:5, 6; compare Matt. 13:58.

[685] Doc. and Cov. 46:19; compare Matt. 8:10; 9:28, 29. Acts 14:9.

[686] Note 8, end of chapter.

[687] Matt. 8:3; Luke 4:40; 13:13; John 9:6; compare Mark 6:5; 7:33;
8:23.

[688] Matt. 9:27-35.

[689] Matt. 15:22; 20:30, 31; Mark 10:47, 48; Luke 18:38, 39.

[690] Note 9, end of chapter.

[691] Matt. 20:30-34; John 9:6; Mark 8:23.

[692] Mark 7:32-37.

[693] Matt. 9:32, 33. Note 10, end of chapter.




CHAPTER 21.

THE APOSTOLIC MISSION, AND EVENTS RELATED THERETO.


JESUS AGAIN IN NAZARETH.[694]

It will be remembered that, in the early days of His public ministry,
Jesus had been rejected by the people of Nazareth, who thrust Him out
from their synagog and tried to kill Him.[695] It appears that
subsequent to the events noted in our last chapter, He returned to the
town of His youth, and again raised His voice in the synagog, thus
mercifully affording the people another opportunity to learn and accept
the truth. The Nazarenes, as they had done before, now again openly
expressed their astonishment at the words He spoke, and at the many
miraculous works He had wrought; nevertheless they rejected Him anew,
for He came not as they expected the Messiah to come; and they refused
to know Him save as "the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of
James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon;" all of whom were common folk
as were also His sisters. "And they were offended at him."[696] Jesus
reminded them of the proverb then current among the people, "A prophet
is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin,
and in his own house." Their unbelief was so dense as to cause Him to
marvel;[697] and because of their lack of faith He was unable to
accomplish any great work except to heal a few exceptional believers
upon whom He laid His hands. Leaving Nazareth, He entered upon His third
tour of the Galilean towns and villages, preaching and teaching as He
went.[698]


THE TWELVE CHARGED AND SENT.[699]

About this time, also, Jesus inaugurated a notable expansion of the
ministry of the kingdom, by sending forth the Twelve on assigned
missions. Since their ordination the apostles had been with their Lord,
learning from Him by public discourse and private exposition, and
acquiring invaluable experience and training through that privileged and
blessed companionship. The purpose of their ordination was
specified--"that they should be with him, and that he might send them
forth to preach."[700] They had been pupils under the Master's watchful
guidance for many months; and now they were called to enter upon the
duties of their calling as preachers of the gospel and individual
witnesses of the Christ. By way of final preparation they were
specifically and solemnly charged.[701] Some of the instructions given
them on this occasion had particular reference to their first mission,
from which they would in due time return and report; other directions
and admonitions were to be of effect throughout their ministry, even
after the Lord's ascension.

They were directed to confine their ministrations for the time being "to
the lost sheep of the house of Israel," and not to open a propaganda
among the Gentiles,[702] nor even in Samaritan cities. This was a
temporary restriction, imposed in wisdom and prudence; later, as we
shall see, they were directed to preach among all nations, with the
world for their field.[703] The subject of their discourses was to be
that upon which they had heard the Master preach--"the kingdom of heaven
is at hand." They were to exercize the authority of the Holy Priesthood
as conferred upon them by ordination; it was a specified part of their
mission to "heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out
devils," as occasion presented itself; and they were commanded to give
freely, even as they had freely received. Personal comfort and bodily
needs they were not to provide for; the people were to be proved as to
their willingness to receive and assist those who came in the name of
the Lord; and the apostles themselves were to learn to rely upon a
Provider more to be trusted than man; therefore money, extra clothing,
and things of mere convenience were to be left behind. In the several
towns they entered they were to seek entertainment and leave their
blessing upon every worthy family into which they were received. If they
found themselves rejected by a household or by a town as a whole, they
were to shake the dust from their feet on leaving, as a testimony
against the people;[704] and it was decreed that, in the day of
judgment, the place so denounced would fare worse than wicked Sodom and
Gomorrha upon which fire from heaven had descended.

The apostles were told to be prudent, to give no needless offense, but
to be wise as serpents, and harmless as doves; for they were sent forth
as sheep into the midst of wolves. They were not to recklessly entrust
themselves to the power of men; for wicked men would persecute them,
seek to arraign them before councils and courts, and to afflict them in
the synagogs. Moreover they might expect to be brought before governors
and kings, under which extreme conditions, they were to rely upon divine
inspiration as to what they should say, and not depend upon their own
wisdom in preparation and premeditation; "For," said the Master, "it is
not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in
you."[705]

They were not to trust even the claims of kinship for protection, for
families would be divided over the truth, brother against brother,
children against parents, and the resulting strife would be deadly.
These servants of Christ were told that they would be hated of all men,
but were assured that their sufferings were to be for His name's sake.
They were to withdraw from the cities that persecuted them, and go to
others; and the Lord would follow them, even before they would be able
to complete the circuit of the cities of Israel. They were admonished to
humility, and were always to remember that they were servants, who ought
not to expect to escape when even their Master was assailed.
Nevertheless they were to be fearless, hesitating not to preach the
gospel in plainness; for the most their persecutors could do was to kill
the body, which fate was as nothing compared to that of suffering
destruction of the soul in hell.

Assurance of the Father's watchful care was impressed upon them by the
simple reminder that though sparrows were sold two for a farthing, and
yet not a sparrow could be sacrificed without the Father's concern,
they, who were of more value than many sparrows, would not be forgotten.
They were solemnly warned that whosoever would freely confess the Christ
before men would be acknowledged by Him in the Father's presence, while
they who denied Him before men would be denied in heaven. And again they
were told that the gospel would bring strife, whereby households would
be disrupted; for the doctrine the Lord had taught would be as a sword
to cut and divide. The duties of their special ministry were to
supersede the love for kindred; they must be willing to leave father,
mother, son, or daughter, whatever the sacrifice; for, said Jesus "He
that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me."

The significance of this figure must have been solemnly impressive, and
actually terrifying; for the cross was a symbol of ignominy, extreme
suffering, and death. However, should they lose their lives for His
sake, they would find life eternal; while he who was not willing to die
in the Lord's service should lose his life in a sense at once literal
and awful. They were never to forget in whose name they were sent; and
were comforted with the assurance that whoever received them would be
rewarded as one who had received the Christ and His Father; and that
though the gift were only that of a cup of cold water, the giver should
in no wise lose his reward.

Thus charged and instructed, the twelve special witnesses of the Christ
set out upon their mission, traveling in pairs,[706] while Jesus
continued His personal ministry.


THE TWELVE RETURN.

We are without definite information as to the duration of the apostles'
first mission, and as to the extent of the field they traversed. The
period of their absence was marked by many important developments in the
individual labors of Jesus. It is probable that during this time our
Lord visited Jerusalem, on the occasion mentioned by John as coincident
with the unnamed feast of the Jews.[707] While the apostles were absent,
Jesus was visited by the Baptist's disciples, as we have already
seen[708] and the return of the Twelve occurred near the time of the
infamous execution of John the Baptist in prison.[709]

The missionary labors of the apostles greatly augmented the spread of
the new doctrine of the kingdom, and the name and works of Jesus were
proclaimed throughout the land. The people of Galilee were at that time
in a state of discontent threatening open insurrection against the
government; their unrest had been aggravated by the murder of the
Baptist. Herod Antipas, who had given the fatal order, trembled in his
palace. He heard, with fear due to inward conviction of guilt, of the
marvelous works wrought by Jesus, and in terror averred that Christ
could be none other than John Baptist returned from the tomb. His
fawning courtiers essayed to allay his fears by saying that Jesus was
Elijah, or some other of the prophets whose advent had been predicted;
but the conscience-stricken Herod said: "It is John whom I beheaded: he
is risen from the dead." Herod desired to see Jesus; perhaps through the
fascination of fear, or with the faint hope that sight of the renowned
Prophet of Nazareth might dispel his superstitious dread that the
murdered John had returned to life.

Upon the completion of their missionary tour, the apostles rejoined the
Master and reported to Him both what they had taught and what they had
done by way of authoritative ministration. They had preached the gospel
of repentance in all the cities, towns, and villages to which they had
gone; they had anointed with oil many afflicted ones, and the power of
their priesthood had been attested by consequent healings; even unclean
spirits and devils had been subject unto them.[710] They found Jesus
attended by great multitudes; and they had little opportunity of private
conference with Him; "for there were many coming and going, and they had
no leisure so much as to eat." The apostles must have heard in gladness
the Lord's invitation: "Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place,
and rest awhile." In quest of seclusion, Jesus and the Twelve withdrew
from the throng, and privately entered a boat in which they crossed to a
rural spot adjacent to the city of Bethsaida.[711] Their departure had
not been unobserved, however, and eager crowds hastened along the shore,
and partly around the northerly end of the lake, to join the party at
the landing place. From John's account we are led to infer that, before
the arrival of great numbers, Jesus and His companions had ascended the
hillside near the shore, where, for a short time they had rested. As the
multitude gathered on the lower slopes, our Lord looked upon them as
upon sheep without a shepherd; and, yielding to their desire and to His
own emotions of divine pity, He taught them many things, healed their
afflicted ones, and comforted their hearts with compassionate
tenderness.


FIVE THOUSAND FED IN THE DESERT.[712]

So intent were the people on hearing the Lord's words, and so concerned
in the miraculous relief resulting from His healing ministrations, that
they remained in the wilderness, oblivious to the passing of the hours,
until the evening approached. It was the springtime, near the recurrence
of the annual Passover festival, the season of grass and flowers.[713]
Jesus, realizing that the people were hungry, asked Philip, one of the
Twelve, "Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat?" The purpose of
the question was to test the apostle's faith; for the Lord had already
determined as to what was to be done. Philip's reply showed surprize at
the question, and conveyed his thought that the suggested undertaking
was impossible. "Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for
them, that every one of them may take a little," said he. Andrew added
that there was a lad present who had five barley loaves, and two small
fishes, "But," said he, "what are they among so many?"

Such is John's account; the other writers state that the apostles
reminded Jesus of the lateness of the hour, and urged that He send the
people away to seek for themselves food and lodging in the nearest
towns. It appears most probable that the conversation between Jesus and
Philip occurred earlier in the afternoon;[714] and that as the hours
sped, the Twelve became concerned and advized that the multitude be
dismissed. The Master's reply to the apostles was: "They need not
depart; give ye them to eat." In amazed wonder they replied: "We have
here but five loaves and two fishes;" and Andrew's despairing comment is
implied again--What are they among so many?

Jesus gave command, and the people seated themselves on the grass in
orderly array; they were grouped in fifties and hundreds; and it was
found that the multitude numbered about five thousand men, beside women
and children. Taking the loaves and the fishes, Jesus looked toward
heaven and pronounced a blessing upon the food; then, dividing the
provisions, He gave to the apostles severally, and they in turn
distributed to the multitude. The substance of both fish and bread
increased under the Master's touch; and the multitude feasted there in
the desert, until all were satisfied. To the disciples Jesus said:
"Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost;" and twelve
baskets were filled with the surplus.

As to the miracle itself, human knowledge is powerless to explain.
Though wrought on so great a scale, it is no more nor less inexplicable
than any other of the Lord's miraculous works. It was a manifestation of
creative power, by which material elements were organized and compounded
to serve a present and pressing need. The broken but unused portion
exceeded in bulk and weight the whole of the original little store. Our
Lord's direction to gather up the fragments was an impressive
object-lesson against waste; and it may have been to afford such lesson
that an excess was supplied. The fare was simple, yet nourishing,
wholesome and satisfying. Barley bread and fish constituted the usual
food of the poorer classes of the region. The conversion of water into
wine at Cana was a qualitative transmutation; the feeding of the
multitude involved a quantitative increase; who can say that one, or
which, of these miracles of provision was the more wonderful?

The multitude, now fed and filled, gave some consideration to the
miracle. In Jesus, by whom so great a work had been wrought, they
recognized One having superhuman powers. "This is of a truth the prophet
that should come into the world," said they--the Prophet whose coming
had been foretold by Moses and who should be like unto himself. Even as
Israel had been miraculously fed during the time of Moses, so now was
bread provided in the desert by this new Prophet. In their enthusiasm
the people proposed to proclaim Him king, and forcibly compel Him to
become their leader. Such was their gross conception of Messianic
supremacy. Jesus directed His disciples to depart by boat, while He
remained to dismiss the now excited multitude. The disciples hesitated
to leave their Master; but He constrained them and they obeyed. His
insistence, that the Twelve depart from both Himself and the multitude,
may have been due to a desire to protect the chosen disciples against
possible infection by the materialistic and unrighteous designs of the
throng to make Him king. By means that are not detailed, He caused the
people to disperse; and, as night came on, He found that for which He
had come in quest, solitude and quiet. Ascending the hill, He chose a
secluded place, and there remained in prayer during the greater part of
the night.


"IT IS I; BE NOT AFRAID."[715]

The return by boat proved to be a memorable journey for the disciples.
They encountered a boisterous head-wind, which of course rendered
impossible the use of sails; and though they toiled heavily at the oars
the vessel became practically unmanageable and wallowed in the midst of
the sea.[716] Though they had labored through the night they had
progressed less than four miles on their course; to turn and run before
the wind would have been to invite disastrous wreck; their sole hope lay
in their holding the vessel to the wind by sheer power of muscle. Jesus,
in His place of solitary retirement, was aware of their sad plight, and
along in the fourth watch,[717] that is, between three and six o'clock
in the morning, He came to their assistance, walking upon the
storm-tossed water as though treading solid ground. When the voyagers
caught sight of Him as He approached the ship in the faint light of the
near-spent night, they were overcome by superstitious fears, and cried
out in terror, thinking that they saw a ghostly apparition. "But
straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I; be
not afraid."

Relieved by these assuring words, Peter, impetuous and impulsive as
usual, cried out: "Lord, if[718] it be thou, bid me come unto thee on
the water." Jesus assenting, Peter descended from the ship and walked
toward his Master; but as the wind smote him and the waves rose about
him, his confidence wavered and he began to sink. Strong swimmer though
he was,[719] he gave way to fright, and cried, "Lord, save me." Jesus
caught him by the hand, saying: "O thou of little faith, wherefore didst
thou doubt?"

From Peter's remarkable experience, we learn that the power by which
Christ was able to walk the waves could be made operative in others,
provided only their faith was enduring. It was on Peter's own request
that he was permitted to attempt the feat. Had Jesus forbidden him, the
man's faith might have suffered a check; his attempt, though attended by
partial failure, was a demonstration of the efficacy of faith in the
Lord, such as no verbal teaching could ever have conveyed. Jesus and
Peter entered the vessel; immediately the wind ceased, and the boat soon
reached the shore. The amazement of the apostles, at this latest
manifestation of the Lord's control over the forces of nature, would
have been more akin to worship and less like terrified consternation had
they remembered the earlier wonders they had witnessed; but they had
forgotten even the miracle of the loaves, and their hearts had
hardened.[720] Marveling at the power of One to whom the wind-lashed sea
was a sustaining floor, the apostles bowed before the Lord in reverent
worship, saying: "Of a truth thou art the Son of God."[721]

Aside from the marvelous circumstances of its literal occurrence, the
miracle is rich in symbolism and suggestion. By what law or principle
the effect of gravitation was superseded, so that a human body could be
supported upon the watery surface, man is unable to affirm. The
phenomenon is a concrete demonstration of the great truth that faith is
a principle of power, whereby natural forces may be conditioned and
controlled.[722] Into every adult human life come experiences like unto
the battling of the storm-tossed voyagers with contrary winds and
threatening seas; ofttimes the night of struggle and danger is far
advanced before succor appears; and then, too frequently the saving aid
is mistaken for a greater terror. As came unto Peter and his terrified
companions in the midst of the turbulent waters, so comes to all who
toil in faith, the voice of the Deliverer--"It is I; be not afraid."


IN THE LAND OF GENNESARET.

The night voyage, in the course of which Jesus had reached the boat with
its frightened occupants while "in the midst of the sea," ended at some
point within the district known as the land of Gennesaret, which, as
generally believed, embraced the rich and fertile region in the vicinity
of Tiberias and Magdala. Of the natural beauties, for which the region
was famed much has been written.[723] Word of our Lord's presence there
spread rapidly, and, from "all that country round about" the people
flocked to Him, bringing their afflicted to receive of His beneficence
by word or touch. In the towns through which He walked, the sick were
laid in the streets that the blessing of His passing might fall upon
them; and many "besought him that they might touch if it were but the
border of his garment; and as many as touched him were made whole."[724]
Bounteously did He impart of His healing virtue to all who came asking
with faith and confidence. Thus, accompanied by the Twelve, He wended
His way northward to Capernaum, making the pathway bright by the
plentitude of His mercies.


IN SEARCH OF LOAVES AND FISHES.[725]

The multitude who, on the yesterday, had partaken of His bounty on the
other side of the lake, and who dispersed for the night after their
ineffectual attempt to force upon Him the dignity of earthly kingship,
were greatly surprized in the morning to discover that He had departed.
They had seen the disciples leave in the only boat there present, while
Jesus had remained on shore; and they knew that the night tempest had
precluded the possibility of other boats reaching the place.
Nevertheless their morning search for Him was futile; and they concluded
that He must have returned by land round the end of the lake. As the day
advanced some boats were sighted, bound for the western coast; these
they hailed, and, securing passage, crossed to Capernaum.

Their difficulty in locating Jesus was at an end, for His presence was
known throughout the town. Coming to Him, probably as He sat in the
synagog, for on this day He taught there, some of the most intrusive of
the crowd asked, brusquely and almost rudely, "Rabbi, when camest thou
hither?" To this impertinent inquiry Jesus deigned no direct reply; in
the miracle of the preceding night the people had no part, and no
account of our Lord's movements was given them. In tone of impressive
rebuke Jesus said unto them: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek
me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the
loaves, and were filled." Their concern was for the bread and fishes.
One who could supply them with victuals as He had done must not be lost
sight of.

The Master's rebuke was followed by admonition and instruction: "Labour
not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto
everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath
God the Father sealed." This contrast between material and spiritual
food they could not entirely fail to understand, and some of them asked
what they should do to serve God as Jesus required. The answer was:
"This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent."
That Jesus was referring to Himself, none could doubt; and straightway
they demanded of Him further evidence of His divine commission; they
would see greater signs. The miracle of the loaves and fishes was nearly
a day old; and its impressiveness as evidence of Messianic attributes
was waning. Moses had fed their fathers with manna in the desert, they
said; and plainly they regarded a continued daily supply as a greater
gift than a single meal of bread and fish, however much the latter may
have been appreciated in the exigency of hunger. Moreover, the manna was
heavenly food;[726] whereas the bread He had given them was of earth,
and only common barley bread at that. He must show them greater signs,
and give them richer provender, before they would accept Him as the One
whom they at first had taken Him to be and whom He now declared Himself
to be.


CHRIST, THE BREAD OF LIFE.[727]

"Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave
you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread
from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven,
and giveth life unto the world." They were mistaken in assuming that
Moses had given them manna; and after all, the manna had been but
ordinary food in that those who ate of it hungered again; but now the
Father offered them bread from heaven such as would insure them life.

As the Samaritan woman at the well, on hearing the Lord speak of water
that would satisfy once for all, had begged impulsively and with thought
only of physical convenience, "Sir, give me this water, that I thirst
not, neither come hither to draw,"[728] so these people, eager to secure
so satisfying a food as that of which Jesus spake, implored: "Lord,
evermore give us this bread." Perhaps this request was not wholly gross;
there may have been in the hearts of some of them at least a genuine
desire for spiritual nourishment. Jesus met their appeal with an
explanation: "I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never
hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst." He reminded
them that though they had seen Him they believed not His words; and
assured them that those who really accepted Him would do as the Father
directed. Then, without metaphor or symbolism, He affirmed: "I came down
from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me."
And the Father's will was that all who would accept the Son should have
everlasting life.

There were present in the synagog some of the rulers--Pharisees,
scribes, rabbis--and these, designated collectively as the Jews,
criticized Jesus, and murmured against Him because He had said, "I am
the bread which came down from heaven." They averred that He could do
nothing more than any man could do; He was known to them as the son of
Joseph, and as far as they knew was of ordinary earthly parentage, and
yet He had the temerity to declare that He had come down from heaven.
Chiefly to this class rather than to the promiscuous crowd who had
hastened after Him, Jesus appears to have addressed the remainder of His
discourse. He advized them to cease their murmurings; for it was a
certainty that they could not apprehend His meaning, and therefore would
not believe Him, unless they had been "taught of God" as the prophets
had written;[729] and none could come to Him in the sense of accepting
His saving gospel unless the Father drew them to the Son; and none save
those who were receptive, willing, and prepared, could be so drawn.[730]
Yet belief in the Son of God is an indispensable condition to salvation,
as Jesus indicated in His affirmation: "Verily, verily, I say unto you,
he that believeth on me hath everlasting life."

Then, reverting to the symbolism of the bread, He reiterated: "I am the
bread of life." In further elucidation He explained that while their
fathers did truly eat manna in the wilderness, yet they were dead;
whereas the bread of life of which He spake would insure eternal life
unto all who partook thereof. That bread, He averred, was His flesh.
Against this solemn avowal the Jews complained anew, and disputed among
themselves, some asking derisively: "How can this man give us his flesh
to eat." Emphasizing the doctrine, Jesus continued: "Verily, verily, I
say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his
blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my
blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For
my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my
flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the
living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth
me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came down from
heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth
of this bread shall live forever."

There was little excuse for the Jews pretending to understand that our
Lord meant an actual eating and drinking of His material flesh and
blood. The utterances to which they objected were far more readily
understood by them than they are by us on first reading; for the
representation of the law and of truth in general as bread, and the
acceptance thereof as a process of eating and drinking, were figures in
every-day use by the rabbis of that time.[731] Their failure to
comprehend the symbolism of Christ's doctrine was an act of will, not
the natural consequence of innocent ignorance. To eat the flesh and
drink the blood of Christ was and is to believe in and accept Him as the
literal Son of God and Savior of the world, and to obey His
commandments. By these means only may the Spirit of God become an
abiding part of man's individual being, even as the substance of the
food he eats is assimilated with the tissues of his body.

It is not sufficing to accept the precepts of Christ as we may adopt the
doctrines of scientists, philosophers, and savants, however great the
wisdom of these sages may be; for such acceptance is by mental assent or
deliberate exercize of will, and has relation to the doctrine only as
independent of the author. The teachings of Jesus Christ endure because
of their intrinsic worth; and many men respect His aphorisms, proverbs,
parables, and His profoundly philosophical precepts, who yet reject Him
as the Son of God, the Only Begotten in the flesh, the God-Man in whom
were united the attributes of Deity with those of humanity, the chosen
and foreordained Redeemer of mankind, through whom alone may salvation
be attained. But the figure used by Jesus--that of eating His flesh and
drinking His blood as typical of unqualified and absolute acceptance of
Himself as the Savior of men, is of superlative import; for thereby are
affirmed the divinity of His Person, and the fact of His pre-existent
and eternal Godship. The sacrament of the Lord's supper, established by
the Savior on the night of His betrayal, perpetuates the symbolism of
eating His flesh and drinking His blood, by the partaking of bread and
wine in remembrance of Him.[732] Acceptance of Jesus as the Christ
implies obedience to the laws and ordinances of His gospel; for to
profess the One and refuse the other is but to convict ourselves of
inconsistency, insincerity, and hypocrisy.


A CRUCIAL TEST--MANY TURN AWAY.[733]

The truth respecting Himself, as taught by the Lord in this, His last,
discourse in the synagog at Capernaum, proved to be a test of faith
through which many fell away. Not alone critical Jews of the official
class, whose hostility was openly avowed, but those who had professed
some measure of belief in Him were affected. "Many therefore of his
disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who
can hear it?" Jesus, cognizant of their disaffection, asked: "Doth this
offend you?" and added: "What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend
up where he was before?" His ascension, which was to follow His death
and resurrection, is here definitely implied. The spiritual significance
of His teachings was put beyond question by the explanation that only
through the Spirit could they comprehend; "Therefore," He added, "said I
unto you, that no man can come unto me except it were given unto him of
my Father."

Many deserted Him, and from that time sought Him no more. The occasion
was crucial; the effect was that of sifting and separation. The
portentous prediction of the Baptist-prophet had entered upon the stage
of fulfilment: "One mightier than I cometh ... Whose fan is in his hand,
and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the
garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."[734] The
fan was in operation, and much chaff was blown aside.

It appears that even the Twelve were unable to comprehend the deeper
meaning of these latest teachings; they were puzzled, though none
actually deserted. Nevertheless, the state of mind of some was such as
to evoke from Jesus the question: "Will ye also go away?" Peter,
speaking for himself and his brethren, answered with pathos and
conviction: "Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal
life."[735] The spirit of the Holy Apostleship was manifest in this
confession. Though they were unable to comprehend in fulness the
doctrine, they knew Jesus to be the Christ, and were faithful to Him
while others turned away into the dark depths of apostasy.

While Peter spoke for the apostolic body as a whole, there was among
them one who silently revolted; the treacherous Iscariot, who was in
worse plight than an openly avowed apostate, was there. The Lord knew
this man's heart, and said: "Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of
you is a devil?" The historian adds: "He spake of Judas Iscariot the son
of Simon: for he it was that should betray him, being one of the
twelve."


NOTES TO CHAPTER 21.

1. Jesus at Nazareth.--As no one of the Gospel-writers records two
occasions of our Lord's ministry in Nazareth, and as the separate
accounts appearing in the synoptic Gospels closely resemble one another
in a few particulars, some commentators hold that our Lord preached to
His townsmen in Nazareth and was rejected by them but once. Luke's
account (4:14-30) refers to an occasion immediately following the first
return of Jesus to Galilee after His baptism and temptations, and
directly preceding the preliminary call of the fishermen-disciples, who
afterward were numbered among the apostles. Matthew (13:53-58) and Mark
(6:1-6) chronicle a visit of Jesus to Nazareth later than the occasion
of the first teaching in parables, and the events immediately following
the same. We have good reason for accepting Luke's record as that of an
early incident, and the accounts given by Matthew and Mark as those of a
later visit.

2. Gentiles.--In a general way the Jews designated all other peoples as
Gentiles; though the same Hebrew word is rendered in the Old Testament
variously, as "Gentiles" (Gen. 10:5; Judg. 4:2, 13, 16; Isa. 11:10;
etc.), "nations" (Gen. 10:5, 20, 31, 32; 14:1, 9; etc.), and "heathen"
(Neh. 5:8; Psa. 2:1, 8, etc.), the essential element of designation
being that of foreigners. In Smith's _Dict. of the Bible_, we read "It
[the name 'Gentiles'] acquired an ethnographic and also an invidious
meaning, as other nations were idolatrous, rude, hostile, etc., yet the
Jews were able to use it in a purely technical, geographical sense, when
it was usually translated 'nations.'" Dr. Edward E. Nourse, writing for
the _Standard Bible Dictionary_, says: "In New Testament times, the Jew
divided mankind into three classes, (1) Jews, (2) Greeks (Hellenes, made
to include Romans, thus meaning the civilized peoples of the Roman
Empire, often rendered 'Gentiles' in Authorized Version), and (3)
barbarians (the uncivilized, Acts 28:4; Rom. 1:14; 1 Cor. 14:11)." The
injunction laid by Jesus upon the Twelve--"Go not into the way of the
Gentiles"--was to restrain them for the time being from attempting to
make converts among the Romans and Greeks, and to confine their ministry
to the people of Israel.

3. Shaking the Dust from the Feet.--To ceremonially shake the dust from
one's feet as a testimony against another was understood by the Jews to
symbolize a cessation of fellowship and a renunciation of all
responsibility for consequences that might follow. It became an
ordinance of accusation and testimony by the Lord's instructions to His
apostles as cited in the text. In the current dispensation, the Lord has
similarly directed His authorized servants to so testify against those
who wilfully and maliciously oppose the truth when authoritatively
presented (see Doc. and Cov. 24:15; 60:15; 75:20; 84:92; 99:4). The
responsibility of testifying before the Lord by this accusing symbol is
so great that the means may be employed only under unusual and extreme
conditions, as the Spirit of the Lord may direct.

4. The Two Bethsaidas.--It is held by many Bible students that
Bethsaida, in the desert region adjoining which Jesus and the Twelve
sought rest and seclusion, was the town of that name in Perea, on the
eastern side of the Jordan, and known more specifically as Bethsaida
Julias to distinguish it from Bethsaida in Galilee, which latter was
close to Capernaum. The Perean village of Bethsaida had been enlarged
and raised to the rank of a town by the tetrarch, Philip, and by him had
been named Julias in honor of Julia, daughter of the reigning emperor.
The Gospel narratives of the voyage by which Jesus and His companions
reached the place, and of the return therefrom, are conformable to the
assumption that Bethsaida Julias in Perea and not Bethsaida in Galilee,
was the town to which the "desert place" referred to was an outlying
district.

5. The Earlier and the Later Evening.--Matthew specifies two evenings of
the day on which the five thousand were fed; thus "when it was evening"
the disciples asked Jesus to send away the multitude; and later, after
the miraculous feeding and after the disciples had left by boat, and
after the crowds had departed, "when the evening was come" Jesus was
alone on the mountain (Matt. 14:15, 23; compare Mark 6:35, 47). Trench
_Notes on the Miracles_, (p. 217) says: "St. Matthew and St. Mark with
him, makes two evenings to this day--one which had already commenced
before the preparations for the feeding of the multitude had begun
(verse 15), the other now, when the disciples had entered into the ship
and set forth on their voyage (verse 23). And this was an ordinary way
of speaking among the Jews, the first evening being very much our
afternoon ... the second evening being the twilight, or from six o'clock
to twilight, on which absolute darkness followed." See Smith's _Dict._,
article "Chronology," from which the following excerpt is taken:
"'Between the two evenings' (margin of Exo. 12:6; Numb. 9:3; 28:4) is a
natural division between the late afternoon when the sun is low, and the
evening when his light has not wholly disappeared, the two evenings into
which the natural evening would be cut by the commencement of the civil
day if it began at sunset."

6. Watches of the Night.--During the greater part of Old Testament time,
the people of Israel divided the night into three watches, each of four
hours, such a period being that of individual sentinel duty. Before the
beginning of the Christian era, however, the Jews had adopted the Roman
order of four night-watches, each lasting three hours. These were
designated numerically, e.g. the fourth watch mentioned in the text (see
Matt. 14:25), or as even, midnight, cock-crowing, and morning (see Mark
13:35). The fourth watch was the last of the three-hour periods between
sunset and sunrise, or between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. and therefore extended
from 3 to 6 o'clock in the morning.

7. The Hem of the Garment.--The faith of those who believed that if they
could but touch the border of the Lord's garment they would be healed,
is in line with that of the woman who was healed of her long-standing
malady by so touching His robe (see Matt. 9:21; Mark 5:27, 28; Luke
8:44). The Jews regarded the border or hem of their outer robes as of
particular importance, because of the requirement made of Israel in
earlier days (Numb. 15:38, 39) that the border be fringed and supplied
with a band of blue, as a reminder to them of their obligations as the
covenant people. The desire to touch the hem of Christ's robe may have
been associated with this thought of sanctity attaching to the hem or
border.

8. Traditions Concerning Manna.--The supplying of manna to the
Israelites incident to the exodus and the long travel in the wilderness,
was rightly regarded as a work of surpassing wonder (Exo. 16:14-36;
Numb. 11:7-9; Deut. 8:3, 16; Josh. 5:12; Psa. 78:24, 25). Many
traditions, some of them perniciously erroneous, gathered about the
incident, and were transmitted with invented additions from generation
to generation. In the time of Christ the rabbinical teaching was that
the manna on which the fathers had fed was literally the food of the
angels, sent down from heaven; and that it was of diverse taste and
flavor to suit all ages, conditions, or desires; to one it tasted like
honey, to another as bread, etc.; but in all Gentile mouths it was
bitter. Moreover it was said that the Messiah would give an unfailing
supply of manna to Israel when He came amongst them. These erroneous
conceptions in part explain the demand of those who had been fed on
barley loaves and fishes, for a sign that would surpass the giving of
manna in the olden days, as evidence of the Messiahship of Jesus.

9. Faith a Gift of God.--"Though within the reach of all who diligently
strive to gain it, faith is nevertheless a divine gift, and can be
obtained only from God (Matt. 16:17; John 6:44, 65; Eph. 2:8; 1 Cor.
12:9; Rom. 12:3; Moroni 10:11). As is fitting for so priceless a pearl,
it is given to those only who show by their sincerity that they are
worthy of it, and who give promise of abiding by its dictates. Although
faith is called the first principle of the Gospel of Christ, though it
be in fact the foundation of all religion, yet even faith is preceded by
sincerity of disposition and humility of soul, whereby the word of God
may make an impression upon the heart (Rom. 10:17). No compulsion is
used in bringing men to a knowledge of God; yet, as fast as we open our
hearts to the influences of righteousness, the faith that leads to life
eternal will be given us of our Father."--_Articles of Faith_, v:16.

10. Spiritual Symbolism of Eating.--"The idea of eating, as a metaphor
for receiving spiritual benefit, was familiar to Christ's hearers, and
was as readily understood as our expressions--'devouring a book,' or
'drinking in' instruction. In Isaiah 3:1, the words 'the whole stay of
bread,' were explained by the rabbis as referring to their own teaching,
and they laid it down as a rule, that wherever, in Ecclesiastes,
allusion was made to food or drink, it meant study of the law, and the
practise of good works. It was a saying among them--'In the time of the
Messiah the Israelites will be fed by Him.' Nothing was more common in
the schools and synagogs than the phrases of eating and drinking, in a
metaphorical sense. 'Messiah is not likely to come to Israel,' said
Hillel, 'for they have already eaten Him'--that is, greedily received
His words--'in the days of Hezekiah.' A current conventionalism in the
synagogs was that the just would 'eat the Shekinah.' It was peculiar to
the Jews to be taught in such metaphorical language. Their rabbis never
spoke in plain words, and it is expressly said that Jesus submitted to
the popular taste, for 'without a parable spake he not unto them' (Mark
4:34)."--Geikie, _Life and Words of Christ_, vol. i, p. 184.

11. The Crucial Nature of the Discourse.--Commenting on the effect of
our Lord's discourse (John 6:26-71), Edersheim (vol. ii, p. 36) says:
"Here then we are at the parting of the two ways; and just because it
was the hour of decision, did Christ so clearly set forth the highest
truths concerning Himself, in opposition to the views which the
multitude entertained about the Messiah. The result was yet another and
a sorer defection. Upon this many of His disciples went back, and walked
no more with Him. Nay, the searching trial reached even unto the hearts
of the Twelve. Would they also go away? It was an anticipation of
Gethsemane--its first experience. But one thing kept them true. It was
the experience of the past. This was the basis of their present faith
and allegiance. They could not go back to their old past; they must
cleave to Him. So Peter spake it in name of them all: Lord, to whom
shall we go? Words of eternal life hast thou! Nay, and more than this,
as the result of what they had learned: And we have believed and know
that thou art the Holy One of God. It is thus, also, that many of us,
whose thoughts may have been sorely tossed, and whose foundations
terribly assailed, may have found our first resting-place in the
assured, unassailable spiritual experience of the past. Whither can we
go for words of eternal life, if not to Christ? If He fails us, then all
hope of the eternal is gone. But He has the words of eternal life--and
we believed when they first came to us; nay, we know that He is the Holy
One of God. And this conveys all that faith needs for further learning.
The rest will He show when He is transfigured in our sight. But of these
Twelve Christ knew one to be a devil--like that angel, fallen from
highest height to lowest depth. The apostasy of Judas had already
commenced in his heart. And the greater the popular expectancy and
disappointment had been, the greater the reaction and the enmity that
followed. The hour of decision was past, and the hand on the dial
pointed to the hour of His death."

FOOTNOTES:

[694] Matt. 13:53-58; Mark 6:1-6.

[695] Luke 4:28-30. See pages 179-181.

[696] Pages 254, 274.

[697] Note 2, page 273.

[698] Note 1, end of chapter.

[699] Matt. 10:5-42; Mark 6:7-13; Luke 9:1-5.

[700] Mark 3:14.

[701] Matt. 10:5-42; Mark 6:7-13; Luke 9:1-6.

[702] Note 2, end of chapter.

[703] Matt. 28:19; Mark 16:15. Page 695 herein.

[704] Note 3, end of chapter.

[705] Matt. 10:18-20; compare Mark 13:9; Luke 12:10-12.

[706] Mark 6:7.

[707] John 5; pages 206, 216.

[708] Matt. 11:2-19; Luke 7:18-34; see page 252.

[709] Page 259.

[710] Mark 6:12, 13; Luke 9:10. Note similar testimony of the Seventy,
who were sent out at a later time, and who returned rejoicing in the
power that had been manifest in their ministry; Luke 10:17.

[711] Note 4, end of chapter.

[712] John 6:5-14; compare Matt. 14:15-21; Mark 6:35-44; Luke 9:12-17.

[713] John 6:4; Matt. 14:19; Mark 6:39.

[714] Note 5, end of chapter.

[715] Matt. 14:22-33; compare Mark 6:45-52; John 6:15-21.

[716] Page 321.

[717] Note 6, end of chapter.

[718] That is to say, "since" or "inasmuch".

[719] Compare Peter's impetuous leap into the sea to reach the
resurrected Lord on the shore, John 21:7.

[720] Mark 6:52.

[721] Note that this is the first occurrence of this title in the
Synoptic Gospels, as applied to Jesus by mortals; compare an earlier
instance of its application by Nathanael, John 1:49.

[722] "Articles of Faith," v:11-13--"Faith a Principle of Power."

[723] Josephus, Wars. iii, 10:7, 8.

[724] Mark 6:53-56; compare Matt. 14:34-36. Note 7, end of chapter.

[725] John 6:22-27.

[726] Note 8, end of chapter.

[727] John 6:32-59.

[728] John 4:13-15; page 174 herein.

[729] Isa. 54:13; Jer. 31:34; Micah 4:2; compare Heb. 8:10; 10:16.

[730] Note 9, end of chapter.

[731] Note 10, end of chapter.

[732] Matt. 26:26-28; Mark 14:22-25; Luke 22:19, 20. Page 596.

[733] John 6:59-71.

[734] Luke 3:16, 17; Matt. 3:11, 12.

[735] Compare this confession (John 6:68, 69) with Peter's later
testimony (Matt. 16:16). Note 11, end of chapter.




CHAPTER 22.

A PERIOD OF DARKENING OPPOSITION.


Our Lord's last recorded discourse in the synagog at Capernaum, which
followed close upon the miracle of feeding the five thousand and that of
walking upon the water, marked the beginning of another epoch in the
development of His life's work. It was the season of an approaching
Passover festival;[736] and at the next succeeding Passover, one year
later, as shall be shown, Jesus would be betrayed to His death. At the
time of which we now speak, therefore, He was entering upon the last
year of His ministry in the flesh. But the significance of the event is
other and greater than that of a chronological datum-plane. The
circumstance marked the first stage of a turn in the tide of popular
regard toward Jesus, which theretofore had been increasing, and which
now began to ebb. True, He had been repeatedly criticized and openly
assailed by complaining Jews on many earlier occasions; but these crafty
and even venomous critics were mostly of the ruling classes; the common
people had heard Him gladly, and indeed many of them continued so to
do;[737] nevertheless His popularity, in Galilee at least, had begun to
wane. The last year of His earthly ministration was inaugurated by a
sifting of the people who professed to believe His word, and this
process of test, trial, and separation, was to continue to the end.

We are without information as to Jesus having attended this Passover
feast; and it is reasonable to infer that in view of the increasing
hostility on the part of the rulers, He refrained from going to
Jerusalem on the occasion. Conjecture as to whether any of the Twelve
went up to the festival is profitless; we are not told. Certain it is
that immediately after this time, the detectives and spies, who had been
sent from Jerusalem into Galilee to watch Jesus, became more active than
ever in their critical espionage. They dogged His footsteps, noted every
act, and every instance of omission of traditional or customary
observance, and were constantly on the alert to make Him out an
offender.


CEREMONIAL WASHINGS, "AND MANY SUCH LIKE THINGS,"[738]

Shortly after the Passover to which allusion has been made, and probably
in accordance with a plan decided upon by the Jewish rulers, Jesus was
visited by a delegation of Pharisees and scribes who had come from
Jerusalem, and who made protest against the disregard of traditional
requirements by His followers. It appears that the disciples, and almost
certainly the Master Himself, had so far transgressed "the tradition of
the elders" as to omit the ceremonial washing of hands before eating;
the Pharisaic critics found fault, and came demanding explanation, and
justification if such were possible. Mark tells us that the disciples
were charged with having eaten with "defiled", or, as the marginal
reading gives it, with "common" hands; and he interpolates the following
concise and lucid note concerning the custom which the disciples were
said to have ignored: "For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, except they
wash their hands oft, eat not, holding the tradition of the elders. And
when they come from the market, except they wash, they eat not. And many
other things there be, which they have received to hold, as the washing
of cups, and pots, brasen vessels, and of tables."[739] It should be
borne in mind that the offense charged against the disciples was that of
ceremonial uncleanness, not physical uncleanliness or disregard of
sanitary propriety; they were said to have eaten with common or defiled
hands, not specifically with dirty fingers. In all the externals of
their man-made religionism, the Jews were insistent on scrupulous
exactitude; every possibility of ceremonial defilement was to be
carefully guarded against, and the effects thereof had to be
counteracted by prescribed washings.[740]

To the question: "Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the
elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread", Jesus gave
no direct reply; but asked as a rejoinder: "Why do ye also transgress
the commandment of God by your tradition?" To the Pharisaic mind this
must have been a very sharp rebuke; for rabbinism held that rigorous
compliance with the traditions of the elders was more important than
observance of the law itself; and Jesus in His counter question put
their cherished traditions as in direct conflict with the commandment of
God. Adding to their discomfiture, He cited the prophecy of Isaiah, and
applied to them whom He designated hypocrites, the prophet's words:
"Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This
people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.
Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the
commandments of men."[741] With deserved severity Jesus carried the
lesson home to their consciences, declaring that they had laid aside the
commandments of God in order that they might follow the traditions of
men.

This accusing affirmation was followed by the citing of an undeniable
instance: Moses had voiced the direct commandment of God in saying:
"Honour thy father and thy mother," and had proclaimed the ordained
penalty in extreme cases of unfilial conduct thus: "Whoso curseth father
or mother, let him die";[742] but this law, though given of God direct
to Israel, had been so completely superseded that any ungrateful and
wicked son could find ready means, which their traditions had made
lawful, of escaping all filial obligations, even though his parents were
destitute. If a needy father or mother craved help of a son, he had but
to say--What you ask of me is Corban--or in other words, an intended
gift to God; and he was held to be legally exempt from all requirements
to contribute of that substance to the support of his parents.[743]
Other obligations could be similarly evaded. To declare that any article
of property real or personal, or any part or proportion of one's
possessions was "corban," was generally understood as an averment that
the property so characterized was dedicated to the temple, or at least
was intended to be devoted to ecclesiastical purposes, and would
eventually be turned over to the officials, though the donor might
continue to hold possession during a specified period, extending even to
the end of his life. Property was often declared to be "corban" for
other purposes than dedication to ecclesiastical use. The result of such
established though utterly unlawful and pernicious traditions was, as
Jesus emphatically stated to the Pharisees and scribes, to make the word
of God of none effect, and, He added, "Many such like things do ye."

Turning from His titled visitors, He called the people together and
proclaimed unto them the truth, as follows: "Hearken unto me every one
of you, and understand: There is nothing from without a man, that
entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him,
those are they that defile the man. If any man have ears to hear, let
him hear." This was directly in conflict with rabbinical precept and
practise; the Pharisees were offended, for they had said that to eat
with hands that had not been ritualistically cleansed was to defile the
food touched, and in turn to become yet more defiled from the food thus
rendered unclean.

The apostles were not sure that they understood the Master's lesson;
though couched in plain, non-figurative language, it was to some of them
very like a parable, and Peter asked an exposition. The Lord explained
that the food one eats is but temporarily part of his body; having
served its purpose of nourishing the tissues and supplying energy to the
organism, it is eliminated; therefore the food that enters the body
through the mouth is of small and transient importance compared with the
utterances that issue from the mouth, for these, if evil, are truly
defiling. As Jesus set forth: "Those things which proceed out of the
mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the
heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts,
false witness, blasphemies: these are the things which defile a man; but
to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man."[744]

Some of the disciples asked Jesus whether He knew that the Pharisees had
taken offense at His saying; His answer was a further denunciation of
Pharisaism: "Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted,
shall be rooted up. Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind.
And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch." There
could be no compromize between His doctrine of the kingdom and the
corrupt Judaism of the time. The rulers were plotting against His life;
if their emissaries chose to take offense at His words, let them be
offended and stand the consequences; but blessed would they be if they
were not offended because of Him.[745] He had no conciliatory measures
to offer those whose inability to understand His meaning was the result
of wilful obstinacy, or darkness of mind produced by persistence in sin.


WITHIN THE BORDERS OF TYRE AND SIDON.[746]

Unable to find in Galilee rest, seclusion, or adequate opportunity of
instructing the Twelve as He desired to do, Jesus departed with them
northward, and journeyed into the coasts or borders of Phenicia, a
district commonly known by the names of its prominent cities, Tyre and
Sidon. In one of the little towns near the border, the party took
lodgings; but the attempt to secure privacy was futile, for the Master's
presence "could not be hid." His fame had preceded Him beyond the
boundaries of the land of Israel. On earlier occasions, people from the
region of Tyre and Sidon had been among His listeners, and some of them
had been blessed by His healing mercies.[747]

A woman, hearing of His presence within her own land, came asking a
boon. Mark tells us she was a Greek, or more literally a Gentile[748]
who spoke Greek, and by nationality a Syro-Phenician; Matthew says she
was "a woman of Canaan"; these statements are in harmony, since the
Phenicians were of Canaanite descent. The Gospel-historians make clear
the fact that this woman was of pagan or heathen birth; and we know that
among the peoples so classed the Canaanites were held in particular
disrepute by the Jews. The woman cried aloud to Jesus, saying: "Have
mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed
with a devil." Her words expressed at once faith in the Lord's power,
and a fulness of mother-love, for she implored as though she were the
afflicted sufferer. The fact that she addressed Jesus as Son of David
demonstrates her belief that He was the Messiah of Israel. At first
Jesus refrained from answering her. Undeterred, she pleaded the more,
until the disciples besought the Lord saying: "Send her away; for she
crieth after us." Their intervention was probably an intercession in her
behalf; she could be quieted by the granting of her request; as it was,
she was making an undesirable scene, probably on the street, and the
Twelve knew well that their Master sought quietude. To them Jesus said:
"I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel," and the
remark must have reminded them of the restriction under which they had
been sent out.[749]

The woman, with importunate desire came near, possibly entering the
house; she fell at the Lord's feet and worshiped Him, pleading
pitifully, "Lord, help me." To her Jesus said, "It is not meet to take
the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs." The words, harsh as they
may sound to us, were understood by her in the spirit of the Lord's
intent. The original term here translated "dogs" connoted, as the
narrative shows, not the vagrant and despized curs elsewhere spoken of
in the Bible as typical of a degraded state, or of positive
badness,[750] but literally the "little dogs" or domestic pets, such as
were allowed in the house and under the table. Certainly the woman took
no offense at the comparison, and found therein no objectionable
epithet. Instantly she adopted the analogy, and applied it in combined
argument and supplication,[751] "Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the
crumbs which fall from their masters' table;" or, in the words of Mark's
version: "Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children's
crumbs." Her prayer was immediately granted; for Jesus said unto her, "O
woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her
daughter was made whole from that very hour." Mark emphasizes the
special recognition of her final plea, and adds: "And when she was come
to her house, she found the devil gone out, and her daughter laid upon
the bed." The woman's commendable persistency was based on the faith
that overcomes apparent obstacles and endures even under discouragement.
Her case reminds one of the lesson taught by the Lord on another
occasion through the story of the importunate widow.[752]

Many have queried as to why Jesus delayed the blessing. We may not be
able to fathom His purposes; but we see that, by the course He adopted,
the woman's faith was demonstrated and the disciples were instructed.
Jesus impressed upon her that she was not of the chosen people, to whom
He had been sent; but His words prefigured the giving of the gospel to
all, both Jew and Gentile: "Let the children _first_ be filled" He had
said. The resurrected Christ was to be made known to every nation;[753]
but His personal ministry as a mortal, as also that of the apostles
while He was with them in the flesh, was directed to the house of
Israel.[754]


IN THE COASTS OF DECAPOLIS.[755]

We are not told how long Jesus and the Twelve tarried in the land of
Tyre and Sidon, nor which portions of the district they traversed. They
went thence into the region adjoining the sea of Galilee on the east,
"through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis."[756] Though still among
semi-pagan peoples, our Lord was greeted by great crowds, amongst whom
were many lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and otherwise afflicted; and them
He healed. Great was the astonishment of these aliens, "when they saw
the dumb to speak, the maimed to be whole, the lame to walk, and the
blind to see: and they glorified the God of Israel."

Among the many who were healed was one of whom special mention is made.
He was deaf and defective in speech. The people asked the Lord to lay
His hands upon the man; but Jesus led him away from the multitude, put
His fingers in the man's ears, spat, and touched the man's tongue; then
looking upward in prayer, and sighing the while, He uttered a word of
command in Aramaic, "Ephphatha, that is, Be opened. And straightway his
ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake
plain." The manner of effecting this cure was different again from the
usual mode of our Lord's healing ministrations. It may be that by the
finger-touch to the closed ears and to the bound tongue, the man's faith
was strengthened and his confidence in the Master's power increased. The
people were forbidden to tell abroad what they had witnessed; but the
more they were charged the more they published the news. Their
conclusion as to Jesus and His works was: "He hath done all things well:
he maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak."


ANOTHER MEAL IN THE DESERT; OVER FOUR THOUSAND FED.[757]

For three days the glad crowds remained with Jesus and the apostles.
Camping out at that season and in that region entailed no great hardship
incident to exposure. Their supply of food, however, had become
exhausted; and many of them were far from home. Jesus had compassion
upon the people, and was loath to send them away fasting, lest they
would faint by the way. When He spoke to the disciples on the matter
they intimated the impossibility of feeding so great a number, for the
entire stock of food at hand comprized but seven loaves and a few little
fishes. Had they forgotten the former occasion on which a greater
multitude had been fed and filled with but five loaves and two small
fishes? Rather let us believe that the disciples remembered well, yet
deemed it beyond their duty or privilege to suggest a repetition of the
miracle. But the Master commanded; and the people seated themselves on
the ground. Blessing and dividing the small provision as before, He gave
to the disciples and they distributed to the multitude. Four thousand
men, beside women and children, were abundantly fed; and of the broken
but uneaten food there remained enough to fill seven baskets. With no
semblance of the turbulent enthusiasm that had followed the feeding of
the five thousand, this multitude dispersed quietly and returned to
their homes, grateful and doubly blessed.


AGAIN BESET BY SIGN-SEEKERS.[758]

Jesus and the apostles returned by boat to the western shore of the
lake, and landed near Magdala and Dalmanutha. These towns are understood
to have been so close together as to virtually make the latter a suburb
of the other. Here the party was met by the ever-vigilant Pharisees, who
on this occasion were accompanied by their usually unfriendly rivals,
the Sadducees. That the two parties had temporarily laid aside their
mutual differences, and had combined their forces in the common cause of
opposition to Christ, is a demonstration of the determined purpose of
the ecclesiastical authorities to find occasion against Him, and, if
possible, destroy Him. Their immediate object was to further alienate
the common people, and to counteract the influence of His former
teachings with the masses. They set anew the old-time snare of demanding
from Him a supernatural sign of His Messiahship, though thrice already
had they or others of their kind so attempted to entrap Him, and thrice
had they been foiled.[759] Before them, Satan in person had similarly
tried and failed.[760] To their present impertinent and impious demand
He gave a brief and definite refusal coupled with an exposure of their
hypocrisy. This was His reply: "When it is evening, ye say, It will be
fair weather: for the sky is red. And in the morning, It will be foul
weather today: for the sky is red and lowring. O ye hypocrites, ye can
discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the
times? A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and
there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas.
And he left them, and departed."[761]


THE LEAVEN OF THE PHARISEES AND OF THE SADDUCEES.[762]

Again with the Twelve upon the water, since on the Galilean coast
neither peace nor opportunity for effective teaching was found, Jesus
directed the vessel's course toward the north-easterly shore. When well
out from land, He said to His companions: "Take heed and beware of the
leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees," and, as Mark adds, "and
of the leaven of Herod." In their hasty departure the disciples had
forgotten to take a supply of food; they had with them but a single
loaf. They construed His words respecting leaven as a reference to
bread, and possibly as a reproof for their neglect. Jesus chided them as
of little faith for thinking then of material bread, and refreshed their
recollection of the miracles by which the multitudes had been fed, so
that their lack of loaves would not further trouble them. Finally they
were made to understand that the Master's warning was directed against
the false doctrines of the Pharisees and those of the Sadducees, and
against the political aspirations of the scheming Herodians.[763]

The party left the boat near the site of the first miraculous feeding of
the multitude, and made their way to Bethsaida Julias. A blind man was
brought, and Jesus was asked to touch him. He took the sightless one by
the hand, led him outside the town, applied saliva to his eyes, laid
hands upon him in a ministration, and asked him if he could see. The man
answered that he saw dimly, but was unable to distinguish men from
trees. Applying His hands to the man's eyes, Jesus told him to look up;
the man did so and saw clearly. Bidding him not to enter the town, nor
to tell of his deliverance from blindness to any in the place, the Lord
sent him away rejoicing. This miracle presents the unique feature of
Jesus healing a person by stages; the result of the first ministration
was but a partial recovery. No explanation of the exceptional
circumstance is given.


"THOU ART THE CHRIST."[764]

Accompanied by the Twelve, Jesus continued His way northward to the
neighborhood or "coasts" of Cæsarea Philippi, an inland city situated
near the eastern and principal source of the Jordan, and near the foot
of Mount Hermon.[765] The journey afforded opportunity for special and
confidential instruction to the apostles. Of them Jesus asked: "Whom do
men say that I the Son of man am?" In reply they reported the rumors and
popular fancies that had come to their notice. Some people, sharing the
superstitious fears of the conscience-stricken Herod Antipas, said that
Jesus was John the Baptist returned to life, though such a belief could
not have been entertained seriously by many, as John and Jesus were
known to have been contemporaries; others said He was Elias, or more
exactly, Elijah; still others suggested He was Jeremiah or some other
one of the ancient prophets of Israel. It is significant that among all
the conceptions of the people as to the identity of Jesus there was no
intimation of belief that He was the Messiah. Neither by word nor deed
had He measured up to the popular and traditional standard of the
expected Deliverer and King of Israel. Fleeting manifestations of
evanescent hope that He might prove to be the looked-for Prophet, like
unto Moses, had not been lacking; but all such incipient conceptions had
been neutralized by the hostile activity of the Pharisees and their
kind. To them it was a matter of supreme though evil determination to
maintain in the minds of the people the thought of a yet future, not a
present, Messiah.

With deep solemnity, and as a soul-searching test for which the Twelve
had been in unconscious preparation through many months of close and
privileged companionship with their Lord, Jesus asked of them: "But whom
say ye that I am?" Answering for all, but more particularly testifying
as to his own conviction, Peter, with all the fervor of his soul, voiced
the great confession: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God."
This was no avowal of mere belief, no expression of a result at which he
had arrived by mental process, no solution of a problem laboriously
worked out, no verdict based on the weighing of evidence; he spoke in
the sure knowledge that knows no question and from which doubt and
reservation are as far removed as is the sky from the ground.

"And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona:
for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which
is in heaven." Peter's knowledge, which was also that of his brethren,
was of a kind apart from all that man may find out for himself; it was a
divine bestowal, in comparison with which human wisdom is foolishness
and the treasure of earth but dross, Addressing Himself further to the
first of the apostles, Jesus continued: "And I say also unto thee, That
thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates
of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys
of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall
be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be
loosed in heaven."

Through direct revelation from God Peter knew that Jesus was the Christ;
and upon revelation, as a rock of secure foundation, the Church of
Christ was to be built.[766] Though torrents should fall, floods roll,
winds rage, and all beat together upon that structure, it would not,
could not, fall, for it was founded upon a rock;[767] and even the
powers of hell would be impotent to prevail against it. By revelation
alone could or can the Church of Jesus Christ be builded and maintained;
and revelation of necessity implies revelators, through whom the will of
God may be made known respecting His Church. As a gift from God comes
the testimony of Jesus into the heart of man. This principle was
comprized in the Master's teachings at Capernaum, that none could come
to Him save such as the Father would bring.[768] The Lord's promise,
that unto Peter He would give "the keys of the kingdom of heaven,"
embodies the principle of divine authority in the Holy Priesthood, and
of the commission of presidency. Allusion to keys as symbolical of power
and authority is not uncommon in Jewish literature, as was well
understood in that period and is generally current today.[769] So also
the analogies of binding and loosing as indicative of official acts were
then usual, as they are now, particularly in connection with judicial
functions. Peter's presidency among the apostles was abundantly manifest
and generally recognized after the close of our Lord's mortal life.
Thus, it was he who spoke in behalf of the Eleven, in the council
meeting at which a successor to the traitor Iscariot was chosen; he was
the spokesman of his brethren on the occasion of the Pentecostal
conversion; it was he who opened the doors of the Church to the
Gentiles;[770] and his office of leadership is apparent throughout the
apostolic period.

The confession by which the apostles avowed their acceptance of Jesus as
the Christ, the Son of the living God, was evidence of their actual
possession of the spirit of the Holy Apostleship, by which they were
made particular witnesses of their Lord. The time for a general
proclamation of their testimony had not arrived, however; nor did it
come until after Christ had emerged from the tomb a resurrected,
immortalized Personage. For the time being they were charged "that they
should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ." Proclamation of Jesus
as the Messiah, particularly if made by the apostles who were publicly
known as His most intimate disciples and associates, or open assumption
of the Messianic title by Himself, would have aggravated the hostility
of the rulers, which had already become a grave interference if not an
actual menace to the Savior's ministry; and seditious uprisings against
the political government of Rome might easily have resulted. A yet
deeper reason for the secrecy enjoined upon the Twelve appears in the
fact that the Jewish nation was not prepared to accept their Lord; and
to ignore Him through lack of certain knowledge involved a lesser degree
of culpability than would have attached to an unpalliated rejection. The
particular mission of the apostles at a time then future was to proclaim
to all nations Jesus, the crucified and resurrected Christ.

From the time of Peter's confession however, Jesus instructed the Twelve
more plainly and with greater intimacy concerning the future
developments of His mission, and particularly as touching His appointed
death. On earlier occasions He had referred in their hearing to the
cross, and to His approaching death, burial and ascension; but the
mention in each case was in a measure figurative, and they had
apprehended but imperfectly if at all. Now, however, He began to show,
and often afterward made plain unto them, "how that he must go unto
Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and
scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day."

Peter was shocked at this unqualified declaration, and, yielding to
impulse, remonstrated with Jesus, or, as two of the evangelists state,
"began to rebuke him," even going so far as to say: "This shall not be
unto thee."[771] The Lord turned upon him with this sharp reproof: "Get
thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest
not the things that be of God, but those that be of men." Peter's words
constituted an appeal to the human element in Christ's nature; and the
sensitive feelings of Jesus were wounded by this suggestion of
unfaithfulness to His trust, coming from the man whom He had so signally
honored but a few moments before. Peter saw mainly as men see,
understanding but imperfectly the deeper purposes of God. Though
deserved, the rebuke he received was severe. The adjuration, "Get thee
behind me, Satan," was identical with that used against the arch-tempter
himself, who had sought to beguile Jesus from the path upon which He had
entered,[772] and the provocation in the two instances was in some
respects similar--the temptation to evade sacrifice and suffering,
though such was the world's ransom, and to follow a more comfortable
way.[773] The forceful words of Jesus show the deep emotion that Peter's
ill-considered attempt to counsel if not to tempt his Lord had evoked.

Beside the Twelve, who were immediately about the Lord's person, others
were nearby; it appears that even in those remote parts, far removed
from the borders of Galilee--the habitat of a heathen population, with
whom, however, many Jews were intermixed--the people gathered around the
Master. These He now called together, and to them and the disciples
said: "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up
his cross, and follow me." Here the frightful figure of the cross was
again made prominent. There was left no shadow of excuse for the thought
that devotion to Christ would not mean denial and privation. He who
would save his life at the cost of duty, as Peter had just suggested
that Christ should do, would surely lose it in a sense worse than that
of physical death; whereas he who stood willing to lose all, even life
itself, should find the life that is eternal.

As evincing the soundness of His teachings, Jesus uttered what has since
become an inspiring aphorism of life: "For what is a man profited, if he
shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man
give in exchange for his soul?" Whosoever is ashamed of Christ because
of His lowly estate, or through offense at His teachings, shall yet find
that the Son of Man, when He comes in the glory of the Father, with
attending cohorts of angels, will be ashamed of that man. The record of
this memorable day in the Savior's life closes with His blessed promise:
"Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not
taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his
kingdom."[774]


NOTES TO CHAPTER 22.

1. Passover Celebrations Comprized within the Period of Our Lord's
Public Ministry.--The dates on which specific acts occurred in the
ministry of Jesus are difficult if not impossible to fix, except in few
instances; and as heretofore stated and reiterated, even the order of
events is often found to be uncertain. It will be remembered that Jesus
was in Jerusalem at the time of the Passover soon after His baptism, and
that on the visit referred to He forcibly cleared the temple courts of
traffickers and their property. This is known as the _first_ Passover
during the public life of Jesus. If the unnamed "feast of the Jews"
referred to by John (5:1) was a Passover, as many Bible students hold,
it marked the close of the year following the cleansing the temple; it
is commonly spoken of and written about as the _second_ Passover in the
course of our Lord's ministry. Then the Passover near which Jesus fed
the five thousand (John 6:4) would be the _third_, and would mark the
expiration of two years and a fraction since the baptism of Jesus; it
certainly marks the beginning of the last year of the Savior's life on
earth.

2. Ceremonial Ablutions.--The numerous washings required by Jewish
custom in the time of Christ were admittedly incident to rabbinism and
"the tradition of the elders" and not in compliance with the Mosaic law.
Under certain conditions, successive washings were prescribed, in
connection with which we find mention of "first," "second" and "other"
waters, the "second water" being necessary to wash away the "first
water," which had become defiled by contact with the "common" hands; and
so further with the later waters. Sometimes the hands had to be dipped
or immersed; at other times they were to be cleansed by pouring, it
being necessary that the water be allowed to run to the wrist or the
elbow according to the degree of supposed defilement; then again, as the
disciples of Rabbi Shammai held, only the finger tips, or the fingers up
to the knuckles, needed to be wetted under particular circumstances.
Rules for the cleansing of vessels and furniture were detailed and
exacting; distinct methods applied respectively to vessels of clay,
wood, and metal. Fear of unwittingly defiling the hands led to many
extreme precautions. It being known that the Roll of the Law, the Roll
of the Prophets, and other scriptures, when laid away were sometimes
touched, scratched, or even gnawed by mice, there was issued a
rabbinical decree, that the Holy Scriptures, or any part thereof
comprizing as many as eighty-five letters (the shortest section in the
law having just that number), defiled the hands by mere contact. Thus
the hands had to be ceremonially cleansed after touching a copy of the
scriptures, or even a written passage therefrom.

Emancipation from these and "many such like things" must have been
relief indeed. Escape from this thraldom Jesus freely offered, saying:
"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and
lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is
easy, and my burden is light." (Matt. 11:28-30.)

3. "Corban," a Gift.--The law of Moses prescribed rules relating to vows
(Lev. 27; Numb. 30). "Upon these rules," says the writer in Smith's
_Bible Dict._, "the traditionalists enlarged, and laid down that a man
might interdict himself by vow, not only from using for himself, but
from giving to another or receiving from him, some particular object
whether of food or any other kind whatsoever. The thing thus interdicted
was considered as corban. A person might thus exempt himself from any
inconvenient obligation under plea of corban. Our Lord denounced
practises of this sort (Matt. 15:5; Mark 7:11), as annulling the spirit
of the law."

The revised version, Matt. 15:5 is made to read "But ye say, Whosoever
shall say to his father or his mother, That wherewith thou mightest have
been profited by me is given to God; he shall not honor his father (or,
his mother)." The following account of this pernicious custom appears in
the _Commentary on The Holy Bible_ edited by Dummelow, "'Corban,'
meaning originally a sacrifice or a gift to God, was used in New
Testament times as a mere word of vowing, without implying that the
thing vowed would actually be offered or given to God. Thus a man would
say 'Corban to me is wine for such a time,' meaning that he took a vow
to abstain from wine. Or a man would say to a friend 'Corban to me for
such a time is whatsoever I might be profited by thee,' meaning that for
such a time he vowed that he would receive neither hospitality nor any
other benefit from his friend. Similarly, if a son said to his father or
mother, 'Corban is whatsoever thou mightest have profited by me' he took
a vow not to assist his father or mother in any way, however much they
might require it. A vow of this kind was held by the scribes to excuse a
man from the duty of supporting his parents, and thus by their tradition
they made void the word of God."

4. The "Dogs" that Eat of the Crumbs.--The woman's fervid rejoinder,
"Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their
masters' table," (Matt. 15:27), is thus commented upon and paraphrased
by Trench (_Notes on the Miracles_, p. 271): "The rendering of her
answer in our translation is not, however, altogether satisfactory. For,
indeed, she accepts the Lord's declaration, not immediately to make
exception against the conclusion which He draws from it, but to show how
in that very declaration is involved the granting of her petition.
'Saidest thou dogs? It is well; I accept the title and the place; for
the dogs have a portion of the meal,--not the first, not the children's
portion, but a portion still,--the crumbs which fall from the master's
table. In this very putting of the case, Thou bringest us heathen, Thou
bringest me, within the circle of the blessings which God, the Great
Householder, is ever dispensing to His family. We also belong to His
household, though we occupy but the lowest place therein.'"

The Dummelow _Commentary_, on Matt. 15:26, reads in part as follows:
"The rabbis often spoke of the Gentiles as dogs, e.g. 'He who eats with
an idolater is like one who eats with a dog.' ... 'The nations of the
world are compared to dogs.' 'The holy convocation belongs to you, not
to the dogs.' Yet Jesus in adopting the contemptuous expression slightly
softens it. He says not 'dogs,' but 'little dogs,' i.e. household,
favorite, dogs; and the woman cleverly catches at the expression,
arguing that if the Gentiles are household dogs, then it is only right
that they should be fed with the crumbs that fall from their masters'
table." Edersheim, referring to the original text, says: "The term means
'little dogs,' or 'house dogs.'"

5. Decapolis.--The name means "the ten cities," and was applied to a
region of indefinite boundaries lying mostly on the east of Jordan and
southerly from the sea of Galilee. Scythopolis, which Josephus (Wars of
the Jews, iii, 9:7) refers to as the largest of the ten cities, was on
the west side of the river. There is lack of agreement among historians
as to the cities comprized under the name. Biblical mention (Matt. 4:25;
Mark 5:20; 7:31) implies a general region rather than a definite area.

6. The Coasts of Cæsarea Philippi.--The term "coast" as it appears in
the Bible (authorized, or King James version), is used to connote
boundary, limit, or border, and not distinctively a seashore. (For
examples see Exo. 10:4, 14, 19; Josh. 15:1, 4; Judg. 11:20; Matt. 2:16,
etc.) It is applied therefore to inland areas, and frequently occurs as
indicating a vicinity or neighborhood.

Cæsarea Philippi, a town located, as stated in the text, near Mount
Hermon at the source of the Jordan, had been enlarged and beautified by
Philip the tetrarch, and by him was named Cæsarea in honor of the Roman
emperor. It was called Cæsarea Philippi to distinguish it from the
already existing Cæsarea, which was situated on the Mediterranean shore
of Samaria, and which in later literature came to be known as Cæsarea
Palestina. Cæsarea Philippi is believed to be identical with the ancient
Baal Gad (Josh. 11:17) and Baal Hermon (Judg. 3:3). It was known as a
place of idolatrous worship, and while under Greek sovereignty was
called Paneas in recognition of the mythological deity Pan. See
Josephus, Ant. xviii, 2:1; this designation persists in the present
Arabic name of the place, Banias.

7. Simon Peter and the "Rock" of Revelation.--Simon the son of Jonas, on
the occasion of his first recorded interview with Jesus had received
from the Lord's lips the distinguishing name-title "Peter," or in the
Aramaic tongue "Cephas," the English equivalent of which is "a rock" or
"a stone" (John 1:42; see also page 140 herein). The name was confirmed
upon the apostle on the occasion now under consideration (Matt. 16:18).
Jesus said to him "thou art Peter," adding, "and upon this rock I will
build my church." In the course of the general apostasy subsequent to
the ancient apostolic ministry, the Bishop of Rome laid claim to supreme
authority as the alleged lineal successor to Peter; and an erroneous
doctrine gained currency to the effect that Peter was the "rock" upon
which the Church of Christ was founded. Detailed consideration of this
inconsistent and infamous claim cannot be undertaken here; it is
sufficient to say that a church founded or dependent upon Peter or any
other man would be Peter's or the other man's church, and not the Church
of Jesus Christ. (See _The Great Apostasy_, chap 9; also B. of M., 3
Nephi 27:1-8; also chapter 40 herein). That upon Peter rested the
responsibility of presidency in the ministry, after the ascension of the
resurrected Christ, is not questioned; but that he was, even typically,
the foundation upon which the Church was built, is at once unscriptural
and untrue. The Church of Jesus Christ must authoritatively bear His
name, and be guided by revelation, direct and continuous, as the
conditions of its building require. Revelation from God to His servants
invested with the Holy Priesthood through authorized ordination as was
Peter, is the impregnable "rock" upon which the Church is built. (See
_Articles of Faith_, xvi,--"Revelation.")

8. Christ's Rebuke to Peter.--In addressing Peter as "Satan," Jesus was
obviously using a forceful figure of speech, and not a literal
designation; for Satan is a distinct personage, Lucifer, that fallen,
unembodied son of the morning (see page 7); and certainly Peter was not
he. In his remonstrance or "rebuke" addressed to Jesus, Peter was really
counseling what Satan had before attempted to induce Christ to do, or
tempting, as Satan himself had tempted. The command, "Get thee behind
me, Satan," as directed to Peter, is rendered in English by some
authorities "Get thee behind me, tempter." The essential meaning
attached to both Hebrew and Greek originals for our word "Satan" is that
of an adversary, or "one who places himself in another's way and thus
opposes him." (Zenos.) The expression "Thou art an offense unto me" is
admittedly a less literal translation than "Thou art a stumbling-block
unto me." The man whom Jesus had addressed as Peter--"the rock," was now
likened to a stone in the path, over which the unwary might stumble.

9. Some to Live Until Christ Returns.--The Savior's declaration to the
apostles and others in the neighborhood of Cæsarea Philippi, "Verily I
say unto you, There be some standing here which shall not taste of
death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom," (Matt.
16:28; compare Mark 9:1; Luke 9:27), has occasioned great and diverse
comment. The event referred to, that of the Son of Man coming in the
glory of His Father attended by the angels, is yet future. At least a
partial fulfilment of the prediction is presented in the prolongation of
the life of John the apostle, who was there present, and who yet lives
in the flesh according to his desire (John 21:20-24; see further B. of
M., 3 Nephi 28:1-6; Doc. and Cov. Sec. 7).

10. "Thou Art the Christ."--Peter's solemn and soulful confession of
Jesus as the Christ is worded differently by each of the three
synoptists. To many the most expressive version is that of Luke: "The
Christ of God." On earlier occasions, some or all of the Twelve had
acknowledged Jesus Christ to be the Son of God, e.g. following the
miracle of walking upon the sea (Matt. 14:33), and again, after the
crucial sermon at Capernaum (John 6:69); but it is evident that Peter's
upwelling and reverential confession in answer to the Lord's question
"But whom say ye that I am?" had a significance, greater in assurance
and more exalted in kind, than had any prior expression of his
conception concerning his Lord. Yet even the conviction given through
direct revelation (Matt. 16:17) did not at the time comprize a
comprehensive knowledge of the Savior's mission. Indeed, a fulness of
understanding and assurance came to the apostles after the Lord's
resurrection (compare Romans 1:4). Nevertheless, Peter's testimony in
the land of Cæsarea Philippi evidences a very exalted attainment. At
that stage of the Savior's ministry, the public proclamation of His
divine status would have been as the casting of pearls before swine
(Matt. 7:6); therefore the Lord instructed the apostles that at that
time "they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ."

FOOTNOTES:

[736] John 6:4. Note 1, end of chapter.

[737] Mark 12:37.

[738] Matt. 15:1-9; Mark 7:1-13.

[739] As the Oxford marginal note shows "beds" is a more literal
rendering than "tables", the couches upon which the eaters reclined at
table being meant. See page 261.

[740] Note 2, end of chapter.

[741] Mark 7:6, 7; see also Matt. 15:7-9; Isa. 29:13; compare the words
of the resurrected Christ to the prophet Joseph Smith, in the present
dispensation, P. of G.P., Joseph Smith, 2:19.

[742] Exo. 20:12; Deut. 5:16; Exo. 21:17; Lev. 20:9.

[743] Note 3, end of chapter.

[744] Matt. 15:10-20; compare Mark 7:14-23.

[745] Matt. 11:6; Luke 7:23; pages 255 and 274 herein.

[746] Matt. 15:21-28; Mark 7:21-30.

[747] Mark 3:8; Luke 6:17.

[748] See marginal reading in Oxford and Bagster Bibles; see also Note
2, page 345.

[749] Matt. 10:5, 6; see also page 328 herein.

[750] Deut. 23:18; 1 Sam. 17:43; 24:14; 2 Sam. 3:8; 16:9; Job 30:1;
Matt. 7:6; Philip 3:2; Rev. 22:15.

[751] Note 4, end of chapter.

[752] Luke 18:1-8. Page 436.

[753] Matt. 28:19; Mark 16:15.

[754] Acts 3:25, 26; 13:46-48; Rom. 15:8.

[755] Mark 7:31-37; compare Matt. 15:29-31.

[756] Note 5, end of chapter.

[757] Matt. 15:32-39; Mark 8:1-9.

[758] Matt. 15:29; 16:1-5; Mark 8:10-13.

[759] John 2:18; 6:30; Matt. 12:38.

[760] Matt. 4:6, 7; Luke 4:9-12.

[761] Matt. 16:2-4; compare 12:38-41; pages 155-157 herein.

[762] Matt. 16:6-12; Mark 8:14-21; compare Luke 12:1.

[763] Page 68.

[764] Matt. 16:13-20; Mark 8:27-30; Luke 9:18-21. Note 10, end of
chapter.

[765] Note 6, end of chapter.

[766] Note 7, end of chapter.

[767] Compare Matt. 7:24, 25.

[768] John 6:46; compare verses 37, 39, 40.

[769] See Isa. 22:22; Luke 11:52; Rev. 1:18; 3:7; compare Doc. and Cov.
6:28; 7:7; 27:5, 6, 9; 28:7; 42:69; 84:26; etc.

[770] Acts 1:15-26; 2:14-40; chap. 10, compare with 15:7.

[771] Matt. 16:22, 23; Mark 8:32, 33.

[772] Luke 4:8.

[773] Note 8, end of chapter.

[774] Note 9, end of chapter.




CHAPTER 23.

THE TRANSFIGURATION.


Of the week following the events last considered, no record is found in
the Gospels. We may safely assume that the time was devoted, in part at
least, to the further instruction of the Twelve respecting the rapidly
approaching consummation of the Savior's mission on earth, the awful
circumstances of which the apostles were loath to believe possible. When
the week had passed[775] Jesus took Peter, James, and John[776] and with
them ascended a high mountain, where they would be reasonably safe from
human intrusion.[777] There the three apostles witnessed a heavenly
manifestation, which stands without parallel in history; in our Bible
captions it is known as the Transfiguration of Christ.[778]

One purpose of the Lord's retirement was that of prayer, and a
transcendent investiture of glory came upon Him as He prayed. The
apostles had fallen asleep, but were awakened by the surpassing splendor
of the scene, and gazed with reverent awe upon their glorified Lord.
"The fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white
and glistering." His garments, though made of earth-woven fabric,
"became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on earth can
white them;" "and his face did shine as the sun." Thus was Jesus
transfigured before the three privileged witnesses.

With Him were two other personages, who also were in a state of
glorified radiance, and who conversed with the Lord. These, as the
apostles learned by means not stated though probably as gathered from
the conversation in progress, were Moses and Elias, or more literally to
us, Elijah; and the subject of their conference with Christ was "his
decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem." As the prophet
visitants were about to depart, "Peter said unto Jesus, Master, it is
good for us to be here: and let us make three tabernacles; one for thee,
and one for Moses, and one for Elias: not knowing what he said."
Undoubtedly Peter and his fellow apostles were bewildered, "sore afraid"
indeed; and this condition may explain the suggestion respecting the
three tabernacles. "He wist not what to say;" yet, though his remark
appears confused and obscure, it becomes somewhat plainer when we
remember that, at the annual feast of Tabernacles, it was customary to
erect a little bower, or booth of wattled boughs, for each individual
worshiper, into which he might retire for devotion. So far as there was
a purpose in Peter's proposition, it seems to have been that of delaying
the departure of the visitants.

The sublime and awful solemnity of the occasion had not yet reached its
climax. Even as Peter spake, "behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them:
and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son,
in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him." It was Elohim,[779] the Eternal
Father, who spake; and at the sound of that voice of supreme Majesty,
the apostles fell prostrate. Jesus came and touched them, saying,
"Arise, and be not afraid." When they looked they saw that again they
were alone with Him.

The impression made upon the three apostles by this manifestation was
one never to be forgotten; but they were expressly charged to speak of
it to no man until after the Savior had risen from the dead. They were
puzzled as to the significance of the Lord's reference to His
prospective rising from the dead. They had heard with great sorrow, and
reluctantly they were being brought to understand it to be an awful
certainty, that their beloved Master was to "suffer many things, and be
rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be
killed."[780] Such had been declared to them before, in language devoid
of ambiguity and admitting of no figurative construction; and with equal
plainness they had been told that Jesus would rise again; but of this
latter eventuality they had but dim comprehension. The present
reiteration of these teachings seems to have left the three with no
clearer understanding of their Lord's resurrection from the dead than
they had before. They seem to have had no definite conception as to what
was meant by a resurrection; "And they kept that saying with themselves,
questioning one with another what the rising from the dead should
mean."[781]

The comprehensiveness of the Lord's injunction, that until after His
rising from the dead they tell no man of their experiences on the mount,
prohibited them from informing even their fellows of the Twelve. Later,
after the Lord had ascended to His glory, Peter testified to the Church
of the wondrous experience, in this forceful way: "For we have not
followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power
and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his
majesty. For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when
there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my
beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from
heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount."[782] And
John, reverently confessing before the world the divinity of the Word,
the Son of God who had been made flesh to dwell among men, solemnly
affirmed: "And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of
the Father, full of grace and truth."[783]

The divine purpose as shown forth in the Transfiguration may be as
incomprehensible to the human mind as is a full conception of the
attendant splendor from verbal description; some features of the results
achieved are apparent, however. Unto Christ the manifestation was
strengthening and encouraging. The prospect of the experiences
immediately ahead must naturally have been depressing and disheartening
in the extreme. In faithfully treading the path of His life's work, He
had reached the verge of the valley of the shadow of death; and the
human part of His nature called for refreshing. As angels had been sent
to minister unto Him after the trying scenes of the forty days' fast and
the direct temptation of Satan,[784] and as, in the agonizing hour of
His bloody sweat, He was to be sustained anew by angelic ministry,[785]
so at this critical and crucial period, the beginning of the end,
visitants from the unseen world came to comfort and support Him. What of
actual communication passed in the conference of Jesus with Moses and
Elijah is not of full record in the New Testament Gospels.

The voice of His Father, to whom He was the Firstborn in the
spirit-world, and the Only Begotten in the flesh, was of supreme
assurance; yet that voice had been addressed to the three apostles
rather than to Jesus, who had already received the Father's
acknowledgment and attestation on the occasion of His baptism. The
fullest version of the Father's words to Peter, James, and John is that
recorded by Matthew: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased;
hear ye him." Aside from the proclamation of the Son's divine nature,
the Father's words were otherwise decisive and portentous. Moses, the
promulgator of the law, and Elijah the representative of the prophets
and especially distinguished among them as the one who had not
died,[786] had been seen ministering unto Jesus and subservient to Him.
The fulfillment of the law and the superseding of the prophets by the
Messiah was attested in the command--Hear ye _Him_. A new dispensation
had been established, that of the gospel, for which the law and the
prophets had been but preparatory. The apostles were to be guided
neither by Moses nor Elijah, but by _Him_, their Lord, Jesus the Christ.

The three selected apostles, "the Man of Rock and the Sons of Thunder"
had seen the Lord in glory; and they marveled that such a thing could be
at that time, since as they had interpreted the scriptures, it had been
predicted that Elijah should precede the Messiah's triumphal advent. As
they wended their way down the mountain-side, they asked the
Master:[787] "Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come?"
Jesus confirmed the prophecy that Elias should first come, that is,
before the Lord's advent in glory, which event they had in mind; "But,"
He added, "I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him
not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also
the Son of man suffer of them. Then the disciples understood that he
spake unto them of John the Baptist." That John the Baptist would
officiate "in the spirit and power of Elias," as the forerunner of the
Christ, had been announced by the angel Gabriel to Zacharias,[788]
before the Baptist's birth; and that John was _that_ particular Elias
had been shown by Jesus in His memorable tribute to the Baptist's
fidelity and greatness. That His words would not be generally accepted
with understanding is evidenced by the context; Jesus, on that occasion,
had said: "And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to
come."[789]

It is not possible that Jesus could have meant that John was the same
individual as Elijah; nor could the people have so understood His words,
since the false doctrine of transmigration or reincarnation of spirits
was repudiated by the Jews.[790] The seeming difficulty is removed when
we consider that, as the name appears in the New Testament, "Elias" is
used for "Elijah,"[791] with no attempt at distinction between Elijah
the Tishbite, and any other person known as Elias. Gabriel's declaration
that the then unborn John should manifest "the spirit and power of
Elias" indicates that "Elias" is a title of office; every restorer,
forerunner, or one sent of God to prepare the way for greater
developments in the gospel plan, is an Elias. The appellative "Elias" is
in fact both a personal name and a title.

In the present dispensation both the ancient Elias, who belonged to the
Abrahamic dispensation and in the spirit of whose office many have
officiated in different periods, and also the prophet Elijah, have
appeared in person and have conferred their particular and separate
authority upon latter-day bearers of the Holy Priesthood, and the keys
of the powers exercized by them while on earth are today inherent in the
restored Church of Jesus Christ. The authority of Elias is inferior to
that of Elijah, the first being a function of the Lesser or Aaronic
order of Priesthood, while the latter belongs to the Higher or
Melchizedek Priesthood. Malachi's prediction, that before "the great and
dreadful day of the Lord" Elijah the prophet would be sent to earth to
"turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the
children to their fathers,"[792] did not reach fulfilment in the mission
of John the Baptist, nor in that of any other "Elias";[793] its complete
realization was inaugurated on the third day of April, 1836, when Elijah
appeared in the temple at Kirtland, Ohio, and committed to Joseph Smith
and Oliver Cowdery the keys of the authority theretofore vested in
himself. "The great and dreadful day of the Lord" was not the meridian
of time; that awful though blessed period of consummation is yet future,
but "near, even at the doors."[794]


NOTES TO CHAPTER 23.

1. Interval Between Time of Peter's Confession and that of the
Transfiguration.--Both Matthew (17:1) and Mark (9:2) state that the
Transfiguration occurred "after six days" following the time of Peter's
great confession that Jesus was the Christ; while Luke (9:28) notes an
interval of "about an eight days." It is probable that the six-day
period was meant to be exclusive of the day on which the earlier events
had occurred and of that on which Jesus and the three apostles retired
to the mountain; and that Luke's "about an eight days" was made to
include these two days. There is here no ground for a claim of
discrepancy.

2. Peter, James, and John who were selected from among the Twelve as the
only earthly witnesses of the transfiguration of Christ, had been
similarly chosen as witnesses of a special manifestation, that of the
raising of the daughter of Jairus (Mark 5:37; Luke 8:51); and, later,
the same three were the sole witnesses of our Lord's night agony in
Gethsemane (Matt. 26:37; Mark 14:33).

3. Place of the Transfiguration.--The mountain on which the
Transfiguration occurred is neither named nor otherwise indicated by the
Gospel-writers in such a way as to admit of its positive identification.
Mount Tabor, in Galilee, has long been held by tradition as the site,
and in the sixth century three churches were erected on its plateau-like
summit, possibly in commemoration of Peter's desire to make three
tabernacles or booths, one each for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. Later a
monastery was built there. Nevertheless, Mt. Tabor is now rejected by
investigators, and Mt. Hermon is generally regarded as the place. Hermon
stands near the northerly limits of Palestine, just beyond Cæsarea
Philippi, where Jesus is known to have been a week before the
Transfiguration. Mark (9:30) distinctly tells us that after His descent
from the mount, Jesus and the apostles departed and went through
Galilee. Weight of evidence is in favor of Hermon as the Mount of
Transfiguration, though nothing that may be called decisive is known in
the matter.

4. The Names "Elias" and "Elijah."--The following statement which
appears in Smith's _Bible Dictionary_ is supported by authorities in
general: "'Elias'" is "the Greek and Latin form of 'Elijah' given in the
Authorized Version of the Apocrypha and New Testament."

5. "The Spirit and Power of Elias."--That John the Baptist, in his
capacity as a restorer, a forerunner, or as one sent to prepare the way
for a work greater than his own, did officiate as an "Elias" is attested
by both ancient and latter-day scripture. Through him water baptism for
the remission of sins was preached and administered, and the higher
baptism, that of the Spirit, was made possible. True to his mission, he
has come in the last dispensation, and has restored by ordination the
Priesthood of Aaron, which has authority to baptize. He thus prepared
the way for the vicarious labor of baptism for the dead, the authority
for which was restored by Elijah, (see page 149 herein), and which is
preeminently the work by which the children and the fathers shall be
united in an eternal bond.

On the 10th of March, 1844, the Prophet Joseph Smith gave the following
exposition of the power of Elias as compared with higher authority: "The
spirit of Elias is first, Elijah second, and Messiah last. Elias is a
forerunner to prepare the way, and the spirit and power of Elijah is to
come after, holding the keys of power, building the temple to the
cap-stone, placing the seals of the Melchizedek Priesthood upon the
house of Israel, and making all things ready; then Messiah comes to His
temple, which is last of all."

"Messiah is above the spirit and power of Elijah, for He made the world,
and was that spiritual rock unto Moses in the wilderness. Elijah was to
come and prepare the way and build up the kingdom before the coming of
the great day of the Lord, although the spirit of Elias might begin
it."--_Hist. of the Church_, under date named.

6. Mention of the Lord's Approaching "Decease."--Of the three
synoptists, Luke alone makes even brief mention of the matter upon which
Moses and Elijah conversed with the Lord at the Transfiguration. The
record states that the visitants, who appeared in glory, "spake of his
decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem" (Luke 9:31). It is
significant that the _decease_, which the Lord should _accomplish_, not
the _death_ that He should _suffer_ or _die_, was the subject of that
exalted communion. The Greek word of which "decease" appears as the
English equivalent in many of the MSS. of the Gospels, is one connoting
"exodus," or "departure," and the word occurring in other early versions
signifies glory. So also the Greek original of "accomplish," in the
account of the Transfiguration, connotes the successful filling out or
completion of a specific undertaking, and not distinctively the act of
dying. Both the letter of the record and the spirit in which the
recorder wrote indicate that Moses and Elijah conversed with their Lord
on the glorious consummation of His mission in mortality--a consummation
recognized in the law (personified in Moses) and the prophets
(represented by Elijah)--and an event of supreme import, determining the
fulfilment of both the law and the prophets, and the glorious
inauguration of a new and higher order as part of the divine plan. The
_decease_ that the Savior was then so soon to _accomplish_ was the
voluntary surrender of His life in fulfilment of a purpose at once
exalted and foreordained, not a _death_ by which He would passively
_die_ through conditions beyond His control. (See pp. 418, and 662).

FOOTNOTES:

[775] Note 1, end of chapter.

[776] Note 2, end of chapter.

[777] Note 3, end of chapter.

[778] Matt. 17:1-8; Mark 9:2-8; Luke 9:28-36.

[779] Page 38.

[780] Mark 8:31. Note 6, end of chapter.

[781] Mark 9:10.

[782] 2 Peter 1:16-18.

[783] John 1:14.

[784] Matt. 4:11; Mark 1:13.

[785] Luke 22:43; compare John 12:27-28.

[786] 2 Kings 2:11.

[787] Matt. 17:10-13; Mark 9:11-13.

[788] Luke 1:17; pages 77 and 257 herein.

[789] Matt. 11:14.

[790] Edersheim, "Life and Times of Jesus," vol. ii, p. 79.

[791] Note 4, end of chapter.

[792] Mal. 4:5, 6; see page 149 herein.

[793] Note 5, end of chapter.

[794] Doc. and Cov. 110:13-16. See chapter 41, herein.




CHAPTER 24.

FROM SUNSHINE TO SHADOW.


Our Lord's descent from the holy heights[795] of the Mount of
Transfiguration was more than a physical return from greater to lesser
altitudes; it was a passing from sunshine into shadow, from the
effulgent glory of heaven to the mists of worldly passions and human
unbelief; it was the beginning of His rapid descent into the valley of
humiliation. From lofty converse with divinely-appointed ministers, from
supreme communion with His Father and God, Jesus came down to a scene of
disheartening confusion and a spectacle of demonized dominion before
which even His apostles stood in impotent despair. To His sensitive and
sinless soul the contrast must have brought superhuman anguish; even to
us who read the brief account thereof it is appalling.


HEALING OF YOUTHFUL DEMONIAC.

Jesus and the three apostles returned from the mount on the morrow
following the Transfiguration;[796] this fact suggests the assumption
that the glorious manifestation had occurred during the night. At or
near the base of the mountain the party found the other apostles, and
with them a multitude of people, including some scribes or rabbis.[797]
There was evidence of disputation and disturbance amongst the crowd; and
plainly the apostles were on the defensive. At the unexpected approach
of Jesus many of the people ran to meet Him with respectful salutations.
Of the contentious scribes He asked: "What question ye with them?" thus
assuming the burden of the dispute, whatever it might be, and so
relieving the distressed disciples from further active participation.
The scribes remained silent; their courage had vanished when the Master
appeared. A man, "one of the multitude," gave, though indirectly, the
answer. "Master," said he, kneeling at the feet of Christ, "I have
brought unto thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit; and wheresoever he
taketh him, he teareth him: and he foameth, and gnasheth with his teeth,
and pineth away: and I spake to thy disciples that they should cast him
out; and they could not."

The disciples' failure to heal the stricken youth had evidently brought
upon them hostile criticism, taunts and ridicule from the unbelieving
scribes; and their discomfiture must have been intensified by the
thought that through them doubt had been cast upon the authority and
power of their Lord. Pained in spirit at this--another instance of
dearth of faith and consequent lack of power among His chosen and
ordained servants--Jesus uttered an exclamation of intense sorrow: "O
faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I
suffer you?" These words, in which there is evident reproof, however
mild and pitying it may be, were addressed primarily to the apostles;
whether exclusively so or to them and others is of minor importance. As
Jesus directed, the afflicted lad was brought nearer; and the tormenting
demon, finding himself in the Master's presence, threw his youthful
victim into a terrible paroxysm, so that the boy fell to the ground and
wallowed in convulsions, the while frothing and foaming at the mouth.
With calm deliberation, which contrasted strongly with the eager
impatience of the distracted parent, Jesus inquired as to when the
malady had first befallen the lad. "Of a child," answered the father,
adding, "And ofttimes it hath cast him into the fire, and into the
waters, to destroy him." With pathetic eagerness he implored, "If thou
canst do anything, have compassion on us and help us." The man spoke of
his son's affliction as though shared by himself. "Help us," was his
prayer.

To this qualifying expression "If thou canst do anything," which implied
a measure of uncertainty as to the ability of the Master to grant what
he asked, and this perhaps as in part a result of the failure of the
apostles, Jesus replied: "If thou canst believe"; and added, "all things
are possible to him that believeth." The man's understanding was
enlightened; up to that moment he had thought that all depended upon
Jesus; he now saw that the issue rested largely with himself. It is
noteworthy that the Lord specified belief rather than faith as the
condition essential to the case. The man was evidently trustful, and
assuredly fervent in his hope that Jesus could help; but it is doubtful
that he knew what faith really meant. He was receptive and eagerly
teachable, however, and the Lord strengthened his feeble and uncertain
belief. The encouraging explanation of the real need stimulated him to a
more abounding trust. Weeping in an agony of hope he cried out: "Lord, I
believe;" and then, realizing the darkness of error from which he was
just beginning to emerge, he added penitently "help thou mine unbelief
"[798]

Looking compassionately upon the writhing sufferer at His feet, Jesus
rebuked the demon, thus: "Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come
out of him, and enter no more into him. And the spirit cried, and rent
him sore, and came out of him: and he was as one dead; insomuch that
many said, He is dead. But Jesus took him by the hand, and lifted him
up; and he arose;" and as Luke adds, "and delivered him again to his
father." The permanency of the cure was assured by the express command
that the evil spirit enter no more into the lad;[799] it was no relief
from that present attack alone; the healing was permanent.

The people were amazed at the power of God manifested in the miracle;
and the apostles who had tried and failed to subdue the evil spirit were
disturbed. While on their mission, though away from their Master's
helpful presence, they had successfully rebuked and cast out evil
spirits as they had received special power and commission to do,[800]
but now, during His absence of a day they had found themselves unable.
When they had retired to the house, they asked of Jesus, "Why could not
we cast him out?" The reply was: "Because of your unbelief;" and in
further explanation the Lord said, "Howbeit this kind goeth not out but
by prayer and fasting."[801]

Hereby we learn that the achievements possible to faith are limited or
conditioned by the genuineness, the purity, the unmixed quality of that
faith. "O ye of little faith;" "Where is your faith?" and "Wherefore
didst thou doubt?"[802] are forms of admonitory reproof that had been
repeatedly addressed to the apostles by the Lord. The possibilities of
faith were now thus further affirmed: "Verily I say unto you, If ye have
faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain,
Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be
impossible unto you."[803] The comparison between effective faith and a
grain of mustard seed is one of quality rather than of quantity; it
connotes living, virile faith, like unto the seed, however small, from
which a great plant may spring,[804] in contrast with a lifeless,
artificial imitation, however prominent or demonstrative.


THE LORD'S DEATH AND RESURRECTION AGAIN PREDICTED.[805]

From the locality whereat the last miracle was wrought, Jesus departed
with the Twelve, and passed through Galilee toward Capernaum. It is
probable that they traveled by the less frequented roads, as He desired
that His return should not be publicly known. He had gone into
comparative retirement for a season, primarily it seems in quest of
opportunity to more thoroughly instruct the apostles in their
preparation for the work, which within a few months they would be left
to carry on without His bodily companionship. They had solemnly
testified that they knew Him to be the Christ; to them therefore He
could impart much that the people in general were wholly unprepared to
receive. The particular theme of His special and advanced instruction to
the Twelve was that of His approaching death and resurrection; and this
was dwelt upon again and again, for they were slow or unwilling to
comprehend.

"Let these sayings sink down into your ears" was His forceful prelude on
this occasion, in Galilee. Then followed the reiterated prediction,
spoken in part in the present tense as though already begun in
fulfilment: "The Son of man is delivered into the hands of men, and they
shall kill him; and after that he is killed, he shall rise the third
day." We read with some surprize that the apostles still failed to
understand. Luke's comment is: "But they understood not this saying, and
it was hid from them, that they perceived it not: and they feared to ask
him of that saying." The thought of what the Lord's words might mean,
even in its faintest outline, was terrifying to those devoted men; and
their failure to comprehend was in part due to the fact that the human
mind is loath to search deeply into anything it desires not to believe.


THE TRIBUTE MONEY--SUPPLIED BY A MIRACLE.[806]

Jesus and His followers were again in Capernaum. There Peter was
approached by a collector of the temple tax, who asked: "Doth not your
Master pay tribute?"[807] Peter answered "Yes." It is interesting to
find that the inquiry was made of Peter and not directly of Jesus; this
circumstance may be indicative of the respect in which the Lord was held
by the people at large, and may suggest the possibility of doubt in the
collector's mind as to whether Jesus was amenable to the tax, since
priests and rabbis generally claimed exemption.

The annual capitation tax here referred to amounted to half a shekel or
a didrachm, corresponding to about thirty-three cents in our money; and
this had been required of every male adult in Israel since the days of
the exodus; though, during the period of captivity the requirement had
been modified.[808] This tribute, as prescribed through Moses, was
originally known as "atonement money," and its payment was in the nature
of a sacrifice to accompany supplication for ransom from the effects of
individual sin. At the time of Christ the annual contribution was
usually collected between early March and the Passover. If Jesus was
subject to this tax, He was at this time several weeks in arrears.

The conversation between Peter and the tax-collector had occurred
outside the house. When Peter entered, and was about to inform the
Master concerning the interview, Jesus forestalled him, saying: "What
thinkest thou, Simon? of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or
tribute? of their own children, or of strangers? Peter saith unto him,
Of strangers. Jesus saith unto him, Then are the children free."

Peter must have seen the inconsistency of expecting Jesus, the
acknowledged Messiah, to pay atonement money, or a tax for temple
maintenance, inasmuch as the temple was the House of God, and Jesus was
the Son of God, and particularly since even earthly princes were
exempted from capitation dues. Peter's embarrassment over his
inconsiderate boldness, in pledging payment for his Master without first
consulting Him, was relieved however by Jesus, who said:
"Notwithstanding, lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea, and
cast an hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up; and when thou
hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money: that take, and
give unto them for me and thee."

The money was to be paid, not because it could be rightfully demanded of
Jesus, but lest non-payment give offense and furnish to His opponents
further excuse for complaint. The "piece of money," which Jesus said
Peter would find in the mouth of the first fish that took his bait, is
more correctly designated by the literal translation "stater,"[809]
indicating a silver coin equivalent to a shekel, or two didrachms, and
therefore the exact amount of the tax for two persons. "That take, and
give unto them for me and thee" said Jesus. It is notable that He did
not say "for us." In His associations with men, even with the Twelve,
who of all were nearest and dearest to Him, our Lord always maintained
His separate and unique status, in every instance making the fact
apparent that He was essentially different from other men. This is
illustrated by His expressions "My Father and your Father," "My God and
your God,"[810] instead of our Father and our God. He reverently
acknowledged that He was the Son of God in a literal sense that did not
apply to any other being.

While the circumstances of the finding of the stater in the fish are not
detailed, and the actual accomplishment of the miracle is not positively
recorded, we cannot doubt that what Jesus had promised was realized, as
otherwise there would appear no reason for introducing the incident into
the Gospel narrative. The miracle is without a parallel or even a
remotely analogous instance. We need not assume that the stater was
other than an ordinary coin that had fallen into the water, nor that it
had been taken by the fish in any unusual way. Nevertheless, the
knowledge that there was in the lake a fish having a coin in its gullet,
that the coin was of the denomination specified, and that that
particular fish would rise, and be the first to rise to Peter's hook, is
as incomprehensible to man's finite understanding as are the means by
which any of Christ's miracles were wrought. The Lord Jesus held and
holds dominion over the earth, the sea, and all that in them is, for by
His word and power were they made.

The Lord's purpose in so miraculously supplying the money should be
studiously considered. The assumption that superhuman power had to be
invoked because of a supposed condition of extreme poverty on the part
of Jesus and Peter is unwarranted. Even if Jesus and His companions had
been actually penniless, Peter and his fellow fishermen could easily
have cast their net, and, with ordinary success have obtained fish
enough to sell for the needed amount. Moreover, we find no instance of a
miracle wrought by the Lord for personal gain or relief of His own need,
however pressing. It appears probable, that by the means employed for
obtaining the money, Jesus intentionally emphasized His exceptional
reasons for redeeming Peter's pledge that the tax would be paid. The
Jews, who did not know Jesus as the Messiah, but only as a Teacher of
superior ability and a Man of unusual power, might have taken offense
had He refused to pay the tribute required of every Jew. On the other
hand, to the apostles and particularly to Peter who had been the
mouth-piece of all in the great confession, the payment of the tax in
ordinary course and without explanation by Jesus might have appeared as
an admission that He was subject to the temple, and therefore less than
He had claimed and less than they had confessed Him to be. His
catechization of Peter had clearly demonstrated that He maintained His
right as the King's Son, and yet would condescend to voluntarily give
what could not be righteously demanded. Then, in conclusive
demonstration of His exalted status, He provided the money by the
utilization of knowledge such as no other man possessed.


AS A LITTLE CHILD.[811]

On the way to Capernaum the apostles had questioned among themselves, as
they supposed beyond the Master's hearing; questioning had led to
argument, and argument to disputation. The matter about which they were
so greatly concerned was as to who among them should be the greatest in
the kingdom of heaven. The testimony they had received convinced them
beyond all doubt, that Jesus was the long-awaited Christ, and this had
been supplemented and confirmed by His unqualified acknowledgment of His
Messianic dignity. With minds still tinctured by the traditional
expectation of the Messiah as both spiritual Lord and temporal King, and
remembering some of the Master's frequent references to His kingdom and
the blessed state of those who belonged thereto, and furthermore
realizing that His recent utterances indicated a near crisis or climax
in His ministry, they surrendered themselves to the selfish
contemplation of their prospective stations in the new kingdom, and the
particular offices of trust, honor, and emolument each most desired. Who
of them was to be prime minister; who would be chancellor, who the
commander of the troops? Personal ambition had already engendered
jealousy in their hearts.

When they were together with Jesus in the house at Capernaum, the
subject was brought up again. Mark tells us that Jesus asked: "What was
it that ye disputed among yourselves by the way?" and that they answered
not, because, as may be inferred, they were ashamed. From Matthew's
record it may be understood that the apostles submitted the question for
the Master's decision. The apparent difference of circumstance is
unimportant; both accounts are correct; Christ's question to them may
have eventually brought out their questions to Him. Jesus, comprehending
their thoughts and knowing their unenlightened state of mind on the
matter that troubled them, gave them an illustrated lesson. Calling a
little child, whom He lovingly took into His arm, He said: "Verily I say
unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye
shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall
humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom
of heaven. And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name
receiveth me. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which
believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about
his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea." With this
lesson we may profitably associate a later teaching, that little
children are typical of the kingdom of heaven.[812]

Even the apostles were in need of conversion;[813] respecting the matter
at issue their hearts were turned, partly at least, from God and His
kingdom. They had to learn that genuine humility is an attribute
essential to citizenship in the community of the blessed; and that the
degree of humility conditions whatsoever there is akin to rank in the
kingdom; for therein the humblest shall be greatest.

Christ would not have had His chosen representatives become childish;
far from it, they had to be men of courage, fortitude, and force; but He
would have them become childlike. The distinction is important. Those
who belong to Christ must become like children in obedience,
truthfulness, trustfulness, purity, humility and faith. The child is an
artless, natural, trusting believer; the childish one is careless,
foolish, and neglectful. In contrasting these characteristics, note the
counsel of Paul: "Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in
malice be ye children, but in understanding be men."[814] Children as
such, and children as types of adults who are true believers, are
closely associated in this lesson. Whosoever shall offend, that is cause
to stumble or go astray, one such child of Christ, incurs guilt so great
that it would have been better for him had he met death even by violence
before he had so sinned.

Dwelling upon offenses, or causes of stumbling, the Lord continued: "Woe
unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences
come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!" Then, repeating
some of the precious truths embodied in His memorable Sermon on the
Mount,[815] He urged the overcoming of evil propensities whatever the
sacrifice. As it is better that a man undergo surgical treatment though
he lose thereby a hand, a foot, or an eye, than that his whole body be
involved and his life forfeited, so is it commended that he cut off,
tear away, or root out from his soul the passions of evil, which, if
suffered to remain shall surely bring him under condemnation. In that
state his conscience shall gnaw as an undying worm, and his remorse
shall be as a fire that cannot be quenched. Every human soul shall be
tested as by fire; and as the flesh of the altar sacrifices had to be
seasoned with salt, as a type of preservation from corruption,[816] so
also the soul must receive the saving salt of the gospel; and that salt
must be pure and potent, not a dirty mixture of inherited prejudice and
unauthorized tradition that has lost whatever saltness it may once have
had. "Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another," was the
Lord's admonition to the disputing Twelve.[817]

As applicable to children of tender years, and to child-like believers
young and old, the Savior gave to the apostles this solemn warning and
profound statement of fact: "Take heed that ye despise not one of these
little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always
behold the face of my Father which is in heaven." The mission of the
Christ was presented as that of saving those who are temporarily lost,
and who, but for His aid would be lost forever. In elucidation of His
meaning, the Teacher presented a parable which has found place among the
literary treasures of the world.


THE PARABLE OF THE LOST SHEEP.[818]

"How think ye? if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone
astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the
mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray? And if so be that he
find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep, than of
the ninety and nine which went not astray. Even so it is not the will of
your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should
perish."

In this effective analogy the saving purpose of Christ's mission is made
prominent. He is verily the Savior. The shepherd is portrayed as leaving
the ninety and nine, pastured or folded in safety we cannot doubt, while
he goes alone into the mountains to seek the one that has strayed. In
finding and bringing back the wayward sheep, he has more joy than that
of knowing the others are yet safe. In a later version of this splendid
parable, as addressed to the murmuring Pharisees and scribes at
Jerusalem, the Master said of the shepherd on his finding the lost
sheep:

"And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing.
And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours,
saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was
lost. I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one
sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons,
which need no repentance."[819]

Many have marveled that there should be greater rejoicing over the
recovery of one stray sheep, or the saving of a soul that had been as
one lost, than over the many who have not been in such jeopardy. In the
safe-folded ninety and nine the shepherd had continued joy; but to him
came a new accession of happiness, brighter and stronger because of his
recent grief, when the lost was brought back to the fold. To this
parable in connection with others of analogous import we shall recur in
a later chapter.


"IN MY NAME."[820]

In continuation of the lesson illustrated by the little child, Jesus
said: "Whosoever shall receive this child in my name receiveth me: and
whosoever shall receive me receiveth him that sent me: for he that is
least among you all, the same shall be great." It may have been Christ's
reference to deeds done in His name that prompted John to interject a
remark at this point: "Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy
name, and he followeth not us: and we forbad him, because he followeth
not us. But Jesus said, Forbid him not: for there is no man which shall
do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me. For he that
is not against us is on our part." The young apostle had allowed his
zeal for the Master's name to lead to intolerance. That the man who had
attempted to do good in the name of Jesus was evidently sincere, and
that his efforts were acceptable to the Lord we cannot doubt; his act
was essentially different from the unrighteous assumptions for which
some others were afterward rebuked;[821] he was certainly a believer in
Christ, and may have been one of the class from which the Lord was soon
to select and commission special ministers and the Seventy.[822] In the
state of divided opinion then existing among the people concerning
Jesus, it was fair to say that all who were not opposed to Him were at
least tentatively on His side. On other occasions He asserted that those
who were not with Him were against Him.[823]


MY BROTHER AND I.[824]

The proper method of adjusting differences between brethren and the
fundamental principles of Church discipline were made subjects of
instruction to the Twelve. The first step is thus prescribed: "Moreover
if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault
between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy
brother." The rule of the rabbis was that the offender must make the
first advance; but Jesus taught that the injured one should not wait for
his brother to come to him, but go himself, and seek to adjust the
difficulty; by so doing he might be the means of saving his brother's
soul. If the offender proved to be obdurate, the brother who had
suffered the trespass was to take two or three others with him, and
again try to bring the transgressor to repentant acknowledgment of his
offense; such a course provided for witnesses, by whose presence later
misrepresentation would be guarded against.

Extreme measures were to be adopted only after all gentler means had
failed. Should the man persist in his obstinacy, the case was to be
brought before the Church, and in the event of his neglect or refusal to
heed the decision of the Church, he was to be deprived of fellowship,
thereby becoming in his relationship to his former associates "as an
heathen man and a publican." In such state of non-membership he would be
a fit subject for missionary effort; but, until he became repentant and
manifested willingness to make amends, he could claim no rights or
privileges of communion in the Church. Continued association with the
unrepentant sinner may involve the spread of his disaffection, and the
contamination of others through his sin. Justice is not to be dethroned
by Mercy. The revealed order of discipline in the restored Church is
similar to that given to the apostles of old.[825]

The authority of the Twelve to administer the affairs of Church
government was attested by the Lord's confirming to them as a body the
promise before addressed to Peter: "Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye
shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall
loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."[826] Through unity of purpose
and unreserved sincerity they would have power with God, as witness the
Master's further assurance: "Again I say unto you, That if two of you
shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall
be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three
are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."
Peter here broke in with a question: "Lord, how oft shall my brother sin
against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?" He would fain have
some definite limit set, and he probably considered the tentative
suggestion of seven times as a very liberal measure, inasmuch as the
rabbis prescribed a triple forgiveness only.[827] He may have chosen
seven as the next number above three having a special Pharisaical
significance. The Savior's answer was enlightening: "Jesus saith unto
him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times
seven." This reply must have meant to Peter as it means to us, that to
forgiveness man may set no bounds; the forgiveness, however, must be
merited by the recipient.[828] The instruction was made memorable by the
following story.


PARABLE OF THE UNMERCIFUL SERVANT.

"Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which
would take account of his servants. And when he had begun to reckon, one
was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents. But forasmuch
as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife,
and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made. The servant
therefore fell down, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience
with me, and I will pay thee all. Then the lord of that servant was
moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt. But the
same servant went out, and found one of his fellowservants, which owed
him an hundred pence: and he laid hands on him, and took him by the
throat, saying, Pay me that thou owest. And his fellowservant fell down
at his feet, and besought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will
pay thee all. And he would not: but went and cast him into prison, till
he should pay the debt. So when his fellowservants saw what was done,
they were very sorry, and came and told unto their lord all that was
done. Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou
wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me:
Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even
as I had pity on thee? And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the
tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. So likewise
shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts
forgive not every one his brother their trespasses."[829]

Ten thousand talents are specified as expressive of a sum so great as to
put the debtor beyond all reasonable possibility of paying. We may
regard the man as a trusted official, one of the king's ministers, who
had been charged with the custody of the royal revenues, or one of the
chief treasurers of taxes; that he is called a servant introduces no
inconsistency, as in an absolute monarchy all but the sovereign are
subjects and servants. The selling of the debtor's wife and children and
all that he had would not have been in violation of the law in the
supposed case, which implies the legal recognition of slavery.[830] The
man was in arrears for debt. He did not come before his lord voluntarily
but had to be brought. So in the affairs of our individual lives
periodical reckonings are inevitable; and while some debtors report of
their own accord, others have to be cited to appear. The messengers who
serve the summons may be adversity, illness, the approach of death; but,
whatever, whoever they are, they enforce a rendering of our accounts.

The contrast between ten thousand talents and a hundred pence is
enormous.[831] In his fellowservant's plea for time in which to pay the
hundred pence, the greater debtor should have been reminded of the dire
straits from which he had just been relieved; the words, "Have patience
with me, and I will pay thee all," were identical with those of his own
prayer to the king. The base ingratitude of the unmerciful servant
justified the king in revoking the pardon once granted. The man came
under condemnation, not primarily for defalcation and debt, but for lack
of mercy after having received of mercy so abundantly. He, as an unjust
plaintiff, had invoked the law; as a convicted transgressor he was to be
dealt with according to the law. Mercy is for the merciful. As a
heavenly jewel it is to be received with thankfulness and used with
sanctity, not to be cast into the mire of undeservedness. Justice may
demand retribution and punishment: "With what measure ye mete, it shall
be measured to you again."[832] The conditions under which we may
confidently implore pardon are set forth in the form of prayer
prescribed by the Lord: "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our
debtors."[833]


NOTES TO CHAPTER 24.

1. Faith in Behalf of Others.--The supplication of the agonized father
for the benefit of his sorely afflicted son--"Have compassion on us, and
help us" (Mark 9:22)--shows that he made the boy's case his own. In this
we are reminded of the Canaanite woman who implored Jesus to have mercy
on her, though her daughter was the afflicted one (Matt. 15:22; page 354
herein). In these cases, faith was exercized in behalf of the sufferers
by others; and the same is true of the centurion who pleaded for his
servant and whose faith was specially commended by Jesus (Matt 8:5-10;
page 249 herein); of Jairus whose daughter lay dead (Luke 8:41, 42, 49,
50; page 313 herein), and of many who brought their helpless kindred or
friends to Christ and pleaded for them. As heretofore shown, faith to be
healed is as truly a gift of God as is faith to heal (page 318); and, as
the instances cited prove, faith may be exercized with effect in behalf
of others. In connection with the ordinance of administering to the
afflicted, by anointing with oil and the laying on of hands, as
authoritatively established in the restored Church of Jesus Christ, the
elders officiating should encourage the faith of all believers present,
that such be exerted in behalf of the sufferer. In the case of infants
and of persons who are unconscious, it is plainly useless to look for
active manifestation of faith on their part, and the supporting faith of
kindred and friends is all the more requisite.

2. Power Developed by Prayer and Fasting.--The Savior's statement
concerning the evil spirit that the apostles were unable to
subdue--"Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and
fasting"--indicates gradation in the malignity and evil power of demons,
and gradation also in the results of varying degrees of faith. The
apostles who failed on the occasion referred to had been able to cast
out demons at other times. Fasting, when practised in prudence, and
genuine prayer are conducive to the development of faith with its
accompanying power for good. Individual application of this principle
may be made with profit. Have you some besetting weakness, some sinful
indulgence that you have vainly tried to overcome? Like the malignant
demon that Christ rebuked in the boy, your sin may be of a kind that
goeth out only through prayer and fasting.

3. Nothing Impossible to Faith.--Many people have questioned the literal
truth of the Lord's declaration that by faith mountains may be removed
from their place. Plainly there would have to be a purpose in harmony
with the divine mind and plan, in order that faith could be exerted at
all in such an undertaking. Neither such a miracle nor any other is
possible as a gratification of the yearning for curiosity, nor for
display, nor for personal gain or selfish satisfaction. Christ wrought
no miracle with any such motive; He persistently refused to show signs
to mere sign-seekers. But to deny the possibility of a mountain being
removed through faith, under conditions that would render such removal
acceptable to God, is to deny the word of God, both as to this specific
possibility, and as to the general assurance that "nothing shall be
impossible" to him who hath faith adequate to the end desired. It is
worthy of note, however, that the Jews in the days of Christ and since
often spoke of removing mountains as a figurative expression for the
overcoming of difficulties. According to Lightfoot and other authorities
a man able to solve intricate problems, or of particular power in
argument or acumen in judgment, was referred to as a "rooter up of
mountains."

4. The Temple Tribute.--That the tribute money referred to in the text
was a Jewish contribution to the temple and not a tax levied by the
Roman government, is apparent from the specification of the "didrachma,"
which in the authorized version is translated "tribute." This coin was
equivalent to the half shekel, reckoned "after the shekel of the
sanctuary," which was the fixed amount to be paid annually by every male
"from twenty years old and above," with the provision that "the rich
shall not give more and the poor shall not give less" (Exo. 30:13-15). A
tax levied by the political powers would not be designated as the
didrachma. Moreover, had the collector who approached Peter been one of
the official publicans, he probably would have demanded the tax instead
of inquiring as to whether or not the Master was to be counted among the
contributors.

Among the many humiliations to which the Jews were subjected in later
years, after the destruction of the temple, was the compulsory payment
of what had been their temple tribute, to the Romans, who decreed it as
a revenue to the pagan temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. Of the emperor
Vespasian, Josephus (Wars of the Jews, vii, 6:6) says: That he also laid
a tribute wheresoever they were, and enjoined every one of them to bring
two drachmæ every year into the capitol, as they used to pay the same to
the temple at Jerusalem.

5. Talents and Pence.--It is evident that by specifying ten thousand
talents as the debt due the king, and a hundred pence as that owed by
the fellow-servant, the Lord intended to present a case of great
disparity and striking contrast. The actual amounts involved are of
minor significance in the story. We are not told which variety of talent
was meant; there were Attic talents, and both silver and gold talents of
Hebrew reckoning; and each differed from the others in value. The Oxford
marginal explanation is: "A talent is 750 ounces of silver, which after
five shillings the ounce is 187 pounds, ten shillings." This would be in
American money over nine and a quarter millions of dollars as the sum of
the ten thousand talents. The same authority gives as the value of the
penny (Roman) sevenpence half-penny, or fifteen cents, making the second
debt equivalent to about fifteen dollars. Comparison with talents
mentioned elsewhere may be allowable. Trench says: "How vast a sum it
was we can most vividly realize to ourselves by comparing it with other
sums mentioned in Scripture. In the construction of the tabernacle,
twenty-nine talents of gold were used (Exo. 38:24); David prepared for
the temple three thousand talents of gold, and the princes five thousand
(1 Chron. 29:4-7); the queen of Sheba presented to Solomon one hundred
and twenty talents (1 Kings 10:10); the king of Assyria laid upon
Hezekiah thirty talents of gold (2 Kings 18:14); and in the extreme
impoverishment to which the land was brought at the last, one talent of
gold was laid upon it, after the death of Josiah, by the king of Egypt
(2 Chron. 36:3)." Farrar estimates the debt owed to the king as
1,250,000 times that owed by the lesser to the greater debtor.

6. An Assumed Approval of Slavery.--Some readers have assumed that they
find in the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant an implied approval of the
institution of slavery. The greater debtor, who figures in the story,
was to be sold, together with his wife and children and all that he had.
A rational consideration of the story as a whole is likely to find at
most, in the particular incident of the king's command that the debtor
and his family be sold, that the system of buying and selling
bondservants, serfs, or slaves, was legally recognized at the time. The
purpose of the parable was not even remotely to endorse or condemn
slavery or any other social institution. The Mosaic law is explicit in
matters relating to bondservants. The "angel of the Lord" who brought to
Hagar a message of encouragement and blessing respected the authority of
her mistress (Gen. 16:8, 9). In the apostolic epoch, instruction was
directed toward right living under the secular law, not rebellion
against the system (Eph. 6:5; Col. 3:22; 1 Tim. 6:1-3; 1 Peter 2:18).
Recognition of established customs, institutions, and laws, and proper
obedience thereto, do not necessarily imply individual approval. The
gospel of Jesus Christ, which shall yet regenerate the world, is to
prevail--not by revolutionary assaults upon existing governments, nor
through anarchy and violence--but by the teaching of individual duty and
by the spread of the spirit of love. When the love of God shall be given
a place in the hearts of mankind, when men shall unselfishly love their
neighbors, then social systems and governments shall be formed and
operated to the securing of the greatest good to the greatest number.
Until men open their hearts to the reception of the gospel of Jesus
Christ, injustice and oppression, servitude and slavery, in some form or
other, are sure to exist. Attempts to extirpate social conditions that
spring from individual selfishness cannot be otherwise than futile so
long as selfishness is left to thrive and propagate.

FOOTNOTES:

[795] Compare 2 Peter 1:18.

[796] Luke 9:37.

[797] Matt. 17:14-21; Mark 9:14-29; Luke 9:37-42.

[798] Note 1, end of chapter.

[799] Compare Matt. 12:40-45.

[800] Mark 6:12, 13; compare verse 7; also 3:15; Matt. 10:1.

[801] Note 2, end of chapter.

[802] Matt. 14:31; 16:8; Luke 8:25.

[803] Matt. 17:20; compare 21:21; Mark 11:23; Luke 17:6; see also Note
3, end of chapter.

[804] Compare Parable of the Mustard Seed, page 290.

[805] Matt. 17:22-23; Mark 9:30-32; Luke 9:44, 45.

[806] Matt. 17:24-27.

[807] Note 4, end of chapter.

[808] Exo. 30:13; 38:26. Page 171.

[809] See reading in revised version, and in margin of Oxford and
Bagster Bibles.

[810] John 20:17.

[811] Matt. 18:1-11; Mark 9:33-37, 42; Luke 9:46-48.

[812] Matt. 19:13-15; Mark 10:13-16; Luke 18:15-17.

[813] Compare Luke 22:32.

[814] 1 Cor. 14:20; compare 13:11; Matt. 11:25; Psa. 131:2.

[815] Page 234.

[816] Mark 9:49, 50; compare Lev. 2:13; Ezek. 43:24.

[817] Mark 9:43-50; compare Matt. 18:8, 9. Page 232 herein.

[818] Matt. 18:12-14; compare Luke 15:3-7 in which occurs a repetition
of this impressive parable, as given on a later occasion to Pharisees
and scribes at Jerusalem with a somewhat different application.

[819] Luke 15:1-7. See further page 451 herein.

[820] Luke 9:48-50; Mark 9:37-41.

[821] Contrast the instance of the sons of Sceva, Acts 19:13-17.

[822] Compare Luke 9:52; 10:1.

[823] Matt. 12:30; Luke 11:23.

[824] Matt. 18:15-20; compare Luke 17:3, 4.

[825] Compare Doc. and Cov. 20:80; 42:88-93; 98:39-48.

[826] Matt. 18:18; compare 16:19, and John 20:23.

[827] They based this limitation on Amos 1:3 and Job 33:29. In the
latter passage, as it appears in the authorized version, the word
"oftentimes" is an erroneous rendering of the original, which really
signified "twice and thrice."

[828] Compare Luke 17:3, 4.

[829] Matt. 18:23-35.

[830] Compare 2 Kings 4:1; Lev. 25:39.

[831] Note 5, end of chapter.

[832] Matt. 7:1; see also verse 6.

[833] Matt. 6:12; compare Luke 11:4; B. of M., 3 Nephi 13:11; page 240.




CHAPTER 25.

JESUS AGAIN IN JERUSALEM.


DEPARTURE FROM GALILEE.[834]

Of our Lord's labors during His brief sojourn in Galilee following His
return from the region of Cæsarea Philippi we have no record aside from
that of His instructions to the apostles. His Galilean ministry, so far
as the people in general were concerned, had practically ended with the
discourse at Capernaum on His return thither after the miracles of
feeding the five thousand and walking upon the sea. At Capernaum many of
the disciples had turned away from the Master,[835] and now, after
another short visit, He prepared to leave the land in which so great a
part of His public work had been accomplished.

It was autumn; about six months had passed since the return of the
apostles from their missionary tour; and the Feast of Tabernacles was
near at hand. Some of the kinsmen of Jesus came to Him, and proposed
that He go to Jerusalem and take advantage of the opportunity offered by
the great national festival, to declare Himself more openly than He had
theretofore done. His brethren, as the visiting relatives are called,
urged that He seek a broader and more prominent field than Galilee for
the display of His powers, arguing that it was inconsistent for any man
to keep himself in comparative obscurity when he wanted to be widely
known. "Shew thyself to the world," said they. Whatever their motives
may have been, these brethren of His did not advize more extended
publicity through any zeal for His divine mission; indeed, we are
expressly told that they did not believe in Him.[836] Jesus replied to
their presumptuous advice: "My time is not yet come: but your time is
alway ready. The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I
testify of it, that the works thereof are evil. Go ye up unto this
feast: I go not up yet unto this feast; for my time is not yet full
come." It was not their prerogative to direct His movements, not to say
when He should do even what He intended to do eventually.[837] He made
it plain that between their status and His there was essential
difference; they were of the world, which they loved as the world loved
them; but the world hated Him because of His testimony.

This colloquy between Jesus and His brethren took place in Galilee. They
soon started for Jerusalem leaving Him behind. He had not said that He
would not go to the feast; but only "I go not up yet unto this feast;
for my time is not yet full come." Some time after their departure He
followed, traveling "not openly, but as it were in secret." Whether He
went alone, or accompanied by any or all of the Twelve, we are not told.


AT THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES.[838]

The agitated state of the public mind respecting Jesus is shown by the
interest manifest in Jerusalem as to the probability of His presence at
the feast. His brethren, who probably were questioned, could give no
definite information as to His coming. He was sought for in the crowds;
there was much discussion and some disputation concerning Him. Many
people expressed their conviction that He was a good man, while others
contradicted on the claim that He was a deceiver. There was little open
discussion, however, for the people were afraid of incurring the
displeasure of the rulers.

As originally established, the Feast of Tabernacles was a seven day
festival, followed by a holy convocation on the eighth day. Each day was
marked by special and in some respects distinctive services, all
characterized by ceremonies of thanksgiving and praise.[839] "Now about
the midst of the feast," probably on the third or fourth day, "Jesus
went up into the temple, and taught." The first part of His discourse is
not recorded, but its scriptural soundness is intimated in the surprize
of the Jewish teachers, who asked among themselves: "How knoweth this
man letters, having never learned?" He was no graduate of their schools;
He had never sat at the feet of their rabbis; He had not been officially
accredited by them nor licensed to teach. Whence came His wisdom, before
which all their academic attainments were as nothing? Jesus answered
their troubled queries, saying: "My doctrine is not mine, but his that
sent me. If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine,
whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." His Teacher,
greater even than Himself, was the Eternal Father, whose will He
proclaimed. The test proposed to determine the truth of His doctrine was
in every way fair, and withal simple; anyone who would earnestly seek to
do the will of the Father should know of himself whether Jesus spoke
truth or error.[840] The Master proceeded to show that a man who speaks
on his own authority alone seeks to aggrandize himself. Jesus did not
so; He honored His Teacher, His Father, His God, not Himself; and
therefore was He free from the taint of selfish pride or
unrighteousness. Moses had given them the law, and yet, as Jesus
affirmed, none of them kept the law.

Then, with startling abruptness, He challenged them with the question,
"Why go ye about to kill me?" On many occasions had they held dark
counsel with one another as to how they could get Him into their power
and put Him to death; but they thought that the murderous secret was
hidden within their own circle. The people had heard the seducing
assertions of the ruling classes, that Jesus was possessed by a demon,
and that He wrought wonders through the power of Beelzebub; and in the
spirit of this blasphemous slander, they cried out: "Thou hast a devil:
who goeth about to kill thee?"

Jesus knew that the two specifications of alleged guilt on which the
rulers were striving most assiduously to convict Him in the popular
mind, and so turn the people against Him, were those of Sabbath-breaking
and blasphemy. On an earlier visit to Jerusalem He had healed an
afflicted man on the Sabbath, and had utterly disconcerted the
hypercritical accusers who even then had sought to compass His
death.[841] To this act of mercy and power Jesus now referred, saying:
"I have done one work, and ye all marvel." Seemingly they were still of
unsettled mind, in doubt as to accepting Him because of the miracle or
denouncing Him because He had done it on the Sabbath. Then He showed the
inconsistency of charging Him with Sabbath-desecration for such a
merciful deed, when the law of Moses expressly allowed acts of mercy,
and even required that the mandatory rite of circumcision should not be
deferred because of the Sabbath. "Judge not according to the appearance,
but judge righteous judgment" said He.

The masses were still divided in their estimate of Jesus, and were
moreover puzzled over the indecision of the rulers. Some of the
Jerusalem Jews knew of the plan to arrest Him, and if possible to bring
Him to death, and the people queried why nothing was done when He was
there teaching publicly within reach of the officials. They wondered
whether the rulers had not at last come to believe that Jesus was indeed
the Messiah. The thought, however, was brushed aside when they
remembered that all knew whence He came; He was a Galilean, and from
Nazareth, whereas as they had been taught, however wrongly, the advent
of the Christ was to be mysterious so that none would know whence He
came. Strange it was, indeed, that men should reject Him because of a
lack of mystery and miracle in His advent; when, had they known the
truth, they would have seen in His birth a miracle without precedent or
parallel in the annals of time. Jesus directly answered their weak and
faulty reasoning. Crying aloud within the temple courts, He assured them
that while they knew whence He came as one of their number, yet they did
not know that He had come from God, neither did they know God who had
sent Him: "But," He added, "I know him: for I am from him, and he hath
sent me." At this reiterated testimony of His divine origin, the Jews
were the more enraged, and they determined anew to take Him by force;
nevertheless none laid hands upon him "because his hour was not yet
come."

Many of the people believed in their hearts that He was of God, and
ventured to ask among themselves whether Christ would do greater works
than Jesus had done. The Pharisees and chief priests feared a possible
demonstration in favor of Jesus, and forthwith sent officers to arrest
Him and bring him before the Sanhedrin.[842] The presence of the temple
police caused no interruption to the Master's discourse, though we may
reasonably infer that He knew the purpose of their errand. He spoke on,
saying that He would be with the people but a little while; and that
after He had returned to the Father, they would seek Him vainly, for
where He would then be they could not come. This remark evoked more
bitter discussion. Some of the Jews wondered whether He intended to
leave the borders of the land and go among the Gentiles to teach them
and the dispersed Israelites.

As part of the temple service incident to the feast, the people went in
procession to the Pool of Siloam[843] where a priest filled a golden
ewer, which he then carried to the altar and there poured out the water
to the accompaniment of trumpet blasts and the acclamations of the
assembled hosts.[844] According to authorities on Jewish customs, this
feature was omitted on the closing day of the feast. On this last or
"great day," which was marked by ceremonies of unusual solemnity and
rejoicing, Jesus was again in the temple. It may have been with
reference to the bringing of water from the pool, or to the omission of
the ceremony from the ritualistic procedure of the great day, that Jesus
cried aloud, His voice resounding through the courts and arcades of the
temple: "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that
believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall
flow rivers of living water."[845]

John, the recorder, remarks parenthetically that this promise had
reference to the bestowal of the Holy Ghost, which at that time had not
been granted, nor was it to be until after the ascension of the risen
Lord.[846]

Again many of the people were so impressed that they declared Jesus
could be none other than the Messiah; but others objected, saying that
the Christ must come from Bethlehem of Judea and Jesus was known to have
come from Galilee.[847] So there was further dissension; and though some
wanted Him apprehended, not a man was found who would venture to lay
hold on Him.

The police officers returned without their intended prisoner. To the
angry demand of the chief priests and Pharisees as to why they had not
brought Him, they acknowledged that they had been so affected by His
teachings as to be unable to make the arrest. "Never man spake like this
man," they said. Their haughty masters were furious. "Are ye also
deceived?" they demanded; and further, "Have any of the rulers or of the
Pharisees believed on him?" What was the opinion of the common people
worth? They had never learned the law, and were therefore accursed and
of no concern. Yet with all this show of proud disdain, the chief
priests and Pharisees were afraid of the common people, and were again
halted in their wicked course.

One voice of mild protest was heard in the assembly. Nicodemus, a member
of the Sanhedrin, and the same who had come to Jesus by night to inquire
into the new teaching,[848] mustered courage enough to ask: "Doth our
law judge any man, before it hear him, and know what he doeth?" The
answer was insulting. Maddened with bigotry and blood-thirsty
fanaticism, some of his colleagues turned upon him with the savage
demand: "Art thou also of Galilee?" meaning, Art thou also a disciple of
this Galilean whom we hate? Nicodemus was curtly told to study the
scriptures, and he would fail to find any prediction of a prophet
arising in Galilee. The anger of these learned bigots had blinded them
even to their own vaunted knowledge, for several of the ancient prophets
were regarded as Galileans;[849] if, however they had meant to refer
only to that Prophet of whom Moses had spoken, the Messiah, they were
correct, since all predictions pointed to Bethlehem in Judea as His
birthplace. It is evident that Jesus was thought of as a native of
Nazareth, and that the circumstances of His birth were not of public
knowledge.


"GO, AND SIN NO MORE."[850]

After the festivities were over, Jesus went to the temple one morning
early; and as He sat, probably in the Court of the Women, which was the
usual place of public resort, many gathered about Him and He proceeded
to teach them as was His custom. His discourse was interrupted by the
arrival of a party of scribes and Pharisees with a woman in charge, who,
they said, was guilty of adultery. To Jesus they presented this
statement and question: "Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such
should be stoned; but what sayest thou?" The submitting of the case to
Jesus was a prearranged snare, a deliberate attempt to find or make a
cause for accusing Him. Though it was not unusual for Jewish officials
to consult rabbis of recognized wisdom and experience when difficult
cases were to be decided, the case in point involved no legal
complications. The woman's guilt seems to have been unquestioned, though
the witnesses required by the statutes are not mentioned as appearing
unless the accusing scribes and Pharisees are to be so considered; the
law was explicit, and the custom of the times in dealing with such
offenders was well known. While it is true that the law of Moses had
decreed death by stoning as the penalty for adultery, the infliction of
the extreme punishment had lapsed long before the time of Christ. One
may reasonably ask why the woman's partner in the crime was not brought
for sentence, since the law so zealously cited by the officious accusers
provided for the punishment of both parties to the offense.[851]

The question of the scribes and Pharisees, "But what sayest thou?" may
have intimated their expectation that Jesus would declare the law
obsolete; perhaps they had heard of the Sermon on the Mount, in which
many requirements in advance of the Mosaic code had been
proclaimed.[852] Had Jesus decided that the wretched woman ought to
suffer death, her accusers might have said that he was defying the
existing authorities; and possibly the charge of opposition to the Roman
government might have been formulated, since power to inflict the death
penalty had been taken from all Jewish tribunals; and moreover, the
crime with which this woman was charged was not a capital offense under
Roman law. Had He said that the woman should go unpunished or suffer
only minor infliction, the crafty Jews could have charged Him with
disrespect for the law of Moses. To these scribes and Pharisees Jesus at
first gave little heed. Stooping down He traced with His finger on the
ground; but as He wrote they continued to question Him. Lifting Himself
up He answered them, in a terse sentence that has become proverbial: "He
that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." Such
was the law; the accusers on whose testimony the death penalty was
pronounced were to be the first to begin the work of execution.[853]

Having spoken, Jesus again stooped and wrote upon the ground. The
woman's accusers were "convicted by their own conscience"; shamed and in
disgrace they slunk away, all of them from the eldest to the youngest.
They knew themselves to be unfit to appear either as accusers or
judges.[854] What cowards doth conscience make! "When Jesus had lifted
up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where
are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man,
Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go and sin no
more."[855]

The woman was repentant; she remained humbly awaiting the Master's
decision, even after her accusers had gone. Jesus did not expressly
condone; He declined to condemn; but He sent the sinner away with a
solemn adjuration to a better life.[856]


THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD.[857]

Sitting within the temple enclosure in the division known as the
Treasury, which was connected with the Court of the Women,[858] our Lord
continued His teaching, saying: "I am the light of the world: he that
followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of
life."[859] The great lamps set up in the court as a feature of the
joyful celebration just ended gave point to our Lord's avowal of Himself
as the Light of the World. It was another proclamation of His divinity
as God and the Son of God. The Pharisees challenged His testimony,
declaring it of no worth because He bore record of Himself. Jesus
admitted that He testified of Himself, but affirmed nevertheless that
what He said was true, for He knew whereof He spoke, whence He came and
whither He would go, while they spoke in ignorance. They thought,
talked, and judged after the ways of men and the frailties of the flesh;
He was not sitting in judgment, but should He choose to judge, then His
judgment would be just, for He was guided by the Father who sent Him.
Their law required the testimony of two witnesses for the legal
determination of any question of fact;[860] and Jesus cited Himself and
His Father as witnesses in support of His affirmation. His opponents
then asked with contemptuous or sarcastic intent, "Where is thy Father?"
The reply was in lofty tone; "Ye neither know me, nor my Father: if ye
had known me, ye should have known my Father also." Enraged at their own
discomfiture, the Pharisees would have seized Him, but found themselves
impotent. "No man laid hands on him; for his hour was not yet come."


THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE.[861]

Again addressing the mixed assemblage, which probably comprized
Pharisees, scribes, rabbis, priests, Levites, and lay people, Jesus
repeated His former assertion that soon He would leave them, and that
whither He went they could not follow; and added the fateful assurance
that they would seek Him in vain and would die in their sins. His solemn
portent was treated with light concern if not contempt. Some of them
asked querulously, "Will he kill himself?" the implication being that in
such case they surely would not follow Him; for according to their
dogma, Gehenna was the place of suicides, and they, being of the chosen
people, were bound for heaven not hell. The Lord's dignified rejoinder
was: "Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am
not of this world. I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your
sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins."

This reiteration of His distinctive supremacy brought forth the
challenging question, "Who art thou?" Jesus replied, "Even the same that
I said unto you from the beginning." The many matters on which He might
have judged them He refrained from mentioning, but testified anew of the
Father, saying: "He that sent me is true; and I speak to the world those
things which I have heard of him." Explicit as His earlier explanations
had been, the Jews in their gross prejudice "understood not that he
spake to them of the Father." To His Father Jesus ascribed all honor and
glory, and repeatedly declared Himself as sent to do the Father's will.
"Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then
shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my
Father hath taught me, I speak these things. And he that sent me is with
me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that
please him."

The evident earnestness and profound conviction with which Jesus spoke
caused many of His hearers to believe on Him; and these He addressed
with the promise that if they continued in that belief, and shaped their
lives according to His word, they should be His disciples indeed. A
further promise followed: "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth
shall make you free." At these words, so rich in blessing, so full of
comfort for the believing soul, the people were stirred to angry
demonstrations; their Jewish temper was immediately ablaze. To promise
them freedom was to imply that they were not already free. "We be
Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou,
Ye shall be made free?" In their unbridled fanaticism they had forgotten
the bondage of Egypt, the captivity of Babylon, and were oblivious of
their existing state of vassalage to Rome. To say that Israel had never
been in bondage was not only to convict themselves of falsehood but to
stultify themselves wretchedly.

Jesus made it clear that He had not referred to freedom in its physical
or political sense alone, though to this conception their false
disavowal had been directed; the liberty He proclaimed was spiritual
liberty; the grievous bondage from which He would deliver them was the
serfdom of sin. To their vaunted boast that they were free men, not
slaves, He replied: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever
committeth sin is the servant of sin." As a sinner, every one of them
was in slavery. A bond-servant, Jesus reminded them, was allowed in the
master's house by sufferance only; it was not his inherent right to
remain there; his owner could send him away at any time, and might even
sell him to another; but a son of the family had of his own right a
place in his father's home. Now, if the Son of God made them free they
would be free indeed. Though they were of Abrahamic lineage in the
flesh, they were no heirs of Abraham in spirit or works. Our Lord's
mention of His Father as distinct from their father drew forth the angry
reiteration, "Abraham is our father", to which Jesus replied: "If ye
were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham. But now ye
seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard
of God: this did not Abraham. Ye do the deeds of your father." In their
blind anger they apparently construed this to imply that though they
were children of Abraham's household some other man than Abraham was
their actual progenitor, or that they were not of unmixed Israelitish
blood. "We be not born of fornication" they cried, "we have one Father,
even God." Jesus said unto them, "If God were your Father, ye would love
me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself,
but he sent me."

They failed to understand because of their stubborn refusal to listen
dispassionately. With forceful accusation Jesus told them whose children
they actually were, as evinced by the hereditary traits manifest in
their lives: "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your
father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not
in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie,
he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.[862] And
because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not." He challenged them to
find sin in Him; and then asked why, if He spake the truth, they so
persistently refused to believe Him. Answering His own question, He told
them that they were not of God and therefore they understood not the
words of God. The Master was unimpeachable; His terse, cogent assertions
were unanswerable. In impotent rage the discomfited Jews resorted to
invective and calumny. "Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and
hast a devil?" they shrieked. They had before called Him a Galilean;
that appellative was but mildly depreciatory, and moreover was a
truthful designation according to their knowledge; but the epithet
"Samaritan" was inspired by hate,[863] and by its application they meant
to disown Him as a Jew.

The charge that He was a demoniac was but a repetition of earlier
slanders. "Jesus answered, I have not a devil; but I honour my Father,
and ye do dishonour me." Reverting to the eternal riches offered by His
gospel, the Master said: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep
my saying, he shall never see death." This rendered them the more
infuriate: "Now we know that thou hast a devil" they cried, and as
evidence of what they professed to regard as His insanity, they cited
the fact that great as were Abraham and the prophets they were dead, yet
Jesus dared to say that all who kept His sayings should be exempt from
death. Did He pretend to exalt Himself above Abraham and the prophets?
"Whom makest thou thyself?" they demanded. The Lord's reply was a
disclaimer of all self-aggrandizement; His honor was not of His own
seeking, but was the gift of His Father, whom He knew; and were He to
deny that He knew the Father He would be a liar like unto themselves.
Touching the relationship between Himself and the great patriarch of
their race, Jesus thus affirmed and emphasized His own supremacy: "Your
father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad." Not
only angered but puzzled, the Jews demanded further explanation.
Construing the last declaration as applying to the mortal state only,
they said: "Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen
Abraham?" Jesus answered, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before
Abraham was, I am."

This was an unequivocal and unambiguous declaration of our Lord's
eternal Godship. By the awful title I AM He had made Himself known to
Moses and thereafter was so known in Israel.[864] As already shown, it
is the equivalent of "Yahveh," or "Jahveh," now rendered "Jehovah," and
signifies "The Self-existent One," "The Eternal," "The First and the
Last."[865] Jewish traditionalism forbade the utterance of the sacred
Name; yet Jesus claimed it as His own. In an orgy of self-righteous
indignation, the Jews seized upon the stones that lay in the unfinished
courts, and would have crushed their Lord, but the hour of His death had
not yet come, and unseen of them He passed through the crowd and
departed from the temple.

His seniority to Abraham plainly referred to the status of each in the
antemortal or preexistent state; Jesus was as literally the Firstborn in
the spirit-world, as He was the Only Begotten in the flesh. Christ is as
truly the Elder Brother of Abraham and Adam as of the last-born child of
earth.[866]


BODILY AND SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS--SIGHT GIVEN TO A MAN ON THE
SABBATH.[867]

At Jerusalem Jesus mercifully gave sight to a man who had been blind
from his birth.[868] The miracle is an instance of Sabbath-day healing,
of more than ordinary interest because of its attendant incidents. It is
recorded by John alone, and, as usual with that writer, his narrative is
given with descriptive detail. Jesus and His disciples saw the sightless
one upon the street. The poor man lived by begging. The disciples, eager
to learn, asked: "Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he
was born blind?" The Lord's reply was: "Neither hath this man sinned,
nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in
him." The disciples' question implied their belief in a state of moral
agency and choice antedating mortality; else, how could they have
thought of the man having sinned so as to bring upon himself congenital
blindness? We are expressly told that he was born blind. That he might
have been a sufferer from the sins of his parents was conceivable.[869]
The disciples evidently had been taught the great truth of an antemortal
existence. It is further to be seen that they looked upon bodily
affliction as the result of personal sin. Their generalization was too
broad; for, while as shown by instances heretofore cited,[870]
individual wickedness may and does bring physical ills in its train, man
is liable to err in his judgment as to the ultimate cause of affliction.
The Lord's reply was sufficing; the man's blindness would be turned to
account in bringing about a manifestation of divine power. As Jesus
explained respecting His own ministry, it was necessary that He do the
Father's work in the season appointed, for His time was short. With
impressive pertinency as relating to the state of the man who had been
in darkness all his days, our Lord repeated the affirmation before made
in the temple, "I am the light of the world."

The outward ministration to the blind man was different from the usual
course followed by Jesus. "He spat on the ground, and made clay of the
spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay"; and
then directed him to go to the pool of Siloam and wash in its
waters.[871] The man went, washed, and came seeing. He was evidently a
well-known character; many had seen him in his accustomed place begging
alms, and the fact that he had been blind from birth was also of common
knowledge. When, therefore, it was noised about that he could see, there
was much excitement and comment. Some doubted that the man they
questioned was the once sightless beggar; but he assured them of his
identity, and told how he had been made to see. They brought the man to
the Pharisees, who questioned him rigorously; and, having heard his
account of the miracle, tried to undermine his faith by telling him that
Jesus who had healed him could not be a man of God since He had done the
deed on the Sabbath. Some of those who heard demurred to the Pharisaic
deduction, and asked: "How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles?"
The man was questioned as to his personal opinion of Jesus, and promptly
answered: "He is a prophet." The man knew his Benefactor to be more than
any ordinary being; as yet, however, he had no knowledge of Him as the
Christ.

The inquisitorial Jews were afraid of the result of such a wondrous
healing, in that the people would support Jesus whom the rulers were
determined to destroy. They assumed it to be possible that the man had
not been really blind; so they summoned his parents, who answered their
interrogatories by affirming that he was their son, and they knew him to
have been born blind; but as to how he had received sight, or through
whose ministration, they refused to commit themselves, knowing the
rulers had decreed that any one who confessed Jesus to be the Christ
should be cast out from the community of the synagog, or, as we would
say today, excommunicated from the Church. With pardonable astuteness
the parents said of their son: "He is of age; ask him: he shall speak
for himself."

Compelled to acknowledge, to themselves at least, that the fact and the
manner of the man's restoration to sight were supported by irrefutable
evidence, the crafty Jews called the man again, and insinuatingly said
unto him: "Give God the praise: we know that this man is a sinner." He
replied fearlessly, and with such pertinent logic as to completely
offset their skill as cross-examiners: "Whether he be a sinner or no, I
know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see." He
very properly declined to enter into a discussion with his learned
questioners as to what constituted sin under their construction of the
law; of what he was ignorant he declined to speak; but on one matter he
was happily and gratefully certain, that whereas he had been blind, now
he could see.

The Pharisaical inquisitors next tried to get the man to repeat his
story of the means employed in the healing, probably with the subtle
purpose of leading him into inconsistent or contradictory statements;
but he replied with emphasis, and possibly with some show of impatience,
"I have told you already, and ye did not hear:[872] wherefore would ye
hear it again? will ye also be his disciples?" They retorted with anger,
and reviled the man; the ironical insinuation that they perchance wished
to become disciples of Jesus was an insult they would not brook. "Thou
art his disciple," said they, "but we are Moses' disciples. We know that
God spake unto Moses: as for this fellow, we know not from whence he
is." They were enraged that this unlettered mendicant should answer so
boldly in their scholarly presence; but the man was more than a match
for all of them. His rejoinder was maddening because it flouted their
vaunted wisdom, and withal was unanswerable. "Why herein is a marvellous
thing," said he, "that ye know not from whence he is, and yet he hath
opened mine eyes. Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any
man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth. Since
the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one
that was born blind. If this man were not of God, he could do nothing."

For such an affront from a layman there was no precedent in all the lore
of rabbis or scribes. "Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou
teach us?" was their denunciatory though weak and inadequate rejoinder.
Unable to cope with the sometime sightless beggar in argument or
demonstration, they could at least exercize their official authority,
however unjustly, by excommunicating him; and this they promptly did.
"Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when he had found him, he
said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God? he answered and
said, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him? And Jesus said unto
him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee. And
he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him."

In commenting upon the matter Jesus was heard to say that one purpose of
His coming into the world was "that they which see not might see; and
that they which see might be made blind." Some of the Pharisees caught
the remark, and asked in pride: "Are we blind also?" The Lord's reply
was a condemnation: "If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye
say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth."


SHEPHERD AND SHEEPHERDER.[873]

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into
the sheep fold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and
a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the
sheep." With these words Jesus prefaced one of His most impressive
discourses. The mention of shepherd and sheep must have brought to the
minds of His hearers many of the oft-quoted passages from prophets and
psalms.[874] The figure is an effective one, and all the more so when we
consider the circumstances under which it was used by the Master.
Pastoral conditions prevailed in Palestine, and the dignity of the
shepherd's vocation was very generally recognized. By specific prophecy
a Shepherd had been promised to Israel. David, the king of whom all
Israelites were proud, had been taken directly from the sheepfold, and
had come with a shepherd's crook in his hand to the anointing that made
him royal.

As the Teacher showed, a shepherd has free access to the sheep. When
they are folded within the enclosure of safety, he enters at the gate;
he neither climbs over nor creeps in.[875] He, the owner of the sheep
loves them; they know his voice and follow him as he leads from fold to
pasture, for he goes before the flock; while the stranger, though he be
the herder, they know not; he must needs drive, for he cannot lead.
Continuing the allegory, which the recorder speaks of as a parable,
Jesus designated Himself as the door to the sheepfold, and made plain
that only through Him could the under-shepherds rightly enter. True,
there were some who sought by avoiding the portal and climbing over the
fence to reach the folded flock; but these were robbers, trying to get
at the sheep as prey; their selfish and malignant purpose was to kill
and carry off.

Changing the figure, Christ proclaimed: "I am the good shepherd." He
then further showed, and with eloquent exactness, the difference between
a shepherd and a hireling herder. The one has personal interest in and
love for his flock, and knows each sheep by name, the other knows them
only as a flock, the value of which is gaged by number; to the hireling
they are only as so many or so much. While the shepherd is ready to
fight in defense of his own, and if necessary even imperil his life for
his sheep, the hireling flees when the wolf approaches, leaving the way
open for the ravening beast to scatter, rend, and kill.

Never has been written or spoken a stronger arraignment of false
pastors, unauthorized teachers, self-seeking hirelings who teach for
pelf and divine for dollars, deceivers who pose as shepherds yet avoid
the door and climb over "some other way," prophets in the devil's
employ, who to achieve their master's purpose, hesitate not to robe
themselves in the garments of assumed sanctity, and appear in sheep's
clothing, while inwardly they are ravening wolves.[876]

With effective repetition Jesus continued: "I am the good shepherd, and
know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so
know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep." For this cause
was Jesus the Father's Beloved Son--that He was ready to lay down His
life for the sake of the sheep. That the sacrifice He was soon to render
was in fact voluntary, and not a forfeiture under compulsion, is
solemnly affirmed in the Savior's words: "Therefore doth my Father love
me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man
taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it
down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I
received of my Father." The certainty of His death and of His subsequent
resurrection are here reiterated. A natural effect of His immortal
origin, as the earth-born Son of an immortal Sire, was that He was
immune to death except as He surrendered thereto. The life of Jesus the
Christ could not be taken save as He willed and allowed. The power to
lay down His life was inherent in Himself, as was the power to take up
His slain body in an immortalized state.[877] These teachings caused
further division among the Jews. Some pretended to dispose of the matter
by voicing anew the foolish assumption that Jesus was but an insane
demoniac, and that therefore His words were not worthy of attention.
Others with consistency said "These are not the words of him that hath a
devil. Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?" So it was that a few
believed, many doubted though partly convinced, and some condemned.

As part of this profound discourse, Jesus said: "And other sheep I have,
which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear
my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd."[878] The
"other sheep" here referred to constituted the separated flock or
remnant of the house of Joseph, who, six centuries prior to the birth of
Christ, had been miraculously detached from the Jewish fold in
Palestine, and had been taken beyond the great deep to the American
continent. When to them the resurrected Christ appeared He thus spake:
"And verily, I say unto you, that ye are they of whom I said, other
sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and
they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one
shepherd."[879] The Jews had vaguely understood Christ's reference to
other sheep as meaning in some obscure way, the Gentile nations; and
because of their unbelief and consequent inability to rightly
comprehend, Jesus had withheld any plainer exposition of His meaning,
for so, He informed the Nephites, had the Father directed. "This much
did the Father command me," He explained, "that I should tell unto them,
That other sheep I have, which are not of this fold; them also I must
bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and
one shepherd." On the same occasion the Lord declared that there were
yet other sheep, those of the Lost, or Ten, Tribes, to whom He was then
about to go, and who would eventually be brought forth from their place
of exile, and become part of the one blessed fold under the governance
of the one supreme Shepherd and King.[880]


NOTES TO CHAPTER 25.

1. The Feast of Tabernacles.--In the order of yearly occurrence this was
the third of the great festivals, the observance of which was among the
national characteristics of the people of Israel; the others were the
Passover, and the feast of Weeks or Pentecost; at each of the three all
the males in Israel were required to appear before the Lord in formal
celebration of the respective feast (Exo. 23:17). The feast of
Tabernacles was also known as the "feast of ingathering" (Exo. 23:16);
it was both a memorial and a current harvest celebration. In
commemoration of their long journeying in the wilderness following their
deliverance from Egypt, in the course of which journey they had to live
in tents and improvized booths, the people of Israel were required to
observe annually a festival lasting seven days, with an added day of
holy convocation. During the week the people lived in booths, bowers, or
tabernacles, made of the branches or "boughs of goodly trees" wattled
with willows from the brook (Lev. 23:34-43; Numb. 29:12-38; Deut.
16:13-15; 31:10-13). The festival lasted from the 15th to the 22d of the
month Tizri, the seventh in the Hebrew calendar, corresponding to parts
of our September and October. It was made to follow soon after the
annual Day of Atonement which was a time of penitence and affliction of
the soul in sorrow for sin (Lev. 23:26-32). The altar sacrifices at the
feast of Tabernacles exceeded those prescribed for other festivals, and
comprized a daily offering of two rams, fourteen lambs, and a kid as a
sin offering, and in addition a varying number of young bullocks,
thirteen of which were sacrificed on the first day, twelve on the
second, eleven on the third, and so on to the seventh day, on which
seven were offered, making in all seventy bullocks (Numb. 29:12-38).
Rabbinism invested this number, seventy, and the graded diminution in
the number of altar victims, with much symbolical significance not set
forth in the law.

At the time of Christ, tradition had greatly embellished many of the
prescribed observances. Thus the "boughs of goodly trees," more
literally rendered "fruit" (Lev. 23:40), had come to be understood as
the citron fruit; and this every orthodox Jew carried in one hand, while
in the other he bore a leafy branch or a bunch of twigs, known as the
"lulab," when he repaired to the temple for the morning sacrifice, and
in the joyous processions of the day. The ceremonial carrying of water
from the spring of Siloam to the altar of sacrifice was a prominent
feature of the service. This water was mingled with wine at the altar
and the mixture was poured upon the sacrificial offering. Many
authorities hold that the bringing of water from the pool was omitted on
the last or great day of the feast, and it is inferred that Jesus had in
mind the circumstance of the omission when He cried: "If any man thirst,
let him come unto me, and drink." At night, during the progress of the
feast, great lamps were kept burning in the temple courts, and this
incident Christ may have used as an objective illustration in his
proclamation: "I am the light of the world."

For fuller account see any reliable and comprehensive Bible Dictionary,
and Josephus Ant. viii, 4:1; xv, 3:3, etc. The following is an excerpt
from Edersheim, _Life and Times of Jesus The Messiah_, vol. ii, p.
158-160: "When the Temple-procession had reached the Pool of Siloam, the
priest filled his golden pitcher from its waters. Then they went back to
the Temple, so timing it that they should arrive just as they were
laying the pieces of the sacrifice on the great altar of burnt-offering,
towards the close of the ordinary morning-sacrifice service. A threefold
blast of the priests' trumpets welcomed the arrival of the priest as he
entered through the Water Gate, which obtained its name from this
ceremony, and passed straight into the Court of the Priests....
Immediately after the 'pouring of the water,' the great 'Hallel,'
consisting of Psalms 113 to 118 inclusive, was chanted antiphonally, or
rather, with responses, to the accompaniment of the flute.... In further
symbolism of this Feast, as pointing to the ingathering of the heathen
nations, the public services closed with a procession round the altar by
the priests.... But on 'the last, the Great Day of the Feast,' this
procession of priests made the circuit of the altar, not only once, but
seven times, 'as if they were again compassing, but now with prayer, the
Gentile Jericho which barred their possession of the promised land.'"

2. The Test of our Lord's Doctrine.--Any man may know for himself
whether the doctrine of Christ is of God or not by simply doing the will
of the Father (John 7:17). Surely it is a more convincing course than
that of relying upon another's word. The writer was once approached by
an incredulous student in college, who stated that he could not accept
as true the published results of a certain chemical analysis, since the
specified amounts of some of the ingredients were so infinitesimally
small that he could not believe it possible to determine such minute
quantities. The student was but a beginner in chemistry; and with his
little knowledge he had undertaken to judge as to the possibilities of
the science. He was told to do the things his instructor prescribed, and
he should some day know for himself whether the results were true or
false. In the senior year of his course, he received for laboratory
analysis a portion of the very substance whose composition he had once
questioned. With the skill attained by faithful devotion he successfully
completed the analysis, and reported results similar to those, which in
his inexperience he had thought impossible to obtain. He was manly
enough to acknowledge as unfounded his earlier skepticism and rejoiced
in the fact that he had been able to demonstrate the truth for himself.

3. The Pool of Siloam.--"The names 'Shiloah' ('Shelah,' Neh. 3:15,
'Siloah' in authorized version) and 'Siloam' are the exact equivalent in
Hebrew and Greek, respectively, of 'Silwan' in the modern Arabic name
('Ain Silwan') of the pool at the mouth of El-Wad. All the ancient
references agree with this identification (compare Neh. 3:15; Josephus,
Wars of the Jews, v, 4:1, 2; 6:1; 9:4; 12:2; ii, 16:2; vi, 7:2; 8:5). In
spite of its modern designation as an 'ain' (spring), Siloam is not a
spring, but is fed by a tunnel cut through the rock from the Gihon, or
Virgin's Fountain."--L. B. Paton, in article "Jerusalem," _Stand. Bible
Dictionary_.

4. Whence was the Messiah to Come?--Many stifled their inward promptings
to a belief in Jesus as the Messiah, by the objection that all
prophecies relating to His coming pointed to Bethlehem as His
birthplace, and Jesus was of Galilee. Others rejected Him because they
had been taught that no man was to know whence the Messiah came and they
all knew Jesus came from Galilee. The seeming inconsistency is thus
explained: The city of David, or Bethlehem in Judea, was beyond question
the fore-appointed place of the Messiah's birth; but the rabbis had
erroneously taught that soon after birth the Christ Child would be
caught away, and after a time would appear as a Man, and that no one
would know whence or how He had returned. Geikie (ii, p. 274), citing
Lightfoot in part, thus states the popular criticism: "'Do not the
rabbis tell us' said some, 'that the Messiah will be born at Bethlehem,
but that He will be snatched away by spirits and tempests soon after His
birth, and that when He returns the second time no one will know from
whence He has come?' But we know this man comes from Nazareth."

5. The Record Relating to the Woman Taken in Adultery.--Some modern
critics claim that the verses John 7:53 and 8:1-11 inclusive are out of
place as they appear in the authorized or King James version of the
Bible, on the grounds that the incident therein recorded does not appear
in certain of the ancient manuscript copies of John's Gospel, and that
the style of the narrative is distinctive. In some manuscripts it
appears at the end of the book. Other manuscripts contain the account as
it appears in the English Bible. Canon Farrar pertinently asks (p. 404,
note), why, if the incident is out of place or not of John's authorship,
so many important manuscripts give place to it as we have it?

6. The Treasury, and Court of the Women.--"Part of the space within the
inner courts was open to Israelites of both sexes, and was known
distinctively as the Court of the Women. This was a colonnaded
enclosure, and constituted the place of general assembly in the
prescribed course of public worship. Chambers used for ceremonial
purposes occupied the four corners of this court; and between these and
the houses at the gates, were other buildings, of which one series
constituted the Treasury wherein were set trumpet-shaped receptacles for
gifts." (See Mark 12:41-44.)--_The House of the Lord_, pp. 57-58.

7. The Sheepfold.--Dummelow's _Commentary_ says, on John 10:2: "To
understand the imagery, it must be remembered that Eastern folds are
large open enclosures, into which several flocks are driven at the
approach of night. There is only one door, which a single shepherd
guards, while the others go home to rest. In the morning the shepherds
return, are recognized by the doorkeeper, call their flocks round them,
and lead them forth to pasture."

FOOTNOTES:

[834] John 7:1-10.

[835] Page 343.

[836] John 7:5; compare Mark 3:21 in which "friends" is an inaccurate
rendition for "kinsmen".

[837] Compare Christ's answer to His mother, John 2:4; see also 7:30;
8:20.

[838] John 7:11-53.

[839] Note 1, end of chapter.

[840] Note 2, end of chapter.

[841] John 5; see pages 206-208 herein.

[842] Page 69.

[843] Note 3, end of chapter.

[844] This was regarded as a literal fulfilment of Isa. 12:3.

[845] John 7:37, 38; compare with the assurance respecting "living
water" given to the Samaritan woman, 4:10-15.

[846] John 7:39; compare 14:16, 17, 26; 15:26; 16:7; Luke 24:49; Acts
2:4.

[847] Note 4, end of chapter.

[848] John 3; page 158 herein.

[849] According to many excellent authorities, Jonah, Nahum, and Hosea
were all of Galilee; and it is further believed that Elijah also was of
Galilean nativity.

[850] John 8:1-11.

[851] Deut. 22:22-27.

[852] Matt. 5:21-48.

[853] Deut. 17:6, 7; also 13:9.

[854] Compare Rom. 2:1, 22; Matt. 7:1, 2; Luke 6:37; 2 Sam. 12:5-7.

[855] John 8:10, 11; compare 5:11. Consider another instance of mercy
granted through contrition Luke 7:36-50.

[856] Note 5, end of chapter.

[857] John 8:12-20.

[858] Note 6, end of chapter.

[859] John 8:12; compare 1:4, 5, 9; 3:19; 9:5; 12:35, 36, 46. See also
Doc. and Cov. 6:21; 10:58, 70; 11:11; 14:9; 84:45, 46; 88:6-13.

[860] Deut. 17:6; 19:15; Numb. 35:30; Matt. 18:16.

[861] John 8:21-59.

[862] Compare P. of G.P., Moses 4:4; 5:24; B. of M., 2 Nephi 2:18; Doc.
and Cov. 10:25; 93:25.

[863] Pages 174, 183.

[864] Exo. 3:14; compare 6:3.

[865] Compare Isa. 44:6; Rev. 1:4, 8; see also John 17:5, 24; Col. 1:17.
Page 36 herein.

[866] Page 13.

[867] John 9.

[868] Whether this incident occurred in immediate sequence to the events
last considered, or at a later time after the return of Jesus to
Jerusalem following an unrecorded departure therefrom, is not stated in
the scriptural record. The value of the lesson is not affected by its
place in the catalog of our Lord's works.

[869] Exo. 20:5; 34:7; Lev. 26:39; Numb. 14:18; 1 Kings 21:29; compare
Ezek. chap. 18.

[870] Pages 192 and 208.

[871] Note 3, end of chapter.

[872] That is, "heed" or "believe".

[873] John 10:1-21.

[874] Note the promise of a Shepherd to Israel, Isa. 40:11; 49:9, 10;
Ezek. 34:23; 37:24; compare Jer. 3:15; 23:4; Heb, 13:20; 1 Peter 2:25;
5:4; Rev. 7:17. Read studiously Psalm 23.

[875] Note 7, end of chapter.

[876] Matt. 7:15; compare 24:4, 5, 11, 24; Mark 13:22; Rom. 16:17, 18;
Eph. 5:6; Col. 2:8; 2 Peter 2:1-3; 1 John 4:1; Acts 20:29.

[877] Pages 22 and 81.

[878] John 10:16; compare as to "one fold and one shepherd," Ezek.
37:22; Isa. 11:13; Jer. 3:18; 50:4. See "Articles of Faith,"
xviii,--"The Gathering of Israel."

[879] B. of M., 3 Nephi 15:21; read verses 12-24; see chapter 39 herein.

[880] 3 Nephi 16:1-5.




CHAPTER 26.

OUR LORD'S MINISTRY IN PEREA AND JUDEA.


When or under what attendant circumstances our Lord departed from
Jerusalem after the Feast of Tabernacles, in the last autumn of His
earthly life, we are not told. The writers of the synoptic Gospels have
recorded numerous discourses, parables, and miracles, as incidents of a
journey toward Jerusalem, in the course of which, Jesus, accompanied by
the apostles, traversed parts of Samaria and Perea, and the outlying
sections of Judea. We read of Christ's presence in Jerusalem at the
Feast of Dedication,[881] between two and three months after the Feast
of Tabernacles; and it is probable that some of the events now to be
considered occurred during that interval.[882] That Jesus left Jerusalem
soon after the Feast of Tabernacles is certain; whether He returned to
Galilee, or went only into Perea, possibly with a short detour across
the border into Samaria, is not conclusively stated. We shall here as
heretofore devote our study primarily to His words and works, with but
minor regard to place, time, or sequence.

As the time of His foreknown betrayal and crucifixion drew near, "he
steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem,"[883] though, as we shall
find, He turned northward on two occasions, once when He retired to the
region of Bethabara, and again to Ephraim.[884]


HIS REJECTION IN SAMARIA.[885]

Jesus sent messengers ahead, to announce His coming and to prepare for
His reception. In one of the Samaritan villages He was refused
entertainment and a hearing, "because his face was as though he would go
to Jerusalem." Racial prejudice had superseded the obligations of
hospitality. This repulse is in unfavorable contrast with the
circumstances of His earlier visit among the Samaritans, when He had
been received with gladness and entreated to remain; but on that
occasion He was journeying not toward but farther from Jerusalem.[886]

The disrespect shown by the Samaritans was more than the disciples could
endure without protest. James and John, those Sons of Thunder, were so
resentful as to yearn for vengeance. Said they: "Lord, wilt thou that we
command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias
did?"[887] Jesus rebuked His uncharitable servants thus: "Ye know not
what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of man is not come to
destroy men's lives, but to save them." Repulsed in this village the
little company went to another, as the Twelve had been instructed to do
under like circumstances.[888] This was but one of the impressive
lessons given to the apostles in the matter of tolerance, forbearance,
charity, patience, and long-suffering.

Luke gives next place to the incident of three men who were desirous or
willing to become disciples of Christ; one of them seems to have been
discouraged at the prospect of hardship such as the ministry entailed;
the others wished to be temporarily excused from service, one that he
might attend the burial of his father, the other that he might first bid
his loved ones farewell. This, or a similar occurrence, is recorded by
Matthew in another connection, and has already received attention in
these pages.[889]


THE SEVENTY CHARGED AND SENT.

The supreme importance of our Lord's ministry, and the shortness of the
time remaining to Him in the flesh, demanded more missionary laborers.
The Twelve were to remain with Him to the end; every hour of possible
instruction and training had to be utilized in their further preparation
for the great responsibilities that would rest upon them after the
Master's departure. As assistants in the ministry, He called and
commissioned the Seventy, and straightway sent them forth,[890] "two and
two before his face into every city and place, whither he himself would
come." The need of their service was explained in the introduction to
the impressive charge by which they were instructed in the duties of
their calling. "Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great,
but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest,
that he would send forth labourers into his harvest."[891]

Many matters on which the Twelve had been instructed prior to their
missionary tour were now repeated to the Seventy. They were told that
they must expect unfriendly and even hostile treatment; their situation
would be as that of lambs among wolves. They were to travel without
purse or scrip, and thus necessarily to depend upon the provision that
God would make through those to whom they came. As their mission was
urgent, they were not to stop on the way to make or renew personal
acquaintanceships. On entering a house they were to invoke peace upon
it; if the household deserved the gift peace would rest therein, but
otherwise the Lord's servants would feel that their invocation was
void.[892] To any family by whom they were received they were to impart
blessing--healing the afflicted, and proclaiming that the kingdom of God
had come nigh unto that house. They were not to go from one house to
another seeking better entertainment, nor should they expect or desire
to be feasted, but they should accept what was offered, eating that
which was set before them, thus sharing with the family. If rejected in
any city, they were to depart therefrom, leaving, however, their solemn
testimony that the city had turned away from the kingdom of God, which
had been brought to its doors, and attesting the same by ridding
themselves of the dust of that place.[893] It was not for them to
pronounce anathema or curse, but the Lord assured them that such a city
would bring upon itself a fate worse than the doom of Sodom.[894] He
reminded them that they were His servants, and therefore whoever heard
or refused to hear them would be judged as having so treated Him.

They were not restrained, as the Twelve had been, from entering
Samaritan towns or the lands of the Gentiles. This difference is
consistent with the changed conditions, for now the prospective
itinerary of Jesus would take Him into non-Jewish territory, where His
fame had already spread; and furthermore, His plan provided for an
extension of the gospel propaganda, which was to be ultimately
world-wide. The narrow Jewish prejudice against Gentiles in general and
Samaritans in particular was to be discountenanced; and proof of this
intent could not be better given than by sending authorized ministers
among those peoples. We must keep in mind the progressiveness of the
Lord's work. At first the field of gospel preaching was confined to the
land of Israel,[895] but the beginning of its extension was inaugurated
during our Lord's life, and was expressly enjoined upon the apostles
after His resurrection.[896] Duly instructed, the Seventy set out upon
their mission.[897]

Mention of the condemnation that would follow wilful rejection of the
authorized servants of God aroused in our Lord's mind sad memories of
the repulses He had suffered, and of the many unrepentant souls, in the
cities wherein He had accomplished so many mighty works. In profound
sorrow He predicted the woes then impending over Chorazin, Bethsaida,
and Capernaum.[898]


THE SEVENTY RETURN.

Considerable time may have elapsed, weeks or possibly months, between
the departure of the Seventy and their return. We are not told when or
where they rejoined the Master; but this we know, that the authority and
power of Christ had been abundantly manifest in their ministry; and that
they had rejoiced in the realization. "Lord," said they, "even the
devils are subject unto us through thy name."[899] This testimony was
followed by the Lord's solemn statement: "I beheld Satan as lightning
fall from heaven." This was said with reference to the expulsion of the
rebellious son of the morning, after his defeat by Michael and the
heavenly hosts.[900] Commending the Seventy for their faithful labors,
the Lord gave them assurance of further power, on the implied condition
of their continued worthiness: "I give unto you power to tread on
serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing
shall by any means hurt you."[901] The promise that they should tread on
serpents and scorpions included immunity from injury by venomous
creatures if encountered in the path of duty[902] and power to prevail
over the wicked spirits that serve the devil, who is elsewhere expressly
called the serpent.[903] Great as was the power and authority thus
imparted, these disciples were told not to rejoice in such, nor
primarily in the fact that evil spirits were subject unto them, but
rather because they were accepted of the Lord, and that their names were
written in heaven.[904]

The righteous joy of His servants and His contemplation of their
faithfulness caused Jesus to rejoice. His happiness found its most
appropriate expression in prayer, and thus He prayed: "I thank thee, O
Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from
the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so,
Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight." Compared with the learned
men of the time, such as the rabbis and scribes, whose knowledge served
but to harden their hearts against the truth, these devoted servants
were as babes in humility, trust, and faith. Such children were and are
among the nobles of the kingdom. As in the hours of darkest sorrow, so
in this moment of righteous exultation over the faithfulness of His
followers, Jesus communed with the Father, to do whose will was His sole
purpose.

Our Lord's joy on this occasion is comparable to that which He
experienced when Peter had burst forth with the confession of his soul:
"Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." In solemn discourse
Jesus said: "All things are delivered to me of my Father: and no man
knoweth who the Son is, but the Father; and who the Father is, but the
Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him." Then in more intimate
communion with the disciples He added: "Blessed are the eyes which see
the things that ye see: For I tell you, that many prophets and kings
have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them;
and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them."


WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?

We have seen that the Pharisees and their kind were constantly on the
alert to annoy and if possible disconcert Jesus on questions of law and
doctrine, and to provoke Him to some overt utterance or deed.[905] It
may be such an attempt that is recorded by Luke in immediate sequence to
his account of the joyous return of the Seventy,[906] for he tells us
that the "certain lawyer," of whom he speaks, put a question to tempt
Jesus. Viewing the questioner's motive with all possible charity, for
the basal meaning of the verb which appears in our version of the Bible
as "to tempt" is that of putting to test or trial and not necessarily
and solely to allure into evil,[907] though the element of entrapping or
ensnaring is connoted, we may assume that he wished to test the
knowledge and wisdom of the famous Teacher, probably for the purpose of
embarrassing Him. Certainly his purpose was not that of sincere search
for truth.

This lawyer, standing up among the people who had gathered to hear
Jesus, asked: "Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?"[908]
Jesus replied by a counter question, in which was plainly intimated that
if this man, who was professedly learned in the law, had read and
studied properly, he should know without asking what he ought to do.
"What is written in the law? how readest thou?" The man replied with an
admirable summary of the commandments: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God
with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength,
and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself"[909] The answer was
approved. "This do, and thou shalt live" said Jesus. These simple words
conveyed a rebuke, as the lawyer must have realized; they indicated the
contrast between knowing and doing. Having thus failed in his plan to
confound the Master, and probably realizing that he, a lawyer, had made
no creditable display of his erudition by asking so simple a question
and then answering it himself, he tamely sought to justify himself by
inquiring further; "And who is my neighbour?" We may well be grateful
for the lawyer's question; for it served to draw from the Master's
inexhaustible store of wisdom one of His most appreciated parables.

The story is known as the _Parable of the Good Samaritan_; it runs as
follows:

    "A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell
    among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded
    him, and departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance there
    came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he
    passed by on the other side. And likewise a Levite, when he was
    at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other
    side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he
    was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him, and went to
    him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set
    him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care
    of him. And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two
    pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care
    of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I
    will repay thee."

Then of the lawyer Jesus asked: "Which now of these three, thinkest
thou, was neighbor unto him that fell among the thieves? And he said, He
that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou
likewise."[910]

Whatever of motive there may have been in the lawyer's query, "Who is my
neighbour?" aside from that of self-justification and a desire to
retreat in the best form possible from an embarrassing situation, we may
conceive to lie in the wish to find a limitation in the application of
the law, beyond which he would not be bound to go. If he had to love his
neighbors as he loved himself, he wanted to have as few neighbors as
possible. His desire may have been somewhat akin to that of Peter, who
was eager to learn just how many times he was required to forgive an
offending brother.[911]

The parable with which our Lord replied to the lawyer's question is rich
in interest as a story alone, and particularly so as an embodiment of
precious lessons. It was withal so true to existing conditions, that,
like the story of the sower who went forth to sow, and other parables
given by the Lord Jesus, it may be true history as well as parable. The
road between Jerusalem and Jericho was known to be infested by highway
robbers; indeed a section of the thoroughfare was called the Red Path or
Bloody Way because of the frequent atrocities committed thereon. Jericho
was prominent as a residence place for priests and Levites. A priest,
who, out of respect to his office, if for none other cause, should have
been willing and prompt in acts of mercy, caught sight of the wounded
traveler and passed by on the far side of the road. A Levite followed;
he paused to look, then passed on. These ought to have remembered the
specified requirement of the law--that if one saw an ass or an ox fall
down by the way, he should not hide himself, but should surely help the
owner to lift the creature up again.[912] If such was their duty toward
a brother's beast, much greater was their obligation when a brother
himself was in so extreme a plight.

Doubtless priest as well as Levite salved his conscience with ample
excuse for his inhumane conduct; he may have been in a hurry, or was
fearful, perhaps, that the robbers would return and make him also a
victim of their outrage. Excuses are easy to find; they spring up as
readily and plentifully as weeds by the wayside. When the Samaritan came
along and saw the wretched state of the wounded man, he had no excuse
for he wanted none. Having done what he could by way of emergency
treatment as recognized in the medical practise of the day, he placed
the injured one upon his own beast, probably a mule or an ass, and took
him to the nearest inn, where he tended him personally and made
arrangements for his further care. The essential difference between the
Samaritan and the others was that the one had a compassionate heart,
while they were unloving and selfish. Though not definitely stated, the
victim of the robbers was almost certainly a Jew; the point of the
parable requires it to be so. That the merciful one was a Samaritan,
showed that the people called heretic and despized by the Jews could
excel in good works. To a Jew, none but Jews were neighbors. We are not
justified in regarding priest, Levite, or Samaritan as the type of his
class; doubtless there were many kind and charitable Jews, and many
heartless Samaritans; but the Master's lesson was admirably illustrated
by the characters in the parable; and the words of His application were
pungent in their simplicity and appropriateness.


MARTHA AND MARY.[913]

On one of His visits to Bethany, a small town about two miles from
Jerusalem, Jesus was received at the home where dwelt two sisters,
Martha and Mary. Martha was housekeeper, and therefore she assumed
responsibility for the proper treatment of the distinguished Guest.
While she busied herself with preparations and "was cumbered about much
serving," well intended for the comfort and entertainment of Jesus, Mary
sat at the Master's feet, listening with reverent attention to His
words. Martha grew fretful in her bustling anxiety, and came in, saying:
"Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone?
bid her therefore that she help me." She was talking to Jesus but really
at Mary. For the moment she had lost her calmness in undue worry over
incidental details. It is reasonable to infer that Jesus was on terms of
familiarity in the household, else the good woman would scarcely have
appealed to Him in a little matter of domestic concern. He replied to
her complaining words with marked tenderness: "Martha, Martha, thou art
careful and troubled about many things: but one thing is needful: and
Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from
her."

There was no reproof of Martha's desire to provide well; nor any
sanction of possible neglect on Mary's part. We must suppose that Mary
had been a willing helper before the Master's arrival; but now that He
had come, she chose to remain with Him. Had she been culpably neglectful
of her duty, Jesus would not have commended her course. He desired not
well-served meals and material comforts only, but the company of the
sisters, and above all their receptive attention to what He had to say.
He had more to give them than they could possibly provide for Him. Jesus
loved the two sisters and their brother as well.[914] Both these women
were devoted to Jesus, and each expressed herself in her own way. Martha
was of a practical turn, concerned in material service; she was by
nature hospitable and self-denying. Mary, contemplative and more
spiritually inclined, showed her devotion through the service of
companionship and appreciation.[915]

By inattention to household duties, the little touches that make or mar
the family peace, many a woman has reduced her home to a comfortless
house; and many another has eliminated the essential elements of home by
her self-assumed and persistent drudgery, in which she denies to her
dear ones the cheer of her loving companionship. One-sided service,
however devoted, may become neglect. There is a time for labor inside
the home as in the open; in every family time should be found for
cultivating that better part, that one thing needful--true, spiritual
development.


ASK, AND IT SHALL BE GIVEN YOU.[916]

"And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when
he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray."
Our Lord's example and the spirit of prayer manifest in His daily life
moved the disciples to ask for instruction as to how they should pray.
No form of private prayer was given in the law, but formal prayers had
been prescribed by the Jewish authorities, and John the Baptist had
instructed his followers in the mode or manner of prayer. Responding to
the disciples' request, Jesus repeated that brief epitome of soulful
adoration and supplication which we call the Lord's Prayer. This He had
before given in connection with the Sermon on the Mount.[917] On this
occasion of its repetition, the Lord supplemented the prayer by
explaining the imperative necessity of earnestness and enduring
persistency in praying.

The lesson was made plain by the _Parable of the Friend at Midnight_:

    "And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and
    shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me
    three loaves; For a friend of mine in his journey is come to me,
    and I have nothing to set before him? And he from within shall
    answer and say, Trouble me not: the door is now shut, and my
    children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee. I say
    unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is
    his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give
    him as many as he needeth."

The man to whose home a friend had come at midnight could not let his
belated and weary guest go hungry, yet there was no bread in the house.
He made his visitor's wants his own, and pleaded at his neighbor's door
as though asking for himself. The neighbor was loath to leave his
comfortable bed and disturb his household to accommodate another; but,
finding that the man at the door was importunate, he at last arose and
gave him what he asked, so as to get rid of him and be able to sleep in
peace. The Master added by way of comment and instruction: "_Ask, and it
shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be
opened unto you._"

The hospitable man in the parable had refused to be repulsed; he kept on
knocking until the door was opened; and as a result received what he
wanted, found what he had set out to obtain. The parable is regarded by
some as a difficult one to apply, since it deals with the selfish and
comfort-loving element of human nature, and apparently uses this to
symbolize God's deliberate delay. The explanation, however, is clear
when the context is duly considered. The Lord's lesson was, that if man,
with all his selfishness and disinclination to give, will nevertheless
grant what his neighbor with proper purpose asks and continues to ask in
spite of objection and temporary refusal, with assured certainty will
God grant what is persistently asked in faith and with righteous intent.
No parallelism lies between man's selfish refusal and God's wise and
beneficent waiting. There must be a consciousness of real need for
prayer, and real trust in God, to make prayer effective; and in mercy
the Father sometimes delays the granting that the asking may be more
fervent. But in the words of Jesus: "If ye then, being evil, know how to
give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly
Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?"

Sometime later Jesus spake another parable, the moral of which is so
closely akin to that of the story of the midnight visitor, as to suggest
the study of the later lesson here. It is known as the _Parable of the
Unjust Judge_, or of the _Importunate Widow_:

    "There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither
    regarded man: And there was a widow in that city; and she came
    unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary. And he would not
    for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear
    not God, nor regard man; Yet because this widow troubleth me, I
    will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary
    me."[918]

The judge was of wicked character; he denied justice to the widow, who
could obtain redress from none other. He was moved to action by the
desire to escape the woman's importunity. Let us beware of the error of
comparing his selfish action with the ways of God. Jesus did not
indicate that as the wicked judge finally yielded to supplication so
would God do; but He pointed out that if even such a being as this
judge, who "feared not God, neither regarded man," would at last hear
and grant the widow's plea, no one should doubt that God, the Just and
Merciful, will hear and answer. The judge's obduracy, though wholly
wicked on his part, may have been ultimately advantageous to the widow.
Had she easily obtained redress she might have become again unwary, and
perchance a worse adversary than the first might have oppressed her. The
Lord's purpose in giving the parable is specifically stated; it was "to
this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint."[919]


CRITICISM ON PHARISEES AND LAWYERS.[920]

Varied comment as to the source of our Lord's superhuman powers was
aroused afresh by His merciful act of expelling a demon from a man, who,
in consequence of this evil possession had been dumb. The old Pharisaic
theory, that He cast out devils through the power of "Beelzebub, the
chief of the devils," was revived. The utter foolishness of such a
conception was demonstrated, as it had been on an earlier occasion to
which we have given attention.[921] The spiritual darkness, in which
evil men grope for signs, the disappointment and condemnation that await
them, and other precious precepts, Jesus elucidated in further
discourse.[922]

Then, by invitation He went to the house of a certain Pharisee to dine.
Other Pharisees, as also lawyers and scribes, were present. Jesus
intentionally omitted the ceremonial washing of hands, which all others
in the company scrupulously performed before taking their places at
table. This omission caused a murmur of disapproval if not an open
expression of fault-finding. Jesus utilized the occasion by voicing a
pungent criticism of Pharisaic externalism, which He likened to the
cleansing of cups and platters on the outside, while the inside is left
filthy. "Fools" said He, "did not he that made that which is without
make that which is within also?" In another form we may ask, Did not God
who established the outward observances of the law, ordain the inward
and spiritual requirements of the gospel also? In response to a question
by one of the lawyers, Jesus included them in His sweeping reproof.
Pharisees and scribes resented the censure to which they had been
subjected, and "began to urge him vehemently, and to provoke him to
speak of many things: laying wait for him, and seeking to catch
something out of his mouth, that they might accuse him." As our Lord's
recorded utterances on this occasion appear also in His final
denunciation of Pharisaism, later delivered at the temple, we may well
defer further consideration of the matter until we take up in order that
notable occurrence.[923]


THE DISCIPLES ADMONISHED AND ENCOURAGED.[924]

Popular interest in our Lord's movements was strong in the region beyond
Jordan, as it had been in Galilee. We read of Him surrounded by "an
innumerable multitude of people, insomuch that they trode one upon
another." Addressing the multitude, and more particularly His disciples,
Jesus warned them of the leaven of the Pharisees, which He characterized
as hypocrisy.[925] The recent scene at the table of a Pharisee gave
special significance to the warning. Some of the precepts recorded in
connection with His Galilean ministry were here repeated, and particular
stress was laid upon the superiority of the soul to the body, and of
eternal life as contrasted with the brief duration of mortal existence.

One man in the company, intent on selfish interests and unable to see
beyond the material affairs of life, spoke out saying, "Master, speak to
my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me." Jesus promptly
refused to act as mediator or judge in the matter. "Man, who made me a
judge or a divider over you?" was the Master's rejoinder. The wisdom
underlying His refusal to interfere is apparent. As in the case of the
guilty woman who had been brought before Him for judgment,[926] so in
this instance, He refrained from intervention in matters of legal
administration. An opposite course would have probably involved Him in
useless disputation, and might have given color to a complaint that He
was arrogating to Himself the functions of the legally established
tribunals. The man's appeal, however, was made the nucleus of valuable
instruction; his clamor for a share in the family inheritance caused
Jesus to say: "Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life
consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth."

This combined admonition and profound statement of truth was emphasized
by the _Parable of the Foolish Rich Man_. Thus runs the story:

    "The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: And
    he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I
    have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I
    do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will
    I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul,
    Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine
    ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou
    fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose
    shall those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that
    layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward
    God."[927]

The man's abundance had been accumulated through labor and thrift;
neglected or poorly-tilled fields do not yield plentifully. He is not
represented as one in possession of wealth not rightfully his own. His
plans for the proper care of his fruits and goods were not of themselves
evil, though he might have considered better ways of distributing his
surplus, as for the relief of the needy. His sin was twofold; first, he
regarded his great store chiefly as the means of securing personal ease
and sensuous indulgence; secondly, in his material prosperity he failed
to acknowledge God, and even counted the years as his own. In the hour
of his selfish jubilation he was smitten. Whether the voice of God came
to him as a fearsome presentiment of impending death, or by angel
messenger, or how otherwise, we are not informed; but the voice spoke
his doom: "Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of
thee."[928] He had used his time and his powers of body and mind to sow,
reap and garner--all for himself. And what came of it all? Whose should
be the wealth, to amass which he had jeopardized his soul? Had he been
other than a fool he might have realized as Solomon had done, the vanity
of hoarding wealth for another, and he perhaps of uncertain character,
to possess.[929]

Turning to the disciples Jesus reiterated some of the glorious truths He
had uttered when preaching on the mount,[930] and pointed to the birds
of the air, the lilies and grass of the field, as examples of the
Father's watchful care; He admonished His hearers to seek the kingdom of
God, and, doing so, they should find all needful things added. "Fear
not, little flock," He added in tone of affectionate and paternal
regard, "for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."
They were urged to store their wealth in bags that wax not old,[931]
containers suited to the heavenly treasure which, unlike the goods of
the foolish rich man, shall not be left behind when the soul is
summoned. The man whose treasure is of earth leaves it all at death; he
whose wealth is in heaven goes to his own, and death is but the portal
to his treasury.

The disciples were admonished to be ever ready, waiting as servants wait
at night with lights burning, for their master's return; and, inasmuch
as the lord of the household comes at his will, in the early or later
watches, if when he comes he finds his faithful servants ready to open
immediately to his knock he will honor them as they deserve. So is the
Son of Man to come, perhaps when least expected. To a question
interjected by Peter as to whether "this parable" was spoken to the
Twelve only or to all, Jesus made no direct reply; the answer, however,
was conveyed in the continuation of the allegory of contrast between
faithful and wicked servants.[932] "Who then is that faithful and wise
steward, whom his lord shall make ruler over his household, to give them
their portion of meat in due season?" The faithful steward is a good
type of the apostles, individually or as a body. As stewards they were
charged with the care of the other servants, and of the household; and
as to them more had been given than to the others, so of them more would
be required; and they would be held to strict accountability for their
stewardship.

The Lord then referred feelingly to His own mission, and especially to
the dreadful experiences then soon to befall Him, saying: "I have a
baptism to be baptised with; and how am I straitened till it be
accomplished!" He told again of the strife and dissension that would
follow the preaching of His gospel, and dwelt upon the significance of
then current events. To those who, ever ready to interpret the signs of
the weather, yet remained wilfully blind to the important developments
of the times, He applied the caustic epithet, hypocrites![933]


"EXCEPT YE REPENT YE SHALL ALL LIKEWISE PERISH."[934]

Some of the people who had been listening to our Lord's discourse
reported to Him the circumstances of a tragical event that had taken
place, probably but a short time before, inside the temple walls. A
number of Galileans had been slain by Roman soldiers, at the base of the
altar, so that their blood had mingled with that of the sacrificial
victims. It is probable that the slaughter of these Galileans was
incident to some violent demonstration of Jewish resentment against
Roman authority, which the procurator, Pilate, construed as an incipient
insurrection, to be promptly and forcibly quelled. Such outbursts were
not uncommon, and the Roman tower or fortress of Antonia had been
erected in a commanding position overlooking the temple grounds, and
connected therewith by a wide flight of steps, so that soldiers could
have ready access to the enclosure at the first indication of turmoil.
The purpose of the informants who brought this matter to the attention
of Jesus is not stated; but we find probability in the thought that His
reference to the signs of the times had reminded them of the tragedy,
and that they were inclined to speculate as to the deeper significance
of the occurrence. Some may have wondered as to whether the fate of the
Galilean victims had befallen them as a merited retribution. Anyway, to
some such conception as this Jesus directed His reply. By question and
answer He assured them that those who had so been slain were not to be
considered as sinners above other Galileans; "But," said He, "except ye
repent, ye shall all likewise perish."

Then, referring on His own initiative to another catastrophe, He cited
the instance of eighteen persons who had been killed by the fall of a
tower at Siloam, and affirmed that these were not to be counted greater
sinners than other Jerusalemites. "But," came the reiteration, "except
ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." There were perhaps some who
believed that the men upon whom the tower had fallen had deserved their
fate; and this conception is the more probable if the generally accepted
assumption be correct, that the calamity came upon the men while they
were engaged under Roman employ in work on the aqueduct, for the
construction of which Pilate had used the "corban" or sacred treasure,
given by vow to the temple.[935]

It is not man's prerogative to pass upon the purposes and designs of
God, nor to judge by human reason alone that this person or that suffers
disaster as a direct result of individual sin.[936] Nevertheless men
have ever been prone to so judge. There are many inheritors of the
spirit of Job's friends, who assumed his guilt as certain because of the
great misfortunes and sufferings that had come upon him.[937] Even while
Jesus spake, calamity dark and dire was impending over temple, city and
nation; and unless the people would repent and accept the Messiah then
in their midst, the decree of destruction would be carried to its dread
fulfilment. Hence, as Jesus said, except the people repented they should
perish. The imperative need of reformation was illustrated by the
_Parable of the Barren Fig Tree_.

    "A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he
    came and sought fruit thereon, and found none. Then said he unto
    the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come
    seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why
    cumbereth it the ground? And he answering said unto him, Lord,
    let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung
    it: And if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou
    shalt cut it down."[938]

In Jewish literature, particularly in rabbinical lore, the fig tree is
of frequent mention as a symbol of the nation. The warning conveyed in
the parable is plain; the element of possible escape is no less evident.
If the fig tree represents the covenant people, then the vineyard is
naturally the world at large, and the dresser of the vineyard is the Son
of God, who by personal ministry and solicitous care makes intercession
for the barren tree, in the hope that it may yet bear fruit. The parable
is of universal application; but so far as it had special bearing upon
the Jewish "fig tree" of that time, it was attended by an awful sequel.
The Baptist had cried out in warning that the ax was even then in
readiness, and every unfruitful tree would be hewn down.[939]


A WOMAN HEALED ON THE SABBATH.[940]

On a certain Sabbath Jesus was teaching in a synagog, of what place we
are not told, though it was probably in one of the towns of Perea. There
was present a woman who for eighteen years had been suffering from an
infirmity that had so drawn and atrophied the muscles as to bend her
body so that she could in no wise straighten herself. Jesus called her
to Him, and without waiting for petition or request, said simply,
"Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity." These words He
accompanied by the laying-on of hands, a feature of His healing
ministrations not always performed. She was healed forthwith and stood
erect; and, acknowledging the source of the power by which she had been
released from her bonds, glorified God in a fervent prayer of
thanksgiving. Doubtless many of the beholders rejoiced with her; but
there was one whose soul was stirred by indignation only; and he, the
ruler of the synagog. Instead of addressing himself to Jesus, of whose
power he may have been afraid, he vented his ill feeling upon the
people, by telling them there were six days in which men ought to work,
and that on those days they who wished to be healed should come, but not
on the Sabbath. The rebuke was ostensibly directed to the people,
especially to the woman who had received the blessing, but in reality
against Jesus; for if there were any element of work in the healing it
had been done by Him, not by the woman nor by others. Upon the ruler of
the synagog the Lord turned with direct address: "Thou hypocrite, doth
not each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the
stall, and lead him away to watering? And ought not this woman, being a
daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be
loosed from this bond on the sabbath day?"

It may be inferred that the woman's affliction had been more deeply
seated than in the muscles; for Luke who was himself a physician[941]
tells us she "had a spirit of infirmity," and records the significant
words of the Lord to the effect that Satan had held her bound for
eighteen years. But whatever her ailment, whether wholly physical or in
part mental and spiritual, she was freed from her bonds. Again was the
Christ triumphant; His adversaries were shamed into silence, while the
believers rejoiced. The rebuke to the ruler of the synagog was followed
by a brief discourse in which Jesus gave to these people some of the
teachings before delivered in Galilee; these included the parables of
the mustard seed and the leaven.[942]


WILL MANY OR FEW BE SAVED?[943]

Continuing His journey toward Jerusalem, Jesus taught in many of the
cities and towns of Perea. His coming had probably been announced by the
Seventy, who had been sent to prepare the people for His ministry. One
of those who had been impressed by His doctrines submitted this
question: "Lord, are there few that be saved?" Jesus replied: "Strive to
enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to
enter in, and shall not be able."[944] The counsel was enlarged upon to
show that neglect or procrastination in obeying the requirements for
salvation may result in the soul's loss. When the door is shut in
judgment many will come knocking, and some will plead that they had
known the Lord, having eaten and drunk in His company, and that He had
taught upon their streets; but to them who had failed to accept the
truth when offered the Lord shall say: "I tell you, I know you not
whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity." The people
were warned that their Israelitish lineage would in no wise save them,
for many who were not of the covenant people would believe and be saved,
while unworthy Israelites would be thrust out.[945] So is it that "There
are last which shall be first, and there are first which shall be last."


JESUS WARNED OF HEROD'S DESIGN.[946]

On the day of the discourse last noted, certain Pharisees came to Jesus
with this warning and advice: "Get thee out, and depart hence: for Herod
will kill thee."[947] We have heretofore found the Pharisees in open
hostility to the Lord, or secretly plotting against Him; and some
commentators regard this warning as another evidence of Pharisaic
cunning--possibly intended to rid the province of Christ's presence, or
designed to drive Him toward Jerusalem, where He would be again within
easy reach of the supreme tribunal. Ought we not to be liberal and
charitable in our judgment as to the intent of others? Doubtless there
were good men in the fraternity of Pharisees,[948] and those who came
informing Christ of a plot against His life were possibly impelled by
humane motives, and may even have been believers at heart. That Herod
had designs against our Lord's liberty or life appears most probable in
the answer Jesus made. He received the information in all seriousness,
and His comment thereon is one of the strongest of His utterances
against an individual. "Go ye," said He, "and tell that fox, Behold, I
cast out devils, and I do cures to day and to morrow, and the third day
I shall be perfected." The specifying of today, tomorrow, and the third
day, was a means of expressing the present in which the Lord was then
acting, the immediate future, in which He would continue to minister,
since, as He knew, the day of His death was yet several months distant,
and the time at which his earthly work would be finished and He be
perfected. He placed beyond doubt the fact that He did not intend to
hasten His steps, neither cut short His journey nor cease His labors
through fear of Herod Antipas, who for craft and cunning was best
typified by a sly and murderous fox. Nevertheless it was Christ's
intention to go on, and soon in ordinary course He would leave Perea,
which was part of Herod's domain, and enter Judea; and at the foreknown
time would make His final entry into Jerusalem, for in that city was He
to accomplish his sacrifice. "It cannot be," He explained, "that a
prophet perish out of Jerusalem."

The awful reality that He, the Christ, would be slain in the chief city
of Israel wrung from Him the pathetic apostrophe over Jerusalem, which
was repeated when for the last time His voice was heard within the
temple walls.[949]


NOTES TO CHAPTER 26.

1. Christ's Ministry Following His Final Withdrawal From Galilee.--John
tells us that when Jesus went from Galilee to Jerusalem to attend the
Feast of Tabernacles, He went "not openly, but as it were in secret"
(7:10). It appears improbable that the numerous works recorded by the
synoptic writers as features of our Lord's ministry, which extended from
Galilee through Perea, into Samaria and parts of Judea, could have
attended that special and, as it were secret, journey, at the time of
the Feast of Tabernacles. The lack of agreement among writers as to the
sequence of events in Christs' life is wide. A comparison of the
"Harmonies" published in the most prominent Bible Helps (see e.g. Oxford
and Bagster "Helps") exemplifies these divergent views. The
subject-matter of our Lord's teachings maintains its own intrinsic worth
irrespective of merely circumstantial incidents. The following excerpt
from Farrar (_Life of Christ_, chap. 42) will be of assistance to the
student, who should bear in mind, however, that it is professedly but a
tentative or possible arrangement. "It is well known that the whole of
one great section in St. Luke--from 9:51 to 18:30--forms an episode in
the Gospel narrative of which many incidents are narrated by this
Evangelist alone, and in which the few identifications of time and place
all point to one slow and solemn progress from Galilee to Jerusalem
(9:51; 13:22; 17:11; 10:38). Now after the Feast of Dedication our Lord
retired into Perea, until He was summoned thence by the death of Lazarus
(John 10:40, 42; 11:1-46); after the resurrection [raising] of Lazarus,
He fled to Ephraim (11:54); and He did not leave His retirement at
Ephraim until He went to Bethany, six days before His final Passover
(12:1).

"This great journey, therefore, from Galilee to Jerusalem, so rich in
occasions which called forth some of His most memorable utterances, must
have been either a journey to the Feast of Tabernacles or to the Feast
of Dedication. That it could not have been the former may be regarded as
settled, not only on other grounds, but decisively because that was a
rapid and secret journey, this an eminently public and leisurely one.

"Almost every inquirer seems to differ to a greater or less degree as to
the exact sequence and chronology of the events which follow. Without
entering into minute and tedious disquisitions where absolute certainty
is impossible, I will narrate this period of our Lord's life in the
order which, after repeated study of the Gospels, appears to me to be
the most probable, and in the separate details of which I have found
myself again and again confirmed by the conclusions of other independent
inquirers. And here I will only premise my conviction--

"1. That the episode of St. Luke up to 18:30, mainly refers to a single
journey, although unity of subject, or other causes, may have led the
sacred writer to weave into his narrative some events or utterances
which belong to an earlier or later epoch.

"2. That the order of the facts narrated even by St. Luke alone is not,
and does not in any way claim to be, strictly chronological; so that the
place of any event in the narrative by no means necessarily indicates
its true position in the order of time.

"3. That this journey is identical with that which is partially recorded
in Matt. 18:1; 20:16; Mark 10:1-31.

"4. That (as seems obvious from internal evidence) the events narrated
in Matt. 20:17-28; Mark 10:32-45; Luke 18:31-34, belong not to this
journey but to the last which Jesus ever took--the journey from Ephraim
to Bethany and Jerusalem."

2. Jesus at the Home in Bethany.--Some writers (e.g. Edersheim) place
this incident as having occurred in the course of our Lord's journey to
Jerusalem to attend the Feast of Tabernacles; others (e.g. Geikie)
assume that it took place immediately after that feast; and yet others
(e.g. Farrar) assign it to the eve of the Feast of Dedication, nearly
three months later. The place given it in the text is that in which it
appears in the scriptural record.

3. Shall but Few be Saved?--Through latter-day revelation we learn that
graded conditions await us in the hereafter, and that beyond salvation
are the higher glories of exaltation. The specified kingdoms or glories
of the redeemed, excepting the sons of perdition, are the Celestial, the
Terrestrial, and the Telestial. Those who obtain place in the Telestial,
the lowest of the three, are shown to be "as innumerable as the stars in
the firmament of heaven, or as the sand upon the seashore." And these
shall not be equal, "For they shall be judged according to their works,
and every man shall receive according to his own works, his own
dominion, in the mansions which are prepared. And they shall be servants
of the Most High, but where God and Christ dwell they cannot come,
worlds without end." See Doc. and Cov. 76:111, 112; read the entire
section; see also _The Articles of Faith_ xxii:16-27; and p. 601 herein.

FOOTNOTES:

[881] John 10:22.

[882] Note 1, end of chapter.

[883] Luke 9:51.

[884] John 10:40; 11:54.

[885] Luke 9:51-56.

[886] John 4:4-42; page 176 herein.

[887] Luke 9:54; compare 2 Kings 1:10, 12.

[888] Matt. 10:23.

[889] Luke 9:57-62; see pages 305-307 herein.

[890] Luke 10:1-12.

[891] Compare Matt. 9:37, 38; see also John 4:35.

[892] Edersheim (vol. ii, p. 138) says: "The expression 'if the son of
peace be there' is a Hebraism, equivalent to 'if the house be worthy'
(compare Matt. 10:13) and refers to the character of the head of the
house and the tone of the household."

[893] Compare Matt. 10:14; page 329 herein.

[894] Compare the charge given the Seventy with that of the Twelve,
Matt. 10:5-42; Mark 6:7-11; Luke 9:1-5; see page 328 herein.

[895] Matt. 10:5, 6; 15:24.

[896] Matt. 28:19; Mark 16:15.

[897] Doc. and Cov. 107:25; 124:137-140; see also "Articles of Faith,"
xi:20, 28. The special office of the Seventy has been reestablished in
the restored Church; and in this, the last dispensation, many quorums of
Seventy are maintained for the work of the ministry. The office of the
Seventy is one belonging to the Higher or Melchizedek Priesthood.

[898] Luke 10:13-15; compare Matt. 11:20-24; see page 258 herein.

[899] Luke 10:17.

[900] Rev. 9:1; 12:8, 9; see pages 6 and 7 herein.

[901] Luke 10:19; read verses 20-24.

[902] Compare Mark 16:18; Acts 28:5.

[903] Rev. 12:9; 20:2; compare Gen. 3:1-4, 14, 15.

[904] Compare Rev. 13:8; 20:12; 21:27.

[905] Compare Mark 12:13; see also Luke 11:53, 54.

[906] Luke 10:25-37.

[907] Compare Gen. 22:1.

[908] Compare Matt. 19:16; Mark 10:17; Luke 18:18.

[909] Luke 10:27; compare Deut. 6:5, and Lev. 19:18; see also Matt.
22:35-40.

[910] Luke 10:30-37.

[911] Matt. 18:21, 22; compare Luke 17:4; page 392 herein.

[912] Deut. 22:4; compare. Exo. 23:5.

[913] Luke 10:38-42. Note 2, end of chapter.

[914] John 11:5.

[915] Compare John 12:2, 3.

[916] Luke 11:1-13.

[917] Pages 238-241.

[918] Luke 18:2-5; read verses 1, and 6-8. See also Doc. and Cov.
101:81-94.

[919] Luke 18:1; compare 21:36; Rom. 12:12; Eph. 6:18; Col. 4:2; 1
Thess. 5:17.

[920] Luke 11:37-54.

[921] Luke 11:14-28; see page 265 herein.

[922] Luke 11:29-36; see page 270 herein.

[923] Matt. 23; see chapter 31 herein.

[924] Luke 12:1-12.

[925] Page 359.

[926] Page 404.

[927] Luke 12:14-21.

[928] Compare the fate that overtook Nebuchadnezzar, while the words of
boastful pride were yet in his mouth (Dan. 4:24-33); and that of
Belshazzar, before whose eyes appeared the hand of destiny in the midst
of his riotous feast; in that night was the king's soul required of him.
(Dan. 5.)

[929] Eccles. 2:18, 19; compare succeeding verses; see also Psa. 39:6:
49:6-20; Job 27: 16, 17.

[930] Luke 12:22-31; compare Matt. 6:25-34.

[931] Compare Matt. 6:20.

[932] Luke 12:35-48.

[933] Luke 12:49-57; compare Matt. 10:34-37.

[934] Luke 13:1-5.

[935] Josephus, Wars ii, 9:4; also page 352 herein.

[936] Compare John 9:2, 3; also page 413 herein.

[937] Job 4:7; 8:2-14, 20; 22:5.

[938] Luke 13:6-9.

[939] Luke 3:9.

[940] Luke 13:11-17.

[941] Colos. 4:14.

[942] Luke 13:19-21; see pages 290, 291 herein.

[943] Luke 13:23-30. Note 3, end of chapter.

[944] Compare Matt. 7:13.

[945] Compare Matt. 7:23; 8:11, 12; 19:30; Mark 10:31.

[946] Luke 13:31-33.

[947] In the revised version the last clause reads "for Herod would fain
kill thee."

[948] Paul the apostle had been a Pharisee of the most pronounced type.
(Acts 23:6; 26:5.)

[949] Luke 13:34, 35: compare Matt. 23:37-39.




CHAPTER 27.

CONTINUATION OF THE PEREAN AND JUDEAN MINISTRY.


IN THE HOUSE OF ONE OF THE CHIEF PHARISEES.[950]

On a certain Sabbath Jesus was a guest at the house of a prominent
Pharisee. A man afflicted with dropsy was there; he may have come with
the hope of receiving a blessing, or possibly his presence had been
planned by the host or others as a means of tempting Jesus to work a
miracle on the holy day. The exercize of our Lord's healing power was at
least thought of if not openly intimated or suggested, for we read that
"Jesus answering spake unto the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, Is it
lawful to heal on the Sabbath day?"[951] No one ventured to reply. Jesus
forthwith healed the man; then He turned to the assembled company and
asked: "Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and
will not straightway pull him out on the sabbath day?"[952] The learned
expositors of the law remained prudently silent.

Observing the eager activity of the Pharisee's guests in securing for
themselves prominent places at table, Jesus instructed them in a matter
of good manners, pointing out not only the propriety but the advantage
of decent self-restraint. An invited guest should not select for himself
the seat of honor, for some one more distinguished than he may come, and
the host would say: "Give this man place." Better is it to take a lower
seat, then possibly the lord of the feast may say: "Friend, go up
higher." The moral follows: "For whosoever exalteth himself shall be
abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted."[953]

This festive gathering at the house of the chief Pharisee included
persons of prominence and note, rich men and officials, leading
Pharisees, renowned scholars, famous rabbis and the like. Looking over
the distinguished company, Jesus said: "When thou makest a dinner or a
supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor
thy rich neighbours; lest they also bid thee again, and a recompence be
made thee. But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the
lame, the blind: And thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense
thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just."
This bit of wholesome advice was construed as a reproof; and some one
attempted to relieve the embarrassing situation by exclaiming: "Blessed
is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God."[954] The remark was
an allusion to the great festival, which according to Jewish
traditionalism was to be a feature of signal importance in the Messianic
dispensation. Jesus promptly turned the circumstance to good account by
basing thereon the profoundly significant _Parable of the Great Supper_:

"A certain man made a great supper, and bade many: And sent his servant
at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are
now ready. And they all with one consent began to make excuse. The first
said unto him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and
see it: I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have bought
five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them: I pray thee have me excused.
And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. So
that servant came, and shewed his lord these things. Then the master of
the house being angry said to his servant, Go out quickly into the
streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the
maimed, and the halt, and the blind. And the servant said, Lord, it is
done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room. And the lord said
unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them
to come in, that my house may be filled. For I say unto you, That none
of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper."[955]

The story implies that invitations had been given sufficiently early to
the chosen and prospective guests; then on the day of the feast a
messenger was sent to notify them again, as was the custom of the time.
Though called a supper, the meal was to be a sumptuous one; moreover,
the principal meal of the day was commonly spoken of as supper. One man
after another declined to attend, one saying: "I pray thee have me
excused"; another: "I cannot come." The matters that engaged the time
and attention of those who had been bidden, or as we would say, invited,
to the feast, were not of themselves discreditable, far less sinful; but
to arbitrarily allow personal affairs to annul an honorable engagement
once accepted was to manifest discourtesy, disrespect and practical
insult toward the provider of the feast. The man who had bought a field
could have deferred the inspection; he who had just purchased cattle
could have waited a day to try them under the yoke; and the newly
married man could have left his bride and his friends for the period of
the supper that he had promised to attend. Plainly none of these people
wanted to be present. The master of the house was justly angry. His
command to bring in the poor and the maimed, the halt and the blind from
the city streets must have appealed to those who listened to our Lord's
recital as a reminiscence of His counsel given a few minutes before,
concerning the kind of guests a rich man could invite with profit to his
soul. The second sending out of the servant, this time into the highways
and hedges outside the city walls, to bring in even the country poor,
indicated boundless benevolence and firm determination on the
householder's part.

Explication of the parable was left to the learned men to whom the story
was addressed. Surely some of them would fathom its meaning, in part at
least. The covenant people, Israel, were the specially invited guests.
They had been bidden long enough aforetime, and by their own profession
as the Lord's own had agreed to be partakers of the feast. When all was
ready, on the appointed day, they were severally summoned by the
Messenger who had been sent by the Father; He was even then in their
midst. But the cares of riches, the allurement of material things, and
the pleasures of social and domestic life had engrossed them; and they
prayed to be excused or irreverently declared they could not or would
not come. Then the gladsome invitation was to be carried to the
Gentiles, who were looked upon as spiritually poor, maimed, halt, and
blind. And later, even the pagans beyond the walls, strangers in the
gates of the holy city, would be bidden to the supper. These, surprized
at the unexpected summons, would hesitate, until by gentle urging and
effective assurance that they were really included among the bidden
guests, they would feel themselves constrained or compelled to come. The
possibility of some of the discourteous ones arriving later, after they
had attended to their more absorbing affairs, is indicated in the Lord's
closing words: "For I say unto you, That none of those men which were
bidden shall taste of my supper."


COUNTING THE COST.[956]

As had been in Galilee, so was it in Perea and Judea--great multitudes
attended the Master whenever He appeared in public. When once a scribe
has presented himself as a disciple, offering to follow wherever the
Master led, Jesus had indicated the self-denial, privation and suffering
incident to devoted service, with the result that the man's enthusiasm
was soon spent.[957] So now to the eager multitude Jesus applied a test
of sincerity. He would have only genuine disciples, not enthusiasts of a
day, ready to desert His cause when effort and sacrifice were most
needed. Thus did He sift the people: "If any man come to me, and hate
not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and
sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And
whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my
disciple." Literal hatred toward one's family was not specified as a
condition of discipleship; indeed a man who indulges hatred or any other
evil passion is a subject for repentance and reformation. The
preeminence of duty toward God over personal or family demands on the
part of one who had assumed the obligations of a disciple was the
precept.[958]

As Jesus pointed out, it is good common-sense to count well the cost
before one enters upon a great undertaking, even in ordinary affairs. A
man who wishes to build, say a tower or a house, tries to determine,
before he begins the work, what the expense will be; otherwise he may be
able to do no more than lay the foundation; then, not only will he find
himself a loser, for the unfinished structure will be of no service, but
people may laugh at his lack of prudent forethought. So also a king,
finding his realm menaced by hostile invaders, does not rush into battle
recklessly; he first tries to ascertain the strength of the enemy's
forces; and then, if the odds against him be too great, he sends an
embassage to treat for peace. "So likewise," said Jesus to the people
around Him, "whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath,
he cannot be my disciple." All who entered His service would be expected
to maintain their self-sacrificing devotion. He wanted no disciples who
would become like salt that had spoiled, unsavory and useless. "He that
hath ears to hear, let him hear."[959]


SALVATION FOR "PUBLICANS AND SINNERS"--ILLUSTRATIVE PARABLES.[960]

The Pharisees in Galilee had intolerantly criticized Jesus because of
His friendly and helpful ministry among the publicans and their
associates, who were disparagingly classed together as "publicans and
sinners."[961] He had replied to these uncharitable aspersions by saying
that a physician is most needed by them that are sick, and that He had
come to call sinners to repentance. The Judean Pharisees raised a
similar complaint, and were particularly virulent when they saw that
"all the publicans and sinners" drew near to hear Him. He met their
murmurs by presenting a number of parables, designed to show the
incumbent duty of trying to recover the lost, and the joy of success in
such God-like endeavor. The first of the series of parables was that of
the _Lost Sheep_; this we have considered in connection with its earlier
delivery in the course of instruction to the disciples in Galilee.[962]
Its application in the present instance, however, is somewhat different
from that of its former presentation. The lesson on this later occasion
was directed to the self-seeking Pharisees and scribes who personified
the theocracy, and whose bounden duty it should have been to care for
the strayed and the lost. If the "publicans and sinners," whom these
ecclesiasts so generally contemned, were nearly as bad as they were
represented to be, if they were men who had broken through the
close-hedged path of the law and had become in a measure apostate, they
were the ones toward whom the helping hand of missionary service could
be best extended. In no instance of Pharisaic slur upon, or open
denunciation of, these "publicans and sinners," do we find Jesus
defending their alleged evil ways; His attitude toward these spiritually
sick folk was that of a devoted physician: His concern over these
strayed sheep was that of a loving shepherd whose chief desire was to
find them out and bring them back to the fold. This neither the
theocracy as a system nor its officials as individual ministers even
attempted to do. The shepherd, on finding the sheep that was lost,
thinks not at the time of reprimand or punishment; on the contrary,
"when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And
when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours,
saying unto them: Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was
lost."

A direct application of the parable appears in the Lord's concise
address to the Pharisees and scribes: "I say unto you, that likewise joy
shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety
and nine just persons, which need no repentance." Were they the ninety
and nine, who, by self-estimation had strayed not, being "just persons,
which need no repentance?" Some readers say they catch this note of just
sarcasm in the Master's concluding words. In the earlier part of the
story, the Lord Himself appears as the solicitous Shepherd, and by plain
implication His example is such as the theocratic leaders ought to
emulate. Such a conception puts the Pharisees and scribes in the
position of shepherds rather than of sheep. Both explications are
tenable; and each is of value as portraying the status and duty of
professing servants of the Master in all ages.

Without break in the narrative, the Lord passed from the story of the
lost sheep to the _Parable of the Lost Coin_.

"Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece,
doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till
she find it? And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her
neighbours together, saying, Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece
which I had lost. Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence
of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth."

Between this parable and that of the lost sheep there are certain
notable differences, though the lesson in each is in general the same.
The sheep had strayed by its own volition; the coin[963] had been
dropped, and so was lost as a result of inattention or culpable
carelessness on the part of its owner. The woman, discovering her loss
institutes a diligent search; she sweeps the house, and perhaps learns
of dirty corners, dusty recesses, cobwebby nooks, to which she had been
oblivious in her self-complacency as an outwardly clean and conventional
housewife. Her search is rewarded by the recovery of the lost piece, and
is incidentally beneficial in the cleansing of her house. Her joy is
like that of the shepherd wending his way homeward with the sheep upon
his shoulders--once lost but now regained.

The woman who by lack of care lost the precious piece may be taken to
represent the theocracy of the time, and the Church as an institution in
any dispensational period; then the pieces of silver, every one a
genuine coin of the realm, bearing the image of the great King, are the
souls committed to the care of the Church; and the lost piece symbolizes
the souls that are neglected and, for a time at least, lost sight of, by
the authorized ministers of the Gospel of Christ. These cogent
illustrations were followed by one yet richer in imagery and more
impressively elaborate in detail. It is the never to be forgotten
_Parable of the Prodigal Son_.[964]

"And he said, A certain man had two sons; And the younger of them said
to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me.
And he divided unto them his living. And not many days after the younger
son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and
there wasted his substance with riotous living. And when he had spent
all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in
want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and
he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would fain have filled
his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto
him. And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my
father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I
will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have
sinned against heaven, and before thee, And am no more worthy to be
called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants. And he arose, and
came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw
him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.
And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in
thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. But the father
said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and
put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: And bring hither the
fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: For this my son
was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began
to be merry. Now his elder son was in the field: and as he came and drew
nigh to the house, he heard musick and dancing. And he called one of the
servants, and asked what these things meant. And he said unto him, Thy
brother is come; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he
hath received him safe and sound. And he was angry, and would not go in:
therefore came his father out, and intreated him. And he answering said
to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither
transgressed I at any time thy commandment: and yet thou never gavest me
a kid, that I might make merry with my friends: But as soon as this thy
son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast
killed for him the fatted calf. And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever
with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should make
merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again;
and was lost, and is found."

The demand of the younger son for a portion of the patrimony even during
his father's lifetime, is an instance of deliberate and unfilial
desertion; the duties of family cooperation had grown distasteful to
him, and the wholesome discipline of the home had become irksome. He was
determined to break away from all home ties, forgetful of what home had
done for him and the debt of gratitude and duty by which he was morally
bound. He went into a far country, and, as he thought, beyond the reach
of the father's directing influence. He had his season of riotous
living, of unrestrained indulgence and evil pleasure, through it all
wasting his strength of body and mind, and squandering his father's
substance; for what he had received had been given as a concession and
not as the granting of any legal or just demand. Adversity came upon
him, and proved to be a more effective minister for good than pleasure
had been. He was reduced to the lowest and most menial service, that of
herding swine, which occupation, to a Jew, was the extreme of
degradation. Suffering brought him to himself. He, the son of honorable
parentage, was feeding pigs and eating with them, while even the hired
servants at home had good food in plenty and to spare. He realized not
alone his abject foolishness in leaving his father's well-spread table
to batten with hogs, but the unrighteousness of his selfish desertion;
he was not only remorseful but repentant. He had sinned against his
father and against God; he would return, confess his sin, and ask, not
to be reinstated as a son, but to be allowed to work as a hired servant.
Having resolved he delayed not, but immediately set out to find his long
way back to home and father.

The father became aware of the prodigal's approach and hastened to meet
him. Without a word of condemnation, the loving parent embraced and
kissed the wayward but now penitent boy, who, overcome by this
undeserved affection, humbly acknowledged his error, and sorrowfully
confessed that he was not worthy to be known as his father's son. It is
noteworthy that in his contrite confession he did not ask to be accepted
as a hired servant as he had resolved to do; the father's joy was too
sacred to be thus marred, he would please his father best by placing
himself unreservedly at that father's disposal. The rough garb of
poverty was discarded for the best robe; a ring was placed on his finger
as a mark of reinstatement; shoes told of restored sonship, not of
employment as a hired servant. The father's glad heart could express
itself only in acts of abundant kindness; a feast was made ready; for
was not the son, once counted as dead now alive? Had not the lost been
found again?

So far the story sustains a relation of close analogy to the two
parables that preceded it in the same discourse; the part following
introduces another important symbolism. No one had complained at the
recovery of the stray sheep nor at the finding of the lost coin; friends
had rejoiced with the finder in each case. But the father's happiness at
the return of the prodigal was interrupted by the grumbling protest of
the elder son. He, on approaching the house, had observed the evidences
of festal joy; and, instead of entering as was his right, had inquired
of one of the servants as to the cause of the unusual rejoicing. On
learning that his brother had returned and that the father had prepared
a festival in honor of the event, this elder son grew angry, and
churlishly refused to enter the house even after his father had come out
and entreated him. He cited his own faithfulness and devotion to the
routine labor of the farm, to which claim of excellence the father did
not demur; but the son and heir reproached his father for having failed
to give him so much as a kid with which to make merry with his friends;
while now that the wayward and spendthrift son had come back the father
had killed for him even the fatted calf. There is significance in the
elder one's designation of the penitent as "this thy son," rather than
"my brother." The elder son, deafened by selfish anger, refused to hear
aright the affectionate assurance; "Son, thou art ever with me, and all
that I have is thine," and with heart hardened by unbrotherly resentment
he stood unmoved by the emotional and loving outburst, "this thy brother
was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found."

We are not justified in extolling the virtue of repentance on the part
of the prodigal above the faithful, plodding service of his brother, who
had remained at home, true to the duties required of him. The devoted
son was the heir; the father did not disparage his worth, nor deny his
deserts. His displeasure over the rejoicing incident to the return of
his wayward brother was an exhibition of illiberality and narrowness;
but of the two brothers the elder was the more faithful, whatever his
minor defects may have been. The particular point emphasized in the
Lord's lesson, however, had to do with his uncharitable and selfish
weaknesses.

Pharisees and scribes, to whom this masterpiece of illustrative incident
was delivered, must have taken to themselves its personal application.
They were typified by the elder son, laboriously attentive to routine,
methodically plodding by rule and rote in the multifarious labors of the
field, without interest except that of self, and all unwilling to
welcome a repentant publican or a returned sinner. From all such they
were estranged; such a one might be to the indulgent and forgiving
Father, "this thy son," but never to them, a brother. They cared not who
or how many were lost, so long as they were undisturbed in heirship and
possession by the return of penitent prodigals. But the parable was not
for them alone; it is a living perennial yielding the fruit of wholesome
doctrine and soul-sustaining nourishment for all time. Not a word
appears in condonation or excuse for the prodigal's sin; upon that the
Father could not look with the least degree of allowance;[965] but over
that sinner's repentance and contrition of soul, God and the household
of heaven rejoiced.

The three parables which appear in the scriptural record as parts of a
continuous discourse, are as one in portraying the joy that abounds in
heaven over the recovery of a soul once numbered among the lost, whether
that soul be best symbolized by a sheep that had wandered afar, a coin
that had dropped out of sight through the custodian's neglect, or a son
who would deliberately sever himself from home and heaven. There is no
justification for the inference that a repentant sinner is to be given
precedence, over a righteous soul who has resisted sin; were such the
way of God, then Christ, the one sinless Man, would be surpassed in the
Father's esteem by regenerate offenders. Unqualifiedly offensive as is
sin, the sinner is yet precious in the Father's eyes, because of the
possibility of his repentance and return to righteousness. The loss of a
soul is a very real and a very great loss to God. He is pained and
grieved thereby, for it is His will that not one should perish.[966]


DISCIPLES INSTRUCTED BY PARABLE.

Addressing Himself more directly to the disciples present, who on this
occasion probably comprized in addition to the apostles, many believers,
including even some of the publicans, Jesus spake the _Parable of the
Unrighteous Steward_.[967]

    "And he said also unto his disciples, There was a certain rich
    man, which had a steward; and the same was accused unto him that
    he had wasted his goods. And he called him, and said unto him,
    How is it that I hear this of thee? give an account of thy
    stewardship; for thou mayest be no longer steward. Then the
    steward said within himself, What shall I do? for my lord taketh
    away from me the stewardship: I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed.
    I am resolved what to do, that, when I am put out of the
    stewardship, they may receive me into their houses. So he called
    every one of his lord's debtors unto him, and said unto the
    first, How much owest thou unto my lord? And he said, An hundred
    measures of oil. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and sit
    down quickly, and write fifty. Then said he to another, And how
    much owest thou? And he said, An hundred measures of wheat. And
    he said unto him, Take thy bill, and write fourscore. And the
    lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely:
    for the children of this world are in their generation wiser
    than the children of light."

The three preceding parables show forth their lessons through the
relationship of close analogy and intimate similarities; this one
teaches rather by its contrast of situations. The steward in the story
was the duly authorized agent of his employer, holding what we would
call the power-of-attorney to act in his master's name.[968] He was
called to account because a report of his wastefulness and lack of care
had reached the master's ears. The steward did not deny his guilt, and
forthwith he received notice of dismissal. Considerable time would be
required for making up his accounts preparatory to turning the
stewardship over to his successor. This interval, during which he
remained in authority, he determined to use so far as possible to his
own advantage, even though he wrought further injustice to his master's
interests. He contemplated the condition of dependence in which he would
soon find himself. Through unthrift and extravagance he had failed to
lay by any store from his earnings; he had wasted his own and his lord's
substance. He felt that he was unfit for hard manual labor; and he would
be ashamed to beg, particularly in the community in which he had been a
lavish spender and a man of influence. With the desire to put others
under some obligation to himself so that when he was deposed he could
the more effectively appeal to them, he called his lord's debtors and
authorized them to change their bonds, bills of sale, or notes of hand,
so as to show a greatly decreased indebtedness. Without doubt these acts
were unrighteous; he defrauded his employer, and enriched the debtors
through whom he hoped to be benefited. Most of us are surprized to know
that the master, learning what his far-seeing though selfish and
dishonest steward had done, condoned the offense and actually commended
him for his foresight, "because he had done wisely" as our version
reads, or "because he had done prudently" as many scholars aver to be
the better rendering.

In pointing the moral of the parable Jesus said:[969] "For the children
of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.
And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of
unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into
everlasting habitations." Our Lord's purpose was to show the contrast
between the care, thoughtfulness, and devotion of men engaged in the
money-making affairs of earth, and the half hearted ways of many who are
professedly striving after spiritual riches. Worldly-minded men do not
neglect provision for their future years, and often are sinfully eager
to amass plenty; while the "children of light," or those who believe
spiritual wealth to be above all earthly possessions, are less
energetic, prudent, or wise. By "mammon of unrighteousness" we may
understand material wealth or worldly things. While far inferior to the
treasures of heaven, money or that which it represents may be the means
of accomplishing good, and of furthering the purposes of God. Our Lord's
admonition was to utilize "mammon" in good works, while it lasted, for
some day it shall fail, and only the results achieved through its use
shall endure.[970] If the wicked steward, when cast out from his
master's house because of unworthiness, might hope to be received into
the homes of these whom he had favored, how much more confidently may
they who are genuinely devoted to the right hope to be received into the
everlasting mansions of God! Such seems to be part of the lesson.

It was not the steward's dishonesty that was extolled; his prudence and
foresight were commended, however; for while he misapplied his master's
substance, he gave relief to the debtors; and in so doing he did not
exceed his legal powers, for he was still steward though he was morally
guilty of malfeasance. The lesson may be summed up in this wise: Make
such use of your wealth as shall insure you friends hereafter. Be
diligent; for the day in which you can use your earthly riches will soon
pass. Take a lesson from even the dishonest and the evil; if they are so
prudent as to provide for the only future they think of, how much more
should you, who believe in an eternal future, provide therefor! If you
have not learned wisdom and prudence in the use of "unrighteous mammon,"
how can you be trusted with the more enduring riches? If you have not
learned how to use properly the wealth of another, which has been
committed to you as steward, how can you expect to be successful in the
handling of great wealth should such be given you as your own? Emulate
the unjust steward and the lovers of mammon, not in their dishonesty,
cupidity, and miserly hoarding of the wealth that is at best but
transitory, but in their zeal, forethought, and provision for the
future. Moreover, let not wealth become your master; keep it to its
place as a servant, for, "No servant can serve two masters: for either
he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the
one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon."


DERISION OF THE PHARISEES MET; ANOTHER ILLUSTRATIVE PARABLES.[971]

The Pharisees, who were covetous, or more precisely stated, who were
lovers of money,[972] overheard the foregoing instructions to the
disciples, and openly scoffed at the Teacher and the lesson. What did
this Galilean, who owned nothing but the clothes He wore, know about
money or the best way of administering wealth? Our Lord's reply to their
words of derision was a further condemnation. They knew all the tricks
of the business-world, and could outdo the unrighteous steward in crafty
manipulation; and yet so successfully could they justify themselves
before men as to be outwardly honest and straightforward; furthermore,
they made ostentatious display of a certain type of simplicity,
plainness, and self-denial, in which external observances they asserted
superiority over the luxury-loving Sadducees; they had grown arrogantly
proud of their humility, but God knew their hearts, and the traits and
practises they most esteemed were an abomination in His sight. They
posed as custodians of the law and expounders of the prophets. The "law
and the prophets" had been in force until the Baptist's time, since
which the gospel of the kingdom had been preached, and people were eager
to enter it[973] though the theocracy strove mightily to prevent. The
law had not been invalidated; easier were it that heaven and earth pass
away than that one tittle of the law fail of fulfilment;[974] yet those
Pharisees and scribes had tried to nullify the law. In the matter of
divorce, for example, they, by their unlawful additions and false
interpretations, had condoned even the sin of adultery.

The Master gave as a further lesson the _Parable of the Rich Man and
Lazarus_:

    "There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and
    fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: And there was a
    certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full
    of sores, And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from
    the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his
    sores. And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was
    carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also
    died, and was buried; And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in
    torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.
    And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and
    send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water,
    and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But
    Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst
    thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is
    comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between
    us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would
    pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that
    would come from thence. Then he said, I pray thee therefore,
    father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house: For I
    have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they
    also come into this place of torment. Abraham saith unto him,
    They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. And he
    said, Nay, father Abraham; but if one went unto them from the
    dead, they will repent. And he said unto him, If they hear not
    Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though
    one rose from the dead."[975]

The afflicted beggar is honored with a name; the other is designated
simply as "a certain rich man."[976] The two are presented as the
extremes of contrast between wealth and destitution. The rich man was
clothed in the costliest attire, purple and fine linen; and his
every-day fare was a sumptuous feast. Lazarus had been brought to the
gates of the rich man's palace, and there left, a helpless mendicant,
his body covered with sores. The rich man was attended by servitors
ready to gratify his slightest desire; the poor beggar at his gates had
neither companions nor attendants except the dogs, which like himself
waited for the refuse from the rich man's table. Such is the picture of
the two in life. An abrupt change of scene brings into view the same two
on the far side of the veil that hangs between the here and the
hereafter. Lazarus died; no mention is made of his funeral; his
festering body was probably thrown into a pauper's grave; but angels
bore his immortal spirit into Paradise, the resting place of the blessed
and commonly known in the figurative lore of the rabbis as Abraham's
bosom. The rich man also died; his burial was doubtless an elaborate
affair, but we read not of any angelic escort receiving his spirit. In
hell he lifted up his eyes and saw, afar, Lazarus at peace in the abode
of Abraham.

As a Jew the man had often boasted of having Abraham for his father; and
now the wretched spirit appealed to the patriarch of his race by the
paternal address, "Father Abraham," and asked only the boon of a single
drop of water to be placed on his parched tongue; this he prayed that
Lazarus, the erstwhile beggar, might bring. The reply throws light on
certain conditions existing in the spirit world, though as in the use of
parables generally, the presentation is largely figurative. Addressing
the poor tormented spirit as "Son," Abraham reminded him of all the good
things he had kept for himself on earth, whilst Lazarus had lain a
suffering, neglected beggar at his gates; now by the operation of divine
law, Lazarus had received recompense, and he, retribution. Moreover, to
grant his pitiful request was impossible, for between the abode of the
righteous where Lazarus rested and that of the wicked where he suffered
"there is a great gulf fixed," and passage between the two is
interdicted. The next request of the miserable sufferer was not wholly
selfish; in his anguish he remembered those from whom he had been
separated by death, fain would he save his brothers from the fate he had
met; and he prayed that Lazarus be sent back to earth to visit the
ancestral home, and warn those selfish, pleasure-seeking, and yet mortal
brothers, of the awful doom awaiting them except they would repent and
reform. There may have been in this petition an insinuation that had he
been sufficiently warned he would have done better, and would have
escaped the torment. To the reminder that they had the words of Moses
and the prophets, which they should obey, he replied that if one went to
them from the dead they would surely repent. Abraham answered that if
they would not heed Moses and the prophets neither would "they be
persuaded, though one rose from the dead."

In any attempt to interpret the parable as a whole or definitely apply
any of its parts, we should bear in mind that it was addressed to the
Pharisees as an instructive rebuke for the derision and scorn with which
they had received the Lord's warning concerning the dangers attending
servitude to mammon. Jesus employed Jewish metaphors, and the imagery of
the parable is such as would most directly appeal to the official
expounders of Moses and the prophets. While as a practise it would be
critically unfair to deduce doctrinal principles from parabolic
incidents, we cannot admit that Christ would teach falsely even in
parable; and therefore we accept as true the portrayal of conditions in
the world of the disembodied. That righteous and unrighteous dwell apart
during the interval between death and resurrection is clear. Paradise,
or as the Jews like to designate that blessed abode, "Abraham's bosom,"
is not the place of final glory, any more than the hell to which the
rich man's spirit was consigned is the final habitation of the
condemned.[977] To that preliminary or intermediate state, however,
men's works do follow them;[978] and the dead shall surely find that
their abode is that for which they have qualified themselves while in
the flesh.

The rich man's fate was not the effect of riches, nor was the rest into
which Lazarus entered the resultant of poverty. Failure to use his
wealth aright, and selfish satisfaction with the sensuous enjoyment of
earthly things to the exclusion of all concern for the needs or
privations of his fellows, brought the one under condemnation; while
patience in suffering, faith in God and such righteous life as is
implied though not expressed, insured happiness to the other. The proud
self-sufficiency of the rich man, who lacked nothing that wealth could
furnish, and who kept aloof from the needy and suffering, was his
besetting sin. The aloofness of the Pharisees, on which indeed they
prided themselves, as their very name, signifying "separatists,"
expressed, was thus condemned. The parable teaches the continuation of
individual existence after death, and the relation of cause to effect
between the life one leads in mortality and the state awaiting him
beyond.


UNPROFITABLE SERVANTS.[979]

From the Pharisees, Jesus turned to His disciples and admonished them to
diligence. Having cautioned them against unguarded utterances or actions
at which others might take offense, He proceeded to impress the absolute
necessity of unselfish devotion, toleration and forgiveness. The
apostles, realizing the whole-souled service required of them, implored
the Lord, saying: "Increase our faith." They were shown that faith was
less fitly reckoned in terms of quantity than by test of quality; and
the analogy of the mustard seed was again invoked. "And the Lord said,
If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this
sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in
the sea; and it should obey you."[980] Their faith could best be gaged
by obedience and untiring service.

This was emphasized by the _Parable of the Unprofitable Servants_.

    "But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle,
    will say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go
    and sit down to meat? And will not rather say unto him, Make
    ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, till
    I have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou shalt eat and
    drink? Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that
    were commanded him? I trow not. So likewise ye, when ye shall
    have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are
    unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to
    do."

The servant might well feel that after a day's work in the field he is
entitled to rest; but on reaching the house he finds other demands made
upon him. The master has a right to the servant's time and attention;
such was among the conditions under which the servant had been engaged;
and while his employer might thank him or give some substantial reward,
the servant cannot demand such recompense. So the apostles, who had
given themselves entirely up to their Master's service, were not to
hesitate nor demur, whatever the effort or sacrifice required. The best
they could do would be no more than their duty required; and, without
regard to the Master's estimate of their worth, they were to account
themselves as unprofitable servants.[981]


TEN LEPERS HEALED.[982]

In the course of His journey toward Jerusalem Jesus "passed through the
midst of Samaria and Galilee." Ten men afflicted with leprosy
approached, probably they came as near as the law permitted, yet they
were afar off. These men were of mixed nationality; the plague under
which they suffered in common had made them companions in distress. They
cried aloud "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us." The Lord answered: "Go
shew yourselves unto the priests."[983] This instruction implied their
ultimate healing; obedience would be the test of their faith. None who
had been leprous could be lawfully restored to community life until
pronounced clean by a priest. The stricken ten hastened to obey the
Lord's command, "and it came to pass, that, as they went, they were
cleansed."[984] One of the ten turned back, and with loud voice
glorified God; then he prostrated himself at the feet of Christ, giving
thanks. We are told that the grateful one was a Samaritan, from which we
infer that some or all of the others were Jews. Pained over the lack of
gratitude on the part of the nine, Jesus exclaimed: "Were there not ten
cleansed? but where are the nine? There are not found that return to
give glory to God, save this stranger." And to the cleansed Samaritan,
still worshiping at His feet, the Lord said: "Arise, go thy way: thy
faith hath made thee whole." Doubtless the nine who came not back were
obedient to the strict letter of the Lord's command; for He had told
them to go to the priests; but their lack of gratitude and their failure
to acknowledge the power of God in their restoration stand in
unfavorable contrast with the spirit of the one; and he was a Samaritan.
The occurrence must have impressed the apostles as another evidence of
acceptability and possible excellence on the part of aliens, to the
disparagement of Jewish claims of superiority irrespective of merit.


THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN.[985]

"And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that
they were righteous, and despised others:

    "Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee,
    and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus
    with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are,
    extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I
    fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. And
    the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as
    his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be
    merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his
    house justified rather than the other: for every one that
    exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself
    shall be exalted."

We are expressly told that this parable was given for the benefit of
certain ones who trusted in their self-righteousness as an assurance of
justification before God. It was not addressed to the Pharisees nor to
the publicans specifically. The two characters are types of widely
separated classes. There may have been much of the Pharisaic spirit of
self-complacency among the disciples and some of it even among the
Twelve. A Pharisee and a publican went up to the temple to pray. The
Pharisee prayed "with himself"; his words can hardly be construed as a
prayer to God. That he stood while praying was not an impropriety, for
the standing attitude was usual in prayer; the publican also stood. The
Pharisee thanked God that he was so much better than other men; he was
true to his class, a separatist who looked with disdain upon all who
were not like him. That he was not like "this publican" was made a point
of special thanksgiving. His boast, that he fasted twice a week and gave
tithes of all that he possessed, was a specification of worthiness above
what was required by the law as then administered; he thus implied that
God was his debtor.[986] The publican, standing afar off, was so
oppressed by his consciousness of sin and his absolute need of divine
help, that he cast down his eyes and smote upon his breast, craving
mercy as a penitent sinner. The Pharisee departed, justified in his own
conscience and before man, prouder than ever; the other went down to his
house justified before God though still a despized publican. The parable
is applicable to all men; its moral was summed up in a repetition of our
Lord's words spoken in the house of the chief Pharisee: "For every one
that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself
shall be exalted."[987]


ON MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE.[988]

While wending His way by short stages toward Jerusalem, and while still
"beyond" or on "the farther side" of Jordan, and therefore in Perean
territory, Jesus was met by a body of Pharisees, who had come with the
deliberate purpose of inciting Him to say or do something on which they
could base an accusation. The question they had agreed to submit related
to marriage and divorce, and no subject had been more vehemently
contested in their own schools and among their own rabbis.[989] The
crafty questioners may have hoped that Jesus would denounce the
adulterous state in which Herod Antipas was then living, and so bring
upon Himself the fury of Herodias, to which the Baptist had already died
a victim. "Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?"
they asked. Jesus cited the original and eternal law of God in the
matter; and indicated the only rational conclusion to be drawn
therefrom: "Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning
made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave
father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be
one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What
therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."[990] God
had provided for honorable marriage, and had made the relation between
husband and wife paramount even to that of children to parents; the
severing of such a union was an invention of man, not a command of God.
The Pharisees had a ready rejoinder: "Why did Moses then command to give
a writing of divorcement, and to put her away?" Be it remembered that
Moses had not commanded divorce, but had required that in case a man
should separate from his wife he give her a bill of divorcement.[991]
Jesus made this fact plain, saying: "Moses because of the hardness of
your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning
it was not so."

The higher requirement of the gospel followed: "And I say unto you,
Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and
shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which
is put away doth commit adultery."[992] The Mosaic provision had been
but permissive, and was justified only because of existing
unrighteousness. Strict compliance with the doctrine enunciated by Jesus
Christ is the only means by which a perfect social order can be
maintained. It is important to note, however, that in His reply to the
casuistical Pharisees, Jesus announced no specific or binding rule as to
legal divorces; the putting away of a wife, as contemplated under the
Mosaic custom, involved no judicial investigation or action by an
established court. In our Lord's day the prevailing laxity in the matter
of marital obligation had produced a state of appalling corruption in
Israel; and woman, who by the law of God had been made a companion and
partner with man, had become his slave. The world's greatest champion of
woman and womanhood is Jesus the Christ.[993]

The Pharisees retired foiled in purpose and convicted in conscience. The
Lord's strict construction of the marriage bond was startling even to
some of the disciples; these came to Him privately, saying that if a man
was so bound it would be better not to marry at all. Such a broad
generalization the Lord disapproved except so far as it might apply in
special cases. True, there were some who were physically incapacitated
for marriage; others voluntarily devoted themselves to a celibate life,
and some few adopted celibacy "for the kingdom of heaven's sake," that
thereby they might be free to render all their time and energy to the
Lord's service. But the disciples' conclusion that "it is not good to
marry" was true only in the exceptional instances stated. Marriage is
honorable;[994] for neither man without woman nor woman without man can
be perfect in the Lord's sight.[995]


JESUS AND THE LITTLE ONES.[996]

The next event of record is one of surpassing sweetness, rich in precept
and invaluable in example. Mothers brought their little children to
Jesus, reverently desiring that the lives of those little ones be
brightened by a sight of the Master and be blessed by a touch of His
hand or a word from His lips. The circumstance appears in appropriate
sequence to that of the Lord's instructions concerning the sacredness of
marriage and the sanctity of the home. The disciples, zealous that their
Master be not troubled unnecessarily, and conscious of the continuous
demands on His time and attention, rebuked those who had so ventured to
trespass. Even the disciples seem to have been yet under the influence
of the traditional conception that women and children were of inferior
status, and that for such to seek the Lord's attention was an act of
presumption. Jesus was displeased over the misdirected zeal of His
followers, and rebuked them. Then He uttered that memorable sentence of
infinite tenderness and divine affection: "_Suffer the little children
to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of
God._" Taking the children one by one into His arms, He laid His hands
upon them and blessed them.[997] Then said He: "Verily I say unto you,
Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he
shall not enter therein."[998]


"ONE THING THOU LACKEST."[999]

Jesus was accosted on the way by a young man, who came running to meet
or overtake Him, and who knelt at His feet, inquiring: "Good Master,
what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?" The question was asked
in earnestness; the questioner was in very different spirit from that of
the lawyer who made a similar inquiry with the purpose of tempting the
Master.[1000] Jesus said: "Why callest thou me good? there is none good
but one, that is, God." This remark was no denial of sinlessness on the
Savior's part; the young man had called Him "good" by way of polite
compliment rather than in recognition of His Godship, and Jesus declined
to acknowledge the distinction when applied in that sense. The Lord's
remark must have deepened the young man's conception as to the
seriousness of his question. Then said Jesus: "If thou wilt enter into
life, keep the commandments." To the further inquiry, as to which
commandments were meant, Jesus cited the prohibitions against murder,
adultery, theft, and the bearing of false witness, and the requirements
as to honoring parents, and loving one's neighbor as one's self. In
simplicity and without pride or sense of self-righteousness, the young
man said: "All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I
yet?" His evident sincerity appealed to Jesus, who looked upon him
lovingly and said: "One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever
thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven:
and come, take up the cross, and follow me."[1001]

The young man was disappointed and saddened. He had probably expected to
hear the great Teacher prescribe some one special observance, by which
excellence could be achieved. Luke tells us that the young man was a
ruler; this may mean that he was a presiding official in the local
synagog or possibly a Sanhedrist. He was well versed in the law, and had
been strict in obedience thereto. He desired to advance in good works
and make clear his title to an eternal heritage. But the Master
prescribed what he had least expected; "And he was sad at that saying,
and went away grieved: for he had great possessions." In his way, he
yearned for the kingdom of God, yet more devotedly he loved his great
possessions. To give up wealth, social position, and official
distinction, was too great a sacrifice; and the necessary self-denial
was a cross too heavy for him to bear, even though treasure in heaven
and life eternal were offered him. Love of worldly things was this man's
besetting weakness; Jesus diagnosed his case and prescribed a suitable
remedy. We are not warranted in saying that the same treatment would be
best in all cases of spiritual defection; but where the symptoms
indicate the need, it may be employed with confidence as to the cure.

Gazing sorrowfully upon the retreating figure of the wealthy young ruler
Jesus said to the disciples: "Verily I say unto you, That a rich man
shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven." To impress the lesson
more thoroughly He applied one of the figurative proverbs of the age,
and said: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle,
than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."[1002] At this
statement the disciples were amazed. "Who then can be saved?" they
wondered. Jesus understood their perplexity, and encouraged them with
the assurance that with God all things are possible. Thus were they
given to understand that while wealth is a means of temptation to which
many succumb, it is no insuperable obstacle, no insurmountable barrier,
in the way of entrance to the kingdom. Had the young ruler followed the
advice called forth by his inquiry, his possession of riches would have
made possible to him meritorious service such as few are able to render.
Willingness to place the kingdom of God above all material possessions
was the one thing he lacked.[1003] Everyone of us may pertinently ask,
What do I lack?


THE FIRST MAY BE LAST, AND THE LAST FIRST.[1004]

The sorrowful departure of the rich young ruler, whose great possessions
were so much a part of his life that he could not give them up at the
time, though we may hope that he afterward did, brought forth from Peter
an abrupt question, which revealed the course of his thoughts and
aspirations: "Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee; what
shall we have therefore?" Whether he spoke for himself alone, or by his
use of the plural "we" meant to include all the Twelve, is uncertain and
unimportant. He was thinking of the home and family he had left, and a
longing for them was pardonable; he was thinking also of boats and nets,
hooks and lines, and the lucrative business for which such things stood.
All these he had forsaken; what was to be his reward? Jesus answered:
"Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the
regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory,
ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of
Israel." It is doubtful that Peter or any other of the Twelve had ever
conceived of so great a distinction. The day of regeneration, when the
Son of Man shall sit on the throne of His glory, as Judge and King, is
even yet future; but in that day, those of the Lord's Twelve who endured
to the end shall be enthroned as judges in Israel. The further assurance
was given that "every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or
sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my
name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting
life." Rewards of such transcendent worth could scarcely be reckoned or
their meaning comprehended. Lest those to whom they were promised might
count too surely upon successful attainment, to the neglect of effort,
and become proud withal, the Lord added this profound precept of
caution: "But many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be
first."

It was the text of the sermon known to us as the _Parable of the
Laborers_.[1005] Hear it:

    "For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an
    householder, which went out early in the morning to hire
    labourers into his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the
    labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And
    he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle
    in the marketplace, and said unto them:

    "Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will
    give you. And they went their way. Again he went out about the
    sixth and ninth hour, and did likewise. And about the eleventh
    hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto
    them, Why stand ye here all the day idle? They say unto him,
    Because no man hath hired us. He saith unto them, Go ye also
    into the vineyard; and whatsoever is right, that shall ye
    receive. So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith
    unto his steward, Call the labourers, and give them their hire,
    beginning from the last unto the first. And when they came that
    were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man a
    penny. But when the first came, they supposed that they should
    have received more; and they likewise received every man a
    penny. And when they had received it, they murmured against the
    goodman of the house, saying, These last have wrought but one
    hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne
    the burden and heat of the day. But he answered one of them, and
    said, Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me
    for a penny? Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will give
    unto this last, even as unto thee. Is it not lawful for me to do
    what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good?
    So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be
    called, but few chosen."

The procedure of a householder going into the marketplace to hire
laborers was common to the time and place, and is still an ordinary
occurrence in many lands. The first to be hired in the course of the
story made a definite bargain as to wages. Those who were employed at
nine, twelve, and three o'clock respectively went willingly without
agreement as to what they were to receive; so glad were they to find a
chance to work that they lost no time in specifying terms. At five
o'clock in the afternoon or evening, when but a single hour of the
working day remained, the last band of laborers went to work, trusting
to the master's word that whatever was right they should receive. That
they had not found work earlier in the day was no fault of theirs; they
had been ready and willing, and had waited at the place where employment
was most likely to be secured. At the close of the day, the laborers
came for their wages; this was in accordance with law and custom, for it
had been established by statute in Israel that the employer should pay
the servant, hired by the day, before the sun went down.[1006] Under
instructions, the steward who acted as paymaster began with those who
had been engaged at the eleventh hour; and to each of them he gave a
denarius, or Roman penny, worth about fifteen cents in our money, and
the usual wage for a day's work. This was the amount for which those who
began earliest had severally bargained; and as these saw their
fellow-workers, who had served but an hour, receive each a penny, they
probably exulted in the expectation of receiving a wage proportionately
larger, notwithstanding their stipulation. But each of them received a
penny and no more. Then they complained; not because they had been
underpaid, but because the others had received a full day's pay for but
part of a day's work. The master answered in all kindness, reminding
them of their agreement. Could he not be just to them and charitable to
the rest if he so chose? His money was his own, and he could give of it
as he liked. Were those grumblers justified in their evil displeasure
because their master was charitable and good? "So," said Jesus, passing
directly from the story to one of the lessons it was designed to teach,
"the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but
few chosen."[1007]

The parable was plainly intended for the edification of the Twelve. It
was called out by Peter's question, "What shall we have therefore?" It
stands as truly in force today as when it was delivered by the Master,
as a rebuke of the bargaining spirit in the Lord's work. God needs
workers, and such as will labor faithfully and effectively are welcomed
into the vineyard. If, before beginning they insist on the stipulation
of a wage, and this be agreed to, each shall receive his penny provided
he has not lost his place through idleness or transgression. But those
who diligently labor, knowing that the Master will give to them whatever
is right, and with thought for the work rather than for the wage, shall
find themselves more bountifully enriched. A man may work for wages and
yet not be a hireling. Between the worthy hired servant and the hireling
there is the difference that distinguishes the shepherd from the sheep
herder.[1008] Was there not a suggestion of the hireling's spirit in the
query of even the first of the apostles, "What shall we have therefore?"
The Twelve had been called into service early in the Savior's ministry;
they had responded to the call, without promise of even a penny; they
were yet to feel the burden and heat of the day; but they were solemnly
cautioned against attempt or desire to fix their reward. The Master
shall judge as to the deserts of each servant; the wage at best is a
free gift; for on the basis of strict accounting who of us is not in
debt to God? The last called is as likely as the first to prove
unworthy. No general reversal is implied whereby all the late comers
shall be advanced and all the early workers demoted. "Many that are
first shall be last" was the Lord's statement, and by implication we may
understand that not all the last, though some of them, may be counted
among the first. Of the many called or permitted to labor in the
vineyard of the Lord, few may so excel as to be chosen for exaltation
above their fellows. Even the call and ordination to the Holy
Apostleship is no guarantee of eventual exaltation in the celestial
kingdom. Iscariot was so called and placed among the first; now, verily
he is far below the last in the kingdom of God.


NOTES TO CHAPTER 27.

1. Rich Men and Their Stewards.--"'A certain rich man had a steward,' We
learn here, incidentally, how evenly balanced are the various conditions
of life in a community, and how little of substantial advantage wealth
can confer on its possessor. As your property increases, your personal
control over it diminishes; the more you possess the more you must
entrust to others. Those who do their own work are not troubled with
disobedient servants; those who look after their own affairs, are not
troubled with unfaithful overseers."--Arnot's _Parables of our Lord_, p.
454.

2. The Mammon of Unrighteousness.--The revised version of Luke 16:9,
reads: "And I say unto you, Make to yourself friends by means of the
mammon of unrighteousness, that, when it shall fail, they may receive
you into the eternal tabernacles." The Lord's counsel to the disciples
was to so use worldly wealth as to accomplish good thereby, that when
"it," i.e. all earthly possessions, fail, they would have friends to
welcome them into "the eternal tabernacles" or heavenly mansions. In
studying a parable based on contrasts, such as this one is, care must be
exercized not to carry too far any one point of analogy. Thus, we cannot
reasonably gather that Jesus intended even to intimate that the
prerogative of receiving any soul into the "eternal tabernacles" or
excluding therefrom, rests with those who on earth had been benefited or
injured through that person's acts, except so far as their witness to
his deeds may be taken into account in the final judgment. The whole
parable is full of wisdom for him who is in search of such; to the
hypercritical mind it may appear inconsistent, as so it did appear to
the Pharisees who derided Jesus for the story He had told. Luke 16:14 is
rendered in the revised version, "And the Pharisees, who were lovers of
money, heard all these things; and they scoffed at him."

3. Lazarus and Dives.--Of all our Lord's recorded parables this is the
only one in which a personal name is applied to any of the characters.
The name "Lazarus" used in the parable was also the true name of a man
whom Jesus loved, and who, subsequent to the delivery of this parable,
was restored to life after he had lain for days in the tomb. The name, a
Greek variant of Eleazar, signifies "God is my help." In many
theological writings, the rich man of this parable is called Dives, but
the name is not of scriptural usage. "Dives" is a Latin adjective
meaning "rich." Lazarus the brother of Martha and Mary (John 11:1, 2, 5)
is one of three men mentioned by name as subjects of our Lord's
beneficent miracles; the other two are Bartimeus (Mark 10:46) and
Malchus (John 18:10). Commenting on the fact that our Lord gave a name
to the beggar but left the rich man nameless in the parable, Augustine
(in Sermon xli) suggestively asks: "Seems He not to you to have been
reading from that book where He found the name of the poor man written,
but found not the name of the rich; for that book is the Book of Life?"

4. Divergent Views Concerning Divorce.--In relation to the different
opinions upon this subject among Jewish authorities in the time of
Christ, Geikie (vol. ii, p. 347-8) says: "Among the questions of the day
fiercely debated between the great rival schools of Hillel and Shammai,
no one was more so than that of divorce. The school of Hillel contended
that a man had a right to divorce his wife for any cause he might
assign, if it were no more than his having ceased to love her, or his
having seen one he liked better, or her having cooked a dinner badly.
The school of Shammai, on the contrary, held that divorce could be
issued only for the crime of adultery, and offences against chastity. If
it were possible to get Jesus to pronounce in favor of either school,
the hostility of the other would be roused, and hence, it seemed a
favorable chance for compromising Him." The following from Dummelow's
_Commentary_, dealing with Matt. 5:32, is further illustrative: "Rabbi
Akiba (Hillelite) said, 'If a man sees a woman handsomer than his own
wife he may put her [his wife] away, because it is said, If she find not
favor in his eyes.' The school of Hillel said 'If the wife cook her
husband's food ill, by over-salting or over-roasting it, she is to be
put away.' On the other hand Rabbi Jochanan (a Shammaite) said 'The
putting away of a wife is odious.' Both schools agreed that a divorced
wife could not be taken back.... Rabbi Chananiah said 'God has not
subscribed His name to divorces, except among Israelites, as if He had
said: I have conceded to the Israelites the right of dismissing their
wives; but to the Gentiles I have not conceded it.' Jesus retorts that
it is not the privilege but the infamy and reproach of Israel, that
Moses found it necessary to tolerate divorce."

5. Jesus the Ennobler of Woman.--Geikie thus paraphrases part of
Christ's reply to the Pharisee's question concerning divorce, and
comments thereon. "'I say, therefore, that whoever puts away his wife,
except for fornication, which destroys the very essence of marriage by
dissolving the oneness it had formed, and shall marry another, commits
adultery; and whoever marries her who is put away for any other cause
commits adultery, because the woman is still, in God's sight, wife of
him who had divorced her.' This statement was of far deeper moment than
the mere silencing of malignant spies. It was designed to set forth for
all ages the law of His New Kingdom in the supreme matter of family
life. It swept away for ever from His Society the conception of woman as
a mere toy or slave of man, and based true relations of the sexes on the
eternal foundation of truth, right, honor, and love. To ennoble the
House and the Family by raising woman to her true position was essential
to the future stability of His Kingdom, as one of purity and spiritual
worth. By making marriage indissoluble, He proclaimed the equal rights
of woman and man within the limits of the family, and, in this, gave
their charter of nobility to the mothers of the world. For her nobler
position in the Christian era, compared with that granted her in
antiquity, woman is indebted to Jesus Christ."--_Life and Words of
Christ_, vol. ii, p. 349.

6. The Blessing of Children.--When Christ, a resurrected Being, appeared
among the Nephites on the western continent, He took the children, one
by one, and blessed them; and the assembled multitude saw the little
ones encircled as with fire, while angels ministered unto them. (3 Nephi
17:11-25.) Through modern revelation the Lord has directed that all
children born in the Church be brought for blessing to those who are
authorized to administer this ordinance of the Holy Priesthood. The
commandment is as follows: "Every member of the church of Christ having
children, is to bring them unto the elders before the church, who are to
lay their hands upon them in the name of Jesus Christ, and bless them in
His name." (Doc. and Cov. 20:70.) Accordingly, it is now the custom in
the Church to bring the little ones to the Fast-day service in the
several wards, at which they are received one by one into the arms of
the elders, and blessed, names being given them at the same time. The
father of the child, if he be an elder, is expected to participate in
the ordinance.

The blessing of children is in no sense analogous to, far less is it a
substitution for, the ordinance of baptism, which is to be administered
only to those who have come to years of understanding, and who are
capable of repentance. As the author has written elsewhere, "Some point
to the incident of Christ blessing little children, and rebuking those
who would forbid the little ones coming unto Him, (Matt. 19:13; Mark
10:13; Luke 18:15) as an evidence in favor of infant baptism; but, as
has been tersely said:--'From the action of Christ's blessing infants,
to infer they are to be baptized, proves nothing so much as that there
is a want of better argument; for the conclusion would with more
probability be derived thus: Christ blessed infants, and so dismissed
them, but baptized them not; therefore infants are not to be
baptized.'"--The author, _Articles of Faith_, vi:14. See paragraphs
11-17 in same lecture.

7. The Camel and the Needle's Eye.--In comparing the difficulty of a
rich man entering the kingdom with that of a camel passing through the
eye of a needle, Jesus used a rhetorical figure, which, strong and
prohibitory as it appears in our translation, was of a type familiar to
those who heard the remark. There was a "common Jewish proverb, that a
man did not even in his dreams see an elephant pass through the eye of a
needle" (Edersheim). Some interpreters insist that a rope, not a camel,
was mentioned by Jesus, and these base their contention on the fact that
the Greek word _kamelos_ (camel) differs in but a single letter from
_kamilos_ (rope), and that the alleged error of substituting "camel" for
"rope" in the scriptural text is chargeable to the early copyists.
Farrar (p. 476) rejects this possible interpretation on the ground that
proverbs involving comparisons of a kind with that of a camel passing
through the eye of a needle are common in the Talmud.

It has been asserted that the term "needle's eye" was applied to a small
door or wicket set in or alongside the great gates in the walls of
cities; and the assumption has been raised that Jesus had such a wicket
in mind when He spoke of the seeming impossibility of a camel passing
through a needle's eye. It would be possible though very difficult for a
camel to squeeze its way through the little gate, and it could in no
wise do so except when relieved of its load and stripped of all its
harness. If this conception be correct, we may find additional
similitude between the fact that the camel must first be unloaded and
stripped, however costly its burden or rich its accoutrement, and the
necessity of the rich young ruler, and so of any man, divesting himself
of the burden and trappings of wealth, if he would enter by the narrow
way that leadeth into the kingdom. The Lord's exposition of His saying
is all-sufficient for the purposes of the lesson: "With men this is
impossible, but with God all things are possible." (Matt. 19:26.)

8. Undue Concern as to Wages in the Lord's Service.--The instructive and
inspiring Parable of the Laborers was called forth by Peter's question
of self-interest--"What shall we have therefore?" In tender mercy the
Lord refrained from directly rebuking His impulsive servant for undue
concern as to the wage to be expected; but He turned the incident to
excellent purpose by making it the text of a valuable lesson. The
following treatment by Edersheim (vol. ii, p. 416) is worth
consideration. "There was here deep danger to the disciples: danger of
lapsing into feelings akin to those with which the Pharisees viewed the
pardoned publicans, or the elder son in the parable his younger brother;
danger of misunderstanding the right relations, and with it the very
character of the kingdom, and of work in and for it. It is to this that
the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard refers. The principle which
Christ lays down is, that, while nothing done for Him shall lose its
reward, yet, from one reason or another, no forecast can be made, no
inferences of self-righteousness may be drawn. It does not by any means
follow, that most work done--at least, to our seeing and judging--shall
entail a greater reward. On the contrary, 'many that are first shall be
last; and the last shall be first.' Not _all_, nor yet always and
necessarily, but 'many.' And in such cases no wrong has been done; there
exists no claim, even in view of the promises of due acknowledgment of
work. Spiritual pride and self assertion can only be the outcome either
of misunderstanding God's relation to us, or else of a wrong state of
mind towards others--that is, it betokens mental or moral unfitness. Of
this the Parable of the Laborers is an illustration.... But, while
illustrating how it may come that some who were first are last, and how
utterly mistaken or wrong is the thought that they must necessarily
receive more than others, who, seemingly, have done more--how, in short,
work for Christ is not a ponderable quantity, so much for so much, nor
yet we be the judges of when and why a worker has come--it also conveys
much that is new, and, in many respects, most comforting."

FOOTNOTES:

[950] Luke 14:1-24.

[951] The question is identical with that asked of Jesus in the synagog
at Capernaum preliminary to the healing of the man with the withered
hand (Matt. 12:10).

[952] Exo. 23:5; Deut. 22:4; Luke 13:15.

[953] Compare Matt. 23:12; Luke 1:52; 18:14; James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5.

[954] Compare Matt. 8:11; Rev. 19:9. The expression "eat bread" is a
Hebraism, signifying eating in full as at a feast rather than partaking
of bread only.

[955] Luke 14:16-24. Compare the parable relating to the marriage of the
king's son (Matt. 22:2-10); study points of resemblance and difference
between the two and the distinctive lessons of each. See page 536.

[956] Luke 14:25-35.

[957] Matt. 8:19, 20; compare Luke 9:57, 58; page 305 herein.

[958] Compare the requirement under the Mosaic administration, Deut.
13:6-11; and note the application of the principle to the apostles,
Matt. 10:37-39.

[959] Compare Matt. 5:13; Mark 9:50

[960] Luke 15.

[961] Matt. 9:10-13; Mark 2:15-17; Luke 5:29-32. See page 193 herein.

[962] Matt. 18:12-14. See page 389 herein.

[963] That the lost piece of silver was a coin, and not a piece of
unstamped bullion nor an ornament, is apparent from the original,
"drachma," a silver coin. See page 384 herein.

[964] Luke 15:11-32.

[965] Compare Doc. and Cov. 1:31; B. of M., Alma 45:16.

[966] Compare Matt. 18:14; P. of G.P., Moses 1:39.

[967] Luke 16:1-8.

[968] Note 1, end of chapter.

[969] Luke 16:9-13.

[970] Note 2, end of chapter.

[971] Luke 16:14-31.

[972] Note 2, end of chapter.

[973] Revised version, Luke 16:16: "The law and the prophets were until
John; from that time the gospel of the kingdom of God is preached, and
every man entereth violently into it."

[974] Compare Matt. 5:18; see page 233 herein.

[975] Luke 16:19-31.

[976] Note 3, end of chapter.

[977] Compare B. of M., Alma 40:11-14; see "Articles of Faith," xxi,
Note 5. "The Intermediate State of the Soul."

[978] Rev. 14:13.

[979] Luke 17:1-10.

[980] Compare Matt. 17:20; 21:21; Mark 9:23; 11:23; see page 381 herein.

[981] Compare Job 22:3; 35:7.

[982] Luke 17:11-19. Many writers treat this occurrence as having
immediately followed the repulse of Jesus and the apostles in a certain
Samaritan village (Luke 9:52-56). We give it place in the order followed
by Luke, the sole recorder of the two incidents.

[983] Compare Lev. 13:2; 14:2; see also page 189 herein.

[984] Compare case of Naaman the Syrian, 2 Kings 5:14.

[985] Luke 18:9-14. Luke's narrative, the order of which we have
followed in the events succeeding Christ's departure from Jerusalem
after the Feast of Tabernacles, includes our Lord's reply to the
Pharisee's question as to "when the kingdom of God should come," and
additions thereto (17:20-37); these matters were afterward treated with
greater fulness in a discourse near Jerusalem (Matt. 24) and will be
considered in connection with that later event. The Parable of the
Importunate Widow (Luke 18:1-7) has already received attention, (page
436).

[986] Note to what blasphemous extreme the doctrine of supererogation,
or excess of merit, was carried by the papacy in the 13th century; see
"The Great Apostasy," 913-15.

[987] Compare Luke 14:11.

[988] Matt. 19:3-12; see also Mark 10:2-12. This subject is introduced
by Matthew and Mark directly preceding that of Christ blessing little
children; which latter is recorded by Luke next after the Parable of the
Pharisee and the Publican. We therefore turn from Luke's record to the
accounts given by the other synoptic writers.

[989] Note 4, end of chapter.

[990] Compare Gen. 1:27; 2:24; 5:2; Eph. 5:31.

[991] Deut. 24:1-4.

[992] Compare Matt. 5:32; Luke 16:18; see also 1 Cor. 7:10-13.

[993] Note 5, end of chapter.

[994] Compare Heb. 13:4.

[995] Compare 1 Cor. 11:11.

[996] Mark 10:13-16; compare Matt. 19:13-15; Luke 18:15-17.

[997] Compare B. of M., 3 Nephi 17:11-25. See Note 6, end of chapter.

[998] Page 386.

[999] Matt. 19:16-26; Mark 10:17-27; Luke 18:18-30.

[1000] Luke 10:25; page 429 herein.

[1001] This is Mark's record, (10:21) which is the most detailed of the
three accounts.

[1002] Note 7, end of chapter.

[1003] Consider the lessons of the parables of the Hidden Treasure, and
the Pearl of Great Price, pages 292-4.

[1004] Matt. 19:27-30; Mark 10:28-31; Luke 18:28-30.

[1005] Matt. 20:1-16. The parable is the outgrowth of the events
immediately preceding it. Matt. 19:27-30 should be read as part of the
narrative continued in chap. 20. The existing division into chapters is
unfortunate.

[1006] Deut. 24:15.

[1007] The concluding clause, "for many be called but few chosen," is
omitted from the revised version. Note 8, end of chapter.

[1008] Page 416.




CHAPTER 28.

THE LAST WINTER.


AT THE FEAST OF DEDICATION.[1009]

Jesus returned to Jerusalem in time to attend the Feast of Dedication
during the last winter of His earthly life. This feast, like that of
Tabernacles, was one of national rejoicing, and was celebrated annually
for a period of eight days beginning on the 25th of Chislev,[1010] which
corresponds in part to our December. It was not one of the great feasts
prescribed by Mosaic statute, but had been established in 164 or 163
B.C. at the time of the rededication of the Temple of Zerubbabel
following the rehabilitation of the sacred structure after its profane
desecration by Antiochus Epiphanes, the pagan king of Syria.[1011] While
the festival was in progress, Jesus went to the temple and was seen
walking in the part of the enclosure known as Solomon's Porch.[1012] His
presence soon became known to the Jews, who came crowding about Him in
unfriendly spirit, ostensibly to ask questions. Their inquiry was: "How
long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us
plainly," The mere asking of such a question evidences the deep and
disturbing impression which the ministry of Christ had produced among
the official classes and the people generally; in their estimation, the
works he had wrought appeared as worthy of the Messiah.

The Lord's reply was indirect in form, though in substance and effect
incisive and unmistakable. He referred them to His former utterances and
to His continued works. "I told you," He said, "and ye believed not: the
works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me. But ye
believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My
sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give
unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any
man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater
than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I
and my Father are one." The reference to what had been before told was a
reminder of His teachings on the occasion of an earlier sojourn among
them, when He had proclaimed Himself as the I AM, who was older and
greater than Abraham, and of His other proclamation of Himself as the
Good Shepherd.[1013]

He could not well answer their inquiry by a simple unqualified
affirmation, for by such He would have been understood as meaning that
He claimed to be the Messiah according to their conception, the earthly
king and conqueror for whom they professed to be looking. He was no such
Christ as they had in mind; yet was He verily Shepherd and King to all
who would hear His words and do His works; and to such He renewed the
promise of eternal life and the assurance that no man could pluck them
out of His own or the Father's hand. To this doctrine, both exalted and
profound in scope, the casuistical Jews could offer no refutation, nor
could they find therein the much desired excuse for open accusation; our
Lord's concluding sentence, however, stirred the hostile throng to
frenzy. "I and my Father are one" was His solemn declaration.[1014] In
their rage they scrambled for stones wherewith to crush Him. Owing to
the unfinished state of the temple buildings, there were probably many
blocks and broken fragments of rock at hand; and this was the second
murderous attempt upon our Lord's life within the purlieus of His
Father's House.[1015]

Fearless, and with the compelling calmness of more than human majesty,
Jesus said: "Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which
of those works do ye stone me?" They angrily retorted: "For a good work
we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a
man, makest thyself God."[1016] Plainly they had found no ambiguity in
His words. He then cited to them the scriptures, wherein even judges
empowered by divine authority are called gods,[1017] and asked: "Is it
not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods,
unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken: say
ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world,
Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?" Then, reverting
to the first avouchment that His own commission was of the Father who is
greater than all, He added: "If I do not the works of my Father, believe
me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that
ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him."[1018]
Again the Jews sought to take Him, but were foiled by means not stated;
He passed from their reach and departed from the temple.


OUR LORD'S RETIREMENT IN PEREA.[1019]

The violent hostility of the Jews in Jerusalem, the headquarters of the
theocracy, was such that Jesus withdrew from the city and its
neighborhood. The day for His sacrifice had not yet come, and while His
enemies could not kill Him until He allowed Himself to be taken into
their hands, His work would be retarded by further hostile disturbances.
He retired to the place at which John the Baptist had begun his public
ministry, which is probably also the place of our Lord's baptism. The
exact location is not specified; it was certainly beyond Jordan and
therefore in Perea. We read that Jesus abode there, and from this we
gather that He remained in one general locality instead of traveling
from town to town as had been His custom. People resorted to Him even
there, however, and many believed on Him. The place was endeared to
those who had gone to hear John and to be baptized by him;[1020] and as
these recalled the impassioned call to repentance, the stirring
proclamation of the kingdom by the now murdered and lamented Baptist,
they remembered his affirmation of One mightier than himself, and saw in
Jesus the realization of that testimony. "John," they said, "did no
miracle: but all things that John spake of this man were true."

The duration of this sojourn in Perea is nowhere recorded in our
scriptures. It could not have lasted more than a few weeks at most.
Possibly some of the discourses, instructions, and parables already
treated as following the Lord's departure from Jerusalem after the Feast
of Tabernacles in the preceding autumn, may chronologically belong to
this interval. From this retreat of comparative quiet, Jesus returned to
Judea in response to an earnest appeal from some whom He loved. He left
the Bethany of Perea for the Judean Bethany, where dwelt Martha and
Mary.[1021]


LAZARUS RESTORED TO LIFE.[1022]

Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha, lay ill in the family home at
Bethany of Judea. His devoted sisters sent a messenger to Jesus, with
the simple announcement, in which, however, we cannot fail to recognize
a pitiful appeal: "Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick." When
Jesus received the message, He remarked: "This sickness is not unto
death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified
thereby." This was probably the word carried back to the sisters, whom
Jesus loved. Lazarus had died in the interval; indeed he must have
expired soon after the messenger had started with the tidings of the
young man's illness. The Lord knew that Lazarus was dead; yet He tarried
where He was for two days after receiving the word; then He surprized
the disciples by saying: "Let us go into Judea again." They sought to
dissuade the Master by reminding Him of the recent attempt upon His life
at Jerusalem, and asked wonderingly, "Goest thou thither again?" Jesus
made clear to them that He was not to be deterred from duty in the time
thereof, nor should others be; for as He illustrated, the working day is
twelve hours long; and during that period a man may walk without
stumbling, for he walks in the light, but if he let the hours pass and
then try to walk or work in darkness, he stumbles. It was then His day
to work, and He was making no mistake in returning to Judea.

He added: "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him
out of sleep." The simile between death and sleep was as common among
the Jews as with us;[1023] but the disciples construed the saying
literally, and remarked that if the sick man was sleeping it would be
well with him. Jesus set them right. "Lazarus is dead," He said, and
added, "And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent
ye may believe; nevertheless let us go unto him." It is evident that
Jesus had already decided to restore Lazarus to life; and, as we shall
see, the miracle was to be a testimony of our Lord's Messiahship,
convincing to all who would accept it. A return to Judea at that time
was viewed by at least some of the apostles with serious apprehension;
they feared for their Master's safety, and thought that their own lives
would be in peril; nevertheless they did not hesitate to go. Thomas
boldly said to the others: "Let us also go, that we may die with him."

Arriving on the outskirts of Bethany, Jesus found that Lazarus "had lain
in the grave four days already."[1024] The bereaved sisters were at
home, where had gathered, according to custom, friends to console them
in their grief. Among these were many prominent people, some of whom had
come from Jerusalem. Word of the Master's approach reached Martha first,
and she hastened to meet Him. Her first words were: "Lord, if thou hadst
been here, my brother had not died." It was an expression of anguish
combined with faith; but, lest it appear as lacking in trust, she
hastened to add: "But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of
God, God will give it thee." Then said Jesus in words of assuring
tenderness: "Thy brother shall rise again." Perhaps some of the Jews who
had come to comfort her had said as much, for they, the Sadducees
excepted, believed in a resurrection; and Martha failed to find in the
Lord's promise anything more than a general assurance that her departed
brother should be raised with the rest of the dead. In natural and
seemingly casual assent she remarked: "I know that he shall rise again
in the resurrection at the last day." Then said Jesus: "I am the
resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were
dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall
never die. Believest thou this?"

The sorrowing woman's faith had to be lifted and centered in the Lord of
Life with whom she was speaking. She had before confessed her conviction
that whatever Jesus asked of God would be granted; she had to learn that
unto Jesus had already been committed power over life and death. She was
hopefully expectant of some superhuman interposition by the Lord Jesus
in her behalf, yet she knew not what that might be. Apparently at this
time she had no well-defined thought or even hope that He would call her
brother from the tomb. To the Lord's question as to whether she believed
what He had just said, she answered with simple frankness; all of it she
was not able to understand; but she believed in the Speaker even while
unable to fully comprehend His words. "Yea, Lord," she said, "I believe
that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the
world."

Then she returned to the home, and with precaution of secrecy on account
of the presence of some whom she knew to be unfriendly to Jesus, said to
Mary: "The Master is come, and calleth for thee." Mary left the house in
haste. The Jews who had been with her thought that she had been impelled
by a fresh resurgence of grief to go again to the grave, and they
followed her. When she reached the Master, she knelt at His feet, and
gave expression to her consuming sorrow in the very words Martha had
used: "Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died." We
cannot doubt that the conviction so voiced had been the burden of
comment and lamentation between the two sisters--if only Jesus had been
with them they would not have been bereft of their brother.

The sight of the two women so overcome by grief, and of the people
wailing with them, caused Jesus to sorrow, so that He groaned in spirit
and was deeply troubled. "Where have ye laid him?" He asked; and Jesus
wept. As the sorrowing company went toward the tomb, some of the Jews,
observing the Lord's emotion and tears, said: "Behold how he loved him!"
but others, less sympathetic because of their prejudice against Christ,
asked critically and reproachfully: "Could not this man, which opened
the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have
died?" The miracle by which a man blind from birth had been made to see
was very generally known, largely because of the official investigation
that had followed the healing.[1025] The Jews had been compelled to
admit the actuality of the astounding occurrence; and the question now
raised as to whether or why One who could accomplish such a wonder could
not have preserved from death a man stricken with an ordinary illness,
and that man one whom He seemed to have dearly loved, was an innuendo
that the power possessed by Jesus was after all limited, and of
uncertain or capricious operation. This manifestation of malignant
unbelief caused Jesus again to groan with sorrow if not
indignation.[1026]

The body of Lazarus had been interred in a cave, the entrance to which
was closed by a great block of stone. Such burial-places were common in
that country, natural caves or vaults hewn in the solid rock being used
as sepulchres by the better classes of people. Jesus directed that the
tomb be opened. Martha, still unprepared for what was to follow,
ventured to remonstrate, reminding Jesus that the corpse had been four
days immured, and that decomposition must have already set in.[1027]
Jesus thus met her objection: "Said I not unto thee, that, if thou
wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?" This may have
had reference both to His promise spoken to Martha in person--that her
brother should rise again--and to the message sent from Perea--that the
illness of Lazarus was not unto final death at that time, but for the
glory of God and that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.

The stone was removed. Standing before the open portal of the tomb,
Jesus looked upward and prayed: "Father, I thank thee that thou hast
heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the
people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast
sent me." He did not ask the Father for power or authority; such had
already been given Him; but He gave thanks, and in the hearing of all
who stood by acknowledged the Father and expressed the oneness of His
own and the Father's purposes. Then, with a loud voice He cried:
"Lazarus, come forth." The dead man heard that voice of authoritative
command; the spirit straightway reentered the tabernacle of flesh, the
physical processes of life were resumed; and Lazarus, again alive, came
forth. His freedom of motion was limited, for the grave clothes hampered
his movements, and his face was still bound by the napkin by which the
lifeless jaw had been held in place. To those who stood near, Jesus
said: "Loose him, and let him go."

The procedure throughout was characterized by deep solemnity and by the
entire absence of every element of unnecessary display. Jesus, who when
miles away and without any ordinary means of receiving the information
knew that Lazarus was dead, doubtless could have found the tomb; yet He
inquired: "Where have ye laid him?" He who could still the waves of the
sea by a word could have miraculously effected the removal of the stone
that sealed the mouth of the sepulchre; yet He said: "Take ye away the
stone." He who could reunite spirit and body could have loosened without
hands the cerements by which the reanimated Lazarus was bound; yet He
said: "Loose him, and let him go." All that human agency could do was
left to man. In no instance do we find that Christ used unnecessarily
the superhuman powers of His Godship; the divine energy was never
wasted; even the material creation resulting from its exercize was
conserved, as witness His instructions regarding the gathering up of the
fragments of bread and fish after the multitudes had been miraculously
fed.[1028]

The raising of Lazarus stands as the third recorded instance of
restoration to life by Jesus.[1029] In each the miracle resulted in a
resumption of mortal existence, and was in no sense a resurrection from
death to immortality. In the raising of the daughter of Jairus, the
spirit was recalled to its tenement within the hour of its quitting; the
raising of the widow's son is an instance of restoration when the corpse
was ready for the grave; the crowning miracle of the three was the
calling of a spirit to reenter its body days after death, and when, by
natural processes the corpse would be already in the early stages of
decomposition. Lazarus was raised from the dead, not simply to assuage
the grief of mourning relatives; myriads have had to mourn over death,
and so myriads more shall have to do. One of the Lord's purposes was
that of demonstrating the actuality of the power of God as shown forth
in the works of Jesus the Christ, and Lazarus was the accepted subject
of the manifestation; just as the man afflicted with congenital
blindness had been chosen to be the one through whom "the works of God
should be made manifest."[1030]

That the Lord's act of restoring Lazarus to life was of effect in
testifying to His Messiahship is explicitly stated.[1031] All the
circumstances leading up to final culmination in the miracle contributed
to its attestation. No question as to the actual death of Lazarus could
be raised, for his demise had been witnessed, his body had been prepared
and buried in the usual way, and he had lain in the grave four days. At
the tomb, when he was called forth, there were many witnesses, some of
them prominent Jews, many of whom were unfriendly to Jesus and who would
have readily denied the miracle had they been able. God was glorified
and the divinity of the Son of Man was vindicated in the result.


THE HIERARCHY GREATLY AGITATED OVER THE MIRACLE.[1032]

As in connection with most of our Lord's public acts--while some of
those who heard and saw were brought to believe in Him, others rejected
the proffered lesson and reviled the Master--so with this mighty
work--some were stirred to faith and others went their ways each with
mind darkened and spirit more malignant than ever. Some of those who had
seen the dead man raised to life went immediately and reported the
matter to the rulers, whom they knew to be intensely hostile toward
Jesus. In the parable we have recently studied, the spirit of the rich
man pleaded from his place of anguish that Lazarus, the once pitiable
beggar, be sent from paradise to earth, to warn others of the fate
awaiting the wicked, to which appeal Abraham replied: "If they hear not
Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose
from the dead."[1033] Now a Lazarus had been in reality raised from the
dead, and many of the Jews rejected the testimony of his return and
refused to believe in Christ through whom alone death is overcome. The
Jews tried to get Lazarus into their power that they might kill him and,
as they hoped, silence forever his testimony of the Lord's power over
death.[1034]

The chief priests, who were mostly Sadducees, and the Pharisees with
them assembled in council to consider the situation created by this
latest of our Lord's great works. The question they discussed was: "What
do we? for this man doeth many miracles. If we let him thus alone, all
men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both
our place and nation." As stated by themselves, there was no denying the
fact of the many miracles wrought by Jesus; but instead of earnestly and
prayerfully investigating as to whether these mighty works were not
among the predicted characteristics of the Messiah, they thought only of
the possible effect of Christ's influence in alienating the people from
the established theocracy, and of the fear that the Romans, taking
advantage of the situation, would deprive the hierarchs of their "place"
and take from the nation what little semblance of distinct autonomy it
still possessed. Caiaphas, the high priest,[1035] cut short the
discussion by saying: "Ye know nothing at all." This sweeping assertion
of ignorance was most likely addressed to the Pharisees of the
Sanhedrin; Caiaphas was a Sadducee. His next utterance was of greater
significance than he realized: "Nor consider that it is expedient for
us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation
perish not." John solemnly avers that Caiaphas spake not of himself, but
by the spirit of prophecy, which, in spite of his implied unworthiness,
came upon him by virtue of his office, and that thus: "He prophesied
that Jesus should die for that nation; and not for that nation only, but
that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were
scattered abroad." But a few years after Christ had been put to death,
for the salvation of the Jews and of all other nations, the very
calamities which Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin had hoped to avert befell in
full measure; the hierarchy was overthrown, the temple destroyed,
Jerusalem demolished and the nation disrupted. From the day of that
memorable session of the Sanhedrin, the rulers increased their efforts
to bring about the death of Jesus, by whatever means they might find
available. They issued a mandate that whosoever knew of His whereabouts
should give the information to the officials, that they might promptly
take Him into custody.[1036]


JESUS IN RETIREMENT AT EPHRAIM.[1037]

The hostility of the ecclesiastical rulers became so great that Jesus
once more sought retirement in a region sufficiently far from Jerusalem
to afford Him security from the watchful and malignant eyes of His
powerful and openly avowed enemies. But a few weeks of mortal life
remained to Him, and the greater part of this brief period had to be
devoted to the further instruction of the apostles. He prudently
withdrew from the vicinity of Bethany and "went thence unto a country
near to the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim, and there continued
with his disciples." Thus did our Lord spend the rest of the winter and
probably the early days of the succeeding spring. That His retreat was
private if not practically secret is suggested by John's statement that
"Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews"; and further
indication is found in the fact that although the chief priests and
Pharisees had virtually set a price upon His head, no man gave
information as to His whereabouts. The place of this last retirement is
not definitely known; it is generally thought to be the locality
elsewhere called Ephrain and Ephron,[1038] which lay a little less than
twenty miles northerly from Jerusalem. Equally uncertain is the duration
of our Lord's abode there. When He emerged again into public notice, it
was to enter upon His solemn march toward Jerusalem and the cross.


NOTES TO CHAPTER 28.

1. Origin of the Feast of Dedication.--Concerning the second temple,
known as the Temple of Zerubbabel, the author has written elsewhere: "Of
the later history of this temple the biblical record gives but few
details; but from other sources we learn of its vicissitudes. In
connection with the Maccabean persecution the House of the Lord was
profaned. A Syrian king, Antiochus Epiphanes, captured Jerusalem (168 to
165 B.C.) and perpetrated blasphemous outrage against the religion of
the people. He plundered the temple and carried away its golden
candlestick, its golden altar of incense, its table of shewbread, and
even tore down the sacred veils, which were of fine linen and scarlet.
His malignity was carried so far that he purposely desecrated the altar
of sacrifice by offering swine thereon, and erected a heathen altar
within the sacred enclosure. Not content with the violation of the
temple, this wicked monarch had altars erected in the towns, and ordered
the offering of unclean beasts upon them. The rite of circumcision was
forbidden on pain of death, and the worship of Jehovah was declared a
crime. As a result of this persecution many of the Jews apostatized, and
declared that they belonged to the Medes and Persians--the nations from
whose dominion they had been delivered by the power of God.... Then in
the year 163 B.C. the House was rededicated; and the occasion was
remembered in annual festival thereafter under the name of the Feast of
Dedication."--_The House of the Lord_, pp. 51-53. According to Josephus
(Ant. xii, 7:7) the festival came to be known as The Lights; and
brilliant illumination both of the temple and of dwellings, was a
feature of the celebration. Traditional accounts say that eight days had
been set as the duration of the feast, in commemoration of a legendary
miracle by which the consecrated oil in the only jar found intact, and
bearing the unbroken seal of the high priest, had been made to serve for
temple purposes through eight days, which time was required for the
ceremonial preparation of a new supply.

2. Solomon's Porch.--This name had been applied to the eastern colonnade
or row of porticoes within the temple enclosure, in recognition of a
tradition that the porch covered and included a portion of the original
wall belonging to the Temple of Solomon. See _The House of the Lord_,
pp. 55-57.

3. The Oneness of Christ and the Father.--The revised version gives for
John 10:30: "I and the Father are one" instead of "I and my Father are
one." By "the Father" the Jews rightly understood the Eternal Father,
God. In the original Greek "one" appears in the neuter gender, and
therefore expresses oneness in attributes, power, or purpose, and not a
oneness of personality which would have required the masculine form. For
treatment of the unity of the Godhead, and the separate personality of
each Member, see _Articles of Faith_, ii, 20-24.

4. The Place of our Lord's Retirement.--Jesus went "beyond Jordan into
the place where John at first baptized" (John 10:40). This was probably
Bethabara (1:28), which is called Bethany in some of the earliest
manuscripts and is so designated in the latest revised version. Care
must be taken not to confuse this Perean Bethany with the Bethany in
Judea, the home of Martha and Mary, which was within two miles of
Jerusalem.

5. Lazarus in the Tomb Four Days.--On the very probable assumption that
the journey from Bethany in Judea to the place where Jesus was, in
Perea, would require one day, Lazarus must have died on the day of the
messenger's departure; for this day and the two days that elapsed before
Jesus started toward Judea, and the day required for the return, would
no more than cover the four days specified. It was and still is the
custom in Palestine as in other oriental countries to bury on the day of
death.

It was the popular belief that on the fourth day after death the spirit
had finally departed from the vicinity of the corpse, and that
thereafter decomposition proceeded unhindered. This may explain Martha's
impulsive though gentle objection to having the tomb of her brother
opened four days after his death (John 11:39). It is possible that the
consent of the next of kin was required for the lawful opening of a
grave. Both Martha and Mary were present, and in the presence of many
witnesses assented to the opening of the tomb in which their brother
lay.

6. Jesus Groaned in Spirit.--The marginal readings for "he groaned in
the spirit" (John 11:33) and "again groaning in himself" (v. 38), as
given in the revised version, are "was moved with indignation in the
spirit" and "being moved with indignation in himself." All philological
authorities agree that the words in the original Greek express sorrowful
indignation, or as some aver, anger, and not alone a sympathetic emotion
of grief. Any indignation the Lord may have felt, as intimated in verse
33, may be attributed to disapproval of the customary wailing over
death, which as vented by the Jews on this occasion, profaned the real
and soulful grief of Martha and Mary; and His indignation, expressed by
groaning as mentioned in verse 38, may have been due to the carping
criticism uttered by some of the Jews as recorded in verse 37.

7. Caiaphas, High Priest that Year.--John's statement that Caiaphas was
high priest "that same year" must not be construed as meaning that the
office of high priest was of a single year's tenure. Under Jewish law
the presiding priest, who was known as the high priest, would remain in
office indefinitely; but the Roman government had arrogated to itself
the appointive power as applying to this office; and frequent changes
were made. This Caiaphas, whose full name was Josephus Caiaphas, was
high priest under Roman appointment during a period of eleven years. To
such appointments the Jews had to submit, though they often recognized
as the high priest under their law, some other than the "civil high
priest" appointed by Roman authority. Thus we find both Annas and
Caiaphas exercizing the authority of the office at the time of our
Lord's arrest and later. (John 18:13, 24; Acts 4:6; compare Luke 3:2.)
Farrar (p. 484, note) says: "Some have seen an open irony in the
expression of St. John (11:49) that Caiaphas was high priest 'that same
year,' as though the Jews had got into this contemptuous way of speaking
during the rapid succession of priests--mere phantoms set up and
displaced by the Roman fiat--who had in recent years succeeded each
other. There must have been at least five living high priests, and
ex-high priests at this council--Annas, Ismael Ben Phabi, Eleazar Ben
Haman, Simon Ben Kamhith, and Caiaphas, who had gained his elevation by
bribery."

8. Divinely Appointed Judges Called "gods."--In Psalm 82:6, judges
invested by divine appointment are called "gods." To this scripture the
Savior referred in His reply to the Jews in Solomon's Porch. Judges so
authorized officiated as the representatives of God and are honored by
the exalted title "gods." Compare the similar appellation applied to
Moses (Exo. 4:16; 7:1). Jesus Christ possessed divine authorization, not
through the word of God transmitted to Him by man, but as an inherent
attribute. The inconsistency of calling human judges "gods," and of
ascribing blasphemy to the Christ who called Himself the Son of God,
would have been apparent to the Jews but for their sin-darkened minds.

FOOTNOTES:

[1009] John 10:22-39.

[1010] Also rendered Kislev, Chisleu, and Cisleu. See Zech. 7:1.

[1011] Josephus, Antiquities, xii, 5:3-5. See Ezra 6:17, 18; also Note
1, end of chapter.

[1012] Note 2, end of chapter.

[1013] John 8:58; and 10:11; see also pages 411 and 416 herein.

[1014] Revised version gives "I and the Father." See Note 3, end of
chapter.

[1015] John 8:59. Page 412.

[1016] Concerning blasphemy see pages 191 and 269, also page 629.

[1017] Psa. 82, particularly verses 1 and 6. Note 8, end of chapter.

[1018] A better rendering of the last verse is: "But if I do them [i.e.
the Father's works], though ye believe not me, believe the works; that
ye may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the
Father."--(Revised version.)

[1019] John 10:40-42.

[1020] Pages 121-124.

[1021] Note 4, end of chapter.

[1022] John 11:1-46.

[1023] Compare Matt. 9:24; Mark 5:39; Luke 8:52; Job 14:12; 1 Thess.
4:14.

[1024] Note 5, end of chapter.

[1025] John 9; see page 412 herein.

[1026] Note 6, end of chapter.

[1027] Note 5, end of chapter.

[1028] John 6:12; Matt. 15:37; see pages 334 and 358 herein.

[1029] Matt. 9:23-25; Luke 7:11-17; pages 251 and 313 herein.

[1030] John 9:3.

[1031] John 12:9-11, 17.

[1032] John 11:46-54.

[1033] Luke 16:31; page 466 herein.

[1034] John 12:10.

[1035] Note 7, end of chapter.

[1036] John 11:57.

[1037] John 11:54.

[1038] 2 Chron. 13:19; Josh. 15:9.




CHAPTER 29.

ON TO JERUSALEM.


JESUS AGAIN FORTELLS HIS DEATH AND RESURRECTION.[1039]

Each of the three synoptic writers has made record of this last journey
to Jerusalem and of occurrences connected therewith. The deep solemnity
of the developments now so near at hand, and of the fate He was setting
out to meet so affected Jesus that even the apostles were amazed at His
absorption and evident sadness; they fell behind in amazement and fear.
Then He paused, called the Twelve about Him, and in language of absolute
plainness, without metaphor or simile, He said: "Behold, we go up to
Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning
the Son of man shall be accomplished. For he shall be delivered unto the
Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted on:
And they shall scourge him, and put him to death: and the third day he
shall rise again."

It is to us an astounding fact that the Twelve failed to comprehend His
meaning; yet Luke unqualifiedly affirms: "And they understood none of
these things: and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the
things which were spoken." This avouchment of the Savior's approaching
death and resurrection spoken in confidential certainty to the Twelve
was the third of its kind; and still they could not bring themselves to
accept the awful truth.[1040] According to Matthew's account, they were
told of the very manner by which the Lord should die--that the Gentiles
should crucify Him; yet they understood not. To them there was some
dreadful incongruity, some dire inconsistency or inexplicable
contradiction in the sayings of their beloved Master. They knew Him to
be the Christ, the Son of the living God; and how could such a One be
brought into subjection and be slain? They could not fail to realize
that some unprecedented development in His life was impending; this they
may have vaguely conceived to be the crisis for which they had been
waiting, the open proclamation of His Messianic dignity, His
enthronement as Lord and King. And such indeed was to be, though in a
manner far different from their anticipations. The culminating
prediction--that on the third day He would rise again--seems to have
puzzled them the most; and, at the same time, this assurance of ultimate
triumph may have made all intermediate occurrences appear as of but
secondary and transitory import. They persistently repelled the thought
that they were following their Lord to the cross and the sepulchre.


THE QUESTION OF PRECEDENCE AGAIN.[1041]

Notwithstanding all the instructions the apostles had received
concerning humility, and though they had before them the supreme example
of the Master's life and conduct, in which the fact that service was the
only measure of true greatness was abundantly demonstrated, they
continued to dream of rank and honor in the kingdom of the Messiah.
Perhaps because of the imminence of the Master's triumph, with which
they all were particularly impressed at this time though ignorant of its
real significance, certain of the Twelve appealed to the Lord in the
course of this journey with a most ambitious request. The petitioners
were James and John, though according to Matthew's record their
mother[1042] was the first to ask. The request was that when Jesus came
into possession of His kingdom, He would so signally honor the aspiring
pair as to install them in seats of eminence, one on His right hand, the
other on His left. Instead of sharply rebuking such presumption, Jesus
gently but impressively asked: "Are ye able to drink of the cup that I
shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized
with?" The answer was full of self-confidence inspired by ignorant
misapprehension. "We are able," they replied. Then said Jesus: "Ye shall
drink indeed of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am
baptized with: but to sit on my right hand, and on my left, is not mine
to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my
Father."

The ten apostles were indignant at the two brothers, possibly less
through disapproval of the spirit that had prompted the petition than
because the two had forestalled the others in applying for the chief
posts of distinction. But Jesus, patiently tolerant of their human
weaknesses, drew the Twelve around Him, and taught them as a loving
father might instruct and admonish his contentious children. He showed
them how earthly rulers, such as princes among the Gentiles, domineer
over their subjects, manifesting lordship and arbitrarily exercizing the
authority of office. But it was not to be so among the Master's
servants; whoever of them would be great must be a servant indeed,
willingly ministering unto his fellows; the humblest and most willing
servant would be the chief of the servants. "For even the Son of man
came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a
ransom for many."[1043]


SIGHT RESTORED TO THE BLIND NEAR JERICHO.[1044]

In the course of His journey Jesus came to Jericho, at or near which
city He again exerted His wondrous power in opening the eyes of the
blind. Matthew states that two sightless men were made to see, and that
the miracle was enacted as Jesus was leaving Jericho; Mark mentions but
one blind man, whom he names Bartimeus or the son of Timeus, and agrees
with Matthew in saying that the healing was effected when Jesus was
departing from the city; Luke specifies but one subject of the Lord's
healing mercy, "a certain blind man," and chronicles the miracle as an
incident of Christ's approach to Jericho. These slight variations attest
the independent authorship of each of the records, and the apparent
discrepancies have no direct bearing upon the main facts, nor do they
detract from the instructional value of the Lord's work. As we have
found to be the case on an earlier occasion, two men were mentioned
though but one figures in the circumstantial accounts.[1045]

The man who is more particularly mentioned, Bartimeus, sat by the
wayside, asking alms. Jesus approached, accompanied by the apostles,
many other disciples, and a great multitude of people, probably made up
largely of travelers on their way to Jerusalem to attend the Passover
festival, the time for which was about a week ahead. Hearing the tramp
of so great a company the sightless beggar inquired what it all meant,
and was answered, "Jesus of Nazareth passeth by." Eager lest the
opportunity of gaining the Master's attention be lost, he immediately
cried in a loud voice: "Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me." His
appeal, and particularly his use of the title, Son of David, show that
he knew of the great Teacher, had confidence in His power to heal and
faith in Him as the promised King and Deliverer of Israel.[1046] Those
who were in advance of Jesus in the company tried to silence the man,
but the more they rebuked him the louder and more persistently did he
cry: "Thou son of David, have mercy on me." Jesus halted in His course
and directed that the man be brought to Him. Those who but a moment
before would have stopped the blind man's yearning appeal, now that the
Master had noticed him were eager to be of service. To the sightless one
they brought the glad word: "Be of good comfort, rise; he calleth thee";
and he, casting aside his outer garment lest it hinder, came in haste to
Christ. To the Lord's question, "What wilt thou that I shall do unto
thee?" Bartimeus answered: "Lord, that I may receive my sight." Then
Jesus spake the simple words of power and blessing: "Receive thy sight:
thy faith hath saved thee." The man, full of gratitude and knowing that
nothing short of divine interposition could have opened his eyes,
followed his Benefactor, glorifying God in heartfelt prayers of
thanksgiving, in which many of those who had witnessed the miracle
fervently joined.


ZACCHEUS, THE CHIEF AMONG THE PUBLICANS.[1047]

Jericho was a city of considerable importance; among its resident
officials was a staff of publicans, or collectors of customs, and of
these the chief was Zaccheus,[1048] who had grown rich from the revenues
of office. He had doubtless heard of the great Galilean who hesitated
not to mingle with publicans, detested though they were by the Jews in
general; he may have known, also, that Jesus had placed one of this
publican class among the most prominent of the disciples. That Zaccheus
was a Jew is indicated by his name, which is a variant of "Zacharias,"
with a Greek or Latin termination; he must have been particularly
obnoxious to his people on account of his advanced status among the
publicans, all of whom were in Roman employ. He had a great desire to
see Jesus; the feeling was not one of mere curiosity; he had been
impressed and set thinking by the things he had heard about this Teacher
from Nazareth. But Zaccheus was a little man, and could not ordinarily
see over the heads of others; so he ran ahead of the company and climbed
a tree alongside the road. When Jesus reached the place, to the great
surprize of the man in the tree He looked up and said: "Zaccheus, make
haste, and come down; for to day I must abide at thy house." Zaccheus
came down with haste, and joyfully received the Lord as his guest. The
multitude by whom Jesus had been accompanied appear to have been
generally friendly toward Him; but at this turn of affairs they murmured
and criticized, saying that the Master "was gone to be guest with a man
that is a sinner"; for all publicans were sinners in Jewish eyes, and
Zaccheus admitted that the opprobrium in his case was possibly deserved.
But having seen and conversed with Jesus, this chief among the publicans
believed and was converted. As proof of his change of heart Zaccheus
then and there voluntarily vowed unto the Lord to make amends and
restitution if it were found that he owed such. "Behold, Lord," he said,
"the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken anything
from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold." These were
works meet for repentance. The man realized that he could not change his
past; but he knew he could in part at least atone for some of his
misdeeds. His pledge to restore in fourfold measure whatever he had
wrongfully acquired was in line with the Mosaic law as to restitution,
but far in excess of the recompense required.[1049] Jesus accepted the
man's profession of repentance, and said: "This day is salvation come to
this house, forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham." Another stray
sheep had been returned to the fold; another lost treasure had been
found; another wayward son had come back to the Father's house.[1050]
"For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost."


UNTO EVERY ONE THAT HATH SHALL BE GIVEN.[1051]

As the multitude approached Jerusalem, Jesus being in their midst,
expectation ran high as to what the Lord would do when He reached the
capital of the nation. Many of those with Him were looking for a
proclamation of His royal authority and "they thought that the kingdom
of God should immediately appear." Jesus told them a story; we call it
the _Parable of the Pounds_:

"A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a
kingdom, and to return. And he called his ten servants, and delivered
them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come. But his
citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, We will not
have this man to reign over us. And it came to pass, that when he was
returned, having received the kingdom, then he commanded these servants
to be called unto him, to whom he had given the money, that he might
know how much every man had gained by trading. Then came the first,
saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained ten pounds. And he said unto him,
Well, thou good servant: because thou hast been faithful in a very
little, have thou authority over ten cities. And the second came,
saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained five pounds. And he said likewise to
him, Be thou also over five cities. And another came, saying, Lord,
behold, here is thy pound, which I have kept laid up in a napkin: For I
feared thee, because thou art an austere man: thou takest up that thou
layedst not down, and reapest that thou didst not sow. And he saith unto
him, Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant. Thou
knewest that I was an austere man, taking up that I laid not down, and
reaping that I did not sow: Wherefore then gavest not thou my money into
the bank, that at my coming I might have required mine own with usury?
And he said unto them that stood by, Take from him the pound, and give
it to him that hath ten pounds. (And they said unto him, Lord, he hath
ten pounds.) For I say unto you, That unto every one which hath shall be
given; and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away
from him. But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign
over them, bring hither, and slay them before me."

Both the circumstances of the story and the application of the parable
were more readily apparent to the Jewish multitude than they are to us.
The departure of a certain nobleman from a vassal province to the court
of the suzerain to seek investiture of kingly authority, and the protest
of the citizens over whom he asserted the right to reign, were incidents
of Jewish history still fresh in the minds of the people to whom Christ
spoke.[1052] The explication of the parable is this: The people were not
to look for an immediate establishment of the kingdom in temporal power.
He who would be king was pictured as having departed for a far country
from which he would assuredly return. Before leaving he had given to
each of his servants a definite sum of money; and by their success in
using this he would judge of their fitness to serve in offices of trust.
When he returned he called for an accounting, in the course of which the
cases of three servants are specified as types. One had so used the
pound as to gain ten pounds; he was commended and received a reward such
as only a sovereign could give, the governorship of ten cities. The
second servant, with equal capital had increased it only five fold; he
was properly rewarded in proportion by appointment as governor over five
cities. The third gave back what he had received, without increase, for
he had failed to use it. He had no reason and only a very poor excuse to
offer for his dereliction. In justice he was severely reprimanded, and
the money was taken from him. When the king directed that the pound so
forfeited by the unfaithful servant be given to him who already had ten,
some surprize was manifest amongst those who stood by; but the king
explained, that "unto every one that hath shall be given," for such a
one uses to advantage the means entrusted to his care, while "from him
that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him"; for he
has demonstrated his utter unfitness to possess and use aright. This
part of the parable, while of general application, must have appealed to
the apostles as particularly apt; for each of them had received in trust
an equal endowment through ordination, and each would be required to
account for his administration.

The fact is apparent that Christ was the nobleman who was to be invested
with the authority of kingship, and who would return to require the
accounting at the hands of His trusted servants.[1053] But many of the
citizens hated Him and would protest His investiture, saying they would
not have Him to reign over them.[1054] When He does return in power and
authority, these rebellious citizens shall surely receive the punishment
they deserve.[1055]


IN THE HOUSE OF SIMON THE LEPER.[1056]

Six days before the Feast of the Passover, that is to say before the day
on which the paschal lamb was to be eaten,[1057] Jesus arrived at
Bethany, the home town of Martha and Mary, and of Lazarus who had
recently died and been restored to life. The chronology of events during
the last week of our Lord's life supports the generally accepted belief
that in this year, the fourteenth day of Nisan, on which the Passover
festival began, fell on Thursday; and this being so, the day on which
Jesus reached Bethany was the preceding Friday, the eve of the Jewish
Sabbath. Jesus fully realized that this Sabbath was the last He would
live to see in mortality. The Gospel-writers have drawn a veil of
reverent silence over the events of that day. It appears that Jesus
passed His last Sabbath in retirement at Bethany. The journey afoot from
Jericho had been no easy walk, for the road ascended to an altitude of
nearly three thousand feet, and was withal otherwise a toilsome way.

On Saturday,[1058] probably in the evening after the Sabbath had passed,
a supper was spread for Jesus and the Twelve in the house of Simon the
leper. No other mention of this man, Simon, appears in scripture. If he
was living at the time our Lord was entertained in the house known by
his name, and if he was present, he must have been previously healed of
his leprosy, as otherwise he could not have been allowed within the
town, far less to be one of a festal company. It is reasonable to think
that the man had once been a victim of leprosy and had come to be
currently known as Simon the leper, and that he was one among the many
sufferers from this dread disease who had been healed through the Lord's
ministrations.

Martha was in charge of the supper arrangements on this memorable
occasion, and her sister Mary was with her, while Lazarus sat at table
with Jesus. Many have assumed that the house of Simon the leper was the
family home of the two sisters and Lazarus, in which case it is possible
that Simon was the father of the three; but of such relationship we have
no proof.[1059] There was no attempt to secure unusual privacy at this
supper. Such occasions were customarily marked by the presence of many
uninvited lookers-on in that time; and we are not surprized to learn,
therefore, that many people were there and that they had come "not for
Jesus' sake only, but that they might see Lazarus also, whom he had
raised from the dead." Lazarus was a subject of much interest and
doubtless of curiosity among the people; and at the time of his
privileged and intimate association with Jesus in Bethany, the chief
priests were plotting to put him to death, on account of the effect his
restoration had had upon the people, many of whom believed on Jesus
because of the miracle.

That supper in Bethany was an event never to be forgotten. Mary, the
more contemplative and spiritually minded of the two sisters, she who
loved to sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to His words, and who had
been commended for having so chosen the one needful thing, which her
more practical sister lacked,[1060] brought from among her treasures an
alabaster cruse containing a pound of costly spikenard ointment; she
broke the sealed flask[1061] and poured its fragrant contents upon the
head and feet of her Lord, and wiped His feet with her loosened
tresses.[1062] To anoint the head of a guest with ordinary oil was to do
him honor; to anoint his feet also was to show unusual and signal
regard; but the anointing of head and feet with spikenard, and in such
abundance, was an act of reverential homage rarely rendered even to
kings.[1063] Mary's act was an expression of adoration; it was the
fragrant outwelling of a heart overflowing with worship and affection.

But this splendid tribute of a devout woman's love was made the cause of
disagreeable protest. Judas Iscariot, treasurer of the Twelve, but
dishonest, avaricious, and small-souled in character, vented his
grumbling complaint, saying: "Why was not this ointment sold for three
hundred pence, and given to the poor?"[1064] His seeming solicitude for
the poor was all hypocrisy. He was a thief and lamented that he had not
been given the precious ointment to sell, or that the price had not been
turned into the bag of which he was the self-interested custodian.
Mary's use of the costly unguent had been so lavish that others beside
Judas had let their surprize grow into murmuring; but to him is
attributed the distinction of being the chief complainer. Mary's
sensitive nature was pained by the ungracious words of disapproval; but
Jesus interposed, saying: "Why trouble ye the woman? for she hath
wrought a good work upon me." Then in further rebuke and by way of
solemn instruction He continued; "For ye have the poor always with you;
but me ye have not always. For in that she hath poured this ointment on
my body, she did it for my burial. Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever
this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this,
that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her."

We are left without certain information as to whether Mary knew that
within a few days her beloved Lord would be in the tomb. She may have
been so informed in view of the hallowed intimacy between Jesus and the
family; or she may have gathered from the remarks of Christ to the
apostles that the sacrifice of His life was impending; or perhaps by
inspired intuition she was impelled to render the loving tribute by
which her memory has been enshrined in the hearts of all who know and
love the Christ. John has preserved to us this remark of Jesus in the
rebuke called forth by the grumbling Iscariot: "Let her alone; against
the day of my burying hath she kept this"; and Mark's version is
likewise suggestive of definite and solemn purpose on Mary's part: "She
is come aforehand to anoint my body to the burying."


CHRIST'S TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM.[1065]

While still in Bethany or in the neighboring village of Bethphage, and
according to John's account on the next day after the supper at Simon's
house, Jesus directed two of His disciples to go to a certain place,
where, He told them, they would find an ass tied, and with her a colt on
which no man had ever sat. These they were to bring to Him. If stopped
or questioned they were to say the Lord had need of the animals. Matthew
alone mentions both ass and colt; the other writers specify the latter
only; most likely the mother followed as the foal was led away, and the
presence of the dam probably served to keep the colt tractable. The
disciples found all to be as the Lord had said. They brought the colt to
Jesus, spread their coats on the gentle creature's back, and set the
Master thereon. The company started toward Jerusalem, Jesus riding in
their midst.

Now, as was usual, great numbers of people had come up to the city many
days before the beginning of the Passover rites, in order that they
might attend to matters of personal purification, and make good their
arrears in the offering of prescribed sacrifices. Though the great day,
on which the festival was to be inaugurated, was yet four days ahead,
the city was thronged with pilgrim crowds; and among these much
questioning had arisen as to whether Jesus would venture to appear
publicly in Jerusalem during the feast, in view of the well-known plans
of the hierarchy to take Him into custody. The common people were
interested in every act and movement of the Master; and word of His
departure from Bethany sped ahead of Him; so that by the time He began
the descent from the highest part of the road on the flank of the Mount
of Olives, great crowds had gathered about Him. The people were jubilant
over the spectacle of Jesus riding toward the holy city; they spread out
their garments, and cast palm fronds and other foliage in His path, thus
carpeting the way as for the passing of a king. For the time being He
was their king, and they His adoring subjects. The voices of the
multitude sounded in reverberating harmony: "Blessed be the King that
cometh in the name of the Lord: peace in heaven, and glory in the
highest"; and again: "Hosanna to the son of David: Blessed is he that
cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest."[1066]

But amidst all this jubilation, Jesus was sad as He came in sight of the
great city wherein stood the House of the Lord; and He wept, because of
the wickedness of His people, and of their refusal to accept Him as the
Son of God; moreover He foresaw the awful scenes of destruction before
which both city and temple were soon to fall. In anguish and tears, He
thus apostrophized the doomed city: "If thou hadst known, even thou, at
least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now
they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that
thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round,
and keep thee in on every side, And shall lay thee even with the ground,
and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone
upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation." The
multitude was increased by tributary crowds who fell in with the
imposing procession at every crossway; and the shouts of praise and
homage were heard inside the city while the advancing company was yet
far from the walls. When the Lord rode through the massive portal and
actually entered the capital of the Great King, the whole city was
thrilled. To the inquiry of the uninformed, "Who is this?" the multitude
shouted: "This is Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee." It may be
that the Galilean pilgrims were first to answer and loudest in the
gladsome proclamation; for the proud Judeans held Galilee in low esteem,
and on this day, Jesus of Galilee was the most prominent personage in
Jerusalem. The Pharisees, resentful of the honors thus shown to One whom
they had long plotted to destroy, impotently condoled with one another
over the failure of all their nefarious schemes, saying: "Perceive ye
how ye prevail nothing? behold, the world is gone after him." Unable to
check the surging enthusiasm of the multitudes, or to silence the joyous
acclamations, some of the Pharisees made their way through the throngs
until they reached Jesus, and to Him they appealed, saying: "Master,
rebuke thy disciples." But the Lord "answered and said unto them, I tell
you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately
cry out"[1067]

Dismounting, He entered afoot the temple enclosure; shouts of adulation
greeted Him there. Chief priests, scribes, and Pharisees, the official
representatives of the theocracy, the hierarchy of Judaism, were
incensed; there was no denying the fact that the people were rendering
Messianic honors to this troublesome Nazarene; and that too within the
very purlieus of the temple of Jehovah.

The purpose of Christ in thus yielding Himself for the day to the
desires of the people and accepting their homage with kingly grace may
not be fully comprehended by us of finite mind. That the occasion was no
accidental or fortuitous happening, of which He took advantage without
preconceived intention, is evident. He knew beforehand what would be,
and what He would do. It was no meaningless pageantry; but the actual
advent of the King into His royal city, and His entry into the temple,
the house of the King of kings. He came riding on an ass, in token of
peace, acclaimed by the Hosanna shouts of multitudes; not on a
caparisoned steed with the panoply of combat and the accompaniment of
bugle blasts and fanfare of trumpets. That the joyous occasion was in no
sense suggestive of physical hostility or of seditious disturbance is
sufficiently demonstrated by the indulgent unconcern with which it was
viewed by the Roman officials, who were usually prompt to send their
legionaries swooping down from the fortress of Antonia at the first
evidence of an outbreak; and they were particularly vigilant in
suppressing all Messianic pretenders, for false Messiahs had arisen
already, and much blood had been shed in the forcible dispelling of
their delusive claims. But the Romans saw nothing to fear, perhaps much
to smile at, in the spectacle of a King mounted upon an ass, and
attended by subjects, who, though numerous, brandished no weapons but
waved instead palm branches and myrtle sprigs. The ass has been
designated in literature as "the ancient symbol of Jewish royalty," and
one riding upon an ass as the type of peaceful progress.

Such triumphal entry of Jesus into the chief city of the Jews would have
been strikingly inconsistent with the general tenor of His ministry in
its early stages. Even the intimation that He was the Christ had been
made with guarded care, if at all; and every manifestation of popular
regard in which He might have figured as a national leader had been
suppressed. Now, however, the hour of the great consummation was near at
hand; the public acceptance of the nation's homage, and the
acknowledgment of both kingly and Messianic titles, constituted an open
and official proclamation of His divine investiture. He had entered city
and temple in such royal state as befitted the Prince of Peace. By the
rulers of the nation He had been rejected and His claims derided. The
manner of His entry should have appealed to the learned teachers of the
law and the prophets; for Zechariah's impressive forecast, the
fulfilment of which the evangelist, John, finds in the events of this
memorable Sunday,[1068] was frequently cited among them: "Rejoice
greatly, O, daughter of Zion; shout, O, daughter of Jerusalem: behold,
thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and
riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass."[1069]


CERTAIN GREEKS VISIT CHRIST.[1070]

Among the multitudes who came to Jerusalem at the time of the annual
Passover were people of many nations. Some of these, though not of
Jewish descent, had been converted to Judaism; they were admitted to the
temple precincts, but were not allowed to pass beyond the court of the
Gentiles.[1071] Sometime during our Lord's last week of mortal life,
possibly on the day of His royal entry into the city,[1072] certain
Greeks, who were evidently numbered among the proselytes since they had
come "to worship at the feast," sought an interview with Jesus. Imbued
with a becoming sense of decorum they hesitated to directly approach the
Master, and applied instead to Philip, one of the apostles, saying:
"Sir, we would see Jesus." Philip consulted with Andrew, and the two
then informed Jesus, who, as we may reasonably infer from the context
though the fact is not explicitly stated, graciously received the
foreign visitors and imparted to them precepts of the utmost worth. It
is evident that the desire of these Greeks to meet the Master was not
grounded on curiosity or other unworthy impulse; they earnestly wished
to see and hear the Teacher whose fame had reached their country, and
whose doctrines had impressed them.

To them Jesus testified that the hour of His death was near at hand, the
hour in which "the Son of man should be glorified." They were surprized
and pained by the Lord's words, and possibly they inquired as to the
necessity of such a sacrifice. Jesus explained by citing a striking
illustration drawn from nature: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except
a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if
it die, it bringeth forth much fruit;"[1073] The simile is an apt
one,--and at once impressively simple and beautiful. A farmer who
neglects or refuses to cast his wheat into the earth, because he wants
to keep it, can have no increase; but if he sow the wheat in good rich
soil, each living grain may multiply itself many fold, though of
necessity the seed must be sacrificed in the process. So, said the Lord,
"He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in
this world shall keep it unto life eternal." The Master's meaning is
clear; he that loves his life so well that he will not imperil it, or,
if need be, give it up, in the service of God, shall forfeit his
opportunity to win the bounteous increase of eternal life; while he who
esteems the call of God as so greatly superior to life that his love of
life is as hatred in comparison, shall find the life he freely yields or
is willing to yield, though for the time being it disappear like the
grain buried in the soil; and he shall rejoice in the bounty of eternal
development. If such be true of every man's existence, how
transcendently so was it of the life of Him who came to die that men may
live? Therefore was it necessary that He die, as He had said He was
about to do; but His death, far from being life lost, was to be life
glorified.


VOICE FROM HEAVEN.[1074]

The realization of the harrowing experiences upon which He was about to
enter, and particularly the contemplation of the state of sin, which
made His sacrifice imperative, so weighed upon the Savior's mind that He
sorrowed deeply. "Now is my soul troubled," He groaned; "and what shall
I say?" He exclaimed in anguish. Should He say, "Father, save me from
this hour" when as He knew "for this cause" had He come "unto this
hour?" To His Father alone could He turn for comforting support, not to
ask relief from, but strength to endure, what was to come; and He
prayed: "Father, glorify thy name." It was the rising of a mighty Soul
to meet a supreme issue, which for the moment had seemed to be
overwhelming. To that prayer of renewed surrender to the Father's will,
"Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it,
and will glorify it again."

The voice was real; it was no subjective whisper of comfort to the inner
consciousness of Jesus, but an external, objective reality. People who
were standing by heard the sound, and interpreted it variously; some
said it was thunder; others, of better spiritual discernment, said: "An
angel spake to him"; and some may have understood the words as had
Jesus. Now fully emerged from the passing cloud of enveloping anguish,
the Lord turned to the people, saying: "This voice came not because of
me, but for your sakes." And then, with the consciousness of assured
triumph over sin and death, He exclaimed in accents of divine
jubilation, as though the cross and the sepulchre were already of the
past: "Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this
world be cast out." Satan, the prince of the world was doomed.[1075]
"And I," the Lord continued, "if I be lifted up from the earth, will
draw all men unto me." John assures us that this last utterance
signified the manner of the Lord's death; the people so understood, and
they asked an explanation of what seemed to them an inconsistency, in
that the scriptures, as they had been taught to interpret the same,
declared that the Christ was to abide forever,[1076] and now He who
claimed to be the Messiah, the Son of Man, averred that He must be
lifted up. "Who is this Son of man?" they asked. Mindful as ever not to
cast pearls where they would not be appreciated, the Lord refrained from
a direct avowal, but admonished them to walk in the light while the
light was with them, for darkness would surely follow; and as He
reminded them, "he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he
goeth." In conclusion the Lord admonished them thus: "While ye have
light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of
light."[1077]

At the close of this discourse Jesus departed from the people "and did
hide himself from them." The record of the first day of what has come to
be known as the week of our Lord's passion[1078] is thus concluded by
Mark: "And when he had looked round about upon all things, and now the
eventide was come, he went out unto Bethany with the twelve."[1079]


NOTES TO CHAPTER 29.

1. The Mother of James and John.--The mother of these two sons of
Zebedee (Matt. 20:20; compare 4:21) is generally understood to have been
the Salome mentioned as one of the women present at the crucifixion
(Mark 15:40; compare Matt. 27:56 in which "the mother of Zebedee's
children" is mentioned, and the name "Salome" is omitted), and one of
those who arrived first at the tomb on the morning of the resurrection
(Mark 16:1). From the fact that John mentions the mother of Jesus and
"his mother's sister" (19:25) and omits mention of Salome by name, some
expositors hold that Salome was the sister of Mary the mother of Jesus;
and therefore the Savior's aunt. This relationship would make James and
John cousins to Jesus. While the scriptural record does not disprove
this alleged kinship, it certainly does not affirm the same.

2. Jericho.--This was an ancient city, lying north-easterly from
Jerusalem, a little less than fifteen miles in a straight line. In the
course of the exodus it was captured by the people of Israel through a
miraculous interposition of divine power. (Josh. 6). The productiveness
of the region is indicated by the descriptive appellation "city of palm
trees" (Deut. 34:3; Judg. 1:16; 3:13; 2 Chron. 28:15). The name Jericho
means "place of fragrance." Its climate was semi-tropical, a consequence
of its low altitude. It lay in a valley several hundred feet below the
level of the Mediterranean; this explains Luke's statement (19:28) that
after Jesus had spoken the Parable of the Pounds when on the way from
Jericho, "he went before, ascending up to Jerusalem." In the time of
Christ, Jericho was an important city; and the abundance of its
commercial products, particularly balsam and spices, led to the
maintenance of a customs office there, over which Zaccheus seems to have
presided.

3. The Nobleman and the Kingdom.--The local setting of the part of the
Parable of the Pounds that relates to a certain nobleman going into a
far country to receive for himself a kingdom, had its parallel in
history. Archelaus, who by the will of his father, Herod the Great, had
been named king of the Jews, set out for Rome to ask of the emperor the
confirmation of his royal status. He was opposed by a protest from the
people. On the utilization of this circumstance in the parable, Farrar
(p. 493, note) says: "A nobleman going into a far country to receive a
kingdom would be utterly unintelligible, had we not fortunately known
that this was done both by Archelaus and by Antipas (Jos. Ant. xvii,
9:4). And in the case of Archelaus the Jews had actually sent to
Augustus a deputation of fifty, to recount his cruelties and oppose his
claims, which, though it failed at the time, was subsequently successful
(Josephus, Ant. xvii, 13:2). Philipus defended the property of
Archelaus, during his absence, from the encroachments of the Proconsul
Sabinus. The magnificent palace which Archelaus had built at Jericho
(Jos. Ant. xvii, 13:1) would naturally recall these circumstances to the
mind of Jesus, and the parable is another striking example of the manner
in which He utilized the most ordinary circumstances around Him, and
made them the bases of His highest teachings. It is also another
unsuspected indication of the authenticity and truthfulness of the
Gospels."

4. "We Will Not Have this Man to Reign Over Us."--On this phase of the
parable, Trench (_Miracles_, p. 390) very aptly remarks: "Twice before
He had gone to receive His kingdom, this very declaration found formal
utterance from their lips,--once when they cried to Pilate, 'We have no
king but Cæsar'; and again when they remonstrated with him, 'Write not,
The King of the Jews' (John 19:15, 21; compare Acts 17:7). But the
stricter fulfilment of these words is to be found in the demeanor of the
Jews after His ascension, their fierce hostility to Christ in His infant
Church (Acts 12:3; 13:45; 14:18; 17:5; 18:6; 22:22; 23:12; 1 Thes.
2:15)."

5. The Day of the Supper at Bethany.--John places this event as having
occurred on the day following Christ's arrival in Bethany, for as we see
from 12:12, the triumphal entry into Jerusalem took place on the next
day after the supper, and, as stated in the text, Jesus most probably
reached Bethany on Friday. The joyous processional into Jerusalem did
not occur on the day following Friday, for that was the Jewish Sabbath.
Matthew (26:2-13) and Mark (14:1-9) give place to the incident of the
supper after the record of the triumphal entry and other events, from
which some have drawn the inference that these two writers place the
supper two days before the Passover. This inference lacks confirmation.
In this matter the chronological order given by John appears to be the
true one.

6. The Family Home at Bethany.--The home of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus
appears to have been the usual abiding place of Jesus when He was in
Bethany. Undoubtedly He was on terms of very close and affectionate
acquaintanceship with all members of the family, even before the
miraculous raising of Lazarus from the dead, and, this supremely blessed
occurrence must have intensified into worshipful reverence the esteem in
which our Lord had been held in that household. As to whether this home
was identical with the house of Simon the leper, the scriptural record
does not state. John, who gives a fairly detailed account of the supper
served by Martha, makes no mention of Simon or his house. It is
noticeable that the synoptic writers say very little about this home in
Bethany. Farrar has aptly remarked (p. 483): "We seem to trace in the
Synoptists a special reticence about the family at Bethany. The house in
which they take a prominent position is called 'the house of Simon the
leper'; Mary is called simply 'a woman' by St. Matthew and St. Mark
(Matt. 26:6, 7; Mark 14:3); and St. Luke contents himself with calling
Bethany 'a certain village' (Luke 10:38), although he was perfectly
aware of the name (Luke 19:29)."

7. Spikenard Ointment.--This was among the most highly prized of
oriental unguents. That with which Mary anointed Jesus is described by
Matthew and Mark as "very precious," and by John as "very costly." In
the original the adjective "pistic" appears; this is translated by some
as meaning "liquid," but by others as signifying "genuine." There were
many inferior imitations of the real spikenard, or nard; and we are left
without a doubt that Mary's precious gift was of the best. The plant
from which the fragrant extract is obtained is a species of bearded
grass indigenous in India. Spikenard is mentioned in Song of Solomon
1:12; 4:13, 14.

8. Hosanna!--"Hosanna" is a Greek form of the Hebrew expression for
"Save us now," or "Save, we pray," which occurs in the original of Psalm
118:25. It occurs nowhere in the English Bible except in the
acclamations of the people at Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem,
and in the joyous shouts of children in the temple (Matt. 21:9, 15).
Note the rendering of the "Hosanna Shout" in the restored Church of
Christ in the current dispensation on occasions of particular rejoicing
before the Lord (see the _House of the Lord_, pp. 120, 150, 210).
"Hallelujah," literally rendered, means "Praise ye Jehovah." It occurs
in the Greek form "Alleluia" in Rev. 19:1, 3, 4, 6.

9. The First Day in Passion Week.--A comparison of the accounts of the
Lord's triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and of certain events following,
as recorded by the three synoptists, shows at least a possibility of
discrepancy as to sequence. It appears certain that Jesus visited the
temple grounds on the day of the royal advent into the city. From
Matthew 21:12 and Luke 19:45 and the context preceding these passages,
the inference has been drawn that the second clearing of the temple
occurred on the day of the processional entry; while others interpret
Mark 11:11 and 15 as meaning that the event took place on a later day.
The question is admittedly an open one; and the order of presentation
followed in the text is one of convenience of treatment based on
rational probability.

FOOTNOTES:

[1039] Matt. 20:17-19; Mark 10:32-34; Luke 18:31-34.

[1040] The earlier predictions were: (1) that spoken shortly before the
Transfiguration (Matt. 16:21; Mark 8:31), and (2) that which followed,
in Galilee, (Matt. 17:22, 23; Mark 9:31; compare Luke 9:44).

[1041] Matt. 20:20-28; Mark 10:35-45.

[1042] Note 1, end of chapter.

[1043] For earlier lessons on the greatness of humility see pages 386
and 471; for the significance of the title, Son of Man, see pages
142-144.

[1044] Matt. 20:30-34; Mark 10:46-52; Luke 18:35-43.

[1045] See account of the two demoniacs, Matt. 8:28, compare Mark 5:1,
Luke 8:27. See also page 310 herein.

[1046] Compare Matt. 9:27; 15:22; page 85 herein.

[1047] Luke 19:1-10.

[1048] Note 2, end of chapter.

[1049] Exo. 22:1-9.

[1050] Compare pages 389 and 454 to 461.

[1051] Luke 19:11-27.

[1052] Note 3, end of chapter.

[1053] Compare Mark 13:34.

[1054] Note 4, end of chapter.

[1055] Comparison of similarities and differences between this parable
and that of the Talents (Matt. 25:14-30) will be made in chapter 32,
pages 580-584.

[1056] John 12:1-8; Matt. 26:6-13; Mark 14:3-9.

[1057] See Exo. 12:1-10; also page 112 herein.

[1058] Note 5, end of chapter.

[1059] Note 6, end of chapter.

[1060] Luke 10:40-42; page 432 herein.

[1061] The better rendering is "cruse" or "flask" instead of "box." See
revised version.

[1062] This occurrence must not be confused with that of an earlier
anointing of Jesus by a penitent sinner in the house of Simon the
Pharisee (Luke 7:36-50) in Galilee. See page 262 herein.

[1063] Note 7, end of chapter.

[1064] Three hundred pence or Roman denarii would be approximately equal
in value to forty-five dollars.

[1065] Matt. 21:1-11; Mark 11:1-11; Luke 19:29-44; John 12:12-19.

[1066] Note 8, end of chapter.

[1067] Compare Hab. 2:11.

[1068] The Sunday before Easter is annually celebrated by many Christian
sects as Palm Sunday, in commemoration of our Lord's triumphal entry
into Jerusalem.

[1069] Zech. 9:9.

[1070] John 12:20-26.

[1071] See "House of the Lord," pages 56, 57.

[1072] John records this event in immediate sequence to the Lord's
triumphal entry, though without any specific indication of the time of
its occurrence.

[1073] Compare 1 Cor. 15:36.

[1074] John 12:27-36.

[1075] Compare John 14:30; 16:11.

[1076] See e.g. Isa. 9:7; Dan. 7:14, 27; Ezek. 37:25.

[1077] Compare John 1:9; 3:19; 8:12; 9:5; 12:46; see page 407.

[1078] Acts 1:3.

[1079] Mark 11:11. Note 9, end of chapter.




CHAPTER 30.

JESUS RETURNS TO THE TEMPLE DAILY.


AN INSTRUCTIVE INCIDENT ON THE WAY.[1080]

On the morrow, which, as we reckon, was Monday, the second day of
Passion week, Jesus and the Twelve returned to Jerusalem and spent the
greater part of the day at the temple. The start from Bethany was an
early one, and Jesus hungered by the way. Looking ahead He saw a fig
tree that differed from the rest of the many fig trees of the region in
that it was in full leaf though the season of fruit had not yet
come.[1081] It is well known that the fruit-buds of a fig-tree appear
earlier than do the leaves, and that by the time the tree is in full
foliage the figs are well advanced toward maturity. Moreover, certain
species of figs are edible while yet green; indeed the unripe fruit is
relished in the Orient at the present time. It would be reasonable,
therefore, for one to expect to find edible figs even in early April on
a tree that was already covered with leaves. When Jesus and His party
reached this particular tree, which had rightly been regarded as rich in
promise of fruit, they found on it nothing but leaves; it was a showy,
fruitless, barren tree. It was destitute even of old figs, those of the
preceding season, some of which are often found in spring on fruitful
trees. Jesus pronounced upon that tree the sentence of perpetual
barrenness. "No man eat fruit of thee hereafter forever" He said
according to Mark's account; or, as Matthew records the judgment, "Let
no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever." The latter writer tells us
in immediate sequence that "presently the fig tree withered away"; but
the former makes it appear that the effect of the curse was not observed
until the following morning, when, as Jesus and the apostles were once
again on the way between Bethany and Jerusalem, they saw that the fig
tree had withered and dried from the roots up. Peter called attention to
the blasted tree, and, addressing Jesus, exclaimed: "Master, behold, the
fig tree which thou cursedst is withered away."

Applying the lesson of the occasion, Jesus said, "Have faith in God";
and then He repeated some of His former assurances as to the power of
faith, by which even mountains may be removed, should there be need of
such miraculous accomplishment, and through which, indeed, any necessary
thing may be done. The blighting of a tree was shown to be small in
comparison with the greater possibilities of achievement through faith
and prayer. But to so achieve one must work and pray without reservation
or doubt, as the Lord thus made plain: "Therefore I say unto you, What
things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and
ye shall have them." Prayer must be acceptable unto God to be effective;
and it follows that he who desires to accomplish any work through prayer
and faith must be fit to present himself before the Lord in
supplication; therefore Jesus again instructed the apostles saying: "And
when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your
Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. But if
ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive
your trespasses."[1082]

The blighting of the barren fig tree is regarded by many as unique among
the recorded miracles of Christ, from the fact that while all the others
were wrought for relief, blessing, and beneficent purposes generally,
this one appears as an act of judgment and destructive execution,
Nevertheless in this miracle the Lord's purpose is not hidden; and the
result, while fatal to a tree, is of lasting blessing to all who would
learn and profit, by the works of God. If no more has been accomplished
by the miracle than the presenting of so impressive an object lesson for
the instructions that followed, that smitten tree has proved of greater
service to humanity than have all the fig orchards of Bethphage.[1083]
To the apostles the act was another and an indisputable proof of the
Lord's power over nature, His control of natural forces and all material
things, His jurisdiction over life and death. He had healed multitudes;
the wind and the waves had obeyed His words; on three occasions He had
restored the dead to life; it was fitting that He should demonstrate His
power to smite and to destroy. In manifesting His command over death, He
had mercifully raised a maiden from the couch on which she had died, a
young man from the bier on which he was being carried to the grave,
another from the sepulchre in which he had been laid away a corpse; but
in proof of His power to destroy by a word He chose a barren and
worthless tree for His subject. Could any of the Twelve doubt, when, a
few days later they saw Him in the hands of vindictive priests and
heartless pagans, that did He so will He could smite His enemies by a
word, even unto death? Yet not until after His glorious resurrection did
even the apostles realize how truly voluntary His sacrifice had been.

But the fate that befell the barren fig tree is instructive from another
point of view. The incident is as much parable as miracle. That leafy
tree was distinguished among fig trees; the others offered no
invitation, gave no promise; "the time of figs was not yet"; they, in
due season would bring forth fruit and leaves; but this precocious and
leafy pretender waved its umbrageous limbs as in boastful assertion of
superiority. For those who responded to its ostentatious invitation, for
the hungering Christ who came seeking fruit, it had naught but leaves.
Even for the purposes of the lesson involved, we cannot conceive of the
tree being blighted primarily because it was fruitless, for at that
season the other fig trees were bare of fruit also; it was made the
object of the curse and the subject of the Lord's instructive discourse,
because, having leaves, it was deceptively barren. Were it reasonable to
regard the tree as possessed of moral agency, we would have to pronounce
it a hypocrite; its utter barrenness coupled with its abundance of
foliage made of it a type of human hypocrisy.

The leafy, fruitless tree was a symbol of Judaism, which loudly
proclaimed itself as the only true religion of the age, and
condescendingly invited all the world to come and partake of its rich
ripe fruit; when in truth it was but an unnatural growth of leaves, with
no fruit of the season, nor even an edible bulb held over from earlier
years, for such as it had of former fruitage was dried to worthlessness
and made repulsive in its worm-eaten decay. The religion of Israel had
degenerated into an artificial religionism, which in pretentious show
and empty profession outclassed the abominations of heathendom. As
already pointed out in these pages, the fig tree was a favorite type in
rabbinical representation of the Jewish race, and the Lord had before
adopted the symbolism in the Parable of the Barren Fig Tree, that
worthless growth which did but cumber the ground.[1084]


SECOND CLEARING OF THE TEMPLE.[1085]

Within the temple grounds Jesus was filled with indignation at the scene
of tumult and desecration which the place presented. Three years before,
at Passover time, He had been wrought up to a high state of righteous
anger by a similar exhibition of sordid chaffering within the sacred
precincts, and had driven out the sheep and oxen and forcibly expelled
the traders and the money-changers and all who were using His Father's
house as a house of merchandize.[1086] That was near the beginning of
His public labor, and the vigorous action was among the first of His
works to attract general attention; now, within four days of the cross,
He cleared the courts again by casting out all "them that sold and
bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and
the seats of them that sold doves"; nor would He suffer any to carry
their buckets and baskets through the enclosure, as many were in the
habit of doing, and so making the way a common thoroughfare. "Is it not
written," He demanded of them in wrath, "My house shall be called of all
nations the house of prayer? but ye have made it a den of thieves." On
the former occasion, before He had declared or even confessed His
Messiahship, He had designated the temple as "My Father's house"; now
that He had openly avowed Himself to be the Christ, He called it "My
house." The expressions are in a sense synonymous; He and the Father
were and are one in possession and dominion. The means by which the
later expulsion was accomplished are not stated; but it is plain that
none could withstand His authoritative command; He acted in the strength
of righteousness, before which the forces of evil had to give way.

His wrath of indignation was followed by the calmness of gentle
ministry; there in the cleared courts of His house, blind and lame folk
came limping and groping about Him, and He healed them. The anger of the
chief priests and scribes was raging against Him; but it was impotent.
They had decreed His death, and had made repeated efforts to take Him,
and there He sat within the very area over which they claimed supreme
jurisdiction, and they were afraid to touch Him because of the common
people, whom they professed to despize yet heartily feared--"for all the
people were very attentive to hear him."

The rage of the officials was further aggravated by a touching incident,
which seems to have accompanied or to have immediately followed His
merciful healing of the afflicted folk at the temple. Children saw what
He did; with their innocent minds yet unsullied by the prejudice of
tradition and their sight yet undarkened by sin, they perceived in Him
the Christ, and burst forth into praise and worship in a hymn that was
heard by the angels: "Hosanna to the son of David." With ill-concealed
anger the temple officials demanded of Him: "Hearest thou what these
say?" They probably expected Him to disclaim the title, or possibly
hoped that He would reassert His claim in a manner that would afford
excuse for legal action against Him, for to most of them the Son of
David was the Messiah, the promised King. Would He clear Himself of the
blasphemy that attached to the unjustified acknowledgment of so awful a
dignity? Jesus answered, with an implied rebuke for their ignorance of
the scriptures: "Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and
sucklings thou hast perfected praise?"[1087]

It was now Monday evening; Jesus left the city and retired again to
Bethany, where He lodged. This course was a prudent one, in view of the
determination of the rulers to get Him into their power provided they
could do so without arousing the people. This they could not accomplish
by day, for wherever He appeared He was the center of a multitude; but
had He remained in Jerusalem over night the vigilant emissaries of the
hierarchy might have succeeded in taking Him, unless He withstood them
by some miraculous action. Near as was His hour, it had not yet struck;
and He would be made captive only as He permitted Himself, a voluntary
victim, to be taken into the hands of His enemies.


CHRIST'S AUTHORITY CHALLENGED BY THE RULERS.[1088]

On the following day, that is on Tuesday, He returned to the temple with
the Twelve, passing the withered fig tree on the way and impressing the
moral of the combined miracle and parable as we have already seen. As He
taught in the sacred place, preaching the gospel to all who would hear,
the chief priests with a number of scribes and elders came upon Him in a
body. They had been debating about Him over night, and had resolved on
at least one step; they would challenge His authority for what He had
done the day before. They were the guardians of the temple, both the
material structure and the theocratic system for which the holy edifice
stood; and this Galilean, who permitted Himself to be called the Christ
and defended those who so acclaimed Him, had for the second time ignored
their authority within the temple walls and in the presence of the
common people over whom they lorded so arrogantly. So this official
deputation, with plans matured, came to Him saying: "By what authority
doest thou these things? and who gave thee this authority?" This action
was doubtless a preliminary step in a preconcerted attempt to suppress
the activities of Jesus, both of word and deed, within the temple
precincts. It will be remembered that after the first cleansing of the
temple, the Jews had angrily demanded of Jesus a sign by which they
might judge the question of His divine commission;[1089] and it is
significant that on this latter occasion no sign was asked, but instead
thereof, a specific avowal as to the authority He possessed and by whom
it had been given Him. A three years' course of miracle and teaching was
known to them; on the yesterday blind and lame had been healed inside
the temple walls; and Lazarus, the living testimony of the Lord's power
over death and the grave was before them. To ask a further sign would
have been to flagrantly expose themselves to the ridicule of the people.

They knew what authority the Lord claimed; their question was of
sinister purpose. Jesus did not condescend to voice an answer in which
they could possibly find further excuse for antagonizing Him; but He
availed Himself of a method very common among themselves--that of
countering one question with another. "And Jesus answered and said unto
them, I also will ask you one thing, which if ye tell me, I in like wise
will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John,
whence was it? from heaven, or of men?" They consulted among themselves
as to what answer would best serve to extricate them from an
embarrassing position; no mention is made of any attempt to ascertain
the truth and reply accordingly; they were thoroughly nonplussed. Should
they answer that John's baptism was of God, Jesus would probably demand
of them why then they had not believed in the Baptist, and why they did
not accept John's testimony concerning Himself. On the other hand,
should they aver that John had no divine authority to preach and
baptize, the people would turn against them, for the martyred Baptist
was revered by the masses as a prophet. In spite of their boasted
learning, they answered as puzzled school-boys might do when they
perceive hidden difficulties in what at first seemed but a simple
problem. "We cannot tell" said they. Then Jesus replied "Neither tell I
you by what authority I do these things."

Chief priests, scribes, and elders of the people were outwitted and
humiliated. The tables were completely turned upon them; Jesus, whom
they had come to question, became the examiner; they a class of cowed
and unwilling listeners. He the ready instructor, and the multitude
interested observers. With little likelihood of immediate interruption
the Master proceeded in calm deliberation to relate to them a series of
three splendid stories, each of which they felt applied to themselves
with incisive certainty. The first of the narrations we call the
_Parable of the Two Sons_.

"But what think ye? A certain man had two sons; and he came to the
first, and said, Son, go work today in my vineyard. He answered and
said, I will not: but afterward he repented, and went. And he came to
the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir: and
went not. Whether of them twain did the will of his father? They say
unto him, The first. Jesus saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That
the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. For
John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not;
but the publicans and the harlots believed him: and ye, when ye had seen
it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him."[1090]

The opening sentence, "But what think ye?" was a call to close
attention. It implied a question soon to follow; and that proved to be:
Which of the two sons was the obedient one? There was but one consistent
answer, and they had to give it, however loath. The application of the
parable followed with convicting promptness. They, the chief priests,
scribes, Pharisees and elders of the people, were typified by the second
son, who, when told to labor in the vineyard answered so assuringly, but
went not, though the vines were running to wild growth for want of
pruning, and such poor fruit as might mature would be left to fall and
rot upon the ground. The publicans and sinners upon whom they vented
their contempt, whose touch was defilement, were like unto the first
son, who in rude though frank refusal ignored the father's call, but
afterward relented and set to work, repentantly hoping to make amends
for the time he had lost and for the unfilial spirit he had shown.[1091]
Publicans and sinners, touched in their hearts by the clarion call to
repentance, had flocked to the Baptist in the wilderness with the
earnest inquiry: "Master, what shall we do?"[1092] John's call had been
to no particular class; but while self-confessed sinners had repented
and sought baptism at his hands, those very Pharisees and elders of the
people had rejected his testimony and had hypocritically sought to
ensnare him.[1093] Through the parable Jesus answered His own question
as to whether the baptism of John was of God or of man. The Lord's
affirmation, "Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots
go into the kingdom of God before you," was condemnatory of the corrupt
though sanctimonious polity of the hierarchy throughout. It was not
wholly without intimation of possible reformation, however. He did not
say that the repentant sinners should enter, and the priestly hypocrites
stand forever excluded; for the latter there was hope if they would but
repent, though they would have to follow, not lead, in the glorious
procession of the redeemed. In a continuation of the same discourse the
Lord presented the _Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen_, as follows:

"Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, which planted a
vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and
built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far
country: And when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants
to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of it. And the
husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and
stoned another. Again, he sent other servants more than the first: and
they did unto them likewise. But last of all he sent unto them his son,
saying, They will reverence my son. But when the husbandmen saw the son,
they said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and
let us seize on his inheritance. And they caught him, and cast him out
of the vineyard, and slew him. When the lord therefore of the vineyard
cometh, what will he do unto those husbandmen? They say unto him, He
will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard
unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their
seasons."[1094]

Again the Jews were compelled to make answer to the great question with
which the parable dealt, and again by their answer they pronounced
judgment upon themselves. The vineyard, broadly speaking, was the human
family, but more specifically the covenant people, Israel; the soil was
good and capable of yielding in rich abundance; the vines were choice
and had been set out with care; and the whole vineyard was amply
protected with a hedge, and suitably furnished with winepress and
tower.[1095] The husbandmen could be none other than the priests and
teachers of Israel, including the ecclesiastical leaders who were then
and there present in an official capacity. The Lord of the vineyard had
sent among the people prophets authorized to speak in His name; and
these the wicked tenants had rejected, maltreated, and, in many
instances, cruelly slain.[1096] In the more detailed reports of the
parable we read that when the first servant came, the cruel husbandmen
"beat him and sent him away empty"; the next they wounded "in the head,
and sent him away shamefully handled"; another they murdered and all who
came later were brutally mistreated, and some of them were killed. Those
wicked men had used the vineyard of their Lord for personal gain, and
had rendered no part of the vintage to the lawful Owner. When the Lord
sent other messengers, "more than the first," or in other words, greater
than the earlier ones, the most recent example being John the Baptist,
the husbandmen rejected them with evil determination more pronounced
than ever. At last the Son had come in person; His authority they feared
as that of the lawful heir, and with malignity almost beyond belief,
they determined to kill Him that they might perpetuate their unworthy
possession of the vineyard and thenceforward hold it as their own.

Jesus carried the story without break from the criminal past to the yet
more tragic and awful future, then but three days distant; and calmly
related in prophetic imagery, as though already fulfilled, how those
evil men cast the well beloved Son out of the vineyard and slew Him.
Unable to evade the searching question as to what the Lord of the
vineyard would naturally and righteously do to the wicked husbandmen,
the Jewish rulers gave the only pertinent answer possible--that He would
surely destroy those wretched sinners, and let out His vineyard to
tenants who were more honest and worthy.

Suddenly changing the figure, "Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read
in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is
become the head of the corner: this is the Lord's doing, and it is
marvellous in our eyes? Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God
shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits
thereof. And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken; but on
whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder."[1097] There
could be no misapprehension as to the Lord's meaning; the rejected Stone
which was eventually to have chief place, "the head of the corner," in
the edifice of salvation, was Himself, the Messiah. To some that Stone
would be a cause of stumbling; wo unto them, for thereby would they be
broken, and only through repentance and works of righteousness could
they even in part recover; but upon others, those who would persist in
their opposition, the Stone would fall in judgment; and wo, wo to them,
for beneath it they would be destroyed as though ground to powder.[1098]
From them, the leaders, and from the people who followed their unholy
precepts and foul example, the kingdom of God was about to be taken, and
would in time be given to the Gentiles, who, the Lord affirmed, would
prove more worthy than Israel had been. We gather from Luke's account
that in contemplation of this awful penalty, "they," whether priestly
rulers or common people we are not told, exclaimed in despair, "God
forbid!"

As the chief priests and Pharisees realized the completeness of their
discomfiture and the extent of the humiliation to which they had been
subjected in the eyes of the people, they were incensed beyond measure,
and even attempted to lay hold on Jesus there in the temple; but the
sympathies of the multitude were so unmistakably in His favor that the
angry ecclesiasts desisted. The people in general, while not prepared to
openly proclaim Him as the Christ, knew that He was a prophet of God,
and their dread of official displeasure and possible penalty did not
deter them from friendly demonstrations.

Jesus resumed His teaching by relating the _Parable of the Royal
Marriage Feast_.

"And Jesus answered and spake unto them again by parables, and said, The
kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for
his son, And sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to
the wedding: and they would not come. Again, he sent forth other
servants, saying, Tell them which are bidden, Behold, I have prepared my
dinner: my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready:
come unto the marriage. But they made light of it, and went their ways,
one to his farm, another to his merchandise: And the remnant took his
servants, and entreated them spitefully, and slew them. But when the
king heard thereof, he was wroth: and he sent forth his armies, and
destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. Then saith he to
his servants, The wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not
worthy. Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find,
bid to the marriage. So those servants went out into the highways, and
gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and good: and the
wedding was furnished with guests."[1099]

The invitation of a king to his subjects is equivalent to a command. The
marriage feast was no surprize event, for the selected guests had been
bidden long aforetime; and, in accordance with oriental custom were
notified again on the opening day of the festivities,[1100] which,
according to Hebrew customs, would be understood as extending over a
period of seven or fourteen days; in this case of a marriage in the
royal family the greater duration would be assumed. Many of the bidden
guests refused to come when formally summoned; and of the tolerant
king's later and more pressing message they made light and went their
ways, while the most wicked turned upon the servants who brought the
royal summons, mistreated them cruelly, and some of them they killed. It
is plainly evident that the refusal to attend the king's feast was a
deliberate rebellion against the royal authority and a personal
indignity against both the reigning sovereign and his son. It was as
much a duty as an honor for loyal subjects to attend the marriage
festival of the prince, whom we cannot err in regarding as the lawful
heir to the throne, and therefore the one who might some day reign over
them. The turning away by one man to his farm and by another to his
merchandize is in part an evidence of their engrossment in material
pursuits to the utter disregard of their sovereign's will; but it
signifies further an effort to deaden their troubled consciences by some
absorbing occupation; and possibly also a premeditated demonstration of
the fact that they placed their personal affairs above the call of their
king. The monarch executed a terrible retribution upon his rebellious
subjects. If the parable was intended to be an allegorical presentation
of actual events, it passes at this point from the story of the past to
that of the future, for the destruction of Jerusalem postdates by
several decades the death of Christ. Finding the guests who had some
claim on the royal invitation to be utterly unworthy, the king sent out
his servants again, and these gathered in from the highways and
cross-roads, from the byways and the lanes, all they could find,
irrespective of rank or station, whether rich or poor, good or bad; "and
the wedding was furnished with guests."

The great feast by which the Messianic reign was to be ushered in was a
favorite theme of jubilant exposition in both synagog and school; and
exultation ran high in the rabbinical dictum that none but the children
of Abraham would be among the blessed partakers. The king in the parable
is God; the son whose marriage was the occasion of the feast is Jesus,
the Son of God; the guests who were bidden early, yet who refused to
come when the feast was ready, are the covenant people who rejected
their Lord, the Christ; the later guests, who were brought in from the
streets and the roads, are the Gentile nations, to whom the gospel has
been carried since its rejection by the Jews; the marriage feast is
symbolical of the glorious consummation of the Messiah's mission.[1101]

All students of the subject must have noted the points of resemblance by
which this parable is related to that of the great supper;[1102] fewer
perhaps have considered the differences between the two. The earlier
story was told in the house of one of the chief Pharisees, probably in
some town in Perea; the later one was related within the temple, after
Pharisaic opposition to Christ had reached its height. The first is of
simpler plot and of gentler climax. The neglect of the invited guests in
the first story was accompanied by excuses in which some approach to
polite apology appears; the refusal of those bidden in the second
parable was markedly offensive, and was coupled with outrageous abuse
and murder. The host in one instance was a wealthy though private
citizen, in the other the giver of the feast was a king. In the first,
the occasion was one of ordinary though abundant entertainment; in the
second, the determining time was that of the appointed marriage of the
royal heir. Retribution in the first instance was limited to exclusion
from the banquet; in the latter the individual punishment was death,
which was followed by the punitive example of the city's destruction.

Our account of the royal marriage feast is not yet complete; the story
already considered is supplemented by the following:

    "And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man
    which had not on a wedding garment: And he saith unto him,
    Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment?
    And he was speechless. Then said the king to the servants, Bind
    him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer
    darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many
    are called, but few are chosen."

The lessons embodied in this section of the parable may be
advantageously considered apart from those of the first division. As was
befitting his dignity, the king came into the banquet hall after the
guests had taken their places in orderly array. His immediate detection
of one who was without the prescribed garment implies a personal
scrutiny of the guests. One may be led to inquire, how, under the
circumstances of hurried summoning, the several guests could have
suitably attired themselves for the feast. The unity of the narrative
requires that some provision had been made whereby each one who properly
applied was given the garment prescribed by the king's command, and in
keeping with the established custom at court. That the unrobed guest was
guilty of neglect, intentional disrespect, or some more grievous
offense, is plain from the context. The king at first was graciously
considerate, inquiring only as to how the man had entered without a
wedding garment. Had the guest been able to explain his exceptional
appearance, or had he any reasonable excuse to offer, he surely would
have spoken; but we are told that he remained speechless. The king's
summons had been freely extended to all whom his servants had found; but
each of them had to enter the royal palace by the door; and before
reaching the banquet room, in which the king would appear in person,
each would be properly attired; but the deficient one, by some means had
entered by another way; and not having passed the attendant sentinels at
the portal, he was an intruder, of a kind with the man to whom the Lord
had before referred as a thief and a robber because, not entering by the
door, he had climbed up some other way.[1103] The king gave a command,
and his ministers[1104] bound the offender and cast him forth from the
palace into outer darkness, where the anguish of remorse caused weeping
and gnashing of teeth.

As summary and epilogue of the three great parables constituting this
series, the Lord spake these words of solemn import: "For many are
called, but few are chosen."[1105] Each of the parables has its own
wealth of wisdom; and the three are as one in declaring the great truth
that even the children of the covenant will be rejected except they make
good their title by godly works; while to the heathen and the sinners
the portals of heaven shall open, if by repentance and compliance with
the laws and ordinances of the gospel they shall merit salvation.

The story of the royal marriage feast was the last of our Lord's
parables delivered publicly to a mixed audience. Two others were spoken
to the apostles, as they sat in solemn converse with the Lord on the
Mount of Olives after the public ministry of Christ had been brought to
a close.


NOTES TO CHAPTER 30.

1. Fig Tree.--"The fig tree is very common in Palestine (Deut. 8:8). Its
fruit is a well known and highly esteemed article of food. In the East
this is of three kinds; (1) the early fig, ripening about the end of
June; (2) the summer fig, ripening in August; (3) the winter fig, larger
and darker than No. 2, hanging and ripening late on the tree, even after
the leaves were shed, and sometimes gathered in the spring. The blossoms
of the fig tree are within the receptacle or so-called fruit, and not
visible outwardly; and this fruit begins to develop before the leaves.
Hence the fig tree which had leaves before the usual time might
naturally have been expected to have also some figs on it (Mark 11:13);
but it was not true to its pretensions." (Smith's _Comp. Bible Dict_.)

2. The Two Sons in the Parable.--Although this excellent parable was
addressed to the chief priests, scribes, and elders, who had come in
hostile spirit to demand of Christ the credentials of His authority, its
lesson is of universal application. The two sons are yet alive in every
human community--the one openly boastful of his sin, the other a
hypocritical pretender. Jesus did not commend the rough refusal of the
first son of whom the father made a righteous demand for service; it was
his subsequent repentance attended by works that made him superior to
his brother who had made fair promise but had kept it not. There are
many today who boast that they make no profession of religion, nor
pretense of godly life. Their frankness will not mitigate their sins; it
simply shows that a certain species of hypocrisy is not prominent among
their numerous offenses; but that a man is innocent of one vice, say
that of drunkenness, in no wise diminishes his measure of guilt if he be
a liar, a thief, an adulterer, or a murderer. Both the sons in the
parable were grievous sinners; but the one turned from his evil ways,
which theretofore he had followed with flagrant openness, while the
other continued in dark deeds of sin, which he sought to cover by a
cloak of hypocrisy. Let no man think that because he becomes intoxicated
at the public bar he is any the less a drunkard than is he who swallows
the "beverage of hell" in comparative privacy, though the latter be both
drunkard and hypocrite. For these sins, as for all others, genuine
repentance is the only saving antidote.

3. Israel Symbolized by Vineyard and Vines.--The aptness of our Lord's
representation of Israel as a vineyard could not have escaped the
perception of the Jews, to whom Old Testament similes of analogous form
were familiar figures. Notable among others is the striking picture
presented by Isaiah (5:1-7), in which the well provided vineyard is
shown as producing wild grapes only, for which grievous disappointment
of his expectations the owner determined to break down the wall, remove
the hedge, and leave the vineyard to its fate of abandonment. The
explication of the parable voiced by Isaiah is thus given: "For the
vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of
Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgment, but behold
oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry." The worthlessness of a
vine save only for its fruit was set forth by the Lord through His
prophet Ezekiel (15:2-5); and truly it is so, that the wood of the grape
plant is fit for nothing but burning; the whole vine as wood is inferior
to a branch from a forest tree (verse 3). And Israel is represented as
such a vine, precious if but fruitful, otherwise nothing but fuel and
that of poor quality. The psalmist sang of the vine that Jehovah had
brought out of Egypt and which, planted with care and hedged about, had
flourished even with goodly boughs; but the favor of the Lord had been
turned from the vine, and it had been left desolate (Psalm 80:8-16). For
further allusions see Isa. 27:2-6; Jer. 2:21; Ezek. 19:10-14; Hosea
10:1.

4. The Call to the Marriage Feast.--The calling of the guests who had
been bidden aforetime is thus commented upon by Trench (_Parables_, pp.
175-6): "This summoning of those already bidden, was, and, as modern
travellers attest, is still, quite in accordance with Eastern manners.
Thus Esther invites Haman to a banquet on the morrow (Esth. 5:8), and
when the time has actually arrived, the chamberlain comes to usher him
to the banquet (6:14). There is, therefore, no slightest reason why we
should make '_them that were bidden_' to mean them that were now _to be
bidden_; such an interpretation not merely violating all laws of
grammar, but the higher purpose with which the parable was spoken; for
our Lord, assuming that the guests had been invited long ago, does thus
remind His hearers that what He brought, if in one sense new, was in
another a fulfilment of the old; that He claimed to be heard, not as one
suddenly starting up, unconnected with aught which had gone before but
as Himself 'the end of the law,' to which it had been ever tending, the
birth with which the whole Jewish dispensation had been pregnant, and
which alone should give a meaning to it all. In His words, '_them that
were bidden_,' is involved the fact that there was nothing abrupt in the
coming of His kingdom, that its rudiments had a long while before been
laid, that all to which His adversaries clung as precious in their past
history was prophetic of blessings now actually present to them in Him.
The original invitation, which had now come to maturity, reached back to
the foundation of the Jewish commonwealth, was taken up and repeated by
each succeeding prophet, as he prophesied of the crowning grace that
should one day be brought to Israel (Luke 10:24; 1 Pet. 1:12), and
summoned the people to hold themselves in a spiritual readiness to
welcome their Lord and their King."

5. Servants and Ministers.--According to good philological authority,
"ministers" or "ministering attendants" is a more literal rendering of
the original than "servants" in Matt. 22:13. In the earlier verses 3, 4,
6, 8, 10, of the same chapter, "servants" or "servitors" best expresses
the meaning of the original. The distinction is significant, as it
implies an important difference of station between the servants who were
sent out to bid the people to the feast, and the ministers in immediate
attendance upon the king. The first are typical of God's servants who
proclaim His word in the world; the latter symbolize the angels who
shall execute His judgments on the wicked by gathering out from His
kingdom all things that offend. Compare Matt. 13:30, 39, 41; Doc. and
Cov. 86:5.

6. The Called and the Chosen.--Edersheim's reflections upon this subject
follow in part (vol. ii, pp. 429, 430): "The King entered to see His
guests, and among them he descried one who had not on a wedding
garment.... As the guests had been travelers, and as the feast was in
the King's palace, we cannot be mistaken in supposing that such garments
were supplied in the palace to all who sought them. And with this agrees
the circumstance, that the man so addressed 'was speechless.' His
conduct argued utter insensibility as regarded that to which he had been
called--ignorance of what was due the King, and what became such a
feast. For, although no previous state of preparedness was required of
the invited guests, all being bidden, whether good or bad, yet the fact
remained that, if they were to take part in the feast they must put on a
garment suited to the occasion. All are invited to the gospel feast; but
they who will partake of it must put on the King's wedding garment of
evangelical holiness. And whereas it is said in the parable that only
one was descried without this garment, this is intended to teach, that
the King will not only generally view His guests, but that each will be
separately examined, and that no one--no, not a single individual--will
be able to escape discovery amidst the mass of guests, if he has not the
wedding garment. In short, in that day of trial, it is not a scrutiny of
churches, but of individuals in the Church.... The call comes to all;
but it may be outwardly accepted, and a man may sit down to the feast,
and yet he may not be chosen to partake of the feast, because he has not
the wedding garment of converting, sanctifying grace. And so, one may be
thrust even from the marriage board into the darkness without, with its
sorrow and anguish. Thus, side by side, yet wide apart, are these
two--God's call and God's choice. The connecting link between them is
the wedding garment, freely given in the Palace. Yet, we must seek it,
ask it, put it on. And as here also, we have, side by side, God's gift
and man's activity. And still, to all time, and to all men, alike in its
warning, teaching, and blessing, is it true: 'Many are called, but few
chosen!' Many words of related meaning, both Hebrew and Greek, are
translated 'garment' in our English Bible. The Greek original in the
mention of the wedding garment is _enduma_; this does not occur in other
Bible passages as the original of 'garment.' The noun is related to the
Greek verb _enduein_, 'to put on, as a garment.' Compare Luke 24:49,
'until ye be endued with power from on high.'"

FOOTNOTES:

[1080] Matt. 21:18-22; Mark 11:12-14, 20-26.

[1081] Note 1, end of chapter.

[1082] Page 240.

[1083] "Bethphage," the name of a village close to Bethany, and
therefore near to the Mount of Olives, means "house of figs." See
mention, Matt. 21:1; Mark 11:1; Luke 19:29. "Bethany" signifies "house
of dates." For "house" in the literal translation we may read "place."

[1084] Luke 13:6-9; page 443 herein.

[1085] Matt. 21:12, 13: Mark 11:15-17; Luke 19:45, 46.

[1086] John 2:14-17; pages 153-158 herein.

[1087] Matt. 21:16; compare Psalm 8:2; see also Matt. 11:25; 1 Cor.
1:27.

[1088] Matt. 21:23-27; Mark 11:27-33; Luke 20:1-8.

[1089] John 2:18-21; page 156 herein.

[1090] Matt. 21:28-32.

[1091] Note 2, end of chapter.

[1092] Luke 3:12; compare 7:29; see page 123 herein.

[1093] Matt. 3:7.

[1094] Matt. 21:33-41; compare Mark 12:1-9; Luke 20:9-16.

[1095] Note 3, end of chapter.

[1096] Compare Luke 11:47, 48; Matt. 23:29-33.

[1097] Matt. 21:42-44; see also Mark 12:10, 11; Luke 20:17, 18; compare
Psalm 118:22; Isa. 28:16; Acts 4:11; Eph. 2:20; 1 Peter 2:6, 7.

[1098] Compare Dan. 2:44, 45; Isa. 60:12.

[1099] Matt. 22:1-10.

[1100] Note 4, end of chapter.

[1101] Compare Matt. 25:10; 2 Cor. 11:2; Eph. 5:32; Rev. 19:7; 21:2, 9.

[1102] Luke 14:16-24; page 450 herein.

[1103] Compare page 416.

[1104] Note 5, end of chapter.

[1105] Matt. 22:14; compare 20:16; see page 481. Note 6, end of chapter.




CHAPTER 31.

THE CLOSE OF OUR LORD'S PUBLIC MINISTRY.


A CONSPIRACY OF PHARISEES AND HERODIANS.[1106]

The Jewish authorities continued unceasingly active in their determined
efforts to tempt or beguile Jesus into some act or utterance on which
they could base a charge of offense, under either their own or Roman
law. The Pharisees counseled together as to "how they might entangle him
in his talk"; and then, laying aside their partisan prejudices, they
conspired to this end with the Herodians, a political faction whose
chief characteristic was the purpose of maintaining in power the family
of the Herods,[1107] which policy of necessity entailed the upholding of
the Roman power, upon which the Herods depended for their delegated
authority. The same incongruous association had been entered into before
in an attempt to provoke Jesus to overt speech or action in Galilee; and
the Lord had coupled the parties together in His warning to the
disciples to beware of the leaven of both.[1108] So, on the last day of
our Lord's teaching in public, Pharisees and Herodians joined forces
against Him; the one watchful for the smallest technical infringement of
the Mosaic law, the other alert to seize upon the slightest excuse for
charging Him with disloyalty to the secular powers. Their plans were
conceived in treachery, and put into operation as the living embodiment
of a lie. Choosing some of their number who had not before appeared in
personal antagonism to Jesus, and who were supposed to be unknown to
Him, the chief conspirators sent these with instructions to "feign
themselves just men, that they might take hold of his words, that so
they might deliver him unto the power and authority of the governor."

This delegation of hypocritical spies came asking a question, in
pretended sincerity, as though they were troubled in conscience and
desired counsel of the eminent Teacher. "Master," said they with fawning
duplicity, "we know that thou art true, and teachest the way of God in
truth, neither carest thou for any man: for thou regardest not the
person of men." This studied tribute to our Lord's courage and
independence of thought and action was truthful in every word; but as
uttered by those fulsome dissemblers and in their nefarious intent, it
was egregiously false. The honeyed address, however, by which the
conspirators attempted to cajole the Lord into unwariness, indicated
that the question they were about to submit was one requiring for its
proper answer just such qualities of mind as they pretendingly
attributed to Him.

"Tell us therefore," they continued, "What thinkest thou? Is it lawful
to give tribute unto Cæsar, or not?" The question had been chosen with
diabolic craft; for of all acts attesting compulsory allegiance to Rome
that of having to pay the poll-tax was most offensive to the Jews. Had
Jesus answered "Yes," the guileful Pharisees might have inflamed the
multitude against Him as a disloyal son of Abraham; had His answer been
"No," the scheming Herodians could have denounced Him as a promoter of
sedition against the Roman government. Moreover the question was
unnecessary; the nation, both rulers and people had settled it, however
grudgingly, for they accepted and circulated among themselves the Roman
coinage as a common medium of exchange; and it was a criterion of
recognition among the Jews that to make current the coins of any
sovereign was to acknowledge his royal authority. "But Jesus perceived
their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites?" All their
artful expressions of false adulation were countered by the withering
epithet "hypocrites." "Shew me the tribute money," He commanded, and
they produced a penny--a Roman denarius bearing the effigy and name of
Tiberius Cæsar, emperor of Rome. "Whose is this image and
superscription?" He asked. They answered "Cæsar's." "Then saith he unto
them, Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's; and unto
God the things that are God's."[1109]

The reply was a masterly one by whatever standard we gage it; it has
become an aphorism in literature and life. It swept away any lingering
thought or expectation that in the mind of Him who had so recently
ridden into Jerusalem as King of Israel and Prince of Peace, there was
even the semblance of aspiration for earthly power or dominion. It
established for all time the one righteous basis of relationship between
spiritual and secular duties, between church and state. The apostles in
later years builded upon this foundation and enjoined obedience to the
laws of established governments.[1110]

One may draw a lesson if he will, from the association of our Lord's
words with the occurrence of Cæsar's image on the coin. It was that
effigy with its accompanying superscription that gave special point to
His memorable instruction, "Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which
are Cæsar's." This was followed by the further injunction: "and unto God
the things that are God's." Every human soul is stamped with the image
and superscription of God, however blurred and indistinct the lines may
have become through the corrosion or attrition of sin;[1111] and as unto
Cæsar should be rendered the coins upon which his effigy appeared, so
unto God should be given the souls that bear His image. Render unto the
world the stamped pieces that are made legally current by the insignia
of worldly powers, and give unto God and His service, yourselves--the
divine mintage of His eternal realm.

Pharisees and Herodians were silenced by the unanswerable wisdom of the
Lord's reply to their crafty question. Try as they would, they could not
"take hold of his words," and they were put to shame before the people
who were witnesses to their humiliation. Marveling at His answer, and
unwilling to take the chance of further and possibly greater
embarrassment, they "left him, and went their way." Nevertheless these
perverted Jews persisted in their base and treacherous purpose, as
appears nowhere more glaringly evident than in their utterly false
accusation before Pilate--that Jesus was guilty of "forbidding to give
tribute to Cæsar, saying that he himself is Christ a King."[1112]


SADDUCEES QUESTION ABOUT THE RESURRECTION.[1113]

Next, the Sadducees tried to discomfit Jesus by propounding what they
regarded as an involved if not indeed a very difficult question. The
Sadducees held that there could be no bodily resurrection, on which
point of doctrine as on many others, they were the avowed opponents of
the Pharisees.[1114] The question submitted by the Sadducees on this
occasion related directly to the resurrection, and was framed to
discredit the doctrine by a most unfavorable and grossly exaggerated
application thereof. "Master," said the spokesman of the party, "Moses
said, If a man die, having no children, his brother shall marry his
wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. Now there were with us seven
brethren: and the first, when he had married a wife, deceased, and,
having no issue, left his wife unto his brother: Likewise the second
also, and the third, unto the seventh. And last of all the woman died
also. Therefore in the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the
seven? for they all had her." It was beyond question that the Mosaic law
authorized and required that the living brother of a deceased and
childless husband should marry the widow with the purpose of rearing
children to the name of the dead, whose family lineage would thus be
legally continued.[1115] Such a state of affairs as that presented by
the casuistical Sadducees, in which seven brothers in succession had as
wife and left as childless widow the same woman, was possible under the
Mosaic code relating to levirate marriages; but it was a most improbable
instance.

Jesus stopped not, however, to question the elements of the problem as
presented to Him; whether the case was assumed or real mattered not,
since the question "Whose wife shall she be?" was based on an utterly
erroneous conception. "Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not
knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection
they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of
God in heaven." The Lord's meaning was clear, that in the resurrected
state there can be no question among the seven brothers as to whose wife
for eternity the woman shall be, since all except the first had married
her for the duration of mortal life only, and primarily for the purpose
of perpetuating in mortality the name and family of the brother who
first died. Luke records the Lord's words as follows in part: "But they
which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the
resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage:
Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and
are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection." In the
resurrection there will be no marrying nor giving in marriage; for all
questions of marital status must be settled before that time, under the
authority of the Holy Priesthood, which holds the power to seal in
marriage for both time and eternity.[1116]

From the case presented by His treacherous questioners, Jesus turned to
the actuality of the resurrection, which was involved in and implied by
the inquiry. "But as touching the resurrection of the dead," said He,
"have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am
the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is
not the God of the dead, but of the living." This was a direct assault
upon the Sadducean doctrine of negation concerning the literal
resurrection of the dead. The Sadducees were distinctively the zealous
upholders of the law, wherein Jehovah affirms Himself to be the God of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob;[1117] yet they denied the possible
resurrection of these patriarchs, and made the exalted title, under
which the Lord had revealed Himself to Moses, valid only during the
brief mortal existence of the progenitors of the Israelitish nation. The
declaration that Jehovah is not the God of the dead but of the living
was an unanswerable denunciation of the Sadducean perversion of
scripture; and with solemn finality the Lord added: "Ye therefore do
greatly err." Certain of the scribes present were impressed by the
incontrovertible demonstration of the truth, and exclaimed with
approbation: "Master, thou hast well said." The proud Sadducees were
confuted and silenced; "and after that they durst not ask him any
question at all."


THE GREAT COMMANDMENT.[1118]

The Pharisees, covertly rejoicing over the discomfiture of their rivals,
now summoned courage enough to plan another attack of their own. One of
their number, a lawyer, by which title we may understand one of the
scribes who was distinctively also a professor of ecclesiastical law,
asked: "Which is the first commandment of all?" or, as Matthew states
the question: "Master, which is the great commandment in the law?" The
reply was prompt, incisive, and so comprehensive as to cover the
requirements of the law in their entirety. With the imperative call to
attention with which Moses had summoned Israel to hear and heed,[1119]
the very words of which were written on the phylacteries[1120] which the
Pharisees wore as frontlets between their eyes, Jesus answered: "Hear, O
Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind,
and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second
is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is
none other commandment greater than these." Matthew's wording of the
concluding declaration is: "On these two commandments hang all the law
and the prophets."

The philosophic soundness of the Lord's profound generalization and
comprehensive summarizing of the "law and the prophets"[1121] will
appeal to all students of human nature. It is a common tendency of man
to reach after, or at least to inquire after and marvel about, the
superlative. Who is the greatest poet, philosopher, scientist, preacher
or statesman? Who stands first and foremost in the community, the
nation, or even, as the apostles in their aspiring ignorance asked, in
the kingdom of heaven? Which mountain overtops all the rest? Which river
is the longest or the largest? Such queries are ever current. The Jews
had divided and subdivided the commandments of the law, and had
supplemented even the minutest subdivision with rules of their own
contriving. Now came the Pharisee asking which of all these requirements
was the greatest.[1122] To love God with all one's heart and soul and
mind is to serve Him and keep all His commandments. To love one's
neighbor as one's self is to be a brother in the broadest and, at the
same time, the most exacting sense of the term. Therefore the
commandment to love God and man is the greatest, on the basis of the
simple and mathematical truth that the whole is greater than any part.
What need of the decalog could there be if mankind would obey this first
and great and all-embracing commandment? The Lord's reply to the
question was convincing even to the learned scribe who had acted as
spokesman for his Pharisaic colleagues. The man was honest enough to
admit the righteousness and wisdom on which the reply was grounded, and
impulsively he voiced acceptance, saying, "Well, Master, thou hast said
the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but he: And to
love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with
all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as
himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices." Jesus
was no whit less prompt than the well-intending scribe in acknowledging
merit in the words of an opponent; and to the man He gave the
encouraging assurance: "Thou art not far from the kingdom of God." As to
whether the scribe remained firm in purpose and eventually gained
entrance into that blessed abode, the scriptural record is silent.


JESUS TURNS QUESTIONER.[1123]

Sadducees, Herodians, Pharisees, lawyers, and scribes, all had in turn
met discomfiture and defeat in their efforts to entangle Jesus on
questions of doctrine or practise, and had utterly failed to incite Him
to any act or utterance on which they could lawfully charge Him with
offense. Having so effectually silenced all who had ventured to
challenge Him to debate, either covertly or with open intent, that "no
man after that durst ask him any question," Jesus in turn became the
aggressive interrogator. Turning to the Pharisees, who had clustered
together for greater facility in consultation, Jesus began a colloquy
which proceeded as follows:

"What think ye of Christ? whose son is he? They say unto him, The son of
David. He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit call him Lord,
saying, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I
make thine enemies thy footstool? If David then call him Lord, how is he
his son?" The Lord's citation of David's jubilant and worshipful song of
praise, which, as Mark avers, Jesus said was inspired by the Holy Ghost,
had reference to the Messianic psalm[1124] in which the royal singer
affirmed his own reverent allegiance, and extolled the glorious reign of
the promised King of kings, who is specifically called therein "a priest
forever after the order of Melchizedek."[1125] Puzzling as was the
unexpected question to the erudite Jews, we fail to perceive in it any
inexplicable difficulty, since to us, less prejudiced than they who
lived in expectation of a Messiah who would be David's son only in the
sense of family descent and royal succession in the splendor of temporal
rule, the eternal Godship of the Messiah is a fact demonstrated and
undeniable. Jesus the Christ is the Son of David in the physical way of
lineage by which both Jesus and David are sons of Jacob, Isaac, Abraham,
and Adam. But while Jesus was born in the flesh as late in the centuries
as the "meridian of time"[1126] He was Jehovah, Lord and God, before
David, Abraham, or Adam was known on earth.[1127]


WICKED SCRIBES AND PHARISEES DENOUNCED.[1128]

The humiliating defeat of the Pharisaic party was made all the more
memorable and bitter by the Lord's final denunciation of the system, and
His condemnation of its unworthy representatives. Addressing Himself
primarily to the disciples, yet speaking in the hearing of the
multitude, He directed the attention of all to the scribes and
Pharisees, who, He pointed out, occupied the seat of Moses as doctrinal
expounders and official administrators of the law, and who were
therefore to be obeyed in their authoritative rule; but against their
pernicious example the disciples were forcefully warned. "All therefore
whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do," said the Lord,
"but do not ye after their works; for they say, and do not." Distinction
between due observance of official precept and the personal
responsibility of following evil example, though it be that of men high
in authority, could not have been made plainer. Disobedience to law was
not to be excused because of corruption among the law's representatives,
nor was wickedness in any individual to be condoned or palliated because
of another's villainy.

In explanation of the caution He so openly blazoned against the vices of
the rulers, the Lord continued: "For they bind heavy burdens and
grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they
themselves will not move them with one of their fingers." Rabbinism had
practically superseded the law in the substitution of multitudinous
rules and exactions, with conditional penalties; the day was filled with
traditional observances by which even the trivial affairs of life were
encumbered; yet from bearing these and other grievous burdens
hypocritical officials could find excuse for personal exemption.

Their inordinate vanity and their irreverent assumption of excessive
piety were thus stigmatized: "But all their works they do for to be seen
of men: they make broad their phylacteries,[1129] and enlarge the
borders of their garments, and love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and
the chief seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the markets, and to
be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi." The high-sounding title, Rabbi,
signifying Master, Teacher, or Doctor, had eclipsed the divinely
recognized sanctity of priesthood; to be a rabbi of the Jews was
regarded as vastly superior to being a priest of the Most High
God.[1130] "But be not ye called Rabbi," said Jesus to the apostles and
the other disciples present, "for one is your Master, even Christ; and
all ye are brethren. And call no man your father upon the earth: for one
is your Father, which is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters: for
one is your Master, even Christ."[1131]

Those upon whom would rest the responsibility of building the Church He
had founded were not to aspire to worldly titles nor the honors of men;
for those chosen ones were brethren, and their sole purpose should be
the rendering of the greatest possible service to their one and only
Master. As had been so strongly impressed on earlier occasions,
excellence or supremacy in the apostolic calling, and similarly in the
duties of discipleship or membership in the Church of Christ, was and is
to be achieved through humble and devoted service alone; therefore said
the Master again, "he that is greatest among you shall be your servant.
And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall
humble himself shall be exalted."

From the mixed multitude of disciples and unbelievers, comprizing many
of the common people who listened in glad eagerness to learn,[1132]
Jesus turned to the already abashed yet angry rulers, and deluged them
with a veritable torrent of righteous indignation, through which flashed
the lightning of scorching invective, accompanied by thunder peals of
divine anathema.

"But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the
kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither
suffer ye them that are entering to go in." The Pharisaic standard of
piety was the learning of the schools; one unversed in the
technicalities of the law was accounted as unacceptable to God and
veritably accursed.[1133] By their casuistry and perverted explications
of scripture they confused and misled the "common people," and so stood
as obstacles at the entrance to the kingdom of God, refusing to go in
themselves and barring the way to others.

"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows'
houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive
the greater damnation."[1134] The avarice of the Jewish hierarchy in our
Lord's lifetime was an open scandal. By extortion and unlawful exaction
under cover of religious duty the priestly rulers had amassed an
enormous treasure,[1135] of which the contributions of the poor, and the
confiscation of property, including even the houses of dependent widows,
formed a considerable proportion; and the perfidy of the practise was
made the blacker by the outward pretense of sanctity and the
sacrilegious accompaniment of wordy prayer.

"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and
land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold
more the child of hell than yourselves." It is possible that this woe
was directed more against the effort to secure proselytes to Pharisaism
than that of converting aliens to Judaism; but as the latter was
thoroughly degraded and the former disgustingly corrupt, the application
of our Lord's denunciation to either or both is warranted. Of the Jews
who strove to make proselytes it has been said that "out of a bad
heathen they made a worse Jew." Many of their converts soon became
perverts.

"Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the
temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the
temple, he is a debtor! Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the
gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold? And, Whosoever shall
swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever sweareth by the gift
that is upon it, he is guilty. Ye fools and blind: for whether is
greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift? Whoso
therefore shall swear by the altar, sweareth by it, and by all things
thereon. And whoso shall swear by the temple, sweareth by it, and by him
that dwelleth therein. And he that shall swear by heaven, sweareth by
the throne of God, and by him that sitteth thereon." Thus did the Lord
condemn the infamous enactments of the schools and the Sanhedrin
concerning oaths and vows; for they had established or endorsed a code
of rules, inconsistent and unjust, as to technical trifles by which a
vow could be enforced or invalidated. If a man swore by the temple, the
House of Jehovah, he could obtain an indulgence for breaking his oath;
but if he vowed by the gold and treasure of the Holy House, he was bound
by the unbreakable bonds of priestly dictum. Though one should swear by
the altar of God, his oath could be annulled; but if he vowed by the
corban gift or by the gold upon the altar,[1136] his obligation was
imperative. To what depths of unreason and hopeless depravity had men
fallen, how sinfully foolish and how wilfully blind were they, who saw
not that the temple was greater than its gold, and the altar than the
gift that lay upon it! In the Sermon on the Mount the Lord had said
"Swear not at all";[1137] but upon such as would not live according to
that higher law, upon those who persisted in the use of oaths and vows,
the lesser and evidently just requirement of strict fidelity to the
terms of self-assumed obligations was to be enforced, without
unrighteous quibble or inequitable discrimination.

"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of
mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the
law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to
leave the other undone. Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and
swallow a camel." The law of the tithe had been a characteristic feature
of the theocratic requirements in Israel from the days of Moses; and the
practise really long antedated the exodus. As literally construed, the
law required the tithing of flocks and herds, fruit and grain,[1138] but
by traditional extension all products of the soil had been included. The
conscientious tithing of all one's possessions, even pot-herbs and other
garden produce, was approved by the Lord; but He denounced as rank
hypocrisy the observance of such requirements as an excuse for
neglecting the other duties of true religion. The reference to "the
weightier matters of the law" may have been an allusion to the
rabbinical classification of "light" and "heavy" requirements under the
law; though it is certain the Lord approved no such arbitrary
distinctions. To omit the tithing of small things, such as mint leaves,
and sprigs of anise and cummin, was to fall short in dutiful observance;
but to ignore the claims of judgment, mercy, and faith, was to forfeit
one's claim to blessing as a covenant child of God. By a strong simile,
the Lord stigmatized such inconsistency as comparable to one's
scrupulous straining at a gnat while figuratively willing to gulp down a
camel.[1139]

"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the
outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of
extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is
within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean
also."[1140] Pharisaic scrupulosity in the ceremonial cleansing of
platters and cups, pots and brazen vessels, has been already alluded to.
Cleanliness the Lord in no wise depreciated; His shafts of
disapprobation were aimed at the hypocrisy of maintaining at once
outward spotlessness and inward corruption. Cups and platters though
cleansed to perfection were filthy before the Lord if their contents had
been bought by the gold of extortion, or were to be used in pandering to
gluttony, drunkenness or other excess.

"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto
whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within
full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also
outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy
and iniquity." It was an awful figure, that of likening them to
whitewashed tombs, full of dead bones and rotting flesh. As the dogmas
of the rabbis made even the slightest contact with a corpse or its
cerements, or with the bier upon which it was borne, or the grave in
which it had been lain, a cause of personal defilement, which only
ceremonial washing and the offering of sacrifices could remove, care was
taken to make tombs conspicuously white, so that no person need be
defiled through ignorance of proximity to such unclean places; and,
moreover, the periodical whitening of sepulchres was regarded as a
memorial act of honor to the dead. But even as no amount of care or
degree of diligence in keeping bright the outside of a tomb could stay
the putrescence going on within, so no externals of pretended
righteousness could mitigate the revolting corruption of a heart reeking
with iniquity. Jesus had before compared Pharisees with unmarked graves,
over which men inadvertently walked and so became defiled though they
knew it not;[1141] on the occasion now under consideration He denounced
them as whitened tombs, flauntingly prominent, but sepulchres
nevertheless.

"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the
tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, And
say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been
partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye be
witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed
the prophets." National pride, not wholly unlike patriotism, had for
centuries expressed itself in formal regard for the burial crypts of the
ancient prophets, many of whom had been slain because of their righteous
and fearless zeal. Those modern Jews were voluble to disavow all
sympathy with the murderous deeds of their progenitors, who had martyred
the prophets, and ostentatiously averred that if they had lived in the
times of those martyrdoms they would have been no participators therein,
yet by such avouchment they proclaimed themselves the offspring of those
who had shed innocent blood.

With scorching maledictions the Lord thus consigned them to their fate:
"Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye generation
of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? Wherefore, behold, I
send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye
shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your
synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: That upon you may come
all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous
Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between
the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall
come upon this generation." To their sanctimonious asseverations of
superiority over their fathers who had slain Jehovah's envoys, Jehovah
Himself replied by predicting that they would dye their hands in the
blood of prophets, wise men, and righteous scribes, whom He would send
amongst them; and thus would they prove themselves literal sons of
murderers, and murderers themselves, so that upon them should rest the
burden of all the righteous blood that had been shed for a testimony of
God, from righteous Abel to the martyred Zacharias.[1142] That dread
fate, outlined with such awful realism, was to be no eventuality of the
distant future; every one of the frightful woes the Lord had uttered was
to be realized in that generation.


THE LORD'S LAMENTATION OVER JERUSALEM.[1143]

Concerning scribes, Pharisees, and Pharisaism, Jesus had uttered His
last word. Looking from the temple heights out over the city of the
great King, soon to be abandoned to destruction, the Lord was obsessed
by emotions of profound sorrow. With the undying eloquence of anguish He
broke forth in such a lamentation as no mortal father ever voiced over
the most unfilial and recreant of sons.

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest
them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy
children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings,
and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I
say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed
is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." Had Israel but received her
King, the world's history of post-meridian time would never have been
what it is. The children of Israel had spurned the proffered safety of a
protecting paternal wing; soon the Roman eagle would swoop down upon
them and slay. The stupendous temple, which but a day before the Lord
had called "My house," was now no longer specifically His; "Your house,"
said He, "is left unto you desolate." He was about to withdraw from both
temple and nation; and by the Jews His face was not again to be seen,
until, through the discipline of centuries of suffering they shall be
prepared to acclaim in accents of abiding faith, as some of them had
shouted but the Sunday before under the impulse of an erroneous
conception, "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord."


A WIDOW'S GIFT.[1144]

From the open courts Jesus moved over toward the colonnaded treasury of
the temple, and there He sat, seemingly absorbed in a revery of sorrow.
Within that space were thirteen chests, each provided with a
trumpet-shaped receptacle; and into these the people dropped their
contributions for the several purposes indicated by inscriptions on the
boxes. Looking up, Jesus observed the lines of donors, of all ranks and
degrees of affluence and poverty, some depositing their gifts with
evident devoutness and sincerity of purpose, others ostentatiously
casting in great sums of silver and gold, primarily to be seen of men.
Among the many was a poor widow, who with probable effort to escape
observation dropped into one of the treasure-chests two small bronze
coins known as mites; her contribution amounted to less than half a cent
in American money. The Lord called His disciples about Him, directed
their attention to the poverty-stricken widow and her deed, and said:
"Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all
they which have cast into the treasury: For all they did cast in of
their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even
all her living."

In the accounts kept by the recording angels, figured out according to
the arithmetic of heaven, entries are made in terms of quality rather
than of quantity, and values are determined termined on the basis of
capability and intent. The rich gave much yet kept back more; the
widow's gift was her all. It was not the smallness of her offering that
made it especially acceptable, but the spirit of sacrifice and devout
intent with which she gave. On the books of the heavenly accountants
that widow's contribution was entered as a munificent gift, surpassing
in worth the largess of kings. "For if there be first a willing mind, it
is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he
hath not."[1145]


CHRIST'S FINAL WITHDRAWAL FROM THE TEMPLE.

Our Lord's public discourses and the open colloquies in which He had
participated with professionals and priestly officials, in the course of
His daily visits to the temple during the first half of Passion week,
had caused many of the chief rulers, beside others, to believe on Him as
the veritable Son of God; but the fear of Pharisaic persecution and the
dread of excommunication from the synagog[1146] deterred them from
confessing the allegiance they felt, and from accepting the means of
salvation so freely offered. "They loved the praise of men more than the
praise of God."[1147]

It may have been while Jesus directed His course for the last time
toward the exit portal of the one-time holy place that He uttered the
solemn testimony of His divinity recorded by John.[1148] Crying with a
loud voice to priestly rulers and the multitude generally, He said: "He
that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on him that sent me. And
he that seeth me seeth him that sent me." Allegiance to Himself was
allegiance to God; the people were plainly told that to accept Him was
in no degree a weakening of their adherence to Jehovah, but on the
contrary a confirmation thereof. Repeating precepts of earlier
utterance, He again proclaimed Himself the light of the world, by whose
rays alone mankind might be delivered from the enveloping darkness of
spiritual unbelief. The testimony He left with the people would be the
means of judgment and condemnation to all who wilfully rejected it.
"For," said He in solemn finality, "I have not spoken of myself; but the
Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and
what I should speak. And I know that his commandment is life
everlasting; whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto
me, so I speak."


DESTRUCTION OF THE TEMPLE PREDICTED.[1149]

As Jesus was departing from the enclosure wherein stood what once had
been the House of the Lord, one or more of the disciples called His
attention to the magnificent structures, the massive stones, the
colossal columns, and the lavish and costly adornment of the several
buildings. The Lord's answering comment was an unqualified prophecy of
the utter destruction of the temple and everything pertaining to it.
"Verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon
another, that shall not be thrown down." Such was the definite and dire
prediction. Those who heard were dumbfounded; neither by question nor
other response did they attempt to elicit more. The literal fulfilment
of that awful portent was but an incident in the annihilation of the
city less than forty years later.

With the Lord's final departure from the temple, which probably occurred
in the afternoon of the Tuesday of that last week, His public ministry
was brought to its solemn ending. Whatever of discourse, parable, or
ordinance was to follow, would be directed only to the further
instruction and investiture of the apostles.


NOTES TO CHAPTER 31.

1. The Image on the Coin.--The Jews had an aversion for images or
effigies in general, the use of which they professed to hold as a
violation of the second commandment. Their scruples, however, did not
deter them from accepting coins bearing the effigies of kings, even
though these monarchs were pagans. Their own coins bore other devices,
such as plants, fruits, etc., in place of a human head; and the Romans
had condescendingly permitted the issue of a special coinage for Jewish
use, each piece bearing the name but not the effigy of the monarch. The
ordinary coinage of Rome was current in Palestine, however.

2. Submission to Secular Authority.--Governments are instituted of God,
sometimes by His direct interposition, sometimes by His permission. When
the Jews had been brought into subjection by Nebuchadnezzar, king of
Babylon, the Lord commanded through the prophet Jeremiah (27:4-8) that
the people render obedience to their conqueror, whom He called His
servant; for verily the Lord had used the pagan king to chastize the
recreant and unfaithful children of the covenant. The obedience so
enjoined included the payment of taxes and extended to complete
submission. After the death of Christ the apostles taught obedience to
the powers that be, which powers, Paul declared "are ordained of God."
See Rom. 13:1-7; Titus 3:1; 1 Tim. 2:1-3; see also 1 Peter 2:13, 14.
Through the medium of modern revelation, the Lord has required of His
people in the present dispensation, obedience to and loyal support of
the duly established and existing governments in all lands. See Doc. and
Cov. 58:21-22; 98:4-6; and section 134 throughout. The restored Church
proclaims as an essential part of its belief and practise: "We believe
in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in
obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law." See _Articles of Faith_,
xxiii.

3. Marriage for Eternity.--Divine revelation in the dispensation of the
fulness of times has made plain the fact, that contracts of marriage, as
indeed all other agreements between parties in mortality, are of no
validity beyond the grave, except such contracts be ratified and
validated by the duly established ordinances of the Holy Priesthood.
Sealing in the marriage covenant for time and eternity, which has come
to be known as celestial marriage, is an ordinance established by divine
authority in the restored Church of Jesus Christ. See the author's
treatment of this subject in _Articles of Faith_, xxiv, 18-24; and
_House of the Lord_, under "Sealing in Marriage," pp. 101-109.

4. Divisions and Subdivisions of the Law.--"The Rabbinical schools, in
their meddling, carnal, superficial spirit of word-weaving and
letter-worship, had spun large accumulations of worthless subtlety all
over the Mosaic law. Among other things they had wasted their idleness
in fantastic attempts to count, and classify, and weigh, and measure all
the separate commandments of the ceremonial and moral law. They had come
to the sapient conclusion that there were 248 affirmative precepts,
being as many as the members in the human body, and 365 negative
precepts, being as many as the arteries and veins, or the days of the
year: the total being 613, which was also the number of letters in the
decalog. They arrived at the same result from the fact that the Jews
were commanded (Numb. 15:38) to wear fringes (_tsitsith_) on the corners
of their _tallith_, bound with a thread of blue; and as each fringe had
eight threads and five knots, and the letters of the word _tsitsith_
make 600, the total number of commandments was, as before 613. Now
surely, out of such a large number of precepts and prohibitions, _all_
could not be of quite the same value; some were 'light' (_kal_), and
some were 'heavy' (_kobhed_). But which? and what was the greatest
commandment of all? According to some Rabbis, the most important of all
is that about the _tephillin_ and the _tsitsith_, the fringes and
phylacteries; and 'he who diligently observes it is regarded in the same
light as if he had kept the whole Law.'

"Some thought the omission of ablutions as bad as homicide; some that
the precepts of the Mishna were all 'heavy'; those of the Law were some
'heavy' and some 'light.' Others considered the _third_ to be the
greatest commandment. None of them had realized the great principle,
that the wilful violation of one commandment is the transgression of all
(James 2:10), because the object of the entire Law is the spirit of
_obedience to God_. On the question proposed by the lawyer the
Shammaites and Hillelites were in disaccord, and, as usual, both schools
were wrong: the Shammaites, in thinking that mere trivial external
observances were valuable, apart from the spirit in which they were
performed, and the principle which they exemplified; the Hillelites, in
thinking that _any_ positive command could in itself be unimportant, and
in not seeing that great principles are essential to the due performance
of even the slightest duties."--Farrar, _Life of Christ_, chap. 52.

5. Phylacteries and Borders.--Through a traditional interpretation of
Exo. 13:9 and Deut. 6:8, the Hebrews adopted the custom of wearing
phylacteries, which consisted essentially of strips of parchment on
which were inscribed in whole or in part the following texts: Exo.
13:2-10 and 11-17; Deut. 6:4-9, and 11:13-21. Phylacteries were worn on
the head and arm. The parchment strips for the head were four, on each
of which one of the texts cited above was written. These were placed in
a cubical box of leather measuring from 1/2 inch to 1-1/2 inches along
the edge; the box was divided into four compartments and one of the
little parchment rolls was placed in each. Thongs held the box in place
on the forehead between the eyes of the wearer. The arm phylactery
comprized but a single roll of parchment on which the four prescribed
texts were written; this was placed in a little box which was bound by
thongs to the inside of the left arm so as to be brought close to the
heart when the hands were placed together in the attitude of devotion.
The Pharisees wore the arm phylactery above the elbow, while their
rivals, the Sadducees, fastened it to the palm of the hand (see Exo.
13:9). The common people wore phylacteries only at prayer time; but the
Pharisees were said to display them throughout the day. Our Lord's
reference to the Pharisees' custom of making broad their phylacteries
had reference to the enlarging of the containing box, particularly the
frontlet. The size of the parchment strips was fixed by rigid rule.

The Lord had required of Israel through Moses (Numb. 15:38) that the
people attach to the border of their garment a fringe with a ribbon of
blue. In ostentatious display of assumed piety, the scribes and
Pharisees delighted to wear enlarged borders to attract public
attention. It was another manifestation of hypocritical
sanctimoniousness.

6. Ecclesiastical Titles.--Our Lord severely condemned the seeking after
titles as insignia of rank in His service. Nevertheless He named the
Twelve whom He chose, Apostles; and in the Church founded by Himself the
offices of Evangelist, High Priest, Pastor, Elder, Bishop, Priest,
Teacher, and Deacon were established (see _Articles of Faith_, xi:1-4).
It was the empty man-made title that attached to the individual, not the
authorized title of office to which men were called through
authoritative ordination, to which the Lord affixed the seal of His
disapproval. Titles of office in the Holy Priesthood are of too sacred a
character to be used as marks of distinction among men. In the restored
Church in the current dispensation, men are ordained to the Priesthood
and to the several offices comprized within both the Lesser or Aaronic,
and the Higher or Melchizedek Priesthood; but though one be thus made an
Elder, a Seventy, a High Priest, a Patriarch or an Apostle, he should
not court the usage of the title as a mere embellishment of his name.
(See "The Honor and Dignity of Priesthood" by the author in _Improvement
Era_, Salt Lake City, March, 1914.)

Chas. F. Deems, in _The Light of the Nations_, pp. 583-4, says in
speaking of the irreverent use of ecclesiastical titles: "The Pharisees
loved also the highest places in the synagogs, and it gratified their
vanity to be called Teacher, Doctor, Rabbi. Against these Jesus warned
His disciples. They were not to love to be called Rabbi, a title which
occurs in three forms, _Rab_, Teacher, Doctor; _Rabbi_, My Doctor or
Teacher; _Rabboni_, My great Doctor. Nor were they to call any man
'Father,' in the sense of granting him any infallibility of judgment or
power over their consciences.... 'Papa,' as the simple Moravians call
their great man, Count Zinzendorf: 'Founder,' as Methodists denominate
good John Wesley; 'Holy Father in God,' as bishops are sometimes called;
'Pope,' which is the same as 'Papa'; 'Doctor of Divinity,' the Christian
equivalent of the Jewish 'Rabbi,' are all dangerous titles. But it is
not the employment of a name which Jesus denounces, it is the spirit of
vanity which animated the Pharisees, and the servile spirit which the
employment of titles is apt to engender. Paul and Peter spoke of
themselves as spiritual fathers. Jesus teaches that positions in the
societies of his followers, such as should afterward be formed, were not
to be regarded as dignities, but rather as services; that no man should
seek them for the honor they might confer, but for the field of
usefulness they might afford; and that no man should lead off a sect,
there being but one leader; and that the whole body of believers are
brethren, of whom God is the Father."

The writer last quoted very properly disparages aspirations, stimulated
by vanity and self-righteous assumption, to the use of the title
"Reverend" as applied to men.

7. Seven or Eight Woes?--Some of the early Mss. of the Gospels omit
verse 14 from Matt. 23. Such omission reduces the number of specific
utterances beginning "Woe unto you" from eight to seven. There is no
question as to the appearance in the original of the passages in Mark
12:40 and Luke 20:47, which are one in meaning with Matt. 23:14.

8. The Temple Treasure.--In connection with the incident of the widow's
mites, Edersheim (vol. ii, pp. 387-8) writes: "Some might come with
appearance of self-righteousness, some even with ostentation, some as
cheerfully performing a happy duty. 'Many that were rich cast in
much'--yes, very much, for such was the tendency that a law had to be
enacted forbidding the gift to the Temple of more than a certain
proportion of one's possessions. And the amount of such contributions
may be inferred by recalling the circumstance, that at the time of
Pompey and Crassus, the Temple treasury, after having lavishly defrayed
every possible expenditure, contained in money nearly half a million,
and precious vessels to the value of nearly two millions sterling." See
also Josephus, Antiquities xiv, 4:4; 7:1, 2.

9. Zacharias the Martyr.--In referring to the martyrs of ante-meridian
time the Lord is recorded as having used the expression "from the blood
of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye
slew between the temple and the altar" (Matt. 23:35). The Old Testament
as at present compiled, contains no mention of a martyr named Zacharias
son of Barachias, but does chronicle the martyrdom of Zechariah son of
Jehoiada (2 Chron. 24:20-22). "Zechariah" and "Zacharias" are equivalent
names. It is the opinion of most Bible scholars that the Zacharias
referred to in Matthew's record is Zechariah son of Jehoiada. In the
Jewish compilation of Old Testament scriptures, the murder of Zechariah
appears as the last recorded martyrdom; and the Lord's reference to the
righteous men who had been slain, from Abel to Zechariah or Zacharias,
may have been a sweeping inclusion of all the martyrs down to that time,
from first to last. However, we have a record of Zechariah son of
Berechiah (Zech. 1:1, 7), and this Berechiah was the son of Iddo. Then
again, Zechariah son of Iddo is mentioned (Ezra 5:1); but, as is
elsewhere found in the older scriptures, the grandson is called the son.
The Old Testament does not number this Zechariah among the martyrs, but
traditional accounts (Whitby's citation of the Targum) say that he was
killed "in the day of propitiation." That the Lord referred to a late
and probably the latest of the recorded martyrdoms is probable; and it
is equally evident that the case was well known among the Jews. It is
likely that a fuller account appeared in scriptures current among the
Jews at the time of Christ but since lost. See Note 4, page 119.

10. Destruction of the Temple.--"For thirty or more years after the
death of Christ, the Jews continued the work of adding to and
embellishing the temple buildings. The elaborate design conceived and
projected by Herod had been practically completed; the Temple was
well-nigh finished, and, as soon afterward appeared, was ready for
destruction. Its fate had been definitely foretold by the Savior
Himself. Commenting on a remark by one of the disciples concerning the
great stones and the splendid buildings on the Temple hill, Jesus had
said, 'Seest thou these great buildings? There shall not be left one
stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.' (Mark 13:1, 2; see
also Matt. 24:1, 2; Luke 21:5, 6.) This dire prediction soon found its
literal fulfilment. In the great conflict with the Roman legions under
Titus, many of the Jews had taken refuge within the Temple courts,
seemingly hoping that there the Lord would again fight the battles of
His people and give them victory. But the protecting presence of Jehovah
had long since departed therefrom and Israel was left a prey to the foe.
Though Titus would have spared the Temple, his legionaries, maddened by
the lust of conflict, started the conflagration and everything that
could be burned was burned. The slaughter of the Jews was appalling;
thousands of men, women and children were ruthlessly butchered within
the walls, and the temple courts were literally flooded with human
blood. This event occurred in the year 70 A.D.; and according to
Josephus, in the same month and on the same day of the month as that on
which the once glorious Temple of Solomon had fallen a prey to the
flames kindled by the king of Babylon. (Josephus, Wars of the Jews, vi,
4:5, 8. For a detailed and graphic account of the destruction of the
Temple see chapters 4 and 5 in their entirety.) Of the Temple furniture
the golden candlestick and the table of shewbread from the Holy Place
were carried by Titus to Rome as trophies of war; and representations of
these sacred pieces are to be seen on the arch erected to the name of
the victorious general. Since the destruction of the splendid Temple of
Herod no other structure of the kind, no Temple, no House of the Lord as
the terms are used distinctively, has been reared on the eastern
hemisphere."--_The House of the Lord_, pp. 61, 62.

Josephus ascribes the destruction of the Temple of Herod to the anger of
God, and states that the devouring flames "took their rise from the Jews
themselves, and were occasioned by them." The soldier who applied the
torch to the Holy House, which had remained intact while fire raged in
the courts, is regarded by the historian as an instrument of divine
vengeance. We read (Wars, vi, 4:5): "One of the soldiers, without
staying for any orders, and without any concern or dread upon him at so
great an undertaking, and being hurried on by a certain divine fury,
snatched somewhat out of the materials that were on fire, and being
lifted up by another soldier, he set fire to a golden window, through
which there was a passage to the rooms that were round the Holy House,
on the north side of it. As the flames went upward the Jews made a great
clamor, such as so mighty an affliction required."

FOOTNOTES:

[1106] Matt. 22:15-22; Mark 12:13-17; Luke 20:19-26.

[1107] Page 68.

[1108] Mark 3:6; 8:15.

[1109] Note 1, end of chapter.

[1110] Note 2, end of chapter.

[1111] Pages 12, 13.

[1112] Luke 23:2. Page 633.

[1113] Matt. 22:23-33; Mark 12:18-27; Luke 20:27-38.

[1114] Pages 65, 72.

[1115] Deut. 25:5.

[1116] Note 3, end of chapter.

[1117] Gen. 28:13; Exo. 3:6, 15.

[1118] Matt. 22:34-40; Mark 12:28-34.

[1119] Deut. 6:4, 5.

[1120] Note 5, page 565.

[1121] Compare page 245.

[1122] Note 4, end of chapter.

[1123] Matt. 22:41-46; Mark 12:35-37; Luke 20:41-44.

[1124] Psalm 110.

[1125] Psalm 110:4; compare Heb. 5:6; 6:20; 7:17, 21.

[1126] Chapter 6.

[1127] Chapters 4 and 5.

[1128] Matt. 23; Mark 12:38-40; Luke 20:45-47; compare Luke 11:39-52.

[1129] Note 5, end of chapter.

[1130] Pages 63, 71.

[1131] Note 6, end of chapter.

[1132] Mark 12:37.

[1133] John 7:49; compare 9:34.

[1134] Note 7, end of chapter.

[1135] Note 8, end of chapter.

[1136] Page 352.

[1137] Matt. 5:33-37; page 235 herein.

[1138] Lev. 27:30; Numb. 18:21; Deut. 12:6; 14:22-28. See also the
author's "The Law of the Tithe"; 20 pp., 1914.

[1139] The revised version, generally admitted the more nearly correct,
reads "strain out the gnat" instead of "strain at a gnat."

[1140] Compare Luke 11:39, 40; Mark 7:4; page 437 herein.

[1141] Luke 11:44.

[1142] Note 9, end of chapter.

[1143] Matt. 23:37-39; compare Luke 13:34, 35.

[1144] Mark 12:41-44; Luke 21:1-4.

[1145] 2 Cor. 8:12.

[1146] John 12:42; compare 7:13; 9:22.

[1147] John 12:43; compare 5:44.

[1148] John 12:44-50.

[1149] Matt. 24:1, 2; Mark 13:1, 2; Luke 21:5, 6. Note 10, end of
chapter.




CHAPTER 32.

FURTHER INSTRUCTION TO THE APOSTLES.


PROPHECIES RELATING TO THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM AND THE LORD'S
FUTURE ADVENT.[1150]

In the course of His last walk from Jerusalem back to the beloved home
at Bethany, Jesus rested at a convenient spot on the Mount of Olives,
from which the great city and the magnificent temple were to be seen in
fullest splendor, illumined by the declining sun in the late afternoon
of that eventful April day. As He sat in thoughtful revery He was
approached by Peter and James, John and Andrew, of the Twelve, and to
them certainly, though probably to all the apostles, He gave
instruction, embodying further prophecy concerning the future of
Jerusalem, Israel, and the world at large. His fateful prediction--that
of the temple buildings not one stone would be left upon another--had
caused the apostles to marvel and fear; so they came privately
requesting explanation. "Tell us," said they, "when shall these things
be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the
world?" The compound character of the question indicates an
understanding of the fact that the destruction of which the Lord had
spoken was to be apart from and precedent to the signs that were to
immediately herald His glorious advent and the yet later ushering in of
the consummation commonly spoken of then and now as "the end of the
world." An assumption that the events would follow in close succession
is implied by the form in which the question was put.

The inquiry referred specifically to time--when were these things to be?
The reply dealt not with dates, but with events; and the spirit of the
subsequent discourse was that of warning against misapprehension, and
admonition to ceaseless vigilance. "Take heed that no man deceive you"
was the first and all-important caution; for within the lives of most of
those apostles, many blaspheming imposters would arise, each claiming to
be the Messiah. The return of Christ to earth as Lord and Judge was more
remote than any of the Twelve realized. Before that glorious event, many
wonderful and appalling developments would be witnessed, among the
earliest of which would be wars and rumors of wars, caused by nation
rising against nation and kingdom against kingdom, to the dread
accompaniment of famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in many places;
yet all these would be but the beginning of the sorrow or travail to
follow.

They, the apostles, were told to expect persecution, not only at the
hands of irresponsible individuals, but at the instance of the officials
such as they who were at that moment intent on taking the life of the
Lord Himself, and who would scourge them in the synagogs, deliver them
up to hostile tribunals, cite them before rulers and kings, and even put
some of them to death--all because of their testimony of the Christ. As
they had been promised before, so again were they assured, that when
they would stand before councils, magistrates, or kings, the words they
should speak would be given them in the hour of their trial, and
therefore they were told to take no premeditative thought as to what
they should say or how they should meet the issues confronting them;
"for," said the Master, "it is not ye that speak, but the Holy
Ghost."[1151] Even though they found themselves despized and hated of
men, and though they were to suffer ignominy, torture, and death, yet as
to their eternal welfare they were promised such security that by
comparison they would lose not so much as a hair of their heads. In
consoling encouragement the Lord bade them possess their souls in
patience.[1152] In face of all trials and even the direst persecution,
it was incumbent upon them to persevere in their ministry, for the
divine plan provided and required that the gospel of the kingdom be
preached amongst all nations. Their labors would be complicated and
opposed by the revolutionary propaganda of many false prophets, and
differences of creed would disrupt families, and engender such
bitterness that brothers would betray one another, and children would
rise against their parents, accusing them of heresies and delivering
them up to death. Even among those who had professed discipleship to
Christ many would be offended and hatred would abound; love for the
gospel would wax cold, and iniquity would be rampant among men; and only
those who would endure to the end of their lives could be saved.

From this circumstantial forecast of conditions then directly impending,
the Lord passed to other developments that would immediately precede the
destruction of Jerusalem and the total disruption of the Jewish nation.
"When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by
Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place," said He, according to
Matthew's account, and virtually so also as stated by Mark, or "when ye
shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies" as Luke writes, "then know
that the desolation thereof is nigh." This was a specific sign that none
could misunderstand. Daniel the prophet had foreseen the desolation and
abominations thereof, which comprized the forcible cessation of temple
rites, and the desecration of Israel's shrine by pagan conquerors.[1153]

The realization of Daniel's prophetic vision was to be heralded by the
encompassing of Jerusalem by armies. Then all who would escape should
make haste; from Judea they should flee to the mountains; he who was on
the housetop would have no time to take his goods, but should hasten
down by the outer steps and flee; he who was in the field would better
leave without first returning to his house even for his clothes.
Terrible, indeed, would that day be for women hampered by the conditions
incident to approaching maternity, or the responsibility of caring for
their suckling babes. All would do well to pray that their flight be not
forced upon them in winter time; nor on the Sabbath, lest regard for the
restrictions as to Sabbath-day travel, or the usual closing of the city
gates on that day, should diminish the chances of escape. The
tribulations of the time then foreshadowed would prove to be
unprecedented in horror and would never be paralleled in all their awful
details in Israel's history; but in mercy God had decreed that the
dreadful period should be shortened for the sake of the elect believers,
otherwise no flesh of Israel would be saved alive. Multitudes were to
fall by the sword; other hosts were to be led away captive, and so be
scattered amongst all nations; and Jerusalem, the pride and boast of
degenerate Israel, should be "trodden down of the Gentiles, until the
times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." In every frightful detail was the
Lord's prediction brought to pass, as history avouches.[1154]

After the passing of those terrible times, and thence onward for a
period of unspecified duration, Satan would deceive the world through
false doctrines, spread by evil men masquerading as ministers of God,
who would continue to cry "Lo, here is Christ; or, lo, he is there"; but
against all such the Twelve were put on their guard, and through them
and other teachers, whom they would call and ordain, would the world be
warned. Deceiving prophets, emissaries of the devil, would be active,
some alluring people into the deserts, and impelling them to hermit
lives of pernicious asceticism, others insisting that Christ could be
found in the secret chambers of monastic seclusion; and some of them
showing forth through the power of Satan, such signs and wonders as "to
seduce, if it were possible, even the elect"; but of all such scheming
of the prince of evil, the Lord admonished His own: "Believe it not";
and added, "take ye heed; behold I have foretold you all things."[1155]

In the day of the Lord's advent in glory and vengeance, no man shall be
in doubt; there shall be no chance of conflicting claims by contending
sects, "For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even
unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be."[1156] The
gathering of Israel in the last days was pictured as the flocking of
eagles to the place where the body of the Church would be
established.[1157]

The chronological order of the predicted occurrences so far considered
in this wonderful discourse on things to come, is clear; first there was
to be a period of virulent persecution of the apostles and the Church of
which they would be in charge; then the destruction of Jerusalem, with
all the horrors of merciless warfare was to follow; and this in turn was
to be succeeded by a long period of priestcraft and apostasy with bitter
sectarian dissension and cruel persecution of the righteous. The brief
reference to the non-localized, universal phenomena, by which His advent
is to be signalized, is a parenthetical demonstration of the false
claims as to where Christ would be found; later the Lord passed to
distinctive and unquestionable reference to the circumstances of His
then and yet future advent. Following the age of man-made creeds, and
unauthorized ministry characteristic of the great apostasy, marvelous
occurrences are to be manifested through the forces of nature, and the
sign of the Son of Man shall ultimately appear, one accompanying feature
of which shall be the completion of the gathering of the elect from all
parts of the earth to the places appointed.

The duty that Jesus enjoined upon the apostles as of first importance
throughout all the coming scenes of sorrow, suffering and turmoil, was
that of vigilance. They were to pray, watch, and work, diligently and
with unwavering faith. The lesson was illustrated by a masterly analogy,
which, under the broadest classification, may be called a parable.
Directing their attention to the fig tree and other trees which
flourished on the sunny slopes of Olivet, the Master said: "Behold the
fig tree, and all the trees; when they now shoot forth, ye see and know
of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand. So likewise ye, when
ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is
nigh at hand." Of the fig tree in particular the Lord remarked: "When
his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer
is nigh." This sign of events near at hand was equally applicable to the
premonitory conditions which were to herald the fall of Jerusalem and
the termination of the Jewish autonomy, and to the developments by which
the Lord's second advent shall be immediately preceded.

The next declaration in the order of the evangelical record reads:
"Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these
things be fulfilled." This may be understood as applying to the
generation in which the portentous happenings before described would be
realized. So far as the predictions related to the overthrow of
Jerusalem, they were literally fulfilled within the natural lifetime of
several of the apostles and of multitudes of their contemporaries; such
of the Lord's prophecies as pertain to the heralding of His second
coming are to brought to pass within the duration of the generation of
some who witness the inauguration of their fulfilment. The certainty of
fulfilment was emphasized by the Lord in the profound affirmation:
"Heaven and Earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass
away."[1158]

All speculation concerning the time of the Lord's appearing, whether
based on assumption, deduction, or calculation of dates, was forestalled
by Christ's averment: "But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no,
not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the
Father."[1159] That His advent in power and glory is to be sudden and
unexpected to the unobserving and sinful world, but in immediate
sequence to the signs which the vigilant and devout may read and
understand, was made plain by comparison with the prevailing social
conditions of Noah's time, when in spite of prophecy and warning the
people had continued in their feasting and merry-making, in marrying and
giving in marriage, until the very day of Noah's entrance into the ark,
"And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall
also the coming of the Son of man be."

In the last stages of the gathering of the elect, the ties of
companionship shall be quickly severed; of two men laboring in the
field, or of two women engaged side by side in household duties, the
faithful one shall be taken and the sinner left. "Watch therefore," was
the solemn behest, "for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come." In
explication of this admonishment, the Lord condescended to compare the
suddenness and secrecy of His coming to the movements of a
night-prowling thief; and pointed out, that if a householder had certain
knowledge as to the time of a burglar's predetermined visit, he would
remain on vigilant watch; but because of uncertainty he may be found off
his guard, and the thief may enter and despoil the home.

Again likening the apostles to duly appointed stewards in a great
household,[1160] the Lord spoke of Himself as the householder, saying:
"The Son of man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house,
and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and
commanded the porter to watch. Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when
the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the
cockcrowing, or in the morning: Lest coming suddenly he find you
sleeping. And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch." But if the
steward grow negligent because of his master's long absence, and give
himself up to feasting and unlicensed pleasure, or become autocratic and
unjust toward his fellow-servants, his lord shall come in an hour when
least expected, and shall consign that wicked servant to a place among
the hypocrites, where he shall weep bitter tears of remorse, and gnash
his teeth in impotent despair.[1161]


THE NEED OF WATCHFULNESS AND DILIGENCE ILLUSTRATED BY PARABLES.

To more indelibly impress upon the apostles, and, through their
subsequent ministry, upon the world, the absolute need of unceasing
watchfulness and unwavering diligence in preparation for the coming of
the Lord in judgment, Jesus depicted in parables the prospective
condition of mankind in the last times. The first of these illustrative
portrayals is the _Parable of the Ten Virgins_. The only report of it we
have is that given by Matthew,[1162] as follows:

"Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which
took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. And five of
them were wise, and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their
lamps, and took no oil with them: but the wise took oil in their vessels
with their lamps. While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and
slept. And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom
cometh; go ye out to meet him. Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed
their lamps. And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil;
for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest
there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell,
and buy for yourselves. And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came;
and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door
was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord,
open to us. But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you
not. Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein
the Son of man cometh."

The story itself is based on oriental marriage customs, with which the
Lord's attentive listeners were familiar. It was and yet is common in
those lands, particularly in connection with marriage festivities among
the wealthy classes, for the bridegroom to go to the home of the bride,
accompanied by his friends in processional array, and later to conduct
the bride to her new home with a larger body of attendants composed of
groomsmen, bridesmaids, relatives and friends. As the bridal party
progressed, to the accompaniment of gladsome music, it was increased by
little groups who had gathered in waiting at convenient places along the
route, and particularly near the end of the course where organized
companies came forth to meet the advancing procession. Wedding
ceremonies were appointed for the evening and night hours; and the
necessary use of torches and lamps gave brilliancy and added beauty to
the scene.

In the parable ten maidens were waiting to welcome and join in with the
bridal company, the time of whose arrival was uncertain. Each had her
lamp attached to the end of a rod so as to be held aloft in the festal
march; but of the ten virgins five had wisely carried an extra supply of
oil, while the other five, probably counting on no great delay, or
assuming that they would be able to borrow from others, or perchance
having negligently given no thought at all to the matter, had no oil
except the one filling with which their lamps had been supplied at
starting. The bridegroom tarried, and the waiting maidens grew drowsy
and fell asleep. At midnight, the forerunners of the marriage party
loudly proclaimed the bridegroom's approach, and cried in haste: "Go ye
out to meet him." The ten maidens, no longer sleepy, but eagerly active,
set to work to trim their lamps; then the wise ones found use for the
oil in their flasks, while the thoughtless five bewailed their destitute
condition, for their lamps were empty and they had no oil for
replenishment. They appealed to their wiser sisters, asking a share of
their oil; but these declined; for, in a time of such exigency, to give
of their store would have been to render themselves unfit, inasmuch as
there was oil enough for their own lamps only. Instead of oil they could
impart only advice to their unfortunate sisters, whom they directed to
go to the nearest shop and buy for themselves. While the foolish virgins
were away in quest of oil, the wedding party passed into the house
wherein the feast was provided, and the door was shut against all tardy
comers. In time the unwise maidens, too late to participate in the
processional entry, called from without, pleading for admittance; but
the bridegroom refused their request, and disclaimed all
acquaintanceship with them, since they had not been numbered among his
attendants or those of the bride.

The Bridegroom is the Lord Jesus; the marriage feast symbolizes His
coming in glory, to receive unto Himself the Church on earth as His
bride.[1163] The virgins typify those who profess a belief in Christ,
and who, therefore, confidently expect to be included among the blessed
participants at the feast. The lighted lamp, which each of the maidens
carried, is the outward profession of Christian belief and practise; and
in the oil reserves of the wiser ones we may see the spiritual strength
and abundance which diligence and devotion in God's service alone can
insure. The lack of sufficient oil on the part of the unwise virgins is
analogous to the dearth of soil in the stony field, wherein the seed
readily sprouted but soon withered away.[1164] The Bridegroom's coming
was sudden; yet the waiting virgins were not held blamable for their
surprize at the abrupt announcement, but the unwise five suffered the
natural results of their unpreparedness. The refusal of the wise virgins
to give of their oil at such a critical time must not be regarded as
uncharitable; the circumstance typifies the fact that in the day of
judgment every soul must answer for himself; there is no way by which
the righteousness of one can be credited to another's account; the
doctrine of supererogation is wholly false.[1165] The Bridegroom's
condemnatory disclaimer, "I know you not," was equivalent to a
declaration that the imploring but neglectful ones, who had been found
unready and unprepared, did not know Him.[1166]

The application of the parable and its wealth of splendid suggestion are
summarized in a masterly manner by the Lord's impressive adjuration:
"Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the
Son of man cometh." The fulfilment of the predictions enshrined in this
precious parable is yet future, but near. In 1831 the Lord Jesus Christ
revealed anew the indications by which the imminence of His glorious
advent may be perceived. Through the mouth of His prophet Joseph Smith
He thus spake: "And at that day, when I shall come in my glory, shall
the parable be fulfilled which I spake concerning the ten virgins: for
they that are wise and have received the truth, and have taken the Holy
Spirit for their guide, and have not been deceived; verily I say unto
you, they shall not be hewn down and cast into the fire, but shall abide
the day, and the earth shall be given unto them for an inheritance; and
they shall multiply and wax strong, and their children shall grow up
without sin unto salvation, for the Lord shall be in their midst, and
his glory shall be upon them, and he will be their King and their
Lawgiver."[1167]

Still discoursing in solemn earnestness to the apostles as the evening
shadows gathered about the Mount of Olives, the Lord delivered the last
of His recorded parables. We call it the _Parable of the Entrusted
Talents_.[1168]

"For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country,
who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods. And unto
one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every
man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey.
Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the
same, and made them other five talents. And likewise he that had
received two, he also gained other two. But he that had received one
went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord's money. After a long
time the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them. And so
he that had received five talents came and brought other five talents,
saying, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents: behold, I have
gained beside them five talents more. His lord said unto him, Well done,
thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few
things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy
of thy lord. He also that had received two talents came and said, Lord,
thou deliveredst unto me two talents: behold, I have gained two other
talents beside them. His lord said unto him, Well done, good and
faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make
thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. Then
he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee
that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and
gathering where thou hast not strawed: And I was afraid, and went and
hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine. His lord
answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou
knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not
strawed: Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers,
and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury. Take
therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten
talents. For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have
abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that
which he hath. And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness:
there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

Some of the resemblances between this parable and that of the
Pounds[1169] appear on even a casual reading; significant differences
are discovered by comparison and study. The earlier parable was spoken
to a mixed multitude in the course of our Lord's last journey from
Jericho to Jerusalem; the later one was given in privacy to the most
intimate of His disciples in the closing hours of the last day of His
public preaching. The two should be studied together. In the story of
the Pounds, an equal amount of capital is given to each of the servants,
and men's diverse ability to use and apply, with commensurate results in
reward or penalty, is demonstrated; in that of the Entrusted Talents,
the servants receive different amounts, "every man according to his
several ability"; and equal diligence, though shown in one instance by
great gain and in the other by small but proportionate increase, is
equally rewarded. Unfaithfulness and negligence are condemned and
punished in both.

In the parable now under consideration, the master is presented as
delivering his wealth into the hands of his own servants, literally,
bondservants;[1170] they, as well as the possessions held by them in
trust were his. Those servants had no rights of actual ownership, nor
title of permanent proprietorship in the treasure committed to their
care; all they had, the time and opportunity to use their talents, and
they themselves, belonged to their lord. We cannot fail to perceive even
in the early incidents of the story that the Master of the servants was
the Lord Jesus; the servants, therefore, were the disciples and more
particularly the apostles, who, while of equal authority through
ordination in the Holy Priesthood, as specifically illustrated by the
earlier parable of the Pounds, were of varied ability, of diverse
personality, and unequal generally in nature and in such accomplishments
as would be called into service throughout their ministry. The Lord was
about to depart; He would return only "after a long time"; the
significance of this latter circumstance is in line with that expressed
through the parable of the Ten Virgins in the statement that the
Bridegroom tarried.

At the time of reckoning, the servants who had done well, the one with
his five talents, the other with his two, reported gladly, conscious as
they were of having at least striven to do their best. The unfaithful
servant prefaced his report with a grumbling excuse, which involved the
imputation of unrighteousness in the Master. The honest, diligent,
faithful servants saw and reverenced in their Lord the perfection of the
good qualities which they possessed in measured degree; the lazy and
unprofitable serf, afflicted by distorted vision, professed to see in
the Master his own base defects. The story in this particular, as in the
other features relating to human acts and tendencies, is psychologically
true; in a peculiar sense men are prone to conceive of the attributes of
God as comprizing in augmented degree the dominant traits of their own
nature.

Both the servant who had been entrusted with five talents and he who had
received but two were equally commended, and, as far as we are told,
were equally recompensed. The talents bestowed upon each were the gift
of his Lord, who knew well whether that servant was capable of using to
better advantage one, two, or five. Let no one conclude that good work
of relatively small scope is less necessary or acceptable than like
service of wider range. Many a man who has succeeded well in business
with small capital would have failed in the administration of vast sums;
so also in spiritual achievements "there are diversities of gifts, but
the same Spirit."[1171] Of the man endowed with many talents greater
returns were expected; of the one-talented man relatively little was
required, yet in that little he failed.[1172] At the least he could have
delivered the money to the bank, through which it would have been kept
in circulation to the benefit of the community, and would have earned
interest meanwhile. Likewise, in the spiritual application, a man
possessed of any good gift, such as musical ability, eloquence, skill in
handicraft, or the like, ought to use that gift to the full, that he or
others may be profited thereby: but should he be too neglectful to
exercize his powers in independent service, he may assist others to
profitable effort, by encouragement if by nothing more.

Who can doubt in the spirit of the Lord's teaching, that had the man
been able to report the doubling of his single talent, he would have
been as cordially commended and as richly recompensed as were his more
highly endowed and faithful fellows? It is notable that to the charge of
unrighteousness made by the unfaithful servant, the Lord deigns no
refutation; the spirit of the reply was the same as that expressed in
the earlier parable: "Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou
wicked servant."[1173] The unworthy man sought to excuse himself by the
despicable but all too common subterfuge of presumptuously charging
culpability in another, and in this instance, that other was his Lord.
Talents are not given to be buried, and then to be dug up and offered
back unimproved, reeking with the smell of earth and dulled by the
corrosion of disuse. The unused talent was justly taken from him who had
counted it as of so little worth, and was given to one, who, although
possessing much, would use the additional gift to his own profit, to the
betterment of his fellows, and to the glory of his Lord.


THE INEVITABLE JUDGMENT.[1174]

The Lord had uttered His last parable. In words of plainness, though
suffused with the beauty of effective simile, He impressed upon the
listening disciples the certainty of judgment by which the world shall
be visited in the day of His appearing. Then shall the wheat be
segregated from the tares,[1175] and the sheep divided from the goats.
"When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels
with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him
shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from
another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall
set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left." Unto those
on His right hand the King shall give commendation and blessing,
bestowing a rich recompense for their good works, as attested by the
hungry they had fed, the thirsty to whom they had given drink, the
stranger they had lodged, the naked they had clothed, the sick to whom
they had ministered, the prisoners they had visited and encouraged, all
of which mercies are accredited to them as having been rendered to their
Lord in person. The blessed company, overwhelmed by the plenitude of the
King's bounty, of which they regard themselves as undeserving, will fain
disclaim the merit attributed to them; "And the King shall answer and
say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto
one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

Unto them who wait on the left in terrified expectancy, the King shall
recount their several deficiencies, in that they had given Him neither
food nor drink, shelter nor clothing despite His need; neither had they
visited Him though ill, nor ministered unto His wants when He lay in a
prison cell. In the desperation of anguish these shall ask when and
where they had had such opportunity of comforting Him, and He shall
answer, "Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the
least of these, ye did it not to me." The righteous shall be welcomed
with "Come ye blessed of my Father"; the wicked shall hear the awful
sentence, "Depart from me ye cursed." Eternal life is the inestimable
reward; everlasting punishment the unfathomable doom.[1176]

Viewing as one discourse the two parables and the teaching that directly
followed, we find in it such unity of subject and thoroughness of
treatment as to give to the whole both beauty and worth beyond the sum
of these qualities exhibited in the several parts. Vigilant waiting in
the Lord's cause, and the dangers of unreadiness are exemplified in the
story of the virgins; diligence in work and the calamitous results of
sloth are prominent features of the tale of the talents. These two
phases of service are of reciprocal and complementary import; it is as
necessary at times to wait as at others to work. The lapse of a long
period, as while the Bridegroom tarried, and as during the Master's
absence in "a far country,"[1177] is made plain throughout as
intervening between the Lord's departure and His return in glory. The
absolute certainty of the Christ coming to execute judgment upon the
earth, in the which every soul shall receive according to his deserts,
is the sublime summary of this unparalleled discourse.


ANOTHER SPECIFIC PREDICTION OF THE LORD'S DEATH.

Following the instructions to the apostles at the resting place on
Olivet, and probably in the course of the continued walk toward Bethany
that evening, Jesus reminded the Twelve of the awful fate awaiting Him,
and specified the time of His betrayal and the manner of His death. "Ye
know," He said, "that after two days is the feast of the passover, and
the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified."[1178]


NOTES TO CHAPTER 32.

1. Early Fulfilment of the Lord's Prophecies.--As to the literal
fulfilment of the Lord's predictions relating to the times immediately
following His ascension and down to the destruction of Jerusalem, the
student must be referred to scriptural and other history. Only a brief
summary of the most notable events can be attempted here.

On the matter of wars and rumors or threats of wars, see Josephus,
Antiquities xviii, ch. 9, and Wars, ii, ch. 10. The latter reference is
to the account of the decree issued by Caligula that his statue be set
up and duly reverenced in the temple, in consequence of which the Jews
protested so strenuously that war was declared against them, but was
averted by the death of the emperor. Concerning the death of Caligula,
Josephus remarks that it "happened most happily for our nation in
particular, which would have almost utterly perished, if he had not been
suddenly slain." Other threats of war against the Jews were severally
made by the emperors Claudius and Nero.

Nation rose against nation, as for example, in the assault of Greeks and
Syrians upon the Jews, in the course of which 50,000 Jews were slain at
Selucia on the Tigris, and 20,000 at Cæsarea, 13,000 at Scythopolis, and
2,500 at Ascalon. Famine and its attendant pestilence prevailed during
the reign of Claudius, (41-54 A.D.) and such had been specifically
predicted by inspiration, through Agabus (Acts 11:28). The famine was
very severe in Palestine (Josephus, Antiquities, xx, ch. 2). Earthquakes
were of alarming frequency and of unusual severity, between the death of
Christ and the destruction of Jerusalem, particularly in Syria,
Macedonia, Campania, and Achia. See Tacitus, _Annals_, books xii and
xiv; and for account of violent seismic disturbances at Rome, see
Suetonius in his _Life of Galba_. Josephus (Wars iv, ch. 4) records a
particularly severe earthquake that disrupted parts of Judea, and was
accompanied by "amazing concussions and bellowings of the earth--a
manifest indication that some destruction was coming upon men." The
portent of "fearful sights and great signs" from heaven, as recorded by
Luke was realized in the phenomenal events chronicled by Josephus
(Preface to "Wars").

Of the persecution that befell the apostles and others, and of their
arraignment before rulers, Dr. Adam Clarke, in his commentary on
passages in Matt 24, says: "We need go no farther than the Acts of the
Apostles for the completion of these particulars. Some were delivered to
councils, as Peter and John (Acts 4:5). Some were brought before rulers
and kings, as Paul before Gallio (18:12); before Felix (ch. 24); before
Festus and Agrippa (ch. 25). Some had utterance and wisdom which their
adversaries were not able to resist; so Stephen (6:10), and Paul who
made even Felix himself tremble (24:25). Some were imprisoned, as Peter
and John (4:3). Some were beaten, as Paul and Silas (16:23). Some were
put to death, as Stephen (7:59); and James the brother of John (12:2).
But if we look beyond the book of the Acts of the Apostles, to the
bloody persecutions under Nero, we shall find these predictions still
more amply fulfilled; in these, numberless Christians fell, besides
those two champions of the faith, Peter and Paul. And it was, as says
Tertullian, a war against the very name of Christ; for he who was called
Christian had committed crime enough in bearing the name to be put to
death. So true were our Savior's words that they should be hated of all
men for His Name's sake."

Among the false prophets, and men who claimed to be the duly accredited
ministers of Christ, were Simon Magus who drew many people after him
(Acts 8:9, 13, 18-24; see also _The Great Apostasy_, 7:1, 2), Menander,
Dositheus, and Theudas, and the false apostles referred to by Paul (2
Cor. 11:13) and others, such as Hymeneus and Philetus (2 Tim. 2:17, 18).
Dummelow's _Commentary_ applies here the record by Josephus concerning
"a body of wicked men, who deceived and deluded the people under
pretense of divine inspiration, who prevailed with the multitude to act
like madmen, and went before them into the wilderness, pretending that
God would there show them the signals of victory." Compare 2 Peter 2:1;
1 John 2:18; 4:1. That the love of many did wax cold, both before and
after the destruction of Jerusalem, is attested by the facts of the
world-wide apostasy, which was the result of corruption within and
persecution from without the Church (see _The Great Apostasy_, chaps.
3-9).

The preaching of the gospel of the kingdom "in all the world" was no
less truly an essential characteristic of the apostolic period than it
is of the current or last dispensation. The rapid spread of the gospel
and the phenomenal growth of the Church under the direction of the
apostles of old, is recorded as one of the marvels of history (_Great
Apostasy_, 1:21, and citation of Eusebius). Paul, writing about thirty
years after Christ's ascension, affirms that the gospel had already been
carried to every nation, and "preached to every creature under heaven"
(Col. 1:23, compare verse 6).

The "abomination of desolation" cited by the Lord from the prophecy by
Daniel was strictly fulfilled in the investment of Jerusalem by the
Roman army (compare Luke 21:20, 21). To the Jews the ensigns and images
of the Romans were a disgusting abomination. Josephus (Wars vi, ch. 6)
states that the Roman ensigns were set up inside the temple and that the
soldiery offered sacrifices before them.

The warning to all to flee from Jerusalem and Judea to the mountains
when the armies would begin to surround the city was so generally heeded
by members of the Church, that according to the early Church writers not
one Christian perished in the awful siege (see Eusebius, _Eccles.
Hist._, book iii, ch. 5). The first siege by Gallus was unexpectedly
raised, and then, before the armies of Vespasian arrived at the walls,
all Jews who had faith in the warning given by Christ to the apostles,
and by these to the people, fled beyond Jordan, and congregated mostly
at Pella (compare Josephus, Wars ii, ch. 19).

As to the unprecedented horrors of the siege, which culminated in the
utter destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, see Josephus, Wars vi,
chaps. 3 and 4. That historian estimates the number slain in Jerusalem
alone as 1,100,000 and in other cities and rural parts a third as many
more. For details see Josephus, Wars ii, chaps. 18, 20; iii, 2, 7, 8, 9;
iv, 1, 2, 7, 8, 9; vii, 6, 9, 11. Many tens of thousands were taken
captive, to be afterward sold into slavery, or to be slain by wild
beasts, or in gladiatorial combat in the arena for the amusement of
Roman spectators.

In the course of the siege, a wall was constructed about the entire
city, thus fulfilling the Lord's prediction (Luke 19:43), "thine enemies
shall cast a trench about thee," in which, by the admittedly better
translation, "bank" or "palisade" should appear instead of "trench". In
September A.D. 70 the city fell into the hands of the Romans; and its
destruction was afterward made so thorough that its site was plowed up.
Jerusalem was "trodden down of the Gentiles", and ever since has been
under Gentile dominion, and so shall continue to be "until the times of
the Gentiles be fulfilled." (Luke 21:24.)

2. In the Deserts and in Secret Chambers.--The 24th chapter of Matthew,
and its parallel scriptures in Mark 13 and Luke 21, may be the more
easily understood if we bear in mind that the Lord therein speaks of two
distinct events, each a consummation of long ages of preparation, and
the first a prototype of the second. Many of the specific predictions
are applicable both to the time preceding or at the destruction of
Jerusalem, and to developments of succeeding time down to the second
coming of Christ. The passage in Matt. 24:26 may be given this two-fold
application. Josephus tells of men leading others away into the desert,
saying under pretended inspiration that there should they find God; and
the same historian mentions a false prophet who led many into the secret
chambers of the temple during the Roman assault, promising them that
there would the Lord give them deliverance. Men, women, and children
followed this fanatical leader, and were caught in the holocaust of
destruction, so that 6,000 of them perished in the flames (Josephus,
Wars vi, ch. 5). Concerning an application of the Lord's precepts to
later times and conditions, the author has elsewhere written (_The Great
Apostasy_, 7:22-25): One of the heresies of early origin and rapid
growth in the Church was the doctrine of antagonism between body and
spirit, whereby the former was regarded as an incubus and a curse. From
what has been said this will be recognized as one of the perversions
derived from the alliance of Gnosticism with Christianity. A result of
this grafting in of heathen doctrines was an abundant growth of hermit
practises, by which men sought to weaken, torture, and subdue their
bodies, that their spirits or "souls" might gain greater freedom. Many
who adopted this unnatural view of human existence retired to the
solitude of the desert, and there spent their time in practises of stern
self-denial and in acts of frenzied self-torture. Others shut themselves
up as voluntary prisoners, seeking glory in privation and self-imposed
penance. It was this unnatural view of life that gave rise to the
several orders of recluses, hermits, and monks.

Think you not that the Savior had such practises in mind, when, warning
the disciples of the false claims to sanctity that would characterize
the times then soon to follow, He said: "Wherefore if they shall say
unto you. Behold he [Christ] is in the desert, go not forth: behold, he
is in the secret chambers, believe it not"?

3. The Time of Christ's Advent Not Known.--The Lord's statement that the
time of His advent in glory was unknown to man, and that the angels knew
it not, "neither the Son", but that it was known to the Father only,
appears plain and unambiguous notwithstanding many and conflicting
commentaries thereon. Jesus repeatedly affirmed that His mission was to
do the will of the Father; and it is evident that the Father's will was
revealed to Him from time to time. While in the flesh He laid no claim
to omniscience; though whatever He willed to know He learned through the
medium of communication with the Father. Christ had not asked to know
what the Father had not intimated His readiness to reveal, which, in
this instance, was the day and hour of the Son's appointed return to
earth as a glorified, resurrected Being. We need not hesitate to believe
that at the time Jesus delivered to the apostles the discourse under
consideration, He was uninformed on the matter; for He so states. In the
last interview between Christ and the apostles immediately before His
ascension (Acts 1:6, 7) they asked "Lord, wilt thou at this time restore
again the kingdom to Israel? And he said unto them, It is not for you to
know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own
power." Nor has the date of the Messianic consummation been since
revealed to any man; though even now, the fig tree is rapidly putting
forth its leaves, and he who hath eyes to see and a heart to understand
knows that the summer of the Lord's purpose is near at hand.

4. The False Doctrine of Supererogation.--Among the pernicious fallacies
promulgated as authorized dogmas by the apostate church during the long
period of spiritual darkness following the close of the apostolic
ministry, was the awful enormity known as the doctrine of
supererogation. As stated by Mosheim (_Eccl. Hist._ Cent. xii, part ii,
ch. 3:4) the dreadful doctrine was formulated in the thirteenth century
as follows: "That there actually existed an immense treasure of _merit_,
composed of the pious deeds and virtuous actions which the saints had
performed _beyond what was necessary for their own salvation_, and which
were therefore applicable to the benefit of others; that the guardian
and dispenser of this precious treasure was the Roman pontiff, and that
of consequence he was empowered to assign to such as he thought proper a
portion of this inexhaustible source of merit, suitable to their
respective guilt, and sufficient to deliver them from the punishment due
to their crimes." Concerning the fallacy of this doctrine the author has
written (_The Great Apostasy_, 9:15), in this wise: "This doctrine of
supererogation is as unreasonable as it is unscriptural and untrue.
Man's individual responsibility for his acts is as surely a fact as is
his agency to act for himself. He will be saved through the merits and
by the atoning sacrifice of our Redeemer and Lord; and his claim upon
the salvation provided is strictly dependent on his compliance with the
principles and ordinances of the gospel as established by Jesus Christ.
Remission of sins and the eventual salvation of the human soul are
provided for; but these gifts of God are not to be purchased with money.
Compare the awful fallacies of supererogation and the blasphemous
practise of assuming to remit the sins of one man in consideration of
the merits of another, with the declaration of the one and only Savior
of mankind: 'But I say unto you that every idle word that men shall
speak, they shall give an account thereof in the day of judgment.'" If
conclusions as to doctrine may be drawn from our Lord's parables, the
parable of the Ten Virgins affords refutation of the Satanic suggestion
that one man's sin may be neutralized by another's righteousness. We
know no supererogation but that of the Lord Jesus Christ, through whose
merits salvation is placed within the reach of all men.

5. "This Generation."--Consult any reliable unabridged dictionary of the
English language for evidence of the fact that the term "generation," as
connoting a period of time, has many meanings, among which are "race,
kind, class." The term is not confined to a body of people living at one
time. Fausett's _Bible Cyclopedia, Critical and Expository_, after
citing many meanings attached to the word, says: "In Matthew 24:34 'this
generation shall not pass (viz. the Jewish race, of which the generation
in Christ's days was a sample in character; compare Christ's address to
the "generation," 23:35, 36, in proof that "generation" means at times
the whole Jewish race) till all these things be fulfilled'--a prophecy
that the Jews shall be a distinct people still when He shall come
again."

FOOTNOTES:

[1150] Matt. 24:3-51; Mark 13:3-37: Luke 21:5-35. Compare P. of G.P.,
Joseph Smith, 1.

[1151] Mark 13:11; compare Matt. 10:19, 20; Luke 12:11, 12; 21:14, 15.

[1152] Luke 21:19; compare Doc. and Cov. 101:38.

[1153] Dan. 9:27.

[1154] Note 1, end of chapter.

[1155] Note 2, end of chapter.

[1156] Matt. 24:27; compare Luke 17:22-24.

[1157] The "body," as that of the Church, is rendered "carcase" in both
authorized and revised versions. For the application of the figure--of
eagles gathering about a carcase--to the assembling of scattered Israel,
see P. of G.P., Joseph Smith, 1:27, where we read: "so likewise shall
mine elect be gathered from the four quarters of the earth." Among Bible
scholars, a favorite interpretation of the passage, "For wheresoever the
carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together," is that Christ
was likening unto eagles (revised version "vultures") the angels that
shall come with Him to execute judgment upon mankind, and unto a carcase
the corruption of sin. See Matt. 24:28; compare Luke 17:37.

[1158] Matt. 24:35; compare 5:18; Mark 13:31; Luke 21:33; compare 16:17;
see also Heb. 1:10, 11; 2 Peter 3:7-10; Rev. 21:1. Note 5, end of
chapter.

[1159] This is Mark's version; in the parallel passage Matt. 24:36, the
words "neither the Son" are not found in the King James text, but do
appear in the revised version. See Note 3, end of chapter.

[1160] Page 441.

[1161] Matt. 24:45-51; Mark 13:34-37; Luke 21:34-36, compare 12:35-48.

[1162] Matt. 25:1-13.

[1163] Compare Rev. 21:2, 9; 22:17; see also Matt. 9:15; John 3:29.

[1164] See Parable of the Sower, Matt. 13:5, 6, 20, 21; page 282 herein.

[1165] Note 4, end of chapter.

[1166] Compare John 10:14.

[1167] Doc. and Cov. 45:56-59; see also 63:53, 54.

[1168] Matt. 25:14-30.

[1169] Luke 19:12-27; see also page 508 herein.

[1170] Margin, revised version.

[1171] 1 Cor. 12:4; study the entire chapter.

[1172] Luke 12:48.

[1173] Luke 19:22; compare Matt. 12:37.

[1174] Matt. 25:31-46.

[1175] Matt. 13:24-30; page 286 herein.

[1176] Page 286.

[1177] The revised version reads "another country" instead of "a far
country," in Matt. 25:14.

[1178] Matt. 26:2.




CHAPTER 33.

THE LAST SUPPER AND THE BETRAYAL.


PRIESTLY CONSPIRATORS AND THE TRAITOR.

As the time for the annual Feast of the Passover approached, and
particularly during the two days immediately preceding the beginning of
the festival, the chief priests, scribes, and elders of the people, in
short the Sanhedrin and the entire priestly party, conspired
persistently together as to the best manner of taking Jesus into custody
and putting Him to death. At one of these gatherings of evil counsel,
which was held at the palace of the high priest, Caiaphas,[1179] it was
decided that Jesus should be taken by subtlety if possible, as the
probable effect of an open arrest would be an uprising of the people.
The rulers feared especially an outbreak by the Galileans, who had a
provincial pride in the prominence of Jesus as one of their countrymen,
and many of whom were then in Jerusalem. It was further concluded and
for the same reasons, that the Jewish custom of making impressive
examples of notable offenders by executing public punishment upon them
at times of great general assemblages, be set aside in the case of
Jesus; therefore the conspirators said: "Not on the feast day, lest
there be an uproar among the people."[1180]

On earlier occasions they had made futile attempts to get Jesus into
their hands;[1181] and they were naturally dubious as to the outcome of
their later machinations. At this juncture they were encouraged and
gladdened in their wicked plots by the appearance of an unexpected ally.
Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, sought an audience with these rulers
of the Jews, and infamously offered to betray his Lord into their
hands.[1182] Under the impulse of diabolic avarice, which, however, was
probably but a secondary element in the real cause of his perfidious
treachery, he bargained to sell his Master for money, and chaffered with
the priestly purchasers over the price of the Savior's blood. "What will
ye give me?" he asked; "and they covenanted with him for thirty pieces
of silver."[1183] This amount, approximately seventeen dollars in our
money, but of many times greater purchasing power with the Jews in that
day than now with us, was the price fixed by the law as that of a slave;
it was also the foreseen sum of the blood-money to be paid for the
Lord's betrayal.[1184] That the silver was actually paid to Judas,
either at this first interview or at some later meeting between the
traitor and the priests, is demonstrated by after events.[1185]

He had pledged himself to the blackest deed of treachery of which man is
capable, and from that hour he sought the opportunity of superseding his
infamous promise by its more villainous fulfilment. We are yet to be
afflicted by other glimpses of the evil-hearted Iscariot in the course
of this dread chronicle of tragedy and perdition; for the present let it
be said that before Judas sold Christ to the Jews, he had sold himself
to the devil; he had become Satan's serf, and did his master's bidding.


THE LAST SUPPER.

The day preceding the eating of the passover lamb had come to be known
among the Jews as the first day of the feast of unleavened bread,[1186]
since on that day all leaven had to be removed from their dwellings, and
thereafter for a period of eight days the eating of anything containing
leaven was unlawful. On the afternoon of this day, the paschal lambs
were slain within the temple court, by the representatives of families
or companies who were to eat together; and a portion of the blood of
each lamb was sprinkled at the foot of the altar of sacrifice by one of
the numerous priests on duty for the day. The slain lamb, then said to
have been sacrificed, was borne away to the appointed gathering place of
those by whom it was to be eaten. During the first of the days of
unleavened bread, which in the year of our Lord's death appears to have
fallen on Thursday,[1187] some of the Twelve inquired of Jesus where
they should make preparations for the paschal meal.[1188] He instructed
Peter and John to return to Jerusalem, and added: "Behold, when ye are
entered into the city, there shall a man meet you, bearing a pitcher of
water; follow him into the house where he entereth in. And ye shall say
unto the goodman of the house, The Master saith unto thee, Where is the
guest chamber, where I shall eat the passover with my disciples? And he
shall shew you a large upper room furnished: there make ready. And they
went, and found as he had said unto them: and they made ready the
passover."

In the evening, Thursday evening as we reckon time, but the beginning of
Friday according to the Jewish calendar,[1189] Jesus came with the
Twelve, and together they sat down to the last meal of which the Lord
would partake before His death. Under strain of profound emotion, "He
said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you
before I suffer: for I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof,
until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God. And he took the cup, and
gave thanks, and said, Take this, and divide it among yourselves: for I
say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the
kingdom of God shall come." The pronouncing of a blessing by the host
upon a cup of wine, which was afterward passed round the table to each
participant in turn, was the customary manner of beginning the Passover
supper. At this solemn meal Jesus appears to have observed the
essentials of the Passover procedure; but we have no record of His
compliance with the many supernumerary requirements with which the
divinely established memorial of Israel's deliverance from bondage had
been invested by traditional custom and rabbinical prescription. As we
shall see, the evening's proceedings in that upper room comprized much
beside the ordinary observance of an annual festival.

The supper proceeded under conditions of tense sadness. As they ate, the
Lord sorrowfully remarked: "Verily I say unto you, One of you which
eateth with me shall betray me." Most of the apostles fell into a state
of introspection; and one after another exclaimed: "Is it I?" "Lord, is
it I?" It is pleasing to note that each of those who so inquired was
more concerned with the dread thought that possibly he was an offender,
however inadvertently so, than as to whether his brother was about to
prove himself a traitor. Jesus answered that it was one of the Twelve,
then and there eating with Him from the common dish, and continued with
the terrifying pronouncement: "The Son of man indeed goeth, as it is
written of him: but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed!
good were it for that man if he had never been born." Then Judas
Iscariot, who had already covenanted to sell his Master for money, and
who at this moment probably feared that silence might arouse suspicion
against himself, asked with a brazen audacity that was veritably
devilish: "Master, is it I?" With cutting promptness the Lord replied:
"Thou hast said."[1190]

There was further cause of sorrow to Jesus at the supper. Some of the
Twelve had fallen into muttering dispute among themselves over the
matter of individual precedence,[1191] possibly as to the order in which
they should take their places at table, over which triviality scribes
and Pharisees as well as the Gentiles often quarreled;[1192] and again
the Lord had to remind the apostles that the greatest of them all was he
who most willingly served his fellows. They had been taught before; yet
now, at this late and solemn hour, they were suffused with vain and
selfish ambition. In sorrowful earnestness the Lord pleaded with them,
asking who is greater, he that sits at the table, or he that serves? And
the obvious reply He supplemented by the statement: "But I am among you
as he that serveth." With loving pathos He added: "Ye are they which
have continued with me in my temptations;"[1193] and then He assured
them that they should lack neither honor nor glory in the kingdom of
God, for if they proved faithful they should be appointed to thrones as
the judges of Israel. For those of His chosen ones who were true to Him,
the Lord had no feeling less than that of love, and of yearning for
their victory over Satan and sin.


THE ORDINANCE OF THE WASHING OF FEET[1194]

Leaving the table, the Lord laid aside His outer garments and girded
Himself with a towel as an apron; then having provided Himself with a
basin and a supply of water, He knelt before each of the Twelve in turn,
washed his feet, and wiped them with the towel. When He reached Peter,
that impulsive apostle protested, saying: "Lord, dost thou wash my
feet?" That the proceeding was something more than mere service for
personal comfort, and more than an object-lesson of humility, appears in
the Lord's words to Peter--"What I do thou knowest not now; but thou
shalt know hereafter." Peter, failing to understand, objected yet more
vehemently; "Thou shalt never wash my feet," he exclaimed. Jesus
answered: "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me." Then, with
even greater impetuosity than before, Peter implored as he stretched
forth both feet and hands, "Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands
and my head." He had gone to the other extreme, insisting, though
ignorantly and unthinkingly, that things be done his way, and failing
yet to see that the ordinance had to be administered as the Lord willed.
Again correcting His well-intending though presumptuous servant, Jesus
said to him: "He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but
is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all." Each of them had
been immersed at baptism; the washing of feet was an ordinance
pertaining to the Holy Priesthood, the full import of which they had yet
to learn.[1195]

Having resumed His garments and returned to His place at the table,
Jesus impressed the significance of what he had done, saying: "Ye call
me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord
and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another's
feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done
to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than
his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If ye
know these things, happy are ye if ye do them."[1196]


THE SACRAMENT OF THE LORD'S SUPPER.[1197]

While Jesus with the Twelve still sat at table, He took a loaf or cake
of bread, and having reverently given thanks and by blessing sanctified
it, He gave a portion to each of the apostles, saying: "Take, eat; this
is my body"; or, according to the more extended account, "This is my
body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me." Then, taking
a cup of wine, He gave thanks and blessed it, and gave it unto them with
the command: "Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the new
testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say
unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until
that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom."[1198] In
this simple but impressive manner was instituted the ordinance, since
known as the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. The bread and wine, duly
consecrated by prayer, become emblems of the Lord's body and blood, to
be eaten and drunk reverently, and in remembrance of Him.

The proceedings at the institution of this sacred rite were afterward
revealed to Paul the apostle, whose recorded testimony as to its
establishment and sanctity is in accord with the accounts given by the
Gospel-writers.[1199] As shall be hereinafter shown, the ordinance was
instituted by the Lord among the Nephites, on the western continent, and
has been reestablished in the present dispensation.[1200] During the
dark ages of apostasy, unauthorized changes in the administration of the
Sacrament were introduced, and many false doctrines as to its meaning
and effect were promulgated.[1201]


THE BETRAYER GOES OUT INTO THE NIGHT.[1202]

In saying to the Twelve, whose feet He had washed, "Ye are clean," the
Lord had specified an exception by His after remark, "but not all."
John, the recorder, takes care to explain that Jesus had in mind the
traitor, and, "therefore said he, Ye are not all clean." The guilty
Iscariot had received without protest the Lord's service in the washing
of his recreant feet, though after the ablution he was spiritually more
filthy than before. When Jesus had again sat down, the burden of His
knowledge concerning the treacherous heart of Judas again found
expression. "I speak not of you all," He said, "I know whom I have
chosen: but that the scripture may be fulfilled, He that eateth bread
with me hath lifted up his heel against me."[1203] The Lord was intent
on impressing the fact of His foreknowledge as to what was to come, so
that when the terrible development was an accomplished fact, the
apostles would realize that thereby the scriptures had been fulfilled.
Troubled in spirit, He reiterated the dreadful assertion that one of
those present would betray Him. Peter made signs to John, who occupied
the place next to Jesus and was at that moment leaning his head on the
Lord's breast, that he ask which of them was the traitor. To John's
whispered inquiry the Lord replied: "He it is, to whom I shall give a
sop, when I have dipped it."

There was nothing unusual for a person at table, particularly the host,
to dip a piece of bread into the dish of gravy or savory mixture, and
hand it to another. Such action on the part of Jesus attracted no
general attention. He dipped the morsel of bread and gave it to Judas
Iscariot, with the words: "That thou doest, do quickly." The others
understood the Lord's remark as an instruction to Judas to attend to
some duty or go upon some errand of ordinary kind, perhaps to purchase
something for the further celebration of the Passover, or to carry gifts
to some of the poor, for Judas was the treasurer of the party and "had
the bag." But Iscariot understood. His heart was all the more hardened
by the discovery that Jesus knew of his infamous plans, and he was
maddened by the humiliation he felt in the Master's presence. After the
sop, which he had opened his mouth to receive from the Lord's hand,
"Satan entered into him" and asserted malignant mastership. Judas went
out immediately, abandoning forever the blessed company of his brethren
and the Lord. John chronicles the traitor's departure with the terse and
ominous remark, "and it was night."


DISCOURSE FOLLOWING THE SUPPER.

The departure of Judas Iscariot appears to have dissipated to some
degree the cloud of utter sadness by which the little company had been
depressed; and our Lord Himself was visibly relieved. As soon as the
door had closed upon the retreating deserter, Jesus exclaimed, as though
His victory over death had been already accomplished: "Now is the Son of
man glorified, and God is glorified in him." Addressing the Eleven in
terms of parental affection, He said: "Little children, yet a little
while I am with you. Ye shall seek me: and as I said unto the Jews,
Whither I go, ye cannot come; so now I say to you. A new commandment I
give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye
also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my
disciples, if ye have love one to another."[1204] The law of Moses
enjoined mutual love among friends and neighbors;[1205] but the new
commandment, by which the apostles were to be governed, embodied love of
a higher order. They were to love one another as Christ loved them; and
their brotherly affection was to be a distinguishing mark of their
apostleship, by which the world would recognize them as men set apart.

The Lord's reference to His impending separation from them troubled the
brethren. Peter put the question, "Lord, whither goest thou?" Jesus
answered: "Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now; but thou shalt
follow me afterwards. Peter said unto him, Lord, why cannot I follow
thee now? I will lay down my life for thy sake." Peter seems to have
realized that his Master was going to His death; yet, undeterred, he
asserted his readiness to follow even that dark way rather than be
separated from his Lord. We cannot doubt the earnestness of Peter's
purpose nor the sincerity of his desire at that moment. In his bold
avowal, however, he had reckoned with the willingness of his spirit
only, and had failed to take into full account the weakness of his
flesh. Jesus, who knew Peter better than the man knew himself, thus
tenderly reproved his excess of self-confidence: "Simon, Simon, behold,
Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: but I
have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art
converted, strengthen thy brethren." The first of the apostles, the Man
of Rock, yet had to be converted, or as more precisely rendered, "turned
again";[1206] for as the Lord foresaw, Peter would soon be overcome,
even to the extent of denying his acquaintanceship with Christ. When
Peter stoutly declared again his readiness to go with Jesus, even into
prison or to death, the Lord silenced him with the remark: "I tell thee,
Peter, the cock shall not crow this day, before that thou shalt thrice
deny that thou knowest me."

The apostles had to be prepared to meet a new order of things, new
conditions and new exigencies; persecution awaited them, and they were
soon to be bereft of the Master's sustaining presence. Jesus asked of
them: "When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye
anything? And they said, Nothing. Then said he unto them, But now, he
that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that
hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one. For I say unto
you, that this that is written must yet be accomplished in me, And he
was reckoned among the transgressors: for the things concerning me have
an end." The Lord was soon to be numbered among the transgressors, as
had been foreseen;[1207] and His disciples would be regarded as the
devotees of an executed criminal. In the mention of purse, scrip, shoes,
and sword, some of the brethren caught at the literal meaning, and said,
"Lord, behold, here are two swords," Jesus answered with curt finality,
"It is enough," or as we might say, "Enough of this." He had not
intimated any immediate need of weapons, and most assuredly not for His
own defense. Again they had failed to fathom His meaning; but experience
would later teach them.[1208]

For such information as we have concerning the last discourse delivered
by Jesus to the apostles before His crucifixion, we are indebted to John
alone among the Gospel-writers; and every reader is advized to study
with care the three chapters in which these sublime utterances are
preserved for the enlightenment of mankind.[1209] Observing the
sorrowful state of the Eleven, the Master bade them be of good cheer,
grounding their encouragement and hope on faith in Himself. "Let not
your heart be troubled," He said, "ye believe in God, believe also in
me." Then, as though drawing aside the veil between the earthly and the
heavenly state and giving His faithful servants a glimpse of conditions
beyond, He continued: "In my Father's house are many mansions; if it
were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And
if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you
unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye
know, and the way ye know."[1210] Thus in language simple and plain the
Lord declared the fact of graded conditions in the hereafter, of variety
of occupation and degrees of glory, of place and station in the eternal
worlds.[1211] He had affirmed His own inherent Godship, and through
their trust in Him and obedience to His requirements would they find the
way to follow whither He was about to precede them. Thomas, that loving,
brave, though somewhat skeptical soul, desiring more definite
information ventured to say: "Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and
how can we know the way?" The Lord's answer was a reaffirmation of His
divinity; "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the
Father, but by me. If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father
also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him."

At this point Philip interposed with the request, "Lord, shew us the
Father, and it sufficeth us." Jesus answered with pathetic and mild
reproof: "Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known
me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest
thou then, Shew us the Father?" He was grieved by the thought that His
nearest and dearest friends on earth, those upon whom He had conferred
the authority of the Holy Priesthood, should be yet ignorant of His
absolute oneness with the Father in purpose and action. Had the Eternal
Father stood amongst them, in Person, under the conditions there
existing, He would have done as did the Well Beloved and Only Begotten
Son, whom they knew as Jesus, their Lord and Master. So absolutely were
the Father and the Son of one heart and mind, that to know either was to
know both; nevertheless the Father could be reached only through the
Son. So far as the apostles had faith in Christ, and did His will,
should they be able to do the works that Christ in the flesh had done,
and even greater things, for His mortal mission was of but a few hours
further duration, and the unfolding of the divine plan of the ages would
call for yet greater miracles than those wrought by Jesus in the brief
period of His ministry.

For the first time the Lord directed His disciples to pray in His name
to the Father, and assurance of success in righteous supplication was
given in these words: "And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will
I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any
thing in my name, I will do it."[1212] The name of Jesus Christ was to
be thenceforth the divinely established talisman by which the powers of
heaven could be invoked to operate in any righteous undertaking.

The Holy Ghost was promised to the apostles; He would be sent through
Christ's intercession, to be to them "another Comforter," or as rendered
in later translations, "another Advocate" or "Helper," even the Spirit
of Truth, who, though the world would reject Him as they had rejected
the Christ, should dwell with the disciples, and in them even as Christ
then dwelt in them and the Father in Him. "I will not leave you
comfortless," Jesus assured the brethren, "I will come to you. Yet a
little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I
live, ye shall live also. At that day ye shall know that I am in my
Father, and ye in me, and I in you."[1213] This was followed by the
assurance that Christ though unknown by the world would manifest Himself
to those who loved Him and kept His commandments.

Judas Thaddeus, otherwise known as Lebbeus,[1214] "not Iscariot," as the
recorder is careful to particularize, was puzzled over the untraditional
and un-Jewish thought of a Messiah who would be known but to the chosen
few and not to Israel at large; and he asked: "Lord, how is it that thou
wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?" Jesus explained
that His and the Father's companionship was attainable only by the
faithful. He further cheered the apostles by the promise that when the
Comforter, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father would send in the name of the
Son, would come to them, He would teach them further, and would bring to
their remembrance the teachings they had received from the Christ. The
distinct personality of each member of the Godhead, Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost, is here again plainly shown.[1215] Comforting the yet
troubled disciples, Jesus said: "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give
unto you"; and that they might realize that this meant more than the
conventional salutation of the times, for "Peace be with you" was an
every-day greeting among the Jews, the Lord affirmed that He gave that
invocation in a higher sense, and "not as the world giveth." Again
bidding them put aside their grief and be not afraid, Jesus added: "Ye
have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If
ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for
my Father is greater than I." The Lord made clear to His servants that
He had told them these things beforehand, so that when the predicted
events came to pass the apostles would be confirmed in their faith in
Him, the Christ. He had time to say but little more, for the next hour
would witness the beginning of the supreme struggle; "the prince of this
world cometh," He said, and with triumphal joy added, "and hath nothing
in me."[1216]

In superb allegory the Lord thus proceeded to illustrate the vital
relationship between the apostles and Himself, and between Himself and
the Father, by the figure of a vine-grower, a vine, and its
branches:[1217] "I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.
Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every
branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it,[1218] that it may bring forth
more fruit." A grander analogy is not to be found in the world's
literature. Those ordained servants of the Lord were as helpless and
useless without Him as is a bough severed from the tree. As the branch
is made fruitful only by virtue of the nourishing sap it receives from
the rooted trunk, and if cut away or broken off withers, dries, and
becomes utterly worthless except as fuel for the burning, so those men,
though ordained to the Holy Apostleship, would find themselves strong
and fruitful in good works, only as they remained in steadfast communion
with the Lord. Without Christ what were they, but unschooled Galileans,
some of them fishermen, one a publican, the rest of undistinguished
attainments, and all of them weak mortals? As branches of the Vine they
were at that hour clean and healthful, through the instructions and
authoritative ordinances with which they had been blessed, and by the
reverent obedience they had manifested.

"Abide in me," was the Lord's forceful admonition, else they would
become but withered boughs. "I am the vine," He added in explication of
the allegory "ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him,
the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. If
a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered;
and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will,
and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye
bear much fruit: so shall ye be my disciples." Their love for one
another was again specified as an essential to their continued love for
Christ.[1219] In that love would they find joy. Christ had been to them
an exemplar of righteous love from the day of their first meeting; and
He was about to give the supreme proof of His affection, as foreshadowed
in His words, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down
his life for his friends." And that those men were the Lord's friends
was thus graciously affirmed; "Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I
command you. Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth
not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things
that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you." This
intimate relationship in no sense modified the position of Christ as
their Lord and Master, for by Him they had been chosen and ordained; and
it was His will that they should so live that whatever they asked in the
name of the holy friendship which He acknowledged should be granted them
of the Father.

They were again told of the persecutions that awaited them, and of their
apostolic calling as special and individual witnesses of the Lord.[1220]
That the world then did, and would yet more intensely hate them was a
fact they had to face; but they were to remember that the world had
hated their Master before them, and that they had been chosen and by
ordination had been set apart from the world; therefore they must not
hope to escape the world's hatred. The servant was not greater than his
master, nor the apostle than his Lord, as on general principles they
knew, and as they had been specifically told. They that hated them hated
the Christ; and they that hated the Son hated the Father; great shall be
the condemnation of such. Had the wicked Jews not closed their eyes and
stopped their ears to the mighty works and gracious words of the
Messiah, they would have been convinced of the truth, and the truth
would have saved them; but they were left without cloak or excuse for
their sin; and Christ affirmed that in their evil course had the
scriptures been fulfilled in that they had hated Him without a
cause.[1221] Then, reverting to the great and cheering promise of
support through the coming of the Holy Ghost, the Lord said: "But when
the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even
the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify
of me: and ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from
the beginning."

These things had Jesus declared unto them that they might not "be
offended," or in other words, taken by surprize, misled, and caused to
doubt and stumble by the unprecedented events then impending. The
apostles were forewarned of persecution, of their expulsion from the
synagogs, and of a time in which hatred against them should be so bitter
and the Satanic darkness of mind and spirit so dense that whosoever
succeeded in killing one of them would profess that his foul deed had
been done in God's service. In view of their overwhelming sorrow at the
Lord's departure, He sought again to cheer them, saying: "Nevertheless I
tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go
not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will
send him unto you."

The assured descent of the Holy Ghost, through whom they should be made
strong to meet every need and emergency, was the inspiring theme of this
part of the Lord's discourse. Many things which Christ yet had to say to
His apostles, but which they were at that time unable to understand, the
Holy Ghost would teach them. "Howbeit," said Jesus, "when he, the Spirit
of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not
speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and
he will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall
receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you. All things that the Father
hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall
shew it unto you."[1222]

Turning again to the matter of His departure, then so near as to be
reckoned by hours, the Lord said, in amplified form of what He had
before affirmed: "A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a
little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father."[1223]
The apostles pondered and some questioned among themselves as to the
Lord's meaning, yet so deep was the solemnity of the occasion that they
ventured no open inquiry. Jesus knew of their perplexity and graciously
explained that they would soon weep and lament while the world rejoiced;
this had reference to His death; but He promised that their sorrow
should be turned into joy; and this was based on His resurrection to
which they should be witnesses. He compared their then present and
prospective state to that of a woman in travail, who in the after joy of
blessed motherhood forgets her anguish. The happiness that awaited them
would be beyond the power of man to take away; and thenceforth they
should ask not of Christ alone, but of the Father in Christ's name;
"And," said the Lord, "in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name,
he will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and
ye shall receive, that your joy may be full."[1224] They were to be
advanced to such honor and exalted recognition that they should approach
the Father in prayer direct, but in the name of the Son; for they were
beloved of the Father because they had loved Jesus, the Son, and had
accepted Him as One sent by the Father.

The Lord again solemnly averred: "I came forth from the Father, and am
come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father."
The disciples were gratified at this plain avouchment, and exclaimed:
"Lo, now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no proverb. Now are we sure
that thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask
thee: by this we believe that thou camest forth from God." Their
satisfaction threatened danger through over-confidence; and the Lord
cautioned them, saying, that in an hour then close they should all be
scattered, every man to his own, leaving Jesus alone, except for the
Father's presence. In the same connection He told them that before the
night had passed every one of them would be offended because of Him,
even as it had been written: "I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep
of the flock shall be scattered abroad."[1225] Peter, the most vehement
of all in his protestations, had been told, as we have seen, that by
cock-crow that night he would have thrice denied his Lord; but all of
them had declared they would be faithful whatever the trial.[1226] In
further affirmation of the material actuality of His resurrection, Jesus
promised the apostles that after He had risen from the grave He would go
before them into Galilee.[1227]

In conclusion of this last and most solemn of the discourses delivered
by Christ in the flesh, the Lord said: "These things I have spoken unto
you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have
tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."[1228]


THE CONCLUDING PRAYER.

The impressive discourse to the apostles was followed by a prayer such
as could be addressed to none but the Eternal Father, and such as none
but the Son of that Father could offer.[1229] It has been called, and
not inappropriately, the Lord's High-Priestly Prayer. In it Jesus
acknowledged the Father as the source of His power and authority, which
authority extends even to the giving of eternal life to all who are
worthy: "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only
true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." By way of reverent
report as to the work assigned Him, the Son said: "I have glorified thee
on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And
now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which
I had with thee before the world was." With unfathomable love the Lord
pleaded for those whom the Father had given Him, the apostles then
present, who had been called out from the world, and who had been true
to their testimony of Himself as the Son of God. Of them but one, the
son of perdition, had been lost. In the fervor of devoted supplication,
the Lord pleaded:

    "I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but
    that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the
    world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy
    truth: thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world,
    even so have I also sent them into the world. And for their
    sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified
    through the truth. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them
    also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all
    may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they
    also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast
    sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them;
    that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in
    me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may
    know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast
    loved me. Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given
    me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which
    thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of
    the world. O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee:
    but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent
    me. And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it:
    that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I
    in them."

When they had sung a hymn, Jesus and the Eleven went out to the Mount of
Olives.[1230]


THE LORD'S AGONY IN GETHSEMANE.[1231]

Jesus and the eleven apostles went forth from the house in which they
had eaten, passed through the city gate, which was usually left open at
night during a public festival, crossed the ravine of the Cedron, or
more accurately Kidron, brook, and entered an olive orchard known as
Gethsemane,[1232] on the slope of Mount Olivet. Eight of the apostles He
left at or near the entrance, with the instruction: "Sit ye here, while
I go and pray yonder"; and with the earnest injunction: "Pray that ye
enter not into temptation." Accompanied by Peter, James and John, He
went farther; and was soon enveloped by deep sorrow, which appears to
have been, in a measure, surprizing to Himself, for we read that He
"began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy." He was impelled to deny
Himself the companionship of even the chosen three; and, "Saith he unto
them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here,
and watch with me. And he went a little farther, and fell on his face,
and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass
from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt." Mark's version
of the prayer is: "Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take
away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou
wilt."[1233]

This part of His impassioned supplication was heard by at least one of
the waiting three; but all of them soon yielded to weariness and ceased
to watch. As on the Mount of Transfiguration, when the Lord appeared in
glory, so now in the hour of His deepest humiliation, these three
slumbered. Returning to them in an agony of soul Jesus found them
sleeping; and addressing Peter, who so short a time before had loudly
proclaimed his readiness to follow the Lord even to prison and death,
Jesus exclaimed: "What, could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch and
pray, that ye enter not into temptation"; but in tenderness added, "the
spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." The admonition to the
apostles to pray at that time lest they be led into temptation may have
been prompted by the exigencies of the hour, under which, if left to
themselves, they would be tempted to prematurely desert their Lord.

Aroused from slumber the three apostles saw the Lord again retire, and
heard Him pleading in agony: "O my Father, if this cup may not pass away
from me, except I drink it, thy will be done." Returning a second time
He found those whom He had so sorrowfully requested to watch with Him
sleeping again, "for their eyes were heavy"; and when awakened they were
embarrassed or ashamed so that they wist not what to say. A third time
He went to His lonely vigil and individual struggle, and was heard to
implore the Father with the same words of yearning entreaty. Luke tells
us that "there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening
him"; but not even the presence of this super-earthly visitant could
dispel the awful anguish of His soul. "And being in an agony he prayed
more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood
falling down to the ground."[1234]

Peter had had a glimpse of the darksome road which he had professed
himself so ready to tread; and the brothers James and John knew now
better than before how unprepared they were to drink of the cup which
the Lord would drain to its dregs.[1235]

When for the last time Jesus came back to the disciples left on guard,
He said: "Sleep on now, and take your rest: behold, the hour is at hand,
and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners." There was no
use of further watching; already the torches of the approaching band
conducted by Judas were observable in the distance. Jesus exclaimed:
"Rise, let us be going: behold, he is at hand that doth betray me."
Standing with the Eleven, the Lord calmly awaited the traitor's coming.

Christ's agony in the garden is unfathomable by the finite mind, both as
to intensity and cause. The thought that He suffered through fear of
death is untenable. Death to Him was preliminary to resurrection and
triumphal return to the Father from whom He had come, and to a state of
glory even beyond what He had before possessed; and, moreover, it was
within His power to lay down His life voluntarily.[1236] He struggled
and groaned under a burden such as no other being who has lived on earth
might even conceive as possible. It was not physical pain, nor mental
anguish alone, that caused Him to suffer such torture as to produce an
extrusion of blood from every pore; but a spiritual agony of soul such
as only God was capable of experiencing. No other man, however great his
powers of physical or mental endurance, could have suffered so; for his
human organism would have succumbed, and syncope would have produced
unconsciousness and welcome oblivion. In that hour of anguish Christ met
and overcame all the horrors that Satan, "the prince of this
world"[1237] could inflict. The frightful struggle incident to the
temptations immediately following the Lord's baptism[1238] was surpassed
and overshadowed by this supreme contest with the powers of evil.

In some manner, actual and terribly real though to man incomprehensible,
the Savior took upon Himself the burden of the sins of mankind from Adam
to the end of the world. Modern revelation assists us to a partial
understanding of the awful experience. In March 1830, the glorified
Lord, Jesus Christ, thus spake: "For behold, I, God, have suffered these
things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent, but if
they would not repent, they must suffer even as I, which suffering
caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of
pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit:
and would that I might not drink the bitter cup and shrink--
nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my
preparations unto the children of men."[1239]

From the terrible conflict in Gethsemane, Christ emerged a victor.
Though in the dark tribulation of that fearful hour He had pleaded that
the bitter cup be removed from His lips, the request, however oft
repeated, was always conditional; the accomplishment of the Father's
will was never lost sight of as the object of the Son's supreme desire.
The further tragedy of the night, and the cruel inflictions that awaited
Him on the morrow, to culminate in the frightful tortures of the cross,
could not exceed the bitter anguish through which He had successfully
passed.


THE BETRAYAL AND THE ARREST.[1240]

During the period of the Lord's last and most loving communion with the
Eleven, Judas had been busy in his treacherous conspiracy with the
priestly authorities. It is probable that the determination to make the
arrest that night was reached when Judas reported that Jesus was within
the city walls and might easily be apprehended. The Jewish rulers
assembled a body of temple guardsmen or police, and obtained a band of
Roman soldiers under command of a tribune; this band or cohort was
probably a detachment from the garrison of Antonia commissioned for the
work of the night on requisition of the chief priests.[1241] This
company of men and officers representing a combination of ecclesiastical
and military authority, set forth in the night with Judas at their head,
intent on the arrest of Jesus. They were equipped with lanterns,
torches, and weapons. It is probable that they were first conducted to
the house in which Judas had left his fellow apostles and the Lord, when
the traitor had been dismissed; and that finding the little company had
gone out, Judas led the multitude to Gethsemane, for he knew the place,
and knew also that "Jesus ofttimes resorted thither with his disciples."

While Jesus was yet speaking to the Eleven whom He had roused from
slumber with the announcement that the betrayer was at hand, Judas and
the multitude approached. As a preconcerted sign of identification the
recreant Iscariot, with treacherous duplicity, came up with a
hypocritical show of affection, saying, "Hail, master," and profaned his
Lord's sacred face with a kiss.[1242] That Jesus understood the
treacherous significance of the act appears in His pathetic, yet
piercing and condemning reproach: "Judas, betrayest thou the Son of man
with a kiss?" Then, applying the title with which the other apostles had
been honored, the Lord said: Friend, do that for which thou art
come.[1243] It was a reiteration of the behest given at the supper
table, "That thou doest, do quickly."

The armed band hesitated, though their guide had given the signal agreed
upon. Jesus walked toward the officers, with whom stood Judas, and
asked, "Whom seek ye?" To their reply, "Jesus of Nazareth," the Lord
rejoined: "I am he." Instead of advancing to take Him, the crowd pressed
backward, and many of them fell to the ground in fright. The simple
dignity and gentle yet compelling force of Christ's presence proved more
potent than strong arms and weapons of violence. Again He put the
question, "Whom seek ye?" and again they answered, "Jesus of Nazareth."
Then said Jesus: "I have told you that I am he; if therefore ye seek me,
let these go their way." The last remark had reference to the apostles,
who were in danger of arrest; and in this evidence of Christ's
solicitude for their personal safety, John saw a fulfilment of the
Lord's then recent utterance in prayer, "Of them which thou gavest me
have I lost none."[1244] It is possible that had any of the Eleven been
apprehended with Jesus and made to share the cruel abuse and torturing
humiliation of the next few hours, their faith might have failed them,
relatively immature and untried as it then was; even as in succeeding
years many who took upon themselves the name of Christ yielded to
persecution and went into apostasy.[1245]

When the officers approached and seized Jesus, some of the apostles,
ready to fight and die for their beloved Master, asked, "Lord, shall we
smite with the sword?" Peter, waiting not for a reply, drew his sword
and delivered a poorly aimed stroke at the head of one of the nearest of
the crowd, whose ear was severed by the blade. The man thus wounded was
Malchus, a servant of the high priest. Jesus, asking liberty of His
captors by the simple request, "Suffer ye thus far,"[1246] stepped
forward and healed the injured man by a touch. Turning to Peter the Lord
rebuked his rashness, and commanded him to return the sword to its
scabbard, with the reminder that "all they that take the sword shall
perish with the sword." Then, to show the needlessness of armed
resistance, and to emphasize the fact that He was submitting voluntarily
and in accordance with foreseen and predicted developments, the Lord
continued: "Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he
shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then
shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?"[1247] And
further, "the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink
it?"[1248]

But, though surrendering Himself unresistingly, Jesus was not unmindful
of His rights; and to the priestly officials, chief priests, captain of
the temple guard, and elders of the people who were present, He voiced
this interrogative protest against the illegal night seizure: "Are ye
come out as against a thief with swords and staves for to take me? I sat
daily with you teaching in the temple, and ye laid no hold on me. But
all this was done, that the scriptures of the prophets might be
fulfilled." Luke records the Lord's concluding words thus: "but this is
your hour, and the power of darkness." Unheeding His question, and
without deference to His submissive demeanor, the captain and the
officers of the Jews bound Jesus with cords and led Him away, a Prisoner
at the mercy of His deadliest enemies.

The eleven apostles, seeing that resistance was useless, not only on
account of disparity of numbers and supply of weapons but chiefly
because of Christ's determination to submit, turned and fled. Every one
of them forsook Him, even as He had foretold. That they were really in
jeopardy is shown by an incident preserved by Mark alone. An unnamed
young man, aroused from sleep by the tumult of the marching band, had
sallied forth with no outer covering but a linen sheet. His interest in
the arrest of Jesus and his close approach caused some of the guardsmen
or soldiers to seize him; but he broke loose and escaped leaving the
sheet in their hands.


NOTES TO CHAPTER 33.

1. The Day of the Passover Feast.--Controversy has been rife for many
centuries as to the day of the passover feast in the week of our Lord's
death. That He was crucified on Friday, the day before the Jewish
Sabbath, and that He rose a resurrected Being on Sunday, the day
following the Sabbath of the Jews, are facts attested by the four
Gospel-writers. From the three synoptists we infer that the last supper
occurred on the evening of the first day of unleavened bread, and
therefore at the beginning of the Jewish Friday. That the Lord's last
supper was regarded by Himself and the apostles as a passover meal
appears from Matt. 26:2, 17, 18, 19 and parallel passages, Mark
14:14-16; Luke 22:11-13; as also from Luke 22:7, 15. John, however, who
wrote after the synoptists and who probably had their writings before
him, as is indicated by the supplementary character of his testimony or
"Gospel", intimates that the last supper of which Jesus and the Twelve
partook together occurred before the Feast of the Passover (John 13:1,
2); and the same writer informs us that on the following day, Friday,
the Jews refrained from entering the Roman hall of judgment, lest they
be defiled and so become unfit to eat the Passover (18:28). It should be
remembered that by common usage the term "Passover" was applied not only
to the day or season of the observance, but to the meal itself, and
particularly to the slain lamb (Matt. 26:17; Mark 14:12, 14, 16; Luke
22:8, 11, 13, 15; John 18:28; compare 1 Cor. 5:7). John also specifies
that the day of the crucifixion was "the preparation of the passover"
(19:14), and that the next day, which was Saturday, the Sabbath, "was an
high day" (verse 31), that is a Sabbath rendered doubly sacred because
of its being also a feast day.

Much has been written by way of attempt to explain this seeming
discrepancy. No analysis of the divergent views of Biblical scholars on
this subject will be attempted here; the matter is of incidental
importance in connection with the fundamental facts of our Lord's
betrayal and crucifixion; for brief summaries of opinions and concise
arguments the student may be referred to Smith's _Comprehensive Bible
Dictionary_, article "Passover"; Edersheim's _Life and Times of Jesus
the Messiah_, pp. 480-2, and 566-8; Farrar's _Life of Christ_, Appendix,
Excursus 10; Andrews' _Life of our Lord_, and Gresswell's
_Dissertations_. Suffice it here to say that the apparent inconsistency
may be explained by any of several assumptions. Thus, first, and very
probably, the Passover referred to by John, for the eating of which the
priests were desirous of keeping themselves free from Levitical
defilement, may not have been the supper at which the paschal lamb was
eaten, but the supplementary meal, the Chagigah. This later meal, the
flesh part of which was designated as a sacrifice, had come to be
regarded with veneration equal to that attaching to the paschal supper.
Secondly; it is held by many authorities on Jewish antiquities that
before, at, and after the time of Christ, two nights were devoted yearly
to the paschal observance, during either of which the lamb might be
eaten, and that this extension of time had been made in consideration of
the increased population, which necessitated the ceremonial slaughtering
of more lambs than could be slain on a single day; and in this
connection it is interesting to note that Josephus (Wars, vi, ch. 9:3)
records the number of lambs slain at a single Passover as 256,500. In
the same paragraph, Josephus states that the lambs had to be slain
between the ninth and the eleventh hour (3 to 5 p.m.). According to this
explanation, Jesus and the Twelve may have partaken of the passover meal
on the first of the two evenings, and the Jews who next day feared
defilement may have deferred their observance until the second. Thirdly;
the Lord's last paschal supper may have been eaten earlier than the time
of general observance, He knowing that night to be His last in
mortality. Supporters of this view explain the message to the man who
provided the chamber for the last supper, "My time is at hand" (Matt.
26:18) as indicating a special urgency for the passover observance by
Christ and the apostles, before the regularly appointed day. Some
authorities assert that an error of one day had crept into the Jewish
reckoning of time, and that Jesus ate the passover on the true date,
while the Jews were a day behind. If "the preparation of the passover"
(John 19:14) on Friday, the day of Christ's crucifixion, means the
slaughtering of the paschal lambs, our Lord, the real sacrifice of which
all earlier altar victims had been but prototypes, died on the cross
while the passover lambs were being slain at the temple.

2. Did Judas Iscariot Partake of the Sacrament of the Lord's
Supper?--This question cannot be definitely answered from the brief
accounts we have of the proceedings at the last supper. At best, only
inference, not conclusion, is possible. According to the records made by
Matthew and Mark, the Lord's announcement that there was a traitor among
the Twelve was made early in the course of the meal; and the institution
of the Sacrament occurred later. Luke records the prediction of
treachery as following the administering of the sacramental bread and
wine. All the synoptists agree that the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper
was administered before the sitting at the ordinary meal had broken up;
though the Sacrament was plainly made a separate and distinct feature.
John (13:2-5) states that the washing of feet occurred when supper was
ended, and gives us good reason for inferring that Judas was washed with
the rest (verses 10, 11), and that he later (verses 26-30) went out into
the night for the purpose of betraying Jesus. The giving of a "sop" to
Judas (verses 26, 27) even though supper was practically over, is not
inconsistent with John's statement that the supper proper was ended
before the washing of feet was performed; the act does not appear to
have been so unusual as to cause surprize. To many it has appeared
plausible, that because of his utter baseness Judas would not be
permitted to participate with the other apostles in the holy ordinance
of the Sacrament; others infer that he was allowed to partake, as a
possible means of moving him to abandon his evil purpose even at that
late hour, or of filling his cup of iniquity to overflowing. The
writer's personal opinion is based on the last conception.

3. Washing of Feet.--The ordinance of the washing of feet was
reestablished through revelation December 27, 1832. It was made a
feature of admission to the school of the prophets, and detailed
instructions relating to its administration were given (see Doc. and
Cov. 88:140, 141). Further direction as to the ordinances involving
washing were revealed January 19, 1841 (see Doc. and Cov. 124:37-39).

4. Discontinuity of the Lord's Last Discourse to the Apostles.--It is
certain that part of the discourse following the last supper was
delivered in the upper room where Christ and the Twelve had eaten; it is
possible that the latter portion was spoken and the prayer offered (John
15, 16, 17) outdoors as Jesus and the Eleven wended their way toward the
Mount of Olives. The 14th chapter of John ends with "Arise, let us go
hence"; the next chapter opens with another section of the discourse.
From Matt 26:30-35, and Mark 14:26-31 we may infer that the prediction
of Peter's denial of his Lord was made as the little company walked from
the city to the mount. On the other hand, John (18:1) states that "When
Jesus had spoken these words", namely, the whole discourse, and the
concluding prayer, "he went forth with his disciples over the brook
Cedron." Not one of our Lord's sublime utterances on that night of
solemn converse with His own, and of communion between Himself and the
Father, is affected by the circumstance of place.

5. Gethsemane.--The name means "oil-press" and probably has reference to
a mill maintained at the place for the extraction of oil from the olives
there cultivated. John refers to the spot as a garden, from which
designation we may regard it as an enclosed space of private ownership.
That it was a place frequented by Jesus when He sought retirement for
prayer, or opportunity for confidential converse with the disciples, is
indicated by the same writer (John 18:1, 2).

6. The Bloody Sweat.--Luke, the only Gospel-writer who mentions sweat
and blood in connection with our Lord's agony in Gethsemane, states that
"his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the
ground" (22:44). Many critical expositors deny that there was an actual
extrusion of blood, on the grounds that the evangelist does not
positively affirm it, and that the three apostles, who were the only
human witnesses, could not have distinguished blood from sweat falling
in drops, as they watched from a distance in the night, even if the
moon, which at the passover season was full, had been unobscured. Modern
scripture removes all doubt. See Doc. and Cov. 19:16-19 quoted in the
text (page 613), also 18:11. See further a specific prediction of the
bloody sweat, B. of M., Mosiah 3:7.

7. "Suffer Ye thus Far."--Many understand these words, uttered by Jesus
as He raised His hand to heal the wounded Malchus, to have been
addressed to the disciples, forbidding their further interference.
Trench (_Miracles_, 355) considers the meaning to be as follows: 'Hold
now; thus far ye have gone in resistance, but let it be no further; no
more of this.' The disputed interpretation is of little importance as to
the bearing of the incident on the events that followed.

8. The Cup as a Symbol.--Our Lord's frequent mention of His foreseen
sufferings as the cup of which the Father would have Him drink (Matt.
26:39, 42; Mark 14:36; Luke 22:42; John 18:11; compare Matt. 20:22; Mark
10:38; 1 Cor. 10:21) is in line with Old Testament usage of the term
"cup" as a symbolic expression for a bitter or poisonous potion
typifying experiences of suffering. See Psa. 11:6; 75:8; Isa. 51:17, 22;
Jer. 25:15, 17; 49:12. In contrast, the opposite meaning is attached to
the use of the term in some passages, e.g. Psa. 16:5; 23:5; 116:13; Jer.
16:7.

FOOTNOTES:

[1179] Matt. 26:3-5; see also Mark 14:1; Luke 22:1, 2.

[1180] Revised version of Matt. 26:5 reads: "Not during the feast, lest
there be a tumult among the people."

[1181] John 7:30, 44, 45-53; 11:47-57.

[1182] Matt. 26:14-16; Mark 14:10, 11; Luke 22:3-6.

[1183] Matt. 26:15. The revised version reads: "And they weighed unto
him thirty pieces of silver." Compare Zech. 11:12.

[1184] Exo. 21:32; Zech. 11:12, 13.

[1185] Matt. 27:3-10.

[1186] Matt. 26:17.

[1187] Note 1, end of chapter.

[1188] Matt. 26:17-19; Mark 14:12-16; Luke 22:7-13.

[1189] It should be remembered that the Jews counted their days as
beginning at sunset, not, as with us, at midnight.

[1190] Note 2, end of chapter.

[1191] Luke 22:24-30.

[1192] Luke 14:7-11; see page 449 herein.

[1193] Luke 22:28; see page 133 herein.

[1194] John 13:1-20.

[1195] Note 3, end of chapter.

[1196] The Lord's expression "neither he that is sent greater than he
that sent him" (John 13:16) is more correctly rendered "neither the
apostle than he that sent him" (revised version, margin); see pages 228,
229 herein.

[1197] Matt. 26:26-29; Mark 14:22-25; Luke 22:19, 20.

[1198] In the revised version we read "covenant" instead of "testament"
in Matt. 26:28, and in parallel passages.

[1199] 1 Cor. 11:23-34.

[1200] B. of M., 3 Nephi 18:6-11; Doc. and Cov. 20:75; see also the
"Articles of Faith," ix.

[1201] See "The Great Apostasy" 8:15-19.

[1202] John 13:18-30.

[1203] Compare Psalm 41:9.

[1204] John 13:31-34.

[1205] Lev. 19:18.

[1206] So reads the revised version of Luke 22:32.

[1207] Isa. 53:12; compare Mark 15:28.

[1208] Read John 13:36-38; Luke 22:31-38; compare Matt. 26:31-35; Mark
14: 27-31.

[1209] John, chaps. 14, 15, 16.

[1210] John 14:1-4.

[1211] See "The Articles of Faith," iv:28, 29; and xxii:16-27.

[1212] John 14:13, 14; compare 16:24.

[1213] John 14:15-20; compare verse 26; and 15:26.

[1214] Matt. 10:3, and Luke 6:16; also page 224 herein.

[1215] See "Articles of Faith," ii:20-24; page 127 herein.

[1216] John 14:22-31.

[1217] John 15:1-8.

[1218] Revised version, "cleanseth it."

[1219] John 15:9-17.

[1220] John 15:18-27.

[1221] Verse 25; compare Psalms 35:19; 69:4; 109:3.

[1222] John 16:13-15; read verses 1-15.

[1223] John 16:16; compare 7:33; 13:33; 14:19.

[1224] John 16:17, 23, 24; read verses 17-28.

[1225] Matt. 26:31; Mark 14:27; compare Zech. 13:7; see also Matt. 11:6.

[1226] Matt. 26:31-35; Mark 14:29-31.

[1227] Matt. 26:32; Mark 14:28; compare 16:7.

[1228] John 16:33.

[1229] John 17.

[1230] Note 4, end of chapter.

[1231] Matt. 26:36-46; Mark 14:32-42; Luke 22:39-46.

[1232] Note 5, end of chapter.

[1233] "Abba" is expressive of combined affection and honor, and
signifies "Father." It is applied to the Eternal Father by Jesus in the
passage above, and by Paul (Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6).

[1234] Note 6, end of chapter.

[1235] John 13:37; Matt. 20:22; Mark 10:38, 39.

[1236] John 5:26, 27; and 10:17, 18; also page 418 herein.

[1237] John 14:30.

[1238] Page 127.

[1239] Doc. and Cov. 19:16-19; compare 18:11. See also B. of M., 2 Nephi
9:5, 7, 21; Mosiah 3:7-14; 15:12; Alma 7:11-13; 11:40; 22:14; 34:8-15; 3
Nephi 11:11; 27:14, 15; and chapter 4 herein.

[1240] Matt. 26:47-56; Mark 14:43-52; Luke 22:47-53; John 18:1-12.

[1241] "Cohort," a term descriptive of a Roman body, and "military
tribune" are more literal renderings of the Greek original than "band"
and "captain" in John 18:3, 12. See revised version, margin.

[1242] The Greek text of Matt. 26:49, and Mark 14:45 clearly implies
that Judas "kissed him much," that is many times, or effusively. See
margin of revised version.

[1243] This is a more nearly correct translation than "wherefore art
thou come?" in the common version. See revised version. Matt. 26:50.

[1244] John 18:9; compare 17:12.

[1245] See "The Great Apostasy," chaps. 4 and 5.

[1246] Note 7, end of chapter.

[1247] Compare Isa. 53:8.

[1248] Note 8, end of chapter.




CHAPTER 34.

THE TRIAL AND CONDEMNATION.


THE JEWISH TRIAL.

From Gethsemane the bound and captive Christ was haled before the Jewish
rulers. John alone informs us that the Lord was taken first to Annas,
who sent Him, still bound, to Caiaphas, the high priest;[1249] the
synoptists record the arraignment before Caiaphas only.[1250] No details
of the interview with Annas are of record; and the bringing of Jesus
before him at all was as truly irregular and illegal, according to
Hebrew law, as were all the subsequent proceedings of that night. Annas,
who was father-in-law to Caiaphas, had been deposed from the
high-priestly office over twenty years before; but throughout this
period he had exerted a potent influence in all the affairs of the
hierarchy.[1251] Caiaphas, as John is careful to remind us, "was he,
which gave counsel to the Jews, that it was expedient that one man
should die for the people."[1252]

At the palace of Caiaphas, the chief priests, scribes, and elders of the
people were assembled, in a meeting of the Sanhedrin, informal or
otherwise, all eagerly awaiting the result of the expedition led by
Judas. When Jesus, the object of their bitter hatred and their
predetermined victim, was brought in, a bound Prisoner, He was
immediately put upon trial in contravention of the law, both written and
traditional, of which those congregated rulers of the Jews professed to
be such zealous supporters. No legal hearing on a capital charge could
lawfully be held except in the appointed and official courtroom of the
Sanhedrin. From the account given in the fourth Gospel we infer that the
Prisoner was first subjected to an interrogative examination by the high
priest in person.[1253] That functionary, whether Annas or Caiaphas is a
matter of inference, inquired of Jesus concerning His disciples and His
doctrines. Such a preliminary inquiry was utterly unlawful; for the
Hebrew code provided that the accusing witnesses in any cause before the
court should define their charge against the accused, and that the
latter should be protected from any effort to make him testify against
himself. The Lord's reply should have been a sufficient protest to the
high priest against further illegal procedure. "Jesus answered him, I
spake openly to the world; I ever taught in the synagogue, and in the
temple, whither the Jews always resort; and in secret have I said
nothing. Why askest thou me?--ask them which heard me, what I have said
unto them: behold, they know what I said." This was a lawful objection
against denying to a prisoner on trial his right to be confronted by his
accusers. It was received with open disdain; and one of the officers who
stood by, hoping perhaps to curry favor with his superiors, actually
struck Jesus a vicious blow,[1254] accompanied by the question,
"Answerest thou the high priest so?" To this cowardly assault the Lord
replied with almost superhuman gentleness:[1255] "If I have spoken evil,
bear witness of the evil: but if well, why smitest thou me?" Combined
with submissiveness, however, this constituted another appeal to the
principles of justice; if what Jesus had said was evil, why did not the
assailant accuse Him; and if He had spoken well, what right had a police
officer to judge, condemn, and punish, and that too in the presence of
the high priest? Law and justice had been dethroned that night.

"Now the chief priests, and elders, and all the council, sought false
witness against Jesus, to put him to death."[1256] Whether "all the
council" means a legal quorum, which would be twenty-three or more, or a
full attendance of the seventy-two Sanhedrists, is of small importance.
Any sitting of the Sanhedrin at night, and more particularly for the
consideration of a capital charge, was directly in violation of Jewish
law. Likewise was it unlawful for the council to consider such a charge
on a Sabbath, a feast day, or on the eve of any such day. In the
Sanhedrin, every member was a judge; the judicial body was to hear the
testimony, and, according to that testimony and nought else, render a
decision on every case duly presented. The accusers were required to
appear in person; and they were to receive a preliminary warning against
bearing false witness. Every defendant was to be regarded and treated as
innocent until convicted in due course. But in the so-called trial of
Jesus, the judges not only sought witnesses, but specifically tried to
find false witnesses. Though many false witnesses came, yet there was no
"witness" or testimony against the Prisoner, for the suborned perjurers
failed to agree among themselves; and even the lawless Sanhedrists
hesitated to openly violate the fundamental requirement that at least
two concordant witnesses must testify against an accused person, for,
otherwise, the case had to be dismissed.

That Jesus was to be convicted on some charge or other, and be put to
death, had been already determined by the priestly judges; their failure
to find witnesses against Him threatened to delay the carrying out of
their nefarious scheme. Haste and precipitancy characterized their
procedure throughout; they had unlawfully caused Jesus to be arrested at
night; they were illegally going through the semblance of a trial at
night; their purpose was to convict the Prisoner in time to have Him
brought before the Roman authorities as early as possible in the
morning--as a criminal duly tried and adjudged worthy of death. The lack
of two hostile witnesses who would tell the same falsehoods was a
serious hindrance. But, "at the last came two false witnesses, and said,
This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build
it in three days." Others, however, testified: "We heard him say, I will
destroy this temple that is made with hands, and within three days I
will build another made without hands."[1257] And so, as Mark observes,
even in this particular their "witness" or testimony did not agree.
Surely in a case at bar, such discrepancy as appears between "I am able
to" and "I will," as alleged utterances of the accused, is of vital
importance. Yet this semblance of formal accusation was the sole basis
of a charge against Christ up to this stage of the trial. It will be
remembered that in connection with the first clearing of the temple,
near the commencement of Christ's ministry, He had answered the
clamorous demand of the Jews for a sign of His authority by saying
"Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." He spoke
not at all of Himself as the one who would destroy; the Jews were to be
the destroyers, He the restorer. But the inspired writer is particular
to explain that Jesus "spake of the temple of his body," and not at all
of those buildings reared by man.[1258]

One may reasonably inquire as to what serious import could be attached
to even such a declaration as the perjured witnesses claimed to have
heard from the lips of Christ. The veneration with which the Jews
professed to regard the Holy House, however wantonly they profaned its
precincts, offers a partial but insufficient answer. The plan of the
conspiring rulers appears to have been that of convicting Christ on a
charge of sedition, making Him out to be a dangerous disturber of the
nation's peace, an assailant of established institutions, and
consequently an inciter of opposition against the vassal autonomy of the
Jewish nation, and the supreme dominion of Rome.[1259]

The vaguely defined shadow of legal accusation produced by the dark and
inconsistent testimony of the false witnesses, was enough to embolden
the iniquitous court. Caiaphas, rising from his seat to give dramatic
emphasis to his question, demanded of Jesus: "Answerest thou nothing?
what is it which these witness against thee?" There was nothing to
answer. No consistent or valid testimony had been presented against Him;
therefore He stood in dignified silence. Then Caiaphas, in violation of
the legal proscription against requiring any person to testify in his
own case except voluntarily and on his own initiative, not only demanded
an answer from the Prisoner, but exercized the potent prerogative of the
high-priestly office, to put the accused under oath, as a witness before
the sacerdotal court. "And the high priest answered and said unto him, I
adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the
Christ, the Son of God."[1260] The fact of a distinct specification of
"the Christ" and "the Son of God" is significant, in that it implies the
Jewish expectation of a Messiah, but does not acknowledge that He was to
be distinctively of divine origin. Nothing that had gone before can be
construed as a proper foundation for this inquiry. The charge of
sedition was about to be superseded by one of greater enormity--that of
blasphemy.[1261]

To the utterly unjust yet official adjuration of the high priest, Jesus
answered: "Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you: Hereafter shall
ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in
the clouds of heaven." This expression "Thou hast said" was equivalent
to--I am what thou hast said.[1262] It was an unqualified avowal of
divine parentage, and inherent Godship. "Then the high priest rent his
clothes, saying, He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of
witnesses? behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy. What think ye? They
answered and said, He is guilty of death."[1263]

Thus the judges in Israel, comprizing the high priest, the chief
priests, the scribes and elders of the people, the Great Sanhedrin,
unlawfully assembled, decreed that the Son of God was deserving of
death, on no evidence save that of His own acknowledgment. By express
provision the Jewish code forbade the conviction, specifically on a
capital charge, of any person on his own confession, unless that was
amply supported by the testimony of trustworthy witnesses. As in the
Garden of Gethsemane Jesus had voluntarily surrendered Himself, so
before the judges did He personally and voluntarily furnish the evidence
upon which they unrighteously declared Him deserving of death. There
could be no crime in the claim of Messiahship or divine Sonship, except
that claim was false. We vainly search the record for even an intimation
that inquiry was made or suggested as to the grounds upon which Jesus
based His exalted claims. The action of the high priest in rending his
garments was a dramatic affectation of pious horror at the blasphemy
with which his ears had been assailed. It was expressly forbidden in the
law that the high priest rend his clothes;[1264] but from
extra-scriptural writings we learn that the rending of garments as an
attestation of most grievous guilt, such as that of blasphemy, was
allowable under traditional rule.[1265] There is no indication that the
vote of the judges was taken and recorded in the precise and orderly
manner required by the law.

Jesus stood convicted of the most heinous offense known in Jewry.
However unjustly, He had been pronounced guilty of blasphemy by the
supreme tribunal of the nation. In strict accuracy we cannot say that
the Sanhedrists sentenced Christ to death, inasmuch as the power to
authoritatively pronounce capital sentences had been taken from the
Jewish council by Roman decree. The high-priestly court, however,
decided that Jesus was worthy of death, and so certified when they
handed Him over to Pilate. In their excess of malignant hate, Israel's
judges abandoned their Lord to the wanton will of the attendant varlets,
who heaped upon Him every indignity their brutish instincts could
suggest. They spurted their foul spittle into His face;[1266] and then,
having blindfolded Him, amused themselves by smiting Him again and
again, saying the while: "Prophesy unto us, thou Christ, Who is he that
smote thee?" The miscreant crowd mocked Him, and railed upon Him with
jeers and taunts, and branded themselves as blasphemers in fact.[1267]

The law and the practise of the time required that any person found
guilty of a capital offense, after due trial before a Jewish tribunal,
should be given a second trial on the following day; and at this later
hearing any or all of the judges who had before voted for conviction
could reverse themselves; but no one who had once voted for acquittal
could change his ballot. A bare majority was sufficient for acquittal,
but more than a majority was required for conviction. By a provision
that must appear to us most unusual, if all the judges voted for
conviction on a capital charge the verdict was not to stand and the
accused had to be set at liberty; for, it was argued, a unanimous vote
against a prisoner indicated that he had had no friend or defender in
court, and that the judges might have been in conspiracy against Him.
Under this rule in Hebrew jurisprudence the verdict against Jesus,
rendered at the illegal night session of the Sanhedrists, was void, for
we are specifically told that "they all condemned him to be guilty of
death."[1268]

Apparently for the purpose of establishing a shadowy pretext of legality
in their procedure, the Sanhedrists adjourned to meet again in early
daylight. Thus they technically complied with the requirement--that on
every case in which the death sentence had been decreed the court should
hear and judge a second time in a later session--but they completely
ignored the equally mandatory provision that the second trial must be
conducted on the day following that of the first hearing. Between the
two sittings on consecutive days the judges were required to fast and
pray, and to give the case on trial calm and earnest consideration.

Luke, who records no details of the night trial of Jesus, is the only
Gospel-writer to give place to a circumstantial report of the morning
session. He says: "And as soon as it was day, the elders of the people
and the chief priests and the scribes came together, and led him into
their council."[1269] Some Biblical scholars have construed the
expression, "led him into their council," as signifying that Jesus was
condemned by the Sanhedrin in the appointed meeting-place of the court,
viz. Gazith or the Hall of Hewn Stones, as the law of the time required;
but against this we have the statement of John that they led Jesus
directly from Caiaphas to the Roman hall of judgment.[1270]

It is probable, that at this early daylight session, the irregular
proceedings of the dark hours were approved, and the details of further
procedure decided upon. They "took counsel against Jesus to put him to
death"; nevertheless they went through the form of a second trial, the
issue of which was greatly facilitated by the Prisoner's voluntary
affirmations. The judges stand without semblance of justification for
calling upon the Accused to testify; they should have examined anew the
witnesses against Him. The first question put to Him was, "Art thou the
Christ? tell us." The Lord made dignified reply: "If I tell you, ye will
not believe: and if I also ask you, ye will not answer me, nor let me
go. Hereafter shall the Son of man sit on the right hand of the power of
God." Neither did the question imply nor the answer furnish cause for
condemnation. The whole nation was looking for the Messiah; and if Jesus
claimed to be He, the only proper judicial action would be that of
inquiring into the merit of the claim. The crucial question followed
immediately: "Art thou then the Son of God? And he said unto them, Ye
say that I am. And they said, What need we any further witness? for we
ourselves have heard of his own mouth."[1271]

Jehovah was convicted of blasphemy against Jehovah. The only mortal
Being to whom the awful crime of blasphemy, in claiming divine
attributes and powers, was impossible, stood before the judges of Israel
condemned as a blasphemer. The "whole council," by which expression we
may possibly understand a legal quorum, was concerned in the final
action. Thus ended the miscalled "trial" of Jesus before the high-priest
and elders[1272] of His people. "And straightway in the morning the
chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the
whole council, and bound Jesus, and carried him away, and delivered him
to Pilate."[1273] During the few hours that remained to Him in
mortality, He would be in the hands of the Gentiles, betrayed and
delivered up by His own.[1274]


PETER'S DENIAL OF HIS LORD.[1275]

When Jesus was taken into custody in the Garden of Gethsemane, all the
Eleven forsook Him and fled. This is not to be accounted as certain
evidence of cowardice, for the Lord had indicated that they should
go.[1276] Peter and at least one other disciple followed afar off; and,
after the armed guard had entered the palace of the high priest with
their Prisoner, Peter "went in, and sat with the servants to see the
end." He was assisted in securing admittance by the unnamed disciple,
who was on terms of acquaintanceship with the high priest. That other
disciple was in all probability John, as may be inferred from the fact
that he is mentioned only in the fourth Gospel, the author of which
characteristically refers to himself anonymously.[1277]

While Jesus was before the Sanhedrists, Peter remained below with the
servants. The attendant at the door was a young woman; her feminine
suspicions had been aroused when she admitted Peter, and as he sat with
a crowd in the palace court she came up, and having intently observed
him, said: "Thou also wast with Jesus of Galilee." But Peter denied,
averring he did not know Jesus. Peter was restless; his conscience and
the fear of identification as one of the Lord's disciples troubled him.
He left the crowd and sought partial seclusion in the porch; but there
another maid spied him out, and said to those nearby: "This fellow was
also with Jesus of Nazareth"; to which accusation Peter replied with an
oath: "I do not know the man."

The April night was chilly, and an open fire had been made in the hall
or court of the palace. Peter sat with others at the fire, thinking,
perhaps, that brazen openness was better than skulking caution as a
possible safeguard against detection. About an hour after his former
denials, some of the men around the fire charged him with being a
disciple of Jesus, and referred to his Galilean dialect as evidence that
he was at least a fellow countryman with the high priest's Prisoner;
but, most threatening of all, a kinsman of Malchus, whose ear Peter had
slashed with the sword, asked peremptorily: "Did not I see thee in the
garden with him?" Then Peter went so far in the course of falsehood upon
which he had entered as to curse and swear, and to vehemently declare
for the third time, "I know not the man." As the last profane falsehood
left his lips, the clear notes of a crowing cock broke upon his
ears,[1278] and the remembrance of his Lord's prediction welled up in
his mind. Trembling in wretched realization of his perfidious cowardice,
he turned from the crowd and met the gaze of the suffering Christ, who
from the midst of the insolent mob looked into the face of His boastful,
yet loving but weak apostle. Hastening from the palace, Peter went out
into the night, weeping bitterly. As his later life attests, his tears
were those of real contrition and true repentance.


CHRIST'S FIRST APPEARANCE BEFORE PILATE.

As we have already learned, no Jewish tribunal had authority to inflict
the death penalty; imperial Rome had reserved this prerogative as her
own. The united acclaim of the Sanhedrists, that Jesus was deserving of
death, would be ineffective until sanctioned by the emperor's deputy,
who at that time was Pontius Pilate, the governor, or more properly,
procurator, of Judea, Samaria, and Idumea. Pilate maintained his
official residence at Cæsarea,[1279] on the Mediterranean shore; but it
was his custom to be present in Jerusalem at the times of the great
Hebrew feasts, probably in the interest of preserving order, or of
promptly quelling any disturbance amongst the vast and heterogeneous
multitudes by which the city was thronged on these festive occasions.
The governor with his attendants was in Jerusalem at this momentous
Passover season. Early on Friday morning, the "whole council," that is
to say, the Sanhedrin, led Jesus, bound, to the judgment hall of Pontius
Pilate; but with strict scrupulosity they refrained from entering the
hall lest they become defiled; for the judgment chamber was part of the
house of a Gentile, and somewhere therein might be leavened bread, even
to be near which would render them ceremonially unclean. Let every one
designate for himself the character of men afraid of the mere proximity
of leaven, while thirsting for innocent blood!

In deference to their scruples Pilate came out from the palace; and, as
they delivered up to him their Prisoner, asked: "What accusation bring
ye against this man?" The question, though strictly proper and
judicially necessary, surprized and disappointed the priestly rulers,
who evidently had expected that the governor would simply approve their
verdict as a matter of form and give sentence accordingly; but instead
of doing so, Pilate was apparently about to exercize his authority of
original jurisdiction. With poorly concealed chagrin, their spokesman,
probably Caiaphas, answered: "If he were not a malefactor, we would not
have delivered him up unto thee." It was now Pilate's turn to feel or at
least to feign umbrage, and he replied in effect: Oh, very well; if you
don't care to present the charge in proper order, take ye him, and judge
him according to your law; don't trouble me with the matter. But the
Jews rejoined: "It is not lawful for us to put any man to death."

John the apostle intimates in this last remark a determination on the
part of the Jews to have Jesus put to death not only by Roman sanction
but by Roman executioners;[1280] for, as we readily may see, had Pilate
approved the death sentence and handed the Prisoner over to the Jews for
its infliction, Jesus would have been stoned, in accordance with the
Hebrew penalty for blasphemy; whereas the Lord had plainly foretold that
His death would be by crucifixion, which was a Roman method of
execution, but one never practised by the Jews. Furthermore, if Jesus
had been put to death by the Jewish rulers, even with governmental
sanction, an insurrection among the people might have resulted, for
there were many who believed on Him. The crafty hierarchs were
determined to bring about His death under Roman condemnation.

"And they began to accuse him, saying, We found this fellow perverting
the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Cæsar, saying that he
himself is Christ a King."[1281] It is important to note that no
accusation of blasphemy was made to Pilate; had such been presented, the
governor, thoroughly pagan in heart and mind, would probably have
dismissed the charge as utterly unworthy of a hearing; for Rome with her
many gods, whose number was being steadily increased by current heathen
deification of mortals, knew no such offense as blasphemy in the Jewish
sense. The accusing Sanhedrists hesitated not to substitute for
blasphemy, which was the greatest crime known to the Hebrew code, the
charge of high treason, which was the gravest offense listed in the
Roman category of crimes. To the vociferous accusations of the chief
priests and elders, the calm and dignified Christ deigned no reply. To
them He had spoken for the last time--until the appointed season of
another trial, in which He shall be the Judge, and they the prisoners at
the bar.

Pilate was surprized at the submissive yet majestic demeanor of Jesus;
there was certainly much that was kingly about the Man; never before had
such a One stood before him. The charge, however, was a serious one; men
who claimed title to kingship might prove dangerous to Rome; yet to the
charge the Accused answered nothing. Entering the judgment hall, Pilate
had Jesus called.[1282] That some of the disciples, and among them
almost certainly John, also went in, is apparent from the detailed
accounts of the proceedings preserved in the fourth Gospel. Anyone was
at liberty to enter, for publicity was an actual and a widely proclaimed
feature of Roman trials.

Pilate, plainly without animosity or prejudice against Jesus, asked:
"Art thou the King of the Jews? Jesus answered him, Sayest thou this
thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me?" The Lord's
counter-question, as Pilate's rejoinder shows, meant, and was understood
to mean, as we might state it: Do you ask this in the Roman and literal
sense--as to whether I am a king of an earthly kingdom--or with the
Jewish and more spiritual meaning? A direct answer "Yes" would have been
true in the Messianic sense, but untrue in the worldly signification;
and "No" could have been inversely construed as true or untrue. "Pilate
answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests have
delivered thee unto me: what hast thou done? Jesus answered, My kingdom
is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my
servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is
my kingdom not from hence. Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a
king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was
I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear
witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my
voice."

It was clear to the Roman governor that this wonderful Man, with His
exalted views of a kingdom not of this world, and an empire of truth in
which He was to reign, was no political insurrectionist; and that to
consider Him a menace to Roman institutions would be absurd. Those last
words--about truth--were of all the most puzzling; Pilate was restive,
and perhaps a little frightened under their import. "What is truth?" he
rather exclaimed in apprehension than inquired in expectation of an
answer, as he started to leave the hall. To the Jews without he
announced officially the acquittal of the Prisoner. "I find in him no
fault at all" was the verdict.

But the chief priests and scribes and elders of the people were
undeterred. Their thirst for the blood of the Holy One had developed
into mania. Wildly and fiercely they shrieked: "He stirreth up the
people, teaching throughout all Jewry, beginning from Galilee to this
place." The mention of Galilee suggested to Pilate a new course of
procedure. Having confirmed by inquiry that Jesus was a Galilean, he
determined to send the Prisoner to Herod, the vassal ruler of that
province, who was in Jerusalem at the time.[1283] By this action Pilate
hoped to rid himself of further responsibility in the case, and
moreover, Herod, with whom he had been at enmity, might be placated
thereby.


CHRIST BEFORE HEROD.[1284]

Herod Antipas, the degenerate son of his infamous sire, Herod the
Great,[1285] was at this time tetrarch of Galilee and Perea, and by
popular usage, though without imperial sanction, was flatteringly called
king. He it was who, in fulfilment of an unholy vow inspired by a
woman's voluptuous blandishments, had ordered the murder of John the
Baptist. He ruled as a Roman vassal, and professed to be orthodox in the
observances of Judaism. He had come up to Jerusalem, in state, to keep
the feast of the Passover. Herod was pleased to have Jesus sent to him
by Pilate; for, not only was the action a gracious one on the part of
the procurator, constituting as after events proved a preliminary to
reconciliation between the two rulers,[1286] but it was a means of
gratifying Herod's curiosity to see Jesus, of whom he had heard so much,
whose fame had terrified him, and by whom he now hoped to see some
interesting miracle wrought.[1287]

Whatever fear Herod had once felt regarding Jesus, whom he had
superstitiously thought to be the reincarnation of his murdered victim,
John the Baptist, was replaced by amused interest when he saw the
far-famed Prophet of Galilee in bonds before him, attended by a Roman
guard, and accompanied by ecclesiastical officials. Herod began to
question the Prisoner; but Jesus remained silent. The chief priests and
scribes vehemently voiced their accusations; but not a word was uttered
by the Lord. Herod is the only character in history to whom Jesus is
known to have applied a personal epithet of contempt. "Go ye and tell
that fox" He once said to certain Pharisees who had come to Him with the
story that Herod intended to kill Him.[1288] As far as we know, Herod is
further distinguished as the only being who saw Christ face to face and
spoke to Him, yet never heard His voice. For penitent sinners, weeping
women, prattling children, for the scribes, the Pharisees, the
Sadducees, the rabbis, for the perjured high priest and his obsequious
and insolent underling, and for Pilate the pagan, Christ had words--of
comfort or instruction, of warning or rebuke, of protest or
denunciation--yet for Herod the fox He had but disdainful and kingly
silence. Thoroughly piqued, Herod turned from insulting questions to
acts of malignant derision. He and his men-at-arms made sport of the
suffering Christ, "set him at nought and mocked him"; then in travesty
they "arrayed him in a gorgeous robe and sent him again to
Pilate."[1289] Herod had found nothing in Jesus to warrant condemnation.


CHRIST AGAIN BEFORE PILATE.[1290]

The Roman procurator, finding that he could not evade further
consideration of the case, "called together the chief priests and the
rulers and the people," and "said unto them, Ye have brought this man
unto me, as one that perverteth the people: and, behold, I, having
examined him before you, have found no fault in this man touching those
things whereof ye accuse him; No, nor yet Herod: for I sent you to him;
and, lo, nothing worthy of death is done unto him. I will therefore
chastise him, and release him." Pilate's desire to save Jesus from death
was just and genuine; his intention of scourging the Prisoner, whose
innocence he had affirmed and reaffirmed, was an infamous concession to
Jewish prejudice. He knew that the charge of sedition and treason was
without foundation; and that even the framing of such an accusation by
the Jewish hierarchy, whose simulated loyalty to Cæsar was but a cloak
for inherent and undying hatred, was ridiculous in the extreme; and he
fully realized that the priestly rulers had delivered Jesus into his
hands because of envy and malice.[1291]

It was the custom for the governor at the Passover season to pardon and
release any one condemned prisoner whom the people might name. On that
day there lay in durance, awaiting execution, "a notable prisoner,
called Barabbas," who had been found guilty of sedition, in that he had
incited the people to insurrection, and had committed murder. This man
stood convicted of the very charge on which Pilate specifically and
Herod by implication had pronounced Jesus innocent, and Barabbas was a
murderer in addition. Pilate thought to pacify the priests and people by
releasing Jesus as the subject of Passover leniency; this would be a
tacit recognition of Christ's conviction before the ecclesiastical
court, and practically an endorsement of the death sentence, superseded
by official pardon. Therefore he asked of them: "Whom will ye that I
release unto you? Barabbas, or Jesus which is called Christ?" There
appears to have been a brief interval between Pilate's question and the
people's answer, during which the chief priests and elders busied
themselves amongst the multitude, urging them to demand the release of
the insurrectionist and murderer. So, when Pilate reiterated the
question: "Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you?"
assembled Israel cried "Barabbas." Pilate, surprized, disappointed, and
angered, then asked: "What shall I do then with Jesus which is called
Christ? They all say unto him, Let him be crucified. And the governor
said, Why, what evil hath he done? But they cried out the more, saying,
Let him be crucified."

The Roman governor was sorely troubled and inwardly afraid. To add to
his perplexity he received a warning message from his wife, even as he
sat on the judgment seat: "Have thou nothing to do with that just man:
for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him."
Those who know not God are characteristically superstitious. Pilate
feared to think what dread portent his wife's dream might presage. But,
finding that he could not prevail, and foreseeing a tumult among the
people if he persisted in the defense of Christ, he called for water and
washed his hands before the multitude--a symbolic act of disclaiming
responsibility, which they all understood--proclaiming the while: "I am
innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it." Then rose that
awful self-condemnatory cry of the covenant people: "His blood be on us
and on our children." History bears an appalling testimony to the
literal fulfilment of that dread invocation.[1292] Pilate released
Barabbas, and gave Jesus into the custody of the soldiers to be
scourged.

Scourging was a frightful preliminary to death on the cross. The
instrument of punishment was a whip of many thongs, loaded with metal
and edged with jagged pieces of bone. Instances are of record in which
the condemned died under the lash and so escaped the horrors of living
crucifixion. In accordance with the brutal customs of the time, Jesus,
weak and bleeding from the fearful scourging He had undergone, was given
over to the half-savage soldiers for their amusement. He was no ordinary
victim, so the whole band came together in the Pretorium, or great hall
of the palace, to take part in the diabolical sport. They stripped Jesus
of His outer raiment, and placed upon Him a purple robe.[1293] Then with
a sense of fiendish realism they platted a crown of thorns, and placed
it about the Sufferer's brows; a reed was put into His right hand as a
royal scepter; and, as they bowed in a mockery of homage, they saluted
Him with: "Hail, King of the Jews!" Snatching away the reed or rod, they
brutally smote Him with it upon the head, driving the cruel thorns into
His quivering flesh; they slapped Him with their hands, and spat upon
Him in vile and vicious abandonment.[1294]

Pilate had probably been a silent observer of this barbarous scene. He
stopped it, and determined to make another attempt to touch the springs
of Jewish pity, if such existed. He went outside, and to the multitude
said: "Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no
fault in him." This was the governor's third definite proclamation of
the Prisoner's innocence. "Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of
thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the
man!"[1295] Pilate seems to have counted on the pitiful sight of the
scourged and bleeding Christ to soften the hearts of the maddened Jews.
But the effect failed. Think of the awful fact--a heathen, a pagan, who
knew not God, pleading with the priests and people of Israel for the
life of their Lord and King! When, unmoved by the sight, the chief
priests and officers cried with increasing vindictiveness, "crucify him,
crucify him," Pilate pronounced the fatal sentence, "Take ye him and
crucify him," but added with bitter emphasis: "I find no fault in him."

It will be remembered that the only charge preferred against Christ
before the Roman governor was that of sedition; the Jewish persecutors
had carefully avoided even the mention of blasphemy, which was the
offense for which they had adjudged Jesus worthy of death. Now that
sentence of crucifixion had been extorted from Pilate, they brazenly
attempted to make it appear that the governor's mandate was but a
ratification of their own decree of death; therefore they said: "We have
a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son
of God." What did it mean? That awe-inspiring title, Son of God, struck
yet deeper into Pilate's troubled conscience. Once more he took Jesus
into the judgment hall, and in trepidation asked, "Whence art thou?" The
inquiry was as to whether Jesus was human or superhuman. A direct avowal
of the Lord's divinity would have frightened but could not have
enlightened the heathen ruler; therefore Jesus gave no answer. Pilate
was further surprized, and perhaps somewhat offended at this seeming
disregard of his authority. He demanded an explanation, saying:
"Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to
crucify thee, and have power to release thee?" Then Jesus replied: "Thou
couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from
above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin."
The positions were reversed; Christ was the Judge, and Pilate the
subject of His decision. Though not found guiltless, the Roman was
pronounced less culpable than he or those who had forced Jesus into his
power, and who had demanded of him an unrighteous committal.

The governor, though having pronounced sentence, yet sought means of
releasing the submissive Sufferer. His first evidence of wavering was
greeted by the Jews with the cry, "If thou let this man go, thou art not
Cæsar's friend: whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Cæsar."
Pilate took his place in the judgment seat, which was set up in the
place of the Pavement, or Gabbatha, outside the hall. He was resentful
against those Jews who had dared to intimate that he was no friend of
Cæsar, and whose intimation might lead to an embassy of complaint being
sent to Rome to misrepresent him in exaggerated accusation. Pointing to
Jesus, he exclaimed with unveiled sarcasm: "Behold your King!" But the
Jews answered in threatening and ominous shouts: "Away with him, away
with him, crucify him." In stinging reminder of their national
subjugation, Pilate asked with yet more cutting irony, "Shall I crucify
your King?" And the chief priests cried aloud: "We have no king but
Cæsar."

Even so was it and was to be. The people who had by covenant accepted
Jehovah as their King, now rejected Him in Person, and acknowledged no
sovereign but Cæsar. Cæsar's subjects and serfs have they been through
all the centuries since. Pitiable is the state of man or nation who in
heart and spirit will have no king but Cæsar![1296]

Wherein lay the cause of Pilate's weakness? He was the emperor's
representative, the imperial procurator with power to crucify or to
save; officially he was an autocrat. His conviction of Christ's
blamelessness and his desire to save Him from the cross are beyond
question. Why did Pilate waver, hesitate, vacillate, and at length yield
contrary to his conscience and his will? Because, after all, he was more
slave than freeman. He was in servitude to his past. He knew that should
complaint be made of him at Rome, his corruption and cruelties, his
extortions and the unjustifiable slaughter he had caused would all be
brought against him. He was the Roman ruler, but the people over whom he
exercized official dominion delighted in seeing him cringe, when they
cracked, with vicious snap above his head, the whip of a threatened
report about him to his imperial master, Tiberius.[1297]


JUDAS ISCARIOT.[1298]

When Judas Iscariot saw how terribly effective had been the outcome of
his treachery, he became wildly remorseful. During Christ's trial before
the Jewish authorities, with its associated humiliation and cruelty, the
traitor had seen the seriousness of his action; and when the unresisting
Sufferer had been delivered up to the Romans, and the fatal consummation
had become a certainty, the enormity of his crime filled Judas with
nameless horror. Rushing into the presence of the chief priests and
elders, while the final preparations for the crucifixion of the Lord
were in progress, he implored the priestly rulers to take back the
accursed wage they had paid him, crying in an agony of despair: "I have
sinned, in that I have betrayed the innocent blood." He may have vaguely
expected a word of sympathy from the conspirators in whose wickedly
skilful hands he had been so ready and serviceable a tool; possibly he
hoped that his avowal might stem the current of their malignancy, and
that they would ask for a reversal of the sentence. But the rulers in
Israel repulsed him with disgust. "What is that to us?" they sneered,
"see thou to that." He had served their purpose; they had paid him his
price; they wished never to look upon his face again; and pitilessly
they flung him back into the haunted blackness of his maddened
conscience. Still clutching the bag of silver, the all too real
remembrancer of his frightful sin, he rushed into the temple,
penetrating even to the precincts of priestly reservation, and dashed
the silver pieces upon the floor of the sanctuary.[1299] Then, under the
goading impulse of his master, the devil, to whom he had become a
bond-slave, body and soul, he went out and hanged himself.

The chief priests gathered up the pieces of silver, and in sacrilegious
scrupulosity, held a solemn council to determine what they should do
with the "price of blood." As they deemed it unlawful to add the
attainted coin to the sacred treasury, they bought with it a certain
clay-yard, once the property of a potter, and the very place in which
Judas had made of himself a suicide; this tract of ground they set apart
as a burial place for aliens, strangers, and pagans. The body of Judas,
the betrayer of the Christ, was probably the first to be there interred.
And that field was called "Aceldama, that is to say, The field of
blood."[1300]


NOTES TO CHAPTER 34.

1. Annas, and His Interview with Jesus.--"No figure is better known in
contemporary Jewish history than that of Annas; no person deemed more
fortunate or successful, but also none more generally execrated than the
late high priest. He had held the pontificate for only six or seven
years; but it was filled by not fewer than five of his sons, by his
son-in-law Caiaphas, and by a grandson. And in those days it was, at
least for one of Annas' disposition, much better to have been than to be
high priest. He enjoyed all the dignity of the office, and all its
influence also, since he was able to promote to it those most closely
connected with him. And while they acted publicly, he really directed
affairs, without either the responsibility or the restraints which the
office imposed. His influence with the Romans he owed to the religious
views which he professed, to his open partisanship of the foreigner, and
to his enormous wealth.... We have seen what immense revenues the family
of Annas must have derived from the Temple booths, and how nefarious and
unpopular was the traffic. The names of those bold, licentious,
unscrupulous, degenerate sons of Aaron were spoken with whispered
curses. Without referring to Christ's interference with that
Temple-traffic, which, if His authority had prevailed, would of course
have been fatal to it, we can understand how antithetic in every respect
a Messiah, and such a Messiah as Jesus, must have been to Annas.... No
account is given of what passed before Annas. Even the fact of Christ's
being first brought to him is only mentioned in the fourth Gospel. As
the disciples had all forsaken Him and fled, we can understand that they
were in ignorance of what actually passed, till they had again rallied,
at least so far, that Peter and 'another disciple', evidently John,
'followed Him into the palace of the high priest'--that is, into the
palace of Caiaphas, not of Annas. For as, according to the three
synoptic Gospels, the palace of the high priest Caiaphas was the scene
of Peter's denial, the account of it in the fourth Gospel must refer to
the same locality, and not to the palace of Annas."--Edersheim, _Life
and Times of Jesus the Messiah_; vol. 2, pp. 547-8.

2. Christ's Forbearance when Smitten.--That Jesus maintained His
equanimity and submissiveness even under the provocation of a blow dealt
by a brutish underling in the presence of the high priest, is
confirmatory of our Lord's affirmation that He had "overcome the world"
(John 16:33). One cannot read the passage without comparing, perhaps
involuntarily, the divine submissiveness of Jesus on this occasion, with
the wholly natural and human indignation of Paul under somewhat similar
conditions at a later time (Acts 23:1-5). The high priest Ananias,
displeased at Paul's remarks, ordered someone who stood by to smite him
on the mouth. Paul broke forth in angry protest: "God shall smite thee,
thou whited wall: for sittest thou to judge me after the law, and
commandest me to be smitten contrary to the law?" Afterward he
apologized, saying that he knew not that it was the high priest who had
given the command that he be smitten. See _Articles of Faith_, xxiii,
II, and Note 1 following the same lecture; and Farrar's _Life and Works
of St. Paul_, pp. 539-540.

3. High Priests and Elders.--These titles as held by officials of the
Jewish hierarchy in the time of Christ must not be confused with the
same designations as applied to holders of the Higher or Melchizedek
Priesthood. The high priest of the Jews was the presiding priest; he had
to be of Aaronic descent to be a priest at all; he became high priest by
Roman appointment. The elders, as the name indicates, were men of mature
years and experience, who were appointed to act as magistrates in the
towns, and as judges in the ecclesiastical tribunals, either in the
Lesser Sanhedrins of the provinces, or in the Great Sanhedrin at
Jerusalem. The term "elder" as commonly used among the Jews in the days
of Jesus had no closer relation to eldership in the Melchizedek
Priesthood than had the title "scribe". The duties of Jewish high
priests and elders combined both ecclesiastical and secular functions;
indeed both offices had come to be in large measure political
perquisites. See "Elder" in Smith's _Bible Dictionary_. From the
departure of Moses to the coming of Christ, the organized theocracy of
Israel was that of the Lesser or Aaronic Priesthood, comprizing the
office of priest, which was confined to the lineage of Aaron, and the
lesser offices of teacher and deacon, which were combined in the
Levitical order. See "Orders and Offices in the Priesthood" by the
author in _The Articles of Faith_, xi:13-24.

4. Illegalities of the Jewish Trial of Jesus.--Many volumes have been
written on the so-called trial of Jesus. Only a brief summary of the
principal items of fact and law can be incorporated here. For further
consideration reference may be made to the following treatments:
Edersheim, _Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah_; Andrews, _Life of Our
Lord_; Dupin, _Jesus before Caiaphas and Pilate_; Mendelsohn, _Criminal
Jurisprudence of the Ancient Hebrews_; Salvador, _Institutions of
Moses_; Innes, _The Trial of Jesus Christ_; Maimonides, _Sanhedrin_; MM.
Lemann, _Jesus before the Sanhedrin_; Benny, _Criminal Code of the
Jews_; and Walter M. Chandler, of the New York Bar, _The Trial of Jesus
from a Lawyer's Standpoint_. The last named is a two volume work
treating respectively, "The Hebrew Trial" and "The Roman Trial", and
contains citations from the foregoing and other works.

Edersheim (vol. 2, pp. 556-8) contends that the night arraignment of
Jesus in the house of Caiaphas was not a trial before the Sanhedrin, and
notes the irregularities and illegalities of the procedure as proof that
the Sanhedrin could not have done what was done that night. With ample
citations in corroboration of the legal requirements specified, the
author says: "But besides, the trial and sentence of Jesus in the palace
of Caiaphas would have outraged every principle of Jewish criminal law
and procedure. Such causes could only be tried, and capital sentence
pronounced, in the regular meeting-place of the Sanhedrin, not, as here,
in the high priest's palace; no process, least of all such an one, might
be begun in the night, nor even in the afternoon, although if the
discussion had gone on all day, sentence might be pronounced at night.
Again, no process could take place on Sabbaths or feast-days, or even on
the eves of them, although this would not have nullified proceedings;
and it might be argued on the other side, that a process against one who
had seduced the people should preferably be carried on, and sentence
executed, on public feast-days, for the warning of all. Lastly, in
capital causes there was a very elaborate system of warning, and
cautioning witnesses; while it may safely be affirmed that at a regular
trial Jewish judges, however prejudiced, would not have acted as the
Sanhedrists and Caiaphas did on this occasion.... But although Christ
was not tried and sentenced in a formal meeting of the Sanhedrin, there
can, alas! be no question that His condemnation and death were the work,
if not of the Sanhedrin, yet of the Sanhedrists--of the whole body of
them ('all the council') in the sense of expressing what was the
judgment and purpose of all the supreme council and leaders of Israel,
with only very few exceptions. We bear in mind that the resolution to
sacrifice Christ had for some time been taken."

The purpose in quoting the foregoing is to show on acknowledged and
eminent authority, some of the illegalities of the night trial of Jesus,
which, as shown by the above, and by the scriptural record, was
conducted by the high priest and "the council" or Sanhedrin, in
admittedly irregular and unlawful manner. If the Sanhedrists tried and
condemned, yet were not in session as the Sanhedrin, the enormity of the
proceeding is, if possible, deeper and blacker than ever.

In Chandler's excellent work (vol. I, "The Hebrew Trial"), the record of
fact in the case, and the Hebrew criminal law bearing thereon are
exhaustively considered. Then follows an elaborate "Brief", in which the
following points are set forth in order.

"_Point 1: The Arrest of Jesus was illegal_", since it was effected by
night, and through the treachery of Judas, an accomplice, both of which
features were expressly forbidden in the Jewish law of that day.

"_Point 2: The private examination of Jesus before Annas or Caiaphas was
illegal_"; for (1) it was made by night; (2) the hearing of any cause by
a 'sole judge' was expressly forbidden; (3) as quoted from Salvador, 'A
principle perpetually reproduced in the Hebrew scriptures relates to the
two conditions of publicity and liberty.'

"_Point 3: The indictment against Jesus was, in form, illegal._ 'The
entire criminal procedure of the Mosaic code rests upon four rules:
certainty in the indictment; publicity in the discussion; full freedom
granted to the accused; and assurance against all dangers or errors of
testimony'--Salvador, p. 365. 'The Sanhedrin did not and could not
originate charges; it only investigated those brought before
it'--Edersheim, vol. I, p. 309. 'The evidence of the leading witnesses
constituted the charge. There was no other charge; no more formal
indictment. Until they spoke and spoke in the public assembly, the
prisoner was scarcely an accused man,'--Innes, p. 41. 'The only
prosecutors known to Talmudic criminal jurisprudence are the witnesses
to the crime. Their duty is to bring the matter to the cognizance of the
court, and to bear witness against the criminal. In capital cases they
are the legal executioners also. Of an official accuser or prosecutor
there is nowhere any trace in the laws of the ancient Hebrews.'--
Mendelsohn, p. 110.

"_Point 4: The proceedings of the Sanhedrin against Jesus were illegal
because they were conducted at night._ 'Let a capital offense be tried
during the day, but suspend it at night,'--Mishna, Sanhedrin 4:1.
'Criminal cases can be acted upon by the various courts during daytime
only, by the Lesser Sanhedrions from the close of the morning service
till noon, and by the Great Sanhedrion till evening.'--Mendelsohn, p.
112.

"_Point 5: The proceedings of the Sanhedrin against Jesus were illegal
because the court convened before the offering of the morning
sacrifice._ 'The Sanhedrin sat from the close of the morning sacrifice
to the time of the evening sacrifice,'--Talmud, Jer. San. 1:19. 'No
session of the court could take place before the offering of the morning
sacrifice'.--MM. Lemann, p. 109. 'Since the morning sacrifice was
offered at the dawn of day, it was hardly possible for the Sanhedrin to
assemble until the hour after that time,'--Mishna, Tamid, ch. 3.

"_Point 6: The proceedings against Jesus were illegal because they were
conducted on the day preceding a Jewish Sabbath; also on the first day
of unleavened bread and the eve of the Passover._ 'They shall not judge
on the eve of the Sabbath nor on that of any festival.'--Mishna, San.
4:1. 'No court of justice in Israel was permitted to hold sessions on
the Sabbath or any of the seven Biblical holidays. In cases of capital
crime, no trial could be commenced on Friday or the day previous to any
holiday, because it was not lawful either to adjourn such cases longer
than over night, or to continue them on the Sabbath or holiday.'--Rabbi
Wise, 'Martyrdom of Jesus', p. 67.

"_Point 7: The trial of Jesus was illegal because it was concluded
within one day._ 'A criminal case resulting in the acquittal of the
accused may terminate the same day on which the trial began. But if a
sentence of death is to be pronounced, it cannot be concluded before the
following day.'--Mishna, San. 4:1.

"_Point 8: The sentence of condemnation pronounced against Jesus by the
Sanhedrin was illegal because it was founded upon His uncorroborated
confession._ 'We have it as a fundamental principle of our jurisprudence
that no one can bring an accusation against himself. Should a man make
confession of guilt before a legally constituted tribunal, such
confession is not to be used against him unless properly attested by two
other witnesses,'--Maimonides, 4:2. 'Not only is self-condemnation never
extorted from the defendant by means of torture, but no attempt is ever
made to lead him on to self-incrimination. Moreover, a voluntary
confession on his part is not admitted in evidence, and therefore not
competent to convict him, unless a legal number of witnesses minutely
corroborate his self-accusation.'--Mendelsohn, p. 133.

"_Point 9: The condemnation of Jesus was illegal because the verdict of
the Sanhedrin was unanimous._ 'A simultaneous and unanimous verdict of
guilt rendered on the day of the trial has the effect of an
acquittal.'--Mendelsohn, p. 141. 'If none of the judges defend the
culprit, i.e., all pronounce him guilty, having no defender in the
court, the verdict of guilty was invalid and the sentence of death could
not be executed.'--Rabbi Wise, 'Martyrdom of Jesus', p. 74.

"_Point 10: The proceedings against Jesus were illegal in that: (1) The
sentence of condemnation was pronounced in a place forbidden by law; (2)
The high priest rent his clothes; (3) The balloting was irregular._
'After leaving the hall Gazith no sentence of death can be passed upon
any one soever,'--Talmud, Bab. 'Of Idolatry' 1:8. 'A sentence of death
can be pronounced only so long as the Sanhedrin holds its sessions in
the appointed place.'--Maimonides, 14. See further Levit. 21:10; compare
10:6. 'Let the judges each in his turn absolve or condemn.'--Mishna,
San. 15:5. 'The members of the Sanhedrin were seated in the form of a
semicircle, at the extremity of which a secretary was placed, whose
business it was to record the votes. One of these secretaries recorded
the votes in favor of the accused, the other those against
him.'--Mishna, San. 4:3. 'In ordinary cases the judges voted according
to seniority, the oldest commencing; in a capital case the reverse order
was followed.'--Benny, p. 73.

"_Point 11: The members of the Great Sanhedrin were legally disqualified
to try Jesus._ 'Nor must there be on the judicial bench either a
relation or a particular friend, or an enemy of either the accused or of
the accuser.'--Mendelsohn, p. 108. 'Nor under any circumstances was a
man known to be at enmity with the accused person permitted to occupy a
position among the judges.'--Benny, p. 37.

"_Point 12: The condemnation of Jesus was illegal because the merits of
the defense were not considered._ 'Then shalt thou enquire, and make
search, and ask diligently.'--Deut. 13:14. 'The judges shall weigh the
matter in the sincerity of their conscience.'--Mishna, San. 4:5. 'The
primary object of the Hebrew judicial system was to render the
conviction of an innocent person impossible. All the ingenuity of the
Jewish legists was directed to the attainment of this end.'--Benny, p.
56."

Chandler's masterly statements of fact and his arguments on each of the
foregoing points are commended to the investigator. The author tersely
avers: "The pages of human history present no stronger case of judicial
murder than the trial and crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, for the
simple reason that all forms of law were outraged and trampled under
foot in the proceedings instituted against Him." (p. 216.)

5. "His Blood be on us, and on Our Children."--Edersheim (vol. 2, p.
578) thus forcefully comments on the acknowledgment of responsibility
for the death of Christ: "The Mishna tells us that, after the solemn
washing of hands of the elders and their disclaimer of guilt, priests
responded with this prayer: 'Forgive it to thy people Israel, whom thou
hast redeemed, O Lord, and lay not innocent blood upon thy people
Israel.' But here, in answer to Pilate's words, came back that deep,
hoarse cry: 'His blood be upon us,' and--God help us!--'on our
children.' Some thirty years later, and on that very spot, was judgment
pronounced against some of the best in Jerusalem; and among the 3,600
victims of the governor's fury, of whom not a few were scourged and
crucified right over against the Pretorium, were many of the noblest of
the citizens of Jerusalem. (Josephus, Wars, xiv, chap. 8:9). A few years
more, and hundreds of crosses bore Jewish mangled bodies within sight of
Jerusalem. And still have these wanderers seemed to bear, from century
to century, and from land to land, that burden of blood; and still does
it seem to weigh 'on us and on our children'."

6. "We Have no King but Cæsar."--"With this cry Judaism was, in the
person of its representatives, guilty of denial of God, of blasphemy, of
apostasy. It committed suicide; and ever since has its dead body been
carried in show from land to land, and from century to century,--to be
dead and to remain dead, till He come a second time, who is the
resurrection and the life."--Edersheim, vol. 2, p. 581.

7. The Underlying Cause of Pilate's Surrender to the Jewish
Demands.--Pilate knew what was right but lacked the moral courage to do
it. He was afraid of the Jews, and more afraid of hostile influence at
Rome. He was afraid of his conscience, but more afraid of losing his
official position. It was the policy of Rome to be gracious and
conciliatory in dealing with the religions and social customs of
conquered nations. Pontius Pilate had violated this liberal policy from
the early days of his procuratorship. In utter disregard of the Hebrew
antipathy against images and heathen insignia, he had the legionaries
enter Jerusalem at night, carrying their eagles and standards decorated
with the effigy of the emperor. To the Jews this act was a defilement of
the Holy City. In vast multitudes they gathered at Cæsarea, and
petitioned the procurator that the standards and other images be removed
from Jerusalem. For five days the people demanded and Pilate refused. He
threatened a general slaughter, and was amazed to see the people offer
themselves as victims of the sword rather than relinquish their demands.
Pilate had to yield (Josephus, Ant. xviii, chap. 3:1; also Wars, ii,
chap. 9:2, 3). Again he gave offense in forcibly appropriating the
Corban, or sacred funds of the temple, to the construction of an
aqueduct for supplying Jerusalem with water from the pools of Solomon.
Anticipating the public protest of the people, he had caused Roman
soldiers to disguise themselves as Jews; and with weapons concealed to
mingle with the crowds. At a given signal these assassins plied their
weapons and great numbers of defenceless Jews were killed or wounded
(Josephus, Ant. xviii, chap. 3:2; and Wars, ii, chap. 9:3, 4). On
another occasion, Pilate had grossly offended the people by setting up
in his official residence at Jerusalem, shields that had been dedicated
to Tiberius, and this "less for the honor of Tiberius than for the
annoyance of the Jewish people." A petition signed by the ecclesiastical
officials of the nation, and by others of influence, including four
Herodian princes, was sent to the emperor, who reprimanded Pilate and
directed that the shields be removed from Jerusalem to Cæsarea (Philo.
De Legatione ad Caium; sec. 38).

These outrages on national feeling, and many minor acts of violence,
extortion and cruelty, the Jews held against the procurator. He realized
that his tenure was insecure, and he dreaded exposure. Such wrongs had
he wrought that when he would have done good, he was deterred through
cowardly fear of the accusing past.

8. Judas Iscariot.--Today we speak of a traitor as a "Judas" or an
"Iscariot". The man who made the combined name infamous has been for
ages a subject of discussion among theologians and philosophers, and in
later times the light of psychological analysis has been turned upon
him. German philosophers were among the earliest to assert that the man
had been judged in unrighteousness, and that his real character was of
brighter tint than that in which it had been painted. Indeed some
critics hold that of all the Twelve Judas was the one most thoroughly
convinced of our Lord's divinity in the flesh; and these apologists
attempt to explain the betrayal as a deliberate and well-intended move
to force Jesus into a position of difficulty from which He could escape
only by the exercize of His powers of Godship, which, up to that time,
He had never used in His own behalf.

We are not the invested judges of Judas nor of any other; but we are
competent to frame and hold opinions as to the actions of any. In the
light of the revealed word it appears that Judas Iscariot had given
himself up to the cause of Satan while ostensibly serving the Christ in
an exalted capacity. Such a surrender to evil powers could be
accomplished only through sin. The nature and extent of the man's
transgressions through the years are not told us. He had received the
testimony that Jesus was the Son of God; and in the full light of that
conviction he turned against his Lord, and betrayed Him to death. Modern
revelation is no less explicit than ancient in declaring that the path
of sin is that of spiritual darkness leading to certain destruction. If
the man who is guilty of adultery, even in his heart only, shall, unless
he repents, surely forfeit the companionship of the Spirit of God, and
"shall deny the faith", and so the voice of God hath affirmed (see Doc.
and Cov. 63:16), we cannot doubt that any and all forms of deadly sin
shall poison the soul and, if not forsaken through true repentance,
shall bring that soul to condemnation. For his trained and skilful
servants, Satan will provide opportunities of service commensurate with
their evil ability. Whatever the opinion of modern critics as to the
good character of Judas, we have the testimony of John, who for nearly
three years had been in close companionship with him, that the man was a
thief (12:6); and Jesus referred to him as a devil (6:70), and as "the
son of perdition" (17:12). See in this connection Doc. and Cov.
76:41-48.

That the evil proclivities of Judas Iscariot were known to Christ is
evidenced by the Lord's direct statement that among the Twelve was one
who was a devil; (John 6:70; compare 13:27; Luke 22:3); and furthermore
that this knowledge was His when the Twelve were selected is suggested
by the words of Jesus: "I know whom I have chosen", coupled with the
explanation that in the choice He had made would the scriptures be
fulfilled. As the sacrificial death of the Lamb of God was foreknown and
foretold so the circumstances of the betrayal were foreseen. It would be
contrary to both the letter and spirit of the revealed word to say that
the wretched Iscariot was in the least degree deprived of freedom or
agency in the course he followed to so execrable an end. His was the
opportunity and privilege common to the Twelve, to live in the light of
the Lord's immediate presence, and to receive from the source divine the
revelation of God's purposes. Judas Iscariot was no victim of
circumstances, no insensate tool guided by a superhuman power, except as
he by personal volition gave himself up to Satan, and accepted a wage in
the devil's employ. Had Judas been true to the right, other means than
his perfidy would have operated to bring the Lamb to the slaughter. His
ordination to the apostleship placed him in possession of opportunity
and privilege above that of the uncalled and unordained; and with such
blessed possibility of achievement in the service of God came
corresponding capability to fall. A trusted and exalted officer of the
government can commit acts of treachery and treason such as are
impossible to the citizen who has never learned the secrets of State.
Advancement implies increased accountability, even more literally so in
the affairs of God's kingdom than in the institutions of men.

There is an apparent discrepancy between the account of Judas Iscariot's
death given by Matthew (27:3-10) and that in Acts (1:16-20). According
to the first, Judas hanged himself; the second states that he fell
headlong, "and all his bowels gushed out." If both records be accurate,
the wretched man probably hanged himself, and afterward fell, possibly
through the breaking of the cord or the branch to which it was attached.
Matthew says the Jewish rulers purchased the "field of blood"; the
writer of the Acts quotes Peter as saying that Judas bought the field
with the money he had received from the priests. As the ground was
bought with the money that had belonged to Iscariot, and as this money
had never been formally taken back by the temple officials, the field
bought therewith belonged technically to the estate of Judas. The
variations are of importance mainly as showing independence of
authorship. The accounts agree in the essential feature, that Judas died
a miserable suicide.

Concerning the fate of the "sons of perdition," the Lord has given a
partial but awful account through a revelation dated February 16, 1832:
"Thus saith the Lord, concerning all those who know my power, and have
been made partakers thereof, and suffered themselves, through the power
of the devil, to be overcome, and to deny the truth and defy my
power--They are they who are the sons of perdition, of whom I say that
it had been better for them never to have been born, For they are
vessels of wrath, doomed to suffer the wrath of God, with the devil and
his angels in eternity; Concerning whom I have said there is no
forgiveness in this world nor in the world to come, Having denied the
Holy Spirit after having received it, and having denied the Only
Begotten Son of the Father--having crucified him unto themselves and put
him to an open shame. These are they who shall go away into the lake of
fire and brimstone, with the devil and his angels, And the only ones on
whom the second death shall have any power.... Wherefore, he saves all
except them: they shall go away into everlasting punishment, which is
endless punishment, which is eternal punishment, to reign with the devil
and his angels in eternity, where their worm dieth not, and the fire is
not quenched, which is their torment; And the end thereof, neither the
place thereof, nor their torment, no man knows. Neither was it revealed,
neither is, neither will be revealed unto man, except to them who are
made partakers thereof: Nevertheless I, the Lord, show it by vision unto
many, but straightway shut it up again: Wherefore the end, the width,
the height, the depth, and the misery thereof, they understand not,
neither any man except them who are ordained unto this condemnation."--
Doc. and Cov. 76:31-37, 44-48.

FOOTNOTES:

[1249] John 18:13, 24.

[1250] Matt. 26:57; Mark 14:53; Luke 22:54.

[1251] Note 1, end of chapter.

[1252] John 18:14; compare 11:49, 50.

[1253] John 18:19-23.

[1254] The common text of John 18:22, says that the man "struck Jesus
with the palm of his hand," that is to say slapped Him; such an act
added humiliating insult to violence; the marginal reading of the
revised version is "with a rod." There is lack of agreement on this
point in the early Mss.

[1255] Note 2, end of chapter.

[1256] Matt. 26:59-61; Mark 14:55-59.

[1257] Matt. 26:61 and Mark 14:58.

[1258] John 2:18-22; see pages 156, 157 herein.

[1259] Note the accusation reported to Pilate that Jesus was guilty of
"perverting the nation," Luke 23:2.

[1260] Matt. 26:63-66; compare Mark 14:61-64.

[1261] Pages 191, 201.

[1262] Compare Mark 14:62.

[1263] Matt. 26:65, 66. Revised version reads: "He is worthy of death,"
and gives in margin a yet more literal rendering: "liable to" death.

[1264] Lev. 21:10.

[1265] Josephus, Wars, ii, 15:2, 4; also 1 Maccabees 11:71.

[1266] Matt. 26:67; Mark 14:65; compare Luke 18:32; see also Isa. 50:6.

[1267] Matt. 26:68; Luke 22:62-65.

[1268] Mark 14:64.

[1269] Luke 22:66.

[1270] John 18:28.

[1271] Luke 22:66-71.

[1272] Note 3, end of chapter.

[1273] Mark 15:1; compare Matt. 27:1, 2; John 18:28.

[1274] Note 4, end of chapter, gives further details of the unlawful
irregularities of the Jewish trial of Jesus.

[1275] Matt. 26:58, 69-75; Mark 14:54, 66-72; Luke 22:54-62; John
18:15-18, 25-27.

[1276] John 18:8, 9; page 615 herein.

[1277] John 1:35, 40; 13:23; 19:26; 20:2; 21:7, 20, 24.

[1278] Observe that Mark, who alone states that the Lord said to Peter
"before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice," (14:30) records
a first crowing of the cock after Peter's first denial (v. 68) and a
second crowing after the third denial (v. 72).

[1279] Cæsarea Palestina, not Cæsarea Philippi.

[1280] John 18:28-32.

[1281] Luke 23:2.

[1282] John 18:33-38; compare Matt. 27:11; Mark 15:2; Luke 23:3, 4.

[1283] Luke 23:5-7.

[1284] Luke 23:8-12.

[1285] Pages 110, 118; see also page 106.

[1286] Luke 23:12.

[1287] Matt. 14:1; Mark 6:14; Luke 9:7, 9.

[1288] Luke 13:31, 32; page 446 herein.

[1289] Luke 23:11. Revised version reads, "arraying him in gorgeous
apparel." Clarke ("Commentaries") and many other writers assume that the
robe was white, that being the usual color of dress amongst the Jewish
nobility.

[1290] Luke 23:13-25; Matt. 27:15-31; Mark 15:6-20; John 18:39, 40;
19:1-16.

[1291] Matt. 27:18; Mark 15:10.

[1292] Note 5, end of chapter.

[1293] Matthew says "scarlet," Mark and John say "purple."

[1294] Compare Luke 18:32.

[1295] "Ecce Homo."

[1296] Note 6, end of chapter.

[1297] Note 7, end of chapter.

[1298] Matt. 27:3-10; compare Acts 1:16-20.

[1299] Revised version of Matt. 27:5 reads, "And he cast down the pieces
of silver into the sanctuary" instead of "in the temple," signifying
that he flung the money into the Porch of the Holy House, as
distinguished from the outer and public courts.

[1300] Acts 1:19; Matt. 27:8. Note 8, end of chapter.




CHAPTER 35.

DEATH AND BURIAL.


ON THE WAY TO CALVARY.[1301]

Pontius Pilate, having reluctantly surrendered to the clamorous demands
of the Jews, issued the fatal order; and Jesus, divested of the purple
robe and arrayed in His own apparel, was led away to be crucified. A
body of Roman soldiers had the condemned Christ in charge; and as the
procession moved out from the governor's palace, a motley crowd
comprizing priestly officials, rulers of the Jews, and people of many
nationalities, followed. Two convicted criminals, who had been sentenced
to the cross for robbery, were led forth to death at the same time;
there was to be a triple execution; and the prospective scene of horror
attracted the morbidly minded, such as delight to gloat over the
sufferings of their fellows. In the crowd, however, were some genuine
mourners, as shall be shown. It was the Roman custom to make the
execution of convicts as public as possible, under the mistaken and
anti-psychological assumption, that the spectacle of dreadful punishment
would be of deterrent effect. This misconception of human nature has not
yet become entirely obsolete.

The sentence of death by crucifixion required that the condemned person
carry the cross upon which he was to suffer. Jesus started on the way
bearing His cross. The terrible strain of the preceding hours, the agony
in Gethsemane, the barbarous treatment He had suffered in the palace of
the high priest, the humiliation and cruel usage to which He had been
subjected before Herod, the frightful scourging under Pilate's order,
the brutal treatment by the inhuman soldiery, together with the extreme
humiliation and the mental agony of it all, had so weakened His physical
organism that He moved but slowly under the burden of the cross. The
soldiers, impatient at the delay, peremptorily impressed into service a
man whom they met coming into Jerusalem from the country, and him they
compelled to carry the cross of Jesus. No Roman or Jew would have
voluntarily incurred the ignominy of bearing such a gruesome burden; for
every detail connected with the carrying out of a sentence of
crucifixion was regarded as degrading. The man so forced to walk in the
footsteps of Jesus, bearing the cross upon which the Savior of the world
was to consummate His glorious mission, was Simon, a native of Cyrene.
From Mark's statement that Simon was the father of Alexander and Rufus
we infer that the two sons were known to the evangelist's readers as
members of the early Church, and there is some indication that the
household of Simon the Cyrenian came to be numbered with the
believers.[1302]

Among those who followed or stood and watched the death-procession pass,
were some, women particularly, who bewailed and lamented the fate to
which Jesus was going. We read of no man who ventured to raise his voice
in protest or pity; but on this dreadful occasion as at other times,
women were not afraid to cry out in commiseration or praise. Jesus, who
had been silent under the inquisition of the priests, silent under the
humiliating mockery of the sensual Herod and his coarse underlings,
silent when buffeted and beaten by the brutal legionaries of Pilate,
turned to the women whose sympathizing lamentations had reached His
ears, and uttered these pathetic and portentous words of admonition and
warning: "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for
yourselves, and for your children. For, behold, the days are coming, in
the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that
never bare, and the paps which never gave suck. Then shall they begin to
say to the mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us. For if
they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?" It
was the Lord's last testimony of the impending holocaust of destruction
that was to follow the nation's rejection of her King. Although
motherhood was the glory of every Jewish woman's life, yet in the
terrible scenes which many of those there weeping would live to witness,
barrenness would be accounted a blessing; for the childless would have
fewer to weep over, and at least would be spared the horror of seeing
their offspring die of starvation or by violence; for so dreadful would
be that day that people would fain welcome the falling of the mountains
upon them to end their sufferings.[1303] If Israel's oppressors could do
what was then in process of doing to the "Green Tree," who bore the
leafage of freedom and truth and offered the priceless fruit of life
eternal, what would the powers of evil not do to the withered branches
and dried trunk of apostate Judaism?

Along the city streets, out through the portal of the massive wall, and
thence to a place beyond but yet nigh unto Jerusalem, the cortege
advanced. The destination was a spot called Golgotha, or Calvary,
meaning "the place of a skull."[1304]


CRUCIFIXION.[1305]

At Calvary the official crucifiers proceeded without delay to carry into
effect the dread sentence pronounced upon Jesus and upon the two
criminals. Preparatory to affixing the condemned to the cross, it was
the custom to offer each a narcotic draught of sour wine or vinegar
mingled with myrrh and possibly containing other anodyne ingredients,
for the merciful purpose of deadening the sensibility of the victim.
This was no Roman practise, but was allowed as a concession to Jewish
sentiment. When the drugged cup was presented to Jesus He put it to His
lips, but having ascertained the nature of its contents refused to
drink, and so demonstrated His determination to meet death with
faculties alert and mind unclouded.

Then they crucified Him, on the central cross of three, and placed one
of the condemned malefactors on His right hand, the other on His left.
Thus was realized Isaiah's vision of the Messiah numbered among the
transgressors.[1306] But few details of the actual crucifixion are given
us. We know however that our Lord was nailed to the cross by spikes
driven through the hands and feet, as was the Roman method, and not
bound only by cords as was the custom in inflicting this form of
punishment among some other nations. Death by crucifixion was at once
the most lingering and most painful of all forms of execution. The
victim lived in ever increasing torture, generally for many hours,
sometimes for days. The spikes so cruelly driven through hands and feet
penetrated and crushed sensitive nerves and quivering tendons, yet
inflicted no mortal wound. The welcome relief of death came through the
exhaustion caused by intense and unremitting pain, through localized
inflammation and congestion of organs incident to the strained and
unnatural posture of the body.[1307]

As the crucifiers proceeded with their awful task, not unlikely with
roughness and taunts, for killing was their trade and to scenes of
anguish they had grown callous through long familiarity, the agonized
Sufferer, void of resentment but full of pity for their heartlessness
and capacity for cruelty, voiced the first of the seven utterances
delivered from the cross. In the spirit of God-like mercy He prayed:
"_Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do._" Let us not
attempt to fix the limits of the Lord's mercy; that it would be extended
to all who in any degree could justly come under the blessed boon
thereof ought to be a sufficing fact. There is significance in the form
in which this merciful benediction was expressed. Had the Lord said, "I
forgive you," His gracious pardon may have been understood to be but a
remission of the cruel offense against Himself as One tortured under
unrighteous condemnation; but the invocation of the Father's forgiveness
was a plea for those who had brought anguish and death to the Father's
Well Beloved Son, the Savior and Redeemer of the world. Moses forgave
Miriam for her offense against himself as her brother; but God alone
could remit the penalty and remove the leprosy that had come upon her
for having spoken against Jehovah's high priest.[1308]

It appears that under Roman rule, the clothes worn by a condemned person
at the time of execution became the perquisites of the executioners. The
four soldiers in charge of the cross upon which the Lord suffered
distributed parts of His raiment among themselves; and there remained
His coat,[1309] which was a goodly garment, woven throughout in one
piece, without seam. To rend it would be to spoil; so the soldiers cast
lots to determine who should have it; and in this circumstance the
Gospel-writers saw a fulfilment of the psalmist's prevision: "They
parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast
lots."[1310]

To the cross above the head of Jesus was affixed a title or inscription,
prepared by order of Pilate in accordance with the custom of setting
forth the name of the crucified and the nature of the offense for which
he had been condemned to death. In this instance the title was inscribed
in three languages, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, one or more of which would
be understood by every observer who could read. The title so exhibited
read: "_This is Jesus the King of the Jews_"; or in the more extended
version given by John "_Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews_."[1311]
The inscription was read by many, for Calvary was close to the public
thoroughfare and on this holiday occasion the passers-by were doubtless
numerous. Comment was aroused; for, if literally construed, the
inscription was an official declaration that the crucified Jesus was in
fact King of the Jews. When this circumstance was brought to the
attention of the chief priests, they excitedly appealed to the governor,
saying: "Write not, The King of the Jews; but that he said, I am King of
the Jews. Pilate answered, What I have written I have written." Pilate's
action in so wording the title, and his blunt refusal to permit an
alteration, may have been an intended rebuff to the Jewish officials who
had forced him against his judgment and will to condemn Jesus; possibly,
however, the demeanor of the submissive Prisoner, and His avowal of
Kingship above all royalty of earth had impressed the mind if not the
heart of the pagan governor with a conviction of Christ's unique
superiority and of His inherent right of dominion; but, whatever the
purpose behind the writing, the inscription stands in history as
testimony of a heathen's consideration in contrast with Israel's
ruthless rejection of Israel's King.[1312]

The soldiers whose duty it was to guard the crosses, until loitering
death would relieve the crucified of their increasing anguish, jested
among themselves, and derided the Christ, pledging Him in their cups of
sour wine in tragic mockery. Looking at the title affixed above the
Sufferer's head, they bellowed forth the devil-inspired challenge: "If
thou be the king of the Jews, save thyself." The morbid multitude, and
the passers-by "railed on him, wagging their heads, and saying, Ah, thou
that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself,
and come down from the cross." But worst of all, the chief priests and
the scribes, the elders of the people, the unvenerable Sanhedrists,
became ring-leaders of the inhuman mob as they gloatingly exulted and
cried aloud: "He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King
of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe
him. He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him:
for he said, I am the Son of God."[1313] Though uttered in ribald
mockery, the declaration of the rulers in Israel stands as an
attestation that Christ had saved others, and as an intended ironical
but a literally true proclamation that He was the King of Israel. The
two malefactors, each hanging from his cross, joined in the general
derision, and "cast the same in his teeth." One of them, in the
desperation incident to approaching death, echoed the taunts of the
priests and people: "If thou be Christ, save thyself and us."

The dominant note in all the railings and revilings, the ribaldry and
mockery, with which the patient and submissive Christ was assailed while
He hung, "lifted up" as He had said He would be,[1314] was that awful
"If" hurled at Him by the devil's emissaries in the time of mortal
agony; as in the season of the temptations immediately after His baptism
it had been most insidiously pressed upon Him by the devil
himself.[1315] That "If" was Satan's last shaft, keenly barbed and
doubly envenomed, and it sped as with the fierce hiss of a viper. Was it
possible in this the final and most dreadful stage of Christ's mission,
to make Him doubt His divine Sonship, or, failing such, to taunt or
anger the dying Savior into the use of His superhuman powers for
personal relief or as an act of vengeance upon His tormentors? To
achieve such a victory was Satan's desperate purpose. The shaft failed.
Through taunts and derision, through blasphemous challenge and
diabolical goading, the agonized Christ was silent.

Then one of the crucified thieves, softened into penitence by the
Savior's uncomplaining fortitude, and perceiving in the divine
Sufferer's demeanor something more than human, rebuked his railing
fellow, saying: "Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same
condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our
deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss." His confession of guilt
and his acknowledgment of the justice of his own condemnation led to
incipient repentance, and to faith in the Lord Jesus, his companion in
agony. "And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into
thy kingdom."[1316] To the appeal of penitence the Lord replied with
such a promise as He alone could make: "Verily I say unto thee, To day
shalt thou be with me in paradise."[1317]

Among the spectators of this, the greatest tragedy in history, were some
who had come in sympathy and sorrow. No mention is found of the presence
of any of the Twelve, save one, and he, the disciple "whom Jesus loved,"
John the apostle, evangelist, and revelator; but specific record is made
of certain women who, first at a distance, and then close by the cross,
wept in the anguish of love and sorrow. "Now there stood by the cross of
Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas,
and Mary Magdalene."[1318]

In addition to the women named were many others, some of whom had
ministered unto Jesus in the course of His labors in Galilee, and who
were among those that had come up with Him to Jerusalem.[1319] First in
point of consideration among them all was Mary, the mother of Jesus,
into whose soul the sword had pierced even as righteous Simeon had
prophesied.[1320] Jesus looking with tender compassion upon His weeping
mother, as she stood with John at the foot of the cross, commended her
to the care and protection of the beloved disciple, with the words,
"_Woman, behold thy son!_" and to John, "_Behold thy mother!_" The
disciple tenderly led the heart-stricken Mary away from her dying Son,
and "took her unto his own home," thus immediately assuming the new
relationship established by his dying Master.

Jesus was nailed to the cross during the forenoon of that fateful
Friday, probably between nine and ten o'clock.[1321] At noontide the
light of the sun was obscured, and black darkness spread over the whole
land. The terrifying gloom continued for a period of three hours. This
remarkable phenomenon has received no satisfactory explanation from
science. It could not have been due to a solar eclipse, as has been
suggested in ignorance, for the time was that of full moon; indeed the
Passover season was determined by the first occurrence of full moon
after the spring equinox. The darkness was brought about by miraculous
operation of natural laws directed by divine power. It was a fitting
sign of the earth's deep mourning over the impending death of her
Creator.[1322] Of the mortal agony through which the Lord passed while
upon the cross the Gospel-scribes are reverently reticent.

At the ninth hour, or about three in the afternoon, a loud voice,
surpassing the most anguished cry of physical suffering issued from the
central cross, rending the dreadful darkness. It was the voice of the
Christ: "_Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?_" What mind of man can fathom
the significance of that awful cry? It seems, that in addition to the
fearful suffering incident to crucifixion, the agony of Gethsemane had
recurred, intensified beyond human power to endure. In that bitterest
hour the dying Christ was alone, alone in most terrible reality. That
the supreme sacrifice of the Son might be consummated in all its
fulness, the Father seems to have withdrawn the support of His immediate
Presence, leaving to the Savior of men the glory of complete victory
over the forces of sin and death. The cry from the cross, though heard
by all who were near, was understood by few. The first exclamation,
_Eloi_, meaning _My God_, was misunderstood as a call for Elias.

The period of faintness, the conception of utter forsakenness soon
passed, and the natural cravings of the body reasserted themselves. The
maddening thirst, which constituted one of the worst of the crucifixion
agonies, wrung from the Savior's lips His one recorded utterance
expressive of physical suffering. "_I thirst_" He said. One of those who
stood by, whether Roman or Jew, disciple or skeptic, we are not told,
hastily saturated a sponge with vinegar, a vessel of which was at hand,
and having fastened the sponge to the end of a reed, or stalk of hyssop,
pressed it to the Lord's fevered lips. Some others would have prevented
this one act of human response, for they said: "Let be, let us see
whether Elias will come to save him." John affirms that Christ uttered
the exclamation, "I thirst," only when He knew "that all things were now
accomplished"; and the apostle saw in the incident a fulfilment of
prophecy.[1323]

Fully realizing that He was no longer forsaken, but that His atoning
sacrifice had been accepted by the Father, and that His mission in the
flesh had been carried to glorious consummation, He exclaimed in a loud
voice of holy triumph: "_It is finished!_" In reverence, resignation,
and relief, He addressed the Father saying: "_Father, into thy hands I
commend my spirit._"[1324] He bowed His head, and voluntarily gave up
His life.

Jesus the Christ was dead. His life had not been taken from Him except
as He had willed to permit. Sweet and welcome as would have been the
relief of death in any of the earlier stages of His suffering from
Gethsemane to the cross, He lived until all things were accomplished as
had been appointed. In the latter days the voice of the Lord Jesus has
been heard affirming the actuality of His suffering and death, and the
eternal purpose thereby accomplished. Hear and heed His words: "For,
behold, the Lord your Redeemer suffered death in the flesh; wherefore he
suffered the pain of all men, that all men might repent and come unto
him."[1325]


IMPORTANT OCCURRENCES BETWEEN THE LORD'S DEATH AND BURIAL.

The death of Christ was accompanied by terrifying phenomena. There was a
violent earthquake; the rocks of the mighty hills were disrupted, and
many graves were torn open. But, most portentous of all in Judaistic
minds, the veil of the temple which hung between the Holy Place and the
Holy of Holies[1326] was rent from top to bottom, and the interior,
which none but the high priest had been permitted to see, was thrown
open to common gaze. It was the rending of Judaism, the consummation of
the Mosaic dispensation, and the inauguration of Christianity under
apostolic administration.

The Roman centurion and the soldiers under his command at the place of
execution were amazed and greatly affrighted. They had probably
witnessed many deaths on the cross, but never before had they seen a man
apparently die of his own volition, and able to cry in a loud voice at
the moment of dissolution. That barbarous and inhuman mode of execution
induced slow and progressive exhaustion. The actual death of Jesus
appeared to all who were present to be a miracle, as in fact it was.
This marvel, coupled with the earthquake and its attendant horrors, so
impressed the centurion that he prayed to God, and solemnly declared:
"Certainly this was a righteous man." Others joined in fearsome
averment: "Truly this was the Son of God." The terrified ones who spoke
and those who heard left the place in a state of fear, beating their
breasts, and bewailing what seemed to be a state of impending
destruction.[1327] A few loving women, however, watched from a distant
point, and saw all that took place until the Lord's body was laid away.

It was now late in the afternoon; at sunset the Sabbath would begin.
That approaching Sabbath was held to be more than ordinarily sacred for
it was a high day, in that it was the weekly Sabbath and a paschal holy
day.[1328] The Jewish officials, who had not hesitated to slay their
Lord, were horrified at the thought of men left hanging on crosses on
such a day, for thereby the land would be defiled;[1329] so these
scrupulous rulers went to Pilate and begged that Jesus and the two
malefactors be summarily dispatched by the brutal Roman method of
breaking their legs, the shock of which violent treatment had been found
to be promptly fatal to the crucified. The governor gave his consent,
and the soldiers broke the limbs of the two thieves with cudgels. Jesus,
however, was found to be already dead, so they broke not His bones.
Christ, the great Passover sacrifice, of whom all altar victims had been
but suggestive prototypes, died through violence yet without a bone of
His body being broken, as was a prescribed condition of the slain
paschal lambs.[1330] One of the soldiers, to make sure that Jesus was
actually dead, or to surely kill Him if He was yet alive, drove a spear
into His side, making a wound large enough to permit a man's hand to be
thrust thereinto.[1331] The withdrawal of the spear was followed by an
outflow of blood and water,[1332] an occurrence so surprizing that John,
who was an eye-witness, bears specific personal testimony to the fact,
and cites the scriptures thereby fulfilled.[1333]


THE BURIAL.[1334]

A man known as Joseph of Arimathea, who was at heart a disciple of
Christ, but who had hesitated to openly confess his conversion through
fear of the Jews, desired to give the Lord's body a decent and honorable
interment. But for some such divinely directed intervention, the body of
Jesus might have been cast into the common grave of executed criminals.
This man, Joseph, was "a counsellor; and he was a good man, and a just."
It is expressly said of him that he "had not consented to the counsel
and deed of them"; from which statement we infer that he was a
Sanhedrist and had been opposed to the action of his colleagues in
condemning Jesus to death, or at least had refrained from voting with
the rest. Joseph was a man of wealth, station, and influence. He went in
boldly unto Pilate and begged the body of Christ. The governor was
surprized to learn that Jesus was already dead; he summoned the
centurion and inquired as to how long Jesus had lived on the cross. The
unusual circumstance seems to have added to Pilate's troubled concern.
He gave command and the body of Christ was delivered to Joseph.

The body was removed from the cross; and in preparing it for the tomb
Joseph was assisted by Nicodemus, another member of the Sanhedrin, the
same who had come to Jesus by night three years before, and who at one
of the conspiracy meetings of the council had protested against the
unlawful condemnation of Jesus without a hearing.[1335] Nicodemus
brought a large quantity of myrrh and aloes, about a hundredweight. The
odorous mixture was highly esteemed for anointing and embalming, but its
cost restricted its use to the wealthy. These two revering disciples
wrapped the Lord's body in clean linen, "with the spices, as the manner
of the Jews is to bury"; and then laid it in a new sepulchre, hewn in
the rock. The tomb was in a garden, not far from Calvary, and was the
property of Joseph. Because of the nearness of the Sabbath the interment
had to be made with haste; the door of the sepulchre was closed, a large
stone was rolled against it;[1336] and thus laid away the body was left
to rest. Some of the devoted women, particularly Mary Magdalene, and
"the other Mary," who was the mother of James and Joses, had watched the
entombment from a distance; and when it was completed "they returned,
and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the sabbath day according
to the commandment."


THE SEPULCHRE GUARDED.[1337]

On the day following the "preparation," that is to say on Saturday, the
Sabbath and "high-day,"[1338] the chief priests and Pharisees came in a
body to Pilate, saying: "Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while
he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again. Command therefore
that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest his disciples
come by night, and steal him away, and say unto the people, He is risen
from the dead: so the last error shall be worse than the first." It is
evident that the most inveterate of the human enemies of Christ
remembered His predictions of an assured resurrection on the third day
after His death. Pilate answered with terse assent: "Ye have a watch: go
your way, make it as sure as ye can." So the chief priests and Pharisees
satisfied themselves that the sepulchre was secure by seeing that the
official seal was affixed at the junction of the great stone and the
portal, and that an armed guard was placed in charge.


NOTES TO CHAPTER 35.

1. Simon the Cyrenian.--Simon, upon whom the cross of Jesus was laid,
was a member of the Jewish colony in northern Africa, which had been
established nearly three centuries before the birth of Christ by
Ptolemeus Lagi, who transported thither great numbers of Jews from
Palestine (Josephus, Antiquities, xii, chap. 1). Cyrene, the home of
Simon, was in the province of Libya; its site is within the present
boundaries of Tunis. That the African Jews were numerous and influential
is evidenced by the fact that they maintained a synagog in Jerusalem
(Acts 6:9) for the accommodation of such of their number as visited the
city. Rufus and his mother are mentioned in friendly reference by Paul
over a quarter of a century after the death of Christ (Romans 16:13). If
this Rufus be one of the sons of Simon named by Mark (15:21), as
tradition indicates, it is probable that Simon's family was prominently
identified with the Primitive Church. As to whether Simon had become a
disciple before the crucifixion, or was converted through his compulsory
service in bearing the Lord's cross, or became a member of the Church at
a later date, we are not definitely told.

2. Christ's Words to the Daughters of Jerusalem.--"The time would come,
when the Old Testament curse of barrenness (Hosea 9:14) would be coveted
as a blessing. To show the fulfilment of this prophetic lament of Jesus
it is not necessary to recall the harrowing details recorded by Josephus
(Wars, vi, 3:4), when a frenzied mother roasted her own child, and in
the mockery of desperateness reserved the half of the horrible meal for
those murderers who daily broke in upon her to rob her of what scanty
food had been left her; nor yet other of those incidents, too revolting
for needless repetition, which the historian of the last siege of
Jerusalem chronicles. But how often, these many centuries, must Israel's
women have felt that terrible longing for childlessness, and how often
must the prayer of despair for the quick death of falling mountains and
burying hills rather than prolonged torture (Hosea 10:8), have risen to
the lips of Israel's sufferers! And yet, even so, these words were also
prophetic of a still more terrible future (Rev. 6:10). For, if Israel
had put such flame to its 'green tree' how terribly would the divine
judgment burn among the dry wood of an apostate and rebellious people,
that had so delivered up its Divine King, and pronounced sentence upon
itself by pronouncing it upon Him!"--Edersheim, _Life and Times of Jesus
the Messiah_ vol. 2, p. 588.

Concerning the prayer that mountains fall to crush and hide, Farrar
(_Life of Christ_, p. 645, note), says: "These words of Christ met with
a painfully literal illustration when hundreds of the unhappy Jews at
the siege of Jerusalem hid themselves in the darkest and vilest
subterranean recesses, and when, besides those who were hunted out, no
less than two thousand were killed by being buried under the ruins of
their hiding places." A further fulfilment may be yet future. Consult
Josephus, Wars, vi. 9:4. See also Hos. 9:12-16; 10:8; Isa. 2:10; compare
Rev. 6:16.

3. "The Place of a Skull."--The Aramaic Hebrew name "Golgotha", the
Greek "Kranion", and the Latin "Calvaria" or, as Anglicized, "Calvary",
have the same meaning, and connote "a skull". The name may have been
applied with reference to topographical features, as we speak of the
brow of a hill; or, if the spot was the usual place of execution, it may
have been so called as expressive of death, just as we call a skull a
death's head. It is probable that the bodies of executed convicts were
buried near the place of death; and if Golgotha or Calvary was the
appointed site for execution, the exposure of skulls and other human
bones through the ravages of beasts and by other means, would not be
surprizing; though the leaving of bodies or any of their parts unburied
was contrary to Jewish law and sentiment. The origin of the name is of
as little importance as are the many divergent suppositions concerning
the exact location of the spot.

4. Crucifixion.--"It was unanimously considered the most horrible form
of death. Among the Romans also the degradation was a part of the
infliction, and the punishment if applied to freeman was only used in
the case of the vilest criminals.... The criminal carried his own cross,
or at any rate a part of it. Hence, figuratively, _to take, take up_ or
_bear one's cross_ is _to endure suffering, affliction, or shame_ like a
criminal on his way to the place of crucifixion (Matt. 10:38; 16:24;
Luke 14:27, etc.). The place of execution was outside the city (1 Kings
21:13; Acts 7:58; Heb. 13:12), often in some public road or other
conspicuous place. Arrived at the place of execution, the sufferer was
stripped naked, the dress being the perquisite of the soldiers (Matt.
27:35). The cross was then driven into the ground, so that the feet of
the condemned were a foot or two above the earth, and he was lifted upon
it; or else stretched upon it on the ground and then lifted with it." It
was the custom to station soldiers to watch the cross, so as to prevent
the removal of the sufferer while yet alive. "This was necessary from
the lingering character of the death, which sometimes did not supervene
even for three days, and was at last the result of gradual benumbing and
starvation. But for this guard, the persons might have been taken down
and recovered, as was actually done in the case of a friend of
Josephus.... In most cases the body was suffered to rot on the cross by
the action of sun and rain, or to be devoured by birds and beasts.
Sepulture was generally therefore forbidden; but in consequence of Deut.
21:22, 23, an express national exception was made in favor of the Jews
(Matt. 27:58). This accursed and awful mode of punishment was happily
abolished by Constantine." Smith's _Bible Dict._

5. Pilate's Inscription--"The King of the Jews."--No two of the
Gospel-writers give the same wording of the title or inscription placed
by Pilate's order above the head of Jesus on the cross; the meaning,
however, is the same in all, and the unessential variation is evidence
of individual liberty among the recorders. It is probable that there was
actual diversity in the trilingual versions. John's version is followed
in the common abbreviations used in connection with Roman Catholic
figures of Christ: J. N. R. J.; or, inasmuch as "I" used to be an
ordinary equivalent of "J",--I. N. R. I.--"Jesus of Nazareth, King [Rex]
of the Jews."

6. The Women at the Cross.--"According to the authorized version and
revised version, only three women are named, but most modern critics
hold that four are intended. Translate, therefore, 'His mother, and His
mother's sister, (i.e. Salome, the mother of the evangelist [John]); and
Mary the wife of Cleophas; and Mary Magdalene.'"--Taken from Dummelow's
commentary on John 19:25.

7. The Hour of the Crucifixion.--Mark (15:25) says: "And it was the
third hour and they crucified him"; the time so specified corresponds to
the hour from 9 to 10 a.m. This writer and his fellow synoptists,
Matthew and Luke, give place to many incidents that occurred between the
nailing of Christ to the cross and the sixth hour or the hour from 12
noon to 1 p.m. From these several accounts it is clear that Jesus was
crucified during the forenoon. A discrepancy plainly appears between
these records and John's statement (19:14) that it was "about the sixth
hour" (noon) when Pilate gave the sentence of execution. All attempts to
harmonize the accounts in this particular have proved futile because the
discrepancy is real. Most critics and commentators assume that "about
the sixth hour" in John's account is a misstatement, due to the errors
of early copyists of the manuscript Gospels, who mistook the sign
meaning 3rd for that signifying 6th.

8. The Physical Cause of Christ's Death.--While, as stated in the text,
the yielding up of life was voluntary on the part of Jesus Christ, for
He had life in Himself and no man could take His life except as He
willed to allow it to be taken, (John 1:4; 5:26; 10:15-18) there was of
necessity a direct physical cause of dissolution. As stated also the
crucified sometimes lived for days upon the cross, and death resulted,
not from the infliction of mortal wounds, but from internal congestion,
inflammations, organic disturbances, and consequent exhaustion of vital
energy. Jesus, though weakened by long torture during the preceding
night and early morning, by the shock of the crucifixion itself, as also
by intense mental agony, and particularly through spiritual suffering
such as no other man has ever endured, manifested surprizing vigor, both
of mind and body, to the last. The strong, loud utterance, immediately
following which He bowed His head and "gave up the ghost", when
considered in connection with other recorded details, points to a
physical rupture of the heart as the direct cause of death. If the
soldier's spear was thrust into the left side of the Lord's body and
actually penetrated the heart, the outrush of "blood and water" observed
by John is further evidence of a cardiac rupture; for it is known that
in the rare instances of death resulting from a breaking of any part of
the wall of the heart, blood accumulates within the pericardium, and
there undergoes a change by which the corpuscles separate as a partially
clotted mass from the almost colorless, watery serum. Similar
accumulations of clotted corpuscles and serum occur within the pleura.
Dr. Abercrombie of Edinburgh, as cited by Deems (_Light of the Nations_,
p. 682), "gives a case of the sudden death of a man aged seventy-seven
years, owing to a rupture of the heart. In his case 'the cavities of the
pleura contained _about three pounds of fluid_, but the lungs were
sound.'" Deems also cites the following instance: "Dr. Elliotson relates
the case of a woman who died suddenly. 'On opening the body the
pericardium was found distended with _clear serum_, and a very large
coagulum of blood, which had escaped through a spontaneous rupture of
the aorta near its origin, without any other morbid appearance.' Many
cases might be cited, but these suffice." For detailed treatment of the
subject the student may be referred to Dr. Wm. Stroud's work _On the
Physical Cause of the Death of Christ_. Great mental stress, poignant
emotion either of grief or joy, and intense spiritual struggle are among
the recognized causes of heart rupture.

The present writer believes that the Lord Jesus died of a broken heart.
The psalmist sang in dolorous measure according to his inspired
prevision of the Lord's passion: "Reproach hath broken my heart; and I
am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was
none; and for comforters, but I found none. They gave me also gall for
my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." (Psalm 69:20,
21; see also 22:14.)

9. The Request that Christ's Tomb be Sealed.--Many critics hold that the
deputation called upon Pilate on Saturday evening, after the Sabbath had
ended. This assumption is made on the ground that to do what these
priestly officials did, in personally supervizing the sealing of the
tomb, would have been to incur defilement, and that they would not have
so done on the Sabbath. Matthew's statement is definite--that the
application was made on "the next day, that followed the day of the
preparation." The preparation day extended from sunset on Thursday to
the beginning of the Sabbath at sunset on Friday.

FOOTNOTES:

[1301] Matt. 27:31-33; Mark 15:20-22; Luke 23:26-33; John: 16, 17.

[1302] Note 1, end of chapter.

[1303] Note 2, end of chapter.

[1304] Note 3, end of chapter.

[1305] Matt. 27:34-50; Mark 15:23-37; Luke 23:33-46; John 19:18-30.

[1306] Isa. 53:12; compare Mark 15:28; Luke 22:37.

[1307] Note 4, end of chapter.

[1308] Numb. 12.

[1309] Revised version, marginal reading, "tunic."

[1310] Matt. 27:35; Mark 15:24; Luke 23:34; John 19:23,24; compare Psa.
22:18.

[1311] Note 5, end of chapter.

[1312] Pages 85 and 89.

[1313] Matt. 27:42, 43. The clause "if he be the King of Israel" in
verse 42 of the common text is admittedly a mistranslation; it should
read "He is the King of Israel." See revised version; also Edersheim,
vol. 2, p. 596; compare Mark 15:32.

[1314] John 3:14; 8:28; 12:32.

[1315] Matt. 4:3, 6; see pages 130, 137 herein.

[1316] Luke 23:42; the revised version reads "when thou comest in thy
kingdom."

[1317] See chapter 36, following.

[1318] John 19:25; compare Matt. 27:55, 56; Mark 15:40, 41; Luke 23:48,
49. See Note 6, end of chapter.

[1319] See references last cited; and Luke 8:2, 3; also page 264 herein.

[1320] Luke 2:34, 35; page 97 herein.

[1321] Mark 15:25; see Note 7, end of chapter.

[1322] Compare P. of G.P., Moses 7:37, 40, 48, 49, 56.

[1323] John 19:28; compare Psa. 69:21.

[1324] The Gospel writers leave us in some uncertainty as to which of
the last two utterances from the cross.--"It is finished," and "Father,
into thy hands I commend my spirit," was spoken first.

[1325] Doc. and Cov. 18:11; revelation given in June 1829; see also
19:16-19, and page 613 herein.

[1326] See "The House of the Lord," pages 59, 60.

[1327] Matt. 27:51-54; Mark 15:38, 39; Luke 23:47-49.

[1328] John 19:31-37.

[1329] Deut. 21:23.

[1330] Exo. 12:46; Numb. 9:12; Psa. 34:20; John 19:36; 1 Cor. 5:7.

[1331] John 20:27; B. of M., 3 Nephi 11:14, 15.

[1332] Note 8, end of chapter.

[1333] John 19:34-37; compare Psa. 22:16, 17; Zech. 12:10; Rev. 1:7.

[1334] Matt. 27:57-61; Mark 15:42-47; Luke 23:50-56; John 19:38-42.

[1335] John 3:1, 2; 7:50; see pages 158 and 404 herein.

[1336] See revised version, Mark 15:46.

[1337] Matt. 27:62-66.

[1338] Note 9, end of chapter.




CHAPTER 36.

IN THE REALM OF DISEMBODIED SPIRITS.


Jesus the Christ died in the literal sense in which all men die. He
underwent a physical dissolution by which His immortal spirit was
separated from His body of flesh and bones, and that body was actually
dead. While the corpse lay in Joseph's rock-hewn tomb, the living Christ
existed as a disembodied Spirit. We are justified in inquiring where He
was and what were His activities during the interval between His death
on the cross and His emergence from the sepulchre with spirit and body
reunited, a resurrected Soul. The assumption that most naturally
suggests itself is that He went where the spirits of the dead ordinarily
go; and that, in the sense in which while in the flesh He had been a Man
among men, He was, in the disembodied state a Spirit among spirits. This
conception is confirmed as a fact by scriptural attestation.

As heretofore shown[1339] Jesus Christ was the chosen and ordained
Redeemer and Savior of mankind; to this exalted mission He had been set
apart in the beginning, even before the earth was prepared as the abode
of mankind. Unnumbered hosts who had never heard the gospel, lived and
died upon the earth before the birth of Jesus. Of those departed myriads
many had passed their mortal probation with varying degrees of righteous
observance of the law of God so far as it had been made known unto them,
but had died in unblamable ignorance of the gospel; while other
multitudes had lived and died as transgressors even against such moiety
of God's law to man as they had learned and such as they had professed
to obey. Death had claimed as its own all of these, both just and
unjust. To them went the Christ, bearing the transcendently glorious
tidings of redemption from the bondage of death, and of possible
salvation from the effects of individual sin. This labor was part of the
Savior's foreappointed and unique service to the human family. The shout
of divine exultation from the cross, "It is finished," signified the
consummation of the Lord's mission in mortality; yet there remained to
Him other ministry to be rendered prior to His return to the Father.

To the penitent transgressor crucified by His side, who reverently
craved remembrance when the Lord should come into His kingdom,[1340]
Christ had given the comforting assurance: "Verily I say unto thee,
Today shalt thou be with me in paradise." The spirit of Jesus and the
spirit of the repentant thief left their crucified bodies and went to
the same place in the realm of the departed.[1341] On the third day
following, Jesus, then a resurrected Being, positively stated to the
weeping Magdalene: "I am not yet ascended to my Father." He had gone to
paradise but not to the place where God dwells. Paradise, therefore, is
not Heaven, if by the latter term we understand the abode of the Eternal
Father and His celestialized children.[1342] Paradise is a place where
dwell righteous and repentant spirits between bodily death and
resurrection. Another division of the spirit world is reserved for those
disembodied beings who have lived lives of wickedness and who remain
impenitent even after death. Alma, a Nephite prophet, thus spake of the
conditions prevailing among the departed:

"Now concerning the state of the soul between death and the
resurrection. Behold, it has been made known unto me, by an angel, that
the spirits of all men, as soon as they are departed from this mortal
body; yea, the spirits of all men, whether they be good or evil, are
taken home to that God who gave them life. And then shall it come to
pass that the spirits of those who are righteous, are received into a
state of happiness, which is called paradise; a state of rest; a state
of peace, where they shall rest from all their troubles and from all
care, and sorrow, &c. And then shall it come to pass, that the spirits
of the wicked, yea, who are evil; for behold, they have no part nor
portion of the Spirit of the Lord; for behold, they chose evil works
rather than good; therefore the spirit of the devil did enter into them,
and take possession of their house; and these shall be cast out into
outer darkness; there shall be weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of
teeth; and this because of their own iniquity; being led captive by the
will of the devil. Now this is the state of the souls of the wicked:
yea, in darkness, and a state of awful, fearful, looking for the fiery
indignation of the wrath of God upon them; thus they remain in this
state, as well as the righteous in paradise, until the time of their
resurrection."[1343]

While divested of His body Christ ministered among the departed, both in
paradise and in the prison realm where dwelt in a state of durance the
spirits of the disobedient. To this effect testified Peter nearly three
decades after the great event: "For Christ also hath once suffered for
sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put
to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: By which also he
went and preached unto the spirits in prison; Which sometime were
disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of
Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls
were saved by water."[1344]

The disobedient who had lived on earth in the Noachian period are
especially mentioned as beneficiaries of the Lord's ministry in the
spirit world. They had been guilty of gross offenses, and had wantonly
rejected the teachings and admonitions of Noah, the earthly minister of
Jehovah. For their flagrant sin they had been destroyed in the flesh,
and their spirits had endured in a condition of imprisonment, without
hope, from the time of their death to the advent of Christ, who came as
a Spirit amongst them. We are not to assume from Peter's illustrative
mention of the disobedient antediluvians that they alone were included
in the blessed opportunities offered through Christ's ministry in the
spirit realm; on the contrary, we conclude in reason and consistency
that all whose wickedness in the flesh had brought their spirits into
the prison house were sharers in the possibilities of expiation,
repentance, and release. Justice demanded that the gospel be preached
among the dead as it had been and was to be yet more widely preached
among the living. Let us consider the further affirmation of Peter, as
part of his pastoral admonition to the members of the Primitive Church:
"Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the
dead. For this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead,
that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live
according to God in the spirit."[1345]

That Jesus knew, while yet in the body, that His mission as the
universal Redeemer and Savior of the race would not be complete when He
came to die is sufficiently demonstrated by His words to the casuistical
Jews, following the Sabbath day healing at Bethesda: "Verily, verily, I
say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear
the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live. For as the
Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in
himself; and hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because
he is the Son of man. Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the
which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come
forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they
that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation."[1346] The
solemn truth, that through the atonement of Christ salvation would be
made possible to the dead as well as to the living, was revealed to the
prophets centuries before the meridian of time. Isaiah was permitted to
foresee the fate of the ungodly, and the state prepared for haughty and
rebellious offenders against righteousness; but the dread vision was in
part brightened by the deliverance that had been provided. "And it shall
come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall punish the host of the
high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth.
And they shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the
pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they
be visited."[1347] To the same mighty prophet was shown the universality
of the Savior's atoning victory, as comprizing the redemption of Jew and
Gentile, living and dead; and convincingly he voiced the word of
revelation: "Thus saith God the Lord, he that created the heavens, and
stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which
cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and
spirit to them that walk therein: I the Lord have called thee in
righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give
thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles; to open
the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them
that sit in darkness out of the prison house."[1348]

David, singing the praises of the Redeemer whose dominion should extend
even to the souls in hell, shouted in joy at the prospect of
deliverance: "Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: my
flesh also shall rest in hope. For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell;
neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou wilt
shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy
right hand there are pleasures for evermore."[1349]

From these and other scriptures it is evident that the ministry of
Christ among the disembodied was foreseen, predicted, and accomplished.
The fact that the gospel was preached to the dead necessarily implies
the possibility of the dead accepting the same and availing themselves
of the saving opportunities thereof. In the merciful providence of the
Almighty, provision has been made for vicarious service by the living
for the dead, in the ordinances essential to salvation; so that all who
in the spirit-world accept the word of God as preached to them, develop
true faith in Jesus Christ as the one and only Savior, and contritely
repent of their transgressions, shall be brought under the saving effect
of baptism by water for the remission of sins, and be recipients of the
baptism of the Spirit or the bestowal of the Holy Ghost.[1350] Paul
cites the principle and practise of baptism by the living for the dead
as proof of the actuality of the resurrection: "Else what shall they do
which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are
they then baptized for the dead?"[1351] Free agency, the divine
birthright of every human soul, will not be annulled by death. Only as
the spirits of the dead become penitent and faithful will they be
benefited by the vicarious service rendered in their behalf on earth.

Missionary labor among the dead was inaugurated by the Christ; who of us
can doubt that it has been continued by His authorized servants, the
disembodied, who while in the flesh had been commissioned to preach the
gospel and administer in the ordinances thereof through ordination in
the Holy Priesthood? That the faithful apostles who were left to build
up the Church on earth following the departure of its divine Founder,
that other ministers of the word of God ordained to the Priesthood by
authority in the Primitive as well as in the Latter-day Church, have
passed from ministerial service among mortals to a continuation of such
labor among the disembodied, is so abundantly implied in scripture as to
be made a certainty. They are called to follow in the footsteps of the
Master, ministering here among the living, and beyond among the dead.

The victory of Christ over death and sin would be incomplete were its
effects confined to the small minority who have heard, accepted, and
lived the gospel of salvation in the flesh. Compliance with the laws and
ordinances of the gospel is essential to salvation. Nowhere in scripture
is a distinction made in this regard between the living and the dead.
The dead are those who have lived in mortality upon earth; the living
are mortals who yet shall pass through the ordained change which we call
death. All are children of the same Father, all to be judged and
rewarded or punished by the same unerring justice, with the same
interposition of benign mercy. Christ's atoning sacrifice was offered,
not alone for the few who lived upon the earth while He was in the
flesh, nor for those who were to be born in mortality after His death,
but for all inhabitants of earth then past, present, and future. He was
ordained of the Father to be a judge of both quick and dead;[1352] He is
Lord alike of living and dead,[1353] as men speak of dead and living,
though all are to be placed in the same position before Him; there will
be but a single class, for all live unto Him.[1354] While His body
reposed in the tomb, Christ was actively engaged in the further
accomplishment of the Father's purposes, by offering the boon of
salvation to the dead, both in paradise and in hell.


NOTES TO CHAPTER 36.

1. Paradise.--The scriptures prove that at the time of the final
judgment every man will stand before the bar of God, clothed in his
resurrected body, and this, irrespective of his condition of
righteousness or guilt. While awaiting resurrection, disembodied spirits
exist in an intermediate state, of happiness and rest or of suffering
and suspense, according to the course they have elected to follow in
mortality. Reference to paradise as the abode of righteous spirits
between the time of death and that of the resurrection is made by the
prophet Nephi (2 Nephi 9:13), by a later prophet of the same name (4
Nephi 14), by Moroni (Moroni 10:34); as also by Alma whose words are
quoted in the text (Alma 40:12, 14). New Testament scripture is of
analogous import (Luke 23:43; 2 Cor. 12:4; Rev. 2:7). The word
"paradise" by its derivation through the Greek from the Persian,
signifies a pleasant place, or a place of restful enjoyment. (See _The
Articles of Faith_, xxi, note 5). By many the terms "hades" and "sheol"
are understood to designate the place of departed spirits, comprizing
both paradise and the prison realm; by others the terms are applied only
to the latter, the place of the wicked, which is apart from paradise,
the abode of the just.

The assumption that the gracious assurance given by Christ to the
penitent sinner on the cross was a remission of the man's sins, and a
passport into heaven, is wholly contrary to both the letter and spirit
of scripture, reason, and justice. Confidence in the efficacy of
death-bed professions and confessions on the basis of this incident is
of the most insecure foundation. The crucified malefactor manifested
both faith and repentance; his promised blessing was that he should that
day hear the gospel preached in paradise; in the acceptance or rejection
of the word of life he would be an agent unto himself. The requirement
of obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel as an essential to
salvation was not waived, suspended, or superseded in his case.

2. The Scripture Relating to Christ Among the Spirits in Prison.--The
revised version of 1 Peter 3:18-20 reads: "Because Christ also suffered
for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us
to God; being put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the spirit; in
which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which
aforetime were disobedient, when the longsuffering of God waited in the
days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is eight
souls were saved through water." This is regarded by scholars as a
closer approach to accuracy in translation than the common version.
Certain important differences between the two versions will appear to
the studious reader. The common version of the latter part of verse 18
and the whole of verse 19 reads: "being put to death in the flesh, but
quickened by the spirit: By which also he went and preached unto the
spirits in prison." The revised text expresses the true thought that
Christ was quickened, that is to say, was active, in His own spirit
state, although His body was inert and in reality dead at the time; and
that _in_ that disembodied state He went and preached to the disobedient
spirits. The later reading fixes the time of our Lord's ministry among
the departed as the interval between His death and resurrection.

FOOTNOTES:

[1339] Chapters 2 and 3 herein.

[1340] Page 659.

[1341] Note 1, end of chapter.

[1342] Note the distinction made by Paul 2 Cor. 12:2-4.

[1343] B. of M., Alma 40:11-14.

[1344] 1 Peter 3:18-20; see Note 2, end of chapter.

[1345] 1 Peter 4:5, 6. See Note 2, end of chapter.

[1346] John 5:25-29; see also page 210 herein.

[1347] Isa. 24:21, 22.

[1348] Isa. 42:5-7.

[1349] Psalm 16:9-11.

[1350] See page 124 herein; also "The Articles of Faith," vii:18-33; and
"The House of the Lord," pages 63-93.

[1351] 1 Cor. 15:29; see also "House of the Lord," p. 92.

[1352] Acts 10:42; 2 Tim. 4:1; 1 Peter 4:5.

[1353] Rom. 14:9.

[1354] Luke 20:36, 38; "The Articles of Faith," vii:18.




CHAPTER 37.

THE RESURRECTION AND THE ASCENSION.


CHRIST IS RISEN.

Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, had passed, and the night preceding the
dawn of the most memorable Sunday in history was well nigh spent, while
the Roman guard kept watch over the sealed sepulchre wherein lay the
body of the Lord Jesus. While it was yet dark, the earth began to quake;
an angel of the Lord descended in glory, rolled back the massive stone
from the portal of the tomb, and sat upon it. His countenance was
brilliant as the lightning, and his raiment was as the driven snow for
whiteness. The soldiers, paralyzed with fear, fell to the earth as dead
men. When they had partially recovered from their fright, they fled from
the place in terror. Even the rigor of Roman discipline, which decreed
summary death to every soldier who deserted his post, could not deter
them. Moreover, there was nothing left for them to guard; the seal of
authority had been broken, the sepulchre was open, and empty.[1355]

At the earliest indication of dawn, the devoted Mary Magdalene and other
faithful women set out for the tomb, bearing spices and ointments which
they had prepared for the further anointing of the body of Jesus. Some
of them had been witnesses of the burial, and were conscious of the
necessary haste with which the corpse had been wrapped with spicery and
laid away by Joseph and Nicodemus, just before the beginning of the
Sabbath; and now these adoring women came early to render loving service
in a more thorough anointing and external embalmment of the body. On the
way as they sorrowfully conversed, they seemingly for the first time
thought of the difficulty of entering the tomb. "Who shall roll us away
the stone from the door of the sepulchre?" they asked one of another.
Evidently they knew nothing of the seal and the guard of soldiery. At
the tomb they saw the angel, and were afraid; but he said unto them:
"Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is
not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the
Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from
the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye
see him: lo, I have told you."[1356]

The women, though favored by angelic visitation and assurance, left the
place amazed and frightened. Mary Magdalene appears to have been the
first to carry word to the disciples concerning the empty tomb. She had
failed to comprehend the gladsome meaning of the angel's proclamation
"He is risen, as he said"; in her agony of love and grief she remembered
only the words "He is not here," the truth of which had been so
forcefully impressed by her own hasty glance at the open and tenantless
tomb. "Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other
disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away
the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid
him."

Peter, and "that other disciple" who, doubtless, was John, set forth in
haste, running together toward the sepulchre. John outran his companion,
and on reaching the tomb stooped to look in, and so caught a glimpse of
the linen cerements lying on the floor; but the bold and impetuous Peter
rushed into the sepulchre, and was followed by the younger apostle. The
two observed the linen grave-clothes, and lying by itself, the napkin
that had been placed about the head of the corpse. John frankly affirms
that having seen these things, he believed, and explains in behalf of
himself and his fellow apostles, "For as yet they knew not the
scripture, that he must rise again from the dead."[1357]

The sorrowful Magdalene had followed the two apostles back to the garden
of the burial. No thought of the Lord's restoration to life appears to
have found place in her griefstricken heart; she knew only that the body
of her beloved Master had disappeared. While Peter and John were within
the sepulchre, she had stood without, weeping. After the men had left
she stooped and looked into the rock-hewn cavern. There she saw two
personages, angels in white; one sat "at the head, and the other at the
feet, where the body of Jesus had lain." In accents of tenderness they
asked of her: "Woman, why weepest thou?" In reply she could but voice
anew her overwhelming sorrow: "Because they have taken away my Lord, and
I know not where they have laid him." The absence of the body, which she
thought to be all that was left on earth of Him whom she loved so
deeply, was a personal bereavement. There is a volume of pathos and
affection in her words, "They have taken away my Lord."

Turning from the vault, which, though at that moment illumined by
angelic presence, was to her void and desolate, she became aware of
another Personage, standing near. She heard His sympathizing inquiry:
"Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou?" Scarcely lifting her
tearful countenance to look at the Questioner, but vaguely supposing
that He was the caretaker of the garden, and that He might have
knowledge of what had been done with the body of her Lord, she
exclaimed: "Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast
laid him, and I will take him away." She knew that Jesus had been
interred in a borrowed tomb; and if the body had been dispossessed of
that resting place, she was prepared to provide another. "Tell me where
thou hast laid him," she pleaded.

It was Jesus to whom she spake, her beloved Lord, though she knew it
not. One word from His living lips changed her agonized grief into
ecstatic joy. "Jesus saith unto her, Mary." The voice, the tone, the
tender accent she had heard and loved in the earlier days lifted her
from the despairing depths into which she had sunk. She turned, and saw
the Lord. In a transport of joy she reached out her arms to embrace Him,
uttering only the endearing and worshipful word, "Rabboni," meaning My
beloved Master. Jesus, restrained her impulsive manifestation of
reverent love, saying, "Touch me not[1358] for I am not yet ascended to
my Father," and adding, "but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I
ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your
God."[1359]

To a woman, to Mary of Magdala, was given the honor of being the first
among mortals to behold a resurrected Soul, and that Soul, the Lord
Jesus.[1360] To other favored women did the risen Lord next manifest
Himself, including Mary the mother of Joses, Joanna, and Salome the
mother of the apostles James and John. These and the other women with
them had been affrighted by the presence of the angel at the tomb, and
had departed with mingled fear and joy. They were not present when Peter
and John entered the vault, nor afterward when the Lord made Himself
known to Mary Magdalene. They may have returned later, for some of them
appear to have entered the sepulchre, and to have seen that the Lord's
body was not there. As they stood wondering in perplexity and
astonishment, they became aware of the presence of two men in shining
garments, and as the women "bowed down their faces to the earth" the
angels said unto them: "Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not
here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in
Galilee, saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of
sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again. And they
remembered his words."[1361] As they were returning to the city to
deliver the message to the disciples, "Jesus met them, saying, All hail.
And they came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him. Then said
Jesus unto them, Be not afraid: go tell my brethren that they go into
Galilee, and there shall they see me."[1362]

One may wonder why Jesus had forbidden Mary Magdalene to touch Him, and
then, so soon after, had permitted other women to hold Him by the feet
as they bowed in reverence. We may assume that Mary's emotional approach
had been prompted more by a feeling of personal yet holy affection than
by an impulse of devotional worship such as the other women evinced.
Though the resurrected Christ manifested the same friendly and intimate
regard as He had shown in the mortal state toward those with whom He had
been closely associated, He was no longer one of them in the literal
sense. There was about Him a divine dignity that forbade close personal
familiarity. To Mary Magdalene Christ had said: "Touch me not; for I am
not yet ascended to my Father." If the second clause was spoken in
explanation of the first, we have to infer that no human hand was to be
permitted to touch the Lord's resurrected and immortalized body until
after He had presented Himself to the Father. It appears reasonable and
probable that between Mary's impulsive attempt to touch the Lord, and
the action of the other women who held Him by the feet as they bowed in
worshipful reverence, Christ did ascend to the Father, and that later He
returned to earth to continue His ministry in the resurrected state.

Mary Magdalene and the other women told the wonderful story of their
several experiences to the disciples, but the brethren could not credit
their words, which "seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them
not."[1363] After all that Christ had taught concerning His rising from
the dead on that third day,[1364] the apostles were unable to accept the
actuality of the occurrence; to their minds the resurrection was some
mysterious and remote event, not a present possibility. There was
neither precedent nor analogy for the stories these women told--of a
dead person returning to life, with a body of flesh and bones, such as
could be seen and felt--except the instances of the young man of Nain,
the daughter of Jairus, and the beloved Lazarus of Bethany, between
whose cases of restoration to a renewal of mortal life and the reported
resurrection of Jesus they recognized essential differences. The grief
and the sense of irreparable loss which had characterized the yesterday
Sabbath, were replaced by profound perplexity and contending doubts on
this first day of the week. But while the apostles hesitated to believe
that Christ had actually risen, the women, less skeptical, more
trustful, knew, for they had both seen Him and heard His voice, and some
of them had touched His feet.


A PRIESTLY CONSPIRACY OF FALSEHOOD.[1365]

When the Roman guardsmen had sufficiently recovered from fright to make
their precipitate departure from the sepulchre, they went to the chief
priests, under whose orders they had been placed by Pilate,[1366] and
reported the supernatural occurrences they had witnessed. The chief
priests were Sadducees, of which sect or party a distinguishing feature
was the denial of the possibility of resurrection from the dead. A
session of the Sanhedrin was called, and the disturbing report of the
guard was considered. In the spirit in which these deceiving hierarchs
had tried to kill Lazarus for the purpose of quelling popular interest
in the miracle of his restoration to life, they now conspired to
discredit the truth of Christ's resurrection by bribing the soldiers to
lie. These were told to say "His disciples came by night, and stole him
away while we slept"; and for the falsehood they were offered large sums
of money. The soldiers accepted the tempting bribe, and did as they were
instructed; for this course appeared to them the best way out of a
critical situation. If they were found guilty of sleeping at their
posts, immediate death would be their doom;[1367] but the Jews
encouraged them by the promise: "If this come to the governor's ears, we
will persuade him and secure you." It must be remembered that the
soldiers had been put at the disposal of the chief priests, and
presumably therefore were not required to report the details of their
doings to the Roman authorities.

The recorder adds that until the day of his writing, the falsehood of
Christ's body having been stolen from the tomb by the disciples was
current among the Jews. The utter untenability of the false report is
apparent. If all the soldiers were asleep--a most unlikely occurrence
inasmuch as such neglect was a capital offense--how could they possibly
know that any one had approached the tomb? And, more particularly, how
could they substantiate their statement even if it were true, that the
body was stolen and that the disciples were the grave-robbers?[1368] The
mendacious fiction was framed by the chief priests and elders of the
people. Not all the priestly circle were parties to it however. Some,
who perhaps had been among the secret disciples of Jesus before His
death, were not afraid to openly ally themselves with the Church, when,
through the evidence of the Lord's resurrection, they had become
thoroughly converted. We read that but a few months later "a great
company of the priests were obedient to the faith."[1369]


CHRIST WALKS AND TALKS WITH TWO OF THE DISCIPLES.[1370]

During the afternoon of that same Sunday, two disciples, not of the
apostles, left the little band of believers in Jerusalem and set out for
Emmaus, a village between seven and eight miles from the city. There
could be but one topic of conversation between them, and on this they
communed as they walked, citing incidents in the Lord's life, dwelling
particularly upon the fact of His death through which their hopes of a
Messianic reign had been so sadly blighted, and marveling deeply over
the incomprehensible testimony of the women concerning His reappearance
as a living Soul. As they went, engrossed in sorrowful and profound
discourse, another Wayfarer joined them; it was the Lord Jesus, "but
their eyes were holden that they should not know him." In courteous
interest, He asked: "What manner of communications are these that ye
have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad?" One of the disciples,
Cleopas by name, replied with surprize tinged with commiseration for the
Stranger's seeming ignorance: "Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem,
and hast not known the things which are come to pass there in these
days?" Intent on drawing from the men a full statement of the matter by
which they were so plainly agitated, the unrecognized Christ asked,
"What things?" They could not be reticent. "Concerning Jesus of
Nazareth" they explained, "which was a prophet mighty in deed and word
before God and all the people: and how the chief priests and our rulers
delivered him to be condemned to death, and have crucified him." In
sorrowful mood they went on to tell how they had trusted that the now
crucified Jesus would have proved to be the Messiah sent to redeem
Israel; but alas! this was the third day since He had been slain. Then,
with brightening countenances, yet still perplexed, they told of certain
women of their company who had astonished them that morning by saying
that they had visited the sepulchre early and had discovered that the
Lord's body was not there, but, "that they had also seen a vision of
angels, which said that he was alive." Moreover, others beside the women
had gone to the tomb, and had verified the absence of the body but had
not seen the Lord.

Then Jesus, gently chiding His fellow travelers as foolish men and slow
of heart in their hesitating acceptance of what the prophets had spoken,
asked impressively, "Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and
to enter into his glory?" Beginning with the inspired predictions of
Moses, He expounded to them the scriptures, touching upon all the
prophetic utterances concerning the Savior's mission. Having continued
with the two men to their destination Jesus "made as though he would
have gone further," but they urged Him to tarry with them, for the day
was already far spent. He so far acceded to their hospitable entreaty as
to enter the house, and, as soon as their simple meal was prepared, to
seat Himself with them at the table. As the Guest of honor, He took the
loaf, "blessed it and brake, and gave to them." There may have been
something in the fervency of the blessing, or in the manner of breaking
and distributing the bread, that revived memories of former days; or,
possibly, they caught sight of the pierced hands; but, whatever the
immediate cause, they looked intently upon their Guest, "and their eyes
were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight." In
a fulness of joyful wonderment they rose from the table, surprized at
themselves for not having recognized Him sooner. One said to the other,
"Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way,
and while he opened to us the scriptures?" Straightway they started to
retrace their steps and hastened back to Jerusalem to confirm by their
witness what, before, the brethren had been slow to believe.


RISEN LORD APPEARS TO THE DISCIPLES IN JERUSALEM AND EATS IN THEIR
PRESENCE.[1371]

When Cleopas and his companion reached Jerusalem that night, they found
the apostles and other devoted believers assembled in solemn and
worshipful discourse within closed doors. Precautions of secrecy had
been taken "for fear of the Jews." Even the apostles had been scattered
by the arrest, arraignment, and judicial murder of their Master; but
they and the disciples in general rallied anew at the word of His
resurrection, as the nucleus of an army soon to sweep the world. The two
returning disciples were received with the joyous announcement, "The
Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon." This is the sole
mention made by the Gospel-writers of Christ's personal appearance to
Simon Peter on that day. The interview between the Lord and His once
recreant but now repentant apostle must have been affecting in the
extreme. Peter's remorseful penitence over his denial of Christ in the
palace of the high priest was deep and pitiful; he may have doubted that
ever again would the Master call him His servant; but hope must have
been engendered through the message from the tomb brought by the women,
in which the Lord sent greetings to the apostles, whom for the first
time He designated as His brethren,[1372] and from this honorable and
affectionate characterization Peter had not been excluded; moreover, the
angel's commission to the women had given prominence to Peter by
particular mention.[1373] To the repentant Peter came the Lord,
doubtless with forgiveness and loving assurance. The apostle himself
maintains a reverent silence respecting the visitation, but the fact
thereof is attested by Paul as one of the definite proofs of the Lord's
resurrection.[1374]

Following the jubilant testimony of the assembled believers, Cleopas and
his fellow traveler told of the Lord's companionship with them on the
Emmaus road, of the things He had taught them, and of the manner in
which He had become known unto them in the breaking of bread. As the
little company communed together, "Jesus himself stood in the midst of
them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you." They were affrighted,
supposing with superstitious dread that a ghost had intruded amongst
them. But the Lord comforted them, saying "Why are ye troubled? and why
do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet, that it
is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones,
as ye see me have." Then He showed them the wounds in His hands and feet
and side. "They yet believed not for joy," which is to say, they thought
the reality, to which they all were witnesses, too good, too glorious,
to be true. To further assure them that He was no shadowy form, no
immaterial being of tenuous substance, but a living Personage with
bodily organs internal as well as outward, He asked "Have ye here any
meat?" They gave Him a piece of a broiled fish and other food,[1375]
which He took "and did eat before them."

These unquestionable evidences of their Visitant's corporeity calmed and
made rational the minds of the disciples; and now that they were
composed and receptive the Lord reminded them that all things that had
happened to Him were in accordance with what He had told them while He
had lived amongst them. In His divine presence their understanding was
quickened and enlarged so that they comprehended as never before the
scriptures--the Law of Moses, the books of the prophets and the
psalms--concerning Him. That His now accomplished death was a necessity,
He attested as fully as He had predicted and affirmed the same
aforetime. Then He said unto them: "Thus it is written, and thus it
behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: and
that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name
among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these
things." Then were the disciples glad. As He was about to depart the
Lord gave them His blessing, saying "Peace be unto you: as my Father
hath sent me, even so send I you." This specification of men sent by
authority points directly to the apostles; "And when he had said this,
he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost:
whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose
soever sins ye retain, they are retained,"[1376]


DOUBTING THOMAS.[1377]

When the Lord Jesus appeared in the midst of the disciples on the
evening of the Resurrection Sunday, one of the apostles, Thomas, was
absent. He was informed of what the others had witnessed, but was
unconvinced; even their solemn testimony, "We have seen the Lord,"
failed to awaken an echo of faith in his heart. In his state of mental
skepticism he exclaimed: "Except I shall see in his hands the print of
the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my
hand into his side, I will not believe." Caution and charity must attend
our judgment in any conclusion as to the incredulous attitude of this
man. He could scarcely have doubted the well attested circumstance of
the empty sepulchre, nor the veracity of Mary Magdalene and the other
women as to the presence of angels and the Lord's appearing, nor Peter's
testimony nor that of the assembled company; but he may have regarded
the reported manifestations as a series of subjective visions; and the
absence of the Lord's body may have been vaguely considered as a result
of Christ's supernatural restoration to life followed by a bodily and
final departure from earth. It was the corporeal manifestation of the
risen Lord, the exhibition of the wounds incident to crucifixion, the
invitation to touch and feel the resurrected body of flesh and bones, to
which Thomas demurred. He had no such definite conception of the
resurrection as would accord with a literal acceptance of the testimony
of his brethren and sisters who had seen, heard, and felt.

A week later, for so the Jewish designation, "after eight days," is to
be understood, therefore on the next Sunday, which day of the week
afterward came to be known to the Church as the "Lord's Day" and to be
observed as the Sabbath in place of Saturday, the Mosaic Sabbath,[1378]
the disciples were again assembled, and Thomas was with them. The
meeting was held within closed and, presumably, guarded doors, for there
was danger of interference by the Jewish officers. "Then came Jesus, the
doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you.
Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands;
and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not
faithless, but believing."

The skeptical mind of Thomas was instantly cleansed, his doubting heart
was purified; and a conviction of the glorious truth flooded his soul.
In contrite reverence he bowed before his Savior, the while exclaiming
in worshipful acknowledgment of Christ's Deity: "My Lord and my God."
His adoration was accepted, and the Savior said: "Thomas, because thou
hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen,
and yet have believed."


AT THE SEA OF GALILEE.[1379]

The angel at the sepulchre and the risen Christ Himself had severally
sent word to the apostles to go into Galilee, where the Lord would meet
them as He had said before His death.[1380] They deferred their
departure until after the week following the resurrection, and then once
again in their native province, they awaited further developments. In
the afternoon of one of those days of waiting, Peter said to six of his
fellow apostles, "I go a fishing"; and the others replied, "We also go
with thee." Without delay they embarked on a fishing boat; and though
they toiled through the night, the net had been drawn in empty after
every cast. As morning approached they drew near the land, disappointed
and disheartened. In the early dawn they were hailed from the shore by
One who asked: "Children, have ye any meat?"[1381] They answered "No."
It was Jesus who made the inquiry, though none in the boat recognized
Him. He called to them again, saying: "Cast the net on the right side of
the ship, and ye shall find. They cast therefore, and now they were not
able to draw it for the multitude of fishes." They did as directed and
the result was so surprizing as to appear to them miraculous; it must
have aroused memories of that other remarkable draught of fishes, in the
taking of which their fishermen's skill had been superseded; and at
least three witnesses of the earlier miracle were now in the boat.[1382]

John, quick to discern, said to Peter, "It is the Lord"; and Peter,
impulsive as ever, hastily girt his fisher's coat about him and sprang
into the sea, the sooner to reach land and prostrate himself at his
Master's feet. The others left the vessel and entered a small boat in
which they rowed to shore, towing the heavily laden net. On the land
they saw a fire of coals, with fish broiling thereon, and alongside a
supply of bread. Jesus told them to bring of the fish they had just
caught, to which instruction the stalwart Peter responded by dashing
into the shallows and dragging the net to shore. When counted, the haul
was found to consist of a hundred and fifty-three great fishes; and the
narrator is careful to note that "for all there were so many, yet was
not the net broken."

Then Jesus said "Come and dine"; and as the Host at the meal, He divided
and distributed the bread and fish. We are not told that He ate with His
guests. Everyone knew that it was the Lord who so hospitably served; yet
on this, as on all other occasions of His appearing in the resurrected
state, there was about Him an awe-inspiring and restraining demeanor.
They would have liked to question Him, but durst not. John tells us that
this was the "third time that Jesus shewed himself to his disciples,
after that he was risen from the dead"; by which we understand the
occasion to have been the third on which Christ had manifested Himself
to the apostles, in complete or partial assembly; for, including also
the appearing to Mary Magdalene, to the other women, to Peter, and to
the two disciples on the country road, this was the seventh recorded
appearance of the risen Lord.

When the meal was finished, "Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of
Jonas, lovest thou me more than these?" The question, however tenderly
put, must have wrung Peter's heart, coupled as it was with the reminder
of his bold but undependable protestation, "Though all men shall be
offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended",[1383] followed
by his denial that he had ever known the Man.[1384] To the Lord's
inquiry Peter answered humbly, "Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love
thee." Then said Jesus, "Feed my lambs." The question was repeated; and
Peter replied in identical words, to which the Lord responded, "Feed my
sheep." And yet the third time Jesus asked, "Simon, son of Jonas, lovest
thou me?" Peter was pained and grieved at this reiteration, thinking
perhaps that the Lord mistrusted him; but as the man had three times
denied, so now was he given opportunity for a triple confession. To the
thrice repeated question, Peter answered: "Lord, thou knowest all
things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him. Feed my
sheep."

The commission "Feed my sheep" was an assurance of the Lord's
confidence, and of the reality of Peter's presidency among the apostles.
He had emphatically announced his readiness to follow his Master even to
prison and death. Now, the Lord who had died said unto him: "Verily,
verily; I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdest thyself, and
walkedst whither thou wouldst: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt
stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee
whither thou wouldst not." John informs us that the Lord so spake
signifying the death by which Peter should find a place among the
martyrs; the analogy points to crucifixion, and traditional history is
without contradiction as to this being the death by which Peter sealed
his testimony of the Christ.

Then said the Lord to Peter, "Follow me." The command had both immediate
and future significance. The man followed as Jesus drew apart from the
others on the shore; yet a few years and Peter would follow his Lord to
the cross. Without doubt Peter comprehended the reference to his
martyrdom, as his writings, years later, indicate.[1385] As Christ and
Peter walked together, the latter, looking backward, saw that John was
following, and inquired: "Lord, and what shall this man do?" Peter
wished to peer into the future as to his companion's fate--was John also
to die for the faith? The Lord replied: "If I will that he tarry till I
come, what is that to thee? follow thou me." It was an admonition to
Peter to look to his own course of duty, and to follow the Master,
wherever the road should lead.

Concerning himself, John adds: "Then went this saying abroad among the
brethren, that that disciple should not die: yet Jesus said not unto
him, He shall not die; but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is
that to thee?" That John still lives in the embodied state, and shall
remain in the flesh until the Lord's yet future advent, is attested by
later revelation.[1386] In company with his martyred and resurrected
companions, Peter and James, the "disciple whom Jesus loved" has
officiated in the restoration of the Holy Apostleship in this the
dispensation of the fulness of times.


OTHER MANIFESTATIONS OF THE RISEN LORD IN GALILEE.[1387]

Jesus had designated a mountain in Galilee whereon He would meet the
apostles; and thither the Eleven went. When they saw Him at the
appointed place, they worshiped Him. The record adds "but some doubted,"
by which may be implied that others beside the apostles were present,
among whom were some who were unconvinced of the actual corporeity of
the resurrected Christ. This occasion may have been that of which Paul
wrote a quarter of a century later, concerning which he affirms that
Christ "was seen of above five hundred brethren at once," of whom,
though some had died, the majority remained at the time of Paul's
writing, living witnesses to his testimony.[1388]

To those assembled on the mount Jesus declared: "All power is given unto
me in heaven and in earth." This could be understood as nothing less
than an affirmation of His absolute Godship. His authority was supreme,
and those who were commissioned of Him were to minister in His name, and
by a power such as no man could give or take away.


FINAL COMMISSION AND THE ASCENSION.

Throughout the forty days following His resurrection, the Lord
manifested Himself at intervals to the apostles, to some individually
and to all as a body,[1389] and instructed them in "the things
pertaining to the kingdom of God."[1390] The record is not always
specific and definite as to time and place of particular events; but as
to the purport of the Lord's instructions during this period there
exists no cause for doubt. Much that He said and did is not
written,[1391] but such things as are of record, John assures his
readers, "are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ,
the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his
name."[1392]

As the time of His ascension drew nigh, the Lord said unto the eleven
apostles: "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every
creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that
believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that
believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with
new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly
thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and
they shall recover."[1393] In contrast with their earlier commission,
under which they were sent only "to the lost sheep of the house of
Israel,"[1394] they were now to go to Jew and Gentile, bond and free, to
mankind at large, of whatever nation, country, or tongue. Salvation,
through faith in Jesus the Christ, followed by repentance and baptism,
was to be freely offered to all; the rejection of the offer thenceforth
would bring condemnation. Signs and miracles were promised to "follow
them that believe," thus confirming their faith in the power divine; but
no intimation was given that such manifestations were to precede belief,
as baits to catch the credulous wonder-seeker.

Assuring the apostles anew that the promise of the Father would be
realized in the coming of the Holy Ghost, the Lord instructed them to
remain in Jerusalem, whither they had now returned from Galilee, until
they would be "endued with power from on high";[1395] and He added: "For
John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy
Ghost not many days hence."[1396]

In that last solemn interview, probably as the risen Savior led the
mortal Eleven away from the city toward the old familiar resort on the
Mount of Olives, the brethren, still imbued with their conception of the
kingdom of God as an earthly establishment of power and dominion, asked
of Him, "Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to
Israel?" Jesus answered, "It is not for you to know the times or the
seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power. But ye shall
receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall
be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in
Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth."[1397] Their duty was
thus defined and emphasized: "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have
commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the
world. Amen."[1398]

When Christ and the disciples had gone "as far as to Bethany," the Lord
lifted up His hands, and blessed them; and while yet He spake, He rose
from their midst, and they looked upon Him as He ascended until a cloud
received Him out of their sight. While the apostles stood gazing
steadfastly upward, two personages, clothed in white apparel, appeared
by them; these spake unto the Eleven, saying: "Ye men of Galilee, why
stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from
you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go
into heaven."[1399]

Worshipfully and with great joy the apostles returned to Jerusalem,
there to await the coming of the Comforter. The Lord's ascension was
accomplished; it was as truly a literal departure of a material Being as
His resurrection had been an actual return of His spirit to His own
corporeal body, theretofore dead. With the world abode and yet abides
the glorious promise, that Jesus the Christ, the same Being who ascended
from Olivet in His immortalized body of flesh and bones, shall return,
descending from the heavens, in similarly material form and substance.


NOTES TO CHAPTER 37.

1. Precise Time and Manner of Christ's Emergence from the Tomb Not
Known.--Our Lord definitely predicted His resurrection from the dead on
the third day, (Matt. 16:21; 17:23; 20:19; Mark 9:31; 10:34; Luke 9:22;
13:32; 18:33), and the angels at the tomb (Luke 24:7), and the risen
Lord in Person (Luke 24:46) verified the fulfilment of the prophecies;
and apostles so testified in later years (Acts 10:40; 1 Cor. 15:4). This
specification of the third day must not be understood as meaning after
three full days. The Jews began their counting of the daily hours with
sunset; therefore the hour before sunset and the hour following belonged
to different days. Jesus died and was interred during Friday afternoon.
His body lay in the tomb, dead, during part of Friday (first day),
throughout Saturday, or as we divide the days, from sunset Friday to
sunset Saturday, (second day), and part of Sunday (third day). We know
not at what hour between Saturday sunset and Sunday dawn He rose.

The fact that an earthquake occurred, and that the angel of the Lord
descended and rolled the stone from the portal of the tomb in the early
dawn of Sunday--for so we infer from Matt. 28:1, 2--does not prove that
Christ had not already risen. The great stone was rolled back and the
inside of the sepulchre exposed to view, so that those who came could
see for themselves that the Lord's body was no longer there; it was not
necessary to open the portal in order to afford an exit to the
resurrected Christ. In His immortalized state He appeared in and
disappeared from closed rooms. A resurrected body, though of tangible
substance, and possessing all the organs of the mortal tabernacle, is
not bound to earth by gravitation, nor can it be hindered in its
movements by material barriers. To us who conceive of motion only in the
directions incident to the three dimensions of space, the passing of a
solid, such as a living body of flesh and bones, through stone walls, is
necessarily incomprehensible. But that resurrected beings move in
accordance with laws making such passage possible and to them natural,
is evidenced not only by the instance of the risen Christ, but by the
movements of other resurrected personages. Thus, in September, 1823,
Moroni, the Nephite prophet who had died about 400 A.D., appeared to
Joseph Smith in his chamber, three times during one night, coming and
going without hindrance incident to walls or roof, (see P. of G.P.,
Joseph Smith 2:43; also _The Articles of Faith_, i:15-17). That Moroni
was a resurrected man is shown by his corporeity manifested in his
handling of the metallic plates on which was inscribed the record known
to us as the Book of Mormon. So also resurrected beings possess the
power of rendering themselves visible or invisible to the physical
vision of mortals.

2. Attempts to Discredit the Resurrection Through Falsehood.--The
inconsistent assertion that Christ had not risen but that His body had
been stolen from the tomb by the disciples, has been sufficiently
treated in the text. The falsehood is its own refutation. Unbelievers of
later date, recognizing the palpable absurdity of this gross attempt at
misrepresentation, have not hesitated to suggest other hypotheses, each
of which is conclusively untenable. Thus, the theory based upon the
impossible assumption that Christ was not dead when taken from the
cross, but was in a state of coma or swoon, and that He was afterward
resuscitated, disproves itself when considered in connection with
recorded facts. The spear-thrust of the Roman soldier would have been
fatal, even if death had not already occurred. The body was taken down,
handled, wrapped and buried by members of the Jewish council, who cannot
be thought of as actors in the burial of a living man; and so far as
subsequent resuscitation is concerned, Edersheim (vol. 2, p. 626)
trenchantly remarks: "Not to speak of the many absurdities which this
theory involves, it really shifts--if we acquit the disciples of
complicity--the fraud upon Christ Himself." A crucified person, removed
from the cross before death and subsequently revived, could not have
walked with pierced and mangled feet on the very day of his
resuscitation, as Jesus did on the road to Emmaus. Another theory that
has had its day is that of unconscious deception on the part of those
who claimed to have seen the resurrected Christ, such persons having
been victims of subjective but unreal visions conjured up by their own
excited and imaginative condition. The independence and marked
individuality of the several recorded appearings of the Lord disprove
the vision theory. Such subjective visual illusions as are predicated by
this hypothesis, presuppose a state of expectancy on the part of those
who think they see; but all the incidents connected with the
manifestations of Jesus after His resurrection were directly opposed to
the expectations of those who were made witnesses of His resurrected
state.

The foregoing instances of false and untenable theories regarding the
resurrection of our Lord are cited as examples of the numerous abortive
attempts to explain away the greatest miracle and the most glorious fact
of history. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is attested by evidence
more conclusive than that upon which rests our acceptance of historical
events in general. Yet the testimony of our Lord's rising from the dead
is not founded on written pages. To him who seeks in faith and sincerity
shall be given an individual conviction which shall enable him to
reverently confess as exclaimed the enlightened apostle of old: "Thou
art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus, who is God the Son,
is not dead. "I know that my Redeemer liveth." (Job 19:25.)

3. Recorded Appearances of Christ Between Resurrection and Ascension.--

1. To Mary Magdalene, near the sepulchre (Mark 16:9, 10; John 20:14).

2. To other women, somewhere between the sepulchre and Jerusalem (Matt.
28:9).

3. To two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Mark 16:12; Luke 24:13).

4. To Peter, in or near Jerusalem (Luke 24:34; 1 Cor. 15:5).

5. To ten of the apostles and others at Jerusalem (Luke 24:36; John
20:19).

6. To the eleven apostles at Jerusalem (Mark 16:14; John 20:26).

7. To the apostles at the Sea of Tiberias, Galilee, (John 21).

8. To the eleven apostles on a mountain in Galilee (Matt. 28:16).

9. To five hundred brethren at once (1 Cor. 15:6); locality not
specified, but probably in Galilee.

10. To James (1 Cor. 15:7). Note that no record of this manifestation is
made by the Gospel-writers.

11. To the eleven apostles at the time of the ascension, Mount of
Olives, near Bethany (Mark 16:19; Luke 24:50, 51).

The Lord's manifestations of Himself to men subsequent to the ascension
will be considered later.

FOOTNOTES:

[1355] Matt. 28:1-4, see also verse 11.

[1356] Matt. 28:5-7; compare Mark 16:1-7; Luke 24:1-8; John 20:1-2.

[1357] John 20:1-10.

[1358] Revised version, "Take not hold on me" (margin).

[1359] John 20:11-17.

[1360] Mark 16:9.

[1361] Luke 24:3-8.

[1362] Matt. 28:9, 10.

[1363] Luke 24:9-11; compare Mark 16:9-13.

[1364] Note 1, end of chapter.

[1365] Matt. 28:11-15.

[1366] Matt. 27:65, 66; page 665 herein.

[1367] Compare Acts 12:19.

[1368] Note 2, end of chapter.

[1369] Acts 6:7; compare John 12:42.

[1370] Luke 24:13-32; compare Mark 16:12.

[1371] Luke 24:33-48; John 20:19-23.

[1372] Matt. 28:10; John 20:17.

[1373] Mark 16:7.

[1374] 1 Cor. 15:5.

[1375] The words "and of an honeycomb" (Luke 24:42) are omitted from the
revised version, and by many authorities are declared to be a spurious
addition to the original text.

[1376] John 20:21-23.

[1377] John 20:24-29; compare Mark 16:14.

[1378] Rev. 1:10; compare Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:2.

[1379] John 21:1-23.

[1380] Matt 28:10; Mark 16:7; compare Matt. 26:32, Mark 14:28.

[1381] The noun of address, "Children" is equivalent to our modern use
of "Sirs," "Men" or "Lads." It was quite in harmony with the vernacular.

[1382] Luke 5:4-10; also page 198 herein.

[1383] Matt. 26:33; Mark 14:29; compare Luke 22:33; John 13:37; p. 600
herein.

[1384] Matt. 26:70, 72, 74; also page 629 herein.

[1385] Peter 1:14.

[1386] Doc. and Cov. Sec. 7; compare B. of M., 3 Nephi 28:1-12.

[1387] Matt. 28:16-18.

[1388] 1 Cor. 15:6.

[1389] Note 3, end of chapter.

[1390] Acts 1:3.

[1391] John 20:30; compare 21:25 remembering that the latter passage may
have reference to occurrences both before and after the Lord's death.

[1392] John 20:31.

[1393] Mark 16:15-18.

[1394] Matt. 10:5, 6.

[1395] "Clothed with power from on high" according to revised version,
Luke 24:49.

[1396] Acts 1:5; see also Luke 24:49; and compare John 14:16, 17, 26;
15:26; 16:7, 13.

[1397] Acts 1:7, 8; compare Matt. 24:36; Mark 13:32.

[1398] Matt. 28:19, 20.

[1399] Acts 1:9-11; see also Luke 24:50, 51.




CHAPTER 38.

THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY.


MATTHIAS ORDAINED TO THE APOSTLESHIP.[1400]

After witnessing the Lord's ascension from Olivet, the eleven apostles
returned to Jerusalem filled with joy and thoroughly suffused with the
spirit of adoring worship. Both in the temple and in a certain upper
room, which was their usual place of meeting, they continued in prayer
and supplication, often in association with other disciples, including
Mary the mother of the Lord, some of her sons, and the little sisterhood
of faithful women who had ministered to Jesus in Galilee and had
followed Him thence to Jerusalem and to Calvary.[1401] The disciples,
most of whom had been dispersed by the tragic events of that last and
fateful Passover, had gathered again, with renewed and fortified faith,
about the great fact of the Lord's resurrection. Christ had become "the
firstfruits of them that slept," "the first begotten of the dead," and
"the firstborn" of the race to rise from death to immortality.[1402]
They knew that not only had the grave been compelled to give up the body
of their Lord, but that a way had been provided for the striking of the
fetters of death from every soul. Immediately following the resurrection
of the Lord Jesus, many righteous ones who had slept in the tomb had
been resurrected, and had appeared in Jerusalem, revealing themselves
unto many.[1403] The universality of the resurrection of the dead was
soon to become a prominent feature of apostolic teaching.

The first official act undertaken by the apostles was the filling of the
vacancy in the council of the Twelve, occasioned by the apostasy and
suicide of Judas Iscariot. Sometime between the ascension of Christ and
the feast of Pentecost, when the Eleven and other disciples, in all
about a hundred and twenty, were together "with one accord in prayer and
supplication," Peter laid the matter before the assembled Church,
pointing out that the fall of Judas had been foreseen,[1404] and citing
the psalmist's invocation: "Let his habitation be desolate, and let no
man dwell therein: and his bishoprick let another take,"[1405] Peter
affirmed the necessity of completing the apostolic quorum; and he thus
set forth the qualifications essential in the one who should be ordained
to the Holy Apostleship: "Wherefore of these men which have companied
with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us,
beginning from the baptism of John, unto that same day that he was taken
up from us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his
resurrection." Two faithful disciples were nominated by the Eleven,
Joseph Barsabas and Matthias. In earnest supplication the assembly
besought the Lord to indicate whether either of these men, and if so
which, was to be chosen for the exalted office; then, "they gave forth
their lots; and the lot fell upon Matthias; and he was numbered with the
eleven apostles."

The proceeding throughout is deeply significant and instructive. The
Eleven fully realized that on them lay the responsibility, and in them
was vested the authority, to organize and develop the Church of Christ;
that the council or quorum of the apostles was limited to a membership
of twelve; and that the new apostle, like themselves, must be competent
to testify in special and personal witness concerning the earthly
ministry, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. The selection of
Matthias was accomplished in a general assembly of the Primitive Church;
and while the nominations were made by the apostles, all present appear
by implication to have had a voice in the matter of installation. The
principle of authoritative administration through common consent of the
membership, so impressively exemplified in the choosing of Matthias, was
followed, a few weeks later, by the selection of "seven men of honest
report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom," who having been sustained by
the vote of the Church, were set apart to a special ministry by the
laying-on of the apostles' hands.[1406]


THE BESTOWAL OF THE HOLY GHOST.[1407]

At the time of Pentecost, which fell on the fiftieth day after the
Passover,[1408] and therefore, at this particular recurrence, about nine
days after Christ's ascension, the apostles "were all with one accord in
one place," engaged in their customary devotions, and waiting, as
instructed, until they would be endowed with a particular bestowal of
power from on high.[1409] The promised baptism by fire and the Holy
Ghost befell them on that day. "Suddenly there came a sound from heaven
as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were
sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire,
and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy
Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them
utterance."

The "sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind" was heard
abroad;[1410] and a multitude gathered about the place. The visible
manifestation of "cloven tongues like as of fire," by which each of the
Twelve was invested, was seen by those within the house, but apparently
not by the gathering crowds. The apostles spoke to the multitude, and a
great miracle was wrought, by which "every man heard them speak in his
own language"; for the apostles, now richly gifted, spake in many
tongues, as the Holy Ghost, by whom they had been endowed, gave them
utterance. There were present men from many lands and of many nations,
and their languages were diverse. In amazement some of them said:
"Behold, are not all these which speak Galileans? And how hear we every
man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?" While many were impressed
by the preternatural ability of the brethren, others in mocking tones
said the men were drunken. This instance of Satanic prompting to
inconsiderate speech is especially illustrative of inconsistency and
rash ineptitude. Strong drink gives to no man wisdom; it steals away his
senses and makes of him a fool.

Then Peter, as the president of the Twelve, stood up and proclaimed in
behalf of himself and his brethren: "Ye men of Judea, and all ye that
dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words: for
these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of
the day." It was the Jewish custom, particularly on festival days, to
abstain from food and drink until after the morning service in synagog,
which was held about the third hour, or nine o'clock in the forenoon.
The apostle cited ancient prophecy embodying the promise of Jehovah that
He would pour out His Spirit upon all flesh, so that wonders would be
wrought, even as those there present witnessed.[1411] Then boldly did
Peter testify of Jesus of Nazareth, whom he characterized as "a man
approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God
did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know;" and,
reminding them, in accusing earnestness, of the awful crime to which
they had been in some degree parties, he continued: "Him, being
delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have
taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: whom God hath
raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible
that he should be holden of it." Citing the inspired outburst of the
psalmist, who had sung in jubilant measure of the soul that should not
be left in hell, and of the flesh that should not see corruption, he
showed the application of these scriptures to the Christ; and fearlessly
affirmed: "This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses.
Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of
the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which
ye now see and hear." With increasing fervency, fearing neither derision
nor violence, and driving home to the hearts of his enthralled listeners
the fearful fact of their guilt, Peter proclaimed as in voice of
thunder: "Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God
hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and
Christ."

The power of the Holy Ghost could not be resisted; to every earnest soul
it carried conviction. They that heard were pricked in their hearts, and
in contrition cried out to the apostles: "Men and brethren, what shall
we do?" Now that they were prepared for the message of salvation, it was
given without reserve. "Repent," answered Peter, "and be baptized every
one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye
shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you,
and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the
Lord our God shall call."

To the apostles' testimony, to the exhortation and warning, the people
responded with profession of faith and repentance. Their joy was
comparable to that of the spirits in prison, to whom the disembodied
Christ had borne the authoritative word of redemption and salvation.
Those who repented and confessed their belief in Christ at that
memorable Pentecost were received into the Church by baptism, to the
number of about three thousand. That their conversion was genuine and
not the effect of a passing enthusiasm, that they were literally born
again through baptism into a newness of life, is evidenced by the fact
that they endured in the faith--"and they continued steadfastly in the
apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in
prayers." So devoted were these early converts, so richly blessed with
the outpouring of the Holy Ghost was the Church in those days, that the
members voluntarily disposed of their individual possessions and had all
things in common. To them faith in the Lord Jesus Christ was of greater
worth than the wealth of earth.[1412] Among them, there was nothing
called "mine" or "thine," but all things were theirs in the Lord.[1413]
Signs and wonders followed the apostles, "and the Lord added to the
church daily such as should be saved."

Through the bestowal of the Holy Ghost the apostles had become changed
men. As made clear to them by the Spirit of Truth, the scriptures
constituted a record of preparation for the events to which they were
special and ordained witnesses. Peter, who but a few weeks earlier had
quailed before a serving-maid, now spoke openly, fearing none. Seeing
once a lame beggar at the Gate Beautiful which led into the temple
court, he took the afflicted one by the hand, saying: "Silver and gold
have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ
of Nazareth rise up and walk."[1414] The man was healed and leaped in
the exuberance of his newly found strength; then he went with Peter and
John into the temple, praising God aloud. An amazed crowd, which grew to
include about five thousand men, gathered around the apostles in
Solomon's Porch; and Peter, observing their wonderment, seized on the
occasion to preach to them Jesus the Crucified. He ascribed all praise
for the miracle to the Christ whom the Jews had delivered up to be
slain, and in unambiguous accusation declared: "The God of Abraham, and
of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Son
Jesus; whom ye delivered up, and denied him in the presence of Pilate,
when he was determined to let him go. But ye denied the Holy One and the
Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you; and killed the
Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are
witnesses." In merciful recognition of the ignorance in which they had
sinned, he exhorted them to expiatory penitence, crying: "Repent ye
therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the
times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; and he
shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: whom the
heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which
God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world
began." There was no encouragement to a belief that their sins could be
annulled by wordy profession; a due season of repentance was their
privilege, if so be they would believe.

As Peter and John thus testified, the priests and the captain of the
temple, together with the ruling Sadducees, came upon them toward
evening, and put them in prison to await the action of the judges next
day.[1415] On the morrow they were arraigned before Annas, Caiaphas, and
other officials, who demanded of them by what power or in whose name
they had healed the lame man. Peter, impelled by the power of the Holy
Ghost, answered: "Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of
Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified,
whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here
before you whole. This is the stone which was set at nought of you
builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there
salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given
among men, whereby we must be saved."[1416]

The hierarchy learned to their consternation that the work they had
sought to destroy through the crucifixion of Jesus Christ was spreading
now as it had never spread before. In desperation they commanded the
apostles, "Not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus." But
Peter and John answered boldly: "Whether it be right in the sight of God
to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but
speak the things which we have seen and heard." This rejoinder of
righteous defiance the priestly rulers dared not openly resent; they had
to content themselves with threats.

The Church grew with surprizing rapidity; "believers were the more added
to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women." So abundantly was the
gift of healing manifest through the ministrations of the apostles that
as formerly to Christ, now to them, the people flocked, bringing their
sick folk and those possessed of evil spirits; and all were healed. So
great was the faith of the believers that they laid their afflicted ones
on couches in the streets, "that at the least the shadow of Peter
passing by might overshadow some of them."[1417]

The high priest and his haughty Sadducean associates caused the apostles
to be again arrested and thrown into the common prison. But that night
the angel of the Lord opened the dungeon doors and brought the prisoners
forth, telling them to go into the temple and further proclaim their
testimony of the Christ. This the apostles did, and were so engaged when
the Sanhedrin assembled to put them on trial. The officers who were sent
to bring the prisoners to the judgment hall returned, saying: "The
prison truly found we shut with all safety, and the keepers standing
without before the doors; but when we had opened, we found no man
within." As the judges sat in impotent consternation, an informer
appeared with the word that the men they wanted were at that moment
preaching in the courts. The captain and his guard arrested the apostles
a third time, and brought them in, but without violence, for they feared
the people. The high priest accused the prisoners by question and
affirmation: "Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach
in this name? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine,
and intend to bring this man's blood upon us." Yet, how recently had
those same rulers led the rabble in the awful imprecation, "His blood be
on us, and on our children."[1418]

Peter and the other apostles, undaunted by the august presence, and
undeterred by threatening words or actions, answered with the direct
counter-charge that they who sat there to judge were the slayers of the
Son of God. Ponder well the solemn affirmation: "We ought to obey God
rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew
and hanged on a tree. Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a
Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness
of sins. And we are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the
Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him."

Closing, locking, bolting their hearts against the testimony of the
Lord's own, the chief priests, scribes, and elders of the people
counseled together as to how they could put these men to death. There
was at least one honorable exception among the murderously inclined
councilors. Gamaliel, who was a Pharisee and a noted doctor of the law,
the teacher of Saul of Tarsus afterward known through conversion, works,
and divine commission, as Paul the apostle,[1419] rose in the council,
and having directed that the apostles be removed from the hall, warned
his colleagues against the injustice they had in mind. He cited the
cases of men falsely claiming to have been sent of God, everyone of whom
had come to grief with utter and most ignominious failure of his
seditious plans; so would these men come to nought if the work they
professed proved to be of men; "But," added the dispassionate and
learned doctor, "if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye
be found even to fight against God."[1420] Gamaliel's advice prevailed
for the time being, to the extent of causing the apostles' lives to be
spared; but the council, in contravention of justice and propriety, had
the prisoners beaten. Then the brethren were discharged with the renewed
injunction that they speak not in the name of Jesus. They went out
rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer stripes and
humiliation in defense of the Lord's name; and daily, both in the
temple, and by house to house visitation, they valiantly taught and
preached Jesus the Christ. Converts to the Church were not confined to
the laity; a great company of the priests swelled the number of the
disciples, who multiplied greatly in Jerusalem.[1421]


STEPHEN THE MARTYR; HIS VISION OF THE LORD.[1422]

First among the "seven men of honest report" who were set apart under
the hands of the apostles to administer the common store of the Church
community, was Stephen, a man eminent in faith and good works, through
whom the Lord wrought many miracles. He was zealous in service,
aggressive in doctrine, and fearless as a minister of Christ. Some of
the foreign Jews, who maintained a synagog in Jerusalem, engaged Stephen
in disputation, and being unable "to resist the wisdom and the spirit by
which he spake," conspired to have him charged with heresy and
blasphemy. He was brought before the council on the word of men suborned
to witness against him; and these averred that they had "heard him speak
blasphemous words against Moses, and against God." The perjured accusers
further testified that he had repeatedly spoken blasphemously against
the temple, and the law, and had even declared that Jesus of Nazareth
would some day destroy the temple, and change the Mosaic ceremonies. The
charge was utterly false in spirit and fact, though possibly in a sense
partly true in form; for, judging by what we have of record concerning
Stephen's character and works, he was a zealous preacher of the word as
a world religion, through which the exclusiveness and alleged sanctity
of Jerusalem as the holy city and of the now desecrated temple as the
earthly abiding-place of Jehovah, would be abrogated; furthermore he
seems to have realized that the law of Moses had been fulfilled in the
mission of the Messiah.

When the Sanhedrists looked upon him, his face was illumined, and they
saw it "as it had been the face of an angel." In answer to the charge,
he delivered an address, which on critical analysis appears to have been
extemporaneous, nevertheless it is strikingly logical and impressive in
argument. The delivery was abruptly terminated, however, by a murderous
assault.[1423] In effective epitome Stephen traced the history of the
covenant people from the time of Abraham down, showing that the
patriarchs, and in turn Moses and the prophets, had lived and ministered
in progressive preparation for the development of which those present
were witnesses. He pointed out that Moses had foretold the coming of a
Prophet, who was none other than Jehovah, whom their fathers had
worshipped in the wilderness, before the tabernacle, and later in the
temple; but, he affirmed, "the most High dwelleth not in temples made
with hands," the most gorgeous of which could be but small to Him who
said: "Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool."[1424]

It is plain to be seen that Stephen's speech was not one of vindication,
and far from a plea in his own defense; it was a proclamation of the
word and purposes of God by a devoted servant who had no thought for
personal consequences. In forceful arraignment he thus addressed his
judges: "Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do
always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye. Which of
the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them
which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been
now the betrayers and murderers." Maddened at this direct accusation,
the Sanhedrists "gnashed on him with their teeth." He knew that they
thirsted for his blood; but, energized by the Holy Ghost, he looked
steadfastly upward, and exclaimed in rapture: "Behold I see the heavens
opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God."[1425]
This is the first New Testament record of a manifestation of Christ to
mortal eyes by vision or otherwise, subsequent to His ascension. The
priestly rulers cried aloud, and stopped their ears to what they chose
to regard as blasphemous utterances; and, rushing upon the prisoner with
one accord, they hurried him outside the city walls and stoned him to
death. True to his Master, he prayed: "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit";
and then, crushed to earth, he cried with a loud voice: "Lord, lay not
this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep."

So died the first martyr for the testimony of the risen Christ. He was
slain by a mob comprizing chief priests, scribes, and elders of the
people. What cared they that no sentence had been pronounced against
him, or that they were acting in reckless defiance of Roman law? Devout
men bore the mangled body to its burial; and all the disciples lamented
greatly. Persecution increased, and members of the Church were scattered
through many lands, wherein they preached the gospel and won many to the
Lord. The blood of Stephen the martyr proved to be rich and virile seed,
from which sprang a great harvest of souls.[1426]


CHRIST MANIFESTS HIMSELF TO SAUL OF TARSUS, LATER KNOWN AS PAUL, THE
APOSTLE.

Among the disputants who, when defeated in discussion, conspired against
Stephen and brought about his death, were Jews from Cilicia.[1427]
Associated with them was a young man named Saul, a native of the
Cilician city of Tarsus. This man was an able scholar, a forceful
controversialist, an ardent defender of what he regarded as the right,
and a vigorous assailant of what to him was wrong. Though born in Tarsus
he had been brought to Jerusalem in early youth and had there grown up a
strict Pharisee and an aggressive supporter of Judaism. He was a student
of the law under the tutelage of Gamaliel, one of the most eminent
masters of the time[1428] and had the confidence of the high
priest.[1429] His father, or perhaps an earlier progenitor, had acquired
the rank of Roman citizenship, and Saul was a born heir to that
distinction. Saul was a violent opponent of the apostles and the Church,
and had made himself a party to the death of Stephen by openly
consenting thereunto and by holding in personal custody the garments of
the false witnesses while they stoned the martyr.

He wrought havoc in the Church by entering private houses and haling
thence men and women suspected of belief in the Christ, and these he
caused to be cast into prison.[1430] The persecution in which he took so
prominent a part caused a scattering of the disciples throughout Judea,
Samaria, and other lands; though the apostles remained and continued
their ministry in Jerusalem.[1431] Not content with local activity
against the Church, "Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter
against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, and
desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found
any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them
bound unto Jerusalem."[1432]

As Saul and his attendants neared Damascus they were halted by an
occurrence of awe-inspiring grandeur.[1433] At noontide there suddenly
appeared a light far exceeding the brightness of the sun, and in this
dazzling splendor the whole party was enveloped, so that they fell to
the ground in terror. In the midst of the unearthly glory, a sound was
heard, which to Saul alone was intelligible as an articulate voice; he
heard and understood the reproving question spoken in the Hebrew tongue:
"Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" In trepidation he inquired: "Who
art thou, Lord?" The reply sounded the heart of Saul to its depths: "I
am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest"; and continued, as in
sympathetic consideration of the persecutor's situation and the
renunciation that would be required of him: "It is hard for thee to kick
against the pricks."[1434] The enormity of his hostility and enmity
against the Lord and His people filled the man's soul with horror, and
in trembling contrition he asked: "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?"
The reply was: "Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee
what thou must do." The brilliancy of the heavenly light had blinded
Saul. His companions led him into Damascus, where, at the house of
Judas, in the street called Straight, he sat in darkness for three days,
during which period he neither ate nor drank.

There lived in that city a faithful disciple named Ananias, to whom the
Lord spake, instructing him to visit Saul and minister unto him that he
might be healed of his blindness. Ananias was astonished at the
commission, and ventured to remind the Lord that Saul was a notorious
persecutor of the saints, and had come at that time to Damascus to
arrest and put in bonds all believers. But the Lord answered: "Go thy
way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the
Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel: for I will shew him how
great things he must suffer for my name's sake." Ananias went to Saul,
laid his hands upon the penitent sufferer, saying: "Brother Saul, the
Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest,
hath sent me, that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with
the Holy Ghost." The physical obstruction to vision was removed; scaly
particles fell from the eyes of Saul, and his sight was restored.
Without delay or hesitation, he was baptized. When strengthened by food
he communed with the disciples at Damascus and straightway began to
preach in the synagogs, declaring Jesus to be the Son of God.[1435]

When Saul returned to Jerusalem, the disciples were doubtful of his
sincerity, they having known of him as a violent persecutor; but
Barnabas, a trusted disciple, brought him to the apostles, told of his
miraculous conversion and testified of his valiant service in preaching
the word of God. He was received into fellowship, and afterward was
ordained under the hands of the apostles.[1436] His Hebrew name, Saul,
was in time substituted by the Latin Paulus, or as to us, Paul.[1437] In
view of his commission to carry the Gospel to the Gentiles, the use of
his Roman name may have been of advantage, and particularly so as he was
a Roman citizen and therefore could claim the rights and exemptions
attaching to the status of citizenship.[1438]

It is no part of our present purpose to follow even in outline the
labors of the man thus peremptorily and miraculously called into the
ministry; the fact of Christ's personal manifestations to him is the
sole subject of present consideration. While in Jerusalem Paul was
blessed with a visual manifestation of the Lord Jesus, accompanied by
the giving of specific instructions. His own testimony is to this
effect: "While I prayed in the temple, I was in a trance; and saw him
saying unto me, Make haste, and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem: for
they will not receive thy testimony concerning me." In explanation of
his rejection by the people, Paul confessed his evil past, saying,
"Lord, they know that I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue them that
believed on thee: and when the blood of thy martyr Stephen was shed, I
also was standing by, and consenting unto his death, and kept the
raiment of them that slew him." To this the Lord replied: "Depart; for I
will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles."[1439] Once again, as he lay
a prisoner in the Roman castle, the Lord stood by him in the night, and
said: "Be of good cheer, Paul: for as thou hast testified of me in
Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome."[1440]

Paul's personal witness that he had seen the resurrected Christ is
explicit and emphatic. With his enumeration of some of the risen Lord's
appearances he associates his own testimony, as addressed to the
Corinthian saints, in this wise: "For I delivered unto you first of all
that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according
to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the
third day according to the scriptures: and that he was seen of Cephas,
then of the Twelve: after that, he was seen of above five hundred
brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but
some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of James; then of all
the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out
of due time. For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be
called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God."[1441]


CLOSE OF THE APOSTOLIC MINISTRY--THE REVELATION THROUGH JOHN.

The period of apostolic ministry continued until near the close of the
first century of our era, approximately sixty to seventy years from the
time of the Lord's ascension. In the course of that epoch the Church
experienced both prosperity and vicissitude. At first the organized body
increased in membership and influence in a manner regarded as
phenomenal, if not miraculous.[1442] The apostles and the many other
ministers who labored under their direction in graded positions of
authority strove so effectively to spread the word of God, that Paul
writing approximately thirty years after the ascension affirmed that the
gospel had already been carried to every nation, or, to use his words,
"preached to every creature under heaven."[1443] Through the agency of
the Holy Ghost Christ continued to direct the affairs of His Church on
the earth; and His mortal representatives, the apostles, traveled and
taught, healed the afflicted, rebuked evil spirits, and raised the dead
to a renewal of life.[1444]

We are without record of any direct or personal appearance of Christ to
mortals between the manifestations to Paul and the revelation to John on
the isle of Patmos. Tradition confirms John's implication that he had
been banished thither "for the word of God, and for the testimony of
Jesus Christ."[1445] He avers that what he wrote, now known as the book
of Revelation, is "The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto
him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass;
and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John."[1446]
The apostle gives a vivid description of the glorified Christ as seen by
him: and of the Lord's words he made record as follows: "Fear not; I am
the first and the last: I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold,
I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of
death."[1447] John was commanded to write to each of the seven churches,
or branches of the Church of Christ, then existing in Asia,
administering reproof, admonition and encouragement, as the condition of
each required.

The final ministry of John marked the close of the apostolic
administration in the Primitive Church. His fellow apostles had gone to
their rest, most of them having entered through the gates of martyrdom,
and although it was his special privilege to tarry in the flesh until
the Lord's advent in glory,[1448] he was not to continue his service as
an acknowledged minister, known to and accepted by the Church. Even
while many of the apostles lived and labored, the seed of apostasy had
taken root in the Church and had grown with the rankness of pernicious
weeds. This condition had been predicted, both by Old Testament
prophets[1449] and by the Lord Jesus.[1450] The apostles also spake in
plain prediction of the growth of the apostasy all too grievously
apparent to them as then in progress.[1451] Personal manifestations of
the Lord Jesus to mortals appear to have ceased with the passing of the
apostles of old, and were not again witnessed until the dawn of the
Dispensation of the Fulness of Times.


NOTES TO CHAPTER 38.

1. Presiding Authority and Common Consent.--"Another instance of
official action in choosing and setting apart men to special office in
the Church arose soon after the ordination of Matthias. It appears that
one feature of the Church organization in early apostolic days was a
common ownership of material things, distribution being made according
to need. As the members increased, it was found impracticable for the
apostles to devote the necessary attention and time to these temporal
matters, so they called upon the members to select seven men of honest
report, whom the apostles would appoint to take special charge of these
affairs. These men were set apart by prayer and by the laying on of
hands. The instance is instructive as showing that the apostles realized
their possession of authority to direct in the affairs of the Church,
and that they observed with strictness the principle of common consent
in the administration of their high office. They exercized their
priestly powers in the spirit of love, and with due regard to the rights
of the people over whom they were placed to preside."--The author, _The
Great Apostasy_, 1:19.

2. Pentecost.--The name means "fiftieth" and was applied to the Jewish
feast that was celebrated fifty days after the second day of unleavened
bread, or the Passover day. It is also known as "the feast of weeks"
(Exo. 34:22; Deut. 16:10), because according to the Hebrew style, it
fell seven weeks, or a week of weeks, after the Passover; as "the feast
of harvest" (Exo. 23:16); and as "the day of the first-fruits" (Numb.
28:26). Pentecost was one of the great feasts in Israel, and was of
mandatory observance. Special sacrifices were appointed for the day, as
was also an offering suitable to the harvest season, comprizing two
leavened loaves made of the new wheat; these were to be waved before the
altar and then given to the priests (Lev. 23:15-20). Because of the
unprecedented events that characterized the first Pentecost after our
Lord's ascension, the name has become current in Christian literature as
expressive of any great spiritual awakening or unusual manifestation of
divine grace.

3. Having All Things in Common.--No condition recorded of the early
apostolic ministry expresses more forcefully the unity and devotion of
the Church in those days than does the fact of the members establishing
a system of common ownership of property (Acts 2:44, 46; 4:32-37;
6:1-4). One result of this community of interest in temporal things was
a marked unity in spiritual matters; they "were of one heart and of one
soul." Lacking nothing, they lived in contentment and godliness. Over
thirty centuries earlier the people of Enoch had rejoiced in a similar
condition of oneness, and their attainments in spiritual excellence were
so effective that "the Lord came and dwelt with his people ... And the
Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one
mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor among them." (P.
of G.P., Moses 7:16-18.) The Nephite disciples grew in holiness, as
"they had all things common among them, every man dealing justly, one
with another." (B. of M., 3 Nephi 26:19; see also 4 Nephi 1:2-3.) A
system of unity in material affairs has been revealed to the Church in
this current dispensation, (Doc. and Cov. 82:17, 18; 51:10-13, 18;
104:70-77), to the blessings of which the people may attain as they
learn to replace selfish concern by altruism, and individual advantage
by devotion to the general welfare.--See _The Articles of Faith_,
xxiv:13-15.

4. Saul's Conversion.--The sudden change of heart by which an ardent
persecutor of the saints was so transformed as to become a true
disciple, is to the average mind a miracle. Saul of Tarsus was a devoted
student and observer of the law, a strict Pharisee. We find no
intimation that he ever met or saw Jesus during the Lord's life in the
flesh; and his contact with the Christian movement appears to have been
brought about through disputation with Stephen. In determining what he
would call right and what wrong the young enthusiast was guided too much
by mind and too little by heart. His learning, which should have been
his servant, was instead his master. He was a leading spirit in the
cruel persecution of the first converts to Christianity; yet none can
doubt his belief that even in such he was rendering service to Jehovah
(compare John 16:2). His unusual energy and superb ability were
misdirected. As soon as he realized the error of his course, he turned
about, without counting risk, cost, or the certainty of persecution and
probable martyrdom. His repentance was as genuine as had been his
persecuting zeal. All through his ministry he was tortured by the past
(Acts 22:4, 19, 20; 1 Cor. 15:9; 2 Cor. 12:7; Gal. 1:13); yet he found a
measure of relief in the knowledge that he had acted in good conscience
(Acts 26:9-11). It was "hard for him to kick against the pricks"
(revised version "goad," Acts 9:5; 26:14) of tradition, training, and
education; yet he hesitated not. He was a chosen instrument for the work
of the Lord (Acts 9:15); and promptly he responded to the Master's will.
Whatever of error Saul of Tarsus had committed through youthful zeal,
Paul the apostle gave his all--his time, talent, and life--to expiate.
He was preeminently the Lord's apostle to the Gentiles; and this opening
of the doors to others than Jews was the main contention between himself
and Stephen. In accordance with the divine and fateful purpose, Paul was
called to do the work, in opposition to which he had been a participant
in the martyrdom of Stephen. At the Lord's word of direction Paul was
ready to preach Christ to the Gentiles; only by a miracle could the
Jewish exclusiveness of Peter and the Church generally be overcome (Acts
10; and 11:1-18).

5. Rapid Growth of the Primitive Church.--Eusebius, who wrote in the
early part of the fourth century, speaking of the first decade after the
Savior's ascension, says: "Thus, then, under a celestial influence and
cooperation, the doctrine of the Savior, like the rays of the sun,
quickly irradiated the whole world. Presently, in accordance with divine
prophecy, the sound of His inspired evangelists and apostles had gone
throughout all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.
Throughout every city and village, like a replenished barn floor,
churches were rapidly abounding and filled with members from every
people. Those who, in consequence of the delusions that had descended to
them from their ancestors, had been fettered by the ancient disease of
idolatrous superstition, were now liberated by the power of Christ,
through the teachings and miracles of His messengers."--(Eusebius,
_Eccles. Hist._, Book I, ch. 3.)

6. Patmos.--A small island in the Icarian section of the Aegean Sea. Dr.
John R. Sterret writes of it in the _Standard Bible Dictionary_ as
follows: "A volcanic island of the Sporades group, now nearly treeless.
It is characterized by an indented coast and has a safe harbor. By the
Romans it was made a place of exile for the lower class of criminals.
John, the author of 'Revelation' was banished thither by Domitian, 94
A.D. According to tradition he lived there at hard labor for eighteen
months."

7. The Holy Ghost Given.--In answer to a question as to whether the Holy
Ghost was received by the apostles at or before Pentecost, a statement
was published by the First Presidency of the Church on February 5, 1916
(see _Deseret News_ of that date), from which statement the following
excerpts are taken: "The answer to this question depends upon what is
meant by 'receiving' the Holy Ghost. If reference is made to the promise
of Jesus to His apostles about the endowment or gift of the Holy Ghost
by the presence and ministration of the 'personage of Spirit,' called
the Holy Ghost by revelation (Doc. and Cov. 130:22), then the answer is,
it was not until the day of Pentecost that the promise was fulfilled.
But the divine essence called the Spirit of God, or Holy Spirit, or Holy
Ghost, by which God created or organized all things, and by which the
prophets wrote and spoke, was bestowed in former ages, and inspired the
apostles in their ministry long before the day of Pentecost.... We read
that Jesus, after His resurrection, breathed upon His disciples and
said, 'Receive ye the Holy Ghost.' But we also read that He said,
'Behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the
city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high' (John
20:22; Luke 24:49). We read further: 'For the Holy Ghost was not yet
given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.' (John 7:39.) Thus the
promise was made, but the fulfilment came after, so that the Holy Ghost
sent by Jesus from the Father did not come in person until the day of
Pentecost, and the cloven tongues of fire were the sign of His coming."

FOOTNOTES:

[1400] Acts 1:15-26.

[1401] Luke 24:52,53; Acts 1:12-14.

[1402] 1 Cor. 15:20; Rev. 1:5; Colos. 1:18.

[1403] Matt. 27:52, 53.

[1404] Acts 1:16; compare Psalm 41:9; see also John 13:18.

[1405] Acts 1:20. The revised version substitutes on a preponderance of
authority "office" or, (marginal reading), "overseership," for the
erroneous rendering "bishoprick" in the common version. Compare Psalm
109:8.

[1406] Acts 6:1-6; Note 1, end of chapter.

[1407] Acts 2:1-41. Note 7, end of chapter.

[1408] Note 2, end of chapter.

[1409] Luke 24:49; Acts 1:4, 5, 8.

[1410] Acts 2:6, in a better rendering than that of the common text (see
revised version) reads: "And when this sound was heard, the multitude
came together."

[1411] Joel 2:28, 29; compare Zech. 12:10.

[1412] Note 3, end of chapter.

[1413] Acts 2:44-46; 4:32-37; 6:1-4.

[1414] Acts 3:6; read the entire chapter.

[1415] Acts 4:1-22.

[1416] Acts 4:8-12; compare Psalm 118:22; Isa. 28:16; Matt. 21:42.

[1417] Acts 5:12-17.

[1418] Matt. 27:25; compare 23:35; see pages 638 and 648 herein.

[1419] Acts 22:3.

[1420] Acts 5:33-40.

[1421] Acts 6:7.

[1422] Acts 6:8-15; and 7.

[1423] Acts 7:1-53.

[1424] Isa. 66:1, 2; see also Matt. 5:34, 35; 23:22.

[1425] Acts 7:56. Note this exceptional application of the title, Son of
Man, to Christ by anyone other than Himself. See page 142 herein.

[1426] Acts 8:4; 11:19.

[1427] Acts 6:9.

[1428] Acts 22:3; compare 5:34; page 708 herein.

[1429] In view of Saul's social status and recognized ability, many
believe him to have been a member of the Sanhedrin; but for this
assumption we find no definite warrant in scripture.

[1430] Acts 7:58; 8:1-3.

[1431] Acts 8:1.

[1432] Acts 9:1, 2. Observe that "way" here used for the first time to
connote the gospel or religion of Christ, occurs frequently in Acts
(16:17; 18:25, 26; 19:9, 23; 22:4; 24:14, 22).

[1433] Three versions of this manifestation and its immediate results
appear in Acts (9:3-29; 22:6-16; and 26:12-18): the first is the
historian's narrative, while the others are given as reports of Saul's
own words.

[1434] Note 4, end of chapter.

[1435] Note 4, end of chapter.

[1436] Acts 9:26-28; 13:2, 3.

[1437] Acts 13:9.

[1438] Acts 16:37-40; 22:25-28; 23:27; 25:11; 26:32; 28:19.

[1439] Acts 22:17-21.

[1440] Acts 23:11.

[1441] 1 Cor. 15:3-9.

[1442] Note 5, end of chapter.

[1443] Col. 1:23; see verse 6; also "The Great Apostasy," 1:20, 21.

[1444] Acts 9:36-43.

[1445] Rev. 1:9; see Note 6, end of chapter.

[1446] Rev. 1:1; read the whole chapter.

[1447] Rev. 1:10-20.

[1448] Page 694 herein.

[1449] Isa. 24:1-6; Amos. 8:11, 12.

[1450] Matt. 24:4, 5, 10-13, 23-26.

[1451] Acts 20:17-31, particularly 29, 30; 1 Tim. 4:1-3; 2 Tim. 4:1-4; 2
Thess. 2:3, 4, 7, 8; 2 Peter 2:1-3, read the entire chapter and observe
its application to conditions in the world today; Jude 3, 4, 17-19; Rev.
13:4, 6-9; 14:6, 7. See "The Great Apostasy," chapter 2.




CHAPTER 39.

MINISTRY OF THE RESURRECTED CHRIST ON THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE.


By considering the apostolic ministry in immediate sequence to our study
of the Lord's ascension from the Mount of Olives, we have departed from
the chronological order of the several personal manifestations of the
risen Savior to mortals; for very soon after His final farewell to the
apostles in Judea He visited His "other sheep," not of the eastern fold,
whose existence He had affirmed in that impressive sermon concerning the
Good Shepherd and His sheep.[1452] Those other sheep who were to hear
the Shepherd's voice and eventually be made part of the united fold,
were the descendants of Lehi who, with his family and a few others, had
left Jerusalem 600 B.C. and had crossed the great deep to what we now
know as the American continent, whereon they had grown to be a mighty
though a divided people.[1453]


THE LORD'S DEATH SIGNALIZED BY GREAT CALAMITIES ON THE AMERICAN
CONTINENT.

As already set forth in these pages, the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem had
been made known to the Nephite nation on the western hemisphere by
divine revelation; and the glad event had been marked by the appearance
of a new star, by a night devoid of darkness so that two days and the
night between had been as one day, and by other wonderful occurrences,
all of which had been predicted through the prophets of the western
world.[1454] Samuel the Lamanite, who through faithfulness and good
works had become a prophet, mighty in word and deed, duly chosen and
commissioned of God, had coupled with his predictions of the glorious
occurrences that were to mark the birth of Christ, prophecies of other
signs--of darkness, terror, and destruction--by which the Savior's death
on the cross would be signalized.[1455] Every prophetic word concerning
the phenomena that were to attend the Lord's birth had been fulfilled;
and many people had been brought thereby to believe in Christ as the
promised Redeemer; but, as is usual with those whose belief rests on
miracles, many among the Nephites "began to forget those signs and
wonders which they had heard, and began to be less and less astonished
at a sign or a wonder from heaven, insomuch that they began to be hard
in their hearts, and blind in their minds, and began to disbelieve all
which they had heard and seen."[1456]

Thirty and three years had sped their course since the illumined night
and the other signs of Messiah's advent; then, on the fourth day of the
first month, or, according to our calendar, during the first week of
April, in the thirty-fourth year, there arose a great and terrible
tempest, with thunderings, lightnings, and both elevations and
depressions of the earth's surface, so that the highways were broken up,
mountains were sundered, and many cities were utterly destroyed by
earthquake, fire, and the inrush of the sea. For three hours the
unprecedented holocaust continued; and then thick darkness fell, in the
which it was found impossible to kindle a fire; the awful gloom was like
unto the darkness of Egypt[1457] in that its clammy vapors could be
felt. This condition lasted until the third day, so that a night a day
and a night were as one unbroken night, and the impenetrable blackness
was rendered the more terrible by the wailing of the people, whose
heart-rending refrain was everywhere the same, "O that we had repented
before this great and terrible day."[1458]

Then, piercing the darkness, came a Voice,[1459] before which the
frightful chorus of human lamentation was silenced; "Wo, wo, wo unto
this people" resounded throughout the land. The Voice proclaimed
increasing woes except the people should repent. Destruction had
befallen because of wickedness, and the devil was then laughing over the
number of the dead and the retributive cause of their destruction. The
extent of the dread calamity was detailed; cities that had been burned
with their inhabitants, others that had sunk into the sea, yet others
buried in the earth, were enumerated; and the divine reason for this
widespread destruction was plainly set forth--that the wickedness and
abominations of the people might be hidden from the face of the earth.
Those who had lived to hear were declared to be the more righteous of
the inhabitants; and to them hope was offered on conditions of more
thorough repentance and reformation.

The identity of the Voice was thus made known: "Behold, I am Jesus
Christ the Son of God. I created the heavens and the earth, and all
things that in them are. I was with the Father from the beginning. I am
in the Father, and the Father in me; and in me hath the Father glorified
his name." The Lord commanded that the people should no longer serve Him
with bloody sacrifices and burnt offerings; for the law of Moses was
fulfilled; and thenceforth the only acceptable sacrifice would be the
broken heart and the contrite spirit; and such should never be rejected.
The humble and repentant the Lord would receive as His own. "Behold," He
said, "for such I have laid down my life, and have taken it up again;
therefore repent, and come unto me ye ends of the earth, and be saved."

The Voice ceased; and through the space of many hours of continuing
darkness vociferous lamentations were hushed, for the people were
convicted of their guilt and silently wept in astonishment over what
they had heard, and in hopeful anticipation of the salvation that had
been offered. A second time the Voice was heard, as in sorrow over those
who had refused to accept the Savior's succor; for often had He
protected them, more often would He have so done had they been willing,
and yet in the future would He cherish them, "as a hen gathereth her
chickens under her wings" if they would repent and live in
righteousness. On the morning of the third day the darkness dispersed,
seismic disturbances ceased, and the storms abated. As the pall was
lifted from the land the people saw how profound had been the
convulsions of earth, and how great had been their loss of kindred and
friends. In their contrition and humiliation they remembered the
predictions of the prophets, and knew that the mandate of the Lord had
been executed upon them.[1460]

Christ had risen; and following Him many of the righteous dead on the
western continent rose from their graves, and appeared as resurrected,
immortalized beings among the survivors of the land-wide destruction;
even as in Judea many of the saints had been raised immediately after
the resurrection of Christ.[1461]


FIRST VISITATION OF JESUS CHRIST TO THE NEPHITES.[1462]

About six weeks or more after the events last considered,[1463] a great
multitude of the Nephites had assembled at the temple in the land called
Bountiful,[1464] and were earnestly discoursing with one another over
the great changes that had been wrought in the land, and particularly
concerning Jesus Christ, of whose atoning death the predicted signs had
been witnessed in all their tragic details. The prevailing spirit of the
assembly was that of contrition and reverence. While thus congregated
they heard a sound as of a Voice from above; but both a first and a
second utterance were to them unintelligible. As they listened with rapt
intentness, the Voice was heard a third time, and it said unto them:
"_Behold my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, in whom I have
glorified my name: hear ye him._"[1465]

While gazing upward in reverent expectation, the people beheld a Man,
clothed in a white robe, who descended and stood among them. He spake,
saying: "Behold, I am Jesus Christ, whom the prophets testified shall
come into the world; and behold, I am the light and the life of the
world; and I have drunk out of that bitter cup which the Father hath
given me, and have glorified the Father in taking upon me the sins of
the world, in the which I have suffered the will of the Father in all
things from the beginning." The multitude prostrated themselves in
adoration for they remembered that their prophets had foretold that the
Lord would appear among them after His resurrection and ascension.[1466]

As He directed, the people arose, and one by one came to Him, and did
see and feel the prints of the nails in His hands and feet, and the
spear-wound in His side. Moved to adoring utterance, with one accord
they cried: "Hosanna! blessed be the name of the Most High God!" then,
falling at the feet of Jesus, they worshiped Him.

Summoning Nephi and eleven others to approach, the Lord gave them
authority to baptize the people after His departure, and prescribed the
mode of baptism with particular injunction against disputation in the
matter or alteration of the given form, as witness the Lord's words:

    "Verily I say unto you, that whoso repenteth of his sins through
    your words, and desireth to be baptized in my name, on this wise
    shall ye baptize them: behold, ye shall go down and stand in the
    water, and in my name shall ye baptize them. And now behold,
    these are the words which ye shall say, calling them by name,
    saying, Having authority given me of Jesus Christ, I baptize you
    in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
    Ghost. Amen. And then shall ye immerse them in the water, and
    come forth again out of the water. And after this manner shall
    ye baptize in my name, for behold, verily I say unto you, that
    the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost are one; and I am in
    the Father, and the Father in me, and the Father and I are one.
    And according as I have commanded you thus shall ye baptize. And
    there shall be no disputations among you, as there hath hitherto
    been; neither shall there be disputations among you concerning
    the points of my doctrine, as there hath hitherto been."[1467]

The people in general, and particularly the Twelve, chosen as stated,
were impressively warned against contention over matters of doctrine,
the spirit of which was declared to be of the devil, "who is the father
of contention." The doctrine of Jesus Christ was set forth in simple yet
comprehensive summary in these words:

    "Behold, verily, verily, I say unto you, I will declare unto you
    my doctrine. And this is my doctrine, and it is the doctrine
    which the Father hath given unto me; and I bear record of the
    Father and the Father beareth record of me, and the Holy Ghost
    beareth record of the Father and me, and I bear record that the
    Father commandeth all men: everywhere, to repent and believe in
    me; And whoso believeth in me, and is baptized, the same shall
    be saved; and they are they who shall inherit the kingdom of
    God. And whoso believeth not in me, and is not baptized, shall
    be damned."[1468]

Repentance, and humility akin to that of the innocent trusting child
were the prerequisites for baptism, without which none could inherit the
kingdom of God. With the incisiveness and simplicity that had
characterized His teachings in Palestine, the Lord thus instructed His
newly chosen Twelve:

    "Verily, verily, I say unto you, that this is my doctrine, and
    whoso buildeth upon this, buildeth upon my rock, and the gates
    of hell shall not prevail against them. And whoso shall declare
    more or less than this, and establish it for my doctrine, the
    same cometh of evil, and is not built upon my rock, but he
    buildeth upon a sandy foundation, and the gates of hell standeth
    open to receive such, when the floods come and the winds beat
    upon them. Therefore go forth unto this people, and declare the
    words which I have spoken unto the ends of the earth."[1469]

Then, turning to the multitude, Jesus admonished them to give heed to
the teachings of the Twelve, and continued with a discourse embodying
the sublime principles He had taught among the Jews in the Sermon on the
Mount.[1470] The Beatitudes, the Lord's Prayer, and the same splendid
array of ennobling precepts are set forth, and the same wealth of
effective comparison and apt illustration appear, in both Matthew's and
Nephi's versions of this unparalleled address; but a significant
difference is observed in every reference to the fulfilment of the
Mosaic law; for where the Jewish scriptures record the Lord's words as
pointing to a fulfilment then incomplete, the corresponding expressions
in the Nephite account are in the past tense, the law having been
already fulfilled in its entirety through the death and resurrection of
Christ. Thus, to the Jews Jesus had said: "Till heaven and earth pass,
one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be
fulfilled"; but to the Nephites: "For verily I say unto you, one jot nor
one tittle hath not passed away from the law, but in me it hath all been
fulfilled."[1471]

Many marveled over this matter, wondering what the Lord would have them
do concerning the law of Moses; "for they understood not the saying that
old things had passed away, and that all things had become new." Jesus,
conscious of their perplexity, proclaimed in plainness that He was the
Giver of the law, and that by Him had it been fulfilled and therefore
abrogated. His affirmation is particularly explicit:

    "Behold I say unto you, that the law is fulfilled that was given
    unto Moses. Behold, I am he that gave the law, and I am he who
    covenanted with my people Israel: therefore, the law in me is
    fulfilled, for I have come to fulfil the law; therefore it hath
    an end. Behold, I do not destroy the prophets, for as many as
    have not been fulfilled in me, verily I say unto you, shall all
    be fulfilled. And because I said unto you, that old things hath
    passed away, I do not destroy that which hath been spoken
    concerning things which are to come. For behold, the covenant
    which I have made with my people is not all fulfilled; but the
    law which was given unto Moses, hath an end in me."[1472]

Addressing Himself to the Twelve He affirmed that never had the Father
commanded Him to inform the Jews concerning the existence of the
Nephites, except indirectly by mention of other sheep not of the Jewish
fold; and as, "because of stiffneckedness and unbelief," they had failed
to comprehend His words, the Father had commanded Him to say no more
with reference either to the Nephites or to the third fold--comprizing
"the other tribes of the house of Israel, whom the Father hath led away
out of the land." To the Nephite disciples Jesus taught many other
matters that had been withheld from the Jews, who through unfitness to
receive had been left in ignorance. Even the Jewish apostles had wrongly
supposed that those "other sheep" were the Gentile nations, not
realizing that the carrying of the gospel to the Gentiles was part of
their particular mission, and oblivious to the fact that never would
Christ manifest Himself in person to those who were not of the house of
Israel. Through the promptings of the Holy Ghost and under the
ministrations of men commissioned and sent would the Gentiles hear the
word of God; but to the personal manifestation of the Messiah they were
ineligible.[1473] Great, however, will be the Lord's mercies and
blessings to the Gentiles who accept the truth, for unto them the Holy
Ghost shall bear witness of the Father and of the Son; and all of them
who comply with the laws and ordinances of the gospel shall be numbered
in the house of Israel. Their conversion and enfoldment with the Lord's
own will be as individuals, and not as nations, tribes, or
peoples.[1474]

The adoring multitude, numbering about two thousand five hundred souls,
thought that Jesus was about to depart; and they tearfully yearned to
have Him remain. He comforted them with the assurance that He would
return on the morrow, and admonished them to ponder upon the things He
had taught, and to pray in His name to the Father for understanding. He
had already informed the Twelve, and now stated to the people, that He
would show Himself and minister "unto the lost tribes of Israel, for
they are not lost unto the Father, for he knoweth whither he hath taken
them." Voicing the compassion He felt, the Lord directed the people to
fetch their afflicted ones, the lame, halt, maimed, blind and deaf, the
leprous, and the withered; and when these were brought He healed them,
every one. Then, as He commanded, parents brought their little children,
and placed them in a circle around Him. The multitude bowed in prayer;
and Jesus prayed for them; "And," wrote Nephi, "no tongue can speak,
neither can there be written by any man, neither can the hearts of men
conceive so great and marvellous things as we both saw and heard Jesus
speak; and no one can conceive of the joy which filled our souls at the
time we heard him pray for us unto the Father." The prayer being ended,
Jesus bade the multitude arise; and joyfully He exclaimed: "Blessed are
ye because of your faith. And now behold, my joy is full." Jesus wept.
Then He took the children, one by one, and blessed them, praying unto
the Father for each.

    "And when he had done this he wept again, and he spake unto the
    multitude, and saith unto them, behold your little ones. And as
    they looked to behold, they cast their eyes towards heaven, and
    they saw the heavens open, and they saw angels descending out of
    heaven as it were, in the midst of fire; and they came down and
    encircled those little ones about, and they were encircled about
    with fire; and the angels did minister unto them."[1475]

The Lord Jesus sent for bread and wine, and caused the people to sit
down. The bread He brake and blessed, and gave thereof to the Twelve;
these, having eaten, distributed bread to the multitude. The wine was
blessed, and all partook, the Twelve first, and afterward the people.
With impressiveness similar to that attending the institution of the
Sacrament of the Lord's Supper among the apostles in Jerusalem, Jesus
made plain the sanctity and significance of the ordinance, saying that
authority for its future administration would be given; and that it was
to be participated in by all who had been baptized into fellowship with
Christ, and was always to be observed in remembrance of Him, the bread
being the sacred emblem of His body, the wine the token of His blood
that had been shed. By express commandment, the Lord forbade the
sacrament of bread and wine to all but the worthy; "For," He explained,
"whoso eateth and drinketh my flesh and blood unworthily, eateth and
drinketh damnation to his soul; therefore if ye know that a man is
unworthy to eat and drink of my flesh and blood, ye shall forbid him."
But the people were forbidden to cast out from their assemblies those
from whom the Sacrament was to be withheld, if so be they would but
repent and seek fellowship through baptism.[1476]

The necessity of prayer was explicitly emphasized by the Lord, the
commandment to pray being given to the Twelve and to the multitude
separately. Individual supplication, family devotions, and
congregational worship were thus enjoined:

    "Therefore ye must always pray unto the Father in my name; and
    whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, which is right,
    believing that ye shall receive, behold it shall be given unto
    you. Pray in your families unto the Father, always in my name,
    that your wives and your children may be blessed. And behold, ye
    shall meet together oft, and ye shall not forbid any man from
    coming unto you when ye shall meet together, but suffer them
    that they may come unto you, and forbid them not; but ye shall
    pray for them, and shall not cast them out; and if it so be that
    they come unto you oft, ye shall pray for them unto the Father,
    in my name."[1477]

The Lord then touched with His hand each of the Twelve, investing them,
in words unheard by others, with power to confer the Holy Ghost by the
imposition of hands upon all repentant and baptized believers.[1478] As
he finished the ordination of the Twelve, a cloud overshadowed the
people, so that the Lord was hidden from their sight; but the twelve
disciples "saw and did bear record that he ascended again into heaven."


CHRIST'S SECOND VISITATION TO THE NEPHITES.[1479]

On the morrow a yet greater multitude assembled in expectation of the
Savior's return. Throughout the night messengers had spread the glorious
tidings of the Lord's appearing, and of His promise to again visit His
people. So great was the assembly that Nephi and his associates caused
the people to separate into twelve bodies, to each of which one of the
disciples was assigned to impart instruction and to lead in prayer. The
burden of supplication was that the Holy Ghost should be given unto
them. Led by the chosen disciples the whole vast concourse approached
the water's edge, and Nephi, going first, was baptized by immersion; he
then baptized the eleven others whom Jesus had chosen. When the Twelve
had come forth out of the water, "they were filled with the Holy Ghost,
and with fire. And behold, they were encircled about as if it were fire;
and it came down from heaven, and the multitude did witness it, and do
bear record; and angels did come down out of heaven, and did minister
unto them. And it came to pass that while the angels were ministering
unto the disciples, behold, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and
ministered unto them."[1480]

Thus Jesus appeared in the midst of the disciples and ministering
angels. At His command the Twelve and the multitude knelt in prayer; and
they prayed unto Jesus, calling Him their Lord and their God. Jesus
separated Himself by a little space, and in humble attitude prayed,
saying in part: "Father, I thank thee that thou hast given the Holy
Ghost unto these whom I have chosen; and it is because of their belief
in me, that I have chosen them out of the world. Father, I pray thee
that thou wilt give the Holy Ghost unto all them that shall believe in
their words." The disciples were yet fervently praying to Jesus when He
returned to them; and as He looked upon them with merciful and approving
smile, they were glorified in His presence, so that their countenances
and their apparel shone with a brilliancy like unto that of the face and
garments of the Lord, even so that "there could be nothing on earth so
white as the whiteness thereof." A second and a third time Jesus retired
and prayed unto the Father; and while the people comprehended the
meaning of His prayer, they confessed and bare record that "so great and
marvellous were the words which he prayed, that they cannot be written,
neither can they be uttered by man." The Lord rejoiced in the faith of
the people, and to the disciples He said: "So great faith have I never
seen among all the Jews; wherefore I could not shew unto them so great
miracles, because of their unbelief. Verily I say unto you, there are
none of them that have seen so great things as ye have seen; neither
have they heard so great things as ye have heard."[1481] Then the Lord
administered the Sacrament in manner as on the yesterday; but both the
bread and the wine were provided without human aid. The sanctity of the
ordinance was thus expressed: "He that eateth this bread, eateth of my
body to his soul, and he that drinketh of this wine, drinketh of my
blood to his soul, and his soul shall never hunger nor thirst, but shall
be filled."

This was followed by instructions concerning the covenant people,
Israel, of whom the Nephites were a part, and of the relation they would
bear to the Gentile nations in the future development of the divine
purpose. Jesus declared Himself to be that Prophet whose coming Moses
had foretold, and the Christ of whom all the prophets had testified. The
temporary supremacy of the Gentiles, whereby the further scattering of
Israel would be accomplished, and the eventual gathering of the covenant
people, were predicted, with frequent reference to the inspired
utterances of Isaiah bearing thereon.[1482] The future of Lehi's
descendants was pictured as a dwindling in unbelief through iniquity; in
consequence of which the Gentiles would grow to be a mighty people on
the western continent, even though that land had been given as an
ultimate inheritance to the house of Israel. The establishment of the
then future but now existent American nation, characterized as "a free
people," was thus foretold and God's purpose therein explained: "For it
is wisdom in the Father that they should be established in this land,
and be set up as a free people by the power of the Father, that these
things might come forth from them unto a remnant of your seed, that the
covenant of the Father may be fulfilled which he hath covenanted with
his people, O house of Israel."[1483]

As a sign of the time in which the gathering of the several branches of
Israel from their long dispersion should take place, the Lord specified
the prosperity of the Gentiles in America, and their agency in bringing
the scriptures to the degraded remnant of Lehi's posterity or the
American Indians.[1484] It was made plain that all Gentiles who would
repent, and accept the gospel of Christ through baptism, should be
numbered among the covenant people and be made partakers of the
blessings incident to the last days, in which the New Jerusalem would be
established on the American continent. The joyful account of gathered
Israel as Jehovah had given it aforetime through the mouth of His
prophet Isaiah, was repeated by the resurrected Jehovah to His Nephite
flock.[1485] Admonishing them to ponder the words of the prophets, which
were of record amongst them, and to give heed to the new scriptures He
had made known, and especially commanding the Twelve to teach the people
further concerning the things He had expounded, the Lord informed them
of the revelations given through Malachi, and directed that the same be
written.[1486]

The prophecies so reiterated by Him who had inspired Malachi to
utterance, were at that time obviously of the future, and are even yet
unfulfilled in their entirety. The advent of the Lord, to which these
scriptures testify, is yet future; but that the time is now near--that
"great and dreadful day of the Lord"--is attested by the fact that
Elijah who was to come before that day, has appeared in the discharge of
his particular commission--that of turning the hearts of the living
children to their dead progenitors, and the hearts of the departed
fathers to their still mortal posterity.[1487]

The personal ministry of Christ on the occasion of this second
visitation lasted three days, during which He gave the people many
scriptures, such as had been before given unto the Jews, for so the
Father had commanded; and He expounded unto them the purposes of God,
from the beginning until the time at which Christ shall return in His
glory; "And even unto the great and last day, when all people, and all
kindreds, and all nations and tongues shall stand before God, to be
judged of their works, whether they be good or whether they be evil; if
they be good, to the resurrection of everlasting life; and if they be
evil, to the resurrection of damnation, being on a parallel, the one on
the one hand, and the other on the other hand, according to the mercy,
and the justice, and the holiness which is in Christ, who was before the
world began." In merciful ministration He healed their afflicted folk,
and raised a man from the dead. At later but unspecified times, He
showed Himself among the Nephites, and "did break bread oft, and bless
it, and give it unto them."[1488]

After His second ascension from among them, the spirit of prophecy was
manifest among the people, and this extended even to children and babes,
many of whom spake of marvelous things, as the Spirit gave them
utterance. The Twelve entered upon their ministry with vigor, teaching
all who would hear, and baptizing those who, through repentance, sought
communion with the Church. Upon all who thus complied with the
requirements of the gospel, the Holy Ghost was bestowed; and those so
blessed lived together in love, and were called the Church of
Christ.[1489]


CHRIST'S VISITATION TO HIS CHOSEN TWELVE AMONG THE NEPHITES.[1490]

Under the administration of the twelve ordained disciples the Church
grew and prospered in the land of Nephi.[1491] The disciples, as special
witnesses of the Christ, traveled, preached, taught, and baptized all
who professed faith and showed forth repentance. On a certain occasion
the Twelve were assembled in "mighty prayer and fasting," seeking
instruction on a particular matter which, notwithstanding the Lord's
injunction against contention, had given rise to disputation among the
people. As they supplicated the Father in the Son's name, Jesus appeared
amongst them, and asked: "What will ye that I shall give unto you?"
Their answer was: "Lord, we will that thou wouldst tell us the name
whereby we shall call this church; for there are disputations among the
people concerning this matter." They had provisionally called the
community of baptized believers the Church of Christ; but, apparently
this true and distinguishing name had not been generally accepted
without question.

    "And the Lord said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you,
    why is it that the people should murmur and dispute because of
    this thing? Have they not read the scriptures, which say ye must
    take upon you the name of Christ, which is my name? for by this
    name shall ye be called at the last day; and whoso taketh upon
    him my name, and endureth to the end, the same shall be saved at
    the last day; therefore whatsoever ye shall do, ye shall do it
    in my name; therefore ye shall call the church in my name; and
    ye shall call upon the Father in my name, that he will bless the
    church for my sake; And how be it my church, save it be called
    in my name? for if a church be called in Moses' name, then it be
    Moses' church; or if it be called in the name of a man, then it
    be the church of a man; but if it be called in my name, then it
    is my church, if it so be that they are built upon my gospel.
    Verily I say unto you, that ye are built upon my gospel;
    therefore ye shall call whatsoever things ye do call, in my
    name; therefore if ye call upon the Father, for the church, if
    it be in my name, the Father will hear you; and if it so be that
    the church is built upon my gospel, then will the Father shew
    forth his own works in it; but if it be not built upon my
    gospel, and is built upon the works of men, or upon the works of
    the devil, verily I say unto you, they have joy in their works
    for a season, and by and by the end cometh, and they are hewn
    down and cast into the fire, from whence there is no return; for
    their works do follow them, for it is because of their works
    that they are hewn down; therefore remember the things that I
    have told you."[1492]

In such wise did the Lord confirm as an authoritative bestowal, the name
which, through inspiration, had been assumed by His obedient children,
_The Church of Jesus Christ_. The Lord's explanation as to the one and
only Name by which the Church could be appropriately known is cogent and
convincing. It was not the church of Lehi or Nephi, of Mosiah or Alma,
of Samuel or Helaman; else it should have been called by the name of the
man whose church it was, even as today there are churches named after
men;[1493] but being the Church established by Jesus Christ, it could
properly bear none other name than His.

Jesus then reiterated to the Nephite Twelve many of the cardinal
principles He had before enunciated to them and to the people at large;
and commanded that His words be written, excepting certain exalted
communications which He forbade them to write. The importance of
preserving as a priceless treasure the new scriptures He had given was
shown, with assurance that in heaven records were kept of all things
done by divine direction. The Twelve were told that they were to be the
judges of their people; and in view of such investiture they were
admonished to diligence and godliness.[1494] The Lord was made glad by
the faith and ready obedience of the Nephites amongst whom He had
ministered; and to the twelve special witnesses He said: "And now
behold, my joy is great, even unto fulness, because of you, and also
this generation; yea, and even the Father rejoiceth, and also all the
holy angels, because of you and this generation; for none of them are
lost. Behold, I would that ye should understand; for I mean them who are
now alive of this generation; and none of them are lost; and in them I
have fulness of joy." His joy, however, was mingled with sorrow because
of the apostasy into which the later generations would fall; this He
foresaw as a dire condition that would attain its climax in the fourth
generation from that time.[1495]


THE THREE NEPHITES.

In loving compassion the Lord spoke unto the twelve disciples, one by
one, asking: "What is it that ye desire of me, after that I am gone to
the Father?"[1496] All but three expressed the desire that they might
continue in the ministry until they had reached a goodly age, and then
in due time be received by the Lord into His kingdom. To them Jesus gave
blessed assurance, saying: "After that ye are seventy and two years old,
ye shall come unto me in my kingdom, and with me ye shall find rest." He
turned to the three who had reserved the request they ventured not to
express;

    "And he said unto them, Behold, I know your thoughts, and ye
    have desired the thing which John, my beloved, who was with me
    in my ministry, before that I was lifted up by the Jews, desired
    of me; therefore more blessed are ye, for ye shall never taste
    of death, but ye shall live to behold all the doings of the
    Father, unto the children of men, even until all things shall be
    fulfilled, according to the will of the Father, when I shall
    come in my glory, with the powers of heaven; and ye shall never
    endure the pains of death; but when I shall come in my glory, ye
    shall be changed in the twinkling of an eye from mortality to
    immortality: and then shall ye be blessed in the kingdom of my
    Father."[1497]

The blessed three were assured that in the course of their prolonged
life they should be immune to pain, and should know sorrow only as they
grieved for the sins of the world. For their desire to labor in bringing
souls unto Christ as long as the world should stand, they were promised
an eventual fulness of joy, even like unto that to which the Lord
Himself had attained. Jesus touched each of the nine who were to live
and die in the Lord, but the three who were to tarry till He would come
in His glory He did not touch. "And then he departed."

A change was wrought in the bodies of the Three Nephites, so that, while
they remained in the flesh, they were exempt from the usual effects of
physical vicissitude. The heavens were opened to their gaze; they were
caught up, and saw and heard unspeakable things. "And it was forbidden
them that they should utter; neither was it given unto them power that
they could utter the things which they saw and heard." Though they lived
and labored as men among their fellows, preaching, baptizing, and
conferring the Holy Ghost upon all who gave heed to their words, the
enemies to the truth were powerless to do them injury. Somewhat later
than a hundred and seventy years after the Lord's last visitation,
malignant persecution was waged against the Three. For their zeal in the
ministry they were cast into prison; but "the prisons could not hold
them, for they were rent in twain." They were incarcerated in
underground dungeons; "But they did smite the earth with the word of
God, insomuch that by his power they were delivered out of the depths of
the earth; and therefore they could not dig pits sufficient to hold
them." Thrice they were cast into a furnace of fire, but received no
harm; and three times were they thrown into dens of ravenous beasts,
but, "behold they did play with the beasts, as a child with a suckling
lamb, and received no harm."[1498] Mormon avers that in answer to his
prayers the Lord had made known unto him that the change wrought upon
the bodies of the Three, was such as to deprive Satan of all power over
them, and that "they were holy, and that the powers of the earth could
not hold them; and in this state they were to remain until the judgment
day of Christ; and at that day they were to receive a greater change,
and to be received into the kingdom of the Father to go no more out, but
to dwell with God eternally in the heavens."[1499] For nearly three
hundred years, and possibly longer, the Three Nephites ministered
visibly among their fellows; but as the wickedness of the people
increased these special ministers were withdrawn, and thereafter
manifested themselves only to the righteous few. Moroni, the last
prophet of the Nephites, when engaged in completing the record of his
father, Mormon, and adding thereto matters of his own knowledge, wrote
concerning these three disciples of the Lord, that they "did tarry in
the land until the wickedness of the people was so great, that the Lord
would not suffer them to remain with the people; and whether they be
upon the face of the land no man knoweth. But behold, my father and I
have seen them, and they have ministered unto us."[1500] Their ministry
was to be extended to Jews and Gentiles, amongst whom they labor
unrecognized as of ancient birth; and they are sent unto the scattered
tribes of Israel, and to all nations, kindreds, tongues and peoples,
from whom they have brought and are bringing many souls unto Christ,
"that their desire may be fulfilled, and also because of the convincing
power of God which is in them."[1501]


GROWTH OF THE CHURCH FOLLOWED BY THE APOSTASY OF THE NEPHITE NATION.

The Church of Jesus Christ developed rapidly in the land of Nephi, and
brought to its faithful adherents unprecedented blessings. Even the
hereditary animosity between Nephites and Lamanites was forgotten; and
all lived in peace and prosperity. So great was the unity of the Church
that its members owned all things in common, and "therefore they were
not rich and poor, bond and free, but they were all made free, and
partakers of the heavenly gift."[1502] Populous cities replaced the
desolation of ruin that had befallen at the time of the Lord's
crucifixion. The land was blessed, and the people rejoiced in
righteousness. "And it came to pass that there was no contention in the
land, because of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the
people. And there were no envyings, nor strifes, nor tumults, nor
whoredoms, nor lyings, nor murders, nor any manner of lasciviousness;
and surely there could not be a happier people among all the people who
had been created by the hand of God."[1503] Nine of the twelve special
witnesses chosen by the Lord passed at appointed times to their rest,
and others were ordained in their stead. The state of blessed prosperity
and of common ownership continued for a period of a hundred and
sixty-seven years; but soon thereafter came a most distressing change.
Pride displaced humility, display of costly apparel superseded the
simplicity of happier days; rivalry led to contention, and thence the
people "did have their goods and their substance no more common among
them, and they began to be divided into classes, and they began to build
up churches unto themselves, to get gain, and began to deny the true
church of Christ."[1504] Man-made churches multiplied, and persecution,
true sister to intolerance, became rampant. The red-skinned Lamanites
reverted to their degraded ways, and developed a murderous hostility
against their white brothers; and all manner of corrupt practises became
common among both nations. For many decades the Nephites retreated
before their aggressive foes, making their way north-eastward through
what is now the United States. About 400 A.D. the last great battle was
fought near the hill Cumorah;[1505] and the Nephite nation became
extinct.[1506] The degenerate remnant of Lehi's posterity, the Lamanites
or American Indians, have continued until this day. Moroni, the last of
the Nephite prophets, hid away the record of his people in the hill
Cumorah, whence it has been brought forth by divine direction in the
current dispensation. That record is now before the world translated
through the gift and power of God, and published to the edification of
all nations, as the BOOK OF MORMON.


NOTES TO CHAPTER 39.

1. The Land Bountiful.--This comprized the northerly part of South
America, extending to the Isthmus of Panama. On the north it was bounded
by the Land of Desolation, which embraced Central America, and, in later
Nephite history, an indefinite extent north of the Isthmus. The South
American continent in general is called, in the Book of Mormon, the Land
of Nephi.

2. The Jewish and Nephite Versions of the "Sermon on the Mount."--As
indicated in the text, one of the most impressive contrasts between the
Sermon on the Mount and the virtual repetition of the discourse by our
Lord on the occasion of His visit to the Nephites, is that of prediction
concerning the fulfilment of the law of Moses in the first delivery, and
unqualified affirmation in the second that the law had been fulfilled.
Among the Beatitudes certain differences appear, in each of which the
Nephite sermon is more explicit. Thus, instead of, "Blessed are the poor
in spirit" (Matt. 5:3), we read, "Blessed are the poor in spirit who
come unto me" (3 Nephi 12:3). Instead of, "Blessed are they which do
hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled"
(Matt.), we read, "And blessed are all they who do hunger and thirst
after righteousness, for they shall be filled with the Holy Ghost"
(Nephi). Instead of, "for righteousness' sake," (Matt.) we have "for my
name's sake," (Nephi). For the difficult passage, "Ye are the salt of
the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be
salted?" (Matt.), we have the clearer expression, "I give unto you to be
the salt of the earth; but if the salt shall lose its savor, wherewith
shall the earth be salted?" (Nephi). And, as already noted, in place of
"one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be
fulfilled" (Matt.), we have "one jot nor one tittle hath not passed away
from the law, but in me it hath all been fulfilled" (Nephi). Variations
in succeeding verses are incident to this prospective fulfilment
(Matt.), and affirmed accomplishment (Nephi). Instead of the strong
analogy concerning the plucking out of an offending eye, or the severing
of an evil hand (Matt.), we find: "Behold, I give unto you a
commandment, that ye suffer none of these things to enter into your
heart; for it is better that ye should deny yourselves of these things,
wherein ye will take up your cross, than that ye should be cast into
hell" (Nephi). Following the illustrative instances of the gospel
requirements superseding those of the law, the Nephite record presents
this splendid summation: "Therefore those things which were of old time,
which were under the law in me, are all fulfilled. Old things are done
away, and all things have become new; therefore I would that ye should
be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect."

In Matthew's report of the sermon, little distinction is made between
the precepts addressed to the multitude in general, and the instructions
given particularly to the Twelve. Thus, Matt. 6:25-34 was spoken
inferentially to the apostles; for they and not the people were to lay
aside all worldly pursuits; in the sermon delivered to the Nephites the
distinction is thus made clear: "And now it came to pass that when Jesus
had spoken these words, he looked upon the twelve whom he had chosen,
and said unto them, Remember the words which I have spoken. For behold,
ye are they whom I have chosen to minister unto this people. Therefore I
say unto you, take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what
ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the
life more than meat, and the body than raiment?" etc. (See 3 Nephi
13:25-34). Matt 7 opens with "Judge not that ye be not judged," without
intimation as to its general or special application; 3 Nephi 14 begins
"And now it came to pass that when Jesus had spoken these words, he
turned again to the multitude, and did open his mouth unto them again,
saying, Verily, verily, I say unto you, judge not, that ye be not
judged." A careful, verse-by-verse comparison between the Sermon on the
Mount as recorded by Matthew, and the risen Lord's discourse to His
people on the western continent is earnestly recommended to every
student.

3. Baptisms Among the Nephites After the Lord's Visitation.--We read
that before the second appearing of Christ to the Nephites, the chosen
Twelve were baptized (3 Nephi 19:10-13). These men had doubtless been
baptized before, for Nephi had been empowered not only to baptize but to
ordain others to the requisite authority for administering baptism (3
Nephi 7:23-26). The baptism of the disciples on the morn of the Savior's
second visit, was in the nature of a rebaptism, involving a renewal of
covenants, and confession of faith in the Lord Jesus.

It is possible that in the earlier Nephite baptisms some irregularity in
mode or impropriety in the spirit of administering the ordinance may
have arisen; for, as we have seen the Lord enjoined upon the people in
connection with the instructions concerning baptism that disputations
must cease. (3 Nephi 11:28-33.)

As to second or later baptisms, the author has written elsewhere (see
_The Articles of Faith_, vii:12-17) practically as follows. Rebaptisms
recorded in scripture are few, and in each instance the special
circumstances justifying the action are apparent. Thus, we read of Paul
baptizing certain disciples at Ephesus, though they had already been
immersed after the manner of John's baptism. But in this case the
apostle was evidently unconvinced that the baptism had been solemnized
by due authority, or that the believers had been properly instructed as
to the import of the ordinance. When he tested the efficacy of their
baptism by asking "Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?"
they answered him, "We have not so much as heard whether there be any
Holy Ghost." Then asked he in seeming surprize, "Unto what then were ye
baptized? and they said, Unto John's baptism. Then said Paul, John
verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people,
that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on
Christ Jesus. When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of
the Lord Jesus." (See Acts 19:1-6.)

In the Church today a repetition of the baptismal rite on an individual
is allowable under certain specific conditions. Thus, if one, having
entered the Church by baptism, withdraws from it, or is excommunicated
therefrom, and afterward repents and desires to regain his standing in
the Church, he can do so only through baptism. However, such is a
repetition of the initiatory ordinance as previously administered. There
is no ordinance of "rebaptism" in the Church distinct in nature, form,
or purpose, from other baptism; and, therefore, in administering baptism
to a subject who has been formerly baptized, the form of the ceremony is
exactly the same as in first baptisms.

FOOTNOTES:

[1452] John 10:16; compare B. of M., 3 Nephi 15:17-21; page 416 herein.

[1453] See pages 49, 55 herein.

[1454] Pages 49-52.

[1455] Helaman 14:14-27.

[1456] 3 Nephi 2:1.

[1457] Exo. 10:21-23.

[1458] 3 Nephi 8:5-25; compare Helaman 14:20-27.

[1459] 3 Nephi chap. 9.

[1460] 3 Nephi, chap. 10.

[1461] Helaman 14:25; 3 Nephi 23:7-13; compare Matt. 27:52, 53.

[1462] 3 Nephi, chaps. 11-18 inclusive.

[1463] 3 Nephi 10:18. Bear in mind that Christ's ascension took place
forty days after His resurrection.

[1464] Note 1, end of chapter.

[1465] 3 Nephi 11:7; compare Matt. 3:17; Mark 1:11; Luke 9:35; P. of
G.P., Joseph Smith 2:17.

[1466] 3 Nephi 11:12; compare 1 Nephi 12:6; 2 Nephi 26:1, 9; Alma 16:20.

[1467] 3 Nephi 11:23-28; compare Doc. and Cov. 20:72-74.

[1468] 3 Nephi 11:31-34; compare Mark 16:15, 16; see also John 12:48.

[1469] 3 Nephi 11:39-41.

[1470] 3 Nephi, chaps. 12, 13, 14; compare Matt, chaps. 5, 6, 7.

[1471] Matt. 5:18, and 3 Nephi 12:18; compare 46, 47; 15:2-10; and
9:17-20. See Note 2, end of chapter.

[1472] 3 Nephi 15:4-8. See pages 234, 373, 374 herein.

[1473] 3 Nephi 15:11-24.

[1474] 3 Nephi 16:4-20.

[1475] 3 Nephi 17:23-24; read entire chapter.

[1476] 3 Nephi 18:1-14, 27-34; compare 1 Cor. 11:23-30. For the
prescribed manner of administering the Sacrament, see Moroni, chaps. 4
and 5; compare Doc. and Cov. 20:75-79.

[1477] 3 Nephi 18:19-23.

[1478] 3 Nephi 18:36, 37; Moroni 2:1-3.

[1479] 3 Nephi, chaps. 19-25, and 26:1-5.

[1480] Note 3, end of chapter.

[1481] 3 Nephi, chap. 19:35, 36; read the entire chapter.

[1482] 3 Nephi, chap. 20; see references to Isaiah given therein.

[1483] 3 Nephi 21:4.

[1484] 3 Nephi 21:1-7; for prophecies concerning subsequent events see
remainder of chapter.

[1485] 3 Nephi, chap. 22; compare Isa. chap. 54.

[1486] 3 Nephi, chaps. 24 and 25; compare Malachi, chap. 3 and 4.

[1487] Doc. and Cov. 110:13-16. Elijah appeared in the Kirtland Temple
April 3, A.D. 1836, and committed to the Church the keys of authority
for vicarious work in behalf of the dead. See chapter 41 herein, page
775.

[1488] 3 Nephi 26:4, 5, 13-15.

[1489] 3 Nephi 26:14-21.

[1490] 3 Nephi, chaps. 26, 27, and 28:1-12.

[1491] Note 1, end of chapter.

[1492] 3 Nephi 27:4-12.

[1493] E.g. of Calvin, Luther, Wesley; see also "The Great Apostasy,"
10:21, 22.

[1494] Note the assurance of a similar commission promised the Jewish
apostles: Matt. 19:28; Luke 22:30. See also 1 Nephi 12:9.

[1495] 3 Nephi 27:32 and references given therewith.

[1496] 3 Nephi 28:1; read verses 1-12.

[1497] 3 Nephi 28:6-8; see page 694 herein.

[1498] 3 Nephi 28:13-23; compare 4 Nephi 1:14, 29-33.

[1499] 3 Nephi 28:39, 40.

[1500] Mormon 8:10, 11; see also 3 Nephi 28:26-32, 36-40, 4 Nephi 1:14,
37; Ether 12:17.

[1501] 3 Nephi 28:27-32.

[1502] 4 Nephi 1:3; read 1:23; see pages 705 and 718 herein.

[1503] 4 Nephi 1:15, 16.

[1504] 4 Nephi 1:25, 26.

[1505] Near Manchester, Ontario county, New York.

[1506] See Mormon, chapters 1-9; and Moroni, chapter 10.




CHAPTER 40.

THE LONG NIGHT OF APOSTASY.


For over seventeen hundred years on the eastern hemisphere, and for more
than fourteen centuries on the western, there appears to have been
silence between the heavens and the earth.[1507] Of direct revelation
from God to man during this long interval, we have no authentic record.
As already shown, the period of apostolic ministry on the eastern
continent probably terminated before the dawn of the second century of
the Christian era. The passing of the apostles was followed by the rapid
development of a universal apostasy as had been foreseen and
predicted.[1508]

In the accomplishment of this great falling away, external and internal
causes cooperated. Among the disintegrating forces acting from without,
the most effective was the persistent persecution to which the saints
were subjected, incident to both Judaistic and pagan opposition. Vast
numbers who had professed membership and many who had been officers in
the ministry deserted the Church; while a few were stimulated to greater
zeal under the scourge of persecution. The general effect of opposition
from the outside--of external causes of decline in faith and works
considered as a whole--was the defection of individuals, resulting in a
widespread _apostasy from the Church_. But immeasurably more serious was
the result of internal dissension, schism and disruption, whereby an
absolute _apostasy of the Church_ from the way and word of God was
brought about.

Judaism was the earliest oppressor of Christianity, and became the
instigator and abettor of the succeeding atrocities incident to pagan
persecution. Open and vigorous hostility of the Roman powers against the
Christian Church became general during the reign of Nero, (beginning
about 64 A.D.), and continued with occasional respites of a few months
or even years at a time to the close of Diocletian's reign (about 305
A.D.). The inhuman cruelty and savage barbarity to which were subjected
those who dared profess the name of Christ during these centuries of
heathen domination are matters of accepted history.[1509] When
Constantine the Great came to the throne in the first quarter of the
fourth century, a radical change was inaugurated in the attitude of the
state toward the church. The emperor straightway made the so-called
Christianity of the time the religion of his realm; and zealous devotion
to the church became the surest recommendation to imperial favor. But
the church was already in great measure an apostate institution and even
in crude outline of organization and service bore but remote resemblance
to the Church of Jesus Christ, founded by the Savior and builded through
the instrumentality of the apostles. Whatever vestiges of genuine
Christianity may have possibly survived in the church before, were
buried beyond the sight of man by the abuses that followed the elevation
of the churchly organization to secular favor through the decree of
Constantine. The emperor, even though unbaptized, made himself the head
of the church, and priestly office was more sought after than military
rank or state preferment. The spirit of apostasy, by which the church
had become permeated before Constantine threw about it the mantle of
imperial protection and emblazoned it with the insignia of state, now
was roused to increased activity as the leaven of Satan's own culture
flourished under the conditions most favorable for such fungoid growth.

The bishop of Rome had already asserted supremacy over his fellows in
the episcopate; but when the emperor made Byzantium his capital, and
renamed it in his own honor, Constantinople, the bishop of that city
claimed equality with the Roman pontiff. The claim was contested; the
ensuing dissension divided the church; and the disruption has persisted
until the present day, as is evidenced by the existing distinction
between the Roman Catholic and the Greek Catholic churches.

The Roman pontiff exercized secular as well as spiritual authority; and
in the eleventh century arrogated to himself the title of _Pope_,
signifying _Father_, in the sense of paternal ruler in all things.
During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the temporal authority of
the pope was superior to that of kings and emperors; and the Roman
church became the despotic potentate of nations, and an autocrat above
all secular states. Yet this church, reeking with the stench of worldly
ambition and lust of dominance, audaciously claimed to be the Church
established by Him who affirmed: "My kingdom is not of this world." The
arrogant assumptions of the Church of Rome were not less extravagant in
spiritual than in secular administration. In her loudly asserted control
over the spiritual destinies of the souls of men, she blasphemously
pretended to forgive or retain individual sins, and to inflict or remit
penalties both on earth and beyond the grave. She sold permission to
commit sin and bartered for gold charters of indulgent forgiveness for
sins already done. Her pope, proclaiming himself the vicar of God, sat
in state to judge as God Himself; and by such blasphemy fulfilled the
prophecy of Paul following his warning in relation to the awful
conditions antecedent to the second coming of the Christ: "Let no man
deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come
a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of
perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called
God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of
God, shewing himself that he is God."[1510]

In her unrestrained abandon to the license of arrogated authority, the
Church of Rome hesitated not to transgress the law of God, change the
ordinances essential to salvation, and ruthlessly break the everlasting
covenant, thereby defiling the earth even as Isaiah had foretold.[1511]
She altered the ordinance of baptism, destroying its symbolism and
associating with it imitations of pagan rites; she corrupted the
Sacrament of the Lord's Supper and befouled the doctrine thereof by the
vagary of _transubstantiation_;[1512] she assumed to apply the merits of
the righteous to the forgiveness of the sinner in the unscriptural and
wholly repellent dogma of _supererogation_; she promoted idolatry in
most seductive and pernicious forms; she penalized the study of the holy
scriptures by the people at large; she enjoined an unnatural state of
celibacy upon her clergy; she revelled in unholy union with the theories
and sophistries of men, and so adulterated the simple doctrines of the
gospel of Christ as to produce a creed rank with superstition and
heresy; she promulgated such perverted doctrines regarding the human
body as to make the divinely formed tabernacle of flesh appear as a
thing fit only to be tortured and contemned; she proclaimed it an act of
virtue insuring rich reward to lie and deceive if thereby her own
interests might be subserved; and she so thoroughly departed from the
original plan of Church organization as to make of herself a spectacle
of ornate display, fabricated by the caprice of man.[1513]

The most important of the internal causes by which the apostasy of the
Primitive Church was brought about may be thus summarized: (1) The
corrupting of the simple doctrines of the gospel of Christ by admixture
with so-called philosophic systems. (2) Unauthorized additions to the
prescribed rites of the Church and the introduction of vital alterations
in essential ordinances. (3) Unauthorized changes in Church organization
and government.[1514]

Under the tyrannous repression incident to usurped and unrighteous
domination by the Roman church, civilization was retarded and for
centuries was practically halted in its course. The period of
retrogression is known in history as the Dark Ages. The fifteenth
century witnessed the movement known as the Renaissance or Revival of
Learning; there was a general and significantly rapid awakening among
men, and a determined effort to shake off the stupor of indolence and
ignorance was manifest throughout the civilized world. By historians and
philosophers the revival has been regarded as an unconscious and
spontaneous prompting of the "spirit of the times"; it was a development
predetermined in the Mind of God to illumine the benighted minds of men
in preparation for the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ, which
was appointed to be accomplished some centuries later.[1515]

With the renewal of intellectual activity and effort in material
betterment, there came, as a natural and inevitable accompaniment,
protest and revolt against the ecclesiastical tyranny of the age. The
Albigenses in France had risen in insurrection against churchly
despotism during the thirteenth century; and in the fourteenth, John
Wickliffe of Oxford University had boldly denounced the corruption of
the Roman church and clergy, and particularly the restrictions imposed
by the papal hierarchy on the popular study of the scriptures. Wickliffe
gave to the world a version of the Holy Bible in English. These
manifestations of independent belief and action the papal church sought
to repress and punish by force. The Albigenses had been subjected to
inhuman cruelties and unrestrained slaughter. Wickliffe was the subject
of severe and persistent persecution; and though he died in his bed the
vindictiveness of the Roman church was unsated until she had caused his
body to be exhumed and burned and the ashes scattered abroad. John Huss
and Jerome of Prague were prominent on the continent of Europe in
agitation against papal despotism, and both fell martyrs to the cause.
Though the church had become apostate to the core, there were not
lacking men brave of heart and righteous of soul, ready to give their
lives to the furtherance of spiritual emancipation.

A notable revolt against the papacy occurred in the sixteenth century,
and is known as the Reformation. This movement was begun in 1517 by
Martin Luther, a German monk; and it spread so rapidly as soon to
involve the whole domain of popedom. Formal _protests_ against the
despotism of the papal church were formulated by the representatives of
certain German principalities and other delegates at a diet or general
council held at Spires A.D. 1529; and the reformers were thenceforth
known as _Protestants_. An independent church was proposed by John,
Elector of Saxony, a constitution for which was prepared at his instance
by Luther and his colleague, Melanchthon. The Protestants were
discordant. Being devoid of divine authority to guide them in matters of
church organization and doctrine, they followed the diverse ways of men,
and were rent within while assailed from without. The Roman church,
confronted by determined opponents, hesitated at no extreme of cruelty.
The court of the Inquisition, which had been established in the latter
part of the fifteenth century under the infamously sacrilegious name of
the "Holy Office," became intoxicated with the lust of barbarous cruelty
in the century of the Reformation, and inflicted indescribable tortures
on persons secretly accused of heresy.

In the early stages of the Reformation instigated by Luther, the king of
England, Henry VIII, declared himself a supporter of the pope, and was
rewarded by a papal bestowal of the distinguishing title "Defender of
the Faith." Within a few years, this same British sovereign was
excommunicated from the Roman church, because of impatient disregard of
the pope's authority in the matter of Henry's desire to divorce Queen
Catherine so that he could marry one of her maids. The British
parliament, in 1534, passed the Act of Supremacy, by which the nation
was declared free from all allegiance to papal authority. By Act of
Parliament the king was made the head of the church within his own
dominions. Thus was born the Church of England, a direct result of the
licentious amours of a debauched and infamous king. With blasphemous
indifference to the absence of divine commission, with no semblance of
priestly succession, an adulterous sovereign created a church, provided
therein a "priesthood" of his own, and proclaimed himself supreme
administrator in all matters spiritual.

With the conflict between Catholicism and Protestantism in Great Britain
the student of history is familiar. Suffice it here to say that the
mutual hatred of the two contending sects, the zeal of their respective
adherents, their professed love of God and devotion to Christ's service,
were chiefly signalized by the sword, the ax, and the stake. Revelling
in the realization of at least a partial emancipation from the tyranny
of priestcraft, men and nations debauched their newly acquired liberty
of thought, speech, and action, in a riot of abhorrent excess. The
mis-called Age of Reason, and the atheistical abominations culminating
in the French Revolution stand as ineffaceable testimony of what man may
become when glorying in his denial of God.

Is it to be wondered at, that from the sixteenth century onward,
churches of man's contriving have multiplied with phenomenal rapidity?
Churches and churchly organizations professing Christianity as their
creed have come to be numbered by hundreds. On every side is heard in
this day, "Lo, here is Christ" or "Lo, there." There are sects named
from the circumstances of their origin--as the Church of England; others
after their famous founders or promoters--as Lutheran, Calvinist,
Wesleyan; some are known by peculiarities of doctrine or plan of
administration--as Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Congregationalist;
but down to the third decade of the nineteenth century there was no
church on earth affirming name or title as the Church of Jesus Christ.
The only organization called a church existing at that time and
venturing to assert claim to authority by succession was the Catholic
church, which for centuries had been apostate and wholly bereft of
divine authority or recognition. If the "mother church" be without a
valid priesthood, and devoid of spiritual power, how can her offspring
derive from her the right to officiate in the things of God? Who would
dare to affirm that man can originate a priesthood which God is bound to
honor and acknowledge? Granted that men may and do create among
themselves societies, associations, sects, and even "churches" if they
choose so to designate their organizations; granted that they may
prescribe rules, formulate laws, and devize plans of operation,
discipline, and government, and that all such laws, rules, and schemes
of administration are binding upon those who assume membership--granted
all these rights and powers--whence can such human institutions derive
the authority of the Holy Priesthood, without which there can be no
Church of Christ?[1516]

The apostate condition of Christendom has been frankly admitted by many
eminent and conscientious representatives of the several churches, and
by churches as institutions. Even the Church of England acknowledges the
awful fact in her official declaration of degeneracy, as set forth in
the "_Homily Against Peril of Idolatry_," in these words:

    "So that laity and clergy, learned and unlearned, all ages,
    sects, and degrees of men, women, and children of whole
    Christendom--an horrible and most dreadful thing to think--have
    been at once drowned in abominable idolatry; of all other vices
    most detested of God, and most damnable to man; and that by the
    space of eight hundred years and more."[1517]

Let it not be concluded that through the night of the universal
apostasy, long and dark as it was, God had forgotten the world. Mankind
had not been left wholly to itself. The Spirit of God was operative so
far as the unbelief of men permitted. John the apostle, and the Three
Nephite disciples,[1518] were ministering among men, though unknown. But
through the centuries of spiritual darkness men lived and died without
the administration of a contemporary apostle, prophet, elder, bishop,
priest, teacher, or deacon. Whatever of the form of Godliness existed in
the churches of human establishment was destitute of divine power. The
time foreseen by the inspired apostle had fully come--mankind in general
refused to endure sound doctrine, but, having itching ears, did they
heap to themselves teachers, after their own lusts, and verily had they
turned away their ears from the truth to follow after fables.[1519] The
first quarter of the nineteenth century witnessed the cumulative
fulfilment of the conditions predicted through the prophet Amos:
"Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in
the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing
the words of the Lord: And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from
the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word
of the Lord, and shall not find it."[1520]

Throughout the period of apostasy the windows of heaven had been shut
toward the world, so as to preclude all direct revelation from God, and
particularly any personal ministration or theophany of the Christ.
Mankind had ceased to know God; and had invested the utterances of
prophets and apostles of old, who had known Him, with a pall of mystery
and fancy, so that the True and the Living God was no longer believed to
exist; but in His place the sectaries had tried to conceive of an
incomprehensible being, devoid of "body, parts, or passions," an
immaterial nothing.[1521]

But it had been determined in the councils of heaven, that after many
centuries of benighted ignorance the world should be illumined anew by
the light of truth. Through the operation of the genius of intelligence,
which is the Spirit of Truth, the soul of the race had been undergoing a
preparation, like unto the deep plowing of a field, for the planting of
the gospel afresh. The principle of the mariner's compass was revealed
by the Spirit; the material embodiment thereof was invented by man; and
by its aid the unknown oceans were explored. Toward the end of the
fifteenth century Columbus was led by the inspiration of God to the
discovery of the New World, whereon dwelt the degenerate posterity of
Lehi, a dark-skinned remnant of the house of Israel--the American
Indians. In due time the good ships _Mayflower_ and _Speedwell_ brought
to the western world the Pilgrim Fathers, as the vanguard of a host
escaping from exile and seeking a new home wherein they could worship
according to the dictates of their consciences. The coming of Columbus
and the later immigration of the Puritan Pilgrims had been predicted
nearly six hundred years before Christ; their respective missions had
been as truly appointed unto them as has been the sending of any prophet
with a message to deliver and a work to do.[1522] The war between the
American Colonies and the Mother Country, and the victorious issue
thereof in the emancipation of the American nation once and forever from
monarchial rule, had been foretold as further steps in preparation for
the restoration of the gospel. Time was allowed for the establishment of
a stable government, for the raising up of men chosen and inspired to
frame and promulgate the Constitution of the United States, which
promises to every man a full measure of political and religious freedom.
It was not meet that the precious seed of the restored gospel be thrown
upon unplowed soil, hardened by intolerance, and fit to produce only
thorns of bigotry and rank weeds of mental and spiritual serfdom. The
gospel of Jesus Christ is the embodiment of liberty; it is the truth
that shall make free every man and every nation who will accept and obey
its precepts.

At the appointed time, the Eternal Father and His Son Jesus the Christ
appeared to man upon the earth, and inaugurated the Dispensation of the
Fulness of Times.


NOTES TO CHAPTER 40.

1. Cessation of Revelation on the Western Hemisphere.--"The eastern
world had lost this knowledge of the Lord earlier than the western
hemisphere. Upon the land of North America, four hundred years after the
birth of our Savior and Master, there stood at least one man who knew
the Lord God Almighty as a distinct personality, a Being capable of
communicating Himself to man. That man was Moroni, the son of Mormon,
whose testimony abides now and must abide through all the ages to
come."--George Q. Cannon, _Life of Joseph Smith_, p. 21. See B. of M.,
Moroni 10:27-34.

2. Results of the Great Apostasy Divinely Overruled for Eventual
Good.--The thoughtful student cannot fail to see in the progress of the
great apostasy and its results the existence of an overruling power
operating toward eventual good, however mysterious its methods. The
heart-rending persecutions to which the saints were subjected in the
early centuries of our era, the anguish, the torture, the bloodshed
incurred in defense of the testimony of Christ, the rise of an apostate
church, blighting the intellect and leading captive the souls of
men--all these dread conditions were foreknown to the Lord. While we
cannot say or believe that such exhibitions of human depravity and
blasphemy of heart were in accordance with the divine will, certainly
God willed to permit full scope to the free agency of man, in the
exercize of which agency some won the martyr's crown, and others filled
the flagon of their iniquity to overflowing. Not less marked is the
divine permission in the revolts and rebellions, in the revolutions and
reformations, that developed in opposition to the darkening influence of
the apostate church. Wickliffe and Huss, Luther and Melanchthon, Zwingli
and Calvin, Henry VIII in his arrogant assumption of priestly authority,
John Knox in Scotland, Roger Williams in America--these and a host of
others builded better than they knew, in that their efforts laid in part
the foundation of the structure of religious freedom and liberty of
conscience--and this in preparation for the restoration of the gospel as
had been divinely predicted.--_The Great Apostasy_, 10:19, 20.

3. Declaration of a General Apostasy by the Church of England.--The
_Book of Homilies_, from which the quotation given in the text is taken,
was published about the middle of the sixteenth century. The official
proclamation of a universal apostasy was made prominently current, for
the Homilies were "appointed to be read in churches" in lieu of sermons
under certain conditions. In the statement cited, the Church of England
solemnly avers that a state of apostasy affecting all ages, sects, and
degrees throughout whole Christendom, had prevailed for eight hundred
years prior to the establishment of the church making the declaration.
That this affirmation remains effective today, as both confession and
profession of the Church of England, appears from the fact that the
homily "Against Peril of Idolatry" and certain other homilies are
specifically ratified and endorsed, and withal prescribed "to be read in
Churches by the Ministers diligently and distinctly that they may be
understanded of the people." See "Articles of Religion" xxxv, in current
issues of Church of England, _Book of Common Prayer_.

4. The "Creed of Athanasius."--At the Council of Nice, convoked by the
emperor Constantine, 325 A.D., a formal statement of belief concerning
the Godhead was adopted. Later a modification was issued, known as the
"Creed of Athanasius," and though the authorship is questioned, the
creed has a place in the ritual of some of the Protestant churches. No
more conclusive evidence that men had ceased to know God need be adduced
than the Athanasian Creed. As confessed by the Church of England in this
day, and as published in the official ritual (see _Prayer Book_) "The
Creed of Saint Athanasius" is this: "We worship one God in Trinity, and
Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the Persons: nor dividing the
Substance. For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son:
and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one: the Glory equal, the Majesty
co-eternal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son: and such is the Holy
Ghost. The Father uncreate, the Son uncreate: and the Holy Ghost
uncreate. The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible: and the
Holy Ghost incomprehensible. The Father eternal, the Son eternal: and
the Holy Ghost eternal. And yet they are not three eternals: but one
eternal. As also there are not three incomprehensibles, nor three
uncreated: but one uncreated, and one incomprehensible. So likewise the
Father is Almighty, the Son Almighty: and the Holy Ghost Almighty. And
yet they are not three Almighties: but one Almighty. So the Father is
God, the Son is God: and the Holy Ghost is God. And yet they are not
three Gods: but one God. So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son Lord,
and the Holy Ghost Lord. And yet not three Lords: but one Lord."

Then follows this strange confession of what is at once required by
"Christian verity," and forbidden by the "Catholick Religion": "For like
as we are compelled by the Christian verity: to acknowledge every Person
by himself to be God and Lord; so are we forbidden by the Catholick
Religion: to say, There be three Gods, or three Lords."

5. The Mission of Columbus and Its Results.--Unto Nephi, son of Lehi,
was shown the future of his people, including the degeneracy of a branch
thereof, afterward known as Lamanites and in modern times as American
Indians. The coming of a man from among the Gentiles, across the deep
waters, was revealed in such plainness as to positively identify that
man with Columbus; and the coming of other Gentiles to this land, out of
captivity, is equally explicit. The revelation is thus recorded by Nephi
to whom it was given: "And it came to pass that I looked and beheld many
waters; and they divided the Gentiles from the seed of my brethren. And
it came to pass that the angel said unto me, Behold the wrath of God is
upon the seed of thy brethren. And I looked and beheld a man among the
Gentiles who was separated from the seed of my brethren by the many
waters; and I beheld the Spirit of God, that it came down and wrought
upon the man; and he went forth upon the many waters, even unto the seed
of my brethren, who were in the promised land. And it came to pass that
I beheld the Spirit of God, that it wrought upon other Gentiles; and
they went forth out of captivity, upon the many waters." (1 Nephi
13:10-13). The establishment of a great Gentile nation on the American
continent, the subjugation of the Lamanites or Indians, the war between
the newly established nation and Great Britain, or "their mother
Gentiles," and the victorious outcome of that struggle for independence,
are set forth with equal clearness in the same chapter.

FOOTNOTES:

[1507] Note 1, end of chapter.

[1508] No extended account of the apostasy of the Primitive Church can
be attempted here; the reader is referred to special works treating this
important subject. See the author's "The Great Apostasy, considered in
the Light of Scriptural and Secular History," a work of 176 pages.

[1509] See "The Great Apostasy," chaps. 4 and 5.

[1510] 1 Thess. 2:3, 4.

[1511] Isa. 24:5.

[1512] The false doctrine of "transubstantiation" is to the effect that
the bread and wine administered as emblems of Christ's flesh and blood
in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper are transmuted by priestly
consecration into the actual flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. See "The
Great Apostasy," 8:16-19. As to "supererogation" see page 590 herein.

[1513] "The Great Apostasy," chaps. 6, 7, 8.

[1514] "The Great Apostasy," 6:14, 15; for comprehensive treatment of
the subject see chapters 6 to 9 inclusive.

[1515] Note 2, end of chapter.

[1516] This paragraph is in part a paraphrase of "The Great Apostasy,"
10:21, 22.

[1517] Note 3, end of chapter.

[1518] Pages 694 and 738.

[1519] See 2 Tim. 4:1-4; also "The Great Apostasy," 2:30.

[1520] Amos. 8:11, 12.

[1521] See Church of England "Book of Common Prayer," "Articles of
Religion" i. Note 4, end of chapter.

[1522] See B. of M., 1 Nephi 13:10-13. Note 5, end of chapter.




CHAPTER 41.

PERSONAL MANIFESTATIONS OF GOD THE ETERNAL FATHER AND OF HIS SON JESUS
CHRIST IN MODERN TIMES.


A NEW DISPENSATION.

In the year of our Lord 1820 there lived at Manchester, Ontario county,
state of New York, a worthy citizen named Joseph Smith. His household
comprized his wife and their nine children. The third son and fourth
child of the family was Joseph Smith Jr., who at the time of which we
speak was in his fifteenth year. In the year specified, New York and
adjacent states were swept by a wave of intense agitation in religious
matters; and unusual zeal was put forth by ministers of the numerous
rival sects to win converts to their respective folds. The boy Joseph
was profoundly affected by this intense excitement, and was particularly
puzzled and troubled over the spirit of confusion and contention
manifest through it all. As our present subject has to do with him
specifically, and in view of the transcendent importance of his
testimony to the world, his own account of what ensued is given
herewith.

    "Some time in the second year after our removal to Manchester,
    there was in the place where we lived an unusual excitement on
    the subject of religion. It commenced with the Methodists, but
    soon became general among all the sects in that region of
    country. Indeed, the whole district of country seemed affected
    by it, and great multitudes united themselves to the different
    religious parties, which created no small stir and division
    amongst the people, some crying, 'Lo, here!' and others, 'Lo,
    there!' Some were contending for the Methodist faith, some for
    the Presbyterian, and some for the Baptist.

    "For notwithstanding the great love which the converts to these
    different faiths expressed at the time of their conversion, and
    the great zeal manifested by the respective clergy, who were
    active in getting up and promoting this extraordinary scene of
    religious feeling, in order to have everybody converted, as they
    were pleased to call it, let them join what sect they
    pleased--yet when the converts began to file off, some to one
    party and some to another, it was seen that the seemingly good
    feelings of both the priests and the converts were more
    pretended than real; for a scene of great confusion and bad
    feeling ensued; priest contending against priest, and convert
    against convert; so that all their good feelings one for
    another, if they ever had any, were entirely lost in a strife of
    words and a contest about opinions.

    "I was at this time in my fifteenth year. My father's family was
    proselyted to the Presbyterian faith, and four of them joined
    that church, namely--my mother Lucy; my brothers Hyrum and
    Samuel Harrison; and my sister Sophronia.

    "During this time of great excitement, my mind was called up to
    serious reflection and great uneasiness; but though my feelings
    were deep and often poignant, still I kept myself aloof from all
    these parties, though I attended their several meetings as often
    as occasion would permit. In process of time my mind became
    somewhat partial to the Methodist sect, and I felt some desire
    to be united with them; but so great were the confusion and
    strife among the different denominations, that it was impossible
    for a person young as I was, and so unacquainted with men and
    things, to come to any certain conclusion who was right and who
    was wrong.

    "My mind at times was greatly excited, the cry and tumult were
    so great and incessant. The Presbyterians were most decided
    against the Baptists and Methodists, and used all the powers of
    either reason or sophistry to prove their errors, or, at least,
    to make the people think they were in error. On the other hand,
    the Baptists and Methodists in their turn were equally zealous
    in endeavoring to establish their own tenets and disprove all
    others.

    "In the midst of this war of words and tumult of opinions, I
    often said to myself, What is to be done? Who of all these
    parties are right; or, are they all wrong together? If any one
    of them be right, which is it, and how shall I know it?

    "While I was laboring under the extreme difficulties caused by
    the contests of these parties of religionists, I was one day
    reading the Epistle of James, first chapter and fifth verse,
    which reads: _If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God,
    that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it
    shall be given him._

    "Never did any passage of scripture come with more power to the
    heart of man than this did at this time to mine. It seemed to
    enter with great force into every feeling of my heart. I
    reflected on it again and again, knowing that if any person
    needed wisdom from God, I did; for how to act I did not know,
    and unless I could get more wisdom than I then had, I would
    never know; for the teachers of religion of the different sects
    understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to
    destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to
    the Bible.

    "At length I came to the conclusion that I must either remain in
    darkness and confusion, or else I must do as James directs, that
    is, ask of God. I at length came to the determination to 'ask of
    God,' concluding that if He gave wisdom to them that lacked
    wisdom, and would give liberally, and not upbraid, I might
    venture.

    "So, in accordance with this, my determination to ask of God, I
    retired to the woods to make the attempt. It was on the morning
    of a beautiful, clear day, early in the spring of eighteen
    hundred and twenty. It was the first time in my life that I had
    made such an attempt, for amidst all my anxieties I had never as
    yet made the attempt to pray vocally.

    "After I had retired to the place where I had previously
    designed to go, having looked around me, and finding myself
    alone, I kneeled down and began to offer up the desires of my
    heart to God. I had scarcely done so, when immediately I was
    seized upon by some power which entirely overcame me, and had
    such an astonishing influence over me as to bind my tongue so
    that I could not speak. Thick darkness gathered around me, and
    it seemed to me for a time as if I were doomed to sudden
    destruction.

    "But, exerting all my powers to call upon God to deliver me out
    of the power of this enemy which had seized upon me, and at the
    very moment when I was ready to sink into despair and abandon
    myself to destruction--not to an imaginary ruin, but to the
    power of some actual being from the unseen world, who had such
    marvelous power as I had never before felt in any being--just at
    this moment of great alarm, I saw a pillar of light exactly over
    my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended
    gradually until it fell upon me.

    "It no sooner appeared than I found myself delivered from the
    enemy which held me bound. When the light rested upon me I saw
    two personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description,
    standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling
    me by name, and said, pointing to the other--_This is my beloved
    Son, hear him!_

    "My object in going to inquire of the Lord was to know which of
    all the sects was right, that I might know which to join. No
    sooner, therefore, did I get possession of myself, so as to be
    able to speak, than I asked the personages who stood above me in
    the light, which of all the sects was right--and which I should
    join.

    "I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all
    wrong; and the personage who addressed me said that all their
    creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors
    were all corrupt; that 'they draw near to me with their lips,
    but their hearts are far from me; they teach for doctrines the
    commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny
    the power thereof.'

    "He again forbade me to join with any of them; and many other
    things did he say unto me, which I cannot write at this time.
    When I came to myself again, I found myself lying on my back,
    looking up into heaven.

    "Some few days after I had this vision, I happened to be in
    company with one of the Methodist preachers, who was very active
    in the before mentioned religious excitement; and, conversing
    with him on the subject of religion, I took occasion to give him
    an account of the vision which I had had. I was greatly
    surprised at his behavior; he treated my communication not only
    lightly, but with great contempt, saying, it was all of the
    devil, that there were no such things as visions or revelations
    in these days; that all such things had ceased with the
    apostles, and that there would never be any more of them.

    "I soon found, however, that my telling the story had excited a
    great deal of prejudice against me among professors of religion,
    and was the cause of great persecution, which continued to
    increase; and though I was an obscure boy, only between fourteen
    and fifteen years of age, and my circumstances in life such as
    to make a boy of no consequence in the world, yet men of high
    standing would take notice sufficient to excite the public mind
    against me, and create a bitter persecution; and this was common
    among all the sects--all united to persecute me.

    "It caused me serious reflection then, and often has since, how
    very strange it was that an obscure boy, of a little over
    fourteen years of age, and one, too, who was doomed to the
    necessity of obtaining a scanty maintenance by his daily labor,
    should be thought a character of sufficient importance to
    attract the attention of the great ones of the most popular
    sects of the day, and in a manner to create in them a spirit of
    the most bitter persecution and reviling. But strange or not, so
    it was, and it was often the cause of great sorrow to myself.

    "However, it was nevertheless a fact that I had beheld a vision.
    I have thought since, that I felt much like Paul, when he made
    his defense before King Agrippa, and related the account of the
    vision he had when he saw a light, and heard a voice; but still
    there were but few who believed him; some said he was dishonest,
    others said he was mad; and he was ridiculed and reviled. But
    all this did not destroy the reality of his vision. He had seen
    a vision, he knew he had, and all the persecution under heaven
    could not make it otherwise; and though they should persecute
    him unto death, yet he knew, and would know to his latest
    breath, that he had both seen a light, and heard a voice
    speaking unto him, and all the world could not make him think or
    believe otherwise.

    "So it was with me. I had actually seen a light, and in the
    midst of that light I saw two personages, and they did in
    reality speak to me; and though I was hated and persecuted for
    saying that I had seen a vision, yet it was true; and while they
    were persecuting me, reviling me, and speaking all manner of
    evil against me falsely for so saying, I was led to say in my
    heart: Why persecute me for telling the truth? I have actually
    seen a vision, and who am I that I can withstand God, or why
    does the world think to make me deny what I have actually seen?
    For I had seen a vision; I knew it, and I knew that God knew it,
    and I could not deny it, neither dared I do it, at least I knew
    that by so doing I would offend God, and come under
    condemnation.

    "I had now got my mind satisfied so far as the sectarian world
    was concerned; that it was not my duty to join with any of them,
    but to continue as I was until further directed. I had found the
    testimony of James to be true, that a man who lacked wisdom
    might ask of God, and obtain, and not be upbraided."[1523]

In this wise was ushered in the Dispensation of the Fulness of
Times.[1524] The darkness of the long night of apostasy was dispelled;
the glory of the heavens once more illumined the world; the silence of
centuries was broken; the voice of God was heard again upon the earth.
In the spring of A.D. 1820 there was one mortal, a boy not quite fifteen
years old, who knew as well as that he lived, that the current human
conception of Deity as an incorporeal essence of something possessing
neither definite shape nor tangible substance was as devoid of truth in
respect to both the Father and the Son as its statement in formulated
creeds was incomprehensible. The boy Joseph knew that both the Eternal
Father and His glorified Son, Jesus Christ, were in form and stature,
perfect Men; and that in Their physical likeness mankind had been
created in the flesh.[1525] He knew further that the Father and the Son
were individual Personages, each distinct from the other--a truth fully
attested by the Lord Jesus during His mortal existence, but which had
been obscured if not buried by the sophistries of human unbelief. He
realized that the unity of the Godhead was a oneness of perfection in
purpose, plan, and action, as the scriptures declare it to be, and not
an impossible union of personalities, as generations of false teachers
had tried to impress. This resplendent theophany confirmed the fact of a
universal apostasy, with the inevitable corollary--that the Church of
Christ was nowhere existent upon the earth. It effectively dissipated
the delusion that direct revelation from the heavens had forever ceased;
and affirmatively proved the actuality of personal communication between
God and mortals.

For the fourth time since the Savior's birth in the flesh, the voice of
the Father had attested the Son's authority in matters pertaining to
earth and man.[1526] In this latter-day revelation of Himself, as on the
earlier occasions, the Father did no more than affirm the fact of the
Son's identity, and command that He be obeyed.


"A MESSENGER SENT FROM THE PRESENCE OF GOD."[1527]

For about three and a half years following the glorious appearing of the
Father and the Son to Joseph Smith, the youthful revelator was left to
himself, so far as further manifestations from heaven were concerned.
The period was one of probation. He was subjected to the sneers of
youths of his age, and to aggressive persecution on the part of older
men, "who," as he very justly and somewhat accusingly remarks, "ought to
have been my friends and to have treated me kindly, and if they supposed
me to be deluded to have endeavored in a proper and affectionate manner
to have reclaimed me."[1528] He pursued his usual vocation, that of farm
work in association with his father and brothers, from whom he received
kindness, consideration, and sympathy; and in spite of raillery, abuse,
and denunciation from the community at large he remained firm and
faithful in his solemn avouchment that he had seen and heard both the
Eternal Father and Jesus the Christ, and that he had been instructed to
join none of the contending sects or churches because they were all
fundamentally wrong.

On the night of the 21st of September 1823, while engaged in fervent
prayer to God in the solitude of his chamber, Joseph observed the room
become illuminated until the light exceeded that of a cloudless noon. A
glorious personage appeared within the room, standing a little space
above the floor. Both the body of the visitant and the loose robe he
wore were of exquisite whiteness. Calling Joseph by name he announced
himself as Moroni, "a messenger sent from the presence of God"; and
informed the young man that the Lord had a work for him to do, and that
his name should come to be spoken of both for good and for evil among
all nations, kindreds, and tongues. The angel told of a record engraven
on plates of gold, which contained an account of the former inhabitants
of the American continent, and the fulness of the everlasting gospel as
delivered by the Savior to those ancient people; and furthermore, that
with the record were a breastplate, and the Urim and Thummim, which had
been prepared by divine instrumentality for use in translating the book.
The place at which the plates and the other sacred things were deposited
was shown to Joseph in vision, and so clear was the demonstration that
he readily recognized the spot when he visited it next day.

The angel quoted several passages from the Old and one from the New
Testament, some verbatim, and some with small variations from the
Biblical version. Joseph's statement concerning the scriptures cited by
Moroni is as follows:

    "He first quoted part of the third chapter of Malachi, and he
    quoted also the fourth or last chapter of the same prophecy,
    though with a little variation from the way it reads in our
    Bibles. Instead of quoting the first verse as it reads in our
    books, he quoted it thus:

    "_For behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven, and all
    the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall burn as stubble;
    for they that come shall burn them, saith the Lord of Hosts,
    that it shall leave them neither root nor branch._

    "And again, he quoted the fifth verse thus: _Behold, I will
    reveal unto you the Priesthood, by the hand of Elijah the
    prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the
    Lord._

    "He also quoted the next verse differently: _And he shall plant
    in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers,
    and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers; if
    it were not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his
    coming._

    "In addition to these, he quoted the eleventh chapter of Isaiah,
    saying that it was about to be fulfilled. He quoted also the
    third chapter of Acts, twenty-second and twenty-third verses,
    precisely as they stand in our New Testament. He said that that
    prophet was Christ; but the day had not yet come when they who
    would not hear his voice should be cut off from among the
    people, but soon would come.

    "He also quoted the second chapter of Joel, from the
    twenty-eighth verse to the last. He also said that this was not
    yet fulfilled but was soon to be. And he further stated that the
    fulness of the Gentiles was soon to come in."[1529]

The messenger departed, and the light disappeared with him. Twice during
the same night, however, the angel returned, each time repeating what
had been said at his first appearing and adding words of instruction and
caution. On the next day Moroni appeared to the young man again, and
directed him to inform his father of the visitations and commandments he
had received. Joseph's father instructed him to obey the messenger's
instructions and testified that they were given of God. Joseph then went
to the locality specified by the angel, on the side of a hill called in
the record Cumorah, and immediately identified the spot that had been
shown him in vision. By the aid of a lever he removed a large stone,
which proved to be the cover of a stone box wherein lay the plates and
other articles described by Moroni. The angel appeared at the place, and
forbade Joseph to remove the contents of the box at that time. The young
man replaced the massive stone lid and left the spot.

Four years later, the plates, the Urim and Thummim, and the breastplate
were delivered into Joseph's keeping by the angel Moroni. This Moroni,
who now came as a resurrected being, was the last survivor of the
Nephite nation; he had completed the record, and then shortly before his
death had hidden away the same in the hill Cumorah, whence it was
brought forth through his instrumentality and delivered to the modern
prophet and seer, Joseph Smith, September 22, 1827. That record, or,
strictly speaking a part thereof, is now accessible to all; it has been
translated through divine instrumentality and is now published in many
languages as the Book of Mormon.[1530]


THE AARONIC PRIESTHOOD CONFERRED BY JOHN THE BAPTIST.

On the 15th of May, 1829, Joseph Smith and his scribe in the work of
translating the Nephite record, Oliver Cowdery, retired to a secluded
glade to pray. Their special purpose was to inquire of the Lord
concerning the ordinance of baptism for the remission of sins, some
account of which they had found on the plates. Joseph writes:

    "While we were thus employed, praying and calling upon the Lord,
    a messenger from heaven descended in a cloud of light, and
    having laid his hands upon us, he ordained us, saying:

    "_Upon you my fellow servants, in the name of Messiah, I confer
    the Priesthood of Aaron, which holds the keys of the ministering
    of angels, and of the Gospel of repentance, and of baptism by
    immersion for the remission of sins; and this shall never be
    taken again from the earth, until the sons of Levi do offer
    again an offering unto the Lord in righteousness."_[1531]

The angelic visitor stated that his name was John, the same who is
designated in the New Testament, John the Baptist; and that he had acted
in ordaining the two under the direction of Peter, James, and John, who
held the keys of the Higher or Melchizedek Priesthood. He explained that
the Aaronic Priesthood did not comprize "the power of laying on hands
for the gift of the Holy Ghost";[1532] but he predicted that the Higher
Priesthood, having this power, would be conferred later. By his express
direction, Joseph baptized Oliver, and the latter in turn baptized
Joseph, by immersion in water.


THE MELCHIZEDEK PRIESTHOOD CONFERRED BY PETER, JAMES, AND JOHN.

Shortly after their ordination to the Lesser or Aaronic Priesthood,
Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery were visited by the presiding apostles
of old, Peter, James, and John, who conferred upon them the Melchizedek
Priesthood and ordained them to the Holy Apostleship. In a later
revelation the Lord Jesus thus specifically acknowledges the respective
ordinations as having been done by His will and commandment:

    "Which John I have sent unto you, my servants, Joseph Smith,
    jun., and Oliver Cowdery, to ordain you unto this first
    priesthood which you have received, that you might be called and
    ordained even as Aaron.... And also with Peter, and James, and
    John, whom I have sent unto you, by whom I have ordained you and
    confirmed you to be apostles, and especial witnesses of my name,
    and bear the keys of your ministry, and of the same things which
    I revealed unto them: Unto whom I have committed the keys of my
    kingdom, and a dispensation of the gospel for the last times;
    and for the fulness of times, in the which I will gather
    together in one all things, both which are in heaven, and which
    are on the earth."[1533]


ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS.

On the sixth day of April A.D. 1830, the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints was formally organized, at Fayette, Seneca county, New
York, in accordance with the secular law governing the establishment of
religious associations. The persons actually participating in the
organization numbered but six, such being the minimum required by law in
such an undertaking; many others were present however, some of whom had
already received the ordinance of baptism for the remission of sins. By
revelation to Joseph Smith, the Lord had previously specified the day on
which the organization was to be effected, and had made known His plan
of Church government--with detailed instructions as to the requisite
conditions for membership; the indispensability of baptism by immersion,
and the precise manner in which the initiatory ordinance was to be
administered; the manner of confirming baptized believers as members of
the Church; the duties of elders, priests, teachers, and deacons in the
Church; the exact procedure to be followed in the administration of the
Sacrament of the Lord's Supper; the order of Church discipline, and the
method of transferring members from one branch to another.[1534] The
baptized converts present at the organization were called upon to
express their acceptance or rejection of Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery
as elders in the Church; and in accordance with the unanimous vote in
the affirmative the ordination or setting apart of these two men as
respectively first and second elder in the new organization was
performed.[1535]

While the Book of Mormon had been in course of translation, particularly
during the two years immediately preceding the organization of the
Church, several revelations had been given through Joseph the prophet
and seer, relating to the work of translation and to the preparatory
labor necessary to the establishment of the Church as an institution
among men. The Author of these several revelations declared Himself
definitely to be Jesus Christ, God, the Son of God, the Redeemer, the
Light and Life of the World, Alpha and Omega, Christ the Lord, the Lord
and Savior.[1536] As early as A.D. 1829, the calling of the Twelve
Apostles was indicated, and appointment was made for the searching out
of the Twelve who should stand before the world as special witnesses of
the Christ; these were subsequently ordained to the Holy Apostleship,
and the council or quorum of the Twelve has been recognized, and
instructions concerning their exalted duties have been given, in
numerous revelations of later dates.[1537]

In such manner has the Church of Jesus Christ been reestablished upon
the earth, with all the powers and authority pertaining to the Holy
Priesthood as committed by the Lord Jesus to His apostles in the period
of His personal ministry. The inauguration of a new dispensation of the
gospel, with a restoration of the Priesthood, was absolutely necessary;
since through the apostasy of the Primitive Church there lived not a man
empowered to speak or administer in the name of God or His Christ. John
the Revelator saw in his vision of the last days an angel bringing anew
"the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and
to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud
voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is
come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the
fountains of waters."[1538]

Such an angelic embassage would have been but a needless and empty
display, and therefore an impossibility, had the everlasting gospel
remained upon the earth with its powers of priesthood perpetuated by
succession. The scriptural assurances of a restoration in the last days
through direct bestowal from the heavens is conclusive proof of the
actuality of the universal apostasy. Moroni came to Joseph Smith as "a
messenger sent from the presence of God," and delivered a record
containing "the fulness of the everlasting gospel," as it had been
imparted to the Lord's people in ancient times; and the world-wide
distribution of the Book of Mormon, and of other publications embodying
the revealed word in modern times, and the ministry of thousands who
labor in the authority of the Holy Priesthood combine as the loud voice
addressed to every nation, crying: "Fear God, and give glory to him; for
the hour of his judgment is come."


FURTHER COMMUNICATIONS FROM THE HEAVENS TO MAN.

Following the organization of the Church as heretofore described, direct
communication between the Lord Jesus Christ and His prophet Joseph was
frequent, as the needs of the Church required. Numerous revelations were
given, and these are accessible to all who will read.[1539] A marvelous
manifestation was granted to the prophet and his associate in the
presidency of the Church, Sidney Rigdon, the record of which appears as
follows:

    "We, Joseph Smith, jun., and Sidney Rigdon, being in the Spirit
    on the sixteenth of February, in the year of our Lord, one
    thousand eight hundred and thirty-two, by the power of the
    Spirit our eyes were opened and our understandings were
    enlightened, so as to see and understand the things of God--even
    those things which were from the beginning before the world was,
    which were ordained of the Father, through his Only Begotten
    Son, who was in the bosom of the Father, even from the
    beginning, of whom we bear record, and the record which we bear
    is the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ, who is the Son,
    whom we saw and with whom we conversed in the heavenly vision;
    For while we were doing the work of translation, which the Lord
    had appointed unto us, we came to the twenty-ninth verse of the
    fifth chapter of John, which was given unto us as follows.
    Speaking of the resurrection of the dead, concerning those who
    shall hear the voice of the Son of Man, and shall come forth;
    they who have done good in the resurrection of the just, and
    they who have done evil in the resurrection of the unjust. Now
    this caused us to marvel, for it was given unto us of the
    Spirit; and while we meditated upon these things, the Lord
    touched the eyes of our understandings and they were opened, and
    the glory of the Lord shone round about; and we beheld the glory
    of the Son, on the right hand of the Father, and received of his
    fulness; and saw the holy angels, and they who are sanctified
    before his throne, worshiping God, and the Lamb, who worship him
    for ever and ever. And now, after the many testimonies which
    have been given of him, this is the testimony last of all, which
    we give of him, that he lives; for we saw him, even on the right
    hand of God, and we heard the voice bearing record that he is
    the Only Begotten of the Father--that by him and through him,
    and of him the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants
    thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God."[1540]

The vision was followed by further revelation both through sight and
hearing; and the Lord showed unto His servants and proclaimed aloud the
fate of the wicked and the characteristic features of the varied degrees
of glory provided for the souls of mankind in the hereafter. The several
states of graded honor and exaltation pertaining to the telestial, the
terrestrial, and the celestial kingdoms were revealed, and the ancient
scriptures relating thereto were illumined with the new light of
simplicity and literalness.[1541]


PERSONAL APPEARING OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST IN THE KIRTLAND TEMPLE.

In less than three and a half years after its organization the Church
began the erection of the first temple of modern times at Kirtland,
Ohio. The work was undertaken in compliance with a revelation from the
Lord requiring this labor at the hands of His people. The Church
membership was small; the people were in poverty; the period was one of
determined opposition and relentless persecution.[1542] Be it understood
that to the Latter-day Saints a temple is more than chapel, church,
tabernacle, or cathedral; it is no place of common assembly even for
purposes of congregational worship, but an edifice sacred to the
ordinances of the Holy Priesthood--distinctively and essentially a House
of the Lord. The temple at Kirtland stands today, a substantial and
stately building; but it is no longer in possession of the people who
reared it by unmeasured sacrifice of time, substance, and effort
extending through years of self-denial and suffering. Its corner-stones
were laid July 23, 1833, and the completed structure was dedicated March
27, 1836. The dedicatory service was made ever memorable by a
Pentecostal outpouring of the Spirit of the Lord accompanied by the
visible presence of angels. In the evening of the same day the several
quorums of priesthood assembled in the house, and a yet greater
manifestation of divine power and glory was witnessed. On the succeeding
Sunday--April 3, 1836--after a service of solemn worship, including the
administration of the Lord's Supper, the prophet Joseph and his
counselor, Oliver Cowdery, retired for prayer within the veils enclosing
the platform and pulpit reserved for the presiding authorities of the
Melchizedek Priesthood. They bear this solemn testimony to the personal
appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ at that time and place:

    "The veil was taken from our minds, and the eyes of our
    understanding were opened. We saw the Lord standing upon the
    breast work of the pulpit, before us, and under his feet was a
    paved work of pure gold in color like amber. His eyes were as a
    flame of fire, the hair of his head was white like the pure
    snow, his countenance shone above the brightness of the sun, and
    his voice was as the sound of the rushing of great waters, even
    the voice of Jehovah, saying--I am the first and the last, I am
    he who liveth, I am he who was slain, I am your advocate with
    the Father. Behold, your sins are forgiven you, you are clean
    before me, therefore lift up your heads and rejoice, let the
    hearts of your brethren rejoice, and let the hearts of all my
    people rejoice, who have, with their might, built this house to
    my name. For behold, I have accepted this house, and my name
    shall be here, and I will manifest myself to my people in mercy
    in this house, Yea, I will appear unto my servants, and speak
    unto them with mine own voice, if my people will keep my
    commandments, and do not pollute this holy house, Yea the hearts
    of thousands and tens of thousands shall greatly rejoice in
    consequence of the blessings which shall be poured out, and the
    endowment with which my servants have been endowed in this
    house; and the fame of this house shall spread to foreign lands,
    and this is the beginning of the blessing which shall be poured
    out upon the heads of my people. Even so. Amen."[1543]

After the Savior's withdrawal, the two mortal prophets were visited by
glorified beings, each of whom had officiated on earth as a specially
commissioned servant of Jehovah, and now came to confer the authority of
his particular office upon Joseph and Oliver, thus uniting all the
powers and authorities of olden dispensations in the restored Church of
Christ, which characterizes the last and greatest dispensation of
history. This is the record:

    "After this vision closed, the heavens were again opened unto
    us, and Moses appeared before us, and committed unto us the keys
    of the gathering of Israel from the four parts of the earth, and
    the leading of the ten tribes from the land of the north. After
    this, Elias appeared, and committed the dispensation of the
    gospel of Abraham, saying, that in us, and our seed, all
    generations after us should be blessed. After this vision had
    closed, another great and glorious vision burst upon us, for
    Elijah the prophet, who was taken to heaven without tasting
    death, stood before us, and said--Behold, the time has fully
    come, which was spoken of by the mouth of Malachi, testifying
    that he (Elijah) should be sent before the great and dreadful
    day of the Lord come, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the
    children, and the children to the fathers, lest the whole earth
    be smitten with a curse. Therefore the keys of this dispensation
    are committed into your hands, and by this ye may know that the
    great and dreadful day of the Lord is near, even at the
    doors."[1544]


JESUS THE CHRIST IS WITH HIS CHURCH TODAY.

Right gloriously has the Lord brought about a fulfilment of the promises
uttered through the mouths of His holy prophets in by-gone ages--to
restore the gospel with all its former blessings and privileges; to
bestow anew the Holy Priesthood with authority to administer in the name
of God; to reestablish the Church bearing His name and founded upon the
rock of divine revelation; and to proclaim the message of salvation to
all nations, kindreds, tongues, and peoples. In spite of persecution
both mobocratic and judicially sanctioned, in spite of assaults,
drivings, and slaughter, the Church has developed with marvelous
rapidity and strength since the day of its organization. Joseph, the
prophet, and his brother Hyrum, the patriarch of the Church, were
brutally slain as martyrs to the truth at Carthage, Illinois, June 27,
1844. But the Lord raised up others to succeed them; and the world
learned in part and yet shall know beyond all question that the Church
so miraculously established in the last days is not the church of Joseph
Smith nor of any other man, but in literal verity, the Church of Jesus
Christ. The Lord has continued to make known His mind and will through
prophets, seers, and revelators whom He has successively chosen and
appointed to lead His people; and the voice of divine revelation is
heard in the Church today. As provided for in its revealed plan and
constitution, the Church is blessed by the ministry of prophets,
apostles, high priests, patriarchs, seventies, elders, bishops, priests,
teachers, and deacons.[1545] The spiritual gifts and blessings of old
are again enjoyed in rich abundance.[1546] New scriptures, primarily
directed to present duties and current developments in the purposes of
God, yet which illuminate and make plain in simplicity the scriptures of
old, have been given to the world through the channel of the restored
priesthood; and other scriptures shall yet be written. The united
membership of the Church proclaims:

    "We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now
    reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and
    important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God."[1547]

The predicted gathering of Israel from their long dispersion is in
progress under the commission given by the Lord through Moses. The
"mountain of the Lord's house" is already established in the top of the
mountains, and all peoples flow unto it; while the elders of the Church
go forth among the nations, saying: "Come ye, and let us go up to the
mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will
teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion
shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem."[1548]

Within sacred temples, the living are officiating vicariously in behalf
of the dead; and the hearts of mortal children are turned with
affectionate concern toward their departed ancestors, while disembodied
hosts are praying for the success of their posterity, yet in the flesh,
in the service of salvation.[1549] The saving gospel is offered freely
to all, for so hath its Author commanded. Through the medium of the
press, and by the personal ministrations of men invested with the Holy
Priesthood whom the Church sends out by thousands, this Gospel of the
Kingdom is today preached throughout the world. When such witness among
the nations is made complete, "then shall the end come"; and the nations
"shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and
great glory."[1550]


NOTES TO CHAPTER 41.

1. The Dispensation of the Fulness of Times.--"Now the thing to be known
is, what the fulness of times means, or the extent and authority
thereof. It means this, that the dispensation of the fulness of times is
made up of all the dispensations that ever have been given since the
world began, until this time. Unto Adam first was given a dispensation.
It is well known that God spake to him with His own voice in the garden,
and gave him the promise of the Messiah. And unto Noah also was a
dispensation given; for Jesus said, 'As it was in the days of Noah, so
shall it be also in the days of the coming of the Son of Man;' and as
the righteous were saved then, and the wicked destroyed, so it will be
now. And from Noah to Abraham, and from Abraham to Moses, and from Moses
to Elias, and from Elias to John the Baptist, and from then to Jesus
Christ, and from Jesus Christ to Peter, James, and John, the Apostles
all having received in their dispensation by revelation from God, to
accomplish the great scheme of restitution, spoken by all the holy
Prophets since the world began; the end of which is, the dispensation of
the fulness of times, in which all things shall be fulfilled that have
been spoken of since the earth was made."--See _Millennial Star_, vol.
16, p. 220.

2. Limitations of the Aaronic Priesthood.--After conferring the Lesser
or Aaronic Priesthood upon Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, the
officiating angel, who had been known while a mortal being as John the
Baptist, explained that the authority he had imparted did not extend to
the laying-on of hands for the bestowal of the Holy Ghost, the latter
ordinance being a function of the Higher or Melchizedek Priesthood.
Consider the instance of Philip, (not the apostle Philip), whose
ordination empowered him to baptize, though a higher authority than his
was requisite for the conferring of the Holy Ghost; and consequently the
apostles Peter and John went down to Samaria to officiate in the case of
Philip's baptized converts (Acts 8:5, 12-17). See Doc. and Cov. 20:41,
46.

3. Priesthood and Office Therein.--It is important to know that although
Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery had been ordained to the Holy
Apostleship, and therefore to a fulness of the Melchizedek Priesthood,
by Peter, James, and John, it was necessary that they be ordained as
elders in the Church. When they received the Melchizedek Priesthood from
the three ancient apostles, there was no organized Church of Jesus
Christ, and consequently no need of Church officers, such as elders,
priests, teachers, or deacons. As soon as the Church was established,
officers were chosen therein and these were ordained to the requisite
office or grade in the Priesthood. Moreover, the principle of common
consent in the conduct of Church affairs was observed in this early
action of the members in voting to sustain the men nominated for
official positions, and has continued to be the rule of the Church to
this day. It is pertinent to point out further that in conferring upon
Joseph and Oliver the Aaronic Priesthood, John the Baptist did not
ordain them to the office of priest, teacher, or deacon. These three
offices are included in the Aaronic, as are the offices of elder,
seventy, high priest, etc., in the Melchizedek Priesthood. Read Doc. and
Cov. 20:38-67; _The Articles of Faith_, xi.

4. Modern Temples.--The Lord's gracious promise given in the Kirtland
Temple--to appear unto His servants at times then future, and to speak
unto them with His own voice, provided the people would keep His
commandments and not pollute that holy house--has been in no wise
abrogated nor forfeited through the enforced relinquishment of the
Kirtland Temple by the Latter-day Saints. The people were compelled to
flee before the fury of mobocratic persecution; but they hastened to
erect another and yet more splendid sanctuary at Nauvoo, Illinois, and
were again dispossessed by lawless mobs. In the valleys of Utah the
Church has erected four great temples, each more stately than the last;
and in these holy houses the sacred ordinances pertaining to salvation
and exaltation of both the living and the dead are in uninterrupted
progress. The temples of the present dispensation, at the time of the
present writing designated according to location, are those of Kirtland,
Ohio; Nauvoo, Illinois; St. George, Logan, Manti, and Salt Lake City,
Utah; Cardston, Canada, and Laie, Hawaii. See _The House of the Lord_,
pp. 63-232.

5. Consistency of the Church's Claim to Authority.--The proofs of order
and system in the restoration of authority to officiate in particular
functions pertaining to the priesthood are striking, and go to prove the
continued validity, beyond the grave, of authoritative ordination on
earth. The keys of the Aaronic order, comprizing authority to baptize
for the remission of sins, were brought by John the Baptist, who had
been especially commissioned in that order of priesthood in the time of
Christ. The apostleship, comprizing all powers inherent in the
Melchizedek Priesthood, was restored by the presiding apostles of old,
Peter, James, and John. Then, as has been seen, Moses conferred the
authority to prosecute the work of gathering; and Elijah, who, not
having tasted death, held a peculiar relation to both the living and the
dead, delivered the authority of vicarious ministry for the departed. To
these appointments by heavenly authority should be added that given by
Elias, who appeared to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, and "committed
the dispensation of the gospel of Abraham." It is evident, then, that
the claims made by the Church with respect to its authority are complete
and consistent as to the source of the powers professed and the channels
through which such have been delivered again to earth. Scripture and
revelation, both ancient and modern, support as an unalterable law the
principle that no one can delegate to another an authority which the
giver does not possess.

6. Cessation of the Melchizedek Administration in Ancient Times.--The
Higher or Melchizedek Priesthood was held by the patriarchs from Adam to
Moses. Aaron was ordained to the priest's office, as were his sons; but
that Moses held superior authority is abundantly shown (Numb. 12:1-8).
After Aaron's death his son Eleazar officiated in the authority of the
Lesser Priesthood; and even Joshua had to take counsel and authority
from him (Numb. 27:18-23). From the ministry of Moses to that of Jesus
Christ, the Lesser Priesthood alone was operative upon the earth,
excepting only the instances of specially delegated authority of the
higher order such as is manifest in the ministrations of certain chosen
prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and others. It is evident that
these prophets, seers, and revelators were individually and specially
commissioned; but it appears that they had not authority to call and
ordain successors, for in their time the Higher Priesthood was not
existent on earth in an organized state with duly officered quorums. Not
so with the Aaronic and Levitical Priesthood, however. The matter is
made particularly plain through latter-day revelation. See Doc. and Cov.
84:23-28; read the entire section; also _The House of the Lord_ pp.
235-238.

FOOTNOTES:

[1523] P. of G.P., Joseph Smith 2:5-26; also "History of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," vol. 1, pp. 2-8.

[1524] Eph. 1:9, 10. Note 1, end of chapter.

[1525] See page 151 herein; Note 5, end of chapter.

[1526] For earlier instances, see pages 126, 371, and 725.

[1527] P. of G.P., Joseph Smith 2:29-54, 59; also "History of the
Church," vol. 1, pp. 10-16, 18.

[1528] P. of G.P., Joseph Smith 2:28.

[1529] P. of G.P., Joseph Smith 2:36-41; and "History of the Church,"
vol. 1. pp. 12, 13.

[1530] See B. of M., Mormon 6:6; Moroni 10:2.

[1531] P. of G.P., Joseph Smith 2:68, 69; Doc. and Cov. sec. 13;
"History of the Church," vol. 1, p. 39.

[1532] Notes 2 and 6. end of chapter.

[1533] Doc. and Cov. 27: 8, 12, 13.

[1534] Doc. and Cov. sec. 20.

[1535] Doc. and Cov. 20:2, 3; compare 21:11; see also "History of the
Church." vol. 1, pp. 40, 41. Note 3, end of chapter.

[1536] Doc. and Cov. sections 5, 6, 8, 10-12, 14-20.

[1537] Doc. and Cov. 18:27, 31-36; 20:38-44; 84:63, 64; 95:4; 107:23-25;
112:1, 14, 21; 118; 124:127-130.

[1538] Rev. 14:6, 7.

[1539] See Doctrine and Covenants, and "History of the Church."

[1540] Doc. and Cov. 76:11-24; also "History of the Church" under date
specified.

[1541] See Doc. and Cov. 76:25-119; also "The Articles of Faith," iv:29;
and xxii:18-27.

[1542] See "The House of the Lord," pages 114-123.

[1543] Doc. and Cov. 110:1-10; also "History of the Church" under date
specified. Note 4, end of chapter.

[1544] Doc. and Cov. 110:11-16. Note 5, end of chapter.

[1545] See "Plan of Government in the Restored Church," in "The Articles
of Faith," xi:13-32.

[1546] See "Spiritual Gifts" in "The Articles of Faith," xii.

[1547] No. 9 of "The Articles of Faith of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints."

[1548] Isa. 2:2, 3; compare Micah 4:1, 2; see also Doc. and Cov. 29:8.

[1549] See "The House of the Lord," pp. 63-109.

[1550] P. of G.P., Joseph Smith 1:31, 36; compare Matt 24:14, 30.




CHAPTER 42.

JESUS THE CHRIST TO RETURN.


THE LORD'S SECOND ADVENT PREDICTED IN ANCIENT SCRIPTURE.

"Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus,
which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as
ye have seen him go into heaven."[1551] So spake the white-robed angels
to the eleven apostles as the resurrected Christ ascended from their
midst on Olivet. The scriptures abound in predictions of the Lord's
return.

By the "second advent" we understand not the personal appearing of the
Son of God to a few, such as His visitation to Saul of Tarsus, to Joseph
Smith in 1820, and again in the Kirtland Temple in 1836; nor later
manifestations to His worthy servants as specifically promised;[1552]
but His yet future coming in power and great glory, accompanied by hosts
of resurrected and glorified beings, to execute judgment upon the earth
and to inaugurate a reign of righteousness.

The prophets of both hemispheres, who lived prior to the meridian of
time, said comparatively little concerning the Lord's second coming;
their souls were too full of the merciful plan of redemption associated
with the Savior's birth into mortality to permit them to dwell upon the
yet more distant consummation appointed for the last days. Certain of
them, however, were permitted to behold in vision the working out of the
divine purposes even to the end of time; and these testified with
unsurpassed fervency concerning the glorious coming of Christ in the
final dispensation. Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied saying,
"Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute
judgment upon all."[1553] In a more extended account of the Lord's
revelations to Enoch than is included in the Bible, we read that after
this righteous prophet had been shown the scenes of Israel's history,
down to and beyond the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus
Christ, he pleaded with God, saying: "I ask thee if thou wilt not come
again on the earth. And the Lord said unto Enoch: As I live, even so
will I come in the last days, in the days of wickedness and vengeance,
to fulfil the oath which I have made unto you concerning the children of
Noah.... And it came to pass that Enoch saw the day of the coming of the
Son of Man, in the last days, to dwell on the earth in righteousness for
the space of a thousand years."[1554] Isaiah, in rapturous contemplation
of the eventual triumph of righteousness, exclaimed: "Say to them that
are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come
with vengeance, even God with a recompence; he will come and save you";
and again: "Behold, the Lord God will come with strong hand, and his arm
shall rule for him: behold, his reward is with him, and his work before
him."[1555] The conditions specified were not realized in the earthly
life of the Redeemer; moreover the context clearly shows that the
prophet's words are applicable to the last days only--the time of the
ransomed of the Lord, the time of restitution, and of the triumph of
Zion.

Of all Biblical scriptures relating to our subject, the utterances of
the Christ Himself in the course of His earthly ministry are most direct
and certain. Many of these we have already considered in the narrative
of the Savior's life; the few following are sufficient for present
demonstration. "For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father
with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his
works."[1556] To the apostles and the people generally He proclaimed:
"Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this
adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be
ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy
angels."[1557] When a bound prisoner before proud Caiaphas, Jesus
answered the unlawful adjuration of the corrupt high priest, by
affirming: "I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man
sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of
heaven."[1558]

The apostles had been so impressed with the Master's assurance that He
would return to earth in power and glory, that they eagerly questioned
as to the time and signs of His coming.[1559] He stated explicitly,
though at the time they failed to comprehend Him, that many great events
would intervene between His departure and return, including the long era
of darkness associated with the apostasy.[1560] But as to the certainty
of His advent in glory, as Judge, and Lord, and King, Jesus left no
excuse for dubiety in the minds of His apostles. After the ascension,
throughout the course of apostolic administration, the future coming of
the Lord was preached with earnest emphasis.[1561]

Book of Mormon prophecies concerning the advent of the Lord in the last
days are specific and definite. On the occasion of His appearing to the
Nephites on the American continent shortly after His ascension from the
Mount of Olives, Christ preached the gospel to assembled multitudes;
"And he did expound all things, even from the beginning until the time
that he should come in his glory"; and the events to follow, "even unto
the great and last day."[1562] In granting the wish of the three Nephite
disciples who desired to continue their ministry in the flesh throughout
the generations to come, the Lord said unto them:

    "Ye shall live to behold all the doings of the Father, unto the
    children of men, even until all things shall be fulfilled,
    according to the will of the Father, when I shall come in my
    glory, with the powers of heaven; And ye shall never endure the
    pains of death; but when I shall come in my glory, ye shall be
    changed in the twinkling of an eye from mortality to
    immortality: and then shall ye be blessed in the kingdom of my
    Father."[1563]


THE COMING OF THE LORD PROCLAIMED THROUGH MODERN REVELATION.

To the Church of Jesus Christ, restored and reestablished in these the
last days, the word of the Lord has come repeatedly, declaring the
actuality of His second advent and the nearness of that glorious yet
dreadful event. But a few months after the Church was organized, the
voice of Jesus Christ was heard, admonishing the elders to vigilance and
proclaiming as follows:

    "For the hour is nigh, and the day soon at hand when the earth
    is ripe: and all the proud, and they that do wickedly, shall be
    as stubble, and I will burn them up, saith the Lord of Hosts,
    that wickedness shall not be upon the earth; for the hour is
    nigh, and that which was spoken by mine apostles must be
    fulfilled; for as they spoke so shall it come to pass; for I
    will reveal myself from heaven with power and great glory, with
    all the hosts thereof, and dwell in righteousness with men on
    earth a thousand years, and the wicked shall not stand."[1564]

In the month following, the Lord gave instructions to certain elders,
concluding with these portentous words:

    "Wherefore, be faithful, praying always, having your lamps
    trimmed and burning, and oil with you, that you may be ready at
    the coming of the Bridegroom: for behold, verily, verily, I say
    unto you, that I come quickly. Even so. Amen."[1565]

Again we read in a later revelation:

    "And blessed are you because you have believed; and more blessed
    are you because you are called of me to preach my gospel, to
    lift up your voice as with the sound of a trump, both long and
    loud, and cry repentance unto a crooked and perverse generation,
    preparing the way of the Lord for his second coming; for behold,
    verily, verily, I say unto you, the time is soon at hand, that I
    shall come in a cloud with power and great glory, and it shall
    be a great day at the time of my coming, for all nations shall
    tremble."[1566]

The Lord Jesus addressed a general revelation to His Church in March
1831, through which His earlier predictions uttered to the Twelve
shortly before His betrayal were made plain, and the assurances of His
glorious coming were thus reiterated:

"Ye look and behold the fig-trees, and ye see them with your eyes, and
ye say when they begin to shoot forth, and their leaves are yet tender,
that summer is now nigh at hand; even so it shall be in that day when
they shall see all these things, then shall they know that the hour is
nigh. And it shall come to pass that he that feareth me shall be looking
forth for the great day of the Lord to come, even for the signs of the
coming of the Son of man: And they shall see signs and wonders, for they
shall be shown forth in the heavens above, and in the earth beneath; and
they shall behold blood, and fire, and vapors of smoke; and before the
day of the Lord shall come, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon be
turned into blood, and stars fall from heaven; and the remnant shall be
gathered unto this place, and then they shall look for me, and, behold,
I will come; and they shall see me in the clouds of heaven, clothed with
power and great glory, with all the holy angels; and he that watches not
for me shall be cut off."[1567]

So near is the consummation that the intervening period is called
"today"; and, in applying this time designation in the year 1831, the
Lord said:

"Behold, now it is called today (until the coming of the Son of man),
and verily it is a day of sacrifice, and a day for the tithing of my
people; for he that is tithed shall not be burned (at his coming); For
after today cometh the burning: this is speaking after the manner of the
Lord; for verily I say, tomorrow all the proud and they that do wickedly
shall be as stubble; and I will burn them up, for I am the Lord of
hosts: and I will not spare any that remain in Babylon. Wherefore, if ye
believe me, ye will labor while it is called today."[1568]


THE TIME AND ACCOMPANIMENTS OF THE LORD'S COMING.

The date of the future advent of Christ has never been revealed to man.
To the inquiring apostles who labored with the Master, He said: "But of
that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my
Father only."[1569] In the present age, a similar declaration has been
made by the Father: "I, the Lord God, have spoken it, but the hour and
the day no man knoweth, neither the angels in heaven, nor shall they
know until he comes."[1570] Only through watchfulness and prayer may the
signs of the times be correctly interpreted and the imminence of the
Lord's appearing be apprehended. To the unwatchful and the wicked the
event will be as sudden and unexpected as the coming of a thief in the
night.[1571] But we are not left without definite information as to
precedent signs. Biblical prophecies bearing upon this subject we have
heretofore considered.[1572] As later scriptures affirm: "Before the
great day of the Lord shall come, Jacob shall flourish in the
wilderness, and the Lamanites shall blossom as the rose. Zion shall
flourish upon the hills and rejoice upon the mountains, and shall be
assembled together unto the place which I have appointed."[1573] War
shall become so general that every man who will not take arms against
his neighbor must of necessity flee to the land of Zion for
safety.[1574] Ephraim shall assemble in Zion on the western continent,
and Judah shall be again established in the east; and the cities of Zion
and Jerusalem shall be the capitals of the world empire, over which
Messiah shall reign in undisputed authority. The Lost Tribes shall be
brought forth from the place where God has hidden them through the
centuries and receive their long deferred blessings at the hands of
Ephraim. The people of Israel shall be restored from their scattered
condition.[1575]

In addressing the elders of His Church in 1832, the Lord urged upon them
the imperative need of devoted diligence, and said:

    "Abide ye in the liberty wherewith ye are made free; entangle
    not yourselves in sin but let your hands be clean, until the
    Lord come; For not many days hence and the earth shall tremble
    and reel to and fro as a drunken man, and the sun shall hide his
    face, and shall refuse to give light, and the moon shall be
    bathed in blood, and the stars shall become exceeding angry, and
    shall cast themselves down as a fig that falleth from off a fig
    tree. And after your testimony cometh wrath and indignation upon
    the people; For after your testimony cometh the testimony of
    earthquakes, that shall cause groanings in the midst of her, and
    men shall fall upon the ground, and shall not be able to stand.
    And also cometh the testimony of the voice of thunderings, and
    the voice of lightnings, and the voice of tempests, and the
    voice of the waves of the sea, heaving themselves beyond their
    bounds. And all things shall be in commotion; and surely, men's
    hearts shall fail them; for fear shall come upon all people; And
    angels shall fly through the midst of heaven, crying with a loud
    voice, sounding the trump of God, saying, Prepare ye, prepare
    ye, O inhabitants of the earth; for the judgment of our God is
    come: behold, and lo! the Bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet
    him."[1576]

A characteristic of present-day revelation is the reiteration of the
fact that the event is nigh at hand, "even at the doors." The fateful
time is repeatedly designated in scripture, "the great and dreadful day
of the Lord."[1577] Fearful indeed will it be to individuals, families,
and nations, who have so far sunk into sin as to have forfeited their
claim to mercy. The time is not that of the final judgment--when the
whole race of mankind shall stand in the resurrected state before the
bar of God--nevertheless it shall be a time of unprecedented blessing
unto the righteous and of condemnation and vengeance upon the
wicked.[1578] With Christ shall come those who have already been
resurrected; and His approach shall be the means of inaugurating a
general resurrection of the righteous dead, while the pure and just who
are still in the flesh shall be instantaneously changed from the mortal
to the immortal state and shall be caught up with the newly resurrected
to meet the Lord and His celestial company, and shall descend with Him.
To this effect did Paul prophesy: "Even so them also which sleep in
Jesus will God bring with him.... For the Lord himself shall descend
from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the
trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are
alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to
meet the Lord in the air."[1579] Compare the promise made to the Three
Nephites: "And ye shall never endure the pains of death; but when I
shall come in my glory, ye shall be changed in the twinkling of an eye
from mortality to immortality."[1580] Of the superlative glories
awaiting the righteous when the Lord shall come, we have received in
this day a partial description as follows: "And the face of the Lord
shall be unveiled; and the saints that are upon the earth, who are
alive, shall be quickened, and be caught up to meet him."[1581] The
heathen nations shall be redeemed and have part in the first
resurrection.[1582]


THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN TO COME.

The coming of Christ in the last days, accompanied by the apostles of
old[1583] and by the resurrected saints, is to mark the establishment of
the Kingdom of Heaven upon earth. The faithful apostles who were with
Jesus in His earthly ministry are to be enthroned as judges of the whole
house of Israel;[1584] they will judge the Nephite Twelve, who in turn
will be empowered to judge the descendants of Lehi, or that branch of
the Israelitish nation which was established upon the western
continent.[1585]

While the expressions "Kingdom of God" and "Kingdom of Heaven" are used
in the Bible synonymously or interchangeably, later revelation gives to
each a distinctive meaning. The Kingdom of God is the Church established
by divine authority upon the earth; this institution asserts no claim to
temporal rule over nations; its sceptre of power is that of the Holy
Priesthood, to be used in the preaching of the gospel and in
administering its ordinances for the salvation of mankind living and
dead. The Kingdom of Heaven is the divinely ordained system of
government and dominion in all matters, temporal and spiritual; this
will be established on earth only when its rightful Head, the King of
kings, Jesus the Christ, comes to reign. His administration will be one
of order, operated through the agency of His commissioned
representatives invested with the Holy Priesthood. When Christ appears
in His glory, and not before, will be realized a complete fulfilment of
the supplication: "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is
in heaven."

The Kingdom of God has been established among men to prepare them for
the Kingdom of Heaven which shall come; and in the blessed reign of
Christ the King shall the two be made one. The relationship between them
has been revealed to the Church in this wise:

    "Hearken, and lo, a voice as of one from on high, who is mighty
    and powerful, whose going forth is unto the ends of the earth,
    yea, whose voice is unto men--Prepare ye the way of the Lord,
    make his paths straight. The keys of the kingdom of God are
    committed unto man on the earth, and from thence shall the
    gospel roll forth unto the ends of the earth, as the stone which
    is cut out of the mountain without hands shall roll forth, until
    it has filled the whole earth; Yea, a voice crying--Prepare ye
    the way of the Lord, prepare ye the supper of the Lamb, make
    ready for the Bridegroom; Pray unto the Lord, call upon his holy
    name, make known his wonderful works among the people; Call upon
    the Lord, that his kingdom may go forth upon the earth, that the
    inhabitants thereof may receive it, and be prepared for the days
    to come, in the which the Son of man shall come down in heaven,
    clothed in the brightness of his glory, to meet the kingdom of
    God which is set up on the earth; Wherefore may the kingdom of
    God go forth, that the kingdom of heaven may come, that thou, O
    God, mayest be glorified in heaven so on earth, that thy enemies
    may be subdued for thine is the honour, power and glory, for
    ever and ever. Amen."[1586]


THE MILLENNIUM.

The inauguration of Christ's reign on earth is to be the beginning of a
period that shall be distinct in many important particulars from all
precedent and subsequent time; and the Lord shall reign with His people
a thousand years. The government of individuals, communities and nations
throughout this Millennium is to be that of a perfect theocracy, with
Jesus the Christ as Lord and King. The more wicked part of the race
shall have been destroyed; and during the period Satan shall be bound
"that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years
should be fulfilled"; while the just shall share with Christ in rightful
rule and dominion. The righteous dead shall have come forth from their
graves, while the wicked shall remain unresurrected until the thousand
years be past.[1587] Men yet in the flesh shall mingle with immortalized
beings; children shall grow to maturity and then die in peace or be
changed to immortality "in the twinkling of an eye."[1588] There shall
be surcease of enmity between man and beast; the venom of serpents and
the ferocity of the brute creation shall be done away, and love shall be
the dominant power of control. Among the earliest revelations on the
subject is that given to Enoch; and in this the return of that prophet
and his righteous people with Christ in the last days was thus assured:

    "And the Lord said unto Enoch: Then shalt thou and all thy city
    meet them there, and we will receive them into our bosom, and
    they shall see us; and we will fall upon their necks, and they
    shall fall upon our necks, and we will kiss each other; And
    there shall be mine abode, and it shall be Zion, which shall
    come forth out of all the creations which I have made; and for
    the space of a thousand years the earth shall rest. And it came
    to pass that Enoch saw the day of the coming of the Son of Man,
    in the last days, to dwell on the earth in righteousness for the
    space of a thousand years."[1589]

In these latter days the Lord has thus spoken, requiring preparation for
the Millennial era, and describing in part the glories thereof:

    "And prepare for the revelation which is to come, when the veil
    of the covering of my temple, in my tabernacle, which hideth the
    earth, shall be taken off, and all flesh shall see me together.
    And every corruptible thing, both of man, or of the beasts of
    the field, or of the fowls of the heavens, or of the fish of the
    sea, that dwell upon all the face of the earth, shall be
    consumed; And also that of element shall melt with fervent heat;
    and all things shall become new, that my knowledge and glory may
    dwell upon all the earth. And in that day the enmity of man, and
    the enmity of beasts, yea, the enmity of all flesh, shall cease
    from before my face. And in that day whatsoever any man shall
    ask, it shall be given unto him. And in that day Satan shall not
    have power to tempt any man. And there shall be no sorrow
    because there is no death. In that day an infant shall not die
    until he is old, and his life shall be as the age of a tree, and
    when he dies he shall not sleep, (that is to say in the earth,)
    but shall be changed in the twinkling of an eye, and shall be
    caught up, and his rest shall be glorious. Yea, verily I say
    unto you, in that day when the Lord shall come, he shall reveal
    all things."[1590]

The Millennium is to precede the time designated in scriptural phrase
"the end of the world." When the thousand years are passed, Satan shall
be loosed for a little season, and the final test of man's integrity to
God shall ensue. Such as are prone to impurity of heart shall yield to
temptation while the righteous shall endure to the end.[1591] A
revelation to this effect was given the Church in 1831, in part as
follows:

    "For the great Millennium, of which I have spoken by the mouth
    of my servants, shall come; For Satan shall be bound, and when
    he is loosed again, he shall only reign for a little season, and
    then cometh the end of the earth; And he that liveth in
    righteousness shall be changed in the twinkling of an eye, and
    the earth shall pass away so as by fire; And the wicked shall go
    away into unquenchable fire, and their end no man knoweth on
    earth, nor ever shall know, until they come before me in
    judgment. Hearken ye to these words: Behold, I am Jesus Christ,
    the Saviour of the world. Treasure these things up in your
    hearts, and let the solemnities of eternity rest upon your
    minds."[1592]


THE CELESTIAL CONSUMMATION.

The vanquishment of Satan and his hosts shall be complete. The dead,
small and great, all who have breathed the breath of life on earth,
shall be resurrected--every soul that has tabernacled in flesh, whether
good or evil--and shall stand before God, to be judged according to the
record as written in the books.[1593] So shall be brought to glorious
consummation the mission of the Christ. "Then cometh the end, when he
shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he
shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must
reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that
shall be destroyed is death. For he hath put all things under his
feet."[1594] Then shall the Lord Jesus "deliver up the kingdom, and
present it unto the Father spotless, saying--I have overcome and have
trodden the wine-press alone, even the winepress of the fierceness of
the wrath of Almighty God. Then shall he be crowned with the crown of
his glory, to sit on the throne of his power to reign for ever and
ever."[1595] The earth shall pass to its glorified and celestialized
condition, an eternal abode for the exalted sons and daughters of
God.[1596] Forever shall they reign, kings and priests to the Most High,
redeemed, sanctified, and exalted through their Lord and God

    JESUS THE CHRIST.


NOTES TO CHAPTER 42.

1. Enoch, spoken of by Jude as "the seventh from Adam." was the father
of Methuselah. In Genesis 5:24 we read: "And Enoch walked with God; and
he was not; for God took him." From the Lord's revelation to Moses we
learn that Enoch was a mighty man, favored of God because of his
righteousness, and a leader of and revelator to his people. Through his
agency a city was built, the inhabitants of which excelled in righteous
living to such an extent that they were of one heart and one mind and
had no poor among them. It was called the City of Holiness or Zion. The
residue of the race were all corrupt in the sight of the Lord. Enoch and
his people were taken from the earth and are to return with Christ at
His coming. (P. of G.P., Moses 7:12-21, 68, 69; compare Doc. and Cov.
45:11, 12.)

2. Heathen in the First Resurrection.--"And then shall the heathen
nations be redeemed, and they that knew no law shall have part in the
first resurrection; and it shall be tolerable for them." (Doc. and Cov.
45:54.) Such is the word of the Lord with respect to those benighted
peoples who live and die in ignorance of the laws of the gospel. This
affirmation is sustained by other scriptures, and by a consideration of
the principles of true justice according to which humanity is to be
judged. Man shall be accounted blameless or guilty according to his
deeds as interpreted in the light of the law under which he is required
to live. It is inconsistent with our conception of a just God to believe
Him capable of inflicting condemnation upon any one for non-compliance
with a requirement of which the person had no knowledge. Nevertheless,
the laws of the gospel cannot be suspended even in the case of those who
have sinned in darkness and ignorance; but it is reasonable to believe
that the plan of redemption shall afford such benighted ones an
opportunity of learning the laws of God; and, as fast as they so learn,
will obedience be required on pain of the penalty. See _Articles of
Faith_, xxi:33.

3. Regeneration of the Earth.--In speaking of the graded and progressive
glories provided for His creations, and of the laws of regeneration and
sanctification, the Lord has thus spoken through revelation in the
present dispensation: "And again, verily I say unto you, the earth
abideth the law of a celestial kingdom, for it filleth the measure of
its creation, and transgresseth not the law. Wherefore it shall be
sanctified; yea, notwithstanding it shall die, it shall be quickened
again, and shall abide the power by which it is quickened, and the
righteous shall inherit it." (Doc. and Cov. 88:25, 26.) This appointed
change, by which the earth shall pass to the condition of a
celestialized world, is referred to in numerous scriptures as the
institution of "a new heaven and a new earth" (Rev. 21:1, 3, 4; B. of
M., Ether 13:9; Doc. and Cov. 29:23).

FOOTNOTES:

[1551] Acts 1:11.

[1552] Pages 713, 715, 761, and 774; see also Doc. and Cov. 110:8;
compare 36:8; 42:36; 97:15, 16; 109:5; 124:27; 133:2.

[1553] Jude 14, 15; compare Gen. 5:18; see next reference following.

[1554] P. of G.P., Moses 7:59, 60, 65. Note 1, end of chapter.

[1555] Isa. 35:4; and 40:10; see also Psalms 50:3; Mal. 3:1; 4:5, 6;
compare Note 1 on page 149 herein.

[1556] Matt. 16:27.

[1557] Mark 8:38; compare Luke 9:26.

[1558] Matt. 26:64.

[1559] Matt. 24:3; Mark 13:26; Luke 21:7; Acts 1:6; compare page 149
herein.

[1560] Matt. 24; see chapters 32 and 40 herein.

[1561] See Acts 3:20, 21; 1 Cor. 4:5; 11:26; Philip. 3:20; 1 Thess.
1:10; 2:19; 3:13; 4:15-18; 2 Thess. 2:1, 8; 1 Tim. 6:14, 15; Titus 2:13;
James 5:7, 8; 1 Peter 1:5-7; 4:13; 1 John 2:28; 3:2; Jude 14, etc.

[1562] B. of M., 3 Nephi 26:3, 4.

[1563] B. of M., 3 Nephi 28:7, 8; see also 29:2.

[1564] Doc. and Cov. 29:9-11.

[1565] Doc. and Cov. 33:17, 18.

[1566] Doc. and Cov. 34:4-8.

[1567] Doc. and Cov. 45:37-44; compare this section with Matt. 24, and
Luke 21:5-36. See also Doc. and Cov. 49:23-28.

[1568] Doc. and Cov. 64:23-25.

[1569] Matt. 24:36; compare Mark 13:32-37; see pages 575, 696 herein.

[1570] Doc. and Cov. 49:7; the context shows that the words are those of
the Father.

[1571] Thess. 5:2; 2 Peter 3:10; compare Matt. 24:43, 44; 25:13; Luke
12:39, 40; page 575 herein.

[1572] Page 573.

[1573] Doc. and Cov. 49:24, 25.

[1574] Doc. and Cov. 45:68-71.

[1575] Doc. and Cov. 133:7-14, 21-35; "Articles of Faith," xviii and
xix.

[1576] Doc. and Cov. 88:86-92.

[1577] Doc. and Cov. 110:14, 16; compare Joel 2:31; Mal. 4:5; B. of M.,
3 Nephi 25:5.

[1578] Doc and Cov. 29:11-17.

[1579] 1 Thess. 4:14-17.

[1580] B. of M., 3 Nephi 28:8; see page 738 herein.

[1581] Doc. and Cov. 88:95-98.

[1582] Note 2, end of chapter.

[1583] Doc. and Cov. 29:12.

[1584] Doc. and Cov. 29:12; compare Matt. 19:28; Luke 22:30; page 479
herein.

[1585] B. of M., 3 Nephi 27:27; compare 1 Nephi 12:9, 10; Mormon 3:18.
19.

[1586] Doc. and Cov. 65. For a fuller treatment of this subject as also
the distinction between Church and Kingdom, see "Articles of Faith,"
xx:16-26.

[1587] Rev. 20:1-6; compare Doc. and Cov. 43:18.

[1588] Doc. and Cov. 63:50-51; 101:30; compare 1 Cor. 15:51-57.

[1589] P. of G.P., Moses 7:63-65.

[1590] Doc. and Cov. 101:23-32; compare Isa. 65:17-25 and 11:6-9; see
also Doc. and Cov. 29:11, 22; 43:30; 63:51.

[1591] Rev. 20:7-15.

[1592] Doc and Cov. 43:30-34. See also "Articles of Faith," xx:27-31.

[1593] Rev. 20:11-15.

[1594] 1 Cor. 15:24-27.

[1595] Doc. and Cov. 76:107, 108.

[1596] Note 3, end of chapter.




INDEX

Aaronic Priesthood, restored by John the Baptist, 768;
  its powers, 768.

Ablutions, ceremonial, 366.

Abraham, Children of, 409.

Abraham, Christ's seniority over, 410, 411.

Aceldama, the field of blood, 643.

Adam, the first man, 18;
  his transgression, 19;
  revelation to, 44.

Adulteress brought to Christ, 405.

Adulterous generation of sign-seekers, 270, 279, 359.

Agency, free, of unembodied spirits, 8, 17;
  of man, 17, 29.

American Indians, progenitors of, 49, 56, 742, 757.

Ananias, ministers to Saul, 714.

Andrew, follows Christ, 140;
  one of the Twelve, 221.

Annas, high priest, 621, 643.

Announcement of Christ by the Father, 39, 126, 371, 725, 761;
  of Christ's birth to shepherds, 93.
  See Annunciation.

Annunciation by Gabriel, to Zacharias, 76;
  to Mary the Virgin, 79;
  by angel to shepherds, 93.

Antemortal Godship of Jesus Christ, 32.

Antemortal state, graded intelligences in, 14.

Antipas, Herod, 110, 118, 446, 635.

Antonia, tower or fortress of, 441.

Apostasy, the great, 745;
  among Nephites, 741.

Apostles, the Twelve, chosen and ordained, 217;
  individually considered, 218;
  general characteristics of, 226;
  compared with disciples, 227;
  charged and sent forth, 327, 328;
  their return, 331;
  futile attempt of to heal, 379;
  as stewards, 441, 576;
  Christ's final commission to, 695, 696;
  imprisoned, 707;
  delivered by an angel, 707;
  scourged for their testimony, 709.

Apostleship, 227, 228;
  restored in present dispensation, 769.

Apostolic ministry, the, 700;
  close of, 716.

Appearances of the risen Lord to mortals before the ascension, 699.

Archelaus, 110, 118.

Arrest of Jesus, attempted but unaccomplished, 403;
  effected through betrayal, 614.

Ascension, Christ's, 697.

Ass, Christ rides upon, 514;
  as predicted, 517.

Athanasius, creed of, 756.

Atonement, the, a vicarious sacrifice, 21.

Authority, in Holy Priesthood, 362;
  of Elias and Elijah, 375;
  of Twelve, attested, 392;
  of Christ, challenged, 530;
  Christ as one having, 249;
  Christ's ascribed to Beelzebub, 265.


Baptism, by John the Baptist, 122, 163, 531;
  of Christ by John, 125;
  enjoined upon Nephites by Christ, 725;
  mode of, 726;
  of Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, 768;
  as required in the Church today, 769.

Baptist, see John the Baptist.

Barabbas, 637.

Barnabas, sponsor for Saul or Paul, 714.

Bartholomew, see Nathanael.

Bartimeus, healed of blindness, 505.

Beatitudes, the, 230.

Beelzebub, Christ's authority ascribed to, 265.

Benedictus, the, 78.

Bethany, Jesus at, 432, 448;
  the family home at, 522.

Bethesda, Pool of, 206.

Bethlehem, birthplace of Christ, 92;
  slaughter of children in, 100.

Bethphage, 512, 526.

Bethsaida, 258, 332, 346;
  Julias, 360.

Betrayal of Christ; foretold, 594;
  effected by Judas Iscariot, 614.

Betrothal, Jewish, 88.

Blasphemy, 201;
  Christ charged with, 193, 489;
  Christ falsely convicted of, 629.

Blessing of children, 485;
  among Nephites, 730.

Blindness, bodily and spiritual, 412, 416.

Bloody sweat, Christ's, 612;
  reality of affirmed, 613, 620.

Book of Mormon, original of, 742, 767.

Bountiful, Land of, 724.

Bread of Life, Jesus Christ the, 340.

Bridegroom, friend of the, 171.

Brother of Jared, 12.

Burial of Jesus, 664.


Cæsar, paying tribute to, 545;
  Jews would have no king but, 641, 648.

Cæsarea Philippi, coasts of, 368;
  Palestina, 631.

Caiaphas, high priest;
  his inspired utterance, 498;
  his tenure of office, 501;
  Christ before, 621;
  the apostles before, 706.

Called and chosen, 540.

Calvary, 654, 667.

Camel and needle's eye, 478, 485.

Capernaum, 181, 186;
  our Lord's last sermon in synagog at, 339.

Capitation tax, 383.

Celestial marriage, 564.

Cephas, see Peter.

Ceremonial ablutions, 366.

Child, as a little, 386;
  humility illustrated by a, 387.

Childlike and childish, distinction between, 387.

Children, precious in sight of God, 387;
  blessed by Christ, 475, 485;
  of Nephites blessed by risen Lord, 729.

Chorazin, woe decreed to, 258.

Chosen or only called, 540.

Christ, see Jesus Christ.

Christ and Messiah, significance of the titles, 36.

Christians, early persecutions of, 746.

Church discipline of individuals, 391.

Church of England, origin of, 751;
  affirms great apostasy, 753.

Church of Jesus Christ;
  foundation of, 361;
  rapid growth of Primitive, 705, 707, 712;
  name of, 736;
  among Nephites, 737;
  of Latter-day Saints, establishment of, 769.

Churches of man's making, 752.

Circumcision, 88.

Clay, applied to blind man's eyes, 413.

Clearing of the temple, the first, 153;
  the second, 527.

Cleopas, 685.

Coasts, as descriptive term, 368.

Coin, image and superscription on, 546, 563;
  in mouth of a fish, 385.

Columbus, Christopher, his mission, 754, 757.

Comforter promised, 603, 606;
  given, 702.

Commandment, the great, 549.

Common ownership, 705, 718.

Common people, attentive to hear Christ, 529.

Confession, the great, 361.

Congenital blindness healed, 413.

Consent, common, observed in Primitive Church, 702, 718;
  in the Church today, 778.

Consistency of Church's claims, 779.

Conspiracy of Pharisees and Herodians, 544.

Constantine the Great, gives state recognition to Christianity, 746.

Constitution of the United States, a necessary preliminary to the
  restoration of the gospel, 755.

Consummation, the celestial, 792.

Contention forbidden, 726.

Corban, 352, 366.

Corner stone, Jesus the chief, 535, 706.

Cost, counting the, 452.

Council, the Jewish, see Sanhedrin.

Council in Heaven, primeval, 9, 15.

Court of the Women, in temple, 407, 422.

Cowdery, Oliver, ordained with Joseph Smith, 767;
  witness of heavenly manifestations, 774.

Creator, Jesus Christ the, 33.

Creed of Athanasius, 756.

Cross, figurative, 365;
  of Christ, borne by Simon, 653.

Crucifixion, 655, 667;
  of Jesus Christ, 654;
  hour of, 668.

Cumorah, scene of last Nephite battle, 742;
  Book of Mormon plates taken from, 767.

Cups and platters, ceremonial cleansing of, 437.


Dark ages, the, 749.

Daughters of Jerusalem, Christ's lamentation over, 653, 666.

David, Son of, see Son of David.

Dead, gospel preached to, 24;
  ministered unto by Jesus Christ, 672, 673;
  missionary labor amongst, 674;
  vicarious labor for in Church today, 777.

Death, inaugurated by Satan, 20;
  overcome by the atonement of Christ, 20;
  and resurrection of Christ predicted, 381, 382,
  accomplished, 662, 678.

Decapolis, 367;
  Jesus in coasts of, 356.

Dedication, feast of, 487, 499;
  Jesus at, 487.

Defilement, things that cause, 352.

Degeneracy, bodily, incident to the fall of man, 19, 29.

Demoniacal possession, 183.

Demons, acclaim the Christ, 181, 310, 312.

Devil, Jesus charged as possessed of a, 401, 411.

Didrachm, 383.

Disciples and apostles, 227.

Disciples, instructed, 438, 461;
  requirements of, 452.

Discipline of individuals in Church, 391.

Disembodied spirits, Christ among, 670.

Dispensation of fulness of times, 777;
  ushered in, 763.

Dives and Lazarus, 483.

Divorce and marriage, 473;
  views concerning, 484.

Doctrine, test of the Lord's, 400, 421;
  Christ's, as declared to Nephites, 726.

Dogs that eat of the crumbs, 367.

Door to the sheepfold, Christ the, 417.

Dove, sign of, 126, 150.

Dust, shaking from feet as a testimony, 345.


Earth, regeneration of, 322, 793.

Eating, spiritual symbolism of, 343, 347;
  with unwashen hands, 351.

Ecce Homo, 639.

Egypt, flight into, 100;
  return from, 110.

Elders and high priests, 644.

Elias, John Baptist and, 374;
  and Elijah, 375;
  spirit and power of, 376;
  appearing of in Kirtland Temple, 775.

Elijah, and Moses at transfiguration, 371;
  and Elias, 375;
  appearance of in Kirtland Temple, 775.

Elisabeth, mother of John the Baptist, 75, 78;
  visited by Mary the Virgin, 82.

Elohim, 38.

Emmaus, Christ and two disciples journey to, 685.

Enoch, 44, 143, 793;
  promise to, relating to Christ's second coming, 790.

Enrolment at Bethlehem, 91.

Ephraim, Jesus in retirement at, 498.

Essenes, 67.

Estate of man, first and second, 7.

Eternal Father, The, a resurrected, exalted Being, 143, 151.

Eve, beguiled by Satan, 19.

Evenings, earlier and later, 346.


Faith, active, as compared with passive belief, 319;
  a gift from God, 347;
  quality of, 381;
  nothing impossible to, 395;
  in behalf of others, 395;
  as to quantity and quality, 469;
  of Nephites, strong, 733.

Fall of man 19;
  a process of bodily degeneracy, 19;
  redemption from wrought by Jesus Christ, 20, 31.

Fasting and prayer, power gained by, 381.

Father, the Eternal, proclaims the Son, Jesus Christ, 126, 371;
  to Nephites, 725;
  to Joseph Smith, 761.

Feast, of Dedication, 487, 499;
  of Tabernacles, 400, 419;
  of the Passover, 112, 167;
  the traditional Messianic, 538.

Few or many to be saved, 445.

Fig tree, 541;
  cursed, 524;
  symbol of Judaism, 527;
  and other trees, lesson from, 754;
  as a type in modern revelation, 784.

First may be last, 478.

Fishers of men, 197, 202.

Foreknowledge of God, not a determining cause, 18, 28.

Foreordination of Jesus Christ, 6.

Forgiveness, duty respecting, 391;
  unlimited requirement of, 393;
  mutual, 525.

Fox, Herod Antipas referred to as, 446, 636.

Free agency, of unembodied spirits, 8, 17;

  of man, 17, 29.


Gabriel's annunciation, of John and of Jesus, 75;
  to Mary the Virgin, 79.

Gadarenes and Gergesenes, land of, 323.

Galilean ministry, beginning of, 144;
  close of, 398.

Galileans, 68;
  slain in temple courts, 441.

Galilee, sea of, 165;
  the risen Lord appears at sea of, 691;
  appears on mountain in, 694.

Gamaliel, his advice to the council, 709;
  tutor to Saul of Tarsus, 712.

Genealogies of Christ, 85, 89.

Gennesaret, sea or lake of, 165.

Gentiles, 345;
  to become great on western continent, 733.

Gergesenes and Gadarenes, land of, 323.

Gethsemane, 620;
  Christ's agony in, 610;
  His arrest in, 614.

Goats and sheep, figurative, 584.

God's foreknowledge not a determining cause of action, 18, 28.

Godhead, three Personages in, 32.

Godship of Jesus Christ, antemortal, 32.

Golgotha, 654, 667.

Gospels, the four, 166;
  the synoptic, 166.

Graded conditions in the hereafter, 601.

Graded intelligences in antemortal state, 14.

Great commandment, the, 549.

Greeks, as Gentiles, 345;
  certain ones visit Jesus, 518.


Happiness and pleasure, 231, 247.

Heathen to be redeemed;
  their part in first resurrection, 793.

Hem of garment, 346.

Henry VIII, head of Church of England, 751.

Herder, the hireling, 417.

Herod, the Great, 97, 106;
  temple of, 73;
  Antipas, 110, 118;
  referred to as "fox," 446;
  Christ before, 635.

Herodians, 68;
  in conspiracy with Pharisees, 544.

Herodias, 259.

High Priestly Prayer, Christ's, 609.

High priests and elders, 644.

Holy Ghost, sin against, 269, 278;
  promised to apostles, 603;
  investiture of apostles by, at Pentecost, 702.

Homily against Idolatry, affirming the apostasy, 753.

Hosanna shout, 516, 523.

Hyrum Smith, martyred, 776.


I AM, 36;
  Jesus Christ, the, 411.

Image on the coin, 546, 563.

Indians, American, progenitors of, 49, 56, 742, 757.

Inquisition, court of the, 750.

Isaiah, Messianic predictions by, 46, 47.

Iscariot, see Judas Iscariot.

Israel and Judah, kingdoms of, 59.


Jacob's prophecy concerning Shiloh, 54.

Jahveh, see Jehovah.

James and John, sons of Zebedee, called, 198;
  members of the Twelve, 219;
  minister with Peter in modern days, 219, 768;
  their aspiring desire, 503;
  mother of, 521.

James, son of Alpheus, one of the Twelve, 224.

Jared, brother of; his interview with the unembodied Christ, 12.

Jaredites, 16.

Jehovah, significance of the name, 36, 41, 411.

Jeremiah, Messianic prophecies by, 47.

Jericho, 521.

Jerusalem, Christ's triumphal entry into, 513;
  destruction of, predicted, 569,
  accomplished, 586;
  the Lord's lamentation over, 560;
  daughters of, Christ's lamentation over, 653, 666.

Jesus the Christ, as Man and Christ, 1.

Jesus Christ, preexistence and foreordination of, 6;
  the Only Begotten of the Father in the flesh, 8, 13, 81;
  the Word, 10;
  Word of God's power, 10;
  His supremacy over Abraham, 11, 410, 411;
  His power over death, 22, 23, 418;
  antemortal Godship of, 32;
  the Creator, 33;
  names and titles of, 35;
  predicted, 42;
  annunciation of, 79;
  the Babe of Bethlehem, 91;
  birth of, 91;
  birth announced to shepherds, 93;
  circumcision and naming of, 95;
  presentation in temple, 95;
  testimony of Simeon and Anna regarding, 97;
  birth made known to Nephites, 100;
  time of birth of, 102, 109;
  boy-hood of, 111;
  in attendance at Passover when twelve years old, 113;
  with the doctors in the temple, 114;
  of Nazareth, 117;
  baptism of, 125;

  descent of Holy Ghost, upon, 126;
  temptations of, 127;
  first clearing of temple by, 154;
  an offender to many, 254, 274;
  unique status of, 384;
  His brethren, interview with, 398;
  at the feast of Tabernacles, 399;
  rejected in Samaria, 423;
  at the home in Bethany, 448;
  blesses little children, 475;
  the ennobler of woman, 484;
  at feast of Dedication, 487;
  accused of blasphemy, 489;
  in retirement at Ephraim, 498;
  predicts His death and resurrection, 363, 372, 381, 502, 518, 586;
  called Son of David, 80, 86, 320, 354, 505, 515, 529;
  triumphal entry into Jerusalem, 513;
  Prince of Peace, 517;
  visited by certain Greeks, 518;
  His second clearing of temple, 527;
  His authority challenged, 530;
  close of His public ministry, 544;
  His lamentation over Jerusalem, 560;
  His final withdrawal from temple, 562;
  specific prediction of His death, 586;
  foretells His betrayal, 594;
  His agony in Gethsemane, 610;
  His betrayal and arrest, 614;
  Jewish trial of, 621;
  falsely convicted of blasphemy, 629;
  appearance before Pilate, first, 631,
    second, 636;
  before Herod Antipas, 635;
  delivered up to be crucified, 639;
  His crucifixion, 654;
  His burial, 664;
  physical cause of death of, 668;
  after resurrection appears to Mary Magdalene and other women, 681;
  to two disciples on road to Emmaus, 685;
  to ten apostles and others, in whose presence He eats, 687;
  to Peter, 687;
  to the Eleven, 689;
  His ascension from Olivet, 697;
  His death signalized on American continent, 721;
  giver of the law to Moses, 728;
  visitations to Nephites, 724, 731, 736;
  ministers to Joseph Smith, 761, 774;
  revelations from in current dispensation, 770;
  second advent of, 780.

Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews, 87, 90, 657.

Jewish exclusiveness, 61.

Jews, Christ the King of, 657.

John the Baptist, birth announced, 76;
  circumcision and naming of, 78;
  the forerunner, 75, 122;
  regarded as a Nazarite, 87;
  in the wilderness, 121;
  baptizes Jesus Christ, 125;
  his testimony of Jesus, 138, 150, 164;
  his message to Jesus, 252;
  Christ's testimony concerning, 256;
  imprisonment of, 252;
  death of, 259;
  greatness of his mission, 275;
  the Elias that was to come, 257, 276;
  restores Aaronic Priesthood in modern time, 768.

John, son of Zebedee, follows Christ, 140;
  called, 198;
  one of the Twelve, 220;
  his testimony regarding the graded development of Jesus, 119;
  with Peter at sepulchre of Jesus, 679;
  to tarry in the flesh until Christ's second coming, 694;
  the Revelator, 716.

John and James, see James and John.

Joseph of Arimathea, assists in burial of Christ's body, 664.

Joseph and Mary the Virgin, espoused, 84;
  married, 85;
  genealogies of, 85, 89.

Joseph Smith, 758;
  his perplexity over sectarian strife, 759;
  his prayer for light, 760;
  visited by the Father and the Son, 761;
  persecution of, 762;
  visited by Moroni, 765;
  receives Aaronic Priesthood, 768;
  receives Melchizedek Priesthood, 768;
  again visited by the Lord Jesus Christ, 774;
  visited by Moses, Elias and Elijah, 775;
  martyred, 776.

Judah and Israel, kingdoms of, 59.

Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, 225;
  his complaint against waste of ointment, 512;
  in conspiracy with Jewish rulers, 592;
  goes out to betray Christ, 598;
  his betrayal of Christ, 614;
  his maddening remorse and suicide, 642;
  views concerning his character, 649.

Judas Thaddeus, or Lebbeus, one of the Twelve, 224, 228;
  his inquiry, 603.

Judean and Perean ministry, 423, 449.

Judgment, the inevitable, 584.


Keys, of kingdom of heaven, 361;
  symbolical of power in Jewish literature, 362.

King of the Jews, Christ the, 87, 90, 657.

Kingdom of God and kingdom of heaven, 788.

Kirtland Temple, scene of heavenly manifestations, 773.


Lamanites and Nephites, 49, 55.

Lamanites, progenitors of American Indians, 49, 56, 742, 757;
  promise concerning, 786.

Lamentation over Jerusalem, 560.

Last may be first, 478.

Last Supper, the, 592.

Latter-day Saints, Church of Jesus Christ of, 769.

Law, the, and the gospel, 234.

Law of Moses, rabbinical divisions of, 564;
  Christ the giver of, 728;
  fulfilled, as Christ declared to Nephites, 723, 728.

Lawyer questions Christ, 429.

Lawyers and Pharisees, Christ's criticism on, 436.

Lazarus and Dives, 483.

Lazarus restored to life, 490.

Leaven, of evil, 359;
  of Pharisees and Sadducees, 359.

Leper, Simon the, 511.

Lepers, ten healed, 470.

Leprosy, 189, 199.

Levi Matthew, see Matthew.

Levirate marriages, 548.

Light of the World, Jesus the, 407.

Living water, figurative, 403.

Lord's Day, the, 690.

Lord's doctrine, test of, 421.

Lord's High Priestly prayer, the, 609.

Lord's Prayer, the, 238.

Lord's Supper, Sacrament of the, 596.

Love, mutual, enjoined on apostles, 599.

Lucifer, see Satan.

Luther, Martin, 750.


Maccabean revolt, 60.

Magnificat, the, 83.

Magi, see Wise men.

Malachi, his predictions misunderstood, 149;
  fulfilled, 775.

Malchus, wounded by Peter, healed by Jesus, 616.

Malefactor, the penitent, 659, 671.

Mammon of unrighteousness, 463, 483.

Man, preexistence of, 6, 17;
  an embodied spirit, 18;
  fall of, 19, 29;
  free agency of, 18, 29.

Man of Holiness, and Man of Counsel, names of the Eternal Father, 143.

Man, The Son of, 142.

Manna, traditions concerning, 347.

Mansions, many in the Father's house, 601.

Many or few to be saved, 445.

Marriage and divorce, 473.

Marriage for eternity, 564.

Marriages, levirate, 548.

Martha and Mary, 432;
  at house of Simon the leper, 511.

Mary and Joseph, see Joseph and Mary.

Mary anoints Jesus with spikenard, 512.

Mary Magdalene, defended against traditional aspersions, 264;
  at sepulchre, 679;
  first to behold the risen Lord, 681.

Matthew, or Levi, called, 193;
  gives a feast, 194;
  one of the Twelve, 222.

Matthias ordained to apostleship, 700.

Melchizedek Priesthood, Jesus Christ holds the, 552;
  restored by Peter, James and John, 768.

Meridian of Time, 57.

Messiah, see Jesus Christ.

Messiah and Christ, significance of names, 36.

Messianic Psalms, 46.

Michael in conflict with Satan, 6.

Millennium, the, 790;
  predictions of, ancient, 790,
  modern, 791.

Ministers and servants, 542.

Miracles, in general, 147;
  attitude of science toward, 151.

Miracles of Christ: Water transmuted into wine, 144;
  healing of nobleman's son, 178;
  Peter's mother-in-law healed, 183;
  demoniac healed in synagog at Capernaum, 181;
  leper healed, 188;
  palsied man healed and forgiven, 190;
  draught of fishes, 198;
  cripple healed at Bethesda pool, 206;
  healing of man with withered hand, 214;
  healing of centurion's servant, 249;
  young man of Nain raised from, the dead, 251;
  healing of a blind and dumb demoniac, 267;
  stilling the tempest, 307;
  demons rebuked in land of Gadarenes, 310;
  raising of daughter of Jairus, 313;
  healing of a woman in the throng, 317;
  blind and dumb healed, 319;
  feeding of the five thousand, 333;
  walking on the water, 335;

 in the land of Gennesaret, 337;
 healing of daughter of Syro-Phenician woman, 354;
 healings in coasts of Decapolis, 356;
 feeding of the four thousand, 357;
 healing of blind man near Bethsaida Julias, 360;
 healing of youthful demoniac, 378;
 tribute money supplied, 382;
 blind man healed on Sabbath, 413;
 woman healed on Sabbath, 443;
 dropsical man healed, 449;
 ten lepers healed, 470;
 Lazarus restored to life, 490;
 blind healed near Jericho, 504;
 blighting of barren fig tree, 524;
 healings in the temple courts, 528;
 Malchus healed of wound, 616;
 second draught of fishes, 691.

Missing scriptures, 117, 119.

Mission, of the Twelve, 328, 695;
  of the Seventy, 425, 427.

Modern revelation, belief in, 776.

Mormon, Book of, 742, 767.

Moroni, last of Nephite prophets, 742;
  an angel sent from God, 765;
  delivers ancient records to Joseph Smith, 767.

Moses, repels Satan, 7;
  his prophecy concerning Christ, 45, 138, 710, 766;
  with Elijah at transfiguration, 371;
  appearance of in Kirtland Temple, 775.

Mount of Olives, see Olivet.


Name, of Christ, power in, 390;
  in Christ's, 602;
  of Christ's Church, 736, 769.

Names given of God, 40.

Nard, see Spikenard.

Nathanael, or Bartholomew brought to Christ, 141;
  one of the Twelve, 222.

Nativity of Christ, a cause of discussion, 402, 403.

Nazareth, boyhood home of Jesus Christ, 110;
  our Lord's sermon in synagog at, 179;
  His rejection by Nazarenes, 180.

Nazarite, 67, 87;
  John Baptist regarded as, 87.

Need of a Redeemer, 17.

Needle's eye, and camel, 478, 485.

Neighbor, Who is my, 429.

Nephites, birth of Christ made known to, 100;
  and Lamanites, 49, 55;
  as sheep of another fold, 419;
  death of Jesus signalized to, 721;
  visitation of the risen Lord among, 724, 731, 736;
  Twelve called from among, 725;
  the Three, 738.

Nicodemus, visits Jesus, 158, 170;
  his protest before Sanhedrin, 404;
  assists in burial of Christ's body, 665.

Night, watches of the, 346.

Ninety and nine, and the lost sheep, 389.

Nobleman seeking a kingdom, 522.

Nunc Dimittis, the, 97.


Offenses and offenders, 274, 388.

Old cloth and old bottles, 195.

Olivet, (Mount of Olives) Christ's discourse to apostles on, 540, 569;
  Gethsemane near, 611;
  the Lord's ascension from, 697.

Oneness, of Godhead, 500;
  of Father and Son, 602.


Papal claims to authority, 747.

Parables in general, 298;
  definitions, 303.

Parables of Christ: the Sower, 282;
  Wheat and Tares, 280;
  Seed growing secretly, 288;
  Mustard Seed, 290;
  Leaven, 291;
  Hidden Treasure, 292;
  Pearl of Great Price, 293;
  Gospel Net, 294;
  Lost Sheep, 389;
  Unmerciful Servant, 393;
  Good Samaritan, 430;
  Friend at Midnight, 434;
  Importunate Widow, or Unjust Judge, 436;
  Foolish Rich Man, 439;
  Barren Fig Tree, 443;
  Great Supper, 450;
  Lost Sheep (repeated), 454;
  Lost Coin, 455;
  Prodigal Son, 457;
  Unrighteous Steward, 461;
  Rich Man and Lazarus, 466;
  Unprofitable Servants, 470;
  Pharisee and Publican, 471;
  Laborers in Vineyard, 479;
  Pounds, 508;
  Two Sons, 532;
  Wicked Husbandmen, 533;
  Royal Marriage Feast, 536;
  Ten Virgins, 577;
  the same referred to in modern revelation, 579;
  Talents, 580;
  Pounds and Talents compared, 581.

Parabolic teaching, Christ's purpose in, 295.

Paradise, 672, 676;
  the penitent thief in, 659, 671.

Passover, feast of, 112;
 Jesus at when a Boy, 113;
 throngs attending, 167;
 recurrences of during Christ's ministry, 365;
 the last eaten by Jesus, 593, 617.

Patmos, 720.

Paul, the Lord's manifestations to, 713, 715;
 his demeanor when smitten contrasted with that of Christ, 644.

Pence and talents, value of, 396.

Pentecost, 702, 718.

Perea, the Lord's retirement in, 489.

Perean and Judean ministry, 423, 449,

Perfection, relative, 236, 248.

Persecutions of early Christians, 746.

Peter, James, and John, special witnesses, 314, 370, 376, 611;
  officiate in modern times, 219, 768.

Peter, Simon, brought to Jesus by Andrew and named Peter, 140;
  called from his boat and nets, 198;
  one of the Twelve, 218;
  his confession of Christ, 360;
  his presidency among the apostles, 362;
  remonstrates with Jesus and is rebuked, 364, 368;
  protests against washing of his feet by Jesus, 596;
  his protestations of allegiance, 600;
  his assault on Malchus, 616;
  his denial of his Lord, 629;
  with John at sepulchre, 679;
  questioned by the risen Lord, 692;
  manner of his death foreshadowed, 693;
  his Pentecostal address, 703;
  heals lame man, 705;
  testifies to people and rulers in temple, 706, 708;
  with James and John officiates in modern times, 219, 768.

Pharisees, and Sadducees, 65, 72;
  leaven of the, 359;
  humiliated by an unlearned indigent, 415;
  with lawyers criticized by Christ, 436;
  Jesus in house of one of chief, 449;
  proud of false humility, 465;
  with scribes, denounced, 552.

Philip, called by Jesus, 140;
  one of the Twelve, 221;
  asks to behold the Father, 602.

Phylacteries, and borders, 565.

Physical cause of the Lord's death, 668.

Pilate, see Pontius Pilate.

Pilgrim Fathers, their mission predicted, 754, 757.

Pleasure and happiness, 231, 247.

Pontius Pilate, procurator, 631;
  hears charges against Christ, 631, 636;
  questions Jesus, 634, 640;
  sends Christ to Herod, 635;
  tries to save Jesus from death, 640;
  gives sentence of crucifixion, 639;
  cause of his surrender to Jewish clamor, 641, 648;
  writes inscription for the cross, 656;
  gives body of Jesus for burial, 664;
  allows guarding of sepulchre, 665.

Pool, of Bethesda, 206;
  a cripple healed at, 207;
  of Siloam, 403, 421;
  blind man sent to wash in, 413.

Pope, the, 747.

Prayer, the Lord's, 238;
  the Lord's High Priestly, 609;
  and fasting, power developed by, 395;
  request of disciples concerning, 434.

Precedence and humility, 503.

Predictions of Christ's birth, life and death, 42;
  by Adam, 44;
  by Jacob, 44;
  by Moses, 45;
  by Job, 46;
  by Isaiah, 46;
  by Jeremiah, 47;
  by other Hebrew prophets, 48;
  by John the Baptist, 48;
  by Nephite prophets, 49, 722;
  of the Lord's death by Himself, 363, 372, 381, 518, 586.

Preexistence of spirits, 6, 17;
  involved in disciples' question, 412;
  of Jesus Christ, 6.

Presidency, Peter's among apostles, 362.

Priesthood, Aaronic, see Aaronic Priesthood;
  Melchizedek, see Melchizedek Priesthood;
  the Holy, now operative on earth, 777; and office therein, 778.

Primitive Church, the, 705, 707, 712, 719.

Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ the, 517.

Prophet, predicted by Moses--Jesus Christ 45, 138, 710, 733, 766.

Protestants, origin of, 750.

Psalms, Messianic, 46.

Publicans, 193, 201;
  and sinners, 193;
  salvation for, 454;
  Zaccheus a chief among, 506.


Rabbis, and scribes, 63, 71, 554.

Redeemer, need of by essential qualifications of, 21.

Redemption wrought by Jesus Christ, 20, 31.

Reformation, the, 750.

Regeneration of the earth, 322, 793.

Repentant woman forgiven, 263.

Restoration, to mortal life contrasted with resurrection, 316, 496;
  of the Priesthood in modern times, 768.

Resurrection, universal, 24;
  distinct from restoration to mortal life, 316, 496;
  Sadducean denial of, 72;
  Sadducees question Jesus concerning, 547;
  of Jesus Christ, 678;
  false stories and untenable theories concerning Christ's, 683, 698;
  heathen in the first, 793.

Revelation, foundation of Church of Christ, 361, 775;
  modern, belief in, 776.

Reward, for merit, assured, 479.

Rich men, and their stewards, 483;
  difficulty of entering kingdom, 478.

Rigdon, Sidney, associated with Joseph Smith, 771.

Rock of revelation, 361.

Ruler, the rich young, 477.


Sabbath, distinctively sacred to Israel, 203;
  Jesus Christ the Lord of the, 203;
  rabbinical requirements concerning, 205, 215;
  desecration of imputed to Jesus, 208, 214, 401, 413, 443;
  disciples charged with desecration of, 212;
  change of day from Saturday to Sunday, 690.

Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, instituted among Jews, 596;
  on western continent, 730, 733, 735.

Sacrifice, animal, antiquity of, 53;
  prototype of Christ's atoning death, 45, 53.

Sadducees, and Pharisees, 65, 72;
  deny resurrection, 72;
  question Christ concerning resurrection, 547.

Saliva, applied to eyes of blind man, 360, 413.

Salome, daughter of Herodias, 259;
  mother of James and John, 521.

Salt of the earth, figurative, 232, 248, 743.

Salvation, conditions of, 26.

Samaritan, woman talks with Jesus, 172;
  Christ called a, 411

Samaritans, origin of, 62;
  and Jews, animosity between, 183;
  Jesus received gladly by, 176;
  afterward rejected by, 423.

Sanhedrin, the, 61, 69;
  Nicodemus a member of, speaks in behalf of Jesus, 404;
  unlawful trial of Jesus before, 621;
  the apostles before, 706;
  Gamaliel's advice to, 709;
  Stephen condemned by, 711.

Satan, Lucifer, a son of the morning, 7;
  in conflict with Michael, 6;
  cast out from heaven, 8;
  commanded by Moses, 7;
  would destroy man's agency, 8;
  beguiles Eve, 19;
  introduces sin and death, 20;
  tempts Jesus Christ, 127;
  to be bound during Millennium, 791;
  final vanquishment of, 792.

Saul of Tarsus, his persecution of the Saints, 712;
  his conversion, 713, 719;
  his baptism, 714;
  beginning of his ministry, 714;
  name changed to Paul, 714.

Savior and Redeemer, necessary qualifications of, 21.

Scourging, 638;
  of Jesus, 639.

Scribes and Pharisees, 552;
  and rabbis, 63;
  see further, Pharisees.

Scriptures, lost, 117, 119.

Sea of Galilee, storms on, 321.

Second advent of Christ, 780;
  predicted anciently, 569, 781,
    in modern times, 783;
  signs of, 573, 786;
  time of unknown, 575, 589, 785;
  near at hand, 787;
  accompaniments of, 787.

Secular authority, submission to, 564.

Seed and crop, 519.

Sermon on the Mount, 230;
  repeated in effect to the Nephites, 727.

Servants and ministers, 542.

Seventy, the, sent, 425;
  return of, 427.

Sheep and goats, figurative, 584.

Sheep, other than of Jewish fold, 419;
  Nephite fold, 728;
  Lost Tribes another fold, 729.

Shepherd, Christ the Good, 417.

Shepherds, angelic annunciation to, 93;
  contrasted with sheepherders, 416.

Shewbread, 213, 216.

Shiloh, Jacob's prophecy concerning, 44, 54.

Signs, miracles as, 147, 696;
  seekers of, 270, 279, 358;
  of Christ's birth and death shown on American continent, 100, 721.

Silence, Christ's, when before Herod, 636.

Siloam, Pool of, 403, 421;
  fall of tower at, 442.

Simon, Peter, see Peter;
  the leper, 510;
  the Pharisee, 261;
  of Cyrene, 653, 666;
  Zelotes, one of the Twelve, 225.

Sin, brings death into the world, 20;
  the unpardonable, 269, 278;
  servitude of, 409;
  and bodily affliction, 413.

Sinners, joy in heaven over repentant, 455.

Smith, Hyrum, see Hyrum Smith;
  Joseph, see Joseph Smith.

Solomon's Porch, 487, 500, 705.

Son of David, title, applied to Joseph of Nazareth, 84;
  to Jesus Christ, 80, 86, 354, 505, 515, 529;
  Christ's question concerning, 552.

Son of God, The, proclaimed by the Father, 126, 371, 725, 761.

Son of Man, The, 142.

Son of the morning, see Satan.

Spikenard, 523;
  Mary anoints Jesus with, 512.

Spirit and power of Elias, 376.

Spirit of Truth, the Holy Ghost, 603.

Spirits, unembodied, 6, 8, 17;
  state of between death and resurrection, 671;
  disembodied, Christ's mission among, 670, 672, 677;
  world of, missionary labor in, 675.

Spiritual development, the one thing needful, 433, 434.

Stater, 384.

Stephen, his zeal, 709;
  his address to the council, 710;
  his martyrdom, 711.

Stewards, apostles likened unto, 441, 576.

Stone, head of the corner--Jesus Christ--535, 706.

Supererogation, false doctrine of, 590.

Supper, at house of Simon the leper, 510;
  The Last, 592.

Sychar, 173, 186.

Synoptic Gospels, 166.


Tabernacles, feast of, 419;
  Jesus at the, 399.

Talents and pence, 396.

Talmud, 62, 70.

Targums, 179, 186.

Tax, capitation, 383.

Taxing, or enrolment, 104.

Temple, of Herod, 73;
  the Lord's body symbolized as a, 157;
  Christ's first clearing of the, 153;
  second clearing of the, 527;
  tribute paid to, 396;
  destruction of, predicted, 563,
    accomplished, 567;
  treasure of, 567.

Temples, modern, 778.

Test of the Lord's doctrine, 400, 421.

Tetrarch, 274.

Thirty years of age, 166.

Thomas, one of the Twelve, 223;
  doubts the resurrection of Christ, 689;
  is convinced, 690.

"Thou art the Christ," 360.

Three Nephites, the, 738.

Tiberias, sea of, 165,
  the risen Lord appears at, 691.

Tithing, day of, 785.

Titles, ecclesiastical, 566.

Today and tomorrow, special application of terms, 785.

Tongues, as of fire, Pentecostal manifestations, 702.

Traditionalism, in opposition to the law, 351.

Transubstantiation, false doctrine of, 748.

Transfiguration, the, 370, 376.

Transgressors, Christ numbered among, 601, 655.

Treasure belonging to temple, 567.

Treasury of temple, 422.

Trial of Jesus, the Jewish, 621;
  illegalities of, 622, 644.

Tribes, of Israel, 59;
  the Ten, or Lost, 61, 729.

Tribute, the temple, 396;
  Christ pays the, 382;
  to be rendered to Cæsar under law, 545.

Triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Christ's, 513.

Truth, shall make men free, 408.

Twelve, the, see Apostles;
  the Nephite, 725.

Tyre and Sidon, Jesus in borders of, 354.


Unbelief, effect of, 381.

Unity of Godhead, 500.

Unpardonable sin, 269, 278.

Vine, Christ the true, 604.

Vineyard and vines, Israel symbolized by, 541.

Voice, in the wilderness,--John the Baptist, 121;
  from heaven, the Father's, 126, 371, 519, 725;
  of Jesus Christ from heaven to Nephites, 723.


War in heaven, 6.

Washing of feet, ordinance of, 595, 619.

Washings, ceremonial, 350, 366.

Watches of the night, 346.

Watchfulness enjoined, 575.

Water, living, 403.

Wedding garment, lacking, 539.

Western continent, ministry of Jesus Christ on, 721.

Widow's mites, 561.

Wise men, the, 97;
  their adoration of Christ, 99.

Witnesses, false, at trial of Jesus, 623.

Woes over Jerusalem, 515, 560.

Woman, a repentant, receives forgiveness, 263;
  one taken in sin, 405.

"Woman," as noun of address, 144.

Women, Christ the ennobler of, 484;
  witnesses of the crucifixion, 659, 688;
  at sepulchre of Jesus, 681;
  see and touch the risen Lord, 682.

Word, Jesus Christ, the, 10.


Yahveh, see Jehovah.


Zaccheus, 506.

Zacharias, the martyr, 560, 567.

Zacharias, the priest, visited by the angel Gabriel, 76;
  stricken dumb, 77, 88;
  his speech restored, 78.

Zion, of Enoch, 719, 790;
  of the last days, 786.










 THE AENEID


 by Virgil

 Translated by John Dryden

      Contents

               BOOK I

               BOOK II

               BOOK III

               BOOK IV

               BOOK V

               BOOK VI

               BOOK VII

               BOOK VIII

               BOOK IX

               BOOK X

               BOOK  XI

               BOOK XII




 BOOK I

 THE ARGUMENT.


      The Trojans, after a seven years’ voyage, set sail for Italy, but
      are overtaken by a dreadful storm, which Aeolus raises at the
      request of Juno. The tempest sinks one, and scatters the rest.
      Neptune drives off the winds, and calms the sea. Aeneas, with his
      own ship and six more, arrives safe at an African port. Venus
      complains to Jupiter of her son’s misfortunes. Jupiter comforts
      her, and sends Mercury to procure him a kind reception among the
      Carthaginians. Aeneas, going out to discover the country, meets
      his mother in the shape of a huntress, who conveys him in a cloud
      to Carthage, where he sees his friends whom he thought lost, and
      receives a kind entertainment from the queen. Dido, by device of
      Venus, begins to have a passion for him, and, after some
      discourse with him, desires the history of his adventures since
      the siege of Troy, which is the subject of the two following
      books.


      Arms, and the man I sing, who, forc’d by fate,
      And haughty Juno’s unrelenting hate,
      Expell’d and exil’d, left the Trojan shore.
      Long labours, both by sea and land, he bore,
      And in the doubtful war, before he won
      The Latian realm, and built the destin’d town;
      His banish’d gods restor’d to rites divine,
      And settled sure succession in his line,
      From whence the race of Alban fathers come,
      And the long glories of majestic Rome.
      O Muse! the causes and the crimes relate;
      What goddess was provok’d, and whence her hate;
      For what offence the Queen of Heav’n began
      To persecute so brave, so just a man;
      Involv’d his anxious life in endless cares,
      Expos’d to wants, and hurried into wars!
      Can heav’nly minds such high resentment show,
      Or exercise their spite in human woe?

      Against the Tiber’s mouth, but far away,
      An ancient town was seated on the sea;
      A Tyrian colony; the people made
      Stout for the war, and studious of their trade:
      Carthage the name; belov’d by Juno more
      Than her own Argos, or the Samian shore.
      Here stood her chariot; here, if Heav’n were kind,
      The seat of awful empire she design’d.
      Yet she had heard an ancient rumour fly,
      (Long cited by the people of the sky,)
      That times to come should see the Trojan race
      Her Carthage ruin, and her tow’rs deface;
      Nor thus confin’d, the yoke of sov’reign sway
      Should on the necks of all the nations lay.
      She ponder’d this, and fear’d it was in fate;
      Nor could forget the war she wag’d of late
      For conqu’ring Greece against the Trojan state.
      Besides, long causes working in her mind,
      And secret seeds of envy, lay behind;
      Deep graven in her heart the doom remain’d
      Of partial Paris, and her form disdain’d;
      The grace bestow’d on ravish’d Ganymed,
      Electra’s glories, and her injur’d bed.
      Each was a cause alone; and all combin’d
      To kindle vengeance in her haughty mind.
      For this, far distant from the Latian coast
      She drove the remnants of the Trojan host;
      And sev’n long years th’ unhappy wand’ring train
      Were toss’d by storms, and scatter’d thro’ the main.
      Such time, such toil, requir’d the Roman name,
      Such length of labour for so vast a frame.

      Now scarce the Trojan fleet, with sails and oars,
      Had left behind the fair Sicilian shores,
      Ent’ring with cheerful shouts the wat’ry reign,
      And plowing frothy furrows in the main;
      When, lab’ring still with endless discontent,
      The Queen of Heav’n did thus her fury vent:

      “Then am I vanquish’d? must I yield?” said she,
      “And must the Trojans reign in Italy?
      So Fate will have it, and Jove adds his force;
      Nor can my pow’r divert their happy course.
      Could angry Pallas, with revengeful spleen,
      The Grecian navy burn, and drown the men?
      She, for the fault of one offending foe,
      The bolts of Jove himself presum’d to throw:
      With whirlwinds from beneath she toss’d the ship,
      And bare expos’d the bosom of the deep;
      Then, as an eagle gripes the trembling game,
      The wretch, yet hissing with her father’s flame,
      She strongly seiz’d, and with a burning wound
      Transfix’d, and naked, on a rock she bound.
      But I, who walk in awful state above,
      The majesty of heav’n, the sister wife of Jove,
      For length of years my fruitless force employ
      Against the thin remains of ruin’d Troy!
      What nations now to Juno’s pow’r will pray,
      Or off’rings on my slighted altars lay?”

      Thus rag’d the goddess; and, with fury fraught.
      The restless regions of the storms she sought,
      Where, in a spacious cave of living stone,
      The tyrant Aeolus, from his airy throne,
      With pow’r imperial curbs the struggling winds,
      And sounding tempests in dark prisons binds.
      This way and that th’ impatient captives tend,
      And, pressing for release, the mountains rend.
      High in his hall th’ undaunted monarch stands,
      And shakes his scepter, and their rage commands;
      Which did he not, their unresisted sway
      Would sweep the world before them in their way;
      Earth, air, and seas thro’ empty space would roll,
      And heav’n would fly before the driving soul.
      In fear of this, the Father of the Gods
      Confin’d their fury to those dark abodes,
      And lock’d ’em safe within, oppress’d with mountain loads;
      Impos’d a king, with arbitrary sway,
      To loose their fetters, or their force allay.
      To whom the suppliant queen her pray’rs address’d,
      And thus the tenor of her suit express’d:

      “O Aeolus! for to thee the King of Heav’n
      The pow’r of tempests and of winds has giv’n;
      Thy force alone their fury can restrain,
      And smooth the waves, or swell the troubled main.
      A race of wand’ring slaves, abhorr’d by me,
      With prosp’rous passage cut the Tuscan sea;
      To fruitful Italy their course they steer,
      And for their vanquish’d gods design new temples there.
      Raise all thy winds; with night involve the skies;
      Sink or disperse my fatal enemies.
      Twice sev’n, the charming daughters of the main,
      Around my person wait, and bear my train:
      Succeed my wish, and second my design;
      The fairest, Deiopeia, shall be thine,
      And make thee father of a happy line.”

      To this the god: “’Tis yours, O queen, to will
      The work which duty binds me to fulfil.
      These airy kingdoms, and this wide command,
      Are all the presents of your bounteous hand:
      Yours is my sov’reign’s grace; and, as your guest,
      I sit with gods at their celestial feast;
      Raise tempests at your pleasure, or subdue;
      Dispose of empire, which I hold from you.”

      He said, and hurl’d against the mountain side
      His quiv’ring spear, and all the god applied.
      The raging winds rush thro’ the hollow wound,
      And dance aloft in air, and skim along the ground;
      Then, settling on the sea, the surges sweep,
      Raise liquid mountains, and disclose the deep.
      South, East, and West with mix’d confusion roar,
      And roll the foaming billows to the shore.
      The cables crack; the sailors’ fearful cries
      Ascend; and sable night involves the skies;
      And heav’n itself is ravish’d from their eyes.
      Loud peals of thunder from the poles ensue;
      Then flashing fires the transient light renew;
      The face of things a frightful image bears,
      And present death in various forms appears.
      Struck with unusual fright, the Trojan chief,
      With lifted hands and eyes, invokes relief;
      And, “Thrice and four times happy those,” he cried,
      “That under Ilian walls before their parents died!
      Tydides, bravest of the Grecian train!
      Why could not I by that strong arm be slain,
      And lie by noble Hector on the plain,
      Or great Sarpedon, in those bloody fields
      Where Simois rolls the bodies and the shields
      Of heroes, whose dismember’d hands yet bear
      The dart aloft, and clench the pointed spear!”

      Thus while the pious prince his fate bewails,
      Fierce Boreas drove against his flying sails,
      And rent the sheets; the raging billows rise,
      And mount the tossing vessels to the skies:
      Nor can the shiv’ring oars sustain the blow;
      The galley gives her side, and turns her prow;
      While those astern, descending down the steep,
      Thro’ gaping waves behold the boiling deep.
      Three ships were hurried by the southern blast,
      And on the secret shelves with fury cast.
      Those hidden rocks th’ Ausonian sailors knew:
      They call’d them Altars, when they rose in view,
      And show’d their spacious backs above the flood.
      Three more fierce Eurus, in his angry mood,
      Dash’d on the shallows of the moving sand,
      And in mid ocean left them moor’d a-land.
      Orontes’ bark, that bore the Lycian crew,
      (A horrid sight!) ev’n in the hero’s view,
      From stem to stern by waves was overborne:
      The trembling pilot, from his rudder torn,
      Was headlong hurl’d; thrice round the ship was toss’d,
      Then bulg’d at once, and in the deep was lost;
      And here and there above the waves were seen
      Arms, pictures, precious goods, and floating men.
      The stoutest vessel to the storm gave way,
      And suck’d thro’ loosen’d planks the rushing sea.
      Ilioneus was her chief: Alethes old,
      Achates faithful, Abas young and bold,
      Endur’d not less; their ships, with gaping seams,
      Admit the deluge of the briny streams.

      Meantime imperial Neptune heard the sound
      Of raging billows breaking on the ground.
      Displeas’d, and fearing for his wat’ry reign,
      He rear’d his awful head above the main,
      Serene in majesty; then roll’d his eyes
      Around the space of earth, and seas, and skies.
      He saw the Trojan fleet dispers’d, distress’d,
      By stormy winds and wintry heav’n oppress’d.
      Full well the god his sister’s envy knew,
      And what her aims and what her arts pursue.
      He summon’d Eurus and the western blast,
      And first an angry glance on both he cast;
      Then thus rebuk’d: “Audacious winds! from whence
      This bold attempt, this rebel insolence?
      Is it for you to ravage seas and land,
      Unauthoriz’d by my supreme command?
      To raise such mountains on the troubled main?
      Whom I—but first ’tis fit the billows to restrain;
      And then you shall be taught obedience to my reign.
      Hence! to your lord my royal mandate bear,
      The realms of ocean and the fields of air
      Are mine, not his. By fatal lot to me
      The liquid empire fell, and trident of the sea.
      His pow’r to hollow caverns is confin’d:
      There let him reign, the jailer of the wind,
      With hoarse commands his breathing subjects call,
      And boast and bluster in his empty hall.”
      He spoke; and, while he spoke, he smooth’d the sea,
      Dispell’d the darkness, and restor’d the day.
      Cymothoe, Triton, and the sea-green train
      Of beauteous nymphs, the daughters of the main,
      Clear from the rocks the vessels with their hands:
      The god himself with ready trident stands,
      And opes the deep, and spreads the moving sands;
      Then heaves them off the shoals. Where’er he guides
      His finny coursers and in triumph rides,
      The waves unruffle and the sea subsides.
      As, when in tumults rise th’ ignoble crowd,
      Mad are their motions, and their tongues are loud;
      And stones and brands in rattling volleys fly,
      And all the rustic arms that fury can supply:
      If then some grave and pious man appear,
      They hush their noise, and lend a list’ning ear;
      He soothes with sober words their angry mood,
      And quenches their innate desire of blood:
      So, when the Father of the Flood appears,
      And o’er the seas his sov’reign trident rears,
      Their fury falls: he skims the liquid plains,
      High on his chariot, and, with loosen’d reins,
      Majestic moves along, and awful peace maintains.
      The weary Trojans ply their shatter’d oars
      To nearest land, and make the Libyan shores.

      Within a long recess there lies a bay:
      An island shades it from the rolling sea,
      And forms a port secure for ships to ride;
      Broke by the jutting land, on either side,
      In double streams the briny waters glide.
      Betwixt two rows of rocks a sylvan scene
      Appears above, and groves for ever green:
      A grot is form’d beneath, with mossy seats,
      To rest the Nereids, and exclude the heats.
      Down thro’ the crannies of the living walls
      The crystal streams descend in murm’ring falls:
      No haulsers need to bind the vessels here,
      Nor bearded anchors; for no storms they fear.
      Sev’n ships within this happy harbour meet,
      The thin remainders of the scatter’d fleet.
      The Trojans, worn with toils, and spent with woes,
      Leap on the welcome land, and seek their wish’d repose.

      First, good Achates, with repeated strokes
      Of clashing flints, their hidden fire provokes:
      Short flame succeeds; a bed of wither’d leaves
      The dying sparkles in their fall receives:
      Caught into life, in fiery fumes they rise,
      And, fed with stronger food, invade the skies.
      The Trojans, dropping wet, or stand around
      The cheerful blaze, or lie along the ground:
      Some dry their corn, infected with the brine,
      Then grind with marbles, and prepare to dine.
      Aeneas climbs the mountain’s airy brow,
      And takes a prospect of the seas below,
      If Capys thence, or Antheus he could spy,
      Or see the streamers of Caicus fly.
      No vessels were in view; but, on the plain,
      Three beamy stags command a lordly train
      Of branching heads: the more ignoble throng
      Attend their stately steps, and slowly graze along.
      He stood; and, while secure they fed below,
      He took the quiver and the trusty bow
      Achates us’d to bear: the leaders first
      He laid along, and then the vulgar pierc’d;
      Nor ceas’d his arrows, till the shady plain
      Sev’n mighty bodies with their blood distain.
      For the sev’n ships he made an equal share,
      And to the port return’d, triumphant from the war.
      The jars of gen’rous wine (Acestes’ gift,
      When his Trinacrian shores the navy left)
      He set abroach, and for the feast prepar’d,
      In equal portions with the ven’son shar’d.
      Thus while he dealt it round, the pious chief
      With cheerful words allay’d the common grief:
      “Endure, and conquer! Jove will soon dispose
      To future good our past and present woes.
      With me, the rocks of Scylla you have tried;
      Th’ inhuman Cyclops and his den defied.
      What greater ills hereafter can you bear?
      Resume your courage and dismiss your care,
      An hour will come, with pleasure to relate
      Your sorrows past, as benefits of Fate.
      Thro’ various hazards and events, we move
      To Latium and the realms foredoom’d by Jove.
      Call’d to the seat (the promise of the skies)
      Where Trojan kingdoms once again may rise,
      Endure the hardships of your present state;
      Live, and reserve yourselves for better fate.”

      These words he spoke, but spoke not from his heart;
      His outward smiles conceal’d his inward smart.
      The jolly crew, unmindful of the past,
      The quarry share, their plenteous dinner haste.
      Some strip the skin; some portion out the spoil;
      The limbs, yet trembling, in the caldrons boil;
      Some on the fire the reeking entrails broil.
      Stretch’d on the grassy turf, at ease they dine,
      Restore their strength with meat, and cheer their souls with
      wine.
      Their hunger thus appeas’d, their care attends
      The doubtful fortune of their absent friends:
      Alternate hopes and fears their minds possess,
      Whether to deem ’em dead, or in distress.
      Above the rest, Aeneas mourns the fate
      Of brave Orontes, and th’ uncertain state
      Of Gyas, Lycus, and of Amycus.
      The day, but not their sorrows, ended thus.

      When, from aloft, almighty Jove surveys
      Earth, air, and shores, and navigable seas,
      At length on Libyan realms he fix’d his eyes:
      Whom, pond’ring thus on human miseries,
      When Venus saw, she with a lowly look,
      Not free from tears, her heav’nly sire bespoke:

      “O King of Gods and Men! whose awful hand
      Disperses thunder on the seas and land,
      Disposing all with absolute command;
      How could my pious son thy pow’r incense?
      Or what, alas! is vanish’d Troy’s offence?
      Our hope of Italy not only lost,
      On various seas by various tempests toss’d,
      But shut from ev’ry shore, and barr’d from ev’ry coast.
      You promis’d once, a progeny divine
      Of Romans, rising from the Trojan line,
      In after times should hold the world in awe,
      And to the land and ocean give the law.
      How is your doom revers’d, which eas’d my care
      When Troy was ruin’d in that cruel war?
      Then fates to fates I could oppose; but now,
      When Fortune still pursues her former blow,
      What can I hope? What worse can still succeed?
      What end of labours has your will decreed?
      Antenor, from the midst of Grecian hosts,
      Could pass secure, and pierce th’ Illyrian coasts,
      Where, rolling down the steep, Timavus raves
      And thro’ nine channels disembogues his waves.
      At length he founded Padua’s happy seat,
      And gave his Trojans a secure retreat;
      There fix’d their arms, and there renew’d their name,
      And there in quiet rules, and crown’d with fame.
      But we, descended from your sacred line,
      Entitled to your heav’n and rites divine,
      Are banish’d earth; and, for the wrath of one,
      Remov’d from Latium and the promis’d throne.
      Are these our scepters? these our due rewards?
      And is it thus that Jove his plighted faith regards?”

      To whom the Father of th’ immortal race,
      Smiling with that serene indulgent face,
      With which he drives the clouds and clears the skies,
      First gave a holy kiss; then thus replies:

      “Daughter, dismiss thy fears; to thy desire
      The fates of thine are fix’d, and stand entire.
      Thou shalt behold thy wish’d Lavinian walls;
      And, ripe for heav’n, when fate Aeneas calls,
      Then shalt thou bear him up, sublime, to me:
      No councils have revers’d my firm decree.
      And, lest new fears disturb thy happy state,
      Know, I have search’d the mystic rolls of Fate:
      Thy son (nor is th’ appointed season far)
      In Italy shall wage successful war,
      Shall tame fierce nations in the bloody field,
      And sov’reign laws impose, and cities build,
      Till, after ev’ry foe subdued, the sun
      Thrice thro’ the signs his annual race shall run:
      This is his time prefix’d. Ascanius then,
      Now call’d Iulus, shall begin his reign.
      He thirty rolling years the crown shall wear,
      Then from Lavinium shall the seat transfer,
      And, with hard labour, Alba Longa build.
      The throne with his succession shall be fill’d
      Three hundred circuits more: then shall be seen
      Ilia the fair, a priestess and a queen,
      Who, full of Mars, in time, with kindly throes,
      Shall at a birth two goodly boys disclose.
      The royal babes a tawny wolf shall drain:
      Then Romulus his grandsire’s throne shall gain,
      Of martial tow’rs the founder shall become,
      The people Romans call, the city Rome.
      To them no bounds of empire I assign,
      Nor term of years to their immortal line.
      Ev’n haughty Juno, who, with endless broils,
      Earth, seas, and heav’n, and Jove himself turmoils;
      At length aton’d, her friendly pow’r shall join,
      To cherish and advance the Trojan line.
      The subject world shall Rome’s dominion own,
      And, prostrate, shall adore the nation of the gown.
      An age is ripening in revolving fate
      When Troy shall overturn the Grecian state,
      And sweet revenge her conqu’ring sons shall call,
      To crush the people that conspir’d her fall.
      Then Caesar from the Julian stock shall rise,
      Whose empire ocean, and whose fame the skies
      Alone shall bound; whom, fraught with eastern spoils,
      Our heav’n, the just reward of human toils,
      Securely shall repay with rites divine;
      And incense shall ascend before his sacred shrine.
      Then dire debate and impious war shall cease,
      And the stern age be soften’d into peace:
      Then banish’d Faith shall once again return,
      And Vestal fires in hallow’d temples burn;
      And Remus with Quirinus shall sustain
      The righteous laws, and fraud and force restrain.
      Janus himself before his fane shall wait,
      And keep the dreadful issues of his gate,
      With bolts and iron bars: within remains
      Imprison’d Fury, bound in brazen chains;
      High on a trophy rais’d, of useless arms,
      He sits, and threats the world with vain alarms.”

      He said, and sent Cyllenius with command
      To free the ports, and ope the Punic land
      To Trojan guests; lest, ignorant of fate,
      The queen might force them from her town and state.
      Down from the steep of heav’n Cyllenius flies,
      And cleaves with all his wings the yielding skies.
      Soon on the Libyan shore descends the god,
      Performs his message, and displays his rod:
      The surly murmurs of the people cease;
      And, as the fates requir’d, they give the peace:
      The queen herself suspends the rigid laws,
      The Trojans pities, and protects their cause.

      Meantime, in shades of night Aeneas lies:
      Care seiz’d his soul, and sleep forsook his eyes.
      But, when the sun restor’d the cheerful day,
      He rose, the coast and country to survey,
      Anxious and eager to discover more.
      It look’d a wild uncultivated shore;
      But, whether humankind, or beasts alone
      Possess’d the new-found region, was unknown.
      Beneath a ledge of rocks his fleet he hides:
      Tall trees surround the mountain’s shady sides;
      The bending brow above a safe retreat provides.
      Arm’d with two pointed darts, he leaves his friends,
      And true Achates on his steps attends.
      Lo! in the deep recesses of the wood,
      Before his eyes his goddess mother stood:
      A huntress in her habit and her mien;
      Her dress a maid, her air confess’d a queen.
      Bare were her knees, and knots her garments bind;
      Loose was her hair, and wanton’d in the wind;
      Her hand sustain’d a bow; her quiver hung behind.
      She seem’d a virgin of the Spartan blood:
      With such array Harpalyce bestrode
      Her Thracian courser and outstripp’d the rapid flood.
      “Ho, strangers! have you lately seen,” she said,
      “One of my sisters, like myself array’d,
      Who cross’d the lawn, or in the forest stray’d?
      A painted quiver at her back she bore;
      Varied with spots, a lynx’s hide she wore;
      And at full cry pursued the tusky boar.”

      Thus Venus: thus her son replied again:
      “None of your sisters have we heard or seen,
      O virgin! or what other name you bear
      Above that style; O more than mortal fair!
      Your voice and mien celestial birth betray!
      If, as you seem, the sister of the day,
      Or one at least of chaste Diana’s train,
      Let not an humble suppliant sue in vain;
      But tell a stranger, long in tempests toss’d,
      What earth we tread, and who commands the coast?
      Then on your name shall wretched mortals call,
      And offer’d victims at your altars fall.”
      “I dare not,” she replied, “assume the name
      Of goddess, or celestial honours claim:
      For Tyrian virgins bows and quivers bear,
      And purple buskins o’er their ankles wear.
      Know, gentle youth, in Libyan lands you are:
      A people rude in peace, and rough in war.
      The rising city, which from far you see,
      Is Carthage, and a Tyrian colony.
      Phoenician Dido rules the growing state,
      Who fled from Tyre, to shun her brother’s hate.
      Great were her wrongs, her story full of fate;
      Which I will sum in short. Sichaeus, known
      For wealth, and brother to the Punic throne,
      Possess’d fair Dido’s bed; and either heart
      At once was wounded with an equal dart.
      Her father gave her, yet a spotless maid;
      Pygmalion then the Tyrian scepter sway’d:
      One who condemn’d divine and human laws.
      Then strife ensued, and cursed gold the cause.
      The monarch, blinded with desire of wealth,
      With steel invades his brother’s life by stealth;
      Before the sacred altar made him bleed,
      And long from her conceal’d the cruel deed.
      Some tale, some new pretence, he daily coin’d,
      To soothe his sister, and delude her mind.
      At length, in dead of night, the ghost appears
      Of her unhappy lord: the spectre stares,
      And, with erected eyes, his bloody bosom bares.
      The cruel altars and his fate he tells,
      And the dire secret of his house reveals,
      Then warns the widow, with her household gods,
      To seek a refuge in remote abodes.
      Last, to support her in so long a way,
      He shows her where his hidden treasure lay.
      Admonish’d thus, and seiz’d with mortal fright,
      The queen provides companions of her flight:
      They meet, and all combine to leave the state,
      Who hate the tyrant, or who fear his hate.
      They seize a fleet, which ready rigg’d they find;
      Nor is Pygmalion’s treasure left behind.
      The vessels, heavy laden, put to sea
      With prosp’rous winds; a woman leads the way.
      I know not, if by stress of weather driv’n,
      Or was their fatal course dispos’d by Heav’n;
      At last they landed, where from far your eyes
      May view the turrets of new Carthage rise;
      There bought a space of ground, which Byrsa call’d,
      From the bull’s hide, they first inclos’d, and wall’d.
      But whence are you? what country claims your birth?
      What seek you, strangers, on our Libyan earth?”

      To whom, with sorrow streaming from his eyes,
      And deeply sighing, thus her son replies:
      “Could you with patience hear, or I relate,
      O nymph, the tedious annals of our fate!
      Thro’ such a train of woes if I should run,
      The day would sooner than the tale be done!
      From ancient Troy, by force expell’d, we came,
      If you by chance have heard the Trojan name.
      On various seas by various tempests toss’d,
      At length we landed on your Libyan coast.
      The good Aeneas am I call’d, a name,
      While Fortune favour’d, not unknown to fame.
      My household gods, companions of my woes,
      With pious care I rescued from our foes.
      To fruitful Italy my course was bent;
      And from the King of Heav’n is my descent.
      With twice ten sail I cross’d the Phrygian sea;
      Fate and my mother goddess led my way.
      Scarce sev’n, the thin remainders of my fleet,
      From storms preserv’d, within your harbour meet.
      Myself distress’d, an exile, and unknown,
      Debarr’d from Europe, and from Asia thrown,
      In Libyan deserts wander thus alone.”

      His tender parent could no longer bear;
      But, interposing, sought to soothe his care.
      “Whoe’er you are, not unbelov’d by Heav’n,
      Since on our friendly shore your ships are driv’n:
      Have courage: to the gods permit the rest,
      And to the queen expose your just request.
      Now take this earnest of success, for more:
      Your scatter’d fleet is join’d upon the shore;
      The winds are chang’d, your friends from danger free;
      Or I renounce my skill in augury.
      Twelve swans behold in beauteous order move,
      And stoop with closing pinions from above;
      Whom late the bird of Jove had driv’n along,
      And thro’ the clouds pursued the scatt’ring throng:
      Now, all united in a goodly team,
      They skim the ground, and seek the quiet stream.
      As they, with joy returning, clap their wings,
      And ride the circuit of the skies in rings;
      Not otherwise your ships, and ev’ry friend,
      Already hold the port, or with swift sails descend.
      No more advice is needful; but pursue
      The path before you, and the town in view.”

      Thus having said, she turn’d, and made appear
      Her neck refulgent, and dishevel’d hair,
      Which, flowing from her shoulders, reach’d the ground.
      And widely spread ambrosial scents around:
      In length of train descends her sweeping gown;
      And, by her graceful walk, the Queen of Love is known.
      The prince pursued the parting deity
      With words like these: “Ah! whither do you fly?
      Unkind and cruel! to deceive your son
      In borrow’d shapes, and his embrace to shun;
      Never to bless my sight, but thus unknown;
      And still to speak in accents not your own.”
      Against the goddess these complaints he made,
      But took the path, and her commands obey’d.
      They march, obscure; for Venus kindly shrouds
      With mists their persons, and involves in clouds,
      That, thus unseen, their passage none might stay,
      Or force to tell the causes of their way.
      This part perform’d, the goddess flies sublime
      To visit Paphos and her native clime;
      Where garlands, ever green and ever fair,
      With vows are offer’d, and with solemn pray’r:
      A hundred altars in her temple smoke;
      A thousand bleeding hearts her pow’r invoke.

      They climb the next ascent, and, looking down,
      Now at a nearer distance view the town.
      The prince with wonder sees the stately tow’rs,
      Which late were huts and shepherds’ homely bow’rs,
      The gates and streets; and hears, from ev’ry part,
      The noise and busy concourse of the mart.
      The toiling Tyrians on each other call
      To ply their labour: some extend the wall;
      Some build the citadel; the brawny throng
      Or dig, or push unwieldly stones along.
      Some for their dwellings choose a spot of ground,
      Which, first design’d, with ditches they surround.
      Some laws ordain; and some attend the choice
      Of holy senates, and elect by voice.
      Here some design a mole, while others there
      Lay deep foundations for a theatre;
      From marble quarries mighty columns hew,
      For ornaments of scenes, and future view.
      Such is their toil, and such their busy pains,
      As exercise the bees in flow’ry plains,
      When winter past, and summer scarce begun,
      Invites them forth to labour in the sun;
      Some lead their youth abroad, while some condense
      Their liquid store, and some in cells dispense;
      Some at the gate stand ready to receive
      The golden burthen, and their friends relieve;
      All with united force, combine to drive
      The lazy drones from the laborious hive:
      With envy stung, they view each other’s deeds;
      The fragrant work with diligence proceeds.
      “Thrice happy you, whose walls already rise!”
      Aeneas said, and view’d, with lifted eyes,
      Their lofty tow’rs; then, ent’ring at the gate,
      Conceal’d in clouds (prodigious to relate)
      He mix’d, unmark’d, among the busy throng,
      Borne by the tide, and pass’d unseen along.

      Full in the centre of the town there stood,
      Thick set with trees, a venerable wood.
      The Tyrians, landing near this holy ground,
      And digging here, a prosp’rous omen found:
      From under earth a courser’s head they drew,
      Their growth and future fortune to foreshew.
      This fated sign their foundress Juno gave,
      Of a soil fruitful, and a people brave.
      Sidonian Dido here with solemn state
      Did Juno’s temple build, and consecrate,
      Enrich’d with gifts, and with a golden shrine;
      But more the goddess made the place divine.
      On brazen steps the marble threshold rose,
      And brazen plates the cedar beams inclose:
      The rafters are with brazen cov’rings crown’d;
      The lofty doors on brazen hinges sound.
      What first Aeneas in this place beheld,
      Reviv’d his courage, and his fear expell’d.
      For while, expecting there the queen, he rais’d
      His wond’ring eyes, and round the temple gaz’d,
      Admir’d the fortune of the rising town,
      The striving artists, and their arts’ renown;
      He saw, in order painted on the wall,
      Whatever did unhappy Troy befall:
      The wars that fame around the world had blown,
      All to the life, and ev’ry leader known.
      There Agamemnon, Priam here, he spies,
      And fierce Achilles, who both kings defies.
      He stopp’d, and weeping said: “O friend! ev’n here
      The monuments of Trojan woes appear!
      Our known disasters fill ev’n foreign lands:
      See there, where old unhappy Priam stands!
      Ev’n the mute walls relate the warrior’s fame,
      And Trojan griefs the Tyrians’ pity claim.”
      He said, his tears a ready passage find,
      Devouring what he saw so well design’d,
      And with an empty picture fed his mind:
      For there he saw the fainting Grecians yield,
      And here the trembling Trojans quit the field,
      Pursued by fierce Achilles thro’ the plain,
      On his high chariot driving o’er the slain.
      The tents of Rhesus next, his grief renew,
      By their white sails betray’d to nightly view;
      And wakeful Diomede, whose cruel sword
      The sentries slew, nor spar’d their slumb’ring lord,
      Then took the fiery steeds, ere yet the food
      Of Troy they taste, or drink the Xanthian flood.
      Elsewhere he saw where Troilus defied
      Achilles, and unequal combat tried;
      Then, where the boy disarm’d, with loosen’d reins,
      Was by his horses hurried o’er the plains,
      Hung by the neck and hair, and dragg’d around:
      The hostile spear, yet sticking in his wound,
      With tracks of blood inscrib’d the dusty ground.
      Meantime the Trojan dames, oppress’d with woe,
      To Pallas’ fane in long procession go,
      In hopes to reconcile their heav’nly foe.
      They weep, they beat their breasts, they rend their hair,
      And rich embroider’d vests for presents bear;
      But the stern goddess stands unmov’d with pray’r.
      Thrice round the Trojan walls Achilles drew
      The corpse of Hector, whom in fight he slew.
      Here Priam sues; and there, for sums of gold,
      The lifeless body of his son is sold.
      So sad an object, and so well express’d,
      Drew sighs and groans from the griev’d hero’s breast,
      To see the figure of his lifeless friend,
      And his old sire his helpless hand extend.
      Himself he saw amidst the Grecian train,
      Mix’d in the bloody battle on the plain;
      And swarthy Memnon in his arms he knew,
      His pompous ensigns, and his Indian crew.
      Penthisilea there, with haughty grace,
      Leads to the wars an Amazonian race:
      In their right hands a pointed dart they wield;
      The left, for ward, sustains the lunar shield.
      Athwart her breast a golden belt she throws,
      Amidst the press alone provokes a thousand foes,
      And dares her maiden arms to manly force oppose.

      Thus while the Trojan prince employs his eyes,
      Fix’d on the walls with wonder and surprise,
      The beauteous Dido, with a num’rous train
      And pomp of guards, ascends the sacred fane.
      Such on Eurotas’ banks, or Cynthus’ height,
      Diana seems; and so she charms the sight,
      When in the dance the graceful goddess leads
      The choir of nymphs, and overtops their heads:
      Known by her quiver, and her lofty mien,
      She walks majestic, and she looks their queen;
      Latona sees her shine above the rest,
      And feeds with secret joy her silent breast.
      Such Dido was; with such becoming state,
      Amidst the crowd, she walks serenely great.
      Their labour to her future sway she speeds,
      And passing with a gracious glance proceeds;
      Then mounts the throne, high plac’d before the shrine:
      In crowds around, the swarming people join.
      She takes petitions, and dispenses laws,
      Hears and determines ev’ry private cause;
      Their tasks in equal portions she divides,
      And, where unequal, there by lots decides.
      Another way by chance Aeneas bends
      His eyes, and unexpected sees his friends,
      Antheus, Sergestus grave, Cloanthus strong,
      And at their backs a mighty Trojan throng,
      Whom late the tempest on the billows toss’d,
      And widely scatter’d on another coast.
      The prince, unseen, surpris’d with wonder stands,
      And longs, with joyful haste, to join their hands;
      But, doubtful of the wish’d event, he stays,
      And from the hollow cloud his friends surveys,
      Impatient till they told their present state,
      And where they left their ships, and what their fate,
      And why they came, and what was their request;
      For these were sent, commission’d by the rest,
      To sue for leave to land their sickly men,
      And gain admission to the gracious queen.
      Ent’ring, with cries they fill’d the holy fane;
      Then thus, with lowly voice, Ilioneus began:

      “O Queen! indulg’d by favour of the gods
      To found an empire in these new abodes,
      To build a town, with statutes to restrain
      The wild inhabitants beneath thy reign,
      We wretched Trojans, toss’d on ev’ry shore,
      From sea to sea, thy clemency implore.
      Forbid the fires our shipping to deface!
      Receive th’ unhappy fugitives to grace,
      And spare the remnant of a pious race!
      We come not with design of wasteful prey,
      To drive the country, force the swains away:
      Nor such our strength, nor such is our desire;
      The vanquish’d dare not to such thoughts aspire.
      A land there is, Hesperia nam’d of old;
      The soil is fruitful, and the men are bold
      Th’ Oenotrians held it once, by common fame
      Now call’d Italia, from the leader’s name.
      To that sweet region was our voyage bent,
      When winds and ev’ry warring element
      Disturb’d our course, and, far from sight of land,
      Cast our torn vessels on the moving sand:
      The sea came on; the South, with mighty roar,
      Dispers’d and dash’d the rest upon the rocky shore.
      Those few you see escap’d the storm, and fear,
      Unless you interpose, a shipwreck here.
      What men, what monsters, what inhuman race,
      What laws, what barb’rous customs of the place,
      Shut up a desert shore to drowning men,
      And drive us to the cruel seas again?
      If our hard fortune no compassion draws,
      Nor hospitable rights, nor human laws,
      The gods are just, and will revenge our cause.
      Aeneas was our prince: a juster lord,
      Or nobler warrior, never drew a sword;
      Observant of the right, religious of his word.
      If yet he lives, and draws this vital air,
      Nor we, his friends, of safety shall despair;
      Nor you, great queen, these offices repent,
      Which he will equal, and perhaps augment.
      We want not cities, nor Sicilian coasts,
      Where King Acestes Trojan lineage boasts.
      Permit our ships a shelter on your shores,
      Refitted from your woods with planks and oars,
      That, if our prince be safe, we may renew
      Our destin’d course, and Italy pursue.
      But if, O best of men, the Fates ordain
      That thou art swallow’d in the Libyan main,
      And if our young Iulus be no more,
      Dismiss our navy from your friendly shore,
      That we to good Acestes may return,
      And with our friends our common losses mourn.”
      Thus spoke Ilioneus: the Trojan crew
      With cries and clamours his request renew.

      The modest queen a while, with downcast eyes,
      Ponder’d the speech; then briefly thus replies:
      “Trojans, dismiss your fears; my cruel fate,
      And doubts attending an unsettled state,
      Force me to guard my coast from foreign foes.
      Who has not heard the story of your woes,
      The name and fortune of your native place,
      The fame and valour of the Phrygian race?
      We Tyrians are not so devoid of sense,
      Nor so remote from Phoebus’ influence.
      Whether to Latian shores your course is bent,
      Or, driv’n by tempests from your first intent,
      You seek the good Acestes’ government,
      Your men shall be receiv’d, your fleet repair’d,
      And sail, with ships of convoy for your guard:
      Or, would you stay, and join your friendly pow’rs
      To raise and to defend the Tyrian tow’rs,
      My wealth, my city, and myself are yours.
      And would to Heav’n, the Storm, you felt, would bring
      On Carthaginian coasts your wand’ring king.
      My people shall, by my command, explore
      The ports and creeks of ev’ry winding shore,
      And towns, and wilds, and shady woods, in quest
      Of so renown’d and so desir’d a guest.”

      Rais’d in his mind the Trojan hero stood,
      And long’d to break from out his ambient cloud:
      Achates found it, and thus urg’d his way:
      “From whence, O goddess-born, this long delay?
      What more can you desire, your welcome sure,
      Your fleet in safety, and your friends secure?
      One only wants; and him we saw in vain
      Oppose the Storm, and swallow’d in the main.
      Orontes in his fate our forfeit paid;
      The rest agrees with what your mother said.”
      Scarce had he spoken, when the cloud gave way,
      The mists flew upward and dissolv’d in day.

      The Trojan chief appear’d in open sight,
      August in visage, and serenely bright.
      His mother goddess, with her hands divine,
      Had form’d his curling locks, and made his temples shine,
      And giv’n his rolling eyes a sparkling grace,
      And breath’d a youthful vigour on his face;
      Like polish’d ivory, beauteous to behold,
      Or Parian marble, when enchas’d in gold:
      Thus radiant from the circling cloud he broke,
      And thus with manly modesty he spoke:

      “He whom you seek am I; by tempests toss’d,
      And sav’d from shipwreck on your Libyan coast;
      Presenting, gracious queen, before your throne,
      A prince that owes his life to you alone.
      Fair majesty, the refuge and redress
      Of those whom fate pursues, and wants oppress,
      You, who your pious offices employ
      To save the relics of abandon’d Troy;
      Receive the shipwreck’d on your friendly shore,
      With hospitable rites relieve the poor;
      Associate in your town a wand’ring train,
      And strangers in your palace entertain:
      What thanks can wretched fugitives return,
      Who, scatter’d thro’ the world, in exile mourn?
      The gods, if gods to goodness are inclin’d;
      If acts of mercy touch their heav’nly mind,
      And, more than all the gods, your gen’rous heart.
      Conscious of worth, requite its own desert!
      In you this age is happy, and this earth,
      And parents more than mortal gave you birth.
      While rolling rivers into seas shall run,
      And round the space of heav’n the radiant sun;
      While trees the mountain tops with shades supply,
      Your honour, name, and praise shall never die.
      Whate’er abode my fortune has assign’d,
      Your image shall be present in my mind.”
      Thus having said, he turn’d with pious haste,
      And joyful his expecting friends embrac’d:
      With his right hand Ilioneus was grac’d,
      Serestus with his left; then to his breast
      Cloanthus and the noble Gyas press’d;
      And so by turns descended to the rest.

      The Tyrian queen stood fix’d upon his face,
      Pleas’d with his motions, ravish’d with his grace;
      Admir’d his fortunes, more admir’d the man;
      Then recollected stood, and thus began:
      “What fate, O goddess-born; what angry pow’rs
      Have cast you shipwreck’d on our barren shores?
      Are you the great Aeneas, known to fame,
      Who from celestial seed your lineage claim?

      The same Aeneas whom fair Venus bore
      To fam’d Anchises on th’ Idaean shore?
      It calls into my mind, tho’ then a child,
      When Teucer came, from Salamis exil’d,
      And sought my father’s aid, to be restor’d:
      My father Belus then with fire and sword
      Invaded Cyprus, made the region bare,
      And, conqu’ring, finish’d the successful war.
      From him the Trojan siege I understood,
      The Grecian chiefs, and your illustrious blood.
      Your foe himself the Dardan valour prais’d,
      And his own ancestry from Trojans rais’d.
      Enter, my noble guest, and you shall find,
      If not a costly welcome, yet a kind:
      For I myself, like you, have been distress’d,
      Till Heav’n afforded me this place of rest;
      Like you, an alien in a land unknown,
      I learn to pity woes so like my own.”
      She said, and to the palace led her guest;
      Then offer’d incense, and proclaim’d a feast.
      Nor yet less careful for her absent friends,
      Twice ten fat oxen to the ships she sends;
      Besides a hundred boars, a hundred lambs,
      With bleating cries, attend their milky dams;
      And jars of gen’rous wine and spacious bowls
      She gives, to cheer the sailors’ drooping souls.
      Now purple hangings clothe the palace walls,
      And sumptuous feasts are made in splendid halls:
      On Tyrian carpets, richly wrought, they dine;
      With loads of massy plate the sideboards shine,
      And antique vases, all of gold emboss’d
      (The gold itself inferior to the cost),
      Of curious work, where on the sides were seen
      The fights and figures of illustrious men,
      From their first founder to the present queen.

      The good Aeneas, whose paternal care
      Iulus’ absence could no longer bear,
      Dispatch’d Achates to the ships in haste,
      To give a glad relation of the past,
      And, fraught with precious gifts, to bring the boy,
      Snatch’d from the ruins of unhappy Troy:
      A robe of tissue, stiff with golden wire;
      An upper vest, once Helen’s rich attire,
      From Argos by the fam’d adultress brought,
      With golden flow’rs and winding foliage wrought,
      Her mother Leda’s present, when she came
      To ruin Troy and set the world on flame;
      The scepter Priam’s eldest daughter bore,
      Her orient necklace, and the crown she wore
      Of double texture, glorious to behold,
      One order set with gems, and one with gold.
      Instructed thus, the wise Achates goes,
      And in his diligence his duty shows.

      But Venus, anxious for her son’s affairs,
      New counsels tries, and new designs prepares:
      That Cupid should assume the shape and face
      Of sweet Ascanius, and the sprightly grace;
      Should bring the presents, in her nephew’s stead,
      And in Eliza’s veins the gentle poison shed:
      For much she fear’d the Tyrians, double-tongued,
      And knew the town to Juno’s care belong’d.
      These thoughts by night her golden slumbers broke,
      And thus alarm’d, to winged Love she spoke:
      “My son, my strength, whose mighty pow’r alone
      Controls the Thund’rer on his awful throne,
      To thee thy much-afflicted mother flies,
      And on thy succour and thy faith relies.
      Thou know’st, my son, how Jove’s revengeful wife,
      By force and fraud, attempts thy brother’s life;
      And often hast thou mourn’d with me his pains.
      Him Dido now with blandishment detains;
      But I suspect the town where Juno reigns.
      For this ’tis needful to prevent her art,
      And fire with love the proud Phoenician’s heart:
      A love so violent, so strong, so sure,
      As neither age can change, nor art can cure.
      How this may be perform’d, now take my mind:
      Ascanius by his father is design’d
      To come, with presents laden, from the port,
      To gratify the queen, and gain the court.
      I mean to plunge the boy in pleasing sleep,
      And, ravish’d, in Idalian bow’rs to keep,
      Or high Cythera, that the sweet deceit
      May pass unseen, and none prevent the cheat.
      Take thou his form and shape. I beg the grace
      But only for a night’s revolving space:
      Thyself a boy, assume a boy’s dissembled face;
      That when, amidst the fervour of the feast,
      The Tyrian hugs and fonds thee on her breast,
      And with sweet kisses in her arms constrains,
      Thou may’st infuse thy venom in her veins.”
      The God of Love obeys, and sets aside
      His bow and quiver, and his plumy pride;
      He walks Iulus in his mother’s sight,
      And in the sweet resemblance takes delight.

      The goddess then to young Ascanius flies,
      And in a pleasing slumber seals his eyes:
      Lull’d in her lap, amidst a train of Loves,
      She gently bears him to her blissful groves,
      Then with a wreath of myrtle crowns his head,
      And softly lays him on a flow’ry bed.
      Cupid meantime assum’d his form and face,
      Foll’wing Achates with a shorter pace,
      And brought the gifts. The queen already sate
      Amidst the Trojan lords, in shining state,
      High on a golden bed: her princely guest
      Was next her side; in order sate the rest.
      Then canisters with bread are heap’d on high;
      Th’ attendants water for their hands supply,
      And, having wash’d, with silken towels dry.
      Next fifty handmaids in long order bore
      The censers, and with fumes the gods adore:
      Then youths, and virgins twice as many, join
      To place the dishes, and to serve the wine.
      The Tyrian train, admitted to the feast,
      Approach, and on the painted couches rest.
      All on the Trojan gifts with wonder gaze,
      But view the beauteous boy with more amaze,
      His rosy-colour’d cheeks, his radiant eyes,
      His motions, voice, and shape, and all the god’s disguise;
      Nor pass unprais’d the vest and veil divine,
      Which wand’ring foliage and rich flow’rs entwine.
      But, far above the rest, the royal dame,
      (Already doom’d to love’s disastrous flame,)
      With eyes insatiate, and tumultuous joy,
      Beholds the presents, and admires the boy.
      The guileful god about the hero long,
      With children’s play, and false embraces, hung;
      Then sought the queen: she took him to her arms
      With greedy pleasure, and devour’d his charms.
      Unhappy Dido little thought what guest,
      How dire a god, she drew so near her breast;
      But he, not mindless of his mother’s pray’r,
      Works in the pliant bosom of the fair,
      And moulds her heart anew, and blots her former care.
      The dead is to the living love resign’d;
      And all Aeneas enters in her mind.

      Now, when the rage of hunger was appeas’d,
      The meat remov’d, and ev’ry guest was pleas’d,
      The golden bowls with sparkling wine are crown’d,
      And thro’ the palace cheerful cries resound.
      From gilded roofs depending lamps display
      Nocturnal beams, that emulate the day.
      A golden bowl, that shone with gems divine,
      The queen commanded to be crown’d with wine:
      The bowl that Belus us’d, and all the Tyrian line.
      Then, silence thro’ the hall proclaim’d, she spoke:
      “O hospitable Jove! we thus invoke,
      With solemn rites, thy sacred name and pow’r;
      Bless to both nations this auspicious hour!
      So may the Trojan and the Tyrian line
      In lasting concord from this day combine.
      Thou, Bacchus, god of joys and friendly cheer,
      And gracious Juno, both be present here!
      And you, my lords of Tyre, your vows address
      To Heav’n with mine, to ratify the peace.”
      The goblet then she took, with nectar crown’d
      (Sprinkling the first libations on the ground,)
      And rais’d it to her mouth with sober grace;
      Then, sipping, offer’d to the next in place.
      ’Twas Bitias whom she call’d, a thirsty soul;
      He took the challenge, and embrac’d the bowl,
      With pleasure swill’d the gold, nor ceas’d to draw,
      Till he the bottom of the brimmer saw.
      The goblet goes around: Iopas brought
      His golden lyre, and sung what ancient Atlas taught:
      The various labours of the wand’ring moon,
      And whence proceed th’ eclipses of the sun;
      Th’ original of men and beasts; and whence
      The rains arise, and fires their warmth dispense,
      And fix’d and erring stars dispose their influence;
      What shakes the solid earth; what cause delays
      The summer nights and shortens winter days.
      With peals of shouts the Tyrians praise the song:
      Those peals are echo’d by the Trojan throng.
      Th’ unhappy queen with talk prolong’d the night,
      And drank large draughts of love with vast delight;
      Of Priam much enquir’d, of Hector more;
      Then ask’d what arms the swarthy Memnon wore,
      What troops he landed on the Trojan shore;
      The steeds of Diomede varied the discourse,
      And fierce Achilles, with his matchless force;
      At length, as fate and her ill stars requir’d,
      To hear the series of the war desir’d.
      “Relate at large, my godlike guest,” she said,
      “The Grecian stratagems, the town betray’d:
      The fatal issue of so long a war,
      Your flight, your wand’rings, and your woes, declare;
      For, since on ev’ry sea, on ev’ry coast,
      Your men have been distress’d, your navy toss’d,
      Sev’n times the sun has either tropic view’d,
      The winter banish’d, and the spring renew’d.”



 BOOK II

 THE ARGUMENT.


      Aeneas relates how the city of Troy was taken, after a ten years’
      siege, by the treachery of Sinon, and the stratagem of a wooden
      horse. He declares the fixed resolution he had taken not to
      survive the ruin of his country, and the various adventures he
      met with in defence of it. At last, having been before advised by
      Hector’s ghost, and now by the appearance of his mother Venus, he
      is prevailed upon to leave the town, and settle his household
      gods in another country. In order to this, he carries off his
      father on his shoulders, and leads his little son by the hand,
      his wife following behind. When he comes to the place appointed
      for the general rendezvous, he finds a great confluence of
      people, but misses his wife, whose ghost afterwards appears to
      him, and tells him the land which was designed for him.


      All were attentive to the godlike man,
      When from his lofty couch he thus began:
      “Great queen, what you command me to relate
      Renews the sad remembrance of our fate:
      An empire from its old foundations rent,
      And ev’ry woe the Trojans underwent;
      A peopled city made a desert place;
      All that I saw, and part of which I was:
      Not ev’n the hardest of our foes could hear,
      Nor stern Ulysses tell without a tear.
      And now the latter watch of wasting night,
      And setting stars, to kindly rest invite;
      But, since you take such int’rest in our woe,
      And Troy’s disastrous end desire to know,
      I will restrain my tears, and briefly tell
      What in our last and fatal night befell.

      “By destiny compell’d, and in despair,
      The Greeks grew weary of the tedious war,
      And by Minerva’s aid a fabric rear’d,
      Which like a steed of monstrous height appear’d:
      The sides were plank’d with pine; they feign’d it made
      For their return, and this the vow they paid.
      Thus they pretend, but in the hollow side
      Selected numbers of their soldiers hide:
      With inward arms the dire machine they load,
      And iron bowels stuff the dark abode.
      In sight of Troy lies Tenedos, an isle
      (While Fortune did on Priam’s empire smile)
      Renown’d for wealth; but, since, a faithless bay,
      Where ships expos’d to wind and weather lay.
      There was their fleet conceal’d. We thought, for Greece
      Their sails were hoisted, and our fears release.
      The Trojans, coop’d within their walls so long,
      Unbar their gates, and issue in a throng,
      Like swarming bees, and with delight survey
      The camp deserted, where the Grecians lay:
      The quarters of the sev’ral chiefs they show’d;
      Here Phoenix, here Achilles, made abode;
      Here join’d the battles; there the navy rode.
      Part on the pile their wond’ring eyes employ:
      The pile by Pallas rais’d to ruin Troy.
      Thymoetes first (’tis doubtful whether hir’d,
      Or so the Trojan destiny requir’d)
      Mov’d that the ramparts might be broken down,
      To lodge the monster fabric in the town.
      But Capys, and the rest of sounder mind,
      The fatal present to the flames designed,
      Or to the wat’ry deep; at least to bore
      The hollow sides, and hidden frauds explore.
      The giddy vulgar, as their fancies guide,
      With noise say nothing, and in parts divide.
      Laocoon, follow’d by a num’rous crowd,
      Ran from the fort, and cried, from far, aloud:
      ‘O wretched countrymen! what fury reigns?
      What more than madness has possess’d your brains?
      Think you the Grecians from your coasts are gone?
      And are Ulysses’ arts no better known?
      This hollow fabric either must inclose,
      Within its blind recess, our secret foes;
      Or ’tis an engine rais’d above the town,
      T’ o’erlook the walls, and then to batter down.
      Somewhat is sure design’d, by fraud or force:
      Trust not their presents, nor admit the horse.’
      Thus having said, against the steed he threw
      His forceful spear, which, hissing as it flew,
      Pierc’d thro’ the yielding planks of jointed wood,
      And trembling in the hollow belly stood.
      The sides, transpierc’d, return a rattling sound,
      And groans of Greeks inclos’d come issuing thro’ the wound
      And, had not Heav’n the fall of Troy design’d,
      Or had not men been fated to be blind,
      Enough was said and done t’inspire a better mind.
      Then had our lances pierc’d the treach’rous wood,
      And Ilian tow’rs and Priam’s empire stood.
      Meantime, with shouts, the Trojan shepherds bring
      A captive Greek, in bands, before the king;
      Taken to take; who made himself their prey,
      T’ impose on their belief, and Troy betray;
      Fix’d on his aim, and obstinately bent
      To die undaunted, or to circumvent.
      About the captive, tides of Trojans flow;
      All press to see, and some insult the foe.
      Now hear how well the Greeks their wiles disguis’d;
      Behold a nation in a man compris’d.
      Trembling the miscreant stood, unarm’d and bound;
      He star’d, and roll’d his haggard eyes around,
      Then said: ‘Alas! what earth remains, what sea
      Is open to receive unhappy me?
      What fate a wretched fugitive attends,
      Scorn’d by my foes, abandon’d by my friends?’
      He said, and sigh’d, and cast a rueful eye:
      Our pity kindles, and our passions die.
      We cheer the youth to make his own defence,
      And freely tell us what he was, and whence:
      What news he could impart, we long to know,
      And what to credit from a captive foe.

      “His fear at length dismiss’d, he said: ‘Whate’er
      My fate ordains, my words shall be sincere:
      I neither can nor dare my birth disclaim;
      Greece is my country, Sinon is my name.
      Tho’ plung’d by Fortune’s pow’r in misery,
      ’Tis not in Fortune’s pow’r to make me lie.
      If any chance has hither brought the name
      Of Palamedes, not unknown to fame,
      Who suffer’d from the malice of the times,
      Accus’d and sentenc’d for pretended crimes,
      Because these fatal wars he would prevent;
      Whose death the wretched Greeks too late lament;
      Me, then a boy, my father, poor and bare
      Of other means, committed to his care,
      His kinsman and companion in the war.
      While Fortune favour’d, while his arms support
      The cause, and rul’d the counsels, of the court,
      I made some figure there; nor was my name
      Obscure, nor I without my share of fame.
      But when Ulysses, with fallacious arts,
      Had made impression in the people’s hearts,
      And forg’d a treason in my patron’s name
      (I speak of things too far divulg’d by fame),
      My kinsman fell. Then I, without support,
      In private mourn’d his loss, and left the court.
      Mad as I was, I could not bear his fate
      With silent grief, but loudly blam’d the state,
      And curs’d the direful author of my woes.
      ’Twas told again; and hence my ruin rose.
      I threaten’d, if indulgent Heav’n once more
      Would land me safely on my native shore,
      His death with double vengeance to restore.
      This mov’d the murderer’s hate; and soon ensued
      Th’ effects of malice from a man so proud.
      Ambiguous rumours thro’ the camp he spread,
      And sought, by treason, my devoted head;
      New crimes invented; left unturn’d no stone,
      To make my guilt appear, and hide his own;
      Till Calchas was by force and threat’ning wrought:
      But why—why dwell I on that anxious thought?
      If on my nation just revenge you seek,
      And ’tis t’ appear a foe, t’ appear a Greek;
      Already you my name and country know;
      Assuage your thirst of blood, and strike the blow:
      My death will both the kingly brothers please,
      And set insatiate Ithacus at ease.’
      This fair unfinish’d tale, these broken starts,
      Rais’d expectations in our longing hearts:
      Unknowing as we were in Grecian arts.
      His former trembling once again renew’d,
      With acted fear, the villain thus pursued:

      “‘Long had the Grecians (tir’d with fruitless care,
      And wearied with an unsuccessful war)
      Resolv’d to raise the siege, and leave the town;
      And, had the gods permitted, they had gone;
      But oft the wintry seas and southern winds
      Withstood their passage home, and chang’d their minds.
      Portents and prodigies their souls amaz’d;
      But most, when this stupendous pile was rais’d:
      Then flaming meteors, hung in air, were seen,
      And thunders rattled thro’ a sky serene.
      Dismay’d, and fearful of some dire event,
      Eurypylus t’ enquire their fate was sent.
      He from the gods this dreadful answer brought:

      “O Grecians, when the Trojan shores you sought,
      Your passage with a virgin’s blood was bought:
      So must your safe return be bought again,
      And Grecian blood once more atone the main.”
      The spreading rumour round the people ran;
      All fear’d, and each believ’d himself the man.
      Ulysses took th’ advantage of their fright;
      Call’d Calchas, and produc’d in open sight:
      Then bade him name the wretch, ordain’d by fate
      The public victim, to redeem the state.
      Already some presag’d the dire event,
      And saw what sacrifice Ulysses meant.
      For twice five days the good old seer withstood
      Th’ intended treason, and was dumb to blood,
      Till, tir’d, with endless clamours and pursuit
      Of Ithacus, he stood no longer mute;
      But, as it was agreed, pronounc’d that I
      Was destin’d by the wrathful gods to die.
      All prais’d the sentence, pleas’d the storm should fall
      On one alone, whose fury threaten’d all.
      The dismal day was come; the priests prepare
      Their leaven’d cakes, and fillets for my hair.
      I follow’d nature’s laws, and must avow
      I broke my bonds and fled the fatal blow.
      Hid in a weedy lake all night I lay,
      Secure of safety when they sail’d away.
      But now what further hopes for me remain,
      To see my friends, or native soil, again;
      My tender infants, or my careful sire,
      Whom they returning will to death require;
      Will perpetrate on them their first design,
      And take the forfeit of their heads for mine?
      Which, O! if pity mortal minds can move,
      If there be faith below, or gods above,
      If innocence and truth can claim desert,
      Ye Trojans, from an injur’d wretch avert.’

      “False tears true pity move; the king commands
      To loose his fetters, and unbind his hands:
      Then adds these friendly words: ‘Dismiss thy fears;
      Forget the Greeks; be mine as thou wert theirs.
      But truly tell, was it for force or guile,
      Or some religious end, you rais’d the pile?’
      Thus said the king. He, full of fraudful arts,
      This well-invented tale for truth imparts:
      ‘Ye lamps of heav’n!’ he said, and lifted high
      His hands now free, ‘thou venerable sky!
      Inviolable pow’rs, ador’d with dread!
      Ye fatal fillets, that once bound this head!
      Ye sacred altars, from whose flames I fled!
      Be all of you adjur’d; and grant I may,
      Without a crime, th’ ungrateful Greeks betray,
      Reveal the secrets of the guilty state,
      And justly punish whom I justly hate!
      But you, O king, preserve the faith you gave,
      If I, to save myself, your empire save.
      The Grecian hopes, and all th’ attempts they made,
      Were only founded on Minerva’s aid.
      But from the time when impious Diomede,
      And false Ulysses, that inventive head,
      Her fatal image from the temple drew,
      The sleeping guardians of the castle slew,
      Her virgin statue with their bloody hands
      Polluted, and profan’d her holy bands;
      From thence the tide of fortune left their shore,
      And ebb’d much faster than it flow’d before:
      Their courage languish’d, as their hopes decay’d;
      And Pallas, now averse, refus’d her aid.
      Nor did the goddess doubtfully declare
      Her alter’d mind and alienated care.
      When first her fatal image touch’d the ground,
      She sternly cast her glaring eyes around,
      That sparkled as they roll’d, and seem’d to threat:
      Her heav’nly limbs distill’d a briny sweat.
      Thrice from the ground she leap’d, was seen to wield
      Her brandish’d lance, and shake her horrid shield.
      Then Calchas bade our host for flight
      And hope no conquest from the tedious war,
      Till first they sail’d for Greece; with pray’rs besought
      Her injur’d pow’r, and better omens brought.
      And now their navy plows the wat’ry main,
      Yet soon expect it on your shores again,
      With Pallas pleas’d; as Calchas did ordain.
      But first, to reconcile the blue-ey’d maid
      For her stol’n statue and her tow’r betray’d,
      Warn’d by the seer, to her offended name
      We rais’d and dedicate this wondrous frame,
      So lofty, lest thro’ your forbidden gates
      It pass, and intercept our better fates:
      For, once admitted there, our hopes are lost;
      And Troy may then a new Palladium boast;
      For so religion and the gods ordain,
      That, if you violate with hands profane
      Minerva’s gift, your town in flames shall burn,
      (Which omen, O ye gods, on Grecia turn!)
      But if it climb, with your assisting hands,
      The Trojan walls, and in the city stands;
      Then Troy shall Argos and Mycenae burn,
      And the reverse of fate on us return.’

      “With such deceits he gain’d their easy hearts,
      Too prone to credit his perfidious arts.
      What Diomede, nor Thetis’ greater son,
      A thousand ships, nor ten years’ siege, had done:
      False tears and fawning words the city won.

      “A greater omen, and of worse portent,
      Did our unwary minds with fear torment,
      Concurring to produce the dire event.
      Laocoon, Neptune’s priest by lot that year,
      With solemn pomp then sacrific’d a steer;
      When, dreadful to behold, from sea we spied
      Two serpents, rank’d abreast, the seas divide,
      And smoothly sweep along the swelling tide.
      Their flaming crests above the waves they show;
      Their bellies seem to burn the seas below;
      Their speckled tails advance to steer their course,
      And on the sounding shore the flying billows force.
      And now the strand, and now the plain they held;
      Their ardent eyes with bloody streaks were fill’d;
      Their nimble tongues they brandish’d as they came,
      And lick’d their hissing jaws, that sputter’d flame.
      We fled amaz’d; their destin’d way they take,
      And to Laocoon and his children make;
      And first around the tender boys they wind,
      Then with their sharpen’d fangs their limbs and bodies grind.
      The wretched father, running to their aid
      With pious haste, but vain, they next invade;
      Twice round his waist their winding volumes roll’d;
      And twice about his gasping throat they fold.
      The priest thus doubly chok’d, their crests divide,
      And tow’ring o’er his head in triumph ride.
      With both his hands he labours at the knots;
      His holy fillets the blue venom blots;
      His roaring fills the flitting air around.
      Thus, when an ox receives a glancing wound,
      He breaks his bands, the fatal altar flies,
      And with loud bellowings breaks the yielding skies.
      Their tasks perform’d, the serpents quit their prey,
      And to the tow’r of Pallas make their way:
      Couch’d at her feet, they lie protected there
      By her large buckler and protended spear.
      Amazement seizes all; the gen’ral cry
      Proclaims Laocoon justly doom’d to die,
      Whose hand the will of Pallas had withstood,
      And dared to violate the sacred wood.
      All vote t’ admit the steed, that vows be paid
      And incense offer’d to th’ offended maid.
      A spacious breach is made; the town lies bare;
      Some hoisting levers, some the wheels prepare
      And fasten to the horse’s feet; the rest
      With cables haul along th’ unwieldly beast.
      Each on his fellow for assistance calls;
      At length the fatal fabric mounts the walls,
      Big with destruction. Boys with chaplets crown’d,
      And choirs of virgins, sing and dance around.
      Thus rais’d aloft, and then descending down,
      It enters o’er our heads, and threats the town.
      O sacred city, built by hands divine!
      O valiant heroes of the Trojan line!
      Four times he struck: as oft the clashing sound
      Of arms was heard, and inward groans rebound.
      Yet, mad with zeal, and blinded with our fate,
      We haul along the horse in solemn state;
      Then place the dire portent within the tow’r.
      Cassandra cried, and curs’d th’ unhappy hour;
      Foretold our fate; but, by the god’s decree,
      All heard, and none believ’d the prophecy.
      With branches we the fanes adorn, and waste,
      In jollity, the day ordain’d to be the last.
      Meantime the rapid heav’ns roll’d down the light,
      And on the shaded ocean rush’d the night;
      Our men, secure, nor guards nor sentries held,
      But easy sleep their weary limbs compell’d.
      The Grecians had embark’d their naval pow’rs
      From Tenedos, and sought our well-known shores,
      Safe under covert of the silent night,
      And guided by th’ imperial galley’s light;
      When Sinon, favour’d by the partial gods,
      Unlock’d the horse, and op’d his dark abodes;
      Restor’d to vital air our hidden foes,
      Who joyful from their long confinement rose.
      Tysander bold, and Sthenelus their guide,
      And dire Ulysses down the cable slide:
      Then Thoas, Athamas, and Pyrrhus haste;
      Nor was the Podalirian hero last,
      Nor injur’d Menelaus, nor the fam’d
      Epeus, who the fatal engine fram’d.
      A nameless crowd succeed; their forces join
      T’ invade the town, oppress’d with sleep and wine.
      Those few they find awake first meet their fate;
      Then to their fellows they unbar the gate.

      “’Twas in the dead of night, when sleep repairs
      Our bodies worn with toils, our minds with cares,
      When Hector’s ghost before my sight appears:
      A bloody shroud he seem’d, and bath’d in tears;
      Such as he was, when, by Pelides slain,
      Thessalian coursers dragg’d him o’er the plain.
      Swoln were his feet, as when the thongs were thrust
      Thro’ the bor’d holes; his body black with dust;
      Unlike that Hector who return’d from toils
      Of war, triumphant, in Aeacian spoils,
      Or him who made the fainting Greeks retire,
      And launch’d against their navy Phrygian fire.
      His hair and beard stood stiffen’d with his gore;
      And all the wounds he for his country bore
      Now stream’d afresh, and with new purple ran.
      I wept to see the visionary man,
      And, while my trance continued, thus began:
      ‘O light of Trojans, and support of Troy,
      Thy father’s champion, and thy country’s joy!
      O, long expected by thy friends! from whence
      Art thou so late return’d for our defence?
      Do we behold thee, wearied as we are
      With length of labours, and with toils of war?
      After so many fun’rals of thy own
      Art thou restor’d to thy declining town?
      But say, what wounds are these? What new disgrace
      Deforms the manly features of thy face?’

      “To this the spectre no reply did frame,
      But answer’d to the cause for which he came,
      And, groaning from the bottom of his breast,
      This warning in these mournful words express’d:
      ‘O goddess-born! escape, by timely flight,
      The flames and horrors of this fatal night.
      The foes already have possess’d the wall;
      Troy nods from high, and totters to her fall.
      Enough is paid to Priam’s royal name,
      More than enough to duty and to fame.
      If by a mortal hand my father’s throne
      Could be defended, ’twas by mine alone.
      Now Troy to thee commends her future state,
      And gives her gods companions of thy fate:
      From their assistance walls expect,
      Which, wand’ring long, at last thou shalt erect.’
      He said, and brought me, from their blest abodes,
      The venerable statues of the gods,
      With ancient Vesta from the sacred choir,
      The wreaths and relics of th’ immortal fire.

      “Now peals of shouts come thund’ring from afar,
      Cries, threats, and loud laments, and mingled war:
      The noise approaches, tho’ our palace stood
      Aloof from streets, encompass’d with a wood.
      Louder, and yet more loud, I hear th’ alarms
      Of human cries distinct, and clashing arms.
      Fear broke my slumbers; I no longer stay,
      But mount the terrace, thence the town survey,
      And hearken what the frightful sounds convey.
      Thus, when a flood of fire by wind is borne,
      Crackling it rolls, and mows the standing corn;
      Or deluges, descending on the plains,
      Sweep o’er the yellow ear, destroy the pains
      Of lab’ring oxen and the peasant’s gains;
      Unroot the forest oaks, and bear away
      Flocks, folds, and trees, and undistinguish’d prey:
      The shepherd climbs the cliff, and sees from far
      The wasteful ravage of the wat’ry war.
      Then Hector’s faith was manifestly clear’d,
      And Grecian frauds in open light appear’d.
      The palace of Deiphobus ascends
      In smoky flames, and catches on his friends.
      Ucalegon burns next: the seas are bright
      With splendour not their own, and shine with Trojan light.
      New clamours and new clangours now arise,
      The sound of trumpets mix’d with fighting cries.
      With frenzy seiz’d, I run to meet th’ alarms,
      Resolv’d on death, resolv’d to die in arms,
      But first to gather friends, with them t’ oppose
      If fortune favour’d, and repel the foes;
      Spurr’d by my courage, by my country fir’d,
      With sense of honour and revenge inspir’d.

      “Pantheus, Apollo’s priest, a sacred name,
      Had scap’d the Grecian swords, and pass’d the flame:
      With relics loaden, to my doors he fled,
      And by the hand his tender grandson led.
      ‘What hope, O Pantheus? whither can we run?
      Where make a stand? and what may yet be done?’
      Scarce had I said, when Pantheus, with a groan:
      ‘Troy is no more, and Ilium was a town!
      The fatal day, th’ appointed hour, is come,
      When wrathful Jove’s irrevocable doom
      Transfers the Trojan state to Grecian hands.
      The fire consumes the town, the foe commands;
      And armed hosts, an unexpected force,
      Break from the bowels of the fatal horse.
      Within the gates, proud Sinon throws about
      The flames; and foes for entrance press without,
      With thousand others, whom I fear to name,
      More than from Argos or Mycenae came.
      To sev’ral posts their parties they divide;
      Some block the narrow streets, some scour the wide:
      The bold they kill, th’ unwary they surprise;
      Who fights finds death, and death finds him who flies.
      The warders of the gate but scarce maintain
      Th’ unequal combat, and resist in vain.’

      “I heard; and Heav’n, that well-born souls inspires,
      Prompts me thro’ lifted swords and rising fires
      To run where clashing arms and clamour calls,
      And rush undaunted to defend the walls.
      Ripheus and Iph’itas by my side engage,
      For valour one renown’d, and one for age.
      Dymas and Hypanis by moonlight knew
      My motions and my mien, and to my party drew;
      With young Coroebus, who by love was led
      To win renown and fair Cassandra’s bed,
      And lately brought his troops to Priam’s aid,
      Forewarn’d in vain by the prophetic maid.
      Whom when I saw resolv’d in arms to fall,
      And that one spirit animated all:
      ‘Brave souls!’ said I, ‘but brave, alas! in vain:
      Come, finish what our cruel fates ordain.
      You see the desp’rate state of our affairs,
      And heav’n’s protecting pow’rs are deaf to pray’rs.
      The passive gods behold the Greeks defile
      Their temples, and abandon to the spoil
      Their own abodes: we, feeble few, conspire
      To save a sinking town, involv’d in fire.
      Then let us fall, but fall amidst our foes:
      Despair of life the means of living shows.’
      So bold a speech incourag’d their desire
      Of death, and added fuel to their fire.

      “As hungry wolves, with raging appetite,
      Scour thro’ the fields, nor fear the stormy night;
      Their whelps at home expect the promis’d food,
      And long to temper their dry chaps in blood:
      So rush’d we forth at once; resolv’d to die,
      Resolv’d, in death, the last extremes to try.
      We leave the narrow lanes behind, and dare
      Th’ unequal combat in the public square:
      Night was our friend; our leader was despair.
      What tongue can tell the slaughter of that night?
      What eyes can weep the sorrows and affright?
      An ancient and imperial city falls:
      The streets are fill’d with frequent funerals;
      Houses and holy temples float in blood,
      And hostile nations make a common flood.
      Not only Trojans fall; but, in their turn,
      The vanquish’d triumph, and the victors mourn.
      Ours take new courage from despair and night:
      Confus’d the fortune is, confus’d the fight.
      All parts resound with tumults, plaints, and fears;
      And grisly Death in sundry shapes appears.
      Androgeos fell among us, with his band,
      Who thought us Grecians newly come to land.
      ‘From whence,’ said he, ‘my friends, this long delay?
      You loiter, while the spoils are borne away:
      Our ships are laden with the Trojan store;
      And you, like truants, come too late ashore.’
      He said, but soon corrected his mistake,
      Found, by the doubtful answers which we make:
      Amaz’d, he would have shunn’d th’ unequal fight;
      But we, more num’rous, intercept his flight.
      As when some peasant, in a bushy brake,
      Has with unwary footing press’d a snake;
      He starts aside, astonish’d, when he spies
      His rising crest, blue neck, and rolling eyes;
      So from our arms surpris’d Androgeos flies.
      In vain; for him and his we compass’d round,
      Possess’d with fear, unknowing of the ground,
      And of their lives an easy conquest found.
      Thus Fortune on our first endeavor smil’d.
      Coroebus then, with youthful hopes beguil’d,
      Swoln with success, and a daring mind,
      This new invention fatally design’d.
      ‘My friends,’ said he, ‘since Fortune shows the way,
      ’Tis fit we should th’ auspicious guide obey.
      For what has she these Grecian arms bestow’d,
      But their destruction, and the Trojans’ good?
      Then change we shields, and their devices bear:
      Let fraud supply the want of force in war.
      They find us arms.’ This said, himself he dress’d
      In dead Androgeos’ spoils, his upper vest,
      His painted buckler, and his plumy crest.
      Thus Ripheus, Dymas, all the Trojan train,
      Lay down their own attire, and strip the slain.
      Mix’d with the Greeks, we go with ill presage,
      Flatter’d with hopes to glut our greedy rage;
      Unknown, assaulting whom we blindly meet,
      And strew with Grecian carcasses the street.
      Thus while their straggling parties we defeat,
      Some to the shore and safer ships retreat;
      And some, oppress’d with more ignoble fear,
      Remount the hollow horse, and pant in secret there.

      “But, ah! what use of valour can be made,
      When heav’n’s propitious pow’rs refuse their aid!
      Behold the royal prophetess, the fair
      Cassandra, dragg’d by her dishevel’d hair,
      Whom not Minerva’s shrine, nor sacred bands,
      In safety could protect from sacrilegious hands:
      On heav’n she cast her eyes, she sigh’d, she cried,
      (’Twas all she could) her tender arms were tied.
      So sad a sight Coroebus could not bear;
      But, fir’d with rage, distracted with despair,
      Amid the barb’rous ravishers he flew:
      Our leader’s rash example we pursue.
      But storms of stones, from the proud temple’s height,
      Pour down, and on our batter’d helms alight:
      We from our friends receiv’d this fatal blow,
      Who thought us Grecians, as we seem’d in show.
      They aim at the mistaken crests, from high;
      And ours beneath the pond’rous ruin lie.
      Then, mov’d with anger and disdain, to see
      Their troops dispers’d, the royal virgin free,
      The Grecians rally, and their pow’rs unite,
      With fury charge us, and renew the fight.
      The brother kings with Ajax join their force,
      And the whole squadron of Thessalian horse.

      “Thus, when the rival winds their quarrel try,
      Contending for the kingdom of the sky,
      South, east, and west, on airy coursers borne;
      The whirlwind gathers, and the woods are torn:
      Then Nereus strikes the deep; the billows rise,
      And, mix’d with ooze and sand, pollute the skies.
      The troops we squander’d first again appear
      From several quarters, and enclose the rear.
      They first observe, and to the rest betray,
      Our diff’rent speech; our borrow’d arms survey.
      Oppress’d with odds, we fall; Coroebus first,
      At Pallas’ altar, by Peneleus pierc’d.
      Then Ripheus follow’d, in th’ unequal fight;
      Just of his word, observant of the right:
      Heav’n thought not so. Dymas their fate attends,
      With Hypanis, mistaken by their friends.
      Nor, Pantheus, thee, thy mitre, nor the bands
      Of awful Phoebus, sav’d from impious hands.
      Ye Trojan flames, your testimony bear,
      What I perform’d, and what I suffer’d there;
      No sword avoiding in the fatal strife,
      Expos’d to death, and prodigal of life;
      Witness, ye heavens! I live not by my fault:
      I strove to have deserv’d the death I sought.
      But, when I could not fight, and would have died,
      Borne off to distance by the growing tide,
      Old Iphitus and I were hurried thence,
      With Pelias wounded, and without defence.
      New clamours from th’ invested palace ring:
      We run to die, or disengage the king.
      So hot th’ assault, so high the tumult rose,
      While ours defend, and while the Greeks oppose
      As all the Dardan and Argolic race
      Had been contracted in that narrow space;
      Or as all Ilium else were void of fear,
      And tumult, war, and slaughter, only there.
      Their targets in a tortoise cast, the foes,
      Secure advancing, to the turrets rose:
      Some mount the scaling ladders; some, more bold,
      Swerve upwards, and by posts and pillars hold;
      Their left hand gripes their bucklers in th’ ascent,
      While with their right they seize the battlement.
      From their demolish’d tow’rs the Trojans throw
      Huge heaps of stones, that, falling, crush the foe;
      And heavy beams and rafters from the sides
      (Such arms their last necessity provides)
      And gilded roofs, come tumbling from on high,
      The marks of state and ancient royalty.
      The guards below, fix’d in the pass, attend
      The charge undaunted, and the gate defend.
      Renew’d in courage with recover’d breath,
      A second time we ran to tempt our death,
      To clear the palace from the foe, succeed
      The weary living, and revenge the dead.

      “A postern door, yet unobserv’d and free,
      Join’d by the length of a blind gallery,
      To the king’s closet led: a way well known
      To Hector’s wife, while Priam held the throne,
      Thro’ which she brought Astyanax, unseen,
      To cheer his grandsire and his grandsire’s queen.
      Thro’ this we pass, and mount the tow’r, from whence
      With unavailing arms the Trojans make defence.
      From this the trembling king had oft descried
      The Grecian camp, and saw their navy ride.
      Beams from its lofty height with swords we hew,
      Then, wrenching with our hands, th’ assault renew;
      And, where the rafters on the columns meet,
      We push them headlong with our arms and feet.
      The lightning flies not swifter than the fall,
      Nor thunder louder than the ruin’d wall:
      Down goes the top at once; the Greeks beneath
      Are piecemeal torn, or pounded into death.
      Yet more succeed, and more to death are sent;
      We cease not from above, nor they below relent.
      Before the gate stood Pyrrhus, threat’ning loud,
      With glitt’ring arms conspicuous in the crowd.
      So shines, renew’d in youth, the crested snake,
      Who slept the winter in a thorny brake,
      And, casting off his slough when spring returns,
      Now looks aloft, and with new glory burns;
      Restor’d with poisonous herbs, his ardent sides
      Reflect the sun; and rais’d on spires he rides;
      High o’er the grass, hissing he rolls along,
      And brandishes by fits his forky tongue.
      Proud Periphas, and fierce Automedon,
      His father’s charioteer, together run
      To force the gate; the Scyrian infantry
      Rush on in crowds, and the barr’d passage free.
      Ent’ring the court, with shouts the skies they rend;
      And flaming firebrands to the roofs ascend.
      Himself, among the foremost, deals his blows,
      And with his ax repeated strokes bestows
      On the strong doors; then all their shoulders ply,
      Till from the posts the brazen hinges fly.
      He hews apace; the double bars at length
      Yield to his ax and unresisted strength.
      A mighty breach is made: the rooms conceal’d
      Appear, and all the palace is reveal’d;
      The halls of audience, and of public state,
      And where the lonely queen in secret sate.
      Arm’d soldiers now by trembling maids are seen,
      With not a door, and scarce a space, between.
      The house is fill’d with loud laments and cries,
      And shrieks of women rend the vaulted skies;
      The fearful matrons run from place to place,
      And kiss the thresholds, and the posts embrace.
      The fatal work inhuman Pyrrhus plies,
      And all his father sparkles in his eyes;
      Nor bars, nor fighting guards, his force sustain:
      The bars are broken, and the guards are slain.
      In rush the Greeks, and all the apartments fill;
      Those few defendants whom they find, they kill.
      Not with so fierce a rage the foaming flood
      Roars, when he finds his rapid course withstood;
      Bears down the dams with unresisted sway,
      And sweeps the cattle and the cots away.
      These eyes beheld him when he march’d between
      The brother kings: I saw th’ unhappy queen,
      The hundred wives, and where old Priam stood,
      To stain his hallow’d altar with his brood.
      The fifty nuptial beds (such hopes had he,
      So large a promise, of a progeny),
      The posts, of plated gold, and hung with spoils,
      Fell the reward of the proud victor’s toils.
      Where’er the raging fire had left a space,
      The Grecians enter and possess the place.

      “Perhaps you may of Priam’s fate enquire.
      He, when he saw his regal town on fire,
      His ruin’d palace, and his ent’ring foes,
      On ev’ry side inevitable woes,
      In arms, disus’d, invests his limbs, decay’d,
      Like them, with age; a late and useless aid.
      His feeble shoulders scarce the weight sustain;
      Loaded, not arm’d, he creeps along with pain,
      Despairing of success, ambitious to be slain!
      Uncover’d but by heav’n, there stood in view
      An altar; near the hearth a laurel grew,
      Dodder’d with age, whose boughs encompass round
      The household gods, and shade the holy ground.
      Here Hecuba, with all her helpless train
      Of dames, for shelter sought, but sought in vain.
      Driv’n like a flock of doves along the sky,
      Their images they hug, and to their altars fly.
      The Queen, when she beheld her trembling lord,
      And hanging by his side a heavy sword,
      ‘What rage,’ she cried, ‘has seiz’d my husband’s mind?
      What arms are these, and to what use design’d?
      These times want other aids! Were Hector here,
      Ev’n Hector now in vain, like Priam, would appear.
      With us, one common shelter thou shalt find,
      Or in one common fate with us be join’d.’
      She said, and with a last salute embrac’d
      The poor old man, and by the laurel plac’d.
      Behold! Polites, one of Priam’s sons,
      Pursued by Pyrrhus, there for safety runs.
      Thro’ swords and foes, amaz’d and hurt, he flies
      Thro’ empty courts and open galleries.
      Him Pyrrhus, urging with his lance, pursues,
      And often reaches, and his thrusts renews.
      The youth, transfix’d, with lamentable cries,
      Expires before his wretched parent’s eyes:
      Whom gasping at his feet when Priam saw,
      The fear of death gave place to nature’s law;
      And, shaking more with anger than with age,
      ‘The gods,’ said he, ‘requite thy brutal rage!
      As sure they will, barbarian, sure they must,
      If there be gods in heav’n, and gods be just:
      Who tak’st in wrongs an insolent delight;
      With a son’s death t’ infect a father’s sight.
      Not he, whom thou and lying fame conspire
      To call thee his; not he, thy vaunted sire,
      Thus us’d my wretched age: the gods he fear’d,
      The laws of nature and of nations heard.
      He cheer’d my sorrows, and, for sums of gold,
      The bloodless carcass of my Hector sold;
      Pitied the woes a parent underwent,
      And sent me back in safety from his tent.’

      “This said, his feeble hand a javelin threw,
      Which, flutt’ring, seem’d to loiter as it flew:
      Just, and but barely, to the mark it held,
      And faintly tinkled on the brazen shield.

      “Then Pyrrhus thus: ‘Go thou from me to fate,
      And to my father my foul deeds relate.
      Now die!’ With that he dragg’d the trembling sire,
      Slidd’ring thro’ clotter’d blood and holy mire,
      (The mingled paste his murder’d son had made,)
      Haul’d from beneath the violated shade,
      And on the sacred pile the royal victim laid.
      His right hand held his bloody falchion bare,
      His left he twisted in his hoary hair;
      Then, with a speeding thrust, his heart he found:
      The lukewarm blood came rushing thro’ the wound,
      And sanguine streams distain’d the sacred ground.
      Thus Priam fell, and shar’d one common fate
      With Troy in ashes, and his ruin’d state:
      He, who the scepter of all Asia sway’d,
      Whom monarchs like domestic slaves obey’d.
      On the bleak shore now lies th’ abandon’d king,
      A headless carcass, and a nameless thing.

      “Then, not before, I felt my curdled blood
      Congeal with fear, my hair with horror stood:
      My father’s image fill’d my pious mind,
      Lest equal years might equal fortune find.
      Again I thought on my forsaken wife,
      And trembled for my son’s abandon’d life.
      I look’d about, but found myself alone,
      Deserted at my need! My friends were gone.
      Some spent with toil, some with despair oppress’d,
      Leap’d headlong from the heights; the flames consum’d the rest.
      Thus, wand’ring in my way, without a guide,
      The graceless Helen in the porch I spied
      Of Vesta’s temple; there she lurk’d alone;
      Muffled she sate, and, what she could, unknown:
      But, by the flames that cast their blaze around,
      That common bane of Greece and Troy I found.
      For Ilium burnt, she dreads the Trojan sword;
      More dreads the vengeance of her injur’d lord;
      Ev’n by those gods who refug’d her abhorr’d.
      Trembling with rage, the strumpet I regard,
      Resolv’d to give her guilt the due reward:
      ‘Shall she triumphant sail before the wind,
      And leave in flames unhappy Troy behind?
      Shall she her kingdom and her friends review,
      In state attended with a captive crew,
      While unreveng’d the good old Priam falls,
      And Grecian fires consume the Trojan walls?
      For this the Phrygian fields and Xanthian flood
      Were swell’d with bodies, and were drunk with blood?
      ’Tis true, a soldier can small honour gain,
      And boast no conquest, from a woman slain:
      Yet shall the fact not pass without applause,
      Of vengeance taken in so just a cause;
      The punish’d crime shall set my soul at ease,
      And murm’ring manes of my friends appease.’
      Thus while I rave, a gleam of pleasing light
      Spread o’er the place; and, shining heav’nly bright,
      My mother stood reveal’d before my sight
      Never so radiant did her eyes appear;
      Not her own star confess’d a light so clear:
      Great in her charms, as when on gods above
      She looks, and breathes herself into their love.
      She held my hand, the destin’d blow to break;
      Then from her rosy lips began to speak:
      ‘My son, from whence this madness, this neglect
      Of my commands, and those whom I protect?
      Why this unmanly rage? Recall to mind
      Whom you forsake, what pledges leave behind.
      Look if your helpless father yet survive,
      Or if Ascanius or Creusa live.
      Around your house the greedy Grecians err;
      And these had perish’d in the nightly war,
      But for my presence and protecting care.
      Not Helen’s face, nor Paris, was in fault;
      But by the gods was this destruction brought.
      Now cast your eyes around, while I dissolve
      The mists and films that mortal eyes involve,
      Purge from your sight the dross, and make you see
      The shape of each avenging deity.
      Enlighten’d thus, my just commands fulfil,
      Nor fear obedience to your mother’s will.
      Where yon disorder’d heap of ruin lies,
      Stones rent from stones; where clouds of dust arise,
      Amid that smother Neptune holds his place,
      Below the wall’s foundation drives his mace,
      And heaves the building from the solid base.
      Look where, in arms, imperial Juno stands
      Full in the Scaean gate, with loud commands,
      Urging on shore the tardy Grecian bands.
      See! Pallas, of her snaky buckler proud,
      Bestrides the tow’r, refulgent thro’ the cloud:
      See! Jove new courage to the foe supplies,
      And arms against the town the partial deities.
      Haste hence, my son; this fruitless labour end:
      Haste, where your trembling spouse and sire attend:
      Haste; and a mother’s care your passage shall befriend.’
      She said, and swiftly vanish’d from my sight,
      Obscure in clouds and gloomy shades of night.
      I look’d, I listen’d; dreadful sounds I hear;
      And the dire forms of hostile gods appear.
      Troy sunk in flames I saw, nor could prevent;
      And Ilium from its old foundations rent;
      Rent like a mountain ash, which dar’d the winds,
      And stood the sturdy strokes of lab’ring hinds.
      About the roots the cruel ax resounds;
      The stumps are pierc’d with oft-repeated wounds:
      The war is felt on high; the nodding crown
      Now threats a fall, and throws the leafy honours down.
      To their united force it yields, tho’ late,
      And mourns with mortal groans th’ approaching fate:
      The roots no more their upper load sustain;
      But down she falls, and spreads a ruin thro’ the plain.

      “Descending thence, I scape thro’ foes and fire:
      Before the goddess, foes and flames retire.
      Arriv’d at home, he, for whose only sake,
      Or most for his, such toils I undertake,
      The good Anchises, whom, by timely flight,
      I purpos’d to secure on Ida’s height,
      Refus’d the journey, resolute to die
      And add his fun’rals to the fate of Troy,
      Rather than exile and old age sustain.
      ‘Go you, whose blood runs warm in ev’ry vein.
      Had Heav’n decreed that I should life enjoy,
      Heav’n had decreed to save unhappy Troy.
      ’Tis, sure, enough, if not too much, for one,
      Twice to have seen our Ilium overthrown.
      Make haste to save the poor remaining crew,
      And give this useless corpse a long adieu.
      These weak old hands suffice to stop my breath;
      At least the pitying foes will aid my death,
      To take my spoils, and leave my body bare:
      As for my sepulcher, let Heav’n take care.
      ’Tis long since I, for my celestial wife
      Loath’d by the gods, have dragg’d a ling’ring life;
      Since ev’ry hour and moment I expire,
      Blasted from heav’n by Jove’s avenging fire.’
      This oft repeated, he stood fix’d to die:
      Myself, my wife, my son, my family,
      Intreat, pray, beg, and raise a doleful cry.
      ‘What, will he still persist, on death resolve,
      And in his ruin all his house involve!’
      He still persists his reasons to maintain;
      Our pray’rs, our tears, our loud laments, are vain.

      “Urg’d by despair, again I go to try
      The fate of arms, resolv’d in fight to die:
      ‘What hope remains, but what my death must give?
      Can I, without so dear a father, live?
      You term it prudence, what I baseness call:
      Could such a word from such a parent fall?
      If Fortune please, and so the gods ordain,
      That nothing should of ruin’d Troy remain,
      And you conspire with Fortune to be slain,
      The way to death is wide, th’ approaches near:
      For soon relentless Pyrrhus will appear,
      Reeking with Priam’s blood: the wretch who slew
      The son (inhuman) in the father’s view,
      And then the sire himself to the dire altar drew.
      O goddess mother, give me back to Fate;
      Your gift was undesir’d, and came too late!
      Did you, for this, unhappy me convey
      Thro’ foes and fires, to see my house a prey?
      Shall I my father, wife, and son behold,
      Welt’ring in blood, each other’s arms infold?
      Haste! gird my sword, tho’ spent and overcome:
      ’Tis the last summons to receive our doom.
      I hear thee, Fate; and I obey thy call!
      Not unreveng’d the foe shall see my fall.
      Restore me to the yet unfinish’d fight:
      My death is wanting to conclude the night.’
      Arm’d once again, my glitt’ring sword I wield,
      While th’ other hand sustains my weighty shield,
      And forth I rush to seek th’ abandon’d field.
      I went; but sad Creusa stopp’d my way,
      And cross the threshold in my passage lay,
      Embrac’d my knees, and, when I would have gone,
      Shew’d me my feeble sire and tender son:
      ‘If death be your design, at least,’ said she,
      ‘Take us along to share your destiny.
      If any farther hopes in arms remain,
      This place, these pledges of your love, maintain.
      To whom do you expose your father’s life,
      Your son’s, and mine, your now forgotten wife!’
      While thus she fills the house with clam’rous cries,
      Our hearing is diverted by our eyes:
      For, while I held my son, in the short space
      Betwixt our kisses and our last embrace;
      Strange to relate, from young Iulus’ head
      A lambent flame arose, which gently spread
      Around his brows, and on his temples fed.
      Amaz’d, with running water we prepare
      To quench the sacred fire, and slake his hair;
      But old Anchises, vers’d in omens, rear’d
      His hands to heav’n, and this request preferr’d:
      ‘If any vows, almighty Jove, can bend
      Thy will; if piety can pray’rs commend,
      Confirm the glad presage which thou art pleas’d to send.’
      Scarce had he said, when, on our left, we hear
      A peal of rattling thunder roll in air:
      There shot a streaming lamp along the sky,
      Which on the winged lightning seem’d to fly;
      From o’er the roof the blaze began to move,
      And, trailing, vanish’d in th’ Idaean grove.
      It swept a path in heav’n, and shone a guide,
      Then in a steaming stench of sulphur died.

      “The good old man with suppliant hands implor’d
      The gods’ protection, and their star ador’d.
      ‘Now, now,’ said he, ‘my son, no more delay!
      I yield, I follow where Heav’n shews the way.
      Keep, O my country gods, our dwelling place,
      And guard this relic of the Trojan race,
      This tender child! These omens are your own,
      And you can yet restore the ruin’d town.
      At least accomplish what your signs foreshow:
      I stand resign’d, and am prepar’d to go.’

      “He said. The crackling flames appear on high.
      And driving sparkles dance along the sky.
      With Vulcan’s rage the rising winds conspire,
      And near our palace roll the flood of fire.
      ‘Haste, my dear father, (’tis no time to wait,)
      And load my shoulders with a willing freight.
      Whate’er befalls, your life shall be my care;
      One death, or one deliv’rance, we will share.
      My hand shall lead our little son; and you,
      My faithful consort, shall our steps pursue.
      Next, you, my servants, heed my strict commands:
      Without the walls a ruin’d temple stands,
      To Ceres hallow’d once; a cypress nigh
      Shoots up her venerable head on high,
      By long religion kept; there bend your feet,
      And in divided parties let us meet.
      Our country gods, the relics, and the bands,
      Hold you, my father, in your guiltless hands:
      In me ’tis impious holy things to bear,
      Red as I am with slaughter, new from war,
      Till in some living stream I cleanse the guilt
      Of dire debate, and blood in battle spilt.’
      Thus, ord’ring all that prudence could provide,
      I clothe my shoulders with a lion’s hide
      And yellow spoils; then, on my bending back,
      The welcome load of my dear father take;
      While on my better hand Ascanius hung,
      And with unequal paces tripp’d along.
      Creusa kept behind; by choice we stray
      Thro’ ev’ry dark and ev’ry devious way.
      I, who so bold and dauntless just before,
      The Grecian darts and shock of lances bore,
      At ev’ry shadow now am seiz’d with fear,
      Not for myself, but for the charge I bear;
      Till, near the ruin’d gate arriv’d at last,
      Secure, and deeming all the danger past,
      A frightful noise of trampling feet we hear.
      My father, looking thro’ the shades, with fear,
      Cried out: ‘Haste, haste, my son, the foes are nigh;
      Their swords and shining armour I descry.’
      Some hostile god, for some unknown offence,
      Had sure bereft my mind of better sense;
      For, while thro’ winding ways I took my flight,
      And sought the shelter of the gloomy night,
      Alas! I lost Creusa: hard to tell
      If by her fatal destiny she fell,
      Or weary sate, or wander’d with affright;
      But she was lost for ever to my sight.
      I knew not, or reflected, till I meet
      My friends, at Ceres’ now deserted seat.
      We met: not one was wanting; only she
      Deceiv’d her friends, her son, and wretched me.

      “What mad expressions did my tongue refuse!
      Whom did I not, of gods or men, accuse!
      This was the fatal blow, that pain’d me more
      Than all I felt from ruin’d Troy before.
      Stung with my loss, and raving with despair,
      Abandoning my now forgotten care,
      Of counsel, comfort, and of hope bereft,
      My sire, my son, my country gods I left.
      In shining armour once again I sheathe
      My limbs, not feeling wounds, nor fearing death.
      Then headlong to the burning walls I run,
      And seek the danger I was forc’d to shun.
      I tread my former tracks; thro’ night explore
      Each passage, ev’ry street I cross’d before.
      All things were full of horror and affright,
      And dreadful ev’n the silence of the night.
      Then to my father’s house I make repair,
      With some small glimpse of hope to find her there.
      Instead of her, the cruel Greeks I met;
      The house was fill’d with foes, with flames beset.
      Driv’n on the wings of winds, whole sheets of fire,
      Thro’ air transported, to the roofs aspire.
      From thence to Priam’s palace I resort,
      And search the citadel and desert court.
      Then, unobserv’d, I pass by Juno’s church:
      A guard of Grecians had possess’d the porch;
      There Phoenix and Ulysses watch the prey,
      And thither all the wealth of Troy convey:
      The spoils which they from ransack’d houses brought,
      And golden bowls from burning altars caught,
      The tables of the gods, the purple vests,
      The people’s treasure, and the pomp of priests.
      A rank of wretched youths, with pinion’d hands,
      And captive matrons, in long order stands.
      Then, with ungovern’d madness, I proclaim,
      Thro’ all the silent street, Creusa’s name:
      Creusa still I call; at length she hears,
      And sudden thro’ the shades of night appears.
      Appears, no more Creusa, nor my wife,
      But a pale spectre, larger than the life.
      Aghast, astonish’d, and struck dumb with fear,
      I stood; like bristles rose my stiffen’d hair.
      Then thus the ghost began to soothe my grief
      ‘Nor tears, nor cries, can give the dead relief.
      Desist, my much-lov’d lord, t’ indulge your pain;
      You bear no more than what the gods ordain.
      My fates permit me not from hence to fly;
      Nor he, the great controller of the sky.
      Long wand’ring ways for you the pow’rs decree;
      On land hard labours, and a length of sea.
      Then, after many painful years are past,
      On Latium’s happy shore you shall be cast,
      Where gentle Tiber from his bed beholds
      The flow’ry meadows, and the feeding folds.
      There end your toils; and there your fates provide
      A quiet kingdom, and a royal bride:
      There fortune shall the Trojan line restore,
      And you for lost Creusa weep no more.
      Fear not that I shall watch, with servile shame,
      Th’ imperious looks of some proud Grecian dame;
      Or, stooping to the victor’s lust, disgrace
      My goddess mother, or my royal race.
      And now, farewell! The parent of the gods
      Restrains my fleeting soul in her abodes:
      I trust our common issue to your care.’
      She said, and gliding pass’d unseen in air.
      I strove to speak: but horror tied my tongue;
      And thrice about her neck my arms I flung,
      And, thrice deceiv’d, on vain embraces hung.
      Light as an empty dream at break of day,
      Or as a blast of wind, she rush’d away.

      “Thus having pass’d the night in fruitless pain,
      I to my longing friends return again,
      Amaz’d th’ augmented number to behold,
      Of men and matrons mix’d, of young and old;
      A wretched exil’d crew together brought,
      With arms appointed, and with treasure fraught,
      Resolv’d, and willing, under my command,
      To run all hazards both of sea and land.
      The Morn began, from Ida, to display
      Her rosy cheeks; and Phosphor led the day:
      Before the gates the Grecians took their post,
      And all pretence of late relief was lost.
      I yield to Fate, unwillingly retire,
      And, loaded, up the hill convey my sire.”



 BOOK III

 THE ARGUMENT.


      Aeneas proceeds in his relation: he gives an account of the fleet
      with which he sailed, and the success of his first voyage to
      Thrace. From thence he directs his course to Delos and asks the
      oracle what place the gods had appointed for his habitation. By a
      mistake of the oracle’s answer, he settles in Crete. His
      household gods give him the true sense of the oracle in a dream.
      He follows their advice, and makes the best of his way for Italy.
      He is cast on several shores, and meets with very surprising
      adventures, till at length he lands on Sicily, where his father
      Anchises dies. This is the place which he was sailing from, when
      the tempest rose, and threw him upon the Carthaginian coast.


      When Heav’n had overturn’d the Trojan state
      And Priam’s throne, by too severe a fate;
      When ruin’d Troy became the Grecians’ prey,
      And Ilium’s lofty tow’rs in ashes lay;
      Warn’d by celestial omens, we retreat,
      To seek in foreign lands a happier seat.
      Near old Antandros, and at Ida’s foot,
      The timber of the sacred groves we cut,
      And build our fleet; uncertain yet to find
      What place the gods for our repose assign’d.
      Friends daily flock; and scarce the kindly spring
      Began to clothe the ground, and birds to sing,
      When old Anchises summon’d all to sea:
      The crew my father and the Fates obey.
      With sighs and tears I leave my native shore,
      And empty fields, where Ilium stood before.
      My sire, my son, our less and greater gods,
      All sail at once, and cleave the briny floods.

      “Against our coast appears a spacious land,
      Which once the fierce Lycurgus did command,
      Thracia the name; the people bold in war;
      Vast are their fields, and tillage is their care,
      A hospitable realm while Fate was kind,
      With Troy in friendship and religion join’d.
      I land; with luckless omens, then adore
      Their gods, and draw a line along the shore;
      I lay the deep foundations of a wall,
      And Aenos, nam’d from me, the city call.
      To Dionaean Venus vows are paid,
      And all the pow’rs that rising labours aid;
      A bull on Jove’s imperial altar laid.
      Not far, a rising hillock stood in view;
      Sharp myrtles on the sides, and cornels grew.
      There, while I went to crop the sylvan scenes,
      And shade our altar with their leafy greens,
      I pull’d a plant; with horror I relate
      A prodigy so strange and full of fate.
      The rooted fibers rose, and from the wound
      Black bloody drops distill’d upon the ground.
      Mute and amaz’d, my hair with terror stood;
      Fear shrunk my sinews, and congeal’d my blood.
      Mann’d once again, another plant I try:
      That other gush’d with the same sanguine dye.
      Then, fearing guilt for some offence unknown,
      With pray’rs and vows the Dryads I atone,
      With all the sisters of the woods, and most
      The God of Arms, who rules the Thracian coast,
      That they, or he, these omens would avert,
      Release our fears, and better signs impart.
      Clear’d, as I thought, and fully fix’d at length
      To learn the cause, I tugged with all my strength:
      I bent my knees against the ground; once more
      The violated myrtle ran with gore.
      Scarce dare I tell the sequel: from the womb
      Of wounded earth, and caverns of the tomb,
      A groan, as of a troubled ghost, renew’d
      My fright, and then these dreadful words ensued:
      ‘Why dost thou thus my buried body rend?
      O spare the corpse of thy unhappy friend!
      Spare to pollute thy pious hands with blood:
      The tears distil not from the wounded wood;
      But ev’ry drop this living tree contains
      Is kindred blood, and ran in Trojan veins.
      O fly from this unhospitable shore,
      Warn’d by my fate; for I am Polydore!
      Here loads of lances, in my blood embrued,
      Again shoot upward, by my blood renew’d.’

      “My falt’ring tongue and shiv’ring limbs declare
      My horror, and in bristles rose my hair.
      When Troy with Grecian arms was closely pent,
      Old Priam, fearful of the war’s event,
      This hapless Polydore to Thracia sent:
      Loaded with gold, he sent his darling, far
      From noise and tumults, and destructive war,
      Committed to the faithless tyrant’s care;
      Who, when he saw the pow’r of Troy decline,
      Forsook the weaker, with the strong to join;
      Broke ev’ry bond of nature and of truth,
      And murder’d, for his wealth, the royal youth.
      O sacred hunger of pernicious gold!
      What bands of faith can impious lucre hold?
      Now, when my soul had shaken off her fears,
      I call my father and the Trojan peers;
      Relate the prodigies of Heav’n, require
      What he commands, and their advice desire.
      All vote to leave that execrable shore,
      Polluted with the blood of Polydore;
      But, ere we sail, his fun’ral rites prepare,
      Then, to his ghost, a tomb and altars rear.
      In mournful pomp the matrons walk the round,
      With baleful cypress and blue fillets crown’d,
      With eyes dejected, and with hair unbound.
      Then bowls of tepid milk and blood we pour,
      And thrice invoke the soul of Polydore.

      “Now, when the raging storms no longer reign,
      But southern gales invite us to the main,
      We launch our vessels, with a prosp’rous wind,
      And leave the cities and the shores behind.

      “An island in th’ Aegaean main appears;
      Neptune and wat’ry Doris claim it theirs.
      It floated once, till Phoebus fix’d the sides
      To rooted earth, and now it braves the tides.
      Here, borne by friendly winds, we come ashore,
      With needful ease our weary limbs restore,
      And the Sun’s temple and his town adore.

      “Anius, the priest and king, with laurel crown’d,
      His hoary locks with purple fillets bound,
      Who saw my sire the Delian shore ascend,
      Came forth with eager haste to meet his friend;
      Invites him to his palace; and, in sign
      Of ancient love, their plighted hands they join.
      Then to the temple of the god I went,
      And thus, before the shrine, my vows present:
      ‘Give, O Thymbraeus, give a resting place
      To the sad relics of the Trojan race;
      A seat secure, a region of their own,
      A lasting empire, and a happier town.
      Where shall we fix? where shall our labours end?
      Whom shall we follow, and what fate attend?
      Let not my pray’rs a doubtful answer find;
      But in clear auguries unveil thy mind.’
      Scarce had I said: he shook the holy ground,
      The laurels, and the lofty hills around;
      And from the tripos rush’d a bellowing sound.
      Prostrate we fell; confess’d the present god,
      Who gave this answer from his dark abode:
      ‘Undaunted youths, go, seek that mother earth
      From which your ancestors derive their birth.
      The soil that sent you forth, her ancient race
      In her old bosom shall again embrace.
      Through the wide world th’ Aeneian house shall reign,
      And children’s children shall the crown sustain.’
      Thus Phoebus did our future fates disclose:
      A mighty tumult, mix’d with joy, arose.

      “All are concern’d to know what place the god
      Assign’d, and where determin’d our abode.
      My father, long revolving in his mind
      The race and lineage of the Trojan kind,
      Thus answer’d their demands: ‘Ye princes, hear
      Your pleasing fortune, and dispel your fear.
      The fruitful isle of Crete, well known to fame,
      Sacred of old to Jove’s imperial name,
      In the mid ocean lies, with large command,
      And on its plains a hundred cities stand.
      Another Ida rises there, and we
      From thence derive our Trojan ancestry.
      From thence, as ’tis divulg’d by certain fame,
      To the Rhoetean shores old Teucrus came;
      There fix’d, and there the seat of empire chose,
      Ere Ilium and the Trojan tow’rs arose.
      In humble vales they built their soft abodes,
      Till Cybele, the mother of the gods,
      With tinkling cymbals charm’d th’ Idaean woods,
      She secret rites and ceremonies taught,
      And to the yoke the savage lions brought.
      Let us the land which Heav’n appoints, explore;
      Appease the winds, and seek the Gnossian shore.
      If Jove assists the passage of our fleet,
      The third propitious dawn discovers Crete.’
      Thus having said, the sacrifices, laid
      On smoking altars, to the gods he paid:
      A bull, to Neptune an oblation due,
      Another bull to bright Apollo slew;
      A milk-white ewe, the western winds to please,
      And one coal-black, to calm the stormy seas.
      Ere this, a flying rumour had been spread
      That fierce Idomeneus from Crete was fled,
      Expell’d and exil’d; that the coast was free
      From foreign or domestic enemy.

      “We leave the Delian ports, and put to sea.
      By Naxos, fam’d for vintage, make our way;
      Then green Donysa pass; and sail in sight
      Of Paros’ isle, with marble quarries white.
      We pass the scatter’d isles of Cyclades,
      That, scarce distinguish’d, seem to stud the seas.
      The shouts of sailors double near the shores;
      They stretch their canvas, and they ply their oars.
      ‘All hands aloft! for Crete! for Crete!’ they cry,
      And swiftly thro’ the foamy billows fly.
      Full on the promis’d land at length we bore,
      With joy descending on the Cretan shore.
      With eager haste a rising town I frame,
      Which from the Trojan Pergamus I name:
      The name itself was grateful; I exhort
      To found their houses, and erect a fort.
      Our ships are haul’d upon the yellow strand;
      The youth begin to till the labour’d land;
      And I myself new marriages promote,
      Give laws, and dwellings I divide by lot;
      When rising vapours choke the wholesome air,
      And blasts of noisome winds corrupt the year;
      The trees devouring caterpillars burn;
      Parch’d was the grass, and blighted was the corn:
      Nor ’scape the beasts; for Sirius, from on high,
      With pestilential heat infects the sky:
      My men, some fall, the rest in fevers fry.
      Again my father bids me seek the shore
      Of sacred Delos, and the god implore,
      To learn what end of woes we might expect,
      And to what clime our weary course direct.

      “’Twas night, when ev’ry creature, void of cares,
      The common gift of balmy slumber shares:
      The statues of my gods (for such they seem’d),
      Those gods whom I from flaming Troy redeem’d,
      Before me stood, majestically bright,
      Full in the beams of Phoebe’s ent’ring light.
      Then thus they spoke, and eas’d my troubled mind:
      ‘What from the Delian god thou go’st to find,
      He tells thee here, and sends us to relate.
      Those pow’rs are we, companions of thy fate,
      Who from the burning town by thee were brought,
      Thy fortune follow’d, and thy safety wrought.
      Thro’ seas and lands as we thy steps attend,
      So shall our care thy glorious race befriend.
      An ample realm for thee thy fates ordain,
      A town that o’er the conquer’d world shall reign.
      Thou, mighty walls for mighty nations build;
      Nor let thy weary mind to labours yield:
      But change thy seat; for not the Delian god,
      Nor we, have giv’n thee Crete for our abode.
      A land there is, Hesperia call’d of old,
      The soil is fruitful, and the natives bold.
      Th’ Oenotrians held it once, by later fame
      Now call’d Italia, from the leader’s name.
      Jasius there and Dardanus were born;
      From thence we came, and thither must return.
      Rise, and thy sire with these glad tidings greet.
      Search Italy; for Jove denies thee Crete.’

      “Astonish’d at their voices and their sight,
      (Nor were they dreams, but visions of the night;
      I saw, I knew their faces, and descried,
      In perfect view, their hair with fillets tied;)
      I started from my couch; a clammy sweat
      On all my limbs and shiv’ring body sate.
      To heav’n I lift my hands with pious haste,
      And sacred incense in the flames I cast.
      Thus to the gods their perfect honours done,
      More cheerful, to my good old sire I run,
      And tell the pleasing news. In little space
      He found his error of the double race;
      Not, as before he deem’d, deriv’d from Crete;
      No more deluded by the doubtful seat:
      Then said: ‘O son, turmoil’d in Trojan fate!
      Such things as these Cassandra did relate.
      This day revives within my mind what she
      Foretold of Troy renew’d in Italy,
      And Latian lands; but who could then have thought
      That Phrygian gods to Latium should be brought,
      Or who believ’d what mad Cassandra taught?
      Now let us go where Phoebus leads the way.’

      “He said; and we with glad consent obey,
      Forsake the seat, and, leaving few behind,
      We spread our sails before the willing wind.
      Now from the sight of land our galleys move,
      With only seas around and skies above;
      When o’er our heads descends a burst of rain,
      And night with sable clouds involves the main;
      The ruffling winds the foamy billows raise;
      The scatter’d fleet is forc’d to sev’ral ways;
      The face of heav’n is ravish’d from our eyes,
      And in redoubled peals the roaring thunder flies.
      Cast from our course, we wander in the dark.
      No stars to guide, no point of land to mark.
      Ev’n Palinurus no distinction found
      Betwixt the night and day; such darkness reign’d around.
      Three starless nights the doubtful navy strays,
      Without distinction, and three sunless days;
      The fourth renews the light, and, from our shrouds,
      We view a rising land, like distant clouds;
      The mountain-tops confirm the pleasing sight,
      And curling smoke ascending from their height.
      The canvas falls; their oars the sailors ply;
      From the rude strokes the whirling waters fly.
      At length I land upon the Strophades,
      Safe from the danger of the stormy seas.
      Those isles are compass’d by th’ Ionian main,
      The dire abode where the foul Harpies reign,
      Forc’d by the winged warriors to repair
      To their old homes, and leave their costly fare.
      Monsters more fierce offended Heav’n ne’er sent
      From hell’s abyss, for human punishment:
      With virgin faces, but with wombs obscene,
      Foul paunches, and with ordure still unclean;
      With claws for hands, and looks for ever lean.

      “We landed at the port, and soon beheld
      Fat herds of oxen graze the flow’ry field,
      And wanton goats without a keeper stray’d.
      With weapons we the welcome prey invade,
      Then call the gods for partners of our feast,
      And Jove himself, the chief invited guest.
      We spread the tables on the greensward ground;
      We feed with hunger, and the bowls go round;
      When from the mountain-tops, with hideous cry,
      And clatt’ring wings, the hungry Harpies fly;
      They snatch the meat, defiling all they find,
      And, parting, leave a loathsome stench behind.
      Close by a hollow rock, again we sit,
      New dress the dinner, and the beds refit,
      Secure from sight, beneath a pleasing shade,
      Where tufted trees a native arbour made.
      Again the holy fires on altars burn;
      And once again the rav’nous birds return,
      Or from the dark recesses where they lie,
      Or from another quarter of the sky;
      With filthy claws their odious meal repeat,
      And mix their loathsome ordures with their meat.
      I bid my friends for vengeance then prepare,
      And with the hellish nation wage the war.
      They, as commanded, for the fight provide,
      And in the grass their glitt’ring weapons hide;
      Then, when along the crooked shore we hear
      Their clatt’ring wings, and saw the foes appear,
      Misenus sounds a charge: we take th’ alarm,
      And our strong hands with swords and bucklers arm.
      In this new kind of combat all employ
      Their utmost force, the monsters to destroy.
      In vain, the fated skin is proof to wounds;
      And from their plumes the shining sword rebounds.
      At length rebuff’d, they leave their mangled prey,
      And their stretch’d pinions to the skies display.
      Yet one remain’d, the messenger of Fate:
      High on a craggy cliff Celaeno sate,
      And thus her dismal errand did relate:
      ‘What! not contented with our oxen slain,
      Dare you with Heav’n an impious war maintain,
      And drive the Harpies from their native reign?
      Heed therefore what I say; and keep in mind
      What Jove decrees, what Phoebus has design’d,
      And I, the Furies’ queen, from both relate:
      You seek th’ Italian shores, foredoom’d by fate:
      Th’ Italian shores are granted you to find,
      And a safe passage to the port assign’d.
      But know, that ere your promis’d walls you build,
      My curses shall severely be fulfill’d.
      Fierce famine is your lot for this misdeed,
      Reduc’d to grind the plates on which you feed.’
      She said, and to the neighb’ring forest flew.
      Our courage fails us, and our fears renew.
      Hopeless to win by war, to pray’rs we fall,
      And on th’ offended Harpies humbly call,
      And whether gods or birds obscene they were,
      Our vows for pardon and for peace prefer.
      But old Anchises, off’ring sacrifice,
      And lifting up to heav’n his hands and eyes,
      Ador’d the greater gods: ‘Avert,’ said he,
      ‘These omens; render vain this prophecy,
      And from th’ impending curse a pious people free!’

      “Thus having said, he bids us put to sea;
      We loose from shore our haulsers, and obey,
      And soon with swelling sails pursue the wat’ry way.
      Amidst our course, Zacynthian woods appear;
      And next by rocky Neritos we steer:
      We fly from Ithaca’s detested shore,
      And curse the land which dire Ulysses bore.
      At length Leucate’s cloudy top appears,
      And the Sun’s temple, which the sailor fears.
      Resolv’d to breathe a while from labour past,
      Our crooked anchors from the prow we cast,
      And joyful to the little city haste.
      Here, safe beyond our hopes, our vows we pay
      To Jove, the guide and patron of our way.
      The customs of our country we pursue,
      And Trojan games on Actian shores renew.
      Our youth their naked limbs besmear with oil,
      And exercise the wrastlers’ noble toil;
      Pleas’d to have sail’d so long before the wind,
      And left so many Grecian towns behind.
      The sun had now fulfill’d his annual course,
      And Boreas on the seas display’d his force:
      I fix’d upon the temple’s lofty door
      The brazen shield which vanquish’d Abas bore;
      The verse beneath my name and action speaks:
      ‘These arms Aeneas took from conqu’ring Greeks.’
      Then I command to weigh; the seamen ply
      Their sweeping oars; the smoking billows fly.
      The sight of high Phaeacia soon we lost,
      And skimm’d along Epirus’ rocky coast.

      “Then to Chaonia’s port our course we bend,
      And, landed, to Buthrotus’ heights ascend.
      Here wondrous things were loudly blaz’d fame:
      How Helenus reviv’d the Trojan name,
      And reign’d in Greece; that Priam’s captive son
      Succeeded Pyrrhus in his bed and throne;
      And fair Andromache, restor’d by fate,
      Once more was happy in a Trojan mate.
      I leave my galleys riding in the port,
      And long to see the new Dardanian court.
      By chance, the mournful queen, before the gate,
      Then solemniz’d her former husband’s fate.
      Green altars, rais’d of turf, with gifts she crown’d,
      And sacred priests in order stand around,
      And thrice the name of hapless Hector sound.
      The grove itself resembles Ida’s wood;
      And Simois seem’d the well-dissembled flood.
      But when at nearer distance she beheld
      My shining armour and my Trojan shield,
      Astonish’d at the sight, the vital heat
      Forsakes her limbs; her veins no longer beat:
      She faints, she falls, and scarce recov’ring strength,
      Thus, with a falt’ring tongue, she speaks at length:

      “‘Are you alive, O goddess-born?’ she said,
      ‘Or if a ghost, then where is Hector’s shade?’
      At this, she cast a loud and frightful cry.
      With broken words I made this brief reply:
      ‘All of me that remains appears in sight;
      I live, if living be to loathe the light.
      No phantom; but I drag a wretched life,
      My fate resembling that of Hector’s wife.
      What have you suffer’d since you lost your lord?
      By what strange blessing are you now restor’d?
      Still are you Hector’s? or is Hector fled,
      And his remembrance lost in Pyrrhus’ bed?’
      With eyes dejected, in a lowly tone,
      After a modest pause she thus begun:

      “‘O only happy maid of Priam’s race,
      Whom death deliver’d from the foes’ embrace!
      Commanded on Achilles’ tomb to die,
      Not forc’d, like us, to hard captivity,
      Or in a haughty master’s arms to lie.
      In Grecian ships unhappy we were borne,
      Endur’d the victor’s lust, sustain’d the scorn:
      Thus I submitted to the lawless pride
      Of Pyrrhus, more a handmaid than a bride.
      Cloy’d with possession, he forsook my bed,
      And Helen’s lovely daughter sought to wed;
      Then me to Trojan Helenus resign’d,
      And his two slaves in equal marriage join’d;
      Till young Orestes, pierc’d with deep despair,
      And longing to redeem the promis’d fair,
      Before Apollo’s altar slew the ravisher.
      By Pyrrhus’ death the kingdom we regain’d:
      At least one half with Helenus remain’d.
      Our part, from Chaon, he Chaonia calls,
      And names from Pergamus his rising walls.
      But you, what fates have landed on our coast?
      What gods have sent you, or what storms have toss’d?
      Does young Ascanius life and health enjoy,
      Sav’d from the ruins of unhappy Troy?
      O tell me how his mother’s loss he bears,
      What hopes are promis’d from his blooming years,
      How much of Hector in his face appears?’
      She spoke; and mix’d her speech with mournful cries,
      And fruitless tears came trickling from her eyes.

      “At length her lord descends upon the plain,
      In pomp, attended with a num’rous train;
      Receives his friends, and to the city leads,
      And tears of joy amidst his welcome sheds.
      Proceeding on, another Troy I see,
      Or, in less compass, Troy’s epitome.
      A riv’let by the name of Xanthus ran,
      And I embrace the Scaean gate again.
      My friends in porticoes were entertain’d,
      And feasts and pleasures thro’ the city reign’d.
      The tables fill’d the spacious hall around,
      And golden bowls with sparkling wine were crown’d.
      Two days we pass’d in mirth, till friendly gales,
      Blown from the south supplied our swelling sails.
      Then to the royal seer I thus began:
      ‘O thou, who know’st, beyond the reach of man,
      The laws of heav’n, and what the stars decree;
      Whom Phoebus taught unerring prophecy,
      From his own tripod, and his holy tree;
      Skill’d in the wing’d inhabitants of air,
      What auspices their notes and flights declare:
      O say; for all religious rites portend
      A happy voyage, and a prosp’rous end;
      And ev’ry power and omen of the sky
      Direct my course for destin’d Italy;
      But only dire Celaeno, from the gods,
      A dismal famine fatally forebodes:
      O say what dangers I am first to shun,
      What toils vanquish, and what course to run.’

      “The prophet first with sacrifice adores
      The greater gods; their pardon then implores;
      Unbinds the fillet from his holy head;
      To Phoebus, next, my trembling steps he led,
      Full of religious doubts and awful dread.
      Then, with his god possess’d, before the shrine,
      These words proceeded from his mouth divine:
      ‘O goddess-born, (for Heav’n’s appointed will,
      With greater auspices of good than ill,
      Foreshows thy voyage, and thy course directs;
      Thy fates conspire, and Jove himself protects,)
      Of many things some few I shall explain,
      Teach thee to shun the dangers of the main,
      And how at length the promis’d shore to gain.
      The rest the fates from Helenus conceal,
      And Juno’s angry pow’r forbids to tell.
      First, then, that happy shore, that seems so nigh,
      Will far from your deluded wishes fly;
      Long tracts of seas divide your hopes from Italy:
      For you must cruise along Sicilian shores,
      And stem the currents with your struggling oars;
      Then round th’ Italian coast your navy steer;
      And, after this, to Circe’s island veer;
      And, last, before your new foundations rise,
      Must pass the Stygian lake, and view the nether skies.
      Now mark the signs of future ease and rest,
      And bear them safely treasur’d in thy breast.
      When, in the shady shelter of a wood,
      And near the margin of a gentle flood,
      Thou shalt behold a sow upon the ground,
      With thirty sucking young encompass’d round;
      The dam and offspring white as falling snow:
      These on thy city shall their name bestow,
      And there shall end thy labours and thy woe.
      Nor let the threaten’d famine fright thy mind,
      For Phoebus will assist, and Fate the way will find.
      Let not thy course to that ill coast be bent,
      Which fronts from far th’ Epirian continent:
      Those parts are all by Grecian foes possess’d;
      The salvage Locrians here the shores infest;
      There fierce Idomeneus his city builds,
      And guards with arms the Salentinian fields;
      And on the mountain’s brow Petilia stands,
      Which Philoctetes with his troops commands.
      Ev’n when thy fleet is landed on the shore,
      And priests with holy vows the gods adore,
      Then with a purple veil involve your eyes,
      Lest hostile faces blast the sacrifice.
      These rites and customs to the rest commend,
      That to your pious race they may descend.

      ‘When, parted hence, the wind, that ready waits
      For Sicily, shall bear you to the straits
      Where proud Pelorus opes a wider way,
      Tack to the larboard, and stand off to sea:
      Veer starboard sea and land. Th’ Italian shore
      And fair Sicilia’s coast were one, before
      An earthquake caus’d the flaw: the roaring tides
      The passage broke that land from land divides;
      And where the lands retir’d, the rushing ocean rides.
      Distinguish’d by the straits, on either hand,
      Now rising cities in long order stand,
      And fruitful fields: so much can time invade
      The mould’ring work that beauteous Nature made.
      Far on the right, her dogs foul Scylla hides:
      Charybdis roaring on the left presides,
      And in her greedy whirlpool sucks the tides;
      Then spouts them from below: with fury driv’n,
      The waves mount up and wash the face of heav’n.
      But Scylla from her den, with open jaws,
      The sinking vessel in her eddy draws,
      Then dashes on the rocks. A human face,
      And virgin bosom, hides her tail’s disgrace:
      Her parts obscene below the waves descend,
      With dogs inclos’d, and in a dolphin end.
      ’Tis safer, then, to bear aloof to sea,
      And coast Pachynus, tho’ with more delay,
      Than once to view misshapen Scylla near,
      And the loud yell of wat’ry wolves to hear.

      “‘Besides, if faith to Helenus be due,
      And if prophetic Phoebus tell me true,
      Do not this precept of your friend forget,
      Which therefore more than once I must repeat:
      Above the rest, great Juno’s name adore;
      Pay vows to Juno; Juno’s aid implore.
      Let gifts be to the mighty queen design’d,
      And mollify with pray’rs her haughty mind.
      Thus, at the length, your passage shall be free,
      And you shall safe descend on Italy.
      Arriv’d at Cumae, when you view the flood
      Of black Avernus, and the sounding wood,
      The mad prophetic Sibyl you shall find,
      Dark in a cave, and on a rock reclin’d.
      She sings the fates, and, in her frantic fits,
      The notes and names, inscrib’d, to leafs commits.
      What she commits to leafs, in order laid,
      Before the cavern’s entrance are display’d:
      Unmov’d they lie; but, if a blast of wind
      Without, or vapours issue from behind,
      The leafs are borne aloft in liquid air,
      And she resumes no more her museful care,
      Nor gathers from the rocks her scatter’d verse,
      Nor sets in order what the winds disperse.
      Thus, many not succeeding, most upbraid
      The madness of the visionary maid,
      And with loud curses leave the mystic shade.

      “‘Think it not loss of time a while to stay,
      Tho’ thy companions chide thy long delay;
      Tho’ summon’d to the seas, tho’ pleasing gales
      Invite thy course, and stretch thy swelling sails:
      But beg the sacred priestess to relate
      With willing words, and not to write thy fate.
      The fierce Italian people she will show,
      And all thy wars, and all thy future woe,
      And what thou may’st avoid, and what must undergo.
      She shall direct thy course, instruct thy mind,
      And teach thee how the happy shores to find.
      This is what Heav’n allows me to relate:
      Now part in peace; pursue thy better fate,
      And raise, by strength of arms, the Trojan state.’

      “This when the priest with friendly voice declar’d,
      He gave me license, and rich gifts prepar’d:
      Bounteous of treasure, he supplied my want
      With heavy gold, and polish’d elephant;
      Then Dodonaean caldrons put on board,
      And ev’ry ship with sums of silver stor’d.
      A trusty coat of mail to me he sent,
      Thrice chain’d with gold, for use and ornament;
      The helm of Pyrrhus added to the rest,
      That flourish’d with a plume and waving crest.
      Nor was my sire forgotten, nor my friends;
      And large recruits he to my navy sends:
      Men, horses, captains, arms, and warlike stores;
      Supplies new pilots, and new sweeping oars.
      Meantime, my sire commands to hoist our sails,
      Lest we should lose the first auspicious gales.

      “The prophet bless’d the parting crew, and last,
      With words like these, his ancient friend embrac’d:
      ‘Old happy man, the care of gods above,
      Whom heav’nly Venus honour’d with her love,
      And twice preserv’d thy life, when Troy was lost,
      Behold from far the wish’d Ausonian coast:
      There land; but take a larger compass round,
      For that before is all forbidden ground.
      The shore that Phoebus has design’d for you,
      At farther distance lies, conceal’d from view.
      Go happy hence, and seek your new abodes,
      Blest in a son, and favour’d by the gods:
      For I with useless words prolong your stay,
      When southern gales have summon’d you away.’

      “Nor less the queen our parting thence deplor’d,
      Nor was less bounteous than her Trojan lord.
      A noble present to my son she brought,
      A robe with flow’rs on golden tissue wrought,
      A phrygian vest; and loads with gifts beside
      Of precious texture, and of Asian pride.
      ‘Accept,’ she said, ‘these monuments of love,
      Which in my youth with happier hands I wove:
      Regard these trifles for the giver’s sake;
      ’Tis the last present Hector’s wife can make.
      Thou call’st my lost Astyanax to mind;
      In thee his features and his form I find:
      His eyes so sparkled with a lively flame;
      Such were his motions; such was all his frame;
      And ah! had Heav’n so pleas’d, his years had been the same.’

      “With tears I took my last adieu, and said:
      ‘Your fortune, happy pair, already made,
      Leaves you no farther wish. My diff’rent state,
      Avoiding one, incurs another fate.
      To you a quiet seat the gods allow:
      You have no shores to search, no seas to plow,
      Nor fields of flying Italy to chase:
      (Deluding visions, and a vain embrace!)
      You see another Simois, and enjoy
      The labour of your hands, another Troy,
      With better auspice than her ancient tow’rs,
      And less obnoxious to the Grecian pow’rs.
      If e’er the gods, whom I with vows adore,
      Conduct my steps to Tiber’s happy shore;
      If ever I ascend the Latian throne,
      And build a city I may call my own;
      As both of us our birth from Troy derive,
      So let our kindred lines in concord live,
      And both in acts of equal friendship strive.
      Our fortunes, good or bad, shall be the same:
      The double Troy shall differ but in name;
      That what we now begin may never end,
      But long to late posterity descend.’

      “Near the Ceraunian rocks our course we bore;
      The shortest passage to th’ Italian shore.
      Now had the sun withdrawn his radiant light,
      And hills were hid in dusky shades of night:
      We land, and, on the bosom of the ground,
      A safe retreat and a bare lodging found.
      Close by the shore we lay; the sailors keep
      Their watches, and the rest securely sleep.
      The night, proceeding on with silent pace,
      Stood in her noon, and view’d with equal face
      Her steepy rise and her declining race.
      Then wakeful Palinurus rose, to spy
      The face of heav’n, and the nocturnal sky;
      And listen’d ev’ry breath of air to try;
      Observes the stars, and notes their sliding course,
      The Pleiads, Hyads, and their wat’ry force;
      And both the Bears is careful to behold,
      And bright Orion, arm’d with burnish’d gold.
      Then, when he saw no threat’ning tempest nigh,
      But a sure promise of a settled sky,
      He gave the sign to weigh; we break our sleep,
      Forsake the pleasing shore, and plow the deep.

      “And now the rising morn with rosy light
      Adorns the skies, and puts the stars to flight;
      When we from far, like bluish mists, descry
      The hills, and then the plains, of Italy.
      Achates first pronounc’d the joyful sound;
      Then, ‘Italy!’ the cheerful crew rebound.
      My sire Anchises crown’d a cup with wine,
      And, off’ring, thus implor’d the pow’rs divine:
      ‘Ye gods, presiding over lands and seas,
      And you who raging winds and waves appease,
      Breathe on our swelling sails a prosp’rous wind,
      And smooth our passage to the port assign’d!’
      The gentle gales their flagging force renew,
      And now the happy harbour is in view.
      Minerva’s temple then salutes our sight,
      Plac’d, as a landmark, on the mountain’s height.
      We furl our sails, and turn the prows to shore;
      The curling waters round the galleys roar.
      The land lies open to the raging east,
      Then, bending like a bow, with rocks compress’d,
      Shuts out the storms; the winds and waves complain,
      And vent their malice on the cliffs in vain.
      The port lies hid within; on either side
      Two tow’ring rocks the narrow mouth divide.
      The temple, which aloft we view’d before,
      To distance flies, and seems to shun the shore.
      Scarce landed, the first omens I beheld
      Were four white steeds that cropp’d the flow’ry field.
      ‘War, war is threaten’d from this foreign ground,’
      My father cried, ‘where warlike steeds are found.
      Yet, since reclaim’d to chariots they submit,
      And bend to stubborn yokes, and champ the bit,
      Peace may succeed to war.’ Our way we bend
      To Pallas, and the sacred hill ascend;
      There prostrate to the fierce Virago pray,
      Whose temple was the landmark of our way.
      Each with a Phrygian mantle veil’d his head,
      And all commands of Helenus obey’d,
      And pious rites to Grecian Juno paid.
      These dues perform’d, we stretch our sails, and stand
      To sea, forsaking that suspected land.

      “From hence Tarentum’s bay appears in view,
      For Hercules renown’d, if fame be true.
      Just opposite, Lacinian Juno stands;
      Caulonian tow’rs, and Scylacaean strands,
      For shipwrecks fear’d. Mount Aetna thence we spy,
      Known by the smoky flames which cloud the sky.
      Far off we hear the waves with surly sound
      Invade the rocks, the rocks their groans rebound.
      The billows break upon the sounding strand,
      And roll the rising tide, impure with sand.
      Then thus Anchises, in experience old:
      ‘’Tis that Charybdis which the seer foretold,
      And those the promis’d rocks! Bear off to sea!’
      With haste the frighted mariners obey.
      First Palinurus to the larboard veer’d;
      Then all the fleet by his example steer’d.
      To heav’n aloft on ridgy waves we ride,
      Then down to hell descend, when they divide;
      And thrice our galleys knock’d the stony ground,
      And thrice the hollow rocks return’d the sound,
      And thrice we saw the stars, that stood with dews around.
      The flagging winds forsook us, with the sun;
      And, wearied, on Cyclopian shores we run.
      The port capacious, and secure from wind,
      Is to the foot of thund’ring Aetna join’d.
      By turns a pitchy cloud she rolls on high;
      By turns hot embers from her entrails fly,
      And flakes of mounting flames, that lick the sky.
      Oft from her bowels massy rocks are thrown,
      And, shiver’d by the force, come piecemeal down.
      Oft liquid lakes of burning sulphur flow,
      Fed from the fiery springs that boil below.
      Enceladus, they say, transfix’d by Jove,
      With blasted limbs came tumbling from above;
      And, where he fell, th’ avenging father drew
      This flaming hill, and on his body threw.
      As often as he turns his weary sides,
      He shakes the solid isle, and smoke the heavens hides.
      In shady woods we pass the tedious night,
      Where bellowing sounds and groans our souls affright,
      Of which no cause is offer’d to the sight;
      For not one star was kindled in the sky,
      Nor could the moon her borrow’d light supply;
      For misty clouds involv’d the firmament,
      The stars were muffled, and the moon was pent.

      “Scarce had the rising sun the day reveal’d,
      Scarce had his heat the pearly dews dispell’d,
      When from the woods there bolts, before our sight,
      Somewhat betwixt a mortal and a sprite,
      So thin, so ghastly meager, and so wan,
      So bare of flesh, he scarce resembled man.
      This thing, all tatter’d, seem’d from far t’implore
      Our pious aid, and pointed to the shore.
      We look behind, then view his shaggy beard;
      His clothes were tagg’d with thorns, and filth his limbs
      besmear’d;
      The rest, in mien, in habit, and in face,
      Appear’d a Greek, and such indeed he was.
      He cast on us, from far, a frightful view,
      Whom soon for Trojans and for foes he knew;
      Stood still, and paus’d; then all at once began
      To stretch his limbs, and trembled as he ran.
      Soon as approach’d, upon his knees he falls,
      And thus with tears and sighs for pity calls:
      ‘Now, by the pow’rs above, and what we share
      From Nature’s common gift, this vital air,
      O Trojans, take me hence! I beg no more;
      But bear me far from this unhappy shore.
      ’Tis true, I am a Greek, and farther own,
      Among your foes besieg’d th’ imperial town.
      For such demerits if my death be due,
      No more for this abandon’d life I sue;
      This only favour let my tears obtain,
      To throw me headlong in the rapid main:
      Since nothing more than death my crime demands,
      I die content, to die by human hands.’
      He said, and on his knees my knees embrac’d:
      I bade him boldly tell his fortune past,
      His present state, his lineage, and his name,
      Th’ occasion of his fears, and whence he came.
      The good Anchises rais’d him with his hand;
      Who, thus encourag’d, answer’d our demand:
      ‘From Ithaca, my native soil, I came
      To Troy; and Achaemenides my name.
      Me my poor father with Ulysses sent;
      (O had I stay’d, with poverty content!)
      But, fearful for themselves, my countrymen
      Left me forsaken in the Cyclops’ den.
      The cave, tho’ large, was dark; the dismal floor
      Was pav’d with mangled limbs and putrid gore.
      Our monstrous host, of more than human size,
      Erects his head, and stares within the skies;
      Bellowing his voice, and horrid is his hue.
      Ye gods, remove this plague from mortal view!
      The joints of slaughter’d wretches are his food;
      And for his wine he quaffs the streaming blood.
      These eyes beheld, when with his spacious hand
      He seiz’d two captives of our Grecian band;
      Stretch’d on his back, he dash’d against the stones
      Their broken bodies, and their crackling bones:
      With spouting blood the purple pavement swims,
      While the dire glutton grinds the trembling limbs.

      “‘Not unreveng’d Ulysses bore their fate,
      Nor thoughtless of his own unhappy state;
      For, gorg’d with flesh, and drunk with human wine
      While fast asleep the giant lay supine,
      Snoring aloud, and belching from his maw
      His indigested foam, and morsels raw;
      We pray; we cast the lots, and then surround
      The monstrous body, stretch’d along the ground:
      Each, as he could approach him, lends a hand
      To bore his eyeball with a flaming brand.
      Beneath his frowning forehead lay his eye;
      For only one did the vast frame supply;
      But that a globe so large, his front it fill’d,
      Like the sun’s disk or like a Grecian shield.
      The stroke succeeds; and down the pupil bends:
      This vengeance follow’d for our slaughter’d friends.
      But haste, unhappy wretches, haste to fly!
      Your cables cut, and on your oars rely!
      Such, and so vast as Polypheme appears,
      A hundred more this hated island bears:
      Like him, in caves they shut their woolly sheep;
      Like him, their herds on tops of mountains keep;
      Like him, with mighty strides, they stalk from steep to steep
      And now three moons their sharpen’d horns renew,
      Since thus, in woods and wilds, obscure from view,
      I drag my loathsome days with mortal fright,
      And in deserted caverns lodge by night;
      Oft from the rocks a dreadful prospect see
      Of the huge Cyclops, like a walking tree:
      From far I hear his thund’ring voice resound,
      And trampling feet that shake the solid ground.
      Cornels and salvage berries of the wood,
      And roots and herbs, have been my meager food.
      While all around my longing eyes I cast,
      I saw your happy ships appear at last.
      On those I fix’d my hopes, to these I run;
      ’Tis all I ask, this cruel race to shun;
      What other death you please, yourselves bestow.’

      “Scarce had he said, when on the mountain’s brow
      We saw the giant shepherd stalk before
      His following flock, and leading to the shore:
      A monstrous bulk, deform’d, depriv’d of sight;
      His staff a trunk of pine, to guide his steps aright.
      His pond’rous whistle from his neck descends;
      His woolly care their pensive lord attends:
      This only solace his hard fortune sends.
      Soon as he reach’d the shore and touch’d the waves,
      From his bor’d eye the gutt’ring blood he laves:
      He gnash’d his teeth, and groan’d; thro’ seas he strides,
      And scarce the topmost billows touch’d his sides.

      “Seiz’d with a sudden fear, we run to sea,
      The cables cut, and silent haste away;
      The well-deserving stranger entertain;
      Then, buckling to the work, our oars divide the main.
      The giant harken’d to the dashing sound:
      But, when our vessels out of reach he found,
      He strided onward, and in vain essay’d
      Th’ Ionian deep, and durst no farther wade.
      With that he roar’d aloud: the dreadful cry
      Shakes earth, and air, and seas; the billows fly
      Before the bellowing noise to distant Italy.
      The neighb’ring Aetna trembling all around,
      The winding caverns echo to the sound.
      His brother Cyclops hear the yelling roar,
      And, rushing down the mountains, crowd the shore.
      We saw their stern distorted looks, from far,
      And one-eyed glance, that vainly threaten’d war:
      A dreadful council, with their heads on high;
      (The misty clouds about their foreheads fly;)
      Not yielding to the tow’ring tree of Jove,
      Or tallest cypress of Diana’s grove.
      New pangs of mortal fear our minds assail;
      We tug at ev’ry oar, and hoist up ev’ry sail,
      And take th’ advantage of the friendly gale.
      Forewarn’d by Helenus, we strive to shun
      Charybdis’ gulf, nor dare to Scylla run.
      An equal fate on either side appears:
      We, tacking to the left, are free from fears;
      For, from Pelorus’ point, the North arose,
      And drove us back where swift Pantagias flows.
      His rocky mouth we pass, and make our way
      By Thapsus and Megara’s winding bay.
      This passage Achaemenides had shown,
      Tracing the course which he before had run.

      “Right o’er against Plemmyrium’s wat’ry strand,
      There lies an isle once call’d th’ Ortygian land.
      Alpheus, as old fame reports, has found
      From Greece a secret passage under ground,
      By love to beauteous Arethusa led;
      And, mingling here, they roll in the same sacred bed.
      As Helenus enjoin’d, we next adore
      Diana’s name, protectress of the shore.
      With prosp’rous gales we pass the quiet sounds
      Of still Elorus, and his fruitful bounds.
      Then, doubling Cape Pachynus, we survey
      The rocky shore extended to the sea.
      The town of Camarine from far we see,
      And fenny lake, undrain’d by fate’s decree.
      In sight of the Geloan fields we pass,
      And the large walls, where mighty Gela was;
      Then Agragas, with lofty summits crown’d,
      Long for the race of warlike steeds renown’d.
      We pass’d Selinus, and the palmy land,
      And widely shun the Lilybaean strand,
      Unsafe, for secret rocks and moving sand.
      At length on shore the weary fleet arriv’d,
      Which Drepanum’s unhappy port receiv’d.
      Here, after endless labours, often toss’d
      By raging storms, and driv’n on ev’ry coast,
      My dear, dear father, spent with age, I lost:
      Ease of my cares, and solace of my pain,
      Sav’d thro’ a thousand toils, but sav’d in vain
      The prophet, who my future woes reveal’d,
      Yet this, the greatest and the worst, conceal’d;
      And dire Celaeno, whose foreboding skill
      Denounc’d all else, was silent of the ill.
      This my last labour was. Some friendly god
      From thence convey’d us to your blest abode.”

      Thus, to the list’ning queen, the royal guest
      His wand’ring course and all his toils express’d;
      And here concluding, he retir’d to rest.



 BOOK IV

 THE ARGUMENT.


      Dido discovers to her sister her passion for Aeneas, and her
      thoughts of marrying him. She prepares a hunting match for his
      entertainment. Juno, by Venus’ consent, raises a storm, which
      separates the hunters, and drives Aeneas and Dido into the same
      cave, where their marriage is supposed to be completed. Jupiter
      despatches Mercury to Aeneas, to warn him from Carthage. Aeneas
      secretly prepares for his voyage. Dido finds out his design, and,
      to put a stop to it, makes use of her own and her sister’s
      entreaties, and discovers all the variety of passions that are
      incident to a neglected lover. When nothing could prevail upon
      him, she contrives her own death, with which this book concludes.


      But anxious cares already seiz’d the queen:
      She fed within her veins a flame unseen;
      The hero’s valour, acts, and birth inspire
      Her soul with love, and fan the secret fire.
      His words, his looks, imprinted in her heart,
      Improve the passion, and increase the smart.
      Now, when the purple morn had chas’d away
      The dewy shadows, and restor’d the day,
      Her sister first with early care she sought,
      And thus in mournful accents eas’d her thought:

      “My dearest Anna, what new dreams affright
      My lab’ring soul! what visions of the night
      Disturb my quiet, and distract my breast
      With strange ideas of our Trojan guest!
      His worth, his actions, and majestic air,
      A man descended from the gods declare.
      Fear ever argues a degenerate kind;
      His birth is well asserted by his mind.
      Then, what he suffer’d, when by Fate betray’d!
      What brave attempts for falling Troy he made!
      Such were his looks, so gracefully he spoke,
      That, were I not resolv’d against the yoke
      Of hapless marriage, never to be curst
      With second love, so fatal was my first,
      To this one error I might yield again;
      For, since Sichaeus was untimely slain,
      This only man is able to subvert
      The fix’d foundations of my stubborn heart.
      And, to confess my frailty, to my shame,
      Somewhat I find within, if not the same,
      Too like the sparkles of my former flame.
      But first let yawning earth a passage rend,
      And let me thro’ the dark abyss descend;
      First let avenging Jove, with flames from high,
      Drive down this body to the nether sky,
      Condemn’d with ghosts in endless night to lie,
      Before I break the plighted faith I gave!
      No! he who had my vows shall ever have;
      For, whom I lov’d on earth, I worship in the grave.”

      She said: the tears ran gushing from her eyes,
      And stopp’d her speech. Her sister thus replies:
      “O dearer than the vital air I breathe,
      Will you to grief your blooming years bequeath,
      Condemn’d to waste in woes your lonely life,
      Without the joys of mother or of wife?
      Think you these tears, this pompous train of woe,
      Are known or valued by the ghosts below?
      I grant that, while your sorrows yet were green,
      It well became a woman, and a queen,
      The vows of Tyrian princes to neglect,
      To scorn Hyarbas, and his love reject,
      With all the Libyan lords of mighty name;
      But will you fight against a pleasing flame!
      This little spot of land, which Heav’n bestows,
      On ev’ry side is hemm’d with warlike foes;
      Gaetulian cities here are spread around,
      And fierce Numidians there your frontiers bound;
      Here lies a barren waste of thirsty land,
      And there the Syrtes raise the moving sand;
      Barcaean troops besiege the narrow shore,
      And from the sea Pygmalion threatens more.
      Propitious Heav’n, and gracious Juno, lead
      This wand’ring navy to your needful aid:
      How will your empire spread, your city rise,
      From such a union, and with such allies?
      Implore the favour of the pow’rs above,
      And leave the conduct of the rest to love.
      Continue still your hospitable way,
      And still invent occasions of their stay,
      Till storms and winter winds shall cease to threat,
      And planks and oars repair their shatter’d fleet.”

      These words, which from a friend and sister came,
      With ease resolv’d the scruples of her fame,
      And added fury to the kindled flame.
      Inspir’d with hope, the project they pursue;
      On ev’ry altar sacrifice renew:
      A chosen ewe of two years old they pay
      To Ceres, Bacchus, and the God of Day;
      Preferring Juno’s pow’r, for Juno ties
      The nuptial knot and makes the marriage joys.
      The beauteous queen before her altar stands,
      And holds the golden goblet in her hands.
      A milk-white heifer she with flow’rs adorns,
      And pours the ruddy wine betwixt her horns;
      And, while the priests with pray’r the gods invoke,
      She feeds their altars with Sabaean smoke,
      With hourly care the sacrifice renews,
      And anxiously the panting entrails views.
      What priestly rites, alas! what pious art,
      What vows avail to cure a bleeding heart!
      A gentle fire she feeds within her veins,
      Where the soft god secure in silence reigns.

      Sick with desire, and seeking him she loves,
      From street to street the raving Dido roves.
      So when the watchful shepherd, from the blind,
      Wounds with a random shaft the careless hind,
      Distracted with her pain she flies the woods,
      Bounds o’er the lawn, and seeks the silent floods,
      With fruitless care; for still the fatal dart
      Sticks in her side, and rankles in her heart.
      And now she leads the Trojan chief along
      The lofty walls, amidst the busy throng;
      Displays her Tyrian wealth, and rising town,
      Which love, without his labour, makes his own.
      This pomp she shows, to tempt her wand’ring guest;
      Her falt’ring tongue forbids to speak the rest.
      When day declines, and feasts renew the night,
      Still on his face she feeds her famish’d sight;
      She longs again to hear the prince relate
      His own adventures and the Trojan fate.
      He tells it o’er and o’er; but still in vain,
      For still she begs to hear it once again.
      The hearer on the speaker’s mouth depends,
      And thus the tragic story never ends.

      Then, when they part, when Phoebe’s paler light
      Withdraws, and falling stars to sleep invite,
      She last remains, when ev’ry guest is gone,
      Sits on the bed he press’d, and sighs alone;
      Absent, her absent hero sees and hears;
      Or in her bosom young Ascanius bears,
      And seeks the father’s image in the child,
      If love by likeness might be so beguil’d.

      Meantime the rising tow’rs are at a stand;
      No labours exercise the youthful band,
      Nor use of arts, nor toils of arms they know;
      The mole is left unfinish’d to the foe;
      The mounds, the works, the walls, neglected lie,
      Short of their promis’d heighth, that seem’d to threat the sky,

      But when imperial Juno, from above,
      Saw Dido fetter’d in the chains of love,
      Hot with the venom which her veins inflam’d,
      And by no sense of shame to be reclaim’d,
      With soothing words to Venus she begun:
      “High praises, endless honours, you have won,
      And mighty trophies, with your worthy son!
      Two gods a silly woman have undone!
      Nor am I ignorant, you both suspect
      This rising city, which my hands erect:
      But shall celestial discord never cease?
      ’Tis better ended in a lasting peace.
      You stand possess’d of all your soul desir’d:
      Poor Dido with consuming love is fir’d.
      Your Trojan with my Tyrian let us join;
      So Dido shall be yours, Aeneas mine:
      One common kingdom, one united line.
      Eliza shall a Dardan lord obey,
      And lofty Carthage for a dow’r convey.”
      Then Venus, who her hidden fraud descried,
      Which would the scepter of the world misguide
      To Libyan shores, thus artfully replied:
      “Who, but a fool, would wars with Juno choose,
      And such alliance and such gifts refuse,
      If Fortune with our joint desires comply?
      The doubt is all from Jove and destiny;
      Lest he forbid, with absolute command,
      To mix the people in one common land.
      Or will the Trojan and the Tyrian line
      In lasting leagues and sure succession join?
      But you, the partner of his bed and throne,
      May move his mind; my wishes are your own.”

      “Mine,” said imperial Juno, “be the care;
      Time urges, now, to perfect this affair:
      Attend my counsel, and the secret share.
      When next the Sun his rising light displays,
      And gilds the world below with purple rays,
      The queen, Aeneas, and the Tyrian court
      Shall to the shady woods, for sylvan game, resort.
      There, while the huntsmen pitch their toils around,
      And cheerful horns from side to side resound,
      A pitchy cloud shall cover all the plain
      With hail, and thunder, and tempestuous rain;
      The fearful train shall take their speedy flight,
      Dispers’d, and all involv’d in gloomy night;
      One cave a grateful shelter shall afford
      To the fair princess and the Trojan lord.
      I will myself the bridal bed prepare,
      If you, to bless the nuptials, will be there:
      So shall their loves be crown’d with due delights,
      And Hymen shall be present at the rites.”
      The Queen of Love consents, and closely smiles
      At her vain project, and discover’d wiles.

      The rosy morn was risen from the main,
      And horns and hounds awake the princely train:
      They issue early thro’ the city gate,
      Where the more wakeful huntsmen ready wait,
      With nets, and toils, and darts, beside the force
      Of Spartan dogs, and swift Massylian horse.
      The Tyrian peers and officers of state
      For the slow queen in antechambers wait;
      Her lofty courser, in the court below,
      Who his majestic rider seems to know,
      Proud of his purple trappings, paws the ground,
      And champs the golden bit, and spreads the foam around.
      The queen at length appears; on either hand
      The brawny guards in martial order stand.
      A flow’r’d simar with golden fringe she wore,
      And at her back a golden quiver bore;
      Her flowing hair a golden caul restrains,
      A golden clasp the Tyrian robe sustains.
      Then young Ascanius, with a sprightly grace,
      Leads on the Trojan youth to view the chase.
      But far above the rest in beauty shines
      The great Aeneas, the troop he joins;
      Like fair Apollo, when he leaves the frost
      Of wint’ry Xanthus, and the Lycian coast,
      When to his native Delos he resorts,
      Ordains the dances, and renews the sports;
      Where painted Scythians, mix’d with Cretan bands,
      Before the joyful altars join their hands:
      Himself, on Cynthus walking, sees below
      The merry madness of the sacred show.
      Green wreaths of bays his length of hair inclose;
      A golden fillet binds his awful brows;
      His quiver sounds: not less the prince is seen
      In manly presence, or in lofty mien.

      Now had they reach’d the hills, and storm’d the seat
      Of salvage beasts, in dens, their last retreat.
      The cry pursues the mountain goats: they bound
      From rock to rock, and keep the craggy ground;
      Quite otherwise the stags, a trembling train,
      In herds unsingled, scour the dusty plain,
      And a long chase in open view maintain.
      The glad Ascanius, as his courser guides,
      Spurs thro’ the vale, and these and those outrides.
      His horse’s flanks and sides are forc’d to feel
      The clanking lash, and goring of the steel.
      Impatiently he views the feeble prey,
      Wishing some nobler beast to cross his way,
      And rather would the tusky boar attend,
      Or see the tawny lion downward bend.

      Meantime, the gath’ring clouds obscure the skies:
      From pole to pole the forky lightning flies;
      The rattling thunders roll; and Juno pours
      A wintry deluge down, and sounding show’rs.
      The company, dispers’d, to converts ride,
      And seek the homely cots, or mountain’s hollow side.
      The rapid rains, descending from the hills,
      To rolling torrents raise the creeping rills.
      The queen and prince, as love or fortune guides,
      One common cavern in her bosom hides.
      Then first the trembling earth the signal gave,
      And flashing fires enlighten all the cave;
      Hell from below, and Juno from above,
      And howling nymphs, were conscious of their love.
      From this ill-omen’d hour in time arose
      Debate and death, and all succeeding woes.

      The queen, whom sense of honour could not move,
      No longer made a secret of her love,
      But call’d it marriage, by that specious name
      To veil the crime and sanctify the shame.

      The loud report thro’ Libyan cities goes.
      Fame, the great ill, from small beginnings grows:
      Swift from the first; and ev’ry moment brings
      New vigour to her flights, new pinions to her wings.
      Soon grows the pigmy to gigantic size;
      Her feet on earth, her forehead in the skies.
      Inrag’d against the gods, revengeful Earth
      Produc’d her last of the Titanian birth.
      Swift is her walk, more swift her winged haste:
      A monstrous phantom, horrible and vast.
      As many plumes as raise her lofty flight,
      So many piercing eyes inlarge her sight;
      Millions of opening mouths to Fame belong,
      And ev’ry mouth is furnish’d with a tongue,
      And round with list’ning ears the flying plague is hung.
      She fills the peaceful universe with cries;
      No slumbers ever close her wakeful eyes;
      By day, from lofty tow’rs her head she shews,
      And spreads thro’ trembling crowds disastrous news;
      With court informers haunts, and royal spies;
      Things done relates, not done she feigns, and mingles truth with
      lies.

      Talk is her business, and her chief delight
      To tell of prodigies and cause affright.
      She fills the people’s ears with Dido’s name,
      Who, lost to honour and the sense of shame,
      Admits into her throne and nuptial bed
      A wand’ring guest, who from his country fled:
      Whole days with him she passes in delights,
      And wastes in luxury long winter nights,
      Forgetful of her fame and royal trust,
      Dissolv’d in ease, abandon’d to her lust.

      The goddess widely spreads the loud report,
      And flies at length to King Hyarba’s court.
      When first possess’d with this unwelcome news
      Whom did he not of men and gods accuse?
      This prince, from ravish’d Garamantis born,
      A hundred temples did with spoils adorn,
      In Ammon’s honour, his celestial sire;
      A hundred altars fed with wakeful fire;
      And, thro’ his vast dominions, priests ordain’d,
      Whose watchful care these holy rites maintain’d.
      The gates and columns were with garlands crown’d,
      And blood of victim beasts enrich’d the ground.

      He, when he heard a fugitive could move
      The Tyrian princess, who disdain’d his love,
      His breast with fury burn’d, his eyes with fire,
      Mad with despair, impatient with desire;
      Then on the sacred altars pouring wine,
      He thus with pray’rs implor’d his sire divine:
      “Great Jove! propitious to the Moorish race,
      Who feast on painted beds, with off’rings grace
      Thy temples, and adore thy pow’r divine
      With blood of victims, and with sparkling wine,
      Seest thou not this? or do we fear in vain
      Thy boasted thunder, and thy thoughtless reign?
      Do thy broad hands the forky lightnings lance?
      Thine are the bolts, or the blind work of chance?
      A wand’ring woman builds, within our state,
      A little town, bought at an easy rate;
      She pays me homage, and my grants allow
      A narrow space of Libyan lands to plow;
      Yet, scorning me, by passion blindly led,
      Admits a banish’d Trojan to her bed!
      And now this other Paris, with his train
      Of conquer’d cowards, must in Afric reign!
      (Whom, what they are, their looks and garb confess,
      Their locks with oil perfum’d, their Lydian dress.)
      He takes the spoil, enjoys the princely dame;
      And I, rejected I, adore an empty name.”

      His vows, in haughty terms, he thus preferr’d,
      And held his altar’s horns. The mighty Thund’rer heard;
      Then cast his eyes on Carthage, where he found
      The lustful pair in lawless pleasure drown’d,
      Lost in their loves, insensible of shame,
      And both forgetful of their better fame.
      He calls Cyllenius, and the god attends,
      By whom his menacing command he sends:
      “Go, mount the western winds, and cleave the sky;
      Then, with a swift descent, to Carthage fly:
      There find the Trojan chief, who wastes his days
      In slothful riot and inglorious ease,
      Nor minds the future city, giv’n by fate.
      To him this message from my mouth relate:
      ‘Not so fair Venus hop’d, when twice she won
      Thy life with pray’rs, nor promis’d such a son.
      Hers was a hero, destin’d to command
      A martial race, and rule the Latian land,
      Who should his ancient line from Teucer draw,
      And on the conquer’d world impose the law.’
      If glory cannot move a mind so mean,
      Nor future praise from fading pleasure wean,
      Yet why should he defraud his son of fame,
      And grudge the Romans their immortal name!
      What are his vain designs! what hopes he more
      From his long ling’ring on a hostile shore,
      Regardless to redeem his honour lost,
      And for his race to gain th’ Ausonian coast!
      Bid him with speed the Tyrian court forsake;
      With this command the slumb’ring warrior wake.”

      Hermes obeys; with golden pinions binds
      His flying feet, and mounts the western winds:
      And, whether o’er the seas or earth he flies,
      With rapid force they bear him down the skies.
      But first he grasps within his awful hand
      The mark of sov’reign pow’r, his magic wand;
      With this he draws the ghosts from hollow graves;
      With this he drives them down the Stygian waves;
      With this he seals in sleep the wakeful sight,
      And eyes, tho’ clos’d in death, restores to light.
      Thus arm’d, the god begins his airy race,
      And drives the racking clouds along the liquid space;
      Now sees the tops of Atlas, as he flies,
      Whose brawny back supports the starry skies;
      Atlas, whose head, with piny forests crown’d,
      Is beaten by the winds, with foggy vapours bound.
      Snows hide his shoulders; from beneath his chin
      The founts of rolling streams their race begin;
      A beard of ice on his large breast depends.
      Here, pois’d upon his wings, the god descends:
      Then, rested thus, he from the tow’ring height
      Plung’d downward, with precipitated flight,
      Lights on the seas, and skims along the flood.
      As waterfowl, who seek their fishy food,
      Less, and yet less, to distant prospect show;
      By turns they dance aloft, and dive below:
      Like these, the steerage of his wings he plies,
      And near the surface of the water flies,
      Till, having pass’d the seas, and cross’d the sands,
      He clos’d his wings, and stoop’d on Libyan lands:
      Where shepherds once were hous’d in homely sheds,
      Now tow’rs within the clouds advance their heads.
      Arriving there, he found the Trojan prince
      New ramparts raising for the town’s defence.
      A purple scarf, with gold embroider’d o’er,
      (Queen Dido’s gift,) about his waist he wore;
      A sword, with glitt’ring gems diversified,
      For ornament, not use, hung idly by his side.

      Then thus, with winged words, the god began,
      Resuming his own shape: “Degenerate man,
      Thou woman’s property, what mak’st thou here,
      These foreign walls and Tyrian tow’rs to rear,
      Forgetful of thy own? All-pow’rful Jove,
      Who sways the world below and heav’n above,
      Has sent me down with this severe command:
      What means thy ling’ring in the Libyan land?
      If glory cannot move a mind so mean,
      Nor future praise from flitting pleasure wean,
      Regard the fortunes of thy rising heir:
      The promis’d crown let young Ascanius wear,
      To whom th’ Ausonian scepter, and the state
      Of Rome’s imperial name is ow’d by fate.”
      So spoke the god; and, speaking, took his flight,
      Involv’d in clouds, and vanish’d out of sight.

      The pious prince was seiz’d with sudden fear;
      Mute was his tongue, and upright stood his hair.
      Revolving in his mind the stern command,
      He longs to fly, and loathes the charming land.
      What should he say? or how should he begin?
      What course, alas! remains to steer between
      Th’ offended lover and the pow’rful queen?
      This way and that he turns his anxious mind,
      And all expedients tries, and none can find.
      Fix’d on the deed, but doubtful of the means,
      After long thought, to this advice he leans:
      Three chiefs he calls, commands them to repair
      The fleet, and ship their men with silent care;
      Some plausible pretence he bids them find,
      To colour what in secret he design’d.
      Himself, meantime, the softest hours would choose,
      Before the love-sick lady heard the news;
      And move her tender mind, by slow degrees,
      To suffer what the sov’reign pow’r decrees:
      Jove will inspire him, when, and what to say.
      They hear with pleasure, and with haste obey.

      But soon the queen perceives the thin disguise:
      (What arts can blind a jealous woman’s eyes!)
      She was the first to find the secret fraud,
      Before the fatal news was blaz’d abroad.
      Love the first motions of the lover hears,
      Quick to presage, and ev’n in safety fears.
      Nor impious Fame was wanting to report
      The ships repair’d, the Trojans’ thick resort,
      And purpose to forsake the Tyrian court.
      Frantic with fear, impatient of the wound,
      And impotent of mind, she roves the city round.
      Less wild the Bacchanalian dames appear,
      When, from afar, their nightly god they hear,
      And howl about the hills, and shake the wreathy spear.
      At length she finds the dear perfidious man;
      Prevents his form’d excuse, and thus began:
      “Base and ungrateful! could you hope to fly,
      And undiscover’d scape a lover’s eye?
      Nor could my kindness your compassion move.
      Nor plighted vows, nor dearer bands of love?
      Or is the death of a despairing queen
      Not worth preventing, tho’ too well foreseen?
      Ev’n when the wintry winds command your stay,
      You dare the tempests, and defy the sea.
      False as you are, suppose you were not bound
      To lands unknown, and foreign coasts to sound;
      Were Troy restor’d, and Priam’s happy reign,
      Now durst you tempt, for Troy, the raging main?
      See whom you fly! am I the foe you shun?
      Now, by those holy vows, so late begun,
      By this right hand, (since I have nothing more
      To challenge, but the faith you gave before;)
      I beg you by these tears too truly shed,
      By the new pleasures of our nuptial bed;
      If ever Dido, when you most were kind,
      Were pleasing in your eyes, or touch’d your mind;
      By these my pray’rs, if pray’rs may yet have place,
      Pity the fortunes of a falling race.
      For you I have provok’d a tyrant’s hate,
      Incens’d the Libyan and the Tyrian state;
      For you alone I suffer in my fame,
      Bereft of honour, and expos’d to shame.
      Whom have I now to trust, ungrateful guest?
      (That only name remains of all the rest!)
      What have I left? or whither can I fly?
      Must I attend Pygmalion’s cruelty,
      Or till Hyarba shall in triumph lead
      A queen that proudly scorn’d his proffer’d bed?
      Had you deferr’d, at least, your hasty flight,
      And left behind some pledge of our delight,
      Some babe to bless the mother’s mournful sight,
      Some young Aeneas, to supply your place,
      Whose features might express his father’s face;
      I should not then complain to live bereft
      Of all my husband, or be wholly left.”

      Here paus’d the queen. Unmov’d he holds his eyes,
      By Jove’s command; nor suffer’d love to rise,
      Tho’ heaving in his heart; and thus at length replies:
      “Fair queen, you never can enough repeat
      Your boundless favours, or I own my debt;
      Nor can my mind forget Eliza’s name,
      While vital breath inspires this mortal frame.
      This only let me speak in my defence:
      I never hop’d a secret flight from hence,
      Much less pretended to the lawful claim
      Of sacred nuptials, or a husband’s name.
      For, if indulgent Heav’n would leave me free,
      And not submit my life to fate’s decree,
      My choice would lead me to the Trojan shore,
      Those relics to review, their dust adore,
      And Priam’s ruin’d palace to restore.
      But now the Delphian oracle commands,
      And fate invites me to the Latian lands.
      That is the promis’d place to which I steer,
      And all my vows are terminated there.
      If you, a Tyrian, and a stranger born,
      With walls and tow’rs a Libyan town adorn,
      Why may not we, like you, a foreign race,
      Like you, seek shelter in a foreign place?
      As often as the night obscures the skies
      With humid shades, or twinkling stars arise,
      Anchises’ angry ghost in dreams appears,
      Chides my delay, and fills my soul with fears;
      And young Ascanius justly may complain
      Of his defrauded and destin’d reign.
      Ev’n now the herald of the gods appear’d:
      Waking I saw him, and his message heard.
      From Jove he came commission’d, heav’nly bright
      With radiant beams, and manifest to sight
      (The sender and the sent I both attest)
      These walls he enter’d, and those words express’d.
      Fair queen, oppose not what the gods command;
      Forc’d by my fate, I leave your happy land.”

      Thus while he spoke, already she began,
      With sparkling eyes, to view the guilty man;
      From head to foot survey’d his person o’er,
      Nor longer these outrageous threats forebore:
      “False as thou art, and, more than false, forsworn!
      Not sprung from noble blood, nor goddess-born,
      But hewn from harden’d entrails of a rock!
      And rough Hyrcanian tigers gave thee suck!
      Why should I fawn? what have I worse to fear?
      Did he once look, or lent a list’ning ear,
      Sigh’d when I sobb’d, or shed one kindly tear?
      All symptoms of a base ungrateful mind,
      So foul, that, which is worse, ’tis hard to find.
      Of man’s injustice why should I complain?
      The gods, and Jove himself, behold in vain
      Triumphant treason; yet no thunder flies,
      Nor Juno views my wrongs with equal eyes;
      Faithless is earth, and faithless are the skies!
      Justice is fled, and Truth is now no more!
      I sav’d the shipwreck’d exile on my shore;
      With needful food his hungry Trojans fed;
      I took the traitor to my throne and bed:
      Fool that I was—— ’tis little to repeat
      The rest, I stor’d and rigg’d his ruin’d fleet.
      I rave, I rave! A god’s command he pleads,
      And makes Heav’n accessary to his deeds.
      Now Lycian lots, and now the Delian god,
      Now Hermes is employ’d from Jove’s abode,
      To warn him hence; as if the peaceful state
      Of heav’nly pow’rs were touch’d with human fate!
      But go! thy flight no longer I detain;
      Go seek thy promis’d kingdom thro’ the main!
      Yet, if the heav’ns will hear my pious vow,
      The faithless waves, not half so false as thou,
      Or secret sands, shall sepulchers afford
      To thy proud vessels, and their perjur’d lord.
      Then shalt thou call on injur’d Dido’s name:
      Dido shall come in a black sulph’ry flame,
      When death has once dissolv’d her mortal frame;
      Shall smile to see the traitor vainly weep:
      Her angry ghost, arising from the deep,
      Shall haunt thee waking, and disturb thy sleep.
      At least my shade thy punishment shall know,
      And Fame shall spread the pleasing news below.”

      Abruptly here she stops; then turns away
      Her loathing eyes, and shuns the sight of day.
      Amaz’d he stood, revolving in his mind
      What speech to frame, and what excuse to find.
      Her fearful maids their fainting mistress led,
      And softly laid her on her ivory bed.

      But good Aeneas, tho’ he much desir’d
      To give that pity which her grief requir’d;
      Tho’ much he mourn’d, and labour’d with his love,
      Resolv’d at length, obeys the will of Jove;
      Reviews his forces: they with early care
      Unmoor their vessels, and for sea prepare.
      The fleet is soon afloat, in all its pride,
      And well-calk’d galleys in the harbour ride.
      Then oaks for oars they fell’d; or, as they stood,
      Of its green arms despoil’d the growing wood,
      Studious of flight. The beach is cover’d o’er
      With Trojan bands, that blacken all the shore:
      On ev’ry side are seen, descending down,
      Thick swarms of soldiers, loaden from the town.
      Thus, in battalia, march embodied ants,
      Fearful of winter, and of future wants,
      T’ invade the corn, and to their cells convey
      The plunder’d forage of their yellow prey.
      The sable troops, along the narrow tracks,
      Scarce bear the weighty burthen on their backs:
      Some set their shoulders to the pond’rous grain;
      Some guard the spoil; some lash the lagging train;
      All ply their sev’ral tasks, and equal toil sustain.

      What pangs the tender breast of Dido tore,
      When, from the tow’r, she saw the cover’d shore,
      And heard the shouts of sailors from afar,
      Mix’d with the murmurs of the wat’ry war!
      All-pow’rful Love! what changes canst thou cause
      In human hearts, subjected to thy laws!
      Once more her haughty soul the tyrant bends:
      To pray’rs and mean submissions she descends.
      No female arts or aids she left untried,
      Nor counsels unexplor’d, before she died.
      “Look, Anna! look! the Trojans crowd to sea;
      They spread their canvas, and their anchors weigh.
      The shouting crew their ships with garlands bind,
      Invoke the sea gods, and invite the wind.
      Could I have thought this threat’ning blow so near,
      My tender soul had been forewarn’d to bear.
      But do not you my last request deny;
      With yon perfidious man your int’rest try,
      And bring me news, if I must live or die.
      You are his fav’rite; you alone can find
      The dark recesses of his inmost mind:
      In all his trusted secrets you have part,
      And know the soft approaches to his heart.
      Haste then, and humbly seek my haughty foe;
      Tell him, I did not with the Grecians go,
      Nor did my fleet against his friends employ,
      Nor swore the ruin of unhappy Troy,
      Nor mov’d with hands profane his father’s dust:
      Why should he then reject a suit so just!
      Whom does he shun, and whither would he fly!
      Can he this last, this only pray’r deny!
      Let him at least his dang’rous flight delay,
      Wait better winds, and hope a calmer sea.
      The nuptials he disclaims I urge no more:
      Let him pursue the promis’d Latian shore.
      A short delay is all I ask him now;
      A pause of grief, an interval from woe,
      Till my soft soul be temper’d to sustain
      Accustom’d sorrows, and inur’d to pain.
      If you in pity grant this one request,
      My death shall glut the hatred of his breast.”
      This mournful message pious Anna bears,
      And seconds with her own her sister’s tears:
      But all her arts are still employ’d in vain;
      Again she comes, and is refus’d again.
      His harden’d heart nor pray’rs nor threat’nings move;
      Fate, and the god, had stopp’d his ears to love.

      As, when the winds their airy quarrel try,
      Justling from ev’ry quarter of the sky,
      This way and that the mountain oak they bend,
      His boughs they shatter, and his branches rend;
      With leaves and falling mast they spread the ground;
      The hollow valleys echo to the sound:
      Unmov’d, the royal plant their fury mocks,
      Or, shaken, clings more closely to the rocks;
      Far as he shoots his tow’ring head on high,
      So deep in earth his fix’d foundations lie.
      No less a storm the Trojan hero bears;
      Thick messages and loud complaints he hears,
      And bandied words, still beating on his ears.
      Sighs, groans, and tears proclaim his inward pains;
      But the firm purpose of his heart remains.

      The wretched queen, pursued by cruel fate,
      Begins at length the light of heav’n to hate,
      And loathes to live. Then dire portents she sees,
      To hasten on the death her soul decrees:
      Strange to relate! for when, before the shrine,
      She pours in sacrifice the purple wine,
      The purple wine is turn’d to putrid blood,
      And the white offer’d milk converts to mud.
      This dire presage, to her alone reveal’d,
      From all, and ev’n her sister, she conceal’d.
      A marble temple stood within the grove,
      Sacred to death, and to her murder’d love;
      That honour’d chapel she had hung around
      With snowy fleeces, and with garlands crown’d:
      Oft, when she visited this lonely dome,
      Strange voices issued from her husband’s tomb;
      She thought she heard him summon her away,
      Invite her to his grave, and chide her stay.
      Hourly ’tis heard, when with a boding note
      The solitary screech owl strains her throat,
      And, on a chimney’s top, or turret’s height,
      With songs obscene disturbs the silence of the night.
      Besides, old prophecies augment her fears;
      And stern Aeneas in her dreams appears,
      Disdainful as by day: she seems, alone,
      To wander in her sleep, thro’ ways unknown,
      Guideless and dark; or, in a desert plain,
      To seek her subjects, and to seek in vain:
      Like Pentheus, when, distracted with his fear,
      He saw two suns, and double Thebes, appear;
      Or mad Orestes, when his mother’s ghost
      Full in his face infernal torches toss’d,
      And shook her snaky locks: he shuns the sight,
      Flies o’er the stage, surpris’d with mortal fright;
      The Furies guard the door and intercept his flight.

      Now, sinking underneath a load of grief,
      From death alone she seeks her last relief;
      The time and means resolv’d within her breast,
      She to her mournful sister thus address’d
      (Dissembling hope, her cloudy front she clears,
      And a false vigour in her eyes appears):
      “Rejoice!” she said. “Instructed from above,
      My lover I shall gain, or lose my love.
      Nigh rising Atlas, next the falling sun,
      Long tracts of Ethiopian climates run:
      There a Massylian priestess I have found,
      Honour’d for age, for magic arts renown’d:
      Th’ Hesperian temple was her trusted care;
      ’Twas she supplied the wakeful dragon’s fare.
      She poppy seeds in honey taught to steep,
      Reclaim’d his rage, and sooth’d him into sleep.
      She watch’d the golden fruit; her charms unbind
      The chains of love, or fix them on the mind:
      She stops the torrents, leaves the channel dry,
      Repels the stars, and backward bears the sky.
      The yawning earth rebellows to her call,
      Pale ghosts ascend, and mountain ashes fall.
      Witness, ye gods, and thou my better part,
      How loth I am to try this impious art!
      Within the secret court, with silent care,
      Erect a lofty pile, expos’d in air:
      Hang on the topmost part the Trojan vest,
      Spoils, arms, and presents, of my faithless guest.
      Next, under these, the bridal bed be plac’d,
      Where I my ruin in his arms embrac’d:
      All relics of the wretch are doom’d to fire;
      For so the priestess and her charms require.”

      Thus far she said, and farther speech forbears;
      A mortal paleness in her face appears:
      Yet the mistrustless Anna could not find
      The secret fun’ral in these rites design’d;
      Nor thought so dire a rage possess’d her mind.
      Unknowing of a train conceal’d so well,
      She fear’d no worse than when Sichaeus fell;
      Therefore obeys. The fatal pile they rear,
      Within the secret court, expos’d in air.
      The cloven holms and pines are heap’d on high,
      And garlands on the hollow spaces lie.
      Sad cypress, vervain, yew, compose the wreath,
      And ev’ry baleful green denoting death.
      The queen, determin’d to the fatal deed,
      The spoils and sword he left, in order spread,
      And the man’s image on the nuptial bed.

      And now (the sacred altars plac’d around)
      The priestess enters, with her hair unbound,
      And thrice invokes the pow’rs below the ground.
      Night, Erebus, and Chaos she proclaims,
      And threefold Hecate, with her hundred names,
      And three Dianas: next, she sprinkles round
      With feign’d Avernian drops the hallow’d ground;
      Culls hoary simples, found by Phoebe’s light,
      With brazen sickles reap’d at noon of night;
      Then mixes baleful juices in the bowl,
      And cuts the forehead of a newborn foal,
      Robbing the mother’s love. The destin’d queen
      Observes, assisting at the rites obscene;
      A leaven’d cake in her devoted hands
      She holds, and next the highest altar stands:
      One tender foot was shod, her other bare;
      Girt was her gather’d gown, and loose her hair.
      Thus dress’d, she summon’d, with her dying breath,
      The heav’ns and planets conscious of her death,
      And ev’ry pow’r, if any rules above,
      Who minds, or who revenges, injur’d love.

      “’Twas dead of night, when weary bodies close
      Their eyes in balmy sleep and soft repose:
      The winds no longer whisper thro’ the woods,
      Nor murm’ring tides disturb the gentle floods.
      The stars in silent order mov’d around;
      And Peace, with downy wings, was brooding on the ground
      The flocks and herds, and party-colour’d fowl,
      Which haunt the woods, or swim the weedy pool,
      Stretch’d on the quiet earth, securely lay,
      Forgetting the past labours of the day.
      All else of nature’s common gift partake:
      Unhappy Dido was alone awake.
      Nor sleep nor ease the furious queen can find;
      Sleep fled her eyes, as quiet fled her mind.
      Despair, and rage, and love divide her heart;
      Despair and rage had some, but love the greater part.

      Then thus she said within her secret mind:
      “What shall I do? what succour can I find?
      Become a suppliant to Hyarba’s pride,
      And take my turn, to court and be denied?
      Shall I with this ungrateful Trojan go,
      Forsake an empire, and attend a foe?
      Himself I refug’d, and his train reliev’d;
      ’Tis true; but am I sure to be receiv’d?
      Can gratitude in Trojan souls have place!
      Laomedon still lives in all his race!
      Then, shall I seek alone the churlish crew,
      Or with my fleet their flying sails pursue?
      What force have I but those whom scarce before
      I drew reluctant from their native shore?
      Will they again embark at my desire,
      Once more sustain the seas, and quit their second Tyre?
      Rather with steel thy guilty breast invade,
      And take the fortune thou thyself hast made.
      Your pity, sister, first seduc’d my mind,
      Or seconded too well what I design’d.
      These dear-bought pleasures had I never known,
      Had I continued free, and still my own;
      Avoiding love, I had not found despair,
      But shar’d with salvage beasts the common air.
      Like them, a lonely life I might have led,
      Not mourn’d the living, nor disturb’d the dead.”
      These thoughts she brooded in her anxious breast.
      On board, the Trojan found more easy rest.
      Resolv’d to sail, in sleep he pass’d the night;
      And order’d all things for his early flight.

      To whom once more the winged god appears;
      His former youthful mien and shape he wears,
      And with this new alarm invades his ears:
      “Sleep’st thou, O goddess-born! and canst thou drown
      Thy needful cares, so near a hostile town,
      Beset with foes; nor hear’st the western gales
      Invite thy passage, and inspire thy sails?
      She harbours in her heart a furious hate,
      And thou shalt find the dire effects too late;
      Fix’d on revenge, and obstinate to die.
      Haste swiftly hence, while thou hast pow’r to fly.
      The sea with ships will soon be cover’d o’er,
      And blazing firebrands kindle all the shore.
      Prevent her rage, while night obscures the skies,
      And sail before the purple morn arise.
      Who knows what hazards thy delay may bring?
      Woman’s a various and a changeful thing.”
      Thus Hermes in the dream; then took his flight
      Aloft in air unseen, and mix’d with night.

      Twice warn’d by the celestial messenger,
      The pious prince arose with hasty fear;
      Then rous’d his drowsy train without delay:
      “Haste to your banks; your crooked anchors weigh,
      And spread your flying sails, and stand to sea.
      A god commands: he stood before my sight,
      And urg’d us once again to speedy flight.
      O sacred pow’r, what pow’r soe’er thou art,
      To thy blest orders I resign my heart.
      Lead thou the way; protect thy Trojan bands,
      And prosper the design thy will commands.”
      He said: and, drawing forth his flaming sword,
      His thund’ring arm divides the many-twisted cord.
      An emulating zeal inspires his train:
      They run; they snatch; they rush into the main.
      With headlong haste they leave the desert shores,
      And brush the liquid seas with lab’ring oars.

      Aurora now had left her saffron bed,
      And beams of early light the heav’ns o’erspread,
      When, from a tow’r, the queen, with wakeful eyes,
      Saw day point upward from the rosy skies.
      She look’d to seaward; but the sea was void,
      And scarce in ken the sailing ships descried.
      Stung with despite, and furious with despair,
      She struck her trembling breast, and tore her hair.
      “And shall th’ ungrateful traitor go,” she said,
      “My land forsaken, and my love betray’d?
      Shall we not arm? not rush from ev’ry street,
      To follow, sink, and burn his perjur’d fleet?
      Haste, haul my galleys out! pursue the foe!
      Bring flaming brands! set sail, and swiftly row!
      What have I said? where am I? Fury turns
      My brain; and my distemper’d bosom burns.
      Then, when I gave my person and my throne,
      This hate, this rage, had been more timely shown.
      See now the promis’d faith, the vaunted name,
      The pious man, who, rushing thro’ the flame,
      Preserv’d his gods, and to the Phrygian shore
      The burthen of his feeble father bore!
      I should have torn him piecemeal; strow’d in floods
      His scatter’d limbs, or left expos’d in woods;
      Destroy’d his friends and son; and, from the fire,
      Have set the reeking boy before the sire.
      Events are doubtful, which on battles wait:
      Yet where’s the doubt, to souls secure of fate?
      My Tyrians, at their injur’d queen’s command,
      Had toss’d their fires amid the Trojan band;
      At once extinguish’d all the faithless name;
      And I myself, in vengeance of my shame,
      Had fall’n upon the pile, to mend the fun’ral flame.
      Thou Sun, who view’st at once the world below;
      Thou Juno, guardian of the nuptial vow;
      Thou Hecate hearken from thy dark abodes!
      Ye Furies, fiends, and violated gods,
      All pow’rs invok’d with Dido’s dying breath,
      Attend her curses and avenge her death!
      If so the Fates ordain, Jove commands,
      Th’ ungrateful wretch should find the Latian lands,
      Yet let a race untam’d, and haughty foes,
      His peaceful entrance with dire arms oppose:
      Oppress’d with numbers in th’ unequal field,
      His men discourag’d, and himself expell’d,
      Let him for succour sue from place to place,
      Torn from his subjects, and his son’s embrace.
      First, let him see his friends in battle slain,
      And their untimely fate lament in vain;
      And when, at length, the cruel war shall cease,
      On hard conditions may he buy his peace:
      Nor let him then enjoy supreme command;
      But fall, untimely, by some hostile hand,
      And lie unburied on the barren sand!
      These are my pray’rs, and this my dying will;
      And you, my Tyrians, ev’ry curse fulfil.
      Perpetual hate and mortal wars proclaim,
      Against the prince, the people, and the name.
      These grateful off’rings on my grave bestow;
      Nor league, nor love, the hostile nations know!
      Now, and from hence, in ev’ry future age,
      When rage excites your arms, and strength supplies the rage
      Rise some avenger of our Libyan blood,
      With fire and sword pursue the perjur’d brood;
      Our arms, our seas, our shores, oppos’d to theirs;
      And the same hate descend on all our heirs!”

      This said, within her anxious mind she weighs
      The means of cutting short her odious days.
      Then to Sichaeus’ nurse she briefly said
      (For, when she left her country, hers was dead):
      “Go, Barce, call my sister. Let her care
      The solemn rites of sacrifice prepare;
      The sheep, and all th’ atoning off’rings bring,
      Sprinkling her body from the crystal spring
      With living drops; then let her come, and thou
      With sacred fillets bind thy hoary brow.
      Thus will I pay my vows to Stygian Jove,
      And end the cares of my disastrous love;
      Then cast the Trojan image on the fire,
      And, as that burns, my passions shall expire.”

      The nurse moves onward, with officious care,
      And all the speed her aged limbs can bear.
      But furious Dido, with dark thoughts involv’d,
      Shook at the mighty mischief she resolv’d.
      With livid spots distinguish’d was her face;
      Red were her rolling eyes, and discompos’d her pace;
      Ghastly she gaz’d, with pain she drew her breath,
      And nature shiver’d at approaching death.

      Then swiftly to the fatal place she pass’d,
      And mounts the fun’ral pile with furious haste;
      Unsheathes the sword the Trojan left behind
      (Not for so dire an enterprise design’d).
      But when she view’d the garments loosely spread,
      Which once he wore, and saw the conscious bed,
      She paus’d, and with a sigh the robes embrac’d;
      Then on the couch her trembling body cast,
      Repress’d the ready tears, and spoke her last:
      “Dear pledges of my love, while Heav’n so pleas’d,
      Receive a soul, of mortal anguish eas’d:
      My fatal course is finish’d; and I go,
      A glorious name, among the ghosts below.
      A lofty city by my hands is rais’d,
      Pygmalion punish’d, and my lord appeas’d.
      What could my fortune have afforded more,
      Had the false Trojan never touch’d my shore!”
      Then kiss’d the couch; and, “Must I die,” she said,
      “And unreveng’d? ’Tis doubly to be dead!
      Yet ev’n this death with pleasure I receive:
      On any terms, ’tis better than to live.
      These flames, from far, may the false Trojan view;
      These boding omens his base flight pursue!”

      She said, and struck; deep enter’d in her side
      The piercing steel, with reeking purple dyed:
      Clogg’d in the wound the cruel weapon stands;
      The spouting blood came streaming on her hands.
      Her sad attendants saw the deadly stroke,
      And with loud cries the sounding palace shook.
      Distracted, from the fatal sight they fled,
      And thro’ the town the dismal rumour spread.
      First from the frighted court the yell began;
      Redoubled, thence from house to house it ran:
      The groans of men, with shrieks, laments, and cries
      Of mixing women, mount the vaulted skies.
      Not less the clamour, than if ancient Tyre,
      Or the new Carthage, set by foes on fire,
      The rolling ruin, with their lov’d abodes,
      Involv’d the blazing temples of their gods.

      Her sister hears; and, furious with despair,
      She beats her breast, and rends her yellow hair,
      And, calling on Eliza’s name aloud,
      Runs breathless to the place, and breaks the crowd.
      “Was all that pomp of woe for this prepar’d;
      These fires, this fun’ral pile, these altars rear’d?
      Was all this train of plots contriv’d,” said she,
      “All only to deceive unhappy me?
      Which is the worst? Didst thou in death pretend
      To scorn thy sister, or delude thy friend?
      Thy summon’d sister, and thy friend, had come;
      One sword had serv’d us both, one common tomb:
      Was I to raise the pile, the pow’rs invoke,
      Not to be present at the fatal stroke?
      At once thou hast destroy’d thyself and me,
      Thy town, thy senate, and thy colony!
      Bring water; bathe the wound; while I in death
      Lay close my lips to hers, and catch the flying breath.”
      This said, she mounts the pile with eager haste,
      And in her arms the gasping queen embrac’d;
      Her temples chaf’d; and her own garments tore,
      To stanch the streaming blood, and cleanse the gore.
      Thrice Dido tried to raise her drooping head,
      And, fainting thrice, fell grov’ling on the bed;
      Thrice op’d her heavy eyes, and sought the light,
      But, having found it, sicken’d at the sight,
      And clos’d her lids at last in endless night.

      Then Juno, grieving that she should sustain
      A death so ling’ring, and so full of pain,
      Sent Iris down, to free her from the strife
      Of lab’ring nature, and dissolve her life.
      For since she died, not doom’d by Heav’n’s decree,
      Or her own crime, but human casualty,
      And rage of love, that plung’d her in despair,
      The Sisters had not cut the topmost hair,
      Which Proserpine and they can only know;
      Nor made her sacred to the shades below.
      Downward the various goddess took her flight,
      And drew a thousand colours from the light;
      Then stood above the dying lover’s head,
      And said: “I thus devote thee to the dead.
      This off’ring to th’ infernal gods I bear.”
      Thus while she spoke, she cut the fatal hair:
      The struggling soul was loos’d, and life dissolv’d in air.



 BOOK V

 THE ARGUMENT.


      Aeneas, setting sail from Afric, is driven by a storm on the
      coast of Sicily, where he is hospitably received by his friend
      Acestes, king of part of the island, and born of Trojan
      parentage. He applies himself to celebrate the memory of his
      father with divine honours, and accordingly institues funeral
      games, and appoints prizes for those who should conquer in them.
      While the ceremonies are performing, Juno sends Iris to persuade
      the Trojan woman to burn the ships, who, upon her instigation,
      set fire to them: which burned four, and would have consumed the
      rest, had not Jupiter, by a miraculous shower extinguished it.
      Upon this, Aeneas, by the advice of one of his generals, and a
      vision of his father, builds a city for the women, old men, and
      others, who were either unfit for war, or weary of the voyage,
      and sails for Italy. Venus procures of Neptune a safe voyage for
      him and all his men, excepting only his pilot Palinurus, who was
      unfortunately lost.


      Meantime the Trojan cuts his wat’ry way,
      Fix’d on his voyage, thro’ the curling sea;
      Then, casting back his eyes, with dire amaze,
      Sees on the Punic shore the mounting blaze.
      The cause unknown; yet his presaging mind
      The fate of Dido from the fire divin’d;
      He knew the stormy souls of womankind,
      What secret springs their eager passions move,
      How capable of death for injur’d love.
      Dire auguries from hence the Trojans draw;
      Till neither fires nor shining shores they saw.
      Now seas and skies their prospect only bound;
      An empty space above, a floating field around.
      But soon the heav’ns with shadows were o’erspread;
      A swelling cloud hung hov’ring o’er their head:
      Livid it look’d, the threat’ning of a storm:
      Then night and horror ocean’s face deform.
      The pilot, Palinurus, cried aloud:
      “What gusts of weather from that gath’ring cloud
      My thoughts presage! Ere yet the tempest roars,
      Stand to your tackle, mates, and stretch your oars;
      Contract your swelling sails, and luff to wind.”
      The frighted crew perform the task assign’d.
      Then, to his fearless chief: “Not Heav’n,” said he,
      “Tho’ Jove himself should promise Italy,
      Can stem the torrent of this raging sea.
      Mark how the shifting winds from west arise,
      And what collected night involves the skies!
      Nor can our shaken vessels live at sea,
      Much less against the tempest force their way.
      ’Tis fate diverts our course, and fate we must obey.
      Not far from hence, if I observ’d aright
      The southing of the stars, and polar light,
      Sicilia lies, whose hospitable shores
      In safety we may reach with struggling oars.”
      Aeneas then replied: “Too sure I find
      We strive in vain against the seas and wind:
      Now shift your sails; what place can please me more
      Than what you promise, the Sicilian shore,
      Whose hallow’d earth Anchises’ bones contains,
      And where a prince of Trojan lineage reigns?”
      The course resolv’d, before the western wind
      They scud amain, and make the port assign’d.
      Meantime Acestes, from a lofty stand,
      Beheld the fleet descending on the land;
      And, not unmindful of his ancient race,
      Down from the cliff he ran with eager pace,
      And held the hero in a strict embrace.
      Of a rough Libyan bear the spoils he wore,
      And either hand a pointed jav’lin bore.
      His mother was a dame of Dardan blood;
      His sire Crinisus, a Sicilian flood.
      He welcomes his returning friends ashore
      With plenteous country cates and homely store.

      Now, when the following morn had chas’d away
      The flying stars, and light restor’d the day,
      Aeneas call’d the Trojan troops around,
      And thus bespoke them from a rising ground:
      “Offspring of heav’n, divine Dardanian race!
      The sun, revolving thro’ th’ ethereal space,
      The shining circle of the year has fill’d,
      Since first this isle my father’s ashes held:
      And now the rising day renews the year;
      A day for ever sad, for ever dear.
      This would I celebrate with annual games,
      With gifts on altars pil’d, and holy flames,
      Tho’ banish’d to Gaetulia’s barren sands,
      Caught on the Grecian seas, or hostile lands:
      But since this happy storm our fleet has driv’n
      (Not, as I deem, without the will of Heav’n)
      Upon these friendly shores and flow’ry plains,
      Which hide Anchises and his blest remains,
      Let us with joy perform his honours due,
      And pray for prosp’rous winds, our voyage to renew;
      Pray, that in towns and temples of our own,
      The name of great Anchises may be known,
      And yearly games may spread the gods’ renown.
      Our sports Acestes, of the Trojan race,
      With royal gifts ordain’d, is pleas’d to grace:
      Two steers on ev’ry ship the king bestows;
      His gods and ours shall share your equal vows.
      Besides, if, nine days hence, the rosy morn
      Shall with unclouded light the skies adorn,
      That day with solemn sports I mean to grace:
      Light galleys on the seas shall run a wat’ry race;
      Some shall in swiftness for the goal contend,
      And others try the twanging bow to bend;
      The strong, with iron gauntlets arm’d, shall stand
      Oppos’d in combat on the yellow sand.
      Let all be present at the games prepar’d,
      And joyful victors wait the just reward.
      But now assist the rites, with garlands crown’d.”
      He said, and first his brows with myrtle bound.
      Then Helymus, by his example led,
      And old Acestes, each adorn’d his head;
      Thus young Ascanius, with a sprightly grace,
      His temples tied, and all the Trojan race.

      Aeneas then advanc’d amidst the train,
      By thousands follow’d thro’ the flow’ry plain,
      To great Anchises’ tomb; which when he found,
      He pour’d to Bacchus, on the hallow’d ground,
      Two bowls of sparkling wine, of milk two more,
      And two from offer’d bulls of purple gore,
      With roses then the sepulcher he strow’d
      And thus his father’s ghost bespoke aloud:
      “Hail, O ye holy manes! hail again,
      Paternal ashes, now review’d in vain!
      The gods permitted not, that you, with me,
      Should reach the promis’d shores of Italy,
      Or Tiber’s flood, what flood soe’er it be.”
      Scarce had he finish’d, when, with speckled pride,
      A serpent from the tomb began to glide;
      His hugy bulk on sev’n high volumes roll’d;
      Blue was his breadth of back, but streak’d with scaly gold:
      Thus riding on his curls, he seem’d to pass
      A rolling fire along, and singe the grass.
      More various colours thro’ his body run,
      Than Iris when her bow imbibes the sun.
      Betwixt the rising altars, and around,
      The sacred monster shot along the ground;
      With harmless play amidst the bowls he pass’d,
      And with his lolling tongue assay’d the taste:
      Thus fed with holy food, the wondrous guest
      Within the hollow tomb retir’d to rest.
      The pious prince, surpris’d at what he view’d,
      The fun’ral honours with more zeal renew’d,
      Doubtful if this place’s genius were,
      Or guardian of his father’s sepulcher.
      Five sheep, according to the rites, he slew;
      As many swine, and steers of sable hue;
      New gen’rous wine he from the goblets pour’d.
      And call’d his father’s ghost, from hell restor’d.
      The glad attendants in long order come,
      Off’ring their gifts at great Anchises’ tomb:
      Some add more oxen: some divide the spoil;
      Some place the chargers on the grassy soil;
      Some blow the fires, and offered entrails broil.

      Now came the day desir’d. The skies were bright
      With rosy luster of the rising light:
      The bord’ring people, rous’d by sounding fame
      Of Trojan feasts and great Acestes’ name,
      The crowded shore with acclamations fill,
      Part to behold, and part to prove their skill.
      And first the gifts in public view they place,
      Green laurel wreaths, and palm, the victors’ grace:
      Within the circle, arms and tripods lie,
      Ingots of gold and silver, heap’d on high,
      And vests embroider’d, of the Tyrian dye.
      The trumpet’s clangour then the feast proclaims,
      And all prepare for their appointed games.
      Four galleys first, which equal rowers bear,
      Advancing, in the wat’ry lists appear.
      The speedy Dolphin, that outstrips the wind,
      Bore Mnestheus, author of the Memmian kind:
      Gyas the vast Chimaera’s bulk commands,
      Which rising, like a tow’ring city stands;
      Three Trojans tug at ev’ry lab’ring oar;
      Three banks in three degrees the sailors bore;
      Beneath their sturdy strokes the billows roar.
      Sergesthus, who began the Sergian race,
      In the great Centaur took the leading place;
      Cloanthus on the sea-green Scylla stood,
      From whom Cluentius draws his Trojan blood.

      Far in the sea, against the foaming shore,
      There stands a rock: the raging billows roar
      Above his head in storms; but, when ’tis clear,
      Uncurl their ridgy backs, and at his foot appear.
      In peace below the gentle waters run;
      The cormorants above lie basking in the sun.
      On this the hero fix’d an oak in sight,
      The mark to guide the mariners aright.
      To bear with this, the seamen stretch their oars;
      Then round the rock they steer, and seek the former shores.
      The lots decide their place. Above the rest,
      Each leader shining in his Tyrian vest;
      The common crew with wreaths of poplar boughs
      Their temples crown, and shade their sweaty brows:
      Besmear’d with oil, their naked shoulders shine.
      All take their seats, and wait the sounding sign:
      They gripe their oars; and ev’ry panting breast
      Is rais’d by turns with hope, by turns with fear depress’d.
      The clangour of the trumpet gives the sign;
      At once they start, advancing in a line:
      With shouts the sailors rend the starry skies;
      Lash’d with their oars, the smoky billows rise;
      Sparkles the briny main, and the vex’d ocean fries.
      Exact in time, with equal strokes they row:
      At once the brushing oars and brazen prow
      Dash up the sandy waves, and ope the depths below.
      Not fiery coursers, in a chariot race,
      Invade the field with half so swift a pace;
      Not the fierce driver with more fury lends
      The sounding lash, and, ere the stroke descends,
      Low to the wheels his pliant body bends.
      The partial crowd their hopes and fears divide,
      And aid with eager shouts the favour’d side.
      Cries, murmurs, clamours, with a mixing sound,
      From woods to woods, from hills to hills rebound.

      Amidst the loud applauses of the shore,
      Gyas outstripp’d the rest, and sprung before:
      Cloanthus, better mann’d, pursued him fast,
      But his o’er-masted galley check’d his haste.
      The Centaur and the Dolphin brush the brine
      With equal oars, advancing in a line;
      And now the mighty Centaur seems to lead,
      And now the speedy Dolphin gets ahead;
      Now board to board the rival vessels row,
      The billows lave the skies, and ocean groans below.
      They reach’d the mark; proud Gyas and his train
      In triumph rode, the victors of the main;
      But, steering round, he charg’d his pilot stand
      More close to shore, and skim along the sand.
      “Let others bear to sea!” Menoetes heard;
      But secret shelves too cautiously he fear’d,
      And, fearing, sought the deep; and still aloof he steer’d.
      With louder cries the captain call’d again:
      “Bear to the rocky shore, and shun the main.”
      He spoke, and, speaking, at his stern he saw
      The bold Cloanthus near the shelvings draw.
      Betwixt the mark and him the Scylla stood,
      And in a closer compass plow’d the flood.
      He pass’d the mark; and, wheeling, got before:
      Gyas blasphem’d the gods, devoutly swore,
      Cried out for anger, and his hair he tore.
      Mindless of others’ lives (so high was grown
      His rising rage) and careless of his own,
      The trembling dotard to the deck he drew;
      Then hoisted up, and overboard he threw:
      This done, he seiz’d the helm; his fellows cheer’d,
      Turn’d short upon the shelfs, and madly steer’d.

      Hardly his head the plunging pilot rears,
      Clogg’d with his clothes, and cumber’d with his years:
      Now dropping wet, he climbs the cliff with pain.
      The crowd, that saw him fall and float again,
      Shout from the distant shore; and loudly laugh’d,
      To see his heaving breast disgorge the briny draught.
      The following Centaur, and the Dolphin’s crew,
      Their vanish’d hopes of victory renew;
      While Gyas lags, they kindle in the race,
      To reach the mark. Sergesthus takes the place;
      Mnestheus pursues; and while around they wind,
      Comes up, not half his galley’s length behind;
      Then, on the deck, amidst his mates appear’d,
      And thus their drooping courages he cheer’d:
      “My friends, and Hector’s followers heretofore,
      Exert your vigour; tug the lab’ring oar;
      Stretch to your strokes, my still unconquer’d crew,
      Whom from the flaming walls of Troy I drew.
      In this, our common int’rest, let me find
      That strength of hand, that courage of the mind,
      As when you stemm’d the strong Malean flood,
      And o’er the Syrtes’ broken billows row’d.
      I seek not now the foremost palm to gain;
      Tho’ yet——But, ah! that haughty wish is vain!
      Let those enjoy it whom the gods ordain.
      But to be last, the lags of all the race!
      Redeem yourselves and me from that disgrace.”
      Now, one and all, they tug amain; they row
      At the full stretch, and shake the brazen prow.
      The sea beneath ’em sinks; their lab’ring sides
      Are swell’d, and sweat runs gutt’ring down in tides.
      Chance aids their daring with unhop’d success;
      Sergesthus, eager with his beak to press
      Betwixt the rival galley and the rock,
      Shuts up th’ unwieldly Centaur in the lock.
      The vessel struck; and, with the dreadful shock,
      Her oars she shiver’d, and her head she broke.
      The trembling rowers from their banks arise,
      And, anxious for themselves, renounce the prize.
      With iron poles they heave her off the shores,
      And gather from the sea their floating oars.
      The crew of Mnestheus, with elated minds,
      Urge their success, and call the willing winds;
      Then ply their oars, and cut their liquid way
      In larger compass on the roomy sea.
      As, when the dove her rocky hold forsakes,
      Rous’d in a fright, her sounding wings she shakes;
      The cavern rings with clatt’ring; out she flies,
      And leaves her callow care, and cleaves the skies:
      At first she flutters; but at length she springs
      To smoother flight, and shoots upon her wings:
      So Mnestheus in the Dolphin cuts the sea;
      And, flying with a force, that force assists his way.
      Sergesthus in the Centaur soon he pass’d,
      Wedg’d in the rocky shoals, and sticking fast.
      In vain the victor he with cries implores,
      And practices to row with shatter’d oars.
      Then Mnestheus bears with Gyas, and outflies:
      The ship, without a pilot, yields the prize.
      Unvanquish’d Scylla now alone remains;
      Her he pursues, and all his vigour strains.
      Shouts from the fav’ring multitude arise;
      Applauding Echo to the shouts replies;
      Shouts, wishes, and applause run rattling thro’ the skies.
      These clamours with disdain the Scylla heard,
      Much grudg’d the praise, but more the robb’d reward:
      Resolv’d to hold their own, they mend their pace,
      All obstinate to die, or gain the race.
      Rais’d with success, the Dolphin swiftly ran;
      For they can conquer, who believe they can.
      Both urge their oars, and fortune both supplies,
      And both perhaps had shar’d an equal prize;
      When to the seas Cloanthus holds his hands,
      And succour from the wat’ry pow’rs demands:
      “Gods of the liquid realms, on which I row!
      If, giv’n by you, the laurel bind my brow,
      Assist to make me guilty of my vow!
      A snow-white bull shall on your shore be slain;
      His offer’d entrails cast into the main,
      And ruddy wine, from golden goblets thrown,
      Your grateful gift and my return shall own.”
      The choir of nymphs, and Phorcus, from below,
      With virgin Panopea, heard his vow;
      And old Portunus, with his breadth of hand,
      Push’d on, and sped the galley to the land.
      Swift as a shaft, or winged wind, she flies,
      And, darting to the port, obtains the prize.

      The herald summons all, and then proclaims
      Cloanthus conqu’ror of the naval games.
      The prince with laurel crowns the victor’s head,
      And three fat steers are to his vessel led,
      The ship’s reward; with gen’rous wine beside,
      And sums of silver, which the crew divide.
      The leaders are distinguish’d from the rest;
      The victor honour’d with a nobler vest,
      Where gold and purple strive in equal rows,
      And needlework its happy cost bestows.
      There Ganymede is wrought with living art,
      Chasing thro’ Ida’s groves the trembling hart:
      Breathless he seems, yet eager to pursue;
      When from aloft descends, in open view,
      The bird of Jove, and, sousing on his prey,
      With crooked talons bears the boy away.
      In vain, with lifted hands and gazing eyes,
      His guards behold him soaring thro’ the skies,
      And dogs pursue his flight with imitated cries.

      Mnestheus the second victor was declar’d;
      And, summon’d there, the second prize he shar’d.
      A coat of mail, brave Demoleus bore,
      More brave Aeneas from his shoulders tore,
      In single combat on the Trojan shore:
      This was ordain’d for Mnestheus to possess;
      In war for his defence, for ornament in peace.
      Rich was the gift, and glorious to behold,
      But yet so pond’rous with its plates of gold,
      That scarce two servants could the weight sustain;
      Yet, loaded thus, Demoleus o’er the plain
      Pursued and lightly seiz’d the Trojan train.
      The third, succeeding to the last reward,
      Two goodly bowls of massy silver shar’d,
      With figures prominent, and richly wrought,
      And two brass caldrons from Dodona brought.

      Thus all, rewarded by the hero’s hands,
      Their conqu’ring temples bound with purple bands;
      And now Sergesthus, clearing from the rock,
      Brought back his galley shatter’d with the shock.
      Forlorn she look’d, without an aiding oar,
      And, houted by the vulgar, made to shore.
      As when a snake, surpris’d upon the road,
      Is crush’d athwart her body by the load
      Of heavy wheels; or with a mortal wound
      Her belly bruis’d, and trodden to the ground:
      In vain, with loosen’d curls, she crawls along;
      Yet, fierce above, she brandishes her tongue;
      Glares with her eyes, and bristles with her scales;
      But, groveling in the dust, her parts unsound she trails:
      So slowly to the port the Centaur tends,
      But, what she wants in oars, with sails amends.
      Yet, for his galley sav’d, the grateful prince
      Is pleas’d th’ unhappy chief to recompense.
      Pholoe, the Cretan slave, rewards his care,
      Beauteous herself, with lovely twins as fair.

      From thence his way the Trojan hero bent
      Into the neighb’ring plain, with mountains pent,
      Whose sides were shaded with surrounding wood.
      Full in the midst of this fair valley stood
      A native theatre, which, rising slow
      By just degrees, o’erlook’d the ground below.
      High on a sylvan throne the leader sate;
      A num’rous train attend in solemn state.
      Here those that in the rapid course delight,
      Desire of honour and the prize invite.
      The rival runners without order stand;
      The Trojans mix’d with the Sicilian band.
      First Nisus, with Euryalus, appears;
      Euryalus a boy of blooming years,
      With sprightly grace and equal beauty crown’d;
      Nisus, for friendship to the youth renown’d.
      Diores next, of Priam’s royal race,
      Then Salius joined with Patron, took their place;
      But Patron in Arcadia had his birth,
      And Salius his from Arcananian earth;
      Then two Sicilian youths, the names of these,
      Swift Helymus, and lovely Panopes:
      Both jolly huntsmen, both in forest bred,
      And owning old Acestes for their head;
      With sev’ral others of ignobler name,
      Whom time has not deliver’d o’er to fame.

      To these the hero thus his thoughts explain’d,
      In words which gen’ral approbation gain’d:
      “One common largess is for all design’d,
      The vanquish’d and the victor shall be join’d,
      Two darts of polish’d steel and Gnosian wood,
      A silver-studded ax alike bestow’d.
      The foremost three have olive wreaths decreed:
      The first of these obtains a stately steed,
      Adorn’d with trappings; and the next in fame,
      The quiver of an Amazonian dame,
      With feather’d Thracian arrows well supplied:
      A golden belt shall gird his manly side,
      Which with a sparkling diamond shall be tied.
      The third this Grecian helmet shall content.”
      He said. To their appointed base they went;
      With beating hearts th’ expected sign receive,
      And, starting all at once, the barrier leave.
      Spread out, as on the winged winds, they flew,
      And seiz’d the distant goal with greedy view.
      Shot from the crowd, swift Nisus all o’erpass’d;
      Nor storms, nor thunder, equal half his haste.
      The next, but tho’ the next, yet far disjoin’d,
      Came Salius, and Euryalus behind;
      Then Helymus, whom young Diores plied,
      Step after step, and almost side by side,
      His shoulders pressing; and, in longer space,
      Had won, or left at least a dubious race.

      Now, spent, the goal they almost reach at last,
      When eager Nisus, hapless in his haste,
      Slipp’d first, and, slipping, fell upon the plain,
      Soak’d with the blood of oxen newly slain.
      The careless victor had not mark’d his way;
      But, treading where the treach’rous puddle lay,
      His heels flew up; and on the grassy floor
      He fell, besmear’d with filth and holy gore.
      Not mindless then, Euryalus, of thee,
      Nor of the sacred bonds of amity,
      He strove th’ immediate rival’s hope to cross,
      And caught the foot of Salius as he rose.
      So Salius lay extended on the plain;
      Euryalus springs out, the prize to gain,
      And leaves the crowd: applauding peals attend
      The victor to the goal, who vanquish’d by his friend.
      Next Helymus; and then Diores came,
      By two misfortunes made the third in fame.

      But Salius enters, and, exclaiming loud
      For justice, deafens and disturbs the crowd;
      Urges his cause may in the court be heard;
      And pleads the prize is wrongfully conferr’d.
      But favour for Euryalus appears;
      His blooming beauty, with his tender tears,
      Had brib’d the judges for the promis’d prize.
      Besides, Diores fills the court with cries,
      Who vainly reaches at the last reward,
      If the first palm on Salius be conferr’d.
      Then thus the prince: “Let no disputes arise:
      Where fortune plac’d it, I award the prize.
      But fortune’s errors give me leave to mend,
      At least to pity my deserving friend.”
      He said, and, from among the spoils, he draws
      (Pond’rous with shaggy mane and golden paws)
      A lion’s hide: to Salius this he gives.
      Nisus with envy sees the gift, and grieves.
      “If such rewards to vanquish’d men are due.”
      He said, “and falling is to rise by you,
      What prize may Nisus from your bounty claim,
      Who merited the first rewards and fame?
      In falling, both an equal fortune tried;
      Would fortune for my fall so well provide!”
      With this he pointed to his face, and show’d
      His hand and all his habit smear’d with blood.
      Th’ indulgent father of the people smil’d,
      And caus’d to be produc’d an ample shield,
      Of wondrous art, by Didymaon wrought,
      Long since from Neptune’s bars in triumph brought.
      This giv’n to Nisus, he divides the rest,
      And equal justice in his gifts express’d.

      The race thus ended, and rewards bestow’d,
      Once more the prince bespeaks th’ attentive crowd:
      “If there be here, whose dauntless courage dare
      In gauntlet fight, with limbs and body bare,
      His opposite sustain in open view,
      Stand forth the champion, and the games renew.
      Two prizes I propose, and thus divide:
      A bull with gilded horns, and fillets tied,
      Shall be the portion of the conqu’ring chief;
      A sword and helm shall cheer the loser’s grief.”

      Then haughty Dares in the lists appears;
      Stalking he strides, his head erected bears:
      His nervous arms the weighty gauntlet wield,
      And loud applauses echo thro’ the field.
      Dares alone in combat us’d to stand
      The match of mighty Paris, hand to hand;
      The same, at Hector’s fun’rals, undertook
      Gigantic Butes, of th’ Amycian stock,
      And, by the stroke of his resistless hand,
      Stretch’d the vast bulk upon the yellow sand.
      Such Dares was; and such he strode along,
      And drew the wonder of the gazing throng.
      His brawny back and ample breast he shows,
      His lifted arms around his head he throws,
      And deals in whistling air his empty blows.
      His match is sought; but, thro’ the trembling band,
      Not one dares answer to the proud demand.
      Presuming of his force, with sparkling eyes
      Already he devours the promis’d prize.
      He claims the bull with awless insolence,
      And having seiz’d his horns, accosts the prince:
      “If none my matchless valour dares oppose,
      How long shall Dares wait his dastard foes?
      Permit me, chief, permit without delay,
      To lead this uncontended gift away.”
      The crowd assents, and with redoubled cries
      For the proud challenger demands the prize.

      Acestes, fir’d with just disdain, to see
      The palm usurp’d without a victory,
      Reproach’d Entellus thus, who sate beside,
      And heard and saw, unmov’d, the Trojan’s pride:
      “Once, but in vain, a champion of renown,
      So tamely can you bear the ravish’d crown,
      A prize in triumph borne before your sight,
      And shun, for fear, the danger of the fight?
      Where is our Eryx now, the boasted name,
      The god who taught your thund’ring arm the game?
      Where now your baffled honour? Where the spoil
      That fill’d your house, and fame that fill’d our isle?”
      Entellus, thus: “My soul is still the same,
      Unmov’d with fear, and mov’d with martial fame;
      But my chill blood is curdled in my veins,
      And scarce the shadow of a man remains.
      O could I turn to that fair prime again,
      That prime of which this boaster is so vain,
      The brave, who this decrepid age defies,
      Should feel my force, without the promis’d prize.”

      He said; and, rising at the word, he threw
      Two pond’rous gauntlets down in open view;
      Gauntlets which Eryx wont in fight to wield,
      And sheathe his hands with in the listed field.
      With fear and wonder seiz’d, the crowd beholds
      The gloves of death, with sev’n distinguish’d folds
      Of tough bull hides; the space within is spread
      With iron, or with loads of heavy lead:
      Dares himself was daunted at the sight,
      Renounc’d his challenge, and refus’d to fight.
      Astonish’d at their weight, the hero stands,
      And pois’d the pond’rous engines in his hands.
      “What had your wonder,” said Entellus, “been,
      Had you the gauntlets of Alcides seen,
      Or view’d the stern debate on this unhappy green!
      These which I bear your brother Eryx bore,
      Still mark’d with batter’d brains and mingled gore.
      With these he long sustain’d th’ Herculean arm;
      And these I wielded while my blood was warm,
      This languish’d frame while better spirits fed,
      Ere age unstrung my nerves, or time o’ersnow’d my head.
      But if the challenger these arms refuse,
      And cannot wield their weight, or dare not use;
      If great Aeneas and Acestes join
      In his request, these gauntlets I resign;
      Let us with equal arms perform the fight,
      And let him leave to fear, since I resign my right.”

      This said, Entellus for the strife prepares;
      Stripp’d of his quilted coat, his body bares;
      Compos’d of mighty bones and brawn he stands,
      A goodly tow’ring object on the sands.
      Then just Aeneas equal arms supplied,
      Which round their shoulders to their wrists they tied.
      Both on the tiptoe stand, at full extent,
      Their arms aloft, their bodies inly bent;
      Their heads from aiming blows they bear afar;
      With clashing gauntlets then provoke the war.
      One on his youth and pliant limbs relies;
      One on his sinews and his giant size.
      The last is stiff with age, his motion slow;
      He heaves for breath, he staggers to and fro,
      And clouds of issuing smoke his nostrils loudly blow.
      Yet equal in success, they ward, they strike;
      Their ways are diff’rent, but their art alike.
      Before, behind, the blows are dealt; around
      Their hollow sides the rattling thumps resound.
      A storm of strokes, well meant, with fury flies,
      And errs about their temples, ears, and eyes.
      Nor always errs; for oft the gauntlet draws
      A sweeping stroke along the crackling jaws.
      Heavy with age, Entellus stands his ground,
      But with his warping body wards the wound.
      His hand and watchful eye keep even pace;
      While Dares traverses and shifts his place,
      And, like a captain who beleaguers round
      Some strong-built castle on a rising ground,
      Views all th’ approaches with observing eyes:
      This and that other part in vain he tries,
      And more on industry than force relies.
      With hands on high, Entellus threats the foe;
      But Dares watch’d the motion from below,
      And slipp’d aside, and shunn’d the long descending blow.
      Entellus wastes his forces on the wind,
      And, thus deluded of the stroke design’d,
      Headlong and heavy fell; his ample breast
      And weighty limbs his ancient mother press’d.
      So falls a hollow pine, that long had stood
      On Ida’s height, or Erymanthus’ wood,
      Torn from the roots. The diff’ring nations rise,
      And shouts and mingled murmurs rend the skies,
      Acestus runs with eager haste, to raise
      The fall’n companion of his youthful days.
      Dauntless he rose, and to the fight return’d;
      With shame his glowing cheeks, his eyes with fury burn’d.
      Disdain and conscious virtue fir’d his breast,
      And with redoubled force his foe he press’d.
      He lays on load with either hand, amain,
      And headlong drives the Trojan o’er the plain;
      Nor stops, nor stays; nor rest nor breath allows;
      But storms of strokes descend about his brows,
      A rattling tempest, and a hail of blows.
      But now the prince, who saw the wild increase
      Of wounds, commands the combatants to cease,
      And bounds Entellus’ wrath, and bids the peace.
      First to the Trojan, spent with toil, he came,
      And sooth’d his sorrow for the suffer’d shame.
      “What fury seiz’d my friend? The gods,” said he,
      “To him propitious, and averse to thee,
      Have giv’n his arm superior force to thine.
      ’Tis madness to contend with strength divine.”
      The gauntlet fight thus ended, from the shore
      His faithful friends unhappy Dares bore:
      His mouth and nostrils pour’d a purple flood,
      And pounded teeth came rushing with his blood.
      Faintly he stagger’d thro’ the hissing throng,
      And hung his head, and trail’d his legs along.
      The sword and casque are carried by his train;
      But with his foe the palm and ox remain.

      The champion, then, before Aeneas came,
      Proud of his prize, but prouder of his fame:
      “O goddess-born, and you, Dardanian host,
      Mark with attention, and forgive my boast;
      Learn what I was, by what remains; and know
      From what impending fate you sav’d my foe.”
      Sternly he spoke, and then confronts the bull;
      And, on his ample forehead aiming full,
      The deadly stroke, descending, pierc’d the skull.
      Down drops the beast, nor needs a second wound,
      But sprawls in pangs of death, and spurns the ground.
      Then, thus: “In Dares’ stead I offer this.
      Eryx, accept a nobler sacrifice;
      Take the last gift my wither’d arms can yield:
      Thy gauntlets I resign, and here renounce the field.”

      This done, Aeneas orders, for the close,
      The strife of archers with contending bows.
      The mast Sergesthus’ shatter’d galley bore
      With his own hands he raises on the shore.
      A flutt’ring dove upon the top they tie,
      The living mark at which their arrows fly.
      The rival archers in a line advance,
      Their turn of shooting to receive from chance.
      A helmet holds their names; the lots are drawn:
      On the first scroll was read Hippocoon.
      The people shout. Upon the next was found
      Young Mnestheus, late with naval honours crown’d.
      The third contain’d Eurytion’s noble name,
      Thy brother, Pandarus, and next in fame,
      Whom Pallas urg’d the treaty to confound,
      And send among the Greeks a feather’d wound.
      Acestes in the bottom last remain’d,
      Whom not his age from youthful sports restrain’d.
      Soon all with vigour bend their trusty bows,
      And from the quiver each his arrow chose.
      Hippocoon’s was the first: with forceful sway
      It flew, and, whizzing, cut the liquid way.
      Fix’d in the mast the feather’d weapon stands:
      The fearful pigeon flutters in her bands,
      And the tree trembled, and the shouting cries
      Of the pleas’d people rend the vaulted skies.
      Then Mnestheus to the head his arrow drove,
      With lifted eyes, and took his aim above,
      But made a glancing shot, and missed the dove;
      Yet miss’d so narrow, that he cut the cord
      Which fasten’d by the foot the flitting bird.
      The captive thus releas’d, away she flies,
      And beats with clapping wings the yielding skies.
      His bow already bent, Eurytion stood;
      And, having first invok’d his brother god,
      His winged shaft with eager haste he sped.
      The fatal message reach’d her as she fled:
      She leaves her life aloft; she strikes the ground,
      And renders back the weapon in the wound.
      Acestes, grudging at his lot, remains,
      Without a prize to gratify his pains.
      Yet, shooting upward, sends his shaft, to show
      An archer’s art, and boast his twanging bow.
      The feather’d arrow gave a dire portent,
      And latter augurs judge from this event.
      Chaf’d by the speed, it fir’d; and, as it flew,
      A trail of following flames ascending drew:
      Kindling they mount, and mark the shiny way;
      Across the skies as falling meteors play,
      And vanish into wind, or in a blaze decay.
      The Trojans and Sicilians wildly stare,
      And, trembling, turn their wonder into pray’r.
      The Dardan prince put on a smiling face,
      And strain’d Acestes with a close embrace;
      Then, hon’ring him with gifts above the rest,
      Turn’d the bad omen, nor his fears confess’d.
      “The gods,” said he, “this miracle have wrought,
      And order’d you the prize without the lot.
      Accept this goblet, rough with figur’d gold,
      Which Thracian Cisseus gave my sire of old:
      This pledge of ancient amity receive,
      Which to my second sire I justly give.”
      He said, and, with the trumpets’ cheerful sound,
      Proclaim’d him victor, and with laurel-crown’d.
      Nor good Eurytion envied him the prize,
      Tho’ he transfix’d the pigeon in the skies.
      Who cut the line, with second gifts was grac’d;
      The third was his whose arrow pierc’d the mast.

      The chief, before the games were wholly done,
      Call’d Periphantes, tutor to his son,
      And whisper’d thus: “With speed Ascanius find;
      And, if his childish troop be ready join’d,
      On horseback let him grace his grandsire’s day,
      And lead his equals arm’d in just array.”
      He said; and, calling out, the cirque he clears.
      The crowd withdrawn, an open plain appears.
      And now the noble youths, of form divine,
      Advance before their fathers, in a line;
      The riders grace the steeds; the steeds with glory shine.

      Thus marching on in military pride,
      Shouts of applause resound from side to side.
      Their casques adorn’d with laurel wreaths they wear,
      Each brandishing aloft a cornel spear.
      Some at their backs their gilded quivers bore;
      Their chains of burnish’d gold hung down before.
      Three graceful troops they form’d upon the green;
      Three graceful leaders at their head were seen;
      Twelve follow’d ev’ry chief, and left a space between.
      The first young Priam led; a lovely boy,
      Whose grandsire was th’ unhappy king of Troy;
      His race in after times was known to fame,
      New honours adding to the Latian name;
      And well the royal boy his Thracian steed became.
      White were the fetlocks of his feet before,
      And on his front a snowy star he bore.
      Then beauteous Atys, with Iulus bred,
      Of equal age, the second squadron led.
      The last in order, but the first in place,
      First in the lovely features of his face,
      Rode fair Ascanius on a fiery steed,
      Queen Dido’s gift, and of the Tyrian breed.
      Sure coursers for the rest the king ordains,
      With golden bits adorn’d, and purple reins.

      The pleas’d spectators peals of shouts renew,
      And all the parents in the children view;
      Their make, their motions, and their sprightly grace,
      And hopes and fears alternate in their face.

      Th’ unfledg’d commanders and their martial train
      First make the circuit of the sandy plain
      Around their sires, and, at th’ appointed sign,
      Drawn up in beauteous order, form a line.
      The second signal sounds, the troop divides
      In three distinguish’d parts, with three distinguish’d guides
      Again they close, and once again disjoin;
      In troop to troop oppos’d, and line to line.
      They meet; they wheel; they throw their darts afar
      With harmless rage and well-dissembled war.
      Then in a round the mingled bodies run:
      Flying they follow, and pursuing shun;
      Broken, they break; and, rallying, they renew
      In other forms the military shew.
      At last, in order, undiscern’d they join,
      And march together in a friendly line.
      And, as the Cretan labyrinth of old,
      With wand’ring ways and many a winding fold,
      Involv’d the weary feet, without redress,
      In a round error, which denied recess;
      So fought the Trojan boys in warlike play,
      Turn’d and return’d, and still a diff’rent way.
      Thus dolphins in the deep each other chase
      In circles, when they swim around the wat’ry race.
      This game, these carousels, Ascanius taught;
      And, building Alba, to the Latins brought;
      Shew’d what he learn’d: the Latin sires impart
      To their succeeding sons the graceful art;
      From these imperial Rome receiv’d the game,
      Which Troy, the youths the Trojan troop, they name.

      Thus far the sacred sports they celebrate:
      But Fortune soon resum’d her ancient hate;
      For, while they pay the dead his annual dues,
      Those envied rites Saturnian Juno views;
      And sends the goddess of the various bow,
      To try new methods of revenge below;
      Supplies the winds to wing her airy way,
      Where in the port secure the navy lay.
      Swiftly fair Iris down her arch descends,
      And, undiscern’d, her fatal voyage ends.
      She saw the gath’ring crowd; and, gliding thence,
      The desert shore, and fleet without defence.
      The Trojan matrons, on the sands alone,
      With sighs and tears Anchises’ death bemoan;
      Then, turning to the sea their weeping eyes,
      Their pity to themselves renews their cries.
      “Alas!” said one, “what oceans yet remain
      For us to sail! what labours to sustain!”
      All take the word, and, with a gen’ral groan,
      Implore the gods for peace, and places of their own.

      The goddess, great in mischief, views their pains,
      And in a woman’s form her heav’nly limbs restrains.
      In face and shape old Beroe she became,
      Doryclus’ wife, a venerable dame,
      Once blest with riches, and a mother’s name.
      Thus chang’d, amidst the crying crowd she ran,
      Mix’d with the matrons, and these words began:
      “O wretched we, whom not the Grecian pow’r,
      Nor flames, destroy’d, in Troy’s unhappy hour!
      O wretched we, reserv’d by cruel fate,
      Beyond the ruins of the sinking state!
      Now sev’n revolving years are wholly run,
      Since this improsp’rous voyage we begun;
      Since, toss’d from shores to shores, from lands to lands,
      Inhospitable rocks and barren sands,
      Wand’ring in exile thro’ the stormy sea,
      We search in vain for flying Italy.
      Now cast by fortune on this kindred land,
      What should our rest and rising walls withstand,
      Or hinder here to fix our banish’d band?
      O country lost, and gods redeem’d in vain,
      If still in endless exile we remain!
      Shall we no more the Trojan walls renew,
      Or streams of some dissembled Simois view!
      Haste, join with me, th’ unhappy fleet consume!
      Cassandra bids; and I declare her doom.
      In sleep I saw her; she supplied my hands
      (For this I more than dreamt) with flaming brands:
      ‘With these,’ said she, ‘these wand’ring ships destroy:
      These are your fatal seats, and this your Troy.’
      Time calls you now; the precious hour employ:
      Slack not the good presage, while Heav’n inspires
      Our minds to dare, and gives the ready fires.
      See! Neptune’s altars minister their brands:
      The god is pleas’d; the god supplies our hands.”
      Then from the pile a flaming fire she drew,
      And, toss’d in air, amidst the galleys threw.

      Wrapp’d in amaze, the matrons wildly stare:
      Then Pyrgo, reverenc’d for her hoary hair,
      Pyrgo, the nurse of Priam’s num’rous race:
      “No Beroe this, tho’ she belies her face!
      What terrors from her frowning front arise!
      Behold a goddess in her ardent eyes!
      What rays around her heav’nly face are seen!
      Mark her majestic voice, and more than mortal mien!
      Beroe but now I left, whom, pin’d with pain,
      Her age and anguish from these rites detain,”
      She said. The matrons, seiz’d with new amaze,
      Roll their malignant eyes, and on the navy gaze.
      They fear, and hope, and neither part obey:
      They hope the fated land, but fear the fatal way.
      The goddess, having done her task below,
      Mounts up on equal wings, and bends her painted bow.
      Struck with the sight, and seiz’d with rage divine,
      The matrons prosecute their mad design:
      They shriek aloud; they snatch, with impious hands,
      The food of altars; fires and flaming brands.
      Green boughs and saplings, mingled in their haste,
      And smoking torches, on the ships they cast.
      The flame, unstopp’d at first, more fury gains,
      And Vulcan rides at large with loosen’d reins:
      Triumphant to the painted sterns he soars,
      And seizes, in this way, the banks and crackling oars.
      Eumelus was the first the news to bear,
      While yet they crowd the rural theatre.
      Then, what they hear, is witness’d by their eyes:
      A storm of sparkles and of flames arise.
      Ascanius took th’ alarm, while yet he led
      His early warriors on his prancing steed,
      And, spurring on, his equals soon o’erpass’d;
      Nor could his frighted friends reclaim his haste.
      Soon as the royal youth appear’d in view,
      He sent his voice before him as he flew:
      “What madness moves you, matrons, to destroy
      The last remainders of unhappy Troy!
      Not hostile fleets, but your own hopes, you burn,
      And on your friends your fatal fury turn.
      Behold your own Ascanius!” While he said,
      He drew his glitt’ring helmet from his head,
      In which the youths to sportful arms he led.
      By this, Aeneas and his train appear;
      And now the women, seiz’d with shame and fear,
      Dispers’d, to woods and caverns take their flight,
      Abhor their actions, and avoid the light;
      Their friends acknowledge, and their error find,
      And shake the goddess from their alter’d mind.

      Not so the raging fires their fury cease,
      But, lurking in the seams, with seeming peace,
      Work on their way amid the smould’ring tow,
      Sure in destruction, but in motion slow.
      The silent plague thro’ the green timber eats,
      And vomits out a tardy flame by fits.
      Down to the keels, and upward to the sails,
      The fire descends, or mounts, but still prevails;
      Nor buckets pour’d, nor strength of human hand,
      Can the victorious element withstand.

      The pious hero rends his robe, and throws
      To heav’n his hands, and with his hands his vows.
      “O Jove,” he cried, “if pray’rs can yet have place;
      If thou abhorr’st not all the Dardan race;
      If any spark of pity still remain;
      If gods are gods, and not invok’d in vain;
      Yet spare the relics of the Trojan train!
      Yet from the flames our burning vessels free,
      Or let thy fury fall alone on me!
      At this devoted head thy thunder throw,
      And send the willing sacrifice below!”

      Scarce had he said, when southern storms arise:
      From pole to pole the forky lightning flies;
      Loud rattling shakes the mountains and the plain;
      Heav’n bellies downward, and descends in rain.
      Whole sheets of water from the clouds are sent,
      Which, hissing thro’ the planks, the flames prevent,
      And stop the fiery pest. Four ships alone
      Burn to the waist, and for the fleet atone.

      But doubtful thoughts the hero’s heart divide;
      If he should still in Sicily reside,
      Forgetful of his fates, or tempt the main,
      In hope the promis’d Italy to gain.
      Then Nautes, old and wise, to whom alone
      The will of Heav’n by Pallas was foreshown;
      Vers’d in portents, experienc’d, and inspir’d
      To tell events, and what the fates requir’d;
      Thus while he stood, to neither part inclin’d,
      With cheerful words reliev’d his lab’ring mind:
      “O goddess-born, resign’d in ev’ry state,
      With patience bear, with prudence push your fate.
      By suff’ring well, our Fortune we subdue;
      Fly when she frowns, and, when she calls, pursue.
      Your friend Acestes is of Trojan kind;
      To him disclose the secrets of your mind:
      Trust in his hands your old and useless train;
      Too num’rous for the ships which yet remain:
      The feeble, old, indulgent of their ease,
      The dames who dread the dangers of the seas,
      With all the dastard crew, who dare not stand
      The shock of battle with your foes by land.
      Here you may build a common town for all,
      And, from Acestes’ name, Acesta call.”
      The reasons, with his friend’s experience join’d,
      Encourag’d much, but more disturb’d his mind.

      ’Twas dead of night; when to his slumb’ring eyes
      His father’s shade descended from the skies,
      And thus he spoke: “O more than vital breath,
      Lov’d while I liv’d, and dear ev’n after death;
      O son, in various toils and troubles toss’d,
      The King of Heav’n employs my careful ghost
      On his commands: the god, who sav’d from fire
      Your flaming fleet, and heard your just desire.
      The wholesome counsel of your friend receive,
      And here the coward train and woman leave:
      The chosen youth, and those who nobly dare,
      Transport, to tempt the dangers of the war.
      The stern Italians will their courage try;
      Rough are their manners, and their minds are high.
      But first to Pluto’s palace you shall go,
      And seek my shade among the blest below:
      For not with impious ghosts my soul remains,
      Nor suffers with the damn’d perpetual pains,
      But breathes the living air of soft Elysian plains.
      The chaste Sibylla shall your steps convey,
      And blood of offer’d victims free the way.
      There shall you know what realms the gods assign,
      And learn the fates and fortunes of your line.
      But now, farewell! I vanish with the night,
      And feel the blast of heav’n’s approaching light.”
      He said, and mix’d with shades, and took his airy flight.
      “Whither so fast?” the filial duty cried;
      “And why, ah why, the wish’d embrace denied?”

      He said, and rose; as holy zeal inspires,
      He rakes hot embers, and renews the fires;
      His country gods and Vesta then adores
      With cakes and incense, and their aid implores.
      Next, for his friends and royal host he sent,
      Reveal’d his vision, and the gods’ intent,
      With his own purpose. All, without delay,
      The will of Jove, and his desires obey.
      They list with women each degenerate name,
      Who dares not hazard life for future fame.
      These they cashier: the brave remaining few,
      Oars, banks, and cables, half consum’d, renew.
      The prince designs a city with the plow;
      The lots their sev’ral tenements allow.
      This part is nam’d from Ilium, that from Troy,
      And the new king ascends the throne with joy;
      A chosen senate from the people draws;
      Appoints the judges, and ordains the laws.
      Then, on the top of Eryx, they begin
      A rising temple to the Paphian queen.
      Anchises, last, is honour’d as a god;
      A priest is added, annual gifts bestow’d,
      And groves are planted round his blest abode.
      Nine days they pass in feasts, their temples crown’d;
      And fumes of incense in the fanes abound.
      Then from the south arose a gentle breeze
      That curl’d the smoothness of the glassy seas;
      The rising winds a ruffling gale afford,
      And call the merry mariners aboard.

      Now loud laments along the shores resound,
      Of parting friends in close embraces bound.
      The trembling women, the degenerate train,
      Who shunn’d the frightful dangers of the main,
      Ev’n those desire to sail, and take their share
      Of the rough passage and the promis’d war:
      Whom good Aeneas cheers, and recommends
      To their new master’s care his fearful friends.
      On Eryx’s altars three fat calves he lays;
      A lamb new-fallen to the stormy seas;
      Then slips his haulsers, and his anchors weighs.
      High on the deck the godlike hero stands,
      With olive crown’d, a charger in his hands;
      Then cast the reeking entrails in the brine,
      And pour’d the sacrifice of purple wine.
      Fresh gales arise; with equal strokes they vie,
      And brush the buxom seas, and o’er the billows fly.

      Meantime the mother goddess, full of fears,
      To Neptune thus address’d, with tender tears:
      “The pride of Jove’s imperious queen, the rage,
      The malice which no suff’rings can assuage,
      Compel me to these pray’rs; since neither fate,
      Nor time, nor pity, can remove her hate:
      Ev’n Jove is thwarted by his haughty wife;
      Still vanquish’d, yet she still renews the strife.
      As if ’twere little to consume the town
      Which aw’d the world, and wore th’ imperial crown,
      She prosecutes the ghost of Troy with pains,
      And gnaws, ev’n to the bones, the last remains.
      Let her the causes of her hatred tell;
      But you can witness its effects too well.
      You saw the storm she rais’d on Libyan floods,
      That mix’d the mounting billows with the clouds;
      When, bribing Aeolus, she shook the main,
      And mov’d rebellion in your wat’ry reign.
      With fury she possess’d the Dardan dames,
      To burn their fleet with execrable flames,
      And forc’d Aeneas, when his ships were lost,
      To leave his foll’wers on a foreign coast.
      For what remains, your godhead I implore,
      And trust my son to your protecting pow’r.
      If neither Jove’s nor Fate’s decree withstand,
      Secure his passage to the Latian land.”

      Then thus the mighty Ruler of the Main:
      “What may not Venus hope from Neptune’s reign?
      My kingdom claims your birth; my late defence
      Of your indanger’d fleet may claim your confidence.
      Nor less by land than sea my deeds declare
      How much your lov’d Aeneas is my care.
      Thee, Xanthus, and thee, Simois, I attest.
      Your Trojan troops when proud Achilles press’d,
      And drove before him headlong on the plain,
      And dash’d against the walls the trembling train;
      When floods were fill’d with bodies of the slain;
      When crimson Xanthus, doubtful of his way,
      Stood up on ridges to behold the sea;
      New heaps came tumbling in, and chok’d his way;
      When your Aeneas fought, but fought with odds
      Of force unequal, and unequal gods;
      I spread a cloud before the victor’s sight,
      Sustain’d the vanquish’d, and secur’d his flight;
      Ev’n then secur’d him, when I sought with joy
      The vow’d destruction of ungrateful Troy.
      My will’s the same: fair goddess, fear no more,
      Your fleet shall safely gain the Latian shore;
      Their lives are giv’n; one destin’d head alone
      Shall perish, and for multitudes atone.”
      Thus having arm’d with hopes her anxious mind,
      His finny team Saturnian Neptune join’d,
      Then adds the foamy bridle to their jaws,
      And to the loosen’d reins permits the laws.
      High on the waves his azure car he guides;
      Its axles thunder, and the sea subsides,
      And the smooth ocean rolls her silent tides.
      The tempests fly before their father’s face,
      Trains of inferior gods his triumph grace,
      And monster whales before their master play,
      And choirs of Tritons crowd the wat’ry way.
      The marshal’d pow’rs in equal troops divide
      To right and left; the gods his better side
      Inclose, and on the worse the Nymphs and Nereids ride.

      Now smiling hope, with sweet vicissitude,
      Within the hero’s mind his joys renew’d.
      He calls to raise the masts, the sheets display;
      The cheerful crew with diligence obey;
      They scud before the wind, and sail in open sea.
      Ahead of all the master pilot steers;
      And, as he leads, the following navy veers.
      The steeds of Night had travel’d half the sky,
      The drowsy rowers on their benches lie,
      When the soft God of Sleep, with easy flight,
      Descends, and draws behind a trail of light.
      Thou, Palinurus, art his destin’d prey;
      To thee alone he takes his fatal way.
      Dire dreams to thee, and iron sleep, he bears;
      And, lighting on thy prow, the form of Phorbas wears.
      Then thus the traitor god began his tale:
      “The winds, my friend, inspire a pleasing gale;
      The ships, without thy care, securely sail.
      Now steal an hour of sweet repose; and I
      Will take the rudder and thy room supply.”
      To whom the yawning pilot, half asleep:
      “Me dost thou bid to trust the treach’rous deep,
      The harlot smiles of her dissembling face,
      And to her faith commit the Trojan race?
      Shall I believe the Siren South again,
      And, oft betray’d, not know the monster main?”
      He said: his fasten’d hands the rudder keep,
      And, fix’d on heav’n, his eyes repel invading sleep.
      The god was wroth, and at his temples threw
      A branch in Lethe dipp’d, and drunk with Stygian dew:
      The pilot, vanquish’d by the pow’r divine,
      Soon clos’d his swimming eyes, and lay supine.
      Scarce were his limbs extended at their length,
      The god, insulting with superior strength,
      Fell heavy on him, plung’d him in the sea,
      And, with the stern, the rudder tore away.
      Headlong he fell, and, struggling in the main,
      Cried out for helping hands, but cried in vain.
      The victor daemon mounts obscure in air,
      While the ship sails without the pilot’s care.
      On Neptune’s faith the floating fleet relies;
      But what the man forsook, the god supplies,
      And o’er the dang’rous deep secure the navy flies;
      Glides by the Sirens’ cliffs, a shelfy coast,
      Long infamous for ships and sailors lost,
      And white with bones. Th’ impetuous ocean roars,
      And rocks rebellow from the sounding shores.
      The watchful hero felt the knocks, and found
      The tossing vessel sail’d on shoaly ground.
      Sure of his pilot’s loss, he takes himself
      The helm, and steers aloof, and shuns the shelf.
      Inly he griev’d, and, groaning from the breast,
      Deplor’d his death; and thus his pain express’d:
      “For faith repos’d on seas, and on the flatt’ring sky,
      Thy naked corpse is doom’d on shores unknown to lie.”



 BOOK VI

 THE ARGUMENT.


      The Sibyl foretells Aeneas the adventures he should meet with in
      Italy. She attends him to hell; describing to him the various
      scenes of that place, and conducting him to his father Anchises,
      who instructs him in those sublime mysteries, of the soul of the
      world, and the transmigration; and shows him that glorious race
      of heroes, which was to descend from him and his posterity.


      He said, and wept; then spread his sails before
      The winds, and reach’d at length the Cumaean shore:
      Their anchors dropp’d, his crew the vessels moor.
      They turn their heads to sea, their sterns to land,
      And greet with greedy joy th’ Italian strand.
      Some strike from clashing flints their fiery seed;
      Some gather sticks, the kindled flames to feed,
      Or search for hollow trees, and fell the woods,
      Or trace thro’ valleys the discover’d floods.
      Thus, while their sev’ral charges they fulfil,
      The pious prince ascends the sacred hill
      Where Phoebus is ador’d; and seeks the shade
      Which hides from sight his venerable maid.
      Deep in a cave the Sibyl makes abode;
      Thence full of fate returns, and of the god.
      Thro’ Trivia’s grove they walk; and now behold,
      And enter now, the temple roof’d with gold.
      When Daedalus, to fly the Cretan shore,
      His heavy limbs on jointed pinions bore,
      (The first who sail’d in air,) ’tis sung by Fame,
      To the Cumaean coast at length he came,
      And here alighting, built this costly frame.
      Inscrib’d to Phoebus, here he hung on high
      The steerage of his wings, that cut the sky:
      Then o’er the lofty gate his art emboss’d
      Androgeos’ death, and off’rings to his ghost;
      Sev’n youths from Athens yearly sent, to meet
      The fate appointed by revengeful Crete.
      And next to those the dreadful urn was plac’d,
      In which the destin’d names by lots were cast:
      The mournful parents stand around in tears,
      And rising Crete against their shore appears.
      There too, in living sculpture, might be seen
      The mad affection of the Cretan queen;
      Then how she cheats her bellowing lover’s eye;
      The rushing leap, the doubtful progeny,
      The lower part a beast, a man above,
      The monument of their polluted love.
      Not far from thence he grav’d the wondrous maze,
      A thousand doors, a thousand winding ways:
      Here dwells the monster, hid from human view,
      Not to be found, but by the faithful clue;
      Till the kind artist, mov’d with pious grief,
      Lent to the loving maid this last relief,
      And all those erring paths describ’d so well
      That Theseus conquer’d and the monster fell.
      Here hapless Icarus had found his part,
      Had not the father’s grief restrain’d his art.
      He twice assay’d to cast his son in gold;
      Twice from his hands he dropp’d the forming mould.

      All this with wond’ring eyes Aeneas view’d;
      Each varying object his delight renew’d:
      Eager to read the rest, Achates came,
      And by his side the mad divining dame,
      The priestess of the god, Deiphobe her name.
      “Time suffers not,” she said, “to feed your eyes
      With empty pleasures; haste the sacrifice.
      Sev’n bullocks, yet unyok’d, for Phoebus choose,
      And for Diana sev’n unspotted ewes.”
      This said, the servants urge the sacred rites,
      While to the temple she the prince invites.
      A spacious cave, within its farmost part,
      Was hew’d and fashion’d by laborious art
      Thro’ the hill’s hollow sides: before the place,
      A hundred doors a hundred entries grace;
      As many voices issue, and the sound
      Of Sybil’s words as many times rebound.
      Now to the mouth they come. Aloud she cries:
      “This is the time; enquire your destinies.
      He comes; behold the god!” Thus while she said,
      (And shiv’ring at the sacred entry stay’d,)
      Her colour chang’d; her face was not the same,
      And hollow groans from her deep spirit came.
      Her hair stood up; convulsive rage possess’d
      Her trembling limbs, and heav’d her lab’ring breast.
      Greater than humankind she seem’d to look,
      And with an accent more than mortal spoke.
      Her staring eyes with sparkling fury roll;
      When all the god came rushing on her soul.
      Swiftly she turn’d, and, foaming as she spoke:
      “Why this delay?” she cried; “the pow’rs invoke!
      Thy pray’rs alone can open this abode;
      Else vain are my demands, and dumb the god.”

      She said no more. The trembling Trojans hear,
      O’erspread with a damp sweat and holy fear.
      The prince himself, with awful dread possess’d,
      His vows to great Apollo thus address’d:
      “Indulgent god, propitious pow’r to Troy,
      Swift to relieve, unwilling to destroy,
      Directed by whose hand the Dardan dart
      Pierc’d the proud Grecian’s only mortal part:
      Thus far, by fate’s decrees and thy commands,
      Thro’ ambient seas and thro’ devouring sands,
      Our exil’d crew has sought th’ Ausonian ground;
      And now, at length, the flying coast is found.
      Thus far the fate of Troy, from place to place,
      With fury has pursued her wand’ring race.
      Here cease, ye pow’rs, and let your vengeance end:
      Troy is no more, and can no more offend.
      And thou, O sacred maid, inspir’d to see
      Th’ event of things in dark futurity;
      Give me what Heav’n has promis’d to my fate,
      To conquer and command the Latian state;
      To fix my wand’ring gods, and find a place
      For the long exiles of the Trojan race.
      Then shall my grateful hands a temple rear
      To the twin gods, with vows and solemn pray’r;
      And annual rites, and festivals, and games,
      Shall be perform’d to their auspicious names.
      Nor shalt thou want thy honours in my land;
      For there thy faithful oracles shall stand,
      Preserv’d in shrines; and ev’ry sacred lay,
      Which, by thy mouth, Apollo shall convey:
      All shall be treasur’d by a chosen train
      Of holy priests, and ever shall remain.
      But O! commit not thy prophetic mind
      To flitting leaves, the sport of ev’ry wind,
      Lest they disperse in air our empty fate;
      Write not, but, what the pow’rs ordain, relate.”

      Struggling in vain, impatient of her load,
      And lab’ring underneath the pond’rous god,
      The more she strove to shake him from her breast,
      With more and far superior force he press’d;
      Commands his entrance, and, without control,
      Usurps her organs and inspires her soul.
      Now, with a furious blast, the hundred doors
      Ope of themselves; a rushing whirlwind roars
      Within the cave, and Sibyl’s voice restores:
      “Escap’d the dangers of the wat’ry reign,
      Yet more and greater ills by land remain.
      The coast, so long desir’d (nor doubt th’ event),
      Thy troops shall reach, but, having reach’d, repent.
      Wars, horrid wars, I view; a field of blood,
      And Tiber rolling with a purple flood.
      Simois nor Xanthus shall be wanting there:
      A new Achilles shall in arms appear,
      And he, too, goddess-born. Fierce Juno’s hate,
      Added to hostile force, shall urge thy fate.
      To what strange nations shalt not thou resort,
      Driv’n to solicit aid at ev’ry court!
      The cause the same which Ilium once oppress’d;
      A foreign mistress, and a foreign guest.
      But thou, secure of soul, unbent with woes,
      The more thy fortune frowns, the more oppose.
      The dawnings of thy safety shall be shown
      From whence thou least shalt hope, a Grecian town.”

      Thus, from the dark recess, the Sibyl spoke,
      And the resisting air the thunder broke;
      The cave rebellow’d, and the temple shook.
      Th’ ambiguous god, who rul’d her lab’ring breast,
      In these mysterious words his mind express’d;
      Some truths reveal’d, in terms involv’d the rest.
      At length her fury fell, her foaming ceas’d,
      And, ebbing in her soul, the god decreas’d.
      Then thus the chief: “No terror to my view,
      No frightful face of danger can be new.
      Inur’d to suffer, and resolv’d to dare,
      The Fates, without my pow’r, shall be without my care.
      This let me crave, since near your grove the road
      To hell lies open, and the dark abode
      Which Acheron surrounds, th’ innavigable flood;
      Conduct me thro’ the regions void of light,
      And lead me longing to my father’s sight.
      For him, a thousand dangers I have sought,
      And, rushing where the thickest Grecians fought,
      Safe on my back the sacred burthen brought.
      He, for my sake, the raging ocean tried,
      And wrath of Heav’n, my still auspicious guide,
      And bore beyond the strength decrepid age supplied.
      Oft, since he breath’d his last, in dead of night
      His reverend image stood before my sight;
      Enjoin’d to seek, below, his holy shade;
      Conducted there by your unerring aid.
      But you, if pious minds by pray’rs are won,
      Oblige the father, and protect the son.
      Yours is the pow’r; nor Proserpine in vain
      Has made you priestess of her nightly reign.
      If Orpheus, arm’d with his enchanting lyre,
      The ruthless king with pity could inspire,
      And from the shades below redeem his wife;
      If Pollux, off’ring his alternate life,
      Could free his brother, and can daily go
      By turns aloft, by turns descend below:
      Why name I Theseus, or his greater friend,
      Who trod the downward path, and upward could ascend?
      Not less than theirs from Jove my lineage came;
      My mother greater, my descent the same.”
      So pray’d the Trojan prince, and, while he pray’d,
      His hand upon the holy altar laid.

      Then thus replied the prophetess divine:
      “O goddess-born of great Anchises’ line,
      The gates of hell are open night and day;
      Smooth the descent, and easy is the way:
      But to return, and view the cheerful skies,
      In this the task and mighty labour lies.
      To few great Jupiter imparts this grace,
      And those of shining worth and heav’nly race.
      Betwixt those regions and our upper light,
      Deep forests and impenetrable night
      Possess the middle space: th’ infernal bounds
      Cocytus, with his sable waves, surrounds.
      But if so dire a love your soul invades,
      As twice below to view the trembling shades;
      If you so hard a toil will undertake,
      As twice to pass th’ innavigable lake;
      Receive my counsel. In the neighb’ring grove
      There stands a tree; the queen of Stygian Jove
      Claims it her own; thick woods and gloomy night
      Conceal the happy plant from human sight.
      One bough it bears; but wondrous to behold!
      The ductile rind and leaves of radiant gold:
      This from the vulgar branches must be torn,
      And to fair Proserpine the present borne,
      Ere leave be giv’n to tempt the nether skies.
      The first thus rent a second will arise,
      And the same metal the same room supplies.
      Look round the wood, with lifted eyes, to see
      The lurking gold upon the fatal tree:
      Then rend it off, as holy rites command;
      The willing metal will obey thy hand,
      Following with ease, if favour’d by thy fate,
      Thou art foredoom’d to view the Stygian state:
      If not, no labour can the tree constrain;
      And strength of stubborn arms and steel are vain.
      Besides, you know not, while you here attend,
      Th’ unworthy fate of your unhappy friend:
      Breathless he lies; and his unburied ghost,
      Depriv’d of fun’ral rites, pollutes your host.
      Pay first his pious dues; and, for the dead,
      Two sable sheep around his hearse be led;
      Then, living turfs upon his body lay:
      This done, securely take the destin’d way,
      To find the regions destitute of day.”

      She said, and held her peace. Aeneas went
      Sad from the cave, and full of discontent,
      Unknowing whom the sacred Sibyl meant.
      Achates, the companion of his breast,
      Goes grieving by his side, with equal cares oppress’d.
      Walking, they talk’d, and fruitlessly divin’d
      What friend the priestess by those words design’d.
      But soon they found an object to deplore:
      Misenus lay extended on the shore;
      Son of the God of Winds: none so renown’d
      The warrior trumpet in the field to sound;
      With breathing brass to kindle fierce alarms,
      And rouse to dare their fate in honourable arms.
      He serv’d great Hector, and was ever near,
      Not with his trumpet only, but his spear.
      But by Pelides’ arms when Hector fell,
      He chose Aeneas; and he chose as well.
      Swoln with applause, and aiming still at more,
      He now provokes the sea gods from the shore;
      With envy Triton heard the martial sound,
      And the bold champion, for his challenge, drown’d;
      Then cast his mangled carcass on the strand:
      The gazing crowd around the body stand.
      All weep; but most Aeneas mourns his fate,
      And hastens to perform the funeral state.
      In altar-wise, a stately pile they rear;
      The basis broad below, and top advanc’d in air.
      An ancient wood, fit for the work design’d,
      (The shady covert of the salvage kind,)
      The Trojans found: the sounding ax is plied;
      Firs, pines, and pitch trees, and the tow’ring pride
      Of forest ashes, feel the fatal stroke,
      And piercing wedges cleave the stubborn oak.
      Huge trunks of trees, fell’d from the steepy crown
      Of the bare mountains, roll with ruin down.
      Arm’d like the rest the Trojan prince appears,
      And by his pious labour urges theirs.

      Thus while he wrought, revolving in his mind
      The ways to compass what his wish design’d,
      He cast his eyes upon the gloomy grove,
      And then with vows implor’d the Queen of Love:
      “O may thy pow’r, propitious still to me,
      Conduct my steps to find the fatal tree,
      In this deep forest; since the Sibyl’s breath
      Foretold, alas! too true, Misenus’ death.”
      Scarce had he said, when, full before his sight,
      Two doves, descending from their airy flight,
      Secure upon the grassy plain alight.
      He knew his mother’s birds; and thus he pray’d:
      “Be you my guides, with your auspicious aid,
      And lead my footsteps, till the branch be found,
      Whose glitt’ring shadow gilds the sacred ground.
      And thou, great parent, with celestial care,
      In this distress be present to my pray’r!”
      Thus having said, he stopp’d with watchful sight,
      Observing still the motions of their flight,
      What course they took, what happy signs they shew.
      They fed, and, flutt’ring, by degrees withdrew
      Still farther from the place, but still in view:
      Hopping and flying, thus they led him on
      To the slow lake, whose baleful stench to shun
      They wing’d their flight aloft; then, stooping low,
      Perch’d on the double tree that bears the golden bough.
      Thro’ the green leafs the glitt’ring shadows glow;
      As, on the sacred oak, the wintry mistletoe,
      Where the proud mother views her precious brood,
      And happier branches, which she never sow’d.
      Such was the glitt’ring; such the ruddy rind,
      And dancing leaves, that wanton’d in the wind.
      He seiz’d the shining bough with griping hold,
      And rent away, with ease, the ling’ring gold;
      Then to the Sibyl’s palace bore the prize.
      Meantime the Trojan troops, with weeping eyes,
      To dead Misenus pay his obsequies.
      First, from the ground a lofty pile they rear,
      Of pitch trees, oaks, and pines, and unctuous fir:
      The fabric’s front with cypress twigs they strew,
      And stick the sides with boughs of baleful yew.
      The topmost part his glitt’ring arms adorn;
      Warm waters, then, in brazen caldrons borne,
      Are pour’d to wash his body, joint by joint,
      And fragrant oils the stiffen’d limbs anoint.
      With groans and cries Misenus they deplore:
      Then on a bier, with purple cover’d o’er,
      The breathless body, thus bewail’d, they lay,
      And fire the pile, their faces turn’d away:
      Such reverend rites their fathers us’d to pay.
      Pure oil and incense on the fire they throw,
      And fat of victims, which his friends bestow.
      These gifts the greedy flames to dust devour;
      Then on the living coals red wine they pour;
      And, last, the relics by themselves dispose,
      Which in a brazen urn the priests inclose.
      Old Corynaeus compass’d thrice the crew,
      And dipp’d an olive branch in holy dew;
      Which thrice he sprinkled round, and thrice aloud
      Invok’d the dead, and then dismissed the crowd.
      But good Aeneas order’d on the shore
      A stately tomb, whose top a trumpet bore,
      A soldier’s falchion, and a seaman’s oar.
      Thus was his friend interr’d; and deathless fame
      Still to the lofty cape consigns his name.
      These rites perform’d, the prince, without delay,
      Hastes to the nether world his destin’d way.
      Deep was the cave; and, downward as it went
      From the wide mouth, a rocky rough descent;
      And here th’ access a gloomy grove defends,
      And there th’ unnavigable lake extends,
      O’er whose unhappy waters, void of light,
      No bird presumes to steer his airy flight;
      Such deadly stenches from the depths arise,
      And steaming sulphur, that infects the skies.
      From hence the Grecian bards their legends make,
      And give the name Avernus to the lake.
      Four sable bullocks, in the yoke untaught,
      For sacrifice the pious hero brought.
      The priestess pours the wine betwixt their horns;
      Then cuts the curling hair; that first oblation burns,
      Invoking Hecate hither to repair:
      A pow’rful name in hell and upper air.
      The sacred priests with ready knives bereave
      The beasts of life, and in full bowls receive
      The streaming blood: a lamb to Hell and Night
      (The sable wool without a streak of white)
      Aeneas offers; and, by fate’s decree,
      A barren heifer, Proserpine, to thee,
      With holocausts he Pluto’s altar fills;
      Sev’n brawny bulls with his own hand he kills;
      Then on the broiling entrails oil he pours;
      Which, ointed thus, the raging flame devours.
      Late the nocturnal sacrifice begun,
      Nor ended till the next returning sun.
      Then earth began to bellow, trees to dance,
      And howling dogs in glimm’ring light advance,
      Ere Hecate came. “Far hence be souls profane!”
      The Sibyl cried, “and from the grove abstain!
      Now, Trojan, take the way thy fates afford;
      Assume thy courage, and unsheathe thy sword.”
      She said, and pass’d along the gloomy space;
      The prince pursued her steps with equal pace.

      Ye realms, yet unreveal’d to human sight,
      Ye gods who rule the regions of the night,
      Ye gliding ghosts, permit me to relate
      The mystic wonders of your silent state!

      Obscure they went thro’ dreary shades, that led
      Along the waste dominions of the dead.
      Thus wander travelers in woods by night,
      By the moon’s doubtful and malignant light,
      When Jove in dusky clouds involves the skies,
      And the faint crescent shoots by fits before their eyes.

      Just in the gate and in the jaws of hell,
      Revengeful Cares and sullen Sorrows dwell,
      And pale Diseases, and repining Age,
      Want, Fear, and Famine’s unresisted rage;
      Here Toils, and Death, and Death’s half-brother, Sleep,
      Forms terrible to view, their sentry keep;
      With anxious Pleasures of a guilty mind,
      Deep Frauds before, and open Force behind;
      The Furies’ iron beds; and Strife, that shakes
      Her hissing tresses and unfolds her snakes.
      Full in the midst of this infernal road,
      An elm displays her dusky arms abroad:
      The God of Sleep there hides his heavy head,
      And empty dreams on ev’ry leaf are spread.
      Of various forms unnumber’d spectres more,
      Centaurs, and double shapes, besiege the door.
      Before the passage, horrid Hydra stands,
      And Briareus with all his hundred hands;
      Gorgons, Geryon with his triple frame;
      And vain Chimaera vomits empty flame.
      The chief unsheath’d his shining steel, prepar’d,
      Tho’ seiz’d with sudden fear, to force the guard,
      Off’ring his brandish’d weapon at their face;
      Had not the Sibyl stopp’d his eager pace,
      And told him what those empty phantoms were:
      Forms without bodies, and impassive air.
      Hence to deep Acheron they take their way,
      Whose troubled eddies, thick with ooze and clay,
      Are whirl’d aloft, and in Cocytus lost.
      There Charon stands, who rules the dreary coast:
      A sordid god: down from his hoary chin
      A length of beard descends, uncomb’d, unclean;
      His eyes, like hollow furnaces on fire;
      A girdle, foul with grease, binds his obscene attire.
      He spreads his canvas; with his pole he steers;
      The freights of flitting ghosts in his thin bottom bears.
      He look’d in years; yet in his years were seen
      A youthful vigour and autumnal green.
      An airy crowd came rushing where he stood,
      Which fill’d the margin of the fatal flood:
      Husbands and wives, boys and unmarried maids,
      And mighty heroes’ more majestic shades,
      And youths, intomb’d before their fathers’ eyes,
      With hollow groans, and shrieks, and feeble cries.
      Thick as the leaves in autumn strow the woods,
      Or fowls, by winter forc’d, forsake the floods,
      And wing their hasty flight to happier lands;
      Such, and so thick, the shiv’ring army stands,
      And press for passage with extended hands.
      Now these, now those, the surly boatman bore:
      The rest he drove to distance from the shore.
      The hero, who beheld with wond’ring eyes
      The tumult mix’d with shrieks, laments, and cries,
      Ask’d of his guide, what the rude concourse meant;
      Why to the shore the thronging people bent;
      What forms of law among the ghosts were us’d;
      Why some were ferried o’er, and some refus’d.

      “Son of Anchises, offspring of the gods,”
      The Sibyl said, “you see the Stygian floods,
      The sacred stream which heav’n’s imperial state
      Attests in oaths, and fears to violate.
      The ghosts rejected are th’ unhappy crew
      Depriv’d of sepulchers and fun’ral due:
      The boatman, Charon; those, the buried host,
      He ferries over to the farther coast;
      Nor dares his transport vessel cross the waves
      With such whose bones are not compos’d in graves.
      A hundred years they wander on the shore;
      At length, their penance done, are wafted o’er.”
      The Trojan chief his forward pace repress’d,
      Revolving anxious thoughts within his breast,
      He saw his friends, who, whelm’d beneath the waves,
      Their fun’ral honours claim’d, and ask’d their quiet graves.
      The lost Leucaspis in the crowd he knew,
      And the brave leader of the Lycian crew,
      Whom, on the Tyrrhene seas, the tempests met;
      The sailors master’d, and the ship o’erset.

      Amidst the spirits, Palinurus press’d,
      Yet fresh from life, a new-admitted guest,
      Who, while he steering view’d the stars, and bore
      His course from Afric to the Latian shore,
      Fell headlong down. The Trojan fix’d his view,
      And scarcely thro’ the gloom the sullen shadow knew.
      Then thus the prince: “What envious pow’r, O friend,
      Brought your lov’d life to this disastrous end?
      For Phoebus, ever true in all he said,
      Has in your fate alone my faith betray’d.
      The god foretold you should not die, before
      You reach’d, secure from seas, th’ Italian shore.
      Is this th’ unerring pow’r?” The ghost replied;
      “Nor Phoebus flatter’d, nor his answers lied;
      Nor envious gods have sent me to the deep:
      But, while the stars and course of heav’n I keep,
      My wearied eyes were seiz’d with fatal sleep.
      I fell; and, with my weight, the helm constrain’d
      Was drawn along, which yet my gripe retain’d.
      Now by the winds and raging waves I swear,
      Your safety, more than mine, was then my care;
      Lest, of the guide bereft, the rudder lost,
      Your ship should run against the rocky coast.
      Three blust’ring nights, borne by the southern blast,
      I floated, and discover’d land at last:
      High on a mounting wave my head I bore,
      Forcing my strength, and gath’ring to the shore.
      Panting, but past the danger, now I seiz’d
      The craggy cliffs, and my tir’d members eas’d.
      While, cumber’d with my dropping clothes, I lay,
      The cruel nation, covetous of prey,
      Stain’d with my blood th’ unhospitable coast;
      And now, by winds and waves, my lifeless limbs are toss’d:
      Which O avert, by yon ethereal light,
      Which I have lost for this eternal night!
      Or, if by dearer ties you may be won,
      By your dead sire, and by your living son,
      Redeem from this reproach my wand’ring ghost;
      Or with your navy seek the Velin coast,
      And in a peaceful grave my corpse compose;
      Or, if a nearer way your mother shows,
      Without whose aid you durst not undertake
      This frightful passage o’er the Stygian lake,
      Lend to this wretch your hand, and waft him o’er
      To the sweet banks of yon forbidden shore.”
      Scarce had he said, the prophetess began:
      “What hopes delude thee, miserable man?
      Think’st thou, thus unintomb’d, to cross the floods,
      To view the Furies and infernal gods,
      And visit, without leave, the dark abodes?
      Attend the term of long revolving years;
      Fate, and the dooming gods, are deaf to tears.
      This comfort of thy dire misfortune take:
      The wrath of Heav’n, inflicted for thy sake,
      With vengeance shall pursue th’ inhuman coast,
      Till they propitiate thy offended ghost,
      And raise a tomb, with vows and solemn pray’r;
      And Palinurus’ name the place shall bear.”
      This calm’d his cares; sooth’d with his future fame,
      And pleas’d to hear his propagated name.

      Now nearer to the Stygian lake they draw:
      Whom, from the shore, the surly boatman saw;
      Observ’d their passage thro’ the shady wood,
      And mark’d their near approaches to the flood.
      Then thus he call’d aloud, inflam’d with wrath:
      “Mortal, whate’er, who this forbidden path
      In arms presum’st to tread, I charge thee, stand,
      And tell thy name, and bus’ness in the land.
      Know this, the realm of night; the Stygian shore:
      My boat conveys no living bodies o’er;
      Nor was I pleas’d great Theseus once to bear,
      Who forc’d a passage with his pointed spear,
      Nor strong Alcides, men of mighty fame,
      And from th’ immortal gods their lineage came.
      In fetters one the barking porter tied,
      And took him trembling from his sov’reign’s side:
      Two sought by force to seize his beauteous bride.”
      To whom the Sibyl thus: “Compose thy mind;
      Nor frauds are here contriv’d, nor force design’d.
      Still may the dog the wand’ring troops constrain
      Of airy ghosts, and vex the guilty train,
      And with her grisly lord his lovely queen remain.
      The Trojan chief, whose lineage is from Jove,
      Much fam’d for arms, and more for filial love,
      Is sent to seek his sire in your Elysian grove.
      If neither piety, nor Heav’n’s command,
      Can gain his passage to the Stygian strand,
      This fatal present shall prevail at least.”
      Then shew’d the shining bough, conceal’d within her vest.
      No more was needful: for the gloomy god
      Stood mute with awe, to see the golden rod;
      Admir’d the destin’d off’ring to his queen;
      A venerable gift, so rarely seen.
      His fury thus appeas’d, he puts to land;
      The ghosts forsake their seats at his command:
      He clears the deck, receives the mighty freight;
      The leaky vessel groans beneath the weight.
      Slowly she sails, and scarcely stems the tides;
      The pressing water pours within her sides.
      His passengers at length are wafted o’er,
      Expos’d, in muddy weeds, upon the miry shore.

      No sooner landed, in his den they found
      The triple porter of the Stygian sound,
      Grim Cerberus, who soon began to rear
      His crested snakes, and arm’d his bristling hair.
      The prudent Sibyl had before prepar’d
      A sop, in honey steep’d, to charm the guard;
      Which, mix’d with pow’rful drugs, she cast before
      His greedy grinning jaws, just op’d to roar.
      With three enormous mouths he gapes; and straight,
      With hunger press’d, devours the pleasing bait.
      Long draughts of sleep his monstrous limbs enslave;
      He reels, and, falling, fills the spacious cave.
      The keeper charm’d, the chief without delay
      Pass’d on, and took th’ irremeable way.
      Before the gates, the cries of babes new born,
      Whom fate had from their tender mothers torn,
      Assault his ears: then those, whom form of laws
      Condemn’d to die, when traitors judg’d their cause.
      Nor want they lots, nor judges to review
      The wrongful sentence, and award a new.
      Minos, the strict inquisitor, appears;
      And lives and crimes, with his assessors, hears.
      Round in his urn the blended balls he rolls,
      Absolves the just, and dooms the guilty souls.
      The next, in place and punishment, are they
      Who prodigally throw their souls away;
      Fools, who, repining at their wretched state,
      And loathing anxious life, suborn’d their fate.
      With late repentance now they would retrieve
      The bodies they forsook, and wish to live;
      Their pains and poverty desire to bear,
      To view the light of heav’n, and breathe the vital air:
      But fate forbids; the Stygian floods oppose,
      And with circling streams the captive souls inclose.

      Not far from thence, the Mournful Fields appear
      So call’d from lovers that inhabit there.
      The souls whom that unhappy flame invades,
      In secret solitude and myrtle shades
      Make endless moans, and, pining with desire,
      Lament too late their unextinguish’d fire.
      Here Procris, Eriphyle here he found,
      Baring her breast, yet bleeding with the wound
      Made by her son. He saw Pasiphae there,
      With Phaedra’s ghost, a foul incestuous pair.
      There Laodamia, with Evadne, moves,
      Unhappy both, but loyal in their loves:
      Caeneus, a woman once, and once a man,
      But ending in the sex she first began.
      Not far from these Phoenician Dido stood,
      Fresh from her wound, her bosom bath’d in blood;
      Whom when the Trojan hero hardly knew,
      Obscure in shades, and with a doubtful view,
      (Doubtful as he who sees, thro’ dusky night,
      Or thinks he sees, the moon’s uncertain light,)
      With tears he first approach’d the sullen shade;
      And, as his love inspir’d him, thus he said:
      “Unhappy queen! then is the common breath
      Of rumour true, in your reported death,
      And I, alas! the cause? By Heav’n, I vow,
      And all the pow’rs that rule the realms below,
      Unwilling I forsook your friendly state,
      Commanded by the gods, and forc’d by fate.
      Those gods, that fate, whose unresisted might
      Have sent me to these regions void of light,
      Thro’ the vast empire of eternal night.
      Nor dar’d I to presume, that, press’d with grief,
      My flight should urge you to this dire relief.
      Stay, stay your steps, and listen to my vows:
      ’Tis the last interview that fate allows!”
      In vain he thus attempts her mind to move
      With tears, and pray’rs, and late-repenting love.
      Disdainfully she look’d; then turning round,
      But fix’d her eyes unmov’d upon the ground,
      And what he says and swears, regards no more
      Than the deaf rocks, when the loud billows roar;
      But whirl’d away, to shun his hateful sight,
      Hid in the forest and the shades of night;
      Then sought Sichaeus thro’ the shady grove,
      Who answer’d all her cares, and equal’d all her love.

      Some pious tears the pitying hero paid,
      And follow’d with his eyes the flitting shade,
      Then took the forward way, by fate ordain’d,
      And, with his guide, the farther fields attain’d,
      Where, sever’d from the rest, the warrior souls remain’d.
      Tydeus he met, with Meleager’s race,
      The pride of armies, and the soldiers’ grace;
      And pale Adrastus with his ghastly face.
      Of Trojan chiefs he view’d a num’rous train,
      All much lamented, all in battle slain;
      Glaucus and Medon, high above the rest,
      Antenor’s sons, and Ceres’ sacred priest.
      And proud Idaeus, Priam’s charioteer,
      Who shakes his empty reins, and aims his airy spear.
      The gladsome ghosts, in circling troops, attend
      And with unwearied eyes behold their friend;
      Delight to hover near, and long to know
      What bus’ness brought him to the realms below.
      But Argive chiefs, and Agamemnon’s train,
      When his refulgent arms flash’d thro’ the shady plain,
      Fled from his well-known face, with wonted fear,
      As when his thund’ring sword and pointed spear
      Drove headlong to their ships, and glean’d the routed rear.
      They rais’d a feeble cry, with trembling notes;
      But the weak voice deceiv’d their gasping throats.

      Here Priam’s son, Deiphobus, he found,
      Whose face and limbs were one continued wound:
      Dishonest, with lopp’d arms, the youth appears,
      Spoil’d of his nose, and shorten’d of his ears.
      He scarcely knew him, striving to disown
      His blotted form, and blushing to be known;
      And therefore first began: “O Teucer’s race,
      Who durst thy faultless figure thus deface?
      What heart could wish, what hand inflict, this dire disgrace?
      ’Twas fam’d, that in our last and fatal night
      Your single prowess long sustain’d the fight,
      Till tir’d, not forc’d, a glorious fate you chose,
      And fell upon a heap of slaughter’d foes.
      But, in remembrance of so brave a deed,
      A tomb and fun’ral honours I decreed;
      Thrice call’d your manes on the Trojan plains:
      The place your armour and your name retains.
      Your body too I sought, and, had I found,
      Design’d for burial in your native ground.”

      The ghost replied: “Your piety has paid
      All needful rites, to rest my wand’ring shade;
      But cruel fate, and my more cruel wife,
      To Grecian swords betray’d my sleeping life.
      These are the monuments of Helen’s love:
      The shame I bear below, the marks I bore above.
      You know in what deluding joys we pass’d
      The night that was by Heav’n decreed our last:
      For, when the fatal horse, descending down,
      Pregnant with arms, o’erwhelm’d th’ unhappy town
      She feign’d nocturnal orgies; left my bed,
      And, mix’d with Trojan dames, the dances led
      Then, waving high her torch, the signal made,
      Which rous’d the Grecians from their ambuscade.
      With watching overworn, with cares oppress’d,
      Unhappy I had laid me down to rest,
      And heavy sleep my weary limbs possess’d.
      Meantime my worthy wife our arms mislaid,
      And from beneath my head my sword convey’d;
      The door unlatch’d, and, with repeated calls,
      Invites her former lord within my walls.
      Thus in her crime her confidence she plac’d,
      And with new treasons would redeem the past.
      What need I more? Into the room they ran,
      And meanly murder’d a defenceless man.
      Ulysses, basely born, first led the way.
      Avenging pow’rs! with justice if I pray,
      That fortune be their own another day!
      But answer you; and in your turn relate,
      What brought you, living, to the Stygian state:
      Driv’n by the winds and errors of the sea,
      Or did you Heav’n’s superior doom obey?
      Or tell what other chance conducts your way,
      To view with mortal eyes our dark retreats,
      Tumults and torments of th’ infernal seats.”

      While thus in talk the flying hours they pass,
      The sun had finish’d more than half his race:
      And they, perhaps, in words and tears had spent
      The little time of stay which Heav’n had lent;
      But thus the Sibyl chides their long delay:
      “Night rushes down, and headlong drives the day:
      ’Tis here, in different paths, the way divides;
      The right to Pluto’s golden palace guides;
      The left to that unhappy region tends,
      Which to the depth of Tartarus descends;
      The seat of night profound, and punish’d fiends.”
      Then thus Deiphobus: “O sacred maid,
      Forbear to chide, and be your will obey’d!
      Lo! to the secret shadows I retire,
      To pay my penance till my years expire.
      Proceed, auspicious prince, with glory crown’d,
      And born to better fates than I have found.”
      He said; and, while he said, his steps he turn’d
      To secret shadows, and in silence mourn’d.

      The hero, looking on the left, espied
      A lofty tow’r, and strong on ev’ry side
      With treble walls, which Phlegethon surrounds,
      Whose fiery flood the burning empire bounds;
      And, press’d betwixt the rocks, the bellowing noise resounds
      Wide is the fronting gate, and, rais’d on high
      With adamantine columns, threats the sky.
      Vain is the force of man, and Heav’n’s as vain,
      To crush the pillars which the pile sustain.
      Sublime on these a tow’r of steel is rear’d;
      And dire Tisiphone there keeps the ward,
      Girt in her sanguine gown, by night and day,
      Observant of the souls that pass the downward way.
      From hence are heard the groans of ghosts, the pains
      Of sounding lashes and of dragging chains.
      The Trojan stood astonish’d at their cries,
      And ask’d his guide from whence those yells arise;
      And what the crimes, and what the tortures were,
      And loud laments that rent the liquid air.

      She thus replied: “The chaste and holy race
      Are all forbidden this polluted place.
      But Hecate, when she gave to rule the woods,
      Then led me trembling thro’ these dire abodes,
      And taught the tortures of th’ avenging gods.
      These are the realms of unrelenting fate;
      And awful Rhadamanthus rules the state.
      He hears and judges each committed crime;
      Enquires into the manner, place, and time.
      The conscious wretch must all his acts reveal,
      Loth to confess, unable to conceal,
      From the first moment of his vital breath,
      To his last hour of unrepenting death.
      Straight, o’er the guilty ghost, the Fury shakes
      The sounding whip and brandishes her snakes,
      And the pale sinner, with her sisters, takes.
      Then, of itself, unfolds th’ eternal door;
      With dreadful sounds the brazen hinges roar.
      You see, before the gate, what stalking ghost
      Commands the guard, what sentries keep the post.
      More formidable Hydra stands within,
      Whose jaws with iron teeth severely grin.
      The gaping gulf low to the centre lies,
      And twice as deep as earth is distant from the skies.
      The rivals of the gods, the Titan race,
      Here, sing’d with lightning, roll within th’ unfathom’d space.
      Here lie th’ Alaean twins, (I saw them both,)
      Enormous bodies, of gigantic growth,
      Who dar’d in fight the Thund’rer to defy,
      Affect his heav’n, and force him from the sky.
      Salmoneus, suff’ring cruel pains, I found,
      For emulating Jove; the rattling sound
      Of mimic thunder, and the glitt’ring blaze
      Of pointed lightnings, and their forky rays.
      Thro’ Elis and the Grecian towns he flew;
      Th’ audacious wretch four fiery coursers drew:
      He wav’d a torch aloft, and, madly vain,
      Sought godlike worship from a servile train.
      Ambitious fool! with horny hoofs to pass
      O’er hollow arches of resounding brass,
      To rival thunder in its rapid course,
      And imitate inimitable force!
      But he, the King of Heav’n, obscure on high,
      Bar’d his red arm, and, launching from the sky
      His writhen bolt, not shaking empty smoke,
      Down to the deep abyss the flaming felon strook.
      There Tityus was to see, who took his birth
      From heav’n, his nursing from the foodful earth.
      Here his gigantic limbs, with large embrace,
      Infold nine acres of infernal space.
      A rav’nous vulture, in his open’d side,
      Her crooked beak and cruel talons tried;
      Still for the growing liver digg’d his breast;
      The growing liver still supplied the feast;
      Still are his entrails fruitful to their pains:
      Th’ immortal hunger lasts, th’ immortal food remains.
      Ixion and Perithous I could name,
      And more Thessalian chiefs of mighty fame.
      High o’er their heads a mould’ring rock is plac’d,
      That promises a fall, and shakes at ev’ry blast.
      They lie below, on golden beds display’d;
      And genial feasts with regal pomp are made.
      The Queen of Furies by their sides is set,
      And snatches from their mouths th’ untasted meat,
      Which if they touch, her hissing snakes she rears,
      Tossing her torch, and thund’ring in their ears.
      Then they, who brothers’ better claim disown,
      Expel their parents, and usurp the throne;
      Defraud their clients, and, to lucre sold,
      Sit brooding on unprofitable gold;
      Who dare not give, and ev’n refuse to lend
      To their poor kindred, or a wanting friend.
      Vast is the throng of these; nor less the train
      Of lustful youths, for foul adult’ry slain:
      Hosts of deserters, who their honour sold,
      And basely broke their faith for bribes of gold.
      All these within the dungeon’s depth remain,
      Despairing pardon, and expecting pain.
      Ask not what pains; nor farther seek to know
      Their process, or the forms of law below.
      Some roll a weighty stone; some, laid along,
      And bound with burning wires, on spokes of wheels are hung
      Unhappy Theseus, doom’d for ever there,
      Is fix’d by fate on his eternal chair;
      And wretched Phlegyas warns the world with cries
      (Could warning make the world more just or wise):
      ‘Learn righteousness, and dread th’ avenging deities.’
      To tyrants others have their country sold,
      Imposing foreign lords, for foreign gold;
      Some have old laws repeal’d, new statutes made,
      Not as the people pleas’d, but as they paid;
      With incest some their daughters’ bed profan’d:
      All dar’d the worst of ills, and, what they dar’d, attain’d.
      Had I a hundred mouths, a hundred tongues,
      And throats of brass, inspir’d with iron lungs,
      I could not half those horrid crimes repeat,
      Nor half the punishments those crimes have met.
      But let us haste our voyage to pursue:
      The walls of Pluto’s palace are in view;
      The gate, and iron arch above it, stands
      On anvils labour’d by the Cyclops’ hands.
      Before our farther way the Fates allow,
      Here must we fix on high the golden bough.”

      She said, and thro’ the gloomy shades they pass’d,
      And chose the middle path. Arriv’d at last,
      The prince with living water sprinkled o’er
      His limbs and body; then approach’d the door,
      Possess’d the porch, and on the front above
      He fix’d the fatal bough requir’d by Pluto’s love.
      These holy rites perform’d, they took their way
      Where long extended plains of pleasure lay:
      The verdant fields with those of heav’n may vie,
      With ether vested, and a purple sky;
      The blissful seats of happy souls below.
      Stars of their own, and their own suns, they know;
      Their airy limbs in sports they exercise,
      And on the green contend the wrestler’s prize.
      Some in heroic verse divinely sing;
      Others in artful measures led the ring.
      The Thracian bard, surrounded by the rest,
      There stands conspicuous in his flowing vest;
      His flying fingers, and harmonious quill,
      Strikes sev’n distinguish’d notes, and sev’n at once they fill.
      Here found they Teucer’s old heroic race,
      Born better times and happier years to grace.
      Assaracus and Ilus here enjoy
      Perpetual fame, with him who founded Troy.
      The chief beheld their chariots from afar,
      Their shining arms, and coursers train’d to war:
      Their lances fix’d in earth, their steeds around,
      Free from their harness, graze the flow’ry ground.
      The love of horses which they had, alive,
      And care of chariots, after death survive.
      Some cheerful souls were feasting on the plain;
      Some did the song, and some the choir maintain,
      Beneath a laurel shade, where mighty Po
      Mounts up to woods above, and hides his head below.
      Here patriots live, who, for their country’s good,
      In fighting fields, were prodigal of blood:
      Priests of unblemish’d lives here make abode,
      And poets worthy their inspiring god;
      And searching wits, of more mechanic parts,
      Who grac’d their age with new-invented arts:
      Those who to worth their bounty did extend,
      And those who knew that bounty to commend.
      The heads of these with holy fillets bound,
      And all their temples were with garlands crown’d.

      To these the Sibyl thus her speech address’d,
      And first to him surrounded by the rest
      Tow’ring his height, and ample was his breast;
      “Say, happy souls, divine Musaeus, say,
      Where lives Anchises, and where lies our way
      To find the hero, for whose only sake
      We sought the dark abodes, and cross’d the bitter lake?”
      To this the sacred poet thus replied:
      “In no fix’d place the happy souls reside.
      In groves we live, and lie on mossy beds,
      By crystal streams, that murmur thro’ the meads:
      But pass yon easy hill, and thence descend;
      The path conducts you to your journey’s end.”
      This said, he led them up the mountain’s brow,
      And shews them all the shining fields below.
      They wind the hill, and thro’ the blissful meadows go.

      But old Anchises, in a flow’ry vale,
      Review’d his muster’d race, and took the tale:
      Those happy spirits, which, ordain’d by fate,
      For future beings and new bodies wait.
      With studious thought observ’d th’ illustrious throng,
      In nature’s order as they pass’d along:
      Their names, their fates, their conduct, and their care,
      In peaceful senates and successful war.
      He, when Aeneas on the plain appears,
      Meets him with open arms, and falling tears.
      “Welcome,” he said, “the gods’ undoubted race!
      O long expected to my dear embrace!
      Once more ’tis giv’n me to behold your face!
      The love and pious duty which you pay
      Have pass’d the perils of so hard a way.
      ’Tis true, computing times, I now believ’d
      The happy day approach’d; nor are my hopes deceiv’d.
      What length of lands, what oceans have you pass’d;
      What storms sustain’d, and on what shores been cast?
      How have I fear’d your fate! but fear’d it most,
      When love assail’d you, on the Libyan coast.”
      To this, the filial duty thus replies:
      “Your sacred ghost before my sleeping eyes
      Appear’d, and often urg’d this painful enterprise.
      After long tossing on the Tyrrhene sea,
      My navy rides at anchor in the bay.
      But reach your hand, O parent shade, nor shun
      The dear embraces of your longing son!”
      He said; and falling tears his face bedew:
      Then thrice around his neck his arms he threw;
      And thrice the flitting shadow slipp’d away,
      Like winds, or empty dreams that fly the day.

      Now, in a secret vale, the Trojan sees
      A sep’rate grove, thro’ which a gentle breeze
      Plays with a passing breath, and whispers thro’ the trees;
      And, just before the confines of the wood,
      The gliding Lethe leads her silent flood.
      About the boughs an airy nation flew,
      Thick as the humming bees, that hunt the golden dew;
      In summer’s heat on tops of lilies feed,
      And creep within their bells, to suck the balmy seed:
      The winged army roams the fields around;
      The rivers and the rocks remurmur to the sound.
      Aeneas wond’ring stood, then ask’d the cause
      Which to the stream the crowding people draws.
      Then thus the sire: “The souls that throng the flood
      Are those to whom, by fate, are other bodies ow’d:
      In Lethe’s lake they long oblivion taste,
      Of future life secure, forgetful of the past.
      Long has my soul desir’d this time and place,
      To set before your sight your glorious race,
      That this presaging joy may fire your mind
      To seek the shores by destiny design’d.”
      “O father, can it be, that souls sublime
      Return to visit our terrestrial clime,
      And that the gen’rous mind, releas’d by death,
      Can covet lazy limbs and mortal breath?”

      Anchises then, in order, thus begun
      To clear those wonders to his godlike son:
      “Know, first, that heav’n, and earth’s compacted frame,
      And flowing waters, and the starry flame,
      And both the radiant lights, one common soul
      Inspires and feeds, and animates the whole.
      This active mind, infus’d thro’ all the space,
      Unites and mingles with the mighty mass.
      Hence men and beasts the breath of life obtain,
      And birds of air, and monsters of the main.
      Th’ ethereal vigour is in all the same,
      And every soul is fill’d with equal flame;
      As much as earthy limbs, and gross allay
      Of mortal members, subject to decay,
      Blunt not the beams of heav’n and edge of day.
      From this coarse mixture of terrestrial parts,
      Desire and fear by turns possess their hearts,
      And grief, and joy; nor can the groveling mind,
      In the dark dungeon of the limbs confin’d,
      Assert the native skies, or own its heav’nly kind:
      Nor death itself can wholly wash their stains;
      But long-contracted filth ev’n in the soul remains.
      The relics of inveterate vice they wear,
      And spots of sin obscene in ev’ry face appear.
      For this are various penances enjoin’d;
      And some are hung to bleach upon the wind,
      Some plung’d in waters, others purg’d in fires,
      Till all the dregs are drain’d, and all the rust expires.
      All have their manes, and those manes bear:
      The few, so cleans’d, to these abodes repair,
      And breathe, in ample fields, the soft Elysian air.
      Then are they happy, when by length of time
      The scurf is worn away of each committed crime;
      No speck is left of their habitual stains,
      But the pure ether of the soul remains.
      But, when a thousand rolling years are past,
      (So long their punishments and penance last,)
      Whole droves of minds are, by the driving god,
      Compell’d to drink the deep Lethaean flood,
      In large forgetful draughts to steep the cares
      Of their past labours, and their irksome years,
      That, unrememb’ring of its former pain,
      The soul may suffer mortal flesh again.”

      Thus having said, the father spirit leads
      The priestess and his son thro’ swarms of shades,
      And takes a rising ground, from thence to see
      The long procession of his progeny.
      “Survey,” pursued the sire, “this airy throng,
      As, offer’d to thy view, they pass along.
      These are th’ Italian names, which fate will join
      With ours, and graff upon the Trojan line.
      Observe the youth who first appears in sight,
      And holds the nearest station to the light,
      Already seems to snuff the vital air,
      And leans just forward, on a shining spear:
      Silvius is he, thy last-begotten race,
      But first in order sent, to fill thy place;
      An Alban name, but mix’d with Dardan blood,
      Born in the covert of a shady wood:
      Him fair Lavinia, thy surviving wife,
      Shall breed in groves, to lead a solitary life.
      In Alba he shall fix his royal seat,
      And, born a king, a race of kings beget.
      Then Procas, honour of the Trojan name,
      Capys, and Numitor, of endless fame.
      A second Silvius after these appears;
      Silvius Aeneas, for thy name he bears;
      For arms and justice equally renown’d,
      Who, late restor’d, in Alba shall be crown’d.
      How great they look! how vig’rously they wield
      Their weighty lances, and sustain the shield!
      But they, who crown’d with oaken wreaths appear,
      Shall Gabian walls and strong Fidena rear;
      Nomentum, Bola, with Pometia, found;
      And raise Collatian tow’rs on rocky ground.
      All these shall then be towns of mighty fame,
      Tho’ now they lie obscure, and lands without a name.
      See Romulus the great, born to restore
      The crown that once his injur’d grandsire wore.
      This prince a priestess of your blood shall bear,
      And like his sire in arms he shall appear.
      Two rising crests, his royal head adorn;
      Born from a god, himself to godhead born:
      His sire already signs him for the skies,
      And marks the seat amidst the deities.
      Auspicious chief! thy race, in times to come,
      Shall spread the conquests of imperial Rome.
      Rome, whose ascending tow’rs shall heav’n invade,
      Involving earth and ocean in her shade;
      High as the Mother of the Gods in place,
      And proud, like her, of an immortal race.
      Then, when in pomp she makes the Phrygian round,
      With golden turrets on her temples crown’d;
      A hundred gods her sweeping train supply;
      Her offspring all, and all command the sky.

      “Now fix your sight, and stand intent, to see
      Your Roman race, and Julian progeny.
      The mighty Caesar waits his vital hour,
      Impatient for the world, and grasps his promis’d pow’r.
      But next behold the youth of form divine,
      Caesar himself, exalted in his line;
      Augustus, promis’d oft, and long foretold,
      Sent to the realm that Saturn rul’d of old;
      Born to restore a better age of gold.
      Afric and India shall his pow’r obey;
      He shall extend his propagated sway
      Beyond the solar year, without the starry way,
      Where Atlas turns the rolling heav’ns around,
      And his broad shoulders with their lights are crown’d.
      At his foreseen approach, already quake
      The Caspian kingdoms and Maeotian lake:
      Their seers behold the tempest from afar,
      And threat’ning oracles denounce the war.
      Nile hears him knocking at his sev’nfold gates,
      And seeks his hidden spring, and fears his nephew’s fates.
      Nor Hercules more lands or labours knew,
      Not tho’ the brazen-footed hind he slew,
      Freed Erymanthus from the foaming boar,
      And dipp’d his arrows in Lernaean gore;
      Nor Bacchus, turning from his Indian war,
      By tigers drawn triumphant in his car,
      From Nisus’ top descending on the plains,
      With curling vines around his purple reins.
      And doubt we yet thro’ dangers to pursue
      The paths of honour, and a crown in view?
      But what’s the man, who from afar appears?
      His head with olive crown’d, his hand a censer bears,
      His hoary beard and holy vestments bring
      His lost idea back: I know the Roman king.
      He shall to peaceful Rome new laws ordain,
      Call’d from his mean abode a scepter to sustain.
      Him Tullus next in dignity succeeds,
      An active prince, and prone to martial deeds.
      He shall his troops for fighting fields prepare,
      Disus’d to toils, and triumphs of the war.
      By dint of sword his crown he shall increase,
      And scour his armour from the rust of peace.
      Whom Ancus follows, with a fawning air,
      But vain within, and proudly popular.
      Next view the Tarquin kings, th’ avenging sword
      Of Brutus, justly drawn, and Rome restor’d.
      He first renews the rods and ax severe,
      And gives the consuls royal robes to wear.
      His sons, who seek the tyrant to sustain,
      And long for arbitrary lords again,
      With ignominy scourg’d, in open sight,
      He dooms to death deserv’d, asserting public right.
      Unhappy man, to break the pious laws
      Of nature, pleading in his children’s cause!
      Howe’er the doubtful fact is understood,
      ’Tis love of honour, and his country’s good:
      The consul, not the father, sheds the blood.
      Behold Torquatus the same track pursue;
      And, next, the two devoted Decii view:
      The Drusian line, Camillus loaded home
      With standards well redeem’d, and foreign foes o’ercome
      The pair you see in equal armour shine,
      Now, friends below, in close embraces join;
      But, when they leave the shady realms of night,
      And, cloth’d in bodies, breathe your upper light,
      With mortal hate each other shall pursue:
      What wars, what wounds, what slaughter shall ensue!
      From Alpine heights the father first descends;
      His daughter’s husband in the plain attends:
      His daughter’s husband arms his eastern friends.
      Embrace again, my sons, be foes no more;
      Nor stain your country with her children’s gore!
      And thou, the first, lay down thy lawless claim,
      Thou, of my blood, who bear’st the Julian name!
      Another comes, who shall in triumph ride,
      And to the Capitol his chariot guide,
      From conquer’d Corinth, rich with Grecian spoils.
      And yet another, fam’d for warlike toils,
      On Argos shall impose the Roman laws,
      And on the Greeks revenge the Trojan cause;
      Shall drag in chains their Achillean race;
      Shall vindicate his ancestors’ disgrace,
      And Pallas, for her violated place.
      Great Cato there, for gravity renown’d,
      And conqu’ring Cossus goes with laurels crown’d.
      Who can omit the Gracchi? who declare
      The Scipios’ worth, those thunderbolts of war,
      The double bane of Carthage? Who can see
      Without esteem for virtuous poverty,
      Severe Fabricius, or can cease t’ admire
      The plowman consul in his coarse attire?
      Tir’d as I am, my praise the Fabii claim;
      And thou, great hero, greatest of thy name,
      Ordain’d in war to save the sinking state,
      And, by delays, to put a stop to fate!
      Let others better mould the running mass
      Of metals, and inform the breathing brass,
      And soften into flesh a marble face;
      Plead better at the bar; describe the skies,
      And when the stars descend, and when they rise.
      But, Rome, ’tis thine alone, with awful sway,
      To rule mankind, and make the world obey,
      Disposing peace and war by thy own majestic way;
      To tame the proud, the fetter’d slave to free:
      These are imperial arts, and worthy thee.”

      He paus’d; and, while with wond’ring eyes they view’d
      The passing spirits, thus his speech renew’d:
      “See great Marcellus! how, untir’d in toils,
      He moves with manly grace, how rich with regal spoils!
      He, when his country, threaten’d with alarms,
      Requires his courage and his conqu’ring arms,
      Shall more than once the Punic bands affright;
      Shall kill the Gaulish king in single fight;
      Then to the Capitol in triumph move,
      And the third spoils shall grace Feretrian Jove.”
      Aeneas here beheld, of form divine,
      A godlike youth in glitt’ring armour shine,
      With great Marcellus keeping equal pace;
      But gloomy were his eyes, dejected was his face.
      He saw, and, wond’ring, ask’d his airy guide,
      What and of whence was he, who press’d the hero’s side:
      “His son, or one of his illustrious name?
      How like the former, and almost the same!
      Observe the crowds that compass him around;
      All gaze, and all admire, and raise a shouting sound:
      But hov’ring mists around his brows are spread,
      And night, with sable shades, involves his head.”
      “Seek not to know,” the ghost replied with tears,
      “The sorrows of thy sons in future years.
      This youth (the blissful vision of a day)
      Shall just be shown on earth, and snatch’d away.
      The gods too high had rais’d the Roman state,
      Were but their gifts as permanent as great.
      What groans of men shall fill the Martian field!
      How fierce a blaze his flaming pile shall yield!
      What fun’ral pomp shall floating Tiber see,
      When, rising from his bed, he views the sad solemnity!
      No youth shall equal hopes of glory give,
      No youth afford so great a cause to grieve;
      The Trojan honour, and the Roman boast,
      Admir’d when living, and ador’d when lost!
      Mirror of ancient faith in early youth!
      Undaunted worth, inviolable truth!
      No foe, unpunish’d, in the fighting field
      Shall dare thee, foot to foot, with sword and shield;
      Much less in arms oppose thy matchless force,
      When thy sharp spurs shall urge thy foaming horse.
      Ah! couldst thou break thro’ fate’s severe decree,
      A new Marcellus shall arise in thee!
      Full canisters of fragrant lilies bring,
      Mix’d with the purple roses of the spring;
      Let me with fun’ral flow’rs his body strow;
      This gift which parents to their children owe,
      This unavailing gift, at least, I may bestow!”
      Thus having said, he led the hero round
      The confines of the blest Elysian ground;
      Which when Anchises to his son had shown,
      And fir’d his mind to mount the promis’d throne,
      He tells the future wars, ordain’d by fate;
      The strength and customs of the Latian state;
      The prince, and people; and forearms his care
      With rules, to push his fortune, or to bear.

      Two gates the silent house of Sleep adorn;
      Of polish’d ivory this, that of transparent horn:
      True visions thro’ transparent horn arise;
      Thro’ polish’d ivory pass deluding lies.
      Of various things discoursing as he pass’d,
      Anchises hither bends his steps at last.
      Then, thro’ the gate of iv’ry, he dismiss’d
      His valiant offspring and divining guest.
      Straight to the ships Aeneas took his way,
      Embark’d his men, and skimm’d along the sea,
      Still coasting, till he gain’d Cajeta’s bay.
      At length on oozy ground his galleys moor;
      Their heads are turn’d to sea, their sterns to shore.



 BOOK VII

 THE ARGUMENT.


      King Latinus entertains Aeneas, and promises him his only
      daughter, Lavinia, the heiress of his crown. Turnus, being in
      love with her, favoured by her mother, and by Juno and Alecto,
      breaks the treaty which was made, and engages in his quarrel
      Mezentius, Camilla, Messapus, and many other of the neighbouring
      princes; whose forces, and the names of their commanders are
      particularly related.


      And thou, O matron of immortal fame,
      Here dying, to the shore hast left thy name;
      Cajeta still the place is call’d from thee,
      The nurse of great Aeneas’ infancy.
      Here rest thy bones in rich Hesperia’s plains;
      Thy name (’tis all a ghost can have) remains.

      Now, when the prince her fun’ral rites had paid,
      He plow’d the Tyrrhene seas with sails display’d.
      From land a gentle breeze arose by night,
      Serenely shone the stars, the moon was bright,
      And the sea trembled with her silver light.
      Now near the shelves of Circe’s shores they run,
      (Circe the rich, the daughter of the Sun,)
      A dang’rous coast: the goddess wastes her days
      In joyous songs; the rocks resound her lays:
      In spinning, or the loom, she spends the night,
      And cedar brands supply her father’s light.
      From hence were heard, rebellowing to the main,
      The roars of lions that refuse the chain,
      The grunts of bristled boars, and groans of bears,
      And herds of howling wolves that stun the sailors’ ears.
      These from their caverns, at the close of night,
      Fill the sad isle with horror and affright.
      Darkling they mourn their fate, whom Circe’s pow’r,
      (That watch’d the moon and planetary hour,)
      With words and wicked herbs from humankind
      Had alter’d, and in brutal shapes confin’d.
      Which monsters lest the Trojans’ pious host
      Should bear, or touch upon th’ inchanted coast,
      Propitious Neptune steer’d their course by night
      With rising gales that sped their happy flight.
      Supplied with these, they skim the sounding shore,
      And hear the swelling surges vainly roar.
      Now, when the rosy morn began to rise,
      And wav’d her saffron streamer thro’ the skies;
      When Thetis blush’d in purple not her own,
      And from her face the breathing winds were blown,
      A sudden silence sate upon the sea,
      And sweeping oars, with struggling, urge their way.
      The Trojan, from the main, beheld a wood,
      Which thick with shades and a brown horror stood:
      Betwixt the trees the Tiber took his course,
      With whirlpools dimpled; and with downward force,
      That drove the sand along, he took his way,
      And roll’d his yellow billows to the sea.
      About him, and above, and round the wood,
      The birds that haunt the borders of his flood,
      That bath’d within, or basked upon his side,
      To tuneful songs their narrow throats applied.
      The captain gives command; the joyful train
      Glide thro’ the gloomy shade, and leave the main.

      Now, Erato, thy poet’s mind inspire,
      And fill his soul with thy celestial fire!
      Relate what Latium was; her ancient kings;
      Declare the past and present state of things,
      When first the Trojan fleet Ausonia sought,
      And how the rivals lov’d, and how they fought.
      These are my theme, and how the war began,
      And how concluded by the godlike man:
      For I shall sing of battles, blood, and rage,
      Which princes and their people did engage;
      And haughty souls, that, mov’d with mutual hate,
      In fighting fields pursued and found their fate;
      That rous’d the Tyrrhene realm with loud alarms,
      And peaceful Italy involv’d in arms.
      A larger scene of action is display’d;
      And, rising hence, a greater work is weigh’d.

      Latinus, old and mild, had long possess’d
      The Latin scepter, and his people blest:
      His father Faunus; a Laurentian dame
      His mother; fair Marica was her name.
      But Faunus came from Picus: Picus drew
      His birth from Saturn, if records be true.
      Thus King Latinus, in the third degree,
      Had Saturn author of his family.
      But this old peaceful prince, as Heav’n decreed,
      Was blest with no male issue to succeed:
      His sons in blooming youth were snatch’d by fate;
      One only daughter heir’d the royal state.
      Fir’d with her love, and with ambition led,
      The neighb’ring princes court her nuptial bed.
      Among the crowd, but far above the rest,
      Young Turnus to the beauteous maid address’d.
      Turnus, for high descent and graceful mien,
      Was first, and favour’d by the Latian queen;
      With him she strove to join Lavinia’s hand,
      But dire portents the purpos’d match withstand.

      Deep in the palace, of long growth, there stood
      A laurel’s trunk, a venerable wood;
      Where rites divine were paid; whose holy hair
      Was kept and cut with superstitious care.
      This plant Latinus, when his town he wall’d,
      Then found, and from the tree Laurentum call’d;
      And last, in honour of his new abode,
      He vow’d the laurel to the laurel’s god.
      It happen’d once (a boding prodigy!)
      A swarm of bees, that cut the liquid sky,
      Unknown from whence they took their airy flight,
      Upon the topmost branch in clouds alight;
      There with their clasping feet together clung,
      And a long cluster from the laurel hung.
      An ancient augur prophesied from hence:
      “Behold on Latian shores a foreign prince!
      From the same parts of heav’n his navy stands,
      To the same parts on earth; his army lands;
      The town he conquers, and the tow’r commands.”

      Yet more, when fair Lavinia fed the fire
      Before the gods, and stood beside her sire,
      Strange to relate, the flames, involv’d in smoke
      Of incense, from the sacred altar broke,
      Caught her dishevel’d hair and rich attire;
      Her crown and jewels crackled in the fire:
      From thence the fuming trail began to spread
      And lambent glories danc’d about her head.
      This new portent the seer with wonder views,
      Then pausing, thus his prophecy renews:
      “The nymph, who scatters flaming fires around,
      Shall shine with honour, shall herself be crown’d;
      But, caus’d by her irrevocable fate,
      War shall the country waste, and change the state.”

      Latinus, frighted with this dire ostent,
      For counsel to his father Faunus went,
      And sought the shades renown’d for prophecy
      Which near Albunea’s sulph’rous fountain lie.
      To these the Latian and the Sabine land
      Fly, when distress’d, and thence relief demand.
      The priest on skins of off’rings takes his ease,
      And nightly visions in his slumber sees;
      A swarm of thin aerial shapes appears,
      And, flutt’ring round his temples, deafs his ears:
      These he consults, the future fates to know,
      From pow’rs above, and from the fiends below.
      Here, for the gods’ advice, Latinus flies,
      Off’ring a hundred sheep for sacrifice:
      Their woolly fleeces, as the rites requir’d,
      He laid beneath him, and to rest retir’d.
      No sooner were his eyes in slumber bound,
      When, from above, a more than mortal sound
      Invades his ears; and thus the vision spoke:
      “Seek not, my seed, in Latian bands to yoke
      Our fair Lavinia, nor the gods provoke.
      A foreign son upon thy shore descends,
      Whose martial fame from pole to pole extends.
      His race, in arms and arts of peace renown’d,
      Not Latium shall contain, nor Europe bound:
      ’Tis theirs whate’er the sun surveys around.”
      These answers, in the silent night receiv’d,
      The king himself divulg’d, the land believ’d:
      The fame thro’ all the neighb’ring nations flew,
      When now the Trojan navy was in view.

      Beneath a shady tree, the hero spread
      His table on the turf, with cakes of bread;
      And, with his chiefs, on forest fruits he fed.
      They sate; and, (not without the god’s command,)
      Their homely fare dispatch’d, the hungry band
      Invade their trenchers next, and soon devour,
      To mend the scanty meal, their cakes of flour.
      Ascanius this observ’d, and smiling said:
      “See, we devour the plates on which we fed.”
      The speech had omen, that the Trojan race
      Should find repose, and this the time and place.
      Aeneas took the word, and thus replies,
      Confessing fate with wonder in his eyes:
      “All hail, O earth! all hail, my household gods!
      Behold the destin’d place of your abodes!
      For thus Anchises prophesied of old,
      And this our fatal place of rest foretold:
      ‘When, on a foreign shore, instead of meat,
      By famine forc’d, your trenchers you shall eat,
      Then ease your weary Trojans will attend,
      And the long labours of your voyage end.
      Remember on that happy coast to build,
      And with a trench inclose the fruitful field.’
      This was that famine, this the fatal place
      Which ends the wand’ring of our exil’d race.
      Then, on tomorrow’s dawn, your care employ,
      To search the land, and where the cities lie,
      And what the men; but give this day to joy.
      Now pour to Jove; and, after Jove is blest,
      Call great Anchises to the genial feast:
      Crown high the goblets with a cheerful draught;
      Enjoy the present hour; adjourn the future thought.”

      Thus having said, the hero bound his brows
      With leafy branches, then perform’d his vows;
      Adoring first the genius of the place,
      Then Earth, the mother of the heav’nly race,
      The nymphs, and native godheads yet unknown,
      And Night, and all the stars that gild her sable throne,
      And ancient Cybel, and Idaean Jove,
      And last his sire below, and mother queen above.
      Then heav’n’s high monarch thunder’d thrice aloud,
      And thrice he shook aloft a golden cloud.
      Soon thro’ the joyful camp a rumour flew,
      The time was come their city to renew.
      Then ev’ry brow with cheerful green is crown’d,
      The feasts are doubled, and the bowls go round.

      When next the rosy morn disclos’d the day,
      The scouts to sev’ral parts divide their way,
      To learn the natives’ names, their towns explore,
      The coasts and trendings of the crooked shore:
      Here Tiber flows, and here Numicus stands;
      Here warlike Latins hold the happy lands.
      The pious chief, who sought by peaceful ways
      To found his empire, and his town to raise,
      A hundred youths from all his train selects,
      And to the Latian court their course directs,
      (The spacious palace where their prince resides,)
      And all their heads with wreaths of olive hides.
      They go commission’d to require a peace,
      And carry presents to procure access.
      Thus while they speed their pace, the prince designs
      His new-elected seat, and draws the lines.
      The Trojans round the place a rampire cast,
      And palisades about the trenches plac’d.

      Meantime the train, proceeding on their way,
      From far the town and lofty tow’rs survey;
      At length approach the walls. Without the gate,
      They see the boys and Latian youth debate
      The martial prizes on the dusty plain:
      Some drive the cars, and some the coursers rein;
      Some bend the stubborn bow for victory,
      And some with darts their active sinews try.
      A posting messenger, dispatch’d from hence,
      Of this fair troop advis’d their aged prince,
      That foreign men of mighty stature came;
      Uncouth their habit, and unknown their name.
      The king ordains their entrance, and ascends
      His regal seat, surrounded by his friends.

      The palace built by Picus, vast and proud,
      Supported by a hundred pillars stood,
      And round incompass’d with a rising wood.
      The pile o’erlook’d the town, and drew the sight;
      Surpris’d at once with reverence and delight.
      There kings receiv’d the marks of sov’reign pow’r;
      In state the monarchs march’d; the lictors bore
      Their awful axes and the rods before.
      Here the tribunal stood, the house of pray’r,
      And here the sacred senators repair;
      All at large tables, in long order set,
      A ram their off’ring, and a ram their meat.
      Above the portal, carv’d in cedar wood,
      Plac’d in their ranks, their godlike grandsires stood;
      Old Saturn, with his crooked scythe, on high;
      And Italus, that led the colony;
      And ancient Janus, with his double face,
      And bunch of keys, the porter of the place.
      There good Sabinus, planter of the vines,
      On a short pruning hook his head reclines,
      And studiously surveys his gen’rous wines;
      Then warlike kings, who for their country fought,
      And honourable wounds from battle brought.
      Around the posts hung helmets, darts, and spears,
      And captive chariots, axes, shields, and bars,
      And broken beaks of ships, the trophies of their wars.
      Above the rest, as chief of all the band,
      Was Picus plac’d, a buckler in his hand;
      His other wav’d a long divining wand.
      Girt in his Gabin gown the hero sate,
      Yet could not with his art avoid his fate:
      For Circe long had lov’d the youth in vain,
      Till love, refus’d, converted to disdain:
      Then, mixing pow’rful herbs, with magic art,
      She chang’d his form, who could not change his heart;
      Constrain’d him in a bird, and made him fly,
      With party-colour’d plumes, a chatt’ring pie.

      In this high temple, on a chair of state,
      The seat of audience, old Latinus sate;
      Then gave admission to the Trojan train;
      And thus with pleasing accents he began:
      “Tell me, ye Trojans, for that name you own,
      Nor is your course upon our coasts unknown;
      Say what you seek, and whither were you bound:
      Were you by stress of weather cast aground?
      Such dangers as on seas are often seen,
      And oft befall to miserable men,
      Or come, your shipping in our ports to lay,
      Spent and disabled in so long a way?
      Say what you want: the Latians you shall find
      Not forc’d to goodness, but by will inclin’d;
      For, since the time of Saturn’s holy reign,
      His hospitable customs we retain.
      I call to mind (but time the tale has worn)
      Th’ Arunci told, that Dardanus, tho’ born
      On Latian plains, yet sought the Phrygian shore,
      And Samothracia, Samos call’d before.
      From Tuscan Coritum he claim’d his birth;
      But after, when exempt from mortal earth,
      From thence ascended to his kindred skies,
      A god, and, as a god, augments their sacrifice.”

      He said. Ilioneus made this reply:
      “O king, of Faunus’ royal family!
      Nor wintry winds to Latium forc’d our way,
      Nor did the stars our wand’ring course betray.
      Willing we sought your shores; and, hither bound,
      The port, so long desir’d, at length we found;
      From our sweet homes and ancient realms expell’d;
      Great as the greatest that the sun beheld.
      The god began our line, who rules above;
      And, as our race, our king descends from Jove:
      And hither are we come, by his command,
      To crave admission in your happy land.
      How dire a tempest, from Mycenae pour’d,
      Our plains, our temples, and our town devour’d;
      What was the waste of war, what fierce alarms
      Shook Asia’s crown with European arms;
      Ev’n such have heard, if any such there be,
      Whose earth is bounded by the frozen sea;
      And such as, born beneath the burning sky
      And sultry sun, betwixt the tropics lie.
      From that dire deluge, thro’ the wat’ry waste,
      Such length of years, such various perils past,
      At last escap’d, to Latium we repair,
      To beg what you without your want may spare:
      The common water, and the common air;
      Sheds which ourselves will build, and mean abodes,
      Fit to receive and serve our banish’d gods.
      Nor our admission shall your realm disgrace,
      Nor length of time our gratitude efface.
      Besides, what endless honour you shall gain,
      To save and shelter Troy’s unhappy train!
      Now, by my sov’reign, and his fate, I swear,
      Renown’d for faith in peace, for force in war;
      Oft our alliance other lands desir’d,
      And, what we seek of you, of us requir’d.
      Despite not then, that in our hands we bear
      These holy boughs, and sue with words of pray’r.
      Fate and the gods, by their supreme command,
      Have doom’d our ships to seek the Latian land.
      To these abodes our fleet Apollo sends;
      Here Dardanus was born, and hither tends;
      Where Tuscan Tiber rolls with rapid force,
      And where Numicus opes his holy source.
      Besides, our prince presents, with his request,
      Some small remains of what his sire possess’d.
      This golden charger, snatch’d from burning Troy,
      Anchises did in sacrifice employ;
      This royal robe and this tiara wore
      Old Priam, and this golden scepter bore
      In full assemblies, and in solemn games;
      These purple vests were weav’d by Dardan dames.”

      Thus while he spoke, Latinus roll’d around
      His eyes, and fix’d a while upon the ground.
      Intent he seem’d, and anxious in his breast;
      Not by the scepter mov’d, or kingly vest,
      But pond’ring future things of wondrous weight;
      Succession, empire, and his daughter’s fate.
      On these he mus’d within his thoughtful mind,
      And then revolv’d what Faunus had divin’d.
      This was the foreign prince, by fate decreed
      To share his scepter, and Lavinia’s bed;
      This was the race that sure portents foreshew
      To sway the world, and land and sea subdue.
      At length he rais’d his cheerful head, and spoke:
      “The pow’rs,” said he, “the pow’rs we both invoke,
      To you, and yours, and mine, propitious be,
      And firm our purpose with their augury!
      Have what you ask; your presents I receive;
      Land, where and when you please, with ample leave;
      Partake and use my kingdom as your own;
      All shall be yours, while I command the crown:
      And, if my wish’d alliance please your king,
      Tell him he should not send the peace, but bring.
      Then let him not a friend’s embraces fear;
      The peace is made when I behold him here.
      Besides this answer, tell my royal guest,
      I add to his commands my own request:
      One only daughter heirs my crown and state,
      Whom not our oracles, nor Heav’n, nor fate,
      Nor frequent prodigies, permit to join
      With any native of th’ Ausonian line.
      A foreign son-in-law shall come from far
      (Such is our doom), a chief renown’d in war,
      Whose race shall bear aloft the Latian name,
      And thro’ the conquer’d world diffuse our fame.
      Himself to be the man the fates require,
      I firmly judge, and, what I judge, desire.”

      He said, and then on each bestow’d a steed.
      Three hundred horses, in high stables fed,
      Stood ready, shining all, and smoothly dress’d:
      Of these he chose the fairest and the best,
      To mount the Trojan troop. At his command
      The steeds caparison’d with purple stand,
      With golden trappings, glorious to behold,
      And champ betwixt their teeth the foaming gold.
      Then to his absent guest the king decreed
      A pair of coursers born of heav’nly breed,
      Who from their nostrils breath’d ethereal fire;
      Whom Circe stole from her celestial sire,
      By substituting mares produc’d on earth,
      Whose wombs conceiv’d a more than mortal birth.
      These draw the chariot which Latinus sends,
      And the rich present to the prince commends.
      Sublime on stately steeds the Trojans borne,
      To their expecting lord with peace return.

      But jealous Juno, from Pachynus’ height,
      As she from Argos took her airy flight,
      Beheld with envious eyes this hateful sight.
      She saw the Trojan and his joyful train
      Descend upon the shore, desert the main,
      Design a town, and, with unhop’d success,
      Th’ embassadors return with promis’d peace.
      Then, pierc’d with pain, she shook her haughty head,
      Sigh’d from her inward soul, and thus she said:
      “O hated offspring of my Phrygian foes!
      O fates of Troy, which Juno’s fates oppose!
      Could they not fall unpitied on the plain,
      But slain revive, and, taken, scape again?
      When execrable Troy in ashes lay,
      Thro’ fires and swords and seas they forc’d their way.
      Then vanquish’d Juno must in vain contend,
      Her rage disarm’d, her empire at an end.
      Breathless and tir’d, is all my fury spent?
      Or does my glutted spleen at length relent?
      As if ’twere little from their town to chase,
      I thro’ the seas pursued their exil’d race;
      Ingag’d the heav’ns, oppos’d the stormy main;
      But billows roar’d, and tempests rag’d in vain.
      What have my Scyllas and my Syrtes done,
      When these they overpass, and those they shun?
      On Tiber’s shores they land, secure of fate,
      Triumphant o’er the storms and Juno’s hate.
      Mars could in mutual blood the Centaurs bathe,
      And Jove himself gave way to Cynthia’s wrath,
      Who sent the tusky boar to Calydon;
      What great offence had either people done?
      But I, the consort of the Thunderer,
      Have wag’d a long and unsuccessful war,
      With various arts and arms in vain have toil’d,
      And by a mortal man at length am foil’d.
      If native pow’r prevail not, shall I doubt
      To seek for needful succour from without?
      If Jove and Heav’n my just desires deny,
      Hell shall the pow’r of Heav’n and Jove supply.
      Grant that the Fates have firm’d, by their decree,
      The Trojan race to reign in Italy;
      At least I can defer the nuptial day,
      And with protracted wars the peace delay:
      With blood the dear alliance shall be bought,
      And both the people near destruction brought;
      So shall the son-in-law and father join,
      With ruin, war, and waste of either line.
      O fatal maid, thy marriage is endow’d
      With Phrygian, Latian, and Rutulian blood!
      Bellona leads thee to thy lover’s hand;
      Another queen brings forth another brand,
      To burn with foreign fires another land!
      A second Paris, diff’ring but in name,
      Shall fire his country with a second flame.”

      Thus having said, she sinks beneath the ground,
      With furious haste, and shoots the Stygian sound,
      To rouse Alecto from th’ infernal seat
      Of her dire sisters, and their dark retreat.
      This Fury, fit for her intent, she chose;
      One who delights in wars and human woes.
      Ev’n Pluto hates his own misshapen race;
      Her sister Furies fly her hideous face;
      So frightful are the forms the monster takes,
      So fierce the hissings of her speckled snakes.
      Her Juno finds, and thus inflames her spite:
      “O virgin daughter of eternal Night,
      Give me this once thy labour, to sustain
      My right, and execute my just disdain.
      Let not the Trojans, with a feign’d pretence
      Of proffer’d peace, delude the Latian prince.
      Expel from Italy that odious name,
      And let not Juno suffer in her fame.
      ’Tis thine to ruin realms, o’erturn a state,
      Betwixt the dearest friends to raise debate,
      And kindle kindred blood to mutual hate.
      Thy hand o’er towns the fun’ral torch displays,
      And forms a thousand ills ten thousand ways.
      Now shake, out thy fruitful breast, the seeds
      Of envy, discord, and of cruel deeds:
      Confound the peace establish’d, and prepare
      Their souls to hatred, and their hands to war.”

      Smear’d as she was with black Gorgonian blood,
      The Fury sprang above the Stygian flood;
      And on her wicker wings, sublime thro’ night,
      She to the Latian palace took her flight:
      There sought the queen’s apartment, stood before
      The peaceful threshold, and besieg’d the door.
      Restless Amata lay, her swelling breast
      Fir’d with disdain for Turnus dispossess’d,
      And the new nuptials of the Trojan guest.
      From her black bloody locks the Fury shakes
      Her darling plague, the fav’rite of her snakes;
      With her full force she threw the poisonous dart,
      And fix’d it deep within Amata’s heart,
      That, thus envenom’d, she might kindle rage,
      And sacrifice to strife her house and husband’s age.
      Unseen, unfelt, the fiery serpent skims
      Betwixt her linen and her naked limbs;
      His baleful breath inspiring, as he glides,
      Now like a chain around her neck he rides,
      Now like a fillet to her head repairs,
      And with his circling volumes folds her hairs.
      At first the silent venom slid with ease,
      And seiz’d her cooler senses by degrees;
      Then, ere th’ infected mass was fir’d too far,
      In plaintive accents she began the war,
      And thus bespoke her husband: “Shall,” she said,
      “A wand’ring prince enjoy Lavinia’s bed?
      If nature plead not in a parent’s heart,
      Pity my tears, and pity her desert.
      I know, my dearest lord, the time will come,
      You’d in vain, reverse your cruel doom;
      The faithless pirate soon will set to sea,
      And bear the royal virgin far away!
      A guest like him, a Trojan guest before,
      In shew of friendship sought the Spartan shore,
      And ravish’d Helen from her husband bore.
      Think on a king’s inviolable word;
      And think on Turnus, her once plighted lord:
      To this false foreigner you give your throne,
      And wrong a friend, a kinsman, and a son.
      Resume your ancient care; and, if the god
      Your sire, and you, resolve on foreign blood,
      Know all are foreign, in a larger sense,
      Not born your subjects, or deriv’d from hence.
      Then, if the line of Turnus you retrace,
      He springs from Inachus of Argive race.”

      But when she saw her reasons idly spent,
      And could not move him from his fix’d intent,
      She flew to rage; for now the snake possess’d
      Her vital parts, and poison’d all her breast;
      She raves, she runs with a distracted pace,
      And fills with horrid howls the public place.
      And, as young striplings whip the top for sport,
      On the smooth pavement of an empty court;
      The wooden engine flies and whirls about,
      Admir’d, with clamours, of the beardless rout;
      They lash aloud; each other they provoke,
      And lend their little souls at ev’ry stroke:
      Thus fares the queen; and thus her fury blows
      Amidst the crowd, and kindles as she goes.
      Nor yet content, she strains her malice more,
      And adds new ills to those contriv’d before:
      She flies the town, and, mixing with a throng
      Of madding matrons, bears the bride along,
      Wand’ring thro’ woods and wilds, and devious ways,
      And with these arts the Trojan match delays.
      She feign’d the rites of Bacchus; cried aloud,
      And to the buxom god the virgin vow’d.
      “Evoe! O Bacchus!” thus began the song;
      And “Evoe!” answer’d all the female throng.
      “O virgin! worthy thee alone!” she cried;
      “O worthy thee alone!” the crew replied.
      “For thee she feeds her hair, she leads thy dance,
      And with thy winding ivy wreathes her lance.”
      Like fury seiz’d the rest; the progress known,
      All seek the mountains, and forsake the town:
      All, clad in skins of beasts, the jav’lin bear,
      Give to the wanton winds their flowing hair,
      And shrieks and shoutings rend the suff’ring air.
      The queen herself, inspir’d with rage divine,
      Shook high above her head a flaming pine;
      Then roll’d her haggard eyes around the throng,
      And sung, in Turnus’ name, the nuptial song:
      “Io, ye Latian dames! if any here
      Hold your unhappy queen, Amata, dear;
      If there be here,” she said, “who dare maintain
      My right, nor think the name of mother vain;
      Unbind your fillets, loose your flowing hair,
      And orgies and nocturnal rites prepare.”

      Amata’s breast the Fury thus invades,
      And fires with rage, amid the sylvan shades;
      Then, when she found her venom spread so far,
      The royal house embroil’d in civil war,
      Rais’d on her dusky wings, she cleaves the skies,
      And seeks the palace where young Turnus lies.
      His town, as fame reports, was built of old
      By Danae, pregnant with almighty gold,
      Who fled her father’s rage, and, with a train
      Of following Argives, thro’ the stormy main,
      Driv’n by the southern blasts, was fated here to reign.
      ’Twas Ardua once; now Ardea’s name it bears;
      Once a fair city, now consum’d with years.
      Here, in his lofty palace, Turnus lay,
      Betwixt the confines of the night and day,
      Secure in sleep. The Fury laid aside
      Her looks and limbs, and with new methods tried
      The foulness of th’ infernal form to hide.
      Propp’d on a staff, she takes a trembling mien:
      Her face is furrow’d, and her front obscene;
      Deep-dinted wrinkles on her cheek she draws;
      Sunk are her eyes, and toothless are her jaws;
      Her hoary hair with holy fillets bound,
      Her temples with an olive wreath are crown’d.
      Old Chalybe, who kept the sacred fane
      Of Juno, now she seem’d, and thus began,
      Appearing in a dream, to rouse the careless man:
      “Shall Turnus then such endless toil sustain
      In fighting fields, and conquer towns in vain?
      Win, for a Trojan head to wear the prize,
      Usurp thy crown, enjoy thy victories?
      The bride and scepter which thy blood has bought,
      The king transfers; and foreign heirs are sought.
      Go now, deluded man, and seek again
      New toils, new dangers, on the dusty plain.
      Repel the Tuscan foes; their city seize;
      Protect the Latians in luxurious ease.
      This dream all-pow’rful Juno sends; I bear
      Her mighty mandates, and her words you hear.
      Haste; arm your Ardeans; issue to the plain;
      With fate to friend, assault the Trojan train:
      Their thoughtless chiefs, their painted ships, that lie
      In Tiber’s mouth, with fire and sword destroy.
      The Latian king, unless he shall submit,
      Own his old promise, and his new forget;
      Let him, in arms, the pow’r of Turnus prove,
      And learn to fear whom he disdains to love.
      For such is Heav’n’s command.” The youthful prince
      With scorn replied, and made this bold defence:
      “You tell me, mother, what I knew before:
      The Phrygian fleet is landed on the shore.
      I neither fear nor will provoke the war;
      My fate is Juno’s most peculiar care.
      But time has made you dote, and vainly tell
      Of arms imagin’d in your lonely cell.
      Go; be the temple and the gods your care;
      Permit to men the thought of peace and war.”

      These haughty words Alecto’s rage provoke,
      And frighted Turnus trembled as she spoke.
      Her eyes grow stiffen’d, and with sulphur burn;
      Her hideous looks and hellish form return;
      Her curling snakes with hissings fill the place,
      And open all the furies of her face:
      Then, darting fire from her malignant eyes,
      She cast him backward as he strove to rise,
      And, ling’ring, sought to frame some new replies.
      High on her head she rears two twisted snakes,
      Her chains she rattles, and her whip she shakes;
      And, churning bloody foam, thus loudly speaks:
      “Behold whom time has made to dote, and tell
      Of arms imagin’d in her lonely cell!
      Behold the Fates’ infernal minister!
      War, death, destruction, in my hand I bear.”

      Thus having said, her smould’ring torch, impress’d
      With her full force, she plung’d into his breast.
      Aghast he wak’d; and, starting from his bed,
      Cold sweat, in clammy drops, his limbs o’erspread.
      “Arms! arms!” he cries: “my sword and shield prepare!”
      He breathes defiance, blood, and mortal war.
      So, when with crackling flames a caldron fries,
      The bubbling waters from the bottom rise:
      Above the brims they force their fiery way;
      Black vapours climb aloft, and cloud the day.

      The peace polluted thus, a chosen band
      He first commissions to the Latian land,
      In threat’ning embassy; then rais’d the rest,
      To meet in arms th’ intruding Trojan guest,
      To force the foes from the Lavinian shore,
      And Italy’s indanger’d peace restore.
      Himself alone an equal match he boasts,
      To fight the Phrygian and Ausonian hosts.
      The gods invok’d, the Rutuli prepare
      Their arms, and warn each other to the war.
      His beauty these, and those his blooming age,
      The rest his house and his own fame engage.

      While Turnus urges thus his enterprise,
      The Stygian Fury to the Trojans flies;
      New frauds invents, and takes a steepy stand,
      Which overlooks the vale with wide command;
      Where fair Ascanius and his youthful train,
      With horns and hounds, a hunting match ordain,
      And pitch their toils around the shady plain.
      The Fury fires the pack; they snuff, they vent,
      And feed their hungry nostrils with the scent.
      ’Twas of a well-grown stag, whose antlers rise
      High o’er his front; his beams invade the skies.
      From this light cause th’ infernal maid prepares
      The country churls to mischief, hate, and wars.

      The stately beast the two Tyrrhidae bred,
      Snatch’d from his dams, and the tame youngling fed.
      Their father Tyrrheus did his fodder bring,
      Tyrrheus, chief ranger to the Latian king:
      Their sister Silvia cherish’d with her care
      The little wanton, and did wreaths prepare
      To hang his budding horns, with ribbons tied
      His tender neck, and comb’d his silken hide,
      And bathed his body. Patient of command
      In time he grew, and, growing us’d to hand,
      He waited at his master’s board for food;
      Then sought his salvage kindred in the wood,
      Where grazing all the day, at night he came
      To his known lodgings, and his country dame.

      This household beast, that us’d the woodland grounds,
      Was view’d at first by the young hero’s hounds,
      As down the stream he swam, to seek retreat
      In the cool waters, and to quench his heat.
      Ascanius young, and eager of his game,
      Soon bent his bow, uncertain in his aim;
      But the dire fiend the fatal arrow guides,
      Which pierc’d his bowels thro’ his panting sides.
      The bleeding creature issues from the floods,
      Possess’d with fear, and seeks his known abodes,
      His old familiar hearth and household gods.
      He falls; he fills the house with heavy groans,
      Implores their pity, and his pain bemoans.
      Young Silvia beats her breast, and cries aloud
      For succour from the clownish neighbourhood:
      The churls assemble; for the fiend, who lay
      In the close woody covert, urg’d their way.
      One with a brand yet burning from the flame,
      Arm’d with a knotty club another came:
      Whate’er they catch or find, without their care,
      Their fury makes an instrument of war.
      Tyrrheus, the foster father of the beast,
      Then clench’d a hatchet in his horny fist,
      But held his hand from the descending stroke,
      And left his wedge within the cloven oak,
      To whet their courage and their rage provoke.
      And now the goddess, exercis’d in ill,
      Who watch’d an hour to work her impious will,
      Ascends the roof, and to her crooked horn,
      Such as was then by Latian shepherds borne,
      Adds all her breath: the rocks and woods around,
      And mountains, tremble at th’ infernal sound.
      The sacred lake of Trivia from afar,
      The Veline fountains, and sulphureous Nar,
      Shake at the baleful blast, the signal of the war.
      Young mothers wildly stare, with fear possess’d,
      And strain their helpless infants to their breast.

      The clowns, a boist’rous, rude, ungovern’d crew,
      With furious haste to the loud summons flew.
      The pow’rs of Troy, then issuing on the plain,
      With fresh recruits their youthful chief sustain:
      Not theirs a raw and unexperienc’d train,
      But a firm body of embattled men.
      At first, while fortune favour’d neither side,
      The fight with clubs and burning brands was tried;
      But now, both parties reinforc’d, the fields
      Are bright with flaming swords and brazen shields.
      A shining harvest either host displays,
      And shoots against the sun with equal rays.
      Thus, when a black-brow’d gust begins to rise,
      White foam at first on the curl’d ocean fries;
      Then roars the main, the billows mount the skies;
      Till, by the fury of the storm full blown,
      The muddy bottom o’er the clouds is thrown.
      First Almon falls, old Tyrrheus’ eldest care,
      Pierc’d with an arrow from the distant war:
      Fix’d in his throat the flying weapon stood,
      And stopp’d his breath, and drank his vital blood
      Huge heaps of slain around the body rise:
      Among the rest, the rich Galesus lies;
      A good old man, while peace he preach’d in vain,
      Amidst the madness of th’ unruly train:
      Five herds, five bleating flocks, his pastures fill’d;
      His lands a hundred yoke of oxen till’d.

      Thus, while in equal scales their fortune stood
      The Fury bath’d them in each other’s blood;
      Then, having fix’d the fight, exulting flies,
      And bears fulfill’d her promise to the skies.
      To Juno thus she speaks: “Behold! It is done,
      The blood already drawn, the war begun;
      The discord is complete; nor can they cease
      The dire debate, nor you command the peace.
      Now, since the Latian and the Trojan brood
      Have tasted vengeance and the sweets of blood;
      Speak, and my pow’r shall add this office more:
      The neighbr’ing nations of th’ Ausonian shore
      Shall hear the dreadful rumour, from afar,
      Of arm’d invasion, and embrace the war.”
      Then Juno thus: “The grateful work is done,
      The seeds of discord sow’d, the war begun;
      Frauds, fears, and fury have possess’d the state,
      And fix’d the causes of a lasting hate.
      A bloody Hymen shall th’ alliance join
      Betwixt the Trojan and Ausonian line:
      But thou with speed to night and hell repair;
      For not the gods, nor angry Jove, will bear
      Thy lawless wand’ring walks in upper air.
      Leave what remains to me.” Saturnia said:
      The sullen fiend her sounding wings display’d,
      Unwilling left the light, and sought the nether shade.

      In midst of Italy, well known to fame,
      There lies a lake, Amsanctus is the name,
      Below the lofty mounts: on either side
      Thick forests the forbidden entrance hide.
      Full in the centre of the sacred wood
      An arm arises of the Stygian flood,
      Which, breaking from beneath with bellowing sound,
      Whirls the black waves and rattling stones around.
      Here Pluto pants for breath from out his cell,
      And opens wide the grinning jaws of hell.
      To this infernal lake the Fury flies;
      Here hides her hated head, and frees the lab’ring skies.

      Saturnian Juno now, with double care,
      Attends the fatal process of the war.
      The clowns, return’d, from battle bear the slain,
      Implore the gods, and to their king complain.
      The corps of Almon and the rest are shown;
      Shrieks, clamours, murmurs, fill the frighted town.
      Ambitious Turnus in the press appears,
      And, aggravating crimes, augments their fears;
      Proclaims his private injuries aloud,
      A solemn promise made, and disavow’d;
      A foreign son is sought, and a mix’d mungril brood.
      Then they, whose mothers, frantic with their fear,
      In woods and wilds the flags of Bacchus bear,
      And lead his dances with dishevel’d hair,
      Increase the clamour, and the war demand,
      (Such was Amata’s int’rest in the land,)
      Against the public sanctions of the peace,
      Against all omens of their ill success.
      With fates averse, the rout in arms resort,
      To force their monarch, and insult the court.
      But, like a rock unmov’d, a rock that braves
      The raging tempest and the rising waves,
      Propp’d on himself he stands; his solid sides
      Wash off the seaweeds, and the sounding tides:
      So stood the pious prince, unmov’d, and long
      Sustain’d the madness of the noisy throng.
      But, when he found that Juno’s pow’r prevail’d,
      And all the methods of cool counsel fail’d,
      He calls the gods to witness their offence,
      Disclaims the war, asserts his innocence.
      “Hurried by fate,” he cries, “and borne before
      A furious wind, we have the faithful shore.
      O more than madmen! you yourselves shall bear
      The guilt of blood and sacrilegious war:
      Thou, Turnus, shalt atone it by thy fate,
      And pray to Heav’n for peace, but pray too late.
      For me, my stormy voyage at an end,
      I to the port of death securely tend.
      The fun’ral pomp which to your kings you pay,
      Is all I want, and all you take away.”
      He said no more, but, in his walls confin’d,
      Shut out the woes which he too well divin’d
      Nor with the rising storm would vainly strive,
      But left the helm, and let the vessel drive.

      A solemn custom was observ’d of old,
      Which Latium held, and now the Romans hold,
      Their standard when in fighting fields they rear
      Against the fierce Hyrcanians, or declare
      The Scythian, Indian, or Arabian war;
      Or from the boasting Parthians would regain
      Their eagles, lost in Carrhae’s bloody plain.
      Two gates of steel (the name of Mars they bear,
      And still are worship’d with religious fear)
      Before his temple stand: the dire abode,
      And the fear’d issues of the furious god,
      Are fenc’d with brazen bolts; without the gates,
      The wary guardian Janus doubly waits.
      Then, when the sacred senate votes the wars,
      The Roman consul their decree declares,
      And in his robes the sounding gates unbars.
      The youth in military shouts arise,
      And the loud trumpets break the yielding skies.
      These rites, of old by sov’reign princes us’d,
      Were the king’s office; but the king refus’d,
      Deaf to their cries, nor would the gates unbar
      Of sacred peace, or loose th’ imprison’d war;
      But hid his head, and, safe from loud alarms,
      Abhorr’d the wicked ministry of arms.
      Then heav’n’s imperious queen shot down from high:
      At her approach the brazen hinges fly;
      The gates are forc’d, and ev’ry falling bar;
      And, like a tempest, issues out the war.

      The peaceful cities of th’ Ausonian shore,
      Lull’d in their ease, and undisturb’d before,
      Are all on fire; and some, with studious care,
      Their restiff steeds in sandy plains prepare;
      Some their soft limbs in painful marches try,
      And war is all their wish, and arms the gen’ral cry.
      Part scour the rusty shields with seam; and part
      New grind the blunted ax, and point the dart:
      With joy they view the waving ensigns fly,
      And hear the trumpet’s clangour pierce the sky.
      Five cities forge their arms: th’ Atinian pow’rs,
      Antemnae, Tibur with her lofty tow’rs,
      Ardea the proud, the Crustumerian town:
      All these of old were places of renown.
      Some hammer helmets for the fighting field;
      Some twine young sallows to support the shield;
      The croslet some, and some the cuishes mould,
      With silver plated, and with ductile gold.
      The rustic honours of the scythe and share
      Give place to swords and plumes, the pride of war.
      Old falchions are new temper’d in the fires;
      The sounding trumpet ev’ry soul inspires.
      The word is giv’n; with eager speed they lace
      The shining headpiece, and the shield embrace.
      The neighing steeds are to the chariot tied;
      The trusty weapon sits on ev’ry side.

      And now the mighty labour is begun
      Ye Muses, open all your Helicon.
      Sing you the chiefs that sway’d th’ Ausonian land,
      Their arms, and armies under their command;
      What warriors in our ancient clime were bred;
      What soldiers follow’d, and what heroes led.
      For well you know, and can record alone,
      What fame to future times conveys but darkly down.
      Mezentius first appear’d upon the plain:
      Scorn sate upon his brows, and sour disdain,
      Defying earth and heav’n. Etruria lost,
      He brings to Turnus’ aid his baffled host.
      The charming Lausus, full of youthful fire,
      Rode in the rank, and next his sullen sire;
      To Turnus only second in the grace
      Of manly mien, and features of the face.
      A skilful horseman, and a huntsman bred,
      With fates averse a thousand men he led:
      His sire unworthy of so brave a son;
      Himself well worthy of a happier throne.

      Next Aventinus drives his chariot round
      The Latian plains, with palms and laurels crown’d.
      Proud of his steeds, he smokes along the field;
      His father’s hydra fills his ample shield:
      A hundred serpents hiss about the brims;
      The son of Hercules he justly seems
      By his broad shoulders and gigantic limbs;
      Of heav’nly part, and part of earthly blood,
      A mortal woman mixing with a god.
      For strong Alcides, after he had slain
      The triple Geryon, drove from conquer’d Spain
      His captive herds; and, thence in triumph led,
      On Tuscan Tiber’s flow’ry banks they fed.
      Then on Mount Aventine the son of Jove
      The priestess Rhea found, and forc’d to love.
      For arms, his men long piles and jav’lins bore;
      And poles with pointed steel their foes in battle gore.
      Like Hercules himself his son appears,
      In salvage pomp; a lion’s hide he wears;
      About his shoulders hangs the shaggy skin;
      The teeth and gaping jaws severely grin.
      Thus, like the god his father, homely dress’d,
      He strides into the hall, a horrid guest.

      Then two twin brothers from fair Tibur came,
      (Which from their brother Tiburs took the name,)
      Fierce Coras and Catillus, void of fear:
      Arm’d Argive horse they led, and in the front appear.
      Like cloud-born Centaurs, from the mountain’s height
      With rapid course descending to the fight;
      They rush along; the rattling woods give way;
      The branches bend before their sweepy sway.

      Nor was Praeneste’s founder wanting there,
      Whom fame reports the son of Mulciber:
      Found in the fire, and foster’d in the plains,
      A shepherd and a king at once he reigns,
      And leads to Turnus’ aid his country swains.
      His own Praeneste sends a chosen band,
      With those who plow Saturnia’s Gabine land;
      Besides the succour which cold Anien yields,
      The rocks of Hernicus, and dewy fields,
      Anagnia fat, and Father Amasene—
      A num’rous rout, but all of naked men:
      Nor arms they wear, nor swords and bucklers wield,
      Nor drive the chariot thro’ the dusty field,
      But whirl from leathern slings huge balls of lead,
      And spoils of yellow wolves adorn their head;
      The left foot naked, when they march to fight,
      But in a bull’s raw hide they sheathe the right.
      Messapus next, (great Neptune was his sire,)
      Secure of steel, and fated from the fire,
      In pomp appears, and with his ardour warms
      A heartless train, unexercis’d in arms:
      The just Faliscans he to battle brings,
      And those who live where Lake Ciminius springs;
      And where Feronia’s grove and temple stands,
      Who till Fescennian or Flavinian lands.
      All these in order march, and marching sing
      The warlike actions of their sea-born king;
      Like a long team of snowy swans on high,
      Which clap their wings, and cleave the liquid sky,
      When, homeward from their wat’ry pastures borne,
      They sing, and Asia’s lakes their notes return.
      Not one who heard their music from afar,
      Would think these troops an army train’d to war,
      But flocks of fowl, that, when the tempests roar,
      With their hoarse gabbling seek the silent shore.

      Then Clausus came, who led a num’rous band
      Of troops embodied from the Sabine land,
      And, in himself alone, an army brought.
      ’Twas he, the noble Claudian race begot,
      The Claudian race, ordain’d, in times to come,
      To share the greatness of imperial Rome.
      He led the Cures forth, of old renown,
      Mutuscans from their olive-bearing town,
      And all th’ Eretian pow’rs; besides a band
      That follow’d from Velinum’s dewy land,
      And Amiternian troops, of mighty fame,
      And mountaineers, that from Severus came,
      And from the craggy cliffs of Tetrica,
      And those where yellow Tiber takes his way,
      And where Himella’s wanton waters play.
      Casperia sends her arms, with those that lie
      By Fabaris, and fruitful Foruli:
      The warlike aids of Horta next appear,
      And the cold Nursians come to close the rear,
      Mix’d with the natives born of Latine blood,
      Whom Allia washes with her fatal flood.
      Not thicker billows beat the Libyan main,
      When pale Orion sets in wintry rain;
      Nor thicker harvests on rich Hermus rise,
      Or Lycian fields, when Phoebus burns the skies,
      Than stand these troops: their bucklers ring around;
      Their trampling turns the turf, and shakes the solid ground.

      High in his chariot then Halesus came,
      A foe by birth to Troy’s unhappy name:
      From Agamemnon born—to Turnus’ aid
      A thousand men the youthful hero led,
      Who till the Massic soil, for wine renown’d,
      And fierce Auruncans from their hilly ground,
      And those who live by Sidicinian shores,
      And where with shoaly fords Vulturnus roars,
      Cales’ and Osca’s old inhabitants,
      And rough Saticulans, inur’d to wants:
      Light demi-lances from afar they throw,
      Fasten’d with leathern thongs, to gall the foe.
      Short crooked swords in closer fight they wear;
      And on their warding arm light bucklers bear.

      Nor Oebalus, shalt thou be left unsung,
      From nymph Semethis and old Telon sprung,
      Who then in Teleboan Capri reign’d;
      But that short isle th’ ambitious youth disdain’d,
      And o’er Campania stretch’d his ample sway,
      Where swelling Sarnus seeks the Tyrrhene sea;
      O’er Batulum, and where Abella sees,
      From her high tow’rs, the harvest of her trees.
      And these (as was the Teuton use of old)
      Wield brazen swords, and brazen bucklers hold;
      Sling weighty stones, when from afar they fight;
      Their casques are cork, a covering thick and light.

      Next these in rank, the warlike Ufens went,
      And led the mountain troops that Nursia sent.
      The rude Equicolae his rule obey’d;
      Hunting their sport, and plund’ring was their trade.
      In arms they plow’d, to battle still prepar’d:
      Their soil was barren, and their hearts were hard.

      Umbro the priest the proud Marrubians led,
      By King Archippus sent to Turnus’ aid,
      And peaceful olives crown’d his hoary head.
      His wand and holy words, the viper’s rage,
      And venom’d wounds of serpents could assuage.
      He, when he pleas’d with powerful juice to steep
      Their temples, shut their eyes in pleasing sleep.
      But vain were Marsian herbs, and magic art,
      To cure the wound giv’n by the Dardan dart:
      Yet his untimely fate th’ Angitian woods
      In sighs remurmur’d to the Fucine floods.

      The son of fam’d Hippolytus was there,
      Fam’d as his sire, and, as his mother, fair;
      Whom in Egerian groves Aricia bore,
      And nurs’d his youth along the marshy shore,
      Where great Diana’s peaceful altars flame,
      In fruitful fields; and Virbius was his name.
      Hippolytus, as old records have said,
      Was by his stepdam sought to share her bed;
      But, when no female arts his mind could move,
      She turn’d to furious hate her impious love.
      Torn by wild horses on the sandy shore,
      Another’s crimes th’ unhappy hunter bore,
      Glutting his father’s eyes with guiltless gore.
      But chaste Diana, who his death deplor’d,
      With Aesculapian herbs his life restor’d.
      Then Jove, who saw from high, with just disdain,
      The dead inspir’d with vital breath again,
      Struck to the centre, with his flaming dart,
      Th’ unhappy founder of the godlike art.
      But Trivia kept in secret shades alone
      Her care, Hippolytus, to fate unknown;
      And call’d him Virbius in th’ Egerian grove,
      Where then he liv’d obscure, but safe from Jove.
      For this, from Trivia’s temple and her wood
      Are coursers driv’n, who shed their master’s blood,
      Affrighted by the monsters of the flood.
      His son, the second Virbius, yet retain’d
      His father’s art, and warrior steeds he rein’d.

      Amid the troops, and like the leading god,
      High o’er the rest in arms the graceful Turnus rode:
      A triple of plumes his crest adorn’d,
      On which with belching flames Chimaera burn’d:
      The more the kindled combat rises high’r,
      The more with fury burns the blazing fire.
      Fair Io grac’d his shield; but Io now
      With horns exalted stands, and seems to low—
      A noble charge! Her keeper by her side,
      To watch her walks, his hundred eyes applied;
      And on the brims her sire, the wat’ry god,
      Roll’d from a silver urn his crystal flood.
      A cloud of foot succeeds, and fills the fields
      With swords, and pointed spears, and clatt’ring shields;
      Of Argives, and of old Sicanian bands,
      And those who plow the rich Rutulian lands;
      Auruncan youth, and those Sacrana yields,
      And the proud Labicans, with painted shields,
      And those who near Numician streams reside,
      And those whom Tiber’s holy forests hide,
      Or Circe’s hills from the main land divide;
      Where Ufens glides along the lowly lands,
      Or the black water of Pomptina stands.

      Last, from the Volscians fair Camilla came,
      And led her warlike troops, a warrior dame;
      Unbred to spinning, in the loom unskill’d,
      She chose the nobler Pallas of the field.
      Mix’d with the first, the fierce Virago fought,
      Sustain’d the toils of arms, the danger sought,
      Outstripp’d the winds in speed upon the plain,
      Flew o’er the fields, nor hurt the bearded grain:
      She swept the seas, and, as she skimm’d along,
      Her flying feet unbath’d on billows hung.
      Men, boys, and women, stupid with surprise,
      Where’er she passes, fix their wond’ring eyes:
      Longing they look, and, gaping at the sight,
      Devour her o’er and o’er with vast delight;
      Her purple habit sits with such a grace
      On her smooth shoulders, and so suits her face;
      Her head with ringlets of her hair is crown’d,
      And in a golden caul the curls are bound.
      She shakes her myrtle jav’lin; and, behind,
      Her Lycian quiver dances in the wind.



 BOOK VIII

 THE ARGUMENT.


      The war being now begun, both the generals make all possible
      preparations. Turnus sends to Diomedes. Aeneas goes in person to
      beg succours from Evander and the Tuscans. Evander receives him
      kindly, furnishes him with men, and sends his son Pallas with
      him. Vulcan, at the request of Venus, makes arms for her son
      Aeneas, and draws on his shield the most memorable actions of his
      posterity.


      When Turnus had assembled all his pow’rs,
      His standard planted on Laurentum’s tow’rs;
      When now the sprightly trumpet, from afar,
      Had giv’n the signal of approaching war,
      Had rous’d the neighing steeds to scour the fields,
      While the fierce riders clatter’d on their shields;
      Trembling with rage, the Latian youth prepare
      To join th’ allies, and headlong rush to war.
      Fierce Ufens, and Messapus, led the crowd,
      With bold Mezentius, who blasphem’d aloud.
      These thro’ the country took their wasteful course,
      The fields to forage, and to gather force.
      Then Venulus to Diomede they send,
      To beg his aid Ausonia to defend,
      Declare the common danger, and inform
      The Grecian leader of the growing storm:
      “Aeneas, landed on the Latian coast,
      With banish’d gods, and with a baffled host,
      Yet now aspir’d to conquest of the state,
      And claim’d a title from the gods and fate;
      What num’rous nations in his quarrel came,
      And how they spread his formidable name.
      What he design’d, what mischief might arise,
      If fortune favour’d his first enterprise,
      Was left for him to weigh, whose equal fears,
      And common interest, was involv’d in theirs.”

      While Turnus and th’ allies thus urge the war,
      The Trojan, floating in a flood of care,
      Beholds the tempest which his foes prepare.
      This way and that he turns his anxious mind;
      Thinks, and rejects the counsels he design’d;
      Explores himself in vain, in ev’ry part,
      And gives no rest to his distracted heart.
      So, when the sun by day, or moon by night,
      Strike on the polish’d brass their trembling light,
      The glitt’ring species here and there divide,
      And cast their dubious beams from side to side;
      Now on the walls, now on the pavement play,
      And to the ceiling flash the glaring day.

      ’Twas night; and weary nature lull’d asleep
      The birds of air, and fishes of the deep,
      And beasts, and mortal men. The Trojan chief
      Was laid on Tiber’s banks, oppress’d with grief,
      And found in silent slumber late relief.
      Then, thro’ the shadows of the poplar wood,
      Arose the father of the Roman flood;
      An azure robe was o’er his body spread,
      A wreath of shady reeds adorn’d his head:
      Thus, manifest to sight, the god appear’d,
      And with these pleasing words his sorrow cheer’d:
      “Undoubted offspring of ethereal race,
      O long expected in this promis’d place!
      Who thro’ the foes hast borne thy banish’d gods,
      Restor’d them to their hearths, and old abodes;
      This is thy happy home, the clime where fate
      Ordains thee to restore the Trojan state.
      Fear not! The war shall end in lasting peace,
      And all the rage of haughty Juno cease.
      And that this nightly vision may not seem
      Th’ effect of fancy, or an idle dream,
      A sow beneath an oak shall lie along,
      All white herself, and white her thirty young.
      When thirty rolling years have run their race,
      Thy son Ascanius, on this empty space,
      Shall build a royal town, of lasting fame,
      Which from this omen shall receive the name.
      Time shall approve the truth. For what remains,
      And how with sure success to crown thy pains,
      With patience next attend. A banish’d band,
      Driv’n with Evander from th’ Arcadian land,
      Have planted here, and plac’d on high their walls;
      Their town the founder Pallanteum calls,
      Deriv’d from Pallas, his great-grandsire’s name:
      But the fierce Latians old possession claim,
      With war infesting the new colony.
      These make thy friends, and on their aid rely.
      To thy free passage I submit my streams.
      Wake, son of Venus, from thy pleasing dreams;
      And, when the setting stars are lost in day,
      To Juno’s pow’r thy just devotion pay;
      With sacrifice the wrathful queen appease:
      Her pride at length shall fall, her fury cease.
      When thou return’st victorious from the war,
      Perform thy vows to me with grateful care.
      The god am I, whose yellow water flows
      Around these fields, and fattens as it goes:
      Tiber my name; among the rolling floods
      Renown’d on earth, esteem’d among the gods.
      This is my certain seat. In times to come,
      My waves shall wash the walls of mighty Rome.”

      He said, and plung’d below. While yet he spoke,
      His dream Aeneas and his sleep forsook.
      He rose, and looking up, beheld the skies
      With purple blushing, and the day arise.
      Then water in his hollow palm he took
      From Tiber’s flood, and thus the pow’rs bespoke:
      “Laurentian nymphs, by whom the streams are fed,
      And Father Tiber, in thy sacred bed
      Receive Aeneas, and from danger keep.
      Whatever fount, whatever holy deep,
      Conceals thy wat’ry stores; where’er they rise,
      And, bubbling from below, salute the skies;
      Thou, king of horned floods, whose plenteous urn
      Suffices fatness to the fruitful corn,
      For this thy kind compassion of our woes,
      Shalt share my morning song and ev’ning vows.
      But, O be present to thy people’s aid,
      And firm the gracious promise thou hast made!”
      Thus having said, two galleys from his stores,
      With care he chooses, mans, and fits with oars.
      Now on the shore the fatal swine is found.
      Wond’rous to tell!—She lay along the ground:
      Her well-fed offspring at her udders hung;
      She white herself, and white her thirty young.
      Aeneas takes the mother and her brood,
      And all on Juno’s altar are bestow’d.

      The foll’wing night, and the succeeding day,
      Propitious Tiber smooth’d his wat’ry way:
      He roll’d his river back, and pois’d he stood,
      A gentle swelling, and a peaceful flood.
      The Trojans mount their ships; they put from shore,
      Borne on the waves, and scarcely dip an oar.
      Shouts from the land give omen to their course,
      And the pitch’d vessels glide with easy force.
      The woods and waters wonder at the gleam
      Of shields, and painted ships that stem the stream.
      One summer’s night and one whole day they pass
      Betwixt the greenwood shades, and cut the liquid glass.
      The fiery sun had finish’d half his race,
      Look’d back, and doubted in the middle space,
      When they from far beheld the rising tow’rs,
      The tops of sheds, and shepherds’ lowly bow’rs,
      Thin as they stood, which, then of homely clay,
      Now rise in marble, from the Roman sway.
      These cots (Evander’s kingdom, mean and poor)
      The Trojan saw, and turn’d his ships to shore.
      ’Twas on a solemn day: th’ Arcadian states,
      The king and prince, without the city gates,
      Then paid their off’rings in a sacred grove
      To Hercules, the warrior son of Jove.
      Thick clouds of rolling smoke involve the skies,
      And fat of entrails on his altar fries.

      But, when they saw the ships that stemm’d the flood,
      And glitter’d thro’ the covert of the wood,
      They rose with fear, and left th’ unfinish’d feast,
      Till dauntless Pallas reassur’d the rest
      To pay the rites. Himself without delay
      A jav’lin seiz’d, and singly took his way;
      Then gain’d a rising ground, and call’d from far:
      “Resolve me, strangers, whence, and what you are;
      Your bus’ness here; and bring you peace or war?”
      High on the stern Aeneas took his stand,
      And held a branch of olive in his hand,
      While thus he spoke: “The Phrygians’ arms you see,
      Expell’d from Troy, provok’d in Italy
      By Latian foes, with war unjustly made;
      At first affianc’d, and at last betray’d.
      This message bear: ‘The Trojans and their chief
      Bring holy peace, and beg the king’s relief.’
      Struck with so great a name, and all on fire,
      The youth replies: “Whatever you require,
      Your fame exacts. Upon our shores descend.
      A welcome guest, and, what you wish, a friend.”
      He said, and, downward hasting to the strand,
      Embrac’d the stranger prince, and join’d his hand.

      Conducted to the grove, Aeneas broke
      The silence first, and thus the king bespoke:
      “Best of the Greeks, to whom, by fate’s command,
      I bear these peaceful branches in my hand,
      Undaunted I approach you, tho’ I know
      Your birth is Grecian, and your land my foe;
      From Atreus tho’ your ancient lineage came,
      And both the brother kings your kindred claim;
      Yet, my self-conscious worth, your high renown,
      Your virtue, thro’ the neighb’ring nations blown,
      Our fathers’ mingled blood, Apollo’s voice,
      Have led me hither, less by need than choice.
      Our founder Dardanus, as fame has sung,
      And Greeks acknowledge, from Electra sprung:
      Electra from the loins of Atlas came;
      Atlas, whose head sustains the starry frame.
      Your sire is Mercury, whom long before
      On cold Cyllene’s top fair Maia bore.
      Maia the fair, on fame if we rely,
      Was Atlas’ daughter, who sustains the sky.
      Thus from one common source our streams divide;
      Ours is the Trojan, yours th’ Arcadian side.
      Rais’d by these hopes, I sent no news before,
      Nor ask’d your leave, nor did your faith implore;
      But come, without a pledge, my own ambassador.
      The same Rutulians, who with arms pursue
      The Trojan race, are equal foes to you.
      Our host expell’d, what farther force can stay
      The victor troops from universal sway?
      Then will they stretch their pow’r athwart the land,
      And either sea from side to side command.
      Receive our offer’d faith, and give us thine;
      Ours is a gen’rous and experienc’d line:
      We want not hearts nor bodies for the war;
      In council cautious, and in fields we dare.”

      He said; and while spoke, with piercing eyes
      Evander view’d the man with vast surprise,
      Pleas’d with his action, ravish’d with his face:
      Then answer’d briefly, with a royal grace:
      “O valiant leader of the Trojan line,
      In whom the features of thy father shine,
      How I recall Anchises! how I see
      His motions, mien, and all my friend, in thee!
      Long tho’ it be, ’tis fresh within my mind,
      When Priam to his sister’s court design’d
      A welcome visit, with a friendly stay,
      And thro’ th’ Arcadian kingdom took his way.
      Then, past a boy, the callow down began
      To shade my chin, and call me first a man.
      I saw the shining train with vast delight,
      And Priam’s goodly person pleas’d my sight:
      But great Anchises, far above the rest,
      With awful wonder fir’d my youthful breast.
      I long’d to join in friendship’s holy bands
      Our mutual hearts, and plight our mutual hands.
      I first accosted him: I sued, I sought,
      And, with a loving force, to Pheneus brought.
      He gave me, when at length constrain’d to go,
      A Lycian quiver and a Gnossian bow,
      A vest embroider’d, glorious to behold,
      And two rich bridles, with their bits of gold,
      Which my son’s coursers in obedience hold.
      The league you ask, I offer, as your right;
      And, when tomorrow’s sun reveals the light,
      With swift supplies you shall be sent away.
      Now celebrate with us this solemn day,
      Whose holy rites admit no long delay.
      Honour our annual feast; and take your seat,
      With friendly welcome, at a homely treat.”
      Thus having said, the bowls remov’d (for fear)
      The youths replac’d, and soon restor’d the cheer.
      On sods of turf he set the soldiers round:
      A maple throne, rais’d higher from the ground,
      Receiv’d the Trojan chief; and, o’er the bed,
      A lion’s shaggy hide for ornament they spread.
      The loaves were serv’d in canisters; the wine
      In bowls; the priest renew’d the rites divine:
      Broil’d entrails are their food, and beef’s continued chine.

      But when the rage of hunger was repress’d,
      Thus spoke Evander to his royal guest:
      “These rites, these altars, and this feast, O king,
      From no vain fears or superstition spring,
      Or blind devotion, or from blinder chance,
      Or heady zeal, or brutal ignorance;
      But, sav’d from danger, with a grateful sense,
      The labours of a god we recompense.
      See, from afar, yon rock that mates the sky,
      About whose feet such heaps of rubbish lie;
      Such indigested ruin; bleak and bare,
      How desert now it stands, expos’d in air!
      ’Twas once a robber’s den, inclos’d around
      With living stone, and deep beneath the ground.
      The monster Cacus, more than half a beast,
      This hold, impervious to the sun, possess’d.
      The pavement ever foul with human gore;
      Heads, and their mangled members, hung the door.
      Vulcan this plague begot; and, like his sire,
      Black clouds he belch’d, and flakes of livid fire.
      Time, long expected, eas’d us of our load,
      And brought the needful presence of a god.
      Th’ avenging force of Hercules, from Spain,
      Arriv’d in triumph, from Geryon slain:
      Thrice liv’d the giant, and thrice liv’d in vain.
      His prize, the lowing herds, Alcides drove
      Near Tiber’s bank, to graze the shady grove.
      Allur’d with hope of plunder, and intent
      By force to rob, by fraud to circumvent,
      The brutal Cacus, as by chance they stray’d,
      Four oxen thence, and four fair kine convey’d;
      And, lest the printed footsteps might be seen,
      He dragg’d ’em backwards to his rocky den.
      The tracks averse a lying notice gave,
      And led the searcher backward from the cave.

      “Meantime the herdsman hero shifts his place,
      To find fresh pasture and untrodden grass.
      The beasts, who miss’d their mates, fill’d all around
      With bellowings, and the rocks restor’d the sound.
      One heifer, who had heard her love complain,
      Roar’d from the cave, and made the project vain.
      Alcides found the fraud; with rage he shook,
      And toss’d about his head his knotted oak.
      Swift as the winds, or Scythian arrows’ flight,
      He clomb, with eager haste, th’ aerial height.
      Then first we saw the monster mend his pace;
      Fear in his eyes, and paleness in his face,
      Confess’d the god’s approach. Trembling he springs,
      As terror had increas’d his feet with wings;
      Nor stay’d for stairs; but down the depth he threw
      His body, on his back the door he drew
      (The door, a rib of living rock; with pains
      His father hew’d it out, and bound with iron chains):
      He broke the heavy links, the mountain clos’d,
      And bars and levers to his foe oppos’d.
      The wretch had hardly made his dungeon fast;
      The fierce avenger came with bounding haste;
      Survey’d the mouth of the forbidden hold,
      And here and there his raging eyes he roll’d.
      He gnash’d his teeth; and thrice he compass’d round
      With winged speed the circuit of the ground.
      Thrice at the cavern’s mouth he pull’d in vain,
      And, panting, thrice desisted from his pain.
      A pointed flinty rock, all bare and black,
      Grew gibbous from behind the mountain’s back;
      Owls, ravens, all ill omens of the night,
      Here built their nests, and hither wing’d their flight.
      The leaning head hung threat’ning o’er the flood,
      And nodded to the left. The hero stood
      Adverse, with planted feet, and, from the right,
      Tugg’d at the solid stone with all his might.
      Thus heav’d, the fix’d foundations of the rock
      Gave way; heav’n echo’d at the rattling shock.
      Tumbling, it chok’d the flood: on either side
      The banks leap backward, and the streams divide;
      The sky shrunk upward with unusual dread,
      And trembling Tiber div’d beneath his bed.
      The court of Cacus stands reveal’d to sight;
      The cavern glares with new-admitted light.
      So the pent vapours, with a rumbling sound,
      Heave from below, and rend the hollow ground;
      A sounding flaw succeeds; and, from on high,
      The gods with hate beheld the nether sky:
      The ghosts repine at violated night,
      And curse th’ invading sun, and sicken at the sight.
      The graceless monster, caught in open day,
      Inclos’d, and in despair to fly away,
      Howls horrible from underneath, and fills
      His hollow palace with unmanly yells.
      The hero stands above, and from afar
      Plies him with darts, and stones, and distant war.
      He, from his nostrils huge mouth, expires
      Black clouds of smoke, amidst his father’s fires,
      Gath’ring, with each repeated blast, the night,
      To make uncertain aim, and erring sight.
      The wrathful god then plunges from above,
      And, where in thickest waves the sparkles drove,
      There lights; and wades thro’ fumes, and gropes his way,
      Half sing’d, half stifled, till he grasps his prey.
      The monster, spewing fruitless flames, he found;
      He squeez’d his throat; he writh’d his neck around,
      And in a knot his crippled members bound;
      Then from their sockets tore his burning eyes:
      Roll’d on a heap, the breathless robber lies.
      The doors, unbarr’d, receive the rushing day,
      And thoro’ lights disclose the ravish’d prey.
      The bulls, redeem’d, breathe open air again.
      Next, by the feet, they drag him from his den.
      The wond’ring neighbourhood, with glad surprise,
      Behold his shagged breast, his giant size,
      His mouth that flames no more, and his extinguish’d eyes.
      From that auspicious day, with rites divine,
      We worship at the hero’s holy shrine.
      Potitius first ordain’d these annual vows:
      As priests, were added the Pinarian house,
      Who rais’d this altar in the sacred shade,
      Where honours, ever due, for ever shall be paid.
      For these deserts, and this high virtue shown,
      Ye warlike youths, your heads with garlands crown:
      Fill high the goblets with a sparkling flood,
      And with deep draughts invoke our common god.”

      This said, a double wreath Evander twin’d,
      And poplars black and white his temples bind.
      Then brims his ample bowl. With like design
      The rest invoke the gods, with sprinkled wine.
      Meantime the sun descended from the skies,
      And the bright evening star began to rise.
      And now the priests, Potitius at their head,
      In skins of beasts involv’d, the long procession led;
      Held high the flaming tapers in their hands,
      As custom had prescrib’d their holy bands;
      Then with a second course the tables load,
      And with full chargers offer to the god.
      The Salii sing, and cense his altars round
      With Saban smoke, their heads with poplar bound
      One choir of old, another of the young,
      To dance, and bear the burthen of the song.
      The lay records the labours, and the praise,
      And all th’ immortal acts of Hercules:
      First, how the mighty babe, when swath’d in bands,
      The serpents strangled with his infant hands;
      Then, as in years and matchless force he grew,
      Th’ Oechalian walls, and Trojan, overthrew.
      Besides, a thousand hazards they relate,
      Procur’d by Juno’s and Eurystheus’ hate:
      “Thy hands, unconquer’d hero, could subdue
      The cloud-born Centaurs, and the monster crew:
      Nor thy resistless arm the bull withstood,
      Nor he, the roaring terror of the wood.
      The triple porter of the Stygian seat,
      With lolling tongue, lay fawning at thy feet,
      And, seiz’d with fear, forgot his mangled meat.
      Th’ infernal waters trembled at thy sight;
      Thee, god, no face of danger could affright;
      Not huge Typhoeus, nor th’ unnumber’d snake,
      Increas’d with hissing heads, in Lerna’s lake.
      Hail, Jove’s undoubted son! an added grace
      To heav’n and the great author of thy race!
      Receive the grateful off’rings which we pay,
      And smile propitious on thy solemn day!”
      In numbers thus they sung; above the rest,
      The den and death of Cacus crown the feast.
      The woods to hollow vales convey the sound,
      The vales to hills, and hills the notes rebound.
      The rites perform’d, the cheerful train retire.

      Betwixt young Pallas and his aged sire,
      The Trojan pass’d, the city to survey,
      And pleasing talk beguil’d the tedious way.
      The stranger cast around his curious eyes,
      New objects viewing still, with new surprise;
      With greedy joy enquires of various things,
      And acts and monuments of ancient kings.
      Then thus the founder of the Roman tow’rs:
      “These woods were first the seat of sylvan pow’rs,
      Of Nymphs and Fauns, and salvage men, who took
      Their birth from trunks of trees and stubborn oak.
      Nor laws they knew, nor manners, nor the care
      Of lab’ring oxen, or the shining share,
      Nor arts of gain, nor what they gain’d to spare.
      Their exercise the chase; the running flood
      Supplied their thirst, the trees supplied their food.
      Then Saturn came, who fled the pow’r of Jove,
      Robb’d of his realms, and banish’d from above.
      The men, dispers’d on hills, to towns he brought,
      And laws ordain’d, and civil customs taught,
      And Latium call’d the land where safe he lay
      From his unduteous son, and his usurping sway.
      With his mild empire, peace and plenty came;
      And hence the golden times deriv’d their name.
      A more degenerate and discolour’d age
      Succeeded this, with avarice and rage.
      Th’ Ausonians then, and bold Sicanians came;
      And Saturn’s empire often chang’d the name.
      Then kings, gigantic Tybris, and the rest,
      With arbitrary sway the land oppress’d:
      For Tiber’s flood was Albula before,
      Till, from the tyrant’s fate, his name it bore.
      I last arriv’d, driv’n from my native home
      By fortune’s pow’r, and fate’s resistless doom.
      Long toss’d on seas, I sought this happy land,
      Warn’d by my mother nymph, and call’d by Heav’n’s command.”

      Thus, walking on, he spoke, and shew’d the gate,
      Since call’d Carmental by the Roman state;
      Where stood an altar, sacred to the name
      Of old Carmenta, the prophetic dame,
      Who to her son foretold th’ Aenean race,
      Sublime in fame, and Rome’s imperial place:
      Then shews the forest, which, in after times,
      Fierce Romulus for perpetrated crimes
      A sacred refuge made; with this, the shrine
      Where Pan below the rock had rites divine:
      Then tells of Argus’ death, his murder’d guest,
      Whose grave and tomb his innocence attest.
      Thence, to the steep Tarpeian rock he leads;
      Now roof’d with gold, then thatch’d with homely reeds.
      A reverent fear (such superstition reigns
      Among the rude) ev’n then possess’d the swains.
      Some god, they knew—what god, they could not tell—
      Did there amidst the sacred horror dwell.
      Th’ Arcadians thought him Jove; and said they saw
      The mighty Thund’rer with majestic awe,
      Who took his shield, and dealt his bolts around,
      And scatter’d tempests on the teeming ground.
      Then saw two heaps of ruins, (once they stood
      Two stately towns, on either side the flood,)
      Saturnia’s and Janiculum’s remains;
      And either place the founder’s name retains.
      Discoursing thus together, they resort
      Where poor Evander kept his country court.
      They view’d the ground of Rome’s litigious hall;
      (Once oxen low’d, where now the lawyers bawl;)
      Then, stooping, thro’ the narrow gate they press’d,
      When thus the king bespoke his Trojan guest:
      “Mean as it is, this palace, and this door,
      Receiv’d Alcides, then a conqueror.
      Dare to be poor; accept our homely food,
      Which feasted him, and emulate a god.”
      Then underneath a lowly roof he led
      The weary prince, and laid him on a bed;
      The stuffing leaves, with hides of bears o’erspread.
      Now night had shed her silver dews around,
      And with her sable wings embrac’d the ground,
      When love’s fair goddess, anxious for her son,
      (New tumults rising, and new wars begun,)
      Couch’d with her husband in his golden bed,
      With these alluring words invokes his aid;
      And, that her pleasing speech his mind may move,
      Inspires each accent with the charms of love:
      “While cruel fate conspir’d with Grecian pow’rs,
      To level with the ground the Trojan tow’rs,
      I ask’d not aid th’ unhappy to restore,
      Nor did the succour of thy skill implore;
      Nor urg’d the labours of my lord in vain,
      A sinking empire longer to sustain,
      Tho’ much I ow’d to Priam’s house, and more
      The dangers of Aeneas did deplore.
      But now, by Jove’s command, and fate’s decree,
      His race is doom’d to reign in Italy:
      With humble suit I beg thy needful art,
      O still propitious pow’r, that rules my heart!
      A mother kneels a suppliant for her son.
      By Thetis and Aurora thou wert won
      To forge impenetrable shields, and grace
      With fated arms a less illustrious race.
      Behold, what haughty nations are combin’d
      Against the relics of the Phrygian kind,
      With fire and sword my people to destroy,
      And conquer Venus twice, in conqu’ring Troy.”
      She said; and straight her arms, of snowy hue,
      About her unresolving husband threw.
      Her soft embraces soon infuse desire;
      His bones and marrow sudden warmth inspire;
      And all the godhead feels the wonted fire.
      Not half so swift the rattling thunder flies,
      Or forky lightnings flash along the skies.
      The goddess, proud of her successful wiles,
      And conscious of her form, in secret smiles.

      Then thus the pow’r, obnoxious to her charms,
      Panting, and half dissolving in her arms:
      “Why seek you reasons for a cause so just,
      Or your own beauties or my love distrust?
      Long since, had you requir’d my helpful hand,
      Th’ artificer and art you might command,
      To labour arms for Troy: nor Jove, nor fate,
      Confin’d their empire to so short a date.
      And, if you now desire new wars to wage,
      My skill I promise, and my pains engage.
      Whatever melting metals can conspire,
      Or breathing bellows, or the forming fire,
      Is freely yours: your anxious fears remove,
      And think no task is difficult to love.”
      Trembling he spoke; and, eager of her charms,
      He snatch’d the willing goddess to his arms;
      Till in her lap infus’d, he lay possess’d
      Of full desire, and sunk to pleasing rest.
      Now when the night her middle race had rode,
      And his first slumber had refresh’d the god—
      The time when early housewives leave the bed;
      When living embers on the hearth they spread,
      Supply the lamp, and call the maids to rise;—
      With yawning mouths, and with half-open’d eyes,
      They ply the distaff by the winking light,
      And to their daily labour add the night:
      Thus frugally they earn their children’s bread,
      And uncorrupted keep the nuptial bed—
      Not less concern’d, nor at a later hour,
      Rose from his downy couch the forging pow’r.

      Sacred to Vulcan’s name, an isle there lay,
      Betwixt Sicilia’s coasts and Lipare,
      Rais’d high on smoking rocks; and, deep below,
      In hollow caves the fires of Aetna glow.
      The Cyclops here their heavy hammers deal;
      Loud strokes, and hissings of tormented steel,
      Are heard around; the boiling waters roar,
      And smoky flames thro’ fuming tunnels soar.
      Hither the Father of the Fire, by night,
      Thro’ the brown air precipitates his flight.
      On their eternal anvils here he found
      The brethren beating, and the blows go round.
      A load of pointless thunder now there lies
      Before their hands, to ripen for the skies:
      These darts, for angry Jove, they daily cast;
      Consum’d on mortals with prodigious waste.
      Three rays of writhen rain, of fire three more,
      Of winged southern winds and cloudy store
      As many parts, the dreadful mixture frame;
      And fears are added, and avenging flame.
      Inferior ministers, for Mars, repair
      His broken axletrees and blunted war,
      And send him forth again with furbish’d arms,
      To wake the lazy war with trumpets’ loud alarms.
      The rest refresh the scaly snakes that fold
      The shield of Pallas, and renew their gold.
      Full on the crest the Gorgon’s head they place,
      With eyes that roll in death, and with distorted face.

      “My sons,” said Vulcan, “set your tasks aside;
      Your strength and master-skill must now be tried.
      Arms for a hero forge; arms that require
      Your force, your speed, and all your forming fire.”
      He said. They set their former work aside,
      And their new toils with eager haste divide.
      A flood of molten silver, brass, and gold,
      And deadly steel, in the large furnace roll’d;
      Of this, their artful hands a shield prepare,
      Alone sufficient to sustain the war.
      Sev’n orbs within a spacious round they close:
      One stirs the fire, and one the bellows blows.
      The hissing steel is in the smithy drown’d;
      The grot with beaten anvils groans around.
      By turns their arms advance, in equal time;
      By turns their hands descend, and hammers chime.
      They turn the glowing mass with crooked tongs;
      The fiery work proceeds, with rustic songs.

      While, at the Lemnian god’s command, they urge
      Their labours thus, and ply th’ Aeolian forge,
      The cheerful morn salutes Evander’s eyes,
      And songs of chirping birds invite to rise.
      He leaves his lowly bed: his buskins meet
      Above his ankles; sandals sheathe his feet:
      He sets his trusty sword upon his side,
      And o’er his shoulder throws a panther’s hide.
      Two menial dogs before their master press’d.
      Thus clad, and guarded thus, he seeks his kingly guest.
      Mindful of promis’d aid, he mends his pace,
      But meets Aeneas in the middle space.
      Young Pallas did his father’s steps attend,
      And true Achates waited on his friend.
      They join their hands; a secret seat they choose;
      Th’ Arcadian first their former talk renews:
      “Undaunted prince, I never can believe
      The Trojan empire lost, while you survive.
      Command th’ assistance of a faithful friend;
      But feeble are the succours I can send.
      Our narrow kingdom here the Tiber bounds;
      That other side the Latian state surrounds,
      Insults our walls, and wastes our fruitful grounds.
      But mighty nations I prepare, to join
      Their arms with yours, and aid your just design.
      You come, as by your better genius sent,
      And fortune seems to favour your intent.
      Not far from hence there stands a hilly town,
      Of ancient building, and of high renown,
      Torn from the Tuscans by the Lydian race,
      Who gave the name of Caere to the place,
      Once Agyllina call’d. It flourish’d long,
      In pride of wealth and warlike people strong,
      Till curs’d Mezentius, in a fatal hour,
      Assum’d the crown, with arbitrary pow’r.
      What words can paint those execrable times,
      The subjects’ suff’rings, and the tyrant’s crimes!
      That blood, those murders, O ye gods, replace
      On his own head, and on his impious race!
      The living and the dead at his command
      Were coupled, face to face, and hand to hand,
      Till, chok’d with stench, in loath’d embraces tied,
      The ling’ring wretches pin’d away and died.
      Thus plung’d in ills, and meditating more—
      The people’s patience, tir’d, no longer bore
      The raging monster; but with arms beset
      His house, and vengeance and destruction threat.
      They fire his palace: while the flame ascends,
      They force his guards, and execute his friends.
      He cleaves the crowd, and, favour’d by the night,
      To Turnus’ friendly court directs his flight.
      By just revenge the Tuscans set on fire,
      With arms, their king to punishment require:
      Their num’rous troops, now muster’d on the strand,
      My counsel shall submit to your command.
      Their navy swarms upon the coasts; they cry
      To hoist their anchors, but the gods deny.
      An ancient augur, skill’d in future fate,
      With these foreboding words restrains their hate:
      ‘Ye brave in arms, ye Lydian blood, the flow’r
      Of Tuscan youth, and choice of all their pow’r,
      Whom just revenge against Mezentius arms,
      To seek your tyrant’s death by lawful arms;
      Know this: no native of our land may lead
      This pow’rful people; seek a foreign head.’
      Aw’d with these words, in camps they still abide,
      And wait with longing looks their promis’d guide.
      Tarchon, the Tuscan chief, to me has sent
      Their crown, and ev’ry regal ornament:
      The people join their own with his desire;
      And all my conduct, as their king, require.
      But the chill blood that creeps within my veins,
      And age, and listless limbs unfit for pains,
      And a soul conscious of its own decay,
      Have forc’d me to refuse imperial sway.
      My Pallas were more fit to mount the throne,
      And should, but he’s a Sabine mother’s son,
      And half a native; but, in you, combine
      A manly vigour, and a foreign line.
      Where Fate and smiling Fortune shew the way,
      Pursue the ready path to sov’reign sway.
      The staff of my declining days, my son,
      Shall make your good or ill success his own;
      In fighting fields from you shall learn to dare,
      And serve the hard apprenticeship of war;
      Your matchless courage and your conduct view,
      And early shall begin t’ admire and copy you.
      Besides, two hundred horse he shall command;
      Tho’ few, a warlike and well-chosen band.
      These in my name are listed; and my son
      As many more has added in his own.”

      Scarce had he said; Achates and his guest,
      With downcast eyes, their silent grief express’d;
      Who, short of succours, and in deep despair,
      Shook at the dismal prospect of the war.
      But his bright mother, from a breaking cloud,
      To cheer her issue, thunder’d thrice aloud;
      Thrice forky lightning flash’d along the sky,
      And Tyrrhene trumpets thrice were heard on high.
      Then, gazing up, repeated peals they hear;
      And, in a heav’n serene, refulgent arms appear:
      Redd’ning the skies, and glitt’ring all around,
      The temper’d metals clash, and yield a silver sound.
      The rest stood trembling, struck with awe divine;
      Aeneas only, conscious to the sign,
      Presag’d th’ event, and joyful view’d, above,
      Th’ accomplish’d promise of the Queen of Love.
      Then, to th’ Arcadian king: “This prodigy
      (Dismiss your fear) belongs alone to me.
      Heav’n calls me to the war: th’ expected sign
      Is giv’n of promis’d aid, and arms divine.
      My goddess mother, whose indulgent care
      Foresaw the dangers of the growing war,
      This omen gave, when bright Vulcanian arms,
      Fated from force of steel by Stygian charms,
      Suspended, shone on high: she then foreshow’d
      Approaching fights, and fields to float in blood.
      Turnus shall dearly pay for faith forsworn;
      And corps, and swords, and shields, on Tiber borne,
      Shall choke his flood: now sound the loud alarms;
      And, Latian troops, prepare your perjur’d arms.”

      He said, and, rising from his homely throne,
      The solemn rites of Hercules begun,
      And on his altars wak’d the sleeping fires;
      Then cheerful to his household gods retires;
      There offers chosen sheep. Th’ Arcadian king
      And Trojan youth the same oblations bring.
      Next, of his men and ships he makes review;
      Draws out the best and ablest of the crew.
      Down with the falling stream the refuse run,
      To raise with joyful news his drooping son.
      Steeds are prepar’d to mount the Trojan band,
      Who wait their leader to the Tyrrhene land.
      A sprightly courser, fairer than the rest,
      The king himself presents his royal guest:
      A lion’s hide his back and limbs infold,
      Precious with studded work, and paws of gold.
      Fame thro’ the little city spreads aloud
      Th’ intended march, amid the fearful crowd:
      The matrons beat their breasts, dissolve in tears,
      And double their devotion in their fears.
      The war at hand appears with more affright,
      And rises ev’ry moment to the sight.

      Then old Evander, with a close embrace,
      Strain’d his departing friend; and tears o’erflow his face.
      “Would Heav’n,” said he, “my strength and youth recall,
      Such as I was beneath Praeneste’s wall;
      Then when I made the foremost foes retire,
      And set whole heaps of conquer’d shields on fire;
      When Herilus in single fight I slew,
      Whom with three lives Feronia did endue;
      And thrice I sent him to the Stygian shore,
      Till the last ebbing soul return’d no more—
      Such if I stood renew’d, not these alarms,
      Nor death, should rend me from my Pallas’ arms;
      Nor proud Mezentius, thus unpunish’d, boast
      His rapes and murders on the Tuscan coast.
      Ye gods, and mighty Jove, in pity bring
      Relief, and hear a father and a king!
      If fate and you reserve these eyes, to see
      My son return with peace and victory;
      If the lov’d boy shall bless his father’s sight;
      If we shall meet again with more delight;
      Then draw my life in length; let me sustain,
      In hopes of his embrace, the worst of pain.
      But if your hard decrees—which, O! I dread—
      Have doom’d to death his undeserving head;
      This, O this very moment, let me die!
      While hopes and fears in equal balance lie;
      While, yet possess’d of all his youthful charms,
      I strain him close within these aged arms;
      Before that fatal news my soul shall wound!”
      He said, and, swooning, sunk upon the ground.
      His servants bore him off, and softly laid
      His languish’d limbs upon his homely bed.

      The horsemen march; the gates are open’d wide;
      Aeneas at their head, Achates by his side.
      Next these, the Trojan leaders rode along;
      Last follows in the rear th’ Arcadian throng.
      Young Pallas shone conspicuous o’er the rest;
      Gilded his arms, embroider’d was his vest.
      So, from the seas, exerts his radiant head
      The star by whom the lights of heav’n are led;
      Shakes from his rosy locks the pearly dews,
      Dispels the darkness, and the day renews.
      The trembling wives the walls and turrets crowd,
      And follow, with their eyes, the dusty cloud,
      Which winds disperse by fits, and shew from far
      The blaze of arms, and shields, and shining war.
      The troops, drawn up in beautiful array,
      O’er heathy plains pursue the ready way.
      Repeated peals of shouts are heard around;
      The neighing coursers answer to the sound,
      And shake with horny hoofs the solid ground.

      A greenwood shade, for long religion known,
      Stands by the streams that wash the Tuscan town,
      Incompass’d round with gloomy hills above,
      Which add a holy horror to the grove.
      The first inhabitants of Grecian blood,
      That sacred forest to Silvanus vow’d,
      The guardian of their flocks and fields; and pay
      Their due devotions on his annual day.
      Not far from hence, along the river’s side,
      In tents secure, the Tuscan troops abide,
      By Tarchon led. Now, from a rising ground,
      Aeneas cast his wond’ring eyes around,
      And all the Tyrrhene army had in sight,
      Stretch’d on the spacious plain from left to right.
      Thither his warlike train the Trojan led,
      Refresh’d his men, and wearied horses fed.

      Meantime the mother goddess, crown’d with charms,
      Breaks thro’ the clouds, and brings the fated arms.
      Within a winding vale she finds her son,
      On the cool river’s banks, retir’d alone.
      She shews her heav’nly form without disguise,
      And gives herself to his desiring eyes.
      “Behold,” she said, “perform’d in ev’ry part,
      My promise made, and Vulcan’s labour’d art.
      Now seek, secure, the Latian enemy,
      And haughty Turnus to the field defy.”
      She said; and, having first her son embrac’d,
      The radiant arms beneath an oak she plac’d,
      Proud of the gift, he roll’d his greedy sight
      Around the work, and gaz’d with vast delight.
      He lifts, he turns, he poises, and admires
      The crested helm, that vomits radiant fires:
      His hands the fatal sword and corslet hold,
      One keen with temper’d steel, one stiff with gold:
      Both ample, flaming both, and beamy bright;
      So shines a cloud, when edg’d with adverse light.
      He shakes the pointed spear, and longs to try
      The plated cuishes on his manly thigh;
      But most admires the shield’s mysterious mould,
      And Roman triumphs rising on the gold:
      For these, emboss’d, the heav’nly smith had wrought
      (Not in the rolls of future fate untaught)
      The wars in order, and the race divine
      Of warriors issuing from the Julian line.
      The cave of Mars was dress’d with mossy greens:
      There, by the wolf, were laid the martial twins.
      Intrepid on her swelling dugs they hung;
      The foster dam loll’d out her fawning tongue:
      They suck’d secure, while, bending back her head,
      She lick’d their tender limbs, and form’d them as they fed.
      Not far from thence new Rome appears, with games
      Projected for the rape of Sabine dames.
      The pit resounds with shrieks; a war succeeds,
      For breach of public faith, and unexampled deeds.
      Here for revenge the Sabine troops contend;
      The Romans there with arms the prey defend.
      Wearied with tedious war, at length they cease;
      And both the kings and kingdoms plight the peace.
      The friendly chiefs before Jove’s altar stand,
      Both arm’d, with each a charger in his hand:
      A fatted sow for sacrifice is led,
      With imprecations on the perjur’d head.
      Near this, the traitor Metius, stretch’d between
      Four fiery steeds, is dragg’d along the green,
      By Tullus’ doom: the brambles drink his blood,
      And his torn limbs are left the vulture’s food.
      There, Porsena to Rome proud Tarquin brings,
      And would by force restore the banish’d kings.
      One tyrant for his fellow-tyrant fights;
      The Roman youth assert their native rights.
      Before the town the Tuscan army lies,
      To win by famine, or by fraud surprise.
      Their king, half-threat’ning, half-disdaining stood,
      While Cocles broke the bridge, and stemm’d the flood.
      The captive maids there tempt the raging tide,
      Scap’d from their chains, with Cloelia for their guide.
      High on a rock heroic Manlius stood,
      To guard the temple, and the temple’s god.
      Then Rome was poor; and there you might behold
      The palace thatch’d with straw, now roof’d with gold.
      The silver goose before the shining gate
      There flew, and, by her cackle, sav’d the state.
      She told the Gauls’ approach; th’ approaching Gauls,
      Obscure in night, ascend, and seize the walls.
      The gold dissembled well their yellow hair,
      And golden chains on their white necks they wear.
      Gold are their vests; long Alpine spears they wield,
      And their left arm sustains a length of shield.
      Hard by, the leaping Salian priests advance;
      And naked thro’ the streets the mad Luperci dance,
      In caps of wool; the targets dropp’d from heav’n.
      Here modest matrons, in soft litters driv’n,
      To pay their vows in solemn pomp appear,
      And odorous gums in their chaste hands they bear.
      Far hence remov’d, the Stygian seats are seen;
      Pains of the damn’d, and punish’d Catiline
      Hung on a rock—the traitor; and, around,
      The Furies hissing from the nether ground.
      Apart from these, the happy souls he draws,
      And Cato’s holy ghost dispensing laws.

      Betwixt the quarters flows a golden sea;
      But foaming surges there in silver play.
      The dancing dolphins with their tails divide
      The glitt’ring waves, and cut the precious tide.
      Amid the main, two mighty fleets engage
      Their brazen beaks, oppos’d with equal rage.
      Actium surveys the well-disputed prize;
      Leucate’s wat’ry plain with foamy billows fries.
      Young Caesar, on the stern, in armour bright,
      Here leads the Romans and their gods to fight:
      His beamy temples shoot their flames afar,
      And o’er his head is hung the Julian star.
      Agrippa seconds him, with prosp’rous gales,
      And, with propitious gods, his foes assails:
      A naval crown, that binds his manly brows,
      The happy fortune of the fight foreshows.
      Rang’d on the line oppos’d, Antonius brings
      Barbarian aids, and troops of Eastern kings;
      Th’ Arabians near, and Bactrians from afar,
      Of tongues discordant, and a mingled war:
      And, rich in gaudy robes, amidst the strife,
      His ill fate follows him—th’ Egyptian wife.
      Moving they fight; with oars and forky prows
      The froth is gather’d, and the water glows.
      It seems, as if the Cyclades again
      Were rooted up, and justled in the main;
      Or floating mountains floating mountains meet;
      Such is the fierce encounter of the fleet.
      Fireballs are thrown, and pointed jav’lins fly;
      The fields of Neptune take a purple dye.
      The queen herself, amidst the loud alarms,
      With cymbals toss’d her fainting soldiers warms—
      Fool as she was! who had not yet divin’d
      Her cruel fate, nor saw the snakes behind.
      Her country gods, the monsters of the sky,
      Great Neptune, Pallas, and Love’s Queen defy:
      The dog Anubis barks, but barks in vain,
      Nor longer dares oppose th’ ethereal train.
      Mars in the middle of the shining shield
      Is grav’d, and strides along the liquid field.
      The Dirae souse from heav’n with swift descent;
      And Discord, dyed in blood, with garments rent,
      Divides the prease: her steps Bellona treads,
      And shakes her iron rod above their heads.
      This seen, Apollo, from his Actian height,
      Pours down his arrows; at whose winged flight
      The trembling Indians and Egyptians yield,
      And soft Sabaeans quit the wat’ry field.
      The fatal mistress hoists her silken sails,
      And, shrinking from the fight, invokes the gales.
      Aghast she looks, and heaves her breast for breath,
      Panting, and pale with fear of future death.
      The god had figur’d her as driv’n along
      By winds and waves, and scudding thro’ the throng.
      Just opposite, sad Nilus opens wide
      His arms and ample bosom to the tide,
      And spreads his mantle o’er the winding coast,
      In which he wraps his queen, and hides the flying host.
      The victor to the gods his thanks express’d,
      And Rome, triumphant, with his presence bless’d.
      Three hundred temples in the town he plac’d;
      With spoils and altars ev’ry temple grac’d.
      Three shining nights, and three succeeding days,
      The fields resound with shouts, the streets with praise,
      The domes with songs, the theatres with plays.
      All altars flame: before each altar lies,
      Drench’d in his gore, the destin’d sacrifice.
      Great Caesar sits sublime upon his throne,
      Before Apollo’s porch of Parian stone;
      Accepts the presents vow’d for victory,
      And hangs the monumental crowns on high.
      Vast crowds of vanquish’d nations march along,
      Various in arms, in habit, and in tongue.
      Here, Mulciber assigns the proper place
      For Carians, and th’ ungirt Numidian race;
      Then ranks the Thracians in the second row,
      With Scythians, expert in the dart and bow.
      And here the tam’d Euphrates humbly glides,
      And there the Rhine submits her swelling tides,
      And proud Araxes, whom no bridge could bind;
      The Danes’ unconquer’d offspring march behind,
      And Morini, the last of humankind.

      These figures, on the shield divinely wrought,
      By Vulcan labour’d, and by Venus brought,
      With joy and wonder fill the hero’s thought.
      Unknown the names, he yet admires the grace,
      And bears aloft the fame and fortune of his race.



 BOOK IX

 THE ARGUMENT.


      Turnus takes advantage of Aeneas’s absence, fires some of his
      ships (which are transformed into sea nymphs,) and assaults his
      camp. The Trojans, reduced to the last extremities, send Ninus
      and Euryalus to recall Aeneas; which furnishes the poet with that
      admirable episode of their friendship, generosity, and the
      conclusion of their adventure.


      While these affairs in distant places pass’d,
      The various Iris Juno sends with haste,
      To find bold Turnus, who, with anxious thought,
      The secret shade of his great grandsire sought.
      Retir’d alone she found the daring man,
      And op’d her rosy lips, and thus began:
      “What none of all the gods could grant thy vows,
      That, Turnus, this auspicious day bestows.
      Aeneas, gone to seek th’ Arcadian prince,
      Has left the Trojan camp without defence;
      And, short of succours there, employs his pains
      In parts remote to raise the Tuscan swains.
      Now snatch an hour that favours thy designs;
      Unite thy forces, and attack their lines.”
      This said, on equal wings she pois’d her weight,
      And form’d a radiant rainbow in her flight.

      The Daunian hero lifts his hands and eyes,
      And thus invokes the goddess as she flies:
      “Iris, the grace of heav’n, what pow’r divine
      Has sent thee down, thro’ dusky clouds to shine?
      See, they divide; immortal day appears,
      And glitt’ring planets dancing in their spheres!
      With joy, these happy omens I obey,
      And follow to the war the god that leads the way.”
      Thus having said, as by the brook he stood,
      He scoop’d the water from the crystal flood;
      Then with his hands the drops to heav’n he throws,
      And loads the pow’rs above with offer’d vows.

      Now march the bold confed’rates thro’ the plain,
      Well hors’d, well clad; a rich and shining train.
      Messapus leads the van; and, in the rear,
      The sons of Tyrrheus in bright arms appear.
      In the main battle, with his flaming crest,
      The mighty Turnus tow’rs above the rest.
      Silent they move, majestically slow,
      Like ebbing Nile, or Ganges in his flow.
      The Trojans view the dusty cloud from far,
      And the dark menace of the distant war.
      Caicus from the rampire saw it rise,
      Black’ning the fields, and thick’ning thro’ the skies.
      Then to his fellows thus aloud he calls:
      “What rolling clouds, my friends, approach the walls?
      Arm! arm! and man the works! prepare your spears
      And pointed darts! the Latian host appears.”

      Thus warn’d, they shut their gates; with shouts ascend
      The bulwarks, and, secure, their foes attend:
      For their wise gen’ral, with foreseeing care,
      Had charg’d them not to tempt the doubtful war,
      Nor, tho’ provok’d, in open fields advance,
      But close within their lines attend their chance.
      Unwilling, yet they keep the strict command,
      And sourly wait in arms the hostile band.
      The fiery Turnus flew before the rest:
      A piebald steed of Thracian strain he press’d;
      His helm of massy gold, and crimson was his crest.
      With twenty horse to second his designs,
      An unexpected foe, he fac’d the lines.
      “Is there,” he said, “in arms, who bravely dare
      His leader’s honour and his danger share?”
      Then spurring on, his brandish’d dart he threw,
      In sign of war: applauding shouts ensue.

      Amaz’d to find a dastard race, that run
      Behind the rampires and the battle shun,
      He rides around the camp, with rolling eyes,
      And stops at ev’ry post, and ev’ry passage tries.
      So roams the nightly wolf about the fold:
      Wet with descending show’rs, and stiff with cold,
      He howls for hunger, and he grins for pain,
      (His gnashing teeth are exercis’d in vain,)
      And, impotent of anger, finds no way
      In his distended paws to grasp the prey.
      The mothers listen; but the bleating lambs
      Securely swig the dug, beneath the dams.
      Thus ranges eager Turnus o’er the plain.
      Sharp with desire, and furious with disdain;
      Surveys each passage with a piercing sight,
      To force his foes in equal field to fight.
      Thus while he gazes round, at length he spies,
      Where, fenc’d with strong redoubts, their navy lies,
      Close underneath the walls; the washing tide
      Secures from all approach this weaker side.
      He takes the wish’d occasion, fills his hand
      With ready fires, and shakes a flaming brand.
      Urg’d by his presence, ev’ry soul is warm’d,
      And ev’ry hand with kindled fires is arm’d.
      From the fir’d pines the scatt’ring sparkles fly;
      Fat vapours, mix’d with flames, involve the sky.
      What pow’r, O Muses, could avert the flame
      Which threaten’d, in the fleet, the Trojan name?
      Tell: for the fact, thro’ length of time obscure,
      Is hard to faith; yet shall the fame endure.

      ’Tis said that, when the chief prepar’d his flight,
      And fell’d his timber from Mount Ida’s height,
      The grandam goddess then approach’d her son,
      And with a mother’s majesty begun:
      “Grant me,” she said, “the sole request I bring,
      Since conquer’d heav’n has own’d you for its king.
      On Ida’s brows, for ages past, there stood,
      With firs and maples fill’d, a shady wood;
      And on the summit rose a sacred grove,
      Where I was worship’d with religious love.
      Those woods, that holy grove, my long delight,
      I gave the Trojan prince, to speed his flight.
      Now, fill’d with fear, on their behalf I come;
      Let neither winds o’erset, nor waves intomb
      The floating forests of the sacred pine;
      But let it be their safety to be mine.”
      Then thus replied her awful son, who rolls
      The radiant stars, and heav’n and earth controls:
      “How dare you, mother, endless date demand
      For vessels moulded by a mortal hand?
      What then is fate? Shall bold Aeneas ride,
      Of safety certain, on th’ uncertain tide?
      Yet, what I can, I grant; when, wafted o’er,
      The chief is landed on the Latian shore,
      Whatever ships escape the raging storms,
      At my command shall change their fading forms
      To nymphs divine, and plow the wat’ry way,
      Like Dotis and the daughters of the sea.”
      To seal his sacred vow, by Styx he swore,
      The lake of liquid pitch, the dreary shore,
      And Phlegethon’s innavigable flood,
      And the black regions of his brother god.
      He said; and shook the skies with his imperial nod.

      And now at length the number’d hours were come,
      Prefix’d by fate’s irrevocable doom,
      When the great Mother of the Gods was free
      To save her ships, and finish Jove’s decree.
      First, from the quarter of the morn, there sprung
      A light that sign’d the heav’ns, and shot along;
      Then from a cloud, fring’d round with golden fires,
      Were timbrels heard, and Berecynthian choirs;
      And, last, a voice, with more than mortal sounds,
      Both hosts, in arms oppos’d, with equal horror wounds:
      “O Trojan race, your needless aid forbear,
      And know, my ships are my peculiar care.
      With greater ease the bold Rutulian may,
      With hissing brands, attempt to burn the sea,
      Than singe my sacred pines. But you, my charge,
      Loos’d from your crooked anchors, launch at large,
      Exalted each a nymph: forsake the sand,
      And swim the seas, at Cybele’s command.”
      No sooner had the goddess ceas’d to speak,
      When, lo! th’ obedient ships their haulsers break;
      And, strange to tell, like dolphins, in the main
      They plunge their prows, and dive, and spring again:
      As many beauteous maids the billows sweep,
      As rode before tall vessels on the deep.

      The foes, surpris’d with wonder, stood aghast;
      Messapus curb’d his fiery courser’s haste;
      Old Tiber roar’d, and, raising up his head,
      Call’d back his waters to their oozy bed.
      Turnus alone, undaunted, bore the shock,
      And with these words his trembling troops bespoke:
      “These monsters for the Trojans’ fate are meant,
      And are by Jove for black presages sent.
      He takes the cowards’ last relief away;
      For fly they cannot, and, constrain’d to stay,
      Must yield unfought, a base inglorious prey.
      The liquid half of all the globe is lost;
      Heav’n shuts the seas, and we secure the coast.
      Theirs is no more than that small spot of ground
      Which myriads of our martial men surround.
      Their fates I fear not, or vain oracles.
      ’Twas giv’n to Venus they should cross the seas,
      And land secure upon the Latian plains:
      Their promis’d hour is pass’d, and mine remains.
      ’Tis in the fate of Turnus to destroy,
      With sword and fire, the faithless race of Troy.
      Shall such affronts as these alone inflame
      The Grecian brothers, and the Grecian name?
      My cause and theirs is one; a fatal strife,
      And final ruin, for a ravish’d wife.
      Was ’t not enough, that, punish’d for the crime,
      They fell; but will they fall a second time?
      One would have thought they paid enough before,
      To curse the costly sex, and durst offend no more.
      Can they securely trust their feeble wall,
      A slight partition, a thin interval,
      Betwixt their fate and them; when Troy, tho’ built
      By hands divine, yet perish’d by their guilt?
      Lend me, for once, my friends, your valiant hands,
      To force from out their lines these dastard bands.
      Less than a thousand ships will end this war,
      Nor Vulcan needs his fated arms prepare.
      Let all the Tuscans, all th’ Arcadians, join!
      Nor these, nor those, shall frustrate my design.
      Let them not fear the treasons of the night,
      The robb’d Palladium, the pretended flight:
      Our onset shall be made in open light.
      No wooden engine shall their town betray;
      Fires they shall have around, but fires by day.
      No Grecian babes before their camp appear,
      Whom Hector’s arms detain’d to the tenth tardy year.
      Now, since the sun is rolling to the west,
      Give we the silent night to needful rest:
      Refresh your bodies, and your arms prepare;
      The morn shall end the small remains of war.”

      The post of honour to Messapus falls,
      To keep the nightly guard, to watch the walls,
      To pitch the fires at distances around,
      And close the Trojans in their scanty ground.
      Twice seven Rutulian captains ready stand,
      And twice seven hundred horse these chiefs command;
      All clad in shining arms the works invest,
      Each with a radiant helm and waving crest.
      Stretch’d at their length, they press the grassy ground;
      They laugh, they sing, (the jolly bowls go round,)
      With lights and cheerful fires renew the day,
      And pass the wakeful night in feasts and play.

      The Trojans, from above, their foes beheld,
      And with arm’d legions all the rampires fill’d.
      Seiz’d with affright, their gates they first explore;
      Join works to works with bridges, tow’r to tow’r:
      Thus all things needful for defence abound.
      Mnestheus and brave Seresthus walk the round,
      Commission’d by their absent prince to share
      The common danger, and divide the care.
      The soldiers draw their lots, and, as they fall,
      By turns relieve each other on the wall.

      Nigh where the foes their utmost guards advance,
      To watch the gate was warlike Nisus’ chance.
      His father Hyrtacus of noble blood;
      His mother was a huntress of the wood,
      And sent him to the wars. Well could he bear
      His lance in fight, and dart the flying spear,
      But better skill’d unerring shafts to send.
      Beside him stood Euryalus, his friend:
      Euryalus, than whom the Trojan host
      No fairer face, or sweeter air, could boast.
      Scarce had the down to shade his cheeks begun.
      One was their care, and their delight was one:
      One common hazard in the war they shar’d,
      And now were both by choice upon the guard.

      Then Nisus thus: “Or do the gods inspire
      This warmth, or make we gods of our desire?
      A gen’rous ardour boils within my breast,
      Eager of action, enemy to rest:
      This urges me to fight, and fires my mind
      To leave a memorable name behind.
      Thou see’st the foe secure; how faintly shine
      Their scatter’d fires! the most, in sleep supine
      Along the ground, an easy conquest lie:
      The wakeful few the fuming flagon ply;
      All hush’d around. Now hear what I revolve—
      A thought unripe—and scarcely yet resolve.
      Our absent prince both camp and council mourn;
      By message both would hasten his return:
      If they confer what I demand on thee,
      (For fame is recompense enough for me,)
      Methinks, beneath yon hill, I have espied
      A way that safely will my passage guide.”

      Euryalus stood list’ning while he spoke,
      With love of praise and noble envy struck;
      Then to his ardent friend expos’d his mind:
      “All this, alone, and leaving me behind!
      Am I unworthy, Nisus, to be join’d?
      Think’st thou I can my share of glory yield,
      Or send thee unassisted to the field?
      Not so my father taught my childhood arms;
      Born in a siege, and bred among alarms!
      Nor is my youth unworthy of my friend,
      Nor of the heav’n-born hero I attend.
      The thing call’d life, with ease I can disclaim,
      And think it over-sold to purchase fame.”

      Then Nisus thus: “Alas! thy tender years
      Would minister new matter to my fears.
      So may the gods, who view this friendly strife,
      Restore me to thy lov’d embrace with life,
      Condemn’d to pay my vows, (as sure I trust,)
      This thy request is cruel and unjust.
      But if some chance—as many chances are,
      And doubtful hazards, in the deeds of war—
      If one should reach my head, there let it fall,
      And spare thy life; I would not perish all.
      Thy bloomy youth deserves a longer date:
      Live thou to mourn thy love’s unhappy fate;
      To bear my mangled body from the foe,
      Or buy it back, and fun’ral rites bestow.
      Or, if hard fortune shall those dues deny,
      Thou canst at least an empty tomb supply.
      O let not me the widow’s tears renew!
      Nor let a mother’s curse my name pursue:
      Thy pious parent, who, for love of thee,
      Forsook the coasts of friendly Sicily,
      Her age committing to the seas and wind,
      When ev’ry weary matron stay’d behind.”
      To this, Euryalus: “You plead in vain,
      And but protract the cause you cannot gain.
      No more delays, but haste!” With that, he wakes
      The nodding watch; each to his office takes.
      The guard reliev’d, the gen’rous couple went
      To find the council at the royal tent.

      All creatures else forgot their daily care,
      And sleep, the common gift of nature, share;
      Except the Trojan peers, who wakeful sate
      In nightly council for th’ indanger’d state.
      They vote a message to their absent chief,
      Shew their distress, and beg a swift relief.
      Amid the camp a silent seat they chose,
      Remote from clamour, and secure from foes.
      On their left arms their ample shields they bear,
      The right reclin’d upon the bending spear.
      Now Nisus and his friend approach the guard,
      And beg admission, eager to be heard:
      Th’ affair important, not to be deferr’d.
      Ascanius bids ’em be conducted in,
      Ord’ring the more experienc’d to begin.
      Then Nisus thus: “Ye fathers, lend your ears;
      Nor judge our bold attempt beyond our years.
      The foe, securely drench’d in sleep and wine,
      Neglect their watch; the fires but thinly shine;
      And where the smoke in cloudy vapours flies,
      Cov’ring the plain, and curling to the skies,
      Betwixt two paths, which at the gate divide,
      Close by the sea, a passage we have spied,
      Which will our way to great Aeneas guide.
      Expect each hour to see him safe again,
      Loaded with spoils of foes in battle slain.
      Snatch we the lucky minute while we may;
      Nor can we be mistaken in the way;
      For, hunting in the vale, we both have seen
      The rising turrets, and the stream between,
      And know the winding course, with ev’ry ford.”

      He ceas’d; and old Alethes took the word:
      “Our country gods, in whom our trust we place,
      Will yet from ruin save the Trojan race,
      While we behold such dauntless worth appear
      In dawning youth, and souls so void of fear.”
      Then into tears of joy the father broke;
      Each in his longing arms by turns he took;
      Panted and paus’d; and thus again he spoke:
      “Ye brave young men, what equal gifts can we,
      In recompense of such desert, decree?
      The greatest, sure, and best you can receive,
      The gods and your own conscious worth will give.
      The rest our grateful gen’ral will bestow,
      And young Ascanius till his manhood owe.”

      “And I, whose welfare in my father lies,”
      Ascanius adds, “by the great deities,
      By my dear country, by my household gods,
      By hoary Vesta’s rites and dark abodes,
      Adjure you both, (on you my fortune stands;
      That and my faith I plight into your hands,)
      Make me but happy in his safe return,
      Whose wanted presence I can only mourn;
      Your common gift shall two large goblets be
      Of silver, wrought with curious imagery,
      And high emboss’d, which, when old Priam reign’d,
      My conqu’ring sire at sack’d Arisba gain’d;
      And more, two tripods cast in antique mould,
      With two great talents of the finest gold;
      Beside a costly bowl, ingrav’d with art,
      Which Dido gave, when first she gave her heart.
      But, if in conquer’d Italy we reign,
      When spoils by lot the victor shall obtain—
      Thou saw’st the courser by proud Turnus press’d:
      That, Nisus, and his arms, and nodding crest,
      And shield, from chance exempt, shall be thy share:
      Twelve lab’ring slaves, twelve handmaids young and fair
      All clad in rich attire, and train’d with care;
      And, last, a Latian field with fruitful plains,
      And a large portion of the king’s domains.
      But thou, whose years are more to mine allied,
      No fate my vow’d affection shall divide
      From thee, heroic youth! Be wholly mine;
      Take full possession; all my soul is thine.
      One faith, one fame, one fate, shall both attend;
      My life’s companion, and my bosom friend:
      My peace shall be committed to thy care,
      And to thy conduct my concerns in war.”

      Then thus the young Euryalus replied:
      “Whatever fortune, good or bad, betide,
      The same shall be my age, as now my youth;
      No time shall find me wanting to my truth.
      This only from your goodness let me gain
      (And, this ungranted, all rewards are vain)
      Of Priam’s royal race my mother came—
      And sure the best that ever bore the name—
      Whom neither Troy nor Sicily could hold
      From me departing, but, o’erspent and old,
      My fate she follow’d. Ignorant of this
      (Whatever) danger, neither parting kiss,
      Nor pious blessing taken, her I leave,
      And in this only act of all my life deceive.
      By this right hand and conscious night I swear,
      My soul so sad a farewell could not bear.
      Be you her comfort; fill my vacant place
      (Permit me to presume so great a grace)
      Support her age, forsaken and distress’d.
      That hope alone will fortify my breast
      Against the worst of fortunes, and of fears.”
      He said. The mov’d assistants melt in tears.

      Then thus Ascanius, wonderstruck to see
      That image of his filial piety:
      “So great beginnings, in so green an age,
      Exact the faith which I again engage.
      Thy mother all the dues shall justly claim,
      Creusa had, and only want the name.
      Whate’er event thy bold attempt shall have,
      ’Tis merit to have borne a son so brave.
      Now by my head, a sacred oath, I swear,
      (My father us’d it,) what, returning here
      Crown’d with success, I for thyself prepare,
      That, if thou fail, shall thy lov’d mother share.”

      He said, and weeping, while he spoke the word,
      From his broad belt he drew a shining sword,
      Magnificent with gold. Lycaon made,
      And in an ivory scabbard sheath’d the blade.
      This was his gift. Great Mnestheus gave his friend
      A lion’s hide, his body to defend;
      And good Alethes furnish’d him, beside,
      With his own trusty helm, of temper tried.

      Thus arm’d they went. The noble Trojans wait
      Their issuing forth, and follow to the gate
      With prayers and vows. Above the rest appears
      Ascanius, manly far beyond his years,
      And messages committed to their care,
      Which all in winds were lost, and flitting air.

      The trenches first they pass’d; then took their way
      Where their proud foes in pitch’d pavilions lay;
      To many fatal, ere themselves were slain.
      They found the careless host dispers’d upon the plain,
      Who, gorg’d, and drunk with wine, supinely snore.
      Unharness’d chariots stand along the shore:
      Amidst the wheels and reins, the goblet by,
      A medley of debauch and war, they lie.
      Observing Nisus shew’d his friend the sight:
      “Behold a conquest gain’d without a fight.
      Occasion offers, and I stand prepar’d;
      There lies our way; be thou upon the guard,
      And look around, while I securely go,
      And hew a passage thro’ the sleeping foe.”
      Softly he spoke; then striding took his way,
      With his drawn sword, where haughty Rhamnes lay;
      His head rais’d high on tapestry beneath,
      And heaving from his breast, he drew his breath;
      A king and prophet, by King Turnus lov’d:
      But fate by prescience cannot be remov’d.
      Him and his sleeping slaves he slew; then spies
      Where Remus, with his rich retinue, lies.
      His armour-bearer first, and next he kills
      His charioteer, intrench’d betwixt the wheels
      And his lov’d horses; last invades their lord;
      Full on his neck he drives the fatal sword:
      The gasping head flies off; a purple flood
      Flows from the trunk, that welters in the blood,
      Which, by the spurning heels dispers’d around,
      The bed besprinkles and bedews the ground.
      Lamus the bold, and Lamyrus the strong,
      He slew, and then Serranus fair and young.
      From dice and wine the youth retir’d to rest,
      And puff’d the fumy god from out his breast:
      Ev’n then he dreamt of drink and lucky play—
      More lucky, had it lasted till the day.
      The famish’d lion thus, with hunger bold,
      O’erleaps the fences of the nightly fold,
      And tears the peaceful flocks: with silent awe
      Trembling they lie, and pant beneath his paw.

      Nor with less rage Euryalus employs
      The wrathful sword, or fewer foes destroys;
      But on th’ ignoble crowd his fury flew;
      He Fadus, Hebesus, and Rhoetus slew.
      Oppress’d with heavy sleep the former fell,
      But Rhoetus wakeful, and observing all:
      Behind a spacious jar he slink’d for fear;
      The fatal iron found and reach’d him there;
      For, as he rose, it pierc’d his naked side,
      And, reeking, thence return’d in crimson dyed.
      The wound pours out a stream of wine and blood;
      The purple soul comes floating in the flood.

      Now, where Messapus quarter’d, they arrive.
      The fires were fainting there, and just alive;
      The warrior-horses, tied in order, fed.
      Nisus observ’d the discipline, and said:
      “Our eager thirst of blood may both betray;
      And see the scatter’d streaks of dawning day,
      Foe to nocturnal thefts. No more, my friend;
      Here let our glutted execution end.
      A lane thro’ slaughter’d bodies we have made.”
      The bold Euryalus, tho’ loth, obey’d.
      Of arms, and arras, and of plate, they find
      A precious load; but these they leave behind.
      Yet, fond of gaudy spoils, the boy would stay
      To make the rich caparison his prey,
      Which on the steed of conquer’d Rhamnes lay.
      Nor did his eyes less longingly behold
      The girdle-belt, with nails of burnish’d gold.
      This present Caedicus the rich bestow’d
      On Remulus, when friendship first they vow’d,
      And, absent, join’d in hospitable ties:
      He, dying, to his heir bequeath’d the prize;
      Till, by the conqu’ring Ardean troops oppress’d,
      He fell; and they the glorious gift possess’d.
      These glitt’ring spoils (now made the victor’s gain)
      He to his body suits, but suits in vain:
      Messapus’ helm he finds among the rest,
      And laces on, and wears the waving crest.
      Proud of their conquest, prouder of their prey,
      They leave the camp, and take the ready way.

      But far they had not pass’d, before they spied
      Three hundred horse, with Volscens for their guide.
      The queen a legion to King Turnus sent;
      But the swift horse the slower foot prevent,
      And now, advancing, sought the leader’s tent.
      They saw the pair; for, thro’ the doubtful shade,
      His shining helm Euryalus betray’d,
      On which the moon with full reflection play’d.
      “’Tis not for naught,” cried Volscens from the crowd,
      “These men go there;” then rais’d his voice aloud:
      “Stand! stand! why thus in arms? And whither bent?
      From whence, to whom, and on what errand sent?”
      Silent they scud away, and haste their flight
      To neighb’ring woods, and trust themselves to night.
      The speedy horse all passages belay,
      And spur their smoking steeds to cross their way,
      And watch each entrance of the winding wood.
      Black was the forest: thick with beech it stood,
      Horrid with fern, and intricate with thorn;
      Few paths of human feet, or tracks of beasts, were worn.
      The darkness of the shades, his heavy prey,
      And fear, misled the younger from his way.
      But Nisus hit the turns with happier haste,
      And, thoughtless of his friend, the forest pass’d,
      And Alban plains, from Alba’s name so call’d,
      Where King Latinus then his oxen stall’d;
      Till, turning at the length, he stood his ground,
      And miss’d his friend, and cast his eyes around:
      “Ah wretch!” he cried, “where have I left behind
      Th’ unhappy youth? where shall I hope to find?
      Or what way take?” Again he ventures back,
      And treads the mazes of his former track.
      He winds the wood, and, list’ning, hears the noise
      Of tramping coursers, and the riders’ voice.
      The sound approach’d; and suddenly he view’d
      The foes inclosing, and his friend pursued,
      Forelaid and taken, while he strove in vain
      The shelter of the friendly shades to gain.
      What should he next attempt? what arms employ,
      What fruitless force, to free the captive boy?
      Or desperate should he rush and lose his life,
      With odds oppress’d, in such unequal strife?

      Resolv’d at length, his pointed spear he shook;
      And, casting on the moon a mournful look:
      “Guardian of groves, and goddess of the night,
      Fair queen,” he said, “direct my dart aright.
      If e’er my pious father, for my sake,
      Did grateful off’rings on thy altars make,
      Or I increas’d them with my sylvan toils,
      And hung thy holy roofs with savage spoils,
      Give me to scatter these.” Then from his ear
      He pois’d, and aim’d, and launch’d the trembling spear.
      The deadly weapon, hissing from the grove,
      Impetuous on the back of Sulmo drove;
      Pierc’d his thin armour, drank his vital blood,
      And in his body left the broken wood.
      He staggers round; his eyeballs roll in death,
      And with short sobs he gasps away his breath.
      All stand amaz’d—a second jav’lin flies
      With equal strength, and quivers thro’ the skies.
      This thro’ thy temples, Tagus, forc’d the way,
      And in the brainpan warmly buried lay.
      Fierce Volscens foams with rage, and, gazing round,
      Descried not him who gave the fatal wound,
      Nor knew to fix revenge: “But thou,” he cries,
      “Shalt pay for both,” and at the pris’ner flies
      With his drawn sword. Then, struck with deep despair,
      That cruel sight the lover could not bear;
      But from his covert rush’d in open view,
      And sent his voice before him as he flew:
      “Me! me!” he cried—“turn all your swords alone
      On me—the fact confess’d, the fault my own.
      He neither could nor durst, the guiltless youth:
      Ye moon and stars, bear witness to the truth!
      His only crime (if friendship can offend)
      Is too much love to his unhappy friend.”
      Too late he speaks: the sword, which fury guides,
      Driv’n with full force, had pierc’d his tender sides.
      Down fell the beauteous youth: the yawning wound
      Gush’d out a purple stream, and stain’d the ground.
      His snowy neck reclines upon his breast,
      Like a fair flow’r by the keen share oppress’d;
      Like a white poppy sinking on the plain,
      Whose heavy head is overcharg’d with rain.
      Despair, and rage, and vengeance justly vow’d,
      Drove Nisus headlong on the hostile crowd.
      Volscens he seeks; on him alone he bends:
      Borne back and bor’d by his surrounding friends,
      Onward he press’d, and kept him still in sight;
      Then whirl’d aloft his sword with all his might:
      Th’ unerring steel descended while he spoke,
      Pierc’d his wide mouth, and thro’ his weazon broke.
      Dying, he slew; and, stagg’ring on the plain,
      With swimming eyes he sought his lover slain;
      Then quiet on his bleeding bosom fell,
      Content, in death, to be reveng’d so well.

      O happy friends! for, if my verse can give
      Immortal life, your fame shall ever live,
      Fix’d as the Capitol’s foundation lies,
      And spread, where’er the Roman eagle flies!

      The conqu’ring party first divide the prey,
      Then their slain leader to the camp convey.
      With wonder, as they went, the troops were fill’d,
      To see such numbers whom so few had kill’d.
      Serranus, Rhamnes, and the rest, they found:
      Vast crowds the dying and the dead surround;
      And the yet reeking blood o’erflows the ground.
      All knew the helmet which Messapus lost,
      But mourn’d a purchase that so dear had cost.
      Now rose the ruddy morn from Tithon’s bed,
      And with the dawn of day the skies o’erspread;
      Nor long the sun his daily course withheld,
      But added colours to the world reveal’d:
      When early Turnus, wak’ning with the light,
      All clad in armour, calls his troops to fight.
      His martial men with fierce harangue he fir’d,
      And his own ardour in their souls inspir’d.
      This done—to give new terror to his foes,
      The heads of Nisus and his friend he shows,
      Rais’d high on pointed spears—a ghastly sight:
      Loud peals of shouts ensue, and barbarous delight.

      Meantime the Trojans run, where danger calls;
      They line their trenches, and they man their walls.
      In front extended to the left they stood;
      Safe was the right, surrounded by the flood.
      But, casting from their tow’rs a frightful view,
      They saw the faces, which too well they knew,
      Tho’ then disguis’d in death, and smear’d all o’er
      With filth obscene, and dropping putrid gore.
      Soon hasty fame thro’ the sad city bears
      The mournful message to the mother’s ears.
      An icy cold benumbs her limbs; she shakes;
      Her cheeks the blood, her hand the web forsakes.
      She runs the rampires round amidst the war,
      Nor fears the flying darts; she rends her hair,
      And fills with loud laments the liquid air.
      “Thus, then, my lov’d Euryalus appears!
      Thus looks the prop of my declining years!
      Was’t on this face my famish’d eyes I fed?
      Ah! how unlike the living is the dead!
      And could’st thou leave me, cruel, thus alone?
      Not one kind kiss from a departing son!
      No look, no last adieu before he went,
      In an ill-boding hour to slaughter sent!
      Cold on the ground, and pressing foreign clay,
      To Latian dogs and fowls he lies a prey!
      Nor was I near to close his dying eyes,
      To wash his wounds, to weep his obsequies,
      To call about his corpse his crying friends,
      Or spread the mantle (made for other ends)
      On his dear body, which I wove with care,
      Nor did my daily pains or nightly labour spare.
      Where shall I find his corpse? what earth sustains
      His trunk dismember’d, and his cold remains?
      For this, alas! I left my needful ease,
      Expos’d my life to winds and winter seas!
      If any pity touch Rutulian hearts,
      Here empty all your quivers, all your darts;
      Or, if they fail, thou, Jove, conclude my woe,
      And send me thunderstruck to shades below!”
      Her shrieks and clamours pierce the Trojans’ ears,
      Unman their courage, and augment their fears;
      Nor young Ascanius could the sight sustain,
      Nor old Ilioneus his tears restrain,
      But Actor and Idaeus jointly sent,
      To bear the madding mother to her tent.

      And now the trumpets terribly, from far,
      With rattling clangour, rouse the sleepy war.
      The soldiers’ shouts succeed the brazen sounds;
      And heav’n, from pole to pole, the noise rebounds.
      The Volscians bear their shields upon their head,
      And, rushing forward, form a moving shed.
      These fill the ditch; those pull the bulwarks down:
      Some raise the ladders; others scale the town.
      But, where void spaces on the walls appear,
      Or thin defence, they pour their forces there.
      With poles and missive weapons, from afar,
      The Trojans keep aloof the rising war.
      Taught, by their ten years’ siege, defensive fight,
      They roll down ribs of rocks, an unresisted weight,
      To break the penthouse with the pond’rous blow,
      Which yet the patient Volscians undergo:
      But could not bear th’ unequal combat long;
      For, where the Trojans find the thickest throng,
      The ruin falls: their shatter’d shields give way,
      And their crush’d heads become an easy prey.
      They shrink for fear, abated of their rage,
      Nor longer dare in a blind fight engage;
      Contented now to gall them from below
      With darts and slings, and with the distant bow.

      Elsewhere Mezentius, terrible to view,
      A blazing pine within the trenches threw.
      But brave Messapus, Neptune’s warlike son,
      Broke down the palisades, the trenches won,
      And loud for ladders calls, to scale the town.

      Calliope, begin! Ye sacred Nine,
      Inspire your poet in his high design,
      To sing what slaughter manly Turnus made,
      What souls he sent below the Stygian shade,
      What fame the soldiers with their captain share,
      And the vast circuit of the fatal war;
      For you in singing martial facts excel;
      You best remember, and alone can tell.

      There stood a tow’r, amazing to the sight,
      Built up of beams, and of stupendous height:
      Art, and the nature of the place, conspir’d
      To furnish all the strength that war requir’d.
      To level this, the bold Italians join;
      The wary Trojans obviate their design;
      With weighty stones o’erwhelm their troops below,
      Shoot thro’ the loopholes, and sharp jav’lins throw.
      Turnus, the chief, toss’d from his thund’ring hand
      Against the wooden walls, a flaming brand:
      It stuck, the fiery plague; the winds were high;
      The planks were season’d, and the timber dry.
      Contagion caught the posts; it spread along,
      Scorch’d, and to distance drove the scatter’d throng.
      The Trojans fled; the fire pursued amain,
      Still gath’ring fast upon the trembling train;
      Till, crowding to the corners of the wall,
      Down the defence and the defenders fall.
      The mighty flaw makes heav’n itself resound:
      The dead and dying Trojans strew the ground.
      The tow’r, that follow’d on the fallen crew,
      Whelm’d o’er their heads, and buried whom it slew:
      Some stuck upon the darts themselves had sent;
      All the same equal ruin underwent.

      Young Lycus and Helenor only scape;
      Sav’d—how, they know not—from the steepy leap.
      Helenor, elder of the two: by birth,
      On one side royal, one a son of earth,
      Whom to the Lydian king Licymnia bare,
      And sent her boasted bastard to the war
      (A privilege which none but freemen share).
      Slight were his arms, a sword and silver shield:
      No marks of honour charg’d its empty field.
      Light as he fell, so light the youth arose,
      And rising, found himself amidst his foes;
      Nor flight was left, nor hopes to force his way.
      Embolden’d by despair, he stood at bay;
      And, like a stag, whom all the troop surrounds
      Of eager huntsmen and invading hounds
      Resolv’d on death, he dissipates his fears,
      And bounds aloft against the pointed spears:
      So dares the youth, secure of death; and throws
      His dying body on his thickest foes.
      But Lycus, swifter of his feet by far,
      Runs, doubles, winds and turns, amidst the war;
      Springs to the walls, and leaves his foes behind,
      And snatches at the beam he first can find;
      Looks up, and leaps aloft at all the stretch,
      In hopes the helping hand of some kind friend to reach.
      But Turnus follow’d hard his hunted prey
      (His spear had almost reach’d him in the way,
      Short of his reins, and scarce a span behind)
      “Fool!” said the chief, “tho’ fleeter than the wind,
      Couldst thou presume to scape, when I pursue?”
      He said, and downward by the feet he drew
      The trembling dastard; at the tug he falls;
      Vast ruins come along, rent from the smoking walls.
      Thus on some silver swan, or tim’rous hare,
      Jove’s bird comes sousing down from upper air;
      Her crooked talons truss the fearful prey:
      Then out of sight she soars, and wings her way.
      So seizes the grim wolf the tender lamb,
      In vain lamented by the bleating dam.

      Then rushing onward with a barb’rous cry,
      The troops of Turnus to the combat fly.
      The ditch with fagots fill’d, the daring foe
      Toss’d firebrands to the steepy turrets throw.

      Ilioneus, as bold Lucetius came
      To force the gate, and feed the kindling flame,
      Roll’d down the fragment of a rock so right,
      It crush’d him double underneath the weight.
      Two more young Liger and Asylas slew:
      To bend the bow young Liger better knew;
      Asylas best the pointed jav’lin threw.
      Brave Caeneus laid Ortygius on the plain;
      The victor Caeneus was by Turnus slain.
      By the same hand, Clonius and Itys fall,
      Sagar, and Ida, standing on the wall.
      From Capys’ arms his fate Privernus found:
      Hurt by Themilla first—but slight the wound—
      His shield thrown by, to mitigate the smart,
      He clapp’d his hand upon the wounded part:
      The second shaft came swift and unespied,
      And pierc’d his hand, and nail’d it to his side,
      Transfix’d his breathing lungs and beating heart:
      The soul came issuing out, and hiss’d against the dart.

      The son of Arcens shone amid the rest,
      In glitt’ring armour and a purple vest,
      (Fair was his face, his eyes inspiring love,)
      Bred by his father in the Martian grove,
      Where the fat altars of Palicus flame,
      And send in arms to purchase early fame.
      Him when he spied from far, the Tuscan king
      Laid by the lance, and took him to the sling,
      Thrice whirl’d the thong around his head, and threw:
      The heated lead half melted as it flew;
      It pierc’d his hollow temples and his brain;
      The youth came tumbling down, and spurn’d the plain.

      Then young Ascanius, who, before this day,
      Was wont in woods to shoot the savage prey,
      First bent in martial strife the twanging bow,
      And exercis’d against a human foe—
      With this bereft Numanus of his life,
      Who Turnus’ younger sister took to wife.
      Proud of his realm, and of his royal bride,
      Vaunting before his troops, and lengthen’d with a stride,
      In these insulting terms the Trojans he defied:

      “Twice-conquer’d cowards, now your shame is shown—
      Coop’d up a second time within your town!
      Who dare not issue forth in open field,
      But hold your walls before you for a shield.
      Thus treat you war? thus our alliance force?
      What gods, what madness, hither steer’d your course?
      You shall not find the sons of Atreus here,
      Nor need the frauds of sly Ulysses fear.
      Strong from the cradle, of a sturdy brood,
      We bear our newborn infants to the flood;
      There bath’d amid the stream, our boys we hold,
      With winter harden’d, and inur’d to cold.
      They wake before the day to range the wood,
      Kill ere they eat, nor taste unconquer’d food.
      No sports, but what belong to war, they know:
      To break the stubborn colt, to bend the bow.
      Our youth, of labour patient, earn their bread;
      Hardly they work, with frugal diet fed.
      From plows and harrows sent to seek renown,
      They fight in fields, and storm the shaken town.
      No part of life from toils of war is free,
      No change in age, or diff’rence in degree.
      We plow and till in arms; our oxen feel,
      Instead of goads, the spur and pointed steel;
      Th’ inverted lance makes furrows in the plain.
      Ev’n time, that changes all, yet changes us in vain:
      The body, not the mind; nor can control
      Th’ immortal vigour, or abate the soul.
      Our helms defend the young, disguise the gray:
      We live by plunder, and delight in prey.
      Your vests embroider’d with rich purple shine;
      In sloth you glory, and in dances join.
      Your vests have sweeping sleeves; with female pride
      Your turbans underneath your chins are tied.
      Go, Phrygians, to your Dindymus again!
      Go, less than women, in the shapes of men!
      Go, mix’d with eunuchs, in the Mother’s rites,
      Where with unequal sound the flute invites;
      Sing, dance, and howl, by turns, in Ida’s shade:
      Resign the war to men, who know the martial trade!”

      This foul reproach Ascanius could not hear
      With patience, or a vow’d revenge forbear.
      At the full stretch of both his hands he drew,
      And almost join’d the horns of the tough yew.
      But, first, before the throne of Jove he stood,
      And thus with lifted hands invok’d the god:
      “My first attempt, great Jupiter, succeed!
      An annual off’ring in thy grove shall bleed;
      A snow-white steer, before thy altar led,
      Who, like his mother, bears aloft his head,
      Butts with his threat’ning brows, and bellowing stands,
      And dares the fight, and spurns the yellow sands.”

      Jove bow’d the heav’ns, and lent a gracious ear,
      And thunder’d on the left, amidst the clear.
      Sounded at once the bow; and swiftly flies
      The feather’d death, and hisses thro’ the skies.
      The steel thro’ both his temples forc’d the way:
      Extended on the ground, Numanus lay.
      “Go now, vain boaster, and true valour scorn!
      The Phrygians, twice subdued, yet make this third return.”
      Ascanius said no more. The Trojans shake
      The heav’ns with shouting, and new vigour take.

      Apollo then bestrode a golden cloud,
      To view the feats of arms, and fighting crowd;
      And thus the beardless victor he bespoke aloud:
      “Advance, illustrious youth, increase in fame,
      And wide from east to west extend thy name;
      Offspring of gods thyself; and Rome shall owe
      To thee a race of demigods below.
      This is the way to heav’n: the pow’rs divine
      From this beginning date the Julian line.
      To thee, to them, and their victorious heirs,
      The conquer’d war is due, and the vast world is theirs.
      Troy is too narrow for thy name.” He said,
      And plunging downward shot his radiant head;
      Dispell’d the breathing air, that broke his flight:
      Shorn of his beams, a man to mortal sight.
      Old Butes’ form he took, Anchises’ squire,
      Now left, to rule Ascanius, by his sire:
      His wrinkled visage, and his hoary hairs,
      His mien, his habit, and his arms, he wears,
      And thus salutes the boy, too forward for his years:
      “Suffice it thee, thy father’s worthy son,
      The warlike prize thou hast already won.
      The god of archers gives thy youth a part
      Of his own praise, nor envies equal art.
      Now tempt the war no more.” He said, and flew
      Obscure in air, and vanish’d from their view.
      The Trojans, by his arms, their patron know,
      And hear the twanging of his heav’nly bow.
      Then duteous force they use, and Phoebus’ name,
      To keep from fight the youth too fond of fame.
      Undaunted, they themselves no danger shun;
      From wall to wall the shouts and clamours run.
      They bend their bows; they whirl their slings around;
      Heaps of spent arrows fall, and strew the ground;
      And helms, and shields, and rattling arms resound.
      The combat thickens, like the storm that flies
      From westward, when the show’ry Kids arise;
      Or patt’ring hail comes pouring on the main,
      When Jupiter descends in harden’d rain,
      Or bellowing clouds burst with a stormy sound,
      And with an armed winter strew the ground.

      Pand’rus and Bitias, thunderbolts of war,
      Whom Hiera to bold Alcanor bare
      On Ida’s top, two youths of height and size
      Like firs that on their mother mountain rise,
      Presuming on their force, the gates unbar,
      And of their own accord invite the war.
      With fates averse, against their king’s command,
      Arm’d, on the right and on the left they stand,
      And flank the passage: shining steel they wear,
      And waving crests above their heads appear.
      Thus two tall oaks, that Padus’ banks adorn,
      Lift up to heav’n their leafy heads unshorn,
      And, overpress’d with nature’s heavy load,
      Dance to the whistling winds, and at each other nod.
      In flows a tide of Latians, when they see
      The gate set open, and the passage free;
      Bold Quercens, with rash Tmarus, rushing on,
      Equicolus, that in bright armour shone,
      And Haemon first; but soon repuls’d they fly,
      Or in the well-defended pass they die.
      These with success are fir’d, and those with rage,
      And each on equal terms at length engage.
      Drawn from their lines, and issuing on the plain,
      The Trojans hand to hand the fight maintain.

      Fierce Turnus in another quarter fought,
      When suddenly th’ unhop’d-for news was brought,
      The foes had left the fastness of their place,
      Prevail’d in fight, and had his men in chase.
      He quits th’ attack, and, to prevent their fate,
      Runs where the giant brothers guard the gate.
      The first he met, Antiphates the brave,
      But base-begotten on a Theban slave,
      Sarpedon’s son, he slew: the deadly dart
      Found passage thro’ his breast, and pierc’d his heart.
      Fix’d in the wound th’ Italian cornel stood,
      Warm’d in his lungs, and in his vital blood.
      Aphidnus next, and Erymanthus dies,
      And Meropes, and the gigantic size
      Of Bitias, threat’ning with his ardent eyes.
      Not by the feeble dart he fell oppress’d
      (A dart were lost within that roomy breast),
      But from a knotted lance, large, heavy, strong,
      Which roar’d like thunder as it whirl’d along:
      Not two bull hides th’ impetuous force withhold,
      Nor coat of double mail, with scales of gold.
      Down sunk the monster bulk and press’d the ground;
      His arms and clatt’ring shield on the vast body sound,
      Not with less ruin than the Bajan mole,
      Rais’d on the seas, the surges to control—
      At once comes tumbling down the rocky wall;
      Prone to the deep, the stones disjointed fall
      Of the vast pile; the scatter’d ocean flies;
      Black sands, discolour’d froth, and mingled mud arise:
      The frighted billows roll, and seek the shores;
      Then trembles Prochyta, then Ischia roars:
      Typhoeus, thrown beneath, by Jove’s command,
      Astonish’d at the flaw that shakes the land,
      Soon shifts his weary side, and, scarce awake,
      With wonder feels the weight press lighter on his back.

      The warrior god the Latian troops inspir’d,
      New strung their sinews, and their courage fir’d,
      But chills the Trojan hearts with cold affright:
      Then black despair precipitates their flight.

      When Pandarus beheld his brother kill’d,
      The town with fear and wild confusion fill’d,
      He turns the hinges of the heavy gate
      With both his hands, and adds his shoulders to the weight
      Some happier friends within the walls inclos’d;
      The rest shut out, to certain death expos’d:
      Fool as he was, and frantic in his care,
      T’ admit young Turnus, and include the war!
      He thrust amid the crowd, securely bold,
      Like a fierce tiger pent amid the fold.
      Too late his blazing buckler they descry,
      And sparkling fires that shot from either eye,
      His mighty members, and his ample breast,
      His rattling armour, and his crimson crest.

      Far from that hated face the Trojans fly,
      All but the fool who sought his destiny.
      Mad Pandarus steps forth, with vengeance vow’d
      For Bitias’ death, and threatens thus aloud:
      “These are not Ardea’s walls, nor this the town
      Amata proffers with Lavinia’s crown:
      ’Tis hostile earth you tread. Of hope bereft,
      No means of safe return by flight are left.”
      To whom, with count’nance calm, and soul sedate,
      Thus Turnus: “Then begin, and try thy fate:
      My message to the ghost of Priam bear;
      Tell him a new Achilles sent thee there.”

      A lance of tough ground ash the Trojan threw,
      Rough in the rind, and knotted as it grew:
      With his full force he whirl’d it first around;
      But the soft yielding air receiv’d the wound:
      Imperial Juno turn’d the course before,
      And fix’d the wand’ring weapon in the door.

      “But hope not thou,” said Turnus, “when I strike,
      To shun thy fate: our force is not alike,
      Nor thy steel temper’d by the Lemnian god.”
      Then rising, on his utmost stretch he stood,
      And aim’d from high: the full descending blow
      Cleaves the broad front and beardless cheeks in two.
      Down sinks the giant with a thund’ring sound:
      His pond’rous limbs oppress the trembling ground;
      Blood, brains, and foam gush from the gaping wound:
      Scalp, face, and shoulders the keen steel divides,
      And the shar’d visage hangs on equal sides.
      The Trojans fly from their approaching fate;
      And, had the victor then secur’d the gate,
      And to his troops without unclos’d the bars,
      One lucky day had ended all his wars.
      But boiling youth, and blind desire of blood,
      Push’d on his fury, to pursue the crowd.
      Hamstring’d behind, unhappy Gyges died;
      Then Phalaris is added to his side.
      The pointed jav’lins from the dead he drew,
      And their friends’ arms against their fellows threw.
      Strong Halys stands in vain; weak Phlegys flies;
      Saturnia, still at hand, new force and fire supplies.
      Then Halius, Prytanis, Alcander fall—
      Engag’d against the foes who scal’d the wall:
      But, whom they fear’d without, they found within.
      At last, tho’ late, by Lynceus he was seen.
      He calls new succours, and assaults the prince:
      But weak his force, and vain is their defence.
      Turn’d to the right, his sword the hero drew,
      And at one blow the bold aggressor slew.
      He joints the neck; and, with a stroke so strong,
      The helm flies off, and bears the head along.
      Next him, the huntsman Amycus he kill’d,
      In darts envenom’d and in poison skill’d.
      Then Clytius fell beneath his fatal spear,
      And Creteus, whom the Muses held so dear:
      He fought with courage, and he sung the fight;
      Arms were his bus’ness, verses his delight.

      The Trojan chiefs behold, with rage and grief,
      Their slaughter’d friends, and hasten their relief.
      Bold Mnestheus rallies first the broken train,
      Whom brave Seresthus and his troop sustain.
      To save the living, and revenge the dead,
      Against one warrior’s arms all Troy they led.
      “O, void of sense and courage!” Mnestheus cried,
      “Where can you hope your coward heads to hide?
      Ah! where beyond these rampires can you run?
      One man, and in your camp inclos’d, you shun!
      Shall then a single sword such slaughter boast,
      And pass unpunish’d from a num’rous host?
      Forsaking honour, and renouncing fame,
      Your gods, your country, and your king you shame!”
      This just reproach their virtue does excite:
      They stand, they join, they thicken to the fight.

      Now Turnus doubts, and yet disdains to yield,
      But with slow paces measures back the field,
      And inches to the walls, where Tiber’s tide,
      Washing the camp, defends the weaker side.
      The more he loses, they advance the more,
      And tread in ev’ry step he trod before.
      They shout: they bear him back; and, whom by might
      They cannot conquer, they oppress with weight.

      As, compass’d with a wood of spears around,
      The lordly lion still maintains his ground;
      Grins horrible, retires, and turns again;
      Threats his distended paws, and shakes his mane;
      He loses while in vain he presses on,
      Nor will his courage let him dare to run:
      So Turnus fares, and, unresolved of flight,
      Moves tardy back, and just recedes from fight.
      Yet twice, enrag’d, the combat he renews,
      Twice breaks, and twice his broken foes pursues.
      But now they swarm, and, with fresh troops supplied,
      Come rolling on, and rush from ev’ry side:
      Nor Juno, who sustain’d his arms before,
      Dares with new strength suffice th’ exhausted store;
      For Jove, with sour commands, sent Iris down,
      To force th’ invader from the frighted town.

      With labour spent, no longer can he wield
      The heavy falchion, or sustain the shield,
      O’erwhelm’d with darts, which from afar they fling:
      The weapons round his hollow temples ring;
      His golden helm gives way, with stony blows
      Batter’d, and flat, and beaten to his brows.
      His crest is rash’d away; his ample shield
      Is falsified, and round with jav’lins fill’d.

      The foe, now faint, the Trojans overwhelm;
      And Mnestheus lays hard load upon his helm.
      Sick sweat succeeds; he drops at ev’ry pore;
      With driving dust his cheeks are pasted o’er;
      Shorter and shorter ev’ry gasp he takes;
      And vain efforts and hurtless blows he makes.
      Plung’d in the flood, and made the waters fly.
      The yellow god the welcome burthen bore,
      And wip’d the sweat, and wash’d away the gore;
      Then gently wafts him to the farther coast,
      And sends him safe to cheer his anxious host.



 BOOK X

 THE ARGUMENT.


      Jupiter, calling a council of the gods, forbids them to engage in
      either party. At Aeneas’ return there is a bloody battle: Turnus
      killing Pallas; Aeneas, Lausus, and Mezentius. Mezentius is
      described as an atheist; Lausus as a pious and virtuous youth.
      The different actions and death of these two are the subject of a
      noble episode.


      The gates of heav’n unfold: Jove summons all
      The gods to council in the common hall.
      Sublimely seated, he surveys from far
      The fields, the camp, the fortune of the war,
      And all th’ inferior world. From first to last,
      The sov’reign senate in degrees are plac’d.

      Then thus th’ almighty sire began: “Ye gods,
      Natives or denizens of blest abodes,
      From whence these murmurs, and this change of mind,
      This backward fate from what was first design’d?
      Why this protracted war, when my commands
      Pronounc’d a peace, and gave the Latian lands?
      What fear or hope on either part divides
      Our heav’ns, and arms our powers on diff’rent sides?
      A lawful time of war at length will come,
      (Nor need your haste anticipate the doom),
      When Carthage shall contend the world with Rome,
      Shall force the rigid rocks and Alpine chains,
      And, like a flood, come pouring on the plains.
      Then is your time for faction and debate,
      For partial favour, and permitted hate.
      Let now your immature dissension cease;
      Sit quiet, and compose your souls to peace.”

      Thus Jupiter in few unfolds the charge;
      But lovely Venus thus replies at large:
      “O pow’r immense, eternal energy,
      (For to what else protection can we fly?)
      Seest thou the proud Rutulians, how they dare
      In fields, unpunish’d, and insult my care?
      How lofty Turnus vaunts amidst his train,
      In shining arms, triumphant on the plain?
      Ev’n in their lines and trenches they contend,
      And scarce their walls the Trojan troops defend:
      The town is fill’d with slaughter, and o’erfloats,
      With a red deluge, their increasing moats.
      Aeneas, ignorant, and far from thence,
      Has left a camp expos’d, without defence.
      This endless outrage shall they still sustain?
      Shall Troy renew’d be forc’d and fir’d again?
      A second siege my banish’d issue fears,
      And a new Diomede in arms appears.
      One more audacious mortal will be found;
      And I, thy daughter, wait another wound.
      Yet, if with fates averse, without thy leave,
      The Latian lands my progeny receive,
      Bear they the pains of violated law,
      And thy protection from their aid withdraw.
      But, if the gods their sure success foretell;
      If those of heav’n consent with those of hell,
      To promise Italy; who dare debate
      The pow’r of Jove, or fix another fate?
      What should I tell of tempests on the main,
      Of Aeolus usurping Neptune’s reign?
      Of Iris sent, with Bacchanalian heat
      T’ inspire the matrons, and destroy the fleet?
      Now Juno to the Stygian sky descends,
      Solicits hell for aid, and arms the fiends.
      That new example wanted yet above:
      An act that well became the wife of Jove!
      Alecto, rais’d by her, with rage inflames
      The peaceful bosoms of the Latian dames.
      Imperial sway no more exalts my mind;
      (Such hopes I had indeed, while Heav’n was kind;)
      Now let my happier foes possess my place,
      Whom Jove prefers before the Trojan race;
      And conquer they, whom you with conquest grace.
      Since you can spare, from all your wide command,
      No spot of earth, no hospitable land,
      Which may my wand’ring fugitives receive;
      (Since haughty Juno will not give you leave;)
      Then, father, (if I still may use that name,)
      By ruin’d Troy, yet smoking from the flame,
      I beg you, let Ascanius, by my care,
      Be freed from danger, and dismiss’d the war:
      Inglorious let him live, without a crown.
      The father may be cast on coasts unknown,
      Struggling with fate; but let me save the son.
      Mine is Cythera, mine the Cyprian tow’rs:
      In those recesses, and those sacred bow’rs,
      Obscurely let him rest; his right resign
      To promis’d empire, and his Julian line.
      Then Carthage may th’ Ausonian towns destroy,
      Nor fear the race of a rejected boy.
      What profits it my son to scape the fire,
      Arm’d with his gods, and loaded with his sire;
      To pass the perils of the seas and wind;
      Evade the Greeks, and leave the war behind;
      To reach th’ Italian shores; if, after all,
      Our second Pergamus is doom’d to fall?
      Much better had he curb’d his high desires,
      And hover’d o’er his ill-extinguish’d fires.
      To Simois’ banks the fugitives restore,
      And give them back to war, and all the woes before.”

      Deep indignation swell’d Saturnia’s heart:
      “And must I own,” she said, “my secret smart—
      What with more decence were in silence kept,
      And, but for this unjust reproach, had slept?
      Did god or man your fav’rite son advise,
      With war unhop’d the Latians to surprise?
      By fate, you boast, and by the gods’ decree,
      He left his native land for Italy!
      Confess the truth; by mad Cassandra, more
      Than Heav’n inspir’d, he sought a foreign shore!
      Did I persuade to trust his second Troy
      To the raw conduct of a beardless boy,
      With walls unfinish’d, which himself forsakes,
      And thro’ the waves a wand’ring voyage takes?
      When have I urg’d him meanly to demand
      The Tuscan aid, and arm a quiet land?
      Did I or Iris give this mad advice,
      Or made the fool himself the fatal choice?
      You think it hard, the Latians should destroy
      With swords your Trojans, and with fires your Troy!
      Hard and unjust indeed, for men to draw
      Their native air, nor take a foreign law!
      That Turnus is permitted still to live,
      To whom his birth a god and goddess give!
      But yet is just and lawful for your line
      To drive their fields, and force with fraud to join;
      Realms, not your own, among your clans divide,
      And from the bridegroom tear the promis’d bride;
      Petition, while you public arms prepare;
      Pretend a peace, and yet provoke a war!
      ’Twas giv’n to you, your darling son to shroud,
      To draw the dastard from the fighting crowd,
      And, for a man, obtend an empty cloud.
      From flaming fleets you turn’d the fire away,
      And chang’d the ships to daughters of the sea.
      But is my crime—the Queen of Heav’n offends,
      If she presume to save her suff’ring friends!
      Your son, not knowing what his foes decree,
      You say, is absent: absent let him be.
      Yours is Cythera, yours the Cyprian tow’rs,
      The soft recesses, and the sacred bow’rs.
      Why do you then these needless arms prepare,
      And thus provoke a people prone to war?
      Did I with fire the Trojan town deface,
      Or hinder from return your exil’d race?
      Was I the cause of mischief, or the man
      Whose lawless lust the fatal war began?
      Think on whose faith th’ adult’rous youth relied;
      Who promis’d, who procur’d, the Spartan bride?
      When all th’ united states of Greece combin’d,
      To purge the world of the perfidious kind,
      Then was your time to fear the Trojan fate:
      Your quarrels and complaints are now too late.”

      Thus Juno. Murmurs rise, with mix’d applause,
      Just as they favour or dislike the cause.
      So winds, when yet unfledg’d in woods they lie,
      In whispers first their tender voices try,
      Then issue on the main with bellowing rage,
      And storms to trembling mariners presage.

      Then thus to both replied th’ imperial god,
      Who shakes heav’n’s axles with his awful nod.
      (When he begins, the silent senate stand
      With rev’rence, list’ning to the dread command:
      The clouds dispel; the winds their breath restrain;
      And the hush’d waves lie flatted on the main.)
      “Celestials, your attentive ears incline!
      Since,” said the god, “the Trojans must not join
      In wish’d alliance with the Latian line;
      Since endless jarrings and immortal hate
      Tend but to discompose our happy state;
      The war henceforward be resign’d to fate:
      Each to his proper fortune stand or fall;
      Equal and unconcern’d I look on all.
      Rutulians, Trojans, are the same to me;
      And both shall draw the lots their fates decree.
      Let these assault, if Fortune be their friend;
      And, if she favours those, let those defend:
      The Fates will find their way.” The Thund’rer said,
      And shook the sacred honours of his head,
      Attesting Styx, th’ inviolable flood,
      And the black regions of his brother god.
      Trembled the poles of heav’n, and earth confess’d the nod.
      This end the sessions had: the senate rise,
      And to his palace wait their sov’reign thro’ the skies.

      Meantime, intent upon their siege, the foes
      Within their walls the Trojan host inclose:
      They wound, they kill, they watch at ev’ry gate;
      Renew the fires, and urge their happy fate.

      Th’ Aeneans wish in vain their wanted chief,
      Hopeless of flight, more hopeless of relief.
      Thin on the tow’rs they stand; and ev’n those few
      A feeble, fainting, and dejected crew.
      Yet in the face of danger some there stood:
      The two bold brothers of Sarpedon’s blood,
      Asius and Acmon; both th’ Assaraci;
      Young Haemon, and tho’ young, resolv’d to die.
      With these were Clarus and Thymoetes join’d;
      Tibris and Castor, both of Lycian kind.
      From Acmon’s hands a rolling stone there came,
      So large, it half deserv’d a mountain’s name:
      Strong-sinew’d was the youth, and big of bone;
      His brother Mnestheus could not more have done,
      Or the great father of th’ intrepid son.
      Some firebrands throw, some flights of arrows send;
      And some with darts, and some with stones defend.

      Amid the press appears the beauteous boy,
      The care of Venus, and the hope of Troy.
      His lovely face unarm’d, his head was bare;
      In ringlets o’er his shoulders hung his hair.
      His forehead circled with a diadem;
      Distinguish’d from the crowd, he shines a gem,
      Enchas’d in gold, or polish’d iv’ry set,
      Amidst the meaner foil of sable jet.

      Nor Ismarus was wanting to the war,
      Directing pointed arrows from afar,
      And death with poison arm’d—in Lydia born,
      Where plenteous harvests the fat fields adorn;
      Where proud Pactolus floats the fruitful lands,
      And leaves a rich manure of golden sands.
      There Capys, author of the Capuan name,
      And there was Mnestheus too, increas’d in fame,
      Since Turnus from the camp he cast with shame.

      Thus mortal war was wag’d on either side.
      Meantime the hero cuts the nightly tide:
      For, anxious, from Evander when he went,
      He sought the Tyrrhene camp, and Tarchon’s tent;
      Expos’d the cause of coming to the chief;
      His name and country told, and ask’d relief;
      Propos’d the terms; his own small strength declar’d;
      What vengeance proud Mezentius had prepar’d:
      What Turnus, bold and violent, design’d;
      Then shew’d the slipp’ry state of humankind,
      And fickle fortune; warn’d him to beware,
      And to his wholesome counsel added pray’r.
      Tarchon, without delay, the treaty signs,
      And to the Trojan troops the Tuscan joins.

      They soon set sail; nor now the fates withstand;
      Their forces trusted with a foreign hand.
      Aeneas leads; upon his stern appear
      Two lions carv’d, which rising Ida bear—
      Ida, to wand’ring Trojans ever dear.
      Under their grateful shade Aeneas sate,
      Revolving war’s events, and various fate.
      His left young Pallas kept, fix’d to his side,
      And oft of winds enquir’d, and of the tide;
      Oft of the stars, and of their wat’ry way;
      And what he suffer’d both by land and sea.

      Now, sacred sisters, open all your spring!
      The Tuscan leaders, and their army sing,
      Which follow’d great Aeneas to the war:
      Their arms, their numbers, and their names declare.

      A thousand youths brave Massicus obey,
      Borne in the Tiger thro’ the foaming sea;
      From Asium brought, and Cosa, by his care:
      For arms, light quivers, bows and shafts, they bear.
      Fierce Abas next: his men bright armour wore;
      His stern Apollo’s golden statue bore.
      Six hundred Populonia sent along,
      All skill’d in martial exercise, and strong.
      Three hundred more for battle Ilva joins,
      An isle renown’d for steel, and unexhausted mines.
      Asylas on his prow the third appears,
      Who heav’n interprets, and the wand’ring stars;
      From offer’d entrails prodigies expounds,
      And peals of thunder, with presaging sounds.
      A thousand spears in warlike order stand,
      Sent by the Pisans under his command.

      Fair Astur follows in the wat’ry field,
      Proud of his manag’d horse and painted shield.
      Gravisca, noisome from the neighb’ring fen,
      And his own Caere, sent three hundred men;
      With those which Minio’s fields and Pyrgi gave,
      All bred in arms, unanimous, and brave.

      Thou, Muse, the name of Cinyras renew,
      And brave Cupavo follow’d but by few;
      Whose helm confess’d the lineage of the man,
      And bore, with wings display’d, a silver swan.
      Love was the fault of his fam’d ancestry,
      Whose forms and fortunes in his ensigns fly.
      For Cycnus lov’d unhappy Phaeton,
      And sung his loss in poplar groves, alone,
      Beneath the sister shades, to soothe his grief.
      Heav’n heard his song, and hasten’d his relief,
      And chang’d to snowy plumes his hoary hair,
      And wing’d his flight, to chant aloft in air.
      His son Cupavo brush’d the briny flood:
      Upon his stern a brawny Centaur stood,
      Who heav’d a rock, and, threat’ning still to throw,
      With lifted hands alarm’d the seas below:
      They seem’d to fear the formidable sight,
      And roll’d their billows on, to speed his flight.

      Ocnus was next, who led his native train
      Of hardy warriors thro’ the wat’ry plain:
      The son of Manto by the Tuscan stream,
      From whence the Mantuan town derives the name—
      An ancient city, but of mix’d descent:
      Three sev’ral tribes compose the government;
      Four towns are under each; but all obey
      The Mantuan laws, and own the Tuscan sway.

      Hate to Mezentius arm’d five hundred more,
      Whom Mincius from his sire Benacus bore:
      Mincius, with wreaths of reeds his forehead cover’d o’er.
      These grave Auletes leads: a hundred sweep
      With stretching oars at once the glassy deep.
      Him and his martial train the Triton bears;
      High on his poop the sea-green god appears:
      Frowning he seems his crooked shell to sound,
      And at the blast the billows dance around.
      A hairy man above the waist he shows;
      A porpoise tail beneath his belly grows;
      And ends a fish: his breast the waves divides,
      And froth and foam augment the murm’ring tides.

      Full thirty ships transport the chosen train
      For Troy’s relief, and scour the briny main.

      Now was the world forsaken by the sun,
      And Phoebe half her nightly race had run.
      The careful chief, who never clos’d his eyes,
      Himself the rudder holds, the sails supplies.
      A choir of Nereids meet him on the flood,
      Once his own galleys, hewn from Ida’s wood;
      But now, as many nymphs, the sea they sweep,
      As rode, before, tall vessels on the deep.
      They know him from afar; and in a ring
      Enclose the ship that bore the Trojan king.
      Cymodoce, whose voice excell’d the rest,
      Above the waves advanc’d her snowy breast;
      Her right hand stops the stern; her left divides
      The curling ocean, and corrects the tides.
      She spoke for all the choir, and thus began
      With pleasing words to warn th’ unknowing man:
      “Sleeps our lov’d lord? O goddess-born, awake!
      Spread ev’ry sail, pursue your wat’ry track,
      And haste your course. Your navy once were we,
      From Ida’s height descending to the sea;
      Till Turnus, as at anchor fix’d we stood,
      Presum’d to violate our holy wood.
      Then, loos’d from shore, we fled his fires profane
      (Unwillingly we broke our master’s chain),
      And since have sought you thro’ the Tuscan main.
      The mighty Mother chang’d our forms to these,
      And gave us life immortal in the seas.
      But young Ascanius, in his camp distress’d,
      By your insulting foes is hardly press’d.
      Th’ Arcadian horsemen, and Etrurian host,
      Advance in order on the Latian coast:
      To cut their way the Daunian chief designs,
      Before their troops can reach the Trojan lines.
      Thou, when the rosy morn restores the light,
      First arm thy soldiers for th’ ensuing fight:
      Thyself the fated sword of Vulcan wield,
      And bear aloft th’ impenetrable shield.
      Tomorrow’s sun, unless my skill be vain,
      Shall see huge heaps of foes in battle slain.”
      Parting, she spoke; and with immortal force
      Push’d on the vessel in her wat’ry course;
      For well she knew the way. Impell’d behind,
      The ship flew forward, and outstripp’d the wind.
      The rest make up. Unknowing of the cause,
      The chief admires their speed, and happy omens draws.

      Then thus he pray’d, and fix’d on heav’n his eyes:
      “Hear thou, great Mother of the deities.
      With turrets crown’d! (on Ida’s holy hill
      Fierce tigers, rein’d and curb’d, obey thy will.)
      Firm thy own omens; lead us on to fight;
      And let thy Phrygians conquer in thy right.”

      He said no more. And now renewing day
      Had chas’d the shadows of the night away.
      He charg’d the soldiers, with preventing care,
      Their flags to follow, and their arms prepare;
      Warn’d of th’ ensuing fight, and bade ’em hope the war.
      Now, his lofty poop, he view’d below
      His camp incompass’d, and th’ inclosing foe.
      His blazing shield, imbrac’d, he held on high;
      The camp receive the sign, and with loud shouts reply.
      Hope arms their courage: from their tow’rs they throw
      Their darts with double force, and drive the foe.
      Thus, at the signal giv’n, the cranes arise
      Before the stormy south, and blacken all the skies.

      King Turnus wonder’d at the fight renew’d,
      Till, looking back, the Trojan fleet he view’d,
      The seas with swelling canvas cover’d o’er,
      And the swift ships descending on the shore.
      The Latians saw from far, with dazzled eyes,
      The radiant crest that seem’d in flames to rise,
      And dart diffusive fires around the field,
      And the keen glitt’ring of the golden shield.
      Thus threat’ning comets, when by night they rise,
      Shoot sanguine streams, and sadden all the skies:
      So Sirius, flashing forth sinister lights,
      Pale humankind with plagues and with dry famine fright:

      Yet Turnus with undaunted mind is bent
      To man the shores, and hinder their descent,
      And thus awakes the courage of his friends:
      “What you so long have wish’d, kind Fortune sends;
      In ardent arms to meet th’ invading foe:
      You find, and find him at advantage now.
      Yours is the day: you need but only dare;
      Your swords will make you masters of the war.
      Your sires, your sons, your houses, and your lands,
      And dearest wifes, are all within your hands.
      Be mindful of the race from whence you came,
      And emulate in arms your fathers’ fame.
      Now take the time, while stagg’ring yet they stand
      With feet unfirm, and prepossess the strand:
      Fortune befriends the bold.” Nor more he said,
      But balanc’d whom to leave, and whom to lead;
      Then these elects, the landing to prevent;
      And those he leaves, to keep the city pent.

      Meantime the Trojan sends his troops ashore:
      Some are by boats expos’d, by bridges more.
      With lab’ring oars they bear along the strand,
      Where the tide languishes, and leap a-land.
      Tarchon observes the coast with careful eyes,
      And, where no ford he finds, no water fries,
      Nor billows with unequal murmurs roar,
      But smoothly slide along, and swell the shore,
      That course he steer’d, and thus he gave command:
      “Here ply your oars, and at all hazard land:
      Force on the vessel, that her keel may wound
      This hated soil, and furrow hostile ground.
      Let me securely land—I ask no more;
      Then sink my ships, or shatter on the shore.”

      This fiery speech inflames his fearful friends:
      They tug at ev’ry oar, and ev’ry stretcher bends;
      They run their ships aground; the vessels knock,
      (Thus forc’d ashore,) and tremble with the shock.
      Tarchon’s alone was lost, that stranded stood,
      Stuck on a bank, and beaten by the flood:
      She breaks her back; the loosen’d sides give way,
      And plunge the Tuscan soldiers in the sea.
      Their broken oars and floating planks withstand
      Their passage, while they labour to the land,
      And ebbing tides bear back upon th’ uncertain sand.

      Now Turnus leads his troops without delay,
      Advancing to the margin of the sea.
      The trumpets sound: Aeneas first assail’d
      The clowns new-rais’d and raw, and soon prevail’d.
      Great Theron fell, an omen of the fight;
      Great Theron, large of limbs, of giant height.
      He first in open field defied the prince:
      But armour scal’d with gold was no defence
      Against the fated sword, which open’d wide
      His plated shield, and pierc’d his naked side.
      Next, Lichas fell, who, not like others born,
      Was from his wretched mother ripp’d and torn;
      Sacred, O Phoebus, from his birth to thee;
      For his beginning life from biting steel was free.
      Not far from him was Gyas laid along,
      Of monstrous bulk; with Cisseus fierce and strong:
      Vain bulk and strength! for, when the chief assail’d,
      Nor valour nor Herculean arms avail’d,
      Nor their fam’d father, wont in war to go
      With great Alcides, while he toil’d below.
      The noisy Pharos next receiv’d his death:
      Aeneas writh’d his dart, and stopp’d his bawling breath.
      Then wretched Cydon had receiv’d his doom,
      Who courted Clytius in his beardless bloom,
      And sought with lust obscene polluted joys:
      The Trojan sword had curd his love of boys,
      Had not his sev’n bold brethren stopp’d the course
      Of the fierce champions, with united force.
      Sev’n darts were thrown at once; and some rebound
      From his bright shield, some on his helmet sound:
      The rest had reach’d him; but his mother’s care
      Prevented those, and turn’d aside in air.

      The prince then call’d Achates, to supply
      The spears that knew the way to victory—
      “Those fatal weapons, which, inur’d to blood,
      In Grecian bodies under Ilium stood:
      Not one of those my hand shall toss in vain
      Against our foes, on this contended plain.”
      He said; then seiz’d a mighty spear, and threw;
      Which, wing’d with fate, thro’ Maeon’s buckler flew,
      Pierc’d all the brazen plates, and reach’d his heart:
      He stagger’d with intolerable smart.
      Alcanor saw; and reach’d, but reach’d in vain,
      His helping hand, his brother to sustain.
      A second spear, which kept the former course,
      From the same hand, and sent with equal force,
      His right arm pierc’d, and holding on, bereft
      His use of both, and pinion’d down his left.
      Then Numitor from his dead brother drew
      Th’ ill-omen’d spear, and at the Trojan threw:
      Preventing fate directs the lance awry,
      Which, glancing, only mark’d Achates’ thigh.

      In pride of youth the Sabine Clausus came,
      And, from afar, at Dryops took his aim.
      The spear flew hissing thro’ the middle space,
      And pierc’d his throat, directed at his face;
      It stopp’d at once the passage of his wind,
      And the free soul to flitting air resign’d:
      His forehead was the first that struck the ground;
      Lifeblood and life rush’d mingled thro’ the wound.
      He slew three brothers of the Borean race,
      And three, whom Ismarus, their native place,
      Had sent to war, but all the sons of Thrace.
      Halesus, next, the bold Aurunci leads:
      The son of Neptune to his aid succeeds,
      Conspicuous on his horse. On either hand,
      These fight to keep, and those to win, the land.
      With mutual blood th’ Ausonian soil is dyed,
      While on its borders each their claim decide.
      As wintry winds, contending in the sky,
      With equal force of lungs their titles try:
      They rage, they roar; the doubtful rack of heav’n
      Stands without motion, and the tide undriv’n:
      Each bent to conquer, neither side to yield,
      They long suspend the fortune of the field.
      Both armies thus perform what courage can;
      Foot set to foot, and mingled man to man.

      But, in another part, th’ Arcadian horse
      With ill success engage the Latin force:
      For, where th’ impetuous torrent, rushing down,
      Huge craggy stones and rooted trees had thrown,
      They left their coursers, and, unus’d to fight
      On foot, were scatter’d in a shameful flight.
      Pallas, who with disdain and grief had view’d
      His foes pursuing, and his friends pursued,
      Us’d threat’nings mix’d with pray’rs, his last resource,
      With these to move their minds, with those to fire their force
      “Which way, companions? whether would you run?
      By you yourselves, and mighty battles won,
      By my great sire, by his establish’d name,
      And early promise of my future fame;
      By my youth, emulous of equal right
      To share his honours—shun ignoble flight!
      Trust not your feet: your hands must hew way
      Thro’ yon black body, and that thick array:
      ’Tis thro’ that forward path that we must come;
      There lies our way, and that our passage home.
      Nor pow’rs above, nor destinies below
      Oppress our arms: with equal strength we go,
      With mortal hands to meet a mortal foe.
      See on what foot we stand: a scanty shore,
      The sea behind, our enemies before;
      No passage left, unless we swim the main;
      Or, forcing these, the Trojan trenches gain.”
      This said, he strode with eager haste along,
      And bore amidst the thickest of the throng.
      Lagus, the first he met, with fate to foe,
      Had heav’d a stone of mighty weight, to throw:
      Stooping, the spear descended on his chine,
      Just where the bone distinguished either loin:
      It stuck so fast, so deeply buried lay,
      That scarce the victor forc’d the steel away.
      Hisbon came on: but, while he mov’d too slow
      To wish’d revenge, the prince prevents his blow;
      For, warding his at once, at once he press’d,
      And plung’d the fatal weapon in his breast.
      Then lewd Anchemolus he laid in dust,
      Who stain’d his stepdam’s bed with impious lust.
      And, after him, the Daucian twins were slain,
      Laris and Thymbrus, on the Latian plain;
      So wondrous like in feature, shape, and size,
      As caus’d an error in their parents’ eyes—
      Grateful mistake! but soon the sword decides
      The nice distinction, and their fate divides:
      For Thymbrus’ head was lopp’d; and Laris’ hand,
      Dismember’d, sought its owner on the strand:
      The trembling fingers yet the falchion strain,
      And threaten still th’ intended stroke in vain.

      Now, to renew the charge, th’ Arcadians came:
      Sight of such acts, and sense of honest shame,
      And grief, with anger mix’d, their minds inflame.
      Then, with a casual blow was Rhoeteus slain,
      Who chanc’d, as Pallas threw, to cross the plain:
      The flying spear was after Ilus sent;
      But Rhoeteus happen’d on a death unmeant:
      From Teuthras and from Tyres while he fled,
      The lance, athwart his body, laid him dead:
      Roll’d from his chariot with a mortal wound,
      And intercepted fate, he spurn’d the ground.
      As when, in summer, welcome winds arise,
      The watchful shepherd to the forest flies,
      And fires the midmost plants; contagion spreads,
      And catching flames infect the neighb’ring heads;
      Around the forest flies the furious blast,
      And all the leafy nation sinks at last,
      And Vulcan rides in triumph o’er the waste;
      The pastor, pleas’d with his dire victory,
      Beholds the satiate flames in sheets ascend the sky:
      So Pallas’ troops their scatter’d strength unite,
      And, pouring on their foes, their prince delight.

      Halesus came, fierce with desire of blood;
      But first collected in his arms he stood:
      Advancing then, he plied the spear so well,
      Ladon, Demodocus, and Pheres fell.
      Around his head he toss’d his glitt’ring brand,
      And from Strymonius hew’d his better hand,
      Held up to guard his throat; then hurl’d a stone
      At Thoas’ ample front, and pierc’d the bone:
      It struck beneath the space of either eye;
      And blood, and mingled brains, together fly.
      Deep skill’d in future fates, Halesus’ sire
      Did with the youth to lonely groves retire:
      But, when the father’s mortal race was run,
      Dire destiny laid hold upon the son,
      And haul’d him to the war, to find, beneath
      Th’ Evandrian spear, a memorable death.
      Pallas th’ encounter seeks, but, ere he throws,
      To Tuscan Tiber thus address’d his vows:
      “O sacred stream, direct my flying dart,
      And give to pass the proud Halesus’ heart!
      His arms and spoils thy holy oak shall bear.”
      Pleas’d with the bribe, the god receiv’d his pray’r:
      For, while his shield protects a friend distress’d,
      The dart came driving on, and pierc’d his breast.

      But Lausus, no small portion of the war,
      Permits not panic fear to reign too far,
      Caus’d by the death of so renown’d a knight;
      But by his own example cheers the fight.
      Fierce Abas first he slew; Abas, the stay
      Of Trojan hopes, and hindrance of the day.
      The Phrygian troops escap’d the Greeks in vain:
      They, and their mix’d allies, now load the plain.
      To the rude shock of war both armies came;
      Their leaders equal, and their strength the same.
      The rear so press’d the front, they could not wield
      Their angry weapons, to dispute the field.
      Here Pallas urges on, and Lausus there:
      Of equal youth and beauty both appear,
      But both by fate forbid to breathe their native air.
      Their congress in the field great Jove withstands:
      Both doom’d to fall, but fall by greater hands.

      Meantime Juturna warns the Daunian chief
      Of Lausus’ danger, urging swift relief.
      With his driv’n chariot he divides the crowd,
      And, making to his friends, thus calls aloud:
      “Let none presume his needless aid to join;
      Retire, and clear the field; the fight is mine:
      To this right hand is Pallas only due;
      O were his father here, my just revenge to view!”
      From the forbidden space his men retir’d.
      Pallas their awe, and his stern words, admir’d;
      Survey’d him o’er and o’er with wond’ring sight,
      Struck with his haughty mien, and tow’ring height.
      Then to the king: “Your empty vaunts forbear;
      Success I hope, and fate I cannot fear;
      Alive or dead, I shall deserve a name;
      Jove is impartial, and to both the same.”
      He said, and to the void advanc’d his pace:
      Pale horror sate on each Arcadian face.
      Then Turnus, from his chariot leaping light,
      Address’d himself on foot to single fight.
      And, as a lion—when he spies from far
      A bull that seems to meditate the war,
      Bending his neck, and spurning back the sand—
      Runs roaring downward from his hilly stand:
      Imagine eager Turnus not more slow,
      To rush from high on his unequal foe.

      Young Pallas, when he saw the chief advance
      Within due distance of his flying lance,
      Prepares to charge him first, resolv’d to try
      If fortune would his want of force supply;
      And thus to Heav’n and Hercules address’d:
      “Alcides, once on earth Evander’s guest,
      His son adjures you by those holy rites,
      That hospitable board, those genial nights;
      Assist my great attempt to gain this prize,
      And let proud Turnus view, with dying eyes,
      His ravish’d spoils.” ’Twas heard, the vain request;
      Alcides mourn’d, and stifled sighs within his breast.
      Then Jove, to soothe his sorrow, thus began:
      “Short bounds of life are set to mortal man.
      ’Tis virtue’s work alone to stretch the narrow span.
      So many sons of gods, in bloody fight,
      Around the walls of Troy, have lost the light:
      My own Sarpedon fell beneath his foe;
      Nor I, his mighty sire, could ward the blow.
      Ev’n Turnus shortly shall resign his breath,
      And stands already on the verge of death.”
      This said, the god permits the fatal fight,
      But from the Latian fields averts his sight.

      Now with full force his spear young Pallas threw,
      And, having thrown, his shining falchion drew
      The steel just graz’d along the shoulder joint,
      And mark’d it slightly with the glancing point,
      Fierce Turnus first to nearer distance drew,
      And pois’d his pointed spear, before he threw:
      Then, as the winged weapon whizz’d along,
      “See now,” said he, “whose arm is better strung.”
      The spear kept on the fatal course, unstay’d
      By plates of ir’n, which o’er the shield were laid:
      Thro’ folded brass and tough bull hides it pass’d,
      His corslet pierc’d, and reach’d his heart at last.
      In vain the youth tugs at the broken wood;
      The soul comes issuing with the vital blood:
      He falls; his arms upon his body sound;
      And with his bloody teeth he bites the ground.

      Turnus bestrode the corpse: “Arcadians, hear,”
      Said he; “my message to your master bear:
      Such as the sire deserv’d, the son I send;
      It costs him dear to be the Phrygians’ friend.
      The lifeless body, tell him, I bestow,
      Unask’d, to rest his wand’ring ghost below.”
      He said, and trampled down with all the force
      Of his left foot, and spurn’d the wretched corse;
      Then snatch’d the shining belt, with gold inlaid;
      The belt Eurytion’s artful hands had made,
      Where fifty fatal brides, express’d to sight,
      All in the compass of one mournful night,
      Depriv’d their bridegrooms of returning light.

      In an ill hour insulting Turnus tore
      Those golden spoils, and in a worse he wore.
      O mortals, blind in fate, who never know
      To bear high fortune, or endure the low!
      The time shall come, when Turnus, but in vain,
      Shall wish untouch’d the trophies of the slain;
      Shall wish the fatal belt were far away,
      And curse the dire remembrance of the day.

      The sad Arcadians, from th’ unhappy field,
      Bear back the breathless body on a shield.
      O grace and grief of war! at once restor’d,
      With praises, to thy sire, at once deplor’d!
      One day first sent thee to the fighting field,
      Beheld whole heaps of foes in battle kill’d;
      One day beheld thee dead, and borne upon thy shield.
      This dismal news, not from uncertain fame,
      But sad spectators, to the hero came:
      His friends upon the brink of ruin stand,
      Unless reliev’d by his victorious hand.
      He whirls his sword around, without delay,
      And hews thro’ adverse foes an ample way,
      To find fierce Turnus, of his conquest proud:
      Evander, Pallas, all that friendship ow’d
      To large deserts, are present to his eyes;
      His plighted hand, and hospitable ties.

      Four sons of Sulmo, four whom Ufens bred,
      He took in fight, and living victims led,
      To please the ghost of Pallas, and expire,
      In sacrifice, before his fun’ral fire.
      At Magus next he threw: he stoop’d below
      The flying spear, and shunn’d the promis’d blow;
      Then, creeping, clasp’d the hero’s knees, and pray’d:
      “By young Iulus, by thy father’s shade,
      O spare my life, and send me back to see
      My longing sire, and tender progeny!
      A lofty house I have, and wealth untold,
      In silver ingots, and in bars of gold:
      All these, and sums besides, which see no day,
      The ransom of this one poor life shall pay.
      If I survive, will Troy the less prevail?
      A single soul’s too light to turn the scale.”
      He said. The hero sternly thus replied:
      “Thy bars and ingots, and the sums beside,
      Leave for thy children’s lot. Thy Turnus broke
      All rules of war by one relentless stroke,
      When Pallas fell: so deems, nor deems alone
      My father’s shadow, but my living son.”
      Thus having said, of kind remorse bereft,
      He seiz’d his helm, and dragg’d him with his left;
      Then with his right hand, while his neck he wreath’d,
      Up to the hilts his shining falchion sheath’d.

      Apollo’s priest, Emonides, was near;
      His holy fillets on his front appear;
      Glitt’ring in arms, he shone amidst the crowd;
      Much of his god, more of his purple, proud.
      Him the fierce Trojan follow’d thro’ the field:
      The holy coward fell; and, forc’d to yield,
      The prince stood o’er the priest, and, at one blow,
      Sent him an off’ring to the shades below.
      His arms Seresthus on his shoulders bears,
      Design’d a trophy to the God of Wars.

      Vulcanian Caeculus renews the fight,
      And Umbro, born upon the mountains’ height.
      The champion cheers his troops t’ encounter those,
      And seeks revenge himself on other foes.
      At Anxur’s shield he drove; and, at the blow,
      Both shield and arm to ground together go.
      Anxur had boasted much of magic charms,
      And thought he wore impenetrable arms,
      So made by mutter’d spells; and, from the spheres,
      Had life secur’d, in vain, for length of years.
      Then Tarquitus the field in triumph trod;
      A nymph his mother, his sire a god.
      Exulting in bright arms, he braves the prince:
      With his protended lance he makes defence;
      Bears back his feeble foe; then, pressing on,
      Arrests his better hand, and drags him down;
      Stands o’er the prostrate wretch, and, as he lay,
      Vain tales inventing, and prepar’d to pray,
      Mows off his head: the trunk a moment stood,
      Then sunk, and roll’d along the sand in blood.
      The vengeful victor thus upbraids the slain:
      “Lie there, proud man, unpitied, on the plain;
      Lie there, inglorious, and without a tomb,
      Far from thy mother and thy native home,
      Exposed to savage beasts, and birds of prey,
      Or thrown for food to monsters of the sea.”

      On Lycas and Antaeus next he ran,
      Two chiefs of Turnus, and who led his van.
      They fled for fear; with these, he chas’d along
      Camers the yellow-lock’d, and Numa strong;
      Both great in arms, and both were fair and young.
      Camers was son to Volscens lately slain,
      In wealth surpassing all the Latian train,
      And in Amycla fix’d his silent easy reign.
      And, as Aegaeon, when with heav’n he strove,
      Stood opposite in arms to mighty Jove;
      Mov’d all his hundred hands, provok’d the war,
      Defied the forky lightning from afar;
      At fifty mouths his flaming breath expires,
      And flash for flash returns, and fires for fires;
      In his right hand as many swords he wields,
      And takes the thunder on as many shields:
      With strength like his, the Trojan hero stood;
      And soon the fields with falling corps were strow’d,
      When once his falchion found the taste of blood.
      With fury scarce to be conceiv’d, he flew
      Against Niphaeus, whom four coursers drew.
      They, when they see the fiery chief advance,
      And pushing at their chests his pointed lance,
      Wheel’d with so swift a motion, mad with fear,
      They threw their master headlong from the chair.
      They stare, they start, nor stop their course, before
      They bear the bounding chariot to the shore.

      Now Lucagus and Liger scour the plains,
      With two white steeds; but Liger holds the reins,
      And Lucagus the lofty seat maintains:
      Bold brethren both. The former wav’d in air
      His flaming sword: Aeneas couch’d his spear,
      Unus’d to threats, and more unus’d to fear.
      Then Liger thus: “Thy confidence is vain
      To scape from hence, as from the Trojan plain:
      Nor these the steeds which Diomede bestrode,
      Nor this the chariot where Achilles rode;
      Nor Venus’ veil is here, near Neptune’s shield;
      Thy fatal hour is come, and this the field.”
      Thus Liger vainly vaunts: the Trojan peer
      Return’d his answer with his flying spear.
      As Lucagus, to lash his horses, bends,
      Prone to the wheels, and his left foot protends,
      Prepar’d for fight; the fatal dart arrives,
      And thro’ the borders of his buckler drives;
      Pass’d thro’ and pierc’d his groin: the deadly wound,
      Cast from his chariot, roll’d him on the ground.
      Whom thus the chief upbraids with scornful spite:
      “Blame not the slowness of your steeds in flight;
      Vain shadows did not force their swift retreat;
      But you yourself forsake your empty seat.”
      He said, and seiz’d at once the loosen’d rein;
      For Liger lay already on the plain,
      By the same shock: then, stretching out his hands,
      The recreant thus his wretched life demands:
      “Now, by thyself, O more than mortal man!
      By her and him from whom thy breath began,
      Who form’d thee thus divine, I beg thee, spare
      This forfeit life, and hear thy suppliant’s pray’r.”
      Thus much he spoke, and more he would have said;
      But the stern hero turn’d aside his head,
      And cut him short: “I hear another man;
      You talk’d not thus before the fight began.
      Now take your turn; and, as a brother should,
      Attend your brother to the Stygian flood.”
      Then thro’ his breast his fatal sword he sent,
      And the soul issued at the gaping vent.

      As storms the skies, and torrents tear the ground,
      Thus rag’d the prince, and scatter’d deaths around.
      At length Ascanius and the Trojan train
      Broke from the camp, so long besieg’d in vain.

      Meantime the King of Gods and Mortal Man
      Held conference with his queen, and thus began:
      “My sister goddess, and well-pleasing wife,
      Still think you Venus’ aid supports the strife—
      Sustains her Trojans—or themselves, alone,
      With inborn valour force their fortune on?
      How fierce in fight, with courage undecay’d!
      Judge if such warriors want immortal aid.”
      To whom the goddess with the charming eyes,
      Soft in her tone, submissively replies:
      “Why, O my sov’reign lord, whose frown I fear,
      And cannot, unconcern’d, your anger bear;
      Why urge you thus my grief? when, if I still
      (As once I was) were mistress of your will,
      From your almighty pow’r your pleasing wife
      Might gain the grace of length’ning Turnus’ life,
      Securely snatch him from the fatal fight,
      And give him to his aged father’s sight.
      Now let him perish, since you hold it good,
      And glut the Trojans with his pious blood.
      Yet from our lineage he derives his name,
      And, in the fourth degree, from god Pilumnus came;
      Yet he devoutly pays you rites divine,
      And offers daily incense at your shrine.”

      Then shortly thus the sov’reign god replied:
      “Since in my pow’r and goodness you confide,
      If for a little space, a lengthen’d span,
      You beg reprieve for this expiring man,
      I grant you leave to take your Turnus hence
      From instant fate, and can so far dispense.
      But, if some secret meaning lies beneath,
      To save the short-liv’d youth from destin’d death,
      Or if a farther thought you entertain,
      To change the fates; you feed your hopes in vain.”
      To whom the goddess thus, with weeping eyes:
      “And what if that request, your tongue denies,
      Your heart should grant; and not a short reprieve,
      But length of certain life, to Turnus give?
      Now speedy death attends the guiltless youth,
      If my presaging soul divines with truth;
      Which, O! I wish, might err thro’ causeless fears,
      And you (for you have pow’r) prolong his years!”

      Thus having said, involv’d in clouds, she flies,
      And drives a storm before her thro’ the skies.
      Swift she descends, alighting on the plain,
      Where the fierce foes a dubious fight maintain.
      Of air condens’d a spectre soon she made;
      And, what Aeneas was, such seem’d the shade.
      Adorn’d with Dardan arms, the phantom bore
      His head aloft; a plumy crest he wore;
      This hand appear’d a shining sword to wield,
      And that sustain’d an imitated shield.
      With manly mien he stalk’d along the ground,
      Nor wanted voice belied, nor vaunting sound.
      (Thus haunting ghosts appear to waking sight,
      Or dreadful visions in our dreams by night.)
      The spectre seems the Daunian chief to dare,
      And flourishes his empty sword in air.
      At this, advancing, Turnus hurl’d his spear:
      The phantom wheel’d, and seem’d to fly for fear.
      Deluded Turnus thought the Trojan fled,
      And with vain hopes his haughty fancy fed.
      “Whether, O coward?” (thus he calls aloud,
      Nor found he spoke to wind, and chas’d a cloud,)
      “Why thus forsake your bride! Receive from me
      The fated land you sought so long by sea.”
      He said, and, brandishing at once his blade,
      With eager pace pursued the flying shade.
      By chance a ship was fasten’d to the shore,
      Which from old Clusium King Osinius bore:
      The plank was ready laid for safe ascent;
      For shelter there the trembling shadow bent,
      And skipp’t and skulk’d, and under hatches went.
      Exulting Turnus, with regardless haste,
      Ascends the plank, and to the galley pass’d.
      Scarce had he reach’d the prow: Saturnia’s hand
      The haulsers cuts, and shoots the ship from land.
      With wind in poop, the vessel plows the sea,
      And measures back with speed her former way.
      Meantime Aeneas seeks his absent foe,
      And sends his slaughter’d troops to shades below.

      The guileful phantom now forsook the shroud,
      And flew sublime, and vanish’d in a cloud.
      Too late young Turnus the delusion found,
      Far on the sea, still making from the ground.
      Then, thankless for a life redeem’d by shame,
      With sense of honour stung, and forfeit fame,
      Fearful besides of what in fight had pass’d,
      His hands and haggard eyes to heav’n he cast;
      “O Jove!” he cried, “for what offence have I
      Deserv’d to bear this endless infamy?
      Whence am I forc’d, and whether am I borne?
      How, and with what reproach, shall I return?
      Shall ever I behold the Latian plain,
      Or see Laurentum’s lofty tow’rs again?
      What will they say of their deserting chief
      The war was mine: I fly from their relief;
      I led to slaughter, and in slaughter leave;
      And ev’n from hence their dying groans receive.
      Here, overmatch’d in fight, in heaps they lie;
      There, scatter’d o’er the fields, ignobly fly.
      Gape wide, O earth, and draw me down alive!
      Or, O ye pitying winds, a wretch relieve!
      On sands or shelves the splitting vessel drive;
      Or set me shipwreck’d on some desert shore,
      Where no Rutulian eyes may see me more,
      Unknown to friends, or foes, or conscious Fame,
      Lest she should follow, and my flight proclaim.”

      Thus Turnus rav’d, and various fates revolv’d:
      The choice was doubtful, but the death resolv’d.
      And now the sword, and now the sea took place,
      That to revenge, and this to purge disgrace.
      Sometimes he thought to swim the stormy main,
      By stretch of arms the distant shore to gain.
      Thrice he the sword assay’d, and thrice the flood;
      But Juno, mov’d with pity, both withstood.
      And thrice repress’d his rage; strong gales supplied,
      And push’d the vessel o’er the swelling tide.
      At length she lands him on his native shores,
      And to his father’s longing arms restores.

      Meantime, by Jove’s impulse, Mezentius arm’d,
      Succeeding Turnus, with his ardour warm’d
      His fainting friends, reproach’d their shameful flight,
      Repell’d the victors, and renew’d the fight.
      Against their king the Tuscan troops conspire;
      Such is their hate, and such their fierce desire
      Of wish’d revenge: on him, and him alone,
      All hands employ’d, and all their darts are thrown.
      He, like a solid rock by seas inclos’d,
      To raging winds and roaring waves oppos’d,
      From his proud summit looking down, disdains
      Their empty menace, and unmov’d remains.

      Beneath his feet fell haughty Hebrus dead,
      Then Latagus, and Palmus as he fled.
      At Latagus a weighty stone he flung:
      His face was flatted, and his helmet rung.
      But Palmus from behind receives his wound;
      Hamstring’d he falls, and grovels on the ground:
      His crest and armour, from his body torn,
      Thy shoulders, Lausus, and thy head adorn.
      Evas and Mimas, both of Troy, he slew.
      Mimas his birth from fair Theano drew,
      Born on that fatal night, when, big with fire,
      The queen produc’d young Paris to his sire:
      But Paris in the Phrygian fields was slain,
      Unthinking Mimas on the Latian plain.

      And, as a savage boar, on mountains bred,
      With forest mast and fatt’ning marshes fed,
      When once he sees himself in toils inclos’d,
      By huntsmen and their eager hounds oppos’d,
      He whets his tusks, and turns, and dares the war;
      Th’ invaders dart their jav’lins from afar:
      All keep aloof, and safely shout around;
      But none presumes to give a nearer wound:
      He frets and froths, erects his bristled hide,
      And shakes a grove of lances from his side:
      Not otherwise the troops, with hate inspir’d,
      And just revenge against the tyrant fir’d,
      Their darts with clamour at a distance drive,
      And only keep the languish’d war alive.

      From Coritus came Acron to the fight,
      Who left his spouse betroth’d, and unconsummate night.
      Mezentius sees him thro’ the squadrons ride,
      Proud of the purple favours of his bride.
      Then, as a hungry lion, who beholds
      A gamesome goat, who frisks about the folds,
      Or beamy stag, that grazes on the plain—
      He runs, he roars, he shakes his rising mane,
      He grins, and opens wide his greedy jaws;
      The prey lies panting underneath his paws:
      He fills his famish’d maw; his mouth runs o’er
      With unchew’d morsels, while he churns the gore:
      So proud Mezentius rushes on his foes,
      And first unhappy Acron overthrows:
      Stretch’d at his length, he spurns the swarthy ground;
      The lance, besmear’d with blood, lies broken in the wound.
      Then with disdain the haughty victor view’d
      Orodes flying, nor the wretch pursued,
      Nor thought the dastard’s back deserv’d a wound,
      But, running, gain’d th’ advantage of the ground:
      Then turning short, he met him face to face,
      To give his victory the better grace.
      Orodes falls, in equal fight oppress’d:
      Mezentius fix’d his foot upon his breast,
      And rested lance; and thus aloud he cries:
      “Lo! here the champion of my rebels lies!”
      The fields around with Io Paean! ring;
      And peals of shouts applaud the conqu’ring king.
      At this the vanquish’d, with his dying breath,
      Thus faintly spoke, and prophesied in death:
      “Nor thou, proud man, unpunish’d shalt remain:
      Like death attends thee on this fatal plain.”
      Then, sourly smiling, thus the king replied:
      “For what belongs to me, let Jove provide;
      But die thou first, whatever chance ensue.”
      He said, and from the wound the weapon drew.
      A hov’ring mist came swimming o’er his sight,
      And seal’d his eyes in everlasting night.

      By Caedicus, Alcathous was slain;
      Sacrator laid Hydaspes on the plain;
      Orses the strong to greater strength must yield;
      He, with Parthenius, were by Rapo kill’d.
      Then brave Messapus Ericetes slew,
      Who from Lycaon’s blood his lineage drew.
      But from his headstrong horse his fate he found,
      Who threw his master, as he made a bound:
      The chief, alighting, stuck him to the ground;
      Then Clonius, hand to hand, on foot assails:
      The Trojan sinks, and Neptune’s son prevails.
      Agis the Lycian, stepping forth with pride,
      To single fight the boldest foe defied;
      Whom Tuscan Valerus by force o’ercame,
      And not belied his mighty father’s fame.
      Salius to death the great Antronius sent:
      But the same fate the victor underwent,
      Slain by Nealces’ hand, well-skill’d to throw
      The flying dart, and draw the far-deceiving bow.

      Thus equal deaths are dealt with equal chance;
      By turns they quit their ground, by turns advance:
      Victors and vanquish’d, in the various field,
      Nor wholly overcome, nor wholly yield.
      The gods from heav’n survey the fatal strife,
      And mourn the miseries of human life.
      Above the rest, two goddesses appear
      Concern’d for each: here Venus, Juno there.
      Amidst the crowd, infernal Ate shakes
      Her scourge aloft, and crest of hissing snakes.

      Once more the proud Mezentius, with disdain,
      Brandish’d his spear, and rush’d into the plain,
      Where tow’ring in the midmost rank he stood,
      Like tall Orion stalking o’er the flood.
      (When with his brawny breast he cuts the waves,
      His shoulders scarce the topmost billow laves),
      Or like a mountain ash, whose roots are spread,
      Deep fix’d in earth; in clouds he hides his head.

      The Trojan prince beheld him from afar,
      And dauntless undertook the doubtful war.
      Collected in his strength, and like a rock,
      Pois’d on his base, Mezentius stood the shock.
      He stood, and, measuring first with careful eyes
      The space his spear could reach, aloud he cries:
      “My strong right hand, and sword, assist my stroke!
      (Those only gods Mezentius will invoke.)
      His armour, from the Trojan pirate torn,
      By my triumphant Lausus shall be worn.”
      He said; and with his utmost force he threw
      The massy spear, which, hissing as it flew,
      Reach’d the celestial shield, that stopp’d the course;
      But, glancing thence, the yet unbroken force
      Took a new bent obliquely, and betwixt
      The side and bowels fam’d Anthores fix’d.
      Anthores had from Argos travel’d far,
      Alcides’ friend, and brother of the war;
      Till, tir’d with toils, fair Italy he chose,
      And in Evander’s palace sought repose.
      Now, falling by another’s wound, his eyes
      He cast to heav’n, on Argos thinks, and dies.

      The pious Trojan then his jav’lin sent;
      The shield gave way; thro’ treble plates it went
      Of solid brass, of linen trebly roll’d,
      And three bull hides which round the buckler fold.
      All these it pass’d, resistless in the course,
      Transpierc’d his thigh, and spent its dying force.
      The gaping wound gush’d out a crimson flood.
      The Trojan, glad with sight of hostile blood,
      His falchion drew, to closer fight address’d,
      And with new force his fainting foe oppress’d.

      His father’s peril Lausus view’d with grief;
      He sigh’d, he wept, he ran to his relief.
      And here, heroic youth, ’tis here I must
      To thy immortal memory be just,
      And sing an act so noble and so new,
      Posterity will scarce believe ’tis true.
      Pain’d with his wound, and useless for the fight,
      The father sought to save himself by flight:
      Encumber’d, slow he dragg’d the spear along,
      Which pierc’d his thigh, and in his buckler hung.
      The pious youth, resolv’d on death, below
      The lifted sword springs forth to face the foe;
      Protects his parent, and prevents the blow.
      Shouts of applause ran ringing thro’ the field,
      To see the son the vanquish’d father shield.
      All, fir’d with gen’rous indignation, strive,
      And with a storm of darts to distance drive
      The Trojan chief, who, held at bay from far,
      On his Vulcanian orb sustain’d the war.

      As, when thick hail comes rattling in the wind,
      The plowman, passenger, and lab’ring hind
      For shelter to the neighb’ring covert fly,
      Or hous’d, or safe in hollow caverns lie;
      But, that o’erblown, when heav’n above ’em smiles,
      Return to travel, and renew their toils:
      Aeneas thus, o’erwhelmed on ev’ry side,
      The storm of darts, undaunted, did abide;
      And thus to Lausus loud with friendly threat’ning cried:
      “Why wilt thou rush to certain death, and rage
      In rash attempts, beyond thy tender age,
      Betray’d by pious love?” Nor, thus forborne,
      The youth desists, but with insulting scorn
      Provokes the ling’ring prince, whose patience, tir’d,
      Gave place; and all his breast with fury fir’d.
      For now the Fates prepar’d their sharpen’d shears;
      And lifted high the flaming sword appears,
      Which, full descending with a frightful sway,
      Thro’ shield and corslet forc’d th’ impetuous way,
      And buried deep in his fair bosom lay.
      The purple streams thro’ the thin armour strove,
      And drench’d th’ imbroider’d coat his mother wove;
      And life at length forsook his heaving heart,
      Loth from so sweet a mansion to depart.

      But when, with blood and paleness all o’erspread,
      The pious prince beheld young Lausus dead,
      He griev’d; he wept; the sight an image brought
      Of his own filial love, a sadly pleasing thought:
      Then stretch’d his hand to hold him up, and said:
      “Poor hapless youth! what praises can be paid
      To love so great, to such transcendent store
      Of early worth, and sure presage of more?
      Accept whate’er Aeneas can afford;
      Untouch’d thy arms, untaken be thy sword;
      And all that pleas’d thee living, still remain
      Inviolate, and sacred to the slain.
      Thy body on thy parents I bestow,
      To rest thy soul, at least, if shadows know,
      Or have a sense of human things below.
      There to thy fellow ghosts with glory tell:
      ‘’Twas by the great Aeneas hand I fell.’”
      With this, his distant friends he beckons near,
      Provokes their duty, and prevents their fear:
      Himself assists to lift him from the ground,
      With clotted locks, and blood that well’d from out the wound.

      Meantime, his father, now no father, stood,
      And wash’d his wounds by Tiber’s yellow flood:
      Oppress’d with anguish, panting, and o’erspent,
      His fainting limbs against an oak he leant.
      A bough his brazen helmet did sustain;
      His heavier arms lay scatter’d on the plain:
      A chosen train of youth around him stand;
      His drooping head was rested on his hand:
      His grisly beard his pensive bosom sought;
      And all on Lausus ran his restless thought.
      Careful, concern’d his danger to prevent,
      He much enquir’d, and many a message sent
      To warn him from the field—alas! in vain!
      Behold, his mournful followers bear him slain!
      O’er his broad shield still gush’d the yawning wound,
      And drew a bloody trail along the ground.
      Far off he heard their cries, far off divin’d
      The dire event, with a foreboding mind.
      With dust he sprinkled first his hoary head;
      Then both his lifted hands to heav’n he spread;
      Last, the dear corpse embracing, thus he said:
      “What joys, alas! could this frail being give,
      That I have been so covetous to live?
      To see my son, and such a son, resign
      His life, a ransom for preserving mine!
      And am I then preserv’d, and art thou lost?
      How much too dear has that redemption cost!
      ’Tis now my bitter banishment I feel:
      This is a wound too deep for time to heal.
      My guilt thy growing virtues did defame;
      My blackness blotted thy unblemish’d name.
      Chas’d from a throne, abandon’d, and exil’d
      For foul misdeeds, were punishments too mild:
      I ow’d my people these, and, from their hate,
      With less resentment could have borne my fate.
      And yet I live, and yet sustain the sight
      Of hated men, and of more hated light:
      But will not long.” With that he rais’d from ground
      His fainting limbs, that stagger’d with his wound;
      Yet, with a mind resolv’d, and unappall’d
      With pains or perils, for his courser call’d
      Well-mouth’d, well-manag’d, whom himself did dress
      With daily care, and mounted with success;
      His aid in arms, his ornament in peace.

      Soothing his courage with a gentle stroke,
      The steed seem’d sensible, while thus he spoke:
      “O Rhoebus, we have liv’d too long for me—
      If life and long were terms that could agree!
      This day thou either shalt bring back the head
      And bloody trophies of the Trojan dead;
      This day thou either shalt revenge my woe,
      For murder’d Lausus, on his cruel foe;
      Or, if inexorable fate deny
      Our conquest, with thy conquer’d master die:
      For, after such a lord, I rest secure,
      Thou wilt no foreign reins, or Trojan load endure.”
      He said; and straight th’ officious courser kneels,
      To take his wonted weight. His hands he fills
      With pointed jav’lins; on his head he lac’d
      His glitt’ring helm, which terribly was grac’d
      With waving horsehair, nodding from afar;
      Then spurr’d his thund’ring steed amidst the war.
      Love, anguish, wrath, and grief, to madness wrought,
      Despair, and secret shame, and conscious thought
      Of inborn worth, his lab’ring soul oppress’d,
      Roll’d in his eyes, and rag’d within his breast.
      Then loud he call’d Aeneas thrice by name:
      The loud repeated voice to glad Aeneas came.
      “Great Jove,” he said, “and the far-shooting god,
      Inspire thy mind to make thy challenge good!”
      He spoke no more; but hasten’d, void of fear,
      And threaten’d with his long protended spear.

      To whom Mezentius thus: “Thy vaunts are vain.
      My Lausus lies extended on the plain:
      He’s lost! thy conquest is already won;
      The wretched sire is murder’d in the son.
      Nor fate I fear, but all the gods defy.
      Forbear thy threats: my bus’ness is to die;
      But first receive this parting legacy.”
      He said; and straight a whirling dart he sent;
      Another after, and another went.
      Round in a spacious ring he rides the field,
      And vainly plies th’ impenetrable shield.
      Thrice rode he round; and thrice Aeneas wheel’d,
      Turn’d as he turn’d: the golden orb withstood
      The strokes, and bore about an iron wood.
      Impatient of delay, and weary grown,
      Still to defend, and to defend alone,
      To wrench the darts which in his buckler light,
      Urg’d and o’er-labour’d in unequal fight;
      At length resolv’d, he throws with all his force
      Full at the temples of the warrior horse.
      Just where the stroke was aim’d, th’ unerring spear
      Made way, and stood transfix’d thro’ either ear.
      Seiz’d with unwonted pain, surpris’d with fright,
      The wounded steed curvets, and, rais’d upright,
      Lights on his feet before; his hoofs behind
      Spring up in air aloft, and lash the wind.
      Down comes the rider headlong from his height:
      His horse came after with unwieldy weight,
      And, flound’ring forward, pitching on his head,
      His lord’s encumber’d shoulder overlaid.

      From either host, the mingled shouts and cries
      Of Trojans and Rutulians rend the skies.
      Aeneas, hast’ning, wav’d his fatal sword
      High o’er his head, with this reproachful word:
      “Now; where are now thy vaunts, the fierce disdain
      Of proud Mezentius, and the lofty strain?”

      Struggling, and wildly staring on the skies,
      With scarce recover’d sight he thus replies:
      “Why these insulting words, this waste of breath,
      To souls undaunted, and secure of death?
      ’Tis no dishonour for the brave to die,
      Nor came I here with hope of victory;
      Nor ask I life, nor fought with that design:
      As I had us’d my fortune, use thou thine.
      My dying son contracted no such band;
      The gift is hateful from his murd’rer’s hand.
      For this, this only favour let me sue,
      If pity can to conquer’d foes be due:
      Refuse it not; but let my body have
      The last retreat of humankind, a grave.
      Too well I know th’ insulting people’s hate;
      Protect me from their vengeance after fate:
      This refuge for my poor remains provide,
      And lay my much-lov’d Lausus by my side.”
      He said, and to the sword his throat applied.
      The crimson stream distain’d his arms around,
      And the disdainful soul came rushing thro’ the wound.



 BOOK XI

 THE ARGUMENT.


      Aeneas erects a trophy of the spoils of Mezentius, grants a truce
      for burying the dead, and sends home the body of Pallas with
      great solemnity. Latinus calls a council, to propose offers of
      peace to Aeneas; which occasions great animosity betwixt Turnus
      and Drances. In the mean time there is a sharp engagement of the
      horse; wherein Camilla signalizes herself, is killed, and the
      Latine troops are entirely defeated.


      Scarce had the rosy Morning rais’d her head
      Above the waves, and left her wat’ry bed;
      The pious chief, whom double cares attend
      For his unburied soldiers and his friend,
      Yet first to Heav’n perform’d a victor’s vows:
      He bar’d an ancient oak of all her boughs;
      Then on a rising ground the trunk he plac’d,
      Which with the spoils of his dead foe he grac’d.
      The coat of arms by proud Mezentius worn,
      Now on a naked snag in triumph borne,
      Was hung on high, and glitter’d from afar,
      A trophy sacred to the God of War.
      Above his arms, fix’d on the leafless wood,
      Appear’d his plumy crest, besmear’d with blood:
      His brazen buckler on the left was seen;
      Truncheons of shiver’d lances hung between;
      And on the right was placed his corslet, bor’d;
      And to the neck was tied his unavailing sword.

      A crowd of chiefs inclose the godlike man,
      Who thus, conspicuous in the midst, began:
      “Our toils, my friends, are crown’d with sure success;
      The greater part perform’d, achieve the less.
      Now follow cheerful to the trembling town;
      Press but an entrance, and presume it won.
      Fear is no more, for fierce Mezentius lies,
      As the first fruits of war, a sacrifice.
      Turnus shall fall extended on the plain,
      And, in this omen, is already slain.
      Prepar’d in arms, pursue your happy chance;
      That none unwarn’d may plead his ignorance,
      And I, at Heav’n’s appointed hour, may find
      Your warlike ensigns waving in the wind.
      Meantime the rites and fun’ral pomps prepare,
      Due to your dead companions of the war:
      The last respect the living can bestow,
      To shield their shadows from contempt below.
      That conquer’d earth be theirs, for which they fought,
      And which for us with their own blood they bought;
      But first the corpse of our unhappy friend
      To the sad city of Evander send,
      Who, not inglorious, in his age’s bloom,
      Was hurried hence by too severe a doom.”

      Thus, weeping while he spoke, he took his way,
      Where, new in death, lamented Pallas lay.
      Acoetes watch’d the corpse; whose youth deserv’d
      The father’s trust; and now the son he serv’d
      With equal faith, but less auspicious care.
      Th’ attendants of the slain his sorrow share.
      A troop of Trojans mix’d with these appear,
      And mourning matrons with dishevel’d hair.
      Soon as the prince appears, they raise a cry;
      All beat their breasts, and echoes rend the sky.
      They rear his drooping forehead from the ground;
      But, when Aeneas view’d the grisly wound
      Which Pallas in his manly bosom bore,
      And the fair flesh distain’d with purple gore;
      First, melting into tears, the pious man
      Deplor’d so sad a sight, then thus began:
      “Unhappy youth! when Fortune gave the rest
      Of my full wishes, she refus’d the best!
      She came; but brought not thee along, to bless
      My longing eyes, and share in my success:
      She grudg’d thy safe return, the triumphs due
      To prosp’rous valour, in the public view.
      Not thus I promis’d, when thy father lent
      Thy needless succour with a sad consent;
      Embrac’d me, parting for th’ Etrurian land,
      And sent me to possess a large command.
      He warn’d, and from his own experience told,
      Our foes were warlike, disciplin’d, and bold.
      And now perhaps, in hopes of thy return,
      Rich odors on his loaded altars burn,
      While we, with vain officious pomp, prepare
      To send him back his portion of the war,
      A bloody breathless body, which can owe
      No farther debt, but to the pow’rs below.
      The wretched father, ere his race is run,
      Shall view the fun’ral honours of his son.
      These are my triumphs of the Latian war,
      Fruits of my plighted faith and boasted care!
      And yet, unhappy sire, thou shalt not see
      A son whose death disgrac’d his ancestry;
      Thou shalt not blush, old man, however griev’d:
      Thy Pallas no dishonest wound receiv’d.
      He died no death to make thee wish, too late,
      Thou hadst not liv’d to see his shameful fate:
      But what a champion has th’ Ausonian coast,
      And what a friend hast thou, Ascanius, lost!”

      Thus having mourn’d, he gave the word around,
      To raise the breathless body from the ground;
      And chose a thousand horse, the flow’r of all
      His warlike troops, to wait the funeral,
      To bear him back and share Evander’s grief:
      A well-becoming, but a weak relief.
      Of oaken twigs they twist an easy bier,
      Then on their shoulders the sad burden rear.
      The body on this rural hearse is borne:
      Strew’d leaves and funeral greens the bier adorn.
      All pale he lies, and looks a lovely flow’r,
      New cropp’d by virgin hands, to dress the bow’r:
      Unfaded yet, but yet unfed below,
      No more to mother earth or the green stern shall owe.
      Then two fair vests, of wondrous work and cost,
      Of purple woven, and with gold emboss’d,
      For ornament the Trojan hero brought,
      Which with her hands Sidonian Dido wrought.
      One vest array’d the corpse; and one they spread
      O’er his clos’d eyes, and wrapp’d around his head,
      That, when the yellow hair in flame should fall,
      The catching fire might burn the golden caul.
      Besides, the spoils of foes in battle slain,
      When he descended on the Latian plain;
      Arms, trappings, horses, by the hearse are led
      In long array—th’ achievements of the dead.
      Then, pinion’d with their hands behind, appear
      Th’ unhappy captives, marching in the rear,
      Appointed off’rings in the victor’s name,
      To sprinkle with their blood the fun’ral flame.
      Inferior trophies by the chiefs are borne;
      Gauntlets and helms their loaded hands adorn;
      And fair inscriptions fix’d, and titles read
      Of Latian leaders conquer’d by the dead.

      Acoetes on his pupil’s corpse attends,
      With feeble steps, supported by his friends.
      Pausing at ev’ry pace, in sorrow drown’d,
      Betwixt their arms he sinks upon the ground;
      Where grov’ling while he lies in deep despair,
      He beats his breast, and rends his hoary hair.
      The champion’s chariot next is seen to roll,
      Besmear’d with hostile blood, and honourably foul.
      To close the pomp, Aethon, the steed of state,
      Is led, the fun’rals of his lord to wait.
      Stripp’d of his trappings, with a sullen pace
      He walks; and the big tears run rolling down his face.
      The lance of Pallas, and the crimson crest,
      Are borne behind: the victor seiz’d the rest.
      The march begins: the trumpets hoarsely sound;
      The pikes and lances trail along the ground.
      Thus while the Trojan and Arcadian horse
      To Pallantean tow’rs direct their course,
      In long procession rank’d, the pious chief
      Stopp’d in the rear, and gave a vent to grief:
      “The public care,” he said, “which war attends,
      Diverts our present woes, at least suspends.
      Peace with the manes of great Pallas dwell!
      Hail, holy relics! and a last farewell!”
      He said no more, but, inly thro’ he mourn’d,
      Restrained his tears, and to the camp return’d.

      Now suppliants, from Laurentum sent, demand
      A truce, with olive branches in their hand;
      Obtest his clemency, and from the plain
      Beg leave to draw the bodies of their slain.
      They plead, that none those common rites deny
      To conquer’d foes that in fair battle die.
      All cause of hate was ended in their death;
      Nor could he war with bodies void of breath.
      A king, they hop’d, would hear a king’s request,
      Whose son he once was call’d, and once his guest.

      Their suit, which was too just to be denied,
      The hero grants, and farther thus replied:
      “O Latian princes, how severe a fate
      In causeless quarrels has involv’d your state,
      And arm’d against an unoffending man,
      Who sought your friendship ere the war began!
      You beg a truce, which I would gladly give,
      Not only for the slain, but those who live.
      I came not hither but by Heav’n’s command,
      And sent by fate to share the Latian land.
      Nor wage I wars unjust: your king denied
      My proffer’d friendship, and my promis’d bride;
      Left me for Turnus. Turnus then should try
      His cause in arms, to conquer or to die.
      My right and his are in dispute: the slain
      Fell without fault, our quarrel to maintain.
      In equal arms let us alone contend;
      And let him vanquish, whom his fates befriend.
      This is the way (so tell him) to possess
      The royal virgin, and restore the peace.
      Bear this message back, with ample leave,
      That your slain friends may fun’ral rites receive.”

      Thus having said—th’ embassadors, amaz’d,
      Stood mute a while, and on each other gaz’d.
      Drances, their chief, who harbour’d in his breast
      Long hate to Turnus, as his foe profess’d,
      Broke silence first, and to the godlike man,
      With graceful action bowing, thus began:
      “Auspicious prince, in arms a mighty name,
      But yet whose actions far transcend your fame;
      Would I your justice or your force express,
      Thought can but equal; and all words are less.
      Your answer we shall thankfully relate,
      And favours granted to the Latian state.
      If wish’d success our labour shall attend,
      Think peace concluded, and the king your friend:
      Let Turnus leave the realm to your command,
      And seek alliance in some other land:
      Build you the city which your fates assign;
      We shall be proud in the great work to join.”

      Thus Drances; and his words so well persuade
      The rest impower’d, that soon a truce is made.
      Twelve days the term allow’d: and, during those,
      Latians and Trojans, now no longer foes,
      Mix’d in the woods, for fun’ral piles prepare
      To fell the timber, and forget the war.
      Loud axes thro’ the groaning groves resound;
      Oak, mountain ash, and poplar spread the ground;
      First fall from high; and some the trunks receive
      In loaden wains; with wedges some they cleave.

      And now the fatal news by Fame is blown
      Thro’ the short circuit of th’ Arcadian town,
      Of Pallas slain—by Fame, which just before
      His triumphs on distended pinions bore.
      Rushing from out the gate, the people stand,
      Each with a fun’ral flambeau in his hand.
      Wildly they stare, distracted with amaze:
      The fields are lighten’d with a fiery blaze,
      That cast a sullen splendour on their friends,
      The marching troop which their dead prince attends.
      Both parties meet: they raise a doleful cry;
      The matrons from the walls with shrieks reply,
      And their mix’d mourning rends the vaulted sky.
      The town is fill’d with tumult and with tears,
      Till the loud clamours reach Evander’s ears:
      Forgetful of his state, he runs along,
      With a disorder’d pace, and cleaves the throng;
      Falls on the corpse; and groaning there he lies,
      With silent grief, that speaks but at his eyes.
      Short sighs and sobs succeed; till sorrow breaks
      A passage, and at once he weeps and speaks:

      “O Pallas! thou hast fail’d thy plighted word,
      To fight with caution, not to tempt the sword!
      I warn’d thee, but in vain; for well I knew
      What perils youthful ardour would pursue,
      That boiling blood would carry thee too far,
      Young as thou wert in dangers, raw to war!
      O curst essay of arms, disastrous doom,
      Prelude of bloody fields, and fights to come!
      Hard elements of unauspicious war,
      Vain vows to Heav’n, and unavailing care!
      Thrice happy thou, dear partner of my bed,
      Whose holy soul the stroke of Fortune fled,
      Prescious of ills, and leaving me behind,
      To drink the dregs of life by fate assign’d!
      Beyond the goal of nature I have gone:
      My Pallas late set out, but reach’d too soon.
      If, for my league against th’ Ausonian state,
      Amidst their weapons I had found my fate,
      (Deserv’d from them,) then I had been return’d
      A breathless victor, and my son had mourn’d.
      Yet will I not my Trojan friend upbraid,
      Nor grudge th’ alliance I so gladly made.
      ’Twas not his fault, my Pallas fell so young,
      But my own crime, for having liv’d too long.
      Yet, since the gods had destin’d him to die,
      At least he led the way to victory:
      First for his friends he won the fatal shore,
      And sent whole herds of slaughter’d foes before;
      A death too great, too glorious to deplore.
      Nor will I add new honours to thy grave,
      Content with those the Trojan hero gave:
      That funeral pomp thy Phrygian friends design’d,
      In which the Tuscan chiefs and army join’d.
      Great spoils and trophies, gain’d by thee, they bear:
      Then let thy own achievements be thy share.
      Even thou, O Turnus, hadst a trophy stood,
      Whose mighty trunk had better grac’d the wood,
      If Pallas had arriv’d, with equal length
      Of years, to match thy bulk with equal strength.
      But why, unhappy man, dost thou detain
      These troops, to view the tears thou shedd’st in vain?
      Go, friends, this message to your lord relate:
      Tell him, that, if I bear my bitter fate,
      And, after Pallas’ death, live ling’ring on,
      ’Tis to behold his vengeance for my son.
      I stay for Turnus, whose devoted head
      Is owing to the living and the dead.
      My son and I expect it from his hand;
      ’Tis all that he can give, or we demand.
      Joy is no more; but I would gladly go,
      To greet my Pallas with such news below.”

      The morn had now dispell’d the shades of night,
      Restoring toils, when she restor’d the light.
      The Trojan king and Tuscan chief command
      To raise the piles along the winding strand.
      Their friends convey the dead fun’ral fires;
      Black smould’ring smoke from the green wood expires;
      The light of heav’n is chok’d, and the new day retires.
      Then thrice around the kindled piles they go
      (For ancient custom had ordain’d it so)
      Thrice horse and foot about the fires are led;
      And thrice, with loud laments, they hail the dead.
      Tears, trickling down their breasts, bedew the ground,
      And drums and trumpets mix their mournful sound.
      Amid the blaze, their pious brethren throw
      The spoils, in battle taken from the foe:
      Helms, bits emboss’d, and swords of shining steel;
      One casts a target, one a chariot wheel;
      Some to their fellows their own arms restore:
      The falchions which in luckless fight they bore,
      Their bucklers pierc’d, their darts bestow’d in vain,
      And shiver’d lances gather’d from the plain.
      Whole herds of offer’d bulls, about the fire,
      And bristled boars, and woolly sheep expire.
      Around the piles a careful troop attends,
      To watch the wasting flames, and weep their burning friends;
      Ling’ring along the shore, till dewy night
      New decks the face of heav’n with starry light.

      The conquer’d Latians, with like pious care,
      Piles without number for their dead prepare.
      Part in the places where they fell are laid;
      And part are to the neighb’ring fields convey’d.
      The corps of kings, and captains of renown,
      Borne off in state, are buried in the town;
      The rest, unhonour’d, and without a name,
      Are cast a common heap to feed the flame.
      Trojans and Latians vie with like desires
      To make the field of battle shine with fires,
      And the promiscuous blaze to heav’n aspires.

      Now had the morning thrice renew’d the light,
      And thrice dispell’d the shadows of the night,
      When those who round the wasted fires remain,
      Perform the last sad office to the slain.
      They rake the yet warm ashes from below;
      These, and the bones unburn’d, in earth bestow;
      These relics with their country rites they grace,
      And raise a mount of turf to mark the place.

      But, in the palace of the king, appears
      A scene more solemn, and a pomp of tears.
      Maids, matrons, widows, mix their common moans;
      Orphans their sires, and sires lament their sons.
      All in that universal sorrow share,
      And curse the cause of this unhappy war:
      A broken league, a bride unjustly sought,
      A crown usurp’d, which with their blood is bought!
      These are the crimes with which they load the name
      Of Turnus, and on him alone exclaim:
      “Let him who lords it o’er th’ Ausonian land
      Engage the Trojan hero hand to hand:
      His is the gain; our lot is but to serve;
      ’Tis just, the sway he seeks, he should deserve.”
      This Drances aggravates; and adds, with spite:
      “His foe expects, and dares him to the fight.”
      Nor Turnus wants a party, to support
      His cause and credit in the Latian court.
      His former acts secure his present fame,
      And the queen shades him with her mighty name.

      While thus their factious minds with fury burn,
      The legates from th’ Aetolian prince return:
      Sad news they bring, that, after all the cost
      And care employ’d, their embassy is lost;
      That Diomedes refus’d his aid in war,
      Unmov’d with presents, and as deaf to pray’r.
      Some new alliance must elsewhere be sought,
      Or peace with Troy on hard conditions bought.

      Latinus, sunk in sorrow, finds too late,
      A foreign son is pointed out by fate;
      And, till Aeneas shall Lavinia wed,
      The wrath of Heav’n is hov’ring o’er his head.
      The gods, he saw, espous’d the juster side,
      When late their titles in the field were tried:
      Witness the fresh laments, and fun’ral tears undried.
      Thus, full of anxious thought, he summons all
      The Latian senate to the council hall.
      The princes come, commanded by their head,
      And crowd the paths that to the palace lead.
      Supreme in pow’r, and reverenc’d for his years,
      He takes the throne, and in the midst appears.
      Majestically sad, he sits in state,
      And bids his envoys their success relate.

      When Venulus began, the murmuring sound
      Was hush’d, and sacred silence reign’d around.
      “We have,” said he, “perform’d your high command,
      And pass’d with peril a long tract of land:
      We reach’d the place desir’d; with wonder fill’d,
      The Grecian tents and rising tow’rs beheld.
      Great Diomede has compass’d round with walls
      The city, which Argyripa he calls,
      From his own Argos nam’d. We touch’d, with joy,
      The royal hand that raz’d unhappy Troy.
      When introduc’d, our presents first we bring,
      Then crave an instant audience from the king.
      His leave obtain’d, our native soil we name,
      And tell th’ important cause for which we came.
      Attentively he heard us, while we spoke;
      Then, with soft accents, and a pleasing look,
      Made this return: ‘Ausonian race, of old
      Renown’d for peace, and for an age of gold,
      What madness has your alter’d minds possess’d,
      To change for war hereditary rest,
      Solicit arms unknown, and tempt the sword,
      A needless ill your ancestors abhorr’d?
      We—for myself I speak, and all the name
      Of Grecians, who to Troy’s destruction came,
      (Omitting those who were in battle slain,
      Or borne by rolling Simois to the main)
      Not one but suffer’d, and too dearly bought
      The prize of honour which in arms he sought;
      Some doom’d to death, and some in exile driv’n.
      Outcasts, abandon’d by the care of Heav’n;
      So worn, so wretched, so despis’d a crew,
      As ev’n old Priam might with pity view.
      Witness the vessels by Minerva toss’d
      In storms; the vengeful Capharean coast;
      Th’ Euboean rocks! the prince, whose brother led
      Our armies to revenge his injur’d bed,
      In Egypt lost! Ulysses with his men
      Have seen Charybdis and the Cyclops’ den.
      Why should I name Idomeneus, in vain
      Restor’d to scepters, and expell’d again?
      Or young Achilles, by his rival slain?
      Ev’n he, the King of Men, the foremost name
      Of all the Greeks, and most renown’d by fame,
      The proud revenger of another’s wife,
      Yet by his own adult’ress lost his life;
      Fell at his threshold; and the spoils of Troy
      The foul polluters of his bed enjoy.
      The gods have envied me the sweets of life,
      My much lov’d country, and my more lov’d wife:
      Banish’d from both, I mourn; while in the sky,
      Transform’d to birds, my lost companions fly:
      Hov’ring about the coasts, they make their moan,
      And cuff the cliffs with pinions not their own.
      What squalid spectres, in the dead of night,
      Break my short sleep, and skim before my sight!
      I might have promis’d to myself those harms,
      Mad as I was, when I, with mortal arms,
      Presum’d against immortal pow’rs to move,
      And violate with wounds the Queen of Love.
      Such arms this hand shall never more employ;
      No hate remains with me to ruin’d Troy.
      I war not with its dust; nor am I glad
      To think of past events, or good or bad.
      Your presents I return: whate’er you bring
      To buy my friendship, send the Trojan king.
      We met in fight; I know him, to my cost:
      With what a whirling force his lance he toss’d!
      Heav’ns! what a spring was in his arm, to throw!
      How high he held his shield, and rose at ev’ry blow!
      Had Troy produc’d two more his match in might,
      They would have chang’d the fortune of the fight:
      Th’ invasion of the Greeks had been return’d,
      Our empire wasted, and our cities burn’d.
      The long defence the Trojan people made,
      The war protracted, and the siege delay’d,
      Were due to Hector’s and this hero’s hand:
      Both brave alike, and equal in command;
      Aeneas, not inferior in the field,
      In pious reverence to the gods excell’d.
      Make peace, ye Latians, and avoid with care
      Th’ impending dangers of a fatal war.’
      He said no more; but, with this cold excuse,
      Refus’d th’ alliance, and advis’d a truce.”

      Thus Venulus concluded his report.
      A jarring murmur fill’d the factious court:
      As, when a torrent rolls with rapid force,
      And dashes o’er the stones that stop the course,
      The flood, constrain’d within a scanty space,
      Roars horrible along th’ uneasy race;
      White foam in gath’ring eddies floats around;
      The rocky shores rebellow to the sound.

      The murmur ceas’d: then from his lofty throne
      The king invok’d the gods, and thus begun:
      “I wish, ye Latins, what we now debate
      Had been resolv’d before it was too late.
      Much better had it been for you and me,
      Unforc’d by this our last necessity,
      To have been earlier wise, than now to call
      A council, when the foe surrounds the wall.
      O citizens, we wage unequal war,
      With men not only Heav’n’s peculiar care,
      But Heav’n’s own race; unconquer’d in the field,
      Or, conquer’d, yet unknowing how to yield.
      What hopes you had in Diomedes, lay down:
      Our hopes must centre on ourselves alone.
      Yet those how feeble, and, indeed, how vain,
      You see too well; nor need my words explain.
      Vanquish’d without resource; laid flat by fate;
      Factions within, a foe without the gate!
      Not but I grant that all perform’d their parts
      With manly force, and with undaunted hearts:
      With our united strength the war we wag’d;
      With equal numbers, equal arms, engag’d.
      You see th’ event.—Now hear what I propose,
      To save our friends, and satisfy our foes.
      A tract of land the Latins have possess’d
      Along the Tiber, stretching to the west,
      Which now Rutulians and Auruncans till,
      And their mix’d cattle graze the fruitful hill.
      Those mountains fill’d with firs, that lower land,
      If you consent, the Trojan shall command,
      Call’d into part of what is ours; and there,
      On terms agreed, the common country share.
      There let them build and settle, if they please;
      Unless they choose once more to cross the seas,
      In search of seats remote from Italy,
      And from unwelcome inmates set us free.
      Then twice ten galleys let us build with speed,
      Or twice as many more, if more they need.
      Materials are at hand; a well-grown wood
      Runs equal with the margin of the flood:
      Let them the number and the form assign;
      The care and cost of all the stores be mine.
      To treat the peace, a hundred senators
      Shall be commission’d hence with ample pow’rs,
      With olive the presents they shall bear,
      A purple robe, a royal iv’ry chair,
      And all the marks of sway that Latian monarchs wear,
      And sums of gold. Among yourselves debate
      This great affair, and save the sinking state.”

      Then Drances took the word, who grudg’d, long since,
      The rising glories of the Daunian prince.
      Factious and rich, bold at the council board,
      But cautious in the field, he shunn’d the sword;
      A close caballer, and tongue-valiant lord.
      Noble his mother was, and near the throne;
      But, what his father’s parentage, unknown.
      He rose, and took th’ advantage of the times,
      To load young Turnus with invidious crimes.
      “Such truths, O king,” said he, “your words contain,
      As strike the sense, and all replies are vain;
      Nor are your loyal subjects now to seek
      What common needs require, but fear to speak.
      Let him give leave of speech, that haughty man,
      Whose pride this unauspicious war began;
      For whose ambition (let me dare to say,
      Fear set apart, tho’ death is in my way)
      The plains of Latium run with blood around.
      So many valiant heroes bite the ground;
      Dejected grief in ev’ry face appears;
      A town in mourning, and a land in tears;
      While he, th’ undoubted author of our harms,
      The man who menaces the gods with arms,
      Yet, after all his boasts, forsook the fight,
      And sought his safety in ignoble flight.
      Now, best of kings, since you propose to send
      Such bounteous presents to your Trojan friend;
      Add yet a greater at our joint request,
      One which he values more than all the rest:
      Give him the fair Lavinia for his bride;
      With that alliance let the league be tied,
      And for the bleeding land a lasting peace provide.
      Let insolence no longer awe the throne;
      But, with a father’s right, bestow your own.
      For this maligner of the general good,
      If still we fear his force, he must be woo’d;
      His haughty godhead we with pray’rs implore,
      Your scepter to release, and our just rights restore.
      O cursed cause of all our ills, must we
      Wage wars unjust, and fall in fight, for thee!
      What right hast thou to rule the Latian state,
      And send us out to meet our certain fate?
      ’Tis a destructive war: from Turnus’ hand
      Our peace and public safety we demand.
      Let the fair bride to the brave chief remain;
      If not, the peace, without the pledge, is vain.
      Turnus, I know you think me not your friend,
      Nor will I much with your belief contend:
      I beg your greatness not to give the law
      In others’ realms, but, beaten, to withdraw.
      Pity your own, or pity our estate;
      Nor twist our fortunes with your sinking fate.
      Your interest is, the war should never cease;
      But we have felt enough to wish the peace:
      A land exhausted to the last remains,
      Depopulated towns, and driven plains.
      Yet, if desire of fame, and thirst of pow’r,
      A beauteous princess, with a crown in dow’r,
      So fire your mind, in arms assert your right,
      And meet your foe, who dares you to the fight.
      Mankind, it seems, is made for you alone;
      We, but the slaves who mount you to the throne:
      A base ignoble crowd, without a name,
      Unwept, unworthy, of the fun’ral flame,
      By duty bound to forfeit each his life,
      That Turnus may possess a royal wife.
      Permit not, mighty man, so mean a crew
      Should share such triumphs, and detain from you
      The post of honour, your undoubted due.
      Rather alone your matchless force employ,
      To merit what alone you must enjoy.”

      These words, so full of malice mix’d with art,
      Inflam’d with rage the youthful hero’s heart.
      Then, groaning from the bottom of his breast,
      He heav’d for wind, and thus his wrath express’d:
      “You, Drances, never want a stream of words,
      Then, when the public need requires our swords.
      First in the council hall to steer the state,
      And ever foremost in a tongue-debate,
      While our strong walls secure us from the foe,
      Ere yet with blood our ditches overflow:
      But let the potent orator declaim,
      And with the brand of coward blot my name;
      Free leave is giv’n him, when his fatal hand
      Has cover’d with more corps the sanguine strand,
      And high as mine his tow’ring trophies stand.
      If any doubt remains, who dares the most,
      Let us decide it at the Trojan’s cost,
      And issue both abreast, where honour calls—
      (Foes are not far to seek without the walls)
      Unless his noisy tongue can only fight,
      And feet were giv’n him but to speed his flight.
      I beaten from the field? I forc’d away?
      Who, but so known a dastard, dares to say?
      Had he but ev’n beheld the fight, his eyes
      Had witness’d for me what his tongue denies:
      What heaps of Trojans by this hand were slain,
      And how the bloody Tiber swell’d the main.
      All saw, but he, th’ Arcadian troops retire
      In scatter’d squadrons, and their prince expire.
      The giant brothers, in their camp, have found,
      I was not forc’d with ease to quit my ground.
      Not such the Trojans tried me, when, inclos’d,
      I singly their united arms oppos’d:
      First forc’d an entrance thro’ their thick array;
      Then, glutted with their slaughter, freed my way.
      ’Tis a destructive war? So let it be,
      But to the Phrygian pirate, and to thee!
      Meantime proceed to fill the people’s ears
      With false reports, their minds with panic fears:
      Extol the strength of a twice-conquer’d race;
      Our foes encourage, and our friends debase.
      Believe thy fables, and the Trojan town
      Triumphant stands; the Grecians are o’erthrown;
      Suppliant at Hector’s feet Achilles lies,
      And Diomede from fierce Aeneas flies.
      Say rapid Aufidus with awful dread
      Runs backward from the sea, and hides his head,
      When the great Trojan on his bank appears;
      For that’s as true as thy dissembled fears
      Of my revenge. Dismiss that vanity:
      Thou, Drances, art below a death from me.
      Let that vile soul in that vile body rest;
      The lodging is well worthy of the guest.

      “Now, royal father, to the present state
      Of our affairs, and of this high debate:
      If in your arms thus early you diffide,
      And think your fortune is already tried;
      If one defeat has brought us down so low,
      As never more in fields to meet the foe;
      Then I conclude for peace: ’tis time to treat,
      And lie like vassals at the victor’s feet.
      But, O! if any ancient blood remains,
      One drop of all our fathers’, in our veins,
      That man would I prefer before the rest,
      Who dar’d his death with an undaunted breast;
      Who comely fell, by no dishonest wound,
      To shun that sight, and, dying, gnaw’d the ground.
      But, if we still have fresh recruits in store,
      If our confederates can afford us more;
      If the contended field we bravely fought,
      And not a bloodless victory was bought;
      Their losses equal’d ours; and, for their slain,
      With equal fires they fill’d the shining plain;
      Why thus, unforc’d, should we so tamely yield,
      And, ere the trumpet sounds, resign the field?
      Good unexpected, evils unforeseen,
      Appear by turns, as fortune shifts the scene:
      Some, rais’d aloft, come tumbling down amain;
      Then fall so hard, they bound and rise again.
      If Diomede refuse his aid to lend,
      The great Messapus yet remains our friend:
      Tolumnius, who foretells events, is ours;
      Th’ Italian chiefs and princes join their pow’rs:
      Nor least in number, nor in name the last,
      Your own brave subjects have your cause embrac’d
      Above the rest, the Volscian Amazon
      Contains an army in herself alone,
      And heads a squadron, terrible to sight,
      With glitt’ring shields, in brazen armour bright.
      Yet, if the foe a single fight demand,
      And I alone the public peace withstand;
      If you consent, he shall not be refus’d,
      Nor find a hand to victory unus’d.
      This new Achilles, let him take the field,
      With fated armour, and Vulcanian shield!
      For you, my royal father, and my fame,
      I, Turnus, not the least of all my name,
      Devote my soul. He calls me hand to hand,
      And I alone will answer his demand.
      Drances shall rest secure, and neither share
      The danger, nor divide the prize of war.”

      While they debate, nor these nor those will yield,
      Aeneas draws his forces to the field,
      And moves his camp. The scouts with flying speed
      Return, and thro’ the frighted city spread
      Th’ unpleasing news, the Trojans are descried,
      In battle marching by the river side,
      And bending to the town. They take th’ alarm:
      Some tremble, some are bold; all in confusion arm.
      Th’ impetuous youth press forward to the field;
      They clash the sword, and clatter on the shield:
      The fearful matrons raise a screaming cry;
      Old feeble men with fainter groans reply;
      A jarring sound results, and mingles in the sky,
      Like that of swans remurm’ring to the floods,
      Or birds of diff’ring kinds in hollow woods.

      Turnus th’ occasion takes, and cries aloud:
      “Talk on, ye quaint haranguers of the crowd:
      Declaim in praise of peace, when danger calls,
      And the fierce foes in arms approach the walls.”
      He said, and, turning short, with speedy pace,
      Casts back a scornful glance, and quits the place:
      “Thou, Volusus, the Volscian troops command
      To mount; and lead thyself our Ardean band.
      Messapus and Catillus, post your force
      Along the fields, to charge the Trojan horse.
      Some guard the passes, others man the wall;
      Drawn up in arms, the rest attend my call.”

      They swarm from ev’ry quarter of the town,
      And with disorder’d haste the rampires crown.
      Good old Latinus, when he saw, too late,
      The gath’ring storm just breaking on the state,
      Dismiss’d the council till a fitter time,
      And own’d his easy temper as his crime,
      Who, forc’d against his reason, had complied
      To break the treaty for the promis’d bride.

      Some help to sink new trenches; others aid
      To ram the stones, or raise the palisade.
      Hoarse trumpets sound th’ alarm; around the walls
      Runs a distracted crew, whom their last labour calls.
      A sad procession in the streets is seen,
      Of matrons, that attend the mother queen:
      High in her chair she sits, and, at her side,
      With downcast eyes, appears the fatal bride.
      They mount the cliff, where Pallas’ temple stands;
      Pray’rs in their mouths, and presents in their hands,
      With censers first they fume the sacred shrine,
      Then in this common supplication join:
      “O patroness of arms, unspotted maid,
      Propitious hear, and lend thy Latins aid!
      Break short the pirate’s lance; pronounce his fate,
      And lay the Phrygian low before the gate.”

      Now Turnus arms for fight. His back and breast
      Well-temper’d steel and scaly brass invest:
      The cuishes which his brawny thighs infold
      Are mingled metal damask’d o’er with gold.
      His faithful falchion sits upon his side;
      Nor casque, nor crest, his manly features hide:
      But, bare to view, amid surrounding friends,
      With godlike grace, he from the tow’r descends.
      Exulting in his strength, he seems to dare
      His absent rival, and to promise war.
      Freed from his keepers, thus, with broken reins,
      The wanton courser prances o’er the plains,
      Or in the pride of youth o’erleaps the mounds,
      And snuffs the females in forbidden grounds.
      Or seeks his wat’ring in the well-known flood,
      To quench his thirst, and cool his fiery blood:
      He swims luxuriant in the liquid plain,
      And o’er his shoulder flows his waving mane:
      He neighs, he snorts, he bears his head on high;
      Before his ample chest the frothy waters fly.

      Soon as the prince appears without the gate,
      The Volscians, with their virgin leader, wait
      His last commands. Then, with a graceful mien,
      Lights from her lofty steed the warrior queen:
      Her squadron imitates, and each descends;
      Whose common suit Camilla thus commends:
      “If sense of honour, if a soul secure
      Of inborn worth, that can all tests endure,
      Can promise aught, or on itself rely
      Greatly to dare, to conquer or to die;
      Then, I alone, sustain’d by these, will meet
      The Tyrrhene troops, and promise their defeat.
      Ours be the danger, ours the sole renown:
      You, gen’ral, stay behind, and guard the town.”

      Turnus a while stood mute, with glad surprise,
      And on the fierce Virago fix’d his eyes;
      Then thus return’d: “O grace of Italy,
      With what becoming thanks can I reply?
      Not only words lie lab’ring in my breast,
      But thought itself is by thy praise oppress’d.
      Yet rob me not of all; but let me join
      My toils, my hazard, and my fame, with thine.
      The Trojan, not in stratagem unskill’d,
      Sends his light horse before to scour the field:
      Himself, thro’ steep ascents and thorny brakes,
      A larger compass to the city takes.
      This news my scouts confirm, and I prepare
      To foil his cunning, and his force to dare;
      With chosen foot his passage to forelay,
      And place an ambush in the winding way.
      Thou, with thy Volscians, face the Tuscan horse;
      The brave Messapus shall thy troops enforce
      With those of Tibur, and the Latian band,
      Subjected all to thy supreme command.”
      This said, he warns Messapus to the war,
      Then ev’ry chief exhorts with equal care.
      All thus encourag’d, his own troops he joins,
      And hastes to prosecute his deep designs.

      Inclos’d with hills, a winding valley lies,
      By nature form’d for fraud, and fitted for surprise.
      A narrow track, by human steps untrode,
      Leads, thro’ perplexing thorns, to this obscure abode.
      High o’er the vale a steepy mountain stands,
      Whence the surveying sight the nether ground commands.
      The top is level, an offensive seat
      Of war; and from the war a safe retreat:
      For, on the right and left, is room to press
      The foes at hand, or from afar distress;
      To drive ’em headlong downward, and to pour
      On their descending backs a stony show’r.
      Thither young Turnus took the well-known way,
      Possess’d the pass, and in blind ambush lay.

      Meantime Latonian Phoebe, from the skies,
      Beheld th’ approaching war with hateful eyes,
      And call’d the light-foot Opis to her aid,
      Her most belov’d and ever-trusty maid;
      Then with a sigh began: “Camilla goes
      To meet her death amidst her fatal foes:
      The nymphs I lov’d of all my mortal train,
      Invested with Diana’s arms, in vain.
      Nor is my kindness for the virgin new:
      ’Twas born with her; and with her years it grew.
      Her father Metabus, when forc’d away
      From old Privernum, for tyrannic sway,
      Snatch’d up, and sav’d from his prevailing foes,
      This tender babe, companion of his woes.
      Casmilla was her mother; but he drown’d
      One hissing letter in a softer sound,
      And call’d Camilla. Thro’ the woods he flies;
      Wrapp’d in his robe the royal infant lies.
      His foes in sight, he mends his weary pace;
      With shout and clamours they pursue the chase.
      The banks of Amasene at length he gains:

      The raging flood his farther flight restrains,
      Rais’d o’er the borders with unusual rains.
      Prepar’d to plunge into the stream, he fears,
      Not for himself, but for the charge he bears.
      Anxious, he stops a while, and thinks in haste;
      Then, desp’rate in distress, resolves at last.
      A knotty lance of well-boil’d oak he bore;
      The middle part with cork he cover’d o’er:
      He clos’d the child within the hollow space;
      With twigs of bending osier bound the case;
      Then pois’d the spear, heavy with human weight,
      And thus invok’d my favour for the freight:
      ‘Accept, great goddess of the woods,’ he said,
      ‘Sent by her sire, this dedicated maid!
      Thro’ air she flies a suppliant to thy shrine;
      And the first weapons that she knows, are thine.’
      He said; and with full force the spear he threw:
      Above the sounding waves Camilla flew.
      Then, press’d by foes, he stemm’d the stormy tide,
      And gain’d, by stress of arms, the farther side.
      His fasten’d spear he pull’d from out the ground,
      And, victor of his vows, his infant nymph unbound;
      Nor, after that, in towns which walls inclose,
      Would trust his hunted life amidst his foes;
      But, rough, in open air he chose to lie;
      Earth was his couch, his cov’ring was the sky.
      On hills unshorn, or in a desert den,
      He shunn’d the dire society of men.
      A shepherd’s solitary life he led;
      His daughter with the milk of mares he fed.
      The dugs of bears, and ev’ry salvage beast,
      He drew, and thro’ her lips the liquor press’d.
      The little Amazon could scarcely go:
      He loads her with a quiver and a bow;
      And, that she might her stagg’ring steps command,
      He with a slender jav’lin fills her hand.
      Her flowing hair no golden fillet bound;
      Nor swept her trailing robe the dusty ground.
      Instead of these, a tiger’s hide o’erspread
      Her back and shoulders, fasten’d to her head.
      The flying dart she first attempts to fling,
      And round her tender temples toss’d the sling;
      Then, as her strength with years increas’d, began
      To pierce aloft in air the soaring swan,
      And from the clouds to fetch the heron and the crane.
      The Tuscan matrons with each other vied,
      To bless their rival sons with such a bride;
      But she disdains their love, to share with me
      The sylvan shades and vow’d virginity.
      And, O! I wish, contented with my cares
      Of salvage spoils, she had not sought the wars!
      Then had she been of my celestial train,
      And shunn’d the fate that dooms her to be slain.
      But since, opposing Heav’n’s decree, she goes
      To find her death among forbidden foes,
      Haste with these arms, and take thy steepy flight.
      Where, with the gods, averse, the Latins fight.
      This bow to thee, this quiver I bequeath,
      This chosen arrow, to revenge her death:
      By whate’er hand Camilla shall be slain,
      Or of the Trojan or Italian train,
      Let him not pass unpunish’d from the plain.
      Then, in a hollow cloud, myself will aid
      To bear the breathless body of my maid:
      Unspoil’d shall be her arms, and unprofan’d
      Her holy limbs with any human hand,
      And in a marble tomb laid in her native land.”

      She said. The faithful nymph descends from high
      With rapid flight, and cuts the sounding sky:
      Black clouds and stormy winds around her body fly.

      By this, the Trojan and the Tuscan horse,
      Drawn up in squadrons, with united force,
      Approach the walls: the sprightly coursers bound,
      Press forward on their bits, and shift their ground.
      Shields, arms, and spears flash horribly from far;
      And the fields glitter with a waving war.
      Oppos’d to these, come on with furious force
      Messapus, Coras, and the Latian horse;
      These in the body plac’d, on either hand
      Sustain’d and clos’d by fair Camilla’s band.
      Advancing in a line, they couch their spears;
      And less and less the middle space appears.
      Thick smoke obscures the field; and scarce are seen
      The neighing coursers, and the shouting men.
      In distance of their darts they stop their course;
      Then man to man they rush, and horse to horse.
      The face of heav’n their flying jav’lins hide,
      And deaths unseen are dealt on either side.
      Tyrrhenus, and Aconteus, void of fear,
      By mettled coursers borne in full career,
      Meet first oppos’d; and, with a mighty shock,
      Their horses’ heads against each other knock.
      Far from his steed is fierce Aconteus cast,
      As with an engine’s force, or lightning’s blast:
      He rolls along in blood, and breathes his last.
      The Latin squadrons take a sudden fright,
      And sling their shields behind, to save their backs in flight
      Spurring at speed to their own walls they drew;
      Close in the rear the Tuscan troops pursue,
      And urge their flight: Asylas leads the chase;
      Till, seiz’d, with shame, they wheel about and face,
      Receive their foes, and raise a threat’ning cry.
      The Tuscans take their turn to fear and fly.
      So swelling surges, with a thund’ring roar,
      Driv’n on each other’s backs, insult the shore,
      Bound o’er the rocks, incroach upon the land,
      And far upon the beach eject the sand;
      Then backward, with a swing, they take their way,
      Repuls’d from upper ground, and seek their mother sea;
      With equal hurry quit th’ invaded shore,
      And swallow back the sand and stones they spew’d before.

      Twice were the Tuscans masters of the field,
      Twice by the Latins, in their turn, repell’d.
      Asham’d at length, to the third charge they ran;
      Both hosts resolv’d, and mingled man to man.
      Now dying groans are heard; the fields are strow’d
      With falling bodies, and are drunk with blood.
      Arms, horses, men, on heaps together lie:
      Confus’d the fight, and more confus’d the cry.
      Orsilochus, who durst not press too near
      Strong Remulus, at distance drove his spear,
      And stuck the steel beneath his horse’s ear.
      The fiery steed, impatient of the wound,
      Curvets, and, springing upward with a bound,
      His helpless lord cast backward on the ground.
      Catillus pierc’d Iolas first; then drew
      His reeking lance, and at Herminius threw,
      The mighty champion of the Tuscan crew.
      His neck and throat unarm’d, his head was bare,
      But shaded with a length of yellow hair:
      Secure, he fought, expos’d on ev’ry part,
      A spacious mark for swords, and for the flying dart.
      Across the shoulders came the feather’d wound;
      Transfix’d he fell, and doubled to the ground.
      The sands with streaming blood are sanguine dyed,
      And death with honour sought on either side.

      Resistless thro’ the war Camilla rode,
      In danger unappall’d, and pleas’d with blood.
      One side was bare for her exerted breast;
      One shoulder with her painted quiver press’d.
      Now from afar her fatal jav’lins play;
      Now with her ax’s edge she hews her way:
      Diana’s arms upon her shoulder sound;
      And when, too closely press’d, she quits the ground,
      From her bent bow she sends a backward wound.
      Her maids, in martial pomp, on either side,
      Larina, Tulla, fierce Tarpeia, ride:
      Italians all; in peace, their queen’s delight;
      In war, the bold companions of the fight.
      So march’d the Thracian Amazons of old,
      When Thermodon with bloody billows roll’d:
      Such troops as these in shining arms were seen,
      When Theseus met in fight their maiden queen:
      Such to the field Penthesilea led,
      From the fierce virgin when the Grecians fled;
      With such, return’d triumphant from the war,
      Her maids with cries attend the lofty car;
      They clash with manly force their moony shields;
      With female shouts resound the Phrygian fields.

      Who foremost, and who last, heroic maid,
      On the cold earth were by thy courage laid?
      Thy spear, of mountain ash, Eumenius first,
      With fury driv’n, from side to side transpierc’d:
      A purple stream came spouting from the wound;
      Bath’d in his blood he lies, and bites the ground.
      Liris and Pegasus at once she slew:
      The former, as the slacken’d reins he drew
      Of his faint steed; the latter, as he stretch’d
      His arm to prop his friend, the jav’lin reach’d.
      By the same weapon, sent from the same hand,
      Both fall together, and both spurn the sand.
      Amastrus next is added to the slain:
      The rest in rout she follows o’er the plain:
      Tereus, Harpalycus, Demophoon,
      And Chromis, at full speed her fury shun.
      Of all her deadly darts, not one she lost;
      Each was attended with a Trojan ghost.
      Young Ornithus bestrode a hunter steed,
      Swift for the chase, and of Apulian breed.
      Him from afar she spied, in arms unknown:
      O’er his broad back an ox’s hide was thrown;
      His helm a wolf, whose gaping jaws were spread
      A cov’ring for his cheeks, and grinn’d around his head,
      He clench’d within his hand an iron prong,
      And tower’d above the rest, conspicuous in the throng.
      Him soon she singled from the flying train,
      And slew with ease; then thus insults the slain:
      “Vain hunter, didst thou think thro’ woods to chase
      The savage herd, a vile and trembling race?
      Here cease thy vaunts, and own my victory:
      A woman warrior was too strong for thee.
      Yet, if the ghosts demand the conqu’ror’s name,
      Confessing great Camilla, save thy shame.”
      Then Butes and Orsilochus she slew,
      The bulkiest bodies of the Trojan crew;
      But Butes breast to breast: the spear descends
      Above the gorget, where his helmet ends,
      And o’er the shield which his left side defends.
      Orsilochus and she their courses ply:
      He seems to follow, and she seems to fly;
      But in a narrower ring she makes the race;
      And then he flies, and she pursues the chase.
      Gath’ring at length on her deluded foe,
      She swings her ax, and rises to the blow
      Full on the helm behind, with such a sway
      The weapon falls, the riven steel gives way:
      He groans, he roars, he sues in vain for grace;
      Brains, mingled with his blood, besmear his face.

      Astonish’d Aunus just arrives by chance,
      To see his fall; nor farther dares advance;
      But, fixing on the horrid maid his eye,
      He stares, and shakes, and finds it vain to fly;
      Yet, like a true Ligurian, born to cheat,
      (At least while fortune favour’d his deceit,)
      Cries out aloud: “What courage have you shown,
      Who trust your courser’s strength, and not your own?
      Forego the vantage of your horse, alight,
      And then on equal terms begin the fight:
      It shall be seen, weak woman, what you can,
      When, foot to foot, you combat with a man,”
      He said. She glows with anger and disdain,
      Dismounts with speed to dare him on the plain,
      And leaves her horse at large among her train;
      With her drawn sword defies him to the field,
      And, marching, lifts aloft her maiden shield.
      The youth, who thought his cunning did succeed,
      Reins round his horse, and urges all his speed;
      Adds the remembrance of the spur, and hides
      The goring rowels in his bleeding sides.
      “Vain fool, and coward!” cries the lofty maid,
      “Caught in the train which thou thyself hast laid!
      On others practice thy Ligurian arts;
      Thin stratagems and tricks of little hearts
      Are lost on me: nor shalt thou safe retire,
      With vaunting lies, to thy fallacious sire.”
      At this, so fast her flying feet she sped,
      That soon she strain’d beyond his horse’s head:
      Then turning short, at once she seiz’d the rein,
      And laid the boaster grov’ling on the plain.
      Not with more ease the falcon, from above,
      Trusses in middle air the trembling dove,
      Then plumes the prey, in her strong pounces bound:
      The feathers, foul with blood, come tumbling to the ground.

      Now mighty Jove, from his superior height,
      With his broad eye surveys th’ unequal fight.
      He fires the breast of Tarchon with disdain,
      And sends him to redeem th’ abandon’d plain.
      Betwixt the broken ranks the Tuscan rides,
      And these encourages, and those he chides;
      Recalls each leader, by his name, from flight;
      Renews their ardour, and restores the fight.
      “What panic fear has seiz’d your souls? O shame,
      O brand perpetual of th’ Etrurian name!
      Cowards incurable, a woman’s hand
      Drives, breaks, and scatters your ignoble band!
      Now cast away the sword, and quit the shield!
      What use of weapons which you dare not wield?
      Not thus you fly your female foes by night,
      Nor shun the feast, when the full bowls invite;
      When to fat off’rings the glad augur calls,
      And the shrill hornpipe sounds to bacchanals.
      These are your studied cares, your lewd delight:
      Swift to debauch, but slow to manly fight.”
      Thus having said, he spurs amid the foes,
      Not managing the life he meant to lose.
      The first he found he seiz’d with headlong haste,
      In his strong gripe, and clasp’d around the waist;
      ’Twas Venulus, whom from his horse he tore,
      And, laid athwart his own, in triumph bore.
      Loud shouts ensue; the Latins turn their eyes,
      And view th’ unusual sight with vast surprise.
      The fiery Tarchon, flying o’er the plains,
      Press’d in his arms the pond’rous prey sustains;
      Then, with his shorten’d spear, explores around
      His jointed arms, to fix a deadly wound.
      Nor less the captive struggles for his life:
      He writhes his body to prolong the strife,
      And, fencing for his naked throat, exerts
      His utmost vigour, and the point averts.
      So stoops the yellow eagle from on high,
      And bears a speckled serpent thro’ the sky,
      Fast’ning his crooked talons on the prey:
      The pris’ner hisses thro’ the liquid way;
      Resists the royal hawk; and, tho’ oppress’d,
      She fights in volumes, and erects her crest:
      Turn’d to her foe, she stiffens ev’ry scale,
      And shoots her forky tongue, and whisks her threat’ning tail.
      Against the victor, all defence is weak:
      Th’ imperial bird still plies her with his beak;
      He tears her bowels, and her breast he gores;
      Then claps his pinions, and securely soars.
      Thus, thro’ the midst of circling enemies,
      Strong Tarchon snatch’d and bore away his prize.
      The Tyrrhene troops, that shrunk before, now press
      The Latins, and presume the like success.

      Then Aruns, doom’d to death, his arts assay’d,
      To murder, unespied, the Volscian maid:
      This way and that his winding course he bends,
      And, whereso’er she turns, her steps attends.
      When she retires victorious from the chase,
      He wheels about with care, and shifts his place;
      When, rushing on, she seeks her foes in fight,
      He keeps aloof, but keeps her still in sight:
      He threats, and trembles, trying ev’ry way,
      Unseen to kill, and safely to betray.
      Chloreus, the priest of Cybele, from far,
      Glitt’ring in Phrygian arms amidst the war,
      Was by the virgin view’d. The steed he press’d
      Was proud with trappings, and his brawny chest
      With scales of gilded brass was cover’d o’er;
      A robe of Tyrian dye the rider wore.
      With deadly wounds he gall’d the distant foe;
      Gnossian his shafts, and Lycian was his bow:
      A golden helm his front and head surrounds
      A gilded quiver from his shoulder sounds.
      Gold, weav’d with linen, on his thighs he wore,
      With flowers of needlework distinguish’d o’er,
      With golden buckles bound, and gather’d up before.
      Him the fierce maid beheld with ardent eyes,
      Fond and ambitious of so rich a prize,
      Or that the temple might his trophies hold,
      Or else to shine herself in Trojan gold.
      Blind in her haste, she chases him alone.
      And seeks his life, regardless of her own.

      This lucky moment the sly traitor chose:
      Then, starting from his ambush, up he rose,
      And threw, but first to Heav’n address’d his vows:
      “O patron of Socrates’ high abodes,
      Phoebus, the ruling pow’r among the gods,
      Whom first we serve, whole woods of unctuous pine
      Are fell’d for thee, and to thy glory shine;
      By thee protected with our naked soles,
      Thro’ flames unsing’d we march, and tread the kindled coals
      Give me, propitious pow’r, to wash away
      The stains of this dishonourable day:
      Nor spoils, nor triumph, from the fact I claim,
      But with my future actions trust my fame.
      Let me, by stealth, this female plague o’ercome,
      And from the field return inglorious home.”
      Apollo heard, and, granting half his pray’r,
      Shuffled in winds the rest, and toss’d in empty air.
      He gives the death desir’d; his safe return
      By southern tempests to the seas is borne.

      Now, when the jav’lin whizz’d along the skies,
      Both armies on Camilla turn’d their eyes,
      Directed by the sound. Of either host,
      Th’ unhappy virgin, tho’ concern’d the most,
      Was only deaf; so greedy was she bent
      On golden spoils, and on her prey intent;
      Till in her pap the winged weapon stood
      Infix’d, and deeply drunk the purple blood.
      Her sad attendants hasten to sustain
      Their dying lady, drooping on the plain.
      Far from their sight the trembling Aruns flies,
      With beating heart, and fear confus’d with joys;
      Nor dares he farther to pursue his blow,
      Or ev’n to bear the sight of his expiring foe.
      As, when the wolf has torn a bullock’s hide
      At unawares, or ranch’d a shepherd’s side,
      Conscious of his audacious deed, he flies,
      And claps his quiv’ring tail between his thighs:
      So, speeding once, the wretch no more attends,
      But, spurring forward, herds among his friends.

      She wrench’d the jav’lin with her dying hands,
      But wedg’d within her breast the weapon stands;
      The wood she draws, the steely point remains;
      She staggers in her seat with agonizing pains:
      (A gath’ring mist o’erclouds her cheerful eyes,
      And from her cheeks the rosy colour flies:)
      Then turns to her, whom of her female train
      She trusted most, and thus she speaks with pain:
      “Acca, ’tis past! he swims before my sight,
      Inexorable Death; and claims his right.
      Bear my last words to Turnus; fly with speed,
      And bid him timely to my charge succeed,
      Repel the Trojans, and the town relieve:
      Farewell! and in this kiss my parting breath receive.”
      She said, and, sliding, sunk upon the plain:
      Dying, her open’d hand forsakes the rein;
      Short, and more short, she pants; by slow degrees
      Her mind the passage from her body frees.
      She drops her sword; she nods her plumy crest,
      Her drooping head declining on her breast:
      In the last sigh her struggling soul expires,
      And, murm’ring with disdain, to Stygian sounds retires.

      A shout, that struck the golden stars, ensued;
      Despair and rage the languish’d fight renew’d.
      The Trojan troops and Tuscans, in a line,
      Advance to charge; the mix’d Arcadians join.

      But Cynthia’s maid, high seated, from afar
      Surveys the field, and fortune of the war,
      Unmov’d a while, till, prostrate on the plain,
      Welt’ring in blood, she sees Camilla slain,
      And, round her corpse, of friends and foes a fighting train.
      Then, from the bottom of her breast, she drew
      A mournful sigh, and these sad words ensue:
      “Too dear a fine, ah, much lamented maid,
      For warring with the Trojans, thou hast paid!
      Nor aught avail’d, in this unhappy strife,
      Diana’s sacred arms, to save thy life.
      Yet unreveng’d thy goddess will not leave
      Her vot’ry’s death, nor; with vain sorrow grieve.
      Branded the wretch, and be his name abhorr’d;
      But after ages shall thy praise record.
      Th’ inglorious coward soon shall press the plain:
      Thus vows thy queen, and thus the Fates ordain.”

      High o’er the field there stood a hilly mound,
      Sacred the place, and spread with oaks around,
      Where, in a marble tomb, Dercennus lay,
      A king that once in Latium bore the sway.
      The beauteous Opis thither bent her flight,
      To mark the traitor Aruns from the height.
      Him in refulgent arms she soon espied,
      Swoln with success; and loudly thus she cried:
      “Thy backward steps, vain boaster, are too late;
      Turn like a man, at length, and meet thy fate.
      Charg’d with my message, to Camilla go,
      And say I sent thee to the shades below,
      An honour undeserv’d from Cynthia’s bow.”

      She said, and from her quiver chose with speed
      The winged shaft, predestin’d for the deed;
      Then to the stubborn yew her strength applied,
      Till the far distant horns approach’d on either side.
      The bowstring touch’d her breast, so strong she drew;
      Whizzing in air the fatal arrow flew.
      At once the twanging bow and sounding dart
      The traitor heard, and felt the point within his heart.
      Him, beating with his heels in pangs of death,
      His flying friends to foreign fields bequeath.
      The conqu’ring damsel, with expanded wings,
      The welcome message to her mistress brings.

      Their leader lost, the Volscians quit the field,
      And, unsustain’d, the chiefs of Turnus yield.
      The frighted soldiers, when their captains fly,
      More on their speed than on their strength rely.
      Confus’d in flight, they bear each other down,
      And spur their horses headlong to the town.
      Driv’n by their foes, and to their fears resign’d,
      Not once they turn, but take their wounds behind.
      These drop the shield, and those the lance forego,
      Or on their shoulders bear the slacken’d bow.
      The hoofs of horses, with a rattling sound,
      Beat short and thick, and shake the rotten ground.
      Black clouds of dust come rolling in the sky,
      And o’er the darken’d walls and rampires fly.
      The trembling matrons, from their lofty stands,
      Rend heav’n with female shrieks, and wring their hands.
      All pressing on, pursuers and pursued,
      Are crush’d in crowds, a mingled multitude.
      Some happy few escape: the throng too late
      Rush on for entrance, till they choke the gate.
      Ev’n in the sight of home, the wretched sire
      Looks on, and sees his helpless son expire.
      Then, in a fright, the folding gates they close,
      But leave their friends excluded with their foes.
      The vanquish’d cry; the victors loudly shout;
      ’Tis terror all within, and slaughter all without.
      Blind in their fear, they bounce against the wall,
      Or, to the moats pursued, precipitate their fall.

      The Latian virgins, valiant with despair,
      Arm’d on the tow’rs, the common danger share:
      So much of zeal their country’s cause inspir’d;
      So much Camilla’s great example fir’d.
      Poles, sharpen’d in the flames, from high they throw,
      With imitated darts, to gall the foe.
      Their lives for godlike freedom they bequeath,
      And crowd each other to be first in death.
      Meantime to Turnus, ambush’d in the shade,
      With heavy tidings came th’ unhappy maid:
      “The Volscians overthrown, Camilla kill’d;
      The foes, entirely masters of the field,
      Like a resistless flood, come rolling on:
      The cry goes off the plain, and thickens to the town.”

      Inflam’d with rage, (for so the Furies fire
      The Daunian’s breast, and so the Fates require,)
      He leaves the hilly pass, the woods in vain
      Possess’d, and downward issues on the plain.
      Scarce was he gone, when to the straits, now freed
      From secret foes, the Trojan troops succeed.
      Thro’ the black forest and the ferny brake,
      Unknowingly secure, their way they take;
      From the rough mountains to the plain descend,
      And there, in order drawn, their line extend.
      Both armies now in open fields are seen;
      Nor far the distance of the space between.
      Both to the city bend. Aeneas sees,
      Thro’ smoking fields, his hast’ning enemies;
      And Turnus views the Trojans in array,
      And hears th’ approaching horses proudly neigh.
      Soon had their hosts in bloody battle join’d;
      But westward to the sea the sun declin’d.
      Intrench’d before the town both armies lie,
      While night with sable wings involves the sky.



 BOOK XII

 THE ARGUMENT.


      Turnus challenges Aeneas to a single combat: articles are agreed
      on, but broken by the Rutuli, who wound Aeneas. He is
      miraculously cured by Venus, forces Turnus to a duel, and
      concludes the poem with his death.


      When Turnus saw the Latins leave the field,
      Their armies broken, and their courage quell’d,
      Himself become the mark of public spite,
      His honour question’d for the promis’d fight;
      The more he was with vulgar hate oppress’d,
      The more his fury boil’d within his breast:
      He rous’d his vigour for the last debate,
      And rais’d his haughty soul to meet his fate.

      As, when the swains the Libyan lion chase,
      He makes a sour retreat, nor mends his pace;
      But, if the pointed jav’lin pierce his side,
      The lordly beast returns with double pride:
      He wrenches out the steel, he roars for pain;
      His sides he lashes, and erects his mane:
      So Turnus fares; his eyeballs flash with fire,
      Thro’ his wide nostrils clouds of smoke expire.

      Trembling with rage, around the court he ran,
      At length approach’d the king, and thus began:
      “No more excuses or delays: I stand
      In arms prepar’d to combat, hand to hand,
      This base deserter of his native land.
      The Trojan, by his word, is bound to take
      The same conditions which himself did make.
      Renew the truce; the solemn rites prepare,
      And to my single virtue trust the war.
      The Latians unconcern’d shall see the fight;
      This arm unaided shall assert your right:
      Then, if my prostrate body press the plain,
      To him the crown and beauteous bride remain.”

      To whom the king sedately thus replied:
      “Brave youth, the more your valour has been tried,
      The more becomes it us, with due respect,
      To weigh the chance of war, which you neglect.
      You want not wealth, or a successive throne,
      Or cities which your arms have made your own:
      My towns and treasures are at your command,
      And stor’d with blooming beauties is my land;
      Laurentum more than one Lavinia sees,
      Unmarried, fair, of noble families.
      Now let me speak, and you with patience hear,
      Things which perhaps may grate a lover’s ear,
      But sound advice, proceeding from a heart
      Sincerely yours, and free from fraudful art.
      The gods, by signs, have manifestly shown,
      No prince Italian born should heir my throne:
      Oft have our augurs, in prediction skill’d,
      And oft our priests, a foreign son reveal’d.
      Yet, won by worth that cannot be withstood,
      Brib’d by my kindness to my kindred blood,
      Urg’d by my wife, who would not be denied,
      I promis’d my Lavinia for your bride:
      Her from her plighted lord by force I took;
      All ties of treaties, and of honour, broke:
      On your account I wag’d an impious war—
      With what success, ’tis needless to declare;
      I and my subjects feel, and you have had your share.
      Twice vanquish’d while in bloody fields we strive,
      Scarce in our walls we keep our hopes alive:
      The rolling flood runs warm with human gore;
      The bones of Latians blanch the neighb’ring shore.
      Why put I not an end to this debate,
      Still unresolv’d, and still a slave to fate?
      If Turnus’ death a lasting peace can give,
      Why should I not procure it whilst you live?
      Should I to doubtful arms your youth betray,
      What would my kinsmen, the Rutulians, say?
      And, should you fall in fight, (which Heav’n defend!)
      How curse the cause which hasten’d to his end
      The daughter’s lover and the father’s friend?
      Weigh in your mind the various chance of war;
      Pity your parent’s age, and ease his care.”

      Such balmy words he pour’d, but all in vain:
      The proffer’d med’cine but provok’d the pain.
      The wrathful youth, disdaining the relief,
      With intermitting sobs thus vents his grief:
      “The care, O best of fathers, which you take
      For my concerns, at my desire forsake.
      Permit me not to languish out my days,
      But make the best exchange of life for praise.
      This arm, this lance, can well dispute the prize;
      And the blood follows, where the weapon flies.
      His goddess mother is not near, to shroud
      The flying coward with an empty cloud.”

      But now the queen, who fear’d for Turnus’ life,
      And loath’d the hard conditions of the strife,
      Held him by force; and, dying in his death,
      In these sad accents gave her sorrow breath:
      “O Turnus, I adjure thee by these tears,
      And whate’er price Amata’s honour bears
      Within thy breast, since thou art all my hope,
      My sickly mind’s repose, my sinking age’s prop;
      Since on the safety of thy life alone
      Depends Latinus, and the Latian throne:
      Refuse me not this one, this only pray’r,
      To waive the combat, and pursue the war.
      Whatever chance attends this fatal strife,
      Think it includes, in thine, Amata’s life.
      I cannot live a slave, or see my throne
      Usurp’d by strangers or a Trojan son.”

      At this, a flood of tears Lavinia shed;
      A crimson blush her beauteous face o’erspread,
      Varying her cheeks by turns with white and red.
      The driving colours, never at a stay,
      Run here and there, and flush, and fade away.
      Delightful change! Thus Indian iv’ry shows,
      Which with the bord’ring paint of purple glows;
      Or lilies damask’d by the neighb’ring rose.

      The lover gaz’d, and, burning with desire,
      The more he look’d, the more he fed the fire:
      Revenge, and jealous rage, and secret spite,
      Roll in his breast, and rouse him to the fight.
      Then fixing on the queen his ardent eyes,
      Firm to his first intent, he thus replies:
      “O mother, do not by your tears prepare
      Such boding omens, and prejudge the war.
      Resolv’d on fight, I am no longer free
      To shun my death, if Heav’n my death decree.”
      Then turning to the herald, thus pursues:
      “Go, greet the Trojan with ungrateful news;
      Denounce from me, that, when tomorrow’s light
      Shall gild the heav’ns, he need not urge the fight;
      The Trojan and Rutulian troops no more
      Shall dye, with mutual blood, the Latian shore:
      Our single swords the quarrel shall decide,
      And to the victor be the beauteous bride.”

      He said, and striding on, with speedy pace,
      He sought his coursers of the Thracian race.
      At his approach they toss their heads on high,
      And, proudly neighing, promise victory.
      The sires of these Orythia sent from far,
      To grace Pilumnus, when he went to war.
      The drifts of Thracian snows were scarce so white,
      Nor northern winds in fleetness match’d their flight.
      Officious grooms stand ready by his side;
      And some with combs their flowing manes divide,
      And others stroke their chests and gently soothe their pride.

      He sheath’d his limbs in arms; a temper’d mass
      Of golden metal those, and mountain brass.
      Then to his head his glitt’ring helm he tied,
      And girt his faithful falchion to his side.
      In his Aetnaean forge, the God of Fire
      That falchion labour’d for the hero’s sire;
      Immortal keenness on the blade bestow’d,
      And plung’d it hissing in the Stygian flood.
      Propp’d on a pillar, which the ceiling bore,
      Was plac’d the lance Auruncan Actor wore;
      Which with such force he brandish’d in his hand,
      The tough ash trembled like an osier wand:
      Then cried: “O pond’rous spoil of Actor slain,
      And never yet by Turnus toss’d in vain,
      Fail not this day thy wonted force; but go,
      Sent by this hand, to pierce the Trojan foe!
      Give me to tear his corslet from his breast,
      And from that eunuch head to rend the crest;
      Dragg’d in the dust, his frizzled hair to soil,
      Hot from the vexing ir’n, and smear’d with fragrant oil!”

      Thus while he raves, from his wide nostrils flies
      A fiery steam, and sparkles from his eyes.
      So fares the bull in his lov’d female’s sight:
      Proudly he bellows, and preludes the fight;
      He tries his goring horns against a tree,
      And meditates his absent enemy;
      He pushes at the winds; he digs the strand
      With his black hoofs, and spurns the yellow sand.

      Nor less the Trojan, in his Lemnian arms,
      To future fight his manly courage warms:
      He whets his fury, and with joy prepares
      To terminate at once the ling’ring wars;
      To cheer his chiefs and tender son, relates
      What Heav’n had promis’d, and expounds the fates.
      Then to the Latian king he sends, to cease
      The rage of arms, and ratify the peace.

      The morn ensuing, from the mountain’s height,
      Had scarcely spread the skies with rosy light;
      Th’ ethereal coursers, bounding from the sea,
      From out their flaming nostrils breath’d the day;
      When now the Trojan and Rutulian guard,
      In friendly labour join’d, the list prepar’d.
      Beneath the walls they measure out the space;
      Then sacred altars rear, on sods of grass,
      Where, with religious rites their common gods they place.
      In purest white the priests their heads attire;
      And living waters bear, and holy fire;
      And, o’er their linen hoods and shaded hair,
      Long twisted wreaths of sacred vervain wear.

      In order issuing from the town appears
      The Latin legion, arm’d with pointed spears;
      And from the fields, advancing on a line,
      The Trojan and the Tuscan forces join:
      Their various arms afford a pleasing sight;
      A peaceful train they seem, in peace prepar’d for fight.
      Betwixt the ranks the proud commanders ride,
      Glitt’ring with gold, and vests in purple dyed;
      Here Mnestheus, author of the Memmian line,
      And there Messapus, born of seed divine.
      The sign is giv’n; and, round the listed space,
      Each man in order fills his proper place.
      Reclining on their ample shields, they stand,
      And fix their pointed lances in the sand.
      Now, studious of the sight, a num’rous throng
      Of either sex promiscuous, old and young,
      Swarm the town: by those who rest behind,
      The gates and walls and houses’ tops are lin’d.
      Meantime the Queen of Heav’n beheld the sight,
      With eyes unpleas’d, from Mount Albano’s height
      (Since call’d Albano by succeeding fame,
      But then an empty hill, without a name).
      She thence survey’d the field, the Trojan pow’rs,
      The Latian squadrons, and Laurentine tow’rs.
      Then thus the goddess of the skies bespoke,
      With sighs and tears, the goddess of the lake,
      King Turnus’ sister, once a lovely maid,
      Ere to the lust of lawless Jove betray’d:
      Compress’d by force, but, by the grateful god,
      Now made the Nais of the neighb’ring flood.
      “O nymph, the pride of living lakes,” said she,
      “O most renown’d, and most belov’d by me,
      Long hast thou known, nor need I to record,
      The wanton sallies of my wand’ring lord.
      Of ev’ry Latian fair whom Jove misled
      To mount by stealth my violated bed,
      To thee alone I grudg’d not his embrace,
      But gave a part of heav’n, and an unenvied place.
      Now learn from me thy near approaching grief,
      Nor think my wishes want to thy relief.
      While fortune favour’d, nor Heav’n’s King denied
      To lend my succour to the Latian side,
      I sav’d thy brother, and the sinking state:
      But now he struggles with unequal fate,
      And goes, with gods averse, o’ermatch’d in might,
      To meet inevitable death in fight;
      Nor must I break the truce, nor can sustain the sight.
      Thou, if thou dar’st thy present aid supply;
      It well becomes a sister’s care to try.”

      At this the lovely nymph, with grief oppress’d,
      Thrice tore her hair, and beat her comely breast.
      To whom Saturnia thus: “Thy tears are late:
      Haste, snatch him, if he can be snatch’d from fate:
      New tumults kindle; violate the truce:
      Who knows what changeful fortune may produce?
      ’Tis not a crime t’ attempt what I decree;
      Or, if it were, discharge the crime on me.”
      She said, and, sailing on the winged wind,
      Left the sad nymph suspended in her mind.

      And now in pomp the peaceful kings appear:
      Four steeds the chariot of Latinus bear;
      Twelve golden beams around his temples play,
      To mark his lineage from the God of Day.
      Two snowy coursers Turnus’ chariot yoke,
      And in his hand two massy spears he shook:
      Then issued from the camp, in arms divine,
      Aeneas, author of the Roman line;
      And by his side Ascanius took his place,
      The second hope of Rome’s immortal race.
      Adorn’d in white, a rev’rend priest appears,
      And off’rings to the flaming altars bears;
      A porket, and a lamb that never suffer’d shears.
      Then to the rising sun he turns his eyes,
      And strews the beasts, design’d for sacrifice,
      With salt and meal: with like officious care
      He marks their foreheads, and he clips their hair.
      Betwixt their horns the purple wine he sheds;
      With the same gen’rous juice the flame he feeds.

      Aeneas then unsheath’d his shining sword,
      And thus with pious pray’rs the gods ador’d:
      “All-seeing sun, and thou, Ausonian soil,
      For which I have sustain’d so long a toil,
      Thou, King of Heav’n, and thou, the Queen of Air,
      Propitious now, and reconcil’d by pray’r;
      Thou, God of War, whose unresisted sway
      The labours and events of arms obey;
      Ye living fountains, and ye running floods,
      All pow’rs of ocean, all ethereal gods,
      Hear, and bear record: if I fall in field,
      Or, recreant in the fight, to Turnus yield,
      My Trojans shall encrease Evander’s town;
      Ascanius shall renounce th’ Ausonian crown:
      All claims, all questions of debate, shall cease;
      Nor he, nor they, with force infringe the peace.
      But, if my juster arms prevail in fight,
      (As sure they shall, if I divine aright,)
      My Trojans shall not o’er th’ Italians reign:
      Both equal, both unconquer’d shall remain,
      Join’d in their laws, their lands, and their abodes;
      I ask but altars for my weary gods.
      The care of those religious rites be mine;
      The crown to King Latinus I resign:
      His be the sov’reign sway. Nor will I share
      His pow’r in peace, or his command in war.
      For me, my friends another town shall frame,
      And bless the rising tow’rs with fair Lavinia’s name.”

      Thus he. Then, with erected eyes and hands,
      The Latian king before his altar stands.
      “By the same heav’n,” said he, “and earth, and main,
      And all the pow’rs that all the three contain;
      By hell below, and by that upper god
      Whose thunder signs the peace, who seals it with his nod;
      So let Latona’s double offspring hear,
      And double-fronted Janus, what I swear:
      I touch the sacred altars, touch the flames,
      And all those pow’rs attest, and all their names;
      Whatever chance befall on either side,
      No term of time this union shall divide:
      No force, no fortune, shall my vows unbind,
      Or shake the steadfast tenor of my mind;
      Not tho’ the circling seas should break their bound,
      O’erflow the shores, or sap the solid ground;
      Not tho’ the lamps of heav’n their spheres forsake,
      Hurl’d down, and hissing in the nether lake:
      Ev’n as this royal scepter” (for he bore
      A scepter in his hand) “shall never more
      Shoot out in branches, or renew the birth:
      An orphan now, cut from the mother earth
      By the keen ax, dishonour’d of its hair,
      And cas’d in brass, for Latian kings to bear.”

      When thus in public view the peace was tied
      With solemn vows, and sworn on either side,
      All dues perform’d which holy rites require;
      The victim beasts are slain before the fire,
      The trembling entrails from their bodies torn,
      And to the fatten’d flames in chargers borne.

      Already the Rutulians deem their man
      O’ermatch’d in arms, before the fight began.
      First rising fears are whisper’d thro’ the crowd;
      Then, gath’ring sound, they murmur more aloud.
      Now, side to side, they measure with their eyes
      The champions’ bulk, their sinews, and their size:
      The nearer they approach, the more is known
      Th’ apparent disadvantage of their own.
      Turnus himself appears in public sight
      Conscious of fate, desponding of the fight.
      Slowly he moves, and at his altar stands
      With eyes dejected, and with trembling hands;
      And, while he mutters undistinguish’d pray’rs,
      A livid deadness in his cheeks appears.

      With anxious pleasure when Juturna view’d
      Th’ increasing fright of the mad multitude,
      When their short sighs and thick’ning sobs she heard,
      And found their ready minds for change prepar’d;
      Dissembling her immortal form, she took
      Camertus’ mien, his habit, and his look;
      A chief of ancient blood; in arms well known
      Was his great sire, and he his greater son.
      His shape assum’d, amid the ranks she ran,
      And humoring their first motions, thus began:
      “For shame, Rutulians, can you bear the sight
      Of one expos’d for all, in single fight?
      Can we, before the face of heav’n, confess
      Our courage colder, or our numbers less?
      View all the Trojan host, th’ Arcadian band,
      And Tuscan army; count ’em as they stand:
      Undaunted to the battle if we go,
      Scarce ev’ry second man will share a foe.
      Turnus, ’tis true, in this unequal strife,
      Shall lose, with honour, his devoted life,
      Or change it rather for immortal fame,
      Succeeding to the gods, from whence he came:
      But you, a servile and inglorious band,
      For foreign lords shall sow your native land,
      Those fruitful fields your fighting fathers gain’d,
      Which have so long their lazy sons sustain’d.”
      With words like these, she carried her design:
      A rising murmur runs along the line.
      Then ev’n the city troops, and Latians, tir’d
      With tedious war, seem with new souls inspir’d:
      Their champion’s fate with pity they lament,
      And of the league, so lately sworn, repent.

      Nor fails the goddess to foment the rage
      With lying wonders, and a false presage;
      But adds a sign, which, present to their eyes,
      Inspires new courage, and a glad surprise.
      For, sudden, in the fiery tracts above,
      Appears in pomp th’ imperial bird of Jove:
      A plump of fowl he spies, that swim the lakes,
      And o’er their heads his sounding pinions shakes;
      Then, stooping on the fairest of the train,
      In his strong talons truss’d a silver swan.
      Th’ Italians wonder at th’ unusual sight;
      But, while he lags, and labours in his flight,
      Behold, the dastard fowl return anew,
      And with united force the foe pursue:
      Clam’rous around the royal hawk they fly,
      And, thick’ning in a cloud, o’ershade the sky.
      They cuff, they scratch, they cross his airy course;
      Nor can th’ incumber’d bird sustain their force;
      But vex’d, not vanquish’d, drops the pond’rous prey,
      And, lighten’d of his burthen, wings his way.

      Th’ Ausonian bands with shouts salute the sight,
      Eager of action, and demand the fight.
      Then King Tolumnius, vers’d in augurs’ arts,
      Cries out, and thus his boasted skill imparts:
      “At length ’tis granted, what I long desir’d!
      This, this is what my frequent vows requir’d.
      Ye gods, I take your omen, and obey.
      Advance, my friends, and charge! I lead the way.
      These are the foreign foes, whose impious band,
      Like that rapacious bird, infest our land:
      But soon, like him, they shall be forc’d to sea
      By strength united, and forego the prey.
      Your timely succour to your country bring,
      Haste to the rescue, and redeem your king.”

      He said; and, pressing onward thro’ the crew,
      Pois’d in his lifted arm, his lance he threw.
      The winged weapon, whistling in the wind,
      Came driving on, nor miss’d the mark design’d.
      At once the cornel rattled in the skies;
      At once tumultuous shouts and clamours rise.
      Nine brothers in a goodly band there stood,
      Born of Arcadian mix’d with Tuscan blood,
      Gylippus’ sons: the fatal jav’lin flew,
      Aim’d at the midmost of the friendly crew.
      A passage thro’ the jointed arms it found,
      Just where the belt was to the body bound,
      And struck the gentle youth extended on the ground.
      Then, fir’d with pious rage, the gen’rous train
      Run madly forward to revenge the slain.
      And some with eager haste their jav’lins throw;
      And some with sword in hand assault the foe.

      The wish’d insult the Latine troops embrace,
      And meet their ardour in the middle space.
      The Trojans, Tuscans, and Arcadian line,
      With equal courage obviate their design.
      Peace leaves the violated fields, and hate
      Both armies urges to their mutual fate.
      With impious haste their altars are o’erturn’d,
      The sacrifice half-broil’d, and half-unburn’d.
      Thick storms of steel from either army fly,
      And clouds of clashing darts obscure the sky;
      Brands from the fire are missive weapons made,
      With chargers, bowls, and all the priestly trade.
      Latinus, frighted, hastens from the fray,
      And bears his unregarded gods away.
      These on their horses vault; those yoke the car;
      The rest, with swords on high, run headlong to the war.

      Messapus, eager to confound the peace,
      Spurr’d his hot courser thro’ the fighting press,
      At King Aulestes, by his purple known
      A Tuscan prince, and by his regal crown;
      And, with a shock encount’ring, bore him down.
      Backward he fell; and, as his fate design’d,
      The ruins of an altar were behind:
      There, pitching on his shoulders and his head,
      Amid the scatt’ring fires he lay supinely spread.
      The beamy spear, descending from above,
      His cuirass pierc’d, and thro’ his body drove.
      Then, with a scornful smile, the victor cries:
      “The gods have found a fitter sacrifice.”
      Greedy of spoils, th’ Italians strip the dead
      Of his rich armour, and uncrown his head.

      Priest Corynaeus, arm’d his better hand,
      From his own altar, with a blazing brand;
      And, as Ebusus with a thund’ring pace
      Advanc’d to battle, dash’d it on his face:
      His bristly beard shines out with sudden fires;
      The crackling crop a noisome scent expires.
      Following the blow, he seiz’d his curling crown
      With his left hand; his other cast him down.
      The prostrate body with his knees he press’d,
      And plung’d his holy poniard in his breast.

      While Podalirius, with his sword, pursued
      The shepherd Alsus thro’ the flying crowd,
      Swiftly he turns, and aims a deadly blow
      Full on the front of his unwary foe.
      The broad ax enters with a crashing sound,
      And cleaves the chin with one continued wound;
      Warm blood, and mingled brains, besmear his arms around
      An iron sleep his stupid eyes oppress’d,
      And seal’d their heavy lids in endless rest.

      But good Aeneas rush’d amid the bands;
      Bare was his head, and naked were his hands,
      In sign of truce: then thus he cries aloud:
      “What sudden rage, what new desire of blood,
      Inflames your alter’d minds? O Trojans, cease
      From impious arms, nor violate the peace!
      By human sanctions, and by laws divine,
      The terms are all agreed; the war is mine.
      Dismiss your fears, and let the fight ensue;
      This hand alone shall right the gods and you:
      Our injur’d altars, and their broken vow,
      To this avenging sword the faithless Turnus owe.”

      Thus while he spoke, unmindful of defence,
      A winged arrow struck the pious prince.
      But, whether from some human hand it came,
      Or hostile god, is left unknown by fame:
      No human hand or hostile god was found,
      To boast the triumph of so base a wound.

      When Turnus saw the Trojan quit the plain,
      His chiefs dismay’d, his troops a fainting train,
      Th’ unhop’d event his heighten’d soul inspires:
      At once his arms and coursers he requires;
      Then, with a leap, his lofty chariot gains,
      And with a ready hand assumes the reins.
      He drives impetuous, and, where’er he goes,
      He leaves behind a lane of slaughter’d foes.
      These his lance reaches; over those he rolls
      His rapid car, and crushes out their souls:
      In vain the vanquish’d fly; the victor sends
      The dead men’s weapons at their living friends.
      Thus, on the banks of Hebrus’ freezing flood,
      The God of Battles, in his angry mood,
      Clashing his sword against his brazen shield,
      Let loose the reins, and scours along the field:
      Before the wind his fiery coursers fly;
      Groans the sad earth, resounds the rattling sky.
      Wrath, Terror, Treason, Tumult, and Despair
      (Dire faces, and deform’d) surround the car;
      Friends of the god, and followers of the war.
      With fury not unlike, nor less disdain,
      Exulting Turnus flies along the plain:
      His smoking horses, at their utmost speed,
      He lashes on, and urges o’er the dead.
      Their fetlocks run with blood; and, when they bound,
      The gore and gath’ring dust are dash’d around.
      Thamyris and Pholus, masters of the war,
      He kill’d at hand, but Sthenelus afar:
      From far the sons of Imbracus he slew,
      Glaucus and Lades, of the Lycian crew;
      Both taught to fight on foot, in battle join’d,
      Or mount the courser that outstrips the wind.

      Meantime Eumedes, vaunting in the field,
      New fir’d the Trojans, and their foes repell’d.
      This son of Dolon bore his grandsire’s name,
      But emulated more his father’s fame;
      His guileful father, sent a nightly spy,
      The Grecian camp and order to descry:
      Hard enterprise! and well he might require
      Achilles’ car and horses, for his hire:
      But, met upon the scout, th’ Aetolian prince
      In death bestow’d a juster recompense.
      Fierce Turnus view’d the Trojan from afar,
      And launch’d his jav’lin from his lofty car;
      Then lightly leaping down, pursued the blow,
      And, pressing with his foot his prostrate foe,
      Wrench’d from his feeble hold the shining sword,
      And plung’d it in the bosom of its lord.
      “Possess,” said he, “the fruit of all thy pains,
      And measure, at thy length, our Latian plains.
      Thus are my foes rewarded by my hand;
      Thus may they build their town, and thus enjoy the land!”

      Then Dares, Butes, Sybaris he slew,
      Whom o’er his neck his flound’ring courser threw.
      As when loud Boreas, with his blust’ring train,
      Stoops from above, incumbent on the main;
      Where’er he flies, he drives the rack before,
      And rolls the billows on th’ Aegaean shore:
      So, where resistless Turnus takes his course,
      The scatter’d squadrons bend before his force;
      His crest of horses’ hair is blown behind
      By adverse air, and rustles in the wind.

      This haughty Phegeus saw with high disdain,
      And, as the chariot roll’d along the plain,
      Light from the ground he leapt, and seiz’d the rein.
      Thus hung in air, he still retain’d his hold,
      The coursers frighted, and their course controll’d.
      The lance of Turnus reach’d him as he hung,
      And pierc’d his plated arms, but pass’d along,
      And only raz’d the skin. He turn’d, and held
      Against his threat’ning foe his ample shield;
      Then call’d for aid: but, while he cried in vain,
      The chariot bore him backward on the plain.
      He lies revers’d; the victor king descends,
      And strikes so justly where his helmet ends,
      He lops the head. The Latian fields are drunk
      With streams that issue from the bleeding trunk.

      While he triumphs, and while the Trojans yield,
      The wounded prince is forc’d to leave the field:
      Strong Mnestheus, and Achates often tried,
      And young Ascanius, weeping by his side,
      Conduct him to his tent. Scarce can he rear
      His limbs from earth, supported on his spear.
      Resolv’d in mind, regardless of the smart,
      He tugs with both his hands, and breaks the dart.
      The steel remains. No readier way he found
      To draw the weapon, than t’ inlarge the wound.
      Eager of fight, impatient of delay,
      He begs; and his unwilling friends obey.

      Iapis was at hand to prove his art,
      Whose blooming youth so fir’d Apollo’s heart,
      That, for his love, he proffer’d to bestow
      His tuneful harp and his unerring bow.
      The pious youth, more studious how to save
      His aged sire, now sinking to the grave,
      Preferr’d the pow’r of plants, and silent praise
      Of healing arts, before Phoebean bays.

      Propp’d on his lance the pensive hero stood,
      And heard and saw, unmov’d, the mourning crowd.
      The fam’d physician tucks his robes around
      With ready hands, and hastens to the wound.
      With gentle touches he performs his part,
      This way and that, soliciting the dart,
      And exercises all his heav’nly art.
      All soft’ning simples, known of sov’reign use,
      He presses out, and pours their noble juice.
      These first infus’d, to lenify the pain,
      He tugs with pincers, but he tugs in vain.
      Then to the patron of his art he pray’d:
      The patron of his art refus’d his aid.

      Meantime the war approaches to the tents;
      Th’ alarm grows hotter, and the noise augments:
      The driving dust proclaims the danger near;
      And first their friends, and then their foes appear:
      Their friends retreat; their foes pursue the rear.
      The camp is fill’d with terror and affright:
      The hissing shafts within the trench alight;
      An undistinguish’d noise ascends the sky,
      The shouts of those who kill, and groans of those who die.

      But now the goddess mother, mov’d with grief,
      And pierc’d with pity, hastens her relief.
      A branch of healing dittany she brought,
      Which in the Cretan fields with care she sought:
      Rough is the stem, which woolly leafs surround;
      The leafs with flow’rs, the flow’rs with purple crown’d,
      Well known to wounded goats; a sure relief
      To draw the pointed steel, and ease the grief.
      This Venus brings, in clouds involv’d, and brews
      Th’ extracted liquor with ambrosian dews,
      And odorous panacee. Unseen she stands,
      Temp’ring the mixture with her heav’nly hands,
      And pours it in a bowl, already crown’d
      With juice of med’c’nal herbs prepar’d to bathe the wound.
      The leech, unknowing of superior art
      Which aids the cure, with this foments the part;
      And in a moment ceas’d the raging smart.
      Stanch’d is the blood, and in the bottom stands:
      The steel, but scarcely touch’d with tender hands,
      Moves up, and follows of its own accord,
      And health and vigour are at once restor’d.
      Iapis first perceiv’d the closing wound,
      And first the footsteps of a god he found.
      “Arms! arms!” he cries; “the sword and shield prepare,
      And send the willing chief, renew’d, to war.
      This is no mortal work, no cure of mine,
      Nor art’s effect, but done by hands divine.
      Some god our general to the battle sends;
      Some god preserves his life for greater ends.”

      The hero arms in haste; his hands infold
      His thighs with cuishes of refulgent gold:
      Inflam’d to fight, and rushing to the field,
      That hand sustaining the celestial shield,
      This gripes the lance, and with such vigour shakes,
      That to the rest the beamy weapon quakes.
      Then with a close embrace he strain’d his son,
      And, kissing thro’ his helmet, thus begun:
      “My son, from my example learn the war,
      In camps to suffer, and in fields to dare;
      But happier chance than mine attend thy care!
      This day my hand thy tender age shall shield,
      And crown with honours of the conquer’d field:
      Thou, when thy riper years shall send thee forth
      To toils of war, be mindful of my worth;
      Assert thy birthright, and in arms be known,
      For Hector’s nephew, and Aeneas’ son.”
      He said; and, striding, issued on the plain.
      Anteus and Mnestheus, and a num’rous train,
      Attend his steps; the rest their weapons take,
      And, crowding to the field, the camp forsake.
      A cloud of blinding dust is rais’d around,
      Labours beneath their feet the trembling ground.

      Now Turnus, posted on a hill, from far
      Beheld the progress of the moving war:
      With him the Latins view’d the cover’d plains,
      And the chill blood ran backward in their veins.
      Juturna saw th’ advancing troops appear,
      And heard the hostile sound, and fled for fear.
      Aeneas leads; and draws a sweeping train,
      Clos’d in their ranks, and pouring on the plain.
      As when a whirlwind, rushing to the shore
      From the mid ocean, drives the waves before;
      The painful hind with heavy heart foresees
      The flatted fields, and slaughter of the trees;
      With like impetuous rage the prince appears
      Before his doubled front, nor less destruction bears.
      And now both armies shock in open field;
      Osiris is by strong Thymbraeus kill’d.
      Archetius, Ufens, Epulon, are slain
      (All fam’d in arms, and of the Latian train)
      By Gyas’, Mnestheus’, and Achates’ hand.
      The fatal augur falls, by whose command
      The truce was broken, and whose lance, embrued
      With Trojan blood, th’ unhappy fight renew’d.
      Loud shouts and clamours rend the liquid sky,
      And o’er the field the frighted Latins fly.
      The prince disdains the dastards to pursue,
      Nor moves to meet in arms the fighting few;
      Turnus alone, amid the dusky plain,
      He seeks, and to the combat calls in vain.
      Juturna heard, and, seiz’d with mortal fear,
      Forc’d from the beam her brother’s charioteer;
      Assumes his shape, his armour, and his mien,
      And, like Metiscus, in his seat is seen.

      As the black swallow near the palace plies;
      O’er empty courts, and under arches, flies;
      Now hawks aloft, now skims along the flood,
      To furnish her loquacious nest with food:
      So drives the rapid goddess o’er the plains;
      The smoking horses run with loosen’d reins.
      She steers a various course among the foes;
      Now here, now there, her conqu’ring brother shows;
      Now with a straight, now with a wheeling flight,
      She turns, and bends, but shuns the single fight.
      Aeneas, fir’d with fury, breaks the crowd,
      And seeks his foe, and calls by name aloud:
      He runs within a narrower ring, and tries
      To stop the chariot; but the chariot flies.
      If he but gain a glimpse, Juturna fears,
      And far away the Daunian hero bears.

      What should he do! Nor arts nor arms avail;
      And various cares in vain his mind assail.
      The great Messapus, thund’ring thro’ the field,
      In his left hand two pointed jav’lins held:
      Encount’ring on the prince, one dart he drew,
      And with unerring aim and utmost vigour threw.
      Aeneas saw it come, and, stooping low
      Beneath his buckler, shunn’d the threat’ning blow.
      The weapon hiss’d above his head, and tore
      The waving plume which on his helm he wore.
      Forced by this hostile act, and fir’d with spite,
      That flying Turnus still declin’d the fight,
      The Prince, whose piety had long repell’d
      His inborn ardour, now invades the field;
      Invokes the pow’rs of violated peace,
      Their rites and injur’d altars to redress;
      Then, to his rage abandoning the rein,
      With blood and slaughter’d bodies fills the plain.

      What god can tell, what numbers can display,
      The various labours of that fatal day;
      What chiefs and champions fell on either side,
      In combat slain, or by what deaths they died;
      Whom Turnus, whom the Trojan hero kill’d;
      Who shar’d the fame and fortune of the field!
      Jove, could’st thou view, and not avert thy sight,
      Two jarring nations join’d in cruel fight,
      Whom leagues of lasting love so shortly shall unite!

      Aeneas first Rutulian Sucro found,
      Whose valour made the Trojans quit their ground;
      Betwixt his ribs the jav’lin drove so just,
      It reach’d his heart, nor needs a second thrust.
      Now Turnus, at two blows, two brethren slew;
      First from his horse fierce Amycus he threw:
      Then, leaping on the ground, on foot assail’d
      Diores, and in equal fight prevail’d.
      Their lifeless trunks he leaves upon the place;
      Their heads, distilling gore, his chariot grace.

      Three cold on earth the Trojan hero threw,
      Whom without respite at one charge he slew:
      Cethegus, Tanais, Tagus, fell oppress’d,
      And sad Onythes, added to the rest,
      Of Theban blood, whom Peridia bore.

      Turnus two brothers from the Lycian shore,
      And from Apollo’s fane to battle sent,
      O’erthrew; nor Phoebus could their fate prevent.
      Peaceful Menoetes after these he kill’d,
      Who long had shunn’d the dangers of the field:
      On Lerna’s lake a silent life he led,
      And with his nets and angle earn’d his bread;
      Nor pompous cares, nor palaces, he knew,
      But wisely from th’ infectious world withdrew:
      Poor was his house; his father’s painful hand
      Discharg’d his rent, and plow’d another’s land.

      As flames among the lofty woods are thrown
      On diff’rent sides, and both by winds are blown;
      The laurels crackle in the sputt’ring fire;
      The frighted sylvans from their shades retire:
      Or as two neighb’ring torrents fall from high;
      Rapid they run; the foamy waters fry;
      They roll to sea with unresisted force,
      And down the rocks precipitate their course:
      Not with less rage the rival heroes take
      Their diff’rent ways, nor less destruction make.
      With spears afar, with swords at hand, they strike;
      And zeal of slaughter fires their souls alike.
      Like them, their dauntless men maintain the field;
      And hearts are pierc’d, unknowing how to yield:
      They blow for blow return, and wound for wound;
      And heaps of bodies raise the level ground.

      Murranus, boasting of his blood, that springs
      From a long royal race of Latian kings,
      Is by the Trojan from his chariot thrown,
      Crush’d with the weight of an unwieldy stone:
      Betwixt the wheels he fell; the wheels, that bore
      His living load, his dying body tore.
      His starting steeds, to shun the glitt’ring sword,
      Paw down his trampled limbs, forgetful of their lord.

      Fierce Hyllus threaten’d high, and, face to face,
      Affronted Turnus in the middle space:
      The prince encounter’d him in full career,
      And at his temples aim’d the deadly spear;
      So fatally the flying weapon sped,
      That thro’ his brazen helm it pierc’d his head.
      Nor, Cisseus, couldst thou scape from Turnus’ hand,
      In vain the strongest of th’ Arcadian band:
      Nor to Cupentus could his gods afford
      Availing aid against th’ Aenean sword,
      Which to his naked heart pursued the course;
      Nor could his plated shield sustain the force.

      Iolas fell, whom not the Grecian pow’rs,
      Nor great subverter of the Trojan tow’rs,
      Were doom’d to kill, while Heav’n prolong’d his date;
      But who can pass the bounds, prefix’d by fate?
      In high Lyrnessus, and in Troy, he held
      Two palaces, and was from each expell’d:
      Of all the mighty man, the last remains
      A little spot of foreign earth contains.

      And now both hosts their broken troops unite
      In equal ranks, and mix in mortal fight.
      Seresthus and undaunted Mnestheus join
      The Trojan, Tuscan, and Arcadian line:
      Sea-born Messapus, with Atinas, heads
      The Latin squadrons, and to battle leads.
      They strike, they push, they throng the scanty space,
      Resolv’d on death, impatient of disgrace;
      And, where one falls, another fills his place.

      The Cyprian goddess now inspires her son
      To leave th’ unfinish’d fight, and storm the town:
      For, while he rolls his eyes around the plain
      In quest of Turnus, whom he seeks in vain,
      He views th’ unguarded city from afar,
      In careless quiet, and secure of war.
      Occasion offers, and excites his mind
      To dare beyond the task he first design’d.
      Resolv’d, he calls his chiefs; they leave the fight:
      Attended thus, he takes a neighb’ring height;
      The crowding troops about their gen’ral stand,
      All under arms, and wait his high command.
      Then thus the lofty prince: “Hear and obey,
      Ye Trojan bands, without the least delay
      Jove is with us; and what I have decreed
      Requires our utmost vigour, and our speed.
      Your instant arms against the town prepare,
      The source of mischief, and the seat of war.
      This day the Latian tow’rs, that mate the sky,
      Shall level with the plain in ashes lie:
      The people shall be slaves, unless in time
      They kneel for pardon, and repent their crime.
      Twice have our foes been vanquish’d on the plain:
      Then shall I wait till Turnus will be slain?
      Your force against the perjur’d city bend.
      There it began, and there the war shall end.
      The peace profan’d our rightful arms requires;
      Cleanse the polluted place with purging fires.”

      He finish’d; and, one soul inspiring all,
      Form’d in a wedge, the foot approach the wall.
      Without the town, an unprovided train
      Of gaping, gazing citizens are slain.
      Some firebrands, others scaling ladders bear,
      And those they toss aloft, and these they rear:
      The flames now launch’d, the feather’d arrows fly,
      And clouds of missive arms obscure the sky.
      Advancing to the front, the hero stands,
      And, stretching out to heav’n his pious hands,
      Attests the gods, asserts his innocence,
      Upbraids with breach of faith th’ Ausonian prince;
      Declares the royal honour doubly stain’d,
      And twice the rites of holy peace profan’d.

      Dissenting clamours in the town arise;
      Each will be heard, and all at once advise.
      One part for peace, and one for war contends;
      Some would exclude their foes, and some admit their friends.
      The helpless king is hurried in the throng,
      And, whate’er tide prevails, is borne along.
      Thus, when the swain, within a hollow rock,
      Invades the bees with suffocating smoke,
      They run around, or labour on their wings,
      Disus’d to flight, and shoot their sleepy stings;
      To shun the bitter fumes in vain they try;
      Black vapours, issuing from the vent, involve the sky.

      But fate and envious fortune now prepare
      To plunge the Latins in the last despair.
      The queen, who saw the foes invade the town,
      And brands on tops of burning houses thrown,
      Cast round her eyes, distracted with her fear—
      No troops of Turnus in the field appear.
      Once more she stares abroad, but still in vain,
      And then concludes the royal youth is slain.
      Mad with her anguish, impotent to bear
      The mighty grief, she loathes the vital air.
      She calls herself the cause of all this ill,
      And owns the dire effects of her ungovern’d will;
      She raves against the gods; she beats her breast;
      She tears with both her hands her purple vest:
      Then round a beam a running noose she tied,
      And, fasten’d by the neck, obscenely died.

      Soon as the fatal news by Fame was blown,
      And to her dames and to her daughter known,
      The sad Lavinia rends her yellow hair
      And rosy cheeks; the rest her sorrow share:
      With shrieks the palace rings, and madness of despair.
      The spreading rumour fills the public place:
      Confusion, fear, distraction, and disgrace,
      And silent shame, are seen in ev’ry face.
      Latinus tears his garments as he goes,
      Both for his public and his private woes;
      With filth his venerable beard besmears,
      And sordid dust deforms his silver hairs.
      And much he blames the softness of his mind,
      Obnoxious to the charms of womankind,
      And soon seduc’d to change what he so well design’d;
      To break the solemn league so long desir’d,
      Nor finish what his fates, and those of Troy, requir’d.

      Now Turnus rolls aloof o’er empty plains,
      And here and there some straggling foes he gleans.
      His flying coursers please him less and less,
      Asham’d of easy fight and cheap success.
      Thus half-contented, anxious in his mind,
      The distant cries come driving in the wind,
      Shouts from the walls, but shouts in murmurs drown’d;
      A jarring mixture, and a boding sound.
      “Alas!” said he, “what mean these dismal cries?
      What doleful clamours from the town arise?”
      Confus’d, he stops, and backward pulls the reins.
      She who the driver’s office now sustains,
      Replies: “Neglect, my lord, these new alarms;
      Here fight, and urge the fortune of your arms:
      There want not others to defend the wall.
      If by your rival’s hand th’ Italians fall,
      So shall your fatal sword his friends oppress,
      In honour equal, equal in success.”

      To this, the prince: “O sister—for I knew
      The peace infring’d proceeded first from you;
      I knew you, when you mingled first in fight;
      And now in vain you would deceive my sight—
      Why, goddess, this unprofitable care?
      Who sent you down from heav’n, involv’d in air,
      Your share of mortal sorrows to sustain,
      And see your brother bleeding on the plain?
      For to what pow’r can Turnus have recourse,
      Or how resist his fate’s prevailing force?
      These eyes beheld Murranus bite the ground:
      Mighty the man, and mighty was the wound.
      I heard my dearest friend, with dying breath,
      My name invoking to revenge his death.
      Brave Ufens fell with honour on the place,
      To shun the shameful sight of my disgrace.
      On earth supine, a manly corpse he lies;
      His vest and armour are the victor’s prize.
      Then, shall I see Laurentum in a flame,
      Which only wanted, to complete my shame?
      How will the Latins hoot their champion’s flight!
      How Drances will insult and point them to the sight!
      Is death so hard to bear? Ye gods below,
      (Since those above so small compassion show,)
      Receive a soul unsullied yet with shame,
      Which not belies my great forefather’s name!”

      He said; and while he spoke, with flying speed
      Came Sages urging on his foamy steed:
      Fix’d on his wounded face a shaft he bore,
      And, seeking Turnus, sent his voice before:
      “Turnus, on you, on you alone, depends
      Our last relief: compassionate your friends!
      Like lightning, fierce Aeneas, rolling on,
      With arms invests, with flames invades the town:
      The brands are toss’d on high; the winds conspire
      To drive along the deluge of the fire.
      All eyes are fix’d on you: your foes rejoice;
      Ev’n the king staggers, and suspends his choice;
      Doubts to deliver or defend the town,
      Whom to reject, or whom to call his son.
      The queen, on whom your utmost hopes were plac’d,
      Herself suborning death, has breath’d her last.
      ’Tis true, Messapus, fearless of his fate,
      With fierce Atinas’ aid, defends the gate:
      On ev’ry side surrounded by the foe,
      The more they kill, the greater numbers grow;
      An iron harvest mounts, and still remains to mow.
      You, far aloof from your forsaken bands,
      Your rolling chariot drive o’er empty sands.

      Stupid he sate, his eyes on earth declin’d,
      And various cares revolving in his mind:
      Rage, boiling from the bottom of his breast,
      And sorrow mix’d with shame, his soul oppress’d;
      And conscious worth lay lab’ring in his thought,
      And love by jealousy to madness wrought.
      By slow degrees his reason drove away
      The mists of passion, and resum’d her sway.
      Then, rising on his car, he turn’d his look,
      And saw the town involv’d in fire and smoke.
      A wooden tow’r with flames already blaz’d,
      Which his own hands on beams and rafters rais’d;
      And bridges laid above to join the space,
      And wheels below to roll from place to place.
      “Sister, the Fates have vanquish’d: let us go
      The way which Heav’n and my hard fortune show.
      The fight is fix’d; nor shall the branded name
      Of a base coward blot your brother’s fame.
      Death is my choice; but suffer me to try
      My force, and vent my rage before I die.”
      He said; and, leaping down without delay,
      Thro’ crowds of scatter’d foes he freed his way.
      Striding he pass’d, impetuous as the wind,
      And left the grieving goddess far behind.
      As when a fragment, from a mountain torn
      By raging tempests, or by torrents borne,
      Or sapp’d by time, or loosen’d from the roots—
      Prone thro’ the void the rocky ruin shoots,
      Rolling from crag to crag, from steep to steep;
      Down sink, at once, the shepherds and their sheep:
      Involv’d alike, they rush to nether ground;
      Stunn’d with the shock they fall, and stunn’d from earth rebound:
      So Turnus, hasting headlong to the town,
      Should’ring and shoving, bore the squadrons down.
      Still pressing onward, to the walls he drew,
      Where shafts, and spears, and darts promiscuous flew,
      And sanguine streams the slipp’ry ground embrue.
      First stretching out his arm, in sign of peace,
      He cries aloud, to make the combat cease:
      “Rutulians, hold; and Latin troops, retire!
      The fight is mine; and me the gods require.
      ’Tis just that I should vindicate alone
      The broken truce, or for the breach atone.
      This day shall free from wars th’ Ausonian state,
      Or finish my misfortunes in my fate.”

      Both armies from their bloody work desist,
      And, bearing backward, form a spacious list.
      The Trojan hero, who receiv’d from fame
      The welcome sound, and heard the champion’s name,
      Soon leaves the taken works and mounted walls,
      Greedy of war where greater glory calls.
      He springs to fight, exulting in his force
      His jointed armour rattles in the course.
      Like Eryx, or like Athos, great he shows,
      Or Father Apennine, when, white with snows,
      His head divine obscure in clouds he hides,
      And shakes the sounding forest on his sides.
      The nations, overaw’d, surcease the fight;
      Immovable their bodies, fix’d their sight.
      Ev’n death stands still; nor from above they throw
      Their darts, nor drive their batt’ring-rams below.
      In silent order either army stands,
      And drop their swords, unknowing, from their hands.
      Th’ Ausonian king beholds, with wond’ring sight,
      Two mighty champions match’d in single fight,
      Born under climes remote, and brought by fate,
      With swords to try their titles to the state.

      Now, in clos’d field, each other from afar
      They view; and, rushing on, begin the war.
      They launch their spears; then hand to hand they meet;
      The trembling soil resounds beneath their feet:
      Their bucklers clash; thick blows descend from high,
      And flakes of fire from their hard helmets fly.
      Courage conspires with chance, and both engage
      With equal fortune yet, and mutual rage.
      As when two bulls for their fair female fight
      In Sila’s shades, or on Taburnus’ height;
      With horns adverse they meet; the keeper flies;
      Mute stands the herd; the heifers roll their eyes,
      And wait th’ event; which victor they shall bear,
      And who shall be the lord, to rule the lusty year:
      With rage of love the jealous rivals burn,
      And push for push, and wound for wound return;
      Their dewlaps gor’d, their sides are lav’d in blood;
      Loud cries and roaring sounds rebellow thro’ the wood:
      Such was the combat in the listed ground;
      So clash their swords, and so their shields resound.

      Jove sets the beam; in either scale he lays
      The champions’ fate, and each exactly weighs.
      On this side, life and lucky chance ascends;
      Loaded with death, that other scale descends.
      Rais’d on the stretch, young Turnus aims a blow
      Full on the helm of his unguarded foe:
      Shrill shouts and clamours ring on either side,
      As hopes and fears their panting hearts divide.
      But all in pieces flies the traitor sword,
      And, in the middle stroke, deserts his lord.
      Now is but death, or flight; disarm’d he flies,
      When in his hand an unknown hilt he spies.
      Fame says that Turnus, when his steeds he join’d,
      Hurrying to war, disorder’d in his mind,
      Snatch’d the first weapon which his haste could find.
      ’Twas not the fated sword his father bore,
      But that his charioteer Metiscus wore.
      This, while the Trojans fled, the toughness held;
      But, vain against the great Vulcanian shield,
      The mortal-temper’d steel deceiv’d his hand:
      The shiver’d fragments shone amid the sand.

      Surpris’d with fear, he fled along the field,
      And now forthright, and now in orbits wheel’d;
      For here the Trojan troops the list surround,
      And there the pass is clos’d with pools and marshy ground.
      Aeneas hastens, tho’ with heavier pace—
      His wound, so newly knit, retards the chase,
      And oft his trembling knees their aid refuse—
      Yet, pressing foot by foot, his foe pursues.

      Thus, when a fearful stag is clos’d around
      With crimson toils, or in a river found,
      High on the bank the deep-mouth’d hound appears,
      Still opening, following still, where’er he steers;
      The persecuted creature, to and fro,
      Turns here and there, to scape his Umbrian foe:
      Steep is th’ ascent, and, if he gains the land,
      The purple death is pitch’d along the strand.
      His eager foe, determin’d to the chase,
      Stretch’d at his length, gains ground at ev’ry pace;
      Now to his beamy head he makes his way,
      And now he holds, or thinks he holds, his prey:
      Just at the pinch, the stag springs out with fear;
      He bites the wind, and fills his sounding jaws with air:
      The rocks, the lakes, the meadows ring with cries;
      The mortal tumult mounts, and thunders in the skies.
      Thus flies the Daunian prince, and, flying, blames
      His tardy troops, and, calling by their names,
      Demands his trusty sword. The Trojan threats
      The realm with ruin, and their ancient seats
      To lay in ashes, if they dare supply
      With arms or aid his vanquish’d enemy:
      Thus menacing, he still pursues the course,
      With vigour, tho’ diminish’d of his force.
      Ten times already round the listed place
      One chief had fled, and t’ other giv’n the chase:
      No trivial prize is play’d; for on the life
      Or death of Turnus now depends the strife.

      Within the space, an olive tree had stood,
      A sacred shade, a venerable wood,
      For vows to Faunus paid, the Latins’ guardian god.
      Here hung the vests, and tablets were engrav’d,
      Of sinking mariners from shipwreck sav’d.
      With heedless hands the Trojans fell’d the tree,
      To make the ground enclos’d for combat free.
      Deep in the root, whether by fate, or chance,
      Or erring haste, the Trojan drove his lance;
      Then stoop’d, and tugg’d with force immense, to free
      Th’ incumber’d spear from the tenacious tree;
      That, whom his fainting limbs pursued in vain,
      His flying weapon might from far attain.

      Confus’d with fear, bereft of human aid,
      Then Turnus to the gods, and first to Faunus pray’d:
      “O Faunus, pity! and thou Mother Earth,
      Where I thy foster son receiv’d my birth,
      Hold fast the steel! If my religious hand
      Your plant has honour’d, which your foes profan’d,
      Propitious hear my pious pray’r!” He said,
      Nor with successless vows invok’d their aid.
      Th’ incumbent hero wrench’d, and pull’d, and strain’d;
      But still the stubborn earth the steel detain’d.
      Juturna took her time; and, while in vain
      He strove, assum’d Meticus’ form again,
      And, in that imitated shape, restor’d
      To the despairing prince his Daunian sword.
      The Queen of Love, who, with disdain and grief,
      Saw the bold nymph afford this prompt relief,
      T’ assert her offspring with a greater deed,
      From the tough root the ling’ring weapon freed.

      Once more erect, the rival chiefs advance:
      One trusts the sword, and one the pointed lance;
      And both resolv’d alike to try their fatal chance.

      Meantime imperial Jove to Juno spoke,
      Who from a shining cloud beheld the shock:
      “What new arrest, O Queen of Heav’n, is sent
      To stop the Fates now lab’ring in th’ event?
      What farther hopes are left thee to pursue?
      Divine Aeneas, (and thou know’st it too,)
      Foredoom’d, to these celestial seats are due.
      What more attempts for Turnus can be made,
      That thus thou ling’rest in this lonely shade?
      Is it becoming of the due respect
      And awful honour of a god elect,
      A wound unworthy of our state to feel,
      Patient of human hands and earthly steel?
      Or seems it just, the sister should restore
      A second sword, when one was lost before,
      And arm a conquer’d wretch against his conqueror?
      For what, without thy knowledge and avow,
      Nay more, thy dictate, durst Juturna do?
      At last, in deference to my love, forbear
      To lodge within thy soul this anxious care;
      Reclin’d upon my breast, thy grief unload:
      Who should relieve the goddess, but the god?
      Now all things to their utmost issue tend,
      Push’d by the Fates to their appointed end.
      While leave was giv’n thee, and a lawful hour
      For vengeance, wrath, and unresisted pow’r,
      Toss’d on the seas, thou couldst thy foes distress,
      And, driv’n ashore, with hostile arms oppress;
      Deform the royal house; and, from the side
      Of the just bridegroom, tear the plighted bride:
      Now cease at my command.” The Thund’rer said;
      And, with dejected eyes, this answer Juno made:
      “Because your dread decree too well I knew,
      From Turnus and from earth unwilling I withdrew.
      Else should you not behold me here, alone,
      Involv’d in empty clouds, my friends bemoan,
      But, girt with vengeful flames, in open sight
      Engag’d against my foes in mortal fight.
      ’Tis true, Juturna mingled in the strife
      By my command, to save her brother’s life,
      At least to try; but, by the Stygian lake,
      (The most religious oath the gods can take,)
      With this restriction, not to bend the bow,
      Or toss the spear, or trembling dart to throw.
      And now, resign’d to your superior might,
      And tir’d with fruitless toils, I loathe the fight.
      This let me beg (and this no fates withstand)
      Both for myself and for your father’s land,
      That, when the nuptial bed shall bind the peace,
      (Which I, since you ordain, consent to bless,)
      The laws of either nation be the same;
      But let the Latins still retain their name,
      Speak the same language which they spoke before,
      Wear the same habits which their grandsires wore.
      Call them not Trojans: perish the renown
      And name of Troy, with that detested town.
      Latium be Latium still; let Alba reign
      And Rome’s immortal majesty remain.”

      Then thus the founder of mankind replies
      (Unruffled was his front, serene his eyes)
      “Can Saturn’s issue, and heav’n’s other heir,
      Such endless anger in her bosom bear?
      Be mistress, and your full desires obtain;
      But quench the choler you foment in vain.
      From ancient blood th’ Ausonian people sprung,
      Shall keep their name, their habit, and their tongue.
      The Trojans to their customs shall be tied:
      I will, myself, their common rites provide;
      The natives shall command, the foreigners subside.
      All shall be Latium; Troy without a name;
      And her lost sons forget from whence they came.
      From blood so mix’d, a pious race shall flow,
      Equal to gods, excelling all below.
      No nation more respect to you shall pay,
      Or greater off’rings on your altars lay.”
      Juno consents, well pleas’d that her desires
      Had found success, and from the cloud retires.

      The peace thus made, the Thund’rer next prepares
      To force the wat’ry goddess from the wars.
      Deep in the dismal regions void of light,
      Three daughters at a birth were born to Night:
      These their brown mother, brooding on her care,
      Indued with windy wings to flit in air,
      With serpents girt alike, and crown’d with hissing hair.
      In heav’n the Dirae call’d, and still at hand,
      Before the throne of angry Jove they stand,
      His ministers of wrath, and ready still
      The minds of mortal men with fears to fill,
      Whene’er the moody sire, to wreak his hate
      On realms or towns deserving of their fate,
      Hurls down diseases, death and deadly care,
      And terrifies the guilty world with war.
      One sister plague if these from heav’n he sent,
      To fright Juturna with a dire portent.
      The pest comes whirling down: by far more slow
      Springs the swift arrow from the Parthian bow,
      Or Cydon yew, when, traversing the skies,
      And drench’d in pois’nous juice, the sure destruction flies.
      With such a sudden and unseen a flight
      Shot thro’ the clouds the daughter of the night.
      Soon as the field inclos’d she had in view,
      And from afar her destin’d quarry knew,
      Contracted, to the boding bird she turns,
      Which haunts the ruin’d piles and hallow’d urns,
      And beats about the tombs with nightly wings,
      Where songs obscene on sepulchers she sings.
      Thus lessen’d in her form, with frightful cries
      The Fury round unhappy Turnus flies,
      Flaps on his shield, and flutters o’er his eyes.

      A lazy chillness crept along his blood;
      Chok’d was his voice; his hair with horror stood.
      Juturna from afar beheld her fly,
      And knew th’ ill omen, by her screaming cry
      And stridor of her wings. Amaz’d with fear,
      Her beauteous breast she beat, and rent her flowing hair.

      “Ah me!” she cries, “in this unequal strife
      What can thy sister more to save thy life?
      Weak as I am, can I, alas! contend
      In arms with that inexorable fiend?
      Now, now, I quit the field! forbear to fright
      My tender soul, ye baleful birds of night;
      The lashing of your wings I know too well,
      The sounding flight, and fun’ral screams of hell!
      These are the gifts you bring from haughty Jove,
      The worthy recompense of ravish’d love!
      Did he for this exempt my life from fate?
      O hard conditions of immortal state,
      Tho’ born to death, not privileg’d to die,
      But forc’d to bear impos’d eternity!
      Take back your envious bribes, and let me go
      Companion to my brother’s ghost below!
      The joys are vanish’d: nothing now remains,
      Of life immortal, but immortal pains.
      What earth will open her devouring womb,
      To rest a weary goddess in the tomb!”
      She drew a length of sighs; nor more she said,
      But in her azure mantle wrapp’d her head,
      Then plung’d into her stream, with deep despair,
      And her last sobs came bubbling up in air.

      Now stern Aeneas waves his weighty spear
      Against his foe, and thus upbraids his fear:
      “What farther subterfuge can Turnus find?
      What empty hopes are harbour’d in his mind?
      ’Tis not thy swiftness can secure thy flight;
      Not with their feet, but hands, the valiant fight.
      Vary thy shape in thousand forms, and dare
      What skill and courage can attempt in war;
      Wish for the wings of winds, to mount the sky;
      Or hid, within the hollow earth to lie!”
      The champion shook his head, and made this short reply:
      “No threats of thine my manly mind can move;
      ’Tis hostile heav’n I dread, and partial Jove.”
      He said no more, but, with a sigh, repress’d
      The mighty sorrow in his swelling breast.

      Then, as he roll’d his troubled eyes around,
      An antique stone he saw, the common bound
      Of neighb’ring fields, and barrier of the ground;
      So vast, that twelve strong men of modern days
      Th’ enormous weight from earth could hardly raise.
      He heav’d it at a lift, and, pois’d on high,
      Ran stagg’ring on against his enemy,
      But so disorder’d, that he scarcely knew
      His way, or what unwieldly weight he threw.
      His knocking knees are bent beneath the load,
      And shiv’ring cold congeals his vital blood.
      The stone drops from his arms, and, falling short
      For want of vigour, mocks his vain effort.
      And as, when heavy sleep has clos’d the sight,
      The sickly fancy labours in the night;
      We seem to run; and, destitute of force,
      Our sinking limbs forsake us in the course:
      In vain we heave for breath; in vain we cry;
      The nerves, unbrac’d, their usual strength deny;
      And on the tongue the falt’ring accents die:
      So Turnus far’d; whatever means he tried,
      All force of arms and points of art employ’d,
      The Fury flew athwart, and made th’ endeavor void.

      A thousand various thoughts his soul confound;
      He star’d about, nor aid nor issue found;
      His own men stop the pass, and his own walls surround.
      Once more he pauses, and looks out again,
      And seeks the goddess charioteer in vain.
      Trembling he views the thund’ring chief advance,
      And brandishing aloft the deadly lance:
      Amaz’d he cow’rs beneath his conqu’ring foe,
      Forgets to ward, and waits the coming blow.
      Astonish’d while he stands, and fix’d with fear,
      Aim’d at his shield he sees th’ impending spear.

      The hero measur’d first, with narrow view,
      The destin’d mark; and, rising as he threw,
      With its full swing the fatal weapon flew.
      Not with less rage the rattling thunder falls,
      Or stones from batt’ring-engines break the walls:
      Swift as a whirlwind, from an arm so strong,
      The lance drove on, and bore the death along.
      Naught could his sev’nfold shield the prince avail,
      Nor aught, beneath his arms, the coat of mail:
      It pierc’d thro’ all, and with a grisly wound
      Transfix’d his thigh, and doubled him to ground.
      With groans the Latins rend the vaulted sky:
      Woods, hills, and valleys, to the voice reply.

      Now low on earth the lofty chief is laid,
      With eyes cast upward, and with arms display’d,
      And, recreant, thus to the proud victor pray’d:
      “I know my death deserv’d, nor hope to live:
      Use what the gods and thy good fortune give.
      Yet think, O think, if mercy may be shown,
      Thou hadst a father once, and hast a son.
      Pity my sire, now sinking to the grave;
      And for Anchises’ sake old Daunus save!
      Or, if thy vow’d revenge pursue my death,
      Give to my friends my body void of breath!
      The Latian chiefs have seen me beg my life;
      Thine is the conquest, thine the royal wife:
      Against a yielded man, ’tis mean ignoble strife.”

      In deep suspense the Trojan seem’d to stand,
      And, just prepar’d to strike, repress’d his hand.
      He roll’d his eyes, and ev’ry moment felt
      His manly soul with more compassion melt;
      When, casting down a casual glance, he spied
      The golden belt that glitter’d on his side,
      The fatal spoils which haughty Turnus tore
      From dying Pallas, and in triumph wore.
      Then, rous’d anew to wrath, he loudly cries
      (Flames, while he spoke, came flashing from his eyes)
      “Traitor, dost thou, dost thou to grace pretend,
      Clad, as thou art, in trophies of my friend?
      To his sad soul a grateful off’ring go!
      ’Tis Pallas, Pallas gives this deadly blow.”
      He rais’d his arm aloft, and, at the word,
      Deep in his bosom drove the shining sword.
      The streaming blood distain’d his arms around;
      And the disdainful soul came rushing through the wound.










Produced by An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer





THE GREEN MUMMY

By Fergus Hume




CONTENTS



CHAPTER



    I    THE LOVERS

   II    PROFESSOR BRADDOCK

  III    A MYSTERIOUS TOMB

   IV    THE UNEXPECTED

    V    MYSTERY

   VI    THE INQUEST

  VII    THE CAPTAIN OF “THE DIVER”

 VIII    THE BARONET

   IX    MRS. JASHER'S LUCK

    X    THE DON AND HIS DAUGHTER

   XI    THE MANUSCRIPT

  XII    A DISCOVERY

 XIII    MORE MYSTERY

  XIV    THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS

   XV    AN ACCUSATION

  XVI    THE MANUSCRIPT AGAIN

 XVII    CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE

XVIII RECOGNITION

  XIX    NEARER THE TRUTH

   XX    THE LETTER

  XXI    A STORY OF THE PAST

 XXII    A WEDDING PRESENT

XXIII JUST IN TIME

 XXIV    A CONFESSION

  XXV    THE MILLS OF GOD

 XXVI    THE APPOINTMENT

XXVII BY THE RIVER





THE GREEN MUMMY




CHAPTER I. THE LOVERS


“I am very angry,” pouted the maid.

“In heaven's name, why?” questioned the bachelor.

“You have, so to speak, bought me.”

“Impossible: your price is prohibitive.”

“Indeed, when a thousand pounds--”

“You are worth fifty and a hundred times as much. Pooh!”

“That interjection doesn't answer my question.”

“I don't think it is one which needs answering,” said the young man
lightly; “there are more important things to talk about than pounds,
shillings, and sordid pence.”

“Oh, indeed! Such as--”

“Love, on a day such as this is. Look at the sky, blue as your eyes; at
the sunshine, golden as your hair.”

“Warm as your affection, you should say.”

“Affection! So cold a word, when I love you.”

“To the extent of one thousand pounds.”

“Lucy, you are a--woman. That money did not buy your love, but the
consent of your step-father to our marriage. Had I not humored his whim,
he would have insisted upon your marrying Random.”

Lucy pouted again and in scorn.

“As if I ever would,” said she.

“Well, I don't know. Random is a soldier and a baronet; handsome and
agreeable, with a certain amount of talent. What objection can you find
to such a match?”

“One insuperable objection; he isn't you, Archie--darling.”

“H'm, the adjective appears to be an afterthought,” grumbled the
bachelor; then, when she merely laughed teasingly after the manner of
women, he added moodily:

“No, by Jove, Random isn't me, by any manner of means. I am but a poor
artist without fame or position, struggling on three hundred a year for
a grudging recognition.”

“Quite enough for one, you greedy creature.”

“And for two?” he inquired softly.

“More than enough.”

“Oh, nonsense, nonsense, nonsense!”

“What! when I am engaged to you? Actions speak much louder than remarks,
Mr. Archibald Hope. I love you more than I do money.”

“Angel! angel!”

“You said that I was a woman just now. What do, you mean?”

“This,” and he kissed her willing lips in the lane, which was empty save
for blackbirds and beetles. “Is any explanation a clear one?”

“Not to an angel, who requires adoration, but to a woman who--Let us
walk on, Archie, or we shall be late for dinner.”

The young man smiled and frowned and sighed and laughed in the space of
thirty seconds--something of a feat in the way of emotional gymnastics.
The freakish feminine nature perplexed him as it had perplexed Adam,
and he could not understand this rapid change from poetry to prose. How
could it be otherwise, when he was but five-and-twenty, and engaged
for the first time? Threescore years and ten is all too short a time to
learn what woman really is, and every student leaves this world with the
conviction that of the thousand sides which the female of man presents
to the male of woman, not one reveals the being he desires to know.
There is always a deep below a deep; a veil behind a veil, a sphere
within a sphere.

“It's most remarkable,” said the puzzled man in this instance.

“What is?” asked the enigma promptly.

To avoid an argument which he could not sustain, Archie switched his on
to the weather.

“This day in September; one could well believe that it is still the
month of roses.”

“What! With those wilted hedges and falling leaves and reaped fields and
golden haystacks, and--and--”

She glanced around for further illustrations in the way of
contradiction.

“I can see all those things, dear, and the misplaced day also!”

“Misplaced?”

“July day slipped into September. It comes into the landscape of this
autumn month, as does love into the hearts of an elderly couple who feel
too late the supreme passion.”

Lucy's eyes swept the prospect, and the spring-like sunshine,
revealing all too clearly the wrinkles of aging Nature, assisted her
comprehension.

“I understand. Yet youth has its wisdom.”

“And old age its experience. The law of compensation, my dearest. But I
don't see,” he added reflectively, “what your remark and my answer have
to do with the view,” whereat Lucy declared that his wits wandered.

Within the last five minutes they had emerged from a sunken lane where
the hedges were white with dust and dry with heat to a vast open space,
apparently at the World's-End. Here the saltings spread raggedly towards
the stately stream of the Thames, intersected by dykes and ditches,
by earthen ramparts, crooked fences, sod walls, and irregular lines of
stunted trees following the water-courses. The marshes were shaggy with
reeds and rushes, and brown with coarse, fading herbage, although here
and there gleamed emerald-hued patches of water-soaked soil, fit for
fairy-rings. Beyond a moderately high embankment of turf and timber, the
lovers could see the broad river, sweeping eastward to the Nore, with
homeward-bound and outward-faring ships afloat on its golden tide.
Across the gleaming waters, from where they lipped their banks to the
foot of low domestic Kentish hills, stretched alluvial lands, sparsely
timbered, and in the clear sunshine clusters of houses, great and small,
factories with tall, smoky chimneys, clumps of trees and rigid railway
lines could be discerned. The landscape was not beautiful, in spite of
the sun's profuse gildings, but to the lovers it appeared a Paradise.
Cupid, lord of gods and men, had bestowed on them the usual rose-colored
spectacles which form an important part of his stock-in-trade, and they
looked abroad on a fairy world. Was not SHE there: was not HE there:
could Romeo or Juliet desire more?

From their feet ran the slim, straight causeway, which was the
King's highway of the district--a trim, prim line of white above the
picturesque disorder of the marshes. It skirted the low-lying fields at
the foot of the uplands and slipped through an iron gate to end in
the far distance at the gigantic portal of The Fort. This was a
squat, ungainly pile of rugged gray stone, symmetrically built, but
aggressively ugly in its very regularity, since it insulted the graceful
curves of Nature everywhere discernible. It stood nakedly amidst the
bare, bleak meadows glittering with pools of still water, with not even
the leaf of a creeper to soften its menacing walls, although above them
appeared the full-foliaged tops of trees planted in the barrack-yard. It
looked as though the grim walls belted a secret orchard. What with
the frowning battlements, the very few windows diminutive and closely
barred, the sullen entrance and the absence of any gracious greenery,
Gartley Fort resembled the Castle of Giant Despair. On the hither side,
but invisible to the lovers, great cannons scowled on the river they
protected, and, when they spoke, received answer from smaller guns
across the stream. There less extensive forts were concealed amidst
trees and masked by turf embankments, to watch and guard the golden
argosies of London commerce.

Lucy, always impressionable, shivered with her hand in that of Archie's,
as she stared at the landscape, melancholy even in the brilliant
sunshine.

“I should hate to live in Gartley Fort,” said she abruptly. “One might
as well be in jail.”

“If you marry Random you will have to live there, or on a baggage wagon.
He is R.G.A. captain, remember, and has to go where glory calls him,
like a good soldier.”

“Glory can call until glory is hoarse for me,” retorted the girl
candidly. “I prefer an artist's studio to a camp.”

“Why?” asked Hope, laughing at her vehemence.

“The reason is obvious. I love the artist.”

“And if you loved the soldier?”

“I should mount the baggage wagon and make him Bovril when he was
wounded. But for you, dear, I shall cook and sew and bake and--”

“Stop! stop! I want a wife, not a housekeeper.”

“Every sensible man wants the two in one.”

“But you should be a queen, darling.”

“Not with my own consent, Archie: the work is much too hard. Existence
on six pounds a week with you will be more amusing. We can take a
cottage, you know, and live, the simple life in Gartley village, until
you become the P.R.A., and I can be Lady Hope, to walk in silk attire.”

“You shall be Queen of the Earth, darling, and walk alone.”

“How dull! I would much rather walk with you. And that reminds me that
dinner is waiting. Let us take the short cut home through the village.
On the way you can tell me exactly how you bought me from my step-father
for one thousand pounds.”

Archie Hope frowned at the incurable obstinacy of the sex. “I didn't buy
you, dearest: how many times do you wish me to deny a sale which never
took place? I merely obtained your step-father's consent to our marriage
in the near future.”

“As if he had anything to do with my marriage, being only my
step-father, and having, in my eyes, no authority. In what way did you
get his consent--his unnecessary consent,” she repeated with emphasis.

Of course it was waste of breath to argue with a woman who had made up
her mind. The two began to walk towards the village along the causeway,
and Hope cleared his throat to explain--patiently as to a child.

“You know that your step-father--Professor Braddock--is crazy on the
subject of mummies?”

Lucy nodded in her pretty wilful way. “He is an Egyptologist.”

“Quite so, but less famous and rich than he should be, considering his
knowledge of dry-as-dust antiquities. Well, then, to make a long story
short, he told me that he greatly desired to examine into the difference
between the Egyptians and the Peruvians, with regard to the embalming of
the dead.”

“I always thought that he was too fond of Egypt to bother about any
other country,” said Lucy sapiently.

“My dear, it isn't the country he cares about, but the civilization of
the past. The Incas embalmed their dead, as did the Egyptians, and
in some way the Professor heard of a Royal Mummy, swathed in green
bandages--so he described it to me.”

“It should be called an Irish mummy,” said Lucy flippantly. “Well?”

“This mummy is in possession of a man at Malta, and Professor Braddock,
hearing that it was for sale for one thousand pounds--”

“Oh!” interrupted the girl vivaciously, “so this was why father sent
Sidney Bolton away six weeks ago?”

“Yes. As you know, Bolton is your step-father's assistant, and is as
crazy as the Professor on the subject of Egypt. I asked the Professor if
he would allow me to marry you--”

“Quite unnecessary,” interpolated Lucy briskly.

Archie passed over the remark to evade an argument.

“When I asked him, he said that he wished you to marry Random, who is
rich. I pointed out that you loved me and not Random, and that Random
was on a yachting cruise, while I was on the spot. He then said that he
could not wait for the return of Random, and would give me a chance.”

“What did he mean by that?”

“Well, it seems that he was in a hurry to get this Green Mummy from
Malta, as he feared lest some other person should snap it up. This was
two months ago, remember, and Professor Braddock wanted the cash at
once. Had Random been here he could have supplied it, but as Random was
away he told me that if I handed over one thousand pounds to purchase
the mummy, that he would permit our engagement now, and our marriage in
six months. I saw my chance and took it, for your step-father has always
been an obstacle in our path, Lucy, dear. In a week Professor Braddock
had the money, as I sold out some of my investments to get it. He then
sent Bolton to Malta in a tramp steamer for the sake of cheapness, and
now expects him back with the Green Mummy.”

“Has Sidney bought it?”

“Yes. He got it for nine hundred pounds, the Professor told me, and is
bringing it back in The Diver--that's the same tramp steamer in which
he went to Malta. So that's the whole story, and you can see there is
no question of you being bought. The thousand pounds went to get your
father's consent.”

“He is not my father,” snapped Lucy, finding nothing else to say.

“You call him so.”

“That is only from habit. I can't call him Mr. Braddock, or Professor
Braddock, when I live with him, so `father' is the sole mode of address
left to me. And after all,” she added, taking her lover's arm, “I
like the Professor; he is very kind and good, although extremely
absent-minded. And I am glad he has consented, for he worried me a lot
to marry Sir Frank Random. I am glad you bought me.”

“But I didn't,” cried the exasperated lover.

“I think you did, and you shouldn't have diminished your income by
buying what you could have had for nothing.”

Archie shrugged his shoulders. It was vain to combat her fixed idea.

“I have still three hundred a year left. And you were worth buying.”

“You have no right to talk of me as though I had been bought.”

The young man gasped. “But you said--”

“Oh, what does it matter what I said. I am going to marry you on three
hundred a year, so there it is. I suppose when Bolton returns, my father
will be glad to see the back of me, and then will go to Egypt with
Sidney to explore this secret tomb he is always talking about.”

“That expedition will require more than a thousand pounds,” said Archie
dryly. “The Professor explained the obstacles to me. However, his doings
have nothing to do with us, darling. Let Professor Braddock fumble
amongst the dead if he likes. We live!”

“Apart,” sighed Lucy.

“Only for the next six months; then we can get our cottage and live on
love, my dearest.”

“Plus three hundred a year,” said the girl sensibly then she added, “Oh,
poor Frank Random!”

“Lucy,” cried her lover indignantly.

“Well, I was only pitying him. He's a nice man, and you can't expect him
to be pleased at our marriage.”

“Perhaps,” said Hope in an icy tone, “you would like him to be the
bridegroom. If so, there is still time.”

“Silly boy!” She took his arm. “As I have been bought, you know that I
can't run away from my purchaser.”

“You denied being bought just now. It seems to me, Lucy, that I am to
marry a weather-cock.”

“That is only an impolite name for a woman, dear. You have no sense of
humor, Frank, or you would call me an April lady.”

“Because you change every five minutes. H'm! It's puzzling.”

“Is it? Perhaps you would like me to resemble Widow Anne, who is always
funereal. Here she is, looking like Niobe.”

They were strolling through Gartley village by this time, and the
cottagers came to their doors and front gates to look at the handsome
young couple. Everyone knew of the engagement, and approved of the same,
although some hinted that Lucy Kendal would have been wiser to marry
the soldier-baronet. Amongst these was Widow Anne, who really was Mrs.
Bolton, the mother of Sidney, a dismal female invariably arrayed in
rusty, stuffy, aggressive mourning, although her husband had been dead
for over twenty years. Because of this same mourning, and because she
was always talking of the dead, she was called “Widow Anne,” and looked
on the appellation as a compliment to her fidelity. At the present
moment she stood at the gate of her tiny garden, mopping her red eyes
with a dingy handkerchief.

“Ah, young love, young love, my lady,” she groaned, when the couple
passed, for she always gave Lucy a title as though she really and truly
had become the wife of Sir Frank, “but who knows how long it may last?”

“As long as we do,” retorted Lucy, annoyed by this prophetic speech.

Widow Anne groaned with relish. “So me and Aaron, as is dead and gone,
thought, my lady. But in six months he was knocking the head off me.”

“The man who would lay his hand on a woman save in the way of--”

“Oh, Archie, what nonsense, you talk!” cried Miss Kendal pettishly.

“Ah!” sighed the woman of experience, “I called it nonsense too, my
lady, afore Aaron, who now lies with the worms, laid me out with a
flat-iron. Men's fit for jails only, as I allays says.”

“A nice opinion you have of our sex,” remarked Archie dryly.

“I have, sir. I could tell you things as would make your head waggle
with horror on there shoulders of yours.”

“What about your son Sidney? Is he also wicked?”

“He would be if he had the strength, which he hasn't,” exclaimed the
widow with uncomplimentary fervor. “He's Aaron's son, and Aaron hadn't
much to learn from them as is where he's gone too,” and she looked
downward significantly.

“Sidney is a decent young fellow,” said Lucy sharply. “How dare you
miscall your own flesh and blood, Widow Anne? My father thinks a great
deal of Sidney, else he would not have sent him to Malta. Do try and be
cheerful, there's a good soul. Sidney will tell you plenty to make you
laugh, when he comes home.”

“If he ever does come home,” sighed the old woman.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Oh, it's all very well asking questions as can't be answered nohow, my
lady, but I be all of a mubble-fubble, that I be.”

“What is a mubble-fubble?” asked Hope, staring.

“It's a queer-like feeling of death and sorrow and tears of blood and
not lifting your head for groans,” said Widow Anne incoherently, “and
there's meanings in mubble-fumbles, as we're told in Scripture. Not but
what the Perfesser's been a kind gentleman to Sid in taking him
from going round with the laundry cart, and eddicating him to watch
camphorated corpses: not as what I'd like to keep an eye on them things
myself. But there's no more watching for my boy Sid, as I dreamed.”

“What did you dream?” asked Lucy curiously.

Widow Anne threw up two gnarled hands, wrinkled with age and laundry
work, screwing up her face meanwhile.

“I dreamed of battle and murder and sudden death, my lady, with Sid in
his cold grave playing on a harp, angel-like. Yes!” she folded her rusty
shawl tightly round her spare form and nodded, “there was Sid, looking
beautiful in his coffin, and cut into a hash, as you might say, with--”

“Ugh! ugh!” shuddered Lucy, and Archie strove to draw her away.

“With murder written all over his poor face,” pursued the widow. “And
I woke up screeching with cramp in my legs and pains in my lungs, and
beatings in my heart, and stiffness in my--”

“Oh, hang it, shut up!” shouted Archie, seeing that Lucy was growing
pale at this ghoulish recital, “don't be fool, woman. Professor Braddock
says that Bolton'll be back in three days with the mummy he has been
sent to fetch from Malta. You have been having nightmare! Don't you see
how you are frightening Miss Kendal?”

“'The Witch' of Endor, sir--”

“Deuce take the Witch of Endor and you also. There's a shilling. Go and
drink yourself into a more cheery frame of mind.”

Widow Anne bit the shilling with one of her two remaining teeth, and
dropped a curtsey.

“You're a good, kind gentleman,” she smirked, cheered at the idea of
unlimited gin. “And when my boy Sid do come home a corpse, I hope you'll
come to the funeral, sir.”

“What a raven!” said Lucy, as Widow Anne toddled away in the direction
of the one public-house in Gartley village.

“I don't wonder that the late Mr. Bolton laid her out with a flat-iron.
To slay such a woman would be meritorious.”

“I wonder how she came to be the mother of Sidney,” said Miss Kendal
reflectively, as they resumed their walk, “he's such a clever, smart,
and handsome young man.”

“I think Bolton owes everything to the Professor's teaching and example,
Lucy,” replied her lover. “He was an uncouth lad, I understand, when
your step-father took him into the house six years ago. Now he is quite
presentable. I shouldn't wonder if he married Mrs. Jasher.”

“H'm! I rather think Mrs. Jasher admires the Professor.”

“Oh, he'll never marry her. If she were a mummy there might be a chance,
of course, but as a human being the Professor will never look at her.”

“I don't know so much about that, Archie. Mrs. Jasher is attractive.”

Hope laughed. “In a mutton-dressed-as-lamb way, no doubt.”

“And she has money. My father is poor and so--”

“You make up a match at once, as every woman will do. Well, let us get
back to the Pyramids, and see how the flirtation is progressing.”

Lucy walked on for a few steps in silence. “Do you believe in Mrs.
Bolton's dream, Archie?”

“No! I believe she eats heavy suppers. Bolton will return quite safe; he
is a clever fellow, not easily taken advantage of. Don't bother any more
about Widow Anne and her dismal prophecies.”

“I'll try not to,” replied Lucy dutifully. “All the same, I wish she had
not told me her dream,” and she shivered.




CHAPTER II. PROFESSOR BRADDOCK


There was only one really palatial mansion in Gartley, and that was the
ancient Georgian house known as the Pyramids. Lucy's step-father had
given the place this eccentric name on taking up his abode there some
ten years previously. Before that time the dwelling had been occupied by
the Lord of the Manor and his family. But now the old squire was dead,
and his impecunious children were scattered to the four quarters of the
globe in search of money with which to rebuild their ruined fortunes. As
the village was somewhat isolated and rather unhealthily situated in a
marshy country, the huge, roomy old Grange had not been easy to let,
and had proved quite impossible to sell. Under these disastrous
circumstances, Professor Braddock--who described himself humorously as
a scientific pauper--had obtained the tenancy at a ridiculously low
rental, much to his satisfaction.

Many people would have paid money to avoid exile in these damp waste
lands, which, as it were, fringed civilization, but their loneliness and
desolation suited the Professor exactly. He required ample room for his
Egyptian collection, with plenty of time to decipher hieroglyphics and
study perished dynasties of the Nile Valley. The world of the present
day did not interest Braddock in the least. He lived almost continuously
on that portion of the mental plane which had to do with the far-distant
past, and only concerned himself with physical existence, when it
consisted of mummies and mystic beetles, sepulchral ornaments,
pictured documents, hawk-headed deities and suchlike things of almost
inconceivable antiquity. He rarely walked abroad and was invariably
late for meals, save when he missed any particular one altogether, which
happened frequently. Absent-minded in conversation, untidy in dress,
unpractical in business, dreamy in manner, Professor Braddock lived
solely for archaeology. That such a man should have taken to himself a
wife was mystery.

Yet he had been married fifteen years before to a widow, who possessed
a limited income and one small child. It was the opportunity of
securing the use of a steady income which had decoyed Braddock into the
matrimonial snare of Mrs. Kendal. To put it plainly, he had married the
agreeable widow for her money, although he could scarcely be called a
fortune-hunter. Like Eugene Aram, he desired cash to assist learning,
and as that scholar had committed murder to secure what he wanted, so
did the Professor marry to obtain his ends. These were to have someone
to manage the house, and to be set free from the necessity of earning
his bread, so that he might indulge in pursuits more pleasurable than
money-making. Mrs. Kendal was a placid, phlegmatic lady, who liked
rather than loved the Professor, and who desired him more as a companion
than as a husband. With Braddock she did not arrange a romantic marriage
so much as enter into a congenial partnership. She wanted a man in the
house, and he desired freedom from pecuniary embarrassment. On these
lines the prosaic bargain was struck, and Mrs. Kendal became the
Professor's wife with entirely successful results. She gave her
husband a home, and her child a father, who became fond of Lucy, and
who--considering he was merely an amateur parent--acted admirably.

But this sensible partnership lasted only for five years. Mrs. Braddock
died of a chill on the liver and left her five hundred a year to the
Professor for life, with remainder to Lucy, then a small girl of ten. It
was at this critical moment that Braddock became a practical man for
the first and last time in his dreamy life. He buried his wife with
unfeigned regret--for he had been sincerely attached to her in his
absent-minded way--and sent Lucy to a Hampstead boarding school. After
an interview with his late wife's lawyer to see that the income was
safe, he sought for a house in the country, and quickly discovered
Gartley Grange, which no one would take because of its isolation. Within
three months from the burial of Mrs. Braddock, the widower had removed
himself and his collection to Gartley, and had renamed his new abode
the Pyramids. Here he dwelt quietly and enjoyably--from his dry-as-dust
point of view--for ten years, and here Lucy Kendal had come when her
education was completed. The arrival of a marriageable young lady made
no difference in the Professor's habits, and he hailed her thankfully as
the successor to her mother in managing the small establishment. It is
to be feared that Braddock was somewhat selfish in his views, but the
fixed idea of archaeological research made him egotistical.

The mansion was three-story, flat-roofed, extremely ugly and
unexpectedly comfortable. Built of mellow red brick with dingy white
stone facings, it stood a few yards back from the roadway which ran from
Gartley Fort through the village, and, at the precise point where the
Pyramids was situated, curved abruptly through woodlands to terminate a
mile away, at Jessum, the local station of the Thames Railway Line. An
iron railing, embedded in moldering stone work, divided the narrow front
garden from the road, and on either side of the door--which could be
reached by five shallow steps--grew two small yew trees, smartly clipped
and trimmed into cones of dull green. These yews possessed some magical
significance, which Professor Braddock would occasionally explain to
chance visitors interested in occult matters; for, amongst other things
Egyptian, the archaeologist searched into the magic of the Sons of
Khem, and insisted that there was more truth than superstition in their
enchantments.

Braddock used all the vast rooms of the ground floor to house his
collection of antiquities, which he had acquired through many laborious
years. He dwelt entirely in this museum, as his bedroom adjoined
his study, and he frequently devoured his hurried meals amongst the
brilliantly tinted mummy cases. The embalmed dead populated his world,
and only now and then, when Lucy insisted, did he ascend to the first
floor, which was her particular abode. Here was the drawing-room,
the dining-room and Lucy's boudoir; here also were sundry bedrooms,
furnished and unfurnished, in one of which Miss Kendal slept, while
the others remained vacant for chance visitors, principally from
the scientific world. The third story was devoted to the cook, her
husband--who acted as gardener--and to the house parlor maid, a
composite domestic, who worked from morning until night in keeping
the great house clean. During the day these servants attended to their
business in a comfortable basement, where the cook ruled supreme. At the
back of the mansion stretched a fairly large kitchen garden, to which
the cook's husband devoted his attention. This was the entire domain
belonging to the tenant, as, of course, the Professor did not rent
the arable acres and comfortable farms which had belonged to the
dispossessed family.

Everything in the house went smoothly, as Lucy was a methodical young
person, who went by the clock and the almanac. Braddock little knew how
much of his undeniable comfort he owed to her fostering care; for,
prior to her return from school, he had been robbed right and left by
unscrupulous domestics. When his step-daughter arrived he simply handed
over the keys and the housekeeping money--a fixed sum--and gave her
strict instructions not to bother him. Miss Kendal faithfully observed
this injunction, as she enjoyed being undisputed mistress, and knew
that, so long as her step-father had his meals, his bed, his bath
and his clothes, he required nothing save the constant society of his
beloved mummies, of which no one wished to deprive him. These he dusted
and cleansed and rearranged himself. Not even Lucy dared to invade the
museum, and the mere mention of spring cleaning drove the Professor into
displaying frantic rage, in which he used bad language.

On returning from her walk with Archie, the girl had lured her
step-father into assuming a rusty dress suit, which had done service for
many years, and had coaxed him into a promise to be present at dinner.
Mrs. Jasher, the lively widow of the district, was coming, and Braddock
approved of a woman who looked up to him as the one wise man in the
world. Even science is susceptible to judicious flattery, and Mrs.
Jasher was never backward in putting her admiration into words.
Female gossip declared that the widow wished to become the second Mrs.
Braddock, but if this was really the case, she had but small chance of
gaining her end. The Professor had once sacrificed his liberty to secure
a competence, and, having acquired five hundred a year, was not inclined
for a second matrimonial venture. Had the widow been a dollar heiress
with a million at her back he would not have troubled to place a ring
on her finger. And certainly Mrs. Jasher had little to gain from such a
dreary marriage, beyond a collection of rubbish--as she said--and a
dull country house situated in a district inhabited solely by peasants
belonging to Saxon times.

Archie Hope left Lucy at the door of the Pyramids and repaired to his
village lodgings, for the purpose of assuming evening dress. Lucy, being
her own housekeeper, assisted the overworked parlor maid to lay and
decorate the table before receiving the guests. Thus Mrs. Jasher found
no one in the drawing-room to welcome her, and, taking the privilege of
old friendship, descended to beard Braddock in his den. The Professor
raised his eyes from a newly bought scarabeus to behold a stout little
lady smiling on him from the doorway. He did not appear to be grateful
for the interruption, but Mrs. Jasher was not at all dismayed, being
a man-hunter by profession. Besides, she saw that Braddock was in the
clouds as usual, and would have received the King himself in the same
absent-minded manner.

“Pouf! what an abominal smell!” exclaimed the widow, holding a
flimsy lace handkerchief to her nose. “Kind of camphor-sandal-wood
charnel-house smell. I wonder you are not asphyxiated. Pouf! Ugh!
Bur-r-r

The Professor stared at her with cold, fishy eyes. “Did you speak?”

“Oh, dear me, yes, and you don't even ask me to take a chair. If I were
a nasty stuffy mummy, now, you would be embracing me by, this time.
Don't you know that I have come to dinner, you silly man?” and she
tapped him playfully with her closed fan.

“I have had dinner,” said Braddock, egotistic as usual.

“No, you have not.” Mrs. Jasher spoke positively, and pointed to a
small tray of untouched food on the side table. “You have not even had
luncheon. You must live on air, like a chameleon--or on love, perhaps,”
 she ended in a significantly tender tone.

But she might as well have spoken to the granite image of Horus in the
corner. Braddock merely rubbed his chin and stared harder than ever at
the glittering visitor.

“Dear me!” he said innocently. “I must have forgotten to eat.
Lamplight!” he looked round vaguely. “Of course, I remember lighting the
lamps. Time has gone by very rapidly. I am really hungry.” He paused to
make sure, then repeated his remark in a more positive manner. “Yes, I
am very hungry, Mrs. Jasher.” He looked at her as though she had just
entered. “Of course, Mrs. Jasher. Do you wish to see me about anything
particular?”

The widow frowned at his inattention, and then laughed. It was
impossible to be angry with this dreamer.

“I have come to dinner, Professor. Do try and wake up; you are half
asleep and half starved, too, I expect.”

“I certainly feel unaccountably hungry,” admitted Braddock cautiously.

“Unaccountably, when you have eaten nothing since breakfast. You weird
man, I believe you are a mummy yourself.”

But the Professor had again returned to examine the scarabeus, this time
with a powerful magnifying glass.

“It certainly belongs to the twentieth dynasty,” he murmured, wrinkling
his brows.

Mrs. Jasher stamped and flirted her fan pettishly. The creature's soul,
she decided, was certainly not in his body, and until it came back he
would continue to ignore her. With the annoyance of a woman who is
not getting her own way, she leaned back in Braddock's one comfortable
chair--which she had unerringly selected--and examined him intently.
Perhaps the gossips were correct, and she was trying to imagine what
kind of a husband he would make. But whatever might be her thoughts, she
eyed Braddock as earnestly as Braddock eyed the scarabeus.

Outwardly the Professor did not appear like the savant he was reported
to be. He was small of stature, plump of body, rosy as a little Cupid,
and extraordinarily youthful, considering his fifty-odd years of
scientific wear and tear. With a smooth, clean-shaven face, plentiful
white hair like spun silk, and neat feet and hands, he did not look his
age. The dreamy look in his small blue eyes was rather belied by the
hardness of his thin-lipped mouth, and by the pugnacious push of his
jaw. The eyes and the dome-like forehead hinted that brain without much
originality; but the lower part of this contradictory countenance might
have belonged to a prize-fighter. Nevertheless, Braddock's plumpness did
away to a considerable extent with his aggressive look. It was certainly
latent, but only came to the surface when he fought with a brother
savant over some tomb-dweller from Thebes. In the soft lamplight he
looked like a fighting cherub, and it was a pity--in the interests of
art--that the hairless pink and white face did not surmount a pair of
wings rather than a rusty and ill-fitting dress suit.

“He's nane sa dafty as he looks,” thought Mrs. Jasher, who was Scotch,
although she claimed to be cosmopolitan. “With his mummies he is all
right, but outside those he might be difficult to manage. And these
things,” she glanced round the shadowy room, crowded with the dead
and their earthly belongings. “I don't think I would care to marry the
British Museum. Too much like hard work, and I am not so young as I
was.”

The near mirror--a polished silver one, which had belonged, ages ago, to
some coquette of Memphis--denied this uncomplimentary thought, for Mrs.
Jasher did not look a day over thirty, although her birth certificate
set her down as forty-five. In the lamplight she might have passed for
even younger, so carefully had she preserved what remained to her of
youth. She assuredly was somewhat stout, and never had been so tall
as she desired to be. But the lines of her plump figure were still
discernible in the cunningly cut gown, and she carried her little self
with such mighty dignity that people overlooked the mortifying height of
a trifle over five feet. Her features were small and neat, but her large
blue eyes were so noticeable and melting that those on whom she turned
them ignored the lack of boldness in chin and nose. Her hair was brown
and arranged in the latest fashion, while her complexion was so fresh
and pink that, if she did paint--as jealous women averred--she must
have been quite an artist with the hare's foot and the rouge pot and the
necessary powder puff.

Mrs. Jasher's clothes repaid the thought she expended upon them, and
she was artistic in this as in other things. Dressed in a crocus-yellow
gown, with short sleeves to reveal her beautiful arms, and cut low to
display her splendid bust, she looked perfectly dressed. A woman would
have declared the wide-netted black lace with which the dress was draped
to be cheap, and would have hinted that the widow wore too many jewels
in her hair, on her corsage, round her arms, and ridiculously gaudy
rings on her fingers. This might have been true, for Mrs. Jasher
sparkled like the Milky Way at every movement; but the gleam of gold
and the flash of gems seemed to suit her opulent beauty. Her slightest
movement wafted around her a strange Chinese perfume, which she
obtained--so she said--from a friend of her late husband's who was in
the British Embassy at Pekin. No one possessed this especial perfume but
Mrs. Jasher, and anyone who had previously met her, meeting her in the
darkness, could have guessed at her identity. With a smile to show
her white teeth, with her golden-hued dress and glittering jewels, the
pretty widow glowed in that glimmering room like a tropical bird.

The Professor raised his dreamy eyes and laid the beetle on one side,
when his brain fully grasped that this charming vision was waiting to
be entertained. She was better to look upon even than the beloved
scarabeus, and he advanced to shake hands as though she had just entered
the room. Mrs. Jasher--knowing his ways--rose to extend her hand, and
the two small, stout figures looked absurdly like a pair of chubby
Dresden ornaments which had stepped from the mantelshelf.

“Dear lady, I am glad to see you. You have--you have”--the Professor
reflected, and then came back with a rush to the present century--“you
have come to dinner, if I mistake not.”

“Lucy asked me a week ago,” she replied tartly, for no woman likes to be
neglected for a mere beetle, however ancient.

“Then you will certainly get a good dinner,” said Braddock, waving his
plump white hands. “Lucy is an excellent housekeeper. I have no fault
to find with her--no fault at all. But she is obstinate--oh, very
obstinate, as her mother was. Do you know, dear lady, that in a papyrus
scroll which I lately acquired I found the recipe for a genuine Egyptian
dish, which Amenemha--the last Pharaoh of the eleventh dynasty, you
know--might have eaten, and probably did eat. I desired Lucy to serve it
to-night, but she refused, much to my annoyance. The ingredients, which
had to do with roasted gazelle, were oil and coriander seed and--if my
memory serves me--asafoetida.”

“Ugh!” Mrs. Jasher's handkerchief went again to her mouth. “Say no
more, Professor; your dish sounds horrid. I don't wish to eat it, and be
turned into a mummy before my time.”

“You would make a really beautiful mummy,” said Braddock, paying what
he conceived was a compliment; “and, should you die, I shall certainly
attend to your embalming, if you prefer that to cremation.”

“You dreadful man!” cried the widow, turning pale and shrinking. “Why, I
really believe that you would like to see me packed away in one of those
disgusting coffins.”

“Disgusting!” cried the outraged Professor, striking one of the
brilliantly tinted cases. “Can you call so beautiful a specimen of
sepulchral art disgusting? Look at the colors, at the regularity of
the hieroglyphics--why, the history of the dead is set out in this
magnificent series of pictures.” He adjusted his pince-nez and began
to read, “The Osirian, Scemiophis that is a female name, Mrs.
Jasher--who--”

“I don't want to have my history written on my coffin,” interrupted the
widow hysterically, for this funereal talk frightened her. “It would
take much more space than a mummy case upon which to write it. My life
has been volcanic, I can tell you. By the way,” she added hurriedly,
seeing that Braddock was on the eve of resuming the reading, “tell me
about your Inca mummy. Has it arrived?”

The Professor immediately followed the false trail. “Not yet,” he said
briskly, rubbing his smooth hands, “but in three days I expect The Diver
will be at Pierside, and Sidney will bring the mummy on here. I shall
unpack it at once and learn exactly how the ancient Peruvians embalmed
their dead. Doubtless they learned the art from--”

“The Egyptians,” ventured Mrs. Jasher rashly.

Braddock glared. “Nothing of the sort, dear lady,” he snorted angrily.
“Absurd, ridiculous! I am inclined to believe that Egypt was merely a
colony of that vast island of Atlantis mentioned by Plato. There--if
my theory is correct--civilization begun, and the kings of
Atlantis--doubtless the gods of historical tribes--governed the whole
world, including that portion which we now term South America.”

“Do you mean to say that there were Yankees in those days?” inquired
Mrs. Jasher frivolously.

The Professor tucked his hands under his shabby coattails and strode
up and down the room warming his rage, which was provoked by such
ignorance.

“Good heavens, madam, where have you lived?” he exclaimed
explosively--“are you a fool, or merely an ignorant woman? I am talking
of prehistoric times, thousands of years ago, when you were probably a
stray atom embedded in the slime.”

“Oh, you horrid creature!” cried Mrs. Jasher indignantly, and was about
to give Braddock her opinion, if only to show him that she could hold
her own, when the door opened.

“How are you, Mrs. Jasher?” said Lucy, advancing.

“Here am I and here is Archie. Dinner is ready. And you--”

“I am very hungry,” said Mrs. Jasher. “I have been called an atom of the
slime,” then she laughed and took possession of young Hope.

Lucy wrinkled her brow; she did not approve of the widow's man-annexing
instinct.




CHAPTER III. A MYSTERIOUS TOMB


One member of the Braddock household was not included in the general
staff, being a mere appendage of the Professor himself. This was a
dwarfish, misshapen Kanaka, a pigmy in height, but a giant in breadth,
with short, thick legs, and long, powerful arms. He had a large head,
and a somewhat handsome face, with melancholy black eyes and a fine set
of white teeth. Like most Polynesians, his skin was of a pale bronze and
elaborately tattooed, even the cheeks and chin being scored with curves
and straight lines of mystical import. But the most noticeable thing
about him was his huge mop of frizzled hair, which, by some process,
known only to himself, he usually dyed a vivid yellow. The flaring locks
streaming from his head made him resemble a Peruvian image of the sun,
and it was this peculiar coiffure which had procured for him the odd
name of Cockatoo. The fact that this grotesque creature invariably wore
a white drill suit, emphasized still more the suggestion of his likeness
to an Australian parrot.

Cockatoo had come from the Solomon Islands in his teens to the colony
of Queensland, to work on the plantations, and there the Professor had
picked him up as his body servant. When Braddock returned to marry Mrs.
Kendal, the boy had refused to leave him, although it was represented
to the young savage that he was somewhat too barbaric for sober England.
Finally, the Professor had consented to bring him over seas, and had
never regretted doing so, for Cockatoo, finding his scientific master a
true friend, worshipped him as a visible god. Having been captured when
young by Pacific black-birders, he talked excellent English, and from
contact with the necessary restraints of civilization was, on the whole,
extremely well behaved. Occasionally, when teased by the villagers and
his fellow-servants, he would break into childish rages, which bordered
on the dangerous. But a word from Braddock always quieted him, and when
penitent he would crawl like a whipped dog to the feet of his divinity.
For the most part he lived entirely in the museum, looking after the
collection and guarding it from harm. Lucy--who had a horror of the
creature's uncanny looks--objected to Cockatoo waiting at the table,
and it was only on rare occasions that he was permitted to assist the
harassed parlormaid. On this night the Kanaka acted excellently as a
butler, and crept softly round the table, attending to the needs of the
diners. He was an admirable servant, deft and handy, but his blue-lined
face and squat figure together with the obtrusively golden halo, rather
worried Mrs. Jasher. And, indeed, in spite of custom, Lucy also felt
uncomfortable when this gnome hovered at her elbow. It looked as though
one of the fantastical idols from the museum below had come to haunt the
living.

“I do not like that Golliwog,” breathed Mrs. Jasher to her host, when
Cockatoo was at the sideboard. “He gives me the creeps.”

“Imagination, my dear lady, pure imagination. Why should we not have a
picturesque animal to wait upon us?”

“He would wait picturesquely enough at a cannibal feast,” suggested
Archie, with a laugh.

“Don't!” murmured Lucy, with a shiver. “I shall not be able to eat my
dinner if you talk so.”

“Odd that Hope should say what he has said,” observed Braddock
confidently to the widow. “Cockatoo comes from a cannibal island, and
doubtless has seen the consumption of human flesh. No, no, my dear lady,
do not look so alarmed. I don't think he has eaten any, as he was taken
to Queensland long before he could participate in such banquets. He is a
very decent animal.”

“A very dangerous one, I fancy,” retorted Mrs. Jasher, who looked pale.

“Only when he loses his temper, and I'm always able to suppress that
when it is at its worst. You are not eating your meat, my dear lady.”

“Can you wonder at it, and you talk of cannibals?”

“Let us change the conversation to cereals,” suggested Hope, whose
appetite was of the best--“wheat, for instance. In this queer little
village I notice the houses are divided by a field of wheat. It seems
wrong somehow for corn to be bunched up with houses.”

“That's old Farmer Jenkins,” said Lucy vivaciously; “he owns three or
four acres near the public-house and will not allow them to be built
over, although he has been offered a lot of money. I noticed myself,
Archie, the oddity of finding a cornfield surrounded by cottages. It's
like Alice in Wonderland.”

“But fancy any one offering money for land here,” observed Hope, toying
with his claret glass, which had just been refilled, by the attentive
Cockatoo, “at the Back-of-Beyond, as it were. I shouldn't care to live
here--the neighborhood is so desolate.”

“All the same you do live here!” interposed Mrs. Jasher smartly, and
with a roguish glance at Lucy.

Archie caught the glance and saw the blush on Miss Kendal's face.

“You have answered your question yourself, Mrs. Jasher,” he--said,
smiling. “I have the inducement you hint at to remain here, and
certainly, as a landscape painter, I admire the marshes and sunsets. As
an artist and an engaged man I stop in Gartley, otherwise I should clear
out. But I fail to see why a lady of your attractions should--”

“I may have a sentimental reason also,” interrupted the widow, with a
sly glance at the absent-minded Professor, who was drawing hieroglyphics
on the table-cloth with a fork; “also, my cottage is cheap and very
comfortable. The late Mr. Jasher did not leave me sufficient money to
live in London. He was a consul in China, you know, and consuls are
never very well paid. I will come in for a large income, however.”

“Indeed,” said Lucy politely, and wondering why Mrs. Jasher was so
communicative. “Soon I hope.”

“It may be very soon. My brother, you know--a merchant in Pekin. He
has come home to die, and is unmarried. When he does die, I shall go to
London. But,” added the widow, meditatively and glancing again at the
Professor, “I shall be sorry to leave dear Gartley. Still, the memory
of happy hours spent in this house will always remain with me. Ah me! ah
me!” and she put her handkerchief to her eyes.

Lucy telegraphed to Archie that the widow was a humbug, and Archie
telegraphed back that he quite agreed with her. But the Professor, whom
the momentary silence had brought back to the present century, looked up
and asked Lucy if the dinner was finished.

“I have to do some work this evening,” said the Professor.

“Oh, father, when you said that you would take a holiday,” said Lucy
reproachfully.

“I am doing so now. Look at the precious minutes I am wasting in
eating, my dear. Life is short and much remains to be done in the way
of Egyptian exploration. There is the sepulchre of Queen Tahoser. If I
could only enter that,” and he sighed, while helping himself to cream.

“Why don't you?” asked Mrs. Jasher, who was beginning to give up her
pursuit of Braddock, for it was no use wooing a man whose interests
centered entirely in Egyptian tombs.

“I have yet to discover it,” said the Professor simply; then, warming to
the congenial theme, he glanced around and delivered a short historical
lecture. “Tahoser was the chief wife and queen of a famous Pharaoh--the
Pharaoh of the Exodus, in fact.”

“The one who was drowned in the Red Sea?” asked Archie idly.

“Why, yes--but that happened later. Before pursuing the Hebrews,--if
the Mosaic account is to be believed,--this Pharaoh marched far into
the interior of Africa,--the Libya of the ancients,--and conquered the
natives of Upper Ethiopia. Being deeply in love with his queen, he
took her with him on this expedition, and she died before the Pharaoh
returned to Memphis. From records which I discovered in the museum of
Cairo, I have reason to believe that the Pharaoh buried her with much
pomp in Ethiopia, sacrificing, I believe, many prisoners at her gorgeous
funeral rites. From the wealth of that Pharaoh--for wealthy he must have
been on account of his numerous victories--and from the love he bore
this princess, I am confident--confident,” added Braddock, striking the
table vehemently, “that when discovered, her tomb will be filled with
riches, and may also contain documents of incalculable value.”

“And you wish to get the money?” asked Mrs. Jasher, who was rather
bored.

The Professor rose fiercely. “Money! I care nothing for money. I desire
to obtain the funeral jewelry and golden masks, the precious images of
the gods, so as to place them in the British Museum. And the scrolls
of papyrus buried with the mummy of Tahoser may contain an account
of Ethiopian civilization, about which we know nothing. Oh, that
tomb,--that tomb!” Braddock began to walk the room, quite forgetting
that he had not finished his dinner. “I know the mountains whose
entrails were pierced to form the sepulchre. Were I able to go to
Africa, I am certain that I should discover the tomb. Ah, with what
glory would my name be covered, were I so fortunate!”

“Why don't you go to Africa, sir, and try?” asked Hope.

“Fool!” cried the Professor politely. “To fit out an expedition would
take some five thousand pounds, if not more. I would have to penetrate
through a hostile country to reach the chain of mountains I speak of,
where I know this precious tomb is to be found. I need supplies, an
escort, guns, camels, and all the rest of it. A leader must be obtained
to manage the fighting men necessary to pass through this dangerous
zone. It is no easy task to find the tomb of Tahoser. And yet if I
could--if I could only get the money,” and he walked up and down with
his head bent on his breast.

Mrs. Jasher was used to Braddock's vagaries by this time, and merely
continued to fan herself placidly.

“I wish I could help you with the expedition,” she said quietly. “I
should like to have some of that lovely Egyptian jewelry myself. But
I am quite a pauper, until my brother dies, poor man. Then--” She
hesitated.

“What then?” asked Braddock, wheeling.

“I shall aid you with pleasure.”

“It's a bargain!” Braddock stretched out his hand.

“A bargain,” said Mrs. Jasher, accepting the grasp somewhat nervously,
for she had not expected to be taken so readily at her word. A glance at
Lucy revealed her nervousness.

“Do sit down, father, and finish your dinner,” said that young lady. “I
am sure you will have more than enough to do when the mummy arrives.”

“Mummy--what mummy?” murmured Braddock, again beginning to eat.

“The Inca mummy.”

“Of course. The mummy of Inca Caxas, which Sidney is bringing from
Malta. When I strip that corpse of its green bandages I shall find--”

“Find what?” asked Archie, seeing that the Professor hesitated.

Braddock cast a swift look at his questioner.

“I shall find the peculiar mode of Peruvian embalming,” he replied
abruptly, and somehow the way in which he spoke gave Hope the impression
that the answer was an excuse. But before he could formulate the thought
that Braddock was concealing something, Mrs. Jasher spoke frivolously.

“I hope your mummy has jewels,” she said.

“It has not,” replied Braddock sharply. “So far as I know, the Inca race
never buried their dead with jewels.”

“But I have read in Prescott's History that they did,” said Hope.

“Prescott! Prescott!” cried the Professor contemptuously, “a most
unreliable authority. However, I'll promise you one thing, Hope, that if
there are any jewels, or jewelry, you shall have the lot.”

“Give me some, Mr. Hope,” cried the widow.

“I cannot,” laughed Archie; “the green mummy belongs to the Professor.”

“I cannot accept such a gift, Hope. Owing to circumstances I have been
obliged to borrow the money from you; otherwise the mummy would have
been acquired by some one else. But when I find the tomb of Queen
Tahoser, I shall repay the loan.”

“You have repaid it already,” said Hope, looking at Lucy.

Braddock's eyes followed his gaze and his brows contracted. “Humph!” he
muttered, “I don't know if I am right in consenting to Lucy's marriage
with a pauper.”

“Oh, father!” cried the girl, “Archie is not a pauper.”

“I have enough for Lucy and me to live on,” said Hope, although his face
had flushed, “and, had I been a pauper I could not have given you that
thousand pounds.”

“You will be repaid--you will be repaid,” said Braddock, waving his hand
to dismiss the subject. “And now,” he rose with a yawn, “if this tedious
feast is at an end, I shall again seek my work.”

Without a word of apology to the disgusted Mrs. Jasher, he trotted to
the door, and there paused.

“By the way, Lucy,” he said, turning, “I had a letter to-day from
Random. He returns in his yacht to Pierside in two or three days. In
fact, his arrival will coincide with that of The Diver.”

“I don't see what his arrival has to do with me,” said Lucy tartly.

“Oh, nothing at all--nothing at all,” said Braddock airily, “only I
thought--that is, but never mind, never mind. Cockatoo, come down with
me. Good night! Good night!” and he disappeared.

“Well,” said Mrs. Jasher, drawing along breath, “for rudeness and
selfishness, commend me to a scientist. We might be all mud, for what
notice he takes of us.”

“Never mind,” said Miss Kendal, rising, “come to the drawing-room and
have some music. Archie, will you stop here?”

“No. I don't care to sit over my wine alone,” said that young gentleman,
rising. “I shall accompany you and Mrs. Jasher. And Lucy,” he stopped
her at the door, through which the widow had already passed, “what did
your father mean by his hints concerning Random?”

“I think he regrets giving his consent to my marriage with you,” she
whispered back. “Did you not hear him talk about that tomb? He desires
to get money for the expedition.”

“From Random? What rubbish! Sooner than that--if our marriage is stopped
by the beastly business--I'll sell out and--”

“You'll do nothing of the sort,” interrupted the girl imperiously; “we
must live if we marry. You have given my father enough.”

“But if Random lends money for this expedition?”

“He does so at his own risk. I am not going to marry Sir Frank because
of my step-father's requirements. He has no rights over me, and, whether
he consents or not, I marry you.”

“My darling!” and Archie kissed her before they followed Mrs. Jasher
into the drawing-room. All the same, he foresaw trouble.




CHAPTER IV. THE UNEXPECTED


For the next two or three days, Archie felt decidedly, worried over
his projected marriage with Lucy. Certainly he had--to put it
bluntly--purchased Braddock's consent, and that gentleman could scarcely
draw back from his plighted word, which had cost the lover so much.
Nevertheless, Hope did not entirely, trust the Professor, as, from the
few words which he had let drop at the dinner party, it was plain that
he hankered after money with which to fit out the expedition in search
of the mysterious tomb to which he had alluded. Archie knew, as did the
Professor, that he could not supply the necessary five thousand pounds
without practically ruining himself, and already he had crippled his
resources in paying over the price of the green mummy. He had fondly
believed that Braddock would have been satisfied with the relic of
Peruvian humanity; but it seemed that the Professor, having got what he
wanted, now clamored for what was at present beyond his reach. The mummy
was his property, but he desired the contents of Queen Tahoser's tomb
also. This particular moon, which he cried for, was a very expensive
article, and Hope did not see how he could gain it.

Unless--and here came in the cause of Archie's worry--unless the five
thousand pounds was borrowed from Sir Frank Random, the Professor would
have to content himself with the Maltese mummy. But from what the young
man had seen of Braddock's longing for the especial sepulchre, which
he desired to loot, he believed that the scientist would not readily
surrender his whim. Random could easily lend or give the money, since he
was extremely rich, and extremely generous, but it was improbable that
he would aid Braddock without a quid pro quo. As the sole desire of the
baronet's heart was to make Lucy his wife, it could easily be guessed
that he would only assist the Professor to realize his ambition on
condition that the savant used his influence with his step-daughter.
That meant the breaking of the engagement with Hope and the marriage
of the girl to the soldier. Of course such a state of things would make
Lucy unhappy; but Braddock cared very little for that. To gratify his
craze for Egyptian research, he would be willing to sacrifice a dozen
girls like Lucy.

Undoubtedly Lucy would refuse to be passed along from one man to another
like a bale of goods, and Archie knew that, so far as in her lay, she
would keep to her engagement, especially as she denied Braddock's right
to dispose of her hand. All the same, the Professor, in spite of
his cherubical looks, could make himself extremely disagreeable, and
undoubtedly would do so if thwarted. The sole course that remained,
should Braddock begin operations to break the present engagement, would
be to marry Lucy at once. Archie would willingly have done so, but
pecuniary difficulties stood in the way. He had never told any one of
these, not even the girl he loved, but they existed all the same. For
many years he had been assisting needy relatives, and thus had hampered
himself, in spite of his income. By sheer force of will, so as to force
Braddock into giving him Lucy, he had contrived to secure the necessary
thousand pounds, without confusing the arrangements he had made to pay
off certain debts connected with his domestic philanthropy; but this
brought him to the end of his resources. In six months he hoped to
be free to have his income entirely to himself, and then--small as it
was--he could support a wife. But until the half year elapsed he could
see no chance of marrying Lucy with any degree of comfort, and meanwhile
she would be exposed to the persecutions of the Professor. Perhaps
persecutions is too harsh a word, as Braddock was kind enough to the
girl. Nevertheless, he was pertinacious in gaining his aims where his
pet hobby was concerned, and undoubtedly, could he see any chance of
obtaining the money from Random by selling his step-daughter, he
would do so. Assuredly it was dishonorable to act in this way, but the
Professor was a scientific Jesuit, and deemed that the end justified the
means, when any glory to himself and gain to the British Museum was in
question.

“But I may be doing him an injustice,” said Archie, when he was
explaining his fears to Miss Kendal on the third day after the dinner
party. “After all, the Professor is a gentleman, and will probably hold
to the bargain which he has made.”

“I don't care whether he does or not,” cried Lucy, who had a fine color
and a certain amount of fire in her eyes. “I am not going to be bought
and sold to forward these nasty scientific schemes. My father can say
what he likes and do what he likes, but I marry you--to-morrow if you
like.”

“That's just it,” said Archie, flushing, “we can't marry.”

“Why?” she asked, much astonished.

Hope looked at the ground and drew patterns with his cane-point in the
sand. They were seated in the hot sunshine--for the Indian summer still
continued--under a moldering brick wall, which ran around the most
delightful of kitchen gardens. This was situated at the back of the
Pyramids, and contained a multiplicity of pot herbs and fruit trees and
vegetables. It resembled the Fairy Garden in Madame D'Alnoy's story
of The White Cat, and in the autumn yielded a plentiful crop of
fine-flavored fruit. But now the trees were bare and the garden looked
somewhat forlorn for lack of greenery. But in spite of the lateness of
the season, Lucy often brought a book to read under the glowing wall,
and there ripened like a peach in the warm sunshine. On this occasion
she brought Archie into the old-world garden, as he had hinted at
confidences. And the time had come to speak plainly, as Hope began to
think that he had not treated Lucy quite fairly in hiding from her his
momentarily embarrassed position.

“Why can't we marry at once?” asked Lucy, seeing that her lover held his
peace and looked confused.

Hope did not reply directly. “I had better release you from your
engagement,” he said haltingly.

“Oh!” Lucy's nostrils dilated and she threw back her head scornfully.
“And the other woman's name?”

“There is no other woman. I love you and you only. But--money.”

“What about money? You have your income!”

“Oh yes--that is sure, small as it is. But I have incurred debts on
behalf of an uncle and his family. These have embarrassed me for the
moment, and so I cannot see my way to marrying you for at least six
months, Lucy.” He caught her hand. “I feel ashamed of myself that I
did not tell you of this before. But I feared to lose you. Yet, on
reflection, I see that it is dishonorable to keep you in the dark, and
if you think that I have behaved badly--”

“Well, I do in a way,” she interrupted quickly, “as your silence was
quite unnecessary. Don't treat me as a doll, my dear. I wish to share
your troubles as well as your joys. Come, tell me all about it.”

“You are not angry?”

“Yes, I am--at your thinking I loved you so little as to be biased
against our marriage because of money troubles. Pooh!” she flicked away
a speck of dust from his coat, “I don't care that for such things.”

“You are an angel,” he cried ardently.

“I am a very practical girl just now,” she retorted. “Go on, confess!”

Archie, thus encouraged, did so, and it was a very mild confession that
she heard, involving a great deal of unnecessary sacrifice in helping
a pauper uncle. Hope strove to belittle his good deeds as much as
possible, but Lucy saw plainly the good heart that had dictated the
giving up of his small income for some years. When in possession of all
the facts, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.

“You are a silly old boy,” she whispered. “As if what you tell me could
make any difference to me!”

“But we can't be married for six months, dearest.”

“Of course not. Do you believe that I as a woman can gather together my
trousseau under six months? No, my dear. We must not marry in haste to
repent at leisure. In another half year you will enjoy your own income,
and then we can marry.”

“But meanwhile,” said Archie, after kissing her, “the Professor will
bother you to marry Random.”

“Oh no. He has sold me to you for one thousand pounds. There! There, do
not say a single word. I am only teasing you. Let us say that my father
has consented to my marriage with you, and cannot withdraw his word. Not
that I care if he does. I am my own mistress.”

“Lucy!”--he took her hands again and looked into her eyes--“Braddock
is a scientific lunatic, and would do anything to forward his aims
with regard to this very expensive tomb, which he has set his heart on
discovering. As I can't lend or give the money, he is sure to apply to
Random, and Random--”

“Will want to marry me,” cried Lucy, rising. “No, my dear, not at all.
Sir Frank is a gentleman, and when he learns that I am engaged to you,
he will simply become a dear friend. There, don't worry any more about
the matter. You ought to have told me of your troubles before, but as
I have forgiven you, there is no more to be said. In six months I
shall become Mrs. Hope, and meanwhile I can hold my own against any
inconvenience that my father may cause me.”

“But--” He rose and began to remonstrate, anxious to abase himself still
further before this angel of a maiden.

She placed her hand over his mouth. “Not another word, or I shall box
your ears, sir--that is, I shall exercise the privilege of a wife before
I become one. And now,” she slipped her arm within his, “let us go in
and see the arrival of the precious mummy.”

“Oh, it has arrived then.”

“Not here exactly. My father expects it at three o'clock.”

“It is now a quarter to,” said Archie, consulting his watch. “As I have
been to London all yesterday I did not know that The Diver had arrived
at Pierside, How is Bolton?”

Lucy wrinkled her brows. “I am rather worried over Sidney,” she said in
an anxious voice, “and so is my father. He had not appeared.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well,” she looked at the ground in a pondering manner, “my father got
a letter from Sidney yesterday afternoon, saying that the ship with the
mummy and himself on board had arrived about four o'clock. The letter
was sent on by special messenger and came at six.”

“Then it arrived in the evening and not in the afternoon?”

“How particular you are!” said Miss Kendal, with a shrug. “Well, then,
Sidney said that he could not bring the mummy to this place last night
as it was so late. He intended--so he told my father in the letter--to
remove the case containing the mummy ashore to an inn near the wharf at
Pierside, and there would remain the night so as to take care of it.”

“That's all right,” said Hope, puzzled. “Where's your difficulty?”

“A note came from the landlord of the inn this morning, saying that by
direction of Mr. Bolton--that is Sidney, you know--he was sending the
mummy in its case to Gartley on a lorry, and that it would arrive at
three o'clock this afternoon.”

“Well?” asked Hope, still puzzled.

“Well?” she rejoined impatiently. “Can't you see show strange it is
that Sidney should let the mummy out of his sight, after guarding it so
carefully not only from Malta to England, but all the night in Pierside
at that hotel? Why doesn't he bring the mummy here himself, and come on
with the lorry?”

“There is no explanation--no letter from Sidney Bolton?”

“None. He wrote yesterday, as I stated, saying that he would keep the
case in the hotel, and send it on this morning.”

“Did he use the word `send,' or the word `bring'?”

“He said 'send.'”

“Then that shows he did not intend to bring it himself.”

“But why should he not do so?”

“I daresay he will explain when he appears.”

“I am very sorry for him when he does appear,” said Lucy seriously, “for
my father is furious. Why, this precious mummy, for which so much has
been paid, might have been lost.”

“Pooh! Who would steal a thing like that?”

“A thing like that is worth nearly one thousand pounds,” said Lucy in a
dry tone, “and if anyone got wind of it, stealing would be easy, since
Sidney, as appears likely, has sent on the case unguarded.”

“Well, let us go in and see if Sidney arrives with the case.”

They passed out of the garden and sauntered round to the front of the
house. There, standing in the roadway, they beheld a ponderous lorry
with a rough-looking driver standing at the horses' heads. The front
door of the house was open, so the mummy case had apparently arrived
before its time, and had been taken to Braddock's museum while they were
chatting in the kitchen garden.

“Did Mr. Bolton come with the case?” asked Lucy, leaning over the
railings and addressing the driver.

“No one came, miss, except myself and my two mates, who have taken the
case indoor.” The driver jerked a coarse thumb over his shoulder.

“Was Mr. Bolton at the hotel, where the case remained for the night?”

“No, miss--that is, I dunno who Mr. Bolton is. The landlord of the
Sailor's Rest told me and my mates to take the case to this here house,
and we done it. That's all I know, miss.”

“Strange,” murmured Lucy, walking to the front door. “What do you think,
Archie? Isn't it strange?”

Hope nodded. “But I daresay Bolton will explain his absence,” said he,
following her. “He will arrive in time to open the mummy case along with
the Professor.”

“I hope so,” said Miss Kendal, who looked much perplexed. “I can't
understand Sidney abandoning the case, when it might so easily have
been stolen. Come in and see my father, Archie,” and she passed into the
house, followed by the young man, whose curiosity was now aroused. As
they entered the door, the two men who had taken in the case blundered
out and shortly drove away on the lorry towards Jessum railway station.

In the museum they found Braddock purple with rage and swearing
vigorously. He was staring at a large packing case, which had been set
up on end against the wall, while beside him crouched Cockatoo, holding
chisels and hammers and wedges necessary to open the treasure trove.

“So the precious mummy has arrived, father,” said Lucy, who saw that the
Professor was furious. “Are you not pleased?”

“Pleased! pleased!” shouted the angry man of science. “How can I be
pleased when I see how badly the case has been treated? See how it
has been bruised and battered and shaken! I'll have an action against
Captain Hervey of The Diver if my mummy has been injured. Sidney should
have taken better care of so precious an object.”

“What does he say?” asked Archie, glancing round the museum to see if
the delinquent had arrived.

“Say!” shouted Braddock again, and snatching a chisel from Cockatoo.
“Oh, what can he say when he is not here?”

“Not here?” said Lucy, more and more surprised at the unaccountable
absence of Braddock's assistant. “Where is he, then?”

“I don't know. I wish I did; I'd have him arrested for neglecting to
watch over this case. As it is, when he comes back I'll dismiss him from
my employment. He can go back to his infernal laundry work along with
his old witch of a mother.”

“But why hasn't Bolton come back, sir?” asked Hope sharply.

Braddock struck a furious blow at the head of the chisel which he had
inserted into the case.

“I want to know that. He brought the case to the Sailor's Rest, and
should have come on with it this morning. Instead of doing so, he tells
the landlord--a most unreliable man--to send it on. And my precious
mummy--the mummy that has cost nine hundred pounds,” cried Braddock,
working furiously, and battering the chisel as though it were Bolton's
head, “is left to be stolen by any scientific thief that comes along.”
 While the Professor, assisted by Cockatoo, loosened the lid of the
packing case, a mild voice was heard at the door. Lucy turned, as did
Archie, to see Widow Anne curtseying on the threshold of the door.

Braddock himself took no notice of her entrance, being occupied with his
task, and even while doing it swore scientifically under his breath.
He was furious against Bolton for neglect of duty, and Hope rather
sympathized with him. It was a serious matter to have left a valuable
object like the green mummy to the rough care of laborers.

“I beg your pardon, my lady,” whimpered Widow Anne, who looked more lean
and rusty and dismal than ever; “but has my Sid come? I saw the cart and
the coffin. Where's my boy?”

“Coffin! coffin!” bellowed Braddock angrily between thunder blows. “What
do you mean by calling this case a coffin?”

“Well, it do hold one of them camphorated corps, sir,” said Mrs. Bolton
with another curtsey. “My boy Sid told me as much, afore he went to them
furren parts.”

“Have you seen him since he returned?” questioned Lucy, while Braddock
and Cockatoo strained at the lid, now nearly off.

“Why, I ain't set eyes on him,” moaned the widow dismally, “and summat
tells me as I never will.”

“Don't talk rubbish, woman,” said Archie tartly, for he did not wish
Lucy to be upset again by this ancient ghoul.

“Woman indeed, sir. I'd have you know,--oh!” the widow jumped and
quavered as the lid of the packing case fell on the floor with a bang.
“Oh lor, sir, the start you did give me!”

But Braddock had no eyes for her, and no ears for anyone. He pulled
lustily at the straw packing, and soon the floor was littered with
rubbish. But no green case appeared, and no mummy. Suddenly Widow Anne
shrieked again.

“There's my Sid--dead--oh, my son, dead! dead!”

She spoke truly. The body of Sidney Bolton was before them.




CHAPTER V. MYSTERY


After that one cry of agony from Widow Anne, there was silence for
quite one minute. The terrible contents of the packing case startled
and terrified all present. Faint and white, Lucy clung to the arm of
her lover to keep herself from sinking to the ground, as Mrs. Bolton had
done. Archie stared at the grotesque rigidity of the body, as though he
had been changed into stone, while Professor Braddock stared likewise,
scarcely able to credit the evidence of his eyes. Only the Kanaka was
unmoved and squatted on his hams, indifferently surveying the living
and the dead. As a savage he could not be expected to have the nerves of
civilized man.

Braddock, who had dropped chisel and hammer in the first movement of
surprise, was the quickest to recover his powers of speech. The sole
question he asked, revealed the marvelous egotism of a scientist,
nominated by one idea. “Where is the mummy of Inca Caxas?” he murmured
with a bewildered air.

Widow Anne, groveling on the floor, pulled her gray locks into wild
confusion, and uttered a cry of mingled rage and grief. “He asks that?
he asks that?” she cried, stammering and choking, “when he has murdered
my poor boy Sid.”

“What's that?” demanded Braddock sharply, and recovering from a
veritable stupor, which the disappearance of the mummy and the sight of
his dead assistant had thrown him into. “Kill your son: how could I
kill your son? What advantage would it have been to me had I killed your
son?”

“God knows! God knows!” sobbed the old woman, “but you--”

“Mrs. Bolton, you are raving,” said Hope hastily, and strove to raise
her from the floor. “Let Miss Kendal take you away. And you go, Lucy:
this sight is too terrible for your eyes.”

Lucy, inarticulate with nervous fear, nodded and tottered towards the
door of the museum; but Widow Anne refused to be lifted to her feet.

“My boy is dead,” she wailed; “my boy Sid is a corp as I saw him in my
dream. In the coffin, too, cut to pieces--”

“Rubbish! rubbish!” interrupted Braddock, peering into the depths of the
packing case. “I can see no wound.”

Mrs. Bolton leaped to her feet with an agility surprising in so aged a
woman. “Let me find the wound,” she screamed, throwing herself forward.

Hope caught her back and forced her towards the door. “No! The body must
not be disturbed until the police see it,” he said firmly.

“The police--ah, yes, the police,” remarked Braddock quickly, “we must
send for the police to Pierside and tell them my mummy has been stolen.”

“That my boy has been murdered,” screeched Widow Anne, waving her skinny
arms, and striving to break from Archie. “You wicked old devil to kill
my darling Sid. If he hadn't gone to them furren parts he wouldn't be a
corp now. But I'll have the lawr: you'll be hanged, you--you--”

Braddock lost his patience under this torrent of unjust accusations and
rushed towards Mrs. Bolton, dragging Cockatoo by the arm. In less time
than it takes to tell, he had swept both Archie and the widow out into
the hall, where Lucy was trembling, and Cockatoo, by his master's order,
was locking the door.

“Not a thing shall be touched until the police come. Hope, you are, a
witness that I have not meddled with the dead: you were present when
I opened the packing case: you have seen that a useless body has been
substituted for a valuable mummy. And yet this old witch dares--dares--”
 Braddock stamped and grew incoherent from sheer rage.

Archie soothed him, leaving go of Widow Anne's arm to do so. “Hush!
hush!” said the young man quietly, “the poor woman does not know what
she is saying. I'll go for the police and--”

“No,” interrupted the Professor sharply; “Cockatoo can go for the
inspector of Pierside. I shall call in the village constable.
Meanwhile you keep the key of the museum,” he dropped it into Hope's
breast-pocket, “so that you and the police may be sure the body has
not been touched. Widow Anne, go home,” he turned angrily on the old
creature, who was now trembling after her burst of rage, “and don't dare
to come here again until you ask pardon for what you have said.”

“I want to be near my poor boy's corp,” wailed Widow Anne, “and I'm very
sorry, Perfesser. I didn't mean to--”

“But you have, you witch. Go away!” and he stamped.

But by this time Lucy had recovered her self-possession, which had been
sorely shaken by the sight of the dead. “Leave her to me,” she observed,
taking Mrs. Bolton's arm, and leading her towards the stairs. “I shall
take her to my room and give her some brandy. Father, you must make some
allowance for her natural grief, and--”

Braddock stamped again. “Take her away! take her away!” he cried
testily, “and keep her out of my sight. Is it not enough to have lost
an invaluable assistant, and a costly mummy of infinite historical
and archaeological value, without my being accused of--of--oh!” The
Professor choked with rage and shook his hand in the air.

Seeing that he was unable to speak, Lucy seized the opportunity of the
lull in the storm, and hurried the old woman, sobbing and moaning, up
the stairs. By this time the shrieks of Mrs. Bolton, and the wordy
wrath of Braddock, had drawn the cook and her husband, along with the
housemaid, from the basement to the ground floor. The sight of their
surprised faces only added to their master's anger, and he advanced
furiously.

“Go downstairs again: go down, I tell you!”

“But if there's anything wrong, sir,” ventured the gardener timidly.

“Everything is wrong. My mummy has been lost: Mr. Bolton has been
murdered. The police are coming, and--and--” He choked again.

But the servants waited to hear no more. The mere mention of the words
“murder” and “police” sent them, pale-faced and startled, down to the
basement, where they huddled like a flock of sheep. Braddock looked
around for Hope, but found that he had opened the front door, and had
vanished. But he was too distracted to think why Archie had gone, and
there was much to do in putting things straight. Beckoning to Cockatoo,
he stalked into a side room, and scribbled a pencil note to the
inspector of police at Pierside, telling him of what had happened, and
asking him to come at once to the Pyramids with his underlings. This
communication he dispatched by Cockatoo, who flew to get his bicycle.
In a short time he was riding at top speed to Brefort, which was on this
side of the river; facing Pierside. There he could ferry across to the
town and deliver his terrible message.

Having done all that he could until the police came, Braddock walked out
of the front door and into the roadway to see if Archie was in sight. He
could not see the young man, but, as luck would have it, and by one of
those coincidences which are much more common than is suspected, he saw
the Gartley doctor walking briskly past.

“Hi!” shouted the Professor, who was purple in the face and perspiring
profusely. “Hi, there, Dr. Robinson! I want you. Come! come! hurry, man,
hurry!” he ended in a testy rage, and the doctor, knowing Braddock's
eccentricities, advanced with a smile. He was a slim, dark, young
medical practitioner with an amiable countenance, which argued of no
mighty intelligence.

“Well, Professor,” he remarked quietly, “do you want me to attend you
for apoplexy? Take your time, my dear sir--take your time.” He patted
the scientist on the shoulder to soothe his clamorous rage. “You are
already purple in the face. Don't let your blood rush to your head.”

“Robinson, you're a--a--a fool!” shouted Braddock, glaring at the suave
looks of the doctor. “I am in perfect health, damn you, sir.”

“Then Miss Kendal--?”

“She is quite well also. But Bolton--?”

“Oh!” Robinson looked interested. “Has he returned with your mummy?”

“Mummy,” bellowed Braddock, stamping like an insane Cupid--“the mummy
hasn't arrived.”

“Really, Professor, you surprise me,” said the doctor mildly.

“I'll surprise you more,” growled Braddock, dragging Robinson into the
garden and up the steps.

“Gently! gently! my dear sir,” said the doctor, who really began to
think that much learning had made the Professor mad. “Didn't Bolton--?”

“Bolton is dead, you fool.”

“Dead!” The doctor nearly tumbled backward down the steps.

“Murdered. At least I think he is murdered. At all events he arrived
here to-day in the packing case, which should have contained my green
mummy. Come in and examine the body at once. No,” Braddock pushed back
the doctor just as fiercely as he had dragged him forward, “wait until
the constable comes. I want him to see the body first, and to observe
that nothing has been touched. I have sent for the Pierside inspector to
come. There will be all sorts of trouble,” cried Braddock despairingly,
“and my work--most important work--will be delayed, just because this
silly young ass Sidney Bolton chose to be murdered,” and the Professor
stormed up and down the hall, shaking impotent arms in the air.

“Good heavens!” stammered Robinson, who was young in years and somewhat
new to his profession, “you--you must be mistaken.”

“Mistaken! mistaken!” shouted Braddock with another glare. “Come and see
that poor fellow's body then. He is dead, murdered.”

“By whom?”

“Hang you, sir, how should I know?”

“In what way has he been murdered? Stabbed, shot, or--”

“I don't know--I don't know! Such a nuisance to lose a man like
Bolton--an invaluable assistant. What I shall do without him I really
don't know. And his mother has been here, making no end of a fuss.”

“Can you blame her?” said the doctor, recovering his breath. “She is his
mother, after all, and poor Bolton was her only son.”

“I am not denying the relationship, confound you!” snapped the
Professor, ruffling his hair until it stood up like the crest of a
parrot. “But she needn't--ah!” He glanced through the open door, and
then rushed to the threshold. “Here is Hope and Painter. Come in--come
in. I have the doctor here. Hope, you have the key. You observe,
constable, that Mr. Hope has the key. Open the door: open the door, and
let us see the meaning of this dreadful crime.”

“Crime, sir?” queried the constable, who had heard all that was known
from Hope, but now wished to hear what Braddock had to say.

“Yes, crime: crime, you idiot! I have lost my mummy.”

“But I thought, sir, that a murder--”

“Oh, of course--of course,” gabbled the Professor, as if the death was
quite a minor consideration. “Bolton's dead--murdered, I suppose, as he
could scarcely have nailed himself down in a packing case. But it's my
precious mummy I am thinking of, Painter. A mummy--if you know what a
mummy is--that cost me nine hundred pounds. Go in, man. Go in and don't
stand there gaping. Don't you see that Mr. Hope has opened the door. I
have sent Cockatoo to Pierside to notify the police. They will soon be
here. Meanwhile, doctor, you can examine the body, and Painter here can
give his opinion as to who stole my mummy.”

“The assassin stole the mummy,” said Archie, as the four men entered the
museum, “and substituted the body of the murdered man.”

“That is all A B C,” snapped Braddock, issuing into the vast room, “but
we want to know the name of the assassin, if we are to revenge Bolton
and get back my mummy. Oh, what a loss!--what a loss! I have lost nine
hundred pounds, or say one thousand, considering the cost of bringing
Inca Caxas to England.”

Archie forebore to remind the Professor as to who had really lost
the money, as the scientist was not in a fit state to be talked to
reasonably, and seemed much more concerned because his Peruvian relic of
humanity had been lost than for the terrible death of Sidney Bolton.
But by this time Painter--a fair-haired young constable of small
intelligence--was examining the packing case and surveying the dead. Dr.
Robinson also looked with a professional eye, and Braddock, wiping
his purple face and gasping with exhaustion, sat down on a stone
sarcophagus. Archie, folding his arms, leaned against the wall and
waited quietly to hear what the experts in crime and medicine would say.

The packing case was deep and wide and long, made of tough teak and
banded at intervals with iron bands. Within this was a case of tin,
which, when it held the mummy, had been soldered up; impervious to
air and water. But the unknown person who had extracted the mummy, to
replace it by a murdered man's body, had cut open the tin casing with
some sharp instrument. There was straw round the tin casing and straw
within, amongst which the body of the unfortunate young man was placed.
Rigor mortis had set in, and the corpse, with straight legs and hands
placed stiffly by its side, lay against the back of the tin casing
surrounded more or less by the straw packing, or at least by so much as
the Professor had not torn away. The face looked dark, and the eyes were
wide open and staring. Robinson stepped forward and ran his hand round
the neck. Uttering an ejaculation, he removed the woollen scarf which
the dead man had probably worn to keep himself from catching cold, and
those who looked on saw that a red-colored window cord was tightly bound
about the throat of the dead.

“The poor devil has been strangled,” said the doctor quietly. “See: the
assassin has left the bow-string on, and had the courage to place over
it this scarf, which belonged to Bolton.”

“How do you know that, sir?” asked Painter heavily.

“Because Widow Anne knitted that scarf for Bolton before he went
to Malta. He showed it to me, laughingly, remarking that his mother
evidently thought that he was going to Lapland.”

“When did he show it to you, sir?”

“Before he went to Malta, of course,” said Robinson in mild surprise.
“You don't suppose he showed it to me when he returned. When did he
return to England?” he asked the Professor, with an afterthought.

“Yesterday afternoon, about four o'clock,” replied Braddock.

“Then, from the condition of the body”--the doctor felt the dead
flesh--“he must have been murdered last night. H'm! With your
permission, Painter, I'll examine the corpse.”

The constable shook his head. “Better wait, sir, until the inspector
comes,” he said in his unintelligent way. “Poor Sid! Why, I knew him. He
was at school with me, and now he's dead. Who killed him?”

None of his listeners could answer this question.




CHAPTER VI. THE INQUEST


Like a geographical Lord Byron, the isolated village of Gartley awoke
one morning to find itself famous. Previously unknown, save to the
inhabitants of Brefort, Jessum, and the surrounding country, and to
the soldiers stationed in the Fort, it became a nine days' centre of
interest. Inspector Date of Pierside arrived with his constables to
inquire into the reported crime, and the local journalists, scenting
sensation, came flying to Gartley on bicycles and in traps. Next morning
London was duly advised that a valuable mummy was missing, and that
the assistant of Professor Braddock, who had been sent to fetch it from
Malta, was murdered by strangulation. In a couple of days the three
kingdoms were ringing with the news of the mystery.

And a mystery it proved, to be, for, in spite of Inspector Date's
efforts and the enterprise of Scotland Yard detectives summoned by
the Professor, no clue could be found to the identity of the assassin.
Briefly, the story told by the newspapers ran as follows:

The tramp steamer Diver--Captain George Hervey in command--had berthed
alongside the Pierside jetty at four o'clock on a Wednesday afternoon in
mid-September, and some two hours later Sidney Bolton removed the case,
containing the green mummy, ashore.

As it was impossible to carry the case to the Pyramids on that night,
Bolton had placed it in his bedroom at the Sailor's Rest, a mean little
public-house of no very savory reputation near the water's edge. He was
last seen alive by the landlord and the barmaid, when, after a drink of
harmless ginger-beer, he retired to bed at eight, leaving instructions
to the landlord--overheard by the barmaid--that the case was to be sent
on next day to Professor Braddock of Gartley. Bolton hinted that he
might leave the hotel early and would probably precede the case to its
destination, so as to advise Professor Braddock--necessarily anxious--of
its safe arrival. Before retiring he paid his bill, and deposited in
the landlord's hand a small sum of money, so that the case might be sent
across stream to Brefort, thence to be taken in a lorry to the Pyramids.
There was no sign, said the barmaid and the landlord, that Bolton
contemplated suicide, or that he feared sudden death. His whole demeanor
was cheerful, and he expressed himself exceedingly glad to be in England
once more.

At eleven on the ensuing morning, a persistent knocking and a subsequent
opening of the door of Bolton's bedroom proved that he was not in the
room, although the tumbled condition of the bed-clothes proved that he
had taken some rest. No one in the hotel thought anything of Bolton's
absence, since he had hinted at an early departure, although the
chamber-maid considered it strange that no one had seen him leave the
hotel. The landlord obeyed Bolton's instructions and sent the case, in
charge of a trustworthy man, to Brefort across the river. There a lorry
was procured, and the case was taken to Gartley, where it arrived at
three in the afternoon. It was then that Professor Braddock, in opening
the case, discovered the body of his ill-fated assistant, rigid in
death, and with a red window cord tightly bound round the throat of the
corpse. At once, said the newspapers, the Professor sent for the police,
and later insisted that the smartest Scotland Yard detectives should
come down to elucidate the mystery. At present both police and
detectives were engaged in searching for a needle in a haystack, and so
far had met with no success.

Such was the tale set forth in the local and London and provincial
journals. Widely as it was discussed, and many as were the theories
offered, no one could fathom the mystery. But all agreed that the
failure of the police to find a clue was inexplicable. It was difficult
enough to understand how the assassin could have murdered Bolton and
opened the packing case, and removed the mummy to replace it by the body
of his victim in a house filled with at least half a dozen people; but
it was yet more difficult to guess how the criminal had escaped with so
noticeable an object as the mummy, bandaged with emerald-hued woollen
stuff woven from the hair of Peruvian llamas. If the culprit was one who
thieved and murdered for gain, he could scarcely sell the mummy without
being arrested, since all England was ringing with the news of its
disappearance; if a scientist, impelled to robbery by an archaeological
mania, he could not possibly keep possession of the mummy without
someone learning that he possessed it. Meanwhile the thief and his
plunder had vanished as completely as if the earth had swallowed both.
Great was the wonder at the cleverness of the criminal, and many were
the solutions offered to account for the disappearance. One enterprising
weekly paper, improving on the Limerick craze, offered a furnished house
and three pounds a week for life to the fortunate person who could solve
the mystery. As yet no one had won the prize, but it was early days
yet, and at least five thousand amateur detectives tried to work out the
problem.

Naturally Hope was sorry for the untimely death of Bolton, whom he had
known as an amiable and clever young man. But he was also annoyed
that his loan of the money to Braddock should have been, so to speak,
nullified by the loss of the mummy. The Professor was perfectly furious
at his double loss of assistant and embalmed corpse, and was only
prevented from offering a reward for the discovery of the thief and
assassin by the painful fact that he had no money. He hinted to Archie
that a reward should be offered, but that young man, backed by Lucy,
declined to throw away good money after bad. Braddock took this refusal
so ill, that Hope felt perfectly convinced he would try and wriggle
out of his promise to permit the marriage and persuade Lucy to engage
herself to Sir Frank Random, should the baronet be willing to offer a
reward. And Hope was also certain that Braddock, a singularly
obstinate man, would never rest until he once more had the mummy in
his possession. That the murderer of Sidney Bolton should be hanged was
quite a minor consideration with the Professor.

Meanwhile Widow Anne had insisted on the dead body being taken to her
cottage, and Braddock, with the consent of Inspector Date, willingly
agreed, as he did not wish a newly dead corpse to remain under his roof.
Therefore, the remains of the unfortunate young man were taken to
his humble home, and here the body was inspected by the jury when the
inquest took place in the coffee-room of the Warrior Inn, immediately
opposite Mrs. Bolton's abode. There was a large crowd round the inn, as
people had come from far and wide to hear the verdict of the jury, and
Gartley, for the first and only time in its existence, presented the
aspect of an August Bank Holiday.

The Coroner--an elderly doctor with a short temper; caused by the
unrealized ambition of a country practitioner--opened the proceedings by
a snappy speech, in which he set forth the details of the crime in the
same bold fashion in which they had been published by the newspapers.
A plan of the Sailor's Rest was then placed before the jury, and the
Coroner drew the attention of the twelve good and lawful men to the fact
that the bedroom occupied by deceased was on the ground floor, with a
window looking out on to the river, merely a stone-throw away.

“So you will see, gentlemen,” said the Coroner, “that the difficulty of
the assassin in leaving the hotel with his plunder was not so great as
has been imagined. He had merely to open the window in the quiet hours
of the night, when no one was about, and pass the mummy through to his
accomplice, who probably waited without. It is also probable that a boat
was waiting by the bank of the river, and the mummy having been placed
in this, the assassin and his friend could row away into the unknown
without the slightest chance of discovery.”

Inspector Date--a tall, thin, upright man with an iron jaw and a severe
expression--drew the Coroner's attention to the fact that there was no
evidence to show that the assassin had an accomplice.

“What you have stated, sir, may have occurred,” rasped Date in a
military voice, “but we cannot prove the truth of your assumption, since
the evidence at our disposal is merely circumstantial.”

“I never suggested that it was anything else,” snapped the Coroner. “You
waste time in traversing my statements. Say what you have to say, Mr.
Inspector, and produce your witnesses--if you have any.”

“There are no witnesses who can swear to the identity of the murderer,”
 said Inspector Date coldly, and determined not to be ruffled by the
apparent antagonism of the Coroner. “The criminal has vanished, and no
one can guess his name or occupation, or even the reason which led him
to slay the deceased.”

Coroner: “The reason is plain. He wanted the mummy.”

Inspector: “Why should he want the mummy?”

Coroner: “That is what we wish to find out.”

Inspector: “Exactly, sir. We wish to learn the reason why the murderer
strangled the deceased.”

Coroner: “We know that reason. What we wish to know is why the murderer
stole the mummy. And I would point out to you, Mr. Inspector, that, as
yet, we do not even know the sex of the assassin. It might be a woman
who murdered the deceased.”

Professor Braddock, who was seated near the door of the coffee-room,
being even more irascible than usual, rose to contradict.

“There isn't a scrap of evidence to show that the murderer was a woman.”

Coroner: “You are out of order, sir. And I would point out that, as yet,
Inspector Date has produced no witnesses.”

Date glared. He and the Coroner were old enemies, and always sparred
when they met. It seemed likely, that the peppery little Professor would
join in the quarrel and that there would be a duel of three; but Date,
not wishing for an adverse report in the newspapers as to his conduct of
the case, contented himself with the glare aforesaid, and, after a short
speech, called Braddock. The Professor, looking more like a cross
cherub than ever, gave his evidence tartly. It seemed ridiculous to his
prejudiced mind that all this fuss should be made over Bolton's body,
when the mummy; was still missing. However, as the discovery of the
criminal would assuredly lead to the regaining of that precious Peruvian
relic, he curbed his wrath and answered the Coroner's questions in a
fairly amiable fashion.

And, after all, Braddock had very little to tell. He had, so he stated,
seen an advertisement in a newspaper that a mummy, swathed in green
bandages, was to be sold in Malta; and had sent his assistant to buy it
and bring it home. This was done, and what happened after the mummy
left the tramp steamer was known to everyone, through the medium of the
press.

“With which,” grumbled the Professor, “I do not agree.”

“What do you mean by that?” asked the Coroner sharply.

“I mean, sir,” snapped Braddock, equally sharply, “that the publicity
given by the newspapers to these details will probably place the
assassin on his guard.”

“Why not on her guard?” persisted the Coroner wilfully.

“Rubbish! rubbish! rubbish! My mummy wasn't stolen by a woman. What the
devil would a woman want with my mummy?”

“Be more respectful, Professor.”

“Then talk sense, doctor,” and the two glared at one another.

After a moment or two the situation was adjusted in silence, and the
Coroner asked a few questions, pertinent to the matter in hand.

“Had the deceased any enemies?”

“No, sir, he hadn't, not being famous enough, or rich enough, or clever
enough to excite the hatred of mankind. He was simply an intelligent
young man, who worked excellently when supervised by me. His mother is
a washerwoman in this village, and the lad brought washing to my
house. Noting that he was intelligent and was anxious to rise above his
station, I engaged him as my assistant and trained him to do my work.”

“Archaeological work?”

“Yes. I don't wash, whatever Bolton's mother may, do. Don't ask silly
questions.”

“Be more respectful,” said the Coroner again, and grew red. “Have you
any idea as to the name of anyone who desired to obtain possession of
this mummy?”

“I daresay dozens of scientists in my line of business would have liked
to get the corpse of Inca Caxas. Such as--” and he reeled out a list of
celebrated men.

“Nonsense,” growled the Coroner. “Famous men like those you mention
would not murder even for the sake of obtaining this mummy.”

“I never said that they would,” retorted Braddock, “but you wanted to
hear who would like to have the mummy; and I have told you.”

The Coroner waived the question.

“Was there any jewelry on the mummy likely to attract a thief?” he
asked.

“How the devil should I know?” fumed the Professor. “I never unpacked
the mummy; I never even saw it. Any jewelry buried with Inca Caxas would
be bound up in the bandages. So far as I know those bandages were never
unwound.”

“You can throw no light on the subject?”

“No, I can't. Bolton went to get the mummy and brought it home. I
understood that he would personally bring his precious charge to my
house; but he didn't. Why, I don't know.”

When the Professor stepped down, still fuming at what he considered
were the unnecessary questions of the Coroner, the young doctor who had
examined the corpse was called. Robinson deposed that deceased had been
strangled by means of a red window cord, and that, from the condition of
the body, he would judge death had taken place some twelve hours more
or less before the opening of the packing case by Braddock. That was at
three o'clock on Thursday afternoon, so in witness's opinion the crime
was committed between two and three on the previous morning.

“But I can't be absolutely certain as to the precise hour,” added
witness; “at any rate poor Bolton was strangled after midnight and
before three o'clock.”

“That is a wide margin,” grumbled the Coroner, jealous of his
brother-practitioner. “Were there any, other wounds on the body?”

“No. You can see for yourself, if you have inspected the corpse.”

The Coroner, thus reproved, glared, and Widow Anne appeared after
Robinson retired. She stated, with many sobs, that her son had no
enemies and was a good, kind young man. She also related her dream,
but this was flouted by the Coroner, who did not believe in the occult.
However, the narration of her premonition was listened to with deep
interest by those in the court. Widow Anne concluded her evidence by
asking how she was to live now that her boy Sid was dead. The Coroner
professed himself unable to answer this question, and dismissed her.

Samuel Quass, the landlord of the Sailor's Rest, was next called. He
proved to be a big, burly, red-haired, red-whiskered man, who looked
like a sailor. And indeed a few questions elicited the information that
he was a retired sea-captain. He gave his evidence gruffly but honestly,
and although he kept so shady a public-house, seemed straightforward
enough. He told much the same tale as had appeared in the newspapers.
In the hotel on that night there was only himself, his wife and two
children, and the staff of servants. Bolton retired to bed saying that
he might start early for Gartley, and paid one pound to get the case
taken across to river and placed on a lorry. As Bolton had vanished next
morning, Quass obeyed instructions, with the result which everyone knew.
He also stated that he did not know the case contained a mummy.

“What did you think it contained?” asked the Coroner quickly.

“Clothes and curios from foreign parts,” said the witness coolly.

“Did Mr. Bolton tell you so?”

“He told me nothing about the case,” growled the witness, “but he
chatted a lot about Malta, which I know well, having put into that port
frequent when a sailor.”

“Did he hint at any rows taking place at Malta?”

“No, he didn't.”

“Did he say that he had enemies?”

“No, he didn't.”

“Did he strike you as a man who was in fear of death?”

“No, he didn't,” said the witness for the third time. “He seemed happy
enough. I never thought for one moment that he was dead until I heard
how his body had been found in the packing case.”

The Coroner asked all manner of questions, and so did Inspector Date;
but all attempts to incriminate Quass were vain. He was bluff and
straightforward, and told--so far as could be judged--everything he
knew. There was nothing for it but to dismiss him, and Eliza Flight was
called as the last witness.

She also proved to be the most important, as she knew several things
which she had not told to her master, or to the reporters, or even to
the police. On being asked why she had kept silence, she said that her
desire was to obtain any reward that might be offered; but as she had
heard that there would be no reward, she was willing to tell what she
knew. It was an important piece of evidence.

The girl stated that Bolton had retired to bed at eight on the ground
floor, and the bedroom had a window--as marked in the plan--which looked
on to the river a stone-throw distant. At nine or a trifle later witness
went out to have a few words with her lover. In the darkness she saw
that the window was open and that Bolton was talking to an old woman
muffled in a shawl. She could not see the woman's face, nor judge of her
stature, as she was stooping down to listen to Bolton. Witness did
not take much notice, as she was in a hurry to see her lover. When she
returned past the window at ten o'clock it was closed and the light was
extinguished, so she thought that Mr. Bolton was asleep.

“But, to tell the truth,” said Eliza Flight, “I never thought anything
of the matter at all. It was only after the murder that I saw how
important it was I should remember everything.”

“And you have?”

“Yes, sir,” said the girl, honestly enough. “I have told you everything
that happened on that night. Next morning--” She hesitated.

“Well, what about next morning?”

“Mr. Bolton had locked his door. I know that, because a few minutes
after eight on the night before, not knowing he had retired. I tried to
enter the room and make ready the bed for the night. He sang out through
the door--which was locked, for I tried it--that he was in bed. That was
a lie also, as after nine I saw him talking to the woman at the window.”

“You previously said an old woman,” said the Coroner, referring to his
notes. “How do you know she was old?”

“I can't say if she was old or young,” said the witness candidly; “it's
only a manner of speaking. She had a dark shawl over her head and a dark
dress. I couldn't say if she was old or young, fair or dark, stout or
lean, tall or short. The night was dark.”

The Coroner referred to the plan.

“There is a gas-lamp near the window of the bedroom. Did you not see her
in that light?”

“Oh, yes, sir; but just for a moment. I took very little notice. Had I
known that the gentleman was to be murdered, I should have taken a great
deal of notice.”

“Well, about this locked door?”

“It was locked over-night, sir, but when I went next morning, it was
not locked. I knocked and knocked, but could get no answer. As it was
eleven, I thought the gentleman was sleeping very long, so I tried to
open the door. It was not locked, as I say--but,” added witness with
emphasis, “the window was snibbed and the blind was down.”

“That is natural enough,” said the Coroner. “Mr. Bolton, after his
interview with the woman, would of course snib the window, and pull down
the blind. When he went away next morning he would unlock the door.”

“Begging your pardon, sir, but, as we know, he didn't go away next
morning, being in the packing case, nailed down.”

The Coroner could have kicked himself for the very natural mistake
he had made, for he saw a derisive grin on the faces around him, and
particularly on that of Inspector Date.

“Then the assassin must have gone out by the door,” he said weakly.

“Then I don't know how he got out,” cried Eliza Flight, “for I was up at
six and the front and back doors of the hotel were locked. And after six
I was about in passages and rooms doing my work, and master and missus
and others were all over the place. How could the murderer walk out,
sir, without some of us seeing him?”

“Perhaps you did, and took no notice?”

“Oh, sir, if a stranger was around we should all have taken notice.”

This concluded the evidence, which was meagre enough. Widow Anne was
indeed recalled to see if Miss Flight could identify her as the woman
who, had been talking to Bolton, but witness failed to recognize her,
and the widow herself proved, by means of three friends, that she had
been imbibing gin at home on the night and at the hour in question.
Also, there was no evidence to connect this unknown woman with the
murder, and no sound--according to the unanimous testimony of the
inmates of the Sailor's Rest--had been heard in the bedroom of Bolton.
Yet, as the Coroner observed, there must have been some knocking and
hammering and ripping going on. But of this nothing could be proved,
and although several witnesses were examined again, not one could throw
light on the mystery. Under these circumstances the jury could only
bring in a verdict of wilful murder against some person or persons
unknown, which was done. And it may be mentioned that the cord with
which Bolton had been strangled was identified by the landlord and the
chamber-maid as belonging to the blind of the bedroom window.

“Well,” said Hope, when the inquest was over, “so nothing can be proved
against anyone. What is to be done next?”

“I'll tell you after I have seen Random,” said the Professor curtly.




CHAPTER VII. THE CAPTAIN OF THE DIVER


The day after the inquest, Sidney Bolton's body was buried in Gartley
churchyard. Owing to the nature of the death, and the publicity given
to the murder by the press, a great concourse of people assembled to
witness the interment, and there was an impressive silence when the
corpse was committed to the grave. Afterwards, as was natural, much
discussion followed on the verdict at the inquest. It was the
common opinion that the jury could have brought in no other verdict,
considering the nature of the evidence supplied; but many people
declared that Captain Hervey of The Diver should have been called. If
the deceased had enemies, said these wiseacres, it was probable that he
would have talked about them to the skipper. But they forgot that the
witnesses called at the inquest, including the mother of the dead man,
had insisted that Bolton had no enemies, so it is difficult to see what
they expected Captain Hervey to say.

After the funeral, the journals made but few remarks about the mystery.
Every now and then it was hinted that a clue had been found, and that
the police would sooner or later track down the criminal. But all this
loose chatter came to nothing, and as the days went by, the public--in
London, at all events--lost interest in the case. The enterprising
weekly paper that had offered the furnished house and the life income
to the person who found the assassin received an intimation from
the Government that such a lottery could not be allowed. The paper,
therefore, returned to Limericks, and the amateur detectives, like so
many Othellos, found their occupation gone. Then a political crisis took
place in the far East, and the fickle public relegated the murder
of Bolton to the list of undiscovered crimes. Even the Scotland Yard
detectives, failing to find a clue, lost interest in the matter, and it
seemed as though the mystery of Bolton's death would not be solved until
the Day of Judgment.

In the village, however, people still continued to be keenly interested,
since Bolton was one of themselves, and, moreover, Widow Anne kept up a
perpetual outcry about her murdered boy. She had lost the small weekly
sum which Sidney had allowed her out of his wages, so the neighbors, the
gentry of the surrounding country, and the officers at the Fort sent
her ample washing to do. Widow Anne in a few weeks had quite a large
business, considering the size of the village, and philosophically
observed to a neighbor that “It was an ill wind which blew no one any
good,” adding also that Sidney was more good to her dead than alive. But
even in Gartley the villagers grew weary of discussing a mystery which
could never be solved, and so the case became rarely talked about. In
these days of bustle and worry and competition, it is wonderful how
people forget even important events. If a blue sun arose to lighten
the world instead of a yellow one, after nine days of wonder, man would
settle down quite comfortably to a cerulean existence. Such is the
wonderful adaptability of humanity.

Professor Braddock was less forgetful, as he always bore in mind the
loss of his mummy, and constantly thought of schemes whereby he could
trap the assassin of his late secretary. Not that he cared for the dead
in any way, save from a strictly business point of view, but the capture
of the criminal meant the restitution of the mummy, and--as Braddock
told everyone with whom he came in contact--he was determined to regain
possession of his treasure. He went himself to the Sailor's Rest, and
drove the landlord and his servants wild by asking tart questions and
storming when a satisfactory answer could not be supplied. Quass
was glad when he saw the plump back of the cross little man, who so
pertinaciously followed what everyone else had abandoned.

“Life was too short,” grumbled Quass, “to be bothered in that way.”

The wooing of Archie and Lucy went on smoothly, and the Professor showed
no sign of wishing to break the engagement. But Hope, as he confided
to Lucy, was somewhat worried, as his pauper uncle, on an insufficient
borrowed capital, had begun to speculate in South African mines, and it
was probable that he would lose all his money. In that case Hope fancied
he would be once more called upon to make good the avuncular loss, and
so the marriage would have to be postponed. But it so happened that the
pauper uncle made some lucky speculative shots and acquired money, which
he promptly reinvested in new mines of the wildcat description. Still,
for the moment all was well, and the lovers had a few halcyon days of
peace and happiness.

Then came a bolt from the blue in the person of Captain Hervey, who
called a fortnight after the funeral to see the Professor. The skipper
was a tall, slim man, lean as a fasting friar, and hard as nails, with
closely clipped red hair, mustache of the same aggressive hue, and
an American goatee. He spoke with a Yankee accent, and in a truculent
manner, sufficiently annoying to the fiery Professor. When he met
Braddock in the museum, the two became enemies at the first glance, and
because both were bad-tempered and obstinate, took an instant dislike to
one another. Like did not draw to like in this instance.

“What do you want to see me about?” asked Braddock crossly. He had
been summoned by Cockatoo from the perusal of a new papyrus to see his
visitor, and consequently was not in the best of tempers.

“I've jes' blew in fur a trifle of chin-music,” replied Hervey with an
emphatic U.S.A. accent.

“I'm busy: get out,” was the uncomplimentary reply.

Hervey took a chair and, stretching his lengthy legs, produced a black
cheroot, as long and lean as himself.

“If you were in the States, Professor, I'd draw a bead on you for that
style of lingo. I'm not taking any. See!” and he lighted up.

“You're the captain of 'The Diver'?”

“That's so; I was, that is. Now, I've shifted to a dandy wind-jammer of
sorts that can run rings round the old barky. I surmise I'm off for the
South Seas, pearl-fishing, in three months. I'll take that Kanaka along
with me, if y'like, Professor,” and he cast a side glance at Cockatoo,
who was squatting on his hams as usual, polishing a blue enameled jar
from a Theban tomb.

“I require the services of the man,” said Braddock stiffly. “As to you,
sir: you've been paid for your business in connection with Bolton's
passage and the shipment of my mummy, so there is no more to be said.”



“Heaps more! heaps, you bet,” remarked the man of the sea placidly, and
controlling a temper which in less civilized parts would have led him to
wipe the floor with the plump scientist. “My owners were paid fur that
racket: not me. No, sir. So I've paddled into this port to see if I can
rake in a few dollars on my own.”

“I've no dollars to give you--in charity, that is.”

“Huh! An' who asked charity, you bald-headed jelly-bag?”

Braddock grew scarlet with fury. “If you speak to me like that, you
ruffian, I'll throw you out.”

“What?--you?”

“Yes, me,” and the Professor stood on tip-toe, like the bantam he was.

“You make me smile, and likewise tired,” murmured Hervey, admiring the
little man's pluck. “See here, Professor, touching that mummy?”

“My mummy: my green mummy. What about it?” Braddock rose to the fly
thrown by this skilful angler.

“That's so. What will you shell out if I pass along that corpse?”

“Ah!” The Professor again stood on tip-toe, gasping and purple in the
face. He almost squeaked in the extremity of his anger. “I knew it.”

“Knew what?” demanded the skipper, genuinely surprised.

“I knew that you had stolen my mummy. Yes, you needn't deny it. Bolton,
like the silly fool he was, told you how valuable the mummy was, and you
strangled the poor devil to get my property.”

“Go slow,” said the captain, in no wise perturbed by this accusation.
“I would have you remember that at the inquest it was stated that the
window was locked and the door was open. How then could I waltz into
that blamed hotel and arrange for a funeral? 'Sides, I guess shooting
is mor'n my line than garrotting. I leave that to the East Coast
Yellow-Stomachs.”

Braddock sat down and wiped his face. He saw plainly enough that he had
not a leg to stand on, as Hervey was plainly innocent.

“'Sides,” went on the skipper, chewing his cheroot, “I guess if I'd
wanted that old corpse of yours, I'd have yanked Bolton overside, and
set down the accident to bad weather. Better fur me to loot the case
aboard than to make a fool of myself ashore. No, sir, H.H. don't run 'is
own perticler private circus in that blamed way.”

“H.H. Who the devil is H.H.?”

“Me, you bet. Hiram Hervey, citizen of the U.S.A. Nantucket neighborhood
for home life. And see, don't you get m'hair riz, or I'll scalp.”

“You can't scalp me,” chuckled Braddock, passing his hand over a very
bald head. “See here, what do you want?”

“Name a price and I'll float round to get back your verdant corpse.”

“I thought you were going to the South Seas?”

“In three months, pearl-fishing. Lots of time, I reckon, to run this old
circus I want you to finance.”

“Have you any suspicions?”

“No, 'sept I don't believe in that window business.”

“What do you mean?” Braddock sat upright.

“Well,” drawled the Yankee, “y'see, I interviewed the gal as told that
perticler lie in court.”

“Eliza Flight. Was it a lie she told?”

“Well, not exactly. The window was snibbed, but that was done after the
chap who sent your pal to Kingdom Come had got out.”

“Do you mean to say that the window was locked from the outside?” asked
Braddock, and then, when Hervey nodded, he exclaimed “Impossible!”

“Narry an impossibility, you bet. The chap who engineered the circus
was all-fired smart. The snib was an old one, and he yanked a piece of
string round it, and passed the string through the crack between the
upper and lower sash of the window. When outside he pulled, and the snib
slid into place. But he left the string on the ground outside. I picked
it up nex' day and guessed the racket he'd been on. I tried the same
business and brought off the deal.”

“It sounds wonderful and yet impossible,” cried Braddock, rubbing his
bald head and walking excitedly to and fro. “See here, I'll come along
with you and see how it's done.”

“You bet you won't, unless you shell out. See here”--Hervey leaned
forward--“from that window business it's plain that no one inside the
shanty corpsed your pal. The chap as did it entered and left by the
window, and made tracks with that old corp you want. Now you pass along
five hundred pounds--that's English currency, I reckon--and I'll smell
round for the robber.”

“And where do you think I can obtain five hundred pounds?” asked the
Professor very dryly.

“Well, I guess if that blamed corpse is worth it, you'll be willing to
trade. Y'don't live in this shanty for nothing.”

“My good friend, I have enough to live on, and obtain this house at a
small rent on account of its isolation. But I can no more find the sum
of five hundred pounds than fly.”

Hervey rose and straightened his legs.

“Then I guess I'd best be getting back to Pierside.”

“One moment, sir. Did anything happen on the voyage?--did Bolton say
anything likely to lead you to suppose that he was in danger of being
robbed and murdered?”

“No,” said the skipper musingly, and pulling his goatee. “He told me
that he had secured the old corpse, and was bringing it home to you. I
didn't talk much to Bolton; he wasn't my style.”

“Have you any idea who killed him?”

“No, I ain't.”

“Then how do you propose to find the criminal who has the mummy?”

“You give me five hundred pounds and see,” said Hervey coolly.

“I haven't got the money.”

“Then I reckon you don't get the corpse. So long,” and the skipper
strolled towards the door. Braddock followed him.

“You have a clue?”

“No, I've got nothing; not even that five hundred pounds you make such
a fuss over. It's a wasted day with H.H., I surmise. Wait!” He scribbled
on a card and flung it across the room. “That's my Pierside address if
you should change your blamed mind.”

The Professor picked up the card. “The Sailor's Rest! What, are you
stopping there?” Then, when Hervey nodded, he cried violently, “Why, I
believe you have a clue, and stop at the hotel to follow it up.”

“Maybe I do and maybe I don't,” retorted the captain, opening the door
with a jerk; “anyhow, I don't hunt for that corpse without the dollars.”

When Hiram Hervey departed, the Professor raged up and down the room so
violently that Cockatoo was cowed by his anger. Apparently this American
skipper knew of something which might lead to the discovery of the
assassin and incidentally to the restoration of the green mummy to its
rightful owner. But he would not make a move unless he was paid five
hundred pounds, and Braddock did not know where to procure that
amount. Having long since made himself acquainted with Hope's financial
condition, he knew well that there was no chance of getting a second
check in that quarter. Of course there was Random, whom he had heard
casually had returned from his yachting cruise, and was now back again
at the Fort. But Random was in love with Lucy, and would probably only
give or lend the money on condition that the Professor helped him with
his wooing. In that case, since Lucy was engaged to Hope, there would
be some difficulty in altering present conditions. But having arrived
at this point of his somewhat angry meditations, Braddock sent Cockatoo
with a message to his step-daughter, saying that he wished to see her.

“I'll see if she really loves Hope,” thought the Professor, rubbing his
plump hands. “If she doesn't, there may be a chance of her throwing
him over to become Lady Random. Then I can get the money. And indeed,”
 soliloquized the Professor virtuously, “I must point out to her that
it is wrong of her to make a poor marriage, when she can gain a
wealthy husband. I will only be doing my duty by my dear dead wife, by
preventing her wedding poverty. But girls are so obstinate, and Lucy is
a thorough girl.”

His amiable anxiety on behalf of Miss Kendal was only cut short by the
entrance of the young lady herself. Professor Braddock then showed his
hand too plainly by evincing a strong wish to conciliate her in every
way. He procured her a seat: he asked after her health: he told her that
she was growing prettier every day, and in all ways behaved so unlike
his usual self, that Lucy became alarmed and thought that he had been
drinking.

“Why have you sent for me?” she asked, anxious to come to the point.

“Aha!” Braddock put his venerable head on one side like a roguish bird
and smiled in an infantine manner. “I have good news for you.”

“About the mummy?” she demanded innocently.

“No, about flesh and blood, which you prefer. Sir Frank Random has
arrived back at the Fort. There!”

“I know that,” was Miss Kendal's unexpected reply. “His yacht came to
Pierside on the same afternoon as The Diver arrived.”

“Oh, indeed!” said the Professor, struck by the coincidence, and with a
stare. “How do you know?”

“Archie met Sir Frank the other day, and learned as much.”

“What?” Braddock struck a tragic attitude. “Do you mean to say that
those two young men speak to one another?”

“Yes. Why not? They are friends.”

“Oh!” Braddock became roguish again. “I fancied they were lovers of a
certain young lady who is in this room.”

By this time Lucy was beginning to guess what her step-father was aiming
at, and grew correspondingly angry.

“Archie is my sole lover now,” she remarked stiffly. “Sir Frank knows
that we are engaged and is quite ready to be the friend of us both.”

“And he calls that love. Idiot!” cried the Professor, much disgusted.
“But I would point out to you, Lucy--and I do so because of my deep
affection for you, dear child--that Sir Frank is wealthy.”

“So is Archie--in my love.”

“Nonsense! nonsense! That is mere foolish romance, He has no money.”

“You should not say that. Archie had money to the extent of one thousand
pounds, which he gave you.”

“One thousand pounds: a mere nothing. Consider, Lucy, that if you marry
Random you will have a title.”

Miss Kendal, whose patience was getting exhausted, stamped a very neat
boot.

“I don't know why you talk in this way, father.”

“I wish to see you happy.”

“Then your wish is granted: you do see me happy. But I won't be happy
long if you keep bothering me to marry a man I don't care two straws
about. I am going to be Mrs. Hope, so there.”

“My dear child,” said the Professor, who always became paternal when
most obstinate, “I have reason to believe that the green mummy can be
discovered and poor Sidney's death avenged if a reward of five hundred
pounds is offered. If Hope can give me that money--”

“He will not: I shall not allow him to. He has lost too much already.”

“In that case I must apply to Sir Frank Random.”

“Well, apply,” she snapped, being decidedly angry; “it's none of my
business. I don't want to hear anything about it.”

“It is your business, miss,” cried Braddock, growing angry in his turn
and becoming very pink; “you know that only by getting you to marry
Random can I procure the money.”

“Oh!” said Lucy coldly. “So this is why you sent for me. Now, father, I
have had enough of this. You gave your consent to Archie being engaged
to me in exchange for one thousand pounds. As I love him I shall abide
by the word you gave. If I had not loved him I should have refused to
marry him. You understand?”

“I understand that I have a very obstinate girl to deal with. You shall
marry as I choose.”

“I shall do nothing of the sort. You have no right to dictate my choice
of a husband.”

“No right, when I am your father?”

“You are not my father: merely my step-father--merely a relation by
marriage. I am of age. I can do as I like, and intend to.”

“But, Lucy,” implored Braddock, changing his tune, “think.”

“I have thought. I marry Archie.”

“But he is poor and Random is rich.”

“I don't care. I love Archie and I don't love Frank.”

“Would you have me lose the mummy for ever?”

“Yes, I would, if my misery is to be the price of its restoration. Why
should I sell myself to a man I care nothing about, just because you
want a musty, fusty old corpse? Now I am going.” Lucy walked to the
door. “I shan't listen to another word. And if you bother me again, I
shall marry Archie at once and leave the house.”

“I can make you leave it in any case, you ungrateful girl,” bellowed
Braddock, who was purple with rage, never having a very good temper at
the best of times. “Look what I have done for you!”

Miss Kendal could have pointed out that her step-father had done nothing
save attend to himself. But she disdained such an argument, and
without another word opened the door and walked out. Almost immediately
afterwards Cockatoo entered, much to the relief of the Professor, who
relieved his feelings by kicking the unfortunate Kanaka. Then he sat
down again to consider ways and means of obtaining the necessary mummy
and still more necessary money.




CHAPTER VIII. THE BARONET

Sir Frank Random was an amiable young gentleman with--as the saying
goes--all his goods in the shop window. Fair-haired and tall, with a
well-knit, athletic figure, a polished manner, and a man-of-the-world
air, he strictly resembled the romantic officer of Bow Bells, Family
Herald, Young Ladies' Journal fiction. But the romance was all in his
well-groomed looks, as he was as commonplace a Saxon as could be
met with in a day's march. Fond of sport, attentive to his duties as
artillery captain, and devoted to what is romantically known as the fair
sex, he sauntered easily through life, very well contented with himself
and with his agreeable surroundings. He read fiction when he did read,
and those weekly papers devoted to sport; troubled his head very
little about politics, save when they had to do with a possible
German invasion, and was always ready to do any one a good turn. His
brother-officers declared that he was not half a bad sort, which was
high praise from the usually reticent service man. His capacity may be
accurately gauged by the fact that he did not possess a single enemy,
and that every one spoke well of him. A mortal who possesses no quality
likely to be envied by those around him is certain to belong to the rank
and file of humanity. But these unconsidered units of mankind can always
console themselves with the undoubted fact that mediocrity is invariably
happy.

Such a man as Random would never set the Thames on fire, and certainly
he had no ambition to perform that astounding feat. He was fond of his
profession and intended to remain in the army as long as he could. He
desired to marry and beget a family, and retire, when set free from
soldiering, to his country seat, and there perform blamelessly the
congenial role of a village squire, until called upon to join the
respectable corpses in the Random vault. Not that he was a saint or
ever could be one. Neither black nor white, he was simply gray, being an
ordinary mixture of good and bad. As theology has provided no hereafter
for gray people, it is hard to imagine where the bulk of humanity will
go. But doubts on this point never troubled Random. He went to church,
kept his mouth shut and his pores open and vaguely believed that it
would be all right somehow. A very comfortable if superficial philosophy
indeed.

It can easily be guessed that Random's somewhat colorless personality
would never attract Lucy Kendal, since the hues of her own character
were deeper. For this reason she was drawn to Hope, who possessed that
aggressive artistic temperament, where good and bad, are in violent
contrast. Random took opinions from books, or from other people, and
his mind, like a looking-glass, reflected whatever came along; but Hope
possessed opinions of his own, both right and wrong, and held to these
in the face of all verbal opposition. He could argue and did argue, when
Random simply agreed. Lucy had similar idiosyncrasies, inherited from
a clever father, so it was just as well that she preferred Archie
to Frank. Had the latter young gentleman married her, he would have
dwindled to Lady Random's husband, and would have found too late that he
had domesticated a kind of imitation George Eliot. When he congratulated
Archie on his engagement somewhat ruefully, he little thought what an
escape he had had.

But Professor Braddock, who did not belong to the gray tribe, knew
nothing of this, as his Egyptological studies did not permit him time to
argue on such commonplace matters. He therefore failed in advance when
he set out to persuade Random into renewing his suit. As the fiery
little man afterwards expressed himself, “I might as well have talked to
a mollusc,” for Random politely declined to be used as an instrument
to forward the Professor's ambition at the cost of Miss Kendal's
unhappiness. The interview took place in Sir Frank's quarters at the
Fort on the day after Hervey had called to propose a search for the
corpse. And it was during this interview that Braddock learned something
which both startled and annoyed him.

Random, at three o'clock, had just changed into mufti, when the
Professor was announced by his servant. Braddock, determined to give his
host no chance of denying himself, followed close on the man's heels,
and was in the room almost before Sir Frank had read the card. It was
a bare room, sparsely furnished, according to the War Office's idea
of comfort, and although the baronet had added a few more civilized
necessities, it still looked somewhat dismal. Braddock, who liked
comfort, shook hands carelessly with his host and cast a disapproving
eye on his surroundings.

“Dog kennel! dog kennel!” grumbled the polite Professor. “Bare
desolation like a damned dungeon. You might as well live in the Sahara.”

“It would certainly be warmer,” replied Random, who knew the scientist's
snappy ways very well. “Take a chair, sir!”

“Hard as bricks, confound it! Hand me over a cushion. There, that's
better! No, I never drink between meals, thank you. Smoke? Hang it,
Random, you should know by this time that I dislike making a chimney of
my throat! There! there! don't fuss. Take a seat and listen to what I
have to say. It's important. Poke the fire, please: it's cold.”

Random placidly did as he was told, and then lighted a cigar, as he sat
down quietly.

“I am sorry to hear of your trouble, sir.'”

“Trouble! trouble! What particular trouble?”

“The death of your assistant.”

“Oh yes. Silly young ass to get killed. Lost my mummy, too: there's
trouble if you like.”

“The green mummy.” Random looked into the fire, “Yes. I have heard of
the green mummy.”

“I should think you have,” snapped Braddock, warming his plump hands.
“Every penny-a-liner has been talking about it. When did you return?”

“On the same day that that steamer with the mummy on board arrived,” was
Random's odd reply.

The Professor stared suspiciously. “I don't see why you should date your
movements by my mummy,” he retorted.

“Well, I had a reason in doing so.”

“What reason?”

“The mummy--”

“What about it?--do you know where it is?” Braddock started to his feet,
and looked eagerly at the calm face of his host.

“No, I wish I did. How much did you pay for it, Professor?”

“What's that to you?” snapped the other, resuming his seat.

“Nothing at all. But it is a great deal to Don Pedro de Gayangos.”

“And who the deuce is he? Some Spanish Egyptologist?”

“I don't think he is an Egyptologist, sir.”

“He must be, if he wants my mummy.”

“You forget, Professor, that the green mummy comes from Peru.”

“Who denied that it did, sir? You are illogical--infernally so.” The
little man rose and straddled on the hearth-rug, with his back to the
fire and his hands under his coat-tails. “Now, sir,” he said, glaring
at the young man like a school-master--“what the deuce are you talking
about? Out with it: no evasion.”

“Oh, hang it, Professor, don't jump down my throat, spurs and all,” said
Random, rather annoyed by this dictatorial tone.

“I never wear spurs: go on, sir, and don't argue.”

Sir Frank could not help laughing, although he knew that it was useless
to induce Braddock to be civil. Not that the Professor, meant to be
rude, especially as he desired to conciliate Random. But long years of
fighting with other scientists and of having his own scientific way had
turned him into a kind of school-master, and every one knows that they
are the most domineering of the human race.

“It's a long story,” said the baronet, with a shrug and a smile.

“Story! story! What story?”


“'That which I am about to tell you.” And then

Random began hurriedly, so as to prevent further arguments of an
unprofitable kind. “I was at Genoa with my yacht, and there stopped on
shore at the Casa Bianca.”

“What place is that?”

“An hotel. I there met with a certain Don Pedro de Gayangos and his
daughter, Donna Inez, He was a gentleman from Lima, and had come to
Europe in search of the green mummy.”

Braddock stared.

“And what did this confounded Spaniard want with my green mummy?” he
demanded indignantly. “How did he know of its existence?--what reason
had he to try and obtain it? Answer, sir.”

“I shall let Don Pedro answer himself,” said Random dryly. “He arrives
in a couple of days, and intends to take rooms at the Warrior Inn along
with his daughter. Then you can question him, Professor.”

“I question you,” snapped Braddock angrily.

“And I am answering to the best of my ability. Don Pedro told me nothing
beyond the fact that he wanted the mummy, and had come to Europe to get
it. In some way he learned that it was in Malta and was for sale.”

“Quite so: quite so,” rasped the Professor. “He saw the advertisement in
the newspapers, as I did, and wanted to buy it over my head.”

“Oh, he wanted to buy it right enough, and wired to Malta,” said Random,
“but in reply he received a letter stating that it had been sold to you
and was being taken to England on The Diver. I followed The Diver in my
yacht and arrived at Pierside an hour after she did.”

“Ah!” Braddock glared. “I begin to see light. This infernal Spaniard was
on board, and wanted my mummy. He knew that Bolton had taken it to the
Sailor's Rest and went there to kill the poor lad and get my--”

“Nothing of the sort,” interrupted Sir Frank impatiently. “Don Pedro
remained behind in Genoa, intending to write and ask if you would sell
him the mummy. I wrote and told him of the murder of your assistant
and related all that had happened. He wired to me that he was coming to
England at once, as--as I told you. He will be in Gartley in a couple of
days. That is the whole story.”

“It is a sufficiently strange one,” grumbled Braddock, frowning. “What
does he want with my mummy?”

“I cannot tell you. But if you will sell--”

“Sell! sell! sell!” vociferated Braddock furiously.

“Don Pedro will give you a good price,” finished Random calmly.

“I haven't got the mummy,” said the Professor, sitting down and wiping
his pink head, “and if I had, I certainly would not sell. However, I'll
hear what this gentleman has to say when he arrives. Perhaps he can
throw some light on the mystery of this crime.”

“I am perfectly certain that he cannot, sir. Don Pedro--as I said--was
left behind in Genoa.”

“Humph!” said the Professor, unconvinced. “He could easily employ a
third party.”

Random rose, looking and feeling annoyed.

“I assure you that Don Pedro is a gentleman and a man of honor. He would
not stoop to--”

“There! there!” Braddock waved his hands. “Sit down: sit down.”

“You shouldn't say such things, Professor.”

“I say what I desire to say,” retorted the old gentleman tartly; “but we
can dismiss the subject for the time being.”

“I am only too glad to do so,” said Random, who was ruffled out of his
usual calm by the veiled accusation which Braddock had brought against
his foreign friend, “and to get to a more agreeable subject, tell me how
Miss Kendal is keeping.”

“She is ill, very ill,” said the Professor solemnly.

“Ill? Why, Hope, whom I met the other day, said that she was feeling
very well and very happy.”

“So Hope thinks, because he has forced her into an engagement.”

Random started to his feet.

“Forced her? Nonsense!”

“It isn't nonsense, and don't dare to speak like that to me, sir. I
repeat that Lucy--poor child--is breaking her heart for you.”

The young man stared and then broke into a hearty laugh.

“Pardon me, sir, but that is impossible.”

“It isn't, confound you!” said Braddock, who did not like being laughed
at. “I know women.”

“You don't know your daughter.”

“Step-daughter, you mean.”

“Ah, perhaps the more distant relationship accounts for your ignorance
of her character,” said Random dryly. “You are quite wrong. I was in
love with Miss Kendal, and asked her to be my wife before I went on
leave. She refused me, saying that she loved Hope, and because of her
refusal I took my broken heart to Monte Carlo, where I lost much more
money than I had any right to lose.”

“Your broken heart seems to have mended quickly,” said Braddock, who was
trying to suppress his wrath at this instance of Lucy's duplicity, for
so he considered it.

“Oh, pooh, it's only my way of speaking,” laughed the young man. “If my
heart had been really broken I should not have mentioned the fact.”

“Then you did not love Lucy, and you dared to play fast and loose with
her affections,” raged Braddock, stamping.

“You are quite wrong,” said Sir Frank sharply; “I did love Miss Kendal,
or I should certainly not have asked her to be my wife. But when she
told me that she loved another man, I stood aside as any fellow would.”

“You should have insisted on--”

“On nothing, sir. I am not the man to force a woman to give me a heart
which belongs to another person. I am very glad that Miss Kendal is
engaged to Hope, as he is a capital fellow, and will make her a better
husband than I ever could have made her. Besides,” Random shrugged his
shoulders, “one nail drives another out.”

“Humph! That means you love another.”

“I am not bound to tell you my private affairs, Professor.”

“Quite so: quite so; but Inez is a pretty and romantic name.”

“I don't know what you are talking about, sir,” said Random stiffly.

Braddock chuckled, having read the truth in the flush which had crept
over Random's tanned face.

“I ask your pardon,” he said elaborately. “I am an old man, and I
was your father's friend. You must not mind if I have been a trifle
inquisitive.”

“Say no more, sir: that is all right.”

“I don't agree with you, Random. Things are not all right and never will
be until my mummy is discovered. Now you can help me.”

“In what way?” asked the other uneasily.

“With money. Understand, my boy,” added the Professor in a genial way
which he knew well how to assume, “I should have preferred Lucy becoming
your wife. However, since she prefers Hope, there's no more to be said
on that score. I therefore will not make the offer I came here to make.”

“An offer, sir?”

“Yes! I fancied that you loved Lucy and were broken-hearted by the news
of her engagement to Hope. I therefore intended to ask you to give me,
or rather lend me, five hundred pounds on condition that I helped you
to--”

“Stop, Professor,” said Random, coloring, “I should never have bought
Miss Kendal as my wife on those terms.”

“Of course! of course! and--as I say--there is no more to be said. I
shall therefore agree to Lucy's engagement to Hope”--Braddock carefully
omitted to say that he had already agreed and had been paid one thousand
pounds to agree--“and will congratulate you when you lead Donna Inez to
the altar.”

“I never said anything about Donna Inez, Professor Braddock.”

“Of course not: modern reticence. However, I can see through a brick
wall as well as most people. I understand, so let us drop the subject,
my boy. And this five hundred pounds--”

“I cannot lend it to you, Professor. The fact is, I lost heaps of coin
at Monte Carlo, and am not in a position to--”

“Very good, let us shelve that also,” said Braddock with apparent
heartiness, although he was really very angry at his failure. “I am
sorry, though, as I wish to get back the mummy and to revenge poor
Sidney Bolton's death.”

“How can the five hundred do that?” asked Random with interest.

“Well,” drawled the Professor with his eyes on the young man's attentive
face, “Captain Hervey of The Diver came to me yesterday and proposed
to search for the assassin and his plunder on condition that I paid him
five hundred pounds. I am, as you know, very poor for a scientist,
and so I wished to borrow the five hundred from you on condition that
Lucy--”

“We won't talk of that again,” said Random hurriedly; “but do you mean
to say that this Captain Hervey knows of anything likely to solve this
mystery?”

“He says that he does not, and merely proposes to search. From what I
have seen of the man I should think that he had all the capacities of a
good bloodhound and would certainly succeed. But he will not move a step
without money.”

“Five hundred pounds,” murmured Random thoughtfully, while the Professor
watched him closely. “I can tell you how to obtain it.”

“How? In what way?”

“Don Pedro seems to be rich, and he wants the mummy,” said the baronet.
“So when he comes here ask him to--”

“Certainly not: certainly not,” raged Braddock, clapping on his hat in
a fury. “How dare you make such a proposition to me, Random! If this Don
Pedro offers the reward and Hervey finds the mummy, he will simply hand
it over to your friend.”

“He can scarcely do that, since you have bought the mummy. But Don Pedro
is willing to purchase it from you.”

“Humph!” Braddock moved to the door, thinking. “I shall reserve my
decision until this man arrives. Good day,” and he departed.

Random did not attempt to detain him, as he was somewhat weary of the
Professor's vagaries. He knew very well that Braddock would call on
Don Pedro when he came to the Warrior Inn, and join forces with him in
searching for the lost goods. And the train of thought initiated by the
Professor's visit led Random to a certain drawer, whence he took the
photograph of a splendid-looking beauty. To this he pressed his lips. “I
wonder if your father will give you to me in exchange for that mummy,”
 he thought, and kissed the pictured face again.




CHAPTER IX. MRS. JASHER'S LUCK'


Some weeks had now elapsed since the death and burial of Sidney Bolton,
and the excitement had simmered down to a gentle speculation as to who
had killed him. This question was discussed in a half-hearted manner
round the winter fires of Gartley, but gradually people were ceasing to
interest themselves in a crime, the mystery of which would apparently
never be solved. Life went on in the village and at the Pyramids much
in the same way, save that the Professor attended along with Cockatoo to
his museum and did not engage another assistant.

Archie and Lucy were perfectly happy, as they looked forward to being
married in the spring, and Braddock showed no desire to interfere with
their engagement. They knew, of course, that he had called upon Sir
Frank, but were ignorant of what had taken place. Random himself called
at the Pyramids to congratulate Miss Kendal on her engagement, and
seemed so very pleased that she was going to marry the man of her
choice, that, woman-like, she grew rather annoyed. As the baronet had
been her lover, she thought that he should wear the willow for her
sake. But Random showed no disposition to do so, therefore Lucy shrewdly
guessed that his broken heart had been mended by another woman. The
Professor could have confirmed the truth of this from the hints which
Random had given him, but he said nothing about his interview with the
young man, nor did he mention that a Spanish gentleman from Peru was
seeking for the famous green mummy.

Considerably vexed that Random should be so cheerful, Lucy cast round to
learn the truth. She could scarcely ask the baronet himself, and Archie
professed himself unable to explain. Miss Kendal did not dream of
cross-examining Braddock, as it never entered her mind that the
dry-as-dust scientist would know anything. It then occurred to this
inquisitive young lady that Mrs. Jasher might be aware of Random's
secret, which made him so cheerful. Sir Frank was a great friend of
the plump widow, and frequently went to take afternoon tea at her small
house, which was situated no great distance from the Fort. In fact,
Mrs. Jasher entertained the officers largely, as she was hospitable
by nature, and liked to have presentable men about her for flirting
purposes. With good-looking youth she assumed the maternal air, and in
the role of a clever woman of the world professed to be the adviser of
one and all. In this way she became quite a favorite, and her little
parlor--she liked the old English word--was usually, well filled at the
hour of afternoon tea.

Twice already Lucy had called on Mrs. Jasher after the commotion caused
by the crime, as she wished to speak to her about the same; but on each
occasion the widow proved to be absent in London. However, the third
visit proved to be more lucky, for Mrs. Jasher was at home, and
expressed herself happy to see the girl.

“So good of you to come and see me in my little wooden hut,” said the
widow, kissing her guest.

And Mrs. Jasher's cottage really was a little wooden hut, being what was
left of an old-fashioned farmhouse, built before the stone age. It lay
on the verge of the marshes in an isolated position and was placed in
the middle of a square garden, protected from the winter floods by a low
stone wall solidly built, but of no great height. The road to the Fort
ran past the front part of the garden, but behind the marshes spread
towards the embankment, which cut off the view of the Thames. The
situation was not an ideal one, nor was the cottage, but money was
scarce with Mrs. Jasher, and she had obtained the whole place at a
surprisingly small rental. The house and grounds were dry enough in
summer, but decidedly damp in winter. Therefore, the widow went to a
flat in London, as a rule, for the season of fogs. But this winter she
had made up her mind--so she told Lucy--to remain in her own little
castle and brave the watery humors of the marshes.

“I can always keep fires burning in every room,” said Mrs. Jasher, when
she had removed her guest's hat and had settled her for a confidential
talk on the sofa. “And after all, my dear, there is no place like home.”

The room was small, and Mrs. Jasher was small, so she suited her
surroundings excellently. Also, the widow had the good taste to furnish
it sparsely, instead of crowding it with furniture; but what furniture
there was could not be improved upon. There were Chippendale chairs,
a Louis Quinze table, a Sheridan cabinet, and a satin-wood desk,
hand-painted, which was said to have been the property of the unhappy
Marie Antoinette. Oil-paintings adorned the rose-tinted walls, chiefly
landscapes, although one or two were portraits. Also, there were
water-colored pictures, framed and signed caricatures, many plates
of old china, and rice-paper adornments from Canton. The room was
essentially feminine, being filled with Indian stuffs, with silver
oddments, with flowers, and with other trifles. The walls, the carpet,
the hangings, and the upholstery of the arm-chairs were all of a rosy
hue, so that Mrs. Jasher looked as young as Dame Holda in the Venusberg.
A very pretty room and a very charming hostess, was the verdict of the
young gentlemen from the Fort, who came here to flirt when they were not
serving their country.

Mrs. Jasher in a tea-rose tea-gown for afternoon tea--she always liked
to be in keeping--rang for that beverage dear to the feminine heart, and
lighted a rose-shaded lamp. When a glow as of dawn spread through the
dainty room, she settled Lucy on the sofa near the fire, and drew up an
arm-chair on the other side of the hearth-rug. Outside it was cold and
foggy, but the rose-hued curtains shut out all that was disagreeable in
the weather, and in the absence of male society, the two women talked
more or less confidentially. Lucy did not dislike Mrs. Jasher, even
though she fancied that the lively widow was planning to become the
mistress of the Pyramids.

“Well, my dear girl,” said Mrs. Jasher, shading her face from the fire
with a large fan, “and how is your dear father after his late terrible
experiences?”

“He is perfectly well, and rather cross,” replied Lucy, smiling.

“Cross?”

“Of course. He has lost that wretched mummy.”

“And poor Sidney Bolton.”

“Oh, I don't think he cares for poor Sidney's death beyond the fact
that he misses his services. But the mummy cost nine hundred pounds, and
father is much annoyed, especially as Peruvian mummies are somewhat hard
to obtain. You see, Mrs. Jasher, father wishes to see the difference
between the Peruvian and Egyptian modes of embalming.”

“Ugh! How gruesome!” Mrs. Jasher shuddered. “But has anything been
discovered likely to show who killed this poor lad?”

“No, the whole thing is a mystery.”

Mrs. Jasher looked into the fire over the top of the fan.

“I have read the papers,” she said slowly, “and have gathered what I
could from what the reporters explained. But I intend to call on the
Professor and hear all that evidence which did not get into the papers.”

“I think that everything has been made public. The police have no clue
to the murderer. Why do you want to know?”

Mrs. Jasher made a movement of surprise.

“Why, I am the Professor's friend, of course, my dear, and naturally I
want to help him to solve this mystery.”

“There is no chance, so far as I can see, of it ever being solved,” said
Lucy. “It's very sweet of you, of course, but were I you I should not
talk about it to my father.”

“Why?” asked Mrs. Jasher quickly.

“Because he thinks of nothing else, and both Archie and I are trying to
get him off the subject. The mummy is lost and poor Sidney is buried.
There is no more to be said.”

“Still, if a reward was offered--”

“My father is too poor to offer a reward, and the Government will not do
so. And as people will not work without money, why--” Lucy completed her
sentence with a shrug.

“I might offer a reward if the dear Professor will let me,” said the
widow unexpectedly.

“You! But I thought that you were poor, as we are.”

“I was, and I am not very rich now. All the same, I have come in for
some thousands of pounds.”

“I congratulate you. A legacy?”

“Yes. You remember how I told you about my brother who was a Pekin
merchant. He is dead.”

“Oh, I am so sorry.”

“My dear, what is the use of being sorry. I never cry over spilt milk,
or assume a virtue which I have not. My brother and I were almost
strangers, as we lived apart for so many years. However, he came home to
die at Brighton, and a few weeks ago--just after this murder took place,
in fact--I was summoned to his death-bed. He lingered on until last week
and died in my arms. He left me nearly all his money, so I will be able
to help the Professor.”

“I don't see why you should,” said Lucy, wondering why Mrs. Jasher did
not wear mourning for the dead.

“Oh yes, you do see,” remarked the widow, raising her eyes and rubbing
her plump hands together. “I want to marry your father.”

Lucy did not express astonishment, as she had understood this for a long
time.

“I guessed as much.”

“And what do you say?”

Miss Kendal shrugged her shoulders.

“If my step-father,” she emphasized the word--“if my step-father
consents, why should I mind? I am going to marry Archie, and no doubt
the Professor will be lonely.”

“Then you do not disapprove of me as a mother.”

“My dear Mrs. Jasher,” said Lucy, coldly, “there is no relationship
between me and my step-father beyond the fact that he married my
mother. Therefore you can never be my mother. Were I stopping on at the
Pyramids, that question might arise, but as I become Mrs. Hope in six
months, we can be friends--nothing more.”

“I am quite content with that,” said Mrs. Jasher in a businesslike way.
“After all, I am no sentimentalist. But I am glad that you do not mind
my marrying the Professor, as I don't want you to prevent the match, my
dear.”

Lucy laughed.

“I assure you that I have no influence with my father, Mrs. Jasher. He
will marry you if he thinks fit and without consulting me. But,” added
the girl with emphasis, “I do not see what you gain in becoming Mrs.
Braddock.”

“I may become Lady Braddock,” said the widow, dryly. Then, in answer to
the open astonishment on Lucy's face, she hastened to remark: “Do you
mean to say that you don't know your father is heir to a baronetcy?”

“Oh, I know that,” rejoined Miss Kendal. “The Professor's brother, Sir
Donald Braddock, is an old man and unmarried. If he dies without heirs,
as it seems likely, the Professor will certainly take the title.”

“Well, then, there you are!” cried Mrs. Jasher, in her liveliest tone.
“I want to give my legacy for the title and preside over a scientific
salon in London.”

“I understand. But you will never get my father to live in London.”

“Wait until I marry him,” said the little woman shrewdly. “I'll make a
man of him. I know, of course, that mummies and sepulchral ornaments and
those sort of horrid things are dull, but the Professor will become Sir
Julian Braddock, and that is enough for me. I don't love him, of course,
as love between two elderly people is absurd, but I shall make him a
good wife, and with my money he can take his proper position in the
scientific world, which he doesn't occupy at present. I would rather he
had been artistic, as science is so dull. However, I am getting on in
years and wish to have some amusement before I die, so I must take what
I can get. What do you say?”

“I am quite agreeable, as, when I leave, someone must look after my
father, else he will be shamefully robbed by everyone in household
matters. We are good friends, so why not you as well as another.”

“You are a dear girl,” said Mrs. Jasher with a sigh of relief, and
kissed Lucy fondly. “I am sure we shall get on excellently.”

“At a distance. The artistic world doesn't touch on the scientific, you
know. And you forget, Mrs. Jasher, that my father wishes to go to Egypt
to explore this mysterious tomb.”

Mrs. Jasher nodded.

“Yes, I promised, when I came in for my brother's money, to help the
Professor to fit out his expedition. But it seems to me that the money
will be better spent in offering a reward so that the mummy can be
found.”

“Well,” said Lucy, laughing, “you can give the Professor his choice.”

“Before marriage, not after. He needs to be managed, like all men.”

“You will not find him easy to manage,” said Lucy dryly. “He is a very
obstinate man, and quite feminine in his persistency.”

“H'm! I recognize that he is a difficult character, and between you and
me dear, I should not marry him but for the title. It sounds rather like
an adventuress talking in this way, but, after all, if he makes me Lady
Braddock I can give him enough money to let him realize his desire of
getting the mummy back. It's six of one and half a dozen of the other.
And I'll be good to him: you need not fear.”

“I am quite sure that, good or bad, the Professor will have his own way.
It is not his happiness I am thinking of so much as yours.”

“Really. Here is the tea. Put the table near the fire, Jane, between
Miss Kendal and myself. Thank you. The muffins on the fender. Thank you.
No, there is nothing more. Close the door when you go out.”

The tea equippage having been arranged, Mrs. Jasher poured out a cup
of Souchong, and handed it to her guest, resuming the subject of her
proposed marriage meanwhile.

“I don't see why you should be anxious about me, dear. I am quite
able to look after myself. And the Professor seems to be kind-hearted
enough.”

“Oh, he is kind-hearted when he gets his own way. Give him his hobby and
he will never bother you. But he won't live in London, and he will not
consent to this salon you wish to institute.”

“Why not? It means fame to him. I shall gather round me all the
scientists of London and make my house a centre of interest. The
Professor can stop in his laboratory if he likes. As his wife, I can
do all that is necessary. Well, my dear”--Mrs. Jasher took a cup of
tea--“we need not talk the subject threadbare. You do not disapprove of
my marriage with your step-father, so you can leave the rest to me. If
you can give me a hint of how to proceed to bring about this marriage,
of course I am not above taking it.”

Lucy glanced at the tea-gown.

“As you will have to tell the Professor that your brother is dead to
account for possessing the money,” she said pointedly, “I should advise
you to go into mourning. Professor Braddock will be shocked otherwise.”

“Dear me, what a tender heart he must have!” said Mrs. Jasher
flippantly. “My brother was very little to me, poor man, so he cannot
be anything to the Professor. However, I shall adopt your advice, and,
after all, black suits me very well. There”--she swept her hands across
the tea-table--“that is settled. Now about yourself?”

“Archie and I marry in the springtime.”

“And your other admirer, who has come back?”

“Sir Frank Random?” said Lucy, coloring.

“Of course. He called to see me a day or so ago, and seems less
broken-hearted than he should be.”

Lucy nodded and colored still deeper.

“I suppose some other woman has consoled him.”

“Of course. Catch a modern man wearing the willow for any girl, however
dear. Are you angry?”

“Oh no, no.”

“Oh yes, yes, I think,” said the widow, laughing, “else you are no
woman, my dear. I know I should be angry to see a man get over his
rejection so rapidly.”

“Who is she?” asked Lucy abruptly.

“Donna Inez de Gayangos.”

“A Spaniard?”

“I believe so--a colonial Spaniard, at least--from Lima. Her father, Don
Pedro de Gayangos, met Sir Frank in Genoa by chance.”

“Well?” demanded Lucy impatiently.

Mrs. Jasher shrugged her plump shoulders.

“Well, my dear, can't you put two and two together. Of course Sir Frank
fell in love with this dark-hued angel.”

“Dark-hued! and I am light-haired. What a compliment!”

“Perhaps Sir Frank wanted a change. He played on white and lost, and
therefore stakes his money on black to win. That's the result of having
been at Monte Carlo. Besides, this young lady is rich, I understand, and
Sir Frank--so he told me--lost much more money at Monte Carlo than he
could afford. Well, you don't look pleased.”

Lucy roused herself from a fit of abstraction.

“Oh yes, I am pleased, of course. I suppose, as any woman would, I felt
rather hurt for the moment in being forgotten so soon. But, after all,
I can't blame Sir Frank for consoling himself. If I am married first,
he shall dance at my wedding: if he is married first, I shall dance at
his.”

“And you shall both dance at mine,” said Mrs. Jasher. “Why, there is
quite an epidemic of matrimony. Well, Donna Inez arrives here with her
father in a day, or so. They stop at the Warrior Inn, I believe.”

“That horrid place?”

“Oh, it is clean and respectable. Besides, Sir Frank can hardly ask
them to stop in the Fort, and I have no room in this bandbox of mine.
However, the two of them--Donna Inez and Frank, I mean--can come here
and flirt; so can you and Archie if you like.”

“I fear four people in this room would not do,” laughed Lucy, rising to
take her leave. “Well, I hope Sir Frank will marry this lady and that
you will become Mrs. Braddock. Only one thing I should like to know.”

“And that is?”

“Why was the mummy stolen. It was not valuable save to a scientist.”

“By that argument a scientist must be the murderer and thief,” said Mrs.
Jasher. “However, we shall see. Meanwhile, live every moment of love's
golden hours: they never return.”

“That is good advice; I shall take it and my leave,” said Lucy, and
departed in a very happy frame of mind.




CHAPTER X. THE DON AND HIS DAUGHTER


Professor Braddock was usually the most methodical of men, and timed his
life by the clock and the almanac. He rose at seven, summer and winter,
to partake of a hearty breakfast, which served him until dinner came at
five thirty. Braddock dined at this unusual hour--save when there was
company--as he did not eat any luncheon and scorned the very idea of
afternoon tea. Two meals a day, he maintained, was enough for any man
who led a sedentary life, as too much food was apt to clog the wheels of
the intellect. He usually worked in his museum--if the indulgence of his
hobby could be called work--from nine until four, after which hour he
took a short walk in the garden or through the village. On finishing his
dinner he would glance over some scientific publication, or perhaps,
by way of recreation, play a game or two of patience; but at seven he
invariably retired into his own rooms to renew work. Retirement to bed
took place at midnight, so it can be guessed that the Professor got
through an enormous quantity of work during the year. A more methodical
man, or a more industrious man did not exist.

But on occasions even this enthusiast wearied of his hobby, and of the
year's routine. A longing to see brother scientists of his own way of
thinking would seize him, and he would abruptly depart for London, to
occupy quiet lodgings, and indulge in intercourse with his fellow-men.
Braddock rarely gave early intimation of his urban nostalgia. At
breakfast he would suddenly announce that the fit took him to go to
London, and he would drive to Jessum along with Cockatoo to catch the
ten o'clock train to London. Sometimes he sent the Kanaka back; at
other times he would take him to town; but whether Cockatoo remained or
departed, the museum was always locked up lest it should be profaned by
the servants of the house. As a matter of fact, Braddock need not have
been afraid, for Lucy--knowing her step-father's whims and violent
temper--took care that the sanctity of the place should remain
inviolate.

Sometimes the Professor came back in a couple of days; at times his
absence would extend to a week; and on two or three occasions he
remained absent for a fortnight. But whenever he returned, he said very
little about his doings to Lucy, perhaps deeming that dry scientific
details would not appeal to a lively young lady. As soon as he was
established in his museum again, life at the Pyramids would resume
its usual routine, until Braddock again felt the want of a change. The
wonder was, considering the nature of his work, and the closeness of
his application, that he did not more often indulge in these Bohemian
wanderings.

Lucy, therefore, was not astonished when, on the morning after her visit
to Mrs. Jasher, the Professor announced in his usual abrupt way that
he intended to go to London, but would leave Cockatoo in charge of his
precious collection. She was somewhat disturbed, however, as, wishing to
forward the widow's matrimonial aims, she had invited her to dinner for
the ensuing night. This she told her step-father, and, rather to her
surprise, he expressed himself sorry that he could not remain.

“Mrs. Jasher,” said Braddock hastily, drinking his coffee, “is a very
sensible woman, who knows when to be silent.”

“She is also a good housekeeper, I believe,” hinted Miss Kendal
demurely.

“Eh, what? Well? Why do you say that?” snapped Braddock sharply.

Lucy fenced.

“Mrs. Jasher admires you, father.”

Braddock grunted, but did not seem displeased, since even a scientist
possessing the usual vanity of the male is not inaccessible to flattery.

“Did Mrs. Jasher tell you this?” he inquired, smiling complacently.

“Not in so many words. Still, I am a woman, and can guess how much
another woman leaves unsaid.” Lucy paused, then added significantly:
“I do not think that she is so very old, and you must admit that she is
wonderfully well preserved.”

“Like a mummy,” remarked the Professor absently; then pushed back his
chair to add briskly: “What does all this mean, you minx? I know that
the woman is all right so far as a woman can be: but her confounded age
and her looks and her unexpressed admiration. What are these to an old
man like myself?”

“Father,” said Lucy earnestly, “when I marry Archie I shall, in all
probability, leave Gartley for London.”

“I know--I know. Bless me, child, do you think that I have not thought
of that? If you were only wise, which you are not, you would marry
Random and remain at the Fort.”

“Sir Frank has other fish to fry, father. And even if I did remain at
the Fort as his wife, I still could not look after you.”

“Humph! I am beginning to see what you are driving at. But I can't
forget your mother, my dear. She was a good wife to me.”

“Still,” said Lucy coaxingly, and becoming more and more the champion of
Mrs. Jasher, “you cannot manage this large house by yourself. I do not
like to leave you in the hands of servants when I marry. Mrs. Jasher is
very domesticated and--”

“And would make a good housekeeper. No, no, I don't want to give you
another mother, child.”

“There is no danger of that, even if I did not marry,” rejoined Lucy
stiffly. “A girl can have only one mother.”

“And a man apparently can have two wives,” said Braddock with dry humor.
“Humph!”--he pinched his plump chin--“it's not a bad idea. But of course
I can't fall in love at my age.”

“I don't think that Mrs. Jasher asks for impossibilities.”

The Professor rose briskly.

“I'll think over it,” said he. “Meanwhile, I am going to London.”

“When will you be back, father?”

“I can't say. Don't ask silly questions. I dislike being bound to time.
I may be a week, and I may be only a few days. Things can go on here
as usual, but if Hope comes to see you, ask Mrs. Jasher in, to play
chaperon.”

Lucy consented to this suggestion, and Braddock went away to prepare for
his departure. To get him off the premises was like launching a ship,
as the entire household was at his swift heels, packing boxes, strapping
rugs, cutting sandwiches, helping him on with his overcoat and assisting
him into the trap, which had been hastily sent for to the Warrior Inn.
All the time Braddock talked and scolded and gave directions and
left instructions, until every one was quite bewildered. Lucy and the
servants all sighed with relief when they saw the trap disappear round
the end of the road in the direction of Jessum. In addition to being a
famous archaeologist, the Professor was assuredly a great nuisance to
those who had to do with his whims and fancies.

For the next two or three days Lucy enjoyed herself in a quiet way with
Archie. In spite of the lateness of the season, the weather was still
fine, and the artist took the opportunity of the pale sunshine to sketch
a great deal of the marsh scenery. Lucy attended him as a rule when he
went abroad, and sometimes Mrs. Jasher, voluble and merry, would come
along with them to play the part of chaperon. But the girl noticed
that Mrs. Jasher's merriment was forced at times, and in the searching
morning light she appeared to be quite old. Wrinkles showed themselves
on her plump face and weary lines appeared round her mouth. Also, she
was absent-minded while the lovers chattered, and, when spoken to, would
return to the present moment with a start. As the widow was now well off
as regards money, and as her scheme to marry Braddock was well on the
way to success--for Lucy had duly reported the Professor's attitude--it
was difficult to understand why Mrs. Jasher should look so worried. One
day Lucy spoke to her on the subject. Random had strolled across the
marshes to look at Hope sketch, and the two men chatted together, while
Miss Kendal led the little widow to one side.

“There is nothing the matter, I hope,” said Lucy gently.

“No. Why do you say that?” asked Mrs. Jasher, flushing.

“You have been looking worried for the last few days.”

“I have a few troubles,” sighed the widow--“troubles connected with the
estate of my late brother. The lawyers are very disagreeable and make
all sorts of difficulties to swell their costs. Then, strangely enough,
I am beginning to feel my brother's death more than I thought I should
have done. You see that I am in mourning, dear. After what you said
the other day I felt that it was wrong for me not to wear mourning. Of
course my poor brother and I were almost strangers. All the same, as
he has left me money and was my only relative, I think it right to show
some grief. I am a lonely woman, my dear.”

“When my father comes back you will no longer be lonely,” said Lucy.

“I hope not. I feel that I want a man to look after me. I told you that
I desired to marry the Professor for his possible title and in order
to form a salon and have some amusement and power. But also I want a
companion for my old age. There is no denying,” added Mrs. Jasher with
another sigh, “that I am growing old in spite of all the care I take.
I am grateful for your friendship, dear. At one time I thought that you
did not like me.”

“Oh, I think we get on very well together,” said Lucy somewhat
evasively, for she did not want to say that she would make the widow an
intimate friend, “and, as you know, I am quite pleased that you should
marry my step-father.”

“So pleasant to think that you look at my ambition in that light,” said
Mrs. Jasher, patting the girl's arm. “When does the Professor return?”

“I cannot say. He refused to fix a date. But he usually remains away
for a fortnight. I expect him back in that time, but he may come much
earlier. He will come back when the fancy takes him.”

“I shall alter all that, when we are married,” muttered Mrs. Jasher with
a frown. “He must be taught to be less selfish.”

“I fear you will never improve him in that respect,” said Lucy dryly,
and rejoined the gentlemen in time to hear Random mention the name of
Don Pedro de Gayangos.

“What is that, Sir Frank?” she asked.

Random turned toward her with his pleasant smile.

“My Spanish friend, whom I met at Genoa, is coming here to-morrow.”

“With his daughter?” questioned Mrs. Jasher roguishly.

“Of course,” replied the young soldier, coloring. “Donna Inez is quite
devoted to her father and never leaves him.”

“She will one day, I expect,” said Hope innocently, for his eyes were
on his sketch and not on Random's face, “when the husband of her choice
comes along.”

“Perhaps he has come along already,” tittered Mrs. Jasher significantly.

Lucy took pity on Random's confusion.

“Where will they stay?”

“At the Warrior Inn. I have engaged the best rooms in the place. I fancy
they will be comfortable there, as Mrs. Humber, the landlady, is a good
housekeeper and an excellent cook. And I don't think Don Pedro is hard
to please.”

“A Spaniard, you say,” remarked Archie idly. “Does he speak English?”

“Admirably--so does the daughter.”

“But why does a Spaniard come to so out-of-the-way a place?” asked Mrs.
Jasher, after a pause.

“I thought I told you the other day, when we spoke of the matter,”
 answered Sir Frank with surprise. “Don Pedro has come here to interview
Professor Braddock about that missing mummy.”

Hope looked up sharply.

“What does he know about the mummy?”

“Nothing so far as I know, save that he came to Europe with the
intention of purchasing it, and found himself forestalled by Professor
Braddock. Don Pedro told me no more than that.”

“Humph!” murmured Hope to himself. “Don Pedro will be disappointed when
he learns that the mummy is missing.”

Random did not catch the words and was about to ask him what he had
said, when two tall figures, conducted by a shorter one, were seen
moving on the white road which led to the Fort.

“Strangers!” said Mrs. Jasher, putting up her lorgnette, which she used
for effect, although she had remarkably keen sight.

“How do you know?” asked Lucy carelessly.

“My dear, look how oddly the man is dressed.”

“I can't tell at this distance,” said Lucy, “and if you can, Mrs. Jasher
I really do not see why you require glasses.”

Mrs. Jasher laughed at the compliment to her sight, and colored through
her rouge at the reproof to her vanity. Meanwhile, the smaller figure,
which was that of a village lad leading a tall gentleman and a slender
lady, pointed toward the group round Hope's easel. Shortly, the boy ran
back up to the village road, and the gentleman came along the pathway
with the lady. Random, who had been looking at them intently, suddenly
started, having at length recognized them.

“Don Pedro and his daughter,” he said in an astonished voice, and sprang
forward to welcome the unexpected visitors.

“Now, my dear,” whispered the widow in Lucy's ear, “we shall see the
kind of woman Sir Frank prefers to you.”

“Well, as Sir Frank has seen the kind of man I prefer to him,” retorted
Lucy, “that makes us quite equal.”

“I am glad these new-comers talk English,” said Hope, who had risen to
his feet. “I know nothing of Spanish.”

“They are not Spanish, but Peruvian,” said Mrs. Jasher.

“The language is the same, more or less. Confound it! here is Random
bringing them here. I wish he would take them to the Fort. There's no
more work for the next hour, I suppose,” and Hope, rather annoyed, began
to pack his artistic traps.

On a nearer view, Don Pedro proved to be a tall, lean, dry man, not
unlike Dore's conception of Don Quixote. He must have had Indian blood
in his veins, judging from his very dark eyes, his stiff, lank hair,
worn somewhat long, and his high cheek-bones. Also, although he was
arrayed in puritanic black, his barbaric love of color betrayed itself
in a red tie and in a scarlet handkerchief which was twisted loosely
round a soft slouch hat, It was the hat and the brilliant red of tie and
handkerchief which had caught Mrs. Jasher's eye at so great a distance,
and which had led her to pronounce the man a stranger, for Mrs. Jasher
well knew that no Englishman would affect such vivid tints. All the
same, in spite of this eccentricity, Don Pedro looked a thorough
Castilian gentleman, and bowed gravely when presented to the ladies by
Random.

“Mrs. Jasher, Miss Kendal, permit me to present Don Pedro de Gayangos.”

“I am charmed,” said the Peruvian, bowing, hat in hand, “and in turn,
allow me, ladies, to introduce my daughter, Donna Inez de Gayangos.”

Archie was also presented to the Don and to the young lady, after which
Lucy and Mrs. Jasher, while not appearing to look, made a thorough
examination of the lady with whom Random was in love. No doubt Donna
Inez was making an examination on her own account, and with the
cleverness of the sex the three women, while chatting affably, learned
all that there was to be learned from the outward appearance of each
other in three minutes. Miss Kendal could not deny but what Donna Inez
was very beautiful, and frankly admitted--inwardly, of course--her own
inferiority. She was merely pretty, whereas the Peruvian lady was truly
handsome and quite majestic in appearance.

Yet about Donna Inez there was the same indefinite barbaric look
as characterized her father. Her face was lovely, dark and proud in
expression, but there was an aloofness about it which puzzled the
English girl. Donna Inez might have belonged to a race populating
another planet of the solar system. She had large black, melting eyes,
a straight Greek nose and perfect mouth, a well-rounded chin and
magnificent hair, dark and glossy as the wing of the raven, which was
arranged in the latest Parisian style of coiffure. Also, her gown--as
the two women guessed in an instant--was from Paris. She was perfectly
gloved and booted, and even if she betrayed somehow a barbaric taste for
color in the dull ruddy hue of her dress, which was subdued with black
braid, yet she looked quite a well-bred woman. All the same, her whole
appearance gave an observant onlooker the idea that she would be more
at home in a scanty robe and glittering with rudely wrought ornaments of
gold. Perhaps Peru, where she came from, suggested the comparison, but
Lucy's thoughts flew back to an account of the Virgins of the Sun, which
the Professor had once described. It occurred to her, perhaps wrongly,
that in Donna Inez she beheld one who in former days would have been the
bride of some gorgeous Inca.

“I fear you will find England dull after the sunshine of Lima,” said
Lucy, having ended a swift examination.

Donna Inez shivered a trifle and glanced around at the gray misty air
through which the pale sunshine struggled with difficulty.

“I certainly prefer the tropics to this,” she said in musical English,
“but my father has come down here on business, and until it is concluded
we shall remain in this place.”

“Then we must make things as bright as possible for you,” said Mrs.
Jasher cheerfully, and desperately anxious to learn more of the
new-comers. “You must come to see me, Donna Inez--yonder is my cottage.”

“Thank you, madame: you are very good.”

Meanwhile Don Pedro was talking to the two young men.

“Yes, I did arrive here earlier than I expected,” he was remarking, “but
I have to return to Lima shortly, and I wish to get my business with
Professor Braddock finished as speedily as possible.”

“I am sorry,” said Lucy politely, “but my father is absent.”

“And when will he return, Miss Kendal?”

“I can scarcely say--in a week or a fortnight.”

Don Pedro made a gesture of annoyance.

“It is a pity, as I am so very pressed for time. Still, I must remain
until the Professor returns. I am so anxious to hear if the mummy has
been found.”

“It is not found yet,” said Hope quickly, “and never will be.”

Don Pedro looked at him quietly.

“It must be found,” said he. “I have come all the way from Lima to
obtain it. When you hear my story you will not be surprised at my desire
to regain the mummy.”

“Regain it?” echoed Hope and Random in one breath.

Don Pedro nodded.

“The mummy was stolen from my father,” he said.




CHAPTER XI. THE MANUSCRIPT


It was certainly strange how constantly the subject of the missing
mummy came uppermost. Since it had disappeared and since the man who had
brought it to England was dead, it might have been thought that nothing
more would be said about the matter. But Professor Braddock harped
incessantly on his loss--which was perhaps natural--and Widow Anne also
talked a great deal as to the possibility of the mummy, being found,
as she hoped to learn by that means the name of the assassin who had
strangled her poor boy. Now Don Pedro de Gayangos appeared with the
strange information that the weird relic of Peruvian civilization had
been stolen from his father. Apparently fate was not inclined to let the
matter of the lost mummy drop, and was working round to a denouement,
which would possibly include the solution of the mystery of Sidney
Bolton's death. Yet, on the face of it, there appeared to be no chance
of the truth becoming known.

Of course, when Don Pedro announced that the Mummy had formerly belonged
to his father, every one was anxious to hear how it had been stolen. The
Gayangos family were established in Lima, and the embalmed body of Inca
Caxas had been purchased from a gentleman residing in Malta. How, then,
had it crossed the water, and how had Don Pedro learned its whereabouts,
only to arrive too late to secure his missing property? Mrs. Jasher was
especially anxious to learn these things, and explained her reasons to
Lucy.

“You see, my dear,” she said to the girl on the day after Don Pedro's
arrival in Gartley, “if we learn the past of that horrid mummy, we may
gain a clue to the person who desired possession of the nasty thing, and
so may hunt down this terrible criminal. Once he is found, the mummy may
be secured again, and should I be able to return it to your father, out
of gratitude he would certainly marry me.”

“You seem to think that the assassin is a man,” said Lucy dryly; “yet
you forget that the person who talked to Sidney through the window of
the Sailor's Rest was a woman.”

“An old woman,” emphasized Mrs. Jasher briskly: “quite so.”

Lucy contradicted.

“Eliza Flight did not say if the woman was old or young, but merely
stated that she wore a dark dress and a dark shawl over her head. Still,
this mysterious woman was connected in some way with the murder, else
she would not have been speaking to Sidney.”

“I don't follow you, my dear. You talk as though poor Mr. Bolton
expected to be murdered. For my part, I hold by the verdict of wilful
murder against some person or persons unknown. The truth is to be found,
if anywhere, in the past of the mummy.”

“We can discover nothing about that.”

“You forget what Don Pedro said, my dear,” remarked Mrs. Jasher hastily,
“that the mummy had been stolen from his father. Let us hear what he has
to say and we may find a clue. I am anxious that the Professor should
regain the green mummy for reasons which you know of. And now, my hear,
can you come to dinner to-night?”

“Well, I don't know.” Miss Kendal hesitated. “Archie said that he would
look in this evening.”

“I shall ask Mr. Hope also, my love. Don Pedro is coming and his
daughter likewise. Needless to say Sir Frank will follow the young lady.
We shall be a party of six, and after dinner we must induce Don Pedro to
relate the story of how the mummy was stolen.”

“He may not be inclined.”

“Oh, I think so,” replied; Mrs. Jasher quickly. “He wants to get the
mummy back again, and if we discuss the subject we may see some chance
of securing it.”

“But Don Pedro will not wish it to be restored to my father.”

Mrs. Jasher shrugged her plump shoulders.

“Your father and Don Pedro can arrange that themselves. All I desire is,
that the mummy should be found. Undoubtedly it belongs by purchase to
the Professor, but as it has been stolen, this Peruvian gentleman may
claim it. Well?”

“I shall come and Archie also,” assented Lucy, who was beginning to be
interested in the matter. “The affair is somewhat romantic.”

“Criminal, my dear, criminal,” said Mrs. Jasher, rising to take her
leave. “It is not a matter I care to mix myself up with. Still”--she
laughed--“you know, why I am doing so.”

“If I had to take all this trouble to gain a husband,” observed Lucy
somewhat acidly, “I should remain single all my life.”

“If you were as lonely as I am,” retorted the plump widow, “you would
do your best to secure a man toy look after you. I should prefer a young
and handsomer husband--such as Sir Frank Random, for instance but, as
beggars cannot be choosers, I must content myself with old age, a famous
scientist, and the chance of a possible title. Now mind, dear, to-night
at seven--not a minute later,” and she bustled away to prepare for the
reception of her guests.

It seemed to Lucy that Mrs. Jasher was taking a great deal of trouble to
become Mrs. Braddock, especially as the Professor's brother might live
for many a long day yet, in which case the widow would not gain the
title she coveted for years. However, the girl rather sympathized
with Mrs. Jasher, who was a companionable soul, and fond of society.
Circumstances condemned her to a somewhat lonely life in an isolated
cottage in a rather dull neighborhood, so it was little to be wondered
at that she should strive to move heaven and earth--as she was doing--in
the hope of escaping from her solitude. Besides, although Miss Kendal
did not wish to make a close companion of the widow, yet she did not
dislike her, and, moreover, thought that she would make Professor
Braddock a very presentable wife. Thinking thus, Lucy was quite willing
to forward Mrs. Jasher's plans by inducing Don Pedro to tell all he knew
about this missing mummy.

Thus it came about that six people assembled in the tiny pink parlor
of Mrs. Jasher at the hour of seven o'clock. It required dexterous
management to seat the whole company in the dining room, which was only
a trifle larger than the parlor. However, Mrs. Jasher contrived to place
them round her hospitable board in, a fairly comfortable fashion, and,
once seated, the dinner was so good that no one felt the drawbacks of
scanty elbow room. The widow, as hostess, was placed at the head of the
table; Don Pedro, as the eldest of the men, at the foot; and Sir Frank,
with Donna Inez, faced Archie and Lucy Kendal. Jane, who was well
instructed in waiting by her mistress, attended to her duties admirably,
acting both as footman and butler. Lucy, indeed, had offered Mrs. Jasher
the services of Cockatoo to hand round the wine, but the widow with a
pretty shudder had declined.

“That dreadful creature with his yellow mop of hair gives me the
shivers,” she declared.

Considering the isolation of the district, and the narrow limits of Mrs.
Jasher's income, the meal was truly, admirable, being well cooked and
well served, while the table was arrayed like an altar for the reception
of the various dishes. Whatever Mrs. Jasher might be as an adventuress,
she certainly proved herself to be a capital housekeeper, and Lucy
foresaw that, if she did become Mrs. Braddock, the Professor would fare
sumptuously, for the rest of his scientific life. When the meal was
ended the widow produced a box of superfine cigars and another of
cigarettes, after which she left the gentlemen to sip their wine, and
took her two young friends to chatter chiffons in the tiny parlor. And
it said much for Mrs. Jasher's methodical ways that, considering the
limited space, everything went--as the saying goes--like clockwork.
Likewise, the widow had proved herself a wonderful hostess, as she
kept the ball of conversation rolling briskly and induced a spirit of
fraternity, uncommon in an ordinary dinner party.

During the meal Mrs. Jasher had kept off the subject of the mummy, which
was the excuse for the entertainment; but when the gentlemen strolled
into the parlor, feeling well fed and happy, she hinted at Don Pedro's
quest. As the night was cold and the Peruvian gentleman came from the
tropics, he was established in a well padded arm-chair close to the
sea-coal fire, and with her own fair hands Mrs. Jasher gave him a cup of
fragrant coffee, which was rendered still more agreeable to the palate
by the introduction of a vanilla bean. With this and with a good
cigar--for the ladies gave the gentlemen permission to smoke--Don Pedro
felt very happy and easy, and complimented Mrs. Jasher warmly on her
capability of making her fellow-creatures comfortable.

“It is altogether comfortable, madame,” said Don Pedro, rising to make
a courtly bow. In fact, so agreeable was the foreigner that Mrs. Jasher
dreamed for one swift moment of throwing over the dry-as-dust scientist
to become a Spanish lady of Lima.

“You flatter me, Don Pedro,” she said, waving a wholly unnecessary fan
out of compliment to her guest's Spanish extraction. “Indeed, I am very
glad that you are pleased with my poor little house.”

“Pardon, madame, but no house can be poor when it is a casket to contain
such a jewel.”

“There!” said Lucy somewhat satirically to the young men, while
Mrs. Jasher blushed and bridled, “what Englishman could turn such a
compliment? It reminds one of Georgian times.”

“We are more sober now than my fathers were then,” said Hope, smiling,
“and I am sure if Random thought for a few minutes he could produce
something pretty. Go on, Random.”

“My brain is not equal to the strain after dinner,” said Sir Frank.

As for Donna Inez, she did not speak, but sat smiling quietly in her
corner of the room, looking remarkably handsome. As a young girl Lucy
was pretty, and Mrs. Jasher was a comely widow, but neither one had the
majestic looks of the Spanish lady. She smiled, a veritable queen amidst
the gim-crack ornaments of Mrs. Jasher's parlor, and Sir Frank, who was
fathoms deep in love, could not keep his eyes off her face.

For a few minutes the conversation was frivolous, quite the Shakespeare
and musical glasses kind of speech. Then Mrs. Jasher, who had no idea
that her good dinner should be wasted in charming nothings, introduced
the subject of the mummy by a reference to Professor Braddock. It was
characteristic of her cleverness that she did not address Don Pedro, but
pointed her speech at Lucy Kendal.

“I do hope your father will return with that mummy,” she observed, after
a dexterous allusion to the late tragedy.

“I don't think he has gone to look for it,” replied Miss Kendal
indifferently.

“But surely he desired to get it back, after paying nearly one thousand
pounds for it,” said Mrs. Jasher, with well-feigned astonishment.

“Oh, of course; but he would scarcely look for it in London.”

“Has Professor Braddock gone to search for the mummy?” asked Don Pedro.

“No,” answered Lucy. “He is visiting the British Museum to make some
researches in the Egyptian department.”

“When do you expect him back, please?”

Lucy shrugged her shoulders.

“I can't say, Don Pedro. My father comes and goes as the whim takes
him.”

The Spanish gentleman looked thoughtfully into the fire.

“I shall be glad to see the Professor when he returns,” he said in his
excellent, slow-sounding English. “My concern about this mummy is deep.”

“Dear me,” remarked Mrs. Jasher, shielding her fair cheek with the
unnecessary fan, and venturing on a joke, “is the mummy a relative?”

“Yes, madame,” replied Don Pedro, gravely and unexpectedly.

At this every one, very naturally, looked astonished--that is, all save
Donna Inez, who still preserved her fixed smile. Mrs. Jasher took a
mental note of the same, and decided that the young lady was not very
intelligent. Meanwhile Don Pedro continued his speech after a glance
round the circle.

“I have the blood of the royal Inca race in my veins,” he said with
pride.

“Ha!” murmured the widow to herself, “then that accounts for your love
of color, which is so un-English;” then she raised her voice. “Tell us
all about it, Don Pedro,” she entreated; “we are usually so dull here
that a romantic story excites us dreadfully.”

“I do not know that it is very romantic,” said Don Pedro with a polite
smile, “and if you will not find it dull--”

“Oh, no!” said Archie, who was as anxious as Mrs. Jasher to hear what
was to be said about the mummy. “Come, sir, we are all attention.”

Don Pedro bowed again, and again swept the circle with his deep-set
eyes.

“The Inca Caxas,” he remarked, “was one of the decadent rulers of
ancient Peru. At the Conquest by the Spaniards, Inca Atahuallpa was
murdered by Pizarro, as you probably know. Inca Toparca succeeded him as
a puppet king. He died also, and it was suspected that he was slain by
a native chief called Challcuchima. Then Manco succeeded, and is looked
upon by historians as the last Inca of Peru. But he was not.”

“This is news, indeed,” said Random lazily. “And who was the last Inca?”

“The man who is now the green mummy.”

“Inca Caxas,” ventured Lucy timidly.

Don Pedro looked at her sharply. “How do you come to know the name?”

“You mentioned it just now, but, before that, I heard my father mention
it,” said Lucy, who was surprised at the sharpness of his tone.

“And where did the Professor learn the name?” asked Don Pedro anxiously.

Lucy shook her head.

“I cannot say. But go on with the story,” she continued, with the naive
curiosity of a child.

“Yes, do,” pleaded Mrs. Jasher, who was listening with all her ears.

The Peruvian meditated for a few minutes, then slipped his hand into the
pocket of his coat and brought out a discolored parchment, scrawled and
scribbled with odd-looking letters in purple ink somewhat faded.

“Did you ever see this before?” he asked Lucy, “or any manuscript like
it?”

“No,” she answered, bending forward to examine the parchment carefully.

Don Pedro again swept an inquiring eye round the circle, but everyone
denied having seen the manuscript.

“What is it?” asked Sir Frank curiously.

Don Pedro restored the manuscript to his pocket.

“It is an account of the embalming of Inca Caxas, written by his son,
who was my ancestor.”

“Then you are descended from this Inca?” said Mrs. Jasher eagerly.

“I am. Had I my rights I should rule Peru. As it is, I am a poor
gentleman with very little money. That,” added Don Pedro with emphasis,
“is why I wish to recover the mummy of my great ancestor.”

“Is it then so valuable?” asked Archie suddenly. He was thinking of some
reason why the mummy should have been stolen.

“Well, in itself it is of no great value, save to an archaeologist,” was
Don Pedro's reply; “but I had better tell you the story of how it was
stolen from my father.”

“Go on, go on,” cried Mrs. Jasher. “This is most interesting.”

Don Pedro plunged into his story without further preamble.

“Inca Caxas held his state amidst the solitudes of the Andes, away from
the cruel men who had conquered his country. He died and was buried.
This manuscript,”--he touched his pocket--“was written by his son, and
details the ceremonies, the place of sepulchre, and also gives a list of
the jewels with which the mummy was buried.”

“Jewels,” murmured Hope under his breath. “I thought as much.”

“The son of Inca Caxas married a Spanish lady and made peace with the
Spaniards. He came to live at Cuzco, and brought with him, for some
purpose which the manuscript does not disclose, the mummy of his father.
But the manuscript was lost for years, and although my family--the De
Gayangoses--became poor, no member of it knew that, concealed in the
corpse of Inca Caxas, were two large emeralds of immense value. The
mummy of our royal ancestor was treated as a sacred thing and venerated
accordingly. Afterwards my family came to live at Lima, and I still
dwell in the old house.”

“But how was the mummy stolen from you?” asked Random curiously.

“I am coming to that,” said Don Pedro, frowning at the interruption.
“I was not in Lima at the time; but I had met the man who stole the
precious mummy.”

“Was he a Spaniard?”

“No,” answered Don Pedro slowly, “he was an English sailor called Vasa.”

“Vasa is a Swedish name,” observed Hope critically.

“This man said that he was English, and certainly spoke like an
Englishman, so far as I, a foreigner, can tell. At that time, when I was
a young man, civil war raged in Peru. My father's house was sacked, and
this Vasa, who had been received hospitably by my father when he was
shipwrecked at Callao, stole the mummy, of Inca Caxas. My father died of
grief and charged me to get the mummy back. When peace was restored to
my unhappy country I tried to recover the venerated body of my ancestor.
But all search proved vain, as Vasa had disappeared, and it was supposed
that, for some reason, he had taken the embalmed body out of the
country. It was when the mummy was lost that I unexpectedly came across
the manuscript, which detailed the funeral ceremonies of Inca Caxas,
and on learning about the two emeralds I was naturally more anxious than
ever to discover the mummy and retrieve my fallen fortunes by means
of the jewels. But, as I said, all search proved vain, and I afterward
married, thinking to settle down on what fortune remained to me. I did
live quietly in Lima for years until my wife died. Then with my daughter
I came to Europe on a visit.”

“To search for the mummy?” questioned Archie eagerly.

“No, sir. I had given up all hope of finding that. But chance placed a
clue in my hands. At Genoa I came across a newspaper, which stated that
a mummy in a green case--and a Peruvian mummy at that--was for sale
at Malta. I immediately made inquiries, thinking that this was the
long-lost body of Inca Caxas. But it so happened that I was too late,
as already the mummy had been sold to Professor Braddock, and had been
taken to England on board The Diver by Mr. Bolton. Chance, which had
pointed out the whereabouts of the mummy, also brought me at Genoa
into relations with Sir Frank Random”--Don Pedro bowed his head to
the baronet--“and, as it appeared that he knew Professor Braddock, I
thankfully accepted his offer to introduce me. Hence I am here, but only
to hear that the mummy is again lost. That is all,” and the Peruvian
gentleman dramatically waved his arm.

“A strange story,” said Archie, who was the first to speak, “and it
certainly solves at least one part of the mystery.”

“What is that?” demanded Mrs. Jasher quickly.

“It shows that the mummy was stolen on account of the emeralds.”

“Pardon me, but that is impossible, sir,” said Don Pedro, drawing up his
lean figure. “No one but myself knew that the mummy held two emeralds
in its dead hands, and I learned that only a few years ago from the
manuscript which I had the honor of showing you.”

“There is that objection assuredly,” replied Hope with composure. “Yet
I can hardly believe that any man would risk his neck to steal so
remarkable a mummy, which he would have a difficulty in disposing of.
But did this assassin know of the emeralds, he would venture much to
gain them, since jewels can be disposed of with comparative ease, and
cannot easily be traced.”

“All the same,” said Random, looking up, “I do not see how the assassin
could have learned that the jewels were wrapped in the bandages.”

“Humph!” said Hope, glancing at De Gayangos, “perhaps there is more than
one copy of this manuscript you speak of.”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“The sailor Vasa might have copied it.”

“No.” Don Pedro shook his head. “It is written in Latin, since a Spanish
priest taught the son of Inca Caxas, who wrote it, that language. I do
not think that Vasa knew Latin. Also, if Vasa had copied the manuscript,
he would have stripped the mummy to procure the jewels. Now, in the
newspaper advertisement it stated that the bandages of the mummy were
intact, as also was the verdant case. No,” said Don Pedro decisively, “I
am quite of opinion that Vasa, and indeed everyone else, was ignorant of
this manuscript.”

“It seems to me,” suggested Mrs. Jasher, “that it would be best to find
this sailor.”

“That,” remarked De Gayangos, “is impossible. It is twenty years since
he disappeared with the mummy. Let us drop the subject until Professor
Braddock returns to discuss it with me.” And this was accordingly done.


CHAPTER XII. A DISCOVERY


Three days went by, and Professor Braddock still remained absent in
London, although an occasional letter to Lucy requested such and such an
article from the museum to be forwarded, sometimes by post and on other
occasions by Cockatoo, who traveled up to town especially. The Kanaka
always returned with the news that his master was looking well, but
brought no word of the Professor's return. Lucy was not surprised, as
she was accustomed to Braddock's vagaries.

Meanwhile Don Pedro, comfortably established at the Warrior Inn,
wandered about Gartley in his dignified way, taking very little interest
in the village, but a great deal in the Pyramids. As the Professor was
absent, Lucy could not ask him to dinner, but she did invite him and
Donna Inez to afternoon tea. Don Pedro was anxious to peep into the
museum, but Cockatoo absolutely refused to let him enter, saying that
his master had forbidden anyone to view the collection during his
absence. And in this refusal Cockatoo was supported by Miss Kendal, who
had a wholesome dread of her step-father's rage, should he return and
find that a stranger had been making free of his sacred apartments. The
Peruvian gentleman expressed himself extremely disappointed, so much
so, indeed, that Lucy fancied he believed Braddock had the green mummy
hidden in the museum, in spite of the reported loss from the Sailor's
Rest.

Failing to get permission to range through the rooms of the Pyramids,
Don Pedro paid occasional visits to Pierside and questioned the police
regarding the Bolton murder. From Inspector Date he learned nothing of
any importance, and indeed that officer expressed his belief that not
until the Day of judgment would the truth become known. It then occurred
to De Gayangos to explore the neighborhood of the Sailor's Rest, and
to examine that public-house himself. He saw the famous window through
which the mysterious woman had talked to the deceased, and noted that
it looked across a stony, narrow path to the water's edge, wherefrom a
rugged jetty ran out into the stream for some little distance. Nothing
would have been easier, reflected Don Pedro, than for the assassin to
enter by the window, and, having accomplished his deed, to leave in the
same way, bearing the case containing the mummy. A few steps would carry
the man and his burden to a waiting boat, and once the craft slipped
into the mists on the river, all trace would be lost, as had truly
happened. In this way the Peruvian gentleman believed the murder and the
theft had been accomplished, but even supposing things had happened as
he surmised, still, he was as far as ever from unraveling the mystery.

While Don Pedro searched for his royal ancestor's corpse, and
incidentally for the thief and murderer, his daughter was being wooed by
Sir Frank Random. Heaven only knows what he saw in her--as Lucy observed
to young Hope--for the girl had not a word to say for herself. She was
undeniably handsome, and dressed with great taste, save for stray
hints of barbaric delight in color, doubtless inherited from her Inca
ancestors. All the same, she appeared to be devoid of small talk or
great talk, or any talk whatsoever. She sat and smiled and looked like
a handsome picture, but after her appearance had satisfied the eye,
she left much to be desired. Yet Sir Frank approved of her stately
quietness, and seemed anxious to make her his wife. Lucy, in spite of
the fact that he had so speedily got over her refusal to marry him, was
anxious that he should be happy with Donna Inez, whom he appeared to
love, and afforded him every opportunity of meeting the lady, so that
he might prosecute his wooing. All the same, she wondered that he should
desire to marry an iceberg, and Donna Inez, with her silent tongue and
cold smiles, was little else. However, as Frank Random was the
chief party concerned in the love-making--for Donna Inez was merely
passive--there was no more to be said.

Sometimes Hope came to dine at the Pyramids, and on these occasions
Mrs. Jasher was present in her character of chaperon. As Miss Kendal was
helping the widow to marry Professor Braddock, she in her turn did her
best to speed Archie's wooing. Certainly the young couple were engaged
and there was no understanding to be brought about. Nevertheless, Mrs.
Jasher was a useful article of furniture to be in the room when they
were together, for Gartley, like all English villages, was filled with
scandalmongers, who would have talked, had Hope and Lucy not employed
Mrs. Jasher as gooseberry. Sometimes Donna Inez came with the widow,
while her father was hunting for the mummy in Pierside, and then Sir
Frank Random would be sure to put in an appearance to woo his Dulcinea
in admiring silence. Mrs. Jasher declared that the two must have made
love by telepathy, for they rarely exchanged a word. But this was all
the better, as Archie and Lucy chattered a great deal, and two pair of
magpies--Mrs. Jasher declared--would have been too much for her nerves.
She made a very good chaperon, as she allowed the young people to act as
they pleased, only sanctioning the meetings by her elderly presence.

One evening Mrs. Jasher was due to dinner, and Hope had already arrived.
No one else was expected, as Don Pedro had taken his daughter to the
theatre at Pierside and Sir Frank had gone to London in connection with
his military duties. It was a bitterly cold night, and already a fall
of snow had hinted that there was to be a real English Christmas of
the genuine kind. Lucy had prepared an excellent dinner for three, and
Archie had brought a set of new patience cards for Mrs. Jasher, who was
fond of the game. While the widow played, the lovers hoped to make love
undisturbed, and looked forward to a happy evening. But there was one
drawback, for although the dinner hour was supposed to be eight o'clock,
and it was now thirty minutes past, Mrs. Jasher had not arrived. Lucy
was dismayed.

“What can be keeping her?” she asked Archie, to which that young
gentleman replied that he did not know, and, what was more, he did not
care. Miss Kendal very properly rebuked this sentiment. “You ought to
care, Archie, for you know that if Mrs. Jasher does not come to dinner,
you will have to go away.”

“Why should I?” he inquired sulkily.

“People will talk.”

“Let them. I don't care.”

“Neither do I, you stupid boy. But my father will care, and if people
talk he will be very angry.”

“My dear Lucy,” and Archie put his arm round her waist to say this, “I
don't see why you should be afraid of the Professor. He is only your
step-father, and you aren't so very fond of him as to mind what he says.
Besides, we can marry soon, and then he can go hang.”

“But I don't want him to go hang,” she replied, laughing. “After all,
the Professor has always been kind to me, and as a step-father has
behaved very well, when he could easily have made himself disagreeable.
Another thing is that he can be very bad tempered when he likes, and if
I let people talk about us--which they will do if they get a chance--he
will behave so coldly to me, that I shall have a disagreeable time. As
we can't marry for ever so long, I don't want to be uncomfortable.”

“We can marry whenever you like,” said Hope unexpectedly.

“What, with your income so unsettled?”

“It is not unsettled.”

“Yes, it is. You will help that horrid spendthrift uncle of yours, and
until he and his family are solvent I don't see how we can be sure of
our money.”

“We are sure of it now, dearest. Uncle Simon has turned up trumps after
all, and so have his investments.”

“What do you mean exactly?”

“I mean that yesterday I received a letter from him saying that he was
now rich, and would pay back all I had lent him. I went up to London
to-day, and had an interview. The result of that is that I am some
thousands to the good, that Uncle Simon is well off for the rest of his
life and will require no more assistance, and that my three hundred a
year is quite clear for ever and ever and ever.”

“Then we can marry,” cried Miss Kendal with a gasp of delight.

“Whenever you choose--next week if you like.”

“In January then--just after Christmas. We'll go on a trip to Italy and
return to take a flat in London. Oh, Archie, I am sorry I thought so
badly of your uncle. He has behaved very well. And what a mercy it is
that he will require no more assistance! You are sure he will not.”

“If he does, he won't get it,” said Hope candidly. “While I was a
bachelor I could assist him; but when I am married I must look after
myself and my wife.” He gave Lucy a hug. “It's all right now, dear,
and Uncle Simon has behaved excellently--far better than I expected.
We shall go to Italy for the honeymoon and need not hurry back until
we--well, say until we quarrel.”

“In that case we shall live in Italy for the rest of our lives,” said
Lucy with twinkling eyes; “but we must come back in a year and take a
studio in Chelsea.”

“Why not in Gartley? Remember, the Professor will be lonely.”

“No, he won't. Mrs. Jasher, as I told you, intends to marry him.”

“He might not wish to marry her”

“That doesn't matter,” rejoined Lucy, with the cleverness of a woman.
“She can manage to bring the marriage about. Besides, I want to break
with the old life here, and begin quite a new one with you. When I
am your wife and Mrs. Jasher is my step-father's, everything will be
capitally arranged.”

“Well, I hope so,” said Archie heartily, “for I want you all to myself
and have no desire to share you with anyone else. But I say,” he glanced
at his watch; “it is getting towards nine o'clock, and I am desperately
hungry. Can't we go to dinner?”

“Not until Mrs. Jasher arrives,” said Lucy primly.

“Oh, bother--!”

Hope, being quite exasperated with hunger, would have launched out into
a speech condemning the widow's unpunctuality, when in the hall below
the drawing-room was heard the sound of the door opening and closing.
Without doubt this was Mrs. Jasher arriving at last, and Lucy ran out
of the room and down the stairs to welcome her in her eagerness to get
Archie seated at the dinner table. The young man lingered by the open
door of the drawing-room, ready to welcome the widow, when he heard Lucy
utter an exclamation of surprise and became aware that she was ascending
the stairs along with Professor Braddock. At once he reflected there
would be trouble, since he was in the house with Lucy, and lacked the
necessary chaperon which Braddock's primitive Anglo-Saxon instincts
insisted upon.

“I did not know you were returning to-night,” Lucy was saying when she
re-entered the drawing-room with her step-father.

“I arrived by the six o'clock train,” explained the Professor, unwinding
a large red scarf from his neck, and struggling out of his overcoat with
the assistance of his daughter. “Ha, Hope, good evening.”

“Where have you been since?” asked Lucy, throwing the Professor's coat
and wraps on to a chair.

“With Mrs. Jasher,” said Braddock, warming his plump hands at the fire.
“So you must blame me that she is not here to preside at dinner as the
chaperon of you young people.”

Lucy and her lover glanced at one another in surprise. This light and
airy tone was a new one for the Professor to take. Instead of being
angry, he seemed to be unusually gay, and looked at them in quite a
jocular manner for a dry-as-dust scientist.

“We waited dinner for her, father,” ventured Lucy timidly.

“Then I am ready to eat it,” announced Braddock. “I am extremely hungry,
my dear. I can't live on love, you know.”

“Live on love?” Lucy stared, and Archie laughed quietly.

“Oh yes, you may smile and look astonished;” went on the Professor
good-humoredly, “but science does not destroy the primeval instincts
entirely. Lucy, my dear,” he took her hand and patted it, “while in
London and in lodgings, it was borne in upon me forcibly how lonely I
was and how lonely I would be when you married our young friend yonder.
I had intended to come down to-morrow, but to-night, such was my feeling
of loneliness that I considered favorably your idea that I should find a
second helpmate in Mrs. Jasher. I have always had a profound admiration
for that lady, and so--on the spur of the moment, as I may say--I
decided to come down this evening and propose.”

“Oh,” Lucy clapped her hands, very well satisfied with the unexpected
news, “and have you?”

“Mrs. Jasher,” said the Professor gravely, “did me the honor to promise
to become my wife this evening.”

“She will become your wife this evening?” said Archie, smiling.

Braddock, with one of those odd twists of humor which were
characteristic of him, became irascible.

“Confound it, sir, don't I speak English,” he snapped, with his eyes
glaring rebuke. “She promised this evening to become Mrs. Braddock.
We shall marry--so we have arranged--in the springtime, which is the
natural pairing season for human beings as well as for birds. And I am
glad to say that Mrs. Jasher takes a deep interest in archaeology.”

“And, what is more, she is a splendid housekeeper,” said Lucy.

The temporary anger of the Professor vanished. He drew his step-daughter
towards him and kissed her on the cheek.

“I believe that I have to thank you for putting the idea into my head,”
 said he, “and also--if Mrs. Jasher is to be believed--for aiding her
to see the mutual advantage it would be to both of us to marry. Ha,” he
released Lucy and rubbed his hands, “let us go to dinner.”

“I am very glad,” said Miss Kendal heartily.

“So am I, so am I,” replied Braddock, nodding. “As you very truly
observed, my child, the house would have gone to rack and ruin without
a woman to look after my interests. Well,” he took the arms of the two
young people, “I really think that we must have a bottle of champagne on
the strength of it.”

Shortly the trio were seated at the table, and Braddock explained that
Mrs. Jasher, being overcome by his proposal, had not been able to face
the ordeal of congratulations.

“But she will come to-morrow,” said he, as Cockatoo filled three
glasses.

“Indeed, I shall congratulate her to-night,” said Lucy obstinately. “As
soon as dinner is over, I shall go with Archie to her house, and tell
her how pleased I am.”

“It is very cold for you to be out, Lucy dear,” urged Archie anxiously.

“Oh, I can wrap up warmly,” she answered.

Strange to say, the Professor made no objection to the excursion,
although Hope quite expected such a stickler for etiquette to refuse
permission to his step-daughter. But Braddock seemed rather pleased
than otherwise. His proposal of marriage seemed to have put him into
excellent humor, and he raised his glass with a chuckle.

“I drink to your happiness, my dear Lucy, and to that of Mrs. Jasher's.”

“And I drink to Archie's and to yours, father,” she replied. “I am glad
that you will not be lonely when we are married. Archie and I wish to
become one in January.”

“Yes,” said Hope, finishing his champagne, “my income is now all right,
as my uncle has paid up.”

“Very good, very good. I make no objection,” said Braddock placidly. “I
will give you a handsome wedding present, Lucy, for you may have heard
that my future wife has money left to her by her brother, who was lately
a merchant in Pekin. She is heart and hand with me in our proposed
expedition to Egypt.”

“Will you go there for the honeymoon, sir?” asked Hope.

“Not exactly for the honeymoon, since we are to be married in spring,
and my expedition to the tomb of Queen Tahoser cannot start until the
late autumn. But Mrs. Braddock will come with me. That is only just,
since it will be her money which will furnish the sinews of war.”

“Well, everything is arranged very well,” said Lucy. “I marry Archie;
you, father, make Mrs. Jasher your wife; and I suspect Sir Frank will
marry Donna Inez.”

“Ha!” said Braddock with a start, “the daughter of De Gayangos, who has
come here for the missing mummy. Mrs. Jasher told me somewhat of that,
my dear. But I shall see Don Pedro myself to-morrow. Meanwhile, let us
eat and drink. I must go down to the museum, and you--”

“We shall go to congratulate Mrs. Jasher,” said Lucy.

So it was arranged, and shortly Professor Braddock retired into his
sanctum along with the devoted Cockatoo, who displayed lively joy on
beholding his master once more. Lucy, after being carefully wrapped up
by Archie, set out with that young man to congratulate the bride-elect.
It was just half-past nine when they started out.

The night was frosty and the stars twinkled like jewels in a cloudless
sky of dark blue. The moon shone with hard brilliance on the ground,
which was powdered with a light fall of snow. As the young people walked
briskly through the village, their footsteps rang on the frosty earth
and they scrunched the snow in their quick tread. The Warrior Inn was
still open, as it was not late, and lights shone from the windows of the
various cottages. When the two, following the road through the marshes,
emerged from the village, they saw the great mass of the Fort bulking
blackly against the clear sky, the glittering stream of the Thames,
and the marshes outlined in delicate white. The fairy world of snow and
moonlight appealed to Archie's artistic sense, and Lucy approving of the
same, they did not hurry to arrive at their destination.

But shortly they saw the squarely fenced acre of ground near the
embankment, wherein Mrs. Jasher's humble abode was placed. Light shone
through the pink curtains of the drawing-room, showing that the widow
had not yet retired. In a few minutes the lovers were at the gate and
promptly entered. It was then that one of those odd things happened
which would argue that some people are possessed of a sixth sense.

Archie closed the gate after him, and, glancing right and left, walked
up the snowy path with Lucy. To the right was a leafless arbor, also
powdered with snow, and against the white bulked a dark form something
like a coffin. Hope out of curiosity went up to it.

“What the deuce is this?” he asked himself; then raised his voice in
loud surprise. “Lucy! Lucy! come here!”

“What is it?” she asked, running up.

“Look”--he pointed to the oddly shaped case--“the green mummy!”




CHAPTER XIII. MORE MYSTERY


Neither Lucy nor Archie Hope had ever seen the mummy, but they knew
the appearance which it would present, as Professor Braddock, with the
enthusiasm of an archaeologist, had often described the same to them. It
appeared, according to Braddock, that on purchasing the precious corpse
in Malta, his dead assistant had written home a full description of
the treasure trove. Consequently, being advised beforehand, Hope had no
difficulty in recognizing the oddly shaped case, which was made somewhat
in the Egyptian form. On the impulse of the moment he had proclaimed
this to be the long-lost mummy, and when a closer examination by the
light of a lucifer match revealed the green hue of the coffin wood, he
knew that he was right.

But what was the mummy in its ancient case doing in Mrs. Jasher's arbor?
That was the mute question which the two young people asked themselves
and each other, as they stood in the chilly moonlight, staring at the
grotesque thing. The mummy had disappeared from the Sailor's Rest at
Pierside some weeks ago, and now unexpectedly appeared in a lonely
garden, surrounded by marshes. How it had been brought there, or why
it should have been brought there, or who had brought it to such an
unlikely place, were questions hard to answer. However, the most obvious
thing to do was to question Mrs. Jasher, since the uncanny object was
lying within a stone-throw of her home. Lucy, after a rapid word or two,
went to ring the bell, and summon the lady, while Archie stood by the
arbor, wondering how the mummy came to be there. In the same way George
III had wondered how the apples got into the dumplings.

Far and wide spread the marshes, flatly towards the shore of the river
on one side, but on the other sloping up to Gartley village, which
twinkled with many lights on the rising ground. Some distance away the
Fort rose black and menacing in the moonlight, and the mighty stream of
the Thames glittered like polished steel as it flowed seaward. As there
were only a few leafless trees dotted about the marshy ground, and as
that same ground, lightly sprinkled with powdery snow, revealed every
moving object for quite a mile or so, Hope could not conceive how the
mummy case, which seemed heavy, could have been brought into the silent
garden without its bearers being seen. It was not late, and soldiers
were still returning through Gartley to the Fort. Then, again, some
noise must have been caused by so bulky an object being thrust through
the narrow wicket, and Mrs. Jasher, inhabiting a wooden house, which was
a very sea-shell for sound, might have heard footsteps and voices. If
those who had brought the mummy here--and there was more than one from
the size of the case--could be discovered, then the mystery of Sidney
Bolton's death would be solved very speedily. It was at this moment of
his reflections that Lucy returned to the arbor, leading Mrs. Jasher,
who was attired in a tea-gown and who looked bewildered.

“What are you talking about, my dear?” she said, as Lucy led her towards
the arbor. “I declare I was ever so much astonished, when Jane told
me that you wished to speak to me. I was just writing a letter to
the lawyer who has my poor brother's property in hand, announcing my
engagement to the Professor. Mr. Hope? You here also. Well, I'm sure.”

Lucy grew impatient at all this babble.

“Did you not hear what I said, Mrs. Jasher?” she cried irritably. “Can't
you use your eyes? Look! The green mummy is in your arbor.”

“The--green--mummy--in--my--arbor,” repeated Mrs. Jasher, like a child
learning words of one syllable, and staring at the black object before
which the three were standing.

“As you see,” said Archie abruptly. “How did it come here?”

He spoke harshly. Of course, it was absurd to accuse Mrs. Jasher of
knowing anything about the matter, since she had been writing letters.
Still, the fact remained that a mummy, which had been thieved from a
murdered man, was in her arbor, and naturally she was called upon to
explain.

Some suspicion in his tone struck the little woman, and she turned on
him with indignation.

“How did it come here?” she repeated. “Now, how can I tell, you silly
boy. I have been writing to my lawyer about my engagement to Mr.
Braddock. I daresay he has told you.”

“Yes,” chimed in Miss Kendal, “and we came here to congratulate you,
only to find the mummy.”

“Is that the horrid thing?” Mrs. Jasher stared with all her eyes, and
timidly touched the hard green-stained wood.

“It's the case--the mummy is inside.”

“But I thought that the Professor opened the case to find the body of
poor Sidney Bolton,” argued Mrs. Jasher.

“That was a packing case in which this”--Archie struck the old-world
coffin--“was stored. But this is the corpse of Inca Caxas, about which
Don Pedro told us the other night. How does it come to be hidden in your
garden?”

“Hidden.” Mrs. Jasher repeated the word with a laugh. “There is not much
hiding about it. Why, every one can see it from the path.”

“And from the door of your house,” remarked Hope significantly. “Did you
not see it when you took leave of Braddock?”

“No,” snapped the widow. “If I had I should certainly have come to look.
Also Professor Braddock, who is so anxious to recover it, would not have
allowed it to remain here.”

“Then the case was not here when the Professor left you to-night?”

“No! He left me at eight o'clock to go home to dinner.”

“When did he arrive here?” questioned Hope quickly.

“At seven. I am sure of the time, for I was just sitting down to my
supper. He was here an hour. But he said nothing, when he entered, of
any mummy being in the arbor; nor when he left me at the door and I came
to say good-bye to him--did either of us see this object. To be sure,”
 added Mrs. Jasher meditatively, “we did not look particularly in the
direction of this arbor.”

“I scarcely see how any one entering or leaving the garden could fail to
see it, especially as the snow reflects the moonlight so brightly.”

Mrs. Jasher shivered, and taking the skirt of her tea-gown, flung it
over her carefully attired head,

“It is very cold,” she remarked irritably. “Don't you think we had
better return to the house, and talk there?”

“What!” said Archie grimly, “and leave the mummy to be carried away
as mysteriously as it has been brought. No, Mrs. Jasher. That mummy
represents one thousand pounds of my money.”

“I understood that the Professor bought it himself.”

“So he did, but I supplied the purchase money. Therefore I do not intend
that this should be lost sight of again. Lucy, my dear, you run home
again and tell your father what we have found. He had better bring men,
to take it to his museum. When it is there, Mrs. Jasher can then explain
how it came to be in her garden.”

Without a word Lucy set off, walking quickly, anxious to fulfill her
mission and gladden the heart of her step-father with the amazing news.

Archie and Mrs. Jasher were left alone, and the former lighted a
cigarette, while he tapped the mummy case, and examined it as closely as
the pale gleam of the moonlight permitted. Mrs. Jasher made no move to
enter the house, much as she had complained of the cold. But perhaps she
found the flimsy skirt of the tea-gown sufficient protection.

“It seems to me, Mr. Hope,” said she very tartly, “that you suspect my
having a hand in this,” and she tapped the mummy coffin also.

“Pardon me,” observed Hope very politely, “but I suspect nothing,
because I have no grounds upon which to base my suspicions. But
certainly it is odd that this missing mummy should be found in your
garden. You will admit that much.”

“I admit nothing of the sort,” she rejoined coolly. “Only myself and
Jane live in the cottage, and you don't expect that two delicate women
could move this huge thing.” She tapped the case again. “Moreover, had I
found the mummy I should have taken it to the Pyramids at once, so as to
give Professor Braddock some pleasure.”

“It will certainly be an acceptable wedding present,” said Archie
sarcastically.

“Pardon me,” said Mrs. Jasher in her turn, “but I have nothing to do
with it as a present or otherwise. How the thing came into my arbor
I really cannot say. As I told you, Professor Braddock made no remark
about it when he came; and when he left, although I was at the door,
I did not notice anything in this arbor. Indeed I cannot say if I ever
looked in this direction.”

Archie mused and glanced at his watch.

“The Professor told Lucy that he came by the six train: you say that he
was here at seven.”

“Yes, and he left at eight. What is the time now?”

“Ten o'clock, or a few minutes after. Therefore, since neither you nor
Braddock saw the mummy, I take it that the case was brought here by some
unknown people between eight o'clock and a quarter to ten, about which
time I arrived here with Lucy.”

Mrs. Jasher nodded.

“You put the matter very clearly,” she observed dryly. “You have
mistaken your vocation, Mr. Hope, and should have been a criminal
lawyer. I should turn detective were I you.”

“Why?” asked Archie with a start.

“You might ascertain my movements on the night when the crime was
committed,” snapped the little widow. “A woman muffled in a shawl,
in much the same way as my head is now muffled in my skirt, talked to
Bolton through the bedroom window of the Sailor's Rest, you know.”

Hope expostulated.

“My dear lady, how you run on! I assure you that I would as soon suspect
Lucy as you.”

“Thank you,” said the widow very dryly and very tartly.

“I merely wish to point out,” went on Archie in a conciliatory tone,
“that, as the mummy in its case--as appears probable--was brought into
your garden between the hours of eight and ten, less fifteen minutes,
that you may have heard the voices or footsteps of those who carried it
here.”

“I heard nothing,” said Mrs. Jasher, turning towards the path. “I had my
supper, and played a game or two of patience, and then wrote letters,
as I told you before. And I am not going to stand in the cold, answering
silly questions, Mr. Hope. If you wish to talk you must come inside.”

Hope shook his head and lighted a fresh cigarette.

“I stand guard over this mummy until its rightful owner comes,” said he
determinedly.

“Ho!” rejoined Mrs. Jasher scornfully: she was now at the door. “I
understood that you bought the mummy and therefore were its owner. Well,
I only hope you'll find those emeralds Don Pedro talked about,” and with
a light laugh she entered the cottage.

Archie looked after her in a puzzled way. There was no reason to suspect
Mrs. Jasher, so far as he saw, even though a woman had been seen talking
to Bolton on the night of the crime. And yet, why should the widow refer
to the emeralds, which were of such immense value, according to Don
Pedro? Hope glanced at the case and shook the primitive coffin, anxious
for the moment to open it and ascertain if the jewels were still
clutched grimly in the mummy's dead hands. But the coffin was fastened
tightly down with wooden pegs, and could only be opened with extreme
care and difficulty. Also, as Hope reflected, even did he manage to
open this receptacle of the dead, he still could not ascertain if
the emeralds were safe, since they would be hidden under innumerable
swathings of green-dyed llama wool. He therefore let the matter rest
there, and, staring at the river, wondered how the mummy had been
brought to the garden in the marshes.

Hope recollected that experts had decided the mode in which the mummy
had been removed from the Pierside public-house. It had been passed
through the window, according to Inspector Date and others, and, when
taken across the narrow path which bordered the river, had been placed
in a waiting boat. After that it had vanished until it had re-appeared
in this arbor. But if taken by water once, it could have been taken by
water again. There was a rude jetty behind the embankment, which Hope
could easily see from where he stood. In all probability the mummy had
been landed there and carried to the garden, while Mrs. Jasher was busy
with her supper and her game of cards and her letters. Also, the path
from the shore to the house was very lonely, and if any care had been
exercised, which was probable, no one from the Fort road or from the
village street could have seen the stealthy conspirators bringing their
weird burden. So far Hope felt that he could argue excellently. But who
had brought the mummy to the garden and why had it been brought there?
These questions he could not answer so easily, and indeed not at all.

While thus meditating, he heard, far away in the frosty air, a puffing
and blowing and panting like an impatient motor-car. Before he could
guess what this was, Braddock appeared, simply racing along the marshy
causeway, followed closely by Cockatoo, and at some distance away by
Lucy. The little scientist rushed through the gate, which he flung open
with a noise fit to wake the dead, and lunged forward, to fall with
outstretched arms upon the green case. There he remained, still puffing
and blowing, and looked as though he were hugging a huge green beetle.
Cockatoo, who, being lean and hard, kept his breath more easily, stood
respectfully by, waiting for his master to give orders, and Lucy came
in quietly by the gate, smiling at her father's enthusiasm. At the same
moment Mrs. Jasher, well wrapped up in a coat of sables, emerged from
the cottage.

“I heard you coming, Professor,” she called out, hurrying down the path.

“I should think the whole Fort heard the Professor coming,” said Hope,
glancing at the dark mass. “The soldiers must think it is an invasion.”

But Braddock paid no heed to this jocularity, or even to Mrs. Jasher, to
whom he had been so lately engaged. All his soul was in the mummy case,
and as soon as he recovered his breath, he loudly proclaimed his joy at
this miraculous recovery of the precious article.

“Mine! mine!” he roared, and his words ran violently through the frosty
air.

“Be calm, sir,” advised Hope--“be calm.”

“Calm! calm!” bellowed Braddock, struggling to a standing position. “Oh,
confound you, sir, how can I be calm when I find what I have lost?
You have a mean, groveling soul, Hope, not the soaring spirit of a
collector.”

“There is no need to be rude to Archie, father,” corrected Lucy sharply.

“Rude! Rude! I am never rude. But this mummy.” Braddock peered closely
at it and rapped the wood to assure himself it was no phantom. “Yes!
it is my mummy, the mummy of Inca Caxas. Now I shall learn how the
Peruvians embalmed their royal dead. Mine! mine! mine!” He crooned like
a mother over a child, caressing the coffin; then suddenly drew himself
upright and fixed Mrs. Jasher with an indignant eye. “So it was you,
madam, who stole my mummy,” he declared venomously, “and I thought of
making you my wife. Oh, what an escape I have had. Shame, woman, shame!”

Mrs. Jasher stared, then her face grew redder than the rouge on her
cheeks, and she stamped furiously in the neat Louis Quinze slippers in
which she had in judiciously come out.

“How dare you say what you have said?” she cried, her voice shrill and
hard with anger. “Mr. Hope has been saying the same thing. Are you both
mad? I never set eyes on the horrid thing in my life. And only to-night
you told me that you loved--”

“Yes, yes, I said many foolish things, I don't doubt, madam. But that
is not the question. My mummy! my mummy!” he rapped the wood
furiously--“how does my mummy come to be here?”

“I don't know,” said Mrs. Jasher, still furious, “and I don't care.”

“Don't care: don't care, when I look forward to your helping me in my
lifework! As my wife--”

“I shall never be your wife,” cried the widow, stamping again. “I
wouldn't be your wife for a thousand or a million pounds. Marry your
mummy, you horrid, red-faced, crabbed little--”

“Hush! hush!” whispered Lucy, taking the angry woman round the waist,
“you must make allowances for my father. He is so excited over his good
fortune that he--”

“I shall not make allowance,” interrupted Mrs. Jasher angrily. “He
practically accuses me of stealing the mummy. If I did that, I must have
murdered poor Sidney Bolton.”

“No, no,” cried the Professor, wiping his red face. “I never hinted at
such a thing. But the mummy is in your garden.”

“What of that? I don't know how it came there. Mr. Hope, surely you do
not support Professor Braddock in his preposterous accusation?”

“I bring no accusation,” stuttered the Professor.

“Neither do I, Mrs. Jasher. You are excited now. Go in and sleep, and
to-morrow you will talk reasonably.” This brilliant speech was from
Hope, and wrought Mrs. Jasher into a royal rage.

“Well,” she gasped, “he asks me to be calm, as it I wasn't the very
calmest person here. I declare: oh, I shall be ill! Lucy,” she seized
the girl's hand and dragged her towards the cottage, “come in and give
me red lavender. I shall be in bed for days and days and days. Oh, what
brutes men can be! But listen, you two horrors,” she indicated Braddock
and Hope, as she pushed open the door, “if you dare to say a word
against me, I'll have an action for libel against you. Oh, dear me,
how very ill I feel! Lucy, darling, help me, oh, help me,
and--and--oh--oh--oh!” She flopped down on the threshold of her home
with a cry.

“Archie! Archie! She's fainted.”

Hope rushed forward, and raised the stout little woman in his arms.
Jane, attracted by the clamor, appeared on the scene, and between the
three of them they managed to get Mrs. Jasher placed on the sofa of the
pink drawing-room. She certainly was in a dead faint, so Hope left her
to the administrations of Lucy and the servant, and walked out again
into the garden, closing the cottage door after him.

He found the heartless Professor quite oblivious to Mrs. Jasher's
sufferings, so taken up was he with the newly found mummy. Cockatoo had
been sent for a hand-cart, and while he was absent Braddock expatiated
on the perfections of this relic of Peruvian civilization.

“Will you sell it to Don Pedro?” asked Hope.

“After I have done with it, not before,” snapped Braddock, hovering
round his treasure. “I shall want a percentage on my bargain also.”

Archie thought privately that if Braddock unswathed the mummy, he
would find the emeralds and would probably stick to them, so that his
expedition to Egypt might be financed. It that case Don Pedro would no
longer wish to buy the corpse of his ancestor. But while he debated as
to the advisability of telling the Professor of the existence of the
emeralds, Cockatoo returned with the hand-cart.

“You have lost Mrs. Jasher,” said Hope, while he, assisted the Professor
to hoist the mummy on to the cart.

“Never mind! never mind!” Braddock patted the coffin. “I have found
something much more to my mind: something ever so much better. Ha! ha!”




CHAPTER XIV. THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS


In spite of newspapers and letters and tape-machines and telegrams and
such like aids to the speedy diffusion of news, the same travels
quicker in villages than in cities. Word of mouth can spread gossip
with marvelous rapidity in sparsely inhabited communities, since it is
obvious that in such places every person knows the other--as the saying
goes--inside out. In every English village walls have ears and windows
have eyes, so that every cottage is a hot-bed of scandal, and what is
known to one is, within the hour, known to the others. Even the Sphinx
could not have preserved her secret long in such a locality.

Gartley could keep up its reputation in this respect along with the
best, therefore it was little to be wondered at, that early next morning
every one knew that Professor Braddock had found his long-lost mummy in
Mrs. Jasher's garden, and had removed the same to the Pyramids without
unnecessary delay. It was not particularly late when the hand-cart, with
its uncanny burden, had passed along the sole street of the place, and
several men had emerged from the Warrior Inn ostensibly to offer help,
but really to know what the eccentric master of the great house was
doing. Braddock brusquely rejected these offers; but the oddly shaped
mummy case, stained green, having been seen, it needed little wit
for those who had caught a sight of it to put two and two together,
especially as the weird object had been described at the inquest and had
been talked over ever since in every cottage. And as the cart had been
seen coming out of the widow's garden, it naturally occurred to the
villagers that Mrs. Jasher had been concealing the mummy. Shortly the
rumor spread that she had also murdered Bolton, for unless she had
done so, she certainly--according to village logic--could not have been
possessed of the spoil. Finally, as Mrs. Jasher's doors and windows were
small and the mummy was rather bulky, it was natural to presume that she
had hidden it in the garden. Report said she had buried it and had dug
it up just in time to be pounced upon by its rightful owner. From which
it can be seen that gossip is not invariably accurate.

However this may be, the news of Professor Braddock's good fortune
shortly came to Don Pedro's ears through the medium of the landlady. As
she revealed what she had heard in the morning, the Peruvian gentleman
was spared a sleepless night. But as soon as he learned the truth--which
was surprising enough in its unexpectedness--he hastily finished his
breakfast and hurried to the Pyramids. As yet he had not intended to
see Braddock so promptly, or at least not until he had made further
inquiries at Pierside, but the news that Braddock possessed the royal
ancestor of the De Gayangoses brought him immediately into the museum.
He greeted the Professor in his usual grave and dignified manner, and
no one would have guessed from his inherent calmness that the unexpected
news of Braddock's arrival, and the still more unexpected information
about the green mummy, had surprised him beyond measure. Being somewhat
superstitious, it also occurred to Don Pedro that the coincidence meant
good fortune to him in the recovery of his long-lost ancestor.

Braddock, already knowing a great deal about Don Pedro from Lucy and
Archie Hope, was only too pleased to see the Peruvian, hoping to find in
him a kindred spirit. As yet the Professor was not aware of the contents
of the ancient Latin manuscript, which revealed the fact of the hidden
emeralds, since Hope had decided to leave it to the Peruvian to impart
the information. Archie knew very well that Don Pedro--as he had
plainly stated--wished to purchase the mummy, and it was only right that
Braddock should know what he was selling. But Hope forgot one important
fact perhaps from the careless way in which Don Pedro had told his
story--namely, that the Professor in a second degree was a receiver
of stolen goods. Therefore it was more than probable that the Peruvian
would claim the mummy as his own property. Still, in that event he would
have to prove his claim, and that would not be easy.

The plump little professor had not yet unsealed the case, and when Don
Pedro entered, he was standing before it rubbing his fat hands, with a
gloating expression in his face. However, as Cockatoo had brought in the
Peruvian's card, Braddock expected his visitor and wheeled to face him.

“How are you, sir?” said he, extending his hand. “I am glad to see you,
as I hear that you know all about this mummy of Inca Caxas.”

“Well, I do,” answered De Gayangos, sitting down in the chair which his
host pushed forward. “But may I ask who told you that this mummy was
that of the last Inca?”

Braddock pinched his plump chin and replied readily, enough.

“Certainly, Don Pedro. I wished to learn the difference in embalming
between the Egyptians and the ancient Peruvians, and looked about for a
South American corpse. Unexpectedly I saw in several European newspapers
and in two English journals that a green Peruvian mummy was for sale at
Malta for one thousand pounds. I sent my assistant, Sidney Bolton, to
buy it, and he managed to get it, coffin and all, for nine hundred.
While in Malta, and before he started back in The Diver with the mummy,
he wrote me an account of the transaction. The seller--who was the son
of a Maltese collector--told Bolton that his father had picked up the
mummy in Paris some twenty and more years ago. It came from Lima some
thirty years back, I believe, and, according to the collector in Paris,
was the corpse of Inca Caxas. That is the whole story.”

Don Pedro nodded gravely.

“Was there a Latin manuscript delivered along with the mummy?” he asked.

Braddock's eyes opened widely.

“No, sir. The mummy came thirty years ago from Lima to Paris. It passed
twenty years back into the possession of the Maltese collector, and his
son sold it to me a few months ago. I never heard of any manuscript.”

“Then Mr. Hope did not repeat to you what I told him the other night?”

The Professor sat down and his mouth grew obstinate.

“Mr. Hope related some story you told him and others about this mummy
having been stolen from you.”

“From my father,” corrected the unsmiling Peruvian; keeping a careful
eye on his host; “that is really the case. Inca Caxas is, or was, my
ancestor, and this manuscript”--Don Pedro produced the same from his
inner pocket--“details the funeral ceremonies.”

“Very interesting; most interesting,” fussed Braddock, stretching out
his hand. “May I see it?”

“You read Latin,” observed Don Pedro, surrendering the manuscript.

Braddock raised his eyebrows.

“Of course,” he said simply, “every well-educated man reads Latin, or
should do so. Wait, sir, until I glance through this document.”

“One moment,” said Don Pedro, as the Professor began to literally devour
the discolored page. “You know from Hope, I have no doubt, how I chance
upon my own property in Europe?”

Braddock, still with his eyes on the manuscript, mumbled

“Your own property. Quite so: quite so.”

“You admit that. Then you will no doubt restore the mummy to me.”

By this time the drift of Don Pedro's observations entirely reached
the understanding of the scientist, and he dropped the document he was
reading to leap to his feet.

“Restore the mummy to you!” he gasped. “Why, it is mine.”

“Pardon me,” said the Peruvian, still gravely but very decisively, “you
admitted that it belonged to me.”

Braddock's face deepened to a fine purple.

“I didn't know what I was saying,” he protested. “How could I say it was
your property when I have bought it for nine hundred pounds?”

“It was stolen from me.”

“That has got to be proved,” said Braddock caustically.

Don Pedro rose, looking more like, Don Quixote than ever.

“I have the honor to give you my word and--”

“Yes, yes. That is all right. I cast no imputation on your honor.”

“I should think not,” said the other coldly but strongly.

“All the same, you can scarcely expect me to part with so valuable
an object,” Braddock waved his hand towards the case, “without strict
inquiry into the circumstances. And again, sir, even if you succeed in
proving your ownership, I am not inclined to restore the mummy to you
for nothing.”

“But it is stolen property you are keeping from me.”

“I know nothing about that: I have only your bare word that it is so,
Don Pedro. All I know is that I paid nine hundred pounds for the
mummy and that it cost the best part of another hundred to bring it to
England. What I have, I keep.”

“Like your country,” said the Peruvian sarcastically.

“Precisely,” replied the Professor suavely. “Every Englishman has
a bull-dog tenacity of purpose. Brag is a good dog, Don Pedro, but
Holdfast is a better one.”

“Then I understand,” said the Peruvian, stretching out his hand to pick
up the fallen manuscript, “that you will keep the mummy.”

“Certainly,” said Braddock coolly, “since I have paid for it. Also, I
shall keep the jewels, which the manuscript tells me--from the glance I
obtained of it--were buried with it.”

“The sole jewels buried are two large emeralds which the mummy holds in
its hands,” explained Don Pedro, restoring the manuscript to his pocket,
“and I wish for them so that I may get money to restore the fortunes of
my family.”

“No! no! no!” said Braddock forcibly. “I have bought the mummy and the
jewels with it. They will sell to supply me with money to fit out my
expedition to the tomb of Queen Tahoser.”

“I shall dispute your claim,” cried De Gayangos, losing his calmness.

Braddock waved his hand with supreme content.

“I can give you the address of my lawyers,” he retorted; “any steps you
choose to take will only result in loss, and from what you hint I should
not think that you had much money to spend on litigation.”

Don Pedro bit his lip, and saw that it was indeed a more difficult task
than he had anticipated to make Braddock yield up his prize.

“If you were in Lima,” he muttered, speaking Spanish in his excitement,
“you would then learn that I speak truly.”

“I do not doubt your truth,” answered the Professor in the same
language.

De Gayangos wheeled and faced his host, much surprised.

“You speak my tongue, senor?” he demanded.

Braddock nodded.

“I have been in Spain, and I have been in Peru,” he answered dryly,
“therefore I know classical Spanish and its colonial dialects. As to
being in Lima, I was there, and I do not wish to go there again, as I
had quite enough of those uncivilized parts thirty years ago, when the
country was much disturbed after your civil war.”

“You were in Lima thirty years ago,” echoed Don Pedro; “then you were
there when Vasa stole this mummy.”

“I don't know who stole it, or even if it was stolen,” said the
Professor obstinately, “and I don't know the name of Vasa. Ah! now I
remember. Young Hope did say something about the Swedish sailor who you
said stole the mummy.”

“Vasa did, and brought it to Europe to sell--probably to that man in
Paris, who afterwards sold it to your Malteses collector.”

“No doubt,” rejoined Braddock calmly; “but what has all this to do with
me, Don Pedro?”

“I want my mummy,” raged the other, and looked dangerous.

“Then you won't get it,” retorted Braddock, adopting a pugnacious
attitude and quite composed. “This mummy has caused one death, Don
Pedro, and from your looks I should think you would like it to cause
another.”

“Will you not be honest?”

“I'll knock your head off if you bring my honesty into question,” cried
the Professor, standing on tip-toe like a bantam. “The best thing to do
will be to take the matter into court. Then the law can decide, and I
have little doubt but what it will decide in my favor.”

The Englishman and the Peruvian glared at one another, and Cockatoo, who
was crouching on the floor, glanced from one angry face to another. He
guessed that the white men were quarreling and perhaps would come to
blows. It was at this moment that a knock came to the door, and a
minute later Archie entered. Braddock glanced at him, and took a sudden
resolution as he stepped forward.

“Hope, you are just in time,” he declared. “Don Pedro states that the
mummy belongs to him, and I assert that I have bought it. We shall make
you umpire. He wants it: I want it. What is to be done?”

“The mummy is my own flesh and blood, Mr. Hope,” said Don Pedro.

“Precious little of either about it,” said Braddock contemptuously.

Archie twisted a chair round and straddled his long legs across it, with
his arms resting on its back. His quick brain had rapidly comprehended
the situation, and, being acquainted with both sides of the question, it
was not difficult to come to a decision. If it was hard that Don Pedro
should lose his ancestor's mummy, it was equally hard that Braddock--or
rather himself--should lose the purchase money, seeing that it had been
paid in good faith to the seller in Malta for a presumably righteously
acquired object. On these premises the young Solon proceeded to deliver
judgment.

“I understand,” said he judiciously, “that Don Pedro had the mummy
stolen from him thirty years ago, and that you, Professor, bought it
under the impression that the Maltese owner had a right to possess it.”

“Yes,” snapped Braddock, “and I daresay the Maltese owner thought so
too, since he bought it from that collector in Paris.”

Hope nodded.

“And if Vasa sold it to the man in Paris,” said he calmly, “he certainly
would not tell the purchaser that he had looted the mummy in Lima, and
the poor man would not know that he was receiving stolen goods. Is that
right, Don Pedro?”

“Yes, sir,” said the Peruvian, who had recovered his temper and his
gravity; “but I declare solemnly that the mummy was stolen from my
father and should belong to me.”

“No one disputes that,” said Archie cheerfully; “but it ought to belong
to the Professor also, since he has bought it. Now, as it can't possibly
belong to two people, we must split the difference. You, Professor,
must sell back the mummy to Don Pedro for the price you paid for it, and
then, Don Pedro, you must recompense Professor Braddock for his loss.”

“I have not much money,” said Don Pedro gravely; “still, I am willing to
do as you say.”

“I don't know that I am,” protested Braddock noisily. “There are the two
emeralds which are of immense value, as Don Pedro says, and they belong
to me, since the mummy is my property.”

“Professor,” said Archie solemnly, “you must do right, even if you lose
by it. I believe the story of Senor De Gayangos; and the mummy with its
jewels belongs to him. Besides, you only wish to see the way in which
the Inca race embalmed their dead. Well, then, unpack the mummy here in
the presence of Don Pedro. When you have satisfied your curiosity, and
when Senor De Gayangos signs a check for one thousand pounds, he can
take away the corpse. You have had so much trouble over it, that I
wonder your are not anxious to see the last of it.”

“But the emeralds would sell for much money and would defray the
expenses of my expedition into Egypt to search for that Queen's tomb.”

“I understood from Lucy that Mrs. Jasher intended to finance that
expedition when she became your wife.”

“Humph!” muttered Braddock, stroking his fat chin. “I said a few foolish
things to her last night when I was heated up. She may not forgive me,
Hope.”

“A woman will forgive anything to the man she loves,” said Archie.

Braddock was no fool, and could not help casting a glance at his tubby
figure, which was reflected in a near mirror. It seemed incredible that
Mrs. Jasher could love him for his looks, and the fact that he
might some day be a baronet did not strike him at the moment as a
consideration. However, he foresaw trouble and expense should Don
Pedro go to law, as he seemed determined to do. Taking all things into
consideration, Braddock thought that Archie's judgment was a good one,
and yielded.

“Well,” he said after reflection, “let us agree. I shall open the case
and examine the mummy, which after all is the reason why I bought it.
When I have satisfied myself as to the difference between the modes of
embalming, Don Pedro can give me a check and take away the mummy. I only
hope that he will have less trouble with it than I have had,” and,
so speaking, Braddock, signing to Cockatoo to bring all the necessary
tools, laid hands on the case.

“I am content,” said Don Pedro briefly, and seated himself in a chair
beside the young Daniel who had delivered judgment.

Hope offered to assist the Professor to open the case, but was dismissed
with an abrupt refusal.

“Though I am glad you are present to see the mummy unpacked,” said
Braddock, laboring at the lid of the case, “for if the emeralds are
missing, Don Pedro might accuse me of stealing them.”

“Why should the emeralds be missing?” asked Hope quickly.

Braddock shrugged his shoulders.

“Sidney Bolton was killed,” said he in a low voice, “and it was not
likely that any one would commit a murder for the sake of this mummy,
and then leave it stranded in Mrs. Jasher's garden. I have my doubts
about the safety of the emeralds, else I would not have consented to
sell the thing back again.”

With this honest speech, the Professor vigorously attacked the lid of
the case, and inserted a steel instrument into the cracks to prize up
the covering. The lid was closed with wooden pegs in an antique but
perfectly safe manner, and apparently had not been opened since the
dead Inca had been laid to rest therein hundreds of years ago among the
Andean mountains. Don Pedro winced at this desecration of the dead, but,
as he had given his consent, there was nothing left to do but to grin
and bear it. In a wonderfully short space of time, considering the
neatness of the workmanship and the holding power of the wooden pegs,
the lid was removed. Then the four on-lookers saw that the mummy had
been tampered with. Swathed in green-stained llama wool, it lay rigid
in its case. But the swathings had been cut; the hands protruded and the
emeralds were gone--torn rudely from the hard grip of the dead.




CHAPTER XV. AN ACCUSATION


Both Don Pedro and Professor Braddock were amazed and angry at the
disappearance of the jewels, but Hope did not express much surprise.
Considering the facts of the murder, it was just what he expected,
although it must be confessed that he was wise after the event.

“I refer you to your own words immediately before the case was opened,
Professor,” he remarked, after the first surprise had subsided.

“Words! words!” snapped Braddock, who was anything but pleased. “What
words of mine do you mean, Hope?”

“You said that it was not likely that any one would commit a murder for
the sake of the mummy only, and then leave it stranded in Mrs. Jasher's
garden. Also, you declared that you had your doubts about the safety of
the emeralds, else you would not have consented to sell the mummy again
to its rightful owner.”

The Professor nodded.

“Quite so: quite so. And what I say I hold to,” he retorted,
“especially as I have proved myself a true prophet. You can both see
for yourselves,” he waved his hand towards the rifled case, “that poor
Sidney must have been killed for the sake of the emeralds. The question
is, who killed him?”

“The person who knew about the jewels,” said Don Pedro promptly.

“Of course: but who did know? I was ignorant until you told me about the
manuscript. And you, Hope?” He searched Archie's face.

“Do you intend to accuse me?” questioned the young man with a slight
laugh. “I assure you, Professor, that I was ignorant of what had been
buried with the corpse, until Don Pedro related his story the other
night to myself and Random, and the ladies.”

Braddock turned impatiently to De Gayangos, as he did not approve of
Archie's apparent flippancy.

“Does any one else know of the contents of this manuscript?” he demanded
irritably.

Don Pedro nursed his chin and looked musingly on the ground.

“It is just possible that Vasa may.”

“Vasa? Vasa? Oh yes, the sailor who stole the mummy thirty years ago
from your father in Lima. Pooh! pooh! pooh! You tell me that this
manuscript is written in Latin, and evidently in monkish Latin at that,
which is of the worst. Your sailor could not read it, and would not know
the value of the manuscript. If he had, he would have carried it off.”

“Senor,” said the Peruvian politely, “I have an idea that my father made
a translation of this manuscript, or at all events a copy.”

“But I understood,” put in Hope, still astride of his chair, “that you
did not find the original manuscript until your father died.”

“That is quite true, sir,” assented the other readily, “but I did not
tell you everything the other night. My father it was who found the
manuscript at Cuzco, and although I cannot state authoritatively, yet I
believe I am correct in saying that he had a copy made. But whether the
copy was merely a transcript or actually a translation, I cannot tell. I
think it was the former, as if Vasa, reading a translation, had learned
of the jewels, he undoubtedly would have stolen them before selling this
mummy to the Parisian collector.”

“Perhaps he did,” said Braddock, pointing to the rifled corpse. “You see
that the emeralds are missing.”

“Your assistant's assassin stole them,” insisted Don Pedro coldly.

“We cannot be sure of that,” retorted the Professor, “although I admit
that no man would jeopardize his neck for the sake of a corpse.”

Archie looked surprised.

“But an enthusiast such as you are, Professor, might risk so much.”

For once in his life Braddock made a good-humored reply.

“No, sir. Not even for this mummy would I place myself in the power of
the law. And I do not think that any other scientist would either. We
savants may not be worldly, but we are not fools. However, the fact
remains that the jewels are gone, and whether they were stolen by Vasa
thirty years ago, or by poor Sidney's assassin the other day, I don't
know, and, what is more, I don't care. I shall examine the mummy
further, and in a couple of days Don Pedro can bring me a check for one
thousand and remove his ancestor.”

“No! no!” cried the Peruvian hurriedly; “since the emeralds are missing,
I am not in a position to pay you one thousand English pounds, sir.
I want to take back the body of Inca Caxas to Lima; as one must show
respect to one's ancestors. But the fact is, I cannot pay the money.”

“You said that you could,” shouted the exasperated Professor in his
bullying way.

“I admit it, senor, but I had hoped to do so when I sold the emeralds,
which--as you can see--are not available. Therefore the body of my royal
ancestor must remain here until I can procure the money. And it may be
that Sir Frank Random will help me in this matter.”

“He wouldn't help me,” snapped Braddock, “so why should he help you?”

Don Pedro, looking more dignified than ever, drew himself up to his tall
height.

“Sir Frank,” he said, in a stately way, “has done me the honor of
seeking to be my son-in-law. As my daughter loves him, I am willing to
permit the marriage, but now that I have learned the emeralds are lost,
I shall not consent until Sir Frank buys the mummy from you, Professor.
It is only right that my daughter's hand should redeem her regal
forefather from purely scientific surroundings and that she should take
the mummy back to be buried in Lima. At the same time, sir, I must say
that I am the rightful owner of the dead, and that you should surrender
the mummy to me free of charge.”

“What, and lose a thousand pounds!” cried Braddock furiously. “No, sir,
I shall do nothing of the sort. You only wanted the mummy for the sake
of the jewels, and now that they are lost, you do not care what becomes
of your confounded ancestor, and you--”

The Professor would have gone on still more furiously, but that Hope,
seeing Don Pedro was growing angry at the insult, chimed in.

“Let me throw oil on the troubled waters,” he said, smoothly. “Don Pedro
is not able to redeem the mummy until the emeralds are found. As such
is the case, we must find the emeralds and enable him to do what is
necessary.”

“And how are we to find the jewels?” asked Braddock crossly.

“By finding the assassin.”

“How is that to be done?” asked De Gayangos gloomily. “I have been doing
my best at Pierside, but I cannot find a single clue. Vasa is not to be
found.”

“Vasa!” exclaimed Archie and the Professor, both profoundly astonished.

Don Pedro raised his eyebrows.

“Certainly. Vasa, if anyone, must have killed your assistant, since he
alone could have known that the jewels were buried with Inca Caxas.”

“But, my dear sir,” argued Hope good-naturedly, “if Vasa stole the
manuscript, whether translated or not, he certainly must have learned
the truth long, long ago, since thirty years have elapsed. In that event
he must have stolen the jewels, as Professor Braddock remarked lately,
before he sold the mummy to the Parisian collector.”

“That may be so,” said Don Pedro obstinately, while the Professor
muttered his approval, “but we cannot be certain on that point. No
one--I agree with the Professor in this--would have risked his neck to
steal a mere mummy, therefore the motive for the committal of the crime
must have been the emeralds. Only Vasa knew of their existence outside
myself and my dead father. He, therefore, must be the assassin. I shall
hunt for him, and, when I find him, I shall have him arrested.”

“But you can't possibly recognize the man after thirty years?” argued
Braddock disbelievingly.

“I have a royal memory for faces,” said Don Pedro imperturbably, “and in
the past I saw much of Vasa. He was then a young sailor of twenty.”

“Humph!” muttered Braddock. “He is now fifty, and must have changed in
thirty years. You'll never recognize him.”

“Oh, I think so,” said the Peruvian smoothly. “His eyes were peculiarly
blue and full of light. Also, he had a scar on the right temple from a
blow which he received in a street riot in which I also was concerned.
Finally, gentlemen, Vasa loved a peon girl on my father's estate, and
she induced him to have the sun encircled by a serpent--a Peruvian
symbol--tattooed on his left wrist. With all these marks, and with my
memory for faces, which never yet has failed me, I have no doubt but
what I shall recognize the man.”

“And then?”

“And then I shall have him arrested”

Hope shrugged his square shoulders. He had not much belief in Don
Pedro's boasted royal memory, and did not think that he would recognize
a young sailor of twenty in what would certainly be a grizzled old salt
of fifty years. However, it was possible that the man might be right in
his surmise, since Vasa alone could have known about the emeralds. The
only doubt was whether he would have waited for thirty years before
looting the mummy. Archie said nothing of these thoughts, as they
would only serve to prolong an unprofitable discussion. But he made one
suggestion.

“Your best plan,” he said suggestively, “is to write a description of
Vasa--who, by the way, has probably changed his name--and hand it to the
police, with the promise of a reward if he is found.”

“I am very poor, senor. Surely the Professor here--”

“I can offer nothing,” said Braddock quickly, “as I am quite as poor as
you are, if not more so, Sir Frank might help,” he added sarcastically.

“I shall not ask,” said Don Pedro loftily. “If Sir Frank chooses to
become my son-in-law by purchasing back my royal ancestor, to which you
have no right, I am willing that it should be so. But, poor as I am,
I shall offer a reward myself, since the honor of the De Gayangoses is
involved in this matter. What reward do you suggest, Mr. Hope?”

“Five hundred pounds,” said the Professor quickly.

“Too much,” said Hope sharply--“far too much. Make the reward one
hundred pounds, Don Pedro. That is enough to tempt many a man.”

The Peruvian bowed and noted down the amount.

“I shall go at once to Pierside and see Inspector Date, who had to do
with the inquest,” he remarked. “Meanwhile, Professor, please do not
desecrate my royal ancestor's body more than you can help.”

“I shall certainly not search for any more emeralds,” retorted Braddock
dryly. “Now, clear out, both of you, and leave me to examine the mummy.
Cockatoo, show these gentlemen out, and let no one else in.”

Don Pedro returned to the Warrior Hotel to inform his daughter of
what had taken place, with the intention of going in the afternoon to
Pierside. Meanwhile, he wrote out a full description of Vasa, making an
allowance for the lapse of years and explaining the scar and the
symbol on the left wrist. Hope also sought Lucy and related the latest
development of the case. The girl was not surprised, as she likewise
believed that the assassin had desired more than the mummy when he
murdered Sidney Bolton.

“Mrs. Jasher did not know about the emeralds?” she asked suddenly.

“No,” replied Archie, much surprised. “Surely you do not suspect her of
having a hand in the devilment?”

“Certainly not,” was the prompt answer. “Only I cannot understand how
the mummy came to be in her garden.”

“It was brought up from the river, I expect.”

“But why to Mrs. Jasher's garden?”

Hope shook his head.

“I cannot tell that. The whole thing is a mystery, and seems likely to
remain so.”

“It seems to me,” said the girl, after a pause, “that it would be best
for my father to return this mummy to Don Pedro, and have done with it,
since it seems to bring bad luck. Then he can marry Mrs. Jasher, and go
to Egypt on her fortune to seek for this tomb.”

“I doubt very much if Mrs. Jasher will marry the Professor now, after
what he said last night.”

“Nonsense, my father was in a rage and said what first came into his
mind. I daresay she is angry. However, I shall see her this afternoon,
and put matters right.”

“You are very anxious that the Professor should marry the lady.”

“I am,” replied Lucy seriously, “as I want to leave my father
comfortably settled when I marry you. The sooner he makes Mrs. Jasher
his wife, the readier will he be to let me go, and I want to marry you
as soon as I possibly can. I am tired of Gartley and of this present
life.”

Of course to this speech Archie could make only one answer, and as that
took the form of kissing, it was entirely satisfactory to Miss Kendal.
Then they discussed the future and also the proposed engagement of Sir
Frank Random to the Peruvian lady. But both left the subject of the
mummy alone, as they were quite weary of the matter, and neither could
suggest a solution of the mystery.

Meanwhile Professor Braddock had passed a very pleasant hour in
examining the swathings of the mummy. But his pleasure was destined
to be cut short sooner than he desired, as Captain Hiram Hervey
unexpectedly arrived. Although Cockatoo--as he had been instructed--did
his best to keep him out, the sailor forced his way in, and heralded his
appearance by throwing the Kanaka head-foremost into the museum.

“What does this mean?” demanded the fiery Professor, while Cockatoo,
with an angry expression, struggled to his feet, and Hervey, smoking
his inevitable cheroot, stood on the threshold--“how dare you treat my
property in this careless way.”

“Guess your property should behave itself then,” said the captain in
careless tones, and sauntered into the room. “D'y think I'm goin' to
be chucked out by a measly nigger and--Great Scott!”--this latter
exclamation was extorted by the sight of the mummy.

Braddock motioned to the still angry Cockatoo to move aside, and then
nodded triumphantly.

“You didn't expect to see that, did you?” he asked.

Hervey came to anchor on a chair and turned the cheroot in his mouth
with an odd look at the mummy.

“When will he be hanged?”

Braddock stared.

“When will who be hanged?”

“The man as stole that thing.”

“We haven't found him yet,” Braddock informed him swiftly.

“Then how in creation did you annex the corpse.”

The Professor sat down and explained. The lean, long mariner listened
quietly, only nodding at intervals. He did not seem to be surprised
when he heard that the corpse of the head Inca had been found in Mrs.
Jasher's garden, especially when Braddock explained the whereabouts of
the property.

“Wal,” he drawled, “that don't make my hair stand on end. I guess the
garden was on his way and he used it for a cemetery.”

“What are you talking about?” demanded the perplexed scientist.

“About the man who strangled your help and yanked away the corpse.”

“But I don't know who he is. Nobody knows.”

“Go slow. I do.”

“You!” Braddock started and flung himself across the room to seize
Hervey by the lapels of his reefer coat. “You know. Tell me who he is,
so that I can get the emeralds.”

“Emeralds!” Hervey removed Braddock's plump hands and stared greedily.

“Don't you know? No, of course you don't. But two emeralds were buried
with the mummy, and they have been stolen.”

“Who by?”

“No doubt by the assassin who murdered poor Sidney.”

Hervey spat on the floor, and his weather-beaten face took on an
expression of, profound regret.

“I guess I'm a fool of the best.”

“Why?” asked Braddock, again puzzled.

“To think,” said Hervey, addressing the mummy, “that you were on board
my boat, and I never looted you.”

“What!” Braddock stamped. “Would you have committed theft?”

“Theft be hanged!” was the reply. “It ain't thieving to loot the dead.
I guess a corpse hasn't got any use for jewels. You bet I'd have gummed
straightways onto that mummy, when I brought it from Malta in the old
Diver, had I known it was a jeweler's shop of sorts. Huh! Two emeralds,
and I never knew. I could kick myself.”

“You are a blackguard,” gasped the astonished Professor.

“Oh, shucks!” was the elegant retort, “give it a rest. I'm no worse than
that dandy gentleman who added murder to stealing, anyhow.”

“Ah!” Braddock bounded off his chair like an india-rubber ball, “you
said that you knew who had committed the murder.”

“Wal,” drawled Hervey again, “I do and I don't. That is I suspect, but I
can't swear to the business before a judge.”

“Who killed Bolton?” asked the Professor furiously. “Tell me at once.”

“Not me, unless it's made worth my while.”

“It will be, by Don Pedro.”

“That yellow-stomach. What's he got to do with it?”

“I have just told you the mummy belongs to him; he came to Europe to
find it. He wants the emeralds, and intends to offer a reward of one
hundred pounds for the discovery of the assassin.”

Hervey arose briskly.

“I'm right on the job,” said he, sauntering to the door. “I'll go to
that old inn of yours, where you say the Don's stopping, and look him
up. Guess I'll trade.”

“But who killed Bolton?” asked Braddock, running to the door and
gripping Hervey by his coat.

The mariner looked down on the anxious face of the plump little man with
a grim smile.

“I can tell you,” said he, “as you can't figure out the business, unless
I'm on the racket. No, sir; I'm the white boy in thin circus.”

The Professor shook the lean sailor in his anxiety.

“Who is he?”

“That almighty aristocrat that came on board my ship, when I lay in the
Thames on the very afternoon I arrived with Bolton.”

“Who do you mean?” demanded Braddock, more and more perplexed.

“Sir Frank Random.”

“What! did he kill Bolton and steal my mummy?”

“And hide it in that garden on his way to the Fort? I guess he did.”

The Professor sat down and closed his eyes with horror. When he opened
them again, Hervey was gone.




CHAPTER XVI. THE MANUSCRIPT AGAIN


But the Professor was not going to let Captain Hervey escape without
giving him full information. Before the Yankee skipper could reach
the front door, Braddock was at his heels, gasping and blowing like a
grampus.

“Come back, come back. Tell me all.”

“I reckon not,” rejoined the mariner, removing Braddock's grip. “You
ain't the one to give the money. I'll go to the Don, or to Inspector
Date of Pierside.”

“But Sir Frank must be innocent,” insisted Braddock.

“He's got to prove it,” was the dry response. “Let me go.”

“No. You must tell me on what grounds--”

“Oh, the devil take you!” said Hervey hastily, and sat down on one of
the hall chairs. “It's this way, since you won't let me skip until
I tell you. This almighty aristocrat came to Pierside on the same
afternoon as I cast anchor. While Bolton was on board, he looked in to
have a yarn of sorts.”

“What about?”

“Now, how in creation should I know?” snapped the skipper. “I wasn't on
hand, as I'd enough to do with unloading cargo. But his lordship went
with Bolton to the state-room, and they talked for half an hour. When
they came out, I saw that his lordship had his hair riz, and heard him
saying things to Bolton.”

“What sort of things?”

“Well, for one, he said, `You'll repent of this,' and then again, `Your
life isn't safe while you keep it.'”

“Meaning the mummy?”

“I reckon that's so, unless I am mistaken,” said Hervey serenely.

“Why didn't you go to the police with this information?”

“Me? Not much. Why, I saw no way of making dollars. And then, again,
I did not think of putting things together, until I found that his
lorship--”

“Meaning Sir Frank,” interpolated the Professor, frowning.

“I'm talking Queen's, or King's, or Republican lingo, I guess, and I
do mean his lorship,” said the skipper dryly--“until I found that his
lorship had been in the public-house where the crime was committed.”

“The Sailor's Rest? When did he go there?”

“In the evening. After his talk with Bolton, and after a row--as they
both seemed to have their hair off--he skipped over the side and went
back to his yacht, which wasn't far away. Bolton took his blamed mummy
ashore and got fixed at the Sailor's Rest. I gathered afterwards, from
the second mate of The Diver (which ain't my ship now), that his lorship
came into the hotel and had a drink. Afterwards my second mate saw him
talking to Bolton through the window.”

“In the same place as the woman talked?” questioned the Professor.

“That's so, only it was later in the evening that the woman came along
to give chin-music through the window. I am bound to say,” added the
captain generously, “that no one I can place my hand on saw his lorship
loafing about the hotel after dark. But what of that? He may have laid
his plans, and arranged for the corpse to be found later, in that blamed
packing case.”

“Is this all your evidence?”

“It's enough, I guess.”

“Not to procure a warrant.”

“Why, a man in the States would be electrocuted on half the evidence.”

“I daresay,” retorted the little man with contempt, “but we are in
a land where justice of the purest prevails. All your evidence is
circumstantial. It proves nothing.”

The captain was considerably nettled.

“I calculate that it proves Sir Frank wanted the mummy, else why did he
come on board my ship to see your infernal assistant. The words he
used showed that he was warning Bolton how he'd do for him. And then he
talked through the window, and was in the public-house, which ain't a
place for an almighty aristocrat to shelter in. I guess he's the man
wanted by the police. Why,” added Hervey, warming to his tale, “he'd a
slap-up yacht laying near the blamed hotel, and could easily ship the
corpse, after slipping it through the window. When he got tired of it,
and looted the emeralds, he took it by boat, below the Fort, to Mrs.
Jasher's garden and left it there, so as to pull the wool over the eyes
of the police. It's as clear as mud to me. You search his lorship's
shanty, and you'll find the emeralds.”

“It is strange,” muttered Braddock unwillingly.

“Strange, but not true,” said a voice from the head of the stairs, and
young Hope came down leisurely, with a pale face, but a very determined
air. “Random is absolutely innocent.”

“How do you know?” demanded the skipper contemptuously.

“Because he is an English gentleman and my very good friend.”

“Huh! I guess that defense won't save him from being lynched.”

Meanwhile Braddock was looking irritably at Archie.

“You've been listening to a private conversation, sir. How dare you
listen?”

“If you hold private conversations at the top of your voices in the
hall, you must be expected to be listened to,” said Archie coolly. “I
plead guilty, and I am not sorry.”

“When did you come?”

“In time to hear all that Captain Hervey has explained. I was chatting
with Lucy, and had just left her, when I heard your loud voices.”

“Has Lucy heard anything?”

“No. She is busy in her room. But I'll tell her,” Hope turned to mount
the stairs; “she likes Random, and will no more believe him guilty than
I do at this present moment.”

“Stop!” cried Braddock, flying forward to pull Hope back, as he placed
his foot on the first stair. “Tell Lucy nothing just now. We must go to
the Fort, you--and I, to see Random. Hervey, you come also, and then you
can accuse Sir Frank to his face.”

“If he dares to do it!” said Archie, who looked and felt indignant.

“Oh, I'll accuse him right enough when the time comes,” said Hervey in
his coolest manner, “but the time isn't now. Savy! I am going to see the
Don first and make sure of this reward.”

“Faugh!” cried Hope with disgust, “Blood-money!”

“What of that? Ifs a man is a murderer he should be lynched.”

“My friend, Sir Frank Random, is no murderer.”

“He's got to prove, that, as I said before,” rejoined the Yankee in a
calm way, and strolled to the door. “So-long, gents both. I'll light out
for the Warrior Inn and play my cards. And I may tell you,” he added,
pausing at the door, which he opened, “that I haven't got that blamed
wind-jammer, so need money to hold out until another steamer comes
along. One hundred pounds English currency will just fill the bill. So
now you know the lay I'm on. So-long,” and he walked quietly out of
the house, leaving Archie and Braddock looking at one another with pale
faces. The assurance of Hervey surprised and horrified them. Still, they
could not believe that Sir Frank Random had been guilty of so brutal a
crime.

“For one thing,” said Hope after a pause, “Random did not know where the
emeralds were to be found, or even that they existed.”

“I understood that he did know,” said Braddock reluctantly. “In my
hearing, and in your own, you heard Don Pedro state that he had related
the story of the manuscript to Random.”

“You forget that I learned about the emeralds at the same time,” said
Hope quietly. “Yet this Yankee skipper does not accuse me. The knowledge
of the emeralds came to Random's ears and to mine long after the crime
was committed. To have a motive for killing Bolton and stealing the
emeralds, Random would have had to know when he arrived in England.”

“And why should he have not known?” asked the Professor, biting his lip
vexedly. “I don't want to accuse Random, or even to doubt him, as he is
a very good fellow, even though he refused to assist me with money when
I desired a reward to be offered. All the same, he met Don Pedro in
Genoa, and it is just possible that the man told him of the jewels
buried with the mummy.”

Archie shook his head.

“I doubt that,” said he thoughtfully. “Random was as astonished as the
rest of us, when Don Pedro told his Arabian Night story. However, the
point can be easily settled by sending for Random. I daresay he is at
the Fort.”

“I shall send Cockatoo for him at once,” said the Professor quickly, and
walked into the museum to instruct the Kanaka. Archie remained where he
was, and seated himself on a chair, with folded arms and knitted brows.
It was incredible that an English gentleman with a stainless name and
such a well-known soldier should commit so terrible a crime. And the
matter of Hervey's accusation was complicated by the fact--of which
Hervey was ignorant--that Don Pedro was willing that Random should
become his son-in-law. Hope wondered what the fiery, proud Peruvian
would say when he heard his friend denounced. His reflections on this
point were cut short by the return of the Professor, who appeared at
the door of the museum dismissing Cockatoo. When the Kanaka took his
departure, Braddock beckoned to the young man.

“There is no reason why we should talk in the hall, and let the whole
house know of this new difficulty,” he said in a testy manner. “Come in
here.”

Hope entered and looked with ill-concealed repugnance at the uncanny
shape of the green mummy, which was lying on a long table. He
examined the portions where the swathings had been cut with some sharp
instrument, to reveal the dry, bony hands, which formerly had held the
costly jewels. The face was invisible and covered with a mask of dull
beaten gold. Formerly the eyes had been jeweled, but these last were now
absent. He pointed out the mask to the Professor, who was hovering over
the weird dead with a large magnifying-glass.

“It is strange,” said Hope earnestly, “that the mask of gold was not
stolen also, since it is so valuable.”

“Unless melted down, the mask could be traced,” said Braddock after a
pause. “The jewels, according to Don Pedro, are of immense value, and so
could have been got rid of easily. Random was satisfied with those.”

“Don't talk of him in that way, as though his guilt was certain,” said
Hope, wincing.

“Well, you must admit that the evidence against him is strong.”

“But purely circumstantial.”

“Circumstantial evidence has hanged many an innocent man before now.
Humph!” said Braddock uneasily, “I hope it won't hang our friend.
However, we shall hear what he has to say. I have sent Cockatoo to the
Fort to bring him here at once. If Random is absent, Cockatoo is to
leave a note in his room, on the writing-table.”

“Would it not have been better to have told Cockatoo to give the note to
Random's servant?”

“I think not,” responded Braddock dryly. “Random's servant is certainly
one of the most stupid men in the entire army. He would probably forget
to give him the note, and as it is important that we should see Random
at once, it is better that he should find it placed personally on his
writing-table by Cockatoo, upon whom I can depend.”

Archie abandoned the argument, as it really mattered very little. He
took up another line of conversation.

“I expect if the criminal tries to dispose of the emeralds he will
be caught,” said he: “such large jewels are too noticeable to escape
comment.”

“Humph! It depends upon the cleverness of the thief,” said the
Professor, who was more taken up with the mummy than with the
conversation, “He might have the jewels cut into smaller stones, or he
might go to India and dispose of them to some Rajah, who would certainly
say nothing. I don't know how criminals act myself, as I have never
studied their methods. But I hope that the clue you mention will be hit
upon, if only for Random's sake.”

“I don't believe for one moment that Random is in danger,” said Archie,
“and, if he is, I shall turn detective myself.”

“I wish you joy,” replied Braddock, bending over the mummy. “Look, Hope,
at the wonderful color of this wool. There are some arts we have lost
completely--dyeing of this surprising beauty is one. Humph!” mused the
archaeologist, “I wonder why this particular mummy is dyed green, or
rather why it is wrapped in green bandages. Yellow was the royal color
of the ancient Peruvian monarchs. Vicuna wool dyed yellow. What do you
think, Hope? It is strange.”

Archie shrugged his shoulders.

“I can say nothing, because I know nothing,” he said sharply. “All I do
know is that I wish this precious mummy had never been brought here. It
has caused trouble ever since its arrival.”

“Well,” said Braddock, surveying the dead with some disfavor, “I must
say that I shall be glad to see the last of it myself. I know now all
that I wanted to know! Humph! I wonder if Don Pedro will allow me to
strip the mummy? Of course! It is mine not his. I shall unswathe it
entirely,” and Braddock was about to lay sacrilegious hands on the dead,
when Cockatoo entered breathlessly. He had been so quick that he must
have run to the Fort and back again.

“I knock at door,” said the Kanaka, delivering his message, “and I hear
no voice. I go in and find no one, so I put the letter on the table.
I come down and ask, and a soldier tells me, sir, his master is coming
back in half an hour.”

“You should have waited,” said Braddock, waving Cockatoo aside. “Come
along with me to the Fort, Hope.”

“But Random will come here as soon as he returns.”

“Very likely, but I can't wait. I am anxious to hear what he has to
say in his defense. Come, Cockatoo, my coat, my hat, my gloves. Stir
yourself, you scoundrel!”

Archie was not unwilling to go, since he was anxious also to hear what
Random would say to the absurd accusation brought against him by the
Yankee. In a few minutes the two men were walking smartly down the
road through the village, the Professor striving to keep up with Hope's
longer legs by trotting as hard as he could. Halfway down the village
they met a trap, and in it Captain Hervey being driven to the Jessum
railway station.

“Have you seen Don Pedro?” asked the Professor, stopping the vehicle.

“I reckon not,” answered Hervey stolidly. “He's gone into Pierside to
see the police. I'm off there also.”

“You had better come with us,” said Archie sternly;--“we are going to
see Sir Frank Random.”

“Give him my respects,” said the skipper cold-bloodedly, “and say that
he's worth one hundred pounds to me,” he waved his hand and the trap
moved away, but he looked back with a wry smile. “Say I'll square the
matter for double the money and command of his yacht.”

Braddock and Archie looked after the trap in disgust.

“What a scoundrel the man is!” said the Professor pettishly; “he'd sell
his father for what he could get.”

“It shows how much his word is to be depended upon. I expect this
accusation of Random is a put-up job.”

“I hope so, for Random's sake,” said Braddock, trotting briskly along.

In a short time they arrived at the Fort and were informed that Sir
Frank had not yet returned, but was expected back every moment. In the
meanwhile, as Braddock and Hope were both extremely well known, they
were shown into Random's quarters, which were on the first floor. When
the soldier-servant retired and the door was closed, Hope seated himself
near the window, while Braddock trotted round, looking into things.

“It's a dog kennel,” said the Professor. “I told Random that.”

“Perhaps we should have waited him in the mess,” suggested Archie.

“No! no! no! We couldn't talk there, with a lot of silly young fools
hanging about. I told Random that I would never enter the mess, so he
invited me to come always to his quarters. He was in love with Lucy
then,” chuckled the Professor, “and nothing was too good for me.”

“Not even the dog kennel,” said Hope dryly, for the Professor's chatter
was so rude as to be quite annoying.

“Pooh! pooh! pooh! Random doesn't mind a joke. You, Hope, have no sense
of humor. Your name is Scotch also. I believe you are a Caledonian.”

“I am nothing of the sort. I was born on this side of the border.”

“You might have been born at the North Pole for all I care,” said the
little man politely. “I don't like artists: they are usually silly. I
wish Lucy had married a man of science. Now don't talk rubbish. I know
what you are going to say.”

“Well,” said Archie, humoring him, “what am I going to say?”

This non-plussed the irritable savant.

“Hum! Hum! hum! I don't know and don't care. Pouf! How hot this room is!
What a number of books of travel Random has!” Braddock was now at the
bookcase, which consisted of shelves swung by cords against the wall.

“Random travels a great deal,” Archie reminded him.

“Quite so: quite so. Wastes his money on that silly yacht. But he hasn't
traveled in South America. I expect he's going there. Come here, Hope,
and see the many, many books about Peru and Chili and Brazil. There must
be a dozen, and all library books too.”

Archie sauntered towards the shelves.

“I expect Random is getting up the subject of South America, so as to
talk to Donna Inez.”

“Probably! probably!” snapped Braddock, pulling several of the books out
of place. “Why, there isn't a--Ah, dear me! What a catastrophe!”

He might well say so, for in his desire to examine the books, they all
tipped off the shelves and lay in a disorderly heap on the floor. Hope
began to pick them up and replace them, and so did the author of the
mischief. Among the books were several papers scribbled with notes, and
Braddock bundled these all in a heap.. Shortly, he caught sight of the
writing on one.

“Hullo! Latin,” said he, and read a line or two. “Oh!” he gasped, “Hope!
Hope! The manuscript of Don Pedro!”

“Impossible!”

Archie rose and stared at the discolored paper.

“Sorry to have kept you,” said Random, entering at this moment.

“You villain!” shouted Braddock furiously, “so you are guilty after
all?”




CHAPTER XVII. CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE


Random was so taken aback by the fierce accusation of the Professor that
he stood suddenly still at the door, and did not advance into the room.
Yet he did not look so much afraid as puzzled. Whatever Braddock might
have thought, Hope, from the expression on the young soldier's face, was
more than ever satisfied of his innocence.

“What are you talking about, Professor?” asked Random, genuinely
surprised.

“You know well enough,” retorted the Professor.

“Upon my word I don't,” said the other, walking into the room and
unbuckling his sword. “I find you here, with the contents of my bookcase
on the floor, and you promptly accuse me of being guilty. Of what, I
should like to know? Perhaps you can tell me Hope.”

“There is no need for Hope to tell you, sir. You are perfectly well
aware of your own villainy.”

Random frowned.

“I allow a certain amount of latitude to my guests, Professor,” he said
with marked dignity, “but for a man of your age and position you go too
far. Be more explicit.”

“Allow me to speak,” intervened Archie, anticipating Braddock. “Random,
the Professor has just had a visit from Captain Hiram Hervey, who was
the skipper of The Diver. He accuses you of having murdered Bolton!”

“What?” the baronet started back, looking thunderstruck.

“Wait a moment. I have not finished yet. Hervey accuses you of this
murder, of stealing the mummy, of gaining possession of the emeralds,
and of placing the rifled corpse in Mrs. Jasher's garden, so that she
might be accused of committing the crime.”

“Exactly,” cried Braddock, seeing that his host remained silent from
sheer surprise. “Hope has stated the case very clearly. Now, sir, your
defense?”

“Defense! defense!” Random found his tongue at last and spoke
indignantly. “I have no defense to make.”

“Ah! Then you acknowledge your guilt?”

“I acknowledge nothing. The accusation is too preposterous for any
denial to be necessary. Do you believe this of me?” He looked from one
to the other.

“I don't,” said Archie quickly, “there is some mistake.”

“Thank you, Hope. And you, Professor?”

Braddock fidgeted about the room.

“I don't know what to think,” he said at length. “Hervey spoke very
decisively.”

“Oh, indeed,” returned Random dryly, and, walking to the door, he locked
it. “In that case, I must ask you for an explanation, and neither of you
shall leave this room until one is given. Your proofs?”

“Here is one of them,” snapped Braddock, throwing the manuscript on the
table. “Where did you get this?”

Random took up the discolored paper with a bewildered air.

“I never set eyes on this before,” he said, much puzzled. “What is it?”

“A copy of the manuscript mentioned by Don Pedro, which describes the
two emeralds buried with the mummy of Inca Caxas.”

“I see.” Random understood all in a moment. “So you say that I knew of
the emeralds from this, and so murdered Bolton to obtain them.”

“Pardon me,” said Braddock with elaborate politeness. “Hervey says
that you murdered my poor assistant, and although my discovery of this
manuscript proves that you must have known about the jewels, I say
nothing. I wait to hear your defense.”

“That's very good of you,” remarked Sir Frank ironically. “So it seems
that I am in the dock. Perhaps the counsel for the prosecution will
state the evidence against me,” and he looked again from one to the
other.

Archie shook the baronet by the hand very warmly.

“My dear fellow,” he declared decidedly, “I don't believe one word of
the evidence.”

“In that case there must be a flaw in it,” retorted Random, but did not
seem to be unmoved by Hope's generous action. “Sit down, Professor; it
appears that you are against me.”

“Until I hear your defense,” said the old man obstinately.

“I cannot make any until I hear your evidence. Go on. I am waiting,”
 and Sir Frank flung himself into a chair, where he sat calmly, his eyes
steadily fixed on the Professor's face.

“Where did you get that manuscript?” asked Braddock sharply.

“I got it nowhere: this is the first time I have seen it.”

“Yet it was hidden amongst your books.”

“Then I can't say how it got there. Were you looking for it?”

“No! Certainly not. To pass the time while waiting, I examined your
library, and in pulling out a book, your case, being a swing one,
over-balanced and shot its contents on to the floor. Amongst the papers
which fell with the books, I caught a glimpse of the manuscript, and,
noting that it was written in Latin, I picked it up, surprised to
think that a frivolous young man, such as you are, should study a dead
language. A few words showed me that the manuscript was a copy of the
one referred to by Don Pedro.”

“One moment,” said Archie, who had been thinking. “Perhaps this is the
original manuscript, which De Gayangos has given to you, Random.”

“It is good of you to afford me a loophole of escape,” said Sir Frank,
leaning back with folded arms, “but De Gayangos gave me nothing. I
saw the manuscript in his hands, when he showed it to us all at Mrs.
Jasher's. But whether this is the original or a copy I can't say. Don
Pedro certainly did not give it to me.”

“Has Don Pedro been in your quarters?” asked Hope thoughtfully.

“No. He has only visited me in the mess. And even if Don Pedro did come
in here--for I guess what is in your mind--I really do not see why he
should slip a manuscript which he values highly amongst my books.”

“Then you really never saw this before?” said Braddock, indicating the
paper on the table, and impressed by Random's earnestness.

“How often do you want me to deny it?” retorted the young man
impatiently. “Perhaps you will state on what grounds I am accused?”

Braddock nodded and cleared his throat.

“Captain Hervey declared that your yacht arrived at Pierside almost at
the same time as his steamer.”

“Quite right. When Don Pedro received a wire from Malta stating that the
mummy had been sold to you, and that it was being shipped to London on
The Diver, I got up steam at once, and chased the tramp to that port. As
the tramp was slow, and my boat was fast, I arrived on the same day
and almost at the same hour, even though Hervey's boat had the start of
mine.”

“Why were you anxious to follow The Diver?” asked Hope.

“Don Pedro wished to get back the mummy, and asked me to follow. As I
was in love with Donna Inez, and still am, I was only too willing to
oblige him.”

Braddock nodded again.

“Hervey says that you went on board The Diver, and had an interview with
Bolton.”

“That is perfectly true, and my visit was paid for the same reason as I
followed the steamer to London--that is, I acted on behalf of Don Pedro.
I wished to ascertain for certain that the mummy was on board, and
having done so from Bolton, I urged him to induce you to give back the
same, free of charge, to De Gayangos, from whom it had been stolen. He
refused, as he declared that he intended to deliver it to you.”

“I knew I could always trust Bolton,” said the Professor
enthusiastically. “It would have been better for you to have come to me,
Random.”

“I daresay; but I wished, as I told you, to make certain that the mummy
was on board. That was the real reason for my visit; but, being in
Bolton's company, I naturally told him that Don Pedro claimed the mummy
as his property, and warned him that if you or he kept the same, that
there would be trouble.”

“Did you use threats?” asked Hope, remembering what he had overheard.

“No; certainly not.”

“Yes, you did,” cried Braddock quickly. “Hervey declares that you told
Bolton that he would repent of keeping the mummy, and that his life
would not be safe while he held it.”

To the surprise of both visitors, Random admitted using these serious
threats without a moment's hesitation.

“Don Pedro told me that many Indians, both in Lima and Cuzco, who
look upon him as the lawful descendant of the last Inca, are anxiously
expecting the return of the royal mummy. He also stated that when the
Indians knew who held the mummy they would send one of themselves to get
it back, if he--Don Pedro, that is--did not fetch it. To get back the
mummy Don Pedro declared that these Indians would not stop short of
murder. Hence my warning to Bolton.”

“Oh!” Archie jumped up with widely opened eyes. “Then perhaps this
solves the problem. Bolton was murdered by some Peruvian Indian.”

Random shook his head gravely.

“Again you offer me a loophole of escape, my dear fellow,” he said
sententiously, “but that theory will not hold water. At present the
Indians in Lima and Cuzco do not know that the mummy has been found. Don
Pedro only chanced upon the paper which announced the sale by accident
and had no time to communicate with his barbaric friends in South
America. Failing to get the mummy from you, Professor, he would have
returned to Peru and then would have told who possessed the corpse of
Inca Caxas, leaving the Indians to deal with the matter. In that case my
warning to Bolton would be necessary. But at the time I told him, it
was not necessary. However, Bolton remained true to you, Professor, and
declined to surrender the mummy. I therefore wired to Don Pedro at Genoa
that the mummy was on board The Diver and was being sent to Gartley. I
also advised him to come to me here in order to be introduced to you.
The rest you know.”

There was a moment's silence. Then Archie, to test if Random was
willing to admit everything--as an innocent man certainly would--asked
significantly,

“Did you see Bolton again after your interview on board ship?”

It was then that the baronet proved his good faith.

“Oh, yes,” he said easily and without hesitation. “I was walking
about Pierside later, and, passing along that waterside alley near
the Sailor's Rest, I saw a window on the ground floor open, and Bolton
looking out across the river. I stopped and asked him when he proposed
to take the mummy to Gartley, and if it was on shore. He admitted that
it was in the hotel, but declined to say when he would send it on to
you, Professor. When he closed the window, I afterwards went into the
hotel and had a drink in order to ask casually when Mr. Bolton intended
to leave. I gathered--not directly, of course, but in a roundabout
way--that he had arranged to go next morning and to send on his luggage.
Then I left and went to London. In the course of time I returned here
and learned of the murder and the disappearance of the corpse of Inca
Caxas. And now,” Random stood up, “having admitted all this, perhaps you
will believe me to be innocent.”

“You have no idea who murdered Bolton and placed his body in the packing
case?” asked Braddock, manifestly disappointed.

“'No. No more than I have any idea of the person who placed the mummy
case and its contents in Mrs. Jasher's garden.”

“Oh, you know that!” said Archie quickly.

“Yes. The news was all over the village this morning. I could hardly
help knowing it. And I believe that the mummy has been taken to your
house, Professor.”

“It has,” admitted Braddock dryly. “I took it myself from Mrs. Jasher's
arbor in a hand-cart, with the assistance of Cockatoo. But when I made
an examination this morning in the presence of Hope and Don Pedro, I
found that the swathings of the body had been ripped up, and that the
emeralds mentioned in that manuscript had been stolen.”

“Strange!” said Random with a frown; “and by whom?”

“No doubt by the assassin of Sidney Bolton.”

“Probably.” Random kicked a mat straight with his foot. “At any rate
the theft of the emeralds shows that it was not any Indian who killed
Bolton. None of them would rifle so sacred a corpse.”

“Besides which--as you say--the Indians in Peru do not know that the
mummy has reappeared after thirty years' seclusion,” chimed in Hope,
rising. “Well, and what is to be done now?”

For answer Sir Frank picked up the manuscript which still remained on
the table.

“I shall see Don Pedro about this,” he said quietly, “and ascertain if
it is the original or a copy.”

Braddock rose slowly and stared at the paper.

“Do you know Latin?” he asked.

“No,” rejoined Random, knowing what the savant meant. “I learned it, of
course, but I have forgotten much. I might translate a word or two,
but certainly not the hedge-priest Latin in which this is written.” He
looked carefully at the manuscript as he spoke.

“But who could have placed it in your room?” questioned Archie.

“We cannot learn that until we see Don Pedro. If this is the original
manuscript which we saw the other night, we may learn how it passed from
the possession of De Gayangos to my bookcase. If it is a copy, then we
must learn, if possible, who owned it.”

“Don Pedro said that a transcript or a translation had been made,”
 mentioned Hope.

“Evidently a transcript,” said Braddock, glaring at the paper in
Random's hand. “But how could that find its way from Lima to this
place?”

“It might have been packed up with the mummy,” suggested Archie.

“No,” contradicted Random decisively, “in that event, the man in Malta
from whom the mummy was bought would have discovered the emeralds, and
would have taken them.”

“Perhaps he did. We have nothing to show that Bolton's assassin
committed the crime for the sake of the jewels.”

“He must have done so,” cried the Professor, irritably, “else there is
no motive for the commission of the crime. But I think myself that we
must start at the other end to find a clue. When we discover who placed
the mummy in Mrs. Jasher's garden--”

“That will not be easy,” murmured Hope thoughtfully, “though, of
course, the same must have been brought by river. Let us go down to the
embankment and see if there are any signs of a boat having been brought
there last night,” and he moved to the door. “Random?”

“I cannot leave the Fort, as I am on duty,” replied the officer, putting
the manuscript away in a drawer and locking the same, “but this evening
I shall see Don Pedro, and in the meanwhile I shall endeavor to learn
from my servant who visited me lately while I was absent. The manuscript
must have been brought here by someone. But I trust,” he added as he
escorted his two visitors to the door, “that you now acquit me of--”

“Yes! yes! yes!” cried Braddock, hastily cutting him short and shaking
his hand. “I apologize for my suspicions. Now I maintain that you are
innocent.”

“And I never believed you to be guilty,” cried Hope heartily.

“Thank you both,” said Random simply, and, having closed the door, he
returned to a chair near the fire to smoke a pipe, and meditate over his
future movements. “An enemy hath done this,” said Random, referring
to the concealment of the manuscript, but he could think of no one who
desired to harm him in any way.




CHAPTER XVIII. RECOGNITION


Lucy and Mrs. Jasher were having a confidential conversation in the
small pink drawing-room. True to her promise, Miss Kendal had come to
readjust matters between the fiery little Professor and the widow. But
it was not an easy task, as Mrs. Jasher was righteously indignant at the
rash words used to her.

“As if I knew anything about the matter,” she repeated again and again
in angry tones. “Why, my dear, he as good as told me I had murdered--”

Lucy did not let her finish.

“There! there!” she said, speaking as she would have done to a fretful
child, “you know what my father is.”

“It seems to me that I am just beginning to learn,” said the widow
bitterly, “and knowing how ready he is to believe ill of me, I think it
is better we should part for ever.”

“But you'll never be Lady Braddock.”

“Even if I married him, I am not sure that I should be, since I learn
that his brother is singularly healthy and comes of a long-lived family.
And it will not be pleasant to live with your father when he has such a
temper.”

“That was only because he was excited. Think of your salon, and of the
position you wish to hold in, London.”

“Ah, well,” said Mrs. Jasher, visibly softening, “there is something to
be said there. After all, one can never find a man who is perfection.
And a very amiable man is usually a fool. One can't expect a rose to
be without thorns. But really, my dear,” she surveyed Lucy with mild
surprise, “you appear to be very anxious that I should marry your
father.”

“I want to see my father made comfortable before I marry Archie,”
 said the girl with a blush. “Of course my father is quite a child in
household affairs and needs everything done for him. Archie--I am glad
to say--is now in a position to marry me in the spring. I want you to be
married about the same time, and then you can live in Gartley, and--”

“No, my dear,” said Mrs. Jasher firmly, “if I marry your father, he
wishes us to go at once to Egypt in search of this tomb.”

“I know that he wants you to help with the money left to you by your
late brother. But surely you will not go up the Nile yourself?”

“No, certainly not,” said the widow promptly. “I shall remain in Cairo
while the Professor goes on his excursion into Ethiopia. I know that
Cairo is a very charming place, and that I shall be able to enjoy myself
there.”

“Then you have decided to forgive my father for his rash words?”

“I must,” sighed Mrs. Jasher. “I am so tired of being an unprotected
widow without a recognized position in the world. Even with my brother's
money,--not that it is so very much--I shall still be looked upon
askance if I go into society. But as Mrs. Braddock, or Lady Braddock,
no one will dare to say a word against me. Yes, my dear, if your father
comes and, asks my pardon he shall have it. We women are so weak,” ended
the widow virtuously, as if she was not making a virtue of necessity.

Things being thus settled, the two talked on amiably for some time, and
discussed the chances of Random marrying Donna Inez. Both acknowledged
that the Peruvian lady was handsome enough, but had not a word to say
for herself.

While thus chattering, Professor Braddock trotted into the room, looking
brisk and bright from his stroll in the cold frosty air. Gifted as he
was with scientific assurance, the little man was not at all taken aback
by the cold reception of Mrs. Jasher, but rubbed his hands cheerfully.

“Ah, there you are, Selina,” said he, looking like a bright-eyed robin.
“I hope you are feeling well.”

“How can you expect me to feel well after what you said?” remarked Mrs.
Jasher reproachfully, and anxious to make a virtue of forgiveness.

“Oh, I beg pardon: I beg pardon. Surely, Selina, you are not going to
make a fuss over a trifle like that?”

“I did not give you permission to call me Selina.”

“Quite so. But as we are to be married, I may as well get used to your
Christian name, my dear.”

“I am not so sure that we will be married,” said Mrs. Jasher stiffly.

“Oh, but we must,” cried Braddock in dismay. “I am depending upon your
money to finance my expedition to Queen Tahoser's tomb.”

“I see,” observed the widow coldly, while Lucy sat quietly by and
allowed the elder woman to conduct the campaign, “you want me for my
money. There is no love in the question.”

“My dear, as soon as I have the time--say during our voyage to Cairo,
whence we start inland up the Nile for Ethiopia--I shall make love
whenever you like. And, confound it, Selina, I admire you no end--to
use a slang phrase. You are a fine woman and a sensible woman, and I
am afraid that you are throwing yourself away on a snuffy old man like
myself.”

“Oh no! no! Pray do not say that,” cried Mrs. Jasher, visibly moved
by this flattery. “You will make a very good husband if you will only
strive to govern your temper.”

“Temper! temper! Bless the woman--I mean you, Selina--I have the very
best temper in the world. However, you shall govern it and myself also
if you like. Come,” he took her hand, “let us be friends and fix the
wedding day.”

Mrs. Jasher did not withdraw her hand.

“Then you do not believe that I have anything to do with this terrible
murder?” she asked playfully.

“No! no! I was heated last night. I spoke rashly and hastily. Forgive
and forget, Selina. You are innocent--quite innocent, in spite of
the mummy being in your confounded garden. After all, the evidence is
stronger against Random than against you. Perhaps he put it there: it's
on his way to the Fort, you see. Never mind. He has exonerated himself,
and no doubt, when confronted with Hervey, will be able to silence that
blackguard. And I am quite sure that Hervey is a blackguard,” ended
Braddock, rubbing his bald head.

The two ladies looked at one another in amazement, not knowing what
to say. They were ignorant of the theft of the emeralds and of the
accusation of Sir Frank by the Yankee skipper. But, with his usual
absentmindedness, Braddock had forgotten all about that, and sat in his
chair rubbing his head quite pink and rattling on cheerfully.

“I went down with Hope to the embankment,” he continued, “but neither
of us could see any sign of a boat. There's the rude, short jetty, of
course, and if a boat came, a boat could go away without leaving any
trace. Perhaps that is so. However, we must wait until we see Don Pedro
and Hervey again, and then--”

Lucy broke in desperately.

“What are you talking about, father? Why do you bring in Sir Frank's
name in that way?”

“What do you expect me to say?” retorted the little man. “After all, the
manuscript was found in his room, and the emeralds are gone. I saw that
for myself, as did Hope and Don Pedro, in whose presence I opened the
mummy case.”

Mrs. Jasher rose in her astonishment.

“Are the emeralds gone?” she gasped.

“Yes! yes! yes!” cried Braddock irritably. “Am I not telling you so?
I almost believe in Hervey's accusation of Random, and yet the boy
exonerated himself very forcibly--very forcibly indeed.”

“Will you explain all that has happened, father?” said Lucy, who was
becoming more and more perplexed by this rambling chatter. “We are quite
in the dark.”

“So am I: so is Hope: so is every one,” chuckled Braddock. “Ah, yes: of
course, you were not present when these events took place.”

“What events?--what events?” demanded Mrs. Jasher, now quite
exasperated.

“I am about to tell you,” snapped her future husband, and related all
that had taken place since the arrival of Captain Hervey in the museum
at the Pyramids. The women listened with interest and with growing
astonishment, only interrupting the narrator with a simultaneous
exclamation of indignation when they heard that Sir Frank was accused.

“It is utterly and wholly absurd,” cried Lucy angrily. “Sir Frank is the
soul of honor.”

“So I think, my dear,” chimed in Mrs. Jasher. “And what does he say
to--?”

Braddock interrupted.

“I am about to tell you, if you will stop talking,” he cried crossly.
“That is so like a woman. She asks for an explanation and then prevents
the man from giving it. Random offers a very good defense, I am bound to
say,” and he detailed what Sir Frank had said.

When the history was finished, Lucy rose to go.

“I shall see Archie at once,” she said, moving hastily, towards the
door.

“What for?” demanded her father benignly.

Lucy turned.

“This thing can't go on,” she declared resolutely. “Mrs. Jasher was
accused by you, father--”

“Only in a heated moment,” cried the Professor, excusing himself.

“Never mind, she was accused,” retorted Lucy stubbornly, “and now
this sailor accuses Sir Frank. Who knows who will be charged next with
committing the crime? I shall ask Archie to take the matter up, and hunt
down the real criminal. Until the guilty person is found, I foresee that
we shall never have a moment's peace.”

“I quite agree with you,” said Mrs. Jasher earnestly. “For my own sake
I wish the matter of this mystery to be cleared up. Why don't you help
me?” she added, turning to Braddock, who listened placidly.

“I am helping,” said Braddock quietly. “I intend to set Cockatoo on the
trail at once. He shall take up his abode in the Sailor's Rest on some
pretext, and no doubt will be able to find a clue.”

“What?” cried the widow incredulously, “a savage like that?”

“Cockatoo is much cleverer than the average white man,” said Braddock
dryly, “especially in following a trail. He, if any one, will learn the
truth. I would much rather trust the Kanaka than young Hope.”

“Nonsense!” cried Lucy, standing up for her lover. “Archie is the one to
discover the assassin. I'll see him at once. And you, father?”

“I, my dear,” said the Professor calmly, “shall remain here and make my
peace with the future Mrs. Braddock.”

“You have made it already,” said the widow graciously, and extended her
hand, which the Professor kissed unexpectedly, and then sat back in his
chair, looking quite abashed at his outburst of gallantry.

Seeing that everything was going well, Lucy left the elderly couple
to continue their courting, and hurried to Archie's lodgings in the
village. However, he happened to be out, and his landlady did not know
when he would return. Rather annoyed by this, since she greatly desired
to unbosom herself, Miss Kendal walked disconsolately towards the
Pyramids. On the way she was stopped by Widow Anne, looking more dismal
and funereal than ever, and garrulous with copious draughts of gin. Not
that she was intoxicated, but her tongue was loose, and she wept freely
for no apparent reason. According to herself, she had stopped Lucy to
demand back from Mr. Hope through the girl certain articles of attire
which had been borrowed for artistic purposes. These, consisting of a
shawl and a skirt and a bodice, were of extraordinary value, and Mrs.
Bolton wanted them back or their equivalent in value. She mentioned that
she would prefer the sum of five pounds.

“Why do you not ask Mr. Hope yourself?” said Lucy who was too impatient
to bear with the old creature's maunderings. “If you gave him the things
he will no doubt return them.”

“If they aren't spiled with paint,” wailed Widow Anne. “He told my Sid
as he wanted them for a model to wear while being painted. Sid asked
me, and I gave 'em to Sid, and Sid, he passed 'em along to your good
gentleman. There was a skirt, as good as new, and a body of the dress
trimmest beautiful, and a tartan shawl as I got from my mother. But no,”
 the old woman corrected herself, “it was a dark shawl with red spots
and--”

“Ask Mr. Hope, ask Mr. Hope,” cried Miss Kendal impatiently. “I know
nothing about the things,” and she tore her dress from Widow Anne's
detaining hand to hurry home. Mrs. Bolton wailed aloud at this
desertion, and took her way to Hope's lodgings, where she declared her
determination to remain until the artist restored her apparel.

Lucy for the moment thought little of this interview; but on reflection
she thought it strange that Archie should borrow clothes from Mrs.
Bolton through Sidney. Not that there was anything strange in Archie's
procuring such garments, since he may have wanted them to clothe a model
with. But he could easily have got such things from his landlady, or,
if from Widow Anne, could have borrowed them direct without appealing to
Sidney. Why, then, had the dead man acted as an intermediate party? This
question was hard to answer, yet Lucy greatly wished for a reply, since
she suddenly remembered how a woman in a dark dress and with a dark
shawl over her head had been seen by Eliza Flight, the housemaid of the
Sailor's Rest, talking to Bolton through the window. Were the garments
borrowed as a disguise, and did the person who had borrowed them desire
that it should be supposed that Widow Anne was talking to her son? There
was a chill hand clutching Lucy's heart as she went home, for the words
of Mrs. Bolton seemed indirectly to implicate Hope in the mystery. She
determined to ask him about the matter straight out, when he came in
that night to pay his usual visit.

At dinner the Professor was in excellent spirits, and actually became so
human as to compliment Lucy on her housekeeping. He also mentioned that
he hoped Mrs. Jasher would cater as excellently. Over coffee he informed
his step-daughter that he had entirely won the widow's heart by abasing
himself at her feet and withdrawing the accusation. They had arranged to
be married in May, one or two weeks after Lucy became Mrs. Hope. In the
autumn they would start for Egypt, and would remain abroad for a year or
more.

“In fact,” said the Professor, setting down his cup and preparing to
take his departure, “everything is now settled excellently. I marry Mrs.
Jasher: you, my dear, marry Hope, and--”

“And Sir Frank marries Donna Inez,” finished Lucy quickly.

“That,” said Braddock stiffly, “entirely depends upon what De Gayangos
says to this accusation of Hervey's.”

“Sir Frank is innocent.”

“I hope so, and I believe so. But he will have to prove his innocence.
I shall do my best, and I have sent round to Don Pedro to come here. We
can then talk it over.”

“Can Archie and I come in also?” asked Miss Kendal anxiously.

Somewhat to her surprise, the Professor yielded a ready assent.

“By all means, my dear. The more witnesses we have, the better it will
be. We must do all in our powers to bring this matter to a successful
issue.”

So things were arranged, and when Archie came up to the drawing-room,
Lucy informed him that Braddock was in the museum with Don Pedro,
telling all that had happened. Hope was glad to hear that Lucy had
secured the Professor's consent that they should be present, for the
mystery of Bolton's terrible death was piquing him, and he dearly
desired to learn the truth. As a matter of fact, although he was unaware
of it, he was suffering from an attack of detective fever, and wished
to solve the mystery. He therefore went gladly into the museum with his
sweetheart. Oddly enough--as Lucy recollected when it was too late to
speak--she quite forgot to relate what Widow Anne had said about the
borrowed clothes.

Don Pedro, looking more stiff and dignified than ever, was in the
museum with Braddock. The two men were seated in comfortable chairs, and
Cockatoo, some distance away, was polishing with a cloth the green mummy
case of the fatal object which had brought about all the trouble. Lucy
had half expected to see Donna Inez, but De Gayangos explained that
he had left her writing letters to Lima in the Warrior Inn. When
Miss Kendal and Hope were seated, the Peruvian expressed himself much
surprised at the charge which had been brought against Sir Frank.

“If I can speak of such things in the presence of a lady,” he remarked,
bowing his head to Lucy.

“Oh yes,” she answered eagerly. “I have heard all about the charge. And
I am glad that you are here, Don Pedro, for I wish to say that I do not
believe there is a word of truth in the accusation.”

“Nor do I,” asserted the Peruvian decisively.

“I agree--I agree,” cried Braddock, beaming. “And you, Hope?”

“I never believed it, even before I heard Random's defense,” said Archie
with a dry smile. “Did you not see Captain Hervey yourself, sir?” he
added, turning to Don Pedro; “he started for Pierside to look you up.”

“I have not seen him,” said De Gayangos in his stately way, “and I am
very sorry, as I desire to examine him about the accusation he had dared
to bring against my very good friend, Sir Frank Random. I wish he were
here at this very minute, so that I could tell him what I think of the
charge.”

Just as Don Pedro spoke the unexpected happened, as though some genie
had obeyed his commands. As though transported into the room by magic,
the American skipper appeared, not through the floor, but by the door. A
female domestic admitted him and announced his name, then fled to avoid
the anger of her master, seeing she had violated the sacred precincts of
the museum.

Captain Hervey, amused by the surprise visible on every face, sauntered
forward, hat on head and cheroot in mouth as usual. But when he saw Lucy
he removed both with a politeness scarcely to be expected from so rude
and ready and rough a mariner.

“I beg pardon for coming here uninvited,” said Hervey awkwardly, “but
I've been chasing the Don all over Pierside and through this village.
They told me at the police office that you”--he spoke to De Gayangos
“had doubled on your trail, so here I am for a little private
conversation.”

The Peruvian looked gravely at Hervey's face, which was clearly revealed
in the powerful light of the many lamps with which the museum was
filled, and rose to bow.

“I am glad to see you, sir,” he said politely, and with a still more
searching glance. “With the permission of our host I shall ask you to
take a chair,” and he turned to Braddock.

“Certainly! certainly!” said the Professor fussily. “Cockatoo?”

“Pardon, allow me,” said De Gayangos, and brought forward a chair,
still keeping his eyes on the skipper, who was rather confused by the
courtesy. “Will you be seated, senor: then we can talk.”

Hervey sat down quietly close to the Peruvian; who then leaned forward
to address him.

“You will have a cigarette?” he asked, offering a silver case.

“Thanks, no. I'll smoke a cheroot if the lady don't mind.”

“Not at all,” replied Lucy, who, along with Archie and the Professor,
was puzzled by Don Pedro's manner. “Please smoke!”

In taking back the case Don Pedro allowed it to drop. As he made no
motion of picking it up, Hervey, although annoyed with himself for
his politeness towards a yellow-stomach, as he called De Gayangos, was
compelled to stretch for it. As he handed it back to Don Pedro, the
Peruvian's eyes lighted up and he nodded gravely.

“Thank you, Vasa,” said De Gayangos, and Hervey, changing color, leaped
from his seat as though touched by a spear-point.




CHAPTER XIX. NEARER THE TRUTH


For a few moments there was silence. Lucy and Archie sat still, as they
were too much surprised by Don Pedro's recognition of Captain Hervey as
the Swedish sailor Vasa to move or speak. But the Professor did not seem
to be greatly astonished, and the sole sound which broke the stillness
was his sardonic chuckle. Perhaps the little man had progressed beyond
the point of being surprised at anything, or, like, Moliere's hero, was
only surprised at finding virtue in unexpected places.

As for the Peruvian and the skipper, they were both on their feet,
eyeing one another like two fighting dogs. Hervey was the first to find
his very useful tongue.

“I guess you've got the bulge on me,” said he, trying to outstare
the Peruvian, for which nationality, from long voyaging on the South
American coast, he entertained the most profound contempt.

But in De Gayangos he found a foeman worthy of his steel.

“I think not,” said Don Pedro quietly, and facing the pseudo-American
bravely. “I never forget faces, and yours is a noticeable one. When you
first spoke I fancied that I remembered your voice. All that business
with the chair was to get close to you, so that I could see the scar
on your right temple. It is still there, I notice. Also, I dropped my
cigarette case and forced you to pick it up, so that, when you stretched
your arm, I might see what mark was on your left wrist. It is a serpent
encircling the sun, which Lola Farjados induced you to have tattooed
when you were in Lima thirty years ago. Your eyes are blue and full of
light, and as you were twenty when I knew you, the lapse of years has
made you fifty--your present age.”

“Shucks!” said Hervey coolly, and sat down to smoke.

Don Pedro turned to Archie and Braddock.

“Mr. Hope! Professor!” he remarked, “if you remember the description I
gave of Gustav Vasa, I appeal to you to see if it does not exactly fit
this man?”

“It does,” said Archie unhesitatingly, “although I cannot see the
tattooed left wrist to which you refer.”

Hervey, still smoking, made no offer to show the symbol, but Braddock
unexpectedly came to the assistance of Don Pedro.

“The man is Vasa right enough,” he remarked abruptly. “Whether he is
Swedish or American I cannot say. But he is the same man I met when I
was in Lima thirty years ago, after the war.”

Hervey slowly turned his blue eyes on the scientist with a twinkle in
their depths.

“So you recognized me?” he observed, with his Yankee drawl.

“I recognized you at the moment I hired you to take The Diver to Malta
to bring back that mummy,” retorted Braddock, “but it didn't suit my
book to let on. Didn't you recognize me?”

“Wal, no,” said Hervey, his drawl more pronounced than ever. “I haven't
got the memory for faces that you and the Don here seem to possess.
Huh!” He wheeled his chair and faced Braddock squarely. “I'd have
thought you wiser not to back up the Don, sir.”

Braddock's little eyes sparkled.

“I am not afraid of you,” said he with great contempt. “I never did
anything for which you could get money out of me for, Captain Hervey or
Gustav Vasa, or whatever your name might be.”

“You were always a mighty spry man,” assented the skipper coolly, “but
spry men, I take it, make mistakes from being too almighty smart.”

Braddock shrugged his shoulders, and Don Pedro intervened.

“This is all beside the point,” he remarked angrily. “Captain Hervey, do
you deny that you are Gustav Vasa in the face of this evidence?”

Hervey drew up the left sleeve of his reefer jacket, and showed on his
bared wrist the symbol of the sun and the encircling serpent.

“Is that enough?” he drawled, “or do you want to look at this?” and he
turned his head to reveal his scarred right temple.

“Then you admit that you are Vasa?”

“Wal,” drawled the captain again, “that's one of my names, I guess,
though I haven't used it since I traded that blamed mummy in Paris,
thirty years ago. There's nothing like owning up.”

“Are you not Swedish?” asked Lucy timidly.

“I am a citizen of the world, I guess,” replied Hervey with great
politeness for him, “and America suits me for headquarters as well as
any other nation. I might be Swedish or Danish or a Dago for choice.
Vasa may be my name, or Hervey, or anything you like. But I guess I'm a
man all through.”

“And a thief!” cried Don Pedro, who had resumed his seat, but was
keeping quiet with difficulty.

“Not of those emeralds,” rejoined the skipper coolly: “Lord, to think
of the chance I missed! Thirty years ago I could have looted them,
and again the other day. But I never knew--I never knew,” cried Hervey
regretfully, with his vividly blue eyes on the mummy. “I could jes' kick
myself, gentlemen, when I think of the miss.”

“Then you didn't steal the manuscript along with the emeralds?”

“Wal, I did,” cried Hervey, turning to Archie, who had spoken, “but it
was in a furren lingo, to which I didn't catch on. If I'd known I'd have
learned about those blamed emeralds.”

“What did you do with the copy of the manuscript you stole?” asked Don
Pedro sharply. “I know there was a copy, as my father told me so. I have
the original myself, but the transcript--and not a translation, as I
fancied--appeared in Sir Frank Random's room to-day, hidden behind some
books.”

Hervey made no move, but smoked steadily, with his eyes on the carpet.
However, Archie, who was observing keenly, saw that he was more startled
than he would admit. The explanation had taken him by surprise.

“Explain!” cried the Peruvian sharply.

Hervey looked up and fixed a pair of very evil eyes on the Don.

“See here,” he remarked, “if the lady wasn't present, I'd show you that
I take no orders from any yellow--that is, from any low-down Don.”

“Lucy, my dear, leave us,” said Braddock, rising, much excited; “we must
have this matter sifted to the bottom, and if Hervey can explain better
in your absence, I think you should go.”

Although Miss Kendal was very anxious to hear all that was to be heard,
she saw the advisability of taking this advice, especially as Hope gave
her arm a meaning nudge.

“I'll go,” she said meekly, and was escorted by her lover to the door.
There she paused. “Tell me all that takes place,” she whispered, and
when Archie nodded, she vanished promptly. The young man closed the door
and returned to his seat in time to hear Don Pedro reiterate his request
for an explanation.

“And 'spose I can't oblige,” said the skipper, now more at his ease
since the lady was out of the room.

“Then I shall have you arrested,” was the quick reply.

“For what?”

“For the theft of my mummy.”

Hervey laughed raucously.

“I guess the law can't worry me about that after thirty years, and in
a low-down country like Peru. Your Government has shifted fifty times
since I looted the corpse.”

This was quite true, and there was absolutely no chance of the skipper
being brought to book. Don Pedro looked rather disconsolate, and his
gaze dropped under the glare of Hervey's eyes, which seemed unfair,
seeing that the Don was as good as the captain was evil.

“You can't expect me to condone the theft,” he muttered.

“I reckon I don't expect anything,” retorted Hervey coolly “I looted the
corpse, I don't deny, and--”

“After my father had treated you like a son,” said Don Pedro bitterly.
“You were homeless and friendless, and my father took you in, only to
find that you robbed him of his most precious possession.”

The skipper had the grace to blush, and shifted uneasily in his chair.

“You can't say truer than that,” he grumbled, averting his eyes. “I
guess I'm a bad lot all through. But a friend of mine wanted the corpse,
and offered me a heap of dollars to see the business through.”

“Do you mean to say that some one asked you to steal it?”

“No,” put in Braddock unexpectedly, “for I was the friend.”

“You!” Don Pedro swung round in great astonishment, but the Professor
faced him with all the consciousness of innocence.

“Yes,” he remarked quietly, “as I told you, I was in Peru thirty years
ago. I was then hunting for specimens of Inca mummies. Vasa--this man
now called Hervey--told me that he could obtain a splendid specimen of
a mummy, and I arranged to give him one hundred pounds to procure what
I wanted. But I swear to you, De Gayangos,” continued the little man
earnestly, “that I did not know he proposed to steal the mummy from
you.”

“You knew it was the green mummy?” asked Don Pedro sharply.

“No, I only knew that it was a mummy.”

“Did Vasa get it for you?”

“I guess not,” said the gentleman who confessed to that name. “The
Professor went to Cuzco and got into trouble--”

“I was carried off to the mountains by some Indians,” interpolated the
Professor, “and only escaped after a year's captivity. I did not mind
that, as it gave me the opportunity of studying a decaying civilization.
But when I returned a free man to Lima, I found that Vasa had left the
country with the mummy.”

“That's so,” assented Hervey, waving his hand. “I got a berth as second
mate on a wind-jammer sailing to Europe, and as the country wasn't
healthy for me since I'd looted the green mummy, I took it abroad and
yanked it to Paris, where I sold it for a couple of hundred pounds. With
that, I changed my name and had a high old time. I never heard of the
blamed thing again until the Professor here turned up with Mr. Bolton
at Pierside, asking me to bring it in The Diver from Malta. It was what
you'd call a coincidence, I reckon,” added Hervey lazily; “but I did cry
small when I heard the Professor here had paid nine hundred for a thing
I'd let slip for two hundred. Had I known of those infernal emeralds,
I'd have ripped open the case on board and would have recouped myself.
But I knew nothing, and Bolton never told me.”

“How could he,” asked Braddock quietly, “when he did not know that any
jewels were buried with the dead? I did not know either. And I have
explained why I wanted the mummy. But it never struck me until I hear
what you say now, that this mummy,” he nodded towards the green case,
“was the one which you had stolen at Lima from De Gayangos. But you
must do me the justice, Captain Hervey, to tell Don Pedro that I never
countenanced the theft.”

“No! you were square enough, I guess. The sin is on my own blessed
shoulders, and I don't ask it to be shifted.”

“What did you do with the copy of the manuscript?” asked Don Pedro.

Hervey ruminated.

“I can't think,” he mused. “I found a screed of Latin along with the
mummy, when I looted it from your Lima house, but it dropped out of my
mind as to what became of it. Maybe I passed it along to the Paris man,
and he sold it along with the corpse to the Maltese gent.”

“But I tell you this copy was found in Sir Frank's room,” insisted De
Gayangos. “How did it come to be there?”

Captain Hervey rose and took a turn up and down the room. When Cockatoo
came in his way he calmly kicked him aside.

“What do you think, Mr. Hope?” he asked, coming to a full stop before
Archie, while Cockatoo crept away with a very dark scowl.

“I don't know what to think,” replied that young gentleman promptly,
“save that Sir Frank is my very good friend, and that I take his word
that he knows nothing of how the manuscript came to be hidden in his
bookcase.”

“Huh!” said Hervey scornfully, and took another turn up and down the
room in silence. “I surmise that your friend isn't a white man.”

Hope leaped to his feet.

“That's a lie,” he said distinctly.

“I'd have shot you for that down Chili way,” snapped the skipper.

“Possibly,” retorted the artist dryly, “but I happen to be handy with my
revolver also. I say again that you lie. Random is not the man to commit
so foul a crime.”

“Then how did the manuscript get into his room?” questioned Hervey.

“He is trying to learn, and, when he does, will come here to let us all
know, Captain Hervey. But I ask you on what grounds you accuse him? Oh I
know all you said to-day,” added Hope scornfully, waving his hand; “but
you can't prove that Random got the manuscript.”

“If it's in his room, as you acknowledge, I can,” said Hervey, speaking
in a much more cultivated tone. “See here. As I said before, that copy
must have been passed along with the corpse to the Maltese man. Well,
then, the Professor here bought the corpse, and with it the manuscript.”

“No,” contradicted the little man, prodigiously excited. “Bolton
wrote to me full particulars of the mummy, but said nothing about any
manuscript.”

“Well, he wouldn't,” replied Hervey calmly, “seeing that he'd know
Latin.”

“He did know Latin,” admitted Braddock uneasily; “I taught him myself.
But do you mean to say that he got that manuscript and read it and
intended to keep the fact of the emeralds secret?”

Hervey nodded three times, and twisted his cheroot in his mouth.

“How else can you figure the business out?” he demanded quietly, and
with his eyes fixed on the excited Professor. “Bolton must have got that
manuscript, as I can't remember what I did with it, save pass it along
with the corpse. He--as you admit--doesn't tell you about it when
he writes. Well, then, I reckon he calculated getting this corpse to
England, and intended to steal the emeralds when safely ashore.”

“But he could have done that on the boat,” said Archie quickly.

“I guess not, with me about,” said Hervey coolly. “I'd have spotted his
game and would have howled for shares.”

“You dare to say that?” demanded De Gayangos fiercely.

“Keep your hair on. I dare to say anything that comes up my darned back,
you bet. I'm not going to knuckle down to a yellow-stomach--”

Out flew Don Pedro's long arm, and Hervey slammed against the wall. He
slipped his hand around to his hip pocket with an ugly smile, but before
he could use the revolver he produced, Hope dashed up his arm, and the
ball went through the ceiling. “Lucy!” cried the young man, knowing
that the drawing-room was overhead, and in a moment was out of the
door, racing up the stairs at top speed. Some sense of shame seemed to
overpower Hervey as he thought that he might have shot the girl, and he
replaced the revolver in his pocket with a shrug.

“I climb down and apologize,” he said to Don Pedro, who bowed gravely.

“Hang you, sir; you might have shot my daughter,” cried Braddock. “The
drawing-room, where she is sitting, is right overhead, and-”

As he spoke the door opened, and Lucy came in on Archie's arm. She
was pale with fright, but had sustained no damage. It seemed that the
revolver bullet had passed through the floor some distance away from
where she was sitting.

“I offer my humble apologies, miss,” said the cowed Hervey.

“I'll break your neck, you ruffian!” growled Hope, who looked, and was,
dangerous. “How dare you shoot here and--”

“It's all right,” interposed Lucy, not wishing for further trouble. “I
am all safe. But I shall remain here for the rest of your interview,
Captain Hervey, as I am sure you will not shoot again in the presence of
a lady.”

“No, miss,” muttered the captain, and when again invited by the angry
Professor to speak, resumed his discourse in low tones. “Wal, as I was
saying,” he remarked, sitting down with a dogged look, “Bolton intended
to clear with the emeralds, but I guess Sir Frank got ahead of him and
packed him in that blamed case, while he annexed the emeralds. He then
took the manuscript, which he looted from Bolton's corpse, and hid
it among his books, as you say, while he left the blamed mummy in the
garden of the old lady you talked about. I guess that's what I say.”

“It's all theory,” said Don Pedro in vexed tones.

“And there isn't a word of truth in it,” said Lucy indignantly, standing
up for Frank Random.

“It ain't for me to contradict you, miss,” said Hervey, who was still
humble, “but I ask you, if what I say ain't true, how did that copy of
the manuscript come to be in that aristocrat's room?”

There was no reply made to this, and although every one present, save
Hervey, believed in Random's innocence, no one could explain. The reply
came after some further conversation, by the appearance of the soldier
himself in mess kit. He walked unexpectedly into the room with Donna
Inez on his arm, and at once apologized to De Gayangos.

“I called to see you at the inn, sir,” he said, “and as you were not
there, I brought your daughter along with me to explain about the
manuscript.”

“Ah, yes. We talk of that now. How did it come into your room, sir?”

Random pointed to Hervey.

“That rascal placed it there,” he said firmly.




CHAPTER XX. THE LETTER


At this second insult Archie quite expected to see the skipper again
draw his revolver and shoot. He therefore jumped up rapidly to once more
avert disaster. But perhaps the fiery American was awed by the presence
of a second lady--since men of the adventurous type are often shy when
the fair sex is at hand--for he meekly sat where he was and did not even
contradict. Don Pedro shook hands with Sir Frank, and then Hervey smiled
blandly.

“I see you don't believe in my theory,” said he scoffingly.

“What theory is that?” asked Random hastily.

“Hervey declares that you murdered Bolton, stole the manuscript from
him, and concealed it in your room,” said Archie succinctly.

“I can't suggest any other reason for its presence in the room,”
 observed the American with a grim smile. “If I'm wrong, perhaps this
almighty aristocrat will correct me.”

Random was about to do so, and with some pardonable heat, when he was
anticipated by Donna Inez. It has been mentioned before that this young
lady was of the silent order. Usually she simply ornamented any company
in which she found herself without troubling to entertain with her
tongue. But the accusation against the baronet, whom she apparently
loved, changed her into a voluble virago. Brushing aside the little
Professor, who stood in her way, she launched herself forward and spoke
at length. Hervey, cowering in the chair, thus met with an antagonist
against whom he had no armor. He could not use force; she dominated him
with her eye and when he ventured to open his mouth his few feeble words
were speedily drowned by the torrent of speech which flowed from the
lips of the Peruvian lady. Every one was as astonished by this outburst
as though a dog had spoken. That the hitherto silent Donna Inez de
Gayangos should speak thus freely and with such power was quite as great
a miracle.

“You--are a dog and a liar,” said Donna Inez with great distinctness,
and speaking English excellently. “What you say against Sir Frank
is madness and foolish talk. In Genoa my father did not speak of the
manuscript, nor did I, who tell you this. How, then, could Sir Frank
kill this poor man, when he had no reason to slay him--”

“For the emeralds,” faltered Hervey weakly.

“For the emeralds!” echoed the lady scornfully. “Sir Frank is rich. He
does not need to steal to have much money. He is a gentleman, who does
not murder, as you have done.”

Hervey started to his feet, dismayed but defiant, and saw that he was
ringed with unfriendly faces.

“As I have done. Why, I am--”

Donna Inez interrupted.

“You are a murderer. I truly believe that you--yes, that you” she
pointed a scornful finger at him “killed this poor man who was bringing
the mummy to the Professor. If you were in my own country, I should have
you lashed like the dog you are. Pig of a Yankee, vile scum of the--”

“That will do, Inez,” said De Gayangos imperiously. “We wish to make
this gentleman tell the truth, and this is not the way to go about the
matter.”

“Gentleman,” echoed the angry Peruvian, “he is none. Truth! There is no
truth in him, the pig of pigs!” and then, her English failing, she took
refuge in Spanish, which is a fairly comprehensive language for swearing
in a polite way. The words fairly poured from her mouth, and she looked
as fierce as Bellona, the goddess of war.

Archie, listening to her words and watching her beautiful face distorted
out of all loveliness, secretly congratulated himself upon the fact that
he was not her prospective bridegroom. He wondered how Sir Frank, who
was a mild, good-tempered man himself, could dare to make such a fiery
female Lady Random.

Perhaps the young man thought himself that she was going a trifle too
far, for he touched her nervously on the arm. At once the anger of Donna
Inez died down, and she submitted to be led to a chair, whispering as
she went, “It was for your sake, my angel, that I was angry,” she said,
and then relapsed into silence, watching all future proceedings with
flashing eyes but compressed mouth.

“Wal,” muttered Hervey with his invariable drawl, “now that the lady has
eased her mind, I should like to know why this aristocrat says I placed
that manuscript in his room.”

“You shall know, and at once,” said Random promptly. “Did you not call
to see me a day or so ago?”

“I did, sir. I wished to tell you what I had discovered, so that you
might pay me to shut my mouth if you felt so inclined. I asked where
your room was, sir, and walked right in, since your flunky was not at
the door.”

“Quite so. You were in my room for a few minutes--”

“Say five,” interpolated the American imperturbably.

“And then came down. You met my servant, who told you that I would not
be back for five or six hours.”

“That's just as you state, sir. I was sorry to miss you, but, my time
being valuable, I had to get back to Pierside. Failing you, I later came
to see the Professor here, and told him what I had discovered.”

“You merely discovered a mare's nest,” said Random contemptuously; “but
this is not the point. I believe that you, and you only, could have
hidden that manuscript among my books, intending that it should be
discovered, so that I might be implicated in this crime.”

“Did your flunky tell you that much?” inquired Hervey coolly.

“My servant told me nothing, save that you had been in my room, where
you had no right to be.”

“Then,” said the American quietly and decisively, “I can't see, sir, how
you can place the ticket on me.”

“You accuse me, so why should I not accuse you?” retorted Random.

“Because you are guilty, and I ain't,” snapped the American.

“You join issue: you join issue,” murmured Braddock, rubbing his hands.

Random took no notice of the interruption.

“I have heard from Mr. Hope and Professor Braddock of the grounds upon
which you base your accusation, and I have explained to them how I came
to be on board your ship and both in and out of the Sailor's Rest.”

“And the explanation is quite satisfactory,” said Hope smartly.

“I agree,” Donna Inez nodded with very bright eyes. “Sir Frank has
explained to me also. He knew nothing of the manuscript.”

“And you, sir,” said Don Pedro quietly to Captain Hervey, “apparently
did, since you stole it along with the mummy from Lima.”

“I confess the theft, but I didn't know what the manuscript contained,”
 said the skipper dryly, “or I reckon you wouldn't have to ask who stole
the emeralds. No, sir, I should have looted them.”

“I believe you did, and murdered Bolton,” cried Random hotly.

“Shucks!” retorted Hervey, rising with a shrug, “if I had wished to get
rid of Bolton, I'd have yanked him overboard and then would have written
`accident' in my blamed log-book.”

Braddock looked at Don Pedro, and Archie at Sir Frank. What the skipper
said was plausible enough. No man would have been such a fool as to have
murdered Bolton ashore, when he could have done so without suspicion on
board the tramp. Moreover, Hervey spoke with genuine regret, since he
had missed the emeralds and assuredly would not have hesitated to
steal them even at the cost of Bolton's life, had he known of their
whereabouts. So far he had made a good defense, and, seeing the
impression produced, he strolled to the door. There he halted.

“If you gents want to lynch me,” he said leisurely, “I'll be found at
the Sailor's Rest for the next week. Then I'm going as skipper of The
Firefly steamer, Port o' London, to Algiers. You can send the sheriff
along whenever you choose. But I mean to have my picnic first, and
to-morrow I'm going to Inspector Date with my yarn. Then I guess that
almighty aristocrat wilt find himself in quod.”

“Wait a moment,” cried Braddock, running to the door. “Let me talk to
you and arrange what is best to be done. If you will--”

He proceeded no further, for without vouchsafing him a reply, Hervey,
now quite master of the situation, passed through the door, and the
Professor hastily followed him. Those who remained looked at one
another, scarcely knowing what to say, or how to act.

“They will arrest thee, my angel,” cried Donna Inez, clasping Random's
arm.

“Let them,” retorted the young man defiantly. “They can prove nothing.
With all my heart and soul I believe Hervey to be the guilty person.
Hope, what do you say?--and you, Miss Kendal?”

“Hervey has certainly made an excellent defense,” said Archie
cautiously. “He wouldn't have been such a fool as to murder Bolton
ashore when he could have done it so easily when on the narrow seas.”

“I agree with you there,” said Random quickly. “But if he is innocent;
if he did not bring the manuscript into my room, who did?”

“I wonder if Widow Anne herself is guilty?” said Lucy in a musing tone.

All present turned and looked at the girl.

“Who is Widow Anne?” asked Don Pedro with a puzzled air.

“She is the mother of Sidney Bolton, the man who was murdered,” said
Hope quickly. “My dear Lucy, why do you say that?”

Lucy paused before replying and then answered the question by asking
another one.

“Did you ask Sidney to get you some clothes from his mother to clothe a
model?”

“Never in my life,” said Hope promptly, and, as Lucy, saw, truly.

“Well, I accidentally met Mrs. Bolton to-day, and she insisted that her
son had borrowed from her a dark shawl and a dark dress for you.”

“That is not true,” said Hope hotly. “Why should the woman tell such a
lie?”

“Well,” said Lucy slowly, “it struck me that the woman who spoke with
Sidney through the Sailor's Rest window might be Widow Anne herself, and
that she has invented this story of the clothes being lent to account
for their being worn, should she be discovered.”

“It's certainly odd she should speak like this,” said Random
thoughtfully; “but you forget, Miss Kendal, that she proved an alibi.”

“What of that?” cried Don Pedro hurriedly, “alibis can be manufactured.”

“It will be best to see this woman and question her,” suggested Donna
Inez.

Archie nodded.

“I shall do so to-morrow. By the way, does she ever come to your room in
the Fort, Random?”

“Oh yes, she is my laundress, you know, and at times brings back the
clothes herself. My servant is usually in, though. I see what you mean.
That she might have received the manuscript from Bolton, and have left
it in my room.”

“Yes, I think that,” said Archie slowly. “I should not be at all
surprised to learn that a portion of Hervey's theory is correct. Bolton
may have found the manuscript packed up in the mummy, amongst the
graveclothes, in fact. If he read it--as he would and could, seeing
that he was an excellent Latin scholar, thanks to Professor Braddock's
training--he might have formed a design to steal the emeralds when he
was in the Sailor's Rest. Then someone saved him the trouble, and packed
him off to Gartley instead of the mummy.”

“But why should Widow Anne leave the manuscript in my room?” argued
Random.

“Can't you see? Bolton knew that you wanted the mummy for Don Pedro,
and was aware how you had--so to speak--used threats in the presence of
witnesses, since you spoke out aloud on the deck.”

“Only to warn Bolton against the Indians,” pleaded Random.

“Exactly; but your words were capable of being twisted as Hervey has
twisted them. Well, if Widow Anne really went to see her son--and from
the lie about the borrowed clothes it looks like it--he may have given
her the manuscript, so as to throw the blame on you.”

“The murder?”

“No, no,” said Archie testily. “Bolton did not expect to be murdered.
But I really believe that he intended to fly with the emeralds, and
hoped that when the manuscript was found in your room you would be
accused. The idea was suggested to him, I believe, by your visit to The
Diver.”

“What do you think, Miss Kendal?” asked Random nervously.

“I fancy that it is possible.”

Sir Frank turned to the Peruvian.

“Don Pedro,” he said proudly, “you have heard what Hervey says; do you
believe that I am guilty?”

For answer De Gayangos took his daughter's hand and placed it in that of
the young soldier.

“That will show you what I think,” he said gravely.

“Thank you, sir,” said Random, moved, and shook his future father-in-law
heartily by the hand, while Donna Inez, throwing all restraint to the
winds, kissed her lover exultingly on the check. In the midst of this
scene Professor Braddock returned, looking very pleased.

“I have induced Hervey to hold his tongue for a few days until we can
look into this matter,” he said, rubbing his hands “that is, if you
think it wise, all of you. Otherwise, I am quite willing to go myself
to-morrow and tell the police.”

“No,” said Archie rapidly, “let us thresh out the matter ourselves. We
will save Sir Frank's name from a police court slur at all events.”

“I do not think there is any chance of Sir Frank being arrested,” said
Don Pedro politely; “the evidence is insufficient. And at the worst he
can provide an alibi.”

“I am not so sure of that,” said Random anxiously. “I went to London
certainly, but I did not go to any place where I am known. However,” he
added cheerfully, “I daresay I'll be able to defend myself. Still, the
fact remains that we are no nearer to learning who killed Bolton than we
were.”

“I am sending Cockatoo to Pierside to-morrow to stop at the Sailor's
Rest for a time,” said Braddock quickly. “He will watch Hervey, and if
there is anything suspicious about his movements, we shall soon know.”

“And I turn amateur detective to-morrow and question Widow Anne,” said
Hope, after which remark he had to explain matters to Braddock, who
had been out of the room when Mrs. Bolton's strange request had been
discussed.

Meanwhile Donna Inez had been whispering to her lover and pointing to
the mummy. Don Pedro followed her thoughts and guessed what she was
saying. Random proved the truth of his guess by, turning to him.

“Do you really want to take back the mummy to Peru, sir?” he asked
quietly.

“Certainly. Inca Caxas was my forefather. I do not wish to leave him in
this place. His body must be restored to its tomb. All the Indians, who
look upon me as their present Inca expect me to bring the body back.
Although,” added De Gayangos gravely, “I did not come to Europe to look
for the mummy, as you know.”

“Then I shall buy the mummy,” said Random impetuously. “Professor, will
you sell it to me?”

“Now that I have examined it thoroughly I shall be delighted,” said the
little man, “say for two thousand pounds.”

“Not at all,” interposed Don Pedro; “you mean one thousand.”

“Of course he does,” said Lucy quickly; “and the check must be paid to
Archie, Sir Frank.”

“To me! to me!” cried Braddock indignantly. “I insist.”

“The money belongs to Archie,” said Lucy obstinately. “You have seen
what you desired to see, father and as Archie only lent you the money,
it is only fair that he should have it again.”

“Oh, let the Professor have it,” said Hope good-naturedly.

“No! no! no!”

Random laughed.

“I shall make the check payable to you, Miss Kendal, and you can give
it to whomsoever you choose,” he said; “and now, as everything has been
settled so far, I suggest that we should retire.”

“Come to my rooms at the inn,” said Don Pedro, opening the door. “I
have much to say to you. Good night, Professor; to-morrow let us go to
Pierside and see if we cannot get at the truth.”

“And to-morrow,” cried Random, “I shall send the check, sir.”

When the company departed, Lucy had another wrangle with her father
about the check. As Archie had gone away, she could speak freely, and
pointed out that he was enjoying her mother's income and was about to
marry Mrs. Jasher, who was rich.

“Therefore,” argued Lucy, “you certainly do not want to keep poor
Archie's money.”

“He paid me that sum on condition that I consented to the wedding.”

“He did nothing of the sort,” she cried indignantly. “I am not going
to be bought and sold in this manner. Archie lent you the money, and it
must be returned. Don't force me to think you selfish, father.”

The upshot of the argument was that Lucy got her own way, and the
Professor rather unwillingly agreed to part with the mummy and restore
the thousand pounds. But he regretted doing so, as he wished to get all
the money he could to go towards his proposed Egyptian expedition, and
Mrs. Jasher's fortune, as he assured his step-daughter, was not so large
as might be thought. However, Lucy overruled him, and retired to bed,
congratulating herself that she would soon be able to marry Hope. She
was beginning to grow a trifle weary of the Professor's selfish nature,
and wondered how her mother had put up with it for so long.

Next day Braddock did not go with Don Pedro to Pierside, as he was
very busy in his museum. The Peruvian went alone, and Archie, after a
morning's work at his easel, sought out Widow Anne to ask questions.
Lucy and Donna Inez paid an afternoon visit to Mrs. Jasher and found
her in bed, as she had caught a mild sort of influenza. They expected to
find Sir Frank here, but it seemed that he had not called. Thinking that
he was detained by military business, the girls thought nothing more of
his absence, although Donna Inez was somewhat downcast.

But Random was detained in his quarters by a letter which had arrived by
the mid-day host, and which surprised him not a little. The postmark
was London, and the writing, evidently a disguised hand, was almost
illegible in its crudeness. The contents ran as follows, and it will be
noticed that there is neither date nor address, and that it is written
in the third person:

“If Sir Frank Random wants his character to be cleared and all suspicion
of murder to be removed from him, he can be completely exonerated by
the writer, if he will pay the same five thousand pounds. If Sir Frank
Random is willing to do this, let him appoint a meeting-place in London,
and the writer will send a messenger to receive the money and to hand
over the proofs which will clear Sir Frank Random. If Sir Frank Random
plays the writer false, or communicates with the police, proofs will be
forthcoming which will prove him to be guilty of Sidney Bolton's death,
and which will bring him to the scaffold without any chance of escape.
A couple of lines in the Agony Column of The Daily Telegraph, signed
`Artillery,' and appointing a meeting-place, will suffice; but beware of
treachery.”




CHAPTER XXI. A STORY OF THE PAST


Mrs. Jasher's influenza proved to be very mild indeed.

When Donna Inez de Gayangos and Lucy paid a visit to her on the
afternoon of the day succeeding the explanations in the museum, she
was certainly in bed, and explained that she had been there since the
Professor's visit on the previous day. Lucy was surprised at this, as
she had left Mrs. Jasher perfectly well, and Braddock had not mentioned
any ailment of the widow. But influenza, as Mrs. Jasher observed, was
very rapid in its action, and she was always susceptible to disease from
the fact that in Jamaica she had suffered from malaria. Still, she was
feeling better and intended to rise from her bed on that evening, if
only to lie on the couch in the pink drawing-room. Having thus detailed
her reasons for being ill, the widow asked for news.

As no prohibition had been placed upon Lucy with regard to Hervey's
visit and as Mrs. Jasher would be one of the family when she married the
Professor, Miss Kendal had no hesitation in reporting all that had taken
place. The narrative excited Mrs. Jasher, and she frequently interrupted
with expressions of wonder. Even Donna Inez grew eloquent, and told the
widow how she had defended Sir Frank against the American skipper.

“What a dreadfully wicked man!” said Mrs. Jasher, when in possession of
all the facts. “I really believe that he did kill poor Sidney.”

“No,” said Lucy decisively, “I don't think that. He would have murdered
him on board had he intended the crime, as he could have done so with
more safety. He is as innocent as Sir Frank.”

“And no one dare say a word against him,” cried Donna Inez with flashing
eyes.

“He has a good defender, my dear,” said the widow, patting the girl's
hand.

“I love him,” said Donna Inez, as if that explained everything, and
perhaps it did, so far as she was concerned.

Mrs. Jasher smiled indulgently, then turned for further information to
Lucy.

“Can it be possible,” she said, “that Widow Anne is guilty?”

“Oh, I don't think so. She would not murder her own son, especially when
she was so very fond of him. Archie told me, just before we came here,
that he had called to see her. She still insists that Sidney borrowed
the clothes, saying that Archie wanted them.”

“What do you make of that, my dear?”

“Well,” said Miss Kendal, pondering, “either Widow Anne herself was the
woman who talked to Sidney through the Sailor's Rest window, and has
invented this story to save herself, or Sidney did get the clothes and
intended to use them as a disguise when he fled with the emeralds.”

“In that case,” said Mrs. Jasher, “the woman who talked through the
window still remains a problem. Again, if Sidney Bolton intended to
steal the emeralds, he could have done so in Malta, or on board the
boat.”

“No,” said Lucy decisively. “The mummy was taken directly from the
seller's house to the boat, and perhaps Sidney did not find the
manuscript until he looked at the mummy. Then Captain Hervey kept an eye
on Sidney, so that he could not open the mummy to steal the emeralds.”

“Still, according to your own showing, Sidney looked at the actual
mummy--he opened the mummy case, that is, else he could not have got the
manuscript.”

Lucy nodded.

“I think so, but of course we cannot be sure. But the packing case in
which the mummy was stowed was placed in the hold of the steamer, and
if Sidney had wished to steal the emeralds, he could not have done so
without exciting Captain Hervey's suspicions.”

“Then let us say that Sidney robbed the mummy when in the Sailor's Rest,
and took the clothes he borrowed from his mother in order to fly in
disguise. But what of the woman?”

Lucy shook her head.

“I cannot tell. We may learn more later. Don Pedro has gone to Pierside
to search, and my father says that he will send Cockatoo there also to
search.”

“Well,” sighed Mrs. Jasher wearily, “I hope that all this trouble will
come to an end. That green mummy has proved most unlucky. Leave me now,
dear girls, as I feel somewhat tired.”

“Good-bye,” said Lucy, kissing her. “I hope that you will be better this
evening. Don't get up unless you feel quite able.”

“Oh, I shall take my ease in the drawing-room.”

“I thought you always called it the parlor,” laughed the girl.

“Ah,” Mrs. Jasher smiled, “you see I am practicing against the time
when I shall be mistress of the Pyramids, You can't call that large room
there a parlor,” and she laughed weakly.

Altogether, Mrs. Jasher impressed both Lucy and Donna Inez with the fact
that she was very weak and scarcely able, as she put it, to draw one leg
after the other. Both the girls would have been surprised to see what a
hearty meal Mrs. Jasher made that evening, when she was up and dressed.
Perhaps she felt that her strength needed keeping up, but she certainly
partook largely of the delicate dinner provided by Jane, who was a most
excellent cook.

After dinner, Mrs. Jasher lay on a pink couch in the pink parlor by a
splendid fire, for the night was cold and raw with a promise of rain.
The widow had a small table at her elbow, on which stood a cup of
coffee and a glass of liquor. The rose-colored curtains were drawn, the
rose-shaded lamps were lighted, and the whole interior of the cottage
looked very comfortable indeed. Mrs. Jasher, in a crocus-yellow tea-gown
trimmed with rich black lace, reclined on her couch like Cleopatra in
her barge. In the pink light she looked very well preserved, although
her face wore an anxious expression. This was due to the fact that the
mail had come in and the three letters brought by the postman had to do
with creditors. Mrs. Jasher was always trying to make both ends meet,
and had a hard struggle to keep her head above water. Certainly, since
she had inherited the money of her brother, the Pekin merchant, she need
not have looked so worried. But she did, and made no disguise of it,
seeing that she was quite alone.

After a time she went to her desk and took out a bundle of bills and
some other letters, also an account book and a bank book. Over these she
pored for quite an hour. The clock struck nine before she looked up from
this unpleasant task, and she found her financial position anything but
satisfactory. With a weary sigh she rose and stared at herself in the
mirror over the fireplace, frowning as she did so.

“Unless I can marry the Professor at once, I don't know what will happen
to me,” she mused gloomily. “I have managed very well so far, but things
are coming to a crisis. These devils,” she alluded to her creditors,
“will not keep off much longer, and then the crash will come. I shall
have to leave Gartley as poor as when I came, and there will be nothing
left but the old nightmare life of despair and horror. I am getting
older every day, and this is my last chance of getting married. I must
force the Professor to have a speedy marriage. I must! I must!” and
she began to pace the tiny room in a frenzy of terror and well-founded
alarm.

As she was trying to calm herself and succeeding very badly, Jane
entered the room with a card. It proved to be that of Sir Frank Random.

“It is rather a late hour for a visit,” said Mrs. Jasher to the servant.
“However, I feel so bored, that perhaps he will cheer me up. Ask him to
come in.”

When Jane left, she stood still for a moment or so, trying to think why
the young man had called at so untoward an hour. But when his footsteps
were heard approaching the door, she swept the books and the bills and
the letters into the desk and locked it quickly. When Random appeared at
the door, she was just leaving the desk to greet him, and no one would
have taken the smiling, plump, well-preserved woman for the creature who
lately had looked so haggard and careworn.

“I am glad to see you, Sir Frank,” said Mrs. Jasher, nodding in a
familiar manner. “Sit down in this very comfortable chair, and Jane
shall bring you some coffee and kummel.”

“No, thank you,” said Random in his usual stiff way, but very politely.
“I have just left the mess, where I had a good dinner.”

Mrs. Jasher nodded, and sank again on the couch, which was opposite the
chair which she had selected for her visitor.

“I see you are in mess kit,” she said gayly; “quite a glorified creature
to appear in my poor little parlor. Why are you not with Donna Inez? I
have heard all about your engagement from Lucy. She was here to-day with
Senorita De Gayangos.”

“So I believe,” said Random, still stiffly; “but you see I was anxious
to come and see you.”

“Ah!” said Mrs. Jasher equably, “you heard that I was ill. Yes; I have
been in bed ever since yesterday afternoon, until a couple of hours
ago. But I am now better. My dinner has done me good. Pass me that fan,
please. The fire is so hot.”

Sir Frank did as he was told, and she held the feather fan between her
face and the fire, while he stared at her, wondering what to say.

“Don't you find this atmosphere very stuffy?” he remarked at length. “It
would be a good thing to have the windows open.”

Mrs. Jasher shrieked.

“My dear boy, are you mad? I have a touch of the influenza, and an
open window would bring about my death. Why, this room is delightfully
comfortable.”

“There is such a strong perfume about it,” sniffed Random pointedly.

“I should think you knew that scent by this time, Sir Frank. I use no
other and never have done. Smell!” and she passed a flimsy handkerchief
of lace.

Random took the handkerchief and placed it to his nostrils. As he did so
a strange expression of triumph crept into his eyes.

“I think you told me once that it was a Chinese perfume,” he said,
returning the handkerchief.

Mrs. Jasher nodded, well pleased.

“I get it from a friend of my late husband who is in the British Embassy
at Pekin. No one uses it but me.”

“But surely some other person uses it?”

“Not in England; and I do not know why you should say so. It is a
specialty of mine. Why,” she added playfully, “if you met me in the dark
you should know me, by this scent.”

“Can you swear that no one else has ever used this perfume?” asked
Random.

Mrs. Jasher lifted her penciled eyebrows.

“I do not know why you should ask me to swear,” she said quietly, “but
I assure you that I keep this perfume which comes from China to myself.
Not even Lucy Kendal has it, although she greatly desired some. We women
are selfish in some things, my dear man. It's a most delicious perfume.”

“Yes,” said Sir Frank, staring at her, “and very strong.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing. Only I should think that such a perfume would be good for the
cold you contracted by going to London last night.”

Mrs. Jasher turned suddenly pale under her rouge, and her hand clenched
the fan so tightly as to break the handle.

“I have not been to London for quite a month,” she faltered. “What a
strange remark!”

“A true one,” said the baronet, fumbling in the pocket of his jacket.
“You went to London last night by the seven o'clock train to post this,”
 and he held out the anonymous letter.

The widow, now quite pale, and looking years older, sat up on the couch
with a painful effort, which suggested old age.

“I don't understand,” she said, trying to speak calmly. “I was not in
London, and I did not post any letter. If you came here to insult me--”

“There can be no insult in asking a few questions,” said Random,
throwing aside his stiffness and speaking decisively. “I received
this letter, which bears a London postmark, by the mid-day post. The
handwriting is disguised, and there is neither address nor signature nor
date. You manufactured your communication very cleverly, Mrs. Jasher,
but you forgot that the Chinese perfume might betray you.”

“The perfume! the perfume!” Mrs. Jasher gasped and saw in a moment how
the late conversation had led her to fall into a trap.

“The letter retains traces of the perfume you use,” went on the baronet
relentlessly. “I have a remarkably keen sense of smell, and, as scent is
a most powerful aid to memory, I speedily recollected that you used this
especial perfume. You told me a few moments ago that no one else
used it, and so you have proved the truth of my statement that this
letter”--he tapped it--“is written by you.”

“It's a lie--a mistake,” stuttered Mrs. Jasher, now at bay and looking
dangerous. Her society veneer was stripped off, and the adventuress pure
and simple came to the surface.

Indignant at the way in which she had deceived everyone, and having much
at stake, Random did not spare her.

“It is not a mistake,” he insisted; “neither is it a lie. When I became
aware that you must have written the letter, I drove at once to Jessum
to see if you had gone to London, as you had posted it there. I learned
from the station master and from a porter that you went to town by the
seven o'clock train and returned by the midnight.”

Mrs. Jasher leaped to her feet.

“They could not recognize me. I wore--” Then she stopped, confused at
having so plainly betrayed herself.

“You wore a veil. All the same, Mrs. Jasher, you are too well known
hereabouts for anyone to fail to recognize you. Besides, your remark
just now proves that I am right. You wrote this blackmailing letter, and
I demand an explanation.”

“I have none to give,” muttered the woman fiercely, and fighting every
inch.

“If you refuse to explain to me you shall to the police,” said Sir
Frank, rising and making for the door.

Mrs. Jasher flung herself forward and clung to him.

“For God's sake, don't!”

“Then you will explain? You will tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

“Who murdered Sidney Bolton.”

“I do not know. I swear I do not know,” she cried feverishly.

“That is ridiculous,” said Random coldly. “You say in this letter that
you can hang me or save me. As you know that I am innocent, you must be
aware who is guilty.”

“It's all bluff. I know nothing,” said Mrs. Jasher, releasing his arm
and throwing herself on the couch. “I only wished to get money.”

“Five thousand pounds--eh? Rather a large order,” sneered Random,
replacing the letter in his pocket. “You would not ask that sum for
nothing: you must be aware of the truth. I suspected many people, Mrs.
Jasher, but never you.”

The woman rose and flung out her arms.

“No,” she said in a deep voice, and fighting like a rat in a corner. “I
tricked you all down here. Sir Frank, I will tell you the truth.”

“About the murder?”

“I know nothing of that. About myself.”

Random shrugged his shoulders.

“I'll hear about yourself first,” he said. “I can learn details
concerning the murder later. Go on.”

“I know nothing of the murder or of the theft of the emeralds--”

“Yet you hid the mummy in this house, and afterwards placed it in your
arbor to be found by the Professor, for some reason.”

“I know nothing about that either,” muttered Mrs. Jasher doggedly, and
with very white lips. “That letter you have traced to me is all bluff.”

“Then you admit having written it?”

“Yes,” she said sullenly. “You know too much, and it is useless for me
to deny the truth in the face of the evidence you bring against me. I
would fight though,” she added, raising her head like a snake its crest,
“if I was not sick and tired of fighting.”

“Fighting?”

“Yes, against trouble and worry and money difficulties and creditors.
Oh,” she struck her breast, “what do you know of life, you rich,
easy-going man? I have been in the depths, and not through my own fault.
I had a bad mother, a bad husband. I was dragged in the mire by those
who should have helped me to rise. I have starved for days; I have wept
for years; in all God's earth there is no more miserable a creature than
I am.”

“Kindly talk without so much melodrama,” said Random cruelly.

“Ah,” Mrs. Jasher sat down and locked her hands together, “you don't
believe me. I daresay you don't understand, for life, real life, is a
sealed book to you. It is useless for me to appeal to your sympathy,
for you are so very ignorant. Let us stick to facts. What do you wish to
know?”

“Who killed Sidney Bolton: who has the emeralds.”

“I can't tell you. Listen! With my past life you have nothing to do.
I will commence from the time I came down here. I had just lost my
husband, and I managed to scrape together a few hundred pounds--oh,
quite in a respectable way, I assure you,” she added scoffingly, on
seeing her listener wince. “I came here to try and live quietly, and,
if possible, to secure a rich husband. I knew that the Fort was here and
thought that I might marry an officer. However, the Professor's position
attracted me, and I decided to marry him. I am engaged, and but for your
cleverness in tracing that letter I should be Mrs. Braddock within a
very short time. I have exhausted all my money. I am deeply, in debt. I
cannot hold out longer.”

“But the money you inherited--”

“That is all bluff also. I never had a brother. I inherit no money. I
know nothing of Pekin, save that a friend of mine sends that scent to me
as a yearly Christmas present. I am an adventuress, but perhaps not so
bad as you think me. Lucy and Donna Inez have heard no wickedness from
my lips. I have always been a good woman in one sense--a moral woman,
that is--and I did wish to marry the Professor and live a happy life.
Seeing that I was at the end of my resources, and that Professor
Braddock expected a legacy with me before marriage, I looked round to,
see how I could get the money. I heard that you were accused by Captain
Hervey, and so last night I wrote that letter and posted it in London,
thinking that you would yield to save yourself from arrest.”

Random laughed cynically.

“You must have thought me weak,” he muttered.

“I did,” said Mrs. Jasher frankly. “To tell you the truth, I thought
that you were a fool. But by tracing that letter and withstanding my
demand, you have proved yourself to be more clever than I took you to
be. Well, that is all. I know nothing of the murder. My letter is sheer
bluff to extort from you five thousand pounds. Had you paid I should
have passed it off to the Professor as the money left to me by my
brother. But now--”

“Now,” said Random, rising to go, “I shall tell what you have told me to
the Professor, and--”

“And hand me over to the police,” said Mrs. Jasher, shrugging her plump
shoulders, “Well, I expected that. Yet I fancied for old times' sake
that you might have been more lenient.”

“We were never anything but acquaintances, Mrs. Jasher,” said Random
coldly, “so I fail to see why you should expect mercy after the way in
which you have behaved. You expect to blackmail me, and yet go free.
I must punish you somehow, so I shall tell Professor Braddock, as
you certainly cannot marry him. But I shall not hand you over to the
police.”

“You won't?” Mrs. Jasher stared, scarcely able to believe her ears.

“No. Give me a day to think over matters, and I shall arrange what to do
with you. I think there is some good in you, Mrs. Jasher, and so I shall
see if I can't assist you. In the meantime I shall have your cottage
watched, so that you may not run away.”

“In that case, you may as well hand me over to the police,” she said
bitterly.

“Not at all,” rejoined Random coolly. “I can trust my servant, who is
stupid but honest and is devoted to me. I'll see that everything is
kept quiet. But if you attempt to run away I shall have you arrested for
blackmail. You understand?”

“Yes. You are treating me very well,” she gasped. “When shall I see
you?”

“To-morrow evening. I must talk the matter over with Braddock. To-morrow
I shall arrange what to do, and probably I shall give you a chance of
leading a new life in some other part of the world. What do you say?”

“I accept. Indeed, there is nothing else left for me to do.”

“That is an ungrateful speech,” said Random severely.

“I daresay. However, we can talk of gratitude to-morrow. Meanwhile,
please leave me.”

Sir Frank went to the door and there paused.

“Remember,” he said distinctly, “that your cottage is being watched. Try
to escape and I shall have you arrested.”

Mrs. Jasher groaned and buried her face in the sofa cushion.




CHAPTER XXII. A WEDDING PRESENT


Mrs. Jasher had thought Random exceedingly clever in acting as he had
done to trap her. She would have thought him still more clever had she
known that he trusted to the power of suggestion to prevent her from
trying to escape. Sir Frank had not the slightest intention of setting
his soldier-servant to watch, as such was not the duty for which such
servants are hired. But having impressed firmly on the adventuress's
mind that he would act in this way, he departed, quite certain that the
woman would not attempt to run away. Although no one was watching the
cottage, Mrs. Jasher, believing what had been told her, would think that
sharp eyes were on her doors and windows day and night, and would firmly
believe that if she tried to get away she would be captured forthwith
by the Pierside police, or perhaps by the village constable. Like an
Eastern enchanter, the baronet had placed a spell on the cottage, and
it acted admirably. Mrs. Jasher, although longing to escape and hide
herself, remained where she was, cowed by a spy who did not exist.

The next day Random went to the Pyramids as soon as his duties permitted
and saw the Professor. To the prospective bridegroom he explained all
that had happened, and displayed the anonymous letter, with an account
of how he had proved Mrs. Jasher to be the writer. Braddock's hair could
not stand on end, as he had none, but he lost his temper completely, and
raged up and down the museum in a way which frightened Cockatoo out of
his barbaric wits. When more quiet he sat down to discuss the matter,
and promptly demanded that Mrs. Jasher should be handed over to the
police. But he might have guessed that Sir Frank would refuse to follow
this extreme advice.

“She has acted badly, I admit,” said the young man. “All the same, I
think she is a better woman than you may think, Professor.”

“Think! think! think!” shouted the fiery little man, getting up once
more to trot up and down like an infuriated poodle. “I think she is a
bad woman, a wicked woman. To deceive me into thinking her rich and--”

“But surely, Professor, you wished to marry her also for love?”

“Nothing of the sort, sir: nothing of the sort. I leave love and
such-like trash to those like yourself and Hope, who have nothing else
to think about.”

“But a marriage without love--”

“Pooh! pooh! pooh! Don't argue with me, Random. Love is all moonshine.
I did not love my first wife--Lucy's mother--and yet we were very happy.
Had I made Mrs. Jasher my second, we should have got on excellently,
provided the money was forthcoming for my Egyptian expedition. What am
I to do now, I ask you, Random? Even the thousand pounds you pay for the
mummy goes back to that infernal Hope because of Lucy's silly ideas.
I have nothing--absolutely nothing, and that tomb is amongst those
Ethiopian hills, I swear, waiting to be opened. Oh, what a chance I have
missed!--what a chance! But I shall see Mrs. Jasher myself. She knows
about this murder.”

“She declares that she does not.”

“Don't tell me! don't tell me!” vociferated the Professor. “She would
not have written that letter had she known nothing.”

“That was bluff. I explained all that.”

“Bluff be hanged!” cried Braddock, only he used a more vigorous word.
“I do not believe that she would have dared to act on such a slight
foundation. I shall see her myself this very afternoon and force her to
confess. In one way or another I shall find the assassin and make him
disgorge those emeralds under the penalty of being hanged. Then I can
sell them and finance my Egyptian expedition.”

“But you forget, Professor, that the emeralds, when found, belong to Don
Pedro.”

“They don't,” rasped the little man, turning purple with rage. “I refuse
to let him have them. I bought the mummy, and the contents of the mummy,
including those emeralds. They are mine.”

“No,” said Random sharply. “I buy the mummy, from you, so they pass into
my possession and belong to De Gayangos. I shall give them to him.”

“You'll have to find them first,” said Braddock savagely; “and as to the
mummy, you shan't have it. I decline to sell it. So there!”

“If you don't,” said Random very distinctly, “Don Pedro will bring an
action against you, and Captain Hervey will be called as a witness to
prove that the mummy was stolen.”

“Don Pedro hasn't the money,” said Braddock triumphantly; “he can't pay
lawyer's fees.”

“But I can,” rejoined the young man very dryly. “As I am going to marry
Donna Inez, it is only just that I should help my future father-in-law
in every way. He has a romantic feeling about this relic of poor
humanity and wishes to take it back to Peru. He shall do so.”

“And what about me?--what about me?”

“Well,” said Random, speaking slowly with the intention of still further
irritating the little man, whose selfishness annoyed him, “if I were you
I should marry Mrs. Jasher and settle down quietly in this house to live
on what income you have.”

Braddock turned purple again and spluttered.

“How dare you make a proposition like that to me, sir?” he
bellowed. “You ask me to marry this low woman, this adventuress,
this--this--this--” Words failed him.

Of course Random had no intention of advising such a marriage, although
he did not think so badly of Mrs. Jasher as did the Professor. But the
little man was so venomous that the young man took a delight in stirring
him up, using the widow's name as a red rag to this particular bull.

“I do not think Mrs. Jasher is a bad woman,” he remarked.

“What! what! what! After what she has done? Blackmail! blackmail!
blackmail!”

“That is bad, I admit, but she has failed to get what she wanted, and,
after all, you indirectly are the cause of her writing that blackmailing
letter.”

“I am?--I am? How dare you?”

“You see, she wanted to get five thousand out of me as her dowry.”

“Yes, and told me lies about her damned brother who was a Pekin
merchant, when after all he never existed.”

“Oh, I don't defend that,” said Random coolly. “Mrs. Jasher has behaved
badly on the whole. Still, Professor, I think there is good in her, as
I said before. She evidently had bad parents and a bad husband; but, so
far as I can gather, she is not an immoral woman. The poor wretch only
came here to try and drag herself out of the mire. If she had married
you I feel sure that she would have made you a most excellent wife.”

The Professor was in such a rage that he suddenly became calm.

“Of course you talk absolute rubbish,” he said caustically. “Had I my
way this woman would be whipped at a cart's tail for the shameful way in
which she has deceived us all. However, I shall see her to-day and make
her confess who murdered Bolton.”

“Don Pedro will be greatly obliged if you do. He wants those emeralds.”

“So do I, and if I get them I shall keep them,” snapped Braddock; “and
if you haven't anything more to say you can leave me. I'm busy.”

As there was nothing more to be done with the choleric little man, Sir
Frank took the hint and departed. He went forthwith to the Warrior Inn
to see Don Pedro and also Donna Inez. But it so happened that the girl
had gone to the Pyramids on a visit to Miss Kendal, and Random was sorry
that he had missed her. However, it was just as well, as he could now
talk freely to De Gayangos. To him he related the whole story of Mrs.
Jasher, and discovered that the Peruvian also, as Braddock had done,
insisted that Mrs. Jasher knew the truth.

“She would not have written that letter if she did not know it,” said
Don Pedro.

“Then you think that she should be arrested?”

“No. We can deal with this matter ourselves. At present she is quite
safe, as she certainly will not leave her cottage, seeing that she
thinks it is being watched. Let us permit Braddock to interview her,
and see what he can learn. Then we can discuss the matter and come to a
decision.”

Random nodded absently.

“I wonder if Mrs. Jasher was the woman who talked to Bolton through the
window?” he remarked.

“It is not impossible. Although that does not explain why Bolton
borrowed a female disguise from this mother.”

“Mrs. Jasher might have worn it.”

“That would argue some understanding between Bolton and Mrs. Jasher, and
a knowledge of the manuscript before Bolton left for Malta. We know that
he could only have seen the manuscript for the first time at Malta. It
was evidently stowed away in the swathings of the mummy by my father,
who forgot all about it when he gave me the original.”

“Hervey forgot also. I wonder if that is true?”

“I am certain it is,” said Don Pedro emphatically, “for, if Hervey, or
Vasa, or whatever you like to call him, had found that manuscript and
had got it translated, he certainly would have opened the mummy and have
secured the emeralds. No, Sir Frank, I believe that his theory is partly
true. Bolton intended to run away with the emeralds, and send the empty
mummy to Professor Braddock; for, if you remember, he arranged that the
landlord of the Sailor's Rest should forward the case next morning,
even if he happened to be away. Bolton intended to be away--with the
emeralds.”

“Then you do not believe that Hervey placed the manuscript in my room?”

“He declared most emphatically that he did not,” said Don Pedro, “when
at Pierside yesterday I went to the Sailor's Rest and saw him. He told
Braddock only the other day that he had lost his chance of a sailing
vessel, and, as yet, had not got another one. But when he returned
to Pierside he found a letter waiting him--so he told me--giving him
command of a four thousand ton tramp steamer called The Firefly. He is
to sail at once--to-morrow, I believe.”

“Then what is he going to do about this murder business?”

“He can do nothing at present, as, if he remains in Pierside, he will
lose his new command. To-morrow he drops down stream, but meantime he
intends to write out the whole story of the theft of the mummy. I have
promised to give him fifty pounds for doing so, as I want to get back
the mummy, free of charge, from Braddock.”

“I think Braddock will stick to the mummy in any event,” said Random
grimly.

“Not when Hervey writes out his evidence. He will not have it completed
by the time he sails, as he is very busy. But he has promised to send
off a boat to the jetty near the Fort to-morrow evening, when he is
dropping down stream. I shall be there with fifty pounds in gold.”

“Supposing he fails to stop or send the boat?”

“Then he will not get his fifty pounds,” retorted Don Pedro. “The man
is a rascal, and deserves prison rather than reward, but since the mummy
was stolen by him thirty years back, he alone can prove my ownership.”

“But why take all this trouble?” argued the baronet. “I can buy the
mummy from Braddock.”

“No,” said Don Pedro. “I have a right to my own property.”

Random lingered until late in the afternoon and until darkness fell,
as he was anxious to see Donna Inez. But she did not appear until late.
Meanwhile Archie Hope put in an appearance, having come to see Don Pedro
with an account of his interview with Widow Anne. Before coming to the
inn he had called on Professor Braddock, and from him had heard all
about the wickedness of Mrs. Jasher. His surprise was very great.

“I should not have believed it,” he declared. “Poor woman!”

“Ah,” said Random, rather pleased, “you are more merciful than the
Professor, Hope. He calls her a bad woman.”

“Humph! I don't think that Braddock is so good that he can afford to
throw a stone,” said Archie rather sourly. “Mrs. Jasher has not behaved
well, but I should like to hear her complete story before judging. There
must be a lot of good in her, or Lucy, who has been with her a great
deal, would have found her out long ago. I go by a woman's judgment of a
woman. But Mrs. Jasher must have been anxious to marry.”

“She was; as Professor Braddock knows,” said Random quickly.

“I am not thinking of that so much as of what Widow Anne told me.”

“Oh,” said Don Pedro, looking up from where he was seated, “so you have
seen that old woman? What does she say about the clothes?”

“She sticks to her story. Sidney, she declares, borrowed the clothes to
give to me for a model. Now, I never asked Bolton to do this, so I fancy
the disguise must have been intended for himself, or for Mrs. Jasher.”

“But what had Mrs. Jasher to do with him?” demanded Random sharply.

“Well, it's odd,” replied Hope slowly, “but Mrs. Bolton declares that
her son was in love with Mrs. Jasher, and when he returned from Malta
intended to marry her.”

“Impossible!” cried Sir Frank. “She engaged herself to Braddock.”

“But only after Bolton's death, remember.”

Don Pedro nodded.

“That is true. But what you say, Mr. Hope, proves the truth of Hervey's
theory.”

“In what way?”

“Mrs. Jasher, as we know from what Random told us, wanted money. She
would not marry a man who was poor. Bolton was poor, but of course the
emeralds would make him wealthy, as they are of immense value. Probably
he intended to steal them in order to marry this woman. This implicates
Mrs. Jasher in the crime.”

“Yes,” assented Sir Frank, nodding. “But as Bolton did not know that the
emeralds existed before he bought the mummy in Malta, I do not see why
he should borrow a disguise beforehand for Mrs. Jasher to meet him at
the Sailor's Rest.”

“The thing is easily settled,” said Hope impatiently. “Let us both go to
Mrs. Jasher's this evening, and insist upon the truth being told. If she
confesses about her secret engagement to Sidney Bolton, she may admit
that the clothes were borrowed for her.”

“And she may admit also that she placed the manuscript in my room,” said
Sir Frank after a pause. “Hervey did not place it there, but it is just
possible that Mrs. Jasher, having got it from Bolton when she talked to
him through the window, may have done so.”

“Nonsense!” said Hope with vigorous commonsense. “Mrs. Jasher would be
spotted in a moment if she had gone to your quarters. She had to pass
the sentry, remember. Then, again, we have not yet proved that she was
the woman in Mrs. Bolton's clothes who spoke through the window. That
can all be settled if we speak to her this evening.”

“Very good.” Random glanced at his watch. “I must get back. Don Pedro,
will you tell Inez that I shall come in this evening? We can then talk
further about these matters. Hope?”

“I shall stop here, as I wish to consult Don Pedro.”

Random nodded and took a reluctant departure. He dearly wished, as an
engaged lover should, to remain on the chance that Donna Inez might
return, but duty called him and he was forced to obey.

The night was very dark, although it was not particularly late. But
there was no rain, and Random walked rapidly through the village and
down the road to the Fort. He caught a glimpse of the lights of Mrs.
Jasher's cottage twinkling in the distance, and smiled grimly as he
thought of the invisible spell he had placed thereon. No doubt Mrs.
Jasher was shivering in her Louis Quinze shoes at the idea of being
watched. But then, she deserved that much punishment at least, as Random
truly thought.

When entering the Fort, the sentry saluted as usual, and Random was
about to pass, when the man stepped forward, holding out a brown paper
package.

“Please, sir, I found this in my sentry box,” he said, saluting.

Sir Frank took the packet.

“Who placed it there? and why do you give it to me?” he demanded in
surprise.

“Please, sir, it's directed to you, sir, and I don't know who put it in
my box, sir. I was on duty, sir, and I 'spose someone must have dropped
it on the floor of the box, sir, when I was at the other end of my beat,
sir. It was as dark as this, sir, and I saw nothing and heard nothing.
When I come back, sir, I stepped into the box out of the rain and felt
it with my feet. I struck a light, sir, and found it was for you.”

Sir Frank slipped the package into his pocket and went away after a grim
word or so to the sentry, advising him to be more on the alert. He was
puzzled to think who had left the packet in the sentry box, and curious
to know what it contained. As soon as he got to his own room, he cut
the string which bound loosely the brown paper. Then, in the lamplight,
there rolled out from the carelessly-tied parcel a glorious sea-green
emerald of great size, radiating light like a sun. A scrap of white
paper lay in the brown wrapping. On it was written, “A wedding gift for
Sir Frank Random.”




CHAPTER XXIII. JUST IN TIME


Of all the surprises in connection with the tragedy of the green
mummy, this was surely the greatest. Sidney Bolton had undoubtedly been
murdered for the sake of the emeralds, and the assassin had escaped
with the spoil, for which he had sold his soul. Yet here was one of the
jewels returned anonymously to Random, who could pass on the same to its
rightful owner. In the midst of his amazement Sir Frank could not help
chuckling when he thought how enraged Professor Braddock would be at Don
Pedro's good fortune. At the eleventh hour, as it were, the Peruvian had
got back his own, or at least a portion of his own.

Placing the emerald in his drawer, Random gave orders to his servant
that the sentry, when off duty, should be brought before him. Just as
Random finished dressing for mess--and he dressed very early, so as to
devote his entire attention to solving this new problem--the soldier who
had been on guard appeared. But he could tell nothing more than he had
already related. When doing sentry-go immediately outside the gate of
the Fort, the packet had been slipped into the box, while the man was at
the far end of his beat. It was quite dark when this was done, and the
soldier confessed that he had not heard a sound, much less had he seen
anyone. The person who had brought the glorious gem had watched his
opportunity, and, soft-footed as a cat, had stolen forward in the
darkness to drop the precious parcel on the floor of the sentry box.
There the man had found it by the feel of his feet, when he stepped in
some time later to escape a shower. But what time had elapsed from the
placing of the parcel to its discovery by the sentry it was impossible
to say. It must, however, as Random calculated, have been within the
hour, since, before then, it would not have been dark enough to hide
the approach of the person, whether male or female, who carried a king's
ransom in the brown paper parcel.

At first Random was inclined to place the sentry under arrest for having
failed so much in his duty as to allow anyone to approach so near the
Fort; but, as he had already reprimanded the man, and, moreover, wished
to keep the fact of the recovered jewel quiet, he simply dismissed him.
When alone, he sat down before the fire, wondering who could have dared
so very greatly, and for what reason the emerald had been handed to
him. If it had been sent to Don Pedro, or even to Professor Braddock, it
would have been much more reasonable.

It first occurred to him that Mrs. Jasher, out of gratitude for the way
in which he had treated her, had sent him the jewel. Remembering his
former experience, he smelt the parcel, but could detect no sign of the
famous Chinese scent which had proved a clue to the letter. Of course
the direction on the packet and the inscribed slip of paper were in
feigned handwriting, so he could gather nothing from that. Still, he
did not think that Mrs. Jasher had sent the emerald. She was desperately
hard up, and if she had become possessed of the gem by murder--presuming
her to have been the woman who talked to Bolton through the window--she
assuredly would have sold it to supply her own needs. Certainly, if
guilty, she would still possess the other emerald, of equal value; but
undoubtedly, had she risked her neck to gain a fortune, she would
have kept the entire plunder which was likely to cost her so dear. No;
whomsoever it was who had repented at the eleventh hour, Mrs. Jasher was
not the person.

Perhaps Widow Anne was the woman who had talked through the window, and
who had restored the emerald. But that was impossible, since Mrs. Bolton
habitually took more liquor than was good for her, and would not have
the nerve to deliver the jewel, much less commit the crime, the more
especially as the victim was her own son. Of course she might have
found out Sidney's scheme to run away with the jewels, and so would have
claimed her share. But if she had been in Pierside on that evening--and
her presence in Gartley had been sworn to by three or four cronies--she
would have guessed who had strangled her boy. If so, not all the jewels
in the world would have prevented her denouncing the criminal. With
all her faults--and they were many--Mrs. Bolton was a good mother, and
looked upon Sidney as the pride and joy of her somewhat dissipated life.
Mrs. Bolton was certainly as innocent as Mrs. Jasher.

There remained Hervey. Random laughed aloud when the name came into
his puzzled head. That buccaneer was the last person to surrender his
plunder or to feel compunction in committing a crime. Once the skipper
got his grip on two jewels, worth endless money, he would never let them
go--not even one of them. Arguing thus, it seemed that Hervey was out of
the running, and Random could think of no one else. In this dilemma he
remembered that two heads were better than one, and, before going into
dinner, he sent a note to Archie Hope, asking him to come to the Fort as
speedily as possible.

Sir Frank was somewhat dull at dinner on that evening, and scarcely
responded to the joking remarks of his brother officers. These jocularly
put his preoccupation down to love, for it was an open secret that the
baronet admired the fair Peruvian, although no one as yet knew that
Random was legally engaged with Don Pedro's consent. The young man
good-humoredly stood all the chaff hurled at him, but seized the
opportunity to slip away to his quarters as soon as coffee came on the
table and the smoking began. It was nine o'clock before he returned to
his room, and here he found Hope waiting for him impatiently.

“I see you have been dining at the Pyramids,” said Random, seeing that
Hope was in evening dress.

Archie nodded.

“Yes. I don't put on this kit to have my humble chop at my lodgings. But
the Professor asked me to dinner to talk over matters.”

“What does he say?” asked Random, looking for the cigarette box.

“Oh, he is very angry with Mrs. Jasher, and considers that she has
swindled him. He called to see her this afternoon, and--so he says--had
a stormy interview with her.”

“I don't wonder at that, if he speaks as he generally does,” said the
other grimly, and pushing along the cigarettes, “There you are! The
whisky and soda are on yonder table. Make yourself comfortable, and tell
me what the Professor intends to do.”

“Well,” said Archie, turning half round from the side table where he
was pouring out the whisky, “he had already started action, by sending
Cockatoo to live at the Sailor's Rest and spy on Hervey.”

“What rubbish! Hervey is, going away to-morrow in The Firefly, bound for
Algiers. Nothing is to be learned from him.”

“So I told the Professor,” said Hope, returning to the armchair near the
fire, “and I mentioned that Don Pedro had induced the skipper to write
out a full account of the theft of the mummy from Lima thirty years
ago. I also said that the signed paper would be handed in at the Gartley
jetty when The Firefly came down stream to-morrow night.”

“Humph! And what did Braddock say to that?”

“Nothing much. He merely stated that whatever Hervey said toward proving
the ownership of your future father-in-law, that he intended to stick
to the embalmed corpse of Inca Caxas, and also that he intended to claim
the emeralds when they turned up.”

Random rose and went to the drawer of his desk.

“I am afraid he has lost one emerald, at all events,” he said, unlocking
the drawer.

“What's that?” said Hope sharply. “Why did you--oh, gosh!” He jumped up
with an amazed look as Random held up the magnificent gem, from which
streamed vividly green flames in the mellow lamplight. “Oh, gosh!”
 gasped the artist again. “Where the devil did you get that?”

“I sent for you to tell you,” said Sir Frank, giving the jewel into his
friend's hand and coming back to his seat. “It was found in the sentry
box.”

Hope stared at the great jewel and then at the soldier.

“What do you mean by that?” he demanded. “How the dickens could it be
found in a sentry box? You must be making a mistake.”

“Not a bit of it. It was found on the floor of the box by the sentry, as
I tell you, and I have sent to consult with you as to how the deuce it
got there.”

“Hervey,” muttered Archie, fascinated by the gem.

Random shrugged his square shoulders.

“Catch that Yankee Shylock returning anything he got his grip on, even
as a wedding present.”

“A wedding present,” said Hope, more at sea than ever. “If you don't
mind giving me details, old chap, my head would buzz less.”

“I rather think that it will buzz more,” said Random dryly, and,
producing the brown paper in which the gem had been wrapped, and the
inscribed paper found within, he related all that had happened.

Archie listened quietly and did not interrupt, but the puzzled look on
his face grew more pronounced.

“Well,” ended Random, seeing that no remark was made when he had
finished, “what do you think?”

“Lord knows! I'll go out of my mind if these sort of things come along.
I am a simple sort of chap, and have no use for mysteries which beat all
the detective stories I have ever read. That sort of thing is all very
well in fiction, but in real life--humph! What are you going to do?”

“Give back the emerald to Don Pedro.”

“Of course, though, it is given to you for a wedding present. And then?”

“Then”--Random stared into the fire--“I don't know. I asked you in to
assist me.”

“Willingly; but how?”

Random pondered for a few moments.

“Who sent that emerald to me, do you think?” he asked, looking squarely
at the artist.

Hope meditatively turned the jewel in his long fingers.

“Why not ask Mrs. Jasher?” he suggested suddenly.

“No!” Sir Frank shook his head. “I fancied it might be her, but it
cannot be. If she is guilty--as she must be, should she have sent the
emerald--she would not part with her plunder when she is so hard up.
I am beginning to believe, Hope, that what she said was true about the
letter.”

“How do you mean exactly?”

“That the letter was mere bluff and that she really knows nothing about
the crime. By the way, did Braddock learn anything?”

“Not a thing. He merely said that the two of them fought. I expect
Braddock stormed and Mrs. Jasher retorted. Both of them have too much
tongue-music to come to any understanding. By the way--to echo, your own
phrase--you had better put away this gem or I shall be strangling
you myself in order to gain possession of it. The mere sight of that
gorgeous color tempts me beyond my strength.”

Random laughed and locked the jewel in his drawer. Hope suggested that
with such a flimsy lock it was unsafe, but the baronet shook his head.

“It is safer here than in a woman's jewel case,” he asserted. “No one
looks to my drawer, and certainly no one would expect to find a crown
jewel of this description in my quarters. Well,” he came back to his
seat, slipping his keys into his trouser pocket, “the whole thing
puzzles me.”

“Why not do as I suggest and go to Mrs. Jasher? In any case you are
going there to-night, are you not?”

“Yes. I want to decide what to do about the woman. I had intended to go
alone, but as you are here you may as well come also.”

“I shall be delighted. What do you intend to do?”

“Help her,” said Random briefly.

“She doesn't deserve it,” replied Hope, lighting a fresh cigarette.

“Does anyone ever deserve anything?” asked Sir Frank cynically. “What
does Miss Kendal think of the business? I suppose Braddock told her. He
has too long a tongue to keep anything to himself.”

“He told her at dinner, when I was present. Lucy is quite on your side.
She says that she had known Mrs. Jasher for months and that there is
good in her, although I am bound to say that Lucy was a trifle shocked.”

“Does she want Mrs. Jasher to marry her father now?”

“Her step-father,” corrected Archie immediately. “No, that is out of
the question. But she would like Mrs. Jasher to be helped out of
her difficulties and have a fair start. It was only by the greatest
diplomacy that I prevented Lucy going to see the wretched woman this
evening.”

“Why did you prevent her?”

Archie colored.

“I daresay I am a trifle prudish,” he replied, “but after what has
happened I do not wish Lucy to associate with Mrs. Jasher. Do you blame
me?”

“No, I don't. All the same, I don't think that Mrs. Jasher is an immoral
woman by any means.”

“Perhaps not; but we needn't discuss her character, as we know precious
little of her past, and she no doubt told you the story that best suited
herself. I think it will be best to make her tell all she knows this
evening, and then send her away with a sum of money in her pocket to
begin a new life.”

“I shall help her certainly,” said Random, with his eyes on the fire,
“but can't say exactly how. It is my opinion that the poor wretch is
more sinned against than sinning.”

“You are a soldier with a conscience, Random.”

The other laughed.

“Why shouldn't a soldier have a conscience? Do you take your idea
of officers from the lady novelist, who makes us out to be all idle
idiots?”

“Not exactly. All the same, many a man would not take the trouble to
behave as you are doing to this unlucky woman.”

“Any man, who was a man, whether soldier or civilian, would help such a
poor creature. And I believe, Hope, that you will help her also.”

The artist leaped to his feet impulsively.

“Of course. I'm with you right along, as Hervey would say. But first,
before deciding what we shall do to set Mrs. Jasher on her legs again,
let us hear what she has to say.”

“She can say nothing more than she has said,” remonstrated Random.

“I don't believe that,” replied Hope, reaching for his overcoat. “You
may choose to believe that the letter was the outcome of bluff. But I
really and truly think that Mrs. Jasher is in the know. What is more,
I believe that Bolton got her those clothes, and that she was the
woman who talked to him--went there to see how the little scheme was
progressing.”

“If I thought that,” said Random coldly, “I would not help Mrs. Jasher.”

“Oh, yes, you would. The greater the sinner the more need she or he
has of help, you know, my dear fellow. But get your coat on, and let us
toddle. I don't suppose we need pistols.”

Sir Frank laughed, as, aided by the artist, he struggled into his
military greatcoat.

“I don't suppose that Mrs. Jasher will be dangerous,” he remarked.
“We'll get what we can out of her, and then arrange what is best to be
done to recoup her fallen fortunes. Then she can go where she chooses,
and we can,--as the French say--return to our muttons.”

“I think Donna Inez and Lucy would be annoyed to hear themselves called
muttons,” laughed Archie, and the two men left the room.

The night was darker than ever, and a fine rain was falling incessantly.
When they left the dimly lighted archway of the fort through the
smaller, gate set in the larger one they stepped into midnight blackness
such as must have been spread over the land of Egypt. In accordance
with the primitive customs of Gartley inhabitants, one of them at least
should have been furnished with a lantern, as it was no easy task
to pick a clean way through the mud.---However, Archie, knowing the
surroundings better even than Random, led the way, and they walked
slowly through the iron gate on the hard high road which led to the
Fort. Immediately beyond this they turned towards the narrow cinder path
which led through the marshes to Mrs. Jasher's cottage, and toiled on
cautiously through the misty rain, which fell continuously. The fog was
drifting up from the mouth of the river and was growing so thick that
they could not see the somewhat feeble lights of the cottage. However,
Archie's instincts led him aright, and they blundered finally upon the
wooden gate. Here they paused in shocked surprise, for a woman's scream
rang out wildly and suddenly.

“What, in heaven's name, is that?” asked Hope, aghast.

“We must find out,” breathed Random, and raced through the white
cotton-wool of the fog up the path. As he reached the veranda the door
opened and a woman came running out screaming. But other screams inside
the cottage still continued.

“What is the matter?” cried Random, seizing the woman.

She proved to be Jane.

“Oh, sir, my mistress is being murdered--”

Hope plunged past her into the corridor, not waiting to hear more. The
cries had died down to a low moaning, and he dashed into the pink parlor
to find it in smoky darkness. Striking a match, he held it above his
head. It showed Mrs. Jasher prone on the floor, and a dark figure
smashing its way through the flimsy window. There was a snarl and the
figure vanished as the match went out.




CHAPTER XXIV. A CONFESSION


Jane was still being held by Sir Frank at the floor, and was still
screaming, fully convinced that her captor was a burglar, in spite of
having recognized him by his voice. Random was so exasperated by her
stupidity that he shook her.

“What is the matter, you fool?” he demanded. “Don't you know that I am a
friend?”

“Y-e-s, s-i-r,” gasped Jane, fetching her breath again after the
shaking; “but go for the police. My mistress is being murdered.”

“Mr. Hope is looking after that, and the screams have ceased. Who was
with your mistress?”

“I don't know, sir,” sobbed the servant. “I didn't know anyone had
called, and then I heard the screaming. I looked into the parlor to see
what was the matter, but the lamp had been thrown over and had gone
out, and there was a dreadful struggle going on in the darkness, so I
screamed and ran out and then I--oh--oh” Jane showed symptoms of renewed
hysteria, and clutched Random tightly, as a man came cautiously round
the corner.

“Are you there, Random?” asked Hope's voice.

“It's so infernally dark and foggy that I have missed him.”

“Missed who?”

“The man who was trying to murder Mrs. Jasher, He got her down when I
entered and struck a match. Then he dashed through the window before I
could catch him or even recognize him. He's vanished in the mist.”

“It's no use looking for him anyhow,” said Random, peering into the
dense blackness, which was thick with damp. “We had better see after
Mrs. Jasher.”

“Whom have you got there?”

“Jane--who seems to have lost her head.”

“It's a mercy I haven't lost my life, sir, with burglars and murderers
all about the place,” sobbed the girl, dropping on to the veranda.

Random promptly hauled her to her feet.

“Go and get a candle, and keep calm if you can,” he said in an abrupt
military voice. “This is no time to play the fool.”

His sharpness had great effect on the girl, and she became much more her
usual self. Hope lighted another match, and the trio proceeded through
the passage towards the kitchen, where Jane had left a lamp burning.
Seizing this from its bracket, Sir Frank retraced his way along the
passage to the pink parlor, followed closely by Hope and timorously
by Jane. A dreadful scene presented itself. The dainty little room
was literally smashed to pieces, as though a gigantic bull had been
wallowing therein. The lamp lay on the floor, surrounded by several
extinguished candles. It was a mercy that all the lights had been put
out when overturned, else the gim-crack cottage would have been long
since in a blaze. Chairs and tables and screens were also overturned,
and the one window had its rose-hued curtains torn down and its glass
broken, showing only too clearly the way in which the murderer had
escaped. And that the man who had attacked Mrs. Jasher was a murderer
could be seen from the stream of blood that ran slowly from Mrs.
Jasher's breast. Apparently she had been stabbed in the lungs, for the
wound was on the right side. There she lay, poor woman, in her tawdry
finery, crumpled up, battered and bruised, dead amongst the ruins of her
home. Jane immediately began to scream again.

“Stop her, Hope,” cried Random, who was kneeling by the body and feeling
the heart. “Mrs. Jasher is not dead. Hold your noise, woman, and go
for a doctor.” This was to Jane, who, prevented from screaming, took to
whimpering.

“I had better go,” said Hope quickly; “and I'll go to the Fort and alarm
the men. Perhaps they may catch the man.”

“Can you describe him?”

“Of course not,” said Archie indignantly. “I only caught a glimpse of
him by the feeble light of a lucifer match. Then he leaped through the
window and I after him. I made a grab at him, but lost him in the mist.
I don't know in the least what he is like.”

“Then how can anyone arrest him?” snapped Random, raising Mrs. Jasher's
head. “Give what alarm you like, but race for Robinson up the village.
We must save this poor woman's life, if only to learn who killed her.”

“But she isn't dead yet--she isn't dead yet,” wailed Jane, clapping her
hands, while Hope, knowing the value of time, promptly ran out of the
house to get further assistance.

“She soon will be,” said Sir Frank, whose temper was not of the best at
so critical a moment in dealing with a fool. “Go and bring me brandy at
once, and afterwards linen and hot water. We must do our best to staunch
this wound and revive her.”

For the next quarter of an hour the man and the woman labored hard to
save Mrs. Jasher's life. Random bound up the wound in a rough and ready
fashion, and Jane fed the pale lips of her mistress with sips of brandy.
Mrs. Jasher gradually became more alive, and a faint sigh escaped from
her lips, as her wounded bosom rose and fell with recovered breath. When
Sir Frank was in hopes that she would speak, she suddenly relapsed again
into a comatose state. Luckily at that moment Archie returned with young
Dr. Robinson at his heels, and also was followed by Painter, the village
constable, who had luckily been picked up in the fog.

Robinson whistled as he looked at the insensible woman.

“She's had a narrow squeak,” he muttered, lifting the body with the
assistance of Random.

“Will she recover?” questioned Hope anxiously.

“I can't tell you yet,” answered the doctor; and with Sir Frank he
carried the heavy body of the widow into her bedroom. “How did it
happen?”

“That is my business,” said Painter, who had followed, and who was now
filled with importance. “You look after the body, sir, and I'll question
these gentlemen and the servant.”

“Servant yourself! Such sauce!” muttered Jane, with an angry toss of her
cap at the daring young policeman. “I know nothing. I left my mistress
in the parlor writing letters, and never heard anyone come in. The bell
didn't sound anyhow. The first thing I knew that anything was wrong was
on hearing the screams. When I looked into the parlor the candles and
the lamp were out, and there was a struggle going on in the dark. Then
I cried out, very naturally, I'm sure, and ran straight into the arms of
these gentlemen, as soon as I could get the front door open.”

After delivering this address, Jane was called away to assist the doctor
in the bedroom, and along with Archie and Random the constable repaired
to the pink parlor to hear what they had to say. Of course they could
tell him even less than Jane had told, and Archie protested that he was
quite unable to describe the man who had dashed out of the window.

“Ah,” said Painter sapiently, “he got out there; but how did he enter?”

“No doubt by the door,” said Random sharply.

“We don't know that, sir. Jane says she did not hear the bell.”

“Mrs. Jasher might have let the man in, whomsoever he was, secretly.”

“Why should she, sir?”

“Ah! now you are asking more than I can tell you. Only Mrs. Jasher can
explain, and it seems to me that she will die.”

Meanwhile, in some mysterious way the news of the crime had spread
through the village, and although it was growing late--for it was past
ten o'clock--a dozen or so of villagers came along. Also there arrived
a number of soldiers under a smart sergeant, and to him Sir Frank
explained what had happened. In the fainthearted way--for the mist was
now like cotton-wool--the military and the civilians hunted through the
marshes round the cottage, hoping to come across the assassin hiding
in a ditch. Needless to say, they found no one and nothing, for it was
worse than looking for a needle in a bundle of hay. The man had come out
of the mist, and, after executing the deed, had vanished into the mist,
and there was not the very slightest chance of finding him. Gradually,
as it drew towards midnight, the soldiers went back to the Fort, and the
villagers to their homes. But, along with the doctor and the constable,
Hope and his military friend stopped on. They were determined to get at
the root of the mystery, and when Mrs. Jasher became sensible she would
be able to reveal the truth.

“It's all of a piece with the sending of the emerald,” said Random
to the artist, “and that is connected, as we know, with the death of
Bolton.”

“Do you think that this man who has struck down Mrs. Jasher is the same
one who strangled Sidney Bolton?”

“I should think so. Perhaps Mrs. Jasher sent the emerald after all, and
this man killed her out of revenge.”

“But how would he know that she had the emerald?”

“God knows! She may have been his accomplice.”

Archie knit his brows.

“Who the devil can this mysterious person be?”

“I can only reply as you have done, my friend. God knows.”

“Well, I am certain that God will not let him escape this time. This
will bring Gartley once more into notoriety,” went on Hope. “By the way,
I saw one of the servants from the Pyramids here. I hope the fool won't
go home and frighten Lucy's life out of her.”

“Go to the Pyramids and see her,” suggested Sir Frank. “Mrs. Jasher is
still unconscious, and will be for hours, the doctor tells me.”

“It is too late to go to the Pyramids, Random.”

“If they know of this new tragedy there, I'll bet they are not in bed.”

Hope nodded.

“All the same, I'll remain here until Mrs. Jasher can speak,” he said,
and sat smoking with Random in the dining-room, as the most comfortable
room in the house.

Constable Painter camped, so to speak, in the drawing-room, keeping
guard over the scene of the crime, and had placed the Chinese screen
against the broken window to keep out the cold. In the bedroom Jane and
Dr. Robinson looked after the dying woman. And dying she was, according
to the young physician, for he did not think she would live much longer.
Round the lonely cottage the sea-mist drifted white and thick, and the
darkness deepened, until--as the saying goes--it could have been cut
with a knife. Never was there so eerie and weary and sinister a vigil.

Towards four o'clock Hope fell into a doze, while resting in an
arm-chair; but he was suddenly aroused from this by an exclamation from
Sir Frank, who had remained wide awake, smoking cigar after cigar. In a
moment the artist was on his feet, alert and quick-brained.

“What is it?”

Random made for the dining-room door rapidly.

“I thought I heard Painter call out,” he declared, and hastily sought
the parlor, followed by Hope.

The room was empty, but the screen before the broken window had been
thrown down, and they could see Painter's bulky form immediately
outside.

“What the deuce is the matter?” demanded Random, entering. “Did you call
out, Painter. I fancied I heard something.”

The constable came in again.

“I did call out, sir,” he confessed. “I was half asleep in that chair,
when I suddenly became wide awake, and believed I saw a face looking at
me round the corner of the screen. I jumped up, calling for you, sir,
and upset the screen.”

“Well? well?” demanded Sir Frank impatiently, and seeing that the man
hesitated.

“I saw no one, sir. All the same, I had an idea, and I have still, that
a man came through the window and peered at me from behind the screen.”

“The man who attacked Mrs. Jasher?”

“I can't say, sir. But there was someone. At any rate he's gone again,
if he really did come, and there is no chance of finding him. It's like
pea-soup outside.”

Hope and Random simultaneously stepped through the window, but could not
see an inch before them, so thick was the sea-fog and so dense was the
darkness. Returning, they replaced the screen, and, telling Painter
to be more on the alert, went back shivering to the fire in the
dining-room. When they were seated again, Archie put a question.

“Do you think that policeman was dreaming?” he asked meditatively.

“No,” replied Random sharply. “I believe that the man who assaulted Mrs.
Jasher is hanging about, and ventured back into the room, relying on the
fog as a means of escape, should he be spotted.”

“But the man wouldn't be such a fool as to return into danger.”

“Not unless he wanted something very badly,” said Random significantly.

Hope let the cigarette he was lighting fall.

“What do you mean?”

“I may be wrong, of course. But it is my impression that there is
something in the parlor which this man wants, and for which he tried
to murder Mrs. Jasher. We interrupted him, and he was forced to flee.
Hidden in the fog, he is lurking about to see if he can't obtain what he
has risked his neck to secure.”

“What can it be?” murmured Archie, struck by the feasibility of this
theory.

“Perhaps the second emerald,” remarked Sir Frank grimly.

“What! You don't think that--”

“I don't think anything. I am too tired to think at all. However,
Painter will keep his eyes open, and in the morning we can search the
room. The man has been in the house twice to get what he wanted. He
won't risk another attempt, now that he is aware we are on the alert.
I'm going to try and get forty winks. You keep watch, as you have had
your sleep.”

Hope was quite agreeable, but just as Random composed himself to uneasy
slumber, Jane, haggard and red-eyed, came hastily into the dining-room.

“If you please, gentlemen, the doctor wants you to come and see
mistress. She is sensible, and--”

The two waited to hear no more, but went hastily but softly into the
room wherein lay the dying woman. Robinson sat by the bedside, holding
his patient's hand and feeling her pulse. He placed his finger on his
lips as the men entered gently, and at the same moment Mrs. Jasher's
voice, weak from exhaustion, sounded through the room, which was
dimly illuminated by one candle. The newcomers halted in obedience to
Robinson's signal.

“Who is there?” asked Mrs. Jasher weakly, for, in spite of the care
exercised, she had evidently heard the footsteps.

“Mr. Hope and Sir Frank Random,” whispered the doctor, speaking into the
dying woman's ear. “They came in time to save you.”

“In time to see me die,” she murmured; “and I can't die, unless I tell
the truth. I am glad Random is there; he is a kind-hearted boy, and
treated me better than he need have done. I--oh--some brandy--brandy.”

Robinson gave her some in a spoon.

“Now lie quietly and do not attempt to speak,” he commanded. “You need
all your strength.”

“I do--to tell that which I wish to tell,” gasped Mrs. Jasher, trying
to raise herself. “Sir Frank! Sir Frank!” Her voice sounded hoarse and
weak.

“Yes, Mrs. Jasher,” said the young man, coming softly to the bedside.

She thrust out a weak hand and clutched him.

“You must be my father-confessor, and hear all. You got the emerald?”

“What!” Random recoiled in astonishment, “Did you--”

“Yes, I sent it to you as a wedding present. I was sorry and I was
afraid; and I--I--” She paused again, gasping.

The doctor intervened and gave her more brandy.

“You must not talk,” he insisted severely, “or I shall turn Sir Frank
and Mr. Hope out of the room.”

“No! no! Give me more brandy--more--more.” and when the doctor placed a
tumbler to her lips, she drank so greedily that he had to take the glass
away lest she should do herself harm. But the ardent spirit put new life
into her, and with a superhuman effort she suddenly reared herself in
the bed.

“Come here, Hope--come here, Random,” she said in a much stronger voice.
“I have much to tell you. Yes, I took the emerald after dark and threw
it into the sentry box when the man wasn't looking. I escaped your spy,
Random, and I escaped the notice of the sentry. I walked like a cat, and
like a cat I can see in the dark. I am glad you have got the emerald.”

“Where did you get it?” asked Random quietly.

“That's a long story. I don't know that I have the strength to tell it.
I have written it out.”

“You have written it out?” said Hope quickly, and drawing near.

“Yes. Jane thought that I was writing letters, but I was writing out the
whole story of the murder. You were good to me, Random, you dear boy,
and on the impulse of the moment I took the emerald to you. I was sorry
when I got back, but it was too late then to repent, as I did not dare
to go near the Fort again. Your spy who watched might have discovered me
the second time. I then thought that I would write out the story of the
murder, so as to exonerate myself.”

“Then you are not guilty of Bolton's death?” asked Sir Frank, puzzled,
for her confession was somewhat incoherent.

“No. I did not strangle him. But I know who did. I have written it all
down. I was just finishing when I heard the tapping at the window. I
let him in and he tried to get the confession, for I told him what I had
done.”

“Who did you tell?” asked Hope, much excited.

Mrs. Jasher took no notice.

“The confession is lying on my desk--all the sheets of paper are loose.
I had no time to bind them together, for he came in. He wanted the
emerald, and the confession. I told him that I had given the emerald to
you, Random, and that I had confessed all in writing. Then he went mad
and flew at me with a dreadful knife. He knocked over the candles and
the lamp. Everything went out and all was darkness, and I lay crying for
help, with that devil stabbing--stabbing--ah--”

“Who, in heaven's name, is the man?” demanded Random, standing up in his
eagerness. But Mrs. Jasher had fallen back in a faint, and Robinson was
again supplying her with brandy.

“You had better leave the room, you two,” he said, “or I can't be
answerable for her life.”

“I must stay and learn the truth,” said Random determinedly, “and you,
Hope, go into the parlor and find that confession. It is on the desk, as
she said, all loose sheets. No doubt it was the confession which the man
she refers to tried to secure when he came back the second time. He may
make another attempt, or Painter may go to sleep. Hurry! hurry!”

Archie needed no second telling, as he realized what hung on the
securing of the confession. He stole swiftly out of the room, closing
the door after him. Faint as was the sound, Mrs. Jasher heard it and
opened her eyes.

“Do not go, Random,” she said faintly. “I have yet much to say, although
the confession will tell you all. I am half sorry I wrote it out--at
least I was--and perhaps should have burnt it had I not met with this
accident.”

“Accident!” echoed Sir Frank scornfully. “Murder you mean.”

The sinister word galvanized the dying woman in sudden strong life, and
she reared herself again on the bed.

“Murder! Yes, it is murder,” she cried loudly. “He killed Sidney Bolton
to get the emeralds, and he killed me to make me close my mouth.”

“Who stabbed you? Speak! speak!” cried Random anxiously.

“Cockatoo. He is guilty of my death and Bolton's,” and she fell back,
dead.



CHAPTER XXV. THE MILLS OF GOD


In the cold gray hours of the morning, Hope and his friend left the
cottage wherein such a tragedy had taken place. The dead woman was lying
stiff and white on her bed under a winding sheet, which had already been
strewn with many-hued chrysanthemums taken from the pink parlor by the
weeping Jane. The wretched woman who had led so stormy and unhappy a
life had at least one sincere mourner, for she had always been kind to
the servant, who formed her entire domestic staff, and Jane would not
hear a word said against the dead. Not that anyone did say anything; for
Random and Hope kept the contents of the confession to themselves. There
would be time enough for Mrs. Jasher's reputation to be smirched when
those same contents were made public.

When the poor woman died, Random left the doctor and the servant to look
after the corpse, and went into the parlor. Here he met Hope with the
confession in his hand. Luckily, Painter was not in the room at the
moment, else he would have prevented the artist from taking away the
same. Hope--as directed by Mrs. Jasher--had found the confession,
written on many sheets, lying on the desk. It broke off abruptly towards
the end, and was not signed. Apparently at this point Mrs. Jasher had
been interrupted--as she had said--by the tapping of Cockatoo at the
window. Probably she had admitted him at once, and on her refusal to
give him the emerald, and on her confessing what she had written, he had
overturned the lights for the purpose of murdering her. Only too well
had the Kanaka succeeded in his wickedness.

Archie slipped the confession into his pocket before the policeman
returned, and then left the cottage with Random and the doctor, since
nothing else could now be done. It was between seven and eight, and the
chilly dawn was breaking, but the sea-mist still lay heavily over the
marshes, as though it were the winding sheet of the dead. Robinson went
to his own house to get his trap and drive into Jessum, there to catch
the train and ferry to Pierside. It was necessary that Inspector Date
should be informed of this new tragedy without delay, and as Constable
Painter was engaged in watching the cottage, there was no messenger
available but Dr. Robinson. Random indeed offered to send a soldier,
or to afford Robinson the use of the Fort telephone, but the doctor
preferred to see Date personally, so as to detail exactly what had
happened. Perhaps the young medical man had an eye to becoming better
known, for the improvement of his practice; but he certainly seemed
anxious to take a prominent part in the proceedings connected with the
murder of Mrs. Jasher.

When Robinson parted from them, Random and Hope went to the lodgings of
the latter, so as to read over the confession and learn exactly to what
extent Mrs. Jasher had been mixed up in the tragedy of the green mummy.
She had declared herself innocent even on her death-bed, and so far
as the two could judge at this point, she certainly had not actually
strangled Sidney Bolton. But it might be--and it appeared to be more
than probable--that she was an accessory after the fact. But this they
could learn from the confession, and they sat in Hope's quiet little
sitting-room, in which the fire had been just lighted by the artist's
landlady, with the scattered sheets neatly ranged before them.

“Perhaps you would like a cup of coffee, or a whisky and soda,”
 suggested Archie, “before starting to read?”

“I should,” assented Random, who looked weary and pale. “The events of
the night have somewhat knocked me up. Coffee for choice--nice, black,
strong, hot coffee.”

Hope nodded and went to order the same. When he returned he sat down,
after closing the door carefully, and proceeded to read. But before he
could speak Random raised his hand.

“Let us chat until the coffee comes in,” he said; “then we shall not be
interrupted when reading.”

“All right,” said Hope. “Have a cigar!”

“No, thanks. I have been smoking all the night. I shall sit here by the
fire and wait for the coffee. You look chippy yourself.”

“And small wonder,” said Archie wearily. “We little thought when we left
the Fort last night what a time we were going to have. Fancy Mrs. Jasher
having sent you the emerald after all!”

“Yes. She repented, as she said, and yet I dare say--as she also
said--she was sorry that she acted on her impulse. If she had not been
stabbed by that damned Cockatoo, she would no doubt have destroyed that
confession. I expect she wrote that also on the impulse of the moment.”

“She confessed as much,” said Hope, leaning his head on his hand and
staring into the fire. “She must have been cognizant of the truth all
along. I wonder if she was an accessory before or after the fact?”

“What I wonder,” said Random, after a moment's thought, “is, what
Braddock has to do with the matter?”

Hope raised his head in surprise.

“Why, nothing. Mrs. Jasher did not say a word against Braddock.”

“I know that. All the same, Cockatoo was completely under the thumb of
the Professor, and probably was instructed by him to strangle Bolton.”

“That is impossible,” cried the artist, much agitated. “Think of what
you are saying, Random. What a terrible thing it would be for Lucy if
the Professor were guilty in such a way as you suggest!”

“Really, I fail to see that. Miss Kendal is no relation to Braddock save
by marriage. His iniquities have nothing to do with her, or with you.”

“But it's impossible, I tell you, Random. Throughout the whole of this
case Braddock has acted in a perfectly innocent way.”

“That's just it,” said Sir Frank caustically; “he has acted. In spite
of his pretended grief for the loss of the emeralds, I should not be
surprised to learn from that,” he nodded towards the confession on the
table, “that he was in possession of the missing gem. Cockatoo had no
reason to steal the emeralds himself, setting aside the fact that he
probably would not know their value, being but a semi-civilized savage.
He acted under orders from his master, and although Cockatoo strangled
Bolton, the Professor is really the author and the gainer and the moving
spirit.”

“You would make Braddock an accessory before the fact.”

“Yes, and Mrs. Jasher an accessory after the fact. Cockatoo is the link,
as the actual criminal, who joins the two in a guilty partnership. No
wonder Braddock intended to make that woman his wife even though he
did not love her, for she knew a jolly sight too much for his peace of
mind.”

“This is horrible,” murmured Hope desperately; “but it is mere theory.
We cannot be sure until we read the confession.”

“We'll be sure soon, then, for here comes the coffee.”

This last remark Random made when a timid knock came to the door, and a
moment later the landlady entered with a tray bearing cups, saucers, and
a jug of steaming coffee. She was a meek, reticent woman who entered and
departed in dismal silence, and in a few moments the two young men were
quite alone with the door closed. They drank a cup of coffee each, and
then Hope proceeded to read the confession.

The story told by Mrs. Jasher commenced with a short account of her
early life. It appeared that her father was a ruined gentleman and a
gambler, and that her mother had been an actress. She was dragged up in
a Bohemian sort of way until she attained a marriageable age, when her
mother, who seemed to have been both wicked and hard-hearted, forced
her to marry a comparatively wealthy man called Jasher. The elderly
husband--for Jasher was not young--treated his wife very badly, and,
infected with the spirit of gambling by her father, lost all his money.
Mrs. Jasher then went with him to America and performed on the stage in
order to keep the home together. She had one child, but it died, much
to her grief, yet also much to her relief, as she was so miserable and
poor. Mrs. Jasher gave a scanty account of sordid years of trouble
and trial, of failure and sorrow. She and her husband roamed all over
America, and then went to Australia and New Zealand, where they lived
a wretched existence for many years. Finally the husband died of strong
drink at an advanced age, leaving Mrs. Jasher a somewhat elderly widow.

The poor woman again took to the stage and tried to earn her bread,
but was unsuccessful. Afterwards she lectured. Then she kept a boarding
establishment, and finally went out as a nurse. In every way, it would
seem, she tried to keep her head above water, and roamed the world like
a bird of passage, finding rest nowhere for the sole of her foot. Yet
throughout her story both the young men could see that she had always
aspired to a quiet and decent, respectable existence, and that only
force of circumstances had flung her into the whirlpool of life.

“As I said,” remarked Random at this stage, “the miserable creature was
more sinned against than sinning.”

“Her moral sense seemed to have become blunted, however,” said Archie
doubtfully.

“And small wonder, amidst such surroundings; but it seems to me that she
was much better under the circumstances than many another woman would
have been. Go on.”

In Melbourne Mrs. Jasher made a lucky speculation in mines, which
brought her one thousand pounds. With this she came to England, and
resolved to make a bid for respectability. Chance led her into the
neighborhood of Gartley, and thinking that if she set up her tent in
this locality she might manage to marry an officer from the Fort--since
amidst such dismal surroundings a young man might be the more easily
fascinated by a woman of the world--she took the cottage amidst the
marshes at a small rent. Here she hoped to eke out what money she had
left--a few hundreds--until the coveted marriage should take place.
Afterwards she met Professor Braddock and determined to marry him, as
a man more easy to manage. She was successful in enlisting Lucy on her
side, and until the green mummy brought its bad luck to the Pyramids
everything went capitally.

It was in connection with the name of Bolton that the first mention was
made of the green mummy. Sidney was a clever young man, although
very lowly born, and having been taken up by Professor Braddock as
an assistant, could hope some day to make a position. Braddock was
educating him, although he paid him very little in the way of wages.
Sidney fell in love with Mrs. Jasher, and in some way--she did not
mention how--gained her confidence. Perhaps the lonely woman was glad
to have a sympathetic friend. At all events she told her past history
to Sidney, and mentioned that she desired to marry Braddock. But Sidney
insisted that she should marry him, and promised to make enough money
to satisfy her that he was a good match, setting aside his humble birth,
for which Mrs. Jasher cared nothing.

It was then that Sidney related what he had discovered. Braddock, when
in Peru many years before, had tried to get mummies for some scientific
reason. When Hervey--then known as Vasa--promised to procure him the
mummy of the last Inca, Braddock was extremely pleased. Hervey stole the
mummy and also the copy of the manuscript which was written in Latin.
He sent this latter to Braddock--who was then at Cuzco--as an earnest of
his success in procuring the mummy, and when the Professor returned
to Lima the mummy was to be handed to him. Unfortunately, Braddock
was carried into captivity for one year, and when he escaped Vasa had
disappeared with the mummy. As the Professor had deciphered the Latin
manuscript, he knew of the emeralds, and for years had been hunting for
the mummy--sure to be recognized from its peculiar green color--in order
to get the jewels, and thus secure money for his Egyptian expedition.
All through, it seems, the Professor was actuated by purely scientific
enthusiasm, as in the abstract he cared very little for hard cash.
Bolton told Mrs. Jasher that Braddock explained how much he desired to
get the mummy, but he did not mention about the jewels. For a long time
Sidney was under the impression that his master merely wanted the
mummy to see the difference between the Egyptian and Peruvian modes of
embalming.

Then one day Sidney chanced on the Latin manuscript, and learned that
Braddock's real reason for getting the mummy was to procure the emeralds
which were held in the grip of the dead. Sidney kept this knowledge to
himself, and Braddock never guessed that his assistant knew the truth.
Then unexpectedly Braddock stumbled across the advertisement describing
the green mummy for sale in Malta. From the color he made sure that it
was that of Inca Caxas, and so moved heaven and earth to get money
to buy it. At length he did, from Archie Hope, on condition that he
consented to the marriage of his step-daughter with the young man.
Thinking that Sidney was ignorant of the jewels, he sent him to bring
the mummy home.

Sidney told Mrs. Jasher that he would try and steal the jewels in Malta
or on board the tramp steamer. Failing that, he would delay the delivery
of the mummy to Braddock on some excuse and rob it at Pierside. To make
sure of escaping, he borrowed a disguise from his mother, alleging that
Hope wanted the same to clothe a model. Sidney intended to take these
clothes with him, and, after stealing the jewels, to escape disguised as
an old woman. As he was slender and clean-shaven and a capital actor, he
could easily manage this.

Then he arranged that Mrs. Jasher should join him in Paris, and they
would sell the emeralds, and go to America, there to marry and live
happily ever afterwards, like a fairy tale.

Unfortunately for the success of this plan, Mrs. Jasher thought that the
Professor would make a more distinguished husband, so she betrayed all
that Sidney, had arranged.

“What a beastly thing to do!” interrupted Random, disgusted. “It is not
as if she wanted to help Braddock. I think less of Mrs. Jasher than ever
I did. She might have remembered that there is honor amongst thieves.”

“Well, she is dead, poor soul!” said Hope with a sigh. “God knows that
if she sinned, she has paid cruelly for her sin,” after which remark, as
Sir Frank was silent, he resumed his reading.

Braddock was furious when he learned of his assistant's projected
trickery, and he determined to circumvent him. He agreed to marry Mrs.
Jasher, as, if he had not done so, she could have warned Sidney and he
could have escaped with both the mummy and the jewels by conniving with
Hervey. The Professor could not risk that, as, remembering Hervey
as Gustav Vasa, he was aware how clever and reckless he was. Whether
Braddock ever intended to marry the widow in the end it is hard to
say, but he certainly pretended to consent to the engagement, which was
mainly brought about by Lucy. Then came the details of the murder so far
as Mrs. Jasher knew.

One evening--in fact on the evening when the crime was committed--the
woman was walking in her garden late. In the moonlight she saw Braddock
and Cockatoo go down along the cinderpath to the jetty near the Fort.
Wondering what they were doing, she waited up, and heard and saw
them--for it was still moonlight--come back long after midnight. The
next day she heard of the murder, and guessed that the Professor and his
slave--for Cockatoo was little else--had rowed up to Pierside in a boat
and there had strangled Sidney and stolen the mummy. She saw Braddock
and accused him. The Professor had then opened the case, and had
pretended astonishment when discovering the corpse of the man whom
Cockatoo had strangled, as he knew perfectly well.

Braddock at first denied having been to Pierside, but Mrs. Jasher
insisted that she would tell the police, so he was forced to make a
clean breast of it to the woman.

“Now for it,” said Random, settling himself to hear details of the
crime, for he had often wondered how it had been executed.

“Braddock,” read Archie from the confession, for Mrs. Jasher did not
trouble herself with a polite prefix--“Braddock explained that when he
received a letter from Sidney stating that he would have to remain
with the mummy for a night in Pierside, he guessed that his treacherous
assistant intended to effect the robbery. It seems that Sidney by
mistake had left behind the disguise in which he intended to escape.
Aware of this through me”--Mrs. Jasher referred to herself--“he made
Cockatoo assume the dress and row up the river to the Sailor's Rest. The
Kanaka easily could be mistaken for a woman, as he also, like Sidney,
was slender and smooth-chinned. Also, he wore the shawl over his head to
disguise his mop of frizzy hair as much as possible, and for the purpose
of concealing his tattooed face. In the darkness--it was after nine
o'clock--he spoke to Sidney through the window, as he had seen him there
earlier, when searching for him. Cockatoo said that Sidney was much
afraid when he heard that his purpose had been discovered by the
Professor. He offered a share of the plunder to the Kanaka, and Cockatoo
agreed, saying he would come back late, and that Sidney was to admit him
into the bedroom so that they could open the mummy and steal the
jewels. Sidney quite believed that Cockatoo was heart and soul with him,
especially as the cunning Kanaka swore that he was weary of his master's
tyranny. It was when Cockatoo was talking thus that he was seen by Eliza
Flight, who mistook him--very naturally--for a woman. Cockatoo then
returned by boat to the Gartley jetty and told his master. Afterwards,
the Professor, at a much later hour, went down to the jetty and was
rowed up to Pierside by the Kanaka.”

“That was when Mrs. Jasher saw them,” said Random, much interested.

“Yes,” said Archie. “And then, if you remember; she watched for the
return of the couple.”

“It was nearly midnight when the boat was brought alongside the sloping
stone bank of the alley which ran past the Sailor's Rest. No one was
about at that hour, not even a policeman, and there was no light in
Sidney Bolton's window. Braddock was much agitated as he thought that
Sidney had already escaped. He waited in the boat and sent Cockatoo to
knock at the window. Then a light appeared and the window was silently
opened. The Kanaka slipped in and remained there for some ten minutes
after closing the window. When he returned, the light was extinguished.
He whispered to his master that Sidney had opened the packing case and
the mummy coffin, and had ripped the swathings to get the jewels. When
Sidney would not hand over the jewels to the Kanaka, as the latter
wanted him to, Cockatoo, already prepared with the window cord, which he
had silently taken from the blind, sprang upon the unfortunate assistant
and strangled him. Cockatoo told this to his horrified master, and
wanted him to come back to hide the corpse in the packing case.
Braddock refused, and then Cockatoo told him that he would throw the
jewels--which he had taken from Sidney's body--into the river. The
position of master and servant was reversed, and Braddock was forced to
obey.

“The Professor slipped silently ashore and into the room. The two men
relighted the candle and pulled down the blind. They then placed the
corpse of Sidney in the packing case, and screwed the same down in
silence. When this was completed, they were about to carry the mummy in
its coffin--the lid of which they had replaced--to the boat, when they
heard distant footsteps, probably those of a policeman on his beat.
At once they extinguished the candle, and--as Braddock told Mrs.
Jasher--he, for one, sat trembling in the dark. But the policeman--if
the footsteps were those of a policeman--passed up another street, and
the two were safe. Without relighting the candle, they silently slipped
the mummy through the window, Cockatoo within and Braddock without. The
case and its contents were not heavy, and it was not difficult for
the two men to take it to the boat. When it was safely bestowed,
Cockatoo--who was as cunning as the devil, according to his master
returned to the bedroom, and unlocked the door. He afterwards passed a
string through the joining of the upper and lower windows, and managed
to shut the snib. Afterwards he came to the boat and rowed it back
to Gartley. On the way Cockatoo told his master that Sidney had left
instructions that the packing case should be taken next morning to the
Pyramids, so there was nothing to fear. The mummy was hidden in a hole
under the jetty and covered with grass.”

“Why didn't they take it up to the house?” asked Random, on hearing
this.

“That would have been dangerous,” said Hope, looking up from the
manuscript, “seeing that the mummy was supposed to have been stolen by
the murderer. It was easier to hide it amongst the grasses under
the jetty, as no one ever goes there. Well”--he turned over a few
pages--“that is practically all. The rest is after events.”

“I want to hear them,” said Random, taking another cup of coffee.

Hope ran his eyes swiftly over the remaining portion of the paper, and
gave further details rapidly to his friend.

“You know all that happened,” he said, “the Professor's pretended
surprise when he found the corpse he had himself helped to pack and--”

“Yes! yes! But why was the mummy placed in Mrs. Jasher's garden?”

“That was Braddock's idea. He fancied that the mummy might be found
under the jetty and that inconvenient inquiries might be made. Also,
he wished if possible to implicate Mrs. Jasher, so as to keep her from
telling to the police what he had told her. He and Cockatoo went down
to the river one night and removed the mummy to the arbor silently.
Afterwards he pretended to be astonished when I found it. I must say
he acted his part very well,” said Hope reflectively, “even to accusing
Mrs. Jasher. That was a bold stroke of genius.”

“A very dangerous one.”

“Not at all. He swore to Mrs. Jasher that if she said anything, he would
tell the police that she had taken the clothes provided by Sidney from
the Pyramids and had gone to speak through the window, in order to fly
with Sidney and the emeralds. As the fact of the mummy being found in
Mrs. Jasher's garden would lend color to the lie, she was obliged to
hold her tongue. And after all, as she says, she didn't mind, since
she was engaged to the Professor, and possessed at least one of the
emeralds.”

“Ah! the one she passed along to me. How did she get that?”

Hope referred again to the manuscript.

“She insisted that Braddock should give it to her as a pledge of good
faith. He had to do it, or risk her splitting. That was why he placed
the mummy in her garden, so as to bring her into the matter, and render
it more difficult for her to speak.”

“What of the other emerald?”

“Braddock took that to Amsterdam, when he went to London that time--if
you remember, when Don Pedro arrived. Braddock sold the emerald for
three thousand pounds, and it is now on its way to an Indian rajah. I
fear Don Pedro will never set eyes on that again.”

“Where is the money?”

“He banked it in a feigned name in Amsterdam, and intended to account
for it when he married Mrs. Jasher by saying it was left to her by that
mythical Pekin merchant brother of hers. Savvy!”

“Yes. What an infernal little villain! And I expect he sent Cockatoo
down last night for the other emerald.”

“That is not related in the manuscript,” said Archie, laying down the
last sheet and taking up his coffee. “The confession ends abruptly--at
the time Cockatoo tapped at the window, I expect. But she said, when
dying, that the Kanaka asked for the second emerald. If she had not sent
it to you in a fit of weakness, I expect she would have passed it along.
I can't make out,” added Archie musingly, “why Mrs. Jasher confessed
when everything was so safe.”

“Well,” said Random, nursing his chin, and staring into the fire, “she
made a mistake in trying to blackmail me, though why she did so I can't
tell, seeing she had the whiphand of Braddock. Perhaps she wanted the
five thousand to spend herself, knowing that the Professor's plunder
would be wasted on his confounded expedition. At any rate she gave
herself away by the blackmail, and I expect she grew frightened. If the
house had been searched--and it might have been searched by the police,
had I arrested her for blackmail the emerald would have been found and
she would have been incriminated. She therefore got rid of it cleverly,
by passing it along to me as a wedding gift. Then she again grew afraid
and wrote out this confession to exonerate herself.”

“But it doesn't,” insisted Hope. “She makes herself out plainly as an
accessory after the fact.”

“A woman doesn't understand these legal niceties. She wrote that out to
clear herself in case she was arrested for the blackmail, and perhaps
in case Braddock refused to help her--as he certainly did, if you
remember.”

“He was hard on her,” confessed Archie slowly.

“Being such a villain himself,” said Random grimly. “However, Cockatoo
arrived unluckily on the scene, and when he found she had parted with
the emerald, and had written out the truth, he stabbed her. If we hadn't
come just in the nick of time, he would have annexed that confession,
and the truth would never have become known. No one,” ended Random,
rising and stretching himself, “would connect Braddock or Cockatoo with
the death of Mrs. Jasher.”

“Or with the death of Sidney Bolton either,” said Hope, also rising and
putting on his cap. “What an actor the man is!”

“Where are you going?” demanded Sir Frank, yawning.

“To the Pyramids. I want to see how Lucy is.”

“Will you tell her about that confession?”

“Not until later. I shall give this to Inspector Date when he arrives.
The Professor has made his bed, so he must lie on it. When I marry Lucy,
I'll take her away from this damned place.”

“Marry her at once, then,” advised Random, “while the Professor is doing
time, and while Cockatoo is being hanged. Meanwhile, I think you had
better put on your overcoat, unless you want to walk through the village
in crumpled evening dress, like a dissipated undergraduate.”

Archie laughed in spite of his weariness, and assumed his greatcoat at
the same moment as Random slipped into his. The two young men walked
out into the village and up to the Pyramids, for Random wished to see
Braddock before returning to the Fort. They found the door of the great
house open and the servants in the hall.

“What is all this?” demanded Hope, entering. “Why are you here, and not
at work? Where is your master?”

“He's run away,” said the cook in a shrill voice. “Lord knows why, sir.”

“Archie! Archie!” Lucy came running out of the museum, pale-faced and
white, “my father has gone away with Cockatoo and the green mummy. What
does it mean? And just when poor Mrs. Jasher is murdered too.”

“Hush, darling! Come in, and I'll explain,” said Hope gently.




CHAPTER XXVI. THE APPOINTMENT


Poor Lucy Kendal was terribly grieved and shocked when the full account
of her step-father's iniquity was revealed to her. Archie tried to break
the news as delicately as possible, but no words could soften the sordid
story. Lucy, at first, could not believe it possible that a man, whom
she had known for so long, and to whom she was related, would behave
in such a base way. To convince her Hope was forced to let her read the
account in Mrs. Jasher's handwriting. When acquainted with the contents,
the poor girl's first desire was to have the matter hushed up, and she
implored her lover with tears to suppress the damning document.

“That is impossible,” said Hope firmly; “and if you think again, my
dear, you will not repeat such a request. It is absolutely necessary
that this should be placed in the hands of the police, and that the
truth should become as widely known as possible. Unless the matter is
settled once and for all, someone else may be accused of this murder.”

“But the disgrace,” wept Lucy, hiding her face on her lover's shoulder.

He slipped his arm round her waist.

“My darling, the disgrace exists whether it be public or private. After
all, the Professor is no relation.”

“No. But everyone knows that I am his step-daughter.”

“Everyone,” echoed Archie, with an assumed lightness. “My dear, everyone
in this instance only means the handful of people who live in this
out-of-the-way village. Your name will not appear in the papers. And
even if by chance it does, you will soon be changing it for mine. I
think the best thing that can be done is for you to come with me to
London next week and marry me. Then we can go to the south of France
for the rest of the winter, until you recover. When we return and set up
house in London--say in a year--the whole affair will be forgotten.”

“But how can you bear to marry me, when you know that I come of such a
bad stock?” wept Lucy, a trifle more comforted.

“My dear, must I remind you again that you are no relation to Professor
Braddock; you have not a drop of his wicked blood in your veins. And
even if you had, I should still marry you. It is you I love, and you I
marry, so there is no more to be said. Come, darling, say that you will
become my wife next week.”

“But the Professor?”

Archie smiled grimly. He found it difficult to forgive Braddock for the
disgrace he had brought on the girl.

“I don't think we'll ever be troubled again with the Professor,” he
said, after a pause. “He has bolted into the unknown with that infernal
Kanaka.”

“But why did he fly, Archie?”

“Because he knew that the game was up. Mrs. Jasher wrote out this
confession, and told Cockatoo, when he entered the room to get the
emerald, that she had written it. To save his master the Kanaka stabbed
the wretched woman, and, had Random and I not arrived, he would have
secured the confession. I really believe he came back again out of the
mist in the small hours of the morning to steal it. But when he found
that all was vain, he returned here and told the Professor that the
story of the murder had been written out. Therefore there was
nothing left to Braddock but to fly. Although,” added Hope, with an
afterthought, “I can't imagine why those two fugitives should drag that
confounded mummy with them.”

“But why should the Professor fly?” asked Lucy again. “According to what
Mrs. Jasher writes, he did not strangle poor Sidney.”

“No. And I will do him the justice to say that he had no idea of having
his assistant murdered. It was Cockatoo's savage blood which came out in
the deed, and maybe it can be explained by the Kanaka's devotion to the
Professor. It was the same way in the murder of Mrs. Jasher. By killing
Bolton, the Kanaka hoped to save the emeralds for Braddock: in stabbing
Mrs. Jasher, he hoped to save the Professor's life.”

“Oh, Archie, will they hang my father?”

Hope winced.

“Call him your step-father,” he said quickly. “No, dear, I do not think
he will be hanged; but as an accessory after the fact he will certainly
be condemned to a long term of imprisonment. Cockatoo, however,
assuredly will be hanged, and a good job too. He is only a savage, and
as such is dangerous in a civilized community. I wonder where they have
gone? Did anyone hear them going?”

“No,” said Lucy unhesitatingly. “Cook came up this morning to my room,
and said that my father--I mean my step-father--had gone away with
Cockatoo and with the green mummy. I don't know why she should have said
that, as the Professor often went away unexpectedly.”

“Perhaps she heard rumors in the village and put two and two together.
I cannot tell. Some instinct must have told her. But I daresay Braddock
and his accomplice fled under cover of the mist and in the small hours
of the morning. They must have known that the confession would bring the
officers of the law to this house.”

“I hope they will escape,” murmured Lucy.

“Well, I am not sure,” said Hope hesitatingly. “Of course, I should like
to avoid a scandal for your sake, and yet it is only right that the two
of them should be punished. Remember, Lucy dear, how Braddock has acted
all along in deceiving us. He knew all, and yet not one of us suspected
him.”

While Archie was thus comforting the poor girl, Gartley village was in
an uproar. Everyone was talking about this new crime, and everyone was
wondering who had stabbed the unlucky woman. As yet the confession of
Mrs. Jasher had not been placed in the hands of the police and everyone
was ignorant that Cockatoo was the criminal who had escaped in the fog.
Inspector Date speedily arrived with his myrmidons on the scene and made
the cottage his headquarters. Later in the day, Hope, having taken a
cold bath to freshen himself up, came with the confession. This he gave
to the officer and explained the whole story of the previous night.

Date was more than astonished: he was astounded. He read the confession
and made notes; then he sent for Sir Frank Random, and examined him
in the same strict way as he had examined the artist. Jane was also
questioned. Widow Anne was put in the witness box, so as to report
about the clothes, and in every way Date gathered material for another
inquest. At the former one he had only been able to place scanty
evidence before the jury, and the verdict had been unsatisfactory to the
public. But on this occasion, seeing that the witnesses he could bring
forward would solve the mystery of the first death as well as the
second, Inspector Date exulted greatly. He saw himself promoted and
his salary raised, and his name praised in the papers as a zealous and
clever officer. By the time the inquest came to be held, the inspector
had talked himself into believing that the whole mystery had been solved
by himself. But before that time came another event happened which
astonished everyone, and which made the final phase of the green mummy
crime even more sensational than it had been. And Heaven knows that from
beginning to end there had been no lack of melodrama of the most lurid
description.

Don Pedro de Gayangos was exceedingly amazed at the unexpected turn
which the case had taken. That he should have been trying to solve a
deep mystery for so long, and that the solution, all the time, had been
in the hands of the Professor, startled him exceedingly. He admitted
that he had never liked Braddock, but explained that he had not expected
to hear that the fiery little scientist was such a scoundrel. But, as
Don Pedro confessed, it was an ill wind which blew him some good, when
the upshot of the whole mysterious tragic business was the restoration
of at least one emerald. Sir Frank brought the gem to him on the
afternoon of the day succeeding Mrs. Jasher's death, and while the whole
village was buzzing with excitement. It was Random who gave all details
to Donna Inez and her father, leading from one revelation to another,
until he capped the whole extraordinary story by producing the splendid
gem.

“Mine! mine!” said Don Pedro, his dark eyes glittering. “Thanks be to
the Virgin and the Saints,” and he bowed his head to make the sign of
the cross devoutly on his breast.

Donna Inez clapped her hands and her eyes flashed, for, like every
woman, she had a profound love for jewels.

“Oh, how lovely, Frank! It must be worth no end of money.”

“Professor Braddock sold the other to some Indian rajah in
Amsterdam--through an agent, I presume for three thousand pounds.”

“I shall get more than that,” said Don Pedro quickly. “The Professor
sold his jewel in a hurry and had no time to bargain. But sooner or
later I shall get five thousand pounds for this.” He held the gem in the
sunlight, where it glowed like an emerald sun. “Why, it is worthy of a
king's crown.”

“I fear you will never get the other gem,” said Random regretfully. “I
believe that it is on its way to India, if Mrs. Jasher can be trusted.”

“Never mind. I shall be content with this one, senor. I have simple
tastes, and this will do much to restore the fortunes of my family. When
I go back with this and the green mummy, all those Indians who know
of my descent from the ancient Incas will be delighted and will pay me
fresh reverence.”

“But you forget,” said Random, frowning, “the green mummy has been taken
away by Professor Braddock.”

“They cannot have gone far with it,” said Donna Inez, shrugging.

“I don't know so much about that, dearest,” said Sir Frank. “Apparently,
since they handled it at the time of the murder, it is easier carried
about than one would think. And then they fled last night, or rather in
the small hours of this morning, under cover of a dense fog.”

“It is clear enough now,” said De Gayangos, peering through the window,
where a pale winter sun shone in a clear steel-hued sky. “They are bound
to be caught in the long run.”

“Do you wish them to be caught?” asked Random abruptly.

“Not the Professor. For Miss Lucy's sake I hope he will escape; but I
trust that the savage who killed these two unfortunate people will be
brought to the gallows.”

“So do I,” said Random. “Well, Don Pedro, it seems to me that your task
in Gartley is ended. All you have to do is to wait for the inquest and
see Mrs. Jasher buried, poor soul! Then you can go to London and remain
there until after Christmas.”

“But why should I remain in London?” asked the Peruvian, surprised.

Random glanced at Donna Inez, who blushed.

“You forget that you have given your consent to my marriage with--”

“Ah, yes,” Don Pedro smiled gravely. “I return with the jewel to Lima,
but I leave my other jewel behind.”

“Never mind,” said the girl, kissing her father; “when Frank and I are
married we will come to Callao in his yacht.”

“Our yacht,” said Random, smiling.

“Our yacht,” repeated Donna Inez. “And then you will see, father, that I
have become a real English lady.”

“But don't entirely forget that you are a Peruvian,” said Don Pedro
playfully.

“And a descendant of Inca Caxas,” added Donna Inez. Then she flirted her
fan, which she was rarely without, and laughed in her English lover's
face. “Don't forget, senor, that you marry a princess.”

“I marry the most charming girl in the world,” he replied, catching her
in his arms, rather to the scandal of De Gayangos, who had stiff Spanish
notions regarding the etiquette of engaged couples.

“There is one thing you must do for me, senor,” he said quietly, “before
we leave this most unhappy case of murder and theft for ever.”

“What is that?” asked Sir Frank, turning with Inez in his arms.

“To-night at eight o'clock, Captain Hervey--the sailor Gustav Vasa, if
you prefer the name--steams down the river in his new boat The Firefly.
I received a note from him”--he displayed a letter--“stating that he
will pass the jetty of Gartley at that hour, and will burn a blue light.
If I fire a pistol, he will send off a boat with a full account of the
theft of the mummy of Inca Caxas, written by himself. Then I will hand
his messenger fifty gold sovereigns, which I have here,” added Don
Pedro, pointing to a canvas bag on the table, “and we will return. I
wish you to go with me, senor, and also I wish your friend Mr. Hope to
come.”

“Do you anticipate treachery from Captain Hervey?” asked Random.

“I should not be surprised if he tried to trick me in some way, and I
wish you and your friend to stand by me. Were this man alone, I would go
alone, but he will have a boat's crew with him. It is best to be safe.”

“I agree with you,” said Random quickly. “Hope and I will come, and we
will take revolvers with us. It doesn't do to trust this blackguard. Ho!
ho! I wonder if he knows of the Professor's flight.”

“No. Considering the terms upon which the Professor stood with Hervey,
I should think he would be the last person he would trust. I wonder what
has become of the man.”

More people than Don Pedro wondered as to the whereabouts of Braddock
and his servant, for everyone was inquiring and hunting. The marshes
round the cottage were explored: the great house itself was searched, as
well as many cottages in the village, and inquiries were made at all the
local stations. But all in vain. Braddock and Cockatoo, along with the
cumbersome mummy in its case, had vanished as completely as though the
earth had swallowed them up. Inspector Date's idea was that the pair had
taken the mummy to Gartley Pier, after the search made by the soldiers,
and there had launched the boat, which Cockatoo--judging from his visit
to Pierside--apparently kept hidden in some nook. It was probable, said
Date, the two had rowed down the river, and had managed to get on board
some outward-bound tramp. They could easily furbish up some story, and
as Braddock doubtless had money, could easily buy a passage for a large
sum. The tramp being outward-bound, her captain and crew would know
nothing of the crime, and even if the fugitives were suspected, they
would be shipped out of England if the bribe was sufficiently large.
So it was apparent that Inspector Date had not much opinion of
tramp-steamer skippers.

However, as the day wore on to night, nothing was heard of Braddock or
Cockatoo or the mummy, and when night came the village was filled
with local reporters and with London journalists asking questions.
The Warrior Inn did a great trade in drink and beds and meals, and the
rustics reaped quite a harvest in answering questions about Mrs. Jasher
and the Professor and the weird-looking Kanaka. Some reporters dared
to invade the Pyramids, where Lucy was weeping in sorrow and shame, but
Archie, reinforced by two policemen, sent to his aid by Date, soon sent
them to the right about. Hope would have liked to remain with Lucy all
the evening, but at half-past seven he was forced to meet Don Pedro and
Random outside the Fort in order to go to Gartley Jetty.




CHAPTER XXVII. BY THE RIVER


As the hunt for the fugitives had continued all day, everyone, police,
villagers and soldiers, were weary and disheartened. Consequently, when
the three men met near the Fort, there seemed to be few people about.
This was just as well, as they would have been followed to the jetty,
and obviously it was best to keep the strange meeting with Captain
Hervey as secret as possible. However, Don Pedro had taken Inspector
Date into his confidence, as it was impossible to get past the cottage
of the late Mrs. Jasher, in which the officer had taken up his quarters,
without being discovered. Date was quite willing that the trio should
go, but stipulated that he should come also. He had heard all about
Captain Hervey in connection with the mummy, and thought that he would
like to ask that sailor a few leading questions.

“And if I see fit I shall detain him until the inquest is over,” said
Date, which was mere bluff, as the inspector had no warrant to stop The
Firefly or arrest her skipper.

The three men therefore were joined by Date, when they came along the
cinder path abreast of the cottage, and the quartette proceeded further
immediately, walking amongst the bents and grasses to the rude old
wooden jetty, near which Hervey intended to stop his ship. The night was
quite clear of fog, strange to say, considering the late sea-mist; but
a strong wind had been blowing all day and the fog-wreaths were entirely
dispersed. A full moon rode amongst a galaxy of stars, which twinkled
like diamonds. The air was frosty, and their feet scrunched the earth
and grasses and coarse herbage under foot, as they made rapidly for the
embankment.

When they reached the top they could see the jetty clearly almost below
their feet, and in the distance the glittering lights of Pierside. Vague
forms of vessels at anchor loomed on the water, and there was a stream
of light where the moon made a pathway of silver. After a casual glance
the three men proceeded down the slope to the jetty. Three of them at
least had revolvers, since Hervey was an ill man to tackle; but probably
Date, who was too dense to consider consequences, was unarmed. Neither
did Don Pedro think it necessary to tell the officer that he and his two
companions were prepared to shoot if necessary. Inspector Date, being a
prosy Englishman, would not have understood such lawless doings in his
own sober, law-abiding country.

When they reached the jetty Don Pedro glanced at his watch, illuminating
the dial by puffing his cigar to a ruddy glow. It was just after eight
o'clock, and even as he looked an exclamation from Date made him raise
his head. The inspector was pointing out-stream to a large vessel which
had steamed inshore as far as was safe. Probably Hervey was watching
for them through a night-glass, for a blue light suddenly flared on the
bridge. Don Pedro, according to his promise, fired a pistol, and it was
then that Date learned that his companions were armed.

“What the devil did you do that for?” he inquired angrily. “It will
bring my constables down on us.”

“I do not mind, since you can control them,” said De Gayangos coolly. “I
had to give the signal.”

“And we all have revolvers,” said Random quickly. “Hervey is not a very
safe man to tackle, inspector.”

“Do you expect a fight?” said Date, while they all watched a boat being
lowered. “If so, you might have told me, and I should have brought a
revolver also. Not that I think it is needed. The sight of my uniform
will be enough to show this man that I have the law behind me.”

“I don't think that will matter to Hervey,” said Archie dryly. “So much
as I have seen of him suggests to me that he is a singularly lawless
man.”

Date laughed good-humoredly.

“It seems to me, gentlemen, that you have brought me on a filibustering
expedition,” he said, and seemed to enjoy the novel situation. Date had
been wrapped up in the cotton-wool of civilization for a long time, but
his primitive instincts rose to the surface, now that he had to face a
probable rough-and-tumble fight. “But I don't expect there will be any
scrap,” he said regretfully. “My uniform will settle the matter.”

It certainly seemed to annoy Captain Hervey considerably, for, as the
boat approached the shore, and the moonlight revealed a distinctly
official overcoat, he gave an order. The man stopped rowing and the boat
rocked gently, some distance from the jetty.

“You've got a high old crowd with you, Don Pedro,” sang out Hervey, in
great displeasure. “Is that angel in the military togs, with the brass
buttons, the almighty aristocrat!”

“No. I am here,” cried out Random, laughing at the description, which
he recognized. “My friend Hope is with me, and Inspector Date. I suppose
you have heard what has happened?”

“Yes, I've taken it all in,” said Hervey sourly. “I guess the news is
all over Pierside. Well, it's none of my picnic, I reckon. So chuck that
gold over here, Don Pedro, and I'll send along the writing.”

“No,” said Don Pedro, prompted by Date. “You must come ashore.”

“I guess not,” said Hervey vigorously. “You want to run me in.”

“For that theft of thirty years ago,” laughed De Gayangos. “Nonsense!
Come along. You are quite safe.”

“Shan't take your damned word for it,” growled Hervey. “But if those two
gents can swear that there's no trickery, I'll come. I can depend on the
word of an English aristocrat, anyhow.”

“Come along. You are quite safe,” said Sir Frank, and Hope echoed his
words.

Thus being made certain, Hervey gave an order and the boat was rowed
right up to the beach, immediately below the jetty. The four men
were about to descend, but Hervey seemed anxious to avoid giving them
trouble.

“Hold on, gents,” said he, leaping ashore. “I'll come up 'longside.”

Date, ever suspicious, thought it queer that the skipper should
behave so politely, as he had gathered that Hervey was not usually a
considerate man. Also, he saw that when the captain was climbing the
bank, the boat, in charge of a mate--as the inspector judged from his
brass-bound uniform--backed water to the end of the jetty, where it
swung against one of the shell-encrusted piles. Hervey finally reached
the jetty level, but refused to come on to the same. He beckoned to Don
Pedro and his companions to walk forward to the ground upon which he
was standing. Also, he seemed exceedingly anxious to take time over the
transaction, as even after he had handed the scroll of writing to
the Peruvian, and had received the gold in exchange, he engaged in
quarrelsome conversation. Pretending that he doubted if De Gayangos had
brought the exact sum, he opened the canvas bag and insisted on counting
the money. Don Pedro naturally lost his temper at this insult, and swore
in Spanish, upon which Hervey responded with such volubility that
anyone could see he was a pastmaster in Castilian swearing. The row
was considerable, especially as Random and Hope were laughing at
the quarrel. They thought that Hervey was the worse for drink, but
Date--clever for once in his life--did not think so. It appeared to him
that the boat had gone to the end of the jetty for some reason connected
with the same reason which induced the skipper to spin out the time of
the meeting by indulging in an unnecessary quarrel.

The skipper also kept his eyes about him, and insisted that the four men
should keep together at the head of the pier.

“I daresay you're trying to play low down on me,” he said with a scowl,
after satisfying himself that the money was correct, “but I've got my
shooter.”

“So have I,” cried Don Pedro indignantly, and slipped his hand round to
his hip pocket, “and if you talk any further so insulting I shall--”

“Oh, you bet, two can play at that game,” cried Hervey, and ripped out
his own weapon before the Spaniard could produce his Derringer. “Hands
up or I shoot.”

But he had reckoned without his host. While covering De Gayangos, he
overlooked the fact that Random and Hope were close at hand. The next
moment, and while Don Pedro flung up his hands, the ruffian was covered
by two revolvers in the hands of two very capable men.

“Great Scott!” cried Hervey, lowering his weapon. “Only my fun, gents.
Here, you get back!”

This was to Inspector Date, who had been keeping his ears and eyes
open, and who was now racing for the end of the jetty. Peering over, he
uttered a loud cry.

“I thought so--I thought so. Here's the nigger and the mummy!”

Hervey uttered a curse, and, plunging past the trio, careless of the
leveled weapons, ran down to the end of the jetty, and, throwing his
arms round Date, leaped with him into the sea. They fell just beside
the boat, as Random saw when he reached the spot. A confused volley of
curses arose, as the boat pushed out from the encrusted pile, the mate
thrusting with a boat-hook. Hervey and Date were in the water, but as
the boat shot into the moonlight, Random--and now Hope and De Gayangos,
who had come up--saw a long green form in amongst the sailors; also,
very plainly, Cockatoo with his great mop of yellow hair.

“Shoot! shoot!” yelled Date, who was struggling with the skipper in the
shallow water near shore. “Don't let them escape.”

Hope ran up the jetty and fired three shots in the air, certain that
the firing would attract the attention of the four or five constables on
guard at the cottage, which was no very great distance away. Random sent
a bullet into the midst of the boatload, and immediately the mate fired
also. The bullet whistled past his head, and, crazy with rage, he felt
inclined to jump in amongst the ruffians and have a hand-to-hand fight.
But De Gayangos stopped him in a voice shrill with anger. Already the
shouts and noise of the approaching policemen could be heard. Cockatoo
gripped the green mummy case desperately, while the sailors tried to row
towards the ship.

Then De Gayangos gave a shout, and leaped, as the boat swung past the
jetty. He landed right on Cockatoo, and although a cloud drifted across
the moon, Random heard the shots coming rapidly from his revolver.
Meanwhile Hervey got away from Date, as the constables came pounding
down the jetty and on to the beach.

“Chuck the mummy and nigger overboard and make for the ship,” he yelled,
swimming with long strokes towards the boat.

This order was quite to the sailors' minds, as they had not reckoned on
such a fight. Half a dozen willing hands clutched both Cockatoo and the
case, and, in spite of the Kanaka's cries, both were hurled overboard.
As the case swung overside, De Gayangos, balancing himself at the end of
the boat, fired at Cockatoo. The shot missed the Kanaka, and pierced the
mummy case. Then from it came a piercing yell of agony and rage.

“Great God!” shouted Hope, who was watching the battle, “I believe
Braddock is in that damned thing.”

The next moment De Gayangos was swung overboard also, and the sailors
were lifting Hervey into the boat. It nearly upset, but he managed to
get in, and the craft rowed for the vessel, which was again showing a
flaring blue light. Random sent a shot after the boat, and then with the
policemen ran down to help De Gayangos, who was struggling in the water.
He managed to pull him out, and when he had him safe and breathless on
shore, he saw that the boat was nearing the ship, and that Date, torn
and wet and disheveled, with three policemen, was up to his waist in
water, struggling to bring ashore Cockatoo and the mummy case, to which
he clung like a limpet. Hope ran down to give a hand, and in a few
minutes they had the Kanaka ashore, fighting like the demon he was.
Random and De Gayangos joined the breathless group, and Cockatoo was
held in the grasp of two strong men--who required all their strength to
hold him--while Date, warned by Hope's cry of what was in the case, tore
at the lid. It was but lightly fastened and soon came off. Then those
present saw in the moonlight the dead face of Professor Braddock, who
had been shot through the heart. As they looked at the sight, Cockatoo
broke from those who held him, and, throwing himself on his master,
howled and wept as though his heart would break. At the same moment
there came a derisive whistle from The Firefly, and they saw the great
tramp steamer slowly moving down stream, increasing her speed with
almost every revolution of the screw. Braddock had been captured, but
Hervey had escaped.

At the inquest on the Professor and on the body of Mrs. Jasher, it was
proved that Cockatoo had warned his master that the game was up, and had
suggested that Braddock should escape by hiding in the mummy case. The
corpse of Inca Caxas was placed in an empty Egyptian sarcophagus--in
which it was afterwards found--and Braddock, assisted by his faithful
Kanaka, wheeled the case down to the old jetty. Here, in a nook where
Cockatoo had formerly kept the boat, the Professor concealed himself all
that night and all next day. Cockatoo, having got rid of his boat long
since (lest it might be used in evidence against him and his master),
ran through the dense mist and the long night up to Pierside, where he
saw Captain Hervey and bribed him with a promise of one thousand pounds
to save his master. Hervey, having assured himself that the money was
safe, since it was banked in a feigned name in Amsterdam, agreed, and
arranged to ship the Professor in the mummy case.

Thus it was that Hervey kept the four men talking up the jetty, as he
knew that Cockatoo with his own sailors was shipping the Professor in
the mummy case underneath, and well out of sight. Cockatoo had come
down stream with The Firefly, and in this way had not been discovered.
Throughout that long day the miserable Braddock had crouched like a toad
in its hole, trembling at every sound of pursuit, as he knew that the
whole of the village was looking for him. But Cockatoo had hidden him
well in the case, in the lid of which holes had been bored. He had
brandy to drink and food to eat, and he knew that he could depend upon
the Kanaka. Had Date not been suspicious, the ruse might have been
successful, but to save himself Hervey had to sacrifice the wretched
Professor, which he did without the slightest hesitation. Then came
the unlucky shot from the revolver of De Gayangos, which had ended
Braddock's wicked life. It was Fate.

At the inquest a verdict of “wilful murder” was brought against the
Kanaka, but a verdict of “justifiable homicide” was given in favor of
the Peruvian. Thus Cockatoo was hanged for the double murder and Don
Pedro went free. He remained long enough in London to see his daughter
married to the man of her choice, and then returned to Lima.

Of course the affair caused more than a nine days' wonder, and the
newspapers were filled with accounts of the murder and the projected
escape. But Lucy was saved from all this publicity, as, in the first
place, her name was kept out of print as much as possible, and, in
the second, Archie promptly married her, and within a fortnight of her
step-father's death took her to the south of France, and afterwards
to Italy. What with his own money and the money she inherited from her
mother--in which Braddock had a life interest--the young couple had
nearly a thousand a year.

Six months later Sir Frank came into the small San Remo where Mr. and
Mrs. Hope lived, with his wife on his arm. Lady Random looked singularly
charming and was assuredly more conversational. This was the first time
the two sets of lovers had met since the tragedy, and now each girl had
married the man she loved. Therefore there was great joy.

“My yacht is over at Monte Carlo,” said Random, “and I am, going with
Inez to South America. She wants to see her father.”

“Yes, I do,” said Lady Random; “and we want you to come also, Lucy--you
and your dear husband.”

Archie and his wife looked at one another, but declined unanimously.

“We would rather stay here in San Remo,” said Mrs. Hope, becoming
slightly pale. “Don't think me unkind, Inez, but I could not bear to
go to Peru. It is associated too much in my own mind with that terrible
green mummy.”

“Oh, Don Pedro has taken that back to the Andes,” explained Sir Frank,
“and it is now reposing in the sepulchre in which it was placed,
hundreds of years ago, by the Indians, faithful to Inca Caxas. Inez and
I are going up to a kind of forbidden city, where Don Pedro reigns as
Inca, and I expect we shall have a jolly time. I hear there is some big
game shooting there.”

“What about your soldiering?” asked Hope, rather, surprised at this
extended tour being arranged.

“Oh, my husband has left the army,” pouted Inez. “His duties kept him
away from me nearly all the day, and I grew weary of being left alone.”

“So you see, Mrs. Hope,” laughed Random gayly, “that I have had to
succumb to my fireside tyrant. We shall go and see this fairy city and
then return to my home in Oxfordshire. There Inez will settle down as
a real English wife and I'll turn a country squire. So, after all our
troubles, peace will come.”

“And as you will not come to my country,” said Lady Random to her
hostess, “you cannot refuse to visit Frank and myself at the Grange.
We have had so much trouble together that we cannot lose sight of each
other.”

“No,” said Lucy, kissing her. “We will come to Oxfordshire.”

So it was arranged, and the next day Mr. and Mrs. Hope went over to
Monte Carlo to see the last of Sir Frank and his wife. They stood on
the heights watching the pretty little steamer making for South America.
Archie noticed that his wife's face was somewhat sad.

“Are you sorry we did not go, sweetheart?”

“No,” she replied, placing her arm within his own. “I only want to be
with you.”

“That is all right.” He patted her hand. “Now that we have sold all the
furniture in the Pyramids, and have got rid of the lease, there will be
nothing to remind you of the green mummy.”

“Yet I can't help thinking of my unfortunate step-father, and of poor
Mrs. Jasher, and of Sidney Bolton. Oh, Archie, little as we can afford
it, I am glad that we allow Mrs. Bolton a small sum a year. After all,
it was through my step-father that her son met with his death.”

“I don't quite agree with you, dear. Cockatoo's innate savagery was the
cause, as Professor Braddock did not intend or desire murder. But there,
dear, do not think any more about these dismal things. Dream of the time
when I shall be the president of the Royal Academy, and you my lady.”

“I am your lady now. But,” added Lucy, perhaps from an association of
ideas of color and the Academy, “I shall hate green for the rest of my
life.”

“That's unlucky, considering it is Nature's color. My dear, in a year or
two this tragedy, or rather the three tragedies, will seem like a dream.
I won't listen to another word now. The green mummy has passed out of
our lives and has taken its bad luck with it.”

“Amen, so be it,” said Lucy Hope, and the happy couple went home,
leaving all their sorrows behind them, while the smoke of the steamer
faded on the horizon.










[Illustration: A BRIDE'S BOUQUET

"THE RADIANCE OF A TRULY HAPPY BRIDE IS SO BEAUTIFYING THAT EVEN A PLAIN
GIRL IS MADE PRETTY, AND A PRETTY ONE, DIVINE." [Page 373.]]




=ETIQUETTE=

    IN SOCIETY, IN BUSINESS, IN POLITICS
    AND AT HOME


    =BY EMILY POST=

    (MRS. PRICE POST)

    Author of "Purple and Fine Linen," "The Title Market," "Woven in the
    Tapestry," "The Flight of a Moth," "Letters of a Worldly
    Godmother," etc., etc.


    ILLUSTRATED WITH PRIVATE PHOTOGRAPHS
    AND FACSIMILES OF SOCIAL FORMS


    FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY

    =NEW YORK AND LONDON=

    1922

    By

    FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY

    [Printed in the United States of America]
    First Edition published in July 1922
    Second Edition published in September, 1922

    August 11, 1910.


          TO YOU MY FRIENDS
    WHOSE IDENTITY IN THESE PAGES
   IS VEILED IN FICTIONAL DISGUISE
       IT IS BUT FITTING THAT
        I DEDICATE THIS BOOK.




CONTENTS

   CHAPTER

            INTRODUCTION
         I. WHAT IS BEST SOCIETY?
        II. INTRODUCTIONS
       III. GREETINGS
        IV. SALUTATIONS OF COURTESY
         V. ON THE STREET AND IN PUBLIC
        VI. AT PUBLIC GATHERINGS
       VII. CONVERSATION
      VIII. WORDS, PHRASES AND PRONUNCIATION
        IX. ONE'S POSITION IN THE COMMUNITY
         X. CARDS AND VISITS
        XI. INVITATIONS, ACCEPTANCES AND REGRETS
       XII. THE WELL-APPOINTED HOUSE
      XIII. TEAS AND OTHER AFTERNOON PARTIES
       XIV. FORMAL DINNERS
        XV. DINNER-GIVING WITH LIMITED EQUIPMENT
       XVI. LUNCHEONS, BREAKFASTS AND SUPPERS
      XVII. BALLS AND DANCES
     XVIII. THE DÉBUTANTE
       XIX. THE CHAPERON AND OTHER CONVENTIONS
        XX. ENGAGEMENTS
       XXI. FIRST PREPARATIONS BEFORE A WEDDING
      XXII. THE DAY OF THE WEDDING
     XXIII. CHRISTENINGS
      XXIV. FUNERALS
       XXV. THE COUNTRY HOUSE AND ITS HOSPITALITY
      XXVI. THE HOUSE PARTY IN CAMP
     XXVII. NOTES AND SHORTER LETTERS
    XXVIII. LONGER LETTERS
      XXIX. THE FUNDAMENTALS OF GOOD BEHAVIOR
       XXX. CLUBS AND CLUB ETIQUETTE
      XXXI. GAMES AND SPORTS
     XXXII. ETIQUETTE IN BUSINESS AND POLITICS
    XXXIII. DRESS
     XXXIV. THE CLOTHES OF A GENTLEMAN
      XXXV. THE KINDERGARTEN OF ETIQUETTE
     XXXVI. EVERY-DAY MANNERS AT HOME
    XXXVII. TRAVELING AT HOME AND ABROAD
   XXXVIII. THE GROWTH OF GOOD TASTE IN AMERICA


PHOTOGRAPHIC ILLUSTRATIONS

    A BRIDE'S BOUQUET
    A GEM OF A HOUSE
    THE PERSONALITY OF A HOUSE
    CONSIDERATION FOR SERVANTS
    THE AFTERNOON TEA-TABLE
    A FORMAL DINNER
    DETAIL OF PLACE AT A FORMAL DINNER
    A DINNER SERVICE WITHOUT SILVER
    THE MOST ELABORATE DINNER DANCE EVER GIVEN IN NEW YORK
    A CHURCH WEDDING
    A HOUSE WEDDING
    THE IDEAL GUEST ROOM
    A BREAKFAST TRAY
    THE CHILD AT TABLE




INTRODUCTION

MANNERS AND MORALS

By

Richard Duffy


Many who scoff at a book of etiquette would be shocked to hear the least
expression of levity touching the Ten Commandments. But the Commandments
do not always prevent such virtuous scoffers from dealings with their
neighbor of which no gentleman could be capable and retain his claim to
the title. Though it may require ingenuity to reconcile their actions with
the Decalogue--the ingenuity is always forthcoming. There is no intention
in this remark to intimate that there is any higher rule of life than the
Ten Commandments; only it is illuminating as showing the relationship
between manners and morals, which is too often overlooked. The polished
gentleman of sentimental fiction has so long served as the type of smooth
and conscienceless depravity that urbanity of demeanor inspires distrust
in ruder minds. On the other hand, the blunt, unpolished hero of melodrama
and romantic fiction has lifted brusqueness and pushfulness to a pedestal
not wholly merited. Consequently, the kinship between conduct that keeps
us within the law and conduct that makes civilized life worthy to be
called such, deserves to be noted with emphasis. The Chinese sage,
Confucius, could not tolerate the suggestion that virtue is in itself
enough without politeness, for he viewed them as inseparable and "saw
courtesies as coming from the heart," maintaining that "when they are
practised with all the heart, a moral elevation ensues."

People who ridicule etiquette as a mass of trivial and arbitrary
conventions, "extremely troublesome to those who practise them and
insupportable to everybody else," seem to forget the long, slow progress
of social intercourse in the upward climb of man from the primeval state.
Conventions were established from the first to regulate the rights of the
individual and the tribe. They were and are the rules of the game of life
and must be followed if we would "play the game." Ages before man felt the
need of indigestion remedies, he ate his food solitary and furtive in some
corner, hoping he would not be espied by any stronger and hungrier fellow.
It was a long, long time before the habit of eating in common was
acquired; and it is obvious that the practise could not have been taken up
with safety until the individuals of the race knew enough about one
another and about the food resources to be sure that there was food
sufficient for all. When eating in common became the vogue, table manners
made their appearance and they have been waging an uphill struggle ever
since. The custom of raising the hat when meeting an acquaintance derives
from the old rule that friendly knights in accosting each other should
raise the visor for mutual recognition in amity. In the knightly years, it
must be remembered, it was important to know whether one was meeting
friend or foe. Meeting a foe meant fighting on the spot. Thus, it is
evident that the conventions of courtesy not only tend to make the wheels
of life run more smoothly, but also act as safeguards in human
relationship. Imagine the Paris Peace Conference, or any of the later
conferences in Europe, without the protective armor of diplomatic
etiquette!

Nevertheless, to some the very word etiquette is an irritant. It implies a
great pother about trifles, these conscientious objectors assure us, and
trifles are unimportant. Trifles are unimportant, it is true, but then
life is made up of trifles. To those who dislike the word, it suggests all
that is finical and superfluous. It means a garish embroidery on the big
scheme of life; a clog on the forward march of a strong and courageous
nation. To such as these, the words etiquette and politeness connote
weakness and timidity. Their notion of a really polite man is a dancing
master or a man milliner. They were always willing to admit that the
French were the politest nation in Europe and equally ready to assert that
the French were the weakest and least valorous, until the war opened their
eyes in amazement. Yet, that manners and fighting can go hand in hand
appears in the following anecdote:

In the midst of the war, some French soldiers and some non-French of the
Allied forces were receiving their rations in a village back of the lines.
The non-French fighters belonged to an Army that supplied rations
plentifully. They grabbed their allotments and stood about while hastily
eating, uninterrupted by conversation or other concern. The French
soldiers took their very meager portions of food, improvised a kind of
table on the top of a flat rock, and having laid out the rations,
including the small quantity of wine that formed part of the repast, sat
down in comfort and began their meal amid a chatter of talk. One of the
non-French soldiers, all of whom had finished their large supply of food
before the French had begun eating, asked sardonically: "Why do you
fellows make such a lot of fuss over the little bit of grub they give you
to eat?" The Frenchman replied: "Well, we are making war for civilization,
are we not? Very well, we are. Therefore, we eat in a civilized way."

To the French we owe the word etiquette, and it is amusing to discover its
origin in the commonplace familiar warning--"Keep off the grass." It
happened in the reign of Louis XIV, when the gardens of Versailles were
being laid out, that the master gardener, an old Scotsman, was sorely
tried because his newly seeded lawns were being continually
trampled upon. To keep trespassers off, he put up warning signs or
tickets--_etiquettes_--on which was indicated the path along which to
pass. But the courtiers paid no attention to these directions and so the
determined Scot complained to the King in such convincing manner that His
Majesty issued an edict commanding everyone at Court to "keep within the
_etiquettes_." Gradually the term came to cover all the rules for correct
demeanor and deportment in court circles; and thus through the centuries
it has grown into use to describe the conventions sanctioned for the
purpose of smoothing personal contacts and developing tact and good
manners in social intercourse. With the decline of feudal courts and the
rise of empires of industry, much of the ceremony of life was discarded
for plain and less formal dealing. Trousers and coats supplanted doublets
and hose, and the change in costume was not more extreme than the change
in social ideas. The court ceased to be the arbiter of manners, though the
aristocracy of the land remained the high exemplar of good breeding.

Yet, even so courtly and materialistic a mind as Lord Chesterfield's
acknowledged a connection between manners and morality, of which latter
the courts of Europe seemed so sparing. In one of the famous "Letters to
His Son" he writes: "Moral virtues are the foundation of society in
general, and of friendship in particular; but attentions, manners, and
graces, both adorn and strengthen them." Again he says: "Great merit, or
great failings, will make you respected or despised; but trifles, little
attentions, mere nothings, either done or reflected, will make you either
liked or disliked, in the general run of the world." For all the wisdom
and brilliancy of his worldly knowledge, perhaps no other writer has done
so much to bring disrepute on the "manners and graces" as Lord
Chesterfield, and this, it is charged, because he debased them so heavily
by considering them merely as the machinery of a successful career. To the
moralists, the fact that the moral standards of society in Lord
Chesterfield's day were very different from those of the present era
rather adds to the odium that has become associated with his attitude. His
severest critics, however, do concede that he is candid and outspoken, and
many admit that his social strategy is widely practised even in these
days.

But the aims of the world in which he moved were routed by the onrush of
the ideals of democratic equality, fraternity, and liberty. With the
prosperity of the newer shibboleths, the old-time notion of aristocracy,
gentility, and high breeding became more and more a curio to be framed
suitably in gold and kept in the glass case of an art museum. The crashing
advance of the industrial age of gold thrust all courts and their sinuous
graces aside for the unmistakable ledger balance of the counting-house.
This new order of things had been a long time in process, when, in the
first year of this century, a distinguished English social historian, the
late The Right Honorable G.W.E. Russell, wrote: "Probably in all ages of
history men have liked money, but a hundred years ago they did not talk
about it in society.... Birth, breeding, rank, accomplishments, eminence
in literature, eminence in art, eminence in public service--all these
things still count for something in society. But when combined they are
only as the dust of the balance when weighed against the all-prevalent
power of money. The worship of the Golden Calf is the characteristic cult
of modern society." In the Elizabethan Age of mighty glory, three hundred
years before this was said, Ben Jonson had railed against money as "a thin
membrane of honor," groaning: "How hath all true reputation fallen since
money began to have any!" Now the very fact that the debasing effect of
money on the social organism has been so constantly reprehended, from
Scriptural days onward, proves the instinctive yearning of mankind for a
system of life regulated by good taste, high intelligence and sound
affections. But, it remains true that, in the succession of great
commercial epochs, coincident with the progress of modern science and
invention, _almost_ everything can be bought and sold, and so _almost_
everything is rated by the standard of money.

Yet, this standard is precisely not the ultimate test of the Christianity
on which we have been pluming ourselves through the centuries. Still, no
one can get along without money; and few of us get along very well with
what we have. At least we think so--because everybody else seems to think
that way. We Americans are members of the nation which, materially, is
the richest, most prosperous and most promising in the world. This idea is
dinned into our heads continually by foreign observers, and publicly we
"own the soft impeachment." Privately, each individual American seems
driven with the decision that he must live up to the general conception of
the nation as a whole. And he does, but in less strenuous moments he might
profitably ponder the counsel of Gladstone to his countrymen: "Let us
respect the ancient manners and recollect that, if the true soul of
chivalry has died among us, with it all that is good in society has died.
Let us cherish a sober mind; take for granted that in our best
performances there are latent many errors which in their own time will
come to light."

America, too, has her ancient manners to remember and respect; but, in the
rapid assimilation of new peoples into her economic and social organism,
more pressing concerns take up nearly all her time. The perfection of
manners by intensive cultivation of good taste, some believe, would be the
greatest aid possible to the moralists who are alarmed over the decadence
of the younger generation. Good taste may not make men or women really
virtuous, but it will often save them from what theologians call
"occasions of sin." We may note, too, that grossness in manners forms a
large proportion of the offenses that fanatical reformers foam about.
Besides grossness, there is also the meaner selfishness. Selfishness is at
the polar remove from the worldly manners of the old school, according to
which, as Dr. Pusey wrote, others were preferred to self, pain was given
to no one, no one was neglected, deference was shown to the weak and the
aged, and unconscious courtesy extended to all inferiors. Such was the
"beauty" of the old manners, which he felt consisted in "acting upon
Christian principle, and if in any case it became soulless, as apart from
Christianity, the beautiful form was there, into which the real life might
re-enter."

As a study of all that is admirable in American manners, and as a guide to
behavior in the simplest as well as the most complex requirements of life
day by day, whether we are at home or away from it, there can be no
happier choice than the present volume. It is conceived in the belief that
etiquette in its broader sense means the technique of human conduct under
all circumstances in life. Yet all minutiæ of correct manners are included
and no detail is too small to be explained, from the selection of a
visiting card to the mystery of eating corn on the cob. Matters of clothes
for men and women are treated with the same fullness of information and
accuracy of taste as are questions of the furnishing of their houses and
the training of their minds to social intercourse. But there is no
exaggeration of the minor details at the expense of the more important
spirit of personal conduct and attitude of mind. To dwell on formal
trivialities, the author holds, is like "measuring the letters of the
sign-boards by the roadside instead of profiting by the directions they
offer." She would have us know also that "it is not the people who make
small technical mistakes or even blunders, who are barred from the paths
of good society, but those of sham and pretense whose veneered vulgarity
at every step tramples the flowers in the gardens of cultivation." To her
mind the structure of etiquette is comparable to that of a house, of which
the foundation is ethics and the rest good taste, correct speech, quiet,
unassuming behavior, and a proper pride of dignity.

To such as entertain the mistaken notion that politeness implies all give
and little or no return, it is well to recall Coleridge's definition of a
gentleman: "We feel the gentlemanly character present with us," he said,
"whenever, under all circumstances of social intercourse, the trivial, not
less than the important, through the whole detail of his manners and
deportment, and with the ease of a habit, a person shows respect to others
in such a way as at the same time implies, in his own feelings, and
habitually, an assured anticipation of reciprocal respect from them to
himself. In short, the gentlemanly character arises out of the feeling of
equality acting as a habit, yet flexible to the varieties of rank, and
modified without being disturbed or superseded by them." Definitions of a
gentleman are numerous, and some of them famous; but we do not find such
copiousness for choice in definitions of a lady. Perhaps it has been
understood all along that the admirable and just characteristics of a
gentleman should of necessity be those also of a lady, with the charm of
womanhood combined. And, in these days, with the added responsibility of
the vote.

Besides the significance of this volume as an indubitable authority on
manners, it should be pointed out that as a social document, it is without
precedent in American literature. In order that we may better realize the
behavior and environment of well-bred people, the distinguished author has
introduced actual persons and places in fictional guise. They are the
persons and the places of her own world; and whether we can or can not
penetrate the incognito of the Worldlys, the Gildings, the Kindharts, the
Oldnames, and the others, is of no importance. Fictionally, they are real
enough for us to be interested and instructed in their way of living. That
they happen to move in what is known as Society is incidental, for, as the
author declares at the very outset: "Best Society is not a fellowship of
the wealthy, nor does it seek to exclude those who are not of exalted
birth; but it is an association of gentlefolk, of which good form in
speech, charm of manner, knowledge of the social amenities, and
instinctive consideration for the feelings of others, are the credentials
by which society the world over recognizes its chosen members."

The immediate fact is that the characters of this book are thoroughbred
Americans, representative of various sections of the country and free from
the slightest tinge of snobbery. Not all of them are even well-to-do, in
the postwar sense; and their devices of economy in household outlay, dress
and entertainment are a revelation in the science of ways and means. There
are parents, children, relatives and friends all passing before us in the
pageant of life from the cradle to the grave. No circumstance, from an
introduction to a wedding, is overlooked in this panorama and the
spectator has beside him a cicerone in the person of the author who clears
every doubt and answers every question. In course, the conviction grows
upon him that etiquette is no flummery of poseurs "aping the manners of
their betters," nor a code of snobs, who divide their time between licking
the boots of those above them and kicking at those below, but a system of
rules of conduct based on respect of self coupled with respect of others.
Meanwhile, to guard against conceit in his new knowledge, he may at odd
moments recall Ben Jonson's lines:

    "Nor stand so much on your gentility,
    Which is an airy, and mere borrowed thing,
    From dead men's dust, and bones: And none of yours
    Except you make, or hold it."




=ETIQUETTE=




CHAPTER I

WHAT IS BEST SOCIETY?


"Society" is an ambiguous term; it may mean much or nothing. Every human
being--unless dwelling alone in a cave--is a member of society of one sort
or another, and therefore it is well to define what is to be understood by
the term "Best Society" and why its authority is recognized. Best Society
abroad is always the oldest aristocracy; composed not so much of persons
of title, which may be new, as of those families and communities which
have for the longest period of time known highest cultivation. Our own
Best Society is represented by social groups which have had, since this is
America, widest rather than longest association with old world
cultivation. Cultivation is always the basic attribute of Best Society,
much as we hear in this country of an "Aristocracy of wealth."

To the general public a long purse is synonymous with high position--a
theory dear to the heart of the "yellow" press and eagerly fostered in the
preposterous social functions of screen drama. It is true that Best
Society is comparatively rich; it is true that the hostess of great
wealth, who constantly and lavishly entertains, will shine, at least to
the readers of the press, more brilliantly than her less affluent sister.
Yet the latter, through her quality of birth, her poise, her inimitable
distinction, is often the jewel of deeper water in the social crown of her
time.

The most advertised commodity is not always intrinsically the best, but is
sometimes merely the product of a company with plenty of money to spend on
advertising. In the same way, money brings certain people before the
public--sometimes they are persons of "quality," quite as often the
so-called "society leaders" featured in the public press do not belong to
good society at all, in spite of their many published photographs and the
energies of their press-agents. Or possibly they do belong to "smart"
society; but if too much advertised, instead of being the "queens" they
seem, they might more accurately be classified as the court jesters of
to-day.


=THE IMITATION AND THE GENUINE=

New York, more than any city in the world, unless it be Paris, loves to be
amused, thrilled and surprised all at the same time; and will accept with
outstretched hand any one who can perform this astounding feat. Do not
underestimate the ability that can achieve it: a scintillating wit, an
arresting originality, a talent for entertaining that amounts to genius,
and gold poured literally like rain, are the least requirements.

Puritan America on the other hand demanding, as a ticket of admission to
her Best Society, the qualifications of birth, manners and cultivation,
clasps her hands tight across her slim trim waist and announces severely
that New York's "Best" is, in her opinion, very "bad" indeed. But this is
because Puritan America, as well as the general public, mistakes the
jester for the queen.

As a matter of fact, Best Society is not at all like a court with an
especial queen or king, nor is it confined to any one place or group, but
might better be described as an unlimited brotherhood which spreads over
the entire surface of the globe, the members of which are invariably
people of cultivation and worldly knowledge, who have not only perfect
manners but a perfect manner. Manners are made up of trivialities of
deportment which can be easily learned if one does not happen to know
them; manner is personality--the outward manifestation of one's innate
character and attitude toward life. A gentleman, for instance, will never
be ostentatious or overbearing any more than he will ever be servile,
because these attributes never animate the impulses of a well-bred person.
A man whose manners suggest the grotesque is invariably a person of
imitation rather than of real position.

Etiquette must, if it is to be of more than trifling use, include ethics
as well as manners. Certainly what one is, is of far greater importance
than what one appears to be. A knowledge of etiquette is of course
essential to one's decent behavior, just as clothing is essential to one's
decent appearance; and precisely as one wears the latter without being
self-conscious of having on shoes and perhaps gloves, one who has good
manners is equally unself-conscious in the observance of etiquette, the
precepts of which must be so thoroughly absorbed as to make their
observance a matter of instinct rather than of conscious obedience.

Thus Best Society is not a fellowship of the wealthy, nor does it seek to
exclude those who are not of exalted birth; but it _is_ an association of
gentle-folk, of which good form in speech, charm of manner, knowledge of
the social amenities, and instinctive consideration for the feelings of
others, are the credentials by which society the world over recognizes its
chosen members.




CHAPTER II

INTRODUCTIONS


=THE CORRECT FORM=

The word "present" is preferable on formal occasions to the word
"introduce." On informal occasions neither word is expressed, though
understood, as will be shown below. The correct formal introduction is:

    "Mrs. Jones, may I present Mr. Smith?"

or,

    "Mr. Distinguished, may I present Mr. Young?"

The younger person is always presented to the older or more distinguished,
but a gentleman is always presented to a lady, even though he is an old
gentleman of great distinction and the lady a mere slip of a girl.

No lady is ever, except to the President of the United States, a cardinal,
or a reigning sovereign, presented to a man. The correct introduction of
either a man or woman:

To the President,

is,

    "Mr. President, I have the honor to present Mrs. Jones, of
    Chicago."

To a Cardinal,

is,

    "Your Eminence, may I present Mrs. Jones?"

To a King:

Much formality of presenting names on lists is gone through beforehand; at
the actual presentation an "accepted" name is repeated from functionary to
equerry and nothing is said to the King or Queen except: "Mrs. Jones."

But a Foreign Ambassador is presented, "Mr. Ambassador, may I present you
to Mrs. Jones."

Very few people in polite society are introduced by their formal titles. A
hostess says, "Mrs. Jones, may I present the Duke of Overthere?" or "Lord
Blank?"; never "his Grace" or "his Lordship." The Honorable is merely Mr.
Lordson, or Mr. Holdoffice. A doctor, a judge, a bishop, are addressed and
introduced by their titles. The clergy are usually Mister unless they
formally hold the title of Doctor, or Dean, or Canon. A Catholic priest is
"Father Kelly." A senator is always introduced as Senator, whether he is
still in office or not. But the President of the United States, once he is
out of office, is merely "Mr." and not "Ex-president."


=THE PREVAILING INTRODUCTION AND INFLECTION=

In the briefer form of introduction commonly used,

    "Mrs. Worldly, Mrs. Norman,"

if the two names are said in the same tone of voice it is not apparent who
is introduced to whom; but by accentuating the more important person's
name, it can be made as clear as though the words "May I present" had been
used.

The more important name is said with a slightly rising inflection, the
secondary as a mere statement of fact. For instance, suppose you say, "Are
you there?" and then "It is raining!" Use the same inflection exactly and
say, "Mrs. Worldly?"--"Mrs. Younger!"

    Are you there?--It is raining!
    Mrs. Worldly?--Mrs. Younger!

The unmarried lady is presented to the married one, unless the latter is
very much the younger. As a matter of fact, in introducing two ladies to
each other or one gentleman to another, no distinction is made. "Mrs.
Smith; Mrs. Norman." "Mr. Brown; Mr. Green."

The inflection is:

    I think--it's going to rain!
    Mrs. Smith--Mrs. Norman!

A man is also often introduced, "Mrs. Worldly? Mr. Norman!" But to a very
distinguished man, a mother would say:

    "Mr. Edison--My daughter, Mary!"

To a young man, however, she should say, "Mr. Struthers, have you met my
daughter?" If the daughter is married, she should have added, "My
daughter, Mrs. Smartlington." The daughter's name is omitted because it is
extremely bad taste (except in the South) to call her daughter "Miss Mary"
to any one but a servant, and on the other hand she should not present a
young man to "Mary." The young man can easily find out her name afterward.


=OTHER FORMS OF INTRODUCTION=

Other permissible forms of introduction are:

"Mrs. Jones, do you know Mrs. Norman?"

or,

"Mrs. Jones, you know Mrs. Robinson, don't you?" (on no account say "Do
you not?" Best Society always says "don't you?")

or,

"Mrs. Robinson, have you met Mrs. Jones?"

or,

"Mrs. Jones, do you know my mother?"

or,

"This is my daughter Ellen, Mrs. Jones."

These are all good form, whether gentlemen are introduced to ladies,
ladies to ladies, or gentlemen to gentlemen. In introducing a gentleman to
a lady, you may ask Mr. Smith if he has met Mrs. Jones, but you must not
ask Mrs. Jones if she has met Mr. Smith!


=FORMS OF INTRODUCTIONS TO AVOID=

Do not say: "Mr. Jones, shake hands with Mr. Smith," or "Mrs. Jones, I
want to make you acquainted with Mrs. Smith." Never say: "make you
acquainted with" and do not, in introducing one person to another, call
one of them "my friend." You can say "my aunt," or "my sister," or "my
cousin"--but to pick out a particular person as "my friend" is not only
bad style but, unless you have only one friend, bad manners--as it implies
Mrs. Smith is "my friend" and you are a stranger.

You may very properly say to Mr. Smith "I want you to meet Mrs. Jones,"
but this is not a form of introduction, nor is it to be said in Mrs.
Jones' hearing. Upon leading Mr. Smith up to Mrs. Jones, you say "Mrs.
Jones may I present Mr. Smith" or "Mrs. Jones; Mr. Smith." Under no
circumstances whatsoever say "Mr. Smith meet Mrs. Jones," or "Mrs. Jones
meet Mr. Smith." Either wording is equally preposterous.

Do not repeat "Mrs. Jones? Mrs. Smith! Mrs. Smith? Mrs. Jones!" To say
each name once is quite enough.

Most people of good taste very much dislike being asked their names. To
say "What is your name?" is always abrupt and unflattering. If you want to
know with whom you have been talking, you can generally find a third
person later and ask "Who was the lady with the grey feather in her hat?"
The next time you see her you can say "How do you do, Mrs. ----" (calling
her by name).


=WHEN TO SHAKE HANDS=

When gentlemen are introduced to each other they always shake hands.

When a gentleman is introduced to a lady, she sometimes puts out her
hand--especially if he is some one she has long heard about from friends
in common, but to an entire stranger she generally merely bows her head
slightly and says: "How do you do!" Strictly speaking, it is always her
place to offer her hand or not as she chooses, but if he puts out his
hand, it is rude on her part to ignore it. Nothing could be more ill-bred
than to treat curtly any overture made in spontaneous friendliness. No
thoroughbred lady would ever refuse to shake any hand that is honorable,
not even the hand of a coal heaver at the risk of her fresh white glove.

Those who have been drawn into a conversation do not usually shake hands
on parting. But there is no fixed rule. A lady sometimes shakes hands
after talking with a casual stranger; at other times she does not offer
her hand on parting from one who has been punctiliously presented to her.
She may find the former sympathetic and the latter very much the contrary.

Very few rules of etiquette are inelastic and none more so than the
acceptance or rejection of the strangers you meet.

There is a wide distance between rudeness and reserve. You can be
courteously polite and at the same time extremely aloof to a stranger who
does not appeal to you, or you can be welcomingly friendly to another whom
you like on sight. Individual temperament has also to be taken into
consideration: one person is naturally austere, another genial. The latter
shakes hands far more often than the former. As already said, it is
unforgivably rude to refuse a proffered hand, but it is rarely necessary
to offer your hand if you prefer not to.


=WHAT TO SAY WHEN INTRODUCED=

Best Society has only one phrase in acknowledgment of an introduction:
"How do you do?" It literally accepts no other. When Mr. Bachelor says,
"Mrs. Worldly, may I present Mr. Struthers?" Mrs. Worldly says, "How do
you do?" Struthers bows, and says nothing. To sweetly echo "Mr.
Struthers?" with a rising inflection on "--thers?" is not good form.
Saccharine chirpings should be classed with crooked little fingers, high
hand-shaking and other affectations. All affectations are bad form.

Persons of position do not say: "Charmed," or "Pleased to meet you," etc.,
but often the first remark is the beginning of a conversation. For
instance,

Young Struthers is presented to Mrs. Worldly. She smiles and perhaps says,
"I hear that you are going to be in New York all winter?" Struthers
answers, "Yes, I am at the Columbia Law School," etc., or since he is much
younger than she, he might answer, "Yes, Mrs. Worldly," especially if his
answer would otherwise be a curt yes or no. Otherwise he does not continue
repeating her name.

TAKING LEAVE OF ONE YOU HAVE JUST MET

After an introduction, when you have talked for some time to a stranger
whom you have found agreeable, and you then take leave, you say, "Good-by,
I am very glad to have met you," or "Good-by, I hope I shall see you again
soon"--or "some time." The other person answers, "Thank you," or perhaps
adds, "I hope so, too." Usually "Thank you" is all that is necessary.

In taking leave of a group of strangers--it makes no difference whether
you have been introduced to them or merely included in their
conversation--you bow "good-by" to any who happen to be looking at you,
but you do not attempt to attract the attention of those who are unaware
that you are turning away.


=INTRODUCING ONE PERSON TO A GROUP=

This is never done on formal occasions when a great many persons are
present. At a small luncheon, for instance, a hostess always introduces
her guests to one another.

Let us suppose you are the hostess: your position is not necessarily near,
but it is toward the door. Mrs. King is sitting quite close to you, Mrs.
Lawrence also near. Miss Robinson and Miss Brown are much farther away.

Mrs. Jones enters. You go a few steps forward and shake hands with her,
then stand aside as it were, for a second only, to see if Mrs. Jones goes
to speak to any one. If she apparently knows no one, you say,

"Mrs. King, do you know Mrs. Jones?" Mrs. King being close at hand
(usually but not necessarily) rises, shakes hands with Mrs. Jones and sits
down again. If Mrs. King is an elderly lady, and Mrs. Jones a young one,
Mrs. King merely extends her hand and does not rise. Having said "Mrs.
Jones" once, you do not repeat it immediately, but turning to the other
lady sitting near you, you say, "Mrs. Lawrence," then you look across the
room and continue, "Miss Robinson, Miss Brown--Mrs. Jones!" Mrs. Lawrence,
if she is young, rises and shakes hands with Mrs. Jones, and the other two
bow but do not rise.

At a very big luncheon you would introduce Mrs. Jones to Mrs. King and
possibly to Mrs. Lawrence, so that Mrs. Jones might have some one to talk
to. But if other guests come in at this moment, Mrs. Jones finds a place
for herself and after a pause, falls naturally into conversation with
those she is next to, without giving her name or asking theirs.

A friend's roof is supposed to be an introduction to those it shelters. In
Best Society this is always recognized if the gathering is intimate, such
as at a luncheon, dinner or house party; but it is not accepted at a ball
or reception, or any "general" entertainment. People always talk to their
neighbors at table whether introduced or not. It would be a breach of
etiquette not to! But if Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Norman merely spoke to each
other for a few moments, in the drawing-room, it is not necessary that
they recognize each other afterwards.


=NEW YORK'S BAD MANNERS=

New York's bad manners are often condemned and often very deservedly. Even
though the cause is carelessness rather than intentional indifference, the
indifference is no less actual and the rudeness inexcusable.

It is by no means unheard of that after sitting at table next to the guest
of honor, a New Yorker will meet her the next day with utter
unrecognition. Not because the New Yorker means to "cut" the stranger or
feels the slightest unwillingness to continue the acquaintance, but
because few New Yorkers possess enthusiasm enough to make an effort to
remember all the new faces they come in contact with, but allow all those
who are not especially "fixed" in their attention, to drift easily out of
mind and recognition. It is mortifyingly true; no one is so ignorantly
indifferent to everything outside his or her own personal concern as the
socially fashionable New Yorker, unless it is the Londoner! The late
Theodore Roosevelt was a brilliantly shining exception. And, of course,
and happily, there are other men and women like him in this. But there are
also enough of the snail-in-shell variety to give color to the very just
resentment that those from other and more gracious cities hold against New
Yorkers.

Everywhere else in the world (except London), the impulse of
self-cultivation, if not the more generous ones of consideration and
hospitality, induces people of good breeding to try and make the effort to
find out what manner of mind, or experience, or talent, a stranger has;
and to remember, at least out of courtesy, anyone for whose benefit a
friend of theirs gave a dinner or luncheon. To fashionable New York,
however, luncheon was at one-thirty; at three there is something else
occupying the moment--that is all.

Nearly all people of the Atlantic Coast dislike general introductions, and
present people to each other as little as possible. In the West, however,
people do not feel comfortable in a room full of strangers. Whether or not
to introduce people therefore becomes not merely a question of propriety,
but of consideration for local custom.


=NEVER INTRODUCE UNNECESSARILY=

The question as to when introductions should be made, or not made, is one
of the most elusive points in the entire range of social knowledge.
"Whenever necessary to bridge an awkward situation," is a definition that
is exact enough, but not very helpful or clear. The hostess who allows a
guest to stand, awkward and unknown, in the middle of her drawing-room is
no worse than she who pounces on every chance acquaintance and drags
unwilling victims into forced recognition of each other, everywhere and on
all occasions. The fundamental rule never to introduce unnecessarily
brings up the question:


=WHICH ARE THE NECESSARY OCCASIONS?=

First, in order of importance, is the presentation of everyone to guests
of honor, whether the "guests" are distinguished strangers for whom a
dinner is given, or a bride and groom, or a débutante being introduced to
society. It is the height of rudeness for anyone to go to an entertainment
given in honor of some one and fail to "meet" him. (Even though one's
memory is too feeble to remember him afterward!)


=INTRODUCTIONS AT A DINNER=

The host must always see that every gentleman either knows or is presented
to the lady he is to "take in" to dinner, and also, if possible, to the
one who is to sit at the other side of him. If the latter introduction is
overlooked, people sitting next each other at table nearly always
introduce themselves. A gentleman says, "How do you do, Mrs. Jones. I am
Arthur Robinson." Or showing her his place card, "I have to introduce
myself, this is my name." Or the lady says first, "I am Mrs. Hunter
Jones." And the man answers, "How do you do, Mrs. Jones, my name is
Titherington Smith."

It is not unusual, in New York, for those placed next each other to talk
without introducing themselves--particularly if each can read the name of
the other on the place cards.


=OTHER NECESSARY INTRODUCTIONS=

Even in New York's most introductionless circles, people always introduce:

A small group of people who are to sit together anywhere.

Partners at dinner.

The guests at a house party.

Everyone at a small dinner or luncheon.

The four who are at the same bridge table.

Partners or fellow-players in any game.

At a dance, when an invitation has been asked for a stranger, the friend
who vouched for him should personally present him to the hostess. "Mrs.
Worldly, this is Mr. Robinson, whom you said I might bring." The hostess
shakes hands and smiles and says: "I am very glad to see you, Mr.
Robinson."

A guest in a box at the opera always introduces any gentleman who comes to
speak to her, to her hostess, unless the latter is engrossed in
conversation with a visitor of her own, or unless other people block the
distance between so that an introduction would be forced and awkward.

A newly arriving visitor in a lady's drawing-room is not introduced to
another who is taking leave. Nor is an animated conversation between two
persons interrupted to introduce a third. Nor is any one ever led around a
room and introduced right and left.

If two ladies or young girls are walking together and they meet a third
who stops to speak to one of them, the other walks slowly on and does not
stand awkwardly by and wait for an introduction. If the third is asked by
the one she knows, to join them, the sauntering friend is overtaken and an
introduction always made. The third, however, must not join them unless
invited to do so.

At a very large dinner, people (excepting the gentlemen and ladies who are
to sit next to each other at table) are not collectively introduced. After
dinner, men in the smoking room or left at table always talk to their
neighbors whether they have been introduced or not, and ladies in the
drawing-room do the same. But unless they meet soon again, or have found
each other so agreeable that they make an effort to continue the
acquaintance, they become strangers again, equally whether they were
introduced or not.

Some writers on etiquette speak of "correct introductions" that carry
"obligations of future acquaintance," and "incorrect introductions," that
seemingly obligate one to nothing.

Degrees of introduction are utterly unknown to best society. It makes not
the slightest difference so far as any one's acceptance or rejection of
another is concerned how an introduction is worded or, on occasions,
whether an introduction takes place at all.

Fashionable people in very large cities take introductions lightly; they
are veritable ships that pass in the night. They show their red or green
signals--which are merely polite sentences and pleasant manners--and they
pass on again.

When you are introduced to some one for the second time and the first
occasion was without interest and long ago, there is no reason why you
should speak of the former meeting.

If some one presents you to Mrs. Smith for the second time on the same
occasion, you smile and say "I have already met Mrs. Smith," but you say
nothing if you met Mrs. Smith long ago and she showed no interest in you
at that time.

Most rules are elastic and contract and expand according to circumstances.
You do not remind Mrs. Smith of having met her before, but on meeting
again any one who was brought to your own house, or one who showed you an
especial courtesy you instinctively say, "I am so glad to see you again."


=INCLUDING SOMEONE IN CONVERSATION WITHOUT AN INTRODUCTION=

On occasions it happens that in talking to one person you want to include
another in your conversation without making an introduction. For instance:
suppose you are talking to a seedsman and a friend joins you in your
garden. You greet your friend, and then include her by saying, "Mr. Smith
is suggesting that I dig up these cannas and put in delphiniums." Whether
your friend gives an opinion as to the change in color of your flower bed
or not, she has been made part of your conversation.

This same maneuver of evading an introduction is also resorted to when you
are not sure that an acquaintance will be agreeable to one or both of
those whom an accidental circumstance has brought together.


=INTRODUCTIONS UNNECESSARY=

You must never introduce people to each other in public places unless you
are certain beyond a doubt that the introduction will be agreeable to
both. You cannot commit a greater social blunder than to introduce, to a
person of position, some one she does not care to know, especially on
shipboard, in hotels, or in other very small, rather public, communities
where people are so closely thrown together that it is correspondingly
difficult to avoid undesirable acquaintances who have been given the wedge
of an introduction.

As said above, introductions in very large cities are unimportant. In New
York, where people are meeting new faces daily, seldom seeing the same one
twice in a year, it requires a tenacious memory to recognize those one
hoped most to see again, and others are blotted out at once.

People in good society rarely ask to be introduced to each other, but if
there is a good reason for knowing some one, they often introduce
themselves; for instance, Mary Smith says:

"Mrs. Jones, aren't you a friend of my mother's? I am Mrs. Titherington
Smith's daughter." Mrs. Jones says:

"Why, my dear child, I am so glad you spoke to me. Your mother and I have
known each other since we were children!"

Or, an elder lady asks: "Aren't you Mary Smith? I have known your mother
since she was your age." Or a young woman says: "Aren't you Mrs. Worldly?"
Mrs. Worldly, looking rather freezingly, politely says "Yes" and waits.
And the stranger continues, "I think my sister Millicent Manners is a
friend of yours." Mrs. Worldly at once unbends. "Oh, yes, indeed, I am
devoted to Millicent! And you must be ----?"

"I'm Alice."

"Oh, of course, Millicent has often talked of you, and of your lovely
voice. I want very much to hear you sing some time."

These self-introductions, however, must never presumingly be made. It
would be in very bad taste for Alice to introduce herself to Mrs. Worldly
if her sister knew her only slightly.


=A BUSINESS VISIT NOT AN INTRODUCTION=

A lady who goes to see another to get a reference for a servant, or to ask
her aid in an organization for charity, would never consider such a
meeting as an introduction, even though they talked for an hour. Nor would
she offer to shake hands in leaving. On the other hand, neighbors who are
continually meeting, gradually become accustomed to say "How do you do?"
when they meet, even though they never become acquaintances.


=THE RETORT COURTEOUS TO ONE YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN=

Let us suppose some one addresses you, and then slightly disconcerted
says: "You don't remember me, do you?" The polite thing--unless his manner
does not ring true, is to say "Why, of course, I do." And then if a few
neutral remarks lead to no enlightening topic, and bring no further
memory, you ask at the first opportunity who it was that addressed you. If
the person should prove actually to be unknown, it is very easy to repel
any further advances. But nearly always you find it is some one you ought
to have known, and your hiding the fact of your forgetfulness saves you
from the rather rude and stupid situation of blankly declaring: "I don't
remember you."

If, after being introduced to you, Mr. Jones calls you by a wrong name,
you let it pass, at first, but if he persists you may say: "My name is
Simpson, not Simpkin."

At a private dance, young men nowadays introduce their men friends to
young women without first asking the latter's permission, because all
those invited to a lady's house are supposed to be eligible for
presentation to everyone, or they would not be there.

At a public ball young men and women keep very much to their own
particular small circle and are not apt to meet outsiders at all. Under
these circumstances a gentleman should be very careful not to introduce a
youth whom he knows nothing about to a lady of his acquaintance--or at
least he should ask her first. He can say frankly: "There is a man called
Sliders who has asked to meet you. I don't know who he is, but he seems
decent. Shall I introduce him?" The lady can say "Yes"; or, "I'd rather
not."


=INTRODUCTION BY LETTER=

An introduction by letter is far more binding than a casual spoken
introduction which commits you to nothing. This is explained fully and
example letters are given in the chapter on Letters.

A letter of introduction is handed you unsealed, always. It is correct for
you to seal it at once in the presence of its author. You thank your
friend for having written it and go on your journey.

If you are a man and your introduction is to a lady, you go to her house
as soon as you arrive in her city, and leave the letter with your card at
her door. Usually you do not ask to see her; but if it is between four and
six o'clock it is quite correct to do so if you choose. Presenting
yourself with a letter is always a little awkward. Most people prefer to
leave their cards without asking to be received.

If your letter is to a man, you mail it to his house, unless the letter is
a business one. In the latter case you go to his office, and send in your
card and the letter. Meanwhile you wait in the reception room until he has
read the letter and sends for you to come into his private office.

If you are a woman, you mail your letter of social introduction and do
nothing further until you receive an acknowledgment. If the recipient of
your letter leaves her card on you, you in return leave yours on her. But
the obligation of a written introduction is such that only illness can
excuse her not asking you to her house--either formally or informally.

When a man receives a letter introducing another man, he calls the person
introduced on the telephone and asks how he may be of service to him. If
he does not invite the newcomer to his house, he may put him up at his
club, or have him take luncheon or dinner at a restaurant, as the
circumstances seem to warrant.




CHAPTER III

GREETINGS


=WHAT TO SAY WHEN INTRODUCED=

As explained in the foregoing chapter, the correct formal greeting is:
"How do you do?" If Mrs. Younger is presented to Mrs. Worldly, Mrs.
Worldly says "How do you do?" If the Ambassador of France is presented to
her, she says "How do you do?" Mrs. Younger and the Ambassador likewise
say "How do you do?" or merely bow.

There are a few expressions possible under other circumstances and upon
other occasions. If you have, through friends in common, long heard of a
certain lady, or gentleman, and you know that she, or he, also has heard
much of you, you may say when you are introduced to her: "I am very glad
to meet you," or "I am delighted to meet you at last!" Do not use the
expression "pleased to meet you" then or on any occasion. And you must not
say you are delighted unless you have reason to be sure that she also is
delighted to meet you.

To one who has volunteered to help you in charitable work for instance,
you would say: "It is very good of you to help us," or, "to join us."

In business a gentleman says: "Very glad to meet you," or "Delighted to
meet you." Or, if in his own office: "Very glad to see you!"


=INFORMAL GREETINGS=

Informal greetings are almost as limited as formal, but not quite; for
besides saying "How do you do?" you can say "Good morning" and on
occasions "How are you?" or "Good evening."

On very informal occasions, it is the present fashion to greet an intimate
friend with "Hello!" This seemingly vulgar salutation is made acceptable
by the tone in which it is said. To shout "Hul_low_!" is vulgar, but
"Hello, Mary" or "How 'do John," each spoken in an ordinary tone of voice,
sound much the same. But remember that the "Hello" is spoken, not called
out, and never used except between intimate friends who call each other by
the first name.

There are only two forms of farewell: "Good-by" and "Good night." Never
say "Au revoir" unless you have been talking French, or are speaking to a
French person. Never interlard your conversation with foreign words or
phrases when you can possibly translate them into English; and the
occasions when our mother tongue will not serve are extremely rare.

Very often in place of the over-worn "How do you do," perhaps more often
than not, people skip the words of actual greeting and plunge instead into
conversation: "Why, Mary! When did you get back?" or "What is the news
with you?" or "What have you been doing lately?" The weather, too, fills
in with equal faithfulness. "Isn't it a heavenly day!" or "Horrid weather,
isn't it?" It would seem that the variability of the weather was purposely
devised to furnish mankind with unfailing material for conversation.

In bidding good-by to a new acquaintance with whom you have been talking,
you shake hands and say, "Good-by. I am very glad to have met you." To one
who has been especially interesting, or who is somewhat of a personage you
say: "It has been a great pleasure to meet you." The other answers: "Thank
you."


=IN CHURCH=

People do not greet each other in church, except at a wedding. At weddings
people do speak to friends sitting near them, but in a low tone of voice.
It would be shocking to enter a church and hear a babel of voices!

Ordinarily in church if a friend happens to catch your eye, you smile, but
never actually bow. If you go to a church not your own and a stranger
offers you a seat in her pew, you should, on leaving, turn to her and
say: "Thank you." But you do not greet anyone until you are out on the
church steps, when you naturally speak to your friends. "Hello" should not
be said on this occasion because it is too "familiar" for the solemnity of
church surroundings.


=SHAKING HANDS=

Gentlemen always shake hands when they are introduced to each other.
Ladies rarely do so with gentlemen who are introduced to them; but they
usually shake hands with other ladies, if they are standing near together.
All people who know each other, unless merely passing by, shake hands when
they meet.

A gentleman on the street never shakes hands with a lady without first
removing his right glove. But at the opera, or at a ball, or if he is
usher at a wedding, he keeps his glove on.


=PERSONALITY OF A HANDSHAKE=

A handshake often creates a feeling of liking or of irritation between two
strangers. Who does not dislike a "boneless" hand extended as though it
were a spray of sea-weed, or a miniature boiled pudding? It is equally
annoying to have one's hand clutched aloft in grotesque affectation and
shaken violently sideways, as though it were being used to clean a spot
out of the atmosphere. What woman does not wince at the viselike grasp
that cuts her rings into her flesh and temporarily paralyzes every finger?

The proper handshake is made briefly; but there should be a feeling of
strength and warmth in the clasp, and, as in bowing, one should at the
same time look into the countenance of the person whose hand one takes. In
giving her hand to a foreigner, a married woman always relaxes her arm and
fingers, as it is customary for him to lift her hand to his lips. But by a
relaxed hand is not meant a wet rag; a hand should have life even though
it be passive. A woman should always allow a man who is only an
acquaintance to shake her hand; she should never shake his. To a very old
friend she gives a much firmer clasp, but he shakes her hand more than she
shakes his. Younger women usually shake the hand of the older; or they
both merely clasp hands, give them a dropping movement rather than a
shake, and let go.


=POLITE GREETINGS FROM YOUNGER TO OLDER=

It is the height of rudeness for young people not to go and shake hands
with an older lady of their acquaintance when they meet her away from
home, if she is a hostess to whose house they have often gone. It is not
at all necessary for either young women or young men to linger and enter
into a conversation, unless the older lady detains them, which she should
not do beyond the briefest minute.

Older ladies who are always dragging young men up to unprepossessing
partners, are studiously avoided and with reason; but otherwise it is
inexcusable for any youth to fail in this small exaction of polite
behavior. If a young man is talking with some one when an older lady
enters the room, he bows formally from where he is, as it would be rude to
leave a young girl standing alone while he went up to speak to Mrs.
Worldly or Mrs. Toplofty. But a young girl passing near an older lady can
easily stop for a moment, say "How do you do, Mrs. Jones!" and pass on.

People do not cross a room to speak to any one unless--to show politeness
to an acquaintance who is a stranger there; to speak to an intimate
friend; or to talk to some one about something in particular.




CHAPTER IV

SALUTATIONS OF COURTESY


=WHEN A GENTLEMAN TAKES OFF HIS HAT=

A gentleman takes off his hat and holds it in his hand when a lady enters
the elevator in which he is a passenger, but he puts it on again in the
corridor. A public corridor is like the street, but an elevator is
suggestive of a room, and a gentleman does not keep his hat on in the
presence of ladies in a house.

This is the rule in elevators in hotels, clubs and apartments. In office
buildings and stores the elevator is considered as public a place as the
corridor. What is more, the elevators in such business structures are
usually so crowded that the only room for a man's hat is on his head. But
even under these conditions a gentleman can reveal his innate respect for
women by not permitting himself to be crowded too near to them.

When a gentleman stops to speak to a lady of his acquaintance in the
street, he takes his hat off with his left hand, leaving his right free to
shake hands, or he takes it off with his right and transfers it to his
left. If he has a stick, he puts his stick in his left hand, takes off his
hat with his right, transfers his hat also to his left hand, and gives her
his right. If they walk ahead together, he at once puts his hat on; but
while he is standing in the street talking to her, he should remain
hatless. There is no rudeness greater than for him to stand talking to a
lady with his hat on, and a cigar or cigarette in his mouth.

A gentleman always rises when a lady comes into a room. In public places
men do not jump up for every strange woman who happens to approach. But if
any woman addresses a remark to him, a gentleman at once rises to his
feet as he answers her. In a restaurant, when a lady bows to him, a
gentleman merely makes the gesture of rising by getting up half way from
his chair and at the same time bowing. Then he sits down again.

When a lady goes to a gentleman's office on business he should stand up to
receive her, offer her a chair, and not sit down until after she is
seated. When she rises to leave, he must get up instantly and stand until
she has left the office.

It is not necessary to add that every American citizen stands with his hat
off at the passing of the "colors" and when the national anthem is played.
If he didn't, some other more loyal citizen would take it off for him.
Also every man should stand with his hat off in the presence of a funeral
that passes close or blocks his way.


=A GENTLEMAN LIFTS HIS HAT=

Lifting the hat is a conventional gesture of politeness shown to strangers
only, not to be confused with bowing, which is a gesture used to
acquaintances and friends. In lifting his hat, a gentleman merely lifts it
slightly off his forehead and replaces it; he does not smile nor bow, nor
even look at the object of his courtesy. No gentleman ever subjects a lady
to his scrutiny or his apparent observation.

If a lady drops her glove, a gentleman should pick it up, hurry ahead of
her--on no account nudge her--offer the glove to her and say: "I think you
dropped this!" The lady replies: "Thank you." The gentleman should then
lift his hat and turn away.

If he passes a lady in a narrow space, so that he blocks her way or in any
manner obtrudes upon her, he lifts his hat as he passes.

If he gets on a street car and the car gives a lurch just as he is about
to be seated and throws him against another passenger, he lifts his hat
and says "Excuse me!" or "I beg your pardon!" He must _not_ say "Pardon
_me_!" He must not take a seat if there are ladies standing. But if he is
sitting and ladies enter, should they be young, he may with perfect
propriety keep his seat. If a very old woman, or a young one carrying a
baby, enters the car, a gentleman rises at once, lifts his hat slightly,
and says: "Please take my seat." He lifts his hat again when she thanks
him.

If the car is very crowded when he wishes to leave it and a lady is
directly in his way, he asks: "May I get through, please?" As she makes
room for him to pass, he lifts his hat and says: "Thank you!"

If he is in the company of a lady in a street car, he lifts his hat to
another gentleman who offers her a seat, picks up something she has
dropped, or shows her any civility.

He lifts his hat if he asks anyone a question, and always, if, when
walking on the street with either a lady or a gentleman, his companion
bows to another person. In other words, a gentleman lifts his hat whenever
he says "Excuse me," "Thank you," or speaks to a stranger, or is spoken to
by a lady, or by an older gentleman. And no gentleman ever keeps a pipe,
cigar or cigarette in his mouth when he lifts his hat, takes it off, or
bows.


=THE BOW OF CEREMONY=

The standing bow, made by a gentleman when he rises at a dinner to say a
few words, in response to applause, or across a drawing-room at a formal
dinner when he bows to a lady or an elderly gentleman, is usually the
outcome of the bow taught little boys at dancing school. The instinct of
clicking heels together and making a quick bend over from the hips and
neck, as though the human body had two hinges, a big one at the hip and a
slight one at the neck, and was quite rigid in between, remains in a
modified form through life. The man who as a child came habitually into
his mother's drawing-room when there was "company," generally makes a
charming bow when grown, which is wholly lacking in self-consciousness.
There is no apparent "heel-clicking" but a camera would show that the
motion is there.

In every form of bow, as distinct from merely lifting his hat, a
gentleman looks at the person he is bowing to. In a very formal standing
bow, his heels come together, his knees are rigid and his expression is
rather serious.


=THE INFORMAL BOW=

The informal bow is merely a modification of the above; it is easy and
unstudied, but it should suggest the ease of controlled muscles, not the
floppiness of a rag doll.

In bowing on the street, a gentleman should never take his hat off with a
flourish, nor should he sweep it down to his knee; nor is it graceful to
bow by pulling the hat over the face as though examining the lining. The
correct bow, when wearing a high hat or derby, is to lift it by holding
the brim directly in front, take it off merely high enough to escape the
head easily, bring it a few inches forward, the back somewhat up, the
front down, and put it on again. To a very old lady or gentleman, to show
adequate respect, a sweeping bow is sometimes made by a somewhat
exaggerated circular motion downward to perhaps the level of the waist, so
that the hat's position is upside down.

If a man is wearing a soft hat he takes it by the crown instead of the
brim, lifts it slightly off his head and puts it on again.

The bow to a friend is made with a smile, to a very intimate friend often
with a broad grin that fits exactly with the word "Hello"; whereas the
formal bow is mentally accompanied by the formal salutation: "How do you
do!"


=THE BOW OF A WOMAN OF CHARM=

The reputation of Southern women for having the gift of fascination is
perhaps due not to prettiness of feature more than to the brilliancy or
sweetness of their ready smile. That Southern women are charming and
"feminine" and lovable is proverbial. How many have noticed that Southern
women always bow with the grace of a flower bending in the breeze and a
smile like sudden sunshine? The unlovely woman bows as though her head
were on a hinge and her smile sucked through a lemon.

Nothing is so easy for any woman to acquire as a charming bow. It is such
a short and fleeting duty. Not a bit of trouble really; just to incline
your head and spontaneously smile as though you thought "Why, _there_ is
Mrs. Smith! How glad I am to see her!"

Even to a stranger who does her a favor, a woman of charm always smiles as
she says "Thank you!" As a possession for either woman or man, a ready
smile is more valuable in life than a ready wit; the latter may sometimes
bring enemies, but the former always brings friends.


=WHEN TO BOW=

Under formal circumstances a lady is supposed to bow to a gentleman first;
but people who know each other well bow spontaneously without observing
this etiquette.

In meeting the same person many times within an hour or so, one does not
continue to bow after the second, or at most third meeting. After that one
either looks away or merely smiles. Unless one has a good memory for
people, it is always better to bow to some one whose face is familiar than
to run the greater risk of ignoring an acquaintance.


=THE "CUT DIRECT"=

For one person to look directly at another and not acknowledge the other's
bow is such a breach of civility that only an unforgivable misdemeanor can
warrant the rebuke. Nor without the gravest cause may a lady "cut" a
gentleman. But there are no circumstances under which a gentleman may
"cut" any woman who, even by courtesy, can be called a lady.

On the other hand, one must not confuse absent-mindedness, or a forgetful
memory with an intentional "cut." Anyone who is preoccupied is apt to pass
others without being aware of them, and without the least want of
friendly regard. Others who have bad memories forget even those by whom
they were much attracted. This does not excuse the bad memory, but it
explains the seeming rudeness.

A "cut" is very different. It is a direct stare of blank refusal, and is
not only insulting to its victim but embarrassing to every witness.
Happily it is practically unknown in polite society.




CHAPTER V

ON THE STREET AND IN PUBLIC


=WALKING ON THE STREET=

A gentleman, whether walking with two ladies or one, takes the curb side
of the pavement. He should never sandwich himself between them.

A young man walking with a young woman should be careful that his manner
in no way draws attention to her or to himself. Too devoted a manner is
always conspicuous, and so is loud talking. Under no circumstances should
he take her arm, or grasp her by or above the elbow, and shove her here
and there, unless, of course, to save her from being run over! He should
not walk along hitting things with his stick. The small boy's delight in
drawing a stick along a picket fence should be curbed in the nursery! And
it is scarcely necessary to add that no gentleman walks along the street
chewing gum or, if he is walking with a lady, puffing a cigar or
cigarette.

All people in the streets, or anywhere in public, should be careful not to
talk too loud. They should especially avoid pronouncing people's names, or
making personal remarks that may attract passing attention or give a clue
to themselves.

One should never call out a name in public, unless it is absolutely
unavoidable. A young girl who was separated from her friends in a baseball
crowd had the presence of mind to put her hat on her parasol and lift it
above the people surrounding her so that her friends might find her.

Do not attract attention to yourself in public. This is one of the
fundamental rules of good breeding. Shun conspicuous manners, conspicuous
clothes, a loud voice, staring at people, knocking into them, talking
across anyone--in a word do not attract attention to yourself. Do not
expose your private affairs, feelings or innermost thoughts in public. You
are knocking down the walls of your house when you do.


=GENTLEMEN AND BUNDLES=

Nearly all books on etiquette insist that a "gentleman must offer to carry
a lady's bundles." Bundles do not suggest a lady in the first place, and
as for gentlemen and bundles!--they don't go together at all. Very neat
packages that could never without injury to their pride be designated as
"bundles" are different. Such, for instance, might be a square, smoothly
wrapped box of cigars, candy, or books. Also, a gentleman might carry
flowers, or a basket of fruit, or, in fact, any package that looks
tempting. He might even stagger under bags and suitcases, or a small
trunk--but carry a "bundle"? Not twice! And yet, many an unknowing woman,
sometimes a very young and pretty one, too, has asked a relative, a
neighbor, or an admirer, to carry something suggestive of a pillow, done
up in crinkled paper and odd lengths of joined string. Then she wonders
afterwards in unenlightened surprise why her cousin, or her neighbor, or
her admirer, who is one of the smartest men in town, never comes to see
her any more!


=A GENTLEMAN OFFERS HIS ARM=

To an old lady or to an invalid a gentleman offers his arm if either of
them wants his support. Otherwise a lady no longer leans upon a gentleman
in the daytime, unless to cross a very crowded thoroughfare, or to be
helped over a rough piece of road, or under other impeding circumstances.
In accompanying a lady anywhere at night, whether down the steps of a
house, or from one building to another, or when walking a distance, a
gentleman always offers his arm. The reason is that in her thin
high-heeled slippers, and when it is too dark to see her foothold clearly,
she is likely to trip.

Under any of these circumstances when he proffers his assistance, he
might say: "Don't you think you had better take my arm? You might trip."
Or--"Wouldn't it be easier if you took my arm along here? The going is
pretty bad." Otherwise the only occasions on which a gentleman offers his
arm to a lady are in taking her in at a formal dinner, or taking her in to
supper at a ball, or when he is an usher at a wedding. Even in walking
across a ballroom, except at a public ball in the grand march, it is the
present fashion for the younger generation to walk side by side, never arm
in arm. This, however, is merely an instance where etiquette and the
custom of the moment differ. Old-fashioned gentlemen still offer their
arm, and it is, and long will be, in accordance with etiquette to do so.
But etiquette does _not_ permit a gentleman to take a lady's arm!

In seeing a lady to her carriage or motor, it is quite correct for a
gentleman to put his hand under her elbow to assist her; and in helping
her out he should alight first and offer her his hand. He should not hold
a parasol over her head unless momentarily while she searches in her
wrist-bag for something, or stops perhaps to put on or take off her glove,
or do anything that occupies both hands. With an umbrella the case is
different, especially in a sudden and driving rain, when she is often very
busily occupied in trying to hold "good" clothes out of the wet and a hat
on, as well. She may also, under these circumstances, take the gentleman's
arm, if the "going" is thereby made any easier.


=A LADY NEVER "ON THE LEFT"=

The owner always sits on the right hand side of the rear seat of a
carriage or a motor, that is driven by a coachman or a chauffeur. If the
vehicle belongs to a lady, she should take her own place always, unless
she relinquishes it to a guest whose rank is above her own, such as that
of the wife of the President or the Governor. If a man is the owner, he
must, on the contrary, give a lady the right hand seat. Whether in a
private carriage, a car or a taxi, a lady must _never_ sit on a
gentleman's left; because according to European etiquette, a lady "on the
left" is _not_ a "lady." Although this etiquette is not strictly observed
in America, no gentleman should risk allowing even a single foreigner to
misinterpret a lady's position.


=AWKWARD QUESTIONS OF PAYMENT=

It is becoming much less customary than it used to be for a gentleman to
offer to pay a lady's way. If in taking a ferry or a subway, a young woman
stops to buy magazines, chocolates, or other trifles, a young man
accompanying her usually offers to pay for them. She quite as usually
answers: "Don't bother, I have it!" and puts the change on the counter. It
would be awkward for him to protest, and bad taste to press the point. But
usually in small matters such as a subway fare, he pays for two. If he
invites her to go to a ball game, or to a matinée or to tea, he naturally
buys the tickets and any refreshment which they may have.

Very often it happens that a young woman and a young man who are bound for
the same house party, at a few hours' distance from the place where they
both live, take the same train--either by accident or by pre-arrangement.
In this case the young woman should pay for every item of her journey. She
should not let her companion pay for her parlor car seat or for her
luncheon; nor should he, when they arrive at their destination, tip the
porter for carrying her bag.

A gentleman who is by chance sitting next to a lady of his acquaintance on
a train or boat, should never think of offering to pay for her seat or for
anything she may buy from the vendor.


=THE "ESCORT"=

Notwithstanding the fact that he is met, all dressed in his best store
clothes, with his "lady friend" leaning on his arm, in the pages of
counterfeit society novels and unauthoritative books on etiquette, there
is no such actual person known to good society--at least not in New York
or any great city--as an escort, he is not only unknown, but he is
impossible.

In good society ladies do not go about under the "care of" gentlemen! It
is unheard of for a gentleman to "take" a young girl alone to a dance or
to dine or to parties of any description; nor can she accept his
sponsorship anywhere whatsoever. A well behaved young girl goes to public
dances only when properly chaperoned and to a private dance with her
mother or else accompanied by her maid, who waits for her the entire
evening in the dressing room. It is not only improper, it is impossible
for any man to take a lady to a party of any sort, to which she has not
been personally invited by the hostess.

A lady may never be under the "protection" of a man _anywhere_! A young
girl is not even taken about by her betrothed. His friends send
invitations to her on his account, it is true, and, if possible, he
accompanies her, but correct invitations must be sent by them to her, or
she should not go.

Older ladies are often thoughtless and say to a young man: "Bring your
fiancée to see me!" His answer should be: "Indeed, I'd love to any time
you telephone her"; or, "I know she'd love to come if you'd ask her." If
the lady stupidly persists in casually saying, "Do bring her," he must
smile and say lightly: "But I can't bring her without an invitation from
you." Or, he merely evades the issue, and does not bring her.


=THE RESTAURANT CHECK=

Everyone has at some time or other been subjected to the awkward moment
when the waiter presents the check to the host. For a host to count up the
items is suggestive of parsimony, while not to look at them is
disconcertingly reckless, and to pay before their faces for what his
guests have eaten is embarrassing. Having the check presented to a hostess
when gentlemen are among her guests, is more unpleasant. Therefore, to
avoid this whole transaction, people who have not charge accounts, should
order the meal ahead, and at the same time pay for it in advance,
including the waiter's tip. Charge customers should make arrangements to
have the check presented to them elsewhere than at table.


=IN STORES OR SHOPS=

Lack of consideration for those who in any capacity serve you, is always
an evidence of ill-breeding, as well as of inexcusable selfishness.
Occasionally a so-called "lady" who has nothing whatever to do but drive
uptown or down in her comfortable limousine, vents her irritability upon a
saleswoman at a crowded counter in a store, because she does not leave
other customers and wait immediately upon her. Then, perhaps, when the
article she asked for is not to be had, she complains to the floor-walker
about the saleswoman's stupidity! Or having nothing that she can think of
to occupy an empty hour on her hands, she demands that every sort of
material be dragged down from the shelves until, discovering that it is at
last time for her appointment, she yawns and leaves.

Of course, on the other hand, there is the genuinely lethargic saleswoman
whose mind doesn't seem to register a single syllable that you have said
to her; who, with complete indifference to you and your preferences,
insists on showing what you distinctly say you do not want, and who caps
the climax by drawling "They" are wearing it this season! Does that sort
of saleswoman ever succeed in selling anything? Does anyone living buy
anything because someone, who knows nothing, tells another, who is often
an expert, what an indiscriminating "They" may be doing? That kind of a
saleswoman would try to tell Kreisler that "They" are not using violins
this season!

There are always two sides to the case, of course, and it is a credit to
good manners that there is scarcely ever any friction in stores and shops
of the first class. Salesmen and women are usually persons who are both
patient and polite, and their customers are most often ladies in fact as
well as "by courtesy." Between those before and those behind the counters,
there has sprung up in many instances a relationship of mutual goodwill
and friendliness. It is, in fact, only the woman who is afraid that
someone may encroach upon her exceedingly insecure dignity, who shows
neither courtesy nor consideration to any except those whom she considers
it to her advantage to please.


=REGARD FOR OTHERS=

Consideration for the rights and feelings of others is not merely a rule
for behavior in public but the very foundation upon which social life is
built.

Rule of etiquette the first--which hundreds of others merely paraphrase or
explain or elaborate--is:

Never do anything that is unpleasant to others.

Never take more than your share--whether of the road in driving a car, of
chairs on a boat or seats on a train, or food at the table.

People who picnic along the public highway leaving a clutter of greasy
paper and swill (not, a pretty name, but neither is it a pretty object!)
for other people to walk or drive past, and to make a breeding place for
flies, and furnish nourishment for rats, choose a disgusting way to repay
the land-owner for the liberty they took in temporarily occupying his
property.




CHAPTER VI

AT THE OPERA, THE THEATER, AND OTHER PUBLIC GATHERINGS


Excepting a religious ceremonial, there is no occasion where greater
dignity of manner is required of ladies and gentlemen both, than in
occupying a box at the opera. For a gentleman especially no other
etiquette is so exacting.

In walking about in the foyer of the opera house, a gentleman leaves his
coat in the box--or in his orchestra chair--but he always wears his high
hat. The "collapsible" hat is for use in the seats rather than in the
boxes, but it can be worn perfectly well by a guest in the latter if he
hasn't a "silk" one. A gentleman must always be in full dress, tail coat,
white waistcoat, white tie and white gloves whether he is seated in the
orchestra or a box. He wears white gloves nowhere else except at a ball,
or when usher at a wedding.

As people usually dine with their hostess before the opera, they arrive
together; the gentlemen assist the ladies to lay off their wraps, one of
the gentlemen (whichever is nearest) draws back the curtain dividing the
ante-room from the box, and the ladies enter, followed by the gentlemen,
the last of whom closes the curtain again. If there are two ladies besides
the hostess, the latter places her most distinguished or older guest in
the corner nearest the stage. The seat furthest from the stage is always
her own. The older guest takes her seat first, then the hostess takes her
place, whereupon the third lady goes forward in the center to the front of
the box, and stands until one of the gentlemen places a chair for her
between the other two. (The chairs are arranged in three rows, of one on
either side with an aisle left between.)

One of the duties of the gentlemen is to see that the curtains at the back
of the box remain tightly closed, as the light from the ante-room shining
in the faces of others in the audience across the house is very
disagreeable to them.

A gentleman never sits in the front row of a box, even though he is for a
time alone in it.


=AS TO VISITING=

It is the custom for a gentleman who is a guest in one box to pay visits
to friends in other boxes during the entr'actes. He must visit none but
ladies of his acquaintance and must never enter a box in which he knows
only the gentlemen, and expect to be introduced to the ladies. If Arthur
Norman, for instance, wishes to present a gentleman to Mrs. Gilding in her
box at the opera, he must first ask her if he may bring his friend James
Dawson. (He would on no account speak of him as Mr. Dawson unless he is an
elderly person.) A lady's box at the opera is actually her house, and only
those who are acceptable as visitors in her house should ask to be
admitted.

But it is quite correct for a gentleman to go into a stranger's box to
speak to a lady who is a friend of his, just as he would go to see her if
she were staying in a stranger's house. But he should not go into the box
of one he does not know, to speak to a lady with whom he has only a slight
acquaintance, since visits are not paid quite so casually to ladies who
are themselves visitors. Upon a gentleman's entering a box it is
obligatory for whoever is sitting behind the lady to whom the arriving
gentleman's visit is addressed, to relinquish his chair. Another point of
etiquette is that a gentleman must never leave the ladies of his own box
alone. Occasionally it happens that the gentlemen in Mrs. Gilding's box,
for instance, have all relinquished their places to visitors and have
themselves gone to Mrs. Worldly's or Mrs. Jones' or Mrs. Town's boxes.
Mrs. Gilding's guests must, from the vantage point of the Worldly, Jones
or Town boxes, keep a watchful eye on their hostess and instantly return
to her support when they see her visitors about to leave, even though the
ladies whom they are momentarily visiting be left to themselves. It is of
course the duty of the other gentlemen who came to the opera with Mrs.
Worldly, Mrs. Jones or Mrs. Town to hurry to them.

A gentleman must never stay in any box that he does not belong in, after
the lowering of the lights for the curtain. Nor, in spite of cartoons to
the contrary, does good taste permit conversation during the performance
or during the overture. Box holders arriving late or leaving before the
final curtain do so as quietly as possible and always without speaking.


=A "BRILLIANT OPERA NIGHT"=

A "brilliant opera night," which one often hears spoken of (meaning merely
that all the boxes are occupied, and that the ladies are more elaborately
dressed than usual) is generally a night when a leader of fashion such as
Mrs. Worldly, Mrs. Gilding, or Mrs. Toplofty, is giving a ball; and most
of the holders of the parterre boxes are in ball dresses, with an unusual
display of jewels. Or a house will be particularly "brilliant" if a very
great singer is appearing in a new rôle, or if a personage be present, as
when Marshal Joffre went to the Metropolitan.


=AFTER THE PERFORMANCE=

One gentleman, at least, must wait in the carriage lobby until all the
ladies in his party have driven away. _Never_ under any circumstances may
"the last" gentleman leave a lady standing alone on the sidewalk. It is
the duty of the hostess to take all unattended ladies home who have not a
private conveyance of their own, but the obligation does not extend to
married couples or odd men. But if a married lady or widow has ordered her
own car to come for her, the odd gentleman waits with her until it
appears. It is then considerate for her to offer him a "lift," but it is
equally proper for her to thank him for waiting and drive off alone.


=AT THE THEATER=

New Yorkers of highest fashion almost never occupy a box at the theater.
At the opera the world of fashion is to be seen in the parterre boxes (not
the first tier), and in boxes at some of the horse shows and at many
public charity balls and entertainments, but those in boxes at the theater
are usually "strangers" or "outsiders."

No one can dispute that the best theater seats are those in the center of
the orchestra. A box in these days of hatlessness has nothing to recommend
it except that the people can sit in a group and gentlemen can go out
between the acts easily, but these advantages hardly make up for the
disadvantage to four or at least three out of the six box occupants who
see scarcely a slice of the stage.


=WILL YOU DINE AND GO TO THE PLAY?=

There is no more popular or agreeable way of entertaining people than to
ask them to "dine and go to the play." The majority do not even prefer to
have "opera" substituted for "play," because those who care for serious
music are a minority compared with those who like the theater.

If a bachelor gives a small theater party he usually takes his guests to
dine at the Fitz-Cherry or some other fashionable and "amusing"
restaurant, but a married couple living in their own house are more likely
to dine at home, unless they belong to a type prevalent in New York which
is "restaurant mad." The Gildings, in spite of the fact that their own
chef is the best there is, are much more apt to dine in a restaurant
before going to a play--or if they don't dine in a restaurant, they go to
one for supper afterwards. But the Normans, if they ask people to dine and
go to the theater, invariably dine at home.

A theater party can of course be of any size, but six or eight is the
usual number, and the invitations are telephoned: "Will Mr. and Mrs.
Lovejoy dine with Mr. and Mrs. Norman at seven-thirty on Tuesday and go to
the play?"

Or "Will Mr. and Mrs. Oldname dine with Mr. Clubwin Doe on Saturday at the
Toit d'Or and go to the play?"

When Mr. and Mrs. Oldname "accept with pleasure" a second message is
given: "Dinner will be at 7.30."

Mrs. Norman's guests go to her house. Mr. Doe's guests meet him in the
foyer of the Toit d'Or. But the guests at both dinners are taken to the
theater by their host. If a dinner is given by a hostess who has no car of
her own, a guest will sometimes ask: "Don't you want me to have the car
come back for us?" The hostess can either say to an intimate friend "Why,
yes, thank you very much," or to a more formal acquaintance, "No, thank
you just the same--I have ordered taxis." Or she can accept. There is no
rule beyond her own feelings in the matter.

Mr. Doe takes his guests to the theater in taxis. The Normans, if only the
Lovejoys are dining with them, go in Mrs. Norman's little town car, but if
there are to be six or eight, the ladies go in her car and the gentlemen
follow in a taxi. (Unless Mrs. Worldly or Mrs. Gilding are in the party
and order their cars back.)


=TICKETS BOUGHT IN ADVANCE=

Before inviting anyone to go to a particular play, a hostess must be sure
that good tickets are to be had. She should also try to get seats for a
play that is new; since it is dull to take people to something they have
already seen. This is not difficult in cities where new plays come to town
every week, but in New York, where the same ones run for a year or more,
it is often a choice between an old good one or a new one that is poor. If
intimate friends are coming, a hostess usually asks them what they want to
see and tries to get tickets accordingly.

It is really unnecessary to add that one must never ask people to go to a
place of public amusement and then stand in line to get seats at the time
of the performance.


=GOING DOWN THE AISLE OF A THEATER=

The host, or whichever gentleman has the tickets, (if there is no host,
the hostess usually hands them to one of the, gentlemen before leaving her
house), goes down the aisle first and gives the checks to the usher, and
the others follow in the order in which they are to sit and which the
hostess must direct. It is necessary that each knows who follows whom,
particularly if a theater party arrives after the curtain has gone up. If
the hostess "forgets," the guests always ask before trooping down the
aisle "How do you want us to sit?" For nothing is more awkward and stupid
than to block the aisle at the row where their seats are, while their
hostess "sorts them"; and worse yet, in her effort to be polite, sends the
ladies to their seats first and then lets the gentlemen stumble across
them to their own places. Going down the aisle is not a question of
precedence, but a question of seating. The one who is to sit eighth from
the aisle, whether a lady or a gentleman, goes first, then the seventh,
then the sixth, and if the gentleman with the checks is fifth, he goes in
his turn and the fourth follows him.

If a gentleman and his wife go to the theater alone, the question as to
who goes down the aisle first depends on where the usher is. If the usher
takes the checks at the head of the aisle, she follows the usher.
Otherwise the gentleman goes first with the checks. When their places are
shown him, he stands aside for his wife to take her place first and then
he takes his. A lady never sits in the aisle seat if she is with a
gentleman.


=GOOD MANNERS AT THE THEATER=

In passing across people who are seated, always face the stage and press
as close to the backs of the seats you are facing as you can. Remember
also not to drag anything across the heads of those sitting in front of
you. At the moving pictures, especially when it is dark and difficult to
see, a coat on an arm passing behind a chair can literally devastate the
hair-dressing of a lady occupying it.

If you are obliged to cross in front of some one who gets up to let you
pass, say "Thank you," or "Thank you very much" or "I am very sorry." Do
_not_ say "Pardon _me_!" or "Beg pardon!" Though you can say "I beg your
pardon." That, however, would be more properly the expression to use if
you brushed your coat over their heads, or spilled water over them, or did
something to them for which you should actually _beg_ their pardon. But
"Beg pardon," which is an abbreviation, is one of the phrases never said
in best society.

Gentlemen who want to go out after every act should always be sure to get
aisle seats. There are no greater theater pests than those who come back
after the curtain has gone up and temporarily snuff out the view of
everyone behind, as well as annoy those who are obliged to stand up and
let them by.

Between the acts nearly all gentlemen go out and smoke at least once, but
those wedged in far from the aisle, who file out every time the curtain
drops are utterly lacking in consideration for others. If there are five
acts, they should at most go out for two entr'actes and even then be
careful to come back before the curtain goes up.


=VERY INCONSIDERATE TO GIGGLE AND TALK=

Nothing shows less consideration for others than to whisper and rattle
programmes and giggle and even make audible remarks throughout a
performance. Very young people love to go to the theater in droves called
theater parties and absolutely ruin the evening for others who happen to
sit in front of them. If Mary and Johnny and Susy and Tommy want to talk
and giggle, why not arrange chairs in rows for them in a drawing-room,
turn on a phonograph as an accompaniment and let them sit there and
chatter!

If those behind you insist on talking it is never good policy to turn
around and glare. If you are young they pay no attention, and if you are
older--most young people think an angry older person the funniest sight
on earth! The small boy throws a snowball at an elderly gentleman for no
other reason! The only thing you can do is to say amiably: "I'm sorry, but
I can't hear anything while you talk." If they still persist, you can ask
an usher to call the manager.

The sentimental may as well realize that every word said above a whisper
is easily heard by those sitting directly in front, and those who tell
family or other private affairs might do well to remember this also.

As a matter of fact, comparatively few people are ever anything but well
behaved. Those who arrive late and stand long, leisurely removing their
wraps, and who insist on laughing and talking are rarely encountered; most
people take their seats as quietly and quickly as they possibly can, and
are quite as much interested in the play and therefore as attentive and
quiet as you are. A very annoying person at the "movies" is one who reads
every "caption" out loud.


=PROPER THEATER CLOTHES=

At the evening performance in New York a lady wears a dinner dress; a
gentleman a dinner coat, often called a Tuxedo. Full dress is not correct,
but those going afterwards to a ball can perfectly well go to the theater
first if they do not make themselves conspicuous. A lady in a ball dress
and many jewels should avoid elaborate hair ornamentation and must keep
her wrap, or at least a sufficiently opaque scarf, about her shoulders to
avoid attracting people's attention. A gentleman in full dress is not
conspicuous.

And on the subject of theater dress it might be tentatively remarked that
prinking and "making up" in public are all part of an age which can not
see fun in a farce without bedroom scenes and actors in pajamas, and
actresses running about in negligés with their hair down. An audience
which night after night watches people dressing and undressing probably
gets into an unconscious habit of dressing or prinking itself. In other
days it was always thought that so much as to adjust a hat-pin or glance
in a glass was lack of breeding. Every well brought up young woman was
taught that she must finish dressing in her bedchamber. But to-day young
women in theaters, restaurants, and other public places, are continually
studying their reflection in little mirrors and patting their hair and
powdering their noses and fixing this or adjusting that in a way that in
Mrs. Oldname's girlhood would have absolutely barred them from good
society; nor can Mrs. Worldly or Mrs. Oldname be imagined "preening" and
"prinking" anywhere. They dress as carefully and as beautifully as
possible, but when they turn away from the mirrors in their dressing rooms
they never look in a glass or "take note of their appearance" until they
dress again. And it must be granted that Lucy Gilding, Constance Style,
Celia Lovejoy, Mary Smartlington and the other well-bred members of the
younger set do not put finishing touches on their faces in public--as yet!


=THE COURTESY OF SENDING TICKETS EARLY=

Most people are at times "obliged" to take tickets for various charity
entertainments--balls, theatricals, concerts or pageants--to which, if
they do not care to go themselves, they give away their tickets. Those who
intend giving tickets should remember that a message, "Can you use two
tickets for the Russian ballet to-night?" sent at seven o'clock that same
evening, after the Lovejoys have settled themselves for an evening at home
(Celia having decided not to curl her hair and Donald having that morning
sent his only dinner coat to be re-faced) can not give the same pleasure
that their earlier offer would have given. An opera box sent on the
morning of the opera is worse, since to find four music-loving people to
fill it on such short notice at the height of the season is an undertaking
that few care to attempt.


=A BIG THEATER PARTY=

A big theater party is one of the favorite entertainments given for a
débutante. If fifty or more are to be asked, invitations are sometimes
engraved.

                    Mrs. Toplofty

               requests the pleasure of

       [_Name of guest is written on this line._]

    company at the theater and a small dance afterward

              in honor of her great-niece

                Miss Millicent Gilding

            on Tuesday the sixth of January

              at half past eight o'clock

    R.s.v.p.

But--and usually--the "general utility" invitation (see page 118) is
filled in, as follows:

           [HW: To meet Miss Millicent Gilding]

                     Mrs. Toplofty

                 requests the pleasure of

                 [HW: Miss Rosalie Gray's]

    company at [HW: the Theater and at a dance]

    on [HW: Tuesday the sixth of January]

    at [HW: 8:15]

    R.s.v.p.

Or notes in either wording above are written by hand.

All those who accept have a ticket sent them. Each ticket sent a débutante
is accompanied by a visiting card on which is written:

    "Be in the lobby of the Comedy Theater at 8.15. Order your motor
    to come for you at 010 Fifth Avenue at 1 A.M."

On the evening of the theater party, Mrs. Toplofty herself stands in the
lobby to receive the guests. As soon as any who are to sit next to each
other have arrived, they are sent into the theater; each gives her (or
his) ticket to an usher and sits in the place alloted to her (or him). It
is well for the hostess to have a seat plan for her own use in case
thoughtless young people mix their tickets all up and hand them to an
usher in a bunch! And yet--if they do mix themselves to their own
satisfaction, she would better "leave them" than attempt to disturb a plan
that may have had more method in it than madness.

When the last young girl has arrived, Mrs. Toplofty goes into the theater
herself (she does not bother to wait for any boys), and in this one
instance she very likely sits in a stage box so as to "keep her eye on
them," and with her she has two or three of her own friends.

After the theater, big motor busses drive them all either to the house of
the hostess or to a hotel for supper and to dance. If they go to a hotel,
a small ballroom must be engaged and the dance is a private one; it would
be considered out of place to take a lot of very young people to a public
cabaret.

Carelessly chaperoned young girls are sometimes, it is true, seen in very
questionable places because some of the so-called dancing restaurants are
perfectly fit and proper for them to go to; many other places however, are
not, and for the sake of general appearances it is safer to make it a rule
that no very young girl should go anywhere after the theater except to a
private house or a private dance or ball.

Older people, on the other hand, very often go for a supper to one of the
cabarets for which New York is famous (or infamous?), or perhaps go to
watch a vaudeville performance at midnight, or dance, or do both together.

Others, if they are among the great majority of "quiet" people, go home
after the theater, especially if they have dined with their hostess (or
host) before the play.


=DON'T BE LATE=

When you are dining before going to the opera or theater you must arrive
on the stroke of the hour for which you are asked; it is one occasion when
it is inexcusable to be late.

In accepting an invitation for lunch or dinner after which you are going
to a game, or any sort of performance, you must not be late! Nothing is
more unfair to others who are keen about whatever it is you are going to
see, than to make them miss the beginning of a performance through your
thoughtless selfishness.

For this reason box-holders who are music-lovers do not ask guests who
have the "late habit" to dine before the opera, because experience has
taught them they will miss the overture and most of the first act if they
do. Those, on the other hand, who care nothing for music and go to the
opera to see people and be seen, seldom go until most if not all of the
first act is over. But these in turn might give music-loving guests their
choice of going alone in time for the overture and waiting for them in the
box at the opera, or having the pleasure of dining with their hostess but
missing most of the first part.


=AT GAMES, THE CIRCUS OR ELSEWHERE=

Considerate and polite behavior by each member of an audience is the same
everywhere. At outdoor games, or at the circus, it is not necessary to
stop talking. In fact, a good deal of noise is not out of the way in
"rooting" at a match, and a circus band does not demand silence in order
to appreciate its cheerful blare. One very great annoyance in open air
gatherings is cigar smoke when blown directly in one's face, or worse yet
the smoke from a smouldering cigar. It is almost worthy of a study in air
currents to discover why with plenty of space all around, a tiny column of
smoke will make straight for the nostrils of the very one most nauseated
by it!

The only other annoyance met with at ball games or parades or wherever
people occupy seats on the grandstand, is when some few in front get
excited and insist on standing up. If those in front stand--those behind
naturally have to! Generally people call out "down in front." If they
won't stay "down," then all those behind have to stay "up." Also umbrellas
and parasols entirely blot out the view of those behind.




CHAPTER VII

CONVERSATION


=NEED OF RECIPROCITY=

Ideal conversation should be a matter of equal give and take, but too
often it is all "take." The voluble talker--or chatterer--rides his own
hobby straight through the hours without giving anyone else, who might
also like to say something, a chance to do other than exhaustedly await
the turn that never comes. Once in a while--a very long while--one meets a
brilliant person whose talk is a delight; or still more rarely a wit who
manipulates every ordinary topic with the agility of a sleight-of-hand
performer, to the ever increasing rapture of his listeners.

But as a rule the man who has been led to believe that he is a brilliant
and interesting talker has been led to make himself a rapacious pest. No
conversation is possible between others whose ears are within reach of his
ponderous voice; anecdotes, long-winded stories, dramatic and pathetic,
stock his repertoire; but worst of all are his humorous yarns at which he
laughs uproariously though every one else grows solemn and more solemn.

There is a simple rule, by which if one is a voluble chatterer (to be a
good talker necessitates a good mind) one can at least refrain from being
a pest or a bore. And the rule is merely, to stop and think.


="THINK BEFORE YOU SPEAK"=

Nearly all the faults or mistakes in conversation are caused by not
thinking. For instance, a first rule for behavior in society is: "Try to
do and say those things only which will be agreeable to others." Yet how
many people, who really know better, people who are perfectly capable of
intelligent understanding if they didn't let their brains remain asleep
or locked tight, go night after night to dinner parties, day after day to
other social gatherings, and absent-mindedly prate about this or that
without ever taking the trouble to _think_ what they are saying and to
whom they are saying it! Would a young mother describe twenty or thirty
cunning tricks and sayings of the baby to a bachelor who has been
helplessly put beside her at dinner if she _thought_? She would know very
well, alas! that not even a very dear friend would really care for more
than a _hors d'oeuvre_ of the subject, at the board of general
conversation.

The older woman is even worse, unless something occurs (often when it is
too late) to make her wake up and realize that she not only bores her
hearers but prejudices everyone against her children by the unrestraint of
her own praise. The daughter who is continually lauded as the most
captivating and beautiful girl in the world, seems to the wearied
perceptions of enforced listeners annoying and plain. In the same way the
"magnificent" son is handicapped by his mother's--or his
father's--overweening pride and love in exact proportion to its displayed
intensity. On the other hand, the neglected wife, the unappreciated
husband, the misunderstood child, takes on a glamor in the eyes of others
equally out of proportion. That great love has seldom perfect wisdom is
one of the great tragedies in the drama of life. In the case of the
overloving wife or mother, some one should love _her_ enough to make her
_stop and think_ that her loving praise is not merely a question of boring
her hearers but of handicapping unfairly those for whom she would gladly
lay down her life--and yet few would have the courage to point out to her
that she would far better lay down her tongue.

The cynics say that those who take part in social conversation are bound
to be either the bores or the bored; and that which you choose to be, is a
mere matter of selection. And there must be occasions in the life of
everyone when the cynics seem to be right; the man of affairs who, sitting
next to an attractive looking young woman, is regaled throughout dinner
with the detailed accomplishments of the young woman's husband; the woman
of intellect who must listen with interest to the droolings of an
especially prosy man who holds forth on the super-everything of his own
possessions, can not very well consider that the evening was worth
dressing, sitting up, and going out for.

People who talk too easily are apt to talk too much, and at times
imprudently, and those with vivid imagination are often unreliable in
their statements. On the other hand the "man of silence" who never speaks
except when he has something "worth while" to say, is apt to wear well
among his intimates, but is not likely to add much to the gaiety of a
party.

Try not to repeat yourself; either by telling the same story again and
again or by going back over details of your narrative that seemed
especially to interest or amuse your hearer. Many things are of interest
when briefly told and for the first time; _nothing_ interests when too
long dwelt upon; little interests that is told a second time. The
exception is something very pleasant that you have heard about A. or more
especially A.'s child, which having already told A. you can then tell B.,
and later C. in A.'s presence. Never do this as a habit, however, and
never drag the incident into the conversation merely to flatter A., since
if A. is a person of taste, he will be far more apt to resent than be
pleased by flattery that borders on the fulsome.

Be careful not to let amiable discussion turn into contradiction and
argument. The tactful person keeps his prejudices to himself and even when
involved in a discussion says quietly "No. I don't think I agree with you"
or "It seems to me thus and so." One who is well-bred never says "You are
wrong!" or "Nothing of the kind!" If he finds another's opinion utterly
opposed to his own, he switches to another subject for a pleasanter
channel of conversation.

When some one is talking to you, it is inconsiderate to keep repeating
"What did you say?" Those who are deaf are often, obliged to ask that a
sentence be repeated. Otherwise their irrelevant answers would make them
appear half-witted. But countless persons with perfectly good hearing say
"What?" from force of habit and careless inattention.


=THE GIFT OF HUMOR=

The joy of joys is the person of light but unmalicious humor. If you know
any one who is gay, beguiling and amusing, you will, if you are wise, do
everything you can to make him prefer your house and your table to any
other; for where he is, the successful party is also. What he says is of
no matter, it is the twist he gives to it, the intonation, the personality
he puts into his quip or retort or observation that delights his hearers,
and in his case the ordinary rules do not apply.

Eugene Field could tell a group of people that it had rained to-day and
would probably rain to-morrow, and make everyone burst into laughter--or
tears if he chose--according to the way it was said. But the ordinary rest
of us must, if we would be thought sympathetic, intelligent or agreeable,
"go fishing."


=GOING FISHING FOR TOPICS=

The charming talker is neither more nor less than a fisherman.
(Fisherwoman rather, since in America women make more effort to be
agreeable than men do.) Sitting next to a stranger she wonders which "fly"
she had better choose to interest him. She offers one topic; not much of a
nibble. So she tries another or perhaps a third before he "rises" to the
bait.


=THE DOOR SLAMMERS=

There are people whose idea of conversation is contradiction and flat
statement. Finding yourself next to one of these, you venture:

"Have you seen any good plays lately?"

"No, hate the theater."

"Which team are you for in the series?"

"Neither. Only an idiot could be interested in baseball."

"Country must have a good many idiots!" mockingly.

"Obviously it has." Full stop. In desperation you veer to the personal.

"I've never seen Mrs. Bobo Gilding as beautiful as she is to-night."

"Nothing beautiful about her. As for the name 'Bobo,' it's asinine."

"Oh, it's just one of those children's names that stick sometimes for
life."

"Perfect rot. Ought to be called by his name," etc.

Another, not very different in type though different in method, is the
self-appointed instructor whose proper place is on the lecture platform,
not at a dinner table.

"The earliest coins struck in the Peloponnesus were stamped on one side
only; their alloy----" etc.

Another is the expounder of the obvious: "Have you ever noticed," says he,
deeply thinking, "how people's tastes differ?"

Then there is the vulgarian of fulsome compliment: "Why are you so
beautiful? It is not fair to the others----" and so on.


=TACTLESS BLUNDERERS=

Tactless people are also legion. The means-to-be-agreeable elderly man
says to a passée acquaintance, "Twenty years ago you were the prettiest
woman in town"; or in the pleasantest tone of voice to one whose only son
has married. "Why is it, do you suppose, that young wives always dislike
their mothers-in-law?"

If you have any ambition to be sought after in society you must not talk
about the unattractiveness of old age to the elderly, about the joys of
dancing and skating to the lame, or about the advantages of ancestry to
the self-made. It is also dangerous, as well as needlessly unkind, to
ridicule or criticize others, especially for what they can't help. If a
young woman's familiar or otherwise lax behavior deserves censure, a
casual unflattering remark may not add to your own popularity if your
listener is a relative, but you can at least, without being shamefaced,
stand by your guns. On the other hand to say needlessly "What an ugly
girl!" or "What a half-wit that boy is!" can be of no value except in
drawing attention to your own tactlessness.

The young girl who admired her own facile adjectives said to a casual
acquaintance: "How _can_ you go about with that moth-eaten, squint-eyed,
bag of a girl!" "Because," answered the youth whom she had intended to
dazzle, "the lady of your flattering epithets happens to be my sister."

It is scarcely necessary to say that one whose tactless remarks ride
rough-shod over the feelings of others, is not welcomed by many.


=THE BORE=

A bore is said to be "one who talks about himself when you want to talk
about yourself!" which is superficially true enough, but a bore might more
accurately be described as one who is interested in what does not interest
you, and insists that you share his enthusiasm, in spite of your
disinclination. To the bore life holds no dullness; every subject is of
unending delight. A story told for the thousandth time has not lost its
thrill; every tiresome detail is held up and turned about as a morsel of
delectableness; to him each pea in a pod differs from another with the
entrancing variety that artists find in tropical sunsets.

On the other hand, to be bored is a bad habit, and one only too easy to
fall into. As a matter of fact, it is impossible, almost, to meet anyone
who has not _something_ of interest to tell you if you are but clever
enough yourself to find out what it is. There are certain always
delightful people who refuse to be bored. Their attitude is that no
subject need ever be utterly uninteresting, so long as it is discussed for
the first time. Repetition alone is deadly dull. Besides, what is the
matter with trying to be agreeable yourself? Not _too_ agreeable. Alas!
it is true: "Be polite to bores and so shall you have bores always round
about you." Furthermore, there is no reason why you should be bored when
you can be otherwise. But if you find yourself sitting in the hedgerow
with nothing but weeds, there is no reason for shutting your eyes and
seeing nothing, instead of finding what beauty you may in the weeds. To
put it cynically, life is too short to waste it in drawing blanks.
Therefore, it is up to you to find as many pictures to put on your blank
pages as possible.


=A FEW IMPORTANT DETAILS OF SPEECH IN CONVERSATION=

Unless you wish to stamp yourself a person who has never been out of
"provincial" society, never speak of your husband as "Mr." except to an
inferior. Mrs. Worldly for instance in talking with a stranger would say
"my husband," and to a friend, meaning one not only whom she calls by her
first name, but anyone on her "dinner list," she says, "Dick thought the
play amusing" or "Dick said----". This does not give her listener the
privilege of calling him "Dick." The listener in return speaks of her own
husband as "Tom" even if he is seventy--unless her hearer is a very young
person (either man or woman), when she would say "my husband." Never "Mr.
Older." To call your husband Mr. means that you consider the person you
are talking to, beneath you in station. Mr. Worldly in the same way speaks
of Mrs. Worldly as "my wife" to a gentleman, or "Edith" in speaking to a
lady. _Always._

In speaking about other people, one says "Mrs.," "Miss" or "Mr." as the
case may be. It is bad form to go about saying "Edith Worldly" or "Ethel
Norman" to those who do not call them Edith or Ethel, and to speak thus
familiarly of one whom you do not call by her first name, is unforgivable.
It is also effrontery for a younger person to call an older by her or his
first name, without being asked to do so. Only a very underbred,
thick-skinned person would attempt it.

Also you must not take your conversation "out of the drawing-room."
Operations, ills or personal blemishes, details and appurtenances of the
dressing-room, for instance, are neither suitable nor pleasant topics, nor
are personal jokes in good taste.


=THE "OMNISCIENCE" OF THE VERY RICH=

Why a man, because he has millions, should assume that they confer
omniscience in all branches of knowledge, is something which may be left
to the psychologist to answer, but most of those thrown much in contact
with millionaires will agree that an attitude of infallibility is typical
of a fair majority.

A professor who has devoted his life to a subject modestly makes a
statement. "You are all wrong," says the man of millions, "It is this
way----". As a connoisseur he seems to think that because he can pay for
anything he fancies, he is accredited expert as well as potential owner.
Topics he does not care for are "bosh," those which he has a smattering
of, he simply appropriates; his prejudices are, in his opinion, expert
criticism; his taste impeccable; his judgment infallible; and to him the
world is a pleasance built for his sole pleasuring. But to the rest of us
who also have to live in it with as much harmony as we can, such persons
are certainly elephants at large in the garden. We can sometimes induce
them to pass through gently, but they are just as likely at any moment to
pull up our fences and push the house itself over on our defenseless
heads.

There are countless others of course, very often the richest of all, who
are authoritative in all they profess, who are experts and connoisseurs,
who are human and helpful and above everything respecters of the garden
enclosure of others.


=DANGERS TO BE AVOIDED=

In conversation the dangers are very much the same as those to be avoided
in writing letters. Talk about things which you think will be agreeable to
your hearer. Don't dilate on ills, misfortune, or other unpleasantnesses.
The one in greatest danger of making enemies is the man or woman of
brilliant wit. If sharp, wit is apt to produce a feeling of mistrust even
while it stimulates. Furthermore the applause which follows every witty
sally becomes in time breath to the nostrils, and perfectly
well-intentioned, people, who mean to say nothing unkind, in the flash of
a second "see a point," and in the next second, score it with no more
power to resist than a drug addict can resist a dose put into his hand!

The mimic is a joy to his present company, but the eccentric mannerism of
one is much easier to imitate than the charm of another, and the subjects
of the habitual mimic are all too apt to become his enemies.

You need not, however, be dull because you refrain from the rank habit of
a critical attitude, which like a weed will grow all over the place if you
let it have half a chance. A very good resolve to make and keep, if you
would also keep any friends you make, is never to speak of anyone without,
in imagination, having them overhear what you say. One often hears the
exclamation "I would say it to her face!" At least be very sure that this
is true, and not a braggart's phrase and then--nine times out of ten think
better of it and refrain. Preaching is all very well in a text-book,
schoolroom or pulpit, but it has no place in society. Society is supposed
to be a pleasant place; telling people disagreeable things to their faces
or behind their backs is _not_ a pleasant occupation.

Do not be too apparently clever if you would be popular. The cleverest
woman is she who, in talking to a man, makes _him_ seem clever. This was
Mme. Recamier's great charm.


=A FEW MAXIMS FOR THOSE WHO TALK TOO MUCH--AND EASILY!=

The faults of commission are far more serious than those of omission;
regrets are seldom for what you left unsaid.

The chatterer reveals every corner of his shallow mind; one who keeps
silent can not have his depth plumbed.

Don't pretend to know more than you do. To say you have read a book and
then seemingly to understand nothing of what you have read, proves you a
half-wit. Only the very small mind hesitates to say "I don't know."

Above all, stop and _think_ what you are saying! This is really the first,
last and only rule. If you "stop" you can't chatter or expound or flounder
ceaselessly, and if you _think_, you will find a topic and a manner of
presenting your topic so that your neighbor will be interested rather than
long-suffering.

Remember also that the sympathetic (not apathetic) listener is the delight
of delights. The person who looks glad to see you, who is seemingly eager
for your news, or enthralled with your conversation; who looks at you with
a kindling of the face, and gives you spontaneous and undivided attention,
is the one to whom the palm for the art of conversation would undoubtedly
be awarded.




CHAPTER VIII

WORDS, PHRASES AND PRONUNCIATION


=PHRASES AVOIDED IN GOOD SOCIETY=

It is difficult to explain why well-bred people avoid certain words and
expressions that are admitted by etymology and grammar. So it must be
merely stated that they have and undoubtedly always will avoid them.
Moreover, this choice of expression is not set forth in any printed guide
or book on English, though it is followed in all literature.

To liken Best Society to a fraternity, with the avoidance of certain
seemingly unimportant words as the sign of recognition, is not a fantastic
simile. People of the fashionable world invariably use certain expressions
and instinctively avoid others; therefore when a stranger uses an
"avoided" one he proclaims that he "does not belong," exactly as a
pretended Freemason proclaims himself an "outsider" by giving the wrong
"grip"--or whatever it is by which Brother Masons recognize one another.

People of position are people of position the world over--and by their
speech are most readily known. Appearance on the other hand often passes
muster. A "show-girl" may be lovely to look at as she stands in a
seemingly unstudied position and in perfect clothes. But let her say "My
Gawd!" or "Wouldn't that jar you!" and where is her loveliness then?

And yet, and this is the difficult part of the subject to make clear, the
most vulgar slang like that quoted above, is scarcely worse than the
attempted elegance which those unused to good society imagine to be the
evidence of cultivation.

People who say "I come," and "I seen it," and "I done it" prove by their
lack of grammar that they had little education in their youth.
Unfortunate, very; but they may at the same time be brilliant, exceptional
characters, loved by everyone who knows them, because they are what they
seem and nothing else. But the caricature "lady" with the comic picture
"society manner" who says "Pardon _me_" and talks of "retiring," and
"residing," and "desiring," and "being acquainted with," and "attending"
this and that with "her escort," and curls her little finger over the
handle of her teacup, and prates of "culture," does not belong to Best
Society, and _never_ will! The offense of pretentiousness is committed
oftener perhaps by women than by men, who are usually more natural and
direct. A genuine, sincere, kindly American man--or woman--can go anywhere
and be welcomed by everyone, provided of course, that he is a man of
ability and intellect. One finds him all over the world, neither aping the
manners of others nor treading on the sensibilities of those less
fortunate than himself.

Occasionally too, there appears in Best Society a provincial in whose
conversation is perceptible the influence of much reading of the Bible.
Such are seldom if ever stilted or pompous or long-worded, but are
invariably distinguished for the simplicity and dignity of their English.

There is no better way to cultivate taste in words, than by constantly
reading the best English. None of the words and expressions which are
taboo in good society will be found in books of proved literary standing.
But it must not be forgotten that there can be a vast difference between
literary standing and popularity, and that many of the "best sellers" have
no literary merit whatsoever.

To be able to separate best English from merely good English needs a long
process of special education, but to recognize bad English one need merely
skim through a page of a book, and if a single expression in the left-hand
column following can be found (unless purposely quoted in illustration of
vulgarity) it is quite certain that the author neither writes best English
nor belongs to Best Society.

        NEVER SAY:                       CORRECT FORM:
    In our residence we retire       At our house we go to bed
    early (or arise)                 early (or get up)

    I desire to purchase             I should like to buy

    Make you acquainted with         (See Introductions)

    Pardon _me_!                     I beg your pardon. Or,
                                     Excuse me! Or, sorry!

    Lovely food                      Good food

    Elegant home                     Beautiful house--or place

    A stylish dresser                She dresses well, or she
                                     wears lovely clothes

    Charmed! or Pleased to           How do you do!
    meet you!

    Attended                         Went to

    I trust I am not trespassing     I hope I am not in the way
                                     (unless trespassing on private
                                     property is actually
                                     meant)

    Request (meaning ask)            Used only in the third person
                                     in formal written invitations.

    Will you accord me permission?   Will you let me? or May I?

    Permit me to assist you          Let me help you

    Brainy                           Brilliant or clever

    I presume                        I suppose

    Tendered him a banquet           Gave him a dinner

    Converse                         Talk

    Partook of liquid refreshment    Had something to drink

    Perform ablutions                Wash

    A song entitled                  Called (proper if used in
                                     legal sense)

    I will ascertain                 I will find out

    Residence or mansion             House, or big house

    In the home                      In some one's house or At
                                     home

    Phone, photo, auto               Telephone, photograph,
                                     automobile

"Tintinnabulary summons," meaning bell, and "Bovine continuation," meaning
cow's tail, are more amusing than offensive, but they illustrate the
theory of bad style that is pretentious.

As examples of the very worst offenses that can be committed, the
following are offered:

"Pray, accept my thanks for the flattering ovation you have tendered me."

"Yes," says the preposterous bride, "I am the recipient of many admired
and highly prized gifts."

"Will you permit me to recall myself to you?"

Speaking of bridesmaids as "pretty servitors," "dispensing hospitality,"
asking any one to "step this way."

Many other expressions are provincial and one who seeks purity of speech
should, if possible, avoid them, but as "offenses" they are minor:

Reckon, guess, calculate, or figure, meaning think.

Allow, meaning agree.

Folks, meaning family.

Cute, meaning pretty or winsome.

Well, I declare! 'Pon my word!

Box party, meaning sitting in a box at the theater.

Visiting with, meaning talking to.

There are certain words which have been singled out and misused by the
undiscriminating until their value is destroyed. Long ago "elegant" was
turned from a word denoting the essence of refinement and beauty, into
gaudy trumpery. "Refined" is on the verge. But the pariah of the language
is culture! A word rarely used by those who truly possess it, but so
constantly misused by those who understand nothing of its meaning, that it
is becoming a synonym for vulgarity and imitation. To speak of the proper
use of a finger bowl or the ability to introduce two people without a
blunder as being "evidence of culture of the highest degree" is precisely
as though evidence of highest education were claimed for who ever can do
sums in addition, and read words of one syllable. Culture in its true
meaning is widest possible education, _plus_ especial refinement and
taste.

The fact that slang is apt and forceful makes its use irresistibly
tempting. Coarse or profane slang is beside the mark, but "flivver,"
"taxi," the "movies," "deadly" (meaning dull), "feeling fit," "feeling
blue," "grafter," a "fake," "grouch," "hunch" and "right o!" are typical
of words that it would make our spoken language stilted to exclude.

All colloquial expressions are little foxes that spoil the grapes of
perfect diction, but they are very little foxes; it is the false elegance
of stupid pretentiousness that is an annihilating blight which destroys
root and vine.

In the choice of words, we can hardly find a better guide than the lines
of Alexander Pope:

    "In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold;
    Alike fantastic, if too new, or old:
    Be not the first by whom the new are tried,
    Nor yet the last to lay the old aside."


=PRONUNCIATION=

Traits of pronunciation which are typical of whole sections of the
country, or accents inherited from European parents must not be confused
with crude pronunciations that have their origin in illiteracy. A
gentleman of Irish blood may have a brogue as rich as plum cake, or
another's accent be soft Southern or flat New England, or rolling
Western; and to each of these the utterance of the others may sound too
flat, too soft, too harsh, too refined, or drawled, or clipped short, but
not uncultivated.

To a New York ear, which ought to be fairly unbiased since the New York
accent is a composite of all accents, English women chirrup and twitter.
But the beautifully modulated, clear-clipped enunciation of a cultivated
Englishman, one who can move his jaws and not swallow his words whole,
comes as near to perfection in English as the diction of the Comédie
Française comes to perfection in French.

The Boston accent is very crisp and in places suggestive of the best
English but the vowels are so curiously flattened that the speech has a
saltless effect. There is no rhyming word as flat as the way they say
"heart"--"haht." And "bone" and "coat"--"bawn," "cawt," to rhyme with awe!

Then South, there is too much salt--rather too much sugar. Every one's
mouth seems full of it, with "I" turned to "ah" and every staccato a
drawl. But the voices are full of sweetness and music unknown north of the
Potomac.

The Pennsylvania burr is perhaps the mother of the Western one. It is
strong enough to have mothered all the r's in the wor-r-rld!
Philadelphia's "haow" and "caow" for "how" and "cow," and "me" for "my" is
quite as bad as the "water-r" and "thot" of the West.

N'Yawk is supposed to say "yeh" and "Omurica" and "Toosdeh," and
"puddin'." Probably five per cent. of it does, but as a whole it has no
accent, since it is a composite of all in one.

In best New York society there is perhaps a generally accepted
pronunciation which seems chiefly an elimination of the accents of other
sections. Probably that is what all people think of their own
pronunciation. Or do they not know, whether their inflection is right or
wrong? Nothing should be simpler to determine. If they pronounce according
to a standard dictionary, they are correct; if they don't, they have an
"accent" or are ignorant; it is for them to determine which. Such
differences as between saying wash or wawsh, ad_ver_tisement or
adver_tise_ment are of small importance. But no one who makes the least
pretence of being a person of education says: kep for kept, genelmun or
gempmun or laydee, vawde-vil, or eye-talian.


=HOW TO CULTIVATE AN AGREEABLE SPEECH=

First of all, remember that while affectation is odious, crudeness must be
overcome. A low voice is always pleasing, not whispered or murmured, but
low in pitch. Do not talk at the top of your head, nor at the top of your
lungs. Do not slur whole sentences together; on the other hand, do not
pronounce as though each syllable were a separate tongue and lip exercise.

As a nation we do not talk so much too fast, as too loud. Tens of
thousands twang and slur and shout and burr! Many of us drawl and many
others of us race tongues and breath at full speed, but, as already said,
the speed of our speech does not matter so much. Pitch of voice matters
very much and so does pronunciation--enunciation is not so
essential--except to one who speaks in public.

Enunciation means the articulation of whatever you have to say distinctly
and clearly. Pronunciation is the proper sounding of consonants, vowels
and the accentuation of each syllable.

There is no better way to cultivate a perfect pronunciation; apart from
association with cultivated people, than by getting a small pronouncing
dictionary of words in ordinary use, and reading it word by word, marking
and studying any that you use frequently and mispronounce. When you know
them, then read any book at random slowly aloud to yourself, very
carefully pronouncing each word. The consciousness of this exercise may
make you stilted in conversation at first, but by and by the "sense" or
"impulse" to speak correctly will come.

This is a method that has been followed by many men handicapped in youth
through lack of education, who have become prominent in public life, and
by many women, who likewise handicapped by circumstances, have not only
made possible a creditable position for themselves, but have then given
their children the inestimable advantage of learning their mother tongue
correctly at their mother's knee.




CHAPTER IX

ONE'S POSITION IN THE COMMUNITY


=THE CHOICE=

First of all, it is necessary to decide what one's personal idea of
position is, whether this word suggests merely a social one, comprising a
large or an exclusive acquaintance and leadership in social gaiety, or
position established upon the foundation of communal consequence, which
may, or may not, include great social gaiety. In other words, you who are
establishing yourself, either as a young husband or a stranger, would you,
if you could have your wish granted by a genie, choose to have the
populace look upon you askance and in awe, because of your wealth and
elegance, or would you wish to be loved, not as a power conferring favors
which belong really to the first picture, but as a fellow-being with an
understanding heart? The granting of either wish is not a bit beyond the
possibilities of anyone. It is merely a question of depositing securities
of value in the bank of life.


=THE BANK OF LIFE=

Life, whether social or business, is a bank in which you deposit certain
funds of character, intellect and heart; or other funds of egotism,
hard-heartedness and unconcern; or deposit--nothing! And the bank honors
your deposit, and no more. In other words, you can draw nothing out but
what you have put in.

If your community is to give you admiration and honor, it is merely
necessary to be admirable and honorable. The more you put in, the more
will be paid out to you. It is too trite to put on paper! But it is
astonishing, isn't it, how many people who are depositing nothing
whatever, expect to be paid in admiration and respect?

A man of really high position is always a great citizen first and above
all. Otherwise he is a hollow puppet whether he is a millionaire or has
scarcely a dime to bless himself with. In the same way, a woman's social
position that is built on sham, vanity, and selfishness, is like one of
the buildings at an exposition; effective at first sight, but bound when
slightly weather-beaten to show stucco and glue.

It would be very presumptuous to attempt to tell any man how to acquire
the highest position in his community, especially as the answer is written
in his heart, his intellect, his altruistic sympathy, and his ardent civic
pride. A subject, however, that is not so serious or over-aweing, and
which can perhaps have directions written for it, is the lesser ambition
of acquiring a social position.


=TAKING OR ACQUIRING A SOCIAL POSITION=

A bride whose family or family-in-law has social position has merely to
take that which is hers by inheritance; but a stranger who comes to live
in a new place, or one who has always lived in a community but unknown to
society, have both to acquire a standing of their own. For example:


=THE BRIDE OF GOOD FAMILY=

The bride of good family need do nothing on her own initiative. After her
marriage when she settles down in her own house or apartment, everyone who
was asked to her wedding breakfast or reception, and even many who were
only bidden to the church, call on her. She keeps their cards, enters them
in a visiting or ordinary alphabetically indexed blank book, and within
two weeks she returns each one of their calls.

As it is etiquette for everyone when calling for the first time on a
bride, to ask if she is in, the bride, in returning her first calls,
should do likewise. As a matter of fact, a bride assumes the intimate
visiting list of both her own and her husband's families, whether they
call on her or not. By and by, if she gives a general tea or ball, she can
invite whom, among them, she wants to. She should not, however, ask any
mere acquaintances of her family to her house, until they have first
invited her and her husband to theirs. But if she would like to invite
intimate friends of her own or of her husband, or of her family, there is
no valid reason why she should not do so.

Usually when a bride and groom return from their wedding trip, all their
personal friends and those of their respective parents, give "parties" for
them. And from being seen at one house, they are invited to another. If
they go nowhere, they do not lose position but they are apt to be
overlooked until people remember them by seeing them. But it is not at all
necessary for young people to entertain in order to be asked out a great
deal; they need merely be attractive and have engaging manners to be as
popular as heart could wish. But they must make it a point to be
considerate of everyone and never fail to take the trouble to go up with a
smiling "How do you do" to every older lady who has been courteous enough
to invite them to her house. That is not "toadying," it is being merely
polite. To go up and gush is a very different matter, and to go up and
gush over a prominent hostess who has never invited them to her house, is
toadying and of a very cheap variety.

A really well-bred person is as charming as possible to all, but effusive
to none, and shows no difference in manner either, to the high or to the
lowly when they are of equally formal acquaintance.


=THE BRIDE WHO IS A STRANGER=

The bride who is a stranger, but whose husband is well known in the town
to which he brings her, is in much the same position as the bride noted
above, in that her husband's friends call on her; she returns their
visits, and many of them invite her to their house. But it then devolves
upon her to make herself liked, otherwise she will find herself in a
community of many acquaintances but no friends. The best ingredients for
likeableness are a happy expression of countenance, an unaffected manner,
and a sympathetic attitude. If she is so fortunate as to possess these
attributes her path will have roses enough. But a young woman with an
affected pose and bad or conceited manners, will find plenty of thorns.
Equally unsuccessful is she with a chip-on-her-shoulder who, coming from
New York for instance, to live in Brightmeadows, insists upon dragging New
York sky-scrapers into every comparison with Brightmeadows' new
six-storied building. She might better pack her trunks and go back where
she came from. Nor should the bride from Brightmeadows who has married a
New Yorker, flaunt Brightmeadows standards or customs, and tell Mrs.
Worldly that she does not approve of a lady's smoking! Maybe she doesn't
and she may be quite right, and she should not under the circumstances
smoke herself; but she should not make a display of intolerance, or she,
too, had better take the first train back home, since she is likely to
find New York very, very lonely.


=HOW TOTAL STRANGERS ACQUIRE SOCIAL STANDING=

When new people move into a community, bringing letters of introduction to
prominent citizens, they arrive with an already made position, which ranks
in direct proportion to the standing of those who wrote the introductions.
Since, however, no one but "persons of position" are eligible to letters
of importance, there would be no question of acquiring position--which
they have--but merely of adding to their acquaintance.

As said in another chapter, people of position are people of position the
world over, and all the cities strung around the whole globe are like so
many chapter-houses of a brotherhood, to which letters of introduction
open the doors.

However, this is off the subject, which is to advise those who have no
position, or letters, how to acquire the former. It is a long and slow
road to travel, particularly long and slow for a man and his wife in a big
city. In New York people could live in the same house for generations, and
do, and not have their next door neighbor know them even by sight. But no
other city, except London, is as unaware as that. When people move to a
new city, or town, it is usually because of business. The husband at least
makes business acquaintances, but the wife is left alone. The only thing
for her to do is to join the church of her denomination, and become
interested in some activity; not only as an opening wedge to
acquaintanceships and possibly intimate friendships, but as an occupation
and a respite from loneliness. Her social position is gained usually at a
snail's pace--nor should she do anything to hurry it. If she is a real
person, if she has qualities of mind and heart, if she has charming
manners, sooner or later a certain position will come, and in proportion
to her eligibility.

One of the ladies with whom she works in church, having gradually learned
to like her, asks her to her house. Nothing may ever come of this, but
another one also inviting her, may bring an introduction to a third, who
takes a fancy to her. This third lady also invites her where she meets an
acquaintance she has already made on one of the two former occasions, and
this acquaintance in turn invites her. By the time she has met the same
people several times, they gradually, one by one, offer to go and see her,
or ask her to come and see them. One inviolable rule she must not forget:
it is fatal to be pushing or presuming. She must remain dignified always,
natural and sympathetic when anyone approaches her, but she should not
herself approach any one more than half way. A smile, the more friendly
the better, is never out of place, but after smiling, she should pass on!
Never grin weakly, and--cling!

If she is asked to go to see a lady, it is quite right to go. But not
again, until the lady has returned the visit, or asked her to her house.
And if admitted when making a first visit, she should remember not to
stay more than twenty minutes at most, since it is always wiser to make
others sorry to have her leave than run the risk of having the hostess
wonder why her visitor doesn't know enough to go!


=THE ENTRANCE OF AN OUTSIDER=

The outsider enters society by the same path, but it is steeper and longer
because there is an outer gate of reputation called "They are not people
of any position" which is difficult to unlatch. Nor is it ever unlatched
to those who sit at the gate rattling at the bars, or plaintively peering
in. The better, and the only way if she has not the key of birth, is
through study to make herself eligible. Meanwhile, charitable, or civic
work, will give her interest and occupation as well as throw her with
ladies of good breeding, by association with whom she can not fail to
acquire some of those qualities of manner before which the gates of
society always open.


=WHEN POSITION HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED=

When her husband belongs to a club, or perhaps she does too, and the
neighbors are friendly and those of social importance have called on her
and asked her to their houses, a newcomer does not have to stand so
exactly on the chalk line of ceremony as in returning her first visits and
sending out her first invitations.

After people have dined with each other several times, it is not at all
important to consider whether an invitation is owed or paid several times
over. She who is hospitably inclined can ask people half a dozen times to
their once if she wants to, and they show their friendliness by coming.
Nor need visits be paid in alternate order. Once she is really accepted by
people she can be as friendly as she chooses.

When Mrs. Oldname calls on Mrs. Stranger the first time, the latter may do
nothing but call in return; it would be the height of presumption to
invite one of conspicuous prominence until she has first been invited by
her. Nor may the Strangers ask the Oldnames to dine after being merely
invited to a tea. But when Mrs. Oldname asks Mrs. Stranger to lunch, the
latter might then invite the former to dinner, after which, if they
accept, the Strangers can continue to invite them on occasion, whether
they are invited in turn or not; especially if the Strangers are
continually entertaining, and the Oldnames are not. But on no account must
the Strangers' parties be arranged solely for the benefit of any
particular fashionables.

The Strangers can also invite to a party any children whom their own
children know at school, and Mrs. Stranger can quite properly go to fetch
her own children from a party to which their schoolmates invited them.


=MONEY NOT ESSENTIAL TO SOCIAL POSITION=

Bachelors, unless they are very well off, are not expected to give
parties; nor for that matter are very young couples. All hostesses go on
asking single men and young people to their houses without it ever
occurring to them that any return other than politeness should be made.

There are many couples, not necessarily in the youngest set either, who
are tremendously popular in society in spite of the fact that they give no
parties at all. The Lovejoys, for instance, who are clamored for
everywhere, have every attribute--except money. With fewer clothes perhaps
than any fashionable young woman in New York, she can't compete with Mrs.
Bobo Gilding or Constance Style for "smartness" but, as Mrs. Worldly
remarked: "What would be the use of Celia Lovejoy's beauty if it depended
upon continual variation in clothes?"

The only "entertaining" the Lovejoys ever do is limited to afternoon tea
and occasional welsh-rarebit suppers. But they return every bit of
hospitality shown them by helping to make a party "go" wherever they are.
Both are amusing, both are interesting, both do everything well. They
can't afford to play cards for money, but they both play a very good game
and the table is delighted to "carry them," or they play at the same table
against each other.

This, by the way, is another illustration of the conduct of a gentleman;
if young Lovejoy played for money he would win undoubtedly in the long run
because he plays unusually well, but to use card-playing as a "means of
making money" would be contrary to the ethics of a gentleman, just as
playing for more than can be afforded turns a game into "gambling."


=AN ELUSIVE POINT ESSENTIAL TO SOCIAL SUCCESS=

The sense of whom to invite with whom is one of the most important, and
elusive, points in social knowledge. The possession or lack of it is
responsible more than anything else for the social success of one woman,
and the failure of another. And as it is almost impossible, without
advice, for any stranger anywhere to know which people like or dislike
each other, the would-be hostess must either by means of natural talent or
more likely by trained attention, read the signs of liking or prejudice
much as a woodsman reads a message in every broken twig or turned leaf.

One who can read expression, perceives at a glance the difference between
friendliness and polite aloofness. When a lady is unusually silent,
strictly impersonal in conversation, and entirely unapproachable,
something is not to her liking. The question is, what? Or usually, whom?
The greatest blunder possible would be to ask her what the matter is. The
cause of annoyance is probably that she finds someone distasteful and it
should not be hard for one whose faculties are not asleep to discover the
offender and if possible separate them, or at least never ask them
together again.




CHAPTER X

CARDS AND VISITS


=USEFULNESS OF CARDS=

Who was it that said--in the Victorian era probably, and a man of
course--"The only mechanical tool ever needed by a woman is a hair-pin"?
He might have added that with a hair-pin and a visiting card, she is ready
to meet most emergencies.

Although the principal use of a visiting card, at least the one for which
it was originally invented--to be left as an evidence of one person's
presence at the house of another--is going gradually out of ardent favor
in fashionable circles, its usefulness seems to keep a nicely adjusted
balance. In New York, for instance, the visiting card has entirely taken
the place of the written note of invitation to informal parties of every
description. Messages of condolence or congratulation are written on it;
it is used as an endorsement in the giving of an order; it is even tacked
on the outside of express boxes. The only employment of it which is not as
flourishing as formerly is its being left in quantities and with frequency
at the doors of acquaintances. This will be explained further on.


=A CARD'S SIZE AND ENGRAVING=

The card of a lady is usually from about 2-3/4 to 3-1/2 inches wide, by 2
to 2-3/4 inches high, but there is no fixed rule. The card of a young girl
is smaller and more nearly square in shape. (About 2 inches high by 2-1/2
or 2-5/8 inches long, depending upon the length of the name.) Young girls
use smaller cards than older ladies. A gentleman's card is long and
narrow, from 2-7/8 to 3-1/4 inches long, and from 1-1/4 to 1-5/8 inches
high. All visiting cards are engraved on white unglazed bristol board,
which may be of medium thickness or thin, as one fancies. A few years ago
there was a fad for cards as thin as writing paper, but one seldom sees
them in America now. The advantage of a thin card is that a greater
quantity may be carried easily.

The engraving most in use to-day is shaded block. Script is seldom seen,
but it is always good form and so is plain block, but with the exception
of old English all ornate lettering should be avoided. All people who live
in cities should have the address in the lower right corner, engraved in
smaller letters than the name. In the country, addresses are not
important, as every one knows where every one else lives. People who have
town and country houses usually have separate cards, though not
necessarily a separate plate.


=ECONOMICAL ENGRAVING=

The economically inclined can have several varieties of cards printed from
one plate. The cards would vary somewhat in size in order to "center" the
wording.

Example:

The plate:

    Mr. and Mrs. Gilding
            Miss Gilding


                      00 FIFTH AVENUE
                        GOLDEN HALL

may be printed.

Miss Gilding's name should never appear on a card with both her mother's
and father's, so her name being out of line under the "Mr. and Mrs."
engraving makes no difference.

or

    Mr. and Mrs. Gilding

                 GOLDEN HALL


or

    Mrs. Gilding
         Miss Gilding

                 00 FIFTH AVENUE

or

    Mrs. Gilding


                GOLDEN HALL

The personal card is in a measure an index of one's character. A fantastic
or garish note in the type effect, in the quality or shape of the card,
betrays a lack of taste in the owner of the card.

It is not customary for a married man to have a club address on his card,
and it would be serviceable only in giving a card of introduction to a
business acquaintance, under social rather than business circumstances, or
in paying a formal call upon a political or business associate. Unmarried
men often use no other address than that of a club; especially if they
live in bachelor's quarters, but young men who live at home use their home
address.


=CORRECT NAMES AND TITLES=

To be impeccably correct, initials should not be engraved on a visiting
card. A gentleman's card should read: Mr. John Hunter Titherington Smith,
but since names are sometimes awkwardly long, and it is the American
custom to cling to each and every one given in baptism, he asserts his
possessions by representing each one with an initial, and engraves his
cards Mr. John H.T. Smith, or Mr. J.H. Titherington Smith, as suits his
fancy. So, although, according to high authorities, he should drop a name
or two and be Mr. Hunter Smith, or Mr. Titherington Smith, it is very
likely that to the end of time the American man, and necessarily his wife,
who must use the name as he does, will go on cherishing initials.

And a widow no less than a married woman should always continue to use her
husband's Christian name, or his name and another initial, engraved on her
cards. She is Mrs. John Hunter Titherington Smith, or, to compromise, Mrs.
J.H. Titherington Smith, but she is _never_ Mrs. Sarah Smith; at least not
anywhere in good society. In business and in legal matters a woman is
necessarily addressed by her own Christian name, because she uses it in
her signature. But no one should ever address an envelope, except from a
bank or a lawyer's office, "Mrs. Sarah Smith." When a widow's son, who has
the name of his father, marries, the widow has Sr. added to her own name,
or if she is the "head" of the family, she very often omits all Christian
names, and has her card engraved "Mrs. Smith," and the son's wife calls
herself Mrs. John Hunter Smith. Smith is not a very good name as an
example, since no one could very well claim the distinction of being _the_
Mrs. Smith. It, however, illustrates the point.

For the daughter-in-law to continue to use a card with Jr. on it when her
husband no longer uses Jr. on his, is a mistake made by many people. A
wife always bears the name of her husband. To have a man and his mother
use cards engraved respectively Mr. J.H. Smith and Mrs. J.H. Smith and the
son's wife a card engraved Mrs. J.H. Smith, Jr., would announce to
whomever the three cards were left upon, that Mr. and Mrs. Smith and
_their_ daughter-in-law had called.

The cards of a young girl after she is sixteen have always "Miss" before
her name, which must be her real and never a nick-name: Miss Sarah Smith,
not Miss Sally Smith.

The fact that a man's name has "Jr." added at the end in no way takes the
place of "Mr." His card should be engraved Mr. John Hunter Smith, Jr., and
his wife's Mrs. John Hunter Smith, Jr. Some people have the "Jr." written
out, "junior." It is not spelled with a capital J if written in full.

A boy puts Mr. on his cards when he leaves school, though many use cards
without Mr. on them while in college. A doctor, or a judge, or a minister,
or a military officer have their cards engraved with the abbreviation of
their title: Dr. Henry Gordon; Judge Horace Rush; The Rev. William Goode;
Col. Thomas Doyle.

The double card reads: Dr. and Mrs. Henry Gordon; Hon. and Mrs., etc.

A woman who has divorced her husband retains the legal as well as the
social right to use her husband's full name, in New York State at least.
Usually she prefers, if her name was Alice Green, to call herself Mrs.
Green Smith; not Mrs. Alice Smith, and on no account Mrs. Alice
Green--unless she wishes to give the impression that she was the guilty
one in the divorce.


=CHILDREN'S CARDS=

That very little children should have visiting cards is not so "silly" as
might at first thought be supposed. To acquire perfect manners, and those
graces of deportment that Lord Chesterfield so ardently tried to instil
into his son, training can not begin early enough, since it is through
lifelong familiarity with the niceties of etiquette that much of the
distinction of those to the manner born is acquired.

Many mothers think it good training for children to have their own cards,
which they are taught not so much to leave upon each other after
"parties," as to send with gifts upon various occasions.

At the rehearsal of a wedding, the tiny twin flower girls came carrying
their wedding present for the bride between them, to which they had
themselves attached their own small visiting cards. One card was bordered
and engraved in pink, and the other bordered and engraved in blue, and the
address on each read "_Chez Maman_."

And in going to see a new baby cousin each brought a small 1830 bouquet,
and sent to their aunt their cards, on which, after seeing the baby, one
had printed "He is very little," and the other, "It has a red face." This
shows that if modern society believes in beginning social training in the
nursery, it does not believe in hampering a child's natural expression.


=SPECIAL CARDS AND WHEN TO USE THEM=

The double card, reading Mr. and Mrs., is sent with a wedding present, or
with flowers to a funeral, or with flowers to a débutante, and is also
used in paying formal visits.

The card on which a débutante's name is engraved under that of her mother,
is used most frequently when no coming-out entertainment has been given
for the daughter. Her name on her mother's card announces, wherever it is
left, that the daughter is "grown" and "eligible" for invitations. In the
same way a mother may leave her son's card with her own upon any of her
own friends--especially upon those likely to entertain for young people.
This is the custom if a young man has been away at school and college for
so long that he has not a large acquaintance of his own. It is, however,
correct under any circumstances when formally leaving cards to leave those
of all sons and daughters who are grown.


=THE P.P.C. CARD=

This is merely a visiting card, whether of a lady or a gentleman, on which
the initials P.P.C. (_pour prendre congé_--to take leave) are written in
ink in the lower left corner. This is usually left at the door, or sent by
mail to acquaintances, when one is leaving for the season, or for good. It
never takes the place of a farewell visit when one has received especial
courtesy, nor is it in any sense a message of thanks for especial
kindness. In either of these instances, a visit should be paid or a note
of farewell and thanks written.


=CARDS OF NEW OR TEMPORARY ADDRESS=

In cities where there is no Social Register or other printed society list,
one notifies acquaintances of a change of address by mailing a visiting
card.

Cards are also sent, with a temporary address written in ink, when one is
in a strange city and wishes to notify friends where one is stopping.

It is also quite correct for a lady to mail her card with her temporary
address written on it to any gentleman whom she would care to see, and who
she is sure would like to see her.


=WHEN CARDS ARE SENT=

When not intending to go to a tea or a wedding reception (the invitation
to which did not have R.s.v.p. on it and require an answer), one should
mail cards to the hostess so as to arrive on the morning of the
entertainment. To a tea given for a débutante cards are enclosed in one
envelope and addressed:

    Mrs. Gilding
    Miss Gilding

        00 Fifth Avenue
              New York

For a wedding reception, cards are sent to Mr. and Mrs. ----, the mother
and father of the bride, and another set of cards sent to Mr. and
Mrs. ----, the bride and bridegroom.


=THE VISIT OF EMPTY FORM=

Not so many years ago, a lady or gentleman, young girl or youth, who
failed to pay her or his "party call" after having been invited to Mrs.
Social-Leader's ball was left out of her list when she gave her next one.
For the old-fashioned hostess kept her visiting list with the precision
of a bookkeeper in a bank; everyone's credit was entered or cancelled
according to the presence of her or his cards in the card receiver. Young
people who liked to be asked to her house were apt to leave an extra one
at the door, on occasion, so that theirs should not be among the missing
when the new list for the season was made up--especially as the more
important old ladies were very quick to strike a name off, but seldom if
ever known to put one back.

But about twenty years ago the era of informality set in and has been
gaining ground ever since. In certain cities old-fashioned hostesses, it
is said, exclude delinquents. But New York is too exotic and intractable,
and the too exacting hostess is likely to find her tapestried rooms rather
empty, while the younger world of fashion flocks to the crystal-fountained
ballroom of the new Spendeasy Westerns. And then, too, life holds so many
other diversions and interests for the very type of youth which of
necessity is the vital essence of all social gaiety. Society can have
distinction and dignity without youth--but not gaiety. The country with
its outdoor sports, its freedom from exacting conventions, has gradually
deflected the interest of the younger fashionables, until at present they
care very little whether Mrs. Toplofty and Mrs. Social-Leader ask them to
their balls or not. They are glad enough to go, of course, but they don't
care enough for invitations to pay dull visits and to live up to the
conventions of "manners" that old-fashioned hostesses demand. And as these
"rebels" are invariably the most attractive and the most eligible youths,
it has become almost an issue; a hostess must in many cases either invite
none but older people and the few young girls and men whose mothers have
left cards for them, or ignore convention and invite the rebels.

In trying to find out where the present indifference started, many ascribe
it to Bobo Gilding, to whom entering a great drawing-room was more
suggestive of the daily afternoon tea ordeal of his early nursery days,
than a voluntary act of pleasure. He was long ago one of the first to
rebel against old Mrs. Toplofty's exactions of party calls, by saying he
did not care in the least whether his great-aunt Jane Toplofty invited him
to her stodgy old ball or not. And then Lucy Wellborn (the present Mrs.
Bobo Gilding) did not care much to go either if none of her particular men
friends were to be there. Little she cared to dance the cotillion with old
Colonel Bluffington or to go to supper with that odious Hector Newman.

And so, beginning first with a few gilded youths, then including young
society, the habit has spread until the obligatory paying of visits by
young girls and men has almost joined the once universal "day at home" as
belonging to a past age. Do not understand by this that visits are never
paid on other occasions. Visits to strangers, visits of condolence, and of
other courtesies are still paid, quite as punctiliously as ever. But
within the walls of society itself, the visit of formality is decreasing.
One might almost say that in certain cities society has become a family
affair. Its walls are as high as ever, higher perhaps to outsiders, but
among its own members, such customs as keeping visiting lists and having
days at home, or even knowing who owes a visit to whom, is not only
unobserved but is unheard of.

But because punctilious card-leaving, visiting, and "days at home" have
gone out of fashion in New York, is no reason why these really important
observances should not be, or are not, in the height of fashion elsewhere.
Nor, on the other hand, must anyone suppose because the younger
fashionables in New York pay few visits and never have days at home, that
they are a bit less careful about the things which they happen to consider
essential to good-breeding.

The best type of young men pay few, if any, party calls, because they work
and they exercise, and whatever time is left over, if any, is spent in
their club or at the house of a young woman, not tête-a-tête, but
invariably playing bridge. The Sunday afternoon visits that the youth of
another generation used always to pay, are unknown in this, because every
man who can, spends the week-end in the country.

It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that not alone men, but many young
married women of highest social position, except to send with flowers or
wedding presents, do not use a dozen visiting cards a year. But there are
circumstances when even the most indifferent to social obligations must
leave cards.


=WHEN CARDS MUST BE LEFT=

Etiquette absolutely demands that one leave a card within a few days after
taking a first meal in a lady's house; or if one has for the first time
been _invited_ to lunch or dine with strangers, it is inexcusably rude not
to leave a card upon them, whether one accepted the invitation or not.

One must also unfailingly return a first call, even if one does not care
for the acquaintance. Only a real "cause" can excuse the affront to an
innocent stranger that the refusal to return a first call would imply. If
one does not care to continue the acquaintance, one need not pay a second
visit.

Also a card is always left with a first invitation. Supposing Miss
Philadelphia takes a letter of introduction to Mrs. Newport--Mrs. Newport,
inviting Miss Philadelphia to her house, would not think of sending her
invitation without also leaving her card. Good form demands that a visit
be paid before issuing a _first invitation_. Sometimes a note of
explanation is sent asking that the formality be waived, but it is _never_
disregarded, except in the case of an invitation from an older lady to a
young girl. Mrs. Worldly, for instance, who has known Jim Smartlington
always, might, instead of calling on Mary Smith, to whom his engagement is
announced, write her a note, asking her to lunch or dinner. But in
inviting Mrs. Greatlake of Chicago she would leave her card with her
invitation at Mrs. Greatlake's hotel.

It seems scarcely necessary to add that anyone not entirely heartless
must leave a card on, or send flowers to, an acquaintance who has suffered
a recent bereavement. One should also leave cards of inquiry or send
flowers to sick people.


=INVITATION IN PLACE OF RETURNED VISIT=

Books on etiquette seem agreed that sending an invitation does not cancel
the obligation of paying a visit--which may be technically correct--but
fashionable people, who are in the habit of lunching or dining with each
other two or three times a season, pay no attention to visits whatever.
Mrs. Norman calls on Mrs. Gilding. Mrs. Gilding invites the Normans to
dinner. They go. A short time afterward Mrs. Norman invites the
Gildings--or the Gildings very likely again invite the Normans. Some
evening at all events, the Gildings dine with the Normans. Someday, if
Mrs. Gilding happens to be leaving cards, she may leave them at the
Normans--or she may not. Some people leave cards almost like the "hares"
in a paper chase; others seldom if ever do. Except on the occasions
mentioned in the paragraph before this, or unless there is an illness, a
death, a birth, or a marriage, people in society invite each other to
their houses and don't leave cards at all. Nor do they ever consider whose
"turn" it is to invite whom.


="NOT AT HOME"=

When a servant at a door says "Not at home," this phrase means that the
lady of the house is "Not at home to visitors." This answer neither
signifies nor implies--nor is it intended to--that Mrs. Jones is out of
the house. Some people say "Not receiving," which means actually the same
thing, but the "not at home" is infinitely more polite; since in the
former you know she is in the house but won't see you, whereas in the
latter case you have the pleasant uncertainty that it is quite possible
she is out.

To be told "Mrs. Jones is at home but doesn't want to see you," would
certainly be unpleasant. And to "beg to be excused"--except in a case of
illness or bereavement--has something very suggestive of a cold shoulder.
But "not at home" means that she is not sitting in the drawing room behind
her tea tray; that and nothing else. She may be out or she may be lying
down or otherwise occupied. Nor do people of the world find the slightest
objection if a hostess, happening to recognize the visitor as a particular
friend, calls out, "Do come in! I _am_ at home to _you!_" Anyone who talks
about this phrase as being a "white lie" either doesn't understand the
meaning of the words, or is going very far afield to look for untruth. To
be consistent, these over-literals should also exact that when a guest
inadvertently knocks over a tea cup and stains a sofa, the hostess instead
of saying "It is nothing at all! Please don't worry about it," ought for
the sake of truth to say, "See what your clumsiness has done! You have
ruined my sofa!" And when someone says "How are you?" instead of answering
"Very well, thank you," the same truthful one should perhaps take an hour
by the clock and mention every symptom of indisposition that she can
accurately subscribe to.

While "not at home" is merely a phrase of politeness, to say "I am _out_"
after a card has been brought to you is both an untruth and an inexcusable
rudeness. Or to have an inquiry answered, "I don't know, but I'll see,"
and then to have the servant, after taking a card, come back with the
message "Mrs. Jones is out" can not fail to make the visitor feel
rebuffed. Once a card has been admitted, the visitor _must_ be admitted
also, no matter how inconvenient receiving her may be. You may send a
message that you are dressing but will be very glad to see her if she can
wait ten minutes. The visitor can either wait or say she is pressed for
time. But if she does not wait, then _she_ is rather discourteous.

Therefore, it is of the utmost importance always to leave directions at
the door such as, "Mrs. Jones is not at home." "Miss Jones will be home at
five o'clock," "Mrs. Jones will be home at 5.30," or Mrs. Jones "is at
home" in the library to intimate friends, but "not at home" in the
drawing-room to acquaintances. It is a nuisance to be obliged to remember
either to turn an "in" and "out" card in the hail, or to ring a bell and
say, "I am going out," and again, "I have come in." But whatever plan or
arrangement you choose, no one at your front door should be left in doubt
and then repulsed. It is not only bad manners, it is bad housekeeping.


=THE OLD-FASHIONED DAY AT HOME=

It is doubtful if the present generation of New Yorkers knows what a day
at home is! But their mothers, at least, remember the time when the
fashionable districts were divided into regular sections, wherein on a
given day in the week, the whole neighborhood was "at home." Friday sounds
familiar as the day for Washington Square! And was it Monday for lower
Fifth Avenue? At all events, each neighborhood on the day of its own,
suggested a local fête. Ladies in visiting dresses with trains and bonnets
and nose-veils and tight gloves, holding card cases, tripped demurely into
this house, out of that, and again into another; and there were always
many broughams and victorias slowly "exercising" up and down, and very
smart footmen standing with maroon or tan or fur rugs over their arms in
front of Mrs. Wellborn's house or Mrs. Oldname's, or the big house of Mrs.
Toplofty at the corner of Fifth Avenue. It must have been enchanting to be
a grown person in those days! Enchanting also were the C-spring victorias,
as was life in general that was taken at a slow carriage pace and not at
the motor speed of to-day. The "day at home" is still in fashion in
Washington, and it is ardently to be hoped that it also flourishes in many
cities and towns throughout the country or that it will be revived, for it
is a delightful custom--though more in keeping with Europe than America,
which does not care for gentle paces once it has tasted swift. A certain
young New York hostess announced that she was going to stay home on
Saturday afternoons. But the men went to the country and the women to the
opera, and she gave it up.

There are a few old-fashioned ladies, living in old-fashioned houses, and
still staying at home in the old-fashioned way to old-fashioned friends
who for decades have dropped in for a cup of tea and a chat. And there are
two maiden ladies in particular, joint chatelaines of an imposingly
beautiful old house where, on a certain afternoon of the week, if you come
in for tea, you are sure to meet not alone those prominent in the world of
fashion, but a fair admixture of artists, scientists, authors; inventors,
distinguished strangers--in a word Best Society in its truest sense. But
days at home such as these are not easily duplicated; for few houses
possess a "salon" atmosphere, and few hostesses achieve either the social
talent or the wide cultivation necessary to attract and interest so varied
and brilliant a company.


=MODERN CARD LEAVING: A QUESTIONABLE ACT OF POLITENESS=

The modern New York fashion in card-leaving is to dash as fast as possible
from house to house, sending the chauffeur up the steps with cards,
without ever asking if anyone is home. Some butlers announce "Not at home"
from force of habit even when no question is asked. There are occasions
when the visitors _must_ ask to see the hostess (see page 88); but cards
are left without asking whether a lady is at home under the following
circumstances:

Cards are left on the mother of the bride, after a wedding, also on the
mother of the groom.

Cards are also left after any formal invitation. Having been asked to
lunch or dine with a lady whom you know but slightly you should leave your
card whether you accepted the invitation or not, within three days if
possible, or at least within a week, of the date for which you were
invited. It is not considered necessary (in New York at least) to ask if
she is at home; promptness in leaving your card is, in this instance,
better manners than delaying your "party call" and asking if she is at
home. This matter of asking at the door is one that depends upon the
customs of each State and city, but as it is always wiser to err on the
side of politeness, it is the better policy, if in doubt, to ask "Is Mrs.
Blank at home?" rather than to run the risk of offending a lady who may
like to see visitors.

A card is usually left with a first invitation to a stranger who has
brought a letter of introduction, but it is more polite--even though not
necessary--to ask to be received. Some ladies make it a habit to leave a
card on everyone on their visiting list once a season.

It is correct for the mother of a débutante to leave her card as well as
her daughter's on every lady who has invited the daughter to her house,
and a courteous hostess returns all of these pasteboard visits. But
neither visit necessitates closer or even further acquaintance.


=VISITS WHICH EVERYONE MUST PAY=

Paying visits differs from leaving cards in that you must ask to be
received. A visit of condolence should be paid at once to a friend when a
death occurs in her immediate family. A lady does not call on a gentleman,
but writes him a note of sympathy.

In going to inquire for sick people, you should ask to be received, and it
is always thoughtful to take them gifts of books or fruit or flowers.

If a relative announces his engagement, you must at once go to see his
fiancée. Should she be out, you do not ask to see her mother. You do,
however, leave a card upon both ladies and you ask to see her mother if
received by the daughter.

A visit of congratulation is also paid to a new mother and a gift
invariably presented to the baby.


=MESSAGES WRITTEN ON CARDS=

"With sympathy" or "With deepest sympathy" is written on your visiting
card with flowers sent to a funeral. This same message is written on a
card and left at the door of a house of mourning, if you do not know the
family well enough to ask to be received.

"To inquire" is often written on a card left at the house of a sick
person, but not if you are received.

In going to see a friend who is visiting a lady whom you do not know,
whether you should leave a card on the hostess as well as on your friend
depends upon the circumstances: if the hostess is one who is socially
prominent and you are unknown, it would be better taste not to leave a
card on her, since your card afterward found without explanation might be
interpreted as an uncalled-for visit made in an attempt for a place on her
list. If, on the other hand, she is the unknown person and you are the
prominent one, your card is polite, but unwise unless you mean to include
her name on your list. But if she is one with whom you have many interests
in common, then you may very properly leave a card for her.

In leaving a card on a lady stopping at a hotel or living in an apartment
house, you should write her name in pencil across the top of your card, to
insure its being given to her, and not to some one else.

At the house of a lady whom you know well and whom you are sorry not to
find at home, it is "friendly" to write "Sorry not to see you!" or "So
sorry to miss you!"

Turning down a corner of a visiting card is by many intended to convey
that the visit is meant for all the ladies in the family. Other people
mean merely to show that the card was left at the door in person and not
sent in an envelope. Other people turn them down from force of habit and
mean nothing whatever. But whichever the reason, more cards are bent or
dog-eared than are left flat.


=ENGRAVED CARDS ANNOUNCING ENGAGEMENT, BAD FORM=

Someone somewhere asked whether or not to answer an engraved card
announcing an engagement. The answer can have nothing to do with
etiquette, since an engraved announcement is unknown to good society. (For
the proper announcement of an engagement see page 304.)


=WHEN PEOPLE SEE THEIR FRIENDS=

Five o'clock is the informal hour when people are "at home" to friends.
The correct hour for leaving cards and paying formal visits is between
3.30 and 4.30. One should hesitate to pay a visit at the "tea hour" unless
one is sure of one's welcome among the "intimates" likely to be found
around the hostess's tea-table.

Many ladies make it their practise to be home if possible at five o'clock,
and their friends who know them well come in at that time. (For the
afternoon tea-table and its customs, see page 171.)


=INFORMAL VISITING OFTEN ARRANGED BY TELEPHONE=

For instance, instead of ringing her door-bell, Mrs. Norman calls Mrs.
Kindhart on the telephone: "I haven't seen you for weeks! Won't you come
in to tea, or to lunch--just you." Mrs. Kindhart answers, "Yes, I'd love
to. I can come this afternoon"; and five o'clock finds them together over
the tea-table.

In the same way young Struthers calls up Millicent Gilding, "Are you going
to be in this afternoon?" She says, "Yes, but not until a quarter of six."
He says, "Fine, I'll come then." Or she says, "I'm so sorry, I'm playing
bridge with Pauline--but I'll be in to-morrow!" He says, "All right, I'll
come to-morrow."

The younger people rarely ever go to see each other without first
telephoning. Or since even young people seldom meet except for bridge,
most likely it is Millicent Gilding who telephones the Struthers youth to
ask if he can't possibly get uptown before five o'clock to make a fourth
with Mary and Jim and herself.


=HOW A FIRST VISIT IS MADE=

In very large cities, neighbors seldom call on each other. But if
strangers move into a neighborhood in a small town or in the country, or
at a watering-place, it is not only unfriendly but uncivil for their
neighbors not to call on them. The older residents always call on the
newer. And the person of greatest social prominence should make the first
visit, or at least invite the younger or less prominent one to call on
her; which the younger should promptly do.

Or two ladies of equal age or position may either one say, "I wish you
would come to see me." To which the other replies "I will with pleasure."
More usually the first one offers "I should like to come to see you, if I
may." And the other, of course, answers "I shall be delighted if you
will."

The first one, having suggested going to see the second, is bound in
politeness to do so, otherwise she implies that the acquaintance on second
thought seems distasteful to her.

Everyone invited to a wedding should call upon the bride on her return
from the honeymoon. And when a man marries a girl from a distant place,
courtesy absolutely demands that his friends and neighbors call on her as
soon as she arrives in her new home.


=ON OPENING THE DOOR TO A VISITOR=

On the hall table in every house, there should be a small silver, or other
card tray, a pad and a pencil. The nicest kind of pad is one that when
folded, makes its own envelope, so that a message when written need not be
left open. There are all varieties and sizes at all stationers.

When the door-bell rings, the servant on duty, who can easily see the
chauffeur or lady approaching, should have the card tray ready to present,
on the palm of the left hand. A servant at the door must never take the
cards in his or her fingers.


=CORRECT NUMBER OF CARDS TO LEAVE=

When the visitor herself rings the door-bell and the message is "not at
home," the butler or maid proffers the card tray on which the visitor lays
a card of her own and her daughter's for each lady in the house and a card
of her husband's and son's for each lady and gentleman. But three is the
greatest number ever left of any one card. In calling on Mrs. Town, who
has three grown daughters and her mother living in the house, and a Mrs.
Stranger staying with her whom the visitor was invited to a luncheon to
meet, a card on each would need a packet of six. Instead, the visitor
should leave three--one for Mrs. Town, one for all the other ladies of the
house, and one for Mrs. Stranger. In asking to be received, her query at
the door should be "Are any of the ladies at home?" Or in merely leaving
her cards she should say "For all of the ladies."


=WHEN THE CALLER LEAVES=

The butler or maid must stand with the front door open until a visitor
re-enters her motor, or if she is walking, until she has reached the
sidewalk. It is bad manners ever to close the door in a visitor's face.

When a chauffeur leaves cards, the door may be closed as soon as he turns
away.


=WHEN THE LADY OF THE HOUSE IS AT HOME=

When the door is opened by a waitress or a parlor-maid and the mistress of
the house is in the drawing-room, the maid says "This way, please," and
leads the way. She goes as quickly as possible to present the card tray.
The guest, especially if a stranger, lags in order to give the hostess
time to read the name on the card.

The maid meanwhile moves aside, to make room for the approaching visitor,
who goes forward to shake hands with the hostess. If a butler is at the
door, he reads the card himself, picking it up from the tray, and opening
the door of the drawing-room announces: "Mrs. Soandso," after which he
puts the card on the hall table.

The duration of a formal visit should be in the neighborhood of twenty
minutes. But if other visitors are announced, the first one--on a very
formal occasion--may cut her visit shorter. Or if conversation becomes
especially interesting, the visit may be prolonged five minutes or so. On
no account must a visitor stay an hour!

A hostess always rises when a visitor enters, unless the visitor is a
very young woman or man and she herself elderly, or unless she is seated
behind the tea-table so that rising is difficult. She should, however,
always rise and go forward to meet a lady much older than herself; but she
never rises from her tea-table to greet a man, unless he is quite old.

If the lady of the house is "at home" but up-stairs, the servant at the
door leads the visitor into the reception room, saying "Will you take a
seat, please?" and then carries the card to the mistress of the house.

On an exceptional occasion, such as paying a visit of condolence or
inquiring for a convalescent, when the question as to whether he will be
received is necessarily doubtful, a gentleman does not take off his coat
or gloves, but waits in the reception room with his hat in his hand. When
the servant returning says either "Will you come this way, please?" or
"Mrs. Town is not well enough to see any one, but Miss Alice will be down
in a moment," the visitor divests himself of his coat and gloves, which
the servant carries, as well as his hat, out to the front hall.

As said before, few men pay visits without first telephoning. But perhaps
two or three times during a winter a young man, when he is able to get
away from his office in time, will make a tea-time visit upon a hostess
who has often invited him to dinner or to her opera box. Under ordinary
circumstances, however, some woman member of his family leaves his card
for him after a dinner or a dance, or else it is not left at all.

A gentleman paying visits, always asks if the hostess is at home. If she
is, he leaves his hat and stick in the hall and also removes and leaves
his gloves--and rubbers should he be wearing them. If the hour is between
five and half-past, the hostess is inevitably at her tea-table, in the
library, to which, if he is at all well known to the servant at the door,
he is at once shown without being first asked to wait in the reception
room. A gentleman entering a room in which there are several people who
are strangers, shakes hands with his hostess and slightly bows to all the
others, whether he knows them personally or not. He, of course, shakes
hands with any who are friends, and with all men to whom he is introduced,
but with a lady only if she offers him her hand.


=HOW TO ENTER A DRAWING-ROOM=

To know how to enter a drawing-room is supposed to be one of the supreme
tests of good breeding. But there should be no more difficulty in entering
the drawing-room of Mrs. Worldly than in entering the sitting-room at
home. Perhaps the best instruction would be like that in learning to swim.
"Take plenty of time, don't struggle and don't splash about!" Good manners
socially are not unlike swimming--not the "crawl" or "overhand," but
smooth, tranquil swimming. (Quite probably where the expression "in the
swim" came from anyway!) Before actually entering a room, it is easiest to
pause long enough to see where the hostess is. Never start forward and
then try to find her as an afterthought. The place to pause is on the
threshold--not half-way in the room. The way _not_ to enter a drawing-room
is to dart forward and then stand awkwardly bewildered and looking about
in every direction. A man of the world stops at the entrance of the room
for a scarcely perceptible moment, until he perceives the most
unencumbered approach to the hostess, and he thereupon walks over to her.
When he greets his hostess he pauses slightly, the hostess smiles and
offers her hand; the gentleman smiles and shakes hands, at the same time
bowing. A lady shakes hands with the hostess and with every one she knows
who is nearby. She bows to acquaintances at a distance and to strangers to
whom she is introduced.


=HOW TO SIT GRACEFULLY=

Having shaken hands with the hostess, the visitor, whether a lady or a
gentleman, looks about quietly, without hurry, for a convenient chair to
sit down upon, or drop into. To sit gracefully one should not perch
stiffly on the edge of a straight chair, nor sprawl at length in an easy
one. The perfect position is one that is easy, but dignified. In other
days, no lady of dignity ever crossed her knees, held her hands on her
hips, or twisted herself sideways, or even _leaned back in her chair!_
To-day all these things are done; and the only etiquette left is on the
subject of how not to exaggerate them. No lady should cross her knees so
that her skirts go up to or above them; neither should her foot be thrust
out so that her toes are at knee level. An arm a-kimbo is _not_ a graceful
attitude, nor is a twisted spine! Everyone, of course, leans against a
chair back, except in a box at the opera and in a ballroom, but a lady
should never throw herself almost at full length in a reclining chair or
on a wide sofa when she is out in public. Neither does a gentleman in
paying a formal visit sit on the middle of his backbone with one ankle
supported on the other knee, and both as high as his head.

The proper way for a lady to sit is in the center of her chair, or
slightly sideways in the corner of a sofa. She may lean back, of course,
and easily; her hands relaxed in her lap, her knees together, or if
crossed, her foot must not be thrust forward so as to leave a space
between the heel and her other ankle. On informal occasions she can lean
back in an easy chair with her hands on the arms. In a ball dress a lady
of distinction never leans back in a chair; one can not picture a
beautiful and high-bred woman, wearing a tiara and other ballroom jewels,
leaning against anything. This is, however, not so much a rule of
etiquette as a question of beauty and fitness.

A gentleman, also on very formal occasions, should sit in the center of
his chair; but unless it is a deep lounging one, he always leans against
the back and puts a hand or an elbow on its arms.


=POSTSCRIPTS ON VISITS=

A lady never calls on another under the sponsorship of a gentleman--unless
he is her husband or father. A young girl can very properly go with her
fiancé to return visit paid to her by members or friends of his family;
but she should not pay an initial visit unless to an invalid who has
written her a note asking her to do so.

If, when arriving at a lady's house, you find her motor at the door, you
should leave your card as though she were not at home. If she happens to
be in the hall, or coming down the steps, you say "I see you are going
out, and I won't keep you!"

If she insists on your coming in, you should stay only a moment. Do not,
however, fidget and talk about leaving. Sit down as though your leaving
immediately were not on your mind, but after two or three minutes say
"Good-by" and go.

A young man may go to see a young girl as often as he feels inclined and
she cares to receive him. If she continually asks to be excused, or shows
him scant attention when he is talking to her, or in any other way
indicates that he annoys or bores her, his visits should cease.

It is very bad manners to invite one person to your house and leave out
another with whom you are also talking. You should wait for an opportunity
when the latter is not included in your conversation.

In good society ladies do not kiss each other when they meet either at
parties or in public.

It is well to remember that nothing more blatantly stamps an ill-bred
person than the habit of patting, nudging or taking hold of people. "Keep
your hands to yourself!" might almost be put at the head of the first
chapter of every book on etiquette.

Be very chary of making any such remarks as "I am afraid I have stayed too
long," or "I must apologize for hurrying off," or "I am afraid I have
bored you to death talking so much." All such expressions are
self-conscious and stupid. If you really think you are staying too long or
leaving too soon or talking too much--don't!


=AN INVALID'S VISIT BY PROXY=

It is not necessary that an invalid make any attempt to return the visits
to her friends who are attentive enough to go often to see her. But if a
stranger calls on her--particularly a stranger who may not know that she
is always confined to the house, it is correct for a daughter or sister
or even a friend to leave the invalid's card for her and even to pay a
visit should she find a hostess "at home." In this event the visitor by
proxy lays her own card as well as that of the invalid on the tray
proffered her. Upon being announced to the hostess, she naturally explains
that she is appearing in place of her mother (or whatever relation the
invalid is to her) and that the invalid herself is unable to make any
visits.

A lady never pays a party call on a gentleman. But if the gentleman who
has given a dinner has his mother (or sister) staying with him and if the
mother (or sister) chaperoned the party, cards should of course be left
upon her.

Having risen to go, _go_! Don't stand and keep your hostess standing while
you say good-by, and make a last remark last half an hour!

Few Americans are so punctilious as to pay their dinner calls within
twenty-four hours; but it is the height of correctness and good manners.

When a gentleman, whose wife is away, accepts some one's hospitality, it
is correct for his wife to pay the party call with (or for) him, since it
is taken for granted that she would have been included had she been at
home.

In other days a hostess thought it necessary to change quickly into a best
dress if important company rang her door-bell. A lady of fashion to-day
receives her visitors at once in whatever dress she happens to be wearing,
since not to keep them waiting is the greater courtesy.




CHAPTER XI

INVITATIONS, ACCEPTANCES AND REGRETS


=THE FORMAL INVITATION=

As an inheritance from the days when Mrs. Brown presented her compliments
and begged that Mrs. Smith would do her the honor to take a dish of tea
with her, we still--notwithstanding the present flagrant disregard of
old-fashioned convention--send our formal invitations, acceptances and
regrets, in the prescribed punctiliousness of the third person.

All formal invitations, whether they are to be engraved or to be written
by hand (and their acceptances and regrets) are invariably in the third
person, and good usage permits of no deviation from this form.


=WEDDING INVITATIONS=

The invitation to the ceremony is engraved on the front sheet of white
note-paper. The smartest, at present, is that with a raised margin--or
plate mark. At the top of the sheet the crest (if the family of the bride
has the right to use one) is embossed without color. Otherwise the
invitation bears no device. The engraving may be in script, block, shaded
block, or old English. The invitation to the ceremony should always
request "the honour" of your "presence," and never the "pleasure" of your
"company." (Honour is spelled in the old-fashioned way, with a "u" instead
of "honor.")


_Enclosed in Two Envelopes_

Two envelopes are never used except for wedding invitations or
announcements; but wedding invitations and all accompaning cards are
always enclosed first in an inner envelope that has no mucilage on the
flap, and is superscribed "Mr. and Mrs. Jameson Greatlake," without
address. This is enclosed in an outer envelope which is sealed and
addressed:

    Mr. and Mrs. Jameson Greatlake,
        24 Michigan Avenue,
            Chicago.

To those who are only "asked to the church" no house invitation is
enclosed.


=THE CHURCH INVITATION=

The proper form for an invitation to a church ceremony is:

(_Form No. 1._)

    Mr. and Mrs. John Huntington Smith
    request the honour of your presence
     at the marriage of their daughter
             Mary Katherine
                    to
          Mr. James Smartlington
      on Tuesday the first of November
            at twelve o'clock
          at St. John's Church
         in the City of New York


(_Form No. 2._)

      Mr. and Mrs. John Huntington Smith
            request the honour of
          [HW: Miss Pauline Town's]
    presence at the marriage of their daughter
               Mary Katherine
                     to
          Mr. James Smartlington
      on Tuesday the first of November
             at twelve o'clock
            at St. John's Church

(_The size of invitations is 5-1/8 wide by 7-3/8 deep._)


(_When the parents issue the invitations for a wedding at a house other
than their own._)

         Mr. and Mrs. Richard Littlehouse

              request the honour of



    presence at the marriage of their daughter

                      Betty

                       to

             Mr. Frederic Robinson

       on Saturday the fifth of November

                at four o'clock

    at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Sterlington

                 Tuxedo Park

                  New York

    R.s.v.p.

No variation is permissible in the form of a wedding invitation. Whether
fifty guests are to be invited or five thousand, the paper, the engraving
and the wording, and the double envelope are precisely the same.


_Church Card of Admittance_

In cities or wherever the general public is not to be admitted, a card of
about the size of a small visiting card is enclosed with the church
invitation:

      Please present this card,
          at St. John's Church
    on Tuesday the first of November


_Cards to Reserved Pews_

To the family and very intimate friends who are to be seated in especially
designated pews:

    Please present this to an usher
              Pew No.
     on Thursday the ninth of May

Engraved pew cards are ordered only for very big weddings where twenty or
more pews are to be reserved. The more usual custom--at all small and many
big weddings--is for the mother of the bride, and the mother of the
bridegroom each to write on her personal visiting card:

    [HW: Pew No. 7]

       Mrs. John Huntington Smith

              FOUR WEST THIRTY-SIXTH STREET

A card for the reserved enclosure but no especial pew is often inscribed
"Within the Ribbons."


=INVITATION TO THE HOUSE=

The invitation to the breakfast or reception following the church ceremony
is engraved on a card to match the paper of the church invitation and is
the size of the latter after it is folded for the envelope:

    Mr. and Mrs. John Huntington Smith

        request the pleasure of

    [HW: Mr. & Mrs. James Greatlake's]

    company on Tuesday the first of November
        at half after four o'clock
      at Four West Thirty-sixth Street

    R.s.v.p.


=CEREMONY AND RECEPTION INVITATION IN ONE=

Occasionally, especially for a country wedding, the invitation to the
breakfast or the reception is added to the one to the ceremony:

Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Chatterton request the
honour of

           [HW: Mr. & Mrs. Worldly's]

   presence at the marriage of their daughter

                     Hester

                       to

             Mr. James Town, junior

          on Tuesday the first of June

                at three o'clock

              at St. John's Church

          and afterwards at Sunnylawn

                   Ridgefield

    R.s.v.p.


Or the invitation reads "at twelve o'clock, at St. John's Church, and
afterwards at breakfast at Sunnylawn"; but "afterwards to the reception at
Sunnylawn" is wrong.


=THE INVITATION TO A HOUSE WEDDING=

Is precisely the same except that "at Sunnylawn" or "at Four West
Thirty-sixth Street" is put in place of "at St. John's Church," and an
invitation to stay on at a house, to which the guest is already invited,
is not necessary.

_The Train Card_

If the wedding is to be in the country, a train card is enclosed:

    A special train will leave Grand Central Station at 12:45 P.M.,
    arriving at Ridgefield at 2:45. Returning, train will leave
    Ridgefield at 5:10 P.M., arriving New York at 7.02 P.M.

    _Show this card at the gate._


=INVITATION TO RECEPTION AND NOT TO CEREMONY=

It sometimes happens that the bride prefers none but her family at the
ceremony, and a big reception. This plan is chosen where the mother of the
bride or other very near relative is an invalid. The ceremony may take
place at a bedside, or it may be that the invalid can go down to the
drawing-room with only the immediate families, and is unequal to the
presence of many people.

Under these circumstances the invitations to the breakfast or reception
are sent on sheets of note paper like that used for church invitations,
but the wording is:

           Mr. and Mrs. Grantham Jones

      request the pleasure of your company

    at the wedding breakfast of their daughter

                      Muriel

                       and

             Mr. Burlingame Ross, Jr.

         on Saturday the first of November

               at one o'clock

         at Four East Thirty-Eighth Street

    The favor of an
    answer is requested

The "pleasure of your company" is requested in this case instead of the
"honour of your presence."


=THE WRITTEN WEDDING INVITATION=

If a wedding is to be so small that no invitations are engraved, the notes
of invitation should be personally written by the bride:

    Sally Dear:

    Our wedding is to be on Thursday the tenth at half-past twelve,
    Christ Church Chantry. Of course we want you and Jack and the
    children! And we want all of you to come afterward to Aunt
    Mary's, for a bite to eat and to wish us luck.

    Affectionately,
    Helen.

or

    Dear Mrs. Kindhart:

    Dick and I are to be married at Christ Church Chantry at noon on
    Thursday the tenth. We both want you and Mr. Kindhart to come to
    the church and afterward for a very small breakfast to my
    Aunt's--Mrs. Slade--at Two Park Avenue.

    With much love from us both,
    Affectionately,
    Helen.


=WEDDING ANNOUNCEMENTS=

If no general invitations were issued to the church, an announcement
engraved on note paper like that of the invitation to the ceremony, is
sent to the entire visiting list of both the bride's and the groom's
family:

        Mr. and Mrs. Maynard Barnes

        have the honour to announce

       the marriage of their daughter

                Priscilla

                   to

          Mr. Eben Hoyt Leaming

    on Tuesday the twenty-sixth of April

    One thousand nine hundred and twenty-two

           in the City of New York


=THE SECOND MARRIAGE=


=INVITATIONS=

Invitations to the marriage of a widow--if she is very young--are sent in
the name of her parents exactly as were the invitations to her first
wedding, excepting that her name instead of being merely Priscilla is now
written Priscilla Barnes Leaming, thus:

        Mr. and Mrs. Maynard Barnes
    request the honour of your presence
      at the marriage of their daughter
          Priscilla Barnes Leaming

                    to

etc.


=ANNOUNCEMENTS=

For a young widow's marriage are also the same as for a first wedding:

    Mr. and Mrs. Maynard Barnes
      have the honour to announce
    the marriage of their daughter
       Priscilla Barnes Leaming
                to
        Mr. Worthington Adams

etc. But the announcement of the marriage of a widow of maturer years is
engraved on note paper and reads:

        Mrs. Priscilla Barnes Leaming
                     and
             Mr. Worthington Adams
    have the honour to announce their marriage
         on Monday the second of November
              at Saratoga Springs
                   New York


=CARDS OF ADDRESS=

If the bride and groom wish to inform their friends of their future
address (especially in cities not covered by the Social Register), it is
customary to enclose a card with the announcement:

    Mr. and Mrs. Worthington Adams

          will be at home

      after the first of December

     at Twenty-five Alderney Place

Or merely their visiting card with their new address in the lower right
corner:

    Mr. and Mrs. Worthington Adams


                    25 Alderney Place


=INVITATION TO WEDDING ANNIVERSARY=

For a wedding anniversary celebration, the year of the wedding and the
present year are usually stamped across the top of an invitation.
Sometimes the couple's initials are added.

               1898-1922

        Mr. and Mrs. Alvin Johnson

         request the pleasure of

         [HW: Mr. & Mrs. ILLEGIBLE]

             company at the

  Twenty-fifth Anniversary of their marriage

       on Wednesday the first of June

              at nine o'clock

         Twenty-four Austin Avenue

    R.s.v.p.


=ANSWERING A WEDDING INVITATION=

An invitation to the church only requires no answer whatever. An
invitation to the reception or breakfast is answered on the first page of
a sheet of note paper, and although it is written "by hand" the spacing of
the words must be followed as though they were engraved. This is the form
of acceptance:

    Mr. and Mrs. Robert Gilding, Jr.,
        accept with pleasure
    Mr. and Mrs. John Huntington Smith's
        kind invitation for
     Tuesday the first of June

The regret reads:

        Mr. and Mrs. Richard Brown
    regret that they are unable to accept
    Mr. and Mrs. John Huntington Smith's
           kind invitation for
        Tuesday the first of June


=OTHER FORMAL INVITATIONS=

All other formal invitations are engraved (never printed) on cards of thin
white matte Bristol board, either plain or plate-marked like those for
wedding reception cards. Note paper such as that used for wedding
invitations is occasionally, but rarely, preferred.

Monograms, addresses, personal devices are not used on engraved
invitations.

The size of the card of invitation varies with personal preference from
four and a half to six inches in width, and from three to four and a half
inches in height. The most graceful proportion is three units in height to
four in width.

The lettering is a matter of personal choice, but the plainer the design,
the better. Scrolls and ornate trimmings are bad taste always. Punctuation
is used only after each letter of the R.s.v.p. and it is absolutely
correct to use small letters for the s.v.p. Capitals R.S.V.P. are
permissible; but fastidious people prefer "R.s.v.p."


=INVITATION TO A BALL=

The word "ball" is never used excepting in an invitation to a public one,
or at least a semi-public one, such as may be given by a committee for a
charity or a club, or association of some sort.

For example:

       The Committee of the Greenwood Club

       request the pleasure of your company

                  at a Ball

      to be held in the Greenwood Clubhouse

      on the evening of November the seventh

               at ten o'clock.

             for the benefit of

         The Neighborhood Hospital


    Tickets five dollars

Invitations to a private ball, no matter whether the ball is to be given
in a private house, or whether the hostess has engaged an entire floor of
the biggest hotel in the world, announce merely that Mr. and Mrs. Somebody
will be "At Home," and the word "dancing" is added almost as though it
were an afterthought in the lower left corner, the words "At Home" being
slightly larger than those of the rest of the invitation. When both "At"
and "Home" are written with a capital letter, this is the most punctilious
and formal invitation that it is possible to send. It is engraved in
script usually, on a card of white Bristol board about five and a half
inches wide and three and three-quarters of an inch high. Like the wedding
invitation it has an embossed crest without color, or nothing.

The precise form is:

    Mr. and Mrs. Titherington de Payster

                  At Home

      On Monday the third of January

              at ten o'clock

        One East Fiftieth Street

    The favour of an answer
    is requested                              Dancing

or

    Mr. and Mrs. Davis Jefferson

            At Home

    On Monday the third of January

        at ten o'clock

      Town and Country Club

    Kindly send reply to
    Three Mt. Vernon Square                  Dancing

(_If preferred, the above invitations may be engraved in block or shaded
block type._)


=BALL FOR DÉBUTANTE DAUGHTER=

Very occasionally an invitation is worded

    Mr. and Mrs. Davis Jefferson

       Miss Alice Jefferson

            At Home

if the daughter is a débutante and the ball is for her, but it is not
strictly correct to have any names but those of the host and his wife
above the words "At Home."

The proper form of invitation when the ball is to be given for a
débutante, is as follows:

              Mr. and Mrs. de Puyster

              request the pleasure of

            [HW: Miss Rosalie Gray's]

    company at a dance in honour of their daughter

               Miss Alice de Puyster

      on Monday evening, the third of January

                 at ten o'clock

            One East Fiftieth Street

       R.s.v.p.

or

       Mr. and Mrs. Titherington de Puyster

            Miss Alice de Puyster

            request the pleasure of

        [HW: Mr. and Mrs. Greatlake's]

    company on Monday evening the third of January

               at ten o'clock

          One East Fiftieth Street

    Dancing
    R.s.v.p.

The form most often used by fashionable hostesses in New York and Newport
is:

         Mr. and Mrs. Gilding

        request the pleasure of


        company at a small dance

     on Monday the first of January

      at Ought Ought Fifth Avenue

Even if given for a débutante daughter, her name does not appear, and it
is called a "small dance," whether it is really small or big. The request
for a reply is often omitted, since everyone is supposed to know that an
answer is necessary. But if the dance, or dinner, or whatever the
entertainment is to be, is given at one address and the hostess lives at
another, both addresses are always given:

       Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Oldname

          request the pleasure of


           company at a dance

    on Monday evening the sixth of January

            at ten o'clock

           The Fitz-Cherry


    Kindly send response to
    Brookmeadows
    L.I.

If the dance is given for a young friend who is not a relative, Mr. and
Mrs. Oldname's invitations should

       request the pleasure of


    company at a dance in honour of

          Miss Rosalie Grey


=WHEN AND HOW ONE MAY ASK FOR AN INVITATION FOR A STRANGER=

One may never ask for an invitation for oneself anywhere! And one may not
ask for an invitation to a luncheon or a dinner for a stranger. But an
invitation for any general entertainment may be asked for a
stranger--especially for a house-guest.

Example:

    Dear Mrs. Worldly,

    A young cousin of mine, David Blakely from Chicago, is staying
    with us.

    May Pauline take him to your dance on Friday? If it will be
    inconvenient for you to include him, please do not hesitate to
    say so frankly.

    Very sincerely yours,
    Caroline Robinson Town.

Answer:

    Dear Mrs. Town,

    I shall be delighted to have Pauline bring Mr. Blakely on the
    tenth.

    Sincerely yours,
    Edith Worldly.

Or

A man might write for an invitation for a friend. But a very young girl
should not ask for an invitation for a man--or anyone--since it is more
fitting that her mother ask for her. An older girl might say to Mrs.
Worldly, "My cousin is staying with us, may I bring him to your dance?" Or
if she knows Mrs. Worldly very well she might send a message by telephone:
"Miss Town would like to know whether she may bring her cousin, Mr.
Michigan, to Mrs. Worldly's dance."


=CARD OF GENERAL INVITATION=

Invitations to important entertainments are nearly always especially
engraved, so that nothing is written except the name of the person
invited; but, for the hostess who entertains constantly, a card which is
engraved in blank, so that it may serve for dinner, luncheon, dance,
garden party, musical, or whatever she may care to give, is indispensable.

The spacing of the model shown below, the proportion of the words, and the
size of the card, are especially good.

        Mrs. Stevens

        requests the pleasure of


        company at

          on

            at          o'clock

            Two Elm Place


=THE DINNER INVITATION=

The blank which may be used only for dinner:

    Mr. and Mrs. Huntington Jones

       request the pleasure of


         company at dinner

                on

         at eight o'clock

    at Two Thousand Fifth Avenue

(_For type and spacing follow model on p. 118._)


=INVITATIONS TO RECEPTIONS AND TEAS=

Invitations to receptions and teas differ from invitations to balls in
that the cards on which they are engraved are usually somewhat smaller,
the words "At Home" with capital letters are changed to "will be at home"
with small letters, and the time is not set at the hour. Also, except on
very unusual occasions, a man's name does not appear. The name of the
débutante for whom the tea is given is put under that of her mother, and
sometimes under that of her sister or the bride of her brother.

            Mrs. James Town

        Mrs. James Town, junior

           Miss Pauline Town

            will be at home

    On Tuesday the eighth of December

      from four until six o'clock

       Two Thousand Fifth Avenue.

Mr. Town's name would probably appear with that of his wife if he were an
artist, and the reception was given in his studio to view his pictures, or
if a reception were given to meet a distinguished guest such as a bishop
or a governor, in which case "In honour of the Right Reverend William
Powell," or "To meet His Excellency the Governor," is at the top of the
invitation.


=THE FORMAL INVITATION WHICH IS WRITTEN=

When the formal invitation to dinner or lunch is written instead of
engraved, note paper stamped with house or personal device is used. The
wording and spacing must follow the engraved models exactly.

        350 PARK AVENUE

     Mr. and Mrs. John Kindhart

     request the pleasure of

  Mr. and Mrs. Robert Gilding Jr.'s

        company at Dinner

  on Tuesday the sixth of December

        at eight o'clock.

It must _not_ be written:

350 PARK AVENUE

TELEPHONE 7572 PLAZA

Mr. & Mrs. J. Kindhart request the pleasure of Mr. & Mrs. James
Town's Company at Dinner on Tuesday etc.

The foregoing example has four faults:

(1) Letters in the third person must follow the prescribed form. This does
not. (2) The writing is crowded against the margin. (3) The telephone
number should be used only for business and informal notes and letters.
(4) The full name John should be used instead of the initial "J." "Mr. and
Mrs." is better form than "Mr. & Mrs."


=RECALLING AN INVITATION=

If for illness or other reason invitations have to be recalled the
following forms are correct. They are always printed instead of engraved,
there being no time for engraving.

           Owing to sudden illness
        Mr. and Mrs. John Huntington Smith
      are obliged to recall their invitations
         for Tuesday the tenth of June.

The form used when the invitation is postponed:

      Mr. and Mrs. John Huntington Smith
             regret exceedingly
    that owing to the illness of Mrs. Smith
     their dance is temporarily postponed.

When a wedding is broken off after the invitations have been issued:

    Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Nottingham
               announce
    that the marriage of their daughter
            Mary Katharine
                 and
         Mr. Jerrold Atherton
         will not take place


=FORMAL ACCEPTANCE OR REGRET=

Acceptances or regrets are always written. An engraved form to be filled
in is vulgar--nothing could be in worse taste than to flaunt your
popularity by announcing that it is impossible to answer your numerous
invitations without the time-saving device of a printed blank. If you have
a dozen or more invitations a day, if you have a hundred, hire a staff of
secretaries if need be, but answer "by hand."

The formal acceptance to an invitation, whether it is to a dance, wedding
breakfast or a ball, is identical:

    Mr. and Mrs. Donald Lovejoy

       accept with pleasure

       Mr. and Mrs. Smith's

     kind invitation for dinner

    on Monday the tenth of December

        at eight o'clock

The formula for regret:

              Mr. Clubwin Doe
    regrets extremely that a previous engagement
          prevents his accepting
           Mr. and Mrs. Smith's
        kind invitation for dinner
      on Monday the tenth of December

or

        Mr. and Mrs. Timothy Kerry

    regret that they are unable to accept

          Mr. and Mrs. Smith's

        kind invitation for dinner

      on Monday the tenth of December

In accepting an invitation the day and hour must be repeated, so that in
case of mistake it may be rectified and prevent one from arriving on a day
when one is not expected. But in declining an invitation it is not
necessary to repeat the hour.


=VISITING CARD INVITATIONS=

With the exception of invitations to house-parties, dinners and luncheons,
the writing of notes is past. For an informal dance, musical, picnic, for
a tea to meet a guest, or for bridge, a lady uses her ordinary visiting
card:

     To meet Miss Millicent Gilding

          =MRS. JOHN KINDHART=

Tues. Jan. 7. Dancing at 10. o'ck. 350 PARK AVENUE

or

   Wed. Jan. 8. Bridge at 4. o'ck.

       =MRS. JOHN KINDHART=

    R.s.v.p. 350 PARK AVENUE

Answers to invitations written on visiting cards are always formally
worded in the third person, precisely as though the invitation had been
engraved.


=INVITATIONS IN THE SECOND PERSON=

The informal dinner and luncheon invitation is not spaced according to set
words on each line, but is written merely in two paragraphs. Example:


    Dear Mrs. Smith:

    Will you and Mr. Smith dine with us on Thursday, the seventh of
    January, at eight o'clock?

    Hoping so much for the pleasure of seeing you,

    Very sincerely,

           Caroline Robinson Town.


=THE INFORMAL NOTE OF ACCEPTANCE OR REGRET=

    Dear Mrs. Town:

    It will give us much pleasure to dine with you on Thursday the
    seventh, at eight o'clock.

    Thanking you for your kind thought of us,

    Sincerely yours,

             Margaret Smith.

Wednesday.

or

    Dear Mrs. Town:

    My husband and I will dine with you on Thursday the seventh, at
    eight o'clock, with greatest pleasure.

    Thanking you so much for thinking of us,

    Always sincerely,

                Margaret Smith.

or

    Dear Mrs. Town:

    We are so sorry that we shall be unable to dine with you on the
    seventh, as we have a previous engagement.

    With many thanks for your kindness in thinking of us,

    Very sincerely,

          Ethel Norman.


=INVITATION TO COUNTRY HOUSE=

To an intimate friend:

    Dear Sally:

    Will you and Jack (and the baby and nurse, of course) come out
    the 28th (Friday), and stay for ten days? Morning and evening
    trains take only forty minutes, and it won't hurt Jack to commute
    for the weekdays between the two Sundays! I am sure the country
    will do you and the baby good, or at least it will do me good to
    have you here.

    With much love, affectionately,
                          Ethel Norman.

To a friend of one's daughter:

    Dear Mary:

    Will you and Jim come on Friday the first for the Worldly dance,
    and stay over Sunday? Muriel asks me to tell you that Helen and
    Dick, and also Jimmy Smith are to be here and she particularly
    hopes that you will come, too.

    The three-twenty from New York is the best train--much. Though
    there is a four-twenty and a five-sixteen, in case Jim is not
    able to take the earlier one.

    Very sincerely,

                          Alice Jones.

Confirming a verbal invitation:

    Dear Helen:

    This note is merely to remind you that you and Dick are coming
    here for the Worldly dance on the sixth. Mother is expecting you
    on the three-twenty train, and will meet you here at the station.

    Affectionately,
    Muriel.

Invitation to a house party at a camp:

    Dear Miss Strange:

    Will you come up here on the sixth of September and stay until
    the sixteenth? It would give us all the greatest pleasure. There
    is a train leaving Broadway Station at 8.03 A.M. which will get
    you to Dustville Junction at 5 P.M. and here in time for supper.

    It is only fair to warn you that the camp is very primitive; we
    have no luxuries, but we can make you fairly comfortable if you
    like an outdoor life and are not too exacting. Please do not
    bring a maid or any clothes that the woods or weather can ruin.
    You will need nothing but outdoor things: walking boots (if you
    care to walk), a bathing suit (if you care to swim in the lake),
    and something comfortable rather than smart for evening (if you
    care to dress for supper). But on no account bring evening, or
    any _good_ clothes!

    Hoping so much that camping appeals to you and that we shall see
    you on the evening of the sixth,

    Very sincerely yours,
    Martha Kindhart.


=THE INVITATION BY TELEPHONE=

Custom which has altered many ways and manners has taken away all
opprobrium from the message by telephone, and with the exception of those
of a very small minority of letter-loving hostesses, all informal
invitations are sent and answered by telephone. Such messages, however,
follow a prescribed form:

    "Is this Lenox 0000? Will you please ask Mr. and Mrs. Smith if
    they will dine with Mrs. Grantham Jones next Tuesday the tenth at
    eight o'clock? Mrs. Jones' telephone number is Plaza, one two
    ring two."

The answer:

    "Mr. and Mrs. Huntington Smith regret that they will be unable to
    dine with Mrs. Jones on Tuesday the tenth, as they are engaged
    for that evening.

Or

    "Will you please tell Mrs. Jones that Mr. and Mrs. Huntington
    Smith are very sorry that they will be unable to dine with her
    next Tuesday, and thank her for asking them."

Or

    "Please tell Mrs. Jones that Mr. and Mrs. Huntington Smith will
    dine with her on Tuesday the tenth, with pleasure."

The formula is the same, whether the invitation is to dine or lunch, or
play bridge or tennis, or golf, or motor, or go on a picnic.

    "Will Mrs. Smith play bridge with Mrs. Grantham Jones this
    afternoon at the Country Club, at four o'clock?"

    "Hold the wire please * * * Mrs. Jones will play bridge, with
    pleasure at four o'clock."

In many houses, especially where there are several grown sons or
daughters, a blank form is kept in the pantry:

    Will
                   with M
    on the
    at            o'clock.            Telephone number
                   Accept
                   Regret

These slips are taken to whichever member of the family has been invited,
who crosses off "regret" or "accept" and hands the slip back for
transmission by the butler, the parlor-maid or whoever is on duty in the
pantry.

If Mr. Smith and Mrs. Jones are themselves telephoning there is no long
conversation, but merely:

    Mrs. Jones:

    "Is that you Mrs. Smith (or Sarah)? This is Mrs. Jones (or
    Alice). Will you and your husband (or John) dine with us
    to-morrow at eight o'clock?"

    Mrs. Smith:

    "I'm so sorry we can't. We are dining with Mabel."

Or

    "We have people coming here."

Invitations to a house party are often as not telephoned:

    "Hello, Ethel? This is Alice. Will you and Arthur come on the
    sixteenth for over Sunday?"

    "The sixteenth? That's Friday. We'd love to!"

    "Will you take the 3:20 train? etc."

[Illustration: "A GEM OF A HOUSE MAY BE NO SIZE AT ALL, BUT ITS LINES
ARE HONEST, AND ITS PAINTING AND WINDOW CURTAINS IN GOOD TASTE ... AND ITS
BELL IS ANSWERED PROMPTLY BY A TRIM MAID WITH A LOW VOICE AND QUIET,
COURTEOUS MANNER." [Page 131.]]




CHAPTER XII

THE WELL-APPOINTED HOUSE


Every house has an outward appearance to be made as presentable as
possible, an interior continually to be set in order, and incessantly to
be cleaned. And for those that dwell within it there are meals to be
prepared and served; linen to be laundered and mended; personal garments
to be brushed and pressed; and perhaps children to be cared for. There is
also a door-bell to be answered in which manners as well as appearance
come into play.

Beyond these fundamental necessities, luxuries can be added indefinitely,
such as splendor of architecture, of gardening, and of furnishing, with
every refinement of service that executive ability can produce. With all
this genuine splendor possible only to the greatest establishments, a
little house can no more compete than a diamond weighing but half a carat
can compete with a stone weighing fifty times as much. And this is a good
simile, because the perfect little house may be represented by a corner
cut from precisely the same stone and differing therefore merely in size
(and value naturally), whereas the house in bad taste and improperly run
may be represented by a diamond that is off color and full of flaws; or in
some instances, merely a piece of glass that to none but those as ignorant
as its owner, for a moment suggests a gem of value.

A gem of a house may be no size at all, but its lines are honest, and its
painting and window curtains in good taste. As for its upkeep, its path or
sidewalk is beautifully neat, steps scrubbed, brasses polished, and its
bell answered promptly by a trim maid with a low voice and quiet courteous
manner; all of which contributes to the impression of "quality" evens
though it in nothing suggests the luxury of a palace whose opened bronze
door reveals a row of powdered footmen.

But the "mansion" of bastard architecture and crude paint, with its brass
indifferently clean, with coarse lace behind the plate glass of its
golden-oak door, and the bell answered at eleven in the morning by a
butler in an ill fitting dress suit and wearing a mustache, might as well
be placarded: "Here lives a vulgarian who has never had an opportunity to
acquire cultivation." As a matter of fact, the knowledge of how to make a
house distinguished both in appearance and in service, is a much higher
test than presenting a distinguished appearance in oneself and acquiring
presentable manners. There are any number of people who dress well, and in
every way appear well, but a lack of breeding is apparent as soon as you
go into their houses. Their servants have not good manners, they are not
properly turned out, the service is not well done, and the decorations and
furnishings show lack of taste and inviting arrangement.

The personality of a house is indefinable, but there never lived a lady of
great cultivation and charm whose home, whether a palace, a farm-cottage
or a tiny apartment, did not reflect the charm of its owner. Every visitor
feels impelled to linger, and is loath to go. Houses without personality
are a series of rooms with furniture in them. Sometimes their lack of
charm is baffling; every article is "correct" and beautiful, but one has
the feeling that the decorator made chalk-marks indicating the exact spot
on which each piece of furniture is to stand. Other houses are filled with
things of little intrinsic value, often with much that is shabby, or they
are perhaps empty to the point of bareness, and yet they have that
"inviting" atmosphere, and air of unmistakable quality which is an
unfailing indication of high-bred people.


="BECOMING" FURNITURE=

Suitability is the test of good taste always. The manner to the moment,
the dress to the occasion, the article to the place, the furniture to the
background. And yet to combine many periods in one and commit no
anachronism, to put something French, something Spanish, something
Italian, and something English into an American house and have the
result the perfection of American taste--is a feat of legerdemain that has
been accomplished time and again.

[Illustration: "THE PERSONALITY OF A HOUSE IS INDEFINABLE, BUT THERE NEVER
LIVED A LADY OF GREAT CULTIVATION AND CHARM WHOSE HOME, WHETHER A PALACE,
A FARM-COTTAGE OR A TINY APARTMENT, DID NOT REFLECT THE CHARM OF ITS
OWNER." [Page 132.]]

A woman of great taste follows fashion in house furnishing, just as she
follows fashion in dress, in general principles only. She wears what is
becoming to her own type, and she puts in her house only such articles as
are becoming to it.

That a quaint old-fashioned house should be filled with quaint
old-fashioned pieces of furniture, in size proportionate to the size of
the rooms, and that rush-bottomed chairs and rag-carpets have no place in
a marble hall, need not be pointed out. But to an amazing number of
persons, proportion seems to mean nothing at all. They will put a huge
piece of furniture in a tiny room so that the effect is one of painful
indigestion; or they will crowd things all into one corner--so that it
seems about to capsize; or they will spoil a really good room by the
addition of senseless and inappropriately cluttering objects, in the
belief that because they are valuable they must be beautiful, regardless
of suitability. Sometimes a room is marred by "treasures" clung to for
reasons of sentiment.


=THE BLINDNESS OF SENTIMENT=

It is almost impossible for any of us to judge accurately of things which
we have throughout a lifetime been accustomed to. A chair that was
grandmother's, a painting father bought, the silver that has always been
on the dining table--are all so part of ourselves that we are
sentiment-blind to their defects.

For instance, the portrait of a Colonial officer, among others, has always
hung in Mrs. Oldname's dining-room. One day an art critic, whose knowledge
was better than his manners, blurted out, "Will you please tell me why you
have that dreadful thing in this otherwise perfect room?" Mrs. Oldname,
somewhat taken back, answered rather wonderingly: "Is it
dreadful?--Really? I have a feeling of affection for him and his dog!"

The critic was merciless. "If you call a cotton-flannel effigy, a dog! And
as for the figure, it is equally false and lifeless! It is amazing how
any one with your taste can bear looking at it!" In spite of his rudeness,
Mrs. Oldname saw that what he said was quite true, but not until the fact
had been pointed out to her. Gradually she grew to dislike the poor
officer so much that he was finally relegated to the attic. In the same
way most of us have belongings that have "always been there" or perhaps
"treasures" that we love for some association, which are probably as bad
as can be, to which habit has blinded us, though we would not have to be
told of their hideousness were they seen by us in the house of another.

It is not to be expected that all people can throw away every esthetically
unpleasing possession, with which nearly every house twenty-five years ago
was filled, but those whose pocket-book and sentiment will permit, would
add greatly to the beauty of their houses by sweeping the bad into the ash
can! Far better have stone-ware plates that are good in design than
expensive porcelain that is horrible in decoration.

The only way to determine what is good and what is horrible is to study
what is good in books, in museums, or in art classes in the universities,
or even by studying the magazines devoted to decorative art.

Be very careful though. Do not mistake modern eccentricities for "art."
There are frightful things in vogue to-day--flamboyant colors, grotesque,
triangular and oblique designs that can not possibly be other than bad,
because aside from striking novelty, there is nothing good about them. By
no standard can a room be in good taste that looks like a perfume
manufacturer's phantasy or a design reflected in one of the distorting
mirrors that are mirth-provokers at county fairs.


=TO DETERMINE AN OBJECT'S WORTH=

In buying an article for a house one might formulate for oneself a few
test questions:

First, is it useful? Anything that is really useful has a reason for
existence.

Second, has it _really_ beauty of form and line and color?

(Texture is not so important.) Or is it merely striking, or amusing?

Third, is it entirely suitable for the position it occupies?

Fourth, if it were eliminated would it be missed? Would something else
look as well or better, in its place? Or would its place look as well
empty? A truthful answer to these questions would at least help in
determining its value, since an article that failed in any of them could
not be "perfect."

Fashion affects taste--it is bound to. We abominate Louis the Fourteenth
and Empire styles at the moment, because curves and super-ornamentation
are out of fashion; whether they are really bad or not, time alone can
tell. At present we are admiring plain silver and are perhaps exacting
that it be too plain? The only safe measure of what is good, is to choose
that which has best endured. The "King" and the "Fiddle" pattern for flat
silver, have both been in use in houses of highest fashion ever since they
were designed, so that they, among others, must have merit to have so long
endured.

In the same way examples of old potteries and china and glass, at present
being reproduced, are very likely good, because after having been for a
century or more in disuse, they are again being chosen. Perhaps one might
say that the "second choice" is "proof of excellence."


=SERVICE=

The subject of furnishings is however the least part of this
chapter--appointments meaning decoration being of less importance (since
this is not a book on architecture or decoration!), than appointments
meaning _service_.

But before going into the various details of service, it might be a good
moment to speak of the unreasoning indignity cast upon the honorable
vocation of a servant.

There is an inexplicable tendency, in this country only, for working
people in general to look upon domestic service as an unworthy, if not
altogether degrading vocation. The cause may perhaps be found in the fact
that this same scorning public having for the most part little opportunity
to know high-class servants, who are to be found only in high-class
families, take it for granted that ignorant "servant girls" and "hired
men" are representative of their kind. Therefore they put upper class
servants in the same category--regardless of whether they are uncouth and
illiterate, or persons of refined appearance and manner who often have
considerable cultivation, acquired not so much at school as through the
constant contact with ultra refinement of surroundings, and not
infrequently through the opportunity for world-wide travel.

And yet so insistently has this obloquy of the word "servant" spread that
every one sensitive to the feelings of others avoids using it exactly as
one avoids using the word "cripple" when speaking to one who is slightly
lame. Yet are not the best of us "servants" in the Church? And the highest
of us "servants" of the people and the State?

To be a slattern in a vulgar household is scarcely an elevated employment,
but neither is working in a sweat-shop, or belonging to a calling that is
really degraded; which is otherwise about all that equal lack of ability
would procure. On the other hand, consider the vocation of a lady's maid
or "_courier_" valet and compare the advantages these enjoy (to say
nothing of their never having to worry about overhead expenses), with the
opportunities of those who have never been out of the "factory" or the
"store" or further away than the adjoining town in their lives. As for a
nurse, is there any vocation more honorable? No character in E.F. Benson's
"Our Family Affairs" is more beautiful or more tenderly drawn than that of
"Beth," who was not only nurse to the children of the Archbishop of
Canterbury but one of the most dearly beloved of the family's members--her
place was absolutely next to their mother's in the very heart of the
household always.

Two years ago, Anna, who had for a lifetime been Mrs. Gilding's personal
maid, died. Every engagement of that seemingly frivolous family was
cancelled, even the invitations for their ball. Not one of the family but
mourned for what she truly was, their humble but nearest friend. Would it
have been so much better, so much more dignified, for these two women, who
lived long useful years in closest association with every cultivating
influence of life, to have lived on in their native villages and worked in
a factory, or to have had a little store of their own? Does this false
idea of dignity--since it _is_ false--go so far as that?


=HOW MANY SERVANTS FOR CORRECT SERVICE?=

It stands to reason that one may expect more perfect service from a
"specialist" than from one whose functions are multiple. But small houses
that have a double equipment--meaning an alternate who can go in the
kitchen, and two for the dining-room--can be every bit as well run, so far
as essentials go, as the palaces of the Gildings and the Worldlys, though
of course not with the same impressiveness. But good service is badly
handicapped if, when the waitress goes out, there is no one to open the
door, or when the cook goes out, there is no one to prepare a meal.

For what one might call "complete" service, (meaning service that is
adequate for constant entertaining and can stand comparison with the most
luxurious establishments,) three are the minimum--a cook, a butler (or
waitress) and a housemaid. The reason why luncheons and dinners can not be
"perfectly" given with a waitress alone is because two persons are
necessary for the exactions of modern standards of service. Yet one alone
can, on occasion, manage very well, if attention is paid to ordering an
especial menu for single-handed service--described on page 233. Aside from
the convenience of a second person in the dining-room, a house can not be
run very comfortably and smoothly without alternating shifts in staying in
and going out. The waitress being on "duty" to answer bell and telephone
and serve tea one afternoon, and the housemaid taking her place the next.
They also alternate in going out every other evening after dinner.

It should be realized that above the number necessary for essentials, each
additional chambermaid, parlor-maid, footman, scullery maid or useful man,
is made necessary by the size of the house and by the amount of
entertaining usual, rather than (as is often supposed) for the mere reason
of show. The seemingly superfluous number of footmen at Golden Hall and
Great Estates are, aside from standing on parade at formal parties, needed
actually to do the immense amount of work that houses of such size entail;
whereas a small apartment can be fairly well looked after by one alone.

All house employees and details of their several duties, manners, and
appearances, are enumerated below. Beginning with the greatest and most
complicated establishments possible, the employee of highest rank is:


=THE SECRETARY WHO IS ALSO COMPANION=

The position of companion, which is always one of social equality with her
employer, exists only when the lady of the house is an invalid, or very
elderly, or a widow, or a young girl. (In the latter case the "companion"
is a "chaperon.")

Her secretarial duties consist in writing impersonal letters and notes and
probably paying bills; she may have occasional invitations to send out,
and to answer, though a lady needing a companion is not apt to be greatly
interested in social activities. The companion never performs the services
of a maid--but she occasionally does the housekeeping. Otherwise her
duties can not very well be set down, because they vary with individual
requirements. One lady likes continually to travel and merely wants a
companion, (usually a poor relative or friend) to go with her. Another who
is a semi-invalid never leaves her room, and the duties of her companion
are almost those of a trained nurse. The average requirement is in being
personally agreeable, tactful, intelligent, and--companionable!

A companion dresses as any other lady does; according to the occasion, her
personal taste, her age, and her means.


=VARIED SOCIAL STANDING OF THE PRIVATE SECRETARY=

The private secretary to a diplomat, since, he must first pass the
diplomatic examination in order to qualify, is invariably a young man of
education, if not of birth, and his social position is always that of a
member of his "chief's" family.

The position of an ordinary private secretary is sometimes that of an
upper servant, or, on the other hand, his own social position may be much
higher than that of his employer. A secretary who either has position of
his own or is given position by his employer, is in every way treated as a
member of the family; he is present at all general entertainments; and
quite as often as not at lunches and dinners. The duties of a private
secretary are naturally to attend to all correspondence, take shorthand
notes of speeches or conversations, file papers and documents and in every
way serve as extra eyes and hands and supplementary brain for his
employer.


=THE SOCIAL SECRETARY=

The position of social secretary is an entirely clerical one, and never
confers any "social privileges" unless the secretary is also "companion."

Her duties are to write all invitations, acceptances, and regrets; keep a
record of every invitation received and every one sent out, and to enter
in an engagement book every engagement made for her employer, whether to
lunch, dinner, to be fitted, or go to the dentist. She also writes all
impersonal notes, takes longer letters in shorthand, and writes others
herself after being told their purport. She also audits all bills and
draws the checks for them, the checks are filled in and then presented to
her employer to be signed, after which they are put in their envelopes,
sealed and sent. When the receipted bills are returned, the secretary
files them according to her own method, where they can at any time be
found by her if needed for reference. In many cases it is she (though it
is most often the butler) who telephones invitations and other messages.

Occasionally a social secretary is also a social manager; devises
entertainments and arranges all details such as the decorations of the
house for a dance, or a programme of entertainment following a very large
dinner. The social secretary very rarely lives in the house of her
employer; more often than not she goes also to one or two other
houses--since there is seldom work enough in one to require her whole
time.

Miss Brisk, who is Mrs. Gilding's secretary, has little time for any one
else. She goes every day for from two to sometimes eight or nine hours in
town, and at Golden Hall lives in the house. Usually a secretary can
finish all there is to do in an average establishment in about an hour, or
at most two, a day, with the addition of five or six hours on two or three
other days each month for the paying of bills.

Supposing she takes three positions; she goes to Mrs. A. from 8.30 to 10
every day, and for three extra hours on the 10th and 11th of every month.
To Mrs. B. from 10.30 to 1 (her needs being greater) and for six extra
hours on the 12th, 13th and 14th of every month. And to Mrs. C. every day
at 3 o'clock for an indefinite time of several hours or only a few
minutes.

Her dress is that of any business woman. Conspicuous clothes are out of
keeping as they would be out of keeping in an office; which, however, is
no reason why she should not be well dressed. Well-cut tailor-made suits
are the most appropriate with a good-looking but simple hat; as good shoes
as she can possibly afford, and good gloves and immaculately clean shirt
waists, represent about the most dignified and practical clothes. But why
describe clothes! Every woman with good sense enough to qualify as a
secretary has undoubtedly sense enough to dress with dignity.


=THE HOUSEKEEPER=

In a very big house the housekeeper usually lives in the house. Smaller
establishments often have a "visiting housekeeper" who comes for as long
as she is needed each morning. The resident housekeeper has her own
bedroom and bath and sitting-room always. Her meals are brought to her by
an especial kitchen-maid, called in big houses the "hall girl," or
occasionally the butler details an under footman to that duty.

In an occasional house all the servants, the gardener as well as the cook
and butler and nurses, come under the housekeeper's authority; in other
words, she superintends the entire house exactly as a very conscientious
and skilled mistress would do herself, if she gave her whole time and
attention to it. She engages the servants, and if necessary, dismisses
them; she sees the cook, orders meals, goes to the market, or at least
supervises the cook's market orders, and likewise engages and apportions
the work of the men servants.

Ordinarily, however, she is in charge of no one but the housemaids,
parlor-maids, useful man and one of the scullery maids. The cook, butler,
nurses and lady's maid do not come under her supervision. But should
difficulties arise between herself and them it would be within her
province to ask for their dismissal which would probably be granted; since
she would not ask without grave cause that involved much more than her
personal dislike. A good housekeeper is always a woman of experience and
tact, and often a lady; friction is, therefore, extremely rare.


=THE ORGANIZATION OF A GREAT HOUSE=

The management of a house of greatest size, is divided usually into
several distinct departments, each under its separate head. The
housekeeper has charge of the appearance of the house and of its contents;
the manners and looks of the housemaids and parlor-maids, as well as their
work in cleaning walls, floors, furniture, pictures, ornaments, books, and
taking care of linen.

The butler has charge of the pantry and dining-room. He engages all
footmen, apportions their work and is responsible for their appearance,
manners and efficiency.

The cook is in charge of the kitchen, under-cook and kitchen-maids.

The nurse and the personal maid and cook are under the direction of the
lady of the house. The butler and the valet as well as the chauffeur and
gardener are engaged by the gentleman of the house.


=THE BUTLER=

The butler is not only the most important servant in every big
establishment, but it is by no means unheard of for him to be in supreme
command, not only as steward, but as housekeeper as well.

At the Worldly's for instance, Hastings who is actually the butler, orders
all the supplies, keeps the household accounts and engages not only the
men servants but the housemaids, parlor-maids and even the chef.

But normally in a great house, the butler has charge of his own department
only, and his own department is the dining-room and pantry, or possibly
the whole parlor floor. In all smaller establishments the butler is always
the valet--and in many great ones he is valet to his employer, even though
he details a footman to look after other gentlemen of the family or
visitors.

In a small house the butler works a great deal with his hands and not so
much with his head. In a great establishment, the butler works very much
with his head, and with his hands not at all.

At Golden Hall where guests come in dozens at a time (both in the house
and the guest annex), his stewardship--even though there is a
housekeeper--is not a job which a small man can fill. He has perhaps
thirty men under him at big dinners, ten who belong under him in the house
always; he has the keys to the wine cellar and the combination of the
silver safe. (The former being in this day by far the greater
responsibility!) He also chooses the china and glass and linen as well as
the silver to be used each day, oversees the setting of the table, and the
serving of all food. When there is a house party every breakfast tray that
leaves the pantry is first approved by him.

At all meals he stands behind the chair of the lady of the house--in other
words, at the head of the table. In occasional houses, the butler stands
at the opposite end as he is supposed to be better able to see any
directions given him. At Golden Hall the butler stands behind Mr. Gilding
but at Great Estates Hastings invariably stands behind Mrs. Worldly's
chair so that at the slightest turn of her head, he need only take a step
to be within reach of her voice. (The husband by the way is "head of the
house," but the wife is "head of the table.")

At tea time, he oversees the footmen who place the tea-table, put on the
tea cloth and carry in the tea tray, after which Hastings himself places
the individual tables. When there is "no dinner at home" he waits in the
hall and assists Mr. Worldly into his coat, and hands him his hat and
stick, which have previously been handed to the butler by one of the
footmen.


_The Butler in a Smaller House_

In a smaller house, the butler also takes charge of the wines and silver,
does very much the same as the butler in the bigger house, except that he
has less overseeing of others and more work to do himself. Where he is
alone, he does all the work--naturally. Where he has either one footman or
a parlor-maid, he passes the main courses at the table and his assistant
passes the secondary dishes.

He is also valet not only for the gentleman of the house but for any
gentleman guests as well.


_What the Butler Wears_

The butler never wears the livery of a footman and on no account knee
breeches or powder. In the early morning he wears an ordinary sack
suit--black or very dark blue--with a dark, inconspicuous tie. For
luncheon or earlier, if he is on duty at the door, he wears black
trousers, with gray stripes, a double-breasted, high-cut, black waistcoat,
and black swallowtail coat without satin on the revers, a white
stiff-bosomed shirt with standing collar, and a black four-in-hand tie.

In fashionable houses, the butler does not put on his dress suit until
six o'clock. The butler's evening dress differs from that of a gentleman
in a few details only: he has no braid on his trousers, and the satin on
his lapels (if any) is narrower, but the most distinctive difference is
that a butler wears a black waistcoat and a white lawn tie, and a
gentleman always wears a white waistcoat with a white tie, or a white
waistcoat and a black tie with a dinner coat, but never the reverse.

Unless he is an old-time colored servant in the South a butler who wears a
"dress suit" in the daytime is either a hired waiter who has come in to
serve a meal, or he has never been employed by persons of position; and it
is unnecessary to add that none but vulgarians would employ a butler (or
any other house servant) who wears a mustache! To have him open the door
collarless and in shirt-sleeves is scarcely worse!

A butler never wears gloves, nor a flower in his buttonhole. He sometimes
wears a very thin watch chain in the daytime but none at night. He never
wears a scarf-pin, or any jewelry that is for ornament alone. His
cuff-links should be as plain as possible, and his shirt studs white
enamel ones that look like linen.


=THE HOUSE FOOTMEN=

All house servants who assist in waiting on the table come under the
direction of the butler, and are known as footmen. One who never comes
into the dining-room is known as a useful man. The duties of the footmen
(and useful man) include cleaning the dining-room, pantry, lower hall,
entrance vestibule, sidewalk, attending to the furnace, carrying coal to
the kitchen, wood to all the open fireplaces in the house, cleaning the
windows, cleaning brasses, cleaning all boots, carrying everything that is
heavy, moving furniture for the parlor-maids to clean behind it, valeting
all gentlemen, setting and waiting on table, attending the front door,
telephoning and writing down messages, and--incessantly and ceaselessly,
cleaning and polishing silver.

In a small house, the butler polishes silver, but in a very big house one
of the footmen is silver specialist, and does nothing else. Nothing! If
there is to be a party of any sort he puts on his livery and joins the
others who line the hall and bring dishes to the table. But he does not
assist in setting the table or washing dishes or in cleaning anything
whatsoever--except silver.

The butler also usually answers the telephone--if not, it is answered by
the first footman. The first footman is deputy butler.

The footmen also take turns in answering the door. In houses of great
ceremony like those of the Worldlys' and the Gildings', there are always
two footmen at the door if anyone is to be admitted. One to open the door
and the other to conduct a guest into the drawing-room. But if formal
company is expected, the butler himself is in the front hall with one or
two footmen at the door.


_The Footmen's Livery_

People who have big houses usually choose a color for their livery and
never change it. Maroon and buff, for instance, are the colors of the
Gildings; all their motor cars are maroon with buff lines and
cream-colored or maroon linings. The chauffeurs and outside footmen wear
maroon liveries. The house footmen, for everyday, wear ordinary footmen's
liveries, maroon trousers and long-tailed coats with brass buttons and
maroon-and-buff striped waistcoats.

For gala occasions, Mrs. Gilding adds as many caterer's men as necessary,
but they all are dressed in her full-dress livery, consisting of a "court"
coat which comes together at the neck in front, and then cuts away to long
tails at the back. The coat is of maroon broadcloth with frogs and
epaulets of black braiding. There is a small standing collar of buff
cloth, and a falling cravat of pleated cream-colored lace worn in front.
The waistcoat is of buff satin, the breeches of black satin, cream-colored
stockings, pumps, and the hair is powdered. It is first pomaded and then
thickly powdered. Wigs are never worn.

Mrs. Worldly however compromises between the "court" footman and the
ordinary one, and puts her footmen in green cloth coats cut like the
everyday liveries, with silver buttons on which the crest is raised in
relief, but adds black velvet collars, and black satin waistcoats in place
of the everyday striped ones. Black satin knee breeches, black silk
stockings, and pumps with silver buckles, and their ordinary hair, cut
short.

The powdered footman's "court" livery is, as a matter of fact, very rarely
seen. Three or four houses in New York, and one or two otherwhere, would
very likely include them all. Knee breeches are more usual, but even those
are seen in none but very lavish houses.

To choose servants who are naturally well-groomed is more important than
putting them in smart liveries. Men must be close shaven and have their
hair well cut. Their linen must be immaculate, their shoes polished, their
clothes brushed and in press, and their finger nails clean and well cared
for. If a man's fingers are indelibly stained he would better wear white
cotton gloves.


=THE COOK=

The kitchen is always in charge of the cook. In a small house, or in an
apartment, she is alone and has all the cooking, cleaning of kitchen and
larder, to do, the basement or kitchen bell to answer, and the servants'
table to set and their dishes to wash as well as her kitchen utensils. In
a bigger house, the kitchen-maid lights the kitchen fire, and does all
cleaning of kitchen and pots and pans, answers the basement bell, sets the
servants' table and washes the servants' table dishes. In a still bigger
house, the second cook cooks for the servants always, and for the children
sometimes, and assists the cook by preparing certain plainer portions of
the meals, the cook preparing all dinner dishes, sauces and the more
elaborate items on the menu. Sometimes there are two or more kitchen-maids
who merely divide the greater amount of work between them.

In most houses of any size, the cook does all the marketing. She sees the
lady of the house every morning, and submits menus for the day. In smaller
houses, the lady does the ordering of both supplies and menus.


_How a Cook Submits the Menu_

In a house of largest size--at the Gildings for instance, the chef writes
in his "book" every evening, the menus for the next day, whether there is
to be company or not. (None, of course, if the family are to be out for
all meals.) This "book" is sent up to Mrs. Gilding with her breakfast
tray. It is a loose-leaf blank book of rather large size. The day's menu
sheet is on top, but the others are left in their proper sequence
underneath, so that by looking at her engagement book to see who dined
with her on such a date, and then looking at the menu for that same date,
she knows--if she cares to--exactly what the dinner was.

If she does not like the chef's choice, she draws a pencil through and
writes in something else. If she has any orders or criticisms to make, she
writes them on an envelope pad, folds the page, and seals it and puts the
"note" in the book. If the menu is to be changed, the chef re-writes it,
if not the page is left as it is, and the book put in a certain place in
the kitchen.

The butler always goes into the kitchen shortly after the book has come
down, and copies the day's menus on a pad of his own. From this he knows
what table utensils will be needed.

This system is not necessary in medium sized or small houses, but where
there is a great deal of entertaining it is much simpler for the butler to
be able to go and "see for himself" than to ask the cook and--forget. And
ask again, and the cook forget, and then--disturbance!--because the butler
did not send down the proper silver dishes or have the proper plates
ready, or had others heated unnecessarily.


=THE KITCHEN-MAID=

The kitchen-maids are under the direction of the cook, except one known
colloquially as the "hall girl" who is supervised by the housekeeper. She
is evidently a survival of the "between maid" of the English house. Her
sobriquet comes from the fact that she has charge of the servants' hall,
or dining-room, and is in fact the waitress for them. She also takes care
of the housekeeper's rooms, and carries all her meals up to her. If there
is no housekeeper, the hall girl is under the direction of the cook.


=THE PARLOR-MAID=

The parlor-maid keeps the drawing-room and library in order. The useful
man brings up the wood for the fireplaces, but the parlor-maid lays the
fire. In some houses the parlor-maid takes up the breakfast trays; in
other houses, the butler does this himself and then hands them to the
lady's maid, who takes them into the bedrooms. The windows and the brasses
are cleaned by the useful man and heavy furniture moved by him so she can
clean behind them.

The parlor-maid assists the butler in waiting at table, and washing
dishes, and takes turns with him in answering the door and the telephone.

In huge houses like the Worldlys' and the Gildings', the footmen assist
the butler in the dining-room and at the door--and there is always a
"pantry maid" who washes dishes and cleans the pantry.


=THE HOUSEMAID=

The housemaid does all the chamber work, cleans all silver on
dressing-tables, polishes fixtures in the bathroom--in other words takes
care of the bedroom floors.

In a bigger house, the head housemaid has charge of the linen and does the
bedrooms of the lady and gentleman of the house and a few of the spare
rooms. The second housemaid does the nurseries, extra spare rooms, and the
servants' floor. The bigger the establishment, the more housemaids, and
the work is further divided. The housemaid is by many people called the
chambermaid.


=UNIFORMS=

In all houses of importance and fashion, the parlor-maid and the
housemaids, and the waitress (where there is no butler), are all dressed
alike. Their "work" dresses are of plain cambric and in whatever the
"house color" may be, with large white aprons with high bibs, and Eton
collars, but no cuffs (as they must be able to unbutton their sleeves and
turn them up.) Those who serve in the dining-room must always dress before
lunch, and the afternoon dresses vary according to the taste--and
purse--of the lady of the house. Where no uniforms are supplied, each maid
is supposed to furnish herself with a plain black dress for afternoon, on
which she wears collars and cuffs of embroidered muslin usually (always
supplied her), and a small afternoon apron, with or without shoulder
straps, and with or without a cap.

In very "beautifully done" houses (all the dresses of the maids are
furnished them), the color of the uniforms is chosen to harmonize with the
dining-room. At the Gildings', Jr., for instance, where there are no men
servants because Mr. Gilding does not like them, but where the house is as
perfect as a picture on the stage, the waitress and parlor-maid wear in
the blue and yellow dining-room, dresses of Nattier blue taffeta with
aprons and collars and cuffs of plain hemstitched cream-colored organdie,
that is as transparent as possible; blue stockings and patent leather
slippers with silver buckles, their hair always beautifully smooth.
Sometimes they wear caps and sometimes not, depending upon the waitress'
appearance. Twenty years ago, every maid in a lady's house wore a cap
except the personal maid, who wore (and still does) a velvet bow, or
nothing. But when every little slattern in every sloppy household had a
small mat of whitish Swiss pinned somewhere on an untidy head, and was
decked out in as many yards of embroidery ruffling on her apron and
shoulders as her person could carry, fashionable ladies began taking caps
and trimmings off, and exacting instead that clothes be good in cut and
hair be neatly arranged.

A few ladies of great taste dress their maids according to individual
becomingness; some faces look well under a cap, others look the contrary.
A maid whose hair is rather fluffy--especially if it is dark--looks pretty
in a cap, particularly of the coronet variety. No one looks well in a
doily laid flat, but fluffy fair hair with a small mat tilted up against
a knot of hair dressed high can look very smart. A young woman whose hair
is straight and rebellious to order, can be made to look tidy and even
attractive in a headdress that encircles the whole head. A good one for
this purpose has a very narrow ruche from 9 to 18 inches long on either
side of a long black velvet ribbon. The ruche goes part way, or all the
way, around the head, and the velvet ribbon ties, with streamers hanging
down the back. On the other hand, many extremely pretty young women with
hair worn flat do not look well in caps of any description--except "Dutch"
ones which are, in most houses, too suggestive of fancy dress. If no caps
are worn the hair must be faultlessly smooth and neat; and of course where
two or more maids are seen together, they must be alike. It would not do
to have one wear a cap and the other not.


=THE LADY'S MAID=

A first class lady's maid is required to be a hairdresser, a good packer
and an expert needlewoman. Her first duty is to keep her lady's clothes in
order and to help her dress, and undress. She draws the bath, lays out
underclothes, always brushes her lady's hair and usually dresses it, and
gets out the dress to be worn, as well as the stockings, shoes, hat, veil,
gloves, wrist bag, parasol, or whatever accessories go with the dress in
question.

As soon as the lady is dressed, everything that has been worn is taken to
the sewing room and each article is gone over, carefully brushed if of
woolen material, cleaned if silk. Everything that is mussed is pressed,
everything that can be suspected of not being immaculate is washed or
cleaned with cleaning fluid, and when in perfect order is replaced where
it belongs in the closet. Underclothes as mended are put in the clothes
hamper. Stockings are looked over for rips or small holes, and the maid
usually washes very fine stockings herself, also lace collars or small
pieces of lace trimming.

Some maids have to wait up at night, no matter how late, until their
ladies return; but as many, if not more, are never asked to wait longer
than a certain hour.

But the maid for a débutante in the height of the season, between the
inevitable "go fetching" at this place and that, and mending of party
dresses danced to ribbons and soiled by partner's hands on the back, and
slippers "walked on" until there is quite as much black part as satin or
metal, has no sinecure.


_Why Two Maids?_

In very important houses where mother and daughters go out a great deal
there are usually two maids, one for the mother and one for the daughters.
But even in moderate households it is seldom practical for a débutante and
her mother to share a maid--at least during the height of the season. That
a maid who has to go out night after night for weeks and even months on
end, and sit in the dressing-rooms at balls until four and five and even
six in the morning, is then allowed to go to bed and to sleep until
luncheon is merely humane. And it can easily be seen that it is more
likely that she will need the help of a seamstress to refurbish
dance-frocks, than that she will have any time to devote to her young
lady's mother--who in "mid-season," therefore, is forced to have a maid of
her own, ridiculous as it sounds, that two maids for two ladies should be
necessary! Sometimes this is overcome by engaging an especial maid "by the
evening" to go to parties and wait, and bring the débutante home again.
And the maid at home can then be "maid for two."


_Dress of a Lady's Maid_

A lady's maid wears a black skirt, a laundered white waist, and a small
white apron, the band of which buttons in the back.

In traveling, a lady's maid always wears a small black silk apron and some
maids wear black taffeta ones always. In the afternoon, she puts on a
black waist with white collar and cuffs. Mrs. Gilding, Jr., puts her maid
in black taffeta with embroidered collar and cuffs. For "company
occasions," when she waits in the dressing-room, she wears light gray
taffeta with a very small embroidered mull apron with a narrow black
velvet waist-ribbon, and collar and cuffs of mull to match--which is
extremely pretty, but also extremely extravagant.


=THE VALET=

The valet (pronounced val-et not vallay) is what Beau Brummel called a
gentleman's gentleman. His duties are exactly the same as those of the
lady's maid--except that he does not sew! He keeps his employer's clothes
in perfect order, brushes, cleans and presses everything as soon as it has
been worn--even if only for a few moments. He lays out the clothes to be
put on, puts away everything that is a personal belonging. Some gentlemen
like their valet to help them dress; run the bath, shave them and hold
each article in readiness as it is to be put on. But most gentlemen merely
like their clothes "laid out" for them, which means that trousers have
belts or braces attached, shirts have cuff links and studs; and waistcoat
buttons are put in.

The valet also unpacks the bags of any gentleman guests when they come,
valets them while there, and packs them when they go. He always packs for
his own gentleman, buys tickets, looks after the luggage, and makes
himself generally useful as a personal attendant, whether at home or when
traveling.

At big dinners, he is required (much against his will) to serve as a
footman--in a footman's, not a butler's, livery.

The valet wears no livery except on such occasions. His "uniform" is an
ordinary business suit, dark and inconspicuous in color, with a black tie.

In a bachelor's quarters a valet is often general factotum; not only
valeting but performing the services of cook, butler, and even housemaid.


=THE NURSE=

Everybody knows the nurse is either the comfort or the torment of the
house. Everyone also knows innumerable young mothers who put up with
inexcusable crankiness from a crotchety middle-aged woman because she was
"so wonderful" to the baby. And here let it be emphasized that such an one
usually turns out to have been not wonderful to the baby at all. That she
does not actually abuse a helpless infant is merely granting that she is
not a "monster."

Devotion must always be unselfish; the nurse who is _really_ "wonderful"
to the baby is pretty sure to be a person who is kind generally. In
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the sooner a domineering nurse--old or
young--is got rid of, the better. It has been the experience of many a
mother whose life had been made perfectly miserable through her belief
that if she dismissed the tyrant the baby would suffer, that in the
end--there _is_ always an end!--the baby was quite as relieved as the rest
of the family when the "right sort" of a kindly and humane person took the
tyrant's place.

It is unnecessary to add that one can not be too particular in asking for
a nurse's reference and in never failing to get a personal one from the
lady she is leaving. Not only is it necessary to have a sweet-tempered,
competent and clean person, but her moral character is of utmost
importance, since she is to be the constant and inseparable companion of
the children whose whole lives are influenced by her example, especially
where busy parents give only a small portion of time to their children.


=COURTESY TO ONE'S HOUSEHOLD=

In a dignified house, a servant is never spoken to as Jim, Maisie, or
Katie, but always as James or Margaret or Katherine, and a butler is
called by his last name, nearly always. The Worldly's butler, for
instance, is called Hastings, not John. In England, a lady's maid is also
called by her last name, and the cook, if married, is addressed as Mrs.
and the nurse is always called "Nurse." A chef is usually called "Chef" or
else by his last name.

Always abroad, and every really well-bred lady or gentleman here, says
"please" in asking that something be brought her or him. "Please get me
the book I left on the table in my room!" Or "Please give me some bread!"
Or "Some bread, please." Or one can say equally politely and omit the
please, "I'd like some toast," but it is usual and instinctive to every
lady or gentleman to add "please."

In refusing a dish at the table, one must say "No, thank you," or "No,
thanks," or else one shakes one's head. A head can be shaken politely or
rudely. To be courteously polite, and yet keep one's walls up is a thing
every thoroughbred person knows how to do--and a thing that everyone who
is trying to become such must learn to do.

A rule can't be given because there isn't any. As said in another chapter,
a well-bred person always lives within the walls of his personal reserve,
a vulgarian has no walls--or at least none that do not collapse at the
slightest touch. But those who think they appear superior by being rude to
others whom fortune has placed below them, might as well, did they but
know it, shout their own unexalted origin to the world at large, since by
no other method could it be more widely published.


=THE HOUSE WITH LIMITED SERVICE=

The fact that you live in a house with two servants, or in an apartment
with only one, need not imply that your house lacks charm or even
distinction, or that it is not completely the home of a lady or gentleman.
But, as explained in the chapter on Dinners, if you have limited service
you must devise systematic economy of time and labor or you will have
disastrous consequences.

Every person, after all, has only one pair of hands, and a day has only so
many hours, and one thing is inevitable, which young housekeepers are apt
to forget, a few can not do the work of many, and do it in the same way.
It is all very well if the housemaid can not get into young Mrs. Gilding's
room until lunch time, nor does it matter if its confusion looks like the
aftermath of a cyclone. The housemaid has nothing to do the rest of the
day but put that one room and bath in order. But in young Mrs. Gaily's
small house where the housemaid is also the waitress, who is supposed to
be "dressed" for lunch, it does not have to be pointed out that she can
not sweep, dust, tidy up rooms, wash out bathtubs, polish fixtures, and at
the same time be dressed in afternoon clothes. If Mrs. Gaily is out for
lunch, it is true the chambermaid-waitress need not be dressed to wait on
table, but her thoughtless young mistress would not be amiable if a
visitor were to ring the door-bell in the early afternoon and have it
opened by a maid in a rumpled "working" dress.

Supposing the time to put the bedroom in order is from ten to eleven each
morning: it is absolutely necessary that Mrs. Gaily take her bath before
ten so that even if she is not otherwise "dressed" she can be out of her
bedroom and bath at ten o'clock promptly. She can go elsewhere while her
room is done up and then come back and finish dressing later. In this case
she must herself "tidy" any disorder that she makes in dressing; put away
her négligé and slippers and put back anything out of place. On the days
when Mr. Gaily does not go to the office he too must get up and out so
that the house can be put in order.


=THE ONE MAID ALONE=

But where one maid alone cooks, cleans, waits on table, and furthermore
serves as lady's maid and valet, she must necessarily be limited in the
performance of each of these duties in direct proportion to their number.
Even though she be eagerly willing, quality must give way before quantity
produced with the same equipment, or if quality is necessary then quantity
must give way. In the house of a fashionable gay couple like the Lovejoys'
for instance, the time spent in "maiding" or "valeting" has to be taken
from cleaning or cooking. Besides cleaning and cooking, the one maid in
their small apartment can press out Mrs. Lovejoy's dresses and do a little
mending, but she can not sit down and spend one or two hours going over a
dress in the way a specialist maid can. Either Mrs. Lovejoy herself must
do the sewing or the housework, or one or the other must be left undone.


=THE MANAGEMENT OF SERVANTS=

It is certainly a greater pleasure and incentive to work for those who are
appreciative than for those who continually find fault. Everyone who did
war work can not fail to remember how easy it was to work for, or with,
some people, and how impossible to get anything done for others. And just
as the "heads" of work-rooms or "wards" or "canteens" were either
stimulating or dispiriting, so must they and their types also be to those
who serve in their households.

This, perhaps, explains why some people are always having a "servant
problem"; finding servants difficult to get, more difficult to keep, and
most difficult to get efficient work from. It is a question whether the
"servant problem" is not more often a mistress problem. It must be!
Because, if you notice, those who have woes and complaints are invariably
the same, just as others who never have any trouble are also the same. It
does not depend on the size of the house; the Lovejoys never have any
trouble, and yet their one maid of all work has a far from "easy" place,
and a vacancy at Brookmeadows is always sought after, even though the
Oldnames spend ten months of the year in the country. Neither is there any
friction at the Golden Hall or Great Estates, even though the latter house
is run by the butler--an almost inevitable cause of trouble. These houses
represent a difference in range of from one alone, to nearly forty on the
household payroll.


=THOSE WHO HAVE PERSISTENT "TROUBLE"=

It might be well for those who have trouble to remember a few rules which
are often overlooked: Justice must be the foundation upon which every
tranquil house is constructed. Work must be as evenly divided as possible;
one servant should not be allowed liberties not accorded to all.

It is not just to be too lenient, any more than it is just to be
unreasonably strict. To allow impertinence or sloppy work is inexcusable,
but it is equally inexcusable to show causeless irritability or to be
overbearing or rude. And there is no greater example of injustice than to
reprimand those about you because you happen to be in a bad humor, and at
another time overlook offenses that are greater because you are in an
amiable mood.

There is also no excuse for "correcting" either a servant or a child
before people.

[Illustration: "THE PERFECT MISTRESS SHOWS ALL THOSE IN HER EMPLOY THE
CONSIDERATION AND TRUST DUE THEM AS HONORABLE SELF-RESPECTING AND
CONSCIENTIOUS HUMAN BEINGS." [Page 157.]]

And when you do correct, do not forget to make allowances, if there be
any reason why allowance should be made.

If you live in a palace like Golden Hall, or any completely equipped house
of important size, you overlook _nothing!_ There is no more excuse for
delinquency than there is in the Army. If anything happens, such as
illness of one servant, there is another to take his (or her) place. A
huge household is a machine and it is the business of the engineers--in
other words, the secretary, housekeeper, chef or butler, to keep it going
perfectly.

But in a little house, it may not be fair to say "Selma, the silver is
dirty!" when there is a hot-air furnace and you have had company to every
meal, and you have perhaps sent her on errands between times, and she has
literally not had a moment. If you don't know whether she has had time or
not, you could give her the benefit of the doubt and say (trustfully, not
haughtily) "You have not had time to clean the silver, have you?" This--in
case she has really been unable to clean it--points out just as well the
fact that it is not shining, but is not a criticism. Carelessness, on the
other hand, when you know she has had plenty of time, should never be
overlooked.

Another type that has "difficulties" is the distrustful--sometimes
actually suspicious--person who locks everything tight and treats all
those with whom she comes in contact as though they were meddlesomely
curious at least, or at worst, dishonest. It is impossible to overstate
the misfortune of this temperament. The servant who is "watched" for fear
she "won't work," listened to for fear she may be gossiping, suspected of
wanting to take a liberty of some sort, or of doing something else she
shouldn't do, is psychologically encouraged, almost driven, to do these
very things.

The perfect mistress expects perfect service, but it never occurs to her
that perfect service will not be voluntarily and gladly given. She, on her
part, shows all of those in her employ the consideration and trust due
them as honorable, self-respecting and conscientious human beings. If she
has reason to think they are not all this, a lady does not keep them in
her house.


=ETIQUETTE OF SERVICE=

The well-trained high-class servant is faultlessly neat in appearance,
reticent in manner, speaks in a low voice, walks and moves quickly but
silently, and is unfailingly courteous and respectful. She (or he) always
knocks on a door, even of the library or sitting-room, but opens it
without waiting to hear "Come in," as knocking on a downstairs door is
merely politeness. At a bedroom door she would wait for permission to
enter. In answering a bell, she asks "Did you ring, sir?" or if especially
well-mannered she asks "Did Madam ring?"

A servant always answers "Yes, Madam," or "Very good, sir," never "Yes,"
"No," "All right," or "Sure."

Young people in the house are called "Miss Alice" or "Mr. Ollie," possibly
"Mr. Oliver," but they are generally called by their familiar names with
the prefix of Miss or Mister. Younger children are called Miss Kittie and
Master Fred, but never by the nurse, who calls them by their first names
until they are grown--sometimes always.

All cards and small packages are presented on a tray.


=TIME "OUT" AND "IN"=

No doubt in the far-off districts there are occasional young women who
work long and hard and for little compensation, but at least in all
cities, servants have their definite time out. Furthermore, they are
allowed in humanely run houses to have "times in" when they can be at home
to friends who come to see them. In every well-appointed house of size
there is a sitting-room which is furnished with comfortable chairs and
sofa if possible, a good droplight to read by, often books, and always
magazines (sent out as soon as read by the family). In other words, they
have an inviting room to use as their own exactly as though they were
living at home. If no room is available, the kitchen has a cover put on
the table, a droplight, and a few restful chairs are provided.


=THE MAIDS' MEN FRIENDS=

Are maids allowed to receive men friends? Certainly they are! Whoever in
remote ages thought it was better to forbid "followers" the house, and
have Mary and Selma slip out of doors to meet them in the dark, had very
distorted notions to say the least. And any lady who knows so little of
human nature as to make the same rule for her maids to-day is acting in
ignorant blindness of her own duties to those who are not only in her
employ but also under her protection.

A pretty young woman whose men friends come in occasionally and play cards
with the others, or dance to a small and not loud phonograph in the
kitchen, is merely being treated humanly. Because she wears a uniform
makes her no less a young girl, with a young girl's love of amusement,
which if not properly provided for her "at home" will be sought for in
sinister places.

This responsibility is one that many ladies who are occupied with
charitable and good works elsewhere often overlook under their own roof.
It does not mean that the kitchen should be a scene of perpetual revelry
and mirth that can by any chance disturb the quiet of the neighborhood or
even the family. Unseemly noise is checked at once, much as it would be if
young people in the drawing-room became disturbing. Continuous company is
not suitable either, and those who abuse privileges naturally must have
them curtailed, but the really high-class servant who does not appreciate
kindness and requite it with considerate and proper behavior is rare.


=SERVICE IN FORMAL ENTERTAINING=

=ON THE SIDEWALK AND IN THE HALL=

For a wedding, or a ball, and sometimes for teas and big dinners, there is
an awning from curb to front door. But usually, especially in good
weather, a dinner or other moderate sized evening entertainment is
prepared for by stretching a carpet (a red one invariably!) down the front
steps and across the pavement to the curb's edge. At all important
functions there is a chauffeur (or a caterer's man) on the sidewalk to
open the door of motors, and a footman or waitress stationed inside the
door of the house to open it on one's approach. This same servant, or more
often another stationed in the hall beyond, directs arriving guests to the
dressing-rooms.


=DRESSING-ROOMS=

Houses especially built for entertaining, have two small rooms on the
ground floor, each with its lavatory, and off of it, a rack for the
hanging of coats and wraps. In most houses, however, guests have to go
up-stairs where two bedrooms are set aside, one as a ladies', and the
other as a gentlemen's coat room.

At an afternoon tea in houses where dressing-rooms have not been installed
by the architect, the end of the hall, if it is wide, is sometimes
supplied with a coat rack (which may be rented from a caterer) for the
gentlemen. Ladies are in this case supposed to go into the drawing-room as
they are, or go up-stairs to the bedroom put at their disposal and in
charge of a lady's maid or housemaid.

If the entertainment is very large, checks are always given to avoid
confusion in the dressing-rooms exactly as in public "check rooms." In the
ladies' dressing-room--whether downstairs or up--there must be an array of
toilet necessities such as brushes and combs; well-placed mirrors,
hairpins, powder with stacks of individual cotton balls, or a roll of
cotton in a receptacle from which it may be pulled. In the lavatory there
must be fresh soap and plenty of small hand towels. The lady's personal
maid and one or two assistants if necessary, depending upon the size of
the party, but one and all of them as neatly dressed as possible, assist
ladies off and on with their wraps, and give them coat checks.

A lady's maid should always look the arriving guests over--not boldly nor
too apparently, but with a quick glance for anything that may be amiss. If
the drapery of a dress is caught up on its trimming, or a fastening
undone, it is her duty to say: "Excuse me, madam (or miss), but there is a
hook undone"--or "the drapery of your gown is caught--shall I fix it?"
Which she does as quietly and quickly as possible. If there is a rip of
any sort, she says: "I think there is a thread loose, I'll just tack it.
It will only be a moment."

The well-bred maid instinctively makes little of a guest's accident, and
is as considerate as the hostess herself. Employees instinctively adopt
the attitude of their employer.

In the gentlemen's coat room of a perfectly appointed house the valet's
attitude is much the same. If a gentleman's coat should have met with any
accident, the valet says: "Let me have it fixed for you, sir, it'll only
take a moment!" And he divests the gentleman of his coat and takes it to a
maid and asks her please to take a stitch in it. Meanwhile he goes back to
his duties in the dressing-room until he is sure the coat is finished,
when he gets it and politely helps the owner into it.

In a small country house where dressing-room space is limited, the quaint
tables copied from old ones are very useful, screened off at the back of
the downstairs hall, or in a very small lavatory. They look, when shut,
like an ordinary table, but when the top is lifted a mirror, the height of
the table's width, swings forward and a series of small compartments and
trays both deep and shallow are laid out on either side. The trays of
course are kept filled with hairpins, pins and powder, and the
compartments have sunburn lotion and liquid powder, brush, comb and
whiskbroom, and whatever else the hostess thinks will be useful.


=THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF GUESTS=

The butler's duty is to stand near the entrance to the reception or
drawing-room, and as each guest arrives (unless they are known to him) he
asks: "What name, please?" He then leads the way into the room where the
hostess is receiving, and says distinctly: "Mr. and Mrs. Jones." If Mrs.
Jones is considerably in advance of her husband, he says: "Mrs. Jones!"
then waits for Mr. Jones to approach before announcing: "Mr. Jones!"

At a very large party such as a ball, or a very big tea or musical, he
does not leave his place, but stands just outside the drawing-room, and
the hostess stands just within, and as the guests pass through the door,
he announces each one's name.

It is said to be customary in certain places to have waitresses announce
people. But in New York guests are never announced if there are no men
servants. At a very large function such as a ball or tea, a hostess who
has no butler at home, always employs one for the occasion. If, for
instance, she is giving a ball for her daughter, and all the sons and
daughters of her own acquaintance are invited, the chances are that not
half or even a quarter of her guests are known to her by sight, so that
their announcement is not a mere matter of form but of necessity.


=THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF DINNER=

When the butler on entering the room to announce dinner, happens to catch
the attention of the hostess, he merely bows. Otherwise he approaches
within speaking distance and says, "Dinner is served." He never says,
"Dinner is ready."

At a large dinner where it is quite a promenade to circle the table in
search of one's name, the butler stands just within the dining-room and
either reads from a list or says from memory "right" or "left" as the case
may be, to each gentleman and lady on approaching. In a few of the
smartest houses a leaf has been taken from the practise of royalty and a
table plan arranged in the front hall, which is shown to each gentleman at
the moment when he takes the envelope enclosing the name of his partner at
dinner. This table plan is merely a diagram made in leather with white
name cards that slip into spaces corresponding to the seats at the table.
On this a gentleman can see exactly where he sits and between whom; so
that if he does not know the lady who is to be on his left as well as the
one he is to "take in," he has plenty of time before going to the table to
ask his host to present him.

At the end of the evening, the butler is always at the front door--and by
that time, unless the party is very large, he should have remembered
their names, if he is a perfect butler, and as Mr. and Mrs. Jones appear
he opens the door and calls down to the chauffeur "Mr. Jones' car!" And in
the same way "Mr. Smith's car!" "Miss Gilding's car!" When a car is at the
door, the chauffeur runs up the steps and says to the butler: "Miss
Gilding's car" or "Mrs. Jones' car." The butler then announces to either
Mr. or Mrs. Jones, "Your car, sir," or "Your car, madam," and holds the
door open for her to go out, or he may say, "Your car, Miss," if the
Gilding car comes first.


=DINING-ROOM SERVICE AT PRIVATE ENTERTAINMENTS=

Supper at a ball in a great house (big enough for a ball) is usually in
charge of the butler, who by "supper time" is free from his duties of
"announcing" and is able to look after the dining-room service. The
sit-down supper at a ball is served exactly like a dinner--or a wedding
breakfast; and the buffet supper of a dance is like the buffet of a
wedding reception.

At a large tea where the butler is on duty "announcing" at the same time
that other guests are going into the dining-room for refreshments, the
dining-room service has to be handed over to the first footman and his
assistants or a capable waitress is equally able to meet the situation.
She should have at least two maids with her, as they have to pour all cups
of tea and bouillon and chocolate as well as to take away used cups and
plates and see that the food on the table is replenished.

At a small tea where ladies perform the office of pouring, one man or maid
in the dining-room is plenty, to bring in more hot water or fresh cups, or
whatever the table hostesses have need of.


=FORMAL SERVICE WITHOUT MEN SERVANTS=

Many, and very fastidious, people, who live in big houses and entertain
constantly, have neither men servants nor employ a caterer, ever.
Efficient women take men's places equally well, though two services are
omitted. Women never (in New York at least) announce guests or open the
doors of motors. But there is no difference whatsoever in the details of
the pantry, dining-room, hall or dressing-room, whether the services are
performed by men or women. (No women, of course, are ever on duty in the
gentlemen's dressing-rooms.)

At an evening party, the door is opened by the waitress, assisted by the
parlor-maid who directs the way to the dressing-rooms. The guests, when
they are ready to go in the drawing-room, approach the hostess
unannounced. A guest who may not be known by sight does not wait for her
hostess to recognize her but says at once, "How do you do, Mrs. Eminent,
I'm Mrs. Joseph Blank"; or a young girl says, "I am Constance Style" (not
"Miss Style," unless she is beyond the "twenties"); or a married woman
merely announces herself as "Mrs. Town." She does not add her husband's
name as it is taken for granted that the gentleman following her is Mr.
Town.




CHAPTER XIII

TEAS AND OTHER AFTERNOON PARTIES


=TEAS=

Except at a wedding, the function strictly understood by the word
"reception" went out of fashion, in New York at least, during the reign of
Queen Victoria, and its survivor is a public or semi-public affair
presided over by a committee, and is a serious, rather than a merely
social event.

The very word "reception" brings to mind an aggregation of personages,
very formal, very dressed up, very pompous, and very learned, among whom
the ordinary mortal can not do other than wander helplessly in the
labyrinth of the specialist's jargon. Art critics on a varnishing day
reception, are sure to dwell on the effect of a new technique, and the
comment of most of us, to whom a painting ought to look like a "picture,"
is fatal. Equally fatal to meet an explorer and not know where or what he
explored; or to meet a celebrated author and not have the least idea
whether he wrote detective stories or expounded Taoism. On the other hand
it is certainly discouraging after studying up on the latest Cretan
excavations in order to talk intelligently to Professor Diggs, to be
pigeon-holed for the afternoon beside Mrs. Newmother whose interest in
discovery is limited to "a new tooth in baby's head."

Yet the difference between a reception and a tea is one of atmosphere
only, like the difference in furnishing twin houses. One is enveloped in
the heavy gloom of the mid-Victorian period, the other is light and
alluring in the fashion of to-day.

A "tea," even though it be formal, is nevertheless friendly and inviting.
One does not go in "church" clothes nor with ceremonious manner; but in an
informal and every-day spirit, to see one's friends and be seen by them.


=THE AFTERNOON TEA WITH DANCING=

The afternoon tea with dancing is usually given to "bring out" a daughter,
or to present a new daughter-in-law. The invitations are the same whether
one hundred or two thousand are sent out. For instance:

           Mrs. Grantham Jones

            Miss Muriel Jones

            will be at home

    on Tuesday, the third of December

      from four until seven o'clock

            The Fitz-Cherry

    Dancing

As invitations to formal teas of this sort are sent to the hostess'
"general" visiting list, and very big houses are comparatively few, a
ballroom is nearly always engaged at a hotel. Many hotels have a big and a
small ballroom, and unless one's acquaintance is enormous the smaller room
is preferable.

Too much space for too few people gives an effect of emptiness which
always is suggestive of failure; also one must not forget that an
undecorated room needs more people to make it look "trimmed" than one in
which the floral decoration is lavish. On the other hand, a "crush" is
very disagreeable, even though it always gives the effect of "success."

The arrangements are not as elaborate as for a ball. At most a screen of
palms behind which the musicians sit (unless they sit in a gallery),
perhaps a few festoons of green here and there, and the débutante's own
flowers banked on tables where she stands to receive, form as much
decoration as is ever attempted.

Whether in a public ballroom or a private drawing-room, the curtains over
the windows are drawn and the lights lighted as if for a ball in the
evening. If the tea is at a private house there is no awning unless it
rains, but there is a chauffeur or coachman at the curb to open motor
doors, and a butler, or caterer's man, to open the door of the house
before any one has time to ring.

Guests as they arrive are announced either by the hostess' own butler or a
caterer's "announcer." The hostess receives everyone as at a ball; if she
and her daughter are for the moment standing alone, the new arrival, if a
friend, stands talking with them until a newer arrival takes his or her
place.

After "receiving" with her mother or mother-in-law for an hour or so, as
soon as the crowd thins a little, the débutante or bride may be allowed to
dance.

The younger people, as soon as they have shaken hands with the hostess,
dance. The older ones sit about, or talk to friends or take tea.

At a formal tea, the tea-table is exactly like that at a wedding
reception, in that it is a large table set as a buffet, and is always in
charge of the caterer's men, or the hostess' own butler or waitress and
assistants. It is never presided over by deputy hostesses.


=THE MENU IS LIMITED=

Only tea, bouillon, chocolate, bread and cakes are served. There can be
all sorts of sandwiches, hot biscuits, crumpets, muffins, sliced cake and
little cakes in every variety that a cook or caterer can devise--whatever
can come under the head of "bread and cake" is admissible; but nothing
else, or it becomes a "reception," and not a "tea." At the end of the
table or on a separate table near by, there are bowls or pitchers of
orangeade or lemonade or "punch" (meaning in these days something cold
that has fruit juice in it) for the dancers, exactly as at a ball.

Guests go to the table and help themselves to their own selection of bread
and cakes. The chocolate, already poured into cups and with whipped cream
on top, is passed on a tray by a servant. Tea also poured into cups, not
mixed but accompanied by a small pitcher of cream, bowl of sugar, and dish
of lemon, is also passed on a tray. A guest taking her plate of food in
one hand and her tea or chocolate in the other, finds herself a chair
somewhere, if possible, near a table, so that she can take her tea without
discomfort.


=AFTERNOON TEAS WITHOUT DANCING=

Afternoon teas without dancing are given in honor of visiting celebrities
or new neighbors or engaged couples, or to "warm" a new house; or, most
often, for a house-guest from another city.

The invitation is a visiting card of the hostess with "to meet Mrs.
So-and-So" across the top of it and "Jan. 10, Tea at 4 o'clock" in the
lower corner, opposite the address.

At a tea of this description, tea and chocolate may be passed on trays or
poured by two ladies, as will be explained below.

Unless the person for whom the tea is given is such a celebrity that the
"tea" becomes a "reception," the hostess does not stand at the door, but
merely near it so that anyone coming in may easily find her. The ordinary
afternoon tea given for one reason or another is, in winter, merely and
literally, being at home on a specified afternoon with the blinds and
curtains drawn, the room lighted as at night, a fire burning and a large
tea-table spread in the dining-room or a small one near the hearth. An
afternoon tea in summer is the same, except that artificial light is never
used, and the table is most often on a veranda.


="DO COME IN FOR A CUP OF TEA"=

This is Best Society's favorite form of invitation. It is used on nearly
every occasion whether there is to be music or a distinguished visitor, or
whether a hostess has merely an inclination to see her friends. She writes
on her personal visiting card: "Do come in on Friday for a cup of tea and
hear Ellwin play, or Farrish sing, or to meet Senator West, or Lady X." Or
even more informally: "I have not seen you for so long."

Invitations to a tea of this description are never "general." A hostess
asks either none but close friends, or at most her "dining" list;
sometimes this sort of a "tea" is so small that she sits behind her own
tea-table--exactly as she does every afternoon.

But if the tea is of any size, from twenty upwards, the table is set in
the dining-room and two intimate friends of the hostess "pour" tea at one
end, and chocolate at the other. The ladies who "pour" are always
especially invited beforehand and always wear afternoon dresses, with
hats, of course, as distinguished from the street clothes of other guests.
As soon as a hostess decides to give a tea, she selects two friends for
this duty who are, in her opinion, decorative in appearance and also who
(this is very important) can be counted on for gracious manners to
everyone and under all circumstances.

It does not matter if a guest going into the dining-room for a cup of tea
or chocolate does not know the deputy hostesses who are "pouring." It is
perfectly correct for a stranger to say "May I have a cup of tea?"

The one pouring should answer very, responsively, "Certainly! How do you
like it? Strong or weak?"

If the latter, she deluges it with hot water, and again watching for the
guest's negative or approval, adds cream or lemon or sugar. Or, preferring
chocolate, the guest perhaps goes to the other end of the table and asks
for a cup of chocolate. The table hostess at that end also says
"Certainly," and pours out chocolate. If she is surrounded with people,
she smiles as she hands it out, and that is all. But if she is unoccupied
and her momentary "guest by courtesy" is alone, it is merest good manners
on her part to make a few pleasant remarks. Very likely when asked for
chocolate she says: "How nice of you! I have been feeling very neglected
at my end. Everyone seems to prefer tea." Whereupon the guest ventures
that people are afraid of chocolate because it is so fattening or so hot.
After an observation or two about the weather, or the beauty of the china
or how good the little cakes look, or the sandwiches taste, the guest
finishes her chocolate.

If the table hostess is still unoccupied the guest smiles and slightly
nods "Good-by," but if the other's attention has been called upon by
someone else, she who has finished her chocolate, leaves unnoticed.

If another lady coming into the dining-room is an acquaintance of one of
the table hostesses, the new visitor draws up a chair, if there is room,
and drinks her tea or chocolate at the table. But as soon as she has
finished, she should give her place up to a newer arrival. Or perhaps a
friend appears, and the two take their tea together over in another part
of the room, or at vacant places farther down the table. The tea-table is
not set with places; but at a table where ladies are pouring, and
especially at a tea that is informal, a number of chairs are usually ready
to be drawn up for those who like to take their tea at the table.

In many cities, strangers who find themselves together in the house of a
friend in common, always talk. In New York smart people always do at
dinners or luncheons, but never at a general entertainment. Their
cordiality to a stranger would depend largely upon the informal, or
intimate, quality of the tea party; it would depend on who the stranger
might be, and who the New Yorker. Mrs. Worldly would never dream of
speaking to anyone--no matter whom--if it could be avoided. Mrs. Kindhart
on the other hand, talks to everyone, everywhere and always. Mrs.
Kindhart's position is as good as Mrs. Worldly's every bit, but perhaps
she can be more relaxed; not being the conspicuous hostess that Mrs.
Worldly is, she is not so besieged by position-makers and
invitation-seekers. Perhaps Mrs. Worldly, finding that nearly every one
who approaches her wants something, has come instinctively to avoid each
new approach.

[Illustration: "THE AFTERNOON TEA-TABLE IS THE SAME IN ITS SERVICE WHETHER
IN THE TINY BANDBOX HOUSE OF THE NEWEST BRIDE, OR IN THE DRAWING-ROOM OF
MRS. WORLDLY OF GREAT ESTATES." [Page 171.]]


=THE EVERY-DAY AFTERNOON TEA TABLE=

The every-day afternoon tea table is familiar to everyone; there is not
the slightest difference in its service whether in the tiny bandbox house
of the newest bride, or in the drawing-room of Mrs. Worldly of Great
Estates, except that in the little house the tray is brought in by a
woman--often a picture in appearance and appointment--instead of a butler
with one or two footmen in his wake. In either case a table is placed in
front of the hostess. A tea-table is usually of the drop-leaf variety
because it is more easily moved than a solid one. There are really no
"correct" dimensions; any small table is suitable. It ought not to be so
high that the hostess seems submerged behind it, nor so small as to be
overhung by the tea tray and easily knocked over. It is usually between 24
and 26 inches wide and from 27 to 36 inches long, or it may be oval or
oblong. A double-decked table that has its second deck above the main
table is not good because the tea tray perched on the upper deck is
neither graceful nor convenient. In proper serving, not only of tea but of
cold drinks of all sorts, even where a quantity of bottles, pitchers and
glasses need space, everything should be brought on a tray and not
trundled in on a tea-wagon!

A cloth must always be first placed on the table, before putting down the
tray. The tea cloth may be a yard, a yard and a half, or two yards square.
It may barely cover the table, or it may hang half a yard over each edge.
A yard and a quarter is the average size. A tea cloth can be colored, but
the conventional one is of white linen, with little or much white
needlework or lace, or both.

On this is put a tray big enough to hold everything except the plates of
food. The tray may be a massive silver one that requires a footman with
strong arms to lift it, or it may be of Sheffield or merely of effectively
lacquered tin. In any case, on it should be: a kettle which ought to be
already boiling, with a spirit lamp under it, an empty tea-pot, a caddy of
tea, a tea strainer and slop bowl, cream pitcher and sugar bowl, and, on a
glass dish, lemon in slices. A pile of cups and saucers and a stack of
little tea plates, all to match, with a napkin (about 12 inches square,
hemstitched or edged to match the tea cloth) folded on each of the plates,
like the filling of a layer cake, complete the paraphernalia. Each plate
is lifted off with its own napkin. Then on the tea-table, back of the
tray, or on the shelves of a separate "curate," a stand made of three
small shelves, each just big enough for one good-sized plate, are always
two, usually three, varieties of cake and hot breads.


=THINGS PEOPLE EAT AT TEA=

The top dish on the "curate" should be a covered one, and holds hot bread
of some sort; the two lower dishes may be covered or not, according to
whether the additional food is hot or cold; the second dish usually holds
sandwiches, and the third cake. Or perhaps all the dishes hold cake;
little fancy cakes for instance, and pastries and slices of layer cakes.
Many prefer a simpler diet, and have bread and butter, or toasted
crackers, supplemented by plain cookies. Others pile the "curate" until it
literally staggers, under pastries and cream cakes and sandwiches of pâté
de foie gras or mayonnaise. Others, again, like marmalade, or jam, or
honey on bread and butter or on buttered toast or muffins. This
necessitates little butter knives and a dish of jam added to the already
overloaded tea tray.

Selection of afternoon tea food is entirely a matter of whim, and new
food-fads sweep through communities. For a few months at a time, everyone,
whether in a private house or a country club, will eat nothing but English
muffins and jam, then suddenly they like only toasted cheese crackers, or
Sally Lunn, or chocolate cake with whipped cream on top. The present fad
of a certain group in New York is bacon and toast sandwiches and fresh hot
gingerbread. Let it be hoped for the sake of the small household that it
will die out rather than become epidemic, since the gingerbread must be
baked every afternoon, and the toast and bacon are two other items that
come from a range.

Sandwiches for afternoon tea as well as for all collations, are made by
buttering the end of the loaf, spreading on the "filling" and then cutting
off the prepared slice as thin as possible. A second slice, unspread,
makes the other side of the sandwich. When it is put together, the crust
is either cut off leaving a square and the square again divided diagonally
into two triangular sandwiches, or the sandwich is cut into shape with a
regular cutter. In other words, a "party" sandwich is not the sort of
sandwich to eat--or order--when hungry!

The tea served to a lady who lives alone and cares for only one dish of
eatables would naturally eliminate the other two. But if a visitor is
"received," the servant on duty should, without being told, at once bring
in at least another dish and an additional cup, saucer, plate and napkin.

Afternoon tea at a very large house party or where especially invited
people are expected for tea, should include two plates of hot food such as
toast or hot biscuits split open and buttered, toasted and buttered
English muffins, or crumpets, corn muffins or hot gingerbread. Two cold
plates should contain cookies or fancy cakes, and perhaps a layer cake. In
hot weather, in place of one of the hot dishes, there should be pâté or
lettuce sandwiches, and always a choice of hot or iced tea, or perhaps
iced coffee or chocolate frappé, but rarely if ever, anything else.


=THE ETIQUETTE OF TEA SERVING AND DRINKING=

As tea is the one meal of intimate conversation, a servant never comes to
the room at tea-time unless rung for, to bring fresh water or additional
china or food, or to take away used dishes. When the tray and curate are
brought in, individual tables, usually glass topped and very small and
low, are put beside each of the guests, and the servant then withdraws.
The hostess herself "makes" the tea and pours it. Those who sit near
enough to her put out their hands for their cup-and-saucer. If any ladies
are sitting farther off, and a gentleman is present, he, of course, rises
and takes the tea from the hostess to the guest. He also then passes the
curate, afterward putting it back where it belongs and resuming his seat.
If no gentleman is present, a lady gets up and takes her own tea which the
hostess hands her, carries it to her own little individual table, comes
back, takes a plate and napkin, helps herself to what she likes and goes
to her place.

If the cake is very soft and sticky or filled with cream, small forks must
be laid on the tea-table.

As said above, if jam is to be eaten on toast or bread, there must be
little butter knives to spread it with. Each guest in taking her plate
helps herself to toast and jam and a knife and carries her plate over to
her own little table. She then carries her cup of tea to her table and
sits down comfortably to drink it. If there are no little tables, she
either draws her chair up to the tea-table, or manages as best she can to
balance plate, cup and saucer on her lap--a very difficult feat!

In fact, the hostess who, providing no individual tables, expects her
guest to balance knife, fork, jam, cream cake, plate and cup and saucer,
all on her knees, should choose her friends in the circus rather than in
society.


=THE GARDEN PARTY=

The garden party is merely an afternoon tea out of doors. It may be as
elaborate as a sit-down wedding breakfast or as simple as a miniature
strawberry festival. At an elaborate one (in the rainy section of our
country) a tent or marquise with sides that can be easily drawn up in fine
weather and dropped in rain, and with a good dancing floor, is often put
up on the lawn or next to the veranda, so that in case of storm people
will not be obliged to go out of doors. The orchestra is placed within or
near open sides of the tent, so that it can he heard on the lawn and
veranda as well as where they are dancing. Or instead of a tea with
dancing, if most of the guests are to be older, there may be a concert or
other form of professional entertainment.

On the lawn there are usually several huge bright-colored umbrella tents,
and under each a table and a group of chairs, and here and there numerous
small tables and chairs. For, although the afternoon tea is always put in
the dining-room footmen or maids carry varieties of food out on large
trays to the lawn, and the guests hold plates on their knees and stand
glasses on tables nearby.

At a garden party the food is often much more prodigal than at a tea in
town. Sometimes it is as elaborate as at a wedding reception. In addition
to hot tea and chocolate, there is either iced coffee or a very melted
café parfait, or frosted chocolate in cups. There are also pitchers of
various drinks that have rather mysterious ingredients, but are all very
much iced and embellished with crushed fruits and mint leaves. There are
often berries with cream, especially in strawberry season, on an estate
that prides itself on those of its own growing, as well as the inevitable
array of fancy sandwiches and cakes.

At teas and musicales and all entertainments where the hostess herself is
obliged to stand at the door, her husband or a daughter (if the hostess is
old enough, and lucky enough to have one) or else a sister or a very close
friend, should look after the guests, to see that any who are strangers
are not helplessly wandering about alone, and that elderly ladies are
given seats if there is to be a performance, or to show any other
courtesies that devolve upon a hostess.


=THE ATMOSPHERE OF HOSPITALITY=

The atmosphere of hospitality is something very intangible, and yet
nothing is more actually felt--or missed. There are certain houses that
seem to radiate warmth like an open wood fire, there are others that
suggest an arrival by wireless at the North Pole, even though a much
brighter actual fire may be burning on the hearth in the drawing-room of
the second than of the first. Some people have the gift of hospitality;
others whose intentions are just as kind and whose houses are perfection
in luxury of appointments, seem to petrify every approach. Such people
appearing at a picnic color the entire scene with the blue light of their
austerity. Such people are usually not masters, but slaves, of etiquette.
Their chief concern is whether this is correct, or whether that is
properly done, or is this person or that such an one as they care to know?
They seem, like _Hermione_ (Don Marquis's heroine), to be anxiously asking
themselves, "Have I failed to-day, or have I not?"

Introspective people who are fearful of others, fearful of themselves, are
never successfully popular hosts or hostesses. If you for instance, are
one of these, if you are _really_ afraid of knowing some one who might
some day prove unpleasant, if you are such a snob that you can't take
people at their face value, then why make the effort to bother with people
at all? Why not shut your front door tight and pull down the blinds and,
sitting before a mirror in your own drawing-room, order tea for two?

[Illustration: "THE PERFECT EXAMPLE OF A FORMAL DINNER TABLE OF WEALTH,
LUXURY AND TASTE, WHICH INVOLVES NO EFFORT ON THE PART OF THE HOSTESS OF A
GREAT HOUSE BEYOND DECIDING UPON THE DATE AND THE PRINCIPAL GUESTS WHO ARE
TO FORM THE NUCLEUS OF THE PARTY." [Page 177.]]




CHAPTER XIV

FORMAL DINNERS


=NOT FOR THE NOVICE TO ATTEMPT=

If the great world of society were a university which issued degrees to
those whom it trains to its usages, the _magna cum laude_ honors would be
awarded without question, not to the hostess who may have given the most
marvelous ball of the decade, but to her who knows best every component
detail of preparation and service, no less than every inexorable rule of
etiquette, in formal dinner-giving.

To give a perfect dinner of ceremony is the supreme accomplishment of a
hostess! It means not alone perfection of furnishing, of service, of
culinary skill, but also of personal charm, of tact. The only other
occasion when a hostess must have equal--and possibly even greater
ability--is the large and somewhat formal week-end party, which includes a
dinner or two as by no means its least formidable features.

There are so many aspects to be considered in dinner giving that it is
difficult to know whether to begin up-stairs or down, or with furnishing,
or service, or people, or manners! One thing is certain, no novice should
ever begin her social career by attempting a formal dinner, any more than
a pupil swimmer, upon being able to take three strokes alone, should
attempt to swim three miles out to sea. The former will as surely drown as
the latter.


=HOW A DINNER IS GIVEN IN A GREAT HOUSE=

When Mrs. Worldly gives a dinner, it means no effort on her part
whatsoever beyond deciding upon the date and the principal guests who are
to form the nucleus; every further detail is left to her
subordinates--even to the completion of her list of guests. For instance,
she decides that she will have an "older" dinner, and finding that the
tenth is available for herself, she tells her secretary to send out
invitations for that date. She does not have especial cards engraved but
uses the dinner blank described in the chapter on Invitations. She then
looks through her "dinner list" and orders her secretary to invite the
Oldworlds, the Eminents, the Learneds, the Wellborns, the Highbrows, and
the Onceweres. She also picks out three or four additional names to be
substituted for those who regret. Then turning to the "younger married"
list she searches for a few suitable but "amusing" or good-looking ones to
give life to her dinner which might otherwise be heavy. But her favorites
do not seem appropriate. It will not do to ask the Bobo Gildings, not
because of the difference in age but because Lucy Gilding smokes like a
furnace and is miserable unless she can play bridge for high stakes, and,
just as soon as she can bolt through dinner, sit at a card table; while
Mrs. Highbrow and Mrs. Oncewere quite possibly disapprove of women's
smoking and are surely horrified at "gambling." The Smartlings won't do
either, for the same reason, nor the Gaylies. She can't ask the Newell
Riches either, because Mrs. Oldworld and Mrs. Wellborn both dislike
vulgarity too much to find compensation in qualities which are merely
amusing. So she ends by adding her own friends the Kindharts and the
Normans, who "go" with everyone, and a few somewhat younger people, and
approves her secretary's suggestions as to additional names if those first
invited should "regret."

The list being settled, Mrs. Worldly's own work is done. She sends word to
her cook that there will be twenty-four on the tenth; the menu will be
submitted to her later, which she will probably merely glance at and send
back. She never sees or thinks about her table, which is in the butler's
province.

On the morning of the dinner her secretary brings her the place cards,
(the name of each person expected, written on a separate card) and she
puts them in the order in which they are to be placed on the table, very
much as though playing solitaire. Starting with her own card at one end
and her husband's at the other, she first places the lady of honor on
his right, the second in importance on his left. Then on either side of
herself, she puts the two most important gentlemen. The others she fits in
between, trying to seat side by side those congenial to each other.

[Illustration: "DETAIL OF PLACE SET AT A FORMAL DINNER TABLE OF A GREAT
HOUSE." [Page 179.]]

When the cards are arranged, the secretary attends to putting the name of
the lady who sits on each gentleman's right in the envelope addressed to
him. She then picks up the place cards still stacked in their proper
sequence, and takes them to the butler who will put them in the order
arranged on the table after it is set.

Fifteen minutes before the dinner hour, Mrs. Worldly is already standing
in her drawing-room. She has no personal responsibility other than that of
being hostess. The whole machinery of equipment and service runs seemingly
by itself. It does not matter whether she knows what the menu is. Her cook
is more than capable of attending to it. That the table shall be perfect
is merely the every-day duty of the butler. She knows without looking that
one of the chauffeurs is on the sidewalk; that footmen are in the hall;
that her own maid is in the ladies' dressing-room, and the valet in that
of the gentlemen; and that her butler is just outside the door near which
she is standing.

So with nothing on her mind (except a jewelled ornament and perfectly
"done" hair) she receives her guests with the tranquillity attained only
by those whose household--whether great or small--can be counted on to run
like a perfectly coordinated machine.


=HOW A DINNER CAN BE BUNGLED=

This is the contrasting picture to the dinner at the Worldly's--a picture
to show you particularly who are a bride how awful an experiment in dinner
giving can be.

Let us suppose that you have a quite charming house, and that your wedding
presents included everything necessary to set a well-appointed table. You
have not very experienced servants, but they would all be good ones with a
little more training.

You have been at home for so few meals you don't quite know how
experienced they are. Your cook at least makes good coffee and eggs and
toast for breakfast, and the few other meals she has cooked seemed to be
all right, and she is such a nice clean person!

So when your house is "in order" and the last pictures and curtains are
hung, the impulse suddenly comes to you to give a dinner! Your husband
thinks it is a splendid idea. It merely remains to decide whom you will
ask. You hesitate between a few of your own intimates, or older people,
and decide it would be such fun to ask a few of the hostesses whose houses
you have almost lived at ever since you "came out." You decide to ask Mrs.
Toplofty, Mr. Clubwin Doe, the Worldlys, the Gildings, and the Kindharts
and the Wellborns. With yourselves that makes twelve. You can't have more
than twelve because you have only a dozen of everything; in fact you
decide that twelve will be pretty crowded, but that it will be safe to ask
that number because a few are sure to "regret." So you write notes (since
it is to be a formal dinner), and--they all accept! You are a little
worried about the size of the dining-room, but you are overcome by the
feeling of your popularity. Now the thing to do is to prepare for a
dinner. The fact that Nora probably can't make fancy dishes does not
bother you a bit. In your mind's eye you see delicious plain food passed;
you must get Sigrid a dress that properly fits her, and Delia, the
chambermaid (who was engaged with the understanding that she was to serve
in the dining-room when there was company), has not yet been at table, but
she is a very willing young person who will surely look well.

Nora, when you tell her who are coming, eagerly suggests the sort of menu
that would appear on the table of the Worldlys or the Gildings. You are
thrilled at the thought of your own kitchen producing the same. That it
may be the same in name only, does not occur to you. You order flowers for
the table, and candy for your four compotiers. You pick out your best
tablecloth, but you find rather to your amazement that when the waitress
asks you about setting the table, you have never noticed in detail how the
places are laid. Knives and spoons go on the right of the plate, of
course, and forks on the left, but which goes next to the plate, or
whether the wine glasses should stand nearer or beyond the goblet you can
only guess. It is quite simple, however, to give directions in serving;
you just tell the chambermaid that she is to follow the waitress, and pass
the sauces and the vegetables. And you have already explained carefully to
the latter that she must not deal plates around the table like a pack of
cards, or ever take them off in piles either. (_That_ much at least you do
know.) You also make it a point above everything that the silver must be
very clean; Sigrid seems to understand, and with the optimism of youth,
you approach the dinner hour without misgiving. The table, set with your
wedding silver and glass, looks quite nice. You are a little worried about
the silver--it does look rather yellow, but perhaps it is just a shadow.
Then you notice there are a great many forks on the table! You ask your
husband what is the matter with the forks? He does not see anything wrong.
You need them all for the dinner you ordered, how can there be less? So
you straighten a candlestick that was out of line, and put the place cards
on.

Then you go into the drawing-room. You don't light the fire until the last
moment, because you want it to be burning brightly when your guests
arrive. Your drawing-room looks a little stiff somehow, but an open fire
more than anything else makes a room inviting, and you light it just as
your first guest rings the bell. As Mr. Clubwin Doe enters, the room looks
charming, then suddenly the fire smokes, and in the midst of the smoke
your other guests arrive. Every one begins to cough and blink. They are
very polite, but the smoke, growing each moment denser, is not to be
overlooked. Mrs. Toplofty takes matters in her own hands and makes Mr. Doe
and your husband carry the logs, smoke and all, and throw them into the
yard. The room still thick with smoke is now cheerlessly fireless, and
another factor beginning to distress you is that, although everyone has
arrived, there is no sign of dinner. You wait, at first merely eager to
get out of the smoke-filled drawing-room. Gradually you are becoming
nervous--what can have happened? The dining-room door might be that of a
tomb for all the evidence of life behind it. You become really alarmed.
Is dinner never going to be served? Everyone's eyes are red from the
smoke, and conversation is getting weaker and weaker. Mrs.
Toplofty--evidently despairing--sits down. Mrs. Worldly also sits, both
hold their eyes shut and say nothing. At last the dining-room door opens,
and Sigrid instead of bowing slightly and saying in a low tone of voice,
"Dinner is served," stands stiff as a block of wood, and fairly shouts:
"Dinner's all ready!"

You hope no one heard her, but you know very well that nothing escaped any
one of those present. And between the smoke and the delay and your
waitress' manners, you are already thoroughly mortified by the time you
reach the table. But you hope that at least the dinner will be good. For
the first time you are assailed with doubt on that score. And again you
wait, but the oyster course is all right. And then comes the soup. You
don't have to taste it to see that it is wrong. It looks not at all as
"clear" soup should! Its color, instead of being glass-clear amber, is
greasy-looking brown. You taste it, fearing the worst, and the worst is
realized. It tastes like dish-water--and is barely tepid. You look around
the table; Mr. Kindhart alone is trying to eat it.

In removing the plates, Delia, the assistant, takes them up by piling one
on top of the other, clashing them together as she does so. You can feel
Mrs. Worldly looking with almost hypnotized fascination--as her attention
might be drawn to a street accident against her will. Then there is a
wait. You wait and wait, and looking in front of you, you notice the bare
tablecloth without a plate. You know instantly that the service is wrong,
but you find yourself puzzled to know how it should have been done.
Finally Sigrid comes in with a whole dozen plates stacked in a pile, which
she proceeds to deal around the table. You at least know that to try to
interfere would only make matters worse. You hold your own cold fingers in
your lap knowing that you must sit there, and that you can do nothing.

The fish which was to have been a _mousse_ with Hollandaise sauce, is a
huge mound, much too big for the platter, with a narrow gutter of water
around the edge and the center dabbed over with a curdled yellow mess. You
realize that not only is the food itself awful, but that the quantity is
too great for one dish. You don't know what to do next; you know there is
no use in apologizing, there is no way of dropping through the floor, or
waking yourself up. You have collected the smartest and the most critical
people around your table to put them to torture such as they will never
forget. Never! You have to bite your lips to keep from crying. Whatever
possessed you to ask these people to your horrible house?

Mr. Kindhart, sitting next to you, says gently, "Cheer up, little girl, it
doesn't really matter!" And then you know to the full how terrible the
situation is. The meal is endless; each course is equally unappetizing to
look at, and abominably served. You notice that none of your guests eat
anything. They can't.

You leave the table literally sick, but realizing fully that the giving of
a dinner is not as easy as you thought. And in the drawing-room, which is
now fireless and freezing, but at least smokeless, you start to apologize
and burst into tears!

As you are very young, and those present are all really fond of you, they
try to be comforting, but you know that it will be years (if ever) before
any of them will be willing to risk an evening in your house again. You
also know that without malice, but in truth and frankness, they will tell
everyone: "Whatever you do, don't dine with the Newweds unless you eat
your dinner before you go, and wear black glasses so no sight can offend
you."

When they have all gone, you drag yourself miserably up-stairs, feeling
that you never want to look in that drawing-room or dining-room again.
Your husband, remembering the trenches, tries to tell you it was not so
bad! But you _know!_ You lie awake planning to let the house, and to
discharge each one of your awful household the next morning, and then you
realize that the fault is not a bit more theirs than yours.

If you had tried the chimney first, and learned its peculiarities; if you
yourself had known every detail of cooking and service, of course you
would not have attempted to give the dinner in the first place; not at
least until, through giving little dinners, the technique of your
household had become good enough to give a big one.

On the other hand, supposing that you had had a very experienced cook and
waitress; dinner would, of course, not have been bungled, but it would
have lacked something, somewhere, if you added nothing of your own
personality to its perfection. It is almost safe to make the statement
that no dinner is ever really well done unless the hostess herself knows
every smallest detail thoroughly. Mrs. Worldly pays seemingly no
attention, but nothing escapes her. She can walk through a room without
appearing to look either to the right or left, yet if the slightest detail
is amiss, an ornament out of place, or there is one dull button on a
footman's livery, her house telephone is rung at once!

Having generalized by drawing two pictures, it is now time to take up the
specific details to be considered in giving a dinner.


=DETAILED DIRECTIONS FOR DINNER GIVING=

The requisites at every dinner, whether a great one of 200 covers, or a
little one of six, are as follows:

Guests. People who are congenial to one another. This is of first
importance.

Food. A suitable menu perfectly prepared and dished. (Hot food to be
_hot_, and cold, _cold_.)

Table furnishing. Faultlessly laundered linen, brilliantly polished
silver, and all other table accessories suitable to the occasion and
surroundings.

Service. Expert dining-room servants and enough of them.

Drawing-room. Adequate in size to number of guests and inviting in
arrangement.

A cordial and hospitable host.

A hostess of charm. Charm says everything--tact, sympathy, poise and
perfect manners--always.

And though for all dinners these requisites are much the same, the
necessity for perfection increases in proportion to the formality of the
occasion.


=TASTE IN SELECTION OF PEOPLE=

The proper selection of guests is the first essential in all entertaining,
and the hostess who has a talent for assembling the right people has a
great asset. Taste in house furnishings or in clothes or in selecting a
cook, is as nothing compared to taste in people! Some people have this
"sense"--others haven't. The first are the great hosts and hostesses; the
others are the mediocre or the failures.

It is usually a mistake to invite great talkers together. Brilliant men
and women who love to talk want hearers, not rivals. Very silent people
should be sandwiched between good talkers, or at least voluble talkers.
Silly people should never be put anywhere near learned ones, nor the dull
near the clever, unless the dull one is a young and pretty woman with a
talent for listening, and the clever, a man with an admiration for beauty,
and a love for talking.

Most people think two brilliant people should be put together. Often they
should, but with discretion. If both are voluble or nervous or
"temperamental," you may create a situation like putting two operatic
sopranos in the same part and expecting them to sing together.

The endeavor of a hostess, when seating her table, is to put those
together who are likely to be interesting to each other. Professor Bugge
might bore _you_ to tears, but Mrs. Entomoid would probably delight in
him; just as Mr. Stocksan Bonds and Mrs. Rich would probably have
interests in common. Making a dinner list is a little like making a
Christmas list. You put down what _they_ will (you hope) like, not what
you like. Those who are placed between congenial neighbors remember your
dinner as delightful--even though both food and service were mediocre; but
ask people out of their own groups and seat them next to their pet
aversions, and wild horses could not drag them to your house again!


=HOW A DINNER LIST IS KEPT=

Nearly every hostess keeps a dinner list--apart from her general visiting
list--of people with whom she is accustomed to dine, or to invite to
dinner or other small entertainments. But the prominent hostess, if she
has grown daughters and continually gives parties of all sorts and sizes
and ages, usually keeps her list in a more complete and "ready reference"
order.

Mrs. Gilding, for instance, has guest lists separately indexed. Under the
general heading "Dinners," she has older married, younger married, girls,
men. Her luncheon list is taken from her dinner list. "Bridge" includes
especially good players of all ages; "dances," young married people, young
girls, and dancing men. Then she has a cross-index list of "Important
Persons," meaning those of real distinction who are always the foundation
of all good society; "Amusing," usually people of talent--invaluable for
house parties; and "New People," including many varieties and unassorted.
Mrs. Gilding exchanges invitations with a number of these because they are
interesting or amusing, or because their parties are diverting and
dazzling. And Mrs. Gilding herself, being typical of New York's Cavalier
element rather than its Puritan strain, personally prefers diversion to
edification. Needless to say, "Boston's Best," being ninety-eight per
cent. Puritan, has no "new" list. Besides her list of "New People," she
has a short "frivolous" list of other Cavaliers like herself, and a
"Neutral" list, which is the most valuable of all because it comprises
those who "go" with everyone. Besides her own lists she has a "Pantry"
list, a list that is actually made out for the benefit of the butler, so
that on occasions he can invite guests to "fill in." The "Pantry" list
comprises only intimate friends who belong on the "Neutral" list and fit
in everywhere; young girls and young and older single men.

Allowing the butler to invite guests at his own discretion is not quite as
casual as it sounds. It is very often an unavoidable expedient. For
instance, at four o'clock in the afternoon, Mr. Blank telephones that he
cannot come to dinner that same evening. Mrs. Gilding is out; to wait
until she returns will make it too late to fill the place. Her butler who
has been with her for years knows quite as well as Mrs. Gilding herself
exactly which people belong in the same group. The dinner cards being
already in his possession, he can see not only who is expected for dinner
but the two ladies between whom Mr. Blank has been placed, and he
thereupon selects some one on the "Pantry" list who is suitable for Mr.
Blank's place at the table, and telephones the invitation. Perhaps he
calls up a dozen before he finds one disengaged. When Mrs. Gilding returns
he says, "Mr. Blank telephoned he would not be able to come for dinner as
he was called to Washington. Mr. Bachelor will be happy to come in his
place." Married people are seldom on this list, because the butler need
not undertake to fill any but an odd place--that of a gentleman
particularly. Otherwise two ladies would be seated together.


=ASKING SOMEONE TO FILL A PLACE=

Since no one but a fairly intimate friend is ever asked to fill a place,
this invitation is always telephoned. A very young man is asked by the
butler if he will dine with Mrs. Gilding that evening, and very likely no
explanation is made; but if the person to be invited is a lady or an older
gentleman (except on such occasions as noted above), the hostess herself
telephones:

"Can you do me a great favor and fill a place at dinner to-night?" The one
who receives this invitation is rather bound by the rules of good manners
to accept if possible.


=IMPORTANCE OF DINNER ENGAGEMENTS=

Dinner invitations must be answered immediately; engraved or written ones
by return post, or those which were telephoned, by telephone and at once!
Also, nothing but serious illness or death or an utterly unavoidable
accident can excuse the breaking of a dinner engagement.

To accept a dinner at Mrs. Nobody's and then break the obligation upon
being invited to dine with the Worldlys, proclaims anyone capable of such
rudeness an unmitigated snob, whom Mrs. Worldly would be the first to cut
from her visiting list if she knew of it. The rule is: "Don't accept an
invitation if you don't care about it." Having declined the Nobody
invitation in the first place, you are then free to accept Mrs. Worldly's,
or to stay at home. There are times, however, when engagements between
very close friends or members of the family may perhaps be broken, but
only if made with the special stipulation: "Come to dinner with us alone
Thursday if nothing better turns up!" And the other answers, "I'd love
to--and you let me know too, if you want to do anything else." Meanwhile
if one of them is invited to something unusually tempting, there is no
rudeness in telephoning her friend, "Lucy has asked us to hear Galli-Curci
on Thursday!" and the other says, "Go, by all means! We can dine Tuesday
next week if you like, or come Sunday for supper." This privilege of
intimacy can, however, be abused. An engagement, even with a member of
one's family, ought never to be broken twice within a brief period, or it
becomes apparent that the other's presence is more a fill-in of idle time
than a longed-for pleasure.


=THE MENU=

It may be due to the war period, which accustomed everyone to going with
very little meat and to marked reduction in all food, or it may be, of
course, merely vanity that is causing even grandparents to aspire to
svelte figures, but whatever the cause, people are putting much less food
on their tables than formerly. The very rich, living in the biggest houses
with the most imposing array of servants, sit down to three, or at most
four, courses when alone, or when intimate friends who are known to have
moderate appetites, are dining with them.

Under no circumstances would a private dinner, no matter how formal,
consist of more than:

1. Hors d'oeuvre
2. Soup
3. Fish
4. Entrée
5. Roast
6. Salad
7. Dessert
8. Coffee

The menu for an informal dinner would leave out the entrée, and possibly
either the hors d'oeuvre or the soup.

As a matter of fact, the marked shortening of the menu is in informal
dinners and at the home table of the well-to-do. Formal dinners have been
as short as the above schedule for twenty-five years. A dinner interlarded
with a row of extra entrées, Roman punch, and hot dessert is unknown
except at a public dinner, or in the dining-room of a parvenu. About
thirty-five years ago such dinners are said to have been in fashion!


=THE BALANCED MENU=

One should always try to choose well-balanced dishes; an especially rich
dish balanced by a simple one. Timbale with a very rich sauce of cream and
pâté de foie gras might perhaps be followed by French chops, broiled
chicken or some other light, plain meat. An entrée of about four broiled
mushrooms on a small round of toast should be followed by boned capon or
saddle of mutton or spring lamb. It is equally bad to give your guests
very peculiar food unless as an extra dish. Some people love highly
flavored Spanish or Indian dishes, but they are not appropriate for a
formal dinner. At an informal dinner an Indian curry or Spanish enchillada
for one dish is delicious for those who like it, and if you have another
substantial dish such as a plain roast which practically everyone is able
to eat, those who don't like Indian food can make their dinner of the
other course.

It is the same way with the Italian dishes. One hating garlic and onions
would be very wretched if onions were put in each and every course, and
liberally. With Indian curry, a fatally bad selection would be a very
peppery soup, such as croute au pot filled with pepper, and fish with
green peppers, and then the curry, and then something casserole filled
again with peppers and onions and other throat-searing ingredients,
finishing with an endive salad. Yet more than one hostess has done exactly
this. Or equally bad is a dinner of flavorless white sauces from beginning
to end; a creamed soup, boiled fish with white sauce, then vol au vent of
creamed sweetbreads, followed by breast of chicken and mashed potatoes and
cauliflower, palm root salad, vanilla ice cream and lady-cake. Each thing
is good in itself but dreadful in the monotony of its combination.

Another thing: although a dinner should not be long, neither should it
consist of samples, especially if set before men who are hungry!

The following menu might seem at first glance a good dinner, but it is one
from which the average man would go home and forage ravenously in the ice
box:

A canapé (good, but merely an appetizer)
Clear soup (a dinner party helping, and no substance)
Smelts (one apiece)
Individual croutards of sweetbreads (holding about a dessert-spoonful)
Broiled squab, small potato croquette, and string beans
Lettuce salad, with about one small cracker apiece
Ice cream

The only thing that had any sustaining quality, barring the potato which
was not more than a mouthful, was the last, and very few men care to make
their dinner of ice cream. If instead of squab there had been filet of
beef cut in generous slices, and the potato croquettes had been more
numerous, it would have been adequate. Or if there had been a thick cream
soup, and a fish with more substance--such as salmon or shad, or a baked
thick fish of which he could have had a generous helping--the squab would
have been adequate also. But many women order trimmings rather than food;
men usually like food.


=THE DINNER TABLE OF YESTERDAY=

All of us old enough to remember the beginning of this century can bring
to mind the typical (and most fashionable) dinner table of that time.
Occasionally it was oblong or rectangular, but its favorite shape was
round, and a thick white damask cloth hung to the floor on all sides.
Often as not there was a large lace centerpiece, and in the middle of it
was a floral mound of roses (like a funeral piece, exactly), usually red.
The four compotiers were much scrolled and embossed, and the four
candlesticks, also scrolled, but not to match, had shades of perforated
silver over red silk linings, like those in restaurants to-day. And there
was a gas droplight thickly petticoated with fringed red silk. The plates
were always heavily "jewelled" and hand painted, and enough forks and
knives and spoons were arrayed at each "place" for a dozen courses. The
glasses numbered at least six, and the entire table was laden with little
dishes--and spoons! There were olives, radishes, celery and salted nuts in
glass dishes; and about ten kinds of sugar-plums in ten different styles
of ornate and bumpy silver dishes; and wherever a small space of
tablecloth showed through, it was filled with either a big "Apostle" spoon
or little Dutch ones criss-crossed.

Bread was always rolled in the napkin (and usually fell on the floor) and
the oysters were occasionally found already placed on the table when the
guests came in to dinner! Loading a table to the utmost of its capacity
with useless implements which only in rarest instances had the least
value, would seem to prove that quantity without quality must have been
thought evidence of elegance and generous hospitality! And the astounding
part of the bad taste epidemic was that few if any escaped. Even those who
had inherited colonial silver and glass and china of consummate beauty,
sent it dust-gathering to the attic and cluttered their tables with stuffy
and spurious lumber.

But to-day the classic has come into its own again! As though recovering
from an illness, good taste is again demanding severe beauty of form and
line, and banishing everything that is useless or superfluous. During the
last twenty years most of us have sent an army of lumpy dishes to the
melting-pot, and junky ornaments to the ash heap along with plush table
covers, upholstered mantel-boards and fern dishes! To-day we are going
almost to the extreme of bareness, and putting nothing on our tables not
actually needed for use.


=THE DINING-ROOM=

It is scarcely necessary to point out that the bigger and more ambitious
the house, the more perfect its appointments must be. If your house has a
great Georgian dining-room, the table should be set with Georgian or an
_earlier_ period English silver. Furthermore, in a "great" dining-room,
all the silver should be real! "Real" meaning nothing so trifling as
"sterling," but genuine and important "period" pieces made by Eighteenth
Century silversmiths, such as de Lamerie or Crespell or Buck or Robertson,
or perhaps one of their predecessors. Or if, like Mrs. Oldname, you live
in an old Colonial house, you are perhaps also lucky enough to have
inherited some genuine American pieces made by Daniel Rogers or Paul
Revere! Or if you are an ardent admirer of Early Italian architecture and
have built yourself a Fifteenth Century stone-floored and frescoed or
tapestry-hung dining room, you must set your long refectory table with a
"runner" of old hand-linen and altar embroidery, or perhaps Thirteenth
Century damask and great cisterns or ewers and beakers in high-relief
silver and gold; or in Callazzioli or majolica, with great bowls of fruit
and church candlesticks of gilt, and even follow as far as is practicable
the crude table implements of that time. It need not be pointed out that
Twentieth Century appurtenances in a Thirteenth or Fifteenth Century room
are anachronisms. But because the dining-table in the replica of a palace
(whether English, Italian, Spanish or French) may be equipped with great
"standing cups" and candelabra so heavy a man can scarcely lift one, it
does not follow that all the rest of us who live in medium or small
houses, should attempt anything of the sort. Nothing could be more out of
proportion--and therefore in worse taste. Nor is it necessary, in order to
have a table that is inviting, to set it with any of the completely
exquisite things which all people of taste long for, but which are
possessed (in quantity at least) only through wealth, inheritance, or
"collector's luck."


=A PLEASING DINING-ROOM AT LIMITED COST=

Enchanting dining-rooms and tables have been achieved with an outlay
amounting to comparatively nothing.

There is a dining-room in a certain small New York house that is quite as
inviting as it is lacking in expensiveness. Its walls are rough-plastered
"French gray." Its table is an ordinary drop-leaf kitchen one painted a
light green that is almost gray; the chairs are wooden ones, somewhat on
the Windsor variety, but made of pine and painted like the table, and the
side tables or consoles are made of a cheap round pine table which has
been sawed in half, painted gray-green, and the legless sides fastened to
the walls. The glass curtains are point d'esprit net with a deep flounce
at the bottom and outside curtains are (expensive) watermelon pink
changeable taffeta. There is a gilt mirror over a cream (absolutely plain)
mantel and over each console a picture of a conventional bouquet of
flowers in a flat frame the color of the furniture, with the watermelon
color of the curtains predominating in a neutral tint background. The
table is set with a rather coarse cream-colored linen drawn-work
centerpiece (a tea cloth actually) big enough to cover all but three
inches of table edge. In the middle of the table is a glass bowl with a
wide turn-over rim, holding deep pink flowers (roses or tulips) standing
upright in glass flower holders as though growing. In midwinter, when real
flowers are too expensive, porcelain ones take their place--unless there
is a lunch or dinner party. The compotiers are glass urns and the only
pieces of silver used are two tall Sheffield candelabra at night, without
shades, the salts and peppers and the necessary spoons and forks. The
knives are "ivory" handled.


=SETTING THE TABLE=

Everything on the table must be geometrically spaced; the centerpiece in
the actual center, the "places" at equal distances, and all utensils
balanced; beyond this one rule you may set your table as you choose.

If the tablecloth is of white damask, which for dinner is always good
style, a "felt" must be put under it. (To say that it must be smooth and
white, in other words perfectly laundered, is as beside the mark as to say
that faces and hands should be clean!) If the tablecloth has lace
insertions, it must on no account be put over satin or over a color. In a
very "important" dining-room and on a very large table, a cloth of plain
and finest quality damask with no trimming other than a monogram (or
crest) embroidered on either side, is in better taste than one of linen
with elaborations of lace and embroidery. Damask is the old-fashioned but
essentially conservative (and safely best style) tablecloth, especially,
suitable in a high-ceilinged room that is either English, French, or of no
special period, in decoration. Lace tablecloths are better suited to an
Italian room--especially if the table is a refectory one. Handkerchief
linen tablecloths embroidered and lace-inserted are also, strangely
enough, suited to all quaint, low-ceilinged, old-fashioned but beautifully
appointed rooms; the reason being that the lace cloth is put over a bare
table. The lace cloth must also go over a refectory table without felt or
other lining.

Very high-studded rooms (unless Italian) on the other hand, seem to need
the thickness of damask. To be sure, one does see in certain houses--at
the Gildings' for instance--an elaborate lace and embroidery tablecloth
put on top of a plain one which in turn goes over a felt, but this
combination is always somewhat overpowering, whereas lace over a bare
table is light and fragile.

Another thing--very ornate, large, and arabesqued designs, no matter how
marvellous as examples of workmanship, inevitably produce a vulgar effect.

All needlework, whether to be used on the table or on a bed, must, in a
beautifully finished house, be fine rather than striking. Coarse linen,
coarse embroideries, all sorts of Russian drawn-work, Italian needlework
or mosaic (but avoiding big scrolled patterns), are in perfect
keeping--and therefore in good taste--in a cottage, a bungalow or a house
whose furnishings are not too fine.

But whatever type of cloth is used, the middle crease must be put on so
that it is an absolutely straight and unwavering line down the exact
center from head to foot. If it is an embroidered one, be sure the
embroidery is "right side out." Next goes the centerpiece which is always
the chief ornament. Usually this is an arrangement of flowers in either a
bowl or a vase, but it can be any one of an almost unlimited variety of
things; flowers or fruit in any arrangement that taste and ingenuity can
devise; or an ornament in silver that needs no flowers, such as a covered
cup; or an epergne, which, however, necessitates the use of fruit, flowers
or candy. Mrs. Wellborn, for instance, whose heirlooms are better than her
income, rarely uses flowers, but has a wonderful old centerpiece that is
ornament enough in itself. The foundation is a mirror representing a lake,
surrounded by silver rocks and grass. At one side, jutting into the lake,
is a knoll with a group of trees sheltering a stag and doe. The ornament
is entirely of silver, almost twenty inches high, and about twenty inches
in diameter across the "lake."

The Normans have a full-rigged silver ship in the center of their table
and at either end rather tall lanterns, Venetian really, but rather
appropriate to the ship; and the salt cellars are very tall ones (about
ten inches high), of sea shells supported on the backs of dolphins.

However, to go back to table setting: A cloth laid straight; then a
centerpiece put in the middle; then four candlesticks at the four corners,
about half-way between the center and the edge of the table, or two
candelabra at either end halfway between the places of the host and
hostess and the centerpiece. Candles are used with or without shades.
Fashion at the moment, says "without," which means that, in order to bring
the flame well above people's eyes, candlesticks or candelabra must be
high and the candles as long as the proportion can stand. Longer candles
can be put in massive candlesticks than in fragile ones. But whether
shaded or not, there are candles on all dinner tables always! The center
droplight has gone out entirely. Electroliers in candlesticks were never
good style, and kerosene lamps in candlesticks--horrible! Fashion says,
"Candles! preferably without shades, but shades if you insist, and few or
many--but candles!"

Next comes the setting of the places. (If it is an extension table, leaves
have, of course, been put in; or if it is stationary, guests have been
invited according to its size.) The distance between places at the table
must never be so short that guests have no elbow room, and that the
servants can not pass the dishes properly; when the dining-room chairs are
very high backed and are placed so close as to be almost touching, it is
impossible for them not to risk spilling something over some one. On the
other hand, to place people a yard or more apart so that conversation has
to be shouted into the din made by everyone else's shouting, is equally
trying. About two feet from plate center to plate center is ideal. If the
chairs have narrow and low backs, people can sit much closer together,
especially at a small round table, the curve of which leaves a spreading
wedge of space between the chairs at the back even if the seats touch at
the front corners. But on the long straight sides of a rectangular table
in a very large--and impressive--dining-room there should be at least a
foot of space between the chairs.


=SETTING THE PLACES=

The necessary number of plates, with the pattern or initials right side
up, are first put around the table at equal distances (spaced with a tape
measure if the butler or waitress has not an accurate eye). Then on the
left of each plate, handle towards the edge of the table, and prongs up,
is put the salad fork, the meat fork is put next, and then the fish fork.
The salad fork, which will usually be the third used, is thus laid
nearest to the plate. If there is an entrée, the fork for this course is
placed between the fish fork and that for the roast and the salad fork is
left to be brought in later. On the right of the plate, and nearest to it,
is put the steel meat knife, then the silver fish knife, the edge of each
toward the plate. Then the soup spoon and then the oyster fork or grape
fruit spoon. Additional forks and knives are put on the table during
dinner.

In putting on the glasses, the water goblet is at the top and to the right
of the knives, and the wine glasses are either grouped to the right of the
goblet, or in a straight line slanting down from the goblet obliquely
towards the right. (Butter plates are never put on a dinner table.) A
dinner napkin folded square and flat is laid on each "place" plate; very
fancy foldings are not in good taste, but if the napkin is very large, the
sides are folded in so as to make a flattened roll a third the width of
its height. (Bread should _not_ be put in the napkin--not nowadays.) The
place cards are usually put above the plate on the tablecloth, but some
people put them on top of the napkin because they are more easily read.

When the places have been set, four silver dishes (or more on a very big
table), either bowl or basket or paten shaped, are put at the four
corners, between the candlesticks (or candelabra) and the centerpiece; or
wherever there are four equally spaced vacancies on the table. These
dishes, or compotiers, hold candy or fruit, chosen less for taste than for
decorative appearance.

On a very large table the four compotiers are filled with candy, and two
or four larger silver dishes or baskets are filled with fruit and put on
alternately with the candy dishes. Flowers are also often put in two or
four smaller vases, in addition to a larger and dominating one in the
center.

Peppers and salts should be put at every other place. For a dinner of
twelve there should be six salt cellars at least, if not six pepper pots.

Olives and radishes are served from the side table, but salted nuts are
often put on the dinner table either in two big silver dishes, or in small
individual ones.


=HAVE SILVER THAT SHINES OR NONE=

Lots of people who would not dream of using a wrinkled tablecloth or
chipped glass or china, seem perfectly blind to dirty silver--silver that
is washed clean of food of course, but so dull that it looks like
jaundiced pewter.

Don't put any silver on your table if you can't have it cleaned.
Infinitely rather have every ornament of glass or china--and if knives and
forks have crevices in the design of their handles that are hard to clean,
buy plain plated ones, or use tin! Anything is better than yellow-faced
dirty-finger-nailed silver. The first thing to ask in engaging a waitress
is, "Can you clean silver?" If she can't, she would better be something
else.

Of course no waitress and no single-handed butler can keep silver the way
it is kept in such houses as the Worldlys', nor is such perfection
expected. The silver polishing of perfection in huge houses is done by
such an expert that no one can tell whether a fork has that moment been
sent from the silversmiths or not. It is not merely polished until it is
bright, but burnished so that it is new! Every piece of silver in certain
of the great establishments, or in smaller ones that are run like a great
one, is never picked up by a servant except with a rouged chamois. No
piece of silver is ever allowed by the slightest chance to touch another
piece. Every piece is washed separately. The footman who gathers two or
three forks in a bunch will never do it a second time, and keep his place.
If the ring of a guest should happen to scratch a knife handle or a fork,
the silver-polisher may have to spend an entire day using his thumb or a
silver buffer, and rub and rub until no vestige of a scratch remains.
Perfection such as this is attainable only in a great house where servants
are specialists of super-efficiency; but in every perfectly run house,
where service is not too limited, every piece of silver that is put on the
table, at every meal, is handled with a rouged chamois and given a quick
wipe-off as it is laid on the dining table. No silver should ever be
picked up in the fingers as that always leaves a mark.

And the way "moderate" households, which are nevertheless perfectly run
for their size and type, have burnished silver, is by using not more than
they can have cleaned.

In view of the present high cost of living (including wages) and the
consequent difficulty, with a reduced number of servants, of keeping a
great quantity of silver brilliant, even the most fashionable people are
more and more using only what is essential, and in occasional instances,
are taking to china! People who are lucky enough to have well-stored
attics these days are bringing treasures out of them.

But services of Swansea or Lowestoft or Spode, while easily cleaned, are
equally easily broken, so that genuine Eighteenth Century pieces are more
apt to see a cabinet than a dinner table.

But the modern manufacturers are making enchanting "sets" that are
replicas of the old. These tea sets with cups and saucers to match and
with a silver kettle and tray, are seen almost as often as silver services
in simple houses in the country, as well as in the small apartment in
town.


=DON'TS IN TABLE SETTING!=

Don't put ribbon trimmings on your table. Satin bands and bows have no
more place on a lady's table than have chop-house appurtenances. Pickle
jars, catsup bottles, toothpicks and crackers are not private-house table
ornaments. Crackers are passed with oyster stew and with salad, and any
one who wants "relishes" can have them in his own house (though they
insult the cook!). At all events, pickles and tomato sauces and other cold
meat condiments are never presented at table in a bottle, but are put in
glass dishes with small serving spoons. Nothing is ever served from the
jar or bottle it comes in except certain kinds of cheese, Bar-le-Duc
preserves (only sometimes) and wines. Pickles, jellies, jams, olives, are
all put into small glass dishes.

Saucers for vegetables are contrary to all etiquette. The only extra
plates ever permitted are the bread and butter plates which are put on at
breakfast and lunch and supper above and to the left of the forks, but
_never_ at dinner. The crescent-shaped salad plate, made to fit at the
side of the place plate, is seen rarely in fashionable houses. When two
plates are made necessary by the serving of game or broiled chicken or
squab, for which the plate should be very hot, at the same time as the
salad which is cold, the crescent-shaped plate is convenient in that it
takes little room.

A correct and very good serving dish for a family of two, is the vegetable
dish that has a partition dividing it into two or even three divisions, so
that a small quantity of two or three vegetables can be passed at the same
time.

Napkin rings are unknown in fashionable houses outside of the nursery. But
in large families where it is impossible to manage such a wash as three
clean napkins a day entail, napkin rings are probably necessary. In most
moderately run houses, a napkin that is unrumpled and spotless after a
meal, is put aside and used again for breakfast; but to be given a napkin
that is not perfectly clean is a horrid thought. Perhaps though, the
necessity for napkin rings results in the achievement of the immaculate
napkin--which is quite a nice thought.


=CORRECT SERVICE OF DINNER=

Whether there are two at table or two hundred, plates are changed and
courses presented in precisely the same manner.

For faultless service, if there are many "accompanied" dishes, two
servants are necessary to wait on as few as two persons. But two can also
efficiently serve eight; or with unaccompanied dishes an expert servant
can manage eight alone, and with one assistant, he can perfectly manage
twelve.

In old-fashioned times people apparently did not mind waiting tranquilly
through courses and between courses, even though meat grew cold long
before the last of many vegetables was passed, and they waited endlessly
while a slow talker and eater finished his topic and his food. But people
of to-day do not like to wait an unnecessary second. The moment fish is
passed them, they expect the cucumbers or sauce, or whatever should go
with the fish, to follow immediately. And when the first servant hands the
meat course, they consider that they should not be expected to wait a
moment for a second servant to hand the gravy or jelly or whatever goes
with the meat. No service is good in this day unless swift--and, of
course, soundless.

A late leader of Newport society who had a world-wide reputation for the
brilliancy of her entertainments, had an equally well-known reputation for
rapidly served dinners. "Twenty minutes is quite long enough to sit at
table--ever!" is what she used to say, and what her household had to live
up to. She had a footman to about every two guests and any one dining with
her had to cling to the edge of his plate or it would be whisked away! One
who looked aside or "let go" for a second found his plate gone! That was
extreme; but, even so, better than a snail-paced dinner!


=THE DINNER HOUR=

In America the dinner hour is not a fixture, since it varies in various
sections of the country. The ordinary New York hour when "giving a dinner"
is eight o'clock, half past eight in Newport. In New York, when dining and
going to the opera, one is usually asked for seven-fifteen, and for
seven-thirty before going to a play. Otherwise only "quiet" people dine
before eight. But invitations should, of course, be issued for whatever
hour is customary in the place where the dinner is given.


=THE BUTLER IN THE DINING-ROOM=

When the dinner guests enter the dining-room, it is customary for the
butler to hold out the chair of the mistress of the house. This always
seems a discourtesy to the guests. And an occasional hostess insists on
having the chair of the guest of honor held by the butler instead of her
own. If there are footmen enough, the chair of each lady is held for her;
otherwise the gentleman who takes her in to dinner helps her to be seated.
Ordinarily where there are two servants, the head one holds the chair of
the hostess and the second, the chair on the right of the host. The
hostess always seats herself as quickly as possible so that the butler may
be free to assist a guest to draw her chair up to the table.

In a big house the butler always stands throughout a meal back of the
hostess' chair, except when giving one of the men under him a direction,
or when pouring wine. He is not supposed to leave the dining-room himself
or ever to handle a dish. In a smaller house where he has no assistant, he
naturally does everything himself; when he has a second man or
parlor-maid, he passes the principal dishes and the assistant follows with
the accompanying dishes or vegetables.

So-called "Russian" service is the only one known in New York which merely
means that nothing to eat is ever put on the table except ornamental
dishes of fruit and candy. The meat is carved in the kitchen or pantry,
vegetables are passed and returned to the side table. Only at breakfast or
possibly at supper are dishes of food put on the table.


=THE EVER-PRESENT PLATE=

From the setting of the table until it is cleared for dessert, a plate
must remain at every cover. Under the first two courses there are always
two plates. The plate on which oysters or hors d'oeuvres are served is put
on top of the place plate. At the end of the course the used plate is
removed, leaving the place plate. The soup plate is also put on top of
this same plate. But when the soup plate is removed, the underneath plate
is removed with it, and a hot plate immediately exchanged for the two
taken away. The place plate merely becomes a hot fish plate, but it is
there just the same.


_The Exchange Plate_

If the first course had been a canapé or any cold dish that was offered in
bulk instead of being brought on separate plates, it would have been eaten
on the place plate, and an exchange plate would have been necessary before
the soup could be served. That is, a clean plate would have been
exchanged for the used one, and the soup plate then put on top of that.
The reason for it is that a plate with food on it can never be exchanged
for a plate that has had food on it; a clean one must come between.

If an entrée served on individual plates follows the fish, clean plates
are first exchanged for the used ones until the whole table is set with
clean plates. Then the entrée is put at each place in exchange for the
clean plate. Although dishes are always presented at the left of the
person served, plates are removed and replaced at the right. Glasses are
poured and additional knives placed at the right, but forks are put on as
needed from the left.


_May the Plates for Two Persons Be Brought in Together?_

The only plates that can possibly be brought into the dining-room one in
each hand are for the hors d'oeuvres, soup and dessert. The first two
plates are placed on others which have not been removed, and the dessert
plates need merely be put down on the tablecloth. But the plates of every
other course have to be exchanged and therefore each individual service
requires two hands. Soup plates, two at a time, would better not be
attempted by any but the expert and sure-handed, as it is in placing one
plate, while holding the other aloft that the mishap of "soup poured down
some one's back" occurs! If only one plate of soup is brought in at a
time, that accident at least cannot happen. In the same way the spoon and
fork on the dessert plate can easily fall off, unless it is held level.
"Two plates at a time" therefore is not a question of etiquette, but of
the servant's skill.


_Plate Removed When Fork Is Laid Down_

Once upon a time it was actually considered impolite to remove a single
plate until the last guest at the table had finished eating! In other days
people evidently did not mind looking at their own dirty plates
indefinitely, nor could they have minded sitting for hours at table. Good
service to-day requires the removal of each plate as soon as the fork is
laid upon it; so that by the time the last fork is put down, the entire
table is set with clean plates and is ready for the next course.


=DOUBLE SERVICE AND THE ORDER OF TABLE PRECEDENCE=

At every well-ordered dinner, there should be a double service for ten or
twelve persons; that is, no hot dish should, if avoidable, be presented to
more than six, or nine at the outside. At a dinner of twelve, for
instance, two dishes each holding six portions, are garnished exactly
alike and presented at opposite ends of the table. One to the lady on the
right of the host, and the other to the lady at the opposite end of the
table. The services continue around to the right, but occasional butlers
direct that after serving the "lady of honor" on the right of the host,
the host is skipped and the dish presented to the lady on his left, after
which the dish continues around the table to the left, to ladies and
gentlemen as they come. In this event the second service starts opposite
the lady of honor and also skips the first gentleman, after which it goes
around the table to the left, skips the lady of honor and ends with the
host. The first service when it reaches the other end of the table skips
the lady who was first served and ends with the gentleman who was skipped.

It is perhaps more polite to the ladies to give them preference, but it is
complicated, and leaves another gentleman as well as the host, sitting
between two ladies who are eating while he is apparently forgotten. The
object (which is to prevent the lady who is second in precedence from
being served last) can be accomplished by beginning the first service from
the lady on the right of the host and continuing on the right 6 places;
the second service begins with the lady on the left of the host and
continues on the left five places, and then comes back to the host. The
best way of all, perhaps, is to vary the "honor" by serving the entrée and
salad courses first to the lady on the left instead of to the lady on the
right and continue the service of these two courses to the left.

A dinner of eighteen has sometimes two services, but if _very_ perfect,
three. Where there are three services they start with the lady of honor
and the sixth from her on either side and continue to the right.


=FILLING GLASSES=

As soon as the guests are seated and the first course put in front of
them, the butler goes from guest to guest on the right hand side of each,
and asks "Apollinaris or plain water!" and fills the goblet accordingly.
In the same way he asks later before pouring wine: "Cider, sir?" "Grape
fruit cup, madam?" Or in a house which has the remains of a cellar,
"Champagne?" or "Do you care for whiskey and soda, sir?"

But the temperature and service of wines which used to be an essential
detail of every dinner have now no place at all. Whether people will offer
frappéd cider or some other iced drink in the middle of dinner, and a
warmed something else to take the place of claret with the fish, remains
to be seen. A water glass standing alone at each place makes such a meager
and untrimmed looking table that most people put on at least two wine
glasses, sherry and champagne, or claret and sherry, and pour something
pinkish or yellowish into them. A rather popular drink at present is an
equal mixture of white grape-juice and ginger ale with mint leaves and
much ice. Those few who still have cellars, serve wines exactly as they
used to, white wine, claret, sherry and Burgundy warm, champagne ice cold;
and after dinner, green mint poured over crushed ice in little glasses,
and other liqueurs of room temperature. Whiskey is always poured at the
table over ice in a tall tumbler, each gentleman "saying when" by putting
his hand out. The glass is then filled with soda or Apollinaris.

As soon as soup is served the parlor-maid or a footman passes a dish or a
basket of dinner rolls. If rolls are not available, bread cut in about
two-inch-thick slices, is cut cross-ways again in three. An old-fashioned
silver cake basket makes a perfect modern bread-basket. Or a small wicker
basket that is shallow and inconspicuous will do. A guest helps himself
with his fingers and lays the roll or bread on the tablecloth, always. No
bread plates are ever on a table where there is no butter, and no butter
is ever served at a dinner. Whenever there is no bread left at any one's
place at table, more should be passed. The glasses should also be kept
filled.


=PRESENTING DISHES=

Dishes are presented held flat on the palm of the servant's right hand;
every hot one must have a napkin placed as a pad under it. An especially
heavy meat platter can be steadied if necessary by holding the edge of the
platter with the left hand, the fingers protected from being burned by a
second folded napkin.

Each dish is supplied with whatever implements are needed for helping it;
a serving spoon (somewhat larger than an ordinary tablespoon) is put on
all dishes and a fork of large size is added for fish, meat, salad and any
vegetables or other dishes that are hard to help. String beans, braised
celery, spinach en branche, etc., need a fork and spoon. Asparagus has
various special lifters and tongs, but most people use the ordinary spoon
and fork, putting the spoon underneath and the fork, prongs down, to hold
the stalks on the spoon while being removed to the plate. Corn on the cob
is taken with the fingers, but is _never_ served at a dinner party. A
galantine or mousse, as well as peas, mashed potatoes, rice, etc., are
offered with a spoon only.


=THE SERVING TABLE=

The serving table is an ordinary table placed in the corner of the
dining-room near the door to the pantry, and behind a screen, so that it
may not be seen by the guests at table. In a small dining-room where space
is limited, a set of shelves like a single bookcase is useful.

The serving table is a halfway station between the dinner table and the
pantry. It holds stacks of cold plates, extra forks and knives, and the
finger bowls and dessert plates. The latter are sometimes put out on the
sideboard, if the serving table is small or too crowded.

At little informal dinners all dishes of food after being passed are left
on the serving table in case they are called upon for a second helping.
But at formal dinners, dishes are never passed twice, and are therefore
taken direct to the pantry after being passed.


=CLEARING TABLE FOR DESSERT=

At dinner always, whether at a formal one, or whether a member of the
family is alone, the salad plates, or the plates of whatever course
precedes dessert, are removed, leaving the table plateless. The salt
cellars and pepper pots are taken off on the serving tray (without being
put on any napkin or doily, as used to be the custom), and the crumbs are
brushed off each place at table with a folded napkin onto a tray held
under the table edge. A silver crumb scraper is still seen occasionally
when the tablecloth is plain, but its hard edge is not suitable for
embroidery and lace, and ruinous to a bare table, so that a napkin folded
to about the size and thickness of an iron-holder is the crumb-scraper of
to-day.


=DESSERT=

The captious say "dessert means the fruit and candy which come after the
ices." "Ices" is a misleading word too, because suggestive of the
individual "ices" which flourished at private dinners in the Victorian
age, and still survive at public dinners, suppers at balls, and at wedding
breakfasts, but which are seen at not more than one private dinner in a
thousand--if that.

In the present world of fashion the "dessert" is ice-cream, served in one
mold; not ices (a lot of little frozen images). And the refusal to call
the "sweets" at the end of the dinner, which certainly include ice cream
and cake, "dessert," is at least not the interpretation of either good
usage or good society. In France, where the word "dessert" originated,
"ices" were set apart from dessert merely because French chefs delight in
designating each item of a meal as a separate course. But chefs and
cook-books notwithstanding, dessert means everything sweet that comes at
the end of a meal. And the great American dessert is ice cream--or pie.
Pie, however, is not a "company" dessert. Ice cream on the other hand is
the inevitable conclusion of a formal dinner. The fact that the spoon
which is double the size of a teaspoon is known as nothing but a dessert
spoon, is offered in further proof that "dessert" is "spoon" and not
"finger" food!


_Dessert Service_

There are two, almost equally used, methods of serving dessert. The first
or "hotel method," also seen in many fashionable private houses, is to put
on a china plate for ice cream or a first course, and the finger bowl on a
plate by itself, afterwards. In the "private house" service, the entire
dessert paraphernalia is put on at once.

In detail: In the two-course, or hotel, service, the "dessert" plate is of
china, or if of glass, it must have a china one under it. A china dessert
plate is just a fairly deep medium sized plate and it is always put on the
table with a "dessert" spoon and fork on it. After the inevitable ice
cream has been eaten, a fruit plate with a finger bowl on it, is put on in
exchange. A doily goes under the finger bowl, and a fruit knife and fork
on either side.

In the single course, or private house, service, the ice cream plate is of
glass and belongs under the finger bowl which it matches. The glass plate
and finger bowl in turn are put on the fruit plate with a doily between,
and the dessert spoon and fork go on either side of the finger bowl
(instead of the fruit knife and fork). This arrangement of plates is seen
in such houses as the Worldlys' and the Oldnames', and in fact in most
very well done houses. The finger bowls and glass plates that match make a
prettier service than the finger bowl on a china plate by itself; also it
eliminates a change--but not a removal--of plates. In this service, a
guest lifts the finger bowl off and eats his ice cream on the glass plate,
after which the glass plate is removed and the china one is left for
fruit.

Some people think this service confusing because an occasional guest, in
lifting off the finger bowl, lifts the glass plate too, and eats his
dessert on his china plate. It is merely necessary for the servants to
notice at which place the china plate has been used and to bring a clean
one; otherwise a "cover" is left with a glass plate or a bare tablecloth
for fruit. Also any one taking fruit must have a fruit knife and fork
brought to him. Fruit is passed immediately after ice-cream; and
chocolates, conserves, or whatever the decorative sweets may be, are
passed last.

This single service may sound as though it were more complicated than the
two-course service, but actually it is less. Few people use the wrong
plate and usually the ice-cream plates having others under them can be
taken away two at a time. Furthermore, scarcely any one takes fruit, so
that the extra knives and forks are few, if any.

Before finishing dessert, it may be as well to add in detail, that the
finger bowl doiley is about five or six inches in diameter; it may be
round or square, and of the finest and sheerest needlework that can be
found (or afforded). It must always be cream or white. Colored
embroideries look well sometimes on a country lunch table but not at
dinner. No matter where it is used, the finger bowl is less than half
filled with cold water; and at dinner parties, a few violets, sweet peas,
or occasionally a gardenia, is put in it. (A slice of lemon is never seen
outside of a chop-house where eating with the fingers may necessitate the
lemon in removing grease. Pretty thought!)

Black coffee is never served at a fashionable dinner table, but is brought
afterwards with cigarettes and liqueurs into the drawing-room for the
ladies, and with cigars, cigarettes and liqueurs into the smoking room for
the gentlemen.

If there is no smoking-room, coffee and cigars are brought to the table
for the gentlemen after the ladies have gone into the drawing-room.


=PLACE CARDS=

The place cards are usually about an inch and a half high by two inches
long, sometimes slightly larger. People of old family have their crest
embossed in plain white; occasionally an elderly hostess, following a
lifelong custom, has her husband's crest stamped in gold. Nothing other
than a crest must ever be engraved on a place card; and usually they are
plain, even in the houses of old families.

Years ago "hand-painted" place cards are said to have been in fashion. But
excepting on such occasions as a Christmas or a birthday dinner, they are
never seen in private houses to-day.


=MENU CARDS=

Small, standing porcelain slates, on which the menu is written, are seen
on occasional dinner tables. Most often there is only one which is placed
in front of the host; but sometimes there is one between every two guests.


=SEATING THE TABLE=

As has already been observed, the most practical way to seat the table is
to write the names on individual cards first, and then "place" them as
though playing solitaire; the guest of honor on the host's right, the
second lady in rank on his left; the most distinguished or oldest
gentleman on the right of the hostess, and the other guests filled in
between.


=WHO IS THE GUEST OF HONOR?=

The guest of honor is the oldest lady present, or a stranger whom you wish
for some reason to honor. A bride at her first dinner in your house, after
her return from her honeymoon, takes, if you choose to have her,
precedence over older people. Or if a younger woman has been long away
she, in this instance of welcoming her home, takes precedence over her
elders. The guest of honor is always led in to dinner by the host and
placed on his right, the second in importance sits on his left and is
taken in to dinner by the gentleman on whose right she sits. The hostess
is always the last to go into the dining-room at a formal dinner.


=THE ENVELOPES FOR THE GENTLEMEN=

In an envelope addressed to each gentleman is put a card on which is
written the name of the lady he is to take down to dinner. This card just
fits in the envelope, which is an inch or slightly less high and about two
inches long. When the envelopes are addressed and filled, they are
arranged in two neat rows on a silver tray and put in the front hall. The
tray is presented to each gentleman just before he goes into the
drawing-room, on his arrival.


=THE TABLE DIAGRAM=

A frame made of leather, round or rectangular, with small openings at
regular intervals around the edge in which names written on cards can be
slipped, shows the seating of the table at a glance. In a frame holding
twenty-four cards, twelve guests would be indicated by leaving every other
card place blank, or for eight, only one in three is filled. This diagram
is shown to each gentleman upon his arrival, so that he can see who is
coming for dinner and where he himself is placed. At a dinner of ten or
less this diagram is especially convenient as "envelopes" are used only at
formal dinners of twelve and over.


=WHEN THE HOSTESS SITS AT THE SIDE=

When the number of guests is a multiple of four, the host and hostess
never sit opposite each other. It would bring two ladies and two gentlemen
together if they did. At a table which seats two together at each end, the
fact that the host is opposite a gentleman and the hostess opposite a lady
is not noticeable; nor is it ever noticeable at a round table. But at a
narrow table which has room for only one at the end, the hostess
invariably sits in the seat next to that which is properly her own,
putting in her place a gentleman at the end. The host usually keeps his
seat rather than the hostess because the seat of honor is on his right;
and in the etiquette governing dinners, the host and not the hostess is
the more important personage!

When there are only four, they keep their own places, otherwise the host
and hostess would sit next to each other. At a dinner of eight, twelve,
sixteen, twenty, etc., the host keeps his place, but at supper for eight
or twelve, the hostess keeps _her_ place and the host moves a place to the
right or left because the hostess at supper pours coffee or chocolate. And
although the host keeps his seat at a formal dinner in honor of the lady
he takes in, at a little dinner of eight, where there is no guest of
honor, the host does not necessarily keep his seat at the expense of his
wife unless he carves, in which case he must have the end place; just as
at supper she has the end place in order to pour.


=SIDEWALK, HALL, AND DRESSING ROOMS=

One can be pretty sure on seeing a red velvet carpet spread down the steps
of a house (or up! since there are so many sunken American basement
entrances) that there are people for dinner. The carpet is kept rolled, or
turned under near the foot (or top) of the steps until a few minutes
before the dinner hour when it is spread across the width of the pavement
by the chauffeur or whoever is on duty on the sidewalk. Very big or formal
dinners often have an awning, especially at a house where there is much
entertaining and which has an awning of its own; but at an ordinary house,
for a dinner of twelve or so, the man on the pavement must, if it is
raining, shelter each arriving guest under his coachman's umbrella from
carriage to door. If it does not rain, he merely opens the doors of
vehicles. Checks are never given at dinners, no matter how big; every
motor is called by address at the end of the evening. The Worldly car is
not shouted for as "Worldly!" but "xox Fifth Avenue!" The typical coachman
of another day used to tell you "carriages are ordered for ten-fifteen."
Carriages were nearly always ordered for that hour, though with slow and
long dinners no one ever actually left until the horses had exercised for
at least an hour! But the chauffeur of to-day opens the door in
silence--unless there is to be a concert or amateur theatricals, when he,
like the coachman says, "Motors are ordered for twelve o'clock," or
whatever hour he is told to say.

In this day of telephone and indefinite bridge games, many people prefer
to have their cars telephoned for, when they are ready to go home. Those
who do not play bridge leave an eight o'clock dinner about half past ten,
or at least order their cars for that hour.

In all modern houses of size there are two rooms on the entrance floor,
built sometimes as dressing-rooms and nothing else, but more often they
are small reception rooms, each with a lavatory off of it. In the one
given to the ladies, there is always a dressing-table with toilet
appointments on it, and the lady's maid should be on duty to give whatever
service may be required; when there is no dressing-room on the ground
floor, the back of the hall is arranged with coat-hangers and an
improvised dressing-table for the ladies, since modern people--in New York
at least--never go up-stairs to a bedroom if they can help it. In fact,
nine ladies out of ten drop their evening cloaks at the front door,
handing them to the servant on duty, and go at once without more ado to
the drawing-room. A lady arriving in her own closed car can't be very much
blown about, in a completely air tight compartment and in two or three
minutes of time!

Gentlemen also leave their hats and coats in the front part of the hail. A
servant presents to each a tray of envelopes, and if there is one, the
table diagram. Envelopes are not really necessary when there is a table
diagram, since every gentleman knows that he "takes in" the lady placed on
his right! But at very big dinners in New York or Washington, where many
people are sure to be strangers to one another, an absent-minded gentleman
might better, perhaps, have his partner's name safely in his pocket.


=ANNOUNCING GUESTS=

A gentleman always falls behind his wife in entering the drawing-room. If
the butler knows the guests, he merely announces the wife's name first and
then the husband's. If he does not know them by sight he asks whichever is
nearest to him, "What name, please?" And whichever one is asked, answers:
"Mr. and Mrs. Lake."

The butler then precedes the guests a few steps into the room where the
hostess is stationed, and standing aside says in a low tone but very
distinctly: "Mrs. Lake," a pause and then, "Mr. Lake." Married people are
usually announced separately as above, but occasionally people have their
guests announced "Mr. and Mrs. ----."


=ANNOUNCING PERSONS OF RANK=

All men of high executive rank are not alone announced first, but take
precedence of their wives in entering the room. The President of the
United States is announced simply, "The President and Mrs. Harding." His
title needs no qualifying appendage, since he and he solely, is _the_
President. He enters first, and alone, of course; and then Mrs. Harding
follows. The same form precisely is used for "The Vice-President and Mrs.
Coolidge." A governor is sometimes in courtesy called "Excellency" but the
correct announcement would be "the Governor of New Jersey and Mrs.
Edwards." He enters the room and Mrs. Edwards follows. "The Mayor and Mrs.
Thompson" observe the same etiquette; or in a city other than his own he
would be announced "The Mayor of Chicago and Mrs. Thompson."

Other announcements are "The Chief Justice and Mrs. Taft," "The Secretary
of State and Mrs. Hughes." "Senator and Mrs. Washington," but in this case
the latter enters the room first, because his office is not executive.

According to diplomatic etiquette an Ambassador and his wife should be
announced, "Their Excellencies the Ambassador and Ambassadress of Great
Britain." The Ambassador enters the room first. A Minister
Plenipotentiary is announced "The Minister of Sweden." He enters a moment
later and "Mrs. Ogren" follows. But a First Secretary and his wife are
announced, if they have a title of their own, "Count and Countess
European," or "Mr. and Mrs. American."

The President, the Vice-President, the Governor of a State, the Mayor of a
city, the Ambassador of a foreign Power--in other words, all
executives--take precedence over their wives and enter rooms and vehicles
first. But Senators, Representatives, Secretaries of legations and all
other officials who are not executive, allow their wives to precede them,
just as they would if they were private individuals.

Foreigners who have hereditary titles are announced by them: "The Duke and
Duchess of Overthere." "The Marquis and Marchioness of Landsend," or "Sir
Edward and Lady Blank," etc. Titles are invariably translated into
English, "Count and Countess Lorraine," not "M. le Comte et Mme. la
Comtesse Lorraine."


=HOW A HOSTESS RECEIVES AT A FORMAL DINNER=

On all occasions of formality, at a dinner as well as at a ball, the
hostess stands near the door of her drawing-room, and as guests are
announced, she greets them with a smile and a handshake and says something
pleasant to each. What she says is nothing very important, charm of
expression and of manner can often wordlessly express a far more gracious
welcome than the most elaborate phrases (which as a matter of fact should
be studiously avoided). Unless a woman's loveliness springs from
generosity of heart and sympathy, her manners, no matter how perfectly
practised, are nothing but cosmetics applied to hide a want of inner
beauty; precisely as rouge and powder are applied in the hope of hiding
the lack of a beautiful skin. One device is about as successful as the
other; quite pleasing unless brought into comparison with the real.

Mrs. Oldname, for instance, usually welcomes you with some such sentences
as, "I am very glad to see you" or "I am so glad you could come!" Or if it
is raining, she very likely tells you that you were very unselfish to
come out in the storm. But no matter what she says or whether anything at
all, she takes your hand with a firm pressure and her smile is really a
_smile_ of welcome, not a mechanical exercise of the facial muscles. She
gives you always--even if only for the moment--her complete attention; and
you go into her drawing-room with a distinct feeling that you are under
the roof, not of a mere acquaintance, but of a friend. Mr. Oldname who
stands never very far from his wife, always comes forward and, grasping
your hand, accentuates his wife's more subtle but no less vivid welcome.
And either you join a friend standing near, or he presents you, if you are
a man, to a lady; or if you are a lady, he presents a man to you.

Some hostesses, especially those of the Lion-Hunting and the
New-to-Best-Society variety are much given to explanations, and love to
say "Mrs. Jones, I want you to meet Mrs. Smith. Mrs. Smith is the author
of 'Dragged from the Depths,' a most enlightening work of psychic
insight." Or to a good-looking woman, "I am putting you next to the
Assyrian Ambassador--I want him to carry back a flattering impression of
American women!"

But people of good breeding do not over-exploit their distinguished guests
with embarrassing hyperbole, or make personal remarks. Both are in worst
possible taste. Do not understand by this that explanations can not be
made; it is only that they must not be embarrassingly made to their faces.
Nor must a "specialist's" subject be forced upon him, like a pair of
manacles, by any exploiting hostess who has captured him. Mrs. Oldname
might perhaps, in order to assist conversation for an interesting but
reticent person, tell a lady just before going in to dinner, "Mr. Traveler
who is sitting next to you at the table, has just come back from two years
alone with the cannibals." This is not to exploit her "Traveled Lion" but
to give his neighbor a starting point for conversation at table. And
although personal remarks are never good form, it would be permissible for
an older lady in welcoming a very young one, especially a débutante or a
bride, to say, "How lovely you look, Mary dear, and what an adorable
dress you have on!"

But to say to an older lady, "That is a very handsome string of pearls you
are wearing," would be objectionable.


=THE DUTY OF THE HOST=

The host stands fairly near his wife so that if any guest seems to be
unknown to all of the others, he can present him to some one. At formal
dinners introductions are never general and people do not as a rule speak
to strangers, except those next to them at table or in the drawing-room
after dinner. The host therefore makes a few introductions if necessary.
Before dinner, since the hostess is standing (and no gentleman may
therefore sit down) and as it is awkward for a lady who is sitting, to
talk with a gentleman who is standing, the ladies usually also stand until
dinner is announced.


=WHEN DINNER IS ANNOUNCED=

It is the duty of the butler to "count heads" so that he may know when the
company has arrived. As soon as he has announced the last person, he
notifies the cook. The cook being ready, the butler, having glanced into
the dining-room to see that windows have been closed and the candles on
the table lighted, enters the drawing-room, approaches the hostess, bows,
and says quietly, "Dinner is served."

The host offers his arm to the lady of honor and leads the way to the
dining-room. All the other gentlemen offer their arms to the ladies
appointed to them, and follow the host, in an orderly procession, two and
two; the only order of precedence is that the host and his partner lead,
while the hostess and her partner come last. At all formal dinners, place
cards being on the table, the hostess does not direct people where to sit.
If there was no table diagram in the hall, the butler, standing just
within the dining-room door, tells each gentleman as he approaches "Right"
or "Left."

"R" or "L" is occasionally written on the lady's name card in the
envelopes given to the gentlemen, or if it is such a big dinner that there
are many separate tables, the tables are numbered with standing placards
(as at a public dinner) and the table number written on each lady's name
card.


=THE MANNERS OF A HOSTESS=

First of all, a hostess must show each of her guests equal and impartial
attention. Also, although engrossed in the person she is talking to, she
must be able to notice anything amiss that may occur. The more competent
her servants, the less she need be aware of details herself, but the
hostess giving a formal dinner with uncertain dining-room efficiency has a
far from smooth path before her. No matter what happens, if all the china
in the pantry falls with a crash, she must not appear to have heard it. No
matter what goes wrong she must cover it as best she may, and at the same
time cover the fact that she is covering it. To give hectic directions,
merely accentuates the awkwardness. If a dish appears that is
unpresentable, she as quietly as possible orders the next one to be
brought in. If a guest knocks over a glass and breaks it, even though the
glass be a piece of genuine Steigel, her only concern must seemingly be
that her guest's place has been made uncomfortable. She says, "I am so
sorry, but I will have it fixed at once!" The broken glass is _nothing!_
And she has a fresh glass brought (even though it doesn't match) and
dismisses all thought of the matter.

Both the host and hostess must keep the conversation going, if it lags,
but this is not as definitely their duty at a formal, as at an informal
dinner It is at the small dinner that the skilful hostess has need of what
Thackeray calls the "showman" quality. She brings each guest forward in
turn to the center of the stage. In a lull in the conversation she says
beguilingly to a clever but shy man, "John, what was that story you told
me----" and then she repeats briefly an introduction to a topic in which
"John" particularly shines. Or later on, she begins a narrative and
breaks off suddenly, turning to some one else, "_You_ tell them!"

These examples are rather bald, and overemphasize the method in order to
make it clear. Practise and the knowledge of human nature, or of the
particular temperament with which she is trying to deal, can alone tell
her when she may lead or provoke this or that one to being at his best, to
his own satisfaction as well as that of the others who may be present. Her
own character and sympathy are the only real "showman" assets, since no
one "shows" to advantage except in a congenial environment.


=THE LATE GUEST=

A polite hostess waits twenty minutes after the dinner hour, and then
orders dinner served. To wait more than twenty minutes, or actually
fifteen after those who took the allowable five minutes grace, would be
showing lack of consideration to many for the sake of one. When the late
guest finally enters the dining-room, the hostess rises, shakes hands with
her, but does not leave her place at table. She doesn't rise for a
gentleman. It is the guest who must go up to the hostess and apologize for
being late. The hostess must never take the guest to task, but should say
something polite and conciliatory such as, "I was sure you would not want
us to wait dinner!" The newcomer is usually served with dinner from the
beginning unless she is considerate enough to say to the butler, "Just let
me begin with this course."

Old Mrs. Toplofty's manners to late guests are an exception: on the last
stroke of eight o'clock in winter and half after eight in Newport, dinner
is announced. She waits for no one! Furthermore, a guest arriving after a
course has been served, does not have to protest against disarranging the
order of dinner since the rule of the house is that a course which has
passed a chair is not to be returned. A guest missing his "turn" misses
that course. The result is that everyone dining with Mrs. Toplofty arrives
on the stroke of the dinner hour; which is also rather necessary, as she
is one of those who like the service to be rushed through at top speed,
and anyone arriving half an hour late would find dinner over.

It would be excellent discipline if there were more hostesses like her,
but no young woman could be so autocratic and few older ones care (or
dare) to be. Nothing shows selfish want of consideration more than being
habitually late for dinner. Not only are others, who were themselves
considerate, kept waiting, but dinner is dried and ruined for everyone
else through the fault of the tardy one. And though expert cooks know how
to keep food from becoming uneatable, no food can be so good as at the
moment for which it is prepared, and the habitually late guest should be
made to realize how unfairly she is meeting her hostess' generosity by
destroying for every one the hospitality which she was invited to share.

On the other hand, before a formal dinner, it is the duty of the hostess
to be dressed and in her drawing-room fifteen, or ten minutes at least,
before the hour set for dinner. For a very informal dinner it is not
important to be ready ahead of time, but even then a late hostess is an
inconsiderate one.


=ETIQUETTE OF GLOVES AND NAPKIN=

Ladies always wear gloves to formal dinners and take them off at table.
Entirely off. It is hideous to leave them on the arm, merely turning back
the hands. Both gloves and fan are supposed to be laid across the lap, and
one is supposed to lay the napkin folded once in half across the lap too,
on top of the gloves and fan, and all three are supposed to stay in place
on a slippery satin skirt on a little lap, that more often than not slants
downward.

It is all very well for etiquette to say "They stay there," but every
woman knows they don't! And this is quite a nice question: If you obey
etiquette and lay the napkin on top of the fan and gloves loosely across
your satin-covered knees, it will depend merely upon the heaviness and
position of the fan's handle whether the avalanche starts right, left or
forward, onto the floor. There is just _one_ way to keep these four
articles (including the lap as one) from disintegrating, which is to put
the napkin cornerwise across your knees and tuck the two side corners
under like a lap robe, with the gloves and the fan tied in place as it
were. This ought not to be put in a book of etiquette, which should say
you must do nothing of the kind, but it is either do that or have the
gentleman next you groping under the table at the end of the meal; and it
is impossible to imagine that etiquette should wish to conserve the
picture of "gentlemen on all fours" as the concluding ceremonial at
dinners.


=THE TURNING OF THE TABLE=

The turning of the table is accomplished by the hostess, who merely turns
from the gentleman (on her left probably) with whom she has been talking
through the soup and the fish course, to the one on her right. As she
turns, the lady to whom the "right" gentleman has been talking, turns to
the gentleman further on, and in a moment everyone at table is talking to
a new neighbor. Sometimes a single couple who have become very much
engrossed, refuse to change partners and the whole table is blocked;
leaving one lady and one gentleman on either side of the block, staring
alone at their plates. At this point the hostess has to come to the rescue
by attracting the blocking lady's attention and saying, "Sally, you cannot
talk to Professor Bugge any longer! Mr. Smith has been trying his best to
attract your attention."

"Sally" being in this way brought awake, is obliged to pay attention to
Mr. Smith, and Professor Bugge, little as he may feel inclined, must turn
his attention to the other side. To persist in carrying on their own
conversation at the expense of others, would be inexcusably rude, not only
to their hostess but to every one present.

At a dinner not long ago, Mr. Kindhart sitting next to Mrs. Wellborn and
left to himself because of the assiduity of the lady's farther partner,
slid his own name-card across and in front of her, to bring her attention
to the fact that it was "his turn."


=ENEMIES MUST BURY HATCHETS=

One inexorable rule of etiquette is that you must talk to your next door
neighbor at a dinner table. You _must_, that is all there is about it!

Even if you are placed next to some one with whom you have had a bitter
quarrel, consideration for your hostess, who would be distressed if she
knew you had been put in a disagreeable place, and further consideration
for the rest of the table which is otherwise "blocked," exacts that you
give no outward sign of your repugnance and that you make a pretence at
least for a little while, of talking together.

At dinner once, Mrs. Toplofty, finding herself next to a man she quite
openly despised, said to him with apparent placidity, "I shall not talk to
you--because I don't care to. But for the sake of my hostess I shall say
my multiplication tables. Twice one are two, twice two are four ----" and she
continued on through the tables, making him alternate them with her. As
soon as she politely could she turned again to her other companion.


=MANNERS AT TABLE=

It used to be an offense, and it still is considered impolite, to refuse
dishes at the table, because your refusal implies that you do not like
what is offered you. If this is true, you should be doubly careful to take
at least a little on your plate and make a pretence of eating some of it,
since to refuse course after course can not fail to distress your hostess.
If you are "on a diet" and accepted the invitation with that stipulation,
your not eating is excusable; but even then to sit with an empty plate in
front of you throughout a meal makes you a seemingly reproachful table
companion for those of good appetite sitting next to you.


=ATTACKING A COMPLICATED DISH=

When a dinner has been prepared by a chef who prides himself on being a
decorative artist, the guest of honor and whoever else may be the first to
be served have quite a problem to know which part of an intricate
structure is to be eaten, and which part is scenic effect!

The main portion is generally clear enough; the uncertainty is in whether
the flowers are eatable vegetables and whether the things that look like
ducks are potatoes, or trimming. If there are six or more, the chances are
they are edible, and that one or two of a kind are embellishments only.
Rings around food are nearly always to be eaten; platforms under food
seldom, if ever, are. Anything that looks like pastry is to be eaten; and
anything divided into separate units should be taken on your plate
complete. You should not try to cut a section from anything that has
already been divided into portions in the kitchen. Aspics and desserts
are, it must be said, occasionally Chinese puzzles, but if you do help
yourself to part of the decoration, no great harm is done.

Dishes are _never_ passed from hand to hand at a dinner, not even at the
smallest and most informal one. Sometimes people pass salted nuts to each
other, or an extra sweet from a dish near by, but not circling the table.


=LEAVING THE TABLE=

At the end of dinner, when the last dish of chocolates has been passed and
the hostess sees that no one is any longer eating, she looks across the
table, and catching the eye of one of the ladies, slowly stands up. The
one who happens to be observing also stands up, and in a moment everyone
is standing. The gentlemen offer their arms to their partners and conduct
them back to the drawing-room or the library or wherever they are to sit
during the rest of the evening.

Each gentleman then slightly bows, takes leave of his partner, and
adjourns with the other gentlemen to the smoking-room, where after-dinner
coffee, liqueurs, cigars and cigarettes are passed, and they all sit where
they like and with whom they like, and talk.

It is perfectly correct for a gentleman to talk to any other who happens
to be sitting near him, whether he knows him or not. The host on
occasions--but it is rarely necessary--starts the conversation if most of
the guests are inclined to keep silent, by drawing this one or that into
discussion of a general topic that everyone is likely to take part in. At
the end of twenty minutes or so, he must take the opportunity of the first
lull in the conversation to suggest that they join the ladies in the
drawing-room.

In a house where there is no smoking-room, the gentlemen do not conduct
the ladies to the drawing-room, but stay where they are (the ladies
leaving alone) and have their coffee, cigars, liqueurs and conversation
sitting around the table.

In the drawing-room, meanwhile, the ladies are having coffee, cigarettes,
and liqueurs passed to them. There is not a modern New York hostess,
scarcely even an old-fashioned one, who does not have cigarettes passed
after dinner.

At a dinner of ten or twelve, the five or six ladies are apt to sit in one
group, or possibly two sit by themselves, and three of four together, but
at a very large dinner they inevitably fall into groups of four or five or
so each. In any case, the hostess must see that no one is left to sit
alone. If one of her guests is a stranger to the others, the hostess draws
a chair near one of the groups and offering it to her single guest sits
beside her. After a while when this particular guest has at least joined
the outskirts of the conversation of the group, the hostess leaves her and
joins another group where perhaps she sits beside some one else who has
been somewhat left out. When there is no one who needs any especial
attention, the hostess nevertheless sits for a time with each of the
different groups in order to spend at least a part of the evening with all
of her guests.


=WHEN THE GENTLEMEN RETURN TO THE DRAWING-ROOM=

When the gentlemen return to the drawing-room, if there is a particular
lady that one of them wants to talk to, he naturally goes directly to
where she is, and sits down beside her. If, however, she is securely
wedged in between two other ladies, he must ask her to join him elsewhere.
Supposing Mr. Jones, for instance, wants to talk to Mrs. Bobo Gilding, who
is sitting between Mrs. Stranger and Miss Stiffleigh: Mr. Jones saunters
up to Mrs. Gilding--he must not look too eager or seem too directly to
prefer her to the two who are flanking her position, so he says rather
casually, "Will you come and talk to me?" Whereupon she leaves her
sandwiched position and goes over to another part of the room, and sits
down where there is a vacant seat beside her. Usually, however, the ladies
on the ends, being accessible, are more apt to be joined by the first
gentleman entering than is the one in the center, whom it is impossible to
reach. Etiquette has always decreed that gentlemen should not continue to
talk together after leaving the smoking-room, as it is not courteous to
those of the ladies who are necessarily left without partners.

At informal dinners, and even at many formal ones, bridge tables are set
up in an adjoining room, if not in the drawing-room. Those few who do not
play bridge spend a half hour (or less) in conversation and then go home,
unless there is some special diversion.


=MUSIC OR OTHER ENTERTAINMENT AFTER DINNER=

Very large dinners of fifty or over are almost invariably followed by some
sort of entertainment. Either the dinner is given before a ball or a
musicale or amateur theatricals, or professionals are brought in to dance
or sing.

In this day when conversation is not so much a "lost" as a "wilfully
abandoned" art, people in numbers can not be left to spend an evening on
nothing but conversation. Grouped together by the hundred and with bridge
tables absent, the modern fashionables in America, and in England, too,
are as helpless as children at a party without something for them to do,
listen to, or look at!


=VERY BIG DINNERS=

A dinner of sixty, for instance, is always served at separate tables; a
center one of twenty people, and four corner tables of ten each. Or if
less, a center table of twelve and four smaller tables of eight. A dinner
of thirty-six or less is seated at a single table.

But whether there are eighteen, eighty, or one or two hundred, the setting
of each individual table and the service is precisely the same. Each one
is set with centerpiece, candles, compotiers, and evenly spaced plates,
with the addition of a number by which to identify it; or else each table
is decorated with different colored flowers, pink, yellow, orchid, white.
Whatever the manner of identification, the number or the color is written
in the corner of the ladies' name cards that go in the envelopes handed to
each arriving gentleman at the door: "pink," "yellow," "orchid," "white,"
or "center table."

In arranging for the service of dinner the butler details three footmen,
usually, to each table of ten, and six footmen to the center table of
twenty. There are several houses (palaces really) in New York that have
dining-rooms big enough to seat a hundred or more easily. But sixty is a
very big dinner, and even thirty does not "go" well without an
entertainment following it.

Otherwise the details are the same in every particular as well as in table
setting: the hostess receives at the door; guests stand until dinner is
announced; the host leads the way with the guest of honor. The hostess
goes to table last. The host and hostess always sit at the big center
table and the others at that table are invariably the oldest present. No
one resents being grouped according to "age," but many do resent a
segregation of ultra fashionables. You must never put all the prominent
ones at one table, unless you want forever to lose the acquaintance of
those at every other.

After dinner, the gentlemen go to the smoking-room and the ladies sit in
the ballroom, where, if there is to be a theatrical performance, the stage
is probably arranged. The gentlemen return, the guests take their places,
and the performance begins. After the performance the leave-taking is the
same as at all dinners or parties.


=TAKING LEAVE=

That the guest of honor must be first to take leave was in former times so
fixed a rule that everyone used to sit on and on, no matter how late it
became, waiting for her whose duty it was, to go! More often than not, the
guest of honor was an absent-minded old lady, or celebrity, who very
likely was vaguely saying to herself, "Oh, my! are these people never
going home?" until by and by it dawned upon her that the obligation was
her own!

But to-day, although it is still the obligation of the guest who sat on
the host's right to make the move to go, it is not considered
ill-mannered, if the hour is growing late, for another lady to rise first.
In fact, unless the guest of honor is one _really_, meaning a stranger or
an elderly lady of distinction, there is no actual precedence in being the
one first to go. If the hour is very early when the first lady rises, the
hostess, who always rises too, very likely says: "I hope you are not
thinking of going!"

The guest answers, "We don't want to in the least, but Dick has to be at
the office so early!" or "I'm sorry, but I must. Thank you so much for
asking us."

Usually, however, each one merely says, "Good night, thank you so much."
The hostess answers, "I am so glad you could come!" and she then presses a
bell (not one that any guest can hear!) for the servants to be in the
dressing-rooms and hall. When one guest leaves, they all leave--except
those at the bridge tables. They all say, "Good night" to whomever they
were talking with and shake hands, and then going up to their hostess,
they shake hands and say, "Thank you for asking us," or "Thank you so
much."

"Thank you so much; good night," is the usual expression. And the hostess
answers, "It was so nice to see you again," or "I'm glad you could come."
But most usually of all she says merely, "Good night!" and suggests
friendliness by the tone in which she says it--an accent slightly more on
the "good" perhaps than on the "night."

In the dressing-room, or in the hall, the maid is waiting to help the
ladies on with their wraps, and the butler is at the door. When Mr. and
Mrs. Jones are ready to leave, he goes out on the front steps and calls,
"Mr. Jones' car!" The Jones' chauffeur answers, "Here," the butler says to
either Mr. or Mrs. Jones, "Your car is at the door!" and they go out.

The bridge people leave as they finish their games; sometimes a table at a
time or most likely two together. (Husbands and wives are never, if it
can be avoided, put at the same table.) Young people in saying good night
say, "Good night, it has been too wonderful!" or "Good night, and thank
you _so_ much." And the hostess smiles and says, "So glad you could come!"
or just "Good night!"


=THE LITTLE DINNER=

The little dinner is thought by most people to be the very pleasantest
social function there is. It is always informal, of course, and intimate
conversation is possible, since strangers are seldom, or at least very
carefully, included. For younger people, or others who do not find great
satisfaction in conversation, the dinner of eight and two tables of bridge
afterwards has no rival in popularity. The formal dinner is liked by most
people now and then (and for those who don't especially like it, it is at
least salutary as a spine stiffening exercise), but for night after night,
season after season, the little dinner is to social activity what the
roast course is to the meal.

The service of a "little" dinner is the same as that of a big one. As has
been said, proper service in properly run houses is never relaxed, whether
dinner is for eighteen or for two alone. The table appointments are
equally fine and beautiful, though possibly not quite so rare. Really
priceless old glass and china can't be replaced because duplicates do not
exist and to use it three times a day would be to court destruction;
replicas, however, are scarcely less beautiful and can be replaced if
chipped. The silver is identical; the food is equally well prepared,
though a course or two is eliminated; the service is precisely the same.
The clothes that fashionable people wear every evening they are home
alone, are, if not the same, at least as beautiful of their kind. Young
Gilding's lounge suit is quite as "handsome" as his dinner clothes, and he
tubs and shaves and changes his linen when he puts it on. His wife wears a
tea gown, which is classified as a negligé rather in irony, since it is
apt to be more elaborate and gorgeous (to say nothing of dignified) than
half of the garments that masquerade these days as evening dresses! They
wear these informal clothes only if very intimate friends are coming to
dinner alone. "Alone" may include as many as eight!--but never includes a
stranger.

[Illustration: A DINNER SERVICE WITHOUT SILVER--"THE LITTLE DINNER IS
THOUGHT BY MOST PEOPLE TO BE THE VERY PLEASANTEST SOCIAL FUNCTION THERE
IS." [Page 228.]]

Otherwise, at informal dinners, the host wears a dinner coat and the
hostess a simple evening dress, or perhaps an elaborate one that has been
seen by everyone and which goes on at little dinners for the sake of
getting some "wear out of it." She never, however, receives formally
standing, though she rises when a guest comes into the room, shakes hands
and sits down again. When dinner is announced, gentlemen do not offer
their arms to the ladies. The hostess and the other ladies go into the
dining-room together, not in a procession, but just as they happen to
come. If one of them is much older than the others, the younger ones wait
for her to go ahead of them, or one who is much younger goes last. The men
stroll in the rear. The hostess on reaching the dining-room goes to her
own place where she stands and tells everyone where she or he is to sit.
"Mary, will you sit next to Jim, and Lucy on his other side; Kate, over
there, Bobo, next to me," etc.


=CARVING ON THE TABLE=

Carving is sometimes seen at "home" dinner tables. A certain type of man
always likes to carve, and such a one does. But in forty-nine houses out
of fifty, in New York at least, the carving is done by the cook in the
kitchen--a roast while it is still in the roasting pan, and close to the
range at that, so that nothing can possibly get cooled off in the carving.
After which the pieces are carefully put together again, and transferred
to an intensely hot platter. This method has two advantages over table
carving; quicker service, and hotter food. Unless a change takes place in
the present fashion, none except cooks will know anything about carving,
which was once considered an art necessary to every gentleman. The boast
of the high-born Southerner, that he could carve a canvas-back holding it
on his fork, will be as unknown as the driving of a four-in-hand.

Old-fashioned butlers sometimes carve in the pantry, but in the most
modern service all carving is done by the cook. Cold meats are, in the
English service, put whole on the sideboard and the family and guests cut
off what they choose themselves. In America cold meat is more often sliced
and laid on a platter garnished with finely chopped meat jelly and water
cress or parsley.


=THE "STAG" OR "BACHELOR" DINNER=

A man's dinner is sometimes called a "stag" or a "bachelor" dinner; and as
its name implies, is a dinner given by a man and for men only. A man's
dinner is usually given to celebrate an occasion of welcome or farewell.
The best-known bachelor dinner is the one given by the groom just before
his wedding. Other dinners are more apt to be given by one man (or a group
of men) in honor of a noted citizen who has returned from a long absence,
or who is about to embark on an expedition or a foreign mission. Or a
young man may give a dinner in honor of a friend's twenty-first birthday;
or an older man may give a dinner merely because he has a quantity of game
which he has shot and wants to share with his especial friends.

Nearly always a man's dinner is given at the host's club or his bachelor
quarters or in a private room in a hotel. But if a man chooses to give a
stag dinner in his own house, his wife (or his mother) should not appear.
For a wife to come downstairs and receive the guests for him, can not be
too strongly condemned as out of place. Such a maneuver on her part,
instead of impressing his guests with her own grace and beauty, is far
more likely to make them think what a "poor worm" her husband must be, to
allow himself to be hen-pecked. And for a mother to appear at a son's
dinner is, if anything, worse. An essential piece of advice to every woman
is: No matter how much you may want to say "How do you do" to your
husband's or your son's friends--_don't!_




CHAPTER XV

DINNER GIVING WITH LIMITED EQUIPMENT


=THE SERVICE PROBLEM=

People who live all the year in the country are not troubled with formal
dinner giving, because (excepting on great estates) formality and the
country do not go together.

For the one or two formal dinners which the average city dweller feels
obliged to give every season, nothing is easier than to hire
professionals; it is also economical, since nothing is wasted in
experiment. A cook equal to the Gildings' chef can be had to come in and
cook your dinner at about the price of two charwomen; skilled butlers or
waitresses are to be had in all cities of any size at comparatively
reasonable fees.

The real problem is in giving the innumerable casual and informal dinners
for which professionals are not only expensive, but inappropriate. The
problem of limited equipment would not present great difficulty if the
tendency of the age were toward a slower pace, but the opposite is the
case; no one wants to be kept waiting a second at table, and the world of
fashion is growing more impatient and critical instead of less.

The service of a dinner can however be much simplified and shortened by
choosing dishes that do not require accessories.


=DISHES THAT HAVE ACCOMPANYING CONDIMENTS=

Nothing so delays the service of a dinner as dishes that must immediately
be followed by necessary accessories. If there is no one to help the
butler or waitress, no dish must be included on the menu--unless you are
only one or two at table, or unless your guests are neither critical nor
"modern"--that is not complete in itself.

For instance, fish has nearly always an accompanying dish. Broiled fish,
or fish meunière, has ice-cold cucumbers sliced as thin as Saratoga chips,
with a very highly seasoned French dressing, or a mixture of cucumbers and
tomatoes. Boiled fish always has mousseline, Hollandaise, mushroom or egg
sauce, and round scooped boiled potatoes sprinkled with parsley. Fried
fish must always be accompanied by tartar sauce and pieces of lemon, and a
boiled fish even if covered with sauce when served, is usually followed by
additional sauce.

Many meats have condiments. Roast beef is never served at a dinner
party--it is a family dish and generally has Yorkshire pudding or roast
potatoes on the platter with the roast itself, and is followed by pickles
or spiced fruit.

Turkey likewise, with its chestnut stuffing and accompanying cranberry
sauce, is not a "company" dish, though excellent for an informal dinner.
Saddle of mutton is a typical company dish--all mutton has currant jelly.
Lamb has mint sauce--or mint jelly.

Partridge or guinea hen must have two sauce boats--presented on one
tray--browned bread-crumbs in one, and cream sauce in the other.

Apple sauce goes with barnyard duck.

The best accompaniment to wild duck is the precisely timed 18 minutes in a
quick oven! And celery salad, which goes with all game, need not be
especially hurried.

Salad is always the accompaniment of "tame game," aspics, cold meat dishes
of all sorts, and is itself "accompanied by" crackers and cheese or cheese
soufflé or cheese straws.


=SPECIAL MENUS OF UNACCOMPANIED DISHES=

One person can wait on eight people if dishes are chosen which need no
supplements. The fewer the dishes to be passed, the fewer the hands needed
to pass them. And yet many housekeepers thoughtlessly order dishes within
the list above, and then wonder why the dinner is so hopelessly slow, when
their waitress is usually so good!

The following suggestions are merely offered in illustration; each
housekeeper can easily devise further for herself. It is not necessary to
pass anything whatever with melon or grapefruit, or a macédoine of fruit,
or a canapé. Oysters, on the other hand, have to be followed by tabasco
and buttered brown bread. Soup needs nothing with it (if you do not choose
split pea which needs croutons, or petite marmite which needs grated
cheese). Fish dishes which are "made" with sauce in the dish, such as sole
au vin blanc, lobster Newburg, crab ravigote, fish mousse, especially if
in a ring filled with plenty of sauce, do not need anything more. Tartar
sauce for fried fish can be put in baskets made of hollowed-out lemon
rind--a basket for each person--and used as a garnishing around the dish.

Filet mignon, or fillet of beef, both of them surrounded by little clumps
of vegetables share with chicken casserole in being the life-savers of the
hostess who has one waitress in her dining-room. Another dish, but more
appropriate to lunch than to dinner, is of French chops banked against
mashed potatoes, or purée of chestnuts, and surrounded by string beans or
peas. None of these dishes requires any following dish whatever, not even
a vegetable.

Fried chicken with corn fritters on the platter is almost as good as the
two beef dishes, since the one green vegetable which should go with it,
can be served leisurely, because fried chicken is not quickly eaten. And a
ring of aspic with salad in the center does not require accompanying
crackers as immediately as plain lettuce.

Steak and broiled chicken are fairly practical since neither needs gravy,
condiment, or sauce--especially if you have a divided vegetable dish so
that two vegetables can be passed at the same time.

If a hostess chooses not necessarily the above dishes but others which
approximately take their places, she need have no fear of a slow dinner,
if her one butler or waitress is at all competent.


=THE POSSIBILITIES OF THE PLAIN COOK=

In giving informal or little dinners, you need never worry because you
cannot set the dishes of a "professional" dinner-party cook before your
friends or even strangers; so long as the food that you are offering is
good of its kind.

It is by no means necessary that your cook should be able to make the
"clear" soup that is one of the tests of the perfect cook (and practically
never produced by any other); nor is it necessary that she be able to
construct comestible mosaics and sculptures. The essential thing is to
prevent her from attempting anything she can't do well. If she can make
certain dishes that are pretty as well as good to taste, so much the
better. But remember, the more pretentious a dish is, the more it
challenges criticism.

If your cook can make neither clear nor cream soup, but can make a
delicious clam chowder, better far to have a clam chowder! On no account
let her attempt clear green turtle, which has about as good a chance to be
perfect as a supreme of boned capon--in other words, none whatsoever! And
the same way throughout dinner. Whichever dishes your own particular Nora
or Selma or Marie can do best, those are the ones you must have for your
dinners. Another thing: it is not important to have variety. Because you
gave the Normans chicken casserole the last time they dined with you is no
reason why you should not give it to them again--if that is the "specialty
of the house" as the French say. A late, and greatly loved, hostess whose
Sunday luncheons at a huge country house just outside of Washington were
for years one of the outstanding features of Washington's smartest
society, had the same lunch exactly, week after week, year after year.
Those who went to her house knew just as well what the dishes would be as
they did where the dining-room was situated. At her few enormous and
formal dinners in town, her cook was allowed to be magnificently
architectural, but if you dined with her alone, the chances were ten to
one that the Sunday chicken and pancakes would appear before you.


=DO NOT EXPERIMENT FOR STRANGERS=

Typical dinner-party dishes are invariably the temptation no less than the
downfall of ambitious ignorance. Never let an inexperienced cook _attempt
a new dish_ for company, no matter how attractive her description of it
may sound. Try it yourself, or when you are having family or most intimate
friends who will understand if it turns out all wrong that it is a "trial"
dish. In fact, it is a very good idea to share the testing of it with some
one who can help you in suggestions, if they are needed for its
improvement. Or supposing you have a cook who is rather poor on all dinner
dishes, but makes delicious bread and cake and waffles and oyster stew and
creamed chicken, or even hash! You can make a specialty of asking people
to "supper." Suppers are necessarily informal, but there is no objection
in that. Formal parties play a very small rôle anyway compared to informal
ones. There are no end of people, and the smartest ones at that, who
entertain only in the most informal possible way. Mrs. Oldname gives at
most two formal dinners a year; her typical dinners and suppers are for
eight.


=PROPER DISHING=

The "dishing" is quite as important as the cooking; a smear or thumb-mark
on the edge of a dish is like a spot on the front of a dress!

Water must not be allowed to collect at the bottom of a dish (that is why
a folded napkin is always put under boiled fish and sometimes under
asparagus). And dishes must be hot; they cannot be too hot! Meat juice
that has started to crust is nauseating. Far better have food too hot to
eat and let people take their time eating it than that others should
suffer the disgust of cold victuals! Sending in cold food is one of the
worst faults (next to not knowing how to cook) that a cook can have.


=PROFESSIONAL OR HOME DINING ROOM SERVICE=

Just as it is better to hire a professional dinner-party cook than to run
the risk of attempting a formal dinner with your own Nora or Selma unless
you are very sure she is adequate, in the same way it is better to have a
professional waitress as captain over your own, or a professional butler
over your own inexperienced one, than to have your meal served in spasms
and long pauses. But if your waitress, assisted by the chambermaid,
perfectly waits on six, you will find that they can very nicely manage
ten, even with accompanied dishes.


=BLUNDERS IN SERVICE=

If an inexperienced servant blunders, you should pretend, if you can, not
to know it. Never attract anyone's attention to anything by apologizing or
explaining, unless the accident happens to a guest. Under ordinary
circumstances "least said, soonest mended" is the best policy. If a
servant blunders, it makes the situation much worse to take her to task,
the cause being usually that she is nervous or ignorant. Speak, if it is
necessary to direct her, very gently and as kindly as possible; your
object being to restore confidence, not to increase the disorder. Beckon
her to you and tell her as you might tell a child you were teaching: "Give
Mrs. Smith a tablespoon, not a teaspoon." Or, "You have forgotten the fork
on that dish." Never let her feel that you think her stupid, but encourage
her as much as possible and when she does anything especially well, tell
her so.


=THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF PRAISE=

Nearly all people are quick to censure but rather chary of praise.
Admonish of course where you must, but censure only with justice, and
don't forget that whether of high estate or humble, we all of us like
praise--sometimes. When a guest tells you your dinner is the best he has
ever eaten, remember that the cook cooked it, and tell her it was praised.
Or if the dining-room service was silent and quick and perfect, then tell
those who served it how well it was done. If you are entertaining all the
time, you need not commend your household after every dinner you give, but
if any especial willingness, attentiveness, or tact is shown, don't forget
that a little praise is not only merest justice but is beyond the purse of
no one.




CHAPTER XVI

LUNCHEONS, BREAKFASTS AND SUPPERS


=THE INVITATIONS=

Although the engraved card is occasionally used for an elaborate luncheon,
especially for one given in honor of a noted person, formal invitations to
lunch in very fashionable houses are nearly always written in the first
person, and rarely sent out more than a week in advance. For instance:

    Dear Mrs. Kindhart (or Martha):

    Will you lunch with me on Monday the tenth at half after one
    o'clock?

    Hoping so much to see you,

    Sincerely (or affectionately),
                         Jane Toplofty.

If the above lunch were given in honor of somebody--Mrs. Eminent, for
instance--the phrase "to meet Mrs. Eminent" would have been added
immediately after the word "o'clock." At a very large luncheon for which
the engraved card might be used, "To meet Mrs. Eminent" would be written
across the top of the card of invitation.

Informal invitations are telephoned nearly always.

Invitation to a stand-up luncheon (or breakfast; it is breakfast if the
hour is twelve or half after, and lunch if at one, or one-thirty), is
either telephoned or written on an ordinary visiting card:

    [HW: Sat. Oct. 2.
    Luncheon at 1 o'clock]

    Mr. and Mrs. Gilding

                 GOLDEN HALL

If R.s.v.p. is added in the lower corner, the invitation should be
answered, otherwise the hostess is obliged to guess how many to provide
for.

Or, if the hostess prefers, a personal note is always courteous:

    Dear Mrs. Neighbor:

    We are having a stand-up luncheon on Saturday, October Second, at
    one o'clock, and hope that you and your husband and any guests
    who may be staying with you will come,

               Very sincerely yours,

                          Alice Toplofty Gilding.
    Golden Hall
    Sept. 27.


A personal note always exacts a reply--which may however be telephoned,
unless the invitation was worded in the formal third person. A written
answer is more polite, if the hostess is somewhat of a stranger to you.


=THE FORMAL LUNCHEON OF TO-DAY=

Luncheon, being a daylight function, is never so formidable as a dinner,
even though it may be every bit as formal and differ from the latter in
minor details only. Luncheons are generally given by, and for, ladies,
but it is not unusual, especially in summer places or in town on Saturday
or Sunday, to include an equal number of gentlemen.

But no matter how large or formal a luncheon may be, there is rarely a
chauffeur on the sidewalk, or a carpet or an awning. The hostess, instead
of receiving at the door, sits usually in the center of the room in some
place that has an unobstructed approach from the door. Each guest coming
into the room is preceded by the butler to within a short speaking
distance of the hostess, where he announces the new arrival's name, and
then stands aside. Where there is a waitress instead of a butler, guests
greet the hostess unannounced. The hostess rises, or if standing takes a
step forward, shakes hands, says "I'm so glad to see you," or "I am
delighted to see you," or "How do you do!" She then waits for a second or
two to see if the guest who has just come in speaks to anyone; if not, she
makes the necessary introduction.

When the butler or waitress has "counted heads" and knows the guests have
arrived, he or she enters the room, bows to the hostess and says,
"Luncheon is served."

If there is a guest of honor, the hostess leads the way to the
dining-room, walking beside her. Otherwise, the guests go in twos or
threes, or even singly, just as they happen to come, except that the very
young make way for their elders, and gentlemen stroll in with those they
happen to be talking to, or, if alone, fill in the rear. The gentlemen
_never_ offer their arms to ladies in going in to a luncheon--unless there
should be an elderly guest of honor, who might be taken in by the host, as
at a dinner. But the others follow informally.


=THE TABLE=

Candles have no place on a lunch or breakfast table; and are used only
where a dining-room is unfortunately without daylight. Also a plain damask
tablecloth (which must always be put on top of a thick table felt) is
correct for dinner but not for luncheon. The traditional lunch table is
"bare"--which does not mean actually bare at all, but that it has a
centerpiece, either round or rectangular or square, with place mats to
match, made in literally unrestricted varieties of linen, needlework and
lace. The centerpiece is anywhere from 30 inches to a yard and a half
square, on a square or round table, and from half a yard to a yard wide by
length in proportion to the length of a rectangular table. The place mats
are round or square or rectangular to match, and are put at the places.

Or if the table is a refectory one, instead of centerpiece and doilies,
the table is set with a runner not reaching to the edge at the side, but
falling over both ends. Or there may be a tablecloth made to fit the top
of the table to within an inch or two of its edge. Occasionally there is a
real cloth that hangs over like a dinner cloth, but it always has lace or
open-work and is made of fine linen so that the table shows through.

The decorations of the table are practically the same as for dinner:
flowers, or a silver ornament or epergne in the center, and flower dishes
or compotiers or patens filled with ornamental fruit or candy at the
corners. If the table is very large and rather bare without candles, four
vases or silver bowls of flowers, or ornamental figures are added.

If the center ornament is of porcelain, four porcelain figures to match
have at least a logical reason for their presence, or a bisque "garden"
set of vases and balustrades, with small flowers and vines put in the
vases to look as though they were growing, follows out the decoration.
Most people, however, like a sparsely ornamented table.

The places are set as for dinner, with a place plate, three forks, two
knives and a small spoon. The lunch napkin, which should match the table
linen, is much smaller than the dinner napkin, and is not folded quite the
same: it is folded like a handkerchief, in only four folds (four
thicknesses). The square is laid on the place plate diagonally, with the
monogrammed (or embroidered) corner pointing down toward the edge of the
table. The upper corner is then turned sharply under in a flat crease for
about a quarter of its diagonal length; then the two sides are rolled
loosely under, making a sort of pillow effect laid sideways; with a
straight top edge and a pointed lower edge, and the monogram displayed in
the center.

Another feature of luncheon service, which is always omitted at dinner, is
the bread and butter plate.


_The Bread and Butter Plate_

The butter plate has been entirely dispossessed by the bread and butter
plate, which is part of the luncheon service always--as well as of
breakfast and supper. It is a very small plate about five and a half to
six and a half inches in diameter, and is put at the left side of each
place just beyond the forks. Butter is sometimes put on the plate by the
servant (as in a restaurant) but usually it is passed. Hot breads are an
important feature of every luncheon; hot crescents, soda biscuits, bread
biscuits, dinner rolls, or corn bread, the latter baked in small pans like
pie plates four inches in diameter. Very thin bread that is roasted in the
oven until it is curled and light brown (exactly like a large Saratoga
chip), is often made for those who don't eat butter, and is also suitable
for dinner. This "double-baked" bread, toast, and one or two of the above
varieties, are all put in an old-fashioned silver cake-basket, or actual
basket of wicker, and passed as often as necessary. Butter is also passed
(or helped) throughout the meal until the table is cleared for dessert.
Bread and butter plates are always removed with the salt and pepper pots.


=THE SERVICE OF LUNCHEON=

The service is identical with that of dinner. Carving is done in the
kitchen and no food set on the table except ornamental dishes of fruit,
candy and nuts. The plate service is also the same as at dinner. The
places are never left plateless, excepting after salad, when the table is
cleared and crumbed for dessert. The dessert plates and finger bowls are
arranged as for dinner. Flowers are usually put in the finger bowls, a
little spray of any sweet-scented flower, but "corsage bouquets" laid at
the places with flower pins complete are in very bad taste.


=THE LUNCHEON MENU=

Five courses at most (not counting the passing of a dish of candy or
after-dinner coffee as a course), or more usually four actual courses, are
thought sufficient in the smartest houses. Not even at the Worldlys' or
the Gildings' will you ever see a longer menu than:

  1. Fruit, or soup in cups
  2. Eggs
  3. Meat and vegetables
  4. Salad
  5. Dessert

or

  1. Fruit
  2. Soup
  3. Meat and vegetables
  4. Salad
  5. Dessert

or

  1. Fruit
  2. Soup
  3. Eggs
  4. Fowl or "tame" game with salad
  5. Dessert

An informal lunch menu is seldom more than four courses and would
eliminate either No. 1 or No. 2 or No. 5.

The most popular fruit course is a macédoine or mixture of fresh orange,
grape fruit, malaga grapes, banana, and perhaps a peach or a little
pineapple; in fact, any sort of fruit cut into very small pieces, with
sugar and maraschino, or rum, for flavor--or nothing but sugar--served in
special bowl-shaped glasses that fit into long-stemmed and much larger
ones, with a space for crushed ice between; or it can just as well be put
in champagne or any bowl-shaped glasses, after being kept as cold as
possible in the ice-box until sent to the table.

If the first course is grape fruit, it is cut across in half, the sections
cut free and all dividing skin and seeds taken out with a sharp vegetable
knife, and sugar put in it and left standing for an hour or so. A slice
of melon is served plain.

Soup at luncheon, or at a wedding breakfast or a ball supper, is never
served in soup plates, but in two-handled cups, and is eaten with a
teaspoon or a bouillon spoon. It is limited to a few varieties: either
chicken, or clam broth, with a spoonful of whipped cream on top; or
bouillon, or green turtle, or strained chicken, or tomato broth; or in
summer, cold bouillon or broth.

Lunch party egg dishes must number a hundred varieties. (See any cook
book!) Eggs that are substantial and "rich," such as eggs Benedict, or
stuffed with pâté de foie gras and a mushroom sauce, should then be
"balanced" by a simple meat, such as broiled chicken and salad, combining
meat and salad courses in one. On the other hand, should you have a light
egg course, like "eggs surprise," you could have meat and vegetables, and
plain salad; or an elaborate salad and no dessert. Or with fruit and soup,
omit eggs, especially if there is to be an aspic with salad.

The menu of an informal luncheon, if it does not leave out a course, at
least chooses simpler dishes. A bouillon or broth, shirred eggs or an
omelette; or scrambled eggs on toast which has first been spread with a
pâté or meat purée; then chicken or a chop with vegetables, a salad of
plain lettuce with crackers and cheese, and a pudding or pie or any other
"family" dessert. Or broiled chicken, chicken croquettes, or an aspic, is
served with the salad in very hot weather. While cold food is both
appropriate and palatable, no meal should ever be chosen without at least
one course of hot food. Many people dislike cold food, and it disagrees
with others, but if you offer your guests soup, or even tea or chocolate,
it would then do to have the rest of the meal cold.


=LUNCHEON BEVERAGES=

It is an American custom--especially in communities where the five o'clock
tea habit is neither so strong nor so universal as in New York, for the
lady of a house to have the tea set put before her at the table, not only
when alone, but when having friends lunching informally with her, and to
pour tea, coffee, or chocolate. And there is certainly not the slightest
reason why, if she is used to these beverages and would feel their
omission, she should not "pour out" what she chooses. In fact, although
tea is never served hot at formal New York luncheons, iced tea is
customary in all country houses in summer; and chocolate, not poured by
the hostess, but brought in from the pantry and put down at the right of
each plate, is by no means unusual at informal lunch parties.

Iced tea at lunch in summer is poured at the table by a servant from a
glass pitcher, and is prepared like a "cup" with lemon and sugar, and
sometimes with cut up fresh fruit and a little squeezed fruit juice. Plain
cold tea may be passed in glasses, and lemon and sugar separately. At an
informal luncheon, cold coffee, instead of tea, is passed around in a
glass pitcher, on a tray that also holds a bowl of powdered sugar and a
pitcher of cold milk, and another of as thick as possible cream. The
guests pour their coffee to suit themselves into tall glasses half full of
broken ice, and furnished with very long-handled spoons.

If tea or coffee or chocolate are not served during the meal, there is
always a cup of some sort: grape or orange juice (in these days) with
sugar and mint leaves, and ginger ale or carbonic water.

If dessert is a hot pudding or pastry, the "hotel service" of dessert
plates should be used. The glass plate is particularly suitable for ice
cream or any cold dessert, but is apt to crack if intensely hot food is
put on it.


=DETAILS OF ETIQUETTE AT LUNCHEONS=

Gentlemen leave their coats, hats, sticks, in the hall; ladies leave heavy
outer wraps in the hall, or dressing-room, but always go into the
drawing-room with their hats and gloves on. They wear their fur neck
pieces and carry their muffs in their hands, if they choose, or they leave
them in the hall or dressing-room. But fashionable ladies _never_ take off
their hats. Even the hostess herself almost invariably wears a hat at a
formal luncheon in her own house, though there is no reason why she
should not be hatless if she prefers, or if she thinks she is prettier
without! Guests, however, do not take off their hats at a lunch party even
in the country. They take off their gloves at the table, or sooner if they
choose, and either remove or turn up, their veils. The hostess does not
wear gloves, ever. It is also very unsuitable for a hostess to wear a face
veil in her own house, unless there is something the matter with her face,
that must not be subjected to view! A hostess in a veil does not give her
guests the impression of "veiled beauty," but the contrary. Guests, on the
other hand, may with perfect fitness keep their veils on throughout the
meal, merely fastening the lower edge up over their noses. They must _not_
allow a veil to hang loose, and carry food under and behind it, nor must
they eat with gloves on. A veil kept persistently over the face, and
gloves kept persistently over the hands, means one thing: Ugliness behind.
So unless you have to--don't!

The wearing of elaborate dresses at luncheons has gone entirely out of
fashion; and yet one does once in a while see an occasional lady--rarely a
New Yorker--who outshines a bird of paradise and a jeweler's window; but
New York women of distinction wear rather simple clothes--simple meaning
untrimmed, not inexpensive. Very conspicuous clothes are chosen either by
the new rich, to assure themselves of their own elegance--which is utterly
lacking--or by the muttons dressed lamb-fashion, to assure themselves of
their own youth--which alas, is gone!

Gentlemen at luncheon in town on a Sunday wear cutaway coats; in other
words, what they wear to church. On a Saturday, they wear their business
suits, sack coat with either stiff or pleated-bosom shirts, and a starched
collar. In the country, they wear country clothes.

[Illustration: "AT AN INFORMAL DINNER THE TABLE APPOINTMENTS ARE EQUALLY
FINE AND BEAUTIFUL, THOUGH POSSIBLY NOT QUITE SO RARE." [Page 228.]]


=WHAT THE SERVANTS WEAR=

A butler wears his "morning" clothes; cutaway coat, gray striped trousers,
high black waistcoat, black tie. A "hired waiter" wears a dress suit, but
never a butler in a "smart" house; he does not put on his evening clothes
until after six o'clock. In a smart house, the footmen wear their dress
liveries, and a waitress and other maids wear their best uniforms.


=THE GUESTS LEAVE=

The usual lunch hour is half past one. By a quarter to three the last
guest is invariably gone, unless, of course, it is a bridge luncheon, or
for some other reason they are staying longer. From half an hour to
three-quarters at the table, and from twenty minutes to half an hour's
conversation afterwards, means that by half past two (if lunch was prompt)
guests begin leaving. Once in a while, especially at a mixed lunch where
perhaps talented people are persuaded to become "entertainers" the
audience stays on for hours! But such parties are so out of the usual that
they have nothing to do with the ordinary procedure, which is to leave
about twenty minutes after the end of the meal.

The details for leaving are also the same as for dinners. One lady rises
and says good-by, the hostess rises and shakes hands and rings a bell (if
necessary) for the servant to be in the hall to open the door. When one
guest gets up to go, the others invariably follow. They say "Good-by" and
"Thank you so much."

Or, at a little luncheon, intimate friends often stay on indefinitely; but
when lunching with an acquaintance one should never stay a moment longer
than the other guests. The guest who sits on and on, unless earnestly
pressed to do so, is wanting in tact and social sense. If a hostess
invites a stranger who might by any chance prove a barnacle, she can
provide for the contingency by instructing her butler or waitress to tell
her when her car is at the door. She then says: "I had to have the car
announced, because I have an appointment at the doctor's. Do wait while I
put on my things--I shall be only a moment! And I can take you wherever
you want to go!" This expedient should not be used when a hostess has
leisure to sit at home, but on the other hand, a guest should never create
an awkward situation for her hostess by staying too long.

In the country where people live miles apart, they naturally stay somewhat
longer than in town.

Or two or three intimate friends who perhaps (especially in the country)
come to spend the day, are not bound by rules of etiquette but by the
rules of their own and their hostess' personal preference. They take off
their hats or not as they choose, and they bring their sewing or knitting
and sit all day, or they go out and play games, and in other ways behave
as house-guests rather than visitors at luncheon. The only rule about such
an informal gathering as this is, that no one should ever go and spend the
day and make herself at home unless she is in the house of a really very
intimate friend or relative, or unless she has been especially and
specifically invited to do that very thing.


=THE STAND-UP LUNCHEON=

This is nothing more nor less than a buffet lunch. It is popular because
it is a very informal and jolly sort of party--an indoor picnic
really--and never attempted except among people who know each other well.

The food is all put on the dining table and every one helps himself. There
is always bouillon or oyster stew or clam chowder. The most "informal"
dishes are suitable for this sort of a meal, as for a picnic. There are
two hot dishes and a salad, and a dessert which may be, but seldom is, ice
cream.

Stand-up luncheons are very practical for hostesses who have medium sized
houses, or when an elastic number of guests are expected at the time of a
ball game, or other event that congregates a great many people.

A hunt breakfast is usually a stand-up luncheon. It is a "breakfast" by
courtesy of half an hour in time. At twelve-thirty it is breakfast, at one
o'clock it is lunch.

Regular weekly stand-up luncheons are given by hospitable people who have
big places in the country and encourage their friends to drive over on
some especial day when they are "at home"--Saturdays or Sundays
generally--and intimate friends drop in uninvited, but always prepared
for. On such occasions, luncheon is made a little more comfortable by
providing innumerable individual tables to which people can carry the
plates, glasses or cups and sit down in comfort.


=SUPPERS=

Supper is the most intimate meal there is, and since none but family or
closest friends are ever included, invitations are invariably by word of
mouth.

The atmosphere of a luncheon is often formal, but informal luncheons and
suppers differ in nothing except day and evening lights, and clothes.
Strangers are occasionally invited to informal luncheons, but only
intimate friends are bidden to supper.


=THE SUPPER TABLE=

The table is set, as to places and napery, exactly like the lunch table,
with the addition of candlesticks or candelabra as at dinner. Where supper
differs from the usual lunch table is that in front of the hostess is a
big silver tea-tray with full silver service for tea or cocoa or chocolate
or breakfast coffee, most often chocolate or cocoa and either tea or
coffee. At the host's end of the table there is perhaps a chafing
dish--that is, if the host fancies himself a cook!

A number of people whose establishments are not very large, have very
informal Sunday night suppers on their servants' Sundays out, and forage
for themselves. The table is left set, a cold dish of something and salad
are left in the icebox; the ingredients for one or two chafing dish
specialties are also left ready. At supper time a member of the family,
and possibly an intimate friend or two, carry the dishes to the table and
make hot toast on a toaster.

This kind of supper is, in fact as well as spirit, an indoor picnic;
thought to be the greatest fun by the Kindharts, but little appreciated by
the Gildings, which brings it down, with so many other social customs, to
a mere matter of personal taste.




CHAPTER XVII

BALLS AND DANCES


A ball is the only social function in America to which such qualifying
words as splendor and magnificence can with proper modesty of expression
be applied. Even the most elaborate wedding is not quite "a scene of
splendor and magnificence" no matter how luxurious the decorations or how
costly the dress of the bride and bridesmaids, because the majority of the
wedding guests do not complete the picture. A dinner may be lavish, a
dance may be beautiful, but a ball alone is prodigal, meaning, of course,
a private ball of greatest importance.

On rare occasions, a great ball is given in a private house, but since few
houses are big enough to provide dancing space for several hundred and
sit-down supper space for a greater number still, besides smoking-room,
dressing-room and sitting-about space, it would seem logical to describe a
typical ball as taking place in the ballroom suite built for the purpose
in nearly all hotels.


=A HOSTESS PREPARES TO GIVE A BALL=

The hostess who is not giving the ball in her own house goes first of all
to see the manager of the hotel (or of whatever suitable assembly rooms
there may be) and finds out which evenings are available. She then
telephones--probably from the manager's office--and engages the two best
orchestras for whichever evening both the orchestras and the ballroom are
at her disposal. Of the two, music is of more importance than rooms. With
perfect music the success of a ball is more than three-quarters assured;
without it, the most beautiful decorations and most delicious supper are
as flat as a fallen soufflé. You cannot give a ball or a dance that is
anything but a dull promenade if you have dull music.

To illustrate the importance that prominent hostesses attach to music: a
certain orchestra in New York to-day is forced to dash almost daily, not
alone from party to party, but from city to city. Time and again its
leader has conducted the music at a noon wedding in Philadelphia, and a
ball in Boston; or a dancing tea in Providence and a ball that evening in
New York; because Boston, Providence, New York and Philadelphia hostesses
all at the present moment clamor for this one especial orchestra. The men
have a little more respite than the leader since it is his "leading" that
every one insists upon. Tomorrow another orchestra will probably make the
daily tour of various cities' ballrooms.

At all balls, there must be two orchestras, so that each time one finishes
playing the other begins. At very dignified private balls, dancers should
not stand in the middle of the floor and clap as they do in a dance hall
or cabaret if the music ends. On the other hand, the music should not end.

Having secured the music and engaged the ballroom, reception rooms,
dressing-rooms and smoking-room, as well as the main restaurant (after it
is closed to the public), the hostess next makes out her list and orders
and sends out her invitations.


=INVITATIONS=

The fundamental difference between a ball and a dance is that people of
all ages are asked to a ball, while only those of approximately one age
are asked to a dance. Once in a while a ball is given to which the hostess
invites every person on her visiting list. Mr. and Mrs. Titherington de
Puyster give one every season, which although a credit to their intentions
is seldom a credit to their sense of beauty!

Snobbish as it sounds and _is_, a brilliant ball is necessarily a
collection of brilliantly fashionable people, and the hostess who gathers
in all the oddly assorted frumps on the outskirts of society cannot expect
to achieve a very distinguished result.

Ball invitations properly include all of the personal friends of the
hostess no matter what their age, and all her better-known social
acquaintances--meaning every one she would be likely to invite to a formal
dinner. She does not usually invite a lady with whom she may work on a
charitable committee, even though she may know her well, and like her. The
question as to whether an outsider may be invited is not a matter of a
hostess' own inclination so much as a question whether the "outsider"
would be agreeable to all the "insiders" who are coming. If the co-worker
is in everything a lady and a fitting ornament to society, the hostess
might very possibly ask her.

If the ball to be given is for a débutante, all the débutantes whose
mothers are on the "general visiting list" are asked as well as all young
dancing men in these same families. In other words the children of all
those whose names are on the general visiting list of a hostess are
selected to receive invitations, but the parents on whose standing the
daughters and sons are asked, are rarely invited.


_When a List is Borrowed_

A lady who has a débutante daughter, but who has not given any general
parties for years--or ever, and whose daughter, having been away at
boarding-school or abroad, has therefore very few acquaintances of her
own, must necessarily in sending out invitations to a ball take the list
of young girls and men from a friend or a member of her family. This of
course could only be done by a hostess whose position is unquestioned, but
having had no occasion to keep a young people's list, she has not the
least idea who the young people of the moment are, and takes a short-cut
as above. Otherwise she would send invitations to children of ten and
spinsters of forty, trusting to their being of suitable age.

To take a family or intimate friend's list is also important to the
unaccustomed hostess, because to leave out any of the younger set who
"belong" in the groups which are included, is not the way to make a party
a success. Those who don't find their friends go home, or stay and are
bored, and the whole party sags in consequence. So that if a hostess
knows the parents personally of, let us say, eighty per cent. of young
society, she can quite properly include the twenty per cent. she does not
know, so that the hundred per cent. can come together. In a small
community it is rather cruel to leave out any of the young people whose
friends are all invited. In a very great city on the other hand, an
habitual hostess does not ask any to her house whom she does not know, but
she can of course be as generous as she chooses in allowing young people
to have invitations for friends.


_Asking for an Invitation to a Ball_

It is always permissible to ask a hostess if you may "bring" a dancing man
who is a stranger to her. It is rather difficult to ask for an invitation
for an extra girl, and still more difficult to ask for older people,
because the hostess has no ground on which she can refuse without being
rude; she can't say there is no room since no dance is really limited, and
least of all a ball. Men who dance are always an asset, and the more the
better; but a strange young girl hung around the neck of the hostess is
about as welcome as a fog at a garden party. If the girl is to be brought
and "looked after" by the lady asking for the invitation--who has herself
been already invited--that is another matter, and the hostess can not well
object. Or if the young girl is the fiancée of the man whose mother asks
for the invitation, that is all right too; since he will undoubtedly come
with her and see that she is not left alone. Invitations for older people
are never asked for unless they are rather distinguished strangers and
unquestionably suitable.

Invitations are never asked for persons whom the hostess already knows,
since if she had cared to invite them she would have done so. It is,
however, not at all out of the way for an intimate friend to remind her of
some one who in receiving no invitation has more than likely been
overlooked. If the omission was intentional, nothing need be said; if it
was an oversight, the hostess is very glad to repair her forgetfulness.


_Invitations for Strangers_

An invitation that has been asked for a stranger is sent direct and
without comment. For instance, when the Greatlakes of Chicago came to New
York for a few weeks, Mrs. Norman asked both Mrs. Worldly and Mrs. Gilding
to send them invitations; one to a musicale and the other to a ball. The
Greatlakes received these invitations without Mrs. Norman's card enclosed
or any other word of explanation, as it was taken for granted that Mrs.
Norman would tell the Greatlakes that it was through her that the
invitations were sent. The Greatlakes said "Thank you very much for asking
us" when they bid their hostess good night, and they also left their cards
immediately on the Worldlys and Gildings after the parties--but it was
also the duty of Mrs. Norman to thank both hostesses--verbally--for
sending the invitations.


=DECORATIONS=

So far as good taste is concerned, the decorations for a ball cannot be
too lavish or beautiful. To be sure they should not be lavish if one's
purse is limited, but if one's purse is really limited, one should not
give a ball! A small dance or a dancing tea would be more suitable.

Ball decorations have on occasions been literally astounding, but as a
rule no elaboration is undertaken other than hanging greens and flowers
over the edge of the gallery, if there is a gallery, banking palms in
corners, and putting up sheaves of flowers or trailing vines wherever most
effective. In any event the hostess consults her florist, but if the
decorations are to be very important, an architect or an artist is put in
charge, with a florist under him.


=THE BALL BEAUTIFUL=

Certain sounds, perfumes, places, always bring associated pictures to
mind: Restaurant suppers; Paris! Distinguished-looking audiences; London!
The essence of charm in society; Rome! Beguiling and informal joyousness;
San Francisco! Recklessness; Colorado Springs! The afternoon visit;
Washington! Hectic and splendid gaiety; New York! Beautiful balls; Boston!

There are three reasons (probably more) why the balls in Boston have what
can be described only by the word "quality." The word "elegance" before it
was misused out of existence expressed it even better.

First: Best Society in Boston having kept its social walls intact,
granting admission only to those of birth and breeding, has therefore
preserved a quality of unmistakable cultivation. There are undoubtedly
other cities, especially in the South, which have also kept their walls up
and their traditions intact--but Boston has been the wise virgin as well,
and has kept her lamp filled.

Second: Boston hostesses of position have never failed to demand of those
who would remain on their lists, strict obedience to the tenets of
ceremonies and dignified behavior; nor ceased themselves to cultivate
something of the "grand manner" that should be the birthright of every
thoroughbred lady and gentleman.

Third: Boston's older ladies and gentlemen always dance at balls, and they
neither rock around the floor, nor take their dancing violently. And the
fact that older ladies of distinction dance with dignity, has an
inevitable effect upon younger ones, so that at balls at least, dancing
has not degenerated into gymnastics or contortions.

The extreme reverse of a "smart" Boston ball is one--no matter
where--which has a roomful of people who deport themselves abominably, who
greet each other by waving their arms aloft, who dance like Apaches or
jiggling music-box figures, and who scarcely suggest an assemblage of even
decent--let alone well-bred--people.


=SUPPER=

A sit-down supper that is served continuously for two or three hours, is
the most elaborate ball supper. Next in importance is the sit-down supper
at a set time. Third, the buffet supper which is served at dances but not
at balls.

At the most fashionable New York balls, supper service begins at one and
continues until three and people go when they feel like it. The
restaurant is closed to the public at one o'clock; the entrance is then
curtained or shut off from the rest of the hotel. The tables are decorated
with flowers and the supper service opened for the ball guests. Guests sit
where they please, either "making up a table," or a man and his partner
finding a place wherever there are two vacant chairs. At a private ball
guests do not pay for anything or sign supper checks, or tip the waiter,
since the restaurant is for the time being the private dining-room of the
host and hostess.

At a sit-down supper at a set hour, the choice of menu is unlimited, but
suppers are never as elaborate now as they used to be. Years ago few balls
were given without terrapin, and a supper without champagne was as unheard
of. In fact, champagne was the heaviest item of expenditure always.
Decorations might be very limited, but champagne was as essential as
music! Cotillion favors were also an important item which no longer
exists; and champagne has gone its way with nectar, to the land of fable,
so that if you eliminate elaborate decorations, ball-giving is not half
the expense it used to be.


=FOR A SIT-DOWN SUPPER THAT IS CONTINUOUS=

When the service of supper continues for several hours, it is necessary to
select food that can be kept hot indefinitely without being spoiled. Birds
or broiled chicken, which should be eaten the moment they are cooked, are
therefore unsuitable. Dishes prepared in sauce keep best, such as lobster
Newburg, sweetbreads and mushrooms, chicken à la King, or creamed oysters.
Pâtés are satisfactory as the shells can be heated in a moment and hot
creamed chicken or oysters poured in. Of course all cold dishes and salads
can stand in the pantry or on a buffet table all evening.

The menu for supper at a ball is entirely a matter of the hostess'
selection, but whether it is served at one time or continuously, the
supper menu at an important ball includes:

1. Bouillon or green turtle (clear) in cups.

2. Lobster a la Newburg (or terrapin or oyster pâté or another hot dish of
shell-fish or fowl).

3. A second choice hot dish of some sort, squab, chicken and peas (if
supper is served at a special hour) or croquettes and peas if continuous.

4. Salad, which includes every variety known, with or without an aspic.

5. Individual ices, fancy cakes.

6. Black coffee in little cups.

Breakfast served at about four in the morning and consisting of scrambled
eggs with sausages or bacon and breakfast coffee and rolls is an
occasional custom at both dances and balls.

There is always an enormous glass bowl of punch or orangeade--sometimes
two or three bowls each containing a different iced drink--in a room
adjoining the ballroom. And in very cold climates it is the thoughtful
custom of some hostesses to have a cup of hot chocolate or bouillon
offered each departing guest. This is an especially welcome attention to
those who have a long drive home.


=A DANCE=

A dance is merely a ball on a smaller scale, fewer people are asked to it
and it has usually, but not necessarily, simpler decorations.

But the real difference is that invitations to balls always include older
people--as many if not more than younger ones--whereas invitations to a
dance for a débutante, for instance, include none but very young girls,
young men and the merest handful of the hostess' most intimate friends.

Supper may equally be a simple buffet or an elaborate sit-down one,
depending upon the size and type of the house.

Or a dance may equally well as a ball be given in the "banquet" or smaller
ballroom of a hotel, or in the assembly or ballroom of a club.

A formal dance differs from an informal one merely in elaboration, and in
whether the majority of those present are strangers to one another; a
really informal dance is one to which only those who know one another well
are invited.


=DETAILS OF PREPARATION FOR A BALL OR DANCE IN A PRIVATE HOUSE=

There is always an awning and a red carpet down the steps (or up), and a
chauffeur to open the carriage doors and a policeman or detective to see
that strangers do not walk uninvited into the house. If there is a great
crush, there is a detective in the hall to "investigate" anyone who does
not have himself announced to the hostess.

All the necessary appurtenances such as awning, red carpet, coat hanging
racks, ballroom chairs, as well as crockery, glass, napkins, waiters and
food are supplied by hotels or caterers. (Excepting in houses like the
Gildings,' where footmen's liveries are kept purposely, the caterer's men
are never in footmen's liveries.)

Unless a house has a ballroom the room selected for dancing must have all
the furniture moved out of it; and if there are adjoining rooms and the
dancing room is not especially big, it adds considerably to the floor
space to put no chairs around it. Those who dance seldom sit around a
ballroom anyway, and the more informal grouping of chairs in the hall or
library is a better arrangement than the wainscot row or wall-flower
exposition grounds. The floor, it goes without saying, must be smooth and
waxed, and no one should attempt to give a dance whose house is not big
enough.


=ETIQUETTE IN THE BALLROOM=

New York's invitations are usually for "ten o'clock" but first guests do
not appear before ten-thirty and most people arrive at about eleven or
after. The hostess, however, must be ready to receive on the stroke of the
hour specified in her invitations, and the débutante or any one the ball
may be given for, must also be with her.

It is not customary to put the débutante's name on the formal "At Home"
invitation, and it is even occasionally omitted on invitations that
"request the pleasure of ----" so that the only way acquaintances can know
the ball is being given for the daughter is by seeing her standing beside
her mother.

              Mr. & Mrs. Robert Gilding

               request the pleasure of

            [Name of guest is written here]

    company on Tuesday, the twenty-seventh of December

                   at ten o'clock

                 at the Fitz-Cherry

    Dancing                         R.s.v.p.
                                    Twenty-three East Laurel Street

The hostess never leaves her post, wherever it is she is standing, until
she goes to supper. If, as at the Ritz in New York, the ballroom opens on
a foyer at the head of a stairway, the hostess always receives at this
place. In a private house where guests go up in an elevator to the
dressing rooms, and then walk down to the ballroom floor, the hostess
receives either at the foot of the stairway, or just outside the ballroom.


=THE HOSTESS AT A BALL=

Guests arriving are announced, as at a dinner or afternoon tea, and after
shaking hands with the hostess, they must pass on into the ballroom. It is
not etiquette to linger beside the hostess for more than a moment,
especially if later arrivals are being announced. A stranger ought never
go to a ball alone, as the hostess is powerless to "look after" any
especial guests; her duty being to stand in one precise place and receive.
A stranger who is a particular friend of the hostess would be looked after
by the host; but a stranger who is invited through another guest should be
looked after by that other.

A gentleman who has received an invitation through a friend is usually
accompanied by the friend who presents him. Otherwise when the butler
announces him to the hostess, he bows, and says "Mrs. Norman asked you if
I might come." And the hostess shakes hands and says "How do you do, I am
very glad to see you." If other young men or any young girls are standing
near, the hostess very likely introduces him. Otherwise, if he knows no
one, he waits among the stags until his own particular sponsor appears.

After supper, when she is no longer receiving, the hostess is free to talk
with her friends and give her attention to the roomful of young people who
are actually in her charge.

When her guests leave she does not go back to where she received, but
stands wherever she happens to be, shakes hands and says "Good night."
There is one occasion when it is better not to bid one's hostess good
night, and that is, if one finds her party dull and leaves again
immediately; in this one case it is more polite to slip away so as to
attract the least attention possible, but late in the evening it is
inexcusably ill mannered not to find her and say "Good night" and "Thank
you."

The duty of seeing that guests are looked after, that shy youths are
presented to partners, that shyer girls are not left on the far
wall-flower outposts, that the dowagers are taken in to supper, and that
the elderly gentlemen are provided with good cigars in the smoking-room,
falls to the host and his son or son-in-law, or any other near male member
of the family.


=MASQUERADE VOUCHERS=

Vouchers or tickets of admission like those sent with invitations to
assembly or public balls should be enclosed in invitations to a
masquerade; it would be too easy otherwise for dishonest or other
undesirable persons to gain admittance. If vouchers are not sent with the
invitations, or better yet, mailed afterwards to all those who have
accepted, it is necessary that the hostess receive her guests singly in a
small private room and request each to unmask before her.


=HOW TO WALK ACROSS A BALLROOM=

If you analyze the precepts laid down by etiquette you will find that for
each there is a perfectly good reason. Years ago a lady never walked
across a ballroom floor without the support of a gentleman's arm, which
was much easier than walking alone across a very slippery surface in
high-heeled slippers. When the late Ward McAllister classified New York
society as having four hundred people who were "at ease in a ballroom," he
indicated that the ballroom was the test of the best manners. He also said
at a dinner--after his book was published and the country had already made
New York's "Four Hundred" a theme for cartoons and jests--that among the
"Four hundred who were at ease," not more than ten could gracefully cross
a ballroom floor alone. If his ghost is haunting the ballrooms of our
time, it is certain the number is still further reduced. The athletic
young woman of to-day strides across the ballroom floor as though she were
on the golf course; the happy-go-lucky one ambles--shoulders stooped, arms
swinging, hips and head in advance of chest; others trot, others shuffle,
others make a rush for it. The young girl who could walk across a room
with the consummate grace of Mrs. Oldname (who as a girl of eighteen was
one of Mr. McAllister's ten) would have to be very assiduously sought for.

How does Mrs. Oldname walk? One might answer by describing how Pavlowa
dances. Her body is perfectly balanced, she holds herself straight, and
yet in nothing suggests a ramrod. She takes steps of medium length, and,
like all people who move and dance well, walks from the hip, not the knee.
On no account does she swing her arms, nor does she rest a hand on her
hip! Nor when walking, does she wave her hands about in gesticulation.

Some one asked her if she had ever been _taught_ to cross a ballroom
floor. As a matter of fact, she had. Her grandmother, who was a Toplofty,
made all her grandchildren walk daily across a polished floor with
sand-bags on their heads. And the old lady directed the drill herself. No
shuffling of feet and no stamping, either; no waggling of hips, no
swinging of arms, and not a shoulder stooped. Furthermore, they were
taught to enter a room and to sit for an indefinite period in
self-effacing silence while their elders were talking.

Older gentlemen still give their arms to older ladies in all "promenading"
at a ball, since the customs of a lifetime are not broken by one short and
modern generation. Those of to-day walk side by side, except in going down
to supper when supper is at a set hour.

At public balls when there is a grand march, ladies take gentlemen's arms.


=DISTINCTION VANISHED WITH COTILLION=

The glittering display of tinsel satin favors that used to be the featured
and gayest decoration of every ballroom, is gone; the cotillion leader,
his hands full of "seat checks," his manners a cross between those of Lord
Chesterfield and a traffic policeman, is gone; and much of the distinction
that used to be characteristic of the ballroom is gone with the cotillion.
There is no question that a cotillion was prettier to look at than a mob
scene of dancers crowding each other for every few inches of progress.

The reason why cotillions were conducive to good manners was that people
were on exhibition, where now they are unnoticed components of a general
crowd. When only a sixth, at most, of those in the room danced while
others had nothing to do but watch them, it was only natural that those
"on exhibition" should dance as well as they possibly could, and since
their walking across the room and asking others to dance by "offering a
favor" was also watched, grace of deportment and correct manners were not
likely to deteriorate, either.

The cotillion was detested and finally banned by the majority who wanted
to dance ceaselessly throughout the evening. But it was of particular
advantage to the very young girl who did not know many men, as well as to
what might be called the helpless type. Each young girl, if she had a
partner, had a place where she belonged and where she sat throughout the
evening. And since no couple could dance longer than the few moments
allowed by the "figure," there was no chance of anyone's being "stuck"; so
that the average girl had a better chance of being asked to dance than
now--when, without programmes, and without cotillions, there is nothing to
relieve the permanency of a young man's attachment to an unknown young
girl once he asks her to dance.


=THE ORDEAL BY BALLROOM=

Instead of being easier, it would seem that time makes it increasingly
difficult for any but distinct successes to survive the ordeal by
ballroom. Years ago a débutante was supposed to flutter into society in
the shadow of mamma's protecting amplitude; to-day she is packed off by
herself and with nothing to relieve her dependence upon whoever may come
near her. To liken a charming young girl in the prettiest of frocks to a
spider is not very courteous; and yet the rôle of spider is what she is
forced by the exigencies of ballroom etiquette to play. She _must_ catch a
fly, meaning a trousered companion, so as not to be left in placarded
disgrace; and having caught him she must hang on to him until another
takes his place.

There should be drastic revision of ballroom customs. There is a desperate
need of what in local dancing classes was called the "Dump," where without
rudeness a gentleman could leave a lady as soon as they had finished
dancing.

There used to be a chaperon into whose care a young girl could be
committed; there used to be the "dance card", or programme (still in vogue
at public balls) that allotted a certain dance to a certain gentleman and
lady equally. There used to be the cotillion which, while cruel, at least
committed its acts of cruelty with merciful dispatch. When the cotillion
began, the girl who had no partner--went home. She had to. Now, once she
has acquired a companion, he is planted beside her until another takes his
place. It is this fact and no other which is responsible for the dread
that the average young girl feels in facing the ordeal of a ballroom, and
for the discourteous unconcern shown by dancing men who under other
conditions would be friendly.

The situation of a young girl, left cruelly alone, draws its own picture,
but the reason for the callous and ill-mannered behavior of the average
dancing man, may perhaps need a word of explanation.

For instance: Jim Smartlington, when he was a senior at college, came down
to the Toploftys' ball on purpose to see Mary Smith. Very early, before
Mary arrived, he saw a Miss Blank, a girl he had met at a dinner in
Providence, standing at the entrance of the room. Following a casual
impulse of friendliness he asked her to dance. She danced badly. No one
"cut in" and they danced and danced, sat down and danced again. Mary
arrived. Jim walked Miss Blank near the "stag" line and introduced several
men, who bowed and slid out of sight with the dexterity of eels who
recognized a hook. From half-past ten until supper at half-past one, Jim
was "planted." He was then forced to tell her he had a partner for supper,
and left her at the door of the dressing-room. There was no other place to
"leave her." He felt like a brute and a cad, even though he had waited
nearly three hours before being able to speak to the girl he had come
purposely to see.

There really is something to be said on the man's side; especially on that
of one who has to get up early in the morning and who, only intending to
see one or two particular friends and then go home, is forced because of
an impulse of courtesy not only to spend an endless and exhausting
evening, but to be utterly unfit for his work next day.

One is equally sorry for the girl! But in the example above her stupid
handling of the situation not only spoiled one well-intentioned man's
evening, but completely "finished" herself so far as her future chances
for success were concerned. Not alone her partner but every brother-stag
who stood in the doorway mentally placarded her "Keep off." It is
suicidal for a girl to make any man spend an entire evening with her. If
at the end of two dances, there is no intimate friend she can signal to,
or an older lady she can insist on being left with, she should go home;
and if the same thing happens several times, she should not go to balls.

For the reasons given above, there is little that a hostess or host can
do, unless a promise of "release" is held out, and that in itself is a
deplorable situation; a humiliation that no young girl's name should be
submitted to. And yet there it is! It is only necessary for a hostess to
say "I want to introduce you to a charming----" And she is already speaking
to the air.

Boston hostesses solve the problem of a young girl's success in a ballroom
in a way unknown in New York, by having ushers.


=USHERS=

Each hostess chooses from among the best known young men in society, who
have perfect address and tact, a number to act as ushers. They are
distinguished by white boutonnières, like those worn by ushers at a
wedding, and they are deputy hosts. It is their duty to see that
wall-flowers are not left decorating the seats in the ballroom and it is
also their duty to relieve a partner who has too long been planted beside
the same "rosebud."

The ushers themselves have little chance to follow their own inclinations,
and unless the "honor" of being chosen by a prominent hostess has some
measure of compensation, the appointment--since it may not be refused--is
a doubtful pleasure. An usher has the right to introduce anyone to anyone
without knowing either principal personally and without asking any lady's
permission. He may also ask a lady (if he has a moment to himself) to
dance with him, whether he has ever met her or not, and he can also leave
her promptly, because any "stag" called upon by an usher must dance. The
usher in turn must release every "stag" he calls upon by substituting
another; and the second by a third and so on. In order to make a ball
"go," meaning to keep everyone dancing, the ushers have on occasions to
spend the entire evening in relief work.

At a ball where there are ushers, a girl standing or sitting alone would
at once be rescued by one of them, and a rotation of partners presented to
her. If she is "hopeless"--meaning neither pretty nor attractive nor a
good dancer--even the ushers are in time forced to relieve her partners
and take her to a dowager friend of the hostess, beside whom she will be
obliged to sit until she learns that she must seek her popularity
otherwhere than at balls.

On the other hand, on an occasion when none of her friends happen to be
present, the greatest belle of the year can spend an equally deadly
evening.


=THE DANCE PROGRAM=

The program or dance-card of public balls and college class dances, has
undeniable advantages. A girl can give as many dances as she chooses to
whomever she chooses; and a man can be sure of having not only many but
uninterrupted dances with the one he most wants to be with--provided "she"
is willing. Why the dance-card is unheard of at private balls in New York
is hard to determine, except that fashionable society does not care to
take its pleasure on schedule! The gilded youth likes to dance when the
impulse moves him; he also likes to be able to stay or leave when he
pleases. In New York there are often two or three dances given on the same
evening, and he likes to drift from one to the other just as he likes to
drift from one partner to another, or not dance at all if he does not want
to. A man who writes himself down for the tenth jazz must be eagerly
appearing on the stroke of the first bar. Or if he does not engage his
partners busily at the opening of the evening, he can not dance at all--he
may not want to, but he hates not being able to.

So again we come back to the present situation and the problem of the
average young girl whose right it is, because of her youth and sweetness,
to be happy and young--and not to be terrified, wretched and neglected.
The one and only solution seems to be for her to join a group.


=THE FLOCK-SYSTEM OF THE WISE FLEDGLINGS=

If a number of young girls and young men come together--better yet, if
they go everywhere together, always sit in a flock, always go to supper
together, always dance with one another--they not only have a good time
but they are sure to be popular with drifting odd men also. If a man knows
that having asked a girl to dance, one of her group will inevitably "cut
in," he is eager to dance with her. Or if he can take her "to the others"
when they have danced long enough, he is not only delighted to be with her
for a while but to sit with her "and the others" off and on throughout
that and every other evening, because since there are always "some of them
together" he can go again the moment he chooses.

Certain groups of clever girls sit in precisely the same place in a
ballroom, to the right of the door, or the left, or in a corner. One might
almost say they form a little club; they dance as much as they like, but
come back "home" between whiles. They all go to supper together, and
whether individuals have partners or not is scarcely noticeable, nor even
known by themselves.

No young girl, unless she is a marked favorite, should ever go to a ball
alone. If her especial "flock" has not as yet been systematized, she must
go to a dinner before every dance, so as to go, and stay, with a group. If
she is not asked to dinner, her mother must give one for her; or she must
have at least one dependable beau--or better, two--who will wait for her
and look out for her.


=MAID GOES WITH HER=

A young girl who goes to a ball without a chaperon (meaning of course a
private ball), takes a maid with her who sits in the dressing-room the
entire evening. Not only is it thought proper to have a maid waiting, but
nothing can add more to the panic of a partnerless girl than to feel she
has not even a means of escape by going home; she can always call a taxi
as long as her maid is with her, and go. Otherwise she either has to stay
in the ballroom or sit forlorn among the visiting maids in the
dressing-room.


=WHAT MAKES A YOUNG GIRL A BALLROOM SUCCESS=

Much of the above is so pessimistic one might suppose that a ballroom is
always a chamber of torture and the young girl taken as an example above,
a very drab and distorted caricature of what "a real young girl" should be
and is. But remember, the young girl who is a "belle of the ballroom"
needs no advice on how to manage a happy situation; no thought spent on
how to make a perfect time better. The ballroom is the most wonderful
stage-setting there is for the girl who is a ballroom success. And for
this, especial talents are needed just as they are for art or sport or any
other accomplishment.

The great ballroom success, first and foremost, dances well. Almost always
she is pretty. Beauty counts enormously at a ball. The girl who is
beautiful and dances well is, of course, the ideal ballroom belle.
But--this for encouragement--these qualities can in a measure at least be
acquired. All things being more or less equal, the girl who dances best
has the most partners. Let a daughter of Venus or the heiress of Midas
dance badly, and she might better stay at home.

To dance divinely is an immortal gift, but to dance well can (except in
obstinate cases, as the advertisements say) be taught. Let us suppose
therefore, that she dances well, that she has a certain degree of looks,
that she is fairly intelligent. The next most important thing, after
dancing well, is to be unafraid, and to look as though she were having a
good time. Conversational cleverness is of no account in a ballroom; some
of the greatest belles ever known have been as stupid as sheep, but they
have had happy dispositions and charming and un-self-conscious manners.
There is one thing every girl who would really be popular should learn, in
fact, she must learn--self-unconsciousness! The best advice might be to
follow somewhat the precepts of mental science and make herself believe
that a good time exists in her own mind. If she can become possessed with
the idea that she is having a good time and look as though she were, the
psychological effect is astonishing.


="CUTTING IN"=

When one of the "stags" standing in the doorway sees a girl dance past
whom he wants to dance with, he darts forward, lays his hand on the
shoulder of her partner, who relinquishes his place in favor of the
newcomer, and a third in turn does the same to him. Or, the one, who was
first dancing with her, may "cut in on" the partner who took her from him,
after she has danced once around the ballroom. This seemingly far from
polite maneuver, is considered correct behavior in best society in Boston,
New York, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Chicago, San Francisco, and
therefore most likely in all parts of America. (Not in London, nor on the
Continent.)

At dances organized during the War in the canteens for soldiers and
sailors on furlough, the men refused to "cut in" because they thought it
was rude and undoubtedly it is, except that custom has made it acceptable.
If, however, it still seems "rude" to the young men of Othertown to "cut
in," then they should not do so.


=SITTING OUT DANCES=

On the other hand, if a girl is sitting in another room, or on the stairs
with a man alone, a second one should not interrupt, or ask her to dance.
If she is sitting in a group, he can go up and ask her, "Don't you want to
dance some of this?" She then either smiles and says, "Not just now--I am
very tired," or if she likes him, she may add, "Come and sit with us!"

To refuse to dance with one man and then immediately dance with another is
an open affront to the first one--excusable only if he was intoxicated or
otherwise actually offensive so that the affront was both intentional and
justifiable. But under ordinary circumstances, if she is "dancing," she
must dance with everyone who asks her; if she is "not dancing," she must
not make exceptions.

An older lady can very properly refuse to dance and then perhaps dance
briefly with her son or husband, without hurting her guest's proper pride,
but having refused to dance with one gentleman she must not change her
mind and dance later with another.

A young girl who is dancing may not refuse to change partners when another
"cuts in." This is the worst phase of the "cutting in" custom; those who
particularly want to dance together are often unable to take more than a
dozen steps before being interrupted. Once in a while a girl will shake
her head "No" to a "stag" who darts toward her. But that is considered
rude. A few others have devised dancing with their eyes shut as a signal
that they do not want to be "cut in on." But this is neither customary nor
even a generally known practise.

It is always the privilege of the girl to stop dancing; a man is supposed
to dance on and on, until she--or the music--stops.


=ASKING FOR A DANCE=

When a gentleman is introduced to a lady he says, "May I have some of
this?" or "Would you care to dance?"

A lady never asks a gentleman to dance, or to go to supper with her,
though she may if she is older, or if she is a young girl who is one of a
"flock," she may say "Come and sit at our table!" This however would not
imply that in sitting at "their" table he is supposed to sit next to her.

In asking a lady to go to supper, a gentleman should say "Will you go to
supper with me?" Or "May I take you to supper?" He should never say, "Have
you a partner?" as she is put in an awkward position in having to admit
that she has none.


=A BALL IS NOT A DANCING SCHOOL=

Since a girl may not without rudeness refuse to dance with a man who "cuts
in," a man who does not know how to dance is inexcusably inconsiderate if
he "cuts in" on a good dancer and compels a young girl to become
instructress for his own pleasure with utter disregard of hers. If at
home, or elsewhere, a young girl volunteers to "teach" him, that is
another matter, but even so, the ballroom is no place to practise--unless
he is very sure that his dancing is not so bad as to be an imposition on
his teacher.

[Illustration: THE MOST ELABORATE DINNER-DANCE EVER GIVEN IN NEW YORK

"The scene represents the palace and garden at Versailles. There were only
four tables. Singers appeared on the balcony during dinner, other
performers danced, sang and juggled on the pathways. After the dinner the
pathways of grass were taken up to permit dancing by the guests." [Page
271.]]


=NOVELTIES AND INNOVATIONS=

Formal occasions demand strict conventions. At an important wedding, at a
dinner of ceremony, at a ball, it is not only bad form but shocking to
deviate from accepted standards of formality. "Surprize" is an element
that must be avoided on all dignified occasions. Those therefore, who
think it would be original and pleasing to spring surprizes on their
guests at an otherwise conventional and formal entertainment, should save
their ideas for a children's party where surprizes not only belong, but
are delightedly appreciated. To be sure, one might perhaps consider that
scenic effects or unusual diversions, such as one sees at a costume ball
or a "period" dinner, belong under the head of "surprize." But in the
first place such entertainments are not conventional; and in the second,
details that are in accordance with the period or design of the ball or
dinner are "conventions" after all.

On the other hand, in the country especially, nothing can be more fun or
more appropriate than a barn dance, or an impromptu play, or a calico
masquerade, with properties and clothes made of any old thing and in a few
hours--even in a few minutes.

Music need not be an orchestra but it must be good, and the floor must be
adequate and smooth. The supper is of secondary importance. As for
manners, even though they may be "unrestrained," they can be meticulously
perfect for all that! There is no more excuse for rude or careless or
selfish behavior at a picnic than at a ball.


=PUBLIC BALLS=

A public ball is a ball given for a benefit or charity. A committee makes
the arrangements and tickets are sold to the public, either by being put
on sale at hotels or at the house of the secretary of the committee. A
young girl of social position does not go to a public ball without a
chaperon. To go in the company of one or more gentlemen would be an
unheard-of breach of propriety.


=SUBSCRIPTION DANCES AND BALLS=

These are often of greater importance in a community than any number of
its private balls. In Boston and Philadelphia for instance, a person's
social standing is dependent upon whether or not she or he is "invited to
the Assemblies." The same was once true in New York when the Patriarch and
Assembly Balls were the dominating entertainments. In Baltimore too, a
man's social standing is non-existent if he does not belong to the "Monday
Germans," and in many other cities membership in the subscription dances
or dancing classes or sewing circles distinctly draws the line between the
inside somebodies and the outside nobodies.

Subscription dances such as these are managed and all invitations are
issued by patronesses who are always ladies of unquestioned social
prominence. Usually these patronesses are elected for life, or at least
for a long period of years. When for one reason or another a vacancy
occurs, a new member is elected by the others to fill her place. No
outsider may ever ask to become a member. Usually a number of names are
suggested and voted on at a meeting, and whoever wins the highest number
of votes is elected.

The expenses of balls such as Assemblies, are borne by the patronesses
collectively, but other types of dances are paid for by subscribers who
are invited to "take tickets"--as will be explained.


_How Subscription Dances Are Organized_

Whether in city, town or village, the organization is the same: A small
group of important ladies decide that it would be agreeable to have two or
three balls--or maybe only one--a season. This original group then
suggests additional names until they have all agreed upon a list
sufficient in size to form a nucleus. These then are invited to join, and
all of them at another meeting decide on the final size of the list and
whom it is to include. The list may be a hundred, or it may stay at the
original group of a half dozen or so. Let us for example say the complete
list is fifty. Fifty ladies, therefore, the most prominent possible, are
the patronesses or managers, or whatever they choose to call themselves.
They also elect a chairman, a vice-chairman, a secretary, and a treasurer.
They then elect seven or eight others who are to constitute the managing
committee. The other thirty-eight or forty are merely "members" who will
pay their dues and have the right to a certain number of tickets for each
of the balls. These tickets, by the way, are never actually sent by the
members themselves, who merely submit the names of the guests they have
chosen to the committee on invitations. This is the only practical way to
avoid duplication. Otherwise, let us say that Mrs. Oldname, Mrs. Worldly,
Mrs. Norman and Mrs. Gilding each send their two tickets to the young
Smartlingtons, which would mean that the Smartlingtons would have to
return three, and those three invitations would start off on a second
journey perhaps to be returned again.

On the other hand, if each patroness sends in a list, the top names which
have not yet been entered in the "invitation book" are automatically
selected, and the committee notify her to whom her invitations went.

There is also another very important reason for the sending in of every
name to the committee: exclusiveness. Otherwise the balls would all too
easily deteriorate into the character of public ones. Every name must be
approved by the committee on invitations, who always hold a special
meeting for the purpose, so that no matter how willing a certain careless
member would be to include Mr. and Mrs. Unsuitable, she is powerless to
send them tickets if they are not approved of.

As a matter of fact there is rarely any question of withholding
invitations, since a serious objection would have to be sustained against
one to warrant such an action on the part of the committee.


_Number of Invitations Issued_

With fifty members, each might perhaps be allowed, besides her own ticket,
two ladies' invitations and four gentlemen's. That would make three
hundred and fifty invitations available altogether. The founders can of
course decide on whatever number they choose. Patronesses can also
exchange tickets. One who might want to ask a double number of guests to
the "First Assembly" can arrange with another to exchange her "Second
Assembly" invitations for "First" ones. Also it often happens that the
entire list sent in by a member has already been included, and not wanting
to use her tickets, she gives them to another member who may have a
débutante daughter and therefore be in need of extra ones.

Bachelor Balls (like the "Monday Germans" of Baltimore) are run by the
gentlemen instead of the ladies. Otherwise they are the same as the
Assemblies.


_Other Forms of Subscription Dances_

Other forms are somewhat different in that instead of dividing the
expenses between members who jointly issue invitations to few or many
guests, the committee of ten, we will say, invites either all the men who
are supposed to be eligible or all the young girls, to subscribe to a
certain number of tickets.

For instance, dances known usually as Junior Assemblies or the Holiday
Dances are organized by a group of ladies--the mothers, usually, of
débutantes. The members of the organization are elected just as the others
are, for life. But they are apt after a few years, when their daughters
are "too old," to resign in favor of others whose daughters are beginning
to be grown. The débutantes of highest social position are invited to
become members. Each one pays "dues" and has the privilege of asking two
men to each dance. Mothers are not expected to go to these dances unless
they are themselves patronesses. Sometimes young women go to these dances
until they marry; often they are for débutantes, but most often they are
for girls the year before they "come out," and for boys who are in
college.


_Patronesses Receive_

At a subscription dance where patronesses take the place of a hostess,
about four of these ladies are especially selected by the ball committee
to receive. They always stand in line and bow to each person who is
announced, but do not shake hands. The guest arriving also bows to the
hostesses collectively (not four times). A lady, for instance, is
announced: she takes a few steps toward the "receiving line" and makes a
slight courtesy; the ladies receiving make a courtesy in unison, and the
guest passes on. A gentleman bows ceremoniously, the way he was taught in
dancing school, and the ladies receiving incline their heads.




CHAPTER XVIII

THE DÉBUTANTE


=HOW A YOUNG GIRL IS PRESENTED TO SOCIETY=

Any one of various entertainments may be given to present a young girl to
society. The favorite and most elaborate of these, but possible only to
parents of considerable wealth and wide social acquaintance, is a ball.
Much less elaborate, but equal in size, and second in favor to-day, is an
afternoon tea with dancing. Third, and gaining in popularity, is a small
dance, which presents the débutante to the younger set and a few of her
mother's intimate friends. Fourth, is a small tea without music. Fifth,
the mere sending out of the mother's visiting card with the daughter's
name engraved below her own, announces to the world that the daughter is
eligible for invitations.


=A BALL FOR A DÉBUTANTE=

A ball for a débutante differs in nothing from all other balls excepting
that the débutante "receives" standing beside the hostess, and furthest
from the entrance, whether that happens to be on the latter's right or
left. The guests as they mount the stairs or enter the ballroom and are
"announced," approach the hostess first, who, as she shakes hands with
each, turns to the débutante and says "Mrs. Worldly, my daughter." Or
"Cynthia, I want to present you to Mrs. Worldly." ("Want to" is used on
this occasion because "may I" is too formal for a mother to say to her
child.) A friend would probably know the daughter; in any event the
mother's introduction would be, "You remember Cynthia, don't you?"

Each arriving guest always shakes hands with the débutante as well as with
the hostess, and if there is a queue of people coming at the same time,
there is no need of saying anything beyond "How do you do?" and passing on
as quickly as possible. If there are no others entering at the moment,
each guest makes a few pleasant remarks. A stranger, for instance, would
perhaps comment on how lovely, and many, the débutante's bouquets are, or
express a hope that she will enjoy her winter, or talk for a moment or two
about the "gaiety of the season" or "the lack of balls," or anything that
shows polite interest in the young girl's first glimpse of society. A
friend of her mother might perhaps say "You look too lovely, Cynthia dear,
and your dress is enchanting!"

Personal compliments, however, are proper only from a close friend. No
acquaintance, unless she is quite old, should ever make personal remarks.
An old lady or gentleman might very forgivably say "You don't mind, my
dear, if I tell you how sweet I think you look," or "What a pretty frock
you have on." But it is bad taste for a young woman to say to another
"What a handsome dress you have on!" and worst of all to add "Where did
you get it?" The young girl's particular friends are, of course, apt to
tell her that her dress is wonderful, or more likely, "simply divine."

It is customary in most cities to send a débutante a bouquet at her
"coming out" party. They may be "bouquets" really, or baskets, or other
decorative flowers, and are sent by relatives, friends of the family, her
father's business associates, as well as by young men admirers. These
"bouquets" are always banked near and if possible, around the place the
débutante stands to receive. If she has great quantities, they are placed
about the room wherever they look most effective. The débutante usually
holds one of the bouquets while receiving, but she should remember that
her choice of this particular one among the many sent her is somewhat
pointed to the giver, so that unless she is willing to acknowledge one
particular beau as "best" it is wiser to carry one sent by her father, or
brother, especially if either send her one of the tiny 1830 bouquets that
have been for a year or two in fashion, and are no weight to hold.

These bouquets are about as big around as an ordinary saucer, and just as
flat on top as a saucer placed upside down. The flowers chosen are
rosebuds or other compact flowers, massed tightly together, and arranged
in a precise pattern; for instance, three or four pink rosebuds are put in
the center, around them a row of white violets, around these a single row
of the pink roses, surrounded again by violets, and so on for four or five
rows. The bouquet is then set in stiff white lace paper, manufactured for
the purpose, the stems wrapped in white satin ribbon, with streamers of
white and pink ribbons about a quarter of an inch wide and tied to hang
twenty inches or so long. The colors and patterns in which these little
bouquets may be made are unlimited.


=THE DÉBUTANTE RECEIVES=

At a ball, where the guests begin coming about half past ten, the
débutante must stand beside the hostess and "receive" until at least
twelve o'clock--later if guests still continue to arrive.

At all coming-out parties, the débutante invites a few of her best girl
friends to receive with her. Whether the party is in the afternoon or
evening, these young girls wear evening dresses and come early and stay
late. Their being asked to "receive" is a form of expression merely, as
they never stand in line, and other than wearing pretty clothes and thus
adding to the picture, they have no "duties" whatsoever.


=AT SUPPER=

The débutante goes to supper with a partner who has surely spoken for the
privilege weeks or even months beforehand. But the rest of her own table
is always made up by herself; that is, it includes the young girls who are
her most intimate friends, and their supper partners. Her table is usually
in the center of the dining-room, but, there is no especial decoration to
distinguish it, except that it is often somewhat larger than the other
tables surrounding it, and a footman or waiter is detailed to tell any who
may attempt to take it, that it is "reserved."

After supper the débutante has no duties and is free to enjoy herself.

The afternoon tea with dancing is described in the chapter on Teas and
needs no further comment, since its etiquette is precisely the same as
that for a ball. The débutante's bouquets are arranged as effectively as
possible, and she receives with her mother, or whoever the hostess may be,
until the queue of arriving guests thins out, after which she need be
occupied with nothing but her own good time, and that of her friends.

Those of smaller means, or those who object to hotel rooms, ask only
younger people, and give the tea in their own house. Where there are two
rooms on a floor--drawing-room in front, dining-room back, and a library
on the floor above, the guests are received in the drawing-room, but
whether they dance in the dining-room or up in the library, depends upon
which room is the larger. In either case the furniture is moved out. If
possible the smallest room should be used to receive in, the largest to
dance in, and the tea-table should be set in the medium one.


=HOW MANY GUESTS MAY ONE ASK?=

A hostess should never try to pack her house beyond the limits of its
capacity. This question of how many invitations may safely be sent out is
one which each hostess must answer for herself, since beyond a few obvious
generalities no one can very well advise her.

Taking a hostess of "average" social position, who is bringing out a
daughter of "average" attractiveness and popularity, it would be safe to
say that every débutante and younger man asked to a party of any kind
where there is dancing, will accept, but that not more than from half to
one-third of the older people asked will put in an appearance.


=LAVISH PARTIES GIVING WAY TO SIMPLE ONES=

A ball, by the way, is always a general entertainment, meaning that
invitations are sent to the entire dinner list--not only actual but
potential--of the host and hostess, as well as to the younger people who
are either themselves friends of the débutante, or daughters and sons of
the friends, and acquaintances of the hostess.

A dance differs from a ball in that it is smaller, less elaborate and its
invitations are limited to the contemporaries of the débutante, or at most
the youngest married set.

Invitations to a tea are even more general and should include a hostess'
entire visiting list, irrespective of age or even personal acquaintance.
The old-fashioned visiting list of the young hostess included the entire
list of her mother, plus that of her mother-in-law, to which was added all
the names acquired in her own social life. It can easily be seen that this
list became a formidable volume by the time her daughter was old enough to
"come out," and yet this entire list was supposed to be included in all
"general" invitations!

In the present day, however, at least in New York, there is a growing
tendency to eliminate these general or "impersonal" invitations. In
smartest society, it is not even considered necessary that a "general"
entertainment be given to introduce a daughter. In New York last winter
there were scarcely a dozen private balls all told. Many of the most
fashionable (and richest) hostesses gave dances limited to young girls of
their daughters' ages and young dancing men. Even at many of the
teas-with-dancing none but young people were asked.

Anyone who likes to sit on the bank and watch the tides of fashion rise
and fall, cannot fail to notice that big and lavish entertainments are
dwindling, and small and informal ones increasing. It is equally apparent,
contrary to popular opinion, that extravagance of expenditure is growing
less and less. It is years since any one has given such a ball, for
instance, as the Venetian fête the Gildings gave to bring out their eldest
daughter, when the entire first floor of the Fitz-Cherry was turned into a
replica of Venice--canals, gondolas, and all. Or the Persian ball of the
Vanstyles where the whole house was hung, as a background for Oriental
costumes, with copper-gold draperies, against which stood at intervals
Maxfield Parrish cypress trees. Or the moonlight dance of the Worldlys
which was not a fancy dress one, but for which the ballroom was turned
into a garden scene, lighted by simulated moonlight that would have added
to the renown of Belasco.

Such entertainments as these seem almost "out of key" with the attitude of
to-day. For although fancy-dress and elaborate parties are occasionally
given, they are not usually given for débutantes, nor on the scale of
those mentioned above.


=THE DÉBUTANTE'S DRESS=

At a ball, the débutante wears her very prettiest ball dress.
Old-fashioned sentiment prefers that it be white, and of some diaphanous
material, such as net or gauze or lace. It ought not to look
overelaborate, even though it is spangled with silver or crystal or is
made of sheer lace. It should suggest something light and airy and gay
and, above all, young. For a young girl to whom white is unbecoming, a
color is perfectly suitable as long as it is a pale shade. She should not
wear strong colors such as red, or Yale blue, and on no account black! Her
mother, of course, wears as handsome a ball dress as possible, and "all
her jewels."

At an afternoon tea the débutante wears an evening dress--a very simple
evening dress, but an evening dress all the same. Usually a very pale
color, and quite untrimmed, such as she might wear at home for dinner. Her
mother wears an afternoon dress, not an evening one. Both mother and
daughter wear long gloves, and neither they, nor the young girls
receiving, wear hats.

To describe the details of clothes is futile. Almost before this page
comes from the printer, the trend may quite likely change. But the
tendency of the moment is toward greater simplicity--in effect at all
events.


=IN CONFIDENCE TO A DÉBUTANTE=

Let us pretend a worldly old godmother is speaking, and let us suppose
that you are a young girl on the evening of your coming-out ball. You are
excited, of course you are! It is your evening, and you are a sort of
little princess! There is music, and there are lights, and there are
flowers everywhere--a great ballroom massed with them, tables heaped with
bouquets--all for you! You have on an especially beautiful dress--one that
was selected from among many others, just because it seemed to you the
prettiest. Even your mother and married sister who, "_en grande tenue_,"
have always seemed to you dazzling figures, have for the moment become,
for all their brocades and jewels, merely background; and you alone are
the center of the picture. Up the wide staircase come throngs of
fashionables--who mean "the world." They are coming on purpose to bow to
you! You can't help feeling that the glittering dresses, the tiaras, the
ropes of pearls and chains of diamonds of the "dowagers," the stiff white
shirt-fronts and boutonnières and perfectly fitting coats of the older
gentlemen, as well as the best clothes of all the younger people, were all
put on for you.

You shake hands and smile sweetly to a number of older ladies and shake
hands with an equal number of gentlemen, all very politely and properly.
Then suddenly, half way up the stairs you see Betty and Anne and Fred and
Ollie. Of course your attention is drawn to them. You are vaguely
conscious that the butler is shouting some stupid name you never heard
of--that you don't care in the least about. Your mother's voice is saying
"Mrs. zzzzzz----,"

Impatiently you give your hand to someone--you haven't the slightest idea
who it is. So far as your interest is concerned, you might as well be
brushing away annoying flies. Your smiles are directed to Betty and Anne.
As they reach the top of the stairs you dart forward and enter into an
excited conversation, deliberately overlooking a lady and gentleman who,
without trying further to attract your attention, pass on. Later in the
winter you will perhaps wonder why you alone among your friends are never
asked to Great Estates. The lady and gentleman of whom you are so rudely
unaware, happen to be Mr. and Mrs. Worldly, and you have entirely
forgotten that you are a hostess, and furthermore that you have the whole
evening, beginning at supper, when you can talk to these friends of yours!
You can dance with Fred and Ollie and Jimmy all the rest of the evening;
you can spend most of your time with them for the rest of your life if you
and they choose. But when you are out in public, above all at a party
which is for _you_, your duty in commonest civility is to overcome your
impulses, and behave as a grown-up person--and a well-bred grown-up person
at that!

It takes scarcely more than ten seconds to listen to the name that is said
to you, to look directly and attentively at the one to whom the name
belongs, to put out your hand firmly as you would take hold of something
you like, (not something that you feel an aversion to), and with a smile
say "How do you do." At your ball your mother says "Mrs. Worldly, my
daughter." You look directly at Mrs. Worldly, put out your hand, say "How
do you do, Mrs. Worldly." And she passes on. It takes no longer to be
cordial and attentive than to be distrait and casual and rude, yet the
impression made in a few seconds of actual time may easily gain or lose a
friend for life. When no other guests are arriving, you can chatter to
your own friends as much as you like, but as you turn to greet another
stranger, you must show pleasure, not annoyance, in giving him your
attention.

A happy attitude to cultivate is to think in your own mind that new people
are all packages in a grab-bag, and that you can never tell what any of
them may prove to be until you know what is inside the outer wrappings of
casual appearances. To be sure, the old woman of the fairy tale, who turns
out to be a fairy in disguise, is not often met with in real life, but
neither is her approximate counterpart an impossibility.

As those who have sent you flowers approach, you must thank them; you must
also write later an additional note of thanks to older people. But to
your family or your own intimate friends, the verbal thanks--if not too
casually made--are sufficient.


=A FEW DON'TS FOR DÉBUTANTES=

Don't think that because you have a pretty face, you need neither brains
nor manners. Don't think that you can be rude to anyone and escape being
disliked for it.

Whispering is always rude. Whispering and giggling at the same time have
no place in good society. Everything that shows lack of courtesy toward
others is rude.

If you would be thought a person of refinement, don't nudge or pat or
finger people. Don't hold hands or walk arm-about-waist in public. Never
put your hand on a man, except in dancing and in taking his arm if he is
usher at a wedding or your partner for dinner or supper. Don't allow
anyone to paw you. Don't hang on anyone for support, and don't stand or
walk with your chest held in, and your hips forward, in imitation of a
reversed letter S.

Don't walk across a ballroom floor swinging your arms. Don't talk or laugh
loud enough to attract attention, and on no account force yourself to
laugh. Nothing is flatter than laughter that is lacking in mirth. If you
only laugh because something is irresistibly funny, the chances are your
laugh will be irresistible too. In the same way a smile should be
spontaneous, because you _feel_ happy and pleasant; nothing has less
allure than a mechanical grimace, as though you were trying to imitate a
tooth-paste advertisement.


=WHERE ARE THE "BELLES" OF YESTERDAY?=

In olden days and until a comparatively short while ago, a young girl's
social success was invariably measured by her popularity in a ballroom. It
was the girl who had the most partners, who least frequently sat "against
the wall," who carried home the greatest quantity of the baubles known as
"favors," who was that evening's and usually the season's belle.

But to-day although ballroom popularity is still important as a test by
which a young girl's success is measured, it is by no means the beginning
and end that it used to be.

As repeated several times in this book, the day of the belle is past;
beaux belong to the past too. To-day is the day of woman's equality with
man, and if in proving her equality she has come down from a pedestal, her
pedestal was perhaps a theatrical "property" at best and not to be
compared for solid satisfaction with the level ground of the entirely real
position she now occupies.

A girl's popularity in a ballroom is of importance to be sure, but not
greatly more so than the dancing popularity of a youth.

There was a time when "wall-flowers" went to balls night after night where
they either sat beside a chaperon or spent the evening in the
dressing-room in tears. To-day a young girl who finds she is not a
ballroom success avoids ballrooms and seeks her success otherwhere. She
does not sit in a corner and hope against hope that her "luck will turn"
and that Prince Charming will surely some evening discover her. She sizes
up the situation exactly as a boy might size up his own chances to "make"
the crew or the football team.


=TO-DAY'S SPECIALISTS IN SUCCESS=

The girl of to-day soon discovers, if she does not know it already, that
to be a ballroom belle it is necessary first of all to dance really well.
A girl may be as beautiful as a young Diana or as fascinating as Circe,
but if she is heavy or steps on her first partner's toes, never again will
he ask her to dance. And the news spreads in an instant.

The girl of to-day therefore knows she must learn to dance well, which is
difficult, since dancers are born, not made; or she must go to balls for
supper only, or not go to balls at all, _unless_--she plays a really good
game of bridge! In which case, her chances for popularity at the bridge
tables, which are at all balls to-day, are quite as good as though she
were a young Pavlowa in the ballroom. Or perhaps she skates, or hunts, or
plays a wonderful game of tennis or golf, each one of which opens a vista
leading to popularity, and the possibilities for a "good time" which was
after all the mainspring of old-fashioned ballroom success.

And since the day of femininity that is purely ornamental and utterly
useless is gone by, it is the girl who does things well who finds life
full of interests and of friends and of happiness. The old idea also has
passed that measures a girl's popular success by the number of trousered
figures around her. It is quality, not quantity, that counts; and the girl
who surrounds herself with indiscriminate and possibly "cheap" youths does
not excite the envy but the derision of beholders. To the highest type of
young girl to-day it makes very little difference whether, in the
inevitable "group" in which she is perpetually to be found, there are more
men than girls or the opposite.

This does not mean that human nature has changed--scarcely! There always
are and doubtless always will be any number of women to whom admiration
and flirtation is the very breath of their nostrils, who love to parade a
beau just as they love to parade a new dress. But the tendencies of the
time do not encourage the flirtatious attitude. It is not considered a
triumph to have many love affairs, but rather an evidence of stupidity and
bad taste.


=FRANKNESS OF TO-DAY=

A young man playing tennis with a young girl a generation ago would have
been forced patiently to toss her gentle balls and keep his boredom to
himself, or he would have held her chin in his hand, while he himself
stood shivering for hours in three feet of water, and tried his best to
disguise his opinion as to the hopelessness of her ever learning to swim.

To-day he would frankly tell her she had better play tennis for a year or
two with a "marker" or struggle at swimming by herself, and any sensible
girl would take that advice!


=FOR WHAT SHE REALLY IS=

Instead of depending upon beauty, upon sex-appeal, the young girl who is
"the success of to-day" depends chiefly upon her actual character and
disposition. It is not even so necessary to do something well as to
refrain from doing things badly. If she is not good at sports, or games,
or dancing, then she must find out what she is good at and do that! If she
is good for nothing but to look in the glass and put rouge on her lips and
powder her nose and pat her hair, life is going to be a pretty dreary
affair. In other days beauty was worshiped for itself alone, and it has
votaries of sorts to-day. But the best type of modern youth does not care
for beauty, as his father did; in fact, he doesn't care a bit for it, if
it has nothing to "go with it," any more than he cares for butter with no
bread to spread it on. Beauty _and_ wit, _and_ heart, _and_ other
qualifications or attributes is another matter altogether.

A gift of more value than beauty, is charm, which in a measure is another
word for sympathy, or the power to put yourself in the place of others; to
be interested in whatever interests them, so as to be pleasing to them, if
possible, but not to occupy your thoughts in futilely wondering what they
think about you.

Would you know the secret of popularity? It is unconsciousness of self,
altruistic interest, and inward kindliness, outwardly expressed in good
manners.




CHAPTER XIX

THE CHAPERON AND OTHER CONVENTIONS


=A GLOOMY WORD=

Of course there are chaperons and chaperons! But it must be said that the
very word has a repellent schoolteacherish sound. One pictures
instinctively a humorless tyrant whose "correct" manner plainly reveals
her true purpose, which is to take the joy out of life. That she can
be--and often is--a perfectly human and sympathetic person, whose
unselfish desire is merely to smooth the path of one who is the darling of
her heart, in nothing alters the feeling of gloom that settles upon the
spirit of youth at the mention of the very word "chaperon."


=FREEDOM OF THE CHAPERONED=

As a matter of fact the only young girl who is really "free," is she whose
chaperon is never very far away. She need give conventionality very little
thought, and not bother about her P's and Q's at all, because her chaperon
is always a strong and protective defense; but a young girl who is
unprotected by a chaperon is in the position precisely of an unarmed
traveler walking alone among wolves--his only defense is in not attracting
their notice.

To be sure the time has gone by when the presence of an elderly lady is
indispensable to every gathering of young people. Young girls for whose
sole benefit and protection the chaperon exists (she does not exist for
her own pleasure, youthful opinion to the contrary notwithstanding), have
infinitely greater freedom from her surveillance than had those of other
days, and the typical chaperon is seldom seen with any but very young
girls, too young to have married friends. Otherwise a young married woman,
a bride perhaps scarcely out of her teens, is, on all ordinary occasions,
a perfectly suitable chaperon, especially if her husband is present. A
very young married woman gadding about without her husband is not a proper
chaperon.

There are also many occasions when a chaperon is unnecessary! It is
considered perfectly correct for a young girl to drive a motor by herself,
or take a young man with her, if her family know and approve of him, for
any short distance in the country. She may play golf, tennis, go to the
Country Club, or Golf Club (if near by), sit on the beach, go canoeing,
ride horseback, and take part in the normal sports and occupations of
country life. Young girls always go to private parties of every sort
without their own chaperon, but the fact that a lady issues an invitation
means that either she or another suitable chaperon will be present.


=THE BEST CHAPERON HERSELF=

Ethically the only chaperon is the young girl's own sense of dignity and
pride; she who has the right attributes of character needs no
chaperon--ever. If she is wanting in decency and proper pride, not even
Argus could watch over her! But apart from ethics, there are the
conventions to think of, and the conventions of propriety demand that very
young woman must be protected by a chaperon, because otherwise she will be
misjudged.


=THE RESIDENT CHAPERON=

No young girl may live alone. Even though she has a father, unless he
devotes his entire time to her, she must also have a resident chaperon who
protects her reputation until she is married or old enough to protect it
herself--which is not until she has reached a fairly advanced age, of
perhaps thirty years or over if she is alone, or twenty-six or so if she
lives in her father's house and behaves with such irreproachable
circumspection that Mrs. Grundy is given no chance to set tongues
wagging.

It goes without saying that a chaperon is always a lady, often one whose
social position is better than that of her charge; occasionally she is a
social sponsor as well as a moral one. Her position, if she is not a
relative, is very like that of a companion. Above all, a chaperon must
have dignity, and if she is to be of any actual service, she must be kind
of heart and have intelligent sympathy and tact. To have her charge not
only care for her, but be happy with her, is the only possible way such a
relationship can endure.

Needless to say a chaperon's own conduct must be irreproachable and her
knowledge of the world such as can only be gained by personal experience;
but she need not be an old lady! She can perfectly well be reasonably
young, and a spinster.

Very often the chaperon "keeps the house," but she is never called a
"housekeeper." Nor is she a "secretary" though she probably draws the
checks and audits the bills.

It is by no means unusual for mothers who are either very gay or otherwise
busy, and cannot give most of their time to their grown and growing
daughters, to put them in charge of a resident chaperon. Often their
governess--if she is a woman of the world--gives up her autocracy of the
schoolroom and becomes social guardian instead.


=THE DUTIES OF A CHAPERON=

It is unnecessary to say that a chaperon has no right to be inquisitive or
interfering unless for a very good reason. If an objectionable
person--meaning one who can not be considered a gentleman--is inclined to
show the young girl attentions, it is of course her duty to cut the
acquaintance short at the beginning before the young girl's interest has
become aroused. For just such a contingency as this it is of vital
importance that confidence and sympathy exist between the chaperon and her
charge. No modern young girl is likely to obey blindly unless she values
the opinions of one in whose judgment and affection she has learned to
believe.

WHEN INVITATIONS ARE SENT OUT BY A CHAPERON

Usually if a young girl is an orphan, living with a chaperon, a ball or
formal party would be given in the name of an aunt or other near relative.
If her father is alive, the invitations go out in his name of course, and
he receives with her. But if it should happen that she has no near family
at all, or if her chaperon is her social sponsor, the chaperon's name can
be put on invitations. For example:

       Miss Abigail Titherington

           Miss Rosalie Gray

           will be at home

    on Saturday the fifth of December

       from four until six o'clock

            The Fitz-Cherry

Rosalie has no very near relatives and Miss Titherington has brought her
up.

In sending out the invitations for a dinner (a young girl would not be
giving a formal dinner) Rosalie telephones her friends "Will you dine with
me (or us) next Monday?" or, "On the sixteenth?" It is not necessary to
mention Miss Titherington because it is taken for granted that she will be
present.

It is also not considered proper for a young girl ever to be alone as
hostess. When she invites young girls and men to her house, Miss
Titherington either "receives" them or comes into the room while they are
there. If the time is afternoon, very likely she pours tea and when
everyone has been helped, she goes into another room. She does not stay
with them ever, but she is never very far away.

The chaperon (or a parent) should never go to bed until the last young
man has left the house. It is an unforgivable breach of decorum to allow a
young girl to sit up late at night with a young man--or a number of them.
On returning home from a party, she must not invite or allow a man to
"come in for a while." Even her fiancé must bid her good night at the door
if the hour is late, and some one ought always to sit up, or get up, to
let her in. No young girl ought to let herself in with a latch-key.

In old-fashioned days no lady had a latch-key. And it is still fitting and
proper for a servant to open the door for her.

A young girl may not, even with her fiancé, lunch in a road house without
a chaperon, or go on a journey that can by any possibility last over
night. To go out with him in a small sail-boat sounds harmless enough, but
might result in a questionable situation if they are becalmed, or if they
are left helpless in a sudden fog. The Maine coast, for example, is
particularly subject to fogs that often shut down without warning and no
one going out on the water can tell whether he will be able to get back
within a reasonable time or not. A man and a girl went out from Bar Harbor
and did not get back until next day. Everyone knew the fog had come in as
thick as pea-soup and that it was impossible to get home; but to the end
of time her reputation will suffer for the experience.


=A FEW PRECEPTS OF CONVENTION=

At a dinner party given for young people in a private house, a somewhat
older sister would be a sufficient chaperon. Or the young hostess' mother
after receiving the guests may, if she chooses, dine with her husband
elsewhere than in the dining-room, the parents' roof being supposedly
chaperonage enough.

In going to tea in a college man's room, or in a bachelor's apartment, the
proper chaperon should be a lady of fairly mature years. To see two or
three apparently young people going into a bachelor's quarters would be
open to criticism. There are many places which are unsuitable for young
girls to go to whether they are chaperoned or not. No well brought up
young girl should be allowed to go to supper at a cabaret until she is
married, or has passed the age when "very young" can be applied to her.


=CONVENTIONS THAT CHANGE WITH LOCALITY=

In New York, for instance, no young girl of social standing may, without
being criticized, go alone with a man to the theater. Absolutely no lady
(unless middle-aged-and even then she would be defying convention) can go
to dinner or supper in a restaurant alone with a gentleman. A lady, not
young, who is staying in a very dignified hotel, can have a gentleman dine
with her. But any married woman, if her husband does not object, may dine
alone in her own home with any man she pleases or have a different one
come in to tea every day in the week without being criticized.

A very young girl may motor around the country alone with a man, with her
father's consent, or sit with him on the rocks by the sea or on a log in
the woods; but she must not sit with him in a restaurant. All of which is
about as upside down as it can very well be. In a restaurant they are not
only under the surveillance of many eyes, but they can scarcely speak
without being overheard, whereas short-distance motoring, driving, riding,
walking or sitting on the seashore has no element of protection certainly.
Again, though she may not lunch with him in a restaurant, she is sometimes
(not always) allowed to go to a moving picture matinée with him! Why
sitting in the dark in a moving picture theater is allowed, and the
restaurant is tabu is very mysterious.

Older girls and young married women are beginning to lunch with men they
know well in some of the New York restaurants, but not in others. In many
cities it would be scandalous for a young married woman to lunch with a
man not her husband, but quite all right for a young girl and man to lunch
at a country club. This last is reasonable because the room is undoubtedly
filled with people they know--who act as potential chaperons. Nearly
everywhere it is thought proper for them to go to a dancing club for tea,
if the "club" is managed by a chaperon.

As said above, interpretation of what is proper shifts according to
locality. Even in Victorian days it was proper in Baltimore for a young
girl to go to the theater alone with a man, and to have him see her home
from a ball was not only permitted but absolutely correct.


="MRS. GRUNDY"=

Of course every one has his own portrait of Mrs. Grundy, and some idea of
the personality she shows to him; but has any one ever tried to ferret out
that disagreeable old woman's own position; to find out where she lives
and why she has nothing to do but meddle in affairs which do not concern
her. Is she a lady? One would imagine she is not. One would also imagine
that she lives in a solid well-repaired square brown stone house with a
cupola used as a conning tower and equipped with periscope and telescope
and wireless. Furthermore, her house is situated on a bleak hill so that
nothing impedes her view and that of her two pets, a magpie and a jackal.
And the business in life of all three of them is to track down and destroy
the good name of every woman who comes within range, especially if she is
young and pretty--and unchaperoned!

The pretty young woman living alone, must literally follow Cinderella's
habits. To be out of the house late at night or sitting up, except to
study, are imprudences she can not allow herself. If she is a widow her
conduct must be above criticism, but if she is young and pretty and
divorced, she must literally live the life of a Puritan spinster of Salem.
The magpie never leaves her window sill and the jackal sits on the
doormat, and the news of her every going out and coming in, of every one
whom she receives, when they come, how long they stay and at what hour
they go, is spread broadcast.

No unprotected woman can do the least thing that is unconventional without
having Mrs. Grundy shouting to everyone the worst possible things about
her.


=THE BACHELOR GIRL=

The bachelor girl is usually a worker; she is generally either earning her
living or studying to acquire the means of earning her living. Her days
are therefore sure to be occupied, and the fact that she has little time
for the gaiety of life, and that she is a worker, puts her in a somewhat
less assailable position. She can on occasion go out alone with a man (not
a married one), but the theater she goes to must be of conventional
character, and if she dines in a restaurant it is imperative that a
chaperon be in the party; and the same is true in going to supper at
night. No one could very well criticize her for going to the opera or a
concert with a man when neither her nor his behavior hints a lack of
reserve.

But a girl whose personal dignity is unassailable is not apt to bring
censure upon herself, even though the world judges by etiquette, which may
often be a false measure. The young woman who wants really to be free from
Mrs. Grundy's hold on her, must either live her own life, caring nothing
for the world's opinion or the position it offers, or else be chaperoned.


=THE BACHELOR HOST AND THE CHAPERON=

Barring the one fact that a chaperon must be on hand before young or
"single" women guests arrive, and that she may not leave until after those
whom she has chaperoned have left, there is no difference whatsoever in an
entertainment given at the house of a bachelor and one given by a hostess.
A bachelor can give dinners or theater parties or yachting parties or
house parties or any parties that a hostess can give.

It is unnecessary to say no lady may dine alone in a gentleman's rooms, or
house; nor may she dine with a number of gentlemen (unless one of them is
her husband, in which case she is scarcely "alone"). But it is perfectly
correct for two or more ladies to dine at a gentleman's rooms if one of
the ladies is elderly or the husband of one is present.

A bachelor entertaining in bachelor's quarters, meaning that he has only a
man servant, must be much more punctilious, and must arrange to have the
chaperon bring any young woman guests with her, since no young girls could
be seen entering bachelor's quarters alone, and have their "good name"
survive. If he has a large establishment, including women servants, and if
furthermore he is a man whose own reputation is unblemished, the chaperon
may be met at his house. But since it is more prudent for young women to
arrive under her care, why run the unnecessary risk of meeting Mrs.
Grundy's jackal on the doorstep?

At the house of a bachelor such as described above, the chaperon could be
a husbandless young married woman, or in other words, the most careless
chaperon possible, without ever giving Mrs. Grundy's magpie cause for
ruffling a feather. But no young woman could dine or have tea, no matter
how well chaperoned, in the "rooms" of a man of morally bad reputation
without running a very unpleasant risk of censure.


=A BACHELOR'S HOUSE PARTIES=

Bachelors frequently have house parties at their country places. A married
lady whose husband is with her is always the chaperon unless the host's
mother or sister may be staying--or living--in his house.

There is always something unusually alluring about a bachelor's
entertaining. Especially his house parties. Where do all bachelors get
those nice and so very respectable elderly maid servants? They can't all
have been their nurses! And a bachelor's house has a something about it
that is very comfortable but entirely different from a lady's house,
though it would be difficult to define wherein the difference lies. He is
perhaps more attentive than a hostess, at least he meets his guests at the
station if they come by train, or, if they motor to his house, he goes out
on the front steps to greet them as they drive up.

A possible reason why bachelors seem to make such good hosts is that only
those who have a talent for it make the attempt. There is never any
obligation on a gentleman's part to invite ladies to stay with him,
whereas it is part of every lady's duty at least occasionally to be a
hostess, whether she has talent, or even inclination, for the position or
not.

A gentleman can return the courtesies of hostesses to him by occasionally
sending flowers, or books, or candy, and by showing them polite attention
when he meets them out.

If a bachelor lives in a house of his own, especially in a country
community, he is under the same obligations as any other householder to
return the hospitality shown by his neighbors to him.


=INVITATIONS=

The bachelor's invitations are the same as those sent out by a hostess.
There is absolutely no difference. His butler or waitress telephones "Will
Mr. and Mrs. Norman dine with Mr. Bachelor on Wednesday?" Or he writes a
note or uses the engraved dinner card. In giving an informal dance it is
quite correct, according to New York fashion, for him to write on his
visiting card:


[HW: Monday Jan.^y 3^rd

At 10 o'clock]

Mr. Frederick Bachelor

[HW: Small Dance] 2 Pormanto Place


Or an artist sends his card with his studio address and

[HW: Saturday April 7.
at 4 o'ck]

=MR. ANTHONY DAUBER=

[HW: To hear Tonini Play] Park Studio


No invitation of a gentleman mentions that there will be a chaperon
because that is taken for granted. No gentleman invites ladies of position
to a party unless one or many chaperons are to be present.

A very young girl never goes even to an unmarried doctor's or a
clergyman's (unless the latter is very elderly) without a chaperon, who in
this instance may be a semi-elderly maid.

A lady having her portrait painted always takes a woman friend, or her
maid, who sits in the studio, or at least within sight or hearing.




CHAPTER XX

ENGAGEMENTS


=COURTSHIP=

So long as Romance exists and Lochinvar remains young manhood's ideal,
love at first sight and marriage in a week is within the boundaries of
possibility. But usually (and certainly more wisely) a young man is for
some time attentive to a young woman before dreaming of marriage. Thus not
only have her parents plenty of time to find out what manner of man he is,
and either accept or take means to prevent a serious situation; but the
modern young woman herself is not likely to be "carried away" by the
personality of anyone whose character and temperament she does not pretty
thoroughly understand and weigh.

In nothing does the present time more greatly differ from the close of the
last century, than in the unreserved frankness of young women and men
towards each other. Those who speak of the domination of sex in this day
are either too young to remember, or else have not stopped to consider,
that mystery played a far greater and more dangerous rôle when sex, like a
woman's ankle, was carefully hidden from view, and therefore far more
alluring than to-day when both are commonplace matters.

In cities twenty-five years ago, a young girl had beaux who came to see
her one at a time; they in formal clothes and manners, she in her "company
best" to "receive" them, sat stiffly in the "front parlor" and made
politely formal conversation. Invariably they addressed each other as Miss
Smith and Mr. Jones, and they "talked off the top" with about the same
lack of reservation as the ambassador of one country may be supposed to
talk to him of another. A young man was said to be "devoted" to this young
girl or that, but as a matter of fact each was acting a rôle, he of an
admirer and she of a siren, and each was actually an utter stranger to the
other.


=FRIENDSHIP AND GROUP SYSTEM=

To-day no trace of stilted artificiality remains. The tête-a-tête of a
quarter of a century ago has given place to the continual presence of a
group. A flock of young girls and a flock of young men form a little group
of their own--everywhere they are together. In the country they visit the
same houses or they live in the same neighborhood, they play golf in
foursomes, and tennis in mixed doubles. In winter at balls they sit at the
same table for supper, they have little dances at their own homes, where
scarcely any but themselves are invited; they play bridge, they have tea
together, but whatever they do, they stay in the pack. In more than one
way this group habit is excellent; young women and men are friends in a
degree of natural and entirely platonic intimacy undreamed of in their
parents' youth. Having the habit therefore of knowing her men friends
well, a young girl is not going to imagine a stranger, no matter how
perfect he may appear to be, anything but an ordinary human man after all.
And in finding out his bad points as well as his good, she is aided and
abetted, encouraged or held in check, by the members of the group to which
she belongs.

Suppose, for instance, that a stranger becomes attentive to Mary;
immediately her friends fix their attention upon him, watching him.
Twenty-five years ago the young men would have looked upon him with
jealousy, and the young women would have sought to annex him. To-day their
attitude is: "Is he good enough for Mary?" And, eagle-eyed, protective of
Mary, they watch him. If they think he is all right he becomes a member of
the group. It may develop that Mary and he care nothing for each other,
and he may fall in love with another member, or he may drift out of the
group again or he may stay in it and Mary herself marry out of it. But if
he is not liked, her friends will not be bashful about telling Mary
exactly what they think, and they will find means usually--unless their
prejudice is without foundation--to break up the budding "friendship" far
better than any older person could do. If she is really in love with him
and determined to marry in spite of their frankly given opinion, she at
least makes her decision with her eyes open.

There are also occasions when a young woman is persuaded by her parents
into making a "suitable marriage"; there are occasions when a young woman
persists in making a marriage in opposition to her parents; but usually a
young man either belongs in or joins her particular circle of intimate
friends, and one day, it may be to their own surprize, though seldom to
that of their intimates, they find that each is the only one in the world
for the other, and they become engaged.


=FIRST DUTY OF THE ACCEPTED SUITOR=

If a young man and his parents are very close friends it is more than
likely he will already have told them of the seriousness of his
intentions. Very possibly he has asked his father's financial assistance,
or at least discussed ways and means, but as soon as he and she have
definitely made up their minds that they want to marry each other, it is
the immediate duty of the man to go to the girl's father or her guardian,
and ask his consent. If her father refuses, the engagement cannot exist.
The man must then try, through work or other proof of stability and
seriousness, to win the father's approval. Failing in that, the young
woman is faced with dismissing him or marrying in opposition to her
parents. There are, of course, unreasonable and obdurate parents, but it
is needless to point out that a young woman assumes a very great risk who
takes her future into her own hands and elopes. But even so, there is no
excuse for the most unfilial act of all--deception. The honorable young
woman who has made up her mind to marry in spite of her parents'
disapproval, announces to them, if she can, that on such and such a day
her wedding will take place. If this is impossible, she at least refuses
to give her word that she will not marry. The height of dishonor is to
"give her word" and then break it.


=THE APPROVED ENGAGEMENT=

Usually, however, when the young man enters the study or office of her
father, the latter has a perfectly good idea of what he has come to say
and, having allowed his attentions, is probably willing to accept his
daughter's choice; and the former after announcing that the daughter has
accepted him, goes into details as to his financial standing and
prospects. If the finances are not sufficiently stable, the father may
tell him to wait for a certain length of time before considering himself
engaged, or if they are satisfactory to him, he makes no objection to an
immediate announcement. In either case, the man probably hurries to tell
the young woman what her father has said, and if he has been very
frequently at the house, very likely they both tell her mother and her
immediate family, or, more likely still, she has told her mother first of
all.


=HIS PARENTS CALL ON HERS=

As soon as the young woman's father accepts the engagement, etiquette
demands that the parents of the bridegroom-elect call at once (within
twenty-four hours) upon the parents of the bride-to-be. If illness or
absence prevents one of them, the other must go alone. If the young man is
an orphan, his uncle, aunt or other nearest relative should go in the
parents' place. Not even deep mourning can excuse the failure to observe
this formality.


=THE ENGAGEMENT RING=

It is doubtful if he who carries a solitaire ring enclosed in a little
square box and produces it from his pocket upon the instant that she says
"Yes," exists outside of the moving pictures! As a matter of fact, the
accepted suitor usually consults his betrothed's taste--which of course
may be gratified or greatly modified, according to the length of his
purse--or he may, without consulting her, buy what ring he chooses. A
solitaire diamond is the conventional emblem of "the singleness and
endurability of the one love in his life," and the stone is supposed to be
"pure and flawless" as the bride herself, and their future together--or
sentiments equally beautiful. There is also sentiment for a sapphire's
"depth of true blue." Pearls are supposed to mean tears; emeralds,
jealousy; opals, the essence of bad luck; but the ruby stands for warmth
and ardor: all of which it is needless to say is purest unfounded
superstition.

In the present day, precious stones having soared far out of reach of all
but the really rich, fashion rather prefers a large semi-precious one to a
microscopic diamond. "Fashion," however, is merely momentary and local,
and the great majority will probably always consider a diamond the only
ring to have.

It is not obligatory, or even customary, for the girl to give the man an
engagement present, but there is no impropriety in her doing so if she
wants to, and any of the following articles would be suitable: A pair of
cuff links, or waistcoat buttons, or a watch chain, or a key chain, or a
cigarette case. Probably because the giving of an engagement ring is his
particular province, she very rarely gives him a ring or, in fact, any
present at all.

The engagement ring is worn for the first time "in public" on the day of
the announcement.


=BEFORE ANNOUNCEMENT=

Usually a few days before the formal announcement--and still earlier for
letters written abroad or to distant States--both young people write to
their aunts, uncles, and cousins, and to their most intimate friends, of
their engagement, asking them not to tell anyone until the determined
date.

As soon as they receive the news, all the relatives of the groom-elect
must call on the bride. She is not "welcomed by the family" until their
cards, left upon her in person, assure her so. She must, of course, return
all of these visits, and as soon as possible.

If his people are in the habit of entertaining, they should very soon ask
her with her fiancé to lunch or to dinner, or after the engagement is
publicly announced, give a dinner or tea or dance in her honor. If, on the
other hand, they are very quiet people, their calling upon her is
sufficient in itself to show their welcome.

In case of a recent death in either immediate family, the engagement
cannot be publicly announced until the first period of mourning is past.
(It is entirely dignified for a private wedding to take place at the
bedside of a very ill parent, or soon after a deep bereavement. In that
case there is, of course, no celebration, and the service is read in the
presence of the immediate families only.)

The announcement is invariably made by the parents of the bride-elect. It
is a breach of etiquette for a member of the young man's family to tell of
the engagement until the formal announcement has been arranged for.


=ANNOUNCEMENT OF ENGAGEMENT=

On the evening before the day of the announcement, the bride's mother
either sends a note, or has some one call the various daily papers by
telephone, and says: "I am speaking for Mrs. John Huntington Smith. Mr.
and Mrs. Smith are announcing the engagement of their daughter, Mary, to
Mr. James Smartlington, son of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Brown Smartlington, of
2000 Arcade Avenue."

If either the Huntington Smiths or the Arthur Smartlingtons are socially
prominent, reporters will be sent to get further information. Photographs
and details, such as entertainments to be given, or plans for the wedding,
will probably be asked for. The prejudices of old-fashioned people against
giving personal news to papers is rapidly being overcome and not even the
most conservative any longer object to a dignified statement of facts,
such as Mrs. Smith's telephone message.

It is now considered entirely good form to give photographs to magazines
and newspapers, but one should never send them unless specially
requested.

On the eve of the announcement, a dinner is sometimes given by the young
girl's parents, and the news is told by her father, who at about salad
course or dessert, proposes the health of his daughter and future
son-in-law.


=HOW A HEALTH IS PROPOSED=

The host after directing that all glasses at the table be filled, rises,
lifts his own glass and says: "I propose we drink to the health of my
daughter Mary and the young man she has decided to add permanently to our
family, James Smartlington."

Or:

    "A standing toast: To my Mary and to her--Jim!"

Or:

"I want you to drink the happiness of a young pair whose future welfare is
close to the hearts of all of us: Mary (holding up his glass and looking
at her) and Jim!" (holding it up again and looking at him). Every one
except Mary and Jim rises and drinks a swallow or two (of whatever the
champagne substitute may be). Every one then congratulates the young
couple, and Jim is called upon for a "speech"!

Generally rather "fussed," Jim rises and says something like:
"I--er--we--thank you all very much indeed for all your good wishes," and
sits down. Or if he is an earnest rather than a shy youth, perhaps he
continues: "I don't have to tell you how lucky _I_ am, the thing for me to
do is to prove, if I can, that Mary has not made the mistake of her life
in choosing me, and I hope that it won't be very long before we see you
all at our own table with Mary at the head of it and I, where I belong, at
the foot."

Or:

    "I can't make a speech and you know it. But I certainly am lucky
    and I know it."


=WHEN NO SPEECH IS MADE=

The prevailing custom in New York and other big cities is for the party to
be given on the afternoon or evening of the day of announcement. The
engagement in this case is never proclaimed to the guests as an assembled
audience. The news is "out" and everyone is supposed to have heard it.
Those who have not, can not long remain ignorant, as the groom-elect is
either receiving with his fiancée or brought forward by her father and
presented to every one he does not know. Everybody congratulates him and
offers the bride-to-be good wishes for her happiness.

A dinner or other entertainment given to announce an engagement is by no
means necessary. "Quiet people" very often merely write notes of
announcement and say they will be at home on such an afternoon at tea
time. The form and detail are exactly the same as on an habitual day at
home except that the bride and groom-elect both receive as well as her
mother.


=PARTIES FOR THE ENGAGED COUPLE=

If the families and friends of the young couple are at all in the habit of
entertaining, the announcement of an engagement is the signal always for a
shower of invitations.

The parents of the groom-elect are sure to give a dance, or a "party" of
one kind or another "to meet" their daughter-to-be. If the engagement is a
short one, their life becomes a veritable dashing from this house to that,
and every meal they eat seems to be one given for them by some one. It is
not uncommon for a bride-elect to receive a few engagement presents.
(These are entirely apart from wedding presents which come later.) A small
afternoon teacup and saucer used to be the typical engagement gift, but it
has gone rather out of vogue, along with harlequin china in general.
Engagement presents are usually personal trifles sent either by her own
very intimate friends or by members of her fiancé's family as especial
messages of welcome to hers--and as such are very charming. But any
general fashion that necessitates giving engagement as well as wedding
presents may well be looked upon with alarm by those who have only
moderately filled pocketbooks!


=ENGAGED COUPLE IN PUBLIC=

There is said to be still preserved somewhere in Massachusetts a
whispering reed through the long hollow length of which lovers were wont
to whisper messages of tenderness to each other while separated by a
room's length and the inevitable chaperonage of the fiancée's entire
family.

From those days to these is a far cry, but even in this era of liberty and
naturalness of impulse, running the gauntlet of people's attention and
criticism is no small test of the good taste and sense of a young couple.

The hall-mark of so-called "vulgar people" is unrestricted display of
uncontrolled emotions. No one should ever be made to feel like withdrawing
in embarrassment from the over-exposed privacy of others. The shrew who
publicly berates her husband is no worse than the engaged pair who snuggle
in public. Every one supposes that lovers kiss each other, but people of
good taste wince at being forced to play audience at love scenes which
should be private. Furthermore, such cuddling gives little evidence of the
deeper caring--no matter how ardent the demonstration may be.

Great love is seldom flaunted in public, though it very often shows itself
in pride--that is a little obvious, perhaps. There is a quality of
protectiveness in a man's expression as it falls on his betrothed, as
though she were so lovely a breath might break her; and in the eyes of a
girl whose love is really deep, there is always evidence of that most
beautiful look of championship, as though she thought: "No one else can
possibly know how wonderful he is!"

This underlying tenderness and pride which is at the base of the attitude
of each, only glints beneath the surface of perfect comradeship. Their
frank approval of whatever the other may do or say is very charming; and
even more so is their obvious friendliness toward all people, of wanting
the whole world beautiful for all because it is so beautiful to them. That
is love--as it should be! And its evidence is a very sure sign-post
pointing to future happiness.


=ETIQUETTE OF ENGAGED PEOPLE=

It is unnecessary to say that an engaged man shows no attention whatever
to other women. It should be plain to every one, even though he need not
behave like a moon-calf, that "one" is alone in his thoughts.

Often it so happens that engaged people are very little together, because
he is away at work, or for other reasons. Rather than sit home alone, she
may continue to go out in society, which is quite all right, but she must
avoid being with any one man more than another and she should remain
visibly within the general circle of her group. It always gives gossip a
chance to see an engaged girl sitting out dances with any particular man,
and slander is never far away if any evidence of ardor creeps into their
regard, even if it be merely "manner," and actually mean nothing at all.


=IN THE BACKWATERS OF LONG ENGAGEMENT=

Unless the engaged couple are both so young, or by temperament so
irresponsible, that their parents think it best for them to wait until
time is given a chance to prove the stability of their affection, no one
can honestly advocate a long-delayed marriage.

Where there is no money, it is necessary to wait for better finances. But
the old argument that a long engagement was wise in that the young couple
were given opportunity to know each other better, has little sense to-day
when all young people know each other thoroughly well.

A long engagement is trying to everyone--the man, the girl, both
families, and all friends. It is an unnatural state, like that of waiting
at the station for a train, and in a measure it is time wasted. The minds
of the two most concerned are centered upon each other; to them life seems
to consist in saying the inevitable good-by.

Her family think her absent-minded, distrait, aloof and generally useless.
His family never see him. Their friends are bored to death with them--not
that they are really less devoted or loyal, but her men friends withdraw,
naturally refraining from "breaking in." He has no time between business
and going to see her to stop at his club or wherever friends of his may
be. Her girl friends do see her in the daytime, but gradually they meet
less and less because their interests and hers no longer focus in common.
Gradually the stream of the social world goes rushing on, leaving the two
who are absorbed in each other to drift forgotten in a backwater. He works
harder, perhaps, than ever, and she perhaps occupies herself in making
things for her trousseau or her house, or otherwise preparing for the more
contented days which seem so long in coming.

Once they are married, they no longer belong in a backwater, but find
themselves again sailing in midstream. It may be on a slow-moving current,
it may be on a swift,--but their barge sails in common with all other
craft on the river of life.


_Should a Long Engagement Be Announced?_

Whether to announce an engagement that must be of long duration is not a
matter of etiquette but of personal preference. On the general principle
that frankness is always better than secretiveness, the situation is
usually cleared by announcing it. On the other hand, as illustrated above,
the certain knowledge of two persons' absorption in each other always
creates a marooned situation. When it is only supposed, but not known,
that a man and girl particularly like each other, their segregation is not
nearly so marked.


=MEETING OF KINSMEN=

At some time before the wedding, it is customary for the two families to
meet each other. That is, the parents of the groom dine or lunch at the
house of the parents of the bride to meet the aunts, uncles and cousins.
And then the parents of the bride are asked with the same purpose to the
house of the groom-elect.

It is not necessary that any intimacy ensue, but it is considered fitting
and proper that all the members of the families which are to be allied
should be given an opportunity to know one another--at least by sight.


=THE ENGAGED COUPLE AND THE CHAPERON=

The question of a chaperon differs with locality. In Philadelphia and
Baltimore, custom permits any young girl to go alone with a young man
approved by her family to the theater, or to be seen home from a party. In
New York or Boston, Mrs. Grundy would hold up her hands and run to the
neighbors at once with the gossip.

It is perhaps sufficient to say that if a man is thought worthy to be
accepted by a father as his daughter's husband, he should also be
considered worthy of trust no matter where he finds himself alone with
her. It is not good form for an engaged couple to dine together in a
restaurant, but it is all right for them to lunch, or have afternoon tea;
and few people would criticize their being at the opera or the
theater--unless the performance at the latter was of questionable
propriety. They should take a chaperon if they motor to road-houses for
meals--and it goes without saying that they cannot go on a journey alone
that can possibly last over night.


=GIFTS WHICH MAY AND THOSE WHICH MAY NOT BE ACCEPTED=

The fiancée of a young man who is "saving in order to marry," would be
lacking in taste as well as good sense were she to encourage or allow him
extravagantly to send her flowers and other charming, but wasteful,
presents. But on the other hand, if the bridegroom-elect has plenty of
means, she may not only accept flowers but anything he chooses to select,
except wearing apparel or a motor car or a house and furniture--anything
that can be classified as "maintenance."

It is perfectly suitable for her to drive his car, or ride his horse, and
she may select furniture for their house, which he may buy or have built.
But, if she would keep her self-respect, the car must not become hers nor
must she live in the house or use its furniture until she is given his
name. He may give her all the jewels he can afford, he may give her a fur
scarf, but not a fur coat. The scarf is an ornament, the coat is wearing
apparel. If she is very poor, she may have to be married in cheese-cloth,
or even in the dress she wears usually, but her wedding dress and the
clothes she wears away, must not be supplied by the groom or his family.
There is one exception: if his mother, for instance, has some very
wonderful family lace, or has kept her own wedding dress and has no
daughter herself, and it would please her to have her son's wife wear her
lace or dress, it is proper for the bride to consent. But it would be
starting life on a false basis, and putting herself in a category with
women of another class, to be clothed by any man, whether he is soon to be
her husband or not.

If the engagement should be so unfortunate as to be broken off, the
engagement ring and all other gifts of value must be returned.




CHAPTER XXI

FIRST PREPARATIONS BEFORE A WEDDING


To begin with, before deciding the date of the wedding, the bride's mother
must find out definitely on which day the clergyman who is to perform the
ceremony is disengaged, and make sure that the church is bespoken for no
other service. If it is to be an important wedding, she must also see that
the time available for the church is also convenient to the caterer.

Sundays, and days in Lent, are not chosen for weddings, and Friday being a
"fast" day in Catholic and very "high" Episcopal churches, weddings on
that day, if not forbidden, are never encouraged. But the superstition
that Friday and the month of May are unlucky, is too stupid to discuss.

Having settled upon a day and hour, the next step is to decide the number
of guests that can be provided for, which is determined by the size of the
church and the house, and the type of reception intended.


=THE INVITATIONS=

The bride-elect and her mother then go to the stationer and decide
details, such as size and texture of paper and style of engraving, for the
invitations. The order is given at once for the engraving of all the
necessary plates, and probably for the full number of house invitations,
especially if to a sit-down breakfast where the guests are limited. There
are also ordered a moderate number of general church invitations or
announcements, which can be increased later when the lists are completed
and the definite number of guests more accurately known.


=HER MOTHER CONSULTS HIS MOTHER=

The bride's mother then consults with the groom, or more likely, with his
mother, as to how the house-list is to be divided between them. This never
means a completely doubled list, because, if the two families live in the
same city, many names are sure to be in duplicate. If the groom's people
live in another place, invitations to the house can be liberally sent, as
the proportion of guests who will take a long trip seldom go beyond those
of the immediate family and such close friends as would be asked to the
smallest of receptions.

Usually if Mrs. Smith tells Mrs. Smartlington that two hundred can be
included at the breakfast, Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Smartlington will each make
a list of one hundred and fifty, certain that one hundred will be in
duplicate.

Invitations to a big church wedding are always sent to the entire visiting
list, and often the business acquaintances of both families, no matter how
long the combined number may be, or whether they can by any chance be
present or not. Even people in deep mourning are included as well as those
who live thousands of miles away, as the invitations not merely proffer
hospitality but are messengers carrying the news of the marriage.

After a house wedding, or a private ceremony where invitations were
limited to relatives and closest personal friends of the young couple,
general announcements are sent out to the entire visiting list.


=HOW THE WEDDING LIST IS COMPILED=

Those who keep their visiting list in order have comparatively little
work. But those who are not in the habit of entertaining on a general
scale, and yet have a large unassorted visiting list, will have quite a
piece of work ahead of them, and cannot begin making it soon enough.

In the cities where a Social Register or other Visiting Book is published,
people of social prominence find it easiest to read it through, marking
"XX" in front of the names to be asked to the house, and another mark,
such as a dash, in front of those to be asked to the church only, or to
have announcements sent them. Other names which do not appear in the
printed list may be written as "thought of" at the top or bottom of pages.
In country places and smaller cities, or where a published list is not
available, or of sufficient use, the best assistant is the telephone book.

List-making should be done over as long a period and for as short sessions
as possible, in order that each name as it is read may bring to memory any
other that is similar. Long reading at a time robs the repetition of names
of all sense, so that nothing is easier than to pass over the name of a
friend without noticing it.

A word of warning: To leave out old friends because they are neither rich
nor fashionable and to include comparative strangers because they are of
great social importance, not alone shows a want of loyalty and proper
feeling, but is to invite the contempt of those very ones whom such
snobbery seeks to propitiate.

Four lists, therefore, are combined in sending out wedding invitations;
the bride and the groom make one each of their own friends, to which is
added the visiting list of the bride's family (made out by her mother, or
other near relative) and the visiting list of the groom's family made out
by his mother, or a relative. Each name is clearly marked, of course,
whether for "house" or "church" invitation.

When the four lists are completed, it is the duty of some one to arrange
them into a single one by whatever method seems most expedient. When lists
are very long, the compiling is usually done by a professional secretary,
who also addresses the envelopes, encloses the proper number of cards, and
seals, stamps and posts the invitations. The address of a professional
secretary can always be furnished by the stationer. Very often, especially
where lists do not run into inordinate length, the envelopes are addressed
and the invitations sent out by the bride herself and some of her friends
who volunteer to help her.


=THE MOST ELABORATE WEDDING POSSIBLE=

This is the huge wedding of the daughter of ultra rich and prominent
people in a city such as New York, or, more probably, a high-noon wedding
out of town. The details would in either case he the same, except that the
"country setting" makes necessary the additional provision of a special
train which takes the guests to a station where they are met by dozens of
motors and driven to the church. Later they are driven to the house, and
later again, to the returning special train.

Otherwise, whether in the city or the country, the church (if Protestant)
is decorated with masses of flowers in some such elaborateness as
standards, or arches, or hanging garlands in the church itself, as well as
the floral embellishment of the chancel. The service is conducted by a
bishop or other distinguished clergyman, with assistant clergymen, and
accompanied by a full choral service, possibly with the addition of a
celebrated opera soloist. The costumes of the bride and her maids are
chosen with painstaking attention to perfection, and with seeming
disregard of cost.

Later, at the house, there is not only a floral bower under which the
bridal couple receive, but every room has been turned into a veritable
woodland or garden, so massed are the plants and flowers. An orchestra--or
two, so that the playing may be without intermission--is hidden behind
palms in the hall or wherever is most convenient. A huge canopied platform
is built on the lawn or added to the veranda (or built out over the yard
of a city house), and is decorated to look like an enclosed formal garden.
It is packed with small tables, each seating four, six, or eight, as the
occasion may require.


=THE AVERAGE FASHIONABLE WEDDING=

The more usual fashionable wedding is merely a modification of the one
outlined above. The chancel of the church is decorated exactly the same,
but except in summer when garden flowers are used, there is very little
attempted in the body of the church other than sprays of flowers at the
ends of the ten to twenty reserved pews, or possibly only at the ends of
the first two pews and the two that mark the beginning of the ribboned
section. There is often a choral service and a distinguished officiating
clergyman. The costumes of bride and bridesmaids are usually the same in
effect, though they may be less lavish in detail.

The real difference begins at the breakfast, where probably a hundred
guests are invited, or two hundred at most, instead of from five hundred
to a thousand, and except for the canopied background against which the
bride and groom receive, there is very little floral decoration of the
house. If a tent is built, it is left as it is--a tent--with perhaps some
standard trees at intervals to give it a decorated appearance. The tables,
even that of the bride, their garniture, the service, and the food are all
precisely the same, the difference being in the smaller number of guests
provided for.


=A SMALL WEDDING=

A small wedding is merely a further modification of the two preceding
ones. Let us suppose it is a house wedding in a moderate-sized house.

A prayer bench has been placed at the end of the drawing-room or
living-room. Back of it is a screen or bower of palms or other greens. One
decoration thus serves for chancel and background at the reception. A
number of small tables in the dining-room may seat perhaps twenty or even
fifty guests, besides the bride's table placed in another room. If the
bride has no attendants, she and the groom choose a few close friends to
sit at the table with them. Or, at a smaller wedding, there is a private
marriage in a little chapel, or the clergyman reads the service at the
house of the bride in the presence of her parents and his and a small
handful of guests, who all sit down afterwards at one table for a wedding
breakfast.

Or there may be a greater number of guests and a simpler collation, such
as a stand-up afternoon tea, where the refreshments are sandwiches, cakes,
tea and chocolate.


=BREACH OF ETIQUETTE FOR GROOM TO GIVE WEDDING=

No matter whether a wedding is to be large or tiny, there is one
unalterable rule: the reception must be either at the house of the bride's
parents or grandparents or other relative of hers, or else in assembly
rooms rented by her family. Never under any circumstances should a wedding
reception be given at the house of the groom's family. They may give a
ball or as many entertainments of whatever description they choose for the
young couple after they are married, but the wedding breakfast and the
trousseau of the bride must be furnished by her own side of the house!

When a poor girl marries, her wedding must be in keeping with the means of
her parents. It is not only inadvisable for them to attempt expenditure
beyond what they can afford, but they would lay themselves open to far
greater criticism through inappropriate lavishness, than through
meagerness of arrangement--which need not by any means lack charm because
inexpensive.


=WEDDING OF A CINDERELLA=

Some years ago there was a wedding when a girl who was poor married a man
who was rich and who would gladly have given her anything she chose, the
beauty of which will be remembered always by every witness in spite of, or
maybe because of, its utter lack of costliness.

It was in June in the country. The invitations were by word of mouth to
neighbors and personal notes to the groom's relatives at a distance. The
village church was decorated by the bride, her younger sisters, and some
neighbors, with dogwood, than which nothing is more bridelike or
beautiful. The shabbiness of her father's little cottage was smothered
with flowers and branches cut in a neighboring wood. Her dress, made by
herself, was of tarlatan covered with a layer or two of tulle, and her
veil was of tulle fastened with a spray, as was her girdle, of natural
bridal wreath and laurel leaves. Her bouquet was of trailing bridal wreath
and white lilacs. She was very young, and divinely beautiful, and fresh
and sweet. The tulle for her dress and veil and her thin silk stockings
and white satin slippers represented the entire outlay of any importance
for her costume. A little sister in smock of pink sateen and a wreath and
tight bouquet of pink laurel clusters, toddled after her and "held" her
bouquet--after first laying her own on the floor!

The collation was as simple as the dresses of the bride and bridesmaid. A
home-made wedding cake, "professionally" iced and big enough for every one
to take home a thick slice in waxed paper piled near for the purpose, and
a white wine cup, were the most "pretentious" offerings. Otherwise there
were sandwiches, hot biscuits, cocoa, tea and coffee, scrambled eggs and
bacon, ice cream and cookies, and the "music" was a victrola, loaned for
the occasion. The bride's "going away" dress was of brown Holland linen
and her hat a plain little affair as simple as her dress; again her only
expenditure was on shoes, stockings and gloves. Later on, she had all the
clothes that money could buy, but in none of them was she ever more lovely
than in her fashionless wedding dress of tarlatan and tulle, and the plain
little frock in which she drove away. Nor are any of the big parties that
she gives to-day more enjoyable, though perfect in their way, than her
wedding on a June day, a number of years ago.


=THE WEDDING HOUR=

The fashionable wedding hour in New York is either noon, or else in the
afternoon at three, three-thirty or four o'clock, with the reception
always a half hour later. High noon, which means that the breakfast is at
one o'clock, and four o'clock in the afternoon, with the reception at half
after, are the conventional hours.


=THE EVENING WEDDING=

In San Francisco and generally throughout the West altogether smart
weddings are celebrated at nine o'clock in the evening. The details are
precisely the same as those of morning or afternoon. The bride and
bridesmaids wear dresses that are perhaps more elaborate and "evening" in
model, and the bridegroom as well as all men present wear evening clothes,
of course. If the ceremony is in a church, the women should wear wraps
and an ornament or light scarf of some sort over their hair, as ball
dresses are certainly not suitable, besides which church regulations
forbid the uncovering of women's heads in consecrated places of worship.


=THE MORNING WEDDING=

To some, nine o'clock in the morning may sound rather eccentric for a
wedding, but to people of the Atlantic Coast it is not a bit more so than
an evening hour--less so, if anything, because morning is unconventional
anyway and etiquette, never being very strong at that hour, is not defied,
but merely left quiescent.

If, for any reason, such as taking an early morning train or ship--an
early morning wedding might be a good suggestion. The bride should, of
course, not wear satin and lace; she could wear organdie (let us hope the
nine o'clock wedding is in summer!), or she could wear very simple white
crêpe de chine. Her attendants could wear the simplest sort of morning
dresses with garden hats; the groom a sack suit or flannels. And the
breakfast--really breakfast--could consist of scrambled eggs and bacon and
toast and coffee--and griddle cakes!

The above is not written in ridicule; the hour would be "unusual," but a
simple early morning wedding where every one is dressed in morning
clothes, and where the breakfast suggests the first meal of the day--could
be perfectly adorable! The evening wedding on the other hand, lays itself
open to criticism because it is a function--a function is formal, and the
formal is always strictly in the province of that austere and inflexible
lawmaker, Etiquette. And Etiquette at this moment says: "Weddings on the
Atlantic seaboard are celebrated not later than four-thirty o'clock in the
afternoon!"


=WEDDING PRESENTS=

And now let us return to the more particular details of the wedding of our
especial bride.

The invitations are mailed about three weeks before the wedding. As soon
as they are out, the presents to the bride begin coming in, and she
should enter each one carefully in her gift book. There are many published
for the purpose, but an ordinary blank book, nicely bound, as she will
probably want to keep it, about eight to ten inches square, will answer
every purpose. The usual model spreads across the double page, as follows:

_Present                                                                Date of
received                                  Sender's         Where        thanks
date     Article      Sent by             Address          Bought       written_
May 20   Silver Dish  Mr. and Mrs. White  1 Elinore Place  Tiffany's    May 20
May 21   12 Plates    Mr. and Mrs. Green  2 North Street   Collamore's  May 21

All gifts as they arrive should be put in a certain room, or part of a
room, and never moved away until the description is carefully entered. It
will be found a great help to put down the addresses of donors as well as
their names so that the bride may not have to waste an unnecessary moment
of the overcrowded time which must be spent at her desk.


=THE BRIDE'S THANKS=

The bride who is happy in receiving a great number of presents spends
every spare moment in writing her notes of thanks, which must always be
written by her personally. Telephoning won't do at all, and neither will a
verbal "Thank you so much," as she meets people here and there. She must
write a separate letter for each present--a by no means small undertaking!
A bride of this year whose presents, because of her family's great
prominence, ran far into the hundreds, never went to bed a single night
before her wedding until a note of thanks was checked against every
present received that day. To those who offered to help her through her
overwhelming task, she, who is supposed to be very spoiled, answered: "If
people are kind enough to go out and buy a present for me, I think the
least I can do is to write at once and thank them." That her effort was
appreciated was evident by everyone's commenting on her prompt and
charming notes.

Notes of thanks can be very short, but they should be written with as
little delay as possible. When a present is sent by a married couple, the
bride writes to the wife and thanks both: "Thank you for the lovely
present you and Mr. Jones sent me."


=ARRANGING THE PRESENTS=

Not so much in an effort to parade her possessions as to do justice to the
kindness of the many people who have sent them, a bride should show her
appreciation of their gifts by placing each one in the position of
greatest advantage. Naturally, all people's tastes are not equally
pleasing to the taste of the bride--nor are all pocketbooks equally
filled. Very valuable presents are better put in close contrast with
others of like quality--or others entirely different in character. Colors
should be carefully grouped. Two presents, both lovely in themselves, can
be made completely destructive to each other if the colors are allowed to
clash.

Usually china is put on one table, silver on another, glass on another,
laces and linens on another. But pieces that jar together must be
separated as far apart as possible and perhaps even moved to other
surroundings. A crudely designed piece of silverware should not be left
among beautiful examples, but be put among china ornaments, or other
articles that do not reveal its lack of fineness by too direct comparison.
For the same reason imitation lace should not be put next to real, nor
stone-ware next to Chinese porcelain. To group duplicates is another
unfortunate arrangement. Eighteen pairs of pepper pots or fourteen
sauce-boats in a row might as well be labeled: "Look at this stupidity!
What can she do with all of us?" They are sure to make the givers feel at
least a little chagrined at their choice.


=CARDS WITH PRESENTS=

When Mrs. Smith orders a present sent to a bride, she encloses a card
reading: "Mr. & Mrs. John Huntington Smith." Nearly every married woman
has a plate engraved with both names, but if she hasn't, then she encloses
Mr. Smith's card with hers.

Some people write "All good wishes" or "With best wishes," but most people
send cards without messages.


=DELAYED PRESENTS=

If because of illness or absence, a present is not sent until after the
wedding, a short note should accompany it, giving the reason for the
delay.


=WHEN THE PRESENTS ARE SHOWN=

There is absolutely no impropriety in showing the presents at the wedding
reception. They are always shown at country weddings, and, more often than
not, at the most fashionable town houses. The only reason for not showing
them, is lack of room in an apartment house. In a town house, an up-stairs
library, or even a bedroom, from which all the furniture has been removed,
is suitable. Tables covered with white damask (plain) tablecloths are put
like counters around the sides, and down the center of the room. The cards
that were sent with the gifts are sometimes removed, but there is no
impropriety in leaving them on, and it certainly saves members of the
family from repeating many times who sent this one, and who sent that!

If the house is small so that there is no room available for this display
at the wedding, the presents are shown on the day before, and intimate
friends are especially asked to come in for tea, and to view them. This is
not done if they are to be displayed at the wedding.

Very intimate friends seldom need to be asked; the chances are they will
come in often, to see what has come since they were in last!

Wedding presents are all sent to the bride, and are, according to law, her
personal property. Articles are marked with her present--not her
future--initials. Mary Smith who is going to marry Jim Smartlington is
fortunate as M.S. stands for her future as well as her present name. But
in the case of Muriel Jones who is to marry Ross, not a piece of linen or
silver in "Ross house" will be marked otherwise than "M.J." It is one of
the most senseless customs: all her life which will be as Muriel Ross, she
uses linen and silver marked with a "J." Later on many people who go to
her house--especially as Ross comes from California where she will
naturally be living--will not know what "J" stands for, and many even
imagine that the linen and plate have been acquired at auction! Sounds
impossible? It has happened more than once.

Occasional brides who dislike the confusing initials, especially ask that
presents be marked with their marriage name.

The groom receives few presents. Even those who care about him in
particular and have never met his bride, send their present to her, unless
they send two presents, one in courtesy to her and one in affection to
him. Occasionally some one does send the groom a present, addressed to him
and sent to his house. Rather often friends of the groom pick out things
particularly suitable for him, such as cigar or cigarette boxes, or rather
masculine looking desk sets, etc., which are sent to her but are obviously
intended for his use.


=EXCHANGING WEDDING PRESENTS=

Some people think it discourteous if a bride changes the present chosen
for her. All brides exchange some presents, and no friends should allow
their feelings to be hurt, unless they are very close to the bride and
have chosen the present with particular sentiment. A bride never changes
the presents chosen for her by her or the groom's family--unless
especially told that she may do so. But to keep twenty-two salt cellars
and sixteen silver trays when she has no pepper-pots or coffee spoons or
platters or vegetable dishes, would be putting "sentiment" above "sense."


=THE TROUSSEAU=

A trousseau, according to the derivation of the word, was "a little trusse
or bundle" that the bride carried with her to the house of her husband. In
modern times, the "little bundle" often requires the services of a van to
transport.

The wrappers and underclothes of a young girl are usually very simple, but
when she is to be a bride, her mother buys her, as lavishly as she can,
and of the prettiest possible assortment of lace trimmed lingerie, tea
gowns, bed sacques and caps, whatever may be thought especially becoming.
The various undress garments which are to be worn in her room or at the
breakfast table, and for the sole admiration of her husband, are of far
greater importance than the dresses and hats to be worn in public.

In Europe it is the custom to begin collecting linen for a girl's
trousseau as soon as she is born, but the American bride cares nothing for
dozens upon dozens of stout linen articles. She much prefers gossamer
texture lavishly embellished with equally perishable lace. Everything must
be bought for beauty; utility is not considered at all. No stout
hand-woven underwear trimmed with solidly stitched needlework! Modern Miss
Millions demands handkerchief linen and Valenciennes lace of a quality
that used to be put as trimming on a ball gown, and Miss Smallpurse asks
for chiffon and less expensive but even more sheer and perishable laces.
Not long ago a stocking was thought fine if it could be run through a
wedding ring; to-day no stocking is considered "fit to put on" for town or
evening wear unless several together can slip through the measure once the
test for one.


=THE MOST EXTRAVAGANT TROUSSEAU=

The most lavish trousseau imaginable for the daughter of the very rich
might be supposed to comprise:


_House Linen_

One to six dozen finest quality embroidered or otherwise "trimmed" linen
sheets with large embroidered monogram.

One to six dozen finest quality linen sheets, plain hemstitched, large
monogram.

One to six dozen finest quality linen under-sheets, narrow hem and small
monogram.

Two pillow cases and also one "little" pillow case (for small down pillow)
to match each upper sheet.

One to two dozen blanket covers (these are of thin washable silk in white
or in colors to match the rooms) edged with narrow lace and breadths put
together with lace insertion.

Six to twelve blankets.

Three to twelve wool or down-filled quilts.

Two to ten dozen finest quality, extra large, face towels, with Venetian
needlework or heavy hand-made lace insertion (or else embroidered at each
end), and embroidered monogram.

Five to ten dozen finest quality hemstitched and monogrammed but otherwise
plain, towels.

Five to ten dozen little hand towels to match the large ones.

One to two dozen very large bath towels, with embroidered monogram, either
white or in color to match the border of towels.

Two to four dozen smaller towels to match.

One tablecloth, six or eight yards long, of finest but untrimmed damask
with embroidered monogram on each side, or four corners. Three dozen
dinner napkins to match. (Lace inserted and richly embroidered tablecloths
of formal dinner size are not in the best taste.)

One tablecloth five to six yards long with two dozen dinner napkins to
match.

One to four dozen damask tablecloths two and a half to three yards long,
and one dozen dinner napkins to match each tablecloth. All tablecloths and
napkins to have embroidered monogram or initials.

Two to six medium sized cut-work, mosaic or Italian lace-work tablecloths,
with lunch napkins to match.

Two to six centerpieces, with doilies and lunch napkins to match.

Four to a dozen tea cloths, of filet lace or drawn work or Russian
embroidery, with tiny napkins to match. Table pieces and tea-cloths have
monograms if there is any plain linen where a monogram can be embroidered,
otherwise monograms or initials are put on the napkins only.

One or two dozen damask tablecloths, plain, with monogram, and a dozen
napkins to match each.

In addition to the above, there are two to four dozen servants' sheets
and pillow cases (cotton); six to twelve woolen blankets, six to twelve
wool filled quilts, four to six dozen towels, and one or two dozen bath
towels; six to twelve white damask (cotton or linen and cotton mixed)
tablecloths and six to twelve dozen napkins, all marked with machine
embroidery.

Two to six dozen kitchen and pantry towels and dishcloths complete the
list.


_Personal Trousseau_

How many dresses can a bride wear? It all depends--is she to be in a big
city for the winter season, or at a watering place for the summer? Is she
going to travel, or live quietly in the country? It is foolish to get more
"outside" clothes than she has immediate use for; fashions change too
radically. The most extravagant list for a bride who is to "go out"
continually in New York or Newport, would perhaps include a dozen evening
dresses, two or three evening wraps, of varying weights. For town there
would be from two to four street costumes, a fur coat, another long coat,
a dozen hats and from four to ten house dresses. In this day of week-ends
in the country, no trousseau, no matter how town-bred the bride, is
complete without one or two "country" coats, of fur, leather or woolen
materials; several homespun, tweed or tricot suits or dresses; skirts with
shirt-waists and sweaters in endless variety; low or flat heeled shoes;
woolen or woolen and silk mixture stockings; and sport hats.

If the season is to be spent "out of town"--even in Newport or Palm
Beach--the most extravagant bride will find little use for any but country
clothes, a very few frocks for Sunday, and possibly a lot of evening
dresses. Of course, if she expects to run to town a great deal for lunch,
or if she is to travel, she chooses her clothes accordingly.

So much for the outer things. On the subject of the under things, which
being of first importance are saved for the last, one can dip into any of
the women's magazines devoted to fashion and fashionables, and understand
at first sight that the furnishings which may be put upon the person of
one young female would require a catalogue as long and as varied as a
seedsman's. An extravagant trousseau contains every article
illustrated--and more besides--in quality _never_ illustrated--and by the
dozens! But it must not for a moment be supposed that every fashionable
bride has a trousseau like this--especially the household linen which
requires an outlay possible only to parents who are very rich and also
very indulgent.


=THE MODERATE TROUSSEAU=

The moderate trousseau simple cuts the above list into a fraction in
quantity and also in quality. There is nothing of course that takes the
place of the smooth fineness of really beautiful linen--it can no more be
imitated than can a diamond, and its value is scarcely less. The "linen"
of a really modest trousseau in this day of high prices must of necessity
be "cotton." Fortunately, however, many people dislike the chill of linen
sheets, and also prefer cotton-face towels, because they absorb better,
and cotton is made in attractive designs and in endless variety.

For her personal trousseau, a bride can have everything that is charming
and becoming at comparatively little expense. She who knows how to do fine
sewing can make things beautiful enough for any one, and the dress made or
hat trimmed at home is often quite as pretty on a lovely face and figure
as the article bought at exorbitant cost at an establishment of
reputation. Youth seldom needs expensive embellishment. Certain things
such as footwear and gloves have to be bought, and are necessary. The
cost, however, can be modified by choosing dresses that one-color slippers
look well with.

In cities such as New York, Washington or Boston, it has never been
considered very good taste to make a formal display of the trousseau. A
bride may show an intimate friend or two a few of her things, but her
trousseau is never spread out on exhibition. There can, however, be no
objection to her so doing, if it is the custom of the place in which she
lives.


=WHAT THE BRIDESMAIDS WEAR=

The costumes of the bridesmaids, slippers, stockings, dresses, bouquets,
gloves and hats, are selected by the bride, without considering or even
consulting them as to their taste or preferences. The bridesmaids are
always dressed exactly alike as to texture of materials and model of
making, but sometimes their dresses differ in color. For instance, two of
them may wear pale blue satin slips covered with blue chiffon and cream
lace fichus, and cream-colored "picture" hats trimmed with orchids. The
next two wear orchid dresses, cream fichus, and cream hats trimmed with
pale blue hydrangeas. The maid of honor likewise wears the same model, but
her dress is pink chiffon over pink satin and her cream hat is trimmed
with both orchids and hydrangeas. The bouquets would all be alike of
orchids and hydrangeas. Their gloves all alike of cream-colored suede, and
their slippers, blue, orchid, and pink, with stockings to match. Usually
the bridesmaids are all alike in color as well as outline, and the maid of
honor exactly the same but in reverse colors. Supposing the bridesmaids to
wear pink dresses with blue sashes and pink hats trimmed in blue, and
their bouquets are of larkspur--the maid of honor wears the same dress in
blue, with pink sash, blue hat trimmed with pink, and carries pink roses.

At Lucy Gilding's wedding, her bridesmaids were dressed in deep shades of
burnt orange and yellow, wood-colored slippers and stockings, skirts that
shaded from brown through orange to yellow; yellow leghorn hats trimmed
with jonquils, and jonquil bouquets. The maid of honor wore yellow running
into cream, and her hat, the of the same shape of leghorn, was trimmed
with cream feathers, and she carried a huge cream feather fan.

As in the case of the wedding dress, it is foolish to enter into
descriptions of clothes more than to indicate that they are of light and
fragile materials, more suitable to evening than to daytime. Flower girls
and pages are dressed in quaint old-fashioned dresses and suits of satin
with odd old-fashioned bonnets--or whatever the bride fancies as being
especially "picturesque."

If a bridesmaid is in mourning, she wears colors on that one day, as
bridesmaids' dresses are looked upon as uniforms, not individual costumes.
Nor does she put a black band on her arm. A young girl in deepest mourning
should not be a bridesmaid--unless at the very private wedding of a bride
or groom also in mourning. In this case she would most likely be the only
attendant and wear all white.

As a warning against the growing habit of artifice, it may not be out of
place to quote one commentary made by a man of great distinction who,
having seen nothing of the society of very young people for many years,
"had to go" to the wedding of a niece. It was one of the biggest weddings
of the spring season in New York. The flowers were wonderful, the
bridesmaids were many and beautiful, the bride lovely. Afterwards the
family talked long about the wedding, but the distinguished uncle said
nothing. Finally, he was asked point blank: "Don't you think the wedding
was too lovely? Weren't the bridesmaids beautiful?"

"No," said the uncle, "I did not think it was lovely at all. Every one of
the bridesmaids was so powdered and painted that there was not a sweet or
fresh face among them--I can see a procession just like them any evening
on the musical comedy stage! One expects make-up in a theater, but in the
house of God it is shocking!"

It is unnecessary to add--if youth, the most beautiful thing in the world,
would only appreciate how beautiful it is, and how opposite is the false
bloom that comes in boxes and bottles! Shiny noses, colorless lips, sallow
skins hide as best they may, and with some excuse, behind powder or
lip-stick; but to rouge a rose--!


=THE COST OF BEING A BRIDESMAID=

With the exception of parasols, or muffs or fans, which are occasionally
carried in place of bouquets and presented by the bride, every article
worn by the bridesmaids, flower girls or pages, although chosen by the
bride, must be paid for by the wearers.

It is perhaps an irrefutable condemnation of the modern wedding display
that many a young girl has had to refuse the joy of being in the wedding
party because a complete bridesmaid outfit costs a sum that parents of
moderate means are quite unable to meet for popular daughters. And it is
seldom that the bride is herself in a position to give six or eight
complete costumes, much as she may want all of her most particular friends
with her on her day of days. Very often a bride tries especially to choose
clothes that will not be expensive, but New York prices are New York
prices, and the chic which is to make the wedding a perfect picture is the
thing of all others that has to be paid for.

Even though one particular girl may be able to dress herself very smartly
in homemade clothes of her own design and making, those same clothes
duplicated eight times seldom turn out well. Why this is so, is a mystery.
When a girl looks smart in inferior clothes, the merit is in her, not in
the clothes--and in a group of six or eight, five or seven will show a
lack of "finish," and the tender-hearted bride who, for the sake of their
purses sends her bridesmaids to an average "little woman" to have their
clothes made, and to a little hat-place around the corner, is apt to have
a rather dowdy little flock fluttering down the aisle in front of her.


=HOW MANY BRIDESMAIDS?=

This question is answered by: How many friends has she whom she has
"always promised" to have with her on that day? Has she a large circle of
intimates or only one or two? Her sister is always maid of honor; if she
has no sister, she chooses her most intimate friend.

A bride may have a veritable procession: eight or ten bridesmaids, a maid
of honor, flower girls and pages. That is, if she follows the English
custom, where every younger relative even including the little boys as
pages, seems always to be brought into a perfect May-pole procession of
ragged ages and sizes.

Or she may have none at all. She almost always has at least one maid, or
matron, of honor, as the picture of her father standing holding her
bouquet and stooping over to adjust the fall of her dress, would be
difficult to witness with gravity.

At an average New York wedding, there are four or six bridesmaids--half of
the "maids" may be "matrons," if most of the bride's "group" of friends
have married before her. It is, however, not suitable to have young
married women as bridesmaids, and then have an unmarried girl as maid of
honor.


=BEST MAN AND USHERS=

The bridegroom always has a best man--his brother if he has one, or his
best friend. The number of his ushers is in proportion to the size of the
church and the number of guests invited. At a house wedding, ushers are
often merely "honorary" and he may have many or none--according to the
number of his friends.

As ushers and bridesmaids are chosen only from close friends of the bride
and groom, it is scarcely necessary to suggest how to word the asking!
Usually they are told that they are expected to serve at the time the
engagement is announced, or at any time as they happen to meet. If school
or college friends who live at a distance are among the number, letters
are necessary. Such as:

"Mary and I are to be married on the tenth of November, and, of course,
you are to be an usher." Usually he adds: "My dinner is to be on the
seventh at eight o'clock at ----," naming the club or restaurant.

It is unheard of for a man to refuse--unless a bridegroom, for snobbish
reasons, asks some one who is not really a friend at all.


=BRIDE'S USHER AND GROOM'S BRIDESMAID=

A brother of the bride, or if she has no brother, then her "favorite
cousin" is always asked by the groom to be usher out of compliment to her.

The bride returns the compliment by asking the sister of the groom who is
nearest her own age, to be bridesmaid, or if he has no sister, she asks a
cousin or even occasionally shows her courtesy by asking the groom to name
a particular friend of his. The bride in asking her does not say:

"Will you be one of my bridesmaids because Jim wants me to ask you." If
the bridesmaid is not a particular friend of the bride, she knows
perfectly that it is on Jim's account that she has been asked. It is the
same with the bride's usher. The groom merely asks him as he asks all of
the others.

When a foreigner marries an American girl, his own friends being too
distant to serve, the ushers are chosen from among the friends of the
bride.


=BRIDEGROOM HAS NO TROUSSEAU=

A whole outfit of new clothes is never considered necessary for a
bridegroom, but shabby ones are scarcely appropriate. Whatever his
wardrobe may stand in need of should be bought, if possible. He should
have, not necessarily new, plenty of good shirts of all kinds,
handkerchiefs, underwear, pajamas, socks, ties, gloves, etc., and a
certain number of fresh, or as good as new, suits of clothes.

There was a wedding not long ago which caused quite a lot of derisive
comment because the groom's mother provided him with a complete and
elaborate trousseau from London, enormous trunks full of every sort of
raiment imaginable. That part of it all was very nice; her mistake was in
inviting a group of friends in to see the finery. The son was so mortified
by this publicity that he appeared at the wedding in clothes conspicuously
shabby, in order to counteract the "Mama's-darling-little-newly-wed"
effect that the publicity of her generous outlay had produced.

It is proper and fitting for a groom to have as many new clothes as he
needs, or pleases, or is able to get--but they are never shown to
indiscriminate audiences, they are not featured, and he does not go about
looking "dressed up."


=THE WEDDING CLOTHES OF THE BRIDEGROOM=

If he does not already possess a well fitting morning coat (often called a
cutaway) he must order one for his wedding. The frock coat is out of
fashion at the moment. He must also have dark striped gray trousers. At
many smart weddings, especially in the spring, a groom (also his best
man) wears a white piqué high double-breasted waistcoat, because the more
white that can be got into an otherwise sombre costume the more
wedding-like it looks; conventionally he wears a black one to match his
coat, like the ushers. The white edge to a black waistcoat is not, at
present, very good form. As to his tie, he may choose an "Ascot" of black
and white or gray patterned silk. Or he may wear a "four-in-hand" matching
those selected for the ushers, of black silk with a narrow single, or
broken white stripe at narrow or wide intervals. At one of the ultra smart
weddings in New York last spring, after the London fashion, the groom and
all the men of the wedding party wore bow ties of black silk with small
white dots.

White buckskin gloves are the smartest, but gray suede are the most
conventional. White kid is worn only in the evening. It is even becoming
the fashion for ushers at small country weddings not to wear gloves at
all! But at every wedding, great or small, city or country, etiquette
demands that the groom, best man, and ushers, all wear high silk hats, and
that the groom carry a walking stick.

Very particular grooms have the soles of their shoes blacked with
"water-proof" shoe polish so that when they kneel, their shoes look dark
and neat.


=WHAT THE BEST MAN WEARS=

The best man wears precisely what the groom wears, with only one small
exception: the groom's boutonnière is slightly different and more
elaborate. The groom and best man often wear ties that are different from
those worn by the ushers, and occasionally white waistcoats. Otherwise the
two principal men are dressed like the ushers.


=WHAT THE USHERS WEAR=

It is of greatest importance that in dress each usher be an exact
counterpart of his fellows, if the picture is to be perfect.

Everyone knows what a ragged-edged appearance is produced by a company of
recruits whose uniforms are odd lots. An after-effect of army training
was evident at one or two smart New York weddings where the grooms were in
each case ex-officers and their ushers turned out in military uniformity.
Each of these grooms sent typewritten instructions to his ushers, covering
every detail of the "equipment" exacted. Few people may have reasoned why,
but scarcely any one failed to notice "what smart looking men all the
ushers were." It is always just such attention to detail that produces a
perfectly finished result. The directions sent by one of the grooms was as
follows:

    "Wedding rehearsal on Tuesday, St. Bartholomew's at 5 P.M.

    Wedding on Wednesday at 4 P.M.

    Please wear:

        Black calfskin low shoes.
        Plain black silk socks.
        Gray striped trousers (the darkest you have).
        Morning coat and single-breasted black waistcoat.
        White dress shirt (see that cuffs show three-quarters of
        an inch below coat sleeves).
        Stand-up wing collar.
        Tie and gloves are enclosed.
        Boutonnière will be at the church.
        Be at the church yourself at three o'clock, sharp."


=THE HEAD USHER=

Usually there is no "head usher," but in certain localities courtesy
designates the usher who is selected to take the bride's mother up the
aisle as the "head," or "first" usher.

Very occasionally, too, a nervous groom appoints an especially "reliable"
friend head usher so as to be sure that all details will be carried
out--including the prompt and proper appearance at the church of the other
ushers. Usually, the ushers divide the arrangements among themselves. The
groom decides who goes on which aisle. One of them volunteers or is asked
to look out for the bride's coming and to notify the groom, another is
especially detailed to take the two mothers up the aisle. But very often
this arrangement is arbitrarily decided by height. If one mother is very
tall and the other very short, they generally go up with different ushers,
the tallest being chosen for the taller lady, and one of medium height for
the shorter.


=THE BRIDESMAIDS' LUNCHEON=

In many sections of America, especially in the country and in small towns,
brides make an especial feature of asking their bridesmaids to a farewell
luncheon. The table is elaborately decorated (invariably in pink with
bridesmaids' roses), there is a bride's cake (lady cake) and there are
favors in the cake, and mottoes, and altogether it is a "lovely party." In
New York there is nothing like that at all. If the bride chooses to give a
luncheon to her bridesmaids on whatever day suits her best, there is no
objection to her doing so, or in fact, to her inviting whom she pleases to
whatever sort of a party her mother is willing she should give. It is not
a question of approved etiquette but of her own inclination seconded by
the consent of her mother!

If her mother "keeps open house," probably they lunch with her many times
before the wedding; if, on the other hand, it is not the habit of the
family to have "people running in for meals," it is not necessary that she
ask them to lunch at all. But whether they lunch often or never, the
chances are that they are in and out of her house every day, looking at
new presents as they come, perhaps helping her to write the descriptions
in the gift book, and in arranging them in the room where they are to be
displayed.

The bride usually goes to oversee the last fittings of the bridesmaids'
dresses in order to be sure that they are as she wants them. This final
trying-on should be arranged for several days at least before the wedding,
so there may be sufficient time to make any alterations that are found
necessary. Often the bride tries on her wedding dress at the same time so
that she may see the effect of the whole wedding picture as it will be, or
if she prefers, she tries on her dress at another hour alone.

Usually her bridesmaids lunch quite informally with her, or come in for
tea, the day before the wedding, and on that day the bride gives them each
"her present" which is always something to wear. It may be the muffs they
are to carry, or parasols, if they have been chosen instead of bouquets.
The typical "bridesmaid's present" is a bangle, a breast pin, a hat pin,
which, according to the means of the bride, may have great or scarcely any
intrinsic value.


=BRIDESMAIDS AND USHERS' DINNER=

If a wedding is being held in the country, or where most of the
bridesmaids or ushers come from a distance, and they are therefore
stopping at the bride's house, or with her neighbors, there is naturally a
"dinner" in order to provide for the visitors. But where the wedding is in
the city--especially when all the members of the bridal party live there
also--the custom of giving a dinner has gone rather out of fashion.

If the bridal party is asked to dine at the house of the bride on the
evening before the wedding, it is usually with the purpose of gathering a
generally irresponsible group of young people together, and seeing that
they go to the church for rehearsal, which is of all things the most
important. More often the rehearsal is in the afternoon, after which the
young people go to the bride's house for tea, allowing her parents to have
her to themselves on her last evening home, and giving her a chance to go
early to bed so as to be as pretty as possible on the morrow.


=THE BACHELOR DINNER=

Popularly supposed to have been a frightful orgy, and now arid as the
Sahara desert and quite as flat and dreary, the bachelor dinner was in
truth more often than not, a sheep in wolf's clothing.

It is quite true that certain big clubs and restaurants had rooms
especially constructed for the purpose, with walls of stone and nothing
breakable within hitting distance, which certainly does rather suggest
frightfulness. As a matter of fact, "an orgy" was never looked upon with
favor by any but silly and wholly misguided youths, whose idea of a
howling good time was to make a howling noise; chiefly by singing at the
top of their lungs and--breaking crockery. A boisterous picture, but
scarcely a vicious one! Especially as quantities of the cheapest glassware
and crockery were always there for the purpose.

The breaking habit originated with drinking the bride's health and
breaking the stem of the wine glass, so that it "might never serve a less
honorable purpose." A perfectly high-minded sentiment! And this same
time-honored custom is followed to this day. Toward the latter end of the
dinner the groom rises, and holding a filled champagne glass aloft says:
"To the bride!" Every man rises, drinks the toast standing, and then
breaks the delicate stem of the glass. The impulse to break more glass is
natural to youth, and probably still occurs. It is not hard to understand.
The same impulse is seen at every county fair where enthusiastic youths
(and men) delight in shooting, or throwing balls, at clay pipes and ducks
and--crockery!

Aside from toasting the bride and its glass-smashing result, the groom's
farewell dinner is exactly like any other "man's dinner," the details
depending upon the extravagance or the frugality of the host, and upon
whether his particular friends are staid citizens of sober years or mere
boys full of the exuberance of youth. Usually there is music of some sort,
or "Neapolitans" or "coons" who sing, or two or three instrumental pieces,
and the dinner party itself does the singing. Often the dinner is short
and all go to the theater.


=GIFTS PRESENTED TO USHERS=

The groom's presents to his ushers are always put at their places at the
bachelor dinner. Cuff links are the most popular gift; scarf-pins in
localities where they are still fashionable. Silver or gold pencils, belt
buckles, key-rings in gold, key-chains in silver, cigarette cases,
bill-folders, card-cases, or other small and personal articles are
suitable.

The present to the best man is approximately the same, or slightly
handsomer than the gift to the ushers.


=THE REHEARSAL=

The bride always directs her wedding rehearsal, but never herself takes
part in it, as it is supposed to be bad luck. Some one else--anyone who
happens to be present--is appointed understudy.

Nearly always a few especial friends happen in, generally those who are
primed with advice as to how everything should be done, but the opinion of
the bride or the bride's mother is final.


=VITAL IMPORTANCE OF REHEARSAL=

Most of us are familiar with the wedding service, and its form seems
simple enough. But, unless one has by experience learned to take care of
seemingly non-existent details, the effect (although few may be able to
say why) is hitchy and disjointed, and all the effort spent in preparation
is wasted. It is not that gauche happenings are serious offenses, no
matter how awkward the incident. Even were the wedding party to get
hopelessly entangled, no "crime" would have been committed; but any detail
that destroys the smoothness of the general impression is fatal to
dignity--and dignity is the qualification necessary above all else in
ceremonial observances.


=HOW THE PROCESSION IS DRILLED=

The organist must always be at the rehearsal, as one of the most important
details is marking the time of the wedding march. Witnesses of most
weddings can scarcely imagine that a wedding march is a _march_ at all;
more often than not, the heads of ushers and bridesmaids bob up and down
like something boiling in a pan. A perfectly drilled wedding procession,
like a military one, should move forward in perfect step, rising and
falling in a block or unit. To secure perfection of detail, the bars of
the processional may be counted so that the music comes to an end at
precisely the moment the bride and groom stand side by side at the
chancel steps. This is not difficult; it merely takes time and attention.

A wedding rehearsal should proceed as follows:

First of all, it is necessary to determine the exact speed at which the
march is to be played. The ushers are asked to try it out. They line up at
the door, walk forward two and two. The audience, consisting of the bride
and her mother, and the bridesmaids, decides whether the pace "looks
well." It must not be fast enough to look brisk, or so slow as to be
funereal. At one wedding the ushers counted two beats as one and the pace
was so slow that they all wabbled in trying to keep their balance. The
painfulness to everyone may be imagined. On the other hand it is
unsuitable to "trot" up the aisle of a church.

The "audience" having decided the speed, and the organist having noted the
tempo, the entire procession, including the bridesmaids and a substitute,
instead of the real bride, on her father's arm, go out into the vestibule
and make their entry. Remember, the father is an important factor in the
ceremony, and must take part in the rehearsal.

The procession is arranged according to height, the two shortest ushers
leading--unless others of nearly the same height are found to be more
accurate pacemakers. The bridesmaids come directly after the ushers, two
and two, also according to height, the shortest in the lead. After the
bridesmaids, the maid (or matron) of honor walks alone; flower girls come
next (if there are any) and last of all, the understudy bride leaning on
the arm of the father, with pages (if she has any) holding up her train.
Each pair in the procession follows the two directly in front by four
paces or beats of time. In the vestibule, every one in the procession must
pay attention to the feet directly in front, the pacemakers can follow the
army sergeant's example and say very softly "left, left!" At the end the
bride counts eight beats before she and the father put "left foot"
forward. The whole trick is starting; after that they just walk naturally
to the beat of the music, but keeping the ones in front as nearly as
possible at the same distance.

At the foot of the chancel, the ushers divide. In a small church, the
first two go up the chancel steps and stand at the top; one on the right,
the other on the left. The second two go to a step or two below the first.
If there are more, they stand below again. Chalk marks can be made on the
chancel floor if necessary, but it ought not to be difficult, except for
very little children who are flower girls or pages, to learn their
position.

[Illustration: Diagram of Church]

Or in a big church they go up farther, some of them lining the steps, or
all of them in front of the choir stalls. The bridesmaids also divide,
half on either side, and always stand in front of the ushers. The maid of
honor's place is on the left at the foot of the steps, exactly opposite
the best man. Flower girls and pages are put above or below the
bridesmaids wherever it is thought "the picture" is best.

The grouping of the ushers and bridesmaids in the chancel or lining the
steps also depends upon their number and the size of the church. In any
event, the bridesmaids stand in front of the ushers; half of them on the
right and half on the left. They never stand all on the bride's side, and
the ushers on the groom's.


=ENTRANCE OF THE BRIDEGROOM=

The clergyman who is to perform the marriage comes into the chancel from
the vestry. At a few paces behind him follows the groom, who in turn is
followed by the best man. The groom stops at the foot of the chancel steps
and takes his place at the right, as indicated in the accompanying
diagram. His best man stands directly behind him. The ushers and
bridesmaids always pass in front of him and take their places as noted
above. When the bride approaches, the groom takes only a step to meet her.

A more effective greeting of the bride is possible if the door of the
vestry opens into the chancel so that on following the clergyman, the
groom finds himself at the top instead of the foot of the chancel steps.
He goes forward to the right-hand side (his left), his best man behind
him, and waits where he is until his bride approaches, when he goes down
the steps to meet her--which is perhaps more gallant than to stand at the
head of the aisle, and wait for her to join him.

The real bride watches carefully how the pseudo bride takes her left hand
from her father's arm, shifts her fan, or whatever represents her bouquet,
from her right hand to her left, and gives her right hand to the groom. In
the proper maneuver the groom takes her right hand in his own right hand
and draws it through his left arm, at the same time turning toward the
chancel. If the service is undivided, and all of it is to be at the altar,
this is necessary as the bride always goes up to the altar leaning on the
arm of the groom.

If, however, the betrothal is to be read at the foot of the chancel (which
is done at most weddings now) he may merely take her hand in his left one
and stand as they are.


=THE ORGANIST'S CUE=

The organist stops at the moment the bride and groom have assumed their
places. That is the cue to the organist as to the number of bars necessary
for the procession. After the procession has practised "marching" two or
three times, everything ought to be perfect. The organist, having counted
up the necessary bars of music, can readily give the leading ushers their
"music cue"--so that they can start on the measure that will allow the
procession and the organ to end together. The organist can, and usually
does, stop off short, but there is a better finish if the bride's giving
her hand to the groom and taking the last step that brings her in front of
the chancel is timed so as to fall precisely on the last bars of the
processional.

No words of the service are ever rehearsed, although all the "positions"
to be taken are practised.

The pseudo bride takes the groom's left arm and goes slowly up the steps
to the altar.

The best man follows behind and to the right of the groom, and the maid of
honor (or "first" bridesmaid) leaves her companions and advances behind
and to the left of the bride. The pseudo bride (in pantomime) gives her
bouquet to the maid of honor; the best man (also in pantomime) hands the
ring to the groom, this merely to see that they are at a convenient
distance for the services they are to perform. The recessional is played,
and the procession goes out in reversed order. Bride and groom first, then
bridesmaids, then ushers, again all taking pains to fall into step with
the leaders.

On no account must the bridesmaids walk either up or down the aisle with
the ushers! Once in a while the maid of honor takes the arm of the best
man and together they follow the bride and groom out of the church. But it
gives the impression of a double wedding and spoils the picture.


=OBLIGATIONS OF THE BRIDEGROOM=

In order that the first days of their life together may be as perfect as
possible, the groom must make preparations for the wedding trip long ahead
of time, so that best accommodations can be reserved. If they are to stop
first at a hotel in their own city, or one near by, he should go days or
even weeks in advance and personally select the rooms. It is much better
frankly to tell the proprietor, or room clerk, at the same time asking
him to "keep the secret." Everyone takes a friendly interest in a bridal
couple, and the chances are that the proprietor will try to reserve the
prettiest rooms in the house, and give the best service.

If their first stop is to be at a distance, then he must engage train
seats or boat stateroom, and write to the hotel of their destination far
enough in advance to receive a written reply, so that he may be sure of
the accommodations they will find.


=EXPENSE OF THE WEDDING TRIP=

Just as it is contrary to all laws of etiquette for the bride to accept
any part of her trousseau or wedding reception from the groom, so it is
unthinkable for the bride to defray the least fraction of the cost of the
wedding journey, no matter though she have millions in her own right, and
he be earning ten dollars a week. He must save up his ten dollars as long
as necessary, and the trip can be as short as they like, but convention
has no rule more rigid than that the wedding trip shall be a
responsibility of the groom.

There are two modifications of this rule: a house may be put at their
disposal by a member of her family, or, if she is a widow, they may go to
one of her own, provided it is not one occupied by her with her late
husband. It is also quite all right for them to go away in a motor
belonging to her, but driven by him, and all garage expenses belong to
him; or if her father or other member of the family offers the use of a
yacht or private railway car, the groom may accept but he should remember
that the incidental and unavoidable expense of such a "gift" is sometimes
greater than the cost of railway tickets.


=BUYING THE WEDDING RING=

It is quite usual for the bride to go with the groom when he buys the
wedding ring, the reason being that as it stays for life on her finger,
she should be allowed to choose the width and weight she likes and the
size she finds comfortable.


=THE GROOM'S PRESENT TO THE BRIDE=

He is a very exceptional and enviable man who is financially able to take
his fiancée to the jeweler's and let her choose what she fancies. Usually
the groom buys the handsomest ornament he can afford--a string of pearls
if he has great wealth, or a diamond pendant, brooch or bracelet, or
perhaps only the simplest bangle or charm--but whether it is of great or
little worth, it must be something for her personal adornment.


=FURTHER OBLIGATIONS OF THE GROOM=

Gifts must be provided for his best man and ushers, as well as their ties,
gloves and boutonnières, a bouquet for his bride, and the fee for the
clergyman, which may be a ten dollar gold piece or one or two new one
hundred dollar bills, according to his wealth and the importance of the
wedding. Whatever the amount, it is enclosed in an envelope and taken in
charge by the best man who hands it to the clergyman in his vestry-room
immediately after the ceremony.




CHAPTER XXII

THE DAY OF THE WEDDING


No one is busier than the best man on the day of the wedding. His official
position is a cross between trained nurse, valet, general manager and
keeper.

Bright and early in the morning he hurries to the house of the groom,
generally before the latter is up. Very likely they breakfast together; in
any event, he takes the groom in charge precisely as might a guardian. He
takes note of his patient's general condition; if he is normal and "fit,"
so much the better. If he is "up in the air" or "nervous" the best man
must bring him to earth and jolly him along as best he can.


=BEST MAN AS EXPRESSMAN=

His first actual duty is that of packer and expressman; he must see that
everything necessary for the journey is packed, and that the groom does
not absent-mindedly put the furnishings of his room in his valise and
leave his belongings hanging in the closet. He must see that the clothes
the groom is to "wear away" are put into a special bag to be taken to the
house of the bride (where he, as well as she, must change from wedding
into traveling clothes). The best man becomes expressman if the first
stage of the wedding journey is to be to a hotel in town. He puts all the
groom's luggage into his own car or a taxi, drives to the bride's house,
carries the bag with the groom's traveling suit in it to the room set
aside for his use--usually the dressing-room of the bride's father or the
bedroom of her brother. He then collects, according to pre-arrangement,
the luggage of the bride and drives with the entire equipment of both
bride and groom to the hotel where rooms have already been engaged, sees
it all into the rooms, and makes sure that everything is as it should be.
If he is very thoughtful, he may himself put flowers about the rooms. He
also registers for the newly-weds, takes the room key, returns to the
house of the groom, gives him the key and assures him that everything at
the hotel is in readiness. This maneuver allows the young couple when they
arrive to go quietly to their rooms without attracting the notice of any
one, as would be the case if they arrived with baggage and were
conspicuously shown the way by a bell-boy whose manner unmistakably
proclaims "Bride and Groom!"

Or, if they are going at once by boat or train, the best man takes the
baggage to the station, checks the large pieces, and fees a porter to see
that the hand luggage is put in the proper stateroom or parlor car chairs.
If they are going by automobile, he takes the luggage out to the garage
and personally sees that it is bestowed in the car.


=BEST MAN AS VALET=

His next duty is that of valet. He must see that the groom is dressed and
ready early, and plaster him up if he cuts himself shaving. If he is wise
in his day he even provides a small bottle of adrenaline for just such an
accident, so that plaster is unnecessary and that the groom may be whole.
He may need to find his collar button or even to point out the "missing"
clothes that are lying in full view. He must also be sure to ask for the
wedding ring and the clergyman's fee, and put them in his own waistcoat
pocket. A very careful best man carries a duplicate ring, in case of one
being lost during the ceremony.


=BEST MAN AS COMPANION-IN-ORDINARY=

With the bride's and groom's luggage properly bestowed, the ring and fee
in his pocket, the groom's traveling clothes at the bride's house, the
groom in complete wedding attire, and himself also ready, the best man has
nothing further to do but be gentleman-in-waiting to the groom until it is
time to escort him to the church, where he becomes chief of staff.


=AT THE HOUSE OF THE BRIDE=

Meanwhile, if the wedding is to be at noon, dawn will not have much more
than broken before the house--at least below stairs--becomes bustling.

Even if the wedding is to be at four o'clock, it will still be early in
the morning when the business of the day begins. But let us suppose it is
to be at noon; if the family is one that is used to assembling at an early
breakfast table, it is probable that the bride herself will come down for
this last meal alone with her family. They will, however, not be allowed
to linger long at the table. The caterer will already be clamoring for
possession of the dining-room--the florist will by that time already have
dumped heaps of wire and greens into the middle of the drawing-room, if
not beside the table where the family are still communing with their eggs.
The door-bell has long ago begun to ring. At first there are telegrams and
special delivery letters, then as soon as the shops open, come the
last-moment wedding presents, notes, messages and the insistent clamor of
the telephone.

Next, excited voices in the hall announce members of the family who come
from a distance. They all want to kiss the bride, they all want rooms to
dress in, they all want to talk. Also comes the hairdresser, to do the
bride's or her mother's or aunt's or grandmother's hair, or all of them;
the manicure, the masseuse--any one else that may have been thought
necessary to give final beautifying touches to any or all of the female
members of the household. The dozen and one articles from the caterer are
meantime being carried in at the basement door; made dishes, and dishes in
the making, raw materials of which others are to be made; folding chairs,
small tables, chinaware, glassware, napery, knives, forks and spoons--it
is a struggle to get in or out of the kitchen or area door.

The bride's mother consults the florist for the third and last time as to
whether the bridal couple had not better receive in the library because of
the bay window which lends itself easily to the decoration of a
background, and because the room, is, if anything, larger than the
drawing-room. And for the third time, the florist agrees about the
advantage of the window but points out that the library has only one
narrow door and that the drawing-room is much better, because it has two
wide ones and guests going into the room will not be blocked in the
doorway by others coming out.

The best man turns up and wants the bride's luggage.

The head usher comes to ask whether the Joneses to be seated in the fourth
pew are the tall dark ones or the blond ones, and whether he had not
better put some of the Titheringtons who belong in the eighth pew also in
the seventh, as there are nine Titheringtons and the Eminents in the
seventh pew are only four.

A bridesmaid-elect hurries up the steps, runs into the best man carrying
out the luggage; much conversation and giggling and guessing as to where
the luggage is going. Best man very important, also very noble and silent.
Bridesmaid shrugs her shoulders, dashes up to the bride's room and dashes
down again.

More presents arrive. The furniture movers have come and are carting lumps
of heaviness up the stairs to the attic and down the stairs to the cellar.
It is all very like an ant-hill. Some are steadily going forward with the
business in hand, but others who have become quite bewildered, seem to be
scurrying aimlessly this way and that, picking something up only to put it
down again.


=THE DRAWING-ROOM=

Here, where the bride and groom are to receive, one can not tell yet what
the decoration is to be. Perhaps it is a hedged-in garden scene, a palm
grove, a flowering recess, a screen and canopy of wedding bells--but a
bower of foliage of some sort is gradually taking shape.


=THE DINING-ROOM=

The dining-room, too, blossoms with plants and flowers. Perhaps its space
and that of a tent adjoining is filled with little tables, or perhaps a
single row of camp chairs stands flat against the walls, and in the center
of the room, the dining table pulled out to its farthest extent, is being
decked with trimmings and utensils which will be needed later when the
spaces left at intervals for various dishes shall be occupied. Preparation
of these dishes is meanwhile going on in the kitchen.


=THE KITCHEN=

The caterer's chefs in white cook's caps and aprons are in possession of
the situation, and their assistants run here and there, bringing
ingredients as they are told; or perhaps the caterer brings everything
already prepared, in which case the waiters are busy unpacking the big tin
boxes and placing the _bain-marie_ (a sort of fireless cooker receptacle
in a tank of hot water) from which the hot food is to be served. Huge tubs
of cracked ice in which the ice cream containers are buried are already
standing in the shade of the areaway or in the back yard.


=LAST PREPARATIONS=

Back again in the drawing-room, the florist and his assistants are still
tying and tacking and arranging and adjusting branches and garlands and
sheaves and bunches, and the floor is a litter of twigs and strings and
broken branches. The photographer is asking that the central decoration be
finished so he can group his pictures, the florist assures him that he is
as busy as possible.

The house is as cold as open windows can make it, to keep the flowers
fresh, and to avoid stuffiness. The door-bell continues its ringing, and
the parlor maid finds herself a contestant in a marathon, until some one
decides that card envelopes and telegrams had better be left in the front
hall.

A first bridesmaid arrives. She at least is on time. All decoration
activity stops while she is looked at and admired. Panic seizes some one!
The time is too short, nothing will be ready! Some one else says the
bridesmaid is far too early, there is no end of time.

Upstairs everyone is still dressing. The father of the bride (one would
suppose him to be the bridegroom at least) is trying on most of his
shirts, the floor strewn with discarded collars! The mother of the bride
is hurrying into her wedding array so as to be ready for any emergency, as
well as to superintend the finishing touches to her daughter's dress and
veil.


=THE WEDDING DRESS=

Everyone knows what a wedding dress is like. It may be of any white
material, satin, brocade, velvet, chiffon or entirely of lace. It may be
embroidered in pearls, crystals or silver; or it may be as plain as a
slip-cover--anything in fact that the bride fancies, and made in whatever
fashion or period she may choose.

As for her veil in its combination of lace or tulle and orange blossoms,
perhaps it is copied from a head-dress of Egypt or China, or from the
severe drapery of Rebecca herself, or proclaim the knowing touch of the
Rue de la Paix. It may have a cap, like that of a lady in a French print,
or fall in clouds of tulle from under a little wreath, such as might be
worn by a child Queen of the May.

The origin of the bridal veil is an unsettled question.

Roman brides wore "yellow veils," and veils were used in the ancient
Hebrew marriage ceremony. The veil as we use it may be a substitute for
the flowing tresses which in old times fell like a mantle modestly
concealing the bride's face and form; or it may be an amplification of the
veil which medieval fashion added to every head-dress.

In olden days the garland rather than the veil seems to have been of
greatest importance. The garland was the "coronet of the good girl," and
her right to wear it was her inalienable attribute of virtue.

Very old books speak of three ornaments that every virtuous bride must
wear, "a ring on her finger, a brooch on her breast and a garland on her
head."

A bride who had no dowry of gold was said nevertheless to bring her
husband great treasure, if she brought him a garland--in other words, a
virtuous wife.

At present the veil is usually mounted by a milliner on a made foundation,
so that it need merely be put on--but every young girl has an idea of how
she personally wants her wedding veil and may choose rather to put it
together herself or have it done by some particular friend, whose taste
and skill she especially admires.

If she chooses to wear a veil over her face up the aisle and during the
ceremony, the front veil is always a short separate piece about a yard
square, gathered on an invisible band, and pinned with a hair pin at
either side, after the long veil is arranged. It is taken off by the maid
of honor when she gives back the bride's bouquet at the conclusion of the
ceremony.

The face veil is a rather old-fashioned custom, and is appropriate only
for a very young bride of a demure type; the tradition being that a maiden
is too shy to face a congregation unveiled, and shows her face only when
she is a married woman.

Some brides prefer to remove their left glove by merely pulling it inside
out at the altar. Usually the under seam of the wedding finger of her
glove is ripped for about two inches and she need only pull the tip off to
have the ring put on. Or, if the wedding is a small one, she wears no
gloves at all.

Brides have been known to choose colors other than white. Cloth of silver
is quite conventional and so is very deep cream, but cloth of gold
suggests the habiliment of a widow rather than that of a virgin maid--of
which the white and orange blossoms, or myrtle leaf, are the emblems.

If a bride chooses to be married in traveling dress, she has no
bridesmaids, though she often has a maid of honor. A "traveling" dress is
either a "tailor made" if she is going directly on a boat or train, or a
morning or afternoon dress--whatever she would "wear away" after a big
wedding.

But to return to our particular bride; everyone seemingly is in her room,
her mother, her grandmother, three aunts, two cousins, three bridesmaids,
four small children, two friends, her maid, the dressmaker and an
assistant. Every little while, the parlor-maid brings a message or a
package. Her father comes in and goes out at regular intervals, in sheer
nervousness. The rest of the bridesmaids gradually appear and distract the
attention of the audience so that the bride has moments of being allowed
to dress undisturbed. At last even her veil is adjusted and all present
gasp their approval: "How sweet!" "Dearest, you are too lovely!" and
"Darling, how wonderful you look!"

Her father reappears: "If you are going to have the pictures taken, you
had better all hurry!"

"Oh, Mary," shouts some one, "what have you on that is

    Something old, something new,
    Something borrowed, something blue,
    And a lucky sixpence in your shoe!"

"Let me see," says the bride, "'old,' I have old lace; 'new,' I have lots
of new! 'Borrowed,' and 'blue'?" A chorus of voices: "Wear my ring," "Wear
my pin," "Wear mine! It's blue!" and some one's pin which has a blue stone
in it, is fastened on under the trimming of her dress and serves both
needs. If the lucky sixpence (a dime will do) is produced, she must at
least pay discomfort for her "luck."

Again some one suggests the photographer is waiting and time is short.
Having pictures taken before the ceremony is a dull custom, because it is
tiring to sit for one's photograph at best, and to attempt anything so
delaying as posing at the moment when the procession ought to be starting,
is as trying to the nerves as it is exhausting, and more than one wedding
procession has consisted of very "dragged out" young women in consequence.

At a country wedding it is very easy to take the pictures out on the lawn
at the end of the reception and just before the bride goes to dress.
Sometimes in a town house, they are taken in an up-stairs room at that
same hour; but usually the bride is dressed and her bridesmaids arrive at
her house fully half an hour before the time necessary to leave for the
church, and pictures of the group are taken as well as several of the
bride alone--with special lights--against the background where she will
stand and receive.


=PROCESSION TO CHURCH=

Whether the pictures are taken before the wedding or after, the
bridesmaids always meet at the house of the bride, where they also receive
their bouquets. When it is time to go to the church, there are several
carriages or motors drawn up at the house. The bride's mother drives away
in the first, usually alone, or she may, if she chooses, take one or two
bridesmaids in her car, but she must reserve room for her husband who will
return from church with her. The maid of honor, bridesmaids and flower
girls go in the next vehicles, which may be their own or else are supplied
by the bride's family; and last of all, comes the bride's carriage, which
always has a wedding appearance. If it is a brougham, the horses'
headpieces are decorated with white flowers and the coachman wears a white
boutonnière; if it is a motor, the chauffeur wears a small bunch of white
flowers on his coat, and white gloves, and has all the tires painted white
to give the car a wedding appearance. The bride drives to the church with
her father only. Her carriage arrives last of the procession, and stands
without moving, in front of the awning, until she and her husband (in
place of her father) return from the ceremony and drive back to the house
for the breakfast or reception.

If she has no father, this part is taken by an uncle, a brother, a cousin,
her guardian, or other close male connection of her family.

If it should happen that the bride has neither father nor very near male
relative, or guardian, she walks up the aisle alone. At the point in the
ceremony when the clergyman asks who gives the bride, if the betrothal is
read at the chancel steps, her mother goes forward and performs the office
in exactly the same way that her father would have done.

If the entire ceremony is at the altar, the mother merely stays where she
is standing in her proper place at the end of the first pew on the left,
and says very distinctly, "I do."


=AT THE CHURCH=

Meanwhile, about an hour before the time for the ceremony, the ushers
arrive at the church and the sexton turns his guardianship over to them.
They leave their hats in the vestry, or coat room. Their boutonnières,
sent by the groom, should be waiting in the vestibule. They should be in
charge of a boy from the florist's, who has nothing else on his mind but
to see that they are there, that they are fresh and that the ushers get
them. Each man puts one in his buttonhole, and also puts on his gloves.
The head usher decides (or the groom has already told them) to which
ushers are apportioned the center, and to which the side aisles. If it is
a big church with side aisles and gallery, and there are only six ushers,
four will be put in the center aisle, and two in the side. Guests who
choose to sit up in the gallery find places for themselves.

Often, at a big wedding, the sexton or one of his assistants guards the
entrance to the gallery and admission is reserved by cards for the
employees of both families, but usually the gallery is open to those who
care to go up. An usher whose "place" is in the side aisle may escort
occasional personal friends of his own down the center aisle if he happens
to be unoccupied at the moment of their entrance. Those of the ushers who
are the most likely to recognize the various close friends and members of
each family are invariably detailed to the center aisle. A brother of the
bride, for instance, is always chosen for this aisle because he is best
fitted to look out for his own relatives and to place them according to
their near or distant kinship. A second usher should be either a brother
of the groom or a near relative who would be able to recognize the family
and close friends of the groom.

The first six to twenty pews on both sides of the center aisle are fenced
off with white ribbons into a reserved enclosure. The parents of the bride
always sit in the first pew on the left (facing the chancel); the parents
of the groom always sit in the first pew on the right. The right hand side
of the church is the groom's side always, the left is that of the bride.

[Illustration: A CHURCH WEDDING
"In the city or country the church is
decorated with masses of flowers, greens and sprays of flowers at the ends
of the six to twenty reserved pews." [Page 354.]]


=SEATING THE GUESTS=

It is the duty of the ushers to show all guests to their places. An usher
offers his arm to each lady as she arrives, whether he knows her
personally or not. If the vestibule is very crowded and several ladies are
together, he sometimes gives his arm to the older and asks the others to
follow. But this is not done unless the crowd is great and the time short.

If the usher thinks a guest belongs in front of the ribbons though she
fails to present her card, he always asks at once "Have you a pew number?"
If she has, he then shows her to her place. If she has none, he asks
whether she prefers to sit on the bride's side or the groom's and gives
her the best seat vacant in the unreserved part of the church. He
generally makes a few polite remarks as he takes her up the aisle. Such
as:

"I am so sorry you came late, all the good seats are taken further up." Or
"Isn't it lucky they have such a beautiful day?" or "Too bad it is
raining." Or, perhaps the lady is first in making a similar remark or two
to him.

Whatever conversation there is, is carried on in a low voice, not,
however, whispered or solemn. The deportment of the ushers should be
natural but at the same time dignified and quiet in consideration of the
fact that they are in church. They must not trot up and down the aisles in
a bustling manner; yet they must be fairly agile, as the vestibule is
packed with guests who have all to be seated as expeditiously as possible.

The guests without reserved cards should arrive first in order to find
good places; then come the reserved seat guests; and lastly, the immediate
members of the families, who all have especial places in the front pews
held for them.

It is not customary for one who is in deep mourning to go to a wedding,
but there can be little criticism of an intimate friend who takes a place
in the gallery of the church from which she can see the ceremony and yet
be apart from the wedding guests. At a wedding that is necessarily small
because of mourning, the women of the family usually lay aside black for
that one occasion and wear white.


_In Front of the Ribbons_

There are two ways in which people "in front of the ribbons" are seated.
The less efficient way is by means of a typewritten list of those for whom
seats are reserved and of the pews in which they are to be seated, given
to each usher, who has read it over for each guest who arrives at the
church. From every point of view, the typewritten list is bad; first, it
wastes time, and as everyone arrives at the same moment, and every lady is
supposed to be taken personally up the aisle "on the arm" of an usher, the
time consumed while each usher looks up each name on several gradually
rumpling or tearing sheets of paper is easily imagined. Besides which, one
who is at all intimate with either family can not help feeling in some
degree slighted when, on giving one's name, the usher looks for it in
vain.

The second, and far better method, is to have a pew card sent, enclosed
with the wedding invitation, or an inscribed visiting card sent by either
family. A guest who has a card with "Pew No. 12" on it, knows, and the
usher knows, exactly where she is to go. Or if she has a card saying
"Reserved" or "Before the ribbons" or any special mark that means in the
reserved section but no especial pew, the usher puts her in the "best
position available" behind the first two or three numbered rows that are
saved for the immediate family, and in front of the ribbons marking the
reserved enclosure.

It is sometimes well for the head usher to ask the bride's mother if she
is sure she has allowed enough pews in the reserved section to seat all
those with cards. Arranging definite seat numbers has one disadvantage;
one pew may have every seat occupied and another may be almost empty. In
that case an usher can, just before the procession is to form, shift a
certain few people out of the crowded pews into the others. But it would
be a breach of etiquette for people to re-seat themselves, and no one
should be seated after the entrance of the bride's mother.


=THE BRIDEGROOM WAITS=

Meanwhile, about fifteen minutes before the wedding hour, the groom and
his best man--both in morning coats, top-hats, boutonnières and white
buckskin (but remember not shiny) gloves, walk or drive to the church and
enter the side door which leads to the vestry. There they sit, or in the
clergyman's study, until the sexton or an usher comes to say that the
bride has arrived.


=THE PERFECTLY MANAGED WEDDING=

At a perfectly managed wedding, the bride arrives exactly one minute (to
give a last comer time to find place) after the hour. Two or three
servants have been sent to wait in the vestibule to help the bride and
bridesmaids off with their wraps and hold them until they are needed after
the ceremony. The groom's mother and father also are waiting in the
vestibule. As the carriage of the bride's mother drives up, an usher goes
as quickly as he can to tell the groom, and any brothers or sisters of the
bride or groom, who are not to take part in the wedding procession and
have arrived in their mother's carriage, are now taken by ushers to their
places in the front pews. The moment the entire wedding party is at the
church, the doors between the vestibule and the church are _closed_. No
one is seated after this, except the parents of the young couple. The
proper procedure should be carried out with military exactness, and is as
follows:

The groom's mother goes down the aisle on the arm of the head usher and
takes her place in the first pew on the right; the groom's father follows
alone, and takes his place beside her; the same usher returns to the
vestibule and immediately escorts the bride's mother; he should then have
time to return to the vestibule and take his place in the procession. The
beginning of the wedding march should sound just as the usher returns to
the head of the aisle. To repeat: _No other person should be seated after
the mother of the bride._ Guests who arrive later must stand in the
vestibule or go into the gallery.

The sound of the music is also the cue for the clergyman to enter the
chancel, followed by the groom and his best man. The two latter wear
gloves but have left their hats and sticks in the vestry-room.

The groom stands on the right hand side at the head of the aisle, but if
the vestry opens into the chancel, he sometimes stands at the top of the
first few steps. He removes his right glove and holds it in his left hand.
The best man remains always directly back and to the right of the groom,
and does _not_ remove his glove.


=HERE COMES THE BRIDE=

The description of the procession is given in detail on a preceding page
in the "Wedding Rehearsal" section.

Starting on the right measure and keeping perfect time, the ushers come,
two by two, four paces apart; then the bridesmaids (if any) at the same
distance exactly; then the maid of honor alone; then the flower girls (if
any); then, at a _double distance_, the bride on her father's right arm.
She is dressed always in white, with a veil of lace or tulle. Usually she
carries a bridal bouquet of white flowers, either short, or with streamers
(narrow ribbons with little bunches of blossoms on the end of each) or
trailing vines, or maybe she holds a long sheaf of stiff flowers such as
lilies on her arm. Or perhaps she carries a prayer book instead of a
bouquet.


=THE GROOM COMES FORWARD TO MEET THE BRIDE=

As the bride approaches, the groom waits at the foot of the steps (unless
he comes down the steps to meet her). The bride relinquishes her father's
arm, changes her bouquet from her right to her left, and gives her right
hand to the groom. The groom, taking her hand in his right puts it through
his left arm--just her finger tips should rest near the bend of his
elbow--and turns to face the chancel as he does so. It does not matter
whether she takes his arm or whether they stand hand in hand at the foot
of the chancel in front of the clergyman.


=HER FATHER GIVES HER AWAY=

Her father has remained where she left him, on her left and a step or two
behind her. The clergyman stands a step or two above them, and reads the
betrothal. When he says "Who giveth this woman to be married?" the father
goes forward, still on her left, and half way between her and the
clergyman, but not in front of either, the bride turns slightly toward her
father, and gives him her right hand, the father puts her hand into that
of the clergyman and says at the same moment: "I do!" He then takes his
place next to his wife at the end of the first pew on the left.


=THE MARRIAGE CEREMONY=

A soloist or the choir then sings while the clergyman slowly ascends to
the altar, before which the marriage is performed. The bride and groom
follow slowly, the fingers of her right hand on his left arm.

The maid of honor, or else the first bridesmaid, moves out of line and
follows on the left hand side until she stands immediately below the
bride. The best man takes the same position exactly on the right behind
the groom. At the termination of the anthem, the bride hands her bouquet
to the maid of honor (or her prayer-book to the clergyman) and the bride
and groom plight their troth.

When it is time for the ring, the best man produces it from his pocket. If
in the handling from best man to groom, to clergyman, to groom again, and
finally to the bride's finger, it should slip and fall, the best man must
pick it up if he can without searching; if not, he quietly produces the
duplicate which all careful best men carry in the other waistcoat pocket,
and the ceremony proceeds. The lost ring--or the unused extra one--is
returned to the jeweler's next day. Which ring, under the circumstances,
the bride keeps, is a question as hard to answer as that of the Lady or
the Tiger. Would she prefer the substitute ring that was actually the one
she was married with? Or the one her husband bought and had marked for
her? Or would she prefer not to have a substitute ring and have the whole
wedding party on their knees searching? She alone can decide. Fortunately,
even if the clergyman is very old and his hand shaky, a substitute is
seldom necessary.

The wedding ring must not be put above the engagement ring. On her wedding
day a bride either leaves her engagement ring at home when she goes to
church or wears it on her right hand.


=AFTER THE CEREMONY=

At the conclusion of the ceremony, the minister congratulates the new
couple. The organ begins the recessional. The bride takes her bouquet from
her maid of honor (who removes the veil if she wore one over her face).
She then turns toward her husband--her bouquet in her right hand--and puts
her left hand through his right arm, and they descend the steps.

The maid of honor, handing her own bouquet to a second bridesmaid, follows
a short distance after the bride, at the same time stooping and
straightening out the long train and veil. The bride and groom go on down
the aisle. The best man disappears into the vestry room. At a perfectly
conducted wedding he does not walk down the aisle with the maid of honor.
The maid of honor recovers her bouquet and walks alone. If a bridesmaid
performs the office of maid of honor, she takes her place among her
companion bridesmaids who go next; and the ushers go last.

The best man has meanwhile collected the groom's belongings and dashed out
of the side entrance and around to the front to give the groom his hat and
stick. Sometimes the sexton takes charge of the groom's hat and stick and
hands them to him at the church door as he goes out. But in either case
the best man always hurries around to see the bride and groom into their
carriage, which has been standing at the entrance to the awning since she
and her father alighted from it.

All the other conveyances are drawn up in the reverse order from that in
which they arrived. The bride's carriage leaves first, next come those of
the bridesmaids, next the bride's mother and father, next the groom's
mother and father, then the nearest members of both families, and finally
all the other guests in the order of their being able to find their
conveyances.

The best man goes back to the vestry, where he gives the fee to the
clergyman, collects his own hat, and coat if he has one, and goes to the
bride's house.

As soon as the recessional is over, the ushers hurry back and escort to
the door all the ladies who were in the first pews, according to the order
of precedence; the bride's mother first, then the groom's mother, then the
other occupants of the first pew on either side, then the second and third
pews, until all members of the immediate families have left the church.
Meanwhile it is a breach of etiquette for other guests to leave their
places. At some weddings, just before the bride's arrival, the ushers run
ribbons down the whole length of the center aisle, fencing the
congregation in. As soon as the occupants of the first pews have left, the
ribbons are removed and all the other guests go out by themselves, the
ushers having by that time hurried to the bride's house to make themselves
useful at the reception.


=AT THE HOUSE=

An awning makes a covered way from the edge of the curb to the front door.
At the lower end the chauffeur (or one of the caterer's men) stands to
open the carriage door; and give return checks to the chauffeurs and their
employers. Inside the house the florist has finished, an orchestra is
playing in the hall or library, everything is in perfect order. The bride
and groom have taken their places in front of the elaborate setting of
flowering plants that has been arranged for them.

The bride stands on her husband's right and her bridesmaids are either
grouped beyond her or else divided, half on her side and half on the side
of the groom, forming a crescent with bride and groom in the center.


=USHERS AT THE HOUSE=

At a small wedding the duty of ushers is personally to take guests up to
the bride and groom. But at a big reception where guests outnumber ushers
fifty or a hundred to one, being personally conducted is an honor accorded
only to the very old, the very celebrated or the usher's own best friends.
All the other guests stand in a long congested line by themselves. The
bride's mother takes her place somewhere near the entrance of the room,
and it is for her benefit that her own butler or one furnished by the
caterer, asks each guest his name and then repeats it aloud. The guests
shake hands with the hostess, and making some polite remark about the
"beautiful wedding" or "lovely bride," continue in line to the bridal
pair.


=WEDDING CONVERSATION=

What you should say in congratulating a bridal couple depends on how well
you know one, or both of them. But remember it is a breach of good manners
to congratulate a bride on having secured a husband.

If you are unknown to both of them, and in a long queue, it is not even
necessary to give your name. You merely shake hands with the groom, say a
formal word or two such as "Congratulations!"; shake hands with the bride,
say "I wish you every happiness!" and pass on.

If you know them fairly well, you may say to him "I hope your good luck
will stay with you always!" or "I certainly do congratulate you!" and to
her "I hope your whole life will be one long happiness," or, if you are
much older than she, "You look too lovely, dear Mary, and I hope you will
always be as radiant as you look to-day!" Or, if you are a woman and a
relative or really close friend, you kiss the groom, saying, "All the luck
in the world to you, dear Jim, she certainly is lovely!" Or, kissing the
bride, "Mary, darling, every good wish in the world to you!"

To all the above, the groom and bride answer merely "Thank you."

A man might say to the groom "Good luck to you, Jim, old man!" Or, "She is
the most lovely thing I have ever seen!" And to her, "I hope you will
have every happiness!" Or "I was just telling Jim how lucky I think he is!
I hope you will both be very happy!" Or, if a very close friend, also
kissing the bride, "All the happiness you can think of isn't as much as I
wish you, Mary dear!" But it cannot be too much emphasized that
promiscuous kissing among the guests is an offense against good taste.

To a relative, or old friend of the bride, but possibly a stranger to the
groom, the bride always introduces her husband saying, "Jim, this is Aunt
Kate!" Or, "Mrs. Neighbor, you know Jim, don't you?" Or formally, "Mrs.
Faraway, may I present my husband?"

The groom on the approach of an old friend of his, says, "Mary, this is
cousin Carrie." Or, "Mrs. Denver, do you know Mary?" Or, "Hello, Steve,
let me introduce you to my wife; Mary, this is Steve Michigan." Steve says
"How do you do, Mrs. Smartlington!" And Mary says, "Of course, I have
often heard Jim speak of you!"

The bride with a good memory thanks each arriving person for the gift sent
her: "Thank you so much for the lovely candlesticks," or "I can't tell you
how much I love the dishes!" The person who is thanked says, "I am so glad
you like it (or them)," or "I am so glad! I hoped you might find it
useful." Or "I didn't have it marked, so that in case you have a
duplicate, you can change it."

Conversation is never a fixed grouping of words that are learned or
recited like a part in a play; the above examples are given more to
indicate the sort of things people in good society usually say. There is,
however, one rule: Do not launch into long conversation or details of
_yourself_, how you feel or look or what happened to you, or what _you_
wore when you were married! Your subject must not deviate from the young
couple themselves, their wedding, their future.

Also be brief in order not to keep those behind waiting longer than
necessary. If you have anything particular to tell them, you can return
later when there is no longer a line. But even then, long conversation,
especially concerning yourself, is out of place.


=PARENTS OF THE GROOM=

The groom's mother always receives either near the bride's mother or else
continuing the line beyond the bridesmaids, and it is proper for every
guest to shake hands with her too, whether they know her or not, but it is
not necessary to say anything. The bride's father sometimes stands beside
his wife but he usually circulates among his guests just as he would at a
ball or any other party where he is host.

The groom's father is a guest and it is not necessary for strangers to
speak to him, unless he stands beside his wife and, as it were,
"receives," but there is no impropriety in any one telling him how well
they know and like his son or his new daughter-in-law.

The guests, as soon as they have congratulated the bride and groom, go out
and find themselves places (if it is to be a sit-down breakfast) at a
table.


=DETAILS OF A SIT-DOWN BREAKFAST=

Unless the house is remarkable in size, there is usually a canopied
platform built next to the veranda or on the lawn or over the yard of a
city house. The entire space is packed with little tables surrounding the
big one reserved for the bridal party, and at a large breakfast a second
table is reserved for the parents of the bride and groom and a few close,
and especially invited, friends.

Place cards are not put on any of the small tables. All the guests, except
the few placed at the two reserved tables, sit with whom they like;
sometimes by pre-arrangement, but usually where they happen to find
friends--and room!

The general sit-down breakfast--except in great houses like a few of those
in Newport--is always furnished by a caterer, who brings all the food,
tables, chairs, napery, china and glass, as well as the necessary waiters.
The butler and footmen belonging in the house may assist or oversee, or
detail themselves to other duties.

Small _menu_ cards printed in silver are put on all the tables. Sometimes
these cards have the crest of the bride's father embossed at the top, but
usually the entwined initials of the bride and groom are stamped in silver
to match the wedding cake boxes.

Example:

[Illustration:
Bouillon
Lobster Newburg
Suprême of Chicken
Peas
Aspic of Foie Gras
Celery Salad
Ices
Coffee]

Instead of bouillon, there may be caviar or melon, or grape fruit, or a
purée, or clam broth. For lobster Newburg may be soft-shell crabs or
oyster pâté, or other fish. Or the bouillon may be followed by a dish such
as sweetbreads and mushrooms, or chicken pâtés, or broiled chicken (a half
of a chicken for each guest) or squab, with salad such as whole tomatoes
filled with celery. Or the chicken or squab may be the second course, and
an aspic with the salad, the third. Individual ices are accompanied by
little cakes of assorted variety. There used always to be champagne; a
substitute is at best "a poor thing," and what the prevailing one is to
be, is as yet not determined. Orange juice and ginger ale, or white grape
juice and ginger ale with sugar and mint leaves are two attempts at a
satisfying cup that have been offered lately.


=THE BRIDE'S TABLE=

The feature of the wedding breakfast is always the bride's table. Placed
sometimes in the dining-room, sometimes on the veranda or in a room apart,
this table is larger and more elaborately decorated than any of the
others. There are white garlands or sprays or other arrangement of white
flowers, and in the center as chief ornament is an elaborately iced
wedding cake. On the top it has a bouquet of white or silver flowers, or
confectioner's quaint dolls representing the bride and groom. The top is
usually made like a cover so that when the time comes for the bride to cut
it, it is merely lifted off. The bride always cuts the cake, meaning that
she inserts the knife and makes one cut through the cake, after which each
person cuts herself or himself a slice. If there are two sets of favors
hidden in the cake, there is a mark in the icing to distinguish the
bridesmaids' side from that of the ushers. Articles, each wrapped in
silver foil, have been pushed through the bottom of the cake at intervals;
the bridesmaids find a ten-cent piece for riches, a little gold ring for
"first to be married," a thimble or little parrot or cat for "old maid," a
wish-bone for the "luckiest." On the ushers' side, a button or dog is for
the bachelor, and a miniature pair of dice as a symbol of lucky chance in
life. The ring and ten-cent piece are the same.

If a big piece of the wedding cake is left, the bride's mother has it
wrapped in tin foil and put in a sealed tin box and kept for the bride to
open on her first anniversary.

The evolution of the wedding cake began in ancient Rome where brides
carried wheat ears in their left hands. Later, Anglo-Saxon brides wore the
wheat made into chaplets, and gradually the belief developed that a young
girl who ate of the grains of wheat which became scattered on the ground,
would dream of her future husband. The next step was the baking of a thin
dry biscuit which was broken over the bride's head and the crumbs divided
amongst the guests. The next step was in making richer cake; then icing
it, and the last instead of having it broken over her head, the bride
broke it herself into small pieces for the guests. Later she cut it with a
knife.


=THE TABLE OF THE BRIDE'S PARENTS=

The table of the bride's parents differs from other tables in nothing
except in its larger size, and the place cards for those who have been
invited to sit there. The groom's father always sits on the right of the
bride's mother, and the groom's mother has the place of honor on the
host's right. The other places at the table are occupied by distinguished
guests who may or may not include the clergyman who performed the
ceremony. If a bishop or dean performed the ceremony, he is always
included at this table and is placed at the left of the hostess, and his
wife, if present, sits at the bride's father's left. Otherwise only
especially close friends of the bride's parents are invited to this table.


=THE WEDDING CAKE=

In addition to the big cake on the bride's table, there are at all
weddings, near the front door so that the guests may each take one as they
go home, little individual boxes of wedding cake, "black" fruit cake. Each
box is made of white moiré or gros-grain paper, embossed in silver with
the last initial of the groom intertwined with that of the bride and tied
with white satin ribbon. At a sit-down breakfast the wedding cake boxes
are sometimes put, one at each place, on the tables so that each guest may
be sure of receiving one, and other "thoughtless" ones prevented from
carrying more than their share away.


=THE STANDING BREAKFAST OR RECEPTION=

The standing breakfast differs from the sit-down breakfast in service
only. Instead of numerous small tables at which the guests are served with
a course luncheon, a single long one is set in the dining-room. (The
regular table pulled out to its farthest extent.) It is covered with a
plain white damask cloth--or it may be of embroidered linen and lace
insertion. In the center is usually a bowl or vase or other centerpiece,
of white flowers. On it are piles of plates, stacks of napkins and rows of
spoons and forks at intervals, making four or possibly six piles
altogether. Always there are dishes filled with little fancy cakes, chosen
as much for looks as for taste. There is usually a big urn at one end
filled with bouillon and one at the other filled with chocolate or tea.
In four evenly spaced places are placed two cold dishes such as an aspic
of chicken, or ham mousse, or a terrine de foie gras, or other aspic. The
hot dishes may be a boned capon, vol-au-vent of sweetbread and mushrooms,
creamed oysters, chicken à la King, or chicken croquettes; or there may be
cold cuts, or celery salad, in tomato aspic. Whatever the choice may be,
there are two or three cold dishes and at least two hot. Whatever there
is, must be selected with a view to its being easily eaten with a fork
while the plate is held in the other hand! There are also rolls and
biscuits, pâté de foie gras or lettuce and tomato sandwiches, the former
made usually of split "dinner" rolls with pâté between, or thin sandwiches
rolled like a leaf in which a moth has built a cocoon. Ices are brought in
a little later, when a number of persons have apparently finished their
"first course." Ice cream is quite as fashionable as individual "ices." It
is merely that caterers are less partial to it because it has to be cut.

After-dinner coffee is put on a side table, as the champagne used to be.
From now on there will probably be a bowl or pitchers of something with a
lump of ice in it that can be ladled into glasses and become whatever
those gifted with imagination may fancy.

Unless the wedding is very small, there is always a bride's table,
decorated exactly as that described for a sit-down breakfast, and placed
usually in the library, but there is no especial table for the bride's
mother and her guests--or for anyone else.


=THE BRIDAL PARTY EAT=

By the time the sit-down breakfast has reached its second course and the
queue of arriving guests has dwindled and melted away, the bride and groom
decide that it is time they too go to breakfast. Arm in arm they lead the
way to their own table followed by the ushers and bridesmaids. The bride
and groom always sit next to each other, she on his right; the maid of
honor (or matron) is on his left, and the best man is on the right of the
bride. Around the rest of the table come bridesmaids and ushers
alternately. Sometimes one or two others--sisters of the bride or groom or
intimate friends, who were not included in the wedding party, are asked to
the table, and when there are no bridesmaids this is always the case.

The decoration of the table, the service, the food, is exactly the same
whether the other guests are seated or standing. At dessert, the bride
cuts the cake, and the bridesmaids and ushers find the luck pieces.


=DANCING AT THE WEDDING=

On leaving their table, the bridal party join the dancing which by now has
begun in the drawing-room where the wedding group received. The bride and
groom dance at first together, and then each with bridesmaids or ushers or
other guests. Sometimes they linger so long that those who had intended
staying for the "going away" grow weary and leave--which is often exactly
what the young couple want! Unless they have to catch a train, they always
stay until the "crowd thins" before going to dress for their journey. At
last the bride signals to her bridesmaids and leaves the room. They all
gather at the foot of the stairs; about half way to the upper landing as
she goes up, she throws her bouquet, and they all try to catch it. The one
to whom it falls is supposed to be the next married. If she has no
bridesmaids, she sometimes collects a group of other young girls and
throws her bouquet to them.


=INTO TRAVELING CLOTHES=

The bride goes up to the room that has always been hers, followed by her
mother, sisters and bridesmaids, who stay with her while she changes into
her traveling clothes. A few minutes after the bride has gone up-stairs,
the groom goes to the room reserved for him, and changes into the ordinary
sack suit which the best man has taken there for him before the ceremony.
He does _not_ wear his top hat nor his wedding boutonnière. The groom's
clothes should be "apparently" new, but need not actually be so. The
bride's clothes, on the other hand, are always brand new--every article
that she has on.


=THE GOING-AWAY DRESS=

A bride necessarily chooses her going-away dress according to the journey
she is to make. If she is starting off in an open motor, she wears a
suitably small motor hat and a wrap of some sort over whatever dress (or
suit) she chooses. If she is going on a train or boat, she wears a
"traveling" dress, such as she would choose under ordinary circumstances.
If she is going to a nearby hotel or a country house put at her disposal,
she wears the sort of dress and hat suitable to town or country occasion.
She should not dress as though about to join a circus parade or the
ornaments on a Christmas tree, unless she wants to be stared at and
commented upon in a way that no one of good breeding can endure.

The average bride and groom of good taste and feeling try to be as
inconspicuous as possible. On one occasion, in order to hide the fact that
they were "bride and groom," a young couple "went away" in their oldest
clothes and were very much pleased with their cleverness, until, pulling
out his handkerchief, the groom scattered rice all over the floor of the
parlor car. The bride's lament after this was--"Why had she not worn her
prettiest things?"

The groom, having changed his clothes, waits up-stairs, in the hall
generally, until the bride emerges from her room in her traveling clothes.
All the ushers shake hands with them both. His immediate family, as well
as hers, have gradually collected--any that are missing must unfailingly
be sent for. The bride's mother gives her a last kiss, her bridesmaids
hurry downstairs to have plenty of rice ready and to tell everyone below
as they descend "They are coming!" A passage from the stairway and out of
the front door, all the way to the motor, is left free between two rows of
eager guests, their hands full of rice. Upon the waiting motor the ushers
have tied everything they can lay their hands on in the way of white
ribbons and shoes and slippers.


=HERE THEY COME!=

At last the groom appears at the top of the stairs, a glimpse of the bride
behind him. It surely is running the gauntlet! They seemingly count "one,
two, three, go!" With shoulders hunched and collars held tight to their
necks, they run through shrapnel of rice, down the stairs, out through the
hall, down the outside steps, into the motor, slam the door, and are off!

The wedding guests stand out on the street or roadway looking after them
for as long as a vestige can be seen--and then gradually disperse.

Occasionally young couples think it clever to slip out of the area-way, or
over the roofs, or out of the cellar and across the garden. All this is
supposed to be in order to avoid being deluged with rice and having labels
of "newly wed" or large white bows and odd shoes and slippers tied to
their luggage.

Most brides, however, agree with their guests that it is decidedly "spoil
sport" to deprive a lot of friends (who have only their good luck at
heart) of the perfectly legitimate enjoyment of throwing emblems of good
luck after them. If one white slipper among those thrown after the motor
lands right side up, on top of it, and stays there, greatest good fortune
is sure to follow through life.

There was a time when the "going away carriage" was always furnished by
the groom, and this is still the case if it is a hired conveyance, but
nowadays when nearly everyone has a motor, the newly married couple--if
they have no motor of their own--are sure to have one lent them by the
family of one of them. Very often they have two motors and are met by a
second car at an appointed place, into which they change after shaking
themselves free of rice. The white ribboned car returns to the house, as
well as the decorated and labeled luggage, which was all empty--their real
luggage having been bestowed safely by the best man that morning in their
hotel or boat or train. Or, it may be that they choose a novel journey,
for there is, of course, no regulation vehicle. They can go off in a
limousine, a pony cart, a yacht, a canoe, on horseback or by airplane.
Fancy alone limits the mode of travel, suggests the destination, or
directs the etiquette of a honeymoon.


=BRIDE'S FIRST DUTY OF THOUGHT FOR GROOM'S PARENTS=

At the end of the wedding there is one thing the bride must not forget. As
soon as she is in her traveling dress, she must send a bridesmaid or
someone out into the hall and ask her husband's parents to come and say
good-by to her. If his parents have not themselves come up-stairs to see
their son, the bride must have them sent for at once!

It is very easy for a bride to forget this act of thoughtfulness and for a
groom to overlook the fact that he can not stop to kiss his mother good-by
on his way out of the house, and many a mother seeing her son and new
daughter rush past without even a glance from either of them, has returned
home with an ache in her heart.

It sounds improbable, doesn't it? One naturally exclaims, "But how stupid
of her, why didn't she go up-stairs? Why didn't her son send for her?"
Usually she does, or he does. But often the groom's parents are strangers;
and if by temperament they are shy or retiring people they hesitate to go
up-stairs in an unknown house until they are invited to. So they wait,
feeling sure that in good time they will be sent for. Meanwhile the bride
"forgets" and it does not occur to the groom that unless he makes an
effort while up-stairs there will be no opportunity in the dash down to
the carriage to recognize them--or anyone.


=FLIPPANCY VS. RADIANCE=

A completely beautiful wedding is not merely a combination of wonderful
flowers, beautiful clothes, smoothness of detail, delicious food. These,
though all necessary, are external attributes. The spirit, or soul of it,
must have something besides; and that "something" is in the behavior and
in the expression of the bride and groom.

The most beautiful wedding ever imagined could be turned from sacrament to
circus by the indecorous behavior of the groom and the flippancy of the
bride. She, above all, must not reach up and wig-wag signals while she is
receiving, any more than she must wave to people as she goes up and down
the aisle of the church. She must not cling to her husband, stand
pigeon-toed, or lean against him or the wall, or any person, or thing. She
must not run her arm through his and let her hand flop on the other side;
she must not swing her arms as though they were dangling rope; she must
not switch herself this way and that, nor must she "hello" or shout. No
matter how young or "natural" and thoughtless she may be, she _must_,
during the ceremony and the short time that she stands beside her husband
at the reception, assume that she has dignity.

It is not by chance that the phrase "happy pair" is one of the most trite
in our language, for happiness above all is the inner essential that must
dominate a perfect wedding. An unhappy looking bride, an unwilling looking
groom, turns the greatest wedding splendor into sham; without love it is a
sacrament inadvisedly entered into, and the sight of a tragic-faced bride
strikes chill to the heart.

The radiance of a truly happy bride is so beautifying that even a plain
girl is made pretty, and a pretty one, divine. There is something glad yet
sweet, shy yet triumphant, serious yet--radiant! There is no other way to
put it. And a happy groom looks first of all protective--he, too, may have
the quality of radiance, but it is different--more directly glad. They
both look as though there were sunlight behind their eyes, as though their
mouths irresistibly turned to smiles. No other quality of a bride's
expression is so beautiful as radiance; that visible proof of perfect
happiness which endears its possessor to all beholders and gives to the
simplest little wedding complete beauty.


=THE HOUSE WEDDING=

A house wedding involves slightly less expenditure but has the
disadvantage of limiting the number of guests. The ceremony is exactly the
same as that in a church, excepting that the procession advances through
an aisle of white satin ribbons from the stairs down which the bridal
party descends, to the improvised altar. A small space near the altar is
fenced off with other ribbons, for the family. There is a low rail of some
sort back of which the clergyman stands, and something for the bride and
groom to kneel on during the prayers of the ceremony. The prayer bench is
usually about six or eight inches high, and between three and four feet
long; at the back of it an upright on either end supports a crosspiece--or
altar rail. It can be made in roughest fashion by any carpenter, or
amateur, as it is entirely hidden under leaves and flowers. On the
kneeling surface of the bench are placed cushions rather than flowers,
because the latter stain. All caterers have the necessary standards to
which ribbons are tied, like the wires to telegraph poles. The top of each
standard is usually decorated with a spray of white flowers.

At a house wedding the bride's mother stands at the door of the
drawing-room--or wherever the ceremony is to be--and receives people as
they arrive. But the groom's mother merely takes her place near the altar
with the rest of the immediate family. The ushers are purely ornamental,
unless the house is so large that "pews" have been installed, and the
guests are seated as in a church. Otherwise the guests stand wherever they
can find places behind the aisle ribbons. Just before the bride's
entrance, her mother goes forward and stands in the reserved part of the
room. The ushers go up to the top of the stairway. The wedding march
begins and the ushers come down two and two, followed by the bridesmaids,
exactly as in a church, the bride coming last on her father's arm. The
clergyman and the groom and best man have, if possible, reached the altar
by another door. If the room has only one door, they go up the aisle a few
moments before the bridal procession starts.

The chief difference between a church and house wedding is that the bride
and groom do not take a single step together. The groom meets her at the
point where the service is read. After the ceremony, there is no
recessional. The clergyman withdraws, an usher removes the prayer bench,
and the bride and groom merely turn where they stand, and receive the
congratulations of their guests, unless, of course, the house is so big
that they receive in another room.

[Illustration: "AN ATTRACTIVE ALTAR ARRANGEMENT FOR A HOUSE WEDDING."
[Page 374.]]

When there is no recessional, the groom always kisses the bride before
they turn to receive their guests--it is against all tradition for any one
to kiss her before her husband does.

There are seldom many bridal attendants at a house wedding, two to four
ushers, and one to four bridesmaids, unless the house is an immense one.

In the country a house wedding includes one in a garden, with a wedding
procession under the trees, and tables out on the lawn--a perfect plan for
California or other rainless States, but difficult to arrange on the
Atlantic seaboard where rain is too likely to spoil everything.


=THE WEDDING IN ASSEMBLY ROOMS=

Those whose houses are very small and yet who wish to have a general
reception, sometimes give the wedding breakfast in a hotel or assembly
rooms. The preparations are identical with those in a private house, the
decorations and menu may be lavish or simple. Although it is perfectly
good form to hold a wedding reception in a ballroom, a breakfast in a
private house, no matter how simple, has greater distinction than the most
elaborate collation in a public establishment. Why this is so, is hard to
determine. It is probably that without a "home" atmosphere, though it may
be a brilliant entertainment, the sentiment is missing.


=THE SECOND MARRIAGE=

The detail of a spinster's wedding is the same whether she marries a
bachelor or a widower, the difference being that a widower does not give a
"bachelor" dinner.

The marriage of a widow is the same as that of a maid except that she
cannot wear white or orange blossoms, which are emblems of virginity, nor
does she have bridesmaids. Usually a widow chooses a very quiet wedding,
but there is no reason why she should not have a "big wedding" if she
cares to, except that somber ushers and a bride in traveling dress, or at
best a light afternoon one with a hat, does not make an effective
processional--unless she is beautiful enough to compensate for all that is
missing.

A wedding in very best taste for a widow would be a ceremony in a small
church or chapel, a few flowers or palms in the chancel the only
decoration, and two to four ushers. There are no ribboned-off seats, as
only very intimate friends are asked. The bride wears an afternoon street
dress and hat. Her dress for a church ceremony should be more conventional
than if she were married at home, where she could wear a semi-evening gown
and substitute a headdress for a hat. She could even wear a veil if it is
colored and does not suggest the bridal white one.

A celebrated beauty wore for her second wedding in her own house, a dress
of gold brocade, with a Russian court headdress and a veil of yellow tulle
down the back. Another wore a dress of gray and a Dutch cap of silver
lace, and had her little girl in quaint cap and long dress, to match her
own, as maid of honor.

A widow has never more than one attendant and most often none. There may
be a sit-down breakfast afterwards, or the simplest afternoon tea; in any
case, the breakfast is, if possible, at the bride's own house, and the
bridal pair may either stay where they are and have their guests take
leave of them, or themselves drive away afterwards.

Very intimate friends send presents for a second marriage but general
acquaintances are never expected to.


=SUMMARY OF EXPENSES=

All the expenses of a wedding belong to the bride's parents; the
invitations are issued by them, the reception is at their house, and the
groom's family are little more than ordinary guests. The cost of a wedding
varies as much as the cost of anything else that one has or does. A big
fashionable wedding can total far up in the thousands and even the
simplest entails considerable outlay, which can, however, be modified by
those who are capable of doing things themselves instead of employing
professional service at every point.


=THE PARENTS OF THE BRIDE PROVIDE=

1. Engraved invitations and cards.

2. The service of a professional secretary who compiles a single list from
the various ones sent her, addresses the envelopes, both inner and outer;
encloses the proper number of cards, seals, stamps and mails all the
invitations. (This item can be omitted and the work done by the family.)

3. The biggest item of expense--the trousseau of the bride, which may
consist not alone of wearing apparel of endless variety and lavish detail,
but household linen of finest quality (priceless in these days) and in
quantity sufficient for a lifetime; or it may consist of the wedding
dress, and even that a traveling one, and one or two others, with barest
essentials and few accessories.

4. Awnings for church and house. This may be omitted at the house in good
weather, at the church, and also in the country.

5. Decorations of church and house. Cost can be eliminated by amateurs
using garden or field flowers.

6. Choir, soloists and organist at church. (Choir and soloists
unnecessary.)

7. Orchestra at house. (This may mean fifty pieces with two leaders or it
may mean a piano, violin and drum, or a violin, harp and guitar.)

8. Carriages or motors for the bridal party from house to church and back.

9. The collation, which may be the most elaborate sit-down luncheon or the
simplest afternoon tea.

10. Boxes of wedding cake.

11. Champagne--used to be one of the biggest items, as a fashionable
wedding without plenty of it was unheard of. Perhaps though, pocketbooks
may have less relief on account of its omission than would at first seem
probable, since what is saved on the wine bill is made up for on the
additional food necessary to make the best wineless menu seem other than
meagre.

12. The bride's presents to her bridesmaids. (May be jewels of value or
trinkets of trifling cost.)

13. A wedding present to the bride from each member of her family--not
counting her trousseau which is merely part of the wedding.

14. The bride gives a "wedding present" or a "wedding" ring or both to the
groom, if she especially wants to. (Not necessary nor even customary.)


=THE GROOM'S EXPENSES ARE=

1. The engagement ring--as handsome as he can possibly afford.

2. A wedding present--jewels if he is able, always something for her
personal adornment.

3. His bachelor dinner.

4. The marriage license.

5. A personal gift to his best man and each of his ushers.

6. To each of the above he gives their wedding ties, gloves and
boutonnières.

7. The bouquet carried by the bride. In many cities it is said to be the
custom for the bride to send boutonnières to the ushers and for the groom
to order the bouquets of the bridesmaids. In New York's smart world, the
bridesmaids' bouquets are looked upon as part of the decorative
arrangement, all of which is in the province of the bride's parents.

8. The wedding ring.

9. The clergyman's fee.

10. From the moment the bride and groom start off on their wedding trip,
all the expenditure becomes his.


=WEDDING ANNIVERSARIES=

   1 year, paper
   5 years, wood
  10 years, tin
  15 years, crystal
  20 years, china
  25 years, silver
  50 years, gold
  75 years, diamond

Wedding anniversaries are celebrated in any number of ways. The "party"
may be one of two alone or it may be a dance. Most often it is a dinner,
and occasionally, an afternoon tea.

In Germany a silver wedding is a very important event and a great
celebration is made of it, but in America it is not very good form to ask
any but intimate friends and family to an anniversary party--especially as
those bidden are supposed to send presents. These need not, however, be of
value; in fact the paper, wooden and tin wedding presents are seldom
anything but jokes. Crystal is the earliest that is likely to be taken
seriously by the gift-bearers. Silver is always serious, and the golden
wedding a quite sacred event.

Most usually this last occasion is celebrated by a large family dinner to
which all the children and grandchildren are bidden. Or the married couple
perhaps choose an afternoon at home and receive their friends and
neighbors, who are, of course, supposed to brings presents made of gold.




CHAPTER XXIII

CHRISTENINGS


A child can, of course, be christened without making a festivity of it at
all--just as two people can be married with none but the clergyman and two
witnesses--but nearly every mother takes this occasion to see her friends
and show her baby to them.

Invitations to a christening are never formal, because none but the family
and a very few intimate friends are supposed to be asked. In this day
invitations are nearly all sent over the telephone, except to those who
are at a distance, or else friends are asked verbally when seen; but it is
both correct and polite to write notes. Such as:

    Dear Mrs. Kindhart:

    The baby is to be christened here at home, next Sunday at half
    past four, and we hope you and Mr. Kindhart--and the children if
    they care to--will come.

    Affectionately,
    Lucy Gilding.

If a telephone message is sent, the form is:

    "Mr. and Mrs. Gilding, Jr. would like Mr. and Mrs. Norman to come
    to the baby's christening on Sunday at half past four, at their
    house."


=ASKING THE GODPARENTS=

Before setting the date for the christening, the godmothers (two for a
girl and one for a boy) and the godfathers (two for a boy and one for a
girl) have, of course, already been chosen.

If a godfather (or mother) after having given his consent is abroad or
otherwise out of reach at the time of the christening, a proxy takes part
in the ceremony instead, and without thereby becoming a godfather. Since
godparents are always most intimate friends, it is natural to ask them
when they come to see the mother and the baby (which they probably do
often) or to write them if at a distance. Sometimes they are asked at the
same time that the baby's arrival is announced to them, occasionally even
before.

The Gilding baby, for instance, supposedly sent the following telegram:

    Mrs. Richard Worldly,
      Great Estates.

    I arrived last night and my mother and father were very glad to
    see me, and I am now eagerly waiting to see you.

    Your loving godson,
          Robert Gilding, 3d.

But more usually a godparent at a distance is telegraphed:

    John Strong,
       Equitrust, Paris.

    It's a boy. Will you be godfather?
                                 Gilding.

But in any case a formally worded request is out of place. Do _not_ write:

"My husband and I sincerely hope that you will consent to be our son's
godmother," etc. Any one so slightly known as this wording implies would
not be asked to fill so close a position as that of godmother without
great presumption on your part.

You must never ask any one to be a godmother or godfather whom you do not
know intimately well, as it is a responsibility not lightly to be
undertaken and impossible to refuse. Godparents should, however, be chosen
from among friends rather than relatives, since the sole advantage of
godparents is that they add to the child's relatives, so that if it
should be left alone in the world, its godparents become its protectors.
But where a child is born with plenty of relatives who can be called upon
for advice and affection and assistance in event of his or her becoming an
orphan, godparents are often chosen from among them. Nothing could be more
senseless, however, than choosing grandparents, since the relationship is
as close as can be anyway, and the chances that the parents will outlive
their own parents make such a choice still more unsuitable.

In France, the godmother is considered, next to the parents and
grandparents, the nearest relative a child can have. In some European
countries, the Queen or another who is above the parents in rank, assumes
a special protectorate over her godchild. In this instance the godmother
appoints herself.

In America a similar situation cannot very well exist; though on rare
occasions an employer volunteers to stand as godfather for an employee's
child. Godparents must, of course, give the baby a present, if not before,
at least at the christening. The standard "gift" is a silver mug, a
porringer, or a knife, fork and spoon, marked usually with the baby's name
and that of the giver.

    Robert Gilding, 3d
    From his godfather
    John Strong

Or the presents may be anything else they fancy. In New England a very
rich godfather sometimes gives the baby a bond which is kept with interest
intact until a girl is eighteen or a boy twenty-one.


=TIME OF CHRISTENING=

In other days of stricter observances a baby was baptized in the Catholic
and high Episcopal church on the first or at least second Sunday after its
birth. But to-day the christening is usually delayed at least until the
young mother is up and about again; often it is put off for months and in
some denominations children need not be christened until they are several
years old. The most usual age is from two to six months.

If the family is very high church or the baby is delicate and its
christening therefore takes place when it is only a week or two old, the
mother is carried into the drawing-room and put on a sofa near the
improvised font. She is dressed in a becoming negligé and perhaps a cap,
and with lace pillows behind her and a cover equally decorative over her
feet. The guests in this event are only the family and the fewest possible
intimate friends.


=THE CHRISTENING IN CHURCH=

In arranging for the ceremony the clergyman, of course, is consulted and
the place and hour arranged. If it is to be in church, it can take place
at the close of the regular service on Sunday, but if a good deal is to be
made of the christening, a week day is chosen and an hour when the church
is not being otherwise used.

The decorations, if any at all, consist of a few palms or some flowering
plants grouped around the font, and the guests invited for the christening
take places in the pews which are nearest to the font, wherever that
happens to be. As soon as the clergyman appears, the baby's coat and cap
are taken off (in any convenient pew, not necessarily the nearest one),
and the godmother, holding the baby in her arms, stands directly in front
of the clergyman. The other godparents stand beside her and other
relatives and friends nearby.

The godmother who is holding the baby must be sure to pronounce its name
distinctly--in fact it is a wise precaution if it is a long or an unusual
one, to show the name printed on a slip of paper to the clergyman
beforehand--as more than one baby has been given a name not intended for
it. And whatever name the clergyman pronounces is fixed for life. The
little Town girl who was to have been called Marian is actually Mary Ann!

As soon as the ceremony is over, the godmother hands the baby back to its
nurse, who puts on its cap and coat, and it is then driven with all its
relatives and friends to the house of its parents or grandparents, where a
lunch or an afternoon tea has been arranged.


=HOUSE CHRISTENING=

Unless forbidden by the church to which the baby's parents belong, the
house christening is by far the easier, safer and prettier. Easier,
because the baby does not have to have wraps put on and off and be taken
out and brought in; safer, because it is not apt to catch cold; and
prettier, for a dozen reasons.

The baby in the first place looks much prettier in a dress that has not
been crushed by having a coat put over it and taken off and put on and off
again. In the second place, a baby brought down from the nursery without
any fussing is generally "good," whereas one that has been dressed and
undressed and taken hither and yon is apt to be upset and therefore to
cry. If it cries in church it just has to cry! In a house it can be taken
into another room and be brought back again after it has been made "more
comfortable." It is trying to a young mother who is proud of her baby's
looks, to go to no end of trouble to get exquisite clothes for it, and ask
all her friends in, and then have it look exactly like a tragedy mask
carved in a beet! And you can scarcely expect a self-respecting baby who
is hauled and mauled and taken to a strange place and handed to a strange
person who pours cold water on it--not to protest. And alas! it has only
one means.

The arrangements made for a house christening are something like those
made for a house wedding--only much simpler. The drawing-room or wherever
the ceremony is to be performed is often decorated with pots of pale pink
roses, or daisies, or branches of dogwood or white lilacs. Nothing is
prettier than the blossoms of fruit trees (if they can be persuaded to
keep their petals on) or any other spring flowers. In summer there are all
the garden flowers. In autumn, cosmos and white chrysanthemums, or at any
season, baby's breath and roses.

The "font" is always a bowl--of silver usually--put on a small high table.
A white napkin on the table inevitably suggests a restaurant rather than a
ritual and is therefore unfortunate, and most people of taste prefer to
have the table covered with old church brocade and an arrangement of
flowers either standing behind or laid upon it so that the stems are
toward the center and covered by the base of the bowl.

If the clergyman is to wear vestments, a room must be put at his disposal.

At the hour set for the ceremony, the clergyman enters the room first and
takes his place at the font. The guests naturally make way, forming an
open aisle. If not, the baby's father or another member of the family
clears an aisle. The godmother carries the baby and follows the clergyman;
the other two godparents walk behind her, and all three stand near the
font. At the proper moment the clergyman takes the baby, baptizes it and
hands it back to the godmother, who holds it until the ceremony is over.


=THE CHRISTENING DRESS=

The christening dress is always especially elaborate and beautiful. Often
it is one that was worn by the baby's mother, father, or even its grand or
great-grandparent. Baby clothes should be as sheer as possible and as
soft. The ideal dress is of mull with much or little valenciennes lace
(real) and finest hand embroidery. But however much or little its
trimming, it must be exquisite in texture. In fact, everything for a baby
ought to be hand-made. It can be as plain as a charity garment, but of
fine material and tiny hand stitches. If the baby is very little, it is
usually laid on a lace trimmed pillow. (This lace, too, must be
valenciennes.)

The godmother or godmothers should wear the sort of clothes that they
would wear at an afternoon tea. The godfather or fathers should wear
formal afternoon clothes. The other guests wear ordinary afternoon
clothes and the mother--unless on the sofa--wears a light-colored
afternoon dress. She should not wear black on this occasion.

As soon as the ceremony is performed, the clergyman goes to the room that
was set apart for him, changes into his ordinary clothes and then returns
to the drawing-room to be one of the guests at luncheon or tea. The
godmother hands the baby to the nurse, or maybe to its mother, and
everyone gathers around to admire it. And the party becomes exactly like
every informal afternoon tea.

The only difference between an ordinary informal tea and a christening is
that a feature of the latter is a christening cake and caudle. The
christening cake is generally a white "lady" cake elaborately iced,
sometimes with the baby's initials, and garlands of pink sugar roses. And
although according to cook-books caudle is a gruel, the actual "caudle"
invariably served at christenings is a hot eggnog, drunk out of little
punch cups. One is supposed to eat the cake as a sign that one partakes of
the baby's hospitality, and is therefore its friend, and to drink the
caudle to its health and prosperity. But by this time the young host (or
hostess) is peacefully asleep in the nursery.




CHAPTER XXIV

FUNERALS


At no time does solemnity so possess our souls as when we stand deserted
at the brink of darkness into which our loved one has gone. And the last
place in the world where we would look for comfort at such a time is in
the seeming artificiality of etiquette; yet it is in the moment of deepest
sorrow that etiquette performs its most vital and real service.

All set rules for social observance have for their object the smoothing of
personal contacts, and in nothing is smoothness so necessary as in
observing the solemn rites accorded our dead.

It is the time-worn servitor, Etiquette, who draws the shades, who muffles
the bell, who keeps the house quiet, who hushes voices and footsteps and
sudden noises; who stands between well-meaning and importunate outsiders
and the retirement of the bereaved; who decrees that the last rites shall
be performed smoothly and with beauty and gravity, so that the poignancy
of grief may in so far as possible be assuaged.


=FIRST DETAILS=

As soon as death occurs, some one (the trained nurse usually) draws the
blinds in the sick-room and tells a servant to draw all the blinds of the
house.

If they are not already present, the first act of some one at the bedside
is to telephone or telegraph the immediate members of the family, the
clergyman and the sexton of the church to which the family belong, and
possibly one or two closest friends, whose competence and sympathy can be
counted on--as there are many things which must be done for the stricken
family as well as for the deceased. (The sexton of nearly every Protestant
church is also undertaker. If he is not, then an outside funeral director
is sent for.)

If the illness has been a long one, it may be that the family has become
attached to the trained nurse and no one is better fitted than she to turn
her ministrations from the one whom she can no longer help, to those who
have now very real need of just such care as she can give.

If the death was sudden, or the nurse unsympathetic or for other reasons
unavailable, then a relative or a near friend of practical sympathy is the
ideal attendant in charge.


=CONSIDERATION FOR THE FAMILY=

Persons under the shock of genuine affliction are not only upset mentally
but are all unbalanced physically. No matter how calm and controlled they
seemingly may be, no one can under such circumstances be normal. Their
disturbed circulation makes them cold, their distress makes them unstrung,
sleepless. Persons they normally like, they often turn from. No one should
ever be forced upon those in grief, and all over-emotional people, no
matter how near or dear, should be barred absolutely. Although the
knowledge that their friends love them and sorrow for them is a great
solace, the nearest afflicted must be protected from any one or anything
which is likely to overstrain nerves already at the threatening point, and
none have the right to feel hurt if they are told they can neither be of
use nor be received. At such a time, to some people companionship is a
comfort, others shrink from dearest friends. One who is by choice or
accident selected to come in contact with those in new affliction should,
like a trained nurse, banish all consciousness of self; otherwise he or
she will be or no service--and service is the only gift of value that can
be offered.


=FIRST AID TO THE BEREAVED=

First of all, the ones in sorrow should be urged if possible to sit in a
sunny room and where there is an open fire. If they feel unequal to going
to the table, a very little food should be taken to them on a tray. A cup
of tea or coffee or bouillon, a little thin toast, a poached egg, milk if
they like it hot, or milk toast. Cold milk is bad for one who is already
over-chilled. The cook may suggest something that appeals usually to their
taste--but very little should be offered at a time, for although the
stomach may be empty, the palate rejects the thought of food, and
digestion is never in best order.

It sounds paradoxical to say that those in sorrow should be protected from
all contacts, and yet that they must be constantly asked about
arrangements and given little time to remain utterly undisturbed. They
must think of people they want sent for, and they must decide the details
of the funeral; when they would like it held, and whether in church or at
the house, whether they want special music or flowers ordered, and where
the interment is to be.


=ON DUTY AT DOOR=

A friend or a servant is always stationed in the hall to open the door,
receive notes and cards, and to take messages. In a big house the butler
in his day clothes should answer the bell, with the parlor-maid to assist
him, until a footman can procure a black livery and take his or her place.
A parlor-maid or waitress at the door should wear either a black or gray
dress, with her plainest white apron, collar and cuffs.


=MEMBER OF FAMILY IN CHARGE=

A close friend or male member of the family should be--if not at the
door--as near the front hall as possible to see the countless people with
whom details have to be arranged, to admit to a member of the family
anyone they may want to see, and to give news to, or take messages from,
others.

As people come to the house to enquire and offer their services, he gives
them commissions the occasion requires. The first friend who hurries to
the house (in answer to the telephone message which announced the death)
is asked to break the news to an invalid connection of the family, or he
may be sent to the florist to order the bell hung, or to the station to
meet a child arriving from school.


=NOTICE TO PAPERS=

The sexton (or other funeral director) sends the notices to the daily
papers announcing the death, and the time and place of the funeral. The
form is generally selected by a member of the family from among those
appearing in that day's newspapers. These notices are paid for by the
sexton and put on his bill.

With the exception of the telephone messages or telegrams to relatives and
very intimate friends, no other notices are sent out. Only those persons
who are expected to go to the house at once have messages sent to them;
all others are supposed to read the notice in the papers. When the notice
reads "funeral private" and neither place nor time is given, very intimate
friends are supposed to ask for these details at the house; others
understand they are not expected.


=HANGING THE BELL=

As a rule the funeral director hangs crepe streamers on the bell; white
ones for a child, black and white for a young person, or black for an
older person. This signifies to the passerby that it is a house of
mourning so that the bell will not be rung unnecessarily nor long.

If they prefer, the family sometimes orders a florist to hang a bunch of
violets or other purple flowers on black ribbon streamers, for a grown
person; or white violets, white carnations--any white flower without
leaves--on the black ribbon for a young woman or man; or white flowers on
white gauze or ribbon for a child.


=CHECKING EXPENSES IN ADVANCE=

It is curious that long association with the sadness of death seems to
have deprived an occasional funeral director of all sense of moderation.
Whether the temptation of "good business" gradually undermines his
character--knowing as he does that bereaved families ask no questions--or
whether his profession is merely devoid of taste, he will, if not checked,
bring the most ornate and expensive casket in his establishment: he will
perform every rite that his professional ingenuity for expenditure can
devise; he will employ every attendant he has; he will order vehicles
numerous enough for the cortège of a president; he will even, if thrown in
contact with a bewildered chief-mourner, secure a pledge for the erection
of an elaborate mausoleum.

Some one, therefore, who has the family's interest at heart and knows
their taste and purse, should go personally to the establishment of the
undertaker, and not only select the coffin, but go carefully into the
specification of all other details, so that everything necessary may be
arranged for, and unnecessary items omitted.

This does not imply that a family that prefers a very elaborate funeral
should not be allowed to have one; but the great majority of people have
moderate, rather than unlimited means, and it is not unheard of that a
small estate is seriously depleted by vulgarly lavish and entirely
inappropriate funeral expenses. One would be a poor sort who for the sake
of friends would not willingly endure a little troublesome inquiry, rather
than witness a display of splurge and bad taste and realize at the same
time that the friends who might have been protected will be deluged with
bills which it cannot but embarrass them to pay.


=HONORARY PALLBEARERS=

The member of the family who is in charge will ask either when they come
to the house, or by telephone or telegraph if they are at a distance, six
or eight men who are close friends of the deceased to be the pallbearers.
When a man has been prominent in public life, he may have twelve or more
from among his political or business associates as well as his lifelong
social friends. Near relatives are never chosen, as their place is with
the women of the family. For a young woman, her own friends or those of
her family are chosen. It is a service that may not under any
circumstances except serious ill-health, be refused.

The one in charge will tell the pallbearers where they are to meet. It
used to be customary for them to go to the house on the morning of the
funeral and drive to the church behind the hearse, but as everything
tending to a conspicuous procession is being gradually done away with, it
is often preferred to have them wait in the vestibule of the church.

Honorary pallbearers serve only at church funerals; They do not carry the
coffin for the reason that, being unaccustomed to bearing such a burden,
one of them might possibly stumble, or at least give an impression of
uncertainty or awkwardness that might detract from the solemnity of the
occasion. The sexton's assistants are trained for this service, so as to
prevent in so far as is humanly possible a blundering occurrence.


=MOURNING FOR FUNERAL=

Among those who come to the house there is sure to be a woman friend of
the family whose taste and method of expenditure is similar to theirs. She
looks through the clothes they have, to see if there is not a black dress
or suit that can be used, and makes a list of only the necessary articles
which will have to be procured.

All dressmaking establishments give precedence to mourning orders and will
fill a commission within twenty-four hours. These first things are made
invariably without bothering the wearer with fitting. Alterations, if
required, are made later.

Or the mourning departments of the big stores and specialty shops are
always willing to send a selection on approval, so that a choice can be
made by the family in the privacy of their own rooms. Nearly always
acquaintances who are themselves in mourning offer to lend crepe veils,
toques and wraps, so that the garments which must be bought at first may
be as few as possible. Most women have a plain black suit, or dress, the
trimming of which can quickly be replaced with crepe by a maid or a
friend.

Most men are of standard size and can go to a clothier and buy a
ready-made black suit. Otherwise they must borrow, or wear what they have,
as no tailor can make a suit in twenty-four hours.


="SITTING UP" NO LONGER CUSTOMARY=

Unless the deceased was a prelate or personage whose lying-in-state is a
public ceremony, or unless it is the especial wish of the relatives, the
solemn vigil through long nights by the side of the coffin is no longer
essential as a mark of veneration or love for the departed.

Nor is the soulless body dressed in elaborate trappings of farewell
grandeur. Everything to-day is done to avoid unnecessary evidence of the
change that has taken place. In case of a very small funeral the person
who has passed away is sometimes left lying in bed in night clothes, or on
a sofa in a wrapper, with flowers, but no set pieces, about the room, so
that an invalid or other sensitive bereft one may say farewell without
ever seeing the all too definite finality of a coffin. In any event the
last attentions are paid in accordance with the wish of those most nearly
concerned.


=EXTRA WORK FOR SERVANTS=

Kindness of heart is latent in all of us, and servants, even if they have
not been long with a family, rise to the emergency of such a time as that
of a funeral, which always puts additional work upon them and often leaves
them to manage under their own initiative. The house is always full of
people, family and intimate friends occupy all available accommodation,
but it is a rare household which does not give sympathy as generously
below stairs as above; and he or she would be thought very heartless by
their companions who did not willingly and helpfully assume a just share
of the temporary tax on energy, time and consideration.


=CHURCH FUNERAL=

The church funeral is the more trying, in that the family have to leave
the seclusion of their house and face a congregation. On the other hand,
many who find solemnity only in a church service with the added beauty of
choir and organ, prefer to take their heartrending farewell in the House
of God.


=ARRANGING AND RECORDING FLOWERS=

An hour before the time for the service, if the family is Protestant, one
or two woman friends go to the church to arrange the flowers which are
placed about the chancel. Unless they have had unusual practise in such
arrangement they should, if possible, have the assistance of a florist, as
effective grouping and fastening of heavy wreaths and sprays is apt to
overtax the ingenuity of novices, no matter how perfect their usual taste
may be.

Whoever takes charge of the flowers must be sure to collect carefully all
the notes and cards. They should always take extra pencils in case the
points break, and write on the outside of each envelope a description of
the flowers that the card was sent with.

"Spray of Easter lilies and palm branches tied with white ribbon."
"Wreath of laurel leaves and gardenias."
"Long sheaf of pink roses and white lilacs."

These descriptions will afterwards help identify and recall the flowers
when notes of thanks are sent.

As the appointed time for the funeral draws near, the organ plays softly,
the congregation gradually fills the church. The first pews on either side
of the center aisle are left empty.


=THE PROCESSIONAL=

At the appointed time the funeral procession forms in the vestibule. If
there is to be a choral service the minister and the choir enter the
church from the rear, and precede the funeral cortège. Directly after the
choir and clergy come the pallbearers, two by two, then the coffin covered
with flowers and then the family--the chief mourner comes first, leaning
upon the arm of her closest male relative. Usually each man is escort for
a woman, but two women or two men may walk together according to the
division of the family. If the deceased is one of four sons where there is
no daughter, the mother and father walk immediately behind the body of
their child, followed by the two elder sons and behind them the younger,
with the nearest woman relative. If there is a grandmother, she walks with
the eldest son and the younger two follow together. If it is a family of
daughters who are following their father, the eldest daughter may walk
with her mother, or the mother may walk with her brother, or a son-in-law.
Although the arrangement of the procession is thus fixed, those in
affliction should be placed next to the one whose nearness may be of most
comfort to them. A younger child who is calm and soothing would better be
next to his mother than an older who is of more nervous temperament.

At the funeral of a woman, her husband sometimes walks alone, but usually
with his mother or his daughter. A very few intimate friends walk at the
rear of the family, followed by the servants of the household. At the
chancel the choir take their accustomed places, the minister stands at the
foot of the chancel steps, the honorary pallbearers take their places in
the front pews on the left, and the coffin is set upon a stand previously
placed there for the purpose. The bearers of the coffin walk quietly
around to inconspicuous stations on a side aisle. The family occupy the
front pews on the right, the rest of the procession fill vacant places on
either side. The service is then read.


=THE RECESSIONAL=

Upon the conclusion of the service, the procession moves out in the same
order as it came in excepting that the choir remain in their places and
the honorary pallbearers go first. Outside the church, the coffin is put
into the hearse, the family getting into carriages or motors waiting
immediately behind, and the flowers are put into a covered vehicle. (It is
very vulgar to fill open landaus with displayed floral offerings and
parade through the streets.)


=FEW GO TO THE BURIAL=

If the burial is in the churchyard or otherwise within walking distance,
the congregation naturally follows the family to the graveside. Otherwise,
the general congregation no longer expects, nor wishes, to go to the
interment which (excepting at a funeral of public importance) is witnessed
only by the immediate family and the most intimate friends, who are asked
if they "care to go." The long line of carriages that used to stand at the
church ready to be filled with a long file of mere acquaintances is a
barbarous thing of the past.


=HOUSE FUNERAL=

Many people prefer a house funeral--it is simpler, more private, and
obviates the necessity for those in sorrow to face people. The nearest
relatives may stay apart in an adjoining room or even upon the upper
floor, where they can hear the service but remain in unseen seclusion.

Ladies keep their wraps on. Gentlemen wear their overcoats or carry them
on their arms and hold their hats in their hands.


=MUSIC=

To many people there is lack of solemnity in a service outside of a church
and lacking the accompaniment of the organ. It is almost impossible to
introduce orchestral music that does not sound either dangerously
suggestive of the gaiety of entertainment or else thin and flat. A quartet
or choral singing is beautiful and appropriate, if available, otherwise
there is usually no music at a house funeral.


=HOUSE ARRANGEMENT=

Some authorities say that only the flowers sent by very close friends
should be shown at a house funeral, and that it is ostentatious to make a
display. But when people, or societies, have been kind enough to send
flowers, it would certainly be wanting in appreciation, to say the least,
to relegate their offerings to the back yard--or wherever it is that the
cavilers would have them hid!

In a small house where flowers would be overpowering, it is customary to
insert in the death notice: "It is requested that no flowers be sent," or
"Kindly omit flowers."

Arrangement for the service is usually made in the drawing-room, and the
coffin is placed in front of the mantel, or between the windows, but
always at a distance from the door, usually on stands brought by the
funeral director, who also brings enough camp chairs to fill the room
without crowding. A friend, or a member of the family, collects the cards
and arranges the flowers behind and at the side and against the stands of
the coffin. If there is to be a blanket or pall of smilax or other leaves
with or without flowers, fastened to a frame, or sewed on thin material
and made into a covering, it is always ordered by the family. Otherwise,
the wreaths to be placed on the coffin are chosen from among those sent by
the family.


=THE SERVICE=

As friends arrive, they are shown to the room where the ceremony is to be
held, but they take their own places. A room must be apportioned to the
minister in which to put on his vestments. At the hour set for the funeral
the immediate family, if they feel like being present, take their places
in the front row of chairs. The women wear small hats or toques and long
crepe veils over their faces, so that their countenances may be hidden.
The minister takes his stand at the head of the coffin and reads the
service.

At its conclusion the coffin is carried out to the hearse, which, followed
by a small number of carriages, proceeds to the cemetery.

It is very rare nowadays for any but a small group of relatives and
intimate men friends to go to the cemetery, and it is not thought unloving
or slighting of the dead for no women at all to be at the graveside. If
any women are to be present and the interment is to be in the ground, some
one should order the grave lined with boughs and green branches--to lessen
the impression of bare earth.


=DISTANT COUNTRY FUNERAL=

In the country where relatives and friends arrive by train, carriages or
motors must be provided to convey them to the house or church or cemetery.
If the clergyman has no conveyance of his own, he must always be sent for,
and if the funeral is in a house, a room must be set apart for him in
which to change his clothes.

It is unusual for a family to provide a "special car." Sometimes the hour
of the funeral is announced in the papers as taking place on the arrival
of a certain train, but everyone who attends is expected to pay his own
railway fare and make, if necessary, his own arrangements for lunch.

Only when the country place where the funeral is held is at a distance
from town and a long drive from the railway station, a light repast of
bouillon, rolls and tea and sandwiches may be spread on the dining-room
table. Otherwise refreshments are never offered--except to those of the
family, of course, who are staying in the house.


=HOUSE RESTORED TO ORDER=

While the funeral cortège is still at the cemetery, some one who is in
charge at home must see that the mourning emblem is taken off the bell,
that the windows are opened, the house aired from the excessive odor of
flowers, and the blinds pulled up. Any furniture that has been displaced
should be put back where it belongs, and unless the day is too hot a fire
should be lighted in the library or principal bedroom to make a little
more cheerful the sad home-coming of the family. It is also well to
prepare a little hot tea or broth, and it should be brought them upon
their return without their being asked if they would care for it. Those
who are in great distress want no food, but if it is handed to them, they
will mechanically take it, and something warm to start digestion and
stimulate impaired circulation is what they most need.


=MOURNING=

A generation or two ago the regulations for mourning were definitely
prescribed, definite periods according to the precise degree of
relationship of the mourner. One's real feelings, whether of grief or
comparative indifference, had nothing to do with the outward manifestation
one was obliged, in decency, to show. The tendency to-day is toward
sincerity. People do not put on black for aunts, uncles and cousins unless
there is a deep tie of affection as well as of blood.

Many persons to-day do not believe in going into mourning at all. There
are some who believe, as do the races of the East, that great love should
be expressed in rejoicing in the re-birth of a beloved spirit instead of
selfishly mourning their own earthly loss. But many who object to
manifestations of grief, find themselves impelled to wear mourning when
their sorrow comes and the number of those who do not put on black is
still comparatively small.


=PROTECTION OF MOURNING=

If you see acquaintances of yours in deepest mourning, it does not occur
to you to go up to them and babble trivial topics or ask them to a dance
or dinner. If you pass close to them, irresistible sympathy compels you
merely to stop and press their hand and pass on. A widow, or mother, in
the newness of her long veil, has her hard path made as little difficult
as possible by everyone with whom she comes in contact, no matter on what
errand she may be bent. A clerk in a store will try to wait on her as
quickly and as attentively as possible. Acquaintances avoid stopping her
with long conversation that could not but torture and distress her. She
meets small kindnesses at every turn, which save unnecessary jars to
supersensitive nerves.

Once in a great while, a tactless person may have no better sense than to
ask her abruptly for whom she is in mourning! Such people would not
hesitate to walk over the graves in a cemetery! And fortunately, such
encounters are few.

Since many people, however, dislike long mourning veils and all crepe
generally, it is absolutely correct to omit both if preferred, and to wear
an untrimmed coat and hat of plainest black with or without a veil.


=A WORD OF ECONOMY=

In the first days of stress, people sometimes give away every colored
article they possess and not until later are they aware of the effort
necessary, to say nothing of the expense, of getting an entire new
wardrobe. Therefore it is well to remember:

Dresses and suits can be dyed without ripping. Any number of fabrics--all
woolens, soft silks, canton crepe, georgette and chiffon, dye perfectly.
Buttonholes have sometimes to be re-worked, snaps or hooks and eyes
changed to black, a bit of trimming taken off or covered with dull braid,
silk or crepe, and the clothes look every bit as well as though newly
ordered.

Straw hats can be painted with an easily applied stain sold in every drug
and department store for the purpose. If you cannot trim hats yourself, a
milliner can easily imitate, or, if necessary, simplify the general
outline of the trimming as it was, and a seamstress can easily cover dyed
trimmings on dresses with crepe or dull silk. Also tan shoes--nearly all
footwear made of leather--can be dyed black and made to look like new by
any first class shoemaker.


=MOURNING MATERIALS=

Lustreless silks, such as crepe de chine, georgette, chiffon, grosgrain,
peau de soie, dull finish charmeuse and taffeta, and all plain woolen
materials, are suitable for deepest mourning. Uncut velvet is as deep
mourning as crepe, but cut velvet is not mourning at all! Nor is satin or
lace. The only lace permissible is a plain or hemstitched net known as
"footing."

Fancy weaves in stockings are not mourning, nor is bright jet or silver. A
very perplexing decree is that clothes entirely of white are deepest
mourning but the addition of a black belt or hat or gloves produces second
mourning.

Patent leather and satin shoes are not mourning.

People in second mourning wear all combinations of black and white as well
as clothes of gray and mauve. Many of the laws for materials seem
arbitrary, and people interpret them with greater freedom than they used
to, but never under any circumstances can one who is not entirely in
colors wear satin embroidered in silver or trimmed with jet and lace! With
the exception of wearing a small string of pearls and a single ring,
especially if it is an engagement ring, jewelry with deepest mourning is
never in good taste.


=WHEN A VEIL IS NOT WORN=

Nor should a woman ever wear a crepe veil to the theater or restaurant, or
any public place of amusement. On the other hand, people left long to
themselves and their own thoughts grow easily morbid, and the opera or
concert or an interesting play may exert a beneficial relaxation. Gay
restaurants with thumping strident musical accompaniment or entertainments
of the cabaret variety, need scarcely be commented upon. But to go to a
matinée with a close friend or relative is becoming more and more
usual--and the picture theaters where one may sit in the obscurity and be
diverted by the story on the silver screen which, requiring no mental
effort, often diverts a sad mind for an hour or so, is an undeniable
blessing. An observer would have to be much at a loss for material who
could find anything to criticise in seeing a family together under such
circumstances.

One generally leaves off a long veil, however, for such an occasion and
drives bareheaded, if it be evening, or substitutes a short black face
veil over one's hat on entering and leaving a building in the daytime.


=MOURNING FOR COUNTRY WEAR=

Except for church, crepe veils and clothes heavily trimmed with crepe are
not appropriate in the country--ever! Mourning clothes for the summer
consist of plain black serge or tweed, silk or cotton material, all black
with white organdy collar and cuffs, and a veil-less hat with a brim. Or
one may dress entirely in dull materials of white.


=A WIDOW'S MOURNING=

A widow used never to wear any but woolen materials, made as plain as
possible, with deep-hemmed turn-back cuffs and collar of white organdy. On
the street she wore a small crepe bonnet with a little cap-border of white
crepe or organdy and a long veil of crepe or nun's veiling to the bottom
edge of her skirt, over her face as well as down her back. At the end of
three months the front veil was put back from over her face, but the long
veil was worn two years at least, and frequently for life. These details
are identical with those prescribed to-day excepting that she may wear
lustreless silks as well as wool, the duration of mourning may be shorter,
and she need never wear her veil over her face except at the funeral
unless she chooses.

A widow of mature years who follows old-fashioned conventions wears deep
mourning with crepe veil two years, black the third year and second
mourning the fourth. But shorter periods of mourning are becoming more and
more the custom and many consider three or even two years conventional.


=THE VERY YOUNG WIDOW=

The young widow should wear deep crepe for a year and then lighter
mourning for six months and second mourning for six months longer. There
is nothing more utterly captivating than a sweet young face under a
widow's veil, and it is not to be wondered at that her own loneliness and
need of sympathy, combined with all that is appealing to sympathy in a
man, results in the healing of her heart. She should, however, never
remain in mourning for her first husband after she has decided she can be
consoled by a second.

There is no reason why a woman (or a man) should not find such
consolation, but she should keep the intruding attraction away from her
thoughts until the year of respect is up, after which she is free to put
on colors and make happier plans.


=MOURNING WORN BY A MOTHER=

A mother who has lost a grown child wears the same mourning as that
prescribed for a widow excepting the white cap ruche. Some mothers wear
mourning for their children always, others do not believe in being long in
black for a spirit that was young, and, for babies or very young children,
wear colorless clothes of white or gray or mauve.


=A DAUGHTER OR SISTER=

A daughter or sister wears a long veil over her face at the funeral. The
length of the veil may be to her waist or to the hem of her skirt, and it
is worn for from three months to a year, according to her age and
feelings. An older woman wears deep black for her parents, sisters and
brothers for a year, and then lightens her mourning during the second
year. A young girl, if she is out in society or in college, may wear a
long veil for her parents or her betrothed, if she wants to, or she wears
a thin net veil edged with crepe and the corners falling a short way down
her back--or none at all.

Very young girls of from fourteen to eighteen wear black for three months
and then six months of black and white. They never wear veils of any sort,
nor are their clothes trimmed in crepe. Children from eight to fourteen
wear black and white and gray for six months for a parent, brother, sister
or grandparent. Young children are rarely put into mourning, though their
clothes are often selected to avoid vivid color. They usually wear white
with no black except a hair ribbon for the girls and a necktie for the
boys. Very little children in black are too pitiful.


=EXTREME FASHION INAPPROPRIATE=

Fancy clothes in mourning are always offenses against good taste, because
as the word implies, a person is in _mourning_. To have the impression
of "fashion" dominant is contrary to the purpose of somber dress; it is a
costume for the spirit, a covering for the visible body of one whose soul
seeks the background. Nothing can be in worse taste than crepe which is
gathered and ruched and puffed and pleated and made into waterfalls, and
imitation ostrich feathers as a garnishing for a hat. The more absolutely
plain, the more appropriate and dignified is the mourning dress. A "long
veil" is a shade pulled down--a protection--it should never be a flaunting
arrangement to arrest the amazed attention of the passerby.

The necessity for dignity can not be overemphasized.


=BAD TASTE IN MOURNING=

Mourning observances are all matters of fixed form, and any deviation from
precise convention is interpreted by the world at large as signifying want
of proper feeling.

How often has one heard said of a young woman who was perhaps merely
ignorant of the effect of her inappropriate clothes or unconventional
behavior: "Look at her! And her dear father scarcely cold in his grave!"
Or "Little she seems to have cared for her mother--and such a lovely one
she had, too." Such remarks are as thoughtless as are the actions of the
daughter, but they point to an undeniable condition. Better far not wear
mourning at all, saying you do not believe in it, than allow your unseemly
conduct to indicate indifference to the memory of a really beloved parent;
better that a young widow should go out in scarlet and yellow on the day
after her husband's funeral than wear weeds which attract attention on
account of their flaunting bad taste and flippancy. One may not, one must
not, one _can not_ wear the very last cry of exaggerated fashion in crepe,
nor may one be boisterous or flippant or sloppy in manner, without giving
the impression to all beholders that one's spirit is posturing, tripping,
or dancing on the grave of sacred memory.

This may seem exaggerated, but if you examine the expressions, you will
find that they are essentially true.

Draw the picture for yourself: A slim figure, if you like, held in the
posture of the caterpillar slouch, a long length of stocking so thin as to
give the effect of shaded skin above high-heeled slippers with sparkling
buckles of bright jet, a short skirt, a scrappy, thin, low-necked,
short-sleeved blouse through which white underclothing shows various
edgings of lace and ribbons, and on top of this, a painted face under a
long crepe veil! Yet the wearer of this costume may in nothing but
appearance resemble the unmentionable class of women she suggests; as a
matter of fact she is very likely a perfectly decent young person and
really sad at heart, and her clothes and "make up" not different from
countless others who pass unnoticed because their colored clothing
suggests no mockery of solemnity.


=MOURNING WEAR FOR MEN=

The necessity of business and affairs which has made withdrawal into
seclusion impossible, has also made it customary for the majority of men
to go into mourning by the simple expedient of putting a black band on
their hat or on the left sleeve of their usual clothes and wearing only
white instead of colored linen.

A man never under any circumstances wears crepe. The band on his hat is of
very fine cloth and varies in width according to the degree of mourning
from two and a half inches to within half an inch of the top of a high
hat. On other hats the width is fixed at about two and a half or three
inches. The sleeve band, from three and a half to four and a half inches
in width, is of dull broadcloth on overcoats or winter clothing, and of
serge on summer clothes. The sleeve band of mourning is sensible for many
reasons, the first being that of economy. Men's clothes do not come
successfully from the encounter with dye vats, nor lend themselves to
"alterations," and an entire new wardrobe is an unwarranted burden to
most.

Except for the one black suit bought for the funeral and kept for Sunday
church, or other special occasion, only wealthy men or widowers go to the
very considerable expense of getting a new wardrobe. Widowers--especially
if they are elderly--always go into black (which includes very dark gray
mixtures) with a deep black band on the hat, and of course, black ties and
socks and shoes and gloves.


=CONVENTIONS OF MOURNING FOR MEN=

Although the etiquette is less exacting, the standards of social
observance are much the same for a man as for a woman. A widower should
not be seen at any general entertainment, such as a dance, or in a box at
the opera, for a year; a son for six months; a brother for three--at
least! The length of time a father stays in mourning for a child is more a
matter of his own inclination.


=MOURNING LIVERY=

Coachmen and chauffeurs wear black liveries in town. In the country they
wear gray or even their ordinary whipcord with a black band on the left
sleeve.

The house footman is always put into a black livery with dull buttons and
a black and white striped waistcoat. Maids are not put into mourning with
the exception of a lady's maid or nurse who, through many years of
service, has "become one of the family," and who personally desires to
wear mourning as though for a relative of her own.


=ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF SYMPATHY=

In the case of a very prominent person where messages of condolence, many
of them impersonal, mount into the thousands, the sending of engraved
cards to strangers is proper, such as:

        Mr. W. Ide Bonds
    wishes to gratefully acknowledge
    your kind expression of sympathy

or

      Senator and Mrs. Michigan
    wish to express their appreciation of

    [HW: Miss Millicent Gildings]

    sympathy in their recent bereavement

Under no circumstances should such cards be sent to intimate friends, or
to those who have sent flowers or written personal letters.

When some one with real sympathy in his heart has taken the trouble to
select and send flowers, or has gone to the house and offered what service
he might, or has in a spirit of genuine regard, written a personal letter,
the receipt of words composed by a stationer and dispatched by a
professional secretary is exactly as though his outstretched hand had been
pushed aside.

A family in mourning is in retirement from all social activities. There is
no excuse on the score of their "having no time." Also no one expects a
long letter, nor does any one look for an early reply. A personal word on
a visiting card is all any one asks for. The envelope may be addressed by
some one else.

It takes but a moment to write "Thank you," or "Thank you for all
sympathy," or "Thank you for your kind offers and sympathy." Or, on a
sheet of letter paper:

    "Thank you, dear Mrs. Smith, for your beautiful flowers and your
    kind sympathy."

Or:

    "Your flowers were so beautiful! Thank you for them and for your
    loving message."

Or:

    "Thank you for your sweet letter. I know you meant it and I
    appreciate it."

Many, many such notes can be written in a day. If the list is overlong, or
the one who received the flowers and messages is in reality so prostrated
that she (or he) is unable to perform the task of writing, then some
member of her immediate family can write for her:

    "Mother (or father) is too ill to write and asks me to thank you
    for your beautiful flowers and kind message."

Most people find a sad comfort as well as pain, in the reading and
replying to letters and cards, but they should not sit at it too long; it
is apt to increase rather than assuage their grief. Therefore, no one
expects more than a word--but that word should be _seemingly personal_.


=OBLIGATIONS OF PRESENCE AT FUNERALS=

Upon reading the death notice of a mere acquaintance you may leave your
card at the house, if you feel so inclined, or you may merely send your
card.

Upon the death of an intimate acquaintance or friend you should go at once
to the house, write, "With sympathy" on your card and leave it at the
door. Or you should write a letter to the family; in either case, you send
flowers addressed to the nearest relative. On the card accompanying the
flowers, you write, "With sympathy," "With deepest sympathy," or "With
heartfelt sympathy," or "With love and sympathy." If there is a notice in
the papers "requesting no flowers be sent," you send them only if you are
a very intimate friend.

Or if you prefer, send a few flowers with a note, immediately after the
funeral, to the member of the family who is particularly your friend.

If the notice says "funeral private" you do not go unless you have
received a message from the family that you are expected, or unless you
are such an intimate friend that you know you are expected without being
asked. Where a general notice is published in the paper, it is proper and
fitting that you should show sympathy by going to the funeral, even though
you had little more than a visiting acquaintance with the family. You
should _not_ leave cards nor go to a funeral of a person with whom you
have not in any way been associated or to whose house you have never been
asked.

But it is heartless and delinquent if you do not go to the funeral of one
with whom you were associated in business or other interests, or to whose
house you were often invited, or where you are a friend of the immediate
members of the family.

You should wear black clothes if you have them, or if not, the darkest,
the least conspicuous you possess. Enter the church as quietly as
possible, and as there are no ushers at a funeral, seat yourself where you
approximately belong. Only a very intimate friend should take a position
far up on the center aisle. If you are merely an acquaintance you should
sit inconspicuously in the rear somewhere, unless the funeral is very
small and the church big, in which case you may sit on the end seat of the
center aisle toward the back.




CHAPTER XXV

THE COUNTRY HOUSE AND ITS HOSPITALITY


The difference between the great house with twenty to fifty guest rooms,
all numbered like the rooms in a hotel, and the house of ordinary good
size with from four to six guest rooms, or the farmhouse or small cottage
which has but one "best" spare chamber, with perhaps a "man's room" on the
ground floor, is much the same as the difference between the elaborate
wedding and the simplest--one merely of degree and not of kind.

To be sure, in the great house, week-end guests often include those who
are little more than acquaintances of the host and hostess, whereas the
visitor occupying the only "spare" room is practically always an intimate
friend. Excepting, therefore, that people who have few visitors never ask
any one on their general list, and that those who fill an enormous house
time and time again necessarily do, the etiquette, manners, guest room
appointments and the people who occupy them, are precisely the same.
Popular opinion to the contrary, a man's social position is by no means
proportionate to the size of his house, and even though he lives in a
bungalow, he may have every bit as high a position in the world of fashion
as his rich neighbor in his palace--often much better!

We all of us know a Mr. Newgold who would give many of the treasures in
his marble palace for a single invitation to Mrs. Oldname's comparatively
little house, and half of all he possesses for the latter's knowledge,
appearance, manner, instincts and position--none of which he himself is
likely ever to acquire, though his children may! But in our description of
great or medium or small houses, we are considering those only whose
owners belong equally to best society and where, though luxuries vary from
the greatest to the least, house appointments are in essentials alike.

This is a rather noteworthy fact: all people of good position talk alike,
behave alike and live alike. Ill-mannered servants, incorrect liveries or
service, sloppily dished food, carelessness in any of the details that to
well-bred people constitute the decencies of living, are no more tolerated
in the smallest cottage than in the palace. But since the biggest houses
are those which naturally attract most attention, suppose we begin our
detailed description with them.


=HOUSE PARTY OF MANY GUESTS=

Perhaps there are ten or perhaps there are forty guests, but if there were
only two or three, and the house a little instead of a big one, the
details would be precisely the same.

A week-end means from Friday afternoon or from Saturday lunch to Monday
morning. The usual time chosen for a house party is over a holiday,
particularly where the holiday falls on a Friday or Monday, so that the
men can take a Saturday off, and stay from Friday to Tuesday, or Thursday
to Monday.

On whichever day the party begins, everyone arrives in the neighborhood of
five o'clock, or a day later at lunch time. Many come in their own cars,
the others are met at the station--sometimes by the host or a son, or, if
it is to be a young party, by a daughter. The hostess herself rarely, if
ever, goes to the station, not because of indifference or discourtesy but
because other guests coming by motor might find the house empty.

It is very rude for a hostess to be out when her guests arrive. Even some
one who comes so often as to be entirely at home, is apt to feel
dispirited upon being shown into an empty house. Sometimes a guest's
arrival unwelcomed can not be avoided; if, for instance, a man invited for
tennis week or a football or baseball game, arrives before the game is
over but too late to join the others at the sport.

When younger people come to visit the daughters, it is not necessary that
their mother stay at home, since the daughters take their mother's place.
Nor is it necessary that she receive the men friends of her son, unless
the latter for some unavoidable reason, is absent.

No hostess must ever fail to send a car to the station or boat landing for
every one who is expected. If she has not conveyances enough of her own,
she must order public ones and have the fares charged to herself.


=GREETING OF THE HOST=

The host always goes out into the front hall and shakes hands with every
one who arrives. He asks the guests if they want to be shown to their
rooms, and, if not, sees that the gentlemen who come without valets give
their keys to the butler or footman, and that the ladies without maids of
their own give theirs to the maid who is on duty for the purpose.

Should any of them feel dusty or otherwise "untidy" they naturally ask if
they may be shown to their rooms so that they can make themselves
presentable. They should not, however, linger longer than necessary, as
their hostess may become uneasy at their delay. Ladies do not--in
fashionable houses--make their first appearance without a hat. Gentlemen,
needless to say, leave theirs in the hall when they come in.

Travel in the present day, however, whether in parlor car or closed
limousines, or even in open cars on macadam roads, obviates the necessity
for an immediate removing of "travel stains," so that instead of seeking
their rooms, the newcomers usually go directly into the library or out on
the veranda or wherever the hostess is to be found behind the inevitable
tea tray.


=GREETING OF THE HOSTESS=

As soon as her guests appear in the doorway, the hostess at once rises,
goes forward smiling, shakes hands and tells them how glad she is that
they have safely come, or how glad she is to see them, and leads the way
to the tea-table. This is one of the occasions when everyone is always
introduced. Good manners also demand that the places nearest the hostess
be vacated by those occupying them, and that the newly arrived receive
attention from the hostess, who sees that they are supplied with tea,
sandwiches, cakes and whatever the tea-table affords.

After tea, people either sit around and talk, or, more likely nowadays,
they play bridge. About an hour before dinner the hostess asks how long
every one needs to dress, and tells them the time. If any need a shorter
time than she must allow for herself, she makes sure that they know the
location of their rooms, and goes to dress.


=A ROOM FOR EVERY GUEST=

It is almost unnecessary to say that in no well-appointed house is a
guest, except under three circumstances, put in a room with any one else.
The three exceptions are:

    1. A man and wife, if the hostess is sure beyond a doubt that
    they occupy similar quarters when at home.

    2. Two young girls who are friends and have volunteered, because
    the house is crowded, to room together in a room with two beds.

    3. On an occasion such as a wedding, a ball, or an
    intercollegiate athletic event, young people don't mind for one
    night (that is spent for the greater part "up") how many are
    doubled; and house room is limited merely to cot space, sofas,
    and even the billiard table.

But she would be a very clumsy hostess, who, for a week-end, filled her
house like a sardine box to the discomfort and resentment of every one.

In the well-appointed house, every guest room has a bath adjoining for
itself alone, or shared with a connecting room and used only by a man and
wife, two women or two men. A bathroom should never (if avoidable) be
shared by a woman and a man. A suitable accommodation for a man and wife
is a double room with bath and a single room next.


=THE GUEST ROOM=

The perfect guest room is not necessarily a vast chamber decorated in an
historically correct period. Its perfection is the result of nothing more
difficult to attain than painstaking attention to detail, and its
possession is within the reach of every woman who has the means to invite
people to her house in the first place. The ideal guest room is never
found except in the house of the ideal hostess, and it is by no means
"idle talk" to suggest that every hostess be obliged to spend twenty-four
hours every now and then in each room that is set apart for visitors. If
she does not do this actually, she should do so in imagination. She should
occasionally go into the guest bathroom and draw the water in every
fixture, to see there is no stoppage and that the hot water faucets are
not seemingly jokes of the plumber. If a man is to occupy the bathroom,
she must see that the hook for a razor strop is not missing, and that
there is a mirror by which he can see to shave both at night and by
daylight. Even though she can see to powder her nose, it would be safer to
make her husband bathe and shave both a morning and an evening in each
bathroom and then listen carefully to what he says about it!

Even though she has a perfect housemaid, it is not unwise occasionally to
make sure herself that every detail has been attended to; that in every
bathroom there are plenty of bath towels, face towels, a freshly laundered
wash rag, bath mat, a new cake of unscented bath soap in the bathtub soap
rack, and a new cake of scented soap on the washstand.

It is not expected, but it is often very nice to find violet water, bath
salts, listerine, talcum powder, almond or other hand or sunburn lotion,
in decorated bottles on the washstand shelf; but to cover the
dressing-table in the bedroom with brushes and an array of toilet articles
is more of a nuisance than a comfort. A good clothes brush and whiskbroom
are usually very acceptable, as strangely enough, guests almost invariably
forget them.

A comforting adjunct to a bathroom that is given to a woman is a hot water
bottle with a woolen cover, hanging on the back of the door. Even if
the water does not run sufficiently hot, a guest seldom hesitates to ring
for that, whereas no one ever likes to ask for a hot water bag--no matter
how much she might long for it. A small bottle of Pyro is also convenient
for one who brings a curling lamp.

[Illustration: "THE IDEAL GUEST ROOM IS NEVER FOUND EXCEPT IN THE HOUSE OF
THE IDEAL HOSTESS; AND IT IS BY NO MEANS IDLE TALK TO SUGGEST THAT EVERY
HOSTESS BE OBLIGED TO SPEND TWENTY-FOUR HOURS EVERY NOW AND THEN IN EACH
ROOM SET APART FOR VISITORS." [Page 414.]]

In the bedroom the hostess should make sure (by sleeping in it at least
once) that the bed is comfortable, that the sheets are long enough to tuck
in, that there are enough pillows for one who sleeps with head high. There
must also be plenty of covers. Besides the blankets there should be a
wool-filled or an eiderdown quilt, in coloring to go with the room.

There should be a night light at the head of the bed. Not just a
decorative glow-worm effect, but a light that is really good to lie in bed
and read by. And always there should be books; chosen more to divert than
to engross. The sort of selection appropriate for a guest room might best
comprise two or three books of the moment, a light novel, a book of
essays, another of short stories, and a few of the latest magazines.
Spare-room books ought to be especially chosen for the expected guest.
Even though one can not choose accurately for the taste of another, one
can at least guess whether the visitor is likely to prefer transcendental
philosophy or detective stories, and supply either accordingly.

There should be a candle and a box of matches--even though there is
electric light it has been known to go out! And some people like to burn a
candle all night. There must also be matches and ash receivers on the desk
and a scrap-basket beside it.

In hot weather, every guest should have a palm leaf fan, and in August,
even though there are screens, a fly killer.

In big houses with a swimming pool, bath-robes are supplied and often
bathing suits. Otherwise dressing-gowns are not part of any guest room
equipment.

A comfortable sofa is very important (if the room is big enough) with a
sofa pillow or two, and with a lightweight quilt or afghan across the end
of it.

The hostess should do her own hair in each room to see if the
dressing-table is placed where there is a good light over it, both by
electric and by daylight. A very simple expedient in a room where massive
furniture and low windows make the daylight dressing-table difficult, is
the European custom of putting an ordinary small table directly in the
window and standing a good sized mirror on it. Nothing makes a more
perfect arrangement for a woman.

And the pincushion! It is more than necessary to see that the pins are
usable and not rust to the head. There should be black ones and white
ones, long and short; also safety pins in several sizes. Three or four
threaded needles of white thread, black, gray and tan silk are an addition
that has proved many times welcome. She must also examine the writing desk
to be sure that the ink is not a cracked patch of black dust at the bottom
of the well, and the pens solid rust and the writing paper textures and
sizes at odds with the envelopes. There should be a fresh blotter and a
few stamps. Also thoughtful hostesses put a card in some convenient place,
giving the post office schedule and saying where the mail bag can be
found. And a calendar, and a clock that _goes_! is there anything more
typical of the average spare room than the clock that is at a standstill?

There must be plenty of clothes hangers in the closets. For women a few
hat stands, and for men trouser hangers and the coat hangers that have a
bar across the shoulder piece.

It is unnecessary to add that every bureau drawer should be looked into to
see that nothing belonging to the family is filling the space which should
belong to the guest, and that the white paper lining the bottom is new.
Curtains and sofa pillows must, of course, be freshly laundered; the
furniture, floor, walls and ceiling unmarred and in perfect order.

When bells are being installed in new houses they should be on cords and
hung at the side of the bed. Light switches should be placed at the side
of the door going into the room and bathroom. It is scarcely practical to
change the wiring in old houses; but it can at least be seen that the
bells work.

People who like strong perfumes often mistakenly think they are giving
pleasure in filling all the bedroom drawers with pads heavily scented.
Instead of feeling pleasure, some people are made almost sick! But all
people (hay-fever patients excepted) love flowers, and vases of them
beautify rooms as nothing else can. Even a shabby little room, if
dustlessly clean and filled with flowers, loses all effect of shabbiness
and is "inviting" instead.

In a hunting country, there should be a bootjack and boothooks in the
closet.

Guest rooms should have shutters and dark shades for those who like to
keep the morning sun out. The rooms should also, if possible, be away from
the kitchen end of the house and the nursery.

A shortcoming in many houses is the lack of a newspaper, and the
thoughtful hostess who has the morning paper sent up with each breakfast
tray, or has one put at each place on the breakfast table, deserves a
halo.

At night a glass and a thermos pitcher of water should be placed by the
bed. In a few very specially appointed houses, a small glass-covered tray
of food is also put on the bed table, fruit or milk and sandwiches, or
whatever is marked on the guest card.


=THE GUEST CARD=

A clever device was invented by Mrs. Gilding whose palatially appointed
house is run with the most painstaking attention to every one's comfort.
On the dressing-table in each spare room at Golden Hall is a card pad with
a pencil attached to it. But if the guest card is used, a specimen is
given below.

Needless to say the cards are used only in huge houses that, because of
their size, are necessarily run more like a clubhouse than as a "home."

In every house, the questions below are asked by the hostess, though the
guests may not readily perceive the fact. At bedtime she always asks:
"Would you like to come down to breakfast, or will you have it in your
room?" If the guest says, in her room, she is then asked what she would
like to eat. She is also asked whether she cares for milk or fruit or
other light refreshment at bedtime, and if there is a special book she
would like to take up to her room.

The guest card mentioned above is as follows:

=PLEASE FILL THIS OUT BEFORE GOING DOWN TO DINNER:=

_What time do you want to be awakened? .......................
Or, will you ring? ..........................................
Will you breakfast up-stairs? ................................
Or down? ...................................................._


=UNDERSCORE YOUR ORDER:=

_Coffee, tea, chocolate, milk,
Oatmeal, hominy, shredded wheat,
Eggs, how cooked?
Rolls, muffins, toast,
Orange, pear, grapes, melon._


=AT BEDTIME WILL YOU TAKE=

_Hot or cold milk, cocoa, orangeade,
Sandwiches, meat, lettuce, jam,
Cake, crackers,
Oranges, apples, pears, grapes._

Besides this list, there is a catalogue of the library with a card,
clipped to the cover, saying:

"Following books for room No. X." Then four or six blank lines and a place
for the guest's signature.


=AT THE DINNER HOUR=

Every one goes down to dinner as promptly as possible and the procedure is
exactly that of all dinners. If it is a big party, the gentlemen offer
their arms to the ladies the host or hostess has designated. At the end of
the evening, it is the custom that the hostess suggest going up-stairs,
rather than the guests who ordinarily depart after dinner. But etiquette
is not very strictly followed in this, and a reasonable time after dinner,
if any one is especially tired he or she quite frankly says: "I wonder if
you would mind very much if I went to bed?" The hostess always answers:
"Why, no, certainly not! I hope you will find everything in your room! If
not, will you ring?"

It is not customary for the hostess to go up-stairs with a guest, so long
as others remain in her drawing-room. If there is only one lady, or a
young girl, the hostess accompanies her to her room, and asks if
everything has been thought of for her comfort.


=HOW GUESTS ARE ASKED AND RECEIVED=

Many older ladies adhere to former practise and always write personal
notes of invitation. All others write or telegraph to people at a
distance, and send telephone messages to those nearby.

When a house is to be filled with friends of daughters or sons of the
house, the young people in the habit of coming to the house, or young men,
whether making a first visit or not, do not need any invitation further
than one given them verbally by a daughter, or even a son. But a married
couple, or a young girl invited for the first time, should have the verbal
invitation of daughter or son seconded by a note or at least a telephone
message sent by the mother herself.

Every one is always asked for a specified time. Even a near relative comes
definitely for a week, or a month, or whatever period is selected. This is
because other plans have to be made by the owners of the house, such as
inviting another group of guests, or preparing to go away themselves.


=WHO ARE ASKED ON HOUSE PARTIES=

Excepting when strangers bring influential letters of introduction, or
when a relative or very intimate friend recently married is invited with
her new husband or his bride, only very large and general house parties
include any one who is not an intimate friend.

At least seventy per cent of American house parties are young people,
either single or not long married, and, in any event, all those asked to
any one party--unless the hostess is a failure (or a genius)--belong to
the same social group. Perhaps a more broad-minded attitude prevails
among young people in other parts of the country, but wilfully
narrow-minded Miss Young New York is very chary of accepting an invitation
until she finds out who among her particular friends are also invited. If
Mrs. Stranger asks her for a week-end, no matter how much she may like
Mrs. Stranger personally, she at once telephones two or three of her own
group. If some of them are going, she "accepts with pleasure," but if not,
the chances are she "regrets." If, on the other hand, she is asked by the
Gildings, she accepts at once. Not merely because Golden Hall is the
ultimate in luxury, but because Mrs. Gilding has a gift for entertaining,
including her selection of people, amounting to genius. On the other hand,
Miss Young New York would accept with equal alacrity the invitation of the
Jack Littlehouses, where there is no luxury at all. Here in fact, a guest
is quite as likely as not to be pressed into service as auxiliary nurse,
gardener or chauffeur. But the personality of the host and hostess is such
that there is scarcely a day in the week when the motors of the most
popular of the younger set are not parked at the Littlehouse door.


=PEOPLE WE LOVE TO STAY WITH=

We enjoy staying with certain people usually for one of two reasons.
First, because they have wonderful, luxurious houses, filled with amusing
people; and visiting them is a period crammed with continuous and
delightful experience, even though such a visit has little that suggests
any personal intercourse or friendship with one's hostess. The other
reason we love to visit a certain house is, on the contrary, entirely
personal to the host or hostess. We love the house because we love its
owner. Nowhere do we feel so much at home, and though it may have none of
the imposing magnificence of the great house, it is often far more
charming.

Five flunkeys can not do more towards a guest's comfort than to take his
hat and stick and to show him the way to the drawing-room. A very smart
young New Yorker who is also something of a wag, says that when going to
a very magnificent house, he always tries to wear sufficient articles so
that he shall have one to bestow upon each footman. Some one saw him, upon
entering a palace that is a counterpart of the Worldlys,' quite solemnly
hand his hat to the first footman, his stick to the second, his coat to
the third, his muffler to the fourth, his gloves to the fifth, and his
name to the sixth, as he entered the drawing-room. Needless to say he did
this as a matter of pure amusement to himself. Of course six men servants,
or more, do add to the impressiveness of a house that is a palace and are
a fitting part of the picture. And yet a neat maid servant at the door can
divest a guest of his hat and coat, and lead the way to the sitting-room,
with equal facility.

Having several times mentioned Golden Hall, the palatial country house of
the Gildings, suppose we join the guests and see what the last word in
luxury and lavish hospitality is.

Golden Hall is not an imaginary place, except in name. It exists within a
hundred miles of New York. The house is a palace, the grounds are a park.
There is not only a long wing of magnificent guest rooms in the house,
occupied by young girls or important older people, but there is also a
guest annex, a separate building designed and run like the most luxurious
country club. The second floor has nothing but bedrooms, with bath for
each. The third floor has bachelor rooms, and rooms for visiting valets.
Visiting maids are put in a separate third floor wing. On the ground floor
there is a small breakfast room; a large living-room filled with books,
magazines, a billiard and pool table; beyond the living-room is a fully
equipped gymnasium; and beyond that a huge, white marble, glass-walled
natatorium. The swimming pool is fifty feet by one hundred; on three sides
is just a narrow shelf-like walkway, but the fourth is wide and is
furnished as a room with lounging chairs upholstered in white oilcloth.
Opening out of this are perfectly equipped Turkish and Russian baths in
charge of the best Swedish masseur and masseuse procurable.

In the same building are two squash courts, a racquet court, a court
tennis court, and a bowling alley. But the feature of the guest building
is a glass-roofed and enclosed riding ring--not big enough for games of
polo, but big enough for practise in winter,--built along one entire side
of it.

The stables are full of polo ponies and hunters, the garage full of cars,
the boathouse has every sort of boat--sailboats, naphtha launches, a motor
boat and even a shell. Every amusement is open-heartedly offered, in fact,
especially devised for the guests.

At the main house there is a ballroom with a stage at one end. An
orchestra plays every night. New moving pictures are shown and vaudeville
talent is imported from New York. This is the extreme of luxury in
entertaining. As Mrs. Toplofty said at the end of a bewilderingly lavish
party: "How are any of us ever going to amuse any one after _this_? I feel
like doing my guest rooms up in moth balls."

No one, however, has discovered that invitations to Mrs. Toplofty's are
any less welcome. Besides, excitement-loving youth and exercise-devotees
were never favored guests at the Hudson Manor anyway.


=THE SMALL HOUSE OF PERFECTION=

It matters not in the slightest whether the guest room's carpet is
Aubusson or rag, whether the furniture is antique, or modern, so long as
it is pleasing of its kind. On the other hand, because a house is little
is no reason that it can not be as perfect in every detail--perhaps more
so--as the palace of the multiest millionaire!

The attributes of the perfect house can not be better represented than by
Brook Meadows Farm, the all-the-year home of the Oldnames. Nor can
anything better illustrate its perfection than an incident that actually
took place there.

A great friend of the Oldnames, but not a man who went at all into
society, or considered whether people had position or not, was invited
with his new wife--a woman from another State and of much wealth and
discernment--to stay over a week-end at Brook Meadows. Never having met
the Oldnames, she asked something about their house and life in order to
decide what type of clothes to pack.

"Oh, it's just a little farmhouse. Oldname wears a dinner coat, of course;
his wife wears--I don't know what--but I have never seen her dressed up a
bit!"

"Evidently plain people," thought his wife. And aloud: "I wonder what
evening dress I have that is high enough. I can put in the black lace day
dress; perhaps I had better put in my cerise satin----"

"The cerise?" asked her husband, "Is that the red you had on the other
night? It is much too handsome, much! I tell you, Mrs. Oldname never wears
a dress that you could notice. She always looks like a lady, but she isn't
a dressy sort of person at all."

So the bride packed her plainest (that is her cheapest) clothes, but at
the last, she put in the "cerise."

When she and her husband arrived at the railroad station, _that_ at least
was primitive enough, and Mr. Oldname in much worn tweeds might have come
from a castle or a cabin; country clothes are no evidence. But her
practised eye noticed the perfect cut of the chauffeur's coat and that the
car, though of an inexpensive make, was one of the prettiest on the
market, and beautifully appointed.

"At least they have good taste in motors and accessories," thought she,
and was glad she had brought her best evening dress.

They drove up to a low white shingled house, at the end of an
old-fashioned brick walk bordered with flowers. The visitor noticed that
the flowers were all of one color, all in perfect bloom. She knew no
inexperienced gardener produced that apparently simple approach to a door
that has been chosen as frontispiece in more than one book on Colonial
architecture. The door was opened by a maid in a silver gray taffeta
dress, with organdie collar, cuffs and apron, white stockings and silver
buckles on black slippers, and the guest saw a quaint hall and vista of
rooms that at first sight might easily be thought "simple" by an inexpert
appraiser; but Mrs. Oldname, who came forward to greet her guests, was
the antithesis of everything the bride's husband had led her to believe.

To describe Mrs. Oldname as simple is about as apt as to call a pearl
"simple" because it doesn't dazzle; nor was there an article in the
apparently simple living-room that would be refused were it offered to a
museum.

The tea-table was Chinese Chippendale and set with old Spode on a
lacquered tray over a mosaic-embroidered linen tea-cloth. The soda
biscuits and cakes were light as froth, the tea an especial blend imported
by a prominent connoisseur and given every Christmas to his friends. There
were three other guests besides the bride and groom: a United States
Senator, and a diplomat and his wife who were on their way from a post in
Europe to one in South America. Instead of "bridge" there was conversation
on international topics until it was time to dress for dinner.

When the bride went to her room (which adjoined that of her husband) she
found her bath drawn, her clothes laid out, and the dressing-table lights
lighted.

That night the bride wore her cerise dress to one of the smartest dinners
she ever went down to, and when they went up-stairs and she at last saw
her husband alone, she took him to task. "Why in the name of goodness
didn't you tell me the truth about these people?"

"Oh," said he abashed, "I told you it was a little house--it was you who
insisted on bringing that red dress. I told you it was too handsome!"

"Handsome!" she cried in tears, "I don't own anything half good enough to
compare with the least article in this house. That 'simple' little woman
as you call her would, I think, almost make a queen seem provincial! And
as for her clothes, they are priceless--just as everything is in this
little gem of a house. Why, the window curtains are as fine as the best
clothes in my trousseau."

The two houses contrasted above are two extremes, but each a luxury. The
Oldnames' expenditure, though in no way comparable with the Worldlys' or
the Gildings,' is far beyond any purse that can be called moderate.

The really moderate purse inevitably precludes a woman from playing an
important rôle as hostess, for not even the greatest magnetism and charm
can make up to spoiled guests for lack of essential comfort. The only
exceptions are a bungalow at the seashore or a camp in the woods, where a
confirmed luxury-lover is desperately uncomfortable for the first
twenty-four hours, but invariably gets used to the lack of comfort almost
as soon as he gets dependent upon it; and plunging into a lake for bath,
or washing in a little tin basin, sleeping on pine boughs without any
sheets at all, eating tinned foods and flapjacks on tin plates with tin
utensils, he seems to lack nothing when the air is like champagne and the
company first choice.


=GUEST ROOM SERVICE=

If a visitor brings no maid of her own, the personal maid of the hostess
(if she has one--otherwise the housemaid) always unpacks the bags or
trunks, lays toilet articles out on the dressing-table and in the
bathroom, puts folded things in the drawers and hangs dresses on hangers
in the closet. If when she unpacks she sees that something of importance
has been forgotten, she tells her mistress, or, in the case of a servant
who has been long employed, she knows what selection to make herself, and
supplies the guest without asking with such articles as comb and brush or
clothes brush, or bathing suit and bath-robe.

The valet of the host performs the same service for men. In small
establishments where there is no lady's maid or valet, the housemaid is
always taught to unpack guests' belongings and to press and hook up
ladies' dresses, and gentlemen's clothes are sent to a tailor to be
pressed after each wearing.

In big houses, breakfast trays for women guests are usually carried to the
bedroom floor by the butler (some butlers delegate this service to a
footman) and are handed to the lady's maid who takes the tray into the
room. In small houses they are carried up by the waitress.

Trays for men visitors are rare, but when ordered are carried up and into
the room by the valet, or butler. If there are no men servants the
waitress has to carry up the tray.

When a guest rings for breakfast, the housemaid or the valet goes into the
room, opens the blinds, and in cold weather lights the fire, if there is
an open one in the room. Asking whether a hot, cool or cold bath is
preferred, he goes into the bathroom, spreads a bath mat on the floor, a
big bath towel over a chair, with the help of a thermometer draws the
bath, and sometimes lays out the visitor's clothes. As few people care for
more than one bath a day and many people prefer their bath before dinner
instead of before breakfast, this office is often performed at dinner
dressing time instead of in the morning.


=TIPS=

The "tip-roll" in a big house seems to us rather appalling, but compared
with the amounts given in a big English house, ours are mere pittances.
Pleasant to think that _something_ is less expensive in our country than
in Europe!

Fortunately in this country, when you dine in a friend's house you do not
"tip" the butler, nor do you tip a footman or parlor-maid who takes your
card to the mistress of the house, nor when you leave a country house do
you have to give more than five dollars to any one whatsoever. A lady for
a week-end stay gives two or three dollars to the lady's maid, if she went
without her own, and one or two dollars to every one who waited on her.
Intimate friends in a small house send tips to all the servants--perhaps
only a dollar apiece, but no one is forgotten. In a very big house this is
never done and only those are tipped who have served you. If you had your
maid with you, you always give her a tip (about two dollars) to give the
cook (often the second one) who prepared her meals and one dollar for the
kitchen maid who set her table.

A gentleman scarcely ever "remembers" any of the women servants (to their
chagrin) except a waitress, and tips only the butler and the valet, and
sometimes the chauffeur. The least he can offer any of the men-servants is
two dollars and the most ever is five. No woman gets as much as that,
for such short service.

In a few houses the tipping system is abolished, and in every guest room,
in a conspicuous place on the dressing-table or over the bath tub where
you are sure to read it, is a sign, saying:

"Please do not offer tips to my servants. Their contract is with this
special understanding, and proper arrangements have been made to meet it;
you will not only create 'a situation,' but cause the immediate dismissal
of any one who may be persuaded by you to break this rule of the house."

The notice is signed by the host. The "arrangement" referred to is one
whereby every guest means a bonus added to their wages of so much per
person per day for all employees. This system is much preferred by
servants for two reasons. First, self-respecting ones dislike the
demeaning effect of a tip (an occasional few won't take them). Secondly,
they can absolutely count that so many visitors will bring them precisely
such an amount.

[Illustration: "IN SMALL HOUSES BREAKFAST TRAYS FOR WOMEN GUESTS ARE
CARRIED UP BY THE WAITRESS." [Page 426]]


=BREAKFAST DOWNSTAIRS OR UP=

Breakfast customs are as varied in this country as the topography of the
land! Communities of people who have lived or traveled much abroad, have
nearly all adopted the Continental breakfast habit of a tray in their
room, especially on Sunday mornings. In other communities it is the custom
to go down to the dining-room for a heavy American (or English) meal. In
communities where the latter is the custom and where people are used to
assembling at a set hour, it is simple enough to provide a breakfast
typical of the section of the country; corn bread and kidney stew and
hominy in the South; doughnuts and codfish balls "way down East"; kippered
herring, liver and bacon and griddle cakes elsewhere. But downstairs
breakfast as a continuous performance is, from a housekeeper's point of
view, a trial to say the least.

However, in big houses, where men refuse to eat in their rooms and equally
refuse to get up until they feel like it, a dining-room breakfast is
managed as follows:


=CONTINUOUS BREAKFAST DOWNSTAIRS=

The table is set with a place for all who said they were "coming down." At
one end is a coffee urn kept hot over a spirit lamp, milk is kept hot
under a "tea cosy" or in a double pitcher, made like a double boiler. On
the sideboard or on the table are two or three "hot water" dishes (with or
without spirit lamps underneath). In one is a cereal, in the other "hash"
or "creamed beef," sausage, or codfish cakes, or whatever the housekeeper
thinks of, that can stand for hours and still be edible! Fruit is on the
table and bread and butter and marmalade, and the cook is supposed to make
fresh tea and eggs and toast for each guest as he appears.


=PREPARING BREAKFAST TRAY=

The advantage of having one's guests choose breakfast up-stairs, is that
unless there is a separate breakfast room, a long delayed breakfast
prevents the dining-room from being put in order or the lunch table set.
Trays, on the other hand, stand "all set" in the pantry and interfere much
less with the dining-room work. The trays are either of the plain white
pantry variety or regular breakfast ones with folding legs. On each is put
a tray cloth. It may be plain linen hemstitched or scalloped, or it may be
much embroidered and have mosaic or filet lace.

Every bedroom has a set of breakfast china to match it. But it is far
better to send a complete set of blue china to a rose-colored room than a
rose set that has pieces missing. Nothing looks worse than odd crockery.
It is like unmatched paper and envelopes, or odd shoes, or a woman's skirt
and waist that do not meet in the back.

There is nothing unusual in a tray set, every china and department store
carries them, but only in "open" stock patterns can one buy extra dishes
or replace broken ones; a fact it is well to remember. There is a tall
coffee pot, hot milk pitcher, a cream pitcher and sugar bowl, a cup and
saucer, two plates, an egg cup and a covered dish. A cereal is usually
put in the covered dish, toast in a napkin on a plate, or eggs and bacon
in place of cereal. This with fruit is the most elaborate "tray" breakfast
ever provided. Most people who breakfast "in bed" take only coffee or tea,
an egg, toast and possibly fruit.


=THE COURTEOUS HOST=

Of those elaborate ceremonials between host and guest familiar to all
readers of the Bible and all travelers in the East, only a few faint
traces remain in our country and generation. It is still unforgivable to
eat a man's bread and remain his enemy. It is unforgivable to criticize
your host, or in his presence to criticize his friends. It is unforgivable
to be rude to any one under your own roof or under the roof of a friend.
If you must quarrel with your enemy, seek public or neutral ground, since
quarrels and hospitality must never be mingled.

The Spaniard says to his guest: "All I have is yours." It is supposed to
be merely a pretty speech--but in a measure it is true of every host's
attitude toward his house guest. If you take some one under your roof, he
becomes part of, and sharer in, your life and possessions. Your horse,
your fireside, your armchair, your servants, your time, your customs, all
are his; your food is his food, your roof his shelter. You give him the
best "spare" room, you set before him the best refreshments you can offer,
and your "best" china and glass. His bed is made up with your best
"company" linen and blankets. You receive your guest with a smile, no
matter how inconvenient or troublesome or straining to your resources his
visit may be, and on no account do you let him suspect any of this.


=KEEPING ONE'S GUESTS OCCUPIED=

In popular houses where visitors like to go again and again, there is
always a happy combination of some attention on the part of the host and
hostess, and the perfect freedom of the guests to occupy their time as
they choose.

The host and the men staying in the house arrange among themselves to rest
or play games or fish or ride or shoot clay pigeons or swim, etc. The
hostess, unless at the seashore where people go bathing in the morning,
generally leaves her guests to their own devices until lunch time, though
they are always offered whatever diversions the place or neighborhood
afford. They are told there is bathing, fishing, golf; and if they want to
do any of these things, it is arranged for them. But unless something
special, such as driving to a picnic or clambake, has been planned, or
there is a tennis tournament or golf match of importance, the hostess
makes her first appearance just before luncheon.

This is the same as any informal family meal. If there are thirty guests
it makes no difference. Sometimes there are place cards--especially if
other people have been invited in--sometimes people find places for
themselves.

After luncheon something is usually arranged; perhaps those who play golf
go out for their game, and others who do not play go to the country club
at the hour the players are supposed to be coming in, so that they can all
have tea together. Those who like motoring perhaps go for a drive, or to a
neighbor's house for bridge, or neighbors come in for tea. There is always
bridge, sometimes there is dancing. In very big houses musicians are often
brought in after dinner, and dancing and bridge alternate till bedtime.

A houseful of young people very easily look after their own amusement. As
said before, a big house is run very much like a country club, and guests
are supposed to look after themselves.

Making an especial effort to entertain a guest who is to stay for a week
or longer has gone out of custom in the fashionable world, except for an
important personage. A visit from the President of the United States for
instance, would necessitate the most punctiliously formal etiquette, no
matter how close a friend of the family he may always have been. For such
a visitor a hostess would either arrange a series of entertainments or
none, according to her visitor's inclination.


=A GUEST CAN LOOK AFTER HIS OWN COMFORT=

The most trying thing to people of very set habits is an unusual breakfast
hour. When you have the unfortunate habit of waking with the dawn, and the
household you are visiting has the custom of sleeping on Sunday morning,
the long wait for your coffee can quite actually upset your whole day. On
the other hand, to be aroused at seven on the only day when you do not
have to hurry to business, in order to yawn through an early breakfast,
and then sit around and kill time, is quite as trying. The guest with the
"early" habit can in a measure prevent discomfort. He can carry in a small
case (locked if necessary) a very small solidified alcohol outfit and
either a small package of tea or powdered coffee, sugar, powdered milk,
and a few crackers. He can then start his day all by himself in the
barnyard hours without disturbing any one, and in comfort to himself. Few
people care enough to "fuss," but if they do, this equipment of an
habitual visitor with incurably early waking hours is given as a
suggestion.

Or perhaps the entire guest situation may be put in one sentence. If you
are an inflexible person, very set in your ways, don't visit! At least
don't visit without carefully looking the situation over from every angle
to be sure that the habits of the house you are going to are in accord
with your own.

A solitary guest is naturally much more dependent on his host (or her
hostess), but on the other hand, he or she is practically always a very
intimate friend who merely adapts himself or herself like a chameleon to
the customs and hours and diversions of the household.


=DONT'S FOR HOSTESS=

When a guest asks to be called half an hour before breakfast, don't have
him called an hour and a half before because it takes you that long to
dress, nor allow him a scant ten minutes because the shorter time is
seemingly sufficient. Too often the summons on the door wakes him out of
sound sleep; he tumbles exhausted out of bed, into clothes, and down
stairs, to wait perhaps an hour for breakfast.

If a guest prefers to sit on the veranda and read, don't interrupt him
every half page to ask if he really does not want to do something else.
If, on the other hand, a guest wants to exercise, don't do everything in
your power to obstruct his starting off by saying that it will surely
rain, or that it is too hot, or that you think it is senseless to spend
days that should be a rest to him in utterly exhausting himself.

Don't, when you know that a young man cares little for feminine society,
fine-tooth-comb the neighborhood for the dullest or silliest young woman
to be found.

Don't, on the other hand, when you have an especially attractive young
woman staying with you, ask a stolid middle-aged couple and an
octogenarian professor for dinner, because the charm and beauty of the
former is sure to appeal to the latter.

Don't, because you personally happen to like a certain young girl who is
utterly old-fashioned in outlook and type from ultra modern others who are
staying with you, try to "bring them together." Never try to make any two
people like each other. If they do, they do; if they don't, they don't,
and that is all there is to it; but it is of vital importance to your own
success as hostess to find out which is the case and collect or separate
them accordingly.


=THE CASUAL HOSTESS=

The most casual hostess in the world is the fashionable leader in Newport,
she who should by the rules of good society be the most punctilious, since
no place in America, or Europe, is more conspicuously representative of
luxury and fashion. Nowhere are there more "guests" or half so many
hostesses, and yet hospitality as it is understood everywhere else, is
practically unknown. No one ever goes to stay in a Newport house excepting
"on his own" as it were. It is not an exaggerated story, but quite true,
that in many houses of ultra fashion a guest on arriving is told at which
meals he is expected to appear, that is at dinners or luncheons given by
his hostess. At all others he is free to go out or stay in by himself. No
effort is assumed for his amusement, or responsibility for his
well-being. It is small wonder that only those who have plenty of friends
care to go there--or in fact, are ever invited! Those who like to go to
visit the most perfectly appointed, but utterly impersonal house, find no
other visiting to compare with its unhampering delightfulness. The hostess
simply says on his (or her) arrival:

"Oh, howdo Freddie (or Constance)! They've put you in the Chinese room, I
think. Ring for tea when you want it. Struthers telephoned he'd be over
around five. Mrs. Toplofty asked you to dinner to-night and I accepted for
you--hope that was all right. If not, you'll have to telephone and get out
of it yourself. I want you to dinner to-morrow night and for lunch on
Sunday. Sorry to leave you, but I'm late for bridge now. Good-by." And she
is off.

The Newport hostess is, of course, an extreme type that is seldom met away
from that one small watering place in Rhode Island.


=THE ENERGETIC HOSTESS=

The energetic hostess is the antithesis of the one above, and far more
universally known. She is one who fusses and plans continually, who thinks
her guests are not having a good time unless she rushes them, Cook's
tourist fashion, from this engagement to that, and crowds with activity
and diversion--never mind _what_ so long as it is something to see or
do--every moment of their stay.

She walks them through the garden to show them all the nooks and vistas.
She dilates upon the flowers that bloomed here last month and are going to
bloom next. She insists upon their climbing over rocks to a summerhouse to
see the view; she insists on taking them in another direction to see an
old mill; and, again, every one is trouped to the cupola of the house to
see another view. She insists on every one's playing croquet before lunch,
to which she gathers in a curiously mixed collection of neighbors.
Immediately after lunch every one is driven to a country club to see some
duffer golf--for some reason there is never "time" in all the prepared
pleasures for any of her guests to play golf themselves. After twenty
minutes at the golf club, they are all taken to a church fair. The guests
are all introduced to the ladies at the booth and those who were foolish
enough to bring their purses with them from now on carry around an odd
assortment of fancy work. There is another entertainment that her guests
must not miss! A flower pageant of the darlingest children fourteen miles
away! Everyone is dashed to that. On some one's front lawn, daisies and
lilies and roses trip and skip--it is all sweetly pretty but the sun is
hot and the guests have been on the go for a great many hours. Soon,
however, their hostess leaves. "Home at last!" think they. Not at all.
They are going somewhere for tea and French recitations. But why go on?
The portrait is fairly complete, though this account covers only a few
hours and there is still all the evening and to-morrow to be filled in
just as liberally.


=THE ANXIOUS HOSTESS=

The anxious hostess does not insist on your ceaseless activity, but she is
no less persistent in filling your time. She is always asking you what you
would like to do next. If you say you are quite content as you are, she
nevertheless continues to shower suggestions. Shall she play the
phonograph to you? Would you like her to telephone to a friend who sings
too wonderfully? Would you like to look at a portfolio of pictures? If you
are a moment silent, she is sure you are bored, and wonders what she can
do to divert you!


=THE PERFECT HOSTESS=

The ideal hostess must have so many perfections of sense and character
that were she described in full, no one seemingly but a combination of
seer and angel could ever hope to qualify.

She must first of all consider the inclinations of her guests, she must
not only make them as comfortable as the arrangements and limits of her
establishment permit, but she must subordinate her own inclinations
utterly. At the same time, she must not fuss and flutter and get agitated
and seemingly make efforts in their behalf. Nothing makes a guest more
uncomfortable than to feel his host or hostess is being put to a great
deal of bother or effort on his account.

A perfect hostess like a perfect housekeeper has seemingly nothing
whatever to do with household arrangements which apparently run in oiled
grooves and of their own accord.

Certain rules are easy to observe once they are brought to attention. A
hostess should never speak of annoyances of any kind--no matter what
happens! Unless she is actually unable to stand up, she should not mention
physical ills any more than mental ones. She has invited people to her
house, and as long as they are under her roof, hospitality demands that
their sojourn shall be made as pleasant as lies in her power.

If the cook leaves, then a picnic must be made of the situation as though
a picnic were the most delightful thing that could happen. Should a guest
be taken ill, she must assure him that he is not giving the slightest
trouble; at the same time nothing that can be done for his comfort must be
overlooked. Should she herself or some one in her family become suddenly
ill, she should make as light of it as possible to her guests, even though
she withdraw from them. In that event she must ask a relative or intimate
friend to come in and take her place. Nor should the deputy hostess dwell
to the guests on the illness, or whatever it is that has deprived them of
their hostess.


=THE GUEST NO ONE INVITES AGAIN=

The guest no one invites a second time is the one who runs a car to its
detriment, and a horse to a lather; who leaves a borrowed tennis racquet
out in the rain; who "dog ears" the books, leaves a cigarette on the edge
of a table and burns a trench in its edge, who uses towels for boot rags,
who stands a wet glass on polished wood, who tracks muddy shoes into the
house, and leaves his room looking as though it had been through a
cyclone. Nor are men the only offenders. Young women have been known to
commit every one of these offenses and the additional one of bringing a
pet dog that was not house trained.

Besides these actually destructive shortcomings, there are evidences of
bad upbringing in many modern youths whose lack of consideration is
scarcely less annoying. Those who are late for every meal; cheeky others
who invite friends of their own to meals without the manners or the
decency to ask their hostess' permission; who help themselves to a car and
go off and don't come back for meals at all; and who write no letters
afterwards, nor even take the trouble to go up and "speak" to a former
hostess when they see her again.

On the other hand, a young person who is considerate is a delight
immeasurable--such a delight as only a hostess of much experience can
perhaps appreciate. A young girl who tells where she is going, first
asking if it is all right, and who finds her hostess as soon as she is in
the house at night to report that she is back, is one who very surely will
be asked again and often.

A young man is, of course, much freer, but a similar deference to the
plans of his hostess, and to the hours and customs of the house, will
result in repeated invitations for him also.

The lack of these things is not only bad form but want of common civility
and decency, and reflects not only on the girls and boys themselves but on
their parents who failed to bring them up properly.


=THE CONSIDERATE GUEST=

Courtesy demands that you, when you are a guest, shall show neither
annoyance nor disappointment--no matter what happens. Before you can hope
to become even a passable guest, let alone a perfect one, you must learn
as it were not to notice if hot soup is poured down your back. If you
neither understand nor care for dogs or children, and both insist on
climbing all over you, you must seemingly like it; just as you must be
amiable and polite to your fellow guests, even though they be of all the
people on earth the most detestable to you. You must with the very best
dissimulation at your command, appear to find the food delicious though
they offer you all of the viands that are especially distasteful to your
palate, or antagonistic to your digestion. You must disguise your hatred
of red ants and scrambled food, if everyone else is bent on a picnic. You
must pretend that six is a perfect dinner hour though you never dine
before eight, or, on the contrary, you must wait until eight-thirty or
nine with stoical fortitude, though your dinner hour is six and by seven
your chest seems securely pinned to your spine.

If you go for a drive, and it pours, and there is no top to the carriage
or car, and you are soaked to the skin and chilled to the marrow so that
your teeth chatter, your lips must smile and you must appear to enjoy the
refreshing coolness.

If you go to stay in a small house in the country, and they give you a bed
full of lumps, in a room of mosquitoes and flies, in a chamber over that
of a crying baby, under the eaves with a temperature of over a hundred,
you _can_ the next morning walk to the village, and send yourself a
telegram and leave! But though you feel starved, exhausted, wilted, and
are mosquito bitten until you resemble a well-developed case of chickenpox
or measles, by not so much as a facial muscle must you let the family know
that your comfort lacked anything that your happiest imagination could
picture--nor must you confide in any one afterwards (having broken bread
in the house) how desperately wretched you were.

If you know anyone who is always in demand, not only for dinners, but for
trips on private cars and yachts, and long visits in country houses, you
may be very sure of one thing: the popular person is first of all
unselfish or else extremely gifted; very often both.

The perfect guest not only tries to wear becoming clothes but tries to put
on an equally becoming mental attitude. No one is ever asked out very much
who is in the habit of telling people all the misfortunes and ailments she
has experienced or witnessed, though the perfect guest listens with
apparent sympathy to every one else's. Another attribute of the perfect
guest is never to keep people waiting. She is always ready for
anything--or nothing. If a plan is made to picnic, she likes picnics above
everything and proves her liking by enthusiastically making the sandwiches
or the salad dressing or whatever she thinks she makes best. If, on the
other hand, no one seems to want to do anything, the perfect guest has
always a book she is absorbed in, or a piece of sewing she is engrossed
with, or else beyond everything she would love to sit in an easy chair and
do nothing.

She never for one moment thinks of herself, but of the other people she is
thrown with. She is a person of sympathy always, and instantaneous
discernment. She is good tempered no matter what happens, and makes the
most of everything as it comes. At games she is a good loser, and a quiet
winner. She has a pleasant word, an amusing story, and agreeable comment
for most occasions, but she is neither gushing nor fulsome. She has merely
acquired a habit, born of many years of arduous practise, of turning
everything that looks like a dark cloud as quickly as possible for the
glimmer of a silver lining.

She is as sympathetic to children as to older people; she cuts out
wonderful paper dolls and soldier hats, always leisurely and easily as
though it cost neither time nor effort. She knows a hundred stories or
games, every baby and every dog goes to her on sight, not because she has
any especial talent, except that one she has cultivated, the talent of
interest in everyone and everything except herself. Few people know that
there is such a talent or that it can be cultivated.

She has more than mere beauty; she has infinite charm, and she is so well
born that she is charming to everyone. Her manner to a duke who happens to
be staying in the house is not a bit more courteous than her manner to the
kitchen-maid whom she chances to meet in the kitchen gardens whither she
has gone with the children to see the new kittens; as though new kittens
were the apex of all delectability!

She always calls the servants by name; always says "How do you do" when
she arrives, "Good morning" while there, and "Good-by" when she leaves.
And do they presume because of her "familiarity" when she remembers to ask
after the parlor-maid's mother and the butler's baby? They wait on her as
they wait on no one else who comes to the house--neither the Senator nor
the Governor, nor his Grace of Overthere!

This ideal guest is an equally ideal hostess; the principle of both is the
same. A ready smile, a quick sympathy, a happy outlook, consideration for
others, tenderness toward everything that is young or helpless, and
forgetfulness of self, which is not far from the ideal of womankind.


=THE GUEST ON A PRIVATE CAR OR YACHT=

The sole difference between being a guest at a country house and a guest
on a private car or a yacht, is that you put to a very severe test tour
adaptability as a traveler. You live in very close quarters with your host
and hostess and fellow guests, and must therefore be particularly on your
guard against being selfish or out of humor. If you are on shore and don't
feel well, you can stay home; but off on a cruise, if you are ill you have
to make the best of it, and a sea-sick person's "best" is very bad indeed!
Therefore let it be hoped you are a good sailor. If not, think very, very
carefully before you embark!




CHAPTER XXVI

THE HOUSE PARTY IN CAMP


"Roughing it" in the fashionable world (on the Atlantic coast) is rather
suggestive of the dairymaid playing of Marie Antoinette; the "rough" part
being mostly "picturesque effect" with little taste of actual discomfort.
Often, of course, the "roughing it" is real, especially west of the
Mississippi (and sometimes in the East too); so real that it has no place
in a book of etiquette at all. In the following picture of a fashionable
"camping party" it should perhaps be added, that not only the Worldlys but
most of the women really _think_ they are "roughing it."

At the same time there is nothing that a genuine dependent upon luxury
resents more than to be told he is dependent. It is he who has but newly
learned the comforts of living who protests his inability to endure
discomfort.

The very same people therefore who went a short time before to Great
Estates, women who arrived with their maids and luggage containing
personal equipment of amazing perfection and unlimited quantity (to say
nothing of jewels worth a king's ransom), and men who usually travel with
their own man-servants and every variety of raiment and paraphernalia, on
being invited to "rough it" with the Kindharts at Mountain Summit Camp,
are the very ones who most promptly and enthusiastically telegraph their
delighted acceptance. At a certain party a few years ago, the only person
who declined was a young woman of so little "position" that she was quite
offended that Mrs. Kindhart should suppose her able to endure discomfort
such as her invitation implied.

This year the Worldlys, the Normans, the Lovejoys, the "Bobo" Gildings,
the Littlehouses, Constance Style, Jim Smartlington and his bride, Clubwin
Doe and young Struthers make up the party. No one declined, not even the
Worldlys, though there is a fly in the amber of their perfect
satisfaction. Mrs. Kindhart wrote "not to bring a maid." Mrs. Worldly is
very much disturbed, because she cannot do her hair herself. Mr. Worldly
is even more perturbed at the thought of going without his valet. He has
never in the twenty years since he left college been twenty-four hours
away from Ernest. He knows perfectly well that Ernest is not expected. But
he means to take him--he will say nothing about it; he can surely find a
place for Ernest to stay somewhere.

The other men all look upon a holiday away from formality (which includes
valeting) as a relief, like the opening of a window in a stuffy room, and
none of the women except Mrs. Worldly would take her maid if she could.


=THE CLOTHES THEY TAKE=

The men all rummage in attics and trunk-rooms for those disreputable
looking articles of wearing apparel dear to all sportsmen; oil soaked
boots, water soaked and sun bleached woolen, corduroy, leather or canvas
garments and hats, each looking too shabby from their wives' (or valet's)
point of view to be offered to a tramp.

Every evening is spent in cleaning guns, rummaging for unprepossessing
treasures of shooting and fishing equipment. The women also give thought
to their wardrobes--consisting chiefly in a process of elimination.
Nothing perishable, nothing requiring a maid's help to get into, or to
take care of. Golf clothes are first choice, and any other old country
clothes, skirts and sweaters, and lots of plain shirt waists to go under
the sweaters. An old polo coat and a mackintosh is chosen by each. And for
evenings something "comfortable" and "easy to put on" in the way of a
house gown or ordinary summer "day dress." One or two decide to take tea
gowns in dark color and plainest variety.

All the women who sew or knit take something to "work on" in unoccupied
moments, such as the hours of sitting silent in a canoe while husbands
fish.

Finally the day arrives. Every one meets at the railroad station.
They are all as smart looking as can be, there is no sign of "rough"
clothes anywhere, though nothing in the least like a jewel case or parasol
is to be seen. At the end of somewhere between eight and eighteen hours,
they arrive at a shed which sits at the edge of the single track and is
labelled Dustville Junction, and hurrying down the narrow platform is
their host. Except that his face is clean shaven and his manners perfect,
he might be taken for a tramp. Three far from smart looking teams--two
buckboards and an express wagon--are standing near by. Kindhart welcomes
everyone with enthusiasm--except the now emerging Ernest. For once
Kindhart is nonplussed and he says to Worldly: "This isn't Newport, you
know--of course we can give him a bed somewhere, but this is really no
place for Ernest and there's nothing for him to do!"

Worldly, for the moment at a loss, explains lamely: "I thought he might be
useful--if you could find some corner for him to-night, then we can
see--that's all right, isn't it?"

Kindhart as host can't say anything further except to agree. Everyone is
bundled into the buckboards (except Ernest who goes on top of the luggage
in the express wagon), and a "corduroy" drive of six or eight miles
begins.


=WHAT THE CAMP IS LIKE=

Summit Camp is a collection of wooden shacks like a group of packing cases
dumped in a clearing among the pine trees at the edge of a mountain lake.
Those who have never been there before feel some misgivings, those who
have been there before remember with surprise that they _had_ liked the
place! The men alone are filled with enthusiasm. The only person who is
thoroughly apprehensive of the immediate future is Ernest.

In front of the largest of the shacks, Mrs. Kindhart, surrounded by dogs
and children, waves and hurries forward, beaming. Her enthusiasm is
contagious, the children look blooming. That the "hardship" is not
hurting them, is evident! And when the guests have seen the inside of the
camps most of them are actually as pleased as they look. The biggest
"shack" is a living-room, the one nearest is the dining camp, four or five
smaller ones are sleeping camps for guests and another is the Kindharts'
own.

The "living" camp is nothing but a single room about thirty feet wide and
forty feet long, with an open raftered roof for ceiling. It has windows on
four sides and a big porch built on the southeast corner. There is an
enormous open fireplace, and a floor good enough to dance on. The woodwork
is of rough lumber and has a single coat of leaf-green paint. The shelves
between the uprights are filled with books. All the new novels and
magazines are spread out on a long table. The room is furnished with
Navajo blankets, wicker furniture, steamer chairs, and hammocks are hung
across two of the corners. Two long divan sofas on either side of the
fireplace are the only upholstered pieces of furniture in the whole camp,
except the mattresses on the beds.

The guest camps are separate shacks, each one set back on a platform,
leaving a porch in front. Inside they vary in size; most have two, some
have four rooms, but each is merely one pointed-roofed space. The front
part has a fireplace and is furnished as a sitting-room, the rear half is
partitioned into two or more cubicles, like box-stalls, with partitions
about eight feet high and having regular doors. In each of the single
rooms, there is a bed, bureau, washstand, chair, and two shelves about six
or seven feet high, with a calico curtain nailed to the top one and
hanging to the floor, making a hat shelf and clothes closet. The few
"double" rooms are twice the size and have all furniture in duplicate.
There is also a matting or a rag rug on the floor, and that is all!

Each cottage has a bathroom but the hot water supply seems complicated. A
sign says your guide will bring it to you when needed. Mrs. Worldly,
feeling vaguely uncomfortable and hungry, is firmly determined to go home
on the next morning train. Before she has had much time to reflect, Mrs.
Kindhart reports that lunch is nearly ready. Guides come with canisters of
hot water, and everyone goes to dress. Town clothes disappear, and woods
clothes emerge. This by no means makes a dowdy picture. Good sport clothes
never look so well or becoming as when long use has given them an
"accustomed set" characteristic of their wearer. The men put on their
oldest country clothes too. Not their fishing "treasures" to sit at table
with ladies! The treasured articles go on in the early dawn, and the
guides are the only humans (except themselves) supposed worthy to behold
them!

Presently a gong is sounded. The Kindhart children run to the guest houses
to call out that "the gong means dinner is ready!" And "dinner" means
lunch.


=DINING-ROOM DETAILS=

In a short while the very group of people who only ten days before were
being shown to their places in the Worldlys' own tapestry-hung marble
dining-room at Great Estates by a dozen footmen in satin knee breeches,
file into the "dining camp" and take their places at a long pine table,
painted turkey red, on ordinary wooden kitchen chairs, also red! The
floral decoration is of laurel leaves in vases made of preserve jars
covered with birch bark. Glass and china is of the cheapest. But there are
a long centerpiece of hemstitched crash and crash doilies, and there are
"real" napkins, and at each plate a birch bark napkin ring with a number
on it. Mrs. Worldly looks at her napkin ring as though it were an insect.
One or two of the others who have not been there before, look mildly
surprised.

Mrs. Kindhart smiles, "I'm sorry, but I told you it was 'roughing it.' Any
one who prefers innumerable paper napkins to using a washed one twice, is
welcome. But one napkin a day apiece is camp rule!" Mrs. Worldly tries to
look amiable, all the rest succeed.

The food is limited in variety but delicious. There are fresh trout from
the lake and venison steak; both well cooked in every way that can be
devised appear at every meal. All other supplies come in hampers from the
city. The head cook is the Kindharts' own, and so is the butler, with one
of the chauffeurs (when home) to help him wait on table. They wear
"liveries," evolved by Mrs. Kindhart, of gray flannel trousers, green
flannel blazers, very light gray flannel shirts, black ties, and
moccasins!

The table service, since there are only two to wait on twenty including
the children, is necessarily somewhat "farmer style"; ice, tea, rolls,
butter, marmalade, cake, fruit, are all on the table, so that people may
help themselves.


=THE AMUSEMENTS OFFERED=

After luncheon Kindhart points out a dozen guides who are waiting at the
boat-house to take anyone who wants to be paddled or to sail or to go out
into the woods. There is a small swimming pool which can be warmed
artificially. Those who like it cold swim in the lake. All the men
disappear in groups or singly with a guide. The women go with their
husbands, or two together, with a guide. Should any not want to go out,
she can take to one of the hammocks, or a divan in the living-room, and a
book.

At first sight, this hospitality seems inadequate, but its discomfort is
one of outward appearance only. The food is abundant and delicious,
whether cooked in the house or by the guides in the woods. The beds are
comfortable; there are plenty of warm and good quality, though not white,
blankets. Sheets are flannel or cotton as preferred. Pillow cases are
linen, towels of the "bath" variety because washing can be done by
"natives" near by, but ironing is difficult. Let no one, however, think
that this is a "simple" (by that meaning either easy or inexpensive) form
of entertainment! Imagine the budget! A dozen guides, teams and drivers,
natives to wash and clean and to help the cook; food for two or three
dozen people sent hundreds of miles by express!

It is true that the buildings are of the most primitive, and the
furnishings, too. The bureau drawers do stick, and there is only
"curtained" closet room, and mirrors are few and diminutive, and orders
for hot water have to be given ahead of time, but there is no discomfort,
except bathing in the cold! The huge fire, lighted early every morning by
one of the guides in each guest house, keeps the main part fairly warm but
the temperature of one of the bathrooms on a cold morning is scarcely
welcoming.


=CAMP MANNERS=

People do not "dress" for dinner, that is, not in evening clothes. After
coming in from walking or shooting or fishing, if it is warm they swim in
the pool or have their guides bring them hot water for a bath. Women
change into house gowns of some sort. Men put on flannel trousers, soft
shirts, and flannel or serge sack coats.

In the evening, if it is a beautiful night, every one sits on steamer
chairs wrapt in rugs around the big fire built out doors in front of a
sort of penthouse or windbreak. Or if it is stormy, they sit in front of a
fire, almost as big, in the living-room. Sometimes younger ones pop corn
or roast chestnuts, or perhaps make taffy. Perhaps some one tells a story,
or some one plays and everyone sings. Perhaps one who has "parlor tricks"
amuses the others--but as a rule those who have been all day in the open
are tired and drowsy and want nothing but to stretch out for a while in
front of the big fire and then turn in.

The etiquette of this sort of a party is so apparently lacking that its
inclusion perhaps seems out of place. But it is meant merely as a
"picture" of a phase of fashionable life that is not much exploited, and
to show that well-bred people never deteriorate in manner. Their behavior
is precisely the same whether at Great Estates or in camp. A gentleman may
be in his shirt sleeves actually, but he never gets into shirt sleeves
mentally--he has no inclination to.

To be sure, on the particular party described above, Mrs. Worldly wore a
squirrel fur cap in the evening as well as the daytime; she said it was
because it was so warm and comfortable. It was really because she could
not do her hair!

Perhaps some one asks about Ernest? At the end of two days of aloof and
distasteful idleness, Ernest became quite a human being; invaluable as
baiter of worms for the children's fish-hooks, as extra butler, and did
not scorn even temporary experiments as kitchen-maid. In fact, he proved
the half-hearted recommendation that he "might be useful" so thoroughly
that the first person of all to be especially invited for next year and
future years, was--exactly--Ernest.




CHAPTER XXVII

NOTES AND SHORTER LETTERS


In writing notes or letters, as in all other forms of social observance,
the highest achievement is in giving the appearance of simplicity,
naturalness and force.

Those who use long periods of flowered prolixity and pretentious
phrases--who write in complicated form with meaningless flourishes, do not
make an impression of elegance and erudition upon their readers, but
flaunt instead unmistakable evidence of vainglory and ignorance.

The letter you write, whether you realize it or not, is always a mirror
which reflects your appearance, taste and character. A "sloppy" letter
with the writing all pouring into one corner of the page, badly worded,
badly spelled, and with unmatched paper and envelope--even possibly a
blot--proclaims the sort of person who would have unkempt hair, unclean
linen and broken shoe laces; just as a neat, precise, evenly written note
portrays a person of like characteristics. Therefore, while it can not be
said with literal accuracy that one may read the future of a person by
study of his handwriting, it is true that if a young man wishes to choose
a wife in whose daily life he is sure always to find the unfinished task,
the untidy mind and the syncopated housekeeping, he may do it quite simply
by selecting her from her letters.


=HOW TO IMPROVE A LETTER'S APPEARANCE=

Some people are fortunate in being able easily to make graceful letters,
to space their words evenly, and to put them on a page so that the picture
is pleasing; others are discouraged at the outset because their fingers
are clumsy, and their efforts crude; but no matter how badly formed each
individual letter may be, if the writing is consistent throughout, the
page as a whole looks fairly well.

You can _make_ yourself write neatly and legibly. You can (with the help
of a dictionary if necessary) spell correctly; you can be sure that you
understand the meaning of every word you use. If it is hard for you to
write in a straight line, use the lined guide that comes with nearly all
stationery; if impossible to keep an even margin, draw a perpendicular
line at the left of the guide so that you can start each new line of
writing on it. You can also make a guide to slip under the envelope. Far
better to use a guide than to send envelopes and pages of writing that
slide up hill and down, in uncontrolled disorder.

[Illustration: FACSIMILES, REDUCED IN SIZE, OF LETTER AND ENVELOPE GUIDES]


=CHOICE OF WRITING PAPER=

Suitability should be considered in choosing note paper, as well as in
choosing a piece of furniture for a house. For a handwriting which is
habitually large, a larger sized paper should be chosen than for writing
which is small. The shape of paper should also depend somewhat upon the
spacing of the lines which is typical of the writer, and whether a wide or
narrow margin is used. Low, spread-out writing looks better on a square
sheet of paper; tall, pointed writing looks better on paper that is high
and narrow. Selection of paper whether rough or smooth is entirely a
matter of personal choice--so that the quality be good, and the shape and
color conservative.

Paper should never be ruled, or highly scented, or odd in shape, or have
elaborate or striking ornamentation. Some people use smaller paper for
notes, or correspondence cards, cut to the size of the envelopes. Others
use the same size for all correspondence and leave a wider margin in
writing notes.

The flap of the envelope should be plain and the point not unduly long. If
the flap is square instead of being pointed, it may be allowed greater
length without being eccentric. Colored linings to envelopes are at
present in fashion. Thin white paper, with monogram or address stamped in
gray to match gray tissue lining of the envelope is, for instance, in very
best taste. Young girls may be allowed quite gay envelope linings, but the
device on the paper must be minute, in proportion to the gaiety of the
color.

[Illustrations: GOOD TASTE GOOD TASTE GOOD TASTE BAD TASTE BAD TASTE]

Writing paper for a man should always be strictly conservative. Plain
white or gray or granite paper, large in size and stamped in the simplest
manner. The size should be 5-3/4 x 7-1/2 or 6 x 8 or 5-1/8 x 8-1/8 or
thereabouts.

A paper suitable for the use of all the members of a family has the
address stamped in black or dark color, in plain letters at the top of the
first page. More often than not the telephone number is put in very small
letters under that of the address, a great convenience in the present day
of telephoning. For example:

       350 PARK AVENUE
    TELEPHONE 7572 PLAZA


=DEVICES FOR STAMPING=

As there is no such thing as heraldry in America, the use of a coat of
arms is as much a foreign custom as the speaking of a foreign tongue; but
in certain communities where old families have used their crests
continuously since the days when they brought their device--and their
right to it--from Europe, the use of it is suitable and proper. The sight
of this or that crest on a carriage or automobile in New York or Boston
announces to all those who have lived their lives in either city that the
vehicle belongs to a member of this or that family. But for some one
without an inherited right to select a lion _rampant_ or a stag _couchant_
because he thinks it looks stylish, is as though, for the same reason, he
changed his name from Muggins to Marmaduke, and quite properly subjects
him to ridicule. (Strictly speaking, a woman has the right to use a
"lozenge" only; since in heraldic days women did not bear arms, but no one
in this country follows heraldic rule to this extent.)


=THE PERSONAL DEVICE=

It is occasionally the fancy of artists or young girls to adopt some
especial symbol associated with themselves. The "butterfly" of Whistler
for instance is as well-known as his name. A painter of marines has the
small outline of a ship stamped on his writing paper, and a New York
architect the capital of an Ionic column. A generation ago young women
used to fancy such an intriguing symbol as a mask, a sphinx, a question
mark, or their own names, if their names were such as could be pictured.
There can be no objection to one's appropriation of such an emblem if one
fancies it. But Lilly, Belle, Dolly and Kitten are Lillian, Isabel,
Dorothy and Katherine in these days, and appropriate hall-marks are not
easily found.


=COUNTRY HOUSE STATIONERY: FOR A BIG HOUSE=

In selecting paper for a country house we go back to the subject of
suitability. A big house in important grounds should have very plain, very
dignified letter paper. It may be white or tinted blue or gray. The name
of the place should be engraved, in the center usually, at the top of the
first page. It may be placed left, or right, as preferred. Slanting across
the upper corners or in a list at the upper left side, may be put as many
addresses as necessary. Many persons use a whole row of small devices in
outline, the engine of a train and beside it Ardmoor, meaning that Ardmoor
is the railroad station. A telegraph pole, an envelope, a telephone
instrument--and beside each an address. These devices are suitable for all
places, whether they are great or tiny, that have different addresses for
railroad, post-office, telephone telegraph.

[Illustration: (train) Stirlington, New York]

[Illustration: (telegraph pole and envelopes) Ringwood, New Jersey]

[Illustration: (telephone) Sloatsburg, Seven-three-two]


_For the Little House_

On the other hand, farmhouses and little places in the country may have
very bright-colored stamping, as well as gay-lined envelopes. Places with
easily illustrated names quite often have them pictured; the "Bird-cage,"
for instance, may have a bright blue paper with a bird-cage in supposed
red lacquer; the "Bandbox," a fantastically decorated milliner's box on
oyster gray paper, the envelope lining of black and gray pin stripes, and
the "Doll's House" might use the outline of a doll's house in grass green
on green-bordered white paper, and white envelopes lined with grass green.
Each of these devices must be as small as the outline of a cherry pit and
the paper of the smallest size that comes. (Envelopes 3-1/2 x 5 inches or
paper 4 x 6 and envelopes the same size to hold paper without folding.)

[Illustration: (three envelope corners with logos)]

It is foolish perhaps to give the description of such papers, for their
fashion is but of the moment. A jeweler from Paris has been responsible
for their present vogue in New York, and his clientele is only among the
young and smart. Older and more conservative women (and, of course, all
men) keep to the plain fashion of yesterday, which will just as surely be
the fashion of to-morrow.


=MOURNING PAPER=

Persons who are in mourning use black-edged visiting cards, letter paper
and envelopes. The depth of black corresponds with the depth of mourning
and the closeness of relation to the one who has gone, the width
decreasing as one's mourning lightens. The width of black to use is a
matter of personal taste and feeling. A very heavy border (from 3/8 to
7/16 of an inch) announces the deepest retirement.


=DATING A LETTER=

Usually the date is put at the upper right hand of the first page of a
letter, or at the end, and to the left of the signature, of a note. It is
far less confusing for one's correspondent to read January 9, 1920, than
1-9-20. Theoretically, one should write out the date in full: the ninth of
January, Nineteen hundred and twenty-one. That, however, is the height of
pedantry, and an unswallowable mouthful at the top of any page not a
document.

At the end of a note "Thursday" is sufficient unless the note is an
invitation for more than a week ahead, in which case write as in a letter,
"January 9" or "the ninth of January." The year is not necessary since it
can hardly be supposed to take a year for a letter's transportation.


=SEQUENCE OF PAGES=

If a note is longer than one page, the third page is usually next, as this
leaves the fourth blank and prevents the writing from showing through the
envelope. With heavy or tissue-lined envelopes, the fourth is used as
often as the third. In letters one may write first, second, third, fourth,
in regular order; or first and fourth, then, opening the sheet and turning
it sideways, write across the two inside pages as one. Many prefer to
write on first, third, then sideways across second and fourth. In certain
cities--Boston, for instance--the last word on a page is repeated at the
top of the next. It is undoubtedly a good idea, but makes a stuttering
impression upon one not accustomed to it.


=FOLDING A NOTE=

As to whether a letter is folded in such a way that the recipient shall
read the contents without having to turn the paper, is giving too much
importance to nothing. It is sufficient if the paper is folded _neatly_,
once, of course, for the envelope that is half the length of the paper,
and twice for the envelope that is a third.


=SEALING WAX=

If you use sealing wax, let us hope you are an adept at making an even and
smoothly finished seal. Choose a plain-colored wax rather than one
speckled with metal. With the sort of paper described for country houses,
or for young people, or those living in studios or bungalows, gay sealing
wax may be quite alluring, especially if it can be persuaded to pour
smoothly like liquid, and not to look like a streaked and broken off slice
of dough. In days when envelopes were unknown, all letters had to be
sealed, hence when envelopes were made, the idea obtained that it was
improper to use both gum-arabic and wax. Strictly speaking this may be
true, but since all envelopes have mucilage, it would be unreasonable to
demand that those who like to use sealing wax have their envelopes made to
order.


=FORM OF ADDRESS=

The most formal beginning of a social letter is "My dear Mrs. Smith." (The
fact that in England "Dear Mrs. Smith" is more formal does not greatly
concern us in America.) "Dear Mrs. Smith," "Dear Sarah," "Dear Sally,"
"Sally dear," "Dearest Sally," "Darling Sally," are increasingly intimate.

Business letters begin:

    Smith, Johnson & Co.,
    20 Broadway,
    New York.

    Dear Sirs:

Or if more personal:

    John Smith & Co.,
    20 Broadway,
    New York.

    My Dear Mr. Smith:


=THE COMPLIMENTARY CLOSE=

The close of a business letter should be "Yours truly," or "Yours very
truly." "Respectfully" is used only by a tradesman to a customer, an
employee to an employer, or by an inferior, never by a person of equal
position. No lady should ever sign a letter "respectfully," not even were
she writing to a queen. If an American lady should have occasion to write
to a queen, she should conclude her letter "I have the honor to remain,
Madam, your most obedient." (For address and close of letters to persons
of title, see table at the end of this chapter.)


=CLOSE OF PERSONAL NOTES AND LETTERS=

It is too bad that the English language does not permit the charming and
graceful closing of all letters in the French manner, those little flowers
of compliment that leave such a pleasant fragrance after reading. But
ever since the Eighteenth Century the English-speaking have been busy
pruning away all ornament of expression; even the last remaining graces,
"kindest regards," "with kindest remembrances," are fast disappearing,
leaving us nothing but an abrupt "Yours truly," or "Sincerely yours."


_Closing a Formal Note_

The best ending to a formal social note is, "Sincerely," "Sincerely
yours," "Very sincerely," "Very sincerely yours," "Yours always
sincerely," or "Always sincerely yours."

"I remain, dear madam," is no longer in use, but "Believe me" is still
correct when formality is to be expressed in the close of a note.

    Believe me
    Very sincerely yours,

or

    Believe me, my dear Mrs. Worldly,
    Most sincerely yours,

This last is an English form, but it is used by quite a number of
Americans--particularly those who have been much abroad.


_Appropriate for a Man_

"Faithfully" or "Faithfully yours" is a very good signature for a man in
writing to a woman, or in any uncommercial correspondence, such as a
letter to the President of the United States, a member of the Cabinet, an
Ambassador, a clergyman, etc.


_The Intimate Closing_

"Affectionately yours," "Always affectionately," "Affectionately,"
"Devotedly," "Lovingly," "Your loving" are in increasing scale of
intimacy.

"Lovingly" is much more intimate than "Affectionately" and so is
"Devotedly."

"Sincerely" in formal notes and "Affectionately" in intimate notes are the
two adverbs most used in the present day, and between these two there is a
blank; in English we have no expression to fit sentiment more friendly
than the first nor one less intimate than the second.


_Not Good Form_

"Cordially" was coined no doubt to fill this need, but its
self-consciousness puts it in the category with "residence" and "retire,"
and all the other offenses of pretentiousness, and in New York, at least,
it is not used by people of taste.

"Warmly yours" is unspeakable.

"Yours in haste" or "Hastily yours" is not bad form, but is rather
carelessly rude.

"In a tearing hurry" is a termination dear to the boarding school girl;
but its truth does not make it any more attractive than the vision of that
same young girl rushing into a room with her hat and coat half on, to
swoop upon her mother with a peck of a kiss, and with a "--by, mamma!"
whirl out again! Turmoil and flurry may be characteristic of the manners
of to-day; both are far from the ideal of beautiful manners which should
be as assured, as smooth, as controlled as the running of a high-grade
automobile. Flea-like motions are no better suited to manners than to
motors.


_Other Endings_

"Gratefully" is used only when a benefit has been received, as to a lawyer
who has skilfully handled a case; to a surgeon who has saved a life dear
to you; to a friend who has been put to unusual trouble to do you a favor.

In an ordinary letter of thanks, the signature is "Sincerely,"
"Affectionately," "Devotedly"--as the case may be.

The phrases that a man might devise to close a letter to his betrothed or
his wife are bound only by the limit of his imagination and do not belong
in this, or any, book.


=THE SIGNATURE=

Abroad, the higher the rank, the shorter the name. A duke, for instance,
signs himself "Marlborough," nothing else, and a queen her first name
"Victoria." The social world in Europe, therefore, laughs at us for using
our whole names, or worse yet, inserting meaningless initials in our
signatures. Etiquette in accord with Europe also objects strenuously to
initials and demands that names be always engraved, and, if possible,
written in full, but only very correct people strictly observe this rule.

In Europe all persons have so many names given them in baptism that they
are forced, naturally, to lay most of them aside, selecting one, or at
most two, for use. In America, the names bestowed at baptism become
inseparably part of each individual, so that if the name is overlong, a
string of initials is the inevitable result.

Since, in America, it is not customary for a man to discard any of his
names, and John Hunter Titherington Smith is far too much of a pen-full
for the one who signs thousands of letters and documents, it is small
wonder that he chooses J.H.T. Smith, instead, or perhaps, at the end of
personal letters, John H.T. Smith. Why shouldn't he? It is, after all, his
own name to sign as he chooses, and in addressing him deference to his
choice should be shown.

A married woman should always sign a letter to a stranger, a bank,
business firm, etc., with her baptismal name, and add, in parenthesis, her
married name. Thus:

    Very truly yours,
    Sarah Robinson Smith.
    (Mrs. J.H. Titherington Smith.)

Never under any circumstances sign a letter "Mr.", "Mrs.", or "Miss"
(except a note written in the third person). If, in the example above,
Sarah Robinson Smith were "Miss" she would put "Miss" in parenthesis to
the left of her signature:

(Miss) Sarah Robinson Smith.


=THE SUPERSCRIPTION=

Formal invitations are always addressed to Mr. Stanley Smith; all other
personal letters may be addressed to Stanley Smith, Esq. The title of
Esquire formerly was used to denote the eldest son of a knight or members
of a younger branch of a noble house. Later all graduates of universities,
professional and literary men, and important landholders were given the
right to this title, which even to-day denotes a man of education--a
gentleman. John Smith, esquire, is John Smith, gentleman. Mr. John Smith
may be a gentleman; or may not be one. And yet, as noted above, all
engraved invitations are addressed "Mr."

Never under any circumstances address a social letter or note to a married
woman, even if she is a widow, as Mrs. Mary Town. A widow is still Mrs.
James Town. If her son's wife should have the same name, she becomes Mrs.
James Town, Sr., or simply Mrs. Town.

A divorced woman, if she was the innocent person, retains the right if she
chooses, to call herself Mrs. John Brown Smith, but usually she prefers to
take her own surname. Supposing her to have been Mary Simpson, she calls
herself Mrs. Simpson Smith. If a lady is the wife or widow of "the head of
a family" she may call herself Mrs. Smith, even on visiting cards and
invitations.

The eldest daughter is Miss Smith; her younger sister, Miss Jane Smith.

Invitations to children are addressed, Miss Katherine Smith and Master
Robert Smith.

Do not write "The Messrs. Brown" in addressing a father and son. "The
Messrs. Brown" is correct only for unmarried brothers.

Although one occasionally sees an envelope addressed to "Mr. and Mrs.
Jones," and "Miss Jones" written underneath the names of her parents, it
is better form to send a separate invitation addressed to Miss Jones
alone. A wedding invitation addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Jones and family is
not in good taste. Even if the Jones children are young, the Misses Jones
should receive a separate envelope, and so should Master Jones.


=ONE LAST REMARK=

Write the name and address on the envelope as precisely and as legibly as
you can. The post-office has enough to do in deciphering the letters of
the illiterate, without being asked to do unnecessary work for you!


=BUSINESS LETTERS=

Business letters written by a private individual differ very little from
those sent out from a business house. A lady never says "Yours of the 6th
received and contents noted," or "Yours to hand," nor does she address the
firm as "Gentlemen," nor does she _ever_ sign herself "Respectfully." A
business letter should be as brief and explicit as possible. For example:

                  Tuxedo Park
                   New York
                                  May 17, 1922

    I. Paint & Co.,
      22 Branch St.,
          New York.

    Dear Sirs:

    Your estimate for painting my dining-room, library, south
    bedroom, and dressing-room is satisfactory, and you may proceed
    with the work as soon as possible.

    I find, on the other hand, that wainscoting the hall comes to
    more than I had anticipated, and I have decided to leave it as it
    is for the present.

            Very truly yours,
               C.R. Town.
    (Mrs. James Town)


=THE SOCIAL NOTE=

There should be no more difficulty in writing a social note than in
writing a business letter; each has a specific message for its sole object
and the principle of construction is the same:

                                                 * Date
    Address (on business letter only)

    Salutation:

    The statement of whatever is the purpose of the note.

                        Complimentary close,
                                          Signature.
    * Or date here

The difference in form between a business and a social note is that the
full name and address of the person written to is never put in the latter,
better quality stationery is used, and the salutation is "My dear ----" or
"Dear ----" instead of "Dear Sir:"

Example:

                          350 Park Avenue

    Dear Mrs. Robinson:

    I am enclosing the list I promised you--Luberge makes the most
    beautiful things. Mower, the dressmaker, has for years made
    clothes for me, and I think Revaud the best milliner in Paris.
    Leonie is a "little milliner" who often has pretty blouses as
    well as hats and is very reasonable.

    I do hope the addresses will be of some use to you, and that you
    will have a delightful trip,

                               Very sincerely,
                                    Martha Kindhart.

    Thursday.


=THE NOTE OF APOLOGY=

Examples:


=I=

                          BROADLAWNS

    Dear Mrs. Town:

    I do deeply apologize for my seeming rudeness in having to send
    the message about Monday night.

    When I accepted your invitation, I stupidly forgot entirely that
    Monday was a holiday and that all of my own guests, naturally,
    were not leaving until Tuesday morning, and Arthur and I could
    not therefore go out by ourselves and leave them!

    We were too disappointed and hope that you know how sorry we were
    not to be with you.

                       Very sincerely,
                               Ethel Norman.
    Tuesday morning.


=II=

    Dear Mrs. Neighbor:

    My gardener has just told me that our chickens got into your
    flower beds, and did a great deal of damage.

    The chicken netting is being built higher at this moment and they
    will not be able to damage anything again. I shall, of course,
    send Patrick to put in shrubs to replace those broken, although
    I know that ones newly planted cannot compensate for those you
    have lost, and I can only ask you to accept my contrite
    apologies.

    Always sincerely yours,
          Katherine de Puyster Eminent.


=LETTERS OF THANKS=

In the following examples of letters intimate and from young persons, such
profuse expressions as "divine," "awfully," "petrified," "too sweet," "too
wonderful," are purposely inserted, because to change all of the above
enthusiasms into "pleased with," "very," "feared," "most kind," would be
to change the vitality of the "real" letters into smug and self-conscious
utterances at variance with anything ever written by young men and women
of to-day. Even the letters of older persons, although they are more
restrained than those of youth, avoid anything suggesting pedantry and
affectation.

Do not from this suppose that well-bred people write badly! On the
contrary, perfect simplicity and freedom from self-consciousness are
possible only to those who have acquired at least some degree of
cultivation. For flagrant examples of pretentiousness (which is the
infallible sign of lack of breeding), see page 61. For simplicity of
expression, such as is unattainable to the rest of us, but which we can at
least strive to emulate, read first the Bible; then at random one might
suggest such authors as Robert Louis Stevenson, E.S. Martin, Agnes
Repplier, John Galsworthy and Max Beerbohm. E.V. Lucas has written two
novels in letter form--which illustrate the best type of present day
letter-writing.


=LETTERS OF THANKS FOR WEDDING PRESENTS=

Although all wedding presents belong to the bride, she generally words her
letters of thanks as though they belonged equally to the groom, especially
if they have been sent by particular friends of his.


_To Intimate Friends of the Groom_


    Dear Mrs. Norman:

    To think of your sending us all this wonderful glass! It is
    simply divine, and Jim and I both thank you a thousand times!

    The presents are, of course, to be shown on the day of the
    wedding, but do come in on Tuesday at tea time for an earlier
    view.

    Thanking you again, and with love from us both,

    Affectionately,
    Mary.


_Formal_

=I=


    Dear Mrs. Gilding:

    It was more than sweet of you and Mr. Gilding to send us such a
    lovely clock. Thank you, very, very much.

    Looking forward to seeing you on the tenth,

    Very sincerely,
          Mary Smith.

Sometimes, as in the two examples above, thanks to the husband are
definitely expressed in writing to the wife. Usually, however, "you" is
understood to mean "you both."


=II=

    Dear Mrs. Worldly:

    All my life I have wanted a piece of jade, but in my wanting I
    have never imagined one quite so beautiful as the one you have
    sent me. It was wonderfully sweet of you and I thank you more
    than I can tell you for the pleasure you have given me.

    Affectionately,
    Mary Smith.


=III.=

    Dear Mrs. Eminent:

    Thank you for these wonderful prints. They go too beautifully
    with some old English ones that Jim's uncle sent us, and our
    dining-room will be quite perfect--as to walls!

    Hoping that you are surely coming to the wedding,

    Very sincerely,
           Mary Smith.


_To a Friend Who Is in Deep Mourning_

    Dear Susan:

    With all you have on your heart just now, it was so sweet and
    thoughtful of you to go out and buy me a present, and such a
    beautiful one! I love it--and your thought of me in sending
    it--and I thank you more than I can tell you.

    Devotedly,
    Mary.


_Very Intimate_

    Dear Aunt Kate:

    Really you are too generous--it is outrageous of you--but, of
    course, it _is_ the most beautiful bracelet! And I am so
    excited oven it, I hardly know what I am doing. You are too good
    to me and you spoil me, but I do love you, and it, and thank you
    with all my heart.

    Mary.


_Intimate_


    Dear Mrs. Neighbor:

    The tea cloth is perfectly exquisite! I have never _seen_ such
    beautiful work! I appreciate your lovely gift more than I can
    tell you, both for its own sake and for your kindness in making
    it for me.

    Don't forget, you are coming in on Tuesday afternoon to see the
    presents.

    Lovingly,
    Mary.

Sometimes pushing people send presents, when they are not asked to the
wedding, in the hope of an invitation. Sometimes others send presents,
when they are not asked, merely through kindly feeling toward a young
couple on the threshold of life. It ought not to be difficult to
distinguish between the two.


=I=


    My Dear Mrs. Upstart:

    Thank you for the very handsome candlesticks you sent us. They
    were a great surprize, but it was more than kind of you to think
    of us.

    Very sincerely,
    Mary Smith.


=II=


    Dear Mrs. Kindly:

    I can't tell you how sweet I think it of you to send us such a
    lovely present, and Jim and I both hope that when we are in our
    own home, you will see them often at our table.

    Thanking you many times for your thought of us,

    Very sincerely,
    Mary Smith.


_For a Present Sent After the Wedding_

    Dear Mrs. Chatterton:

    The mirror you sent us is going over our drawing-room mantel just
    as soon as we can hang it up! It is exactly what we most needed
    and we both thank you ever so much.

    Please come in soon to see how becoming it will be to the room.

    Yours affectionately,
            Mary Smith Smartlington.


=THANKS FOR CHRISTMAS OR OTHER PRESENTS=

    Dear Lucy:

    I really think it was adorable of you to have a chair like yours
    made for me. It was worth adding a year to my age for such a nice
    birthday present. Jack says I am never going to have a chance to
    sit in it, however, if he gets there first, and even the children
    look at it with longing. At all events, I am perfectly enchanted
    with it, and thank you ever and ever so much.

                               Affectionately,
                                       Sally.



    Dear Uncle Arthur:

    I know I oughtn't to have opened it until Christmas, but I
    couldn't resist the look of the package, and then putting it on
    at once! So I am all dressed up in your beautiful chain. It is
    one of the loveliest things I have ever seen and I certainly am
    lucky to have it given to me I Thank you a thousand--and then
    more--times for it.

                                           Rosalie.


    Dear Kate:

    I am fascinated with my utility box--it is too beguiling for
    words! You are the cleverest one anyway for finding what no one
    else can--and every one wants. I don't know how you do it! And
    you certainly were sweet to think of me. Thank you, dear.

    Ethel.


=THANKS FOR PRESENT TO A BABY=

    Dear Mrs. Kindhart:

    Of course it would be! Because no one else can sew like you! The
    sacque you made the baby is the prettiest thing I have ever seen,
    and is perfectly adorable on her! Thank you, as usual, you dear
    Mrs. Kindhart, for your goodness to

                               Your affectionate,
                                        Sally.



    Dear Mrs. Norman:

    Thank you ever so much for the lovely afghan you sent the baby.
    It is by far the prettiest one he has; it is so soft and
    close--he doesn't get his fingers tangled in it.

    Do come in and see him, won't you? We are both allowed visitors
    (especial ones) every day between 4 and 5.30!

    Affectionately always,
                Lucy.


=THE BREAD AND BUTTER LETTER=

When you have been staying over Sunday, or for longer, in some one's
house, it is absolutely necessary that you write a letter of thanks to
your hostess within a few days after the visit.

"Bread and butter letters," as they are called, are the stumbling-blocks
of visitors. Why they are so difficult for nearly every one is hard to
determine, unless it is that they are often written to persons with whom
you are on formal terms, and the letter should be somewhat informal in
tone. Very likely you have been visiting a friend, and must write to her
mother, whom you scarcely know; perhaps you have been included in a large
and rather formal house party and the hostess is an acquaintance rather
than a friend; or perhaps you are a bride and have been on a first visit
to relatives or old friends of your husband's, but strangers, until now,
to you.

As an example of the first, where you have been visiting a girl friend and
must write a letter to her mother, you begin "Dear Mrs. Town" at the top
of a page, and nothing in the forbidding memory of Mrs. Town encourages
you to go further. It would be easy enough to write to Pauline, the
daughter. Very well, write to Pauline then--on an odd piece of paper, in
pencil, what a good time you had, how nice it was to be with her. Then
copy your note composed to Pauline off on the page beginning "Dear Mrs.
Town." You have only to add, "love to Pauline, and thanking you again for
asking me," sign it "Very sincerely," and there you are!

Don't be afraid that your note is too informal; older people are always
pleased with any expressions from the young that seem friendly and
spontaneous. Never think, because you can not easily write a letter, that
it is better not to write at all. The most awkward note that can be
imagined is better than none--for to write none is the depth of rudeness,
whereas the awkward note merely fails to delight.


=EXAMPLES=

_From a Young Woman to a Formal Hostess After a House Party_

    Dear Mrs. Norman:

    I don't know when I ever had such a good time as I did at
    Broadlawns. Thank you a thousand times for asking me. As it
    happened, the first persons I saw on Monday at the Towns' dinner
    were Celia and Donald. We immediately had a threesome
    conversation on the wonderful time we all had over Sunday.

    Thanking you again for your kindness to me,

    Very sincerely yours,
    Grace Smalltalk.


_To a Formal Hostess After an Especially Amusing Week-End_

    Dear Mrs. Worldly:

    Every moment at Great Estates was a perfect delight! I am afraid
    my work at the office this morning was down to zero in
    efficiency; so perhaps it is just as well, if I am to keep my
    job, that the average week-end in the country is different--very.
    Thank you all the same, for the wonderful time you gave us all,
    and believe me

                                    Faithfully yours,
                                         Frederick Bachelor.

    Dear Mrs. Worldly:

    Every time I come from Great Estates, I realize again that there
    is no house to which I always go with so much pleasure, and leave
    on Monday morning with so much regret.

    Your party over this last week-end was simply wonderful! And
    thank you ever so much for having included me.

    Always sincerely,
    Constance Style.


_From a Young Couple_

    Dear Mrs. Town:

    We had a perfect time at Tuxedo over Sunday and it was so good of
    you to include us. Jack says he is going to practise putting the
    way Mr. Town showed him, and maybe the next time he plays in a
    foursome he won't be such a handicap to his partner.

    Thanking you both for the pleasure you gave us,

    Affectionately yours,
        Sally Titherington Littlehouse


_From a Bride to Her New Relatives-in-Law_

A letter that was written by a bride after paying a first visit to her
husband's aunt and uncle won for her at a stroke the love of the whole
family.

This is the letter:

    Dear "Aunt Annie":

    Now that it is all over, I have a confession to make! Do you know
    that when Dick drove me up to your front door and I saw you and
    Uncle Bob standing on the top step--I was simply _paralyzed_ with
    fright!

    "Suppose they don't like me," was all that I could think. Of
    course, I knew you loved Dick--but that only made it worse. How
    awful, if you _couldn't_ like me! The reason I stumbled coming up
    the steps was because my knees were actually knocking together!
    You remember, Uncle Bob sang out it was good I was already
    married, or I wouldn't be this year? And then--you were both so
    perfectly adorable to me--and you made me feel as though I had
    always been your niece--and not just the wife of your nephew.

    I loved every minute of our being with you, dear Aunt Annie, just
    as much as Dick did, and we hope you are going to let us come
    soon again.

    With best love from us both,

    Your affectionate niece,
                   Helen.

The above type of letter would not serve perhaps if Dick's aunt had been a
forbidding and austere type of woman; but even such a one would be far
more apt to take a new niece to her heart if the new niece herself gave
evidence of having one.


_After Visiting a Friend_

    Dear Kate:

    It was hideously dull and stuffy in town this morning after the
    fresh coolness of Strandholm. The back yard is not an alluring
    outlook after the wide spaces and delicious fragrance of your
    garden.

    It was good being with you and I enjoyed every moment. Don't
    forget you are lunching here on the 16th and that we are going to
    hear Kreisler together.

    Devotedly always,
    Caroline.


_From a Man Who Has Been Ill and Convalescing at a Friend's House_

    Dear Martha:

    I certainly hated taking that train this morning and realizing
    that the end had come to my peaceful days. You and John and the
    children, and your place, which is the essence of all that a
    "home" ought to be, have put me on my feet again. I thank you
    much--much more than I can say for the wonderful goodness of all
    of you.

    Fred.


_From a Woman Who Has Been Visiting a Very Old Friend_

    I loved my visit with you, dear Mary; it was more than good to be
    with you and have a chance for long talks at your fireside. Don't
    forget your promise to come here in May! I told Sam and Hettie
    you were coming, and now the whole town is ringing with the news,
    and every one is planning a party for you.

    David sends "his best" to you and Charlie, and you know you
    always have the love of

    Your devoted
             Pat.


_To an Acquaintance_

After a visit to a formal acquaintance or when some one has shown you
especial hospitality in a city where you are a stranger:

    My dear Mrs. Duluth:

    It was more than good of you to give my husband and me so much
    pleasure. We enjoyed, and appreciated, all your kindness to us
    more than we can say.

    We hope that you and Mr. Duluth may be coming East before long
    and that we may then have the pleasure of seeing you at
    Strandholm.

    In the meanwhile, thanking you for your generous hospitality, and
    with kindest regards to you both, in which my husband joins,
    believe me,

    Very sincerely yours,
           Katherine de Puyster Eminent.


=AN ENGRAVED CARD OF THANKS=

An engraved card of thanks is proper only when sent by a public official
to acknowledge the overwhelming number of congratulatory messages he must
inevitably receive from strangers, when he has carried an election or
otherwise been honored with the confidence of his State or country. A
recent and excellent example follows:


=EXECUTIVE MANSION=

    My dear....

=I warmly appreciate your kind message of congratulation which has given
me a great deal of pleasure, and sincerely wish that it were possible for
me to acknowledge it in a less formal manner.=

            =Faithfully,=

            (_signed by hand_)


            An engraved form of thanks for sympathy, also from
            one in public life, is presented in the following example:

                      Mr. John Smith
            wishes to express his deep gratitude
                      and to thank you
            for your kind expression of sympathy

_But remember_: an engraved card sent by a private individual to a
personal friend, is not "stylish" or smart, but _rude_. (See also
engraved acknowledgment of sympathy, pages 406-7.)


=THE LETTER OF INTRODUCTION=

A letter of business introduction can be much more freely given than a
letter of social introduction. For the former it is necessary merely that
the persons introduced have business interests in common--which are much
more easily determined than social compatibility, which is the requisite
necessary for the latter. It is, of course, proper to give your personal
representative a letter of introduction to whomever you send him.

On the subject of letters of social introduction there is one chief rule:

Never _ask_ for letters of introduction, and be very sparing in your
offers to write or accept them.

Seemingly few persons realize that a letter of social introduction is
actually a draft for payment on demand. The form might as well be: "The
bearer of this has (because of it) the right to _demand your interest_,
your time, your hospitality--liberally and at once, no matter what your
inclination may be."

Therefore, it is far better to refuse in the beginning, than to hedge and
end by committing the greater error of unwarrantedly inconveniencing a
valued friend or acquaintance.

When you have a friend who is going to a city where you have other
friends, and you believe that it will be a mutual pleasure for them to
meet, a letter of introduction is proper and very easy to write, but sent
to a casual acquaintance--no matter how attractive or distinguished the
person to be introduced--it is a gross presumption.


=THE MORE FORMAL NOTE OF INTRODUCTION=

    Dear Mrs. Marks:

    Julian Gibbs is going to Buffalo on January tenth to deliver a
    lecture on his Polar expedition, and I am sending him a card of
    introduction to you. He is very agreeable personally, and I think
    that perhaps you and Mr. Marks will enjoy meeting him as much as
    I know he would enjoy knowing you.

    With kindest regards, in which Arthur joins,

    Very sincerely,
              Ethel Norman.

If Mr. Norman were introducing one man to another he would give his card
to the former, inscribed as follows:

    [HW: Introducing Julian Gibbs]

    =MR. ARTHUR LEES NORMAN=

           BROADLAWNS

Also Mr. Norman would send a private letter by mail, telling his friend
that Mr. Gibbs is coming, as follows:

    Dear Marks:

    I am giving Julian Gibbs a card of introduction to you when he
    goes to Buffalo on the tenth to lecture. He is an entertaining
    and very decent fellow, and I think possibly Mrs. Marks would
    enjoy meeting him. If you can conveniently ask him to your house,
    I know he would appreciate it; if not, perhaps you will put him
    up for a day or two at a club.

     Faithfully,
    Arthur Norman.


=INFORMAL LETTER OF INTRODUCTION=

    Dear Claire:

    A very great friend of ours, James Dawson, is to be in Chicago
    for several weeks. Any kindness that you can show him will be
    greatly appreciated by

    Yours as always,
    Ethel Norman.

At the same time a second and private letter of information is written
and sent by mail:

    Dear Claire:

    I wrote you a letter to-day introducing Jim Dawson. He used to be
    on the Yalvard football team, perhaps you remember. He is one of
    the best sort in the world and I know you will like him. I don't
    want to put you to any trouble, but do ask him to your house if
    you can. He plays a wonderful game of golf and a good game of
    bridge, but he is more a man's than a woman's type of man. Maybe
    if Tom likes him, he will put him up at a club as he is to be in
    Chicago for some weeks.

    Affectionately always,
    Ethel.

Another example:

    Dear Caroline:

    A very dear friend of mine, Mrs. Fred West, is going to be in New
    York this winter, while her daughter is at Barnard. I am asking
    her to take this letter to you as I want very much to have her
    meet you and have her daughter meet Pauline. Anything that you
    can do for them will be the same as for me!

    Yours affectionately,
        Sylvia Greatlake.

The private letter by mail to accompany the foregoing:

    Dearest Caroline:

    Mildred West, for whom I wrote to you this morning, is a very
    close friend of mine. She is going to New York with her only
    daughter--who, in spite of wanting a college education, is as
    pretty as a picture, with plenty of come-hither in the eye--so do
    not be afraid that the typical blue-stocking is to be thrust upon
    Pauline! The mother is an altogether lovely person and I know
    that you and she will speak the same language--if I didn't, I
    wouldn't give her a letter to you. Do go to see her as soon as
    you can; she will be stopping at the Fitz-Cherry and probably
    feeling rather lost at first. She wants to take an apartment for
    the winter and I told her I was sure you would know the best real
    estate and intelligence offices, etc., for her to go to.

    I hope I am not putting you to any trouble about her, but she is
    really a darling and you will like her I know.

    Devotedly yours,
        Sylvia.

Directions for procedure upon being given (or receiving) a letter of
introduction will be found on pages 16 and 17.


=THE THIRD PERSON=

In other days when even verbal messages began with the "presenting of
compliments," a social note, no matter what its length or purport, would
have been considered rude, unless written in the third person. But as in a
communication of any length the difficulty of this form is almost
insurmountable (to say nothing of the pedantic effect of its
accomplishment), it is no longer chosen--aside from the formal invitation,
acceptance and regret--except for notes to stores or subordinates. For
example:

    Will B. Stern & Co. please send (and charge) to Mrs. John H.
    Smith, 2 Madison Avenue,

        1 paper of needles No. 9
        2 spools white sewing Cotton No. 70
        1 yard of material (sample enclosed).

    January 6.

To a servant:

    Mrs. Eminent wishes Patrick to meet her at the station on Tuesday
    the eighth at 11.03. She also wishes him to have the shutters
    opened and the house aired on that day, and a fire lighted in the
    northwest room. No provisions will be necessary as Mrs. Eminent
    is returning to town on the 5.16.

    Tuesday, March 1.


Letters in the third person are no longer signed unless the sender's
signature is necessary for identification, or for some action on the part
of the receiver, such as

    Will Mr. Cash please give the bearer six yards of material to
    match the sample enclosed, and oblige,

    Mrs. John H. Smith.[A]

[Footnote A: A note in 3rd person is the single occasion when a married
woman signs "Mrs." before her name.]


=THE LETTER OF RECOMMENDATION=

A letter of recommendation for membership to a club is addressed to the
secretary and should be somewhat in this form:


To the Secretary of the Town Club.

    My dear Mrs. Brown:

    Mrs. Titherington Smith, whose name is posted for membership, is
    a very old and close friend of mine. She is the daughter of the
    late Rev. Samuel Eminent and is therefore a member in her own
    right, as well as by marriage, of representative New York
    families.

She is a person of much charm and distinction, and her many friends will
agree with me, I am sure, in thinking that she would be a valuable
addition to the club.

    Very sincerely,
    Ethel Norman.


=RECOMMENDATION OF EMPLOYEES=

Although the written recommendation that is given to the employee carries
very little weight, compared to the slip from the employment agencies
where either "yes" or "no" has to be answered to a list of specific and
important questions, one is nevertheless put in a trying position when
reporting on an unsatisfactory servant.

Either a poor reference must be given--possibly preventing a servant from
earning her living--or one has to write what is not true. Consequently it
has become the custom to say what one truthfully can of good, and leave
out the qualifications that are bad (except in the case of a careless
nurse, where evasion would border on the criminal).

That solves the poor recommendation problem pretty well; but unless one is
very careful this consideration for the "poor" one, is paid for by the
"good." In writing for a very worthy servant therefore, it is of the
utmost importance in fairness to her (or him) to put in every merit that
you can think of, remembering that omission implies demerit in each trait
of character not mentioned. All good references should include honesty,
sobriety, capability, and a reason, other than their unsatisfactoriness,
for their leaving. The recommendation for a nurse can not be too
conscientiously written.

A lady does not begin a recommendation: "To whom it may concern," nor
"This is to certify," although housekeepers and head servants writing
recommendations use both of these forms, and "third person" letters, are
frequently written by secretaries.

A lady in giving a good reference should write:

    Two Hundred Park Square.

    Selma Johnson has lived with me for two years as cook.

    I have found her honest, sober, industrious, neat in her person
    as well as her work, of amiable disposition and a very good cook.

    She is leaving to my great regret because I am closing my house
    for the winter.

    Selma is an excellent servant in every way and I shall be glad to
    answer personally any inquiries about her.

                               Josephine Smith.
                               (Mrs. Titherington Smith)
    October, 1921.





The form of all recommendations is the same:

    ---- has lived with me ---- months years as ----. I have found
    him/ her ----. He/She is leaving because ----.

(Any special remark of added recommendation or showing interest)

                                 ----
    (Mrs. ----)

    Date.


=LETTERS OF CONGRATULATION=


=LETTER OF CONGRATULATION ON ENGAGEMENT=


    Dear Mary:

    While we are not altogether surprized, we are both delighted to
    hear the good news. Jim's family and ours are very close, as you
    know, and we have always been especially devoted to Jim. He is
    one of the finest--and now luckiest, of young men, and we send
    you both every good wish for all possible happiness.

    Affectionately,
    Ethel Norman.


    Just a line, dear Jim, to tell you how glad we all are to hear of
    your happiness. Mary is everything that is lovely and, of course,
    from our point of view, we don't think her exactly unfortunate
    either! Every good wish that imagination can think of goes to you
    from your old friends.

    Ethel and Arthur Norman.


    I can't tell you, dearest Mary, of all the wishes I send for your
    happiness. Give Jim my love and tell him how lucky I think he is,
    and how much I hope all good fortune will come to you both.

    Lovingly,
         Aunt Kate.


=CONGRATULATION ON SOME ESPECIAL SUCCESS=


    My dear Mrs. Brown:

    We have just heard of the honors that your son has won. How proud
    you must be of him! We are both so glad for him and for you.
    Please congratulate him for us, and believe me,

    Very sincerely,
        Ethel Norman.

Or:

    Dear Mrs. Brown:

    We are so glad to hear the good news of David's success; it was a
    very splendid accomplishment and we are all so proud of him and
    of you. Please give him our love and congratulations, and with
    full measure of both to you,

    Affectionately,
          Martha Kindhart.


=CONGRATULATING A FRIEND APPOINTED TO HIGH OFFICE=

    Dear John:

    We are overjoyed at the good news! For once the reward has fallen
    where it is deserved. Certainly no one is better fitted than
    yourself for a diplomat's life, and we know you will fill the
    position to the honor of your country. Please give my love to
    Alice, and with renewed congratulations to you from us both.

    Yours always,
    Ethel Norman.


Another example:

    Dear Michael:

    We all rejoice with you in the confirmation of your appointment.
    The State needs just such men as you--if we had more of your sort
    the ordinary citizen would have less to worry about. Our best
    congratulations!

    John Kindhart.


=THE LETTER OF CONDOLENCE=

Intimate letters of condolence are like love letters, in that they are too
sacred to follow a set form. One rule, and one only, should guide you in
writing such letters. Say what you truly feel. Say that and nothing else.
Sit down at your desk, let your thoughts dwell on the person you are
writing to.

Don't dwell on the details of illness or the manner of death; don't quote
endlessly from the poets and Scriptures. Remember that eyes filmed with
tears and an aching heart can not follow rhetorical lengths of writing.
The more nearly a note can express a hand-clasp, a thought of sympathy,
above all, a genuine love or appreciation of the one who has gone, the
greater comfort it brings.

Write as simply as possible and let your heart speak as truly and as
briefly as you can. Forget, if you can, that you are using written words,
think merely how you feel--then put your feelings on paper--that is all.

Supposing it is a young mother who has died. You think how young and sweet
she was--and of her little children, and, literally, your heart aches for
them and her husband and her own family. Into your thoughts must come some
expression of what she was, and what their loss must be!

Or maybe it is the death of a man who has left a place in the whole
community that will be difficult, if not impossible, to fill, and you
think of all he stood for that was fine and helpful to others, and how
much and sorely he will be missed. Or suppose that you are a returned
soldier, and it is a pal who has died. All you can think of is "Poor old
Steve--what a peach he was! I don't think anything will ever be the same
again without him." Say just that! Ask if there is anything you can do at
any time to be of service to his people. There is nothing more to be said.
A line, into which you have unconsciously put a little of the genuine
feeling that you had for Steve, is worth pages of eloquence.

A letter of condolence may be abrupt, badly constructed,
ungrammatical--never mind. Grace of expression counts for nothing;
sincerity alone is of value. It is the expression, however clumsily put,
of a personal something which was loved, and will ever be missed, that
alone brings solace to those who are left. Your message may speak merely
of a small incident--something so trifling that in the seriousness of the
present, seems not worth recording; but your letter and that of many
others, each bringing a single sprig, may plant a whole memory-garden in
the hearts of the bereaved.


=EXAMPLES OF NOTES AND TELEGRAMS=

As has been said above, a letter of condolence must above everything
express a genuine sentiment. The few examples are inserted merely as
suggestive guides for those at a loss to construct a short but appropriate
note or telegram.


_Conventional Note to an Acquaintance_

    I know how little the words of an outsider mean to you just
    now--but I must tell you how deeply I sympathize with you in your
    great loss.


_Note or Telegram to a Friend_

    All my sympathy and all my thoughts are with you in your great
    sorrow. If I can be of any service to you, you know how grateful
    I shall be.

_Telegram to a Very Near Relative or Friend_

    Words are so empty! If only I knew how to fill them with love and
    send them to you.

Or:

    If love and thoughts could only help you, Margaret dear, you
    should have all the strength of both that I can give.


_Letter Where Death Was Release_

The letter to one whose loss is "for the best" is difficult in that you
want to express sympathy but can not feel sad that one who has long
suffered has found release. The expression of sympathy in this case should
not be for the present death, but for the illness, or whatever it was that
fell long ago. The grief for a paralysed mother is for the stroke which
cut her down many years before, and your sympathy, though you may not have
realized it, is for that. You might write:

    Your sorrow during all these years--and now--is in my heart; and
    all my thoughts and sympathy are with you.



=HOW TO ADDRESS IMPORTANT PERSONAGES=

===============+=====================+============================+=============
               | If you              |                            | Formal
               | are speaking,       |                            | beginning of
               | you say:            | Envelope addressed:        | a letter:
---------------+---------------------+----------------------------+-------------
The President  | Mr. President       | The President of the       | Sir:
               | And occasionally    | United States              |
               | throughout a        |    or merely               |
               | conversation,       | The President,             |
               | Sir.                | Washington, D.C.           |
               |                     | (There is only one         |
               |                     | "President")               |
               |                     |                            |
               |                     |                            |
---------------+---------------------+----------------------------+-------------
The            | Mr. Vice-President  | The Vice-President,        | Sir:
Vice-President | and then, Sir.      | Washington, D.C.           |
               |                     |                            |
---------------+---------------------+----------------------------+-------------
Justice of     | Mr. Justice         | The Hon. William H. Taft,  | Sir:
Supreme Court  |                     | Chief Justice of the       |
               |                     | Supreme Court,             |
               |                     | Washington, D.C.           |
               |                     |                            |
               |                     |                            |
---------------+---------------------+----------------------------+-------------
Member of the  | Mr. Secretary       | The Secretary of Commerce, | Dear Sir:
President's    |                     | Washington, D.C.   or:     | or
Cabinet        |                     | The Hon. Herbert Hoover,   | Sir:
               |                     | Secretary of Commerce,     |
               |                     | Washington, D.C.           |
---------------+---------------------+----------------------------+-------------
United States  | Senator Lodge       | Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, | Dear Sir:
(or State)     |                     | Washington, D.C.           | or
Senator        |                     | or a private letter:       | Sir:
               |                     | Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, |
               |                     | (His house address)        |
               |                     |                            |
---------------+---------------------+----------------------------+-------------
Member of      | Mr. Bell            | The Hon. H.C. Bell, Jr.,   | Dear Sir:
Congress (or   | or, you may say     | House of Representatives,  | or
Legislature)   | Congressman         | Washington, D.C.           | Sir:
               |                     | or: State Assembly,        |
               |                     | Albany, New York.          |
---------------+---------------------+----------------------------+-------------
Governor       | Governor Miller     | His Excellency, The        |
               | (The Governor is    | Governor,                  | Your
               | not called          | Albany, New York.          | Excellency:
               | Excellency when     |                            |
               | spoken to and very  |                            |
               | rarely when he is   |                            |
               | announced. But      |                            |
               | letters are         |                            |
               | addressed and begun |                            |
               | with this title     |                            |
               | of courtesy.)       |                            |
---------------+---------------------+----------------------------+-------------
Mayor          | Mr. Mayor           | His Honor the Mayor,       | Dear Sir:
               |                     | City Hall, Chicago.        | or
               |                     |                            | Sir:
---------------+---------------------+----------------------------+-------------
Cardinal       | Your Eminence       | His Eminence John Cardinal | Your
               |                     | Gibbons, Baltimore, Md.    | Eminence:
               |                     |                            |
               |                     |                            |
===============+=====================+==========================================



(section 2)
+==============+================================================================
|              |                     |                     |
| Informal     |                     |                     | Correct titles in
| beginning:   |    Formal Close:    |   Informal close:   |   introduction:
|--------------+---------------------+---------------------+--------------------
| My dear Mr.  | I have the honor to |                     |
| President:   |      remain,        | I have the honor to |
|              |  Most respectfully  |    remain,          |
|              |      yours,         |  Yours faithfully,  |
|              |        or           |          or         | The President.
|              | I have the honor to |     I am, dear      |
|              |   remain, sir,      |    Mr. President,   |
|              | Your most obedient  |  Yours faithfully.  |
|              |     servant.        |                     |
+--------------+---------------------+---------------------+--------------------
| My dear      |     Same as for     |     Believe me,     |      The
| Mr. Vice     |      President.     |  Yours faithfully.  | Vice-President.
| President:   |                     |                     |
+--------------+---------------------+---------------------+--------------------
| Dear Mr.     |     Believe me,     |                     | The Chief Justice
| Justice      |  Yours very truly,  |                     |       or,
| Taft:        |         or          |     Believe me,     |      if an
|              | I have the honor to |  Yours faithfully.  | Associate Justice,
|              |      remain,        |                     |   Mr. Justice
|              |  Yours very truly.  |                     |      Holmes.
+--------------+---------------------+---------------------+--------------------
| My dear Mr.  |                     |                     |  The Secretary
| Secretary:   |    Same as above.   |   Same as above.    |   of Commerce.
|              |                     |                     |
|              |                     |                     |
|              |                     |                     |
+--------------+---------------------+---------------------+--------------------
| Dear Senator |                     |                     |  Senator Lodge.
| Lodge:       |                     |                     |  On very formal
|              |    Same as above.   |   Same as above.    |   and unusual
|              |                     |                     |    occasions,
|              |                     |                     | Senator Lodge of
|              |                     |                     |  Massachusetts.
+--------------+---------------------+---------------------+--------------------
| Dear         |                     |                     |    Mr. Bell.
| Mr. Bell:    |     Believe me,     |                     |
| or           |  Yours very truly.  |  Yours faithfully.  |
| Dear         |                     |                     |
| Congressman: |                     |                     |
+--------------+---------------------+---------------------+--------------------
| Dear         |                     |                     |   The Governor
| Governor     | I have the honor to |     Believe me,     |(in his own state)
| Miller:      |      remain,        |  Yours faithfully.  | or, (out of it,)
|              |  Yours faithfully.  |                     |  The Governor of
|              |                     |                     |     Michigan.
|              |                     |                     |
|              |                     |                     |
|              |                     |                     |
|              |                     |                     |
|              |                     |                     |
|              |                     |                     |
+--------------+---------------------+---------------------+--------------------
| Dear Mayor   |    Believe me,      |  Yours faithfully.  |   Mayor Rolph.
| Rolph:       |  Very truly yours.  |                     |
|              |                     |                     |
+--------------+---------------------+---------------------+--------------------
| Your         | I have the honor to |                     |
| Eminence:    |       remain,       |   Your Eminence's   |   His Eminence.
|              |   Your Eminence's   |   humble servant.   |
|              |   humble servant.   |                     |
+==============+=====================+=====================+====================



=HOW TO ADDRESS IMPORTANT PERSONAGES=

===============+======================+=======================+=================
               |                      |                       |
               | If you are           | Envelope              | Formal beginning
               | speaking,  you say:  | addressed:            | of a letter
---------------+----------------------+-----------------------+-----------------
Roman Catholic | Your Grace           | The Most Reverend     | Most Reverend
Archbishop     |                      | Michael Corrigan,     | and dear Sir:
(There is no   |                      | Archbishop of         |
Protestant     |                      | New York.             |
Archbishop in  |                      |                       |
the United     |                      |                       |
States)        |                      |                       |
---------------+----------------------+-----------------------+-----------------
Bishop         | Bishop Manning       | To the Right Reverend | Most Reverend
(Whether Roman |                      | William T. Manning,   | and dear Sir:
Catholic or    |                      | Bishop of New York.   |
Protestant.)   |                      |                       |
               |                      |                       |
---------------+----------------------+-----------------------+-----------------
Priest         | Father or            | The Rev.              | Reverend
               | Father Duffy         | Michael Duffy.        | and dear Sir:
---------------+----------------------+-----------------------+-----------------
Protestant     | Mr. Saintly          | The Rev. Geo.         | Sir:
Clergyman      | (If he is D.D. or    | Saintly. (If you do   | or
               | LL.D., you call him  | not know his first    | My dear Sir:
               | Dr. Saintly.)        | name, write The       |
               |                      | Rev. ... Saintly.     |
               |                      | rather than the       |
               |                      | Rev. Mr. Saintly)     |
---------------+----------------------+-----------------------+-----------------
Rabbi          | Rabbi Wise           | Dr. Stephen Wise,     | Dear Sir:
               | (If he is D.D. or    | or Rabbi Stephen      |
               | LL.D., he is called  | Wise, or Rev.         |
               | Dr. Wise)            | Stephen Wise.         |
---------------+----------------------+-----------------------+-----------------
Ambassador     | Your Excellency      | His Excellency        | Your
               | or                   | The American          | Excellency:
               | Mr. Ambassador       | Ambassador,[B]        |
               |                      | American Embassy,     |
               |                      | London.               |
               |                      |                       |
               |                      |                       |
               |                      |                       |
---------------+----------------------+-----------------------+-----------------
Minister       | In English he is     | The Hon. J.D.         | Sir: is
Pleni-         | usually called "Mr.  | Prince, American      | correct but,
potentiary     | Prince," though it   | Legation,             | Your
               | is not incorrect to  | Copenhagen, or        | Excellency:
               | call him "Mr.        | (more courteously)    | is sometimes
               | Minister." The       | His Excellency, The   | used in
               | title "Excellency"   | American Minister,    | courtesy.
               | is also occasionally | Copenhagen, Denmark   |
               | used in courtesy,    |                       |
               | though it does not   |                       |
               | belong to him.       |                       |
               | In French he is      |                       |
               | always called        |                       |
               | _Monsieur le         |                       |
               | Ministre_            |                       |
---------------+----------------------+-----------------------+-----------------
Consul         | Mr. Smith            | If he has held office | Sir:
               |                      | as assemblyman or     | or
               |                      | commissioner, so that | My dear Sir:
               |                      | he has the right to   |
               |                      | the title of          |
               |                      | "Honorable" is        |
               |                      | addressed:            |
               |                      | The Hon. John Smith,  |
               |                      | otherwise:            |
               |                      | John Smith, Esq.,     |
               |                      | American Consul,      |
               |                      | Rue Quelque Chose,    |
               |                      | Paris.                |
===============+======================+=======================+=================


(section 2)
+===================+=========================+================+================
|                   |                         |                | Correct
| Informal          |                         | Informal       | titles in
| beginning:        | Formal close:           | close:         | introduction:
+-------------------+-------------------------+----------------+----------------
| Most Reverend     | I have the honor        | Same as formal | The Most
| and Dear Sir:     | to remain,              | close.         | Reverend The
|                   | Your humble servant,    |                | Archbishop.
|                   |                         |                |
|                   |                         |                |
|                   |                         |                |
|                   |                         |                |
+-------------------+-------------------------+----------------+----------------
| My Dear Bishop    | I have the honor to     | Faithfully     | Bishop
| Manning:          | remain, Your obedient   | yours.         | Manning.
|                   | servant, or, to         |                |
|                   | remain,                 |                |
|                   | Respectfully yours,     |                |
+-------------------+-------------------------+----------------+----------------
| Dear Father       | I beg to remain,        | Faithfully     | Father
| Duffy:            | Yours faithfully,       | yours.         | Duffy.
|-------------------+-------------------------+----------------+----------------
| Dear Dr. Saintly: | Same as above,          | Faithfully     | Dr. (or Mr.)
| (or Dear Mr.      |                         | yours, or      | Saintly
| Saintly if he is  |                         | Sincerely      |
| not a D.D.)       |                         | yours,         |
|                   |                         |                |
|                   |                         |                |
|                   |                         |                |
+-------------------+-------------------------+----------------+----------------
| Dear Dr. Wise:    | I beg to remain,        | Yours          | Rabbi Wise.
|                   | Yours sincerely,        | sincerely,     |
|                   |                         |                |
|                   |                         |                |
+-------------------+-------------------------+----------------+----------------
| Dear Mr.          | I have the honor to     | Yours          | The
| Ambassador:       | remain, Yours           | faithfully,    | American
|                   | faithfully, or, Yours   |                | Ambassador.
|                   | very truly, or, Yours   |                |
|                   | respectfully. or very   |                |
|                   | formally: I have the    |                |
|                   | honor to remain, sir,   |                |
|                   | your obedient servant.  |                |
+-------------------+-------------------------+----------------+----------------
| Dear Mr.          | Same as above.          | Yours          | Mr. Prince,
| Minister:         |                         | faithfully,    | the American
| or  Dear          |                         |                | Minister, or
| Mr. Prince:       |                         |                | merely, The
|                   |                         |                | American
|                   |                         |                | Minister as
|                   |                         |                | everyone is
|                   |                         |                | supposed to
|                   |                         |                | know his name
|                   |                         |                | or find it
|                   |                         |                | out.
|                   |                         |                |
|                   |                         |                |
|                   |                         |                |
|                   |                         |                |
+-------------------+-------------------------+----------------+----------------
| Dear Mr. Smith:   | I beg to remain,        | Faithfully,    | Mr. Smith
|                   | Yours very truly.       |                |
|                   |                         |                |
|                   |                         |                |
|                   |                         |                |
|                   |                         |                |
|                   |                         |                |
|                   |                         |                |
|                   |                         |                |
|                   |                         |                |
|                   |                         |                |
|                   |                         |                |
|                   |                         |                |
+===================+=========================+================+================

[Footnote B: Although our Ambassadors and Ministers represent the United
States of America, it is customary both in Europe and Asia to omit the
words United States and write to and speak of the American Embassy and
Legation. In addressing a letter to one of our representatives in
countries of the Western Hemisphere, "The United States of America" is
always specified by way of courtesy to the Americans of South America.]



Foreign persons of title are not included in the foregoing diagram because
an American (unless in the Diplomatic Service) would be unlikely to
address any but personal friends, to whom he would write as to any others.
An envelope would be addressed in the language of the person written to:
"His Grace, the Duke of Overthere (or merely The Duke of Overthere), Hyde
Park, London"; "Mme. la Princess d'Acacia, Ave. du Bois, Paris"; "Il
Principe di Capri, Cusano sul Seveso"; "Lady Alwin, Cragmere, Scotland,"
etc. The letter would begin, Dear Duke of Overthere (or Dear Duke), Dear
Princess, Dear Countess Aix, Dear Lady Alwin, Dear Sir Hubert, etc., and
close, "Sincerely," "Faithfully," or "Affectionately," as the case might
be.

Should an American have occasion to write to Royalty he would begin:
"Madam" (or Sir), and end: "I have the honor to remain, madam (or Sir),
your most obedient." ("Your most obedient servant" is a signature reserved
usually for our own President--or Vice-President.)




CHAPTER XXVIII

LONGER LETTERS


The art of general letter-writing in the present day is shrinking until
the letter threatens to become a telegram, a telephone message, a
post-card. Since the events of the day are transmitted in newspapers with
far greater accuracy, detail, and dispatch than they could be by the
single effort of even Voltaire himself, the circulation of general news,
which formed the chief reason for letters of the stage-coach and
sailing-vessel days, has no part in the correspondence of to-day.

Taking the contents of an average mail bag as sorted in a United States
post-office, about fifty per cent. is probably advertisement or appeal,
forty per cent. business, and scarcely ten per cent. personal letters and
invitations. Of course, love letters are probably as numerous as need be,
though the long distance telephone must have lowered the average of these,
too. Young girls write to each other, no doubt, much as they did in olden
times, and letters between young girls and young men flourish to-day like
unpulled weeds in a garden where weeds were formerly never allowed to
grow.

It is the letter from the friend in this city to the friend in that, or
from the traveling relative to the relative at home, that is gradually
dwindling. As for the letter which younger relatives dutifully used to
write--it has gone already with old-fashioned grace of speech and
deportment.

Still, people do write letters in this day and there are some who possess
the divinely flexible gift for a fresh turn of phrase, for delightful
keenness of observation. It may be, too, that in other days the average
writing was no better than the average of to-day. It is naturally the
letters of those who had unusual gifts which have been preserved all
these years, for the failures of a generation are made to die with it, and
only its successes survive.

The difference though, between letter-writers of the past and of the
present, is that in other days they all tried to write, and to express
themselves the very best they knew how--to-day people don't care a bit
whether they write well or ill. Mental effort is one thing that the
younger generation of the "smart world" seems to consider it unreasonable
to ask--and just as it is the fashion to let their spines droop until they
suggest nothing so much as Tenniel's drawing in Alice in Wonderland of the
caterpillar sitting on the toad-stool--so do they let their mental
faculties relax, slump and atrophy.

To such as these, to whom effort is an insurmountable task, it might be
just as well to say frankly: If you have a mind that is entirely bromidic,
if you are lacking in humor, all power of observation, and facility for
expression, you had best join the ever-growing class of people who frankly
confess, "I can't write letters to save my life!" and confine your
literary efforts to picture post-cards with the engaging captions "X is my
room," or "Beautiful weather, wish you were here."

It is not at all certain that your friends and family would not rather
have frequent post-cards than occasional letters all too obviously
displaying the meagerness of their messages in halting orthography.


=BEGINNING A LETTER=

For most people the difficulty in letter-writing is in the beginning and
the close. Once they are started, the middle goes smoothly enough, until
they face the difficulty of the end. The direction of the Professor of
English to "Begin at the beginning of what you have to say, and go on
until you have finished, and then stop," is very like a celebrated
artist's direction for painting: "You simply take a little of the right
color paint and put it on the right spot."


=HOW NOT TO BEGIN=

Even one who "loves the very sight of your handwriting," could not
possibly find any pleasure in a letter beginning:

    "I have been meaning to write you for a long time but haven't had
    a minute to spare."

Or:

    "I suppose you have been thinking me very neglectful, but you
    know how I hate to write letters."

Or:

    "I know I ought to have answered your letter sooner, but I
    haven't had a thing to write about."

The above sentences are written time and again by persons who are utterly
unconscious that they are not expressing a friendly or loving thought. If
one of your friends were to walk into the room, and you were to receive
him stretched out and yawning in an easy chair, no one would have to point
out the rudeness of such behavior; yet countless kindly intentioned people
begin their letters mentally reclining and yawning in just such a way.


=HOW TO BEGIN A LETTER=

Suppose you merely change the wording of the above sentences, so that
instead of slamming the door in your friend's face, you hold it open:

    "Do you think I have forgotten you entirely? You don't know, dear
    Mary, how many letters I have written you in thought."

Or:

    "Time and time again I have wanted to write you but each moment
    that I saved for myself was always interrupted by _something_."

One of the frequent difficulties in beginning a letter is that your answer
is so long delayed that you begin with an apology, which is always a lame
duck. But these examples indicate a way in which even an opening apology
may be attractive rather than repellent. If you are going to take the
trouble to write a letter, you are doing it because you have at least
remembered some one with friendly regard, or you would not be writing at
all. You certainly would like to convey the impression that you want to be
with your friend in thought for a little while at least--not that she
through some malignant force is holding you to a grindstone and forcing
you to the task of making hateful schoolroom pot-hooks for her selfish
gain.

A perfect letter has always the effect of being a light dipping off of the
top of a spring. A poor letter suggests digging into the dried ink at the
bottom of an ink-well.

It is easy to begin a letter if it is in answer to one that has just been
received. The news contained in it is fresh and the impulse to reply needs
no prodding.

Nothing can be simpler than to say: "We were all overjoyed to hear from
you this morning," or, "Your letter was the most welcome thing the postman
has brought for ages," or, "It was more than good to have news of you this
morning," or, "Your letter from Capri brought all the allure of Italy back
to me," or, "You can't imagine, dear Mary, how glad I was to see an
envelope with your writing this morning." And then you take up the various
subjects in Mary's letter, which should certainly launch you without
difficulty upon topics of your own.


=ENDING A LETTER=

Just as the beginning of a letter should give the reader an impression of
greeting, so should the end express friendly or affectionate leave-taking.
Nothing can be worse than to seem to scratch helplessly around in the air
for an idea that will effect your escape.

"Well, I guess I must stop now," "Well, I must close," or, "You are
probably bored with this long epistle, so I had better close."

All of these are as bad as they can be, and suggest the untutored man who
stands first on one foot and then on the other, running his finger around
the brim of his hat, or the country girl twisting the corner of her apron.


=HOW TO END A LETTER=

An intimate letter has no end at all. When you leave the house of a member
of your family, you don't have to think up an especial sentence in order
to say good-by.

Leave-taking in a letter is the same:

    "Good-by, dearest, for to-day.
                                  Devotedly,
                                               Kate."

Or:

    "Best love to you all,
                              Martin."

Or:

    "Will write again in a day or two.
                                      Lovingly,
                                               Mary."

Or:

    "Luncheon was announced half a page ago! So good-by, dear Mary,
    for to-day."

The close of a less intimate letter, like taking leave of a visitor in
your drawing-room, is necessarily more ceremonious. And the "ceremonious
close" presents to most people the greatest difficulty in letter-writing.

It is really quite simple, if you realize that the aim of the closing
paragraph is merely to bring in a personal hyphen between the person
writing and the person written to.

"The mountains were beautiful at sunset." It is a bad closing sentence
because "the mountains" have nothing personal to either of you. But if you
can add "--they reminded me of the time we were in Colorado together," or
"--how different from our wide prairies at home," you have crossed a
bridge, as it were.

Or:

"We have had a wonderful trip, but I do miss you all at home, and long to
hear from you soon again."

Or (from one at home):

"Your closed house makes me very lonely to pass. I do hope you are coming
back soon."

Sometimes an ending falls naturally into a sentence that ends with your
signature. "If I could look up now and see you coming into the room, there
would be no happier woman in the whole State than

    Your devoted mother."


=LETTERS NO ONE CARES TO READ=

=LETTERS OF CALAMITY=

First and foremost in the category of letters that no one can possibly
receive with pleasure might be put the "letter of calamity," the letter of
gloomy apprehension, the letter filled with petty annoyances. Less
disturbing to receive but far from enjoyable are such letters as "the
blank," the "meandering," the "letter of the capital I," the "plaintive,"
the "apologetic." There is scarcely any one who has not one or more
relatives or friends whose letters belong in one of these classes.

Even in so personal a matter as the letter to an absent member of one's
immediate family, it should be borne in mind, not to write _needlessly_ of
misfortune or unhappiness. To hear from those we love how ill or unhappy
they are, is to have our distress intensified in direct proportion to the
number of miles by which we are separated from them. This last example,
however, has nothing in common with the choosing of calamity and gloom as
a subject of welcome tidings in ordinary correspondence.

The chronic calamity writers seem to wait until the skies are darkest, and
then, rushing to their desk, luxuriate in pouring all their troubles and
fears of troubles out on paper to their friends.


=LETTERS OF GLOOMY APPREHENSION=

"My little Betty ["My little" adds to the pathos much more than saying
merely "Betty"] has been feeling miserable for several days. I am worried
to death about her, as there are so many sudden cases of typhoid and
appendicitis. The doctor says the symptoms are not at all alarming as yet,
but doctors see so much of illness and death, they don't seem to
appreciate what anxiety means to a mother," etc.

Another writes: "The times seem to be getting worse and worse. I always
said we would have to go through a long night before any chance of
daylight. You can mark my words, the night of bad times isn't much more
than begun."

Or, "I have scarcely slept for nights, worrying about whether Junior has
passed his examinations or not."


=LETTERS OF PETTY MISFORTUNES=

Other perfectly well-meaning friends fancy they are giving pleasure when
they write such "news" as: "My cook has been sick for the past ten days,"
and follow this with a page or two descriptive of her ailments; or, "I
have a slight cough. I think I must have caught it yesterday when I went
out in the rain without rubbers"; or, "The children have not been doing as
well in their lessons this week as last. Johnny's arithmetic marks were
dreadful and Katie got an E in spelling and an F in geography." Her
husband and her mother would be interested in the children's weekly
reports, and her own slight cough, but no one else. How could they be?

If the writers of all such letters would merely read over what they have
written, and ask themselves if they could find pleasure in receiving
messages of like manner and matter, perhaps they might begin to do a
little thinking, and break the habit of cataleptic unthinkingness that
seemingly descends upon them as soon as they are seated at their desk.


=THE BLANK=

The writer of the "blank" letter begins fluently with the date and "Dear
Mary," and then sits and chews his penholder or makes little dots and
squares and circles on the blotter-utterly unable to attack the cold,
forbidding blankness of that first page. Mentally, he seems to say: "Well,
here I am--and now what?" He has not an idea! He can never find anything
of sufficient importance to write about. A murder next door, a house
burned to the ground, a burglary or an elopement could alone furnish
material; and that, too, would be finished off in a brief sentence stating
the bare fact.

A person whose life is a revolving wheel of routine may have really very
little to say, but a letter does not have to be long to be welcome--it can
be very good indeed if it has a message that seems to have been spoken.

    Dear Lucy:

    "Life here is as dull as ever--duller if anything. Just the same
    old things done in the same old way--not even a fire engine out
    or a new face in town, but this is to show you that I am thinking
    of you and longing to hear from you."

Or:
    "I wish something really exciting would happen so that I might have
    something with a little thrill in it to write you, but everything goes
    on and on--if there were any check in its sameness, I think we'd all
    land in a heap against the edge of the town."


=THE MEANDERING LETTER=

As its name implies, the meandering letter is one which dawdles through
disconnected subjects, like a trolley car gone down grade off the track,
through fences and fields and flower-beds indiscriminately. "Mrs. Blake's
cow died last week, the Governor and his wife were on the Reception
Committee; Mary Selfridge went to stay with her aunt in Riverview; I think
the new shade called Harding blue is perfectly hideous."

Another that is almost akin to it, runs glibly on, page after page of
meaningless repetition and detail. "I thought at first that I would get a
gray dress--I think gray is such a pretty color, and I have had so many
blue dresses. I can't decide this time whether to get blue or gray.
Sometimes I think gray is more becoming to me than blue. I think gray
looks well on fair-haired people--I don't know whether you would call my
hair fair or not? I am certainly not dark, and yet fair hair suggests a
sort of straw color. Maybe I might be called medium fair. Do you think I
am light enough to wear gray? Maybe blue would be more serviceable. Gray
certainly looks pretty in the spring, it is so clean and fresh looking.
There is a lovely French model at Benson's in gray, but I can have it
copied for less in blue. Maybe it won't be as pretty though as the gray,"
etc., etc. By the above method of cud-chewing, any subject, clothes,
painting the house, children's school, planting a garden, or even the
weather, need be limited only by the supply of paper and ink.


=THE LETTER OF THE "CAPITAL I"=

The letter of the "capital I" is a pompous effusion which strives through
pretentiousness to impress its reader with its writer's wealth, position,
ability, or whatever possession or attribute is thought to be rated most
highly. None but unfortunate dependents or the cringing in spirit would
subject themselves to a second letter of this kind by answering the first.
The letter which hints at hoped-for benefits is no worse!


=THE LETTER OF CHRONIC APOLOGY=

The letter written by a person with an apologetic habit of mind, is
different totally from the sometimes necessary letter of genuine apology.
The former is as senseless as it is irritating:

"It was so good of you to come to my horrid little shanty. [The house and
the food she served were both probably better than that of the person she
is writing to.] I know you had nothing fit to eat, and I know that
everything was just all wrong! Of course, everything is always so
beautifully done at everything you give, I wonder I have the courage to
ask you to dine with me."


=THE DANGEROUS LETTER=

A pitfall that those of sharp wit have to guard against is the thoughtless
tendency toward writing ill-natured things. Ridicule is a much more
amusing medium for the display of a subject than praise, which is always
rather bromidic. The amusing person catches foibles and exploits them, and
it is easy to forget that wit flashes all too irresistibly at the expense
of other people's feelings, and the brilliant tongue is all too often
sharpened to rapier point. Admiration for the quickness of a spoken quip,
somewhat mitigates its cruelty. The exuberance of the retailer of verbal
gossip eliminates the implication of scandals but both quip and gossip
become deadly poison when transferred permanently to paper.


=PERMANENCE OF WRITTEN EMOTION=

For all emotions written words are a bad medium. The light jesting tone
that saves a quip from offense can not be expressed; and remarks that if
spoken would amuse, can but piqué and even insult their subject. Without
the interpretation of the voice, gaiety becomes levity, raillery becomes
accusation. Moreover, words of a passing moment are made to stand forever.

Anger in a letter carries with it the effect of solidified fury; the words
spoken in reproof melt with the breath of the speaker once the cause is
forgiven. The written words on the page fix them for eternity.

Love in a letter endures likewise forever.

Admonitions from parents to their children may very properly be put on
paper--they are meant to endure, and be remembered, but momentary
annoyance should never be more than briefly expressed. There is no better
way of insuring his letters against being read than for a parent to get
into the habit of writing irritable or faultfinding letters to his
children.


=THE LETTERS OF TWO WIVES=

Do you ever see a man look through a stack of mail, and notice that
suddenly his face lights up as he seizes a letter "from home"? He tears it
open eagerly, his mouth up-curving at the corners, as he lingers over
every word. You know, without being told, that the wife he had to leave
behind puts all the best she can devise and save for him into his life as
well as on paper!

Do you ever see a man go through his mail and see him suddenly droop--as,
though a fog had fallen upon his spirits? Do you see him reluctantly pick
out a letter, start to open it, hesitate and then push it aside? His
expression says plainly: "I can't face that just now." Then by and by,
when his lips have been set in a hard line, he will doggedly open his
letter to "see what the trouble is now."

If for once there is no trouble, he sighs with relief, relaxes, and starts
the next thing he has to do.

Usually, though, he frowns, looks worried, annoyed, harassed, and you know
that every small unpleasantness is punctiliously served to him by one who
promised to love and to cherish and who probably thinks she does!


=THE LETTER EVERYONE LOVES TO RECEIVE=

The letter we all love to receive is one that carries so much of the
writer's personality that she seems to be sitting beside us, looking at us
directly and talking just as she really would, could she have come on a
magic carpet, instead of sending her proxy in ink-made characters on mere
paper.

Let us suppose we have received one of those perfect letters from Mary,
one of those letters that seem almost to have written themselves, so
easily do the words flow, so bubbling and effortless is their spontaneity.
There is a great deal in the letter about Mary, not only about what she
has been doing, but what she has been thinking, or perhaps, feeling. And
there is a lot about us in the letter--nice things, that make us feel
rather pleased about something that we have done, or are likely to do, or
that some one has said about us. We know that all things of concern to us
are of equal concern to Mary, and though there will be nothing of it in
actual words, we are made to feel that we are just as secure in our corner
of Mary's heart as ever we were. And we finish the letter with a very
vivid remembrance of Mary's sympathy, and a sense of loss in her absence,
and a longing for the time when Mary herself may again be sitting on the
sofa beside us and telling us all the details her letter can not but leave
out.


=THE LETTER NO WOMAN SHOULD EVER WRITE=

The mails carry letters every day that are so many packages of TNT should
their contents be exploded by falling into wrong hands. Letters that
should never have been written are put in evidence in court rooms every
day. Many can not, under any circumstances, be excused; but often silly
girls and foolish women write things that sound quite different from what,
they innocently, but stupidly, intended.

Few persons, except professional writers, have the least idea of the value
of words and the effect that they produce, and the thoughtless letters of
emotional women and underbred men add sensation to news items in the press
almost daily.

Of course the best advice to a young girl who is impelled to write letters
to men, can be put in one word, _don't_!

However, if you are a young girl or woman, and are determined to write
letters to an especial--or any other--man, no matter how innocent your
intention may be, there are some things you must remember--remember so
intensely that no situation in life, no circumstances, no temptation, can
ever make you forget. They are a few set rules, not of etiquette, but of
the laws of self-respect:

Never send a letter without reading it over and making sure that you have
said nothing that can possibly "sound different" from what you intend to
say.

Never so long as you live, write a letter to a man--no matter who he
is--that you would be ashamed to see in a newspaper above your signature.

Remember that every word of writing is immutable evidence for or against
you, and words which are thoughtlessly put on paper may exist a hundred
years hence.

Never write anything that can be construed as sentimental.

Never take a man to task about anything; never ask for explanations; to do
so implies too great an intimacy.

Never put a single clinging tentacle into writing. Say nothing ever, that
can be construed as demanding, asking, or even being eager for, his
attentions!

Always keep in mind and _never for one instant forget_ that a third
person, and that the very one you would most object to, may find and read
the letter.

One word more: It is not alone "bad form" but laying yourself open to
every sort of embarrassment and danger, to "correspond with" a man you
slightly know.


=PROPER LETTERS OF LOVE OR AFFECTION=

If you are engaged, of course you should write love letters--the most
beautiful that you can--but don't write baby-talk and other sillinesses
that would make you feel idiotic if the letter were to fall into strange
hands.

On the other hand, few can find objection to the natural, friendly and
even affectionate letter from a young girl to a young man she has been
"brought up" with. It is such a letter as she would write to her brother.
There is no hint of coquetry or self-consciousness, no word from first to
last that might not be shouted aloud before her whole family. Her letter
may begin "Dear" or even "Dearest Jack." Then follows all the "home news"
she can think of that might possibly interest him; about the Simpsons'
dance, Tom and Pauline's engagement, how many trout Bill Henderson got at
Duck Brook, how furious Mrs. Davis was because some distinguished visitor
accepted Mrs. Brown's dinner instead of hers, how the new people who have
moved onto the Rush farm don't know the first thing about farming, and so
on.

Perhaps there will be one "personal" line such as "we all missed you at
the picnic on Wednesday--Ollie made the flap-jacks and they were too
awful! Every one groaned: 'If Jack were only here!'" Or, "we all hope you
are coming back in time for the Towns' dance. Kate has at last inveigled
her mother into letting her have an all-black dress which we rather
suspect was bought with the especial purpose of impressing you with her
advanced age and dignity! Mother came in just as I wrote this and says to
tell you she has a new recipe for chocolate cake that is even better than
her old one, and that you had better have a piece added to your belt
before you come home. Carrie will write you very soon, she says, and we
all send love.

    "Affectionately,
    "Ruth."


=THE LETTER NO GENTLEMAN WRITES=

One of the fundamental rules for the behavior of any man who has the
faintest pretension to being a gentleman, is that never by word or gesture
must he compromise a woman; he never, therefore, writes a letter that can
be construed, even by a lawyer, as damaging to any woman's good name.

His letters to an unmarried woman may express all the ardor and devotion
that he cares to subscribe to, but there must be no hint of his having
received especial favors from her.


=DON'TS FOR CORRESPONDENCE=

Never typewrite an invitation, acceptance, or regret.

Never typewrite a social note.

Be chary of underscorings and postscripts.

Do not write across a page already written on.

Do not use unmatched paper and envelopes.

Do not write in pencil--except a note to one of your family written on a
train or where ink is unprocurable, or unless you are flat on your back
because of illness.

Never send a letter with a blot on it.

Never sprinkle French, Italian, or any other foreign words through a
letter written in English. You do not give an impression of cultivation,
but of ignorance of your own language. Use a foreign word if it has no
English equivalent, not otherwise unless it has become Anglicized. If
hesitating between two words, always select the one of Saxon origin rather
than Latin. For the best selection of words to use, study the King James
version of the Bible.




CHAPTER XXIX

THE FUNDAMENTALS OF GOOD BEHAVIOR


Far more important than any mere dictum of etiquette is the fundamental
code of honor, without strict observance of which no man, no matter how
"polished," can be considered a gentleman. The honor of a gentleman
demands the inviolability of his word, and the incorruptibility of his
principles; he is the descendant of the knight, the crusader; he is the
defender of the defenseless, and the champion of justice--or he is not a
gentleman.


=DECENCIES OF BEHAVIOR=

A gentleman does not, and a man who aspires to be one must not, ever
borrow money from a woman, nor should he, except in unexpected
circumstances, borrow money from a man. Money borrowed without security is
a debt of honor which must be paid without fail and promptly as possible.
The debts incurred by a deceased parent, brother, sister, or grown child,
are assumed by honorable men and women, as debts of honor.

A gentleman never takes advantage of a woman in a business dealing, nor of
the poor or the helpless.

One who is not well off does not "sponge," but pays his own way to the
utmost of his ability.

One who is rich does not make a display of his money or his possessions.
Only a vulgarian talks ceaselessly about how much this or that cost him.

A very well-bred man intensely dislikes the mention of money, and never
speaks of it (out of business hours) if he can avoid it.

A gentleman never discusses his family affairs either in public or with
acquaintances, nor does he speak more than casually about his wife. A man
is a cad who tells anyone, no matter who, what his wife told him in
confidence, or describes what she looks like in her bedroom. To impart
details of her beauty is scarcely better than to publish her blemishes; to
do either is unspeakable.

Nor does a gentleman ever criticise the behavior of a wife whose conduct
is scandalous. What he says to her in the privacy of their own apartments
is no one's affair but his own, but he must never treat her with
disrespect before their children, or a servant, or any one.

A man of honor never seeks publicly to divorce his wife, no matter what he
believes her conduct to have been; but for the protection of his own name,
and that of the children, he allows her to get her freedom on other than
criminal grounds. No matter who he may be, whether rich, or poor, in high
life or low, the man who publicly besmirches his wife's name, besmirches
still more his own, and proves that he is not, was not, and never will be,
a gentleman.

No gentleman goes to a lady's house if he is affected by alcohol. A
gentleman seeing a young man who is not entirely himself in the presence
of ladies, quietly induces the youth to depart. An older man addicted to
the use of too much alcohol, need not be discussed, since he ceases to be
asked to the houses of ladies.

A gentleman does not lose control of his temper. In fact, in his own
self-control under difficult or dangerous circumstances, lies his chief
ascendancy over others who impulsively betray every emotion which animates
them. Exhibitions of anger, fear, hatred, embarrassment, ardor or
hilarity, are all bad form in public. And bad form is merely an action
which "jars" the sensibilities of others. A gentleman does not show a
letter written by a lady, unless perhaps to a very intimate friend if the
letter is entirely impersonal and written by some one who is equally the
friend of the one to whom it is shown. But the occasions when the letter
of a woman may be shown properly by a man are so few that it is safest to
make it a rule never to mention a woman's letter.

A gentleman does not bow to a lady from a club window; nor according to
good form should ladies ever be discussed in a man's club!

A man whose social position is self-made is apt to be detected by his
continual cataloguing of prominent names. Mr. Parvenu invariably
interlards his conversation with, "When I was dining at the Bobo
Gilding's"; or even "at Lucy Gilding's," and quite often accentuates, in
his ignorance, those of rather second-rate, though conspicuous position.
"I was spending last week-end with the Richan Vulgars," or "My great
friends, the Gotta Crusts." When a so-called gentleman insists on
imparting information, interesting only to the Social Register, _shun
him_!

The born gentleman avoids the mention of names exactly as he avoids the
mention of what things cost; both are an abomination to his soul.

A gentleman's manners are an integral part of him and are the same whether
in his dressing-room or in a ballroom, whether in talking to Mrs. Worldly
or to the laundress bringing in his clothes. He whose manners are only put
on in company is a veneered gentleman, not a real one.

A man of breeding does not slap strangers on the back nor so much as lay
his finger-tips on a lady. Nor does he punctuate his conversation by
pushing or nudging or patting people, nor take his conversation out of the
drawing-room! Notwithstanding the advertisements in the most dignified
magazines, a discussion of underwear and toilet articles and their merit
or their use, is unpleasant in polite conversation.

All thoroughbred people are considerate of the feelings of others no
matter what the station of the others may be. Thackeray's climber who
"licks the boots of those above him and kicks the faces of those below him
on the social ladder," is a, very good illustration of what a gentleman is
not.

A gentleman never takes advantage of another's helplessness or ignorance,
and assumes that no gentleman will take advantage of him.


=SIMPLICITY AND UNCONSCIOUSNESS OF SELF=

These words have been literally sprinkled through the pages of this book,
yet it is doubtful if they convey a clear idea of the attributes meant.

Unconsciousness of self is not so much unselfishness as it is the mental
ability to extinguish all thought of one's self--exactly as one turns out
the light.

Simplicity is like it, in that it also has a quality of self-effacement,
but it really means a love of the essential and of directness. Simple
people put no trimmings on their phrases, nor on their manners; but
remember, simplicity is not crudeness nor anything like it. On the
contrary, simplicity of speech and manners means language in its purest,
most limpid form, and manners of such perfection that they do not suggest
"manner" at all.


=THE INSTINCTS OF A LADY=

The instincts of a lady are much the same as those of a gentleman. She is
equally punctilious about her debts, equally averse to pressing her
advantage; especially if her adversary is helpless or poor.

As an unhappy wife, her dignity demands that she never show her
disapproval of her husband, no matter how publicly he slights or outrages
her. If she has been so unfortunate as to have married a man not a
gentleman, to draw attention to his behavior would put herself on his
level. If it comes actually to the point where she divorces him, she
discusses her situation, naturally, with her parents or her brother or
whoever are her nearest and wisest relatives, but she shuns publicity and
avoids discussing her affairs with any one outside of her immediate
family. One can not too strongly censure the unspeakable vulgarity of the
woman so unfortunate as to be obliged to go through divorce proceedings,
who confides the private details of her life to reporters.


=THE HALL-MARK OF THE CLIMBER=

Nothing so blatantly proclaims a woman climber as the repetition of
prominent names, the owners of which she must have struggled to know.
Otherwise, why so eagerly boast of the achievement? Nobody cares whom she
knows--nobody that is, but a climber like herself. To those who were born
and who live, no matter how quietly, in the security of a perfectly good
ledge above and away from the social ladder's rungs, the evidence of one
frantically climbing and trying to vaunt her exalted position is merely
ludicrous.

All thoroughbred women, and men, are considerate of others less
fortunately placed, especially of those in their employ. One of the tests
by which to distinguish between the woman of breeding and the woman merely
of wealth, is to notice the way she speaks to dependents. Queen Victoria's
duchesses, those great ladies of grand manner, were the very ones who, on
entering the house of a close friend, said "How do you do, Hawkins?" to a
butler; and to a sister duchess's maid, "Good morning, Jenkins." A
Maryland lady, still living on the estate granted to her family three
generations before the Revolution, is quite as polite to her friends'
servants as to her friends themselves. When you see a woman in silks and
sables and diamonds speak to a little errand girl or a footman or a
scullery maid as though they were the dirt under her feet, you may be sure
of one thing; she hasn't come a very long way from the ground herself.




CHAPTER XXX

CLUBS AND CLUB ETIQUETTE


A club, as every one knows, is merely an organization of people--men or
women or both--who establish club rooms, in which they meet at specified
times for specified purposes, or which they use casually and individually.
A club's membership may be limited to a dozen or may include several
thousands, and the procedure in joining a club may be easy or difficult,
according to the type of club and the standing of the would-be member.

Membership in many athletic associations may be had by walking in and
paying dues; also many country golf-clubs are as free to the public as
country inns; but joining a purely social club of rank and exclusiveness
is a very different matter. A man to be eligible for membership in such a
club must not only be completely a gentleman, but he must have friends
among the members who like him enough to be willing to propose him and
second him and write letters for him; and furthermore he must be disliked
by no one--at least not sufficiently for any member to object seriously to
his company.

There are two ways of joining a club; by invitation and by making
application or having it made for you. To join by invitation means that
you are invited when the club is started to be one of the founders or
charter members, or if you are a distinguished citizen you may at the
invitation of the governors become an honorary member, or in a small or
informal club you may become an ordinary member by invitation or
suggestion of the governors that you would be welcome. A charter member
pays dues, but not always an initiation fee; an honorary member pays
neither dues nor initiation, he is really a permanent guest of the club. A
life member is one who pays his dues for twenty years or so in a lump sum,
and is exempted from dues even if he lives to be a hundred. Few clubs
have honorary members and none have more than half a dozen, so that this
type of membership may as well be disregarded.

The ordinary members of a club are either resident, meaning that they live
within fifty miles of the club; or non-resident, living beyond that
distance and paying less dues but having the same privileges.

In certain of the London clubs, one or two New York ones, and the leading
club in several other cities, it is not unusual for a boy's name to be put
up for membership as soon as he is born. If his name comes up while he is
a minor, it is laid aside until after his twenty-first birthday and then
put at the head of the list of applicants and voted upon at the next
meeting of the governors.

In all clubs in which membership is limited and much sought after, the
waiting list is sure to be long and a name takes anywhere from five to
more than ten years to come up.


=HOW A NAME IS "PUT UP"=

Since a gentleman is scarcely likely to want to join a club in which the
members are not his friends, he tells a member of his family, or an
intimate friend, that he would like to join the Nearby Club, and adds, "Do
you mind putting me up? I will ask Dick to second me." The friend says,
"I'll be very glad to," and Dick says the same. It is still more likely
that the suggestion to join comes from a friend, who says one day, "Why
don't you join the Nearby Club? It would be very convenient for you." The
other says, "I think I should like to," and the first replies, "Let me put
you up, and Dick will be only too glad to second you."

It must be remembered that a gentleman has no right to ask any one who is
not really one of his best friends to propose or second him. It is an
awkward thing to refuse in the first place, and in the second it involves
considerable effort, and on occasion a great deal of annoyance and
trouble.

For example let us suppose that Jim Smartlington asks Donald Lovejoy to
propose him and Clubwin Doe to second him. His name is written in the book
kept for the purpose and signed by both proposer and seconder:

    Smartlington, James
              Proposer: Donald Lovejoy
              Seconder: Clubwin Doe

Nothing more is done until the name is posted--meaning that it appears
among a list of names put up on the bulletin-board in the club house. It
is then the duty of Lovejoy and Doe each to write a letter of endorsement
to the governors of the club, to be read by them when they hold the
meeting at which his name comes up for election.

Example:

    Board of Governors,
    The Nearby Club.

    Dear sirs:

    It affords me much pleasure to propose for membership in the
    Nearby Club Mr. James Smartlington. I have known Mr. Smartlington
    for many years and consider him qualified in every way for
    membership.

    He is a graduate of Yalvard, class 1916, rowed on the Varsity
    crew, and served in the 180th, as 1st Lieut., overseas during the
    war. He is now in his father's firm (Jones, Smartlington & Co.).

    Yours very truly,
            Donald Lovejoy.

Lovejoy must also at once tell Smartlington to ask about six friends who
are club-members (but not governors) to write letters endorsing him.
Furthermore, the candidate can not come up for election unless he knows
several of the governors personally, who can vouch for him at the
meeting. Therefore Lovejoy and Doe must one or the other take Smartlington
to several governors (at their offices generally) and personally present
him, or very likely they invite two or three of the governors and
Smartlington to lunch.

Even under the best of circumstances it is a nuisance for a busy man to
have to make appointments at the offices of other busy men. And since it
is uncertain which of the governors will be present at any particular
meeting, it is necessary to introduce the candidate to a sufficient number
so that at least two among those at the meeting will be able to speak for
him.

In the example we have chosen, Clubwin Doe, having himself been a governor
and knowing most of the present ones very well, has less difficulty in
presenting his candidate to them than many other members might have, who,
though they have for years belonged to the club, have used it so seldom
that they know few, if any, of the governors even by sight.

At the leading woman's club of New York, the governors appoint an hour on
several afternoons before elections when they are in the visitors' rooms
at the club house on purpose to meet the candidates whom their proposers
must present. This would certainly seem a more practicable method, to say
nothing of its being easier for everyone concerned, than the masculine
etiquette which requires that the governors be stalked one by one, to the
extreme inconvenience and loss of time and occasionally the embarrassment
of every one.

As already said, Jim Smartlington, having unusually popular and well-known
sponsors and being also very well liked himself, is elected with little
difficulty.

But take the case of young Breezy: He was put up by two not well-known
members, who wrote half-hearted endorsements themselves and did nothing
about getting letters from others; they knew none of the governors, and
trusted that two who knew Breezy slightly "would do." His casual proposer
forgot that enemies write letters as well as friends--and that moreover
enmity is active where friendship is often passive. Two men who disliked
his "manner" wrote that they considered him "unsuitable," and as he had
no friends strong enough to stand up for him, he was turned down. A
gentleman is rarely "black-balled," as such an action could not fail to
injure him in the eyes of the world. (The expression "black ball" comes
from the custom of voting for a member by putting a white ball in a ballot
box, or against him by putting in a black one.) If a candidate is likely
to receive a black ball, the governors do not vote on him at all, but
inform the proposer that the name of his candidate would better be
withdrawn. Later on, if the objection to him is disproved or overcome, his
name can again be put up.

The more popular the candidate, the less work there is for his proposer
and seconder. A stranger--if he is not a member of the representative club
in his own city--would have need of strong friends to elect him to an
exclusive one in another, and an unpopular man has no chance at all.

However, in all except very rare instances events run smoothly; the
candidate is voted on at a meeting of the board of governors and is
elected.

A notice is mailed to him next morning, telling him that he has been
elected and that his initiation fee and his dues make a total of so much.
The candidate thereupon at once draws his check for the amount and mails
it. As soon as the secretary has had ample time to receive the check, the
new member is free to use the club as much or as little as he cares to.


=THE NEW MEMBER=

The new member usually, but not necessarily, goes for the first time to a
club with his proposer or his seconder, or at least an old member; for
since in exclusive clubs visitors living in the same city are never given
the privilege of the club, none but members can know their way about. Let
us say he goes for lunch or dinner, at which he is host, and his friend
imparts such unwritten information as: "That chair in the window is where
old Gotrox always sits; don't occupy it when you see him coming in or he
will be disagreeable to everybody for a week." Or "They always play double
stakes at this table, so don't sit at it, unless you _mean_ to." Or
"That's Double coming in now, avoid him at bridge as you would the
plague." "The roasts are always good and that waiter is the best in the
room," etc.

A new member is given--or should ask for--a copy of the Club Book, which
contains besides the list of the members, the constitution and the by-laws
or "house rules," which he must study carefully and be sure to obey.


=COUNTRY CLUBS=

Country clubs are as a rule less exclusive and less expensive than the
representative city clubs, but those like the Myopia Hunt, the Tuxedo, the
Saddle and Cycle, the Burlingame, and countless others in between, are
many of them more expensive to belong to than any clubs in London or New
York, and are precisely the same in matters of membership and management.
They are also quite as difficult to be elected to as any of the exclusive
clubs in the cities--more so if anything, because they are open to the
family and friends of every member, whereas in a man's club in a city his
membership gives the privilege of the club to no one but himself
personally. The test question always put by the governors at elections is:
"Are the candidate's friends as well as his family likely to be agreeable
to the present members of the Club?" If not, he is not admitted.

Nearly all country clubs have, however, one open door--unknown to city
ones. People taking houses in the neighborhood are often granted "season
privileges"; meaning that on being proposed by a member and upon paying a
season subscription, new householders are accepted as transient guests. In
some clubs this season subscription may be indefinitely renewed; in others
a man must come up for regular election at the end of three months or six
or a year.

Apart from what may be called the few representative and exclusive country
clubs, there are hundreds--more likely thousands--which have very simple
requirements for membership. The mere form of having one or two members
vouch for a candidate's integrity and good behavior is sufficient.

Golf clubs, hunting clubs, political or sports clubs have special
membership qualifications; all good golf players are as a rule welcomed at
all golf clubs; all huntsmen at hunting clubs, and yet the Myopia would
not think of admitting the best rider ever known if he was not
unquestionably a gentleman. But this is unusual. As a rule, the great
player is welcomed in any club specially devoted to the sport in which he
excels.

In many clubs a stranger may be given a three (sometimes it is six)
months' transient membership, available in some instances to foreigners
only; in others to strangers living beyond a certain distance. A name is
proposed and seconded by two members and then voted on by the governors,
or the house committee.

The best known and most distinguished club of New England has an "Annex"
in which there are dining-rooms to which ladies as well as gentlemen who
are not members are admitted, and this annex plan has since been followed
by others elsewhere.

All men's clubs have private dining-rooms in which members can give stag
dinners, but the representative men's clubs exclude ladies absolutely from
ever crossing their thresholds.


=WOMEN'S CLUBS=

Excepting that the luxurious women's club has an atmosphere that a man
rarely knows how to give to the interior of a house, no matter how
architecturally perfect it may be, there is no difference between women's
and men's clubs.

In every State of the Union there are women's clubs of every kind and
grade; social, political, sports, professional; some housed in enormous
and perfect buildings constructed for them, and some perhaps in only a
room or two.

When the pioneer women's club of New York was started, a club that aspired
to be in the same class as the most important men's club, various
governors of the latter were unflatteringly outspoken; women could not
possibly run a club as it should be run--it was unthinkable that they
should be foolish enough to attempt it! And the husbands and fathers of
the founders expected to have to dig down in their pockets to make up the
deficit; forgetting entirely that the running of a club is merely the
running of a house on a large scale, and that women, not men, are the
perfect housekeepers. To-day, no clubs anywhere are more perfect in
appointment or better run than the representative women's clubs. In fact,
some of the men's clubs have been forced to follow the lead of the
foremost of them and to realize that a club in which members merely sit
about and look out of the window is a pretty dull place to the type of
younger members they most want to attract, and that the combination of the
comfort and smartness of a perfectly run private house with every
equipment for athletics, is becoming the ideal in club-life and
club-building to-day.


=GOOD MANNERS IN CLUBS=

Good manners in clubs are the same as good manners elsewhere--only a
little more so. A club is for the pleasure and convenience of many; it is
never intended as a stage-setting for a "star" or "clown" or "monologist."
There is no place where a person has greater need of restraint and
consideration for the reserves of others than in a club. In every club
there is a reading-room or library where conversation is not allowed;
there are books and easy chairs and good light for reading both by day and
night; and it is one of the unbreakable rules not to speak to anybody who
is reading--or writing.

When two people are sitting by themselves and talking, another should on
no account join them unless he is an intimate friend of both. To be a mere
acquaintance, or, still less, to have been introduced to one of them,
gives no privilege whatever.

The fact of being a club member does not (except in a certain few
especially informal clubs) grant any one the right to speak to strangers.
If a new member happens to find no one in the club whom he knows, he goes
about his own affairs. He either sits down and reads or writes, or "looks
out of the window," or plays solitaire, or occupies himself as he would if
he were alone in a hotel.

It is courteous of a governor or habitual member, on noticing a new member
or a visitor, especially one who seems to be rather at a loss--to go up
and speak to him, but the latter must on no account be the one to speak
first. Certain New York and Boston clubs, as well as those of London, have
earned a reputation for snobbishness because the members never speak to
those they do not know. Through no intent to be disagreeable, but just
because it is not customary, New York people do not speak to those they do
not know, and it does not occur to them that strangers feel slighted until
they themselves are given the same medicine in London; or going elsewhere
in America, they appreciate the courtesy and kindness of the South and
West.

The fundamental rule for behavior in a club is the same as in the
drawing-room of a private house. In other words, heels have no place on
furniture, ashes belong in ash-receivers, books should not be abused, and
all evidence of exercising should be confined to the courts or courses and
the locker room. Many people who wouldn't think of lolling around the
house in unfit attire, come trooping into country clubs with their
steaming faces, clammy shirts, and rumpled hair, giving too awful evidence
of recent exertion, and present fitness for the bathtub.


=THE PERFECT CLUBMAN=

The perfect clubman is another word for the perfect gentleman. He never
allows himself to show irritability to any one, he makes it a point to be
courteous to a new member or an old member's guest. He scrupulously
observes the rules of the club, he discharges his card debts at the
table, he pays his share always, with an instinctive horror of sponging,
and lastly, he treats everyone with the same consideration which he
expects--and demands--from them.


=THE INFORMAL CLUB=

The informal club is often more suggestive of a fraternity than a club, in
that every member speaks to every other--always. In one of the best known
of this type, the members are artists, authors, scientists, sportsmen and
other thinkers and doers. There is a long table set every day for lunch at
which the members gather and talk, every one to every one else. There is
another dining-room where solitary members may sit by themselves or bring
in outsiders if they care to. None but members sit at the "round" table
which isn't "round" in the least!

The informal club is always a comparatively small one, but the method of
electing members varies. In some, it is customary to take the vote of the
whole club, in others members are elected by the governors first, and then
asked to join. In this case no man may ask to have his name put up. In
others the conventional methods are followed.


=THE VISITORS IN A CLUB=

In every club in the United States a member is allowed to "introduce" a
stranger (living at least fifty miles away) for a length of time varying
with the by-laws of the club. In some clubs guests may be put up for a day
only, in others the privilege extends for two weeks or more.

Many clubs allow each member a certain number of visitors a year; in
others visitors are unlimited. But in all city clubs the same guest can
not be introduced twice within the year. In country clubs visitors may
always be brought in by members in unlimited numbers.

As a rule when a member introduces a stranger, he takes him to the club
personally, writes his name in the visitors' book, and introduces him to
those who may be in the room at the time--very possibly asking another
member whom he knows particularly well to "look out" for his guest. If for
some reason it is not possible for the stranger's host to take him to the
club, he writes to the secretary of the club for a card of introduction.

Example:


    Secretary,
    The Town Club.

    Dear Sir:

    Kindly send Mr. A.M. Strangleigh a card extending the privileges
    of the Club for one week.

    Mr. Strangleigh is a resident of London.

    Yours very truly,
    Clubwin Doe.


The secretary then sends a card to Mr. Strangleigh:

      The Town Club

    Extends its privileges to

      Mr. [HW: Strangleigh]

    from [HW: Jan. 7.] to [HW: Jan. 14.]

    Through the courtesy of

    Mr. [HW: Clubwin Doe]

Mr. Strangleigh goes to the club by himself. A visitor who has been given
the privileges of the club has, during the time of his visit, all the
rights of a member excepting that he is not allowed to introduce others to
the club, and he can not give a dinner in the private dining-room. Strict
etiquette also demands, if he wishes to ask several members to dine with
him, that he take them to a restaurant rather than into the club
dining-room, since the club is their home and he is a stranger in it. He
may ask a member whom he knows well to lunch with him in the club rooms,
but he must not ask one whom he knows only slightly. As accounts are sent
to the member who put him up--unless the guest arranges at the club's
office to have his charges rendered to himself, he must be punctilious to
ask for his bill upon leaving, and pay it _without question_.

Putting a man up at a club never means that the member is "host." The
visitor's status throughout his stay is founded on the courtesy of the
member who introduced him, and he should try to show an equal courtesy to
every one about him. He should remember not to obtrude on the privacy of
the members he does not know. He has no right to criticise the management,
the rules or the organization of the club. He has, in short, no actual
rights at all, and he must not forget that he hasn't!


=CLUB ETIQUETTE IN LONDON, PARIS AND NEW YORK=

"In a very smart London club" (the words quoted are Clubwin Doe's) "you
keep your hat on and glare about! In Paris you take your hat off and
behave with such courtesy and politeness as seems to you an affectation.
In New York you take your hat off and behave as though the rooms were
empty; but as though you were being observed through loop-holes in the
walls."

In New York you are introduced occasionally, but you may never ask to be
introduced, and you speak only to those you have been introduced to. In
London, you are never introduced to any one, but if the member who has
taken you with him joins a group and you all sit down together, you talk
as you would after dinner in a gentleman's house. But if you are made a
temporary member and meet those you have been talking to when you are
alone the next day, you do not speak unless spoken to. In Paris, your host
punctiliously introduces you to various members and you must just as
punctiliously go the next day to their houses and leave your card upon
each one! This is customary in the strictly French clubs only. In any one
which has members of other nationalities--especially with Americans
predominating, or seeming to, American customs obtain. In French clubs a
visitor can not go to the club unless he is with a member, but there are
no restrictions on the number of times he may be taken by the same member
or another one.


=UNBREAKABLE RULES=

Failure to pay one's debts, or behavior unbefitting a gentleman, is cause
for expulsion from every club; which is looked upon in much the same light
as expulsion from the Army. In certain cases expulsion for debt may seem
unfair, since one may find himself in unexpectedly straitened
circumstances, and the greatest fault or crime could not be more severely
dealt with than being expelled from his club; but "club honor"--except
under very temporary and mitigating conditions--takes no account of any
reason for being "unable" to meet his obligations. He _must_--or he is not
considered honorable.

If a man can not afford to belong to a club he must resign while he is
still "in good standing." If later on he is able to rejoin, his name is
put at the head of the waiting list, and if he was considered a desirable
member, he is re-elected at the next meeting of the governors. But a man
who has been expelled (unless he can show cause why his expulsion was
unjust and be re-instated) can never again belong to that, or be elected
to any other, club.




CHAPTER XXXI

GAMES AND SPORTS


The popularity of bridge whist began a quarter of a century ago with the
older people and has increased slowly but steadily until it is scarcely an
exaggeration to say that those who do not play bridge, which means
"auction," are seldom asked out. And the epidemic is just as widespread
among girls and boys as among older people. Bridge is always taken
seriously; a bumble puppy game won't do at all, even among the youngest
players, and other qualifications of character and of etiquette must be
observed by every one who would be sought after to "make up a four."


=PEOPLE CHARMING TO PLAY BRIDGE WITH=

That no one likes a poor partner--or even a poor opponent--goes without
saying.

The ideal partner is one who never criticises or even seems to be aware of
your mistakes, but on the contrary recognizes a good maneuver on your
part, and gives you credit for it whether you win the hand or lose;
whereas the inferior player is apt to judge you merely by what you win,
and blame your "make" if you "go down," though your play may have been
exceptionally good and the loss even occasioned by wrong information which
he himself gave you. Also, to be continually found fault with makes you
play your worst; whereas appreciation of good judgment on your part acts
as a tonic and you play seemingly "better than you know how."


=PEOPLE DISLIKED AT THE BRIDGE TABLE=

There is nothing which more quickly reveals the veneered gentleman than
the card table, and his veneer melts equally with success or failure.
Being carried away by the game, he forgets to keep on his company polish,
and if he wins, he becomes grasping or overbearing, because of his
"skill"; if he loses he sneers at the "luck" of others and seeks to
justify himself for the same fault that he criticised a moment before in
another.

A trick that is annoying to moderately skilled players, is to have an
over-confident opponent throw down his hand saying: "The rest of the
tricks are mine!" and often succeed in "putting it over," when it is quite
possible that they might not be his if the hand were played out. Knowing
themselves to be poorer players, the others are apt not to question it,
but they feel none the less that their "rights" have been taken from them.

A rather trying partner is the nervous player, who has no confidence in
his own judgment and will invariably pass a good hand in favor of his
partner's bid. If, for instance, he has six perfectly good diamonds, he
doesn't mention them because, his partner having declared a heart, he
thinks to himself "Her hearts must be better than my diamonds." But a much
more serious failing--and one that is far more universal--is the habit of
overbidding.


=OVERBIDDING=

In poker you play alone and can therefore play as carefully or as
foolishly as you please, but in bridge your partner has to suffer with
you, and you therefore are in honor bound to play the best you know
how--and the best you know how is as far as can possibly be from
overbidding.

Remember that your partner, if he is a good player, counts on you for
certain definite cards that you announce by your bid to be in your hand,
and raises you accordingly. If you have not these cards you not only lose
that particular hand, but destroy his confidence in you, and the next time
when he has a legitimate raise for you, he will fail to give it. He
disregards you entirely because he is afraid of you! You _must study the
rules for makes_ and _never under any circumstances give your partner
misinformation_; this is the most vital rule there is, and any one who
disregards it is detested at the bridge table. No matter how great the
temptation to make a gambler's bid, you are in honor bound to refrain.

The next essential, if you would be thought "charming," is never to take
your partner to task no matter how stupidly he may have "thrown the hand."


=DON'TS FOR THOSE WHO WOULD BE SOUGHT AFTER=

Don't hold a "post-mortem" on anybody's delinquencies (unless you are
actually teaching).

If luck is against you, it will avail nothing to sulk or complain about
the "awful" cards you are holding. Your partner is suffering just as much
in finding you a "poison vine" as you are in being one--and you can
scarcely expect your opponents to be sympathetic. You must learn to look
perfectly tranquil and cheerful even though you hold nothing but
yarboroughs for days on end, and you must on no account try to defend your
own bad play--ever. When you have made a play of poor judgment, the best
thing you can say is, "I'm very sorry, partner," and let it go at that.

Always pay close attention to the game. When you are dummy you have
certain duties to your partner, and so do not wander around the room until
the hand is over. If you don't know what your duties are, read the rules
until you know them by heart and then--begin all over again! It is
impossible to play any game without a thorough knowledge of the laws that
govern it, and you are at fault in making the attempt.

Don't be offended if your partner takes you out of a bid, and don't take
him out for the glory of playing the hand. He is quite as anxious to win
the rubber as you are. It is unbelievable how many people regard their
partner as a third opponent.


=MANNERISMS AT THE CARD TABLE=

Mannerisms must be avoided like the plague. If there is one thing worse
than the horrible "post-mortem," it is the incessant repetition of some
jarring habit by one particular player. The most usual and most offensive
is that of snapping down a card as played, or bending a "trick" one has
taken into a letter "U," or picking it up and trotting it up and down on
the table.

Other pet offenses are drumming on the table with one's fingers, making
various clicking, whistling, or humming sounds, massaging one's face,
scratching one's chin with the cards, or waving the card one is going to
play aloft in the air in Smart Alec fashion as though shouting, "I know
what you are going to lead! And my card is ready!" All mannerisms that
attract attention are in the long run equally unpleasant--even unendurable
to one's companions.

Many people whose game is otherwise admirable are rarely asked to play
because they have allowed some such silly and annoying habit to take its
hold upon them.


=THE GOOD LOSER=

The good loser makes it an invariable rule never to play for stakes that
it will be inconvenient to lose. The neglect of this rule has been
responsible for more "bad losers" than anything else, and needless to say
a bad loser is about as welcome at a card table as rain at a picnic.

Of course there _are_ people who can take losses beyond their means with
perfect cheerfulness and composure. Some few are so imbued with the
gambler's instinct that a heavy turn of luck, in either direction, is the
salt of life. But the average person is equally embarrassed in winning or
losing a stake "that matters" and the only answer is to play for one that
doesn't.


=GOLF=

Golf is a particularly severe strain upon the amiability of the average
person's temper, and in no other game, except bridge, is serenity of
disposition so essential. No one easily "ruffled" can keep a clear eye on
the ball, and exasperation at "lost balls" seemingly bewitches successive
ones into disappearing with the completeness and finality of puffs of
smoke. In a race or other test of endurance a flare of anger might even
help, but in golf it is safe to say that he who loses his temper is pretty
sure to lose the game.

Golf players of course know the rules and observe them, but it quite often
happens that idlers, having nothing better to do, walk out over a course
and "watch the players." If they know the players well, that is one thing,
but they have no right to follow strangers. A player who is nervous is
easily put off his game, especially if those watching him are so ill-bred
as to make audible remarks. Those playing matches of course expect an
audience, and erratic and nervous players ought not to go into
tournaments--or at least not in two-ball foursomes where they are likely
to handicap a partner.

In following a match, onlookers must be careful to stand well within
bounds and neither talk nor laugh nor do anything that can possibly
distract the attention of the players.

The rule that you should not appoint yourself mentor holds good in golf as
well as in bridge and every other game. Unless your advice is asked for,
you should not instruct others how to hold their clubs or which ones to
use, or how they ought to make the shot.

A young woman must on no account expect the man she happens to be playing
with to make her presents of golf-balls, or to caddy for her, nor must she
allow him to provide her with a caddy. If she can't afford to hire one of
her own, she must either carry her own clubs or not play golf.


=OTHER GAMES AND SPORTS=

There are fixed rules for the playing of every game--and for proper
conduct in every sport. The details of these rules must be studied in the
"books of the game," learned from instructors, or acquired by experience.
A small boy perhaps learns to fish or swim by himself, but he is taught by
his father or a guide--at all events, some one--how and how not to hold a
gun, cast a fly, or ride a horse. But apart from the technique of each
sport, or the rules of each game, the etiquette--or more correctly, the
basic principles of good sportsmanship, are the same.

In no sport or game can any favoritism or evasion of rules be allowed.
Sport is based upon impersonal and indiscriminating fairness to every one
alike, or it is not "sport."

And to _be_ a good sportsman, one must be a stoic and never show rancor in
defeat, or triumph in victory, or irritation, no matter what annoyance is
encountered. One who can not help sulking, or explaining, or protesting
when the loser, or exulting when the winner, has no right to take part in
games and contests.


="PLAYING THE GAME"=

If you would be thought to play the game, meaning if you aspire to be a
true sportsman, you must follow the rules of sportsmanship the world over:

Never lose your temper.

Play for the sake of playing rather than to win.

Never stop in the middle of a tennis or golf match and complain of a lame
ankle, especially if you are losing. Unless it is literally impossible for
you to go on, you must stick it out.

If you are a novice, don't ask an expert to play with you, especially as
your partner. If he should ask you in spite of your shortcomings, maintain
the humility proper to a beginner.

If you are a woman, don't ape the ways and clothing of men. If you are a
man, don't take advantage of your superior strength to set a pace beyond
the endurance of a woman opponent.

And always give the opponent the benefit of the doubt! Nothing is more
important to your standing as a sportsman, though it costs you the
particular point in question.

A true sportsman is always a cheerful loser, a quiet winner, with a very
frank appreciation of the admirable traits in others, which he seeks to
emulate, and his own shortcomings, which he tries to improve.




CHAPTER XXXII

ETIQUETTE IN BUSINESS AND POLITICS


A certain rich man whose appointment to a foreign post of importance was
about to be ratified, came into the corridor of a Washington hotel and
stopped to speak with a lady for a few moments. During the whole
conversation he kept his hat on his head and a cigar in the corner of his
mouth. It happened that the lady was the wife of a prominent senator, and
she lost no time in reporting the incident to her husband, who in turn
brought the matter to the attention of certain of his colleagues with the
result that the appointment did not go through.

It is not unlikely that this man thinks "politics played against him,"
whereas the only factor against him was his exhibition of ill-breeding
which proved him unsuitable to represent the dignity of his country.

Etiquette would not seem to play an important part in business, and yet no
man can ever tell when its knowledge may be of advantage, or its lack may
turn the scale against him. The man who remains "planted" in his chair
when a lady (or an older man) speaks to him, who receives customers in his
shirt sleeves, who does not take off his hat when talking with a lady and
take his cigar out of his mouth when bowing or when addressing her, can
never be sure that he is not preparing a witness for the prosecution.


=ETIQUETTE IN SMOKING=

The above does not mean that a gentleman may never smoke in the presence
of ladies--especially in the presence of those who smoke themselves--but a
gentleman should not smoke under the following circumstances:

When walking on the street with a lady.

When lifting his hat or bowing.

In a room, an office, or an elevator, when a lady enters.

In any short conversation where he is standing near, or talking with a
lady.

If he is seated himself for a conversation with a lady on a veranda, in an
hotel, in a private house, anywhere where "smoking is permitted," he first
asks, "Do you mind if I smoke?" And if she replies, "Not at all" or "Do,
by all means," it is then proper for him to do so. He should, however,
take his cigar, pipe, or cigarette, out of his mouth while he is speaking.
One who is very adroit can say a word or two without an unpleasant
grimace, but one should not talk with one's mouth either full of food or
barricaded with tobacco.

In the country, a gentleman may walk with a lady and smoke at the same
time--especially a pipe or cigarette. Why a cigar is less admissible is
hard to determine, unless a pipe somehow belongs to the country. A
gentleman in golf or country clothes with a pipe in his mouth and a dog at
his heels suggests a picture fitting to the scene; while a cigar seems as
out of place as a cutaway coat. A pipe on the street in a city, on the
other hand, is less appropriate than a cigar in the country. In any event
he will, of course, ask his companion's permission to smoke.


=MANNERS AND BUSINESS=

If you had a commission to give and you entered a man's office and found
him lolling back in a tipped swivel chair, his feet above his head, the
ubiquitous cigar in his mouth and his drowsy attention fixed on the
sporting page of the newspaper, you would be impressed not so much by his
lack of good manners as by his bad business policy, because of the
incompetence that his attitude suggests. It is scarcely necessary to ask:
Would you give an important commission to him who has no apparent
intention of doing anything but "take his ease"; or to him who is found
occupied at his desk, who gets up with alacrity upon your entrance, and is
seemingly "on his toes" mentally as well as actually? Or, would you go in
preference to a man whose manners resemble those of a bear at the Zoo, if
you could go to another whose business ability is supplemented by
personal charm? And this again is merely an illustration of bad manners
and good.


=AN ADVANTAGE OF POLISH=

One advantage of polish is that one's opponent can never tell what is
going on under the glazed surface of highly finished manners, whereas an
unfinished surface is all too easily penetrated. And since business
encounters are often played like poker hands, it is surely a bad plan to
be playing with a mind-reader who can plainly divine his opponent's cards,
while his own are unrevealed.

Manners that can by any possibility be construed as mincing, foppish or
effeminate are _not_ recommended; but a gentleman who says "Good morning"
to his employees and who invariably treats all women as "ladies," does not
half so much flatter their vanity as win their respect for himself as a
gentleman. Again, good manners are, after all, nothing but courteous
consideration of other people's interests and feelings. That being true,
does it not follow that all customers, superior officers and employees
prefer an executive whose good manners imply consideration of his
customer's, his company's and his employee's interest as well as merely
his own?


=PERFECT POLISH THAT IS UNSUSPECTED=

The president of a great industry, whose mastery of etiquette is one of
his chief assets, so submerges this asset in other and more apparent
qualifications, that every plain man he comes in contact with takes it for
granted that he is an equally "plain" man himself. He _is_ plain in so far
as he is straightforward in attitude and simple in manner. No red tape is
required apparently to penetrate into this president's private office,
whereas many "small" men are guarded with pretentiousness that is often an
effort to give an impression of "importance."

In this big man's employ there is an especial assistant chosen purposely
because of his tact and good manners. If an unknown person asks to see
Mr. President, this deputy is sent out (as from most offices) to find out
what the visitor's business is; but instead of being told bluntly the boss
doesn't know him and can't see him, the visitor is made to feel how much
the president will regret not seeing him. Perhaps he is told, "Mr.
President is in conference just now. I know he would not like you to be
kept waiting; can I be of any service to you? I am his junior assistant."
If the visitor's business is really with the president, he is admitted to
the chief executive's office, since it is the latter's policy to see every
one that he can.

He has a courteous manner that makes every one feel there is nothing in
the day's work half so important as what his visitor has come to see him
about! Nor is this manner insincere; for whatever time one sees him, he
gives his undivided attention. Should his time be short, and the moment
approach when he is due at an appointment, his secretary enters, a
purposely arranged ten minutes ahead of the time necessary for the close
of the present interview, and apologetically reminds him, "I'm sorry, Mr.
President, but your appointment with the 'Z' committee is due." Mr.
President with seeming unconcern, uses up most of the ten minutes, and his
lingering close of the conversation gives his visitor the impression that
he must have been late at his appointment, and wholly because of the
unusual interest felt in his caller.

This is neither sincerity nor insincerity, but merely bringing social
knowledge into business dealing. To make a pleasant and friendly
impression is not alone good manners, but equally good business. The crude
man would undoubtedly show his eagerness to be rid of his visitor, and
after offending the latter's self-pride because of his inattentive
discourtesy, be late for his own appointment! The man of skill saw his
visitor for fewer actual minutes, but gave the impression that
circumstances over which he had no control forced him unwillingly to close
the interview. He not only gained the good will of his visitor, but
arrived at his own appointment in plenty of time.

To listen attentively when one is spoken to, is merely one of the rules
of etiquette. The man who, while some one is talking to him, gazes out of
the window or up at the ceiling, who draws squares and circles on the
blotter, or is engrossed in his finger-nails or his shoes, may in his own
mind be "finessing," or very likely he is bored! In the first case, the
chances are he will lose the game; in the second, lots of people are
bored, hideously bored, and most often the fault is their own; always they
are at fault who show it.


=GOOD MANNERS AND "GOOD MIXERS"=

When one thinks of a man who is known in politics and business as a "good
mixer," one is apt to think of him as a rough diamond rather than a
polished one. In picturing a gentleman, a man of high cultivation, one
instinctively thinks of one who is somewhat aloof and apart. A good mixer
among uncouth men may quite accurately be one who is also uncouth; but the
best "mixer" of all is one who adjusts himself equally well to finer as
well as to plainer society. Education that does not confer flexibility of
mind is an obviously limited education; the man of broadest education
tunes himself in unison with whomever he happens to be. The more subjects
he knows about, the more people he is in sympathy with, and therefore the
more customers or associates or constituents he is sure to have.

The really big man--it makes little difference whether he was born with a
gold spoon in his mouth or no spoon at all--is always one whose interest
in people, things, and events is a stimulating influence upon all those he
comes in contact with.

He who says, "That does not interest me," or "That bores me," defines his
own limitations. He who is unable to project sympathy into other problems
or classes than his own is an unimportant person though he have the birth
of a Cecil and the manners of a Chesterfield. Every gentleman has an
inalienable right to his own reserves--that goes without saying--and
because he can project sympathy and understanding where and when he
chooses, does not for one moment mean that he thereby should break down
the walls of his instinctive defenses.

It is not the latter type, but the "Gentleman Limited" who has belittled
the name of "gentleman" in the world of work; not so much because he is a
gentleman, as because he is not entirely one. He who is every inch a
gentleman as well as every inch a man is the highest type in the world
to-day, just as he has always been. The do-nothing gentleman is equally
looked down upon everywhere.


=ETIQUETTE IN "REVERSE GEAR"=

Etiquette, remember, is merely a collection of forms by which all personal
contacts in life are made smooth. The necessity for a "rough" man to
become polished so that he may meet men of cultivation on an equal
footing, has an equally important reverse. The time has gone by when a
gentleman by grace of God, which placed him in a high-born position, can
control numbers of other men placed beneath him. Every man takes his place
to-day according to born position plus the test of his own experience. And
just as an unlettered expert in business is only half authoritative to men
of high cultivation, so also is the gentleman, no matter how much he knows
of Latin, Greek, history, art and polish of manner, handicapped according
to his ignorance on the subject of another's expertness. Etiquette, in
reverse, prescribes this necessity for complete knowledge in every contact
in life. Through knowledge alone, does one prove one's right to authority.
For instance:

A man in a machine ship is working at a lathe. An officer of the company
comes into the shop, a gentleman in white collar and good clothes! He
stands behind the mechanic and "curses him out" because his work is
inefficient. When he turns away, the man at the lathe says, "Who was that
guy anyway? What business has he to teach me my job?" Instead of accepting
the criticism, he resents what he considers unwarranted interference by a
man in another "class."

But supposing instead of standing by and talking about inefficiency, the
"gentleman" had said, "Get out of there a moment!" and throwing off his
coat and rolling up his silk shirt sleeves, he had operated the lathe with
a smoothness and rapidity that could only have been acquired through long
experience at a bench. The result would be that the next time he came on a
tour of inspection that particular man (as well as all those who were
witnesses of the former scene) would not only listen to him with respect
but without resentment of his "class," because his expertness proved that
he had earned his right to good clothes and silk shirts, and to tell those
beneath him how work should be done.

The same test applies to any branch of experience: a man who knows as much
about any "specialty" as an expert does himself, makes the "expert" think
at once, "This man is a wonder!" The very fact that the first man is not
making the subject _his_ specialty, intensifies the achievement.
Everything he says after that on subjects of which the second man knows
nothing is accepted without question. Whenever you know as much as the
other man, whether you are socially above, or below him, you are on that
subject his equal; when you know more than he does, you have the
advantage.


=THE SELF-MADE MAN AND WORLD-MADE MANNERS=

It is not in order to shine in society that grace of manner is an asset;
comparatively few people in a community care a rap about "society" anyway!
A man of affairs whose life is spent in doing a man's work in a man's way
is not apt to be thrilled at the thought of putting on "glad" clothes and
going out with his wife to a "pink" tea or a ball.

But what many successful men do not realize is that a fundamental
knowledge of etiquette is no less an asset in business or public life, or
in any other contact with people, than it is in society.

Just as any expert, whether at a machine bench, an accountant's desk, or
at golf, gives an impression of such ease as to make his accomplishment
seemingly require no skill, a bungler makes himself and every one watching
him uneasy if not actually fearful of his awkwardness. And as inexpertness
is quite as irritating in personal as in mechanical bungling, so there is
scarcely any one who sooner or later does not feel the need of social
expertness. Something, some day, will awaken him to the folly of scorning
as "soft," men who have accomplished manners; despising as "effeminate,"
youths who have physical grace; of being contemptuous of the perfect
English of the well-bred gentleman; of consoling himself with the thought
that his own crudeness is strong, and manly, and American!


=THE "X" MARKERS=

But let "success" come to this same inexpert man--let him be appointed to
high office, let him then shuffle from foot to foot, never knowing what to
do or say, let him meet open derision or ill-concealed contempt from every
educated person brought in contact with him, let opprobrium fall upon his
State because its governor is a boor, and let him as such be written of in
the editorials of the press and in the archives of history! Will he be so
pleased with himself then? Does any one think of Theodore Roosevelt as
"soft" or "effeminate" because he was one of the greatest masters of
etiquette who ever bore the most exalted honor that can be awarded by the
people of the United States? Washington was completely a gentleman--and so
was Abraham Lincoln. Because Lincoln's etiquette was self-taught it was no
less masterly for that! Whether he happened to know a lot of trifling
details of pseudo etiquette matters not in the least. Awkward he may have
been, but the essence of him was courtesy--unfailing courtesy. No "rough,
uneducated" man has command of perfect English, and Lincoln's English is
supreme.

One thing that some Men of Might forget is that lack of polish in its
wider aspects is merely lack of education. They themselves look down upon
a man who has to make an "X" mark in place of signing his name--but they
overlook entirely that to those more highly educated, they are themselves
in degree quite as ignorant.


=SONS OF SELF-MADE MEN=

And yet, speak to self-made men of the need of the social graces for their
sons, and nine out of ten stampede--for all the world as though it were
suggested to put them in petticoats. Do they think a poor unlettered lout
who shambles at the door, who stands unable to speak, who turns his cap in
his hands, who sidles into the room, and can't for the life of him get out
again, well trained for the battle of life?

Picture that Mr. Strong Man who thrusts his thumbs into his armholes and
sits tipped back in his chair with a cigar in the corner of his mouth and
his heels comfortably reposing on his solid mahogany desk. This is not in
criticism of his relaxation, it is his own desk and certainly he has a
right to put his heels on it if he wants to; likewise thumbs and armholes
are his own. It is merely a picture that leads to another: Supposing a
very great man comes into Mr. Strong Man's office--one whom he may
consider a great man, a president perhaps of a big industry or of a
railroad, or a senator--and shortly afterwards, Strong Man's own son comes
into the room. Would he like to see his son abashed, awkward,
spasmodically jerky, like the poor bumpkin who came the other day to ask
about removing the ashes, or worse yet, bold and boisterous or cheeky; or
would he like that boy of his to come forward with an entire lack of
self-consciousness, and as his father introduces him as "My Son!" have him
put out his hand in frank and easy and yet deferential friendliness? And
then saying quickly and quietly whatever it was he came to say, as quickly
and quietly make his way out again? Would he be sorry that the big man
thought, "Fine boy that! Ability too!" Why would he think he had ability?
Because the ease and dexterity with which he handled the social incident
automatically suggests ability to handle other situations!


=ETIQUETTE AND BUSINESS AUTHORITY=

Another point: Does the self-made man stop to realize that his authority
in business would be even greater than it is if he had the hall-marks, of
cultivation? For instance, when he comes in contact with college graduates
and other cultivated men, his opinions gain or lose in weight exactly in
proportion as he proves to be in their own "class" or below it.

A man unconsciously judges the authority of others by the standard of his
own expert knowledge. A crude man may be a genius in business management,
but in the unspoken opinion of men of education, he is in other contacts
inferior to themselves. He is an authority they grant, but in limited
lines only.

But when a man is met with who combines with business genius the advantage
of polished manners and evident cultivation, his opinion on any subject
broached at once assumes added weight. Doesn't it?




CHAPTER XXXIII

DRESS


Clothes are to us what fur and feathers are to beasts and birds; they not
only add to our appearance, but they are our appearance. How we look to
others entirely depends upon what we wear and how we wear it; manners and
speech are noted afterward, and character last of all.

In the community where we live, admirableness of character is the
fundamental essential, and in order to achieve a position of importance,
personality is also essential; but for the transient impression that we
make at home, abroad, everywhere in public, two superficial attributes are
alone indispensable: good manners and a pleasing appearance.

It is not merely a question of vanity and inclination. In New York, for
instance, a woman must dress well, to pay her way. In Europe, where the
title of Duchess serves in lieu of a court train of gold brocade; or in
Bohemian circles where talent alone may count; or in small communities
where people are known for what they really are, appearance is of esthetic
rather than essential importance.

In the world of smart society--in America at any rate--clothes not only
represent our ticket of admission, but our contribution to the effect of a
party. What makes a brilliant party? Clothes. Good clothes. A frumpy party
is nothing more nor less than a collection of badly dressed persons.
People with all the brains, even all the beauty imaginable, make an
assemblage of dowds, unless they are well dressed.

Not even the most beautiful ballroom in the world, decorated like the
Garden of Eden, could in itself suggest a brilliant entertainment, if the
majority of those who filled it were frumps--or worse yet, vulgarians!
Rather be frumpy than vulgar! Much. Frumps are often celebrities in
disguise--but a person of vulgar appearance is vulgar all through.


=THE SHEEP=

Frumps are not very typical of America, vulgarians are somewhat more
numerous, but the greatest number of all are the quietly dressed,
unnoticeable men and women who make up the representative backbone in
every city; who buy good clothes but not more than they need, and whose
ambition is merely to be well enough dressed to fit in with their
background, whatever their background may be.

Less numerous, but far more conspicuous, are the dressed-to-the-minute
women who, like sheep exactly, follow every turn of latest fashion blindly
and without the slightest sense of distance or direction. As each new
season's fashion is defined, all the sheep run and dress themselves each
in a replica of the other, their own types and personalities have nothing
to do with the case. Fashion says: "Wear bolster cases tied at the neck
and ankle," or "A few wisps of gauze held in place with court plaster,"
and daughter, mother, grandmother, and all the neighbors wear the same. If
emerald green is the fashionable color, all of the yellowest skins will be
framed in it. When hobble skirts are the thing, the fattest wabble along,
looking for all the world like chandeliers tied up in mosquito netting. If
ball dresses are cut to the last limit of daring, the ample billows of the
fat will vie blandly with the marvels of anatomy exhibited by the thin.
Comfort, convenience, becomingness, adaptability, beauty are of no
importance. Fashion is followed to the letter--therefore they fancy, poor
sheep, they are the last word in smartness. Those whom the fashion suits
_are_ "smart," but they are seldom, if ever, distinguished, because--they
are all precisely alike.


=THE WOMAN WHO IS REALLY CHIC=

The woman who is chic is always a little different. Not different in being
behind fashion, but always slightly apart from it. "Chic" is a borrowed
adjective, but there is no English word to take the place of "elegant"
which was destroyed utterly by the reporter or practical joker who said
"elegant dresses," and yet there is no synonym that will express the
individuality of beautiful taste combined with personal dignity and grace
which gives to a perfect costume an inimitable air of distinction. _Une
dame élégante_ is all of that! And Mrs. Oldname is just such a person. She
follows fashion merely so far as is absolutely necessary. She gets the
latest model perhaps, but has it adapted to her own type, so that she has
just that distinction of appearance that the sheep lack. She has even
clung with slight modifications to the "Worth" ball dress, and her
"wrapped" or fitted bodice has continued to look the smartest in every
ballroom in spite of the Greek drapery and one-piece meal bag and all the
other kaleidoscopic changes of fashion the rest of us have been through.

But the average would-be independent who determines to stand her ground,
saying, "These new models are preposterous! I shall wear nothing of the
sort!" and keeps her word, soon finds herself not at all an example of
dignity but an object of derision.


=FASHION HAS LITTLE IN COMMON WITH BEAUTY=

Fashion ought to be likened to a tide or epidemic; sometimes one might
define it as a sort of hypnotism, seemingly exerted by the gods as a joke.
Fashion has the power to appear temporarily in the guise of beauty, though
it is the antithesis of beauty nearly always. If you doubt it, look at old
fashion plates. Even the woman of beautiful taste succumbs occasionally to
the epidemics of fashion, but she is more immune than most. All women who
have any clothes sense whatever know more or less the type of things that
are their style--unless they have such an attack of fashionitis as to be
irresponsibly delirious.

To describe any details of dress, that will not be as "queer" to-morrow as
to-day's fashions are bound to be, would seem at the outset pretty much
like writing about next year's weather. And yet, there is one unchanging
principle which must be followed by every woman, man and child that is
well dressed--suitability. Nor does suitability mean merely that you must
choose clothes suitable to your age and appearance, and that you must get
a ball dress for a ball, and a street dress to walk in; it means equally
that you must not buy clothes out of proportion to your income, or out of
keeping with your surroundings.


=DISPROPORTIONATE EXPENDITURE IN BAD TASTE=

About fifteen years ago the extravagance in women's dress reached such a
high-water mark that it was not unheard of for a New York woman to spend a
third of her husband's income on clothes. All women of fashion bought
clothes when it would not have occurred to them to buy furniture--when it
would have seemed preposterous to buy a piece of jewelry--but clothes,
clothes, and more clothes, each more hand-embroidered than the last, until
just as it seemed that no dress was fit to be seen if it hadn't a month or
two of some one's time embroidered on it, the work on clothes subsided,
until now we are at the other extreme; no work is put on them at all. At
least, clothes to-day are much more sensible, and let us hope the sense
will be lasting.

The war did at least make people realize that luxuries and trimmings could
go too far. Ten years ago the American woman who lived in a little
cottage, who walked when she went out or took the street car, wore the
same clothes exactly that Mrs. Gilding wore in her victoria, or trailed
over a Ming rug. The French woman has always been (and the American woman
of taste is now) too great an artist to sit in a little room with its
cotton-print slip covers, muslin curtains, and geranium pots on the window
ledge, in anything strikingly elaborate and expensive. Charming as her
dress may be in line and cut and color, she keeps it (no matter how
intrinsically good it may be) in harmony with her geranium pots and her
chintz.

On the other hand, clothes that are too plain can be equally out of
proportion. Last winter, for instance, a committee of ladies met in what
might safely be called the handsomest house in New York, in a room that
would fit perfectly in the Palace of Versailles, filled with treasures
such as those of the Wallace collection. The hostess presided in a black
serge golf skirt, a business woman's white shirt-waist, and stout walking
boots, her hair brushed flat and tidily back and fastened as though for
riding, her face and hands redolent of soap. No powder, not a nail
manicured. Had she been a girl earning her living, she could not have been
more suitably dressed, but her millions and her palace background demand
that her clothes be at least moderately in keeping.

One does not have to be dowdy as an alternative to being too richly
dressed, and to define differences between clothes that are notable
because of their distinction and smartness, and clothes that are merely
conspicuous and therefore vulgar, is a very elusive point. However, there
are certain rules that seem pretty well established.


=VULGAR CLOTHES=

Vulgar clothes are those which, no matter what the fashion of the moment
may be, are always too elaborate for the occasion; too exaggerated in
style, or have accessories out of proportion. People of uncultivated taste
are apt to fancy distortions; to exaggerate rather than modify the
prevailing fashions.

For example: A conspicuous evidence of bad style that has persisted
through numberless changes in fashion, is the over-dressed and
over-trimmed head. The woman of uncultivated taste has no more sense of
moderation than the Queen of the Cannibals. She will elaborate her
hair-dressing to start with (this is all right, if elaboration really
suits her type) and then she will "decorate" it with everything in the way
of millinery and jewelry that she can lay her hands on. Or, in the
daytime, she fancies equally over-weighted hats, and rich-looking fur
coats and the latest edition in the most conspicuous possible footwear.
And she much prefers wearing rings to gloves. Maybe she thinks they do
not go together? She despises sensible clothing; she also despises plain
fabrics and untrimmed models. She also cares little (apparently) for
staying at home, since she is perpetually seen at restaurants and at every
public entertainment. The food she orders is rich, the appearance she
makes is rich; in fact, to see her often is like nothing so much as being
forced to eat a large amount of butter-plain.

Beau Brummel's remark that when one attracted too much notice, one could
be sure of being not well-dressed but over-dressed, has for a hundred
years been the comfort of the dowdy. It is, of course, very often true,
but not invariably. A person may be stared at for any one of many reasons.
It depends very much on the stare. A woman may be stared at because she is
indiscreet, or because she looks like a left-over member of the circus, or
because she is enchanting to look at.

If you are much stared at, what _sort_ of a stare do you usually meet? Is
it bold, or mocking, or is it merely that people look at you wistfully? If
the first, change your manner; if the second, wear more conventional
clothes; if the third, you may be left as you are. But be sure of your
diagnosis of this last.


=EXTRAVAGANCE NOT VULGARITY=

Ostentation is always vulgar but extravagance is not necessarily
vulgar--not by any means. Extravagance can become dishonest if carried
beyond one's income.

Nearly everything that is beautiful or valuable is an extravagance--for
most of us. Always to wear new gloves is an extravagant item for one with
a small allowance--but scarcely vulgar! A laundry bill can be extravagant,
flowers in one's city house, a piece of beautiful furniture, a good
tapestry, each is an extravagance to an income that can not easily afford
the expenditure. To one sufficient to buy the tapestry, the flowers are
not an extravagance at all.

To buy quantities of things that are not even used after they are bought
is sheer wastefulness, and to buy everything that tempts you, whether you
can afford to pay for it or not, is, if you can not afford it, verging on
the actually dishonest.


=DRESSES FOR DINNERS AND BALLS=

Supposing, since clothes suitable to the occasion are the first requisite
of good taste, we take up a few details that are apart from fashion.

A dinner dress really means every sort of low, or half low evening dress.
A formal dinner dress, like a ball dress, is always low-necked and without
sleeves, and is the handsomest type of evening dress that there is. A ball
dress may be exquisite in detail but it is often merely effective. The
perfect ball dress is one purposely designed with a skirt that is becoming
when dancing. A long wrapped type of dress would make Diana herself look
like a toy monkey-on-a-stick, but might be dignified and beautiful at a
dinner. A dinner dress differs from a ball dress in little except that it
is not necessarily designed for freedom of movement.

Hair ornaments always look well at a ball but are not especially
appropriate (unless universally in fashion) on other occasions. A lady in
a ball dress with nothing added to the head, looks a little like being
hatless in the street. This sounds like a contradiction of the criticism
of the vulgarian. But because a tiara is beautiful at a ball, or a spray
of feathers, or a high comb, or another ornament, does not mean that all
of these should be put on together and worn in a restaurant; which is just
what the vulgarian would do. Whether, to wear a head-dress, however,
depends not alone upon fashion but upon the individual. If the type of
hair ornament at the moment in fashion is becoming, wear it, especially to
balls and in a box at the opera. But if it is not becoming, don't.

Ladies of fashion, by the way, do not have their hair especially dressed
for formal occasions. Each wears her hair a certain way, and it is put up
every morning just as carefully as for a ball. The only time it is
arranged differently is for riding. Ah informal dinner dress is merely a
modified formal one. It is low in front and high in the back, with long or
elbow sleeves--or perhaps it is Dutch neck and no sleeves.

When trains are in fashion, all older women should wear them. Fashion or
no fashion, no woman who has passed forty looks really well in a cut-off
evening dress. An effect of train, however, can very adequately be
produced with any arrangement or trimming that extends upon the floor.

The informal dinner dress is worn to the theater, the restaurant (of high
class), the concert and the opera. Informal dinner dresses are worn in the
boxes at the opera on ordinary nights, such as when no especially great
star is to sing, and when one is not going on to a ball afterward, but a
ball dress is never inappropriate, especially without head-dress. On gala
nights, ball dresses are worn in the boxes and head-dresses and as many
jewels as one chooses--or has.


=THE TEA-GOWN=

Every one knows that a tea-gown is a hybrid between a wrapper and a ball
dress. It has always a train and usually long flowing sleeves; is made of
rather gorgeous materials and goes on easily, and its chief use is not for
wear at the tea-table so much as for dinner alone with one's family.

It can, however, very properly be put on for tea, and if one is dining at
home, kept on for dinner. Otherwise a lady is apt to take tea in whatever
dress she had on for luncheon, and dress after tea for dinner.

One does not go out to dine in a tea-gown except in the house of a member
of one's family or a most intimate friend. One would wear a tea-gown in
one's own house in receiving a guest to whose house one would wear a
dinner dress.


=WHEN IN DOUBT=

There is one rule that is fairly safe to follow: When in doubt, wear the
plainer dress. It is always better far to be under-dressed than
over-dressed. If you don't know whether to put on a ball dress or a dinner
dress, wear the dinner dress. Or, whether to wear cloth or brocade to a
luncheon, wear the cloth.


=ON THE STREET=

Your tea-gowns, since they are never worn in public, can literally be as
bizarre as you please, and if you are driving in a closed motor, you can
also wear an "original" type of dress. But in walking on the street,--if
you care to be taken for a well-bred person--never wear anything that is
exaggerated. If skirts are short, don't wear them two inches shorter than
any one else's; if they are long, don't go down the street dragging a
train and sweeping the dirt up on the under-flouncings. (Let us hope
_that_ fashion never comes back!) Don't wear too much jewelry; it is in
bad taste in the first place, and in the second, is a temptation to a
thief. And don't under any circumstances, distort your figure into a
grotesque shape.


=COUNTRY CLOTHES=

Nothing so marks the "person who doesn't know" as inappropriate choice of
clothes. To wear elaborate clothes out of doors in the country, is quite
as out of place as to parade "sports" clothes on the streets in town.

It is safe to say that "sport" clothes are appropriate country
clothes--especially for all young people. Elderly ladies, needless to say,
should not don "sporting eccentricities" nor wear sweaters to lunch
parties; but sensible country clothes, such as have for many decades been
worn in England, of homespun or serge or jersey cloth or whatever has
replaced these materials, are certainly more appropriate to walk in than a
town costume--even for a lady of seventy! Young people going to the
country for the day wear sports clothes; which if seen early in the
morning in town and again late in the afternoon, merely show you have been
to the country. But town clothes in the country proclaim your ignorance of
fitness. Even for a lunch party at Golden Hall or Great Estates, every one
who is young wears smart country clothes.


=SHOES AND SLIPPERS=

Sport shoes are naturally adapted to the sport for which they are
intended. High-heeled slippers do not go with any country clothes, except
organdie or muslins or other distinctly feminine "summer" dresses.
Elaborate afternoon dresses of "painted" chiffons, embroidered mulls,
etc., are seen only at weddings, lawn parties, or at watering-places
abroad.


=A SUGGESTION TO THOSE WHO MIND SUNBURN=

No advice is intended for those who have a skin that either does not burn
at all, or turns a beautiful smooth Hawaiian brown; but a woman whose
creamy complexion bursts into freckles, as violent as they are hideous, at
the first touch of the sun need no longer stay perpetually indoors in
daytime, or venture out only when swathed like a Turk, if she knows the
virtue in orange as a color that defies the sun's rays. A thin veil of
red-orange is more effective than a thick one of blue or black.

Orange shirt-waists do not sound very conservative, but they are
mercifully conserving to arms sensitive to sunburn. Young Mrs. Gilding,
whose skin is as perishable as it is lovely, always wears orange on the
golf course. A skirt of burnt-orange serge of homespun or linen, and
shirt-waists of orange linen or crepe de chine. A hat with a brim and a
harem-veil (pinned across her nose under her eyes) of orange
marquisette,--which is easier to breathe through than chiffon--allows her
to play golf or tennis or to motor or even go out in a sailboat and keep
her skin without a blemish.

Constance Style, who also has a skin that the sun destroys, wears orange
playing tennis, but for bathing wears a high-neck and long-sleeved bathing
suit and "makes her face up" (also the backs of her hands) with theatrical
grease paint that has a good deal of yellow in it, and flesh color
ordinary powder on top. The grease paint withstands hot sun and water, but
it is messy. The alternative, however, is a choice between complexion or
bathing, as it is otherwise prohibitive for the "sun afflicted" to have
both.


=RIDING CLOTHES=

The distorted circus-mirror clothes seen on men who know no better, are
not a bit worse than the riding clothes seen on actresses in our best
theaters and moving pictures--who ought to know better. Nothing looks
worse than riding clothes made and worn badly, and nothing looks smarter
than they when well made and well put on.

A riding habit, no matter what the fashion happens to be, is like a
uniform, in that it must be made and worn according to regulations. It
must above all be meticulously trig and compact. Nothing must be sticking
out a thousandth part of an inch that can be flattened in.

A riding habit is the counterpart of an officer's uniform; it is not worn
so as to make the wearer look pretty! A woman to look well in a habit must
be smart or she is a sight! And nothing contributes so much to the
"sights" we see at present as the attempt to look pretty instead of
looking correct. The criticism is not intended for the woman who lives far
off in the open country and jumps on a horse in whatever she happens to
have on, but for those who dress "for looks" and ride in the parks of our
cities, or walk on the stage and before the camera, in scenes meant to
represent smart society!

To repeat, therefore, the young woman who wants to look pretty should
confine her exercise to dancing. She can also hold a parasol over her head
and sit in a canoe--or she can be pretty how and where she will, so long
as it is not on a horse in the park or hunting-field. (To mention
hunting-field is superfluous; the woman who can ride well enough to
follow the hounds is too good a sportswoman, too great a lover of good
form to be ignorant of the proper outline necessary to smartness of
appearance in the saddle.)

In smartest English society it is not considered best form for a young
girl to ride astride in the hunting-field or in the park after she is
grown. A high-born English girl rides astride as a child, but as soon as
she is old enough to be presented at Court, she appears at a Meet or in
the "Row" in a lady's habit, trigly perfect in fit, and on a side-saddle.
In America this is an extreme opinion, and it is only among the most
fashionable that a young girl having all her life ridden in a man's
saddle, finds the world a joyless place and parents cruel when she is no
longer allowed to ride like a boy. But she becomes, in spite of her
protests, "another who looks divine on a horse." And you can look divine
too, if you choose! On second thoughts the adjective must be qualified. No
one looks divine on a horse who is not thin as a shingle. But since diet
produces a shingle shape and every one strong-minded (or vain) enough, can
diet, you need only care enough to "count your calories" and be as slim as
you please.

Next, the best habit possible. And best habits are expensive, and there
are no "second best." A habit is good or it is bad. Whatever the present
fashion may be, have your habit utterly conventional. Don't wear checks or
have slant pockets, or eccentric cuffs or lapels; don't have the waist
pinched in. Choose a plain dark or "dust" color. A night blue that has a
few white hairs in the mixture does not show dust as much as a solid dark
color, and a medium weight close material holds its shape better than a
light loose weave.

You may wear a single white carnation or a few violets in your
buttonhole--but no other trimming. Keep the idea of perfect clothes for
men in mind, get nothing that the smartest man would not wear, and you
can't go wrong. Get boots like those of a man, low-heeled and with a
straight line from heel to back of top. Don't have the tops wider than
absolutely necessary not to bind, and don't have them curved or fancy in
shape. Be sure that there is no elbow sticking out like a horse's hock at
the back of the boot, and don't have a corner on the inside edge of the
sole. And don't try to wear a small size!


=WHEN YOU PUT YOUR HABIT ON=

First, hair: Never mind if you look like Mme. Recamier with your hair
fluffed and like a skinned rabbit with it tight back, tight, flat back it
must go. Brush it smooth as you can, braid it or coil it about level with
the top of your ears and wind it in a door mat, not a knob in the back.

If you have a great quantity of hair, you should take all the inner part
of it, coil it on top of your head so it will go under your hat out of the
way. Then take the outer edge of it and braid or wind it as flat as
possible. A large bun at the back of the head is almost as bad as hair
drawn over the ears at the side. If you have short hairs likely to blow,
you must wear a hunting hair net. And if it is bobbed, it must be drawn
back into a silk riding net and made to look trim.

Correct riding clothes are not fashion but form! Whether coat skirts are
long or short, full or plain, and waists wasp-like or square, the above
admonitions have held for many decades, and are likely to hold for many
more.

Gloves must be of heavy leather and at least two sizes bigger than those
ordinarily worn.

A hat must fit the head and its shape must be conventional. Never wear a
hat that would be incorrect on a man, and don't wear it on the back of
your head or over your nose.

Wear your stock as tight as you comfortably can, not _too_ tight! Tie it
smartly so as to make it flat and neat, and anchor whatever you wear so
securely that nothing can possibly come loose.

And if you want to see a living example of perfection in riding clothes,
go to the next horse-show where Miss Belle Beach is riding and look at
her!


=WHAT CLOTHES TO TAKE FOR A WEEK-END=

Unless fashion turns itself upside down (which it is, of course, perfectly
capable of doing), elaborate clothes, except evening ones, are entirely
useless, even in Newport. We have all of us abandoned Paris fashions for
country wear in favor of those of England. The Valenciennes insertions and
trailing chiffons of some years ago, still seen at watering-places in
France, have been entirely superseded by country clothes.

In going to any fashionable house in the country, you should take a dinner
dress for each evening, with stockings and slippers to match. You need a
country dress for each day, or if the weather is uncertain, a thick one
and two thin ones, with a long coat, and a dress suitable for church. This
one can perfectly well be a country dress, but not a "sports" one.

If you are not too young and are going to stay in an informal house where
you will probably be the only guest, and where it is likely no one will be
asked in, a tea-gown or two should be taken.

If you are going especially for a ball, but not given by your hostess,
needless to say, you take a ball dress and an evening wrap. In the autumn
or winter, a fur coat will do double service for coat and wrap.

Do not take a big trunk full of all the things you don't need. Don't take
sports clothes for all occasions if you are not a sportswoman. But if you
do ride, or play tennis or golf, or skate or swim, be sure to take your
own clothes and _don't_ borrow other people's. There are plenty of
ingeniously arranged week-end trunks, very compact in size, that have a
hat compartment, holding from two to six hats, and plenty of room for a
half a dozen dresses and their accessories.


=WHEN THE INCOME IS LIMITED=

No one can dress well on nothing a year; that must be granted at the
outset. But a woman who has talent, taste, and ingenuity can be suitably
and charmingly dressed on little a year, especially at present.

First of all, to mind wearing a dress many times because it indicates a
small bank account, is to exhibit a false notion of the values in life.
Any one who thinks well or ill of her, in accordance with her income, can
not be too quickly got rid of! But worthwhile people _are_ influenced in
her disfavor when she has clothes in number and quality out of proportion
to her known financial situation.

It is tiresome everlastingly to wear black, but nothing is so serviceable,
nothing so unrecognizable, nothing looks so well on every occasion. A very
striking dress can not be worn many times without making others as well as
its owner feel bored at the sight of it. "Here comes the Zebra" or "the
Cockatoo!" is inevitable if a dress of stripes or flamboyant color is worn
often. She who must wear one dress through a season and have it perhaps
made over the next, would better choose black or cream color. Or perhaps a
certain color suits her, and this fact makes it possible for her
habitually to wear it without impressing others with her lack of clothes.
But whether her background be black or cerise it should invariably blend
with her whole wardrobe, so that all accessories can be made to do double
or quadruple service.

Supposing you are a young woman with more beauty than wealth! Let us also
suppose you have three evening dresses, a blue, a pink and a green. At the
moment you can wear flesh-colored slippers and stockings with everything,
which rather weakens the argument--however, a blue fan does not look well
with a pink or a green dress, nor do the other combinations. Supposing,
however, you had instead a cream-colored dress, a flesh-colored, and an
orchid one. Flesh-colored slippers look much better with cream and orchid
than with either green or blue, at any rate! A watermelon pink fan is
lovely in night-light with all three; so is a cream one. Or perhaps by
changing both fan and slippers, a different effect is produced, since the
colors of your clothes are background colors.

But nothing really can compare with the utility and smartness of black.
Take a black tulle dress, made in the simplest possible way; worn plain,
it is a simple dinner dress. It can have a lace slip to go over it, and
make another dress. With a jet harness--meaning merely trimming that can
be added at will--it is still another dress. Or it can have a tunic of
silver or of gold trimming; and fans, flowers and slippers in various
colors, such as watermelon or emerald, change it again. In fact, a black
tulle can be changed almost as easily as though done with a magician's
wand.

To choose daytime clothes that go with the same hats, shoes, parasols,
wrist-bags, and gloves, is equally important. A snuff-colored dress and a
gray one need entirely different accessories. Russet shoes, chamois
gloves, and sand-colored hat go also with henna, raspberry, reds, etc.;
but gray must have gray or white shoes, gloves, and hat, which also go
with blues, greens and violets.


=DON'T GET TOO MANY CLOTHES=

Choose the clothes which you must have, carefully, and if you must cut
down, cut down on elaborate ones. There is scarcely anywhere that you can
not, fittingly go in plain clothes. Very few, if any, people _need_ fancy
things; all people need plain ones.

A very beautiful Chicago woman who is always perfectly dressed for every
occasion, worked out the cost of her own clothes this way: On a sheet of
paper, thumb-tacked on the inside of her closet door, she put a complete
typewritten list of her dresses and hats, and the cost of each. Every time
she put on a dress she made a pencil mark. By and by when a dress was
discarded, she divided the cost of it by the number of times it had been
worn. In this way she found out accurately which were her cheapest and
which her most expensive clothes. When getting new ones she has the
advantage of very valuable information, since she avoids the dress that is
never put on, which is a bigger handicap for the medium-sized allowance
than many women realize.


=WHAT TO WEAR IN A RESTAURANT=

Restaurant dress depends upon the restaurant and the city. Because women
in New York wear low-necked dresses and no hats, does not mean that those
who live in New Town should do the same, if it is not New Town's custom.
But you must _never_ wear an evening dress and a hat! And _never_ wear a
day dress without one. If in the city where you live, people wear day
clothes in the evening, you can only very slightly differ from them.

It is never good form to be elaborately dressed in a public place, except
in a box at the opera or at a charity ball.


=AT A WEDDING, A GARDEN PARTY OR AFTERNOON TEA=

These are the occasions when elaborate day dresses are appropriate. But if
you have very few clothes, you can perfectly well wear any sort of day
dress that may be in fashion. A coat and skirt is not appropriate, since a
skirt and shirt-waist is and always has been a utility combination.
Unless, of course, the waist is of a color to match the skirt so that it
has the appearance of a dress.

You need, however, seldom worry about your appearance because you are not
as "dressed" as the others; the time to worry is when you are more dressed
than any one else.

For a garden-party a country dress is quite all right; though if you have
a very elaborate summer dress, this is the only time you can wear it!

No one has to be told what to wear to church. In small country churches,
at the seashore, people go to church in country clothes; otherwise, as
every one knows, one puts on "town" clothes, and gloves.

At a formal luncheon in town, one sees every sort of dress from velvet to
tailor-made. Certain ladies, older ones usually, who like elaborate
clothes, wear them. But younger people are usually dressed in worsted
materials or silks that are dull in finish, and that, although they may be
embroidered and very expensive, give an effect of simplicity. One should
always wear a simpler dress in one's own house than one wears in going to
the house of another.


=A FEW GENERAL REMARKS=

The fault of bad taste is usually in over-dressing. Quality not effect, is
the standard to seek for. Machine-made passementerie on top of conspicuous
but sleazy material is always shoddy. Cut and fit are the two items of
greatest importance in women's clothes, as well as in men's. But fashion
changes too rapidly to make value of material always wise expenditure for
one of slender purse. Better usually have two dresses, each cut and made
in the whim of the moment, than one which must be worn after the whim has
become a freak. In men's clothes the opposite rule should be followed
since good style in men's clothes is unchanging.

To buy things at sales is very much like buying things at an auction; if
you really know what you want and something about values, you can often do
marvellously well; but if you are easily bewildered and know little of
values, you are apt to spend your good money on trash. A woman of small
means must either be (or learn to be) discriminatingly careful, or she
would better have her clothes made at home, or if she is of "model" type,
buy them ready-made. The ready-to-wear clothes in the Misses' Department
are growing every year better looking; unfortunately and for some
inexplicable reason, the usual Women's Department does not compare in good
taste in selection of models with the former, and it is unusual to find a
dress that a lady of fashion would choose except among the imported
models, for which store prices are as a rule higher than those asked by
the greatest dressmakers. Evening clothes are still usually unbuyable by
the over-fastidious, except for a certain flapper type (and an
undistinguished one at that!), and the ultra-smart woman is still obliged
to go to the private importers for her débutante daughter's ball-dresses
as well as her own--or else into her own sewing-room.


=FASHION AND FAT=

For years the thin, even the scrawny, have had everything their own way.
The woman who is fat, or even plump, has a rather hopeless problem unless
fashion goes to Turkey for its next inspiration, which is so unlikely it
is almost possible! Two things the fat woman should avoid: big patterns
and the stiff tailor-made. Fat women look better in feminine clothes that
follow in the wake, never in the advance, of modified fashion. Fat women
should never wear elaborate clothes or clothes in light colors or heavily
feathered hats.

The tendency of fat is to take away from one's gracility; therefore, any
one inclined to be fat must be ultra conservative--in order to counteract
the effect. Very tight clothes make fat people look fatter and thin people
thinner. Satin is a bad material, since high lights are too shimmeringly
accentuated.

Heavy ankles, needless to say, should never be clothed in light stockings
and dark shoes; long, pointed slippers accentuate a thick ankle, and so
does a short skirt that has a straight hem. A "ragged" edge is most
flattering. Dress, stockings and slippers to match are unavoidable in
evening dress, but when possible a thick ankle should have a dark
stocking--or at least a slipper to match the stocking.

People should select colors that go with their skin. And elderly women
should not wear grass green, or Royal blue, or purple, or any hard color
that needs a faultless complexion. Swarthy skin always looks better in
colors that have red or yellow in them. A very sallow person in pale blue
or apple green looks like a well-developed case of jaundice.

Pink and orchid are often very becoming to older women; and pale blue or
yellow to those with fair skin. Because a woman is no longer young is no
reason why she should wear perpetual black--unless she is fat.


=CLOTHES FOR TRAVELING IN EUROPE=

Ideal traveling clothes are those which do not wrinkle or show rain spots;
and to find which these are it is necessary to take a sample of each
material, sprinkle it with water, and twist it to see how much abuse it
will stand. Every woman knows what she likes best, and what she considers
suitable. Two alternating traveling dresses at least will be necessary,
and two or three semi-evening dresses to put on for dinner. One very
simple half-dinner dress of black, that has a combination of trimmings
such as described earlier in this chapter, is ideally useful. Tourists do
not put on evening clothes except in very fashionable centers, such as
London, Paris, Monte Carlo or Deauville, and then only if staying at an
ultra fashionable hotel. To be over-dressed is always in bad taste. So
that unless you are going to visit or make several-day stops the one black
evening dress suggested would answer every possible purpose.

If you intend staying for a long time in one place, you take all of your
season's clothes; and if you are going to visit in England, or to stay
anywhere in the country, you will need country clothes, but not on
ordinary touring. For motoring, space is precious, and clothes should be
chosen with the object of packing into small dimensions. Motoring in
Europe is cold. A very warm, long wrap is necessary. An old fur one is
much the best, and a small, close hat that does not blow.


=CLOTHES AND PARIS=

It is something like this: You have been hypnotized before, and you vow
you won't be again! You make up your mind that you are going to get a
black dress and a dark blue--and nothing else.

You enter the lower reception hall and mount the bronze balustraded stairs
half way when already Mlle. Marie is aware of your approach. She greets
you not only as though you are the only customer she has ever had, but as
though your coming has saved--just saved in time--the prestige of the
house.

She tells you breathlessly that you are just in time to see the parade of
models; she puts you where you may have an uninterrupted view. She then
begins her greetings all over again by asking not alone after all the
members of your family and an extraordinarily long list of friends, but
makes a solicitous inquiry after each dress that she has ever sold you.
"Did Madame like her white velvet?" she coos. "Was it not most useful? Was
not her black lace charming? And the bisque cloth--surely Madame had found
great satisfaction in wearing the bisque cloth?" But your ears are as
stone to her blandishments! As a traveling suit, bisque-colored cloth had
not been serviceable! Black lace with a cerise velvet under petticoat
might be effective at Armenonville, but it had seemed queer, to say the
least, at the tennis match in August. No, you are at last immune from any
of those sudden attacks of new fashion fever that result in loss of
judgment. You open your little book and consult your list.

"I should like," you say, "a navy blue serge trimmed with black braid or
satin or something like that; a black crêpe de chine absolutely plain; I
really need nothing else."

You do not look at Mile. Marie's crestfallen face, you watch the
procession of models. But the old spell works. Besides zebra stripes and
gold shot with cerise and purple, you think an emerald green charmeuse is
really a perfect substitute for the plain black crêpe de chine you had in
mind. You show that you are hypnotized by remarking absently, "It is the
color of the grass."

Instantly, Mlle. Marie, the most skillful _vendeuse_ in Paris, becomes
radiant. "Listen, Madame," she says to you in that insinuating,
confidential, yet humbly ingratiating manner of hers. "Let me explain,
Madame,--the idea of dress this year is altogether idyllic! Never has
there been such charming return to nature. The great originator of our
house has taken his suggestion--but yes! from the little animals of the
fields and woods--from Nature herself! Our dresses this year are intended
to follow the example of all the little animals dressed to match their
backgrounds. Is not that thought exquisite? Is not that delicious? Is an
emerald lizard conspicuous in the tropics? Is a zebra even seen in patches
of sun and shade? And in the snow, think of all the little animals who put
on white coats in winter! Obviously white is the color intended for winter
wear. And for the spring, green. Emerald green assuredly. It is as Madame
herself said, the color of the grass. The emerald charmeuse on a lawn in
summer would be a poem of harmony. The cerise for afternoons at sunset;
this orange shading into coral embroidery to wear beside the fire. The
dark blue chiffon embroidered in silver is for night. All the colors that
Madame at first found so bright--they are but the colors of a summer
flower garden. What would Madame wear in a flower garden? Black crêpe de
chine? Assuredly not! See this shell pink chiffon, how lovely it would
look under trees of apple blossoms. Blue serge! Oh, what an escape. And
now if Madame will permit me to suggest?--the green, but assuredly! and
the orange and coral, and the pink chiffon garden dress, and the zebra,
for travelling, and the blue and silver...."

However, to be serious, people do go to Paris and buy their
clothes--beautiful clothes! Of course they do; especially those who go
every year. But the woman who goes abroad perhaps every four or five years
is apt to be deficient in a trans-Atlantic sense. "Match backgrounds, like
charming little animals?" Never! Oh, a very big Never Again! And yet the
next time shall you not find it a temptation to go just out of curiosity
to find out what the newest artfully enticing little tune of the Pied
Pipers of Paris will be!




CHAPTER XXXIV

THE CLOTHES OF A GENTLEMAN


It would seem that some of our great clothing establishments, with an eye
to our polyglot ancestry, have attempted to incorporate some feature of
every European national costume into a "harmonious" whole, and have thus
given us that abiding horror, the freak American suit. You will see it
everywhere, on Broadway of every city and Main Street of every town, on
the boardwalks and beaches of coast resorts, and even in remote farming
villages. It comes up to hit you in the face year after year in all its
amazing variations: waist-line under the arm pits, "trick" little belts,
what-nots in the cuffs; trousers so narrow you fear they will burst before
your eyes, pockets placed in every position, buttons clustered together in
a tight little row or reduced to one. And the worst of it is, few of our
younger men know any better until they go abroad and find their wardrobe a
subject for jest and derision.

If you would dress like a gentleman, you must do one of two things; either
study the subject of a gentleman's wardrobe until you are competent to
pick out good suits from freaks and direct your misguided tailor, or, at
least until your perceptions are trained, go to an English one. This
latter method is the easiest, and, by all odds, the safest. It is not
Anglomania but plain common sense to admit that, just as the Rue de la
Paix in Paris is the fountainhead of fashions for women, Bond Street in
London is the home of irreproachable clothes for men.

And yet, curiously enough, just as a woman shopping in Paris can buy
frightful clothes--or the most beautiful; a man can in America buy the
worst clothes in the world--and the best.

The ordinary run of English clothes may not be especially good, but they
are, on the other hand, never bad; whereas American freak clothes are
distortions like the reflections seen in the convex and concave mirrors of
the amusement parks. But not even the leading tailors of Bond Street can
excel the supremely good American tailor--whose clothes however are
identical in every particular with those of London, and their right to be
called "best" is for greater perfection of workmanship and fit. This last
is a dangerous phrase; "fit" means perfect set and line, not plaster
tightness.

However, let us suppose that you are either young, or at least fairly
young; that you have unquestioned social position, and that you are going
to get yourself an entire wardrobe. Let us also suppose your money is not
unlimited, so that it may also be seen where you may not, or may if
necessary, economize.


=FORMAL EVENING CLOTHES=

Your full dress is the last thing to economize on. It must be perfect in
fit, cut and material, and this means a first-rate tailor. It must be made
of a dull-faced worsted, either black or night blue, on no account of
broadcloth. Aside from satin facing and collar, which can have lapels or
be cut shawl-shaped, and wide braid on the trousers, it must have no
trimming whatever. Avoid satin or velvet cuffs, moiré neck ribbons and
fancy coat buttons as you would the plague.

Wear a plain white linen waistcoat, not one of cream colored silk, or
figured or even black brocade. Have all your linen faultlessly
clean--always--and your tie of plain white lawn, tied so it will not only
stay in place but look as though nothing short of a backward somersault
could disarrange it.

Your handkerchief must be white; gloves (at opera or ball) white; flower
in buttonhole (if any) white. If you are a normal size, you can in America
buy inexpensive shirts, and white waistcoats that are above reproach, but
if you are abnormally tall or otherwise an "out size" so that everything
has to be "made to order," you will have to pay anywhere from double to
four times as much for each article you put on.

When you go out on the street, wear an English silk hat, not one of the
taper crowned variety popular in the "movies." And wear it on your head,
not on the back of your neck. Have your overcoat of plain black or dark
blue material, for you must wear an overcoat with full dress even in
summer. Use a plain white or black and white muffler. Colored ones are
impossible. Wear white buckskin gloves if you can afford them; otherwise
gray or khaki doeskin, and leave them in your overcoat pocket. Your stick
should be of plain Malacca or other wood, with either a crooked or
straight handle. The only ornamentation allowable is a plain silver or
gold band, or top; but perfectly plain is best form.

And lastly, wear patent leather pumps, shoes or ties, and plain black silk
socks, and leave your rubbers--if you must wear them, in the coat room.


=THE TUXEDO=

The Tuxedo, which is the essential evening dress of a gentleman, is simply
the English dinner coat. It was first introduced in this country at the
Tuxedo Club to provide something less formal than the swallow-tail, and
the name has clung ever since. To a man who can not afford to get two
suits of evening clothes, the Tuxedo is of greater importance. It is worn
every evening and nearly everywhere, whereas the tail coat is necessary
only at balls, formal dinners, and in a box at the opera. Tuxedo clothes
are made of the same materials and differ from full dress ones in only
three particulars: the cut of the coat, the braid on the trousers, and the
use of a black tie instead of a white one. The dinner coat has no tails
and is cut like a sack suit except that it is held closed in front by one
button at the waist line. (A full dress coat, naturally, hangs open.) The
lapels are satin faced, and the collar left in cloth, or if it is
shawl-shaped the whole collar is of satin.

The trousers are identical with full dress ones except that braid, if
used at all, should be narrow. "Cuffed" trousers are not good form, nor
should a dinner coat be double-breasted.

Fancy ties are bad form. Choose a plain black silk or satin one. Wear a
white waistcoat if you can afford the strain on your laundry bill,
otherwise a plain black one. By no means wear a gray one nor a gray tie.

The smartest hat for town wear is an opera, but a straw or felt which is
proper in the country, is not out of place in town. Otherwise, in the
street the accessories are the same as those already given under the
previous heading.


=THE HOUSE SUIT=

The house suit is an extravagance that may be avoided, and an "old" Tuxedo
suit worn instead.

A gentleman is always supposed to change his clothes for dinner, whether
he is going out or dining at home alone or with his family, and for this
latter occasion some inspired person evolved the house, or lounge, suit,
which is simply a dinner coat and trousers cut somewhat looser than
ordinary evening ones, made of an all-silk or silk and wool fabric in some
dark color, and lined with either satin or silk. Nothing more
comfortable--or luxurious--could be devised for sitting in a deep
easy-chair after dinner, in a reclining position that is ruinous to best
evening clothes.

Its purpose is really to save wear on evening clothes, and to avoid some
of their discomfort also, because they can not be given hard or careless
usage and long survive. A house suit is distinctly what the name implies,
and is not an appropriate garment to wear out for dinner or to receive any
but intimate guests in at home. The accessories are a pleated shirt, with
turndown stiff collar, and black bow tie, or even an unstarched shirt with
collar attached (white of course). The coat is made with two buttons
instead of one, because no waistcoat is worn with it.


=FORMAL AFTERNOON DRESS=

Formal afternoon dress consists of a black cutaway coat with white piqué
or black cloth waistcoat, and gray-and-black striped trousers. The coat
may be bound with braid, or, even in better taste, plain. A satin-faced
lapel is not conservative on a cutaway, but it is the correct facing for
the more formal (and elderly) frock coat. Either a cutaway or a frock coat
is always accompanied by a silk hat, and best worn with plain black
waistcoat and a black bow tie or a black and white four-in-hand tie. A
gray silk ascot worn with the frock coat is supposed to be the correct
wedding garment of the bride's father. (For details of clothes worn by
groom and ushers at a wedding, see chapter on weddings.)

Shoes may be patent leather, although black calfskin are at present the
fashion, either with or without spats. If with spats, be sure that they
fit close; nothing is worse than a wrinkled spat or one that sticks out
over the instep like the opened bill of a duck!

Though gray cutaway suits and gray top hats have always been worn to the
races in England, they do not seem suitable here, as races in America are
not such full-dress occasions as in France and England. But at a spring
wedding or other formal occasions a sand-colored double-breasted linen
waistcoat with spats and bow tie to match looks very well with a black
cutaway and almost black trousers, on a man who is young.


=THE BUSINESS SUIT=

The business suit or three-piece sack is made or marred by its cut alone.
It is supposed to be an every-day inconspicuous garment and should be. A
few rules to follow are:

Don't choose striking patterns of materials; suitable woolen stuffs come
in endless variety, and any which look plain at a short distance are
"safe," though they may show a mixture of colors or pattern when viewed
closely.

Don't get too light a blue, too bright a green, or anything suggesting a
horse blanket. At the present moment trousers are made with a cuff;
sleeves are not. Lapels are moderately small. Padded shoulders are an
abomination. Peg-topped trousers equally bad. If you must be eccentric,
save your efforts for the next fancy dress ball, where you may wear what
you please, but in your business clothing be reasonable.

Above everything, don't wear white socks, and don't cover yourself with
chains, fobs, scarf pins, lodge emblems, etc., and don't wear "horsey"
shirts and neckties. You will only make a bad impression on every one you
meet. The clothes of a gentleman are always conservative; and it is safe
to avoid everything than can possibly come under the heading of "novelty."


=JEWELRY=

In your jewelry let diamonds be conspicuous by their absence. Nothing is
more vulgar than a display of "ice" on a man's shirt front, or on his
fingers.

There is a good deal of jewelry that a gentleman may be allowed to wear,
but it must be chosen with discrimination. Pearl shirt-studs (real ones)
are correct for full dress only, and not to be worn with a dinner coat
unless they are so small as to be entirely inconspicuous. Otherwise you
may wear enamel studs (that look like white linen) or black onyx with a
rim of platinum, or with a very inconspicuous pattern in diamond chips,
but so tiny that they can not be told from a threadlike design in
platinum--or others equally moderate.

Waistcoat buttons, studs and cuff links, worn in sets, is an American
custom that is permissible. Both waistcoat buttons and cuff links may be
jewelled and valuable, but they must not have big precious stones or be
conspicuous.

A watch chain should be very thin and a man's ring is usually a seal ring
of plain gold or a dark stone. If a man wears a jewel at all it should be
sunk into a plain "gypsy hoop" setting that has no ornamentation, and worn
on his "little," not his third, finger.


=IN THE COUNTRY=

Gay-colored socks and ties are quite appropriate with flannels or golf
tweeds. Only in your riding clothes you must again be conservative. If you
can get boots built on English lines, wear them; otherwise wear leggings.
And remember that all leather must be real leather in the first place and
polished until its surface is like glass.

Have your breeches fit you. The coat is less important, in fact, any odd
coat will do. Your legs are the cynosure of attention in riding.

Most men in the country wear knickerbockers with golf stockings, with a
sack or a belted or a semi-belted coat, and in any variety of homespuns or
tweeds or rough worsted materials. Or they wear long trousered flannels.
Coats are of the polo or ulster variety. For golf or tennis many men wear
sweater coats. Shirts are of cheviot or silk or flannel, all with soft
collars attached and to match.

The main thing is to dress appropriately. If you are going to play golf,
wear golf clothes; if tennis, wear flannels. Do not wear a yachting cap
ashore unless you are living on board a yacht.

White woolen socks are correct with white buckskin shoes in the country,
but not in town.

If some semi-formal occasion comes up, such as a country tea, the
time-worn conservative blue coat with white flannel trousers is
perennially good.


=OTHER HINTS=

The well-dressed man is always a paradox. He must look as though he gave
his clothes no thought and as though literally they grew on him like a
dog's fur, and yet he must be perfectly groomed. He must be close-shaved
and have his hair cut and his nails in good order (not too polished). His
linen must always be immaculate, his clothes "in press," his shoes
perfectly "done." His brown shoes must shine like old mahogany, and his
white buckskin must be whitened and polished like a prize bull terrier at
a bench show. Ties and socks and handkerchief may go together, but too
perfect a match betrays an effort for "effect" which is always bad.

The well-dressed man never wears the same suit or the same pair of shoes
two days running. He may have only two suits, but he wears them
alternately; if he has four suits he should wear each every fourth day.
The longer time they have "to recover" their shape, the better.


=WHAT TO WEAR ON VARIOUS OCCASIONS=

The appropriate clothes for various occasions are given below. If ever in
doubt what to wear, the best rule is to err on the side of informality.
Thus, if you are not sure whether to put on your dress suit or your
Tuxedo, wear the latter.


=FULL DRESS=

1. At the opera.
2. At an evening wedding.
3. At a dinner to which the invitations are worded in the third person.
4. At a ball, or formal evening entertainment.
5. At certain State functions on the Continent of Europe in broad daylight.


=TUXEDO=

1. At the theater.
2. At most dinners.
3. At informal parties.
4. Dining at home.
5. Dining in a restaurant.


=A CUTAWAY OR FROCK COAT WITH STRIPED TROUSERS=

1. At a noon or afternoon wedding.
2. On Sunday for church (in the city).
3. At any formal daytime function.
4. In England to business.
5. As usher at a wedding.
6. As pall-bearer.


=BUSINESS SUITS=

1. All informal daytime occasions.
2. Traveling.
3. The coat of a blue suit with white flannel or duck trousers for a
   lunch, or to church, in the country.
4. A blue or black sack suit will do in place of a cutaway at a wedding,
but not if you are the groom or an usher.


=COUNTRY CLOTHES=

1. _Only_ in the country.

To wear odd tweed coats and flannel trousers in town is not only
inappropriate, but bad taste.




CHAPTER XXXV

THE KINDERGARTEN OF ETIQUETTE


In the houses of the well-to-do where the nursery is in charge of a woman
of refinement who is competent to teach little children proper behavior,
they are never allowed to come to table in the dining-room until they have
learned at least the elements of good manners. But whether in a big house
of this description, or in a small house where perhaps the mother alone
must be the teacher, children can scarcely be too young to be taught the
rudiments of etiquette, nor can the teaching be too patiently or too
conscientiously carried out.

Training a child is exactly like training a puppy; a little heedless
inattention and it is out if hand immediately; the great thing is not to
let it acquire bad habits that must afterward be broken. Any child can be
taught to be beautifully behaved with no effort greater than quiet
patience and perseverance, whereas to break bad habits once they are
acquired is a Herculean task.


=ELEMENTARY TABLE MANNERS=

Since a very little child can not hold a spoon properly, and as neatness
is the first requisite in table-manners, it should be allowed to hold its
spoon as it might take hold of a bar in front of it, back of the hand up,
thumb closed over fist. The pusher (a small flat piece of silver at right
angles to a handle) is held in the same way, in the left hand. Also in the
first eating lessons, a baby must be allowed to put a spoon in its mouth,
pointed end foremost. Its first lessons must be to take small mouthfuls,
to eat very slowly, to spill nothing, to keep the mouth shut while chewing
and not smear its face over. In drinking, a child should use both hands to
hold a mug or glass until its hand is big enough so it can easily hold a
glass in one. When it can eat without spilling anything or smearing its
lips, and drink without making grease "moons" on its mug or tumbler (by
always wiping its mouth before drinking), it may be allowed to come to
table in the dining-room as a treat, for Sunday lunch or breakfast. Or if
it has been taught by its mother at table, she can relax her attention
somewhat from its progress. Girls are usually daintier and more easily
taught than boys, but most children will behave badly at table if left to
their own devices. Even though they may commit no serious offenses, such
as making a mess of their food or themselves, or talking with their mouths
full, all children love to crumb bread, flop this way and that in their
chairs, knock spoons and forks together, dawdle over their food, feed
animals--if any are allowed in the room--or become restless and noisy.

Once graduated to the dining-room, any reversion to such tactics must be
firmly reprehended, and the child should understand that continued offense
means a return to the nursery. But before company it is best to say as
little as possible, since too much nagging in the presence of strangers
lessens a child's incentive to good behavior before them. If it refuses to
behave nicely, much the best thing to do is to say nothing, but get up and
quietly lead it from the table back to the nursery. It is not only bad for
the child but annoying to a guest to continue instructions before
"company," and the child learns much more quickly to be well-behaved if it
understands that good behavior is the price of admission to grown-up
society. A word or two such as, "Don't lean on the table, darling," or
"pay attention to what you are doing, dear," should suffice. But a child
that is noisy, that reaches out to help itself to candy or cake, that
interrupts the conversation, that eats untidily has been allowed to leave
the nursery before it has been properly graduated.

Table manners must, of course, proceed slowly in exactly the same way that
any other lessons proceed in school. Having learned when a baby to use the
nursery implements of spoon and pusher, the child, when it is a little
older, discards them for the fork, spoon and knife.


=THE PROPER USE OF THE FORK=

As soon, therefore, as his hand is dexterous enough, the child must be
taught to hold his fork, no longer gripped baby-fashion in his fist, but
much as a pencil is held in writing; only the fingers are placed nearer
the "top" than the "point," the thumb and two first fingers are closed
around the handle two-thirds of the way up the shank, and the food is
taken up shovel-wise on the turned-up prongs. At first his little fingers
will hold his fork stiffly, but as he grows older his fingers will become
more flexible just as they will in holding his pencil. If he finds it hard
work to shovel his food, he can, for a while, continue to use his nursery
pusher. By and by the pusher is changed for a small piece of bread, which
is held in his left hand and between thumb and first two fingers, and
against which the fork shovels up such elusive articles as corn, peas,
poached egg, etc.


=THE SPOON=

In using the spoon, he holds it in his right hand like the fork. In eating
cereal or dessert, he may be allowed to dip the bowl of the spoon toward
him and eat from the end, but in eating soup he must dip his spoon away
from him--turning the outer rim of the bowl down as he does so--fill the
bowl not more than three-quarters full and sip it, without noise, out of
the side (not the end) of the bowl. The reason why the bowl must not be
filled full is because it is impossible to lift a brimming spoonful of
liquid to his mouth without spilling some, or in the case of porridge
without filling his mouth too full. While still very young he may be
taught never to leave the spoon in a cup while drinking out of it, but
after stirring the cocoa, or whatever it is, to lay the spoon in the
saucer.

A very ugly table habit, which seems to be an impulse among all children,
is to pile a great quantity of food on a fork and then lick or bite it off
piecemeal. This must on no account be permitted. It is perfectly correct,
however, to sip a little at a time, of hot liquid from a spoon. In taking
any liquid either from a spoon or drinking vessel, no noise must ever be
made.

[Illustration: "IN EATING SOUP THE CHILD MUST DIP HIS SPOON AWAY FROM
HIM--TURNING THE OUTER RIM OF THE SPOON DOWN AS HE DOES SO...." [Page
573.]]

[Illustration: "IN BEING TAUGHT TO USE KNIFE AND FORK TOGETHER, THE CHILD
SHOULD AT FIRST CUT ONLY SOMETHING VERY EASY, SUCH AS A SLICE OF
CHICKEN...." [Page 574.]]

[Illustration: "HAVING CUT OFF A MOUTHFUL, HE THRUSTS THE FORK THROUGH IT,
WITH PRONGS POINTED DOWNWARD AND CONVEYS IT TO HIS MOUTH WITH HIS LEFT
HAND. HE MUST LEARN TO CUT OFF AND EAT ONE MOUTHFUL AT A TIME." [Page
574.]]

[Illustration: "WHEN NO KNIFE IS BEING USED, THE FORK IS HELD IN THE
RIGHT HAND, WHETHER USED 'PRONGS DOWN' TO IMPALE THE MEAT, OR 'PRONGS UP'
TO LIFT VEGETABLES." [Page 575.]]

[Illustration: "BREAD SHOULD ALWAYS BE BROKEN INTO SMALL PIECES WITH THE
FINGERS BEFORE BEING BUTTERED." [Page 583.]]

[Illustration: "WHEN HE HAS FINISHED EATING, THE CHILD SHOULD LAY HIS
KNIFE AND FORK CLOSE TOGETHER, SIDE BY SIDE, WITH HANDLES TOWARD THE RIGHT
SIDE OF HIS PLATE...." [Page 575.]]


=THE FORK AND KNIFE TOGETHER=

In being taught to use his knife, the child should at first cut only
something very easy, such as a slice of chicken; he should not attempt
anything with bones or gristle, or anything that is tough. In his left
hand is put his fork with the prongs downward, held near the top of the
handle. His index finger is placed on the shank so that it points to the
prongs, and is supported at the side by his thumb. His other fingers close
underneath and hold the handle tight. He must never be allowed to hold his
fork emigrant fashion, perpendicularly clutched in the clenched fist, and
to saw across the food at its base with his knife.


=THE KNIFE=

The knife is held in his right hand exactly as the fork is held in his
left, firmly and at the end of the handle, with the index finger pointing
down the back of the blade. In cutting he should learn not to scrape the
back of the fork prongs with the cutting edge of the knife. Having cut off
a mouthful, he thrusts the fork through it, with prongs pointed downward
and conveys it to his mouth with his left hand. He must learn to cut off
and eat one mouthful at a time.

It is unnecessary to add that the knife must _never_ be put in his mouth;
nor is it good form to use the knife unnecessarily. Soft foods, like
croquettes, hash on toast, all eggs and vegetables, should be cut or
merely broken apart with the edge of the fork held like the knife, after
which the fork is turned in the hand to first (or shovel) position. The
knife must never be used to scoop baked potato out of the skin, or to
butter potato. A fork must be used for all manipulations of vegetables;
butter for baked potatoes taken on the tip of the fork shovel fashion,
laid on the potato, and then pressed down and mixed with the prongs
held points curved up.

When no knife is being used, the fork is held in the right hand, whether
used "prongs down" to impale the meat or "prongs up" to lift vegetables.

To pile mashed potato and other vegetables on the convex side of the fork
on top of the meat for two or more inches of its length, is a disgusting
habit dear to school boys, and one that is more easily prevented than
corrected. In fact, taking a big mouthful (next to smearing his face and
chewing with mouth open) is the worst offense at table.

When he has finished eating, he should lay his knife and fork close
together, side by side, with handles toward the right side of his plate,
the handles projecting an inch or two beyond the rim of the plate. They
must be placed far enough on the plate so that there is no danger of their
over-balancing on to the table or floor when removed at the end of the
course.


=OTHER TABLE MATTERS=

The distance from the table at which it is best to sit, is a matter of
personal comfort. A child should not be allowed to be so close that his
elbows are bent like a grasshopper's, nor so far back that food is apt to
be spilled in transit from plate to mouth. Children like to drink very
long and rapidly, all in one breath, until they are pink around the eyes,
and are literally gasping. They also love to put their whole hands in
their finger-bowls and wiggle their fingers.

A baby of two, or at least by the time he is three, should be taught to
dip the tips of his fingers in the finger-bowl, without playing, draw the
fingers of the right hand across his mouth, and then wipe his lips and
fingers on the apron of his bib.

No small child can be expected to use a napkin instead of a bib. No matter
how nicely behaved he may be, there is always danger of his spilling
something, some time. Soft boiled egg is hideously difficult to eat
without ever getting a drop of it down the front, and it is much easier
to supply him with a clean bib for the next meal than to change his dress
for the next moment.

Very little children usually have "hot water plates" that are specially
made like a double plate with hot water space between, on which the meat
is cut up and the vegetables "fixed" in the pantry, and brought to the
children before other people at the table are served. Not only because it
is hard for them to be made to wait, and have their attention attracted by
food not for them, but because they take so long to eat. As soon as they
are old enough to eat everything on the table, they are served, not last,
but in the regular rotation at table in which they come.


=TABLE TRICKS THAT MUST BE CORRECTED=

To sit up straight and keep their hands in their laps when not occupied
with eating, is very hard for a child, but should be insisted upon in
order to prevent a careless attitude that all too readily degenerates into
flopping this way and that, and into fingering whatever is in reach. He
must not be allowed to warm his hands on his plate, or drum on the table,
or screw his napkin into a rope or make marks on the tablecloth. If he
shows talent as an artist, give him pencils or modeling wax in his
playroom, but do not let him bite his slice of bread into the silhouette
of an animal, or model figures in soft bread at the table. And do not
allow him to construct a tent out of two forks, or an automobile chassis
out of tumblers and knives. Food and table implements are not playthings,
nor is the dining-room a playground.


=TALKING AT TABLE=

When older people are present at table and a child wants to say something,
he must be taught to stop eating momentarily and look at his mother, who
at the first pause in the conversation will say, "What is it, dear?" And
the child then has his say. If he wants merely to launch forth on a long
subject of his own conversation, his mother says, "Not now, darling, we
will talk about that by and by," or "Don't you see that mother is talking
to Aunt Mary?"

When children are at table alone with their mother, they should not only
be allowed to talk but unconsciously trained in table conversation as well
as in table manners. Children are all more or less little monkeys in that
they imitate everything they see. If their mother treats them exactly as
she does her visitors they in turn play "visitor" to perfection. Nothing
hurts the feelings of children more than not being allowed to behave like
grown persons when they think they are able. To be helped, to be fed, to
have their food cut up, all have a stultifying effect upon their
development as soon as they have become expert enough to attempt these
services for themselves.

Children should be taught from the time they are little not to talk about
what they like and don't like. A child who is not allowed to say anything
but "No, thank you," at home, will not mortify his mother in public by
screaming, "I hate steak, I won't eat potato, I want ice cream!"


=QUIETNESS AT TABLE=

Older children should not be allowed to jerk out their chairs, to flop
down sideways, to flick their napkins by one corner, to reach out for
something, or begin to eat nuts, fruit or other table decorations. A child
as well as a grown person should sit down quietly in the center of his
chair and draw it up to the table (if there is no one to push it in for
him) by holding the seat in either hand while momentarily lifting himself
on his feet. He must not "jump" or "rock" his chair into place at the
table. In getting up from the table, again he must push his chair back
quietly, using his hands on either side of the chair seat, and _not_ by
holding on to the table edge and giving himself, chair and all, a sudden
shove! There should never be a sound made by the pushing in or out of
chairs at table.


=THE SPOILED CHILD=

The bad manners of American children, which unfortunately are supposed by
foreigners to be typical, are nearly always the result of their being
given "star" parts by over-fond but equally over-foolish mothers. It is
only necessary to bring to mind the most irritating and objectionable
child one knows, and the chances are that its mother continually throws
the spotlight on it by talking to it, and about it, and by calling
attention to its looks or its cunning ways or even, possibly, its
naughtiness.

It is humanly natural to make a fuss over little children, particularly if
they are pretty, and it takes quite super-human control for a young mother
not to "show off" her treasure, but to say instead, "Please do not pay any
attention to her." Some children, who are especially free from
self-consciousness, stand "stardom" better than others who are more
readily spoiled; but in nine cases out of ten, the old-fashioned method
that assigned children to inconspicuous places in the background and
decreed they might be seen but not heard, produced men and women of far
greater charm than the modern method of encouraging public self-expression
from infancy upward.


=CHIEF VIRTUE: OBEDIENCE=

No young human being, any more than a young dog, has the least claim to
attractiveness unless it is trained to manners and obedience. The child
that whines, interrupts, fusses, fidgets, and does nothing that it is told
to do, has not the least power of attraction for any one, even though it
may have the features of an angel and be dressed like a picture. Another
that may have no claim to beauty whatever, but that is sweet and nicely
behaved, exerts charm over every one.

When possible, a child should be taken away the instant it becomes
disobedient. It soon learns that it can not "stay with mother" unless it
is well-behaved. This means that it learns self-control in babyhood. Not
only must children obey, but they must never be allowed to "show off" or
become pert, or to contradict or to answer back; and after having been
told "no," they must never be allowed by persistent nagging to win "yes."

A child that loses its temper, that teases, that is petulant and
disobedient, and a nuisance to everybody, is merely a victim, poor little
thing, of parents who have been too incompetent or negligent to train it
to obedience. Moreover, that same child when grown will be the first to
resent and blame the mother's mistaken "spoiling" and lack of good sense.


=FAIR PLAY=

Nothing appeals to children more than justice, and they should be taught
in the nursery to "play fair" in games, to respect each other's property
and rights, to give credit to others, and not to take too much credit to
themselves. Every child must be taught never to draw attention to the
meagre possessions of another child whose parents are not as well off as
her own. A purse-proud, overbearing child who says to a playmate, "My
clothes were all made in Paris, and my doll is ever so much handsomer than
yours," or "Is that real lace on your collar?" is not impressing her young
friend with her grandeur and discrimination but with her disagreeableness
and rudeness. A boy who brags about what he has, and boasts of what he can
do, is only less objectionable because other boys are sure to "take it out
of him" promptly and thoroughly! Nor should a bright, observing child be
encouraged to pick out other people's failings, or to tell her mother how
inferior other children are compared with herself. If she wins a race or a
medal or is praised, she naturally tells her mother, and her mother
naturally rejoices with her, and it is proper that she should; but a wise
mother directs her child's mental attitude to appreciate the fact that
arrogance, selfishness and conceit can win no place worth having in the
world.


=CHILDREN AT AFTERNOON TEA=

A custom in many fashionable houses is to allow children as soon as they
are old enough, to come into the drawing-room or library at tea-time, as
nothing gives them a better opportunity to learn how to behave in
company. Little boys are always taught to bow to visitors; little girls to
curtsy. Small boys are taught to place the individual tables, hand plates
and tea, and pass sandwiches and cakes. If there are no boys, girls
perform this office; very often they both do. When everybody has been
helped, the children are perhaps allowed a piece of cake, which they put
on a tea-plate, and sit down, and eat nicely. But as the tea-hour is very
near their supper time, they are often allowed nothing, and after making
themselves useful, go out of the room again. If many people are present
and the children are not spoken to, they leave the room unobtrusively and
quietly. If only one or two are present, especially those whom the
children know well, they shake hands, and say "Good-by," and walk (not
run) out of the room.

This is one of the ways in which well-bred people become used from
childhood to instinctive good manners. Unless they are spoken to, they
would not think of speaking or making themselves noticed in any way. Very
little children who have not reached the age of "discretion," which may be
placed at about five, possibly not until six, usually go in the
drawing-room at tea-time only when near relatives or intimate friends of
the family are there. Needless to say that they are always washed and
dressed. Some children wear special afternoon clothes, but usually the
clean clothes put on at tea-time go on again the next morning, except the
thin socks and house slippers which are reserved for the "evening hour" of
their day.


=CHILDREN'S PARTIES=

A small girl (or boy) giving a party should receive with her mother at the
door and greet all her friends as they come in. If it is her birthday and
other children bring her gifts, she must say "Thank you" politely. On no
account must she be allowed to tell a child "I hate dolls," if a friend
has brought her one. She must learn at an early age that as hostess she
must think of her guests rather than herself, and not want the best toys
in the grab-bag or scream because another child gets the prize that is
offered in a contest. If beaten in a game, a little girl, no less than her
brothers, must never cry, or complain that the contest is "not fair" when
she loses. She must try to help her guests have a good time, and not
insist on playing the game she likes instead of those which the other
children suggest.

When she herself goes to a party, she must say, "How do you do," when she
enters the room, and curtsy to the lady who receives. A boy makes a bow.
They should have equally good manners as when at home, and not try to grab
more than their share of favors or toys. When it is time to go home, they
must say, "Good-by, I had a very good time," or, "Good-by, thank you ever
so much."


=THE CHILD'S REPLY=

If the hostess says, "Good-by, give my love to your mother!" the child
answers, "Yes, Mrs. Smith." In all monosyllabic replies a child must not
say "Yes" or "No" or "What?" A boy in answering a gentleman still uses the
old-fashioned "Yes, sir," "No, sir," "I think so, sir," but ma'am has gone
out of style. Both boys and girls must therefore answer, "No, Mrs. Smith,"
"Yes, Miss Jones." A girl says "Yes, Mr. Smith," rather than "sir." All
children should say, "What did you say, mother?" "No, father," "Thank you,
Aunt Kate," "Yes, Uncle Fred," etc.

They need not insert a name in a long sentence nor with "please," or
"thank you." "Yes, please," or "No, thank you," is quite sufficient. Or in
answering, "I just saw Mary down in the garden," it is not necessary to
add "Mrs. Smith" at the end.


=ETIQUETTE FOR GROWN CHILDREN=

Etiquette for grown children is precisely the same as for grown persons,
excepting that in many ways the manners exacted of young people should be
more "alert" and punctilious. Young girls (and boys of course) should have
the manners of a gentleman rather than those of a lady; in that a
gentleman always rises, relinquishes the best seat and walks last into a
room, whereas these courtesies are shown to, and not observed by ladies
(except to other ladies older than themselves).

In giving parties, young girls send out their invitations as their mothers
do, and their deportment is the same as that of their débutante sister.
Boys behave as their fathers do, and are equally punctilious in following
the code of honor of all gentlemen. The only details, therefore, not
likely to be described in other chapters of this book, are a few
admonitions on table manners, that are somewhat above "kindergarten"
grade.


=THE GRADUATING TESTS IN TABLE MANNERS=

A young person may be supposed to have graduated from the school of table
etiquette when she, or he, would be able to sit at a formal lunch or
dinner table and find no difficulty in eating properly any of the
comestibles which are supposed to be "hurdles" to the inexpert.


=CORN ON THE COB=

Corn on the cob could be eliminated so far as ever having to eat it in
formal company is concerned, since it is never served at a luncheon or a
dinner; but, if you insist on eating it at home or in a restaurant, to
attack it with as little ferocity as possible, is perhaps the only
direction to be given, since at best it is an ungraceful performance and
to eat it greedily a horrible sight!


=ASPARAGUS=

Although asparagus may be taken in the fingers, don't take a long drooping
stalk, hold it up in the air and catch the end of it in your mouth like a
fish. When the stalks are thin, it is best to cut them in half with the
fork, eating the tips like all fork food; the ends may then be taken in
the fingers and eaten without a dropping fountain effect! Don't squeeze
the stalks, or hold your hand below the end and let the juice run down
your arm.


=ARTICHOKES=

Artichokes are always eaten with the fingers; a leaf at a time is pulled
off and the edible end dipped in the sauce, and then bitten off.


=BREAD AND BUTTER=

Bread should always be broken into small pieces with the fingers before
being eaten. If it is to be buttered (at lunch, breakfast or supper, but
not at dinner) a piece is held on the edge of the bread and butter plate,
or the place plate, and enough butter spread on it for a mouthful or two
at a time, with a small silver "butter knife." Bread must never be held
flat on the palm of the hand and buttered in the air. If the regular steel
knife is used, care must be taken not to smear food from the knife's side
on the butter. Any food that is smeared about is loathsome. People who
have beautiful table manners always keep their places at table neat.
People with disgusting manners get everything in a horrible mess.


=THE MANAGEMENT OF BONES AND PITS=

Terrapin bones, fish bones and grape seed must be eaten quite bare and
clean in the mouth, and removed one at a time between finger and thumb.
All spitting out of bones and pits into the plate is disgusting.

If food is too hot, quickly take a swallow of water. On no account spit it
out! If food has been taken into your mouth, no matter how you hate it,
you have got to swallow it. It is unforgivable to take anything out of
your mouth that has been put in it, except dry bones, and stones. To spit
anything whatever into the corner of your napkin, is too nauseating to
comment on. It is horrid to see any one spit skins or pits on a fork or
into the plate. The only way to take anything out of your mouth is between
first-finger and thumb. Dry grape seeds or cherry pits can be dropped from
the lips into the cupped hand. Peaches or other very juicy fruits are
peeled and then eaten with knife and fork, but dry fruits, such as
apples, may be cut and then eaten in the fingers. _Never_ wipe hands that
have fruit juice on them on a napkin without first using a finger bowl,
because fruit juices make indelible stains.


=BIRDS=

Birds are not eaten with the fingers in company! You cut off as much of
the meat as you can, and leave the rest on your plate.


=FORKS OR FINGERS=

All juicy or "gooey" fruits or cakes are best eaten with a fork, but in
most cases it is a matter of dexterity. If you are able to eat a peach in
your fingers and not smear your face, let juice run down, or make a
sucking noise, you are the one in a thousand who _may_, and with utmost
propriety, continue the feat. If you can eat a napoleon or a cream puff
and not let the cream ooze out on the far side, you need not use a fork,
but if you can not eat something--no matter what it is--without getting it
all over your fingers, you must use a fork, and if necessary, a knife
also!

All rules of table manners are made to avoid ugliness; to let any one see
what you have in your mouth is repulsive; to make a noise is to suggest an
animal; to make a mess is disgusting. On the other hand, there are a
number of trifling decrees of etiquette that are merely finical,
unreasonable, and silly. Why one should not cut one's salad in small
pieces if one wants to, makes little sense, unless one wants to cut up a
whole plateful and make the plate messy! A steel knife must not be used
for salad or fruit, because it turns black. To condemn the American custom
of eating a soft-boiled egg in a glass, or cup, because it happens to be
the English fashion to scoop it through the ragged edge of the shell, is
about as reasonable as though we were to proclaim English manners bad
because they tag a breakfast dish, called a "savory" of fish-roe or
something equally inappropriate, after the dessert at dinner.

Many other arbitrary rules for eating food with fork, spoon or fingers,
are also stumbling-blocks rather than aids to smoothness. As said above,
one eats with a fork or spoon "finger-foods" that are messy and sticky;
one eats with the finger those which are dry. It is true that one should
not eat French fried potatoes or Saratoga chips in fingers, but that is
because they belong to the meat course. Separate vegetable saucers are
never put on a fashionable table, neither is butter allowed at dinner.
Therefore both must be avoided in company, because "company" is formal,
and etiquette is first aid always to formality. But if a man in his own
house likes butter with his dinner or a saucer for his tomatoes, he is
breaking the rule of fashion to have them, but he is scarcely committing
an offense! In the same way, if he likes to eat a chicken wing or a squab
leg in his fingers he can ask for a finger-bowl. The real objection to
eating with the fingers is getting them greasy or sticky, and to suck them
or smear one's napkin is equally unsightly.


=ON THE SUBJECT OF ELBOWS=

Although elbows on the table are seen constantly in highest fashionable
circles, a whole table's length of elbows planted like clothes-line poles
and hands waving glasses or forks about in between, is neither an
attractive nor (fortunately) an accurate picture of a fashionable dinner
table. As a matter of fact, the tolerated elbow-on-table is used only on
occasion and for a reason, and should neither be permitted to children nor
practised in their presence.

Elbows are universally seen on tables in restaurants, especially when
people are lunching or dining at a small table of two or four, and it is
impossible to make oneself heard above the music by one's table
companions, and at the same time not be heard at other tables nearby,
without leaning far forward. And in leaning forward, a woman's figure
makes a more graceful outline supported on her elbows than doubled forward
over her hands in her lap as though in pain! At home, when there is no
reason for leaning across the table, there is no reason for elbows. And
at a dinner of ceremony, elbows on the table are rarely seen, except at
the ends of the table, where again one has to lean forward in order to
talk to a companion at a distance across the table corner.

Elbows are _never_ put on the table while one is eating. To sit with the
left elbow propped on the table while eating with the right hand (unless
one is alone and ill), or to prop the right one on the table while lifting
the fork or glass to the mouth, must be avoided.




CHAPTER XXXVI

EVERY-DAY MANNERS AT HOME


Just as no chain is stronger than its weakest link, no manners can be
expected to stand a strain beyond their daily test at home.

Those who are used to losing their temper in the bosom of their family
will sooner or later lose it in public. Families which exert neither
courtesy nor charm when alone, can no more deceive other people into
believing that either attribute belongs to them than they could hope to
make painted faces look like "real" complexions.

A mother should exact precisely the same behavior at home and every day,
that she would like her children to display in public, and she herself, if
she expects them to take good manners seriously, must show the same
manners to them alone that she shows to "company."

A really charming woman exerts her charm nowhere more than upon her
husband and children, and a noble nature through daily though unconscious
example is of course the greatest influence for good that there is in the
world. No preacher, no matter how saint-like his precept or golden his
voice, can equal the home influence of admirable parents.

It is not merely in such matters as getting up when their mother or other
older relatives enter a room, answering civilly and having good table
manners, but in forming habits of admirable living and thinking that a
parent's example makes or mars.

If children see temper uncontrolled, hear gossip, uncharitableness and
suspicion of neighbors, witness arrogant sharp-dealing or lax honor, their
own characters can scarcely escape perversion. In the same way others can
not easily fail to be thoroughbred who have never seen or heard their
parents do or say an ignoble thing.

No child will ever accept a maxim that is preached but not followed by the
preacher. It is a waste of breath for the father to order his Sons to keep
their temper, to behave like gentlemen, or to be good sportsmen, if he
does or is himself none of these things.

In the present day of rush and hurry, there is little time for "home"
example. To the over-busy or gaily fashionable, "home" might as well be a
railroad station, and members of a family passengers who see each other
only for a few hurried minutes before taking trains in opposite
directions. The days are gone when the family sat in the evening around
the fire, or a "table with a lamp," when it was customary to read aloud or
to talk. Few people "talk well" in these days; fewer read aloud, and fewer
still endure listening to any book literally word by word.

Railroad station reading is as much in vogue as railroad station bolting
of meals. Magazines--"picture" ones--are all that the hurried have time
for, and even those who profess to "love reading" dart tourist-fashion
from page to page only pausing at attractive paragraphs; and family
relationships are followed somewhat in the same way.

Any number of busy men scarcely know their children at all, and have not
even stopped to realize that they seldom or never talk to them, never
exert themselves to be sympathetic with them, or in the slightest degree
to influence them. To growl "mornin'," or "Don't, Johnny," or "Be quiet,
Alice!" is very, very far from being "an influence" on your children's
morals, minds or manners.


=HOME EDUCATION=

A Supreme Court Justice whose education had been cut short in his youth by
the Civil War, when asked how, under the circumstances, his scholastic
attainments had been acquired, answered: "My father believed it was the
duty of every gentleman to bequeath the wealth of his intellect, no less
than that of his pocket, to his children. Wealth might be acquired by
'luck,' but proper cultivation was the birthright of every child born of
cultivated parents. We learned Latin and Greek by having him talk and
read them to us. He wrote doggerel rhymes of history which took the place
of Mother Goose. He also told us 'bed-time stories' of history, and read
classics to us after supper. When there was company, we were brought down
from the nursery so that we might profit by the conversation of our
betters."

Volumes full of "manners" acquired after they are grown are not worth half
so much as the simplest precepts acquired through lifelong habits and
through having known nothing else.


=THE OLD GRAY WRAPPER HABIT=

How many times has one heard some one say: "I won't dress for dinner--no
one is coming in." Or, "That old dress will do!" Old clothes! No manners!
And what is the result? One wife more wonders why her husband neglects
her! Curious how the habit of careless manners and the habit of old
clothes go together. If you doubt it, put the question to yourself: "Who
could possibly have the manners of a queen in a gray flannel wrapper?" And
how many women really lovely and good--especially good--commit esthetic
suicide by letting themselves slide down to where they "feel natural" in
an old gray flannel wrapper, not only actually but mentally.

The woman of charm in "company" is the woman of fastidiousness at home;
she who dresses for her children and "prinks" for her husband's
home-coming, is sure to greet them with greater charm than she who thinks
whatever she happens to have on is "good enough." Any old thing good
enough for those she loves most! Think of it!

A certain very lovely lady whose husband is quite as much her lover as in
the days of his courtship, has never in twenty years allowed him to watch
the progress of her toilet, because of her determination never to let him
see her except at her prettiest. Needless to say, he never meets anything
but "prettiest" manners either. No matter how "out of sorts" she may be
feeling, his key in the door is a signal for her to "put aside everything
that is annoying or depressing," with the result that wild horses
couldn't drag his attention from her--all because neither she nor he has
ever slumped into the gray flannel wrapper habit.

So many people save up all their troubles to pour on the one they most
love, the idea being, seemingly, that no reserves are necessary between
lovers. Nor need there be really. But why, when their house looks out upon
a garden that has charming vistas, must she insist on his looking into the
clothes-yard and the ash-can? She who complains incessantly that this is
wrong, or that hurts, or any other thing worries or vexes her, so that his
inevitable answer to her greeting is, "I'm so sorry, dear," or "That's too
bad," or "Poor darling, it's a shame," is getting mentally into a gray
flannel wrapper!

If something is seriously wrong, if she is really ill, that is different.
But of the petty things that are only remembered in order to be told to
gain sympathy--beware!

There is a big deposit of sympathy in the bank of love, but don't draw out
little sums every hour or so--so that by and by, when perhaps you need it
badly, it is all drawn out and you yourself don't know how or on what it
was spent.

All that has been said to warn a wife from slovenly habits of mind or
dress may be adapted to apply with equal force in suggesting a rule for
husbands. A man should always remember that a woman's regard for him is
founded on her impressions when seeing him at his best. Even granting that
she has no great illusions about men in general, he at his best is at
least an approximation to her ideal--and it is his chief duty never to
fall below the standard he set for himself in making his most cogent
appeal. Consequently he should continue through the years to be scrupulous
about his personal appearance and his clothes, remembering the adage that
the most successful marriages are those in which both parties to the
contract succeed in "keeping up the illusion." It is of importance also
that he refrain from burdening his wife with the cares and worries of his
business day. Many writers insist that the wife should be ready to receive
a complete consignment of all his troubles when the husband comes home at
the end of the day. It is a sounder practise for him to save her as much
as possible from the trials of his business hours; and, incidentally, it
is the best kind of mental training for him to put all business cares
behind him as he closes the door of his office and goes home. When it is
said that a husband should not fling all the day's trifling annoyances
into the lap of his wife without reflecting that she may have some cares
of her own, there is no intention to indicate that a wife should not have
a thorough understanding of her husband's affairs. Complete acquaintance
and sympathy with his work is one of the foundation stones of the domestic
edifice.


=THE FAMILY AT TABLE=

Whether "there is company" or whether the family is alone, the linen must
be as spotless, the silver as clean, and the table as carefully set as
though twenty were coming for dinner. Sloppy service is no more to be
tolerated every day at home than at a dinner party, and in so far as
etiquette is concerned, you should live in exactly the same way whether
there is company or none. "Company manners" and "every-day manners" must
be identical in service as well as family behavior. You may not be able to
afford quantities of flowers in your house and on your table, or perhaps
any, but there is no excuse for wilted flowers or an empty vase that
merely accentuates your table's flowerlessness. There are plenty of table
ornaments that need no flowers. In the same way the compotiers can be
filled with candies or conserves of the "everlasting" variety;
silver-foiled chocolates or nougat, or gum drops or crystalized ginger or
conserved fruits--will keep for months! But the table must be decorated
and a certain form observed at the dinner hour; otherwise gray flannel
wrapper habits become imminent. Letters, newspapers, books have no place
at a dinner table. Reading at table is allowable at breakfast and when
eating alone, but a man and his wife should no more read at lunch or
dinner before each other or their children than they should allow their
children to read before them.


=THE TABLE NOT A PLACE FOR PRIVATE DISCUSSION=

One very bad habit in many families is the discussion of all of their most
intimate affairs at table--entirely forgetting whoever may be waiting on
it; and nine times out of ten those serving in the dining-room see no harm
(if they feel like it) in repeating what is said. Why should they? It
scarcely occurs to them that they were "invisible" and that what was
openly talked about at the table was supposed to be a secret!

Apart from the stupidity and imprudence of talking before witnesses, it is
bad form to discuss one's private affairs before any one. And it should be
unnecessary to add that a man and his wife who quarrel before their
children or the servants, deprive the former of good breeding through
inheritance, and publish to the latter that they do not belong to the
"better class" through any qualification except the possession of a bank
account.

Furthermore, parents must never disagree before the children. It simply
can't be! Nor can there be an appeal to one parent against the other by a
child.

"Father told me to jump down the well!"

"Then you must do it, dear," is the mother's only possible comment. When
the child has "jumped down the well," she may pull him out promptly, and
she may in private tell her husband what she thinks about his issuing such
orders and stand her own ground against them; but so long as parents are
living under the same roofs that roof must shelter unity of opinion, so
far as any witnesses are concerned.




CHAPTER XXXVII

TRAVELING AT HOME AND ABROAD


To do nothing that can either annoy or offend the sensibilities of others,
sums up the principal rules for conduct under all circumstances--whether
staying at home or traveling. But in order to do nothing that can annoy or
give offense, it is necessary for us to consider the point of view of
those with whom we come in contact; and in traveling abroad it is
necessary to know something of foreign customs which affect the foreign
point of view, if we would be thought a cultivated and charming people
instead of an uncivilized and objectionable one. Before going abroad,
however, let us first take up the subject of travel at home.

Since it is not likely that any one would go around the world being
deliberately offensive to others, it may be taken for granted that
obnoxious behavior is either the fault of thoughtlessness or
ignorance--and for the former there is no excuse.


=ON A RAILROAD TRAIN=

On a railroad train you should be careful not to assail the nostrils of
fellow passengers with strong odors of any kind. An odor that may seem to
you refreshing, may cause others who dislike it and are "poor travelers"
to suffer really great distress. There is a combination of banana and the
leather smell of a valise containing food, that is to many people an
immediate emetic. The smell of a banana or an orange, is in fact to nearly
all bad travelers the last straw. In America where there are "diners" on
every Pullman train, the food odors are seldom encountered in parlor cars,
but in Europe where railroad carriages are small, one fruit enthusiast can
make his traveling companions more utterly wretched than perhaps he can
imagine. The cigar which is smoldering has, on most women, the same
effect. Certain perfumes that are particularly heavy, make others ill. To
at least half of an average trainful of people, strong odors of one kind
or another are disagreeable if not actually nauseating.


=CHILDREN ON TRAINS=

People with children are most often the food-offenders. Any number not
only let small children eat continuously so that the car is filled with
food odors, but occasional mothers have been known to let a child with
smeary fingers clutch a nearby passenger by the dress or coat and
seemingly think it cunning! Those who can afford it, usually take the
drawing-room and keep the children in it. Those who are to travel in seats
should plan diversions for them ahead of time; since it is unreasonable to
expect little children to sit quietly for hours on end by merely telling
them to "be good." Two little girls on the train to Washington the other
day were crocheting doll's sweaters with balls of worsted in which were
wound wrapped and disguised "prizes." The amount of wool covering each
might take perhaps a half hour to use up. They were allowed the prize only
when the last strand of wool around it was used. They were then occupied
for a while with whatever it was--a little book, or a puzzle, or a game.
When they grew tired of its novelty, they crocheted again until they came
to the next prize. In the end they had also new garments for their dolls.


=LADIES DO NOT TRAVEL WITH ESCORTS=

In a curiously naïve book on etiquette appeared a chapter purporting to
give advice to a "lady" traveling for an indefinite number of days with a
gentleman escort! That any lady could go traveling for days under the
protection of a gentleman is at least a novelty in etiquette. As said
elsewhere, in fashionable society an "escort" is unheard of, and in decent
society a lady doesn't go traveling around the country with a gentleman
unless she is outside the pale of society, in which case social
convention, at least, is not concerned with her.

Ladies are sometimes accompanied on short, direct trips by gentlemen of
their acquaintance, but not for longer than a few hours.

If a lady traveling alone on a long journey, such as a trip across the
continent, happens to find a gentleman on board whom she knows, she must
not allow him to sit with her in the dining-car more often than a casual
once or twice, nor must she allow him to sit with her or talk to her
enough to give a possible impression that they are together. In fact she
would be more prudent to take her meals by herself, as it is scarcely
worth running the risk of other passengers' criticism for the sake of
having companionship at a meal or two. If, on a short trip, a gentleman
asks a lady, whom he knows, to lunch with him in the dining-car, there is
no reason why she shouldn't.


=THE YOUNG WOMAN TRAVELING ALONE=

In America, a young woman can go across every one of our thousands upon
thousands of railed miles without the slightest risk of a disagreeable
occurrence if she is herself dignified and reserved. She should be
particularly careful if she is young and pretty not to allow strange men
to "scrape an acquaintance" with her. If a stranger happens to offer to
open a window for her, or get her a chair on the observation platform, it
does not give him the right to more than a civil "thank you" from her. If,
in spite of etiquette, she should on a long journey drift into
conversation with an obviously well-behaved youth, she should remember
that talking with him at all is contrary to the proprieties, and that she
must be doubly careful to keep him at a formal distance. There is little
harm in talking of utterly impersonal subjects--but she should avoid
giving him information that is personal.

Every guardian should also warn a young girl that if, when she alights at
her destination, her friends fail to meet her, she should on no account
accept a stranger's offer, whether man or woman, to drive her to her
destination. The safest thing to do is to walk. If it is too far, and
there is no "official" taxicab agent belonging to the railroad company,
she should go to the ticket seller or some one wearing the railroad
uniform and ask him to select a vehicle for her. She should never--above
all in a strange city where she does not even know her direction--take a
taxi on the street.


=REGISTERING IN A HOTEL=

A gentleman writes in the hotel register: "John Smith, New York."

Under no circumstances "Mr." or "Hon." if he is alone. But if his wife is
with him, the prefix to their joint names is correct: "Mr. and Mrs. John
Smith, New York."

He never enters his street and house number. Neither "John Smith and Wife"
nor "John Smith and Family" are good form. If he does not like the "Mr."
before his name he can sign his own without, on one line, and then write
"Mrs. Smith" on the one below. The whole family should be registered:

    John T. Smith,                     New York
    Mrs. Smith,                           "
     and maid
              (_if she has brought one_)

    Miss Margaret Smith,                  "
    John T. Smith, Jr.,                   "
    Baby and nurse,                       "

Or, if the children are young, he writes:

    Mr. & Mrs. John T. Smith, New York, 3 children and nurse.

A lady never signs her name without "Miss" or "Mrs." in a hotel register:

"Miss Abigail Titherington" is correct, or "Mrs. John Smith," never "Sarah
Smith."


=LADIES ALONE IN AMERICAN HOTELS=

If you have never been in a hotel alone but you are of sufficient years,
well behaved and dignified in appearance, you need have no fear as to the
treatment you will receive. But you should write to the hotel in
advance--whether here or in Europe. In this country you register in the
office and are shown to your room, or rooms, by a bell-boy--in some hotels
by a bell-boy and a maid.

One piece of advice: You will not get good service unless you tip
generously. If you do not care for elaborate meals, that is nothing to
your discredit; but you should not go to an expensive hotel, hold a table
that would otherwise be occupied by others who might order a long dinner,
and expect your waiter to be contented with a tip of fifteen cents for
your dollar supper! The rule is ten per cent, beginning with a meal
costing about three or four dollars. A quarter is the smallest possible
tip in a first class hotel. If your meal costs a quarter--you should give
the waiter a quarter. If it costs two dollars or more than two dollars,
you give thirty or thirty-five cents, and ten per cent on a bigger amount.
In smaller hotels tips are less in proportion. Tipping is undoubtedly a
bad system, but it happens to be in force, and that being the case,
travelers have to pay their share of it--if they like the way made smooth
and comfortable.

A lady traveling alone with her maid (or without one), of necessity has
her meals alone in her own sitting-room, if she has one. If she goes to
the dining-room, she usually takes a book because hotel service seems
endless to one used to meals at home and nothing is duller than to sit
long alone with nothing to do but look at the tablecloth, which is
scarcely diverting, or at other people, which is impolite.


=ON THE STEAMER=

In the days when our great-grandparents went to Europe on a clipper ship
carrying at most a score of voyagers and taking a month perhaps to make
the crossing, those who sat day after day together, and evening after
evening around the cabin lamp, became necessarily friendly; and in many
instances not only for the duration of the voyage but for life. More often
than not, those who had "endured the rigors" of the Atlantic together,
joined forces in engaging the courier who was in those days indispensable,
and set out on their Continental travels in company. Dashing to Europe and
back was scarcely to be imagined, and travelers who had ventured such a
distance, stayed at least a year or more. Also in those slower days of
crawling across the earth's surface by post-chaise and diligence and
horseback, travelers meeting in inns and elsewhere, fell literally on each
other's neck at the sound of an American accent! And each retailed to the
other his news of home; to which was added the news of all whom they had
encountered. It is also from these "traveling ancestors" that families
inherit their Continental visiting lists. Friends they made in Europe, in
turn gave letters of introduction to friends coming later to America. And
to them again their American hosts sent letters by later American friends.

But to-day when going to Europe is of scarcely greater importance than
going into another State, and when the passenger list numbers hundreds,
"making friends with strangers" is the last thing the great-grandchildren
of those earlier travelers would think of.

It may be pretty accurately said that the faster and bigger the
ship, the less likely one is to speak to strangers, and yet--as
always--circumstances alter cases. Because the Worldlys, the Oldnames, the
Eminents,--all those who are innately exclusive--never "pick up"
acquaintances on shipboard, it does not follow that no fashionable and
well-born people ever drift into acquaintanceship on European-American
steamers of to-day--but they are at least not apt to do so. Many in fact
take the ocean-crossing as a rest-cure and stay in their cabins the whole
voyage. The Worldlys always have their meals served in their own
"drawing-room" and have their deck chairs placed so that no one is very
near them, and keep to themselves except when they invite friends of their
own to play bridge or take dinner or lunch with them.

But because the Worldlys and the Eminents--and the Snobsnifts who copy
them--stay in their cabins, sit in segregated chairs and speak to no one
except the handful of their personal friends or acquaintances who happen
to be on board, it does not follow that the Smiths, Joneses and Robinsons
are not enlarging their acquaintance with every revolution of the screws.
And if you happen to like to be talked to by strangers, and if they in
turn like to talk to you, it can not be said that there is any rule of
etiquette against it.


=DINING SALOON ETIQUETTE=

Very fashionable people as a rule travel a great deal, which means that
they are known very well to the head steward, who reserves a table, or
they engage a table for themselves when they get their tickets. Mr. and
Mrs. Gilding for instance, if they know that friends of theirs are sailing
on the same steamer, ask them to sit at their table and ask for a
sufficiently large table on purpose. Or if they are traveling alone, they
arrange to have one of the small tables for two, to themselves.

People of wide acquaintance in big cities are sure to find friends on
board with whom they can arrange, if they choose, to sit on deck or in the
dining saloon, but most people, unless really intimate friends are on
board, sit wherever the head steward puts them. After a meal or two people
always speak to those sitting next to them. None but the rudest snobs
would sit through meal after meal without ever addressing a word to their
table companions. Well-bred people are always courteous, but that does not
mean that they establish friendships with any strangers who happen to be
placed next to them.

In crossing the Pacific, people are more generally friendly because the
voyage is so much longer, and on the other long voyages, such as those to
India and South Africa, the entire ship's company become almost as
intimate as in the old clipper days.


=THE TACTICS OF THE CLIMBER=

There are certain constant travelers who, it is said, count on a European
voyage to increase their social acquaintance by just so much each trip!
Richan Vulgar, for instance, has his same especial table every time he
crosses, which is four times a year! Walking through a "steamer train" he
sees a "celebrity," a brilliant, let us say, but unworldly man. Vulgar
annexes him by saying, casually, "Have you a seat at table? Better sit
with me, I always have the table by the door; it is easy to get in and
out." The celebrity accepts, since there is no evidence that he is to be
"featured," and the chances are that he remains unconscious to the end of
time that he served as a decoy. Boarding the steamer, Vulgar sees the
Lovejoys, and pounces: "You must sit at my table! Celebrity and I are
crossing together--he is the most delightful man! I want you to sit next
to him." They think Celebrity sounds very interesting; so, not having
engaged a table for themselves, they say they will be delighted. On the
deck, the Smartlys appear and ask the Lovejoys to sit with them. Vulgar,
who is standing by (he is always standing by) breaks in even without an
introduction and says: "Mr. and Mrs. Lovejoy and Celebrity are sitting at
my table, won't you sit with me also?" If the Smartlys protest they have a
table, he is generally insistent and momentarily overpowering enough to
make them join forces with him. As the Smartlys particularly want to sit
next to the Lovejoys and also like the idea of meeting Celebrity, it ends
in Vulgar's table being a collection of fashionables whom he could not
possibly have gotten together without just such a maneuver.

The question of what he gets out of it is puzzling since with each hour
the really well-bred people dislike him more and more intensely, and at
the end of a day or so, his table's company are all eating on deck to
avoid him. Perhaps there is some recompense that does not appear on the
surface, but to the casual observer the satisfaction of telling others
that the Smartlys, Lovejoys and Wellborns sat at his table would scarcely
seem worth the effort.


=THOSE ACQUISITIVE OF ACQUAINTANCE=

There is another type of steamer passenger and hotel guest who may, or may
not, be a climber. This one searches out potential acquaintances on the
passenger list and hotel register with the avidity of a bird searching for
worms. You have scarcely found your own stateroom and had your deck chair
placed, when one of them swoops upon you: "I don't know whether you
remember me? I met you in nineteen two, at Countess della Robbia's in
Florence." Your memory being woefully incomplete, there is nothing for you
to say except, "How do you do!" If a few minutes of conversation, which
should be sufficient, proves her to be a lady, you talk to her now and
again throughout the voyage, and may end by liking her very much. If,
however, her speech breaks into expressions which prove her not a lady,
you become engrossed in your book or conversation with another when she
approaches. Often these over-friendly people are grasping, calculating and
objectionable, but sometimes like Ricki Ticki Tavi they are merely
obsessed with a mania to run about and see what is going on in the world.

For instance, Miss Spinster is one of the best-bred, best-informed, most
charming ladies imaginable. But her mania for people cannot fail on
occasions to put her in a position to be snubbed--never seriously because
she is too obviously a lady for that. But to see her trotting along the
deck and then darting upon a helpless reclining figure, is at least an
illustration of the way some people make friends. It can't be done, of
course, unless you have once known the person you are addressing, or
unless you have a friend in common who, though absent, can serve in
making the introduction.

As said in "Introductions," introducing oneself is often perfectly
correct. If you, sharing Miss Spinster's love of people, find yourself on
a steamer with the intimate friend of a member of your family, you may
very properly go up and say, "I am going to speak to you because I am
Celia Lovejoy's cousin--I am Mrs. Brown." And Mrs. Norman, who very much
likes Celia Lovejoy, says cordially, "I am so glad you spoke to me, do sit
down, won't you?" But to have your next chair neighbor on deck insist on
talking to you, if you don't want to be talked to, is very annoying, and
it is bad form for her to do so. If you are sitting hour after hour doing
nothing but idly looking in front of you, your neighbor might address a
few remarks to you, and if you receive them with any degree of enthusiasm,
your response may be translated into a willingness to talk. But if you
answer in the merest monosyllables, it should be taken to mean that you
prefer to be left to your own diversions.

Even if you are agreeable, your neighbor should show tact in not speaking
to you when you are reading or writing, or show no inclination for
conversation. The point is really that no one must do anything to
interfere with the enjoyment of another. Whoever is making the advance,
whether your neighbor or yourself, it must never be more than tentative;
if not at least met halfway, it must be withdrawn at once. That is really
the only rule there is. It should merely be granted that those who do not
care to meet others have just as much right to their seclusion as those
who delight in others have a right to be delighted--as long as that
delight is unmistakably mutual.


=STEAMER TIPS=

Each ordinary first class passenger, now as always, gives ten shillings
($2.50) to the room steward or stewardess, ten shillings to the
dining-room steward, ten shillings to the deck steward, ten shillings to
the lounge steward. Your tip to the head steward and to one of the chefs
depends on whether they have done anything especial for you. If not, you
do not tip them. If you are a bad sailor and have been taking your meals
in your room, you give twenty shillings ($5.00) at least to the stewardess
(or steward, if you are a man). Or if you have eaten your meals on deck,
you give twenty shillings to the deck steward, and ten to his assistant,
and you give five to the bath steward. To any steward who takes pains to
please you, you show by your manner in thanking him that you appreciate
his efforts, as well as by giving him a somewhat more generous tip when
you leave the ship.

If you like your bath at a certain hour, you would do well to ask your
bath steward for it as soon as you go on board (unless you have a private
bath of your own), since the last persons to speak get the inconvenient
hours--naturally. To many the daily salt bath is the most delightful
feature of the trip. The water is always wonderfully clear and the towels
are heated.

If you have been ill on the voyage, some ship's doctors send in a bill;
others do not. In the latter case you are not actually obliged to give
them anything, but the generously inclined put the amount of an average
fee in an envelope and leave it for the doctor at the purser's office.


=DRESS ON THE STEAMER=

On the _de luxe_ steamers nearly every one dresses for dinner; some
actually in ball dresses, which is in worst possible taste, and, like all
over-dressing in public places, indicates that they have no other place to
show their finery. People of position never put on formal evening dress on
a steamer, not even in the _à la carte_ restaurant, which is a feature of
the _de luxe_ steamer of size. In the dining saloon they wear afternoon
house dresses--without hats--for dinner. In the restaurant they wear
semi-dinner dresses. Some smart men on the ordinary steamers put on a dark
sack suit for dinner after wearing country clothes all day, but in the _de
luxe_ restaurant they wear Tuxedo coats. No gentleman wears a tail-coat on
shipboard under any circumstances whatsoever.


=TRAVELING ABROAD=

Just as one discordant note makes more impression than all the others that
are correctly played in an entire symphony, so does a discordant incident
stand out and dominate a hundred others that are above criticism, and
therefore unnoticed.

In every country of Europe and Asia are Americans who combine the
brilliancy which none can deny is the birthright of the newer world, with
the cultivation and good breeding of the old. These Americans of the best
type go all over the world, fitting in so perfectly with their background
that not even the inhabitants notice they are strangers; in other words
they achieve the highest accomplishment possible.

But in contrast to these, the numberless discordant ones are only too
familiar; one sees them swarming over Europe in bunches, sometimes in
hordes, on regular professionally run tours. This, of course, does not
mean that all personally conducted tourists are anything like them. The
objectionables are loud of voice, loud in manner; they always attract as
much attention as possible to themselves, and wave American flags on all
occasions.

The American flag is the most wonderful emblem in the whole world, and
ours is the most glorious country too, but that does not mean that it is
good taste to wave our flag for no reason whatever. At a parade or on an
especial day when other people are waving flags, then let us wave ours by
all means--but not otherwise. It does not dignify our flag to make it an
object of ridicule to others, and that is exactly the result of the
ceaseless flaunting of it by a group of people who talk at the top of
their voices, who deliberately assume that the atmosphere belongs to them,
and who behave like noisy, untrained savages trying to "show off." In
hotels, on excursions, steamers and trains, they insist on talking to
everyone, whether everyone wants to talk or not. They are "all over the
place"--there is no other way to express it--and they allow privacy to no
one if they can help it.

Numberless cultivated Americans traveling in Europe never by any chance
speak English or carry English books on railroad trains, as a protection
against the other type of American who allows no one to travel in the same
compartment and escape conversation. The only way to avoid unwelcome
importunities is literally to take refuge in assuming another nationality.

Strangely enough, these irrepressibles are seldom encountered at home;
they seem to develop on the steamer and burst into full bloom only on the
beaten tourist trails--which is a pity, because if they only developed at
home instead, we might be intensely annoyed but at least we should not be
mortified before our own citizens about other fellow-citizens. But to a
sensitive American it is far from pleasant to have the country he loves
represented by a tableful of vulgarians noisily attracting the attention
of a whole dining-room, and to have a European say mockingly, "Ah, and
those are your compatriots?"

Some years ago, a Russian grand duke sitting next to Mrs. Oldname at a
luncheon in a Monte Carlo restaurant, said to her:

"Your country puzzles me! How can it be possible that it holds without
explosion such antagonistic types as the many charming Americans we are
constantly meeting, and at the same time--" looking at a group who were
actually singing and beating time on their glasses with knives and
forks--"those!"

A French officer's comment to an American officer with whom he was talking
in a club in Paris, quite unconsciously tells the same tale:

"You are _liaison_ officer, I suppose, with the Americans? But may I be
permitted to ask why you wear their uniform?"

The other smiled: "I am an American!"

"You an American? Impossible! Why, you speak French like a Parisian, you
have the manner of a great gentleman!" (_un grand seigneur_,) which would
indicate that the average American does not speak perfect French nor have
beautiful manners. There is much excuse for not speaking foreign
languages, but there is no excuse whatever for having offensive manners
and riding rough-shod over people who own the land--not we, who seem to
think we do.

As for "souvenir hunters," perhaps they can explain wherein their
pilfering of another's property differs from petty thieving--a distinction
which the owner can scarcely be expected to understand. Those who write
their names, defacing objects of beauty with their vainglorious smudges
and scribblings, are scarcely less culpable.

In France, in Spain, in Italy, grace and politeness of manner is as
essential to merest decency as being clothed. In the hotels that are "used
to us" (something of a commentary!) our lack of politeness is tolerated;
but don't think for a moment it is not paid for! The officer referred to
above, who had had the advantage of summer after summer spent in Europe as
a boy, was charged just about half what another must pay who has "the
rudeness of a savage."

But good manners are good manners everywhere, except that in Latin and
Asiatic countries we must, as it seems to us, exaggerate politeness. We
must, in France and Italy, bow smilingly; we must, in Spain and the East,
bow gravely; but in any event, it is necessary everywhere, except under
the American and British flags, to _bow_--though your bow is often little
more than a slight inclination of the head, and a smile--and to show some
ceremony in addressing people.

When you go into a shop in France or Italy, you must smile and bow and
say, "Good morning, madam," or "Good evening, monsieur," and "Until we
meet again," when you leave. If you can't say "Au revoir," say "Good
afternoon" in English, but at all events say _something_ in a polite tone
of voice, which is much more important than the words themselves. To be
civilly polite is not difficult--it is merely a matter of remembering. To
fail to say "good morning" to a _concierge_, a chambermaid, or a small
tradesman in France, treating him (or her) as though he did not exist, is
not evidence of your grandeur but of your ignorance. A French duchess
would not _think_ of entering the littlest store without saying, "Good
morning, madame," to its proprietress, and if she is known to her at all,
without making enquiries concerning the health of the various members of
her family. Nor would she fail to say, "Good morning, Auguste," or
"Marie," to her own servants.


=EUROPE'S UNFLATTERING OPINION OF US=

For years we Americans have swarmed over the face of the world, taking it
for granted that the earth's surface belongs to us because we can pay for
it, and it is rather worse than ever since the war, when the advantages of
exchange add bitterness to irritation.

And yet there are many who are highly indignant when told that, as a type,
we are not at all admired abroad. Instead of being indignant, how much
simpler and better it would be to make ourselves admirable, especially
since it is those who most lack cultivation who are most indignant. The
very well-bred may be mortified and abashed, but they can't be indignant
except with their fellow countrymen who by their shocking behavior make
Europe's criticism just.

Understanding of, and kind-hearted consideration for the feelings of
others are the basic attributes of good manners. Without observation,
understanding is impossible--even in our own country where the attitude of
our neighbors is much the same as our own. It is not hard to appreciate,
therefore, that to understand the point of view of people entirely foreign
to ourselves, requires intuitive perception as well as cultivation in a
very high degree.


=AMERICANS IN EUROPEAN SOCIETY=

It is only in musical comedy that one can go into a strange city and be
picked out of the crowd and invited to the tables of the high of the land,
because one looks as though one might be agreeable! To see anything of
society in the actual world it is necessary to have friends, either
Americans living or "stationed" or married abroad; or to take letters of
introduction. Taking letters of introduction should never be done
carelessly, because of the obligation that they impose. But to go to a
strange country and see nothing of its social life, is like a blind
person's going to the theater, and the only way a stranger can know people
is through the letters he brings.

Under ordinary circumstances no knowledge whatsoever beyond the social
amenities the world over are necessary. A dinner abroad is exactly the
same as one here. You enter a room, you bow, you shake hands, you say,
"How do you do." You sit at table, you talk of impersonal things, say
"Good-by" and "Thank you" to your hostess, and you leave.

The matter of addressing people of title correctly is of little
importance. The beautiful Lady Oldworld (who was Alice Town) was asked one
day by a fellow countryman, what she called this person of title and that
one, and she replied:

"I'm not sure that I know! Why should I call them at all?" which was a
perfectly sensible answer. One never says anything but "you" to the person
spoken to; and it might be an excellent thing not to know how to speak
about anyone with a title, as it would prevent one's mentioning them.

Having gone into the subject thus far, however, it may be added that if at
a dinner you are put next to a Duke, if it is necessary to call him
anything except "you," you would say "Duke." Unless you are waiting on the
table instead of sitting at it, you would not say, "Your Grace" and not
even _then_ "My Lord Duke." Neither, unless you are a valet or a
chambermaid, would you say "Your Lordship" to an Earl! If you are a lady,
you call him "Lord Arlington." If you know him really well, you call him
"Arlington." To a knight you say, "Sir Arthur," which sounds familiar, but
there is nothing else you can call him.

In England a stranger is not supposed to introduce anyone, so that titles
of address are not necessary then either; but if you happen to be the
hostess and French or Americans are present, who like introductions, you
introduce Sir Arthur Dryden to the Duke and Duchess of Overthere, or to
Prince and Princess Capri. In talking to her, the latter would be called
"Princess" and her husband "Prince Capri" or "Prince" or by those who know
him well, "Capri."


=PRESENTATION AT COURT=

Frequently American men are presented at the British Court at levees held
by the King for the purpose. Such men are of course distinguished citizens
who have been in some branch of public service, or who have contributed
something to art, science, history or progress.

An American lady to be eligible for presentation at a foreign Court should
be either the wife or daughter of a distinguished American citizen or be
herself notable in some branch of learning or accomplishment.

It is absolutely necessary that such a candidate take letters of
introduction to the American Ambassador,[C] or Minister if in a country
where we have a Legation instead of an Embassy. She would enclose her
letters in a note to the Ambassadress asking that her name be put on the
list for presentation. The propriety of this request is a very difficult
subject to advise upon, in that it is better that the suggestion come from
the Ambassador rather than from oneself. It is, however, perfectly
permissible for one whose presentation is appropriate, but who may perhaps
not know the Ambassador or his wife personally, to do as suggested above.
It must also be remembered that rarely more than three or perhaps five
persons are presented at any one time, so that the difficulty of obtaining
a place on the list is obvious.

An American lady is presented by the American Ambassadress (or the wife of
the American Minister) or by the wife of the Chargé d'Affaires if the
Ambassadress be absent; or occasionally by the Doyenne of the diplomatic
corps at the request of the American Embassy.

It would be futile to attempt giving details of full court dress or
especial details of etiquette, as these vary not alone with countries, but
with time! If you are about to be presented, you will surely be told all
that is necessary by the person presenting you. These details, after all,
merely comprise the exact length of train or other particulars of dress,
the hour you are to be at such and such a door, where you are to stand,
and how many curtsies or bows you are to make. In all other and essential
particulars you behave as you would in any and every circumstance of
formality. In general outline, however, it would be safe to say that on
the day of the ceremony you drive to the Palace at a specified hour,
wearing specified clothes and carrying your card of invitation in your
hand. Your wraps are left in the carriage (or motor-car), you enter the
Palace and are shown into a room where you wait, and wait and WAIT! until
at last you are admitted to the Audience Chamber where you approach the
receiving Royalties; you curtsy deeply before them and then back out.

Or else--you stand on an assigned spot while the King or Queen or both
make the tour of those waiting, who curtsy (or bow) deeply at their
approach and again at their withdrawal.

If you are spoken to at length, you answer as under any other
circumstances, exactly as a polite child answers his elders. You do not
speak unless spoken to. If your answer is long you need say nothing except
the answer; if short, you add "Sir" to the King and "Madam" to the Queen.
This seemingly democratic title is as a matter of fact the correct one for
all Royalty. "Yes, sir." "Very much indeed, Madam." "I think so, Madam."

[Footnote C: In South America alone, where out of courtesy to those who
also consider themselves "Americans," the Embassies and Legations of our
country are known as those of The United States of America. But in all
other countries of the world we are known simply as "Americans"--it is the
only name we have. We are not United Staters or United Statian--there is
not even a word to apply to us! To speak of the American Minister to this
country or that, and of the American Embassy in Paris for instance, is
entirely correct.]


=FOREIGN LANGUAGES=

In the Latin countries, grace and facility of speech is an object of
lifelong cultivation--and no one is considered an educated person who can
not speak several languages well. Those who speak many fluently, by the
way, are seldom those who constantly interlard their own tongue with words
from another.

Not to understand any foreign languages would be a decided handicap in
European society, where conversation is very apt to turn polyglot,
beginning in one tongue and going on in a second and ending in a third. So
that one who knows only English is often in the position of a deaf person,
even though Europeans are invariably polite and never let a conversation
run long in a language which all those present do not understand. It might
easily happen that a French lady and an American, neither understanding
the tongue of the other, meet at the house of an Italian, where there is
also an Italian monolinguist, so that the hostess has to talk in three
languages at once.

It is unreasonable to expect the average American to be a linguist; we are
too far removed from foreign countries. As a matter of fact, if you would
make yourself agreeable, it is much better (unless your facility was
acquired as a child or you have a talent amounting to genius for accent
and construction), to make it a rule when you lunch or dine with Europeans
to talk English, since all Latins acutely suffer at hearing their language
distorted. English, on the other hand, is not beautiful in sound to the
foreign ear; it is a series of esses and shushes, lumped with consonants
like an iron-wheeled cart bumping over a cobble-stoned street. The Latin's
accent in English is annoying even to us at times, but the English accent
in French, Italian or Spanish is murderous! Furthermore, the Latin
passionately loves his language in the way the Westerner loves his city;
he simply can not endure to have it abused, and execrates the person who
does so. And, proportionately, he loves the few who prove they share his
love by speaking it creditably.


=TO IMPROVE ONE'S ACCENT=

If you want to improve your accent, nothing can so help you as going to
the theater abroad until your ears literally absorb the sounds! All people
are imitative. There are few who do not gradually lose the purity of a
good foreign accent when long away from Europe, and all speak more
fluently when their ears become accustomed to the sound.

The theater is not only the best possible place to hear correctly
enunciated speech, but a play of contemporary life is equally valuable as
a study in manners. There is also a suavity of grace in the way Europeans
bow and stand and sit, and in the way they speak, that is unconsciously
imitated. These "manners" need not--in fact, should not--be gushing or
mincing, but you gradually perceive that jerking ramrod motions and
stalking into a drawing-room like a grenadier are less impressive than
awkward.


=THE SPOILED AMERICAN GIRL=

The subject of American manners, as they appear to Europeans, cannot be
dismissed without comment on a reprehensible type of American girl who
flourishes on shipboard, on tours, and in public places generally--but
most particularly in the large and expensive hotels of Continental
resorts.

If she and her family have a "home," they are never in it, and if they
have any object in life other than letting her follow her own unhampered
inclinations, it is not apparent to the ordinary observer. Such a girl is
always over-dressed, she wears every fashion in its extremest
exaggeration, she sparkles with jewelry, and reeks of scent, she switches
herself this way and that, and is always posing in public view and playing
to the public gallery. She generally has a small brother who refuses to go
to bed at night, or to stop making the piazza chairs into a train of cars,
or to use the public halls as a skating rink. When he is not making a
noise, he is eating. And his "elegant" sister looks upon him with disdain.

Sister, meanwhile, jingling with chains and bangles, decked in scarfs and
tulle and earrings, leans on or against whatever happens to be convenient,
flirting with any casual stranger who comes along. She invariably goes to
her meals alone--evidently thinking her parents should be kept apart from
her. She is never away from the Kurhaus or Casino, abroad or the hotel
lobby in America. She is nearly always alone, and the book she is
perpetually reading is always opened at the same page, and she is sure to
look up as you pass. She is very ready to be "picked up" and to confide
her life's history, past, present and future, to any stranger, especially
a young one of the opposite sex. She is rude only to her mother and
father. She is also (we know, but Europe doesn't) a perfectly "good" girl.
Her lack of etiquette is shocking, but her morals are above reproach. She
does not even mean to be rude to her parents, and she has no idea that the
things she does are exactly those which condemn her in the opinion of
strangers. If she were constantly with, and obviously devoted to her
mother, she would make an infinitely better impression, both as to good
form and as to heart, than by segregating herself so that she can be
joined by any haphazard youth who strolls into view, and thereby
cheapening not only herself but the name of the American girl in general.

Curiously enough, if she marries in Europe, she is apt to "settle down"
and become an altogether admirable example of American-European womanhood,
because she is sound fruit at heart--merely wrapped in tawdry gilt paper
trimming by her adoring but ignorantly unwise parents who, in their effort
to show her off, disguise the very qualities which should have been
accentuated.


=LADIES TRAVELING ALONE IN EUROPE=

Europeans can not possibly understand how any lady of social position can
be without a maid. A lady traveling alone, therefore, has this trifling
handicap to start with. It is a very snobbish opinion, and one who has the
temerity to attempt traveling all by herself has undoubtedly the ability
to see it through. She need after all merely behave with extreme quietness
and dignity and she can go from one end of the world to the other without
molestation or even difficulty--especially if she is anything of a
linguist.

In going from one place to another, it is wiser to write as long as
possible ahead for accommodations--possibly giving the name of the one (if
any) who recommended the hotel. But in going far off into Asia or other
"difficult" countries, she would better join friends or at least a
personally conducted tour, unless she has the mettle of a Burton or a
Stanley.


=MOTORING IN EUROPE=

Motoring in Europe is perfectly feasible and easy. A car has to be put in
a crate to cross the ocean, but in crossing the channel between England
and France, no difficulty whatever is experienced. All information
necessary can be had at any of the automobile clubs, and in going from one
country to another, you have merely to show your passports at the border
properly viséd and pay a deposit to insure your not selling the car out of
the country, which is refunded when you come back.

Garage charges are reasonable, but gasoline is high. Roads are beautiful,
and traveling--once you have your car--is much cheaper than by train.

Once off the beaten track, a tourist who has not a working knowledge of
the language of the country he is driving through, is at a disadvantage,
but plenty of people constantly do it, so it is at least not
insurmountable. With English you can go to most places--with English and
French nearly everywhere. The Michelin guide shows you in a little
drawing, exactly the type of hotels you will find in each approaching town
and the price of accommodation, so that you can choose your own stopping
places accordingly.

"And etiquette?" you ask. There is no etiquette of motoring that differs
from all other etiquette. Except of course not to be a road hog--or a road
pig! People who take up the entire road are not half the offenders that
others are who picnic along the side of it and leave their old papers and
food all over everywhere. For that matter, any one who shoves himself
forward in any situation in life, he who pushes past, bumping into you,
walking over you, in order to get a first seat on a train, or to be the
first off a boat, any one who pushes himself out of his turn, or takes
more than his share, anywhere or of anything--is precisely that sort of an
animal.


=ON A CONTINENTAL TRAIN=

Europeans usually prefer to ride backwards, and as an American prefers to
face the engine, it works out beautifully. It is not etiquette to talk
with fellow passengers, in fact it is very middle-class. If you are in a
smoking carriage (all European carriages are smoking unless marked "Ladies
alone" or "No smoking") and ladies are present, it is polite to ask if you
may smoke. Language is not necessary, as you need merely to look at your
cigar and bow with an interrogatory expression, whereupon your fellow
passengers bow assent and you smoke.


=THE PERFECT TRAVELER=

One might say the perfect traveler is one whose digestion is perfect,
whose disposition is cheerful, who can be enthusiastic under the most
discouraging circumstances, to whom discomfort is of no moment, and who
possesses at least a sense of the ridiculous, if not a real sense of
humor! The perfect traveler furthermore, is one who possesses the virtue
of punctuality; one who has not forgotten something at the last minute,
and whose bags are all packed and down at the hour for the start. Those
who fuss and flurry about being ready, or those whose disposition is
easily upset or who are inclined to be gloomy, should not travel--unless
they go alone. Nothing can spoil a journey more than some one who is
easily put out of temper and who always wants to do something the others
do not. Whether traveling with your family or with comparative strangers,
you must realize that your personal likes and dislikes have at least on
occasion to be subordinated to the likes and dislikes of others; nor can
you always be comfortable, or have good weather, or make perfect
connections, or find everything to your personal satisfaction; and you
only add to your own discomfort and chagrin, as well as to the discomfort
of every one else, by refusing to be philosophical. Those who are bad
sailors should not go on yachting parties; they are always abjectly
wretched, and are of no use to themselves or any one else. Those who hate
walking should not start out on a tramp that is much too far for them and
expect others to turn back when they get tired. They need not "start" to
begin with, but having once started, they must see it through.

There is no greater test of a man's (or a woman's) "wearing" qualities
than traveling with him. He who is always keen and ready for anything,
delighted with every amusing incident, willing to overlook shortcomings,
and apparently oblivious of discomfort, is, needless to say, the one first
included on the next trip.




CHAPTER XXXVIII

GROWTH OF GOOD TASTE IN AMERICA


Good taste or bad is revealed in everything we are, do, or have. Our
speech, manners, dress, and household goods--and even our friends--are
evidences of the propriety of our taste, and all these have been the
subject of this book. Rules of etiquette are nothing more than sign-posts
by which we are guided to the goal of good taste.

Whether we Americans are drifting toward or from finer perceptions, both
mental and spiritual, is too profound a subject to be taken up except on a
broader scope than that of the present volume. Yet it is a commonplace
remark that older people invariably feel that the younger generation is
speeding swiftly on the road to perdition. But whether the present younger
generation is really any nearer to that frightful end than any previous
one, is a question that we, of the present older generation, are scarcely
qualified to answer. To be sure, manners seem to have grown lax, and many
of the amenities apparently have vanished. But do these things merely seem
so to us because young men of fashion do not pay party calls nowadays and
the young woman of fashion is informal? It is difficult to maintain that
youth to-day is so very different from what it has been in other periods
of the country's history, especially as "the capriciousness of beauty,"
the "heartlessness" and "carelessness" of youth, are charges of a too
suspiciously bromidic flavor to carry conviction.

The present generation is at least ahead of some of its "very proper"
predecessors in that weddings do not have to be set for noon because a
bridegroom's sobriety is not to be counted on later in the day! That young
people of to-day prefer games to conversation scarcely proves
degeneration. That they wear very few clothes is not a symptom of decline.
There have always been recurring cycles of undress, followed by muffling
from shoe-soles to chin. We have not yet reached the undress of Pauline
Bonaparte, so the muffling period may not be due!

However, leaving out the mooted question whether etiquette may not soon be
a subject for an obituary rather than a guide-book, one thing is certain:
we have advanced prodigiously in esthetic taste.

Never in the recollection of any one now living has it been so easy to
surround oneself with lovely belongings. Each year's achievement seems to
stride away from that of the year before in producing woodwork, ironwork,
glass, stone, print, paint and textile that is lovelier and lovelier. One
can not go into the shops or pass their windows on the streets without
being impressed with the ever-growing taste of their display. Nor can one
look into the magazines devoted to gardens and houses and
house-furnishings and fail to appreciate the increasing wealth of the
beautiful in environment.

That such exquisite "best" as America possessed in her Colonial houses and
gardens and furnishings should ever have been discarded for the atrocities
of the period after the Civil War, is comparable to nothing but Titania's
Midsummer Night's Dream madness that made her believe an ass's features
more beautiful than those of Apollo!

Happily, however, since we never do things by halves, we are studying and
cultivating and buying and making, and trying to forget and overcome that
terrible marriage of our beautiful Colonial ancestress with the
dark-wooded, plush-draped, jig-sawed upstart of vulgarity and ignorance.
In another country her type would be lost in his, forever! But in a
country that sent a million soldiers across three thousand miles of ocean,
in spite of every obstacle and in the twinkling of an eye, why even
comment that good taste is pouring over our land as fast as periodicals,
books and manufacturers can take it. Three thousand miles east and west,
two thousand miles north and south, white tiled bathrooms have sprung like
mushrooms seemingly in a single night, charming houses, enchanting
gardens, beautiful cities, cultivated people, created in thousands upon
thousands of instances in the short span of one generation. Certain great
houses abroad have consummate quality, it is true, but for every one of
these, there are a thousand that are mediocre, even offensive. In our own
country, beautiful houses and appointments flourish like field flowers in
summer; not merely in the occasional gardens of the very rich, but
everywhere.

And all this means? Merely one more incident added to the many great facts
that prove us a wonderful nation. (But this is an aside merely, and not to
be talked about to anyone except just ourselves!) At the same time it is
no idle boast that the world is at present looking toward America; and
whatever we become is bound to lower or raise the standards of life. The
other countries are old, we are youth personified! We have all youth's
glorious beauty and strength and vitality and courage. If we can keep
these attributes and add finish and understanding and perfect taste in
living and thinking, we need not dwell on the Golden Age that is past, but
believe in the Golden Age that is sure to be.




=INDEX=

    Acceptance of an invitation, 122-123;
      to a formal dinner, 187-188;
      to an informal dinner, 125;
      to a wedding, 111.

    Acknowledgment of Christmas presents, 407-408;
      of wedding presents, 320;
      of messages of condolence, 406-408.

    Address, forms of. See: Forms of address.

    Address, notification of, 180;
      by bride and groom, 108-109.

    Address on envelopes, 460, 486, 488;
      on letters, 450, 455, 460, 461;
      on visiting cards, 74-76.

    Afternoon parties, chapter on, 165-176.

    Afternoon teas. See: Teas.

    Ambassador, close of letter to, 456;
      function of in presentation at court, 609;
      how to address, 488;
      how to announce as a guest, 214;
      how to introduce, 4, 489.

    Americans abroad, 604-616.

    Announcement of a death, 390;
      of an engagement, 89, 304-306, 309;
      of a second marriage, 108;
      of a wedding,106-107.

    Announcing dinner, 217.

    Announcing guests, at afternoon tea, 167;
      at dinner, 214-215.

    Answering the door, 145. See also:
      "Not at home."

    Anthem, national, 23.

    Apology, form of, 23-24;
      letters of, 462-463;
      at the theater, 41.

    Archbishop, close of letter to, 489;
      how to address, 488;
      how to introduce, 489.

    Argumentativeness, 50.

    Arm, etiquette of offering and taking, 30.

    Artichokes, how to eat, 583.

    Asking for a dance, 267, 270.

    Asparagus, how to eat, 582.

    Assemblies, 272-275.

    Assemblyman, 486, 487.

    At home with dancing, invitations to an, 112-116.

    Au revoir, avoidance of use of, 19.

    Automobiles. See: Motoring; Vehicles.


    Baby, clothes for, at a christening, 385;
      letters of thanks for gifts to, 468;
      training in table manners, 571.

    Bachelor's apartment, tea in, 292;
      dinner, 230, 336-337, 375;
      party, 71, 296-298;
      theater party, 38.

    Bachelor girl, 295.

    Ball dress, 541, 546-547, 557, 603;
      in opera box, 37.

    Ballroom, etiquette in, 258-262;
      for an afternoon tea, 167.

    Balls, chapter on, 250-275;
      clothes for, 569;
      gloves at, 20;
      hand-shaking at, 20;
      introductions at, 10, 16;
      invitations to, 112-116;
      for a débutante, 276-279;
      public, 271-275.

    Beginning a letter, 492-494.

    Behavior, good, fundamentals of, 506-510.

    Best man, 331, 344;
      clothes of, 333;
      duties of on wedding day, 345-346;
      during the marriage ceremony, 358, 359, 360;
      after the marriage ceremony, 361;
      in rehearsal, 341, 342;
      at the wedding breakfast, 368.

    Best Society, chapter on, 1-3;
      definition of, 3.

    Beverages at afternoon teas, 167, 168,
      169, 170, 173, 174;
      at ball suppers, 257;
      at formal dinners, 205, 209;
      at luncheons, 244-245;
      at wedding breakfasts, 365, 368.

    Big dinners, 225-226.

    Birds, how to eat, 584, 585.

    Bishop, close of letter to, 489;
      how to address, 488;
      how to introduce, 5, 489.

    Bones, management of, at table, 583-584.

    Boots, 551, 568.

    Bouquet, bridal, 344, 358, 359;
      of bridesmaid, 328.

    Boutonnière, 334, 344, 354, 357, 551, 563.

    Bowing, etiquette of, 20, 21, 23, 24-27, 93, 508;
      at court, 610.

    Bread and butter, how to eat, 583.

    Bread and butter letters, 468-470.

    Breakfast, invitations to, 238-239;
      for country house guests, 427-429;
      wedding, 364-368.

    Bridal procession, 339-342, 357-358.

    Bridal veil, 350, 351.

    Bride, acknowledgment of gifts by, 320-321;
      acquiring of social position by, 66-68;
      calls of, 66;
      calls on, 67-91;
      gifts of to bridesmaids, 336;
      gifts to by groom, 344;
      giving away of, 353, 359;
      house of on wedding day, 347-350;
      letters of thanks to relatives-in-law, 471;
      during the marriage ceremony, 358, 359, 360;
      in rehearsal, 338-342;
      at the wedding breakfast, 362, 368;
      as a chaperon, 289;
      as a guest of honor, 11.

    Bride's going away dress, 370.

    Bride's mother, cards left with, 87.

    Bride's parents, 340-342, 353, 357-360, 366;
      expenses of for wedding, 377-378.

    Bride's table, 365.

    Bridegroom, 341-342, 357-360;
      clothes of, 332, 333;
      expenses of, 337, 342-344, 378;
      as a guest of honor, 11;
      parents of, at wedding reception, 364;
      wedding given by, 316-318.

    Bridegroom's mother, card left with, 87.

    Bridesmaids, 328-332, 339-340, 342, 351, 353, 358-361, 368.

    Bridesmaids' luncheon, 335-336.

    Bridesmaids' and ushers' dinner, 336.

    Bridge, 524-527;
      introduction at, 12;
      invitation to, 124, 128-129.

    Buffet at afternoon teas, 167;
      luncheons, 248-249.

    Bundles, carrying of, 29.

    Burials, women at, 327.

    Business etiquette, 530-539;
      letters, 455, 460-461;
      relations between men and women, 23, 506, 530-532;
      suits, 152, 246, 566-567, 570;
      visits, 15, 23, 533-534.

    Butler, 142-144, 161-163, 167, 186-187, 201-202, 214, 425.

    Butter, avoidance of at formal dinner, 206, 585.


    Cabaret, supper at, 293.

    Cabinet, member of, close of letter to, 456, 487;
      how to address, 486;
      how to announce as a guest, 214;
      how to introduce, 487.

    Cardinal, close of letter to, 487;
      how to address, 486; how to introduce, 4, 487.

    Calls. See: Visits.

    Camp, house party in, chapter on, 440-447;
      invitation to, 127.

    Cards, of address, 108;
      of admittance to church weddings, 102;
      of general invitation, 118;
      of introduction to a club, 521;
      as invitations, 124, 168, 169;
      at funerals, 408;
      with gifts, 321, 322;
      menu, 210;
      place, 210;
      visiting, chapter on, 73-97.

    Carriages. See: Vehicles.

    Cars. See: Street cars; Motoring; Vehicles.

    Carving, 229-230.

    Cereal, how to eat, 573.

    Celebrities, afternoon teas in honor of, 168.

    Chaperon, 138;
      chapter on, 288-298;
      at public balls, 271.

    Chic woman, 542.

    Chicken, how to eat, 584, 585.

    Children, cards of, 78;
      conversation about, 49;
      invitations to, 459, 460;
      parties for, 580-581;
      table manners of, 571-582;
      training of, 587-588, 592;
      at afternoon tea, 579-580;
      on railway trains, 594.

    Christenings, chapter on, 380-386.

    Christmas presents, 467-468.

    Church, greetings in, 19-20;
      leave-taking at, 20.

    Church weddings, 102-103; 314-316; 339-342;
      invitations to, 99-100.

    Cigars. See: Smoking.

    Circus, etiquette at, 46.

    Clergy, how to introduce, 4-5.

    Clergyman, close of letter to, 456, 489;
      how to address, 488;
      how to introduce, 489;
      visiting card of, 78;
      wedding fee of, 344.

    Closing a letter, 455-458, 460, 487, 489-490, 494-496.

    Clothes, at an afternoon tea, 165, 547, 556;
      at a christening, 385-386;
      at a concert, 547;
      at a funeral, 408;
      at a house party in camp, 441-442;
      at luncheon, 246;
      at the opera, 35, 547, 549;
      at theater, 42-43, 547, 569;
      on a visit, 97;
      at a wedding, 328-330, 332-334, 556, 569-570;
      for a débutante, 281;
      for a gentleman, chapter on, 562-570;
      for a lady, chapter on, 540-570;
      for servants, 138, 140, 143-144, 151-152, 246-247;
      for people with limited incomes, 543-545, 553-557.

    Clubs, chapter on, 511-523;
      conversation in, 508.

    Colloquial language, 62.

    Colors, passing of the, 23.

    Companion, 138.

    Concert, clothes for, 547.

    Condolence, 406-408;
      letters of, 483-485;
      visits of, 88, 93.

    Congratulations, to bride and groom, 362;
      letters of, 481-483.

    Congressman, 486, 487.

    Consul, 488, 489.

    Contradiction, 50-51.

    Conspicuousness, avoidance of, 28.

    Conventions for the young girl, 292-294.

    Conversation, 506-508;
      chapter on, 48-57;
      foreign words in, 19;
      how to begin, 8;
      at afternoon tea, 170;
      at dinner, 216, 221, 223-225;
      at the home table, 592;
      at the opera, 37;
      on a railway train, 595;
      on a steamer, 599, 600, 602;
      on the street, 28;
      at the table, 10, 12, 576-577;
      at the theater, 40-41;
      at a wedding, 355, 362-363;
      without an introduction, 10, 12, 599-600.

    Cook, 146-147, 178, 234-235.

    Corn, how to eat, 573.

    Corn on the cob, when to eat, 582.

    Correct usage of words and phrases, 58-62.

    Correspondence. See: Letters.

    Country clothes, 548-550; 568, 570; 603.

    Country clubs, 516-517, 520.

    Country house, chapter on, 410-439;
      invitations to, 126;
      letters of thanks for visits to, 468-473;
      stationery, 451-453.

    Court, presentation at, 609-610.

    Courtship, 299-301.

    Crests, 451.

    Cuff links, 144, 152, 567.

    Cup, use of, 573.

    Cut direct, 26-27.

    Cutaway coat, 246, 332, 566, 569.

    Cutting in at a dance, 269-270.


    Dances, chapter on, 250-275;
      introductions at, 16;
      invitations to, 112-116, 124, 128, 251-254, 259-260;
      at an afternoon tea, 166;
      at a wedding, 369.

    Dating a letter, 453.

    Day dress, 555-556.

    Days at home, 82, 86-87.

    Death, notice of, 387, 390.

    Debts, 506, 509, 523.

    Débutante, 11, 80, 114-116, 252, 257;
      chapter on, 276-287.

    Débutante's card, 79;
      theater party, 43-46.

    Dessert, 207-209, 573.

    Devices on stationery, 451-453.

    Dining-room, appointments of, 192-194.

    Dining-saloon etiquette, 509-10.

    Dinner, announcement of, 162-163, 217;
      clothes for, 546-547, 559, 569, 589, 603;
      introductions at, 10, 12-13;
      invitations to, 119, 124-125, 128, 188;
      seating at, 162, 178-179, 196, 210-212, 229;
      taking in to, 12, 217-218;
      formal, chapter on, 177-230;
      before the opera, 35;
      before the theater, 38;
      for bridesmaids and ushers; for engaged couples, 305-306;
      for parents of groom-elect, 310;
      for week-end guests, 418-419;
      in camp, 444;
      with limited equipment, chapter on, 231-237.

    Dinner coat, 42.

    Dishes, how to present, 206.

    Dishing, 235.

    Divorce, 507, 509.

    Divorced woman, name of, 459;
      visiting card of, 78.

    Doctor, how to introduce, 5;
      visiting cards of, 78.

    Don'ts for débutantes, 284;
      for a hostess at country house, 431-435;
      for setting the table, 199-200;
      for writing a letter, 493, 502-503, 505.

    Double cards, 79.

    Drawing-room, 94, 184, 214, 224-225.

    Dress. See: Clothes.

    Drinking, 573-574.

    Drinks. See: Beverages.

    Duke, how to address, 608.


    Earl, how to address, 608.

    Eating difficult foods, 223, 582-585.

    Eggs, how to eat, 574-584.

    Elbows on the table, 585-586.

    Elevator, removal of gentleman's hat in, 22.

    Elopements, 301.

    Engaged couples, afternoon tea in honor of, 168;
      dinner for, 305-306;
      entertainments for, 304;
      photographs of in newspapers, 304;
      visits of, 32.
     See also: Fiancée.


    Engagements, chapter on, 299-311;
      announcement of, 89;
      congratulations on, 481-482;
      letters to relatives on, 303.

    Engraved cards of thanks, 474;
      pew cards, 103;
      visiting cards, 73-76.

    English clothes, 553, 561-562.

    Entertainments, introductions at, 10;
      service at, 159-164;
      after dinner, 225;
      at camp, 445-446;
      at country house, 430, 433-434;
      for engaged couples, 304.

    Envelopes, 450, 454.

    Escorts, 31-32, 594-595.

    Etiquette, scope of, 3.

    European travel, 604-616.

    Evening clothes, 144, 281, 318, 549, 557, 559, 563-564, 603.

    Expenses, clothing, 543-545, 553-557;
      funeral, 390-391;
      wedding, 317, 329, 342-344, 376-378.

    Ex-President of the United States, how to introduce, 5.

    Family affairs, conversation about, 49, 506-507, 509, 592.

    Fare, payment of, 31.

    Fashion, 541-543, 557-558.

    Father's consent to an engagement, 301.

    Fiancée, asking invitations for to a ball, 253;
      etiquette for, 308;
      gifts to by groom-elect, 310-311;
      visits of, 95;
      visits to, 88, 303.

    Finger bowl, 208-209, 585.

    Finger food, 582-585.

    Flower girls, 330, 358.

    Flowers, cards with, 79;
      for débutante, 277-278;
      for fiancée, 310-311;
      for funerals, 394-395;
      for the guest room, 417;
      for the table, 193, 195, 591;
      for a wedding, 315-316, 348-349.

    Folding a note, 454.

    Food, at an afternoon tea, 167-170, 172-173;
      at a ball supper, 256-257;
      in camp, 444-445;
      for country house guests, 418, 427-428;
      for formal dinner, 184, 188-190, 232-235;
      for luncheon, 243-244;
      on a train, 592-593;
      for a wedding breakfast, 365, 368;
      how to eat difficult foods, 223, 582-585.

    Footmen, house, 144-146.

    Foreign language, 610-612.

    Foreigners, shaking hands with, 20;
      titled, how to address, 608-609;
      how to announce as guests, 215;
      letters to, 490.

    Fork, 196-197, 203-204;
      use of, 573-575, 584-585.

    Forms of address, 455, 486-489, 608-609.

    Frock coat, 332, 566, 569.

    Full dress, 35, 42, 569.

    Funerals, chapter on, 387-409.

    Furnishings, of a camp, 443;
      of a dining-room, 192-194;
      of a guest room, 414-417.

    Furniture, 132-135.

    Games, 12;
      outdoor, 46-47;
      and sports, chapter on, 524-529.
     See also: Entertainments.

    Garden party, 174-175;
      dress for, 556.

    Gentleman, The, 506-508.

    Gentleman's stick, 22, 143, 45, 358, 360, 564.

    Gifts, Christmas, 468;
      wedding, 319-323;
      to baby, 382, 468;
      to bride by groom, 344;
      to bridesmaids, 336;
      to engaged couple, 306;
      to fiancée by groom-elect, 310-311;
      to wedding ushers, 337;
      of tickets for balls, concerts, etc., 43.

    Girls. See: Young girl.

    Gloves, 220, 246, 333-334, 344, 357, 544, 552, 554-556, 563;
      removal of when shaking hands, 20;
      bridegroom's, 333;
      white, when worn by a gentleman, 35.

    Godparents, 380-382.

    Golf, 527.528;
      invitation to, 128;
      clubs, 517.

    Good-bys. See: Leave taking.

    Governor, close of letter to, 487;
      how to address, 486;
      how to announce as a guest, 214;
      how to introduce, 487.

    Greetings, chapter on, 18-21;
      abroad, 606-607;
      to mourners, 399.

    Guest cards, 417-418;
      lists, 186-187;
      rooms, 413-417, 425-427.

    Guests, announcement of, 161-162, 214-215;
      introduction of, 11-12, 487, 489;
      selection of, 72;
      to country house, 419-420;
      to débutante's party, 280;
      to formal dinner, 178, 185-186;
      to a wedding, 312-314;
      tipping by, 426-427.

    Guests, distinguished, 11, 216.

    Guests at an afternoon tea, 170;
      at a christening, 380, 383;
      at a country house, 410-412, 429-431, 435-439, 470;
      at a club, 520-523;
      at a formal dinner, 184, 210-212;
      at a garden party, 175;
      at luncheon, 240;
      in opera box, 35;
      on private car, 439;
      on yacht, 439.
     See also: Precedence;--Seating.


    Handwriting, 448-449, 460.

    Hanging the bell, 390.

    Hat, 35, 245-246, 357, 544, 549, 555-556, 564, 566;
      lifting of, 23-24;
      removal of by a gentleman, 22-23, 25.

    Headdress, 42, 319, 347, 544, 546-547, 552.

    Healths to the bride, 337;
      to an engaged couple, 305.

    "Hello" as a greeting, 19-20.

    Home, manners in the, 587-592.

    Hospitality at parties, 175-176;
      in a country house, chapter on, 410-439.

    Host, bachelor as, 295-298;
      payment of restaurant checks by, 32;
      introductions by, 12;
      at a ball, 260;
      at a country house, 429;
      at a dinner, 184, 211-212, 217;
      at a garden party, 175.

    Hostess, manners of, 218;
      payment of restaurant checks by, 32;
      presentation to at a dance or at the opera, 12.

    Hostess at an afternoon tea, 167-170;
      at a ball, 258-259;
      in a country house, 411-413, 431-435;
      at a dinner, 177-184, 210-212, 215-220, 227;
      at a garden party, 175;
      at a luncheon, 240.

    Hotels, 596-597.

    Hour, dinner, 201;
      wedding, 314, 318-319;
      week-end party, 411.

    House, the well-appointed, chapter on, 131-164;
      formal entertaining in, 159-164;
      furniture in, 132-135;
      organization of, 145-155;
      servants in, 155-159;
      service in, 135-145.

    House party, introductions at, 10;
      invitations to, 124, 130;
      bachelor's, 296-298;
      camp, 440-447,
      country house, 411-439.

    House suit, 565.

    House wedding, 373-375.

    Housekeeper, 140-141.

    Housemaid, 148, 425-426.

    Hunting clubs, 517.

    Husband and wife, 54, 214, 413, 507,
      509, 589-591.


    Ice cream as dessert, 207-208.

    Initials, in the signature of a letter, 458;
      on visiting cards, 76-77;
      on wedding presents, 322-323.

    "Introduce," when used in introductions, 4.

    Introductions, chapter on, 4-17;
      greetings at, 18-19;
      letters of, 16-17, 475-478;
      at a ball, 10, 16;
      at bridge, 12;
      at a dinner, 10, 12-13;
      at a house party;
      at a luncheon, 9-10;
      at the opera, 36;
      on a steamer, 601-602;
      on the street, 13;
      at a wedding, 11, 363;
      of guests of honor, 11;
      of important personages, 487, 489;
      of titled foreigners, 608-609;
      of a visitor to a club, 520-522;
      self, 12, 602.

    Invalids, return visits of, 96;
      visits to, 88, 93.

    Invitations, chapter on, 98-130;
      asking for, 117-118;
      cards in connection with, 83-84, 87, 118, 124, 168, 169;
      by a chaperon, 291;
      by telephone, 128-130, 238-239, 380;
      to an at home with dancing, 112-116;
      to a bachelor's party, 297-298;
      to a ball or dance, 112-116, 124, 128, 251-254, 259-260;
      to a breakfast, 238-239;
      to bridge, 124, 128-129;
      to camp, 127;
      to children, 459-460;
      to a christening, 380;
      to country house, 419;
      to a dinner, 119, 124-125, 128, 188;
      to golf, 128;
      to a luncheon, 120, 125-126, 238-239;
      to a picnic, 124-128;
      to a house party, 124, 130;
      to a reception, 119;
      to theater, 38-39;
      to a wedding, 98-109, 111, 312-314;
      to a wedding anniversary, 110.
     See also: Guests, selection of.

    Jewelry, 144, 544, 546-548, 567, 612;
      for the bride, 344;
      of mourners, 401;
      at the opera, 37;
      at the theater, 42.

    Journeys of engaged couples, 310.

    Judge, how to introduce, 5;
      visiting cards of, 78.

    Justice of the Supreme Court, close of letter to 487;
      how to address, 486;
      how to announce as a guest, 214;
      how to introduce, 487.


    Keeping dinner engagements, 187-188.

    King. See: Court; Royalty.

    Kissing, 96, 307, 362-363.

    Kitchen-maid, 147-148.

    Knife, 207;
      use of, 574-575.

    Knight, how to address, 608.


    Lady traveling alone in Europe, 613-614.

    Lady's maid, 150, 425.

    Language, 58-64, 610-612.

    Leave taking, at church, 20;
      after dinner, 226-227;
      after an introduction, 9, 19;
      after a luncheon, 247;
      after the opera, 37;
      after a visit, 97.

    Letters, chapter on, 491-505;
      shorter, chapter on, 448-491.
     See also specific subjects, e.g.: Beginning a letter;
       Condolence, letters of; Address on envelopes.

    Liquid food, 573-574.

    Little dinner, 228-229.

    Livery of footmen, 143-146;
      mourning, 406.

    Living alone by young girls or women, 289, 294.

    Love letters, 502-504.

    Luncheon, chapter on, 258-249;
      introductions at, 9-10, 12;
      invitations to, 120, 125-126, 238-239;
      bridesmaids, 238-239.

    Maid of honor at a wedding, 328, 330, 339, 351, 353, 358-360.

    Management of servants, 155-159.

    Manners, 530-539;
      definition of, 2;
      in clubs, 518-520;
      at home, 587-592;
      at the table, 371-586;
      at the theater, 40-43;
      of Americans abroad, 604-607, 612-613;
      of a hostess, 218-219.

    Married couples. See: Husband and wife;
      young couples.

    Married woman, how to introduce, 6;
      how to shake hands with, 20;
      name of, 458-459;
      visiting card of, 77.
      See also: Husband and wife.

    Mayor, close of letter to, 487;
      how to address, 486;
      how to announce as a guest, 214;
      how to introduce, 487.

    Meeting, at church, 19-20;
      in the Street, 20.

    Men and women, relations between, 292-293, 502-303, 505-509.

    Menus. See: Beverages; Food.

    Menu cards, 210.

    Military officer, visiting card of, 78.

    Minister Plenipotentiary, 215, 488-489.

    Mr. and Mrs. in conversation, 54;
      Money, conversation about, 506;
      and social position, 71-72, 410.

    Motoring, 128, 293, 614-615.

    Mourners, how to address, 399.

    Mourning, 399-406;
      bridesmaid in, 329;
      for funeral, 392-393;
      stationery, 453.

    Moving pictures, 40, 293.

    Music at a ball, 225;
      at a dinner, 250, 251;
      at a funeral, 396;
      at a wedding, 315-316, 338-342, 357-359.

    Musicale, 124.


    Names, 54, 76-78, 458-459, 508.

    Napkin ring, 204.

    Napkins, 220-221, 241, 444, 575.

    National anthem, 23.

    Neighbors, new, afternoon tea in honor of, 168.
      See also: Strangers, 168.

    Newspapers, 304, 390, 417, 509.

    "Not at home," 84-86.

    Note of apology, 462-463.

    Nurse, 152-153.


    Office buildings, etiquette in, 22.

    Open air gatherings, 46.

    Opera, 12, 20, 310, 546-547, 569;
      chapter on, 33-37.

    Orange blossoms at second marriage, 375.


    P.P.C. cards, 79.

    Packages, 29.

    Pall bearers, 391-392, 569.

    Paris clothes, 353, 539-561.

    Parlor maid, 148.

    Party calls, 81.

    Parties, attendance of a lady at, 32;
      kissing at, 96;
      non-return of, 71;
      afternoon, chapter on, 165-176;
      children's, 580-581;
      engaged couples, 306-307;
      opera, 35;
      theater, 38, 43.
      See also: House party.

    Passing of colors, removal of hat at, 23.

    Payment, etiquette of, 31.
     See also: Debts.

    Peas, how to eat, 573.

    Personal letters, 455.

    Persons of rank. See: Rank, persons of.

    Pew cards, 102-103, 356.

    Photographs of engaged couples in newspapers, 304.

    Picnics, 34, 124, 128.

    Pits, management of, at table, 584.

    Place cards, 128, 210.

    Plates, 200, 202-204, 242.

    Politeness to servants, 153-154.

    Political clubs, 517.

    Politics, etiquette of, 530-539.

    Position in the community, 410;
      chapter on, 65-72.

    Precedence, 40, 204-205, 214-215, 360-361.

    Presentation at court, 609-610.

    "Present," when used in introductions, 4.

    President of the United States,
      close of letter to, 456, 487, 490;
      as a guest, 214, 430;
      how to address, 486;
      introduction of and to, 4, 5, 487.

    Priest, 488-489.

    Private affairs, conversation about, 592.

    Private car, guests on, 439.

    Private secretary, 139.

    Pronunciation, 62-64.

    Public places, 96, 307,
      chapter on, 28-34.

    Punctuality, 46, 219-220.

    Pusher, nursery, 571.573.


    Rabbi, 488-489.

    Rank, persons of,
      how to announce as guests, 214-215;
      how to address, 486, 488;
      how to introduce, 487, 489;
      close of letter to, 487-489.

    Reading at table, 591.

    Ready-to-wear clothes, 557, 562.

    Receptions, 10, 119, 165, 168.

    Recommendation, letters of, 479-481.

    Referring to husband or wife in conversation, 54.

    Regard for others, rules of, 34.

    Registering at a hotel, 346, 596-597.

    Rehearsal of a wedding, 338-342.

    Restaurants,
      clothes in, 556, 569;
      dinner in before the theater, 38;
      engaged couples in, 310;
      headdress in, 546;
      payment in, 32;
      rising in to greet a lady, 23;
      young girl in, 293.

    Riding clothes, 550-552.

    Rings, 544, 567;
      engagement, 302-303, 311;
      wedding, 343, 346, 359.

    Rising,
      to a lady, 22-23;
      to relatives, 587;
      from table, 577.

    Royalty,
      how to address, 610;
      letters to, 490;
      presentation to, 4, 609-610.


    Salutations, 461;
      chapter on, 22-27.

    Seating,
      at an afternoon tea, 168, 170;
      at a ball supper, 256;
      in drawing-room, 94-95;
      at a formal dinner, 162, 178-179, 196, 210-212;
      at a funeral in church, 409;
      at an informal dinner, 229;
      in an opera box, 35-36;
      at a wedding in church, 354-357;
      in a steamer dining-salon, 599-600;
      at the theater, 40-41;
      in vehicles, 30-31;
      of children at table, 575.

    Second marriage, 107-108, 375-376.

    Secretary, 138-140, 178.

    Self-introduction, 12, 602.

    Senator, 5, 214, 486-487.

    Servants, 135-138, 141-164;
      attitude to, 438-439, 510;
      at formal dinner, 184;
      in country house, 420-421, 425-427.

    Service,
      in country house guest room, 425-427;
      in the well-appointed house, 135-164;
      dinner, 200-209, 236-237.

    Serving table, 206-207.

    Serving tea, 168-171, 173-174.

    Setting the table, 194-200, 591.

    Shaking hands, 20-21;
      at an afternoon tea, 167;
      at a formal dinner, 215;
      on a visit, 93;
      at a wedding, 362-363;
      when introduced, 7-8, 9, 12.

    Shirt, 143, 334, 568.

    Shirt studs, 144, 152, 567.

    Shirt waist, 151, 549, 556.

    Shoes, 333, 549, 555, 558, 564, 566, 568.

    Shops, etiquette in, 33.

    Sickness. See: Invalids.

    Signature of a letter, 458-459.

    Silk hat, 564, 566.

    Silver, 198-199.

    Sitting up with the deceased, 393.

    Sitting down at the table, 577.

    Skirt, 151, 548, 549, 552, 556, 558.

    Slang, 62.

    Sleeping arrangements in country house, 413.

    Slippers, 549, 555.

    Smart society, 2.

    Smoking, 22, 28, 47, 209, 223-224, 530, 594.

    Social letters, 455-456, 461-463.

    Social position. See: Position in the community.

    Society, best,
      chapter on, 1-3;
      definition of, 3;
      smart, 2.

    Speech, 64.

    Speaking to a lady, 22-23.

    Spoon, 197;
      Use of, 571, 573.

    Sports clothes, 548.

    Sports clubs, 517.

    Stag dinner, 230.

    Stand-up luncheons, 248, 249.

    Steamer etiquette, 598-603.

    Stores, etiquette in, 27, 33.

    Story telling, 50.

    Strangers,
      cards left with, 83;
      invitations for, 117, 254;
      social position of, 67-70;
      visits, 70-71, 83, 90;
      at afternoon tea, 170.

    Street, chapter on the, 28-34.

    Street car etiquette, 23-24.

    Street clothes, 548.

    Subscription dances, 272-275.

    Summer dress, 549, 556.

    Sunburn, dress for women who mind, 549-550.

    Superscription in letters, 459, 460.

    Supper, 249;
      at a ball, 255-257;
      at a cabaret, 293;
      after theater, 45.


    Table,
      dinner, 191, 591;
      luncheon, 240-242;
      supper, 249;
      tea, 167-174.

    Table
      furnishings, 184, 591;
      hostess, 169-170;
      manners, 220-224, 571-586;
      setting, 180-181, 194-200, 591.

    Tail Coat, 35.

    Taking leave. See: Leave taking.

    Tea gown, 547.

    Teas, chapter on, 165-176;
      clothes for, 165, 547, 556;
      invitations to, 119, 124;
      bachelor's, 292;
      children's, 579-580.


    Telephone, invitation by, 128-130, 238-239, 380.

    Tennis, 128.

    Thanks, cards of, 474;
      letters of, 463, 475.

    Theater, 31, 38-46, 310, 547, 569, 611-612.

    Third person in correspondence, 478-479.

    Tickets for theater, opera, etc., 39-40, 43.

    Tie, gentleman's, 35, 143-144, 246, 333-334, 363, 565-566.

    Tips, in a hotel, 597;
      to servants, 426-427;
      on steamboats, 602-603.

    Titled foreigners, 215, 490, 607-608.

    Titles, 5, 486-489;
      on visiting cards, 76-78.

    Topics of conversation, 51, 55-56.

    Train card, 105.

    Train of a dress, 547.

    Trains, railway, 31, 593-596, 615.

    Traveling, chapter on, 593-616.
     See also specific subjects, e.g.: Young girl, traveling of.

    Traveling clothes, 351, 559.

    Trousers, 143, 246, 332, 334, 564-565, 567, 569.

    Trousseau, 323-327, 332-333.

    Tuxedo, 42, 564-565, 569, 603.


    Uniforms of servants, 148-150.

    Ushers, at a ball, 265;
      at a wedding, 331, 333-335, 337, 339-340, 342, 354-356, 368, 569.

    Valet, 143, 152, 425-426, 441-442, 608.

    Vegetables, how to eat, 575.

    Vehicles, 30-31;
      at a formal dinner, 162-163, 212;
      at a funeral, 395-396;
      at the opera, 37;
      at the theater, 39;
      at a wedding, 353-361.

    Veil, 246, 549;
      bridal, 350-351;
      mourning, 399-401.

    Vice-President of the United States,
      close of letter to, 487, 490;
      how to address, 486;
      how to announce as a guest, 214;
      how to introduce, 487.


    Visits, 36, 70-71, 302-303, 310;
      chapter on, 73-97.
     See also specific subjects,
      e.g.: Engaged couples, visits of.

    Visiting cards. See: Cards.

    Vulgar woman, the, 544.345.


    Waistcoat, 35, 143, 246, 333, 563, 565-566.

    Walking, across a ballroom, 261-262;
      down the aisle of a theater, 40;
      with a lady, 28.

    Watch chain, 567.

    Wealth, display of, 506.

    Wedding anniversaries, 110, 378-379;
      announcements, 106-107;
      breakfast, 364-368;
      ceremony, 357-358;
      day, chapter on, 345-379;
      dress, 350-351;
      expenses, 317, 329, 342-344, 376-378;
      list, 313-314,
      pictures, 352;
      preparations, 312-344; 347-352;
      presents, 79, 319-323, 464-467;
      trip, 342-343, 345-346.

    Weddings, 19, 20;
      clothes for, 328-330, 332-334, 556, 569-570;
      guest rooms at, 413;
      invitations to, 98-109, 111; 312-314.
     See also: Bride; Bridegroom; and other specific subjects.

    White blossoms at second marriage, 375.

    Widow, 77, 107, 375, 402.

    Wife. See: Husband and wife.

    Woman's clubs, 514, 517-318.

    Words and phrases, correct usage of, 58-62.

    Writing paper, 449-453.

    Written invitations, 120.121, 124.127.


    Yacht, guests on, 439.

    Young couples, 71, 471.

    Young girl, 288-298;
      guest room for, 413;
      letters of, 502-503;
      traveling of, 595-596, 612-613.

    Young person, introduction of to older, 4;
      greetings of to older, 21.














CARMEN

by Prosper Merimee


Translated by Lady Mary Loyd




CHAPTER I

I had always suspected the geographical authorities did not know what
they were talking about when they located the battlefield of Munda in
the county of the Bastuli-Poeni, close to the modern Monda, some two
leagues north of Marbella.

According to my own surmise, founded on the text of the anonymous author
of the _Bellum Hispaniense_, and on certain information culled from the
excellent library owned by the Duke of Ossuna, I believed the site of
the memorable struggle in which Caesar played double or quits, once and
for all, with the champions of the Republic, should be sought in the
neighbourhood of Montilla.

Happening to be in Andalusia during the autumn of 1830, I made a
somewhat lengthy excursion, with the object of clearing up certain
doubts which still oppressed me. A paper which I shall shortly publish
will, I trust, remove any hesitation that may still exist in the minds
of all honest archaeologists. But before that dissertation of mine
finally settles the geographical problem on the solution of which the
whole of learned Europe hangs, I desire to relate a little tale. It will
do no prejudice to the interesting question of the correct locality of
Monda.

I had hired a guide and a couple of horses at Cordova, and had
started on my way with no luggage save a few shirts, and Caesar’s
_Commentaries_. As I wandered, one day, across the higher lands of the
Cachena plain, worn with fatigue, parched with thirst, scorched by a
burning sun, cursing Caesar and Pompey’s sons alike, most heartily, my
eye lighted, at some distance from the path I was following, on a little
stretch of green sward dotted with reeds and rushes. That betokened the
neighbourhood of some spring, and, indeed, as I drew nearer I perceived
that what had looked like sward was a marsh, into which a stream, which
seemed to issue from a narrow gorge between two high spurs of the Sierra
di Cabra, ran and disappeared.

If I rode up that stream, I argued, I was likely to find cooler water,
fewer leeches and frogs, and mayhap a little shade among the rocks.

At the mouth of the gorge, my horse neighed, and another horse,
invisible to me, neighed back. Before I had advanced a hundred paces,
the gorge suddenly widened, and I beheld a sort of natural amphitheatre,
thoroughly shaded by the steep cliffs that lay all around it. It was
impossible to imagine any more delightful halting place for a traveller.
At the foot of the precipitous rocks, the stream bubbled upward and fell
into a little basin, lined with sand that was as white as snow. Five or
six splendid evergreen oaks, sheltered from the wind, and cooled by the
spring, grew beside the pool, and shaded it with their thick foliage.
And round about it a close and glossy turf offered the wanderer a better
bed than he could have found in any hostelry for ten leagues round.

The honour of discovering this fair spot did not belong to me. A man was
resting there already--sleeping, no doubt--before I reached it. Roused
by the neighing of the horses, he had risen to his feet and had moved
over to his mount, which had been taking advantage of its master’s
slumbers to make a hearty feed on the grass that grew around. He was an
active young fellow, of middle height, but powerful in build, and proud
and sullen-looking in expression. His complexion, which may once have
been fine, had been tanned by the sun till it was darker than his hair.
One of his hands grasped his horse’s halter. In the other he held a
brass blunderbuss.

At the first blush, I confess, the blunderbuss, and the savage looks
of the man who bore it, somewhat took me aback. But I had heard so much
about robbers, that, never seeing any, I had ceased to believe in their
existence. And further, I had seen so many honest farmers arm themselves
to the teeth before they went out to market, that the sight of firearms
gave me no warrant for doubting the character of any stranger. “And
then,” quoth I to myself, “what could he do with my shirts and my
Elzevir edition of Caesar’s _Commentaries_?” So I bestowed a friendly
nod on the man with the blunderbuss, and inquired, with a smile, whether
I had disturbed his nap. Without any answer, he looked me over from
head to foot. Then, as if the scrutiny had satisfied him, he looked as
closely at my guide, who was just coming up. I saw the guide turn pale,
and pull up with an air of evident alarm. “An unlucky meeting!” thought
I to myself. But prudence instantly counselled me not to let any symptom
of anxiety escape me. So I dismounted. I told the guide to take off the
horses’ bridles, and kneeling down beside the spring, I laved my head
and hands and then drank a long draught, lying flat on my belly, like
Gideon’s soldiers.

Meanwhile, I watched the stranger, and my own guide. This last seemed to
come forward unwillingly. But the other did not appear to have any evil
designs upon us. For he had turned his horse loose, and the blunderbuss,
which he had been holding horizontally, was now dropped earthward.

Not thinking it necessary to take offence at the scant attention paid
me, I stretched myself full length upon the grass, and calmly asked the
owner of the blunderbuss whether he had a light about him. At the same
time I pulled out my cigar-case. The stranger, still without opening his
lips, took out his flint, and lost no time in getting me a light. He was
evidently growing tamer, for he sat down opposite to me, though he still
grasped his weapon. When I had lighted my cigar, I chose out the best I
had left, and asked him whether he smoked.

“Yes, senor,” he replied. These were the first words I had heard him
speak, and I noticed that he did not pronounce the letter _s_* in the
Andalusian fashion, whence I concluded he was a traveller, like myself,
though, maybe, somewhat less of an archaeologist.

     * The Andalusians aspirate the _s_, and pronounce it like
     the soft _c_ and the _z_, which Spaniards pronounce like the
     English _th_. An Andalusian may always be recognised by the
     way in which he says _senor_.

“You’ll find this a fairly good one,” said I, holding out a real Havana
regalia.

He bowed his head slightly, lighted his cigar at mine, thanked me
with another nod, and began to smoke with a most lively appearance of
enjoyment.

“Ah!” he exclaimed, as he blew his first puff of smoke slowly out of his
mouth and nostrils. “What a time it is since I’ve had a smoke!”

In Spain the giving and accepting of a cigar establishes bonds of
hospitality similar to those founded in Eastern countries on the
partaking of bread and salt. My friend turned out more talkative than
I had hoped. However, though he claimed to belong to the _partido_ of
Montilla, he seemed very ill-informed about the country. He did not know
the name of the delightful valley in which we were sitting, he could
not tell me the names of any of the neighbouring villages, and when I
inquired whether he had not noticed any broken-down walls, broad-rimmed
tiles, or carved stones in the vicinity, he confessed he had never paid
any heed to such matters. On the other hand, he showed himself an expert
in horseflesh, found fault with my mount--not a difficult affair--and
gave me a pedigree of his own, which had come from the famous stud at
Cordova. It was a splendid creature, indeed, so tough, according to
its owner’s claim, that it had once covered thirty leagues in one day,
either at the gallop or at full trot the whole time. In the midst of his
story the stranger pulled up short, as if startled and sorry he had said
so much. “The fact is I was in a great hurry to get to Cordova,” he
went on, somewhat embarrassed. “I had to petition the judges about a
lawsuit.” As he spoke, he looked at my guide Antonio, who had dropped
his eyes.

The spring and the cool shade were so delightful that I bethought me
of certain slices of an excellent ham, which my friends at Montilla had
packed into my guide’s wallet. I bade him produce them, and invited the
stranger to share our impromptu lunch. If he had not smoked for a long
time, he certainly struck me as having fasted for eight-and-forty hours
at the very least. He ate like a starving wolf, and I thought to myself
that my appearance must really have been quite providential for the poor
fellow. Meanwhile my guide ate but little, drank still less, and spoke
never a word, although in the earlier part of our journey he had proved
himself a most unrivalled chatterer. He seemed ill at ease in the
presence of our guest, and a sort of mutual distrust, the cause of which
I could not exactly fathom, seemed to be between them.

The last crumbs of bread and scraps of ham had disappeared. We had each
smoked our second cigar; I told the guide to bridle the horses, and was
just about to take leave of my new friend, when he inquired where I was
going to spend the night.

Before I had time to notice a sign my guide was making to me I had
replied that I was going to the Venta del Cuervo.

“That’s a bad lodging for a gentleman like you, sir! I’m bound there
myself, and if you’ll allow me to ride with you, we’ll go together.”

“With pleasure!” I replied, mounting my horse. The guide, who was
holding my stirrup, looked at me meaningly again. I answered by
shrugging my shoulders, as though to assure him I was perfectly easy in
my mind, and we started on our way.

Antonio’s mysterious signals, his evident anxiety, a few words dropped
by the stranger, above all, his ride of thirty leagues, and the far from
plausible explanation he had given us of it, had already enabled me
to form an opinion as to the identity of my fellow-traveller. I had
no doubt at all I was in the company of a smuggler, and possibly of a
brigand. What cared I? I knew enough of the Spanish character to be very
certain I had nothing to fear from a man who had eaten and smoked
with me. His very presence would protect me in case of any undesirable
meeting. And besides, I was very glad to know what a brigand was really
like. One doesn’t come across such gentry every day. And there is a
certain charm about finding one’s self in close proximity to a dangerous
being, especially when one feels the being in question to be gentle and
tame.

I was hoping the stranger might gradually fall into a confidential
mood, and in spite of my guide’s winks, I turned the conversation to
the subject of highwaymen. I need scarcely say that I spoke of them with
great respect. At that time there was a famous brigand in Andalusia, of
the name of Jose-Maria, whose exploits were on every lip. “Supposing I
should be riding along with Jose-Maria!” said I to myself. I told all
the stories I knew about the hero--they were all to his credit, indeed,
and loudly expressed my admiration of his generosity and his valour.

“Jose-Maria is nothing but a blackguard,” said the stranger gravely.

“Is he just to himself, or is this an excess of modesty?” I queried,
mentally, for by dint of scrutinizing my companion, I had ended by
reconciling his appearance with the description of Jose-Maria which I
read posted up on the gates of various Andalusian towns. “Yes, this must
be he--fair hair, blue eyes, large mouth, good teeth, small hands, fine
shirt, a velvet jacket with silver buttons on it, white leather gaiters,
and a bay horse. Not a doubt about it. But his _incognito_ shall be
respected!” We reached the _venta_. It was just what he had described
to me. In other words, the most wretched hole of its kind I had as yet
beheld. One large apartment served as kitchen, dining-room, and sleeping
chamber. A fire was burning on a flat stone in the middle of the room,
and the smoke escaped through a hole in the roof, or rather hung in a
cloud some feet above the soil. Along the walls five or six mule rugs
were spread on the floor. These were the travellers’ beds. Twenty paces
from the house, or rather from the solitary apartment which I have just
described, stood a sort of shed, that served for a stable.

The only inhabitants of this delightful dwelling visible at the moment,
at all events, were an old woman, and a little girl of ten or twelve
years old, both of them as black as soot, and dressed in loathsome rags.
“Here’s the sole remnant of the ancient populations of Munda Boetica,”
 said I to myself. “O Caesar! O Sextus Pompeius, if you were to revisit
this earth how astounded you would be!”

When the old woman saw my travelling companion an exclamation of
surprise escaped her. “Ah! Senor Don Jose!” she cried.

Don Jose frowned and lifted his hand with a gesture of authority that
forthwith silenced the old dame.

I turned to my guide and gave him to understand, by a sign that no one
else perceived, that I knew all about the man in whose company I was
about to spend the night. Our supper was better than I expected. On
a little table, only a foot high, we were served with an old rooster,
fricasseed with rice and numerous peppers, then more peppers in oil,
and finally a _gaspacho_--a sort of salad made of peppers. These three
highly spiced dishes involved our frequent recourse to a goatskin filled
with Montella wine, which struck us as being delicious.

After our meal was over, I caught sight of a mandolin hanging up against
the wall--in Spain you see mandolins in every corner--and I asked the
little girl, who had been waiting on us, if she knew how to play it.

“No,” she replied. “But Don Jose does play well!”

“Do me the kindness to sing me something,” I said to him, “I’m
passionately fond of your national music.”

“I can’t refuse to do anything for such a charming gentleman, who gives
me such excellent cigars,” responded Don Jose gaily, and having made
the child give him the mandolin, he sang to his own accompaniment. His
voice, though rough, was pleasing, the air he sang was strange and sad.
As to the words, I could not understand a single one of them.

“If I am not mistaken,” said I, “that’s not a Spanish air you have just
been singing. It’s like the _zorzicos_ I’ve heard in the Provinces,* and
the words must be in the Basque language.”

* The _privileged Provinces_, Alava, Biscay, Guipuzcoa, and a part of
Navarre, which all enjoy special _fueros_. The Basque language is spoken
in these countries.

“Yes,” said Don Jose, with a gloomy look. He laid the mandolin down on
the ground, and began staring with a peculiarly sad expression at the
dying fire. His face, at once fierce and noble-looking, reminded me,
as the firelight fell on it, of Milton’s Satan. Like him, perchance,
my comrade was musing over the home he had forfeited, the exile he had
earned, by some misdeed. I tried to revive the conversation, but so
absorbed was he in melancholy thought, that he gave me no answer.

The old woman had already gone to rest in a corner of the room, behind
a ragged rug hung on a rope. The little girl had followed her into this
retreat, sacred to the fair sex. Then my guide rose, and suggested that
I should go with him to the stable. But at the word Don Jose, waking, as
it were, with a start, inquired sharply whither he was going.

“To the stable,” answered the guide.

“What for? The horses have been fed! You can sleep here. The senor will
give you leave.”

“I’m afraid the senor’s horse is sick. I’d like the senor to see it.
Perhaps he’d know what should be done for it.”

It was quite clear to me that Antonio wanted to speak to me apart.

But I did not care to rouse Don Jose’s suspicions, and being as we
were, I thought far the wisest course for me was to appear absolutely
confident.

I therefore told Antonio that I knew nothing on earth about horses, and
that I was desperately sleepy. Don Jose followed him to the stable, and
soon returned alone. He told me there was nothing the matter with the
horse, but that my guide considered the animal such a treasure that he
was scrubbing it with his jacket to make it sweat, and expected to spend
the night in that pleasing occupation. Meanwhile I had stretched myself
out on the mule rugs, having carefully wrapped myself up in my own
cloak, so as to avoid touching them. Don Jose, having begged me to
excuse the liberty he took in placing himself so near me, lay down
across the door, but not until he had primed his blunderbuss afresh and
carefully laid it under the wallet, which served him as a pillow.

I had thought I was so tired that I should be able to sleep even in such
a lodging. But within an hour a most unpleasant itching sensation roused
me from my first nap. As soon as I realized its nature, I rose to my
feet, feeling convinced I should do far better to spend the rest of
the night in the open air than beneath that inhospitable roof. Walking
tiptoe I reached the door, stepped over Don Jose, who was sleeping the
sleep of the just, and managed so well that I got outside the building
without waking him. Just beside the door there was a wide wooden
bench. I lay down upon it, and settled myself, as best I could, for the
remainder of the night. I was just closing my eyes for a second time
when I fancied I saw the shadow of a man and then the shadow of a horse
moving absolutely noiselessly, one behind the other. I sat upright, and
then I thought I recognised Antonio. Surprised to see him outside the
stable at such an hour, I got up and went toward him. He had seen me
first, and had stopped to wait for me.

“Where is he?” Antonio inquired in a low tone.

“In the _venta_. He’s asleep. The bugs don’t trouble him. But what are
you going to do with that horse?” I then noticed that, to stifle all
noise as he moved out of the shed, Antonio had carefully muffled the
horse’s feet in the rags of an old blanket.

“Speak lower, for God’s sake,” said Antonio. “You don’t know who that
man is. He’s Jose Navarro, the most noted bandit in Andalusia. I’ve been
making signs to you all day long, and you wouldn’t understand.”

“What do I care whether he’s a brigand or not,” I replied. “He hasn’t
robbed us, and I’ll wager he doesn’t want to.”

“That may be. But there are two hundred ducats on his head. Some lancers
are stationed in a place I know, a league and a half from here, and
before daybreak I’ll bring a few brawny fellows back with me. I’d have
taken his horse away, but the brute’s so savage that nobody but Navarro
can go near it.”

“Devil take you!” I cried. “What harm has the poor fellow done you that
you should want to inform against him? And besides, are you certain he
is the brigand you take him for?”

“Perfectly certain! He came after me into the stable just now, and said,
‘You seem to know me. If you tell that good gentleman who I am, I’ll
blow your brains out!’ You stay here, sir, keep close to him. You’ve
nothing to fear. As long as he knows you are there, he won’t suspect
anything.”

As we talked, we had moved so far from the _venta_ that the noise of the
horse’s hoofs could not be heard there. In a twinkling Antonio snatched
off the rags he had wrapped around the creature’s feet, and was just
about to climb on its back. In vain did I attempt with prayers and
threats to restrain him.

“I’m only a poor man, senor,” quoth he, “I can’t afford to lose two
hundred ducats--especially when I shall earn them by ridding the country
of such vermin. But mind what you’re about! If Navarro wakes up, he’ll
snatch at his blunderbuss, and then look out for yourself! I’ve gone too
far now to turn back. Do the best you can for yourself!”

The villain was in his saddle already, he spurred his horse smartly, and
I soon lost sight of them both in the darkness.

I was very angry with my guide, and terribly alarmed as well. After a
moment’s reflection, I made up my mind, and went back to the _venta_.
Don Jose was still sound asleep, making up, no doubt, for the fatigue
and sleeplessness of several days of adventure. I had to shake him
roughly before I could wake him up. Never shall I forget his fierce
look, and the spring he made to get hold of his blunderbuss, which, as a
precautionary measure, I had removed to some distance from his couch.

“Senor,” I said, “I beg your pardon for disturbing you. But I have a
silly question to ask you. Would you be glad to see half a dozen lancers
walk in here?”

He bounded to his feet, and in an awful voice he demanded:

“Who told you?”

“It’s little matter whence the warning comes, so long as it be good.”

“Your guide has betrayed me--but he shall pay for it! Where is he?”

“I don’t know. In the stable, I fancy. But somebody told me--”

“Who told you? It can’t be the old hag--”

“Some one I don’t know. Without more parleying, tell me, yes or no, have
you any reason for not waiting till the soldiers come? If you have
any, lose no time! If not, good-night to you, and forgive me for having
disturbed your slumbers!”

“Ah, your guide! Your guide! I had my doubts of him at first--but--I’ll
settle with him! Farewell, senor. May God reward you for the service
I owe you! I am not quite so wicked as you think me. Yes, I still have
something in me that an honest man may pity. Farewell, senor! I have
only one regret--that I can not pay my debt to you!”

“As a reward for the service I have done you, Don Jose, promise me
you’ll suspect nobody--nor seek for vengeance. Here are some cigars for
your journey. Good luck to you.” And I held out my hand to him.

He squeezed it, without a word, took up his wallet and blunderbuss, and
after saying a few words to the old woman in a lingo that I could not
understand, he ran out to the shed. A few minutes later, I heard him
galloping out into the country.

As for me, I lay down again on my bench, but I did not go to sleep
again. I queried in my own mind whether I had done right to save a
robber, and possibly a murderer, from the gallows, simply and solely
because I had eaten ham and rice in his company. Had I not betrayed my
guide, who was supporting the cause of law and order? Had I not
exposed him to a ruffian’s vengeance? But then, what about the laws of
hospitality?

“A mere savage prejudice,” said I to myself. “I shall have to answer for
all the crimes this brigand may commit in future.” Yet is that instinct
of the conscience which resists every argument really a prejudice? It
may be I could not have escaped from the delicate position in which I
found myself without remorse of some kind. I was still tossed to and
fro, in the greatest uncertainty as to the morality of my behaviour,
when I saw half a dozen horsemen ride up, with Antonio prudently lagging
behind them. I went to meet them, and told them the brigand had fled
over two hours previously. The old woman, when she was questioned by the
sergeant, admitted that she knew Navarro, but said that living alone,
as she did, she would never have dared to risk her life by informing
against him. She added that when he came to her house, he habitually
went away in the middle of the night. I, for my part, was made to ride
to a place some leagues away, where I showed my passport, and signed a
declaration before the _Alcalde_. This done, I was allowed to recommence
my archaeological investigations. Antonio was sulky with me; suspecting
it was I who had prevented his earning those two hundred ducats.
Nevertheless, we parted good friends at Cordova, where I gave him as
large a gratuity as the state of my finances would permit.



CHAPTER II

I spent several days at Cordova. I had been told of a certain manuscript
in the library of the Dominican convent which was likely to furnish me
with very interesting details about the ancient Munda. The good fathers
gave me the most kindly welcome. I spent the daylight hours within their
convent, and at night I walked about the town. At Cordova a great many
idlers collect, toward sunset, in the quay that runs along the right
bank of the Guadalquivir. Promenaders on the spot have to breathe the
odour of a tan yard which still keeps up the ancient fame of the country
in connection with the curing of leather. But to atone for this, they
enjoy a sight which has a charm of its own. A few minutes before the
Angelus bell rings, a great company of women gathers beside the river,
just below the quay, which is rather a high one. Not a man would dare
to join its ranks. The moment the Angelus rings, darkness is supposed to
have fallen. As the last stroke sounds, all the women disrobe and step
into the water. Then there is laughing and screaming and a wonderful
clatter. The men on the upper quay watch the bathers, straining
their eyes, and seeing very little. Yet the white uncertain outlines
perceptible against the dark-blue waters of the stream stir the poetic
mind, and the possessor of a little fancy finds it not difficult to
imagine that Diana and her nymphs are bathing below, while he himself
runs no risk of ending like Acteon.

I have been told that one day a party of good-for-nothing fellows banded
themselves together, and bribed the bell-ringer at the cathedral to ring
the Angelus some twenty minutes before the proper hour. Though it was
still broad daylight, the nymphs of the Guadalquivir never hesitated,
and putting far more trust in the Angelus bell than in the sun, they
proceeded to their bathing toilette--always of the simplest--with an
easy conscience. I was not present on that occasion. In my day, the
bell-ringer was incorruptible, the twilight was very dim, and nobody but
a cat could have distinguished the difference between the oldest orange
woman, and the prettiest shop-girl, in Cordova.

One evening, after it had grown quite dusk, I was leaning over the
parapet of the quay, smoking, when a woman came up the steps leading
from the river, and sat down near me. In her hair she wore a great
bunch of jasmine--a flower which, at night, exhales a most intoxicating
perfume. She was dressed simply, almost poorly, in black, as most
work-girls are dressed in the evening. Women of the richer class only
wear black in the daytime, at night they dress _a la francesa_. When she
drew near me, the woman let the mantilla which had covered her head
drop on her shoulders, and “by the dim light falling from the stars” I
perceived her to be young, short in stature, well-proportioned, and with
very large eyes. I threw my cigar away at once. She appreciated this
mark of courtesy, essentially French, and hastened to inform me that she
was very fond of the smell of tobacco, and that she even smoked herself,
when she could get very mild _papelitos_. I fortunately happened to have
some such in my case, and at once offered them to her. She condescended
to take one, and lighted it at a burning string which a child brought
us, receiving a copper for its pains. We mingled our smoke, and talked
so long, the fair lady and I, that we ended by being almost alone on
the quay. I thought I might venture, without impropriety, to suggest our
going to eat an ice at the _neveria_.* After a moment of modest demur,
she agreed. But before finally accepting, she desired to know what
o’clock it was. I struck my repeater, and this seemed to astound her
greatly.

     * A _café_ to which a depot of ice, or rather of snow, is
     attached. There is hardly a village in Spain without its
     _neveria_.

“What clever inventions you foreigners do have! What country do you
belong to, sir? You’re an Englishman, no doubt!”*

     * Every traveller in Spain who does not carry about samples
     of calicoes and silks is taken for an Englishman
     (_inglesito_). It is the same thing in the East.

“I’m a Frenchman, and your devoted servant. And you, senora, or
senorita, you probably belong to Cordova?”

“No.”

“At all events, you are an Andalusian? Your soft way of speaking makes
me think so.”

“If you notice people’s accent so closely, you must be able to guess
what I am.”

“I think you are from the country of Jesus, two paces out of Paradise.”

I had learned the metaphor, which stands for Andalusia, from my friend
Francisco Sevilla, a well-known _picador_.

“Pshaw! The people here say there is no place in Paradise for us!”

“Then perhaps you are of Moorish blood--or----” I stopped, not venturing
to add “a Jewess.”

“Oh come! You must see I’m a gipsy! Wouldn’t you like me to tell you _la
baji_?* Did you never hear tell of Carmencita? That’s who I am!”

* Your fortune.

I was such a miscreant in those days--now fifteen years ago--that the
close proximity of a sorceress did not make me recoil in horror. “So be
it!” I thought. “Last week I ate my supper with a highway robber. To-day
I’ll go and eat ices with a servant of the devil. A traveller should see
everything.” I had yet another motive for prosecuting her acquaintance.
When I left college--I acknowledge it with shame--I had wasted a certain
amount of time in studying occult science, and had even attempted, more
than once, to exorcise the powers of darkness. Though I had been cured,
long since, of my passion for such investigations, I still felt a
certain attraction and curiosity with regard to all superstitions, and I
was delighted to have this opportunity of discovering how far the magic
art had developed among the gipsies.

Talking as we went, we had reached the _neveria_, and seated ourselves
at a little table, lighted by a taper protected by a glass globe. I then
had time to take a leisurely view of my _gitana_, while several
worthy individuals, who were eating their ices, stared open-mouthed at
beholding me in such gay company.

I very much doubt whether Senorita Carmen was a pure-blooded gipsy. At
all events, she was infinitely prettier than any other woman of her race
I have ever seen. For a women to be beautiful, they say in Spain, she
must fulfil thirty _ifs_, or, if it please you better, you must be able
to define her appearance by ten adjectives, applicable to three portions
of her person.

For instance, three things about her must be black, her eyes, her
eyelashes, and her eyebrows. Three must be dainty, her fingers, her
lips, her hair, and so forth. For the rest of this inventory, see
Brantome. My gipsy girl could lay no claim to so many perfections. Her
skin, though perfectly smooth, was almost of a copper hue. Her eyes
were set obliquely in her head, but they were magnificent and large. Her
lips, a little full, but beautifully shaped, revealed a set of teeth as
white as newly skinned almonds. Her hair--a trifle coarse, perhaps--was
black, with blue lights on it like a raven’s wing, long and glossy. Not
to weary my readers with too prolix a description, I will merely add,
that to every blemish she united some advantage, which was perhaps all
the more evident by contrast. There was something strange and wild about
her beauty. Her face astonished you, at first sight, but nobody could
forget it. Her eyes, especially, had an expression of mingled sensuality
and fierceness which I had never seen in any other human glance.
“Gipsy’s eye, wolf’s eye!” is a Spanish saying which denotes close
observation. If my readers have no time to go to the “Jardin des
Plantes” to study the wolf’s expression, they will do well to watch the
ordinary cat when it is lying in wait for a sparrow.

It will be understood that I should have looked ridiculous if I had
proposed to have my fortune told in a _café_. I therefore begged the
pretty witch’s leave to go home with her. She made no difficulties
about consenting, but she wanted to know what o’clock it was again, and
requested me to make my repeater strike once more.

“Is it really gold?” she said, gazing at it with rapt attention.

When we started off again, it was quite dark. Most of the shops were
shut, and the streets were almost empty. We crossed the bridge over the
Guadalquivir, and at the far end of the suburb we stopped in front of
a house of anything but palatial appearance. The door was opened by a
child, to whom the gipsy spoke a few words in a language unknown to me,
which I afterward understood to be _Romany_, or _chipe calli_--the gipsy
idiom. The child instantly disappeared, leaving us in sole possession of
a tolerably spacious room, furnished with a small table, two stools, and
a chest. I must not forget to mention a jar of water, a pile of oranges,
and a bunch of onions.

As soon as we were left alone, the gipsy produced, out of her chest,
a pack of cards, bearing signs of constant usage, a magnet, a dried
chameleon, and a few other indispensable adjuncts of her art. Then she
bade me cross my left hand with a silver coin, and the magic ceremonies
duly began. It is unnecessary to chronicle her predictions, and as for
the style of her performance, it proved her to be no mean sorceress.

Unluckily we were soon disturbed. The door was suddenly burst open,
and a man, shrouded to the eyes in a brown cloak, entered the room,
apostrophizing the gipsy in anything but gentle terms. What he said I
could not catch, but the tone of his voice revealed the fact that he was
in a very evil temper. The gipsy betrayed neither surprise nor anger
at his advent, but she ran to meet him, and with a most striking
volubility, she poured out several sentences in the mysterious language
she had already used in my presence. The word _payllo_, frequently
reiterated, was the only one I understood. I knew that the gipsies use
it to describe all men not of their own race. Concluding myself to be
the subject of this discourse, I was prepared for a somewhat delicate
explanation. I had already laid my hand on the leg of one of the stools,
and was studying within myself to discover the exact moment at which I
had better throw it at his head, when, roughly pushing the gipsy to one
side, the man advanced toward me. Then with a step backward he cried:

“What, sir! Is it you?”

I looked at him in my turn and recognised my friend Don Jose. At that
moment I did feel rather sorry I had saved him from the gallows.

“What, is it you, my good fellow?” I exclaimed, with as easy a smile as
I could muster. “You have interrupted this young lady just when she was
foretelling me most interesting things!”

“The same as ever. There shall be an end to it!” he hissed between his
teeth, with a savage glance at her.

Meanwhile the _gitana_ was still talking to him in her own tongue. She
became more and more excited. Her eyes grew fierce and bloodshot,
her features contracted, she stamped her foot. She seemed to me to be
earnestly pressing him to do something he was unwilling to do. What this
was I fancied I understood only too well, by the fashion in which she
kept drawing her little hand backward and forward under her chin. I was
inclined to think she wanted to have somebody’s throat cut, and I had a
fair suspicion the throat in question was my own. To all her torrent of
eloquence Don Jose’s only reply was two or three shortly spoken words.
At this the gipsy cast a glance of the most utter scorn at him, then,
seating herself Turkish-fashion in a corner of the room, she picked out
an orange, tore off the skin, and began to eat it.

Don Jose took hold of my arm, opened the door, and led me into the
street. We walked some two hundred paces in the deepest silence. Then he
stretched out his hand.

“Go straight on,” he said, “and you’ll come to the bridge.”

That instant he turned his back on me and departed at a great pace. I
took my way back to my inn, rather crestfallen, and considerably out
of temper. The worst of all was that, when I undressed, I discovered my
watch was missing.

Various considerations prevented me from going to claim it next day, or
requesting the _Corregidor_ to be good enough to have a search made
for it. I finished my work on the Dominican manuscript, and went on
to Seville. After several months spent wandering hither and thither in
Andalusia, I wanted to get back to Madrid, and with that object I had to
pass through Cordova. I had no intention of making any stay there, for
I had taken a dislike to that fair city, and to the ladies who bathed
in the Guadalquivir. Nevertheless, I had some visits to pay, and certain
errands to do, which must detain me several days in the old capital of
the Mussulman princes.

The moment I made my appearance in the Dominican convent, one of the
monks, who had always shown the most lively interest in my inquiries
as to the site of the battlefield of Munda, welcomed me with open arms,
exclaiming:

“Praised be God! You are welcome! My dear friend. We all thought you
were dead, and I myself have said many a _pater_ and _ave_ (not that I
regret them!) for your soul. Then you weren’t murdered, after all? That
you were robbed, we know!”

“What do you mean?” I asked, rather astonished.

“Oh, you know! That splendid repeater you used to strike in the library
whenever we said it was time for us to go into church. Well, it has been
found, and you’ll get it back.”

“Why,” I broke in, rather put out of countenance, “I lost it--”

“The rascal’s under lock and key, and as he was known to be a man who
would shoot any Christian for the sake of a _peseta_, we were
most dreadfully afraid he had killed you. I’ll go with you to the
_Corregidor_, and he’ll give you back your fine watch. And after that,
you won’t dare to say the law doesn’t do its work properly in Spain.”

“I assure you,” said I, “I’d far rather lose my watch than have to
give evidence in court to hang a poor unlucky devil, and especially
because--because----”

“Oh, you needn’t be alarmed! He’s thoroughly done for; they might hang
him twice over. But when I say hang, I say wrong. Your thief is an
_Hidalgo_. So he’s to be garrotted the day after to-morrow, without
fail.* So you see one theft more or less won’t affect his position.
Would to God he had done nothing but steal! But he has committed several
murders, one more hideous than the other.”

     * In 1830, the noble class still enjoyed this privilege.
     Nowadays, under the constitutional _regime_, commoners have
     attained the same dignity.

“What’s his name?”

“In this country he is only known as Jose Navarro, but he has another
Basque name, which neither your nor I will ever be able to pronounce.
By the way, the man is worth seeing, and you, who like to study the
peculiar features of each country, shouldn’t lose this chance of noting
how a rascal bids farewell to this world in Spain. He is in jail, and
Father Martinez will take you to him.”

So bent was my Dominican friend on my seeing the preparations for this
“neat little hanging job” that I was fain to agree. I went to see the
prisoner, having provided myself with a bundle of cigars, which I hoped
might induce him to forgive my intrusion.

I was ushered into Don Jose’s presence just as he was sitting at table.
He greeted me with a rather distant nod, and thanked me civilly for the
present I had brought him. Having counted the cigars in the bundle I
had placed in his hand, he took out a certain number and returned me the
rest, remarking that he would not need any more of them.

I inquired whether by laying out a little money, or by applying to
my friends, I might not be able to do something to soften his lot. He
shrugged his shoulders, to begin with, smiling sadly. Soon, as by an
after-thought, he asked me to have a mass said for the repose of his
soul.

Then he added nervously: “Would you--would you have another said for a
person who did you a wrong?”

“Assuredly I will, my dear fellow,” I answered. “But no one in this
country has wronged me so far as I know.”

He took my hand and squeezed it, looking very grave. After a moment’s
silence, he spoke again.

“Might I dare to ask another service of you? When you go back to your
own country perhaps you will pass through Navarre. At all events you’ll
go by Vittoria, which isn’t very far off.”

“Yes,” said I, “I shall certainly pass through Vittoria. But I may very
possibly go round by Pampeluna, and for your sake, I believe I should be
very glad to do it.”

“Well, if you do go to Pampeluna, you’ll see more than one thing that
will interest you. It’s a fine town. I’ll give you this medal,” he
showed me a little silver medal that he wore hung around his neck.
“You’ll wrap it up in paper”--he paused a moment to master his
emotion--“and you’ll take it, or send it, to an old lady whose address
I’ll give you. Tell her I am dead--but don’t tell her how I died.”

I promised to perform his commission. I saw him the next day, and spent
part of it in his company. From his lips I learned the sad incidents
that follow.



CHAPTER III

“I was born,” he said, “at Elizondo, in the valley of Baztan. My name is
Don Jose Lizzarrabengoa, and you know enough of Spain, sir, to know at
once, by my name, that I come of an old Christian and Basque stock. I
call myself Don, because I have a right to it, and if I were at Elizondo
I could show you my parchment genealogy. My family wanted me to go into
the church, and made me study for it, but I did not like work. I was too
fond of playing tennis, and that was my ruin. When we Navarrese begin
to play tennis, we forget everything else. One day, when I had won the
game, a young fellow from Alava picked a quarrel with me. We took to our
_maquilas_,* and I won again. But I had to leave the neighbourhood.
I fell in with some dragoons, and enlisted in the Almanza Cavalry
Regiment. Mountain folks like us soon learn to be soldiers. Before long
I was a corporal, and I had been told I should soon be made a sergeant,
when, to my misfortune, I was put on guard at the Seville Tobacco
Factory. If you have been to Seville you have seen the great building,
just outside the ramparts, close to the Guadalquivir; I can fancy I see
the entrance, and the guard room just beside it, even now. When Spanish
soldiers are on duty, they either play cards or go to sleep. I, like an
honest Navarrese, always tried to keep myself busy. I was making a chain
to hold my priming-pin, out of a bit of wire: all at once, my comrades
said, ‘there’s the bell ringing, the girls are coming back to work.’ You
must know, sir, that there are quite four or five hundred women employed
in the factory. They roll the cigars in a great room into which no man
can go without a permit from the _Veintiquatro_,** because when the
weather is hot they make themselves at home, especially the young ones.
When the work-girls come back after their dinner, numbers of young men
go down to see them pass by, and talk all sorts of nonsense to them.
Very few of those young ladies will refuse a silk mantilla, and men who
care for that sort of sport have nothing to do but bend down and pick
their fish up. While the others watched the girls go by, I stayed on my
bench near the door. I was a young fellow then--my heart was still in
my own country, and I didn’t believe in any pretty girls who hadn’t
blue skirts and long plaits of hair falling on their shoulders.*** And
besides, I was rather afraid of the Andalusian women. I had not got used
to their ways yet; they were always jeering one--never spoke a single
word of sense. So I was sitting with my nose down upon my chain, when I
heard some bystanders say, ‘Here comes the _gitanella_!’ Then I lifted
up my eyes, and I saw her! It was that very Carmen you know, and in
whose rooms I met you a few months ago.

     * Iron-shod sticks used by the Basques.

     ** Magistrate in charge of the municipal police
     arrangements, and local government regulations.

     *** The costume usually worn by peasant women in Navarre and
     the Basque Provinces.

“She was wearing a very short skirt, below which her white silk
stockings--with more than one hole in them--and her dainty red morocco
shoes, fastened with flame-coloured ribbons, were clearly seen. She had
thrown her mantilla back, to show her shoulders, and a great bunch of
acacia that was thrust into her chemise. She had another acacia blossom
in the corner of her mouth, and she walked along, swaying her hips, like
a filly from the Cordova stud farm. In my country anybody who had seen
a woman dressed in that fashion would have crossed himself. At Seville
every man paid her some bold compliment on her appearance. She had
an answer for each and all, with her hand on her hip, as bold as the
thorough gipsy she was. At first I didn’t like her looks, and I fell to
my work again. But she, like all women and cats, who won’t come if you
call them, and do come if you don’t call them, stopped short in front of
me, and spoke to me.

“‘_Compadre_,’ said she, in the Andalusian fashion, ‘won’t you give me
your chain for the keys of my strong box?’

“‘It’s for my priming-pin,’ said I.

“‘Your priming-pin!’ she cried, with a laugh. ‘Oho! I suppose the
gentleman makes lace, as he wants pins!’

“Everybody began to laugh, and I felt myself getting red in the face,
and couldn’t hit on anything in answer.

“‘Come, my love!’ she began again, ‘make me seven ells of lace for my
mantilla, my pet pin-maker!’

“And taking the acacia blossom out of her mouth she flipped it at me
with her thumb so that it hit me just between the eyes. I tell you, sir,
I felt as if a bullet had struck me. I didn’t know which way to look.
I sat stock-still, like a wooden board. When she had gone into the
factory, I saw the acacia blossom, which had fallen on the ground
between my feet. I don’t know what made me do it, but I picked it up,
unseen by any of my comrades, and put it carefully inside my jacket.
That was my first folly.

“Two or three hours later I was still thinking about her, when a
panting, terrified-looking porter rushed into the guard-room. He told
us a woman had been stabbed in the great cigar-room, and that the guard
must be sent in at once. The sergeant told me to take two men, and go
and see to it. I took my two men and went upstairs. Imagine, sir, that
when I got into the room, I found, to begin with, some three hundred
women, stripped to their shifts, or very near it, all of them screaming
and yelling and gesticulating, and making such a row that you couldn’t
have heard God’s own thunder. On one side of the room one of the women
was lying on the broad of her back, streaming with blood, with an X
newly cut on her face by two strokes of a knife. Opposite the wounded
woman, whom the best-natured of the band were attending, I saw Carmen,
held by five or six of her comrades. The wounded woman was crying out,
‘A confessor, a confessor! I’m killed!’ Carmen said nothing at all. She
clinched her teeth and rolled her eyes like a chameleon. ‘What’s this?’
I asked. I had hard work to find out what had happened, for all the
work-girls talked at once. It appeared that the injured girl had boasted
she had money enough in her pocket to buy a donkey at the Triana Market.
‘Why,’ said Carmen, who had a tongue of her own, ‘can’t you do with a
broom?’ Stung by this taunt, it may be because she felt herself rather
unsound in that particular, the other girl replied that she knew nothing
about brooms, seeing she had not the honour of being either a gipsy
or one of the devil’s godchildren, but that the Senorita Carmen would
shortly make acquaintance with her donkey, when the _Corregidor_ took
her out riding with two lackeys behind her to keep the flies off.
‘Well,’ retorted Carmen, ‘I’ll make troughs for the flies to drink
out of on your cheeks, and I’ll paint a draught-board on them!’ * And
thereupon, slap, bank! She began making St. Andrew’s crosses on the
girl’s face with a knife she had been using for cutting off the ends of
the cigars.

     * _Pintar un javeque_, “paint a xebec,” a particular type of
     ship. Most Spanish vessels of this description have a
     checkered red and white stripe painted around them.

“The case was quite clear. I took hold of Carmen’s arm. ‘Sister mine,’ I
said civilly, ‘you must come with me.’ She shot a glance of recognition
at me, but she said, with a resigned look: ‘Let’s be off. Where is my
mantilla?’ She put it over her head so that only one of her great eyes
was to be seen, and followed my two men, as quiet as a lamb. When we
got to the guardroom the sergeant said it was a serious job, and he must
send her to prison. I was told off again to take her there. I put her
between two dragoons, as a corporal does on such occasions. We started
off for the town. The gipsy had begun by holding her tongue. But when we
got to the _Calle de la Serpiente_--you know it, and that it earns its
name by its many windings--she began by dropping her mantilla on to her
shoulders, so as to show me her coaxing little face, and turning round
to me as well as she could, she said:

“‘_Oficial mio_, where are you taking me to?’

“‘To prison, my poor child,’ I replied, as gently as I could, just as
any kind-hearted soldier is bound to speak to a prisoner, and especially
to a woman.

“‘Alack! What will become of me! Senor Oficial, have pity on me! You are
so young, so good-looking.’ Then, in a lower tone, she said, ‘Let me get
away, and I’ll give you a bit of the _bar lachi_, that will make every
woman fall in love with you!’

“The _bar lachi_, sir, is the loadstone, with which the gipsies declare
one who knows how to use it can cast any number of spells. If you can
make a woman drink a little scrap of it, powdered, in a glass of white
wine, she’ll never be able to resist you. I answered, as gravely as I
could:

“‘We are not here to talk nonsense. You’ll have to go to prison. Those
are my orders, and there’s no help for it!’

“We men from the Basque country have an accent which all Spaniards
easily recognise; on the other hand, not one of them can ever learn to
say _Bai, jaona_!*

     * Yes, sir.

“So Carmen easily guessed I was from the Provinces. You know, sir, that
the gipsies, who belong to no particular country, and are always moving
about, speak every language, and most of them are quite at home in
Portugal, in France, in our Provinces, in Catalonia, or anywhere else.
They can even make themselves understood by Moors and English people.
Carmen knew Basque tolerably well.

“‘_Laguna ene bihotsarena_, comrade of my heart,’ said she suddenly. ‘Do
you belong to our country?’

“Our language is so beautiful, sir, that when we hear it in a foreign
country it makes us quiver. I wish,” added the bandit in a lower tone,
“I could have a confessor from my own country.”

After a silence, he began again.

“‘I belong to Elizondo,’ I answered in Basque, very much affected by the
sound of my own language.

“‘I come from Etchalar,’ said she (that’s a district about four hours’
journey from my home). ‘I was carried off to Seville by the gipsies.
I was working in the factory to earn enough money to take me back to
Navarre, to my poor old mother, who has no support in the world but me,
besides her little _barratcea_* with twenty cider-apple trees in it.
Ah! if I were only back in my own country, looking up at the white
mountains! I have been insulted here, because I don’t belong to this
land of rogues and sellers of rotten oranges; and those hussies are
all banded together against me, because I told them that not all their
Seville _jacques_,** and all their knives, would frighten an honest lad
from our country, with his blue cap and his _maquila_! Good comrade,
won’t you do anything to help your own countrywoman?’

     * Field, garden.

     ** Bravos, boasters.

“She was lying then, sir, as she has always lied. I don’t know that that
girl ever spoke a word of truth in her life, but when she did speak, I
believed her--I couldn’t help myself. She mangled her Basque words, and
I believed she came from Navarre. But her eyes and her mouth and her
skin were enough to prove she was a gipsy. I was mad, I paid no more
attention to anything, I thought to myself that if the Spaniards had
dared to speak evil of my country, I would have slashed their faces just
as she had slashed her comrade’s. In short, I was like a drunken man, I
was beginning to say foolish things, and I was very near doing them.

“‘If I were to give you a push and you tumbled down, good
fellow-countryman,’ she began again in Basque, ‘those two Castilian
recruits wouldn’t be able to keep me back.’

“Faith, I forgot my orders, I forgot everything, and I said to her,
‘Well, then, my friend, girl of my country, try it, and may our Lady of
the Mountain help you through.’

“Just at that moment we were passing one of the many narrow lanes one
sees in Seville. All at once Carmen turned and struck me in the chest
with her fist. I tumbled backward, purposely. With a bound she sprang
over me, and ran off, showing us a pair of legs! People talk about a
pair of Basque legs! but hers were far better--as fleet as they were
well-turned. As for me, I picked myself up at once, but I stuck out my
lance* crossways and barred the street, so that my comrades were checked
at the very first moment of pursuit. Then I started to run myself, and
they after me--but how were we to catch her? There was no fear of that,
what with our spurs, our swords, and our lances.

     * All Spanish cavalry soldiers carry lances.

“In less time than I have taken to tell you the story the prisoner
had disappeared. And besides, every gossip in the quarter covered her
flight, poked scorn at us, and pointed us in the wrong direction. After
a good deal of marching and countermarching, we had to go back to the
guard-room without a receipt from the governor of the jail.

“To avoid punishment, my men made known that Carmen had spoken to me in
Basque; and to tell the truth, it did not seem very natural that a blow
from such a little creature should have so easily overthrown a strong
fellow like me. The whole thing looked suspicious, or, at all events,
not over-clear. When I came off guard I lost my corporal’s stripes, and
was condemned to a month’s imprisonment. It was the first time I had
been punished since I had been in the service. Farewell, now, to the
sergeant’s stripes, on which I had reckoned so surely!

“The first days in prison were very dreary. When I enlisted I had
fancied I was sure to become an officer, at all events. Two of
my compatriots, Longa and Mina, are captains-general, after all.
Chapalangarra was a colonel, and I have played tennis a score of times
with his brother, who was just a needy fellow like myself. ‘Now,’ I kept
crying to myself, ‘all the time you served without being punished
has been lost. Now you have a bad mark against your name, and to get
yourself back into the officers’ good graces you’ll have to work ten
times as hard as when you joined as a recruit.’ And why have I got
myself punished? For the sake of a gipsy hussy, who made game of me, and
who at this moment is busy thieving in some corner of the town. Yet I
couldn’t help thinking about her. Will you believe it, sir, those silk
stockings of hers with the holes in them, of which she had given me such
a full view as she took to her heels, were always before my eyes? I
used to look through the barred windows of the jail into the street,
and among all the women who passed I never could see one to compare with
that minx of a girl--and then, in spite of myself, I used to smell the
acacia blossom she had thrown at me, and which, dry as it was, still
kept its sweet scent. If there are such things as witches, that girl
certainly was one.

“One day the jailer came in, and gave me an Alcala roll.*

     * _Alcala de los Panaderos_, a village two leagues from
     Seville, where the most delicious rolls are made. They are
     said to owe their quality to the water of the place, and
     great quantities of them are brought to Seville every day.

“‘Look here,’ said he, ‘this is what your cousin has sent you.’

“I took the loaf, very much astonished, for I had no cousin in Seville.
It may be a mistake, thought I, as I looked at the roll, but it was so
appetizing and smelt so good, that I made up my mind to eat it, without
troubling my head as to whence it came, or for whom it was really
intended.

“When I tried to cut it, my knife struck on something hard. I looked,
and found a little English file, which had been slipped into the dough
before the roll had been baked. The roll also contained a gold piece of
two piastres. Then I had no further doubt--it was a present from Carmen.
To people of her blood, liberty is everything, and they would set a
town on fire to save themselves one day in prison. The girl was artful,
indeed, and armed with that roll, I might have snapped my fingers at the
jailers. In one hour, with that little file, I could have sawn through
the thickest bar, and with the gold coin I could have exchanged my
soldier’s cloak for civilian garb at the nearest shop. You may fancy
that a man who has often taken the eaglets out of their nests in our
cliff would have found no difficulty in getting down to the street
out of a window less than thirty feet above it. But I didn’t choose to
escape. I still had a soldier’s code of honour, and desertion appeared
to me in the light of a heinous crime. Yet this proof of remembrance
touched me. When a man is in prison he likes to think he has a friend
outside who takes an interest in him. The gold coin did rather offend
me; I should have very much liked to return it; but where was I to find
my creditor? That did not seem a very easy task.

“After the ceremony of my degradation I had fancied my sufferings were
over, but I had another humiliation before me. That came when I left
prison, and was told off for duty, and put on sentry, as a private
soldier. You can not conceive what a proud man endures at such a moment.
I believe I would have just as soon been shot dead--then I should have
marched alone at the head of my platoon, at all events; I should have
felt I was somebody, with the eyes of others fixed upon me.

“I was posted as sentry on the door of the colonel’s house. The colonel
was a young man, rich, good-natured, fond of amusing himself. All
the young officers were there, and many civilians as well, besides
ladies--actresses, as it was said. For my part, it seemed to me as if
the whole town had agreed to meet at that door, in order to stare at me.
Then up drove the colonel’s carriage, with his valet on the box. And who
should I see get out of it, but the gipsy girl! She was dressed up, this
time, to the eyes, togged out in golden ribbons--a spangled gown, blue
shoes, all spangled too, flowers and gold lace all over her. In her hand
she carried a tambourine. With her there were two other gipsy women, one
young and one old. They always have one old woman who goes with them,
and then an old man with a guitar, a gipsy too, to play alone, and also
for their dances. You must know these gipsy girls are often sent for to
private houses, to dance their special dance, the _Romalis_, and often,
too, for quite other purposes.

“Carmen recognised me, and we exchanged glances. I don’t know why, but
at that moment I should have liked to have been a hundred feet beneath
the ground.

“‘_Agur laguna_,’ * said she. ‘Oficial mio! You keep guard like a
recruit,’ and before I could find a word in answer, she was inside the
house.

     * Good-day, comrade!

“The whole party was assembled in the _patio_, and in spite of the crowd
I could see nearly everything that went on through the lattice.* I
could hear the castanets and the tambourine, the laughter and applause.
Sometimes I caught a glimpse of her head as she bounded upward with her
tambourine. Then I could hear the officers saying many things to her
which brought the blood to my face. As to her answers, I knew nothing
of them. It was on that day, I think, that I began to love her in
earnest--for three or four times I was tempted to rush into the _patio_,
and drive my sword into the bodies of all the coxcombs who were making
love to her. My torture lasted a full hour; then the gipsies came out,
and the carriage took them away. As she passed me by, Carmen looked at
me with those eyes you know, and said to me very low, ‘Comrade, people
who are fond of good _fritata_ come to eat it at Lillas Pastia’s at
Triana!’

     * In most of the houses in Seville there is an inner court
     surrounded by an arched portico. This is used as a sitting-
     room in summer. Over the court is stretched a piece of tent
     cloth, which is watered during the day and removed at night.
     The street door is almost always left open, and the passage
     leading to the court (_zaguan_) is closed by an iron lattice
     of very elegant workmanship.

“Then, light as a kid, she stepped into the carriage, the coachman
whipped up his mules, and the whole merry party departed, whither I know
not.

“You may fancy that the moment I was off guard I went to Triana; but
first of all I got myself shaved and brushed myself up as if I had been
going on parade. She was living with Lillas Pastia, an old fried-fish
seller, a gipsy, as black as a Moor, to whose house a great many
civilians resorted to eat _fritata_, especially, I think, because Carmen
had taken up her quarters there.

“‘Lillas,’ she said, as soon as she saw me. ‘I’m not going to work any
more to-day. To-morrow will be a day, too.* Come, fellow-countryman, let
us go for a walk!’

     * _Manana sera otro dia._--A Spanish proverb.

“She pulled her mantilla across her nose, and there we were in the
street, without my knowing in the least whither I was bound.

“‘Senorita,’ said I, ‘I think I have to thank you for a present I
had while I was in prison. I’ve eaten the bread; the file will do for
sharpening my lance, and I keep it in remembrance of you. But as for the
money, here it is.’

“‘Why, he’s kept the money!’ she exclaimed, bursting out laughing.
‘But, after all, that’s all the better--for I’m decidedly hard up! What
matter! The dog that runs never starves!* Come, let’s spend it all! You
shall treat.’

     * _Chuquel sos pirela, cocal terela_. “The dog that runs
     finds a bone.”--Gipsy proverb.

“We had turned back toward Seville. At the entrance of the _Calle de
la Serpiente_ she bought a dozen oranges, which she made me put into my
handkerchief. A little farther on she bought a roll, a sausage, and
a bottle of manzanilla. Then, last of all, she turned into a
confectioner’s shop. There she threw the gold coin I had returned to
her on the counter, with another she had in her pocket, and some small
silver, and then she asked me for all the money I had. All I possessed
was one peseta and a few cuartos, which I handed over to her, very much
ashamed of not having more. I thought she would have carried away the
whole shop. She took everything that was best and dearest, _yemas_,*
_turon_,** preserved fruits--as long as the money lasted. And all these,
too, I had to carry in paper bags. Perhaps you know the _Calle del
Candilejo_, where there is a head of Don Pedro the Avenger.*** That head
ought to have given me pause. We stopped at an old house in that street.
She passed into the entry, and knocked at a door on the ground floor.
It was opened by a gipsy, a thorough-paced servant of the devil. Carmen
said a few words to her in Romany. At first the old hag grumbled. To
smooth her down Carmen gave her a couple of oranges and a handful of
sugar-plums, and let her have a taste of wine. Then she hung her cloak
on her back, and led her to the door, which she fastened with a wooden
bar. As soon as we were alone she began to laugh and caper like a
lunatic, singing out, ‘You are my _rom_, I’m your _romi_.’****

     * Sugared yolks of eggs.

     ** A sort of nougat.

     *** This king, Don Pedro, whom we call “the Cruel,” and whom
     Queen Isabella, the Catholic, never called anything but “the
     Avenger,” was fond of walking about the streets of Seville
     at night in search of adventures, like the Caliph Haroun al
     Raschid. One night, in a lonely street, he quarrelled with a
     man who was singing a serenade. There was a fight, and the
     king killed the amorous _caballero_. At the clashing of
     their swords, an old woman put her head out of the window
     and lighted up the scene with a tiny lamp (candilejo) which
     she held in her hand. My readers must be informed that King
     Don Pedro, though nimble and muscular, suffered from one
     strange fault in his physical conformation. Whenever he
     walked his knees cracked loudly. By this cracking the old
     woman easily recognised him. The next day the _veintiquatro_
     in charge came to make his report to the king. “Sir, a duel
     was fought last night in such a street--one of the
     combatants is dead.” “Have you found the murderer?” “Yes,
     sir.” “Why has he not been punished already?” “Sir, I await
     your orders!” “Carry out the law.” Now the king had just
     published a decree that every duellist was to have his head
     cut off, and that head was to be set up on the scene of the
     fight. The _veintiquatro_ got out of the difficulty like a
     clever man. He had the head sawed off a statue of the king,
     and set that up in a niche in the middle of the street in
     which the murder had taken place. The king and all the
     Sevillians thought this a very good joke. The street took
     its name from the lamp held by the old woman, the only
     witness of the incident. The above is the popular tradition.
     Zuniga tells the story somewhat differently. However that
     may be, a street called _Calle del Candilejo_ still exists
     in Seville, and in that street there is a bust which is said
     to be a portrait of Don Pedro. This bust, unfortunately, is
     a modern production. During the seventeenth century the old
     one had become very much defaced, and the municipality had
     it replaced by that now to be seen.

     **** _Rom_, husband. _Romi_, wife.

“There I stood in the middle of the room, laden with all her purchases,
and not knowing where I was to put them down. She tumbled them all onto
the floor, and threw her arms round my neck, saying:

“‘I pay my debts, I pay my debts! That’s the law of the _Cales_.’*

     * _Calo_, feminine _calli_, plural _cales_. Literally
     “black,” the name the gipsies apply to themselves in their
     own language.

“Ah, sir, that day! that day! When I think of it I forget what to-morrow
must bring me!”

For a moment the bandit held his peace, then, when he had relighted his
cigar, he began afresh.

“We spent the whole day together, eating, drinking, and so forth. When
she had stuffed herself with sugar-plums, like any child of six years
old, she thrust them by handfuls into the old woman’s water-jar.
‘That’ll make sherbet for her,’ she said. She smashed the _yemas_ by
throwing them against the walls. ‘They’ll keep the flies from bothering
us.’ There was no prank or wild frolic she didn’t indulge in. I told her
I should have liked to see her dance, only there were no castanets to
be had. Instantly she seized the old woman’s only earthenware plate,
smashed it up, and there she was dancing the _Romalis_, and making the
bits of broken crockery rattle as well as if they had been ebony and
ivory castanets. That girl was good company, I can tell you! Evening
fell, and I heard the drums beating tattoo.

“‘I must get back to quarters for roll-call,’ I said.

“‘To quarters!’ she answered, with a look of scorn. ‘Are you a negro
slave, to let yourself be driven with a ramrod like that! You are as
silly as a canary bird. Your dress suits your nature.* Pshaw! you’ve no
more heart than a chicken.’

* Spanish dragoons wear a yellow uniform.

“I stayed on, making up my mind to the inevitable guard-room. The next
morning the first suggestion of parting came from her.

“‘Hark ye, Joseito,’ she said. ‘Have I paid you? By our law, I owed you
nothing, because you’re a _payllo_. But you’re a good-looking fellow,
and I took a fancy to you. Now we’re quits. Good-day!’

“I asked her when I should see her again.

“‘When you’re less of a simpleton,’ she retorted, with a laugh. Then, in
a more serious tone, ‘Do you know, my son, I really believe I love you a
little; but that can’t last! The dog and the wolf can’t agree for long.
Perhaps if you turned gipsy, I might care to be your _romi_. But that’s
all nonsense, such things aren’t possible. Pshaw! my boy. Believe me,
you’re well out of it. You’ve come across the devil--he isn’t always
black--and you’ve not had your neck wrung. I wear a woollen suit, but
I’m no sheep.* Go and burn a candle to your _majari_,** she deserves
it well. Come, good-by once more. Don’t think any more about _La
Carmencita_, or she’ll end by making you marry a widow with wooden
legs.’***

     * _Me dicas vriarda de jorpoy, bus ne sino braco_.--A gipsy
     proverb.

     ** The Saint, the Holy Virgin.

     *** The gallows, which is the widow of the last man hanged
     upon it.

“As she spoke, she drew back the bar that closed the door, and once we
were out in the street she wrapped her mantilla about her, and turned on
her heel.

“She spoke the truth. I should have done far better never to think of
her again. But after that day in the _Calle del Candilejo_ I couldn’t
think of anything else. All day long I used to walk about, hoping I
might meet her. I sought news of her from the old hag, and from the
fried-fish seller. They both told me she had gone away to _Laloro_,
which is their name for Portugal. They probably said it by Carmen’s
orders, but I soon found out they were lying. Some weeks after my day
in the _Calle del Candilejo_ I was on duty at one of the town gates. A
little way from the gate there was a breach in the wall. The masons were
working at it in the daytime, and at night a sentinel was posted on it,
to prevent smugglers from getting in. All through one day I saw Lillas
Pastia going backward and forward near the guard-room, and talking to
some of my comrades. They all knew him well, and his fried-fish and
fritters even better. He came up to me, and asked if I had any news of
Carmen.

“‘No,’ said I.

“‘Well,’ said he, ‘you’ll soon hear of her, old fellow.’

“He was not mistaken. That night I was posted to guard the breach in
the wall. As soon as the sergeant had disappeared I saw a woman coming
toward me. My heart told me it was Carmen. Still I shouted:

“‘Keep off! Nobody can pass here!’

“‘Now, don’t be spiteful,’ she said, making herself known to me.

“‘What! you here, Carmen?’

“‘Yes, _mi payllo_. Let us say few words, but wise ones. Would you
like to earn a douro? Some people will be coming with bundles. Let them
alone.’

“‘No,’ said I, ‘I must not allow them through. These are my orders.’

“‘Orders! orders! You didn’t think about orders in the _Calle del
Candilejo_!’

“‘Ah!’ I cried, quite maddened by the very thought of that night. ‘It
was well worth while to forget my orders for that! But I won’t have any
smuggler’s money!’

“‘Well, if you won’t have money, shall we go and dine together at old
Dorotea’s?’

“‘No,’ said I, half choked by the effort it cost me. ‘No, I can’t.’

“‘Very good! If you make so many difficulties, I know to whom I can
go. I’ll ask your officer if he’ll come with me to Dorotea’s. He looks
good-natured, and he’ll post a sentry who’ll only see what he had better
see. Good-bye, canary-bird! I shall have a good laugh the day the order
comes out to hang you!’

“I was weak enough to call her back, and I promised to let the whole
of gipsydom pass in, if that were necessary, so that I secured the
only reward I longed for. She instantly swore she would keep her word
faithfully the very next day, and ran off to summon her friends, who
were close by. There were five of them, of whom Pastia was one, all well
loaded with English goods. Carmen kept watch for them. She was to warn
them with her castanets the instant she caught sight of the patrol. But
there was no necessity for that. The smugglers finished their job in a
moment.

“The next day I went to the _Calle del Candilejo_. Carmen kept me
waiting, and when she came, she was in rather a bad temper.

“‘I don’t like people who have to be pressed,’ she said. ‘You did me a
much greater service the first time, without knowing you’d gain anything
by it. Yesterday you bargained with me. I don’t know why I’ve come, for
I don’t care for you any more. Here, be off with you. Here’s a douro for
your trouble.’

“I very nearly threw the coin at her head, and I had to make a violent
effort to prevent myself from actually beating her. After we had
wrangled for an hour I went off in a fury. For some time I wandered
about the town, walking hither and thither like a madman. At last I went
into a church, and getting into the darkest corner I could find, I cried
hot tears. All at once I heard a voice.

“‘A dragoon in tears. I’ll make a philter of them!’

“I looked up. There was Carmen in front of me.

“‘Well, _mi payllo_, are you still angry with me?’ she said. ‘I must
care for you in spite of myself, for since you left me I don’t know what
has been the matter with me. Look you, it is I who ask you to come to
the _Calle del Candilejo_, now!’

“So we made it up: but Carmen’s temper was like the weather in our
country. The storm is never so close, in our mountains, as when the sun
is at its brightest. She had promised to meet me again at Dorotea’s, but
she didn’t come.

“And Dorotea began telling me again that she had gone off to Portugal
about some gipsy business.

“As experience had already taught me how much of that I was to believe,
I went about looking for Carmen wherever I thought she might be, and
twenty times in every day I walked through the _Calle del Candilejo_.
One evening I was with Dorotea, whom I had almost tamed by giving her
a glass of anisette now and then, when Carmen walked in, followed by a
young man, a lieutenant in our regiment.

“‘Get away at once,’ she said to me in Basque. I stood there,
dumfounded, my heart full of rage.

“‘What are you doing here?’ said the lieutenant to me. ‘Take yourself
off--get out of this.’

“I couldn’t move a step. I felt paralyzed. The officer grew angry, and
seeing I did not go out, and had not even taken off my forage cap, he
caught me by the collar and shook me roughly. I don’t know what I said
to him. He drew his sword, and I unsheathed mine. The old woman caught
hold of my arm, and the lieutenant gave me a wound on the forehead, of
which I still bear the scar. I made a step backward, and with one jerk
of my elbow I threw old Dorotea down. Then, as the lieutenant still
pressed me, I turned the point of my sword against his body and he
ran upon it. Then Carmen put out the lamp and told Dorotea, in her own
language, to take to flight. I fled into the street myself, and began
running along, I knew not whither. It seemed to me that some one was
following me. When I came to myself I discovered that Carmen had never
left me.

“‘Great stupid of a canary-bird!’ she said, ‘you never make anything but
blunders. And, indeed, you know I told you I should bring you bad luck.
But come, there’s a cure for everything when you have a Fleming from
Rome* for your love. Begin by rolling this handkerchief round your head,
and throw me over that belt of yours. Wait for me in this alley--I’ll be
back in two minutes.

     * _Flamenco de Roma_, a slang term for the gipsies. Roma
     does not stand for the Eternal City, but for the nation of
     the _romi_, or the married folk--a name applied by the
     gipsies to themselves. The first gipsies seen in Spain
     probably came from the Low Countries, hence their name of
     _Flemings_.

“She disappeared, and soon came back bringing me a striped cloak which
she had gone to fetch, I knew not whence. She made me take off my
uniform, and put on the cloak over my shirt. Thus dressed, and with the
wound on my head bound round with the handkerchief, I was tolerably like
a Valencian peasant, many of whom come to Seville to sell a drink they
make out of ‘_chufas_.’* Then she took me to a house very much like
Dorotea’s, at the bottom of a little lane. Here she and another gipsy
woman washed and dressed my wounds, better than any army surgeon could
have done, gave me something, I know not what, to drink, and finally
made me lie down on a mattress, on which I went to sleep.

     * A bulbous root, out of which rather a pleasant beverage is
     manufactured.

“Probably the woman had mixed one of the soporific drugs of which they
know the secret in my drink, for I did not wake up till very late the
next day. I was rather feverish, and had a violent headache. It was some
time before the memory of the terrible scene in which I had taken part
on the previous night came back to me. After having dressed my wound,
Carmen and her friend, squatting on their heels beside my mattress,
exchanged a few words of ‘_chipe calli_,’ which appeared to me to be
something in the nature of a medical consultation. Then they both of
them assured me that I should soon be cured, but that I must get out
of Seville at the earliest possible moment, for that, if I was caught
there, I should most undoubtedly be shot.

“‘My boy,’ said Carmen to me, ‘you’ll have to do something. Now that
the king won’t give you either rice or haddock* you’ll have to think of
earning your livelihood. You’re too stupid for stealing _a pastesas_.**
But you are brave and active. If you have the pluck, take yourself off
to the coast and turn smuggler. Haven’t I promised to get you hanged?
That’s better than being shot, and besides, if you set about it
properly, you’ll live like a prince as long as the _minons_*** and the
coast-guard don’t lay their hands on your collar.’

     * The ordinary food of a Spanish soldier.

     ** _Ustilar a pastesas_, to steal cleverly, to purloin
     without violence.

     *** A sort of volunteer corps.

“In this attractive guise did this fiend of a girl describe the new
career she was suggesting to me,--the only one, indeed, remaining, now
I had incurred the penalty of death. Shall I confess it, sir? She
persuaded me without much difficulty. This wild and dangerous life, it
seemed to me, would bind her and me more closely together. In future, I
thought, I should be able to make sure of her love.

“I had often heard talk of certain smugglers who travelled about
Andalusia, each riding a good horse, with his mistress behind him and
his blunderbuss in his fist. Already I saw myself trotting up and down
the world, with a pretty gipsy behind me. When I mentioned that notion
to her, she laughed till she had to hold her sides, and vowed there was
nothing in the world so delightful as a night spent camping in the open
air, when each _rom_ retired with his _romi_ beneath their little tent,
made of three hoops with a blanket thrown across them.

“‘If I take to the mountains,’ said I to her, ‘I shall be sure of you.
There’ll be no lieutenant there to go shares with me.’

“‘Ha! ha! you’re jealous!’ she retorted, ‘so much the worse for you. How
can you be such a fool as that? Don’t you see I must love you, because I
have never asked you for money?’

“When she said that sort to thing I could have strangled her.

“To shorten the story, sir, Carmen procured me civilian clothes,
disguised in which I got out of Seville without being recognised. I went
to Jerez, with a letter from Pastia to a dealer in anisette whose house
was the smugglers’ meeting-place. I was introduced to them, and their
leader, surnamed _El Dancaire_, enrolled me in his gang. We started for
Gaucin, where I found Carmen, who had told me she would meet me there.
In all these expeditions she acted as spy for our gang, and she was the
best that ever was seen. She had now just returned from Gibraltar, and
had already arranged with the captain of a ship for a cargo of English
goods which we were to receive on the coast. We went to meet it near
Estepona. We hid part in the mountains, and laden with the rest, we
proceeded to Ronda. Carmen had gone there before us. It was she again
who warned us when we had better enter the town. This first journey, and
several subsequent ones, turned out well. I found the smuggler’s life
pleasanter than a soldier’s: I could give presents to Carmen, I had
money, and I had a mistress. I felt little or no remorse, for, as the
gipsies say, ‘The happy man never longs to scratch his itch.’ We were
made welcome everywhere, my comrades treated me well, and even showed me
a certain respect. The reason of this was that I had killed my man,
and that some of them had no exploit of that description on their
conscience. But what I valued most in my new life was that I often saw
Carmen. She showed me more affection than ever; nevertheless, she would
never admit, before my comrades, that she was my mistress, and she had
even made me swear all sorts of oaths that I would not say anything
about her to them. I was so weak in that creature’s hands, that I obeyed
all her whims. And besides, this was the first time she had revealed
herself as possessing any of the reserve of a well-conducted woman,
and I was simple enough to believe she had really cast off her former
habits.

“Our gang, which consisted of eight or ten men, was hardly ever together
except at decisive moments, and we were usually scattered by twos and
threes about the towns and villages. Each one of us pretended to have
some trade. One was a tinker, another was a groom; I was supposed to
peddle haberdashery, but I hardly ever showed myself in large places, on
account of my unlucky business at Seville. One day, or rather one night,
we were to meet below Veger. _El Dancaire_ and I got there before the
others.

“‘We shall soon have a new comrade,’ said he. ‘Carmen has just managed
one of her best tricks. She has contrived the escape of her _rom_, who
was in the _presidio_ at Tarifa.’

“I was already beginning to understand the gipsy language, which nearly
all my comrades spoke, and this word _rom_ startled me.

“What! her husband? Is she married, then?’ said I to the captain.

“‘Yes!’ he replied, ‘married to Garcia _el Tuerto_*--as cunning a gipsy
as she is herself. The poor fellow has been at the galleys. Carmen has
wheedled the surgeon of the _presidio_ to such good purpose that she
has managed to get her _rom_ out of prison. Faith! that girl’s worth
her weight in gold. For two years she has been trying to contrive his
escape, but she could do nothing until the authorities took it into
their heads to change the surgeon. She soon managed to come to an
understanding with this new one.’

     * One-eyed man.

“You may imagine how pleasant this news was for me. I soon saw Garcia
_el Tuerto_. He was the very ugliest brute that was ever nursed
in gipsydom. His skin was black, his soul was blacker, and he was
altogether the most thorough-paced ruffian I ever came across in my
life. Carmen arrived with him, and when she called him her _rom_ in my
presence, you should have seen the eyes she made at me, and the faces
she pulled whenever Garcia turned his head away.

“I was disgusted, and never spoke a word to her all night. The next
morning we had made up our packs, and had already started, when we
became aware that we had a dozen horsemen on our heels. The braggart
Andalusians, who had been boasting they would murder every one who came
near them, cut a pitiful figure at once. There was a general rout. _El
Dancaire_, Garcia, a good-looking fellow from Ecija, who was called _El
Remendado_, and Carmen herself, kept their wits about them. The rest
forsook the mules and took to the gorges, where the horses could not
follow them. There was no hope of saving the mules, so we hastily
unstrapped the best part of our booty, and taking it on our shoulders,
we tried to escape through the rocks down the steepest of the slopes. We
threw our packs down in front of us and followed them as best we could,
slipping along on our heels. Meanwhile the enemy fired at us. It was
the first time I had ever heard bullets whistling around me and I
didn’t mind it very much. When there’s a woman looking on, there’s no
particular merit in snapping one’s fingers at death. We all escaped
except the poor _Remendado_, who received a bullet wound in the loins. I
threw away my pack and tried to lift him up.

“‘Idiot!’ shouted Garcia, ‘what do we want with offal! Finish him off,
and don’t lose the cotton stockings!’

“‘Drop him!’ cried Carmen.

“I was so exhausted that I was obliged to lay him down for a moment
under a rock. Garcia came up, and fired his blunderbuss full into his
face. ‘He’d be a clever fellow who recognised him now!’ said he, as he
looked at the face, cut to pieces by a dozen slugs.

“There, sir; that’s the delightful sort of life I’ve led! That night
we found ourselves in a thicket, worn out with fatigue, with nothing to
eat, and ruined by the loss of our mules. What do you think that devil
Garcia did? He pulled a pack of cards out of his pocket and began
playing games with _El Dancaire_ by the light of a fire they kindled.
Meanwhile I was lying down, staring at the stars, thinking of _El
Remendado_, and telling myself I would just as lief be in his place.
Carmen was squatting down near me, and every now and then she would
rattle her castanets and hum a tune. Then, drawing close to me, as if
she would have whispered in my ear, she kissed me two or three times
over almost against my will.

“‘You are a devil,’ said I to her.

“‘Yes,’ she replied.

“After a few hours’ rest, she departed to Gaucin, and the next morning a
little goatherd brought us some food. We stayed there all that day, and
in the evening we moved close to Gaucin. We were expecting news from
Carmen, but none came. After daylight broke we saw a muleteer attending
a well-dressed woman with a parasol, and a little girl who seemed to
be her servant. Said Garcia, ‘There go two mules and two women whom St.
Nicholas has sent us. I would rather have had four mules, but no matter.
I’ll do the best I can with these.’

“He took his blunderbuss, and went down the pathway, hiding himself
among the brushwood.

“We followed him, _El Dancaire_ and I keeping a little way behind. As
soon as the woman saw us, instead of being frightened--and our dress
would have been enough to frighten any one--she burst into a fit of loud
laughter. ‘Ah! the _lillipendi_! They take me for an _erani_!’ *

     * “The idiots, they take me for a smart lady!”

“It was Carmen, but so well disguised that if she had spoken any other
language I should never have recognised her. She sprang off her mule,
and talked some time in an undertone with _El Dancaire_ and Garcia. Then
she said to me:

“‘Canary-bird, we shall meet again before you’re hanged. I’m off to
Gibraltar on gipsy business--you’ll soon have news of me.’

“We parted, after she had told us of a place where we should find
shelter for some days. That girl was the providence of our gang. We soon
received some money sent by her, and a piece of news which was still
more useful to us--to the effect that on a certain day two English lords
would travel from Gibraltar to Granada by a road she mentioned. This was
a word to the wise. They had plenty of good guineas. Garcia would have
killed them, but _El Dancaire_ and I objected. All we took from them,
besides their shirts, which we greatly needed, was their money and their
watches.

“Sir, a man may turn rogue in sheer thoughtlessness. You lose your
head over a pretty girl, you fight another man about her, there is a
catastrophe, you have to take to the mountains, and you turn from a
smuggler into a robber before you have time to think about it. After
this matter of the English lords, we concluded that the neighbourhood of
Gibraltar would not be healthy for us, and we plunged into the _Sierra
de Ronda_. You once mentioned Jose-Maria to me. Well, it was there I
made acquaintance with him. He always took his mistress with him on his
expeditions. She was a pretty girl, quiet, modest, well-mannered, you
never heard a vulgar word from her, and she was quite devoted to him.
He, on his side, led her a very unhappy life. He was always running
after other women, he ill-treated her, and then sometimes he would take
it into his head to be jealous. One day he slashed her with a knife.
Well, she only doted on him the more! That’s the way with women, and
especially with Andalusians. This girl was proud of the scar on her arm,
and would display it as though it were the most beautiful thing in the
world. And then Jose-Maria was the worst of comrades in the bargain.
In one expedition we made with him, he managed so that he kept all the
profits, and we had all the trouble and the blows. But I must go back to
my story. We had no sign at all from Carmen. _El Dancaire_ said: ‘One
of us will have to go to Gibraltar to get news of her. She must have
planned some business. I’d go at once, only I’m too well known at
Gibraltar.’ _El Tuerto_ said:

“‘I’m well known there too. I’ve played so many tricks on the
crayfish*--and as I’ve only one eye, it is not overeasy for me to
disguise myself.’

     * Name applied by the Spanish populace to the British
     soldiers, on account of the colour of their uniform.

“‘Then I suppose I must go,’ said I, delighted at the very idea of
seeing Carmen again. ‘Well, how am I to set about it?’

“The others answered:

“‘You must either go by sea, or you must get through by San Rocco,
whichever you like the best; once you are in Gibraltar, inquire in the
port where a chocolate-seller called _La Rollona_ lives. When you’ve
found her, she’ll tell you everything that’s happening.’

“It was settled that we were all to start for the Sierra, that I was
to leave my two companions there, and take my way to Gibraltar, in
the character of a fruit-seller. At Ronda one of our men procured me
a passport; at Gaucin I was provided with a donkey. I loaded it with
oranges and melons, and started forth. When I reached Gibraltar I found
that many people knew _La Rollona_, but that she was either dead or had
gone _ad finibus terroe_,* and, to my mind, her disappearance explained
the failure of our correspondence with Carmen. I stabled my donkey,
and began to move about the town, carrying my oranges as though to sell
them, but in reality looking to see whether I could not come across any
face I knew. The place is full of ragamuffins from every country in the
world, and it really is like the Tower of Babel, for you can’t go ten
paces along a street without hearing as many languages. I did see some
gipsies, but I hardly dared confide in them. I was taking stock of them,
and they were taking stock of me. We had mutually guessed each other
to be rogues, but the important thing for us was to know whether we
belonged to the same gang. After having spent two days in fruitless
wanderings, and having found out nothing either as to _La Rollona_ or
as to Carmen, I was thinking I would go back to my comrades as soon as I
had made a few purchases, when, toward sunset, as I was walking along a
street, I heard a woman’s voice from a window say, ‘Orange-seller!’

     * To the galleys, or else to all the devils in hell.

“I looked up, and on a balcony I saw Carmen looking out, beside a
scarlet-coated officer with gold epaulettes, curly hair, and all
the appearance of a rich _milord_. As for her, she was magnificently
dressed, a shawl hung on her shoulders, she’d a gold comb in her hair,
everything she wore was of silk; and the cunning little wretch, not a
bit altered, was laughing till she held her sides.

“The Englishman shouted to me in mangled Spanish to come upstairs, as
the lady wanted some oranges, and Carmen said to me in Basque:

“‘Come up, and don’t look astonished at anything!’

“Indeed, nothing that she did ought ever to have astonished me. I don’t
know whether I was most happy or wretched at seeing her again. At the
door of the house there was a tall English servant with a powdered head,
who ushered me into a splendid drawing-room. Instantly Carmen said to me
in Basque, ‘You don’t know one word of Spanish, and you don’t know me.’
Then turning to the Englishman, she added:

“‘I told you so. I saw at once he was a Basque. Now you’ll hear what a
queer language he speaks. Doesn’t he look silly? He’s like a cat that’s
been caught in the larder!’

“‘And you,’ said I to her in my own language, ‘you look like an impudent
jade--and I’ve a good mind to scar your face here and now, before your
spark.’

“‘My spark!’ said she. ‘Why, you’ve guessed that all alone! Are you
jealous of this idiot? You’re even sillier than you were before our
evening in the _Calle del Candilejo_! Don’t you see, fool, that at this
moment I’m doing gipsy business, and doing it in the most brilliant
manner? This house belongs to me--the guineas of that crayfish will
belong to me! I lead him by the nose, and I’ll lead him to a place that
he’ll never get out of!’

“‘And if I catch you doing any gipsy business in this style again, I’ll
see to it that you never do any again!’ said I.

“‘Ah! upon my word! Are you my _rom_, pray that you give me orders? If
_El Tuerto_ is pleased, what have you to do with it? Oughtn’t you to
be very happy that you are the only man who can call himself my
_minchorro_?’ *

     * My “lover,” or rather my “fancy.”

“‘What does he say?’ inquired the Englishman.

“‘He says he’s thirsty, and would like a drink,’ answered Carmen, and
she threw herself back upon a sofa, screaming with laughter at her own
translation.

“When that girl begins to laugh, sir, it was hopeless for anybody to try
and talk sense. Everybody laughed with her. The big Englishman began to
laugh too, like the idiot he was, and ordered the servant to bring me
something to drink.

“While I was drinking she said to me:

“‘Do you see that ring he has on his finger? If you like I’ll give it to
you.’

“And I answered:

“‘I would give one of my fingers to have your _milord_ out on the
mountains, and each of us with a _maquila_ in his fist.’

“‘_Maquila_, what does that mean?’ asked the Englishman.

“‘Maquila,’ said Carmen, still laughing, ‘means an orange. Isn’t it a
queer word for an orange? He says he’d like you to eat _maquila_.’

“‘Does he?’ said the Englishman. ‘Very well, bring more _maquila_
to-morrow.’

“While we were talking a servant came in and said dinner was ready.
Then the Englishman stood up, gave me a piastre, and offered his arm
to Carmen, as if she couldn’t have walked alone. Carmen, who was still
laughing, said to me:

“‘My boy, I can’t ask you to dinner. But to-morrow, as soon as you hear
the drums beat for parade, come here with your oranges. You’ll find a
better furnished room than the one in the _Calle del Candilejo_, and
you’ll see whether I am still your _Carmencita_. Then afterwards we’ll
talk about gipsy business.’

“I gave her no answer--even when I was in the street I could hear the
Englishman shouting, ‘Bring more _maquila_ to-morrow,’ and Carmen’s
peals of laughter.

“I went out, not knowing what I should do; I hardly slept, and next
morning I was so enraged with the treacherous creature that I made up
my mind to leave Gibraltar without seeing her again. But the moment
the drums began to roll, my courage failed me. I took up my net full of
oranges, and hurried off to Carmen’s house. Her window-shutters had been
pulled apart a little, and I saw her great dark eyes watching for me.
The powdered servant showed me in at once. Carmen sent him out with a
message, and as soon as we were alone she burst into one of her fits of
crocodile laughter and threw her arms around my neck. Never had I seen
her look so beautiful. She was dressed out like a queen, and scented;
she had silken furniture, embroidered curtains--and I togged out like
the thief I was!

“‘_Minchorro_,’ said Carmen, ‘I’ve a good mind to smash up everything
here, set fire to the house, and take myself off to the mountains.’ And
then she would fondle me, and then she would laugh, and she danced about
and tore up her fripperies. Never did monkey gambol nor make such faces,
nor play such wild tricks, as she did that day. When she had recovered
her gravity--

“‘Hark!’ she said, ‘this is gipsy business. I mean him to take me to
Ronda, where I have a sister who is a nun’ (here she shrieked with
laughter again). ‘We shall pass by a particular spot which I shall make
known to you. Then you must fall upon him and strip him to the skin.
Your best plan would be to do for him, but,’ she added, with a certain
fiendish smile of hers, which no one who saw it ever had any desire to
imitate, ‘do you know what you had better do? Let _El Tuerto_ come up
in front of you. You keep a little behind. The crayfish is brave, and
skilful too, and he has good pistols. Do you understand?’

“And she broke off with another fit of laughter that made me shiver.

“‘No,’ said I, ‘I hate Garcia, but he’s my comrade. Some day, maybe,
I’ll rid you of him, but we’ll settle our account after the fashion of
my country. It’s only chance that has made me a gipsy, and in certain
things I shall always be a thorough Navarrese,* as the proverb says.

     * _Navarro fino_.

“‘You’re a fool,’ she rejoined, ‘a simpleton, a regular _payllo_. You’re
just like the dwarf who thinks himself tall because he can spit a long
way.* You don’t love me! Be off with you!’

     * _Or esorjle de or marsichisle, sin chisnar lachinguel_.
     “The promise of a dwarf is that he will spit a long way.”--A
     gipsy proverb.

“Whenever she said to me ‘Be off with you,” I couldn’t go away. I
promised I would start back to my comrades and wait the arrival of the
Englishman. She, on her side, promised she would be ill until she left
Gibraltar for Ronda.

“I remained at Gibraltar two days longer. She had the boldness to
disguise herself and come and see me at the inn. I departed, I had a
plan of my own. I went back to our meeting-place with the information as
to the spot and the hour at which the Englishman and Carmen were to pass
by. I found _El Dancaire_ and Garcia waiting for me. We spent the night
in a wood, beside a fire made of pine-cones that blazed splendidly. I
suggested to Garcia that we should play cards, and he agreed. In the
second game I told him he was cheating; he began to laugh; I threw the
cards in his face. He tried to get at his blunderbuss. I set my foot on
it, and said, ‘They say you can use a knife as well as the best ruffian
in Malaga; will you try it with me?’ _El Dancaire_ tried to part us. I
had given Garcia one or two cuffs, his rage had given him courage, he
drew his knife, and I drew mine. We both of us told _El Dancaire_ he
must leave us alone, and let us fight it out. He saw there was no means
of stopping us, so he stood on one side. Garcia was already bent double,
like a cat ready to spring upon a mouse. He held his hat in his
left hand to parry with, and his knife in front of him--that’s their
Andalusian guard. I stood up in the Navarrese fashion, with my left arm
raised, my left leg forward, and my knife held straight along my right
thigh. I felt I was stronger than any giant. He flew at me like an
arrow. I turned round on my left foot, so that he found nothing in front
of him. But I thrust him in the throat, and the knife went in so far
that my hand was under his chin. I gave the blade such a twist that it
broke. That was the end. The blade was carried out of the wound by a
gush of blood as thick as my arm, and he fell full length on his face.

“‘What have you done?’ said _El Dancaire_ to me.

“‘Hark ye,’ said I, ‘we couldn’t live on together. I love Carmen and I
mean to be the only one. And besides, Garcia was a villain. I remember
what he did to that poor _Remendado_. There are only two of us left now,
but we are both good fellows. Come, will you have me for your friend,
for life or death?’

“_El Dancaire_ stretched out his hand. He was a man of fifty.

“‘Devil take these love stories!’ he cried. ‘If you’d asked him for
Carmen he’d have sold her to you for a piastre! There are only two of us
now--how shall we manage for to-morrow?’

“‘I’ll manage it all alone,’ I answered. ‘I can snap my fingers at the
whole world now.’

“We buried Garcia, and we moved our camp two hundred paces farther on.
The next morning Carmen and her Englishman came along with two muleteers
and a servant. I said to _El Dancaire_:

“‘I’ll look after the Englishman, you frighten the others--they’re not
armed!’

“The Englishman was a plucky fellow. He’d have killed me if Carmen
hadn’t jogged his elbow.

“To put it shortly, I won Carmen back that day, and my first words were
to tell her she was a widow.

“When she knew how it had all happened--

“‘You’ll always be a _lillipendi_,’ she said. ‘Garcia ought to have
killed you. Your Navarrese guard is a pack of nonsense, and he has sent
far more skilful men than you into the darkness. It was just that his
time had come--and yours will come too.’

“‘Ay, and yours too!--if you’re not a faithful _romi_ to me.’

“‘So be it,’ said she. ‘I’ve read in the coffee grounds, more than once,
that you and I were to end our lives together. Pshaw! what must be, will
be!’ and she rattled her castanets, as was her way when she wanted to
drive away some worrying thought.

“One runs on when one is talking about one’s self. I dare say all these
details bore you, but I shall soon be at the end of my story. Our new
life lasted for some considerable time. _El Dancaire_ and I gathered a
few comrades about us, who were more trustworthy than our earlier ones,
and we turned our attention to smuggling. Occasionally, indeed, I must
confess we stopped travellers on the highways, but never unless we were
at the last extremity, and could not avoid doing so; and besides, we
never ill-treated the travellers, and confined ourselves to taking their
money from them.

“For some months I was very well satisfied with Carmen. She still served
us in our smuggling operations, by giving us notice of any opportunity
of making a good haul. She remained either at Malaga, at Cordova, or at
Granada, but at a word from me she would leave everything, and come to
meet me at some _venta_ or even in our lonely camp. Only once--it was at
Malaga--she caused me some uneasiness. I heard she had fixed her fancy
upon a very rich merchant, with whom she probably proposed to play her
Gibraltar trick over again. In spite of everything _El Dancaire_ said to
stop me, I started off, walked into Malaga in broad daylight, sought for
Carmen and carried her off instantly. We had a sharp altercation.

“‘Do you know,’ said she, ‘now that you’re my _rom_ for good and all, I
don’t care for you so much as when you were my _minchorro_! I won’t be
worried, and above all, I won’t be ordered about. I choose to be free to
do as I like. Take care you don’t drive me too far; if you tire me
out, I’ll find some good fellow who’ll serve you just as you served _El
Tuerto_.’

“_El Dancaire_ patched it up between us; but we had said things to each
other that rankled in our hearts, and we were not as we had been before.
Shortly after that we had a misfortune: the soldiers caught us, _El
Dancaire_ and two of my comrades were killed; two others were taken.
I was sorely wounded, and, but for my good horse, I should have fallen
into the soldiers’ hands. Half dead with fatigue, and with a bullet in
my body, I sought shelter in a wood, with my only remaining comrade.
When I got off my horse I fainted away, and I thought I was going to
die there in the brushwood, like a shot hare. My comrade carried me to a
cave he knew of, and then he sent to fetch Carmen.

“She was at Granada, and she hurried to me at once. For a whole
fortnight she never left me for a single instant. She never closed her
eyes; she nursed me with a skill and care such as no woman ever showed
to the man she loved most tenderly. As soon as I could stand on my feet,
she conveyed me with the utmost secrecy to Granada. These gipsy women
find safe shelter everywhere, and I spent more than six weeks in a house
only two doors from that of the _Corregidor_ who was trying to arrest
me. More than once I saw him pass by, from behind the shutter. At last I
recovered, but I had thought a great deal, on my bed of pain, and I had
planned to change my way of life. I suggested to Carmen that we should
leave Spain, and seek an honest livelihood in the New World. She laughed
in my face.

“‘We were not born to plant cabbages,’ she cried. ‘Our fate is to live
_payllos_! Listen: I’ve arranged a business with Nathan Ben-Joseph at
Gibraltar. He has cotton stuffs that he can not get through till you
come to fetch them. He knows you’re alive, and reckons upon you. What
would our Gibraltar correspondents say if you failed them?’

“I let myself by persuaded, and took up my vile trade once more.

“While I was hiding at Granada there were bull-fights there, to which
Carmen went. When she came back she talked a great deal about a skilful
_picador_ of the name of Lucas. She knew the name of his horse, and how
much his embroidered jacket had cost him. I paid no attention to this;
but a few days later, Juanito, the only one of my comrades who was left,
told me he had seen Carmen with Lucas in a shop in the Zacatin. Then
I began to feel alarmed. I asked Carmen how and why she had made the
_picador’s_ acquaintance.

“‘He’s a man out of whom we may be able to get something,’ said she.
‘A noisy stream has either water in it or pebbles. He has earned twelve
hundred reals at the bull-fights. It must be one of two things: we
must either have his money, or else, as he is a good rider and a plucky
fellow, we can enroll him in our gang. We have lost such an one an such
an one; you’ll have to replace them. Take this man with you!’

“‘I want neither his money nor himself,’ I replied, ‘and I forbid you to
speak to him.’

“‘Beware!’ she retorted. ‘If any one defies me to do a thing, it’s very
quickly done.’

“Luckily the _picador_ departed to Malaga, and I set about passing in
the Jew’s cotton stuffs. This expedition gave me a great deal to do, and
Carmen as well. I forgot Lucas, and perhaps she forgot him too--for the
moment, at all events. It was just about that time, sir, that I met you,
first at Montilla, and then afterward at Cordova. I won’t talk about
that last interview. You know more about it, perhaps, than I do. Carmen
stole your watch from you, she wanted to have your money besides, and
especially that ring I see on your finger, and which she declared to be
a magic ring, the possession of which was very important to her. We had
a violent quarrel, and I struck her. She turned pale and began to cry.
It was the first time I had ever seen her cry, and it affected me in the
most painful manner. I begged her to forgive me, but she sulked with me
for a whole day, and when I started back to Montilla she wouldn’t kiss
me. My heart was still very sore, when, three days later, she joined me
with a smiling face and as merry as a lark. Everything was forgotten,
and we were like a pair of honeymoon lovers. Just as we were parting she
said, ‘There’s a _fete_ at Cordova; I shall go and see it, and then I
shall know what people will be coming away with money, and I can warn
you.’

“I let her go. When I was alone I thought about the _fete_, and about
the change in Carmen’s temper. ‘She must have avenged herself already,’
said I to myself, ‘since she was the first to make our quarrel up.’ A
peasant told me there was to be bull-fighting at Cordova. Then my blood
began to boil, and I went off like a madman straight to the bull-ring. I
had Lucas pointed out to me, and on the bench, just beside the barrier,
I recognised Carmen. One glance at her was enough to turn my suspicion
into certainty. When the first bull appeared Lucas began, as I had
expected to play the agreeable; he snatched the cockade off the bull and
presented it to Carmen, who put it in her hair at once.*

     * _La divisa_. A knot of ribbon, the colour of which
     indicates the pasturage from which each bull comes. This
     knot of ribbon is fastened into the bull’s hide with a sort
     of hook, and it is considered the very height of gallantry
     to snatch it off the living beast and present it to a woman.

“The bull avenged me. Lucas was knocked down, with his horse on his
chest, and the bull on top of both of them. I looked for Carmen, she had
disappeared from her place already. I couldn’t get out of mine, and I
was obliged to wait until the bull-fight was over. Then I went off to
that house you already know, and waited there quietly all that evening
and part of the night. Toward two o’clock in the morning Carmen came
back, and was rather surprised to see me.

“‘Come with me,’ said I.

“‘Very well,’ said she, ‘let’s be off.’

“I went and got my horse, and took her up behind me, and we travelled
all the rest of the night without saying a word to each other. When
daylight came we stopped at a lonely inn, not far from a hermitage.
There I said to Carmen:

“‘Listen--I forget everything, I won’t mention anything to you. But
swear one thing to me--that you’ll come with me to America, and live
there quietly!’

“‘No,’ said she, in a sulky voice, ‘I won’t go to America--I am very
well here.’

“‘That’s because you’re near Lucas. But be very sure that even if
he gets well now, he won’t make old bones. And, indeed, why should I
quarrel with him? I’m tired of killing all your lovers; I’ll kill you
this time.’

“She looked at me steadily with her wild eyes, and then she said:

“‘I’ve always thought you would kill me. The very first time I saw you I
had just met a priest at the door of my house. And to-night, as we were
going out of Cordova, didn’t you see anything? A hare ran across the
road between your horse’s feet. It is fate.’

“‘Carmencita,’ I asked, ‘don’t you love me any more?’

“She gave me no answer, she was sitting cross-legged on a mat, making
marks on the ground with her finger.

“‘Let us change our life, Carmen,’ said I imploringly. ‘Let us go away
and live somewhere we shall never be parted. You know we have a hundred
and twenty gold ounces buried under an oak not far from here, and then
we have more money with Ben-Joseph the Jew.’

“She began to smile, and then she said, ‘Me first, and then you. I know
it will happen like that.’

“‘Think about it,’ said I. ‘I’ve come to the end of my patience and my
courage. Make up your mind--or else I must make up mine.’

“I left her alone and walked toward the hermitage. I found the hermit
praying. I waited till his prayer was finished. I longed to pray myself,
but I couldn’t. When he rose up from his knees I went to him.

“‘Father,’ I said, ‘will you pray for some one who is in great danger?’

“‘I pray for every one who is afflicted,’ he replied.

“‘Can you say a mass for a soul which is perhaps about to go into the
presence of its Maker?’

“‘Yes,’ he answered, looking hard at me.

“And as there was something strange about me, he tried to make me talk.

“‘It seems to me that I have seen you somewhere,’ said he.

“I laid a piastre on his bench.

“‘When shall you say the mass?’ said I.

“‘In half an hour. The son of the innkeeper yonder is coming to serve
it. Tell me, young man, haven’t you something on your conscience that is
tormenting you? Will you listen to a Christian’s counsel?’

“I could hardly restrain my tears. I told him I would come back, and
hurried away. I went and lay down on the grass until I heard the bell.
Then I went back to the chapel, but I stayed outside it. When he had
said the mass, I went back to the _venta_. I was hoping Carmen would
have fled. She could have taken my horse and ridden away. But I found
her there still. She did not choose that any one should say I had
frightened her. While I had been away she had unfastened the hem of her
gown and taken out the lead that weighted it; and now she was sitting
before a table, looking into a bowl of water into which she had just
thrown the lead she had melted. She was so busy with her spells that at
first she didn’t notice my return. Sometimes she would take out a bit of
lead and turn it round every way with a melancholy look. Sometimes she
would sing one of those magic songs, which invoke the help of Maria
Padella, Don Pedro’s mistress, who is said to have been the _Bari
Crallisa_--the great gipsy queen.*

     * Maria Padella was accused of having bewitched Don Pedro.
     According to one popular tradition she presented Queen
     Blanche of Bourbon with a golden girdle which, in the eyes
     of the bewitched king, took on the appearance of a living
     snake. Hence the repugnance he always showed toward the
     unhappy princess.

“‘Carmen,’ I said to her, ‘will you come with me?’ She rose, threw away
her wooden bowl, and put her mantilla over her head ready to start. My
horse was led up, she mounted behind me, and we rode away.

“After we had gone a little distance I said to her, ‘So, my Carmen, you
are quite ready to follow me, isn’t that so?’

“She answered, ‘Yes, I’ll follow you, even to death--but I won’t live
with you any more.’

“We had reached a lonely gorge. I stopped my horse.

“‘Is this the place?’ she said.

“And with a spring she reached the ground. She took off her mantilla and
threw it at her feet, and stood motionless, with one hand on her hip,
looking at me steadily.

“‘You mean to kill me, I see that well,’ said she. ‘It is fate. But
you’ll never make me give in.’

“I said to her: ‘Be rational, I implore you; listen to me. All the
past is forgotten. Yet you know it is you who have been my ruin--it is
because of you that I am a robber and a murderer. Carmen, my Carmen, let
me save you, and save myself with you.’

“‘Jose,’ she answered, ‘what you ask is impossible. I don’t love you
any more. You love me still, and that is why you want to kill me. If
I liked, I might tell you some other lie, but I don’t choose to give
myself the trouble. Everything is over between us two. You are my _rom_,
and you have the right to kill your _romi_, but Carmen will always be
free. A _calli_ she was born, and a _calli_ she’ll die.’

“‘Then, you love Lucas?’ I asked.

“‘Yes, I have loved him--as I loved you--for an instant--less than I
loved you, perhaps. But now I don’t love anything, and I hate myself for
ever having loved you.’

“I cast myself at her feet, I seized her hands, I watered them with my
tears, I reminded her of all the happy moments we had spent together,
I offered to continue my brigand’s life, if that would please her.
Everything, sir, everything--I offered her everything if she would only
love me again.

“She said:

“‘Love you again? That’s not possible! Live with you? I will not do it!’

“I was wild with fury. I drew my knife, I would have had her look
frightened, and sue for mercy--but that woman was a demon.

“I cried, ‘For the last time I ask you. Will you stay with me?’

“‘No! no! no!’ she said, and she stamped her foot.

“Then she pulled a ring I had given her off her finger, and cast it into
the brushwood.

“I struck her twice over--I had taken Garcia’s knife, because I had
broken my own. At the second thrust she fell without a sound. It seems
to me that I can still see her great black eyes staring at me. Then they
grew dim and the lids closed.

“For a good hour I lay there prostrate beside her corpse. Then I
recollected that Carmen had often told me that she would like to lie
buried in a wood. I dug a grave for her with my knife and laid her in
it. I hunted about a long time for her ring, and I found it at last.
I put it into the grave beside her, with a little cross--perhaps I did
wrong. Then I got upon my horse, galloped to Cordova, and gave myself up
at the nearest guard-room. I told them I had killed Carmen, but I would
not tell them where her body was. That hermit was a holy man! He prayed
for her--he said a mass for her soul. Poor child! It’s the _calle_ who
are to blame for having brought her up as they did.”



CHAPTER IV

Spain is one of the countries in which those nomads, scattered all over
Europe, and known as Bohemians, Gitanas, Gipsies, Ziegeuner, and so
forth, are now to be found in the greatest numbers. Most of these people
live, or rather wander hither and thither, in the southern and eastern
provinces of Spain, in Andalusia, and Estramadura, in the kingdom
of Murcia. There are a great many of them in Catalonia. These last
frequently cross over into France and are to be seen at all our
southern fairs. The men generally call themselves grooms, horse doctors,
mule-clippers; to these trades they add the mending of saucepans and
brass utensils, not to mention smuggling and other illicit practices.
The women tell fortunes, beg, and sell all sorts of drugs, some of which
are innocent, while some are not. The physical characteristics of the
gipsies are more easily distinguished then described, and when you have
known one, you should be able to recognise a member of the race among
a thousand other men. It is by their physiognomy and expression,
especially, that they differ from the other inhabitants of the same
country. Their complexion is exceedingly swarthy, always darker than
that of the race among whom they live. Hence the name of _cale_ (blacks)
which they frequently apply to themselves.* Their eyes, set with a
decided slant, are large, very black, and shaded by long and heavy
lashes. Their glance can only be compared to that of a wild creature. It
is full at once of boldness and shyness, and in this respect their eyes
are a fair indication of their national character, which is cunning,
bold, but with “the natural fear of blows,” like Panurge. Most of the
men are strapping fellows, slight and active. I don’t think I ever saw
a gipsy who had grown fat. In Germany the gipsy women are often very
pretty; but beauty is very uncommon among the Spanish gitanas. When very
young, they may pass as being attractive in their ugliness, but once
they have reached motherhood, they become absolutely repulsive. The
filthiness of both sexes is incredible, and no one who has not seen a
gipsy matron’s hair can form any conception of what it is, not even
if he conjures up the roughest, the greasiest, and the dustiest heads
imaginable. In some of the large Andalusian towns certain of the gipsy
girls, somewhat better looking than their fellows, will take more care
of their personal appearance. These go out and earn money by performing
dances strongly resembling those forbidden at our public balls in
carnival time. An English missionary, Mr. Borrow, the author of two very
interesting works on the Spanish gipsies, whom he undertook to convert
on behalf of the Bible Society, declares there is no instance of any
gitana showing the smallest weakness for a man not belonging to her
own race. The praise he bestows upon their chastity strikes me as being
exceedingly exaggerated. In the first place, the great majority are
in the position of the ugly woman described by Ovid, “_Casta quam nemo
rogavit_.” As for the pretty ones, they are, like all Spanish women,
very fastidious in choosing their lovers. Their fancy must be taken,
and their favour must be earned. Mr. Borrow quotes, in proof of their
virtue, one trait which does honour to his own, and especially to his
simplicity: he declares that an immoral man of his acquaintance offered
several gold ounces to a pretty gitana, and offered them in vain. An
Andalusian, to whom I retailed this anecdote, asserted that the immoral
man in question would have been far more successful if he had shown the
girl two or three piastres, and that to offer gold ounces to a gipsy was
as poor a method of persuasion as to promise a couple of millions to a
tavern wench. However that may be, it is certain that the gitana shows
the most extraordinary devotion to her husband. There is no danger and
no suffering she will not brave, to help him in his need. One of the
names which the gipsies apply to themselves, _Rome_, or “the married
couple,” seems to me a proof of their racial respect for the married
state. Speaking generally, it may be asserted that their chief virtue is
their patriotism--if we may thus describe the fidelity they observe in
all their relations with persons of the same origin as their own, their
readiness to help one another, and the inviolable secrecy which they
keep for each other’s benefit, in all compromising matters. And indeed
something of the same sort may be noticed in all mysterious associations
which are beyond the pale of the law.

     * It has struck me that the German gipsies, though they
     thoroughly understand the word _cale_, do not care to be
     called by that name. Among themselves they always use the
     designation _Romane tchave_.

Some months ago, I paid a visit to a gipsy tribe in the Vosges country.
In the hut of an old woman, the oldest member of the tribe, I found
a gipsy, in no way related to the family, who was sick of a mortal
disease. The man had left a hospital, where he was well cared for, so
that he might die among his own people. For thirteen weeks he had been
lying in bed in their encampment, and receiving far better treatment
than any of the sons and sons-in-law who shared his shelter. He had a
good bed made of straw and moss, and sheets that were tolerably white,
whereas all the rest of the family, which numbered eleven persons, slept
on planks three feet long. So much for their hospitality. This very same
woman, humane as was her treatment of her guest said to me constantly
before the sick man: “_Singo, singo, homte hi mulo_.” “Soon, soon he
must die!” After all, these people live such miserable lives, that a
reference to the approach of death can have no terrors for them.

One remarkable feature in the gipsy character is their indifference
about religion. Not that they are strong-minded or sceptical. They
have never made any profession of atheism. Far from that, indeed, the
religion of the country which they inhabit is always theirs; but they
change their religion when they change the country of their residence.
They are equally free from the superstitions which replace religious
feeling in the minds of the vulgar. How, indeed, can superstition exist
among a race which, as a rule, makes its livelihood out of the credulity
of others? Nevertheless, I have remarked a particular horror of touching
a corpse among the Spanish gipsies. Very few of these could be induced
to carry a dead man to his grave, even if they were paid for it.

I have said that most gipsy women undertake to tell fortunes. They do
this very successfully. But they find a much greater source of profit
in the sale of charms and love-philters. Not only do they supply toads’
claws to hold fickle hearts, and powdered loadstone to kindle love in
cold ones, but if necessity arises, they can use mighty incantations,
which force the devil to lend them his aid. Last year the following
story was related to me by a Spanish lady. She was walking one day along
the _Calle d’Alcala_, feeling very sad and anxious. A gipsy woman who
was squatting on the pavement called out to her, “My pretty lady, your
lover has played you false!” (It was quite true.) “Shall I get him
back for you?” My readers will imagine with what joy the proposal was
accepted, and how complete was the confidence inspired by a person who
could thus guess the inmost secrets of the heart. As it would have been
impossible to proceed to perform the operations of magic in the most
crowded street in Madrid, a meeting was arranged for the next day.
“Nothing will be easier than to bring back the faithless one to your
feet!” said the gitana. “Do you happen to have a handkerchief, a scarf,
or a mantilla, that he gave you?” A silken scarf was handed her. “Now
sew a piastre into one corner of the scarf with crimson silk--sew half
a piastre into another corner--sew a peseta here--and a two-real piece
there; then, in the middle you must sew a gold coin--a doubloon would be
best.” The doubloon and all the other coins were duly sewn in. “Now give
me the scarf, and I’ll take it to the Campo Santo when midnight strikes.
You come along with me, if you want to see a fine piece of witchcraft.
I promise you shall see the man you love to-morrow!” The gipsy departed
alone for the Campo Santo, since my Spanish friend was too much afraid
of witchcraft to go there with her. I leave my readers to guess whether
my poor forsaken lady ever saw her lover, or her scarf, again.

In spite of their poverty and the sort of aversion they inspire, the
gipsies are treated with a certain amount of consideration by the more
ignorant folk, and they are very proud of it. They feel themselves to be
a superior race as regards intelligence, and they heartily despise the
people whose hospitality they enjoy. “These Gentiles are so stupid,”
 said one of the Vosges gipsies to me, “that there is no credit in taking
them in. The other day a peasant woman called out to me in the street.
I went into her house. Her stove smoked and she asked me to give her a
charm to cure it. First of all I made her give me a good bit of bacon,
and then I began to mumble a few words in _Romany_. ‘You’re a fool,’ I
said, ‘you were born a fool, and you’ll die a fool!’ When I had got near
the door I said to her, in good German, ‘The most certain way of keeping
your stove from smoking is not to light any fire in it!’ and then I took
to my heels.”

The history of the gipsies is still a problem. We know, indeed, that
their first bands, which were few and far between, appeared in Eastern
Europe towards the beginning of the fifteenth century. But nobody can
tell whence they started, or why they came to Europe, and, what is still
more extraordinary, no one knows how they multiplied, within a short
time, and in so prodigious a fashion, and in several countries, all
very remote from each other. The gipsies themselves have preserved no
tradition whatsoever as to their origin, and though most of them do
speak of Egypt as their original fatherland, that is only because they
have adopted a very ancient fable respecting their race.

Most of the Orientalists who have studied the gipsy language believe
that the cradle of the race was in India. It appears, in fact, that
many of the roots and grammatical forms of the _Romany_ tongue are to
be found in idioms derived from the Sanskrit. As may be imagined, the
gipsies, during their long wanderings, have adopted many foreign words.
In every _Romany_ dialect a number of Greek words appear.

At the present day the gipsies have almost as many dialects as there are
separate hordes of their race. Everywhere, they speak the language of
the country they inhabit more easily than their own idiom, which
they seldom use, except with the object of conversing freely before
strangers. A comparison of the dialect of the German gipsies with that
used by the Spanish gipsies, who have held no communication with each
other for several centuries, reveals the existence of a great number of
words common to both. But everywhere the original language is notably
affected, though in different degrees, by its contact with the more
cultivated languages into the use of which the nomads have been forced.
German in one case and Spanish in the other have so modified the
_Romany_ groundwork that it would not be possible for a gipsy from the
Black Forest to converse with one of his Andalusian brothers, although a
few sentences on each side would suffice to convince them that each was
speaking a dialect of the same language. Certain words in very frequent
use are, I believe, common to every dialect. Thus, in every vocabulary
which I have been able to consult, _pani_ means water, _manro_ means
bread, _mas_ stands for meat, and _lon_ for salt.

The nouns of number are almost the same in every case. The German
dialect seems to me much purer than the Spanish, for it has preserved
numbers of the primitive grammatical forms, whereas the Gitanos have
adopted those of the Castilian tongue. Nevertheless, some words are an
exception, as though to prove that the language was originally common
to all. The preterite of the German dialect is formed by adding _ium_
to the imperative, which is always the root of the verb. In the
Spanish _Romany_ the verbs are all conjugated on the model of the first
conjugation of the Castilian verbs. From _jamar_, the infinitive of “to
eat,” the regular conjugation should be _jame_, “I have eaten.” From
_lillar_, “to take,” _lille_, “I have taken.” Yet, some old gipsies
say, as an exception, _jayon_ and _lillon_. I am not acquainted with any
other verbs which have preserved this ancient form.

While I am thus showing off my small acquaintance with the _Romany_
language, I must notice a few words of French slang which our thieves
have borrowed from the gipsies. From _Les Mysteres de Paris_ honest
folk have learned that the word _chourin_ means “a knife.” This is
pure _Romany_--_tchouri_ is one of the words which is common to every
dialect. Monsieur Vidocq calls a horse _gres_--this again is a gipsy
word--_gras_, _gre_, _graste_, and _gris_. Add to this the word
_romanichel_, by which the gipsies are described in Parisian slang.
This is a corruption of _romane tchave_--“gipsy lads.” But a piece of
etymology of which I am really proud is that of the word _frimousse_,
“face,” “countenance”--a word which every schoolboy uses, or did use, in
my time. Note, in the first place, the Oudin, in his curious dictionary,
published in 1640, wrote the word _firlimouse_. Now in _Romany_,
_firla_, or _fila_, stands for “face,” and has the same meaning--it
is exactly the _os_ of the Latins. The combination of _firlamui_ was
instantly understood by a genuine gipsy, and I believe it to be true to
the spirit of the gipsy language.

I have surely said enough to give the readers of Carmen a favourable
idea of my _Romany_ studies. I will conclude with the following proverb,
which comes in very appropriately: _En retudi panda nasti abela macha_.
“Between closed lips no fly can pass.”










[Illustration]




The Odyssey

by Homer

rendered into English prose for the use of those who cannot read the
original

Contents

 PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION
 PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION
 THE ODYSSEY
 BOOK I.
 BOOK II.
 BOOK III.
 BOOK IV.
 BOOK V.
 BOOK VI.
 BOOK VII.
 BOOK VIII.
 BOOK IX.
 BOOK X.
 BOOK XI.
 BOOK XII.
 BOOK XIII.
 BOOK XIV.
 BOOK XV.
 BOOK XVI.
 BOOK XVII.
 BOOK XVIII.
 BOOK XIX.
 BOOK XX.
 BOOK XXI.
 BOOK XXII.
 BOOK XXIII.
 BOOK XXIV.
 FOOTNOTES:


AL PROFESSORE
CAV. BIAGIO INGROIA,
PREZIOSO ALLEATO
L’AUTORE RICONOSCENTE.




PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION


This translation is intended to supplement a work entitled “The
Authoress of the Odyssey”, which I published in 1897. I could not give
the whole “Odyssey” in that book without making it unwieldy, I
therefore epitomised my translation, which was already completed and
which I now publish in full.

I shall not here argue the two main points dealt with in the work just
mentioned; I have nothing either to add to, or to withdraw from, what I
have there written. The points in question are:

(1) that the “Odyssey” was written entirely at, and drawn entirely
from, the place now called Trapani on the West Coast of Sicily, alike
as regards the Phaeacian and the Ithaca scenes; while the voyages of
Ulysses, when once he is within easy reach of Sicily, solve themselves
into a periplus of the island, practically from Trapani back to
Trapani, via the Lipari islands, the Straits of Messina, and the island
of Pantellaria.

(2) That the poem was entirely written by a very young woman, who lived
at the place now called Trapani, and introduced herself into her work
under the name of Nausicaa.

The main arguments on which I base the first of these somewhat
startling contentions, have been prominently and repeatedly before the
English and Italian public ever since they appeared (without rejoinder)
in the “Athenaeum” for January 30 and February 20, 1892. Both
contentions were urged (also without rejoinder) in the Johnian “Eagle”
for the Lent and October terms of the same year. Nothing to which I
should reply has reached me from any quarter, and knowing how anxiously
I have endeavoured to learn the existence of any flaws in my argument,
I begin to feel some confidence that, did such flaws exist, I should
have heard, at any rate about some of them, before now. Without,
therefore, for a moment pretending to think that scholars generally
acquiesce in my conclusions, I shall act as thinking them little likely
so to gainsay me as that it will be incumbent upon me to reply, and
shall confine myself to translating the “Odyssey” for English readers,
with such notes as I think will be found useful. Among these I would
especially call attention to one on xxii. 465-473 which Lord Grimthorpe
has kindly allowed me to make public.

I have repeated several of the illustrations used in “The Authoress of
the Odyssey”, and have added two which I hope may bring the outer court
of Ulysses’ house more vividly before the reader. I should like to
explain that the presence of a man and a dog in one illustration is
accidental, and was not observed by me till I developed the negative.
In an appendix I have also reprinted the paragraphs explanatory of the
plan of Ulysses’ house, together with the plan itself. The reader is
recommended to study this plan with some attention.

In the preface to my translation of the “Iliad” I have given my views
as to the main principles by which a translator should be guided, and
need not repeat them here, beyond pointing out that the initial liberty
of translating poetry into prose involves the continual taking of more
or less liberty throughout the translation; for much that is right in
poetry is wrong in prose, and the exigencies of readable prose are the
first things to be considered in a prose translation. That the reader,
however, may see how far I have departed from strict construe, I will
print here Messrs. Butcher and Lang’s translation of the sixty lines or
so of the “Odyssey.” Their translation runs:

Tell me, Muse, of that man, so ready at need, who wandered far and
wide, after he had sacked the sacred citadel of Troy, and many were the
men whose towns he saw and whose mind he learnt, yea, and many the woes
he suffered in his heart on the deep, striving to win his own life and
the return of his company. Nay, but even so he saved not his company,
though he desired it sore. For through the blindness of their own
hearts they perished, fools, who devoured the oxen of Helios Hyperion:
but the god took from them their day of returning. Of these things,
goddess, daughter of Zeus, whencesoever thou hast heard thereof,
declare thou even unto us.

    Now all the rest, as many as fled from sheer destruction, were at
    home, and had escaped both war and sea, but Odysseus only, craving
    for his wife and for his homeward path, the lady nymph Calypso
    held, that fair goddess, in her hollow caves, longing to have him
    for her lord. But when now the year had come in the courses of the
    seasons, wherein the gods had ordained that he should return home
    to Ithaca, not even there was he quit of labours, not even among
    his own; but all the gods had pity on him save Poseidon, who raged
    continually against godlike Odysseus, till he came to his own
    country. Howbeit Poseidon had now departed for the distant
    Ethiopians, the Ethiopians that are sundered in twain, the
    uttermost of men, abiding some where Hyperion sinks and some where
    he rises. There he looked to receive his hecatomb of bulls and
    rams, there he made merry sitting at the feast, but the other gods
    were gathered in the halls of Olympian Zeus. Then among them the
    father of men and gods began to speak, for he bethought him in his
    heart of noble Aegisthus, whom the son of Agamemnon, far-famed
    Orestes, slew. Thinking upon him he spake out among the Immortals:
    ‘Lo you now, how vainly mortal men do blame the gods! For of us
    they say comes evil, whereas they even of themselves, through the
    blindness of their own hearts, have sorrows beyond that which is
    ordained. Even as of late Aegisthus, beyond that which was
    ordained, took to him the wedded wife of the son of Atreus, and
    killed her lord on his return, and that with sheer doom before his
    eyes, since we had warned him by the embassy of Hermes the
    keen-sighted, the slayer of Argos, that he should neither kill the
    man, nor woo his wife. For the son of Atreus shall be avenged at
    the hand of Orestes, so soon as he shall come to man’s estate and
    long for his own country. So spake Hermes, yet he prevailed not on
    the heart of Aegisthus, for all his good will; but now hath he paid
    one price for all.’

    And the goddess, grey-eyed Athene, answered him, saying: ‘O father,
    our father Cronides, throned in the highest; that man assuredly
    lies in a death that is his due; so perish likewise all who work
    such deeds! But my heart is rent for wise Odysseus, the hapless
    one, who far from his friends this long while suffereth affliction
    in a sea-girt isle, where is the navel of the sea, a woodland isle,
    and therein a goddess hath her habitation, the daughter of the
    wizard Atlas, who knows the depths of every sea, and himself
    upholds the tall pillars which keep earth and sky asunder. His
    daughter it is that holds the hapless man in sorrow: and ever with
    soft and guileful tales she is wooing him to forgetfulness of
    Ithaca. But Odysseus yearning to see if it were but the smoke leap
    upwards from his own land, hath a desire to die. As for thee, thine
    heart regardeth it not at all, Olympian! What! Did not Odysseus by
    the ships of the Argives make thee free offering of sacrifice in
    the wide Trojan land? Wherefore wast thou then so wroth with him, O
    Zeus?’


The “Odyssey” (as every one knows) abounds in passages borrowed from
the “Iliad”; I had wished to print these in a slightly different type,
with marginal references to the “Iliad,” and had marked them to this
end in my MS. I found, however, that the translation would be thus
hopelessly scholasticised, and abandoned my intention. I would
nevertheless urge on those who have the management of our University
presses, that they would render a great service to students if they
would publish a Greek text of the “Odyssey” with the Iliadic passages
printed in a different type, and with marginal references. I have given
the British Museum a copy of the “Odyssey” with the Iliadic passages
underlined and referred to in MS.; I have also given an “Iliad” marked
with all the Odyssean passages, and their references; but copies of
both the “Iliad” and “Odyssey” so marked ought to be within easy reach
of all students.

Any one who at the present day discusses the questions that have arisen
round the “Iliad” since Wolf’s time, without keeping it well before his
reader’s mind that the “Odyssey” was demonstrably written from one
single neighbourhood, and hence (even though nothing else pointed to
this conclusion) presumably by one person only—that it was written
certainly before 750, and in all probability before 1000 B.C.—that the
writer of this very early poem was demonstrably familiar with the
“Iliad” as we now have it, borrowing as freely from those books whose
genuineness has been most impugned, as from those which are admitted to
be by Homer—any one who fails to keep these points before his readers,
is hardly dealing equitably by them. Any one on the other hand, who
will mark his “Iliad” and his “Odyssey” from the copies in the British
Museum above referred to, and who will draw the only inference that
common sense can draw from the presence of so many identical passages
in both poems, will, I believe, find no difficulty in assigning their
proper value to a large number of books here and on the Continent that
at present enjoy considerable reputations. Furthermore, and this
perhaps is an advantage better worth securing, he will find that many
puzzles of the “Odyssey” cease to puzzle him on the discovery that they
arise from over-saturation with the “Iliad.”

Other difficulties will also disappear as soon as the development of
the poem in the writer’s mind is understood. I have dealt with this at
some length in pp. 251-261 of “The Authoress of the Odyssey”. Briefly,
the “Odyssey” consists of two distinct poems: (1) The Return of
Ulysses, which alone the Muse is asked to sing in the opening lines of
the poem. This poem includes the Phaeacian episode, and the account of
Ulysses’ adventures as told by himself in Books ix.-xii. It consists of
lines 1-79 (roughly) of Book i., of line 28 of Book v., and thence
without intermission to the middle of line 187 of Book xiii., at which
point the original scheme was abandoned.

(2) The story of Penelope and the suitors, with the episode of
Telemachus’ voyage to Pylos. This poem begins with line 80 (roughly) of
Book i., is continued to the end of Book iv., and not resumed till
Ulysses wakes in the middle of line 187, Book xiii., from whence it
continues to the end of Book xxiv.

In “The Authoress of the Odyssey”, I wrote:

the introduction of lines xi., 115-137 and of line ix., 535, with the
writing a new council of the gods at the beginning of Book v., to take
the place of the one that was removed to Book i., 1-79, were the only
things that were done to give even a semblance of unity to the old
scheme and the new, and to conceal the fact that the Muse, after being
asked to sing of one subject, spend two-thirds of her time in singing a
very different one, with a climax for which no-one has asked her. For
roughly the Return occupies eight Books, and Penelope and the Suitors
sixteen.


I believe this to be substantially correct.

Lastly, to deal with a very unimportant point, I observe that the
Leipsic Teubner edition of 894 makes Books ii. and iii. end with a
comma. Stops are things of such far more recent date than the
“Odyssey,” that there does not seem much use in adhering to the text in
so small a matter; still, from a spirit of mere conservatism, I have
preferred to do so. Why [Greek] at the beginnings of Books ii. and
viii., and [Greek], at the beginning of Book vii. should have initial
capitals in an edition far too careful to admit a supposition of
inadvertence, when [Greek] at the beginning of Books vi. and xiii., and
[Greek] at the beginning of Book xvii. have no initial capitals, I
cannot determine. No other Books of the “Odyssey” have initial capitals
except the three mentioned unless the first word of the Book is a
proper name.

S. BUTLER.


_July_ 25, 1900.




PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION


Butler’s Translation of the “Odyssey” appeared originally in 1900, and
The Authoress of the Odyssey in 1897. In the preface to the new edition
of “The Authoress”, which is published simultaneously with this new
edition of the Translation, I have given some account of the genesis of
the two books.

The size of the original page has been reduced so as to make both books
uniform with Butler’s other works; and, fortunately, it has been
possible, by using a smaller type, to get the same number of words into
each page, so that the references remain good, and, with the exception
of a few minor alterations and rearrangements now to be enumerated so
far as they affect the Translation, the new editions are faithful
reprints of the original editions, with misprints and obvious errors
corrected—no attempt having been made to edit them or to bring them up
to date.

(a) The Index has been revised.

(b) Owing to the reduction in the size of the page it has been
necessary to shorten some of the headlines, and here advantage has been
taken of various corrections of and additions to the headlines and
shoulder-notes made by Butler in his own copies of the two books.

(c) For the most part each of the illustrations now occupies a page,
whereas in the original editions they generally appeared two on the
page. It has been necessary to reduce the plan of the House of Ulysses.

On page 153 of “The Authoress” Butler says: “No great poet would
compare his hero to a paunch full of blood and fat, cooking before the
fire (xx, 24-28).” This passage is not given in the abridged Story of
the “Odyssey” at the beginning of the book, but in the Translation it
occurs in these words:

“Thus he chided with his heart, and checked it into endurance, but he
tossed about as one who turns a paunch full of blood and fat in front
of a hot fire, doing it first on one side then on the other, that he
may get it cooked as soon as possible; even so did he turn himself
about from side to side, thinking all the time how, single-handed as he
was, he should contrive to kill so large a body of men as the wicked
suitors.”

It looks as though in the interval between the publication of “The
Authoress” (1897) and of the Translation (1900) Butler had changed his
mind; for in the first case the comparison is between Ulysses and a
paunch full, etc., and in the second it is between Ulysses and a man
who turns a paunch full, etc. The second comparison is perhaps one
which a great poet might make.

In seeing the works through the press I have had the invaluable
assistance of Mr. A. T. Bartholomew of the University Library,
Cambridge, and of Mr. Donald S. Robertson, Fellow of Trinity College,
Cambridge. To both these friends I give my most cordial thanks for the
care and skill exercised by them. Mr. Robertson has found time for the
labour of checking and correcting all the quotations from and
references to the “Iliad” and “Odyssey,” and I believe that it could
not have been better performed. It was, I know, a pleasure for him; and
it would have been a pleasure also for Butler if he could have known
that his work was being shepherded by the son of his old friend, Mr. H.
R. Robertson, who more than half a century ago was a fellow-student
with him at Cary’s School of Art in Streatham Street, Bloomsbury.

HENRY FESTING JONES.

 120 MAIDA VALE, W.9.
4th _December_, 1921.

THE ODYSSEY




BOOK I


THE GODS IN COUNCIL—MINERVA’S VISIT TO ITHACA—THE CHALLENGE FROM
TELEMACHUS TO THE SUITORS.


Tell me, O Muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide
after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit,
and many were the nations with whose manners and customs he was
acquainted; moreover he suffered much by sea while trying to save his
own life and bring his men safely home; but do what he might he could
not save his men, for they perished through their own sheer folly in
eating the cattle of the Sun-god Hyperion; so the god prevented them
from ever reaching home. Tell me, too, about all these things, oh
daughter of Jove, from whatsoever source you may know them.

So now all who escaped death in battle or by shipwreck had got safely
home except Ulysses, and he, though he was longing to return to his
wife and country, was detained by the goddess Calypso, who had got him
into a large cave and wanted to marry him. But as years went by, there
came a time when the gods settled that he should go back to Ithaca;
even then, however, when he was among his own people, his troubles were
not yet over; nevertheless all the gods had now begun to pity him
except Neptune, who still persecuted him without ceasing and would not
let him get home.

Now Neptune had gone off to the Ethiopians, who are at the world’s end,
and lie in two halves, the one looking West and the other East.1 He had
gone there to accept a hecatomb of sheep and oxen, and was enjoying
himself at his festival; but the other gods met in the house of
Olympian Jove, and the sire of gods and men spoke first. At that moment
he was thinking of Aegisthus, who had been killed by Agamemnon’s son
Orestes; so he said to the other gods:

“See now, how men lay blame upon us gods for what is after all nothing
but their own folly. Look at Aegisthus; he must needs make love to
Agamemnon’s wife unrighteously and then kill Agamemnon, though he knew
it would be the death of him; for I sent Mercury to warn him not to do
either of these things, inasmuch as Orestes would be sure to take his
revenge when he grew up and wanted to return home. Mercury told him
this in all good will but he would not listen, and now he has paid for
everything in full.”

Then Minerva said, “Father, son of Saturn, King of kings, it served
Aegisthus right, and so it would any one else who does as he did; but
Aegisthus is neither here nor there; it is for Ulysses that my heart
bleeds, when I think of his sufferings in that lonely sea-girt island,
far away, poor man, from all his friends. It is an island covered with
forest, in the very middle of the sea, and a goddess lives there,
daughter of the magician Atlas, who looks after the bottom of the
ocean, and carries the great columns that keep heaven and earth
asunder. This daughter of Atlas has got hold of poor unhappy Ulysses,
and keeps trying by every kind of blandishment to make him forget his
home, so that he is tired of life, and thinks of nothing but how he may
once more see the smoke of his own chimneys. You, sir, take no heed of
this, and yet when Ulysses was before Troy did he not propitiate you
with many a burnt sacrifice? Why then should you keep on being so angry
with him?”

And Jove said, “My child, what are you talking about? How can I forget
Ulysses than whom there is no more capable man on earth, nor more
liberal in his offerings to the immortal gods that live in heaven? Bear
in mind, however, that Neptune is still furious with Ulysses for having
blinded an eye of Polyphemus king of the Cyclopes. Polyphemus is son to
Neptune by the nymph Thoosa, daughter to the sea-king Phorcys;
therefore though he will not kill Ulysses outright, he torments him by
preventing him from getting home. Still, let us lay our heads together
and see how we can help him to return; Neptune will then be pacified,
for if we are all of a mind he can hardly stand out against us.”

And Minerva said, “Father, son of Saturn, King of kings, if, then, the
gods now mean that Ulysses should get home, we should first send
Mercury to the Ogygian island to tell Calypso that we have made up our
minds and that he is to return. In the meantime I will go to Ithaca, to
put heart into Ulysses’ son Telemachus; I will embolden him to call the
Achaeans in assembly, and speak out to the suitors of his mother
Penelope, who persist in eating up any number of his sheep and oxen; I
will also conduct him to Sparta and to Pylos, to see if he can hear
anything about the return of his dear father—for this will make people
speak well of him.”

So saying she bound on her glittering golden sandals, imperishable,
with which she can fly like the wind over land or sea; she grasped the
redoubtable bronze-shod spear, so stout and sturdy and strong,
wherewith she quells the ranks of heroes who have displeased her, and
down she darted from the topmost summits of Olympus, whereon forthwith
she was in Ithaca, at the gateway of Ulysses’ house, disguised as a
visitor, Mentes, chief of the Taphians, and she held a bronze spear in
her hand. There she found the lordly suitors seated on hides of the
oxen which they had killed and eaten, and playing draughts in front of
the house. Men-servants and pages were bustling about to wait upon
them, some mixing wine with water in the mixing-bowls, some cleaning
down the tables with wet sponges and laying them out again, and some
cutting up great quantities of meat.

Telemachus saw her long before any one else did. He was sitting moodily
among the suitors thinking about his brave father, and how he would
send them flying out of the house, if he were to come to his own again
and be honoured as in days gone by. Thus brooding as he sat among them,
he caught sight of Minerva and went straight to the gate, for he was
vexed that a stranger should be kept waiting for admittance. He took
her right hand in his own, and bade her give him her spear. “Welcome,”
said he, “to our house, and when you have partaken of food you shall
tell us what you have come for.”

He led the way as he spoke, and Minerva followed him. When they were
within he took her spear and set it in the spear-stand against a strong
bearing-post along with the many other spears of his unhappy father,
and he conducted her to a richly decorated seat under which he threw a
cloth of damask. There was a footstool also for her feet,2 and he set
another seat near her for himself, away from the suitors, that she
might not be annoyed while eating by their noise and insolence, and
that he might ask her more freely about his father.

A maid servant then brought them water in a beautiful golden ewer and
poured it into a silver basin for them to wash their hands, and she
drew a clean table beside them. An upper servant brought them bread,
and offered them many good things of what there was in the house, the
carver fetched them plates of all manner of meats and set cups of gold
by their side, and a manservant brought them wine and poured it out for
them.


Then the suitors came in and took their places on the benches and
seats.3 Forthwith men servants poured water over their hands, maids
went round with the bread-baskets, pages filled the mixing-bowls with
wine and water, and they laid their hands upon the good things that
were before them. As soon as they had had enough to eat and drink they
wanted music and dancing, which are the crowning embellishments of a
banquet, so a servant brought a lyre to Phemius, whom they compelled
perforce to sing to them. As soon as he touched his lyre and began to
sing Telemachus spoke low to Minerva, with his head close to hers that
no man might hear.

“I hope, sir,” said he, “that you will not be offended with what I am
going to say. Singing comes cheap to those who do not pay for it, and
all this is done at the cost of one whose bones lie rotting in some
wilderness or grinding to powder in the surf. If these men were to see
my father come back to Ithaca they would pray for longer legs rather
than a longer purse, for money would not serve them; but he, alas, has
fallen on an ill fate, and even when people do sometimes say that he is
coming, we no longer heed them; we shall never see him again. And now,
sir, tell me and tell me true, who you are and where you come from.
Tell me of your town and parents, what manner of ship you came in, how
your crew brought you to Ithaca, and of what nation they declared
themselves to be—for you cannot have come by land. Tell me also truly,
for I want to know, are you a stranger to this house, or have you been
here in my father’s time? In the old days we had many visitors for my
father went about much himself.”

And Minerva answered, “I will tell you truly and particularly all about
it. I am Mentes, son of Anchialus, and I am King of the Taphians. I
have come here with my ship and crew, on a voyage to men of a foreign
tongue being bound for Temesa4 with a cargo of iron, and I shall bring
back copper. As for my ship, it lies over yonder off the open country
away from the town, in the harbour Rheithron5 under the wooded mountain
Neritum.6 Our fathers were friends before us, as old Laertes will tell
you, if you will go and ask him. They say, however, that he never comes
to town now, and lives by himself in the country, faring hardly, with
an old woman to look after him and get his dinner for him, when he
comes in tired from pottering about his vineyard. They told me your
father was at home again, and that was why I came, but it seems the
gods are still keeping him back, for he is not dead yet not on the
mainland. It is more likely he is on some sea-girt island in mid ocean,
or a prisoner among savages who are detaining him against his will. I
am no prophet, and know very little about omens, but I speak as it is
borne in upon me from heaven, and assure you that he will not be away
much longer; for he is a man of such resource that even though he were
in chains of iron he would find some means of getting home again. But
tell me, and tell me true, can Ulysses really have such a fine looking
fellow for a son? You are indeed wonderfully like him about the head
and eyes, for we were close friends before he set sail for Troy where
the flower of all the Argives went also. Since that time we have never
either of us seen the other.”

“My mother,” answered Telemachus, “tells me I am son to Ulysses, but it
is a wise child that knows his own father. Would that I were son to one
who had grown old upon his own estates, for, since you ask me, there is
no more ill-starred man under heaven than he who they tell me is my
father.”

And Minerva said, “There is no fear of your race dying out yet, while
Penelope has such a fine son as you are. But tell me, and tell me true,
what is the meaning of all this feasting, and who are these people?
What is it all about? Have you some banquet, or is there a wedding in
the family—for no one seems to be bringing any provisions of his own?
And the guests—how atrociously they are behaving; what riot they make
over the whole house; it is enough to disgust any respectable person
who comes near them.”

“Sir,” said Telemachus, “as regards your question, so long as my father
was here it was well with us and with the house, but the gods in their
displeasure have willed it otherwise, and have hidden him away more
closely than mortal man was ever yet hidden. I could have borne it
better even though he were dead, if he had fallen with his men before
Troy, or had died with friends around him when the days of his fighting
were done; for then the Achaeans would have built a mound over his
ashes, and I should myself have been heir to his renown; but now the
storm-winds have spirited him away we know not whither; he is gone
without leaving so much as a trace behind him, and I inherit nothing
but dismay. Nor does the matter end simply with grief for the loss of
my father; heaven has laid sorrows upon me of yet another kind; for the
chiefs from all our islands, Dulichium, Same, and the woodland island
of Zacynthus, as also all the principal men of Ithaca itself, are
eating up my house under the pretext of paying their court to my
mother, who will neither point blank say that she will not marry,7 nor
yet bring matters to an end; so they are making havoc of my estate, and
before long will do so also with myself.”

“Is that so?” exclaimed Minerva, “then you do indeed want Ulysses home
again. Give him his helmet, shield, and a couple of lances, and if he
is the man he was when I first knew him in our house, drinking and
making merry, he would soon lay his hands about these rascally suitors,
were he to stand once more upon his own threshold. He was then coming
from Ephyra, where he had been to beg poison for his arrows from Ilus,
son of Mermerus. Ilus feared the ever-living gods and would not give
him any, but my father let him have some, for he was very fond of him.
If Ulysses is the man he then was these suitors will have a short
shrift and a sorry wedding.

“But there! It rests with heaven to determine whether he is to return,
and take his revenge in his own house or no; I would, however, urge you
to set about trying to get rid of these suitors at once. Take my
advice, call the Achaean heroes in assembly to-morrow morning—lay your
case before them, and call heaven to bear you witness. Bid the suitors
take themselves off, each to his own place, and if your mother’s mind
is set on marrying again, let her go back to her father, who will find
her a husband and provide her with all the marriage gifts that so dear
a daughter may expect. As for yourself, let me prevail upon you to take
the best ship you can get, with a crew of twenty men, and go in quest
of your father who has so long been missing. Some one may tell you
something, or (and people often hear things in this way) some
heaven-sent message may direct you. First go to Pylos and ask Nestor;
thence go on to Sparta and visit Menelaus, for he got home last of all
the Achaeans; if you hear that your father is alive and on his way
home, you can put up with the waste these suitors will make for yet
another twelve months. If on the other hand you hear of his death, come
home at once, celebrate his funeral rites with all due pomp, build a
barrow to his memory, and make your mother marry again. Then, having
done all this, think it well over in your mind how, by fair means or
foul, you may kill these suitors in your own house. You are too old to
plead infancy any longer; have you not heard how people are singing
Orestes’ praises for having killed his father’s murderer Aegisthus? You
are a fine, smart looking fellow; show your mettle, then, and make
yourself a name in story. Now, however, I must go back to my ship and
to my crew, who will be impatient if I keep them waiting longer; think
the matter over for yourself, and remember what I have said to you.”

“Sir,” answered Telemachus, “it has been very kind of you to talk to me
in this way, as though I were your own son, and I will do all you tell
me; I know you want to be getting on with your voyage, but stay a
little longer till you have taken a bath and refreshed yourself. I will
then give you a present, and you shall go on your way rejoicing; I will
give you one of great beauty and value—a keepsake such as only dear
friends give to one another.”

Minerva answered, “Do not try to keep me, for I would be on my way at
once. As for any present you may be disposed to make me, keep it till I
come again, and I will take it home with me. You shall give me a very
good one, and I will give you one of no less value in return.”

With these words she flew away like a bird into the air, but she had
given Telemachus courage, and had made him think more than ever about
his father. He felt the change, wondered at it, and knew that the
stranger had been a god, so he went straight to where the suitors were
sitting.

Phemius was still singing, and his hearers sat rapt in silence as he
told the sad tale of the return from Troy, and the ills Minerva had
laid upon the Achaeans. Penelope, daughter of Icarius, heard his song
from her room upstairs, and came down by the great staircase, not
alone, but attended by two of her handmaids. When she reached the
suitors she stood by one of the bearing posts that supported the roof
of the cloisters8 with a staid maiden on either side of her. She held a
veil, moreover, before her face, and was weeping bitterly.

“Phemius,” she cried, “you know many another feat of gods and heroes,
such as poets love to celebrate. Sing the suitors some one of these,
and let them drink their wine in silence, but cease this sad tale, for
it breaks my sorrowful heart, and reminds me of my lost husband whom I
mourn ever without ceasing, and whose name was great over all Hellas
and middle Argos.”9

“Mother,” answered Telemachus, “let the bard sing what he has a mind
to; bards do not make the ills they sing of; it is Jove, not they, who
makes them, and who sends weal or woe upon mankind according to his own
good pleasure. This fellow means no harm by singing the ill-fated
return of the Danaans, for people always applaud the latest songs most
warmly. Make up your mind to it and bear it; Ulysses is not the only
man who never came back from Troy, but many another went down as well
as he. Go, then, within the house and busy yourself with your daily
duties, your loom, your distaff, and the ordering of your servants; for
speech is man’s matter, and mine above all others 10—for it is I who am
master here.”

She went wondering back into the house, and laid her son’s saying in
her heart. Then, going upstairs with her handmaids into her room, she
mourned her dear husband till Minerva shed sweet sleep over her eyes.
But the suitors were clamorous throughout the covered cloisters11, and
prayed each one that he might be her bed fellow.

Then Telemachus spoke, “Shameless,” he cried, “and insolent suitors,
let us feast at our pleasure now, and let there be no brawling, for it
is a rare thing to hear a man with such a divine voice as Phemius has;
but in the morning meet me in full assembly that I may give you formal
notice to depart, and feast at one another’s houses, turn and turn
about, at your own cost. If on the other hand you choose to persist in
spunging upon one man, heaven help me, but Jove shall reckon with you
in full, and when you fall in my father’s house there shall be no man
to avenge you.”

The suitors bit their lips as they heard him, and marvelled at the
boldness of his speech. Then, Antinous, son of Eupeithes, said, “The
gods seem to have given you lessons in bluster and tall talking; may
Jove never grant you to be chief in Ithaca as your father was before
you.”

Telemachus answered, “Antinous, do not chide with me, but, god willing,
I will be chief too if I can. Is this the worst fate you can think of
for me? It is no bad thing to be a chief, for it brings both riches and
honour. Still, now that Ulysses is dead there are many great men in
Ithaca both old and young, and some other may take the lead among them;
nevertheless I will be chief in my own house, and will rule those whom
Ulysses has won for me.”

Then Eurymachus, son of Polybus, answered, “It rests with heaven to
decide who shall be chief among us, but you shall be master in your own
house and over your own possessions; no one while there is a man in
Ithaca shall do you violence nor rob you. And now, my good fellow, I
want to know about this stranger. What country does he come from? Of
what family is he, and where is his estate? Has he brought you news
about the return of your father, or was he on business of his own? He
seemed a well to do man, but he hurried off so suddenly that he was
gone in a moment before we could get to know him.”

“My father is dead and gone,” answered Telemachus, “and even if some
rumour reaches me I put no more faith in it now. My mother does indeed
sometimes send for a soothsayer and question him, but I give his
prophecyings no heed. As for the stranger, he was Mentes, son of
Anchialus, chief of the Taphians, an old friend of my father’s.” But in
his heart he knew that it had been the goddess.

The suitors then returned to their singing and dancing until the
evening; but when night fell upon their pleasuring they went home to
bed each in his own abode.12 Telemachus’s room was high up in a tower13
that looked on to the outer court; hither, then, he hied, brooding and
full of thought. A good old woman, Euryclea, daughter of Ops, the son
of Pisenor, went before him with a couple of blazing torches. Laertes
had bought her with his own money when she was quite young; he gave the
worth of twenty oxen for her, and shewed as much respect to her in his
household as he did to his own wedded wife, but he did not take her to
his bed for he feared his wife’s resentment.14 She it was who now
lighted Telemachus to his room, and she loved him better than any of
the other women in the house did, for she had nursed him when he was a
baby. He opened the door of his bed room and sat down upon the bed; as
he took off his shirt15 he gave it to the good old woman, who folded it
tidily up, and hung it for him over a peg by his bed side, after which
she went out, pulled the door to by a silver catch, and drew the bolt
home by means of the strap.16 But Telemachus as he lay covered with a
woollen fleece kept thinking all night through of his intended voyage
and of the counsel that Minerva had given him.




BOOK II


ASSEMBLY OF THE PEOPLE OF ITHACA—SPEECHES OF TELEMACHUS AND OF THE
SUITORS—TELEMACHUS MAKES HIS PREPARATIONS AND STARTS FOR PYLOS WITH
MINERVA DISGUISED AS MENTOR.


Now when the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared Telemachus
rose and dressed himself. He bound his sandals on to his comely feet,
girded his sword about his shoulder, and left his room looking like an
immortal god. He at once sent the criers round to call the people in
assembly, so they called them and the people gathered thereon; then,
when they were got together, he went to the place of assembly spear in
hand—not alone, for his two hounds went with him. Minerva endowed him
with a presence of such divine comeliness that all marvelled at him as
he went by, and when he took his place in his father’s seat even the
oldest councillors made way for him.

Aegyptius, a man bent double with age, and of infinite experience, was
the first to speak. His son Antiphus had gone with Ulysses to Ilius,
land of noble steeds, but the savage Cyclops had killed him when they
were all shut up in the cave, and had cooked his last dinner for him.17
He had three sons left, of whom two still worked on their father’s
land, while the third, Eurynomus, was one of the suitors; nevertheless
their father could not get over the loss of Antiphus, and was still
weeping for him when he began his speech.

“Men of Ithaca,” he said, “hear my words. From the day Ulysses left us
there has been no meeting of our councillors until now; who then can it
be, whether old or young, that finds it so necessary to convene us? Has
he got wind of some host approaching, and does he wish to warn us, or
would he speak upon some other matter of public moment? I am sure he is
an excellent person, and I hope Jove will grant him his heart’s
desire.”

Telemachus took this speech as of good omen and rose at once, for he
was bursting with what he had to say. He stood in the middle of the
assembly and the good herald Pisenor brought him his staff. Then,
turning to Aegyptius, “Sir,” said he, “it is I, as you will shortly
learn, who have convened you, for it is I who am the most aggrieved. I
have not got wind of any host approaching about which I would warn you,
nor is there any matter of public moment on which I would speak. My
grievance is purely personal, and turns on two great misfortunes which
have fallen upon my house. The first of these is the loss of my
excellent father, who was chief among all you here present, and was
like a father to every one of you; the second is much more serious, and
ere long will be the utter ruin of my estate. The sons of all the chief
men among you are pestering my mother to marry them against her will.
They are afraid to go to her father Icarius, asking him to choose the
one he likes best, and to provide marriage gifts for his daughter, but
day by day they keep hanging about my father’s house, sacrificing our
oxen, sheep, and fat goats for their banquets, and never giving so much
as a thought to the quantity of wine they drink. No estate can stand
such recklessness; we have now no Ulysses to ward off harm from our
doors, and I cannot hold my own against them. I shall never all my days
be as good a man as he was, still I would indeed defend myself if I had
power to do so, for I cannot stand such treatment any longer; my house
is being disgraced and ruined. Have respect, therefore, to your own
consciences and to public opinion. Fear, too, the wrath of heaven, lest
the gods should be displeased and turn upon you. I pray you by Jove and
Themis, who is the beginning and the end of councils, [do not] hold
back, my friends, and leave me singlehanded18—unless it be that my
brave father Ulysses did some wrong to the Achaeans which you would now
avenge on me, by aiding and abetting these suitors. Moreover, if I am
to be eaten out of house and home at all, I had rather you did the
eating yourselves, for I could then take action against you to some
purpose, and serve you with notices from house to house till I got paid
in full, whereas now I have no remedy.”19

With this Telemachus dashed his staff to the ground and burst into
tears. Every one was very sorry for him, but they all sat still and no
one ventured to make him an angry answer, save only Antinous, who spoke
thus:

“Telemachus, insolent braggart that you are, how dare you try to throw
the blame upon us suitors? It is your mother’s fault not ours, for she
is a very artful woman. This three years past, and close on four, she
had been driving us out of our minds, by encouraging each one of us,
and sending him messages without meaning one word of what she says. And
then there was that other trick she played us. She set up a great
tambour frame in her room, and began to work on an enormous piece of
fine needlework. ‘Sweet hearts,’ said she, ‘Ulysses is indeed dead,
still do not press me to marry again immediately, wait—for I would not
have skill in needlework perish unrecorded—till I have completed a pall
for the hero Laertes, to be in readiness against the time when death
shall take him. He is very rich, and the women of the place will talk
if he is laid out without a pall.’

“This was what she said, and we assented; whereon we could see her
working on her great web all day long, but at night she would unpick
the stitches again by torchlight. She fooled us in this way for three
years and we never found her out, but as time wore on and she was now
in her fourth year, one of her maids who knew what she was doing told
us, and we caught her in the act of undoing her work, so she had to
finish it whether she would or no. The suitors, therefore, make you
this answer, that both you and the Achaeans may understand—‘Send your
mother away, and bid her marry the man of her own and of her father’s
choice’; for I do not know what will happen if she goes on plaguing us
much longer with the airs she gives herself on the score of the
accomplishments Minerva has taught her, and because she is so clever.
We never yet heard of such a woman; we know all about Tyro, Alcmena,
Mycene, and the famous women of old, but they were nothing to your
mother any one of them. It was not fair of her to treat us in that way,
and as long as she continues in the mind with which heaven has now
endowed her, so long shall we go on eating up your estate; and I do not
see why she should change, for she gets all the honour and glory, and
it is you who pay for it, not she. Understand, then, that we will not
go back to our lands, neither here nor elsewhere, till she has made her
choice and married some one or other of us.”

Telemachus answered, “Antinous, how can I drive the mother who bore me
from my father’s house? My father is abroad and we do not know whether
he is alive or dead. It will be hard on me if I have to pay Icarius the
large sum which I must give him if I insist on sending his daughter
back to him. Not only will he deal rigorously with me, but heaven will
also punish me; for my mother when she leaves the house will call on
the Erinyes to avenge her; besides, it would not be a creditable thing
to do, and I will have nothing to say to it. If you choose to take
offence at this, leave the house and feast elsewhere at one another’s
houses at your own cost turn and turn about. If, on the other hand, you
elect to persist in spunging upon one man, heaven help me, but Jove
shall reckon with you in full, and when you fall in my father’s house
there shall be no man to avenge you.”

As he spoke Jove sent two eagles from the top of the mountain, and they
flew on and on with the wind, sailing side by side in their own lordly
flight. When they were right over the middle of the assembly they
wheeled and circled about, beating the air with their wings and glaring
death into the eyes of them that were below; then, fighting fiercely
and tearing at one another, they flew off towards the right over the
town. The people wondered as they saw them, and asked each other what
all this might be; whereon Halitherses, who was the best prophet and
reader of omens among them, spoke to them plainly and in all honesty,
saying:

“Hear me, men of Ithaca, and I speak more particularly to the suitors,
for I see mischief brewing for them. Ulysses is not going to be away
much longer; indeed he is close at hand to deal out death and
destruction, not on them alone, but on many another of us who live in
Ithaca. Let us then be wise in time, and put a stop to this wickedness
before he comes. Let the suitors do so of their own accord; it will be
better for them, for I am not prophesying without due knowledge;
everything has happened to Ulysses as I foretold when the Argives set
out for Troy, and he with them. I said that after going through much
hardship and losing all his men he should come home again in the
twentieth year and that no one would know him; and now all this is
coming true.”

Eurymachus son of Polybus then said, “Go home, old man, and prophesy to
your own children, or it may be worse for them. I can read these omens
myself much better than you can; birds are always flying about in the
sunshine somewhere or other, but they seldom mean anything. Ulysses has
died in a far country, and it is a pity you are not dead along with
him, instead of prating here about omens and adding fuel to the anger
of Telemachus which is fierce enough as it is. I suppose you think he
will give you something for your family, but I tell you—and it shall
surely be—when an old man like you, who should know better, talks a
young one over till he becomes troublesome, in the first place his
young friend will only fare so much the worse—he will take nothing by
it, for the suitors will prevent this—and in the next, we will lay a
heavier fine, sir, upon yourself than you will at all like paying, for
it will bear hardly upon you. As for Telemachus, I warn him in the
presence of you all to send his mother back to her father, who will
find her a husband and provide her with all the marriage gifts so dear
a daughter may expect. Till then we shall go on harassing him with our
suit; for we fear no man, and care neither for him, with all his fine
speeches, nor for any fortune-telling of yours. You may preach as much
as you please, but we shall only hate you the more. We shall go back
and continue to eat up Telemachus’s estate without paying him, till
such time as his mother leaves off tormenting us by keeping us day
after day on the tiptoe of expectation, each vying with the other in
his suit for a prize of such rare perfection. Besides we cannot go
after the other women whom we should marry in due course, but for the
way in which she treats us.”

Then Telemachus said, “Eurymachus, and you other suitors, I shall say
no more, and entreat you no further, for the gods and the people of
Ithaca now know my story. Give me, then, a ship and a crew of twenty
men to take me hither and thither, and I will go to Sparta and to Pylos
in quest of my father who has so long been missing. Some one may tell
me something, or (and people often hear things in this way) some
heaven-sent message may direct me. If I can hear of him as alive and on
his way home I will put up with the waste you suitors will make for yet
another twelve months. If on the other hand I hear of his death, I will
return at once, celebrate his funeral rites with all due pomp, build a
barrow to his memory, and make my mother marry again.”

With these words he sat down, and Mentor20 who had been a friend of
Ulysses, and had been left in charge of everything with full authority
over the servants, rose to speak. He, then, plainly and in all honesty
addressed them thus:

“Hear me, men of Ithaca, I hope that you may never have a kind and
well-disposed ruler any more, nor one who will govern you equitably; I
hope that all your chiefs henceforward may be cruel and unjust, for
there is not one of you but has forgotten Ulysses, who ruled you as
though he were your father. I am not half so angry with the suitors,
for if they choose to do violence in the naughtiness of their hearts,
and wager their heads that Ulysses will not return, they can take the
high hand and eat up his estate, but as for you others I am shocked at
the way in which you all sit still without even trying to stop such
scandalous goings on—which you could do if you chose, for you are many
and they are few.”

Leiocritus, son of Evenor, answered him saying, “Mentor, what folly is
all this, that you should set the people to stay us? It is a hard thing
for one man to fight with many about his victuals. Even though Ulysses
himself were to set upon us while we are feasting in his house, and do
his best to oust us, his wife, who wants him back so very badly, would
have small cause for rejoicing, and his blood would be upon his own
head if he fought against such great odds. There is no sense in what
you have been saying. Now, therefore, do you people go about your
business, and let his father’s old friends, Mentor and Halitherses,
speed this boy on his journey, if he goes at all—which I do not think
he will, for he is more likely to stay where he is till some one comes
and tells him something.”

On this he broke up the assembly, and every man went back to his own
abode, while the suitors returned to the house of Ulysses.

Then Telemachus went all alone by the sea side, washed his hands in the
grey waves, and prayed to Minerva.

“Hear me,” he cried, “you god who visited me yesterday, and bade me
sail the seas in search of my father who has so long been missing. I
would obey you, but the Achaeans, and more particularly the wicked
suitors, are hindering me that I cannot do so.”

As he thus prayed, Minerva came close up to him in the likeness and
with the voice of Mentor. “Telemachus,” said she, “if you are made of
the same stuff as your father you will be neither fool nor coward
henceforward, for Ulysses never broke his word nor left his work half
done. If, then, you take after him, your voyage will not be fruitless,
but unless you have the blood of Ulysses and of Penelope in your veins
I see no likelihood of your succeeding. Sons are seldom as good men as
their fathers; they are generally worse, not better; still, as you are
not going to be either fool or coward henceforward, and are not
entirely without some share of your father’s wise discernment, I look
with hope upon your undertaking. But mind you never make common cause
with any of those foolish suitors, for they have neither sense nor
virtue, and give no thought to death and to the doom that will shortly
fall on one and all of them, so that they shall perish on the same day.
As for your voyage, it shall not be long delayed; your father was such
an old friend of mine that I will find you a ship, and will come with
you myself. Now, however, return home, and go about among the suitors;
begin getting provisions ready for your voyage; see everything well
stowed, the wine in jars, and the barley meal, which is the staff of
life, in leathern bags, while I go round the town and beat up
volunteers at once. There are many ships in Ithaca both old and new; I
will run my eye over them for you and will choose the best; we will get
her ready and will put out to sea without delay.”

Thus spoke Minerva daughter of Jove, and Telemachus lost no time in
doing as the goddess told him. He went moodily home, and found the
suitors flaying goats and singeing pigs in the outer court. Antinous
came up to him at once and laughed as he took his hand in his own,
saying, “Telemachus, my fine fire-eater, bear no more ill blood neither
in word nor deed, but eat and drink with us as you used to do. The
Achaeans will find you in everything—a ship and a picked crew to
boot—so that you can set sail for Pylos at once and get news of your
noble father.”

“Antinous,” answered Telemachus, “I cannot eat in peace, nor take
pleasure of any kind with such men as you are. Was it not enough that
you should waste so much good property of mine while I was yet a boy?
Now that I am older and know more about it, I am also stronger, and
whether here among this people, or by going to Pylos, I will do you all
the harm I can. I shall go, and my going will not be in vain—though,
thanks to you suitors, I have neither ship nor crew of my own, and must
be passenger not captain.”

As he spoke he snatched his hand from that of Antinous. Meanwhile the
others went on getting dinner ready about the buildings,21 jeering at
him tauntingly as they did so.

“Telemachus,” said one youngster, “means to be the death of us; I
suppose he thinks he can bring friends to help him from Pylos, or again
from Sparta, where he seems bent on going. Or will he go to Ephyra as
well, for poison to put in our wine and kill us?”

Another said, “Perhaps if Telemachus goes on board ship, he will be
like his father and perish far from his friends. In this case we should
have plenty to do, for we could then divide up his property amongst us:
as for the house we can let his mother and the man who marries her have
that.”

This was how they talked. But Telemachus went down into the lofty and
spacious store-room where his father’s treasure of gold and bronze lay
heaped up upon the floor, and where the linen and spare clothes were
kept in open chests. Here, too, there was a store of fragrant olive
oil, while casks of old, well-ripened wine, unblended and fit for a god
to drink, were ranged against the wall in case Ulysses should come home
again after all. The room was closed with well-made doors opening in
the middle; moreover the faithful old house-keeper Euryclea, daughter
of Ops the son of Pisenor, was in charge of everything both night and
day. Telemachus called her to the store-room and said:

“Nurse, draw me off some of the best wine you have, after what you are
keeping for my father’s own drinking, in case, poor man, he should
escape death, and find his way home again after all. Let me have twelve
jars, and see that they all have lids; also fill me some well-sewn
leathern bags with barley meal—about twenty measures in all. Get these
things put together at once, and say nothing about it. I will take
everything away this evening as soon as my mother has gone upstairs for
the night. I am going to Sparta and to Pylos to see if I can hear
anything about the return of my dear father.”

When Euryclea heard this she began to cry, and spoke fondly to him,
saying, “My dear child, what ever can have put such notion as that into
your head? Where in the world do you want to go to—you, who are the one
hope of the house? Your poor father is dead and gone in some foreign
country nobody knows where, and as soon as your back is turned these
wicked ones here will be scheming to get you put out of the way, and
will share all your possessions among themselves; stay where you are
among your own people, and do not go wandering and worrying your life
out on the barren ocean.”

“Fear not, nurse,” answered Telemachus, “my scheme is not without
heaven’s sanction; but swear that you will say nothing about all this
to my mother, till I have been away some ten or twelve days, unless she
hears of my having gone, and asks you; for I do not want her to spoil
her beauty by crying.”

The old woman swore most solemnly that she would not, and when she had
completed her oath, she began drawing off the wine into jars, and
getting the barley meal into the bags, while Telemachus went back to
the suitors.

Then Minerva bethought her of another matter. She took his shape, and
went round the town to each one of the crew, telling them to meet at
the ship by sundown. She went also to Noemon son of Phronius, and asked
him to let her have a ship—which he was very ready to do. When the sun
had set and darkness was over all the land, she got the ship into the
water, put all the tackle on board her that ships generally carry, and
stationed her at the end of the harbour. Presently the crew came up,
and the goddess spoke encouragingly to each of them.

Furthermore she went to the house of Ulysses, and threw the suitors
into a deep slumber. She caused their drink to fuddle them, and made
them drop their cups from their hands, so that instead of sitting over
their wine, they went back into the town to sleep, with their eyes
heavy and full of drowsiness. Then she took the form and voice of
Mentor, and called Telemachus to come outside.

“Telemachus,” said she, “the men are on board and at their oars,
waiting for you to give your orders, so make haste and let us be off.”

On this she led the way, while Telemachus followed in her steps. When
they got to the ship they found the crew waiting by the water side, and
Telemachus said, “Now my men, help me to get the stores on board; they
are all put together in the cloister, and my mother does not know
anything about it, nor any of the maid servants except one.”

With these words he led the way and the others followed after. When
they had brought the things as he told them, Telemachus went on board,
Minerva going before him and taking her seat in the stern of the
vessel, while Telemachus sat beside her. Then the men loosed the
hawsers and took their places on the benches. Minerva sent them a fair
wind from the West,22 that whistled over the deep blue waves23 whereon
Telemachus told them to catch hold of the ropes and hoist sail, and
they did as he told them. They set the mast in its socket in the cross
plank, raised it, and made it fast with the forestays; then they
hoisted their white sails aloft with ropes of twisted ox hide. As the
sail bellied out with the wind, the ship flew through the deep blue
water, and the foam hissed against her bows as she sped onward. Then
they made all fast throughout the ship, filled the mixing bowls to the
brim, and made drink offerings to the immortal gods that are from
everlasting, but more particularly to the grey-eyed daughter of Jove.

Thus, then, the ship sped on her way through the watches of the night
from dark till dawn.




BOOK III


TELEMACHUS VISITS NESTOR AT PYLOS.


but as the sun was rising from the fair sea24 into the firmament of
heaven to shed light on mortals and immortals, they reached Pylos the
city of Neleus. Now the people of Pylos were gathered on the sea shore
to offer sacrifice of black bulls to Neptune lord of the Earthquake.
There were nine guilds with five hundred men in each, and there were
nine bulls to each guild. As they were eating the inward meats25 and
burning the thigh bones [on the embers] in the name of Neptune,
Telemachus and his crew arrived, furled their sails, brought their ship
to anchor, and went ashore.

Minerva led the way and Telemachus followed her. Presently she said,
“Telemachus, you must not be in the least shy or nervous; you have
taken this voyage to try and find out where your father is buried and
how he came by his end; so go straight up to Nestor that we may see
what he has got to tell us. Beg of him to speak the truth, and he will
tell no lies, for he is an excellent person.”

“But how, Mentor,” replied Telemachus, “dare I go up to Nestor, and how
am I to address him? I have never yet been used to holding long
conversations with people, and am ashamed to begin questioning one who
is so much older than myself.”

“Some things, Telemachus,” answered Minerva, “will be suggested to you
by your own instinct, and heaven will prompt you further; for I am
assured that the gods have been with you from the time of your birth
until now.”

She then went quickly on, and Telemachus followed in her steps till
they reached the place where the guilds of the Pylian people were
assembled. There they found Nestor sitting with his sons, while his
company round him were busy getting dinner ready, and putting pieces of
meat on to the spits26 while other pieces were cooking. When they saw
the strangers they crowded round them, took them by the hand and bade
them take their places. Nestor’s son Pisistratus at once offered his
hand to each of them, and seated them on some soft sheepskins that were
lying on the sands near his father and his brother Thrasymedes. Then he
gave them their portions of the inward meats and poured wine for them
into a golden cup, handing it to Minerva first, and saluting her at the
same time.

“Offer a prayer, sir,” said he, “to King Neptune, for it is his feast
that you are joining; when you have duly prayed and made your drink
offering, pass the cup to your friend that he may do so also. I doubt
not that he too lifts his hands in prayer, for man cannot live without
God in the world. Still he is younger than you are, and is much of an
age with myself, so I will give you the precedence.”

As he spoke he handed her the cup. Minerva thought it very right and
proper of him to have given it to herself first;27 she accordingly
began praying heartily to Neptune. “O thou,” she cried, “that
encirclest the earth, vouchsafe to grant the prayers of thy servants
that call upon thee. More especially we pray thee send down thy grace
on Nestor and on his sons; thereafter also make the rest of the Pylian
people some handsome return for the goodly hecatomb they are offering
you. Lastly, grant Telemachus and myself a happy issue, in respect of
the matter that has brought us in our ship to Pylos.”

When she had thus made an end of praying, she handed the cup to
Telemachus and he prayed likewise. By and by, when the outer meats were
roasted and had been taken off the spits, the carvers gave every man
his portion and they all made an excellent dinner. As soon as they had
had enough to eat and drink, Nestor, knight of Gerene, began to speak.

“Now,” said he, “that our guests have done their dinner, it will be
best to ask them who they are. Who, then, sir strangers, are you, and
from what port have you sailed? Are you traders? or do you sail the
seas as rovers with your hand against every man, and every man’s hand
against you?”

Telemachus answered boldly, for Minerva had given him courage to ask
about his father and get himself a good name.

“Nestor,” said he, “son of Neleus, honour to the Achaean name, you ask
whence we come, and I will tell you. We come from Ithaca under
Neritum,28 and the matter about which I would speak is of private not
public import. I seek news of my unhappy father Ulysses, who is said to
have sacked the town of Troy in company with yourself. We know what
fate befell each one of the other heroes who fought at Troy, but as
regards Ulysses heaven has hidden from us the knowledge even that he is
dead at all, for no one can certify us in what place he perished, nor
say whether he fell in battle on the mainland, or was lost at sea amid
the waves of Amphitrite. Therefore I am suppliant at your knees, if
haply you may be pleased to tell me of his melancholy end, whether you
saw it with your own eyes, or heard it from some other traveller, for
he was a man born to trouble. Do not soften things out of any pity for
me, but tell me in all plainness exactly what you saw. If my brave
father Ulysses ever did you loyal service, either by word or deed, when
you Achaeans were harassed among the Trojans, bear it in mind now as in
my favour and tell me truly all.”

“My friend,” answered Nestor, “you recall a time of much sorrow to my
mind, for the brave Achaeans suffered much both at sea, while
privateering under Achilles, and when fighting before the great city of
king Priam. Our best men all of them fell there—Ajax, Achilles,
Patroclus peer of gods in counsel, and my own dear son Antilochus, a
man singularly fleet of foot and in fight valiant. But we suffered much
more than this; what mortal tongue indeed could tell the whole story?
Though you were to stay here and question me for five years, or even
six, I could not tell you all that the Achaeans suffered, and you would
turn homeward weary of my tale before it ended. Nine long years did we
try every kind of stratagem, but the hand of heaven was against us;
during all this time there was no one who could compare with your
father in subtlety—if indeed you are his son—I can hardly believe my
eyes—and you talk just like him too—no one would say that people of
such different ages could speak so much alike. He and I never had any
kind of difference from first to last neither in camp nor council, but
in singleness of heart and purpose we advised the Argives how all might
be ordered for the best.

“When, however, we had sacked the city of Priam, and were setting sail
in our ships as heaven had dispersed us, then Jove saw fit to vex the
Argives on their homeward voyage; for they had not all been either wise
or understanding, and hence many came to a bad end through the
displeasure of Jove’s daughter Minerva, who brought about a quarrel
between the two sons of Atreus.

“The sons of Atreus called a meeting which was not as it should be, for
it was sunset and the Achaeans were heavy with wine. When they
explained why they had called the people together, it seemed that
Menelaus was for sailing homeward at once, and this displeased
Agamemnon, who thought that we should wait till we had offered
hecatombs to appease the anger of Minerva. Fool that he was, he might
have known that he would not prevail with her, for when the gods have
made up their minds they do not change them lightly. So the two stood
bandying hard words, whereon the Achaeans sprang to their feet with a
cry that rent the air, and were of two minds as to what they should do.

“That night we rested and nursed our anger, for Jove was hatching
mischief against us. But in the morning some of us drew our ships into
the water and put our goods with our women on board, while the rest,
about half in number, stayed behind with Agamemnon. We—the other
half—embarked and sailed; and the ships went well, for heaven had
smoothed the sea. When we reached Tenedos we offered sacrifices to the
gods, for we were longing to get home; cruel Jove, however, did not yet
mean that we should do so, and raised a second quarrel in the course of
which some among us turned their ships back again, and sailed away
under Ulysses to make their peace with Agamemnon; but I, and all the
ships that were with me pressed forward, for I saw that mischief was
brewing. The son of Tydeus went on also with me, and his crews with
him. Later on Menelaus joined us at Lesbos, and found us making up our
minds about our course—for we did not know whether to go outside Chios
by the island of Psyra, keeping this to our left, or inside Chios, over
against the stormy headland of Mimas. So we asked heaven for a sign,
and were shown one to the effect that we should be soonest out of
danger if we headed our ships across the open sea to Euboea. This we
therefore did, and a fair wind sprang up which gave us a quick passage
during the night to Geraestus,29 where we offered many sacrifices to
Neptune for having helped us so far on our way. Four days later Diomed
and his men stationed their ships in Argos, but I held on for Pylos,
and the wind never fell light from the day when heaven first made it
fair for me.

“Therefore, my dear young friend, I returned without hearing anything
about the others. I know neither who got home safely nor who were lost
but, as in duty bound, I will give you without reserve the reports that
have reached me since I have been here in my own house. They say the
Myrmidons returned home safely under Achilles’ son Neoptolemus; so also
did the valiant son of Poias, Philoctetes. Idomeneus, again, lost no
men at sea, and all his followers who escaped death in the field got
safe home with him to Crete. No matter how far out of the world you
live, you will have heard of Agamemnon and the bad end he came to at
the hands of Aegisthus—and a fearful reckoning did Aegisthus presently
pay. See what a good thing it is for a man to leave a son behind him to
do as Orestes did, who killed false Aegisthus the murderer of his noble
father. You too, then—for you are a tall smart-looking fellow—show your
mettle and make yourself a name in story.”

“Nestor son of Neleus,” answered Telemachus, “honour to the Achaean
name, the Achaeans applaud Orestes and his name will live through all
time for he has avenged his father nobly. Would that heaven might grant
me to do like vengeance on the insolence of the wicked suitors, who are
ill treating me and plotting my ruin; but the gods have no such
happiness in store for me and for my father, so we must bear it as best
we may.”

“My friend,” said Nestor, “now that you remind me, I remember to have
heard that your mother has many suitors, who are ill disposed towards
you and are making havoc of your estate. Do you submit to this tamely,
or are public feeling and the voice of heaven against you? Who knows
but what Ulysses may come back after all, and pay these scoundrels in
full, either single-handed or with a force of Achaeans behind him? If
Minerva were to take as great a liking to you as she did to Ulysses
when we were fighting before Troy (for I never yet saw the gods so
openly fond of any one as Minerva then was of your father), if she
would take as good care of you as she did of him, these wooers would
soon some of them forget their wooing.”

Telemachus answered, “I can expect nothing of the kind; it would be far
too much to hope for. I dare not let myself think of it. Even though
the gods themselves willed it no such good fortune could befall me.”

On this Minerva said, “Telemachus, what are you talking about? Heaven
has a long arm if it is minded to save a man; and if it were me, I
should not care how much I suffered before getting home, provided I
could be safe when I was once there. I would rather this, than get home
quickly, and then be killed in my own house as Agamemnon was by the
treachery of Aegisthus and his wife. Still, death is certain, and when
a man’s hour is come, not even the gods can save him, no matter how
fond they are of him.”

“Mentor,” answered Telemachus, “do not let us talk about it any more.
There is no chance of my father’s ever coming back; the gods have long
since counselled his destruction. There is something else, however,
about which I should like to ask Nestor, for he knows much more than
any one else does. They say he has reigned for three generations so
that it is like talking to an immortal. Tell me, therefore, Nestor, and
tell me true; how did Agamemnon come to die in that way? What was
Menelaus doing? And how came false Aegisthus to kill so far better a
man than himself? Was Menelaus away from Achaean Argos, voyaging
elsewhither among mankind, that Aegisthus took heart and killed
Agamemnon?”

“I will tell you truly,” answered Nestor, “and indeed you have yourself
divined how it all happened. If Menelaus when he got back from Troy had
found Aegisthus still alive in his house, there would have been no
barrow heaped up for him, not even when he was dead, but he would have
been thrown outside the city to dogs and vultures, and not a woman
would have mourned him, for he had done a deed of great wickedness; but
we were over there, fighting hard at Troy, and Aegisthus, who was
taking his ease quietly in the heart of Argos, cajoled Agamemnon’s wife
Clytemnestra with incessant flattery.

“At first she would have nothing to do with his wicked scheme, for she
was of a good natural disposition;30 moreover there was a bard with
her, to whom Agamemnon had given strict orders on setting out for Troy,
that he was to keep guard over his wife; but when heaven had counselled
her destruction, Aegisthus carried this bard off to a desert island and
left him there for crows and seagulls to batten upon—after which she
went willingly enough to the house of Aegisthus. Then he offered many
burnt sacrifices to the gods, and decorated many temples with
tapestries and gilding, for he had succeeded far beyond his
expectations.

“Meanwhile Menelaus and I were on our way home from Troy, on good terms
with one another. When we got to Sunium, which is the point of Athens,
Apollo with his painless shafts killed Phrontis the steersman of
Menelaus’ ship (and never man knew better how to handle a vessel in
rough weather) so that he died then and there with the helm in his
hand, and Menelaus, though very anxious to press forward, had to wait
in order to bury his comrade and give him his due funeral rites.
Presently, when he too could put to sea again, and had sailed on as far
as the Malean heads, Jove counselled evil against him and made it blow
hard till the waves ran mountains high. Here he divided his fleet and
took the one half towards Crete where the Cydonians dwell round about
the waters of the river Iardanus. There is a high headland hereabouts
stretching out into the sea from a place called Gortyn, and all along
this part of the coast as far as Phaestus the sea runs high when there
is a south wind blowing, but after Phaestus the coast is more
protected, for a small headland can make a great shelter. Here this
part of the fleet was driven on to the rocks and wrecked; but the crews
just managed to save themselves. As for the other five ships, they were
taken by winds and seas to Egypt, where Menelaus gathered much gold and
substance among people of an alien speech. Meanwhile Aegisthus here at
home plotted his evil deed. For seven years after he had killed
Agamemnon he ruled in Mycene, and the people were obedient under him,
but in the eighth year Orestes came back from Athens to be his bane,
and killed the murderer of his father. Then he celebrated the funeral
rites of his mother and of false Aegisthus by a banquet to the people
of Argos, and on that very day Menelaus came home,31 with as much
treasure as his ships could carry.

“Take my advice then, and do not go travelling about for long so far
from home, nor leave your property with such dangerous people in your
house; they will eat up everything you have among them, and you will
have been on a fool’s errand. Still, I should advise you by all means
to go and visit Menelaus, who has lately come off a voyage among such
distant peoples as no man could ever hope to get back from, when the
winds had once carried him so far out of his reckoning; even birds
cannot fly the distance in a twelve-month, so vast and terrible are the
seas that they must cross. Go to him, therefore, by sea, and take your
own men with you; or if you would rather travel by land you can have a
chariot, you can have horses, and here are my sons who can escort you
to Lacedaemon where Menelaus lives. Beg of him to speak the truth, and
he will tell you no lies, for he is an excellent person.”

As he spoke the sun set and it came on dark, whereon Minerva said,
“Sir, all that you have said is well; now, however, order the tongues
of the victims to be cut, and mix wine that we may make drink-offerings
to Neptune, and the other immortals, and then go to bed, for it is bed
time. People should go away early and not keep late hours at a
religious festival.”

Thus spoke the daughter of Jove, and they obeyed her saying. Men
servants poured water over the hands of the guests, while pages filled
the mixing-bowls with wine and water, and handed it round after giving
every man his drink offering; then they threw the tongues of the
victims into the fire, and stood up to make their drink offerings. When
they had made their offerings and had drunk each as much as he was
minded, Minerva and Telemachus were for going on board their ship, but
Nestor caught them up at once and stayed them.

“Heaven and the immortal gods,” he exclaimed, “forbid that you should
leave my house to go on board of a ship. Do you think I am so poor and
short of clothes, or that I have so few cloaks and as to be unable to
find comfortable beds both for myself and for my guests? Let me tell
you I have store both of rugs and cloaks, and shall not permit the son
of my old friend Ulysses to camp down on the deck of a ship—not while I
live—nor yet will my sons after me, but they will keep open house as I
have done.”

Then Minerva answered, “Sir, you have spoken well, and it will be much
better that Telemachus should do as you have said; he, therefore, shall
return with you and sleep at your house, but I must go back to give
orders to my crew, and keep them in good heart. I am the only older
person among them; the rest are all young men of Telemachus’ own age,
who have taken this voyage out of friendship; so I must return to the
ship and sleep there. Moreover to-morrow I must go to the Cauconians
where I have a large sum of money long owing to me. As for Telemachus,
now that he is your guest, send him to Lacedaemon in a chariot, and let
one of your sons go with him. Be pleased to also provide him with your
best and fleetest horses.”

When she had thus spoken, she flew away in the form of an eagle, and
all marvelled as they beheld it. Nestor was astonished, and took
Telemachus by the hand. “My friend,” said he, “I see that you are going
to be a great hero some day, since the gods wait upon you thus while
you are still so young. This can have been none other of those who
dwell in heaven than Jove’s redoubtable daughter, the Trito-born, who
shewed such favour towards your brave father among the Argives. Holy
queen,” he continued, “vouchsafe to send down thy grace upon myself, my
good wife, and my children. In return, I will offer you in sacrifice a
broad-browed heifer of a year old, unbroken, and never yet brought by
man under the yoke. I will gild her horns, and will offer her up to you
in sacrifice.”

Thus did he pray, and Minerva heard his prayer. He then led the way to
his own house, followed by his sons and sons in law. When they had got
there and had taken their places on the benches and seats, he mixed
them a bowl of sweet wine that was eleven years old when the
housekeeper took the lid off the jar that held it. As he mixed the
wine, he prayed much and made drink offerings to Minerva, daughter of
Aegis-bearing Jove. Then, when they had made their drink offerings and
had drunk each as much as he was minded, the others went home to bed
each in his own abode; but Nestor put Telemachus to sleep in the room
that was over the gateway along with Pisistratus, who was the only
unmarried son now left him. As for himself, he slept in an inner room
of the house, with the queen his wife by his side.

Now when the child of morning rosy-fingered Dawn appeared, Nestor left
his couch and took his seat on the benches of white and polished marble
that stood in front of his house. Here aforetime sat Neleus, peer of
gods in counsel, but he was now dead, and had gone to the house of
Hades; so Nestor sat in his seat sceptre in hand, as guardian of the
public weal. His sons as they left their rooms gathered round him,
Echephron, Stratius, Perseus, Aretus, and Thrasymedes; the sixth son
was Pisistratus, and when Telemachus joined them they made him sit with
them. Nestor then addressed them.

“My sons,” said he, “make haste to do as I shall bid you. I wish first
and foremost to propitiate the great goddess Minerva, who manifested
herself visibly to me during yesterday’s festivities. Go, then, one or
other of you to the plain, tell the stockman to look me out a heifer,
and come on here with it at once. Another must go to Telemachus’ ship,
and invite all the crew, leaving two men only in charge of the vessel.
Some one else will run and fetch Laerceus the goldsmith to gild the
horns of the heifer. The rest, stay all of you where you are; tell the
maids in the house to prepare an excellent dinner, and to fetch seats,
and logs of wood for a burnt offering. Tell them also to bring me some
clear spring water.”

On this they hurried off on their several errands. The heifer was
brought in from the plain, and Telemachus’s crew came from the ship;
the goldsmith brought the anvil, hammer, and tongs, with which he
worked his gold, and Minerva herself came to accept the sacrifice.
Nestor gave out the gold, and the smith gilded the horns of the heifer
that the goddess might have pleasure in their beauty. Then Stratius and
Echephron brought her in by the horns; Aretus fetched water from the
house in a ewer that had a flower pattern on it, and in his other hand
he held a basket of barley meal; sturdy Thrasymedes stood by with a
sharp axe, ready to strike the heifer, while Perseus held a bucket.
Then Nestor began with washing his hands and sprinkling the barley
meal, and he offered many a prayer to Minerva as he threw a lock from
the heifer’s head upon the fire.

When they had done praying and sprinkling the barley meal32 Thrasymedes
dealt his blow, and brought the heifer down with a stroke that cut
through the tendons at the base of her neck, whereon the daughters and
daughters in law of Nestor, and his venerable wife Eurydice (she was
eldest daughter to Clymenus) screamed with delight. Then they lifted
the heifer’s head from off the ground, and Pisistratus cut her throat.
When she had done bleeding and was quite dead, they cut her up. They
cut out the thigh bones all in due course, wrapped them round in two
layers of fat, and set some pieces of raw meat on the top of them; then
Nestor laid them upon the wood fire and poured wine over them, while
the young men stood near him with five-pronged spits in their hands.
When the thighs were burned and they had tasted the inward meats, they
cut the rest of the meat up small, put the pieces on the spits and
toasted them over the fire.

Meanwhile lovely Polycaste, Nestor’s youngest daughter, washed
Telemachus. When she had washed him and anointed him with oil, she
brought him a fair mantle and shirt,33 and he looked like a god as he
came from the bath and took his seat by the side of Nestor. When the
outer meats were done they drew them off the spits and sat down to
dinner where they were waited upon by some worthy henchmen, who kept
pouring them out their wine in cups of gold. As soon as they had had
enough to eat and drink Nestor said, “Sons, put Telemachus’s horses to
the chariot that he may start at once.”

Thus did he speak, and they did even as he had said, and yoked the
fleet horses to the chariot. The housekeeper packed them up a provision
of bread, wine, and sweet meats fit for the sons of princes. Then
Telemachus got into the chariot, while Pisistratus gathered up the
reins and took his seat beside him. He lashed the horses on and they
flew forward nothing loth into the open country, leaving the high
citadel of Pylos behind them. All that day did they travel, swaying the
yoke upon their necks till the sun went down and darkness was over all
the land. Then they reached Pherae where Diocles lived, who was son to
Ortilochus and grandson to Alpheus. Here they passed the night and
Diocles entertained them hospitably. When the child of morning,
rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, they again yoked their horses and drove
out through the gateway under the echoing gatehouse.34 Pisistratus
lashed the horses on and they flew forward nothing loth; presently they
came to the corn lands of the open country, and in the course of time
completed their journey, so well did their steeds take them.35

Now when the sun had set and darkness was over the land,




BOOK IV


THE VISIT TO KING MENELAUS, WHO TELLS HIS STORY—MEANWHILE THE SUITORS
IN ITHACA PLOT AGAINST TELEMACHUS.


they reached the low lying city of Lacedaemon, where they drove
straight to the abode of Menelaus36 [and found him in his own house,
feasting with his many clansmen in honour of the wedding of his son,
and also of his daughter, whom he was marrying to the son of that
valiant warrior Achilles. He had given his consent and promised her to
him while he was still at Troy, and now the gods were bringing the
marriage about; so he was sending her with chariots and horses to the
city of the Myrmidons over whom Achilles’ son was reigning. For his
only son he had found a bride from Sparta,37 the daughter of Alector.
This son, Megapenthes, was born to him of a bondwoman, for heaven
vouchsafed Helen no more children after she had borne Hermione, who was
fair as golden Venus herself.

So the neighbours and kinsmen of Menelaus were feasting and making
merry in his house. There was a bard also to sing to them and play his
lyre, while two tumblers went about performing in the midst of them
when the man struck up with his tune.38

Telemachus and the son of Nestor stayed their horses at the gate,
whereon Eteoneus servant to Menelaus came out, and as soon as he saw
them ran hurrying back into the house to tell his Master. He went close
up to him and said, “Menelaus, there are some strangers come here, two
men, who look like sons of Jove. What are we to do? Shall we take their
horses out, or tell them to find friends elsewhere as they best can?”

Menelaus was very angry and said, “Eteoneus, son of Boethous, you never
used to be a fool, but now you talk like a simpleton. Take their horses
out, of course, and show the strangers in that they may have supper;
you and I have staid often enough at other people’s houses before we
got back here, where heaven grant that we may rest in peace
henceforward.”

So Eteoneus bustled back and bade the other servants come with him.
They took their sweating steeds from under the yoke, made them fast to
the mangers, and gave them a feed of oats and barley mixed. Then they
leaned the chariot against the end wall of the courtyard, and led the
way into the house. Telemachus and Pisistratus were astonished when
they saw it, for its splendour was as that of the sun and moon; then,
when they had admired everything to their heart’s content, they went
into the bath room and washed themselves.

When the servants had washed them and anointed them with oil, they
brought them woollen cloaks and shirts, and the two took their seats by
the side of Menelaus. A maid-servant brought them water in a beautiful
golden ewer, and poured it into a silver basin for them to wash their
hands; and she drew a clean table beside them. An upper servant brought
them bread, and offered them many good things of what there was in the
house, while the carver fetched them plates of all manner of meats and
set cups of gold by their side.

Menelaus then greeted them saying, “Fall to, and welcome; when you have
done supper I shall ask who you are, for the lineage of such men as you
cannot have been lost. You must be descended from a line of
sceptre-bearing kings, for poor people do not have such sons as you
are.”

On this he handed them39 a piece of fat roast loin, which had been set
near him as being a prime part, and they laid their hands on the good
things that were before them; as soon as they had had enough to eat and
drink, Telemachus said to the son of Nestor, with his head so close
that no one might hear, “Look, Pisistratus, man after my own heart, see
the gleam of bronze and gold—of amber,40 ivory, and silver. Everything
is so splendid that it is like seeing the palace of Olympian Jove. I am
lost in admiration.”

Menelaus overheard him and said, “No one, my sons, can hold his own
with Jove, for his house and everything about him is immortal; but
among mortal men—well, there may be another who has as much wealth as I
have, or there may not; but at all events I have travelled much and
have undergone much hardship, for it was nearly eight years before I
could get home with my fleet. I went to Cyprus, Phoenicia and the
Egyptians; I went also to the Ethiopians, the Sidonians, and the
Erembians, and to Libya where the lambs have horns as soon as they are
born, and the sheep lamb down three times a year. Every one in that
country, whether master or man, has plenty of cheese, meat, and good
milk, for the ewes yield all the year round. But while I was travelling
and getting great riches among these people, my brother was secretly
and shockingly murdered through the perfidy of his wicked wife, so that
I have no pleasure in being lord of all this wealth. Whoever your
parents may be they must have told you about all this, and of my heavy
loss in the ruin41 of a stately mansion fully and magnificently
furnished. Would that I had only a third of what I now have so that I
had stayed at home, and all those were living who perished on the plain
of Troy, far from Argos. I often grieve, as I sit here in my house, for
one and all of them. At times I cry aloud for sorrow, but presently I
leave off again, for crying is cold comfort and one soon tires of it.
Yet grieve for these as I may, I do so for one man more than for them
all. I cannot even think of him without loathing both food and sleep,
so miserable does he make me, for no one of all the Achaeans worked so
hard or risked so much as he did. He took nothing by it, and has left a
legacy of sorrow to myself, for he has been gone a long time, and we
know not whether he is alive or dead. His old father, his
long-suffering wife Penelope, and his son Telemachus, whom he left
behind him an infant in arms, are plunged in grief on his account.”

Thus spoke Menelaus, and the heart of Telemachus yearned as he
bethought him of his father. Tears fell from his eyes as he heard him
thus mentioned, so that he held his cloak before his face with both
hands. When Menelaus saw this he doubted whether to let him choose his
own time for speaking, or to ask him at once and find what it was all
about.

While he was thus in two minds Helen came down from her high vaulted
and perfumed room, looking as lovely as Diana herself. Adraste brought
her a seat, Alcippe a soft woollen rug while Phylo fetched her the
silver work-box which Alcandra wife of Polybus had given her. Polybus
lived in Egyptian Thebes, which is the richest city in the whole world;
he gave Menelaus two baths, both of pure silver, two tripods, and ten
talents of gold; besides all this, his wife gave Helen some beautiful
presents, to wit, a golden distaff, and a silver work box that ran on
wheels, with a gold band round the top of it. Phylo now placed this by
her side, full of fine spun yarn, and a distaff charged with violet
coloured wool was laid upon the top of it. Then Helen took her seat,
put her feet upon the footstool, and began to question her husband.42

“Do we know, Menelaus,” said she, “the names of these strangers who
have come to visit us? Shall I guess right or wrong?—but I cannot help
saying what I think. Never yet have I seen either man or woman so like
somebody else (indeed when I look at him I hardly know what to think)
as this young man is like Telemachus, whom Ulysses left as a baby
behind him, when you Achaeans went to Troy with battle in your hearts,
on account of my most shameless self.”

“My dear wife,” replied Menelaus, “I see the likeness just as you do.
His hands and feet are just like Ulysses; so is his hair, with the
shape of his head and the expression of his eyes. Moreover, when I was
talking about Ulysses, and saying how much he had suffered on my
account, tears fell from his eyes, and he hid his face in his mantle.”

Then Pisistratus said, “Menelaus, son of Atreus, you are right in
thinking that this young man is Telemachus, but he is very modest, and
is ashamed to come here and begin opening up discourse with one whose
conversation is so divinely interesting as your own. My father, Nestor,
sent me to escort him hither, for he wanted to know whether you could
give him any counsel or suggestion. A son has always trouble at home
when his father has gone away leaving him without supporters; and this
is how Telemachus is now placed, for his father is absent, and there is
no one among his own people to stand by him.”

“Bless my heart,” replied Menelaus, “then I am receiving a visit from
the son of a very dear friend, who suffered much hardship for my sake.
I had always hoped to entertain him with most marked distinction when
heaven had granted us a safe return from beyond the seas. I should have
founded a city for him in Argos, and built him a house. I should have
made him leave Ithaca with his goods, his son, and all his people, and
should have sacked for them some one of the neighbouring cities that
are subject to me. We should thus have seen one another continually,
and nothing but death could have interrupted so close and happy an
intercourse. I suppose, however, that heaven grudged us such great good
fortune, for it has prevented the poor fellow from ever getting home at
all.”

Thus did he speak, and his words set them all a weeping. Helen wept,
Telemachus wept, and so did Menelaus, nor could Pisistratus keep his
eyes from filling, when he remembered his dear brother Antilochus whom
the son of bright Dawn had killed. Thereon he said to Menelaus,

“Sir, my father Nestor, when we used to talk about you at home, told me
you were a person of rare and excellent understanding. If, then, it be
possible, do as I would urge you. I am not fond of crying while I am
getting my supper. Morning will come in due course, and in the forenoon
I care not how much I cry for those that are dead and gone. This is all
we can do for the poor things. We can only shave our heads for them and
wring the tears from our cheeks. I had a brother who died at Troy; he
was by no means the worst man there; you are sure to have known him—his
name was Antilochus; I never set eyes upon him myself, but they say
that he was singularly fleet of foot and in fight valiant.”

“Your discretion, my friend,” answered Menelaus, “is beyond your years.
It is plain you take after your father. One can soon see when a man is
son to one whom heaven has blessed both as regards wife and
offspring—and it has blessed Nestor from first to last all his days,
giving him a green old age in his own house, with sons about him who
are both well disposed and valiant. We will put an end therefore to all
this weeping, and attend to our supper again. Let water be poured over
our hands. Telemachus and I can talk with one another fully in the
morning.”

On this Asphalion, one of the servants, poured water over their hands
and they laid their hands on the good things that were before them.

Then Jove’s daughter Helen bethought her of another matter. She drugged
the wine with an herb that banishes all care, sorrow, and ill humour.
Whoever drinks wine thus drugged cannot shed a single tear all the rest
of the day, not even though his father and mother both of them drop
down dead, or he sees a brother or a son hewn in pieces before his very
eyes. This drug, of such sovereign power and virtue, had been given to
Helen by Polydamna wife of Thon, a woman of Egypt, where there grow all
sorts of herbs, some good to put into the mixing bowl and others
poisonous. Moreover, every one in the whole country is a skilled
physician, for they are of the race of Paeeon. When Helen had put this
drug in the bowl, and had told the servants to serve the wine round,
she said:

“Menelaus, son of Atreus, and you my good friends, sons of honourable
men (which is as Jove wills, for he is the giver both of good and evil,
and can do what he chooses), feast here as you will, and listen while I
tell you a tale in season. I cannot indeed name every single one of the
exploits of Ulysses, but I can say what he did when he was before Troy,
and you Achaeans were in all sorts of difficulties. He covered himself
with wounds and bruises, dressed himself all in rags, and entered the
enemy’s city looking like a menial or a beggar, and quite different
from what he did when he was among his own people. In this disguise he
entered the city of Troy, and no one said anything to him. I alone
recognised him and began to question him, but he was too cunning for
me. When, however, I had washed and anointed him and had given him
clothes, and after I had sworn a solemn oath not to betray him to the
Trojans till he had got safely back to his own camp and to the ships,
he told me all that the Achaeans meant to do. He killed many Trojans
and got much information before he reached the Argive camp, for all
which things the Trojan women made lamentation, but for my own part I
was glad, for my heart was beginning to yearn after my home, and I was
unhappy about the wrong that Venus had done me in taking me over there,
away from my country, my girl, and my lawful wedded husband, who is
indeed by no means deficient either in person or understanding.”

Then Menelaus said, “All that you have been saying, my dear wife, is
true. I have travelled much, and have had much to do with heroes, but I
have never seen such another man as Ulysses. What endurance too, and
what courage he displayed within the wooden horse, wherein all the
bravest of the Argives were lying in wait to bring death and
destruction upon the Trojans.43 At that moment you came up to us; some
god who wished well to the Trojans must have set you on to it and you
had Deiphobus with you. Three times did you go all round our hiding
place and pat it; you called our chiefs each by his own name, and
mimicked all our wives—Diomed, Ulysses, and I from our seats inside
heard what a noise you made. Diomed and I could not make up our minds
whether to spring out then and there, or to answer you from inside, but
Ulysses held us all in check, so we sat quite still, all except
Anticlus, who was beginning to answer you, when Ulysses clapped his two
brawny hands over his mouth, and kept them there. It was this that
saved us all, for he muzzled Anticlus till Minerva took you away
again.”

“How sad,” exclaimed Telemachus, “that all this was of no avail to save
him, nor yet his own iron courage. But now, sir, be pleased to send us
all to bed, that we may lie down and enjoy the blessed boon of sleep.”

On this Helen told the maid servants to set beds in the room that was
in the gatehouse, and to make them with good red rugs, and spread
coverlets on the top of them with woollen cloaks for the guests to
wear. So the maids went out, carrying a torch, and made the beds, to
which a man-servant presently conducted the strangers. Thus, then, did
Telemachus and Pisistratus sleep there in the forecourt, while the son
of Atreus lay in an inner room with lovely Helen by his side.

When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn appeared, Menelaus rose
and dressed himself. He bound his sandals on to his comely feet, girded
his sword about his shoulders, and left his room looking like an
immortal god. Then, taking a seat near Telemachus he said:

“And what, Telemachus, has led you to take this long sea voyage to
Lacedaemon? Are you on public, or private business? Tell me all about
it.”

“I have come, sir,” replied Telemachus, “to see if you can tell me
anything about my father. I am being eaten out of house and home; my
fair estate is being wasted, and my house is full of miscreants who
keep killing great numbers of my sheep and oxen, on the pretence of
paying their addresses to my mother. Therefore, I am suppliant at your
knees if haply you may tell me about my father’s melancholy end,
whether you saw it with your own eyes, or heard it from some other
traveller; for he was a man born to trouble. Do not soften things out
of any pity for myself, but tell me in all plainness exactly what you
saw. If my brave father Ulysses ever did you loyal service either by
word or deed, when you Achaeans were harassed by the Trojans, bear it
in mind now as in my favour and tell me truly all.”

Menelaus on hearing this was very much shocked. “So,” he exclaimed,
“these cowards would usurp a brave man’s bed? A hind might as well lay
her new born young in the lair of a lion, and then go off to feed in
the forest or in some grassy dell: the lion when he comes back to his
lair will make short work with the pair of them—and so will Ulysses
with these suitors. By father Jove, Minerva, and Apollo, if Ulysses is
still the man that he was when he wrestled with Philomeleides in
Lesbos, and threw him so heavily that all the Achaeans cheered him—if
he is still such and were to come near these suitors, they would have a
short shrift and a sorry wedding. As regards your questions, however, I
will not prevaricate nor deceive you, but will tell you without
concealment all that the old man of the sea told me.

“I was trying to come on here, but the gods detained me in Egypt, for
my hecatombs had not given them full satisfaction, and the gods are
very strict about having their dues. Now off Egypt, about as far as a
ship can sail in a day with a good stiff breeze behind her, there is an
island called Pharos—it has a good harbour from which vessels can get
out into open sea when they have taken in water—and here the gods
becalmed me twenty days without so much as a breath of fair wind to
help me forward. We should have run clean out of provisions and my men
would have starved, if a goddess had not taken pity upon me and saved
me in the person of Idothea, daughter to Proteus, the old man of the
sea, for she had taken a great fancy to me.

“She came to me one day when I was by myself, as I often was, for the
men used to go with their barbed hooks, all over the island in the hope
of catching a fish or two to save them from the pangs of hunger.
‘Stranger,’ said she, ‘it seems to me that you like starving in this
way—at any rate it does not greatly trouble you, for you stick here day
after day, without even trying to get away though your men are dying by
inches.’

“‘Let me tell you,’ said I, ‘whichever of the goddesses you may happen
to be, that I am not staying here of my own accord, but must have
offended the gods that live in heaven. Tell me, therefore, for the gods
know everything, which of the immortals it is that is hindering me in
this way, and tell me also how I may sail the sea so as to reach my
home.’

“‘Stranger,’ replied she, ‘I will make it all quite clear to you. There
is an old immortal who lives under the sea hereabouts and whose name is
Proteus. He is an Egyptian, and people say he is my father; he is
Neptune’s head man and knows every inch of ground all over the bottom
of the sea. If you can snare him and hold him tight, he will tell you
about your voyage, what courses you are to take, and how you are to
sail the sea so as to reach your home. He will also tell you, if you so
will, all that has been going on at your house both good and bad, while
you have been away on your long and dangerous journey.’

“‘Can you show me,’ said I, ‘some stratagem by means of which I may
catch this old god without his suspecting it and finding me out? For a
god is not easily caught—not by a mortal man.’

“‘Stranger,’ said she, ‘I will make it all quite clear to you. About
the time when the sun shall have reached mid heaven, the old man of the
sea comes up from under the waves, heralded by the West wind that furs
the water over his head. As soon as he has come up he lies down, and
goes to sleep in a great sea cave, where the seals—Halosydne’s chickens
as they call them—come up also from the grey sea, and go to sleep in
shoals all round him; and a very strong and fish-like smell do they
bring with them. 44 Early to-morrow morning I will take you to this
place and will lay you in ambush. Pick out, therefore, the three best
men you have in your fleet, and I will tell you all the tricks that the
old man will play you.

“‘First he will look over all his seals, and count them; then, when he
has seen them and tallied them on his five fingers, he will go to sleep
among them, as a shepherd among his sheep. The moment you see that he
is asleep seize him; put forth all your strength and hold him fast, for
he will do his very utmost to get away from you. He will turn himself
into every kind of creature that goes upon the earth, and will become
also both fire and water; but you must hold him fast and grip him
tighter and tighter, till he begins to talk to you and comes back to
what he was when you saw him go to sleep; then you may slacken your
hold and let him go; and you can ask him which of the gods it is that
is angry with you, and what you must do to reach your home over the
seas.’

“Having so said she dived under the waves, whereon I turned back to the
place where my ships were ranged upon the shore; and my heart was
clouded with care as I went along. When I reached my ship we got supper
ready, for night was falling, and camped down upon the beach.

“When the child of morning rosy-fingered Dawn appeared, I took the
three men on whose prowess of all kinds I could most rely, and went
along by the sea-side, praying heartily to heaven. Meanwhile the
goddess fetched me up four seal skins from the bottom of the sea, all
of them just skinned, for she meant playing a trick upon her father.
Then she dug four pits for us to lie in, and sat down to wait till we
should come up. When we were close to her, she made us lie down in the
pits one after the other, and threw a seal skin over each of us. Our
ambuscade would have been intolerable, for the stench of the fishy
seals was most distressing45—who would go to bed with a sea monster if
he could help it?—but here, too, the goddess helped us, and thought of
something that gave us great relief, for she put some ambrosia under
each man’s nostrils, which was so fragrant that it killed the smell of
the seals.46

“We waited the whole morning and made the best of it, watching the
seals come up in hundreds to bask upon the sea shore, till at noon the
old man of the sea came up too, and when he had found his fat seals he
went over them and counted them. We were among the first he counted,
and he never suspected any guile, but laid himself down to sleep as
soon as he had done counting. Then we rushed upon him with a shout and
seized him; on which he began at once with his old tricks, and changed
himself first into a lion with a great mane; then all of a sudden he
became a dragon, a leopard, a wild boar; the next moment he was running
water, and then again directly he was a tree, but we stuck to him and
never lost hold, till at last the cunning old creature became
distressed, and said, ‘Which of the gods was it, Son of Atreus, that
hatched this plot with you for snaring me and seizing me against my
will? What do you want?’

“‘You know that yourself, old man,’ I answered, ‘you will gain nothing
by trying to put me off. It is because I have been kept so long in this
island, and see no sign of my being able to get away. I am losing all
heart; tell me, then, for you gods know everything, which of the
immortals it is that is hindering me, and tell me also how I may sail
the sea so as to reach my home?’

“Then,’ he said, ‘if you would finish your voyage and get home quickly,
you must offer sacrifices to Jove and to the rest of the gods before
embarking; for it is decreed that you shall not get back to your
friends, and to your own house, till you have returned to the
heaven-fed stream of Egypt, and offered holy hecatombs to the immortal
gods that reign in heaven. When you have done this they will let you
finish your voyage.’

“I was broken hearted when I heard that I must go back all that long
and terrible voyage to Egypt;47 nevertheless, I answered, ‘I will do
all, old man, that you have laid upon me; but now tell me, and tell me
true, whether all the Achaeans whom Nestor and I left behind us when we
set sail from Troy have got home safely, or whether any one of them
came to a bad end either on board his own ship or among his friends
when the days of his fighting were done.’

“‘Son of Atreus,’ he answered, ‘why ask me? You had better not know
what I can tell you, for your eyes will surely fill when you have heard
my story. Many of those about whom you ask are dead and gone, but many
still remain, and only two of the chief men among the Achaeans perished
during their return home. As for what happened on the field of
battle—you were there yourself. A third Achaean leader is still at sea,
alive, but hindered from returning. Ajax was wrecked, for Neptune drove
him on to the great rocks of Gyrae; nevertheless, he let him get safe
out of the water, and in spite of all Minerva’s hatred he would have
escaped death, if he had not ruined himself by boasting. He said the
gods could not drown him even though they had tried to do so, and when
Neptune heard this large talk, he seized his trident in his two brawny
hands, and split the rock of Gyrae in two pieces. The base remained
where it was, but the part on which Ajax was sitting fell headlong into
the sea and carried Ajax with it; so he drank salt water and was
drowned.

“‘Your brother and his ships escaped, for Juno protected him, but when
he was just about to reach the high promontory of Malea, he was caught
by a heavy gale which carried him out to sea again sorely against his
will, and drove him to the foreland where Thyestes used to dwell, but
where Aegisthus was then living. By and by, however, it seemed as
though he was to return safely after all, for the gods backed the wind
into its old quarter and they reached home; whereon Agamemnon kissed
his native soil, and shed tears of joy at finding himself in his own
country.

“‘Now there was a watchman whom Aegisthus kept always on the watch, and
to whom he had promised two talents of gold. This man had been looking
out for a whole year to make sure that Agamemnon did not give him the
slip and prepare war; when, therefore, this man saw Agamemnon go by, he
went and told Aegisthus, who at once began to lay a plot for him. He
picked twenty of his bravest warriors and placed them in ambuscade on
one side the cloister, while on the opposite side he prepared a
banquet. Then he sent his chariots and horsemen to Agamemnon, and
invited him to the feast, but he meant foul play. He got him there, all
unsuspicious of the doom that was awaiting him, and killed him when the
banquet was over as though he were butchering an ox in the shambles;
not one of Agamemnon’s followers was left alive, nor yet one of
Aegisthus’, but they were all killed there in the cloisters.’

“Thus spoke Proteus, and I was broken hearted as I heard him. I sat
down upon the sands and wept; I felt as though I could no longer bear
to live nor look upon the light of the sun. Presently, when I had had
my fill of weeping and writhing upon the ground, the old man of the sea
said, ‘Son of Atreus, do not waste any more time in crying so bitterly;
it can do no manner of good; find your way home as fast as ever you
can, for Aegisthus may be still alive, and even though Orestes has been
beforehand with you in killing him, you may yet come in for his
funeral.’

“On this I took comfort in spite of all my sorrow, and said, ‘I know,
then, about these two; tell me, therefore, about the third man of whom
you spoke; is he still alive, but at sea, and unable to get home? or is
he dead? Tell me, no matter how much it may grieve me.’

“‘The third man,’ he answered, ‘is Ulysses who dwells in Ithaca. I can
see him in an island sorrowing bitterly in the house of the nymph
Calypso, who is keeping him prisoner, and he cannot reach his home for
he has no ships nor sailors to take him over the sea. As for your own
end, Menelaus, you shall not die in Argos, but the gods will take you
to the Elysian plain, which is at the ends of the world. There
fair-haired Rhadamanthus reigns, and men lead an easier life than any
where else in the world, for in Elysium there falls not rain, nor hail,
nor snow, but Oceanus breathes ever with a West wind that sings softly
from the sea, and gives fresh life to all men. This will happen to you
because you have married Helen, and are Jove’s son-in-law.’

“As he spoke he dived under the waves, whereon I turned back to the
ships with my companions, and my heart was clouded with care as I went
along. When we reached the ships we got supper ready, for night was
falling, and camped down upon the beach. When the child of morning,
rosy-fingered Dawn appeared, we drew our ships into the water, and put
our masts and sails within them; then we went on board ourselves, took
our seats on the benches, and smote the grey sea with our oars. I again
stationed my ships in the heaven-fed stream of Egypt, and offered
hecatombs that were full and sufficient. When I had thus appeased
heaven’s anger, I raised a barrow to the memory of Agamemnon that his
name might live for ever, after which I had a quick passage home, for
the gods sent me a fair wind.

“And now for yourself—stay here some ten or twelve days longer, and I
will then speed you on your way. I will make you a noble present of a
chariot and three horses. I will also give you a beautiful chalice that
so long as you live you may think of me whenever you make a
drink-offering to the immortal gods.”

“Son of Atreus,” replied Telemachus, “do not press me to stay longer; I
should be contented to remain with you for another twelve months; I
find your conversation so delightful that I should never once wish
myself at home with my parents; but my crew whom I have left at Pylos
are already impatient, and you are detaining me from them. As for any
present you may be disposed to make me, I had rather that it should be
a piece of plate. I will take no horses back with me to Ithaca, but
will leave them to adorn your own stables, for you have much flat
ground in your kingdom where lotus thrives, as also meadow-sweet and
wheat and barley, and oats with their white and spreading ears; whereas
in Ithaca we have neither open fields nor racecourses, and the country
is more fit for goats than horses, and I like it the better for that.
48 None of our islands have much level ground, suitable for horses, and
Ithaca least of all.”

Menelaus smiled and took Telemachus’s hand within his own. “What you
say,” said he, “shows that you come of good family. I both can, and
will, make this exchange for you, by giving you the finest and most
precious piece of plate in all my house. It is a mixing bowl by
Vulcan’s own hand, of pure silver, except the rim, which is inlaid with
gold. Phaedimus, king of the Sidonians, gave it me in the course of a
visit which I paid him when I returned thither on my homeward journey.
I will make you a present of it.”

Thus did they converse [and guests kept coming to the king’s house.
They brought sheep and wine, while their wives had put up bread for
them to take with them; so they were busy cooking their dinners in the
courts].49

Meanwhile the suitors were throwing discs or aiming with spears at a
mark on the levelled ground in front of Ulysses’ house, and were
behaving with all their old insolence. Antinous and Eurymachus, who
were their ringleaders and much the foremost among them all, were
sitting together when Noemon son of Phronius came up and said to
Antinous,

“Have we any idea, Antinous, on what day Telemachus returns from Pylos?
He has a ship of mine, and I want it, to cross over to Elis: I have
twelve brood mares there with yearling mule foals by their side not yet
broken in, and I want to bring one of them over here and break him.”

They were astounded when they heard this, for they had made sure that
Telemachus had not gone to the city of Neleus. They thought he was only
away somewhere on the farms, and was with the sheep, or with the
swineherd; so Antinous said, “When did he go? Tell me truly, and what
young men did he take with him? Were they freemen or his own
bondsmen—for he might manage that too? Tell me also, did you let him
have the ship of your own free will because he asked you, or did he
take it without your leave?”

“I lent it him,” answered Noemon, “what else could I do when a man of
his position said he was in a difficulty, and asked me to oblige him? I
could not possibly refuse. As for those who went with him they were the
best young men we have, and I saw Mentor go on board as captain—or some
god who was exactly like him. I cannot understand it, for I saw Mentor
here myself yesterday morning, and yet he was then setting out for
Pylos.”

Noemon then went back to his father’s house, but Antinous and
Eurymachus were very angry. They told the others to leave off playing,
and to come and sit down along with themselves. When they came,
Antinous son of Eupeithes spoke in anger. His heart was black with
rage, and his eyes flashed fire as he said:

“Good heavens, this voyage of Telemachus is a very serious matter; we
had made sure that it would come to nothing, but the young fellow has
got away in spite of us, and with a picked crew too. He will be giving
us trouble presently; may Jove take him before he is full grown. Find
me a ship, therefore, with a crew of twenty men, and I will lie in wait
for him in the straits between Ithaca and Samos; he will then rue the
day that he set out to try and get news of his father.”

Thus did he speak, and the others applauded his saying; they then all
of them went inside the buildings.

It was not long ere Penelope came to know what the suitors were
plotting; for a man servant, Medon, overheard them from outside the
outer court as they were laying their schemes within, and went to tell
his mistress. As he crossed the threshold of her room Penelope said:
“Medon, what have the suitors sent you here for? Is it to tell the
maids to leave their master’s business and cook dinner for them? I wish
they may neither woo nor dine henceforward, neither here nor anywhere
else, but let this be the very last time, for the waste you all make of
my son’s estate. Did not your fathers tell you when you were children,
how good Ulysses had been to them—never doing anything high-handed, nor
speaking harshly to anybody? Kings may say things sometimes, and they
may take a fancy to one man and dislike another, but Ulysses never did
an unjust thing by anybody—which shows what bad hearts you have, and
that there is no such thing as gratitude left in this world.”

Then Medon said, “I wish, Madam, that this were all; but they are
plotting something much more dreadful now—may heaven frustrate their
design. They are going to try and murder Telemachus as he is coming
home from Pylos and Lacedaemon, where he has been to get news of his
father.”

Then Penelope’s heart sank within her, and for a long time she was
speechless; her eyes filled with tears, and she could find no
utterance. At last, however, she said, “Why did my son leave me? What
business had he to go sailing off in ships that make long voyages over
the ocean like sea-horses? Does he want to die without leaving any one
behind him to keep up his name?”

“I do not know,” answered Medon, “whether some god set him on to it, or
whether he went on his own impulse to see if he could find out if his
father was dead, or alive and on his way home.”

Then he went downstairs again, leaving Penelope in an agony of grief.
There were plenty of seats in the house, but she had no heart for
sitting on any one of them; she could only fling herself on the floor
of her own room and cry; whereon all the maids in the house, both old
and young, gathered round her and began to cry too, till at last in a
transport of sorrow she exclaimed,

“My dears, heaven has been pleased to try me with more affliction than
any other woman of my age and country. First I lost my brave and
lion-hearted husband, who had every good quality under heaven, and
whose name was great over all Hellas and middle Argos, and now my
darling son is at the mercy of the winds and waves, without my having
heard one word about his leaving home. You hussies, there was not one
of you would so much as think of giving me a call out of my bed, though
you all of you very well knew when he was starting. If I had known he
meant taking this voyage, he would have had to give it up, no matter
how much he was bent upon it, or leave me a corpse behind him—one or
other. Now, however, go some of you and call old Dolius, who was given
me by my father on my marriage, and who is my gardener. Bid him go at
once and tell everything to Laertes, who may be able to hit on some
plan for enlisting public sympathy on our side, as against those who
are trying to exterminate his own race and that of Ulysses.”

Then the dear old nurse Euryclea said, “You may kill me, Madam, or let
me live on in your house, whichever you please, but I will tell you the
real truth. I knew all about it, and gave him everything he wanted in
the way of bread and wine, but he made me take my solemn oath that I
would not tell you anything for some ten or twelve days, unless you
asked or happened to hear of his having gone, for he did not want you
to spoil your beauty by crying. And now, Madam, wash your face, change
your dress, and go upstairs with your maids to offer prayers to
Minerva, daughter of Aegis-bearing Jove, for she can save him even
though he be in the jaws of death. Do not trouble Laertes: he has
trouble enough already. Besides, I cannot think that the gods hate the
race of the son of Arceisius so much, but there will be a son left to
come up after him, and inherit both the house and the fair fields that
lie far all round it.”

With these words she made her mistress leave off crying, and dried the
tears from her eyes. Penelope washed her face, changed her dress, and
went upstairs with her maids. She then put some bruised barley into a
basket and began praying to Minerva.

“Hear me,” she cried, “Daughter of Aegis-bearing Jove, unweariable. If
ever Ulysses while he was here burned you fat thigh bones of sheep or
heifer, bear it in mind now as in my favour, and save my darling son
from the villainy of the suitors.”

She cried aloud as she spoke, and the goddess heard her prayer;
meanwhile the suitors were clamorous throughout the covered cloister,
and one of them said:

“The queen is preparing for her marriage with one or other of us.
Little does she dream that her son has now been doomed to die.”

This was what they said, but they did not know what was going to
happen. Then Antinous said, “Comrades, let there be no loud talking,
lest some of it get carried inside. Let us be up and do that in
silence, about which we are all of a mind.”

He then chose twenty men, and they went down to their ship and to the
sea side; they drew the vessel into the water and got her mast and
sails inside her; they bound the oars to the thole-pins with twisted
thongs of leather, all in due course, and spread the white sails aloft,
while their fine servants brought them their armour. Then they made the
ship fast a little way out, came on shore again, got their suppers, and
waited till night should fall.

But Penelope lay in her own room upstairs unable to eat or drink, and
wondering whether her brave son would escape, or be overpowered by the
wicked suitors. Like a lioness caught in the toils with huntsmen
hemming her in on every side she thought and thought till she sank into
a slumber, and lay on her bed bereft of thought and motion.

Then Minerva bethought her of another matter, and made a vision in the
likeness of Penelope’s sister Iphthime daughter of Icarius who had
married Eumelus and lived in Pherae. She told the vision to go to the
house of Ulysses, and to make Penelope leave off crying, so it came
into her room by the hole through which the thong went for pulling the
door to, and hovered over her head saying,

“You are asleep, Penelope: the gods who live at ease will not suffer
you to weep and be so sad. Your son has done them no wrong, so he will
yet come back to you.”

Penelope, who was sleeping sweetly at the gates of dreamland, answered,
“Sister, why have you come here? You do not come very often, but I
suppose that is because you live such a long way off. Am I, then, to
leave off crying and refrain from all the sad thoughts that torture me?
I, who have lost my brave and lion-hearted husband, who had every good
quality under heaven, and whose name was great over all Hellas and
middle Argos; and now my darling son has gone off on board of a ship—a
foolish fellow who has never been used to roughing it, nor to going
about among gatherings of men. I am even more anxious about him than
about my husband; I am all in a tremble when I think of him, lest
something should happen to him, either from the people among whom he
has gone, or by sea, for he has many enemies who are plotting against
him, and are bent on killing him before he can return home.”

Then the vision said, “Take heart, and be not so much dismayed. There
is one gone with him whom many a man would be glad enough to have stand
by his side, I mean Minerva; it is she who has compassion upon you, and
who has sent me to bear you this message.”

“Then,” said Penelope, “if you are a god or have been sent here by
divine commission, tell me also about that other unhappy one—is he
still alive, or is he already dead and in the house of Hades?”

And the vision said, “I shall not tell you for certain whether he is
alive or dead, and there is no use in idle conversation.”

Then it vanished through the thong-hole of the door and was dissipated
into thin air; but Penelope rose from her sleep refreshed and
comforted, so vivid had been her dream.

Meantime the suitors went on board and sailed their ways over the sea,
intent on murdering Telemachus. Now there is a rocky islet called
Asteris, of no great size, in mid channel between Ithaca and Samos, and
there is a harbour on either side of it where a ship can lie. Here then
the Achaeans placed themselves in ambush.




BOOK V


CALYPSO—ULYSSES REACHES SCHERIA ON A RAFT.


And now, as Dawn rose from her couch beside Tithonus—harbinger of light
alike to mortals and immortals—the gods met in council and with them,
Jove the lord of thunder, who is their king. Thereon Minerva began to
tell them of the many sufferings of Ulysses, for she pitied him away
there in the house of the nymph Calypso.

“Father Jove,” said she, “and all you other gods that live in
everlasting bliss, I hope there may never be such a thing as a kind and
well-disposed ruler any more, nor one who will govern equitably. I hope
they will be all henceforth cruel and unjust, for there is not one of
his subjects but has forgotten Ulysses, who ruled them as though he
were their father. There he is, lying in great pain in an island where
dwells the nymph Calypso, who will not let him go; and he cannot get
back to his own country, for he can find neither ships nor sailors to
take him over the sea. Furthermore, wicked people are now trying to
murder his only son Telemachus, who is coming home from Pylos and
Lacedaemon, where he has been to see if he can get news of his father.”

“What, my dear, are you talking about?” replied her father, “did you
not send him there yourself, because you thought it would help Ulysses
to get home and punish the suitors? Besides, you are perfectly able to
protect Telemachus, and to see him safely home again, while the suitors
have to come hurry-skurrying back without having killed him.”

When he had thus spoken, he said to his son Mercury, “Mercury, you are
our messenger, go therefore and tell Calypso we have decreed that poor
Ulysses is to return home. He is to be convoyed neither by gods nor
men, but after a perilous voyage of twenty days upon a raft he is to
reach fertile Scheria,50 the land of the Phaeacians, who are near of
kin to the gods, and will honour him as though he were one of
ourselves. They will send him in a ship to his own country, and will
give him more bronze and gold and raiment than he would have brought
back from Troy, if he had had all his prize money and had got home
without disaster. This is how we have settled that he shall return to
his country and his friends.”

Thus he spoke, and Mercury, guide and guardian, slayer of Argus, did as
he was told. Forthwith he bound on his glittering golden sandals with
which he could fly like the wind over land and sea. He took the wand
with which he seals men’s eyes in sleep or wakes them just as he
pleases, and flew holding it in his hand over Pieria; then he swooped
down through the firmament till he reached the level of the sea, whose
waves he skimmed like a cormorant that flies fishing every hole and
corner of the ocean, and drenching its thick plumage in the spray. He
flew and flew over many a weary wave, but when at last he got to the
island which was his journey’s end, he left the sea and went on by land
till he came to the cave where the nymph Calypso lived.

He found her at home. There was a large fire burning on the hearth, and
one could smell from far the fragrant reek of burning cedar and sandal
wood. As for herself, she was busy at her loom, shooting her golden
shuttle through the warp and singing beautifully. Round her cave there
was a thick wood of alder, poplar, and sweet smelling cypress trees,
wherein all kinds of great birds had built their nests—owls, hawks, and
chattering sea-crows that occupy their business in the waters. A vine
loaded with grapes was trained and grew luxuriantly about the mouth of
the cave; there were also four running rills of water in channels cut
pretty close together, and turned hither and thither so as to irrigate
the beds of violets and luscious herbage over which they flowed. 51
Even a god could not help being charmed with such a lovely spot, so
Mercury stood still and looked at it; but when he had admired it
sufficiently he went inside the cave.

Calypso knew him at once—for the gods all know each other, no matter
how far they live from one another—but Ulysses was not within; he was
on the sea-shore as usual, looking out upon the barren ocean with tears
in his eyes, groaning and breaking his heart for sorrow. Calypso gave
Mercury a seat and said: “Why have you come to see me,
Mercury—honoured, and ever welcome—for you do not visit me often? Say
what you want; I will do it for you at once if I can, and if it can be
done at all; but come inside, and let me set refreshment before you.”

As she spoke she drew a table loaded with ambrosia beside him and mixed
him some red nectar, so Mercury ate and drank till he had had enough,
and then said:

“We are speaking god and goddess to one another, and you ask me why I
have come here, and I will tell you truly as you would have me do. Jove
sent me; it was no doing of mine; who could possibly want to come all
this way over the sea where there are no cities full of people to offer
me sacrifices or choice hecatombs? Nevertheless I had to come, for none
of us other gods can cross Jove, nor transgress his orders. He says
that you have here the most ill-starred of all those who fought nine
years before the city of King Priam and sailed home in the tenth year
after having sacked it. On their way home they sinned against
Minerva,52 who raised both wind and waves against them, so that all his
brave companions perished, and he alone was carried hither by wind and
tide. Jove says that you are to let this man go at once, for it is
decreed that he shall not perish here, far from his own people, but
shall return to his house and country and see his friends again.”

Calypso trembled with rage when she heard this, “You gods,” she
exclaimed, “ought to be ashamed of yourselves. You are always jealous
and hate seeing a goddess take a fancy to a mortal man, and live with
him in open matrimony. So when rosy-fingered Dawn made love to Orion,
you precious gods were all of you furious till Diana went and killed
him in Ortygia. So again when Ceres fell in love with Iasion, and
yielded to him in a thrice-ploughed fallow field, Jove came to hear of
it before so very long and killed Iasion with his thunderbolts. And now
you are angry with me too because I have a man here. I found the poor
creature sitting all alone astride of a keel, for Jove had struck his
ship with lightning and sunk it in mid ocean, so that all his crew were
drowned, while he himself was driven by wind and waves on to my island.
I got fond of him and cherished him, and had set my heart on making him
immortal, so that he should never grow old all his days; still I cannot
cross Jove, nor bring his counsels to nothing; therefore, if he insists
upon it, let the man go beyond the seas again; but I cannot send him
anywhere myself for I have neither ships nor men who can take him.
Nevertheless I will readily give him such advice, in all good faith, as
will be likely to bring him safely to his own country.”

“Then send him away,” said Mercury, “or Jove will be angry with you and
punish you”.

On this he took his leave, and Calypso went out to look for Ulysses,
for she had heard Jove’s message. She found him sitting upon the beach
with his eyes ever filled with tears, and dying of sheer home sickness;
for he had got tired of Calypso, and though he was forced to sleep with
her in the cave by night, it was she, not he, that would have it so. As
for the day time, he spent it on the rocks and on the sea shore,
weeping, crying aloud for his despair, and always looking out upon the
sea. Calypso then went close up to him said:

“My poor fellow, you shall not stay here grieving and fretting your
life out any longer. I am going to send you away of my own free will;
so go, cut some beams of wood, and make yourself a large raft with an
upper deck that it may carry you safely over the sea. I will put bread,
wine, and water on board to save you from starving. I will also give
you clothes, and will send you a fair wind to take you home, if the
gods in heaven so will it—for they know more about these things, and
can settle them better than I can.”

Ulysses shuddered as he heard her. “Now goddess,” he answered, “there
is something behind all this; you cannot be really meaning to help me
home when you bid me do such a dreadful thing as put to sea on a raft.
Not even a well found ship with a fair wind could venture on such a
distant voyage: nothing that you can say or do shall make me go on
board a raft unless you first solemnly swear that you mean me no
mischief.”

Calypso smiled at this and caressed him with her hand: “You know a
great deal,” said she, “but you are quite wrong here. May heaven above
and earth below be my witnesses, with the waters of the river Styx—and
this is the most solemn oath which a blessed god can take—that I mean
you no sort of harm, and am only advising you to do exactly what I
should do myself in your place. I am dealing with you quite
straightforwardly; my heart is not made of iron, and I am very sorry
for you.”

When she had thus spoken she led the way rapidly before him, and
Ulysses followed in her steps; so the pair, goddess and man, went on
and on till they came to Calypso’s cave, where Ulysses took the seat
that Mercury had just left. Calypso set meat and drink before him of
the food that mortals eat; but her maids brought ambrosia and nectar
for herself, and they laid their hands on the good things that were
before them. When they had satisfied themselves with meat and drink,
Calypso spoke, saying:

“Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, so you would start home to your own
land at once? Good luck go with you, but if you could only know how
much suffering is in store for you before you get back to your own
country, you would stay where you are, keep house along with me, and
let me make you immortal, no matter how anxious you may be to see this
wife of yours, of whom you are thinking all the time day after day; yet
I flatter myself that I am no whit less tall or well-looking than she
is, for it is not to be expected that a mortal woman should compare in
beauty with an immortal.”

“Goddess,” replied Ulysses, “do not be angry with me about this. I am
quite aware that my wife Penelope is nothing like so tall or so
beautiful as yourself. She is only a woman, whereas you are an
immortal. Nevertheless, I want to get home, and can think of nothing
else. If some god wrecks me when I am on the sea, I will bear it and
make the best of it. I have had infinite trouble both by land and sea
already, so let this go with the rest.”

Presently the sun set and it became dark, whereon the pair retired into
the inner part of the cave and went to bed.

When the child of morning rosy-fingered Dawn appeared, Ulysses put on
his shirt and cloak, while the goddess wore a dress of a light gossamer
fabric, very fine and graceful, with a beautiful golden girdle about
her waist and a veil to cover her head. She at once set herself to
think how she could speed Ulysses on his way. So she gave him a great
bronze axe that suited his hands; it was sharpened on both sides, and
had a beautiful olive-wood handle fitted firmly on to it. She also gave
him a sharp adze, and then led the way to the far end of the island
where the largest trees grew—alder, poplar and pine, that reached the
sky—very dry and well seasoned, so as to sail light for him in the
water.53 Then, when she had shown him where the best trees grew,
Calypso went home, leaving him to cut them, which he soon finished
doing. He cut down twenty trees in all and adzed them smooth, squaring
them by rule in good workmanlike fashion. Meanwhile Calypso came back
with some augers, so he bored holes with them and fitted the timbers
together with bolts and rivets. He made the raft as broad as a skilled
shipwright makes the beam of a large vessel, and he fixed a deck on top
of the ribs, and ran a gunwale all round it. He also made a mast with a
yard arm, and a rudder to steer with. He fenced the raft all round with
wicker hurdles as a protection against the waves, and then he threw on
a quantity of wood. By and by Calypso brought him some linen to make
the sails, and he made these too, excellently, making them fast with
braces and sheets. Last of all, with the help of levers, he drew the
raft down into the water.

In four days he had completed the whole work, and on the fifth Calypso
sent him from the island after washing him and giving him some clean
clothes. She gave him a goat skin full of black wine, and another
larger one of water; she also gave him a wallet full of provisions, and
found him in much good meat. Moreover, she made the wind fair and warm
for him, and gladly did Ulysses spread his sail before it, while he sat
and guided the raft skilfully by means of the rudder. He never closed
his eyes, but kept them fixed on the Pleiads, on late-setting Bootes,
and on the Bear—which men also call the wain, and which turns round and
round where it is, facing Orion, and alone never dipping into the
stream of Oceanus—for Calypso had told him to keep this to his left.
Days seven and ten did he sail over the sea, and on the eighteenth the
dim outlines of the mountains on the nearest part of the Phaeacian
coast appeared, rising like a shield on the horizon.

But King Neptune, who was returning from the Ethiopians, caught sight
of Ulysses a long way off, from the mountains of the Solymi. He could
see him sailing upon the sea, and it made him very angry, so he wagged
his head and muttered to himself, saying, “Good heavens, so the gods
have been changing their minds about Ulysses while I was away in
Ethiopia, and now he is close to the land of the Phaeacians, where it
is decreed that he shall escape from the calamities that have befallen
him. Still, he shall have plenty of hardship yet before he has done
with it.”

Thereon he gathered his clouds together, grasped his trident, stirred
it round in the sea, and roused the rage of every wind that blows till
earth, sea, and sky were hidden in cloud, and night sprang forth out of
the heavens. Winds from East, South, North, and West fell upon him all
at the same time, and a tremendous sea got up, so that Ulysses’ heart
began to fail him. “Alas,” he said to himself in his dismay, “what ever
will become of me? I am afraid Calypso was right when she said I should
have trouble by sea before I got back home. It is all coming true. How
black is Jove making heaven with his clouds, and what a sea the winds
are raising from every quarter at once. I am now safe to perish. Blest
and thrice blest were those Danaans who fell before Troy in the cause
of the sons of Atreus. Would that I had been killed on the day when the
Trojans were pressing me so sorely about the dead body of Achilles, for
then I should have had due burial and the Achaeans would have honoured
my name; but now it seems that I shall come to a most pitiable end.”

As he spoke a sea broke over him with such terrific fury that the raft
reeled again, and he was carried overboard a long way off. He let go
the helm, and the force of the hurricane was so great that it broke the
mast half way up, and both sail and yard went over into the sea. For a
long time Ulysses was under water, and it was all he could do to rise
to the surface again, for the clothes Calypso had given him weighed him
down; but at last he got his head above water and spat out the bitter
brine that was running down his face in streams. In spite of all this,
however, he did not lose sight of his raft, but swam as fast as he
could towards it, got hold of it, and climbed on board again so as to
escape drowning. The sea took the raft and tossed it about as Autumn
winds whirl thistledown round and round upon a road. It was as though
the South, North, East, and West winds were all playing battledore and
shuttlecock with it at once.

When he was in this plight, Ino daughter of Cadmus, also called
Leucothea, saw him. She had formerly been a mere mortal, but had been
since raised to the rank of a marine goddess. Seeing in what great
distress Ulysses now was, she had compassion upon him, and, rising like
a sea-gull from the waves, took her seat upon the raft.

“My poor good man,” said she, “why is Neptune so furiously angry with
you? He is giving you a great deal of trouble, but for all his bluster
he will not kill you. You seem to be a sensible person, do then as I
bid you; strip, leave your raft to drive before the wind, and swim to
the Phaeacian coast where better luck awaits you. And here, take my
veil and put it round your chest; it is enchanted, and you can come to
no harm so long as you wear it. As soon as you touch land take it off,
throw it back as far as you can into the sea, and then go away again.”
With these words she took off her veil and gave it him. Then she dived
down again like a sea-gull and vanished beneath the dark blue waters.

But Ulysses did not know what to think. “Alas,” he said to himself in
his dismay, “this is only some one or other of the gods who is luring
me to ruin by advising me to quit my raft. At any rate I will not do so
at present, for the land where she said I should be quit of all
troubles seemed to be still a good way off. I know what I will do—I am
sure it will be best—no matter what happens I will stick to the raft as
long as her timbers hold together, but when the sea breaks her up I
will swim for it; I do not see how I can do any better than this.”

While he was thus in two minds, Neptune sent a terrible great wave that
seemed to rear itself above his head till it broke right over the raft,
which then went to pieces as though it were a heap of dry chaff tossed
about by a whirlwind. Ulysses got astride of one plank and rode upon it
as if he were on horseback; he then took off the clothes Calypso had
given him, bound Ino’s veil under his arms, and plunged into the
sea—meaning to swim on shore. King Neptune watched him as he did so,
and wagged his head, muttering to himself and saying, “There now, swim
up and down as you best can till you fall in with well-to-do people. I
do not think you will be able to say that I have let you off too
lightly.” On this he lashed his horses and drove to Aegae where his
palace is.

But Minerva resolved to help Ulysses, so she bound the ways of all the
winds except one, and made them lie quite still; but she roused a good
stiff breeze from the North that should lay the waters till Ulysses
reached the land of the Phaeacians where he would be safe.

Thereon he floated about for two nights and two days in the water, with
a heavy swell on the sea and death staring him in the face; but when
the third day broke, the wind fell and there was a dead calm without so
much as a breath of air stirring. As he rose on the swell he looked
eagerly ahead, and could see land quite near. Then, as children rejoice
when their dear father begins to get better after having for a long
time borne sore affliction sent him by some angry spirit, but the gods
deliver him from evil, so was Ulysses thankful when he again saw land
and trees, and swam on with all his strength that he might once more
set foot upon dry ground. When, however, he got within earshot, he
began to hear the surf thundering up against the rocks, for the swell
still broke against them with a terrific roar. Everything was enveloped
in spray; there were no harbours where a ship might ride, nor shelter
of any kind, but only headlands, low-lying rocks, and mountain tops.

Ulysses’ heart now began to fail him, and he said despairingly to
himself, “Alas, Jove has let me see land after swimming so far that I
had given up all hope, but I can find no landing place, for the coast
is rocky and surf-beaten, the rocks are smooth and rise sheer from the
sea, with deep water close under them so that I cannot climb out for
want of foot hold. I am afraid some great wave will lift me off my legs
and dash me against the rocks as I leave the water—which would give me
a sorry landing. If, on the other hand, I swim further in search of
some shelving beach or harbour, a hurricane may carry me out to sea
again sorely against my will, or heaven may send some great monster of
the deep to attack me; for Amphitrite breeds many such, and I know that
Neptune is very angry with me.”

While he was thus in two minds a wave caught him and took him with such
force against the rocks that he would have been smashed and torn to
pieces if Minerva had not shown him what to do. He caught hold of the
rock with both hands and clung to it groaning with pain till the wave
retired, so he was saved that time; but presently the wave came on
again and carried him back with it far into the sea—tearing his hands
as the suckers of a polypus are torn when some one plucks it from its
bed, and the stones come up along with it—even so did the rocks tear
the skin from his strong hands, and then the wave drew him deep down
under the water.

Here poor Ulysses would have certainly perished even in spite of his
own destiny, if Minerva had not helped him to keep his wits about him.
He swam seaward again, beyond reach of the surf that was beating
against the land, and at the same time he kept looking towards the
shore to see if he could find some haven, or a spit that should take
the waves aslant. By and by, as he swam on, he came to the mouth of a
river, and here he thought would be the best place, for there were no
rocks, and it afforded shelter from the wind. He felt that there was a
current, so he prayed inwardly and said:

“Hear me, O King, whoever you may be, and save me from the anger of the
sea-god Neptune, for I approach you prayerfully. Any one who has lost
his way has at all times a claim even upon the gods, wherefore in my
distress I draw near to your stream, and cling to the knees of your
riverhood. Have mercy upon me, O king, for I declare myself your
suppliant.”

Then the god staid his stream and stilled the waves, making all calm
before him, and bringing him safely into the mouth of the river. Here
at last Ulysses’ knees and strong hands failed him, for the sea had
completely broken him. His body was all swollen, and his mouth and
nostrils ran down like a river with sea-water, so that he could neither
breathe nor speak, and lay swooning from sheer exhaustion; presently,
when he had got his breath and came to himself again, he took off the
scarf that Ino had given him and threw it back into the salt54 stream
of the river, whereon Ino received it into her hands from the wave that
bore it towards her. Then he left the river, laid himself down among
the rushes, and kissed the bounteous earth.

“Alas,” he cried to himself in his dismay, “what ever will become of
me, and how is it all to end? If I stay here upon the river bed through
the long watches of the night, I am so exhausted that the bitter cold
and damp may make an end of me—for towards sunrise there will be a keen
wind blowing from off the river. If, on the other hand, I climb the
hill side, find shelter in the woods, and sleep in some thicket, I may
escape the cold and have a good night’s rest, but some savage beast may
take advantage of me and devour me.”

In the end he deemed it best to take to the woods, and he found one
upon some high ground not far from the water. There he crept beneath
two shoots of olive that grew from a single stock—the one an ungrafted
sucker, while the other had been grafted. No wind, however squally,
could break through the cover they afforded, nor could the sun’s rays
pierce them, nor the rain get through them, so closely did they grow
into one another. Ulysses crept under these and began to make himself a
bed to lie on, for there was a great litter of dead leaves lying
about—enough to make a covering for two or three men even in hard
winter weather. He was glad enough to see this, so he laid himself down
and heaped the leaves all round him. Then, as one who lives alone in
the country, far from any neighbor, hides a brand as fire-seed in the
ashes to save himself from having to get a light elsewhere, even so did
Ulysses cover himself up with leaves; and Minerva shed a sweet sleep
upon his eyes, closed his eyelids, and made him lose all memories of
his sorrows.




BOOK VI


THE MEETING BETWEEN NAUSICAA AND ULYSSES.


So here Ulysses slept, overcome by sleep and toil; but Minerva went off
to the country and city of the Phaeacians—a people who used to live in
the fair town of Hypereia, near the lawless Cyclopes. Now the Cyclopes
were stronger than they and plundered them, so their king Nausithous
moved them thence and settled them in Scheria, far from all other
people. He surrounded the city with a wall, built houses and temples,
and divided the lands among his people; but he was dead and gone to the
house of Hades, and King Alcinous, whose counsels were inspired of
heaven, was now reigning. To his house, then, did Minerva hie in
furtherance of the return of Ulysses.

She went straight to the beautifully decorated bedroom in which there
slept a girl who was as lovely as a goddess, Nausicaa, daughter to King
Alcinous. Two maid servants were sleeping near her, both very pretty,
one on either side of the doorway, which was closed with well made
folding doors. Minerva took the form of the famous sea captain Dymas’s
daughter, who was a bosom friend of Nausicaa and just her own age;
then, coming up to the girl’s bedside like a breath of wind, she
hovered over her head and said:

“Nausicaa, what can your mother have been about, to have such a lazy
daughter? Here are your clothes all lying in disorder, yet you are
going to be married almost immediately, and should not only be well
dressed yourself, but should find good clothes for those who attend
you. This is the way to get yourself a good name, and to make your
father and mother proud of you. Suppose, then, that we make tomorrow a
washing day, and start at daybreak. I will come and help you so that
you may have everything ready as soon as possible, for all the best
young men among your own people are courting you, and you are not going
to remain a maid much longer. Ask your father, therefore, to have a
waggon and mules ready for us at daybreak, to take the rugs, robes, and
girdles, and you can ride, too, which will be much pleasanter for you
than walking, for the washing-cisterns are some way from the town.”

When she had said this Minerva went away to Olympus, which they say is
the everlasting home of the gods. Here no wind beats roughly, and
neither rain nor snow can fall; but it abides in everlasting sunshine
and in a great peacefulness of light, wherein the blessed gods are
illumined for ever and ever. This was the place to which the goddess
went when she had given instructions to the girl.

By and by morning came and woke Nausicaa, who began wondering about her
dream; she therefore went to the other end of the house to tell her
father and mother all about it, and found them in their own room. Her
mother was sitting by the fireside spinning her purple yarn with her
maids around her, and she happened to catch her father just as he was
going out to attend a meeting of the town council, which the Phaeacian
aldermen had convened. She stopped him and said:

“Papa dear, could you manage to let me have a good big waggon? I want
to take all our dirty clothes to the river and wash them. You are the
chief man here, so it is only right that you should have a clean shirt
when you attend meetings of the council. Moreover, you have five sons
at home, two of them married, while the other three are good looking
bachelors; you know they always like to have clean linen when they go
to a dance, and I have been thinking about all this.”

She did not say a word about her own wedding, for she did not like to,
but her father knew and said, “You shall have the mules, my love, and
whatever else you have a mind for. Be off with you, and the men shall
get you a good strong waggon with a body to it that will hold all your
clothes.”

On this he gave his orders to the servants, who got the waggon out,
harnessed the mules, and put them to, while the girl brought the
clothes down from the linen room and placed them on the waggon. Her
mother prepared her a basket of provisions with all sorts of good
things, and a goat skin full of wine; the girl now got into the waggon,
and her mother gave her also a golden cruse of oil, that she and her
women might anoint themselves. Then she took the whip and reins and
lashed the mules on, whereon they set off, and their hoofs clattered on
the road. They pulled without flagging, and carried not only Nausicaa
and her wash of clothes, but the maids also who were with her.

When they reached the water side they went to the washing cisterns,
through which there ran at all times enough pure water to wash any
quantity of linen, no matter how dirty. Here they unharnessed the mules
and turned them out to feed on the sweet juicy herbage that grew by the
water side. They took the clothes out of the waggon, put them in the
water, and vied with one another in treading them in the pits to get
the dirt out. After they had washed them and got them quite clean, they
laid them out by the sea side, where the waves had raised a high beach
of shingle, and set about washing themselves and anointing themselves
with olive oil. Then they got their dinner by the side of the stream,
and waited for the sun to finish drying the clothes. When they had done
dinner they threw off the veils that covered their heads and began to
play at ball, while Nausicaa sang for them. As the huntress Diana goes
forth upon the mountains of Taygetus or Erymanthus to hunt wild boars
or deer, and the wood nymphs, daughters of Aegis-bearing Jove, take
their sport along with her (then is Leto proud at seeing her daughter
stand a full head taller than the others, and eclipse the loveliest
amid a whole bevy of beauties), even so did the girl outshine her
handmaids.

When it was time for them to start home, and they were folding the
clothes and putting them into the waggon, Minerva began to consider how
Ulysses should wake up and see the handsome girl who was to conduct him
to the city of the Phaeacians. The girl, therefore, threw a ball at one
of the maids, which missed her and fell into deep water. On this they
all shouted, and the noise they made woke Ulysses, who sat up in his
bed of leaves and began to wonder what it might all be.

“Alas,” said he to himself, “what kind of people have I come amongst?
Are they cruel, savage, and uncivilised, or hospitable and humane? I
seem to hear the voices of young women, and they sound like those of
the nymphs that haunt mountain tops, or springs of rivers and meadows
of green grass. At any rate I am among a race of men and women. Let me
try if I cannot manage to get a look at them.”

As he said this he crept from under his bush, and broke off a bough
covered with thick leaves to hide his nakedness. He looked like some
lion of the wilderness that stalks about exulting in his strength and
defying both wind and rain; his eyes glare as he prowls in quest of
oxen, sheep, or deer, for he is famished, and will dare break even into
a well fenced homestead, trying to get at the sheep—even such did
Ulysses seem to the young women, as he drew near to them all naked as
he was, for he was in great want. On seeing one so unkempt and so
begrimed with salt water, the others scampered off along the spits that
jutted out into the sea, but the daughter of Alcinous stood firm, for
Minerva put courage into her heart and took away all fear from her. She
stood right in front of Ulysses, and he doubted whether he should go up
to her, throw himself at her feet, and embrace her knees as a
suppliant, or stay where he was and entreat her to give him some
clothes and show him the way to the town. In the end he deemed it best
to entreat her from a distance in case the girl should take offence at
his coming near enough to clasp her knees, so he addressed her in
honeyed and persuasive language.

“O queen,” he said, “I implore your aid—but tell me, are you a goddess
or are you a mortal woman? If you are a goddess and dwell in heaven, I
can only conjecture that you are Jove’s daughter Diana, for your face
and figure resemble none but hers; if on the other hand you are a
mortal and live on earth, thrice happy are your father and
mother—thrice happy, too, are your brothers and sisters; how proud and
delighted they must feel when they see so fair a scion as yourself
going out to a dance; most happy, however, of all will he be whose
wedding gifts have been the richest, and who takes you to his own home.
I never yet saw any one so beautiful, neither man nor woman, and am
lost in admiration as I behold you. I can only compare you to a young
palm tree which I saw when I was at Delos growing near the altar of
Apollo—for I was there, too, with much people after me, when I was on
that journey which has been the source of all my troubles. Never yet
did such a young plant shoot out of the ground as that was, and I
admired and wondered at it exactly as I now admire and wonder at
yourself. I dare not clasp your knees, but I am in great distress;
yesterday made the twentieth day that I had been tossing about upon the
sea. The winds and waves have taken me all the way from the Ogygian
island,55 and now fate has flung me upon this coast that I may endure
still further suffering; for I do not think that I have yet come to the
end of it, but rather that heaven has still much evil in store for me.

“And now, O queen, have pity upon me, for you are the first person I
have met, and I know no one else in this country. Show me the way to
your town, and let me have anything that you may have brought hither to
wrap your clothes in. May heaven grant you in all things your heart’s
desire—husband, house, and a happy, peaceful home; for there is nothing
better in this world than that man and wife should be of one mind in a
house. It discomfits their enemies, makes the hearts of their friends
glad, and they themselves know more about it than any one.”

To this Nausicaa answered, “Stranger, you appear to be a sensible,
well-disposed person. There is no accounting for luck; Jove gives
prosperity to rich and poor just as he chooses, so you must take what
he has seen fit to send you, and make the best of it. Now, however,
that you have come to this our country, you shall not want for clothes
nor for anything else that a foreigner in distress may reasonably look
for. I will show you the way to the town, and will tell you the name of
our people; we are called Phaeacians, and I am daughter to Alcinous, in
whom the whole power of the state is vested.”

Then she called her maids and said, “Stay where you are, you girls. Can
you not see a man without running away from him? Do you take him for a
robber or a murderer? Neither he nor any one else can come here to do
us Phaeacians any harm, for we are dear to the gods, and live apart on
a land’s end that juts into the sounding sea, and have nothing to do
with any other people. This is only some poor man who has lost his way,
and we must be kind to him, for strangers and foreigners in distress
are under Jove’s protection, and will take what they can get and be
thankful; so, girls, give the poor fellow something to eat and drink,
and wash him in the stream at some place that is sheltered from the
wind.”

On this the maids left off running away and began calling one another
back. They made Ulysses sit down in the shelter as Nausicaa had told
them, and brought him a shirt and cloak. They also brought him the
little golden cruse of oil, and told him to go and wash in the stream.
But Ulysses said, “Young women, please to stand a little on one side
that I may wash the brine from my shoulders and anoint myself with oil,
for it is long enough since my skin has had a drop of oil upon it. I
cannot wash as long as you all keep standing there. I am ashamed to
strip56 before a number of good looking young women.”

Then they stood on one side and went to tell the girl, while Ulysses
washed himself in the stream and scrubbed the brine from his back and
from his broad shoulders. When he had thoroughly washed himself, and
had got the brine out of his hair, he anointed himself with oil, and
put on the clothes which the girl had given him; Minerva then made him
look taller and stronger than before, she also made the hair grow thick
on the top of his head, and flow down in curls like hyacinth blossoms;
she glorified him about the head and shoulders as a skilful workman who
has studied art of all kinds under Vulcan and Minerva enriches a piece
of silver plate by gilding it—and his work is full of beauty. Then he
went and sat down a little way off upon the beach, looking quite young
and handsome, and the girl gazed on him with admiration; then she said
to her maids:

“Hush, my dears, for I want to say something. I believe the gods who
live in heaven have sent this man to the Phaeacians. When I first saw
him I thought him plain, but now his appearance is like that of the
gods who dwell in heaven. I should like my future husband to be just
such another as he is, if he would only stay here and not want to go
away. However, give him something to eat and drink.”

They did as they were told, and set food before Ulysses, who ate and
drank ravenously, for it was long since he had had food of any kind.
Meanwhile, Nausicaa bethought her of another matter. She got the linen
folded and placed in the waggon, she then yoked the mules, and, as she
took her seat, she called Ulysses:

“Stranger,” said she, “rise and let us be going back to the town; I
will introduce you at the house of my excellent father, where I can
tell you that you will meet all the best people among the Phaeacians.
But be sure and do as I bid you, for you seem to be a sensible person.
As long as we are going past the fields and farm lands, follow briskly
behind the waggon along with the maids and I will lead the way myself.
Presently, however, we shall come to the town, where you will find a
high wall running all round it, and a good harbour on either side with
a narrow entrance into the city, and the ships will be drawn up by the
road side, for every one has a place where his own ship can lie. You
will see the market place with a temple of Neptune in the middle of it,
and paved with large stones bedded in the earth. Here people deal in
ship’s gear of all kinds, such as cables and sails, and here, too, are
the places where oars are made, for the Phaeacians are not a nation of
archers; they know nothing about bows and arrows, but are a sea-faring
folk, and pride themselves on their masts, oars, and ships, with which
they travel far over the sea.

“I am afraid of the gossip and scandal that may be set on foot against
me later on; for the people here are very ill-natured, and some low
fellow, if he met us, might say, ‘Who is this fine-looking stranger
that is going about with Nausicaa? Where did she find him? I suppose
she is going to marry him. Perhaps he is a vagabond sailor whom she has
taken from some foreign vessel, for we have no neighbours; or some god
has at last come down from heaven in answer to her prayers, and she is
going to live with him all the rest of her life. It would be a good
thing if she would take herself off and find a husband somewhere else,
for she will not look at one of the many excellent young Phaeacians who
are in love with her.’ This is the kind of disparaging remark that
would be made about me, and I could not complain, for I should myself
be scandalised at seeing any other girl do the like, and go about with
men in spite of everybody, while her father and mother were still
alive, and without having been married in the face of all the world.

“If, therefore, you want my father to give you an escort and to help
you home, do as I bid you; you will see a beautiful grove of poplars by
the road side dedicated to Minerva; it has a well in it and a meadow
all round it. Here my father has a field of rich garden ground, about
as far from the town as a man’s voice will carry. Sit down there and
wait for a while till the rest of us can get into the town and reach my
father’s house. Then, when you think we must have done this, come into
the town and ask the way to the house of my father Alcinous. You will
have no difficulty in finding it; any child will point it out to you,
for no one else in the whole town has anything like such a fine house
as he has. When you have got past the gates and through the outer
court, go right across the inner court till you come to my mother. You
will find her sitting by the fire and spinning her purple wool by
firelight. It is a fine sight to see her as she leans back against one
of the bearing-posts with her maids all ranged behind her. Close to her
seat stands that of my father, on which he sits and topes like an
immortal god. Never mind him, but go up to my mother, and lay your
hands upon her knees if you would get home quickly. If you can gain her
over, you may hope to see your own country again, no matter how distant
it may be.”

So saying she lashed the mules with her whip and they left the river.
The mules drew well, and their hoofs went up and down upon the road.
She was careful not to go too fast for Ulysses and the maids who were
following on foot along with the waggon, so she plied her whip with
judgement. As the sun was going down they came to the sacred grove of
Minerva, and there Ulysses sat down and prayed to the mighty daughter
of Jove.

“Hear me,” he cried, “daughter of Aegis-bearing Jove, unweariable, hear
me now, for you gave no heed to my prayers when Neptune was wrecking
me. Now, therefore, have pity upon me and grant that I may find friends
and be hospitably received by the Phaeacians.”

Thus did he pray, and Minerva heard his prayer, but she would not show
herself to him openly, for she was afraid of her uncle Neptune, who was
still furious in his endeavors to prevent Ulysses from getting home.




BOOK VII


RECEPTION OF ULYSSES AT THE PALACE OF KING ALCINOUS.


Thus, then, did Ulysses wait and pray; but the girl drove on to the
town. When she reached her father’s house she drew up at the gateway,
and her brothers—comely as the gods—gathered round her, took the mules
out of the waggon, and carried the clothes into the house, while she
went to her own room, where an old servant, Eurymedusa of Apeira, lit
the fire for her. This old woman had been brought by sea from Apeira,
and had been chosen as a prize for Alcinous because he was king over
the Phaeacians, and the people obeyed him as though he were a god.57
She had been nurse to Nausicaa, and had now lit the fire for her, and
brought her supper for her into her own room.

Presently Ulysses got up to go towards the town; and Minerva shed a
thick mist all round him to hide him in case any of the proud
Phaeacians who met him should be rude to him, or ask him who he was.
Then, as he was just entering the town, she came towards him in the
likeness of a little girl carrying a pitcher. She stood right in front
of him, and Ulysses said:

“My dear, will you be so kind as to show me the house of king Alcinous?
I am an unfortunate foreigner in distress, and do not know one in your
town and country.”

Then Minerva said, “Yes, father stranger, I will show you the house you
want, for Alcinous lives quite close to my own father. I will go before
you and show the way, but say not a word as you go, and do not look at
any man, nor ask him questions; for the people here cannot abide
strangers, and do not like men who come from some other place. They are
a sea-faring folk, and sail the seas by the grace of Neptune in ships
that glide along like thought, or as a bird in the air.”

On this she led the way, and Ulysses followed in her steps; but not one
of the Phaeacians could see him as he passed through the city in the
midst of them; for the great goddess Minerva in her good will towards
him had hidden him in a thick cloud of darkness. He admired their
harbours, ships, places of assembly, and the lofty walls of the city,
which, with the palisade on top of them, were very striking, and when
they reached the king’s house Minerva said:

“This is the house, father stranger, which you would have me show you.
You will find a number of great people sitting at table, but do not be
afraid; go straight in, for the bolder a man is the more likely he is
to carry his point, even though he is a stranger. First find the queen.
Her name is Arete, and she comes of the same family as her husband
Alcinous. They both descend originally from Neptune, who was father to
Nausithous by Periboea, a woman of great beauty. Periboea was the
youngest daughter of Eurymedon, who at one time reigned over the
giants, but he ruined his ill-fated people and lost his own life to
boot.

“Neptune, however, lay with his daughter, and she had a son by him, the
great Nausithous, who reigned over the Phaeacians. Nausithous had two
sons Rhexenor and Alcinous;58 Apollo killed the first of them while he
was still a bridegroom and without male issue; but he left a daughter
Arete, whom Alcinous married, and honours as no other woman is honoured
of all those that keep house along with their husbands.

“Thus she both was, and still is, respected beyond measure by her
children, by Alcinous himself, and by the whole people, who look upon
her as a goddess, and greet her whenever she goes about the city, for
she is a thoroughly good woman both in head and heart, and when any
women are friends of hers, she will help their husbands also to settle
their disputes. If you can gain her good will, you may have every hope
of seeing your friends again, and getting safely back to your home and
country.”

Then Minerva left Scheria and went away over the sea. She went to
Marathon59 and to the spacious streets of Athens, where she entered the
abode of Erechtheus; but Ulysses went on to the house of Alcinous, and
he pondered much as he paused a while before reaching the threshold of
bronze, for the splendour of the palace was like that of the sun or
moon. The walls on either side were of bronze from end to end, and the
cornice was of blue enamel. The doors were gold, and hung on pillars of
silver that rose from a floor of bronze, while the lintel was silver
and the hook of the door was of gold.

On either side there stood gold and silver mastiffs which Vulcan, with
his consummate skill, had fashioned expressly to keep watch over the
palace of king Alcinous; so they were immortal and could never grow
old. Seats were ranged all along the wall, here and there from one end
to the other, with coverings of fine woven work which the women of the
house had made. Here the chief persons of the Phaeacians used to sit
and eat and drink, for there was abundance at all seasons; and there
were golden figures of young men with lighted torches in their hands,
raised on pedestals, to give light by night to those who were at table.
There are60 fifty maid servants in the house, some of whom are always
grinding rich yellow grain at the mill, while others work at the loom,
or sit and spin, and their shuttles go backwards and forwards like the
fluttering of aspen leaves, while the linen is so closely woven that it
will turn oil. As the Phaeacians are the best sailors in the world, so
their women excel all others in weaving, for Minerva has taught them
all manner of useful arts, and they are very intelligent.

Outside the gate of the outer court there is a large garden of about
four acres with a wall all round it. It is full of beautiful
trees—pears, pomegranates, and the most delicious apples. There are
luscious figs also, and olives in full growth. The fruits never rot nor
fail all the year round, neither winter nor summer, for the air is so
soft that a new crop ripens before the old has dropped. Pear grows on
pear, apple on apple, and fig on fig, and so also with the grapes, for
there is an excellent vineyard: on the level ground of a part of this,
the grapes are being made into raisins; in another part they are being
gathered; some are being trodden in the wine tubs, others further on
have shed their blossom and are beginning to show fruit, others again
are just changing colour. In the furthest part of the ground there are
beautifully arranged beds of flowers that are in bloom all the year
round. Two streams go through it, the one turned in ducts throughout
the whole garden, while the other is carried under the ground of the
outer court to the house itself, and the town’s people draw water from
it. Such, then, were the splendours with which the gods had endowed the
house of king Alcinous.

So here Ulysses stood for a while and looked about him, but when he had
looked long enough he crossed the threshold and went within the
precincts of the house. There he found all the chief people among the
Phaeacians making their drink offerings to Mercury, which they always
did the last thing before going away for the night.61 He went straight
through the court, still hidden by the cloak of darkness in which
Minerva had enveloped him, till he reached Arete and King Alcinous;
then he laid his hands upon the knees of the queen, and at that moment
the miraculous darkness fell away from him and he became visible. Every
one was speechless with surprise at seeing a man there, but Ulysses
began at once with his petition.

“Queen Arete,” he exclaimed, “daughter of great Rhexenor, in my
distress I humbly pray you, as also your husband and these your guests
(whom may heaven prosper with long life and happiness, and may they
leave their possessions to their children, and all the honours
conferred upon them by the state) to help me home to my own country as
soon as possible; for I have been long in trouble and away from my
friends.”

Then he sat down on the hearth among the ashes and they all held their
peace, till presently the old hero Echeneus, who was an excellent
speaker and an elder among the Phaeacians, plainly and in all honesty
addressed them thus:

“Alcinous,” said he, “it is not creditable to you that a stranger
should be seen sitting among the ashes of your hearth; every one is
waiting to hear what you are about to say; tell him, then, to rise and
take a seat on a stool inlaid with silver, and bid your servants mix
some wine and water that we may make a drink offering to Jove the lord
of thunder, who takes all well disposed suppliants under his
protection; and let the housekeeper give him some supper, of whatever
there may be in the house.”

When Alcinous heard this he took Ulysses by the hand, raised him from
the hearth, and bade him take the seat of Laodamas, who had been
sitting beside him, and was his favourite son. A maid servant then
brought him water in a beautiful golden ewer and poured it into a
silver basin for him to wash his hands, and she drew a clean table
beside him; an upper servant brought him bread and offered him many
good things of what there was in the house, and Ulysses ate and drank.
Then Alcinous said to one of the servants, “Pontonous, mix a cup of
wine and hand it round that we may make drink-offerings to Jove the
lord of thunder, who is the protector of all well-disposed suppliants.”

Pontonous then mixed wine and water, and handed it round after giving
every man his drink-offering. When they had made their offerings, and
had drunk each as much as he was minded, Alcinous said:

“Aldermen and town councillors of the Phaeacians, hear my words. You
have had your supper, so now go home to bed. To-morrow morning I shall
invite a still larger number of aldermen, and will give a sacrificial
banquet in honour of our guest; we can then discuss the question of his
escort, and consider how we may at once send him back rejoicing to his
own country without trouble or inconvenience to himself, no matter how
distant it may be. We must see that he comes to no harm while on his
homeward journey, but when he is once at home he will have to take the
luck he was born with for better or worse like other people. It is
possible, however, that the stranger is one of the immortals who has
come down from heaven to visit us; but in this case the gods are
departing from their usual practice, for hitherto they have made
themselves perfectly clear to us when we have been offering them
hecatombs. They come and sit at our feasts just like one of our selves,
and if any solitary wayfarer happens to stumble upon some one or other
of them, they affect no concealment, for we are as near of kin to the
gods as the Cyclopes and the savage giants are.”62

Then Ulysses said: “Pray, Alcinous, do not take any such notion into
your head. I have nothing of the immortal about me, neither in body nor
mind, and most resemble those among you who are the most afflicted.
Indeed, were I to tell you all that heaven has seen fit to lay upon me,
you would say that I was still worse off than they are. Nevertheless,
let me sup in spite of sorrow, for an empty stomach is a very
importunate thing, and thrusts itself on a man’s notice no matter how
dire is his distress. I am in great trouble, yet it insists that I
shall eat and drink, bids me lay aside all memory of my sorrows and
dwell only on the due replenishing of itself. As for yourselves, do as
you propose, and at break of day set about helping me to get home. I
shall be content to die if I may first once more behold my property, my
bondsmen, and all the greatness of my house.”63

Thus did he speak. Every one approved his saying, and agreed that he
should have his escort inasmuch as he had spoken reasonably. Then when
they had made their drink offerings, and had drunk each as much as he
was minded they went home to bed every man in his own abode, leaving
Ulysses in the cloister with Arete and Alcinous while the servants were
taking the things away after supper. Arete was the first to speak, for
she recognised the shirt, cloak, and good clothes that Ulysses was
wearing, as the work of herself and of her maids; so she said,
“Stranger, before we go any further, there is a question I should like
to ask you. Who, and whence are you, and who gave you those clothes?
Did you not say you had come here from beyond the sea?”

And Ulysses answered, “It would be a long story Madam, were I to relate
in full the tale of my misfortunes, for the hand of heaven has been
laid heavy upon me; but as regards your question, there is an island
far away in the sea which is called ‘the Ogygian.’ Here dwells the
cunning and powerful goddess Calypso, daughter of Atlas. She lives by
herself far from all neighbours human or divine. Fortune, however,
brought me to her hearth all desolate and alone, for Jove struck my
ship with his thunderbolts, and broke it up in mid-ocean. My brave
comrades were drowned every man of them, but I stuck to the keel and
was carried hither and thither for the space of nine days, till at last
during the darkness of the tenth night the gods brought me to the
Ogygian island where the great goddess Calypso lives. She took me in
and treated me with the utmost kindness; indeed she wanted to make me
immortal that I might never grow old, but she could not persuade me to
let her do so.

“I stayed with Calypso seven years straight on end, and watered the
good clothes she gave me with my tears during the whole time; but at
last when the eighth year came round she bade me depart of her own free
will, either because Jove had told her she must, or because she had
changed her mind. She sent me from her island on a raft, which she
provisioned with abundance of bread and wine. Moreover she gave me good
stout clothing, and sent me a wind that blew both warm and fair. Days
seven and ten did I sail over the sea, and on the eighteenth I caught
sight of the first outlines of the mountains upon your coast—and glad
indeed was I to set eyes upon them. Nevertheless there was still much
trouble in store for me, for at this point Neptune would let me go no
further, and raised a great storm against me; the sea was so terribly
high that I could no longer keep to my raft, which went to pieces under
the fury of the gale, and I had to swim for it, till wind and current
brought me to your shores.

“There I tried to land, but could not, for it was a bad place and the
waves dashed me against the rocks, so I again took to the sea and swam
on till I came to a river that seemed the most likely landing place,
for there were no rocks and it was sheltered from the wind. Here, then,
I got out of the water and gathered my senses together again. Night was
coming on, so I left the river, and went into a thicket, where I
covered myself all over with leaves, and presently heaven sent me off
into a very deep sleep. Sick and sorry as I was I slept among the
leaves all night, and through the next day till afternoon, when I woke
as the sun was westering, and saw your daughter’s maid servants playing
upon the beach, and your daughter among them looking like a goddess. I
besought her aid, and she proved to be of an excellent disposition,
much more so than could be expected from so young a person—for young
people are apt to be thoughtless. She gave me plenty of bread and wine,
and when she had had me washed in the river she also gave me the
clothes in which you see me. Now, therefore, though it has pained me to
do so, I have told you the whole truth.”

Then Alcinous said, “Stranger, it was very wrong of my daughter not to
bring you on at once to my house along with the maids, seeing that she
was the first person whose aid you asked.”

“Pray do not scold her,” replied Ulysses; “she is not to blame. She did
tell me to follow along with the maids, but I was ashamed and afraid,
for I thought you might perhaps be displeased if you saw me. Every
human being is sometimes a little suspicious and irritable.”

“Stranger,” replied Alcinous, “I am not the kind of man to get angry
about nothing; it is always better to be reasonable; but by Father
Jove, Minerva, and Apollo, now that I see what kind of person you are,
and how much you think as I do, I wish you would stay here, marry my
daughter, and become my son-in-law. If you will stay I will give you a
house and an estate, but no one (heaven forbid) shall keep you here
against your own wish, and that you may be sure of this I will attend
tomorrow to the matter of your escort. You can sleep64 during the whole
voyage if you like, and the men shall sail you over smooth waters
either to your own home, or wherever you please, even though it be a
long way further off than Euboea, which those of my people who saw it
when they took yellow-haired Rhadamanthus to see Tityus the son of
Gaia, tell me is the furthest of any place—and yet they did the whole
voyage in a single day without distressing themselves, and came back
again afterwards. You will thus see how much my ships excel all others,
and what magnificent oarsmen my sailors are.”

Then was Ulysses glad and prayed aloud saying, “Father Jove, grant that
Alcinous may do all as he has said, for so he will win an imperishable
name among mankind, and at the same time I shall return to my country.”

Thus did they converse. Then Arete told her maids to set a bed in the
room that was in the gatehouse, and make it with good red rugs, and to
spread coverlets on the top of them with woollen cloaks for Ulysses to
wear. The maids thereon went out with torches in their hands, and when
they had made the bed they came up to Ulysses and said, “Rise, sir
stranger, and come with us for your bed is ready,” and glad indeed was
he to go to his rest.

So Ulysses slept in a bed placed in a room over the echoing gateway;
but Alcinous lay in the inner part of the house, with the queen his
wife by his side.




BOOK VIII


BANQUET IN THE HOUSE OF ALCINOUS—THE GAMES.


Now when the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, Alcinous
and Ulysses both rose, and Alcinous led the way to the Phaeacian place
of assembly, which was near the ships. When they got there they sat
down side by side on a seat of polished stone, while Minerva took the
form of one of Alcinous’ servants, and went round the town in order to
help Ulysses to get home. She went up to the citizens, man by man, and
said, “Aldermen and town councillors of the Phaeacians, come to the
assembly all of you and listen to the stranger who has just come off a
long voyage to the house of King Alcinous; he looks like an immortal
god.”

With these words she made them all want to come, and they flocked to
the assembly till seats and standing room were alike crowded. Every one
was struck with the appearance of Ulysses, for Minerva had beautified
him about the head and shoulders, making him look taller and stouter
than he really was, that he might impress the Phaeacians favourably as
being a very remarkable man, and might come off well in the many trials
of skill to which they would challenge him. Then, when they were got
together, Alcinous spoke:

“Hear me,” said he, “aldermen and town councillors of the Phaeacians,
that I may speak even as I am minded. This stranger, whoever he may be,
has found his way to my house from somewhere or other either East or
West. He wants an escort and wishes to have the matter settled. Let us
then get one ready for him, as we have done for others before him;
indeed, no one who ever yet came to my house has been able to complain
of me for not speeding on his way soon enough. Let us draw a ship into
the sea—one that has never yet made a voyage—and man her with two and
fifty of our smartest young sailors. Then when you have made fast your
oars each by his own seat, leave the ship and come to my house to
prepare a feast.65 I will find you in everything. I am giving these
instructions to the young men who will form the crew, for as regards
you aldermen and town councillors, you will join me in entertaining our
guest in the cloisters. I can take no excuses, and we will have
Demodocus to sing to us; for there is no bard like him whatever he may
choose to sing about.”

Alcinous then led the way, and the others followed after, while a
servant went to fetch Demodocus. The fifty-two picked oarsmen went to
the sea shore as they had been told, and when they got there they drew
the ship into the water, got her mast and sails inside her, bound the
oars to the thole-pins with twisted thongs of leather, all in due
course, and spread the white sails aloft. They moored the vessel a
little way out from land, and then came on shore and went to the house
of King Alcinous. The out houses,66 yards, and all the precincts were
filled with crowds of men in great multitudes both old and young; and
Alcinous killed them a dozen sheep, eight full grown pigs, and two
oxen. These they skinned and dressed so as to provide a magnificent
banquet.

A servant presently led in the famous bard Demodocus, whom the muse had
dearly loved, but to whom she had given both good and evil, for though
she had endowed him with a divine gift of song, she had robbed him of
his eyesight. Pontonous set a seat for him among the guests, leaning it
up against a bearing-post. He hung the lyre for him on a peg over his
head, and showed him where he was to feel for it with his hands. He
also set a fair table with a basket of victuals by his side, and a cup
of wine from which he might drink whenever he was so disposed.

The company then laid their hands upon the good things that were before
them, but as soon as they had had enough to eat and drink, the muse
inspired Demodocus to sing the feats of heroes, and more especially a
matter that was then in the mouths of all men, to wit, the quarrel
between Ulysses and Achilles, and the fierce words that they heaped on
one another as they sat together at a banquet. But Agamemnon was glad
when he heard his chieftains quarrelling with one another, for Apollo
had foretold him this at Pytho when he crossed the stone floor to
consult the oracle. Here was the beginning of the evil that by the will
of Jove fell both upon Danaans and Trojans.

Thus sang the bard, but Ulysses drew his purple mantle over his head
and covered his face, for he was ashamed to let the Phaeacians see that
he was weeping. When the bard left off singing he wiped the tears from
his eyes, uncovered his face, and, taking his cup, made a
drink-offering to the gods; but when the Phaeacians pressed Demodocus
to sing further, for they delighted in his lays, then Ulysses again
drew his mantle over his head and wept bitterly. No one noticed his
distress except Alcinous, who was sitting near him, and heard the heavy
sighs that he was heaving. So he at once said, “Aldermen and town
councillors of the Phaeacians, we have had enough now, both of the
feast, and of the minstrelsy that is its due accompaniment; let us
proceed therefore to the athletic sports, so that our guest on his
return home may be able to tell his friends how much we surpass all
other nations as boxers, wrestlers, jumpers, and runners.”

With these words he led the way, and the others followed after. A
servant hung Demodocus’s lyre on its peg for him, led him out of the
cloister, and set him on the same way as that along which all the chief
men of the Phaeacians were going to see the sports; a crowd of several
thousands of people followed them, and there were many excellent
competitors for all the prizes. Acroneos, Ocyalus, Elatreus, Nauteus,
Prymneus, Anchialus, Eretmeus, Ponteus, Proreus, Thoon, Anabesineus,
and Amphialus son of Polyneus son of Tecton. There was also Euryalus
son of Naubolus, who was like Mars himself, and was the best looking
man among the Phaeacians except Laodamas. Three sons of Alcinous,
Laodamas, Halios, and Clytoneus, competed also.

The foot races came first. The course was set out for them from the
starting post, and they raised a dust upon the plain as they all flew
forward at the same moment. Clytoneus came in first by a long way; he
left every one else behind him by the length of the furrow that a
couple of mules can plough in a fallow field.67 They then turned to the
painful art of wrestling, and here Euryalus proved to be the best man.
Amphialus excelled all the others in jumping, while at throwing the
disc there was no one who could approach Elatreus. Alcinous’s son
Laodamas was the best boxer, and he it was who presently said, when
they had all been diverted with the games, “Let us ask the stranger
whether he excels in any of these sports; he seems very powerfully
built; his thighs, calves, hands, and neck are of prodigious strength,
nor is he at all old, but he has suffered much lately, and there is
nothing like the sea for making havoc with a man, no matter how strong
he is.”

“You are quite right, Laodamas,” replied Euryalus, “go up to your guest
and speak to him about it yourself.”

When Laodamas heard this he made his way into the middle of the crowd
and said to Ulysses, “I hope, Sir, that you will enter yourself for
some one or other of our competitions if you are skilled in any of
them—and you must have gone in for many a one before now. There is
nothing that does any one so much credit all his life long as the
showing himself a proper man with his hands and feet. Have a try
therefore at something, and banish all sorrow from your mind. Your
return home will not be long delayed, for the ship is already drawn
into the water, and the crew is found.”

Ulysses answered, “Laodamas, why do you taunt me in this way? my mind
is set rather on cares than contests; I have been through infinite
trouble, and am come among you now as a suppliant, praying your king
and people to further me on my return home.”

Then Euryalus reviled him outright and said, “I gather, then, that you
are unskilled in any of the many sports that men generally delight in.
I suppose you are one of those grasping traders that go about in ships
as captains or merchants, and who think of nothing but of their outward
freights and homeward cargoes. There does not seem to be much of the
athlete about you.”

“For shame, Sir,” answered Ulysses, fiercely, “you are an insolent
fellow—so true is it that the gods do not grace all men alike in
speech, person, and understanding. One man may be of weak presence, but
heaven has adorned this with such a good conversation that he charms
every one who sees him; his honeyed moderation carries his hearers with
him so that he is leader in all assemblies of his fellows, and wherever
he goes he is looked up to. Another may be as handsome as a god, but
his good looks are not crowned with discretion. This is your case. No
god could make a finer looking fellow than you are, but you are a fool.
Your ill-judged remarks have made me exceedingly angry, and you are
quite mistaken, for I excel in a great many athletic exercises; indeed,
so long as I had youth and strength, I was among the first athletes of
the age. Now, however, I am worn out by labour and sorrow, for I have
gone through much both on the field of battle and by the waves of the
weary sea; still, in spite of all this I will compete, for your taunts
have stung me to the quick.”

So he hurried up without even taking his cloak off, and seized a disc,
larger, more massive and much heavier than those used by the Phaeacians
when disc-throwing among themselves.68 Then, swinging it back, he threw
it from his brawny hand, and it made a humming sound in the air as he
did so. The Phaeacians quailed beneath the rushing of its flight as it
sped gracefully from his hand, and flew beyond any mark that had been
made yet. Minerva, in the form of a man, came and marked the place
where it had fallen. “A blind man, Sir,” said she, “could easily tell
your mark by groping for it—it is so far ahead of any other. You may
make your mind easy about this contest, for no Phaeacian can come near
to such a throw as yours.”

Ulysses was glad when he found he had a friend among the lookers-on, so
he began to speak more pleasantly. “Young men,” said he, “come up to
that throw if you can, and I will throw another disc as heavy or even
heavier. If anyone wants to have a bout with me let him come on, for I
am exceedingly angry; I will box, wrestle, or run, I do not care what
it is, with any man of you all except Laodamas, but not with him
because I am his guest, and one cannot compete with one’s own personal
friend. At least I do not think it a prudent or a sensible thing for a
guest to challenge his host’s family at any game, especially when he is
in a foreign country. He will cut the ground from under his own feet if
he does; but I make no exception as regards any one else, for I want to
have the matter out and know which is the best man. I am a good hand at
every kind of athletic sport known among mankind. I am an excellent
archer. In battle I am always the first to bring a man down with my
arrow, no matter how many more are taking aim at him alongside of me.
Philoctetes was the only man who could shoot better than I could when
we Achaeans were before Troy and in practice. I far excel every one
else in the whole world, of those who still eat bread upon the face of
the earth, but I should not like to shoot against the mighty dead, such
as Hercules, or Eurytus the Oechalian—men who could shoot against the
gods themselves. This in fact was how Eurytus came prematurely by his
end, for Apollo was angry with him and killed him because he challenged
him as an archer. I can throw a dart farther than any one else can
shoot an arrow. Running is the only point in respect of which I am
afraid some of the Phaeacians might beat me, for I have been brought
down very low at sea; my provisions ran short, and therefore I am still
weak.”

They all held their peace except King Alcinous, who began, “Sir, we
have had much pleasure in hearing all that you have told us, from which
I understand that you are willing to show your prowess, as having been
displeased with some insolent remarks that have been made to you by one
of our athletes, and which could never have been uttered by any one who
knows how to talk with propriety. I hope you will apprehend my meaning,
and will explain to any one of your chief men who may be dining with
yourself and your family when you get home, that we have an hereditary
aptitude for accomplishments of all kinds. We are not particularly
remarkable for our boxing, nor yet as wrestlers, but we are singularly
fleet of foot and are excellent sailors. We are extremely fond of good
dinners, music, and dancing; we also like frequent changes of linen,
warm baths, and good beds, so now, please, some of you who are the best
dancers set about dancing, that our guest on his return home may be
able to tell his friends how much we surpass all other nations as
sailors, runners, dancers, and minstrels. Demodocus has left his lyre
at my house, so run some one or other of you and fetch it for him.”

On this a servant hurried off to bring the lyre from the king’s house,
and the nine men who had been chosen as stewards stood forward. It was
their business to manage everything connected with the sports, so they
made the ground smooth and marked a wide space for the dancers.
Presently the servant came back with Demodocus’s lyre, and he took his
place in the midst of them, whereon the best young dancers in the town
began to foot and trip it so nimbly that Ulysses was delighted with the
merry twinkling of their feet.

Meanwhile the bard began to sing the loves of Mars and Venus, and how
they first began their intrigue in the house of Vulcan. Mars made Venus
many presents, and defiled King Vulcan’s marriage bed, so the sun, who
saw what they were about, told Vulcan. Vulcan was very angry when he
heard such dreadful news, so he went to his smithy brooding mischief,
got his great anvil into its place, and began to forge some chains
which none could either unloose or break, so that they might stay there
in that place.69 When he had finished his snare he went into his
bedroom and festooned the bed-posts all over with chains like cobwebs;
he also let many hang down from the great beam of the ceiling. Not even
a god could see them so fine and subtle were they. As soon as he had
spread the chains all over the bed, he made as though he were setting
out for the fair state of Lemnos, which of all places in the world was
the one he was most fond of. But Mars kept no blind look out, and as
soon as he saw him start, hurried off to his house, burning with love
for Venus.

Now Venus was just come in from a visit to her father Jove, and was
about sitting down when Mars came inside the house, and said as he took
her hand in his own, “Let us go to the couch of Vulcan: he is not at
home, but is gone off to Lemnos among the Sintians, whose speech is
barbarous.”

She was nothing loth, so they went to the couch to take their rest,
whereon they were caught in the toils which cunning Vulcan had spread
for them, and could neither get up nor stir hand or foot, but found too
late that they were in a trap. Then Vulcan came up to them, for he had
turned back before reaching Lemnos, when his scout the sun told him
what was going on. He was in a furious passion, and stood in the
vestibule making a dreadful noise as he shouted to all the gods.

“Father Jove,” he cried, “and all you other blessed gods who live for
ever, come here and see the ridiculous and disgraceful sight that I
will show you. Jove’s daughter Venus is always dishonouring me because
I am lame. She is in love with Mars, who is handsome and clean built,
whereas I am a cripple—but my parents are to blame for that, not I;
they ought never to have begotten me. Come and see the pair together
asleep on my bed. It makes me furious to look at them. They are very
fond of one another, but I do not think they will lie there longer than
they can help, nor do I think that they will sleep much; there,
however, they shall stay till her father has repaid me the sum I gave
him for his baggage of a daughter, who is fair but not honest.”

On this the gods gathered to the house of Vulcan. Earth-encircling
Neptune came, and Mercury the bringer of luck, and King Apollo, but the
goddesses staid at home all of them for shame. Then the givers of all
good things stood in the doorway, and the blessed gods roared with
inextinguishable laughter, as they saw how cunning Vulcan had been,
whereon one would turn towards his neighbour saying:

“Ill deeds do not prosper, and the weak confound the strong. See how
limping Vulcan, lame as he is, has caught Mars who is the fleetest god
in heaven; and now Mars will be cast in heavy damages.”

Thus did they converse, but King Apollo said to Mercury, “Messenger
Mercury, giver of good things, you would not care how strong the chains
were, would you, if you could sleep with Venus?”

“King Apollo,” answered Mercury, “I only wish I might get the chance,
though there were three times as many chains—and you might look on, all
of you, gods and goddesses, but I would sleep with her if I could.”

The immortal gods burst out laughing as they heard him, but Neptune
took it all seriously, and kept on imploring Vulcan to set Mars free
again. “Let him go,” he cried, “and I will undertake, as you require,
that he shall pay you all the damages that are held reasonable among
the immortal gods.”

“Do not,” replied Vulcan, “ask me to do this; a bad man’s bond is bad
security; what remedy could I enforce against you if Mars should go
away and leave his debts behind him along with his chains?”

“Vulcan,” said Neptune, “if Mars goes away without paying his damages,
I will pay you myself.” So Vulcan answered, “In this case I cannot and
must not refuse you.”

Thereon he loosed the bonds that bound them, and as soon as they were
free they scampered off, Mars to Thrace and laughter-loving Venus to
Cyprus and to Paphos, where is her grove and her altar fragrant with
burnt offerings. Here the Graces bathed her, and anointed her with oil
of ambrosia such as the immortal gods make use of, and they clothed her
in raiment of the most enchanting beauty.

Thus sang the bard, and both Ulysses and the seafaring Phaeacians were
charmed as they heard him.

Then Alcinous told Laodamas and Halius to dance alone, for there was no
one to compete with them. So they took a red ball which Polybus had
made for them, and one of them bent himself backwards and threw it up
towards the clouds, while the other jumped from off the ground and
caught it with ease before it came down again. When they had done
throwing the ball straight up into the air they began to dance, and at
the same time kept on throwing it backwards and forwards to one
another, while all the young men in the ring applauded and made a great
stamping with their feet. Then Ulysses said:

“King Alcinous, you said your people were the nimblest dancers in the
world, and indeed they have proved themselves to be so. I was
astonished as I saw them.”

The king was delighted at this, and exclaimed to the Phaeacians,
“Aldermen and town councillors, our guest seems to be a person of
singular judgement; let us give him such proof of our hospitality as he
may reasonably expect. There are twelve chief men among you, and
counting myself there are thirteen; contribute, each of you, a clean
cloak, a shirt, and a talent of fine gold; let us give him all this in
a lump down at once, so that when he gets his supper he may do so with
a light heart. As for Euryalus he will have to make a formal apology
and a present too, for he has been rude.”

Thus did he speak. The others all of them applauded his saying, and
sent their servants to fetch the presents. Then Euryalus said, “King
Alcinous, I will give the stranger all the satisfaction you require. He
shall have my sword, which is of bronze, all but the hilt, which is of
silver. I will also give him the scabbard of newly sawn ivory into
which it fits. It will be worth a great deal to him.”

As he spoke he placed the sword in the hands of Ulysses and said, “Good
luck to you, father stranger; if anything has been said amiss may the
winds blow it away with them, and may heaven grant you a safe return,
for I understand you have been long away from home, and have gone
through much hardship.”

To which Ulysses answered, “Good luck to you too my friend, and may the
gods grant you every happiness. I hope you will not miss the sword you
have given me along with your apology.”

With these words he girded the sword about his shoulders and towards
sundown the presents began to make their appearance, as the servants of
the donors kept bringing them to the house of King Alcinous; here his
sons received them, and placed them under their mother’s charge. Then
Alcinous led the way to the house and bade his guests take their seats.

“Wife,” said he, turning to Queen Arete, “Go, fetch the best chest we
have, and put a clean cloak and shirt in it. Also, set a copper on the
fire and heat some water; our guest will take a warm bath; see also to
the careful packing of the presents that the noble Phaeacians have made
him; he will thus better enjoy both his supper and the singing that
will follow. I shall myself give him this golden goblet—which is of
exquisite workmanship—that he may be reminded of me for the rest of his
life whenever he makes a drink offering to Jove, or to any of the
gods.”70

Then Arete told her maids to set a large tripod upon the fire as fast
as they could, whereon they set a tripod full of bath water on to a
clear fire; they threw on sticks to make it blaze, and the water became
hot as the flame played about the belly of the tripod.71 Meanwhile
Arete brought a magnificent chest from her own room, and inside it she
packed all the beautiful presents of gold and raiment which the
Phaeacians had brought. Lastly she added a cloak and a good shirt from
Alcinous, and said to Ulysses:

“See to the lid yourself, and have the whole bound round at once, for
fear any one should rob you by the way when you are asleep in your
ship.” 72

When Ulysses heard this he put the lid on the chest and made it fast
with a bond that Circe had taught him. He had done so before an upper
servant told him to come to the bath and wash himself. He was very glad
of a warm bath, for he had had no one to wait upon him ever since he
left the house of Calypso, who as long as he remained with her had
taken as good care of him as though he had been a god. When the
servants had done washing and anointing him with oil, and had given him
a clean cloak and shirt, he left the bath room and joined the guests
who were sitting over their wine. Lovely Nausicaa stood by one of the
bearing-posts supporting the roof of the cloister, and admired him as
she saw him pass. “Farewell stranger,” said she, “do not forget me when
you are safe at home again, for it is to me first that you owe a ransom
for having saved your life.”

And Ulysses said, “Nausicaa, daughter of great Alcinous, may Jove the
mighty husband of Juno, grant that I may reach my home; so shall I
bless you as my guardian angel all my days, for it was you who saved
me.”

When he had said this, he seated himself beside Alcinous. Supper was
then served, and the wine was mixed for drinking. A servant led in the
favourite bard Demodocus, and set him in the midst of the company, near
one of the bearing-posts supporting the cloister, that he might lean
against it. Then Ulysses cut off a piece of roast pork with plenty of
fat (for there was abundance left on the joint) and said to a servant,
“Take this piece of pork over to Demodocus and tell him to eat it; for
all the pain his lays may cause me I will salute him none the less;
bards are honoured and respected throughout the world, for the muse
teaches them their songs and loves them.”

The servant carried the pork in his fingers over to Demodocus, who took
it and was very much pleased. They then laid their hands on the good
things that were before them, and as soon as they had had to eat and
drink, Ulysses said to Demodocus, “Demodocus, there is no one in the
world whom I admire more than I do you. You must have studied under the
Muse, Jove’s daughter, and under Apollo, so accurately do you sing the
return of the Achaeans with all their sufferings and adventures. If you
were not there yourself, you must have heard it all from some one who
was. Now, however, change your song and tell us of the wooden horse
which Epeus made with the assistance of Minerva, and which Ulysses got
by stratagem into the fort of Troy after freighting it with the men who
afterwards sacked the city. If you will sing this tale aright I will
tell all the world how magnificently heaven has endowed you.”

The bard inspired of heaven took up the story at the point where some
of the Argives set fire to their tents and sailed away while others,
hidden within the horse,73 were waiting with Ulysses in the Trojan
place of assembly. For the Trojans themselves had drawn the horse into
their fortress, and it stood there while they sat in council round it,
and were in three minds as to what they should do. Some were for
breaking it up then and there; others would have it dragged to the top
of the rock on which the fortress stood, and then thrown down the
precipice; while yet others were for letting it remain as an offering
and propitiation for the gods. And this was how they settled it in the
end, for the city was doomed when it took in that horse, within which
were all the bravest of the Argives waiting to bring death and
destruction on the Trojans. Anon he sang how the sons of the Achaeans
issued from the horse, and sacked the town, breaking out from their
ambuscade. He sang how they overran the city hither and thither and
ravaged it, and how Ulysses went raging like Mars along with Menelaus
to the house of Deiphobus. It was there that the fight raged most
furiously, nevertheless by Minerva’s help he was victorious.

All this he told, but Ulysses was overcome as he heard him, and his
cheeks were wet with tears. He wept as a woman weeps when she throws
herself on the body of her husband who has fallen before his own city
and people, fighting bravely in defence of his home and children. She
screams aloud and flings her arms about him as he lies gasping for
breath and dying, but her enemies beat her from behind about the back
and shoulders, and carry her off into slavery, to a life of labour and
sorrow, and the beauty fades from her cheeks—even so piteously did
Ulysses weep, but none of those present perceived his tears except
Alcinous, who was sitting near him, and could hear the sobs and sighs
that he was heaving. The king, therefore, at once rose and said:

“Aldermen and town councillors of the Phaeacians, let Demodocus cease
his song, for there are those present who do not seem to like it. From
the moment that we had done supper and Demodocus began to sing, our
guest has been all the time groaning and lamenting. He is evidently in
great trouble, so let the bard leave off, that we may all enjoy
ourselves, hosts and guest alike. This will be much more as it should
be, for all these festivities, with the escort and the presents that we
are making with so much good will are wholly in his honour, and any one
with even a moderate amount of right feeling knows that he ought to
treat a guest and a suppliant as though he were his own brother.

“Therefore, Sir, do you on your part affect no more concealment nor
reserve in the matter about which I shall ask you; it will be more
polite in you to give me a plain answer; tell me the name by which your
father and mother over yonder used to call you, and by which you were
known among your neighbours and fellow-citizens. There is no one,
neither rich nor poor, who is absolutely without any name whatever, for
people’s fathers and mothers give them names as soon as they are born.
Tell me also your country, nation, and city, that our ships may shape
their purpose accordingly and take you there. For the Phaeacians have
no pilots; their vessels have no rudders as those of other nations
have, but the ships themselves understand what it is that we are
thinking about and want; they know all the cities and countries in the
whole world, and can traverse the sea just as well even when it is
covered with mist and cloud, so that there is no danger of being
wrecked or coming to any harm. Still I do remember hearing my father
say that Neptune was angry with us for being too easy-going in the
matter of giving people escorts. He said that one of these days he
should wreck a ship of ours as it was returning from having escorted
some one,74 and bury our city under a high mountain. This is what my
father used to say, but whether the god will carry out his threat or no
is a matter which he will decide for himself.

“And now, tell me and tell me true. Where have you been wandering, and
in what countries have you travelled? Tell us of the peoples
themselves, and of their cities—who were hostile, savage and
uncivilised, and who, on the other hand, hospitable and humane. Tell us
also why you are made so unhappy on hearing about the return of the
Argive Danaans from Troy. The gods arranged all this, and sent them
their misfortunes in order that future generations might have something
to sing about. Did you lose some brave kinsman of your wife’s when you
were before Troy? a son-in-law or father-in-law—which are the nearest
relations a man has outside his own flesh and blood? or was it some
brave and kindly-natured comrade—for a good friend is as dear to a man
as his own brother?”




BOOK IX


ULYSSES DECLARES HIMSELF AND BEGINS HIS STORY—-THE CICONS, LOTOPHAGI,
AND CYCLOPES.


And Ulysses answered, “King Alcinous, it is a good thing to hear a bard
with such a divine voice as this man has. There is nothing better or
more delightful than when a whole people make merry together, with the
guests sitting orderly to listen, while the table is loaded with bread
and meats, and the cup-bearer draws wine and fills his cup for every
man. This is indeed as fair a sight as a man can see. Now, however,
since you are inclined to ask the story of my sorrows, and rekindle my
own sad memories in respect of them, I do not know how to begin, nor
yet how to continue and conclude my tale, for the hand of heaven has
been laid heavily upon me.

“Firstly, then, I will tell you my name that you too may know it, and
one day, if I outlive this time of sorrow, may become my guests though
I live so far away from all of you. I am Ulysses son of Laertes,
renowned among mankind for all manner of subtlety, so that my fame
ascends to heaven. I live in Ithaca, where there is a high mountain
called Neritum, covered with forests; and not far from it there is a
group of islands very near to one another—Dulichium, Same, and the
wooded island of Zacynthus. It lies squat on the horizon, all highest
up in the sea towards the sunset, while the others lie away from it
towards dawn.75 It is a rugged island, but it breeds brave men, and my
eyes know none that they better love to look upon. The goddess Calypso
kept me with her in her cave, and wanted me to marry her, as did also
the cunning Aeaean goddess Circe; but they could neither of them
persuade me, for there is nothing dearer to a man than his own country
and his parents, and however splendid a home he may have in a foreign
country, if it be far from father or mother, he does not care about it.
Now, however, I will tell you of the many hazardous adventures which by
Jove’s will I met with on my return from Troy.

“When I had set sail thence the wind took me first to Ismarus, which is
the city of the Cicons. There I sacked the town and put the people to
the sword. We took their wives and also much booty, which we divided
equitably amongst us, so that none might have reason to complain. I
then said that we had better make off at once, but my men very
foolishly would not obey me, so they staid there drinking much wine and
killing great numbers of sheep and oxen on the sea shore. Meanwhile the
Cicons cried out for help to other Cicons who lived inland. These were
more in number, and stronger, and they were more skilled in the art of
war, for they could fight, either from chariots or on foot as the
occasion served; in the morning, therefore, they came as thick as
leaves and bloom in summer, and the hand of heaven was against us, so
that we were hard pressed. They set the battle in array near the ships,
and the hosts aimed their bronze-shod spears at one another.76 So long
as the day waxed and it was still morning, we held our own against
them, though they were more in number than we; but as the sun went
down, towards the time when men loose their oxen, the Cicons got the
better of us, and we lost half a dozen men from every ship we had; so
we got away with those that were left.

“Thence we sailed onward with sorrow in our hearts, but glad to have
escaped death though we had lost our comrades, nor did we leave till we
had thrice invoked each one of the poor fellows who had perished by the
hands of the Cicons. Then Jove raised the North wind against us till it
blew a hurricane, so that land and sky were hidden in thick clouds, and
night sprang forth out of the heavens. We let the ships run before the
gale, but the force of the wind tore our sails to tatters, so we took
them down for fear of shipwreck, and rowed our hardest towards the
land. There we lay two days and two nights suffering much alike from
toil and distress of mind, but on the morning of the third day we again
raised our masts, set sail, and took our places, letting the wind and
steersmen direct our ship. I should have got home at that time unharmed
had not the North wind and the currents been against me as I was
doubling Cape Malea, and set me off my course hard by the island of
Cythera.

“I was driven thence by foul winds for a space of nine days upon the
sea, but on the tenth day we reached the land of the Lotus-eaters, who
live on a food that comes from a kind of flower. Here we landed to take
in fresh water, and our crews got their mid-day meal on the shore near
the ships. When they had eaten and drunk I sent two of my company to
see what manner of men the people of the place might be, and they had a
third man under them. They started at once, and went about among the
Lotus-eaters, who did them no hurt, but gave them to eat of the lotus,
which was so delicious that those who ate of it left off caring about
home, and did not even want to go back and say what had happened to
them, but were for staying and munching lotus77 with the Lotus-eaters
without thinking further of their return; nevertheless, though they
wept bitterly I forced them back to the ships and made them fast under
the benches. Then I told the rest to go on board at once, lest any of
them should taste of the lotus and leave off wanting to get home, so
they took their places and smote the grey sea with their oars.

“We sailed hence, always in much distress, till we came to the land of
the lawless and inhuman Cyclopes. Now the Cyclopes neither plant nor
plough, but trust in providence, and live on such wheat, barley, and
grapes as grow wild without any kind of tillage, and their wild grapes
yield them wine as the sun and the rain may grow them. They have no
laws nor assemblies of the people, but live in caves on the tops of
high mountains; each is lord and master in his family, and they take no
account of their neighbours.

“Now off their harbour there lies a wooded and fertile island not quite
close to the land of the Cyclopes, but still not far. It is over-run
with wild goats, that breed there in great numbers and are never
disturbed by foot of man; for sportsmen—who as a rule will suffer so
much hardship in forest or among mountain precipices—do not go there,
nor yet again is it ever ploughed or fed down, but it lies a wilderness
untilled and unsown from year to year, and has no living thing upon it
but only goats. For the Cyclopes have no ships, nor yet shipwrights who
could make ships for them; they cannot therefore go from city to city,
or sail over the sea to one another’s country as people who have ships
can do; if they had had these they would have colonised the island,78
for it is a very good one, and would yield everything in due season.
There are meadows that in some places come right down to the sea shore,
well watered and full of luscious grass; grapes would do there
excellently; there is level land for ploughing, and it would always
yield heavily at harvest time, for the soil is deep. There is a good
harbour where no cables are wanted, nor yet anchors, nor need a ship be
moored, but all one has to do is to beach one’s vessel and stay there
till the wind becomes fair for putting out to sea again. At the head of
the harbour there is a spring of clear water coming out of a cave, and
there are poplars growing all round it.

“Here we entered, but so dark was the night that some god must have
brought us in, for there was nothing whatever to be seen. A thick mist
hung all round our ships;79 the moon was hidden behind a mass of clouds
so that no one could have seen the island if he had looked for it, nor
were there any breakers to tell us we were close in shore before we
found ourselves upon the land itself; when, however, we had beached the
ships, we took down the sails, went ashore and camped upon the beach
till daybreak.

“When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn appeared, we admired the
island and wandered all over it, while the nymphs Jove’s daughters
roused the wild goats that we might get some meat for our dinner. On
this we fetched our spears and bows and arrows from the ships, and
dividing ourselves into three bands began to shoot the goats. Heaven
sent us excellent sport; I had twelve ships with me, and each ship got
nine goats, while my own ship had ten; thus through the livelong day to
the going down of the sun we ate and drank our fill, and we had plenty
of wine left, for each one of us had taken many jars full when we
sacked the city of the Cicons, and this had not yet run out. While we
were feasting we kept turning our eyes towards the land of the
Cyclopes, which was hard by, and saw the smoke of their stubble fires.
We could almost fancy we heard their voices and the bleating of their
sheep and goats, but when the sun went down and it came on dark, we
camped down upon the beach, and next morning I called a council.

“‘Stay here, my brave fellows,’ said I, ‘all the rest of you, while I
go with my ship and exploit these people myself: I want to see if they
are uncivilised savages, or a hospitable and humane race.’

“I went on board, bidding my men to do so also and loose the hawsers;
so they took their places and smote the grey sea with their oars. When
we got to the land, which was not far, there, on the face of a cliff
near the sea, we saw a great cave overhung with laurels. It was a
station for a great many sheep and goats, and outside there was a large
yard, with a high wall round it made of stones built into the ground
and of trees both pine and oak. This was the abode of a huge monster
who was then away from home shepherding his flocks. He would have
nothing to do with other people, but led the life of an outlaw. He was
a horrid creature, not like a human being at all, but resembling rather
some crag that stands out boldly against the sky on the top of a high
mountain.

“I told my men to draw the ship ashore, and stay where they were, all
but the twelve best among them, who were to go along with myself. I
also took a goatskin of sweet black wine which had been given me by
Maron, son of Euanthes, who was priest of Apollo the patron god of
Ismarus, and lived within the wooded precincts of the temple. When we
were sacking the city we respected him, and spared his life, as also
his wife and child; so he made me some presents of great value—seven
talents of fine gold, and a bowl of silver, with twelve jars of sweet
wine, unblended, and of the most exquisite flavour. Not a man nor maid
in the house knew about it, but only himself, his wife, and one
housekeeper: when he drank it he mixed twenty parts of water to one of
wine, and yet the fragrance from the mixing-bowl was so exquisite that
it was impossible to refrain from drinking. I filled a large skin with
this wine, and took a wallet full of provisions with me, for my mind
misgave me that I might have to deal with some savage who would be of
great strength, and would respect neither right nor law.

“We soon reached his cave, but he was out shepherding, so we went
inside and took stock of all that we could see. His cheese-racks were
loaded with cheeses, and he had more lambs and kids than his pens could
hold. They were kept in separate flocks; first there were the hoggets,
then the oldest of the younger lambs and lastly the very young ones80
all kept apart from one another; as for his dairy, all the vessels,
bowls, and milk pails into which he milked, were swimming with whey.
When they saw all this, my men begged me to let them first steal some
cheeses, and make off with them to the ship; they would then return,
drive down the lambs and kids, put them on board and sail away with
them. It would have been indeed better if we had done so but I would
not listen to them, for I wanted to see the owner himself, in the hope
that he might give me a present. When, however, we saw him my poor men
found him ill to deal with.

“We lit a fire, offered some of the cheeses in sacrifice, ate others of
them, and then sat waiting till the Cyclops should come in with his
sheep. When he came, he brought in with him a huge load of dry firewood
to light the fire for his supper, and this he flung with such a noise
on to the floor of his cave that we hid ourselves for fear at the far
end of the cavern. Meanwhile he drove all the ewes inside, as well as
the she-goats that he was going to milk, leaving the males, both rams
and he-goats, outside in the yards. Then he rolled a huge stone to the
mouth of the cave—so huge that two and twenty strong four-wheeled
waggons would not be enough to draw it from its place against the
doorway. When he had so done he sat down and milked his ewes and goats,
all in due course, and then let each of them have her own young. He
curdled half the milk and set it aside in wicker strainers, but the
other half he poured into bowls that he might drink it for his supper.
When he had got through with all his work, he lit the fire, and then
caught sight of us, whereon he said:

“‘Strangers, who are you? Where do sail from? Are you traders, or do
you sail the sea as rovers, with your hands against every man, and
every man’s hand against you?’

“We were frightened out of our senses by his loud voice and monstrous
form, but I managed to say, ‘We are Achaeans on our way home from Troy,
but by the will of Jove, and stress of weather, we have been driven far
out of our course. We are the people of Agamemnon, son of Atreus, who
has won infinite renown throughout the whole world, by sacking so great
a city and killing so many people. We therefore humbly pray you to show
us some hospitality, and otherwise make us such presents as visitors
may reasonably expect. May your excellency fear the wrath of heaven,
for we are your suppliants, and Jove takes all respectable travellers
under his protection, for he is the avenger of all suppliants and
foreigners in distress.’

“To this he gave me but a pitiless answer, ‘Stranger,’ said he, ‘you
are a fool, or else you know nothing of this country. Talk to me,
indeed, about fearing the gods or shunning their anger? We Cyclopes do
not care about Jove or any of your blessed gods, for we are ever so
much stronger than they. I shall not spare either yourself or your
companions out of any regard for Jove, unless I am in the humour for
doing so. And now tell me where you made your ship fast when you came
on shore. Was it round the point, or is she lying straight off the
land?’

“He said this to draw me out, but I was too cunning to be caught in
that way, so I answered with a lie; ‘Neptune,’ said I, ‘sent my ship on
to the rocks at the far end of your country, and wrecked it. We were
driven on to them from the open sea, but I and those who are with me
escaped the jaws of death.’

“The cruel wretch vouchsafed me not one word of answer, but with a
sudden clutch he gripped up two of my men at once and dashed them down
upon the ground as though they had been puppies. Their brains were shed
upon the ground, and the earth was wet with their blood. Then he tore
them limb from limb and supped upon them. He gobbled them up like a
lion in the wilderness, flesh, bones, marrow, and entrails, without
leaving anything uneaten. As for us, we wept and lifted up our hands to
heaven on seeing such a horrid sight, for we did not know what else to
do; but when the Cyclops had filled his huge paunch, and had washed
down his meal of human flesh with a drink of neat milk, he stretched
himself full length upon the ground among his sheep, and went to sleep.
I was at first inclined to seize my sword, draw it, and drive it into
his vitals, but I reflected that if I did we should all certainly be
lost, for we should never be able to shift the stone which the monster
had put in front of the door. So we stayed sobbing and sighing where we
were till morning came.

“When the child of morning, rosy-fingered dawn, appeared, he again lit
his fire, milked his goats and ewes, all quite rightly, and then let
each have her own young one; as soon as he had got through with all his
work, he clutched up two more of my men, and began eating them for his
morning’s meal. Presently, with the utmost ease, he rolled the stone
away from the door and drove out his sheep, but he at once put it back
again—as easily as though he were merely clapping the lid on to a
quiver full of arrows. As soon as he had done so he shouted, and cried
‘Shoo, shoo,’ after his sheep to drive them on to the mountain; so I
was left to scheme some way of taking my revenge and covering myself
with glory.

“In the end I deemed it would be the best plan to do as follows: The
Cyclops had a great club which was lying near one of the sheep pens; it
was of green olive wood, and he had cut it intending to use it for a
staff as soon as it should be dry. It was so huge that we could only
compare it to the mast of a twenty-oared merchant vessel of large
burden, and able to venture out into open sea. I went up to this club
and cut off about six feet of it; I then gave this piece to the men and
told them to fine it evenly off at one end, which they proceeded to do,
and lastly I brought it to a point myself, charring the end in the fire
to make it harder. When I had done this I hid it under dung, which was
lying about all over the cave, and told the men to cast lots which of
them should venture along with myself to lift it and bore it into the
monster’s eye while he was asleep. The lot fell upon the very four whom
I should have chosen, and I myself made five. In the evening the wretch
came back from shepherding, and drove his flocks into the cave—this
time driving them all inside, and not leaving any in the yards; I
suppose some fancy must have taken him, or a god must have prompted him
to do so. As soon as he had put the stone back to its place against the
door, he sat down, milked his ewes and his goats all quite rightly, and
then let each have her own young one; when he had got through with all
this work, he gripped up two more of my men, and made his supper off
them. So I went up to him with an ivy-wood bowl of black wine in my
hands:

“‘Look here, Cyclops,’ said I, you have been eating a great deal of
man’s flesh, so take this and drink some wine, that you may see what
kind of liquor we had on board my ship. I was bringing it to you as a
drink-offering, in the hope that you would take compassion upon me and
further me on my way home, whereas all you do is to go on ramping and
raving most intolerably. You ought to be ashamed of yourself; how can
you expect people to come see you any more if you treat them in this
way?’

“He then took the cup and drank. He was so delighted with the taste of
the wine that he begged me for another bowl full. ‘Be so kind,’ he
said, ‘as to give me some more, and tell me your name at once. I want
to make you a present that you will be glad to have. We have wine even
in this country, for our soil grows grapes and the sun ripens them, but
this drinks like Nectar and Ambrosia all in one.’

“I then gave him some more; three times did I fill the bowl for him,
and three times did he drain it without thought or heed; then, when I
saw that the wine had got into his head, I said to him as plausibly as
I could: ‘Cyclops, you ask my name and I will tell it you; give me,
therefore, the present you promised me; my name is Noman; this is what
my father and mother and my friends have always called me.’

“But the cruel wretch said, ‘Then I will eat all Noman’s comrades
before Noman himself, and will keep Noman for the last. This is the
present that I will make him.’

“As he spoke he reeled, and fell sprawling face upwards on the ground.
His great neck hung heavily backwards and a deep sleep took hold upon
him. Presently he turned sick, and threw up both wine and the gobbets
of human flesh on which he had been gorging, for he was very drunk.
Then I thrust the beam of wood far into the embers to heat it, and
encouraged my men lest any of them should turn faint-hearted. When the
wood, green though it was, was about to blaze, I drew it out of the
fire glowing with heat, and my men gathered round me, for heaven had
filled their hearts with courage. We drove the sharp end of the beam
into the monster’s eye, and bearing upon it with all my weight I kept
turning it round and round as though I were boring a hole in a ship’s
plank with an auger, which two men with a wheel and strap can keep on
turning as long as they choose. Even thus did we bore the red hot beam
into his eye, till the boiling blood bubbled all over it as we worked
it round and round, so that the steam from the burning eyeball scalded
his eyelids and eyebrows, and the roots of the eye sputtered in the
fire. As a blacksmith plunges an axe or hatchet into cold water to
temper it—for it is this that gives strength to the iron—and it makes a
great hiss as he does so, even thus did the Cyclops’ eye hiss round the
beam of olive wood, and his hideous yells made the cave ring again. We
ran away in a fright, but he plucked the beam all besmirched with gore
from his eye, and hurled it from him in a frenzy of rage and pain,
shouting as he did so to the other Cyclopes who lived on the bleak
headlands near him; so they gathered from all quarters round his cave
when they heard him crying, and asked what was the matter with him.

“‘What ails you, Polyphemus,’ said they, ‘that you make such a noise,
breaking the stillness of the night, and preventing us from being able
to sleep? Surely no man is carrying off your sheep? Surely no man is
trying to kill you either by fraud or by force?’

“But Polyphemus shouted to them from inside the cave, ‘Noman is killing
me by fraud; no man is killing me by force.’

“‘Then,’ said they, ‘if no man is attacking you, you must be ill; when
Jove makes people ill, there is no help for it, and you had better pray
to your father Neptune.’

“Then they went away, and I laughed inwardly at the success of my
clever stratagem, but the Cyclops, groaning and in an agony of pain,
felt about with his hands till he found the stone and took it from the
door; then he sat in the doorway and stretched his hands in front of it
to catch anyone going out with the sheep, for he thought I might be
foolish enough to attempt this.

“As for myself I kept on puzzling to think how I could best save my own
life and those of my companions; I schemed and schemed, as one who
knows that his life depends upon it, for the danger was very great. In
the end I deemed that this plan would be the best; the male sheep were
well grown, and carried a heavy black fleece, so I bound them
noiselessly in threes together, with some of the withies on which the
wicked monster used to sleep. There was to be a man under the middle
sheep, and the two on either side were to cover him, so that there were
three sheep to each man. As for myself there was a ram finer than any
of the others, so I caught hold of him by the back, esconced myself in
the thick wool under his belly, and hung on patiently to his fleece,
face upwards, keeping a firm hold on it all the time.

“Thus, then, did we wait in great fear of mind till morning came, but
when the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, the male sheep
hurried out to feed, while the ewes remained bleating about the pens
waiting to be milked, for their udders were full to bursting; but their
master in spite of all his pain felt the backs of all the sheep as they
stood upright, without being sharp enough to find out that the men were
underneath their bellies. As the ram was going out, last of all, heavy
with its fleece and with the weight of my crafty self, Polyphemus laid
hold of it and said:

“‘My good ram, what is it that makes you the last to leave my cave this
morning? You are not wont to let the ewes go before you, but lead the
mob with a run whether to flowery mead or bubbling fountain, and are
the first to come home again at night; but now you lag last of all. Is
it because you know your master has lost his eye, and are sorry because
that wicked Noman and his horrid crew has got him down in his drink and
blinded him? But I will have his life yet. If you could understand and
talk, you would tell me where the wretch is hiding, and I would dash
his brains upon the ground till they flew all over the cave. I should
thus have some satisfaction for the harm this no-good Noman has done
me.’

“As he spoke he drove the ram outside, but when we were a little way
out from the cave and yards, I first got from under the ram’s belly,
and then freed my comrades; as for the sheep, which were very fat, by
constantly heading them in the right direction we managed to drive them
down to the ship. The crew rejoiced greatly at seeing those of us who
had escaped death, but wept for the others whom the Cyclops had killed.
However, I made signs to them by nodding and frowning that they were to
hush their crying, and told them to get all the sheep on board at once
and put out to sea; so they went aboard, took their places, and smote
the grey sea with their oars. Then, when I had got as far out as my
voice would reach, I began to jeer at the Cyclops.

“‘Cyclops,’ said I, ‘you should have taken better measure of your man
before eating up his comrades in your cave. You wretch, eat up your
visitors in your own house? You might have known that your sin would
find you out, and now Jove and the other gods have punished you.’

“He got more and more furious as he heard me, so he tore the top from
off a high mountain, and flung it just in front of my ship so that it
was within a little of hitting the end of the rudder.81 The sea quaked
as the rock fell into it, and the wash of the wave it raised carried us
back towards the mainland, and forced us towards the shore. But I
snatched up a long pole and kept the ship off, making signs to my men
by nodding my head, that they must row for their lives, whereon they
laid out with a will. When we had got twice as far as we were before, I
was for jeering at the Cyclops again, but the men begged and prayed of
me to hold my tongue.

“‘Do not,’ they exclaimed, ‘be mad enough to provoke this savage
creature further; he has thrown one rock at us already which drove us
back again to the mainland, and we made sure it had been the death of
us; if he had then heard any further sound of voices he would have
pounded our heads and our ship’s timbers into a jelly with the rugged
rocks he would have heaved at us, for he can throw them a long way.’

“But I would not listen to them, and shouted out to him in my rage,
‘Cyclops, if any one asks you who it was that put your eye out and
spoiled your beauty, say it was the valiant warrior Ulysses, son of
Laertes, who lives in Ithaca.’

“On this he groaned, and cried out, ‘Alas, alas, then the old prophecy
about me is coming true. There was a prophet here, at one time, a man
both brave and of great stature, Telemus son of Eurymus, who was an
excellent seer, and did all the prophesying for the Cyclopes till he
grew old; he told me that all this would happen to me some day, and
said I should lose my sight by the hand of Ulysses. I have been all
along expecting some one of imposing presence and superhuman strength,
whereas he turns out to be a little insignificant weakling, who has
managed to blind my eye by taking advantage of me in my drink; come
here, then, Ulysses, that I may make you presents to show my
hospitality, and urge Neptune to help you forward on your journey—for
Neptune and I are father and son. He, if he so will, shall heal me,
which no one else neither god nor man can do.’

“Then I said, ‘I wish I could be as sure of killing you outright and
sending you down to the house of Hades, as I am that it will take more
than Neptune to cure that eye of yours.’

“On this he lifted up his hands to the firmament of heaven and prayed,
saying, ‘Hear me, great Neptune; if I am indeed your own true begotten
son, grant that Ulysses may never reach his home alive; or if he must
get back to his friends at last, let him do so late and in sore plight
after losing all his men [let him reach his home in another man’s ship
and find trouble in his house.’82

“Thus did he pray, and Neptune heard his prayer. Then he picked up a
rock much larger than the first, swung it aloft and hurled it with
prodigious force. It fell just short of the ship, but was within a
little of hitting the end of the rudder. The sea quaked as the rock
fell into it, and the wash of the wave it raised drove us onwards on
our way towards the shore of the island.

“When at last we got to the island where we had left the rest of our
ships, we found our comrades lamenting us, and anxiously awaiting our
return. We ran our vessel upon the sands and got out of her on to the
sea shore; we also landed the Cyclops’ sheep, and divided them
equitably amongst us so that none might have reason to complain. As for
the ram, my companions agreed that I should have it as an extra share;
so I sacrificed it on the sea shore, and burned its thigh bones to
Jove, who is the lord of all. But he heeded not my sacrifice, and only
thought how he might destroy both my ships and my comrades.

“Thus through the livelong day to the going down of the sun we feasted
our fill on meat and drink, but when the sun went down and it came on
dark, we camped upon the beach. When the child of morning rosy-fingered
Dawn appeared, I bade my men on board and loose the hawsers. Then they
took their places and smote the grey sea with their oars; so we sailed
on with sorrow in our hearts, but glad to have escaped death though we
had lost our comrades.




BOOK X


AEOLUS, THE LAESTRYGONES, CIRCE.


“Thence we went on to the Aeolian island where lives Aeolus son of
Hippotas, dear to the immortal gods. It is an island that floats (as it
were) upon the sea,83 iron bound with a wall that girds it. Now, Aeolus
has six daughters and six lusty sons, so he made the sons marry the
daughters, and they all live with their dear father and mother,
feasting and enjoying every conceivable kind of luxury. All day long
the atmosphere of the house is loaded with the savour of roasting meats
till it groans again, yard and all; but by night they sleep on their
well made bedsteads, each with his own wife between the blankets. These
were the people among whom we had now come.

“Aeolus entertained me for a whole month asking me questions all the
time about Troy, the Argive fleet, and the return of the Achaeans. I
told him exactly how everything had happened, and when I said I must
go, and asked him to further me on my way, he made no sort of
difficulty, but set about doing so at once. Moreover, he flayed me a
prime ox-hide to hold the ways of the roaring winds, which he shut up
in the hide as in a sack—for Jove had made him captain over the winds,
and he could stir or still each one of them according to his own
pleasure. He put the sack in the ship and bound the mouth so tightly
with a silver thread that not even a breath of a side-wind could blow
from any quarter. The West wind which was fair for us did he alone let
blow as it chose; but it all came to nothing, for we were lost through
our own folly.

“Nine days and nine nights did we sail, and on the tenth day our native
land showed on the horizon. We got so close in that we could see the
stubble fires burning, and I, being then dead beat, fell into a light
sleep, for I had never let the rudder out of my own hands, that we
might get home the faster. On this the men fell to talking among
themselves, and said I was bringing back gold and silver in the sack
that Aeolus had given me. ‘Bless my heart,’ would one turn to his
neighbour, saying, ‘how this man gets honoured and makes friends to
whatever city or country he may go. See what fine prizes he is taking
home from Troy, while we, who have travelled just as far as he has,
come back with hands as empty as we set out with—and now Aeolus has
given him ever so much more. Quick—let us see what it all is, and how
much gold and silver there is in the sack he gave him.’

“Thus they talked and evil counsels prevailed. They loosed the sack,
whereupon the wind flew howling forth and raised a storm that carried
us weeping out to sea and away from our own country. Then I awoke, and
knew not whether to throw myself into the sea or to live on and make
the best of it; but I bore it, covered myself up, and lay down in the
ship, while the men lamented bitterly as the fierce winds bore our
fleet back to the Aeolian island.

“When we reached it we went ashore to take in water, and dined hard by
the ships. Immediately after dinner I took a herald and one of my men
and went straight to the house of Aeolus, where I found him feasting
with his wife and family; so we sat down as suppliants on the
threshold. They were astounded when they saw us and said, ‘Ulysses,
what brings you here? What god has been ill-treating you? We took great
pains to further you on your way home to Ithaca, or wherever it was
that you wanted to go to.’

“Thus did they speak, but I answered sorrowfully, ‘My men have undone
me; they, and cruel sleep, have ruined me. My friends, mend me this
mischief, for you can if you will.’

“I spoke as movingly as I could, but they said nothing, till their
father answered, ‘Vilest of mankind, get you gone at once out of the
island; him whom heaven hates will I in no wise help. Be off, for you
come here as one abhorred of heaven.’ And with these words he sent me
sorrowing from his door.

“Thence we sailed sadly on till the men were worn out with long and
fruitless rowing, for there was no longer any wind to help them. Six
days, night and day did we toil, and on the seventh day we reached the
rocky stronghold of Lamus—Telepylus, the city of the Laestrygonians,
where the shepherd who is driving in his sheep and goats [to be milked]
salutes him who is driving out his flock [to feed] and this last
answers the salute. In that country a man who could do without sleep
might earn double wages, one as a herdsman of cattle, and another as a
shepherd, for they work much the same by night as they do by day.84

“When we reached the harbour we found it land-locked under steep
cliffs, with a narrow entrance between two headlands. My captains took
all their ships inside, and made them fast close to one another, for
there was never so much as a breath of wind inside, but it was always
dead calm. I kept my own ship outside, and moored it to a rock at the
very end of the point; then I climbed a high rock to reconnoitre, but
could see no sign neither of man nor cattle, only some smoke rising
from the ground. So I sent two of my company with an attendant to find
out what sort of people the inhabitants were.

“The men when they got on shore followed a level road by which the
people draw their firewood from the mountains into the town, till
presently they met a young woman who had come outside to fetch water,
and who was daughter to a Laestrygonian named Antiphates. She was going
to the fountain Artacia from which the people bring in their water, and
when my men had come close up to her, they asked her who the king of
that country might be, and over what kind of people he ruled; so she
directed them to her father’s house, but when they got there they found
his wife to be a giantess as huge as a mountain, and they were
horrified at the sight of her.

“She at once called her husband Antiphates from the place of assembly,
and forthwith he set about killing my men. He snatched up one of them,
and began to make his dinner off him then and there, whereon the other
two ran back to the ships as fast as ever they could. But Antiphates
raised a hue-and-cry after them, and thousands of sturdy Laestrygonians
sprang up from every quarter—ogres, not men. They threw vast rocks at
us from the cliffs as though they had been mere stones, and I heard the
horrid sound of the ships crunching up against one another, and the
death cries of my men, as the Laestrygonians speared them like fishes
and took them home to eat them. While they were thus killing my men
within the harbour I drew my sword, cut the cable of my own ship, and
told my men to row with all their might if they too would not fare like
the rest; so they laid out for their lives, and we were thankful enough
when we got into open water out of reach of the rocks they hurled at
us. As for the others there was not one of them left.

“Thence we sailed sadly on, glad to have escaped death, though we had
lost our comrades, and came to the Aeaean island, where Circe lives—a
great and cunning goddess who is own sister to the magician Aeetes—for
they are both children of the sun by Perse, who is daughter to Oceanus.
We brought our ship into a safe harbour without a word, for some god
guided us thither, and having landed we lay there for two days and two
nights, worn out in body and mind. When the morning of the third day
came I took my spear and my sword, and went away from the ship to
reconnoitre, and see if I could discover signs of human handiwork, or
hear the sound of voices. Climbing to the top of a high look-out I
espied the smoke of Circe’s house rising upwards amid a dense forest of
trees, and when I saw this I doubted whether, having seen the smoke, I
would not go on at once and find out more, but in the end I deemed it
best to go back to the ship, give the men their dinners, and send some
of them instead of going myself.

“When I had nearly got back to the ship some god took pity upon my
solitude, and sent a fine antlered stag right into the middle of my
path. He was coming down his pasture in the forest to drink of the
river, for the heat of the sun drove him, and as he passed I struck him
in the middle of the back; the bronze point of the spear went clean
through him, and he lay groaning in the dust until the life went out of
him. Then I set my foot upon him, drew my spear from the wound, and
laid it down; I also gathered rough grass and rushes and twisted them
into a fathom or so of good stout rope, with which I bound the four
feet of the noble creature together; having so done I hung him round my
neck and walked back to the ship leaning upon my spear, for the stag
was much too big for me to be able to carry him on my shoulder,
steadying him with one hand. As I threw him down in front of the ship,
I called the men and spoke cheeringly man by man to each of them. ‘Look
here my friends,’ said I, ‘we are not going to die so much before our
time after all, and at any rate we will not starve so long as we have
got something to eat and drink on board.’ On this they uncovered their
heads upon the sea shore and admired the stag, for he was indeed a
splendid fellow. Then, when they had feasted their eyes upon him
sufficiently, they washed their hands and began to cook him for dinner.

“Thus through the livelong day to the going down of the sun we stayed
there eating and drinking our fill, but when the sun went down and it
came on dark, we camped upon the sea shore. When the child of morning,
rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, I called a council and said, ‘My friends,
we are in very great difficulties; listen therefore to me. We have no
idea where the sun either sets or rises,85 so that we do not even know
East from West. I see no way out of it; nevertheless, we must try and
find one. We are certainly on an island, for I went as high as I could
this morning, and saw the sea reaching all round it to the horizon; it
lies low, but towards the middle I saw smoke rising from out of a thick
forest of trees.’

“Their hearts sank as they heard me, for they remembered how they had
been treated by the Laestrygonian Antiphates, and by the savage ogre
Polyphemus. They wept bitterly in their dismay, but there was nothing
to be got by crying, so I divided them into two companies and set a
captain over each; I gave one company to Eurylochus, while I took
command of the other myself. Then we cast lots in a helmet, and the lot
fell upon Eurylochus; so he set out with his twenty-two men, and they
wept, as also did we who were left behind.

“When they reached Circe’s house they found it built of cut stones, on
a site that could be seen from far, in the middle of the forest. There
were wild mountain wolves and lions prowling all round it—poor
bewitched creatures whom she had tamed by her enchantments and drugged
into subjection. They did not attack my men, but wagged their great
tails, fawned upon them, and rubbed their noses lovingly against
them.86 As hounds crowd round their master when they see him coming
from dinner—for they know he will bring them something—even so did
these wolves and lions with their great claws fawn upon my men, but the
men were terribly frightened at seeing such strange creatures.
Presently they reached the gates of the goddess’s house, and as they
stood there they could hear Circe within, singing most beautifully as
she worked at her loom, making a web so fine, so soft, and of such
dazzling colours as no one but a goddess could weave. On this Polites,
whom I valued and trusted more than any other of my men, said, ‘There
is some one inside working at a loom and singing most beautifully; the
whole place resounds with it, let us call her and see whether she is
woman or goddess.’

“They called her and she came down, unfastened the door, and bade them
enter. They, thinking no evil, followed her, all except Eurylochus, who
suspected mischief and staid outside. When she had got them into her
house, she set them upon benches and seats and mixed them a mess with
cheese, honey, meal, and Pramnian wine, but she drugged it with wicked
poisons to make them forget their homes, and when they had drunk she
turned them into pigs by a stroke of her wand, and shut them up in her
pig-styes. They were like pigs—head, hair, and all, and they grunted
just as pigs do; but their senses were the same as before, and they
remembered everything.

“Thus then were they shut up squealing, and Circe threw them some
acorns and beech masts such as pigs eat, but Eurylochus hurried back to
tell me about the sad fate of our comrades. He was so overcome with
dismay that though he tried to speak he could find no words to do so;
his eyes filled with tears and he could only sob and sigh, till at last
we forced his story out of him, and he told us what had happened to the
others.

“‘We went,’ said he, ‘as you told us, through the forest, and in the
middle of it there was a fine house built with cut stones in a place
that could be seen from far. There we found a woman, or else she was a
goddess, working at her loom and singing sweetly; so the men shouted to
her and called her, whereon she at once came down, opened the door, and
invited us in. The others did not suspect any mischief so they followed
her into the house, but I staid where I was, for I thought there might
be some treachery. From that moment I saw them no more, for not one of
them ever came out, though I sat a long time watching for them.’

“Then I took my sword of bronze and slung it over my shoulders; I also
took my bow, and told Eurylochus to come back with me and shew me the
way. But he laid hold of me with both his hands and spoke piteously,
saying, ‘Sir, do not force me to go with you, but let me stay here, for
I know you will not bring one of them back with you, nor even return
alive yourself; let us rather see if we cannot escape at any rate with
the few that are left us, for we may still save our lives.’

“‘Stay where you are, then,’ answered I, ‘eating and drinking at the
ship, but I must go, for I am most urgently bound to do so.’

“With this I left the ship and went up inland. When I got through the
charmed grove, and was near the great house of the enchantress Circe, I
met Mercury with his golden wand, disguised as a young man in the
hey-day of his youth and beauty with the down just coming upon his
face. He came up to me and took my hand within his own, saying, ‘My
poor unhappy man, whither are you going over this mountain top, alone
and without knowing the way? Your men are shut up in Circe’s pigstyes,
like so many wild boars in their lairs. You surely do not fancy that
you can set them free? I can tell you that you will never get back and
will have to stay there with the rest of them. But never mind, I will
protect you and get you out of your difficulty. Take this herb, which
is one of great virtue, and keep it about you when you go to Circe’s
house, it will be a talisman to you against every kind of mischief.

“‘And I will tell you of all the wicked witchcraft that Circe will try
to practice upon you. She will mix a mess for you to drink, and she
will drug the meal with which she makes it, but she will not be able to
charm you, for the virtue of the herb that I shall give you will
prevent her spells from working. I will tell you all about it. When
Circe strikes you with her wand, draw your sword and spring upon her as
though you were going to kill her. She will then be frightened, and
will desire you to go to bed with her; on this you must not point blank
refuse her, for you want her to set your companions free, and to take
good care also of yourself, but you must make her swear solemnly by all
the blessed gods that she will plot no further mischief against you, or
else when she has got you naked she will unman you and make you fit for
nothing.’

“As he spoke he pulled the herb out of the ground and shewed me what it
was like. The root was black, while the flower was as white as milk;
the gods call it Moly, and mortal men cannot uproot it, but the gods
can do whatever they like.

“Then Mercury went back to high Olympus passing over the wooded island;
but I fared onward to the house of Circe, and my heart was clouded with
care as I walked along. When I got to the gates I stood there and
called the goddess, and as soon as she heard me she came down, opened
the door, and asked me to come in; so I followed her—much troubled in
my mind. She set me on a richly decorated seat inlaid with silver,
there was a footstool also under my feet, and she mixed a mess in a
golden goblet for me to drink; but she drugged it, for she meant me
mischief. When she had given it me, and I had drunk it without its
charming me, she struck me with her wand. ‘There now,’ she cried, ‘be
off to the pigstye, and make your lair with the rest of them.’

“But I rushed at her with my sword drawn as though I would kill her,
whereon she fell with a loud scream, clasped my knees, and spoke
piteously, saying, ‘Who and whence are you? from what place and people
have you come? How can it be that my drugs have no power to charm you?
Never yet was any man able to stand so much as a taste of the herb I
gave you; you must be spell-proof; surely you can be none other than
the bold hero Ulysses, who Mercury always said would come here some day
with his ship while on his way home from Troy; so be it then; sheathe
your sword and let us go to bed, that we may make friends and learn to
trust each other.’

“And I answered, ‘Circe, how can you expect me to be friendly with you
when you have just been turning all my men into pigs? And now that you
have got me here myself, you mean me mischief when you ask me to go to
bed with you, and will unman me and make me fit for nothing. I shall
certainly not consent to go to bed with you unless you will first take
your solemn oath to plot no further harm against me.’

“So she swore at once as I had told her, and when she had completed her
oath then I went to bed with her.

“Meanwhile her four servants, who are her housemaids, set about their
work. They are the children of the groves and fountains, and of the
holy waters that run down into the sea. One of them spread a fair
purple cloth over a seat, and laid a carpet underneath it. Another
brought tables of silver up to the seats, and set them with baskets of
gold. A third mixed some sweet wine with water in a silver bowl and put
golden cups upon the tables, while the fourth brought in water and set
it to boil in a large cauldron over a good fire which she had lighted.
When the water in the cauldron was boiling,87 she poured cold into it
till it was just as I liked it, and then she set me in a bath and began
washing me from the cauldron about the head and shoulders, to take the
tire and stiffness out of my limbs. As soon as she had done washing me
and anointing me with oil, she arrayed me in a good cloak and shirt and
led me to a richly decorated seat inlaid with silver; there was a
footstool also under my feet. A maid servant then brought me water in a
beautiful golden ewer and poured it into a silver basin for me to wash
my hands, and she drew a clean table beside me; an upper servant
brought me bread and offered me many things of what there was in the
house, and then Circe bade me eat, but I would not, and sat without
heeding what was before me, still moody and suspicious.

“When Circe saw me sitting there without eating, and in great grief,
she came to me and said, ‘Ulysses, why do you sit like that as though
you were dumb, gnawing at your own heart, and refusing both meat and
drink? Is it that you are still suspicious? You ought not to be, for I
have already sworn solemnly that I will not hurt you.’

“And I said, ‘Circe, no man with any sense of what is right can think
of either eating or drinking in your house until you have set his
friends free and let him see them. If you want me to eat and drink, you
must free my men and bring them to me that I may see them with my own
eyes.’

“When I had said this she went straight through the court with her wand
in her hand and opened the pigstye doors. My men came out like so many
prime hogs and stood looking at her, but she went about among them and
anointed each with a second drug, whereon the bristles that the bad
drug had given them fell off, and they became men again, younger than
they were before, and much taller and better looking. They knew me at
once, seized me each of them by the hand, and wept for joy till the
whole house was filled with the sound of their halloa-ballooing, and
Circe herself was so sorry for them that she came up to me and said,
‘Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, go back at once to the sea where you
have left your ship, and first draw it on to the land. Then, hide all
your ship’s gear and property in some cave, and come back here with
your men.’

“I agreed to this, so I went back to the sea shore, and found the men
at the ship weeping and wailing most piteously. When they saw me the
silly blubbering fellows began frisking round me as calves break out
and gambol round their mothers, when they see them coming home to be
milked after they have been feeding all day, and the homestead resounds
with their lowing. They seemed as glad to see me as though they had got
back to their own rugged Ithaca, where they had been born and bred.
‘Sir,’ said the affectionate creatures, ‘we are as glad to see you back
as though we had got safe home to Ithaca; but tell us all about the
fate of our comrades.’

“I spoke comfortingly to them and said, ‘We must draw our ship on to
the land, and hide the ship’s gear with all our property in some cave;
then come with me all of you as fast as you can to Circe’s house, where
you will find your comrades eating and drinking in the midst of great
abundance.’

“On this the men would have come with me at once, but Eurylochus tried
to hold them back and said, ‘Alas, poor wretches that we are, what will
become of us? Rush not on your ruin by going to the house of Circe, who
will turn us all into pigs or wolves or lions, and we shall have to
keep guard over her house. Remember how the Cyclops treated us when our
comrades went inside his cave, and Ulysses with them. It was all
through his sheer folly that those men lost their lives.’

“When I heard him I was in two minds whether or no to draw the keen
blade that hung by my sturdy thigh and cut his head off in spite of his
being a near relation of my own; but the men interceded for him and
said, ‘Sir, if it may so be, let this fellow stay here and mind the
ship, but take the rest of us with you to Circe’s house.’

“On this we all went inland, and Eurylochus was not left behind after
all, but came on too, for he was frightened by the severe reprimand
that I had given him.

“Meanwhile Circe had been seeing that the men who had been left behind
were washed and anointed with olive oil; she had also given them
woollen cloaks and shirts, and when we came we found them all
comfortably at dinner in her house. As soon as the men saw each other
face to face and knew one another, they wept for joy and cried aloud
till the whole palace rang again. Thereon Circe came up to me and said,
‘Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, tell your men to leave off crying; I
know how much you have all of you suffered at sea, and how ill you have
fared among cruel savages on the mainland, but that is over now, so
stay here, and eat and drink till you are once more as strong and
hearty as you were when you left Ithaca; for at present you are
weakened both in body and mind; you keep all the time thinking of the
hardships you have suffered during your travels, so that you have no
more cheerfulness left in you.’

“Thus did she speak and we assented. We stayed with Circe for a whole
twelvemonth feasting upon an untold quantity both of meat and wine. But
when the year had passed in the waning of moons and the long days had
come round, my men called me apart and said, ‘Sir, it is time you began
to think about going home, if so be you are to be spared to see your
house and native country at all.’

“Thus did they speak and I assented. Thereon through the livelong day
to the going down of the sun we feasted our fill on meat and wine, but
when the sun went down and it came on dark the men laid themselves down
to sleep in the covered cloisters. I, however, after I had got into bed
with Circe, besought her by her knees, and the goddess listened to what
I had got to say. ‘Circe,’ said I, ‘please to keep the promise you made
me about furthering me on my homeward voyage. I want to get back and so
do my men, they are always pestering me with their complaints as soon
as ever your back is turned.’

“And the goddess answered, ‘Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, you shall
none of you stay here any longer if you do not want to, but there is
another journey which you have got to take before you can sail
homewards. You must go to the house of Hades and of dread Proserpine to
consult the ghost of the blind Theban prophet Teiresias, whose reason
is still unshaken. To him alone has Proserpine left his understanding
even in death, but the other ghosts flit about aimlessly.’

“I was dismayed when I heard this. I sat up in bed and wept, and would
gladly have lived no longer to see the light of the sun, but presently
when I was tired of weeping and tossing myself about, I said, ‘And who
shall guide me upon this voyage—for the house of Hades is a port that
no ship can reach.’

“‘You will want no guide,’ she answered; ‘raise your mast, set your
white sails, sit quite still, and the North Wind will blow you there of
itself. When your ship has traversed the waters of Oceanus, you will
reach the fertile shore of Proserpine’s country with its groves of tall
poplars and willows that shed their fruit untimely; here beach your
ship upon the shore of Oceanus, and go straight on to the dark abode of
Hades. You will find it near the place where the rivers Pyriphlegethon
and Cocytus (which is a branch of the river Styx) flow into Acheron,
and you will see a rock near it, just where the two roaring rivers run
into one another.

“‘When you have reached this spot, as I now tell you, dig a trench a
cubit or so in length, breadth, and depth, and pour into it as a
drink-offering to all the dead, first, honey mixed with milk, then
wine, and in the third place water—sprinkling white barley meal over
the whole. Moreover you must offer many prayers to the poor feeble
ghosts, and promise them that when you get back to Ithaca you will
sacrifice a barren heifer to them, the best you have, and will load the
pyre with good things. More particularly you must promise that
Teiresias shall have a black sheep all to himself, the finest in all
your flocks.

“‘When you shall have thus besought the ghosts with your prayers, offer
them a ram and a black ewe, bending their heads towards Erebus; but
yourself turn away from them as though you would make towards the
river. On this, many dead men’s ghosts will come to you, and you must
tell your men to skin the two sheep that you have just killed, and
offer them as a burnt sacrifice with prayers to Hades and to
Proserpine. Then draw your sword and sit there, so as to prevent any
other poor ghost from coming near the spilt blood before Teiresias
shall have answered your questions. The seer will presently come to
you, and will tell you about your voyage—what stages you are to make,
and how you are to sail the sea so as to reach your home.’

“It was day-break by the time she had done speaking, so she dressed me
in my shirt and cloak. As for herself she threw a beautiful light
gossamer fabric over her shoulders, fastening it with a golden girdle
round her waist, and she covered her head with a mantle. Then I went
about among the men everywhere all over the house, and spoke kindly to
each of them man by man: ‘You must not lie sleeping here any longer,’
said I to them, ‘we must be going, for Circe has told me all about it.’
And on this they did as I bade them.

“Even so, however, I did not get them away without misadventure. We had
with us a certain youth named Elpenor, not very remarkable for sense or
courage, who had got drunk and was lying on the house-top away from the
rest of the men, to sleep off his liquor in the cool. When he heard the
noise of the men bustling about, he jumped up on a sudden and forgot
all about coming down by the main staircase, so he tumbled right off
the roof and broke his neck, and his soul went down to the house of
Hades.

“When I had got the men together I said to them, ‘You think you are
about to start home again, but Circe has explained to me that instead
of this, we have got to go to the house of Hades and Proserpine to
consult the ghost of the Theban prophet Teiresias.’

“The men were broken-hearted as they heard me, and threw themselves on
the ground groaning and tearing their hair, but they did not mend
matters by crying. When we reached the sea shore, weeping and lamenting
our fate, Circe brought the ram and the ewe, and we made them fast hard
by the ship. She passed through the midst of us without our knowing it,
for who can see the comings and goings of a god, if the god does not
wish to be seen?




BOOK XI


THE VISIT TO THE DEAD.88


“Then, when we had got down to the sea shore we drew our ship into the
water and got her mast and sails into her; we also put the sheep on
board and took our places, weeping and in great distress of mind.
Circe, that great and cunning goddess, sent us a fair wind that blew
dead aft and staid steadily with us keeping our sails all the time well
filled; so we did whatever wanted doing to the ship’s gear and let her
go as the wind and helmsman headed her. All day long her sails were
full as she held her course over the sea, but when the sun went down
and darkness was over all the earth, we got into the deep waters of the
river Oceanus, where lie the land and city of the Cimmerians who live
enshrouded in mist and darkness which the rays of the sun never pierce
neither at his rising nor as he goes down again out of the heavens, but
the poor wretches live in one long melancholy night. When we got there
we beached the ship, took the sheep out of her, and went along by the
waters of Oceanus till we came to the place of which Circe had told us.

“Here Perimedes and Eurylochus held the victims, while I drew my sword
and dug the trench a cubit each way. I made a drink-offering to all the
dead, first with honey and milk, then with wine, and thirdly with
water, and I sprinkled white barley meal over the whole, praying
earnestly to the poor feckless ghosts, and promising them that when I
got back to Ithaca I would sacrifice a barren heifer for them, the best
I had, and would load the pyre with good things. I also particularly
promised that Teiresias should have a black sheep to himself, the best
in all my flocks. When I had prayed sufficiently to the dead, I cut the
throats of the two sheep and let the blood run into the trench, whereon
the ghosts came trooping up from Erebus—brides,89 young bachelors, old
men worn out with toil, maids who had been crossed in love, and brave
men who had been killed in battle, with their armour still smirched
with blood; they came from every quarter and flitted round the trench
with a strange kind of screaming sound that made me turn pale with
fear. When I saw them coming I told the men to be quick and flay the
carcasses of the two dead sheep and make burnt offerings of them, and
at the same time to repeat prayers to Hades and to Proserpine; but I
sat where I was with my sword drawn and would not let the poor feckless
ghosts come near the blood till Teiresias should have answered my
questions.

“The first ghost that came was that of my comrade Elpenor, for he had
not yet been laid beneath the earth. We had left his body unwaked and
unburied in Circe’s house, for we had had too much else to do. I was
very sorry for him, and cried when I saw him: ‘Elpenor,’ said I, ‘how
did you come down here into this gloom and darkness? You have got here
on foot quicker than I have with my ship.’

“‘Sir,’ he answered with a groan, ‘it was all bad luck, and my own
unspeakable drunkenness. I was lying asleep on the top of Circe’s
house, and never thought of coming down again by the great staircase
but fell right off the roof and broke my neck, so my soul came down to
the house of Hades. And now I beseech you by all those whom you have
left behind you, though they are not here, by your wife, by the father
who brought you up when you were a child, and by Telemachus who is the
one hope of your house, do what I shall now ask you. I know that when
you leave this limbo you will again hold your ship for the Aeaean
island. Do not go thence leaving me unwaked and unburied behind you, or
I may bring heaven’s anger upon you; but burn me with whatever armour I
have, build a barrow for me on the sea shore, that may tell people in
days to come what a poor unlucky fellow I was, and plant over my grave
the oar I used to row with when I was yet alive and with my messmates.’
And I said, ‘My poor fellow, I will do all that you have asked of me.’

“Thus, then, did we sit and hold sad talk with one another, I on the
one side of the trench with my sword held over the blood, and the ghost
of my comrade saying all this to me from the other side. Then came the
ghost of my dead mother Anticlea, daughter to Autolycus. I had left her
alive when I set out for Troy and was moved to tears when I saw her,
but even so, for all my sorrow I would not let her come near the blood
till I had asked my questions of Teiresias.

“Then came also the ghost of Theban Teiresias, with his golden sceptre
in his hand. He knew me and said, ‘Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, why,
poor man, have you left the light of day and come down to visit the
dead in this sad place? Stand back from the trench and withdraw your
sword that I may drink of the blood and answer your questions truly.’

“So I drew back, and sheathed my sword, whereon when he had drank of
the blood he began with his prophecy.

“‘You want to know,’ said he, ‘about your return home, but heaven will
make this hard for you. I do not think that you will escape the eye of
Neptune, who still nurses his bitter grudge against you for having
blinded his son. Still, after much suffering you may get home if you
can restrain yourself and your companions when your ship reaches the
Thrinacian island, where you will find the sheep and cattle belonging
to the sun, who sees and gives ear to everything. If you leave these
flocks unharmed and think of nothing but of getting home, you may yet
after much hardship reach Ithaca; but if you harm them, then I forewarn
you of the destruction both of your ship and of your men. Even though
you may yourself escape, you will return in bad plight after losing all
your men, [in another man’s ship, and you will find trouble in your
house, which will be overrun by high-handed people, who are devouring
your substance under the pretext of paying court and making presents to
your wife.

“‘When you get home you will take your revenge on these suitors; and
after you have killed them by force or fraud in your own house, you
must take a well made oar and carry it on and on, till you come to a
country where the people have never heard of the sea and do not even
mix salt with their food, nor do they know anything about ships, and
oars that are as the wings of a ship. I will give you this certain
token which cannot escape your notice. A wayfarer will meet you and
will say it must be a winnowing shovel that you have got upon your
shoulder; on this you must fix the oar in the ground and sacrifice a
ram, a bull, and a boar to Neptune.90 Then go home and offer hecatombs
to all the gods in heaven one after the other. As for yourself, death
shall come to you from the sea, and your life shall ebb away very
gently when you are full of years and peace of mind, and your people
shall bless you. All that I have said will come true].’91

“‘This,’ I answered, ‘must be as it may please heaven, but tell me and
tell me and tell me true, I see my poor mother’s ghost close by us; she
is sitting by the blood without saying a word, and though I am her own
son she does not remember me and speak to me; tell me, Sir, how I can
make her know me.’

“‘That,’ said he, ‘I can soon do. Any ghost that you let taste of the
blood will talk with you like a reasonable being, but if you do not let
them have any blood they will go away again.’

“On this the ghost of Teiresias went back to the house of Hades, for
his prophecyings had now been spoken, but I sat still where I was until
my mother came up and tasted the blood. Then she knew me at once and
spoke fondly to me, saying, ‘My son, how did you come down to this
abode of darkness while you are still alive? It is a hard thing for the
living to see these places, for between us and them there are great and
terrible waters, and there is Oceanus, which no man can cross on foot,
but he must have a good ship to take him. Are you all this time trying
to find your way home from Troy, and have you never yet got back to
Ithaca nor seen your wife in your own house?’

“‘Mother,’ said I, ‘I was forced to come here to consult the ghost of
the Theban prophet Teiresias. I have never yet been near the Achaean
land nor set foot on my native country, and I have had nothing but one
long series of misfortunes from the very first day that I set out with
Agamemnon for Ilius, the land of noble steeds, to fight the Trojans.
But tell me, and tell me true, in what way did you die? Did you have a
long illness, or did heaven vouchsafe you a gentle easy passage to
eternity? Tell me also about my father, and the son whom I left behind
me, is my property still in their hands, or has some one else got hold
of it, who thinks that I shall not return to claim it? Tell me again
what my wife intends doing, and in what mind she is; does she live with
my son and guard my estate securely, or has she made the best match she
could and married again?’

“My mother answered, ‘Your wife still remains in your house, but she is
in great distress of mind and spends her whole time in tears both night
and day. No one as yet has got possession of your fine property, and
Telemachus still holds your lands undisturbed. He has to entertain
largely, as of course he must, considering his position as a
magistrate,92 and how every one invites him; your father remains at his
old place in the country and never goes near the town. He has no
comfortable bed nor bedding; in the winter he sleeps on the floor in
front of the fire with the men and goes about all in rags, but in
summer, when the warm weather comes on again, he lies out in the
vineyard on a bed of vine leaves thrown any how upon the ground. He
grieves continually about your never having come home, and suffers more
and more as he grows older. As for my own end it was in this wise:
heaven did not take me swiftly and painlessly in my own house, nor was
I attacked by any illness such as those that generally wear people out
and kill them, but my longing to know what you were doing and the force
of my affection for you—this it was that was the death of me.’93

“Then I tried to find some way of embracing my poor mother’s ghost.
Thrice I sprang towards her and tried to clasp her in my arms, but each
time she flitted from my embrace as it were a dream or phantom, and
being touched to the quick I said to her, ‘Mother, why do you not stay
still when I would embrace you? If we could throw our arms around one
another we might find sad comfort in the sharing of our sorrows even in
the house of Hades; does Proserpine want to lay a still further load of
grief upon me by mocking me with a phantom only?’

“‘My son,’ she answered, ‘most ill-fated of all mankind, it is not
Proserpine that is beguiling you, but all people are like this when
they are dead. The sinews no longer hold the flesh and bones together;
these perish in the fierceness of consuming fire as soon as life has
left the body, and the soul flits away as though it were a dream. Now,
however, go back to the light of day as soon as you can, and note all
these things that you may tell them to your wife hereafter.’

“Thus did we converse, and anon Proserpine sent up the ghosts of the
wives and daughters of all the most famous men. They gathered in crowds
about the blood, and I considered how I might question them severally.
In the end I deemed that it would be best to draw the keen blade that
hung by my sturdy thigh, and keep them from all drinking the blood at
once. So they came up one after the other, and each one as I questioned
her told me her race and lineage.

“The first I saw was Tyro. She was daughter of Salmoneus and wife of
Cretheus the son of Aeolus.94 She fell in love with the river Enipeus
who is much the most beautiful river in the whole world. Once when she
was taking a walk by his side as usual, Neptune, disguised as her
lover, lay with her at the mouth of the river, and a huge blue wave
arched itself like a mountain over them to hide both woman and god,
whereon he loosed her virgin girdle and laid her in a deep slumber.
When the god had accomplished the deed of love, he took her hand in his
own and said, ‘Tyro, rejoice in all good will; the embraces of the gods
are not fruitless, and you will have fine twins about this time twelve
months. Take great care of them. I am Neptune, so now go home, but hold
your tongue and do not tell any one.’

“Then he dived under the sea, and she in due course bore Pelias and
Neleus, who both of them served Jove with all their might. Pelias was a
great breeder of sheep and lived in Iolcus, but the other lived in
Pylos. The rest of her children were by Cretheus, namely, Aeson,
Pheres, and Amythaon, who was a mighty warrior and charioteer.

“Next to her I saw Antiope, daughter to Asopus, who could boast of
having slept in the arms of even Jove himself, and who bore him two
sons Amphion and Zethus. These founded Thebes with its seven gates, and
built a wall all round it; for strong though they were they could not
hold Thebes till they had walled it.

“Then I saw Alcmena, the wife of Amphitryon, who also bore to Jove
indomitable Hercules; and Megara who was daughter to great King Creon,
and married the redoubtable son of Amphitryon.

“I also saw fair Epicaste mother of king Oedipodes whose awful lot it
was to marry her own son without suspecting it. He married her after
having killed his father, but the gods proclaimed the whole story to
the world; whereon he remained king of Thebes, in great grief for the
spite the gods had borne him; but Epicaste went to the house of the
mighty jailor Hades, having hanged herself for grief, and the avenging
spirits haunted him as for an outraged mother—to his ruing bitterly
thereafter.

“Then I saw Chloris, whom Neleus married for her beauty, having given
priceless presents for her. She was youngest daughter to Amphion son of
Iasus and king of Minyan Orchomenus, and was Queen in Pylos. She bore
Nestor, Chromius, and Periclymenus, and she also bore that marvellously
lovely woman Pero, who was wooed by all the country round; but Neleus
would only give her to him who should raid the cattle of Iphicles from
the grazing grounds of Phylace, and this was a hard task. The only man
who would undertake to raid them was a certain excellent seer,95 but
the will of heaven was against him, for the rangers of the cattle
caught him and put him in prison; nevertheless when a full year had
passed and the same season came round again, Iphicles set him at
liberty, after he had expounded all the oracles of heaven. Thus, then,
was the will of Jove accomplished.

“And I saw Leda the wife of Tyndarus, who bore him two famous sons,
Castor breaker of horses, and Pollux the mighty boxer. Both these
heroes are lying under the earth, though they are still alive, for by a
special dispensation of Jove, they die and come to life again, each one
of them every other day throughout all time, and they have the rank of
gods.

“After her I saw Iphimedeia wife of Aloeus who boasted the embrace of
Neptune. She bore two sons Otus and Ephialtes, but both were short
lived. They were the finest children that were ever born in this world,
and the best looking, Orion only excepted; for at nine years old they
were nine fathoms high, and measured nine cubits round the chest. They
threatened to make war with the gods in Olympus, and tried to set Mount
Ossa on the top of Mount Olympus, and Mount Pelion on the top of Ossa,
that they might scale heaven itself, and they would have done it too if
they had been grown up, but Apollo, son of Leto, killed both of them,
before they had got so much as a sign of hair upon their cheeks or
chin.

“Then I saw Phaedra, and Procris, and fair Ariadne daughter of the
magician Minos, whom Theseus was carrying off from Crete to Athens, but
he did not enjoy her, for before he could do so Diana killed her in the
island of Dia on account of what Bacchus had said against her.

“I also saw Maera and Clymene and hateful Eriphyle, who sold her own
husband for gold. But it would take me all night if I were to name
every single one of the wives and daughters of heroes whom I saw, and
it is time for me to go to bed, either on board ship with my crew, or
here. As for my escort, heaven and yourselves will see to it.”

Here he ended, and the guests sat all of them enthralled and speechless
throughout the covered cloister. Then Arete said to them:—

“What do you think of this man, O Phaeacians? Is he not tall and good
looking, and is he not clever? True, he is my own guest, but all of you
share in the distinction. Do not be in a hurry to send him away, nor
niggardly in the presents you make to one who is in such great need,
for heaven has blessed all of you with great abundance.”

Then spoke the aged hero Echeneus who was one of the oldest men among
them, “My friends,” said he, “what our august queen has just said to us
is both reasonable and to the purpose, therefore be persuaded by it;
but the decision whether in word or deed rests ultimately with King
Alcinous.”

“The thing shall be done,” exclaimed Alcinous, “as surely as I still
live and reign over the Phaeacians. Our guest is indeed very anxious to
get home, still we must persuade him to remain with us until to-morrow,
by which time I shall be able to get together the whole sum that I mean
to give him. As regards his escort it will be a matter for you all, and
mine above all others as the chief person among you.”

And Ulysses answered, “King Alcinous, if you were to bid me to stay
here for a whole twelve months, and then speed me on my way, loaded
with your noble gifts, I should obey you gladly and it would redound
greatly to my advantage, for I should return fuller-handed to my own
people, and should thus be more respected and beloved by all who see me
when I get back to Ithaca.”

“Ulysses,” replied Alcinous, “not one of us who sees you has any idea
that you are a charlatan or a swindler. I know there are many people
going about who tell such plausible stories that it is very hard to see
through them, but there is a style about your language which assures me
of your good disposition. Moreover you have told the story of your own
misfortunes, and those of the Argives, as though you were a practiced
bard; but tell me, and tell me true, whether you saw any of the mighty
heroes who went to Troy at the same time with yourself, and perished
there. The evenings are still at their longest, and it is not yet bed
time—go on, therefore, with your divine story, for I could stay here
listening till tomorrow morning, so long as you will continue to tell
us of your adventures.”

“Alcinous,” answered Ulysses, “there is a time for making speeches, and
a time for going to bed; nevertheless, since you so desire, I will not
refrain from telling you the still sadder tale of those of my comrades
who did not fall fighting with the Trojans, but perished on their
return, through the treachery of a wicked woman.

“When Proserpine had dismissed the female ghosts in all directions, the
ghost of Agamemnon son of Atreus came sadly up to me, surrounded by
those who had perished with him in the house of Aegisthus. As soon as
he had tasted the blood, he knew me, and weeping bitterly stretched out
his arms towards me to embrace me; but he had no strength nor substance
any more, and I too wept and pitied him as I beheld him. ‘How did you
come by your death,’ said I, ‘King Agamemnon? Did Neptune raise his
winds and waves against you when you were at sea, or did your enemies
make an end of you on the main land when you were cattle-lifting or
sheep-stealing, or while they were fighting in defence of their wives
and city?’

“‘Ulysses,’ he answered, ‘noble son of Laertes, I was not lost at sea
in any storm of Neptune’s raising, nor did my foes despatch me upon the
mainland, but Aegisthus and my wicked wife were the death of me between
them. He asked me to his house, feasted me, and then butchered me most
miserably as though I were a fat beast in a slaughter house, while all
around me my comrades were slain like sheep or pigs for the wedding
breakfast, or picnic, or gorgeous banquet of some great nobleman. You
must have seen numbers of men killed either in a general engagement, or
in single combat, but you never saw anything so truly pitiable as the
way in which we fell in that cloister, with the mixing bowl and the
loaded tables lying all about, and the ground reeking with our blood. I
heard Priam’s daughter Cassandra scream as Clytemnestra killed her
close beside me. I lay dying upon the earth with the sword in my body,
and raised my hands to kill the slut of a murderess, but she slipped
away from me; she would not even close my lips nor my eyes when I was
dying, for there is nothing in this world so cruel and so shameless as
a woman when she has fallen into such guilt as hers was. Fancy
murdering her own husband! I thought I was going to be welcomed home by
my children and my servants, but her abominable crime has brought
disgrace on herself and all women who shall come after—even on the good
ones.’

“And I said, ‘In truth Jove has hated the house of Atreus from first to
last in the matter of their women’s counsels. See how many of us fell
for Helen’s sake, and now it seems that Clytemnestra hatched mischief
against you too during your absence.’

“‘Be sure, therefore,’ continued Agamemnon, ‘and not be too friendly
even with your own wife. Do not tell her all that you know perfectly
well yourself. Tell her a part only, and keep your own counsel about
the rest. Not that your wife, Ulysses, is likely to murder you, for
Penelope is a very admirable woman, and has an excellent nature. We
left her a young bride with an infant at her breast when we set out for
Troy. This child no doubt is now grown up happily to man’s estate,96
and he and his father will have a joyful meeting and embrace one
another as it is right they should do, whereas my wicked wife did not
even allow me the happiness of looking upon my son, but killed me ere I
could do so. Furthermore I say—and lay my saying to your heart—do not
tell people when you are bringing your ship to Ithaca, but steal a
march upon them, for after all this there is no trusting women. But now
tell me, and tell me true, can you give me any news of my son Orestes?
Is he in Orchomenus, or at Pylos, or is he at Sparta with Menelaus—for
I presume that he is still living.’

“And I said, ‘Agamemnon, why do you ask me? I do not know whether your
son is alive or dead, and it is not right to talk when one does not
know.’

“As we two sat weeping and talking thus sadly with one another the
ghost of Achilles came up to us with Patroclus, Antilochus, and Ajax
who was the finest and goodliest man of all the Danaans after the son
of Peleus. The fleet descendant of Aeacus knew me and spoke piteously,
saying, ‘Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, what deed of daring will you
undertake next, that you venture down to the house of Hades among us
silly dead, who are but the ghosts of them that can labour no more?’

“And I said, ‘Achilles, son of Peleus, foremost champion of the
Achaeans, I came to consult Teiresias, and see if he could advise me
about my return home to Ithaca, for I have never yet been able to get
near the Achaean land, nor to set foot in my own country, but have been
in trouble all the time. As for you, Achilles, no one was ever yet so
fortunate as you have been, nor ever will be, for you were adored by
all us Argives as long as you were alive, and now that you are here you
are a great prince among the dead. Do not, therefore, take it so much
to heart even if you are dead.’

“‘Say not a word,’ he answered, ‘in death’s favour; I would rather be a
paid servant in a poor man’s house and be above ground than king of
kings among the dead. But give me news about my son; is he gone to the
wars and will he be a great soldier, or is this not so? Tell me also if
you have heard anything about my father Peleus—does he still rule among
the Myrmidons, or do they show him no respect throughout Hellas and
Phthia now that he is old and his limbs fail him? Could I but stand by
his side, in the light of day, with the same strength that I had when I
killed the bravest of our foes upon the plain of Troy—could I but be as
I then was and go even for a short time to my father’s house, any one
who tried to do him violence or supersede him would soon rue it.’

“‘I have heard nothing,’ I answered, ‘of Peleus, but I can tell you all
about your son Neoptolemus, for I took him in my own ship from Scyros
with the Achaeans. In our councils of war before Troy he was always
first to speak, and his judgement was unerring. Nestor and I were the
only two who could surpass him; and when it came to fighting on the
plain of Troy, he would never remain with the body of his men, but
would dash on far in front, foremost of them all in valour. Many a man
did he kill in battle—I cannot name every single one of those whom he
slew while fighting on the side of the Argives, but will only say how
he killed that valiant hero Eurypylus son of Telephus, who was the
handsomest man I ever saw except Memnon; many others also of the
Ceteians fell around him by reason of a woman’s bribes. Moreover, when
all the bravest of the Argives went inside the horse that Epeus had
made, and it was left to me to settle when we should either open the
door of our ambuscade, or close it, though all the other leaders and
chief men among the Danaans were drying their eyes and quaking in every
limb, I never once saw him turn pale nor wipe a tear from his cheek; he
was all the time urging me to break out from the horse—grasping the
handle of his sword and his bronze-shod spear, and breathing fury
against the foe. Yet when we had sacked the city of Priam he got his
handsome share of the prize money and went on board (such is the
fortune of war) without a wound upon him, neither from a thrown spear
nor in close combat, for the rage of Mars is a matter of great chance.’

“When I had told him this, the ghost of Achilles strode off across a
meadow full of asphodel, exulting over what I had said concerning the
prowess of his son.

“The ghosts of other dead men stood near me and told me each his own
melancholy tale; but that of Ajax son of Telamon alone held aloof—still
angry with me for having won the cause in our dispute about the armour
of Achilles. Thetis had offered it as a prize, but the Trojan prisoners
and Minerva were the judges. Would that I had never gained the day in
such a contest, for it cost the life of Ajax, who was foremost of all
the Danaans after the son of Peleus, alike in stature and prowess.

“When I saw him I tried to pacify him and said, ‘Ajax, will you not
forget and forgive even in death, but must the judgement about that
hateful armour still rankle with you? It cost us Argives dear enough to
lose such a tower of strength as you were to us. We mourned you as much
as we mourned Achilles son of Peleus himself, nor can the blame be laid
on anything but on the spite which Jove bore against the Danaans, for
it was this that made him counsel your destruction—come hither,
therefore, bring your proud spirit into subjection, and hear what I can
tell you.’

“He would not answer, but turned away to Erebus and to the other
ghosts; nevertheless, I should have made him talk to me in spite of his
being so angry, or I should have gone on talking to him,97 only that
there were still others among the dead whom I desired to see.

“Then I saw Minos son of Jove with his golden sceptre in his hand
sitting in judgement on the dead, and the ghosts were gathered sitting
and standing round him in the spacious house of Hades, to learn his
sentences upon them.

“After him I saw huge Orion in a meadow full of asphodel driving the
ghosts of the wild beasts that he had killed upon the mountains, and he
had a great bronze club in his hand, unbreakable for ever and ever.

“And I saw Tityus son of Gaia stretched upon the plain and covering
some nine acres of ground. Two vultures on either side of him were
digging their beaks into his liver, and he kept on trying to beat them
off with his hands, but could not; for he had violated Jove’s mistress
Leto as she was going through Panopeus on her way to Pytho.

“I saw also the dreadful fate of Tantalus, who stood in a lake that
reached his chin; he was dying to quench his thirst, but could never
reach the water, for whenever the poor creature stooped to drink, it
dried up and vanished, so that there was nothing but dry ground—parched
by the spite of heaven. There were tall trees, moreover, that shed
their fruit over his head—pears, pomegranates, apples, sweet figs and
juicy olives, but whenever the poor creature stretched out his hand to
take some, the wind tossed the branches back again to the clouds.

“And I saw Sisyphus at his endless task raising his prodigious stone
with both his hands. With hands and feet he tried to roll it up to the
top of the hill, but always, just before he could roll it over on to
the other side, its weight would be too much for him, and the pitiless
stone98 would come thundering down again on to the plain. Then he would
begin trying to push it up hill again, and the sweat ran off him and
the steam rose after him.

“After him I saw mighty Hercules, but it was his phantom only, for he
is feasting ever with the immortal gods, and has lovely Hebe to wife,
who is daughter of Jove and Juno. The ghosts were screaming round him
like scared birds flying all whithers. He looked black as night with
his bare bow in his hands and his arrow on the string, glaring around
as though ever on the point of taking aim. About his breast there was a
wondrous golden belt adorned in the most marvellous fashion with bears,
wild boars, and lions with gleaming eyes; there was also war, battle,
and death. The man who made that belt, do what he might, would never be
able to make another like it. Hercules knew me at once when he saw me,
and spoke piteously, saying, ‘My poor Ulysses, noble son of Laertes,
are you too leading the same sorry kind of life that I did when I was
above ground? I was son of Jove, but I went through an infinity of
suffering, for I became bondsman to one who was far beneath me—a low
fellow who set me all manner of labours. He once sent me here to fetch
the hell-hound—for he did not think he could find anything harder for
me than this, but I got the hound out of Hades and brought him to him,
for Mercury and Minerva helped me.’

“On this Hercules went down again into the house of Hades, but I stayed
where I was in case some other of the mighty dead should come to me.
And I should have seen still other of them that are gone before, whom I
would fain have seen—Theseus and Pirithous—glorious children of the
gods, but so many thousands of ghosts came round me and uttered such
appalling cries, that I was panic stricken lest Proserpine should send
up from the house of Hades the head of that awful monster Gorgon. On
this I hastened back to my ship and ordered my men to go on board at
once and loose the hawsers; so they embarked and took their places,
whereon the ship went down the stream of the river Oceanus. We had to
row at first, but presently a fair wind sprang up.




BOOK XII


THE SIRENS, SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS, THE CATTLE OF THE SUN.


“After we were clear of the river Oceanus, and had got out into the
open sea, we went on till we reached the Aeaean island where there is
dawn and sun-rise as in other places. We then drew our ship on to the
sands and got out of her on to the shore, where we went to sleep and
waited till day should break.

“Then, when the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, I sent
some men to Circe’s house to fetch the body of Elpenor. We cut firewood
from a wood where the headland jutted out into the sea, and after we
had wept over him and lamented him we performed his funeral rites. When
his body and armour had been burned to ashes, we raised a cairn, set a
stone over it, and at the top of the cairn we fixed the oar that he had
been used to row with.

“While we were doing all this, Circe, who knew that we had got back
from the house of Hades, dressed herself and came to us as fast as she
could; and her maid servants came with her bringing us bread, meat, and
wine. Then she stood in the midst of us and said, ‘You have done a bold
thing in going down alive to the house of Hades, and you will have died
twice, to other people’s once; now, then, stay here for the rest of the
day, feast your fill, and go on with your voyage at daybreak tomorrow
morning. In the meantime I will tell Ulysses about your course, and
will explain everything to him so as to prevent your suffering from
misadventure either by land or sea.’

“We agreed to do as she had said, and feasted through the livelong day
to the going down of the sun, but when the sun had set and it came on
dark, the men laid themselves down to sleep by the stern cables of the
ship. Then Circe took me by the hand and bade me be seated away from
the others, while she reclined by my side and asked me all about our
adventures.

“‘So far so good,’ said she, when I had ended my story, ‘and now pay
attention to what I am about to tell you—heaven itself, indeed, will
recall it to your recollection. First you will come to the Sirens who
enchant all who come near them. If any one unwarily draws in too close
and hears the singing of the Sirens, his wife and children will never
welcome him home again, for they sit in a green field and warble him to
death with the sweetness of their song. There is a great heap of dead
men’s bones lying all around, with the flesh still rotting off them.
Therefore pass these Sirens by, and stop your men’s ears with wax that
none of them may hear; but if you like you can listen yourself, for you
may get the men to bind you as you stand upright on a cross piece half
way up the mast,99 and they must lash the rope’s ends to the mast
itself, that you may have the pleasure of listening. If you beg and
pray the men to unloose you, then they must bind you faster.

“‘When your crew have taken you past these Sirens, I cannot give you
coherent directions100 as to which of two courses you are to take; I
will lay the two alternatives before you, and you must consider them
for yourself. On the one hand there are some overhanging rocks against
which the deep blue waves of Amphitrite beat with terrific fury; the
blessed gods call these rocks the Wanderers. Here not even a bird may
pass, no, not even the timid doves that bring ambrosia to Father Jove,
but the sheer rock always carries off one of them, and Father Jove has
to send another to make up their number; no ship that ever yet came to
these rocks has got away again, but the waves and whirlwinds of fire
are freighted with wreckage and with the bodies of dead men. The only
vessel that ever sailed and got through, was the famous Argo on her way
from the house of Aetes, and she too would have gone against these
great rocks, only that Juno piloted her past them for the love she bore
to Jason.

“‘Of these two rocks the one reaches heaven and its peak is lost in a
dark cloud. This never leaves it, so that the top is never clear not
even in summer and early autumn. No man though he had twenty hands and
twenty feet could get a foothold on it and climb it, for it runs sheer
up, as smooth as though it had been polished. In the middle of it there
is a large cavern, looking West and turned towards Erebus; you must
take your ship this way, but the cave is so high up that not even the
stoutest archer could send an arrow into it. Inside it Scylla sits and
yelps with a voice that you might take to be that of a young hound, but
in truth she is a dreadful monster and no one—not even a god—could face
her without being terror-struck. She has twelve mis-shapen feet, and
six necks of the most prodigious length; and at the end of each neck
she has a frightful head with three rows of teeth in each, all set very
close together, so that they would crunch any one to death in a moment,
and she sits deep within her shady cell thrusting out her heads and
peering all round the rock, fishing for dolphins or dogfish or any
larger monster that she can catch, of the thousands with which
Amphitrite teems. No ship ever yet got past her without losing some
men, for she shoots out all her heads at once, and carries off a man in
each mouth.

“‘You will find the other rock lie lower, but they are so close
together that there is not more than a bow-shot between them. [A large
fig tree in full leaf101 grows upon it], and under it lies the sucking
whirlpool of Charybdis. Three times in the day does she vomit forth her
waters, and three times she sucks them down again; see that you be not
there when she is sucking, for if you are, Neptune himself could not
save you; you must hug the Scylla side and drive ship by as fast as you
can, for you had better lose six men than your whole crew.’

“‘Is there no way,’ said I, ‘of escaping Charybdis, and at the same
time keeping Scylla off when she is trying to harm my men?’

“‘You dare devil,’ replied the goddess, ‘you are always wanting to
fight somebody or something; you will not let yourself be beaten even
by the immortals. For Scylla is not mortal; moreover she is savage,
extreme, rude, cruel and invincible. There is no help for it; your best
chance will be to get by her as fast as ever you can, for if you dawdle
about her rock while you are putting on your armour, she may catch you
with a second cast of her six heads, and snap up another half dozen of
your men; so drive your ship past her at full speed, and roar out
lustily to Crataiis who is Scylla’s dam, bad luck to her; she will then
stop her from making a second raid upon you.’

“‘You will now come to the Thrinacian island, and here you will see
many herds of cattle and flocks of sheep belonging to the sun-god—seven
herds of cattle and seven flocks of sheep, with fifty head in each
flock. They do not breed, nor do they become fewer in number, and they
are tended by the goddesses Phaethusa and Lampetie, who are children of
the sun-god Hyperion by Neaera. Their mother when she had borne them
and had done suckling them sent them to the Thrinacian island, which
was a long way off, to live there and look after their father’s flocks
and herds. If you leave these flocks unharmed, and think of nothing but
getting home, you may yet after much hardship reach Ithaca; but if you
harm them, then I forewarn you of the destruction both of your ship and
of your comrades; and even though you may yourself escape, you will
return late, in bad plight, after losing all your men.’

“Here she ended, and dawn enthroned in gold began to show in heaven,
whereon she returned inland. I then went on board and told my men to
loose the ship from her moorings; so they at once got into her, took
their places, and began to smite the grey sea with their oars.
Presently the great and cunning goddess Circe befriended us with a fair
wind that blew dead aft, and staid steadily with us, keeping our sails
well filled, so we did whatever wanted doing to the ship’s gear, and
let her go as wind and helmsman headed her.

“Then, being much troubled in mind, I said to my men, ‘My friends, it
is not right that one or two of us alone should know the prophecies
that Circe has made me, I will therefore tell you about them, so that
whether we live or die we may do so with our eyes open. First she said
we were to keep clear of the Sirens, who sit and sing most beautifully
in a field of flowers; but she said I might hear them myself so long as
no one else did. Therefore, take me and bind me to the crosspiece half
way up the mast; bind me as I stand upright, with a bond so fast that I
cannot possibly break away, and lash the rope’s ends to the mast
itself. If I beg and pray you to set me free, then bind me more tightly
still.’

“I had hardly finished telling everything to the men before we reached
the island of the two Sirens,102 for the wind had been very favourable.
Then all of a sudden it fell dead calm; there was not a breath of wind
nor a ripple upon the water, so the men furled the sails and stowed
them; then taking to their oars they whitened the water with the foam
they raised in rowing. Meanwhile I look a large wheel of wax and cut it
up small with my sword. Then I kneaded the wax in my strong hands till
it became soft, which it soon did between the kneading and the rays of
the sun-god son of Hyperion. Then I stopped the ears of all my men, and
they bound me hands and feet to the mast as I stood upright on the
cross piece; but they went on rowing themselves. When we had got within
earshot of the land, and the ship was going at a good rate, the Sirens
saw that we were getting in shore and began with their singing.

“‘Come here,’ they sang, ‘renowned Ulysses, honour to the Achaean name,
and listen to our two voices. No one ever sailed past us without
staying to hear the enchanting sweetness of our song—and he who listens
will go on his way not only charmed, but wiser, for we know all the
ills that the gods laid upon the Argives and Trojans before Troy, and
can tell you everything that is going to happen over the whole world.’

“They sang these words most musically, and as I longed to hear them
further I made signs by frowning to my men that they should set me
free; but they quickened their stroke, and Eurylochus and Perimedes
bound me with still stronger bonds till we had got out of hearing of
the Sirens’ voices. Then my men took the wax from their ears and
unbound me.

“Immediately after we had got past the island I saw a great wave from
which spray was rising, and I heard a loud roaring sound. The men were
so frightened that they loosed hold of their oars, for the whole sea
resounded with the rushing of the waters,103 but the ship stayed where
it was, for the men had left off rowing. I went round, therefore, and
exhorted them man by man not to lose heart.

“‘My friends,’ said I, ‘this is not the first time that we have been in
danger, and we are in nothing like so bad a case as when the Cyclops
shut us up in his cave; nevertheless, my courage and wise counsel saved
us then, and we shall live to look back on all this as well. Now,
therefore, let us all do as I say, trust in Jove and row on with might
and main. As for you, coxswain, these are your orders; attend to them,
for the ship is in your hands; turn her head away from these steaming
rapids and hug the rock, or she will give you the slip and be over
yonder before you know where you are, and you will be the death of us.’

“So they did as I told them; but I said nothing about the awful monster
Scylla, for I knew the men would not go on rowing if I did, but would
huddle together in the hold. In one thing only did I disobey Circe’s
strict instructions—I put on my armour. Then seizing two strong spears
I took my stand on the ship’s bows, for it was there that I expected
first to see the monster of the rock, who was to do my men so much
harm; but I could not make her out anywhere, though I strained my eyes
with looking the gloomy rock all over and over.

“Then we entered the Straits in great fear of mind, for on the one hand
was Scylla, and on the other dread Charybdis kept sucking up the salt
water. As she vomited it up, it was like the water in a cauldron when
it is boiling over upon a great fire, and the spray reached the top of
the rocks on either side. When she began to suck again, we could see
the water all inside whirling round and round, and it made a deafening
sound as it broke against the rocks. We could see the bottom of the
whirlpool all black with sand and mud, and the men were at their wits
ends for fear. While we were taken up with this, and were expecting
each moment to be our last, Scylla pounced down suddenly upon us and
snatched up my six best men. I was looking at once after both ship and
men, and in a moment I saw their hands and feet ever so high above me,
struggling in the air as Scylla was carrying them off, and I heard them
call out my name in one last despairing cry. As a fisherman, seated,
spear in hand, upon some jutting rock104 throws bait into the water to
deceive the poor little fishes, and spears them with the ox’s horn with
which his spear is shod, throwing them gasping on to the land as he
catches them one by one—even so did Scylla land these panting creatures
on her rock and munch them up at the mouth of her den, while they
screamed and stretched out their hands to me in their mortal agony.
This was the most sickening sight that I saw throughout all my voyages.

“When we had passed the [Wandering] rocks, with Scylla and terrible
Charybdis, we reached the noble island of the sun-god, where were the
goodly cattle and sheep belonging to the sun Hyperion. While still at
sea in my ship I could bear the cattle lowing as they came home to the
yards, and the sheep bleating. Then I remembered what the blind Theban
prophet Teiresias had told me, and how carefully Aeaean Circe had
warned me to shun the island of the blessed sun-god. So being much
troubled I said to the men, ‘My men, I know you are hard pressed, but
listen while I tell you the prophecy that Teiresias made me, and how
carefully Aeaean Circe warned me to shun the island of the blessed
sun-god, for it was here, she said, that our worst danger would lie.
Head the ship, therefore, away from the island.’

“The men were in despair at this, and Eurylochus at once gave me an
insolent answer. ‘Ulysses,’ said he, ‘you are cruel; you are very
strong yourself and never get worn out; you seem to be made of iron,
and now, though your men are exhausted with toil and want of sleep, you
will not let them land and cook themselves a good supper upon this
island, but bid them put out to sea and go faring fruitlessly on
through the watches of the flying night. It is by night that the winds
blow hardest and do so much damage; how can we escape should one of
those sudden squalls spring up from South West or West, which so often
wreck a vessel when our lords the gods are unpropitious? Now,
therefore, let us obey the behests of night and prepare our supper here
hard by the ship; to-morrow morning we will go on board again and put
out to sea.’

“Thus spoke Eurylochus, and the men approved his words. I saw that
heaven meant us a mischief and said, ‘You force me to yield, for you
are many against one, but at any rate each one of you must take his
solemn oath that if he meet with a herd of cattle or a large flock of
sheep, he will not be so mad as to kill a single head of either, but
will be satisfied with the food that Circe has given us.’

“They all swore as I bade them, and when they had completed their oath
we made the ship fast in a harbour that was near a stream of fresh
water, and the men went ashore and cooked their suppers. As soon as
they had had enough to eat and drink, they began talking about their
poor comrades whom Scylla had snatched up and eaten; this set them
weeping and they went on crying till they fell off into a sound sleep.

“In the third watch of the night when the stars had shifted their
places, Jove raised a great gale of wind that flew a hurricane so that
land and sea were covered with thick clouds, and night sprang forth out
of the heavens. When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn,
appeared, we brought the ship to land and drew her into a cave wherein
the sea-nymphs hold their courts and dances, and I called the men
together in council.

“‘My friends,’ said I, ‘we have meat and drink in the ship, let us
mind, therefore, and not touch the cattle, or we shall suffer for it;
for these cattle and sheep belong to the mighty sun, who sees and gives
ear to everything.’ And again they promised that they would obey.

“For a whole month the wind blew steadily from the South, and there was
no other wind, but only South and East.105 As long as corn and wine
held out the men did not touch the cattle when they were hungry; when,
however, they had eaten all there was in the ship, they were forced to
go further afield, with hook and line, catching birds, and taking
whatever they could lay their hands on; for they were starving. One
day, therefore, I went up inland that I might pray heaven to show me
some means of getting away. When I had gone far enough to be clear of
all my men, and had found a place that was well sheltered from the
wind, I washed my hands and prayed to all the gods in Olympus till by
and by they sent me off into a sweet sleep.

“Meanwhile Eurylochus had been giving evil counsel to the men, ‘Listen
to me,’ said he, ‘my poor comrades. All deaths are bad enough but there
is none so bad as famine. Why should not we drive in the best of these
cows and offer them in sacrifice to the immortal gods? If we ever get
back to Ithaca, we can build a fine temple to the sun-god and enrich it
with every kind of ornament; if, however, he is determined to sink our
ship out of revenge for these horned cattle, and the other gods are of
the same mind, I for one would rather drink salt water once for all and
have done with it, than be starved to death by inches in such a desert
island as this is.’

“Thus spoke Eurylochus, and the men approved his words. Now the cattle,
so fair and goodly, were feeding not far from the ship; the men,
therefore, drove in the best of them, and they all stood round them
saying their prayers, and using young oak-shoots instead of
barley-meal, for there was no barley left. When they had done praying
they killed the cows and dressed their carcasses; they cut out the
thigh bones, wrapped them round in two layers of fat, and set some
pieces of raw meat on top of them. They had no wine with which to make
drink-offerings over the sacrifice while it was cooking, so they kept
pouring on a little water from time to time while the inward meats were
being grilled; then, when the thigh bones were burned and they had
tasted the inward meats, they cut the rest up small and put the pieces
upon the spits.

“By this time my deep sleep had left me, and I turned back to the ship
and to the sea shore. As I drew near I began to smell hot roast meat,
so I groaned out a prayer to the immortal gods. ‘Father Jove,’ I
exclaimed, ‘and all you other gods who live in everlasting bliss, you
have done me a cruel mischief by the sleep into which you have sent me;
see what fine work these men of mine have been making in my absence.’

“Meanwhile Lampetie went straight off to the sun and told him we had
been killing his cows, whereon he flew into a great rage, and said to
the immortals, ‘Father Jove, and all you other gods who live in
everlasting bliss, I must have vengeance on the crew of Ulysses’ ship:
they have had the insolence to kill my cows, which were the one thing I
loved to look upon, whether I was going up heaven or down again. If
they do not square accounts with me about my cows, I will go down to
Hades and shine there among the dead.’

“‘Sun,’ said Jove, ‘go on shining upon us gods and upon mankind over
the fruitful earth. I will shiver their ship into little pieces with a
bolt of white lightning as soon as they get out to sea.’

“I was told all this by Calypso, who said she had heard it from the
mouth of Mercury.

“As soon as I got down to my ship and to the sea shore I rebuked each
one of the men separately, but we could see no way out of it, for the
cows were dead already. And indeed the gods began at once to show signs
and wonders among us, for the hides of the cattle crawled about, and
the joints upon the spits began to low like cows, and the meat, whether
cooked or raw, kept on making a noise just as cows do.

“For six days my men kept driving in the best cows and feasting upon
them, but when Jove the son of Saturn had added a seventh day, the fury
of the gale abated; we therefore went on board, raised our masts,
spread sail, and put out to sea. As soon as we were well away from the
island, and could see nothing but sky and sea, the son of Saturn raised
a black cloud over our ship, and the sea grew dark beneath it. We did
not get on much further, for in another moment we were caught by a
terrific squall from the West that snapped the forestays of the mast so
that it fell aft, while all the ship’s gear tumbled about at the bottom
of the vessel. The mast fell upon the head of the helmsman in the
ship’s stern, so that the bones of his head were crushed to pieces, and
he fell overboard as though he were diving, with no more life left in
him.

“Then Jove let fly with his thunderbolts, and the ship went round and
round, and was filled with fire and brimstone as the lightning struck
it. The men all fell into the sea; they were carried about in the water
round the ship, looking like so many sea-gulls, but the god presently
deprived them of all chance of getting home again.

“I stuck to the ship till the sea knocked her sides from her keel
(which drifted about by itself) and struck the mast out of her in the
direction of the keel; but there was a backstay of stout ox-thong still
hanging about it, and with this I lashed the mast and keel together,
and getting astride of them was carried wherever the winds chose to
take me.

“[The gale from the West had now spent its force, and the wind got into
the South again, which frightened me lest I should be taken back to the
terrible whirlpool of Charybdis. This indeed was what actually
happened, for I was borne along by the waves all night, and by sunrise
had reached the rock of Scylla, and the whirlpool. She was then sucking
down the salt sea water,106 but I was carried aloft toward the fig
tree, which I caught hold of and clung on to like a bat. I could not
plant my feet anywhere so as to stand securely, for the roots were a
long way off and the boughs that overshadowed the whole pool were too
high, too vast, and too far apart for me to reach them; so I hung
patiently on, waiting till the pool should discharge my mast and raft
again—and a very long while it seemed. A jury-man is not more glad to
get home to supper, after having been long detained in court by
troublesome cases, than I was to see my raft beginning to work its way
out of the whirlpool again. At last I let go with my hands and feet,
and fell heavily into the sea, hard by my raft on to which I then got,
and began to row with my hands. As for Scylla, the father of gods and
men would not let her get further sight of me—otherwise I should have
certainly been lost.107

“Hence I was carried along for nine days till on the tenth night the
gods stranded me on the Ogygian island, where dwells the great and
powerful goddess Calypso. She took me in and was kind to me, but I need
say no more about this, for I told you and your noble wife all about it
yesterday, and I hate saying the same thing over and over again.”




BOOK XIII


ULYSSES LEAVES SCHERIA AND RETURNS TO ITHACA.


Thus did he speak, and they all held their peace throughout the covered
cloister, enthralled by the charm of his story, till presently Alcinous
began to speak.

“Ulysses,” said he, “now that you have reached my house I doubt not you
will get home without further misadventure no matter how much you have
suffered in the past. To you others, however, who come here night after
night to drink my choicest wine and listen to my bard, I would insist
as follows. Our guest has already packed up the clothes, wrought
gold,108 and other valuables which you have brought for his acceptance;
let us now, therefore, present him further, each one of us, with a
large tripod and a cauldron. We will recoup ourselves by the levy of a
general rate; for private individuals cannot be expected to bear the
burden of such a handsome present.”

Every one approved of this, and then they went home to bed each in his
own abode. When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared they
hurried down to the ship and brought their cauldrons with them.
Alcinous went on board and saw everything so securely stowed under the
ship’s benches that nothing could break adrift and injure the rowers.
Then they went to the house of Alcinous to get dinner, and he
sacrificed a bull for them in honour of Jove who is the lord of all.
They set the steaks to grill and made an excellent dinner, after which
the inspired bard, Demodocus, who was a favourite with every one, sang
to them; but Ulysses kept on turning his eyes towards the sun, as
though to hasten his setting, for he was longing to be on his way. As
one who has been all day ploughing a fallow field with a couple of oxen
keeps thinking about his supper and is glad when night comes that he
may go and get it, for it is all his legs can do to carry him, even so
did Ulysses rejoice when the sun went down, and he at once said to the
Phaeacians, addressing himself more particularly to King Alcinous:

“Sir, and all of you, farewell. Make your drink-offerings and send me
on my way rejoicing, for you have fulfilled my heart’s desire by giving
me an escort, and making me presents, which heaven grant that I may
turn to good account; may I find my admirable wife living in peace
among friends,109 and may you whom I leave behind me give satisfaction
to your wives and children;110 may heaven vouchsafe you every good
grace, and may no evil thing come among your people.”

Thus did he speak. His hearers all of them approved his saying and
agreed that he should have his escort inasmuch as he had spoken
reasonably. Alcinous therefore said to his servant, “Pontonous, mix
some wine and hand it round to everybody, that we may offer a prayer to
father Jove, and speed our guest upon his way.”

Pontonous mixed the wine and handed it to every one in turn; the others
each from his own seat made a drink-offering to the blessed gods that
live in heaven, but Ulysses rose and placed the double cup in the hands
of queen Arete.

“Farewell, queen,” said he, “henceforward and for ever, till age and
death, the common lot of mankind, lay their hands upon you. I now take
my leave; be happy in this house with your children, your people, and
with king Alcinous.”

As he spoke he crossed the threshold, and Alcinous sent a man to
conduct him to his ship and to the sea shore. Arete also sent some
maidservants with him—one with a clean shirt and cloak, another to
carry his strong box, and a third with corn and wine. When they got to
the water side the crew took these things and put them on board, with
all the meat and drink; but for Ulysses they spread a rug and a linen
sheet on deck that he might sleep soundly in the stern of the ship.
Then he too went on board and lay down without a word, but the crew
took every man his place and loosed the hawser from the pierced stone
to which it had been bound. Thereon, when they began rowing out to sea,
Ulysses fell into a deep, sweet, and almost deathlike slumber.111

The ship bounded forward on her way as a four in hand chariot flies
over the course when the horses feel the whip. Her prow curvetted as it
were the neck of a stallion, and a great wave of dark blue water
seethed in her wake. She held steadily on her course, and even a
falcon, swiftest of all birds, could not have kept pace with her. Thus,
then, she cut her way through the water, carrying one who was as
cunning as the gods, but who was now sleeping peacefully, forgetful of
all that he had suffered both on the field of battle and by the waves
of the weary sea.

When the bright star that heralds the approach of dawn began to show,
the ship drew near to land.112 Now there is in Ithaca a haven of the
old merman Phorcys, which lies between two points that break the line
of the sea and shut the harbour in. These shelter it from the storms of
wind and sea that rage outside, so that, when once within it, a ship
may lie without being even moored. At the head of this harbour there is
a large olive tree, and at no great distance a fine overarching cavern
sacred to the nymphs who are called Naiads.113 There are mixing bowls
within it and wine-jars of stone, and the bees hive there. Moreover,
there are great looms of stone on which the nymphs weave their robes of
sea purple—very curious to see—and at all times there is water within
it. It has two entrances, one facing North by which mortals can go down
into the cave, while the other comes from the South and is more
mysterious; mortals cannot possibly get in by it, it is the way taken
by the gods.

Into this harbour, then, they took their ship, for they knew the
place.114 She had so much way upon her that she ran half her own length
on to the shore;115 when, however, they had landed, the first thing
they did was to lift Ulysses with his rug and linen sheet out of the
ship, and lay him down upon the sand still fast asleep. Then they took
out the presents which Minerva had persuaded the Phaeacians to give him
when he was setting out on his voyage homewards. They put these all
together by the root of the olive tree, away from the road, for fear
some passer by116 might come and steal them before Ulysses awoke; and
then they made the best of their way home again.

But Neptune did not forget the threats with which he had already
threatened Ulysses, so he took counsel with Jove. “Father Jove,” said
he, “I shall no longer be held in any sort of respect among you gods,
if mortals like the Phaeacians, who are my own flesh and blood, show
such small regard for me. I said I would let Ulysses get home when he
had suffered sufficiently. I did not say that he should never get home
at all, for I knew you had already nodded your head about it, and
promised that he should do so; but now they have brought him in a ship
fast asleep and have landed him in Ithaca after loading him with more
magnificent presents of bronze, gold, and raiment than he would ever
have brought back from Troy, if he had had his share of the spoil and
got home without misadventure.”

And Jove answered, “What, O Lord of the Earthquake, are you talking
about? The gods are by no means wanting in respect for you. It would be
monstrous were they to insult one so old and honoured as you are. As
regards mortals, however, if any of them is indulging in insolence and
treating you disrespectfully, it will always rest with yourself to deal
with him as you may think proper, so do just as you please.”

“I should have done so at once,” replied Neptune, “if I were not
anxious to avoid anything that might displease you; now, therefore, I
should like to wreck the Phaeacian ship as it is returning from its
escort. This will stop them from escorting people in future; and I
should also like to bury their city under a huge mountain.”

“My good friend,” answered Jove, “I should recommend you at the very
moment when the people from the city are watching the ship on her way,
to turn it into a rock near the land and looking like a ship. This will
astonish everybody, and you can then bury their city under the
mountain.”

When earth-encircling Neptune heard this he went to Scheria where the
Phaeacians live, and stayed there till the ship, which was making rapid
way, had got close in. Then he went up to it, turned it into stone, and
drove it down with the flat of his hand so as to root it in the ground.
After this he went away.

The Phaeacians then began talking among themselves, and one would turn
towards his neighbour, saying, “Bless my heart, who is it that can have
rooted the ship in the sea just as she was getting into port? We could
see the whole of her only a moment ago.”

This was how they talked, but they knew nothing about it; and Alcinous
said, “I remember now the old prophecy of my father. He said that
Neptune would be angry with us for taking every one so safely over the
sea, and would one day wreck a Phaeacian ship as it was returning from
an escort, and bury our city under a high mountain. This was what my
old father used to say, and now it is all coming true.117 Now therefore
let us all do as I say; in the first place we must leave off giving
people escorts when they come here, and in the next let us sacrifice
twelve picked bulls to Neptune that he may have mercy upon us, and not
bury our city under the high mountain.” When the people heard this they
were afraid and got ready the bulls.

Thus did the chiefs and rulers of the Phaeacians pray to king Neptune,
standing round his altar; and at the same time118 Ulysses woke up once
more upon his own soil. He had been so long away that he did not know
it again; moreover, Jove’s daughter Minerva had made it a foggy day, so
that people might not know of his having come, and that she might tell
him everything without either his wife or his fellow citizens and
friends recognising him119 until he had taken his revenge upon the
wicked suitors. Everything, therefore, seemed quite different to
him—the long straight tracks, the harbours, the precipices, and the
goodly trees, appeared all changed as he started up and looked upon his
native land. So he smote his thighs with the flat of his hands and
cried aloud despairingly.

“Alas,” he exclaimed, “among what manner of people am I fallen? Are
they savage and uncivilised or hospitable and humane? Where shall I put
all this treasure, and which way shall I go? I wish I had staid over
there with the Phaeacians; or I could have gone to some other great
chief who would have been good to me and given me an escort. As it is I
do not know where to put my treasure, and I cannot leave it here for
fear somebody else should get hold of it. In good truth the chiefs and
rulers of the Phaeacians have not been dealing fairly by me, and have
left me in the wrong country; they said they would take me back to
Ithaca and they have not done so: may Jove the protector of suppliants
chastise them, for he watches over everybody and punishes those who do
wrong. Still, I suppose I must count my goods and see if the crew have
gone off with any of them.”

He counted his goodly coppers and cauldrons, his gold and all his
clothes, but there was nothing missing; still he kept grieving about
not being in his own country, and wandered up and down by the shore of
the sounding sea bewailing his hard fate. Then Minerva came up to him
disguised as a young shepherd of delicate and princely mien, with a
good cloak folded double about her shoulders; she had sandals on her
comely feet and held a javelin in her hand. Ulysses was glad when he
saw her, and went straight up to her.

“My friend,” said he, “you are the first person whom I have met with in
this country; I salute you, therefore, and beg you to be well disposed
towards me. Protect these my goods, and myself too, for I embrace your
knees and pray to you as though you were a god. Tell me, then, and tell
me truly, what land and country is this? Who are its inhabitants? Am I
on an island, or is this the sea board of some continent?”

Minerva answered, “Stranger, you must be very simple, or must have come
from somewhere a long way off, not to know what country this is. It is
a very celebrated place, and everybody knows it East and West. It is
rugged and not a good driving country, but it is by no means a bad
island for what there is of it. It grows any quantity of corn and also
wine, for it is watered both by rain and dew; it breeds cattle also and
goats; all kinds of timber grow here, and there are watering places
where the water never runs dry; so, sir, the name of Ithaca is known
even as far as Troy, which I understand to be a long way off from this
Achaean country.”

Ulysses was glad at finding himself, as Minerva told him, in his own
country, and he began to answer, but he did not speak the truth, and
made up a lying story in the instinctive wiliness of his heart.

“I heard of Ithaca,” said he, “when I was in Crete beyond the seas, and
now it seems I have reached it with all these treasures. I have left as
much more behind me for my children, but am flying because I killed
Orsilochus son of Idomeneus, the fleetest runner in Crete. I killed him
because he wanted to rob me of the spoils I had got from Troy with so
much trouble and danger both on the field of battle and by the waves of
the weary sea; he said I had not served his father loyally at Troy as
vassal, but had set myself up as an independent ruler, so I lay in wait
for him with one of my followers by the road side, and speared him as
he was coming into town from the country. It was a very dark night and
nobody saw us; it was not known, therefore, that I had killed him, but
as soon as I had done so I went to a ship and besought the owners, who
were Phoenicians, to take me on board and set me in Pylos or in Elis
where the Epeans rule, giving them as much spoil as satisfied them.
They meant no guile, but the wind drove them off their course, and we
sailed on till we came hither by night. It was all we could do to get
inside the harbour, and none of us said a word about supper though we
wanted it badly, but we all went on shore and lay down just as we were.
I was very tired and fell asleep directly, so they took my goods out of
the ship, and placed them beside me where I was lying upon the sand.
Then they sailed away to Sidonia, and I was left here in great distress
of mind.”

Such was his story, but Minerva smiled and caressed him with her hand.
Then she took the form of a woman, fair, stately, and wise, “He must be
indeed a shifty lying fellow,” said she, “who could surpass you in all
manner of craft even though you had a god for your antagonist. Dare
devil that you are, full of guile, unwearying in deceit, can you not
drop your tricks and your instinctive falsehood, even now that you are
in your own country again? We will say no more, however, about this,
for we can both of us deceive upon occasion—you are the most
accomplished counsellor and orator among all mankind, while I for
diplomacy and subtlety have no equal among the gods. Did you not know
Jove’s daughter Minerva—me, who have been ever with you, who kept watch
over you in all your troubles, and who made the Phaeacians take so
great a liking to you? And now, again, I am come here to talk things
over with you, and help you to hide the treasure I made the Phaeacians
give you; I want to tell you about the troubles that await you in your
own house; you have got to face them, but tell no one, neither man nor
woman, that you have come home again. Bear everything, and put up with
every man’s insolence, without a word.”

And Ulysses answered, “A man, goddess, may know a great deal, but you
are so constantly changing your appearance that when he meets you it is
a hard matter for him to know whether it is you or not. This much,
however, I know exceedingly well; you were very kind to me as long as
we Achaeans were fighting before Troy, but from the day on which we
went on board ship after having sacked the city of Priam, and heaven
dispersed us—from that day, Minerva, I saw no more of you, and cannot
ever remember your coming to my ship to help me in a difficulty; I had
to wander on sick and sorry till the gods delivered me from evil and I
reached the city of the Phaeacians, where you encouraged me and took me
into the town.120 And now, I beseech you in your father’s name, tell me
the truth, for I do not believe I am really back in Ithaca. I am in
some other country and you are mocking me and deceiving me in all you
have been saying. Tell me then truly, have I really got back to my own
country?”

“You are always taking something of that sort in your head,” replied
Minerva, “and that is why I cannot desert you in your afflictions; you
are so plausible, shrewd and shifty. Any one but yourself on returning
from so long a voyage would at once have gone home to see his wife and
children, but you do not seem to care about asking after them or
hearing any news about them till you have exploited your wife, who
remains at home vainly grieving for you, and having no peace night or
day for the tears she sheds on your behalf. As for my not coming near
you, I was never uneasy about you, for I was certain you would get back
safely though you would lose all your men, and I did not wish to
quarrel with my uncle Neptune, who never forgave you for having blinded
his son.121 I will now, however, point out to you the lie of the land,
and you will then perhaps believe me. This is the haven of the old
merman Phorcys, and here is the olive tree that grows at the head of
it; [near it is the cave sacred to the Naiads;122 here too is the
overarching cavern in which you have offered many an acceptable
hecatomb to the nymphs, and this is the wooded mountain Neritum.”

As she spoke the goddess dispersed the mist and the land appeared. Then
Ulysses rejoiced at finding himself again in his own land, and kissed
the bounteous soil; he lifted up his hands and prayed to the nymphs,
saying, “Naiad nymphs, daughters of Jove, I made sure that I was never
again to see you, now therefore I greet you with all loving
salutations, and I will bring you offerings as in the old days, if
Jove’s redoubtable daughter will grant me life, and bring my son to
manhood.”

“Take heart, and do not trouble yourself about that,” rejoined Minerva,
“let us rather set about stowing your things at once in the cave, where
they will be quite safe. Let us see how we can best manage it all.”

Therewith she went down into the cave to look for the safest hiding
places, while Ulysses brought up all the treasure of gold, bronze, and
good clothing which the Phaeacians had given him. They stowed
everything carefully away, and Minerva set a stone against the door of
the cave. Then the two sat down by the root of the great olive, and
consulted how to compass the destruction of the wicked suitors.

“Ulysses,” said Minerva, “noble son of Laertes, think how you can lay
hands on these disreputable people who have been lording it in your
house these three years, courting your wife and making wedding presents
to her, while she does nothing but lament your absence, giving hope and
sending encouraging messages123 to every one of them, but meaning the
very opposite of all she says.”

And Ulysses answered, “In good truth, goddess, it seems I should have
come to much the same bad end in my own house as Agamemnon did, if you
had not given me such timely information. Advise me how I shall best
avenge myself. Stand by my side and put your courage into my heart as
on the day when we loosed Troy’s fair diadem from her brow. Help me now
as you did then, and I will fight three hundred men, if you, goddess,
will be with me.”

“Trust me for that,” said she, “I will not lose sight of you when once
we set about it, and I imagine that some of those who are devouring
your substance will then bespatter the pavement with their blood and
brains. I will begin by disguising you so that no human being shall
know you; I will cover your body with wrinkles; you shall lose all your
yellow hair; I will clothe you in a garment that shall fill all who see
it with loathing; I will blear your fine eyes for you, and make you an
unseemly object in the sight of the suitors, of your wife, and of the
son whom you left behind you. Then go at once to the swineherd who is
in charge of your pigs; he has been always well affected towards you,
and is devoted to Penelope and your son; you will find him feeding his
pigs near the rock that is called Raven124 by the fountain Arethusa,
where they are fattening on beechmast and spring water after their
manner. Stay with him and find out how things are going, while I
proceed to Sparta and see your son, who is with Menelaus at Lacedaemon,
where he has gone to try and find out whether you are still alive.”125

“But why,” said Ulysses, “did you not tell him, for you knew all about
it? Did you want him too to go sailing about amid all kinds of hardship
while others are eating up his estate?”

Minerva answered, “Never mind about him, I sent him that he might be
well spoken of for having gone. He is in no sort of difficulty, but is
staying quite comfortably with Menelaus, and is surrounded with
abundance of every kind. The suitors have put out to sea and are lying
in wait for him, for they mean to kill him before he can get home. I do
not much think they will succeed, but rather that some of those who are
now eating up your estate will first find a grave themselves.”

As she spoke Minerva touched him with her wand and covered him with
wrinkles, took away all his yellow hair, and withered the flesh over
his whole body; she bleared his eyes, which were naturally very fine
ones; she changed his clothes and threw an old rag of a wrap about him,
and a tunic, tattered, filthy, and begrimed with smoke; she also gave
him an undressed deer skin as an outer garment, and furnished him with
a staff and a wallet all in holes, with a twisted thong for him to
sling it over his shoulder.

When the pair had thus laid their plans they parted, and the goddess
went straight to Lacedaemon to fetch Telemachus.




BOOK XIV


ULYSSES IN THE HUT WITH EUMAEUS.


Ulysses now left the haven, and took the rough track up through the
wooded country and over the crest of the mountain till he reached the
place where Minerva had said that he would find the swineherd, who was
the most thrifty servant he had. He found him sitting in front of his
hut, which was by the yards that he had built on a site which could be
seen from far. He had made them spacious126 and fair to see, with a
free run for the pigs all round them; he had built them during his
master’s absence, of stones which he had gathered out of the ground,
without saying anything to Penelope or Laertes, and he had fenced them
on top with thorn bushes. Outside the yard he had run a strong fence of
oaken posts, split, and set pretty close together, while inside he had
built twelve styes near one another for the sows to lie in. There were
fifty pigs wallowing in each stye, all of them breeding sows; but the
boars slept outside and were much fewer in number, for the suitors kept
on eating them, and the swineherd had to send them the best he had
continually. There were three hundred and sixty boar pigs, and the
herdsman’s four hounds, which were as fierce as wolves, slept always
with them. The swineherd was at that moment cutting out a pair of
sandals127 from a good stout ox hide. Three of his men were out herding
the pigs in one place or another, and he had sent the fourth to town
with a boar that he had been forced to send the suitors that they might
sacrifice it and have their fill of meat.

When the hounds saw Ulysses they set up a furious barking and flew at
him, but Ulysses was cunning enough to sit down and loose his hold of
the stick that he had in his hand: still, he would have been torn by
them in his own homestead had not the swineherd dropped his ox hide,
rushed full speed through the gate of the yard and driven the dogs off
by shouting and throwing stones at them. Then he said to Ulysses, “Old
man, the dogs were likely to have made short work of you, and then you
would have got me into trouble. The gods have given me quite enough
worries without that, for I have lost the best of masters, and am in
continual grief on his account. I have to attend swine for other people
to eat, while he, if he yet lives to see the light of day, is starving
in some distant land. But come inside, and when you have had your fill
of bread and wine, tell me where you come from, and all about your
misfortunes.”

On this the swineherd led the way into the hut and bade him sit down.
He strewed a good thick bed of rushes upon the floor, and on the top of
this he threw the shaggy chamois skin—a great thick one—on which he
used to sleep by night. Ulysses was pleased at being made thus welcome,
and said “May Jove, sir, and the rest of the gods grant you your
heart’s desire in return for the kind way in which you have received
me.”

To this you answered, O swineherd Eumaeus, “Stranger, though a still
poorer man should come here, it would not be right for me to insult
him, for all strangers and beggars are from Jove. You must take what
you can get and be thankful, for servants live in fear when they have
young lords for their masters; and this is my misfortune now, for
heaven has hindered the return of him who would have been always good
to me and given me something of my own—a house, a piece of land, a good
looking wife, and all else that a liberal master allows a servant who
has worked hard for him, and whose labour the gods have prospered as
they have mine in the situation which I hold. If my master had grown
old here he would have done great things by me, but he is gone, and I
wish that Helen’s whole race were utterly destroyed, for she has been
the death of many a good man. It was this matter that took my master to
Ilius, the land of noble steeds, to fight the Trojans in the cause of
king Agamemnon.”

As he spoke he bound his girdle round him and went to the styes where
the young sucking pigs were penned. He picked out two which he brought
back with him and sacrificed. He singed them, cut them up, and spitted
them; when the meat was cooked he brought it all in and set it before
Ulysses, hot and still on the spit, whereon Ulysses sprinkled it over
with white barley meal. The swineherd then mixed wine in a bowl of
ivy-wood, and taking a seat opposite Ulysses told him to begin.

“Fall to, stranger,” said he, “on a dish of servant’s pork. The fat
pigs have to go to the suitors, who eat them up without shame or
scruple; but the blessed gods love not such shameful doings, and
respect those who do what is lawful and right. Even the fierce
freebooters who go raiding on other people’s land, and Jove gives them
their spoil—even they, when they have filled their ships and got home
again live conscience-stricken, and look fearfully for judgement; but
some god seems to have told these people that Ulysses is dead and gone;
they will not, therefore, go back to their own homes and make their
offers of marriage in the usual way, but waste his estate by force,
without fear or stint. Not a day or night comes out of heaven, but they
sacrifice not one victim nor two only, and they take the run of his
wine, for he was exceedingly rich. No other great man either in Ithaca
or on the mainland is as rich as he was; he had as much as twenty men
put together. I will tell you what he had. There are twelve herds of
cattle upon the main land, and as many flocks of sheep, there are also
twelve droves of pigs, while his own men and hired strangers feed him
twelve widely spreading herds of goats. Here in Ithaca he runs even
large flocks of goats on the far end of the island, and they are in the
charge of excellent goat herds. Each one of these sends the suitors the
best goat in the flock every day. As for myself, I am in charge of the
pigs that you see here, and I have to keep picking out the best I have
and sending it to them.”

This was his story, but Ulysses went on eating and drinking ravenously
without a word, brooding his revenge. When he had eaten enough and was
satisfied, the swineherd took the bowl from which he usually drank,
filled it with wine, and gave it to Ulysses, who was pleased, and said
as he took it in his hands, “My friend, who was this master of yours
that bought you and paid for you, so rich and so powerful as you tell
me? You say he perished in the cause of King Agamemnon; tell me who he
was, in case I may have met with such a person. Jove and the other gods
know, but I may be able to give you news of him, for I have travelled
much.”

Eumaeus answered, “Old man, no traveller who comes here with news will
get Ulysses’ wife and son to believe his story. Nevertheless, tramps in
want of a lodging keep coming with their mouths full of lies, and not a
word of truth; every one who finds his way to Ithaca goes to my
mistress and tells her falsehoods, whereon she takes them in, makes
much of them, and asks them all manner of questions, crying all the
time as women will when they have lost their husbands. And you too, old
man, for a shirt and a cloak would doubtless make up a very pretty
story. But the wolves and birds of prey have long since torn Ulysses to
pieces, or the fishes of the sea have eaten him, and his bones are
lying buried deep in sand upon some foreign shore; he is dead and gone,
and a bad business it is for all his friends—for me especially; go
where I may I shall never find so good a master, not even if I were to
go home to my mother and father where I was bred and born. I do not so
much care, however, about my parents now, though I should dearly like
to see them again in my own country; it is the loss of Ulysses that
grieves me most; I cannot speak of him without reverence though he is
here no longer, for he was very fond of me, and took such care of me
that wherever he may be I shall always honour his memory.”

“My friend,” replied Ulysses, “you are very positive, and very hard of
belief about your master’s coming home again, nevertheless I will not
merely say, but will swear, that he is coming. Do not give me anything
for my news till he has actually come, you may then give me a shirt and
cloak of good wear if you will. I am in great want, but I will not take
anything at all till then, for I hate a man, even as I hate hell fire,
who lets his poverty tempt him into lying. I swear by king Jove, by the
rites of hospitality, and by that hearth of Ulysses to which I have now
come, that all will surely happen as I have said it will. Ulysses will
return in this self same year; with the end of this moon and the
beginning of the next he will be here to do vengeance on all those who
are ill treating his wife and son.”

To this you answered, O swineherd Eumaeus, “Old man, you will neither
get paid for bringing good news, nor will Ulysses ever come home; drink
your wine in peace, and let us talk about something else. Do not keep
on reminding me of all this; it always pains me when any one speaks
about my honoured master. As for your oath we will let it alone, but I
only wish he may come, as do Penelope, his old father Laertes, and his
son Telemachus. I am terribly unhappy too about this same boy of his;
he was running up fast into manhood, and bade fare to be no worse man,
face and figure, than his father, but some one, either god or man, has
been unsettling his mind, so he has gone off to Pylos to try and get
news of his father, and the suitors are lying in wait for him as he is
coming home, in the hope of leaving the house of Arceisius without a
name in Ithaca. But let us say no more about him, and leave him to be
taken, or else to escape if the son of Saturn holds his hand over him
to protect him. And now, old man, tell me your own story; tell me also,
for I want to know, who you are and where you come from. Tell me of
your town and parents, what manner of ship you came in, how crew
brought you to Ithaca, and from what country they professed to come—for
you cannot have come by land.”

And Ulysses answered, “I will tell you all about it. If there were meat
and wine enough, and we could stay here in the hut with nothing to do
but to eat and drink while the others go to their work, I could easily
talk on for a whole twelve months without ever finishing the story of
the sorrows with which it has pleased heaven to visit me.

“I am by birth a Cretan; my father was a well to do man, who had many
sons born in marriage, whereas I was the son of a slave whom he had
purchased for a concubine; nevertheless, my father Castor son of Hylax
(whose lineage I claim, and who was held in the highest honour among
the Cretans for his wealth, prosperity, and the valour of his sons) put
me on the same level with my brothers who had been born in wedlock.
When, however, death took him to the house of Hades, his sons divided
his estate and cast lots for their shares, but to me they gave a
holding and little else; nevertheless, my valour enabled me to marry
into a rich family, for I was not given to bragging, or shirking on the
field of battle. It is all over now; still, if you look at the straw
you can see what the ear was, for I have had trouble enough and to
spare. Mars and Minerva made me doughty in war; when I had picked my
men to surprise the enemy with an ambuscade I never gave death so much
as a thought, but was the first to leap forward and spear all whom I
could overtake. Such was I in battle, but I did not care about farm
work, nor the frugal home life of those who would bring up children. My
delight was in ships, fighting, javelins, and arrows—things that most
men shudder to think of; but one man likes one thing and another
another, and this was what I was most naturally inclined to. Before the
Achaeans went to Troy, nine times was I in command of men and ships on
foreign service, and I amassed much wealth. I had my pick of the spoil
in the first instance, and much more was allotted to me later on.

“My house grew apace and I became a great man among the Cretans, but
when Jove counselled that terrible expedition, in which so many
perished, the people required me and Idomeneus to lead their ships to
Troy, and there was no way out of it, for they insisted on our doing
so. There we fought for nine whole years, but in the tenth we sacked
the city of Priam and sailed home again as heaven dispersed us. Then it
was that Jove devised evil against me. I spent but one month happily
with my children, wife, and property, and then I conceived the idea of
making a descent on Egypt, so I fitted out a fine fleet and manned it.
I had nine ships, and the people flocked to fill them. For six days I
and my men made feast, and I found them many victims both for sacrifice
to the gods and for themselves, but on the seventh day we went on board
and set sail from Crete with a fair North wind behind us though we were
going down a river. Nothing went ill with any of our ships, and we had
no sickness on board, but sat where we were and let the ships go as the
wind and steersmen took them. On the fifth day we reached the river
Aegyptus; there I stationed my ships in the river, bidding my men stay
by them and keep guard over them while I sent out scouts to reconnoitre
from every point of vantage.

“But the men disobeyed my orders, took to their own devices, and
ravaged the land of the Egyptians, killing the men, and taking their
wives and children captive. The alarm was soon carried to the city, and
when they heard the war cry, the people came out at daybreak till the
plain was filled with horsemen and foot soldiers and with the gleam of
armour. Then Jove spread panic among my men, and they would no longer
face the enemy, for they found themselves surrounded. The Egyptians
killed many of us, and took the rest alive to do forced labour for
them. Jove, however, put it in my mind to do thus—and I wish I had died
then and there in Egypt instead, for there was much sorrow in store for
me—I took off my helmet and shield and dropped my spear from my hand;
then I went straight up to the king’s chariot, clasped his knees and
kissed them, whereon he spared my life, bade me get into his chariot,
and took me weeping to his own home. Many made at me with their ashen
spears and tried to kill me in their fury, but the king protected me,
for he feared the wrath of Jove the protector of strangers, who
punishes those who do evil.

“I stayed there for seven years and got together much money among the
Egyptians, for they all gave me something; but when it was now going on
for eight years there came a certain Phoenician, a cunning rascal, who
had already committed all sorts of villainy, and this man talked me
over into going with him to Phoenicia, where his house and his
possessions lay. I stayed there for a whole twelve months, but at the
end of that time when months and days had gone by till the same season
had come round again, he set me on board a ship bound for Libya, on a
pretence that I was to take a cargo along with him to that place, but
really that he might sell me as a slave and take the money I fetched. I
suspected his intention, but went on board with him, for I could not
help it.

“The ship ran before a fresh North wind till we had reached the sea
that lies between Crete and Libya; there, however, Jove counselled
their destruction, for as soon as we were well out from Crete and could
see nothing but sea and sky, he raised a black cloud over our ship and
the sea grew dark beneath it. Then Jove let fly with his thunderbolts
and the ship went round and round and was filled with fire and
brimstone as the lightning struck it. The men fell all into the sea;
they were carried about in the water round the ship looking like so
many sea-gulls, but the god presently deprived them of all chance of
getting home again. I was all dismayed. Jove, however, sent the ship’s
mast within my reach, which saved my life, for I clung to it, and
drifted before the fury of the gale. Nine days did I drift but in the
darkness of the tenth night a great wave bore me on to the Thesprotian
coast. There Pheidon king of the Thesprotians entertained me hospitably
without charging me anything at all—for his son found me when I was
nearly dead with cold and fatigue, whereon he raised me by the hand,
took me to his father’s house and gave me clothes to wear.

“There it was that I heard news of Ulysses, for the king told me he had
entertained him, and shown him much hospitality while he was on his
homeward journey. He showed me also the treasure of gold, and wrought
iron that Ulysses had got together. There was enough to keep his family
for ten generations, so much had he left in the house of king Pheidon.
But the king said Ulysses had gone to Dodona that he might learn Jove’s
mind from the god’s high oak tree, and know whether after so long an
absence he should return to Ithaca openly, or in secret. Moreover the
king swore in my presence, making drink-offerings in his own house as
he did so, that the ship was by the water side, and the crew found,
that should take him to his own country. He sent me off however before
Ulysses returned, for there happened to be a Thesprotian ship sailing
for the wheat-growing island of Dulichium, and he told those in charge
of her to be sure and take me safely to King Acastus.

“These men hatched a plot against me that would have reduced me to the
very extreme of misery, for when the ship had got some way out from
land they resolved on selling me as a slave. They stripped me of the
shirt and cloak that I was wearing, and gave me instead the tattered
old clouts in which you now see me; then, towards nightfall, they
reached the tilled lands of Ithaca, and there they bound me with a
strong rope fast in the ship, while they went on shore to get supper by
the sea side. But the gods soon undid my bonds for me, and having drawn
my rags over my head I slid down the rudder into the sea, where I
struck out and swam till I was well clear of them, and came ashore near
a thick wood in which I lay concealed. They were very angry at my
having escaped and went searching about for me, till at last they
thought it was no further use and went back to their ship. The gods,
having hidden me thus easily, then took me to a good man’s door—for it
seems that I am not to die yet awhile.”

To this you answered, O swineherd Eumaeus, “Poor unhappy stranger, I
have found the story of your misfortunes extremely interesting, but
that part about Ulysses is not right; and you will never get me to
believe it. Why should a man like you go about telling lies in this
way? I know all about the return of my master. The gods one and all of
them detest him, or they would have taken him before Troy, or let him
die with friends around him when the days of his fighting were done;
for then the Achaeans would have built a mound over his ashes and his
son would have been heir to his renown, but now the storm winds have
spirited him away we know not whither.

“As for me I live out of the way here with the pigs, and never go to
the town unless when Penelope sends for me on the arrival of some news
about Ulysses. Then they all sit round and ask questions, both those
who grieve over the king’s absence, and those who rejoice at it because
they can eat up his property without paying for it. For my own part I
have never cared about asking anyone else since the time when I was
taken in by an Aetolian, who had killed a man and come a long way till
at last he reached my station, and I was very kind to him. He said he
had seen Ulysses with Idomeneus among the Cretans, refitting his ships
which had been damaged in a gale. He said Ulysses would return in the
following summer or autumn with his men, and that he would bring back
much wealth. And now you, you unfortunate old man, since fate has
brought you to my door, do not try to flatter me in this way with vain
hopes. It is not for any such reason that I shall treat you kindly, but
only out of respect for Jove the god of hospitality, as fearing him and
pitying you.”

Ulysses answered, “I see that you are of an unbelieving mind; I have
given you my oath, and yet you will not credit me; let us then make a
bargain, and call all the gods in heaven to witness it. If your master
comes home, give me a cloak and shirt of good wear, and send me to
Dulichium where I want to go; but if he does not come as I say he will,
set your men on to me, and tell them to throw me from yonder precipice,
as a warning to tramps not to go about the country telling lies.”

“And a pretty figure I should cut then,” replied Eumaeus, “both now and
hereafter, if I were to kill you after receiving you into my hut and
showing you hospitality. I should have to say my prayers in good
earnest if I did; but it is just supper time and I hope my men will
come in directly, that we may cook something savoury for supper.”

Thus did they converse, and presently the swineherds came up with the
pigs, which were then shut up for the night in their styes, and a
tremendous squealing they made as they were being driven into them. But
Eumaeus called to his men and said, “Bring in the best pig you have,
that I may sacrifice him for this stranger, and we will take toll of
him ourselves. We have had trouble enough this long time feeding pigs,
while others reap the fruit of our labour.”

On this he began chopping firewood, while the others brought in a fine
fat five year old boar pig, and set it at the altar. Eumaeus did not
forget the gods, for he was a man of good principles, so the first
thing he did was to cut bristles from the pig’s face and throw them
into the fire, praying to all the gods as he did so that Ulysses might
return home again. Then he clubbed the pig with a billet of oak which
he had kept back when he was chopping the firewood, and stunned it,
while the others slaughtered and singed it. Then they cut it up, and
Eumaeus began by putting raw pieces from each joint on to some of the
fat; these he sprinkled with barley meal, and laid upon the embers;
they cut the rest of the meat up small, put the pieces upon the spits
and roasted them till they were done; when they had taken them off the
spits they threw them on to the dresser in a heap. The swineherd, who
was a most equitable man, then stood up to give every one his share. He
made seven portions; one of these he set apart for Mercury the son of
Maia and the nymphs, praying to them as he did so; the others he dealt
out to the men man by man. He gave Ulysses some slices cut lengthways
down the loin as a mark of especial honour, and Ulysses was much
pleased. “I hope, Eumaeus,” said he, “that Jove will be as well
disposed towards you as I am, for the respect you are showing to an
outcast like myself.”

To this you answered, O swineherd Eumaeus, “Eat, my good fellow, and
enjoy your supper, such as it is. God grants this, and withholds that,
just as he thinks right, for he can do whatever he chooses.”

As he spoke he cut off the first piece and offered it as a burnt
sacrifice to the immortal gods; then he made them a drink-offering, put
the cup in the hands of Ulysses, and sat down to his own portion.
Mesaulius brought them their bread; the swineherd had brought this man
on his own account from among the Taphians during his master’s absence,
and had paid for him with his own money without saying anything either
to his mistress or Laertes. They then laid their hands upon the good
things that were before them, and when they had had enough to eat and
drink, Mesaulius took away what was left of the bread, and they all
went to bed after having made a hearty supper.

Now the night came on stormy and very dark, for there was no moon. It
poured without ceasing, and the wind blew strong from the West, which
is a wet quarter, so Ulysses thought he would see whether Eumaeus, in
the excellent care he took of him, would take off his own cloak and
give it him, or make one of his men give him one. “Listen to me,” said
he, “Eumaeus and the rest of you; when I have said a prayer I will tell
you something. It is the wine that makes me talk in this way; wine will
make even a wise man fall to singing; it will make him chuckle and
dance and say many a word that he had better leave unspoken; still, as
I have begun, I will go on. Would that I were still young and strong as
when we got up an ambuscade before Troy. Menelaus and Ulysses were the
leaders, but I was in command also, for the other two would have it so.
When we had come up to the wall of the city we crouched down beneath
our armour and lay there under cover of the reeds and thick brushwood
that grew about the swamp. It came on to freeze with a North wind
blowing; the snow fell small and fine like hoar frost, and our shields
were coated thick with rime. The others had all got cloaks and shirts,
and slept comfortably enough with their shields about their shoulders,
but I had carelessly left my cloak behind me, not thinking that I
should be too cold, and had gone off in nothing but my shirt and
shield. When the night was two-thirds through and the stars had shifted
their places, I nudged Ulysses who was close to me with my elbow, and
he at once gave me his ear.

“‘Ulysses,’ said I, ‘this cold will be the death of me, for I have no
cloak; some god fooled me into setting off with nothing on but my
shirt, and I do not know what to do.’

“Ulysses, who was as crafty as he was valiant, hit upon the following
plan:

“‘Keep still,’ said he in a low voice, ‘or the others will hear you.’
Then he raised his head on his elbow.

“‘My friends,’ said he, ‘I have had a dream from heaven in my sleep. We
are a long way from the ships; I wish some one would go down and tell
Agamemnon to send us up more men at once.’

“On this Thoas son of Andraemon threw off his cloak and set out running
to the ships, whereon I took the cloak and lay in it comfortably enough
till morning. Would that I were still young and strong as I was in
those days, for then some one of you swineherds would give me a cloak
both out of good will and for the respect due to a brave soldier; but
now people look down upon me because my clothes are shabby.”

And Eumaeus answered, “Old man, you have told us an excellent story,
and have said nothing so far but what is quite satisfactory; for the
present, therefore, you shall want neither clothing nor anything else
that a stranger in distress may reasonably expect, but to-morrow
morning you have to shake your own old rags about your body again, for
we have not many spare cloaks nor shirts up here, but every man has
only one. When Ulysses’ son comes home again he will give you both
cloak and shirt, and send you wherever you may want to go.”

With this he got up and made a bed for Ulysses by throwing some
goatskins and sheepskins on the ground in front of the fire. Here
Ulysses lay down, and Eumaeus covered him over with a great heavy cloak
that he kept for a change in case of extraordinarily bad weather.

Thus did Ulysses sleep, and the young men slept beside him. But the
swineherd did not like sleeping away from his pigs, so he got ready to
go outside, and Ulysses was glad to see that he looked after his
property during his master’s absence. First he slung his sword over his
brawny shoulders and put on a thick cloak to keep out the wind. He also
took the skin of a large and well fed goat, and a javelin in case of
attack from men or dogs. Thus equipped he went to his rest where the
pigs were camping under an overhanging rock that gave them shelter from
the North wind.




BOOK XV


MINERVA SUMMONS TELEMACHUS FROM LACEDAEMON—HE MEETS WITH THEOCLYMENUS
AT PYLOS AND BRINGS HIM TO ITHACA—ON LANDING HE GOES TO THE HUT OF
EUMAEUS.


But Minerva went to the fair city of Lacedaemon to tell Ulysses’ son
that he was to return at once. She found him and Pisistratus sleeping
in the forecourt of Menelaus’s house; Pisistratus was fast asleep, but
Telemachus could get no rest all night for thinking of his unhappy
father, so Minerva went close up to him and said:

“Telemachus, you should not remain so far away from home any longer,
nor leave your property with such dangerous people in your house; they
will eat up everything you have among them, and you will have been on a
fool’s errand. Ask Menelaus to send you home at once if you wish to
find your excellent mother still there when you get back. Her father
and brothers are already urging her to marry Eurymachus, who has given
her more than any of the others, and has been greatly increasing his
wedding presents. I hope nothing valuable may have been taken from the
house in spite of you, but you know what women are—they always want to
do the best they can for the man who marries them, and never give
another thought to the children of their first husband, nor to their
father either when he is dead and done with. Go home, therefore, and
put everything in charge of the most respectable woman servant that you
have, until it shall please heaven to send you a wife of your own. Let
me tell you also of another matter which you had better attend to. The
chief men among the suitors are lying in wait for you in the Strait128
between Ithaca and Samos, and they mean to kill you before you can
reach home. I do not much think they will succeed; it is more likely
that some of those who are now eating up your property will find a
grave themselves. Sail night and day, and keep your ship well away from
the islands; the god who watches over you and protects you will send
you a fair wind. As soon as you get to Ithaca send your ship and men on
to the town, but yourself go straight to the swineherd who has charge
of your pigs; he is well disposed towards you, stay with him,
therefore, for the night, and then send him to Penelope to tell her
that you have got back safe from Pylos.”

Then she went back to Olympus; but Telemachus stirred Pisistratus with
his heel to rouse him, and said, “Wake up Pisistratus, and yoke the
horses to the chariot, for we must set off home.”129

But Pisistratus said, “No matter what hurry we are in we cannot drive
in the dark. It will be morning soon; wait till Menelaus has brought
his presents and put them in the chariot for us; and let him say good
bye to us in the usual way. So long as he lives a guest should never
forget a host who has shown him kindness.”

As he spoke day began to break, and Menelaus, who had already risen,
leaving Helen in bed, came towards them. When Telemachus saw him he put
on his shirt as fast as he could, threw a great cloak over his
shoulders, and went out to meet him. “Menelaus,” said he, “let me go
back now to my own country, for I want to get home.”

And Menelaus answered, “Telemachus, if you insist on going I will not
detain you. I do not like to see a host either too fond of his guest or
too rude to him. Moderation is best in all things, and not letting a
man go when he wants to do so is as bad as telling him to go if he
would like to stay. One should treat a guest well as long as he is in
the house and speed him when he wants to leave it. Wait, then, till I
can get your beautiful presents into your chariot, and till you have
yourself seen them. I will tell the women to prepare a sufficient
dinner for you of what there may be in the house; it will be at once
more proper and cheaper for you to get your dinner before setting out
on such a long journey. If, moreover, you have a fancy for making a
tour in Hellas or in the Peloponnese, I will yoke my horses, and will
conduct you myself through all our principal cities. No one will send
us away empty handed; every one will give us something—a bronze tripod,
a couple of mules, or a gold cup.”

“Menelaus,” replied Telemachus, “I want to go home at once, for when I
came away I left my property without protection, and fear that while
looking for my father I shall come to ruin myself, or find that
something valuable has been stolen during my absence.”

When Menelaus heard this he immediately told his wife and servants to
prepare a sufficient dinner from what there might be in the house. At
this moment Eteoneus joined him, for he lived close by and had just got
up; so Menelaus told him to light the fire and cook some meat, which he
at once did. Then Menelaus went down into his fragrant store room,130
not alone, but Helen went too, with Megapenthes. When he reached the
place where the treasures of his house were kept, he selected a double
cup, and told his son Megapenthes to bring also a silver mixing bowl.
Meanwhile Helen went to the chest where she kept the lovely dresses
which she had made with her own hands, and took out one that was
largest and most beautifully enriched with embroidery; it glittered
like a star, and lay at the very bottom of the chest. 131 Then they all
came back through the house again till they got to Telemachus, and
Menelaus said, “Telemachus, may Jove, the mighty husband of Juno, bring
you safely home according to your desire. I will now present you with
the finest and most precious piece of plate in all my house. It is a
mixing bowl of pure silver, except the rim, which is inlaid with gold,
and it is the work of Vulcan. Phaedimus king of the Sidonians made me a
present of it in the course of a visit that I paid him while I was on
my return home. I should like to give it to you.”

With these words he placed the double cup in the hands of Telemachus,
while Megapenthes brought the beautiful mixing bowl and set it before
him. Hard by stood lovely Helen with the robe ready in her hand.

“I too, my son,” said she, “have something for you as a keepsake from
the hand of Helen; it is for your bride to wear upon her wedding day.
Till then, get your dear mother to keep it for you; thus may you go
back rejoicing to your own country and to your home.”

So saying she gave the robe over to him and he received it gladly. Then
Pisistratus put the presents into the chariot, and admired them all as
he did so. Presently Menelaus took Telemachus and Pisistratus into the
house, and they both of them sat down to table. A maid servant brought
them water in a beautiful golden ewer, and poured it into a silver
basin for them to wash their hands, and she drew a clean table beside
them; an upper servant brought them bread and offered them many good
things of what there was in the house. Eteoneus carved the meat and
gave them each their portions, while Megapenthes poured out the wine.
Then they laid their hands upon the good things that were before them,
but as soon as they had had enough to eat and drink Telemachus and
Pisistratus yoked the horses, and took their places in the chariot.
They drove out through the inner gateway and under the echoing
gatehouse of the outer court, and Menelaus came after them with a
golden goblet of wine in his right hand that they might make a
drink-offering before they set out. He stood in front of the horses and
pledged them, saying, “Farewell to both of you; see that you tell
Nestor how I have treated you, for he was as kind to me as any father
could be while we Achaeans were fighting before Troy.”

“We will be sure, sir,” answered Telemachus, “to tell him everything as
soon as we see him. I wish I were as certain of finding Ulysses
returned when I get back to Ithaca, that I might tell him of the very
great kindness you have shown me and of the many beautiful presents I
am taking with me.”

As he was thus speaking a bird flew on his right hand—an eagle with a
great white goose in its talons which it had carried off from the farm
yard—and all the men and women were running after it and shouting. It
came quite close up to them and flew away on their right hands in front
of the horses. When they saw it they were glad, and their hearts took
comfort within them, whereon Pisistratus said, “Tell me, Menelaus, has
heaven sent this omen for us or for you?”

Menelaus was thinking what would be the most proper answer for him to
make, but Helen was too quick for him and said, “I will read this
matter as heaven has put it in my heart, and as I doubt not that it
will come to pass. The eagle came from the mountain where it was bred
and has its nest, and in like manner Ulysses, after having travelled
far and suffered much, will return to take his revenge—if indeed he is
not back already and hatching mischief for the suitors.”

“May Jove so grant it,” replied Telemachus, “if it should prove to be
so, I will make vows to you as though you were a god, even when I am at
home.”

As he spoke he lashed his horses and they started off at full speed
through the town towards the open country. They swayed the yoke upon
their necks and travelled the whole day long till the sun set and
darkness was over all the land. Then they reached Pherae, where Diocles
lived who was son of Ortilochus, the son of Alpheus. There they passed
the night and were treated hospitably. When the child of morning,
rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, they again yoked their horses and their
places in the chariot. They drove out through the inner gateway and
under the echoing gatehouse of the outer court. Then Pisistratus lashed
his horses on and they flew forward nothing loath; ere long they came
to Pylos, and then Telemachus said:

“Pisistratus, I hope you will promise to do what I am going to ask you.
You know our fathers were old friends before us; moreover, we are both
of an age, and this journey has brought us together still more closely;
do not, therefore, take me past my ship, but leave me there, for if I
go to your father’s house he will try to keep me in the warmth of his
good will towards me, and I must go home at once.”

Pisistratus thought how he should do as he was asked, and in the end he
deemed it best to turn his horses towards the ship, and put Menelaus’s
beautiful presents of gold and raiment in the stern of the vessel. Then
he said, “Go on board at once and tell your men to do so also before I
can reach home to tell my father. I know how obstinate he is, and am
sure he will not let you go; he will come down here to fetch you, and
he will not go back without you. But he will be very angry.”

With this he drove his goodly steeds back to the city of the Pylians
and soon reached his home, but Telemachus called the men together and
gave his orders. “Now, my men,” said he, “get everything in order on
board the ship, and let us set out home.”

Thus did he speak, and they went on board even as he had said. But as
Telemachus was thus busied, praying also and sacrificing to Minerva in
the ship’s stern, there came to him a man from a distant country, a
seer, who was flying from Argos because he had killed a man. He was
descended from Melampus, who used to live in Pylos, the land of sheep;
he was rich and owned a great house, but he was driven into exile by
the great and powerful king Neleus. Neleus seized his goods and held
them for a whole year, during which he was a close prisoner in the
house of king Phylacus, and in much distress of mind both on account of
the daughter of Neleus and because he was haunted by a great sorrow
that dread Erinys had laid upon him. In the end, however, he escaped
with his life, drove the cattle from Phylace to Pylos, avenged the
wrong that had been done him, and gave the daughter of Neleus to his
brother. Then he left the country and went to Argos, where it was
ordained that he should reign over much people. There he married,
established himself, and had two famous sons Antiphates and Mantius.
Antiphates became father of Oicleus, and Oicleus of Amphiaraus, who was
dearly loved both by Jove and by Apollo, but he did not live to old
age, for he was killed in Thebes by reason of a woman’s gifts. His sons
were Alcmaeon and Amphilochus. Mantius, the other son of Melampus, was
father to Polypheides and Cleitus. Aurora, throned in gold, carried off
Cleitus for his beauty’s sake, that he might dwell among the immortals,
but Apollo made Polypheides the greatest seer in the whole world now
that Amphiaraus was dead. He quarrelled with his father and went to
live in Hyperesia, where he remained and prophesied for all men.

His son, Theoclymenus, it was who now came up to Telemachus as he was
making drink-offerings and praying in his ship. “Friend,” said he, “now
that I find you sacrificing in this place, I beseech you by your
sacrifices themselves, and by the god to whom you make them, I pray you
also by your own head and by those of your followers tell me the truth
and nothing but the truth. Who and whence are you? Tell me also of your
town and parents.”

Telemachus said, “I will answer you quite truly. I am from Ithaca, and
my father is Ulysses, as surely as that he ever lived. But he has come
to some miserable end. Therefore I have taken this ship and got my crew
together to see if I can hear any news of him, for he has been away a
long time.”

“I too,” answered Theoclymenus, “am an exile, for I have killed a man
of my own race. He has many brothers and kinsmen in Argos, and they
have great power among the Argives. I am flying to escape death at
their hands, and am thus doomed to be a wanderer on the face of the
earth. I am your suppliant; take me, therefore, on board your ship that
they may not kill me, for I know they are in pursuit.”

“I will not refuse you,” replied Telemachus, “if you wish to join us.
Come, therefore, and in Ithaca we will treat you hospitably according
to what we have.”

On this he received Theoclymenus’ spear and laid it down on the deck of
the ship. He went on board and sat in the stern, bidding Theoclymenus
sit beside him; then the men let go the hawsers. Telemachus told them
to catch hold of the ropes, and they made all haste to do so. They set
the mast in its socket in the cross plank, raised it and made it fast
with the forestays, and they hoisted their white sails with sheets of
twisted ox hide. Minerva sent them a fair wind that blew fresh and
strong to take the ship on her course as fast as possible. Thus then
they passed by Crouni and Chalcis.

Presently the sun set and darkness was over all the land. The vessel
made a quick passage to Pheae and thence on to Elis, where the Epeans
rule. Telemachus then headed her for the flying islands,132 wondering
within himself whether he should escape death or should be taken
prisoner.

Meanwhile Ulysses and the swineherd were eating their supper in the
hut, and the men supped with them. As soon as they had had to eat and
drink, Ulysses began trying to prove the swineherd and see whether he
would continue to treat him kindly, and ask him to stay on at the
station or pack him off to the city; so he said:

“Eumaeus, and all of you, to-morrow I want to go away and begin begging
about the town, so as to be no more trouble to you or to your men. Give
me your advice therefore, and let me have a good guide to go with me
and show me the way. I will go the round of the city begging as I needs
must, to see if any one will give me a drink and a piece of bread. I
should like also to go to the house of Ulysses and bring news of her
husband to Queen Penelope. I could then go about among the suitors and
see if out of all their abundance they will give me a dinner. I should
soon make them an excellent servant in all sorts of ways. Listen and
believe when I tell you that by the blessing of Mercury who gives grace
and good name to the works of all men, there is no one living who would
make a more handy servant than I should—to put fresh wood on the fire,
chop fuel, carve, cook, pour out wine, and do all those services that
poor men have to do for their betters.”

The swineherd was very much disturbed when he heard this. “Heaven help
me,” he exclaimed, “what ever can have put such a notion as that into
your head? If you go near the suitors you will be undone to a
certainty, for their pride and insolence reach the very heavens. They
would never think of taking a man like you for a servant. Their
servants are all young men, well dressed, wearing good cloaks and
shirts, with well looking faces and their hair always tidy, the tables
are kept quite clean and are loaded with bread, meat, and wine. Stay
where you are, then; you are not in anybody’s way; I do not mind your
being here, no more do any of the others, and when Telemachus comes
home he will give you a shirt and cloak and will send you wherever you
want to go.”

Ulysses answered, “I hope you may be as dear to the gods as you are to
me, for having saved me from going about and getting into trouble;
there is nothing worse than being always on the tramp; still, when men
have once got low down in the world they will go through a great deal
on behalf of their miserable bellies. Since, however, you press me to
stay here and await the return of Telemachus, tell me about Ulysses’
mother, and his father whom he left on the threshold of old age when he
set out for Troy. Are they still living or are they already dead and in
the house of Hades?”

“I will tell you all about them,” replied Eumaeus, “Laertes is still
living and prays heaven to let him depart peacefully in his own house,
for he is terribly distressed about the absence of his son, and also
about the death of his wife, which grieved him greatly and aged him
more than anything else did. She came to an unhappy end133 through
sorrow for her son: may no friend or neighbour who has dealt kindly by
me come to such an end as she did. As long as she was still living,
though she was always grieving, I used to like seeing her and asking
her how she did, for she brought me up along with her daughter Ctimene,
the youngest of her children; we were boy and girl together, and she
made little difference between us. When, however, we both grew up, they
sent Ctimene to Same and received a splendid dowry for her. As for me,
my mistress gave me a good shirt and cloak with a pair of sandals for
my feet, and sent me off into the country, but she was just as fond of
me as ever. This is all over now. Still it has pleased heaven to
prosper my work in the situation which I now hold. I have enough to eat
and drink, and can find something for any respectable stranger who
comes here; but there is no getting a kind word or deed out of my
mistress, for the house has fallen into the hands of wicked people.
Servants want sometimes to see their mistress and have a talk with her;
they like to have something to eat and drink at the house, and
something too to take back with them into the country. This is what
will keep servants in a good humour.”

Ulysses answered, “Then you must have been a very little fellow,
Eumaeus, when you were taken so far away from your home and parents.
Tell me, and tell me true, was the city in which your father and mother
lived sacked and pillaged, or did some enemies carry you off when you
were alone tending sheep or cattle, ship you off here, and sell you for
whatever your master gave them?”

“Stranger,” replied Eumaeus, “as regards your question: sit still, make
yourself comfortable, drink your wine, and listen to me. The nights are
now at their longest; there is plenty of time both for sleeping and
sitting up talking together; you ought not to go to bed till bed time,
too much sleep is as bad as too little; if any one of the others wishes
to go to bed let him leave us and do so; he can then take my master’s
pigs out when he has done breakfast in the morning. We too will sit
here eating and drinking in the hut, and telling one another stories
about our misfortunes; for when a man has suffered much, and been
buffeted about in the world, he takes pleasure in recalling the memory
of sorrows that have long gone by. As regards your question, then, my
tale is as follows:

“You may have heard of an island called Syra that lies over above
Ortygia,134 where the land begins to turn round and look in another
direction.135 It is not very thickly peopled, but the soil is good,
with much pasture fit for cattle and sheep, and it abounds with wine
and wheat. Dearth never comes there, nor are the people plagued by any
sickness, but when they grow old Apollo comes with Diana and kills them
with his painless shafts. It contains two communities, and the whole
country is divided between these two. My father Ctesius son of Ormenus,
a man comparable to the gods, reigned over both.

“Now to this place there came some cunning traders from Phoenicia (for
the Phoenicians are great mariners) in a ship which they had freighted
with gewgaws of all kinds. There happened to be a Phoenician woman in
my father’s house, very tall and comely, and an excellent servant;
these scoundrels got hold of her one day when she was washing near
their ship, seduced her, and cajoled her in ways that no woman can
resist, no matter how good she may be by nature. The man who had
seduced her asked her who she was and where she came from, and on this
she told him her father’s name. ‘I come from Sidon,’ said she, ‘and am
daughter to Arybas, a man rolling in wealth. One day as I was coming
into the town from the country, some Taphian pirates seized me and took
me here over the sea, where they sold me to the man who owns this
house, and he gave them their price for me.’

“The man who had seduced her then said, ‘Would you like to come along
with us to see the house of your parents and your parents themselves?
They are both alive and are said to be well off.’

“‘I will do so gladly,’ answered she, ‘if you men will first swear me a
solemn oath that you will do me no harm by the way.’

“They all swore as she told them, and when they had completed their
oath the woman said, ‘Hush; and if any of your men meets me in the
street or at the well, do not let him speak to me, for fear some one
should go and tell my master, in which case he would suspect something.
He would put me in prison, and would have all of you murdered; keep
your own counsel therefore; buy your merchandise as fast as you can,
and send me word when you have done loading. I will bring as much gold
as I can lay my hands on, and there is something else also that I can
do towards paying my fare. I am nurse to the son of the good man of the
house, a funny little fellow just able to run about. I will carry him
off in your ship, and you will get a great deal of money for him if you
take him and sell him in foreign parts.’

“On this she went back to the house. The Phoenicians stayed a whole
year till they had loaded their ship with much precious merchandise,
and then, when they had got freight enough, they sent to tell the
woman. Their messenger, a very cunning fellow, came to my father’s
house bringing a necklace of gold with amber beads strung among it; and
while my mother and the servants had it in their hands admiring it and
bargaining about it, he made a sign quietly to the woman and then went
back to the ship, whereon she took me by the hand and led me out of the
house. In the fore part of the house she saw the tables set with the
cups of guests who had been feasting with my father, as being in
attendance on him; these were now all gone to a meeting of the public
assembly, so she snatched up three cups and carried them off in the
bosom of her dress, while I followed her, for I knew no better. The sun
was now set, and darkness was over all the land, so we hurried on as
fast as we could till we reached the harbour, where the Phoenician ship
was lying. When they had got on board they sailed their ways over the
sea, taking us with them, and Jove sent then a fair wind; six days did
we sail both night and day, but on the seventh day Diana struck the
woman and she fell heavily down into the ship’s hold as though she were
a sea gull alighting on the water; so they threw her overboard to the
seals and fishes, and I was left all sorrowful and alone. Presently the
winds and waves took the ship to Ithaca, where Laertes gave sundry of
his chattels for me, and thus it was that ever I came to set eyes upon
this country.”

Ulysses answered, “Eumaeus, I have heard the story of your misfortunes
with the most lively interest and pity, but Jove has given you good as
well as evil, for in spite of everything you have a good master, who
sees that you always have enough to eat and drink; and you lead a good
life, whereas I am still going about begging my way from city to city.”

Thus did they converse, and they had only a very little time left for
sleep, for it was soon daybreak. In the mean time Telemachus and his
crew were nearing land, so they loosed the sails, took down the mast,
and rowed the ship into the harbour.136 They cast out their mooring
stones and made fast the hawsers; they then got out upon the sea shore,
mixed their wine, and got dinner ready. As soon as they had had enough
to eat and drink Telemachus said, “Take the ship on to the town, but
leave me here, for I want to look after the herdsmen on one of my
farms. In the evening, when I have seen all I want, I will come down to
the city, and to-morrow morning in return for your trouble I will give
you all a good dinner with meat and wine.” 137

Then Theoclymenus said, “And what, my dear young friend, is to become
of me? To whose house, among all your chief men, am I to repair? or
shall I go straight to your own house and to your mother?”

“At any other time,” replied Telemachus, “I should have bidden you go
to my own house, for you would find no want of hospitality; at the
present moment, however, you would not be comfortable there, for I
shall be away, and my mother will not see you; she does not often show
herself even to the suitors, but sits at her loom weaving in an upper
chamber, out of their way; but I can tell you a man whose house you can
go to—I mean Eurymachus the son of Polybus, who is held in the highest
estimation by every one in Ithaca. He is much the best man and the most
persistent wooer, of all those who are paying court to my mother and
trying to take Ulysses’ place. Jove, however, in heaven alone knows
whether or no they will come to a bad end before the marriage takes
place.”

As he was speaking a bird flew by upon his right hand—a hawk, Apollo’s
messenger. It held a dove in its talons, and the feathers, as it tore
them off,138 fell to the ground midway between Telemachus and the ship.
On this Theoclymenus called him apart and caught him by the hand.
“Telemachus,” said he, “that bird did not fly on your right hand
without having been sent there by some god. As soon as I saw it I knew
it was an omen; it means that you will remain powerful and that there
will be no house in Ithaca more royal than your own.”

“I wish it may prove so,” answered Telemachus. “If it does, I will show
you so much good will and give you so many presents that all who meet
you will congratulate you.”

Then he said to his friend Piraeus, “Piraeus, son of Clytius, you have
throughout shown yourself the most willing to serve me of all those who
have accompanied me to Pylos; I wish you would take this stranger to
your own house and entertain him hospitably till I can come for him.”

And Piraeus answered, “Telemachus, you may stay away as long as you
please, but I will look after him for you, and he shall find no lack of
hospitality.”

As he spoke he went on board, and bade the others do so also and loose
the hawsers, so they took their places in the ship. But Telemachus
bound on his sandals, and took a long and doughty spear with a head of
sharpened bronze from the deck of the ship. Then they loosed the
hawsers, thrust the ship off from land, and made on towards the city as
they had been told to do, while Telemachus strode on as fast as he
could, till he reached the homestead where his countless herds of swine
were feeding, and where dwelt the excellent swineherd, who was so
devoted a servant to his master.




BOOK XVI


ULYSSES REVEALS HIMSELF TO TELEMACHUS.


Meanwhile Ulysses and the swineherd had lit a fire in the hut and were
were getting breakfast ready at daybreak, for they had sent the men out
with the pigs. When Telemachus came up, the dogs did not bark but
fawned upon him, so Ulysses, hearing the sound of feet and noticing
that the dogs did not bark, said to Eumaeus:

“Eumaeus, I hear footsteps; I suppose one of your men or some one of
your acquaintance is coming here, for the dogs are fawning upon him and
not barking.”

The words were hardly out of his mouth before his son stood at the
door. Eumaeus sprang to his feet, and the bowls in which he was mixing
wine fell from his hands, as he made towards his master. He kissed his
head and both his beautiful eyes, and wept for joy. A father could not
be more delighted at the return of an only son, the child of his old
age, after ten years’ absence in a foreign country and after having
gone through much hardship. He embraced him, kissed him all over as
though he had come back from the dead, and spoke fondly to him saying:

“So you are come, Telemachus, light of my eyes that you are. When I
heard you had gone to Pylos I made sure I was never going to see you
any more. Come in, my dear child, and sit down, that I may have a good
look at you now you are home again; it is not very often you come into
the country to see us herdsmen; you stick pretty close to the town
generally. I suppose you think it better to keep an eye on what the
suitors are doing.”

“So be it, old friend,” answered Telemachus, “but I am come now because
I want to see you, and to learn whether my mother is still at her old
home or whether some one else has married her, so that the bed of
Ulysses is without bedding and covered with cobwebs.”

“She is still at the house,” replied Eumaeus, “grieving and breaking
her heart, and doing nothing but weep, both night and day continually.”

As he spoke he took Telemachus’ spear, whereon he crossed the stone
threshold and came inside. Ulysses rose from his seat to give him place
as he entered, but Telemachus checked him; “Sit down, stranger,” said
he, “I can easily find another seat, and there is one here who will lay
it for me.”

Ulysses went back to his own place, and Eumaeus strewed some green
brushwood on the floor and threw a sheepskin on top of it for
Telemachus to sit upon. Then the swineherd brought them platters of
cold meat, the remains from what they had eaten the day before, and he
filled the bread baskets with bread as fast as he could. He mixed wine
also in bowls of ivy-wood, and took his seat facing Ulysses. Then they
laid their hands on the good things that were before them, and as soon
as they had had enough to eat and drink Telemachus said to Eumaeus,
“Old friend, where does this stranger come from? How did his crew bring
him to Ithaca, and who were they?—for assuredly he did not come here by
land.”

To this you answered, O swineherd Eumaeus, “My son, I will tell you the
real truth. He says he is a Cretan, and that he has been a great
traveller. At this moment he is running away from a Thesprotian ship,
and has taken refuge at my station, so I will put him into your hands.
Do whatever you like with him, only remember that he is your
suppliant.”

“I am very much distressed,” said Telemachus, “by what you have just
told me. How can I take this stranger into my house? I am as yet young,
and am not strong enough to hold my own if any man attacks me. My
mother cannot make up her mind whether to stay where she is and look
after the house out of respect for public opinion and the memory of her
husband, or whether the time is now come for her to take the best man
of those who are wooing her, and the one who will make her the most
advantageous offer; still, as the stranger has come to your station I
will find him a cloak and shirt of good wear, with a sword and sandals,
and will send him wherever he wants to go. Or if you like you can keep
him here at the station, and I will send him clothes and food that he
may be no burden on you and on your men; but I will not have him go
near the suitors, for they are very insolent, and are sure to ill treat
him in a way that would greatly grieve me; no matter how valiant a man
may be he can do nothing against numbers, for they will be too strong
for him.”

Then Ulysses said, “Sir, it is right that I should say something
myself. I am much shocked about what you have said about the insolent
way in which the suitors are behaving in despite of such a man as you
are. Tell me, do you submit to such treatment tamely, or has some god
set your people against you? May you not complain of your brothers—for
it is to these that a man may look for support, however great his
quarrel may be? I wish I were as young as you are and in my present
mind; if I were son to Ulysses, or, indeed, Ulysses himself, I would
rather some one came and cut my head off, but I would go to the house
and be the bane of every one of these men.139 If they were too many for
me—I being single-handed—I would rather die fighting in my own house
than see such disgraceful sights day after day, strangers grossly
maltreated, and men dragging the women servants about the house in an
unseemly way, wine drawn recklessly, and bread wasted all to no purpose
for an end that shall never be accomplished.”

And Telemachus answered, “I will tell you truly everything. There is no
enmity between me and my people, nor can I complain of brothers, to
whom a man may look for support however great his quarrel may be. Jove
has made us a race of only sons. Laertes was the only son of Arceisius,
and Ulysses only son of Laertes. I am myself the only son of Ulysses
who left me behind him when he went away, so that I have never been of
any use to him. Hence it comes that my house is in the hands of
numberless marauders; for the chiefs from all the neighbouring islands,
Dulichium, Same, Zacynthus, as also all the principal men of Ithaca
itself, are eating up my house under the pretext of paying court to my
mother, who will neither say point blank that she will not marry, nor
yet bring matters to an end, so they are making havoc of my estate, and
before long will do so with myself into the bargain. The issue,
however, rests with heaven. But do you, old friend Eumaeus, go at once
and tell Penelope that I am safe and have returned from Pylos. Tell it
to herself alone, and then come back here without letting any one else
know, for there are many who are plotting mischief against me.”

“I understand and heed you,” replied Eumaeus; “you need instruct me no
further, only as I am going that way say whether I had not better let
poor Laertes know that you are returned. He used to superintend the
work on his farm in spite of his bitter sorrow about Ulysses, and he
would eat and drink at will along with his servants; but they tell me
that from the day on which you set out for Pylos he has neither eaten
nor drunk as he ought to do, nor does he look after his farm, but sits
weeping and wasting the flesh from off his bones.”

“More’s the pity,” answered Telemachus, “I am sorry for him, but we
must leave him to himself just now. If people could have everything
their own way, the first thing I should choose would be the return of
my father; but go, and give your message; then make haste back again,
and do not turn out of your way to tell Laertes. Tell my mother to send
one of her women secretly with the news at once, and let him hear it
from her.”

Thus did he urge the swineherd; Eumaeus, therefore, took his sandals,
bound them to his feet, and started for the town. Minerva watched him
well off the station, and then came up to it in the form of a
woman—fair, stately, and wise. She stood against the side of the entry,
and revealed herself to Ulysses, but Telemachus could not see her, and
knew not that she was there, for the gods do not let themselves be seen
by everybody. Ulysses saw her, and so did the dogs, for they did not
bark, but went scared and whining off to the other side of the yards.
She nodded her head and motioned to Ulysses with her eyebrows; whereon
he left the hut and stood before her outside the main wall of the
yards. Then she said to him:

“Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, it is now time for you to tell your
son: do not keep him in the dark any longer, but lay your plans for the
destruction of the suitors, and then make for the town. I will not be
long in joining you, for I too am eager for the fray.”

As she spoke she touched him with her golden wand. First she threw a
fair clean shirt and cloak about his shoulders; then she made him
younger and of more imposing presence; she gave him back his colour,
filled out his cheeks, and let his beard become dark again. Then she
went away and Ulysses came back inside the hut. His son was astounded
when he saw him, and turned his eyes away for fear he might be looking
upon a god.

“Stranger,” said he, “how suddenly you have changed from what you were
a moment or two ago. You are dressed differently and your colour is not
the same. Are you some one or other of the gods that live in heaven? If
so, be propitious to me till I can make you due sacrifice and offerings
of wrought gold. Have mercy upon me.”

And Ulysses said, “I am no god, why should you take me for one? I am
your father, on whose account you grieve and suffer so much at the
hands of lawless men.”

As he spoke he kissed his son, and a tear fell from his cheek on to the
ground, for he had restrained all tears till now. But Telemachus could
not yet believe that it was his father, and said:

“You are not my father, but some god is flattering me with vain hopes
that I may grieve the more hereafter; no mortal man could of himself
contrive to do as you have been doing, and make yourself old and young
at a moment’s notice, unless a god were with him. A second ago you were
old and all in rags, and now you are like some god come down from
heaven.”

Ulysses answered, “Telemachus, you ought not to be so immeasurably
astonished at my being really here. There is no other Ulysses who will
come hereafter. Such as I am, it is I, who after long wandering and
much hardship have got home in the twentieth year to my own country.
What you wonder at is the work of the redoubtable goddess Minerva, who
does with me whatever she will, for she can do what she pleases. At one
moment she makes me like a beggar, and the next I am a young man with
good clothes on my back; it is an easy matter for the gods who live in
heaven to make any man look either rich or poor.”

As he spoke he sat down, and Telemachus threw his arms about his father
and wept. They were both so much moved that they cried aloud like
eagles or vultures with crooked talons that have been robbed of their
half fledged young by peasants. Thus piteously did they weep, and the
sun would have gone down upon their mourning if Telemachus had not
suddenly said, “In what ship, my dear father, did your crew bring you
to Ithaca? Of what nation did they declare themselves to be—for you
cannot have come by land?”

“I will tell you the truth, my son,” replied Ulysses. “It was the
Phaeacians who brought me here. They are great sailors, and are in the
habit of giving escorts to any one who reaches their coasts. They took
me over the sea while I was fast asleep, and landed me in Ithaca, after
giving me many presents in bronze, gold, and raiment. These things by
heaven’s mercy are lying concealed in a cave, and I am now come here on
the suggestion of Minerva that we may consult about killing our
enemies. First, therefore, give me a list of the suitors, with their
number, that I may learn who, and how many, they are. I can then turn
the matter over in my mind, and see whether we two can fight the whole
body of them ourselves, or whether we must find others to help us.”

To this Telemachus answered, “Father, I have always heard of your
renown both in the field and in council, but the task you talk of is a
very great one: I am awed at the mere thought of it; two men cannot
stand against many and brave ones. There are not ten suitors only, nor
twice ten, but ten many times over; you shall learn their number at
once. There are fifty-two chosen youths from Dulichium, and they have
six servants; from Same there are twenty-four; twenty young Achaeans
from Zacynthus, and twelve from Ithaca itself, all of them well born.
They have with them a servant Medon, a bard, and two men who can carve
at table. If we face such numbers as this, you may have bitter cause to
rue your coming, and your revenge. See whether you cannot think of some
one who would be willing to come and help us.”

“Listen to me,” replied Ulysses, “and think whether Minerva and her
father Jove may seem sufficient, or whether I am to try and find some
one else as well.”

“Those whom you have named,” answered Telemachus, “are a couple of good
allies, for though they dwell high up among the clouds they have power
over both gods and men.”

“These two,” continued Ulysses, “will not keep long out of the fray,
when the suitors and we join fight in my house. Now, therefore, return
home early to-morrow morning, and go about among the suitors as before.
Later on the swineherd will bring me to the city disguised as a
miserable old beggar. If you see them ill treating me, steel your heart
against my sufferings; even though they drag me feet foremost out of
the house, or throw things at me, look on and do nothing beyond gently
trying to make them behave more reasonably; but they will not listen to
you, for the day of their reckoning is at hand. Furthermore I say, and
lay my saying to your heart; when Minerva shall put it in my mind, I
will nod my head to you, and on seeing me do this you must collect all
the armour that is in the house and hide it in the strong store room.
Make some excuse when the suitors ask you why you are removing it; say
that you have taken it to be out of the way of the smoke, inasmuch as
it is no longer what it was when Ulysses went away, but has become
soiled and begrimed with soot. Add to this more particularly that you
are afraid Jove may set them on to quarrel over their wine, and that
they may do each other some harm which may disgrace both banquet and
wooing, for the sight of arms sometimes tempts people to use them. But
leave a sword and a spear apiece for yourself and me, and a couple of
oxhide shields so that we can snatch them up at any moment; Jove and
Minerva will then soon quiet these people. There is also another
matter; if you are indeed my son and my blood runs in your veins, let
no one know that Ulysses is within the house—neither Laertes, nor yet
the swineherd, nor any of the servants, nor even Penelope herself. Let
you and me exploit the women alone, and let us also make trial of some
other of the men servants, to see who is on our side and whose hand is
against us.”

“Father,” replied Telemachus, “you will come to know me by and by, and
when you do you will find that I can keep your counsel. I do not think,
however, the plan you propose will turn out well for either of us.
Think it over. It will take us a long time to go the round of the farms
and exploit the men, and all the time the suitors will be wasting your
estate with impunity and without compunction. Prove the women by all
means, to see who are disloyal and who guiltless, but I am not in
favour of going round and trying the men. We can attend to that later
on, if you really have some sign from Jove that he will support you.”

Thus did they converse, and meanwhile the ship which had brought
Telemachus and his crew from Pylos had reached the town of Ithaca. When
they had come inside the harbour they drew the ship on to the land;
their servants came and took their armour from them, and they left all
the presents at the house of Clytius. Then they sent a servant to tell
Penelope that Telemachus had gone into the country, but had sent the
ship to the town to prevent her from being alarmed and made unhappy.
This servant and Eumaeus happened to meet when they were both on the
same errand of going to tell Penelope. When they reached the House, the
servant stood up and said to the queen in the presence of the waiting
women, “Your son, Madam, is now returned from Pylos”; but Eumaeus went
close up to Penelope, and said privately all that her son had bidden
him tell her. When he had given his message he left the house with its
outbuildings and went back to his pigs again.

The suitors were surprised and angry at what had happened, so they went
outside the great wall that ran round the outer court, and held a
council near the main entrance. Eurymachus, son of Polybus, was the
first to speak.

“My friends,” said he, “this voyage of Telemachus’s is a very serious
matter; we had made sure that it would come to nothing. Now, however,
let us draw a ship into the water, and get a crew together to send
after the others and tell them to come back as fast as they can.”

He had hardly done speaking when Amphinomus turned in his place and saw
the ship inside the harbour, with the crew lowering her sails, and
putting by their oars; so he laughed, and said to the others, “We need
not send them any message, for they are here. Some god must have told
them, or else they saw the ship go by, and could not overtake her.”

On this they rose and went to the water side. The crew then drew the
ship on shore; their servants took their armour from them, and they
went up in a body to the place of assembly, but they would not let any
one old or young sit along with them, and Antinous, son of Eupeithes,
spoke first.

“Good heavens,” said he, “see how the gods have saved this man from
destruction. We kept a succession of scouts upon the headlands all day
long, and when the sun was down we never went on shore to sleep, but
waited in the ship all night till morning in the hope of capturing and
killing him; but some god has conveyed him home in spite of us. Let us
consider how we can make an end of him. He must not escape us; our
affair is never likely to come off while he is alive, for he is very
shrewd, and public feeling is by no means all on our side. We must make
haste before he can call the Achaeans in assembly; he will lose no time
in doing so, for he will be furious with us, and will tell all the
world how we plotted to kill him, but failed to take him. The people
will not like this when they come to know of it; we must see that they
do us no hurt, nor drive us from our own country into exile. Let us try
and lay hold of him either on his farm away from the town, or on the
road hither. Then we can divide up his property amongst us, and let his
mother and the man who marries her have the house. If this does not
please you, and you wish Telemachus to live on and hold his father’s
property, then we must not gather here and eat up his goods in this
way, but must make our offers to Penelope each from his own house, and
she can marry the man who will give the most for her, and whose lot it
is to win her.”

They all held their peace until Amphinomus rose to speak. He was the
son of Nisus, who was son to king Aretias, and he was foremost among
all the suitors from the wheat-growing and well grassed island of
Dulichium; his conversation, moreover, was more agreeable to Penelope
than that of any of the other suitors, for he was a man of good natural
disposition. “My friends,” said he, speaking to them plainly and in all
honestly, “I am not in favour of killing Telemachus. It is a heinous
thing to kill one who is of noble blood. Let us first take counsel of
the gods, and if the oracles of Jove advise it, I will both help to
kill him myself, and will urge everyone else to do so; but if they
dissuade us, I would have you hold your hands.”

Thus did he speak, and his words pleased them well, so they rose
forthwith and went to the house of Ulysses, where they took their
accustomed seats.

Then Penelope resolved that she would show herself to the suitors. She
knew of the plot against Telemachus, for the servant Medon had
overheard their counsels and had told her; she went down therefore to
the court attended by her maidens, and when she reached the suitors she
stood by one of the bearing-posts supporting the roof of the cloister
holding a veil before her face, and rebuked Antinous saying:

“Antinous, insolent and wicked schemer, they say you are the best
speaker and counsellor of any man your own age in Ithaca, but you are
nothing of the kind. Madman, why should you try to compass the death of
Telemachus, and take no heed of suppliants, whose witness is Jove
himself? It is not right for you to plot thus against one another. Do
you not remember how your father fled to this house in fear of the
people, who were enraged against him for having gone with some Taphian
pirates and plundered the Thesprotians who were at peace with us? They
wanted to tear him in pieces and eat up everything he had, but Ulysses
stayed their hands although they were infuriated, and now you devour
his property without paying for it, and break my heart by wooing his
wife and trying to kill his son. Leave off doing so, and stop the
others also.”

To this Eurymachus son of Polybus answered, “Take heart, Queen Penelope
daughter of Icarius, and do not trouble yourself about these matters.
The man is not yet born, nor never will be, who shall lay hands upon
your son Telemachus, while I yet live to look upon the face of the
earth. I say—and it shall surely be—that my spear shall be reddened
with his blood; for many a time has Ulysses taken me on his knees, held
wine up to my lips to drink, and put pieces of meat into my hands.
Therefore Telemachus is much the dearest friend I have, and has nothing
to fear from the hands of us suitors. Of course, if death comes to him
from the gods, he cannot escape it.” He said this to quiet her, but in
reality he was plotting against Telemachus.

Then Penelope went upstairs again and mourned her husband till Minerva
shed sleep over her eyes. In the evening Eumaeus got back to Ulysses
and his son, who had just sacrificed a young pig of a year old and were
helping one another to get supper ready; Minerva therefore came up to
Ulysses, turned him into an old man with a stroke of her wand, and clad
him in his old clothes again, for fear that the swineherd might
recognise him and not keep the secret, but go and tell Penelope.

Telemachus was the first to speak. “So you have got back, Eumaeus,”
said he. “What is the news of the town? Have the suitors returned, or
are they still waiting over yonder, to take me on my way home?”

“I did not think of asking about that,” replied Eumaeus, “when I was in
the town. I thought I would give my message and come back as soon as I
could. I met a man sent by those who had gone with you to Pylos, and he
was the first to tell the news to your mother, but I can say what I saw
with my own eyes; I had just got on to the crest of the hill of Mercury
above the town when I saw a ship coming into harbour with a number of
men in her. They had many shields and spears, and I thought it was the
suitors, but I cannot be sure.”

On hearing this Telemachus smiled to his father, but so that Eumaeus
could not see him.

Then, when they had finished their work and the meal was ready, they
ate it, and every man had his full share so that all were satisfied. As
soon as they had had enough to eat and drink, they laid down to rest
and enjoyed the boon of sleep.




BOOK XVII


TELEMACHUS AND HIS MOTHER MEET—ULYSSES AND EUMAEUS COME DOWN TO THE
TOWN, AND ULYSSES IS INSULTED BY MELANTHIUS—HE IS RECOGNISED BY THE DOG
ARGOS—HE IS INSULTED AND PRESENTLY STRUCK BY ANTINOUS WITH A
STOOL—PENELOPE DESIRES THAT HE SHALL BE SENT TO HER.


When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, Telemachus
bound on his sandals and took a strong spear that suited his hands, for
he wanted to go into the city. “Old friend,” said he to the swineherd,
“I will now go to the town and show myself to my mother, for she will
never leave off grieving till she has seen me. As for this unfortunate
stranger, take him to the town and let him beg there of any one who
will give him a drink and a piece of bread. I have trouble enough of my
own, and cannot be burdened with other people. If this makes him angry
so much the worse for him, but I like to say what I mean.”

Then Ulysses said, “Sir, I do not want to stay here; a beggar can
always do better in town than country, for any one who likes can give
him something. I am too old to care about remaining here at the beck
and call of a master. Therefore let this man do as you have just told
him, and take me to the town as soon as I have had a warm by the fire,
and the day has got a little heat in it. My clothes are wretchedly
thin, and this frosty morning I shall be perished with cold, for you
say the city is some way off.”

On this Telemachus strode off through the yards, brooding his revenge
upon the suitors. When he reached home he stood his spear against a
bearing-post of the cloister, crossed the stone floor of the cloister
itself, and went inside.

Nurse Euryclea saw him long before any one else did. She was putting
the fleeces on to the seats, and she burst out crying as she ran up to
him; all the other maids came up too, and covered his head and
shoulders with their kisses. Penelope came out of her room looking like
Diana or Venus, and wept as she flung her arms about her son. She
kissed his forehead and both his beautiful eyes, “Light of my eyes,”
she cried as she spoke fondly to him, “so you are come home again; I
made sure I was never going to see you any more. To think of your
having gone off to Pylos without saying anything about it or obtaining
my consent. But come, tell me what you saw.”

“Do not scold me, mother,” answered Telemachus, “nor vex me, seeing
what a narrow escape I have had, but wash your face, change your dress,
go upstairs with your maids, and promise full and sufficient hecatombs
to all the gods if Jove will only grant us our revenge upon the
suitors. I must now go to the place of assembly to invite a stranger
who has come back with me from Pylos. I sent him on with my crew, and
told Piraeus to take him home and look after him till I could come for
him myself.”

She heeded her son’s words, washed her face, changed her dress, and
vowed full and sufficient hecatombs to all the gods if they would only
vouchsafe her revenge upon the suitors.

Telemachus went through, and out of, the cloisters spear in hand—not
alone, for his two fleet dogs went with him. Minerva endowed him with a
presence of such divine comeliness that all marvelled at him as he went
by, and the suitors gathered round him with fair words in their mouths
and malice in their hearts; but he avoided them, and went to sit with
Mentor, Antiphus, and Halitherses, old friends of his father’s house,
and they made him tell them all that had happened to him. Then Piraeus
came up with Theoclymenus, whom he had escorted through the town to the
place of assembly, whereon Telemachus at once joined them. Piraeus was
first to speak: “Telemachus,” said he, “I wish you would send some of
your women to my house to take away the presents Menelaus gave you.”

“We do not know, Piraeus,” answered Telemachus, “what may happen. If
the suitors kill me in my own house and divide my property among them,
I would rather you had the presents than that any of those people
should get hold of them. If on the other hand I managed to kill them, I
shall be much obliged if you will kindly bring me my presents.”

With these words he took Theoclymenus to his own house. When they got
there they laid their cloaks on the benches and seats, went into the
baths, and washed themselves. When the maids had washed and anointed
them, and had given them cloaks and shirts, they took their seats at
table. A maid servant then brought them water in a beautiful golden
ewer, and poured it into a silver basin for them to wash their hands;
and she drew a clean table beside them. An upper servant brought them
bread and offered them many good things of what there was in the house.
Opposite them sat Penelope, reclining on a couch by one of the
bearing-posts of the cloister, and spinning. Then they laid their hands
on the good things that were before them, and as soon as they had had
enough to eat and drink Penelope said:

“Telemachus, I shall go upstairs and lie down on that sad couch, which
I have not ceased to water with my tears, from the day Ulysses set out
for Troy with the sons of Atreus. You failed, however, to make it clear
to me before the suitors came back to the house, whether or no you had
been able to hear anything about the return of your father.”

“I will tell you then truth,” replied her son. “We went to Pylos and
saw Nestor, who took me to his house and treated me as hospitably as
though I were a son of his own who had just returned after a long
absence; so also did his sons; but he said he had not heard a word from
any human being about Ulysses, whether he was alive or dead. He sent
me, therefore, with a chariot and horses to Menelaus. There I saw
Helen, for whose sake so many, both Argives and Trojans, were in
heaven’s wisdom doomed to suffer. Menelaus asked me what it was that
had brought me to Lacedaemon, and I told him the whole truth, whereon
he said, ‘So, then, these cowards would usurp a brave man’s bed? A hind
might as well lay her new-born young in the lair of a lion, and then go
off to feed in the forest or in some grassy dell. The lion, when he
comes back to his lair, will make short work with the pair of them, and
so will Ulysses with these suitors. By father Jove, Minerva, and
Apollo, if Ulysses is still the man that he was when he wrestled with
Philomeleides in Lesbos, and threw him so heavily that all the Greeks
cheered him—if he is still such, and were to come near these suitors,
they would have a short shrift and a sorry wedding. As regards your
question, however, I will not prevaricate nor deceive you, but what the
old man of the sea told me, so much will I tell you in full. He said he
could see Ulysses on an island sorrowing bitterly in the house of the
nymph Calypso, who was keeping him prisoner, and he could not reach his
home, for he had no ships nor sailors to take him over the sea.’ This
was what Menelaus told me, and when I had heard his story I came away;
the gods then gave me a fair wind and soon brought me safe home again.”

With these words he moved the heart of Penelope. Then Theoclymenus said
to her:

“Madam, wife of Ulysses, Telemachus does not understand these things;
listen therefore to me, for I can divine them surely, and will hide
nothing from you. May Jove the king of heaven be my witness, and the
rites of hospitality, with that hearth of Ulysses to which I now come,
that Ulysses himself is even now in Ithaca, and, either going about the
country or staying in one place, is enquiring into all these evil deeds
and preparing a day of reckoning for the suitors. I saw an omen when I
was on the ship which meant this, and I told Telemachus about it.”

“May it be even so,” answered Penelope; “if your words come true, you
shall have such gifts and such good will from me that all who see you
shall congratulate you.”

Thus did they converse. Meanwhile the suitors were throwing discs, or
aiming with spears at a mark on the levelled ground in front of the
house, and behaving with all their old insolence. But when it was now
time for dinner, and the flock of sheep and goats had come into the
town from all the country round, 140 with their shepherds as usual,
then Medon, who was their favourite servant, and who waited upon them
at table, said, “Now then, my young masters, you have had enough sport,
so come inside that we may get dinner ready. Dinner is not a bad thing,
at dinner time.”

They left their sports as he told them, and when they were within the
house, they laid their cloaks on the benches and seats inside, and then
sacrificed some sheep, goats, pigs, and a heifer, all of them fat and
well grown.141 Thus they made ready for their meal. In the meantime
Ulysses and the swineherd were about starting for the town, and the
swineherd said, “Stranger, I suppose you still want to go to town
to-day, as my master said you were to do; for my own part I should have
liked you to stay here as a station hand, but I must do as my master
tells me, or he will scold me later on, and a scolding from one’s
master is a very serious thing. Let us then be off, for it is now broad
day; it will be night again directly and then you will find it
colder.”142

“I know, and understand you,” replied Ulysses; “you need say no more.
Let us be going, but if you have a stick ready cut, let me have it to
walk with, for you say the road is a very rough one.”

As he spoke he threw his shabby old tattered wallet over his shoulders,
by the cord from which it hung, and Eumaeus gave him a stick to his
liking. The two then started, leaving the station in charge of the dogs
and herdsmen who remained behind; the swineherd led the way and his
master followed after, looking like some broken down old tramp as he
leaned upon his staff, and his clothes were all in rags. When they had
got over the rough steep ground and were nearing the city, they reached
the fountain from which the citizens drew their water. This had been
made by Ithacus, Neritus, and Polyctor. There was a grove of
water-loving poplars planted in a circle all round it, and the clear
cold water came down to it from a rock high up,143 while above the
fountain there was an altar to the nymphs, at which all wayfarers used
to sacrifice. Here Melanthius son of Dolius overtook them as he was
driving down some goats, the best in his flock, for the suitors’
dinner, and there were two shepherds with him. When he saw Eumaeus and
Ulysses he reviled them with outrageous and unseemly language, which
made Ulysses very angry.

“There you go,” cried he, “and a precious pair you are. See how heaven
brings birds of the same feather to one another. Where, pray, master
swineherd, are you taking this poor miserable object? It would make any
one sick to see such a creature at table. A fellow like this never won
a prize for anything in his life, but will go about rubbing his
shoulders against every man’s door post, and begging, not for swords
and cauldrons144 like a man, but only for a few scraps not worth
begging for. If you would give him to me for a hand on my station, he
might do to clean out the folds, or bring a bit of sweet feed to the
kids, and he could fatten his thighs as much as he pleased on whey; but
he has taken to bad ways and will not go about any kind of work; he
will do nothing but beg victuals all the town over, to feed his
insatiable belly. I say, therefore—and it shall surely be—if he goes
near Ulysses’ house he will get his head broken by the stools they will
fling at him, till they turn him out.”

On this, as he passed, he gave Ulysses a kick on the hip out of pure
wantonness, but Ulysses stood firm, and did not budge from the path.
For a moment he doubted whether or no to fly at Melanthius and kill him
with his staff, or fling him to the ground and beat his brains out; he
resolved, however, to endure it and keep himself in check, but the
swineherd looked straight at Melanthius and rebuked him, lifting up his
hands and praying to heaven as he did so.

“Fountain nymphs,” he cried, “children of Jove, if ever Ulysses burned
you thigh bones covered with fat whether of lambs or kids, grant my
prayer that heaven may send him home. He would soon put an end to the
swaggering threats with which such men as you go about insulting
people—gadding all over the town while your flocks are going to ruin
through bad shepherding.”

Then Melanthius the goatherd answered, “You ill conditioned cur, what
are you talking about? Some day or other I will put you on board ship
and take you to a foreign country, where I can sell you and pocket the
money you will fetch. I wish I were as sure that Apollo would strike
Telemachus dead this very day, or that the suitors would kill him, as I
am that Ulysses will never come home again.”

With this he left them to come on at their leisure, while he went
quickly forward and soon reached the house of his master. When he got
there he went in and took his seat among the suitors opposite
Eurymachus, who liked him better than any of the others. The servants
brought him a portion of meat, and an upper woman servant set bread
before him that he might eat. Presently Ulysses and the swineherd came
up to the house and stood by it, amid a sound of music, for Phemius was
just beginning to sing to the suitors. Then Ulysses took hold of the
swineherd’s hand, and said:

“Eumaeus, this house of Ulysses is a very fine place. No matter how far
you go, you will find few like it. One building keeps following on
after another. The outer court has a wall with battlements all round
it; the doors are double folding, and of good workmanship; it would be
a hard matter to take it by force of arms. I perceive, too, that there
are many people banqueting within it, for there is a smell of roast
meat, and I hear a sound of music, which the gods have made to go along
with feasting.”

Then Eumaeus said, “You have perceived aright, as indeed you generally
do; but let us think what will be our best course. Will you go inside
first and join the suitors, leaving me here behind you, or will you
wait here and let me go in first? But do not wait long, or some one may
see you loitering about outside, and throw something at you. Consider
this matter I pray you.”

And Ulysses answered, “I understand and heed. Go in first and leave me
here where I am. I am quite used to being beaten and having things
thrown at me. I have been so much buffeted about in war and by sea that
I am case-hardened, and this too may go with the rest. But a man cannot
hide away the cravings of a hungry belly; this is an enemy which gives
much trouble to all men; it is because of this that ships are fitted
out to sail the seas, and to make war upon other people.”

As they were thus talking, a dog that had been lying asleep raised his
head and pricked up his ears. This was Argos, whom Ulysses had bred
before setting out for Troy, but he had never had any work out of him.
In the old days he used to be taken out by the young men when they went
hunting wild goats, or deer, or hares, but now that his master was gone
he was lying neglected on the heaps of mule and cow dung that lay in
front of the stable doors till the men should come and draw it away to
manure the great close; and he was full of fleas. As soon as he saw
Ulysses standing there, he dropped his ears and wagged his tail, but he
could not get close up to his master. When Ulysses saw the dog on the
other side of the yard, he dashed a tear from his eyes without Eumaeus
seeing it, and said:

“Eumaeus, what a noble hound that is over yonder on the manure heap:
his build is splendid; is he as fine a fellow as he looks, or is he
only one of those dogs that come begging about a table, and are kept
merely for show?”

“This hound,” answered Eumaeus, “belonged to him who has died in a far
country. If he were what he was when Ulysses left for Troy, he would
soon show you what he could do. There was not a wild beast in the
forest that could get away from him when he was once on its tracks. But
now he has fallen on evil times, for his master is dead and gone, and
the women take no care of him. Servants never do their work when their
master’s hand is no longer over them, for Jove takes half the goodness
out of a man when he makes a slave of him.”

As he spoke he went inside the buildings to the cloister where the
suitors were, but Argos died as soon as he had recognised his master.

Telemachus saw Eumaeus long before any one else did, and beckoned him
to come and sit beside him; so he looked about and saw a seat lying
near where the carver sat serving out their portions to the suitors; he
picked it up, brought it to Telemachus’s table, and sat down opposite
him. Then the servant brought him his portion, and gave him bread from
the bread-basket.

Immediately afterwards Ulysses came inside, looking like a poor
miserable old beggar, leaning on his staff and with his clothes all in
rags. He sat down upon the threshold of ash-wood just inside the doors
leading from the outer to the inner court, and against a bearing-post
of cypress-wood which the carpenter had skilfully planed, and had made
to join truly with rule and line. Telemachus took a whole loaf from the
bread-basket, with as much meat as he could hold in his two hands, and
said to Eumaeus, “Take this to the stranger, and tell him to go the
round of the suitors, and beg from them; a beggar must not be
shamefaced.”

So Eumaeus went up to him and said, “Stranger, Telemachus sends you
this, and says you are to go the round of the suitors begging, for
beggars must not be shamefaced.”

Ulysses answered, “May King Jove grant all happiness to Telemachus, and
fulfil the desire of his heart.”

Then with both hands he took what Telemachus had sent him, and laid it
on the dirty old wallet at his feet. He went on eating it while the
bard was singing, and had just finished his dinner as he left off. The
suitors applauded the bard, whereon Minerva went up to Ulysses and
prompted him to beg pieces of bread from each one of the suitors, that
he might see what kind of people they were, and tell the good from the
bad; but come what might she was not going to save a single one of
them. Ulysses, therefore, went on his round, going from left to right,
and stretched out his hands to beg as though he were a real beggar.
Some of them pitied him, and were curious about him, asking one another
who he was and where he came from; whereon the goatherd Melanthius
said, “Suitors of my noble mistress, I can tell you something about
him, for I have seen him before. The swineherd brought him here, but I
know nothing about the man himself, nor where he comes from.”

On this Antinous began to abuse the swineherd. “You precious idiot,” he
cried, “what have you brought this man to town for? Have we not tramps
and beggars enough already to pester us as we sit at meat? Do you think
it a small thing that such people gather here to waste your master’s
property—and must you needs bring this man as well?”

And Eumaeus answered, “Antinous, your birth is good but your words
evil. It was no doing of mine that he came here. Who is likely to
invite a stranger from a foreign country, unless it be one of those who
can do public service as a seer, a healer of hurts, a carpenter, or a
bard who can charm us with his singing? Such men are welcome all the
world over, but no one is likely to ask a beggar who will only worry
him. You are always harder on Ulysses’ servants than any of the other
suitors are, and above all on me, but I do not care so long as
Telemachus and Penelope are alive and here.”

But Telemachus said, “Hush, do not answer him; Antinous has the
bitterest tongue of all the suitors, and he makes the others worse.”

Then turning to Antinous he said, “Antinous, you take as much care of
my interests as though I were your son. Why should you want to see this
stranger turned out of the house? Heaven forbid; take something and
give it him yourself; I do not grudge it; I bid you take it. Never mind
my mother, nor any of the other servants in the house; but I know you
will not do what I say, for you are more fond of eating things yourself
than of giving them to other people.”

“What do you mean, Telemachus,” replied Antinous, “by this swaggering
talk? If all the suitors were to give him as much as I will, he would
not come here again for another three months.”

As he spoke he drew the stool on which he rested his dainty feet from
under the table, and made as though he would throw it at Ulysses, but
the other suitors all gave him something, and filled his wallet with
bread and meat; he was about, therefore, to go back to the threshold
and eat what the suitors had given him, but he first went up to
Antinous and said:

“Sir, give me something; you are not, surely, the poorest man here; you
seem to be a chief, foremost among them all; therefore you should be
the better giver, and I will tell far and wide of your bounty. I too
was a rich man once, and had a fine house of my own; in those days I
gave to many a tramp such as I now am, no matter who he might be nor
what he wanted. I had any number of servants, and all the other things
which people have who live well and are accounted wealthy, but it
pleased Jove to take all away from me. He sent me with a band of roving
robbers to Egypt; it was a long voyage and I was undone by it. I
stationed my ships in the river Aegyptus, and bade my men stay by them
and keep guard over them, while I sent out scouts to reconnoitre from
every point of vantage.

“But the men disobeyed my orders, took to their own devices, and
ravaged the land of the Egyptians, killing the men, and taking their
wives and children captives. The alarm was soon carried to the city,
and when they heard the war-cry, the people came out at daybreak till
the plain was filled with soldiers horse and foot, and with the gleam
of armour. Then Jove spread panic among my men, and they would no
longer face the enemy, for they found themselves surrounded. The
Egyptians killed many of us, and took the rest alive to do forced
labour for them; as for myself, they gave me to a friend who met them,
to take to Cyprus, Dmetor by name, son of Iasus, who was a great man in
Cyprus. Thence I am come hither in a state of great misery.”

Then Antinous said, “What god can have sent such a pestilence to plague
us during our dinner? Get out, into the open part of the court,145 or I
will give you Egypt and Cyprus over again for your insolence and
importunity; you have begged of all the others, and they have given you
lavishly, for they have abundance round them, and it is easy to be free
with other people’s property when there is plenty of it.”

On this Ulysses began to move off, and said, “Your looks, my fine sir,
are better than your breeding; if you were in your own house you would
not spare a poor man so much as a pinch of salt, for though you are in
another man’s, and surrounded with abundance, you cannot find it in you
to give him even a piece of bread.”

This made Antinous very angry, and he scowled at him saying, “You shall
pay for this before you get clear of the court.” With these words he
threw a footstool at him, and hit him on the right shoulder blade near
the top of his back. Ulysses stood firm as a rock and the blow did not
even stagger him, but he shook his head in silence as he brooded on his
revenge. Then he went back to the threshold and sat down there, laying
his well filled wallet at his feet.

“Listen to me,” he cried, “you suitors of Queen Penelope, that I may
speak even as I am minded. A man knows neither ache nor pain if he gets
hit while fighting for his money, or for his sheep or his cattle; and
even so Antinous has hit me while in the service of my miserable belly,
which is always getting people into trouble. Still, if the poor have
gods and avenging deities at all, I pray them that Antinous may come to
a bad end before his marriage.”

“Sit where you are, and eat your victuals in silence, or be off
elsewhere,” shouted Antinous. “If you say more I will have you dragged
hand and foot through the courts, and the servants shall flay you
alive.”

The other suitors were much displeased at this, and one of the young
men said, “Antinous, you did ill in striking that poor wretch of a
tramp: it will be worse for you if he should turn out to be some
god—and we know the gods go about disguised in all sorts of ways as
people from foreign countries, and travel about the world to see who do
amiss and who righteously.”146

Thus said the suitors, but Antinous paid them no heed. Meanwhile
Telemachus was furious about the blow that had been given to his
father, and though no tear fell from him, he shook his head in silence
and brooded on his revenge.

Now when Penelope heard that the beggar had been struck in the
banqueting-cloister, she said before her maids, “Would that Apollo
would so strike you, Antinous,” and her waiting woman Eurynome
answered, “If our prayers were answered not one of the suitors would
ever again see the sun rise.” Then Penelope said, “Nurse,147 I hate
every single one of them, for they mean nothing but mischief, but I
hate Antinous like the darkness of death itself. A poor unfortunate
tramp has come begging about the house for sheer want. Every one else
has given him something to put in his wallet, but Antinous has hit him
on the right shoulder-blade with a footstool.”

Thus did she talk with her maids as she sat in her own room, and in the
meantime Ulysses was getting his dinner. Then she called for the
swineherd and said, “Eumaeus, go and tell the stranger to come here, I
want to see him and ask him some questions. He seems to have travelled
much, and he may have seen or heard something of my unhappy husband.”

To this you answered, O swineherd Eumaeus, “If these Achaeans, Madam,
would only keep quiet, you would be charmed with the history of his
adventures. I had him three days and three nights with me in my hut,
which was the first place he reached after running away from his ship,
and he has not yet completed the story of his misfortunes. If he had
been the most heaven-taught minstrel in the whole world, on whose lips
all hearers hang entranced, I could not have been more charmed as I sat
in my hut and listened to him. He says there is an old friendship
between his house and that of Ulysses, and that he comes from Crete
where the descendants of Minos live, after having been driven hither
and thither by every kind of misfortune; he also declares that he has
heard of Ulysses as being alive and near at hand among the
Thesprotians, and that he is bringing great wealth home with him.”

“Call him here, then,” said Penelope, “that I too may hear his story.
As for the suitors, let them take their pleasure indoors or out as they
will, for they have nothing to fret about. Their corn and wine remain
unwasted in their houses with none but servants to consume them, while
they keep hanging about our house day after day sacrificing our oxen,
sheep, and fat goats for their banquets, and never giving so much as a
thought to the quantity of wine they drink. No estate can stand such
recklessness, for we have now no Ulysses to protect us. If he were to
come again, he and his son would soon have their revenge.”

As she spoke Telemachus sneezed so loudly that the whole house
resounded with it. Penelope laughed when she heard this, and said to
Eumaeus, “Go and call the stranger; did you not hear how my son sneezed
just as I was speaking? This can only mean that all the suitors are
going to be killed, and that not one of them shall escape. Furthermore
I say, and lay my saying to your heart: if I am satisfied that the
stranger is speaking the truth I shall give him a shirt and cloak of
good wear.”

When Eumaeus heard this he went straight to Ulysses and said, “Father
stranger, my mistress Penelope, mother of Telemachus, has sent for you;
she is in great grief, but she wishes to hear anything you can tell her
about her husband, and if she is satisfied that you are speaking the
truth, she will give you a shirt and cloak, which are the very things
that you are most in want of. As for bread, you can get enough of that
to fill your belly, by begging about the town, and letting those give
that will.”

“I will tell Penelope,” answered Ulysses, “nothing but what is strictly
true. I know all about her husband, and have been partner with him in
affliction, but I am afraid of passing through this crowd of cruel
suitors, for their pride and insolence reach heaven. Just now,
moreover, as I was going about the house without doing any harm, a man
gave me a blow that hurt me very much, but neither Telemachus nor any
one else defended me. Tell Penelope, therefore, to be patient and wait
till sundown. Let her give me a seat close up to the fire, for my
clothes are worn very thin—you know they are, for you have seen them
ever since I first asked you to help me—she can then ask me about the
return of her husband.”

The swineherd went back when he heard this, and Penelope said as she
saw him cross the threshold, “Why do you not bring him here, Eumaeus?
Is he afraid that some one will ill-treat him, or is he shy of coming
inside the house at all? Beggars should not be shamefaced.”

To this you answered, O swineherd Eumaeus, “The stranger is quite
reasonable. He is avoiding the suitors, and is only doing what any one
else would do. He asks you to wait till sundown, and it will be much
better, madam, that you should have him all to yourself, when you can
hear him and talk to him as you will.”

“The man is no fool,” answered Penelope, “it would very likely be as he
says, for there are no such abominable people in the whole world as
these men are.”

When she had done speaking Eumaeus went back to the suitors, for he had
explained everything. Then he went up to Telemachus and said in his ear
so that none could overhear him, “My dear sir, I will now go back to
the pigs, to see after your property and my own business. You will look
to what is going on here, but above all be careful to keep out of
danger, for there are many who bear you ill will. May Jove bring them
to a bad end before they do us a mischief.”

“Very well,” replied Telemachus, “go home when you have had your
dinner, and in the morning come here with the victims we are to
sacrifice for the day. Leave the rest to heaven and me.”

On this Eumaeus took his seat again, and when he had finished his
dinner he left the courts and the cloister with the men at table, and
went back to his pigs. As for the suitors, they presently began to
amuse themselves with singing and dancing, for it was now getting on
towards evening.




BOOK XVIII


THE FIGHT WITH IRUS—ULYSSES WARNS AMPHINOMUS—PENELOPE GETS PRESENTS
FROM THE SUITORS—THE BRAZIERS—ULYSSES REBUKES EURYMACHUS.


Now there came a certain common tramp who used to go begging all over
the city of Ithaca, and was notorious as an incorrigible glutton and
drunkard. This man had no strength nor stay in him, but he was a great
hulking fellow to look at; his real name, the one his mother gave him,
was Arnaeus, but the young men of the place called him Irus,148 because
he used to run errands for any one who would send him. As soon as he
came he began to insult Ulysses, and to try and drive him out of his
own house.

“Be off, old man,” he cried, “from the doorway, or you shall be dragged
out neck and heels. Do you not see that they are all giving me the
wink, and wanting me to turn you out by force, only I do not like to do
so? Get up then, and go of yourself, or we shall come to blows.”

Ulysses frowned on him and said, “My friend, I do you no manner of
harm; people give you a great deal, but I am not jealous. There is room
enough in this doorway for the pair of us, and you need not grudge me
things that are not yours to give. You seem to be just such another
tramp as myself, but perhaps the gods will give us better luck by and
by. Do not, however, talk too much about fighting or you will incense
me, and old though I am, I shall cover your mouth and chest with blood.
I shall have more peace tomorrow if I do, for you will not come to the
house of Ulysses any more.”

Irus was very angry and answered, “You filthy glutton, you run on
trippingly like an old fish-fag. I have a good mind to lay both hands
about you, and knock your teeth out of your head like so many boar’s
tusks. Get ready, therefore, and let these people here stand by and
look on. You will never be able to fight one who is so much younger
than yourself.”

Thus roundly did they rate one another on the smooth pavement in front
of the doorway,149 and when Antinous saw what was going on he laughed
heartily and said to the others, “This is the finest sport that you
ever saw; heaven never yet sent anything like it into this house. The
stranger and Irus have quarreled and are going to fight, let us set
them on to do so at once.”

The suitors all came up laughing, and gathered round the two ragged
tramps. “Listen to me,” said Antinous, “there are some goats’ paunches
down at the fire, which we have filled with blood and fat, and set
aside for supper; he who is victorious and proves himself to be the
better man shall have his pick of the lot; he shall be free of our
table and we will not allow any other beggar about the house at all.”

The others all agreed, but Ulysses, to throw them off the scent, said,
“Sirs, an old man like myself, worn out with suffering, cannot hold his
own against a young one; but my irrepressible belly urges me on, though
I know it can only end in my getting a drubbing. You must swear,
however that none of you will give me a foul blow to favour Irus and
secure him the victory.”

They swore as he told them, and when they had completed their oath
Telemachus put in a word and said, “Stranger, if you have a mind to
settle with this fellow, you need not be afraid of any one here.
Whoever strikes you will have to fight more than one. I am host, and
the other chiefs, Antinous and Eurymachus, both of them men of
understanding, are of the same mind as I am.”

Every one assented, and Ulysses girded his old rags about his loins,
thus baring his stalwart thighs, his broad chest and shoulders, and his
mighty arms; but Minerva came up to him and made his limbs even
stronger still. The suitors were beyond measure astonished, and one
would turn towards his neighbour saying, “The stranger has brought such
a thigh out of his old rags that there will soon be nothing left of
Irus.”

Irus began to be very uneasy as he heard them, but the servants girded
him by force, and brought him [into the open part of the court] in such
a fright that his limbs were all of a tremble. Antinous scolded him and
said, “You swaggering bully, you ought never to have been born at all
if you are afraid of such an old broken down creature as this tramp is.
I say, therefore—and it shall surely be—if he beats you and proves
himself the better man, I shall pack you off on board ship to the
mainland and send you to king Echetus, who kills every one that comes
near him. He will cut off your nose and ears, and draw out your
entrails for the dogs to eat.”

This frightened Irus still more, but they brought him into the middle
of the court, and the two men raised their hands to fight. Then Ulysses
considered whether he should let drive so hard at him as to make an end
of him then and there, or whether he should give him a lighter blow
that should only knock him down; in the end he deemed it best to give
the lighter blow for fear the Achaeans should begin to suspect who he
was. Then they began to fight, and Irus hit Ulysses on the right
shoulder; but Ulysses gave Irus a blow on the neck under the ear that
broke in the bones of his skull, and the blood came gushing out of his
mouth; he fell groaning in the dust, gnashing his teeth and kicking on
the ground, but the suitors threw up their hands and nearly died of
laughter, as Ulysses caught hold of him by the foot and dragged him
into the outer court as far as the gate-house. There he propped him up
against the wall and put his staff in his hands. “Sit here,” said he,
“and keep the dogs and pigs off; you are a pitiful creature, and if you
try to make yourself king of the beggars any more you shall fare still
worse.”

Then he threw his dirty old wallet, all tattered and torn over his
shoulder with the cord by which it hung, and went back to sit down upon
the threshold; but the suitors went within the cloisters, laughing and
saluting him, “May Jove, and all the other gods,” said they, “grant you
whatever you want for having put an end to the importunity of this
insatiable tramp. We will take him over to the mainland presently, to
king Echetus, who kills every one that comes near him.”

Ulysses hailed this as of good omen, and Antinous set a great goat’s
paunch before him filled with blood and fat. Amphinomus took two loaves
out of the bread-basket and brought them to him, pledging him as he did
so in a golden goblet of wine. “Good luck to you,” he said, “father
stranger, you are very badly off at present, but I hope you will have
better times by and by.”

To this Ulysses answered, “Amphinomus, you seem to be a man of good
understanding, as indeed you may well be, seeing whose son you are. I
have heard your father well spoken of; he is Nisus of Dulichium, a man
both brave and wealthy. They tell me you are his son, and you appear to
be a considerable person; listen, therefore, and take heed to what I am
saying. Man is the vainest of all creatures that have their being upon
earth. As long as heaven vouchsafes him health and strength, he thinks
that he shall come to no harm hereafter, and even when the blessed gods
bring sorrow upon him, he bears it as he needs must, and makes the best
of it; for God almighty gives men their daily minds day by day. I know
all about it, for I was a rich man once, and did much wrong in the
stubbornness of my pride, and in the confidence that my father and my
brothers would support me; therefore let a man fear God in all things
always, and take the good that heaven may see fit to send him without
vain glory. Consider the infamy of what these suitors are doing; see
how they are wasting the estate, and doing dishonour to the wife, of
one who is certain to return some day, and that, too, not long hence.
Nay, he will be here soon; may heaven send you home quietly first that
you may not meet with him in the day of his coming, for once he is here
the suitors and he will not part bloodlessly.”

With these words he made a drink-offering, and when he had drunk he put
the gold cup again into the hands of Amphinomus, who walked away
serious and bowing his head, for he foreboded evil. But even so he did
not escape destruction, for Minerva had doomed him to fall by the hand
of Telemachus. So he took his seat again at the place from which he had
come.

Then Minerva put it into the mind of Penelope to show herself to the
suitors, that she might make them still more enamoured of her, and win
still further honour from her son and husband. So she feigned a mocking
laugh and said, “Eurynome, I have changed my mind, and have a fancy to
show myself to the suitors although I detest them. I should like also
to give my son a hint that he had better not have anything more to do
with them. They speak fairly enough but they mean mischief.”

“My dear child,” answered Eurynome, “all that you have said is true, go
and tell your son about it, but first wash yourself and anoint your
face. Do not go about with your cheeks all covered with tears; it is
not right that you should grieve so incessantly; for Telemachus, whom
you always prayed that you might live to see with a beard, is already
grown up.”

“I know, Eurynome,” replied Penelope, “that you mean well, but do not
try and persuade me to wash and to anoint myself, for heaven robbed me
of all my beauty on the day my husband sailed; nevertheless, tell
Autonoe and Hippodamia that I want them. They must be with me when I am
in the cloister; I am not going among the men alone; it would not be
proper for me to do so.”

On this the old woman150 went out of the room to bid the maids go to
their mistress. In the meantime Minerva bethought her of another
matter, and sent Penelope off into a sweet slumber; so she lay down on
her couch and her limbs became heavy with sleep. Then the goddess shed
grace and beauty over her that all the Achaeans might admire her. She
washed her face with the ambrosial loveliness that Venus wears when she
goes dancing with the Graces; she made her taller and of a more
commanding figure, while as for her complexion it was whiter than sawn
ivory. When Minerva had done all this she went away, whereon the maids
came in from the women’s room and woke Penelope with the sound of their
talking.

“What an exquisitely delicious sleep I have been having,” said she, as
she passed her hands over her face, “in spite of all my misery. I wish
Diana would let me die so sweetly now at this very moment, that I might
no longer waste in despair for the loss of my dear husband, who
possessed every kind of good quality and was the most distinguished man
among the Achaeans.”

With these words she came down from her upper room, not alone but
attended by two of her maidens, and when she reached the suitors she
stood by one of the bearing-posts supporting the roof of the cloister,
holding a veil before her face, and with a staid maid servant on either
side of her. As they beheld her the suitors were so overpowered and
became so desperately enamoured of her, that each one prayed he might
win her for his own bed fellow.

“Telemachus,” said she, addressing her son, “I fear you are no longer
so discreet and well conducted as you used to be. When you were younger
you had a greater sense of propriety; now, however, that you are grown
up, though a stranger to look at you would take you for the son of a
well to do father as far as size and good looks go, your conduct is by
no means what it should be. What is all this disturbance that has been
going on, and how came you to allow a stranger to be so disgracefully
ill-treated? What would have happened if he had suffered serious injury
while a suppliant in our house? Surely this would have been very
discreditable to you.”

“I am not surprised, my dear mother, at your displeasure,” replied
Telemachus, “I understand all about it and know when things are not as
they should be, which I could not do when I was younger; I cannot,
however, behave with perfect propriety at all times. First one and then
another of these wicked people here keeps driving me out of my mind,
and I have no one to stand by me. After all, however, this fight
between Irus and the stranger did not turn out as the suitors meant it
to do, for the stranger got the best of it. I wish Father Jove,
Minerva, and Apollo would break the neck of every one of these wooers
of yours, some inside the house and some out; and I wish they might all
be as limp as Irus is over yonder in the gate of the outer court. See
how he nods his head like a drunken man; he has had such a thrashing
that he cannot stand on his feet nor get back to his home, wherever
that may be, for he has no strength left in him.”

Thus did they converse. Eurymachus then came up and said, “Queen
Penelope, daughter of Icarius, if all the Achaeans in Iasian Argos
could see you at this moment, you would have still more suitors in your
house by tomorrow morning, for you are the most admirable woman in the
whole world both as regards personal beauty and strength of
understanding.”

To this Penelope replied, “Eurymachus, heaven robbed me of all my
beauty whether of face or figure when the Argives set sail for Troy and
my dear husband with them. If he were to return and look after my
affairs, I should both be more respected and show a better presence to
the world. As it is, I am oppressed with care, and with the afflictions
which heaven has seen fit to heap upon me. My husband foresaw it all,
and when he was leaving home he took my right wrist in his hand—‘Wife,’
he said, ‘we shall not all of us come safe home from Troy, for the
Trojans fight well both with bow and spear. They are excellent also at
fighting from chariots, and nothing decides the issue of a fight sooner
than this. I know not, therefore, whether heaven will send me back to
you, or whether I may not fall over there at Troy. In the meantime do
you look after things here. Take care of my father and mother as at
present, and even more so during my absence, but when you see our son
growing a beard, then marry whom you will, and leave this your present
home.’ This is what he said and now it is all coming true. A night will
come when I shall have to yield myself to a marriage which I detest,
for Jove has taken from me all hope of happiness. This further grief,
moreover, cuts me to the very heart. You suitors are not wooing me
after the custom of my country. When men are courting a woman who they
think will be a good wife to them and who is of noble birth, and when
they are each trying to win her for himself, they usually bring oxen
and sheep to feast the friends of the lady, and they make her
magnificent presents, instead of eating up other people’s property
without paying for it.”

This was what she said, and Ulysses was glad when he heard her trying
to get presents out of the suitors, and flattering them with fair words
which he knew she did not mean.

Then Antinous said, “Queen Penelope, daughter of Icarius, take as many
presents as you please from any one who will give them to you; it is
not well to refuse a present; but we will not go about our business nor
stir from where we are, till you have married the best man among us
whoever he may be.”

The others applauded what Antinous had said, and each one sent his
servant to bring his present. Antinous’s man returned with a large and
lovely dress most exquisitely embroidered. It had twelve beautifully
made brooch pins of pure gold with which to fasten it. Eurymachus
immediately brought her a magnificent chain of gold and amber beads
that gleamed like sunlight. Eurydamas’s two men returned with some
earrings fashioned into three brilliant pendants which glistened most
beautifully; while king Pisander son of Polyctor gave her a necklace of
the rarest workmanship, and every one else brought her a beautiful
present of some kind.

Then the queen went back to her room upstairs, and her maids brought
the presents after her. Meanwhile the suitors took to singing and
dancing, and stayed till evening came. They danced and sang till it
grew dark; they then brought in three braziers151 to give light, and
piled them up with chopped firewood very old and dry, and they lit
torches from them, which the maids held up turn and turn about. Then
Ulysses said:

“Maids, servants of Ulysses who has so long been absent, go to the
queen inside the house; sit with her and amuse her, or spin, and pick
wool. I will hold the light for all these people. They may stay till
morning, but shall not beat me, for I can stand a great deal.”

The maids looked at one another and laughed, while pretty Melantho
began to gibe at him contemptuously. She was daughter to Dolius, but
had been brought up by Penelope, who used to give her toys to play
with, and looked after her when she was a child; but in spite of all
this she showed no consideration for the sorrows of her mistress, and
used to misconduct herself with Eurymachus, with whom she was in love.

“Poor wretch,” said she, “are you gone clean out of your mind? Go and
sleep in some smithy, or place of public gossips, instead of chattering
here. Are you not ashamed of opening your mouth before your betters—so
many of them too? Has the wine been getting into your head, or do you
always babble in this way? You seem to have lost your wits because you
beat the tramp Irus; take care that a better man than he does not come
and cudgel you about the head till he pack you bleeding out of the
house.”

“Vixen,” replied Ulysses, scowling at her, “I will go and tell
Telemachus what you have been saying, and he will have you torn limb
from limb.”

With these words he scared the women, and they went off into the body
of the house. They trembled all over, for they thought he would do as
he said. But Ulysses took his stand near the burning braziers, holding
up torches and looking at the people—brooding the while on things that
should surely come to pass.

But Minerva would not let the suitors for one moment cease their
insolence, for she wanted Ulysses to become even more bitter against
them; she therefore set Eurymachus son of Polybus on to gibe at him,
which made the others laugh. “Listen to me,” said he, “you suitors of
Queen Penelope, that I may speak even as I am minded. It is not for
nothing that this man has come to the house of Ulysses; I believe the
light has not been coming from the torches, but from his own head—for
his hair is all gone, every bit of it.”

Then turning to Ulysses he said, “Stranger, will you work as a servant,
if I send you to the wolds and see that you are well paid? Can you
build a stone fence, or plant trees? I will have you fed all the year
round, and will find you in shoes and clothing. Will you go, then? Not
you; for you have got into bad ways, and do not want to work; you had
rather fill your belly by going round the country begging.”

“Eurymachus,” answered Ulysses, “if you and I were to work one against
the other in early summer when the days are at their longest—give me a
good scythe, and take another yourself, and let us see which will last
the longer or mow the stronger, from dawn till dark when the mowing
grass is about. Or if you will plough against me, let us each take a
yoke of tawny oxen, well-mated and of great strength and endurance:
turn me into a four acre field, and see whether you or I can drive the
straighter furrow. If, again, war were to break out this day, give me a
shield, a couple of spears and a helmet fitting well upon my
temples—you would find me foremost in the fray, and would cease your
gibes about my belly. You are insolent and cruel, and think yourself a
great man because you live in a little world, and that a bad one. If
Ulysses comes to his own again, the doors of his house are wide, but
you will find them narrow when you try to fly through them.”

Eurymachus was furious at all this. He scowled at him and cried, “You
wretch, I will soon pay you out for daring to say such things to me,
and in public too. Has the wine been getting into your head or do you
always babble in this way? You seem to have lost your wits because you
beat the tramp Irus.” With this he caught hold of a footstool, but
Ulysses sought protection at the knees of Amphinomus of Dulichium, for
he was afraid. The stool hit the cupbearer on his right hand and
knocked him down: the man fell with a cry flat on his back, and his
wine-jug fell ringing to the ground. The suitors in the covered
cloister were now in an uproar, and one would turn towards his
neighbour, saying, “I wish the stranger had gone somewhere else, bad
luck to him, for all the trouble he gives us. We cannot permit such
disturbance about a beggar; if such ill counsels are to prevail we
shall have no more pleasure at our banquet.”

On this Telemachus came forward and said, “Sirs, are you mad? Can you
not carry your meat and your liquor decently? Some evil spirit has
possessed you. I do not wish to drive any of you away, but you have had
your suppers, and the sooner you all go home to bed the better.”

The suitors bit their lips and marvelled at the boldness of his speech;
but Amphinomus the son of Nisus, who was son to Aretias, said, “Do not
let us take offence; it is reasonable, so let us make no answer.
Neither let us do violence to the stranger nor to any of Ulysses’
servants. Let the cupbearer go round with the drink-offerings, that we
may make them and go home to our rest. As for the stranger, let us
leave Telemachus to deal with him, for it is to his house that he has
come.”

Thus did he speak, and his saying pleased them well, so Mulius of
Dulichium, servant to Amphinomus, mixed them a bowl of wine and water
and handed it round to each of them man by man, whereon they made their
drink-offerings to the blessed gods: Then, when they had made their
drink-offerings and had drunk each one as he was minded, they took
their several ways each of them to his own abode.




BOOK XIX


TELEMACHUS AND ULYSSES REMOVE THE ARMOUR—ULYSSES INTERVIEWS
PENELOPE—EURYCLEA WASHES HIS FEET AND RECOGNISES THE SCAR ON HIS
LEG—PENELOPE TELLS HER DREAM TO ULYSSES.


Ulysses was left in the cloister, pondering on the means whereby with
Minerva’s help he might be able to kill the suitors. Presently he said
to Telemachus, “Telemachus, we must get the armour together and take it
down inside. Make some excuse when the suitors ask you why you have
removed it. Say that you have taken it to be out of the way of the
smoke, inasmuch as it is no longer what it was when Ulysses went away,
but has become soiled and begrimed with soot. Add to this more
particularly that you are afraid Jove may set them on to quarrel over
their wine, and that they may do each other some harm which may
disgrace both banquet and wooing, for the sight of arms sometimes
tempts people to use them.”

Telemachus approved of what his father had said, so he called nurse
Euryclea and said, “Nurse, shut the women up in their room, while I
take the armour that my father left behind him down into the store
room. No one looks after it now my father is gone, and it has got all
smirched with soot during my own boyhood. I want to take it down where
the smoke cannot reach it.”

“I wish, child,” answered Euryclea, “that you would take the management
of the house into your own hands altogether, and look after all the
property yourself. But who is to go with you and light you to the
store-room? The maids would have done so, but you would not let them.”

“The stranger,” said Telemachus, “shall show me a light; when people
eat my bread they must earn it, no matter where they come from.”

Euryclea did as she was told, and bolted the women inside their room.
Then Ulysses and his son made all haste to take the helmets, shields,
and spears inside; and Minerva went before them with a gold lamp in her
hand that shed a soft and brilliant radiance, whereon Telemachus said,
“Father, my eyes behold a great marvel: the walls, with the rafters,
crossbeams, and the supports on which they rest are all aglow as with a
flaming fire. Surely there is some god here who has come down from
heaven.”

“Hush,” answered Ulysses, “hold your peace and ask no questions, for
this is the manner of the gods. Get you to your bed, and leave me here
to talk with your mother and the maids. Your mother in her grief will
ask me all sorts of questions.”

On this Telemachus went by torch-light to the other side of the inner
court, to the room in which he always slept. There he lay in his bed
till morning, while Ulysses was left in the cloister pondering on the
means whereby with Minerva’s help he might be able to kill the suitors.

Then Penelope came down from her room looking like Venus or Diana, and
they set her a seat inlaid with scrolls of silver and ivory near the
fire in her accustomed place. It had been made by Icmalius and had a
footstool all in one piece with the seat itself; and it was covered
with a thick fleece: on this she now sat, and the maids came from the
women’s room to join her. They set about removing the tables at which
the wicked suitors had been dining, and took away the bread that was
left, with the cups from which they had drunk. They emptied the embers
out of the braziers, and heaped much wood upon them to give both light
and heat; but Melantho began to rail at Ulysses a second time and said,
“Stranger, do you mean to plague us by hanging about the house all
night and spying upon the women? Be off, you wretch, outside, and eat
your supper there, or you shall be driven out with a firebrand.”

Ulysses scowled at her and answered, “My good woman, why should you be
so angry with me? Is it because I am not clean, and my clothes are all
in rags, and because I am obliged to go begging about after the manner
of tramps and beggars generally? I too was a rich man once, and had a
fine house of my own; in those days I gave to many a tramp such as I
now am, no matter who he might be nor what he wanted. I had any number
of servants, and all the other things which people have who live well
and are accounted wealthy, but it pleased Jove to take all away from
me; therefore, woman, beware lest you too come to lose that pride and
place in which you now wanton above your fellows; have a care lest you
get out of favour with your mistress, and lest Ulysses should come
home, for there is still a chance that he may do so. Moreover, though
he be dead as you think he is, yet by Apollo’s will he has left a son
behind him, Telemachus, who will note anything done amiss by the maids
in the house, for he is now no longer in his boyhood.”

Penelope heard what he was saying and scolded the maid, “Impudent
baggage,” said she, “I see how abominably you are behaving, and you
shall smart for it. You knew perfectly well, for I told you myself,
that I was going to see the stranger and ask him about my husband, for
whose sake I am in such continual sorrow.”

Then she said to her head waiting woman Eurynome, “Bring a seat with a
fleece upon it, for the stranger to sit upon while he tells his story,
and listens to what I have to say. I wish to ask him some questions.”

Eurynome brought the seat at once and set a fleece upon it, and as soon
as Ulysses had sat down Penelope began by saying, “Stranger, I shall
first ask you who and whence are you? Tell me of your town and
parents.”

“Madam,” answered Ulysses, “who on the face of the whole earth can dare
to chide with you? Your fame reaches the firmament of heaven itself;
you are like some blameless king, who upholds righteousness, as the
monarch over a great and valiant nation: the earth yields its wheat and
barley, the trees are loaded with fruit, the ewes bring forth lambs,
and the sea abounds with fish by reason of his virtues, and his people
do good deeds under him. Nevertheless, as I sit here in your house, ask
me some other question and do not seek to know my race and family, or
you will recall memories that will yet more increase my sorrow. I am
full of heaviness, but I ought not to sit weeping and wailing in
another person’s house, nor is it well to be thus grieving continually.
I shall have one of the servants or even yourself complaining of me,
and saying that my eyes swim with tears because I am heavy with wine.”

Then Penelope answered, “Stranger, heaven robbed me of all beauty,
whether of face or figure, when the Argives set sail for Troy and my
dear husband with them. If he were to return and look after my affairs
I should be both more respected and should show a better presence to
the world. As it is, I am oppressed with care, and with the afflictions
which heaven has seen fit to heap upon me. The chiefs from all our
islands—Dulichium, Same, and Zacynthus, as also from Ithaca itself, are
wooing me against my will and are wasting my estate. I can therefore
show no attention to strangers, nor suppliants, nor to people who say
that they are skilled artisans, but am all the time broken-hearted
about Ulysses. They want me to marry again at once, and I have to
invent stratagems in order to deceive them. In the first place heaven
put it in my mind to set up a great tambour-frame in my room, and to
begin working upon an enormous piece of fine needlework. Then I said to
them, ‘Sweethearts, Ulysses is indeed dead, still, do not press me to
marry again immediately; wait—for I would not have my skill in
needlework perish unrecorded—till I have finished making a pall for the
hero Laertes, to be ready against the time when death shall take him.
He is very rich, and the women of the place will talk if he is laid out
without a pall.’ This was what I said, and they assented; whereon I
used to keep working at my great web all day long, but at night I would
unpick the stitches again by torch light. I fooled them in this way for
three years without their finding it out, but as time wore on and I was
now in my fourth year, in the waning of moons, and many days had been
accomplished, those good for nothing hussies my maids betrayed me to
the suitors, who broke in upon me and caught me; they were very angry
with me, so I was forced to finish my work whether I would or no. And
now I do not see how I can find any further shift for getting out of
this marriage. My parents are putting great pressure upon me, and my
son chafes at the ravages the suitors are making upon his estate, for
he is now old enough to understand all about it and is perfectly able
to look after his own affairs, for heaven has blessed him with an
excellent disposition. Still, notwithstanding all this, tell me who you
are and where you come from—for you must have had father and mother of
some sort; you cannot be the son of an oak or of a rock.”

Then Ulysses answered, “Madam, wife of Ulysses, since you persist in
asking me about my family, I will answer, no matter what it costs me:
people must expect to be pained when they have been exiles as long as I
have, and suffered as much among as many peoples. Nevertheless, as
regards your question I will tell you all you ask. There is a fair and
fruitful island in mid-ocean called Crete; it is thickly peopled and
there are ninety cities in it: the people speak many different
languages which overlap one another, for there are Achaeans, brave
Eteocretans, Dorians of three-fold race, and noble Pelasgi. There is a
great town there, Cnossus, where Minos reigned who every nine years had
a conference with Jove himself.152 Minos was father to Deucalion, whose
son I am, for Deucalion had two sons Idomeneus and myself. Idomeneus
sailed for Troy, and I, who am the younger, am called Aethon; my
brother, however, was at once the older and the more valiant of the
two; hence it was in Crete that I saw Ulysses and showed him
hospitality, for the winds took him there as he was on his way to Troy,
carrying him out of his course from cape Malea and leaving him in
Amnisus off the cave of Ilithuia, where the harbours are difficult to
enter and he could hardly find shelter from the winds that were then
raging. As soon as he got there he went into the town and asked for
Idomeneus, claiming to be his old and valued friend, but Idomeneus had
already set sail for Troy some ten or twelve days earlier, so I took
him to my own house and showed him every kind of hospitality, for I had
abundance of everything. Moreover, I fed the men who were with him with
barley meal from the public store, and got subscriptions of wine and
oxen for them to sacrifice to their heart’s content. They stayed with
me twelve days, for there was a gale blowing from the North so strong
that one could hardly keep one’s feet on land. I suppose some
unfriendly god had raised it for them, but on the thirteenth day the
wind dropped, and they got away.”

Many a plausible tale did Ulysses further tell her, and Penelope wept
as she listened, for her heart was melted. As the snow wastes upon the
mountain tops when the winds from South East and West have breathed
upon it and thawed it till the rivers run bank full with water, even so
did her cheeks overflow with tears for the husband who was all the time
sitting by her side. Ulysses felt for her and was sorry for her, but he
kept his eyes as hard as horn or iron without letting them so much as
quiver, so cunningly did he restrain his tears. Then, when she had
relieved herself by weeping, she turned to him again and said: “Now,
stranger, I shall put you to the test and see whether or no you really
did entertain my husband and his men, as you say you did. Tell me,
then, how he was dressed, what kind of a man he was to look at, and so
also with his companions.”

“Madam,” answered Ulysses, “it is such a long time ago that I can
hardly say. Twenty years are come and gone since he left my home, and
went elsewhither; but I will tell you as well as I can recollect.
Ulysses wore a mantle of purple wool, double lined, and it was fastened
by a gold brooch with two catches for the pin. On the face of this
there was a device that shewed a dog holding a spotted fawn between his
fore paws, and watching it as it lay panting upon the ground. Every one
marvelled at the way in which these things had been done in gold, the
dog looking at the fawn, and strangling it, while the fawn was
struggling convulsively to escape.153 As for the shirt that he wore
next his skin, it was so soft that it fitted him like the skin of an
onion, and glistened in the sunlight to the admiration of all the women
who beheld it. Furthermore I say, and lay my saying to your heart, that
I do not know whether Ulysses wore these clothes when he left home, or
whether one of his companions had given them to him while he was on his
voyage; or possibly some one at whose house he was staying made him a
present of them, for he was a man of many friends and had few equals
among the Achaeans. I myself gave him a sword of bronze and a beautiful
purple mantle, double lined, with a shirt that went down to his feet,
and I sent him on board his ship with every mark of honour. He had a
servant with him, a little older than himself, and I can tell you what
he was like; his shoulders were hunched,154 he was dark, and he had
thick curly hair. His name was Eurybates, and Ulysses treated him with
greater familiarity than he did any of the others, as being the most
like-minded with himself.”

Penelope was moved still more deeply as she heard the indisputable
proofs that Ulysses laid before her; and when she had again found
relief in tears she said to him, “Stranger, I was already disposed to
pity you, but henceforth you shall be honoured and made welcome in my
house. It was I who gave Ulysses the clothes you speak of. I took them
out of the store room and folded them up myself, and I gave him also
the gold brooch to wear as an ornament. Alas! I shall never welcome him
home again. It was by an ill fate that he ever set out for that
detested city whose very name I cannot bring myself even to mention.”

Then Ulysses answered, “Madam, wife of Ulysses, do not disfigure
yourself further by grieving thus bitterly for your loss, though I can
hardly blame you for doing so. A woman who has loved her husband and
borne him children, would naturally be grieved at losing him, even
though he were a worse man than Ulysses, who they say was like a god.
Still, cease your tears and listen to what I can tell you. I will hide
nothing from you, and can say with perfect truth that I have lately
heard of Ulysses as being alive and on his way home; he is among the
Thesprotians, and is bringing back much valuable treasure that he has
begged from one and another of them; but his ship and all his crew were
lost as they were leaving the Thrinacian island, for Jove and the
sun-god were angry with him because his men had slaughtered the
sun-god’s cattle, and they were all drowned to a man. But Ulysses stuck
to the keel of the ship and was drifted on to the land of the
Phaeacians, who are near of kin to the immortals, and who treated him
as though he had been a god, giving him many presents, and wishing to
escort him home safe and sound. In fact Ulysses would have been here
long ago, had he not thought better to go from land to land gathering
wealth; for there is no man living who is so wily as he is; there is no
one can compare with him. Pheidon king of the Thesprotians told me all
this, and he swore to me—making drink-offerings in his house as he did
so—that the ship was by the water side and the crew found who would
take Ulysses to his own country. He sent me off first, for there
happened to be a Thesprotian ship sailing for the wheat-growing island
of Dulichium, but he showed me all the treasure Ulysses had got
together, and he had enough lying in the house of king Pheidon to keep
his family for ten generations; but the king said Ulysses had gone to
Dodona that he might learn Jove’s mind from the high oak tree, and know
whether after so long an absence he should return to Ithaca openly or
in secret. So you may know he is safe and will be here shortly; he is
close at hand and cannot remain away from home much longer;
nevertheless I will confirm my words with an oath, and call Jove who is
the first and mightiest of all gods to witness, as also that hearth of
Ulysses to which I have now come, that all I have spoken shall surely
come to pass. Ulysses will return in this self same year; with the end
of this moon and the beginning of the next he will be here.”

“May it be even so,” answered Penelope; “if your words come true you
shall have such gifts and such good will from me that all who see you
shall congratulate you; but I know very well how it will be. Ulysses
will not return, neither will you get your escort hence, for so surely
as that Ulysses ever was, there are now no longer any such masters in
the house as he was, to receive honourable strangers or to further them
on their way home. And now, you maids, wash his feet for him, and make
him a bed on a couch with rugs and blankets, that he may be warm and
quiet till morning. Then, at day break wash him and anoint him again,
that he may sit in the cloister and take his meals with Telemachus. It
shall be the worse for any one of these hateful people who is uncivil
to him; like it or not, he shall have no more to do in this house. For
how, sir, shall you be able to learn whether or no I am superior to
others of my sex both in goodness of heart and understanding, if I let
you dine in my cloisters squalid and ill clad? Men live but for a
little season; if they are hard, and deal hardly, people wish them ill
so long as they are alive, and speak contemptuously of them when they
are dead, but he that is righteous and deals righteously, the people
tell of his praise among all lands, and many shall call him blessed.”

Ulysses answered, “Madam, I have foresworn rugs and blankets from the
day that I left the snowy ranges of Crete to go on shipboard. I will
lie as I have lain on many a sleepless night hitherto. Night after
night have I passed in any rough sleeping place, and waited for
morning. Nor, again, do I like having my feet washed; I shall not let
any of the young hussies about your house touch my feet; but, if you
have any old and respectable woman who has gone through as much trouble
as I have, I will allow her to wash them.”

To this Penelope said, “My dear sir, of all the guests who ever yet
came to my house there never was one who spoke in all things with such
admirable propriety as you do. There happens to be in the house a most
respectable old woman—the same who received my poor dear husband in her
arms the night he was born, and nursed him in infancy. She is very
feeble now, but she shall wash your feet.” “Come here,” said she,
“Euryclea, and wash your master’s age-mate; I suppose Ulysses’ hands
and feet are very much the same now as his are, for trouble ages all of
us dreadfully fast.”

On these words the old woman covered her face with her hands; she began
to weep and made lamentation saying, “My dear child, I cannot think
whatever I am to do with you. I am certain no one was ever more
god-fearing than yourself, and yet Jove hates you. No one in the whole
world ever burned him more thigh bones, nor gave him finer hecatombs
when you prayed you might come to a green old age yourself and see your
son grow up to take after you: yet see how he has prevented you alone
from ever getting back to your own home. I have no doubt the women in
some foreign palace which Ulysses has got to are gibing at him as all
these sluts here have been gibing at you. I do not wonder at your not
choosing to let them wash you after the manner in which they have
insulted you; I will wash your feet myself gladly enough, as Penelope
has said that I am to do so; I will wash them both for Penelope’s sake
and for your own, for you have raised the most lively feelings of
compassion in my mind; and let me say this moreover, which pray attend
to; we have had all kinds of strangers in distress come here before
now, but I make bold to say that no one ever yet came who was so like
Ulysses in figure, voice, and feet as you are.”

“Those who have seen us both,” answered Ulysses, “have always said we
were wonderfully like each other, and now you have noticed it too.”

Then the old woman took the cauldron in which she was going to wash his
feet, and poured plenty of cold water into it, adding hot till the bath
was warm enough. Ulysses sat by the fire, but ere long he turned away
from the light, for it occurred to him that when the old woman had hold
of his leg she would recognise a certain scar which it bore, whereon
the whole truth would come out. And indeed as soon as she began washing
her master, she at once knew the scar as one that had been given him by
a wild boar when he was hunting on Mt. Parnassus with his excellent
grandfather Autolycus—who was the most accomplished thief and perjurer
in the whole world—and with the sons of Autolycus. Mercury himself had
endowed him with this gift, for he used to burn the thigh bones of
goats and kids to him, so he took pleasure in his companionship. It
happened once that Autolycus had gone to Ithaca and had found the child
of his daughter just born. As soon as he had done supper Euryclea set
the infant upon his knees and said, “Autolycus, you must find a name
for your grandson; you greatly wished that you might have one.”

“Son-in-law and daughter,” replied Autolycus, “call the child thus: I
am highly displeased with a large number of people in one place and
another, both men and women; so name the child ‘Ulysses,’ or the child
of anger. When he grows up and comes to visit his mother’s family on
Mt. Parnassus, where my possessions lie, I will make him a present and
will send him on his way rejoicing.”

Ulysses, therefore, went to Parnassus to get the presents from
Autolycus, who with his sons shook hands with him and gave him welcome.
His grandmother Amphithea threw her arms about him, and kissed his
head, and both his beautiful eyes, while Autolycus desired his sons to
get dinner ready, and they did as he told them. They brought in a five
year old bull, flayed it, made it ready and divided it into joints;
these they then cut carefully up into smaller pieces and spitted them;
they roasted them sufficiently and served the portions round. Thus
through the livelong day to the going down of the sun they feasted, and
every man had his full share so that all were satisfied; but when the
sun set and it came on dark, they went to bed and enjoyed the boon of
sleep.

When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, the sons of
Autolycus went out with their hounds hunting, and Ulysses went too.
They climbed the wooded slopes of Parnassus and soon reached its breezy
upland valleys; but as the sun was beginning to beat upon the fields,
fresh-risen from the slow still currents of Oceanus, they came to a
mountain dell. The dogs were in front searching for the tracks of the
beast they were chasing, and after them came the sons of Autolycus,
among whom was Ulysses, close behind the dogs, and he had a long spear
in his hand. Here was the lair of a huge boar among some thick
brushwood, so dense that the wind and rain could not get through it,
nor could the sun’s rays pierce it, and the ground underneath lay thick
with fallen leaves. The boar heard the noise of the men’s feet, and the
hounds baying on every side as the huntsmen came up to him, so he
rushed from his lair, raised the bristles on his neck, and stood at bay
with fire flashing from his eyes. Ulysses was the first to raise his
spear and try to drive it into the brute, but the boar was too quick
for him, and charged him sideways, ripping him above the knee with a
gash that tore deep though it did not reach the bone. As for the boar,
Ulysses hit him on the right shoulder, and the point of the spear went
right through him, so that he fell groaning in the dust until the life
went out of him. The sons of Autolycus busied themselves with the
carcass of the boar, and bound Ulysses’ wound; then, after saying a
spell to stop the bleeding, they went home as fast as they could. But
when Autolycus and his sons had thoroughly healed Ulysses, they made
him some splendid presents, and sent him back to Ithaca with much
mutual good will. When he got back, his father and mother were rejoiced
to see him, and asked him all about it, and how he had hurt himself to
get the scar; so he told them how the boar had ripped him when he was
out hunting with Autolycus and his sons on Mt. Parnassus.

As soon as Euryclea had got the scarred limb in her hands and had well
hold of it, she recognised it and dropped the foot at once. The leg
fell into the bath, which rang out and was overturned, so that all the
water was spilt on the ground; Euryclea’s eyes between her joy and her
grief filled with tears, and she could not speak, but she caught
Ulysses by the beard and said, “My dear child, I am sure you must be
Ulysses himself, only I did not know you till I had actually touched
and handled you.”

As she spoke she looked towards Penelope, as though wanting to tell her
that her dear husband was in the house, but Penelope was unable to look
in that direction and observe what was going on, for Minerva had
diverted her attention; so Ulysses caught Euryclea by the throat with
his right hand and with his left drew her close to him, and said,
“Nurse, do you wish to be the ruin of me, you who nursed me at your own
breast, now that after twenty years of wandering I am at last come to
my own home again? Since it has been borne in upon you by heaven to
recognise me, hold your tongue, and do not say a word about it to any
one else in the house, for if you do I tell you—and it shall surely
be—that if heaven grants me to take the lives of these suitors, I will
not spare you, though you are my own nurse, when I am killing the other
women.”

“My child,” answered Euryclea, “what are you talking about? You know
very well that nothing can either bend or break me. I will hold my
tongue like a stone or a piece of iron; furthermore let me say, and lay
my saying to your heart, when heaven has delivered the suitors into
your hand, I will give you a list of the women in the house who have
been ill-behaved, and of those who are guiltless.”

And Ulysses answered, “Nurse, you ought not to speak in that way; I am
well able to form my own opinion about one and all of them; hold your
tongue and leave everything to heaven.”

As he said this Euryclea left the cloister to fetch some more water,
for the first had been all spilt; and when she had washed him and
anointed him with oil, Ulysses drew his seat nearer to the fire to warm
himself, and hid the scar under his rags. Then Penelope began talking
to him and said:

“Stranger, I should like to speak with you briefly about another
matter. It is indeed nearly bed time—for those, at least, who can sleep
in spite of sorrow. As for myself, heaven has given me a life of such
unmeasurable woe, that even by day when I am attending to my duties and
looking after the servants, I am still weeping and lamenting during the
whole time; then, when night comes, and we all of us go to bed, I lie
awake thinking, and my heart becomes a prey to the most incessant and
cruel tortures. As the dun nightingale, daughter of Pandareus, sings in
the early spring from her seat in shadiest covert hid, and with many a
plaintive trill pours out the tale how by mishap she killed her own
child Itylus, son of king Zethus, even so does my mind toss and turn in
its uncertainty whether I ought to stay with my son here, and safeguard
my substance, my bondsmen, and the greatness of my house, out of regard
to public opinion and the memory of my late husband, or whether it is
not now time for me to go with the best of these suitors who are wooing
me and making me such magnificent presents. As long as my son was still
young, and unable to understand, he would not hear of my leaving my
husband’s house, but now that he is full grown he begs and prays me to
do so, being incensed at the way in which the suitors are eating up his
property. Listen, then, to a dream that I have had and interpret it for
me if you can. I have twenty geese about the house that eat mash out of
a trough,155 and of which I am exceedingly fond. I dreamed that a great
eagle came swooping down from a mountain, and dug his curved beak into
the neck of each of them till he had killed them all. Presently he
soared off into the sky, and left them lying dead about the yard;
whereon I wept in my dream till all my maids gathered round me, so
piteously was I grieving because the eagle had killed my geese. Then he
came back again, and perching on a projecting rafter spoke to me with
human voice, and told me to leave off crying. ‘Be of good courage,’ he
said, ‘daughter of Icarius; this is no dream, but a vision of good omen
that shall surely come to pass. The geese are the suitors, and I am no
longer an eagle, but your own husband, who am come back to you, and who
will bring these suitors to a disgraceful end.’ On this I woke, and
when I looked out I saw my geese at the trough eating their mash as
usual.”

“This dream, Madam,” replied Ulysses, “can admit but of one
interpretation, for had not Ulysses himself told you how it shall be
fulfilled? The death of the suitors is portended, and not one single
one of them will escape.”

And Penelope answered, “Stranger, dreams are very curious and
unaccountable things, and they do not by any means invariably come
true. There are two gates through which these unsubstantial fancies
proceed; the one is of horn, and the other ivory. Those that come
through the gate of ivory are fatuous, but those from the gate of horn
mean something to those that see them. I do not think, however, that my
own dream came through the gate of horn, though I and my son should be
most thankful if it proves to have done so. Furthermore I say—and lay
my saying to your heart—the coming dawn will usher in the ill-omened
day that is to sever me from the house of Ulysses, for I am about to
hold a tournament of axes. My husband used to set up twelve axes in the
court, one in front of the other, like the stays upon which a ship is
built; he would then go back from them and shoot an arrow through the
whole twelve. I shall make the suitors try to do the same thing, and
whichever of them can string the bow most easily, and send his arrow
through all the twelve axes, him will I follow, and quit this house of
my lawful husband, so goodly and so abounding in wealth. But even so, I
doubt not that I shall remember it in my dreams.”

Then Ulysses answered, “Madam, wife of Ulysses, you need not defer your
tournament, for Ulysses will return ere ever they can string the bow,
handle it how they will, and send their arrows through the iron.”

To this Penelope said, “As long, sir, as you will sit here and talk to
me, I can have no desire to go to bed. Still, people cannot do
permanently without sleep, and heaven has appointed us dwellers on
earth a time for all things. I will therefore go upstairs and recline
upon that couch which I have never ceased to flood with my tears from
the day Ulysses set out for the city with a hateful name.”

She then went upstairs to her own room, not alone, but attended by her
maidens, and when there, she lamented her dear husband till Minerva
shed sweet sleep over her eyelids.




BOOK XX


ULYSSES CANNOT SLEEP—PENELOPE’S PRAYER TO DIANA—THE TWO SIGNS FROM
HEAVEN—EUMAEUS AND PHILOETIUS ARRIVE—THE SUITORS DINE—CTESIPPUS THROWS
AN OX’S FOOT AT ULYSSES—THEOCLYMENUS FORETELLS DISASTER AND LEAVES THE
HOUSE.


Ulysses slept in the cloister upon an undressed bullock’s hide, on the
top of which he threw several skins of the sheep the suitors had eaten,
and Eurynome156 threw a cloak over him after he had laid himself down.
There, then, Ulysses lay wakefully brooding upon the way in which he
should kill the suitors; and by and by, the women who had been in the
habit of misconducting themselves with them, left the house giggling
and laughing with one another. This made Ulysses very angry, and he
doubted whether to get up and kill every single one of them then and
there, or to let them sleep one more and last time with the suitors.
His heart growled within him, and as a bitch with puppies growls and
shows her teeth when she sees a stranger, so did his heart growl with
anger at the evil deeds that were being done: but he beat his breast
and said, “Heart, be still, you had worse than this to bear on the day
when the terrible Cyclops ate your brave companions; yet you bore it in
silence till your cunning got you safe out of the cave, though you made
sure of being killed.”

Thus he chided with his heart, and checked it into endurance, but he
tossed about as one who turns a paunch full of blood and fat in front
of a hot fire, doing it first on one side and then on the other, that
he may get it cooked as soon as possible, even so did he turn himself
about from side to side, thinking all the time how, single handed as he
was, he should contrive to kill so large a body of men as the wicked
suitors. But by and by Minerva came down from heaven in the likeness of
a woman, and hovered over his head saying, “My poor unhappy man, why do
you lie awake in this way? This is your house: your wife is safe inside
it, and so is your son who is just such a young man as any father may
be proud of.”

“Goddess,” answered Ulysses, “all that you have said is true, but I am
in some doubt as to how I shall be able to kill these wicked suitors
single handed, seeing what a number of them there always are. And there
is this further difficulty, which is still more considerable. Supposing
that with Jove’s and your assistance I succeed in killing them, I must
ask you to consider where I am to escape to from their avengers when it
is all over.”

“For shame,” replied Minerva, “why, any one else would trust a worse
ally than myself, even though that ally were only a mortal and less
wise than I am. Am I not a goddess, and have I not protected you
throughout in all your troubles? I tell you plainly that even though
there were fifty bands of men surrounding us and eager to kill us, you
should take all their sheep and cattle, and drive them away with you.
But go to sleep; it is a very bad thing to lie awake all night, and you
shall be out of your troubles before long.”

As she spoke she shed sleep over his eyes, and then went back to
Olympus.

While Ulysses was thus yielding himself to a very deep slumber that
eased the burden of his sorrows, his admirable wife awoke, and sitting
up in her bed began to cry. When she had relieved herself by weeping
she prayed to Diana saying, “Great Goddess Diana, daughter of Jove,
drive an arrow into my heart and slay me; or let some whirlwind snatch
me up and bear me through paths of darkness till it drop me into the
mouths of over-flowing Oceanus, as it did the daughters of Pandareus.
The daughters of Pandareus lost their father and mother, for the gods
killed them, so they were left orphans. But Venus took care of them,
and fed them on cheese, honey, and sweet wine. Juno taught them to
excel all women in beauty of form and understanding; Diana gave them an
imposing presence, and Minerva endowed them with every kind of
accomplishment; but one day when Venus had gone up to Olympus to see
Jove about getting them married (for well does he know both what shall
happen and what not happen to every one) the storm winds came and
spirited them away to become handmaids to the dread Erinyes. Even so I
wish that the gods who live in heaven would hide me from mortal sight,
or that fair Diana might strike me, for I would fain go even beneath
the sad earth if I might do so still looking towards Ulysses only, and
without having to yield myself to a worse man than he was. Besides, no
matter how much people may grieve by day, they can put up with it so
long as they can sleep at night, for when the eyes are closed in
slumber people forget good and ill alike; whereas my misery haunts me
even in my dreams. This very night methought there was one lying by my
side who was like Ulysses as he was when he went away with his host,
and I rejoiced, for I believed that it was no dream, but the very truth
itself.”

On this the day broke, but Ulysses heard the sound of her weeping, and
it puzzled him, for it seemed as though she already knew him and was by
his side. Then he gathered up the cloak and the fleeces on which he had
lain, and set them on a seat in the cloister, but he took the bullock’s
hide out into the open. He lifted up his hands to heaven, and prayed,
saying “Father Jove, since you have seen fit to bring me over land and
sea to my own home after all the afflictions you have laid upon me,
give me a sign out of the mouth of some one or other of those who are
now waking within the house, and let me have another sign of some kind
from outside.”

Thus did he pray. Jove heard his prayer and forthwith thundered high up
among the clouds from the splendour of Olympus, and Ulysses was glad
when he heard it. At the same time within the house, a miller-woman
from hard by in the mill room lifted up her voice and gave him another
sign. There were twelve miller-women whose business it was to grind
wheat and barley which are the staff of life. The others had ground
their task and had gone to take their rest, but this one had not yet
finished, for she was not so strong as they were, and when she heard
the thunder she stopped grinding and gave the sign to her master.
“Father Jove,” said she, “you, who rule over heaven and earth, you have
thundered from a clear sky without so much as a cloud in it, and this
means something for somebody; grant the prayer, then, of me your poor
servant who calls upon you, and let this be the very last day that the
suitors dine in the house of Ulysses. They have worn me out with labour
of grinding meal for them, and I hope they may never have another
dinner anywhere at all.”

Ulysses was glad when he heard the omens conveyed to him by the woman’s
speech, and by the thunder, for he knew they meant that he should
avenge himself on the suitors.

Then the other maids in the house rose and lit the fire on the hearth;
Telemachus also rose and put on his clothes. He girded his sword about
his shoulder, bound his sandals on to his comely feet, and took a
doughty spear with a point of sharpened bronze; then he went to the
threshold of the cloister and said to Euryclea, “Nurse, did you make
the stranger comfortable both as regards bed and board, or did you let
him shift for himself?—for my mother, good woman though she is, has a
way of paying great attention to second-rate people, and of neglecting
others who are in reality much better men.”

“Do not find fault child,” said Euryclea, “when there is no one to find
fault with. The stranger sat and drank his wine as long as he liked:
your mother did ask him if he would take any more bread and he said he
would not. When he wanted to go to bed she told the servants to make
one for him, but he said he was such a wretched outcast that he would
not sleep on a bed and under blankets; he insisted on having an
undressed bullock’s hide and some sheepskins put for him in the
cloister and I threw a cloak over him myself.”157

Then Telemachus went out of the court to the place where the Achaeans
were meeting in assembly; he had his spear in his hand, and he was not
alone, for his two dogs went with him. But Euryclea called the maids
and said, “Come, wake up; set about sweeping the cloisters and
sprinkling them with water to lay the dust; put the covers on the
seats; wipe down the tables, some of you, with a wet sponge; clean out
the mixing-jugs and the cups, and go for water from the fountain at
once; the suitors will be here directly; they will be here early, for
it is a feast day.”

Thus did she speak, and they did even as she had said: twenty of them
went to the fountain for water, and the others set themselves busily to
work about the house. The men who were in attendance on the suitors
also came up and began chopping firewood. By and by the women returned
from the fountain, and the swineherd came after them with the three
best pigs he could pick out. These he let feed about the premises, and
then he said good-humouredly to Ulysses, “Stranger, are the suitors
treating you any better now, or are they as insolent as ever?”

“May heaven,” answered Ulysses, “requite to them the wickedness with
which they deal high-handedly in another man’s house without any sense
of shame.”

Thus did they converse; meanwhile Melanthius the goatherd came up, for
he too was bringing in his best goats for the suitors’ dinner; and he
had two shepherds with him. They tied the goats up under the gatehouse,
and then Melanthius began gibing at Ulysses. “Are you still here,
stranger,” said he, “to pester people by begging about the house? Why
can you not go elsewhere? You and I shall not come to an understanding
before we have given each other a taste of our fists. You beg without
any sense of decency: are there not feasts elsewhere among the
Achaeans, as well as here?”

Ulysses made no answer, but bowed his head and brooded. Then a third
man, Philoetius, joined them, who was bringing in a barren heifer and
some goats. These were brought over by the boatmen who are there to
take people over when any one comes to them. So Philoetius made his
heifer and his goats secure under the gatehouse, and then went up to
the swineherd. “Who, Swineherd,” said he, “is this stranger that is
lately come here? Is he one of your men? What is his family? Where does
he come from? Poor fellow, he looks as if he had been some great man,
but the gods give sorrow to whom they will—even to kings if it so
pleases them.”

As he spoke he went up to Ulysses and saluted him with his right hand;
“Good day to you, father stranger,” said he, “you seem to be very
poorly off now, but I hope you will have better times by and by. Father
Jove, of all gods you are the most malicious. We are your own children,
yet you show us no mercy in all our misery and afflictions. A sweat
came over me when I saw this man, and my eyes filled with tears, for he
reminds me of Ulysses, who I fear is going about in just such rags as
this man’s are, if indeed he is still among the living. If he is
already dead and in the house of Hades, then, alas! for my good master,
who made me his stockman when I was quite young among the
Cephallenians, and now his cattle are countless; no one could have done
better with them than I have, for they have bred like ears of corn;
nevertheless I have to keep bringing them in for others to eat, who
take no heed to his son though he is in the house, and fear not the
wrath of heaven, but are already eager to divide Ulysses’ property
among them because he has been away so long. I have often thought—only
it would not be right while his son is living—of going off with the
cattle to some foreign country; bad as this would be, it is still
harder to stay here and be ill-treated about other people’s herds. My
position is intolerable, and I should long since have run away and put
myself under the protection of some other chief, only that I believe my
poor master will yet return, and send all these suitors flying out of
the house.”

“Stockman,” answered Ulysses, “you seem to be a very well-disposed
person, and I can see that you are a man of sense. Therefore I will
tell you, and will confirm my words with an oath. By Jove, the chief of
all gods, and by that hearth of Ulysses to which I am now come, Ulysses
shall return before you leave this place, and if you are so minded you
shall see him killing the suitors who are now masters here.”

“If Jove were to bring this to pass,” replied the stockman, “you should
see how I would do my very utmost to help him.”

And in like manner Eumaeus prayed that Ulysses might return home.

Thus did they converse. Meanwhile the suitors were hatching a plot to
murder Telemachus: but a bird flew near them on their left hand—an
eagle with a dove in its talons. On this Amphinomus said, “My friends,
this plot of ours to murder Telemachus will not succeed; let us go to
dinner instead.”

The others assented, so they went inside and laid their cloaks on the
benches and seats. They sacrificed the sheep, goats, pigs, and the
heifer, and when the inward meats were cooked they served them round.
They mixed the wine in the mixing-bowls, and the swineherd gave every
man his cup, while Philoetius handed round the bread in the bread
baskets, and Melanthius poured them out their wine. Then they laid
their hands upon the good things that were before them.

Telemachus purposely made Ulysses sit in the part of the cloister that
was paved with stone;158 he gave him a shabby looking seat at a little
table to himself, and had his portion of the inward meats brought to
him, with his wine in a gold cup. “Sit there,” said he, “and drink your
wine among the great people. I will put a stop to the gibes and blows
of the suitors, for this is no public house, but belongs to Ulysses,
and has passed from him to me. Therefore, suitors, keep your hands and
your tongues to yourselves, or there will be mischief.”

The suitors bit their lips, and marvelled at the boldness of his
speech; then Antinous said, “We do not like such language but we will
put up with it, for Telemachus is threatening us in good earnest. If
Jove had let us we should have put a stop to his brave talk ere now.”

Thus spoke Antinous, but Telemachus heeded him not. Meanwhile the
heralds were bringing the holy hecatomb through the city, and the
Achaeans gathered under the shady grove of Apollo.

Then they roasted the outer meat, drew it off the spits, gave every man
his portion, and feasted to their heart’s content; those who waited at
table gave Ulysses exactly the same portion as the others had, for
Telemachus had told them to do so.

But Minerva would not let the suitors for one moment drop their
insolence, for she wanted Ulysses to become still more bitter against
them. Now there happened to be among them a ribald fellow, whose name
was Ctesippus, and who came from Same. This man, confident in his great
wealth, was paying court to the wife of Ulysses, and said to the
suitors, “Hear what I have to say. The stranger has already had as
large a portion as any one else; this is well, for it is not right nor
reasonable to ill-treat any guest of Telemachus who comes here. I will,
however, make him a present on my own account, that he may have
something to give to the bath-woman, or to some other of Ulysses’
servants.”

As he spoke he picked up a heifer’s foot from the meat-basket in which
it lay, and threw it at Ulysses, but Ulysses turned his head a little
aside, and avoided it, smiling grimly Sardinian fashion159 as he did
so, and it hit the wall, not him. On this Telemachus spoke fiercely to
Ctesippus, “It is a good thing for you,” said he, “that the stranger
turned his head so that you missed him. If you had hit him I should
have run you through with my spear, and your father would have had to
see about getting you buried rather than married in this house. So let
me have no more unseemly behaviour from any of you, for I am grown up
now to the knowledge of good and evil and understand what is going on,
instead of being the child that I have been heretofore. I have long
seen you killing my sheep and making free with my corn and wine: I have
put up with this, for one man is no match for many, but do me no
further violence. Still, if you wish to kill me, kill me; I would far
rather die than see such disgraceful scenes day after day—guests
insulted, and men dragging the women servants about the house in an
unseemly way.”

They all held their peace till at last Agelaus son of Damastor said,
“No one should take offence at what has just been said, nor gainsay it,
for it is quite reasonable. Leave off, therefore, ill-treating the
stranger, or any one else of the servants who are about the house; I
would say, however, a friendly word to Telemachus and his mother, which
I trust may commend itself to both. ‘As long,’ I would say, ‘as you had
ground for hoping that Ulysses would one day come home, no one could
complain of your waiting and suffering160 the suitors to be in your
house. It would have been better that he should have returned, but it
is now sufficiently clear that he will never do so; therefore talk all
this quietly over with your mother, and tell her to marry the best man,
and the one who makes her the most advantageous offer. Thus you will
yourself be able to manage your own inheritance, and to eat and drink
in peace, while your mother will look after some other man’s house, not
yours.’”

To this Telemachus answered, “By Jove, Agelaus, and by the sorrows of
my unhappy father, who has either perished far from Ithaca, or is
wandering in some distant land, I throw no obstacles in the way of my
mother’s marriage; on the contrary I urge her to choose whomsoever she
will, and I will give her numberless gifts into the bargain, but I dare
not insist point blank that she shall leave the house against her own
wishes. Heaven forbid that I should do this.”

Minerva now made the suitors fall to laughing immoderately, and set
their wits wandering; but they were laughing with a forced laughter.
Their meat became smeared with blood; their eyes filled with tears, and
their hearts were heavy with forebodings. Theoclymenus saw this and
said, “Unhappy men, what is it that ails you? There is a shroud of
darkness drawn over you from head to foot, your cheeks are wet with
tears; the air is alive with wailing voices; the walls and roof-beams
drip blood; the gate of the cloisters and the court beyond them are
full of ghosts trooping down into the night of hell; the sun is blotted
out of heaven, and a blighting gloom is over all the land.”

Thus did he speak, and they all of them laughed heartily. Eurymachus
then said, “This stranger who has lately come here has lost his senses.
Servants, turn him out into the streets, since he finds it so dark
here.”

But Theoclymenus said, “Eurymachus, you need not send any one with me.
I have eyes, ears, and a pair of feet of my own, to say nothing of an
understanding mind. I will take these out of the house with me, for I
see mischief overhanging you, from which not one of you men who are
insulting people and plotting ill deeds in the house of Ulysses will be
able to escape.”

He left the house as he spoke, and went back to Piraeus who gave him
welcome, but the suitors kept looking at one another and provoking
Telemachus by laughing at the strangers. One insolent fellow said to
him, “Telemachus, you are not happy in your guests; first you have this
importunate tramp, who comes begging bread and wine and has no skill
for work or for hard fighting, but is perfectly useless, and now here
is another fellow who is setting himself up as a prophet. Let me
persuade you, for it will be much better to put them on board ship and
send them off to the Sicels to sell for what they will bring.”

Telemachus gave him no heed, but sat silently watching his father,
expecting every moment that he would begin his attack upon the suitors.

Meanwhile the daughter of Icarius, wise Penelope, had had a rich seat
placed for her facing the court and cloisters, so that she could hear
what every one was saying. The dinner indeed had been prepared amid
much merriment; it had been both good and abundant, for they had
sacrificed many victims; but the supper was yet to come, and nothing
can be conceived more gruesome than the meal which a goddess and a
brave man were soon to lay before them—for they had brought their doom
upon themselves.




BOOK XXI


THE TRIAL OF THE AXES, DURING WHICH ULYSSES REVEALS HIMSELF TO EUMAEUS
AND PHILOETIUS


Minerva now put it in Penelope’s mind to make the suitors try their
skill with the bow and with the iron axes, in contest among themselves,
as a means of bringing about their destruction. She went upstairs and
got the store-room key, which was made of bronze and had a handle of
ivory; she then went with her maidens into the store-room at the end of
the house, where her husband’s treasures of gold, bronze, and wrought
iron were kept, and where was also his bow, and the quiver full of
deadly arrows that had been given him by a friend whom he had met in
Lacedaemon—Iphitus the son of Eurytus. The two fell in with one another
in Messene at the house of Ortilochus, where Ulysses was staying in
order to recover a debt that was owing from the whole people; for the
Messenians had carried off three hundred sheep from Ithaca, and had
sailed away with them and with their shepherds. In quest of these
Ulysses took a long journey while still quite young, for his father and
the other chieftains sent him on a mission to recover them. Iphitus had
gone there also to try and get back twelve brood mares that he had
lost, and the mule foals that were running with them. These mares were
the death of him in the end, for when he went to the house of Jove’s
son, mighty Hercules, who performed such prodigies of valour, Hercules
to his shame killed him, though he was his guest, for he feared not
heaven’s vengeance, nor yet respected his own table which he had set
before Iphitus, but killed him in spite of everything, and kept the
mares himself. It was when claiming these that Iphitus met Ulysses, and
gave him the bow which mighty Eurytus had been used to carry, and which
on his death had been left by him to his son. Ulysses gave him in
return a sword and a spear, and this was the beginning of a fast
friendship, although they never visited at one another’s houses, for
Jove’s son Hercules killed Iphitus ere they could do so. This bow,
then, given him by Iphitus, had not been taken with him by Ulysses when
he sailed for Troy; he had used it so long as he had been at home, but
had left it behind as having been a keepsake from a valued friend.

Penelope presently reached the oak threshold of the store-room; the
carpenter had planed this duly, and had drawn a line on it so as to get
it quite straight; he had then set the door posts into it and hung the
doors. She loosed the strap from the handle of the door, put in the
key, and drove it straight home to shoot back the bolts that held the
doors;161 these flew open with a noise like a bull bellowing in a
meadow, and Penelope stepped upon the raised platform, where the chests
stood in which the fair linen and clothes were laid by along with
fragrant herbs: reaching thence, she took down the bow with its bow
case from the peg on which it hung. She sat down with it on her knees,
weeping bitterly as she took the bow out of its case, and when her
tears had relieved her, she went to the cloister where the suitors
were, carrying the bow and the quiver, with the many deadly arrows that
were inside it. Along with her came her maidens, bearing a chest that
contained much iron and bronze which her husband had won as prizes.
When she reached the suitors, she stood by one of the bearing-posts
supporting the roof of the cloister, holding a veil before her face,
and with a maid on either side of her. Then she said:

“Listen to me you suitors, who persist in abusing the hospitality of
this house because its owner has been long absent, and without other
pretext than that you want to marry me; this, then, being the prize
that you are contending for, I will bring out the mighty bow of
Ulysses, and whomsoever of you shall string it most easily and send his
arrow through each one of twelve axes, him will I follow and quit this
house of my lawful husband, so goodly, and so abounding in wealth. But
even so I doubt not that I shall remember it in my dreams.”

As she spoke, she told Eumaeus to set the bow and the pieces of iron
before the suitors, and Eumaeus wept as he took them to do as she had
bidden him. Hard by, the stockman wept also when he saw his master’s
bow, but Antinous scolded them. “You country louts,” said he, “silly
simpletons; why should you add to the sorrows of your mistress by
crying in this way? She has enough to grieve her in the loss of her
husband; sit still, therefore, and eat your dinners in silence, or go
outside if you want to cry, and leave the bow behind you. We suitors
shall have to contend for it with might and main, for we shall find it
no light matter to string such a bow as this is. There is not a man of
us all who is such another as Ulysses; for I have seen him and remember
him, though I was then only a child.”

This was what he said, but all the time he was expecting to be able to
string the bow and shoot through the iron, whereas in fact he was to be
the first that should taste of the arrows from the hands of Ulysses,
whom he was dishonouring in his own house—egging the others on to do so
also.

Then Telemachus spoke. “Great heavens!” he exclaimed, “Jove must have
robbed me of my senses. Here is my dear and excellent mother saying she
will quit this house and marry again, yet I am laughing and enjoying
myself as though there were nothing happening. But, suitors, as the
contest has been agreed upon, let it go forward. It is for a woman
whose peer is not to be found in Pylos, Argos, or Mycene, nor yet in
Ithaca nor on the mainland. You know this as well as I do; what need
have I to speak in praise of my mother? Come on, then, make no excuses
for delay, but let us see whether you can string the bow or no. I too
will make trial of it, for if I can string it and shoot through the
iron, I shall not suffer my mother to quit this house with a stranger,
not if I can win the prizes which my father won before me.”

As he spoke he sprang from his seat, threw his crimson cloak from him,
and took his sword from his shoulder. First he set the axes in a row,
in a long groove which he had dug for them, and had made straight by
line.162 Then he stamped the earth tight round them, and everyone was
surprised when they saw him set them up so orderly, though he had never
seen anything of the kind before. This done, he went on to the pavement
to make trial of the bow; thrice did he tug at it, trying with all his
might to draw the string, and thrice he had to leave off, though he had
hoped to string the bow and shoot through the iron. He was trying for
the fourth time, and would have strung it had not Ulysses made a sign
to check him in spite of all his eagerness. So he said:

“Alas! I shall either be always feeble and of no prowess, or I am too
young, and have not yet reached my full strength so as to be able to
hold my own if any one attacks me. You others, therefore, who are
stronger than I, make trial of the bow and get this contest settled.”

On this he put the bow down, letting it lean against the door [that led
into the house] with the arrow standing against the top of the bow.
Then he sat down on the seat from which he had risen, and Antinous
said:

“Come on each of you in his turn, going towards the right from the
place at which the cupbearer begins when he is handing round the wine.”

The rest agreed, and Leiodes son of Oenops was the first to rise. He
was sacrificial priest to the suitors, and sat in the corner near the
mixing-bowl. 163 He was the only man who hated their evil deeds and was
indignant with the others. He was now the first to take the bow and
arrow, so he went on to the pavement to make his trial, but he could
not string the bow, for his hands were weak and unused to hard work,
they therefore soon grew tired, and he said to the suitors, “My
friends, I cannot string it; let another have it, this bow shall take
the life and soul out of many a chief among us, for it is better to die
than to live after having missed the prize that we have so long striven
for, and which has brought us so long together. Some one of us is even
now hoping and praying that he may marry Penelope, but when he has seen
this bow and tried it, let him woo and make bridal offerings to some
other woman, and let Penelope marry whoever makes her the best offer
and whose lot it is to win her.”

On this he put the bow down, letting it lean against the door,164 with
the arrow standing against the tip of the bow. Then he took his seat
again on the seat from which he had risen; and Antinous rebuked him
saying:

“Leiodes, what are you talking about? Your words are monstrous and
intolerable; it makes me angry to listen to you. Shall, then, this bow
take the life of many a chief among us, merely because you cannot bend
it yourself? True, you were not born to be an archer, but there are
others who will soon string it.”

Then he said to Melanthius the goatherd, “Look sharp, light a fire in
the court, and set a seat hard by with a sheep skin on it; bring us
also a large ball of lard, from what they have in the house. Let us
warm the bow and grease it—we will then make trial of it again, and
bring the contest to an end.”

Melanthius lit the fire, and set a seat covered with sheep skins beside
it. He also brought a great ball of lard from what they had in the
house, and the suitors warmed the bow and again made trial of it, but
they were none of them nearly strong enough to string it. Nevertheless
there still remained Antinous and Eurymachus, who were the ringleaders
among the suitors and much the foremost among them all.

Then the swineherd and the stockman left the cloisters together, and
Ulysses followed them. When they had got outside the gates and the
outer yard, Ulysses said to them quietly:

“Stockman, and you swineherd, I have something in my mind which I am in
doubt whether to say or no; but I think I will say it. What manner of
men would you be to stand by Ulysses, if some god should bring him back
here all of a sudden? Say which you are disposed to do—to side with the
suitors, or with Ulysses?”

“Father Jove,” answered the stockman, “would indeed that you might so
ordain it. If some god were but to bring Ulysses back, you should see
with what might and main I would fight for him.”

In like words Eumaeus prayed to all the gods that Ulysses might return;
when, therefore, he saw for certain what mind they were of, Ulysses
said, “It is I, Ulysses, who am here. I have suffered much, but at
last, in the twentieth year, I am come back to my own country. I find
that you two alone of all my servants are glad that I should do so, for
I have not heard any of the others praying for my return. To you two,
therefore, will I unfold the truth as it shall be. If heaven shall
deliver the suitors into my hands, I will find wives for both of you,
will give you house and holding close to my own, and you shall be to me
as though you were brothers and friends of Telemachus. I will now give
you convincing proofs that you may know me and be assured. See, here is
the scar from the boar’s tooth that ripped me when I was out hunting on
Mt. Parnassus with the sons of Autolycus.”

As he spoke he drew his rags aside from the great scar, and when they
had examined it thoroughly, they both of them wept about Ulysses, threw
their arms round him, and kissed his head and shoulders, while Ulysses
kissed their hands and faces in return. The sun would have gone down
upon their mourning if Ulysses had not checked them and said:

“Cease your weeping, lest some one should come outside and see us, and
tell those who are within. When you go in, do so separately, not both
together; I will go first, and do you follow afterwards; let this
moreover be the token between us; the suitors will all of them try to
prevent me from getting hold of the bow and quiver; do you, therefore,
Eumaeus, place it in my hands when you are carrying it about, and tell
the women to close the doors of their apartment. If they hear any
groaning or uproar as of men fighting about the house, they must not
come out; they must keep quiet, and stay where they are at their work.
And I charge you, Philoetius, to make fast the doors of the outer
court, and to bind them securely at once.”

When he had thus spoken, he went back to the house and took the seat
that he had left. Presently, his two servants followed him inside.

At this moment the bow was in the hands of Eurymachus, who was warming
it by the fire, but even so he could not string it, and he was greatly
grieved. He heaved a deep sigh and said, “I grieve for myself and for
us all; I grieve that I shall have to forgo the marriage, but I do not
care nearly so much about this, for there are plenty of other women in
Ithaca and elsewhere; what I feel most is the fact of our being so
inferior to Ulysses in strength that we cannot string his bow. This
will disgrace us in the eyes of those who are yet unborn.”

“It shall not be so, Eurymachus,” said Antinous, “and you know it
yourself. Today is the feast of Apollo throughout all the land; who can
string a bow on such a day as this? Put it on one side—as for the axes
they can stay where they are, for no one is likely to come to the house
and take them away: let the cupbearer go round with his cups, that we
may make our drink-offerings and drop this matter of the bow; we will
tell Melanthius to bring us in some goats tomorrow—the best he has; we
can then offer thigh bones to Apollo the mighty archer, and again make
trial of the bow, so as to bring the contest to an end.”

The rest approved his words, and thereon men servants poured water over
the hands of the guests, while pages filled the mixing-bowls with wine
and water and handed it round after giving every man his
drink-offering. Then, when they had made their offerings and had drunk
each as much as he desired, Ulysses craftily said:—

“Suitors of the illustrious queen, listen that I may speak even as I am
minded. I appeal more especially to Eurymachus, and to Antinous who has
just spoken with so much reason. Cease shooting for the present and
leave the matter to the gods, but in the morning let heaven give
victory to whom it will. For the moment, however, give me the bow that
I may prove the power of my hands among you all, and see whether I
still have as much strength as I used to have, or whether travel and
neglect have made an end of it.”

This made them all very angry, for they feared he might string the bow,
Antinous therefore rebuked him fiercely saying, “Wretched creature, you
have not so much as a grain of sense in your whole body; you ought to
think yourself lucky in being allowed to dine unharmed among your
betters, without having any smaller portion served you than we others
have had, and in being allowed to hear our conversation. No other
beggar or stranger has been allowed to hear what we say among
ourselves; the wine must have been doing you a mischief, as it does
with all those who drink immoderately. It was wine that inflamed the
Centaur Eurytion when he was staying with Peirithous among the
Lapithae. When the wine had got into his head, he went mad and did ill
deeds about the house of Peirithous; this angered the heroes who were
there assembled, so they rushed at him and cut off his ears and
nostrils; then they dragged him through the doorway out of the house,
so he went away crazed, and bore the burden of his crime, bereft of
understanding. Henceforth, therefore, there was war between mankind and
the centaurs, but he brought it upon himself through his own
drunkenness. In like manner I can tell you that it will go hardly with
you if you string the bow: you will find no mercy from any one here,
for we shall at once ship you off to king Echetus, who kills every one
that comes near him: you will never get away alive, so drink and keep
quiet without getting into a quarrel with men younger than yourself.”

Penelope then spoke to him. “Antinous,” said she, “it is not right that
you should ill-treat any guest of Telemachus who comes to this house.
If the stranger should prove strong enough to string the mighty bow of
Ulysses, can you suppose that he would take me home with him and make
me his wife? Even the man himself can have no such idea in his mind:
none of you need let that disturb his feasting; it would be out of all
reason.”

“Queen Penelope,” answered Eurymachus, “we do not suppose that this man
will take you away with him; it is impossible; but we are afraid lest
some of the baser sort, men or women among the Achaeans, should go
gossiping about and say, ‘These suitors are a feeble folk; they are
paying court to the wife of a brave man whose bow not one of them was
able to string, and yet a beggarly tramp who came to the house strung
it at once and sent an arrow through the iron.’ This is what will be
said, and it will be a scandal against us.”

“Eurymachus,” Penelope answered, “people who persist in eating up the
estate of a great chieftain and dishonouring his house must not expect
others to think well of them. Why then should you mind if men talk as
you think they will? This stranger is strong and well-built, he says
moreover that he is of noble birth. Give him the bow, and let us see
whether he can string it or no. I say—and it shall surely be—that if
Apollo vouchsafes him the glory of stringing it, I will give him a
cloak and shirt of good wear, with a javelin to keep off dogs and
robbers, and a sharp sword. I will also give him sandals, and will see
him sent safely wherever he wants to go.”

Then Telemachus said, “Mother, I am the only man either in Ithaca or in
the islands that are over against Elis who has the right to let any one
have the bow or to refuse it. No one shall force me one way or the
other, not even though I choose to make the stranger a present of the
bow outright, and let him take it away with him. Go, then, within the
house and busy yourself with your daily duties, your loom, your
distaff, and the ordering of your servants. This bow is a man’s matter,
and mine above all others, for it is I who am master here.”

She went wondering back into the house, and laid her son’s saying in
her heart. Then going upstairs with her handmaids into her room, she
mourned her dear husband till Minerva sent sweet sleep over her
eyelids.

The swineherd now took up the bow and was for taking it to Ulysses, but
the suitors clamoured at him from all parts of the cloisters, and one
of them said, “You idiot, where are you taking the bow to? Are you out
of your wits? If Apollo and the other gods will grant our prayer, your
own boarhounds shall get you into some quiet little place, and worry
you to death.”

Eumaeus was frightened at the outcry they all raised, so he put the bow
down then and there, but Telemachus shouted out at him from the other
side of the cloisters, and threatened him saying, “Father Eumaeus,
bring the bow on in spite of them, or young as I am I will pelt you
with stones back to the country, for I am the better man of the two. I
wish I was as much stronger than all the other suitors in the house as
I am than you, I would soon send some of them off sick and sorry, for
they mean mischief.”

Thus did he speak, and they all of them laughed heartily, which put
them in a better humour with Telemachus; so Eumaeus brought the bow on
and placed it in the hands of Ulysses. When he had done this, he called
Euryclea apart and said to her, “Euryclea, Telemachus says you are to
close the doors of the women’s apartments. If they hear any groaning or
uproar as of men fighting about the house, they are not to come out,
but are to keep quiet and stay where they are at their work.”

Euryclea did as she was told and closed the doors of the women’s
apartments.

Meanwhile Philoetius slipped quietly out and made fast the gates of the
outer court. There was a ship’s cable of byblus fibre lying in the
gatehouse, so he made the gates fast with it and then came in again,
resuming the seat that he had left, and keeping an eye on Ulysses, who
had now got the bow in his hands, and was turning it every way about,
and proving it all over to see whether the worms had been eating into
its two horns during his absence. Then would one turn towards his
neighbour saying, “This is some tricky old bow-fancier; either he has
got one like it at home, or he wants to make one, in such workmanlike
style does the old vagabond handle it.”

Another said, “I hope he may be no more successful in other things than
he is likely to be in stringing this bow.”

But Ulysses, when he had taken it up and examined it all over, strung
it as easily as a skilled bard strings a new peg of his lyre and makes
the twisted gut fast at both ends. Then he took it in his right hand to
prove the string, and it sang sweetly under his touch like the
twittering of a swallow. The suitors were dismayed, and turned colour
as they heard it; at that moment, moreover, Jove thundered loudly as a
sign, and the heart of Ulysses rejoiced as he heard the omen that the
son of scheming Saturn had sent him.

He took an arrow that was lying upon the table165—for those which the
Achaeans were so shortly about to taste were all inside the quiver—he
laid it on the centre-piece of the bow, and drew the notch of the arrow
and the string toward him, still seated on his seat. When he had taken
aim he let fly, and his arrow pierced every one of the handle-holes of
the axes from the first onwards till it had gone right through them,
and into the outer courtyard. Then he said to Telemachus:

“Your guest has not disgraced you, Telemachus. I did not miss what I
aimed at, and I was not long in stringing my bow. I am still strong,
and not as the suitors twit me with being. Now, however, it is time for
the Achaeans to prepare supper while there is still daylight, and then
otherwise to disport themselves with song and dance which are the
crowning ornaments of a banquet.”

As he spoke he made a sign with his eyebrows, and Telemachus girded on
his sword, grasped his spear, and stood armed beside his father’s seat.




BOOK XXII


THE KILLING OF THE SUITORS—THE MAIDS WHO HAVE MISCONDUCTED THEMSELVES
ARE MADE TO CLEANSE THE CLOISTERS AND ARE THEN HANGED.


Then Ulysses tore off his rags, and sprang on to the broad pavement
with his bow and his quiver full of arrows. He shed the arrows on to
the ground at his feet and said, “The mighty contest is at an end. I
will now see whether Apollo will vouchsafe it to me to hit another mark
which no man has yet hit.”

On this he aimed a deadly arrow at Antinous, who was about to take up a
two-handled gold cup to drink his wine and already had it in his hands.
He had no thought of death—who amongst all the revellers would think
that one man, however brave, would stand alone among so many and kill
him? The arrow struck Antinous in the throat, and the point went clean
through his neck, so that he fell over and the cup dropped from his
hand, while a thick stream of blood gushed from his nostrils. He kicked
the table from him and upset the things on it, so that the bread and
roasted meats were all soiled as they fell over on to the ground.166
The suitors were in an uproar when they saw that a man had been hit;
they sprang in dismay one and all of them from their seats and looked
everywhere towards the walls, but there was neither shield nor spear,
and they rebuked Ulysses very angrily. “Stranger,” said they, “you
shall pay for shooting people in this way: you shall see no other
contest; you are a doomed man; he whom you have slain was the foremost
youth in Ithaca, and the vultures shall devour you for having killed
him.”

Thus they spoke, for they thought that he had killed Antinous by
mistake, and did not perceive that death was hanging over the head of
every one of them. But Ulysses glared at them and said:

“Dogs, did you think that I should not come back from Troy? You have
wasted my substance,167 have forced my women servants to lie with you,
and have wooed my wife while I was still living. You have feared
neither God nor man, and now you shall die.”

They turned pale with fear as he spoke, and every man looked round
about to see whither he might fly for safety, but Eurymachus alone
spoke.

“If you are Ulysses,” said he, “then what you have said is just. We
have done much wrong on your lands and in your house. But Antinous who
was the head and front of the offending lies low already. It was all
his doing. It was not that he wanted to marry Penelope; he did not so
much care about that; what he wanted was something quite different, and
Jove has not vouchsafed it to him; he wanted to kill your son and to be
chief man in Ithaca. Now, therefore, that he has met the death which
was his due, spare the lives of your people. We will make everything
good among ourselves, and pay you in full for all that we have eaten
and drunk. Each one of us shall pay you a fine worth twenty oxen, and
we will keep on giving you gold and bronze till your heart is softened.
Until we have done this no one can complain of your being enraged
against us.”

Ulysses again glared at him and said, “Though you should give me all
that you have in the world both now and all that you ever shall have, I
will not stay my hand till I have paid all of you in full. You must
fight, or fly for your lives; and fly, not a man of you shall.”

Their hearts sank as they heard him, but Eurymachus again spoke saying:

“My friends, this man will give us no quarter. He will stand where he
is and shoot us down till he has killed every man among us. Let us then
show fight; draw your swords, and hold up the tables to shield you from
his arrows. Let us have at him with a rush, to drive him from the
pavement and doorway: we can then get through into the town, and raise
such an alarm as shall soon stay his shooting.”

As he spoke he drew his keen blade of bronze, sharpened on both sides,
and with a loud cry sprang towards Ulysses, but Ulysses instantly shot
an arrow into his breast that caught him by the nipple and fixed itself
in his liver. He dropped his sword and fell doubled up over his table.
The cup and all the meats went over on to the ground as he smote the
earth with his forehead in the agonies of death, and he kicked the
stool with his feet until his eyes were closed in darkness.

Then Amphinomus drew his sword and made straight at Ulysses to try and
get him away from the door; but Telemachus was too quick for him, and
struck him from behind; the spear caught him between the shoulders and
went right through his chest, so that he fell heavily to the ground and
struck the earth with his forehead. Then Telemachus sprang away from
him, leaving his spear still in the body, for he feared that if he
stayed to draw it out, some one of the Achaeans might come up and hack
at him with his sword, or knock him down, so he set off at a run, and
immediately was at his father’s side. Then he said:

“Father, let me bring you a shield, two spears, and a brass helmet for
your temples. I will arm myself as well, and will bring other armour
for the swineherd and the stockman, for we had better be armed.”

“Run and fetch them,” answered Ulysses, “while my arrows hold out, or
when I am alone they may get me away from the door.”

Telemachus did as his father said, and went off to the store room where
the armour was kept. He chose four shields, eight spears, and four
brass helmets with horse-hair plumes. He brought them with all speed to
his father, and armed himself first, while the stockman and the
swineherd also put on their armour, and took their places near Ulysses.
Meanwhile Ulysses, as long as his arrows lasted, had been shooting the
suitors one by one, and they fell thick on one another: when his arrows
gave out, he set the bow to stand against the end wall of the house by
the door post, and hung a shield four hides thick about his shoulders;
on his comely head he set his helmet, well wrought with a crest of
horse-hair that nodded menacingly above it,168 and he grasped two
redoubtable bronze-shod spears.

Now there was a trap door169 on the wall, while at one end of the
pavement170 there was an exit leading to a narrow passage, and this
exit was closed by a well-made door. Ulysses told Philoetius to stand
by this door and guard it, for only one person could attack it at a
time. But Agelaus shouted out, “Cannot some one go up to the trap door
and tell the people what is going on? Help would come at once, and we
should soon make an end of this man and his shooting.”

“This may not be, Agelaus,” answered Melanthius, “the mouth of the
narrow passage is dangerously near the entrance to the outer court. One
brave man could prevent any number from getting in. But I know what I
will do, I will bring you arms from the store-room, for I am sure it is
there that Ulysses and his son have put them.”

On this the goatherd Melanthius went by back passages to the store-room
of Ulysses’ house. There he chose twelve shields, with as many helmets
and spears, and brought them back as fast as he could to give them to
the suitors. Ulysses’ heart began to fail him when he saw the
suitors171 putting on their armour and brandishing their spears. He saw
the greatness of the danger, and said to Telemachus, “Some one of the
women inside is helping the suitors against us, or it may be
Melanthius.”

Telemachus answered, “The fault, father, is mine, and mine only; I left
the store room door open, and they have kept a sharper look out than I
have. Go, Eumaeus, put the door to, and see whether it is one of the
women who is doing this, or whether, as I suspect, it is Melanthius the
son of Dolius.”

Thus did they converse. Meanwhile Melanthius was again going to the
store room to fetch more armour, but the swineherd saw him and said to
Ulysses who was beside him, “Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, it is that
scoundrel Melanthius, just as we suspected, who is going to the store
room. Say, shall I kill him, if I can get the better of him, or shall I
bring him here that you may take your own revenge for all the many
wrongs that he has done in your house?”

Ulysses answered, “Telemachus and I will hold these suitors in check,
no matter what they do; go back both of you and bind Melanthius’ hands
and feet behind him. Throw him into the store room and make the door
fast behind you; then fasten a noose about his body, and string him
close up to the rafters from a high bearing-post,172 that he may linger
on in an agony.”

Thus did he speak, and they did even as he had said; they went to the
store room, which they entered before Melanthius saw them, for he was
busy searching for arms in the innermost part of the room, so the two
took their stand on either side of the door and waited. By and by
Melanthius came out with a helmet in one hand, and an old dry-rotted
shield in the other, which had been borne by Laertes when he was young,
but which had been long since thrown aside, and the straps had become
unsewn; on this the two seized him, dragged him back by the hair, and
threw him struggling to the ground. They bent his hands and feet well
behind his back, and bound them tight with a painful bond as Ulysses
had told them; then they fastened a noose about his body and strung him
up from a high pillar till he was close up to the rafters, and over him
did you then vaunt, O swineherd Eumaeus saying, “Melanthius, you will
pass the night on a soft bed as you deserve. You will know very well
when morning comes from the streams of Oceanus, and it is time for you
to be driving in your goats for the suitors to feast on.”

There, then, they left him in very cruel bondage, and having put on
their armour they closed the door behind them and went back to take
their places by the side of Ulysses; whereon the four men stood in the
cloister, fierce and full of fury; nevertheless, those who were in the
body of the court were still both brave and many. Then Jove’s daughter
Minerva came up to them, having assumed the voice and form of Mentor.
Ulysses was glad when he saw her and said, “Mentor, lend me your help,
and forget not your old comrade, nor the many good turns he has done
you. Besides, you are my age-mate.”

But all the time he felt sure it was Minerva, and the suitors from the
other side raised an uproar when they saw her. Agelaus was the first to
reproach her. “Mentor,” he cried, “do not let Ulysses beguile you into
siding with him and fighting the suitors. This is what we will do: when
we have killed these people, father and son, we will kill you too. You
shall pay for it with your head, and when we have killed you, we will
take all you have, in doors or out, and bring it into hotch-pot with
Ulysses’ property; we will not let your sons live in your house, nor
your daughters, nor shall your widow continue to live in the city of
Ithaca.”

This made Minerva still more furious, so she scolded Ulysses very
angrily.173 “Ulysses,” said she, “your strength and prowess are no
longer what they were when you fought for nine long years among the
Trojans about the noble lady Helen. You killed many a man in those
days, and it was through your stratagem that Priam’s city was taken.
How comes it that you are so lamentably less valiant now that you are
on your own ground, face to face with the suitors in your own house?
Come on, my good fellow, stand by my side and see how Mentor, son of
Alcimus shall fight your foes and requite your kindnesses conferred
upon him.”

But she would not give him full victory as yet, for she wished still
further to prove his own prowess and that of his brave son, so she flew
up to one of the rafters in the roof of the cloister and sat upon it in
the form of a swallow.

Meanwhile Agelaus son of Damastor, Eurynomus, Amphimedon, Demoptolemus,
Pisander, and Polybus son of Polyctor bore the brunt of the fight upon
the suitors’ side; of all those who were still fighting for their lives
they were by far the most valiant, for the others had already fallen
under the arrows of Ulysses. Agelaus shouted to them and said, “My
friends, he will soon have to leave off, for Mentor has gone away after
having done nothing for him but brag. They are standing at the doors
unsupported. Do not aim at him all at once, but six of you throw your
spears first, and see if you cannot cover yourselves with glory by
killing him. When he has fallen we need not be uneasy about the
others.”

They threw their spears as he bade them, but Minerva made them all of
no effect. One hit the door post; another went against the door; the
pointed shaft of another struck the wall; and as soon as they had
avoided all the spears of the suitors Ulysses said to his own men, “My
friends, I should say we too had better let drive into the middle of
them, or they will crown all the harm they have done us by killing us
outright.”

They therefore aimed straight in front of them and threw their spears.
Ulysses killed Demoptolemus, Telemachus Euryades, Eumaeus Elatus, while
the stockman killed Pisander. These all bit the dust, and as the others
drew back into a corner Ulysses and his men rushed forward and regained
their spears by drawing them from the bodies of the dead.

The suitors now aimed a second time, but again Minerva made their
weapons for the most part without effect. One hit a bearing-post of the
cloister; another went against the door; while the pointed shaft of
another struck the wall. Still, Amphimedon just took a piece of the top
skin from off Telemachus’s wrist, and Ctesippus managed to graze
Eumaeus’s shoulder above his shield; but the spear went on and fell to
the ground. Then Ulysses and his men let drive into the crowd of
suitors. Ulysses hit Eurydamas, Telemachus Amphimedon, and Eumaeus
Polybus. After this the stockman hit Ctesippus in the breast, and
taunted him saying, “Foul-mouthed son of Polytherses, do not be so
foolish as to talk wickedly another time, but let heaven direct your
speech, for the gods are far stronger than men. I make you a present of
this advice to repay you for the foot which you gave Ulysses when he
was begging about in his own house.”

Thus spoke the stockman, and Ulysses struck the son of Damastor with a
spear in close fight, while Telemachus hit Leocritus son of Evenor in
the belly, and the dart went clean through him, so that he fell forward
full on his face upon the ground. Then Minerva from her seat on the
rafter held up her deadly aegis, and the hearts of the suitors quailed.
They fled to the other end of the court like a herd of cattle maddened
by the gadfly in early summer when the days are at their longest. As
eagle-beaked, crook-taloned vultures from the mountains swoop down on
the smaller birds that cower in flocks upon the ground, and kill them,
for they cannot either fight or fly, and lookers on enjoy the
sport—even so did Ulysses and his men fall upon the suitors and smite
them on every side. They made a horrible groaning as their brains were
being battered in, and the ground seethed with their blood.

Leiodes then caught the knees of Ulysses and said, “Ulysses I beseech
you have mercy upon me and spare me. I never wronged any of the women
in your house either in word or deed, and I tried to stop the others. I
saw them, but they would not listen, and now they are paying for their
folly. I was their sacrificing priest; if you kill me, I shall die
without having done anything to deserve it, and shall have got no
thanks for all the good that I did.”

Ulysses looked sternly at him and answered, “If you were their
sacrificing priest, you must have prayed many a time that it might be
long before I got home again, and that you might marry my wife and have
children by her. Therefore you shall die.”

With these words he picked up the sword that Agelaus had dropped when
he was being killed, and which was lying upon the ground. Then he
struck Leiodes on the back of his neck, so that his head fell rolling
in the dust while he was yet speaking.

The minstrel Phemius son of Terpes—he who had been forced by the
suitors to sing to them—now tried to save his life. He was standing
near towards the trap door,174 and held his lyre in his hand. He did
not know whether to fly out of the cloister and sit down by the altar
of Jove that was in the outer court, and on which both Laertes and
Ulysses had offered up the thigh bones of many an ox, or whether to go
straight up to Ulysses and embrace his knees, but in the end he deemed
it best to embrace Ulysses’ knees. So he laid his lyre on the ground
between the mixing bowl 175 and the silver-studded seat; then going up
to Ulysses he caught hold of his knees and said, “Ulysses, I beseech
you have mercy on me and spare me. You will be sorry for it afterwards
if you kill a bard who can sing both for gods and men as I can. I make
all my lays myself, and heaven visits me with every kind of
inspiration. I would sing to you as though you were a god, do not
therefore be in such a hurry to cut my head off. Your own son
Telemachus will tell you that I did not want to frequent your house and
sing to the suitors after their meals, but they were too many and too
strong for me, so they made me.”

Telemachus heard him, and at once went up to his father. “Hold!” he
cried, “the man is guiltless, do him no hurt; and we will spare Medon
too, who was always good to me when I was a boy, unless Philoetius or
Eumaeus has already killed him, or he has fallen in your way when you
were raging about the court.”

Medon caught these words of Telemachus, for he was crouching under a
seat beneath which he had hidden by covering himself up with a freshly
flayed heifer’s hide, so he threw off the hide, went up to Telemachus,
and laid hold of his knees.

“Here I am, my dear sir,” said he, “stay your hand therefore, and tell
your father, or he will kill me in his rage against the suitors for
having wasted his substance and been so foolishly disrespectful to
yourself.”

Ulysses smiled at him and answered, “Fear not; Telemachus has saved
your life, that you may know in future, and tell other people, how
greatly better good deeds prosper than evil ones. Go, therefore,
outside the cloisters into the outer court, and be out of the way of
the slaughter—you and the bard—while I finish my work here inside.”

The pair went into the outer court as fast as they could, and sat down
by Jove’s great altar, looking fearfully round, and still expecting
that they would be killed. Then Ulysses searched the whole court
carefully over, to see if anyone had managed to hide himself and was
still living, but he found them all lying in the dust and weltering in
their blood. They were like fishes which fishermen have netted out of
the sea, and thrown upon the beach to lie gasping for water till the
heat of the sun makes an end of them. Even so were the suitors lying
all huddled up one against the other.

Then Ulysses said to Telemachus, “Call nurse Euryclea; I have something
to say to her.”

Telemachus went and knocked at the door of the women’s room. “Make
haste,” said he, “you old woman who have been set over all the other
women in the house. Come outside; my father wishes to speak to you.”

When Euryclea heard this she unfastened the door of the women’s room
and came out, following Telemachus. She found Ulysses among the corpses
bespattered with blood and filth like a lion that has just been
devouring an ox, and his breast and both his cheeks are all bloody, so
that he is a fearful sight; even so was Ulysses besmirched from head to
foot with gore. When she saw all the corpses and such a quantity of
blood, she was beginning to cry out for joy, for she saw that a great
deed had been done; but Ulysses checked her, “Old woman,” said he,
“rejoice in silence; restrain yourself, and do not make any noise about
it; it is an unholy thing to vaunt over dead men. Heaven’s doom and
their own evil deeds have brought these men to destruction, for they
respected no man in the whole world, neither rich nor poor, who came
near them, and they have come to a bad end as a punishment for their
wickedness and folly. Now, however, tell me which of the women in the
house have misconducted themselves, and who are innocent.”176

“I will tell you the truth, my son,” answered Euryclea. “There are
fifty women in the house whom we teach to do things, such as carding
wool, and all kinds of household work. Of these, twelve in all177 have
misbehaved, and have been wanting in respect to me, and also to
Penelope. They showed no disrespect to Telemachus, for he has only
lately grown and his mother never permitted him to give orders to the
female servants; but let me go upstairs and tell your wife all that has
happened, for some god has been sending her to sleep.”

“Do not wake her yet,” answered Ulysses, “but tell the women who have
misconducted themselves to come to me.”

Euryclea left the cloister to tell the women, and make them come to
Ulysses; in the meantime he called Telemachus, the stockman, and the
swineherd. “Begin,” said he, “to remove the dead, and make the women
help you. Then, get sponges and clean water to swill down the tables
and seats. When you have thoroughly cleansed the whole cloisters, take
the women into the space between the domed room and the wall of the
outer court, and run them through with your swords till they are quite
dead, and have forgotten all about love and the way in which they used
to lie in secret with the suitors.”

On this the women came down in a body, weeping and wailing bitterly.
First they carried the dead bodies out, and propped them up against one
another in the gatehouse. Ulysses ordered them about and made them do
their work quickly, so they had to carry the bodies out. When they had
done this, they cleaned all the tables and seats with sponges and
water, while Telemachus and the two others shovelled up the blood and
dirt from the ground, and the women carried it all away and put it out
of doors. Then when they had made the whole place quite clean and
orderly, they took the women out and hemmed them in the narrow space
between the wall of the domed room and that of the yard, so that they
could not get away: and Telemachus said to the other two, “I shall not
let these women die a clean death, for they were insolent to me and my
mother, and used to sleep with the suitors.”

So saying he made a ship’s cable fast to one of the bearing-posts that
supported the roof of the domed room, and secured it all around the
building, at a good height, lest any of the women’s feet should touch
the ground; and as thrushes or doves beat against a net that has been
set for them in a thicket just as they were getting to their nest, and
a terrible fate awaits them, even so did the women have to put their
heads in nooses one after the other and die most miserably.178 Their
feet moved convulsively for a while, but not for very long.

As for Melanthius, they took him through the cloister into the inner
court. There they cut off his nose and his ears; they drew out his
vitals and gave them to the dogs raw, and then in their fury they cut
off his hands and his feet.

When they had done this they washed their hands and feet and went back
into the house, for all was now over; and Ulysses said to the dear old
nurse Euryclea, “Bring me sulphur, which cleanses all pollution, and
fetch fire also that I may burn it, and purify the cloisters. Go,
moreover, and tell Penelope to come here with her attendants, and also
all the maidservants that are in the house.”

“All that you have said is true,” answered Euryclea, “but let me bring
you some clean clothes—a shirt and cloak. Do not keep these rags on
your back any longer. It is not right.”

“First light me a fire,” replied Ulysses.

She brought the fire and sulphur, as he had bidden her, and Ulysses
thoroughly purified the cloisters and both the inner and outer courts.
Then she went inside to call the women and tell them what had happened;
whereon they came from their apartment with torches in their hands, and
pressed round Ulysses to embrace him, kissing his head and shoulders
and taking hold of his hands. It made him feel as if he should like to
weep, for he remembered every one of them.179




BOOK XXIII


PENELOPE EVENTUALLY RECOGNISES HER HUSBAND—EARLY IN THE MORNING
ULYSSES, TELEMACHUS, EUMAEUS, AND PHILOETIUS LEAVE THE TOWN.


Euryclea now went upstairs laughing to tell her mistress that her dear
husband had come home. Her aged knees became young again and her feet
were nimble for joy as she went up to her mistress and bent over her
head to speak to her. “Wake up Penelope, my dear child,” she exclaimed,
“and see with your own eyes something that you have been wanting this
long time past. Ulysses has at last indeed come home again, and has
killed the suitors who were giving so much trouble in his house, eating
up his estate and ill treating his son.”

“My good nurse,” answered Penelope, “you must be mad. The gods
sometimes send some very sensible people out of their minds, and make
foolish people become sensible. This is what they must have been doing
to you; for you always used to be a reasonable person. Why should you
thus mock me when I have trouble enough already—talking such nonsense,
and waking me up out of a sweet sleep that had taken possession of my
eyes and closed them? I have never slept so soundly from the day my
poor husband went to that city with the ill-omened name. Go back again
into the women’s room; if it had been any one else who had woke me up
to bring me such absurd news I should have sent her away with a severe
scolding. As it is your age shall protect you.”

“My dear child,” answered Euryclea, “I am not mocking you. It is quite
true as I tell you that Ulysses is come home again. He was the stranger
whom they all kept on treating so badly in the cloister. Telemachus
knew all the time that he was come back, but kept his father’s secret
that he might have his revenge on all these wicked people.”

Then Penelope sprang up from her couch, threw her arms round Euryclea,
and wept for joy. “But my dear nurse,” said she, “explain this to me;
if he has really come home as you say, how did he manage to overcome
the wicked suitors single handed, seeing what a number of them there
always were?”

“I was not there,” answered Euryclea, “and do not know; I only heard
them groaning while they were being killed. We sat crouching and
huddled up in a corner of the women’s room with the doors closed, till
your son came to fetch me because his father sent him. Then I found
Ulysses standing over the corpses that were lying on the ground all
round him, one on top of the other. You would have enjoyed it if you
could have seen him standing there all bespattered with blood and
filth, and looking just like a lion. But the corpses are now all piled
up in the gatehouse that is in the outer court, and Ulysses has lit a
great fire to purify the house with sulphur. He has sent me to call
you, so come with me that you may both be happy together after all; for
now at last the desire of your heart has been fulfilled; your husband
is come home to find both wife and son alive and well, and to take his
revenge in his own house on the suitors who behaved so badly to him.”

“My dear nurse,” said Penelope, “do not exult too confidently over all
this. You know how delighted every one would be to see Ulysses come
home—more particularly myself, and the son who has been born to both of
us; but what you tell me cannot be really true. It is some god who is
angry with the suitors for their great wickedness, and has made an end
of them; for they respected no man in the whole world, neither rich nor
poor, who came near them, and they have come to a bad end in
consequence of their iniquity; Ulysses is dead far away from the
Achaean land; he will never return home again.”

Then nurse Euryclea said, “My child, what are you talking about? but
you were all hard of belief and have made up your mind that your
husband is never coming, although he is in the house and by his own
fire side at this very moment. Besides I can give you another proof;
when I was washing him I perceived the scar which the wild boar gave
him, and I wanted to tell you about it, but in his wisdom he would not
let me, and clapped his hands over my mouth; so come with me and I will
make this bargain with you—if I am deceiving you, you may have me
killed by the most cruel death you can think of.”

“My dear nurse,” said Penelope, “however wise you may be you can hardly
fathom the counsels of the gods. Nevertheless, we will go in search of
my son, that I may see the corpses of the suitors, and the man who has
killed them.”

On this she came down from her upper room, and while doing so she
considered whether she should keep at a distance from her husband and
question him, or whether she should at once go up to him and embrace
him. When, however, she had crossed the stone floor of the cloister,
she sat down opposite Ulysses by the fire, against the wall at right
angles180 [to that by which she had entered], while Ulysses sat near
one of the bearing-posts, looking upon the ground, and waiting to see
what his brave wife would say to him when she saw him. For a long time
she sat silent and as one lost in amazement. At one moment she looked
him full in the face, but then again directly, she was misled by his
shabby clothes and failed to recognise him,181 till Telemachus began to
reproach her and said:

“Mother—but you are so hard that I cannot call you by such a name—why
do you keep away from my father in this way? Why do you not sit by his
side and begin talking to him and asking him questions? No other woman
could bear to keep away from her husband when he had come back to her
after twenty years of absence, and after having gone through so much;
but your heart always was as hard as a stone.”

Penelope answered, “My son, I am so lost in astonishment that I can
find no words in which either to ask questions or to answer them. I
cannot even look him straight in the face. Still, if he really is
Ulysses come back to his own home again, we shall get to understand one
another better by and by, for there are tokens with which we two are
alone acquainted, and which are hidden from all others.”

Ulysses smiled at this, and said to Telemachus, “Let your mother put me
to any proof she likes; she will make up her mind about it presently.
She rejects me for the moment and believes me to be somebody else,
because I am covered with dirt and have such bad clothes on; let us,
however, consider what we had better do next. When one man has killed
another—even though he was not one who would leave many friends to take
up his quarrel—the man who has killed him must still say good bye to
his friends and fly the country; whereas we have been killing the stay
of a whole town, and all the picked youth of Ithaca. I would have you
consider this matter.”

“Look to it yourself, father,” answered Telemachus, “for they say you
are the wisest counsellor in the world, and that there is no other
mortal man who can compare with you. We will follow you with right good
will, nor shall you find us fail you in so far as our strength holds
out.”

“I will say what I think will be best,” answered Ulysses. “First wash
and put your shirts on; tell the maids also to go to their own room and
dress; Phemius shall then strike up a dance tune on his lyre, so that
if people outside hear, or any of the neighbours, or some one going
along the street happens to notice it, they may think there is a
wedding in the house, and no rumours about the death of the suitors
will get about in the town, before we can escape to the woods upon my
own land. Once there, we will settle which of the courses heaven
vouchsafes us shall seem wisest.”

Thus did he speak, and they did even as he had said. First they washed
and put their shirts on, while the women got ready. Then Phemius took
his lyre and set them all longing for sweet song and stately dance. The
house re-echoed with the sound of men and women dancing, and the people
outside said, “I suppose the queen has been getting married at last.
She ought to be ashamed of herself for not continuing to protect her
husband’s property until he comes home.”182

This was what they said, but they did not know what it was that had
been happening. The upper servant Eurynome washed and anointed Ulysses
in his own house and gave him a shirt and cloak, while Minerva made him
look taller and stronger than before; she also made the hair grow thick
on the top of his head, and flow down in curls like hyacinth blossoms;
she glorified him about the head and shoulders just as a skilful
workman who has studied art of all kinds under Vulcan or Minerva—and
his work is full of beauty—enriches a piece of silver plate by gilding
it. He came from the bath looking like one of the immortals, and sat
down opposite his wife on the seat he had left. “My dear,” said he,
“heaven has endowed you with a heart more unyielding than woman ever
yet had. No other woman could bear to keep away from her husband when
he had come back to her after twenty years of absence, and after having
gone through so much. But come, nurse, get a bed ready for me; I will
sleep alone, for this woman has a heart as hard as iron.”

“My dear,” answered Penelope, “I have no wish to set myself up, nor to
depreciate you; but I am not struck by your appearance, for I very well
remember what kind of a man you were when you set sail from Ithaca.
Nevertheless, Euryclea, take his bed outside the bed chamber that he
himself built. Bring the bed outside this room, and put bedding upon it
with fleeces, good coverlets, and blankets.”

She said this to try him, but Ulysses was very angry and said, “Wife, I
am much displeased at what you have just been saying. Who has been
taking my bed from the place in which I left it? He must have found it
a hard task, no matter how skilled a workman he was, unless some god
came and helped him to shift it. There is no man living, however strong
and in his prime, who could move it from its place, for it is a
marvellous curiosity which I made with my very own hands. There was a
young olive growing within the precincts of the house, in full vigour,
and about as thick as a bearing-post. I built my room round this with
strong walls of stone and a roof to cover them, and I made the doors
strong and well-fitting. Then I cut off the top boughs of the olive
tree and left the stump standing. This I dressed roughly from the root
upwards and then worked with carpenter’s tools well and skilfully,
straightening my work by drawing a line on the wood, and making it into
a bed-prop. I then bored a hole down the middle, and made it the
centre-post of my bed, at which I worked till I had finished it,
inlaying it with gold and silver; after this I stretched a hide of
crimson leather from one side of it to the other. So you see I know all
about it, and I desire to learn whether it is still there, or whether
any one has been removing it by cutting down the olive tree at its
roots.”

When she heard the sure proofs Ulysses now gave her, she fairly broke
down. She flew weeping to his side, flung her arms about his neck, and
kissed him. “Do not be angry with me Ulysses,” she cried, “you, who are
the wisest of mankind. We have suffered, both of us. Heaven has denied
us the happiness of spending our youth, and of growing old, together;
do not then be aggrieved or take it amiss that I did not embrace you
thus as soon as I saw you. I have been shuddering all the time through
fear that someone might come here and deceive me with a lying story;
for there are many very wicked people going about. Jove’s daughter
Helen would never have yielded herself to a man from a foreign country,
if she had known that the sons of Achaeans would come after her and
bring her back. Heaven put it in her heart to do wrong, and she gave no
thought to that sin, which has been the source of all our sorrows. Now,
however, that you have convinced me by showing that you know all about
our bed (which no human being has ever seen but you and I and a single
maidservant, the daughter of Actor, who was given me by my father on my
marriage, and who keeps the doors of our room) hard of belief though I
have been I can mistrust no longer.”

Then Ulysses in his turn melted, and wept as he clasped his dear and
faithful wife to his bosom. As the sight of land is welcome to men who
are swimming towards the shore, when Neptune has wrecked their ship
with the fury of his winds and waves; a few alone reach the land, and
these, covered with brine, are thankful when they find themselves on
firm ground and out of danger—even so was her husband welcome to her as
she looked upon him, and she could not tear her two fair arms from
about his neck. Indeed they would have gone on indulging their sorrow
till rosy-fingered morn appeared, had not Minerva determined otherwise,
and held night back in the far west, while she would not suffer Dawn to
leave Oceanus, nor to yoke the two steeds Lampus and Phaethon that bear
her onward to break the day upon mankind.

At last, however, Ulysses said, “Wife, we have not yet reached the end
of our troubles. I have an unknown amount of toil still to undergo. It
is long and difficult, but I must go through with it, for thus the
shade of Teiresias prophesied concerning me, on the day when I went
down into Hades to ask about my return and that of my companions. But
now let us go to bed, that we may lie down and enjoy the blessed boon
of sleep.”

“You shall go to bed as soon as you please,” replied Penelope, “now
that the gods have sent you home to your own good house and to your
country. But as heaven has put it in your mind to speak of it, tell me
about the task that lies before you. I shall have to hear about it
later, so it is better that I should be told at once.”

“My dear,” answered Ulysses, “why should you press me to tell you?
Still, I will not conceal it from you, though you will not like it. I
do not like it myself, for Teiresias bade me travel far and wide,
carrying an oar, till I came to a country where the people have never
heard of the sea, and do not even mix salt with their food. They know
nothing about ships, nor oars that are as the wings of a ship. He gave
me this certain token which I will not hide from you. He said that a
wayfarer should meet me and ask me whether it was a winnowing shovel
that I had on my shoulder. On this, I was to fix my oar in the ground
and sacrifice a ram, a bull, and a boar to Neptune; after which I was
to go home and offer hecatombs to all the gods in heaven, one after the
other. As for myself, he said that death should come to me from the
sea, and that my life should ebb away very gently when I was full of
years and peace of mind, and my people should bless me. All this, he
said, should surely come to pass.”

And Penelope said, “If the gods are going to vouchsafe you a happier
time in your old age, you may hope then to have some respite from
misfortune.”

Thus did they converse. Meanwhile Eurynome and the nurse took torches
and made the bed ready with soft coverlets; as soon as they had laid
them, the nurse went back into the house to go to her rest, leaving the
bed chamber woman Eurynome183 to show Ulysses and Penelope to bed by
torch light. When she had conducted them to their room she went back,
and they then came joyfully to the rites of their own old bed.
Telemachus, Philoetius, and the swineherd now left off dancing, and
made the women leave off also. They then laid themselves down to sleep
in the cloisters.

When Ulysses and Penelope had had their fill of love they fell talking
with one another. She told him how much she had had to bear in seeing
the house filled with a crowd of wicked suitors who had killed so many
sheep and oxen on her account, and had drunk so many casks of wine.
Ulysses in his turn told her what he had suffered, and how much trouble
he had himself given to other people. He told her everything, and she
was so delighted to listen that she never went to sleep till he had
ended his whole story.

He began with his victory over the Cicons, and how he thence reached
the fertile land of the Lotus-eaters. He told her all about the Cyclops
and how he had punished him for having so ruthlessly eaten his brave
comrades; how he then went on to Aeolus, who received him hospitably
and furthered him on his way, but even so he was not to reach home, for
to his great grief a hurricane carried him out to sea again; how he
went on to the Laestrygonian city Telepylos, where the people destroyed
all his ships with their crews, save himself and his own ship only.
Then he told of cunning Circe and her craft, and how he sailed to the
chill house of Hades, to consult the ghost of the Theban prophet
Teiresias, and how he saw his old comrades in arms, and his mother who
bore him and brought him up when he was a child; how he then heard the
wondrous singing of the Sirens, and went on to the wandering rocks and
terrible Charybdis and to Scylla, whom no man had ever yet passed in
safety; how his men then ate the cattle of the sun-god, and how Jove
therefore struck the ship with his thunderbolts, so that all his men
perished together, himself alone being left alive; how at last he
reached the Ogygian island and the nymph Calypso, who kept him there in
a cave, and fed him, and wanted him to marry her, in which case she
intended making him immortal so that he should never grow old, but she
could not persuade him to let her do so; and how after much suffering
he had found his way to the Phaeacians, who had treated him as though
he had been a god, and sent him back in a ship to his own country after
having given him gold, bronze, and raiment in great abundance. This was
the last thing about which he told her, for here a deep sleep took hold
upon him and eased the burden of his sorrows.

Then Minerva bethought her of another matter. When she deemed that
Ulysses had had both of his wife and of repose, she bade gold-enthroned
Dawn rise out of Oceanus that she might shed light upon mankind. On
this, Ulysses rose from his comfortable bed and said to Penelope,
“Wife, we have both of us had our full share of troubles, you, here, in
lamenting my absence, and I in being prevented from getting home though
I was longing all the time to do so. Now, however, that we have at last
come together, take care of the property that is in the house. As for
the sheep and goats which the wicked suitors have eaten, I will take
many myself by force from other people, and will compel the Achaeans to
make good the rest till they shall have filled all my yards. I am now
going to the wooded lands out in the country to see my father who has
so long been grieved on my account, and to yourself I will give these
instructions, though you have little need of them. At sunrise it will
at once get abroad that I have been killing the suitors; go upstairs,
therefore,184 and stay there with your women. See nobody and ask no
questions.”185

As he spoke he girded on his armour. Then he roused Telemachus,
Philoetius, and Eumaeus, and told them all to put on their armour also.
This they did, and armed themselves. When they had done so, they opened
the gates and sallied forth, Ulysses leading the way. It was now
daylight, but Minerva nevertheless concealed them in darkness and led
them quickly out of the town.




BOOK XXIV


THE GHOSTS OF THE SUITORS IN HADES—ULYSSES AND HIS MEN GO TO THE HOUSE
OF LAERTES—THE PEOPLE OF ITHACA COME OUT TO ATTACK ULYSSES, BUT MINERVA
CONCLUDES A PEACE.


Then Mercury of Cyllene summoned the ghosts of the suitors, and in his
hand he held the fair golden wand with which he seals men’s eyes in
sleep or wakes them just as he pleases; with this he roused the ghosts
and led them, while they followed whining and gibbering behind him. As
bats fly squealing in the hollow of some great cave, when one of them
has fallen out of the cluster in which they hang, even so did the
ghosts whine and squeal as Mercury the healer of sorrow led them down
into the dark abode of death. When they had passed the waters of
Oceanus and the rock Leucas, they came to the gates of the sun and the
land of dreams, whereon they reached the meadow of asphodel where dwell
the souls and shadows of them that can labour no more.

Here they found the ghost of Achilles son of Peleus, with those of
Patroclus, Antilochus, and Ajax, who was the finest and handsomest man
of all the Danaans after the son of Peleus himself.

They gathered round the ghost of the son of Peleus, and the ghost of
Agamemnon joined them, sorrowing bitterly. Round him were gathered also
the ghosts of those who had perished with him in the house of
Aegisthus; and the ghost of Achilles spoke first.

“Son of Atreus,” it said, “we used to say that Jove had loved you
better from first to last than any other hero, for you were captain
over many and brave men, when we were all fighting together before
Troy; yet the hand of death, which no mortal can escape, was laid upon
you all too early. Better for you had you fallen at Troy in the hey-day
of your renown, for the Achaeans would have built a mound over your
ashes, and your son would have been heir to your good name, whereas it
has now been your lot to come to a most miserable end.”

“Happy son of Peleus,” answered the ghost of Agamemnon, “for having
died at Troy far from Argos, while the bravest of the Trojans and the
Achaeans fell round you fighting for your body. There you lay in the
whirling clouds of dust, all huge and hugely, heedless now of your
chivalry. We fought the whole of the livelong day, nor should we ever
have left off if Jove had not sent a hurricane to stay us. Then, when
we had borne you to the ships out of the fray, we laid you on your bed
and cleansed your fair skin with warm water and with ointments. The
Danaans tore their hair and wept bitterly round about you. Your mother,
when she heard, came with her immortal nymphs from out of the sea, and
the sound of a great wailing went forth over the waters so that the
Achaeans quaked for fear. They would have fled panic-stricken to their
ships had not wise old Nestor whose counsel was ever truest checked
them saying, ‘Hold, Argives, fly not sons of the Achaeans, this is his
mother coming from the sea with her immortal nymphs to view the body of
her son.’

“Thus he spoke, and the Achaeans feared no more. The daughters of the
old man of the sea stood round you weeping bitterly, and clothed you in
immortal raiment. The nine muses also came and lifted up their sweet
voices in lament—calling and answering one another; there was not an
Argive but wept for pity of the dirge they chaunted. Days and nights
seven and ten we mourned you, mortals and immortals, but on the
eighteenth day we gave you to the flames, and many a fat sheep with
many an ox did we slay in sacrifice around you. You were burnt in
raiment of the gods, with rich resins and with honey, while heroes,
horse and foot, clashed their armour round the pile as you were
burning, with the tramp as of a great multitude. But when the flames of
heaven had done their work, we gathered your white bones at daybreak
and laid them in ointments and in pure wine. Your mother brought us a
golden vase to hold them—gift of Bacchus, and work of Vulcan himself;
in this we mingled your bleached bones with those of Patroclus who had
gone before you, and separate we enclosed also those of Antilochus, who
had been closer to you than any other of your comrades now that
Patroclus was no more.

“Over these the host of the Argives built a noble tomb, on a point
jutting out over the open Hellespont, that it might be seen from far
out upon the sea by those now living and by them that shall be born
hereafter. Your mother begged prizes from the gods, and offered them to
be contended for by the noblest of the Achaeans. You must have been
present at the funeral of many a hero, when the young men gird
themselves and make ready to contend for prizes on the death of some
great chieftain, but you never saw such prizes as silver-footed Thetis
offered in your honour; for the gods loved you well. Thus even in death
your fame, Achilles, has not been lost, and your name lives evermore
among all mankind. But as for me, what solace had I when the days of my
fighting were done? For Jove willed my destruction on my return, by the
hands of Aegisthus and those of my wicked wife.”

Thus did they converse, and presently Mercury came up to them with the
ghosts of the suitors who had been killed by Ulysses. The ghosts of
Agamemnon and Achilles were astonished at seeing them, and went up to
them at once. The ghost of Agamemnon recognised Amphimedon son of
Melaneus, who lived in Ithaca and had been his host, so it began to
talk to him.

“Amphimedon,” it said, “what has happened to all you fine young men—all
of an age too—that you are come down here under the ground? One could
pick no finer body of men from any city. Did Neptune raise his winds
and waves against you when you were at sea, or did your enemies make an
end of you on the mainland when you were cattle-lifting or
sheep-stealing, or while fighting in defence of their wives and city?
Answer my question, for I have been your guest. Do you not remember how
I came to your house with Menelaus, to persuade Ulysses to join us with
his ships against Troy? It was a whole month ere we could resume our
voyage, for we had hard work to persuade Ulysses to come with us.”

And the ghost of Amphimedon answered, “Agamemnon, son of Atreus, king
of men, I remember everything that you have said, and will tell you
fully and accurately about the way in which our end was brought about.
Ulysses had been long gone, and we were courting his wife, who did not
say point blank that she would not marry, nor yet bring matters to an
end, for she meant to compass our destruction: this, then, was the
trick she played us. She set up a great tambour frame in her room and
began to work on an enormous piece of fine needlework. ‘Sweethearts,’
said she, ‘Ulysses is indeed dead, still, do not press me to marry
again immediately; wait—for I would not have my skill in needlework
perish unrecorded—till I have completed a pall for the hero Laertes,
against the time when death shall take him. He is very rich, and the
women of the place will talk if he is laid out without a pall.’ This is
what she said, and we assented; whereupon we could see her working upon
her great web all day long, but at night she would unpick the stitches
again by torchlight. She fooled us in this way for three years without
our finding it out, but as time wore on and she was now in her fourth
year, in the waning of moons and many days had been accomplished, one
of her maids who knew what she was doing told us, and we caught her in
the act of undoing her work, so she had to finish it whether she would
or no; and when she showed us the robe she had made, after she had had
it washed,186 its splendour was as that of the sun or moon.

“Then some malicious god conveyed Ulysses to the upland farm where his
swineherd lives. Thither presently came also his son, returning from a
voyage to Pylos, and the two came to the town when they had hatched
their plot for our destruction. Telemachus came first, and then after
him, accompanied by the swineherd, came Ulysses, clad in rags and
leaning on a staff as though he were some miserable old beggar. He came
so unexpectedly that none of us knew him, not even the older ones among
us, and we reviled him and threw things at him. He endured both being
struck and insulted without a word, though he was in his own house; but
when the will of Aegis-bearing Jove inspired him, he and Telemachus
took the armour and hid it in an inner chamber, bolting the doors
behind them. Then he cunningly made his wife offer his bow and a
quantity of iron to be contended for by us ill-fated suitors; and this
was the beginning of our end, for not one of us could string the
bow—nor nearly do so. When it was about to reach the hands of Ulysses,
we all of us shouted out that it should not be given him, no matter
what he might say, but Telemachus insisted on his having it. When he
had got it in his hands he strung it with ease and sent his arrow
through the iron. Then he stood on the floor of the cloister and poured
his arrows on the ground, glaring fiercely about him. First he killed
Antinous, and then, aiming straight before him, he let fly his deadly
darts and they fell thick on one another. It was plain that some one of
the gods was helping them, for they fell upon us with might and main
throughout the cloisters, and there was a hideous sound of groaning as
our brains were being battered in, and the ground seethed with our
blood. This, Agamemnon, is how we came by our end, and our bodies are
lying still uncared for in the house of Ulysses, for our friends at
home do not yet know what has happened, so that they cannot lay us out
and wash the black blood from our wounds, making moan over us according
to the offices due to the departed.”

“Happy Ulysses, son of Laertes,” replied the ghost of Agamemnon, “you
are indeed blessed in the possession of a wife endowed with such rare
excellence of understanding, and so faithful to her wedded lord as
Penelope the daughter of Icarius. The fame, therefore, of her virtue
shall never die, and the immortals shall compose a song that shall be
welcome to all mankind in honour of the constancy of Penelope. How far
otherwise was the wickedness of the daughter of Tyndareus who killed
her lawful husband; her song shall be hateful among men, for she has
brought disgrace on all womankind even on the good ones.”

Thus did they converse in the house of Hades deep down within the
bowels of the earth. Meanwhile Ulysses and the others passed out of the
town and soon reached the fair and well-tilled farm of Laertes, which
he had reclaimed with infinite labour. Here was his house, with a
lean-to running all round it, where the slaves who worked for him slept
and sat and ate, while inside the house there was an old Sicel woman,
who looked after him in this his country-farm. When Ulysses got there,
he said to his son and to the other two:

“Go to the house, and kill the best pig that you can find for dinner.
Meanwhile I want to see whether my father will know me, or fail to
recognise me after so long an absence.”

He then took off his armour and gave it to Eumaeus and Philoetius, who
went straight on to the house, while he turned off into the vineyard to
make trial of his father. As he went down into the great orchard, he
did not see Dolius, nor any of his sons nor of the other bondsmen, for
they were all gathering thorns to make a fence for the vineyard, at the
place where the old man had told them; he therefore found his father
alone, hoeing a vine. He had on a dirty old shirt, patched and very
shabby; his legs were bound round with thongs of oxhide to save him
from the brambles, and he also wore sleeves of leather; he had a goat
skin cap on his head, and was looking very woe-begone. When Ulysses saw
him so worn, so old and full of sorrow, he stood still under a tall
pear tree and began to weep. He doubted whether to embrace him, kiss
him, and tell him all about his having come home, or whether he should
first question him and see what he would say. In the end he deemed it
best to be crafty with him, so in this mind he went up to his father,
who was bending down and digging about a plant.

“I see, sir,” said Ulysses, “that you are an excellent gardener—what
pains you take with it, to be sure. There is not a single plant, not a
fig tree, vine, olive, pear, nor flower bed, but bears the trace of
your attention. I trust, however, that you will not be offended if I
say that you take better care of your garden than of yourself. You are
old, unsavoury, and very meanly clad. It cannot be because you are idle
that your master takes such poor care of you, indeed your face and
figure have nothing of the slave about them, and proclaim you of noble
birth. I should have said that you were one of those who should wash
well, eat well, and lie soft at night as old men have a right to do;
but tell me, and tell me true, whose bondman are you, and in whose
garden are you working? Tell me also about another matter. Is this
place that I have come to really Ithaca? I met a man just now who said
so, but he was a dull fellow, and had not the patience to hear my story
out when I was asking him about an old friend of mine, whether he was
still living, or was already dead and in the house of Hades. Believe me
when I tell you that this man came to my house once when I was in my
own country and never yet did any stranger come to me whom I liked
better. He said that his family came from Ithaca and that his father
was Laertes, son of Arceisius. I received him hospitably, making him
welcome to all the abundance of my house, and when he went away I gave
him all customary presents. I gave him seven talents of fine gold, and
a cup of solid silver with flowers chased upon it. I gave him twelve
light cloaks, and as many pieces of tapestry; I also gave him twelve
cloaks of single fold, twelve rugs, twelve fair mantles, and an equal
number of shirts. To all this I added four good looking women skilled
in all useful arts, and I let him take his choice.”

His father shed tears and answered, “Sir, you have indeed come to the
country that you have named, but it is fallen into the hands of wicked
people. All this wealth of presents has been given to no purpose. If
you could have found your friend here alive in Ithaca, he would have
entertained you hospitably and would have requited your presents amply
when you left him—as would have been only right considering what you
had already given him. But tell me, and tell me true, how many years is
it since you entertained this guest—my unhappy son, as ever was? Alas!
He has perished far from his own country; the fishes of the sea have
eaten him, or he has fallen a prey to the birds and wild beasts of some
continent. Neither his mother, nor I his father, who were his parents,
could throw our arms about him and wrap him in his shroud, nor could
his excellent and richly dowered wife Penelope bewail her husband as
was natural upon his death bed, and close his eyes according to the
offices due to the departed. But now, tell me truly for I want to know.
Who and whence are you—tell me of your town and parents? Where is the
ship lying that has brought you and your men to Ithaca? Or were you a
passenger on some other man’s ship, and those who brought you here have
gone on their way and left you?”

“I will tell you everything,” answered Ulysses, “quite truly. I come
from Alybas, where I have a fine house. I am son of king Apheidas, who
is the son of Polypemon. My own name is Eperitus; heaven drove me off
my course as I was leaving Sicania, and I have been carried here
against my will. As for my ship it is lying over yonder, off the open
country outside the town, and this is the fifth year since Ulysses left
my country. Poor fellow, yet the omens were good for him when he left
me. The birds all flew on our right hands, and both he and I rejoiced
to see them as we parted, for we had every hope that we should have
another friendly meeting and exchange presents.”

A dark cloud of sorrow fell upon Laertes as he listened. He filled both
hands with the dust from off the ground and poured it over his grey
head, groaning heavily as he did so. The heart of Ulysses was touched,
and his nostrils quivered as he looked upon his father; then he sprang
towards him, flung his arms about him and kissed him, saying, “I am he,
father, about whom you are asking—I have returned after having been
away for twenty years. But cease your sighing and lamentation—we have
no time to lose, for I should tell you that I have been killing the
suitors in my house, to punish them for their insolence and crimes.”

“If you really are my son Ulysses,” replied Laertes, “and have come
back again, you must give me such manifest proof of your identity as
shall convince me.”

“First observe this scar,” answered Ulysses, “which I got from a boar’s
tusk when I was hunting on Mt. Parnassus. You and my mother had sent me
to Autolycus, my mother’s father, to receive the presents which when he
was over here he had promised to give me. Furthermore I will point out
to you the trees in the vineyard which you gave me, and I asked you all
about them as I followed you round the garden. We went over them all,
and you told me their names and what they all were. You gave me
thirteen pear trees, ten apple trees, and forty fig trees; you also
said you would give me fifty rows of vines; there was corn planted
between each row, and they yield grapes of every kind when the heat of
heaven has been laid heavy upon them.”

Laertes’ strength failed him when he heard the convincing proofs which
his son had given him. He threw his arms about him, and Ulysses had to
support him, or he would have gone off into a swoon; but as soon as he
came to, and was beginning to recover his senses, he said, “O father
Jove, then you gods are still in Olympus after all, if the suitors have
really been punished for their insolence and folly. Nevertheless, I am
much afraid that I shall have all the townspeople of Ithaca up here
directly, and they will be sending messengers everywhere throughout the
cities of the Cephallenians.”

Ulysses answered, “Take heart and do not trouble yourself about that,
but let us go into the house hard by your garden. I have already told
Telemachus, Philoetius, and Eumaeus to go on there and get dinner ready
as soon as possible.”

Thus conversing the two made their way towards the house. When they got
there they found Telemachus with the stockman and the swineherd cutting
up meat and mixing wine with water. Then the old Sicel woman took
Laertes inside and washed him and anointed him with oil. She put him on
a good cloak, and Minerva came up to him and gave him a more imposing
presence, making him taller and stouter than before. When he came back
his son was surprised to see him looking so like an immortal, and said
to him, “My dear father, some one of the gods has been making you much
taller and better-looking.”

Laertes answered, “Would, by Father Jove, Minerva, and Apollo, that I
were the man I was when I ruled among the Cephallenians, and took
Nericum, that strong fortress on the foreland. If I were still what I
then was and had been in our house yesterday with my armour on, I
should have been able to stand by you and help you against the suitors.
I should have killed a great many of them, and you would have rejoiced
to see it.”

Thus did they converse; but the others, when they had finished their
work and the feast was ready, left off working, and took each his
proper place on the benches and seats. Then they began eating; by and
by old Dolius and his sons left their work and came up, for their
mother, the Sicel woman who looked after Laertes now that he was
growing old, had been to fetch them. When they saw Ulysses and were
certain it was he, they stood there lost in astonishment; but Ulysses
scolded them good naturedly and said, “Sit down to your dinner, old
man, and never mind about your surprise; we have been wanting to begin
for some time and have been waiting for you.”

Then Dolius put out both his hands and went up to Ulysses. “Sir,” said
he, seizing his master’s hand and kissing it at the wrist, “we have
long been wishing you home: and now heaven has restored you to us after
we had given up hoping. All hail, therefore, and may the gods prosper
you.187 But tell me, does Penelope already know of your return, or
shall we send some one to tell her?”

“Old man,” answered Ulysses, “she knows already, so you need not
trouble about that.” On this he took his seat, and the sons of Dolius
gathered round Ulysses to give him greeting and embrace him one after
the other; then they took their seats in due order near Dolius their
father.

While they were thus busy getting their dinner ready, Rumour went round
the town, and noised abroad the terrible fate that had befallen the
suitors; as soon, therefore, as the people heard of it they gathered
from every quarter, groaning and hooting before the house of Ulysses.
They took the dead away, buried every man his own, and put the bodies
of those who came from elsewhere on board the fishing vessels, for the
fishermen to take each of them to his own place. They then met angrily
in the place of assembly, and when they were got together Eupeithes
rose to speak. He was overwhelmed with grief for the death of his son
Antinous, who had been the first man killed by Ulysses, so he said,
weeping bitterly, “My friends, this man has done the Achaeans great
wrong. He took many of our best men away with him in his fleet, and he
has lost both ships and men; now, moreover, on his return he has been
killing all the foremost men among the Cephallenians. Let us be up and
doing before he can get away to Pylos or to Elis where the Epeans rule,
or we shall be ashamed of ourselves for ever afterwards. It will be an
everlasting disgrace to us if we do not avenge the murder of our sons
and brothers. For my own part I should have no more pleasure in life,
but had rather die at once. Let us be up, then, and after them, before
they can cross over to the main land.”

He wept as he spoke and every one pitied him. But Medon and the bard
Phemius had now woke up, and came to them from the house of Ulysses.
Every one was astonished at seeing them, but they stood in the middle
of the assembly, and Medon said, “Hear me, men of Ithaca. Ulysses did
not do these things against the will of heaven. I myself saw an
immortal god take the form of Mentor and stand beside him. This god
appeared, now in front of him encouraging him, and now going furiously
about the court and attacking the suitors whereon they fell thick on
one another.”

On this pale fear laid hold of them, and old Halitherses, son of
Mastor, rose to speak, for he was the only man among them who knew both
past and future; so he spoke to them plainly and in all honesty,
saying,

“Men of Ithaca, it is all your own fault that things have turned out as
they have; you would not listen to me, nor yet to Mentor, when we bade
you check the folly of your sons who were doing much wrong in the
wantonness of their hearts—wasting the substance and dishonouring the
wife of a chieftain who they thought would not return. Now, however,
let it be as I say, and do as I tell you. Do not go out against
Ulysses, or you may find that you have been drawing down evil on your
own heads.”

This was what he said, and more than half raised a loud shout, and at
once left the assembly. But the rest stayed where they were, for the
speech of Halitherses displeased them, and they sided with Eupeithes;
they therefore hurried off for their armour, and when they had armed
themselves, they met together in front of the city, and Eupeithes led
them on in their folly. He thought he was going to avenge the murder of
his son, whereas in truth he was never to return, but was himself to
perish in his attempt.

Then Minerva said to Jove, “Father, son of Saturn, king of kings,
answer me this question—What do you propose to do? Will you set them
fighting still further, or will you make peace between them?”

And Jove answered, “My child, why should you ask me? Was it not by your
own arrangement that Ulysses came home and took his revenge upon the
suitors? Do whatever you like, but I will tell you what I think will be
most reasonable arrangement. Now that Ulysses is revenged, let them
swear to a solemn covenant, in virtue of which he shall continue to
rule, while we cause the others to forgive and forget the massacre of
their sons and brothers. Let them then all become friends as
heretofore, and let peace and plenty reign.”

This was what Minerva was already eager to bring about, so down she
darted from off the topmost summits of Olympus.

Now when Laertes and the others had done dinner, Ulysses began by
saying, “Some of you go out and see if they are not getting close up to
us.” So one of Dolius’s sons went as he was bid. Standing on the
threshold he could see them all quite near, and said to Ulysses, “Here
they are, let us put on our armour at once.”

They put on their armour as fast as they could—that is to say Ulysses,
his three men, and the six sons of Dolius. Laertes also and Dolius did
the same—warriors by necessity in spite of their grey hair. When they
had all put on their armour, they opened the gate and sallied forth,
Ulysses leading the way.

Then Jove’s daughter Minerva came up to them, having assumed the form
and voice of Mentor. Ulysses was glad when he saw her, and said to his
son Telemachus, “Telemachus, now that you are about to fight in an
engagement, which will show every man’s mettle, be sure not to disgrace
your ancestors, who were eminent for their strength and courage all the
world over.”

“You say truly, my dear father,” answered Telemachus, “and you shall
see, if you will, that I am in no mind to disgrace your family.”

Laertes was delighted when he heard this. “Good heavens,” he exclaimed,
“what a day I am enjoying: I do indeed rejoice at it. My son and
grandson are vying with one another in the matter of valour.”

On this Minerva came close up to him and said, “Son of Arceisius—-best
friend I have in the world—pray to the blue-eyed damsel, and to Jove
her father; then poise your spear and hurl it.”

As she spoke she infused fresh vigour into him, and when he had prayed
to her he poised his spear and hurled it. He hit Eupeithes’ helmet, and
the spear went right through it, for the helmet stayed it not, and his
armour rang rattling round him as he fell heavily to the ground.
Meantime Ulysses and his son fell upon the front line of the foe and
smote them with their swords and spears; indeed, they would have killed
every one of them, and prevented them from ever getting home again,
only Minerva raised her voice aloud, and made every one pause. “Men of
Ithaca,” she cried, “cease this dreadful war, and settle the matter at
once without further bloodshed.”

On this pale fear seized every one; they were so frightened that their
arms dropped from their hands and fell upon the ground at the sound of
the goddess’ voice, and they fled back to the city for their lives. But
Ulysses gave a great cry, and gathering himself together swooped down
like a soaring eagle. Then the son of Saturn sent a thunderbolt of fire
that fell just in front of Minerva, so she said to Ulysses, “Ulysses,
noble son of Laertes, stop this warful strife, or Jove will be angry
with you.”

Thus spoke Minerva, and Ulysses obeyed her gladly. Then Minerva assumed
the form and voice of Mentor, and presently made a covenant of peace
between the two contending parties.




FOOTNOTES:

[1] [ Black races are evidently known to the writer as stretching all
across Africa, one half looking West on to the Atlantic, and the other
East on to the Indian Ocean.]

[2] [ The original use of the footstool was probably less to rest the
feet than to keep them (especially when bare) from a floor which was
often wet and dirty.]

[3] [ The θρόνος or seat, is occasionally called “high,” as being
higher than the θρῆνυς or low footstool. It was probably no higher than
an ordinary chair is now, and seems to have had no back.]

[4] [ Temesa was on the West Coast of the toe of Italy, in what is now
the gulf of Sta Eufemia. It was famous in remote times for its copper
mines, which, however, were worked out when Strabo wrote.]

[5] [ i.e. “with a current in it”—see illustrations and map near the
end of bks. v. and vi. respectively.]

[6] [ Reading Νηρίτῳ for Νηίῳ, cf. “Od.” iii. 81 where the same mistake
is made, and xiii. 351 where the mountain is called Neritum, the same
place being intended both here and in book xiii.]

[7] [ It is never plausibly explained why Penelope cannot do this, and
from bk. ii. it is clear that she kept on deliberately encouraging the
suitors, though we are asked to believe that she was only fooling
them.]

[8] [ See note on “Od.” i. 365.]

[9] [ Middle Argos means the Peleponnese which, however, is never so
called in the “Iliad”. I presume “middle” means “middle between the two
Greek-speaking countries of Asia Minor and Sicily, with South Italy”;
for that parts of Sicily and also large parts, though not the whole of
South Italy, were inhabited by Greek-speaking races centuries before
the Dorian colonisations can hardly be doubted. The Sicians, and also
the Sicels, both of them probably spoke Greek.]

[10] [ cf. “Il.” vi. 490-495. In the “Iliad” it is “war,” not “speech,”
that is a man’s matter. It argues a certain hardness, or at any rate
dislike of the “Iliad” on the part of the writer of the “Odyssey,” that
she should have adopted Hector’s farewell to Andromache here, as
elsewhere in the poem, for a scene of such inferior pathos.]

[11] [ μέγαρα σκιοέντα The whole open court with the covered cloister
running round it was called μέγαρον, or μέγαρα, but the covered part
was distinguished by being called “shady” or “shadow-giving”. It was in
this part that the tables for the suitors were laid. The Fountain Court
at Hampton Court may serve as an illustration (save as regards the use
of arches instead of wooden supports and rafters) and the arrangement
is still common in Sicily. The usual translation “shadowy” or “dusky”
halls, gives a false idea of the scene.]

[12] [ The reader will note the extreme care which the writer takes to
make it clear that none of the suitors were allowed to sleep in
Ulysses’ house.]

[13] [ See Appendix; g, in plan of Ulysses’ house.]

[14] [ I imagine this passage to be a rejoinder to “Il.” xxiii. 702-705
in which a tripod is valued at twelve oxen, and a good useful maid of
all work at only four. The scrupulous regard of Laertes for his wife’s
feelings is of a piece with the extreme jealousy for the honour of
woman, which is manifest throughout the “Odyssey”.]

[15] [ χιτῶνα “The χιτών, or _tunica_, was a shirt or shift, and served
as the chief under garment of the Greeks and Romans, whether men or
women.” Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, under
“Tunica”.]

[16] [ Doors fastened to all intents and purposes as here described may
be seen in the older houses at Trapani. There is a slot on the outer
side of the door by means of which a person who has left the room can
shoot the bolt. My bedroom at the Albergo Centrale was fastened in this
way.]

[17] [ πύματον δ’ ὡπλίσσατο δόρπον. So we vulgarly say “had cooked his
goose,” or “had settled his hash.” Ægyptius cannot of course know of
the fate Antiphus had met with, for there had as yet been no news of or
from Ulysses.]

[18] [ “Il.” xxii. 416. σχέσθε φίλοι, καὶ μ’ οἷον ἐάσατε...... The
authoress has bungled by borrowing these words verbatim from the
“Iliad”, without prefixing the necessary “do not,” which I have
supplied.]

[19] [ i.e. you have money, and could pay when I got judgment, whereas
the suitors are men of straw.]

[20] [ cf. “Il.” ii. 76. ἦ τοι ὄ γ’ ὦς εὶπὼν κατ’ ἄρ’ ἔζετο τοῖσι δ’
ἀνέστη
Νέστωρ, ὄς ῥα.......................................
ὄ σφιν ἐὺ φρονέων ἀγορήσατο καὶ μετέειπεν.
The Odyssean passage runs—
“ἦ τοι ὄ γ’ ὦς εὶπὼν κατ’ ἄρ’ ἔζετο τοῖσι δ’ ἀνέστη
Μεντορ ὄς ῥ’.......................................
ὄ σφιν ἐὺ φρονέων ἀγορήσατο καὶ μετέειπεν.
Is it possible not to suspect that the name Mentor was coined upon that
of Nestor?]

[21] [ i.e. in the outer court, and in the uncovered part of the inner
house.]

[22] [ This would be fair from Sicily, which was doing duty for Ithaca
in the mind of the writer, but a North wind would have been preferable
for a voyage from the real Ithaca to Pylos.]

[23] [ κελάδοντ’ ἐπὶ οὶνοπα πόντον The wind does not whistle over
waves. It only whistles through rigging or some other obstacle that
cuts it.]

[24] [ cf. “Il.” v.20. Ἰδαῖος δ’ ἀπόρουσε λιπὼν περικαλλέα δίφρον, the
Odyssean line is ἠέλιος δ’ ἀνόρουσε λιπὼν περικαλλέα λίμνην. There can
be no doubt that the Odyssean line was suggested by the Iliadic, but
nothing can explain why Idæus jumping from his chariot should suggest
to the writer of the “Odyssey” the sun jumping from the sea. The
probability is that she never gave the matter a thought, but took the
line in question as an effect of saturation with the “Iliad,” and of
unconscious cerebration. The “Odyssey” contains many such examples.]

[25] [ The heart, liver, lights, kidneys, etc. were taken out from the
inside and eaten first as being more readily cooked; the {Greek}, or
bone meat, was cooking while the {Greek} or inward parts were being
eaten. I imagine that the thigh bones made a kind of gridiron, while at
the same time the marrow inside them got cooked.]

[26] [ i.e. skewers, either single, double, or even five pronged. The
meat would be pierced with the skewer, and laid over the ashes to
grill—the two ends of the skewer being supported in whatever way
convenient. Meat so cooking may be seen in any eating house in Smyrna,
or any Eastern town. When I rode across the Troad from the Dardanelles
to Hissarlik and Mount Ida, I noticed that my dragoman and his men did
all our outdoor cooking exactly in the Odyssean and Iliadic fashion.]

[27] [ cf. “Il.” xvii. 567. {Greek} The Odyssean lines are—{Greek}]

[28] [ Reading {Greek} for {Greek}, cf. “Od.” i. 186.]

29[] [ The geography of the Ægean as above described is correct, but is
probably taken from the lost poem, the Nosti, the existence of which is
referred to “Od.” i. 326, 327 and 350, &c. A glance at the map will
show that heaven advised its supplicants quite correctly.]

[30] [ The writer—ever jealous for the honour of women—extenuates
Clytemnestra’s guilt as far as possible, and explains it as due to her
having been left unprotected, and fallen into the hands of a wicked
man.]

[31] [ The Greek is {Greek} cf. “Iliad” ii. 408 {Greek} Surely the
{Greek} of the Odyssean passage was due to the {Greek} of the “Iliad.”
No other reason suggests itself for the making Menelaus return on the
very day of the feast given by Orestes. The fact that in the “Iliad”
Menelaus came to a banquet without waiting for an invitation,
determines the writer of the “Odyssey” to make him come to a banquet,
also uninvited, but as circumstances did not permit of his having been
invited, his coming uninvited is shown to have been due to chance. I do
not think the authoress thought all this out, but attribute the
strangeness of the coincidence to unconscious cerebration and
saturation.]

[32] [ cf. “Il.” I. 458, II. 421. The writer here interrupts an Iliadic
passage (to which she returns immediately) for the double purpose of
dwelling upon the slaughter of the heifer, and of letting Nestor’s wife
and daughter enjoy it also. A male writer, if he was borrowing from the
“Iliad,” would have stuck to his borrowing.]

[33] [ cf. “Il.” xxiv. 587, 588 where the lines refer to the washing
the dead body of Hector.]

[34] [ See illustration on opposite page. The yard is typical of many
that may be seen in Sicily. The existing ground-plan is probably
unmodified from Odyssean, and indeed long pre-Odyssean times, but the
earlier buildings would have no arches, and would, one would suppose,
be mainly timber. The Odyssean {Greek} were the sheds that ran round
the yard as the arches do now. The {Greek} was the one through which
the main entrance passed, and which was hence “noisy,” or
reverberating. It had an upper story in which visitors were often
lodged.]

[35] [ This journey is an impossible one. Telemachus and Pisistratus
would have been obliged to drive over the Taygetus range, over which
there has never yet been a road for wheeled vehicles. It is plain
therefore that the audience for whom the “Odyssey” was written was one
that would be unlikely to know anything about the topography of the
Peloponnese, so that the writer might take what liberties she chose.]

[36] [ The lines which I have enclosed in brackets are evidently an
afterthought—added probably by the writer herself—for they evince the
same instinctively greater interest in anything that may concern a
woman, which is so noticeable throughout the poem. There is no further
sign of any special festivities nor of any other guests than Telemachus
and Pisistratus, until lines 621-624 (ordinarily enclosed in brackets)
are abruptly introduced, probably with a view of trying to carry off
the introduction of the lines now in question.

The addition was, I imagine, suggested by a desire to excuse and
explain the non-appearance of Hermione in bk. xv., as also of both
Hermione and Megapenthes in the rest of bk. iv. Megapenthes in bk. xv.
seems to be still a bachelor: the presumption therefore is that bk. xv.
was written before the story of his marriage here given. I take it he
is only married here because his sister is being married. She having
been properly attended to, Megapenthes might as well be married at the
same time. Hermione could not now be less than thirty.

I have dealt with this passage somewhat more fully in my “Authoress of
the Odyssey”, p. 136-138. See also p. 256 of the same book.]

[37] [ Sparta and Lacedaemon are here treated as two different places,
though in other parts of the poem it is clear that the writer
understands them as one. The catalogue in the “Iliad,” which the writer
is here presumably following, makes the same mistake (“Il.” ii. 581,
582)]

[38] [ These last three lines are identical with “Il.” vxiii. 604-606.]

[39] [ From the Greek {Greek} it is plain that Menelaus took up the
piece of meat with his fingers.]

[40] [ Amber is never mentioned in the “Iliad.” Sicily, where I suppose
the “Odyssey” to have been written, has always been, and still is, one
of the principal amber producing countries. It was probably the only
one known in the Odyssean age. See “The Authoress of the Odyssey,”
Longmans 1898, p. 186.]

[41] [ This no doubt refers to the story told in the last poem of the
Cypria about Paris and Helen robbing Menelaus of the greater part of
his treasures, when they sailed together for Troy.]

[42] [ It is inconceivable that Helen should enter thus, in the middle
of supper, intending to work with her distaff, if great festivities
were going on. Telemachus and Pisistratus are evidently dining en
famille.]

[43] [ In the Italian insurrection of 1848, eight young men who were
being hotly pursued by the Austrian police hid themselves inside
Donatello’s colossal wooden horse in the Salone at Padua, and remained
there for a week being fed by their confederates. In 1898 the last
survivor was carried round Padua in triumph.]

[44] [ The Greek is {Greek}. Is it unfair to argue that the writer is a
person of somewhat delicate sensibility, to whom a strong smell of fish
is distasteful?]

[45] [ The Greek is {Greek}. I believe this to be a hit at the writer’s
own countrymen who were of Phocaean descent, and the next following
line to be a rejoinder to complaints made against her in bk. vi.
273-288, to the effect that she gave herself airs and would marry none
of her own people. For that the writer of the “Odyssey” was the person
who has been introduced into the poem under the name of Nausicaa, I
cannot bring myself to question. I may remind English readers that
{Greek} (i.e. phoca) means “seal.” Seals almost always appear on
Phocaean coins.]

[46] [ Surely here again we are in the hands of a writer of delicate
sensibility. It is not as though the seals were stale; they had only
just been killed. The writer, however is obviously laughing at her own
countrymen, and insulting them as openly as she dares.]

[47] [ We were told above (lines 356, 357) that it was only one day’s
sail.]

[48] [ I give the usual translation, but I do not believe the Greek
will warrant it. The Greek reads {Greek}.

This is usually held to mean that Ithaca is an island fit for breeding
goats, and on that account more delectable to the speaker than it would
have been if it were fit for breeding horses. I find little authority
for such a translation; the most equitable translation of the text as
it stands is, “Ithaca is an island fit for breeding goats, and
delectable rather than fit for breeding horses; for not one of the
islands is good driving ground, nor well meadowed.” Surely the writer
does not mean that a pleasant or delectable island would not be fit for
breeding horses? The most equitable translation, therefore, of the
present text being thus halt and impotent, we may suspect corruption,
and I hazard the following emendation, though I have not adopted it in
my translation, as fearing that it would be deemed too fanciful. I
would read:—{Greek}.

As far as scanning goes the {Greek} is not necessary; {Greek} iv. 72,
(Footnote Greek) iv. 233, to go no further afield than earlier lines of
the same book, give sufficient authority for {Greek}, but the {Greek}
would not be redundant; it would emphasise the surprise of the
contrast, and I should prefer to have it, though it is not very
important either way. This reading of course should be translated
“Ithaca is an island fit for breeding goats, and (by your leave) itself
a horseman rather than fit for breeding horses—for not one of the
islands is good and well meadowed ground.”

This would be sure to baffle the Alexandrian editors. “How,” they would
ask themselves, “could an island be a horseman?” and they would cast
about for an emendation. A visit to the top of Mt. Eryx might perhaps
make the meaning intelligible, and suggest my proposed restoration of
the text to the reader as readily as it did to myself.

I have elsewhere stated my conviction that the writer of the “Odyssey”
was familiar with the old Sican city at the top of Mt. Eryx, and that
the Aegadean islands which are so striking when seen thence did duty
with her for the Ionian islands—Marettimo, the highest and most
westerly of the group, standing for Ithaca. When seen from the top of
Mt. Eryx Marettimo shows as it should do according to “Od.” ix. 25, 26,
“on the horizon, all highest up in the sea towards the West,” while the
other islands lie “some way off it to the East.” As we descend to
Trapani, Marettimo appears to sink on to the top of the island of
Levanzo, behind which it disappears. My friend, the late Signor E.
Biaggini, pointed to it once as it was just standing on the top of
Levanzo, and said to me “Come cavalca bene” (“How well it rides”), and
this immediately suggested my emendation to me. Later on I found in the
hymn to the Pythian Apollo (which abounds with tags taken from the
“Odyssey”) a line ending {Greek} which strengthened my suspicion that
this was the original ending of the second of the two lines above under
consideration.]

[49] [ See note on line 3 of this book. The reader will observe that
the writer has been unable to keep the women out of an interpolation
consisting only of four lines.]

[50] [ Scheria means a piece of land jutting out into the sea. In my
“Authoress of the Odyssey” I thought “Jutland” would be a suitable
translation, but it has been pointed out to me that “Jutland” only
means the land of the Jutes.]

[51] [ Irrigation as here described is common in gardens near Trapani.
The water that supplies the ducts is drawn from wells by a mule who
turns a wheel with buckets on it.]

[52] [ There is not a word here about the cattle of the sun-god.]

[53] [ The writer evidently thought that green, growing wood might also
be well seasoned.]

[54] [ The reader will note that the river was flowing with salt water
i.e. that it was tidal.]

[55] [ Then the Ogygian island was not so far off, but that Nausicaa
might be assumed to know where it was.]

[56] [ Greek {Greek}]

[57] [ I suspect a family joke, or sly allusion to some thing of which
we know nothing, in this story of Eurymedusa’s having been brought from
Apeira. The Greek word “apeiros” means “inexperienced,” “ignorant.” Is
it possible that Eurymedusa was notoriously incompetent?]

[58] [ Polyphemus was also son to Neptune, see “Od.” ix. 412, 529. he
was therefore half brother to Nausithous, half uncle to King Alcinous,
and half great uncle to Nausicaa.]

[59] [ It would seem as though the writer thought that Marathon was
close to Athens.]

[60] [ Here the writer, knowing that she is drawing (with
embellishments) from things actually existing, becomes impatient of
past tenses and slides into the present.]

[61] [ This is hidden malice, implying that the Phaeacian magnates were
no better than they should be. The final drink-offering should have
been made to Jove or Neptune, not to the god of thievishness and
rascality of all kinds. In line 164 we do indeed find Echeneus
proposing that a drink-offering should be made to Jove, but Mercury is
evidently, according to our authoress, the god who was most likely to
be of use to them.]

[62] [ The fact of Alcinous knowing anything about the Cyclopes
suggests that in the writer’s mind Scheria and the country of the
Cyclopes were not very far from one another. I take the Cyclopes and
the giants to be one and the same people.]

[63] [ “My property, etc.” The authoress is here adopting an Iliadic
line (xix. 333), and this must account for the absence of all reference
to Penelope. If she had happened to remember “Il.” v. 213, she would
doubtless have appropriated it by preference, for that line reads “my
country, _my wife_, and all the greatness of my house.”]

[64] [ The at first inexplicable sleep of Ulysses (bk. xiii. 79, etc.)
is here, as also in viii. 445, being obviously prepared. The writer
evidently attached the utmost importance to it. Those who know that the
harbour which did duty with the writer of the “Odyssey” for the one in
which Ulysses landed in Ithaca, was only about 2 miles from the place
in which Ulysses is now talking with Alcinous, will understand why the
sleep was so necessary.]

[65] [ There were two classes—the lower who were found in provisions
which they had to cook for themselves in the yards and outer precincts,
where they would also eat—and the upper who would eat in the cloisters
of the inner court, and have their cooking done for them.]

[66] [ Translation very dubious. I suppose the {Greek} here to be the
covered sheds that ran round the outer courtyard. See illustrations at
the end of bk. iii.]

[67] [ The writer apparently deems that the words “as compared with
what oxen can plough in the same time” go without saying. Not so the
writer of the “Iliad” from which the Odyssean passage is probably
taken. He explains that mules can plough quicker than oxen (“Il.” x.
351-353)]

[68] [ It was very fortunate that such a disc happened to be there,
seeing that none like it were in common use.]

[69] [ “Il.” xiii. 37. Here, as so often elsewhere in the “Odyssey,”
the appropriation of an Iliadic line which is not quite appropriate
puzzles the reader. The “they” is not the chains, nor yet Mars and
Venus. It is an overflow from the Iliadic passage in which Neptune
hobbles his horses in bonds “which none could either unloose or break
so that they might stay there in that place.” If the line would have
scanned without the addition of the words “so that they might stay
there in that place,” they would have been omitted in the “Odyssey.”]

[70] [ The reader will note that Alcinous never goes beyond saying that
he is going to give the goblet; he never gives it. Elsewhere in both
“Iliad” and “Odyssey” the offer of a present is immediately followed by
the statement that it was given and received gladly—Alcinous actually
does give a chest and a cloak and shirt—probably also some of the corn
and wine for the long two-mile voyage was provided by him—but it is
quite plain that he gave no talent and no cup.]

[71] [ “Il.” xviii. 344-349. These lines in the “Iliad” tell of the
preparation for washing the body of Patroclus, and I am not pleased
that the writer of the “Odyssey” should have adopted them here.]

[72] [ see note [64] : ]

[73] [ see note [43] : ]

[74] [ The reader will find this threat fulfilled in bk. xiii]

[75] [ If the other islands lay some distance away from Ithaca (which
the word {Greek} suggests), what becomes of the πόρθμος or gut between
Ithaca and Samos which we hear of in Bks. iv. and xv.? I suspect that
the authoress in her mind makes Telemachus come back from Pylos to the
Lilybaean promontory and thence to Trapani through the strait between
the _Isola Grande_ and the mainland—the island of Asteria being the one
on which Motya afterwards stood.]

[76] [ “Il.” xviii. 533-534. The sudden lapse into the third person
here for a couple of lines is due to the fact that the two Iliadic
lines taken are in the third person.]

[77] [ cf. “Il.” ii. 776. The words in both “Iliad” and “Odyssey” are
[Footnote Greek]. In the “Iliad” they are used of the horses of
Achilles’ followers as they stood idle, “champing lotus.”]

[78] [ I take all this passage about the Cyclopes having no ships to be
sarcastic—meaning, “You people of Drepanum have no excuse for not
colonising the island of Favognana, which you could easily do, for you
have plenty of ships, and the island is a very good one.” For that the
island so fully described here is the Aegadean or “goat” island of
Favognana, and that the Cyclopes are the old Sican inhabitants of Mt.
Eryx should not be doubted.]

[79] [ For the reasons why it was necessary that the night should be so
exceptionally dark see “The Authoress of the Odyssey” pp. 188-189.]

[80] [ None but such lambs as would suck if they were with their
mothers would be left in the yard. The older lambs should have been out
feeding. The authoress has got it all wrong, but it does not matter.
See “The Authoress of the Odyssey” p. 148.]

[81] [ This line is enclosed in brackets in the received text, and is
omitted (with note) by Messrs. Butcher & Lang. But lines enclosed in
brackets are almost always genuine; all that brackets mean is that the
bracketed passage puzzled some early editor, who nevertheless found it
too well established in the text to venture on omitting it. In the
present case the line bracketed is the very last which a full-grown
male editor would be likely to interpolate. It is safer to infer that
the writer, a young woman, not knowing or caring at which end of the
ship the rudder should be, determined to make sure by placing it at
both ends, which we shall find she presently does by repeating it (line
340) at the stern of the ship. As for the two rocks thrown, the first I
take to be the Asinelli, see map facing p. 80. The second I see as the
two contiguous islands of the Formiche, which are treated as one, see
map facing p. 108. The Asinelli is an island shaped like a boat, and
pointing to the island of Favognana. I think the authoress’s
compatriots, who probably did not like her much better that she did
them, jeered at the absurdity of Ulysses’ conduct, and saw the Asinelli
or “donkeys,” not as the rock thrown by Polyphemus, but as the boat
itself containing Ulysses and his men.]

[82] [ This line exists in the text here but not in the corresponding
passage xii. 141. I am inclined to think it is interpolated (probably
by the poetess herself) from the first of lines xi. 115-137, which I
can hardly doubt were added by the writer when the scheme of the work
was enlarged and altered. See “The Authoress of the Odyssey” pp.
254-255.]

[83] [ “Floating” (πλωτῇ) is not to be taken literally. The island
itself, as apart from its inhabitants, was quite normal. There is no
indication of its moving during the month that Ulysses stayed with
Aeolus, and on his return from his unfortunate voyage, he seems to have
found it in the same place. The πλωτῇ in fact should no more be pressed
than θοῇσι as applied to islands, “Odyssey” xv. 299—where they are
called “flying” because the ship would fly past them. So also the
“Wanderers,” as explained by Buttmann; see note on “Odyssey” xii. 57.]

[84] [ Literally “for the ways of the night and of the day are near.” I
have seen what Mr. Andrew Lang says (“Homer and the Epic,” p. 236, and
“Longman’s Magazine” for January, 1898, p. 277) about the “amber route”
and the “Sacred Way” in this connection; but until he gives his grounds
for holding that the Mediterranean peoples in the Odyssean age used to
go far North for their amber instead of getting it in Sicily, where it
is still found in considerable quantities, I do not know what weight I
ought to attach to his opinion. I have been unable to find grounds for
asserting that B.C. 1000 there was any commerce between the
Mediterranean and the “Far North,” but I shall be very ready to learn
if Mr. Lang will enlighten me. See “The Authoress of the Odyssey” pp.
185-186.]

[85] [ One would have thought that when the sun was driving the stag
down to the water, Ulysses might have observed its whereabouts.]

[86] [ See Hobbes of Malmesbury’s translation.]

[87] [ “Il.” vxiii. 349. Again the writer draws from the washing the
body of Patroclus—which offends.]

[88] [ This visit is wholly without topographical significance.]

[89] [ Brides presented themselves instinctively to the imagination of
the writer, as the phase of humanity which she found most interesting.]

[90] [ Ulysses was, in fact, to become a missionary and preach Neptune
to people who knew not his name. I was fortunate enough to meet in
Sicily a woman carrying one of these winnowing shovels; it was not much
shorter than an oar, and I was able at once to see what the writer of
the “Odyssey” intended.]

[91] [ I suppose the lines I have enclosed in brackets to have been
added by the author when she enlarged her original scheme by the
addition of books i.-iv. and xiii. (from line 187)-xxiv. The reader
will observe that in the corresponding passage (xii. 137-141) the
prophecy ends with “after losing all your comrades,” and that there is
no allusion to the suitors. For fuller explanation see “The Authoress
of the Odyssey” pp. 254-255.]

[92] [ The reader will remember that we are in the first year of
Ulysses’ wanderings, Telemachus therefore was only eleven years old.
The same anachronism is made later on in this book. See “The Authoress
of the Odyssey” pp. 132-133.]

[93] [ Tradition says that she had hanged herself. Cf. “Odyssey” xv.
355, etc.]

[94] [ Not to be confounded with Aeolus king of the winds.]

[95] [ Melampus, vide book xv. 223, etc.]

[96] [ I have already said in a note on bk. xi. 186 that at this point
of Ulysses’ voyage Telemachus could only be between eleven and twelve
years old.]

[97] [ Is the writer a man or a woman?]

[98] [ Cf. “Il.” iv. 521, {Greek}. The Odyssean line reads, {Greek}.
The famous dactylism, therefore, of the Odyssean line was probably
suggested by that of the Ileadic rather than by a desire to accommodate
sound to sense. At any rate the double coincidence of a dactylic line,
and an ending {Greek}, seems conclusive as to the familiarity of the
writer of the “Odyssey” with the Iliadic line.]

[99] [ Off the coast of Sicily and South Italy, in the month of May, I
have seen men fastened half way up a boat’s mast with their feet
resting on a crosspiece, just large enough to support them. From this
point of vantage they spear sword-fish. When I saw men thus employed I
could hardly doubt that the writer of the “Odyssey” had seen others
like them, and had them in her mind when describing the binding of
Ulysses. I have therefore with some diffidence ventured to depart from
the received translation of ἰστοπέδη (cf. Alcaeus frag. 18, where,
however, it is very hard to say what ἰστοπέδαν means). In Sophocles’
Lexicon I find a reference to Chrysostom (l, 242, A. Ed. Benedictine
Paris 1834-1839) for the word ἰστοπόδη, which is probably the same as
ἰστοπέδη, but I have looked for the passage in vain.]

[100] [ The writer is at fault here and tries to put it off on Circe.
When Ulysses comes to take the route prescribed by Circe, he ought to
pass either the Wanderers or some other difficulty of which we are not
told, but he does not do so. The Planctae, or Wanderers, merge into
Scylla and Charybdis, and the alternative between them and something
untold merges into the alternative whether Ulysses had better choose
Scylla or Charybdis. Yet from line 260, it seems we are to consider the
Wanderers as having been passed by Ulysses; this appears even more
plainly from xxiii. 327, in which Ulysses expressly mentions the
Wandering rocks as having been between the Sirens and Scylla and
Charybdis. The writer, however, is evidently unaware that she does not
quite understand her own story; her difficulty was perhaps due to the
fact that though Trapanese sailors had given her a fair idea as to
where all her other localities really were, no one in those days more
than in our own could localise the Planctae, which in fact, as Buttmann
has argued, were derived not from any particular spot, but from
sailors’ tales about the difficulties of navigating the group of the
Aeolian islands as a whole (see note on “Od.” x. 3). Still the matter
of the poor doves caught her fancy, so she would not forgo them. The
whirlwinds of fire and the smoke that hangs on Scylla suggests allusion
to Stromboli and perhaps even Etna. Scylla is on the Italian side, and
therefore may be said to look West. It is about 8 miles thence to the
Sicilian coast, so Ulysses may be perfectly well told that after
passing Scylla he will come to the Thrinacian island or Sicily.
Charybdis is transposed to a site some few miles to the north of its
actual position.]

[101] [ I suppose this line to have been intercalated by the author
when lines 426-446 were added.]

[102] [ For the reasons which enable us to identify the island of the
two Sirens with the Lipari island now Salinas—the ancient Didyme, or
“twin” island—see The Authoress of the Odyssey, pp. 195, 196. The two
Sirens doubtless were, as their name suggests, the whistling gusts, or
avalanches of air that at times descend without a moment’s warning from
the two lofty mountains of Salinas—as also from all high points in the
neighbourhood.]

[103] [ See Admiral Smyth on the currents in the Straits of Messina,
quoted in “The Authoress of the Odyssey,” p. 197.]

[104] [ In the islands of Favognana and Marettimo off Trapani I have
seen men fish exactly as here described. They chew bread into a paste
and throw it into the sea to attract the fish, which they then spear.
No line is used.]

[105] [ The writer evidently regards Ulysses as on a coast that looked
East at no great distance south of the Straits of Messina somewhere,
say, near Tauromenium, now Taormina.]

[106] [ Surely there must be a line missing here to tell us that the
keel and mast were carried down into Charybdis. Besides, the aorist
{Greek} in its present surrounding is perplexing. I have translated it
as though it were an imperfect; I see Messrs. Butcher and Lang
translate it as a pluperfect, but surely Charybdis was in the act of
sucking down the water when Ulysses arrived.]

[107] [ I suppose the passage within brackets to have been an
afterthought but to have been written by the same hand as the rest of
the poem. I suppose xii. 103 to have been also added by the writer when
she decided on sending Ulysses back to Charybdis. The simile suggests
the hand of the wife or daughter of a magistrate who had often seen her
father come in cross and tired.]

[108] [ Gr. πολυδαίδαλος. This puts coined money out of the question,
but nevertheless implies that the gold had been worked into ornaments
of some kind.]

[109] [ I suppose Teiresias’ prophecy of bk. xi. 114-120 had made no
impression on Ulysses. More probably the prophecy was an afterthought,
intercalated, as I have already said, by the authoress when she changed
her scheme.]

[110] [ A male writer would have made Ulysses say, not “may you give
satisfaction to your wives,” but “may your wives give satisfaction to
you.”]

[111] [ See note [64].]

[112] [ The land was in reality the shallow inlet, now the salt works
of S. Cusumano—the neighbourhood of Trapani and Mt. Eryx being made to
do double duty, both as Scheria and Ithaca. Hence the necessity for
making Ulysses set out after dark, fall instantly into a profound
sleep, and wake up on a morning so foggy that he could not see anything
till the interviews between Neptune and Jove and between Ulysses and
Minerva should have given the audience time to accept the situation.
See illustrations and map near the end of bks. v. and vi.
respectively.]

[113] [ This cave, which is identifiable with singular completeness, is
now called the “grotta del toro,” probably a corruption of “tesoro,”
for it is held to contain a treasure. See The Authoress of the Odyssey,
pp. 167-170.]

[114] [ Probably they would.]

[115] [ Then it had a shallow shelving bottom.]

[116] [ Doubtless the road would pass the harbour in Odyssean times as
it passes the salt works now; indeed, if there is to be a road at all
there is no other level ground which it could take. See map above
referred to.]

[117] [ The rock at the end of the Northern harbour of Trapani, to
which I suppose the writer of the “Odyssey” to be here referring, still
bears the name Malconsiglio—“the rock of evil counsel.” There is a
legend that it was a ship of Turkish pirates who were intending to
attack Trapani, but the “Madonna di Trapani” crushed them under this
rock just as they were coming into port. My friend Cavaliere
Giannitrapani of Trapani told me that his father used to tell him when
he was a boy that if he would drop exactly three drops of oil on to the
water near the rock, he would see the ship still at the bottom. The
legend is evidently a Christianised version of the Odyssean story,
while the name supplies the additional detail that the disaster
happened in consequence of an evil counsel.]

[118] [ It would seem then that the ship had got all the way back from
Ithaca in about a quarter of an hour.]

[119] [ And may we not add “and also to prevent his recognising that he
was only in the place where he had met Nausicaa two days earlier.”]

[120] [ All this is to excuse the entire absence of Minerva from books
ix.-xii., which I suppose had been written already, before the
authoress had determined on making Minerva so prominent a character.]

[121] [ We have met with this somewhat lame attempt to cover the
writer’s change of scheme at the end of bk. vi.]

[122] [ I take the following from The Authoress of the Odyssey, p. 167.
“It is clear from the text that there were two [caves] not one, but
some one has enclosed in brackets the two lines in which the second
cave is mentioned, I presume because he found himself puzzled by having
a second cave sprung upon him when up to this point he had only been
told of one.

“I venture to think that if he had known the ground he would not have
been puzzled, for there are two caves, distant about 80 or 100 yards
from one another.” The cave in which Ulysses hid his treasure is, as I
have already said, identifiable with singular completeness. The other
cave presents no special features, neither in the poem nor in nature.]

[123] [ There is no attempt to disguise the fact that Penelope had long
given encouragement to the suitors. The only defence set up is that she
did not really mean to encourage them. Would it not have been wiser to
have tried a little discouragement?]

[124] [ See map near the end of bk. vi. _Ruccazzù dei corvi_ of course
means “the rock of the ravens.” Both name and ravens still exist.]

[125] [ See The Authoress of the Odyssey, pp. 140, 141. The real reason
for sending Telemachus to Pylos and Lacedaemon was that the authoress
might get Helen of Troy into her poem. He was sent at the only point in
the story at which he could be sent, so he must have gone then or not
at all.]

[126] [ The site I assign to Eumaeus’s hut, close to the _Ruccazzù dei
corvi_, is about 2,000 feet above the sea, and commands an extensive
view.]

[127] [ Sandals such as Eumaeus was making are still worn in the
Abruzzi and elsewhere. An oblong piece of leather forms the sole: holes
are cut at the four corners, and through these holes leathern straps
are passed, which are bound round the foot and cross-gartered up the
calf.]

[128] [ See note [75] : ]

[129] [ Telemachus like many another good young man seems to expect
every one to fetch and carry for him.]

[130] [ “Il.” vi. 288. The store room was fragrant because it was made
of cedar wood. See “Il.” xxiv. 192.]

[131] [ cf. “Il.” vi. 289 and 293-296. The dress was kept at the bottom
of the chest as one that would only be wanted on the greatest
occasions; but surely the marriage of Hermione and of Megapenthes (bk,
iv. _ad init_.) might have induced Helen to wear it on the preceding
evening, in which case it could hardly have got back. We find no hint
here of Megapenthes’ recent marriage.]

[132] [ See note [83].]

[133] [ cf. “Od.” xi. 196, etc.]

[134] [ The names Syra and Ortygia, on which island a great part of the
Doric Syracuse was originally built, suggest that even in Odyssean
times there was a prehistoric Syracuse, the existence of which was
known to the writer of the poem.]

[135] [ Literally “where are the turnings of the sun.” Assuming, as we
may safely do, that the Syra and Ortygia of the “Odyssey” refer to
Syracuse, it is the fact that not far to the South of these places the
land turns sharply round, so that mariners following the coast would
find the sun upon the other side of their ship to that on which they’d
had it hitherto.

Mr. A. S. Griffith has kindly called my attention to Herod iv. 42,
where, speaking of the circumnavigation of Africa by Phoenician
mariners under Necos, he writes:

“On their return they declared—I for my part do not believe them, but
perhaps others may—that in sailing round Libya [i.e. Africa] they had
the sun upon their right hand. In this way was the extent of Libya
first discovered.

“I take it that Eumaeus was made to have come from Syracuse because the
writer thought she rather ought to have made something happen at
Syracuse during her account of the voyages of Ulysses. She could not,
however, break his long drift from Charybdis to the island of
Pantellaria; she therefore resolved to make it up to Syracuse in
another way.”

Modern excavations establish the existence of two and only two
pre-Dorian communities at Syracuse; they were, so Dr. Orsi informed me,
at Plemmirio and Cozzo Pantano. See The Authoress of the Odyssey, pp.
211-213.]

[136] [ This harbour is again evidently the harbour in which Ulysses
had landed, i.e. the harbour that is now the salt works of S.
Cusumano.]

[137] [ This never can have been anything but very niggardly pay for
some eight or nine days’ service. I suppose the crew were to consider
the pleasure of having had a trip to Pylos as a set off. There is no
trace of the dinner as having been actually given, either on the
following or any other morning.]

[138] [ No hawk can tear its prey while it is on the wing.]

[139] [ The text is here apparently corrupt, and will not make sense as
it stands. I follow Messrs. Butcher & Lang in omitting line 101.]

[140] [ i.e. to be milked, as in South Italian and Sicilian towns at
the present day.]

[141] [ The butchering and making ready the carcases took place partly
in the outer yard and partly in the open part of the inner court.]

[142] [ These words cannot mean that it would be afternoon soon after
they were spoken. Ulysses and Eumaeus reached the town which was “some
way off” (xvii. 25) in time for the suitor’s early meal (xvii. 170 and
176) say at ten or eleven o’ clock. The context of the rest of the book
shows this. Eumaeus and Ulysses, therefore, cannot have started later
than eight or nine, and Eumaeus’s words must be taken as an
exaggeration for the purpose of making Ulysses bestir himself.]

[143] [ I imagine the fountain to have been somewhere about where the
church of the _Madonna di Trapani_ now stands, and to have been fed
with water from what is now called the Fontana Diffali on Mt. Eryx.]

[144] [ From this and other passages in the “Odyssey” it appears that
we are in an age anterior to the use of coined money—an age when
cauldrons, tripods, swords, cattle, chattels of all kinds, measures of
corn, wine, or oil, etc. etc., not to say pieces of gold, silver,
bronze, or even iron, wrought more or less, but unstamped, were the
nearest approach to a currency that had as yet been reached.]

[145] [ Gr. ἐς μέσσον.]

[146] [ I correct these proofs abroad and am not within reach of
Hesiod, but surely this passage suggests acquaintance with the Works
and Ways, though it by no means compels it.]

[147] [ It would seem as though Eurynome and Euryclea were the same
person. See note 156]

[148] [ It is plain, therefore, that Iris was commonly accepted as the
messenger of the gods, though our authoress will never permit her to
fetch or carry for any one.]

[149] [ i.e. the doorway leading from the inner to the outer court.]

[150] [See note 156]

[151] [ These, I imagine, must have been in the open part of the inner
courtyard, where the maids also stood, and threw the light of their
torches into the covered cloister that ran all round it. The smoke
would otherwise have been intolerable.]

[152] [ Translation very uncertain; vide Liddell and Scott, under
{Greek}]

[153] [ See photo on opposite page.]

[154] [ cf. “Il.” ii. 184, and 217, 218. An additional and well-marked
feature being wanted to convince Penelope, the writer has taken the
hunched shoulders of Thersites (who is mentioned immediately after
Eurybates in the “Iliad”) and put them on to Eurybates’ back.]

[155] [ This is how geese are now fed in Sicily, at any rate in summer,
when the grass is all burnt up. I have never seen them grazing.]

[156] [ Lower down (line 143) Euryclea says it was herself that had
thrown the cloak over Ulysses—for the plural should not be taken as
implying more than one person. The writer is evidently still
fluctuating between Euryclea and Eurynome as the name for the old
nurse. She probably originally meant to call her Euryclea, but finding
it not immediately easy to make Euryclea scan in xvii. 495, she hastily
called her Eurynome, intending either to alter this name later or to
change the earlier Euryclea’s into Eurynome. She then drifted in to
Eurynome as convenience further directed, still nevertheless hankering
after Euryclea, till at last she found that the path of least
resistance would lie in the direction of making Eurynome and Euryclea
two persons. Therefore in xxiii. 289-292 both Eurynome and “the nurse”
(who can be none other than Euryclea) come on together. I do not say
that this is feminine, but it is not unfeminine.]

[157] [ See note [156]]

[158] [ This, I take it, was immediately in front of the main entrance
of the inner courtyard into the body of the house.]

[159] [ This is the only allusion to Sardinia in either “Iliad” or
“Odyssey.”]

[160] [ The normal translation of the Greek word would be “holding
back,” “curbing,” “restraining,” but I cannot think that the writer
meant this—she must have been using the word in its other sense of
“having,” “holding,” “keeping,” “maintaining.”]

[161] [ I have vainly tried to realise the construction of the
fastening here described.]

[162] [ See plan of Ulysses’ house in the appendix. It is evident that
the open part of the court had no flooring but the natural soil.]

[163] [ See plan of Ulysses’ house, and note [175].]

[164] [ i.e. the door that led into the body of the house.]

[165] [ This was, no doubt, the little table that was set for Ulysses,
“Od.” xx. 259.

Surely the difficulty of this passage has been overrated. I suppose the
iron part of the axe to have been wedged into the handle, or bound
securely to it—the handle being half buried in the ground. The axe
would be placed edgeways towards the archer, and he would have to shoot
his arrow through the hole into which the handle was fitted when the
axe was in use. Twelve axes were placed in a row all at the same
height, all exactly in front of one another, all edgeways to Ulysses
whose arrow passed through all the holes from the first onward. I
cannot see how the Greek can bear any other interpretation, the words
being, {Greek}

“He did not miss a single hole from the first onwards.” {Greek}
according to Liddell and Scott being “the hole for the handle of an
axe, etc.,” while {Greek} (“Od.” v. 236) is, according to the same
authorities, the handle itself. The feat is absurdly impossible, but
our authoress sometimes has a soul above impossibilities.]

[166] [ The reader will note how the spoiling of good food distresses
the writer even in such a supreme moment as this.]

[167] [ Here we have it again. Waste of substance comes first.]

[168] [ cf. “Il.” iii. 337 and three other places. It is strange that
the author of the “Iliad” should find a little horse-hair so alarming.
Possibly enough she was merely borrowing a common form line from some
earlier poet—or poetess—for this is a woman’s line rather than a
man’s.]

[169] [ Or perhaps simply “window.” See plan in the appendix.]

[170] [ i.e. the pavement on which Ulysses was standing.]

[171] [ The interpretation of lines 126-143 is most dubious, and at
best we are in a region of melodrama: cf., however, i. 425, etc. from
which it appears that there was a tower in the outer court, and that
Telemachus used to sleep in it. The ὀρσοθύρα I take to be a door, or
trap door, leading on to the roof above Telemachus’s bed room, which we
are told was in a place that could be seen from all round—or it might
be simply a window in Telemachus’s room looking out into the street.
From the top of the tower the outer world was to be told what was going
on, but people could not get in by the ὀρσοθύρα: they would have to
come in by the main entrance, and Melanthius explains that the mouth of
the narrow passage (which was in the lands of Ulysses and his friends)
commanded the only entrance by which help could come, so that there
would be nothing gained by raising an alarm.
    As for the ῥῶγες of line 143, no commentator ancient or modern has
    been able to say what was intended—but whatever they were,
    Melanthius could never carry twelve shields, twelve helmets, and
    twelve spears. Moreover, where he could go the others could go
    also. If a dozen suitors had followed Melanthius into the house
    they could have attacked Ulysses in the rear, in which case, unless
    Minerva had intervened promptly, the “Odyssey” would have had a
    different ending. But throughout the scene we are in a region of
    extravagance rather than of true fiction—it cannot be taken
    seriously by any but the very serious, until we come to the episode
    of Phemius and Medon, where the writer begins to be at home again.]

[172] [ I presume it was intended that there should be a hook driven
into the bearing-post.]

[173] [ What for?]

[174] [ Gr: {Greek}. This is not {Greek}.]

[175] [ From lines 333 and 341 of this book, and lines 145 and 146 of
bk. xxi we can locate the approach to the {Greek} with some certainty.]

[176] [ But in xix. 500-502 Ulysses scolded Euryclea for offering
information on this very point, and declared himself quite able to
settle it for himself.]

[177] [ There were a hundred and eight Suitors.]

[178] [ Lord Grimthorpe, whose understanding does not lend itself to
easy imposition, has been good enough to write to me about my
conviction that the “Odyssey” was written by a woman, and to send me
remarks upon the gross absurdity of the incident here recorded. It is
plain that all the authoress cared about was that the women should be
hanged: as for attempting to realise, or to make her readers realise,
how the hanging was done, this was of no consequence. The reader must
take her word for it and ask no questions. Lord Grimthorpe wrote:

“I had better send you my ideas about Nausicaa’s hanging of the maids
(not ‘maidens,’ of whom Froude wrote so well in his ‘Science of
History’) before I forget it all. Luckily for me Liddell & Scott have
specially translated most of the doubtful words, referring to this very
place.

“A ship’s cable. I don’t know how big a ship she meant, but it must
have been a very small one indeed if its ‘cable’ could be used to tie
tightly round a woman’s neck, and still more round a dozen of them ‘in
a row,’ besides being strong enough to hold them and pull them all up.

“A dozen average women would need the weight and strength of more than
a dozen strong heavy men even over the best pulley hung to the roof
over them; and the idea of pulling them up by a rope hung anyhow round
a pillar {Greek} is absurdly impossible; and how a dozen of them could
be hung dangling round one post is a problem which a senior wrangler
would be puzzled to answer... She had better have let Telemachus use
his sword as he had intended till she changed his mind for him.”]

[179] [ Then they had all been in Ulysses’ service over twenty years;
perhaps the twelve guilty ones had been engaged more recently.]

[180] [ Translation very doubtful—cf. “It.” xxiv. 598.]

[181] [ But why could she not at once ask to see the scar, of which
Euryclea had told her, or why could not Ulysses have shown it to her?]

[182] [ The people of Ithaca seem to have been as fond of carping as
the Phaeacians were in vi. 273, etc.]

[183] [ See note [156]. Ulysses’s bed room does not appear to have been
upstairs, nor yet quite within the house. Is it possible that it was
“the domed room” round the outside of which the erring maids were, for
aught we have heard to the contrary, still hanging?]

[184] [ Ulysses bedroom in the mind of the writer is here too
apparently down stairs.]

[185] [ Penelope having been now sufficiently whitewashed, disappears
from the poem.]

[186] [ So practised a washerwoman as our authoress doubtless knew that
by this time the web must have become such a wreck that it would have
gone to pieces in the wash.]

A lady points out to me, just as these sheets are leaving my hands,
that no really good needlewoman—no one, indeed, whose work or character
was worth consideration—could have endured, no matter for what reason,
the unpicking of her day’s work, day after day for between three and
four years.]

[187] [ We must suppose Dolius not yet to know that his son Melanthius
had been tortured, mutilated, and left to die by Ulysses’ orders on the
preceding day, and that his daughter Melantho had been hanged. Dolius
was probably exceptionally simple-minded, and his name was ironical. So
on Mt. Eryx I was shown a man who was always called Sonza Malizia or
“Guileless”—he being held exceptionally cunning.]












[Illustration]




A Room With A View

By E. M. Forster




CONTENTS

 Part One.
 Chapter I. The Bertolini
 Chapter II. In Santa Croce with No Baedeker
 Chapter III. Music, Violets, and the Letter “S”
 Chapter IV. Fourth Chapter
 Chapter V. Possibilities of a Pleasant Outing
 Chapter VI. The Reverend Arthur Beebe, the Reverend Cuthbert Eager, Mr. Emerson, Mr. George Emerson, Miss Eleanor Lavish, Miss Charlotte Bartlett, and Miss Lucy Honeychurch Drive Out in Carriages to See a View; Italians Drive Them
 Chapter VII. They Return

 Part Two.
 Chapter VIII. Medieval
 Chapter IX. Lucy As a Work of Art
 Chapter X. Cecil as a Humourist
 Chapter XI. In Mrs. Vyse’s Well-Appointed Flat
 Chapter XII. Twelfth Chapter
 Chapter XIII. How Miss Bartlett’s Boiler Was So Tiresome
 Chapter XIV. How Lucy Faced the External Situation Bravely
 Chapter XV. The Disaster Within
 Chapter XVI. Lying to George
 Chapter XVII. Lying to Cecil
 Chapter XVIII. Lying to Mr. Beebe, Mrs. Honeychurch, Freddy, and The Servants
 Chapter XIX. Lying to Mr. Emerson
 Chapter XX. The End of the Middle Ages




PART ONE




Chapter I
The Bertolini


“The Signora had no business to do it,” said Miss Bartlett, “no
business at all. She promised us south rooms with a view close
together, instead of which here are north rooms, looking into a
courtyard, and a long way apart. Oh, Lucy!”

“And a Cockney, besides!” said Lucy, who had been further saddened by
the Signora’s unexpected accent. “It might be London.” She looked at
the two rows of English people who were sitting at the table; at the
row of white bottles of water and red bottles of wine that ran between
the English people; at the portraits of the late Queen and the late
Poet Laureate that hung behind the English people, heavily framed; at
the notice of the English church (Rev. Cuthbert Eager, M. A. Oxon.),
that was the only other decoration of the wall. “Charlotte, don’t you
feel, too, that we might be in London? I can hardly believe that all
kinds of other things are just outside. I suppose it is one’s being so
tired.”

“This meat has surely been used for soup,” said Miss Bartlett, laying
down her fork.

“I want so to see the Arno. The rooms the Signora promised us in her
letter would have looked over the Arno. The Signora had no business to
do it at all. Oh, it is a shame!”

“Any nook does for me,” Miss Bartlett continued; “but it does seem hard
that you shouldn’t have a view.”

Lucy felt that she had been selfish. “Charlotte, you mustn’t spoil me:
of course, you must look over the Arno, too. I meant that. The first
vacant room in the front—” “You must have it,” said Miss Bartlett, part
of whose travelling expenses were paid by Lucy’s mother—a piece of
generosity to which she made many a tactful allusion.

“No, no. You must have it.”

“I insist on it. Your mother would never forgive me, Lucy.”

“She would never forgive _me_.”

The ladies’ voices grew animated, and—if the sad truth be owned—a
little peevish. They were tired, and under the guise of unselfishness
they wrangled. Some of their neighbours interchanged glances, and one
of them—one of the ill-bred people whom one does meet abroad—leant
forward over the table and actually intruded into their argument. He
said:

“I have a view, I have a view.”

Miss Bartlett was startled. Generally at a pension people looked them
over for a day or two before speaking, and often did not find out that
they would “do” till they had gone. She knew that the intruder was
ill-bred, even before she glanced at him. He was an old man, of heavy
build, with a fair, shaven face and large eyes. There was something
childish in those eyes, though it was not the childishness of senility.
What exactly it was Miss Bartlett did not stop to consider, for her
glance passed on to his clothes. These did not attract her. He was
probably trying to become acquainted with them before they got into the
swim. So she assumed a dazed expression when he spoke to her, and then
said: “A view? Oh, a view! How delightful a view is!”

“This is my son,” said the old man; “his name’s George. He has a view
too.”

“Ah,” said Miss Bartlett, repressing Lucy, who was about to speak.

“What I mean,” he continued, “is that you can have our rooms, and we’ll
have yours. We’ll change.”

The better class of tourist was shocked at this, and sympathized with
the new-comers. Miss Bartlett, in reply, opened her mouth as little as
possible, and said “Thank you very much indeed; that is out of the
question.”

“Why?” said the old man, with both fists on the table.

“Because it is quite out of the question, thank you.”

“You see, we don’t like to take—” began Lucy. Her cousin again
repressed her.

“But why?” he persisted. “Women like looking at a view; men don’t.” And
he thumped with his fists like a naughty child, and turned to his son,
saying, “George, persuade them!”

“It’s so obvious they should have the rooms,” said the son. “There’s
nothing else to say.”

He did not look at the ladies as he spoke, but his voice was perplexed
and sorrowful. Lucy, too, was perplexed; but she saw that they were in
for what is known as “quite a scene,” and she had an odd feeling that
whenever these ill-bred tourists spoke the contest widened and deepened
till it dealt, not with rooms and views, but with—well, with something
quite different, whose existence she had not realized before. Now the
old man attacked Miss Bartlett almost violently: Why should she not
change? What possible objection had she? They would clear out in half
an hour.

Miss Bartlett, though skilled in the delicacies of conversation, was
powerless in the presence of brutality. It was impossible to snub any
one so gross. Her face reddened with displeasure. She looked around as
much as to say, “Are you all like this?” And two little old ladies, who
were sitting further up the table, with shawls hanging over the backs
of the chairs, looked back, clearly indicating “We are not; we are
genteel.”

“Eat your dinner, dear,” she said to Lucy, and began to toy again with
the meat that she had once censured.

Lucy mumbled that those seemed very odd people opposite.

“Eat your dinner, dear. This pension is a failure. To-morrow we will
make a change.”

Hardly had she announced this fell decision when she reversed it. The
curtains at the end of the room parted, and revealed a clergyman, stout
but attractive, who hurried forward to take his place at the table,
cheerfully apologizing for his lateness. Lucy, who had not yet acquired
decency, at once rose to her feet, exclaiming: “Oh, oh! Why, it’s Mr.
Beebe! Oh, how perfectly lovely! Oh, Charlotte, we must stop now,
however bad the rooms are. Oh!”

Miss Bartlett said, with more restraint:

“How do you do, Mr. Beebe? I expect that you have forgotten us: Miss
Bartlett and Miss Honeychurch, who were at Tunbridge Wells when you
helped the Vicar of St. Peter’s that very cold Easter.”

The clergyman, who had the air of one on a holiday, did not remember
the ladies quite as clearly as they remembered him. But he came forward
pleasantly enough and accepted the chair into which he was beckoned by
Lucy.

“I _am_ so glad to see you,” said the girl, who was in a state of
spiritual starvation, and would have been glad to see the waiter if her
cousin had permitted it. “Just fancy how small the world is. Summer
Street, too, makes it so specially funny.”

“Miss Honeychurch lives in the parish of Summer Street,” said Miss
Bartlett, filling up the gap, “and she happened to tell me in the
course of conversation that you have just accepted the living—”

“Yes, I heard from mother so last week. She didn’t know that I knew you
at Tunbridge Wells; but I wrote back at once, and I said: ‘Mr. Beebe
is—’”

“Quite right,” said the clergyman. “I move into the Rectory at Summer
Street next June. I am lucky to be appointed to such a charming
neighbourhood.”

“Oh, how glad I am! The name of our house is Windy Corner.” Mr. Beebe
bowed.

“There is mother and me generally, and my brother, though it’s not
often we get him to ch—— The church is rather far off, I mean.”

“Lucy, dearest, let Mr. Beebe eat his dinner.”

“I am eating it, thank you, and enjoying it.”

He preferred to talk to Lucy, whose playing he remembered, rather than
to Miss Bartlett, who probably remembered his sermons. He asked the
girl whether she knew Florence well, and was informed at some length
that she had never been there before. It is delightful to advise a
newcomer, and he was first in the field. “Don’t neglect the country
round,” his advice concluded. “The first fine afternoon drive up to
Fiesole, and round by Settignano, or something of that sort.”

“No!” cried a voice from the top of the table. “Mr. Beebe, you are
wrong. The first fine afternoon your ladies must go to Prato.”

“That lady looks so clever,” whispered Miss Bartlett to her cousin. “We
are in luck.”

And, indeed, a perfect torrent of information burst on them. People
told them what to see, when to see it, how to stop the electric trams,
how to get rid of the beggars, how much to give for a vellum blotter,
how much the place would grow upon them. The Pension Bertolini had
decided, almost enthusiastically, that they would do. Whichever way
they looked, kind ladies smiled and shouted at them. And above all rose
the voice of the clever lady, crying: “Prato! They must go to Prato.
That place is too sweetly squalid for words. I love it; I revel in
shaking off the trammels of respectability, as you know.”

The young man named George glanced at the clever lady, and then
returned moodily to his plate. Obviously he and his father did not do.
Lucy, in the midst of her success, found time to wish they did. It gave
her no extra pleasure that any one should be left in the cold; and when
she rose to go, she turned back and gave the two outsiders a nervous
little bow.

The father did not see it; the son acknowledged it, not by another bow,
but by raising his eyebrows and smiling; he seemed to be smiling across
something.

She hastened after her cousin, who had already disappeared through the
curtains—curtains which smote one in the face, and seemed heavy with
more than cloth. Beyond them stood the unreliable Signora, bowing
good-evening to her guests, and supported by ’Enery, her little boy,
and Victorier, her daughter. It made a curious little scene, this
attempt of the Cockney to convey the grace and geniality of the South.
And even more curious was the drawing-room, which attempted to rival
the solid comfort of a Bloomsbury boarding-house. Was this really
Italy?

Miss Bartlett was already seated on a tightly stuffed arm-chair, which
had the colour and the contours of a tomato. She was talking to Mr.
Beebe, and as she spoke, her long narrow head drove backwards and
forwards, slowly, regularly, as though she were demolishing some
invisible obstacle. “We are most grateful to you,” she was saying. “The
first evening means so much. When you arrived we were in for a
peculiarly _mauvais quart d’heure_.”

He expressed his regret.

“Do you, by any chance, know the name of an old man who sat opposite us
at dinner?”

“Emerson.”

“Is he a friend of yours?”

“We are friendly—as one is in pensions.”

“Then I will say no more.”

He pressed her very slightly, and she said more.

“I am, as it were,” she concluded, “the chaperon of my young cousin,
Lucy, and it would be a serious thing if I put her under an obligation
to people of whom we know nothing. His manner was somewhat unfortunate.
I hope I acted for the best.”

“You acted very naturally,” said he. He seemed thoughtful, and after a
few moments added: “All the same, I don’t think much harm would have
come of accepting.”

“No _harm_, of course. But we could not be under an obligation.”

“He is rather a peculiar man.” Again he hesitated, and then said
gently: “I think he would not take advantage of your acceptance, nor
expect you to show gratitude. He has the merit—if it is one—of saying
exactly what he means. He has rooms he does not value, and he thinks
you would value them. He no more thought of putting you under an
obligation than he thought of being polite. It is so difficult—at
least, I find it difficult—to understand people who speak the truth.”

Lucy was pleased, and said: “I was hoping that he was nice; I do so
always hope that people will be nice.”

“I think he is; nice and tiresome. I differ from him on almost every
point of any importance, and so, I expect—I may say I hope—you will
differ. But his is a type one disagrees with rather than deplores. When
he first came here he not unnaturally put people’s backs up. He has no
tact and no manners—I don’t mean by that that he has bad manners—and he
will not keep his opinions to himself. We nearly complained about him
to our depressing Signora, but I am glad to say we thought better of
it.”

“Am I to conclude,” said Miss Bartlett, “that he is a Socialist?”

Mr. Beebe accepted the convenient word, not without a slight twitching
of the lips.

“And presumably he has brought up his son to be a Socialist, too?”

“I hardly know George, for he hasn’t learnt to talk yet. He seems a
nice creature, and I think he has brains. Of course, he has all his
father’s mannerisms, and it is quite possible that he, too, may be a
Socialist.”

“Oh, you relieve me,” said Miss Bartlett. “So you think I ought to have
accepted their offer? You feel I have been narrow-minded and
suspicious?”

“Not at all,” he answered; “I never suggested that.”

“But ought I not to apologize, at all events, for my apparent
rudeness?”

He replied, with some irritation, that it would be quite unnecessary,
and got up from his seat to go to the smoking-room.

“Was I a bore?” said Miss Bartlett, as soon as he had disappeared. “Why
didn’t you talk, Lucy? He prefers young people, I’m sure. I do hope I
haven’t monopolized him. I hoped you would have him all the evening, as
well as all dinner-time.”

“He is nice,” exclaimed Lucy. “Just what I remember. He seems to see
good in everyone. No one would take him for a clergyman.”

“My dear Lucia—”

“Well, you know what I mean. And you know how clergymen generally
laugh; Mr. Beebe laughs just like an ordinary man.”

“Funny girl! How you do remind me of your mother. I wonder if she will
approve of Mr. Beebe.”

“I’m sure she will; and so will Freddy.”

“I think everyone at Windy Corner will approve; it is the fashionable
world. I am used to Tunbridge Wells, where we are all hopelessly behind
the times.”

“Yes,” said Lucy despondently.

There was a haze of disapproval in the air, but whether the disapproval
was of herself, or of Mr. Beebe, or of the fashionable world at Windy
Corner, or of the narrow world at Tunbridge Wells, she could not
determine. She tried to locate it, but as usual she blundered. Miss
Bartlett sedulously denied disapproving of any one, and added “I am
afraid you are finding me a very depressing companion.”

And the girl again thought: “I must have been selfish or unkind; I must
be more careful. It is so dreadful for Charlotte, being poor.”

Fortunately one of the little old ladies, who for some time had been
smiling very benignly, now approached and asked if she might be allowed
to sit where Mr. Beebe had sat. Permission granted, she began to
chatter gently about Italy, the plunge it had been to come there, the
gratifying success of the plunge, the improvement in her sister’s
health, the necessity of closing the bed-room windows at night, and of
thoroughly emptying the water-bottles in the morning. She handled her
subjects agreeably, and they were, perhaps, more worthy of attention
than the high discourse upon Guelfs and Ghibellines which was
proceeding tempestuously at the other end of the room. It was a real
catastrophe, not a mere episode, that evening of hers at Venice, when
she had found in her bedroom something that is one worse than a flea,
though one better than something else.

“But here you are as safe as in England. Signora Bertolini is so
English.”

“Yet our rooms smell,” said poor Lucy. “We dread going to bed.”

“Ah, then you look into the court.” She sighed. “If only Mr. Emerson
was more tactful! We were so sorry for you at dinner.”

“I think he was meaning to be kind.”

“Undoubtedly he was,” said Miss Bartlett.

“Mr. Beebe has just been scolding me for my suspicious nature. Of
course, I was holding back on my cousin’s account.”

“Of course,” said the little old lady; and they murmured that one could
not be too careful with a young girl.

Lucy tried to look demure, but could not help feeling a great fool. No
one was careful with her at home; or, at all events, she had not
noticed it.

“About old Mr. Emerson—I hardly know. No, he is not tactful; yet, have
you ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most
indelicate, and yet at the same time—beautiful?”

“Beautiful?” said Miss Bartlett, puzzled at the word. “Are not beauty
and delicacy the same?”

“So one would have thought,” said the other helplessly. “But things are
so difficult, I sometimes think.”

She proceeded no further into things, for Mr. Beebe reappeared, looking
extremely pleasant.

“Miss Bartlett,” he cried, “it’s all right about the rooms. I’m so
glad. Mr. Emerson was talking about it in the smoking-room, and knowing
what I did, I encouraged him to make the offer again. He has let me
come and ask you. He would be so pleased.”

“Oh, Charlotte,” cried Lucy to her cousin, “we must have the rooms now.
The old man is just as nice and kind as he can be.”

Miss Bartlett was silent.

“I fear,” said Mr. Beebe, after a pause, “that I have been officious. I
must apologize for my interference.”

Gravely displeased, he turned to go. Not till then did Miss Bartlett
reply: “My own wishes, dearest Lucy, are unimportant in comparison with
yours. It would be hard indeed if I stopped you doing as you liked at
Florence, when I am only here through your kindness. If you wish me to
turn these gentlemen out of their rooms, I will do it. Would you then,
Mr. Beebe, kindly tell Mr. Emerson that I accept his kind offer, and
then conduct him to me, in order that I may thank him personally?”

She raised her voice as she spoke; it was heard all over the
drawing-room, and silenced the Guelfs and the Ghibellines. The
clergyman, inwardly cursing the female sex, bowed, and departed with
her message.

“Remember, Lucy, I alone am implicated in this. I do not wish the
acceptance to come from you. Grant me that, at all events.”

Mr. Beebe was back, saying rather nervously:

“Mr. Emerson is engaged, but here is his son instead.”

The young man gazed down on the three ladies, who felt seated on the
floor, so low were their chairs.

“My father,” he said, “is in his bath, so you cannot thank him
personally. But any message given by you to me will be given by me to
him as soon as he comes out.”

Miss Bartlett was unequal to the bath. All her barbed civilities came
forth wrong end first. Young Mr. Emerson scored a notable triumph to
the delight of Mr. Beebe and to the secret delight of Lucy.

“Poor young man!” said Miss Bartlett, as soon as he had gone.

“How angry he is with his father about the rooms! It is all he can do
to keep polite.”

“In half an hour or so your rooms will be ready,” said Mr. Beebe. Then
looking rather thoughtfully at the two cousins, he retired to his own
rooms, to write up his philosophic diary.

“Oh, dear!” breathed the little old lady, and shuddered as if all the
winds of heaven had entered the apartment. “Gentlemen sometimes do not
realize—” Her voice faded away, but Miss Bartlett seemed to understand
and a conversation developed, in which gentlemen who did not thoroughly
realize played a principal part. Lucy, not realizing either, was
reduced to literature. Taking up Baedeker’s Handbook to Northern Italy,
she committed to memory the most important dates of Florentine History.
For she was determined to enjoy herself on the morrow. Thus the
half-hour crept profitably away, and at last Miss Bartlett rose with a
sigh, and said:

“I think one might venture now. No, Lucy, do not stir. I will
superintend the move.”

“How you do do everything,” said Lucy.

“Naturally, dear. It is my affair.”

“But I would like to help you.”

“No, dear.”

Charlotte’s energy! And her unselfishness! She had been thus all her
life, but really, on this Italian tour, she was surpassing herself. So
Lucy felt, or strove to feel. And yet—there was a rebellious spirit in
her which wondered whether the acceptance might not have been less
delicate and more beautiful. At all events, she entered her own room
without any feeling of joy.

“I want to explain,” said Miss Bartlett, “why it is that I have taken
the largest room. Naturally, of course, I should have given it to you;
but I happen to know that it belongs to the young man, and I was sure
your mother would not like it.”

Lucy was bewildered.

“If you are to accept a favour it is more suitable you should be under
an obligation to his father than to him. I am a woman of the world, in
my small way, and I know where things lead to. However, Mr. Beebe is a
guarantee of a sort that they will not presume on this.”

“Mother wouldn’t mind I’m sure,” said Lucy, but again had the sense of
larger and unsuspected issues.

Miss Bartlett only sighed, and enveloped her in a protecting embrace as
she wished her good-night. It gave Lucy the sensation of a fog, and
when she reached her own room she opened the window and breathed the
clean night air, thinking of the kind old man who had enabled her to
see the lights dancing in the Arno and the cypresses of San Miniato,
and the foot-hills of the Apennines, black against the rising moon.

Miss Bartlett, in her room, fastened the window-shutters and locked the
door, and then made a tour of the apartment to see where the cupboards
led, and whether there were any oubliettes or secret entrances. It was
then that she saw, pinned up over the washstand, a sheet of paper on
which was scrawled an enormous note of interrogation. Nothing more.

“What does it mean?” she thought, and she examined it carefully by the
light of a candle. Meaningless at first, it gradually became menacing,
obnoxious, portentous with evil. She was seized with an impulse to
destroy it, but fortunately remembered that she had no right to do so,
since it must be the property of young Mr. Emerson. So she unpinned it
carefully, and put it between two pieces of blotting-paper to keep it
clean for him. Then she completed her inspection of the room, sighed
heavily according to her habit, and went to bed.




Chapter II
In Santa Croce with No Baedeker


It was pleasant to wake up in Florence, to open the eyes upon a bright
bare room, with a floor of red tiles which look clean though they are
not; with a painted ceiling whereon pink griffins and blue amorini
sport in a forest of yellow violins and bassoons. It was pleasant, too,
to fling wide the windows, pinching the fingers in unfamiliar
fastenings, to lean out into sunshine with beautiful hills and trees
and marble churches opposite, and close below, the Arno, gurgling
against the embankment of the road.

Over the river men were at work with spades and sieves on the sandy
foreshore, and on the river was a boat, also diligently employed for
some mysterious end. An electric tram came rushing underneath the
window. No one was inside it, except one tourist; but its platforms
were overflowing with Italians, who preferred to stand. Children tried
to hang on behind, and the conductor, with no malice, spat in their
faces to make them let go. Then soldiers appeared—good-looking,
undersized men—wearing each a knapsack covered with mangy fur, and a
great-coat which had been cut for some larger soldier. Beside them
walked officers, looking foolish and fierce, and before them went
little boys, turning somersaults in time with the band. The tramcar
became entangled in their ranks, and moved on painfully, like a
caterpillar in a swarm of ants. One of the little boys fell down, and
some white bullocks came out of an archway. Indeed, if it had not been
for the good advice of an old man who was selling button-hooks, the
road might never have got clear.

Over such trivialities as these many a valuable hour may slip away, and
the traveller who has gone to Italy to study the tactile values of
Giotto, or the corruption of the Papacy, may return remembering nothing
but the blue sky and the men and women who live under it. So it was as
well that Miss Bartlett should tap and come in, and having commented on
Lucy’s leaving the door unlocked, and on her leaning out of the window
before she was fully dressed, should urge her to hasten herself, or the
best of the day would be gone. By the time Lucy was ready her cousin
had done her breakfast, and was listening to the clever lady among the
crumbs.

A conversation then ensued, on not unfamiliar lines. Miss Bartlett was,
after all, a wee bit tired, and thought they had better spend the
morning settling in; unless Lucy would at all like to go out? Lucy
would rather like to go out, as it was her first day in Florence, but,
of course, she could go alone. Miss Bartlett could not allow this. Of
course she would accompany Lucy everywhere. Oh, certainly not; Lucy
would stop with her cousin. Oh, no! that would never do. Oh, yes!

At this point the clever lady broke in.

“If it is Mrs. Grundy who is troubling you, I do assure you that you
can neglect the good person. Being English, Miss Honeychurch will be
perfectly safe. Italians understand. A dear friend of mine, Contessa
Baroncelli, has two daughters, and when she cannot send a maid to
school with them, she lets them go in sailor-hats instead. Every one
takes them for English, you see, especially if their hair is strained
tightly behind.”

Miss Bartlett was unconvinced by the safety of Contessa Baroncelli’s
daughters. She was determined to take Lucy herself, her head not being
so very bad. The clever lady then said that she was going to spend a
long morning in Santa Croce, and if Lucy would come too, she would be
delighted.

“I will take you by a dear dirty back way, Miss Honeychurch, and if you
bring me luck, we shall have an adventure.”

Lucy said that this was most kind, and at once opened the Baedeker, to
see where Santa Croce was.

“Tut, tut! Miss Lucy! I hope we shall soon emancipate you from
Baedeker. He does but touch the surface of things. As to the true
Italy—he does not even dream of it. The true Italy is only to be found
by patient observation.”

This sounded very interesting, and Lucy hurried over her breakfast, and
started with her new friend in high spirits. Italy was coming at last.
The Cockney Signora and her works had vanished like a bad dream.

Miss Lavish—for that was the clever lady’s name—turned to the right
along the sunny Lung’ Arno. How delightfully warm! But a wind down the
side streets cut like a knife, didn’t it? Ponte alle
Grazie—particularly interesting, mentioned by Dante. San
Miniato—beautiful as well as interesting; the crucifix that kissed a
murderer—Miss Honeychurch would remember the story. The men on the
river were fishing. (Untrue; but then, so is most information.) Then
Miss Lavish darted under the archway of the white bullocks, and she
stopped, and she cried:

“A smell! a true Florentine smell! Every city, let me teach you, has
its own smell.”

“Is it a very nice smell?” said Lucy, who had inherited from her mother
a distaste to dirt.

“One doesn’t come to Italy for niceness,” was the retort; “one comes
for life. Buon giorno! Buon giorno!” bowing right and left. “Look at
that adorable wine-cart! How the driver stares at us, dear, simple
soul!”

So Miss Lavish proceeded through the streets of the city of Florence,
short, fidgety, and playful as a kitten, though without a kitten’s
grace. It was a treat for the girl to be with any one so clever and so
cheerful; and a blue military cloak, such as an Italian officer wears,
only increased the sense of festivity.

“Buon giorno! Take the word of an old woman, Miss Lucy: you will never
repent of a little civility to your inferiors. _That_ is the true
democracy. Though I am a real Radical as well. There, now you’re
shocked.”

“Indeed, I’m not!” exclaimed Lucy. “We are Radicals, too, out and out.
My father always voted for Mr. Gladstone, until he was so dreadful
about Ireland.”

“I see, I see. And now you have gone over to the enemy.”

“Oh, please—! If my father was alive, I am sure he would vote Radical
again now that Ireland is all right. And as it is, the glass over our
front door was broken last election, and Freddy is sure it was the
Tories; but mother says nonsense, a tramp.”

“Shameful! A manufacturing district, I suppose?”

“No—in the Surrey hills. About five miles from Dorking, looking over
the Weald.”

Miss Lavish seemed interested, and slackened her trot.

“What a delightful part; I know it so well. It is full of the very
nicest people. Do you know Sir Harry Otway—a Radical if ever there
was?”

“Very well indeed.”

“And old Mrs. Butterworth the philanthropist?”

“Why, she rents a field of us! How funny!”

Miss Lavish looked at the narrow ribbon of sky, and murmured: “Oh, you
have property in Surrey?”

“Hardly any,” said Lucy, fearful of being thought a snob. “Only thirty
acres—just the garden, all downhill, and some fields.”

Miss Lavish was not disgusted, and said it was just the size of her
aunt’s Suffolk estate. Italy receded. They tried to remember the last
name of Lady Louisa someone, who had taken a house near Summer Street
the other year, but she had not liked it, which was odd of her. And
just as Miss Lavish had got the name, she broke off and exclaimed:

“Bless us! Bless us and save us! We’ve lost the way.”

Certainly they had seemed a long time in reaching Santa Croce, the
tower of which had been plainly visible from the landing window. But
Miss Lavish had said so much about knowing her Florence by heart, that
Lucy had followed her with no misgivings.

“Lost! lost! My dear Miss Lucy, during our political diatribes we have
taken a wrong turning. How those horrid Conservatives would jeer at us!
What are we to do? Two lone females in an unknown town. Now, this is
what _I_ call an adventure.”

Lucy, who wanted to see Santa Croce, suggested, as a possible solution,
that they should ask the way there.

“Oh, but that is the word of a craven! And no, you are not, not, _not_
to look at your Baedeker. Give it to me; I shan’t let you carry it. We
will simply drift.”

Accordingly they drifted through a series of those grey-brown streets,
neither commodious nor picturesque, in which the eastern quarter of the
city abounds. Lucy soon lost interest in the discontent of Lady Louisa,
and became discontented herself. For one ravishing moment Italy
appeared. She stood in the Square of the Annunziata and saw in the
living terra-cotta those divine babies whom no cheap reproduction can
ever stale. There they stood, with their shining limbs bursting from
the garments of charity, and their strong white arms extended against
circlets of heaven. Lucy thought she had never seen anything more
beautiful; but Miss Lavish, with a shriek of dismay, dragged her
forward, declaring that they were out of their path now by at least a
mile.

The hour was approaching at which the continental breakfast begins, or
rather ceases, to tell, and the ladies bought some hot chestnut paste
out of a little shop, because it looked so typical. It tasted partly of
the paper in which it was wrapped, partly of hair oil, partly of the
great unknown. But it gave them strength to drift into another Piazza,
large and dusty, on the farther side of which rose a black-and-white
façade of surpassing ugliness. Miss Lavish spoke to it dramatically. It
was Santa Croce. The adventure was over.

“Stop a minute; let those two people go on, or I shall have to speak to
them. I do detest conventional intercourse. Nasty! they are going into
the church, too. Oh, the Britisher abroad!”

“We sat opposite them at dinner last night. They have given us their
rooms. They were so very kind.”

“Look at their figures!” laughed Miss Lavish. “They walk through my
Italy like a pair of cows. It’s very naughty of me, but I would like to
set an examination paper at Dover, and turn back every tourist who
couldn’t pass it.”

“What would you ask us?”

Miss Lavish laid her hand pleasantly on Lucy’s arm, as if to suggest
that she, at all events, would get full marks. In this exalted mood
they reached the steps of the great church, and were about to enter it
when Miss Lavish stopped, squeaked, flung up her arms, and cried:

“There goes my local-colour box! I must have a word with him!”

And in a moment she was away over the Piazza, her military cloak
flapping in the wind; nor did she slacken speed till she caught up an
old man with white whiskers, and nipped him playfully upon the arm.

Lucy waited for nearly ten minutes. Then she began to get tired. The
beggars worried her, the dust blew in her eyes, and she remembered that
a young girl ought not to loiter in public places. She descended slowly
into the Piazza with the intention of rejoining Miss Lavish, who was
really almost too original. But at that moment Miss Lavish and her
local-colour box moved also, and disappeared down a side street, both
gesticulating largely. Tears of indignation came to Lucy’s eyes partly
because Miss Lavish had jilted her, partly because she had taken her
Baedeker. How could she find her way home? How could she find her way
about in Santa Croce? Her first morning was ruined, and she might never
be in Florence again. A few minutes ago she had been all high spirits,
talking as a woman of culture, and half persuading herself that she was
full of originality. Now she entered the church depressed and
humiliated, not even able to remember whether it was built by the
Franciscans or the Dominicans. Of course, it must be a wonderful
building. But how like a barn! And how very cold! Of course, it
contained frescoes by Giotto, in the presence of whose tactile values
she was capable of feeling what was proper. But who was to tell her
which they were? She walked about disdainfully, unwilling to be
enthusiastic over monuments of uncertain authorship or date. There was
no one even to tell her which, of all the sepulchral slabs that paved
the nave and transepts, was the one that was really beautiful, the one
that had been most praised by Mr. Ruskin.

Then the pernicious charm of Italy worked on her, and, instead of
acquiring information, she began to be happy. She puzzled out the
Italian notices—the notices that forbade people to introduce dogs into
the church—the notice that prayed people, in the interest of health and
out of respect to the sacred edifice in which they found themselves,
not to spit. She watched the tourists; their noses were as red as their
Baedekers, so cold was Santa Croce. She beheld the horrible fate that
overtook three Papists—two he-babies and a she-baby—who began their
career by sousing each other with the Holy Water, and then proceeded to
the Machiavelli memorial, dripping but hallowed. Advancing towards it
very slowly and from immense distances, they touched the stone with
their fingers, with their handkerchiefs, with their heads, and then
retreated. What could this mean? They did it again and again. Then Lucy
realized that they had mistaken Machiavelli for some saint, hoping to
acquire virtue. Punishment followed quickly. The smallest he-baby
stumbled over one of the sepulchral slabs so much admired by Mr.
Ruskin, and entangled his feet in the features of a recumbent bishop.
Protestant as she was, Lucy darted forward. She was too late. He fell
heavily upon the prelate’s upturned toes.

“Hateful bishop!” exclaimed the voice of old Mr. Emerson, who had
darted forward also. “Hard in life, hard in death. Go out into the
sunshine, little boy, and kiss your hand to the sun, for that is where
you ought to be. Intolerable bishop!”

The child screamed frantically at these words, and at these dreadful
people who picked him up, dusted him, rubbed his bruises, and told him
not to be superstitious.

“Look at him!” said Mr. Emerson to Lucy. “Here’s a mess: a baby hurt,
cold, and frightened! But what else can you expect from a church?”

The child’s legs had become as melting wax. Each time that old Mr.
Emerson and Lucy set it erect it collapsed with a roar. Fortunately an
Italian lady, who ought to have been saying her prayers, came to the
rescue. By some mysterious virtue, which mothers alone possess, she
stiffened the little boy’s back-bone and imparted strength to his
knees. He stood. Still gibbering with agitation, he walked away.

“You are a clever woman,” said Mr. Emerson. “You have done more than
all the relics in the world. I am not of your creed, but I do believe
in those who make their fellow-creatures happy. There is no scheme of
the universe—”

He paused for a phrase.

“Niente,” said the Italian lady, and returned to her prayers.

“I’m not sure she understands English,” suggested Lucy.

In her chastened mood she no longer despised the Emersons. She was
determined to be gracious to them, beautiful rather than delicate, and,
if possible, to erase Miss Bartlett’s civility by some gracious
reference to the pleasant rooms.

“That woman understands everything,” was Mr. Emerson’s reply. “But what
are you doing here? Are you doing the church? Are you through with the
church?”

“No,” cried Lucy, remembering her grievance. “I came here with Miss
Lavish, who was to explain everything; and just by the door—it is too
bad!—she simply ran away, and after waiting quite a time, I had to come
in by myself.”

“Why shouldn’t you?” said Mr. Emerson.

“Yes, why shouldn’t you come by yourself?” said the son, addressing the
young lady for the first time.

“But Miss Lavish has even taken away Baedeker.”

“Baedeker?” said Mr. Emerson. “I’m glad it’s _that_ you minded. It’s
worth minding, the loss of a Baedeker. _That’s_ worth minding.”

Lucy was puzzled. She was again conscious of some new idea, and was not
sure whither it would lead her.

“If you’ve no Baedeker,” said the son, “you’d better join us.” Was this
where the idea would lead? She took refuge in her dignity.

“Thank you very much, but I could not think of that. I hope you do not
suppose that I came to join on to you. I really came to help with the
child, and to thank you for so kindly giving us your rooms last night.
I hope that you have not been put to any great inconvenience.”

“My dear,” said the old man gently, “I think that you are repeating
what you have heard older people say. You are pretending to be touchy;
but you are not really. Stop being so tiresome, and tell me instead
what part of the church you want to see. To take you to it will be a
real pleasure.”

Now, this was abominably impertinent, and she ought to have been
furious. But it is sometimes as difficult to lose one’s temper as it is
difficult at other times to keep it. Lucy could not get cross. Mr.
Emerson was an old man, and surely a girl might humour him. On the
other hand, his son was a young man, and she felt that a girl ought to
be offended with him, or at all events be offended before him. It was
at him that she gazed before replying.

“I am not touchy, I hope. It is the Giottos that I want to see, if you
will kindly tell me which they are.”

The son nodded. With a look of sombre satisfaction, he led the way to
the Peruzzi Chapel. There was a hint of the teacher about him. She felt
like a child in school who had answered a question rightly.

The chapel was already filled with an earnest congregation, and out of
them rose the voice of a lecturer, directing them how to worship
Giotto, not by tactful valuations, but by the standards of the spirit.

“Remember,” he was saying, “the facts about this church of Santa Croce;
how it was built by faith in the full fervour of medievalism, before
any taint of the Renaissance had appeared. Observe how Giotto in these
frescoes—now, unhappily, ruined by restoration—is untroubled by the
snares of anatomy and perspective. Could anything be more majestic,
more pathetic, beautiful, true? How little, we feel, avails knowledge
and technical cleverness against a man who truly feels!”

“No!” exclaimed Mr. Emerson, in much too loud a voice for church.
“Remember nothing of the sort! Built by faith indeed! That simply means
the workmen weren’t paid properly. And as for the frescoes, I see no
truth in them. Look at that fat man in blue! He must weigh as much as I
do, and he is shooting into the sky like an air balloon.”

He was referring to the fresco of the “Ascension of St. John.” Inside,
the lecturer’s voice faltered, as well it might. The audience shifted
uneasily, and so did Lucy. She was sure that she ought not to be with
these men; but they had cast a spell over her. They were so serious and
so strange that she could not remember how to behave.

“Now, did this happen, or didn’t it? Yes or no?”

George replied:

“It happened like this, if it happened at all. I would rather go up to
heaven by myself than be pushed by cherubs; and if I got there I should
like my friends to lean out of it, just as they do here.”

“You will never go up,” said his father. “You and I, dear boy, will lie
at peace in the earth that bore us, and our names will disappear as
surely as our work survives.”

“Some of the people can only see the empty grave, not the saint,
whoever he is, going up. It did happen like that, if it happened at
all.”

“Pardon me,” said a frigid voice. “The chapel is somewhat small for two
parties. We will incommode you no longer.”

The lecturer was a clergyman, and his audience must be also his flock,
for they held prayer-books as well as guide-books in their hands. They
filed out of the chapel in silence. Amongst them were the two little
old ladies of the Pension Bertolini—Miss Teresa and Miss Catherine
Alan.

“Stop!” cried Mr. Emerson. “There’s plenty of room for us all. Stop!”

The procession disappeared without a word.

Soon the lecturer could be heard in the next chapel, describing the
life of St. Francis.

“George, I do believe that clergyman is the Brixton curate.”

George went into the next chapel and returned, saying “Perhaps he is. I
don’t remember.”

“Then I had better speak to him and remind him who I am. It’s that Mr.
Eager. Why did he go? Did we talk too loud? How vexatious. I shall go
and say we are sorry. Hadn’t I better? Then perhaps he will come back.”

“He will not come back,” said George.

But Mr. Emerson, contrite and unhappy, hurried away to apologize to the
Rev. Cuthbert Eager. Lucy, apparently absorbed in a lunette, could hear
the lecture again interrupted, the anxious, aggressive voice of the old
man, the curt, injured replies of his opponent. The son, who took every
little contretemps as if it were a tragedy, was listening also.

“My father has that effect on nearly everyone,” he informed her. “He
will try to be kind.”

“I hope we all try,” said she, smiling nervously.

“Because we think it improves our characters. But he is kind to people
because he loves them; and they find him out, and are offended, or
frightened.”

“How silly of them!” said Lucy, though in her heart she sympathized; “I
think that a kind action done tactfully—”

“Tact!”

He threw up his head in disdain. Apparently she had given the wrong
answer. She watched the singular creature pace up and down the chapel.
For a young man his face was rugged, and—until the shadows fell upon
it—hard. Enshadowed, it sprang into tenderness. She saw him once again
at Rome, on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, carrying a burden of
acorns. Healthy and muscular, he yet gave her the feeling of greyness,
of tragedy that might only find solution in the night. The feeling soon
passed; it was unlike her to have entertained anything so subtle. Born
of silence and of unknown emotion, it passed when Mr. Emerson returned,
and she could re-enter the world of rapid talk, which was alone
familiar to her.

“Were you snubbed?” asked his son tranquilly.

“But we have spoilt the pleasure of I don’t know how many people. They
won’t come back.”

“...full of innate sympathy...quickness to perceive good in
others...vision of the brotherhood of man...” Scraps of the lecture on
St. Francis came floating round the partition wall.

“Don’t let us spoil yours,” he continued to Lucy. “Have you looked at
those saints?”

“Yes,” said Lucy. “They are lovely. Do you know which is the tombstone
that is praised in Ruskin?”

He did not know, and suggested that they should try to guess it.
George, rather to her relief, refused to move, and she and the old man
wandered not unpleasantly about Santa Croce, which, though it is like a
barn, has harvested many beautiful things inside its walls. There were
also beggars to avoid and guides to dodge round the pillars, and an old
lady with her dog, and here and there a priest modestly edging to his
Mass through the groups of tourists. But Mr. Emerson was only half
interested. He watched the lecturer, whose success he believed he had
impaired, and then he anxiously watched his son.

“Why will he look at that fresco?” he said uneasily. “I saw nothing in
it.”

“I like Giotto,” she replied. “It is so wonderful what they say about
his tactile values. Though I like things like the Della Robbia babies
better.”

“So you ought. A baby is worth a dozen saints. And my baby’s worth the
whole of Paradise, and as far as I can see he lives in Hell.”

Lucy again felt that this did not do.

“In Hell,” he repeated. “He’s unhappy.”

“Oh, dear!” said Lucy.

“How can he be unhappy when he is strong and alive? What more is one to
give him? And think how he has been brought up—free from all the
superstition and ignorance that lead men to hate one another in the
name of God. With such an education as that, I thought he was bound to
grow up happy.”

She was no theologian, but she felt that here was a very foolish old
man, as well as a very irreligious one. She also felt that her mother
might not like her talking to that kind of person, and that Charlotte
would object most strongly.

“What are we to do with him?” he asked. “He comes out for his holiday
to Italy, and behaves—like that; like the little child who ought to
have been playing, and who hurt himself upon the tombstone. Eh? What
did you say?”

Lucy had made no suggestion. Suddenly he said:

“Now don’t be stupid over this. I don’t require you to fall in love
with my boy, but I do think you might try and understand him. You are
nearer his age, and if you let yourself go I am sure you are sensible.
You might help me. He has known so few women, and you have the time.
You stop here several weeks, I suppose? But let yourself go. You are
inclined to get muddled, if I may judge from last night. Let yourself
go. Pull out from the depths those thoughts that you do not understand,
and spread them out in the sunlight and know the meaning of them. By
understanding George you may learn to understand yourself. It will be
good for both of you.”

To this extraordinary speech Lucy found no answer.

“I only know what it is that’s wrong with him; not why it is.”

“And what is it?” asked Lucy fearfully, expecting some harrowing tale.

“The old trouble; things won’t fit.”

“What things?”

“The things of the universe. It is quite true. They don’t.”

“Oh, Mr. Emerson, whatever do you mean?”

In his ordinary voice, so that she scarcely realized he was quoting
poetry, he said:

“‘From far, from eve and morning,
    And yon twelve-winded sky,
The stuff of life to knit me
    Blew hither: here am I’


George and I both know this, but why does it distress him? We know that
we come from the winds, and that we shall return to them; that all life
is perhaps a knot, a tangle, a blemish in the eternal smoothness. But
why should this make us unhappy? Let us rather love one another, and
work and rejoice. I don’t believe in this world sorrow.”

Miss Honeychurch assented.

“Then make my boy think like us. Make him realize that by the side of
the everlasting Why there is a Yes—a transitory Yes if you like, but a
Yes.”

Suddenly she laughed; surely one ought to laugh. A young man melancholy
because the universe wouldn’t fit, because life was a tangle or a wind,
or a Yes, or something!

“I’m very sorry,” she cried. “You’ll think me unfeeling, but—but—” Then
she became matronly. “Oh, but your son wants employment. Has he no
particular hobby? Why, I myself have worries, but I can generally
forget them at the piano; and collecting stamps did no end of good for
my brother. Perhaps Italy bores him; you ought to try the Alps or the
Lakes.”

The old man’s face saddened, and he touched her gently with his hand.
This did not alarm her; she thought that her advice had impressed him
and that he was thanking her for it. Indeed, he no longer alarmed her
at all; she regarded him as a kind thing, but quite silly. Her feelings
were as inflated spiritually as they had been an hour ago esthetically,
before she lost Baedeker. The dear George, now striding towards them
over the tombstones, seemed both pitiable and absurd. He approached,
his face in the shadow. He said:

“Miss Bartlett.”

“Oh, good gracious me!” said Lucy, suddenly collapsing and again seeing
the whole of life in a new perspective. “Where? Where?”

“In the nave.”

“I see. Those gossiping little Miss Alans must have—” She checked
herself.

“Poor girl!” exploded Mr. Emerson. “Poor girl!”

She could not let this pass, for it was just what she was feeling
herself.

“Poor girl? I fail to understand the point of that remark. I think
myself a very fortunate girl, I assure you. I’m thoroughly happy, and
having a splendid time. Pray don’t waste time mourning over _me_.
There’s enough sorrow in the world, isn’t there, without trying to
invent it. Good-bye. Thank you both so much for all your kindness. Ah,
yes! there does come my cousin. A delightful morning! Santa Croce is a
wonderful church.”

She joined her cousin.




Chapter III
Music, Violets, and the Letter “S”


It so happened that Lucy, who found daily life rather chaotic, entered
a more solid world when she opened the piano. She was then no longer
either deferential or patronizing; no longer either a rebel or a slave.
The kingdom of music is not the kingdom of this world; it will accept
those whom breeding and intellect and culture have alike rejected. The
commonplace person begins to play, and shoots into the empyrean without
effort, whilst we look up, marvelling how he has escaped us, and
thinking how we could worship him and love him, would he but translate
his visions into human words, and his experiences into human actions.
Perhaps he cannot; certainly he does not, or does so very seldom. Lucy
had done so never.

She was no dazzling _exécutante;_ her runs were not at all like strings
of pearls, and she struck no more right notes than was suitable for one
of her age and situation. Nor was she the passionate young lady, who
performs so tragically on a summer’s evening with the window open.
Passion was there, but it could not be easily labelled; it slipped
between love and hatred and jealousy, and all the furniture of the
pictorial style. And she was tragical only in the sense that she was
great, for she loved to play on the side of Victory. Victory of what
and over what—that is more than the words of daily life can tell us.
But that some sonatas of Beethoven are written tragic no one can
gainsay; yet they can triumph or despair as the player decides, and
Lucy had decided that they should triumph.

A very wet afternoon at the Bertolini permitted her to do the thing she
really liked, and after lunch she opened the little draped piano. A few
people lingered round and praised her playing, but finding that she
made no reply, dispersed to their rooms to write up their diaries or to
sleep. She took no notice of Mr. Emerson looking for his son, nor of
Miss Bartlett looking for Miss Lavish, nor of Miss Lavish looking for
her cigarette-case. Like every true performer, she was intoxicated by
the mere feel of the notes: they were fingers caressing her own; and by
touch, not by sound alone, did she come to her desire.

Mr. Beebe, sitting unnoticed in the window, pondered this illogical
element in Miss Honeychurch, and recalled the occasion at Tunbridge
Wells when he had discovered it. It was at one of those entertainments
where the upper classes entertain the lower. The seats were filled with
a respectful audience, and the ladies and gentlemen of the parish,
under the auspices of their vicar, sang, or recited, or imitated the
drawing of a champagne cork. Among the promised items was “Miss
Honeychurch. Piano. Beethoven,” and Mr. Beebe was wondering whether it
would be Adelaida, or the march of The Ruins of Athens, when his
composure was disturbed by the opening bars of Opus 111. He was in
suspense all through the introduction, for not until the pace quickens
does one know what the performer intends. With the roar of the opening
theme he knew that things were going extraordinarily; in the chords
that herald the conclusion he heard the hammer strokes of victory. He
was glad that she only played the first movement, for he could have
paid no attention to the winding intricacies of the measures of
nine-sixteen. The audience clapped, no less respectful. It was Mr.
Beebe who started the stamping; it was all that one could do.

“Who is she?” he asked the vicar afterwards.

“Cousin of one of my parishioners. I do not consider her choice of a
piece happy. Beethoven is so usually simple and direct in his appeal
that it is sheer perversity to choose a thing like that, which, if
anything, disturbs.”

“Introduce me.”

“She will be delighted. She and Miss Bartlett are full of the praises
of your sermon.”

“My sermon?” cried Mr. Beebe. “Why ever did she listen to it?”

When he was introduced he understood why, for Miss Honeychurch,
disjoined from her music stool, was only a young lady with a quantity
of dark hair and a very pretty, pale, undeveloped face. She loved going
to concerts, she loved stopping with her cousin, she loved iced coffee
and meringues. He did not doubt that she loved his sermon also. But
before he left Tunbridge Wells he made a remark to the vicar, which he
now made to Lucy herself when she closed the little piano and moved
dreamily towards him:

“If Miss Honeychurch ever takes to live as she plays, it will be very
exciting both for us and for her.”

Lucy at once re-entered daily life.

“Oh, what a funny thing! Some one said just the same to mother, and she
said she trusted I should never live a duet.”

“Doesn’t Mrs. Honeychurch like music?”

“She doesn’t mind it. But she doesn’t like one to get excited over
anything; she thinks I am silly about it. She thinks—I can’t make out.
Once, you know, I said that I liked my own playing better than any
one’s. She has never got over it. Of course, I didn’t mean that I
played well; I only meant—”

“Of course,” said he, wondering why she bothered to explain.

“Music—” said Lucy, as if attempting some generality. She could not
complete it, and looked out absently upon Italy in the wet. The whole
life of the South was disorganized, and the most graceful nation in
Europe had turned into formless lumps of clothes.

The street and the river were dirty yellow, the bridge was dirty grey,
and the hills were dirty purple. Somewhere in their folds were
concealed Miss Lavish and Miss Bartlett, who had chosen this afternoon
to visit the Torre del Gallo.

“What about music?” said Mr. Beebe.

“Poor Charlotte will be sopped,” was Lucy’s reply.

The expedition was typical of Miss Bartlett, who would return cold,
tired, hungry, and angelic, with a ruined skirt, a pulpy Baedeker, and
a tickling cough in her throat. On another day, when the whole world
was singing and the air ran into the mouth, like wine, she would refuse
to stir from the drawing-room, saying that she was an old thing, and no
fit companion for a hearty girl.

“Miss Lavish has led your cousin astray. She hopes to find the true
Italy in the wet I believe.”

“Miss Lavish is so original,” murmured Lucy. This was a stock remark,
the supreme achievement of the Pension Bertolini in the way of
definition. Miss Lavish was so original. Mr. Beebe had his doubts, but
they would have been put down to clerical narrowness. For that, and for
other reasons, he held his peace.

“Is it true,” continued Lucy in awe-struck tone, “that Miss Lavish is
writing a book?”

“They do say so.”

“What is it about?”

“It will be a novel,” replied Mr. Beebe, “dealing with modern Italy.
Let me refer you for an account to Miss Catharine Alan, who uses words
herself more admirably than any one I know.”

“I wish Miss Lavish would tell me herself. We started such friends. But
I don’t think she ought to have run away with Baedeker that morning in
Santa Croce. Charlotte was most annoyed at finding me practically
alone, and so I couldn’t help being a little annoyed with Miss Lavish.”

“The two ladies, at all events, have made it up.”

He was interested in the sudden friendship between women so apparently
dissimilar as Miss Bartlett and Miss Lavish. They were always in each
other’s company, with Lucy a slighted third. Miss Lavish he believed he
understood, but Miss Bartlett might reveal unknown depths of
strangeness, though not perhaps, of meaning. Was Italy deflecting her
from the path of prim chaperon, which he had assigned to her at
Tunbridge Wells? All his life he had loved to study maiden ladies; they
were his specialty, and his profession had provided him with ample
opportunities for the work. Girls like Lucy were charming to look at,
but Mr. Beebe was, from rather profound reasons, somewhat chilly in his
attitude towards the other sex, and preferred to be interested rather
than enthralled.

Lucy, for the third time, said that poor Charlotte would be sopped. The
Arno was rising in flood, washing away the traces of the little carts
upon the foreshore. But in the south-west there had appeared a dull
haze of yellow, which might mean better weather if it did not mean
worse. She opened the window to inspect, and a cold blast entered the
room, drawing a plaintive cry from Miss Catharine Alan, who entered at
the same moment by the door.

“Oh, dear Miss Honeychurch, you will catch a chill! And Mr. Beebe here
besides. Who would suppose this is Italy? There is my sister actually
nursing the hot-water can; no comforts or proper provisions.”

She sidled towards them and sat down, self-conscious as she always was
on entering a room which contained one man, or a man and one woman.

“I could hear your beautiful playing, Miss Honeychurch, though I was in
my room with the door shut. Doors shut; indeed, most necessary. No one
has the least idea of privacy in this country. And one person catches
it from another.”

Lucy answered suitably. Mr. Beebe was not able to tell the ladies of
his adventure at Modena, where the chambermaid burst in upon him in his
bath, exclaiming cheerfully, “Fa niente, sono vecchia.” He contented
himself with saying: “I quite agree with you, Miss Alan. The Italians
are a most unpleasant people. They pry everywhere, they see everything,
and they know what we want before we know it ourselves. We are at their
mercy. They read our thoughts, they foretell our desires. From the
cab-driver down to—to Giotto, they turn us inside out, and I resent it.
Yet in their heart of hearts they are—how superficial! They have no
conception of the intellectual life. How right is Signora Bertolini,
who exclaimed to me the other day: ‘Ho, Mr. Beebe, if you knew what I
suffer over the children’s edjucaishion. _Hi_ won’t ’ave my little
Victorier taught by a hignorant Italian what can’t explain nothink!’”

Miss Alan did not follow, but gathered that she was being mocked in an
agreeable way. Her sister was a little disappointed in Mr. Beebe,
having expected better things from a clergyman whose head was bald and
who wore a pair of russet whiskers. Indeed, who would have supposed
that tolerance, sympathy, and a sense of humour would inhabit that
militant form?

In the midst of her satisfaction she continued to sidle, and at last
the cause was disclosed. From the chair beneath her she extracted a
gun-metal cigarette-case, on which were powdered in turquoise the
initials “E. L.”

“That belongs to Lavish.” said the clergyman. “A good fellow, Lavish,
but I wish she’d start a pipe.”

“Oh, Mr. Beebe,” said Miss Alan, divided between awe and mirth.
“Indeed, though it is dreadful for her to smoke, it is not quite as
dreadful as you suppose. She took to it, practically in despair, after
her life’s work was carried away in a landslip. Surely that makes it
more excusable.”

“What was that?” asked Lucy.

Mr. Beebe sat back complacently, and Miss Alan began as follows: “It
was a novel—and I am afraid, from what I can gather, not a very nice
novel. It is so sad when people who have abilities misuse them, and I
must say they nearly always do. Anyhow, she left it almost finished in
the Grotto of the Calvary at the Capuccini Hotel at Amalfi while she
went for a little ink. She said: ‘Can I have a little ink, please?’ But
you know what Italians are, and meanwhile the Grotto fell roaring on to
the beach, and the saddest thing of all is that she cannot remember
what she has written. The poor thing was very ill after it, and so got
tempted into cigarettes. It is a great secret, but I am glad to say
that she is writing another novel. She told Teresa and Miss Pole the
other day that she had got up all the local colour—this novel is to be
about modern Italy; the other was historical—but that she could not
start till she had an idea. First she tried Perugia for an inspiration,
then she came here—this must on no account get round. And so cheerful
through it all! I cannot help thinking that there is something to
admire in everyone, even if you do not approve of them.”

Miss Alan was always thus being charitable against her better
judgement. A delicate pathos perfumed her disconnected remarks, giving
them unexpected beauty, just as in the decaying autumn woods there
sometimes rise odours reminiscent of spring. She felt she had made
almost too many allowances, and apologized hurriedly for her
toleration.

“All the same, she is a little too—I hardly like to say unwomanly, but
she behaved most strangely when the Emersons arrived.”

Mr. Beebe smiled as Miss Alan plunged into an anecdote which he knew
she would be unable to finish in the presence of a gentleman.

“I don’t know, Miss Honeychurch, if you have noticed that Miss Pole,
the lady who has so much yellow hair, takes lemonade. That old Mr.
Emerson, who puts things very strangely—”

Her jaw dropped. She was silent. Mr. Beebe, whose social resources were
endless, went out to order some tea, and she continued to Lucy in a
hasty whisper:

“Stomach. He warned Miss Pole of her stomach-acidity, he called it—and
he may have meant to be kind. I must say I forgot myself and laughed;
it was so sudden. As Teresa truly said, it was no laughing matter. But
the point is that Miss Lavish was positively _attracted_ by his
mentioning S., and said she liked plain speaking, and meeting different
grades of thought. She thought they were commercial
travellers—‘drummers’ was the word she used—and all through dinner she
tried to prove that England, our great and beloved country, rests on
nothing but commerce. Teresa was very much annoyed, and left the table
before the cheese, saying as she did so: ‘There, Miss Lavish, is one
who can confute you better than I,’ and pointed to that beautiful
picture of Lord Tennyson. Then Miss Lavish said: ‘Tut! The early
Victorians.’ Just imagine! ‘Tut! The early Victorians.’ My sister had
gone, and I felt bound to speak. I said: ‘Miss Lavish, _I_ am an early
Victorian; at least, that is to say, I will hear no breath of censure
against our dear Queen.’ It was horrible speaking. I reminded her how
the Queen had been to Ireland when she did not want to go, and I must
say she was dumbfounded, and made no reply. But, unluckily, Mr. Emerson
overheard this part, and called in his deep voice: ‘Quite so, quite so!
I honour the woman for her Irish visit.’ The woman! I tell things so
badly; but you see what a tangle we were in by this time, all on
account of S. having been mentioned in the first place. But that was
not all. After dinner Miss Lavish actually came up and said: ‘Miss
Alan, I am going into the smoking-room to talk to those two nice men.
Come, too.’ Needless to say, I refused such an unsuitable invitation,
and she had the impertinence to tell me that it would broaden my ideas,
and said that she had four brothers, all University men, except one who
was in the army, who always made a point of talking to commercial
travellers.”

“Let me finish the story,” said Mr. Beebe, who had returned.

“Miss Lavish tried Miss Pole, myself, everyone, and finally said: ‘I
shall go alone.’ She went. At the end of five minutes she returned
unobtrusively with a green baize board, and began playing patience.”

“Whatever happened?” cried Lucy.

“No one knows. No one will ever know. Miss Lavish will never dare to
tell, and Mr. Emerson does not think it worth telling.”

“Mr. Beebe—old Mr. Emerson, is he nice or not nice? I do so want to
know.”

Mr. Beebe laughed and suggested that she should settle the question for
herself.

“No; but it is so difficult. Sometimes he is so silly, and then I do
not mind him. Miss Alan, what do you think? Is he nice?”

The little old lady shook her head, and sighed disapprovingly. Mr.
Beebe, whom the conversation amused, stirred her up by saying:

“I consider that you are bound to class him as nice, Miss Alan, after
that business of the violets.”

“Violets? Oh, dear! Who told you about the violets? How do things get
round? A pension is a bad place for gossips. No, I cannot forget how
they behaved at Mr. Eager’s lecture at Santa Croce. Oh, poor Miss
Honeychurch! It really was too bad. No, I have quite changed. I do
_not_ like the Emersons. They are _not_ nice.”

Mr. Beebe smiled nonchalantly. He had made a gentle effort to introduce
the Emersons into Bertolini society, and the effort had failed. He was
almost the only person who remained friendly to them. Miss Lavish, who
represented intellect, was avowedly hostile, and now the Miss Alans,
who stood for good breeding, were following her. Miss Bartlett,
smarting under an obligation, would scarcely be civil. The case of Lucy
was different. She had given him a hazy account of her adventures in
Santa Croce, and he gathered that the two men had made a curious and
possibly concerted attempt to annex her, to show her the world from
their own strange standpoint, to interest her in their private sorrows
and joys. This was impertinent; he did not wish their cause to be
championed by a young girl: he would rather it should fail. After all,
he knew nothing about them, and pension joys, pension sorrows, are
flimsy things; whereas Lucy would be his parishioner.

Lucy, with one eye upon the weather, finally said that she thought the
Emersons were nice; not that she saw anything of them now. Even their
seats at dinner had been moved.

“But aren’t they always waylaying you to go out with them, dear?” said
the little lady inquisitively.

“Only once. Charlotte didn’t like it, and said something—quite
politely, of course.”

“Most right of her. They don’t understand our ways. They must find
their level.”

Mr. Beebe rather felt that they had gone under. They had given up their
attempt—if it was one—to conquer society, and now the father was almost
as silent as the son. He wondered whether he would not plan a pleasant
day for these folk before they left—some expedition, perhaps, with Lucy
well chaperoned to be nice to them. It was one of Mr. Beebe’s chief
pleasures to provide people with happy memories.

Evening approached while they chatted; the air became brighter; the
colours on the trees and hills were purified, and the Arno lost its
muddy solidity and began to twinkle. There were a few streaks of
bluish-green among the clouds, a few patches of watery light upon the
earth, and then the dripping façade of San Miniato shone brilliantly in
the declining sun.

“Too late to go out,” said Miss Alan in a voice of relief. “All the
galleries are shut.”

“I think I shall go out,” said Lucy. “I want to go round the town in
the circular tram—on the platform by the driver.”

Her two companions looked grave. Mr. Beebe, who felt responsible for
her in the absence of Miss Bartlett, ventured to say:

“I wish we could. Unluckily I have letters. If you do want to go out
alone, won’t you be better on your feet?”

“Italians, dear, you know,” said Miss Alan.

“Perhaps I shall meet someone who reads me through and through!”

But they still looked disapproval, and she so far conceded to Mr. Beebe
as to say that she would only go for a little walk, and keep to the
street frequented by tourists.

“She oughtn’t really to go at all,” said Mr. Beebe, as they watched her
from the window, “and she knows it. I put it down to too much
Beethoven.”




Chapter IV
Fourth Chapter


Mr. Beebe was right. Lucy never knew her desires so clearly as after
music. She had not really appreciated the clergyman’s wit, nor the
suggestive twitterings of Miss Alan. Conversation was tedious; she
wanted something big, and she believed that it would have come to her
on the wind-swept platform of an electric tram. This she might not
attempt. It was unladylike. Why? Why were most big things unladylike?
Charlotte had once explained to her why. It was not that ladies were
inferior to men; it was that they were different. Their mission was to
inspire others to achievement rather than to achieve themselves.
Indirectly, by means of tact and a spotless name, a lady could
accomplish much. But if she rushed into the fray herself she would be
first censured, then despised, and finally ignored. Poems had been
written to illustrate this point.

There is much that is immortal in this medieval lady. The dragons have
gone, and so have the knights, but still she lingers in our midst. She
reigned in many an early Victorian castle, and was Queen of much early
Victorian song. It is sweet to protect her in the intervals of
business, sweet to pay her honour when she has cooked our dinner well.
But alas! the creature grows degenerate. In her heart also there are
springing up strange desires. She too is enamoured of heavy winds, and
vast panoramas, and green expanses of the sea. She has marked the
kingdom of this world, how full it is of wealth, and beauty, and war—a
radiant crust, built around the central fires, spinning towards the
receding heavens. Men, declaring that she inspires them to it, move
joyfully over the surface, having the most delightful meetings with
other men, happy, not because they are masculine, but because they are
alive. Before the show breaks up she would like to drop the august
title of the Eternal Woman, and go there as her transitory self.

Lucy does not stand for the medieval lady, who was rather an ideal to
which she was bidden to lift her eyes when feeling serious. Nor has she
any system of revolt. Here and there a restriction annoyed her
particularly, and she would transgress it, and perhaps be sorry that
she had done so. This afternoon she was peculiarly restive. She would
really like to do something of which her well-wishers disapproved. As
she might not go on the electric tram, she went to Alinari’s shop.

There she bought a photograph of Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus.” Venus,
being a pity, spoilt the picture, otherwise so charming, and Miss
Bartlett had persuaded her to do without it. (A pity in art of course
signified the nude.) Giorgione’s “Tempesta,” the “Idolino,” some of the
Sistine frescoes and the Apoxyomenos, were added to it. She felt a
little calmer then, and bought Fra Angelico’s “Coronation,” Giotto’s
“Ascension of St. John,” some Della Robbia babies, and some Guido Reni
Madonnas. For her taste was catholic, and she extended uncritical
approval to every well-known name.

But though she spent nearly seven lire, the gates of liberty seemed
still unopened. She was conscious of her discontent; it was new to her
to be conscious of it. “The world,” she thought, “is certainly full of
beautiful things, if only I could come across them.” It was not
surprising that Mrs. Honeychurch disapproved of music, declaring that
it always left her daughter peevish, unpractical, and touchy.

“Nothing ever happens to me,” she reflected, as she entered the Piazza
Signoria and looked nonchalantly at its marvels, now fairly familiar to
her. The great square was in shadow; the sunshine had come too late to
strike it. Neptune was already unsubstantial in the twilight, half god,
half ghost, and his fountain plashed dreamily to the men and satyrs who
idled together on its marge. The Loggia showed as the triple entrance
of a cave, wherein many a deity, shadowy, but immortal, looking forth
upon the arrivals and departures of mankind. It was the hour of
unreality—the hour, that is, when unfamiliar things are real. An older
person at such an hour and in such a place might think that sufficient
was happening to him, and rest content. Lucy desired more.

She fixed her eyes wistfully on the tower of the palace, which rose out
of the lower darkness like a pillar of roughened gold. It seemed no
longer a tower, no longer supported by earth, but some unattainable
treasure throbbing in the tranquil sky. Its brightness mesmerized her,
still dancing before her eyes when she bent them to the ground and
started towards home.

Then something did happen.

Two Italians by the Loggia had been bickering about a debt. “Cinque
lire,” they had cried, “cinque lire!” They sparred at each other, and
one of them was hit lightly upon the chest. He frowned; he bent towards
Lucy with a look of interest, as if he had an important message for
her. He opened his lips to deliver it, and a stream of red came out
between them and trickled down his unshaven chin.

That was all. A crowd rose out of the dusk. It hid this extraordinary
man from her, and bore him away to the fountain. Mr. George Emerson
happened to be a few paces away, looking at her across the spot where
the man had been. How very odd! Across something. Even as she caught
sight of him he grew dim; the palace itself grew dim, swayed above her,
fell on to her softly, slowly, noiselessly, and the sky fell with it.

She thought: “Oh, what have I done?”

“Oh, what have I done?” she murmured, and opened her eyes.

George Emerson still looked at her, but not across anything. She had
complained of dullness, and lo! one man was stabbed, and another held
her in his arms.

They were sitting on some steps in the Uffizi Arcade. He must have
carried her. He rose when she spoke, and began to dust his knees. She
repeated:

“Oh, what have I done?”

“You fainted.”

“I—I am very sorry.”

“How are you now?”

“Perfectly well—absolutely well.” And she began to nod and smile.

“Then let us come home. There’s no point in our stopping.”

He held out his hand to pull her up. She pretended not to see it. The
cries from the fountain—they had never ceased—rang emptily. The whole
world seemed pale and void of its original meaning.

“How very kind you have been! I might have hurt myself falling. But now
I am well. I can go alone, thank you.”

His hand was still extended.

“Oh, my photographs!” she exclaimed suddenly.

“What photographs?”

“I bought some photographs at Alinari’s. I must have dropped them out
there in the square.” She looked at him cautiously. “Would you add to
your kindness by fetching them?”

He added to his kindness. As soon as he had turned his back, Lucy arose
with the running of a maniac and stole down the arcade towards the
Arno.

“Miss Honeychurch!”

She stopped with her hand on her heart.

“You sit still; you aren’t fit to go home alone.”

“Yes, I am, thank you so very much.”

“No, you aren’t. You’d go openly if you were.”

“But I had rather—”

“Then I don’t fetch your photographs.”

“I had rather be alone.”

He said imperiously: “The man is dead—the man is probably dead; sit
down till you are rested.” She was bewildered, and obeyed him. “And
don’t move till I come back.”

In the distance she saw creatures with black hoods, such as appear in
dreams. The palace tower had lost the reflection of the declining day,
and joined itself to earth. How should she talk to Mr. Emerson when he
returned from the shadowy square? Again the thought occurred to her,
“Oh, what have I done?”—the thought that she, as well as the dying man,
had crossed some spiritual boundary.

He returned, and she talked of the murder. Oddly enough, it was an easy
topic. She spoke of the Italian character; she became almost garrulous
over the incident that had made her faint five minutes before. Being
strong physically, she soon overcame the horror of blood. She rose
without his assistance, and though wings seemed to flutter inside her,
she walked firmly enough towards the Arno. There a cabman signalled to
them; they refused him.

“And the murderer tried to kiss him, you say—how very odd Italians
are!—and gave himself up to the police! Mr. Beebe was saying that
Italians know everything, but I think they are rather childish. When my
cousin and I were at the Pitti yesterday—What was that?”

He had thrown something into the stream.

“What did you throw in?”

“Things I didn’t want,” he said crossly.

“Mr. Emerson!”

“Well?”

“Where are the photographs?”

He was silent.

“I believe it was my photographs that you threw away.”

“I didn’t know what to do with them,” he cried, and his voice was that
of an anxious boy. Her heart warmed towards him for the first time.
“They were covered with blood. There! I’m glad I’ve told you; and all
the time we were making conversation I was wondering what to do with
them.” He pointed down-stream. “They’ve gone.” The river swirled under
the bridge, “I did mind them so, and one is so foolish, it seemed
better that they should go out to the sea—I don’t know; I may just mean
that they frightened me.” Then the boy verged into a man. “For
something tremendous has happened; I must face it without getting
muddled. It isn’t exactly that a man has died.”

Something warned Lucy that she must stop him.

“It has happened,” he repeated, “and I mean to find out what it is.”

“Mr. Emerson—”

He turned towards her frowning, as if she had disturbed him in some
abstract quest.

“I want to ask you something before we go in.”

They were close to their pension. She stopped and leant her elbows
against the parapet of the embankment. He did likewise. There is at
times a magic in identity of position; it is one of the things that
have suggested to us eternal comradeship. She moved her elbows before
saying:

“I have behaved ridiculously.”

He was following his own thoughts.

“I was never so much ashamed of myself in my life; I cannot think what
came over me.”

“I nearly fainted myself,” he said; but she felt that her attitude
repelled him.

“Well, I owe you a thousand apologies.”

“Oh, all right.”

“And—this is the real point—you know how silly people are
gossiping—ladies especially, I am afraid—you understand what I mean?”

“I’m afraid I don’t.”

“I mean, would you not mention it to any one, my foolish behaviour?”

“Your behaviour? Oh, yes, all right—all right.”

“Thank you so much. And would you—”

She could not carry her request any further. The river was rushing
below them, almost black in the advancing night. He had thrown her
photographs into it, and then he had told her the reason. It struck her
that it was hopeless to look for chivalry in such a man. He would do
her no harm by idle gossip; he was trustworthy, intelligent, and even
kind; he might even have a high opinion of her. But he lacked chivalry;
his thoughts, like his behaviour, would not be modified by awe. It was
useless to say to him, “And would you—” and hope that he would complete
the sentence for himself, averting his eyes from her nakedness like the
knight in that beautiful picture. She had been in his arms, and he
remembered it, just as he remembered the blood on the photographs that
she had bought in Alinari’s shop. It was not exactly that a man had
died; something had happened to the living: they had come to a
situation where character tells, and where childhood enters upon the
branching paths of Youth.

“Well, thank you so much,” she repeated, “How quickly these accidents
do happen, and then one returns to the old life!”

“I don’t.”

Anxiety moved her to question him.

His answer was puzzling: “I shall probably want to live.”

“But why, Mr. Emerson? What do you mean?”

“I shall want to live, I say.”

Leaning her elbows on the parapet, she contemplated the River Arno,
whose roar was suggesting some unexpected melody to her ears.




Chapter V
Possibilities of a Pleasant Outing


It was a family saying that “you never knew which way Charlotte
Bartlett would turn.” She was perfectly pleasant and sensible over
Lucy’s adventure, found the abridged account of it quite adequate, and
paid suitable tribute to the courtesy of Mr. George Emerson. She and
Miss Lavish had had an adventure also. They had been stopped at the
Dazio coming back, and the young officials there, who seemed impudent
and _désœuvré_, had tried to search their reticules for provisions. It
might have been most unpleasant. Fortunately Miss Lavish was a match
for any one.

For good or for evil, Lucy was left to face her problem alone. None of
her friends had seen her, either in the Piazza or, later on, by the
embankment. Mr. Beebe, indeed, noticing her startled eyes at
dinner-time, had again passed to himself the remark of “Too much
Beethoven.” But he only supposed that she was ready for an adventure,
not that she had encountered it. This solitude oppressed her; she was
accustomed to have her thoughts confirmed by others or, at all events,
contradicted; it was too dreadful not to know whether she was thinking
right or wrong.

At breakfast next morning she took decisive action. There were two
plans between which she had to choose. Mr. Beebe was walking up to the
Torre del Gallo with the Emersons and some American ladies. Would Miss
Bartlett and Miss Honeychurch join the party? Charlotte declined for
herself; she had been there in the rain the previous afternoon. But she
thought it an admirable idea for Lucy, who hated shopping, changing
money, fetching letters, and other irksome duties—all of which Miss
Bartlett must accomplish this morning and could easily accomplish
alone.

“No, Charlotte!” cried the girl, with real warmth. “It’s very kind of
Mr. Beebe, but I am certainly coming with you. I had much rather.”

“Very well, dear,” said Miss Bartlett, with a faint flush of pleasure
that called forth a deep flush of shame on the cheeks of Lucy. How
abominably she behaved to Charlotte, now as always! But now she should
alter. All morning she would be really nice to her.

She slipped her arm into her cousin’s, and they started off along the
Lung’ Arno. The river was a lion that morning in strength, voice, and
colour. Miss Bartlett insisted on leaning over the parapet to look at
it. She then made her usual remark, which was “How I do wish Freddy and
your mother could see this, too!”

Lucy fidgeted; it was tiresome of Charlotte to have stopped exactly
where she did.

“Look, Lucia! Oh, you are watching for the Torre del Gallo party. I
feared you would repent you of your choice.”

Serious as the choice had been, Lucy did not repent. Yesterday had been
a muddle—queer and odd, the kind of thing one could not write down
easily on paper—but she had a feeling that Charlotte and her shopping
were preferable to George Emerson and the summit of the Torre del
Gallo. Since she could not unravel the tangle, she must take care not
to re-enter it. She could protest sincerely against Miss Bartlett’s
insinuations.

But though she had avoided the chief actor, the scenery unfortunately
remained. Charlotte, with the complacency of fate, led her from the
river to the Piazza Signoria. She could not have believed that stones,
a Loggia, a fountain, a palace tower, would have such significance. For
a moment she understood the nature of ghosts.

The exact site of the murder was occupied, not by a ghost, but by Miss
Lavish, who had the morning newspaper in her hand. She hailed them
briskly. The dreadful catastrophe of the previous day had given her an
idea which she thought would work up into a book.

“Oh, let me congratulate you!” said Miss Bartlett. “After your despair
of yesterday! What a fortunate thing!”

“Aha! Miss Honeychurch, come you here I am in luck. Now, you are to
tell me absolutely everything that you saw from the beginning.” Lucy
poked at the ground with her parasol.

“But perhaps you would rather not?”

“I’m sorry—if you could manage without it, I think I would rather not.”

The elder ladies exchanged glances, not of disapproval; it is suitable
that a girl should feel deeply.

“It is I who am sorry,” said Miss Lavish. “We literary hacks are
shameless creatures. I believe there’s no secret of the human heart
into which we wouldn’t pry.”

She marched cheerfully to the fountain and back, and did a few
calculations in realism. Then she said that she had been in the Piazza
since eight o’clock collecting material. A good deal of it was
unsuitable, but of course one always had to adapt. The two men had
quarrelled over a five-franc note. For the five-franc note she should
substitute a young lady, which would raise the tone of the tragedy, and
at the same time furnish an excellent plot.

“What is the heroine’s name?” asked Miss Bartlett.

“Leonora,” said Miss Lavish; her own name was Eleanor.

“I do hope she’s nice.”

That desideratum would not be omitted.

“And what is the plot?”

Love, murder, abduction, revenge, was the plot. But it all came while
the fountain plashed to the satyrs in the morning sun.

“I hope you will excuse me for boring on like this,” Miss Lavish
concluded. “It is so tempting to talk to really sympathetic people. Of
course, this is the barest outline. There will be a deal of local
colouring, descriptions of Florence and the neighbourhood, and I shall
also introduce some humorous characters. And let me give you all fair
warning: I intend to be unmerciful to the British tourist.”

“Oh, you wicked woman,” cried Miss Bartlett. “I am sure you are
thinking of the Emersons.”

Miss Lavish gave a Machiavellian smile.

“I confess that in Italy my sympathies are not with my own countrymen.
It is the neglected Italians who attract me, and whose lives I am going
to paint so far as I can. For I repeat and I insist, and I have always
held most strongly, that a tragedy such as yesterday’s is not the less
tragic because it happened in humble life.”

There was a fitting silence when Miss Lavish had concluded. Then the
cousins wished success to her labours, and walked slowly away across
the square.

“She is my idea of a really clever woman,” said Miss Bartlett. “That
last remark struck me as so particularly true. It should be a most
pathetic novel.”

Lucy assented. At present her great aim was not to get put into it. Her
perceptions this morning were curiously keen, and she believed that
Miss Lavish had her on trial for an _ingenué_.

“She is emancipated, but only in the very best sense of the word,”
continued Miss Bartlett slowly. “None but the superficial would be
shocked at her. We had a long talk yesterday. She believes in justice
and truth and human interest. She told me also that she has a high
opinion of the destiny of woman—Mr. Eager! Why, how nice! What a
pleasant surprise!”

“Ah, not for me,” said the chaplain blandly, “for I have been watching
you and Miss Honeychurch for quite a little time.”

“We were chatting to Miss Lavish.”

His brow contracted.

“So I saw. Were you indeed? Andate via! sono occupato!” The last remark
was made to a vender of panoramic photographs who was approaching with
a courteous smile. “I am about to venture a suggestion. Would you and
Miss Honeychurch be disposed to join me in a drive some day this week—a
drive in the hills? We might go up by Fiesole and back by Settignano.
There is a point on that road where we could get down and have an
hour’s ramble on the hillside. The view thence of Florence is most
beautiful—far better than the hackneyed view of Fiesole. It is the view
that Alessio Baldovinetti is fond of introducing into his pictures.
That man had a decided feeling for landscape. Decidedly. But who looks
at it to-day? Ah, the world is too much for us.”

Miss Bartlett had not heard of Alessio Baldovinetti, but she knew that
Mr. Eager was no commonplace chaplain. He was a member of the
residential colony who had made Florence their home. He knew the people
who never walked about with Baedekers, who had learnt to take a siesta
after lunch, who took drives the pension tourists had never heard of,
and saw by private influence galleries which were closed to them.
Living in delicate seclusion, some in furnished flats, others in
Renaissance villas on Fiesole’s slope, they read, wrote, studied, and
exchanged ideas, thus attaining to that intimate knowledge, or rather
perception, of Florence which is denied to all who carry in their
pockets the coupons of Cook.

Therefore an invitation from the chaplain was something to be proud of.
Between the two sections of his flock he was often the only link, and
it was his avowed custom to select those of his migratory sheep who
seemed worthy, and give them a few hours in the pastures of the
permanent. Tea at a Renaissance villa? Nothing had been said about it
yet. But if it did come to that—how Lucy would enjoy it!

A few days ago and Lucy would have felt the same. But the joys of life
were grouping themselves anew. A drive in the hills with Mr. Eager and
Miss Bartlett—even if culminating in a residential tea-party—was no
longer the greatest of them. She echoed the raptures of Charlotte
somewhat faintly. Only when she heard that Mr. Beebe was also coming
did her thanks become more sincere.

“So we shall be a _partie carrée_,” said the chaplain. “In these days
of toil and tumult one has great needs of the country and its message
of purity. Andate via! andate presto, presto! Ah, the town! Beautiful
as it is, it is the town.”

They assented.

“This very square—so I am told—witnessed yesterday the most sordid of
tragedies. To one who loves the Florence of Dante and Savonarola there
is something portentous in such desecration—portentous and
humiliating.”

“Humiliating indeed,” said Miss Bartlett. “Miss Honeychurch happened to
be passing through as it happened. She can hardly bear to speak of it.”
She glanced at Lucy proudly.

“And how came we to have you here?” asked the chaplain paternally.

Miss Bartlett’s recent liberalism oozed away at the question. “Do not
blame her, please, Mr. Eager. The fault is mine: I left her
unchaperoned.”

“So you were here alone, Miss Honeychurch?” His voice suggested
sympathetic reproof but at the same time indicated that a few harrowing
details would not be unacceptable. His dark, handsome face drooped
mournfully towards her to catch her reply.

“Practically.”

“One of our pension acquaintances kindly brought her home,” said Miss
Bartlett, adroitly concealing the sex of the preserver.

“For her also it must have been a terrible experience. I trust that
neither of you was at all—that it was not in your immediate proximity?”

Of the many things Lucy was noticing to-day, not the least remarkable
was this: the ghoulish fashion in which respectable people will nibble
after blood. George Emerson had kept the subject strangely pure.

“He died by the fountain, I believe,” was her reply.

“And you and your friend—”

“Were over at the Loggia.”

“That must have saved you much. You have not, of course, seen the
disgraceful illustrations which the gutter Press—This man is a public
nuisance; he knows that I am a resident perfectly well, and yet he goes
on worrying me to buy his vulgar views.”

Surely the vendor of photographs was in league with Lucy—in the eternal
league of Italy with youth. He had suddenly extended his book before
Miss Bartlett and Mr. Eager, binding their hands together by a long
glossy ribbon of churches, pictures, and views.

“This is too much!” cried the chaplain, striking petulantly at one of
Fra Angelico’s angels. She tore. A shrill cry rose from the vendor. The
book it seemed, was more valuable than one would have supposed.

“Willingly would I purchase—” began Miss Bartlett.

“Ignore him,” said Mr. Eager sharply, and they all walked rapidly away
from the square.

But an Italian can never be ignored, least of all when he has a
grievance. His mysterious persecution of Mr. Eager became relentless;
the air rang with his threats and lamentations. He appealed to Lucy;
would not she intercede? He was poor—he sheltered a family—the tax on
bread. He waited, he gibbered, he was recompensed, he was dissatisfied,
he did not leave them until he had swept their minds clean of all
thoughts whether pleasant or unpleasant.

Shopping was the topic that now ensued. Under the chaplain’s guidance
they selected many hideous presents and mementoes—florid little
picture-frames that seemed fashioned in gilded pastry; other little
frames, more severe, that stood on little easels, and were carven out
of oak; a blotting book of vellum; a Dante of the same material; cheap
mosaic brooches, which the maids, next Christmas, would never tell from
real; pins, pots, heraldic saucers, brown art-photographs; Eros and
Psyche in alabaster; St. Peter to match—all of which would have cost
less in London.

This successful morning left no pleasant impressions on Lucy. She had
been a little frightened, both by Miss Lavish and by Mr. Eager, she
knew not why. And as they frightened her, she had, strangely enough,
ceased to respect them. She doubted that Miss Lavish was a great
artist. She doubted that Mr. Eager was as full of spirituality and
culture as she had been led to suppose. They were tried by some new
test, and they were found wanting. As for Charlotte—as for Charlotte
she was exactly the same. It might be possible to be nice to her; it
was impossible to love her.

“The son of a labourer; I happen to know it for a fact. A mechanic of
some sort himself when he was young; then he took to writing for the
Socialistic Press. I came across him at Brixton.”

They were talking about the Emersons.

“How wonderfully people rise in these days!” sighed Miss Bartlett,
fingering a model of the leaning Tower of Pisa.

“Generally,” replied Mr. Eager, “one has only sympathy for their
success. The desire for education and for social advance—in these
things there is something not wholly vile. There are some working men
whom one would be very willing to see out here in Florence—little as
they would make of it.”

“Is he a journalist now?” Miss Bartlett asked.

“He is not; he made an advantageous marriage.”

He uttered this remark with a voice full of meaning, and ended with a
sigh.

“Oh, so he has a wife.”

“Dead, Miss Bartlett, dead. I wonder—yes I wonder how he has the
effrontery to look me in the face, to dare to claim acquaintance with
me. He was in my London parish long ago. The other day in Santa Croce,
when he was with Miss Honeychurch, I snubbed him. Let him beware that
he does not get more than a snub.”

“What?” cried Lucy, flushing.

“Exposure!” hissed Mr. Eager.

He tried to change the subject; but in scoring a dramatic point he had
interested his audience more than he had intended. Miss Bartlett was
full of very natural curiosity. Lucy, though she wished never to see
the Emersons again, was not disposed to condemn them on a single word.

“Do you mean,” she asked, “that he is an irreligious man? We know that
already.”

“Lucy, dear—” said Miss Bartlett, gently reproving her cousin’s
penetration.

“I should be astonished if you knew all. The boy—an innocent child at
the time—I will exclude. God knows what his education and his inherited
qualities may have made him.”

“Perhaps,” said Miss Bartlett, “it is something that we had better not
hear.”

“To speak plainly,” said Mr. Eager, “it is. I will say no more.” For
the first time Lucy’s rebellious thoughts swept out in words—for the
first time in her life.

“You have said very little.”

“It was my intention to say very little,” was his frigid reply.

He gazed indignantly at the girl, who met him with equal indignation.
She turned towards him from the shop counter; her breast heaved
quickly. He observed her brow, and the sudden strength of her lips. It
was intolerable that she should disbelieve him.

“Murder, if you want to know,” he cried angrily. “That man murdered his
wife!”

“How?” she retorted.

“To all intents and purposes he murdered her. That day in Santa
Croce—did they say anything against me?”

“Not a word, Mr. Eager—not a single word.”

“Oh, I thought they had been libelling me to you. But I suppose it is
only their personal charms that makes you defend them.”

“I’m not defending them,” said Lucy, losing her courage, and relapsing
into the old chaotic methods. “They’re nothing to me.”

“How could you think she was defending them?” said Miss Bartlett, much
discomfited by the unpleasant scene. The shopman was possibly
listening.

“She will find it difficult. For that man has murdered his wife in the
sight of God.”

The addition of God was striking. But the chaplain was really trying to
qualify a rash remark. A silence followed which might have been
impressive, but was merely awkward. Then Miss Bartlett hastily
purchased the Leaning Tower, and led the way into the street.

“I must be going,” said he, shutting his eyes and taking out his watch.

Miss Bartlett thanked him for his kindness, and spoke with enthusiasm
of the approaching drive.

“Drive? Oh, is our drive to come off?”

Lucy was recalled to her manners, and after a little exertion the
complacency of Mr. Eager was restored.

“Bother the drive!” exclaimed the girl, as soon as he had departed. “It
is just the drive we had arranged with Mr. Beebe without any fuss at
all. Why should he invite us in that absurd manner? We might as well
invite him. We are each paying for ourselves.”

Miss Bartlett, who had intended to lament over the Emersons, was
launched by this remark into unexpected thoughts.

“If that is so, dear—if the drive we and Mr. Beebe are going with Mr.
Eager is really the same as the one we are going with Mr. Beebe, then I
foresee a sad kettle of fish.”

“How?”

“Because Mr. Beebe has asked Eleanor Lavish to come, too.”

“That will mean another carriage.”

“Far worse. Mr. Eager does not like Eleanor. She knows it herself. The
truth must be told; she is too unconventional for him.”

They were now in the newspaper-room at the English bank. Lucy stood by
the central table, heedless of Punch and the Graphic, trying to answer,
or at all events to formulate the questions rioting in her brain. The
well-known world had broken up, and there emerged Florence, a magic
city where people thought and did the most extraordinary things.
Murder, accusations of murder, a lady clinging to one man and being
rude to another—were these the daily incidents of her streets? Was
there more in her frank beauty than met the eye—the power, perhaps, to
evoke passions, good and bad, and to bring them speedily to a
fulfillment?

Happy Charlotte, who, though greatly troubled over things that did not
matter, seemed oblivious to things that did; who could conjecture with
admirable delicacy “where things might lead to,” but apparently lost
sight of the goal as she approached it. Now she was crouching in the
corner trying to extract a circular note from a kind of linen nose-bag
which hung in chaste concealment round her neck. She had been told that
this was the only safe way to carry money in Italy; it must only be
broached within the walls of the English bank. As she groped she
murmured: “Whether it is Mr. Beebe who forgot to tell Mr. Eager, or Mr.
Eager who forgot when he told us, or whether they have decided to leave
Eleanor out altogether—which they could scarcely do—but in any case we
must be prepared. It is you they really want; I am only asked for
appearances. You shall go with the two gentlemen, and I and Eleanor
will follow behind. A one-horse carriage would do for us. Yet how
difficult it is!”

“It is indeed,” replied the girl, with a gravity that sounded
sympathetic.

“What do you think about it?” asked Miss Bartlett, flushed from the
struggle, and buttoning up her dress.

“I don’t know what I think, nor what I want.”

“Oh, dear, Lucy! I do hope Florence isn’t boring you. Speak the word,
and, as you know, I would take you to the ends of the earth to-morrow.”

“Thank you, Charlotte,” said Lucy, and pondered over the offer.

There were letters for her at the bureau—one from her brother, full of
athletics and biology; one from her mother, delightful as only her
mother’s letters could be. She had read in it of the crocuses which had
been bought for yellow and were coming up puce, of the new
parlour-maid, who had watered the ferns with essence of lemonade, of
the semi-detached cottages which were ruining Summer Street, and
breaking the heart of Sir Harry Otway. She recalled the free, pleasant
life of her home, where she was allowed to do everything, and where
nothing ever happened to her. The road up through the pine-woods, the
clean drawing-room, the view over the Sussex Weald—all hung before her
bright and distinct, but pathetic as the pictures in a gallery to
which, after much experience, a traveller returns.

“And the news?” asked Miss Bartlett.

“Mrs. Vyse and her son have gone to Rome,” said Lucy, giving the news
that interested her least. “Do you know the Vyses?”

“Oh, not that way back. We can never have too much of the dear Piazza
Signoria.”

“They’re nice people, the Vyses. So clever—my idea of what’s really
clever. Don’t you long to be in Rome?”

“I die for it!”

The Piazza Signoria is too stony to be brilliant. It has no grass, no
flowers, no frescoes, no glittering walls of marble or comforting
patches of ruddy brick. By an odd chance—unless we believe in a
presiding genius of places—the statues that relieve its severity
suggest, not the innocence of childhood, nor the glorious bewilderment
of youth, but the conscious achievements of maturity. Perseus and
Judith, Hercules and Thusnelda, they have done or suffered something,
and though they are immortal, immortality has come to them after
experience, not before. Here, not only in the solitude of Nature, might
a hero meet a goddess, or a heroine a god.

“Charlotte!” cried the girl suddenly. “Here’s an idea. What if we
popped off to Rome to-morrow—straight to the Vyses’ hotel? For I do
know what I want. I’m sick of Florence. No, you said you’d go to the
ends of the earth! Do! Do!”

Miss Bartlett, with equal vivacity, replied:

“Oh, you droll person! Pray, what would become of your drive in the
hills?”

They passed together through the gaunt beauty of the square, laughing
over the unpractical suggestion.




Chapter VI
The Reverend Arthur Beebe, the Reverend Cuthbert Eager, Mr. Emerson,
Mr. George Emerson, Miss Eleanor Lavish, Miss Charlotte Bartlett, and
Miss Lucy Honeychurch Drive Out in Carriages to See a View; Italians
Drive Them.


It was Phaethon who drove them to Fiesole that memorable day, a youth
all irresponsibility and fire, recklessly urging his master’s horses up
the stony hill. Mr. Beebe recognized him at once. Neither the Ages of
Faith nor the Age of Doubt had touched him; he was Phaethon in Tuscany
driving a cab. And it was Persephone whom he asked leave to pick up on
the way, saying that she was his sister—Persephone, tall and slender
and pale, returning with the Spring to her mother’s cottage, and still
shading her eyes from the unaccustomed light. To her Mr. Eager
objected, saying that here was the thin edge of the wedge, and one must
guard against imposition. But the ladies interceded, and when it had
been made clear that it was a very great favour, the goddess was
allowed to mount beside the god.

Phaethon at once slipped the left rein over her head, thus enabling
himself to drive with his arm round her waist. She did not mind. Mr.
Eager, who sat with his back to the horses, saw nothing of the
indecorous proceeding, and continued his conversation with Lucy. The
other two occupants of the carriage were old Mr. Emerson and Miss
Lavish. For a dreadful thing had happened: Mr. Beebe, without
consulting Mr. Eager, had doubled the size of the party. And though
Miss Bartlett and Miss Lavish had planned all the morning how the
people were to sit, at the critical moment when the carriages came
round they lost their heads, and Miss Lavish got in with Lucy, while
Miss Bartlett, with George Emerson and Mr. Beebe, followed on behind.

It was hard on the poor chaplain to have his _partie carrée_ thus
transformed. Tea at a Renaissance villa, if he had ever meditated it,
was now impossible. Lucy and Miss Bartlett had a certain style about
them, and Mr. Beebe, though unreliable, was a man of parts. But a
shoddy lady writer and a journalist who had murdered his wife in the
sight of God—they should enter no villa at his introduction.

Lucy, elegantly dressed in white, sat erect and nervous amid these
explosive ingredients, attentive to Mr. Eager, repressive towards Miss
Lavish, watchful of old Mr. Emerson, hitherto fortunately asleep,
thanks to a heavy lunch and the drowsy atmosphere of Spring. She looked
on the expedition as the work of Fate. But for it she would have
avoided George Emerson successfully. In an open manner he had shown
that he wished to continue their intimacy. She had refused, not because
she disliked him, but because she did not know what had happened, and
suspected that he did know. And this frightened her.

For the real event—whatever it was—had taken place, not in the Loggia,
but by the river. To behave wildly at the sight of death is pardonable.
But to discuss it afterwards, to pass from discussion into silence, and
through silence into sympathy, that is an error, not of a startled
emotion, but of the whole fabric. There was really something
blameworthy (she thought) in their joint contemplation of the shadowy
stream, in the common impulse which had turned them to the house
without the passing of a look or word. This sense of wickedness had
been slight at first. She had nearly joined the party to the Torre del
Gallo. But each time that she avoided George it became more imperative
that she should avoid him again. And now celestial irony, working
through her cousin and two clergymen, did not suffer her to leave
Florence till she had made this expedition with him through the hills.

Meanwhile Mr. Eager held her in civil converse; their little tiff was
over.

“So, Miss Honeychurch, you are travelling? As a student of art?”

“Oh, dear me, no—oh, no!”

“Perhaps as a student of human nature,” interposed Miss Lavish, “like
myself?”

“Oh, no. I am here as a tourist.”

“Oh, indeed,” said Mr. Eager. “Are you indeed? If you will not think me
rude, we residents sometimes pity you poor tourists not a little—handed
about like a parcel of goods from Venice to Florence, from Florence to
Rome, living herded together in pensions or hotels, quite unconscious
of anything that is outside Baedeker, their one anxiety to get ‘done’
or ‘through’ and go on somewhere else. The result is, they mix up
towns, rivers, palaces in one inextricable whirl. You know the American
girl in Punch who says: ‘Say, poppa, what did we see at Rome?’ And the
father replies: ‘Why, guess Rome was the place where we saw the yaller
dog.’ There’s travelling for you. Ha! ha! ha!”

“I quite agree,” said Miss Lavish, who had several times tried to
interrupt his mordant wit. “The narrowness and superficiality of the
Anglo-Saxon tourist is nothing less than a menace.”

“Quite so. Now, the English colony at Florence, Miss Honeychurch—and it
is of considerable size, though, of course, not all equally—a few are
here for trade, for example. But the greater part are students. Lady
Helen Laverstock is at present busy over Fra Angelico. I mention her
name because we are passing her villa on the left. No, you can only see
it if you stand—no, do not stand; you will fall. She is very proud of
that thick hedge. Inside, perfect seclusion. One might have gone back
six hundred years. Some critics believe that her garden was the scene
of The Decameron, which lends it an additional interest, does it not?”

“It does indeed!” cried Miss Lavish. “Tell me, where do they place the
scene of that wonderful seventh day?”

But Mr. Eager proceeded to tell Miss Honeychurch that on the right
lived Mr. Someone Something, an American of the best type—so rare!—and
that the Somebody Elses were farther down the hill. “Doubtless you know
her monographs in the series of ‘Mediæval Byways’? He is working at
Gemistus Pletho. Sometimes as I take tea in their beautiful grounds I
hear, over the wall, the electric tram squealing up the new road with
its loads of hot, dusty, unintelligent tourists who are going to ‘do’
Fiesole in an hour in order that they may say they have been there, and
I think—think—I think how little they think what lies so near them.”

During this speech the two figures on the box were sporting with each
other disgracefully. Lucy had a spasm of envy. Granted that they wished
to misbehave, it was pleasant for them to be able to do so. They were
probably the only people enjoying the expedition. The carriage swept
with agonizing jolts up through the Piazza of Fiesole and into the
Settignano road.

“Piano! piano!” said Mr. Eager, elegantly waving his hand over his
head.

“Va bene, signore, va bene, va bene,” crooned the driver, and whipped
his horses up again.

Now Mr. Eager and Miss Lavish began to talk against each other on the
subject of Alessio Baldovinetti. Was he a cause of the Renaissance, or
was he one of its manifestations? The other carriage was left behind.
As the pace increased to a gallop the large, slumbering form of Mr.
Emerson was thrown against the chaplain with the regularity of a
machine.

“Piano! piano!” said he, with a martyred look at Lucy.

An extra lurch made him turn angrily in his seat. Phaethon, who for
some time had been endeavouring to kiss Persephone, had just succeeded.

A little scene ensued, which, as Miss Bartlett said afterwards, was
most unpleasant. The horses were stopped, the lovers were ordered to
disentangle themselves, the boy was to lose his _pourboire_, the girl
was immediately to get down.

“She is my sister,” said he, turning round on them with piteous eyes.

Mr. Eager took the trouble to tell him that he was a liar.

Phaethon hung down his head, not at the matter of the accusation, but
at its manner. At this point Mr. Emerson, whom the shock of stopping
had awoke, declared that the lovers must on no account be separated,
and patted them on the back to signify his approval. And Miss Lavish,
though unwilling to ally him, felt bound to support the cause of
Bohemianism.

“Most certainly I would let them be,” she cried. “But I dare say I
shall receive scant support. I have always flown in the face of the
conventions all my life. This is what _I_ call an adventure.”

“We must not submit,” said Mr. Eager. “I knew he was trying it on. He
is treating us as if we were a party of Cook’s tourists.”

“Surely no!” said Miss Lavish, her ardour visibly decreasing.

The other carriage had drawn up behind, and sensible Mr. Beebe called
out that after this warning the couple would be sure to behave
themselves properly.

“Leave them alone,” Mr. Emerson begged the chaplain, of whom he stood
in no awe. “Do we find happiness so often that we should turn it off
the box when it happens to sit there? To be driven by lovers—A king
might envy us, and if we part them it’s more like sacrilege than
anything I know.”

Here the voice of Miss Bartlett was heard saying that a crowd had begun
to collect.

Mr. Eager, who suffered from an over-fluent tongue rather than a
resolute will, was determined to make himself heard. He addressed the
driver again. Italian in the mouth of Italians is a deep-voiced stream,
with unexpected cataracts and boulders to preserve it from monotony. In
Mr. Eager’s mouth it resembled nothing so much as an acid whistling
fountain which played ever higher and higher, and quicker and quicker,
and more and more shrilly, till abruptly it was turned off with a
click.

“Signorina!” said the man to Lucy, when the display had ceased. Why
should he appeal to Lucy?

“Signorina!” echoed Persephone in her glorious contralto. She pointed
at the other carriage. Why?

For a moment the two girls looked at each other. Then Persephone got
down from the box.

“Victory at last!” said Mr. Eager, smiting his hands together as the
carriages started again.

“It is not victory,” said Mr. Emerson. “It is defeat. You have parted
two people who were happy.”

Mr. Eager shut his eyes. He was obliged to sit next to Mr. Emerson, but
he would not speak to him. The old man was refreshed by sleep, and took
up the matter warmly. He commanded Lucy to agree with him; he shouted
for support to his son.

“We have tried to buy what cannot be bought with money. He has
bargained to drive us, and he is doing it. We have no rights over his
soul.”

Miss Lavish frowned. It is hard when a person you have classed as
typically British speaks out of his character.

“He was not driving us well,” she said. “He jolted us.”

“That I deny. It was as restful as sleeping. Aha! he is jolting us now.
Can you wonder? He would like to throw us out, and most certainly he is
justified. And if I were superstitious I’d be frightened of the girl,
too. It doesn’t do to injure young people. Have you ever heard of
Lorenzo de Medici?”

Miss Lavish bristled.

“Most certainly I have. Do you refer to Lorenzo il Magnifico, or to
Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, or to Lorenzo surnamed Lorenzino on account of
his diminutive stature?”

“The Lord knows. Possibly he does know, for I refer to Lorenzo the
poet. He wrote a line—so I heard yesterday—which runs like this: ‘Don’t
go fighting against the Spring.’”

Mr. Eager could not resist the opportunity for erudition.

“Non fate guerra al Maggio,” he murmured. “‘War not with the May’ would
render a correct meaning.”

“The point is, we have warred with it. Look.” He pointed to the Val
d’Arno, which was visible far below them, through the budding trees.
“Fifty miles of Spring, and we’ve come up to admire them. Do you
suppose there’s any difference between Spring in nature and Spring in
man? But there we go, praising the one and condemning the other as
improper, ashamed that the same laws work eternally through both.”

No one encouraged him to talk. Presently Mr. Eager gave a signal for
the carriages to stop and marshalled the party for their ramble on the
hill. A hollow like a great amphitheatre, full of terraced steps and
misty olives, now lay between them and the heights of Fiesole, and the
road, still following its curve, was about to sweep on to a promontory
which stood out in the plain. It was this promontory, uncultivated,
wet, covered with bushes and occasional trees, which had caught the
fancy of Alessio Baldovinetti nearly five hundred years before. He had
ascended it, that diligent and rather obscure master, possibly with an
eye to business, possibly for the joy of ascending. Standing there, he
had seen that view of the Val d’Arno and distant Florence, which he
afterwards had introduced not very effectively into his work. But where
exactly had he stood? That was the question which Mr. Eager hoped to
solve now. And Miss Lavish, whose nature was attracted by anything
problematical, had become equally enthusiastic.

But it is not easy to carry the pictures of Alessio Baldovinetti in
your head, even if you have remembered to look at them before starting.
And the haze in the valley increased the difficulty of the quest.

The party sprang about from tuft to tuft of grass, their anxiety to
keep together being only equalled by their desire to go different
directions. Finally they split into groups. Lucy clung to Miss Bartlett
and Miss Lavish; the Emersons returned to hold laborious converse with
the drivers; while the two clergymen, who were expected to have topics
in common, were left to each other.

The two elder ladies soon threw off the mask. In the audible whisper
that was now so familiar to Lucy they began to discuss, not Alessio
Baldovinetti, but the drive. Miss Bartlett had asked Mr. George Emerson
what his profession was, and he had answered “the railway.” She was
very sorry that she had asked him. She had no idea that it would be
such a dreadful answer, or she would not have asked him. Mr. Beebe had
turned the conversation so cleverly, and she hoped that the young man
was not very much hurt at her asking him.

“The railway!” gasped Miss Lavish. “Oh, but I shall die! Of course it
was the railway!” She could not control her mirth. “He is the image of
a porter—on, on the South-Eastern.”

“Eleanor, be quiet,” plucking at her vivacious companion. “Hush!
They’ll hear—the Emersons—”

“I can’t stop. Let me go my wicked way. A porter—”

“Eleanor!”

“I’m sure it’s all right,” put in Lucy. “The Emersons won’t hear, and
they wouldn’t mind if they did.”

Miss Lavish did not seem pleased at this.

“Miss Honeychurch listening!” she said rather crossly. “Pouf! Wouf! You
naughty girl! Go away!”

“Oh, Lucy, you ought to be with Mr. Eager, I’m sure.”

“I can’t find them now, and I don’t want to either.”

“Mr. Eager will be offended. It is your party.”

“Please, I’d rather stop here with you.”

“No, I agree,” said Miss Lavish. “It’s like a school feast; the boys
have got separated from the girls. Miss Lucy, you are to go. We wish to
converse on high topics unsuited for your ear.”

The girl was stubborn. As her time at Florence drew to its close she
was only at ease amongst those to whom she felt indifferent. Such a one
was Miss Lavish, and such for the moment was Charlotte. She wished she
had not called attention to herself; they were both annoyed at her
remark and seemed determined to get rid of her.

“How tired one gets,” said Miss Bartlett. “Oh, I do wish Freddy and
your mother could be here.”

Unselfishness with Miss Bartlett had entirely usurped the functions of
enthusiasm. Lucy did not look at the view either. She would not enjoy
anything till she was safe at Rome.

“Then sit you down,” said Miss Lavish. “Observe my foresight.”

With many a smile she produced two of those mackintosh squares that
protect the frame of the tourist from damp grass or cold marble steps.
She sat on one; who was to sit on the other?

“Lucy; without a moment’s doubt, Lucy. The ground will do for me.
Really I have not had rheumatism for years. If I do feel it coming on I
shall stand. Imagine your mother’s feelings if I let you sit in the wet
in your white linen.” She sat down heavily where the ground looked
particularly moist. “Here we are, all settled delightfully. Even if my
dress is thinner it will not show so much, being brown. Sit down, dear;
you are too unselfish; you don’t assert yourself enough.” She cleared
her throat. “Now don’t be alarmed; this isn’t a cold. It’s the tiniest
cough, and I have had it three days. It’s nothing to do with sitting
here at all.”

There was only one way of treating the situation. At the end of five
minutes Lucy departed in search of Mr. Beebe and Mr. Eager, vanquished
by the mackintosh square.

She addressed herself to the drivers, who were sprawling in the
carriages, perfuming the cushions with cigars. The miscreant, a bony
young man scorched black by the sun, rose to greet her with the
courtesy of a host and the assurance of a relative.

“Dove?” said Lucy, after much anxious thought.

His face lit up. Of course he knew where. Not so far either. His arm
swept three-fourths of the horizon. He should just think he did know
where. He pressed his finger-tips to his forehead and then pushed them
towards her, as if oozing with visible extract of knowledge.

More seemed necessary. What was the Italian for “clergyman”?

“Dove buoni uomini?” said she at last.

Good? Scarcely the adjective for those noble beings! He showed her his
cigar.

“Uno—piu—piccolo,” was her next remark, implying “Has the cigar been
given to you by Mr. Beebe, the smaller of the two good men?”

She was correct as usual. He tied the horse to a tree, kicked it to
make it stay quiet, dusted the carriage, arranged his hair, remoulded
his hat, encouraged his moustache, and in rather less than a quarter of
a minute was ready to conduct her. Italians are born knowing the way.
It would seem that the whole earth lay before them, not as a map, but
as a chess-board, whereon they continually behold the changing pieces
as well as the squares. Any one can find places, but the finding of
people is a gift from God.

He only stopped once, to pick her some great blue violets. She thanked
him with real pleasure. In the company of this common man the world was
beautiful and direct. For the first time she felt the influence of
Spring. His arm swept the horizon gracefully; violets, like other
things, existed in great profusion there; “would she like to see them?”

“Ma buoni uomini.”

He bowed. Certainly. Good men first, violets afterwards. They proceeded
briskly through the undergrowth, which became thicker and thicker. They
were nearing the edge of the promontory, and the view was stealing
round them, but the brown network of the bushes shattered it into
countless pieces. He was occupied in his cigar, and in holding back the
pliant boughs. She was rejoicing in her escape from dullness. Not a
step, not a twig, was unimportant to her.

“What is that?”

There was a voice in the wood, in the distance behind them. The voice
of Mr. Eager? He shrugged his shoulders. An Italian’s ignorance is
sometimes more remarkable than his knowledge. She could not make him
understand that perhaps they had missed the clergymen. The view was
forming at last; she could discern the river, the golden plain, other
hills.

“Eccolo!” he exclaimed.

At the same moment the ground gave way, and with a cry she fell out of
the wood. Light and beauty enveloped her. She had fallen on to a little
open terrace, which was covered with violets from end to end.

“Courage!” cried her companion, now standing some six feet above.
“Courage and love.”

She did not answer. From her feet the ground sloped sharply into view,
and violets ran down in rivulets and streams and cataracts, irrigating
the hillside with blue, eddying round the tree stems collecting into
pools in the hollows, covering the grass with spots of azure foam. But
never again were they in such profusion; this terrace was the
well-head, the primal source whence beauty gushed out to water the
earth.

Standing at its brink, like a swimmer who prepares, was the good man.
But he was not the good man that she had expected, and he was alone.

George had turned at the sound of her arrival. For a moment he
contemplated her, as one who had fallen out of heaven. He saw radiant
joy in her face, he saw the flowers beat against her dress in blue
waves. The bushes above them closed. He stepped quickly forward and
kissed her.

Before she could speak, almost before she could feel, a voice called,
“Lucy! Lucy! Lucy!” The silence of life had been broken by Miss
Bartlett who stood brown against the view.




Chapter VII
They Return


Some complicated game had been playing up and down the hillside all the
afternoon. What it was and exactly how the players had sided, Lucy was
slow to discover. Mr. Eager had met them with a questioning eye.
Charlotte had repulsed him with much small talk. Mr. Emerson, seeking
his son, was told whereabouts to find him. Mr. Beebe, who wore the
heated aspect of a neutral, was bidden to collect the factions for the
return home. There was a general sense of groping and bewilderment. Pan
had been amongst them—not the great god Pan, who has been buried these
two thousand years, but the little god Pan, who presides over social
contretemps and unsuccessful picnics. Mr. Beebe had lost everyone, and
had consumed in solitude the tea-basket which he had brought up as a
pleasant surprise. Miss Lavish had lost Miss Bartlett. Lucy had lost
Mr. Eager. Mr. Emerson had lost George. Miss Bartlett had lost a
mackintosh square. Phaethon had lost the game.

That last fact was undeniable. He climbed on to the box shivering, with
his collar up, prophesying the swift approach of bad weather. “Let us
go immediately,” he told them. “The signorino will walk.”

“All the way? He will be hours,” said Mr. Beebe.

“Apparently. I told him it was unwise.” He would look no one in the
face; perhaps defeat was particularly mortifying for him. He alone had
played skilfully, using the whole of his instinct, while the others had
used scraps of their intelligence. He alone had divined what things
were, and what he wished them to be. He alone had interpreted the
message that Lucy had received five days before from the lips of a
dying man. Persephone, who spends half her life in the grave—she could
interpret it also. Not so these English. They gain knowledge slowly,
and perhaps too late.

The thoughts of a cab-driver, however just, seldom affect the lives of
his employers. He was the most competent of Miss Bartlett’s opponents,
but infinitely the least dangerous. Once back in the town, he and his
insight and his knowledge would trouble English ladies no more. Of
course, it was most unpleasant; she had seen his black head in the
bushes; he might make a tavern story out of it. But after all, what
have we to do with taverns? Real menace belongs to the drawing-room. It
was of drawing-room people that Miss Bartlett thought as she journeyed
downwards towards the fading sun. Lucy sat beside her; Mr. Eager sat
opposite, trying to catch her eye; he was vaguely suspicious. They
spoke of Alessio Baldovinetti.

Rain and darkness came on together. The two ladies huddled together
under an inadequate parasol. There was a lightning flash, and Miss
Lavish who was nervous, screamed from the carriage in front. At the
next flash, Lucy screamed also. Mr. Eager addressed her professionally:

“Courage, Miss Honeychurch, courage and faith. If I might say so, there
is something almost blasphemous in this horror of the elements. Are we
seriously to suppose that all these clouds, all this immense electrical
display, is simply called into existence to extinguish you or me?”

“No—of course—”

“Even from the scientific standpoint the chances against our being
struck are enormous. The steel knives, the only articles which might
attract the current, are in the other carriage. And, in any case, we
are infinitely safer than if we were walking. Courage—courage and
faith.”

Under the rug, Lucy felt the kindly pressure of her cousin’s hand. At
times our need for a sympathetic gesture is so great that we care not
what exactly it signifies or how much we may have to pay for it
afterwards. Miss Bartlett, by this timely exercise of her muscles,
gained more than she would have got in hours of preaching or cross
examination.

She renewed it when the two carriages stopped, half into Florence.

“Mr. Eager!” called Mr. Beebe. “We want your assistance. Will you
interpret for us?”

“George!” cried Mr. Emerson. “Ask your driver which way George went.
The boy may lose his way. He may be killed.”

“Go, Mr. Eager,” said Miss Bartlett, “don’t ask our driver; our driver
is no help. Go and support poor Mr. Beebe—, he is nearly demented.”

“He may be killed!” cried the old man. “He may be killed!”

“Typical behaviour,” said the chaplain, as he quitted the carriage. “In
the presence of reality that kind of person invariably breaks down.”

“What does he know?” whispered Lucy as soon as they were alone.
“Charlotte, how much does Mr. Eager know?”

“Nothing, dearest; he knows nothing. But—” she pointed at the
driver—“_he_ knows everything. Dearest, had we better? Shall I?” She
took out her purse. “It is dreadful to be entangled with low-class
people. He saw it all.” Tapping Phaethon’s back with her guide-book,
she said, “Silenzio!” and offered him a franc.

“Va bene,” he replied, and accepted it. As well this ending to his day
as any. But Lucy, a mortal maid, was disappointed in him.

There was an explosion up the road. The storm had struck the overhead
wire of the tramline, and one of the great supports had fallen. If they
had not stopped perhaps they might have been hurt. They chose to regard
it as a miraculous preservation, and the floods of love and sincerity,
which fructify every hour of life, burst forth in tumult. They
descended from the carriages; they embraced each other. It was as
joyful to be forgiven past unworthinesses as to forgive them. For a
moment they realized vast possibilities of good.

The older people recovered quickly. In the very height of their emotion
they knew it to be unmanly or unladylike. Miss Lavish calculated that,
even if they had continued, they would not have been caught in the
accident. Mr. Eager mumbled a temperate prayer. But the drivers,
through miles of dark squalid road, poured out their souls to the
dryads and the saints, and Lucy poured out hers to her cousin.

“Charlotte, dear Charlotte, kiss me. Kiss me again. Only you can
understand me. You warned me to be careful. And I—I thought I was
developing.”

“Do not cry, dearest. Take your time.”

“I have been obstinate and silly—worse than you know, far worse. Once
by the river—Oh, but he isn’t killed—he wouldn’t be killed, would he?”

The thought disturbed her repentance. As a matter of fact, the storm
was worst along the road; but she had been near danger, and so she
thought it must be near to everyone.

“I trust not. One would always pray against that.”

“He is really—I think he was taken by surprise, just as I was before.
But this time I’m not to blame; I want you to believe that. I simply
slipped into those violets. No, I want to be really truthful. I am a
little to blame. I had silly thoughts. The sky, you know, was gold, and
the ground all blue, and for a moment he looked like someone in a
book.”

“In a book?”

“Heroes—gods—the nonsense of schoolgirls.”

“And then?”

“But, Charlotte, you know what happened then.”

Miss Bartlett was silent. Indeed, she had little more to learn. With a
certain amount of insight she drew her young cousin affectionately to
her. All the way back Lucy’s body was shaken by deep sighs, which
nothing could repress.

“I want to be truthful,” she whispered. “It is so hard to be absolutely
truthful.”

“Don’t be troubled, dearest. Wait till you are calmer. We will talk it
over before bed-time in my room.”

So they re-entered the city with hands clasped. It was a shock to the
girl to find how far emotion had ebbed in others. The storm had ceased,
and Mr. Emerson was easier about his son. Mr. Beebe had regained good
humour, and Mr. Eager was already snubbing Miss Lavish. Charlotte alone
she was sure of—Charlotte, whose exterior concealed so much insight and
love.

The luxury of self-exposure kept her almost happy through the long
evening. She thought not so much of what had happened as of how she
should describe it. All her sensations, her spasms of courage, her
moments of unreasonable joy, her mysterious discontent, should be
carefully laid before her cousin. And together in divine confidence
they would disentangle and interpret them all.

“At last,” thought she, “I shall understand myself. I shan’t again be
troubled by things that come out of nothing, and mean I don’t know
what.”

Miss Alan asked her to play. She refused vehemently. Music seemed to
her the employment of a child. She sat close to her cousin, who, with
commendable patience, was listening to a long story about lost luggage.
When it was over she capped it by a story of her own. Lucy became
rather hysterical with the delay. In vain she tried to check, or at all
events to accelerate, the tale. It was not till a late hour that Miss
Bartlett had recovered her luggage and could say in her usual tone of
gentle reproach:

“Well, dear, I at all events am ready for Bedfordshire. Come into my
room, and I will give a good brush to your hair.”

With some solemnity the door was shut, and a cane chair placed for the
girl. Then Miss Bartlett said “So what is to be done?”

She was unprepared for the question. It had not occurred to her that
she would have to do anything. A detailed exhibition of her emotions
was all that she had counted upon.

“What is to be done? A point, dearest, which you alone can settle.”

The rain was streaming down the black windows, and the great room felt
damp and chilly. One candle burnt trembling on the chest of drawers
close to Miss Bartlett’s toque, which cast monstrous and fantastic
shadows on the bolted door. A tram roared by in the dark, and Lucy felt
unaccountably sad, though she had long since dried her eyes. She lifted
them to the ceiling, where the griffins and bassoons were colourless
and vague, the very ghosts of joy.

“It has been raining for nearly four hours,” she said at last.

Miss Bartlett ignored the remark.

“How do you propose to silence him?”

“The driver?”

“My dear girl, no; Mr. George Emerson.”

Lucy began to pace up and down the room.

“I don’t understand,” she said at last.

She understood very well, but she no longer wished to be absolutely
truthful.

“How are you going to stop him talking about it?”

“I have a feeling that talk is a thing he will never do.”

“I, too, intend to judge him charitably. But unfortunately I have met
the type before. They seldom keep their exploits to themselves.”

“Exploits?” cried Lucy, wincing under the horrible plural.

“My poor dear, did you suppose that this was his first? Come here and
listen to me. I am only gathering it from his own remarks. Do you
remember that day at lunch when he argued with Miss Alan that liking
one person is an extra reason for liking another?”

“Yes,” said Lucy, whom at the time the argument had pleased.

“Well, I am no prude. There is no need to call him a wicked young man,
but obviously he is thoroughly unrefined. Let us put it down to his
deplorable antecedents and education, if you wish. But we are no
farther on with our question. What do you propose to do?”

An idea rushed across Lucy’s brain, which, had she thought of it sooner
and made it part of her, might have proved victorious.

“I propose to speak to him,” said she.

Miss Bartlett uttered a cry of genuine alarm.

“You see, Charlotte, your kindness—I shall never forget it. But—as you
said—it is my affair. Mine and his.”

“And you are going to _implore_ him, to _beg_ him to keep silence?”

“Certainly not. There would be no difficulty. Whatever you ask him he
answers, yes or no; then it is over. I have been frightened of him. But
now I am not one little bit.”

“But we fear him for you, dear. You are so young and inexperienced, you
have lived among such nice people, that you cannot realize what men can
be—how they can take a brutal pleasure in insulting a woman whom her
sex does not protect and rally round. This afternoon, for example, if I
had not arrived, what would have happened?”

“I can’t think,” said Lucy gravely.

Something in her voice made Miss Bartlett repeat her question, intoning
it more vigorously.

“What would have happened if I hadn’t arrived?”

“I can’t think,” said Lucy again.

“When he insulted you, how would you have replied?”

“I hadn’t time to think. You came.”

“Yes, but won’t you tell me now what you would have done?”

“I should have—” She checked herself, and broke the sentence off. She
went up to the dripping window and strained her eyes into the darkness.
She could not think what she would have done.

“Come away from the window, dear,” said Miss Bartlett. “You will be
seen from the road.”

Lucy obeyed. She was in her cousin’s power. She could not modulate out
the key of self-abasement in which she had started. Neither of them
referred again to her suggestion that she should speak to George and
settle the matter, whatever it was, with him.

Miss Bartlett became plaintive.

“Oh, for a real man! We are only two women, you and I. Mr. Beebe is
hopeless. There is Mr. Eager, but you do not trust him. Oh, for your
brother! He is young, but I know that his sister’s insult would rouse
in him a very lion. Thank God, chivalry is not yet dead. There are
still left some men who can reverence woman.”

As she spoke, she pulled off her rings, of which she wore several, and
ranged them upon the pin cushion. Then she blew into her gloves and
said:

“It will be a push to catch the morning train, but we must try.”

“What train?”

“The train to Rome.” She looked at her gloves critically.

The girl received the announcement as easily as it had been given.

“When does the train to Rome go?”

“At eight.”

“Signora Bertolini would be upset.”

“We must face that,” said Miss Bartlett, not liking to say that she had
given notice already.

“She will make us pay for a whole week’s pension.”

“I expect she will. However, we shall be much more comfortable at the
Vyses’ hotel. Isn’t afternoon tea given there for nothing?”

“Yes, but they pay extra for wine.” After this remark she remained
motionless and silent. To her tired eyes Charlotte throbbed and swelled
like a ghostly figure in a dream.

They began to sort their clothes for packing, for there was no time to
lose, if they were to catch the train to Rome. Lucy, when admonished,
began to move to and fro between the rooms, more conscious of the
discomforts of packing by candlelight than of a subtler ill. Charlotte,
who was practical without ability, knelt by the side of an empty trunk,
vainly endeavouring to pave it with books of varying thickness and
size. She gave two or three sighs, for the stooping posture hurt her
back, and, for all her diplomacy, she felt that she was growing old.
The girl heard her as she entered the room, and was seized with one of
those emotional impulses to which she could never attribute a cause.
She only felt that the candle would burn better, the packing go easier,
the world be happier, if she could give and receive some human love.
The impulse had come before to-day, but never so strongly. She knelt
down by her cousin’s side and took her in her arms.

Miss Bartlett returned the embrace with tenderness and warmth. But she
was not a stupid woman, and she knew perfectly well that Lucy did not
love her, but needed her to love. For it was in ominous tones that she
said, after a long pause:

“Dearest Lucy, how will you ever forgive me?”

Lucy was on her guard at once, knowing by bitter experience what
forgiving Miss Bartlett meant. Her emotion relaxed, she modified her
embrace a little, and she said:

“Charlotte dear, what do you mean? As if I have anything to forgive!”

“You have a great deal, and I have a very great deal to forgive myself,
too. I know well how much I vex you at every turn.”

“But no—”

Miss Bartlett assumed her favourite role, that of the prematurely aged
martyr.

“Ah, but yes! I feel that our tour together is hardly the success I had
hoped. I might have known it would not do. You want someone younger and
stronger and more in sympathy with you. I am too uninteresting and
old-fashioned—only fit to pack and unpack your things.”

“Please—”

“My only consolation was that you found people more to your taste, and
were often able to leave me at home. I had my own poor ideas of what a
lady ought to do, but I hope I did not inflict them on you more than
was necessary. You had your own way about these rooms, at all events.”

“You mustn’t say these things,” said Lucy softly.

She still clung to the hope that she and Charlotte loved each other,
heart and soul. They continued to pack in silence.

“I have been a failure,” said Miss Bartlett, as she struggled with the
straps of Lucy’s trunk instead of strapping her own. “Failed to make
you happy; failed in my duty to your mother. She has been so generous
to me; I shall never face her again after this disaster.”

“But mother will understand. It is not your fault, this trouble, and it
isn’t a disaster either.”

“It is my fault, it is a disaster. She will never forgive me, and
rightly. For instance, what right had I to make friends with Miss
Lavish?”

“Every right.”

“When I was here for your sake? If I have vexed you it is equally true
that I have neglected you. Your mother will see this as clearly as I
do, when you tell her.”

Lucy, from a cowardly wish to improve the situation, said:

“Why need mother hear of it?”

“But you tell her everything?”

“I suppose I do generally.”

“I dare not break your confidence. There is something sacred in it.
Unless you feel that it is a thing you could not tell her.”

The girl would not be degraded to this.

“Naturally I should have told her. But in case she should blame you in
any way, I promise I will not, I am very willing not to. I will never
speak of it either to her or to any one.”

Her promise brought the long-drawn interview to a sudden close. Miss
Bartlett pecked her smartly on both cheeks, wished her good-night, and
sent her to her own room.

For a moment the original trouble was in the background. George would
seem to have behaved like a cad throughout; perhaps that was the view
which one would take eventually. At present she neither acquitted nor
condemned him; she did not pass judgement. At the moment when she was
about to judge him her cousin’s voice had intervened, and, ever since,
it was Miss Bartlett who had dominated; Miss Bartlett who, even now,
could be heard sighing into a crack in the partition wall; Miss
Bartlett, who had really been neither pliable nor humble nor
inconsistent. She had worked like a great artist; for a time—indeed,
for years—she had been meaningless, but at the end there was presented
to the girl the complete picture of a cheerless, loveless world in
which the young rush to destruction until they learn better—a
shamefaced world of precautions and barriers which may avert evil, but
which do not seem to bring good, if we may judge from those who have
used them most.

Lucy was suffering from the most grievous wrong which this world has
yet discovered: diplomatic advantage had been taken of her sincerity,
of her craving for sympathy and love. Such a wrong is not easily
forgotten. Never again did she expose herself without due consideration
and precaution against rebuff. And such a wrong may react disastrously
upon the soul.

The door-bell rang, and she started to the shutters. Before she reached
them she hesitated, turned, and blew out the candle. Thus it was that,
though she saw someone standing in the wet below, he, though he looked
up, did not see her.

To reach his room he had to go by hers. She was still dressed. It
struck her that she might slip into the passage and just say that she
would be gone before he was up, and that their extraordinary
intercourse was over.

Whether she would have dared to do this was never proved. At the
critical moment Miss Bartlett opened her own door, and her voice said:

“I wish one word with you in the drawing-room, Mr. Emerson, please.”

Soon their footsteps returned, and Miss Bartlett said: “Good-night, Mr.
Emerson.”

His heavy, tired breathing was the only reply; the chaperon had done
her work.

Lucy cried aloud: “It isn’t true. It can’t all be true. I want not to
be muddled. I want to grow older quickly.”

Miss Bartlett tapped on the wall.

“Go to bed at once, dear. You need all the rest you can get.”

In the morning they left for Rome.




PART TWO




Chapter VIII
Medieval


The drawing-room curtains at Windy Corner had been pulled to meet, for
the carpet was new and deserved protection from the August sun. They
were heavy curtains, reaching almost to the ground, and the light that
filtered through them was subdued and varied. A poet—none was
present—might have quoted, “Life like a dome of many coloured glass,”
or might have compared the curtains to sluice-gates, lowered against
the intolerable tides of heaven. Without was poured a sea of radiance;
within, the glory, though visible, was tempered to the capacities of
man.

Two pleasant people sat in the room. One—a boy of nineteen—was studying
a small manual of anatomy, and peering occasionally at a bone which lay
upon the piano. From time to time he bounced in his chair and puffed
and groaned, for the day was hot and the print small, and the human
frame fearfully made; and his mother, who was writing a letter, did
continually read out to him what she had written. And continually did
she rise from her seat and part the curtains so that a rivulet of light
fell across the carpet, and make the remark that they were still there.

“Where aren’t they?” said the boy, who was Freddy, Lucy’s brother. “I
tell you I’m getting fairly sick.”

“For goodness’ sake go out of my drawing-room, then?” cried Mrs.
Honeychurch, who hoped to cure her children of slang by taking it
literally.

Freddy did not move or reply.

“I think things are coming to a head,” she observed, rather wanting her
son’s opinion on the situation if she could obtain it without undue
supplication.

“Time they did.”

“I am glad that Cecil is asking her this once more.”

“It’s his third go, isn’t it?”

“Freddy I do call the way you talk unkind.”

“I didn’t mean to be unkind.” Then he added: “But I do think Lucy might
have got this off her chest in Italy. I don’t know how girls manage
things, but she can’t have said ‘No’ properly before, or she wouldn’t
have to say it again now. Over the whole thing—I can’t explain—I do
feel so uncomfortable.”

“Do you indeed, dear? How interesting!”

“I feel—never mind.”

He returned to his work.

“Just listen to what I have written to Mrs. Vyse. I said: ‘Dear Mrs.
Vyse.’”

“Yes, mother, you told me. A jolly good letter.”

“I said: ‘Dear Mrs. Vyse, Cecil has just asked my permission about it,
and I should be delighted, if Lucy wishes it. But—’” She stopped
reading, “I was rather amused at Cecil asking my permission at all. He
has always gone in for unconventionality, and parents nowhere, and so
forth. When it comes to the point, he can’t get on without me.”

“Nor me.”

“You?”

Freddy nodded.

“What do you mean?”

“He asked me for my permission also.”

She exclaimed: “How very odd of him!”

“Why so?” asked the son and heir. “Why shouldn’t my permission be
asked?”

“What do you know about Lucy or girls or anything? What ever did you
say?”

“I said to Cecil, ‘Take her or leave her; it’s no business of mine!’”

“What a helpful answer!” But her own answer, though more normal in its
wording, had been to the same effect.

“The bother is this,” began Freddy.

Then he took up his work again, too shy to say what the bother was.
Mrs. Honeychurch went back to the window.

“Freddy, you must come. There they still are!”

“I don’t see you ought to go peeping like that.”

“Peeping like that! Can’t I look out of my own window?”

But she returned to the writing-table, observing, as she passed her
son, “Still page 322?” Freddy snorted, and turned over two leaves. For
a brief space they were silent. Close by, beyond the curtains, the
gentle murmur of a long conversation had never ceased.

“The bother is this: I have put my foot in it with Cecil most awfully.”
He gave a nervous gulp. “Not content with ‘permission’, which I did
give—that is to say, I said, ‘I don’t mind’—well, not content with
that, he wanted to know whether I wasn’t off my head with joy. He
practically put it like this: Wasn’t it a splendid thing for Lucy and
for Windy Corner generally if he married her? And he would have an
answer—he said it would strengthen his hand.”

“I hope you gave a careful answer, dear.”

“I answered ‘No’” said the boy, grinding his teeth. “There! Fly into a
stew! I can’t help it—had to say it. I had to say no. He ought never to
have asked me.”

“Ridiculous child!” cried his mother. “You think you’re so holy and
truthful, but really it’s only abominable conceit. Do you suppose that
a man like Cecil would take the slightest notice of anything you say? I
hope he boxed your ears. How dare you say no?”

“Oh, do keep quiet, mother! I had to say no when I couldn’t say yes. I
tried to laugh as if I didn’t mean what I said, and, as Cecil laughed
too, and went away, it may be all right. But I feel my foot’s in it.
Oh, do keep quiet, though, and let a man do some work.”

“No,” said Mrs. Honeychurch, with the air of one who has considered the
subject, “I shall not keep quiet. You know all that has passed between
them in Rome; you know why he is down here, and yet you deliberately
insult him, and try to turn him out of my house.”

“Not a bit!” he pleaded. “I only let out I didn’t like him. I don’t
hate him, but I don’t like him. What I mind is that he’ll tell Lucy.”

He glanced at the curtains dismally.

“Well, _I_ like him,” said Mrs. Honeychurch. “I know his mother; he’s
good, he’s clever, he’s rich, he’s well connected—Oh, you needn’t kick
the piano! He’s well connected—I’ll say it again if you like: he’s well
connected.” She paused, as if rehearsing her eulogy, but her face
remained dissatisfied. She added: “And he has beautiful manners.”

“I liked him till just now. I suppose it’s having him spoiling Lucy’s
first week at home; and it’s also something that Mr. Beebe said, not
knowing.”

“Mr. Beebe?” said his mother, trying to conceal her interest. “I don’t
see how Mr. Beebe comes in.”

“You know Mr. Beebe’s funny way, when you never quite know what he
means. He said: ‘Mr. Vyse is an ideal bachelor.’ I was very cute, I
asked him what he meant. He said ‘Oh, he’s like me—better detached.’ I
couldn’t make him say any more, but it set me thinking. Since Cecil has
come after Lucy he hasn’t been so pleasant, at least—I can’t explain.”

“You never can, dear. But I can. You are jealous of Cecil because he
may stop Lucy knitting you silk ties.”

The explanation seemed plausible, and Freddy tried to accept it. But at
the back of his brain there lurked a dim mistrust. Cecil praised one
too much for being athletic. Was that it? Cecil made one talk in one’s
own way. This tired one. Was that it? And Cecil was the kind of fellow
who would never wear another fellow’s cap. Unaware of his own
profundity, Freddy checked himself. He must be jealous, or he would not
dislike a man for such foolish reasons.

“Will this do?” called his mother. “‘Dear Mrs. Vyse,—Cecil has just
asked my permission about it, and I should be delighted if Lucy wishes
it.’ Then I put in at the top, ‘and I have told Lucy so.’ I must write
the letter out again—‘and I have told Lucy so. But Lucy seems very
uncertain, and in these days young people must decide for themselves.’
I said that because I didn’t want Mrs. Vyse to think us old-fashioned.
She goes in for lectures and improving her mind, and all the time a
thick layer of flue under the beds, and the maid’s dirty thumb-marks
where you turn on the electric light. She keeps that flat abominably—”

“Suppose Lucy marries Cecil, would she live in a flat, or in the
country?”

“Don’t interrupt so foolishly. Where was I? Oh yes—‘Young people must
decide for themselves. I know that Lucy likes your son, because she
tells me everything, and she wrote to me from Rome when he asked her
first.’ No, I’ll cross that last bit out—it looks patronizing. I’ll
stop at ‘because she tells me everything.’ Or shall I cross that out,
too?”

“Cross it out, too,” said Freddy.

Mrs. Honeychurch left it in.

“Then the whole thing runs: ‘Dear Mrs. Vyse.—Cecil has just asked my
permission about it, and I should be delighted if Lucy wishes it, and I
have told Lucy so. But Lucy seems very uncertain, and in these days
young people must decide for themselves. I know that Lucy likes your
son, because she tells me everything. But I do not know—’”

“Look out!” cried Freddy.

The curtains parted.

Cecil’s first movement was one of irritation. He couldn’t bear the
Honeychurch habit of sitting in the dark to save the furniture.
Instinctively he gave the curtains a twitch, and sent them swinging
down their poles. Light entered. There was revealed a terrace, such as
is owned by many villas with trees each side of it, and on it a little
rustic seat, and two flower-beds. But it was transfigured by the view
beyond, for Windy Corner was built on the range that overlooks the
Sussex Weald. Lucy, who was in the little seat, seemed on the edge of a
green magic carpet which hovered in the air above the tremulous world.

Cecil entered.

Appearing thus late in the story, Cecil must be at once described. He
was medieval. Like a Gothic statue. Tall and refined, with shoulders
that seemed braced square by an effort of the will, and a head that was
tilted a little higher than the usual level of vision, he resembled
those fastidious saints who guard the portals of a French cathedral.
Well educated, well endowed, and not deficient physically, he remained
in the grip of a certain devil whom the modern world knows as
self-consciousness, and whom the medieval, with dimmer vision,
worshipped as asceticism. A Gothic statue implies celibacy, just as a
Greek statue implies fruition, and perhaps this was what Mr. Beebe
meant. And Freddy, who ignored history and art, perhaps meant the same
when he failed to imagine Cecil wearing another fellow’s cap.

Mrs. Honeychurch left her letter on the writing table and moved towards
her young acquaintance.

“Oh, Cecil!” she exclaimed—“oh, Cecil, do tell me!”

“I promessi sposi,” said he.

They stared at him anxiously.

“She has accepted me,” he said, and the sound of the thing in English
made him flush and smile with pleasure, and look more human.

“I am so glad,” said Mrs. Honeychurch, while Freddy proffered a hand
that was yellow with chemicals. They wished that they also knew
Italian, for our phrases of approval and of amazement are so connected
with little occasions that we fear to use them on great ones. We are
obliged to become vaguely poetic, or to take refuge in Scriptural
reminiscences.

“Welcome as one of the family!” said Mrs. Honeychurch, waving her hand
at the furniture. “This is indeed a joyous day! I feel sure that you
will make our dear Lucy happy.”

“I hope so,” replied the young man, shifting his eyes to the ceiling.

“We mothers—” simpered Mrs. Honeychurch, and then realized that she was
affected, sentimental, bombastic—all the things she hated most. Why
could she not be Freddy, who stood stiff in the middle of the room;
looking very cross and almost handsome?

“I say, Lucy!” called Cecil, for conversation seemed to flag.

Lucy rose from the seat. She moved across the lawn and smiled in at
them, just as if she was going to ask them to play tennis. Then she saw
her brother’s face. Her lips parted, and she took him in her arms. He
said, “Steady on!”

“Not a kiss for me?” asked her mother.

Lucy kissed her also.

“Would you take them into the garden and tell Mrs. Honeychurch all
about it?” Cecil suggested. “And I’d stop here and tell my mother.”

“We go with Lucy?” said Freddy, as if taking orders.

“Yes, you go with Lucy.”

They passed into the sunlight. Cecil watched them cross the terrace,
and descend out of sight by the steps. They would descend—he knew their
ways—past the shrubbery, and past the tennis-lawn and the dahlia-bed,
until they reached the kitchen garden, and there, in the presence of
the potatoes and the peas, the great event would be discussed.

Smiling indulgently, he lit a cigarette, and rehearsed the events that
had led to such a happy conclusion.

He had known Lucy for several years, but only as a commonplace girl who
happened to be musical. He could still remember his depression that
afternoon at Rome, when she and her terrible cousin fell on him out of
the blue, and demanded to be taken to St. Peter’s. That day she had
seemed a typical tourist—shrill, crude, and gaunt with travel. But
Italy worked some marvel in her. It gave her light, and—which he held
more precious—it gave her shadow. Soon he detected in her a wonderful
reticence. She was like a woman of Leonardo da Vinci’s, whom we love
not so much for herself as for the things that she will not tell us.
The things are assuredly not of this life; no woman of Leonardo’s could
have anything so vulgar as a “story.” She did develop most wonderfully
day by day.

So it happened that from patronizing civility he had slowly passed if
not to passion, at least to a profound uneasiness. Already at Rome he
had hinted to her that they might be suitable for each other. It had
touched him greatly that she had not broken away at the suggestion. Her
refusal had been clear and gentle; after it—as the horrid phrase
went—she had been exactly the same to him as before. Three months
later, on the margin of Italy, among the flower-clad Alps, he had asked
her again in bald, traditional language. She reminded him of a Leonardo
more than ever; her sunburnt features were shadowed by fantastic rock;
at his words she had turned and stood between him and the light with
immeasurable plains behind her. He walked home with her unashamed,
feeling not at all like a rejected suitor. The things that really
mattered were unshaken.

So now he had asked her once more, and, clear and gentle as ever, she
had accepted him, giving no coy reasons for her delay, but simply
saying that she loved him and would do her best to make him happy. His
mother, too, would be pleased; she had counselled the step; he must
write her a long account.

Glancing at his hand, in case any of Freddy’s chemicals had come off on
it, he moved to the writing table. There he saw “Dear Mrs. Vyse,”
followed by many erasures. He recoiled without reading any more, and
after a little hesitation sat down elsewhere, and pencilled a note on
his knee.

Then he lit another cigarette, which did not seem quite as divine as
the first, and considered what might be done to make Windy Corner
drawing-room more distinctive. With that outlook it should have been a
successful room, but the trail of Tottenham Court Road was upon it; he
could almost visualize the motor-vans of Messrs. Shoolbred and Messrs.
Maple arriving at the door and depositing this chair, those varnished
book-cases, that writing-table. The table recalled Mrs. Honeychurch’s
letter. He did not want to read that letter—his temptations never lay
in that direction; but he worried about it none the less. It was his
own fault that she was discussing him with his mother; he had wanted
her support in his third attempt to win Lucy; he wanted to feel that
others, no matter who they were, agreed with him, and so he had asked
their permission. Mrs. Honeychurch had been civil, but obtuse in
essentials, while as for Freddy—“He is only a boy,” he reflected. “I
represent all that he despises. Why should he want me for a
brother-in-law?”

The Honeychurches were a worthy family, but he began to realize that
Lucy was of another clay; and perhaps—he did not put it very
definitely—he ought to introduce her into more congenial circles as
soon as possible.

“Mr. Beebe!” said the maid, and the new rector of Summer Street was
shown in; he had at once started on friendly relations, owing to Lucy’s
praise of him in her letters from Florence.

Cecil greeted him rather critically.

“I’ve come for tea, Mr. Vyse. Do you suppose that I shall get it?”

“I should say so. Food is the thing one does get here—Don’t sit in that
chair; young Honeychurch has left a bone in it.”

“Pfui!”

“I know,” said Cecil. “I know. I can’t think why Mrs. Honeychurch
allows it.”

For Cecil considered the bone and the Maples’ furniture separately; he
did not realize that, taken together, they kindled the room into the
life that he desired.

“I’ve come for tea and for gossip. Isn’t this news?”

“News? I don’t understand you,” said Cecil. “News?”

Mr. Beebe, whose news was of a very different nature, prattled forward.

“I met Sir Harry Otway as I came up; I have every reason to hope that I
am first in the field. He has bought Cissie and Albert from Mr. Flack!”

“Has he indeed?” said Cecil, trying to recover himself. Into what a
grotesque mistake had he fallen! Was it likely that a clergyman and a
gentleman would refer to his engagement in a manner so flippant? But
his stiffness remained, and, though he asked who Cissie and Albert
might be, he still thought Mr. Beebe rather a bounder.

“Unpardonable question! To have stopped a week at Windy Corner and not
to have met Cissie and Albert, the semi-detached villas that have been
run up opposite the church! I’ll set Mrs. Honeychurch after you.”

“I’m shockingly stupid over local affairs,” said the young man
languidly. “I can’t even remember the difference between a Parish
Council and a Local Government Board. Perhaps there is no difference,
or perhaps those aren’t the right names. I only go into the country to
see my friends and to enjoy the scenery. It is very remiss of me. Italy
and London are the only places where I don’t feel to exist on
sufferance.”

Mr. Beebe, distressed at this heavy reception of Cissie and Albert,
determined to shift the subject.

“Let me see, Mr. Vyse—I forget—what is your profession?”

“I have no profession,” said Cecil. “It is another example of my
decadence. My attitude—quite an indefensible one—is that so long as I
am no trouble to any one I have a right to do as I like. I know I ought
to be getting money out of people, or devoting myself to things I don’t
care a straw about, but somehow, I’ve not been able to begin.”

“You are very fortunate,” said Mr. Beebe. “It is a wonderful
opportunity, the possession of leisure.”

His voice was rather parochial, but he did not quite see his way to
answering naturally. He felt, as all who have regular occupation must
feel, that others should have it also.

“I am glad that you approve. I daren’t face the healthy person—for
example, Freddy Honeychurch.”

“Oh, Freddy’s a good sort, isn’t he?”

“Admirable. The sort who has made England what she is.”

Cecil wondered at himself. Why, on this day of all others, was he so
hopelessly contrary? He tried to get right by inquiring effusively
after Mr. Beebe’s mother, an old lady for whom he had no particular
regard. Then he flattered the clergyman, praised his
liberal-mindedness, his enlightened attitude towards philosophy and
science.

“Where are the others?” said Mr. Beebe at last, “I insist on extracting
tea before evening service.”

“I suppose Anne never told them you were here. In this house one is so
coached in the servants the day one arrives. The fault of Anne is that
she begs your pardon when she hears you perfectly, and kicks the
chair-legs with her feet. The faults of Mary—I forget the faults of
Mary, but they are very grave. Shall we look in the garden?”

“I know the faults of Mary. She leaves the dust-pans standing on the
stairs.”

“The fault of Euphemia is that she will not, simply will not, chop the
suet sufficiently small.”

They both laughed, and things began to go better.

“The faults of Freddy—” Cecil continued.

“Ah, he has too many. No one but his mother can remember the faults of
Freddy. Try the faults of Miss Honeychurch; they are not innumerable.”

“She has none,” said the young man, with grave sincerity.

“I quite agree. At present she has none.”

“At present?”

“I’m not cynical. I’m only thinking of my pet theory about Miss
Honeychurch. Does it seem reasonable that she should play so
wonderfully, and live so quietly? I suspect that one day she will be
wonderful in both. The water-tight compartments in her will break down,
and music and life will mingle. Then we shall have her heroically good,
heroically bad—too heroic, perhaps, to be good or bad.”

Cecil found his companion interesting.

“And at present you think her not wonderful as far as life goes?”

“Well, I must say I’ve only seen her at Tunbridge Wells, where she was
not wonderful, and at Florence. Since I came to Summer Street she has
been away. You saw her, didn’t you, at Rome and in the Alps. Oh, I
forgot; of course, you knew her before. No, she wasn’t wonderful in
Florence either, but I kept on expecting that she would be.”

“In what way?”

Conversation had become agreeable to them, and they were pacing up and
down the terrace.

“I could as easily tell you what tune she’ll play next. There was
simply the sense that she had found wings, and meant to use them. I can
show you a beautiful picture in my Italian diary: Miss Honeychurch as a
kite, Miss Bartlett holding the string. Picture number two: the string
breaks.”

The sketch was in his diary, but it had been made afterwards, when he
viewed things artistically. At the time he had given surreptitious tugs
to the string himself.

“But the string never broke?”

“No. I mightn’t have seen Miss Honeychurch rise, but I should certainly
have heard Miss Bartlett fall.”

“It has broken now,” said the young man in low, vibrating tones.

Immediately he realized that of all the conceited, ludicrous,
contemptible ways of announcing an engagement this was the worst. He
cursed his love of metaphor; had he suggested that he was a star and
that Lucy was soaring up to reach him?

“Broken? What do you mean?”

“I meant,” said Cecil stiffly, “that she is going to marry me.”

The clergyman was conscious of some bitter disappointment which he
could not keep out of his voice.

“I am sorry; I must apologize. I had no idea you were intimate with
her, or I should never have talked in this flippant, superficial way.
Mr. Vyse, you ought to have stopped me.” And down the garden he saw
Lucy herself; yes, he was disappointed.

Cecil, who naturally preferred congratulations to apologies, drew down
his mouth at the corners. Was this the reception his action would get
from the world? Of course, he despised the world as a whole; every
thoughtful man should; it is almost a test of refinement. But he was
sensitive to the successive particles of it which he encountered.

Occasionally he could be quite crude.

“I am sorry I have given you a shock,” he said dryly. “I fear that
Lucy’s choice does not meet with your approval.”

“Not that. But you ought to have stopped me. I know Miss Honeychurch
only a little as time goes. Perhaps I oughtn’t to have discussed her so
freely with any one; certainly not with you.”

“You are conscious of having said something indiscreet?”

Mr. Beebe pulled himself together. Really, Mr. Vyse had the art of
placing one in the most tiresome positions. He was driven to use the
prerogatives of his profession.

“No, I have said nothing indiscreet. I foresaw at Florence that her
quiet, uneventful childhood must end, and it has ended. I realized
dimly enough that she might take some momentous step. She has taken it.
She has learnt—you will let me talk freely, as I have begun freely—she
has learnt what it is to love: the greatest lesson, some people will
tell you, that our earthly life provides.” It was now time for him to
wave his hat at the approaching trio. He did not omit to do so. “She
has learnt through you,” and if his voice was still clerical, it was
now also sincere; “let it be your care that her knowledge is profitable
to her.”

“Grazie tante!” said Cecil, who did not like parsons.

“Have you heard?” shouted Mrs. Honeychurch as she toiled up the sloping
garden. “Oh, Mr. Beebe, have you heard the news?”

Freddy, now full of geniality, whistled the wedding march. Youth seldom
criticizes the accomplished fact.

“Indeed I have!” he cried. He looked at Lucy. In her presence he could
not act the parson any longer—at all events not without apology. “Mrs.
Honeychurch, I’m going to do what I am always supposed to do, but
generally I’m too shy. I want to invoke every kind of blessing on them,
grave and gay, great and small. I want them all their lives to be
supremely good and supremely happy as husband and wife, as father and
mother. And now I want my tea.”

“You only asked for it just in time,” the lady retorted. “How dare you
be serious at Windy Corner?”

He took his tone from her. There was no more heavy beneficence, no more
attempts to dignify the situation with poetry or the Scriptures. None
of them dared or was able to be serious any more.

An engagement is so potent a thing that sooner or later it reduces all
who speak of it to this state of cheerful awe. Away from it, in the
solitude of their rooms, Mr. Beebe, and even Freddy, might again be
critical. But in its presence and in the presence of each other they
were sincerely hilarious. It has a strange power, for it compels not
only the lips, but the very heart. The chief parallel to compare one
great thing with another—is the power over us of a temple of some alien
creed. Standing outside, we deride or oppose it, or at the most feel
sentimental. Inside, though the saints and gods are not ours, we become
true believers, in case any true believer should be present.

So it was that after the gropings and the misgivings of the afternoon
they pulled themselves together and settled down to a very pleasant
tea-party. If they were hypocrites they did not know it, and their
hypocrisy had every chance of setting and of becoming true. Anne,
putting down each plate as if it were a wedding present, stimulated
them greatly. They could not lag behind that smile of hers which she
gave them ere she kicked the drawing-room door. Mr. Beebe chirruped.
Freddy was at his wittiest, referring to Cecil as the “Fiasco”—family
honoured pun on fiance. Mrs. Honeychurch, amusing and portly, promised
well as a mother-in-law. As for Lucy and Cecil, for whom the temple had
been built, they also joined in the merry ritual, but waited, as
earnest worshippers should, for the disclosure of some holier shrine of
joy.




Chapter IX
Lucy As a Work of Art


A few days after the engagement was announced Mrs. Honeychurch made
Lucy and her Fiasco come to a little garden-party in the neighbourhood,
for naturally she wanted to show people that her daughter was marrying
a presentable man.

Cecil was more than presentable; he looked distinguished, and it was
very pleasant to see his slim figure keeping step with Lucy, and his
long, fair face responding when Lucy spoke to him. People congratulated
Mrs. Honeychurch, which is, I believe, a social blunder, but it pleased
her, and she introduced Cecil rather indiscriminately to some stuffy
dowagers.

At tea a misfortune took place: a cup of coffee was upset over Lucy’s
figured silk, and though Lucy feigned indifference, her mother feigned
nothing of the sort but dragged her indoors to have the frock treated
by a sympathetic maid. They were gone some time, and Cecil was left
with the dowagers. When they returned he was not as pleasant as he had
been.

“Do you go to much of this sort of thing?” he asked when they were
driving home.

“Oh, now and then,” said Lucy, who had rather enjoyed herself.

“Is it typical of country society?”

“I suppose so. Mother, would it be?”

“Plenty of society,” said Mrs. Honeychurch, who was trying to remember
the hang of one of the dresses.

Seeing that her thoughts were elsewhere, Cecil bent towards Lucy and
said:

“To me it seemed perfectly appalling, disastrous, portentous.”

“I am so sorry that you were stranded.”

“Not that, but the congratulations. It is so disgusting, the way an
engagement is regarded as public property—a kind of waste place where
every outsider may shoot his vulgar sentiment. All those old women
smirking!”

“One has to go through it, I suppose. They won’t notice us so much next
time.”

“But my point is that their whole attitude is wrong. An
engagement—horrid word in the first place—is a private matter, and
should be treated as such.”

Yet the smirking old women, however wrong individually, were racially
correct. The spirit of the generations had smiled through them,
rejoicing in the engagement of Cecil and Lucy because it promised the
continuance of life on earth. To Cecil and Lucy it promised something
quite different—personal love. Hence Cecil’s irritation and Lucy’s
belief that his irritation was just.

“How tiresome!” she said. “Couldn’t you have escaped to tennis?”

“I don’t play tennis—at least, not in public. The neighbourhood is
deprived of the romance of me being athletic. Such romance as I have is
that of the Inglese Italianato.”

“Inglese Italianato?”

“E un diavolo incarnato! You know the proverb?”

She did not. Nor did it seem applicable to a young man who had spent a
quiet winter in Rome with his mother. But Cecil, since his engagement,
had taken to affect a cosmopolitan naughtiness which he was far from
possessing.

“Well,” said he, “I cannot help it if they do disapprove of me. There
are certain irremovable barriers between myself and them, and I must
accept them.”

“We all have our limitations, I suppose,” said wise Lucy.

“Sometimes they are forced on us, though,” said Cecil, who saw from her
remark that she did not quite understand his position.

“How?”

“It makes a difference doesn’t it, whether we fully fence ourselves in,
or whether we are fenced out by the barriers of others?”

She thought a moment, and agreed that it did make a difference.

“Difference?” cried Mrs. Honeychurch, suddenly alert. “I don’t see any
difference. Fences are fences, especially when they are in the same
place.”

“We were speaking of motives,” said Cecil, on whom the interruption
jarred.

“My dear Cecil, look here.” She spread out her knees and perched her
card-case on her lap. “This is me. That’s Windy Corner. The rest of the
pattern is the other people. Motives are all very well, but the fence
comes here.”

“We weren’t talking of real fences,” said Lucy, laughing.

“Oh, I see, dear—poetry.”

She leant placidly back. Cecil wondered why Lucy had been amused.

“I tell you who has no ‘fences,’ as you call them,” she said, “and
that’s Mr. Beebe.”

“A parson fenceless would mean a parson defenceless.”

Lucy was slow to follow what people said, but quick enough to detect
what they meant. She missed Cecil’s epigram, but grasped the feeling
that prompted it.

“Don’t you like Mr. Beebe?” she asked thoughtfully.

“I never said so!” he cried. “I consider him far above the average. I
only denied—” And he swept off on the subject of fences again, and was
brilliant.

“Now, a clergyman that I do hate,” said she wanting to say something
sympathetic, “a clergyman that does have fences, and the most dreadful
ones, is Mr. Eager, the English chaplain at Florence. He was truly
insincere—not merely the manner unfortunate. He was a snob, and so
conceited, and he did say such unkind things.”

“What sort of things?”

“There was an old man at the Bertolini whom he said had murdered his
wife.”

“Perhaps he had.”

“No!”

“Why ‘no’?”

“He was such a nice old man, I’m sure.”

Cecil laughed at her feminine inconsequence.

“Well, I did try to sift the thing. Mr. Eager would never come to the
point. He prefers it vague—said the old man had ‘practically’ murdered
his wife—had murdered her in the sight of God.”

“Hush, dear!” said Mrs. Honeychurch absently.

“But isn’t it intolerable that a person whom we’re told to imitate
should go round spreading slander? It was, I believe, chiefly owing to
him that the old man was dropped. People pretended he was vulgar, but
he certainly wasn’t that.”

“Poor old man! What was his name?”

“Harris,” said Lucy glibly.

“Let’s hope that Mrs. Harris there warn’t no sich person,” said her
mother.

Cecil nodded intelligently.

“Isn’t Mr. Eager a parson of the cultured type?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I hate him. I’ve heard him lecture on Giotto. I hate
him. Nothing can hide a petty nature. I _hate_ him.”

“My goodness gracious me, child!” said Mrs. Honeychurch. “You’ll blow
my head off! Whatever is there to shout over? I forbid you and Cecil to
hate any more clergymen.”

He smiled. There was indeed something rather incongruous in Lucy’s
moral outburst over Mr. Eager. It was as if one should see the Leonardo
on the ceiling of the Sistine. He longed to hint to her that not here
lay her vocation; that a woman’s power and charm reside in mystery, not
in muscular rant. But possibly rant is a sign of vitality: it mars the
beautiful creature, but shows that she is alive. After a moment, he
contemplated her flushed face and excited gestures with a certain
approval. He forebore to repress the sources of youth.

Nature—simplest of topics, he thought—lay around them. He praised the
pine-woods, the deep lasts of bracken, the crimson leaves that spotted
the hurt-bushes, the serviceable beauty of the turnpike road. The
outdoor world was not very familiar to him, and occasionally he went
wrong in a question of fact. Mrs. Honeychurch’s mouth twitched when he
spoke of the perpetual green of the larch.

“I count myself a lucky person,” he concluded, “When I’m in London I
feel I could never live out of it. When I’m in the country I feel the
same about the country. After all, I do believe that birds and trees
and the sky are the most wonderful things in life, and that the people
who live amongst them must be the best. It’s true that in nine cases
out of ten they don’t seem to notice anything. The country gentleman
and the country labourer are each in their way the most depressing of
companions. Yet they may have a tacit sympathy with the workings of
Nature which is denied to us of the town. Do you feel that, Mrs.
Honeychurch?”

Mrs. Honeychurch started and smiled. She had not been attending. Cecil,
who was rather crushed on the front seat of the victoria, felt
irritable, and determined not to say anything interesting again.

Lucy had not attended either. Her brow was wrinkled, and she still
looked furiously cross—the result, he concluded, of too much moral
gymnastics. It was sad to see her thus blind to the beauties of an
August wood.

“‘Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height,’” he quoted, and
touched her knee with his own.

She flushed again and said: “What height?”

“‘Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height,
What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang).
In height and in the splendour of the hills?’


Let us take Mrs. Honeychurch’s advice and hate clergymen no more.
What’s this place?”

“Summer Street, of course,” said Lucy, and roused herself.

The woods had opened to leave space for a sloping triangular meadow.
Pretty cottages lined it on two sides, and the upper and third side was
occupied by a new stone church, expensively simple, a charming shingled
spire. Mr. Beebe’s house was near the church. In height it scarcely
exceeded the cottages. Some great mansions were at hand, but they were
hidden in the trees. The scene suggested a Swiss Alp rather than the
shrine and centre of a leisured world, and was marred only by two ugly
little villas—the villas that had competed with Cecil’s engagement,
having been acquired by Sir Harry Otway the very afternoon that Lucy
had been acquired by Cecil.

“Cissie” was the name of one of these villas, “Albert” of the other.
These titles were not only picked out in shaded Gothic on the garden
gates, but appeared a second time on the porches, where they followed
the semicircular curve of the entrance arch in block capitals. “Albert”
was inhabited. His tortured garden was bright with geraniums and
lobelias and polished shells. His little windows were chastely swathed
in Nottingham lace. “Cissie” was to let. Three notice-boards, belonging
to Dorking agents, lolled on her fence and announced the not surprising
fact. Her paths were already weedy; her pocket-handkerchief of a lawn
was yellow with dandelions.

“The place is ruined!” said the ladies mechanically. “Summer Street
will never be the same again.”

As the carriage passed, “Cissie’s” door opened, and a gentleman came
out of her.

“Stop!” cried Mrs. Honeychurch, touching the coachman with her parasol.
“Here’s Sir Harry. Now we shall know. Sir Harry, pull those things down
at once!”

Sir Harry Otway—who need not be described—came to the carriage and said
“Mrs. Honeychurch, I meant to. I can’t, I really can’t turn out Miss
Flack.”

“Am I not always right? She ought to have gone before the contract was
signed. Does she still live rent free, as she did in her nephew’s
time?”

“But what can I do?” He lowered his voice. “An old lady, so very
vulgar, and almost bedridden.”

“Turn her out,” said Cecil bravely.

Sir Harry sighed, and looked at the villas mournfully. He had had full
warning of Mr. Flack’s intentions, and might have bought the plot
before building commenced: but he was apathetic and dilatory. He had
known Summer Street for so many years that he could not imagine it
being spoilt. Not till Mrs. Flack had laid the foundation stone, and
the apparition of red and cream brick began to rise did he take alarm.
He called on Mr. Flack, the local builder,—a most reasonable and
respectful man—who agreed that tiles would have made more artistic
roof, but pointed out that slates were cheaper. He ventured to differ,
however, about the Corinthian columns which were to cling like leeches
to the frames of the bow windows, saying that, for his part, he liked
to relieve the façade by a bit of decoration. Sir Harry hinted that a
column, if possible, should be structural as well as decorative.

Mr. Flack replied that all the columns had been ordered, adding, “and
all the capitals different—one with dragons in the foliage, another
approaching to the Ionian style, another introducing Mrs. Flack’s
initials—every one different.” For he had read his Ruskin. He built his
villas according to his desire; and not until he had inserted an
immovable aunt into one of them did Sir Harry buy.

This futile and unprofitable transaction filled the knight with sadness
as he leant on Mrs. Honeychurch’s carriage. He had failed in his duties
to the country-side, and the country-side was laughing at him as well.
He had spent money, and yet Summer Street was spoilt as much as ever.
All he could do now was to find a desirable tenant for “Cissie”—someone
really desirable.

“The rent is absurdly low,” he told them, “and perhaps I am an easy
landlord. But it is such an awkward size. It is too large for the
peasant class and too small for any one the least like ourselves.”

Cecil had been hesitating whether he should despise the villas or
despise Sir Harry for despising them. The latter impulse seemed the
more fruitful.

“You ought to find a tenant at once,” he said maliciously. “It would be
a perfect paradise for a bank clerk.”

“Exactly!” said Sir Harry excitedly. “That is exactly what I fear, Mr.
Vyse. It will attract the wrong type of people. The train service has
improved—a fatal improvement, to my mind. And what are five miles from
a station in these days of bicycles?”

“Rather a strenuous clerk it would be,” said Lucy.

Cecil, who had his full share of mediaeval mischievousness, replied
that the physique of the lower middle classes was improving at a most
appalling rate. She saw that he was laughing at their harmless
neighbour, and roused herself to stop him.

“Sir Harry!” she exclaimed, “I have an idea. How would you like
spinsters?”

“My dear Lucy, it would be splendid. Do you know any such?”

“Yes; I met them abroad.”

“Gentlewomen?” he asked tentatively.

“Yes, indeed, and at the present moment homeless. I heard from them
last week—Miss Teresa and Miss Catharine Alan. I’m really not joking.
They are quite the right people. Mr. Beebe knows them, too. May I tell
them to write to you?”

“Indeed you may!” he cried. “Here we are with the difficulty solved
already. How delightful it is! Extra facilities—please tell them they
shall have extra facilities, for I shall have no agents’ fees. Oh, the
agents! The appalling people they have sent me! One woman, when I
wrote—a tactful letter, you know—asking her to explain her social
position to me, replied that she would pay the rent in advance. As if
one cares about that! And several references I took up were most
unsatisfactory—people swindlers, or not respectable. And oh, the
deceit! I have seen a good deal of the seamy side this last week. The
deceit of the most promising people. My dear Lucy, the deceit!”

She nodded.

“My advice,” put in Mrs. Honeychurch, “is to have nothing to do with
Lucy and her decayed gentlewomen at all. I know the type. Preserve me
from people who have seen better days, and bring heirlooms with them
that make the house smell stuffy. It’s a sad thing, but I’d far rather
let to some one who is going up in the world than to someone who has
come down.”

“I think I follow you,” said Sir Harry; “but it is, as you say, a very
sad thing.”

“The Misses Alan aren’t that!” cried Lucy.

“Yes, they are,” said Cecil. “I haven’t met them but I should say they
were a highly unsuitable addition to the neighbourhood.”

“Don’t listen to him, Sir Harry—he’s tiresome.”

“It’s I who am tiresome,” he replied. “I oughtn’t to come with my
troubles to young people. But really I am so worried, and Lady Otway
will only say that I cannot be too careful, which is quite true, but no
real help.”

“Then may I write to my Misses Alan?”

“Please!”

But his eye wavered when Mrs. Honeychurch exclaimed:

“Beware! They are certain to have canaries. Sir Harry, beware of
canaries: they spit the seed out through the bars of the cages and then
the mice come. Beware of women altogether. Only let to a man.”

“Really—” he murmured gallantly, though he saw the wisdom of her
remark.

“Men don’t gossip over tea-cups. If they get drunk, there’s an end of
them—they lie down comfortably and sleep it off. If they’re vulgar,
they somehow keep it to themselves. It doesn’t spread so. Give me a
man—of course, provided he’s clean.”

Sir Harry blushed. Neither he nor Cecil enjoyed these open compliments
to their sex. Even the exclusion of the dirty did not leave them much
distinction. He suggested that Mrs. Honeychurch, if she had time,
should descend from the carriage and inspect “Cissie” for herself. She
was delighted. Nature had intended her to be poor and to live in such a
house. Domestic arrangements always attracted her, especially when they
were on a small scale.

Cecil pulled Lucy back as she followed her mother.

“Mrs. Honeychurch,” he said, “what if we two walk home and leave you?”

“Certainly!” was her cordial reply.

Sir Harry likewise seemed almost too glad to get rid of them. He beamed
at them knowingly, said, “Aha! young people, young people!” and then
hastened to unlock the house.

“Hopeless vulgarian!” exclaimed Cecil, almost before they were out of
earshot.

“Oh, Cecil!”

“I can’t help it. It would be wrong not to loathe that man.”

“He isn’t clever, but really he is nice.”

“No, Lucy, he stands for all that is bad in country life. In London he
would keep his place. He would belong to a brainless club, and his wife
would give brainless dinner parties. But down here he acts the little
god with his gentility, and his patronage, and his sham aesthetics, and
every one—even your mother—is taken in.”

“All that you say is quite true,” said Lucy, though she felt
discouraged. “I wonder whether—whether it matters so very much.”

“It matters supremely. Sir Harry is the essence of that garden-party.
Oh, goodness, how cross I feel! How I do hope he’ll get some vulgar
tenant in that villa—some woman so really vulgar that he’ll notice it.
_Gentlefolks!_ Ugh! with his bald head and retreating chin! But let’s
forget him.”

This Lucy was glad enough to do. If Cecil disliked Sir Harry Otway and
Mr. Beebe, what guarantee was there that the people who really mattered
to her would escape? For instance, Freddy. Freddy was neither clever,
nor subtle, nor beautiful, and what prevented Cecil from saying, any
minute, “It would be wrong not to loathe Freddy”? And what would she
reply? Further than Freddy she did not go, but he gave her anxiety
enough. She could only assure herself that Cecil had known Freddy some
time, and that they had always got on pleasantly, except, perhaps,
during the last few days, which was an accident, perhaps.

“Which way shall we go?” she asked him.

Nature—simplest of topics, she thought—was around them. Summer Street
lay deep in the woods, and she had stopped where a footpath diverged
from the highroad.

“Are there two ways?”

“Perhaps the road is more sensible, as we’re got up smart.”

“I’d rather go through the wood,” said Cecil, with that subdued
irritation that she had noticed in him all the afternoon. “Why is it,
Lucy, that you always say the road? Do you know that you have never
once been with me in the fields or the wood since we were engaged?”

“Haven’t I? The wood, then,” said Lucy, startled at his queerness, but
pretty sure that he would explain later; it was not his habit to leave
her in doubt as to his meaning.

She led the way into the whispering pines, and sure enough he did
explain before they had gone a dozen yards.

“I had got an idea—I dare say wrongly—that you feel more at home with
me in a room.”

“A room?” she echoed, hopelessly bewildered.

“Yes. Or, at the most, in a garden, or on a road. Never in the real
country like this.”

“Oh, Cecil, whatever do you mean? I have never felt anything of the
sort. You talk as if I was a kind of poetess sort of person.”

“I don’t know that you aren’t. I connect you with a view—a certain type
of view. Why shouldn’t you connect me with a room?”

She reflected a moment, and then said, laughing:

“Do you know that you’re right? I do. I must be a poetess after all.
When I think of you it’s always as in a room. How funny!”

To her surprise, he seemed annoyed.

“A drawing-room, pray? With no view?”

“Yes, with no view, I fancy. Why not?”

“I’d rather,” he said reproachfully, “that you connected me with the
open air.”

She said again, “Oh, Cecil, whatever do you mean?”

As no explanation was forthcoming, she shook off the subject as too
difficult for a girl, and led him further into the wood, pausing every
now and then at some particularly beautiful or familiar combination of
the trees. She had known the wood between Summer Street and Windy
Corner ever since she could walk alone; she had played at losing Freddy
in it, when Freddy was a purple-faced baby; and though she had been to
Italy, it had lost none of its charm.

Presently they came to a little clearing among the pines—another tiny
green alp, solitary this time, and holding in its bosom a shallow pool.

She exclaimed, “The Sacred Lake!”

“Why do you call it that?”

“I can’t remember why. I suppose it comes out of some book. It’s only a
puddle now, but you see that stream going through it? Well, a good deal
of water comes down after heavy rains, and can’t get away at once, and
the pool becomes quite large and beautiful. Then Freddy used to bathe
there. He is very fond of it.”

“And you?”

He meant, “Are you fond of it?” But she answered dreamily, “I bathed
here, too, till I was found out. Then there was a row.”

At another time he might have been shocked, for he had depths of
prudishness within him. But now? with his momentary cult of the fresh
air, he was delighted at her admirable simplicity. He looked at her as
she stood by the pool’s edge. She was got up smart, as she phrased it,
and she reminded him of some brilliant flower that has no leaves of its
own, but blooms abruptly out of a world of green.

“Who found you out?”

“Charlotte,” she murmured. “She was stopping with us.
Charlotte—Charlotte.”

“Poor girl!”

She smiled gravely. A certain scheme, from which hitherto he had
shrunk, now appeared practical.

“Lucy!”

“Yes, I suppose we ought to be going,” was her reply.

“Lucy, I want to ask something of you that I have never asked before.”

At the serious note in his voice she stepped frankly and kindly towards
him.

“What, Cecil?”

“Hitherto never—not even that day on the lawn when you agreed to marry
me—”

He became self-conscious and kept glancing round to see if they were
observed. His courage had gone.

“Yes?”

“Up to now I have never kissed you.”

She was as scarlet as if he had put the thing most indelicately.

“No—more you have,” she stammered.

“Then I ask you—may I now?”

“Of course, you may, Cecil. You might before. I can’t run at you, you
know.”

At that supreme moment he was conscious of nothing but absurdities. Her
reply was inadequate. She gave such a business-like lift to her veil.
As he approached her he found time to wish that he could recoil. As he
touched her, his gold pince-nez became dislodged and was flattened
between them.

Such was the embrace. He considered, with truth, that it had been a
failure. Passion should believe itself irresistible. It should forget
civility and consideration and all the other curses of a refined
nature. Above all, it should never ask for leave where there is a right
of way. Why could he not do as any labourer or navvy—nay, as any young
man behind the counter would have done? He recast the scene. Lucy was
standing flowerlike by the water, he rushed up and took her in his
arms; she rebuked him, permitted him and revered him ever after for his
manliness. For he believed that women revere men for their manliness.

They left the pool in silence, after this one salutation. He waited for
her to make some remark which should show him her inmost thoughts. At
last she spoke, and with fitting gravity.

“Emerson was the name, not Harris.”

“What name?”

“The old man’s.”

“What old man?”

“That old man I told you about. The one Mr. Eager was so unkind to.”

He could not know that this was the most intimate conversation they had
ever had.




Chapter X
Cecil as a Humourist


The society out of which Cecil proposed to rescue Lucy was perhaps no
very splendid affair, yet it was more splendid than her antecedents
entitled her to. Her father, a prosperous local solicitor, had built
Windy Corner, as a speculation at the time the district was opening up,
and, falling in love with his own creation, had ended by living there
himself. Soon after his marriage the social atmosphere began to alter.
Other houses were built on the brow of that steep southern slope and
others, again, among the pine-trees behind, and northward on the chalk
barrier of the downs. Most of these houses were larger than Windy
Corner, and were filled by people who came, not from the district, but
from London, and who mistook the Honeychurches for the remnants of an
indigenous aristocracy. He was inclined to be frightened, but his wife
accepted the situation without either pride or humility. “I cannot
think what people are doing,” she would say, “but it is extremely
fortunate for the children.” She called everywhere; her calls were
returned with enthusiasm, and by the time people found out that she was
not exactly of their _milieu_, they liked her, and it did not seem to
matter. When Mr. Honeychurch died, he had the satisfaction—which few
honest solicitors despise—of leaving his family rooted in the best
society obtainable.

The best obtainable. Certainly many of the immigrants were rather dull,
and Lucy realized this more vividly since her return from Italy.
Hitherto she had accepted their ideals without questioning—their kindly
affluence, their inexplosive religion, their dislike of paper-bags,
orange-peel, and broken bottles. A Radical out and out, she learnt to
speak with horror of Suburbia. Life, so far as she troubled to conceive
it, was a circle of rich, pleasant people, with identical interests and
identical foes. In this circle, one thought, married, and died. Outside
it were poverty and vulgarity for ever trying to enter, just as the
London fog tries to enter the pine-woods pouring through the gaps in
the northern hills. But, in Italy, where any one who chooses may warm
himself in equality, as in the sun, this conception of life vanished.
Her senses expanded; she felt that there was no one whom she might not
get to like, that social barriers were irremovable, doubtless, but not
particularly high. You jump over them just as you jump into a peasant’s
olive-yard in the Apennines, and he is glad to see you. She returned
with new eyes.

So did Cecil; but Italy had quickened Cecil, not to tolerance, but to
irritation. He saw that the local society was narrow, but, instead of
saying, “Does that very much matter?” he rebelled, and tried to
substitute for it the society he called broad. He did not realize that
Lucy had consecrated her environment by the thousand little civilities
that create a tenderness in time, and that though her eyes saw its
defects, her heart refused to despise it entirely. Nor did he realize a
more important point—that if she was too great for this society, she
was too great for all society, and had reached the stage where personal
intercourse would alone satisfy her. A rebel she was, but not of the
kind he understood—a rebel who desired, not a wider dwelling-room, but
equality beside the man she loved. For Italy was offering her the most
priceless of all possessions—her own soul.

Playing bumble-puppy with Minnie Beebe, niece to the rector, and aged
thirteen—an ancient and most honourable game, which consists in
striking tennis-balls high into the air, so that they fall over the net
and immoderately bounce; some hit Mrs. Honeychurch; others are lost.
The sentence is confused, but the better illustrates Lucy’s state of
mind, for she was trying to talk to Mr. Beebe at the same time.

“Oh, it has been such a nuisance—first he, then they—no one knowing
what they wanted, and everyone so tiresome.”

“But they really are coming now,” said Mr. Beebe. “I wrote to Miss
Teresa a few days ago—she was wondering how often the butcher called,
and my reply of once a month must have impressed her favourably. They
are coming. I heard from them this morning.

“I shall hate those Miss Alans!” Mrs. Honeychurch cried. “Just because
they’re old and silly one’s expected to say ‘How sweet!’ I hate their
‘if’-ing and ‘but’-ing and ‘and’-ing. And poor Lucy—serve her
right—worn to a shadow.”

Mr. Beebe watched the shadow springing and shouting over the
tennis-court. Cecil was absent—one did not play bumble-puppy when he
was there.

“Well, if they are coming—No, Minnie, not Saturn.” Saturn was a
tennis-ball whose skin was partially unsewn. When in motion his orb was
encircled by a ring. “If they are coming, Sir Harry will let them move
in before the twenty-ninth, and he will cross out the clause about
whitewashing the ceilings, because it made them nervous, and put in the
fair wear and tear one.—That doesn’t count. I told you not Saturn.”

“Saturn’s all right for bumble-puppy,” cried Freddy, joining them.
“Minnie, don’t you listen to her.”

“Saturn doesn’t bounce.”

“Saturn bounces enough.”

“No, he doesn’t.”

“Well; he bounces better than the Beautiful White Devil.”

“Hush, dear,” said Mrs. Honeychurch.

“But look at Lucy—complaining of Saturn, and all the time’s got the
Beautiful White Devil in her hand, ready to plug it in. That’s right,
Minnie, go for her—get her over the shins with the racquet—get her over
the shins!”

Lucy fell, the Beautiful White Devil rolled from her hand.

Mr. Beebe picked it up, and said: “The name of this ball is Vittoria
Corombona, please.” But his correction passed unheeded.

Freddy possessed to a high degree the power of lashing little girls to
fury, and in half a minute he had transformed Minnie from a
well-mannered child into a howling wilderness. Up in the house Cecil
heard them, and, though he was full of entertaining news, he did not
come down to impart it, in case he got hurt. He was not a coward and
bore necessary pain as well as any man. But he hated the physical
violence of the young. How right it was! Sure enough it ended in a cry.

“I wish the Miss Alans could see this,” observed Mr. Beebe, just as
Lucy, who was nursing the injured Minnie, was in turn lifted off her
feet by her brother.

“Who are the Miss Alans?” Freddy panted.

“They have taken Cissie Villa.”

“That wasn’t the name—”

Here his foot slipped, and they all fell most agreeably on to the
grass. An interval elapses.

“Wasn’t what name?” asked Lucy, with her brother’s head in her lap.

“Alan wasn’t the name of the people Sir Harry’s let to.”

“Nonsense, Freddy! You know nothing about it.”

“Nonsense yourself! I’ve this minute seen him. He said to me: ‘Ahem!
Honeychurch,’”—Freddy was an indifferent mimic—“‘ahem! ahem! I have at
last procured really dee-sire-rebel tenants.’ I said, ‘ooray, old boy!’
and slapped him on the back.”

“Exactly. The Miss Alans?”

“Rather not. More like Anderson.”

“Oh, good gracious, there isn’t going to be another muddle!” Mrs.
Honeychurch exclaimed. “Do you notice, Lucy, I’m always right? I _said_
don’t interfere with Cissie Villa. I’m always right. I’m quite uneasy
at being always right so often.”

“It’s only another muddle of Freddy’s. Freddy doesn’t even know the
name of the people he pretends have taken it instead.”

“Yes, I do. I’ve got it. Emerson.”

“What name?”

“Emerson. I’ll bet you anything you like.”

“What a weathercock Sir Harry is,” said Lucy quietly. “I wish I had
never bothered over it at all.”

Then she lay on her back and gazed at the cloudless sky. Mr. Beebe,
whose opinion of her rose daily, whispered to his niece that _that_ was
the proper way to behave if any little thing went wrong.

Meanwhile the name of the new tenants had diverted Mrs. Honeychurch
from the contemplation of her own abilities.

“Emerson, Freddy? Do you know what Emersons they are?”

“I don’t know whether they’re any Emersons,” retorted Freddy, who was
democratic. Like his sister and like most young people, he was
naturally attracted by the idea of equality, and the undeniable fact
that there are different kinds of Emersons annoyed him beyond measure.

“I trust they are the right sort of person. All right, Lucy”—she was
sitting up again—“I see you looking down your nose and thinking your
mother’s a snob. But there is a right sort and a wrong sort, and it’s
affectation to pretend there isn’t.”

“Emerson’s a common enough name,” Lucy remarked.

She was gazing sideways. Seated on a promontory herself, she could see
the pine-clad promontories descending one beyond another into the
Weald. The further one descended the garden, the more glorious was this
lateral view.

“I was merely going to remark, Freddy, that I trusted they were no
relations of Emerson the philosopher, a most trying man. Pray, does
that satisfy you?”

“Oh, yes,” he grumbled. “And you will be satisfied, too, for they’re
friends of Cecil; so”—elaborate irony—“you and the other country
families will be able to call in perfect safety.”

“_Cecil?_” exclaimed Lucy.

“Don’t be rude, dear,” said his mother placidly. “Lucy, don’t screech.
It’s a new bad habit you’re getting into.”

“But has Cecil—”

“Friends of Cecil’s,” he repeated, “‘and so really dee-sire-rebel.
Ahem! Honeychurch, I have just telegraphed to them.’”

She got up from the grass.

It was hard on Lucy. Mr. Beebe sympathized with her very much. While
she believed that her snub about the Miss Alans came from Sir Harry
Otway, she had borne it like a good girl. She might well “screech” when
she heard that it came partly from her lover. Mr. Vyse was a
tease—something worse than a tease: he took a malicious pleasure in
thwarting people. The clergyman, knowing this, looked at Miss
Honeychurch with more than his usual kindness.

When she exclaimed, “But Cecil’s Emersons—they can’t possibly be the
same ones—there is that—” he did not consider that the exclamation was
strange, but saw in it an opportunity of diverting the conversation
while she recovered her composure. He diverted it as follows:

“The Emersons who were at Florence, do you mean? No, I don’t suppose it
will prove to be them. It is probably a long cry from them to friends
of Mr. Vyse’s. Oh, Mrs. Honeychurch, the oddest people! The queerest
people! For our part we liked them, didn’t we?” He appealed to Lucy.
“There was a great scene over some violets. They picked violets and
filled all the vases in the room of these very Miss Alans who have
failed to come to Cissie Villa. Poor little ladies! So shocked and so
pleased. It used to be one of Miss Catharine’s great stories. ‘My dear
sister loves flowers,’ it began. They found the whole room a mass of
blue—vases and jugs—and the story ends with ‘So ungentlemanly and yet
so beautiful.’ It is all very difficult. Yes, I always connect those
Florentine Emersons with violets.”

“Fiasco’s done you this time,” remarked Freddy, not seeing that his
sister’s face was very red. She could not recover herself. Mr. Beebe
saw it, and continued to divert the conversation.

“These particular Emersons consisted of a father and a son—the son a
goodly, if not a good young man; not a fool, I fancy, but very
immature—pessimism, et cetera. Our special joy was the father—such a
sentimental darling, and people declared he had murdered his wife.”

In his normal state Mr. Beebe would never have repeated such gossip,
but he was trying to shelter Lucy in her little trouble. He repeated
any rubbish that came into his head.

“Murdered his wife?” said Mrs. Honeychurch. “Lucy, don’t desert us—go
on playing bumble-puppy. Really, the Pension Bertolini must have been
the oddest place. That’s the second murderer I’ve heard of as being
there. Whatever was Charlotte doing to stop? By-the-by, we really must
ask Charlotte here some time.”

Mr. Beebe could recall no second murderer. He suggested that his
hostess was mistaken. At the hint of opposition she warmed. She was
perfectly sure that there had been a second tourist of whom the same
story had been told. The name escaped her. What was the name? Oh, what
was the name? She clasped her knees for the name. Something in
Thackeray. She struck her matronly forehead.

Lucy asked her brother whether Cecil was in.

“Oh, don’t go!” he cried, and tried to catch her by the ankles.

“I must go,” she said gravely. “Don’t be silly. You always overdo it
when you play.”

As she left them her mother’s shout of “Harris!” shivered the tranquil
air, and reminded her that she had told a lie and had never put it
right. Such a senseless lie, too, yet it shattered her nerves and made
her connect these Emersons, friends of Cecil’s, with a pair of
nondescript tourists. Hitherto truth had come to her naturally. She saw
that for the future she must be more vigilant, and be—absolutely
truthful? Well, at all events, she must not tell lies. She hurried up
the garden, still flushed with shame. A word from Cecil would soothe
her, she was sure.

“Cecil!”

“Hullo!” he called, and leant out of the smoking-room window. He seemed
in high spirits. “I was hoping you’d come. I heard you all
bear-gardening, but there’s better fun up here. I, even I, have won a
great victory for the Comic Muse. George Meredith’s right—the cause of
Comedy and the cause of Truth are really the same; and I, even I, have
found tenants for the distressful Cissie Villa. Don’t be angry! Don’t
be angry! You’ll forgive me when you hear it all.”

He looked very attractive when his face was bright, and he dispelled
her ridiculous forebodings at once.

“I have heard,” she said. “Freddy has told us. Naughty Cecil! I suppose
I must forgive you. Just think of all the trouble I took for nothing!
Certainly the Miss Alans are a little tiresome, and I’d rather have
nice friends of yours. But you oughtn’t to tease one so.”

“Friends of mine?” he laughed. “But, Lucy, the whole joke is to come!
Come here.” But she remained standing where she was. “Do you know where
I met these desirable tenants? In the National Gallery, when I was up
to see my mother last week.”

“What an odd place to meet people!” she said nervously. “I don’t quite
understand.”

“In the Umbrian Room. Absolute strangers. They were admiring Luca
Signorelli—of course, quite stupidly. However, we got talking, and they
refreshed me not a little. They had been to Italy.”

“But, Cecil—” proceeded hilariously.

“In the course of conversation they said that they wanted a country
cottage—the father to live there, the son to run down for week-ends. I
thought, ‘What a chance of scoring off Sir Harry!’ and I took their
address and a London reference, found they weren’t actual
blackguards—it was great sport—and wrote to him, making out—”

“Cecil! No, it’s not fair. I’ve probably met them before—”

He bore her down.

“Perfectly fair. Anything is fair that punishes a snob. That old man
will do the neighbourhood a world of good. Sir Harry is too disgusting
with his ‘decayed gentlewomen.’ I meant to read him a lesson some time.
No, Lucy, the classes ought to mix, and before long you’ll agree with
me. There ought to be intermarriage—all sorts of things. I believe in
democracy—”

“No, you don’t,” she snapped. “You don’t know what the word means.”

He stared at her, and felt again that she had failed to be
Leonardesque. “No, you don’t!”

Her face was inartistic—that of a peevish virago.

“It isn’t fair, Cecil. I blame you—I blame you very much indeed. You
had no business to undo my work about the Miss Alans, and make me look
ridiculous. You call it scoring off Sir Harry, but do you realize that
it is all at my expense? I consider it most disloyal of you.”

She left him.

“Temper!” he thought, raising his eyebrows.

No, it was worse than temper—snobbishness. As long as Lucy thought that
his own smart friends were supplanting the Miss Alans, she had not
minded. He perceived that these new tenants might be of value
educationally. He would tolerate the father and draw out the son, who
was silent. In the interests of the Comic Muse and of Truth, he would
bring them to Windy Corner.




Chapter XI
In Mrs. Vyse’s Well-Appointed Flat


The Comic Muse, though able to look after her own interests, did not
disdain the assistance of Mr. Vyse. His idea of bringing the Emersons
to Windy Corner struck her as decidedly good, and she carried through
the negotiations without a hitch. Sir Harry Otway signed the agreement,
met Mr. Emerson, who was duly disillusioned. The Miss Alans were duly
offended, and wrote a dignified letter to Lucy, whom they held
responsible for the failure. Mr. Beebe planned pleasant moments for the
new-comers, and told Mrs. Honeychurch that Freddy must call on them as
soon as they arrived. Indeed, so ample was the Muse’s equipment that
she permitted Mr. Harris, never a very robust criminal, to droop his
head, to be forgotten, and to die.

Lucy—to descend from bright heaven to earth, whereon there are shadows
because there are hills—Lucy was at first plunged into despair, but
settled after a little thought that it did not matter the very least.
Now that she was engaged, the Emersons would scarcely insult her and
were welcome into the neighbourhood. And Cecil was welcome to bring
whom he would into the neighbourhood. Therefore Cecil was welcome to
bring the Emersons into the neighbourhood. But, as I say, this took a
little thinking, and—so illogical are girls—the event remained rather
greater and rather more dreadful than it should have done. She was glad
that a visit to Mrs. Vyse now fell due; the tenants moved into Cissie
Villa while she was safe in the London flat.

“Cecil—Cecil darling,” she whispered the evening she arrived, and crept
into his arms.

Cecil, too, became demonstrative. He saw that the needful fire had been
kindled in Lucy. At last she longed for attention, as a woman should,
and looked up to him because he was a man.

“So you do love me, little thing?” he murmured.

“Oh, Cecil, I do, I do! I don’t know what I should do without you.”

Several days passed. Then she had a letter from Miss Bartlett. A
coolness had sprung up between the two cousins, and they had not
corresponded since they parted in August. The coolness dated from what
Charlotte would call “the flight to Rome,” and in Rome it had increased
amazingly. For the companion who is merely uncongenial in the mediaeval
world becomes exasperating in the classical. Charlotte, unselfish in
the Forum, would have tried a sweeter temper than Lucy’s, and once, in
the Baths of Caracalla, they had doubted whether they could continue
their tour. Lucy had said she would join the Vyses—Mrs. Vyse was an
acquaintance of her mother, so there was no impropriety in the plan and
Miss Bartlett had replied that she was quite used to being abandoned
suddenly. Finally nothing happened; but the coolness remained, and, for
Lucy, was even increased when she opened the letter and read as
follows. It had been forwarded from Windy Corner.

“TUNBRIDGE WELLS,
“_September_.


“DEAREST LUCIA,


“I have news of you at last! Miss Lavish has been bicycling in your
parts, but was not sure whether a call would be welcome. Puncturing her
tire near Summer Street, and it being mended while she sat very
woebegone in that pretty churchyard, she saw to her astonishment, a
door open opposite and the younger Emerson man come out. He said his
father had just taken the house. He _said_ he did not know that you
lived in the neighbourhood (?). He never suggested giving Eleanor a cup
of tea. Dear Lucy, I am much worried, and I advise you to make a clean
breast of his past behaviour to your mother, Freddy, and Mr. Vyse, who
will forbid him to enter the house, etc. That was a great misfortune,
and I dare say you have told them already. Mr. Vyse is so sensitive. I
remember how I used to get on his nerves at Rome. I am very sorry about
it all, and should not feel easy unless I warned you.


“Believe me,
“Your anxious and loving cousin,
“CHARLOTTE.”


Lucy was much annoyed, and replied as follows:

“BEAUCHAMP MANSIONS, S.W.




“DEAR CHARLOTTE,

“Many thanks for your warning. When Mr. Emerson forgot himself on the
mountain, you made me promise not to tell mother, because you said she
would blame you for not being always with me. I have kept that promise,
and cannot possibly tell her now. I have said both to her and Cecil
that I met the Emersons at Florence, and that they are respectable
people—which I _do_ think—and the reason that he offered Miss Lavish no
tea was probably that he had none himself. She should have tried at the
Rectory. I cannot begin making a fuss at this stage. You must see that
it would be too absurd. If the Emersons heard I had complained of them,
they would think themselves of importance, which is exactly what they
are not. I like the old father, and look forward to seeing him again.
As for the son, I am sorry for _him_ when we meet, rather than for
myself. They are known to Cecil, who is very well and spoke of you the
other day. We expect to be married in January.

“Miss Lavish cannot have told you much about me, for I am not at Windy
Corner at all, but here. Please do not put ‘Private’ outside your
envelope again. No one opens my letters.


“Yours affectionately,
“L. M. HONEYCHURCH.”


Secrecy has this disadvantage: we lose the sense of proportion; we
cannot tell whether our secret is important or not. Were Lucy and her
cousin closeted with a great thing which would destroy Cecil’s life if
he discovered it, or with a little thing which he would laugh at? Miss
Bartlett suggested the former. Perhaps she was right. It had become a
great thing now. Left to herself, Lucy would have told her mother and
her lover ingenuously, and it would have remained a little thing.
“Emerson, not Harris”; it was only that a few weeks ago. She tried to
tell Cecil even now when they were laughing about some beautiful lady
who had smitten his heart at school. But her body behaved so
ridiculously that she stopped.

She and her secret stayed ten days longer in the deserted Metropolis
visiting the scenes they were to know so well later on. It did her no
harm, Cecil thought, to learn the framework of society, while society
itself was absent on the golf-links or the moors. The weather was cool,
and it did her no harm. In spite of the season, Mrs. Vyse managed to
scrape together a dinner-party consisting entirely of the grandchildren
of famous people. The food was poor, but the talk had a witty weariness
that impressed the girl. One was tired of everything, it seemed. One
launched into enthusiasms only to collapse gracefully, and pick oneself
up amid sympathetic laughter. In this atmosphere the Pension Bertolini
and Windy Corner appeared equally crude, and Lucy saw that her London
career would estrange her a little from all that she had loved in the
past.

The grandchildren asked her to play the piano.

She played Schumann. “Now some Beethoven” called Cecil, when the
querulous beauty of the music had died. She shook her head and played
Schumann again. The melody rose, unprofitably magical. It broke; it was
resumed broken, not marching once from the cradle to the grave. The
sadness of the incomplete—the sadness that is often Life, but should
never be Art—throbbed in its disjected phrases, and made the nerves of
the audience throb. Not thus had she played on the little draped piano
at the Bertolini, and “Too much Schumann” was not the remark that Mr.
Beebe had passed to himself when she returned.

When the guests were gone, and Lucy had gone to bed, Mrs. Vyse paced up
and down the drawing-room, discussing her little party with her son.
Mrs. Vyse was a nice woman, but her personality, like many another’s,
had been swamped by London, for it needs a strong head to live among
many people. The too vast orb of her fate had crushed her; and she had
seen too many seasons, too many cities, too many men, for her
abilities, and even with Cecil she was mechanical, and behaved as if he
was not one son, but, so to speak, a filial crowd.

“Make Lucy one of us,” she said, looking round intelligently at the end
of each sentence, and straining her lips apart until she spoke again.
“Lucy is becoming wonderful—wonderful.”

“Her music always was wonderful.”

“Yes, but she is purging off the Honeychurch taint, most excellent
Honeychurches, but you know what I mean. She is not always quoting
servants, or asking one how the pudding is made.”

“Italy has done it.”

“Perhaps,” she murmured, thinking of the museum that represented Italy
to her. “It is just possible. Cecil, mind you marry her next January.
She is one of us already.”

“But her music!” he exclaimed. “The style of her! How she kept to
Schumann when, like an idiot, I wanted Beethoven. Schumann was right
for this evening. Schumann was the thing. Do you know, mother, I shall
have our children educated just like Lucy. Bring them up among honest
country folks for freshness, send them to Italy for subtlety, and
then—not till then—let them come to London. I don’t believe in these
London educations—” He broke off, remembering that he had had one
himself, and concluded, “At all events, not for women.”

“Make her one of us,” repeated Mrs. Vyse, and processed to bed.

As she was dozing off, a cry—the cry of nightmare—rang from Lucy’s
room. Lucy could ring for the maid if she liked but Mrs. Vyse thought
it kind to go herself. She found the girl sitting upright with her hand
on her cheek.

“I am so sorry, Mrs. Vyse—it is these dreams.”

“Bad dreams?”

“Just dreams.”

The elder lady smiled and kissed her, saying very distinctly: “You
should have heard us talking about you, dear. He admires you more than
ever. Dream of that.”

Lucy returned the kiss, still covering one cheek with her hand. Mrs.
Vyse recessed to bed. Cecil, whom the cry had not awoke, snored.
Darkness enveloped the flat.




Chapter XII
Twelfth Chapter


It was a Saturday afternoon, gay and brilliant after abundant rains,
and the spirit of youth dwelt in it, though the season was now autumn.
All that was gracious triumphed. As the motorcars passed through Summer
Street they raised only a little dust, and their stench was soon
dispersed by the wind and replaced by the scent of the wet birches or
of the pines. Mr. Beebe, at leisure for life’s amenities, leant over
his Rectory gate. Freddy leant by him, smoking a pendant pipe.

“Suppose we go and hinder those new people opposite for a little.”

“M’m.”

“They might amuse you.”

Freddy, whom his fellow-creatures never amused, suggested that the new
people might be feeling a bit busy, and so on, since they had only just
moved in.

“I suggested we should hinder them,” said Mr. Beebe. “They are worth
it.” Unlatching the gate, he sauntered over the triangular green to
Cissie Villa. “Hullo!” he cried, shouting in at the open door, through
which much squalor was visible.

A grave voice replied, “Hullo!”

“I’ve brought someone to see you.”

“I’ll be down in a minute.”

The passage was blocked by a wardrobe, which the removal men had failed
to carry up the stairs. Mr. Beebe edged round it with difficulty. The
sitting-room itself was blocked with books.

“Are these people great readers?” Freddy whispered. “Are they that
sort?”

“I fancy they know how to read—a rare accomplishment. What have they
got? Byron. Exactly. A Shropshire Lad. Never heard of it. The Way of
All Flesh. Never heard of it. Gibbon. Hullo! dear George reads German.
Um—um—Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and so we go on. Well, I suppose your
generation knows its own business, Honeychurch.”

“Mr. Beebe, look at that,” said Freddy in awestruck tones.

On the cornice of the wardrobe, the hand of an amateur had painted this
inscription: “Mistrust all enterprises that require new clothes.”

“I know. Isn’t it jolly? I like that. I’m certain that’s the old man’s
doing.”

“How very odd of him!”

“Surely you agree?”

But Freddy was his mother’s son and felt that one ought not to go on
spoiling the furniture.

“Pictures!” the clergyman continued, scrambling about the room.
“Giotto—they got that at Florence, I’ll be bound.”

“The same as Lucy’s got.”

“Oh, by-the-by, did Miss Honeychurch enjoy London?”

“She came back yesterday.”

“I suppose she had a good time?”

“Yes, very,” said Freddy, taking up a book. “She and Cecil are thicker
than ever.”

“That’s good hearing.”

“I wish I wasn’t such a fool, Mr. Beebe.”

Mr. Beebe ignored the remark.

“Lucy used to be nearly as stupid as I am, but it’ll be very different
now, mother thinks. She will read all kinds of books.”

“So will you.”

“Only medical books. Not books that you can talk about afterwards.
Cecil is teaching Lucy Italian, and he says her playing is wonderful.
There are all kinds of things in it that we have never noticed. Cecil
says—”

“What on earth are those people doing upstairs? Emerson—we think we’ll
come another time.”

George ran down-stairs and pushed them into the room without speaking.

“Let me introduce Mr. Honeychurch, a neighbour.”

Then Freddy hurled one of the thunderbolts of youth. Perhaps he was
shy, perhaps he was friendly, or perhaps he thought that George’s face
wanted washing. At all events he greeted him with, “How d’ye do? Come
and have a bathe.”

“Oh, all right,” said George, impassive.

Mr. Beebe was highly entertained.

“‘How d’ye do? how d’ye do? Come and have a bathe,’” he chuckled.
“That’s the best conversational opening I’ve ever heard. But I’m afraid
it will only act between men. Can you picture a lady who has been
introduced to another lady by a third lady opening civilities with ‘How
do you do? Come and have a bathe’? And yet you will tell me that the
sexes are equal.”

“I tell you that they shall be,” said Mr. Emerson, who had been slowly
descending the stairs. “Good afternoon, Mr. Beebe. I tell you they
shall be comrades, and George thinks the same.”

“We are to raise ladies to our level?” the clergyman inquired.

“The Garden of Eden,” pursued Mr. Emerson, still descending, “which you
place in the past, is really yet to come. We shall enter it when we no
longer despise our bodies.”

Mr. Beebe disclaimed placing the Garden of Eden anywhere.

“In this—not in other things—we men are ahead. We despise the body less
than women do. But not until we are comrades shall we enter the
garden.”

“I say, what about this bathe?” murmured Freddy, appalled at the mass
of philosophy that was approaching him.

“I believed in a return to Nature once. But how can we return to Nature
when we have never been with her? To-day, I believe that we must
discover Nature. After many conquests we shall attain simplicity. It is
our heritage.”

“Let me introduce Mr. Honeychurch, whose sister you will remember at
Florence.”

“How do you do? Very glad to see you, and that you are taking George
for a bathe. Very glad to hear that your sister is going to marry.
Marriage is a duty. I am sure that she will be happy, for we know Mr.
Vyse, too. He has been most kind. He met us by chance in the National
Gallery, and arranged everything about this delightful house. Though I
hope I have not vexed Sir Harry Otway. I have met so few Liberal
landowners, and I was anxious to compare his attitude towards the game
laws with the Conservative attitude. Ah, this wind! You do well to
bathe. Yours is a glorious country, Honeychurch!”

“Not a bit!” mumbled Freddy. “I must—that is to say, I have to—have the
pleasure of calling on you later on, my mother says, I hope.”

“_Call_, my lad? Who taught us that drawing-room twaddle? Call on your
grandmother! Listen to the wind among the pines! Yours is a glorious
country.”

Mr. Beebe came to the rescue.

“Mr. Emerson, he will call, I shall call; you or your son will return
our calls before ten days have elapsed. I trust that you have realized
about the ten days’ interval. It does not count that I helped you with
the stair-eyes yesterday. It does not count that they are going to
bathe this afternoon.”

“Yes, go and bathe, George. Why do you dawdle talking? Bring them back
to tea. Bring back some milk, cakes, honey. The change will do you
good. George has been working very hard at his office. I can’t believe
he’s well.”

George bowed his head, dusty and sombre, exhaling the peculiar smell of
one who has handled furniture.

“Do you really want this bathe?” Freddy asked him. “It is only a pond,
don’t you know. I dare say you are used to something better.”

“Yes—I have said ‘Yes’ already.”

Mr. Beebe felt bound to assist his young friend, and led the way out of
the house and into the pine-woods. How glorious it was! For a little
time the voice of old Mr. Emerson pursued them dispensing good wishes
and philosophy. It ceased, and they only heard the fair wind blowing
the bracken and the trees. Mr. Beebe, who could be silent, but who
could not bear silence, was compelled to chatter, since the expedition
looked like a failure, and neither of his companions would utter a
word. He spoke of Florence. George attended gravely, assenting or
dissenting with slight but determined gestures that were as
inexplicable as the motions of the tree-tops above their heads.

“And what a coincidence that you should meet Mr. Vyse! Did you realize
that you would find all the Pension Bertolini down here?”

“I did not. Miss Lavish told me.”

“When I was a young man, I always meant to write a ‘History of
Coincidence.’”

No enthusiasm.

“Though, as a matter of fact, coincidences are much rarer than we
suppose. For example, it isn’t purely coincidentally that you are here
now, when one comes to reflect.”

To his relief, George began to talk.

“It is. I have reflected. It is Fate. Everything is Fate. We are flung
together by Fate, drawn apart by Fate—flung together, drawn apart. The
twelve winds blow us—we settle nothing—”

“You have not reflected at all,” rapped the clergyman. “Let me give you
a useful tip, Emerson: attribute nothing to Fate. Don’t say, ‘I didn’t
do this,’ for you did it, ten to one. Now I’ll cross-question you.
Where did you first meet Miss Honeychurch and myself?”

“Italy.”

“And where did you meet Mr. Vyse, who is going to marry Miss
Honeychurch?”

“National Gallery.”

“Looking at Italian art. There you are, and yet you talk of coincidence
and Fate. You naturally seek out things Italian, and so do we and our
friends. This narrows the field immeasurably we meet again in it.”

“It is Fate that I am here,” persisted George. “But you can call it
Italy if it makes you less unhappy.”

Mr. Beebe slid away from such heavy treatment of the subject. But he
was infinitely tolerant of the young, and had no desire to snub George.

“And so for this and for other reasons my ‘History of Coincidence’ is
still to write.”

Silence.

Wishing to round off the episode, he added; “We are all so glad that
you have come.”

Silence.

“Here we are!” called Freddy.

“Oh, good!” exclaimed Mr. Beebe, mopping his brow.

“In there’s the pond. I wish it was bigger,” he added apologetically.

They climbed down a slippery bank of pine-needles. There lay the pond,
set in its little alp of green—only a pond, but large enough to contain
the human body, and pure enough to reflect the sky. On account of the
rains, the waters had flooded the surrounding grass, which showed like
a beautiful emerald path, tempting these feet towards the central pool.

“It’s distinctly successful, as ponds go,” said Mr. Beebe. “No
apologies are necessary for the pond.”

George sat down where the ground was dry, and drearily unlaced his
boots.

“Aren’t those masses of willow-herb splendid? I love willow-herb in
seed. What’s the name of this aromatic plant?”

No one knew, or seemed to care.

“These abrupt changes of vegetation—this little spongeous tract of
water plants, and on either side of it all the growths are tough or
brittle—heather, bracken, hurts, pines. Very charming, very charming.”

“Mr. Beebe, aren’t you bathing?” called Freddy, as he stripped himself.

Mr. Beebe thought he was not.

“Water’s wonderful!” cried Freddy, prancing in.

“Water’s water,” murmured George. Wetting his hair first—a sure sign of
apathy—he followed Freddy into the divine, as indifferent as if he were
a statue and the pond a pail of soapsuds. It was necessary to use his
muscles. It was necessary to keep clean. Mr. Beebe watched them, and
watched the seeds of the willow-herb dance chorically above their
heads.

“Apooshoo, apooshoo, apooshoo,” went Freddy, swimming for two strokes
in either direction, and then becoming involved in reeds or mud.

“Is it worth it?” asked the other, Michelangelesque on the flooded
margin.

The bank broke away, and he fell into the pool before he had weighed
the question properly.

“Hee-poof—I’ve swallowed a pollywog, Mr. Beebe, water’s wonderful,
water’s simply ripping.”

“Water’s not so bad,” said George, reappearing from his plunge, and
sputtering at the sun.

“Water’s wonderful. Mr. Beebe, do.”

“Apooshoo, kouf.”

Mr. Beebe, who was hot, and who always acquiesced where possible,
looked around him. He could detect no parishioners except the
pine-trees, rising up steeply on all sides, and gesturing to each other
against the blue. How glorious it was! The world of motor-cars and
rural Deans receded inimitably. Water, sky, evergreens, a wind—these
things not even the seasons can touch, and surely they lie beyond the
intrusion of man?

“I may as well wash too”; and soon his garments made a third little
pile on the sward, and he too asserted the wonder of the water.

It was ordinary water, nor was there very much of it, and, as Freddy
said, it reminded one of swimming in a salad. The three gentlemen
rotated in the pool breast high, after the fashion of the nymphs in
Götterdämmerung. But either because the rains had given a freshness or
because the sun was shedding a most glorious heat, or because two of
the gentlemen were young in years and the third young in spirit—for
some reason or other a change came over them, and they forgot Italy and
Botany and Fate. They began to play. Mr. Beebe and Freddy splashed each
other. A little deferentially, they splashed George. He was quiet: they
feared they had offended him. Then all the forces of youth burst out.
He smiled, flung himself at them, splashed them, ducked them, kicked
them, muddied them, and drove them out of the pool.

“Race you round it, then,” cried Freddy, and they raced in the
sunshine, and George took a short cut and dirtied his shins, and had to
bathe a second time. Then Mr. Beebe consented to run—a memorable sight.

They ran to get dry, they bathed to get cool, they played at being
Indians in the willow-herbs and in the bracken, they bathed to get
clean. And all the time three little bundles lay discreetly on the
sward, proclaiming:

“No. We are what matters. Without us shall no enterprise begin. To us
shall all flesh turn in the end.”

“A try! A try!” yelled Freddy, snatching up George’s bundle and placing
it beside an imaginary goal-post.

“Socker rules,” George retorted, scattering Freddy’s bundle with a
kick.

“Goal!”

“Goal!”

“Pass!”

“Take care my watch!” cried Mr. Beebe.

Clothes flew in all directions.

“Take care my hat! No, that’s enough, Freddy. Dress now. No, I say!”

But the two young men were delirious. Away they twinkled into the
trees, Freddy with a clerical waistcoat under his arm, George with a
wide-awake hat on his dripping hair.

“That’ll do!” shouted Mr. Beebe, remembering that after all he was in
his own parish. Then his voice changed as if every pine-tree was a
Rural Dean. “Hi! Steady on! I see people coming you fellows!”

Yells, and widening circles over the dappled earth.

“Hi! hi! _Ladies!_”

Neither George nor Freddy was truly refined. Still, they did not hear
Mr. Beebe’s last warning or they would have avoided Mrs. Honeychurch,
Cecil, and Lucy, who were walking down to call on old Mrs. Butterworth.
Freddy dropped the waistcoat at their feet, and dashed into some
bracken. George whooped in their faces, turned and scudded away down
the path to the pond, still clad in Mr. Beebe’s hat.

“Gracious alive!” cried Mrs. Honeychurch. “Whoever were those
unfortunate people? Oh, dears, look away! And poor Mr. Beebe, too!
Whatever has happened?”

“Come this way immediately,” commanded Cecil, who always felt that he
must lead women, though he knew not whither, and protect them, though
he knew not against what. He led them now towards the bracken where
Freddy sat concealed.

“Oh, poor Mr. Beebe! Was that his waistcoat we left in the path? Cecil,
Mr. Beebe’s waistcoat—”

No business of ours, said Cecil, glancing at Lucy, who was all parasol
and evidently “minded.”

“I fancy Mr. Beebe jumped back into the pond.”

“This way, please, Mrs. Honeychurch, this way.”

They followed him up the bank attempting the tense yet nonchalant
expression that is suitable for ladies on such occasions.

“Well, _I_ can’t help it,” said a voice close ahead, and Freddy reared
a freckled face and a pair of snowy shoulders out of the fronds. “I
can’t be trodden on, can I?”

“Good gracious me, dear; so it’s you! What miserable management! Why
not have a comfortable bath at home, with hot and cold laid on?”

“Look here, mother, a fellow must wash, and a fellow’s got to dry, and
if another fellow—”

“Dear, no doubt you’re right as usual, but you are in no position to
argue. Come, Lucy.” They turned. “Oh, look—don’t look! Oh, poor Mr.
Beebe! How unfortunate again—”

For Mr. Beebe was just crawling out of the pond, on whose surface
garments of an intimate nature did float; while George, the world-weary
George, shouted to Freddy that he had hooked a fish.

“And me, I’ve swallowed one,” answered he of the bracken. “I’ve
swallowed a pollywog. It wriggleth in my tummy. I shall die—Emerson you
beast, you’ve got on my bags.”

“Hush, dears,” said Mrs. Honeychurch, who found it impossible to remain
shocked. “And do be sure you dry yourselves thoroughly first. All these
colds come of not drying thoroughly.”

“Mother, do come away,” said Lucy. “Oh for goodness’ sake, do come.”

“Hullo!” cried George, so that again the ladies stopped.

He regarded himself as dressed. Barefoot, bare-chested, radiant and
personable against the shadowy woods, he called:

“Hullo, Miss Honeychurch! Hullo!”

“Bow, Lucy; better bow. Whoever is it? I shall bow.”

Miss Honeychurch bowed.

That evening and all that night the water ran away. On the morrow the
pool had shrunk to its old size and lost its glory. It had been a call
to the blood and to the relaxed will, a passing benediction whose
influence did not pass, a holiness, a spell, a momentary chalice for
youth.




Chapter XIII
How Miss Bartlett’s Boiler Was So Tiresome


How often had Lucy rehearsed this bow, this interview! But she had
always rehearsed them indoors, and with certain accessories, which
surely we have a right to assume. Who could foretell that she and
George would meet in the rout of a civilization, amidst an army of
coats and collars and boots that lay wounded over the sunlit earth? She
had imagined a young Mr. Emerson, who might be shy or morbid or
indifferent or furtively impudent. She was prepared for all of these.
But she had never imagined one who would be happy and greet her with
the shout of the morning star.

Indoors herself, partaking of tea with old Mrs. Butterworth, she
reflected that it is impossible to foretell the future with any degree
of accuracy, that it is impossible to rehearse life. A fault in the
scenery, a face in the audience, an irruption of the audience on to the
stage, and all our carefully planned gestures mean nothing, or mean too
much. “I will bow,” she had thought. “I will not shake hands with him.
That will be just the proper thing.” She had bowed—but to whom? To
gods, to heroes, to the nonsense of school-girls! She had bowed across
the rubbish that cumbers the world.

So ran her thoughts, while her faculties were busy with Cecil. It was
another of those dreadful engagement calls. Mrs. Butterworth had wanted
to see him, and he did not want to be seen. He did not want to hear
about hydrangeas, why they change their colour at the seaside. He did
not want to join the C. O. S. When cross he was always elaborate, and
made long, clever answers where “Yes” or “No” would have done. Lucy
soothed him and tinkered at the conversation in a way that promised
well for their married peace. No one is perfect, and surely it is wiser
to discover the imperfections before wedlock. Miss Bartlett, indeed,
though not in word, had taught the girl that this our life contains
nothing satisfactory. Lucy, though she disliked the teacher, regarded
the teaching as profound, and applied it to her lover.

“Lucy,” said her mother, when they got home, “is anything the matter
with Cecil?”

The question was ominous; up till now Mrs. Honeychurch had behaved with
charity and restraint.

“No, I don’t think so, mother; Cecil’s all right.”

“Perhaps he’s tired.”

Lucy compromised: perhaps Cecil was a little tired.

“Because otherwise”—she pulled out her bonnet-pins with gathering
displeasure—“because otherwise I cannot account for him.”

“I do think Mrs. Butterworth is rather tiresome, if you mean that.”

“Cecil has told you to think so. You were devoted to her as a little
girl, and nothing will describe her goodness to you through the typhoid
fever. No—it is just the same thing everywhere.”

“Let me just put your bonnet away, may I?”

“Surely he could answer her civilly for one half-hour?”

“Cecil has a very high standard for people,” faltered Lucy, seeing
trouble ahead. “It’s part of his ideals—it is really that that makes
him sometimes seem—”

“Oh, rubbish! If high ideals make a young man rude, the sooner he gets
rid of them the better,” said Mrs. Honeychurch, handing her the bonnet.

“Now, mother! I’ve seen you cross with Mrs. Butterworth yourself!”

“Not in that way. At times I could wring her neck. But not in that way.
No. It is the same with Cecil all over.”

“By-the-by—I never told you. I had a letter from Charlotte while I was
away in London.”

This attempt to divert the conversation was too puerile, and Mrs.
Honeychurch resented it.

“Since Cecil came back from London, nothing appears to please him.
Whenever I speak he winces;—I see him, Lucy; it is useless to
contradict me. No doubt I am neither artistic nor literary nor
intellectual nor musical, but I cannot help the drawing-room furniture;
your father bought it and we must put up with it, will Cecil kindly
remember.”

“I—I see what you mean, and certainly Cecil oughtn’t to. But he does
not mean to be uncivil—he once explained—it is the _things_ that upset
him—he is easily upset by ugly things—he is not uncivil to _people_.”

“Is it a thing or a person when Freddy sings?”

“You can’t expect a really musical person to enjoy comic songs as we
do.”

“Then why didn’t he leave the room? Why sit wriggling and sneering and
spoiling everyone’s pleasure?”

“We mustn’t be unjust to people,” faltered Lucy. Something had
enfeebled her, and the case for Cecil, which she had mastered so
perfectly in London, would not come forth in an effective form. The two
civilizations had clashed—Cecil hinted that they might—and she was
dazzled and bewildered, as though the radiance that lies behind all
civilization had blinded her eyes. Good taste and bad taste were only
catchwords, garments of diverse cut; and music itself dissolved to a
whisper through pine-trees, where the song is not distinguishable from
the comic song.

She remained in much embarrassment, while Mrs. Honeychurch changed her
frock for dinner; and every now and then she said a word, and made
things no better. There was no concealing the fact, Cecil had meant to
be supercilious, and he had succeeded. And Lucy—she knew not why—wished
that the trouble could have come at any other time.

“Go and dress, dear; you’ll be late.”

“All right, mother—”

“Don’t say ‘All right’ and stop. Go.”

She obeyed, but loitered disconsolately at the landing window. It faced
north, so there was little view, and no view of the sky. Now, as in the
winter, the pine-trees hung close to her eyes. One connected the
landing window with depression. No definite problem menaced her, but
she sighed to herself, “Oh, dear, what shall I do, what shall I do?” It
seemed to her that everyone else was behaving very badly. And she ought
not to have mentioned Miss Bartlett’s letter. She must be more careful;
her mother was rather inquisitive, and might have asked what it was
about. Oh, dear, what should she do?—and then Freddy came bounding
upstairs, and joined the ranks of the ill-behaved.

“I say, those are topping people.”

“My dear baby, how tiresome you’ve been! You have no business to take
them bathing in the Sacred Lake; it’s much too public. It was all right
for you but most awkward for everyone else. Do be more careful. You
forget the place is growing half suburban.”

“I say, is anything on to-morrow week?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Then I want to ask the Emersons up to Sunday tennis.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that, Freddy, I wouldn’t do that with all this
muddle.”

“What’s wrong with the court? They won’t mind a bump or two, and I’ve
ordered new balls.”

“I meant _it’s_ better not. I really mean it.”

He seized her by the elbows and humorously danced her up and down the
passage. She pretended not to mind, but she could have screamed with
temper. Cecil glanced at them as he proceeded to his toilet and they
impeded Mary with her brood of hot-water cans. Then Mrs. Honeychurch
opened her door and said: “Lucy, what a noise you’re making! I have
something to say to you. Did you say you had had a letter from
Charlotte?” and Freddy ran away.

“Yes. I really can’t stop. I must dress too.”

“How’s Charlotte?”

“All right.”

“Lucy!”

The unfortunate girl returned.

“You’ve a bad habit of hurrying away in the middle of one’s sentences.
Did Charlotte mention her boiler?”

“Her _what?_”

“Don’t you remember that her boiler was to be had out in October, and
her bath cistern cleaned out, and all kinds of terrible to-doings?”

“I can’t remember all Charlotte’s worries,” said Lucy bitterly. “I
shall have enough of my own, now that you are not pleased with Cecil.”

Mrs. Honeychurch might have flamed out. She did not. She said: “Come
here, old lady—thank you for putting away my bonnet—kiss me.” And,
though nothing is perfect, Lucy felt for the moment that her mother and
Windy Corner and the Weald in the declining sun were perfect.

So the grittiness went out of life. It generally did at Windy Corner.
At the last minute, when the social machine was clogged hopelessly, one
member or other of the family poured in a drop of oil. Cecil despised
their methods—perhaps rightly. At all events, they were not his own.

Dinner was at half-past seven. Freddy gabbled the grace, and they drew
up their heavy chairs and fell to. Fortunately, the men were hungry.
Nothing untoward occurred until the pudding. Then Freddy said:

“Lucy, what’s Emerson like?”

“I saw him in Florence,” said Lucy, hoping that this would pass for a
reply.

“Is he the clever sort, or is he a decent chap?”

“Ask Cecil; it is Cecil who brought him here.”

“He is the clever sort, like myself,” said Cecil.

Freddy looked at him doubtfully.

“How well did you know them at the Bertolini?” asked Mrs. Honeychurch.

“Oh, very slightly. I mean, Charlotte knew them even less than I did.”

“Oh, that reminds me—you never told me what Charlotte said in her
letter.”

“One thing and another,” said Lucy, wondering whether she would get
through the meal without a lie. “Among other things, that an awful
friend of hers had been bicycling through Summer Street, wondered if
she’d come up and see us, and mercifully didn’t.”

“Lucy, I do call the way you talk unkind.”

“She was a novelist,” said Lucy craftily. The remark was a happy one,
for nothing roused Mrs. Honeychurch so much as literature in the hands
of females. She would abandon every topic to inveigh against those
women who (instead of minding their houses and their children) seek
notoriety by print. Her attitude was: “If books must be written, let
them be written by men”; and she developed it at great length, while
Cecil yawned and Freddy played at “This year, next year, now, never,”
with his plum-stones, and Lucy artfully fed the flames of her mother’s
wrath. But soon the conflagration died down, and the ghosts began to
gather in the darkness. There were too many ghosts about. The original
ghost—that touch of lips on her cheek—had surely been laid long ago; it
could be nothing to her that a man had kissed her on a mountain once.
But it had begotten a spectral family—Mr. Harris, Miss Bartlett’s
letter, Mr. Beebe’s memories of violets—and one or other of these was
bound to haunt her before Cecil’s very eyes. It was Miss Bartlett who
returned now, and with appalling vividness.

“I have been thinking, Lucy, of that letter of Charlotte’s. How is
she?”

“I tore the thing up.”

“Didn’t she say how she was? How does she sound? Cheerful?”

“Oh, yes I suppose so—no—not very cheerful, I suppose.”

“Then, depend upon it, it _is_ the boiler. I know myself how water
preys upon one’s mind. I would rather anything else—even a misfortune
with the meat.”

Cecil laid his hand over his eyes.

“So would I,” asserted Freddy, backing his mother up—backing up the
spirit of her remark rather than the substance.

“And I have been thinking,” she added rather nervously, “surely we
could squeeze Charlotte in here next week, and give her a nice holiday
while the plumbers at Tunbridge Wells finish. I have not seen poor
Charlotte for so long.”

It was more than her nerves could stand. And she could not protest
violently after her mother’s goodness to her upstairs.

“Mother, no!” she pleaded. “It’s impossible. We can’t have Charlotte on
the top of the other things; we’re squeezed to death as it is. Freddy’s
got a friend coming Tuesday, there’s Cecil, and you’ve promised to take
in Minnie Beebe because of the diphtheria scare. It simply can’t be
done.”

“Nonsense! It can.”

“If Minnie sleeps in the bath. Not otherwise.”

“Minnie can sleep with you.”

“I won’t have her.”

“Then, if you’re so selfish, Mr. Floyd must share a room with Freddy.”

“Miss Bartlett, Miss Bartlett, Miss Bartlett,” moaned Cecil, again
laying his hand over his eyes.

“It’s impossible,” repeated Lucy. “I don’t want to make difficulties,
but it really isn’t fair on the maids to fill up the house so.”

Alas!

“The truth is, dear, you don’t like Charlotte.”

“No, I don’t. And no more does Cecil. She gets on our nerves. You
haven’t seen her lately, and don’t realize how tiresome she can be,
though so good. So please, mother, don’t worry us this last summer; but
spoil us by not asking her to come.”

“Hear, hear!” said Cecil.

Mrs. Honeychurch, with more gravity than usual, and with more feeling
than she usually permitted herself, replied: “This isn’t very kind of
you two. You have each other and all these woods to walk in, so full of
beautiful things; and poor Charlotte has only the water turned off and
plumbers. You are young, dears, and however clever young people are,
and however many books they read, they will never guess what it feels
like to grow old.”

Cecil crumbled his bread.

“I must say Cousin Charlotte was very kind to me that year I called on
my bike,” put in Freddy. “She thanked me for coming till I felt like
such a fool, and fussed round no end to get an egg boiled for my tea
just right.”

“I know, dear. She is kind to everyone, and yet Lucy makes this
difficulty when we try to give her some little return.”

But Lucy hardened her heart. It was no good being kind to Miss
Bartlett. She had tried herself too often and too recently. One might
lay up treasure in heaven by the attempt, but one enriched neither Miss
Bartlett nor any one else upon earth. She was reduced to saying: “I
can’t help it, mother. I don’t like Charlotte. I admit it’s horrid of
me.”

“From your own account, you told her as much.”

“Well, she would leave Florence so stupidly. She flurried—”

The ghosts were returning; they filled Italy, they were even usurping
the places she had known as a child. The Sacred Lake would never be the
same again, and, on Sunday week, something would even happen to Windy
Corner. How would she fight against ghosts? For a moment the visible
world faded away, and memories and emotions alone seemed real.

“I suppose Miss Bartlett must come, since she boils eggs so well,” said
Cecil, who was in rather a happier frame of mind, thanks to the
admirable cooking.

“I didn’t mean the egg was _well_ boiled,” corrected Freddy, “because
in point of fact she forgot to take it off, and as a matter of fact I
don’t care for eggs. I only meant how jolly kind she seemed.”

Cecil frowned again. Oh, these Honeychurches! Eggs, boilers,
hydrangeas, maids—of such were their lives compact. “May me and Lucy
get down from our chairs?” he asked, with scarcely veiled insolence.
“We don’t want no dessert.”




Chapter XIV
How Lucy Faced the External Situation Bravely


Of course Miss Bartlett accepted. And, equally of course, she felt sure
that she would prove a nuisance, and begged to be given an inferior
spare room—something with no view, anything. Her love to Lucy. And,
equally of course, George Emerson could come to tennis on the Sunday
week.

Lucy faced the situation bravely, though, like most of us, she only
faced the situation that encompassed her. She never gazed inwards. If
at times strange images rose from the depths, she put them down to
nerves. When Cecil brought the Emersons to Summer Street, it had upset
her nerves. Charlotte would burnish up past foolishness, and this might
upset her nerves. She was nervous at night. When she talked to
George—they met again almost immediately at the Rectory—his voice moved
her deeply, and she wished to remain near him. How dreadful if she
really wished to remain near him! Of course, the wish was due to
nerves, which love to play such perverse tricks upon us. Once she had
suffered from “things that came out of nothing and meant she didn’t
know what.” Now Cecil had explained psychology to her one wet
afternoon, and all the troubles of youth in an unknown world could be
dismissed.

It is obvious enough for the reader to conclude, “She loves young
Emerson.” A reader in Lucy’s place would not find it obvious. Life is
easy to chronicle, but bewildering to practice, and we welcome “nerves”
or any other shibboleth that will cloak our personal desire. She loved
Cecil; George made her nervous; will the reader explain to her that the
phrases should have been reversed?

But the external situation—she will face that bravely.

The meeting at the Rectory had passed off well enough. Standing between
Mr. Beebe and Cecil, she had made a few temperate allusions to Italy,
and George had replied. She was anxious to show that she was not shy,
and was glad that he did not seem shy either.

“A nice fellow,” said Mr. Beebe afterwards “He will work off his
crudities in time. I rather mistrust young men who slip into life
gracefully.”

Lucy said, “He seems in better spirits. He laughs more.”

“Yes,” replied the clergyman. “He is waking up.”

That was all. But, as the week wore on, more of her defences fell, and
she entertained an image that had physical beauty. In spite of the
clearest directions, Miss Bartlett contrived to bungle her arrival. She
was due at the South-Eastern station at Dorking, whither Mrs.
Honeychurch drove to meet her. She arrived at the London and Brighton
station, and had to hire a cab up. No one was at home except Freddy and
his friend, who had to stop their tennis and to entertain her for a
solid hour. Cecil and Lucy turned up at four o’clock, and these, with
little Minnie Beebe, made a somewhat lugubrious sextette upon the upper
lawn for tea.

“I shall never forgive myself,” said Miss Bartlett, who kept on rising
from her seat, and had to be begged by the united company to remain. “I
have upset everything. Bursting in on young people! But I insist on
paying for my cab up. Grant that, at any rate.”

“Our visitors never do such dreadful things,” said Lucy, while her
brother, in whose memory the boiled egg had already grown
unsubstantial, exclaimed in irritable tones: “Just what I’ve been
trying to convince Cousin Charlotte of, Lucy, for the last half hour.”

“I do not feel myself an ordinary visitor,” said Miss Bartlett, and
looked at her frayed glove.

“All right, if you’d really rather. Five shillings, and I gave a bob to
the driver.”

Miss Bartlett looked in her purse. Only sovereigns and pennies. Could
any one give her change? Freddy had half a quid and his friend had four
half-crowns. Miss Bartlett accepted their moneys and then said: “But
who am I to give the sovereign to?”

“Let’s leave it all till mother comes back,” suggested Lucy.

“No, dear; your mother may take quite a long drive now that she is not
hampered with me. We all have our little foibles, and mine is the
prompt settling of accounts.”

Here Freddy’s friend, Mr. Floyd, made the one remark of his that need
be quoted: he offered to toss Freddy for Miss Bartlett’s quid. A
solution seemed in sight, and even Cecil, who had been ostentatiously
drinking his tea at the view, felt the eternal attraction of Chance,
and turned round.

But this did not do, either.

“Please—please—I know I am a sad spoil-sport, but it would make me
wretched. I should practically be robbing the one who lost.”

“Freddy owes me fifteen shillings,” interposed Cecil. “So it will work
out right if you give the pound to me.”

“Fifteen shillings,” said Miss Bartlett dubiously. “How is that, Mr.
Vyse?”

“Because, don’t you see, Freddy paid your cab. Give me the pound, and
we shall avoid this deplorable gambling.”

Miss Bartlett, who was poor at figures, became bewildered and rendered
up the sovereign, amidst the suppressed gurgles of the other youths.
For a moment Cecil was happy. He was playing at nonsense among his
peers. Then he glanced at Lucy, in whose face petty anxieties had
marred the smiles. In January he would rescue his Leonardo from this
stupefying twaddle.

“But I don’t see that!” exclaimed Minnie Beebe who had narrowly watched
the iniquitous transaction. “I don’t see why Mr. Vyse is to have the
quid.”

“Because of the fifteen shillings and the five,” they said solemnly.
“Fifteen shillings and five shillings make one pound, you see.”

“But I don’t see—”

They tried to stifle her with cake.

“No, thank you. I’m done. I don’t see why—Freddy, don’t poke me. Miss
Honeychurch, your brother’s hurting me. Ow! What about Mr. Floyd’s ten
shillings? Ow! No, I don’t see and I never shall see why Miss
What’s-her-name shouldn’t pay that bob for the driver.”

“I had forgotten the driver,” said Miss Bartlett, reddening. “Thank
you, dear, for reminding me. A shilling was it? Can any one give me
change for half a crown?”

“I’ll get it,” said the young hostess, rising with decision.

“Cecil, give me that sovereign. No, give me up that sovereign. I’ll get
Euphemia to change it, and we’ll start the whole thing again from the
beginning.”

“Lucy—Lucy—what a nuisance I am!” protested Miss Bartlett, and followed
her across the lawn. Lucy tripped ahead, simulating hilarity. When they
were out of earshot Miss Bartlett stopped her wails and said quite
briskly: “Have you told him about him yet?”

“No, I haven’t,” replied Lucy, and then could have bitten her tongue
for understanding so quickly what her cousin meant. “Let me see—a
sovereign’s worth of silver.”

She escaped into the kitchen. Miss Bartlett’s sudden transitions were
too uncanny. It sometimes seemed as if she planned every word she spoke
or caused to be spoken; as if all this worry about cabs and change had
been a ruse to surprise the soul.

“No, I haven’t told Cecil or any one,” she remarked, when she returned.
“I promised you I shouldn’t. Here is your money—all shillings, except
two half-crowns. Would you count it? You can settle your debt nicely
now.”

Miss Bartlett was in the drawing-room, gazing at the photograph of St.
John ascending, which had been framed.

“How dreadful!” she murmured, “how more than dreadful, if Mr. Vyse
should come to hear of it from some other source.”

“Oh, no, Charlotte,” said the girl, entering the battle. “George
Emerson is all right, and what other source is there?”

Miss Bartlett considered. “For instance, the driver. I saw him looking
through the bushes at you, remember he had a violet between his teeth.”

Lucy shuddered a little. “We shall get the silly affair on our nerves
if we aren’t careful. How could a Florentine cab-driver ever get hold
of Cecil?”

“We must think of every possibility.”

“Oh, it’s all right.”

“Or perhaps old Mr. Emerson knows. In fact, he is certain to know.”

“I don’t care if he does. I was grateful to you for your letter, but
even if the news does get round, I think I can trust Cecil to laugh at
it.”

“To contradict it?”

“No, to laugh at it.” But she knew in her heart that she could not
trust him, for he desired her untouched.

“Very well, dear, you know best. Perhaps gentlemen are different to
what they were when I was young. Ladies are certainly different.”

“Now, Charlotte!” She struck at her playfully. “You kind, anxious
thing. What _would_ you have me do? First you say ‘Don’t tell’; and
then you say, ‘Tell’. Which is it to be? Quick!”

Miss Bartlett sighed “I am no match for you in conversation, dearest. I
blush when I think how I interfered at Florence, and you so well able
to look after yourself, and so much cleverer in all ways than I am. You
will never forgive me.”

“Shall we go out, then. They will smash all the china if we don’t.”

For the air rang with the shrieks of Minnie, who was being scalped with
a teaspoon.

“Dear, one moment—we may not have this chance for a chat again. Have
you seen the young one yet?”

“Yes, I have.”

“What happened?”

“We met at the Rectory.”

“What line is he taking up?”

“No line. He talked about Italy, like any other person. It is really
all right. What advantage would he get from being a cad, to put it
bluntly? I do wish I could make you see it my way. He really won’t be
any nuisance, Charlotte.”

“Once a cad, always a cad. That is my poor opinion.”

Lucy paused. “Cecil said one day—and I thought it so profound—that
there are two kinds of cads—the conscious and the subconscious.” She
paused again, to be sure of doing justice to Cecil’s profundity.
Through the window she saw Cecil himself, turning over the pages of a
novel. It was a new one from Smith’s library. Her mother must have
returned from the station.

“Once a cad, always a cad,” droned Miss Bartlett.

“What I mean by subconscious is that Emerson lost his head. I fell into
all those violets, and he was silly and surprised. I don’t think we
ought to blame him very much. It makes such a difference when you see a
person with beautiful things behind him unexpectedly. It really does;
it makes an enormous difference, and he lost his head: he doesn’t
admire me, or any of that nonsense, one straw. Freddy rather likes him,
and has asked him up here on Sunday, so you can judge for yourself. He
has improved; he doesn’t always look as if he’s going to burst into
tears. He is a clerk in the General Manager’s office at one of the big
railways—not a porter! and runs down to his father for week-ends. Papa
was to do with journalism, but is rheumatic and has retired. There! Now
for the garden.” She took hold of her guest by the arm. “Suppose we
don’t talk about this silly Italian business any more. We want you to
have a nice restful visit at Windy Corner, with no worriting.”

Lucy thought this rather a good speech. The reader may have detected an
unfortunate slip in it. Whether Miss Bartlett detected the slip one
cannot say, for it is impossible to penetrate into the minds of elderly
people. She might have spoken further, but they were interrupted by the
entrance of her hostess. Explanations took place, and in the midst of
them Lucy escaped, the images throbbing a little more vividly in her
brain.




Chapter XV
The Disaster Within


The Sunday after Miss Bartlett’s arrival was a glorious day, like most
of the days of that year. In the Weald, autumn approached, breaking up
the green monotony of summer, touching the parks with the grey bloom of
mist, the beech-trees with russet, the oak-trees with gold. Up on the
heights, battalions of black pines witnessed the change, themselves
unchangeable. Either country was spanned by a cloudless sky, and in
either arose the tinkle of church bells.

The garden of Windy Corners was deserted except for a red book, which
lay sunning itself upon the gravel path. From the house came incoherent
sounds, as of females preparing for worship. “The men say they won’t
go”—“Well, I don’t blame them”—Minnie says, “need she go?”—“Tell her,
no nonsense”—“Anne! Mary! Hook me behind!”—“Dearest Lucia, may I
trespass upon you for a pin?” For Miss Bartlett had announced that she
at all events was one for church.

The sun rose higher on its journey, guided, not by Phaethon, but by
Apollo, competent, unswerving, divine. Its rays fell on the ladies
whenever they advanced towards the bedroom windows; on Mr. Beebe down
at Summer Street as he smiled over a letter from Miss Catharine Alan;
on George Emerson cleaning his father’s boots; and lastly, to complete
the catalogue of memorable things, on the red book mentioned
previously. The ladies move, Mr. Beebe moves, George moves, and
movement may engender shadow. But this book lies motionless, to be
caressed all the morning by the sun and to raise its covers slightly,
as though acknowledging the caress.

Presently Lucy steps out of the drawing-room window. Her new cerise
dress has been a failure, and makes her look tawdry and wan. At her
throat is a garnet brooch, on her finger a ring set with rubies—an
engagement ring. Her eyes are bent to the Weald. She frowns a
little—not in anger, but as a brave child frowns when he is trying not
to cry. In all that expanse no human eye is looking at her, and she may
frown unrebuked and measure the spaces that yet survive between Apollo
and the western hills.

“Lucy! Lucy! What’s that book? Who’s been taking a book out of the
shelf and leaving it about to spoil?”

“It’s only the library book that Cecil’s been reading.”

“But pick it up, and don’t stand idling there like a flamingo.”

Lucy picked up the book and glanced at the title listlessly, Under a
Loggia. She no longer read novels herself, devoting all her spare time
to solid literature in the hope of catching Cecil up. It was dreadful
how little she knew, and even when she thought she knew a thing, like
the Italian painters, she found she had forgotten it. Only this morning
she had confused Francesco Francia with Piero della Francesca, and
Cecil had said, “What! you aren’t forgetting your Italy already?” And
this too had lent anxiety to her eyes when she saluted the dear view
and the dear garden in the foreground, and above them, scarcely
conceivable elsewhere, the dear sun.

“Lucy—have you a sixpence for Minnie and a shilling for yourself?”

She hastened in to her mother, who was rapidly working herself into a
Sunday fluster.

“It’s a special collection—I forget what for. I do beg, no vulgar
clinking in the plate with halfpennies; see that Minnie has a nice
bright sixpence. Where is the child? Minnie! That book’s all warped.
(Gracious, how plain you look!) Put it under the Atlas to press.
Minnie!”

“Oh, Mrs. Honeychurch—” from the upper regions.

“Minnie, don’t be late. Here comes the horse”—it was always the horse,
never the carriage. “Where’s Charlotte? Run up and hurry her. Why is
she so long? She had nothing to do. She never brings anything but
blouses. Poor Charlotte—How I do detest blouses! Minnie!”

Paganism is infectious—more infectious than diphtheria or piety—and the
Rector’s niece was taken to church protesting. As usual, she didn’t see
why. Why shouldn’t she sit in the sun with the young men? The young
men, who had now appeared, mocked her with ungenerous words. Mrs.
Honeychurch defended orthodoxy, and in the midst of the confusion Miss
Bartlett, dressed in the very height of the fashion, came strolling
down the stairs.

“Dear Marian, I am very sorry, but I have no small change—nothing but
sovereigns and half crowns. Could any one give me—”

“Yes, easily. Jump in. Gracious me, how smart you look! What a lovely
frock! You put us all to shame.”

“If I did not wear my best rags and tatters now, when should I wear
them?” said Miss Bartlett reproachfully. She got into the victoria and
placed herself with her back to the horse. The necessary roar ensued,
and then they drove off.

“Good-bye! Be good!” called out Cecil.

Lucy bit her lip, for the tone was sneering. On the subject of “church
and so on” they had had rather an unsatisfactory conversation. He had
said that people ought to overhaul themselves, and she did not want to
overhaul herself; she did not know it was done. Honest orthodoxy Cecil
respected, but he always assumed that honesty is the result of a
spiritual crisis; he could not imagine it as a natural birthright, that
might grow heavenward like flowers. All that he said on this subject
pained her, though he exuded tolerance from every pore; somehow the
Emersons were different.

She saw the Emersons after church. There was a line of carriages down
the road, and the Honeychurch vehicle happened to be opposite Cissie
Villa. To save time, they walked over the green to it, and found father
and son smoking in the garden.

“Introduce me,” said her mother. “Unless the young man considers that
he knows me already.”

He probably did; but Lucy ignored the Sacred Lake and introduced them
formally. Old Mr. Emerson claimed her with much warmth, and said how
glad he was that she was going to be married. She said yes, she was
glad too; and then, as Miss Bartlett and Minnie were lingering behind
with Mr. Beebe, she turned the conversation to a less disturbing topic,
and asked him how he liked his new house.

“Very much,” he replied, but there was a note of offence in his voice;
she had never known him offended before. He added: “We find, though,
that the Miss Alans were coming, and that we have turned them out.
Women mind such a thing. I am very much upset about it.”

“I believe that there was some misunderstanding,” said Mrs. Honeychurch
uneasily.

“Our landlord was told that we should be a different type of person,”
said George, who seemed disposed to carry the matter further. “He
thought we should be artistic. He is disappointed.”

“And I wonder whether we ought to write to the Miss Alans and offer to
give it up. What do you think?” He appealed to Lucy.

“Oh, stop now you have come,” said Lucy lightly. She must avoid
censuring Cecil. For it was on Cecil that the little episode turned,
though his name was never mentioned.

“So George says. He says that the Miss Alans must go to the wall. Yet
it does seem so unkind.”

“There is only a certain amount of kindness in the world,” said George,
watching the sunlight flash on the panels of the passing carriages.

“Yes!” exclaimed Mrs. Honeychurch. “That’s exactly what I say. Why all
this twiddling and twaddling over two Miss Alans?”

“There is a certain amount of kindness, just as there is a certain
amount of light,” he continued in measured tones. “We cast a shadow on
something wherever we stand, and it is no good moving from place to
place to save things; because the shadow always follows. Choose a place
where you won’t do harm—yes, choose a place where you won’t do very
much harm, and stand in it for all you are worth, facing the sunshine.”

“Oh, Mr. Emerson, I see you’re clever!”

“Eh—?”

“I see you’re going to be clever. I hope you didn’t go behaving like
that to poor Freddy.”

George’s eyes laughed, and Lucy suspected that he and her mother would
get on rather well.

“No, I didn’t,” he said. “He behaved that way to me. It is his
philosophy. Only he starts life with it; and I have tried the Note of
Interrogation first.”

“What _do_ you mean? No, never mind what you mean. Don’t explain. He
looks forward to seeing you this afternoon. Do you play tennis? Do you
mind tennis on Sunday—?”

“George mind tennis on Sunday! George, after his education, distinguish
between Sunday—”

“Very well, George doesn’t mind tennis on Sunday. No more do I. That’s
settled. Mr. Emerson, if you could come with your son we should be so
pleased.”

He thanked her, but the walk sounded rather far; he could only potter
about in these days.

She turned to George: “And then he wants to give up his house to the
Miss Alans.”

“I know,” said George, and put his arm round his father’s neck. The
kindness that Mr. Beebe and Lucy had always known to exist in him came
out suddenly, like sunlight touching a vast landscape—a touch of the
morning sun? She remembered that in all his perversities he had never
spoken against affection.

Miss Bartlett approached.

“You know our cousin, Miss Bartlett,” said Mrs. Honeychurch pleasantly.
“You met her with my daughter in Florence.”

“Yes, indeed!” said the old man, and made as if he would come out of
the garden to meet the lady. Miss Bartlett promptly got into the
victoria. Thus entrenched, she emitted a formal bow. It was the pension
Bertolini again, the dining-table with the decanters of water and wine.
It was the old, old battle of the room with the view.

George did not respond to the bow. Like any boy, he blushed and was
ashamed; he knew that the chaperon remembered. He said: “I—I’ll come up
to tennis if I can manage it,” and went into the house. Perhaps
anything that he did would have pleased Lucy, but his awkwardness went
straight to her heart; men were not gods after all, but as human and as
clumsy as girls; even men might suffer from unexplained desires, and
need help. To one of her upbringing, and of her destination, the
weakness of men was a truth unfamiliar, but she had surmised it at
Florence, when George threw her photographs into the River Arno.

“George, don’t go,” cried his father, who thought it a great treat for
people if his son would talk to them. “George has been in such good
spirits today, and I am sure he will end by coming up this afternoon.”

Lucy caught her cousin’s eye. Something in its mute appeal made her
reckless. “Yes,” she said, raising her voice, “I do hope he will.” Then
she went to the carriage and murmured, “The old man hasn’t been told; I
knew it was all right.” Mrs. Honeychurch followed her, and they drove
away.

Satisfactory that Mr. Emerson had not been told of the Florence
escapade; yet Lucy’s spirits should not have leapt up as if she had
sighted the ramparts of heaven. Satisfactory; yet surely she greeted it
with disproportionate joy. All the way home the horses’ hoofs sang a
tune to her: “He has not told, he has not told.” Her brain expanded the
melody: “He has not told his father—to whom he tells all things. It was
not an exploit. He did not laugh at me when I had gone.” She raised her
hand to her cheek. “He does not love me. No. How terrible if he did!
But he has not told. He will not tell.”

She longed to shout the words: “It is all right. It’s a secret between
us two for ever. Cecil will never hear.” She was even glad that Miss
Bartlett had made her promise secrecy, that last dark evening at
Florence, when they had knelt packing in his room. The secret, big or
little, was guarded.

Only three English people knew of it in the world. Thus she interpreted
her joy. She greeted Cecil with unusual radiance, because she felt so
safe. As he helped her out of the carriage, she said:

“The Emersons have been so nice. George Emerson has improved
enormously.”

“How are my protégés?” asked Cecil, who took no real interest in them,
and had long since forgotten his resolution to bring them to Windy
Corner for educational purposes.

“Protégés!” she exclaimed with some warmth. For the only relationship
which Cecil conceived was feudal: that of protector and protected. He
had no glimpse of the comradeship after which the girl’s soul yearned.

“You shall see for yourself how your protégés are. George Emerson is
coming up this afternoon. He is a most interesting man to talk to. Only
don’t—” She nearly said, “Don’t protect him.” But the bell was ringing
for lunch, and, as often happened, Cecil had paid no great attention to
her remarks. Charm, not argument, was to be her forte.

Lunch was a cheerful meal. Generally Lucy was depressed at meals. Some
one had to be soothed—either Cecil or Miss Bartlett or a Being not
visible to the mortal eye—a Being who whispered to her soul: “It will
not last, this cheerfulness. In January you must go to London to
entertain the grandchildren of celebrated men.” But to-day she felt she
had received a guarantee. Her mother would always sit there, her
brother here. The sun, though it had moved a little since the morning,
would never be hidden behind the western hills. After luncheon they
asked her to play. She had seen Gluck’s Armide that year, and played
from memory the music of the enchanted garden—the music to which Renaud
approaches, beneath the light of an eternal dawn, the music that never
gains, never wanes, but ripples for ever like the tideless seas of
fairyland. Such music is not for the piano, and her audience began to
get restive, and Cecil, sharing the discontent, called out: “Now play
us the other garden—the one in Parsifal.”

She closed the instrument.

“Not very dutiful,” said her mother’s voice.

Fearing that she had offended Cecil, she turned quickly round. There
George was. He had crept in without interrupting her.

“Oh, I had no idea!” she exclaimed, getting very red; and then, without
a word of greeting, she reopened the piano. Cecil should have the
Parsifal, and anything else that he liked.

“Our performer has changed her mind,” said Miss Bartlett, perhaps
implying, she will play the music to Mr. Emerson. Lucy did not know
what to do nor even what she wanted to do. She played a few bars of the
Flower Maidens’ song very badly and then she stopped.

“I vote tennis,” said Freddy, disgusted at the scrappy entertainment.

“Yes, so do I.” Once more she closed the unfortunate piano. “I vote you
have a men’s four.”

“All right.”

“Not for me, thank you,” said Cecil. “I will not spoil the set.” He
never realized that it may be an act of kindness in a bad player to
make up a fourth.

“Oh, come along Cecil. I’m bad, Floyd’s rotten, and so I dare say’s
Emerson.”

George corrected him: “I am not bad.”

One looked down one’s nose at this. “Then certainly I won’t play,” said
Cecil, while Miss Bartlett, under the impression that she was snubbing
George, added: “I agree with you, Mr. Vyse. You had much better not
play. Much better not.”

Minnie, rushing in where Cecil feared to tread, announced that she
would play. “I shall miss every ball anyway, so what does it matter?”
But Sunday intervened and stamped heavily upon the kindly suggestion.

“Then it will have to be Lucy,” said Mrs. Honeychurch; “you must fall
back on Lucy. There is no other way out of it. Lucy, go and change your
frock.”

Lucy’s Sabbath was generally of this amphibious nature. She kept it
without hypocrisy in the morning, and broke it without reluctance in
the afternoon. As she changed her frock, she wondered whether Cecil was
sneering at her; really she must overhaul herself and settle everything
up before she married him.

Mr. Floyd was her partner. She liked music, but how much better tennis
seemed. How much better to run about in comfortable clothes than to sit
at the piano and feel girt under the arms. Once more music appeared to
her the employment of a child. George served, and surprised her by his
anxiety to win. She remembered how he had sighed among the tombs at
Santa Croce because things wouldn’t fit; how after the death of that
obscure Italian he had leant over the parapet by the Arno and said to
her: “I shall want to live, I tell you.” He wanted to live now, to win
at tennis, to stand for all he was worth in the sun—the sun which had
begun to decline and was shining in her eyes; and he did win.

Ah, how beautiful the Weald looked! The hills stood out above its
radiance, as Fiesole stands above the Tuscan Plain, and the South
Downs, if one chose, were the mountains of Carrara. She might be
forgetting her Italy, but she was noticing more things in her England.
One could play a new game with the view, and try to find in its
innumerable folds some town or village that would do for Florence. Ah,
how beautiful the Weald looked!

But now Cecil claimed her. He chanced to be in a lucid critical mood,
and would not sympathize with exaltation. He had been rather a nuisance
all through the tennis, for the novel that he was reading was so bad
that he was obliged to read it aloud to others. He would stroll round
the precincts of the court and call out: “I say, listen to this, Lucy.
Three split infinitives.”

“Dreadful!” said Lucy, and missed her stroke. When they had finished
their set, he still went on reading; there was some murder scene, and
really everyone must listen to it. Freddy and Mr. Floyd were obliged to
hunt for a lost ball in the laurels, but the other two acquiesced.

“The scene is laid in Florence.”

“What fun, Cecil! Read away. Come, Mr. Emerson, sit down after all your
energy.” She had “forgiven” George, as she put it, and she made a point
of being pleasant to him.

He jumped over the net and sat down at her feet asking: “You—and are
you tired?”

“Of course I’m not!”

“Do you mind being beaten?”

She was going to answer, “No,” when it struck her that she did mind, so
she answered, “Yes.” She added merrily, “I don’t see _you’re_ such a
splendid player, though. The light was behind you, and it was in my
eyes.”

“I never said I was.”

“Why, you did!”

“You didn’t attend.”

“You said—oh, don’t go in for accuracy at this house. We all
exaggerate, and we get very angry with people who don’t.”

“‘The scene is laid in Florence,’” repeated Cecil, with an upward note.

Lucy recollected herself.

“‘Sunset. Leonora was speeding—’”

Lucy interrupted. “Leonora? Is Leonora the heroine? Who’s the book by?”

“Joseph Emery Prank. ‘Sunset. Leonora speeding across the square. Pray
the saints she might not arrive too late. Sunset—the sunset of Italy.
Under Orcagna’s Loggia—the Loggia de’ Lanzi, as we sometimes call it
now—’”

Lucy burst into laughter. “‘Joseph Emery Prank’ indeed! Why it’s Miss
Lavish! It’s Miss Lavish’s novel, and she’s publishing it under
somebody else’s name.”

“Who may Miss Lavish be?”

“Oh, a dreadful person—Mr. Emerson, you remember Miss Lavish?”

Excited by her pleasant afternoon, she clapped her hands.

George looked up. “Of course I do. I saw her the day I arrived at
Summer Street. It was she who told me that you lived here.”

“Weren’t you pleased?” She meant “to see Miss Lavish,” but when he bent
down to the grass without replying, it struck her that she could mean
something else. She watched his head, which was almost resting against
her knee, and she thought that the ears were reddening. “No wonder the
novel’s bad,” she added. “I never liked Miss Lavish. But I suppose one
ought to read it as one’s met her.”

“All modern books are bad,” said Cecil, who was annoyed at her
inattention, and vented his annoyance on literature. “Every one writes
for money in these days.”

“Oh, Cecil—!”

“It is so. I will inflict Joseph Emery Prank on you no longer.”

Cecil, this afternoon seemed such a twittering sparrow. The ups and
downs in his voice were noticeable, but they did not affect her. She
had dwelt amongst melody and movement, and her nerves refused to answer
to the clang of his. Leaving him to be annoyed, she gazed at the black
head again. She did not want to stroke it, but she saw herself wanting
to stroke it; the sensation was curious.

“How do you like this view of ours, Mr. Emerson?”

“I never notice much difference in views.”

“What do you mean?”

“Because they’re all alike. Because all that matters in them is
distance and air.”

“H’m!” said Cecil, uncertain whether the remark was striking or not.

“My father”—he looked up at her (and he was a little flushed)—“says
that there is only one perfect view—the view of the sky straight over
our heads, and that all these views on earth are but bungled copies of
it.”

“I expect your father has been reading Dante,” said Cecil, fingering
the novel, which alone permitted him to lead the conversation.

“He told us another day that views are really crowds—crowds of trees
and houses and hills—and are bound to resemble each other, like human
crowds—and that the power they have over us is sometimes supernatural,
for the same reason.”

Lucy’s lips parted.

“For a crowd is more than the people who make it up. Something gets
added to it—no one knows how—just as something has got added to those
hills.”

He pointed with his racquet to the South Downs.

“What a splendid idea!” she murmured. “I shall enjoy hearing your
father talk again. I’m so sorry he’s not so well.”

“No, he isn’t well.”

“There’s an absurd account of a view in this book,” said Cecil. “Also
that men fall into two classes—those who forget views and those who
remember them, even in small rooms.”

“Mr. Emerson, have you any brothers or sisters?”

“None. Why?”

“You spoke of ‘us.’”

“My mother, I was meaning.”

Cecil closed the novel with a bang.

“Oh, Cecil—how you made me jump!”

“I will inflict Joseph Emery Prank on you no longer.”

“I can just remember us all three going into the country for the day
and seeing as far as Hindhead. It is the first thing that I remember.”

Cecil got up; the man was ill-bred—he hadn’t put on his coat after
tennis—he didn’t do. He would have strolled away if Lucy had not
stopped him.

“Cecil, do read the thing about the view.”

“Not while Mr. Emerson is here to entertain us.”

“No—read away. I think nothing’s funnier than to hear silly things read
out loud. If Mr. Emerson thinks us frivolous, he can go.”

This struck Cecil as subtle, and pleased him. It put their visitor in
the position of a prig. Somewhat mollified, he sat down again.

“Mr. Emerson, go and find tennis balls.” She opened the book. Cecil
must have his reading and anything else that he liked. But her
attention wandered to George’s mother, who—according to Mr. Eager—had
been murdered in the sight of God and—according to her son—had seen as
far as Hindhead.

“Am I really to go?” asked George.

“No, of course not really,” she answered.

“Chapter two,” said Cecil, yawning. “Find me chapter two, if it isn’t
bothering you.”

Chapter two was found, and she glanced at its opening sentences.

She thought she had gone mad.

“Here—hand me the book.”

She heard her voice saying: “It isn’t worth reading—it’s too silly to
read—I never saw such rubbish—it oughtn’t to be allowed to be printed.”

He took the book from her.

“‘Leonora,’” he read, “‘sat pensive and alone. Before her lay the rich
champaign of Tuscany, dotted over with many a smiling village. The
season was spring.’”

Miss Lavish knew, somehow, and had printed the past in draggled prose,
for Cecil to read and for George to hear.

“‘A golden haze,’” he read. He read: “‘Afar off the towers of Florence,
while the bank on which she sat was carpeted with violets. All
unobserved Antonio stole up behind her—’”

Lest Cecil should see her face she turned to George and saw his face.

He read: “‘There came from his lips no wordy protestation such as
formal lovers use. No eloquence was his, nor did he suffer from the
lack of it. He simply enfolded her in his manly arms.’”

“This isn’t the passage I wanted,” he informed them, “there is another
much funnier, further on.” He turned over the leaves.

“Should we go in to tea?” said Lucy, whose voice remained steady.

She led the way up the garden, Cecil following her, George last. She
thought a disaster was averted. But when they entered the shrubbery it
came. The book, as if it had not worked mischief enough, had been
forgotten, and Cecil must go back for it; and George, who loved
passionately, must blunder against her in the narrow path.

“No—” she gasped, and, for the second time, was kissed by him.

As if no more was possible, he slipped back; Cecil rejoined her; they
reached the upper lawn alone.




Chapter XVI
Lying to George


But Lucy had developed since the spring. That is to say, she was now
better able to stifle the emotions of which the conventions and the
world disapprove. Though the danger was greater, she was not shaken by
deep sobs. She said to Cecil, “I am not coming in to tea—tell mother—I
must write some letters,” and went up to her room. Then she prepared
for action. Love felt and returned, love which our bodies exact and our
hearts have transfigured, love which is the most real thing that we
shall ever meet, reappeared now as the world’s enemy, and she must
stifle it.

She sent for Miss Bartlett.

The contest lay not between love and duty. Perhaps there never is such
a contest. It lay between the real and the pretended, and Lucy’s first
aim was to defeat herself. As her brain clouded over, as the memory of
the views grew dim and the words of the book died away, she returned to
her old shibboleth of nerves. She “conquered her breakdown.” Tampering
with the truth, she forgot that the truth had ever been. Remembering
that she was engaged to Cecil, she compelled herself to confused
remembrances of George; he was nothing to her; he never had been
anything; he had behaved abominably; she had never encouraged him. The
armour of falsehood is subtly wrought out of darkness, and hides a man
not only from others, but from his own soul. In a few moments Lucy was
equipped for battle.

“Something too awful has happened,” she began, as soon as her cousin
arrived. “Do you know anything about Miss Lavish’s novel?”

Miss Bartlett looked surprised, and said that she had not read the
book, nor known that it was published; Eleanor was a reticent woman at
heart.

“There is a scene in it. The hero and heroine make love. Do you know
about that?”

“Dear—?”

“Do you know about it, please?” she repeated. “They are on a hillside,
and Florence is in the distance.”

“My good Lucia, I am all at sea. I know nothing about it whatever.”

“There are violets. I cannot believe it is a coincidence. Charlotte,
Charlotte, how _could_ you have told her? I have thought before
speaking; it _must_ be you.”

“Told her what?” she asked, with growing agitation.

“About that dreadful afternoon in February.”

Miss Bartlett was genuinely moved. “Oh, Lucy, dearest girl—she hasn’t
put that in her book?”

Lucy nodded.

“Not so that one could recognize it. Yes.”

“Then never—never—never more shall Eleanor Lavish be a friend of mine.”

“So you did tell?”

“I did just happen—when I had tea with her at Rome—in the course of
conversation—”

“But Charlotte—what about the promise you gave me when we were packing?
Why did you tell Miss Lavish, when you wouldn’t even let me tell
mother?”

“I will never forgive Eleanor. She has betrayed my confidence.”

“Why did you tell her, though? This is a most serious thing.”

Why does any one tell anything? The question is eternal, and it was not
surprising that Miss Bartlett should only sigh faintly in response. She
had done wrong—she admitted it, she only hoped that she had not done
harm; she had told Eleanor in the strictest confidence.

Lucy stamped with irritation.

“Cecil happened to read out the passage aloud to me and to Mr. Emerson;
it upset Mr. Emerson and he insulted me again. Behind Cecil’s back.
Ugh! Is it possible that men are such brutes? Behind Cecil’s back as we
were walking up the garden.”

Miss Bartlett burst into self-accusations and regrets.

“What is to be done now? Can you tell me?”

“Oh, Lucy—I shall never forgive myself, never to my dying day. Fancy if
your prospects—”

“I know,” said Lucy, wincing at the word. “I see now why you wanted me
to tell Cecil, and what you meant by ‘some other source.’ You knew that
you had told Miss Lavish, and that she was not reliable.”

It was Miss Bartlett’s turn to wince. “However,” said the girl,
despising her cousin’s shiftiness, “What’s done’s done. You have put me
in a most awkward position. How am I to get out of it?”

Miss Bartlett could not think. The days of her energy were over. She
was a visitor, not a chaperon, and a discredited visitor at that. She
stood with clasped hands while the girl worked herself into the
necessary rage.

“He must—that man must have such a setting down that he won’t forget.
And who’s to give it him? I can’t tell mother now—owing to you. Nor
Cecil, Charlotte, owing to you. I am caught up every way. I think I
shall go mad. I have no one to help me. That’s why I’ve sent for you.
What’s wanted is a man with a whip.”

Miss Bartlett agreed: one wanted a man with a whip.

“Yes—but it’s no good agreeing. What’s to be _done?_ We women go
maundering on. What _does_ a girl do when she comes across a cad?”

“I always said he was a cad, dear. Give me credit for that, at all
events. From the very first moment—when he said his father was having a
bath.”

“Oh, bother the credit and who’s been right or wrong! We’ve both made a
muddle of it. George Emerson is still down the garden there, and is he
to be left unpunished, or isn’t he? I want to know.”

Miss Bartlett was absolutely helpless. Her own exposure had unnerved
her, and thoughts were colliding painfully in her brain. She moved
feebly to the window, and tried to detect the cad’s white flannels
among the laurels.

“You were ready enough at the Bertolini when you rushed me off to Rome.
Can’t you speak again to him now?”

“Willingly would I move heaven and earth—”

“I want something more definite,” said Lucy contemptuously. “Will you
speak to him? It is the least you can do, surely, considering it all
happened because you broke your word.”

“Never again shall Eleanor Lavish be a friend of mine.”

Really, Charlotte was outdoing herself.

“Yes or no, please; yes or no.”

“It is the kind of thing that only a gentleman can settle.” George
Emerson was coming up the garden with a tennis ball in his hand.

“Very well,” said Lucy, with an angry gesture. “No one will help me. I
will speak to him myself.” And immediately she realized that this was
what her cousin had intended all along.

“Hullo, Emerson!” called Freddy from below. “Found the lost ball? Good
man! Want any tea?” And there was an irruption from the house on to the
terrace.

“Oh, Lucy, but that is brave of you! I admire you—”

They had gathered round George, who beckoned, she felt, over the
rubbish, the sloppy thoughts, the furtive yearnings that were beginning
to cumber her soul. Her anger faded at the sight of him. Ah! The
Emersons were fine people in their way. She had to subdue a rush in her
blood before saying:

“Freddy has taken him into the dining-room. The others are going down
the garden. Come. Let us get this over quickly. Come. I want you in the
room, of course.”

“Lucy, do you mind doing it?”

“How can you ask such a ridiculous question?”

“Poor Lucy—” She stretched out her hand. “I seem to bring nothing but
misfortune wherever I go.” Lucy nodded. She remembered their last
evening at Florence—the packing, the candle, the shadow of Miss
Bartlett’s toque on the door. She was not to be trapped by pathos a
second time. Eluding her cousin’s caress, she led the way downstairs.

“Try the jam,” Freddy was saying. “The jam’s jolly good.”

George, looking big and dishevelled, was pacing up and down the
dining-room. As she entered he stopped, and said:

“No—nothing to eat.”

“You go down to the others,” said Lucy; “Charlotte and I will give Mr.
Emerson all he wants. Where’s mother?”

“She’s started on her Sunday writing. She’s in the drawing-room.”

“That’s all right. You go away.”

He went off singing.

Lucy sat down at the table. Miss Bartlett, who was thoroughly
frightened, took up a book and pretended to read.

She would not be drawn into an elaborate speech. She just said: “I
can’t have it, Mr. Emerson. I cannot even talk to you. Go out of this
house, and never come into it again as long as I live here—” flushing
as she spoke and pointing to the door. “I hate a row. Go please.”

“What—”

“No discussion.”

“But I can’t—”

She shook her head. “Go, please. I do not want to call in Mr. Vyse.”

“You don’t mean,” he said, absolutely ignoring Miss Bartlett—“you don’t
mean that you are going to marry that man?”

The line was unexpected.

She shrugged her shoulders, as if his vulgarity wearied her. “You are
merely ridiculous,” she said quietly.

Then his words rose gravely over hers: “You cannot live with Vyse. He’s
only for an acquaintance. He is for society and cultivated talk. He
should know no one intimately, least of all a woman.”

It was a new light on Cecil’s character.

“Have you ever talked to Vyse without feeling tired?”

“I can scarcely discuss—”

“No, but have you ever? He is the sort who are all right so long as
they keep to things—books, pictures—but kill when they come to people.
That’s why I’ll speak out through all this muddle even now. It’s
shocking enough to lose you in any case, but generally a man must deny
himself joy, and I would have held back if your Cecil had been a
different person. I would never have let myself go. But I saw him first
in the National Gallery, when he winced because my father mispronounced
the names of great painters. Then he brings us here, and we find it is
to play some silly trick on a kind neighbour. That is the man all
over—playing tricks on people, on the most sacred form of life that he
can find. Next, I meet you together, and find him protecting and
teaching you and your mother to be shocked, when it was for _you_ to
settle whether you were shocked or no. Cecil all over again. He daren’t
let a woman decide. He’s the type who’s kept Europe back for a thousand
years. Every moment of his life he’s forming you, telling you what’s
charming or amusing or ladylike, telling you what a man thinks womanly;
and you, you of all women, listen to his voice instead of to your own.
So it was at the Rectory, when I met you both again; so it has been the
whole of this afternoon. Therefore—not ‘therefore I kissed you,’
because the book made me do that, and I wish to goodness I had more
self-control. I’m not ashamed. I don’t apologize. But it has frightened
you, and you may not have noticed that I love you. Or would you have
told me to go, and dealt with a tremendous thing so lightly? But
therefore—therefore I settled to fight him.”

Lucy thought of a very good remark.

“You say Mr. Vyse wants me to listen to him, Mr. Emerson. Pardon me for
suggesting that you have caught the habit.”

And he took the shoddy reproof and touched it into immortality. He
said:

“Yes, I have,” and sank down as if suddenly weary. “I’m the same kind
of brute at bottom. This desire to govern a woman—it lies very deep,
and men and women must fight it together before they shall enter the
garden. But I do love you surely in a better way than he does.” He
thought. “Yes—really in a better way. I want you to have your own
thoughts even when I hold you in my arms.” He stretched them towards
her. “Lucy, be quick—there’s no time for us to talk now—come to me as
you came in the spring, and afterwards I will be gentle and explain. I
have cared for you since that man died. I cannot live without you, ‘No
good,’ I thought; ‘she is marrying someone else’; but I meet you again
when all the world is glorious water and sun. As you came through the
wood I saw that nothing else mattered. I called. I wanted to live and
have my chance of joy.”

“And Mr. Vyse?” said Lucy, who kept commendably calm. “Does he not
matter? That I love Cecil and shall be his wife shortly? A detail of no
importance, I suppose?”

But he stretched his arms over the table towards her.

“May I ask what you intend to gain by this exhibition?”

He said: “It is our last chance. I shall do all that I can.” And as if
he had done all else, he turned to Miss Bartlett, who sat like some
portent against the skies of the evening. “You wouldn’t stop us this
second time if you understood,” he said. “I have been into the dark,
and I am going back into it, unless you will try to understand.”

Her long, narrow head drove backwards and forwards, as though
demolishing some invisible obstacle. She did not answer.

“It is being young,” he said quietly, picking up his racquet from the
floor and preparing to go. “It is being certain that Lucy cares for me
really. It is that love and youth matter intellectually.”

In silence the two women watched him. His last remark, they knew, was
nonsense, but was he going after it or not? Would not he, the cad, the
charlatan, attempt a more dramatic finish? No. He was apparently
content. He left them, carefully closing the front door; and when they
looked through the hall window, they saw him go up the drive and begin
to climb the slopes of withered fern behind the house. Their tongues
were loosed, and they burst into stealthy rejoicings.

“Oh, Lucia—come back here—oh, what an awful man!”

Lucy had no reaction—at least, not yet. “Well, he amuses me,” she said.
“Either I’m mad, or else he is, and I’m inclined to think it’s the
latter. One more fuss through with you, Charlotte. Many thanks. I
think, though, that this is the last. My admirer will hardly trouble me
again.”

And Miss Bartlett, too, essayed the roguish:

“Well, it isn’t everyone who could boast such a conquest, dearest, is
it? Oh, one oughtn’t to laugh, really. It might have been very serious.
But you were so sensible and brave—so unlike the girls of my day.”

“Let’s go down to them.”

But, once in the open air, she paused. Some emotion—pity, terror, love,
but the emotion was strong—seized her, and she was aware of autumn.
Summer was ending, and the evening brought her odours of decay, the
more pathetic because they were reminiscent of spring. That something
or other mattered intellectually? A leaf, violently agitated, danced
past her, while other leaves lay motionless. That the earth was
hastening to re-enter darkness, and the shadows of those trees over
Windy Corner?

“Hullo, Lucy! There’s still light enough for another set, if you two’ll
hurry.”

“Mr. Emerson has had to go.”

“What a nuisance! That spoils the four. I say, Cecil, do play, do,
there’s a good chap. It’s Floyd’s last day. Do play tennis with us,
just this once.”

Cecil’s voice came: “My dear Freddy, I am no athlete. As you well
remarked this very morning, ‘There are some chaps who are no good for
anything but books’; I plead guilty to being such a chap, and will not
inflict myself on you.”

The scales fell from Lucy’s eyes. How had she stood Cecil for a moment?
He was absolutely intolerable, and the same evening she broke off her
engagement.




Chapter XVII
Lying to Cecil


He was bewildered. He had nothing to say. He was not even angry, but
stood, with a glass of whiskey between his hands, trying to think what
had led her to such a conclusion.

She had chosen the moment before bed, when, in accordance with their
bourgeois habit, she always dispensed drinks to the men. Freddy and Mr.
Floyd were sure to retire with their glasses, while Cecil invariably
lingered, sipping at his while she locked up the sideboard.

“I am very sorry about it,” she said; “I have carefully thought things
over. We are too different. I must ask you to release me, and try to
forget that there ever was such a foolish girl.”

It was a suitable speech, but she was more angry than sorry, and her
voice showed it.

“Different—how—how—”

“I haven’t had a really good education, for one thing,” she continued,
still on her knees by the sideboard. “My Italian trip came too late,
and I am forgetting all that I learnt there. I shall never be able to
talk to your friends, or behave as a wife of yours should.”

“I don’t understand you. You aren’t like yourself. You’re tired, Lucy.”

“Tired!” she retorted, kindling at once. “That is exactly like you. You
always think women don’t mean what they say.”

“Well, you sound tired, as if something has worried you.”

“What if I do? It doesn’t prevent me from realizing the truth. I can’t
marry you, and you will thank me for saying so some day.”

“You had that bad headache yesterday—All right”—for she had exclaimed
indignantly: “I see it’s much more than headaches. But give me a
moment’s time.” He closed his eyes. “You must excuse me if I say stupid
things, but my brain has gone to pieces. Part of it lives three minutes
back, when I was sure that you loved me, and the other part—I find it
difficult—I am likely to say the wrong thing.”

It struck her that he was not behaving so badly, and her irritation
increased. She again desired a struggle, not a discussion. To bring on
the crisis, she said:

“There are days when one sees clearly, and this is one of them. Things
must come to a breaking-point some time, and it happens to be to-day.
If you want to know, quite a little thing decided me to speak to
you—when you wouldn’t play tennis with Freddy.”

“I never do play tennis,” said Cecil, painfully bewildered; “I never
could play. I don’t understand a word you say.”

“You can play well enough to make up a four. I thought it abominably
selfish of you.”

“No, I can’t—well, never mind the tennis. Why couldn’t you—couldn’t you
have warned me if you felt anything wrong? You talked of our wedding at
lunch—at least, you let me talk.”

“I knew you wouldn’t understand,” said Lucy quite crossly. “I might
have known there would have been these dreadful explanations. Of
course, it isn’t the tennis—that was only the last straw to all I have
been feeling for weeks. Surely it was better not to speak until I felt
certain.” She developed this position. “Often before I have wondered if
I was fitted for your wife—for instance, in London; and are you fitted
to be my husband? I don’t think so. You don’t like Freddy, nor my
mother. There was always a lot against our engagement, Cecil, but all
our relations seemed pleased, and we met so often, and it was no good
mentioning it until—well, until all things came to a point. They have
to-day. I see clearly. I must speak. That’s all.”

“I cannot think you were right,” said Cecil gently. “I cannot tell why,
but though all that you say sounds true, I feel that you are not
treating me fairly. It’s all too horrible.”

“What’s the good of a scene?”

“No good. But surely I have a right to hear a little more.”

He put down his glass and opened the window. From where she knelt,
jangling her keys, she could see a slit of darkness, and, peering into
it, as if it would tell him that “little more,” his long, thoughtful
face.

“Don’t open the window; and you’d better draw the curtain, too; Freddy
or any one might be outside.” He obeyed. “I really think we had better
go to bed, if you don’t mind. I shall only say things that will make me
unhappy afterwards. As you say it is all too horrible, and it is no
good talking.”

But to Cecil, now that he was about to lose her, she seemed each moment
more desirable. He looked at her, instead of through her, for the first
time since they were engaged. From a Leonardo she had become a living
woman, with mysteries and forces of her own, with qualities that even
eluded art. His brain recovered from the shock, and, in a burst of
genuine devotion, he cried: “But I love you, and I did think you loved
me!”

“I did not,” she said. “I thought I did at first. I am sorry, and ought
to have refused you this last time, too.”

He began to walk up and down the room, and she grew more and more vexed
at his dignified behaviour. She had counted on his being petty. It
would have made things easier for her. By a cruel irony she was drawing
out all that was finest in his disposition.

“You don’t love me, evidently. I dare say you are right not to. But it
would hurt a little less if I knew why.”

“Because”—a phrase came to her, and she accepted it—“you’re the sort
who can’t know any one intimately.”

A horrified look came into his eyes.

“I don’t mean exactly that. But you will question me, though I beg you
not to, and I must say something. It is that, more or less. When we
were only acquaintances, you let me be myself, but now you’re always
protecting me.” Her voice swelled. “I won’t be protected. I will choose
for myself what is ladylike and right. To shield me is an insult. Can’t
I be trusted to face the truth but I must get it second-hand through
you? A woman’s place! You despise my mother—I know you do—because she’s
conventional and bothers over puddings; but, oh goodness!”—she rose to
her feet—“conventional, Cecil, you’re that, for you may understand
beautiful things, but you don’t know how to use them; and you wrap
yourself up in art and books and music, and would try to wrap up me. I
won’t be stifled, not by the most glorious music, for people are more
glorious, and you hide them from me. That’s why I break off my
engagement. You were all right as long as you kept to things, but when
you came to people—” She stopped.

There was a pause. Then Cecil said with great emotion:

“It is true.”

“True on the whole,” she corrected, full of some vague shame.

“True, every word. It is a revelation. It is—I.”

“Anyhow, those are my reasons for not being your wife.”

He repeated: “‘The sort that can know no one intimately.’ It is true. I
fell to pieces the very first day we were engaged. I behaved like a cad
to Beebe and to your brother. You are even greater than I thought.” She
withdrew a step. “I’m not going to worry you. You are far too good to
me. I shall never forget your insight; and, dear, I only blame you for
this: you might have warned me in the early stages, before you felt you
wouldn’t marry me, and so have given me a chance to improve. I have
never known you till this evening. I have just used you as a peg for my
silly notions of what a woman should be. But this evening you are a
different person: new thoughts—even a new voice—”

“What do you mean by a new voice?” she asked, seized with
incontrollable anger.

“I mean that a new person seems speaking through you,” said he.

Then she lost her balance. She cried: “If you think I am in love with
some one else, you are very much mistaken.”

“Of course I don’t think that. You are not that kind, Lucy.”

“Oh, yes, you do think it. It’s your old idea, the idea that has kept
Europe back—I mean the idea that women are always thinking of men. If a
girl breaks off her engagement, everyone says: ‘Oh, she had someone
else in her mind; she hopes to get someone else.’ It’s disgusting,
brutal! As if a girl can’t break it off for the sake of freedom.”

He answered reverently: “I may have said that in the past. I shall
never say it again. You have taught me better.”

She began to redden, and pretended to examine the windows again.

“Of course, there is no question of ‘someone else’ in this, no
‘jilting’ or any such nauseous stupidity. I beg your pardon most humbly
if my words suggested that there was. I only meant that there was a
force in you that I hadn’t known of up till now.”

“All right, Cecil, that will do. Don’t apologize to me. It was my
mistake.”

“It is a question between ideals, yours and mine—pure abstract ideals,
and yours are the nobler. I was bound up in the old vicious notions,
and all the time you were splendid and new.” His voice broke. “I must
actually thank you for what you have done—for showing me what I really
am. Solemnly, I thank you for showing me a true woman. Will you shake
hands?”

“Of course I will,” said Lucy, twisting up her other hand in the
curtains. “Good-night, Cecil. Good-bye. That’s all right. I’m sorry
about it. Thank you very much for your gentleness.”

“Let me light your candle, shall I?”

They went into the hall.

“Thank you. Good-night again. God bless you, Lucy!”

“Good-bye, Cecil.”

She watched him steal up-stairs, while the shadows from three banisters
passed over her face like the beat of wings. On the landing he paused
strong in his renunciation, and gave her a look of memorable beauty.
For all his culture, Cecil was an ascetic at heart, and nothing in his
love became him like the leaving of it.

She could never marry. In the tumult of her soul, that stood firm.
Cecil believed in her; she must some day believe in herself. She must
be one of the women whom she had praised so eloquently, who care for
liberty and not for men; she must forget that George loved her, that
George had been thinking through her and gained her this honourable
release, that George had gone away into—what was it?—the darkness.

She put out the lamp.

It did not do to think, nor, for the matter of that, to feel. She gave
up trying to understand herself, and joined the vast armies of the
benighted, who follow neither the heart nor the brain, and march to
their destiny by catch-words. The armies are full of pleasant and pious
folk. But they have yielded to the only enemy that matters—the enemy
within. They have sinned against passion and truth, and vain will be
their strife after virtue. As the years pass, they are censured. Their
pleasantry and their piety show cracks, their wit becomes cynicism,
their unselfishness hypocrisy; they feel and produce discomfort
wherever they go. They have sinned against Eros and against Pallas
Athene, and not by any heavenly intervention, but by the ordinary
course of nature, those allied deities will be avenged.

Lucy entered this army when she pretended to George that she did not
love him, and pretended to Cecil that she loved no one. The night
received her, as it had received Miss Bartlett thirty years before.




Chapter XVIII
Lying to Mr. Beebe, Mrs. Honeychurch, Freddy, and The Servants


Windy Corner lay, not on the summit of the ridge, but a few hundred
feet down the southern slope, at the springing of one of the great
buttresses that supported the hill. On either side of it was a shallow
ravine, filled with ferns and pine-trees, and down the ravine on the
left ran the highway into the Weald.

Whenever Mr. Beebe crossed the ridge and caught sight of these noble
dispositions of the earth, and, poised in the middle of them, Windy
Corner,—he laughed. The situation was so glorious, the house so
commonplace, not to say impertinent. The late Mr. Honeychurch had
affected the cube, because it gave him the most accommodation for his
money, and the only addition made by his widow had been a small turret,
shaped like a rhinoceros’ horn, where she could sit in wet weather and
watch the carts going up and down the road. So impertinent—and yet the
house “did,” for it was the home of people who loved their surroundings
honestly. Other houses in the neighborhood had been built by expensive
architects, over others their inmates had fidgeted sedulously, yet all
these suggested the accidental, the temporary; while Windy Corner
seemed as inevitable as an ugliness of Nature’s own creation. One might
laugh at the house, but one never shuddered. Mr. Beebe was bicycling
over this Monday afternoon with a piece of gossip. He had heard from
the Miss Alans. These admirable ladies, since they could not go to
Cissie Villa, had changed their plans. They were going to Greece
instead.

“Since Florence did my poor sister so much good,” wrote Miss Catharine,
“we do not see why we should not try Athens this winter. Of course,
Athens is a plunge, and the doctor has ordered her special digestive
bread; but, after all, we can take that with us, and it is only getting
first into a steamer and then into a train. But is there an English
Church?” And the letter went on to say: “I do not expect we shall go
any further than Athens, but if you knew of a really comfortable
pension at Constantinople, we should be so grateful.”

Lucy would enjoy this letter, and the smile with which Mr. Beebe
greeted Windy Corner was partly for her. She would see the fun of it,
and some of its beauty, for she must see some beauty. Though she was
hopeless about pictures, and though she dressed so unevenly—oh, that
cerise frock yesterday at church!—she must see some beauty in life, or
she could not play the piano as she did. He had a theory that musicians
are incredibly complex, and know far less than other artists what they
want and what they are; that they puzzle themselves as well as their
friends; that their psychology is a modern development, and has not yet
been understood. This theory, had he known it, had possibly just been
illustrated by facts. Ignorant of the events of yesterday he was only
riding over to get some tea, to see his niece, and to observe whether
Miss Honeychurch saw anything beautiful in the desire of two old ladies
to visit Athens.

A carriage was drawn up outside Windy Corner, and just as he caught
sight of the house it started, bowled up the drive, and stopped
abruptly when it reached the main road. Therefore it must be the horse,
who always expected people to walk up the hill in case they tired him.
The door opened obediently, and two men emerged, whom Mr. Beebe
recognized as Cecil and Freddy. They were an odd couple to go driving;
but he saw a trunk beside the coachman’s legs. Cecil, who wore a
bowler, must be going away, while Freddy (a cap)—was seeing him to the
station. They walked rapidly, taking the short cuts, and reached the
summit while the carriage was still pursuing the windings of the road.

They shook hands with the clergyman, but did not speak.

“So you’re off for a minute, Mr. Vyse?” he asked.

Cecil said, “Yes,” while Freddy edged away.

“I was coming to show you this delightful letter from those friends of
Miss Honeychurch.” He quoted from it. “Isn’t it wonderful? Isn’t it
romance? Most certainly they will go to Constantinople. They are taken
in a snare that cannot fail. They will end by going round the world.”

Cecil listened civilly, and said he was sure that Lucy would be amused
and interested.

“Isn’t Romance capricious! I never notice it in you young people; you
do nothing but play lawn tennis, and say that romance is dead, while
the Miss Alans are struggling with all the weapons of propriety against
the terrible thing. ‘A really comfortable pension at Constantinople!’
So they call it out of decency, but in their hearts they want a pension
with magic windows opening on the foam of perilous seas in fairyland
forlorn! No ordinary view will content the Miss Alans. They want the
Pension Keats.”

“I’m awfully sorry to interrupt, Mr. Beebe,” said Freddy, “but have you
any matches?”

“I have,” said Cecil, and it did not escape Mr. Beebe’s notice that he
spoke to the boy more kindly.

“You have never met these Miss Alans, have you, Mr. Vyse?”

“Never.”

“Then you don’t see the wonder of this Greek visit. I haven’t been to
Greece myself, and don’t mean to go, and I can’t imagine any of my
friends going. It is altogether too big for our little lot. Don’t you
think so? Italy is just about as much as we can manage. Italy is
heroic, but Greece is godlike or devilish—I am not sure which, and in
either case absolutely out of our suburban focus. All right, Freddy—I
am not being clever, upon my word I am not—I took the idea from another
fellow; and give me those matches when you’ve done with them.” He lit a
cigarette, and went on talking to the two young men. “I was saying, if
our poor little Cockney lives must have a background, let it be
Italian. Big enough in all conscience. The ceiling of the Sistine
Chapel for me. There the contrast is just as much as I can realize. But
not the Parthenon, not the frieze of Phidias at any price; and here
comes the victoria.”

“You’re quite right,” said Cecil. “Greece is not for our little lot”;
and he got in. Freddy followed, nodding to the clergyman, whom he
trusted not to be pulling one’s leg, really. And before they had gone a
dozen yards he jumped out, and came running back for Vyse’s match-box,
which had not been returned. As he took it, he said: “I’m so glad you
only talked about books. Cecil’s hard hit. Lucy won’t marry him. If
you’d gone on about her, as you did about them, he might have broken
down.”

“But when—”

“Late last night. I must go.”

“Perhaps they won’t want me down there.”

“No—go on. Good-bye.”

“Thank goodness!” exclaimed Mr. Beebe to himself, and struck the saddle
of his bicycle approvingly, “It was the one foolish thing she ever did.
Oh, what a glorious riddance!” And, after a little thought, he
negotiated the slope into Windy Corner, light of heart. The house was
again as it ought to be—cut off forever from Cecil’s pretentious world.

He would find Miss Minnie down in the garden.

In the drawing-room Lucy was tinkling at a Mozart Sonata. He hesitated
a moment, but went down the garden as requested. There he found a
mournful company. It was a blustering day, and the wind had taken and
broken the dahlias. Mrs. Honeychurch, who looked cross, was tying them
up, while Miss Bartlett, unsuitably dressed, impeded her with offers of
assistance. At a little distance stood Minnie and the “garden-child,” a
minute importation, each holding either end of a long piece of bass.

“Oh, how do you do, Mr. Beebe? Gracious what a mess everything is! Look
at my scarlet pompoms, and the wind blowing your skirts about, and the
ground so hard that not a prop will stick in, and then the carriage
having to go out, when I had counted on having Powell, who—give
everyone their due—does tie up dahlias properly.”

Evidently Mrs. Honeychurch was shattered.

“How do you do?” said Miss Bartlett, with a meaning glance, as though
conveying that more than dahlias had been broken off by the autumn
gales.

“Here, Lennie, the bass,” cried Mrs. Honeychurch. The garden-child, who
did not know what bass was, stood rooted to the path with horror.
Minnie slipped to her uncle and whispered that everyone was very
disagreeable to-day, and that it was not her fault if dahlia-strings
would tear longways instead of across.

“Come for a walk with me,” he told her. “You have worried them as much
as they can stand. Mrs. Honeychurch, I only called in aimlessly. I
shall take her up to tea at the Beehive Tavern, if I may.”

“Oh, must you? Yes do.—Not the scissors, thank you, Charlotte, when
both my hands are full already—I’m perfectly certain that the orange
cactus will go before I can get to it.”

Mr. Beebe, who was an adept at relieving situations, invited Miss
Bartlett to accompany them to this mild festivity.

“Yes, Charlotte, I don’t want you—do go; there’s nothing to stop about
for, either in the house or out of it.”

Miss Bartlett said that her duty lay in the dahlia bed, but when she
had exasperated everyone, except Minnie, by a refusal, she turned round
and exasperated Minnie by an acceptance. As they walked up the garden,
the orange cactus fell, and Mr. Beebe’s last vision was of the
garden-child clasping it like a lover, his dark head buried in a wealth
of blossom.

“It is terrible, this havoc among the flowers,” he remarked.

“It is always terrible when the promise of months is destroyed in a
moment,” enunciated Miss Bartlett.

“Perhaps we ought to send Miss Honeychurch down to her mother. Or will
she come with us?”

“I think we had better leave Lucy to herself, and to her own pursuits.”

“They’re angry with Miss Honeychurch because she was late for
breakfast,” whispered Minnie, “and Floyd has gone, and Mr. Vyse has
gone, and Freddy won’t play with me. In fact, Uncle Arthur, the house
is not _at all_ what it was yesterday.”

“Don’t be a prig,” said her Uncle Arthur. “Go and put on your boots.”

He stepped into the drawing-room, where Lucy was still attentively
pursuing the Sonatas of Mozart. She stopped when he entered.

“How do you do? Miss Bartlett and Minnie are coming with me to tea at
the Beehive. Would you come too?”

“I don’t think I will, thank you.”

“No, I didn’t suppose you would care to much.”

Lucy turned to the piano and struck a few chords.

“How delicate those Sonatas are!” said Mr. Beebe, though at the bottom
of his heart, he thought them silly little things.

Lucy passed into Schumann.

“Miss Honeychurch!”

“Yes.”

“I met them on the hill. Your brother told me.”

“Oh he did?” She sounded annoyed. Mr. Beebe felt hurt, for he had
thought that she would like him to be told.

“I needn’t say that it will go no further.”

“Mother, Charlotte, Cecil, Freddy, you,” said Lucy, playing a note for
each person who knew, and then playing a sixth note.

“If you’ll let me say so, I am very glad, and I am certain that you
have done the right thing.”

“So I hoped other people would think, but they don’t seem to.”

“I could see that Miss Bartlett thought it unwise.”

“So does mother. Mother minds dreadfully.”

“I am very sorry for that,” said Mr. Beebe with feeling.

Mrs. Honeychurch, who hated all changes, did mind, but not nearly as
much as her daughter pretended, and only for the minute. It was really
a ruse of Lucy’s to justify her despondency—a ruse of which she was not
herself conscious, for she was marching in the armies of darkness.

“And Freddy minds.”

“Still, Freddy never hit it off with Vyse much, did he? I gathered that
he disliked the engagement, and felt it might separate him from you.”

“Boys are so odd.”

Minnie could be heard arguing with Miss Bartlett through the floor. Tea
at the Beehive apparently involved a complete change of apparel. Mr.
Beebe saw that Lucy—very properly—did not wish to discuss her action,
so after a sincere expression of sympathy, he said, “I have had an
absurd letter from Miss Alan. That was really what brought me over. I
thought it might amuse you all.”

“How delightful!” said Lucy, in a dull voice.

For the sake of something to do, he began to read her the letter. After
a few words her eyes grew alert, and soon she interrupted him with
“Going abroad? When do they start?”

“Next week, I gather.”

“Did Freddy say whether he was driving straight back?”

“No, he didn’t.”

“Because I do hope he won’t go gossiping.”

So she did want to talk about her broken engagement. Always
complaisant, he put the letter away. But she, at once exclaimed in a
high voice, “Oh, do tell me more about the Miss Alans! How perfectly
splendid of them to go abroad!”

“I want them to start from Venice, and go in a cargo steamer down the
Illyrian coast!”

She laughed heartily. “Oh, delightful! I wish they’d take me.”

“Has Italy filled you with the fever of travel? Perhaps George Emerson
is right. He says that ‘Italy is only an euphuism for Fate.’”

“Oh, not Italy, but Constantinople. I have always longed to go to
Constantinople. Constantinople is practically Asia, isn’t it?”

Mr. Beebe reminded her that Constantinople was still unlikely, and that
the Miss Alans only aimed at Athens, “with Delphi, perhaps, if the
roads are safe.” But this made no difference to her enthusiasm. She had
always longed to go to Greece even more, it seemed. He saw, to his
surprise, that she was apparently serious.

“I didn’t realize that you and the Miss Alans were still such friends,
after Cissie Villa.”

“Oh, that’s nothing; I assure you Cissie Villa’s nothing to me; I would
give anything to go with them.”

“Would your mother spare you again so soon? You have scarcely been home
three months.”

“She _must_ spare me!” cried Lucy, in growing excitement. “I simply
_must_ go away. I have to.” She ran her fingers hysterically through
her hair. “Don’t you see that I _have_ to go away? I didn’t realize at
the time—and of course I want to see Constantinople so particularly.”

“You mean that since you have broken off your engagement you feel—”

“Yes, yes. I knew you’d understand.”

Mr. Beebe did not quite understand. Why could not Miss Honeychurch
repose in the bosom of her family? Cecil had evidently taken up the
dignified line, and was not going to annoy her. Then it struck him that
her family itself might be annoying. He hinted this to her, and she
accepted the hint eagerly.

“Yes, of course; to go to Constantinople until they are used to the
idea and everything has calmed down.”

“I am afraid it has been a bothersome business,” he said gently.

“No, not at all. Cecil was very kind indeed; only—I had better tell you
the whole truth, since you have heard a little—it was that he is so
masterful. I found that he wouldn’t let me go my own way. He would
improve me in places where I can’t be improved. Cecil won’t let a woman
decide for herself—in fact, he daren’t. What nonsense I do talk! But
that is the kind of thing.”

“It is what I gathered from my own observation of Mr. Vyse; it is what
I gather from all that I have known of you. I do sympathize and agree
most profoundly. I agree so much that you must let me make one little
criticism: Is it worth while rushing off to Greece?”

“But I must go somewhere!” she cried. “I have been worrying all the
morning, and here comes the very thing.” She struck her knees with
clenched fists, and repeated: “I must! And the time I shall have with
mother, and all the money she spent on me last spring. You all think
much too highly of me. I wish you weren’t so kind.” At this moment Miss
Bartlett entered, and her nervousness increased. “I must get away, ever
so far. I must know my own mind and where I want to go.”

“Come along; tea, tea, tea,” said Mr. Beebe, and bustled his guests out
of the front-door. He hustled them so quickly that he forgot his hat.
When he returned for it he heard, to his relief and surprise, the
tinkling of a Mozart Sonata.

“She is playing again,” he said to Miss Bartlett.

“Lucy can always play,” was the acid reply.

“One is very thankful that she has such a resource. She is evidently
much worried, as, of course, she ought to be. I know all about it. The
marriage was so near that it must have been a hard struggle before she
could wind herself up to speak.”

Miss Bartlett gave a kind of wriggle, and he prepared for a discussion.
He had never fathomed Miss Bartlett. As he had put it to himself at
Florence, “she might yet reveal depths of strangeness, if not of
meaning.” But she was so unsympathetic that she must be reliable. He
assumed that much, and he had no hesitation in discussing Lucy with
her. Minnie was fortunately collecting ferns.

She opened the discussion with: “We had much better let the matter
drop.”

“I wonder.”

“It is of the highest importance that there should be no gossip in
Summer Street. It would be _death_ to gossip about Mr. Vyse’s dismissal
at the present moment.”

Mr. Beebe raised his eyebrows. Death is a strong word—surely too
strong. There was no question of tragedy. He said: “Of course, Miss
Honeychurch will make the fact public in her own way, and when she
chooses. Freddy only told me because he knew she would not mind.”

“I know,” said Miss Bartlett civilly. “Yet Freddy ought not to have
told even you. One cannot be too careful.”

“Quite so.”

“I do implore absolute secrecy. A chance word to a chattering friend,
and—”

“Exactly.” He was used to these nervous old maids and to the
exaggerated importance that they attach to words. A rector lives in a
web of petty secrets, and confidences and warnings, and the wiser he is
the less he will regard them. He will change the subject, as did Mr.
Beebe, saying cheerfully: “Have you heard from any Bertolini people
lately? I believe you keep up with Miss Lavish. It is odd how we of
that pension, who seemed such a fortuitous collection, have been
working into one another’s lives. Two, three, four, six of us—no,
eight; I had forgotten the Emersons—have kept more or less in touch. We
must really give the Signora a testimonial.”

And, Miss Bartlett not favouring the scheme, they walked up the hill in
a silence which was only broken by the rector naming some fern. On the
summit they paused. The sky had grown wilder since he stood there last
hour, giving to the land a tragic greatness that is rare in Surrey.
Grey clouds were charging across tissues of white, which stretched and
shredded and tore slowly, until through their final layers there
gleamed a hint of the disappearing blue. Summer was retreating. The
wind roared, the trees groaned, yet the noise seemed insufficient for
those vast operations in heaven. The weather was breaking up, breaking,
broken, and it is a sense of the fit rather than of the supernatural
that equips such crises with the salvos of angelic artillery. Mr.
Beebe’s eyes rested on Windy Corner, where Lucy sat, practising Mozart.
No smile came to his lips, and, changing the subject again, he said:
“We shan’t have rain, but we shall have darkness, so let us hurry on.
The darkness last night was appalling.”

They reached the Beehive Tavern at about five o’clock. That amiable
hostelry possesses a verandah, in which the young and the unwise do
dearly love to sit, while guests of more mature years seek a pleasant
sanded room, and have tea at a table comfortably. Mr. Beebe saw that
Miss Bartlett would be cold if she sat out, and that Minnie would be
dull if she sat in, so he proposed a division of forces. They would
hand the child her food through the window. Thus he was incidentally
enabled to discuss the fortunes of Lucy.

“I have been thinking, Miss Bartlett,” he said, “and, unless you very
much object, I would like to reopen that discussion.” She bowed.
“Nothing about the past. I know little and care less about that; I am
absolutely certain that it is to your cousin’s credit. She has acted
loftily and rightly, and it is like her gentle modesty to say that we
think too highly of her. But the future. Seriously, what do you think
of this Greek plan?” He pulled out the letter again. “I don’t know
whether you overheard, but she wants to join the Miss Alans in their
mad career. It’s all—I can’t explain—it’s wrong.”

Miss Bartlett read the letter in silence, laid it down, seemed to
hesitate, and then read it again.

“I can’t see the point of it myself.”

To his astonishment, she replied: “There I cannot agree with you. In it
I spy Lucy’s salvation.”

“Really. Now, why?”

“She wanted to leave Windy Corner.”

“I know—but it seems so odd, so unlike her, so—I was going to
say—selfish.”

“It is natural, surely—after such painful scenes—that she should desire
a change.”

Here, apparently, was one of those points that the male intellect
misses. Mr. Beebe exclaimed: “So she says herself, and since another
lady agrees with her, I must own that I am partially convinced. Perhaps
she must have a change. I have no sisters or—and I don’t understand
these things. But why need she go as far as Greece?”

“You may well ask that,” replied Miss Bartlett, who was evidently
interested, and had almost dropped her evasive manner. “Why Greece?
(What is it, Minnie dear—jam?) Why not Tunbridge Wells? Oh, Mr. Beebe!
I had a long and most unsatisfactory interview with dear Lucy this
morning. I cannot help her. I will say no more. Perhaps I have already
said too much. I am not to talk. I wanted her to spend six months with
me at Tunbridge Wells, and she refused.”

Mr. Beebe poked at a crumb with his knife.

“But my feelings are of no importance. I know too well that I get on
Lucy’s nerves. Our tour was a failure. She wanted to leave Florence,
and when we got to Rome she did not want to be in Rome, and all the
time I felt that I was spending her mother’s money—.”

“Let us keep to the future, though,” interrupted Mr. Beebe. “I want
your advice.”

“Very well,” said Charlotte, with a choky abruptness that was new to
him, though familiar to Lucy. “I for one will help her to go to Greece.
Will you?”

Mr. Beebe considered.

“It is absolutely necessary,” she continued, lowering her veil and
whispering through it with a passion, an intensity, that surprised him.
“I know—I _know_.” The darkness was coming on, and he felt that this
odd woman really did know. “She must not stop here a moment, and we
must keep quiet till she goes. I trust that the servants know nothing.
Afterwards—but I may have said too much already. Only, Lucy and I are
helpless against Mrs. Honeychurch alone. If you help we may succeed.
Otherwise—”

“Otherwise—?”

“Otherwise,” she repeated as if the word held finality.

“Yes, I will help her,” said the clergyman, setting his jaw firm.
“Come, let us go back now, and settle the whole thing up.”

Miss Bartlett burst into florid gratitude. The tavern sign—a beehive
trimmed evenly with bees—creaked in the wind outside as she thanked
him. Mr. Beebe did not quite understand the situation; but then, he did
not desire to understand it, nor to jump to the conclusion of “another
man” that would have attracted a grosser mind. He only felt that Miss
Bartlett knew of some vague influence from which the girl desired to be
delivered, and which might well be clothed in the fleshly form. Its
very vagueness spurred him into knight-errantry. His belief in
celibacy, so reticent, so carefully concealed beneath his tolerance and
culture, now came to the surface and expanded like some delicate
flower. “They that marry do well, but they that refrain do better.” So
ran his belief, and he never heard that an engagement was broken off
but with a slight feeling of pleasure. In the case of Lucy, the feeling
was intensified through dislike of Cecil; and he was willing to go
further—to place her out of danger until she could confirm her
resolution of virginity. The feeling was very subtle and quite
undogmatic, and he never imparted it to any other of the characters in
this entanglement. Yet it existed, and it alone explains his action
subsequently, and his influence on the action of others. The compact
that he made with Miss Bartlett in the tavern, was to help not only
Lucy, but religion also.

They hurried home through a world of black and grey. He conversed on
indifferent topics: the Emersons’ need of a housekeeper; servants;
Italian servants; novels about Italy; novels with a purpose; could
literature influence life? Windy Corner glimmered. In the garden, Mrs.
Honeychurch, now helped by Freddy, still wrestled with the lives of her
flowers.

“It gets too dark,” she said hopelessly. “This comes of putting off. We
might have known the weather would break up soon; and now Lucy wants to
go to Greece. I don’t know what the world’s coming to.”

“Mrs. Honeychurch,” he said, “go to Greece she must. Come up to the
house and let’s talk it over. Do you, in the first place, mind her
breaking with Vyse?”

“Mr. Beebe, I’m thankful—simply thankful.”

“So am I,” said Freddy.

“Good. Now come up to the house.”

They conferred in the dining-room for half an hour.

Lucy would never have carried the Greek scheme alone. It was expensive
and dramatic—both qualities that her mother loathed. Nor would
Charlotte have succeeded. The honours of the day rested with Mr. Beebe.
By his tact and common sense, and by his influence as a clergyman—for a
clergyman who was not a fool influenced Mrs. Honeychurch greatly—he
bent her to their purpose, “I don’t see why Greece is necessary,” she
said; “but as you do, I suppose it is all right. It must be something I
can’t understand. Lucy! Let’s tell her. Lucy!”

“She is playing the piano,” Mr. Beebe said. He opened the door, and
heard the words of a song:

“Look not thou on beauty’s charming.”


“I didn’t know that Miss Honeychurch sang, too.”

“Sit thou still when kings are arming,
Taste not when the wine-cup glistens——”


“It’s a song that Cecil gave her. How odd girls are!”

“What’s that?” called Lucy, stopping short.

“All right, dear,” said Mrs. Honeychurch kindly. She went into the
drawing-room, and Mr. Beebe heard her kiss Lucy and say: “I am sorry I
was so cross about Greece, but it came on the top of the dahlias.”

Rather a hard voice said: “Thank you, mother; that doesn’t matter a
bit.”

“And you are right, too—Greece will be all right; you can go if the
Miss Alans will have you.”

“Oh, splendid! Oh, thank you!”

Mr. Beebe followed. Lucy still sat at the piano with her hands over the
keys. She was glad, but he had expected greater gladness. Her mother
bent over her. Freddy, to whom she had been singing, reclined on the
floor with his head against her, and an unlit pipe between his lips.
Oddly enough, the group was beautiful. Mr. Beebe, who loved the art of
the past, was reminded of a favourite theme, the _Santa Conversazione_,
in which people who care for one another are painted chatting together
about noble things—a theme neither sensual nor sensational, and
therefore ignored by the art of to-day. Why should Lucy want either to
marry or to travel when she had such friends at home?

“Taste not when the wine-cup glistens,
Speak not when the people listens,”


she continued.

“Here’s Mr. Beebe.”

“Mr. Beebe knows my rude ways.”

“It’s a beautiful song and a wise one,” said he. “Go on.”

“It isn’t very good,” she said listlessly. “I forget why—harmony or
something.”

“I suspected it was unscholarly. It’s so beautiful.”

“The tune’s right enough,” said Freddy, “but the words are rotten. Why
throw up the sponge?”

“How stupidly you talk!” said his sister. The _Santa Conversazione_ was
broken up. After all, there was no reason that Lucy should talk about
Greece or thank him for persuading her mother, so he said good-bye.

Freddy lit his bicycle lamp for him in the porch, and with his usual
felicity of phrase, said: “This has been a day and a half.”

“Stop thine ear against the singer—”


“Wait a minute; she is finishing.”

“From the red gold keep thy finger;
Vacant heart and hand and eye
Easy live and quiet die.”


“I love weather like this,” said Freddy.

Mr. Beebe passed into it.

The two main facts were clear. She had behaved splendidly, and he had
helped her. He could not expect to master the details of so big a
change in a girl’s life. If here and there he was dissatisfied or
puzzled, he must acquiesce; she was choosing the better part.

“Vacant heart and hand and eye—”


Perhaps the song stated “the better part” rather too strongly. He half
fancied that the soaring accompaniment—which he did not lose in the
shout of the gale—really agreed with Freddy, and was gently criticizing
the words that it adorned:

“Vacant heart and hand and eye
Easy live and quiet die.”


However, for the fourth time Windy Corner lay poised below him—now as a
beacon in the roaring tides of darkness.




Chapter XIX
Lying to Mr. Emerson


The Miss Alans were found in their beloved temperance hotel near
Bloomsbury—a clean, airless establishment much patronized by provincial
England. They always perched there before crossing the great seas, and
for a week or two would fidget gently over clothes, guide-books,
mackintosh squares, digestive bread, and other Continental necessaries.
That there are shops abroad, even in Athens, never occurred to them,
for they regarded travel as a species of warfare, only to be undertaken
by those who have been fully armed at the Haymarket Stores. Miss
Honeychurch, they trusted, would take care to equip herself duly.
Quinine could now be obtained in tabloids; paper soap was a great help
towards freshening up one’s face in the train. Lucy promised, a little
depressed.

“But, of course, you know all about these things, and you have Mr. Vyse
to help you. A gentleman is such a stand-by.”

Mrs. Honeychurch, who had come up to town with her daughter, began to
drum nervously upon her card-case.

“We think it so good of Mr. Vyse to spare you,” Miss Catharine
continued. “It is not every young man who would be so unselfish. But
perhaps he will come out and join you later on.”

“Or does his work keep him in London?” said Miss Teresa, the more acute
and less kindly of the two sisters.

“However, we shall see him when he sees you off. I do so long to see
him.”

“No one will see Lucy off,” interposed Mrs. Honeychurch. “She doesn’t
like it.”

“No, I hate seeings-off,” said Lucy.

“Really? How funny! I should have thought that in this case—”

“Oh, Mrs. Honeychurch, you aren’t going? It is such a pleasure to have
met you!”

They escaped, and Lucy said with relief: “That’s all right. We just got
through that time.”

But her mother was annoyed. “I should be told, dear, that I am
unsympathetic. But I cannot see why you didn’t tell your friends about
Cecil and be done with it. There all the time we had to sit fencing,
and almost telling lies, and be seen through, too, I dare say, which is
most unpleasant.”

Lucy had plenty to say in reply. She described the Miss Alans’
character: they were such gossips, and if one told them, the news would
be everywhere in no time.

“But why shouldn’t it be everywhere in no time?”

“Because I settled with Cecil not to announce it until I left England.
I shall tell them then. It’s much pleasanter. How wet it is! Let’s turn
in here.”

“Here” was the British Museum. Mrs. Honeychurch refused. If they must
take shelter, let it be in a shop. Lucy felt contemptuous, for she was
on the tack of caring for Greek sculpture, and had already borrowed a
mythical dictionary from Mr. Beebe to get up the names of the goddesses
and gods.

“Oh, well, let it be shop, then. Let’s go to Mudie’s. I’ll buy a
guide-book.”

“You know, Lucy, you and Charlotte and Mr. Beebe all tell me I’m so
stupid, so I suppose I am, but I shall never understand this
hole-and-corner work. You’ve got rid of Cecil—well and good, and I’m
thankful he’s gone, though I did feel angry for the minute. But why not
announce it? Why this hushing up and tip-toeing?”

“It’s only for a few days.”

“But why at all?”

Lucy was silent. She was drifting away from her mother. It was quite
easy to say, “Because George Emerson has been bothering me, and if he
hears I’ve given up Cecil may begin again”—quite easy, and it had the
incidental advantage of being true. But she could not say it. She
disliked confidences, for they might lead to self-knowledge and to that
king of terrors—Light. Ever since that last evening at Florence she had
deemed it unwise to reveal her soul.

Mrs. Honeychurch, too, was silent. She was thinking, “My daughter won’t
answer me; she would rather be with those inquisitive old maids than
with Freddy and me. Any rag, tag, and bobtail apparently does if she
can leave her home.” And as in her case thoughts never remained
unspoken long, she burst out with: “You’re tired of Windy Corner.”

This was perfectly true. Lucy had hoped to return to Windy Corner when
she escaped from Cecil, but she discovered that her home existed no
longer. It might exist for Freddy, who still lived and thought
straight, but not for one who had deliberately warped the brain. She
did not acknowledge that her brain was warped, for the brain itself
must assist in that acknowledgment, and she was disordering the very
instruments of life. She only felt, “I do not love George; I broke off
my engagement because I did not love George; I must go to Greece
because I do not love George; it is more important that I should look
up gods in the dictionary than that I should help my mother; everyone
else is behaving very badly.” She only felt irritable and petulant, and
anxious to do what she was not expected to do, and in this spirit she
proceeded with the conversation.

“Oh, mother, what rubbish you talk! Of course I’m not tired of Windy
Corner.”

“Then why not say so at once, instead of considering half an hour?”

She laughed faintly, “Half a _minute_ would be nearer.”

“Perhaps you would like to stay away from your home altogether?”

“Hush, mother! People will hear you”; for they had entered Mudie’s. She
bought Baedeker, and then continued: “Of course I want to live at home;
but as we are talking about it, I may as well say that I shall want to
be away in the future more than I have been. You see, I come into my
money next year.”

Tears came into her mother’s eyes.

Driven by nameless bewilderment, by what is in older people termed
“eccentricity,” Lucy determined to make this point clear. “I’ve seen
the world so little—I felt so out of things in Italy. I have seen so
little of life; one ought to come up to London more—not a cheap ticket
like to-day, but to stop. I might even share a flat for a little with
some other girl.”

“And mess with typewriters and latch-keys,” exploded Mrs. Honeychurch.
“And agitate and scream, and be carried off kicking by the police. And
call it a Mission—when no one wants you! And call it Duty—when it means
that you can’t stand your own home! And call it Work—when thousands of
men are starving with the competition as it is! And then to prepare
yourself, find two doddering old ladies, and go abroad with them.”

“I want more independence,” said Lucy lamely; she knew that she wanted
something, and independence is a useful cry; we can always say that we
have not got it. She tried to remember her emotions in Florence: those
had been sincere and passionate, and had suggested beauty rather than
short skirts and latch-keys. But independence was certainly her cue.

“Very well. Take your independence and be gone. Rush up and down and
round the world, and come back as thin as a lath with the bad food.
Despise the house that your father built and the garden that he
planted, and our dear view—and then share a flat with another girl.”

Lucy screwed up her mouth and said: “Perhaps I spoke hastily.”

“Oh, goodness!” her mother flashed. “How you do remind me of Charlotte
Bartlett!”

“_Charlotte?_” flashed Lucy in her turn, pierced at last by a vivid
pain.

“More every moment.”

“I don’t know what you mean, mother; Charlotte and I are not the very
least alike.”

“Well, I see the likeness. The same eternal worrying, the same taking
back of words. You and Charlotte trying to divide two apples among
three people last night might be sisters.”

“What rubbish! And if you dislike Charlotte so, it’s rather a pity you
asked her to stop. I warned you about her; I begged you, implored you
not to, but of course it was not listened to.”

“There you go.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Charlotte again, my dear; that’s all; her very words.”

Lucy clenched her teeth. “My point is that you oughtn’t to have asked
Charlotte to stop. I wish you would keep to the point.” And the
conversation died off into a wrangle.

She and her mother shopped in silence, spoke little in the train,
little again in the carriage, which met them at Dorking Station. It had
poured all day and as they ascended through the deep Surrey lanes
showers of water fell from the over-hanging beech-trees and rattled on
the hood. Lucy complained that the hood was stuffy. Leaning forward,
she looked out into the steaming dusk, and watched the carriage-lamp
pass like a search-light over mud and leaves, and reveal nothing
beautiful. “The crush when Charlotte gets in will be abominable,” she
remarked. For they were to pick up Miss Bartlett at Summer Street,
where she had been dropped as the carriage went down, to pay a call on
Mr. Beebe’s old mother. “We shall have to sit three a side, because the
trees drop, and yet it isn’t raining. Oh, for a little air!” Then she
listened to the horse’s hoofs—“He has not told—he has not told.” That
melody was blurred by the soft road. “_Can’t_ we have the hood down?”
she demanded, and her mother, with sudden tenderness, said: “Very well,
old lady, stop the horse.” And the horse was stopped, and Lucy and
Powell wrestled with the hood, and squirted water down Mrs.
Honeychurch’s neck. But now that the hood was down, she did see
something that she would have missed—there were no lights in the
windows of Cissie Villa, and round the garden gate she fancied she saw
a padlock.

“Is that house to let again, Powell?” she called.

“Yes, miss,” he replied.

“Have they gone?”

“It is too far out of town for the young gentleman, and his father’s
rheumatism has come on, so he can’t stop on alone, so they are trying
to let furnished,” was the answer.

“They have gone, then?”

“Yes, miss, they have gone.”

Lucy sank back. The carriage stopped at the Rectory. She got out to
call for Miss Bartlett. So the Emersons had gone, and all this bother
about Greece had been unnecessary. Waste! That word seemed to sum up
the whole of life. Wasted plans, wasted money, wasted love, and she had
wounded her mother. Was it possible that she had muddled things away?
Quite possible. Other people had. When the maid opened the door, she
was unable to speak, and stared stupidly into the hall.

Miss Bartlett at once came forward, and after a long preamble asked a
great favour: might she go to church? Mr. Beebe and his mother had
already gone, but she had refused to start until she obtained her
hostess’s full sanction, for it would mean keeping the horse waiting a
good ten minutes more.

“Certainly,” said the hostess wearily. “I forgot it was Friday. Let’s
all go. Powell can go round to the stables.”

“Lucy dearest—”

“No church for me, thank you.”

A sigh, and they departed. The church was invisible, but up in the
darkness to the left there was a hint of colour. This was a stained
window, through which some feeble light was shining, and when the door
opened Lucy heard Mr. Beebe’s voice running through the litany to a
minute congregation. Even their church, built upon the slope of the
hill so artfully, with its beautiful raised transept and its spire of
silvery shingle—even their church had lost its charm; and the thing one
never talked about—religion—was fading like all the other things.

She followed the maid into the Rectory.

Would she object to sitting in Mr. Beebe’s study? There was only that
one fire.

She would not object.

Some one was there already, for Lucy heard the words: “A lady to wait,
sir.”

Old Mr. Emerson was sitting by the fire, with his foot upon a
gout-stool.

“Oh, Miss Honeychurch, that you should come!” he quavered; and Lucy saw
an alteration in him since last Sunday.

Not a word would come to her lips. George she had faced, and could have
faced again, but she had forgotten how to treat his father.

“Miss Honeychurch, dear, we are so sorry! George is so sorry! He
thought he had a right to try. I cannot blame my boy, and yet I wish he
had told me first. He ought not to have tried. I knew nothing about it
at all.”

If only she could remember how to behave!

He held up his hand. “But you must not scold him.”

Lucy turned her back, and began to look at Mr. Beebe’s books.

“I taught him,” he quavered, “to trust in love. I said: ‘When love
comes, that is reality.’ I said: ‘Passion does not blind. No. Passion
is sanity, and the woman you love, she is the only person you will ever
really understand.’” He sighed: “True, everlastingly true, though my
day is over, and though there is the result. Poor boy! He is so sorry!
He said he knew it was madness when you brought your cousin in; that
whatever you felt you did not mean. Yet”—his voice gathered strength:
he spoke out to make certain—“Miss Honeychurch, do you remember Italy?”

Lucy selected a book—a volume of Old Testament commentaries. Holding it
up to her eyes, she said: “I have no wish to discuss Italy or any
subject connected with your son.”

“But you do remember it?”

“He has misbehaved himself from the first.”

“I only was told that he loved you last Sunday. I never could judge
behaviour. I—I—suppose he has.”

Feeling a little steadier, she put the book back and turned round to
him. His face was drooping and swollen, but his eyes, though they were
sunken deep, gleamed with a child’s courage.

“Why, he has behaved abominably,” she said. “I am glad he is sorry. Do
you know what he did?”

“Not ‘abominably,’” was the gentle correction. “He only tried when he
should not have tried. You have all you want, Miss Honeychurch: you are
going to marry the man you love. Do not go out of George’s life saying
he is abominable.”

“No, of course,” said Lucy, ashamed at the reference to Cecil.
“‘Abominable’ is much too strong. I am sorry I used it about your son.
I think I will go to church, after all. My mother and my cousin have
gone. I shall not be so very late—”

“Especially as he has gone under,” he said quietly.

“What was that?”

“Gone under naturally.” He beat his palms together in silence; his head
fell on his chest.

“I don’t understand.”

“As his mother did.”

“But, Mr. Emerson—_Mr. Emerson_—what are you talking about?”

“When I wouldn’t have George baptized,” said he.

Lucy was frightened.

“And she agreed that baptism was nothing, but he caught that fever when
he was twelve and she turned round. She thought it a judgement.” He
shuddered. “Oh, horrible, when we had given up that sort of thing and
broken away from her parents. Oh, horrible—worst of all—worse than
death, when you have made a little clearing in the wilderness, planted
your little garden, let in your sunlight, and then the weeds creep in
again! A judgement! And our boy had typhoid because no clergyman had
dropped water on him in church! Is it possible, Miss Honeychurch? Shall
we slip back into the darkness for ever?”

“I don’t know,” gasped Lucy. “I don’t understand this sort of thing. I
was not meant to understand it.”

“But Mr. Eager—he came when I was out, and acted according to his
principles. I don’t blame him or any one... but by the time George was
well she was ill. He made her think about sin, and she went under
thinking about it.”

It was thus that Mr. Emerson had murdered his wife in the sight of God.

“Oh, how terrible!” said Lucy, forgetting her own affairs at last.

“He was not baptized,” said the old man. “I did hold firm.” And he
looked with unwavering eyes at the rows of books, as if—at what
cost!—he had won a victory over them. “My boy shall go back to the
earth untouched.”

She asked whether young Mr. Emerson was ill.

“Oh—last Sunday.” He started into the present. “George last Sunday—no,
not ill: just gone under. He is never ill. But he is his mother’s son.
Her eyes were his, and she had that forehead that I think so beautiful,
and he will not think it worth while to live. It was always touch and
go. He will live; but he will not think it worth while to live. He will
never think anything worth while. You remember that church at
Florence?”

Lucy did remember, and how she had suggested that George should collect
postage stamps.

“After you left Florence—horrible. Then we took the house here, and he
goes bathing with your brother, and became better. You saw him
bathing?”

“I am so sorry, but it is no good discussing this affair. I am deeply
sorry about it.”

“Then there came something about a novel. I didn’t follow it at all; I
had to hear so much, and he minded telling me; he finds me too old. Ah,
well, one must have failures. George comes down to-morrow, and takes me
up to his London rooms. He can’t bear to be about here, and I must be
where he is.”

“Mr. Emerson,” cried the girl, “don’t leave at least, not on my
account. I am going to Greece. Don’t leave your comfortable house.”

It was the first time her voice had been kind and he smiled. “How good
everyone is! And look at Mr. Beebe housing me—came over this morning
and heard I was going! Here I am so comfortable with a fire.”

“Yes, but you won’t go back to London. It’s absurd.”

“I must be with George; I must make him care to live, and down here he
can’t. He says the thought of seeing you and of hearing about you—I am
not justifying him: I am only saying what has happened.”

“Oh, Mr. Emerson”—she took hold of his hand—“you mustn’t. I’ve been
bother enough to the world by now. I can’t have you moving out of your
house when you like it, and perhaps losing money through it—all on my
account. You must stop! I am just going to Greece.”

“All the way to Greece?”

Her manner altered.

“To Greece?”

“So you must stop. You won’t talk about this business, I know. I can
trust you both.”

“Certainly you can. We either have you in our lives, or leave you to
the life that you have chosen.”

“I shouldn’t want—”

“I suppose Mr. Vyse is very angry with George? No, it was wrong of
George to try. We have pushed our beliefs too far. I fancy that we
deserve sorrow.”

She looked at the books again—black, brown, and that acrid theological
blue. They surrounded the visitors on every side; they were piled on
the tables, they pressed against the very ceiling. To Lucy who could
not see that Mr. Emerson was profoundly religious, and differed from
Mr. Beebe chiefly by his acknowledgment of passion—it seemed dreadful
that the old man should crawl into such a sanctum, when he was unhappy,
and be dependent on the bounty of a clergyman.

More certain than ever that she was tired, he offered her his chair.

“No, please sit still. I think I will sit in the carriage.”

“Miss Honeychurch, you do sound tired.”

“Not a bit,” said Lucy, with trembling lips.

“But you are, and there’s a look of George about you. And what were you
saying about going abroad?”

She was silent.

“Greece”—and she saw that he was thinking the word over—“Greece; but
you were to be married this year, I thought.”

“Not till January, it wasn’t,” said Lucy, clasping her hands. Would she
tell an actual lie when it came to the point?

“I suppose that Mr. Vyse is going with you. I hope—it isn’t because
George spoke that you are both going?”

“No.”

“I hope that you will enjoy Greece with Mr. Vyse.”

“Thank you.”

At that moment Mr. Beebe came back from church. His cassock was covered
with rain. “That’s all right,” he said kindly. “I counted on you two
keeping each other company. It’s pouring again. The entire
congregation, which consists of your cousin, your mother, and my
mother, stands waiting in the church, till the carriage fetches it. Did
Powell go round?”

“I think so; I’ll see.”

“No—of course, I’ll see. How are the Miss Alans?”

“Very well, thank you.”

“Did you tell Mr. Emerson about Greece?”

“I—I did.”

“Don’t you think it very plucky of her, Mr. Emerson, to undertake the
two Miss Alans? Now, Miss Honeychurch, go back—keep warm. I think three
is such a courageous number to go travelling.” And he hurried off to
the stables.

“He is not going,” she said hoarsely. “I made a slip. Mr. Vyse does
stop behind in England.”

Somehow it was impossible to cheat this old man. To George, to Cecil,
she would have lied again; but he seemed so near the end of things, so
dignified in his approach to the gulf, of which he gave one account,
and the books that surrounded him another, so mild to the rough paths
that he had traversed, that the true chivalry—not the worn-out chivalry
of sex, but the true chivalry that all the young may show to all the
old—awoke in her, and, at whatever risk, she told him that Cecil was
not her companion to Greece. And she spoke so seriously that the risk
became a certainty, and he, lifting his eyes, said: “You are leaving
him? You are leaving the man you love?”

“I—I had to.”

“Why, Miss Honeychurch, why?”

Terror came over her, and she lied again. She made the long, convincing
speech that she had made to Mr. Beebe, and intended to make to the
world when she announced that her engagement was no more. He heard her
in silence, and then said: “My dear, I am worried about you. It seems
to me”—dreamily; she was not alarmed—“that you are in a muddle.”

She shook her head.

“Take an old man’s word; there’s nothing worse than a muddle in all the
world. It is easy to face Death and Fate, and the things that sound so
dreadful. It is on my muddles that I look back with horror—on the
things that I might have avoided. We can help one another but little. I
used to think I could teach young people the whole of life, but I know
better now, and all my teaching of George has come down to this: beware
of muddle. Do you remember in that church, when you pretended to be
annoyed with me and weren’t? Do you remember before, when you refused
the room with the view? Those were muddles—little, but ominous—and I am
fearing that you are in one now.” She was silent. “Don’t trust me, Miss
Honeychurch. Though life is very glorious, it is difficult.” She was
still silent. “‘Life’ wrote a friend of mine, ‘is a public performance
on the violin, in which you must learn the instrument as you go along.’
I think he puts it well. Man has to pick up the use of his functions as
he goes along—especially the function of Love.” Then he burst out
excitedly; “That’s it; that’s what I mean. You love George!” And after
his long preamble, the three words burst against Lucy like waves from
the open sea.

“But you do,” he went on, not waiting for contradiction. “You love the
boy body and soul, plainly, directly, as he loves you, and no other
word expresses it. You won’t marry the other man for his sake.”

“How dare you!” gasped Lucy, with the roaring of waters in her ears.
“Oh, how like a man!—I mean, to suppose that a woman is always thinking
about a man.”

“But you are.”

She summoned physical disgust.

“You’re shocked, but I mean to shock you. It’s the only hope at times.
I can reach you no other way. You must marry, or your life will be
wasted. You have gone too far to retreat. I have no time for the
tenderness, and the comradeship, and the poetry, and the things that
really matter, and _for which_ you marry. I know that, with George, you
will find them, and that you love him. Then be his wife. He is already
part of you. Though you fly to Greece, and never see him again, or
forget his very name, George will work in your thoughts till you die.
It isn’t possible to love and to part. You will wish that it was. You
can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out
of you. I know by experience that the poets are right: love is
eternal.”

Lucy began to cry with anger, and though her anger passed away soon,
her tears remained.

“I only wish poets would say this, too: love is of the body; not the
body, but of the body. Ah! the misery that would be saved if we
confessed that! Ah! for a little directness to liberate the soul! Your
soul, dear Lucy! I hate the word now, because of all the cant with
which superstition has wrapped it round. But we have souls. I cannot
say how they came nor whither they go, but we have them, and I see you
ruining yours. I cannot bear it. It is again the darkness creeping in;
it is hell.” Then he checked himself. “What nonsense I have talked—how
abstract and remote! And I have made you cry! Dear girl, forgive my
prosiness; marry my boy. When I think what life is, and how seldom love
is answered by love—Marry him; it is one of the moments for which the
world was made.”

She could not understand him; the words were indeed remote. Yet as he
spoke the darkness was withdrawn, veil after veil, and she saw to the
bottom of her soul.

“Then, Lucy—”

“You’ve frightened me,” she moaned. “Cecil—Mr. Beebe—the ticket’s
bought—everything.” She fell sobbing into the chair. “I’m caught in the
tangle. I must suffer and grow old away from him. I cannot break the
whole of life for his sake. They trusted me.”

A carriage drew up at the front-door.

“Give George my love—once only. Tell him ‘muddle.’” Then she arranged
her veil, while the tears poured over her cheeks inside.

“Lucy—”

“No—they are in the hall—oh, please not, Mr. Emerson—they trust me—”

“But why should they, when you have deceived them?”

Mr. Beebe opened the door, saying: “Here’s my mother.”

“You’re not worthy of their trust.”

“What’s that?” said Mr. Beebe sharply.

“I was saying, why should you trust her when she deceived you?”

“One minute, mother.” He came in and shut the door.

“I don’t follow you, Mr. Emerson. To whom do you refer? Trust whom?”

“I mean she has pretended to you that she did not love George. They
have loved one another all along.”

Mr. Beebe looked at the sobbing girl. He was very quiet, and his white
face, with its ruddy whiskers, seemed suddenly inhuman. A long black
column, he stood and awaited her reply.

“I shall never marry him,” quavered Lucy.

A look of contempt came over him, and he said, “Why not?”

“Mr. Beebe—I have misled you—I have misled myself—”

“Oh, rubbish, Miss Honeychurch!”

“It is not rubbish!” said the old man hotly. “It’s the part of people
that you don’t understand.”

Mr. Beebe laid his hand on the old man’s shoulder pleasantly.

“Lucy! Lucy!” called voices from the carriage.

“Mr. Beebe, could you help me?”

He looked amazed at the request, and said in a low, stern voice: “I am
more grieved than I can possibly express. It is lamentable,
lamentable—incredible.”

“What’s wrong with the boy?” fired up the other again.

“Nothing, Mr. Emerson, except that he no longer interests me. Marry
George, Miss Honeychurch. He will do admirably.”

He walked out and left them. They heard him guiding his mother
up-stairs.

“Lucy!” the voices called.

She turned to Mr. Emerson in despair. But his face revived her. It was
the face of a saint who understood.

“Now it is all dark. Now Beauty and Passion seem never to have existed.
I know. But remember the mountains over Florence and the view. Ah,
dear, if I were George, and gave you one kiss, it would make you brave.
You have to go cold into a battle that needs warmth, out into the
muddle that you have made yourself; and your mother and all your
friends will despise you, oh, my darling, and rightly, if it is ever
right to despise. George still dark, all the tussle and the misery
without a word from him. Am I justified?” Into his own eyes tears came.
“Yes, for we fight for more than Love or Pleasure; there is Truth.
Truth counts, Truth does count.”

“You kiss me,” said the girl. “You kiss me. I will try.”

He gave her a sense of deities reconciled, a feeling that, in gaining
the man she loved, she would gain something for the whole world.
Throughout the squalor of her homeward drive—she spoke at once—his
salutation remained. He had robbed the body of its taint, the world’s
taunts of their sting; he had shown her the holiness of direct desire.
She “never exactly understood,” she would say in after years, “how he
managed to strengthen her. It was as if he had made her see the whole
of everything at once.”




Chapter XX
The End of the Middle Ages


The Miss Alans did go to Greece, but they went by themselves. They
alone of this little company will double Malea and plough the waters of
the Saronic gulf. They alone will visit Athens and Delphi, and either
shrine of intellectual song—that upon the Acropolis, encircled by blue
seas; that under Parnassus, where the eagles build and the bronze
charioteer drives undismayed towards infinity. Trembling, anxious,
cumbered with much digestive bread, they did proceed to Constantinople,
they did go round the world. The rest of us must be contented with a
fair, but a less arduous, goal. Italiam petimus: we return to the
Pension Bertolini.

George said it was his old room.

“No, it isn’t,” said Lucy; “because it is the room I had, and I had
your father’s room. I forget why; Charlotte made me, for some reason.”

He knelt on the tiled floor, and laid his face in her lap.

“George, you baby, get up.”

“Why shouldn’t I be a baby?” murmured George.

Unable to answer this question, she put down his sock, which she was
trying to mend, and gazed out through the window. It was evening and
again the spring.

“Oh, bother Charlotte,” she said thoughtfully. “What can such people be
made of?”

“Same stuff as parsons are made of.”

“Nonsense!”

“Quite right. It is nonsense.”

“Now you get up off the cold floor, or you’ll be starting rheumatism
next, and you stop laughing and being so silly.”

“Why shouldn’t I laugh?” he asked, pinning her with his elbows, and
advancing his face to hers. “What’s there to cry at? Kiss me here.” He
indicated the spot where a kiss would be welcome.

He was a boy after all. When it came to the point, it was she who
remembered the past, she into whose soul the iron had entered, she who
knew whose room this had been last year. It endeared him to her
strangely that he should be sometimes wrong.

“Any letters?” he asked.

“Just a line from Freddy.”

“Now kiss me here; then here.”

Then, threatened again with rheumatism, he strolled to the window,
opened it (as the English will), and leant out. There was the parapet,
there the river, there to the left the beginnings of the hills. The
cab-driver, who at once saluted him with the hiss of a serpent, might
be that very Phaethon who had set this happiness in motion twelve
months ago. A passion of gratitude—all feelings grow to passions in the
South—came over the husband, and he blessed the people and the things
who had taken so much trouble about a young fool. He had helped
himself, it is true, but how stupidly!

All the fighting that mattered had been done by others—by Italy, by his
father, by his wife.

“Lucy, you come and look at the cypresses; and the church, whatever its
name is, still shows.”

“San Miniato. I’ll just finish your sock.”

“Signorino, domani faremo uno giro,” called the cabman, with engaging
certainty.

George told him that he was mistaken; they had no money to throw away
on driving.

And the people who had not meant to help—the Miss Lavishes, the Cecils,
the Miss Bartletts! Ever prone to magnify Fate, George counted up the
forces that had swept him into this contentment.

“Anything good in Freddy’s letter?”

“Not yet.”

His own content was absolute, but hers held bitterness: the
Honeychurches had not forgiven them; they were disgusted at her past
hypocrisy; she had alienated Windy Corner, perhaps for ever.

“What does he say?”

“Silly boy! He thinks he’s being dignified. He knew we should go off in
the spring—he has known it for six months—that if mother wouldn’t give
her consent we should take the thing into our own hands. They had fair
warning, and now he calls it an elopement. Ridiculous boy—”

“Signorino, domani faremo uno giro—”

“But it will all come right in the end. He has to build us both up from
the beginning again. I wish, though, that Cecil had not turned so
cynical about women. He has, for the second time, quite altered. Why
will men have theories about women? I haven’t any about men. I wish,
too, that Mr. Beebe—”

“You may well wish that.”

“He will never forgive us—I mean, he will never be interested in us
again. I wish that he did not influence them so much at Windy Corner. I
wish he hadn’t—But if we act the truth, the people who really love us
are sure to come back to us in the long run.”

“Perhaps.” Then he said more gently: “Well, I acted the truth—the only
thing I did do—and you came back to me. So possibly you know.” He
turned back into the room. “Nonsense with that sock.” He carried her to
the window, so that she, too, saw all the view. They sank upon their
knees, invisible from the road, they hoped, and began to whisper one
another’s names. Ah! it was worth while; it was the great joy that they
had expected, and countless little joys of which they had never dreamt.
They were silent.

“Signorino, domani faremo—”

“Oh, bother that man!”

But Lucy remembered the vendor of photographs and said, “No, don’t be
rude to him.” Then with a catching of her breath, she murmured: “Mr.
Eager and Charlotte, dreadful frozen Charlotte. How cruel she would be
to a man like that!”

“Look at the lights going over the bridge.”

“But this room reminds me of Charlotte. How horrible to grow old in
Charlotte’s way! To think that evening at the rectory that she
shouldn’t have heard your father was in the house. For she would have
stopped me going in, and he was the only person alive who could have
made me see sense. You couldn’t have made me. When I am very happy”—she
kissed him—“I remember on how little it all hangs. If Charlotte had
only known, she would have stopped me going in, and I should have gone
to silly Greece, and become different for ever.”

“But she did know,” said George; “she did see my father, surely. He
said so.”

“Oh, no, she didn’t see him. She was upstairs with old Mrs. Beebe,
don’t you remember, and then went straight to the church. She said so.”

George was obstinate again. “My father,” said he, “saw her, and I
prefer his word. He was dozing by the study fire, and he opened his
eyes, and there was Miss Bartlett. A few minutes before you came in.
She was turning to go as he woke up. He didn’t speak to her.”

Then they spoke of other things—the desultory talk of those who have
been fighting to reach one another, and whose reward is to rest quietly
in each other’s arms. It was long ere they returned to Miss Bartlett,
but when they did her behaviour seemed more interesting. George, who
disliked any darkness, said: “It’s clear that she knew. Then, why did
she risk the meeting? She knew he was there, and yet she went to
church.”

They tried to piece the thing together.

As they talked, an incredible solution came into Lucy’s mind. She
rejected it, and said: “How like Charlotte to undo her work by a feeble
muddle at the last moment.” But something in the dying evening, in the
roar of the river, in their very embrace warned them that her words
fell short of life, and George whispered: “Or did she mean it?”

“Mean what?”

“Signorino, domani faremo uno giro—”

Lucy bent forward and said with gentleness: “Lascia, prego, lascia.
Siamo sposati.”

“Scusi tanto, signora,” he replied in tones as gentle and whipped up
his horse.

“Buona sera—e grazie.”

“Niente.”

The cabman drove away singing.

“Mean what, George?”

He whispered: “Is it this? Is this possible? I’ll put a marvel to you.
That your cousin has always hoped. That from the very first moment we
met, she hoped, far down in her mind, that we should be like this—of
course, very far down. That she fought us on the surface, and yet she
hoped. I can’t explain her any other way. Can you? Look how she kept me
alive in you all the summer; how she gave you no peace; how month after
month she became more eccentric and unreliable. The sight of us haunted
her—or she couldn’t have described us as she did to her friend. There
are details—it burnt. I read the book afterwards. She is not frozen,
Lucy, she is not withered up all through. She tore us apart twice, but
in the rectory that evening she was given one more chance to make us
happy. We can never make friends with her or thank her. But I do
believe that, far down in her heart, far below all speech and
behaviour, she is glad.”

“It is impossible,” murmured Lucy, and then, remembering the
experiences of her own heart, she said: “No—it is just possible.”

Youth enwrapped them; the song of Phaethon announced passion requited,
love attained. But they were conscious of a love more mysterious than
this. The song died away; they heard the river, bearing down the snows
of winter into the Mediterranean.







    AGATHA
    CHRISTIE




    The Secret
    of Chimneys


    THE SECRET OF CHIMNEYS
    Copyright © 1925 by Dodd, Mead & Company, Inc.




    TO
    PUNKIE




Contents


    1 ANTHONY CADE SIGNS ON      _1_

    2 A LADY IN DISTRESS      _11_

    3 ANXIETY IN HIGH PLACES      _20_

    4 INTRODUCING A VERY CHARMING LADY      _27_

    5 FIRST NIGHT IN LONDON      _33_

    6 THE GENTLE ART OF BLACKMAIL      _46_

    7 MR. MCGRATH REFUSES AN INVITATION      _57_

    8 A DEAD MAN      _66_

    9 ANTHONY DISPOSES OF A BODY      _74_

    10 CHIMNEYS      _83_

    11 SUPERINTENDENT BATTLE ARRIVES      _94_

    12 ANTHONY TELLS HIS STORY       _100_

    13 THE AMERICAN VISITOR      _110_

    14 MAINLY POLITICAL AND FINANCIAL      _116_

    15 THE FRENCH STRANGER      _125_

    16 TEA IN THE SCHOOLROOM      _138_

    17 A MIDNIGHT ADVENTURE      _150_

    18 SECOND MIDNIGHT ADVENTURE      _159_

    19 SECRET HISTORY      _170_

    20 BATTLE AND ANTHONY CONFER      _181_

    21 MR. ISAACSTEIN’S SUIT-CASE      _188_

    22 THE RED SIGNAL      _199_

    23 ENCOUNTER IN THE ROSE GARDEN      _212_

    24 THE HOUSE AT DOVER      _222_

    25 TUESDAY NIGHT AT CHIMNEYS      _230_

    26 THE 13TH OF OCTOBER      _238_

    27 THE 13TH OF OCTOBER (_contd._)      _244_

    28 KING VICTOR      _254_

    29 FURTHER EXPLANATIONS      _259_

    30 ANTHONY SIGNS ON FOR A NEW JOB      _264_

    31 SUNDRY DETAILS      _271_




1

Anthony Cade Signs on


“Gentleman Joe!”

“Why, if it isn’t old Jimmy McGrath.”

Castle’s Select Tour, represented by seven depressed-looking females
and three perspiring males, looked on with considerable interest.
Evidently their Mr. Cade had met an old friend. They all admired
Mr. Cade so much, his tall lean figure, his sun-tanned face, the
light-hearted manner with which he settled disputes and cajoled
them all into good temper. This friend of his now—surely rather a
peculiar-looking man. About the same height as Mr. Cade, but thickset
and not nearly so good-looking. The sort of man one read about in
books, who probably kept a saloon. Interesting, though. After all, that
was what one came abroad for—to see all these peculiar things one read
about in books. Up to now, they had been rather bored with Bulawayo.
The sun was unbearably hot, the hotel was uncomfortable, there seemed
to be nowhere particular to go until the moment should arrive to motor
to the Matoppos. Very fortunately, Mr. Cade had suggested picture
postcards. There was an excellent supply of picture postcards.

Anthony Cade and his friend had stepped a little apart.

“What the hell are you doing with this pack of females?” demanded
McGrath. “Starting a harem.”

“Not with this little lot,” grinned Anthony. “Have you taken a good
look at them?”

“I have that. Thought maybe you were losing your eyesight.”

“My eyesight’s as good as ever it was. No, this is a Castle’s Select
Tour. I’m Castle—the local Castle, I mean.”

“What the hell made you take on a job like that?”

“A regrettable necessity for cash. I can assure you it doesn’t suit my
temperament.”

Jimmy grinned.

“Never a hog for regular work, were you?”

Anthony ignored this aspersion.

“However, something will turn up soon, I expect,” he remarked
hopefully. “It usually does.”

Jimmy chuckled.

“If there’s any trouble brewing, Anthony Cade is sure to be in it
sooner or later, I know that,” he said. “You’ve an absolute instinct
for rows—_and_ the nine lives of a cat. When can we have a yarn
together?”

Anthony sighed.

“I’ve got to take these cackling hens to see Rhodes’s grave.”

“That’s the stuff,” said Jimmy approvingly. “They’ll come back bumped
black and blue with the ruts in the road, and clamouring for bed
to rest the bruises on. Then you and I will have a spot or two and
exchange the news.”

“Right. So long, Jimmy.”

Anthony rejoined his flock of sheep. Miss Taylor, the youngest and most
skittish of the party, instantly attacked him.

“Oh, Mr. Cade, was that an old friend of yours?”

“It was, Miss Taylor. One of the friends of my blameless youth.”

Miss Taylor giggled.

“I thought he was such an interesting-looking man.”

“I’ll tell him you said so.”

“Oh, Mr. Cade, how can you be so naughty! The very idea! What was that
name he called you?”

“Gentleman Joe?”

“Yes. Is your name Joe?”

“I thought you knew it was Anthony, Miss Taylor.”

“Oh, go on with you!” cried Miss Taylor coquettishly.

Anthony had by now well mastered his duties. In addition to making the
necessary arrangements of travel, they included soothing down irritable
old gentlemen when their dignity was ruffled, seeing that elderly
matrons had ample opportunities to buy picture postcards, and flirting
with everything under a catholic forty years of age. The last task
was rendered easier for him by the extreme readiness of the ladies in
question to read a tender meaning into his most innocent remarks.

Miss Taylor returned to the attack.

“Why does he call you Joe, then?”

“Oh, just because it isn’t my name.”

“And why Gentleman Joe?”

“The same kind of reason.”

“Oh, Mr. Cade,” protested Miss Taylor, much distressed, “I’m sure you
shouldn’t say that. Papa was only saying last night what gentlemanly
manners you had.”

“Very kind of your father, I’m sure, Miss Taylor.”

“And we are all agreed that you are quite the gentleman.”

“I’m overwhelmed.”

“No, really, I mean it.”

“Kind hearts are more than coronets,” said Anthony vaguely, without a
notion of what he meant by the remark, and wishing fervently it was
lunch time.

“That’s such a beautiful poem, I always think. Do you know much poetry,
Mr. Cade?”

“I might recite ‘The boy stood on the burning deck’ at a pinch. ‘The
boy stood on the burning deck, whence all but he had fled.’ That’s all
I know, but I can do that bit with action if you like. ‘The boy stood
on the burning deck’—whoosh—whoosh—whoosh—(the flames, you see)
‘Whence all but he had fled’—for that bit I run to and fro like a dog.”

Miss Taylor screamed with laughter.

“Oh, do look at Mr. Cade! Isn’t he funny?”

“Time for morning tea,” said Anthony briskly. “Come this way. There is
an excellent café in the next street.”

“I presume,” said Mrs. Caldicott, in her deep voice, “that the expense
is included in the Tour?”

“Morning tea, Mrs. Caldicott,” said Anthony, assuming his professional
manner, “is an extra.”

“Disgraceful.”

“Life is full of trials, isn’t it?” said Anthony cheerfully. Mrs.
Caldicott’s eyes gleamed, and she remarked with the air of one
springing a mine:

“I suspected as much, and in anticipation I poured off some tea into a
jug at breakfast this morning! I can heat that up on the spirit lamp.
Come, father.”

Mr. and Mrs. Caldicott sailed off triumphantly to the hotel, the lady’s
back complacent with successful forethought.

“Oh, Lord,” muttered Anthony, “what a lot of funny people it does take
to make a world.”

He marshalled the rest of the party in the direction of the café. Miss
Taylor kept by his side, and resumed her catechism.

“Is it a long time since you saw your friend?”

“Just over seven years.”

“Was it in Africa you knew him?”

“Yes, not this part though. The first time I ever saw Jimmy McGrath, he
was all trussed up ready for the cooking pot. Some of the tribes in the
interior are cannibals, you know. We got there just in time.”

“What happened?”

“Very nice little shindy. We potted some of the beggars, and the rest
took to their heels.”

“Oh, Mr. Cade, what an adventurous life you must have led!”

“Very peaceful, I assure you.”

But it was clear that the lady did not believe him.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was about ten o’clock that night when Anthony Cade walked into the
small room where Jimmy McGrath was busy manipulating various bottles.

“Make it strong, James,” he implored. “I can tell you, I need it.”

“I should think you did, my boy. I wouldn’t take on that job of yours
for anything.”

“Show me another, and I’ll jump out of it fast enough.”

McGrath poured out his own drink, tossed it off with a practised hand
and mixed a second one. Then he said slowly:

“Are you in earnest about that, old son?”

“About what?”

“Chucking this job of yours if you could get another?”

“Why? You don’t mean to say that you’ve got a job going begging? Why
don’t you grab it yourself?”

“I have grabbed it—but I don’t much fancy it, that’s why I’m trying to
pass it on to you.”

Anthony became suspicious.

“What’s wrong with it? They haven’t engaged you to teach in a Sunday
school, have they?”

“Do you think anyone would choose me to teach in a Sunday school?”

“Not if they knew you well, certainly.”

“It’s a perfectly good job—nothing wrong with it whatsoever.”

“Not in South America by any lucky chance? I’ve rather got my eye on
South America. There’s a very tidy little revolution coming off in one
of those little republics soon.”

McGrath grinned.

“You always were keen on revolutions—anything to be mixed up in a
really good row.”

“I feel my talents might be appreciated out there. I tell you, Jimmy,
I can be jolly useful in a revolution—to one side or the other. It’s
better than making an honest living any day.”

“I think I’ve heard that sentiment from you before, my son. No, the job
isn’t in South America—it’s in England.”

“England? Return of hero to his native land after many long years. They
can’t dun you for bills after seven years, can they, Jimmy?”

“I don’t think so. Well, are you on for hearing more about it?”

“I’m on all right. The thing that worries me is why you’re not taking
it on yourself.”

“I’ll tell you. I’m after gold, Anthony—far up in the interior.”

Anthony whistled and looked at him.

“You’ve always been after gold, Jimmy, ever since I knew you. It’s your
weak spot—your own particular little hobby. You’ve followed up more
wild-cat trails than anyone I know.”

“And in the end I’ll strike it. You’ll see.”

“Well, every one his own hobby. Mine’s rows, yours is gold.”

“I’ll tell you the whole story. I suppose you know all about
Herzoslovakia?”

Anthony looked up sharply.

“Herzoslovakia?” he said, with a curious ring in his voice.

“Yes. Know anything about it?”

There was quite an appreciable pause before Anthony answered. Then he
said slowly:

“Only what every one knows. It’s one of the Balkan States, isn’t it?
Principal rivers, unknown. Principal mountains, also unknown, but
fairly numerous. Capital, Ekarest. Population, chiefly brigands. Hobby,
assassinating Kings and having Revolutions. Last King, Nicholas IV.
Assassinated about seven years ago. Since then it’s been a Republic.
Altogether a very likely spot. You might have mentioned before that
Herzoslovakia came into it.”

“It doesn’t except indirectly.”

Anthony gazed at him more in sorrow than in anger.

“You ought to do something about this, James,” he said. “Take a
correspondence course, or something. If you’d told a story like this in
the good old Eastern days, you’d have been hung up by the heels and
bastinadoed or something equally unpleasant.”

Jimmy pursued his course quite unmoved by these strictures.

“Ever heard of Count Stylptitch?”

“Now you’re talking,” said Anthony. “Many people who have never heard
of Herzoslovakia would brighten at the mention of Count Stylptitch.
The Grand Old Man of the Balkans. The Greatest Statesman of Modern
Times. The biggest Villain unhung. The point of view all depends on
which newspaper you take in. But be sure of this, Count Stylptitch will
be remembered long after you and I are dust and ashes, James. Every
move and counter move in the Near East for the last twenty years has
had Count Stylptitch at the bottom of it. He’s been a dictator and a
patriot and a statesman—and nobody knows exactly what he has been,
except that he’s been a perfect King of intrigue. Well, what about him?”

“He was Prime Minister of Herzoslovakia—that’s why I mentioned it
first.”

“You’ve no sense of proportion, Jimmy. Herzoslovakia is of no
importance at all compared to Stylptitch. It just provided him with a
birthplace and a post in public affairs. But I thought he was dead?”

“So he is. He died in Paris about two months ago. What I’m telling you
about happened some years ago.”

“The question is,” said Anthony, “what _are_ you telling me about?”

Jimmy accepted the rebuke and hastened on.

“It was like this. I was in Paris—just four years ago, to be exact. I
was walking along one night in rather a lonely part, when I saw half a
dozen French toughs beating up a respectable-looking old gentleman. I
hate a one-sided show, so I promptly butted in and proceeded to beat
up the toughs. I guess they’d never been hit really hard before. They
melted like snow!”

“Good for you, James,” said Anthony softly. “I’d like to have seen that
scrap.”

“Oh, it was nothing much,” said Jimmy modestly. “But the old boy was
no end grateful. He’d had a couple, no doubt about that, but he was
sober enough to get my name and address out of me, and he came along
and thanked me next day. Did the thing in style too. It was then that I
found out it was Count Stylptitch I’d rescued. He’d got a house up by
the Bois.”

Anthony nodded.

“Yes, Stylptitch went to live in Paris after the assassination of King
Nicholas. They wanted him to come back and be President later, but he
wasn’t taking any. He remained sound to his Monarchical principals,
though he was reported to have his finger in all the backstairs pies
that went on in the Balkans. Very deep, the late Count Stylptitch.”

“Nicholas IV was the man who had a funny taste in wives, wasn’t he?”
said Jimmy suddenly.

“Yes,” said Anthony. “And it did for him too, poor beggar. She was some
little guttersnipe of a music hall artiste in Paris—not even suitable
for a morganatic alliance. But Nicholas had a frightful crush on her,
and she was all out for being a Queen. Sounds fantastic, but they
managed it somehow. Called her the Countess Popoffsky, or something,
and pretended she had Romanoff blood in her veins. Nicholas married her
in the Cathedral at Ekarest with a couple of unwilling Arch-bishops to
do the job, and she was crowned as Queen Varaga. Nicholas squared his
Ministers, and I suppose he thought that was all that mattered—but
he forgot to reckon with the populace. They’re very aristocratic and
reactionary in Herzoslovakia. They like their Kings and Queens to be
the genuine article. There were mutterings and discontent, and the
usual ruthless suppressions, and the final uprising which stormed the
Palace, murdered the King and Queen, and proclaimed a Republic. It’s
been a Republic ever since—but things still manage to be pretty lively
there, so I’ve heard. They’ve assassinated a President or two, just to
keep their hand in. But _revenons à nos moutons_. You had got to where
Count Stylptitch was hailing you as his preserver.”

“Yes. Well, that was the end of that business. I came back to
Africa and never thought of it again until about two weeks ago I
got a queer-looking parcel which had been following me all over the
place for the Lord knows how long. I’d seen in a paper that Count
Stylptitch had recently died in Paris. Well, this parcel contained his
Memoirs—or Reminiscences, or whatever you call the things. There was
a note enclosed to the effect that if I delivered the manuscript at a
certain firm of publishers in London on or before October 13 they were
instructed to hand me a thousand pounds.”

“A thousand pounds? Did you say a thousand pounds, Jimmy?”

“I did, my son. I hope to God it’s not a hoax. Put not your trust in
Princes or Politicians, as the saying goes. Well, there it is. Owing
to the way the manuscript had been following me around, I had no time
to lose. It was a pity, all the same. I’d just fixed up this trip to
the interior, and I’d set my heart on going. I shan’t get such a good
chance again.”

“You’re incurable, Jimmy. A thousand pounds in the hand is worth a lot
of mythical gold.”

“And supposing it’s all a hoax? Anyway, here I am, passage booked and
everything, on the way to Cape Town—and then you blow along!”

Anthony got up and lit a cigarette.

“I begin to perceive your drift, James. You go gold hunting as planned,
and I collect the thousand pounds for you. How much do I get out of it?”

“What do you say to a quarter?”

“Two hundred and fifty pounds free of income tax, as the saying goes?”

“That’s it.”

“Done, and just to make you gnash your teeth I’ll tell you that I would
have gone for a hundred! Let me tell you, James McGrath, _you_ won’t
die in your bed counting up your bank balance.”

“Anyway, it’s a deal?”

“It’s a deal all right. I’m on. And confusion to Castle’s Select Tours.”

They drank the toast solemnly.




2

A Lady in Distress


“So that’s that,” said Anthony, finishing off his glass and replacing
it on the table. “What boat were you going on?”

“_Granarth Castle._”

“Passage booked in your name, I suppose, so I’d better travel as James
McGrath. We’ve outgrown the passport business, haven’t we?”

“No odds either way. You and I are totally unlike, but we’d probably
have the same description on one of those blinking things. Height 6
feet, hair brown, eyes blue, nose, ordinary, chin ordinary——”

“Not so much of this ‘ordinary’ stunt. Let me tell you that Castle’s
selected me out of several applicants solely on account of my pleasing
appearance and nice manners.”

Jimmy grinned.

“I noticed your manners this morning.”

“The devil you did.”

Anthony rose and paced up and down the room. His brow was slightly
wrinkled, and it was some minutes before he spoke.

“Jimmy,” he said at last. “Stylptitch died in Paris. What’s the point
of sending a manuscript from Paris to London via Africa?”

Jimmy shook his head helplessly.

“I don’t know.”

“Why not do it up in a nice little parcel and send it by post?”

“Sounds a damn sight more sensible, I agree.”

“Of course,” continued Anthony, “I know that Kings and Queens and
Government officials are prevented by etiquette from doing anything
in a simple, straightforward fashion. Hence King’s Messengers and all
that. In medieval days you gave a fellow a signet ring as a sort of
Open Sesame. ‘The King’s Ring! Pass, my Lord!’ And usually it was the
other fellow who had stolen it. I always wonder why some bright lad
never hit on the expedient of copying the ring—making a dozen or so,
and selling them at a hundred ducats apiece. They seem to have had no
initiative in the Middle Ages.”

Jimmy yawned.

“My remarks on the Middle Ages don’t seem to amuse you. Let us get back
to Count Stylptitch. From France to England via Africa seems a bit
thick even for a diplomatic personage. If he merely wanted to ensure
that you should get a thousand pounds he could have left it you in his
will. Thank God neither you nor I are too proud to accept a legacy!
Stylptitch must have been balmy.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?”

Anthony frowned and continued his pacing.

“Have you read the thing at all?” he asked suddenly.

“Read what?”

“The manuscript.”

“Good Lord, no. What do you think I want to read a thing of that kind
for?”

Anthony smiled.

“I just wondered, that’s all. You know a lot of trouble has been
caused by Memoirs. Indiscreet revelations, that sort of thing. People
who have been closed as an oyster all their lives seem positively
to relish causing trouble when they themselves shall be comfortably
dead. It gives them a kind of malicious glee. Jimmy, what sort of a
man was Count Stylptitch? You met him and talked to him, and you’re a
pretty good judge of raw human nature. Could you imagine him being a
vindictive old devil?”

Jimmy shook his head.

“It’s difficult to tell. You see, that first night he was distinctly
canned, and the next day he was just a high-toned old boy with the most
beautiful manners overwhelming me with compliments till I didn’t know
where to look.”

“And he didn’t say anything interesting when he was drunk?”

Jimmy cast his mind back, wrinkling his brows as he did so.

“He said he knew where the Koh-i-noor was,” he volunteered doubtfully.

“Oh, well,” said Anthony, “we all know that. They keep it in the
Tower, don’t they? Behind thick plate glass and iron bars, with a lot
of gentlemen in fancy dress standing round to see you don’t pinch
anything.”

“That’s right,” agreed Jimmy.

“Did Stylptitch say anything else of the same kind? That he knew which
city the Wallace Collection was in, for instance?”

Jimmy shook his head.

“H’m!” said Anthony.

He lit another cigarette, and once more began pacing up and down the
room.

“You never read the papers, I suppose, you heathen?” he threw out
presently.

“Not very often,” said McGrath simply. “They’re not about anything that
interests me as a rule.”

“Thank Heaven I’m more civilized. There have been several mentions of
Herzoslovakia lately. Hints at a Royalist restoration.”

“Nicholas IV didn’t leave a son,” said Jimmy. “But I don’t suppose for
a minute that the Obolovitch dynasty is extinct. There are probably
shoals of young ’uns knocking about, cousins and second cousins and
third cousins once removed.”

“So that there wouldn’t be any difficulty in finding a King?”

“Not in the least, I should say,” replied Jimmy. “You know, I
don’t wonder at their getting tired of Republican institutions. A
full-blooded, virile people like that must find it awfully tame to pot
at Presidents after being used to Kings. And talking of Kings, that
reminds me of something else old Stylptitch let out that night. He said
he knew the gang that was after him. They were King Victor’s people, he
said.”

“What?” Anthony wheeled round suddenly.

A slow grin widened on McGrath’s face.

“Just a mite excited, aren’t you, Gentleman Joe?” he drawled.

“Don’t be an ass, Jimmy. You’ve just said something rather important.”

He went over to the window and stood there looking out.

“Who is this King Victor, anyway?” demanded Jimmy. “Another Balkan
Monarch?”

“No,” said Anthony slowly. “He isn’t that kind of a King.”

“What is he, then?”

There was a pause, and then Anthony spoke.

“He’s a crook, Jimmy. The most notorious jewel thief in the world. A
fantastic, daring fellow, not to be daunted by anything. King Victor
was the nickname he was known by in Paris. Paris was the headquarters
of his gang. They caught him there and put him away for seven years on
a minor charge. They couldn’t prove the more important things against
him. He’ll be out soon—or he may be out already.”

“Do you think Count Stylptitch had anything to do with putting him
away? Was that why the gang went for him? Out of revenge?”

“I don’t know,” said Anthony. “It doesn’t seem likely on the face of
it. King Victor never stole the Crown jewels of Herzoslovakia as far
as I’ve heard. But the whole thing seems rather suggestive, doesn’t
it? The death of Stylptitch, the Memoirs, and the rumours in the
papers—all vague but interesting. And there’s a further rumour to the
effect that they’ve found oil in Herzoslovakia. I’ve a feeling in my
bones, James, that people are getting ready to be interested in that
unimportant little country.”

“What sort of people?”

“Financiers in City offices.”

“What are you driving at with all this?”

“Trying to make an easy job difficult, that’s all.”

“You can’t pretend there’s going to be any difficulty in handing over a
simple manuscript at a publisher’s office?”

“No,” said Anthony regretfully. “I don’t suppose there’ll be anything
difficult about that. But shall I tell you, James, where I propose to
go with my £250?”

“South America?”

“No, my lad, Herzoslovakia. I shall stand in with the Republic, I
think. Very probably I shall end up as President.”

“Why not announce yourself as the principal Obolovitch and be a King
whilst you’re about it?”

“No, Jimmy. Kings are for life. Presidents only take on the job for
four years or so. It would quite amuse me to govern a kingdom like
Herzoslovakia for four years.”

“The average for Kings is even less, I should say,” interpolated Jimmy.

“It will probably be a serious temptation to me to embezzle your share
of the thousand pounds. You won’t want it, you know, when you get back
weighed down with nuggets. I’ll invest it for you in Herzoslovakian oil
shares. You know, James, the more I think of it, the more pleased I am
with this idea of yours. I should never have thought of Herzoslovakia
if you hadn’t mentioned it. I shall spend one day in London, collecting
the booty, and then away by the Balkan express!”

“You won’t get off quite as fast as that. I didn’t mention it before,
but I’ve got another little commission for you.”

Anthony sank into a chair and eyed him severely.

“I knew all along that you were keeping something dark. This is where
the catch comes in.”

“Not a bit. It’s just something that’s got to be done to help a lady.”

“Once and for all, James, I refuse to be mixed up in your beastly love
affairs.”

“It’s not a love affair. I’ve never seen the woman. I’ll tell you the
whole story.”

“If I’ve got to listen to more of your long, rambling stories, I shall
have to have another drink.”

His host complied hospitably with this demand, then began the tale.

“It was when I was up in Uganda. There was a Dago there whose life I
had saved——”

“If I were you, Jimmy, I should write a short book entitled ‘Lives I
have Saved.’ This is the second I’ve heard of this evening.”

“Oh, well, I didn’t really do anything this time. Just pulled the Dago
out of the river. Like all Dagos, he couldn’t swim.”

“Wait a minute, has this story anything to do with the other business?”

“Nothing whatever, though, oddly enough, now I remember it, the man was
a Herzoslovakian. We always called him Dutch Pedro though.”

Anthony nodded indifferently.

“Any name’s good enough for a Dago,” he remarked. “Get on with the good
work, James.”

“Well, the fellow was sort of grateful about it. Hung around like a
dog. About six months later he died of fever. I was with him. Last
thing, just as he was pegging out, he beckoned me and whispered some
excited jargon about a secret—a gold mine, I thought he said. Shoved
an oilskin packet into my hand which he’d always worn next his skin.
Well, I didn’t think much of it at the time. It wasn’t until a week
afterwards that I opened the packet. Then I was curious, I must
confess. I shouldn’t have thought that Dutch Pedro would have had the
sense to know a gold mine when he saw it—but there’s no accounting for
luck——”

“And at the mere thought of gold, your heart beat pitter-pat as
always,” interrupted Anthony.

“I was never so disgusted in my life. Gold mine, indeed! I daresay it
may have been a gold mine to him, the dirty dog. Do you know what it
was? A woman’s letters—yes, a woman’s letters, and an Englishwoman at
that. The skunk had been blackmailing her—and he had the impudence to
pass on his dirty bag of tricks to me.”

“I like to see your righteous heat, James, but let me point out to
you that Dagos will be Dagos. He meant well. You had saved his life,
he bequeathed to you a profitable source of raising money—your
high-minded British ideals did not enter his horizon.”

“Well, what the hell was I to do with the things? Burn ’em, that’s what
I thought at first. And then it occurred to me that there would be that
poor dame, not knowing they’d be destroyed, and always living in a
quake and a dread lest that Dago should turn up again one day.”

“You’ve more imagination than I gave you credit for, Jimmy,” observed
Anthony, lighting a cigarette. “I admit that the case presented more
difficulties than were at first apparent. What about just sending them
to her by post?”

“Like all women, she’d put no date and no address on most of the
letters. There was a kind of address on one—just one word. Chimneys.”

Anthony paused in the act of blowing out his match, and he dropped it
with a quick jerk of the wrist as it burned his finger.

“Chimneys?” he said. “That’s rather extraordinary.”

“Why, do you know it?”

“It’s one of the stately homes of England, my dear James. A place
where Kings and Queens go for weekends, and diplomatists forgather and
diplome.”

“That’s one of the reasons why I’m so glad that you’re going to England
instead of me. You know all these things,” said Jimmy simply. “A josser
like myself from the backwoods of Canada would be making all sorts of
bloomers. But some one like you who’s been to Eton and Harrow——”

“Only one of them,” said Anthony modestly.

“Will be able to carry it through. Why didn’t I send them to her, you
say? Well, it seemed to me dangerous. From what I could make out, she
seemed to have a jealous husband. Suppose he opened the letter by
mistake. Where would the poor dame be then? Or she might be dead—the
letters looked as though they’d been written some time. As I figured it
out, the only thing was for some one to take them to England and put
them into her own hands.”

Anthony threw away his cigarette, and coming across to his friend
clapped him affectionately on the back.

“You’re a real knight-errant, Jimmy,” he said. “And the backwoods of
Canada should be proud of you. I shan’t do the job half as prettily as
you would.”

“You’ll take it on then?”

“Of course.”

McGrath rose, and going across to a drawer took out a bundle of letters
and threw them on the table.

“Here you are. You’d better have a look at them.”

“Is it necessary? On the whole, I’d rather not.”

“Well, from what you say about this Chimneys place, she may have been
staying there only. We’d better look through the letters and see if
there’s any clue as to where she really hangs out.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

They went through the letters carefully, but without finding what they
had hoped to find. Anthony gathered them up again thoughtfully.

“Poor little devil,” he remarked. “She was scared stiff.”

Jimmy nodded.

“Do you think you’ll be able to find her all right?” he asked
anxiously.

“I won’t leave England till I have. You’re very concerned about this
unknown lady, James?”

Jimmy ran his finger thoughtfully over the signature.

“It’s a pretty name,” he said apologetically. “_Virginia Revel._”




3

Anxiety in High Places


“Quite so, my dear fellow, quite so,” said Lord Caterham.

He had used the same words three times already, each time in the hope
that they would end the interview and permit him to escape. He disliked
very much being forced to stand on the steps of the exclusive London
club to which he belonged and listen to the interminable eloquence of
the Hon. George Lomax.

Clement Edward Alistair Brent, ninth Marquis of Caterham, was a small
gentleman, shabbily dressed, and entirely unlike the popular conception
of a Marquis. He had faded blue eyes, a thin melancholy nose, and a
vague but courteous manner.

The principal misfortune of Lord Caterham’s life was to have succeeded
his brother, the eighth Marquis, four years ago. For the previous Lord
Caterham had been a man of mark, a household word all over England. At
one time Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, he had always bulked
largely in the counsels of the Empire, and his country seat, Chimneys,
was famous for its hospitality. Ably seconded by his wife, a daughter
of the Duke of Perth, history had been made and unmade at informal
week-end parties at Chimneys, and there was hardly anyone of note in
England—or indeed in Europe—who had not, at one time or another,
stayed there.

That was all very well. The ninth Marquis of Caterham had the utmost
respect and esteem for the memory of his brother. Henry had done that
kind of thing magnificently. What Lord Caterham objected to was the
assumption that he was bound to follow in his brother’s footsteps,
and that Chimneys was a National possession rather than a private
country house. There was nothing that bored Lord Caterham more than
politics—unless it was politicians. Hence his impatience under the
continued eloquence of George Lomax. A robust man, George Lomax,
inclined to _embonpoint_, with a red face and protuberant eyes, and an
immense sense of his own importance.

“You see the point, Caterham? We can’t—we simply can’t afford a
scandal of any kind just now. The position is one of the utmost
delicacy.”

“It always is,” said Lord Caterham, with a flavour of irony.

“My dear fellow, I’m in a position to _know_!”

“Oh, quite so, quite so,” said Lord Caterham, falling back upon his
previous line of defence.

“One slip over this Herzoslovakian business and we’re done. It is most
important that the Oil concessions should be granted to a British
company. You must see that?”

“Of course, of course.”

“Prince Michael Obolovitch arrives the end of the week, and the whole
thing can be carried through at Chimneys under the guise of a shooting
party.”

“I was thinking of going abroad this week,” said Lord Caterham.

“Nonsense, my dear Caterham, no one goes abroad in early October.”

“My doctor seems to think I’m in rather a bad way,” said Lord Caterham,
eyeing a taxi that was crawling past with longing eyes.

He was quite unable to make a dash for liberty, however, since Lomax
had the unpleasant habit of retaining a hold upon a person with whom
he was engaged in serious conversation—doubtless the result of long
experience. In this case, he had a firm grip of the lapel of Lord
Caterham’s coat.

“My dear man, I put it to you imperially. In a moment of national
crisis, such as is fast approaching——”

Lord Caterham wriggled uneasily. He felt suddenly that he would rather
give any number of house parties than listen to George Lomax quoting
from one of his own speeches. He knew by experience that Lomax was
quite capable of going on for twenty minutes without a stop.

“All right,” he said hastily, “I’ll do it. You’ll arrange the whole
thing, I suppose.”

“My dear fellow, there’s nothing to arrange. Chimneys, quite apart
from its historic associations, is ideally situated. I shall be at the
Abbey, less than seven miles away. It wouldn’t do, of course, for me to
be actually a member of the house party.”

“Of course not,” agreed Lord Caterham, who had no idea why it would not
do, and was not interested to learn.

“Perhaps you wouldn’t mind having Bill Eversleigh, though. He’d be
useful to run messages.”

“Delighted,” said Lord Caterham, with a shade more animation. “Bill’s
quite a decent shot, and Bundle likes him.”

“The shooting, of course, is not really important. It’s only the
pretext, as it were.”

Lord Caterham looked depressed again.

“That will be all, then. The Prince, his suite, Bill Eversleigh, Herman
Isaacstein——”

“Who?”

“Herman Isaacstein. The representative of the syndicate I spoke to you
about.”

“The all British syndicate?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Nothing—nothing—I only wondered, that’s all. Curious names these
people have.”

“Then, of course, there ought to be one or two outsiders—just to
give the thing a _bona fide_ appearance. Lady Eileen could see to
that—young people, uncritical, and with no idea of politics.”

“Bundle would attend to that all right, I’m sure.”

“I wonder now.” Lomax seemed struck by an idea.

“You remember the matter I was speaking about just now?”

“You’ve been speaking about so many things.”

“No, no, I mean this unfortunate _contretemps_”—— he lowered his
voice to a mysterious whisper—“the memoirs—Count Stylptitch’s
memoirs.”

“I think you’re wrong about that,” said Lord Caterham, suppressing
a yawn. “People _like_ scandal. Damn it all, I read Reminiscences
myself—and enjoy ’em too.”

“The point is not whether people will read them or not—they’ll read
them fast enough—but their publication at this juncture might ruin
everything—everything. The people of Herzoslovakia wish to restore the
Monarchy, and are prepared to offer the Crown to Prince Michael who has
the support and encouragement of His Majesty’s Government——”

“And who is prepared to grant concessions to Mr. Ikey Hermanstein & Co.
in return for the loan of a million or so to set him on the throne——”

“Caterham, Caterham,” implored Lomax in an agonized whisper.
“Discretion, I beg of you. Above all things, discretion.”

“And the point is,” continued Lord Caterham, with some relish, though
he lowered his voice in obedience to the other’s appeal, “that some
of Stylptitch’s Reminiscences may upset the apple cart. Tyranny and
misbehaviour of the Obolovitch family generally, eh? Questions asked in
the House. Why replace the present broad-minded and democratic form of
Government by an obsolete tyranny? Policy dictated by the blood-sucking
Capitalists. Down with the Government. That kind of thing—eh?”

Lomax nodded.

“And there might be worse still,” he breathed. “Suppose—only
suppose that some reference should be made to—to that unfortunate
disappearance—you know what I mean.”

Lord Caterham stared at him.

“No, I don’t. What disappearance?”

“You must have heard of it? Why, it happened while they were at
Chimneys. Henry was terribly upset about it. It almost ruined his
career.”

“You interest me enormously,” said Lord Caterham. “Who or what
disappeared?”

Lomax leant forward and put his mouth to Lord Caterham’s ear. The
latter withdrew it hastily.

“For God’s sake, don’t hiss at me.”

“You heard what I said?”

“Yes, I did,” said Lord Caterham reluctantly. “I remember now hearing
something about it at the time. Very curious affair. I wonder who did
it. It was never recovered?”

“Never. Of course we had to go about the matter with the utmost
discretion. No hint of the loss could be allowed to leak out. But
Stylptitch was there at the time. He knew something. Not all, but
something. We were at loggerheads with him once or twice over the
Turkish question. Suppose that in sheer malice he has set the whole
thing down for the world to read. Think of the scandal—of the
far-reaching results. Every one would say—why was it hushed up?”

“Of course they would,” said Lord Caterham, with evident enjoyment.

Lomax, whose voice had risen to a high pitch, took a grip on himself.

“I must keep calm,” he murmured. “I must keep calm. But I ask you
this, my dear fellow. If he didn’t mean mischief, why did he send the
manuscript to London in this roundabout way?”

“It’s odd, certainly. You are sure of your facts?”

“Absolutely. We—er—had our agents in Paris. The Memoirs were conveyed
away secretly some weeks before his death.”

“Yes, it looks as though there’s something in it,” said Lord Caterham,
with the same relish he had displayed before.

“We have found out that they were sent to a man called Jimmy, or James,
McGrath, a Canadian at present in Africa.”

“Quite an Imperial affair, isn’t it?” said Lord Caterham cheerily.

“James McGrath is due to arrive by the _Granarth Castle_
to-morrow—Thursday.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“We shall, of course, approach him at once, point out the possibly
serious consequences, and beg him to defer publication of the
Memoirs for at least a month, and in any case to permit them to be
judiciously—er—edited.”

“Supposing that he says ‘No, sir,’ or ‘I’ll goddarned well see you in
hell first,’ or something bright and breezy like that?” suggested Lord
Caterham.

“That’s just what I’m afraid of,” said Lomax simply. “That’s why it
suddenly occurred to me that it might be a good thing to ask him down
to Chimneys as well. He’d be flattered, naturally, at being asked to
meet Prince Michael, and it might be easier to handle him.”

“I’m not going to do it,” said Lord Caterham hastily. “I don’t get on
with Canadians, never did—especially those that have lived much in
Africa!”

“You’d probably find him a splendid fellow—a rough diamond, you know.”

“No, Lomax. I put my foot down there absolutely. Somebody else has got
to tackle him.”

“It has occurred to me,” said Lomax, “that a woman might be very useful
here. Told enough and not too much, you understand. A woman could
handle the whole thing delicately and with tact—put the position
before him, as it were, without getting his back up. Not that I approve
of women in politics—St. Stephen’s is ruined, absolutely ruined,
nowadays. But woman in her own sphere can do wonders. Look at Henry’s
wife and what she did for him. Marcia was magnificent, unique, a
perfect political hostess.”

“You don’t want me to ask Marcia down for this party, do you?” asked
Lord Caterham faintly, turning a little pale at the mention of his
redoubtable sister-in-law.

“No, no, you misunderstand me. I was speaking of the influence of women
in general. No, I suggest a young woman, a woman of charm, beauty,
intelligence?”

“Not Bundle? Bundle would be no use at all. She’s a red-hot socialist
if she’s anything at all, and she’d simply scream with laughter at the
suggestion.”

“I was not thinking of Lady Eileen. Your daughter, Caterham, is
charming, simply charming, but quite a child. We need some one with
_savoir faire_, poise, knowledge of the world—— Ah, of course, the
very person. My cousin Virginia.”

“Mrs. Revel?” Lord Caterham brightened up. He began to feel that he
might possibly enjoy the party after all. “A very good suggestion of
yours, Lomax. The most charming woman in London.”

“She is well up in Herzoslovakian affairs too. Her husband was at the
Embassy there, you remember. And, as you say, a woman of great personal
charm.”

“A delightful creature,” murmured Lord Caterham.

“That is settled, then.”

Mr. Lomax relaxed his hold on Lord Caterham’s lapel, and the latter was
quick to avail himself of the chance.

“Bye-bye, Lomax, you’ll make all the arrangements, won’t you.”

He dived into a taxi. As far as it is possible for one upright
Christian gentleman to dislike another upright Christian gentleman,
Lord Caterham disliked the Hon. George Lomax. He disliked his puffy red
face, his heavy breathing, and his prominent blue eyes. He thought of
the coming week and sighed. A nuisance, an abominable nuisance. Then he
thought of Virginia Revel and cheered up a little.

“A delightful creature,” he murmured to himself. “A most delightful
creature.”




4

Introducing a Very Charming Lady


George Lomax returned straightway to Whitehall. As he entered the
sumptuous apartment in which he transacted affairs of State, there was
a scuffling sound.

Mr. Bill Eversleigh was assiduously filing letters, but a large
arm-chair near the window was still warm from contact with a human form.

A very likeable young man, Bill Eversleigh. Age at a guess,
twenty-five, big and rather ungainly in his movements, a pleasurably
ugly face, a splendid set of white teeth and a pair of honest brown
eyes.

“Richardson sent up that report yet?”

“No, sir. Shall I get on to him about it?”

“It doesn’t matter. Any telephone messages?”

“Miss Oscar is dealing with most of them. Mr. Isaacstein wants to know
if you can dine with him at the Savoy to-morrow.”

“Tell Miss Oscar to look in my engagement-book. If I’m not engaged, she
can ring up and accept.”

“Yes, sir.”

“By the way, Eversleigh, you might ring up a number for me now. Look it
up in the book. Mrs. Revel, 487, Pont Street.”

“Yes, sir.”

Bill seized the telephone-book, ran an unseeing eye down a column of
M’s, shut the book with a bang and moved to the instrument on the desk.
With his hand upon it, he paused, as though in sudden recollection.

“Oh, I say, sir, I’ve just remembered. Her line’s out of order. Mrs.
Revel’s, I mean. I was trying to ring her up just now.”

George Lomax frowned.

“Annoying,” he said, “distinctly annoying.” He tapped the table
undecidedly.

“If it’s anything important, sir, perhaps I might go round there now in
a taxi. She’s sure to be in at this time in the morning.”

George Lomax hesitated, pondering the matter. Bill waited expectantly,
poised for instant flight, should the reply be favourable.

“Perhaps that would be the best plan,” said Lomax at last. “Very well,
then, take a taxi there, and ask Mrs. Revel if she will be at home this
afternoon at four o’clock as I am very anxious to see her about an
important matter.”

“Right, sir.”

Bill seized his hat and departed.

Ten minutes later, a taxi deposited him at 487, Pont Street. He rang
the bell and executed a loud rat-tat on the knocker. The door was
opened by a grave functionary to whom Bill nodded with the ease of long
acquaintance.

“Morning, Chilvers, Mrs. Revel in?”

“I believe, sir, that she is just going out.”

“Is that you, Bill?” called a voice over the banisters. “I thought I
recognized that muscular knock. Come up and talk to me.”

Bill looked up at the face that was laughing down on him, and which
was always inclined to reduce him—and not him alone—to a state of
babbling incoherency. He took the stairs two at a time and clasped
Virginia Revel’s out-stretched hands tightly in his.

“Hullo, Virginia!”

“Hullo, Bill!”

Charm is a very peculiar thing; hundreds of young women, some of them
more beautiful than Virginia Revel, might have said “Hullo, Bill,”
with exactly the same intonation, and yet have produced no effect
whatever. But those two simple words, uttered by Virginia, had the
most intoxicating effect upon Bill.

Virginia Revel was just twenty-seven. She was tall and of an exquisite
slimness—indeed, a poem might have been written to her slimness, it
was so exquisitely proportioned. Her hair was of real bronze, with the
greenish tint in its gold; she had a determined little chin, a lovely
nose, slanting blue eyes that showed a gleam of deepest cornflower
between the half-closed lids, and a delicious and quite indescribable
mouth that tilted ever so slightly at one corner in what is known as
“the signature of Venus.” It was a wonderfully expressive face, and
there was a sort of radiant vitality about her that always challenged
attention. It would have been quite impossible ever to ignore Virginia
Revel.

She drew Bill into the small drawing-room which was all pale and mauve
and green and yellow, like crocuses surprised in a meadow.

“Bill, darling,” said Virginia, “isn’t the Foreign Office missing you?
I thought they couldn’t get on without you.”

“I’ve brought a message for you from Codders.”

Thus irreverently did Bill allude to his chief.

“And by the way, Virginia, in case he asks, remember that your
telephone was out of order this morning.”

“But it hasn’t been.”

“I know that. But I said it was.”

“Why? Enlighten me as to this Foreign Office touch.”

Bill threw her a reproachful glance.

“So that I could get here and see you, of course.”

“Oh, darling Bill, how dense of me! And how perfectly sweet of you!”

“Chilvers said you were going out.”

“So I was—to Sloane Street. There’s a place there where they’ve got a
perfectly wonderful new hip band.”

“A hip band?”

“Yes, Bill, H.I.P. hip, B.A.N.D. band. A band to confine the hips. You
wear it next the skin.”

“I blush for you, Virginia. You shouldn’t describe your underwear to a
young man to whom you are not related. It isn’t delicate.”

“But, Bill dear, there’s nothing indelicate about hips. We’ve all got
hips—although we poor women are trying awfully hard to pretend we
haven’t. This hip band is made of red rubber and comes just to above
the knee, and it’s simply impossible to walk in it.”

“How awful!” said Bill. “Why do you do it?”

“Oh, because it gives one such a noble feeling to suffer for one’s
silhouette. But don’t let’s talk about my hip band. Give me George’s
message.”

“He wants to know whether you’ll be in at four o’clock this afternoon.”

“I shan’t. I shall be at Ranelagh. Why this sort of formal call? Is he
going to propose to me, do you think?”

“I shouldn’t wonder.”

“Because, if so, you can tell him that I much prefer men who propose on
impulse.”

“Like me?”

“It’s not an impulse with you, Bill. It’s habit.”

“Virginia, won’t you ever——”

“No, no, no, Bill. I won’t have it in the morning before lunch. Do try
and think of me as a nice motherly person approaching middle age who
has your interests thoroughly at heart.”

“Virginia, I do love you so.”

“I know, Bill, I know. And I simply love being loved. Isn’t it wicked
and dreadful of me? I should like every nice man in the world to be in
love with me.”

“Most of them are, I expect,” said Bill gloomily.

“But I hope George isn’t in love with me. I don’t think he can be. He’s
so wedded to his career. What else did he say?”

“Just that it was very important.”

“Bill, I’m getting intrigued. The things that George thinks important
are so awfully limited. I think I must chuck Ranelagh. After all, I
can go to Ranelagh any day. Tell George that I shall be awaiting him
meekly at four o’clock.”

Bill looked at his wrist watch.

“It seems hardly worth while to go back before lunch. Come out and chew
something, Virginia.”

“I’m going out to lunch somewhere or other.”

“That doesn’t matter. Make a day of it, and chuck everything all round.”

“It would be rather nice,” said Virginia, smiling at him.

“Virginia, you’re a darling. Tell me, you do like me rather, don’t you?
Better than other people.”

“Bill, I adore you. If I had to marry some one—simply had to—I mean
if it was in a book and a wicked mandarin said to me ‘Marry some one or
die by slow torture,’ I should choose you at once—I should indeed. I
should say, ‘Give me little Bill.’”

“Well, then——”

“Yes, but I haven’t got to marry any one. I love being a wicked widow.”

“You could do all the same things still. Go about, and all that. You’d
hardly notice me about the house.”

“Bill, you don’t understand. I’m the kind of person who marries
enthusiastically if they marry at all.”

Bill gave a hollow groan.

“I shall shoot myself one of these days, I expect,” he murmured
gloomily.

“No, you won’t, Bill darling. You’ll take a pretty girl out to
supper—like you did the night before last.”

Mr. Eversleigh was momentarily confused.

“If you mean Dorothy Kirkpatrick, the girl who’s in _Hooks and Eyes_,
I—well, dash it all, she’s a thoroughly nice girl, straight as they
make ’em. There was no harm in it.”

“Bill, darling, of course there wasn’t. I love you to enjoy yourself.
But don’t pretend to be dying of a broken heart, that’s all.”

Mr. Eversleigh recovered his dignity.

“You don’t understand at all, Virginia,” he said severely. “Men——”

“Are polygamous! I know they are. Sometimes I have a shrewd suspicion
that I am polyandrous. If you really love me, Bill, take me out to
lunch quickly.”




5

First Night in London


There is often a flaw in the best-laid plans. George Lomax had made one
mistake—there was a weak spot in his preparations. The weak spot was
Bill.

Bill Eversleigh was an extremely nice lad. He was a good cricketer and
a scratch golfer, he had pleasant manners, and an amiable disposition,
but his position in the Foreign Office had been gained, not by brains,
but by good connections. For the work he had to do he was quite
suitable. He was more or less George’s dog. He did no responsible
or brainy work. His part was to be constantly at George’s elbow, to
interview unimportant people whom George didn’t want to see, to run
errands, and generally to make himself useful. All this Bill carried
out faithfully enough. When George was absent, Bill stretched himself
out in the biggest chair and read the sporting news, and in so doing he
was merely carrying out a time-honoured tradition.

Being accustomed to send Bill on errands, George had dispatched him to
the Union Castle offices to find out when the _Granarth Castle_ was due
in. Now, in common with most well-educated young Englishmen, Bill had
a pleasant, but quite inaudible voice. Any elocution master would have
found fault with his pronunciation of the word Granarth. It might have
been anything. The Clerk took it to be Carnfrae. The _Carnfrae Castle_
was due in on the following Thursday. He said so. Bill thanked him and
went out. George Lomax accepted the information and laid his plans
accordingly. He knew nothing about Union Castle liners, and took it
for granted that James McGrath would duly arrive on Thursday.

Therefore, at the moment he was buttonholing Lord Caterham on the steps
of the club on Wednesday morning, he would have been greatly surprised
to learn that the _Granarth Castle_ had docked at Southampton the
preceding afternoon.

At two o’clock that afternoon Anthony Cade, travelling under the name
of Jimmy McGrath, stepped out of the boat train at Waterloo, hailed a
taxi, and after a moment’s hesitation ordered the driver to proceed to
the Blitz Hotel.

“One might as well be comfortable,” said Anthony to himself, as he
looked with some interest out of the taxi windows.

It was exactly fourteen years since he had been in London.

He arrived at the hotel, booked a room, and then went for a short
stroll along the Embankment. It was rather pleasant to be back in
London again. Everything was changed of course. There had been a
little restaurant there—just past Blackfriars Bridge—where he had
dined fairly often, in company with other earnest lads. He had been a
Socialist then, and worn a flowing red tie. Young—very young.

He retraced his steps back to the Blitz. Just as he was crossing the
road, a man jostled against him, nearly making him lose his balance.
They both recovered themselves, and the man muttered an apology, his
eyes scanning Anthony’s face narrowly. He was a short, thickset man of
the working classes, with something foreign in his appearance.

Anthony went on into the hotel, wondering, as he did so, what had
inspired that searching glance. Nothing in it probably. The deep tan of
his face was somewhat unusual looking amongst these pallid Londoners
and it had attracted the fellow’s attention. He went up to his room
and, led by a sudden impulse, crossed to the looking-glass and stood
studying his face in it. Of the few friends of the old days—just a
chosen few—was it likely that any of them would recognize him now if
they were to meet him face to face? He shook his head slowly.

When he had left London he had been just eighteen—a fair, slightly
chubby boy, with a misleading seraphic expression. Small chance that
the boy would be recognized in the lean, brown-faced man with the
quizzical expression.

The telephone beside the bed rang, and Anthony crossed to the receiver.

“Hullo!”

The voice of the desk clerk answered him.

“Mr. James McGrath?”

“Speaking.”

“A gentleman has called to see you.”

Anthony was rather astonished.

“To see _me_?”

“Yes, sir, a foreign gentleman.”

“What’s his name?”

There was a slight pause, and then the clerk said:

“I will send up a page boy with his card.”

Anthony replaced the receiver and waited. In a few minutes there was
a knock on the door and a small page appeared bearing a card upon a
salver.

Anthony took it. The following was the name engraved upon it:

  BARON LOLOPRETJZYL.

He now fully appreciated the desk clerk’s pause.

For a moment or two he stood studying the card, and then made up his
mind.

“Show the gentleman up.”

“Very good, sir.”

In a few minutes the Baron _Lolopretjzyl_ was ushered into the room, a
big man with an immense fan-like black beard and a high, bald forehead.

He brought his heels together with a click, and bowed.

“Mr. McGrath,” he said.

Anthony imitated his movements as nearly as possible.

“Baron,” he said. Then, drawing forward a chair. “Pray sit down. I have
not, I think, had the pleasure of meeting you before?”

“That is so,” agreed the Baron, seating himself. “It is my misfortune,”
he added politely.

“And mine also,” responded Anthony, on the same note.

“Let us now to business come,” said the Baron. “I represent in London
the Loyalist party of Herzoslovakia.”

“And represent it admirably, I am sure,” murmured Anthony.

The Baron bowed in acknowledgment of the compliment.

“You are too kind,” he said stiffly. “Mr. McGrath, I will not from
you conceal anything. The moment has come for the Restoration of the
Monarchy, in abeyance since the martyrdom of His Most Gracious Majesty
King Nicolas IV of blessed memory.”

“Amen,” murmured Anthony. “I mean Hear, Hear.”

“On the throne will be placed His Highness Prince Michael who the
support of the British Government has.”

“Splendid,” said Anthony. “It’s very kind of you to tell me all this.”

“Everything arranged is—when you come here to trouble make.”

The Baron fixed him with a stern eye.

“My dear Baron,” protested Anthony.

“Yes, yes, I know what I am talking about. You have with you the
Memoirs of the late Count Stylptitch.”

He fixed Anthony with an accusing eye.

“And if I have? What have the Memoirs of Count Stylptitch to do with
Prince Michael?”

“They will cause scandals.”

“Most memoirs do that,” said Anthony soothingly.

“Of many secrets he the knowledge had. Should he reveal but the
quarter of them, Europe into war plunged may be.”

“Come, come,” said Anthony. “It can’t be as bad as all that.”

“An unfavourable opinion of the Obolovitch will abroad be spread. So
democratic is the English spirit.”

“I can quite believe,” said Anthony, “that the Obolovitch may have been
a trifle high-handed now and again. It runs in the blood. But people in
England expect that sort of thing from the Balkans. I don’t know why
they should, but they do.”

“You do not understand,” said the Baron. “You do not understand at all.
And my lips sealed are.” He sighed.

“What exactly are you afraid of?” asked Anthony.

“Until I have read the Memoirs I do not know,” explained the Baron
simply. “But there is sure to be something. These great diplomats are
always indiscreet. The apple cart upset will be, as the saying goes.”

“Look here,” said Anthony kindly. “I’m sure you’re taking altogether
too pessimistic a view of the thing. I know all about publishers—they
sit on manuscripts and hatch ’em like eggs. It will be at least a year
before the thing is published.”

“Either a very deceitful or a very simple young man you are. All is
arranged for the Memoirs in a Sunday newspaper to come out immediately.”

“Oh!” Anthony was somewhat taken aback. “But you can always deny
everything,” he said hopefully.

The Baron shook his head sadly.

“No, no, through the hat you talk. Let us to business come. One
thousand pounds you are to have, is it not so? You see, I have the good
information got.”

“I certainly congratulate the Intelligence Department of the Loyalists.”

“Then I to you offer fifteen hundred.”

Anthony stared at him in amazement, then shook his head ruefully.

“I’m afraid it can’t be done,” he said, with regret.

“Good. I to you offer two thousand.”

“You tempt me, Baron, you tempt me. But I still say it can’t be done.”

“Your own price name, then.”

“I’m afraid you don’t understand the position. I’m perfectly willing to
believe that you are on the side of the angels, and that these Memoirs
may damage your cause. Nevertheless, I’ve undertaken the job, and I’ve
got to carry it through. See? I can’t allow myself to be bought off by
the other side. That kind of thing isn’t done.”

The Baron listened very attentively. At the end of Anthony’s speech he
nodded his head several times.

“I see. Your honour as an English gentleman it is?”

“Well, we don’t put it that way ourselves,” said Anthony. “But I dare
say, allowing for a difference in vocabulary, that we both mean much
the same thing.”

The Baron rose to his feet.

“For the English honour I much respect have,” he announced. “We must
another way try. I wish you good morning.”

He drew his heels together, clicked, bowed and marched out of the room,
holding himself stiffly erect.

“Now I wonder what he meant by that,” mused Anthony. “Was it a threat?
Not that I’m in the least afraid of old Lollipop. Rather a good name
for him, that, by the way. I shall call him Baron Lollipop.”

He took a turn or two up and down the room, undecided on his next
course of action. The date stipulated upon for delivering the
manuscript was a little over a week ahead. To-day was the 5th of
October. Anthony had no intention of handing it over before the last
moment. Truth to tell, he was by now feverishly anxious to read
these Memoirs. He had meant to do so on the boat coming over, but
had been laid low with a touch of fever, and not at all in the mood
for deciphering crabbed and illegible handwriting, for none of the
manuscript was typed. He was now more than ever determined to see what
all the fuss was about.

There was the other job too.

On an impulse, he picked up the telephone book and looked up the name
of Revel. There were six Revels in the book: Edward Henry Revel,
surgeon, of Harley Street; James Revel & Co., saddlers; Lennox Revel
of Abbotbury Mansions, Hampstead; Miss Mary Revel with an address in
Ealing; Hon. Mrs. Timothy Revel of 487, Pont Street; and Mrs. Willis
Revel of 42, Cadogan Square. Eliminating the saddlers and Miss Mary
Revel, that gave him four names to investigate—and there was no reason
to suppose that the lady lived in London at all! He shut up the book
with a short shake of the head.

“For the moment I’ll leave it to chance,” he said. “Something usually
turns up.”

The luck of the Anthony Cades of this world is perhaps in some measure
due to their own belief in it. Anthony found what he was after not half
an hour later, when he was turning over the pages of an illustrated
paper. It was a representation of some tableau organized by the Duchess
of Perth. Below the central figure, a woman in Eastern dress, was the
inscription:

“The Hon. Mrs. Timothy Revel as Cleopatra. Before her marriage, Mrs.
Revel was the Hon. Virginia Cawthron, a daughter of Lord Edgbaston.”

Anthony looked at the picture some time, slowly pursing up his lips, as
though to whistle. Then he tore out the whole page, folded it up and
put it in his pocket. He went upstairs again, unlocked his suit-case
and took out the packet of letters. He took out the folded page from
his pocket and slipped it under the string that held them together.

Then, at a sudden sound behind him, he wheeled round sharply. A
man was standing in the doorway, the kind of man whom Anthony had
fondly imagined existed only in the chorus of a Comic Opera. A
sinister-looking figure, with a squat brutal head and lips drawn back
in an evil grin.

“What the devil are you doing here?” asked Anthony. “And who let you
come up?”

“I pass where I please,” said the stranger. His voice was guttural and
foreign, though his English was idiomatic enough.

“Another Dago,” thought Anthony.

“Well, get out, do you hear?” he went on aloud.

The man’s eyes were fixed on the packet of letters which Anthony had
caught up.

“I will get out when you have given me what I have come for.”

“And what’s that, may I ask?”

The man took a step nearer.

“The Memoirs of Count Stylptitch,” he hissed.

“It’s impossible to take you seriously,” said Anthony. “You’re so
completely the stage villain. I like your get up very much. Who sent
you here? Baron Lollipop?”

“Baron——?” The man jerked out a string of harsh-sounding consonants.

“So that’s how you pronounce it, is it? A cross between gargling and
barking like a dog. I don’t think I could say it myself—my throat’s
not made that way. I shall have to go on calling him Lollipop. So he
sent you, did he?”

But he received a vehement negative. His visitor went so far as to spit
upon the suggestion in a very realistic manner. Then he drew from his
pocket a sheet of paper which he threw upon the table.

“Look,” he said. “Look and tremble, accursed Englishman.”

Anthony looked with some interest, not troubling to fulfil the latter
part of the command. On the paper was traced the crude design of a
human hand in red.

“It looks like a hand,” he remarked. “But, if you say so, I’m quite
prepared to admit that it’s a cubist picture of Sunset at the North
Pole.”

“It is the sign of the Comrades of the Red Hand. I am a Comrade of the
Red Hand.”

“You don’t say so,” said Anthony, looking at him with much interest.
“Are the others all like you? I don’t know what the Eugenic Society
would have to say about it.”

The man snarled angrily.

“Dog,” he said. “Worse than dog. Paid slave of an effete monarchy. Give
me the Memoirs, and you shall go unscathed. Such is the clemency of the
Brotherhood.”

“It’s very kind of them, I’m sure,” said Anthony, “but I’m afraid
that both they and you are labouring under a misapprehension. My
instructions are to deliver the manuscript—not to your amiable
Society, but to a certain firm of publishers.”

“Pah!” laughed the other. “Do you think you will ever be permitted to
reach that office alive? Enough of this fool’s talk. Hand over the
papers, or I shoot.”

He drew a revolver from his pocket and brandished it in the air.

But there he misjudged his Anthony Cade. He was not used to men who
could act as quickly—or quicker than they could think. Anthony did not
wait to be covered by the revolver. Almost as soon as the other got it
out of his pocket, Anthony had sprung forward and knocked it out of his
hand. The force of the blow sent the man swinging round, so that he
presented his back to his assailant.

The chance was too good to be missed. With one mighty, well-directed
kick, Anthony sent the man flying through the doorway into the
corridor, where he collapsed in a heap.

Anthony stepped out after him, but the doughty Comrade of the Red Hand
had had enough. He got nimbly to his feet and fled down the passage.
Anthony did not pursue him, but went back into his own room.

“So much for the Comrades of the Red Hand,” he remarked. “Picturesque
appearance, but easily routed by direct action. How the hell did that
fellow get in, I wonder? There’s one thing that stands out pretty
clearly—this isn’t going to be quite such a soft job as I thought.
I’ve already fallen foul of both the Loyalist and the Revolutionary
parties. Soon, I suppose, the Nationalists and the Independent Liberals
will be sending up a delegation. One thing’s fixed. I start on that
manuscript to-night.”

Looking at his watch, Anthony discovered that it was nearly nine
o’clock, and he decided to dine where he was. He did not anticipate
any more surprise visits, but he felt that it was up to him to be on
his guard. He had no intention of allowing his suit-case to be rifled
whilst he was downstairs in the Grill Room. He rang the bell and asked
for the Menu, selected a couple of dishes and ordered a bottle of
Bordeaux. The waiter took the order and withdrew.

Whilst he was waiting for the meal to arrive, he got out the package of
manuscript and put it on the table with the letters.

There was a knock at the door, and the waiter entered with a small
table and the accessories of the meal. Anthony had strolled over to the
mantelpiece. Standing there with his back to the room, he was directly
facing the mirror, and idly glancing in it he noticed a curious thing.

The waiter’s eyes were glued on the parcel of manuscript. Shooting
little glances sideways at Anthony’s immovable back, he moved softly
round the table. His hands were twitching, and he kept passing his
tongue over his dry lips. Anthony observed him more closely. He was a
tall man, supple like all waiters, with a clean-shaven, mobile face. An
Italian, Anthony thought, not a Frenchman.

At the critical moment Anthony wheeled round abruptly. The waiter
started slightly, but pretended to be doing something with the salt
cellar.

“What’s your name?” asked Anthony abruptly.

“Giuseppe, Monsieur.”

“Italian, eh?”

“Yes, Monsieur.”

Anthony spoke to him in that language, and the man answered fluently
enough. Finally Anthony dismissed him with a nod, but all the while
he was eating the excellent meal which Giuseppe served to him, he was
thinking rapidly.

Had he been mistaken? Was Giuseppe’s interest in the parcel just
ordinary curiosity? It might be so, but remembering the feverish
intensity of the man’s excitement, Anthony decided against that theory.
All the same, he was puzzled.

“Dash it all,” said Anthony to himself, “every one can’t be after the
blasted manuscript. Perhaps I’m fancying things.”

Dinner concluded and cleared away, he applied himself to the perusal of
the Memoirs. Owing to the illegibility of the late Count’s handwriting,
the business was a slow one. Anthony’s yawns succeeded one another with
suspicious rapidity. At the end of the fourth chapter, he gave it up.

So far, he had found the Memoirs insufferably dull, with no hint of
scandal of any kind.

He gathered up the letters and the wrapping of the manuscript which
were lying in a heap together on the table and locked them up in the
suit-case. Then he locked the door, and as an additional precaution put
a chair against it. On the chair he placed the water-bottle from the
bathroom.

Surveying these preparations with some pride, he undressed and got into
bed. He had one more shot at the Count’s Memoirs, but felt his eyelids
drooping, and stuffing the manuscript under his pillow, he switched out
the light and fell asleep almost immediately.

It must have been some four hours later that he awoke with a start.
What had awakened him he did not know—perhaps a sound, perhaps only
the consciousness of danger which in men who have led an adventurous
life is very fully developed.

For a moment he lay quite still, trying to focus his impressions. He
could hear a very stealthy rustle, and then he became aware of a denser
blackness somewhere between him and the window—on the floor by the
suit-case.

With a sudden spring, Anthony jumped out of bed, switching the light on
as he did so. A figure sprang up from where it had been kneeling by the
suit-case.

It was the waiter, Giuseppe. In his right hand gleamed a long thin
knife. He hurled himself straight upon Anthony, who was by now fully
conscious of his own danger. He was unarmed and Giuseppe was evidently
thoroughly at home with his own weapon.

Anthony sprang to one side, and Giuseppe missed him with the knife.
The next minute the two men were rolling on the floor together, locked
in a close embrace. The whole of Anthony’s faculties were centred on
keeping a close grip of Giuseppe’s right arm so that he would be unable
to use the knife. He bent it slowly back. At the same time he felt the
Italian’s other hand clutching at his windpipe, stifling him, choking.
And still, desperately, he bent the right arm back.

There was a sharp tinkle as the knife fell on the floor. At the same
time, the Italian extricated himself with a swift twist from Anthony’s
grasp. Anthony sprang up too, but made the mistake of moving towards
the door to cut off the other’s retreat. He saw, too late, that the
chair and the water-bottle were just as he had arranged them.

Giuseppe had entered by the window, and it was the window he made for
now. In the instant’s respite given him by Anthony’s move toward the
door, he had sprung out on the balcony, leaped over to the adjoining
balcony and had disappeared through the adjoining window.

Anthony knew well enough that it was of no use to pursue him. His
way of retreat was doubtless fully assured. Anthony would merely get
himself into trouble.

He walked over to the bed, thrusting his hand beneath the pillow and
drawing out the Memoirs. Lucky that they had been there and not in the
suit-case. He crossed over to the suit-case and looked inside, meaning
to take out the letters.

Then he swore softly under his breath.

_The letters were gone._




6

The Gentle Art of Blackmail


It was exactly five minutes to four when Virginia Revel, rendered
punctual by a healthy curiosity, returned to the house in Pont Street.
She opened the door with her latchkey, and stepped into the hall to be
immediately confronted by the impassive Chilvers.

“I beg pardon, ma’am, but a—a person has called to see you——”

For the moment, Virginia did not pay attention to the subtle
phraseology whereby Chilvers cloaked his meaning.

“Mr. Lomax? Where is he? In the drawing-room?”

“Oh, no, ma’am, not Mr. Lomax.” Chilvers’ tone was faintly reproachful.
“A person—I was reluctant to let him in, but he said his business
was most important—connected with the late Captain, I understood
him to say. Thinking therefore that you might wish to see him, I put
him—er—in the study.”

Virginia stood thinking for a minute. She had been a widow now for some
years, and the fact that she rarely spoke of her husband was taken by
some to indicate that below her careless demeanour was a still aching
wound. By others it was taken to mean the exact opposite, that Virginia
had never really cared for Tim Revel, and that she found it insincere
to profess a grief she did not feel.

“I should have mentioned, ma’am,” continued Chilvers, “that the man
appears to be some kind of foreigner.”

Virginia’s interest heightened a little. Her husband had been in the
Diplomatic Service, and they had been together in Herzoslovakia just
before the sensational murder of the King and Queen. This man might
probably be a Herzoslovakian, some old servant who had fallen on evil
days.

“You did quite right, Chilvers,” she said with a quick, approving nod.
“Where did you say you had put him? In the study?”

She crossed the hall with her light buoyant step, and opened the door
of the small room that flanked the dining-room.

The visitor was sitting in a chair by the fireplace. He rose on her
entrance and stood looking at her. Virginia had an excellent memory for
faces, and she was at once quite sure that she had never seen the man
before. He was tall and dark, supple in figure, and quite unmistakably
a foreigner; but she did not think he was of Slavonic origin. She put
him down as Italian or possibly Spanish.

“You wished to see me?” she asked. “I am Mrs. Revel.”

The man did not answer for a minute or two. He was looking her slowly
over, as though appraising her narrowly. There was a veiled insolence
in his manner which she was quick to feel.

“Will you please state your business?” she said, with a touch of
impatience.

“You are Mrs. Revel? Mrs. Timothy Revel?”

“Yes. I told you so just now.”

“Quite so. It is a good thing that you consented to see me, Mrs. Revel.
Otherwise, as I told your butler, I should have been compelled to do
business with your husband.”

Virginia looked at him in astonishment, but some impulse quelled the
retort that sprang to her lips. She contented herself by remarking
dryly:

“You might have found some difficulty in doing that.”

“I think not. I am very persistent. But I will come to the point.
Perhaps you recognize this?”

He flourished something in his hand. Virginia looked at it without much
interest.

“Can you tell me what it is, madame?”

“It appears to be a letter,” replied Virginia, who was by now convinced
that she had to do with a man who was mentally unhinged.

“And perhaps you note to whom it is addressed,” said the man
significantly, holding it out to her.

“I can read,” Virginia informed him pleasantly. “It is addressed to a
Captain O’Neill at Rue de Quenelles No. 15, Paris.”

The man seemed searching her face hungrily for something he did not
find.

“Will you read it, please?”

Virginia took the envelope from him, drew out the enclosure and glanced
at it; but almost immediately she stiffened and held it out to him
again.

“This is a private letter—certainly not meant for my eyes.”

The man laughed sardonically.

“I congratulate you, Mrs. Revel, on your admirable acting. You play
your part to perfection. Nevertheless, I think that you will hardly be
able to deny the signature!”

“The signature?”

Virginia turned the letter over—and was struck dumb with astonishment.
The signature, written in a delicate slanting hand, was Virginia Revel.
Checking the exclamation of astonishment that rose to her lips, she
turned again to the beginning of the letter and deliberately read the
whole thing through. Then she stood a minute lost in thought. The
nature of the letter made it clear enough what was in prospect.

“Well, madame?” said the man. “That is your name, is it not?”

“Oh, yes,” said Virginia. “It’s my name.” “But not my handwriting,” she
might have added.

Instead she turned a dazzling smile upon her visitor.

“Supposing,” she said sweetly, “we sit down and talk it over?”

He was puzzled. Not so had he expected her to behave. His instinct
told him that she was not afraid of him.

“First of all, I should like to know how you found me out?”

“That was easy.”

He took from his pocket a page torn from an illustrated paper, and
handed it to her. Anthony Cade would have recognized it.

She gave it back to him with a thoughtful little frown.

“I see,” she said. “It was very easy.”

“Of course you understand, Mrs. Revel, that that is not the only
letter. There are others.”

“Dear me,” said Virginia, “I seem to have been frightfully indiscreet.”

Again she could see that her light tone puzzled him. She was by now
thoroughly enjoying herself.

“At any rate,” she said, smiling sweetly at him, “it’s very kind of you
to call and give them back to me.”

There was a pause as he cleared his throat.

“I am a poor man, Mrs. Revel,” he said at last, with a good deal of
significance in his manner.

“As such you will doubtless find it easier to enter the Kingdom of
Heaven, or so I have always heard.”

“I cannot afford to let you have these letters for nothing.”

“I think you are under a misapprehension. Those letters are the
property of the person who wrote them.”

“That may be the law, madame, but in this country you have a saying
‘Possession is nine points of the law.’ And, in any case, are you
prepared to invoke the aid of the law?”

“The law is a severe one for blackmailers,” Virginia reminded him.

“Come, Mrs. Revel, I am not quite a fool. I have read these
letters—the letters of a woman to her lover, one and all breathing
dread of discovery by her husband. Do you want me to take them to your
husband?”

“You have overlooked one possibility. Those letters were written some
years ago. Supposing that since then—I have become a widow.”

He shook his head with confidence.

“In that case—if you had nothing to fear—you would not be sitting
here making terms with me.”

Virginia smiled.

“What is your price?” she asked in a business-like manner.

“For one thousand pounds I will hand the whole packet over to you. It
is very little that I am asking there; but, you see, I do not like the
business.”

“I shouldn’t dream of paying you a thousand pounds,” said Virginia with
decision.

“Madame, I never bargain. A thousand pounds, and I will place the
letters in your hands.”

Virginia reflected.

“You must give me a little time to think it over. It will not be easy
for me to get such a sum together.”

“A few pounds on account perhaps—say fifty—and I will call again.”

Virginia looked up at the clock. It was five minutes past four, and she
fancied that she had heard the bell.

“Very well,” she said hurriedly. “Come back to-morrow, but later than
this. About six.”

She crossed over to a desk that stood against the wall, unlocked one of
the drawers, and took out an untidy handful of notes.

“There is about forty pounds here. That will have to do for you.”

He snatched at it eagerly.

“And now go at once, please,” said Virginia.

He left the room obediently enough. Through the open door, Virginia
caught a glimpse of George Lomax in the hall, just being ushered
upstairs by Chilvers. As the front door closed, Virginia called to him.

“Come in here, George. Chilvers, bring us tea in here, will you please?”

She flung open both windows, and George Lomax came into the room to
find her standing erect with dancing eyes and wind-blown hair.

“I’ll shut them in a minute, George, but I felt the room ought to be
aired. Did you fall over the blackmailer in the hall?”

“The what?”

“Blackmailer, George. B.L.A.C.K.M.A.I.L.E.R? Blackmailer. One who
blackmails.”

“My dear Virginia, you can’t be serious!”

“Oh, but I am, George.”

“But who did he come here to blackmail?”

“Me, George.”

“But, my dear Virginia, what have you been doing?”

“Well, just for once, as it happens, I hadn’t been doing anything. The
good gentleman mistook me for someone else.”

“You rang up the police, I suppose?”

“No, I didn’t. I suppose you think I ought to have done so.”

“Well——” George considered weightily. “No, no, perhaps not—perhaps
you acted wisely. You might be mixed up in some unpleasant publicity in
connection with the case. You might even have had to give evidence——”

“I should have liked that,” said Virginia. “I would love to be
summoned, and I should like to see if judges really do make all the
rotten jokes you read about. It would be most exciting. I was at Vine
Street the other day to see about a diamond brooch I had lost, and
there was the most perfectly lovely inspector—the nicest man I ever
met.”

George, as was his custom, let all irrelevancies pass.

“But what did you do about this scoundrel?”

“Well, George, I’m afraid I let him do it.”

“Do what?”

“Blackmail me.”

George’s face of horror was so poignant that Virginia had to bite her
under lip.

“You mean—do I understand you to mean—that you did not correct the
misapprehension under which he was labouring?”

Virginia shook her head, shooting a sideways glance at him.

“Good heavens, Virginia, you must be mad.”

“I suppose it would seem that way to you.”

“But why? In God’s name, why?”

“Several reasons. To begin with he was doing it so
beautifully—blackmailing me, I mean—I hate to interrupt an artist
when he’s doing his job really well. And then, you see, I’d never been
blackmailed——”

“I should hope not, indeed.”

“And I wanted to see what it felt like.”

“I am quite at a loss to comprehend you, Virginia.”

“I knew you wouldn’t understand.”

“You did not give him money, I hope?”

“Just a trifle,” said Virginia apologetically.

“How much?”

“Forty pounds.”

“Virginia!”

“My dear George, it’s only what I pay for an evening dress. It’s just
as exciting to buy a new experience as it is to buy a new dress—more
so, in fact.”

George Lomax merely shook his head, and Chilvers appearing at that
moment with the tea urn, he was saved from having to express his
outraged feelings. When tea had been brought in, and Virginia’s deft
fingers were manipulating the heavy silver teapot, she spoke again on
the subject.

“I had another motive too, George—a brighter and better one. We women
are usually supposed to be cats, but at any rate I’d done another woman
a good turn this afternoon. This man isn’t likely to go off looking
for another Virginia Revel. He thinks he’s found his bird all right.
Poor little devil, she was in a blue funk when she wrote that letter.
Mr. Blackmailer would have had the easiest job of his life there.
Now, though he doesn’t know it, he’s up against a tough proposition.
Starting with the great advantage of having led a blameless life, I
shall toy with him to his undoing—as they say in books. Guile, George,
lots of guile.”

George still shook his head.

“I don’t like it,” he persisted. “I don’t like it.”

“Well, never mind, George dear. You didn’t come here to talk about
blackmailers. What did you come here for, by the way? Correct answer:
‘To see _you_!’ Accent on the you, and press her hand with significance
unless you happen to have been eating heavily buttered muffin, in which
case it must all be done with the eyes.”

“I did come to see you,” replied George seriously. “And I am glad to
find you alone.”

“Oh, George, this is so sudden,” says she, swallowing a currant.

“I wanted to ask a favour of you. I have always considered you,
Virginia, as a woman of considerable charm.”

“Oh, George!”

“And also a woman of intelligence!”

“Not really? How well the man knows me.”

“My dear Virginia, there is a young fellow arriving in England
to-morrow whom I should like you to meet.”

“All right, George, but it’s your party—let that be clearly
understood.”

“You could, I feel sure, if you chose, exercise your considerable
charm.”

Virginia cocked her head a little on one side.

“George, dear, I don’t ‘charm’ as a profession, you know. Often I like
people—and then, well, they like me. But I don’t think I could set
out in cold blood to fascinate a helpless stranger. That sort of thing
isn’t done, George, it really isn’t. There are professional sirens who
would do it much better than I should.”

“That is out of the question, Virginia. This young man, he is a
Canadian, by the way, of the name of McGrath——”

“A Canadian of Scotch descent,” says she, deducing brilliantly.

“Is probably quite unused to the higher walks of English society. I
should like him to appreciate the charm and distinction of a real
English gentlewoman.”

“Meaning me?”

“Exactly.”

“Why?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I said why? You don’t boom the real English gentlewoman with every
stray Canadian who sets foot upon our shores. What is the deep idea,
George? To put it vulgarly, what do _you_ get out of it?”

“I cannot see that that concerns you, Virginia.”

“I couldn’t possibly go out for an evening and fascinate, unless I knew
all the whys and wherefors.”

“You have a most extraordinary way of putting things, Virginia. Anyone
would think——”

“Wouldn’t they? Come on, George, part with a little more information.”

“My dear Virginia, matters are likely to be a little strained shortly
in a certain Central European nation. It is important, for reasons
which are immaterial, that this—Mr.—er McGrath should be brought
to realize that the restoring of the Monarchy in Herzoslovakia is
imperative to the peace of Europe.”

“The part about the peace of Europe is all bosh,” said Virginia calmly,
“but I’m all for Monarchies every time, especially for a picturesque
people like the Herzoslovakians. So you’re running a King in the
Herzoslovakian States, are you? Who is he?”

George was reluctant to answer, but did not see his way to avoid the
question. The interview was not going at all as he had planned. He
had foreseen Virginia as a willing, docile tool, receiving his hints
gratefully, and asking no awkward questions. This was far from being
the case. She seemed determined to know all about it and this George,
ever doubtful of female discretion, was determined at all costs to
avoid. He had made a mistake. Virginia was not the woman for the
part. She might, indeed, cause serious trouble. Her account of her
interview with the blackmailer had caused him grave apprehension. A
most undependable creature, with no idea of treating serious matters
seriously.

“Prince Michael Obolovitch,” he replied, as Virginia was obviously
waiting for an answer to her question. “But please let that go no
further.”

“Don’t be absurd, George. There are all sort of hints in the papers
already, and articles cracking up the Obolovitch dynasty and talking
about the murdered Nicholas IV as though he were a cross between
a Saint and a hero instead of a stupid little man besotted by a
third-rate actress.”

George winced. He was more than ever convinced that he had made a
mistake in enlisting Virginia’s aid. He must stave her off quickly.

“You are right, my dear Virginia,” he said hastily, as he rose to his
feet to bid her farewell. “I should not have made the suggestion I did
to you. But we are anxious for the Dominions to see eye to eye with us
on this Herzoslovakian crisis, and McGrath has, I believe, influence in
journalistic circles. As an ardent Monarchist, and with your knowledge
of the country, I thought it a good plan for you to meet him.”

“So that’s the explanation, is it?”

“Yes, but I dare say you wouldn’t have cared for him.”

Virginia looked at him for a second and then she laughed.

“George,” she said, “you’re a rotten liar.”

“Virginia!”

“Rotten, absolutely rotten! If I had had your training, I could
have managed a better one than that—one that had a chance of being
believed. But I shall find out all about it, my poor George. Rest
assured of that. The Mystery of Mr. McGrath. I shouldn’t wonder if I
got a hint or two at Chimneys this week-end.”

“At Chimneys? You are going to Chimneys?”

George could not conceal his perturbation. He had hoped to reach Lord
Caterham in time for the invitation to remain unissued.

“Bundle rang up and asked me this morning.”

George made a last effort.

“Rather a dull party, I believe,” he said. “Hardly in your line,
Virginia.”

“My poor George, why didn’t you tell me the truth and trust me? It’s
still not too late.”

George took her hand and dropped it again limply.

“I have told you the truth,” he said coldly, and he said it without a
blush.

“That’s a better one,” said Virginia approvingly. “But it’s still
not good enough. Cheer up, George, I shall be at Chimneys all right,
exerting my considerable charm—as you put it. Life has become suddenly
very much more amusing. First a blackmailer, and then George in
diplomatic difficulties. Will he tell all to the beautiful woman who
asks for his confidence so pathetically? No, he will reveal nothing
until the last chapter. Good-bye, George. One last fond look before you
go? No? Oh, George, dear, don’t be sulky about it!”

Virginia ran to the telephone as soon as George had departed with a
heavy gait through the front door.

She obtained the number she required and asked to speak to Lady Eileen
Brent.

“Is that you, Bundle? I’m coming to Chimneys all right to-morrow. What?
Bore me? No, it won’t. Bundle, wild horses wouldn’t keep me away! So
there!”




7

Mr. McGrath Refuses an Invitation


The letters were gone!

Having once made up his mind to the fact of their disappearance, there
was nothing to do but accept it. Anthony realized very well that he
could not pursue Giuseppe through the corridors of the Blitz Hotel. To
do so was to court undesired publicity, and in all probability to fail
in his object all the same.

He came to the conclusion that Giuseppe had mistaken the packet of
letters, enclosed as they were in the other wrappings, for the Memoirs
themselves. It was likely therefore that when he discovered his mistake
he would make another attempt to get hold of the Memoirs. For this
attempt Anthony intended to be fully prepared.

Another plan that occurred to him was to advertize discreetly for the
return of the package of letters. Supposing Giuseppe to be an emissary
of the Comrades of the Red Hand, or, which seemed to Anthony more
probable, to be employed by the Loyalist party, the letters could have
no possible interest for either employer and he would probably jump at
the chance of obtaining a small sum of money for their return.

Having thought out all this, Anthony returned to bed and slept
peacefully until morning. He did not fancy that Giuseppe would be
anxious for a second encounter that night.

Anthony got up with his plan of campaign fully thought out. He had
a good breakfast, glanced at the papers which were full of the new
discoveries of oil in Herzoslovakia, and then demanded an interview
with the manager, and, being Anthony Cade, with a gift for getting his
own way by means of quiet determination, he obtained what he asked for.

The manager, a Frenchman with an exquisitely suave manner, received him
in his private office.

“You wished to see me, I understand, Mr.—er—McGrath?”

“I did. I arrived at your hotel yesterday afternoon, and I had dinner
served to me in my own rooms by a waiter whose name was Giuseppe.”

He paused.

“I dare say we have a waiter of that name,” agreed the manager
indifferently.

“I was struck by something unusual in the waiter’s manner, but thought
nothing more of it at the time. Later, in the night, I was awakened by
the sound of some one moving softly about the room. I switched on the
light, and found this same Giuseppe in the act of rifling my leather
suit-case.”

The manager’s indifference had completely disappeared now.

“But I have heard nothing of this,” he exclaimed. “Why was I not
informed sooner?”

“The man and I had a brief struggle—he was armed with a knife by the
way. In the end he succeeded in making off by way of the window.”

“What did you do then, Mr. McGrath?”

“I examined the contents of my suit-case.”

“Had anything been taken?”

“Nothing of—importance,” said Anthony slowly.

The manager leaned back with a sigh.

“I am glad of that,” he remarked. “But you will allow me to say, Mr.
McGrath, that I do not quite understand your attitude in the matter.
You made no attempt to arouse the hotel? To pursue the thief?”

Anthony shrugged his shoulders.

“Nothing of value had been taken, as I tell you. I am aware, of
course, that strictly speaking it is a case for the police——”

He paused, and the manager murmured without any particular enthusiasm:

“For the police—of course——”

“In any case, I was fairly certain that the man would manage to make
good his escape, and since nothing was taken why bother with the
police?”

The manager smiled a little.

“I see that you realize, Mr. McGrath, that I am not at all anxious
to have the police called in. From my point of view it is always
disastrous. If the newspapers can get hold of anything connected with
a big fashionable hotel such as this, they always run it for all it is
worth, no matter how insignificant the real subject matter may be.”

“Quite so,” agreed Anthony. “Now I told you that nothing of value had
been taken, and that was perfectly true in a sense. Nothing of any
value to the thief was taken, but he got hold of something which is of
considerable value to me.”

“Ah?”

“Letters, you understand.”

An expression of superhuman discretion, only to be achieved by a
Frenchman, settled down upon the manager’s face.

“I comprehend,” he murmured. “But perfectly. Naturally, it is not a
matter for the police.”

“We are quite agreed upon that point. But you will understand that
I have every intention of recovering these letters. In the part of
the world where I come from, people are used to doing things for
themselves. What I require from you therefore is the fullest possible
information you can give me about this waiter, Giuseppe.”

“I see no objection to that,” said the manager after a moment or two’s
pause. “I cannot give you the information offhand, of course, but if
you will return in half an hour’s time I will have everything ready to
lay before you.”

“Thank you very much. That will suit me admirably.”

In half an hour’s time, Anthony returned to the office again to find
that the manager had been as good as his word. Jotted down upon a piece
of paper were all the relevant facts known about Giuseppe Manelli.

“He came to us, you see, about three months ago. A skilled and
experienced waiter. Has given complete satisfaction. He has been in
England about five years.”

Together the two men ran over a list of the hotels and restaurants
where the Italian had worked. One fact struck Anthony as being possibly
of significance. At two of the hotels in question there had been
serious robberies during the time that Giuseppe was employed there,
though no suspicion of any kind had attached to him in either case.
Still, the fact was significant.

Was Giuseppe merely a clever hotel thief? Had his search of Anthony’s
suit-case been merely part of his habitual professional tactics? He
might just possibly have had the packet of letters in his hand at the
moment when Anthony switched on the light, and have shoved it into his
pocket mechanically so as to have his hands free. In that case, the
thing was mere plain or garden robbery.

Against that, there was to be put the man’s excitement of the evening
before when he had caught sight of the papers lying on the table. There
had been no money or object of value there such as would excite the
cupidity of an ordinary thief.

No, Anthony felt convinced that Giuseppe had been acting as a tool
for some outside agency. With the information supplied to him by the
manager, it might be possible to learn something about Giuseppe’s
private life, and so finally track him down. He gathered up the sheet
of paper and rose.

“Thank you very much indeed. It’s quite unnecessary to ask, I suppose,
whether Giuseppe is still in the hotel?”

The manager smiled.

“His bed was not slept in, and all his things have been left behind. He
must have rushed straight out after his attack upon you. I don’t think
there is much chance of our seeing him again.”

“I imagine not. Well, thank you very much indeed. I shall be staying on
here for the present.”

“I hope you will be successful in your task, but I confess that I am
rather doubtful.”

“I always hope for the best.”

One of Anthony’s first proceedings was to question some of the other
waiters who had been friendly with Giuseppe, but he obtained very
little to go upon. He wrote out an advertisement on the lines he had
planned, and had it sent to five of the most widely read newspapers. He
was just about to go out and visit the restaurant at which Giuseppe had
been previously employed when the telephone rang. Anthony took up the
receiver.

“Hullo, what is it?”

A toneless voice replied.

“Am I speaking to Mr. McGrath?”

“You are. Who are you?”

“This is Messrs. Balderson and Hodgkins. Just a minute, please. I will
put you through to Mr. Balderson.”

“Our worthy publishers,” thought Anthony. “So they are getting worried
too, are they? They needn’t. There’s a week to run still.”

A hearty voice struck suddenly upon his ear.

“Hullo! That Mr. McGrath?”

“Speaking.”

“I’m Mr. Balderson of Balderson and Hodgkins. What about that
manuscript, Mr. McGrath?”

“Well,” said Anthony, “what about it?”

“Everything about it. I understand, Mr. McGrath, that you have just
arrived in this country from South Africa. That being so, you can’t
possibly understand the position. There’s going to be trouble about
that manuscript, Mr. McGrath, big trouble. Sometimes I wish we’d never
said we’d handle it.”

“Indeed?”

“I assure you it’s so. At present I’m anxious to get it into my
possession as quickly as possible, so as to have a couple of copies
made. Then, if the original is destroyed—well, no harm will be done.”

“Dear me,” said Anthony.

“Yes, I expect it sounds absurd to you, Mr. McGrath. But, I assure
you, you don’t appreciate the situation. There’s a determined effort
being made to prevent its ever reaching this office. I say to you quite
frankly and without humbug that if you attempt to bring it yourself
it’s ten to one that you’ll never get here.”

“I doubt that,” said Anthony. “When I want to get anywhere, I usually
do.”

“You’re up against a very dangerous lot of people. I wouldn’t have
believed it myself a month ago. I tell you, Mr. McGrath, we’ve been
bribed and threatened and cajoled by one lot and another until we don’t
know whether we’re on our heads or our heels. My suggestion is that you
do not attempt to bring the manuscript here. One of our people will
call upon you at the hotel and take possession of it.”

“And supposing the gang does him in?” asked Anthony.

“The responsibility would then be ours—not yours. You would have
delivered it to our representative and obtained a written discharge.
The cheque for—er—a thousand pounds which we are instructed to hand
to you will not be available until Wednesday next by the terms of our
agreement with the executors of the late—er—author—you know whom I
mean, but if you insist I will send my own cheque for that amount by
the messenger.”

Anthony reflected for a minute or two. He had intended to keep the
Memoirs until the last day of grace, because he was anxious to see for
himself what all the fuss was about. Nevertheless, he realized the
force of the publisher’s arguments.

“All right,” he said, with a little sigh. “Have it your own way. Send
your man along. And if you don’t mind sending that cheque as well
I’d rather have it now, as I may be going out of England before next
Wednesday.”

“Certainly, Mr. McGrath. Our representative will call upon you first
thing to-morrow morning. It will be wiser not to send anyone direct
from the office. Our Mr. Holmes lives in South London. He will call
in on his way to us, and will give you a receipt for the package. I
suggest that to-night you should place a dummy packet in the manager’s
safe. Your enemies will get to hear of this, and it will prevent any
attack being made upon your apartments to-night.”

“Very well, I will do as you direct.”

Anthony hung up the receiver with a thoughtful face.

Then he went on with his interrupted plan of seeking news of the
slippery Giuseppe. He drew a complete blank, however. Giuseppe had
worked at the restaurant in question, but nobody seemed to know
anything of his private life or associates.

“But I’ll get you, my lad,” murmured Anthony, between his teeth. “I’ll
get you yet. It’s only a matter of time.”

His second night in London was entirely peaceful.

At nine o’clock the following morning, the card of Mr. Holmes from
Messrs. Balderson and Hodgkins was sent up, and Mr. Holmes followed
it. A small, fair man with a quiet manner. Anthony handed over the
manuscript, and received in exchange a cheque for a thousand pounds.
Mr. Holmes packed up the manuscript in the small brown bag he carried,
wished Anthony good morning, and departed. The whole thing seemed very
tame.

“But perhaps he’ll be murdered on the way there,” Anthony murmured
aloud, as he stared idly out of the window. “I wonder now—I very much
wonder.”

He put the cheque in an envelope, enclosed a few lines of writing
with it, and sealed it up carefully. Jimmy, who had been more or less
in funds at the time of his encounter with Anthony at Bulawayo, had
advanced him a substantial sum of money which was, as yet, practically
untouched.

“If one’s job’s done with, the other isn’t,” said Anthony to himself.
“Up to now, I’ve bungled it. But never say die. I think that, suitably
disguised, I shall go and have a look at 487, Pont Street.”

He packed his belongings, went down and paid his bill, and ordered his
luggage to be put on a taxi. Suitably rewarding those who stood in his
path, most of whom had done nothing whatever materially to add to his
comfort, he was on the point of being driven off, when a small boy
rushed down the steps with a letter.

“Just come for you, this very minute, sir.”

With a sigh, Anthony produced yet another shilling. The taxi groaned
heavily and jumped forward with a hideous crashing of gears, and
Anthony opened the letter.

It was rather a curious document. He had to read it four times before
he could be sure of what it was all about. Put in plain English (the
letter was not in plain English, but in the peculiar involved style
common to missives issued by Government officials) it presumed that Mr.
McGrath was arriving in England from South Africa to-day—Thursday, it
referred obliquely to the Memoirs of Count Stylptitch, and begged Mr.
McGrath to do nothing in the matter until he had had a confidential
conversation with Mr. George Lomax, and certain other parties whose
magnificence was vaguely hinted at. It also contained a definite
invitation to go down to Chimneys as the guest of Lord Caterham, on the
following day, Friday.

A mysterious and thoroughly obscure communication. Anthony enjoyed it
very much.

“Dear old England,” he murmured affectionately. “Two days behind the
times, as usual. Rather a pity. Still, I can’t go down to Chimneys
under false pretences. I wonder, though, if there’s an inn handy? Mr.
Anthony Cade might stay at the inn without anyone being the wiser.”

He leaned out of the window, and gave new directions to the taxi
driver, who acknowledged them with a snort of contempt.

The taxi drew up before one of London’s more obscure hostelries. The
fare, however, was paid on a scale befitting its point of departure.

Having booked a room in the name of Anthony Cade, Anthony passed into
a dingy writing-room, took out a sheet of notepaper stamped with the
legend Hotel Blitz, and wrote rapidly.

He explained that he had arrived on the preceding Tuesday, that he
had handed over the manuscript in question to Messrs. Balderson and
Hodgkins, and he regretfully declined the kind invitation of Lord
Caterham as he was leaving England almost immediately. He signed the
letter “Yours faithfully, James McGrath.”

“And now,” said Anthony, as he affixed the stamp to the envelope. “To
business. Exit James McGrath, and Enter Anthony Cade.”




8

A Dead Man


On that same Thursday afternoon Virginia Revel had been playing tennis
at Ranelagh. All the way back to Pont Street, as she lay back in the
long, luxurious limousine, a little smile played upon her lips, as
she rehearsed her part in the forthcoming interview. Of course it
was within the bounds of possibility that the blackmailer might not
reappear, but she felt pretty certain that he would. She had shown
herself an easy prey. Well, perhaps this time there would be a little
surprise for him!

When the car drew up at the house, she turned to speak to the chauffeur
before going up the steps.

“How’s your wife, Walton? I forgot to ask.”

“Better I think, ma’am. The doctor said he’d look in and see her about
half-past six. Will you be wanting the car again?”

Virginia reflected for a minute.

“I shall be away for the week-end. I’m going by the 6.40 from
Paddington, but I shan’t need you again—a taxi will do for that. I’d
rather you saw the doctor. If he thinks it would do your wife good to
go away for the week-end, take her somewhere, Walton. I’ll stand the
expense.”

Cutting short the man’s thanks with an impatient nod of the head,
Virginia ran up the steps, delved into her bag in search of her
latchkey, remembered she hadn’t got it with her, and hastily rang the
bell.

It was not answered at once, but as she waited there a young man came
up the steps. He was shabbily dressed, and carried in his hand a sheaf
of leaflets. He held one out to Virginia with the legend on it plainly
visible: “Why Did I Serve my Country?” In his left hand he held a
collecting-box.

“I can’t buy two of those awful poems in one day,” said Virginia
pleadingly. “I bought one this morning. I did, indeed, honour bright.”

The young man threw back his head and laughed. Virginia laughed with
him. Running her eyes carelessly over him, she thought him a more
pleasing specimen than usual of London’s unemployed. She liked his
brown face, and the lean hardness of him. She went so far as to wish
she had a job for him.

But at that moment the door opened, and immediately Virginia forgot all
about the problem of the unemployed, for to her astonishment the door
was opened by her own maid, Élise.

“Where’s Chilvers?” she demanded sharply, as she stepped into the hall.

“But he is gone, madame, with the others.”

“What others? Gone where?”

“But to Datchet, madame—to the cottage, as your telegram said.”

“My telegram?” said Virginia, utterly at sea.

“Did not madame send a telegram? Surely there can be no mistake. It
came but an hour ago.”

“I never sent any telegram. What did it say?”

“I believe it is still on the table _là-bas_.”

Élise retired, pounced upon it, and brought it to her mistress in
triumph.

“_Voilà_, madame!”

The telegram was addressed to Chilvers and ran as follows:

“Please take household down to cottage at once, and make preparations
for week-end party there. Catch 5.49 train.”

There was nothing unusual about it, it was just the sort of message she
herself had frequently sent before, when she had arranged a party at
her riverside bungalow on the spur of the moment. She always took the
whole household down, leaving an old woman as caretaker. Chilvers would
not have seen anything wrong with the message, and like a good servant
had carried out his orders faithfully enough.

“Me, I remained,” explained Élise, “knowing that madame would wish me
to pack for her.”

“It’s a silly hoax,” cried Virginia, flinging down the telegram
angrily. “You know perfectly well, Élise, that I am going to Chimneys.
I told you so this morning.”

“I thought madame had changed her mind. Sometimes that does happen,
does it not, madame?”

Virginia admitted the truth of the accusation with a half smile. She
was busy trying to find a reason for this extraordinary practical joke.
Élise cut forward a suggestion.

“_Mon Dieu!_” she cried, clasping her hands. “If it should be the
malefactors, the thieves! They send the bogus telegram and get the
_domestiques_ all out of the house, and then they rob it.”

“I suppose that might be it,” said Virginia doubtfully.

“Yes, yes, madame, that is it without a doubt. Every day you read in
the papers of such things. Madame will ring up the police at once—at
once—before they arrive and cut our throats.”

“Don’t get so excited, Élise. They won’t come and cut our throats at
six o’clock in the afternoon.”

“Madame, I implore you, let me run out and fetch a policeman now, at
once.”

“What on earth for? Don’t be silly, Élise. Go up and pack my things
for Chimneys if you haven’t already done it. The new Cailleuax evening
dress, and the white crêpe marocain, and—yes, the black velvet—black
velvet is so political, is it not?”

“Madame looks ravishing in the eau de nil satin,” suggested Élise, her
professional instincts reasserting themselves.

“No, I won’t take that. Hurry up, Élise, there’s a good girl. We’ve got
very little time. I’ll send a wire to Chilvers at Datchet, and I’ll
speak to the policeman on the beat as we go out and tell him to keep an
eye on the place. Don’t start rolling your eyes again, Élise—if you
get so frightened before anything has happened, what would you do if a
man jumped out from some dark corner and stuck a knife into you?”

Élise gave vent to a shrill squeak, and beat a speedy retreat up the
stairs, darting nervous glances over each shoulder as she went.

Virginia made a face at her retreating back, and crossed the hall to
the little study where the telephone was. Élise’s suggestion of ringing
up the police station seemed to her a good one, and she intended to act
upon it without any further delay.

She opened the study door and crossed to the telephone. Then, with
her hand on the receiver, she stopped. A man was sitting in the big
arm-chair, sitting in a curious huddled position. In the stress of the
moment, she had forgotten all about her expected visitor. Apparently he
had fallen asleep whilst waiting for her.

She came right up to the chair, a slightly mischievous smile upon her
face. And then suddenly the smile faded.

The man was not asleep. _He was dead._

She knew it at once, knew it instinctively even before her eyes had
seen and noted the small shining pistol lying on the floor, the
little-singed hole just above the heart with the dark stain round it,
and the horrible dropped jaw.

She stood quite still, her hands pressed to her sides. In the silence
she heard Élise running down the stairs.

“Madame! Madame!”

“Well, what is it?”

She moved quickly to the door. Her whole instinct was to conceal what
had happened—for the moment anyway—from Élise. Élise would promptly
go into hysterics, she knew that well enough, and she felt a great need
for calm and quiet in which to think things out.

“Madame, would it not be better if I should draw the chain across the
door? These malefactors, at any minute they may arrive.”

“Yes, if you like. Anything you like.”

She heard the rattle of the chain, and then Élise running upstairs
again, and drew a long breath of relief.

She looked at the man in the chair and then at the telephone. Her
course was quite clear, she must ring up the police at once.

But still she did not do so. She stood quite still, paralysed with
horror and with a host of conflicting ideas rushing through her brain.
The bogus telegram. Had it something to do with this? Supposing
Élise had not stayed behind? She would have let herself in—that is,
presuming she had had her latchkey with her as usual, to find herself
alone in the house with a murdered man—a man whom she had permitted to
blackmail her on a former occasion. Of course she had an explanation of
that; but thinking of that explanation she was not quite easy in her
mind. She remembered how frankly incredible George had found it. Would
other people think the same. Those letters now—of course she hadn’t
written them, but would it be so easy to prove that?

She put her hands on her forehead, squeezing them tight together.

“I must think,” said Virginia. “I simply must think.”

Who had let the man in? Surely not Élise. If she had done so, she would
have been sure to have mentioned the fact at once. The whole thing
seemed more and more mysterious as she thought about it. There was
really only one thing to be done—ring up the police.

She stretched out her hand to the telephone, and suddenly she thought
of George. A man—that was what she wanted—an ordinary level-headed,
unemotional man who would see things in their proper proportion and
point out to her the best course to take.

Then she shook her head. Not George. The first thing George would think
of would be his own position. He would hate being mixed up in this
kind of business. George wouldn’t do at all.

Then her face softened. Bill, of course! Without more ado, she rang up
Bill.

She was informed that he had left half an hour ago for Chimneys.

“Oh, damn!” cried Virginia, jamming down the receiver. It was horrible
to be shut up with a dead body and to have no one to speak to.

And at that minute the front-door bell rang.

Virginia jumped. In a few minutes it rang again. Élise, she knew, was
upstairs packing and wouldn’t hear it.

Virginia went out in the hall, drew back the chain, and undid all the
bolts that Élise had fastened in her zeal. Then, with a long breath,
she threw open the door. On the steps was the unemployed young man.

Virginia plunged headlong with a relief born of overstrung nerves.

“Come in,” she said. “I think that perhaps I’ve got a job for you.”

She took him into the dining-room, pulled toward a chair for him, sat
down herself facing him, and stared at him very attentively.

“Excuse me,” she said, “but are you—I mean——”

“Eton and Oxford,” said the young man. “That’s what you wanted to ask
me, wasn’t it?”

“Something of the kind,” admitted Virginia.

“Come down in the world entirely through my own incapacity to stick to
regular work. This isn’t regular work you’re offering me, I hope?”

A smile hovered for a moment on her lips.

“It’s very irregular.”

“Good,” said the young man in a tone of satisfaction.

Virginia noted his bronzed face and long lean body with approval.

“You see,” she explained, “I’m in rather a hole, and most of my friends
are—well, rather high up. They’ve all got something to lose.”

“I’ve nothing whatever to lose. So go ahead. What’s the trouble?”

“There’s a dead man in the next room,” said Virginia. “He’s been
murdered, and I don’t know what to do about it.”

She blurted out the words as simply as a child might have done.
The young man went up enormously in her estimation by the way he
accepted her statement. He might have been used to hearing a similar
announcement made every day of his life.

“Excellent,” he said, with a trace of enthusiasm. “I’ve always wanted
to do a bit of amateur detective work. Shall we go and view the body,
or will you give me the facts first?”

“I think I’d better give you the facts.” She paused for a moment to
consider how best to condense her story, and then began, speaking
quietly and concisely.

“This man came to the house for the first time yesterday and asked to
see me. He had certain letters with him—love letters, signed with my
name——”

“But which weren’t written by you,” put in the young man quietly.

Virginia looked at him in some astonishment

“How did you know that?”

“Oh, I deduced it. But go on.”

“He wanted to blackmail me—and I—well, I don’t know if you’ll
understand, but I—let him.”

She looked at him appealingly, and he nodded his head reassuringly.

“Of course I understand. You wanted to see what it felt like.”

“How frightfully clever of you! That’s just what I did feel.”

“I _am_ clever,” said the young man modestly. “But, mind you, very
few people would understand that point of view. Most people, you see,
haven’t got any imagination.”

“I suppose that’s so. I told this man to come back to-day—at six
o’clock. I arrived home from Ranelagh to find that a bogus telegram had
got all the servants except my maid out of the house. Then I walked
into the study and found the man shot.”

“Who let him in?”

“I don’t know. I think if my maid had done so she would have told me.”

“Does she know what has happened?”

“I have told her nothing.”

The young man nodded, and rose to his feet.

“And now to view the body,” he said briskly. “But I’ll tell you
this—on the whole it’s always best to tell the truth. One lie involves
you in such a lot of lies—and continuous lying is so monotonous.”

“Then you advise me to ring up the police?”

“Probably. But we’ll just have a look at the fellow first.”

Virginia led the way out the room. On the threshold she paused, looking
back at him.

“By the way,” she said, “you haven’t told me your name yet?”

“My name? My name’s Anthony Cade.”




9

Anthony Disposes of a Body


Anthony followed Virginia out of the room, smiling a little to himself.
Events had taken quite an unexpected turn. But as he bent over the
figure in the chair he grew grave again.

“He’s still warm,” he said sharply. “He was killed less than half an
hour ago.”

“Just before I came in?”

“Exactly.”

He stood upright, drawing his brows together in a frown. Then he asked
a question of which Virginia did not at once see the drift:

“Your maid’s not been in this room, of course?”

“No.”

“Does she know that you’ve been into it?”

“Why—yes. I came to the door to speak to her.”

“After you’d found the body.”

“Yes.”

“And you said nothing?”

“Would it have been better if I had? I thought she would go into
hysterics—she’s French, you know, and easily upset—I wanted to think
over the best thing to do.”

Anthony nodded, but did not speak.

“You think it a pity, I can see?”

“Well, it was rather unfortunate, Mrs. Revel. If you and the maid had
discovered the body together, immediately on your return, it would have
simplified matters very much. The man would then definitely have been
shot _before_ your return to the house.”

“Whilst now they might say he was shot _after_—I see—”

He watched her taking in the idea, and was confirmed in his first
impression of her formed when she had spoken to him on the steps
outside. Besides beauty, she possessed courage and brains.

Virginia was so engrossed in the puzzle presented to her that it did
not occur to her to wonder at this strange man’s ready use of her name.

“Why didn’t Élise hear the shot, I wonder?” she murmured.

Anthony pointed to the open window, as a loud backfire came from a
passing car.

“There you are. London’s not the place to notice a pistol shot.”

Virginia turned with a little shudder to the body in the chair.

“He looks like an Italian,” she remarked curiously.

“He is an Italian,” said Anthony. “I should say that his regular
profession was that of a waiter. He only did blackmailing in his spare
time. His name might very possibly be Giuseppe.”

“Good heavens!” cried Virginia. “Is this Sherlock Holmes?”

“No,” said Anthony regretfully. “I’m afraid it’s just plain or garden
cheating. I’ll tell you all about it presently. Now you say this man
showed you some letters and asked you for money. Did you give him any?”

“Yes, I did.”

“How much?”

“Forty pounds.”

“That’s bad,” said Anthony, but without manifesting any undue surprise.
“Now let’s have a look at the telegram.”

Virginia picked it up from the table and gave it to him. She saw his
face grow grave as he looked at it.

“What’s the matter?”

He held it out, pointing silently to the place of origin.

“Barnes,” he said. “And you were at Ranelagh this afternoon. What’s to
prevent you having sent it off yourself?”

Virginia felt fascinated by his words. It was as though a net was
closing tighter and tighter round her. He was forcing her to see all
the things which she had felt dimly at the back of her mind.

Anthony took out his handkerchief and wound it round his hand, then he
picked up the pistol.

“We criminals have to be so careful,” he said apologetically.
“Fingerprints, you know.”

Suddenly she saw his whole figure stiffen. His voice, when he spoke,
had altered. It was terse and curt.

“Mrs. Revel,” he said, “have you ever seen this pistol before?”

“No,” said Virginia wonderingly.

“Are you sure of that?”

“Quite sure.”

“Have you a pistol of your own?”

“No.”

“Have you ever had one?”

“No, never.”

“You are sure of that?”

“Quite sure.”

He stared at her steadily for a minute, and Virginia stared back in
complete surprise at his tone.

Then, with a sigh, he relaxed.

“That’s odd,” he said. “How do you account for this?”

He held out the pistol. It was a small, dainty article, almost a
toy—though capable of doing deadly work. Engraved on it was the name
Virginia.

“Oh, it’s impossible!” cried Virginia.

Her astonishment was so genuine that Anthony could but believe in it.

“Sit down,” he said quietly. “There’s more in this than there seemed
to be first go off. To begin with, what’s our hypothesis? There are
only two possible ones. There is, of course, the real Virginia of the
letters. She may have somehow or other tracked him down, shot him,
dropped the pistol, stolen the letters, and taken herself off. That’s
quite possible, isn’t it?”

“I suppose so,” said Virginia unwillingly.

“The other hypothesis is a good deal more interesting. Whoever wished
to kill Giuseppe, wished also to incriminate you—in fact that may have
been their main object. They could get _him_ easily enough anywhere,
but they took extraordinary pains and trouble to get him _here_, and
whoever they were they knew all about you, your cottage at Datchet,
your usual household arrangements, and the fact that you were at
Ranelagh this afternoon. It seems an absurd question, but have you any
enemies, Mrs. Revel?”

“Of course I haven’t—not that kind, anyway.”

“The question is,” said Anthony, “what are we going to do now? There
are two courses open to us. A: Ring up the police, tell the whole
story, and trust to your unassailable position in the world and
your hitherto blameless life. B: An attempt on my part to dispose
successfully of the body. Naturally my private inclinations urge me
to B. I’ve always wanted to see if I couldn’t conceal a crime with
the necessary cunning, but have had a squeamish objection to shedding
blood. On the whole, I expect A’s the soundest. Then there’s a sort of
bowdlerized A. Ring up the police, etc., but suppress the pistol and
the blackmailing letters—that is, if they are on him still.”

Anthony ran rapidly through the dead man’s pockets.

“He’s been stripped clean,” he announced. “There’s not a thing on him.
There’ll be dirty work at the crossroads over those letters yet. Hullo,
what’s this? Hole in the lining—something got caught there, torn
roughly out, and a scrap of paper left behind.”

He drew out the scrap of paper as he spoke, and brought it over to the
light. Virginia joined him.

“Pity we haven’t got the rest of it,” he muttered. “_Chimneys 11.45
Thursday_—Sounds like an appointment.”

“Chimneys?” cried Virginia. “How extraordinary!”

“Why extraordinary? Rather high toned for such a low fellow?”

“I’m going to Chimneys this evening. At least I was.”

Anthony wheeled round on her.

“What’s that? Say that again.”

“I was going to Chimneys this evening,” repeated Virginia.

Anthony stared at her.

“I begin to see. At least, I may be wrong—but it’s an idea. Suppose
some one wanted badly to prevent your going to Chimneys?”

“My cousin George Lomax does,” said Virginia with a smile. “But I can’t
seriously suspect George of murder.”

Anthony did not smile. He was lost in thought.

“If you ring up the police, it’s good-bye to any idea of getting to
Chimneys to-day—or even to-morrow. And I should like you to go to
Chimneys. I fancy it will disconcert our unknown friends. Mrs. Revel,
will you put yourself in my hands?”

“It’s to be Plan B, then?”

“It’s to be Plan B. The first thing is to get that maid of yours out of
the house. Can you manage that?”

“Easily.”

Virginia went out in the hall and called up the stairs.

“Élise. Élise.”

“Madame?”

Anthony heard a rapid colloquy, and then the front door opened and
shut. Virginia came back into the room.

“She’s gone. I sent her for some special scent—told her the shop in
question was open until eight. It won’t be, of course. She’s to follow
after me by the next train without coming back here.”

“Good,” said Anthony approvingly. “We can now proceed to the disposal
of the body. It’s a time-worn method, but I’m afraid I shall have to
ask you if there’s such a thing in the house as a trunk?”

“Of course there is. Come down to the basement and take your choice.”

There was a variety of trunks in the basement. Anthony selected a solid
affair of suitable size.

“I’ll attend to this part of it,” he said tactfully. “You go upstairs
and get ready to start.”

Virginia obeyed. She slipped out of her tennis kit, put on a soft brown
travelling dress and a delightful little orange hat, and came down to
find Anthony waiting in the hall with a neatly strapped trunk beside
him.

“I should like to tell you the story of my life,” he remarked, “but
it’s going to be rather a busy evening. Now this is what you’ve got
to do. Call a taxi, have your luggage put on it, including the trunk.
Drive to Paddington. There have the trunk put in the Left Luggage
Office. I shall be on the platform. As you pass me, drop the Cloak
Room ticket. I will pick it up and pretend to return it to you, but in
reality I shall keep it. Go on to Chimneys, and leave the rest to me.”

“It’s awfully good of you,” said Virginia. “It’s really dreadful of me
saddling a perfect stranger with a dead body like this.”

“I like it,” returned Anthony nonchalantly. “If one of my friends,
Jimmy McGrath, were here, he’d tell you that anything of this kind
suits me down to the ground.”

Virginia was staring at him.

“What name did you say? Jimmy McGrath?”

Anthony returned her glance keenly.

“Yes. Why? Have you heard of him?”

“Yes—and quite lately.” She paused irresolutely, and then went on.
“Mr. Cade, I must talk to you. Can’t you come down to Chimneys?”

“You’ll see me before very long, Mrs. Revel—I’ll tell you that. Now,
exit Conspirator A by back door slinkingly. Exit Conspirator B in
blaze of glory by front door to taxi.”

The plan went through without a hitch. Anthony, having picked up a
second taxi, was on the platform and duly retrieved the fallen ticket.
He then departed in search of a somewhat battered second-hand Morris
Cowley which he had acquired earlier in the day in case it should be
necessary to his plans.

Returning to Paddington in this, he handed the ticket to the porter,
who got the trunk out of the cloak room and wedged it securely at the
back of the car. Anthony drove off.

His objective now was out of London. Through Notting Hill, Shepherd’s
Bush, down Goldhawk Road, through Brentford and Hounslow till he came
to the long stretch of road mid-way between Hounslow and Staines.
It was a well-frequented road, with motors passing continually. No
footmarks or tyre marks were likely to show. Anthony stopped the car at
a certain spot. Getting down, he first obscured the number-plate with
mud. Then, waiting until he heard no car coming in either direction,
he opened the trunk, heaved out Giuseppe’s body, and laid it neatly
down by the side of the road, on the inside of a curve, so that the
headlights of passing motors would not strike on it.

Then he entered the car again and drove away. The whole business had
occupied exactly one minute and a half. He made a détour to the right,
returning to London by way of Burnham Beeches. There again he halted
the car, and choosing a giant of the forest he deliberately climbed the
huge tree. It was something of a feat, even for Anthony. To one of the
topmost branches, he affixed a small brown-paper parcel, concealing it
in a little niche close to the bole.

“A very clever way of disposing of the pistol,” said Anthony to himself
with some approval. “Everybody hunts about on the ground, and drags
ponds. But there are very few people in England who could climb that
tree.”

Next, back to London and Paddington Station. Here he left the trunk—at
the other cloak room this time, the one on the Arrival side. He thought
longingly of such things as good rumpsteaks, juicy chops, and large
masses of fried potatoes. But he shook his head ruefully, glancing at
his wrist watch. He fed the Morris with a fresh supply of petrol, and
then took the road once more. North this time.

It was just after half-past eleven that he brought the car to rest in
the road adjoining the park of Chimneys. Jumping out he scaled the wall
easily enough, and set out towards the house. It took him longer than
he thought, and presently he broke into a run. A great grey mass loomed
up out of the darkness—the venerable pile of Chimneys. In the distance
a stable clock chimed the three quarters.

11.45—the time mentioned on the scrap of paper. Anthony was on the
terrace now, looking up at the house. Everything seemed dark and quiet.

“They go to bed early, these politicians,” he murmured to himself.

And suddenly a sound smote upon his ears—the sound of a shot. Anthony
spun round quickly. The sound had come from within the house—he was
sure of that. He waited a minute, but everything was still as death.
Finally he went up to one of the long French windows from where he
judged the sound that had startled him had come. He tried the handle.
It was locked. He tried some of the other windows, listening intently
all the while. But the silence remained unbroken.

In the end he told himself that he must have imagined the sound, or
perhaps mistaken a stray shot coming from a poacher in the woods. He
turned and retraced his steps across the park, vaguely dissatisfied and
uneasy.

He looked back at the house, and whilst he looked a light sprang up in
one of the windows on the first floor. In another minute it went out
again, and the whole place was in darkness once more.




10

Chimneys


Inspector Badgworthy in his office. Time, 8.30 A.M. A tall portly
man, Inspector Badgworthy, with a heavy regulation tread. Inclined to
breathe hard in moments of professional strain. In attendance Constable
Johnson, very new to the Force, with a downy unfledged look about him,
like a human chicken.

The telephone on the table rang sharply, and the inspector took it up
with his usual portentous gravity of action.

“Yes. Police station Market Basing. Inspector Badgworthy speaking.
What?”

Slight alteration in the inspector’s manner. As he is greater than
Johnson, so others are greater than Inspector Badgworthy.

“Speaking, my lord. I beg your pardon, my lord? I didn’t quite hear
what you said?”

Long pause, during which the inspector listens, quite a variety of
expressions passing over his usually impassive countenance. Finally he
lays down the receiver, after a brief “At once, my lord.”

He turned to Johnson, seeming visibly swelled with importance.

“From his lordship—at Chimneys—Murder.”

“Murder,” echoed Johnson, suitably impressed.

“Murder it is,” said the inspector, with great satisfaction.

“Why, there’s never been a murder here—not that I’ve ever heard
of—except the time that Tom Pearse shot his sweetheart.”

“And that, in a manner of speaking, wasn’t murder at all, but drink,”
said the inspector, deprecatingly.

“He weren’t hanged for it,” agreed Johnson gloomily. “But this is the
real thing, is it, sir?”

“It is, Johnson. One of his lordship’s guests, a foreign gentleman,
discovered shot. Open window, and footprints outside.”

“I’m sorry it were a foreigner,” said Johnson, with some regret.

It made the murder seem less real. Foreigners, Johnson felt, were
liable to be shot.

“His lordship’s in a rare taking,” continued the inspector. “We’ll get
hold of Dr. Cartwright and take him up with us right away. I hope to
goodness no one will get messing with those footprints.”

Badgworthy was in a seventh heaven. A murder! At Chimneys! Inspector
Badgworthy in charge of the case. The police have a clue. Sensational
arrest. Promotion and kudos for the aforementioned inspector.

“That is,” said Inspector Badgworthy to himself, “if Scotland Yard
doesn’t come butting in.”

The thought damped him momentarily. It seemed so extremely likely to
happen under the circumstances.

They stopped at Dr. Cartwright’s, and the doctor, who was a
comparatively young man, displayed a keen interest. His attitude was
almost exactly that of Johnson.

“Why, bless my soul,” he exclaimed. “We haven’t had a murder here since
the time of Tom Pearse.”

All three of them got into the doctor’s little car, and started
off briskly for Chimneys. As they passed the local inn, _The Jolly
Cricketers_, the doctor noticed a man standing in the doorway.

“Stranger,” he remarked. “Rather a nice-looking fellow. Wonder how long
he’s been here, and what he’s doing staying at the _Cricketers_? I
haven’t seen him about at all. He must have arrived last night.”

“He didn’t come by train,” said Johnson.

Johnson’s brother was the local railway porter, and Johnson was
therefore always well up in arrivals and departures.

“Who was there for Chimneys yesterday?” asked the inspector.

“Lady Eileen, she come down by the 3.40, and two gentlemen with her,
an American gent, and a young Army chap—neither of them with valets.
His lordship come down with a foreign gentleman, the one that’s been
shot as likely as not, by the 5.40, and the foreign gentleman’s valet.
Mr. Eversleigh come by the same train. Mrs. Revel came by the 7.25, and
another foreign-looking gentleman came by it too, one with a bald head
and a hook nose. Mrs. Revel’s maid came by the 8.56.”

Johnson paused, out of breath.

“And there was no one for the _Cricketers_?”

Johnson shook his head.

“He must have come by car then,” said the inspector. “Johnson, make
a note to institute inquiries at the _Cricketers_ on your way back.
We want to know all about any strangers. He was very sunburnt, that
gentleman. Likely as not, he’s come from foreign parts too.”

The inspector nodded his head with great sagacity, as though to imply
that that was the sort of wide-awake man he was—not to be caught
napping under any consideration.

The car passed in through the Park gates of Chimneys. Descriptions of
that historic place can be found in any guide book. It is also No. 3
in _Historic Homes of England_, price 21s. On Thursdays, chars-à-bancs
come over from Middlingham and view those portions of it which are open
to the public. In view of all these facilities, to describe Chimneys
would be superfluous.

They were received at the door by a white-headed butler whose demeanour
was perfect.

“We are not accustomed,” it seemed to say, “to having murder committed
within these walls. But these are evil days. Let us meet disaster with
perfect calm, and pretend with our dying breath that nothing out of the
usual has occurred.”

“His lordship,” said the butler, “is expecting you. This way, if you
please.”

He led them to a small cosy room which was Lord Caterham’s refuge from
the magnificence elsewhere, and announced them.

“The police, my lord, and Dr. Cartwright.”

Lord Caterham was pacing up and down in a visibly agitated state.

“Ha! inspector, you’ve turned up at last. I’m thankful for that. How
are you, Cartwright? This is the very devil of a business, you know.
The very devil of a business.”

And Lord Caterham, running his hands through his hair in a frenzied
fashion until it stood upright in little tufts, looked even less like a
peer of the realm than usual.

“Where’s the body?” asked the doctor, in curt business-like fashion.

Lord Caterham turned to him as though relieved at being asked a direct
question.

“In the council chamber—just where it was found—I wouldn’t have it
touched. I believed—er—that that was the correct thing to do.”

“Quite right, my lord,” said the inspector approvingly.

He produced a notebook and pencil.

“And who discovered the body? Did you?”

“Good Lord, no,” said Lord Caterham. “You don’t think I usually get up
at this unearthly hour in the morning, do you? No, a housemaid found
it. She screamed a good deal, I believe. I didn’t hear her myself. Then
they came to me about it, and of course I got up and came down—and
there it was, you know.”

“You recognized the body as that of one of your guests?”

“That’s right, inspector.”

“By name?”

This perfectly simple question seemed to upset Lord Caterham. He
opened his mouth once or twice, and then shut it again. Finally he
asked feebly.

“Do you mean—do you mean—what was his name?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Well,” said Lord Caterham, looking slowly round the room, as though
hoping to gain inspiration. “His name was—I should say it was—yes,
decidedly so—Count Stanislaus.”

There was something so odd about Lord Caterham’s manner, that the
inspector ceased using his pencil and stared at him instead. But at
that moment a diversion occurred which seemed highly welcome to the
embarrassed peer.

The door opened and a girl came into the room. She was tall, slim and
dark, with an attractive boyish face, and a very determined manner.
This was Lady Eileen Brent, commonly known as Bundle, Lord Caterham’s
eldest daughter. She nodded to the others, and addressed her father
directly.

“I’ve got him,” she announced.

For a moment the inspector was on the point of starting forward
under the impression that the young lady had captured the murderer
red-handed, but almost immediately he realized that her meaning was
quite different.

Lord Caterham uttered a sigh of relief.

“That’s a good job. What did he say?”

“He’s coming over at once. We are to ‘use the utmost discretion.’”

Her father made a sound of annoyance.

“That’s just the sort of idiotic thing George Lomax would say. However,
once he comes, I shall wash my hands of the whole affair.”

He appeared to cheer up a little at the prospect.

“And the name of the murdered man was Count Stanislaus?” queried the
doctor.

A lightning glance passed between father and daughter, and then the
former said with some dignity:

“Certainly. I said so just now.”

“I asked because you didn’t seem quite sure about it before,” explained
Cartwright.

There was a faint twinkle in his eye, and Lord Caterham looked at him
reproachfully.

“I’ll take you to the Council Chamber,” he said more briskly.

They followed him, the inspector bringing up the rear, and darting
sharp glances all around him as he went, much as though he expected to
find a clue in a picture frame, or behind a door.

Lord Caterham took a key from his pocket and unlocked a door, flinging
it open. They all passed into a big room panelled in oak, with three
long windows giving on the terrace. There was a long refectory table
and a good many oak chests, and some beautiful old chairs. On the walls
were various paintings of dead and gone Caterhams and others.

Near the left-hand wall, about half-way between the door and the
window, a man was lying on his back, his arms flung wide.

Dr. Cartwright went over and knelt down by the body. The inspector
strode across to the windows, and examined them in turn. The centre
one was closed, but not fastened. On the steps outside were footprints
leading up to the window, and a second set going away again.

“Clear enough,” said the inspector, with a nod. “But there ought to be
footprints on the inside as well. They’d show up plain on this parquet
floor.”

“I think I can explain that,” interposed Bundle. “The housemaid had
polished half the floor this morning before she saw the body. You
see, it was dark when she came in here. She went straight across to
the windows, drew the curtains, and began on the floor, and naturally
didn’t see the body which is hidden from that side of the room by the
table. She didn’t see it until she came right on top of it.”

The inspector nodded.

“Well,” said Lord Caterham, eager to escape. “I’ll leave you here,
inspector. You’ll be able to find me if you—er—want me. But Mr.
George Lomax is coming over from Wyverne Abbey shortly, and he’ll be
able to tell you far more than I could. It’s his business really. I
can’t explain, but he will when he comes.”

Lord Caterham beat a precipitate retreat without waiting for a reply.

“Too bad for Lomax,” he complained. “Letting me in for this. What’s the
matter, Tredwell?”

The white-haired butler was hovering deferentially at his elbow.

“I have taken the liberty, my lord, of advancing the breakfast hour as
far as you are concerned. Everything is ready in the dining-room.”

“I don’t suppose for a minute I can eat anything,” said Lord Caterham
gloomily, turning his footsteps in that direction. “Not for a moment.”

Bundle slipped her hand through his arm, and they entered the
dining-room together. On the sideboard were half a score of heavy
silver dishes, ingeniously kept hot by patent arrangements.

“Omelet,” said Lord Caterham, lifting each lid in turn. “Eggs and
bacon, kidneys, devilled bird, haddock, cold ham, cold pheasant. I
don’t like any of these things, Tredwell, ask the cook to poach me an
egg, will you?”

“Very good, my lord.”

Tredwell withdrew. Lord Caterham, in an absent-minded fashion, helped
himself plentifully to kidneys and bacon, poured himself out a cup of
coffee, and sat down at the long table. Bundle was already busy with a
plateful of eggs and bacon.

“I’m damned hungry,” said Bundle with her mouth full. “It must be the
excitement.”

“It’s all very well for you,” complained her father. “You young people
like excitement. But I’m in a very delicate state of health. Avoid all
worry, that’s what Sir Abner Willis said—avoid all worry. So easy for
a man sitting in his consulting-room in Harley Street to say that. How
can I avoid worry when that ass Lomax lands me with a thing like this?
I ought to have been firm at the time. I ought to have put my foot
down.”

With a sad shake of the head, Lord Caterham rose and carved himself a
plate of ham.

“Codders has certainly done it this time,” observed Bundle cheerfully.
“He was almost incoherent over the telephone. He’ll be here in a minute
or two, spluttering nineteen to the dozen about discretion and hushing
it up.”

Lord Caterham groaned at the prospect.

“Was he up?” he asked.

“He told me,” replied Bundle, “that he had been up and dictating
letters and memoranda ever since seven o’clock.”

“Proud of it, too,” remarked her father. “Extraordinarily selfish,
these public men. They make their wretched secretaries get up at the
most unearthly hours in order to dictate rubbish to them. If a law was
passed compelling them to stop in bed until eleven, what a benefit it
would be to the nation! I wouldn’t mind so much if they didn’t talk
such balderdash. Lomax is always talking to me of my ‘position.’ As if
I had any. Who wants to be a peer nowadays?”

“Nobody,” said Bundle. “They’d much rather keep a prosperous public
house.”

Tredwell reappeared silently with two poached eggs in a little silver
dish which he placed on the table in front of Lord Caterham.

“What’s that, Tredwell?” said the latter, looking at them with faint
distaste.

“Poached eggs, my lord.”

“I hate poached eggs,” said Lord Caterham peevishly. “They’re so
insipid. I don’t like to look at them even. Take them away, will you,
Tredwell?”

“Very good, my lord.”

Tredwell and the poached eggs withdrew as silently as they came.

“Thank God no one gets up early in this house,” remarked Lord Caterham
devoutly. “We shall have to break this to them when they do, I suppose.”

He sighed.

“I wonder who murdered him,” said Bundle. “And why?”

“That’s not our business, thank goodness,” said Lord Caterham. “That’s
for the police to find out. Not that Badgworthy will ever find out
anything. On the whole I rather hope it was Nosystein.”

“Meaning——”

“The All British Syndicate.”

“Why should Mr. Isaacstein murder him when he’d come down here on
purpose to meet him?”

“High finance,” said Lord Caterham vaguely. “And that reminds me, I
shouldn’t be at all surprised if Isaacstein wasn’t an early riser. He
may blow in upon us at any minute. It’s a habit in the city. I believe
that, however rich you are, you always catch the 9.17.”

The sound of a motor being driven at great speed was heard through the
open window.

“Codders,” cried Bundle.

Father and daughter leaned out of the window and hailed the occupant of
the car as it drew up before the entrance.

“In here, my dear fellow, in here,” cried Lord Caterham, hastily
swallowing his mouthful of ham.

George had no intention of climbing in through the window. He
disappeared through the front door, and reappeared ushered in by
Tredwell, who withdrew at once.

“Have some breakfast,” said Lord Caterham, shaking him by the hand.
“What about a kidney?”

George waved the kidney aside impatiently.

“This is a terrible calamity, terrible, terrible.”

“It is indeed. Some haddock?”

“No, no. It must be hushed up—at all costs it must be hushed up.”

As Bundle had prophesied, George began to splutter.

“I understand your feelings,” said Lord Caterham sympathetically. “Try
an egg and bacon, or some haddock.”

“A totally unforeseen contingency—national calamity—concessions
jeopardized——”

“Take time,” said Lord Caterham. “And take some food. What you need
is some food, to pull you together. Poached eggs now? There were some
poached eggs here a minute or two ago.”

“I don’t want any food,” said George. “I’ve had breakfast, and even if
I hadn’t had any I shouldn’t want it. We must think what is to be done.
You have told no one as yet?”

“Well, there’s Bundle and myself. And the local police. And Cartwright.
And all the servants of course.”

George groaned.

“Pull yourself together, my dear fellow,” said Lord Caterham kindly.
“(I wish you’d have some breakfast.) You don’t seem to realize that
you can’t hush up a dead body. It’s got be buried and all that sort of
thing. Very unfortunate, but there it is.”

George became suddenly calm.

“You are right, Caterham. You have called in the local police, you say?
That will not do. We must have Battle.”

“Battle, murder and sudden death,” inquired Lord Caterham, with a
puzzled face.

“No, no, you misunderstand me. I referred to Superintendent Battle of
Scotland Yard. A man of the utmost discretion. He worked with us in
that deplorable business of the Party Funds.”

“What was that?” asked Lord Caterham, with some interest.

But George’s eye had fallen upon Bundle, as she sat half in and half
out of the window, and he remembered discretion just in time. He rose.

“We must waste no time. I must send off some wires at once.”

“If you write them out, Bundle will send them through the telephone.”

George pulled out a fountain pen and began to write with incredible
rapidity. He handed the first one to Bundle, who read it with a great
deal of interest.

“God! what a name,” she remarked. “Baron How Much?”

“Baron Lolopretjzyl.”

Bundle blinked.

“I’ve got it, but it will take some conveying to the post office.”

George continued to write. Then he handed his labours to Bundle and
addressed the master of the house:

“The best thing that you can do, Caterham——”

“Yes,” said Lord Caterham apprehensively.

“Is to leave everything in my hands.”

“Certainly,” said Lord Caterham, with alacrity. “Just what I was
thinking myself. You’ll find the police and Dr. Cartwright in the
Council Chamber. With the—er—with the body, you know. My dear Lomax,
I place Chimneys unreservedly at your disposal. Do anything you like.”

“Thank you,” said George. “If I should want to consult you——”

But Lord Caterham had faded unobtrusively through the farther door.
Bundle had observed his retreat with a grim smile.

“I’ll send off those telegrams at once,” she said. “You know your way
to the Council Chamber?”

“Thank you, Lady Eileen.”

George hurried from the room.




11

Superintendent Battle Arrives


So apprehensive was Lord Caterham of being consulted by George that he
spent the whole morning making a tour of his estate. Only the pangs of
hunger drew him homeward. He also reflected that by now the worst would
surely be over.

He sneaked into the house quietly by a small side door. From there he
slipped neatly into his sanctum. He flattered himself that his entrance
had not been observed, but there he was mistaken. The watchful Tredwell
let nothing escape him. He presented himself at the door.

“You’ll excuse me, my lord——”

“What is it, Tredwell?”

“Mr. Lomax, my lord, is anxious to see you in the library as soon as
you return.”

By this delicate method Tredwell conveyed that Lord Caterham had not
yet returned unless he chose to say so.

Lord Caterham sighed, and then rose.

“I suppose it will have to be done sooner or later. In the library, you
say?”

“Yes, my lord.”

Sighing again, Lord Caterham crossed the wide spaces of his ancestral
home, and reached the library door. The door was locked. As he rattled
the handle, it was unlocked from inside, opened a little way, and the
face of George Lomax appeared, peering out suspiciously.

His face changed when he saw who it was.

“Ah, Caterham, come in. We were just wondering what had become of you.”

Murmuring something vague about duties on the estate, repairs for
tenants, Lord Caterham sidled in apologetically. There were two other
men in the room. One was Colonel Melrose, the Chief Constable. The
other was a squarely built middle-aged man with a face so singularly
devoid of expression as to be quite remarkable.

“Superintendent Battle arrived half an hour ago,” explained George. “He
has been round with Inspector Badgworthy, and seen Dr. Cartwright. He
now wants a few facts from us.”

They all sat down, after Lord Caterham had greeted Melrose and
acknowledged his introduction to Superintendent Battle.

“I need hardly tell you, Battle,” said George, “that this is a case in
which we must use the utmost discretion.”

The superintendent nodded in an offhand manner that rather took Lord
Caterham’s fancy.

“That will be all right, Mr. Lomax. But no concealments from us. I
understand that the dead gentleman was called Count Stanislaus—at
least, that that is the name by which the household knew him. Now was
that his real name?”

“It was not.”

“What was his real name?”

“Prince Michael of Herzoslovakia.”

Battle’s eyes opened just a trifle, otherwise he gave no sign.

“And what, if I may ask the question, was the purpose of his visit
here? Just pleasure?”

“There was a further object, Battle. All this in the strictest
confidence of course.”

“Yes, yes, Mr. Lomax.”

“Colonel Melrose?”

“Of course.”

“Well, then, Prince Michael was here for the express purpose of meeting
Mr. Herman Isaacstein. A loan was to be arranged on certain terms.”

“Which were?”

“I do not know the exact details. Indeed, they had not yet been
arranged. But in the event of coming to the throne, Prince Michael
pledged himself to grant certain oil concessions to those companies in
which Mr. Isaacstein is interested. The British Government was prepared
to support the claim of Prince Michael to the throne in view of his
pronounced British sympathies.”

“Well,” said Superintendent Battle, “I don’t suppose I need go further
into it than that. Prince Michael wanted the money, Mr. Isaacstein
wanted oil, and the British Government was ready to do the heavy
father. Just one question. Was anyone else after those concessions?”

“I believe an American group of financiers had made overtures to His
Highness.”

“And been turned down, eh?”

But George refused to be drawn.

“Prince Michael’s sympathies were entirely pro-British,” he repeated.

Superintendent Battle did not press the point.

“Lord Caterham, I understand that this is what occurred yesterday. You
met Prince Michael in town and journeyed down here in company with him.
The Prince was accompanied by his valet, a Herzoslovakian named Boris
Anchoukoff, but his equerry, Captain Andrassy, remained in town. The
Prince, on arriving, declared himself greatly fatigued, and retired to
the apartments set aside for him. Dinner was served to him there, and
he did not meet the other members of the house party. Is that correct?”

“Quite correct.”

“This morning a housemaid discovered the body at approximately 7.45
A.M. Dr. Cartwright examined the dead man and found that death was the
result of a bullet fired from a revolver. No revolver was found, and no
one in the house seems to have heard the shot. On the other hand the
dead man’s wrist watch was smashed by the fall, and marks the crime as
having been committed at exactly a quarter to twelve. Now what time
did you retire to bed last night?”

“We went early. Somehow or other the party didn’t seem to ‘go’ if you
know what I mean, superintendent. We went up about half-past ten, I
should say.”

“Thank you. Now I will ask you, Lord Caterham, to give me a description
of all the people staying in the house.”

“But, excuse me, I thought the fellow who did it came from outside?”

Superintendent Battle smiled.

“I dare say he did. I dare say he did. But all the same I’ve got to
know who was in the house. Matter of routine, you know.”

“Well, there was Prince Michael and his valet and Mr. Herman
Isaacstein. You know all about them. Then there was Mr. Eversleigh——”

“Who works in my department,” put in George condescendingly.

“And who was acquainted with the real reason of Prince Michael’s being
here?”

“No, I should not say that,” replied George weightily. “Doubtless
he realized that something was in the wind, but I did not think it
necessary to take him fully into my confidence.”

“I see. Will you go on, Lord Caterham?”

“Let me see, there was Mr. Hiram Fish.”

“Who is Mr. Hiram Fish?”

“Mr. Fish is an American. He brought over a letter of introduction from
Mr. Lucius Gott—you’ve heard of Lucius Gott?”

Superintendent Battle smiled acknowledgment. Who had not heard of
Lucius C. Gott, the multi-millionaire?

“He was specially anxious to see my first editions. Mr. Gott’s
collection is, of course, unequalled, but I’ve got several treasures
myself. This Mr. Fish was an enthusiast. Mr. Lomax had suggested that
I ask one or two extra people down here this week-end to make things
seem more natural, so I took the opportunity of asking Mr. Fish. That
finishes the men. As for the ladies, there is only Mrs. Revel—and I
expect she brought a maid or something like that. Then there was my
daughter, and of course the children and their nurses and governesses
and all the servants.”

Lord Caterham paused and took a breath.

“Thank you,” said the detective. “A mere matter of routine, but
necessary as such.”

“There is no doubt, I suppose,” asked George ponderously, “that the
murderer entered by the window?”

Battle paused for a minute before replying slowly.

“There were footsteps leading up to the window, and footsteps leading
away from it. A car stopped outside the park at 11.40 last night. At
twelve o’clock a young man arrived at the _Jolly Cricketers_ in a car,
and engaged a room. He put his boots outside to be cleaned—they were
very wet and muddy, as though he had been walking through the long
grass in the park.”

George leant forward eagerly.

“Could not the boots be compared with the footprints?”

“They were.”

“Well?”

“They exactly correspond.”

“That settles it,” cried George. “We have the murderer. The young
man—what is his name, by the way?”

“At the inn he gave the name of Anthony Cade.”

“This Anthony Cade must be pursued at once, and arrested.”

“You won’t need to pursue him,” said Superintendent Battle.

“Why?”

“Because he’s still there.”

“What?”

“Curious, isn’t it?”

Colonel Melrose eyed him keenly.

“What’s in your mind, Battle? Out with it.”

“I just say it’s curious, that’s all. Here’s a young man who ought to
cut and run, but he doesn’t cut and run. He stays here, and gives us
every facility for comparing footmarks.”

“What do you think, then?”

“I don’t know what to think. And that’s a very disturbing state of
mind.”

“Do you imagine——” began Colonel Melrose, but broke off as a discreet
knock came at the door.

George rose and went to it. Tredwell, inwardly suffering from having to
knock at doors in this low fashion, stood dignified upon the threshold,
and addressed his master.

“Excuse me, my lord, but a gentleman wishes to see you on urgent and
important business, connected, I understand, with this morning’s
tragedy.”

“What’s his name?” asked Battle suddenly.

“His name, sir, is Mr. Anthony Cade, but he said it wouldn’t convey
anything to anybody.”

It seemed to convey something to the four men present. They all sat up
in varying degrees of astonishment.

Lord Caterham began to chuckle.

“I’m really beginning to enjoy myself. Show him in, Tredwell. Show him
in at once.”




12

Anthony Tells His Story


“Mr. Anthony Cade,” announced Tredwell.

“Enter suspicious stranger from village inn,” said Anthony.

He made his way toward Lord Caterham with a kind of instinct rare in
strangers. At the same time he summed up the other three men in his
own mind thus: “1, Scotland Yard. 2, Local dignitary—probably chief
constable. 3, Harassed gentleman on the verge of apoplexy—possibly
connected with the Government.”

“I must apologize,” continued Anthony, still addressing Lord Caterham.
“For forcing my way in like this, I mean. But it was rumoured round the
_Jolly Dog_, or whatever the name of your local pub may be, that you
had had a murder up here, and as I thought I might be able to throw
some light upon it I came along.”

For a moment or two, no one spoke. Superintendent Battle because he was
a man of ripe experience who knew how infinitely better it was to let
every one else speak if they could be persuaded upon to do so, Colonel
Melrose because he was habitually taciturn, George because he was in
the habit of having notice given him of the question, Lord Caterham
because he had not the least idea of what to say. The silence of the
other three, however, and the fact that he had been directly addressed,
finally forced speech upon the last named.

“Er—quite so—quite so,” he said nervously. “Won’t—you—er—sit down?”

“Thank you,” said Anthony.

George cleared his throat portentously.

“Er—when you say you can throw light upon this matter, you mean——?”

“I mean,” said Anthony, “that I was trespassing upon Lord Caterham’s
property (for which I hope he will forgive me) last night at about
11.45, and that I actually heard the shot fired. I can at any rate fix
the time of the crime for you.”

He looked round at the three in turn, his eyes resting longest on
Superintendent Battle, the impassivity of whose face he seemed to
appreciate.

“But I hardly think that that’s news to you,” he added gently.

“Meaning by that, Mr. Cade?” asked Battle.

“Just this. I put on shoes when I got up this morning. Later, when I
asked for my boots, I couldn’t have them. Some nice young constable had
called round for them. So I naturally put two and two together, and
hurried up here to clear my character if possible.”

“A very sensible move,” said Battle non-committally.

Anthony’s eyes twinkled a little.

“I appreciate your reticence, inspector. It is inspector, isn’t it?”

Lord Caterham interposed. He was beginning to take a fancy to Anthony.

“Superintendent Battle of Scotland Yard. This is Colonel Melrose, our
Chief Constable, and Mr. Lomax.”

Anthony looked sharply at George.

“Mr. George Lomax?”

“Yes.”

“I think, Mr. Lomax,” said Anthony, “that I had the pleasure of
receiving a letter from you yesterday.”

George stared at him.

“I think not,” he said coldly.

But he wished that Miss Oscar were here. Miss Oscar wrote all his
letters for him, and remembered who they were to and what they were
about. A great man like George could not possibly remember all these
annoying details.

“I think, Mr. Cade,” he hinted, “that you were about to give us
some—er—explanation of what you were doing in the grounds last night
at 11.45?”

His tone said plainly: “And whatever it may be, we are not likely to
believe it.”

“Yes, Mr. Cade, what _were_ you doing?” said Lord Caterham, with lively
interest.

“Well,” said Anthony regretfully. “I’m afraid it’s rather a long story.”

He drew out his cigarette case.

“May I?”

Lord Caterham nodded, and Anthony lit a cigarette, and braced himself
for the ordeal.

He was aware, none better, of the peril in which he stood. In the short
space of twenty-four hours, he had become embroiled in two separate
crimes. His actions in connection with the first would not bear looking
into for a second. After deliberately disposing of one body, and so
defeating the aims of justice, he had arrived upon the scene of the
second crime at the exact moment when it was being committed. For a
young man looking for trouble, he could hardly have done better.

“South America,” thought Anthony to himself, “simply isn’t in it with
this!”

He had already decided upon his course of action. He was going to tell
the truth—with one trifling alteration, and one grave suppression.

“The story begins,” said Anthony, “about three weeks ago—in Bulawayo.
Mr. Lomax, of course, knows where that is—outpost of the Empire—‘What
do we know of England who only England know?’ all that sort of thing. I
was conversing with a friend of mine, a Mr. James McGrath—”

He brought out the name slowly, with a thoughtful eye on George. George
bounded in his seat and repressed an exclamation with difficulty.

“The upshot of our conversation was that I came to England to carry
out a little commission for Mr. McGrath, who was unable to go himself.
Since the passage was booked in his name, I travelled as James
McGrath. I don’t know what particular kind of offence that was—the
superintendent can tell me, I dare say, and run me in for so many
months’ hard if necessary.”

“We’ll get on with the story, if you please, sir,” said Battle, but his
eyes twinkled a little.

“On arrival in London I went to the Blitz Hotel, still as James
McGrath. My business in London was to deliver a certain manuscript to a
firm of publishers, but almost immediately I received deputations from
the representatives of two political parties of a foreign kingdom. The
methods of one were strictly constitutional, the methods of the other
were not. I dealt with them both accordingly. But my troubles were not
over. That night my room was broken into, and an attempt at burglary
was made by one of the waiters at the hotel.”

“That was not reported to the police, I think?” said Superintendent
Battle.

“You are right. It was not. Nothing was taken, you see. But I did
report the occurrence to the manager of the hotel, and he will confirm
my story, and tell you that the waiter in question decamped rather
abruptly in the middle of the night. The next day, the publishers
rang me up, and suggested that one of their representatives would
call upon me and receive the manuscript. I agreed to this, and the
arrangement was duly carried out on the following morning. Since I
have heard nothing further, I presume the manuscript reached them
safely. Yesterday, still as James McGrath, I received a letter from Mr.
Lomax——”

Anthony paused. He was by now beginning to enjoy himself. George
shifted uneasily.

“I remember,” he murmured. “Such a large correspondence. The name, of
course, being different, I could not be expected to know. And I may
say,” George’s voice rose a little, firm in the assurance of moral
stability, “that I consider this—this—masquerading as another man in
the highest degree improper. I have no doubt, no doubt whatever, that
you have incurred a severe legal penalty.”

“In this letter,” continued Anthony, unmoved, “Mr. Lomax made various
suggestions concerning the manuscript in my charge. He also extended an
invitation to me from Lord Caterham to join the house party here.”

“Delighted to see you, my dear fellow,” said that nobleman. “Better
late than never—eh?”

George frowned at him.

Superintendent Battle bent an unmoved eye upon Anthony.

“And is that your explanation of your presence here last night, sir?”
he asked.

“Certainly not,” said Anthony warmly. “When I am asked to stay at a
country-house, I don’t scale the wall late at night, tramp across the
park, and try the downstairs windows. I drive up to the front door,
ring the bell and wipe my feet on the mat. I will proceed. I replied to
Mr. Lomax’s letter, explaining that the manuscript had passed out of
my keeping, and therefore regretfully declining Lord Caterham’s kind
invitation. But after I had done so, I remembered something which had
up till then escaped my memory.” He paused. The moment had come for
skating over thin ice. “I must tell you that in my struggle with the
waiter Giuseppe, I had wrested from him a small bit of paper with some
words scribbled on it. They had conveyed nothing to me at the time, but
I still had them, and the mention of Chimneys recalled them to me. I
got the torn scrap out and looked at it. It was as I had thought. Here
is the piece of paper, gentlemen, you can see for yourselves. The words
on it are ‘_Chimneys 11.45 Thursday._’”

Battle examined the paper attentively.

“Of course,” continued Anthony, “the word Chimneys might have nothing
whatever to do with this house. On the other hand, it might. And
undoubtedly this Giuseppe was a thieving rascal. I made up my mind to
motor down here last night, satisfy myself that all was as it should
be, put up at the inn, and call upon Lord Caterham in the morning and
put him on his guard in case some mischief should be intended during
the week-end.”

“Quite so,” said Lord Caterham encouragingly. “Quite so.”

“I was late in getting here—had not allowed enough time. Consequently
I stopped the car, climbed over the wall and ran across the park. When
I arrived on the terrace, the whole house was dark and silent. I was
just turning away when I heard a shot. I fancied that it came from
inside the house, and I ran back, crossed the terrace, and tried the
windows. But they were fastened, and there was no sound of any kind
from inside the house. I waited a while, but the whole place was still
as the grave, so I made up my mind that I had made a mistake, and that
what I had heard was a stray poacher—quite a natural conclusion to
come to under the circumstances, I think.”

“Quite natural,” said Superintendent Battle expressionlessly.

“I went on to the inn, put up as I said—and heard the news
this morning. I realized, of course, that I was a suspicious
character—bound to be under the circumstances, and came up here to
tell my story, hoping it wasn’t going to be handcuffs for one.”

There was a pause. Colonel Melrose looked sideways at Superintendent
Battle.

“I think the story seems clear enough,” he remarked.

“Yes,” said Battle. “I don’t think we’ll be handing out any handcuffs
this morning.”

“Any questions, Battle?”

“There’s one thing I’d like to know. What was this manuscript?”

He looked across at George, and the latter replied with a trace of
unwillingness:

“The Memoirs of the late Count Stylptitch. You see——”

“You needn’t say anything more,” said Battle. “I see perfectly.”

He turned to Anthony.

“Do you know who it was that was shot, Mr. Cade?”

“At the _Jolly Dog_ it was understood to be a Count Stanislaus or some
such name.”

“Tell him,” said Battle laconically to George Lomax.

George was clearly reluctant, but he was forced to speak:

“The gentleman who was staying here incognito as Count Stanislaus was
His Highness Prince Michael of Herzoslovakia.”

Anthony whistled.

“That must be deuced awkward,” he remarked.

Superintendent Battle, who had been watching Anthony closely, gave a
short grunt as though satisfied of something, and rose abruptly to his
feet.

“There are one or two questions I’d like to ask Mr. Cade,” he
announced. “I’ll take him into the Council Chamber with me if I may.”

“Certainly, certainly,” said Lord Caterham. “Take him anywhere you
like.”

Anthony and the detective went out together.

The body had been removed from the scene of the tragedy. There was a
dark stain on the floor where it had lain, but otherwise there was
nothing to suggest that a tragedy had ever occurred. The sun poured in
through the three windows, flooding the room with light, and bringing
out the mellow tone of the old panelling. Anthony looked around him
with approval.

“Very nice,” he commented. “Nothing much to beat old England, is there?”

“Did it seem to you at first it was in this room the shot was fired?”
asked the superintendent, not replying to Anthony’s eulogium.

“Let me see.”

Anthony opened the window and went out on the terrace, looking up at
the house.

“Yes, that’s the room all right,” he said. “It’s built out, and
occupies all the corner. If the shot had been fired anywhere else, it
would have sounded from the _left_, but this was from behind me or to
the right if anything. That’s why I thought of poachers. It’s at the
extremity of the wing, you see.”

He stepped back across the threshold, and asked suddenly, as though the
idea had just struck him:

“But why do you ask? You know he was shot here, don’t you?”

“Ah!” said the superintendent. “We never know as much as we’d like to
know. But, yes, he was shot here all right. Now you said something
about trying the windows, didn’t you?”

“Yes. They were fastened from the inside.”

“How many of them did you try?”

“All three of them.”

“Sure of that, sir?”

“I’m in the habit of being sure. Why do you ask?”

“That’s a funny thing,” said the superintendent.

“What’s a funny thing?”

“When the crime was discovered this morning, the middle one was
open—not latched, that is to say.”

“Whew!” said Anthony, sinking down on the window seat, and taking
out his cigarette case. “That’s rather a blow. That opens up quite
a different aspect of the case. It leaves us two alternatives.
Either he was killed by some one in the house, and that some one
unlatched the window after I had gone to make it look like an outside
job—incidentally with me as Little Willie—or else, not to mince
matters, I’m lying. I dare say you incline to the second possibility,
but, upon my honour, you’re wrong.”

“Nobody’s going to leave this house until I’m through with them, I can
tell you that,” said Superintendent Battle grimly.

Anthony looked at him keenly.

“How long have you had the idea that it might be an inside job?” he
asked.

Battle smiled.

“I’ve had a notion that way all along. Your trail was a bit
too—flaring, if I may put it that way. As soon as your boots fitted
the footmarks, I began to have my doubts.”

“I congratulate Scotland Yard,” said Anthony lightly.

But at that moment, the moment when Battle apparently admitted
Anthony’s complete absence of complicity in the crime, Anthony felt
more than ever the need of being upon his guard. Superintendent Battle
was a very astute officer. It would not do to make any slip with
Superintendent Battle about.

“That’s where it happened, I suppose?” said Anthony, nodding towards
the dark patch upon the floor.

“Yes.”

“What was he shot with—a revolver?”

“Yes, but we shan’t know what make until they get the bullet out at the
autopsy.”

“It wasn’t found, then?”

“No, it wasn’t found.”

“No clues of any kind?”

“Well, we’ve got this.”

Rather after the manner of a conjurer, Superintendent Battle produced
a half-sheet of notepaper. And, as he did so, he again watched Anthony
closely without seeming to do so.

But Anthony recognized the design upon it without any sign of
consternation.

“Aha! Comrades of the Red Hand again. If they’re going to scatter this
sort of thing about, they ought to have it lithographed. It must be a
frightful nuisance doing every one separately. Where was this found?”

“Underneath the body. You’ve seen it before, sir?”

Anthony recounted to him in detail his short encounter with that
public-spirited association.

“The idea is, I suppose, that the Comrades did him in.”

“Do you think it likely, sir?”

“Well, it would be in keeping with their propaganda. But I’ve always
found that those who talk most about blood have never actually seen
it run. I shouldn’t have said the Comrades had the guts myself. And
they’re such picturesque people too. I don’t see one of them disguising
himself as a suitable guest for a country house. Still, one never
knows.”

“Quite right, Mr. Cade. One never knows.”

Anthony looked suddenly amused.

“I see the big idea now. Open window, trail of footprints, suspicious
stranger at village inn. But I can assure you, my dear superintendent,
that, whatever I am, I am not the local agent of the Red Hand.”

Superintendent Battle smiled a little. Then he played his last card.

“Would you have any objection to seeing the body?” he shot out suddenly.

“None whatever,” rejoined Anthony.

Battle took a key from his pocket, and preceding Anthony down the
corridor, paused at a door and unlocked it. It was one of the smaller
drawing-rooms. The body lay on a table covered with a sheet.

Superintendent Battle waited until Anthony was beside him, and then
whisked away the sheet suddenly.

An eager light sprang into his eyes at the half-uttered exclamation and
the start of surprise which the other gave.

“So you _do_ recognize him, Mr. Cade,” he said, in a voice that he
strove to render devoid of triumph.

“I’ve seen him before, yes,” said Anthony, recovering himself. “But
not as Prince Michael Obolovitch. He purported to come from Messrs.
Balderson and Hodgkins, and he called himself Mr. Holmes.”




13

The American Visitor


Superintendent Battle replaced the sheet with the slightly crest-fallen
air of a man whose best point has fallen flat. Anthony stood with his
hands in his pockets lost in thought.

“So that’s what old Lollipop meant when he talked about ‘other means,’”
he murmured at last.

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Cade?”

“Nothing, superintendent. Forgive my abstraction. You see, I—or rather
my friend, Jimmy McGrath, has been very neatly done out of a thousand
pounds.”

“A thousand pounds is a nice sum of money,” said Battle.

“It isn’t the thousand pounds so much,” said Anthony, “though I agree
with you that it’s a nice sum of money. It’s being done that maddens
me. I handed over that manuscript like a little woolly lamb. It hurts,
superintendent, indeed it hurts.”

The detective said nothing.

“Well, well,” said Anthony. “Regrets are vain, and all may not yet be
lost. I’ve only got to get hold of dear old Stylptitch’s Reminiscences
between now and next Wednesday and all will be gas and gaiters.”

“Would you mind coming back to the Council Chamber, Mr. Cade? There’s
one little thing I want to point out to you.”

Back in the Council Chamber, the detective strode over at once to the
middle window.

“I’ve been thinking, Mr. Cade. This particular window is very stiff,
very stiff indeed. You might have been mistaken in thinking that it was
fastened. It might just have stuck. I’m sure—yes, I’m almost sure,
that you _were_ mistaken.”

Anthony eyed him keenly.

“And supposing I say that I’m quite sure I was not?”

“Don’t you think you could have been?” said Battle, looking at him very
steadily.

“Well, to oblige you, superintendent, yes.”

Battle smiled in a satisfied fashion.

“You’re quick in the uptake, sir. And you’ll have no objection to
saying so, careless like, at a suitable moment?”

“None whatever. I——”

He paused, as Battle gripped his arm. The superintendent was bent
forward, listening.

Enjoining silence on Anthony with a gesture, he tiptoed noiselessly to
the door, and flung it suddenly open.

On the threshold stood a tall man with black hair neatly parted in the
middle, china blue eyes with a particularly innocent expression, and a
large placid face.

“Your pardon, gentlemen,” he said in a slow drawling voice with a
pronounced transatlantic accent. “But is it permitted to inspect the
scene of the crime? I take it that you are both gentlemen from Scotland
Yard?”

“I have not that honour,” said Anthony. “But this gentleman is
Superintendent Battle of Scotland Yard.”

“Is that so?” said the American gentleman, with a great appearance of
interest. “Pleased to meet you, sir. My name is Hiram P. Fish, of New
York City.”

“What was it you wanted to see, Mr. Fish?” asked the detective.

The American walked gently into the room, and looked with much interest
at the dark patch on the floor.

“I am interested in crime, Mr. Battle. It is one of my hobbies. I have
contributed a monograph to one of our weekly periodicals on the subject
‘Degeneracy and the Criminal.’”

As he spoke, his eyes went gently round the room, seeming to note
everything in it. They rested just a shade longer on the window.

“The body,” said Superintendent Battle, stating a self-evident fact,
“has been removed.”

“Surely,” said Mr. Fish. His eyes went on to the panelled walls.
“Some remarkable pictures in this room, gentlemen. A Holbein, two
Van Dycks, and, if I am not mistaken, a Velasquez. I am interested
in pictures—and likewise in first editions. It was to see his first
editions that Lord Caterham was so kind as to invite me down here.”

He sighed gently.

“I guess that’s all off now. It would show a proper feeling I suppose,
for the guests to return to town immediately?”

“I’m afraid that can’t be done, sir,” said Superintendent Battle.
“Nobody must leave the house until after the inquest.”

“Is that so? And when is the inquest?”

“May be to-morrow, may not be until Monday. We’ve got to arrange for
the autopsy and see the Coroner.”

“I get you,” said Mr. Fish. “Under the circumstances, though, it will
be a melancholy party.”

Battle led the way to the door.

“We’d best get out of here,” he said. “We’re keeping it locked still.”

He waited for the other two to pass through, and then turned the key
and removed it.

“I opine,” said Mr. Fish, “that you are seeking for fingerprints?”

“Maybe,” said the superintendent laconically.

“I should say to that, on a night such as last night, an intruder would
have left footprints on the hardwood floor.”

“None inside, plenty outside.”

“Mine,” explained Anthony cheerfully.

The innocent eyes of Mr. Fish swept over him.

“Young man,” he said, “you surprise me.”

They turned a corner, and came out into the big wide hall, panelled like
the Council Chamber in old oak, and with a wide gallery above it. Two
other figures came into sight at the far end.

“Aha!” said Mr. Fish. “Our genial host.”

This was such a ludicrous description of Lord Caterham that Anthony had
to turn his head away to conceal a smile.

“And with him,” continued the American, “is a lady whose name I did not
catch last night. But she is bright—she is very bright.”

With Lord Caterham was Virginia Revel.

Anthony had been anticipating this meeting all along. He had no
idea how to act. He must leave it to Virginia. Although he had full
confidence in her presence of mind, he had not the slightest idea what
line she would take. He was not long left in doubt.

“Why, it’s Mr. Cade,” said Virginia. She held out both hands to him.
“So you found you could come down after all?”

“My dear Mrs. Revel, I had no idea Mr. Cade was a friend of yours,”
said Lord Caterham.

“He’s a very old friend,” said Virginia, smiling at Anthony with a
mischievous glint in her eye. “I ran across him in London unexpectedly
yesterday, and told him I was coming down here.”

Anthony was quick to give her her pointer.

“I explained to Mrs. Revel,” he said, “that I had been forced to refuse
your kind invitation—since it had really been extended to quite a
different man. And I couldn’t very well foist a perfect stranger on you
under false pretences.”

“Well, well, my dear fellow,” said Lord Caterham, “that’s all over and
done with now. I’ll send down to the _Cricketers_ for your bag.”

“It’s very kind of you, Lord Caterham, but——”

“Nonsense, of course you must come to Chimneys. Horrible place, the
_Cricketers_—to stay in, I mean.”

“Of course you must come, Mr. Cade,” said Virginia softly.

Anthony realized the altered tone of his surroundings. Already Virginia
had done much for him. He was no longer an ambiguous stranger. Her
position was so assured and unassailable that anyone for whom she
vouched was accepted as a matter of course. He thought of the pistol in
the tree at Burnham Beeches, and smiled inwardly.

“I’ll send for your traps,” said Lord Caterham to Anthony. “I suppose,
in the circumstances, we can’t have any shooting. A pity. But there it
is. And I don’t know what the devil to do with Isaacstein. It’s all
very unfortunate.”

The depressed peer sighed heavily.

“That’s settled, then,” said Virginia. “You can begin to be useful
right away, Mr. Cade, and take me out on the lake. It’s very peaceful
there and far from crime and all that sort of thing. Isn’t it awful for
poor Lord Caterham having a murder done in his house? But it’s George’s
fault really. This is George’s party, you know.”

“Ah!” said Lord Caterham. “But I should never have listened to him!”

He assumed the air of a strong man betrayed by a single weakness.

“One can’t help listening to George,” said Virginia. “He always holds
you so that you can’t get away. I’m thinking of patenting a detachable
lapel.”

“I wish you would,” chuckled her host. “I’m glad you’re coming to us,
Cade. I need support.”

“I appreciate your kindness very much, Lord Caterham,” said Anthony.
“Especially,” he added, “when I’m such a suspicious character. But my
staying here makes it easier for Battle.”

“In what way, sir?” asked the superintendent.

“It won’t be so difficult to keep an eye on me,” explained Anthony
gently.

And by the momentary flicker of the superintendent’s eyelids he knew
that his shot had gone home.




14

Mainly Political and Financial


Except for that involuntary twitch of the eyelids, Superintendent
Battle’s impassivity was unimpaired. If he had been surprised at
Virginia’s recognition of Anthony, he did not show it. He and Lord
Caterham stood together and watched those two go out through the garden
door. Mr. Fish also watched them.

“Nice young fellow, that,” said Lord Caterham.

“Vurry nice for Mrs. Revel to meet an old friend,” murmured the
American. “They have been acquainted some time, presoomably?”

“Seems so,” said Lord Caterham. “But I’ve never heard her mention him
before. Oh, by the way, Battle, Mr. Lomax has been asking for you. He’s
in the Blue morning-room.”

“Very good, Lord Caterham. I’ll go there at once.”

Battle found his way to the Blue morning-room without difficulty. He
was already familiar with the geography of the house.

“Ah, there you are, Battle,” said Lomax.

He was striding impatiently up and down the carpet. There was one other
person in the room, a big man sitting in a chair by the fireplace. He
was dressed in very correct English shooting clothes which nevertheless
sat strangely upon him. He had a fat yellow face, and black eyes, as
impenetrable as those of a cobra. There was a generous curve to the big
nose and power in the square lines of the vast jaw.

“Come in, Battle,” said Lomax irritably. “And shut the door behind
you. This is Mr. Herman Isaacstein.”

Battle inclined his head respectfully.

He knew all about Mr. Herman Isaacstein, and though the great financier
sat there silent, whilst Lomax strode up and down and talked, he knew
who was the real power in the room.

“We can speak more freely now,” said Lomax. “Before Lord Caterham and
Colonel Melrose, I was anxious not to say too much. You understand,
Battle? These things mustn’t get about.”

“Ah!” said Battle. “But they always do, more’s the pity.”

Just for a second he saw a trace of a smile on the fat yellow face. It
disappeared as suddenly as it had come.

“Now what do you really think of this young fellow—this Anthony Cade?”
continued George. “Do you still assume him to be innocent?”

Battle shrugged his shoulders very slightly.

“He tells a straight story. Part of it we shall be able to verify.
On the face of it, it accounts for his presence here last night. I
shall cable to South Africa, of course, for information about his
antecedents.”

“Then you regard him as cleared of all complicity?”

Battle raised a large square hand.

“Not so fast, sir. I never said that.”

“What is your own idea about the crime, Superintendent Battle?” asked
Isaacstein, speaking for the first time.

His voice was deep and rich, and had a certain compelling quality about
it. It had stood him in good stead at board meetings in his younger
days.

“It’s rather too soon to have ideas, Mr. Isaacstein. I’ve not got
beyond asking myself the first question.”

“What is that?”

“Oh, it’s always the same. Motive. Who benefits by the death of Prince
Michael? We’ve got to answer that before we can get anywhere.”

“The Revolutionary party of Herzoslovakia——” began George.

Superintendent Battle waved him aside with something less than his
usual respect.

“It wasn’t the Comrades of the Red Hand, sir, if you’re thinking of
them.”

“But the paper—with the scarlet hand on it?”

“Put there to suggest the obvious solution.”

George’s dignity was a little ruffled.

“Really, Battle, I don’t see how you can be so sure of that.”

“Bless you, Mr. Lomax, we know all about the Comrades of the Red Hand.
We’ve had our eye on them ever since Prince Michael landed in England.
That sort of thing is the elementary work of the department. They’d
never be allowed to get within a mile of him.”

“I agree with Superintendent Battle,” said Isaacstein. “We must look
elsewhere.”

“You see, sir,” said Battle, encouraged by his support, “we do know a
little about the case. If we don’t know who gains by his death, we do
know who loses by it.”

“Meaning?” said Isaacstein.

His black eyes were bent upon the detective. More than ever, he
reminded Battle of a hooded cobra.

“You and Mr. Lomax, not to mention the Loyalist party of Herzoslovakia.
If you’ll pardon the expression, sir, you’re in the soup.”

“Really, Battle,” interposed George, shocked to the core.

“Go on, Battle,” said Isaacstein. “In the soup describes the situation
very accurately. You’re an intelligent man.”

“You’ve got to have a King. You’ve lost your King—like that!” He
snapped his large fingers. “You’ve got to find another in a hurry, and
that’s not an easy job. No, I don’t want to know the details of your
scheme, the bare outline is enough for me, but, I take it, it’s a big
deal?”

Isaacstein bent his head slowly.

“It’s a very big deal.”

“That brings me to my second question. Who is the next heir to the
throne of Herzoslovakia?”

Isaacstein looked across at Lomax. The latter answered the question,
with a certain reluctance, and a good deal of hesitation:

“That would be—I should say—yes, in all probability Prince Nicholas
would be the next heir.”

“Ah!” said Battle. “And who is Prince Nicholas?”

“A first cousin of Prince Michael’s.”

“Ah!” said Battle. “I should like to hear all about Prince Nicholas,
especially where he is at present.”

“Nothing much is known of him,” said Lomax. “As a young man, he was
most peculiar in his ideas, consorted with Socialists and Republicans,
and acted in a way highly unbecoming to his position. He was sent down
from Oxford, I believe, for some wild escapade. There was a rumour
of his death two years later in the Congo, but it was only a rumour.
He turned up a few months ago when news of the Royalist reaction got
about.”

“Indeed?” said Battle. “Where did he turn up?”

“In America.”

“America!”

Battle turned to Isaacstein with one laconic word:

“Oil?”

The financier nodded.

“He represented that if the Herzoslovakians chose a King, they would
prefer him to Prince Michael as being more in sympathy with modern
enlightened ideas, and he drew attention to his early democratic views
and his sympathy with Republican ideals. In return for financial
support, he was prepared to grant concessions to a certain group of
American financiers.”

Superintendent Battle so far forgot his habitual impassivity as to give
vent to a prolonged whistle.

“So that is it,” he muttered. “In the meantime, the Loyalist party
supported Prince Michael, and you felt sure you’d come out on top. And
then this happens!”

“You surely don’t think——” began George.

“It was a big deal,” said Battle. “Mr. Isaacstein says so. And I
should say that what he calls a big deal _is_ a big deal.”

“There are always unscrupulous tools to be got hold of,” said
Isaacstein quietly. “For the moment, Wall Street wins. But they’ve not
done with me yet. Find out who killed Prince Michael, Superintendent
Battle, if you want to do your country a service.”

“One thing strikes me as highly suspicious,” put in George. “Why did
the equerry, Captain Andrassy, not come down with the Prince yesterday?”

“I’ve inquired into that,” said Battle. “It’s perfectly simple. He
stayed in town to make arrangements with a certain lady, on behalf of
Prince Michael, for next week-end. The Baron rather frowned on such
things, thinking them injudicious at the present stage of affairs, so
His Highness had to go about them in a hole and corner manner. He was,
if I may say so, inclined to be a rather—er—dissipated young man.”

“I’m afraid so,” said George ponderously. “Yes, I’m afraid so.”

“There’s one other point we ought to take into account, I think,” said
Battle, speaking with a certain amount of hesitation. “King Victor’s
supposed to be in England.”

“King Victor?”

Lomax frowned in an effort at recollection.

“Notorious French crook, sir. We’ve had a warning from the Sûreté in
Paris.”

“Of course,” said George. “I remember now. Jewel thief, isn’t he? Why,
that’s the man——”

He broke off abruptly. Isaacstein, who had been frowning abstractedly
at the fireplace, looked up just too late to catch the warning glance
telegraphed from Superintendent Battle to the other. But being a man
sensitive to vibrations in the atmosphere, he was conscious of a sense
of strain.

“You don’t want me any longer, do you, Lomax?” he inquired.

“No, thank you, my dear fellow.”

“Would it upset your plans if I returned to London, Superintendent
Battle?”

“I’m afraid so, sir,” said the Superintendent civilly. “You see, if you
go, there will be others who’ll want to go also. And that would never
do.”

“Quite so.”

The great financier left the room, closing the door behind him.

“Splendid fellow, Isaacstein,” murmured George Lomax perfunctorily.

“Very powerful personality,” agreed Superintendent Battle.

George began to pace up and down again.

“What you say disturbs me greatly,” he began. “King Victor! I thought
he was in prison?”

“Came out a few months ago. French police meant to keep on his heels,
but he managed to give them the slip straight away. He would too. One
of the coolest customers that ever lived. For some reason or other,
they believe he’s in England, and have notified us to that effect.”

“But what should he be doing in England?”

“That’s for you to say, sir,” said Battle significantly.

“You mean——? You think——? You know the story, of course—ah, yes,
I can see you do. I was not in office, of course, at the time, but I
heard the whole story from the late Lord Caterham. An unparalleled
catastrophe.”

“The Koh-i-noor,” said Battle reflectively.

“Hush, Battle!” George glanced suspiciously round him. “I beg of you,
mention no names. Much better not. If you must speak of it, call it the
K.”

The superintendent looked wooden again.

“You don’t connect King Victor with this crime, do you, Battle?”

“It’s just a possibility, that’s all. If you’ll cast your mind back,
sir, you’ll remember that there were four places where a—er—certain
Royal visitor might have concealed the jewel. Chimneys was one of them.
King Victor was arrested in Paris three days after the—disappearance,
if I may call it that, of the K. It was always hoped that he would some
day lead us to the jewel.”

“But Chimneys has been ransacked and overhauled a dozen times.”

“Yes,” said Battle sapiently. “But it’s never much good looking when
you don’t know where to look. Only suppose now, that this King Victor
came here to look for the thing, was surprised by Prince Michael, and
shot him.”

“It’s possible,” said George. “A most likely solution of the crime.”

“I wouldn’t go as far as that. It’s possible, but not much more.”

“Why is that?”

“Because King Victor has never been known to take a life,” said Battle
seriously.

“Oh, but a man like that—a dangerous criminal——”

But Battle shook his head in a dissatisfied manner.

“Criminals always act true to type, Mr. Lomax. It’s surprising. All the
same——”

“Yes?”

“I’d rather like to question the Prince’s servant. I’ve left him
purposely to the last. We’ll have him in here, sir, if you don’t mind.”

George signified his assent. The superintendent rang the bell. Tredwell
answered it, and departed with his instructions.

He returned shortly accompanied by a tall fair man with high
cheek-bones, and very deep-set blue eyes, and an impassivity of
countenance which almost rivalled Battle’s.

“Boris Anchoukoff?”

“Yes.”

“You were valet to Prince Michael?”

“I was His Highness’s valet, yes.”

The man spoke good English, though with a markedly harsh foreign accent.

“You know that your master was murdered last night?”

A deep snarl, like the snarl of a wild beast, was the man’s only
answer. It alarmed George, who withdrew prudently towards the window.

“When did you see your master last?”

“His Highness retired to bed at half-past ten. I slept, as always,
in the ante-room next to him. He must have gone down to the room
downstairs by the other door, the door that gave on to the corridor.
I did not hear him go. It may be that I was drugged. I have been an
unfaithful servant, I slept while my master woke. I am accursed.”

George gazed at him, fascinated.

“You loved your master, eh?” said Battle, watching the man closely.

Boris’s features contracted painfully. He swallowed twice. Then his
voice came, harsh with emotion.

“I say this to you, English Policeman, I would have died for him! And
since he is dead, and I still live, my eyes shall not know sleep, or
my heart rest, until I have avenged him. Like a dog will I nose out
his murderer and when I have discovered him—— Ah!” His eyes lit up.
Suddenly he drew an immense knife from beneath his coat and brandished
it aloft. “Not all at once will I kill him—oh, no!—first I will slit
his nose, and cut off his ears and put out his eyes, and then—then,
into his black heart I will thrust this knife.”

Swiftly he replaced the knife, and turning, left the room. George
Lomax, his eyes always protuberant, but now goggling almost out of his
head, stared at the closed door.

“Pure bred Herzoslovakian, of course,” he muttered. “Most uncivilized
people. A race of brigands.”

Superintendent Battle rose alertly to his feet.

“Either that man’s sincere,” he remarked, “or he’s the best bluffer
I’ve ever seen. And, if it’s the former, God help Prince Michael’s
murderer when that human bloodhound gets hold of him.”




15

The French Stranger


Virginia and Anthony walked side by side down the path which led to the
lake. For some minutes after leaving the house they were silent. It was
Virginia who broke the silence at last with a little laugh.

“Oh, dear,” she said, “isn’t it dreadful? Here I am so bursting with
the things I want to tell you, and the things I want to know, that
I simply don’t know where to begin. First of all”—she lowered her
voice—“_What have you done with the body?_ How awful it sounds,
doesn’t it! I never dreamt that I should be so steeped in crime.”

“I suppose it’s quite a novel sensation for you,” agreed Anthony.

“But not for you?”

“Well, I’ve never disposed of a corpse before, certainly.”

“Tell me about it.”

Briefly and succinctly, Anthony ran over the steps he had taken on the
previous night. Virginia listened attentively.

“I think you were very clever,” she said approvingly when he had
finished. “I can pick up the trunk again when I go back to Paddington.
The only difficulty that might arise is if you had to give an account
of where you were yesterday evening.”

“I can’t see that that can arise. The body can’t have been found until
late last night—or possibly this morning. Otherwise there would have
been something about it in this morning’s papers. And whatever you may
imagine from reading detective stories, doctors aren’t such magicians
that they can tell you exactly how many hours a man has been dead. The
exact time of his death will be pretty vague. An alibi for last night
would be far more to the point.”

“I know. Lord Caterham was telling me all about it. But the Scotland
Yard man is quite convinced of your innocence now, isn’t he?”

Anthony did not reply at once.

“He doesn’t look particularly astute,” continued Virginia.

“I don’t know about that,” said Anthony slowly. “I’ve an impression
that there are no flies on Superintendent Battle. He appears to be
convinced of my innocence—but I’m not so sure. He’s stumped at present
by my apparent lack of motive.”

“Apparent?” cried Virginia. “But what possible reason could you have
for murdering an unknown foreign Count?”

Anthony darted a sharp glance at her.

“You were at one time or other in Herzoslovakia, weren’t you?” he asked.

“Yes. I was there with my husband, for two years, at the Embassy.”

“That was just before the assassination of the King and Queen. Did you
ever run across Prince Michael Obolovitch?”

“Michael? Of course I did. Horrid little wretch! He suggested, I
remember, that I should marry him morganatically.”

“Did he really? And what did he suggest you should do about your
existing husband?”

“Oh, he had a sort of David and Uriah scheme all made out.”

“And how did you respond to this amiable offer?”

“Well,” said Virginia, “unfortunately one had to be diplomatic. So poor
little Michael didn’t get it as straight from the shoulder as he might
have done. But he retired hurt all the same. Why all this interest
about Michael?”

“Something I’m getting at in my own blundering fashion. I take it that
you didn’t meet the murdered man?”

“No. To put it like a book, he ‘retired to his own apartments
immediately on arrival.’”

“And of course you haven’t seen the body?”

Virginia, eyeing him with a good deal of interest, shook her head.

“Could you get to see it, do you think?”

“By means of influence in high places—meaning Lord Caterham—I dare
say I could. Why? Is it an order?”

“Good Lord, no,” said Anthony, horrified. “Have I been as dictatorial
as all that? No, it’s simply this. Count Stanislaus was the incognito
of Prince Michael of Herzoslovakia.”

Virginia’s eyes opened very wide.

“I see.” Suddenly her face broke into its fascinating one-sided smile.
“I hope you don’t suggest that Michael went to his rooms simply to
avoid seeing me?”

“Something of the kind,” admitted Anthony. “You see, if I’m right in
my idea that some one wanted to prevent your coming to Chimneys, the
reason seems to lie in your knowing Herzoslovakia. Do you realize that
you’re the only person here who knew Prince Michael by sight?”

“Do you mean that this man who was murdered was an impostor?” asked
Virginia abruptly.

“That is the possibility that crossed my mind. If you can get Lord
Caterham to show you the body, we can clear up that point at once.”

“He was shot at 11.45,” said Virginia thoughtfully. “The time mentioned
on that scrap of paper. The whole thing’s horribly mysterious.”

“That reminds me. Is that your window up there? The second from the end
over the Council Chamber?”

“No, my room is in the Elizabethan wing, the other side. Why?”

“Simply because as I walked away last night, after thinking I heard a
shot, the light went up in that room.”

“How curious! I don’t know who has that room, but I can find out by
asking Bundle. Perhaps they heard the shot?”

“If so, they haven’t come forward to say so. I understood from Battle
that nobody in the house heard the shot fired. It’s the only clue of
any kind that I’ve got, and I dare say it’s a pretty rotten one, but I
mean to follow it up for what it’s worth.”

“It’s curious, certainly,” said Virginia thoughtfully.

They had arrived at the boat-house by the lake, and had been leaning
against it as they talked.

“And now for the whole story,” said Anthony. “We’ll paddle gently about
on the lake, secure from the prying ears of Scotland Yard, American
visitors, and curious house-maids.”

“I’ve heard something from Lord Caterham,” said Virginia. “But not
nearly enough. To begin with, which are you really, Anthony Cade or
Jimmy McGrath?”

For the second time that morning, Anthony unfolded the history of the
last six weeks of his life—with this difference that the account given
to Virginia needed no editing. He finished up with his own astonished
recognition of “Mr. Holmes.”

“By the way, Mrs. Revel,” he ended, “I’ve never thanked you for
imperilling your immortal soul by saying that I was an old friend of
yours.”

“Of course you’re an old friend,” cried Virginia. “You don’t suppose
I’d cumber you with a corpse, and then pretend you were a mere
acquaintance next time I met you? No, indeed!”

She paused.

“Do you know one thing that strikes me about all this?” she went on.
“That there’s some extra mystery about those Memoirs that we haven’t
fathomed yet.”

“I think you’re right,” agreed Anthony. “There’s one thing I’d like you
to tell me,” he continued.

“What’s that?”

“Why did you seem so surprised when I mentioned the name of Jimmy
McGrath to you yesterday at Pont Street? Had you heard it before?”

“I had, Sherlock Holmes. George—my cousin, George Lomax, you
know—came to see me the other day, and suggested a lot of frightfully
silly things. His idea was that I should come down here and make
myself agreeable to this man McGrath and Delilah the Memoirs out of
him somehow. He didn’t put it like that, of course. He talked a lot of
nonsense about English gentlewomen, and things like that, but his real
meaning was never obscure for a moment. It was just the sort of rotten
thing poor old George would think of. And then I wanted to know too
much, and he tried to put me off with lies that wouldn’t have deceived
a child of two.”

“Well, his plan seems to have succeeded, anyhow,” observed Anthony.
“Here am I, the James McGrath he had in mind, and here are you being
agreeable to me.”

“But, alas, for poor old George, no Memoirs! Now I’ve got a question
for you. When I said I hadn’t written those letters, you said you knew
I hadn’t—you couldn’t know any such thing?”

“Oh, yes, I could,” said Anthony, smiling. “I’ve got a good working
knowledge of psychology.”

“You mean your belief in the sterling worth of my moral character was
such that——”

But Anthony was shaking his head vigorously.

“Not at all. I don’t know anything about your moral character. You
might have a lover, and you might write to him. But you’d never lie
down to be blackmailed. The Virginia Revel of those letters was scared
stiff. You’d have fought.”

“I wonder who the real Virginia Revel is—where she is, I mean. It
makes me feel as though I had a double somewhere.”

Anthony lit a cigarette.

“You know that one of the letters was written from Chimneys?” he asked
at last.

“What?” Virginia was clearly startled. “When was it written?”

“It wasn’t dated. But it’s odd, isn’t it?”

“I’m perfectly certain no other Virginia Revel has ever stayed at
Chimneys. Bundle or Lord Caterham would have said something about the
coincidence of the name if she had.”

“Yes. It’s rather queer. Do you know, Mrs. Revel, I am beginning to
disbelieve profoundly in this other Virginia Revel.”

“She’s very elusive,” agreed Virginia.

“Extraordinarily elusive. I am beginning to think that the person who
wrote those letters deliberately used your name.”

“But why?” cried Virginia. “Why should they do such a thing?”

“Ah, that’s just the question. There’s the devil of a lot to find out
about everything.”

“Who do you really think killed Michael?” asked Virginia suddenly. “The
Comrades of the Red Hand?”

“I suppose they might have done so,” said Anthony in a dissatisfied
voice. “Pointless killing would be rather characteristic of them.”

“Let’s get to work,” said Virginia. “I see Lord Caterham and Bundle
strolling together. The first thing to do is to find out definitely
whether the dead man is Michael or not.”

Anthony paddled to shore and a few moments later they had joined Lord
Caterham and his daughter.

“Lunch is late,” said his lordship in a depressed voice. “Battle has
insulted the cook, I expect.”

“This is a friend of mine, Bundle,” said Virginia. “Be nice to him.”

Bundle looked earnestly at Anthony for some minutes, and then addressed
a remark to Virginia as though he had not been there.

“Where do you pick up these nice-looking men, Virginia? ‘How do you do
it?’ says she enviously.”

“You can have him,” said Virginia generously. “I want Lord Caterham.”

She smiled upon the flattered peer, slipped her hand through his arm
and they moved off together.

“Do you talk?” asked Bundle. “Or are you just strong and silent?”

“Talk?” said Anthony. “I babble. I murmur. I gurgle—like the running
brook, you know. Sometimes I even ask questions.”

“As for instance?”

“Who occupies the second room on the left from the end?”

He pointed to it as he spoke.

“What an extraordinary question!” said Bundle. “You intrigue me
greatly. Let me see—yes—that’s Mademoiselle Brun’s room. The French
governess. She endeavours to keep my young sisters in order. Dulcie and
Daisy—like the song, you know. I dare say they’d have called the next
one, Dorothy May. But mother got tired of having nothing but girls and
died. Thought some one else could take on the job of providing an heir.”

“Mademoiselle Brun,” said Anthony thoughtfully. “How long has she been
with you?”

“Two months. She came to us when we were in Scotland.”

“Ha!” said Anthony. “I smell a rat.”

“I wish I could smell some lunch,” said Bundle. “Do I ask the Scotland
Yard man to have lunch with us, Mr. Cade? You’re a man of the world,
you know about the etiquette of such things. We’ve never had a murder
in the house before. Exciting, isn’t it? I’m sorry your character
was so completely cleared this morning. I’ve always wanted to meet a
murderer and see for myself if they’re as genial and charming as the
Sunday papers always say they are. God! what’s that?”

“What” seemed to be a taxi approaching the house. Its two occupants
were a tall man with a bald head and a black beard, and a smaller
and younger man with a black moustache. Anthony recognized the
former, and guessed that it was he—rather than the vehicle which
contained him—that had wrung the exclamation of astonishment from his
companion’s lips.

“Unless I much mistake,” he remarked, “that is my old friend, Baron
Lollipop.”

“Baron what?”

“I call him Lollipop for convenience. The pronouncing of his own name
tends to harden the arteries.”

“It nearly wrecked the telephone this morning,” remarked Bundle. “So
that’s the Baron, is it? I foresee he’ll be turned on to me this
afternoon—and I’ve had Isaacstein all the morning. Let George do his
own dirty work, say I, and to hell with politics. Excuse me leaving
you, Mr. Cade, but I must stand by poor old Father.”

Bundle retreated rapidly to the house.

Anthony stood looking after her for a minute or two and thoughtfully
lighted a cigarette. As he did so, his ear was caught by a stealthy
sound quite near him. He was standing by the boat-house, and the sound
seemed to come from just round the corner. The mental picture conveyed
to him was that of a man vainly trying to stifle a sudden sneeze.

“Now I wonder—I very much wonder who’s behind the boat-house,” said
Anthony to himself. “We’d better see, I think.”

Suiting the action to the word, he threw away the match he had just
blown out, and ran lightly and noiselessly round the corner of the
boat-house.

He came upon a man who had evidently been kneeling on the ground and
was just struggling to rise to his feet. He was tall, wore a light
coloured overcoat and glasses, and for the rest, had a short pointed
black beard and a slightly foppish manner. He was between thirty and
forty years of age, and altogether of a most respectable appearance.

“What are you doing here?” asked Anthony.

He was pretty certain that the man was not one of Lord Caterham’s
guests.

“I ask your pardon,” said the stranger, with a marked foreign accent
and what was meant to be an engaging smile. “It is that I wish to
return to the _Jolly Crickets_, and I have lost my way. Would Monsieur
be so good as to direct me?”

“Certainly,” said Anthony. “But you don’t go there by water, you know.”

“Eh?” said the stranger, with the air of one at a loss.

“I said,” repeated Anthony, with a meaning glance at the boat-house,
“that you won’t get there by water. There’s a right of way across the
park—some distance away, but all this is the private part. You’re
trespassing.”

“I am most sorry,” said the stranger. “I lost my direction entirely. I
thought I would come up here and inquire.”

Anthony refrained from pointing out that kneeling behind a boat-house
was a somewhat peculiar manner of prosecuting inquiries. He took the
stranger kindly by the arm.

“You go this way,” he said. “Right round the lake and straight on—you
can’t miss the path. When you get on it, turn to the left, and it will
lead you to the village. You’re staying at the _Cricketers_, I suppose?”

“I am, monsieur. Since this morning. Many thanks for your kindness in
directing me.”

“Don’t mention it,” said Anthony. “I hope you haven’t caught cold.”

“Eh?” said the stranger.

“From kneeling on the damp ground, I mean,” explained Anthony. “I
fancied I heard you sneezing.”

“I may have sneezed,” admitted the other.

“Quite so,” said Anthony. “But you shouldn’t suppress a sneeze, you
know. One of the most eminent doctors said so only the other day.
It’s frightfully dangerous. I don’t remember exactly what it does to
you—whether it’s an inhibition or whether it hardens your arteries,
but you must never do it. Good morning.”

“Good morning, and thank you, monsieur, for setting me on the right
road.”

“Second suspicious stranger from village inn,” murmured Anthony to
himself, as he watched the other’s retreating form. “And one that I
can’t quite place, either. Appearance that of a French commercial
traveller. I don’t quite see him as a Comrade of the Red Hand. Does he
represent yet a third party in the harassed state of Herzoslovakia?
The French governess has the second window from the end. A mysterious
Frenchman is found slinking round the grounds, listening to
conversations that are not meant for his ears. I’ll bet my hat there’s
something in it.”

Musing thus, Anthony retraced his steps to the house. On the terrace
he encountered Lord Caterham, looking suitably depressed, and two new
arrivals. He brightened a little at the sight of Anthony.

“Ah, there you are,” he remarked. “Let me introduce you to
Baron—er—er—and Captain Andrassy. Mr. Anthony Cade.”

The Baron stared at Anthony with growing suspicion.

“Mr. Cade?” he said stiffly. “I think not.”

“A word alone with you, Baron,” said Anthony. “I can explain
everything.”

The Baron bowed, and the two men walked down the terrace together.

“Baron,” said Anthony. “I must throw myself upon your mercy. I have so
far strained the honour of an English gentleman as to travel to this
country under an assumed name. I represented myself to you as Mr. James
McGrath—but you must see for yourself that the deception involved
was infinitesimal. You are doubtless acquainted with the works of
Shakespeare, and his remarks about the unimportance of the nomenclature
of roses? This case is the same. The man you wanted to see was the man
in possession of the Memoirs. I was that man. As you know only too
well, I am no longer in possession of them. A neat trick. Baron, a very
neat trick. Who thought of it, you or your principal?”

“His Highness’s own idea it was. And for anyone but him to carry it out
he would not permit.”

“He did it jolly well,” said Anthony, with approval. “I never took him
for anything but an Englishman.”

“The education of an English gentleman did the Prince receive,”
explained the Baron. “The custom of Herzoslovakia it is.”

“No professional could have pinched those papers better,” said Anthony.
“May I ask, without indiscretion, what has become of them?”

“Between gentlemen,” began the Baron.

“You are too kind, Baron,” murmured Anthony. “I’ve never been called a
gentleman so often as I have in the last forty-eight hours.”

“I to you say this—I believe them to be burnt.”

“You believe, but you don’t know, eh? Is that it?”

“His Highness in his own keeping retained them. His purpose it was to
read them and then by the fire to destroy them.”

“I see,” said Anthony. “All the same, they are not the kind of light
literature you’d skim through in half an hour.”

“Among the effects of my martyred master they have not discovered been.
It is clear, therefore, that burnt they are.”

“H’m!” said Anthony. “I wonder?”

He was silent for a minute or two and then went on.

“I have asked you these questions, Baron, because, as you may have
heard, I myself have been implicated in the crime. I must clear myself
absolutely, so that no suspicion attaches to me.”

“Undoubtedly,” said the Baron. “Your honour demands it.”

“Exactly,” said Anthony. “You put these things so well. I haven’t got
the knack of it. To continue, I can only clear myself by discovering
the real murderer, and to do that I must have all the facts. This
question of the Memoirs is very important. It seems to me possible that
to gain possession of them might be the motive of the crime. Tell me,
Baron, is that a very far-fetched idea?”

The Baron hesitated for a moment or two.

“You yourself the Memoirs have read?” he asked cautiously at length.

“I think I am answered,” said Anthony, smiling. “Now Baron, there’s
just one thing more. I should like to give you fair warning that it
is still my intention to deliver that manuscript to the publishers on
Wednesday next, the 13th of October.”

The Baron stared at him.

“But you have no longer got it?”

“On Wednesday next, I said. To-day is Friday. That gives me five days
to get hold of it again.”

“But if it is burnt?”

“I don’t think it is burnt. I have good reasons for not believing so.”

As he spoke they turned the corner of the terrace. A massive figure was
advancing towards them. Anthony, who had not yet seen the great Mr.
Herman Isaacstein, looked at him with considerable interest.

“Ah, Baron,” said Isaacstein, waving the big black cigar he was
smoking, “this is a bad business—a very bad business.”

“My good friend, Mr. Isaacstein, it is indeed,” cried the Baron. “All
our noble edifice in ruins is.”

Anthony tactfully left the two gentlemen to their lamentations, and
retraced his steps along the terrace.

Suddenly he came to a halt. A thin spiral of smoke was rising into the
air apparently from the very centre of the yew hedge.

“It must be hollow in the middle,” reflected Anthony. “I’ve heard of
such things before.”

He looked swiftly to right and left of him. Lord Caterham was at the
farther end of the terrace with Captain Andrassy. Their backs were
towards him. Anthony bent down and wriggled his way through the massive
yew.

He had been quite right in his supposition. The yew hedge was really
not one, but two, a narrow passage divided them. The entrance to this
was about half-way up, on the side of the house. There was no mystery
about it, but no one seeing the yew hedge from the front would have
guessed at the probability.

Anthony looked down the narrow vista. About half-way down, a man was
reclining in a basket chair. A half-smoked cigar rested on the arm of
the chair, and the gentleman himself appeared to be asleep.

“H’m!” said Anthony to himself. “Evidently Mr. Hiram Fish prefers
sitting in the shade.”




16

Tea in the Schoolroom


Anthony regained the terrace with the feeling uppermost in his mind
that the only safe place for private conversations was the middle of
the lake.

The resonant boom of a gong sounded from the house, and Tredwell
appeared in a stately fashion from a side door.

“Luncheon is served, my lord.”

“Ah!” said Lord Caterham, brisking up a little. “Lunch.”

At that moment two children burst out of the house. They were
high-spirited young women of twelve and ten, and though their names
might be Dulcie and Daisy, as Bundle had affirmed, they appeared to be
more generally known as Guggle and Winkle. They executed a kind of war
dance, interspersed with shrill whoops till Bundle emerged and quelled
them.

“Where’s Mademoiselle?” she demanded.

“She’s got the _migraine_, the _migraine_, the _migraine_!” chanted
Winkle.

“Hurrah!” said Guggle, joining in.

Lord Caterham had succeeded in shepherding most of his guests into the
house. Now he laid a restraining hand on Anthony’s arm.

“Come to my study,” he breathed. “I’ve got something rather special
there.”

Slinking down the hall, far more like a thief than like the master of
the house, Lord Caterham gained the shelter of his sanctum. Here he
unlocked a cupboard and produced various bottles.

“Talking to foreigners always makes me so thirsty,” he explained
apologetically. “I don’t know why it is.”

There was a knock on the door, and Virginia popped her head round the
corner of it.

“Got a special cocktail for me?” she demanded.

“Of course,” said Lord Caterham hospitably. “Come in.”

The next few minutes were taken up with serious rites.

“I needed that,” said Lord Caterham with a sigh, as he replaced his
glass on the table. “As I said just now, I find talking to foreigners
particularly fatiguing. I think it’s because they’re so polite. Come
along. Let’s have some lunch.”

He led the way to the dining-room. Virginia put her hand on Anthony’s
arm, and drew him back a little.

“I’ve done my good deed for the day,” she whispered. “I got Lord
Caterham to take me to see the body.”

“Well?” demanded Anthony eagerly.

One theory of his was to be proved or disproved.

Virginia was shaking her head.

“You were wrong,” she whispered. “It’s Prince Michael all right.”

“Oh!” Anthony was deeply chagrined.

“And Mademoiselle has the _migraine_,” he added aloud, in a
dissatisfied tone.

“What has that got to do with it?”

“Probably nothing, but I wanted to see her. You see, I’ve found out
that Mademoiselle has the second room from the end—the one where I saw
the light last night.”

“That’s interesting.”

“Probably there’s nothing in it. All the same, I mean to see
Mademoiselle before the day is out.”

Lunch was somewhat of an ordeal. Even the cheerful impartiality of
Bundle failed to reconcile the heterogeneous assembly. The Baron and
Andrassy were correct, formal, full of etiquette, and had the air of
attending a meal in a mausoleum. Lord Caterham was lethargic and
depressed. Bill Eversleigh stared longingly at Virginia. George, very
mindful of the trying position in which he found himself, conversed
weightily with the Baron and Mr. Isaacstein. Guggle and Winkle,
completely beside themselves with joy of having a murder in the house,
had to be continually checked and kept under, whilst Mr. Hiram Fish
slowly masticated his food, and drawled out dry remarks in his own
peculiar idiom. Superintendent Battle had considerately vanished, and
nobody knew what had become of him.

“Thank God that’s over,” murmured Bundle to Anthony, as they left the
table. “And George is taking the foreign contingent over to the Abbey
this afternoon to discuss State secrets.”

“That will possibly relieve the atmosphere,” agreed Anthony.

“I don’t mind the American so much,” continued Bundle. “He and Father
can talk first editions together quite happily in some secluded spot.
Mr. Fish”—as the object of their conversation drew near—“I’m planning
a peaceful afternoon for you.”

The American bowed.

“That’s too kind of you, Lady Eileen.”

“Mr. Fish,” said Anthony, “had quite a peaceful morning.”

Mr. Fish shot a quick glance at him.

“Ah, sir, you observed me, then, in my seclooded retreat? There are
moments, sir, when far from the madding crowd is the only motto for a
man of quiet tastes.”

Bundle had drifted on, and the American and Anthony were left together.
The former dropped his voice a little.

“I opine,” he said, “that there is considerable mystery about this
little dust up?”

“Any amount of it,” said Anthony.

“That guy with the bald head was perhaps a family connection?”

“Something of the kind.”

“These Central European nations beat the band,” declared Mr. Fish.
“It’s kind of being rumoured around that the deceased gentleman was a
Royal Highness. Is that so, do you know?”

“He was staying here as Count Stanislaus,” replied Anthony evasively.

To this Mr. Fish offered no further rejoinder than the somewhat cryptic:

“Oh! boy.”

After which he relapsed into silence for some moments.

“This police captain of yours,” he observed at last, “Battle, or
whatever his name is, is he the goods all right?”

“Scotland Yard thinks so,” replied Anthony dryly.

“He seems kind of hide-bound to me,” remarked Mr. Fish. “No hustle to
him. This big idea of his, letting no one leave the house, what is
there to it?”

He darted a very sharp look at Anthony as he spoke.

“Everyone’s got to attend the inquest to-morrow morning, you see.”

“That’s the idea, is it? No more to it than that? No question of Lord
Caterham’s guests being suspected?”

“My dear Mr. Fish!”

“I was getting a mite uneasy—being a stranger in this country. But of
course it was an outside job—I remember now. Window found unfastened,
wasn’t it?”

“It was,” said Anthony, looking straight in front of him.

Mr. Fish sighed. After a minute or two he said in a plaintive tone:

“Young man, do you know how they get the water out of a mine?”

“How?”

“By pumping—but its almighty hard work! I observe the figure of my
genial host detaching itself from the group over yonder. I must join
him.”

Mr. Fish walked gently away, and Bundle drifted back again.

“Funny Fish, isn’t he?” she remarked.

“He is.”

“It’s no good looking at Virginia,” said Bundle sharply.

“I wasn’t.”

“You were. I don’t know how she does it. It isn’t what she says, I
don’t even believe it’s what she looks. But, oh, boy! she gets there
every time. Anyway, she’s on duty elsewhere for the time. She told
me to be nice to you, and I’m going to be nice to you—by force if
necessary.”

“No force required,” Anthony assured her. “But, if it’s all the same to
you, I’d rather you were nice to me on the water, in a boat.”

“It’s not a bad idea,” said Bundle meditatively.

They strolled down to the lake together.

“There’s just one question I’d like to ask you,” said Anthony as
he paddled gently out from the shore, “before we turn to really
interesting topics. Business before pleasure.”

“Whose bedroom do you want to know about now?” asked Bundle with weary
patience.

“Nobody’s bedroom for the moment. But I would like to know where you
got your French governess from.”

“The man’s bewitched,” said Bundle. “I got her from an Agency, and I
pay her a hundred pounds a year, and her Christian name is Genevieve.
Anything more you want to know?”

“We’ll assume the Agency,” said Anthony. “What about her references?”

“Oh, glowing! She’d lived for ten years with the Countess of What Not.”

“What Not being——?”

“The Comtesses de Breteuil, Chateau de Breteuil, Dinard.”

“You didn’t actually see the Comtesse yourself? It was all done by
letter?”

“Exactly.”

“H’m!” said Anthony.

“You intrigue me,” said Bundle. “You intrigue me enormously. Is it love
or crime?”

“Probably sheer idiocy on my part. Let’s forget it.”

“‘Let’s forget it,’ said he negligently, having extracted all the
information he wants. Mr. Cade, who do you suspect? I rather suspect
Virginia as being the most unlikely person. Or possibly Bill.”

“What about you?”

“Member of the aristocracy joins in secret the Comrades of the Red
Hand. It would create a sensation all right.”

Anthony laughed. He liked Bundle, though he was a little afraid of the
shrewd penetration of her sharp grey eyes.

“You must be proud of all this,” he said suddenly, waving his hand
towards the great house in the distance.

Bundle screwed up her eyes and tilted her head on one side.

“Yes—it means something, I suppose. But one’s too used to it. Anyway,
we’re not here very much—too deadly dull. We’ve been at Cowes and
Deauville all the summer after town, and then up to Scotland. Chimneys
has been swathed in dust sheets for about five months. Once a week
they take the dust sheets off and chars-à-bancs full of tourists come
and gape, and listen to Tredwell. ‘On your right is the portrait of
the fourth Marchioness of Caterham, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds,’
etc., and Ed or Bert, the humorist of the party, nudges his girl and
says ‘Eh! Gladys, they’ve got two pennyworth of pictures here, right
enough.’ And then they go and look at more pictures and yawn and
shuffle their feet and wish it was time to go home.”

“Yet history has been made here once or twice, by all accounts.”

“You’ve been listening to George,” said Bundle sharply. “That’s the
kind of thing he’s always saying.”

But Anthony had raised himself on his elbow, and was staring at the
shore.

“Is that a third suspicious stranger I see standing disconsolately by
the boat-house? Or is it one of the house party?”

Bundle lifted her head from the scarlet cushion.

“It’s Bill,” she said.

“He seems to be looking for something.”

“He’s probably looking for me,” said Bundle, without enthusiasm.

“Shall we row quickly in the opposite direction?”

“That’s quite the right answer, but it should be delivered with more
enthusiasm.”

“I shall row with double vigour after that rebuke.”

“Not at all,” said Bundle. “I have my pride. Row me to where that young
ass is waiting. Somebody’s got to look after him, I suppose. Virginia
must have given him the slip. One of these days, inconceivable as it
seems, I might want to marry George, so I might as well practise being
‘one of our well known political hostesses.’”

Anthony pulled obediently towards the shore.

“And what’s to become of me, I should like to know?” he complained.
“I refuse to be the unwanted third. Is that the children I see in the
distance?”

“Yes. Be careful, or they’ll rope you in.”

“I’m rather fond of children,” said Anthony. “I might teach them some
nice quiet intellectual game.”

“Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Having relinquished Bundle to the care of her gallant captain, Anthony
strolled off to where various shrill cries disturbed the peace of the
afternoon. He was received with acclamation.

“Are you any good at playing Red Indians?” asked Guggle sternly.

“Rather,” said Anthony. “You should hear the noise I make when I’m
being scalped. Like this.” He illustrated.

“Not so bad,” said Winkle grudgingly. “Now do the scalper’s yell.”

Anthony obliged with a blood-curdling noise. In another minute the game
of Red Indians was in full swing.

About an hour later, Anthony wiped his forehead, and ventured to
inquire after Mademoiselle’s _migraine_. He was pleased to hear that
that lady had entirely recovered. So popular had he become that he was
urgently invited to come and have tea in the schoolroom.

“And then you can tell us about the man you saw hung,” urged Guggle.

“Did you say you’d got a bit of the rope with you?” asked Winkle.

“It’s in my suit-case,” said Anthony solemnly. “You shall each have a
piece of it.”

Winkle immediately let out a Wild Indian yell of satisfaction.

“We’ll have to go and get washed, I suppose,” said Guggle gloomily.
“You will come to tea, won’t you? You won’t forget?”

Anthony swore solemnly that nothing should prevent his keeping the
engagement. Satisfied, the youthful pair beat a retreat towards the
house. Anthony stood for a minute looking after them, and, as he did
so, he became aware of a man leaving the other side of a little copse
of trees and hurrying away across the park. He felt almost sure that it
was the same black-bearded stranger he had encountered that morning.
Whilst he was hesitating whether to go after him or not the trees just
ahead of him were parted and Mr. Hiram Fish stepped out into the open.
He stared slightly when he saw Anthony.

“A peaceful afternoon, Mr. Fish?” inquired the latter.

“I thank you, yes.”

Mr. Fish did not look as peaceful as usual, however. His face was
flushed, and he was breathing hard as though he had been running. He
drew out his watch and consulted it.

“I guess,” he said softly, “it’s just about time for your British
institution of afternoon tea.”

Closing his watch with a snap, Mr. Fish ambled gently away in the
direction of the house.

Anthony stood in a brown study and awoke with a start to the fact that
Superintendent Battle was standing beside him. Not the faintest sound
had heralded his approach, and he seemed literally to have materialized
from space.

“Where did you spring from?” asked Anthony irritably.

With a slight jerk of his head, Battle indicated the little copse of
trees behind them.

“It seems a popular spot this afternoon,” remarked Anthony.

“You were very lost in thought, Mr. Cade?”

“I was indeed. Do you know what I was doing, Battle? I was trying to
put two and one and five and three together so as to make four. And it
can’t be done, Battle, it simply can’t be done.”

“There’s difficulties that way,” agreed the detective.

“But you’re just the man I wanted to see. Battle, I want to go away.
Can it be done?”

True to his creed, Superintendent Battle showed neither emotion nor
surprise. His reply was easy and matter of fact.

“That depends, sir, as to where you want to go.”

“I’ll tell you exactly, Battle. I’ll lay my cards upon the table.
I want to go to Dinard, to the Chateau of Madame la Comtesse de
Breteuil. Can it be done?”

“When do you want to go, Mr. Cade?”

“Say to-morrow after the inquest. I could be back here by Sunday
evening.”

“I see,” said the superintendent, with peculiar solidity.

“Well, what about it?”

“I’ve no objection, provided you go where you say you’re going, and
come straight back here.”

“You’re a man in a thousand, Battle. Either you have taken an
extraordinary fancy to me or else you’re extraordinarily deep. Which is
it?”

Superintendent Battle smiled a little, but did not answer.

“Well, well,” said Anthony, “I expect you’ll take your precautions.
Discreet minions of the law will follow my suspicious footsteps. So be
it. But I do wish I knew what it was all about.”

“I don’t get you, Mr. Cade.”

“The Memoirs—what all the fuss is about. Were they only Memoirs? Or
have you got something up your sleeve?”

Battle smiled again.

“Take it like this. I’m doing you a favour because you’ve made a
favourable impression on me, Mr. Cade. I’d like you to work in with
me over this case. The amateur and the professional, they go well
together. The one has the intimacy, so to speak, and the other the
experience.”

“Well,” said Anthony slowly, “I don’t mind admitting that I’ve always
wanted to try my hand at unravelling a murder mystery.”

“Any ideas about the case at all, Mr. Cade?”

“Plenty of them,” said Anthony. “But they’re mostly questions.”

“As, for instance?”

“Who steps into the murdered Michael’s shoes? It seems to me that that
is important?”

A rather wry smile came over Superintendent Battle’s face.

“I wondered if you’d think of that, sir. Prince Nicolas Obolovitch is
the next heir—first cousin of this gentleman.”

“And where is he at the present moment?” asked Anthony, turning away
to light a cigarette. “Don’t tell me you don’t know, Battle, because I
shan’t believe you.”

“We’ve reason to believe that he’s in the United States. He was until
quite lately, at all events. Raising money on his expectations.”

Anthony gave vent to a surprised whistle.

“I get you,” said Anthony. “Michael was backed by England, Nicholas
by America. In both countries a group of financiers are anxious to
obtain the oil concessions. The Loyalist party adopted Michael as their
candidate—now they’ll have to look elsewhere. Gnashing of teeth on the
part of Isaacstein and Co. and Mr. George Lomax. Rejoicings in Wall
Street. Am I right?”

“You’re not far off,” said Superintendent Battle.

“H’m!” said Anthony. “I almost dare swear that I know what you were
doing in that copse.”

The detective smiled, but made no reply.

“International politics are very fascinating,” said Anthony, “but I
fear I must leave you. I have an appointment in the schoolroom.”

He strode briskly away towards the house. Inquiries of the dignified
Tredwell showed him the way to the schoolroom. He tapped on the door
and entered, to be greeted by squeals of joy.

Guggle and Winkle immediately rushed at him and bore him in triumph to
be introduced to Mademoiselle.

For the first time, Anthony felt a qualm. Mademoiselle Brun was a
small, middle-aged woman with a sallow face, pepper and salt hair, and
a budding moustache!

As the notorious foreign adventuress she did not fit into the picture
at all.

“I believe,” said Anthony to himself, “I’m making the most utter fool
of myself. Never mind, I must go through with it now.”

He was extremely pleasant to Mademoiselle, and she, on her part,
was evidently delighted to have a good-looking young man invade her
schoolroom. The meal was a great success.

But that evening, alone in the charming bedchamber that had been
allotted to him, Anthony shook his head several times.

“I’m wrong,” he said to himself. “For the second time, I’m wrong.
Somehow or other, I can’t get the hang of this thing.”

He stopped in his pacing of the floor.

“What the devil——” began Anthony.

The door was being softly opened. In another minute a man had slipped
into the room, and stood deferentially by the door.

He was a big fair man, squarely built, with high Slavonic cheek-bones,
and dreamy fanatic eyes.

“Who the devil are you?” asked Anthony, staring at him.

The man replied in perfect English.

“I am Boris Anchoukoff.”

“Prince Michael’s servant, eh?”

“That is so. I served my master. He is dead. Now I serve you.”

“It’s very kind of you,” said Anthony. “But I don’t happen to want a
valet.”

“You are my master now. I will serve you faithfully.”

“Yes—but—look here—I don’t need a valet. I can’t afford one.”

Boris Anchoukoff looked at him with a touch of scorn.

“I do not ask for money. I served my master. So will I serve you—to
the death!”

Stepping quickly forward, he dropped on one knee, caught Anthony’s hand
and placed it on his forehead. Then he rose swiftly and left the room
as suddenly as he had come.

Anthony stared after him, his face a picture of astonishment.

“That’s damned odd,” he said to himself. “A faithful sort of dog.
Curious the instincts these fellows have.”

He rose and paced up and down.

“All the same,” he muttered, “it’s awkward—damned awkward—just at
present.”




17

A Midnight Adventure


The inquest took place on the following morning. It was extraordinarily
unlike the inquests as pictured in sensational fiction. It satisfied
even George Lomax in its rigid suppression of all interesting details.
Superintendent Battle and the Coroner, working together with the
support of the Chief Constable, had reduced the proceedings to the
lowest level of boredom.

Immediately after the inquest, Anthony took an unostentatious departure.

His departure was the one bright spot in the day for Bill Eversleigh.
George Lomax, obsessed with the fear that something damaging to his
Department might leak out, had been exceedingly trying. Miss Oscar and
Bill had been in constant attendance. Everything useful and interesting
had been done by Miss Oscar. Bill’s part had been to run to and fro
with countless messages, to decode telegrams, and to listen by the hour
to George repeating himself.

It was a completely exhausted young man who retired to bed on Saturday
night. He had had practically no chance to talk to Virginia all
day, owing to George’s exactions, and he felt injured and ill-used.
Thank goodness, that Colonial fellow had taken himself off. He had
monopolized far too much of Virginia’s society anyway. And of course
if George Lomax went on making an ass of himself like this—— His
mind seething with resentment, Bill fell asleep. And, in dreams, came
consolation. For he dreamt of Virginia.

It was an heroic dream, a dream of burning timbers in which he played
the part of the gallant rescuer. He brought down Virginia from the
topmost story in his arms. She was unconscious. He laid her on the
grass. Then he went off to find a packet of sandwiches. It was most
important that he should find that packet of sandwiches. George had it,
but instead of giving it up to Bill, he began to dictate telegrams.
They were now in the vestry of a church, and any minute Virginia might
arrive to be married to him. Horror! He was wearing pyjamas. He must
get home at once and find his proper clothes. He rushed out to the
car. The car would not start. No petrol in the tank! He was getting
desperate. And then a big General ’bus drew up and Virginia got out
of it on the arm of the bald headed Baron. She was deliciously cool,
and exquisitely dressed in grey. She came over to him and shook him by
the shoulders playfully. “Bill,” she said. “Oh, Bill.” She shook him
harder. “Bill,” she said. “Wake up. Oh, do wake up!”

Very dazed, Bill woke up. He was in his bedroom at Chimneys. But part
of the dream was with him still. Virginia was leaning over him, and was
repeating the same words with variations.

“Wake up, Bill. Oh, do wake up. Bill.”

“Hullo!” said Bill, sitting up in bed. “What’s the matter?”

Virginia gave a sigh of relief.

“Thank goodness. I thought you’d never wake up. I’ve been shaking you
and shaking you. Are you properly awake now?”

“I think so,” said Bill doubtfully.

“You great lump,” said Virginia. “The trouble I’ve had! My arms are
aching.”

“These insults are uncalled for,” said Bill, with dignity. “Let me say,
Virginia, that I consider your conduct most unbecoming. Not at all that
of a pure young widow.”

“Don’t be an idiot, Bill. Things are happening.”

“What kind of things?”

“Queer things. In the Council Chamber. I thought I heard a door bang
somewhere, and I came down to see. And then saw a light in the Council
Chamber. I crept along the passage, and peeped through the crack of the
door. I couldn’t see much, but what I could see was so extraordinary
that I felt I must see more. And then, all of a sudden, I felt that I
should like a nice, big, strong man with me. And you were the nicest
and biggest and strongest man I could think of, so I came in and tried
to wake you up quietly. But I’ve been ages doing it.”

“I see,” said Bill. “And what do you want me to do now? Get up and
tackle the burglars?”

Virginia wrinkled her brows.

“I’m not sure that they are burglars. Bill, it’s very queer—— But
don’t let’s waste time talking. Get up.”

Bill slipped obediently out of bed.

“Wait while I don a pair of boots—the big ones with nails in them.
However big and strong I am, I’m not going to tackle hardened criminals
with bare feet.”

“I like your pyjamas, Bill,” said Virginia dreamily. “Brightness
without vulgarity.”

“While we’re on the subject,” remarked Bill, reaching for his second
boot, “I like that thingummybob of yours. It’s a pretty shade of green.
What do you call it? It’s not just a dressing-gown, is it?”

“It’s a _négligé_” said Virginia. “I’m glad you’ve led such a pure
life, Bill.”

“I haven’t,” said Bill indignantly.

“You’ve just betrayed the fact. You’re very nice, Bill, and I like you.
I dare say that to-morrow morning—say about ten o’clock, a good safe
hour for not unduly exciting the emotions—I might even kiss you.”

“I always think these things are best carried out on the spur of the
moment,” suggested Bill.

“We’ve other fish to fry,” said Virginia. “If you don’t want to put on
a gas mask and a shirt of chain mail, shall we start?”

“I’m ready,” said Bill.

He wriggled into a lurid silk dressing-gown, and picked up a poker.

“The orthodox weapon,” he observed.

“Come on,” said Virginia, “and don’t make a noise.”

They crept out of the room and along the corridor, and then down the
wide double staircase. Virginia frowned as they reached the bottom of
it.

“Those boots of yours aren’t exactly domes of silence, are they, Bill?”

“Nails will be nails,” said Bill. “I’m doing my best.”

“You’ll have to take them off,” said Virginia firmly.

Bill groaned.

“You can carry them in your hand. I want to see if you can make out
what’s going on in the Council Chamber. Bill, it’s awfully mysterious.
Why should burglars take a man in armour to pieces?”

“Well, I suppose they can’t take him away whole very well. They
disarticulate him, and pack him neatly.”

Virginia shook her head, dissatisfied.

“What should they want to steal a mouldy old suit of armour for? Why,
Chimneys is full of treasures that are much easier to take away.”

Bill shook his head.

“How many of them are there?” he asked, taking a firmer grip of his
poker.

“I couldn’t see properly. You know what a keyhole is. And they only had
a flashlight.”

“I expect they’ve gone by now,” said Bill hopefully.

He sat down on the bottom stair and drew off his boots. Then, holding
them in his hand, he crept along the passage that led to the Council
Chamber, Virginia close behind him. They halted outside the massive oak
door. All was silent within, but suddenly Virginia pressed his arm, and
he nodded. A bright light had shown for a minute through the keyhole.

Bill went down on his knees, and applied his eye to the orifice. What
he saw was confusing in the extreme. The scene of the drama that was
being enacted inside was evidently just to the left, out of his line
of vision. A subdued chink every now and then seemed to point to the
fact that the invaders were still dealing with the figure in armour.
There were two of these, Bill remembered. They stood together by the
wall just under the Holbein portrait. The light of the electric torch
was evidently being directed upon the operations in progress. It
left the rest of the room nearly in darkness. Once a figure flitted
across Bill’s line of vision, but there was not sufficient light to
distinguish anything about it. It might have been that of a man or a
woman. In a minute or two it flitted back again and then the subdued
chinking sounded again. Presently there came a new sound, a faint
tap-tap as of knuckles on wood.

Bill sat back on his heels suddenly.

“What is it?” whispered Virginia.

“Nothing. It’s no good going on like this. We can’t see anything, and
we can’t guess what they’re up to. I must go in and tackle them.”

He drew on his boots and stood up.

“Now, Virginia, listen to me. We’ll open the door as softly as
possible. You know where the switch of the electric light is?”

“Yes, just by the door.”

“I don’t think there are more than two of them. There may be only one.
I want to get well into the room. Then, when I say ‘Go’ I want you to
switch on the lights. Do you understand?”

“Perfectly.”

“And don’t scream or faint or anything. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

“My hero!” murmured Virginia.

Bill peered at her suspiciously through the darkness. He heard a faint
sound which might have been either a sob or a laugh. Then he grasped
the poker firmly and rose to his feet. He felt that he was fully alive
to the situation.

Very softly he turned the handle of the door. It yielded and swung
gently inwards. Bill felt Virginia close beside him. Together they
moved noiselessly into the room.

At the farther end of the room, the torch was playing upon the Holbein
picture. Silhouetted against it was the figure of a man, standing on a
chair and gently tapping on the panelling! His back, of course, was to
them, and he merely loomed up as a monstrous shadow.

What more they might have seen cannot be told, for at that moment
Bill’s nails squeaked upon the parquet floor. The man swung round,
directing the powerful torch full upon them and almost dazzling them
with the sudden glare.

Bill did not hesitate.

“Go,” he roared to Virginia, and sprang for his man, as she obediently
pressed down the switch of the electric lights.

The big chandelier should have been flooded with light; but, instead,
all that happened was the click of the switch. The room remained in
darkness.

Virginia heard Bill curse freely. The next minute the air was filled
with panting, scuffling sounds. The torch had fallen to the ground and
extinguished itself in the fall. There was the sound of a desperate
struggle going on in the darkness, but as to who was getting the better
of it, and indeed as to who was taking part in it, Virginia had no
idea. Had there been anyone else in the room besides the man who was
tapping the panelling? There might have been. Their glimpse had been
only a momentary one.

Virginia felt paralysed. She hardly knew what to do. She dared not try
and join in the struggle. To do so might hamper and not aid Bill. Her
one idea was to stay in the doorway, so that anyone trying to escape
should not leave the room that way. At the same time, she disobeyed
Bill’s express instructions and screamed loudly and repeatedly for help.

She heard doors opening upstairs, and a sudden gleam of light from the
hall and the big staircase. If only Bill could hold his man until help
came.

But at that minute there was a final terrific upheaval. They must have
crashed into one of the figures in armour, for it fell to the ground
with a deafening noise. Virginia saw dimly a figure springing for the
window, and at the same time heard Bill cursing and disengaging himself
from fragments of armour.

For the first time, she left her post, and rushed wildly for the figure
at the window. But the window was already unlatched. The intruder had
no need to stop and fumble for it. He sprang out and raced away down
the terrace and round the corner of the house. Virginia raced after
him. She was young and athletic, and she turned the corner of the
terrace not many seconds after her quarry.

But there she ran headlong into the arms of a man who was emerging from
a small side door. It was Mr. Hiram P. Fish.

“Gee! It’s a lady,” he exclaimed. “Why, I beg your pardon, Mrs. Revel.
I took you for one of the thugs fleeing from justice.”

“He’s just passed this way,” cried Virginia breathlessly. “Can’t we
catch him?”

But, even as she spoke, she knew it was too late. The man must have
gained the park by now, and it was a dark night with no moon. She
retraced her steps to the Council Chamber, Mr. Fish by her side,
discoursing in a soothing monotone upon the habits of burglars in
general, of which he seemed to have a wide experience.

Lord Caterham, Bundle, and various frightened servants were standing in
the doorway of the Council Chamber.

“What the devil’s the matter?” asked Bundle. “Is it burglars? What are
you and Mr. Fish doing, Virginia? Taking a midnight stroll?”

Virginia explained the events of the evening.

“How frightfully exciting,” commented Bundle. “You don’t usually get
a murder and a burglary crowded into one week-end. What’s the matter
with the lights in here? They’re all right everywhere else.”

That mystery was soon explained. The bulbs had simply been removed
and laid in a row against the wall. Mounted on a pair of steps, the
dignified Tredwell, dignified even in undress, restored illumination to
the stricken apartment.

“If I am not mistaken,” said Lord Caterham in his sad voice as he
looked around him, “this room has recently been the centre of somewhat
violent activity.”

There was some justice in the remark. Everything that could have
been knocked over had been knocked over. The floor was littered with
splintered chairs, broken china, and fragments of armour.

“How many of them were there?” asked Bundle. “It seems to have been a
desperate fight.”

“Only one, I think,” said Virginia. But, even as she spoke, she
hesitated a little. Certainly only one person—a man—had passed out
through the window. But as she had rushed after him, she had had a
vague impression of a rustle somewhere close at hand. If so, the second
occupant of the room could have escaped through the door. Perhaps,
though, the rustle had been an effect of her own imagination.

Bill appeared suddenly at the window. He was out of breath and panting
hard.

“Damn the fellow!” he exclaimed wrathfully. “He’s escaped. I’ve been
hunting all over the place. Not a sign of him.”

“Cheer up, Bill,” said Virginia, “better luck next time.”

“Well,” said Lord Caterham, “what do you think we’d better do now? Go
back to bed? I can’t get hold of Badgworthy at this time of night.
Tredwell, you know the sort of thing that’s necessary. Just see to it,
will you?”

“Very good, my lord.”

With a sigh of relief, Lord Caterham prepared to retreat.

“That beggar, Isaacstein, sleeps soundly,” he remarked, with a touch of
envy. “You’d have thought all this row would have brought him down.” He
looked across at Mr. Fish. “You found time to dress, I see,” he added.

“I flung on a few articles of clothing, yes,” admitted the American.

“Very sensible of you,” said Lord Caterham. “Damned chilly things,
pyjamas.”

He yawned. In a rather depressed mood, the house party retired to bed.




18

Second Midnight Adventure


The first person that Anthony saw as he alighted from his train on the
following afternoon was Superintendent Battle. His face broke into a
smile.

“I’ve returned according to contract,” he remarked. “Did you come down
here to assure yourself of the fact?”

Battle shook his head.

“I wasn’t worrying about that, Mr. Cade. I happen to be going to
London, that’s all.”

“You have such a trustful nature, Battle.”

“Do you think so, sir?”

“No. I think you’re deep—very deep. Still waters, you know, and all
that sort of thing. So you’re going to London?”

“I am, Mr. Cade.”

“I wonder why.”

The detective did not reply.

“You’re so chatty,” remarked Anthony. “That’s what I like about you.”

A far-off twinkle showed in Battle’s eyes.

“What about your own little job, Mr. Cade?” he inquired. “How did that
go off?”

“I’ve drawn blank, Battle. For the second time I’ve been proved
hopelessly wrong. Galling, isn’t it?”

“What was the idea, sir, if I may ask?”

“I suspected the French governess, Battle. A: Upon the grounds of her
being the most unlikely person, according to the canons of the best
fiction. B: Because there was a light in her room on the night of the
tragedy.”

“That wasn’t much to go upon.”

“You are quite right. It was not. But I discovered that she had only
been here a short time, and I also found a suspicious Frenchman spying
round the place. You know all about him, I suppose?”

“You mean the man who calls himself M. Chelles? Staying at the
_Cricketers_? A traveller in silk.”

“That’s it, is it? What about him? What does Scotland Yard think?”

“His actions have been suspicious,” said Superintendent Battle
expressionlessly.

“Very suspicious, I should say. Well, I put two and two together.
French governess in the house, French stranger outside. I decided that
they were in league together, and I hurried off to interview the lady
with whom Mademoiselle Brun had lived for the last ten years. I was
fully prepared to find that she had never heard of any such person as
Mademoiselle Brun, but I was wrong, Battle. Mademoiselle is the genuine
article.”

Battle nodded.

“I must admit,” said Anthony, “that as soon as I spoke to her I had an
uneasy conviction that I was barking up the wrong tree. She seemed so
absolutely the governess.”

Again Battle nodded.

“All the same, Mr. Cade, you can’t always go by that. Women especially
can do a lot with make up. I’ve seen quite a pretty girl with the color
of her hair altered, a sallow complexion stain, slightly reddened
eyelids and, most efficacious of all, dowdy clothes, who would fail to
be identified by nine people out of ten who had seen her in her former
character. Men haven’t got quite the same pull. You can do something
with the eyebrows, and of course different sets of false teeth alter
the whole expression. But there are always the ears—there’s an
extraordinary lot of character in ears, Mr. Cade.”

“Don’t look so hard at mine, Battle,” complained Anthony. “You make me
quite nervous.”

“I’m not talking of false beard and grease paint,” continued the
superintendent. “That’s only for books. No, there are very few men
who can escape identification and put it over on you. In fact there’s
only one man I know who has a positive genius for impersonation. King
Victor. Ever heard of King Victor, Mr. Cade?”

There was something so sharp and sudden about the way the detective put
the question that Anthony half checked the words that were rising to
his lips.

“King Victor?” he said reflectively instead. “Somehow, I seem to have
heard the name.”

“One of the most celebrated jewel thieves in the world. Irish father,
French mother. Can speak five languages at least. He’s been serving a
sentence, but his time was up a few months ago.”

“Really? And where is he supposed to be now?”

“Well, Mr. Cade, that’s what we’d rather like to know.”

“The plot thickens,” said Anthony lightly. “No chance of his turning up
here, is there? But I suppose he wouldn’t be interested in political
Memoirs—only in jewels.”

“There’s no saying,” said Superintendent Battle. “For all we know, he
may be here already.”

“Disguised as the second footman? Splendid. You’ll recognize him by his
ears and cover yourself with glory.”

“Quite fond of your little joke, aren’t you, Mr. Cade? By the way, what
do you think of that curious business at Staines?”

“Staines?” said Anthony. “What’s been happening at Staines?”

“It was in Saturday’s papers. I thought you might have seen about it.
Man found by the roadside shot. A foreigner. It was in the papers again
to-day, of course.”

“I did see something about it,” said Anthony carelessly. “Not suicide,
apparently.”

“No. There was no weapon. As yet the man hasn’t been identified.”

“You seem very interested,” said Anthony, smiling. “No connection with
Prince Michael’s death, is there?”

His hand was quite steady. So were his eyes. Was it his fancy that
Superintendent Battle was looking at him with peculiar intentness?

“Seems to be quite an epidemic of that sort of thing,” said Battle.
“But, well, I dare say there’s nothing in it.”

He turned away, beckoning to a porter as the London train came
thundering in. Anthony drew a faint sigh of relief.

He strolled across the park in an unusually thoughtful mood. He
purposely chose to approach the house from the same direction as that
from which he had come on the fateful Thursday night, and as he drew
near to it he looked up at the windows cudgelling his brains to make
sure of the one where he had seen the light. Was he quite sure that it
was the second from the end?

And, doing so, he made a discovery. There was an angle at the corner of
the house in which was a window set farther back. Standing on one spot,
you counted this window as the first, and the first one built out over
the Council Chamber as the second, but move a few yards to the right
and the part built out over the Council Chamber appeared to be the end
of the house. The first window was invisible, and the two windows of
the rooms over the Council Chamber would have appeared the first and
second from the end. Where exactly had he been standing when he had
seen the light flash up?

Anthony found the question very hard to determine. A matter of a yard
or so made all the difference. But one point was made abundantly clear.
It was quite possible that he had been mistaken in describing the light
as occurring in the second room from the end. It might equally well
have been the _third_.

Now who occupied the third room? Anthony was determined to find that
out as soon as possible. Fortune favoured him. In the hall Tredwell had
just set the massive silver urn in its place on the tea tray. Nobody
else was there.

“Hullo, Tredwell,” said Anthony. “I wanted to ask you something. Who
has the third room from the end on the West side? Over the Council
Chamber, I mean.”

Tredwell reflected for a minute or two.

“That would be the American gentleman’s room, sir. Mr. Fish.”

“Oh, is it? Thank you.”

“Not at all, sir.”

Tredwell prepared to depart, then paused. The desire to be the first to
impart news makes even pontifical butlers human.

“Perhaps you have heard, sir, of what occurred last night?”

“Not a word,” said Anthony. “What did occur last night?”

“An attempt at robbery, sir!”

“Not really? Was anything taken?”

“No, sir. The thieves were dismantling the suits of armour in
the Council Chamber when they were surprised and forced to flee.
Unfortunately they got clear away.”

“That’s very extraordinary,” said Anthony. “The Council Chamber again.
Did they break in that way?”

“It is supposed, sir, that they forced the window.”

Satisfied with the interest his information had aroused Tredwell
resumed his retreat, but brought up short with a dignified apology.

“I beg your pardon, sir. I didn’t hear you come in, and I didn’t know
you were standing just behind me.”

Mr. Isaacstein who had been the victim of the impact waved his hand in
a friendly fashion.

“No harm done, my good fellow. I assure you no harm done.”

Tredwell retired looking contemptuous, and Isaacstein came forward and
dropped into an easy-chair.

“Hullo, Cade, so you’re back again. Been hearing all about last night’s
little show?”

“Yes,” said Anthony. “Rather an exciting week-end, isn’t it?”

“I should imagine that last night was the work of local men,” said
Isaacstein. “It seems a clumsy, amateurish affair.”

“Is there anyone about here who collects armour?” asked Anthony. “It
seems a curious thing to select.”

“Very curious,” agreed Mr. Isaacstein. He paused a minute, and then
said slowly: “The whole position here is very unfortunate.”

There was something almost menacing in his tone.

“I don’t quite understand,” said Anthony.

“Why are we all being kept here in this way? The inquest was over
yesterday. The Prince’s body will be removed to London where it is
being given out that he died of heart failure. And still nobody is
allowed to leave the house. Mr. Lomax knows no more than I do. He
refers me to Superintendent Battle.”

“Superintendent Battle has something up his sleeve,” said Anthony
thoughtfully. “And it seems the essence of his plan that nobody should
leave.”

“But, excuse me, Mr. Cade, you have been away.”

“With a string tied to my leg. I’ve no doubt that I was shadowed the
whole time. I shouldn’t have been given a chance of disposing of the
revolver or anything of that kind.”

“Ah, the revolver,” said Isaacstein thoughtfully. “That has not yet
been found, I think?”

“Not yet.”

“Possibly thrown into the lake in passing.”

“Very possibly.”

“Where is Superintendent Battle? I have not seen him this afternoon.”

“He’s gone to London. I met him at the station.”

“Gone to London? Really? Did he say when he would be back?”

“Early to-morrow, so I understood.”

Virginia came in with Lord Caterham and Mr. Fish. She smiled a welcome
at Anthony.

“So you’re back, Mr. Cade. Have you heard all about our adventures last
night?”

“Why, trooly, Mr. Cade,” said Hiram Fish. “It was a night of strenuous
excitement. Did you hear that I mistook Mrs. Revel for one of the
thugs?”

“And in the meantime,” said Anthony, “the thug——?”

“Got clear away,” said Mr. Fish mournfully.

“Do pour out,” said Lord Caterham to Virginia. “I don’t know where
Bundle is.”

Virginia officiated. Then she came and sat down near Anthony.

“Come to the boat-house after tea,” she said in a low voice. “Bill and
I have got a lot to tell you.”

Then she joined lightly in the general conversation.

The meeting at the boat-house was duly held.

Virginia and Bill were bubbling over with their news. They agreed
that a boat in the middle of the lake was the only safe place for
confidential conversation. Having paddled out a sufficient distance,
the full story of last night’s adventure was related to Anthony. Bill
looked a little sulky. He wished Virginia would not insist on bringing
this Colonial fellow into it.

“It’s very odd,” said Anthony, when the story was finished. “What do
you make of it?” he asked Virginia.

“I think they were looking for something,” she returned promptly. “The
burglar idea is absurd.”

“They thought the something, whatever it was, might be concealed in
the suits of armour, that’s clear enough. But why tap the panelling?
That looks more as though they were looking for a secret staircase, or
something of that kind.”

“There’s a Priest’s Hole at Chimneys, I know,” said Virginia. “And I
believe there’s a secret staircase as well. Lord Caterham would tell us
all about it. What I want to know is, what can they have been looking
for?”

“It can’t be the Memoirs,” said Anthony. “They’re a great bulky
package. It must have been something small.”

“George knows, I expect,” said Virginia. “I wonder whether I could get
it out of him. All along I’ve felt there was something behind all this.”

“You say there was only one man,” pursued Anthony, “but that there
might possibly be another, as you thought you heard some one going
towards the door as you sprang to the window.”

“The sound was very slight,” said Virginia. “It might have been just my
imagination.”

“That’s quite possible, but in case it wasn’t your imagination the
second person must have been an inmate of the house. I wonder now——”

“What are you wondering at?” asked Virginia.

“The thoroughness of Mr. Hiram Fish who dresses himself completely when
he hears screams for help downstairs.”

“There’s something in that,” agreed Virginia. “And then there’s
Isaacstein who sleeps through it all. That’s suspicious too. Surely he
couldn’t?”

“There’s that fellow Boris,” suggested Bill. “He looks an unmitigated
ruffian. Michael’s servant, I mean.”

“Chimneys is full of suspicious characters,” said Virginia. “I dare
say the others are just as suspicious of us. I wish Superintendent
Battle hadn’t gone to London. I think it’s rather stupid of him. By the
way, Mr. Cade, I’ve seen that peculiar-looking Frenchman about once or
twice, spying round the park.”

“It’s a mix up,” confessed Anthony. “I’ve been away on a wild-goose
chase. Made a thorough ass of myself. Look here, to me the whole
question seems to resolve itself into this: Did the men find what they
were looking for last night?”

“Supposing they didn’t?” said Virginia. “I’m pretty sure they didn’t,
as a matter of fact.”

“Just this, I believe they’ll come again. They know, or they soon will
know, that Battle’s in London. They’ll take the risk and come again
to-night.”

“Do you really think so?”

“It’s a chance. Now we three will form a little syndicate. Eversleigh
and I will conceal ourselves with due precautions in the Council
Chamber——”

“What about me?” interrupted Virginia. “Don’t think you’re going to
leave me out of it.”

“Listen to me, Virginia,” said Bill. “This is man’s work——”

“Don’t be an idiot, Bill. I’m in on this. Don’t you make any mistake
about it. The syndicate will keep watch to-night.”

It was settled thus, and the details of the plan were laid. After the
party had retired to bed, first one and then another of the syndicate
crept down. They were all armed with powerful electric torches, and in
the pocket of Anthony’s coat lay a revolver.

Anthony had said that he believed another attempt to resume the search
would be made. Nevertheless, he did not expect that the attempt would
be made from outside. He believed that Virginia had been correct in her
guess that some one had passed her in the dark the night before, and as
he stood in the shadow of an old oak dresser it was towards the door
and not the window that his eyes were directed. Virginia was crouching
behind a figure in armour on the opposite wall, and Bill was by the
window.

The minutes passed, at interminable length. One o’clock chimed, then
the half-hour, then two, then another half-hour. Anthony felt stiff and
cramped. He was coming slowly to the conclusion that he had been wrong.
No attempt would be made to-night.

And then he stiffened suddenly, all his senses on the alert. He had
heard a footstep on the terrace outside. Silence again, then a low
scratching noise at the window. Suddenly it ceased, and the window
swung open. A man stepped across the sill into the room.

He stood quite still for a moment, peering round as though listening.
After a minute or two, seemingly satisfied, he switched on a torch
he carried, and turned it rapidly round the room. Apparently he saw
nothing unusual. The three watchers held their breath.

He went over to the same bit of panelled wall he had been examining the
night before.

And then a terrible knowledge smote Bill. He was going to sneeze! The
wild race through the dew-laden park the night before had given him a
chill. All day he had sneezed intermittently. A sneeze was due now, and
nothing on earth would stop it.

He adopted all the remedies he could think of. He pressed his upper
lip, swallowed hard, threw back his head and looked at the ceiling. As
a last resort he held his nose, and pinched it violently. It was of no
avail. He sneezed.

A stifled, checked, emasculated sneeze, but a startling sound in the
deadly quiet of the room.

The stranger sprang round, and in the same minute Anthony acted. He
flashed on his torch, and jumped full for the stranger. In another
minute they were down on the floor together.

“Lights,” shouted Anthony.

Virginia was ready at the switch. The lights came on true and full
to-night. Anthony was on top of his man, Bill leant down to give him a
hand.

“And now,” said Anthony, “let’s see who you are, my fine fellow.”

He rolled his victim over. It was the neat, dark-bearded stranger from
the _Cricketers_.

“Very nice indeed,” said an approving voice.

They all looked up startled. The bulky form of Superintendent Battle
was standing in the open doorway.

“I thought you were in London, Superintendent Battle,” said Anthony.

Battle’s eyes twinkled.

“Did you, sir?” he said. “Well, I thought it would be a good thing if I
was thought to be going.”

“And it has been,” agreed Anthony, looking down at his prostrate foe.

To his surprise there was a slight smile on the stranger’s face.

“May I get up, gentlemen?” he inquired. “You are three to one.”

Anthony kindly hauled him on to his legs. The stranger settled his
coat, pulled up his collar, and directed a keen look at Battle.

“I demand pardon,” he said, “but do I understand that you are a
representative from Scotland Yard?”

“That’s right,” said Battle.

“Then I will present to you my credentials.” He smiled rather ruefully.
“I would have been wise to do so before.”

He took some papers from his pocket and handed them to the Scotland
Yard detective. At the same time, he turned back the lapel of his coat
and showed something pinned there.

Battle gave an exclamation of astonishment. He looked through the
papers and handed them back with a little bow.

“I’m sorry you’ve been man-handled, monsieur,” he said, “but you
brought it on yourself, you know.”

He smiled, noting the astonished expression on the faces of the other.

“This is a colleague we have been expecting for some time,” he said.
“M. Lemoine, of the Sûreté in Paris.”




19

Secret History


They all stared at the French detective, who smiled back at them.

“But yes,” he said, “it is true.”

There was a pause for a general readjusting of ideas. Then Virginia
turned to Battle.

“Do you know what I think, Superintendent Battle?”

“What do you think, Mrs. Revel?”

“I think the time has come to enlighten us a little.”

“To enlighten you? I don’t quite understand, Mrs. Revel.”

“Superintendent Battle, you understand perfectly. I dare say Mr. Lomax
has hedged you about with recommendations of secrecy—George would,
but surely it’s better to tell us than have us stumbling on the secret
all by ourselves, and perhaps doing untold harm. M. Lemoine, don’t you
agree with me?”

“Madame, I agree with you entirely.”

“You can’t go on keeping things dark for ever,” said Battle. “I’ve
told Mr. Lomax so. Mr. Eversleigh is Mr. Lomax’s secretary, there’s no
objection to his knowing what there is to know. As for Mr. Cade, he’s
been brought into the thing willy-nilly, and I consider he’s a right to
know where he stands. But——”

Battle paused.

“I know,” said Virginia. “Women are so indiscreet! I’ve often heard
George say so.”

Lemoine had been studying Virginia attentively. Now he turned to the
Scotland Yard man.

“Did I hear you just now address Madame by the name of Revel?”

“That is my name,” said Virginia.

“Your husband was in the Diplomatic Service, was he not? And you were
with him in Herzoslovakia just before the assassination of the late
King and Queen.”

“Yes.”

Lemoine turned again.

“I think Madame has a right to hear the story. She is indirectly
concerned. Moreover”—his eyes twinkled a little—“Madame’s reputation
for discretion stands very high in Diplomatic circles.”

“I’m glad they give me a good character,” said Virginia, laughing. “And
I’m glad I’m not going to be left out of it.”

“What about refreshments?” said Anthony. “Where does the conference
take place? Here?”

“If you please, sir,” said Battle, “I’ve a fancy for not leaving this
room until morning. You’ll see why when you’ve heard the story.”

“Then I’ll go and forage,” said Anthony.

Bill went with him and they returned with a tray of glasses, siphons
and other necessaries of life.

The augmented syndicate established itself comfortably in the corner by
the window, being grouped round a long oak table.

“It’s understood, of course,” said Battle, “that anything that’s said
here is said in strict confidence. There must be no leakage. I’ve
always felt it would come out one of these days. Gentlemen like Mr.
Lomax who want everything hushed up take bigger risks than they think.
The start of this business was just over seven years ago. There was a
lot of what they call Reconstruction going on—especially in the Near
East. There was a good deal going on in England, strictly on the Q.T.
with that old gentleman, Count Stylptitch, pulling the strings. All
the Balkan States were interested parties, and there were a lot of
Royal Personages in England just then. I’m not going into details,
but Something disappeared—disappeared in a way that seemed incredible
unless you admitted two things—that the thief was a Royal Personage
and that at the same time it was the work of a high-class professional.
M. Lemoine here will tell you how that well might be.”

The Frenchman bowed courteously and took up the tale.

“It is possible that you in England may not even have heard of our
famous and fantastic King Victor. What his real name is, no one knows,
but he is a man of singular courage and daring, one who speaks five
languages and is unequalled in the art of disguise. Though his father
is known to have been either English or Irish, he himself has worked
chiefly in Paris. It was there, nearly eight years ago, that he was
carrying out a daring series of robberies and living under the name of
Captain O’Neill.”

A faint exclamation escaped Virginia. M. Lemoine darted a keen glance
at her.

“I think I understand what agitates Madame. You will see in a minute.
Now we of the Sûreté had our suspicions that this Captain O’Neill was
none other than ‘King Victor,’ but we could not obtain the necessary
proof. There was also in Paris at the time a clever young actress,
Angèle Mory, of the Folies Bergères. For some time we had suspected
that she was associated with the operations of King Victor. But again
no proof was forthcoming.

“About that time, Paris was preparing for the visit of the young King
Nicholas IV of Herzoslovakia. At the Sûreté we were given special
instructions as to the course to be adopted to ensure the safety of His
Majesty. In particular we were warned to superintend the activities of
a certain Revolutionary organization which called itself the Comrades
of the Red Hand. It is fairly certain now that the Comrades approached
Angèle Mory and offered her a huge sum if she would aid them in their
plans. Her part was to infatuate the young King, and decoy him to
some spot agreed upon with them. Angèle Mory accepted the bribe and
promised to perform her part.

“But the young lady was cleverer and more ambitious than her employers
suspected. She succeeded in captivating the King who fell desperately
in love with her and loaded her with jewels. It was then that she
conceived the idea of being—not a King’s mistress, but a Queen! As
every one knows, she realized her ambition. She was introduced into
Herzoslovakia as the Countess Varaga Popoleffsky, an offshoot of the
Romanoffs, and became eventually Queen Varaga of Herzoslovakia. Not
bad for a little Parisian actress! I have always heard that she played
the part extremely well. But her triumph was not to be long lived. The
Comrades of the Red Hand, furious at her betrayal, twice attempted
her life. Finally they worked up the country to such a pitch that a
Revolution broke out in which both the King and Queen perished. Their
bodies, horribly mutilated and hardly recognizable, were recovered,
attesting to the fury of the populace against the low-born foreign
Queen.

“Now, in all this, it seems certain that Queen Varaga still kept in
with her confederate, King Victor. It is possible that the bold plan
was his all along. What is known is that she continued to correspond
with him, in a secret code, from the Court of Herzoslovakia. For safety
the letters were written in English, and signed with the name of an
English lady then at the Embassy. If any inquiry had been made, and
the lady in question had denied her signature, it is possible that she
would not have been believed, for the letters were those of a guilty
woman to her lover. It was your name she used, Mrs. Revel.”

“I know,” said Virginia. Her colour was coming and going unevenly. “So
that is the truth of the letters! I have wondered and wondered.”

“What a blackguardly trick,” cried Bill indignantly.

“The letters were addressed to Captain O’Neill at his rooms in Paris,
and their principal purpose may have light shed upon it by a curious
fact which came to light later. After the assassination of the King
and Queen, many of the Crown Jewels which had fallen, of course, into
the hands of the mob, found their way to Paris, and it was discovered
that in nine cases out of ten the principal stones had been replaced
by paste—and mind you, there were some very famous stones among the
jewels of Herzoslovakia. So as a Queen, Angèle Mory still practised her
former activities.

“You see now where we have arrived. Nicholas IV and Queen Varaga came
to England and were the guests of the late Marquis of Caterham, then
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Herzoslovakia is a small
country, but it could not be left out. Queen Varaga was necessarily
received. And there we have a Royal Personage and at the same time an
expert thief. There is also no doubt that the—er—substitute which was
so wonderful as to deceive anyone but an expert could only have been
fashioned by King Victor, and indeed the whole plan, in its daring and
audacity, pointed to him as the author.”

“What happened?” asked Virginia.

“Hushed up,” said Superintendent Battle laconically. “Not a mention of
it’s ever been made public to this day. We did all that could be done
on the quiet—and that was a good deal more than you’d ever imagine, by
the way. We’ve got methods of our own that would surprise. That jewel
didn’t leave England with the Queen of Herzoslovakia—I can tell you
that much. No, Her Majesty hid it somewhere—but where we’ve never been
able to discover. But I shouldn’t wonder”—Superintendent Battle let
his eyes wander gently round—“if it wasn’t somewhere in this room.”

Anthony leapt to his feet.

“What? After all these years?” he cried incredulously. “Impossible.”

“You do not know the peculiar circumstances, monsieur,” said the
Frenchman quickly. “Only a fortnight later, the Revolution in
Herzoslovakia broke out, and the King and Queen were murdered. Also,
Captain O’Neill was arrested in Paris and sentenced on a minor charge.
We hoped to find the packet of code letters in his house, but it
appears that this had been stolen by some Herzoslovakian go-between.
The man turned up in Herzoslovakia just before the Revolution, and then
disappeared completely.”

“He probably went abroad,” said Anthony thoughtfully. “To Africa as
likely as not. And you bet he hung on to that packet. It was as good
as a gold mine to him. It’s odd how things come about. They probably
called him Dutch Pedro or something like that out there.”

He caught Superintendent Battle’s expressionless glance bent upon him,
and smiled.

“It’s not really clairvoyance, Battle,” he said, “though it sounds like
it. I’ll tell you presently.”

“There is one thing you have not explained,” said Virginia. “Where does
this link up with the Memoirs? There must be a link, surely?”

“Madame is very quick,” said Lemoine approvingly. “Yes, there is a
link. Count Stylptitch was also staying at Chimneys at the time.”

“So that he might have known about it?”

“_Parfaitement._”

“And, of course,” said Battle, “if he’s blurted it out in his precious
Memoirs, the fat will be in the fire. Especially after the way the
whole thing was hushed up.”

Anthony lit a cigarette.

“There’s no possibility of there being a clue in the Memoirs as to
where the stone was hidden?” he asked.

“Very unlikely,” said Battle decisively. “He was never in with the
Queen—opposed the marriage tooth and nail. She’s not likely to have
taken him into her confidence.”

“I wasn’t suggesting such a thing for a minute,” said Anthony. “But
by all accounts he was a cunning old boy. Unknown to her, he may have
discovered where she hid the jewel. In that case, what would he have
done, do you think?”

“Sat tight,” said Battle, after a moment’s reflection.

“I agree,” said the Frenchman. “It was a ticklish moment, you see. To
return the stone anonymously would have presented great difficulties.
Also, the knowledge of its whereabouts would give him great power—and
he liked power, that strange old man. Not only did he hold the Queen
in the hollow of his hand, but he had a powerful weapon to negotiate
with at any time. It was not the only secret he possessed—oh, no!—he
collected secrets like some men collect rare pieces of china. It is
said that, once or twice before his death, he boasted to people of the
things he could make public if the fancy took him. And once at least
he declared that he intended to make some startling revelations in
his Memoirs. Hence”—the Frenchman smiled rather dryly—“the general
anxiety to get hold of them. Our own secret police intended to seize
them, but the Count took the precaution to have them conveyed away
before his death.”

“Still, there’s no real reason to believe that he knew this particular
secret,” said Battle.

“I beg your pardon,” said Anthony quietly. “There are his own words.”

“What?”

Both detectives stared at him as though unable to believe their ears.

“When Mr. McGrath gave me that manuscript to bring to England, he
told me the circumstances of his one meeting with Count Stylptitch.
It was in Paris. At some considerable risk to himself, Mr. McGrath
rescued the Count from a band of Apaches. He was, I understand—shall
we say a trifle—exhilarated? Being in that condition, he made two
rather interesting remarks. One of them was to the effect that he knew
where the Koh-i-noor was—a statement to which my friend paid very
little attention. He also said that the gang in question were King
Victor’s men. Taken together, those two remarks are very significant.”

“Good Lord,” ejaculated Superintendent Battle, “I should say they were.
Even the murder of Prince Michael wears a different aspect.”

“King Victor has never taken a life,” the Frenchman reminded him.

“Supposing he were surprised when he was searching for the jewel?”

“Is he in England, then?” asked Anthony sharply. “You say that he was
released a few months ago. Didn’t you keep track of him?”

A rather rueful smile overspread the French detective’s face.

“We tried to, monsieur. But he is a devil, that man. He gave us the
slip at once—at once. We thought, of course, that he would make
straight for England. But no. He went—where do you think?”

“Where?” said Anthony.

He was staring intently at the Frenchman, and absent-mindedly his
fingers played with a box of matches.

“To America. To the United States.”

“What?”

There was sheer amazement in Anthony’s tone.

“Yes, and what do you think he called himself? What part do you think
he played over there? The part of Prince Nicholas of Herzoslovakia.”

The match-box fell from Anthony’s hand, but his amazement was fully
equalled by that of Battle.

“Impossible.”

“Not so, my friend. You, too, will get the news in the morning. It
has been the most colossal bluff. As you know, Prince Nicholas was
rumoured to have died in the Congo years ago. Our friend, King Victor,
seizes on that—difficult to prove a death of that kind. He resurrects
Prince Nicholas, and plays him to such purpose that he gets away with a
tremendous haul of American dollars—all on account of the supposed oil
concessions. But by a mere accident, he was unmasked, and had to leave
the country hurriedly. This time he did come to England. And that is
why I am here. Sooner or later he will come to Chimneys. That is, if he
is not already here!”

“You think—that?”

“I think he was here the night Prince Michael died, and again last
night.”

“It was another attempt, eh?” said Battle.

“It was another attempt.”

“What has bothered me,” continued Battle, “was wondering what had
become of M. Lemoine here. I’d had word from Paris that he was on his
way over to work with me, and I couldn’t make out why he hadn’t turned
up.”

“I must indeed apologize,” said Lemoine. “You see, I arrived on the
morning after the murder. It occurred to me at once that it would
be as well for me to study things from an unofficial standpoint
without appearing officially as your colleague. I thought that great
possibilities lay that way. I was, of course, aware that I was bound to
be an object of suspicion, but that in a way furthered my plan since it
would not put people I was after on their guard. I can assure you that
I have seen a good deal that is interesting in the last two days.”

“But look here,” said Bill, “what really did happen last night?”

“I am afraid,” said M. Lemoine, “that I gave you rather violent
exercise.”

“It was you I chased then?”

“Yes. I will recount things to you. I came up here to watch, convinced
that the secret had to do with this room since the Prince had been
killed here. I stood outside on the terrace. Presently I became aware
that some one was moving about in this room. I could see the flash of a
torch now and again. I tried the middle window and found it unlatched.
Whether the man had entered that way earlier, or whether he had left
it so as a blind in case he was disturbed, I do not know. Very gently,
I pushed it back and slipped inside the room. Step by step I felt
my way until I was in a spot where I could watch operations without
likelihood of being discovered myself. The man himself I could not see
clearly. His back was to me, of course, and he was silhouetted against
the light of the torch so that his outline only could be seen. But his
actions filled me with surprise. He took to pieces first one and then
the other of those two suits of armour, examining each one piece by
piece. When he had convinced himself that what he sought was not there,
he began tapping the panelling of the wall under that picture. What he
would have done next, I do not know. The interruption came. _You_ burst
in——” He looked at Bill.

“Our well-meant interference was really rather a pity,” said Virginia
thoughtfully.

“In a sense, madame, it was. The man switched out his torch, and I, who
had no wish as yet to be forced to reveal my identity, sprang for the
window. I collided with the other two in the dark, and fell headlong. I
sprang up and out through the window. Mr. Eversleigh, taking me for his
assailant, followed.”

“I followed you first,” said Virginia. “Bill was only second in the
race.”

“And the other fellow had the sense to stay still and sneak out through
the door. I wonder he didn’t meet the rescuing crowd.”

“That would present no difficulties,” said Lemoine. “He would be a
rescuer in advance of the rest, that was all.”

“Do you really think this Arsène Lupin fellow is actually among the
household now?” asked Bill, his eyes sparkling.

“Why not?” said Lemoine. “He could pass perfectly as a servant. For all
we may know, he may be Boris Anchoukoff, the trusted servant of the
late Prince Michael.”

“He is an odd-looking bloke,” agreed Bill.

But Anthony was smiling.

“That’s hardly worthy of you, M. Lemoine,” he said gently.

The Frenchman smiled too.

“You’ve taken him on as your valet now, haven’t you, Mr. Cade?” asked
Superintendent Battle.

“Battle, I take off my hat to you. You know everything. But just as a
matter of detail, he’s taken me on, not I him.”

“Why was that, I wonder, Mr. Cade?”

“I don’t know,” said Anthony lightly. “It’s a curious taste, but
perhaps he may have liked my face. Or he may think I murdered his
master and wish to establish himself in a handy position for executing
revenge upon me.”

He rose and went over to the windows, pulling the curtains.

“Daylight,” he said, with a slight yawn. “There won’t be any more
excitements now.”

Lemoine rose also.

“I will leave you,” he said. “We shall perhaps meet again later in the
day.”

With a graceful bow to Virginia, he stepped out of the window.

“Bed,” said Virginia, yawning. “It’s all been very exciting. Come on,
Bill, go to bed like a good little boy. The breakfast table will see us
not, I fear.”

Anthony stayed at the window looking after the retreating form of M.
Lemoine.

“You wouldn’t think it,” said Battle behind him, “but that’s supposed
to be the cleverest detective in France.”

“I don’t know that I wouldn’t,” said Anthony thoughtfully. “I rather
think I would.”

“Well,” said Battle, “he was right about the excitements of this night
being over. By the way, do you remember my telling you about that man
they’d found shot near Staines?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Nothing. They’ve identified him, that’s all. It seems he was called
Giuseppe Manelli. He was a waiter at the Blitz in London. Curious,
isn’t it?”




20

Battle and Anthony Confer


Anthony said nothing. He continued to stare out of the window.
Superintendent Battle looked for some time at his motionless back.

“Well, good night, sir,” he said at last, and moved to the door.

Anthony stirred.

“Wait a minute, Battle.”

The superintendent halted obediently. Anthony left the window. He drew
out a cigarette from his case and lighted it. Then, between two puffs
of smoke, he said:

“You seem very interested in this business at Staines?”

“I wouldn’t go as far as that, sir. It’s unusual, that’s all.”

“Do you think the man was shot where he was found, or do you think
he was killed elsewhere and the body brought to that particular spot
afterwards?”

“I think he was shot somewhere else, and the body brought there in a
car.”

“I think so too,” said Anthony.

Something in the emphasis of his tone made the detective look up
sharply.

“Any ideas of your own, sir? Do you know who brought him there?”

“Yes,” said Anthony. “I did.”

He was a little annoyed at the absolutely unruffled calm preserved by
the other.

“I must say you take these shocks very well, Battle,” he remarked.

“‘Never display emotion.’ That was a rule that was given to me once,
and I’ve found it very useful.”

“You live up to it, certainly,” said Anthony. “I can’t say I’ve ever
seen you ruffled. Well, do you want to hear the whole story?”

“If you please, Mr. Cade.”

Anthony pulled up two of the chairs, both men sat down, and Anthony
recounted the events of the preceding Thursday night.

Battle listened immovably. There was a far-off twinkle in his eyes as
Anthony finished.

“You know, sir,” he said, “You’ll get into trouble one of these days.”

“Then, for the second time, I’m not to be taken into custody?”

“We always like to give a man plenty of rope,” said Superintendent
Battle.

“Very delicately put,” said Anthony. “Without unduly stressing the end
of the proverb.”

“What I can’t quite make out, sir,” said Battle, “is why you decided to
come across with this now?”

“It’s rather difficult to explain,” said Anthony. “You see, Battle,
I’ve come to have really a very high opinion of your abilities. When
the moment comes, you’re always there. Look at to-night. And it
occurred to me that, in withholding this knowledge of mine, I was
seriously cramping your style. You deserve to have access to all the
facts. I’ve done what I could, and up to now I’ve made a mess of
things. Until to-night, I couldn’t speak for Mrs. Revel’s sake. But now
that those letters have been definitely proved to have nothing whatever
to do with her, any idea of her complicity becomes absurd. Perhaps
I advised her badly in the first place, but it struck me that her
statement of having paid this man money to suppress the letters, simply
as a whim, might take a bit of believing.”

“It might, by a jury,” agreed Battle. “Juries never have any
imagination.”

“But you accept it quite easily?” said Anthony, looking curiously at
him.

“Well, you see, Mr. Cade, most of my work has lain amongst these
people. What they call the upper classes, I mean. You see, the majority
of people are always wondering what the neighbours will think. But
tramps and aristocrats don’t—they just do the first thing that comes
into their heads, and they don’t bother to think what anyone thinks
of them. I’m not meaning just the idle rich, the people who give big
parties, and so on, I mean those that have had it born and bred in
them for generations that nobody else’s opinion counts but their own.
I’ve always found the upper classes the same—fearless, truthful and
sometimes extraordinarily foolish.”

“This is a very interesting lecture, Battle. I suppose you’ll be
writing your Reminiscences one of these days. They ought to be worth
reading too.”

The detective acknowledged the suggestion with a smile, but said
nothing.

“I’d rather like to ask you one question,” continued Anthony. “Did you
connect me at all with the Staines affair? I fancied, from your manner,
that you did.”

“Quite right. I had a hunch that way. But nothing definite to go upon.
Your manner was very good, if I may say so, Mr. Cade. You never overdid
the carelessness.”

“I’m glad of that,” said Anthony. “I’ve a feeling that ever since I met
you you’ve been laying little traps for me. On the whole I’ve managed
to avoid falling into them, but the strain has been acute.”

Battle smiled grimly.

“That’s how you get a crook in the end, sir. Keep him on the run, to
and fro, turning and twisting. Sooner or later, his nerve goes, and
you’ve got him.”

“You’re a cheerful fellow, Battle. When will you get me, I wonder?”

“Plenty of rope, sir,” quoted the superintendent, “plenty of rope.”

“In the meantime,” said Anthony, “I am still the amateur assistant?”

“That’s it, Mr. Cade.”

“Watson to your Sherlock, in fact?”

“Detective stories are mostly bunkum,” said Battle unemotionally. “But
they amuse people,” he added, as an afterthought. “And they’re useful
sometimes.”

“In what way?” asked Anthony curiously.

“They encourage the universal idea that the police are stupid. When we
get an amateur crime, such as a murder, that’s very useful indeed.”

Anthony looked at him for some minutes in silence. Battle sat quite
still, blinking now and then, with no expression whatsoever on his
square placid face. Presently he rose.

“Not much good going to bed now,” he observed. “As soon as he’s up, I
want to have a few words with his lordship. Anyone who wants to leave
the house can do so now. At the same time I should be much obliged to
his lordship if he’ll extend an informal invitation to his guests to
stay on. You’ll accept it, sir, if you please, and Mrs. Revel also.”

“Have you ever found the revolver?” asked Anthony suddenly.

“You mean the one Prince Michael was shot with? No, I haven’t. Yet
it must be in the house or grounds. I’ll take a hint from you, Mr.
Cade, and send some boys up bird’s-nesting. If I could get hold of the
revolver, we might get forward a bit. That, and the bundle of letters.
You say that a letter with the heading, Chimneys, was amongst them?
Depend upon it that was the last one written. The instructions for
finding the diamond are written in code in that letter.”

“What’s your theory of the killing of Giuseppe?” asked Anthony.

“I should say he was a regular thief, and that he was got hold of,
either by King Victor or by the Comrades of the Red Hand, and employed
by them. I shouldn’t wonder at all if the Comrades and King Victor
aren’t working together. The organization has plenty of money and
power, but it isn’t very strong in brains. Giuseppe’s task was to steal
the Memoirs—they couldn’t have known that you had the letters—it’s a
very odd coincidence that you should have, by the way.”

“I know,” said Anthony. “It’s amazing when you come to think of it.”

“Giuseppe gets hold of the letters instead. Is at first vastly
chagrined. Then sees the cutting from the paper and has the brilliant
idea of turning them to account on his own by blackmailing the lady. He
has, of course, no idea of their real significance. The Comrades find
out what he is doing, believe that he is deliberately double crossing
them, and decree his death. They’re very fond of executing traitors.
It has a picturesque element which seems to appeal to them. What I
can’t quite make out is the revolver with ‘Virginia’ engraved upon it.
There’s too much finesse about that for the Comrades. As a rule, they
enjoy plastering their Red Hand sign about—in order to strike terror
into other would-be traitors. No, it looks to me as though King Victor
had stepped in there. But what his motive was, I don’t know. It looks
like a very deliberate attempt to saddle Mrs. Revel with the murder,
and, on the surface, there doesn’t seem any particular point in that.”

“I had a theory,” said Anthony. “But it didn’t work out according to
plan.”

He told Battle of Virginia’s recognition of Michael. Battle nodded his
head.

“Oh, yes, no doubt as to his identity. By the way, that old Baron has a
very high opinion of you. He speaks of you in most enthusiastic terms.”

“That’s very kind of him,” said Anthony. “Especially as I’ve given him
full warning that I mean to do my utmost to get hold of the missing
Memoirs before Wednesday next.”

“You’ll have a job to do that,” said Battle.

“Y—es. You think so? I suppose King Victor and Co. have got the
letters.”

Battle nodded.

“Pinched them off Giuseppe that day in Pont Street. Prettily planned
piece of work, that. Yes, they’ve got ’em all right, and they’ve
decoded them, and they know where to look.”

Both men were on the point of passing out of the room.

“In here?” said Anthony, jerking his head back.

“Exactly, in here. But they haven’t found the prize yet, and they’re
going to run a pretty risk trying to get it.”

“I suppose,” said Anthony, “that you’ve got a plan in that subtle head
of yours?”

Battle returned no answer. He looked particularly stolid and
unintelligent. Then, very slowly, he winked.

“Want my help?” asked Anthony.

“I do. And I shall want some one else’s.”

“Who is that?”

“Mrs. Revel’s. You may not have noticed it, Mr. Cade, but she’s a lady
who has a particularly beguiling way with her.”

“I’ve noticed it all right,” said Anthony.

He glanced at his watch.

“I’m inclined to agree with you about bed, Battle. A dip in the lake
and a hearty breakfast will be far more to the point.”

He ran lightly upstairs to his bedroom. Whistling to himself, he
discarded his evening clothes, and picked up a dressing-gown and a bath
towel.

Then suddenly he stopped dead in front of the dressing-table, staring
at the object that reposed demurely in front of the looking-glass.

For a moment he could not believe his eyes. He took it up, examined it
closely. Yes, there was no mistake.

It was the bundle of letters signed Virginia Revel. They were intact.
Not one was missing.

Anthony dropped into a chair, the letters in his hand.

“My brain must be cracking,” he murmured. “I can’t understand a quarter
of what is going on in this house. Why should the letters reappear like
a damned conjuring trick? Who put them on my dressing-table? Why?”

And to all these very pertinent questions he could find no satisfactory
reply.




21

Mr. Isaacstein’s Suit-case


At ten o’clock that morning, Lord Caterham and his daughter were
breakfasting. Bundle was looking very thoughtful.

“Father,” she said at last.

Lord Caterham, absorbed in _The Times_, did not reply.

“Father,” said Bundle again, more sharply.

Lord Caterham, torn from his interested perusal of forthcoming sales of
rare books, looked up absent-mindedly.

“Eh?” he said. “Did you speak?”

“Yes. Who is it who’s had breakfast?”

She nodded towards a place that had evidently been occupied. The rest
were all expectant.

“Oh, what’s-his-name.”

“Fat Iky?”

Bundle and her father had enough sympathy between them to comprehend
each other’s somewhat misleading observations.

“That’s it.”

“Did I see you talking to the detective this morning before breakfast?”

Lord Caterham sighed.

“Yes, he buttonholed me in the hall. I do think the hours before
breakfast should be sacred. I shall have to go abroad. The strain on my
nerves——”

Bundle interrupted unceremoniously.

“What did he say?”

“Said every one who wanted to could clear out.”

“Well,” said Bundle, “that’s all right. That’s what you’ve been
wanting.”

“I know. But he didn’t leave it at that. He went on to say that
nevertheless he wanted me to ask every one to stay on.”

“I don’t understand,” said Bundle, wrinkling her nose.

“So confusing and contradictory,” complained Lord Caterham. “And before
breakfast too.”

“What did you say?”

“Oh, I agreed, of course. It’s never any good arguing with these
people. Especially before breakfast,” continued Lord Caterham,
reverting to his principal grievance.

“Who have you asked so far?”

“Cade. He was up very early this morning. He’s going to stop on. I
don’t mind that. I can’t quite make the fellow out; but I like him—I
like him very much.”

“So does Virginia,” said Bundle, drawing a pattern on the table with
her fork.

“Eh?”

“And so do I. But that doesn’t seem to matter.”

“And I asked Isaacstein,” continued Lord Caterham.

“Well?”

“But fortunately he’s got to go back to town. Don’t forget to order the
car for the 10.40, by the way.”

“All right.”

“Now if I can only get rid of Fish too,” continued Lord Caterham, his
spirits rising.

“I thought you liked talking to him about your mouldy old books.”

“So I do, so I do. So I did, rather. But it gets monotonous when
one finds that one is always doing all the talking. Fish is very
interested, but he never volunteers any statements of his own.”

“It’s better than doing all the listening,” said Bundle. “Like one does
with George Lomax.”

Lord Caterham shuddered at the remembrance.

“George is all very well on platforms,” said Bundle. “I’ve clapped
him myself, though of course I know all the time that he’s talking
balderdash. And anyway I’m a Socialist——”

“I know, my dear, I know,” said Lord Caterham hastily.

“It’s all right,” said Bundle. “I’m not going to bring politics into
the house. That’s what George does—public speaking in private life. It
ought to be abolished by Act of Parliament.”

“Quite so,” said Lord Caterham.

“What about Virginia?” asked Bundle. “Is she to be asked to stop on?”

“Battle said everybody.”

“Says he firmly! Have you asked her to be my stepma yet?”

“I don’t think it would be any good,” said Lord Caterham mournfully.
“Although she did call me a darling last night. But that’s the worst of
these attractive young women with affectionate dispositions. They’ll
say anything, and they mean absolutely nothing by it.”

“No,” agreed Bundle. “It would have been much more hopeful if she’d
thrown a boot at you or tried to bite you.”

“You modern young people seem to have such unpleasant ideas about
love-making,” said Lord Caterham plaintively.

“It comes from reading _The Sheik_,” said Bundle. “Desert love. Throw
her about, etc.”

“What is _The Sheik_?” asked Lord Caterham simply. “Is it a poem?”

Bundle looked at him with commiserating pity. Then she rose and kissed
the top of his head.

“Dear old Daddy,” she remarked, and sprang lightly out of the window.

Lord Caterham went back to the Sale Rooms.

He jumped when addressed suddenly by Mr. Hiram Fish, who had made his
usual noiseless entry.

“Good morning, Lord Caterham.”

“Oh, good morning,” said Lord Caterham. “Good morning. Nice day.”

“The weather is delightful,” said Mr. Fish.

He helped himself to coffee. By way of food, he took a piece of dry
toast.

“Do I hear correctly that the embargo is removed?” he asked after a
minute or two. “That we are all free to depart?”

“Yes—er—yes,” said Lord Caterham. “As a matter of fact, I hoped, I
mean that I shall be delighted”—his conscience drove him on—“only too
delighted if you will stay on for a little.”

“Why, Lord Caterham——”

“It’s been a beastly visit, I know,” Lord Caterham hurried on. “Too
bad. Shan’t blame you for wanting to run away.”

“You misjudge me, Lord Caterham. The associations have been painful,
no one could deny that point. But the English country life, as lived
in the mansions of the great, has a powerful attraction for me. I am
interested in the study of those conditions. It is a thing we lack
completely in America. I shall be only too delighted to accept your
vurry kind invitation and stay on.”

“Oh, well,” said Lord Caterham, “that’s that. Absolutely delighted, my
dear fellow, absolutely delighted.”

Spurring himself on to a false geniality of manner, Lord Caterham
murmured something about having to see his bailiff and escaped from the
room.

In the hall, he saw Virginia just descending the staircase.

“Shall I take you into breakfast?” asked Lord Caterham tenderly.

“I’ve had it in bed, thank you. I was frightfully sleepy this morning.”

She yawned.

“Had a bad night, perhaps?”

“Not exactly a bad night. From one point of view decidedly a good
night. Oh, Lord Caterham”—she slipped her hand inside his arm and
gave it a squeeze—“I _am_ enjoying myself. You were a darling to ask
me down.”

“You’ll stop on for a bit, then, won’t you? Battle is lifting the—the
embargo, but I want you to stay particularly. So does Bundle.”

“Of course I’ll stay. It’s sweet of you to ask me.”

“Ah!” said Lord Caterham.

He sighed.

“What is your secret sorrow?” asked Virginia. “Has anyone bitten you?”

“That’s just it,” said Lord Caterham mournfully.

Virginia looked puzzled.

“You don’t feel, by any chance, that you want to throw a boot at me?
No, I can see you don’t. Oh, well, it’s of no consequence.”

Lord Caterham drifted sadly away, and Virginia passed out through a
side door into the garden.

She stood there for a moment, breathing in the crisp October air which
was infinitely refreshing to one in her slightly jaded state.

She started a little to find Superintendent Battle at her elbow. The
man seemed to have an extraordinary knack of appearing out of space
without the least warning.

“Good morning, Mrs. Revel. Not too tired, I hope?”

Virginia shook her head.

“It was a most exciting night,” she said. “Well worth the loss of a
little sleep. The only thing is, to-day seems a little dull after it.”

“There’s a nice shady place down under that cedar tree,” remarked the
superintendent. “Shall I take a chair down to it for you?”

“If you think it’s the best thing for me to do,” said Virginia solemnly.

“You’re very quick, Mrs. Revel. Yes, it’s quite true, I do want a word
with you.”

He picked up a long wicker chair and carried it down the lawn. Virginia
followed him with a cushion under her arm.

“Very dangerous place, that terrace,” remarked the detective. “That is,
if you want to have a private conversation.”

“I’m getting excited again, Superintendent Battle.”

“Oh, it’s nothing important.” He took out a big watch and glanced at
it. “Half-past ten. I’m starting for Wyvvern Abbey in ten minutes to
report to Mr. Lomax. Plenty of time. I only wanted to know if you could
tell me a little more about Mr. Cade.”

“About Mr. Cade?”

Virginia was startled.

“Yes, where you first met him, and how long you’ve known him and so
forth.”

Battle’s manner was easy and pleasant enough. He even refrained from
looking at her, and the fact that he did so made her vaguely uneasy.

“It’s more difficult than you think,” she said at last. “He did me a
great service once——”

Battle interrupted her.

“Before you go any further, Mrs. Revel, I’d just like to say something.
Last night, after you and Mr. Eversleigh had gone to bed, Mr. Cade told
me all about the letters and the man who was killed in your house.”

“He did?” gasped Virginia.

“Yes, and very wisely too. It clears up a lot of misunderstanding.
There’s only one thing he didn’t tell me—how long he had known you.
Now I’ve a little idea of my own about that. You shall tell me if I’m
right or wrong. I think that the day he came to your house in Pont
Street was the first time you had ever seen him. Ah! I see I’m right.
It was so.”

Virginia said nothing. For the first time she felt afraid of this
stolid man with the expressionless face. She understood what Anthony
had meant when he said there were no flies on Superintendent Battle.

“Has he ever told you anything about his life?” the detective
continued. “Before he was in South Africa, I mean. Canada? Or before
that, the Sudan? Or about his boyhood?”

Virginia merely shook her head.

“And yet I’d bet he’s got something worth telling. You can’t mistake
the face of a man who’s led a life of daring and adventure. He could
tell you some interesting tales if he cared to.”

“If you want to know about his past life, why don’t you cable to that
friend of his, Mr. McGrath?” Virginia asked.

“Oh, we have. But it seems he’s up country somewhere. Still, there’s no
doubt Mr. Cade was in Bulawayo when he said he was. But I wondered what
he’d been doing before he came to South Africa. He’d only had that job
with Castle’s about a month.” He took out his watch again. “I must be
off. The car will be waiting.”

Virginia watched him retreat to the house. But she did not move from
her chair. She hoped that Anthony might appear and join her. Instead
came Bill Eversleigh, with a prodigious yawn.

“Thank God, I’ve got a chance to speak to you at last, Virginia,” he
complained.

“Well, speak to me very gently, Bill darling, or I shall burst into
tears.”

“Has some one been bullying you?”

“Not exactly bullying me. Getting inside my mind and turning it inside
out. I feel as though I’d been jumped on by an elephant.”

“Not Battle?”

“Yes, Battle. He’s a terrible man really.”

“Well, never mind Battle. I say, Virginia, I do love you so awfully——”

“Not this morning, Bill. I’m not strong enough. Anyway, I’ve always
told you the best people don’t propose before lunch.”

“Good Lord,” said Bill. “I could propose to you before breakfast.”

Virginia shuddered.

“Bill, be sensible and intelligent for a minute. I want to ask your
advice.”

“If you’d once make up your mind to it, and say you’d marry me, you’d
feel miles better, I’m sure. Happier, you know, and more settled down.”

“Listen to me, Bill. Proposing to me is your _idée fixe_. All men
propose when they’re bored and can’t think of anything to say. Remember
my age and my widowed state, and go and make love to a pure young girl.”

“My darling Virginia—Oh, blast! here’s that French idiot bearing down
on us.”

It was indeed M. Lemoine, black-bearded and correct of demeanour as
ever.

“Good morning, madame. You are not fatigued, I trust?”

“Not in the least.”

“That is excellent. Good morning, Mr. Eversleigh.”

“How would it be if we promenaded ourselves a little, the three of us?”
suggested the Frenchman.

“How about it, Bill?” said Virginia.

“Oh, all right,” said the unwilling young gentleman by her side.

He heaved himself up from the grass, and the three of them walked
slowly along. Virginia between the two men. She was sensible at once of
a strange undercurrent of excitement in the Frenchman, though she had
no clue as to what caused it.

Soon, with her usual skill, she was putting him at his ease, asking him
questions, listening to his answers, and gradually drawing him out.
Presently he was telling them anecdotes of the famous King Victor. He
talked well, albeit with a certain bitterness, as he described the
various ways in which the detective bureau had been outwitted.

But all the time, despite the real absorption of Lemoine in his own
narrative, Virginia had a feeling that he had some other object in
view. Moreover, she judged that Lemoine, under cover of his story, was
deliberately striking out his own course across the park. They were
not just strolling idly. He was deliberately guiding them in a certain
direction.

Suddenly, he broke off his story and looked round. They were
standing just where the drive intersected the park before turning an
abrupt corner by a clump of trees. Lemoine was staring at a vehicle
approaching them from the direction of the house.

Virginia’s eyes followed his.

“It’s the luggage cart,” she said, “taking Isaacstein’s luggage and his
valet to the station.”

“Is that so?” said Lemoine. He glanced down at his own watch and
started. “A thousand pardons. I have been longer here than I
meant—such charming company. Is it possible, do you think, that I
might have a lift to the village?”

He stepped out on to the drive, and signalled with his arm. The luggage
cart stopped, and after a word or two of explanation Lemoine climbed in
behind. He raised his hat politely to Virginia, and drove off.

The other two stood and watched the cart disappearing with puzzled
expressions. Just as the cart swung round the bend, a suit-case fell
off into the drive. The cart went on.

“Come on,” said Virginia to Bill. “We’re going to see something
interesting. That suit-case was thrown out.”

“Nobody’s noticed it,” said Bill.

They ran down the drive towards the fallen piece of luggage. Just as
they reached it, Lemoine came round the corner of the bend on foot. He
was hot from walking fast.

“I was obliged to descend,” he said pleasantly. “I found that I had
left something behind.”

“This?” said Bill, indicating the suit-case.

It was a handsome case of heavy pigskin, with the initials H. I. on it.

“What a pity!” said Lemoine gently. “It must have fallen out. Shall we
lift it from the road?”

Without waiting for a reply, he picked up the suit-case, and carried it
over to the belt of trees. He stooped over it, something flashed in his
hand, and the lock slipped back.

He spoke, and his voice was totally different, quick and commanding.

“The car will be here in a minute,” he said. “Is it in sight?”

Virginia looked back towards the house.

“No.”

“Good.”

With deft fingers he tossed the things out of the suit-case.
Gold-topped bottle, silk pyjamas, a variety of socks. Suddenly his
whole figure stiffened. He caught up what appeared to be a bundle of
silk underwear, and unrolled it rapidly.

A slight exclamation broke from Bill. In the centre of the bundle was a
heavy revolver.

“I hear the horn,” said Virginia.

Like lightning, Lemoine repacked the suit-case. The revolver he wrapped
in a silk handkerchief of his own, and slipped into his pocket. He
snapped the locks of the suit-case, and turned quickly to Bill.

“Take it. Madame will be with you. Stop the car, and explain that it
fell off the luggage cart. Do not mention me.”

Bill stepped quickly down to the drive just as the big Lanchester
limousine with Isaacstein inside it came round the corner. The
chauffeur slowed down, and Bill swung the suit-case up to him.

“Fell off the luggage cart,” he explained. “We happened to see it.”

He caught a momentary glimpse of a startled yellow face as the
financier stared at him, and then the car swept on again.

They went back to Lemoine. He was standing with the revolver in his
hand, and a look of gloating satisfaction in his face.

“A long shot,” he said. “A very long shot. But it came off.”




22

The Red Signal


Superintendent Battle was standing in the library at Wyvvern Abbey.

George Lomax, seated before a desk overflowing with papers, was
frowning portentously.

Superintendent Battle had opened proceedings by making a brief and
business-like report. Since then, the conversation had lain almost
entirely with George, and Battle had contented himself with making
brief and usually monosyllabic replies to the other’s questions.

On the desk, in front of George, was the packet of letters Anthony had
found on his dressing-table.

“I can’t understand it at all,” said George irritably, as he picked up
the packet. “They’re in code, you say?”

“Just so, Mr. Lomax.”

“And where does he say he found them—on his dressing-table?”

Battle repeated, word for word, Anthony Cade’s account of how he had
come to regain possession of the letters.

“And he brought them at once to you? That was quite proper—quite
proper. But who could have placed them in his room?”

Battle shook his head.

“That’s the sort of thing you ought to know,” complained George. “It
sounds to me very fishy—very fishy indeed. What do we know about this
man Cade anyway? He appears in a most mysterious manner—under highly
suspicious circumstances—and we know nothing whatever about him. I
may say that I, personally, don’t care for his manner at all. You’ve
made inquiries about him, I suppose?”

Superintendent Battle permitted himself a patient smile.

“We wired at once to South Africa, and his story has been confirmed on
all points. He was in Bulawayo with Mr. McGrath at the time he stated.
Previous to their meeting, he was employed by Messrs. Castle, the
Tourist Agents.”

“Just what I should have expected,” said George. “He has the kind of
cheap assurance that succeeds in a certain type of employment. But
about these letters—steps must be taken at once—at once——”

The great man puffed himself out and swelled importantly.

Superintendent Battle opened his mouth, but George forestalled him.

“There must be no delay. These letters must be decoded without any loss
of time. Let me see, who is the man? There is a man—connected with
the British Museum. Knows all there is to know about ciphers. Ran the
department for us during the War. Where is Miss Oscar? She will know.
Name something like Win—Win——”

“Professor Wynward,” said Battle.

“Exactly. I remember perfectly now. He must be wired to, immediately.”

“I have done so, Mr. Lomax, an hour ago. He will arrive by the 12.10.”

“Oh, very good, very good. Thank Heaven, something is off my mind.
I shall have to be in town to-day. You can get along without me, I
suppose?”

“I think so, sir.”

“Well, do your best, Battle, do your best. I am terribly rushed just at
present.”

“Just so, sir.”

“By the way, why did not Mr. Eversleigh come over with you?”

“He was still asleep, sir. We’ve been up all night, as I told you.”

“Oh, quite so. I am frequently up nearly the whole night myself. To do
the work of thirty-six hours in twenty-four, that is my constant task!
Send Mr. Eversleigh over at once when you get back, will you, Battle?”

“I will give him your message, sir.”

“Thank you, Battle. I realize perfectly that you had to repose a
certain amount of confidence in him. But do you think it was strictly
necessary to take my cousin, Mrs. Revel, into your confidence also?”

“In view of the name signed to those letters, I do, Mr. Lomax.”

“An amazing piece of effrontery,” murmured George, his brow darkened
as he looked at the bundle of letters. “I remember the late King of
Herzoslovakia. A charming fellow, but weak—deplorably weak. A tool in
the hands of an unscrupulous woman. Have you any theory as to how these
letters came to be restored to Mr. Cade?”

“It’s my opinion,” said Battle, “that if people can’t get a thing one
way—they try another.”

“I don’t quite follow you,” said George.

“This crook, this King Victor, he’s well aware by now that the Council
Chamber is watched. So he’ll let us have the letters, and let us do
the decoding, and let us find the hiding-place. And then—trouble! But
Lemoine and I between us will attend to that.”

“You’ve got a plan, eh?”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’ve got a plan. But I’ve got an idea.
It’s a very useful thing sometimes, an idea.”

Thereupon Superintendent Battle took his departure.

He had no intention of taking George any further into his confidence.

On the way back, he passed Anthony on the road and stopped.

“Going to give me a lift back to the house?” asked Anthony. “That’s
good.”

“Where have you been, Mr. Cade?”

“Down to the station to inquire about trains.”

Battle raised his eyebrows.

“Thinking of leaving us again?” he inquired.

“Not just at present,” laughed Anthony. “By the way what’s upset
Isaacstein? He arrived in the car just as I left, and he looked as
though something had given him a nasty jolt.”

“Mr. Isaacstein?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t say, I’m sure. I fancy it would take a good deal to jolt him.”

“So do I,” agreed Anthony. “He’s quite one of the strong silent yellow
men of finance.”

Suddenly Battle leant forward and touched the chauffeur on the shoulder.

“Stop, will you? And wait for me here.”

He jumped out of the car, much to Anthony’s surprise. But in a minute
or two, the latter perceived M. Lemoine advancing to meet the English
detective, and gathered that it was a signal from him which had
attracted Battle’s attention.

There was a rapid colloquy between them, and then the superintendent
returned to the car and jumped in again, biding the chauffeur drive on.

His expression had completely changed.

“They’ve found the revolver,” he said suddenly and curtly.

“What?”

Anthony gazed at him in great surprise.

“Where?”

“In Isaacstein’s suit-case.”

“Oh, impossible!”

“Nothing’s impossible,” said Battle. “I ought to have remembered that.”

He sat perfectly still, tapping his knee with his hand.

“Who found it?”

Battle jerked his head over his shoulder.

“Lemoine. Clever chap. They think no end of him at the Sûreté.”

“But doesn’t this upset all your ideas?”

“No,” said Superintendent Battle very slowly. “I can’t say it does. It
was a bit of a surprise, I admit, at first. But it fits in very well
with one idea of mine.”

“Which is?”

But the superintendent branched off on to a totally different subject.

“I wonder if you’d mind finding Mr. Eversleigh for me, sir? There’s a
message for him from Mr. Lomax. He’s to go over to the Abbey at once.”

“All right,” said Anthony. The car had just drawn up at the great door.
“He’s probably in bed still.”

“I think not,” said the detective. “If you’ll look, you’ll see him
walking under the trees with Mrs. Revel.”

“Wonderful eyes you have, haven’t you, Battle?” said Anthony as he
departed on his errand.

He delivered the message to Bill, who was duly disgusted.

“Damn it all,” grumbled Bill to himself, as he strode off to the house,
“why can’t Codders sometimes leave me alone? And why can’t these
blasted Colonials stay in their Colonies? What do they want to come
over here for, and pick out all the best girls? I’m fed to the teeth
with everything.”

“Have you heard about the revolver?” asked Virginia breathlessly, as
Bill left them.

“Battle told me. Rather staggering, isn’t it? Isaacstein was in a
frightful state yesterday to get away, but I thought it was just
nerves. He’s about the one person I’d have pitched upon as being above
suspicion. Can you see any motive for his wanting Prince Michael out of
the way?”

“It certainly doesn’t fit in,” agreed Virginia thoughtfully.

“Nothing fits in anywhere,” said Anthony discontentedly. “I rather
fancied myself as an amateur detective to begin with, and so far all
I’ve done is to clear the character of the French governess at vast
trouble and some little expense.”

“Is that what you went to France for?” inquired Virginia.

“Yes, I went to Dinard and had an interview with the Comtesse de
Breteuil, awfully pleased with my own cleverness, and fully expecting
to be told that no such person as Mademoiselle Brun had ever been
heard of. Instead of which I was given to understand that the lady in
question had been the mainstay of the household for the last seven
years. So, unless the Comtesse is also a crook, that ingenious theory
of mine falls to the ground.”

Virginia shook her head.

“Madame de Breteuil is quite above suspicion. I know her quite well,
and I fancy I must have come across Mademoiselle at the chateau. I
certainly know her face quite well—in that vague way one does know
governesses and companions and people one sits opposite to in trains.
It’s awful, but I never really look at them properly. Do you?”

“Only if they’re exceptionally beautiful,” admitted Anthony.

“Well, in this case——” she broke off. “What’s the matter?”

Anthony was staring at a figure which detached itself from the clump of
trees and stood there rigidly at attention. It was the Herzoslovakian,
Boris.

“Excuse me,” said Anthony to Virginia, “I must just speak to my dog a
minute.”

He went across to where Boris was standing.

“What’s the matter? What do you want?”

“Master,” said Boris, bowing.

“Yes, that’s all very well, but you mustn’t keep following me about
like this. It looks odd.”

Without a word, Boris produced a soiled scrap of paper, evidently torn
from a letter, and handed it to Anthony.

“What’s this?” said Anthony.

There was an address scrawled on the paper, nothing else.

“He dropped it,” said Boris. “I bring it to the Master.”

“Who dropped it?”

“The foreign gentleman.”

“But why bring it to me?”

Boris looked at him reproachfully.

“Well, anyway, go away now,” said Anthony. “I’m busy.”

Boris saluted, turned sharply on his heel, and marched away. Anthony
rejoined Virginia, thrusting the piece of paper into his pocket.

“What did he want?” she asked curiously. “And why do you call him your
dog?”

“Because he acts like one,” said Anthony, answering the last question
first. “He must have been a retriever in his last incarnation, I think.
He’s just brought me a piece of a letter which he says the foreign
gentleman dropped. I suppose he means Lemoine.”

“I suppose so,” acquiesced Virginia.

“He’s always following me round,” continued Anthony. “Just like a dog.
Says next to nothing. Just looks at me with his big round eyes. I can’t
make him out.”

“Perhaps he meant Isaacstein,” suggested Virginia. “Isaacstein looks
foreign enough, Heaven knows.”

“Isaacstein,” muttered Anthony impatiently. “Where the devil does he
come in?”

“Are you ever sorry that you’ve mixed yourself up in all this?” asked
Virginia suddenly.

“Sorry? Good Lord, no. I love it. I’ve spent most of my life looking
for trouble, you know. Perhaps, this time, I’ve got a little more than
I bargained for.”

“But you’re well out of the wood now,” said Virginia, a little
surprised by the unusual gravity of his tone.

“Not quite.”

They strolled on for a minute or two in silence.

“There are some people,” said Anthony, breaking the silence, “who
don’t conform to the signals. An ordinary well-regulated locomotive
slows down or pulls up when it sees the red light hoisted against it.
Perhaps I was born colour blind. When I see the red signal—I can’t
help forging ahead. And in the end, you know, that spells disaster.
Bound to. And quite right really. That sort of thing is bad for traffic
generally.”

He still spoke very seriously.

“I suppose,” said Virginia, “that you have taken a good many risks in
your life?”

“Pretty nearly every one there is—except marriage.”

“That’s rather cynical.”

“It wasn’t meant to be. Marriage, the kind of marriage I mean, would be
the biggest adventure of the lot.”

“I like that,” said Virginia, flushing eagerly.

“There’s only one kind of woman I’d want to marry—the kind who is
worlds removed from my type of life. What would we do about it? Is she
to lead my life, or am I to lead hers?”

“If she loved you——”

“Sentimentality, Mrs. Revel. You know it is. Love isn’t a drug that
you take to blind you to your surroundings—you can make it that, yes,
but it’s a pity—love can be a lot more than that. What do you think
the King and his beggar maid thought of married life after they’d been
married a year or two? Didn’t she regret her rags and her bare feet
and her care-free life? You bet she did. Would it have been any good
renouncing his Crown for her sake? Not a bit of good, either. He’d have
made a damned bad beggar, I’m sure. And no woman respects a man when
he’s doing a thing thoroughly badly.”

“Have you fallen in love with a beggar maid, Mr. Cade?” inquired
Virginia softly.

“It’s the other way about with me, but the principle’s the same.”

“And there’s no way out?” asked Virginia.

“There’s always a way out,” said Anthony gloomily. “I’ve a theory that
one can always get anything one wants if one will pay the price. And
do you know what the price is, nine times out of ten? Compromise. A
beastly thing, compromise, but it steals upon you as you near middle
age. It’s stealing upon me now. To get the woman I want I’d—I’d even
take up regular work.”

Virginia laughed.

“I was brought up to a trade, you know,” continued Anthony.

“And you abandoned it?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“A matter of principle.”

“Oh!”

“You’re a very unusual woman,” said Anthony suddenly, turning and
looking at her.

“Why?”

“You can refrain from asking questions.”

“You mean that I haven’t asked you what your trade was?”

“Just that.”

Again they walked on in silence. They were nearing the house now,
passing close by the scented sweetness of the rose garden.

“You understand well enough, I dare say,” said Anthony, breaking the
silence. “You know when a man’s in love with you. I don’t suppose you
care a hang for me—or for anyone else—but, by God, I’d like to make
you care.”

“Do you think you could?” asked Virginia, in a low voice.

“Probably not, but I’d have a damned good try.”

“Are you sorry you ever met me?” she said suddenly.

“Lord no. It’s the red signal again. When I first saw you—that day
in Pont Street, I knew I was up against something that was going to
hurt like fun. Your face did that to me—just your face. There’s magic
in you from head to foot—some women are like that, but I’ve never
known a woman who had so much of it as you have. You’ll marry some
one respectable and prosperous, I suppose, and I shall return to my
disreputable life, but I’ll kiss you once before I go—I swear I will.”

“You can’t do it now,” said Virginia softly. “Superintendent Battle is
watching us out of the library window.”

Anthony looked at her.

“You’re rather a devil, Virginia,” he said dispassionately. “But rather
a dear too.”

Then he waved his hand airily to Superintendent Battle.

“Caught any criminals this morning, Battle?”

“Not as yet, Mr. Cade.”

“That sounds hopeful.”

Battle, with an agility surprising in so stolid a man, vaulted out of
the library window and joined them on the terrace.

“I’ve got Professor Wynward down here,” he announced in a whisper.
“Just this minute arrived. He’s decoding the letters now. Would you
like to see him at work?”

His tone suggested that of the showman speaking of some pet exhibit.
Receiving a reply in the affirmative, he led them up to the window and
invited them to peep inside.

Seated at a table, the letters spread out in front of him and writing
busily on a big sheet of paper was a small red-haired man of middle
age. He grunted irritably to himself as he wrote, and every now and
then rubbed his nose violently until its hue almost rivalled that of
his hair.

Presently he looked up.

“That you, Battle? What you want me down here to unravel this
tomfoolery for? A child in arms could do it. A baby of two could do it
on its head. Call this thing a cipher? It leaps to the eye, man.”

“I’m glad of that, Professor,” said Battle mildly. “But we’re not all
so clever as you are, you know.”

“It doesn’t need cleverness,” snapped the Professor. “It’s routine
work. Do you want the whole bundle done? It’s a long business, you
know—requires diligent application and close attention, and absolutely
no intelligence. I’ve done the one dated ‘Chimneys’ which you said was
important. I might as well take the rest back to London and hand ’em
over to one of my assistants. I really can’t afford the time myself.
I’ve come away now from a real teaser, and I want to get back to it.”

His eyes glistened a little.

“Very well, Professor,” assented Battle. “I’m sorry we’re such small
fry. I’ll explain to Mr. Lomax. It’s just this one letter that all the
hurry is about. Lord Caterham is expecting you to stay for lunch, I
believe.”

“Never have lunch,” said the Professor. “Bad habit, lunch. A banana
and a water biscuit is all any sane and healthy man should need in the
middle of the day.”

He seized his overcoat, which lay across the back of a chair. Battle
went round to the front of the house, and a few minutes later Anthony
and Virginia heard the sound of a car driving away.

Battle rejoined them, carrying in his hand the half-sheet of paper
which the Professor had given him.

“He’s always like that,” said Battle, referring to the departed
Professor. “In the very deuce of a hurry. Clever man, though. Well,
here’s the kernel of Her Majesty’s letter. Care to have a look at it?”

Virginia stretched out a hand, and Anthony read it over her shoulder.
It had been, he remembered, a long epistle, breathing mingled passion
and despair. The genius of Professor Wynward had transformed it into an
essentially business-like communication.

_Operations carried out successfully, but S. double crossed us. Has
removed stone from hiding-place. Not in his room. I have searched.
Found following memorandum which I think refers to it_: “RICHMOND SEVEN
STRAIGHT EIGHT LEFT THREE RIGHT.”

“S.?” said Anthony. “Stylptitch, of course. Cunning old dog. He changed
the hiding-place.”

“Richmond,” said Virginia thoughtfully. “Is the diamond concealed
somewhere at Richmond, I wonder?”

“It’s a favourite spot for Royalties,” agreed Anthony.

Battle shook his head.

“I still think it’s a reference to something in this house.”

“I know,” cried Virginia suddenly.

Both men turned to look at her.

“The Holbein portrait in the Council Chamber. They were tapping on the
wall just below it. And it’s a portrait of the Earl of Richmond!”

“You’ve got it,” said Battle, and slapped his leg.

He spoke with an animation quite unwonted.

“That’s the starting-point, the picture, and the crooks know no more
than we do what the figures refer to. Those two men in armour stand
directly underneath the picture, and their first idea was that the
diamond was hidden in one of them. The measurements might have been
inches. That failed, and their next idea was a secret passage or
stairway, or a sliding panel. Do you know of any such thing, Mrs.
Revel?”

Virginia shook her head.

“There’s a Priest’s Hole, and at least one secret passage, I know,” she
said. “I believe I’ve been shown them once, but I can’t remember much
about them now. Here’s Bundle, she’ll know.”

Bundle was coming quickly along the terrace towards them.

“I’m taking the Panhard up to town after lunch,” she remarked. “Anyone
want a lift? Wouldn’t you like to come, Mr. Cade? We’ll be back by
dinner-time.”

“No, thanks,” said Anthony. “I’m quite happy and busy down here.”

“The man fears me,” said Bundle. “Either my driving or my fatal
fascination! Which is it?”

“The latter,” said Anthony. “Every time.”

“Bundle, dear,” said Virginia, “is there any secret passage leading out
of the Council Chamber?”

“Rather. But it’s only a mouldy one. Supposed to lead from Chimneys to
Wyvvern Abbey. So it did in the old, old days, but it’s all blocked up
now. You can only get along it for about a hundred yards from this end.
The one upstairs in the White Gallery is ever so much more amusing, and
the Priest’s Hole isn’t half bad.”

“We’re not regarding them from an artistic standpoint,” explained
Virginia. “It’s business. How do you get into the Council Chamber one?”

“Hinged panel. I’ll show you after lunch if you like.”

“Thank you,” said Superintendent Battle. “Shall we say at 2.30?”

Bundle looked at him with lifted eyebrows.

“Crook stuff?” she inquired.

Tredwell appeared on the terrace.

“Luncheon is served, my lady,” he announced.




23

Encounter in the Rose Garden


At 2.30 a little party met together in the Council Chamber: Bundle,
Virginia, Superintendent Battle, M. Lemoine and Anthony Cade.

“No good waiting until we can get hold of Mr. Lomax,” said Battle.
“This is the kind of business one wants to get on with quickly.”

“If you’ve got any idea that Prince Michael was murdered by some one
who got in this way, you’re wrong,” said Bundle. “It can’t be done. The
other end’s blocked completely.”

“There is no question of that, milady,” said Lemoine quickly. “It is
quite a different search that we make.”

“Looking for something, are you?” asked Bundle quickly. “Not the
historic what-not, by any chance?”

Lemoine looked puzzled.

“Explain yourself, Bundle,” said Virginia encouragingly. “You can when
you try.”

“The thingummybob,” said Bundle. “The historic diamond of purple
princes that was pinched in the dark ages before I grew to years of
discretion.”

“Who told you this, Lady Eileen?” asked Battle.

“I’ve always known. One of the footmen told me when I was twelve years
old.”

“A footman,” said Battle. “Lord! I’d like Mr. Lomax to have heard that!”

“Is it one of George’s closely guarded secrets?” asked Bundle. “How
perfectly screaming! I never really thought it was true. George always
was an ass—he must know that servants always know everything.”

She went across to the Holbein portrait, touched a spring concealed
somewhere at the side of it, and immediately, with a creaking noise, a
section of the panelling swung inward, revealing a dark opening.

“Entrez, Messieurs et Mesdames,” said Bundle dramatically. “Walk up,
walk up, dearies. Best show of the season, and only a tanner.”

Both Lemoine and Battle were provided with torches. They entered the
dark aperture first, the others close on their heels.

“Air’s nice and fresh,” remarked Battle. “Must be ventilated somehow.”

He walked on ahead. The floor was of rough uneven stone, but the
walls were bricked. As Bundle had said, the passage extended for a
bare hundred yards. Then it came to an abrupt end with a fallen heap
of masonry. Battle satisfied himself that there was no way of egress
beyond, and then spoke over his shoulder.

“We’ll go back, if you please. I wanted just to spy out the land, so to
speak.”

In a few minutes they were back again at the panelled entrance.

“We’ll start from here,” said Battle. “Seven straight, eight left,
three right. Take the first as paces.”

He paced seven steps carefully, and bending down examined the ground.

“About right, I should fancy. At one time or another, there’s been
a chalk mark made here. Now then, eight left. That’s not paces, the
passage is only wide enough to go Indian file anyway.”

“Say it in bricks,” suggested Anthony.

“Quite right, Mr. Cade. Eight bricks from the bottom or the top on the
left-hand side. Try from the bottom first—it’s easier.”

He counted up eight bricks.

“Now three to the right of that. One, two, three—Hullo—— Hullo,
what’s this?”

“I shall scream in a minute,” said Bundle, “I know I shall. _What_ is
it?”

Superintendent Battle was working at the brick with the point of his
knife. His practised eye had quickly seen that this particular brick
was different from the rest. A minute or two’s work, and he was able to
pull it right out. Behind was a small dark cavity. Battle thrust in his
hand.

Every one waited in breathless expectancy.

Battle drew out his hand again.

He uttered an exclamation of surprise and anger.

The others crowded round and stared uncomprehendingly at the three
articles he held. For a moment it seemed as though their eyes must have
deceived them.

A card of small pearl buttons, a square of coarse knitting and a piece
of paper on which were inscribed a row of capital E’s!

“Well,” said Battle. “I’m—I’m danged! What’s the meaning of this?”

“_Mon Dieu_,” muttered the Frenchman. “_Ça, c’est un peu trop fort!_”

“But what does it mean?” cried Virginia, bewildered.

“Mean?” said Anthony. “There’s only one thing it can mean. The late
Count Stylptitch must have had a sense of humour! This is an example
of that humour. I may say that I don’t consider it particularly funny
myself.”

“Do you mind explaining your meaning a little more clearly, sir?” said
Superintendent Battle.

“Certainly. This was the Count’s little joke. He must have suspected
that his memorandum had been read. When the crooks came to recover the
jewel, they were to find instead this extremely clever conundrum. It’s
the sort of thing you pin on to yourself at Book Teas, when people have
to guess what you are.”

“It has a meaning, then?”

“I should say, undoubtedly. If the Count had meant to be merely
offensive, he would have put a placard with ‘Sold’ on it, or a picture
of a donkey or something crude like that.”

“A bit of knitting, some capital E’s, and a lot of buttons,” muttered
Battle discontentedly.

“_C’est inoui_,” said Lemoine angrily.

“Cipher No. 2,” said Anthony. “I wonder whether Professor Wynward would
be any good at this one?”

“When was this passage last used, milady?” asked the Frenchman of
Bundle.

Bundle reflected.

“I don’t believe anyone’s been into it for over two years. The Priest’s
Hole is the show exhibit for Americans and tourists generally.”

“Curious,” murmured the Frenchman.

“Why curious?”

Lemoine stooped and picked up a small object from the floor.

“Because of this,” he said. “This match has not lain here for two
years—not even for two days.”

Battle looked at the match curiously. It was of pink wood, with a
yellow head.

“Any of you ladies or gentlemen drop this, by any chance?” he asked.

He received a negative all round.

“Well, then,” said Superintendent Battle, “we’ve seen all there is to
see. We might as well get out of here.”

The proposal was assented to by all. The panel had swung to, but Bundle
showed them how it was fastened from the inside. She unlatched it,
swung it noiselessly open, and sprang through the opening, alighting in
the Council Chamber with a resounding thud.

“Damn!” said Lord Caterham, springing up from an arm-chair in which he
appeared to have been taking forty winks.

“Poor old father,” said Bundle. “Did I startle you?”

“I can’t think,” said Lord Caterham, “why nobody nowadays ever sits
still after a meal. It’s a lost art. God knows Chimneys is big enough,
but even here there doesn’t seem to be a single room where I can be
sure of a little peace. Good Lord, how many of you are there? Reminds
me of the Pantomimes I used to go to as a boy when hordes of demons
used to pop up out of trapdoors.”

“Demon No. 7,” said Virginia, approaching him, and patting him on the
head. “Don’t be cross. We’re just exploring secret passages, that’s
all.”

“There seems to be a positive boom in secret passages to-day,” grumbled
Lord Caterham, not yet completely mollified. “I’ve had to show that
fellow Fish round them all this morning.”

“When was that?” asked Battle quickly.

“Just before lunch. It seems he’d heard of the one in here. I showed
him that, and then took him up to the White Gallery, and we finished
up with the Priest’s Hole. But his enthusiasm was waning by that time.
He looked bored to death. But I made him go through with it.” Lord
Caterham chuckled at the remembrance.

Anthony put a hand on Lemoine’s arm.

“Come outside,” he said softly. “I want to speak to you.”

The two men went out together through the window. When they had gone a
sufficient distance from the house, Anthony drew from his pocket the
scrap of paper that Boris had given him that morning.

“Look here,” he said. “Did you drop this?”

Lemoine took it and examined it with some interest.

“No,” he said. “I have never seen it before. Why?”

“Quite sure?”

“Absolutely sure, Monsieur.”

“That’s very odd.”

He repeated to Lemoine what Boris had said. The other listened with
close attention.

“No, I did not drop it. You say he found it in that clump of trees?”

“Well, I assumed so, but he did not actually say so.”

“It is just possible that it might have fluttered out of M.
Isaacstein’s suit-case. Question Boris again.” He handed the paper back
to Anthony. After a minute or two he said: “What exactly do you know of
this man Boris?”

Anthony shrugged his shoulders.

“I understood he was the late Prince Michael’s trusted servant.”

“It may be so, but make it your business to find out. Ask some one who
knows, such as the Baron Lolopretjzyl. Perhaps this man was engaged but
a few weeks ago. For myself, I have believed him honest. But who knows?
King Victor is quite capable of making himself into a trusted servant
at a moment’s notice.”

“Do you really think——”

Lemoine interrupted him.

“I will be quite frank. With me, King Victor is an obsession. I see him
everywhere. At this moment even I ask myself—this man who is talking
to me, this M. Cade, is he, perhaps, King Victor?”

“Good Lord,” said Anthony, “you have got it badly.”

“What do I care for the diamond? For the discovery of the murderer of
Prince Michael? I leave those affairs to my colleague of Scotland Yard
whose business it is. Me, I am in England for one purpose, and one
purpose only, to capture King Victor and to capture him red-handed.
Nothing else matters.”

“Think you’ll do it?” asked Anthony, lighting a cigarette.

“How should I know?” said Lemoine, with sudden despondency.

“H’m!” said Anthony.

They had regained the terrace. Superintendent Battle was standing near
the French window in a wooden attitude.

“Look at poor old Battle,” said Anthony. “Let’s go and cheer him up.”
He paused a minute, and said, “You know, you’re an odd fish in some
ways, M. Lemoine.”

“In what ways, M. Cade?”

“Well,” said Anthony, “in your place, I should have been inclined
to note down that address that I showed you. It may be of no
importance—quite conceivably. On the other hand, it might be very
important indeed.”

Lemoine looked at him for a minute or two steadily. Then, with a slight
smile, he drew back the cuff of his left coat sleeve. Pencilled on the
white shirt-cuff beneath were the words “Hurstmere, Langly Road, Dover.”

“I apologize,” said Anthony. “And I retire worsted.”

He joined Superintendent Battle.

“You look very pensive, Battle,” he remarked.

“I’ve got a lot to think about, Mr. Cade.”

“Yes, I expect you have.”

“Things aren’t dovetailing. They’re not dovetailing at all.”

“Very trying,” sympathized Anthony. “Never mind, Battle, if the worst
comes to the worst, you can always arrest me. You’ve got my guilty
footprints to fall back upon, remember.”

But the superintendent did not smile.

“Got any enemies here that you know of, Mr. Cade?” he asked.

“I’ve an idea that the third footman doesn’t like me,” replied
Anthony lightly. “He does his best to forget to hand me the choicest
vegetables. Why?”

“I’ve been getting anonymous letters,” said Superintendent Battle. “Or
rather an anonymous letter, I should say.”

“About me?”

Without answering Battle took a folded sheet of cheap notepaper from
his pocket, and handed it to Anthony. Scrawled on it in an illiterate
handwriting were the words:

“Look out for Mr. Cade. He isn’t wot he seems.”

Anthony handed it back with a light laugh.

“That’s all? Cheer up, Battle. I’m really a King in disguise, you know.”

He went into the house, whistling lightly as he walked along. But as
he entered his bedroom and shut the door behind him, his face changed.
It grew set and stern. He sat down on the edge of the bed and stared
moodily at the floor.

“Things are getting serious,” said Anthony to himself. “Something must
be done about it. It’s all damned awkward....”

He sat there for a minute or two, then strolled to the window. For a
moment or two he stood looking out aimlessly, and then his eyes became
suddenly focused on a certain spot, and his face lightened.

“Of course,” he said. “The Rose Garden! That’s it! The Rose Garden.”

He hurried downstairs again and out into the garden by a side door. He
approached the Rose Garden by a circuitous route. It had a little gate
at either end. He entered by the far one, and walked up to the sundial
which was on a raised hillock in the exact centre of the garden.

Just as Anthony reached it, he stopped dead and stared at another
occupant of the Rose Garden who seemed equally surprised to see him.

“I didn’t know that you were interested in roses, Mr. Fish,” said
Anthony gently.

“Sir,” said Mr. Fish, “I am considerably interested in roses.”

They looked at each other warily, as antagonists seek to measure their
opponents’ strength.

“So am I,” said Anthony.

“Is that so?”

“In fact, I dote upon roses,” said Anthony airily.

A very slight smile hovered upon Mr. Fish’s lips and at the same time
Anthony also smiled. The tension seemed to relax.

“Look at this beauty now,” said Mr. Fish, stooping to point out a
particularly fine bloom. “Madame Abel Chatenay, I pressoom it to be.
Yes, I am right. This white rose, before the war, was known as Frau
Carl Drusky. They have, I believe, renamed it. Over sensitive, perhaps
but truly patriotic. The La France is always popular. Do you care for
red roses at all, Mr. Cade? A bright scarlet rose now——”

Mr. Fish’s slow, drawling voice was interrupted. Bundle was leaning out
of a first-floor window.

“Care for a spin to town, Mr. Fish? I’m just off.”

“Thank you, Lady Eileen, but I am vurry happy here.”

“Sure you won’t change your mind, Mr. Cade?”

Anthony laughed and shook his head. Bundle disappeared.

“Sleep is more in my line,” said Anthony, with a wide yawn. “A good
after luncheon nap!” He took out a cigarette. “You haven’t got a match,
have you?”

Mr. Fish handed him a match-box. Anthony helped himself, and handed
back the box with a word of thanks.

“Roses,” said Anthony, “are all very well. But I don’t feel
particularly horticultural this afternoon.”

With a disarming smile, he nodded cheerfully.

A thundering noise sounded from just outside the house.

“Pretty powerful engine she’s got in that car of hers,” remarked
Anthony. “There, off she goes.”

They had a view of the car speeding down the long drive.

Anthony yawned again, and strolled towards the house.

He passed in through the door. Once inside, he seemed as though changed
to quicksilver. He raced across the hall, out through one of the
windows on the farther side, and across the park. Bundle, he knew, had
to make a big détour by the lodge gates, and through the village.

He ran desperately. It was a race against time. He reached the park
wall just as he heard the car outside. He swung himself up and dropped
into the road.

“Hi!” cried Anthony.

In her astonishment, Bundle swerved half across the road. She managed
to pull up without accident. Anthony ran after the car, opened the
door, and jumped in beside Bundle.

“I’m coming to London with you,” he said. “I meant to all along.”

“Extraordinary person,” said Bundle. “What’s that you’ve got in your
hand?”

“Only a match,” said Anthony.

He regarded it thoughtfully. It was pink, with a yellow head. He threw
away his unlighted cigarette, and put the match carefully into his
pocket.




24

The House at Dover


“You don’t mind, I suppose,” said Bundle after a minute or two, “if I
drive rather fast? I started later than I meant to do.”

It had seemed to Anthony that they were proceeding at a terrific speed
already, but he soon saw that that was nothing compared to what Bundle
could get out of the Panhard if she tried.

“Some people,” said Bundle, as she slowed down momentarily to pass
through a village, “are terrified of my driving. Poor old father, for
instance. Nothing would induce him to come up with me in this old bus.”

Privately, Anthony thought Lord Caterham was entirely justified.
Driving with Bundle was not a sport to be indulged in by nervous,
middle-aged gentlemen.

“But you don’t seem nervous a bit,” continued Bundle approvingly, as
she swept round a corner on two wheels.

“I’m in pretty good training, you see,” explained Anthony gravely.
“Also,” he added, as an afterthought, “I’m rather in a hurry myself.”

“Shall I speed her up a bit more?” asked Bundle kindly.

“Good Lord, no,” said Anthony hastily. “We’re averaging about fifty as
it is.”

“I’m burning with curiosity to know the reason of this sudden
departure,” said Bundle, after executing a fanfare upon the Klaxon
which must temporarily have deafened the neighbourhood. “But I suppose
I mustn’t ask? You’re not escaping from justice, are you?”

“I’m not quite sure,” said Anthony. “I shall know soon.”

“That Scotland Yard man isn’t as much of a rabbit as I thought,” said
Bundle thoughtfully.

“Battle’s a good man,” agreed Anthony.

“You ought to have been in diplomacy,” remarked Bundle. “You don’t part
with much information, do you?”

“I was under the impression that I babbled.”

“Oh! Boy! You’re not eloping with Mademoiselle Brun, by any chance?”

“Not guilty!” said Anthony with fervour.

There was a pause of some minutes during which Bundle caught up and
passed three other cars. Then she asked suddenly:

“How long have you known Virginia?”

“That’s a difficult question to answer,” said Anthony, with perfect
truth. “I haven’t actually met her very often, and yet I seem to have
known her a long time.”

Bundle nodded.

“Virginia’s got brains,” she remarked abruptly. “She’s always talking
nonsense, but she’s got brains all right. She was frightfully good out
in Herzoslovakia, I believe. If Tim Revel had lived he’d have had a
fine career—and mostly owing to Virginia. She worked for him tooth and
nail. She did everything in the world she could for him—and I know
why, too.”

“Because she cared for him?” Anthony sat looking very straight ahead of
him.

“No, because she didn’t. Don’t you see? She didn’t love him—she never
loved him, and so she did everything on earth she could to make up.
That’s Virginia all over. But don’t you make any mistake about it.
Virginia was never in love with Tim Revel.”

“You seem very positive,” said Anthony, turning to look at her.

Bundle’s little hands were clenched on the steering wheel, and her
chin was stuck out in a determined manner.

“I know a thing or two. I was only a kid at the time of her marriage,
but I heard one or two things, and knowing Virginia I can put them
together easily enough. Tim Revel was bowled over by Virginia—he was
Irish, you know, and most attractive, with a genius for expressing
himself well. Virginia was quite young—eighteen. She couldn’t go
anywhere without seeing Tim in a state of picturesque misery, vowing
he’d shoot himself or take to drink if she didn’t marry him. Girls
believe these things—or used to—we’ve advanced a lot in the last
eight years. Virginia was carried away by the feeling she thought she’d
inspired. She married him—and she was an angel to him always. She
wouldn’t have been half as much of an angel if she’d loved him. There’s
a lot of the devil in Virginia. But I can tell you one thing—she
enjoys her freedom. And anyone will have a hard time persuading her to
give it up.”

“I wonder why you tell me all this?” said Anthony slowly.

“It’s interesting to know about people, isn’t it? Some people, that is.”

“I’ve wanted to know,” he acknowledged.

“And you’d never have heard from Virginia. But you can trust me for an
inside tip from the stables. Virginia’s a darling. Even women like her
because she isn’t a bit of a cat. And anyway,” Bundle ended, somewhat
obscurely, “one must be a sport, mustn’t one?”

“Oh, certainly,” Anthony agreed. But he was still puzzled. He had no
idea what had prompted Bundle to give him so much information unasked.
That he was glad of it, he did not deny.

“Here are the trams,” said Bundle, with a sigh. “Now, I suppose, I
shall have to drive carefully.”

“It might be as well,” agreed Anthony.

His ideas and Bundle’s on the subject of careful driving hardly
coincided. Leaving indignant suburbs behind them, they finally emerged
into Oxford Street.

“Not bad going, eh?” said Bundle, glancing at her wrist watch.

Anthony assented fervently.

“Where do you want to be dropped?”

“Anywhere. Which way are you going?”

“Knightsbridge way.”

“All right, drop me at Hyde Park Corner.”

“Good-bye,” said Bundle, as she drew up at the place indicated. “What
about the return journey?”

“I’ll find my own way back, thanks very much.”

“I _have_ scared him,” remarked Bundle.

“I shouldn’t recommend driving with you as a tonic for nervous old
ladies, but personally I’ve enjoyed it. The last time I was in equal
danger was when I was charged by a herd of wild elephants.”

“I think you’re extremely rude,” remarked Bundle. “We’ve not even had
one bump to-day.”

“I’m sorry if you’ve been holding yourself in on my account,” retorted
Anthony.

“I don’t think men are really very brave,” said Bundle.

“That’s a nasty one,” said Anthony. “I retire, humiliated.” Bundle
nodded and drove on. Anthony hailed a passing taxi. “Victoria Station,”
he said to the driver as he got in.

When he got to Victoria he paid off the taxi and inquired for the next
train to Dover. Unfortunately he had just missed one.

Resigning himself to a wait of something over an hour, Anthony paced up
and down, his brows knit. Once or twice he shook his head impatiently.

The journey to Dover was uneventful. Arrived there, Anthony passed
quickly out of the station, and then, as though suddenly remembering,
he turned back again. There was a slight smile on his lips as he asked
to be directed to Hurstmere, Langly Road.

The road in question was a long one, leading right out of the town.
According to the porter’s instructions, Hurstmere was the last house.
Anthony trudged along steadily. The little pucker had reappeared
between his eyes. Nevertheless there was a new elation in his manner,
as always when danger was near at hand.

Hurstmere was, as the porter had said, the last house in Langly Road.
It stood well back, enclosed in its own grounds, which were ragged and
overgrown. The place, Anthony judged, must have been empty for many
years. A large iron gate swung rustily on its hinges, and the name on
the gatepost was half obliterated.

“A lonely spot,” muttered Anthony to himself, “and a good one to
choose.”

He hesitated a minute or two, glanced quickly up and down the
road—which was quite deserted—and then slipped quietly past the
creaking gate into the overgrown drive. He walked up it a little
way, and then stood listening. He was still some distance from the
house. Not a sound could be heard anywhere. Some fast yellowing leaves
detached themselves from one of the trees overhead and fell with a
soft rustling sound that was almost sinister in the stillness. Anthony
started; then smiled.

“Nerves,” he murmured to himself. “Never knew I had such things before.”

He went on up the drive. Presently, as the drive curved, he slipped
into the shrubbery and so continued his way unseen from the house.
Suddenly he stood still, peering out through the leaves. Some distance
away a dog was barking, but it was a sound nearer at hand that had
attracted Anthony’s attention.

His keen hearing had not been mistaken. A man came rapidly round
the corner of the house, a short square, thickset man, foreign in
appearance. He did not pause but walked steadily on, circling the house
and disappearing again.

Anthony nodded to himself.

“Sentry,” he murmured. “They do the thing quite well.”

As soon as he had passed, Anthony went on, diverging to the left, and
so following in the footsteps of the sentry.

His own footsteps were quite noiseless.

The wall of the house was on his right, and presently he came to where
a broad blur of light fell on the gravelled walk. The sound of several
men talking together was clearly audible.

“My God! what double-dyed idiots,” murmured Anthony to himself. “It
would serve them right to be given a fright.”

He stole up to the window, stooping a little so that he should not be
seen. Presently he lifted his head very carefully to the level of the
sill and looked in.

Half a dozen men were sprawling round a table. Four of them were big
thickset men, with high cheek-bones, and eyes set in Magyar slanting
fashion. The other two were rat-like little men with quick gestures.
The language that was being spoken was French, but the four big men
spoke it with uncertainty and a hoarse guttural intonation.

“The Boss?” growled one of these. “When will he be here?”

One of the smaller men shrugged his shoulders.

“Any time now.”

“About time, too,” growled the first man. “I have never seen him, this
Boss of yours, but, oh, what great and glorious work might we not have
accomplished in these days of idle waiting!”

“Fool,” said the other little man bitingly. “Getting nabbed by the
police is all the great and glorious work you and your precious lot
would have been likely to accomplish. A lot of blundering gorillas?”

“Aha!” roared another big thickset fellow. “You insult the Comrades? I
will soon set the sign of the Red Hand round your throat.”

He half rose, glaring ferociously at the Frenchman, but one of his
companions pulled him back again.

“No quarreling,” he grunted. “We’re to work together. From all I heard
this King Victor doesn’t stand for being disobeyed.”

In the darkness, Anthony heard the footsteps of the sentry coming his
round again, and he drew back behind a bush.

“Who’s that?” said one of the men inside.

“Carlo—going his rounds.”

“Oh! What about the prisoner?”

“He’s all right—coming round pretty fast now. He’s recovered well from
the crack on the head we gave him.”

Anthony moved gently away.

“God! what a lot,” he muttered. “They discuss their affairs with an
open window, and that fool Carlo goes his round with the tread of an
elephant, and the eyes of a bat. And to crown all, the Herzoslovakians
and the French are on the point of coming to blows. King Victor’s
headquarters seem to be in a parlous condition. It would amuse me, it
would amuse me very much, to teach them a lesson.”

He stood irresolute for a minute, smiling to himself.

From somewhere above his head came a stifled groan.

Anthony looked up. The groan came again.

Anthony glanced quickly from left to right. Carlo was not due round
again just yet. He grasped the heavy Virginia creeper and climbed
nimbly till he reached the sill of a window. The window was shut, but
with a tool from his pocket he soon succeeded in forcing up the catch.

He paused a minute to listen, then sprang lightly inside the room.
There was a bed in the far corner and on that bed a man was lying, his
figure barely discernible in the gloom.

Anthony went over to the bed, and flashed his pocket torch on the man’s
face. It was a foreign face, pale and emaciated, and the head was
swathed in heavy bandages.

The man was bound hand and foot. He stared up at Anthony like one dazed.

Anthony bent over him, and as he did so he heard a sound behind him and
swung round, his hand travelling to his coat pocket.

But a sharp command arrested him.

“Hands up, sonny. You didn’t expect to see me here, but I happened to
catch the same train as you at Victoria.”

It was Mr. Hiram Fish who was standing in the doorway. He was smiling
and in his hand was a big blue automatic.




25

Tuesday Night at Chimneys


Lord Caterham, Virginia and Bundle were sitting in the library after
dinner. It was Tuesday evening. Some thirty hours had elapsed since
Anthony’s rather dramatic departure.

For at least the seventh time Bundle repeated Anthony’s parting words,
as spoken at Hyde Park Corner.

“I’ll find my own way back,” repeated Virginia thoughtfully. “That
doesn’t look as though he expected to be away as long as this. And he’s
left all his things here.”

“He didn’t tell you where he was going?”

“No,” said Virginia, looking straight in front of her. “He told me
nothing.”

After this, there was a silence for a minute or two. Lord Caterham was
the first to break it.

“On the whole,” he said, “keeping an hotel has some advantages over
keeping a country house.”

“Meaning——?”

“That little notice they always hang up in your room. Visitors
intending departure must give notice before twelve o’clock.”

Virginia smiled.

“I dare say,” he continued, “that I am old-fashioned and unreasonable.
It’s the fashion, I know, to pop in and out of a house. Same idea as an
hotel—perfect freedom of action, and no bill at the end!”

“You are an old grouser,” said Bundle. “You’ve had Virginia and me.
What more do you want?”

“Nothing more, nothing more,” Lord Caterham assured them hastily.
“That’s not it at all. It’s the principle of the thing. It gives one
such a restless feeling. I’m quite willing to admit that it’s been an
almost ideal twenty-four hours. Peace—perfect peace. No burglaries or
other crimes of violence, no detectives, no Americans. What I complain
of is that I should have enjoyed it all so much more if I’d felt really
secure. As it is, all the time I’ve been saying to myself ‘One or other
of them is bound to turn up in a minute.’ And that spoilt the whole
thing.”

“Well, nobody has turned up,” said Bundle. “We’ve been left severely
alone—neglected, in fact. It’s odd the way Fish disappeared. Didn’t he
say anything?”

“Not a word. Last time I saw him he was pacing up and down the Rose
Garden yesterday afternoon, smoking one of those unpleasant cigars of
his. After that he seems to have just melted into the landscape.”

“Somebody must have kidnapped him,” said Bundle hopefully.

“In another day or two, I expect we shall have Scotland Yard dragging
the lake to find his dead body,” said her father gloomily. “It serves
me right. At my time of life, I ought to have gone quietly abroad and
taken care of my health, and not allowed myself to be drawn into George
Lomax’s wild-cat schemes. I——”

He was interrupted by Tredwell.

“Well,” said Lord Caterham irritably, “what is it?”

“The French detective is here, my lord, and would be glad if you could
spare him a few minutes.”

“What did I tell you?” said Lord Caterham. “I knew it was too good to
last. Depend upon it, they’ve found Fish’s dead body doubled up in the
goldfish pond.”

Tredwell, in a strictly respectful manner, steered him back to the
point of issue.

“Am I to say that you will see him, my lord?”

“Yes, yes. Bring him in here.”

Tredwell departed. He returned a minute or two later announcing in a
lugubrious voice:

“Monsieur Lemoine.”

The Frenchman came in with a quick, light step. His walk, more than his
face, betrayed the fact that he was excited about something.

“Good evening, Lemoine,” said Lord Caterham. “Have a drink, won’t you?”

“I thank you, no.” He bowed punctiliously to the ladies. “At last I
make progress. As things are, I felt that you should be acquainted with
the discoveries—the very grave discoveries that I have made in the
course of the last twenty-four hours.”

“I thought there must be something important going on somewhere,” said
Lord Caterham.

“My lord, yesterday afternoon one of your guests left this house in
a curious manner. From the beginning, I must tell you, I have had my
suspicions. Here is a man who comes from the wilds. Two months ago he
was in South Africa. Before that—where?”

Virginia drew a sharp breath. For a moment the Frenchman’s eyes rested
on her doubtfully. Then he went on:

“Before that—where? None can say. And he is just such a one as
the man I am looking for—gay, audacious, reckless, one who would
dare anything. I send cable after cable, but I can get no word as
to his past life. Ten years ago he was in Canada, yes, but since
then—silence. My suspicions grow stronger. Then I picked up one
day a scrap of paper where he has lately passed along. It bears an
address—the address of a house in Dover. Later, as though by chance,
I drop that same piece of paper. Out of the tail of my eye, I see this
Boris, this Herzoslovakian, pick it up and take it to his master.
All along I have been sure that this Boris is an emissary of the
Comrades of the Red Hand. We know that the Comrades are working in with
King Victor over this affair. If Boris recognized his Chief in Mr.
Anthony Cade, would he not do just what he has done—transferred his
allegiance? Why should he attach himself otherwise to an insignificant
stranger? It was suspicious, I tell you, very suspicious.

“But almost I am disarmed, for Anthony Cade brings this same paper to
me at once and asks me if I have dropped it. As I say, almost I am
disarmed—but not quite! For it may mean that he is innocent, or it may
mean that he is very, very clever. I deny, of course, that it is mine
or that I dropped it. But in the meantime I have set inquiries on foot.
Only to-day I have news. The house at Dover has been precipitately
abandoned, but up till yesterday afternoon it was occupied by a body
of foreigners. Not a doubt but that it was King Victor’s headquarters.
Now see the significance of these points. Yesterday afternoon, Mr. Cade
clears out from here precipitately. Ever since he dropped that paper,
he must know that the game is up. He reaches Dover and immediately the
gang is disbanded. What the next move will be, I do not know. What
is quite certain is that Mr. Anthony Cade will not return here. But
knowing King Victor, as I do, I am certain that he will not abandon
the game without having one more try for the jewel. And that is when I
shall get him!”

Virginia stood up suddenly. She walked across to the mantelpiece and
spoke in a voice that rang cold like steel.

“You are leaving one thing out of account, I think, M. Lemoine,” she
said. “Mr. Cade is not the only guest who disappeared yesterday in a
suspicious manner.”

“You mean, Madame——?”

“That all you have said applies equally well to another person. What
about Mr. Hiram Fish?”

“Oh, Mr. Fish!”

“Yes, Mr. Fish. Did you not tell us that first night that King
Victor had lately come to England from America? So has Mr. Fish come
to England from America. It is true that he brought a letter of
introduction from a very well-known man, but surely that would be a
simple thing for a man like King Victor to manage. He is certainly not
what he pretends to be. Lord Caterham has commented on the fact that
when it is a question of the first editions he is supposed to have
come here to see he is always the listener, never the talker. And there
are several suspicious facts against him. There was a light in his
window the night of the murder. Then take that evening in the Council
Chamber. When I met him on the terrace he was fully dressed. _He_ could
have dropped the paper. You didn’t actually _see_ Mr. Cade do so. Mr.
Cade may have gone to Dover. If he did it was simply to investigate. He
may have been kidnapped there. I say that there is far more suspicion
attaching to Mr. Fish’s actions than to Mr. Cade’s.”

The Frenchman’s voice rang out sharply:

“From your point of view, that well may be, Madame. I do not dispute
it. And I agree that Mr. Fish is not what he seems.”

“Well, then?”

“But that makes no difference. _You see, Madame, Mr. Fish is a
Pinkerton’s man._”

“What?” cried Lord Caterham.

“Yes, Lord Caterham. He came over here to trail King Victor.
Superintendent Battle and I have known this for some time.”

Virginia said nothing. Very slowly she sat down again. With those few
words the structure that she had built up so carefully was scattered in
ruins about her feet.

“You see,” Lemoine was continuing, “we have all known that eventually
King Victor would come to Chimneys. It was the one place we were sure
of catching him.”

Virginia looked up with an odd light in her eyes, and suddenly she
laughed.

“You’ve not caught him yet,” she said.

Lemoine looked at her curiously.

“No, Madame. But I shall.”

“He’s supposed to be rather famous for outwitting people, isn’t he?”

The Frenchman’s face darkened with anger.

“This time, it will be different,” he said between his teeth.

“He’s a very attractive fellow,” said Lord Caterham. “Very attractive.
But surely—why, you said he was an old friend of yours, Virginia?”

“That is why,” said Virginia composedly, “I think M. Lemoine must be
making a mistake.”

And her eyes met the detective’s steadily, but he appeared in no wise
discomfited.

“Time will show, Madame,” he said.

“Do you pretend that it was he who shot Prince Michael?” she asked
presently.

“Certainly.”

But Virginia shook her head.

“Oh, no!” she said. “Oh, no! That is one thing I am quite sure of.
Anthony Cade never killed Prince Michael.”

Lemoine was watching her intently.

“There is a possibility that you are right, Madame,” he said slowly. “A
possibility, that is all. It may have been the Herzoslovakian, Boris,
who exceeded his orders and fired that shot. Who knows, Prince Michael
may have done him some great wrong, and the man sought revenge.”

“He looks a murderous sort of fellow,” agreed Lord Caterham. “The
house-maids, I believe, scream when he passes them in the passages.”

“Well,” said Lemoine. “I must be going now. I felt it was due to you,
my lord, to know exactly how things stand.”

“Very kind of you, I’m sure,” said Lord Caterham. “Quite certain you
won’t have a drink? All right then. Good night.”

“I hate that man with his prim little black beard and his eyeglasses,”
said Bundle, as soon as the door had shut behind him. “I hope Anthony
_does_ snoo him. I’d love to see him dancing with rage. What do you
think about it all, Virginia?”

“I don’t know,” said Virginia. “I’m tired. I shall go up to bed.”

“Not a bad idea,” said Lord Caterham. “It’s half-past eleven.”

As Virginia was crossing the wide hall, she caught sight of a broad
back that seemed familiar to her discreetly vanishing through a side
door.

“Superintendent Battle,” she called imperiously.

The superintendent, for it was indeed he, retraced his steps with a
shade of unwillingness.

“Yes, Mrs. Revel?”

“M. Lemoine has been here. He says—— Tell me, is it true, really
true, that Mr. Fish is an American detective?”

Superintendent Battle nodded.

“That’s right.”

“You have known it all along?”

Again Superintendent Battle nodded.

Virginia turned away towards the staircase.

“I see,” she said. “Thank you.”

Until that minute she had refused to believe.

And now——?

Sitting down before her dressing-table in her own room, she faced the
question squarely. Every word that Anthony had said came back to her
fraught with a new significance.

Was this the “trade” that he had spoken of?

The trade that he had given up. But then——

An unusual sound disturbed the even tenor of her meditations. She
lifted her head with a start. Her little gold clock showed the hour to
be after one. Nearly two hours she had sat here thinking.

Again the sound was repeated. A sharp tap on the window-pane. Virginia
went to the window and opened it. Below on the pathway was a tall
figure which even as she looked stooped for another handful of gravel.

For a moment Virginia’s heart beat faster—then she recognized the
massive strength and square-cut outline of the Herzoslovakian, Boris.

“Yes,” she said in a low tone. “What is it?”

At the moment it did not strike her as strange that Boris should be
throwing gravel at her window at this hour of the night.

“What is it?” she repeated impatiently.

“I come from the Master,” said Boris in a low tone which nevertheless
carried perfectly. “He has sent for you.”

He made the statement in a perfectly matter-of-fact tone.

“Sent for me?”

“Yes, I am to bring you to him. There is a note. I will throw it up to
you.”

Virginia stood back a little, and a slip of paper, weighted with a
stone, fell accurately at her feet. She unfolded it and read:

“_My dear_ (Anthony had written),—_I’m in a tight place, but I mean to
win through. Will you trust me and come to me?_”

For quite two minutes Virginia stood there, immovable, reading those
few words over again and again.

She raised her head, looking round the well-appointed luxury of the
bedroom as though she saw it with new eyes.

Then she leaned out of the window again.

“What am I to do?” she asked.

“The detectives are the other side of the house, outside the Council
Chamber. Come down and out through this side door. I will be there. I
have a car waiting outside in the road.”

Virginia nodded. Quickly she changed her dress for one of fawn tricot,
and pulled on a little fawn leather hat.

Then, smiling a little, she wrote a short note, addressed it to Bundle
and pinned it to the pincushion.

She stole quietly downstairs and undid the bolts of the side door. Just
a moment she paused, then, with a little gallant toss of the head, the
same toss of the head which her ancestors had gone into action in the
Crusades, she passed through.




26

The 13th of October


At ten o’clock on the morning of Wednesday, the 13th of October,
Anthony Cade walked into Harridge’s Hotel and asked for Baron
Lolopretjzyl who was occupying a suite there.

After suitable and imposing delay, Anthony was taken to the suite
in question. The Baron was standing on the hearthrug in a correct
and stiff fashion. Little Captain Andrassy, equally correct as to
demeanour, but with a slightly hostile attitude, was also present.

The usual bows, clicking of heels, and other formal greetings of
etiquette took place. Anthony was, by now, thoroughly conversant with
the routine.

“You will forgive this early call I trust, Baron,” he said cheerfully,
laying down his hat and stick on the table. “As a matter of fact, I
have a little business proposition to make to you.”

“Ha! Is that so?” said the Baron.

Captain Andrassy, who had never overcome his initial distrust of
Anthony, looked suspicious.

“Business,” said Anthony, “is based on the well-known principle of
supply and demand. You want something, the other man has it. The only
thing left to settle is the price.”

The Baron looked at him attentively, but said nothing.

“Between a Herzoslovakian nobleman and an English gentleman the terms
should be easily arranged,” said Anthony rapidly.

He blushed a little as he said it. Such words do not rise easily to
an Englishman’s lips, but he had observed on previous occasions the
enormous effect of such phraseology upon the Baron’s mentality. True
enough, the charm worked.

“That is so,” said the Baron approvingly, nodding his head. “That is
entirely so.”

Even Captain Andrassy appeared to unbend a little, and nodded his head
also.

“Very good,” said Anthony. “I won’t beat about the bush any more——”

“What is that, you say?” interrupted the Baron. “To beat about the
bush? I do not comprehend?”

“A mere figure of speech, Baron. To speak in plain English, _you_ want
the goods, _we_ have them! The ship is all very well, but it lacks a
figurehead. By the ship, I mean the Loyalist party of Herzoslovakia.
At the present minute you lack the principal plank of your political
programme. You are minus a Prince! Now supposing—only supposing, that
I could supply you with a Prince?”

The Baron stared.

“I do not comprehend you in the least,” he declared.

“Sir,” said Captain Andrassy, twirling his moustache fiercely, “you are
insulting!”

“Not at all,” said Anthony. “I’m trying to be helpful. Supply and
demand, you understand. It’s all perfectly fair and square. No
Princes supplied unless genuine—see trademark. If we come to terms,
you’ll find it’s quite all right. I’m offering you the real genuine
article—out of the bottom drawer.”

“Not in the least,” the Baron declared again, “do I comprehend you.”

“It doesn’t really matter,” said Anthony kindly. “I just want you
to get used to the idea. To put it vulgarly, I’ve got something up
my sleeve. Just get hold of this. You want a Prince. Under certain
conditions, I will undertake to supply you with one.”

The Baron and Andrassy stared at him. Anthony took up his hat and stick
again and prepared to depart.

“Just think it over. Now, Baron, there is one thing further. You must
come down to Chimneys this evening—Captain Andrassy also. Several
very curious things are likely to happen there. Shall we make an
appointment? Say in the Council Chamber at nine o’clock? Thank you,
gentlemen, I may rely upon you to be there?”

The Baron took a step forward and looked searchingly in Anthony’s face.

“Mr. Cade,” he said, not without dignity, “it is not, I hope, that you
wish to make fun of me?”

Anthony returned his gaze steadily.

“Baron,” he said, and there was a curious note in his voice, “when this
evening is over, I think you will be the first to admit that there is
more earnest than jest about this business.”

Bowing to both the men, he left the room.

His next call was in the City where he sent in his card to Mr. Herman
Isaacstein.

After some delay, Anthony was received by a pale and exquisitely
dressed underling with an engaging manner, and a military title.

“You wanted to see Mr. Isaacstein, didn’t you?” said the young man.
“I’m afraid he’s most awfully busy this morning—board meetings and all
that sort of thing, you know. Is it anything that I can do?”

“I must see him personally,” said Anthony, and added carelessly. “I’ve
just come up from Chimneys.”

The young man was slightly staggered by the mention of Chimneys.

“Oh!” he said doubtfully. “Well, I’ll see.”

“Tell him it’s important,” said Anthony.

“Message from Lord Caterham?” suggested the young man.

“Something of the kind,” said Anthony, “but it’s imperative that I
should see Mr. Isaacstein at once.”

Two minutes later, Anthony was conducted into a sumptuous inner sanctum
where he was principally impressed by the immense size and roomy
depths of the leather-covered arm-chairs.

Mr. Isaacstein rose to greet him.

“You must forgive my looking you up like this,” said Anthony. “I know
that you’re a busy man, and I’m not going to waste more of your time
than I can help. It’s just a little matter of business that I want to
put before you.”

Isaacstein looked at him attentively for a minute or two out of his
beady black eyes.

“Have a cigar,” he said unexpectedly, holding out an open box.

“Thank you,” said Anthony. “I don’t mind if I do.”

He helped himself.

“It’s about this Herzoslovakian business,” continued Anthony, as he
accepted a match. He noted the momentary flickering of the other’s
steady gaze. “The murder of Prince Michael must have rather upset the
applecart.”

Mr. Isaacstein raised one eyebrow, murmured “Ah?” interrogatively and
transferred his gaze to the ceiling.

“Oil,” said Anthony, thoughtfully surveying the polished surface of the
desk. “Wonderful thing, oil.”

He felt the slight start the financier gave.

“Do you mind coming to the point, Mr. Cade?”

“Not at all. I imagine, Mr. Isaacstein, that if those Oil concessions
are granted to another company you won’t be exactly pleased about it?”

“What’s the proposition?” asked the other, looking straight at him.

“A suitable claimant to the throne, full of pro-British sympathies.”

“Where have you got him?”

“That’s my business.”

Isaacstein acknowledged the retort by a slight smile, his glance had
grown hard and keen.

“The genuine article? I can’t stand for any funny business.”

“The absolute genuine article.”

“Straight?”

“Straight.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“You don’t seem to take much convincing?” said Anthony, looking
curiously at him.

Herman Isaacstein smiled.

“I shouldn’t be where I am now if I hadn’t learnt to know whether a man
is speaking the truth or not,” he replied simply. “What terms do you
want?”

“The same loan, on the same conditions, that you offered to Prince
Michael?”

“What about yourself?”

“For the moment, nothing, except that I want you to come down to
Chimneys to-night.”

“No,” said Isaacstein, with some decision. “I can’t do that.”

“Why?”

“Dining out—rather an important dinner.”

“All the same, I’m afraid you’ll have to cut it out—for your own sake.”

“What do you mean?”

Anthony looked at him for a full minute before he said slowly:

“Do you know that they’ve found the revolver, the one Michael was shot
with? Do you know where they found it? In your suit-case.”

“What?”

Isaacstein almost leapt from his chair. His face was frenzied.

“What are you saying? What do you mean?”

“I’ll tell you.”

Very obligingly, Anthony narrated the occurrences in connection with
the finding of the revolver. As he spoke the other’s face assumed a
greyish tinge of absolute terror.

“But it’s false,” he screamed out, as Anthony finished. “I never put it
there. I know nothing about it. It is a plot.”

“Don’t excite yourself,” said Anthony soothingly. “If that’s the case
you’ll easily be able to prove it.”

“Prove it? How can I prove it?”

“If I were you,” said Anthony gently, “I’d come to Chimneys to-night.”

Isaacstein looked at him doubtfully.

“You advise it?”

Anthony leant forward and whispered to him. The financier fell back in
amazement, staring at him.

“You actually mean——”

“Come and see,” said Anthony.




27

The 13th of October (contd.)


The clock in the Council Chamber struck nine.

“Well,” said Lord Caterham, with a deep sigh. “Here they all are, just
like little Bo Peep’s flock, back again and wagging their tails behind
them.”

He looked sadly round the room.

“Organ grinder complete with monkey,” he murmured, fixing the Baron
with his eye. “Nosy Parker of Throgmorton Street——”

“I think you’re rather unkind to the Baron,” protested Bundle, to whom
these confidences were being poured out. “He told me that he considered
you the perfect example of English hospitality amongst the _haute
noblesse_.”

“I daresay,” said Lord Caterham. “He’s always saying things like that.
It makes him most fatiguing to talk to. But I can tell you I’m not
nearly as much of the hospitable English gentleman as I was. As soon
as I can, I shall let Chimneys to an enterprising American, and go and
live in an hotel. There, if anyone worries you, you can just ask for
your bill and go.”

“Cheer up,” said Bundle. “We seem to have lost Mr. Fish for good.”

“I always found him rather amusing,” said Lord Caterham, who was in a
contradictory temper. “It’s that precious young man of yours who has
let me in for this. Why should I have this Board meeting called in my
house? Why doesn’t he rent The Larches or Elmhurst, or some nice villa
residence like that at Streatham, and hold his company meetings there?”

“Wrong atmosphere,” said Bundle.

“No one is going to play any tricks on us, I hope?” said her father
nervously. “I don’t trust that French fellow, Lemoine. The French
police are up to all sorts of dodges. Put India-rubber bands round
your arm, and then reconstruct the crime and make you jump, and it’s
registered on a thermometer. I know that when they call out ‘Who
killed Prince Michael?’ I shall register a hundred and twenty-two, or
something perfectly frightful, and they’ll haul me off to gaol at once.”

The door opened and Tredwell announced:

“Mr. George Lomax. Mr. Eversleigh.”

“Enter Codders, followed by faithful dog,” murmured Bundle.

Bill made a bee-line for her, whilst George greeted Lord Caterham in
the genial manner he assumed for public occasions.

“My dear Caterham,” said George, shaking him by the hand, “I got your
message, and came over, of course.”

“Very good of you, my dear fellow, very good of you. Delighted to see
you.” Lord Caterham’s conscience always drove him on to an excess of
geniality when he was conscious of feeling none. “Not that it was my
message, but that doesn’t matter at all.”

In the meantime, Bill was attacking Bundle in an undertone.

“I say. What’s it all about? What’s this I hear about Virginia bolting
off in the middle of the night? She’s not been kidnapped, has she?”

“Oh, no,” said Bundle. “She left a note pinned to the pincushion in the
orthodox fashion.”

“She’s not gone off with anyone, has she? Not with that Colonial
Johnny? I never liked the fellow and, from all I hear, there seems to
be an idea floating around that he himself is the super crook. But I
don’t quite see how that can be?”

“Why not?”

“Well, this King Victor was a French fellow, and Cade’s English enough.”

“You don’t happen to have heard that King Victor was an accomplished
linguist, and, moreover, was half Irish?”

“Oh, Lord! Then that’s why he’s made himself scarce, is it?”

“I don’t know about his making himself scarce. He disappeared the day
before yesterday, as you know. But this morning we got a wire from him,
saying he would be down here at 9 P.M. to-night, and suggesting that
Codders should be asked over. All these other people have turned up as
well—asked by Mr. Cade.”

“It is a gathering,” said Bill, looking round. “One French detective
by window, one English ditto by fireplace. Strong foreign element. The
Stars and Stripes don’t seem to be represented?”

Bundle shook her head.

“Mr. Fish has disappeared into the blue. Virginia’s not here either.
But every one else is assembled, and I have a feeling in my bones,
Bill, that we are drawing very near to the moment when somebody says
‘James, the footman,’ and everything is revealed. We’re only waiting
now for Anthony Cade to arrive.”

“He’ll never show up,” said Bill.

“Then why call this company meeting, as Father calls it?”

“Ah, there’s some deep idea behind that. Depend upon it. Wants us all
here while he’s somewhere else—you know the sort of thing.”

“You don’t think he’ll come, then?”

“No fear. Run his head into the lion’s mouth? Why, the room’s bristling
with detectives and high officials.”

“You don’t know much about King Victor, if you think that would deter
him. By all accounts, it’s the kind of situation he loves above all,
and he always manages to come out on top.”

Mr. Eversleigh shook his head doubtfully.

“That would take some doing—with the dice loaded against him. He’ll
never——”

The door opened again and Tredwell announced:

“Mr. Cade.”

Anthony came straight across to his host.

“Lord Caterham,” he said, “I’m giving you a frightful lot of trouble,
and I’m awfully sorry about it. But I really do think that to-night
will see the clearing up of the mystery.”

Lord Caterham looked mollified. He had always had a secret liking for
Anthony.

“No trouble at all,” he said heartily.

“It’s very kind of you,” said Anthony. “We’re all here, I see. Then I
can get on with the good work.”

“I don’t understand,” said George Lomax weightily. “I don’t understand
in the least. This is all very irregular. Mr. Cade has no standing—no
standing whatever. The position is a very difficult and delicate one. I
am strongly of the opinion——”

George’s flood of eloquence was arrested. Moving unobtrusively to the
great man’s side, Superintendent Battle whispered a few words in his
ear. George looked perplexed and baffled.

“Very well, if you say so,” he remarked grudgingly. Then added in a
louder tone, “I’m sure we are all willing to listen to what Mr. Cade
has to say.”

Anthony ignored the palpable condescension of the other’s tone.

“It’s just a little idea of mine, that’s all,” he said cheerfully.
“Probably all of you know that we got hold of a certain message in
cipher the other day. There was a reference to Richmond, and some
numbers.” He paused. “Well, we had a shot at solving it—and we failed.
Now in the late Count Stylptitch’s Memoirs (which I happen to have
read) there is a reference to a certain dinner—a ‘Flower’ dinner
which every one attended wearing a badge representing a flower. The
Count himself wore the exact duplicate of that curious device we found
in the cavity in the secret passage. It represented a Rose. If you
remember, it was all _rows_ of things—buttons, letter E’s, and finally
rows of knitting. Now, gentlemen, what is there in this house that
is arranged in rows? Books, isn’t that so? Add to that, that in the
catalogue of Lord Caterham’s library there is a book called _The Life
of the Earl of Richmond_, and I think you will get a very fair idea
of the hiding-place. Starting at the volume in question, and using
the numbers to denote shelves and books, I think you will find that
the—er—object of our search is concealed in a dummy book, or in a
cavity behind a particular book.”

Anthony looked round modestly, obviously waiting for applause.

“Upon my word, that’s very ingenious,” said Lord Caterham.

“Quite ingenious,” admitted George condescendingly. “But it remains to
be seen——”

Anthony laughed.

“The proof of the pudding’s in the eating—eh? Well, I’ll soon settle
that for you.” He sprang to his feet. “I’ll go to the library——”

He got no further. M. Lemoine moved forward from the window.

“Just one moment, Mr. Cade. You permit, Lord Caterham?”

He went to the writing-table and hurriedly scribbled a few lines.
He sealed them up in an envelope, and then rang the bell. Tredwell
appeared in answer to it. Lemoine handed him the note.

“See that that is delivered at once, if you please.”

“Very good, sir,” said Tredwell.

With his usual dignified tread he withdrew.

Anthony, who had been standing, irresolute, sat down again.

“What’s the big idea, Lemoine?” he asked gently.

There was a sudden sense of strain in the atmosphere.

“If the jewel is where you say it is—well, it has been there for over
seven years—a quarter of an hour more does not matter.”

“Go on,” said Anthony. “That wasn’t all you wanted to say?”

“No, it was not. At this juncture, it is—unwise to permit any one
person to leave the room. Especially if that person has rather
questionable antecedents.”

Anthony raised his eyebrows, and lighted a cigarette.

“I suppose a vagabond life is not very respectable,” he mused.

“Two months ago, Mr. Cade, you were in South Africa. That is admitted.
Where were you before that?”

Anthony leaned back in his chair, idly blowing smoke rings.

“Canada. Wild North West.”

“Are you sure you were not in prison? A French prison?”

Automatically, Superintendent Battle moved a step nearer the door, as
if to cut off a retreat that way, but Anthony showed no signs of doing
anything dramatic.

Instead, he stared at the French detective, and then burst out laughing.

“My poor Lemoine. It is a monomania with you! You do indeed see King
Victor everywhere. So you fancy that I am that interesting gentleman?”

“Do you deny it?”

Anthony brushed a fleck of ash from his coat sleeve.

“I never deny anything that amuses me,” he said lightly. “But the
accusation is really too ridiculous.”

“Ah! you think so?” The Frenchman leant forward. His face was twitching
painfully, and yet he seemed perplexed and baffled—as though something
in Anthony’s manner puzzled him. “What if I tell you, Monsieur, that
this time—this time—I am out to get King Victor, and nothing shall
stop me!”

“Very laudable,” was Anthony’s comment. “You’ve been out to get him
before, though, haven’t you, Lemoine? And he’s got the better of you.
Aren’t you afraid that that may happen again? He’s a slippery fellow,
by all accounts.”

The conversation had developed into a duel between the detective and
Anthony. Every one else in the room was conscious of the tension. It
was a fight to a finish between the Frenchman, painfully in earnest,
and the man who smoked so calmly and whose words seemed to show that he
had not a care in the world.

“If I were you, Lemoine,” continued Anthony, “I should be very, very
careful. Watch your step, and all that sort of thing.”

“This time,” said Lemoine grimly, “there will be no mistake.”

“You seem very sure about it all,” said Anthony. “But there’s such a
thing as evidence, you know.”

Lemoine smiled, and something in his smile seemed to attract Anthony’s
attention. He sat up and stubbed out his cigarette.

“You saw that note I wrote just now?” said the French detective. “It
was to my people at the inn. Yesterday I received from France the
fingerprints and the Bertillon measurements of King Victor—the
so-called Captain O’Neill. I have asked for them to be sent up to me
here. In a few minutes we shall _know_ whether you are the man!”

Anthony stared steadily at him. Then a little smile crept over his face.

“You’re really rather clever, Lemoine. I never thought of that. The
documents will arrive, you will induce me to dip my fingers in the ink,
or something equally unpleasant, you will measure my ears and look for
my distinguishing marks. And if they agree——”

“Well,” said Lemoine, “if they agree—eh?”

Anthony leaned forward in his chair.

“Well, if they do agree,” he said very gently, “what then?”

“What then?” The detective seemed taken aback. “But—I shall have
proved then that you are King Victor!”

But for the first time, a shade of uncertainty crept into his manner.

“That will doubtless be a great satisfaction to you,” said Anthony.
“But I don’t quite see where it’s going to hurt me. I’m not admitting
anything, but supposing, just for the sake of argument, that I was King
Victor—I might be trying to repent, you know.”

“Repent?”

“That’s the idea. Put yourself in King Victor’s place, Lemoine. Use
your imagination. You’ve just come out of prison. You’re getting on
in life. You’ve lost the first fine rapture of the adventurous life.
Say, even, that you meet a beautiful girl. You think of marrying and
settling down somewhere in the country where you can grow vegetable
marrows. You decide from henceforth to lead a blameless life. Put
yourself in King Victor’s place. Can’t you imagine feeling like that?”

“I do not think that I should feel like that,” said Lemoine with a
sardonic smile.

“Perhaps you wouldn’t,” admitted Anthony. “But then you’re not King
Victor, are you? You can’t possibly know what he feels like.”

“But it is nonsense, what you are saying there,” spluttered the
Frenchman.

“Oh, no, it isn’t. Come now, Lemoine, if I’m King Victor, what have you
against me after all? You could never get the necessary evidence in
the old, old days, remember. I’ve served my sentence, and that’s all
there is to it. I suppose you could arrest me for the French equivalent
of ‘Loitering with intent to commit a felony,’ but that would be poor
satisfaction, wouldn’t it?”

“You forget,” said Lemoine. “America! How about this business of
obtaining money under false pretences, and passing yourself off as
Prince Nicholas Obolovitch?”

“No good, Lemoine,” said Anthony, “I was nowhere near America at the
time. And I can prove that easily enough. If King Victor impersonated
Prince Nicholas in America, then I’m not King Victor. You’re sure he
_was_ impersonated? That it wasn’t the man himself?”

Superintendent Battle suddenly interposed.

“The man was an impostor all right, Mr. Cade.”

“I wouldn’t contradict you, Battle,” said Anthony. “You have such a
habit of being always right. Are you equally sure that Prince Nicholas
died in the Congo?”

Battle looked at him curiously.

“I wouldn’t swear to that, sir. But it’s generally believed.”

“Careful man. What’s your motto? Plenty of rope, eh? I’ve taken a
leaf out of your book. I’ve given M. Lemoine plenty of rope. I’ve not
denied his accusations. But, all the same, I’m afraid he’s going to be
disappointed. You see I always believe in having something up one’s
sleeve. Anticipating that some little unpleasantness might arise here,
I took the precaution to bring a trump card along with me. It—or
rather he—is upstairs.”

“Upstairs?” said Lord Caterham, very interested.

“Yes, he’s been having rather a trying time of it lately, poor fellow.
Got a nasty bump on the head from some one. I’ve been looking after
him.”

Suddenly the deep voice of Mr. Isaacstein broke in:

“Can we guess who he is?”

“If you like,” said Anthony, “but——”

Lemoine interrupted with sudden ferocity:

“All this is foolery. You think to outwit me yet again. It may be true
what you say—that you were not in America. You are too clever to say
it if it were not true. But there is something else. Murder! Yes,
murder. The murder of Prince Michael. He interfered with you that night
as you were looking for the jewel.”

“Lemoine, have you ever known King Victor to do murder?” Anthony’s
voice rang out sharply. “You know as well—better than I do, that he
has never shed blood.”

“Who else but you could have murdered him?” cried Lemoine. “Tell me
that!”

The last word died on his lips, as a shrill whistle sounded from the
terrace outside. Anthony sprang up, all his assumed nonchalance laid
aside.

“You ask me who murdered Prince Michael?” he cried. “I won’t tell
you—I’ll _show_ you. That whistle was the signal I’ve been waiting
for. The murderer of Prince Michael is in the library now.”

He sprang out through the window, and the others followed him as he led
the way round the terrace, until they came to the library window. He
pushed the window, and it yielded to his touch.

Very softly he held aside the thick velvet curtain, so that they could
look into the room.

Standing by the bookcase was a dark figure, hurriedly pulling out and
replacing volumes, so absorbed in the task that no outside sound was
heeded.

And then, as they stood watching, trying to recognize the figure that
was vaguely silhouetted against the light of the electric torch it
carried, some one sprang past them with a sound like the roar of a wild
beast.

The torch fell to the ground, was extinguished, and the sounds of a
terrific struggle filled the room. Lord Caterham groped his way to the
lights and switched them on.

Two figures were swaying together. And as they looked the end came. The
short sharp crack of a pistol shot, and the smaller figure crumpled up
and fell. The other figure turned and faced them—it was Boris, his
eyes alight with rage.

“She killed my Master,” he growled. “Now she tries to shoot me. I would
have taken the pistol from her and shot her, but it went off in the
struggle. St. Michael directed it. The evil woman is dead.”

“A woman?” cried George Lomax.

They drew nearer. On the floor, the pistol still clasped in her hand,
and an expression of deadly malignity on her face, lay—Mademoiselle
Brun.




28

King Victor


“I suspected her from the first,” explained Anthony. “There was a
light in her room on the night of the murder. Afterwards, I wavered.
I made inquiries about her in Brittany, and came back satisfied that
she was what she represented herself to be. I was a fool. Because the
Comtesse de Breteuil had employed a Mademoiselle Brun and spoke highly
of her, it never occurred to me that the real Mademoiselle Brun might
have been kidnapped on her way to her new post, and that it might be
a substitute taking her place. Instead I shifted my suspicions to Mr.
Fish. It was not until he had followed me to Dover, and we had had a
mutual explanation that I began to see clearly. Once I knew that he was
a Pinkerton’s man, trailing King Victor, my suspicions swung back again
to their original object.

“The thing that worried me most was that Mrs. Revel had definitely
recognized the woman. Then I remembered that it was only _after_
I had mentioned her being Madame de Breteuil’s governess. And all
she had said was that that accounted for the fact that the woman’s
face was familiar to her. Superintendent Battle will tell you that a
deliberate plot was formed to keep Mrs. Revel from coming to Chimneys.
Nothing more nor less than a dead body, in fact. And though the murder
was the work of the Comrades of the Red Hand, punishing supposed
treachery on the part of the victim, the staging of it, and the absence
of the Comrades’ sign manual, pointed to some abler intelligence
directing operations. From the first, I suspected some connection
with Herzoslovakia. Mrs. Revel was the only member of the house party
who had been to the country. I suspected at first that some one was
impersonating Prince Michael, but that proved to be a totally erroneous
idea. When I realized the possibility of Mademoiselle Brun’s being an
impostor, and added to that the fact that her face was familiar to Mrs.
Revel, I began to see daylight. It was evidently very important that
she should not be recognized, and Mrs. Revel was the only person likely
to do so.”

“But who was she?” said Lord Caterham. “Some one Mrs. Revel had known
in Herzoslovakia?”

“I think the Baron might be able to tell us,” said Anthony.

“I?” The Baron stared at him, then down at the motionless figure.

“Look well,” said Anthony. “Don’t be put off by the make-up. She was an
actress once, remember.”

The Baron stared again. Suddenly he started.

“God in heaven,” he breathed, “it is not possible.”

“What is not possible?” asked George. “Who is the lady? You recognize
her, Baron?”

“No, no, it is not possible.” The Baron continued to mutter. “She was
killed. They were both killed. On the steps of the Palace. Her body was
recovered.”

“Mutilated and unrecognizable,” Anthony reminded him. “She managed to
put up a bluff. I think she escaped to America, and has spent a good
many years lying low in deadly terror of the Comrades of the Red Hand.
They promoted the Revolution, remember, and, to use an expressive
phrase, they always had it in for her. Then King Victor was released,
and they planned to recover the diamond together. She was searching
for it that night when she came suddenly upon Prince Michael, and
he recognized her. There was never much fear of her meeting him in
the ordinary way of things. Royal guests don’t come in contact with
governesses, and she could always retire with a convenient _migraine_,
as she did the day the Baron was here.

“However, she met Prince Michael face to face when she least expected
it. Exposure and disgrace stared her in the face. She shot him. It was
she who placed the revolver in Isaacstein’s suit-case, so as to confuse
the trail, and she who returned the letters.”

Lemoine moved forward.

“She was coming down to search for the jewel that night, you say,”
he said. “Might she not have been going to meet her accomplice, King
Victor, who was coming from outside? Eh? What do you say to that?”

Anthony sighed.

“Still at it, my dear Lemoine? How persistent you are! You won’t take
my hint that I’ve got a trump card up my sleeve?”

But George, whose mind worked slowly, now broke in.

“I am still completely at sea. Who was this lady, Baron? You recognize
her, it seems?”

But the Baron drew himself up and stood very straight and stiff.

“You are in error, Mr. Lomax. To my knowledge I have not this lady seen
before. A complete stranger she is to me.”

“But——”

George stared at him—bewildered.

The Baron took him into a corner of the room, and murmured something
into his ear. Anthony watched, with a good deal of enjoyment, George’s
face turning slowly purple, his eyes bulging, and all the incipient
symptoms of apoplexy. A murmur of George’s throaty voice came to him.

“Certainly ... certainly ... by all means ... no need at all ...
complicate situation ... utmost discretion.”

“Ah!” Lemoine hit the table sharply with his hand. “I do not care about
all this! The murder of Prince Michael—that was not my affair. I want
King Victor.”

Anthony shook his head gently.

“I’m sorry for you, Lemoine. You’re really a very able fellow. But, all
the same, you’re going to lose the trick. I’m about to play my trump
card.”

He stepped across the room and rang the bell. Tredwell answered it.

“A gentleman arrived with me this evening, Tredwell.”

“Yes, sir, a foreign gentleman.”

“Quite so. Will you kindly ask him to join us here as soon as possible?”

“Yes, sir.”

Tredwell withdrew.

“Entry of the trump card, the mysterious Monsieur X,” remarked Anthony.
“_Who is he?_ Can anyone guess?”

“Putting two and two together,” said Herman Isaacstein, “what with your
mysterious hints this morning, and your attitude this afternoon, I
should say there was no doubt about it. Somehow or other you’ve managed
to get hold of Prince Nicholas of Herzoslovakia.”

“You think the same, Baron?”

“I do. Unless yet another impostor you have put forward. But that I
will not believe. With me, your dealings most honourable have been.”

“Thank you, Baron. I shan’t forget those words. So you are all agreed?”

His eyes swept round the circle of waiting faces. Only Lemoine did not
respond, but kept his eyes fixed sullenly on the table.

Anthony’s quick ears had caught the sound of footsteps outside in the
hall.

“And yet, you know,” he said with a queer smile, “you’re all wrong!”

He crossed swiftly to the door and flung it open.

A man stood on the threshold—a man with a neat black beard,
eyeglasses, and a foppish appearance slightly marred by a bandage round
the head.

“_Allow me to present you to the real Monsieur Lemoine of the Sûreté._”

There was a rush and a scuffle, and then the nasal tones of Mr. Hiram
Fish rose bland and reassuring from the window.

“No, you don’t, Sonny—not this way. I have been stationed here this
whole evening for the particular purpose of preventing your escape. You
will observe that I have you covered well and good with this gun of
mine. I came over to get you, and I’ve got you—but you sure are some
lad!”




29

Further Explanations


“You owe us an explanation, I think, Mr. Cade,” said Herman Isaacstein,
somewhat later in the evening.

“There’s nothing much to explain,” said Anthony modestly. “I went to
Dover and Fish followed me under the impression that I was King Victor.
We found a mysterious stranger imprisoned there, and as soon as we
heard his story we knew where we were. The same idea again, you see.
The real man kidnapped, and the false one—in this case King Victor
himself—takes his place. But it seems that Battle here always thought
there was something fishy about his French colleague, and wired to
Paris for his fingerprints and other means of identification.”

“Ah!” cried the Baron. “The fingerprints. The Bertillon measurements
that that scoundrel talked about?”

“It was a clever idea,” said Anthony. “I admired it so much that I
felt forced to play up. Besides, my doing so puzzled the false Lemoine
enormously. You see, as soon as I had given the tip about the ‘rows’
and where the jewel really was, he was keen to pass on the news to
his accomplice, and at the same time to keep us all in that room. The
note was really to Mademoiselle Brun. He told Tredwell to deliver it
at once, and Tredwell did so by taking it upstairs to the schoolroom.
Lemoine accused me of being King Victor, by that means creating a
diversion and preventing anyone from leaving the room. By the time all
that had been cleared up and we adjourned to the library to look for
the stone, he flattered himself that the stone would be no longer
there to find!”

George cleared his throat.

“I must say, Mr. Cade,” he said pompously, “that I consider your
action in that matter highly reprehensible. If the slightest hitch had
occurred in your plans, one of our national possessions might have
disappeared beyond the hope of recovery. It was foolhardy, Mr. Cade,
reprehensibly foolhardy.”

“I guess you haven’t tumbled to the little idea, Mr. Lomax,” said the
drawling voice of Mr. Fish. “That historic diamond was never behind the
books in the library.”

“Never?”

“Not on your life.”

“You see,” explained Anthony, “that little device of Count Stylptitch’s
stood for what it had originally stood for—a Rose. When that dawned
upon me on Monday afternoon, I went straight to the Rose Garden. Mr.
Fish had already tumbled to the same idea. If, standing with your back
to the sundial, you take seven paces straight forward, then eight to
the left and three to the right, you come to some bushes of a bright
red rose called Richmond. The house has been ransacked to find the
hiding-place, but nobody has thought of digging in the garden. I
suggest a little digging party to-morrow morning.”

“Then the story about the books in the library—”

“An invention of mine to trap the lady. Mr. Fish kept watch on the
terrace, and whistled when the psychological moment had arrived. I may
say that Mr. Fish and I established martial law at the Dover house, and
prevented the Comrades from communicating with the false Lemoine. He
sent them an order to clear out, and word was conveyed to him that this
had been done. So he went happily ahead with his plans for denouncing
me.”

“Well, well,” said Lord Caterham cheerfully, “everything seems to have
been cleared up most satisfactorily.”

“Everything but one thing,” said Mr. Isaacstein.

“What is that?”

The great financier looked steadily at Anthony.

“What did you get me down here for? Just to assist at a dramatic scene
as an interested onlooker.”

Anthony shook his head.

“No, Mr. Isaacstein. You are a busy man whose time is money. Why did
you come down here originally?”

“To negotiate a loan.”

“With whom?”

“Prince Michael of Herzoslovakia.”

“Exactly. Prince Michael is dead. Are you prepared to offer the same
loan on the same terms to his cousin Nicholas?”

“Can you produce him? I thought he was killed in the Congo?”

“He was killed all right. I killed him. Oh, no, I’m not a murderer.
When I say I killed him, I mean that I spread the report of his death.
I promised you a Prince, Mr. Isaacstein. Will _I_ do?”

“You?”

“Yes, I’m the man. Nicholas Sergius Alexander Ferdinand Obolovitch.
Rather long for the kind of life I proposed to live, so I emerged from
the Congo as plain Anthony Cade.”

Little Captain Andrassy sprang up.

“But this is incredible—incredible,” he spluttered. “Have a care, sir,
what you say.”

“I can give you plenty of proofs,” said Anthony quietly. “I think I
shall be able to convince the Baron here.”

The Baron lifted his hand.

“Your proofs I will examine, yes. But of them for me there is no need.
Your word alone sufficient for me is. Besides, your English mother you
much resemble. All along have I said: ‘This young man on one side or
the other most highly born is’.”

“You have always trusted my word, Baron,” said Anthony. “I can assure
you that in the days to come I shall not forget.”

Then he looked over at Superintendent Battle whose face had remained
perfectly expressionless.

“You can understand,” said Anthony with a smile, “that my position
has been extremely precarious. Of all those in the house I might
be supposed to have the best reason for wishing Michael Obolovitch
out of the way, since I was the next heir to the Throne. I’ve been
extraordinarily afraid of Battle all along. I always felt that he
suspected me, but that he was held up by lack of motive.”

“I never believed for a minute that you’d shot him, sir,” said
Superintendent Battle. “We’ve got a feeling in such matters. But I
knew that you were afraid of something, and you puzzled me. If I’d
known sooner who you really were, I dare say I’d have yielded to the
evidence, and arrested you.”

“I’m glad I managed to keep one guilty secret from you. You wormed
everything else out of me all right. You’re a damned good man at your
job, Battle. I shall always think of Scotland Yard with respect.”

“Most amazing,” muttered George. “Most amazing story I ever heard. I—I
can really hardly believe it. You are quite sure, Baron, that——”

“My dear Mr. Lomax,” said Anthony, with a slight hardness in his tone,
“I have no intention of asking the British Foreign Office to support
my claim without bringing forward the most convincing documentary
evidence. I suggest that we adjourn now, and that you, the Baron, Mr.
Isaacstein and myself discuss the terms of the proposed loan.”

The Baron rose to his feet, and clicked his heels together.

“It will be the proudest moment of my life, sir,” he said solemnly,
“when I see you King of Herzoslovakia.”

“Oh, by the way, Baron,” said Anthony carelessly, slipping his hand
through the other’s arm, “I forgot to tell you. There’s a string tied
to this. I’m married, you know.”

The Baron retreated a step or two. Dismay overspread his countenance.

“Something wrong I knew there would be,” he boomed. “Merciful God in
Heaven! He has married a black woman in Africa!”

“Come, come, it’s not so bad as all that,” said Anthony, laughing.
“She’s white enough—white all through, bless her.”

“Good. A respectable morganatic affair it can be, then.”

“Not a bit of it. She’s to play Queen to my King. It’s no use shaking
your head. She’s fully qualified for the post. She’s the daughter of
an English peer who dates back to the time of the Conqueror. It’s very
fashionable just now for Royalties to marry into the aristocracy—and
she knows something of Herzoslovakia.”

“My God!” cried George Lomax, startled out of his usual careful speech.
“Not—not—Virginia Revel?”

“Yes,” said Anthony. “Virginia Revel.”

“My dear fellow,” cried Lord Caterham, “I mean—sir, I congratulate
you, I do indeed. A delightful creature.”

“Thank you, Lord Caterham,” said Anthony. “She’s all you say and more.”

But Mr. Isaacstein was regarding him curiously.

“You’ll excuse my asking your Highness, but when did this marriage take
place?”

Anthony smiled back at him.

“As a matter of fact,” he said, “I married her this morning.”




30

Anthony Signs on for a New Job


“If you will go on, gentlemen, I will follow you in a minute,” said
Anthony.

He waited whilst the others filed out, and then turned to where
Superintendent Battle was standing apparently absorbed in examining the
panelling.

“Well, Battle? Want to ask me something, don’t you?”

“Well, I do, sir, though I don’t know how you knew I did. But I always
marked you out as being specially quick in the uptake. I take it that
the lady who is dead was the late Queen Varaga?”

“Quite right, Battle. It’ll be hushed up, I hope. You can understand
what I feel about family skeletons.”

“Trust Mr. Lomax for that, sir. No one will ever know. That is, a lot
of people will know, but it won’t get about.”

“Was that what you wanted to ask me about?”

“No, sir—that was only in passing. I was curious to know just what
made you drop your own name—if I’m not taking too much of a liberty?”

“Not a bit. I’ll tell you. I killed myself from the purest motives,
Battle. My mother was English, I’d been educated in England, and I
was far more interested in England than in Herzoslovakia. And I felt
an absolute fool knocking about the world with a comic opera title
tacked on to me. You see, when I was very young, I had democratic
ideas. Believed in the purity of ideals, and the equality of all men. I
especially disbelieved in Kings and Princes.”

“And since then?” asked Battle shrewdly.

“Oh, since then, I’ve travelled and seen the world. There’s damned
little equality going about. Mind you, I still believe in democracy.
But you’ve got to force it on people with a strong hand—ram it down
their throats. Men don’t want to be brothers—they may some day, but
they don’t now. My final belief in the Brotherhood of Man died the day
I arrived in London last week, when I observed the people standing
in a Tube train resolutely refuse to move up and make room for those
who entered. You won’t turn people into angels by appealing to their
better natures just yet awhile—but by judicious force you can coerce
them into behaving more or less decently to one another to go on
with. I still believe in the Brotherhood of Man, but it’s not coming
yet awhile. Say another ten thousand years or so. It’s no good being
impatient. Evolution is a slow process.”

“I’m very interested in these views of yours, sir,” said Battle with a
twinkle. “And if you’ll allow me to say so, I’m sure you’ll make a very
fine King out there.”

“Thank you, Battle,” said Anthony with a sigh.

“You don’t seem very happy about it, sir?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I dare say it will be rather fun. But it’s tying
oneself down to regular work. I’ve always avoided that before.”

“But you consider it your duty, I suppose, sir?”

“Good Lord, no! What an idea. It’s a woman—it’s always a woman,
Battle. I’d do more than be a King for her sake.”

“Quite so, sir.”

“I’ve arranged it so that the Baron and Isaacstein can’t kick. The one
wants a King and the other wants oil. They’ll both get what they want,
and I’ve got—Oh, Lord, Battle, have you ever been in love?”

“I am much attached to Mrs. Battle, sir.”

“Much attached to Mrs.—Oh, you don’t know what I’m talking about! It’s
entirely different!”

“Excuse me, sir, that man of yours is waiting outside the window.”

“Boris? So he is. He’s a wonderful fellow. It’s a mercy that pistol
went off in the struggle and killed the lady. Otherwise Boris would
have wrung her neck as sure as Fate, and then you would have wanted to
hang him. His attachment to the Obolovitch dynasty is remarkable. The
queer thing was that as soon as Michael was dead he attached himself to
me—and yet he couldn’t possibly have known who I really was.”

“Instinct,” said Battle. “Like a dog.”

“Very awkward instinct I thought it at the time. I was afraid it might
give the show away to you. I suppose I’d better see what he wants.”

He went out through the window. Superintendent Battle, left alone,
looked after him for a minute, then apparently addressed the panelling.

“He’ll do,” said Superintendent Battle.

Outside, Boris explained himself.

“Master,” said he, and led the way along the terrace.

Anthony followed him, wondering what was forward.

Presently Boris stopped and pointed with his forefinger. It was
moonlight, and in front of them was a stone seat on which sat two
figures.

“He _is_ a dog,” said Anthony to himself. “And what’s more, a pointer!”

He strode forward. Boris melted into the shadows.

The two figures rose to meet him. One of them was Virginia—the
other——

“Hullo, Joe,” said a well remembered voice. “This is a great girl of
yours.”

“Jimmy McGrath, by all that’s wonderful,” cried Anthony. “How in the
name of fortune did you get here?”

“That trip of mine into the interior went phut. Then some Dagos came
monkeying round. Wanted to buy that manuscript off me. Next thing I as
near as nothing got a knife in the back one night. That made me think
that I’d handed you out a bigger job than I knew. I thought you might
need help, and I came along after you by the very next boat.”

“Wasn’t it splendid of him?” said Virginia. She squeezed Jimmy’s arm.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me how frightfully nice he was? You are,
Jimmy, you’re a perfect dear.”

“You two seem to be getting along all right,” said Anthony.

“Sure thing,” said Jimmy. “I was snooping round for news of you, when
I connected with this dame. She wasn’t at all what I thought she’d
be—some swell haughty Society lady that’d scare the life out of me.”

“He told me all about the letters,” said Virginia. “And I feel almost
ashamed not to have been in real trouble over them when he was such a
knight-errant.”

“If I’d known what you were like,” said Jimmy gallantly, “I’d not have
given him the letters. I’d have brought them to you myself. Say, young
man, is the fun really over? Is there nothing for me to do?”

“By Jove,” said Anthony, “there is! Wait a minute.”

He disappeared into the house. In a minute or two he returned with a
paper package which he cast into Jimmy’s arms.

“Go round to the garage and help yourself to a likely looking car. Beat
it to London and deliver that parcel at 17, Everdean Square. That’s
Mr. Balderson’s private address. In exchange he’ll hand you a thousand
pounds.”

“What? It’s not the Memoirs? I understood that they’d been burnt.”

“What do you take me for?” demanded Anthony. “You don’t think I’d fall
for a story like that, do you? I rang up the publishers at once, found
out that the other was a fake call, and arranged accordingly. I made up
a dummy package as I’d been directed to do. But I put the real package
in the Manager’s safe and handed over the dummy. The Memoirs have never
been out of my possession.”

“Bully for you, my son,” said Jimmy.

“Oh, Anthony,” cried Virginia. “You’re not going to let them be
published?”

“I can’t help myself. I can’t let a pal like Jimmy down. But you
needn’t worry. I’ve had time to wade through them, and I see now why
people always hint that bigwigs don’t write their own reminiscences
but hire some one to do it for them. As a writer, Stylptitch is an
insufferable bore. He proses on about statecraft, and doesn’t go in for
any racy and indiscreet anecdotes. His ruling passion of secrecy held
strong to the end. There’s not a word in the Memoirs from beginning to
end to flutter the susceptibilities of the most difficult politician.
I rang up Balderson to-day, and arranged with him that I’d deliver the
manuscript to-night before midnight. But Jimmy can do his own dirty
work now that’s he’s here.”

“I’m off,” said Jimmy. “I like the idea of that thousand
pounds—especially when I’d made up my mind I was down and out.”

“Half a second,” said Anthony. “I’ve got a confession to make to you,
Virginia. Something that every one else knows, but that I haven’t yet
told you.”

“I don’t mind how many strange women you’ve loved so long as you don’t
tell me about them.”

“Women!” said Anthony, with a virtuous air. “Women indeed? You ask
James here what kind of women I was going about with last time he saw
me.”

“Frumps,” said Jimmy solemnly. “Utter frumps. Not one a day under
forty-five.”

“Thank you, Jimmy,” said Anthony, “you’re a true friend. No, it’s much
worse than that. I’ve deceived you as to my real name.”

“Is it very dreadful?” said Virginia, with interest. “It isn’t
something silly like Pobbles, is it? Fancy being called Mrs. Pobbles.”

“You are always thinking the worst of me.”

“I admit that I did once think you were King Victor, but only for about
a minute and a half.”

“By the way, Jimmy, I’ve got a job for you—gold prospecting in the
rocky fastnesses of Herzoslovakia.”

“Is there gold there?” asked Jimmy eagerly.

“Sure to be,” said Anthony. “It’s a wonderful country.”

“So you’re taking my advice and going there?”

“Yes,” said Anthony. “Your advice was worth more than you knew. Now
for the confession. I wasn’t changed at nurse, or anything romantic
like that, but nevertheless I am really Prince Nicholas Obolovitch of
Herzoslovakia.”

“Oh, Anthony,” cried Virginia. “How perfectly screaming! And I have
married you! What are we going to do about it?”

“We’ll go to Herzoslovakia and pretend to be Kings and Queens. Jimmy
McGrath once said that the average life of a King or Queen out there is
under four years. I hope you don’t mind?”

“Mind?” cried Virginia. “I shall love it!”

“Isn’t she great?” murmured Jimmy.

Then, discreetly, he faded into the night. A few minutes later the
sound of a car was heard.

“Nothing like letting a man do his own dirty work,” said Anthony, with
satisfaction. “Besides, I didn’t know how else to get rid of him. Since
we were married I’ve not had one minute alone with you.”

“We’ll have a lot of fun,” said Virginia. “Teaching the brigands not
to be brigands, and the assassins not to assassinate, and generally
improving the moral tone of the country.”

“I like to hear these pure ideals,” said Anthony. “It makes me feel my
sacrifice has not been in vain.”

“Rot,” said Virginia calmly, “you’ll enjoy being a King. It’s in your
blood, you know. You were brought up to the trade of Royalty, and
you’ve got a natural aptitude for it, just like plumbers have a natural
bent for plumbing.”

“I never think they have,” said Anthony. “But damn it all, don’t let’s
waste time talking about plumbers. Do you know that at this very
minute I’m supposed to be deep in conference with Isaacstein and old
Lollipop? They want to talk about oil. Oil, my God! They can just
await my kingly pleasure. Virginia, do you remember my telling you once
that I’d have a damned good try to make you care for me.”

“I remember,” said Virginia softly. “But Superintendent Battle was
looking out of the window.”

“Well, he isn’t now,” said Anthony.

He caught her suddenly to him, kissing her eyelids, her lips, the green
gold of her hair....

“I do love you so, Virginia,” he whispered. “I do love you so. Do you
love me?”

He looked down at her—sure of the answer.

Her head rested against his shoulder, and very low, in a sweet shaken
voice, she answered:

“Not a bit!”

“You little devil,” cried Anthony, kissing her again. “Now I know for
certain that I shall love you until I die....”




31

Sundry Details


Scene—Chimneys, 11 A.M. Thursday morning.

Johnson, the police constable, with his coat off, digging.

Something in the nature of a funeral feeling seems to be in the air.
The friends and relations stand round the grave that Johnson is digging.

George Lomax has the air of the principal beneficiary under the will
of the deceased. Superintendent Battle, with his immovable face, seems
pleased that the funeral arrangements have gone so nicely. As the
undertaker, it reflects credit upon him. Lord Caterham has that solemn
and shocked look which Englishmen assume when a religious ceremony is
in progress.

Mr. Fish does not fit into the picture so well. He is not sufficiently
grave.

Johnson bends to his task. Suddenly he straightens up. A little stir of
excitement passes round.

“That’ll do, sonny,” says Mr. Fish. “We shall do nicely now.”

One perceives at once that he is really the family physician.

Johnson retires. Mr. Fish, with due solemnity, stoops over the
excavation. The surgeon is about to operate.

He brings out a small canvas package. With much ceremony he hands it
to Superintendent Battle. The latter, in his turn, hands it to George
Lomax. The etiquette of the situation has now been fully complied with.

George Lomax unwraps the package, slits up the oil-silk inside it,
burrows into further wrapping. For a moment he holds something on the
palm of his hand—then quickly shrouds it once more in cotton wool.

He clears his throat.

“At this auspicious minute,” he begins, with the clear delivery of the
practised speaker.

Lord Caterham beats a precipitate retreat. On the terrace he finds his
daughter.

“Bundle, is that car of yours in order?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Then take me up to town in it immediately. I’m going abroad at
once—to-day.”

“But, father——”

“Don’t argue with me, Bundle. George Lomax told me when he arrived this
morning that he was anxious to have a few words with me privately on a
matter of the utmost delicacy. He added that the King of Timbuctoo was
arriving in London shortly. I won’t go through it again, Bundle, do you
hear? Not for fifty George Lomaxes! If Chimneys is so valuable to the
nation, let the nation buy it. Otherwise I shall sell it to a syndicate
and they can turn it into an hotel.”

“Where is Codders now?”

Bundle is rising to the situation.

“At the present minute,” replied Lord Caterham, looking at his watch,
“he is good for at least fifteen minutes about the Empire.”

Another picture.

Mr. Bill Eversleigh, not invited to be present at the graveside
ceremony, at the telephone.

“No, really, I mean it.... I say, don’t be huffy.... Well, you will
have supper to-night anyway?... No, I haven’t. I’ve been kept to it
with my nose at the grindstone. You’ve no idea what Codders is like....
I say, Dolly, you know jolly well what I think about you.... You know
I’ve never cared for anyone but you.... Yes, I’ll come to the show
first. How does the old wheeze go? ‘And the little girl tries, Hooks
and Eyes’....”

Unearthly sounds. Mr. Eversleigh trying to hum the refrain in question.

And now George’s peroration draws to a close.

... “the lasting peace and prosperity of the British Empire!”

“I guess,” said Mr. Hiram Fish _sotto voce_ to himself and the world at
large, “that this has been a great little old week.”

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

   Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

   Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.









CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

By Fyodor Dostoevsky



Translated By Constance Garnett




TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE

A few words about Dostoevsky himself may help the English reader to
understand his work.

Dostoevsky was the son of a doctor. His parents were very hard-working
and deeply religious people, but so poor that they lived with their five
children in only two rooms. The father and mother spent their evenings
in reading aloud to their children, generally from books of a serious
character.

Though always sickly and delicate Dostoevsky came out third in the
final examination of the Petersburg school of Engineering. There he had
already begun his first work, “Poor Folk.”

This story was published by the poet Nekrassov in his review and
was received with acclamations. The shy, unknown youth found himself
instantly something of a celebrity. A brilliant and successful career
seemed to open before him, but those hopes were soon dashed. In 1849 he
was arrested.

Though neither by temperament nor conviction a revolutionist, Dostoevsky
was one of a little group of young men who met together to read Fourier
and Proudhon. He was accused of “taking part in conversations against
the censorship, of reading a letter from Byelinsky to Gogol, and of
knowing of the intention to set up a printing press.” Under Nicholas
I. (that “stern and just man,” as Maurice Baring calls him) this was
enough, and he was condemned to death. After eight months’ imprisonment
he was with twenty-one others taken out to the Semyonovsky Square to
be shot. Writing to his brother Mihail, Dostoevsky says: “They snapped
words over our heads, and they made us put on the white shirts worn by
persons condemned to death. Thereupon we were bound in threes to stakes,
to suffer execution. Being the third in the row, I concluded I had only
a few minutes of life before me. I thought of you and your dear ones and
I contrived to kiss Plestcheiev and Dourov, who were next to me, and to
bid them farewell. Suddenly the troops beat a tattoo, we were unbound,
brought back upon the scaffold, and informed that his Majesty had spared
us our lives.” The sentence was commuted to hard labour.

One of the prisoners, Grigoryev, went mad as soon as he was untied, and
never regained his sanity.

The intense suffering of this experience left a lasting stamp on
Dostoevsky’s mind. Though his religious temper led him in the end to
accept every suffering with resignation and to regard it as a blessing
in his own case, he constantly recurs to the subject in his writings.
He describes the awful agony of the condemned man and insists on the
cruelty of inflicting such torture. Then followed four years of penal
servitude, spent in the company of common criminals in Siberia, where
he began the “Dead House,” and some years of service in a disciplinary
battalion.

He had shown signs of some obscure nervous disease before his arrest
and this now developed into violent attacks of epilepsy, from which he
suffered for the rest of his life. The fits occurred three or four times
a year and were more frequent in periods of great strain. In 1859 he was
allowed to return to Russia. He started a journal--“Vremya,” which was
forbidden by the Censorship through a misunderstanding. In 1864 he lost
his first wife and his brother Mihail. He was in terrible poverty, yet
he took upon himself the payment of his brother’s debts. He started
another journal--“The Epoch,” which within a few months was also
prohibited. He was weighed down by debt, his brother’s family was
dependent on him, he was forced to write at heart-breaking speed, and is
said never to have corrected his work. The later years of his life were
much softened by the tenderness and devotion of his second wife.

In June 1880 he made his famous speech at the unveiling of the
monument to Pushkin in Moscow and he was received with extraordinary
demonstrations of love and honour.

A few months later Dostoevsky died. He was followed to the grave by a
vast multitude of mourners, who “gave the hapless man the funeral of a
king.” He is still probably the most widely read writer in Russia.

In the words of a Russian critic, who seeks to explain the feeling
inspired by Dostoevsky: “He was one of ourselves, a man of our blood and
our bone, but one who has suffered and has seen so much more deeply than
we have his insight impresses us as wisdom... that wisdom of the heart
which we seek that we may learn from it how to live. All his other
gifts came to him from nature, this he won for himself and through it he
became great.”





CRIME AND PUNISHMENT




PART I



CHAPTER I

On an exceptionally hot evening early in July a young man came out of
the garret in which he lodged in S. Place and walked slowly, as though
in hesitation, towards K. bridge.

He had successfully avoided meeting his landlady on the staircase. His
garret was under the roof of a high, five-storied house and was more
like a cupboard than a room. The landlady who provided him with garret,
dinners, and attendance, lived on the floor below, and every time
he went out he was obliged to pass her kitchen, the door of which
invariably stood open. And each time he passed, the young man had a
sick, frightened feeling, which made him scowl and feel ashamed. He was
hopelessly in debt to his landlady, and was afraid of meeting her.

This was not because he was cowardly and abject, quite the contrary; but
for some time past he had been in an overstrained irritable condition,
verging on hypochondria. He had become so completely absorbed in
himself, and isolated from his fellows that he dreaded meeting, not
only his landlady, but anyone at all. He was crushed by poverty, but the
anxieties of his position had of late ceased to weigh upon him. He had
given up attending to matters of practical importance; he had lost all
desire to do so. Nothing that any landlady could do had a real terror
for him. But to be stopped on the stairs, to be forced to listen to her
trivial, irrelevant gossip, to pestering demands for payment, threats
and complaints, and to rack his brains for excuses, to prevaricate, to
lie--no, rather than that, he would creep down the stairs like a cat and
slip out unseen.

This evening, however, on coming out into the street, he became acutely
aware of his fears.

“I want to attempt a thing _like that_ and am frightened by these
trifles,” he thought, with an odd smile. “Hm... yes, all is in a man’s
hands and he lets it all slip from cowardice, that’s an axiom. It would
be interesting to know what it is men are most afraid of. Taking a new
step, uttering a new word is what they fear most.... But I am talking
too much. It’s because I chatter that I do nothing. Or perhaps it is
that I chatter because I do nothing. I’ve learned to chatter this
last month, lying for days together in my den thinking... of Jack the
Giant-killer. Why am I going there now? Am I capable of _that_? Is
_that_ serious? It is not serious at all. It’s simply a fantasy to amuse
myself; a plaything! Yes, maybe it is a plaything.”

The heat in the street was terrible: and the airlessness, the bustle
and the plaster, scaffolding, bricks, and dust all about him, and that
special Petersburg stench, so familiar to all who are unable to get out
of town in summer--all worked painfully upon the young man’s already
overwrought nerves. The insufferable stench from the pot-houses, which
are particularly numerous in that part of the town, and the drunken men
whom he met continually, although it was a working day, completed
the revolting misery of the picture. An expression of the profoundest
disgust gleamed for a moment in the young man’s refined face. He was,
by the way, exceptionally handsome, above the average in height, slim,
well-built, with beautiful dark eyes and dark brown hair. Soon he sank
into deep thought, or more accurately speaking into a complete blankness
of mind; he walked along not observing what was about him and not caring
to observe it. From time to time, he would mutter something, from the
habit of talking to himself, to which he had just confessed. At these
moments he would become conscious that his ideas were sometimes in a
tangle and that he was very weak; for two days he had scarcely tasted
food.

He was so badly dressed that even a man accustomed to shabbiness would
have been ashamed to be seen in the street in such rags. In that quarter
of the town, however, scarcely any shortcoming in dress would have
created surprise. Owing to the proximity of the Hay Market, the number
of establishments of bad character, the preponderance of the trading
and working class population crowded in these streets and alleys in the
heart of Petersburg, types so various were to be seen in the streets
that no figure, however queer, would have caused surprise. But there was
such accumulated bitterness and contempt in the young man’s heart, that,
in spite of all the fastidiousness of youth, he minded his rags least
of all in the street. It was a different matter when he met with
acquaintances or with former fellow students, whom, indeed, he disliked
meeting at any time. And yet when a drunken man who, for some unknown
reason, was being taken somewhere in a huge waggon dragged by a heavy
dray horse, suddenly shouted at him as he drove past: “Hey there, German
hatter” bawling at the top of his voice and pointing at him--the young
man stopped suddenly and clutched tremulously at his hat. It was a tall
round hat from Zimmerman’s, but completely worn out, rusty with age, all
torn and bespattered, brimless and bent on one side in a most unseemly
fashion. Not shame, however, but quite another feeling akin to terror
had overtaken him.

“I knew it,” he muttered in confusion, “I thought so! That’s the worst
of all! Why, a stupid thing like this, the most trivial detail might
spoil the whole plan. Yes, my hat is too noticeable.... It looks absurd
and that makes it noticeable.... With my rags I ought to wear a cap, any
sort of old pancake, but not this grotesque thing. Nobody wears such
a hat, it would be noticed a mile off, it would be remembered.... What
matters is that people would remember it, and that would give them
a clue. For this business one should be as little conspicuous as
possible.... Trifles, trifles are what matter! Why, it’s just such
trifles that always ruin everything....”

He had not far to go; he knew indeed how many steps it was from the gate
of his lodging house: exactly seven hundred and thirty. He had counted
them once when he had been lost in dreams. At the time he had put no
faith in those dreams and was only tantalising himself by their hideous
but daring recklessness. Now, a month later, he had begun to look upon
them differently, and, in spite of the monologues in which he jeered at
his own impotence and indecision, he had involuntarily come to regard
this “hideous” dream as an exploit to be attempted, although he
still did not realise this himself. He was positively going now for a
“rehearsal” of his project, and at every step his excitement grew more
and more violent.

With a sinking heart and a nervous tremor, he went up to a huge house
which on one side looked on to the canal, and on the other into the
street. This house was let out in tiny tenements and was inhabited by
working people of all kinds--tailors, locksmiths, cooks, Germans of
sorts, girls picking up a living as best they could, petty clerks, etc.
There was a continual coming and going through the two gates and in the
two courtyards of the house. Three or four door-keepers were employed on
the building. The young man was very glad to meet none of them, and
at once slipped unnoticed through the door on the right, and up the
staircase. It was a back staircase, dark and narrow, but he was familiar
with it already, and knew his way, and he liked all these surroundings:
in such darkness even the most inquisitive eyes were not to be dreaded.

“If I am so scared now, what would it be if it somehow came to pass that
I were really going to do it?” he could not help asking himself as he
reached the fourth storey. There his progress was barred by some porters
who were engaged in moving furniture out of a flat. He knew that the
flat had been occupied by a German clerk in the civil service, and his
family. This German was moving out then, and so the fourth floor on this
staircase would be untenanted except by the old woman. “That’s a good
thing anyway,” he thought to himself, as he rang the bell of the old
woman’s flat. The bell gave a faint tinkle as though it were made of
tin and not of copper. The little flats in such houses always have bells
that ring like that. He had forgotten the note of that bell, and now
its peculiar tinkle seemed to remind him of something and to bring it
clearly before him.... He started, his nerves were terribly overstrained
by now. In a little while, the door was opened a tiny crack: the old
woman eyed her visitor with evident distrust through the crack, and
nothing could be seen but her little eyes, glittering in the darkness.
But, seeing a number of people on the landing, she grew bolder, and
opened the door wide. The young man stepped into the dark entry, which
was partitioned off from the tiny kitchen. The old woman stood facing
him in silence and looking inquiringly at him. She was a diminutive,
withered up old woman of sixty, with sharp malignant eyes and a sharp
little nose. Her colourless, somewhat grizzled hair was thickly smeared
with oil, and she wore no kerchief over it. Round her thin long neck,
which looked like a hen’s leg, was knotted some sort of flannel rag,
and, in spite of the heat, there hung flapping on her shoulders, a mangy
fur cape, yellow with age. The old woman coughed and groaned at every
instant. The young man must have looked at her with a rather peculiar
expression, for a gleam of mistrust came into her eyes again.

“Raskolnikov, a student, I came here a month ago,” the young man made
haste to mutter, with a half bow, remembering that he ought to be more
polite.

“I remember, my good sir, I remember quite well your coming here,” the
old woman said distinctly, still keeping her inquiring eyes on his face.

“And here... I am again on the same errand,” Raskolnikov continued, a
little disconcerted and surprised at the old woman’s mistrust. “Perhaps
she is always like that though, only I did not notice it the other
time,” he thought with an uneasy feeling.

The old woman paused, as though hesitating; then stepped on one side,
and pointing to the door of the room, she said, letting her visitor pass
in front of her:

“Step in, my good sir.”

The little room into which the young man walked, with yellow paper on
the walls, geraniums and muslin curtains in the windows, was brightly
lighted up at that moment by the setting sun.

“So the sun will shine like this _then_ too!” flashed as it were by
chance through Raskolnikov’s mind, and with a rapid glance he scanned
everything in the room, trying as far as possible to notice and
remember its arrangement. But there was nothing special in the room. The
furniture, all very old and of yellow wood, consisted of a sofa with
a huge bent wooden back, an oval table in front of the sofa, a
dressing-table with a looking-glass fixed on it between the windows,
chairs along the walls and two or three half-penny prints in yellow
frames, representing German damsels with birds in their hands--that was
all. In the corner a light was burning before a small ikon. Everything
was very clean; the floor and the furniture were brightly polished;
everything shone.

“Lizaveta’s work,” thought the young man. There was not a speck of dust
to be seen in the whole flat.

“It’s in the houses of spiteful old widows that one finds such
cleanliness,” Raskolnikov thought again, and he stole a curious glance
at the cotton curtain over the door leading into another tiny room, in
which stood the old woman’s bed and chest of drawers and into which he
had never looked before. These two rooms made up the whole flat.

“What do you want?” the old woman said severely, coming into the room
and, as before, standing in front of him so as to look him straight in
the face.

“I’ve brought something to pawn here,” and he drew out of his pocket
an old-fashioned flat silver watch, on the back of which was engraved a
globe; the chain was of steel.

“But the time is up for your last pledge. The month was up the day
before yesterday.”

“I will bring you the interest for another month; wait a little.”

“But that’s for me to do as I please, my good sir, to wait or to sell
your pledge at once.”

“How much will you give me for the watch, Alyona Ivanovna?”

“You come with such trifles, my good sir, it’s scarcely worth anything.
I gave you two roubles last time for your ring and one could buy it
quite new at a jeweler’s for a rouble and a half.”

“Give me four roubles for it, I shall redeem it, it was my father’s. I
shall be getting some money soon.”

“A rouble and a half, and interest in advance, if you like!”

“A rouble and a half!” cried the young man.

“Please yourself”--and the old woman handed him back the watch. The
young man took it, and was so angry that he was on the point of going
away; but checked himself at once, remembering that there was nowhere
else he could go, and that he had had another object also in coming.

“Hand it over,” he said roughly.

The old woman fumbled in her pocket for her keys, and disappeared behind
the curtain into the other room. The young man, left standing alone in
the middle of the room, listened inquisitively, thinking. He could hear
her unlocking the chest of drawers.

“It must be the top drawer,” he reflected. “So she carries the keys in
a pocket on the right. All in one bunch on a steel ring.... And there’s
one key there, three times as big as all the others, with deep notches;
that can’t be the key of the chest of drawers... then there must be some
other chest or strong-box... that’s worth knowing. Strong-boxes always
have keys like that... but how degrading it all is.”

The old woman came back.

“Here, sir: as we say ten copecks the rouble a month, so I must take
fifteen copecks from a rouble and a half for the month in advance. But
for the two roubles I lent you before, you owe me now twenty copecks
on the same reckoning in advance. That makes thirty-five copecks
altogether. So I must give you a rouble and fifteen copecks for the
watch. Here it is.”

“What! only a rouble and fifteen copecks now!”

“Just so.”

The young man did not dispute it and took the money. He looked at the
old woman, and was in no hurry to get away, as though there was still
something he wanted to say or to do, but he did not himself quite know
what.

“I may be bringing you something else in a day or two, Alyona
Ivanovna--a valuable thing--silver--a cigarette-box, as soon as I get it
back from a friend...” he broke off in confusion.

“Well, we will talk about it then, sir.”

“Good-bye--are you always at home alone, your sister is not here with
you?” He asked her as casually as possible as he went out into the
passage.

“What business is she of yours, my good sir?”

“Oh, nothing particular, I simply asked. You are too quick.... Good-day,
Alyona Ivanovna.”

Raskolnikov went out in complete confusion. This confusion became more
and more intense. As he went down the stairs, he even stopped short, two
or three times, as though suddenly struck by some thought. When he was
in the street he cried out, “Oh, God, how loathsome it all is! and
can I, can I possibly.... No, it’s nonsense, it’s rubbish!” he added
resolutely. “And how could such an atrocious thing come into my head?
What filthy things my heart is capable of. Yes, filthy above all,
disgusting, loathsome, loathsome!--and for a whole month I’ve been....”
 But no words, no exclamations, could express his agitation. The feeling
of intense repulsion, which had begun to oppress and torture his heart
while he was on his way to the old woman, had by now reached such a
pitch and had taken such a definite form that he did not know what to
do with himself to escape from his wretchedness. He walked along the
pavement like a drunken man, regardless of the passers-by, and jostling
against them, and only came to his senses when he was in the next
street. Looking round, he noticed that he was standing close to a tavern
which was entered by steps leading from the pavement to the basement.
At that instant two drunken men came out at the door, and abusing and
supporting one another, they mounted the steps. Without stopping to
think, Raskolnikov went down the steps at once. Till that moment he had
never been into a tavern, but now he felt giddy and was tormented by a
burning thirst. He longed for a drink of cold beer, and attributed his
sudden weakness to the want of food. He sat down at a sticky little
table in a dark and dirty corner; ordered some beer, and eagerly drank
off the first glassful. At once he felt easier; and his thoughts became
clear.

“All that’s nonsense,” he said hopefully, “and there is nothing in it
all to worry about! It’s simply physical derangement. Just a glass of
beer, a piece of dry bread--and in one moment the brain is stronger,
the mind is clearer and the will is firm! Phew, how utterly petty it all
is!”

But in spite of this scornful reflection, he was by now looking cheerful
as though he were suddenly set free from a terrible burden: and he gazed
round in a friendly way at the people in the room. But even at that
moment he had a dim foreboding that this happier frame of mind was also
not normal.

There were few people at the time in the tavern. Besides the two drunken
men he had met on the steps, a group consisting of about five men and
a girl with a concertina had gone out at the same time. Their departure
left the room quiet and rather empty. The persons still in the tavern
were a man who appeared to be an artisan, drunk, but not extremely so,
sitting before a pot of beer, and his companion, a huge, stout man with
a grey beard, in a short full-skirted coat. He was very drunk: and had
dropped asleep on the bench; every now and then, he began as though in
his sleep, cracking his fingers, with his arms wide apart and the upper
part of his body bounding about on the bench, while he hummed some
meaningless refrain, trying to recall some such lines as these:

   “His wife a year he fondly loved
    His wife a--a year he--fondly loved.”

Or suddenly waking up again:

   “Walking along the crowded row
    He met the one he used to know.”

But no one shared his enjoyment: his silent companion looked with
positive hostility and mistrust at all these manifestations. There was
another man in the room who looked somewhat like a retired government
clerk. He was sitting apart, now and then sipping from his pot and
looking round at the company. He, too, appeared to be in some agitation.



CHAPTER II

Raskolnikov was not used to crowds, and, as we said before, he avoided
society of every sort, more especially of late. But now all at once he
felt a desire to be with other people. Something new seemed to be taking
place within him, and with it he felt a sort of thirst for company. He
was so weary after a whole month of concentrated wretchedness and gloomy
excitement that he longed to rest, if only for a moment, in some other
world, whatever it might be; and, in spite of the filthiness of the
surroundings, he was glad now to stay in the tavern.

The master of the establishment was in another room, but he frequently
came down some steps into the main room, his jaunty, tarred boots with
red turn-over tops coming into view each time before the rest of his
person. He wore a full coat and a horribly greasy black satin waistcoat,
with no cravat, and his whole face seemed smeared with oil like an
iron lock. At the counter stood a boy of about fourteen, and there was
another boy somewhat younger who handed whatever was wanted. On the
counter lay some sliced cucumber, some pieces of dried black bread, and
some fish, chopped up small, all smelling very bad. It was insufferably
close, and so heavy with the fumes of spirits that five minutes in such
an atmosphere might well make a man drunk.

There are chance meetings with strangers that interest us from the
first moment, before a word is spoken. Such was the impression made on
Raskolnikov by the person sitting a little distance from him, who looked
like a retired clerk. The young man often recalled this impression
afterwards, and even ascribed it to presentiment. He looked repeatedly
at the clerk, partly no doubt because the latter was staring
persistently at him, obviously anxious to enter into conversation. At
the other persons in the room, including the tavern-keeper, the clerk
looked as though he were used to their company, and weary of it, showing
a shade of condescending contempt for them as persons of station and
culture inferior to his own, with whom it would be useless for him to
converse. He was a man over fifty, bald and grizzled, of medium height,
and stoutly built. His face, bloated from continual drinking, was of
a yellow, even greenish, tinge, with swollen eyelids out of which keen
reddish eyes gleamed like little chinks. But there was something very
strange in him; there was a light in his eyes as though of intense
feeling--perhaps there were even thought and intelligence, but at the
same time there was a gleam of something like madness. He was wearing an
old and hopelessly ragged black dress coat, with all its buttons missing
except one, and that one he had buttoned, evidently clinging to this
last trace of respectability. A crumpled shirt front, covered with spots
and stains, protruded from his canvas waistcoat. Like a clerk, he wore
no beard, nor moustache, but had been so long unshaven that his chin
looked like a stiff greyish brush. And there was something respectable
and like an official about his manner too. But he was restless; he
ruffled up his hair and from time to time let his head drop into his
hands dejectedly resting his ragged elbows on the stained and sticky
table. At last he looked straight at Raskolnikov, and said loudly and
resolutely:

“May I venture, honoured sir, to engage you in polite conversation?
Forasmuch as, though your exterior would not command respect, my
experience admonishes me that you are a man of education and not
accustomed to drinking. I have always respected education when in
conjunction with genuine sentiments, and I am besides a titular
counsellor in rank. Marmeladov--such is my name; titular counsellor. I
make bold to inquire--have you been in the service?”

“No, I am studying,” answered the young man, somewhat surprised at
the grandiloquent style of the speaker and also at being so directly
addressed. In spite of the momentary desire he had just been feeling for
company of any sort, on being actually spoken to he felt immediately his
habitual irritable and uneasy aversion for any stranger who approached
or attempted to approach him.

“A student then, or formerly a student,” cried the clerk. “Just what
I thought! I’m a man of experience, immense experience, sir,” and he
tapped his forehead with his fingers in self-approval. “You’ve been a
student or have attended some learned institution!... But allow me....”
 He got up, staggered, took up his jug and glass, and sat down beside
the young man, facing him a little sideways. He was drunk, but spoke
fluently and boldly, only occasionally losing the thread of his
sentences and drawling his words. He pounced upon Raskolnikov as
greedily as though he too had not spoken to a soul for a month.

“Honoured sir,” he began almost with solemnity, “poverty is not a vice,
that’s a true saying. Yet I know too that drunkenness is not a virtue,
and that that’s even truer. But beggary, honoured sir, beggary is a
vice. In poverty you may still retain your innate nobility of soul, but
in beggary--never--no one. For beggary a man is not chased out of human
society with a stick, he is swept out with a broom, so as to make it as
humiliating as possible; and quite right, too, forasmuch as in beggary
I am ready to be the first to humiliate myself. Hence the pot-house!
Honoured sir, a month ago Mr. Lebeziatnikov gave my wife a beating, and
my wife is a very different matter from me! Do you understand? Allow me
to ask you another question out of simple curiosity: have you ever spent
a night on a hay barge, on the Neva?”

“No, I have not happened to,” answered Raskolnikov. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I’ve just come from one and it’s the fifth night I’ve slept
so....” He filled his glass, emptied it and paused. Bits of hay were in
fact clinging to his clothes and sticking to his hair. It seemed quite
probable that he had not undressed or washed for the last five days.
His hands, particularly, were filthy. They were fat and red, with black
nails.

His conversation seemed to excite a general though languid interest. The
boys at the counter fell to sniggering. The innkeeper came down from the
upper room, apparently on purpose to listen to the “funny fellow”
 and sat down at a little distance, yawning lazily, but with dignity.
Evidently Marmeladov was a familiar figure here, and he had most
likely acquired his weakness for high-flown speeches from the habit of
frequently entering into conversation with strangers of all sorts in
the tavern. This habit develops into a necessity in some drunkards, and
especially in those who are looked after sharply and kept in order
at home. Hence in the company of other drinkers they try to justify
themselves and even if possible obtain consideration.

“Funny fellow!” pronounced the innkeeper. “And why don’t you work, why
aren’t you at your duty, if you are in the service?”

“Why am I not at my duty, honoured sir,” Marmeladov went on, addressing
himself exclusively to Raskolnikov, as though it had been he who put
that question to him. “Why am I not at my duty? Does not my heart ache
to think what a useless worm I am? A month ago when Mr. Lebeziatnikov
beat my wife with his own hands, and I lay drunk, didn’t I suffer?
Excuse me, young man, has it ever happened to you... hm... well, to
petition hopelessly for a loan?”

“Yes, it has. But what do you mean by hopelessly?”

“Hopelessly in the fullest sense, when you know beforehand that you
will get nothing by it. You know, for instance, beforehand with positive
certainty that this man, this most reputable and exemplary citizen, will
on no consideration give you money; and indeed I ask you why should he?
For he knows of course that I shan’t pay it back. From compassion? But
Mr. Lebeziatnikov who keeps up with modern ideas explained the other day
that compassion is forbidden nowadays by science itself, and that that’s
what is done now in England, where there is political economy. Why, I
ask you, should he give it to me? And yet though I know beforehand that
he won’t, I set off to him and...”

“Why do you go?” put in Raskolnikov.

“Well, when one has no one, nowhere else one can go! For every man must
have somewhere to go. Since there are times when one absolutely must
go somewhere! When my own daughter first went out with a yellow ticket,
then I had to go... (for my daughter has a yellow passport),” he added
in parenthesis, looking with a certain uneasiness at the young man.
“No matter, sir, no matter!” he went on hurriedly and with apparent
composure when both the boys at the counter guffawed and even the
innkeeper smiled--“No matter, I am not confounded by the wagging of
their heads; for everyone knows everything about it already, and all
that is secret is made open. And I accept it all, not with contempt, but
with humility. So be it! So be it! ‘Behold the man!’ Excuse me, young
man, can you.... No, to put it more strongly and more distinctly; not
_can_ you but _dare_ you, looking upon me, assert that I am not a pig?”

The young man did not answer a word.

“Well,” the orator began again stolidly and with even increased dignity,
after waiting for the laughter in the room to subside. “Well, so be
it, I am a pig, but she is a lady! I have the semblance of a beast, but
Katerina Ivanovna, my spouse, is a person of education and an officer’s
daughter. Granted, granted, I am a scoundrel, but she is a woman of a
noble heart, full of sentiments, refined by education. And yet... oh,
if only she felt for me! Honoured sir, honoured sir, you know every man
ought to have at least one place where people feel for him! But Katerina
Ivanovna, though she is magnanimous, she is unjust.... And yet, although
I realise that when she pulls my hair she only does it out of pity--for
I repeat without being ashamed, she pulls my hair, young man,” he
declared with redoubled dignity, hearing the sniggering again--“but, my
God, if she would but once.... But no, no! It’s all in vain and it’s no
use talking! No use talking! For more than once, my wish did come true
and more than once she has felt for me but... such is my fate and I am a
beast by nature!”

“Rather!” assented the innkeeper yawning. Marmeladov struck his fist
resolutely on the table.

“Such is my fate! Do you know, sir, do you know, I have sold her very
stockings for drink? Not her shoes--that would be more or less in the
order of things, but her stockings, her stockings I have sold for drink!
Her mohair shawl I sold for drink, a present to her long ago, her own
property, not mine; and we live in a cold room and she caught cold this
winter and has begun coughing and spitting blood too. We have three
little children and Katerina Ivanovna is at work from morning till
night; she is scrubbing and cleaning and washing the children, for she’s
been used to cleanliness from a child. But her chest is weak and she has
a tendency to consumption and I feel it! Do you suppose I don’t feel it?
And the more I drink the more I feel it. That’s why I drink too. I try
to find sympathy and feeling in drink.... I drink so that I may suffer
twice as much!” And as though in despair he laid his head down on the
table.

“Young man,” he went on, raising his head again, “in your face I seem to
read some trouble of mind. When you came in I read it, and that was why
I addressed you at once. For in unfolding to you the story of my life, I
do not wish to make myself a laughing-stock before these idle listeners,
who indeed know all about it already, but I am looking for a man
of feeling and education. Know then that my wife was educated in a
high-class school for the daughters of noblemen, and on leaving she
danced the shawl dance before the governor and other personages for
which she was presented with a gold medal and a certificate of merit.
The medal... well, the medal of course was sold--long ago, hm... but the
certificate of merit is in her trunk still and not long ago she showed
it to our landlady. And although she is most continually on bad terms
with the landlady, yet she wanted to tell someone or other of her past
honours and of the happy days that are gone. I don’t condemn her for
it, I don’t blame her, for the one thing left her is recollection of
the past, and all the rest is dust and ashes. Yes, yes, she is a lady
of spirit, proud and determined. She scrubs the floors herself and has
nothing but black bread to eat, but won’t allow herself to be treated
with disrespect. That’s why she would not overlook Mr. Lebeziatnikov’s
rudeness to her, and so when he gave her a beating for it, she took to
her bed more from the hurt to her feelings than from the blows. She was
a widow when I married her, with three children, one smaller than the
other. She married her first husband, an infantry officer, for love, and
ran away with him from her father’s house. She was exceedingly fond of
her husband; but he gave way to cards, got into trouble and with that he
died. He used to beat her at the end: and although she paid him back, of
which I have authentic documentary evidence, to this day she speaks of
him with tears and she throws him up to me; and I am glad, I am glad
that, though only in imagination, she should think of herself as having
once been happy.... And she was left at his death with three children in
a wild and remote district where I happened to be at the time; and she
was left in such hopeless poverty that, although I have seen many ups
and downs of all sort, I don’t feel equal to describing it even. Her
relations had all thrown her off. And she was proud, too, excessively
proud.... And then, honoured sir, and then, I, being at the time a
widower, with a daughter of fourteen left me by my first wife, offered
her my hand, for I could not bear the sight of such suffering. You can
judge the extremity of her calamities, that she, a woman of education
and culture and distinguished family, should have consented to be my
wife. But she did! Weeping and sobbing and wringing her hands, she
married me! For she had nowhere to turn! Do you understand, sir, do you
understand what it means when you have absolutely nowhere to turn? No,
that you don’t understand yet.... And for a whole year, I performed
my duties conscientiously and faithfully, and did not touch this” (he
tapped the jug with his finger), “for I have feelings. But even so, I
could not please her; and then I lost my place too, and that through no
fault of mine but through changes in the office; and then I did touch
it!... It will be a year and a half ago soon since we found ourselves at
last after many wanderings and numerous calamities in this magnificent
capital, adorned with innumerable monuments. Here I obtained a
situation.... I obtained it and I lost it again. Do you understand? This
time it was through my own fault I lost it: for my weakness had come
out.... We have now part of a room at Amalia Fyodorovna Lippevechsel’s;
and what we live upon and what we pay our rent with, I could not say.
There are a lot of people living there besides ourselves. Dirt and
disorder, a perfect Bedlam... hm... yes... And meanwhile my daughter by
my first wife has grown up; and what my daughter has had to put up with
from her step-mother whilst she was growing up, I won’t speak of. For,
though Katerina Ivanovna is full of generous feelings, she is a spirited
lady, irritable and short-tempered.... Yes. But it’s no use going over
that! Sonia, as you may well fancy, has had no education. I did make an
effort four years ago to give her a course of geography and universal
history, but as I was not very well up in those subjects myself and we
had no suitable books, and what books we had... hm, anyway we have not
even those now, so all our instruction came to an end. We stopped at
Cyrus of Persia. Since she has attained years of maturity, she has read
other books of romantic tendency and of late she had read with great
interest a book she got through Mr. Lebeziatnikov, Lewes’ Physiology--do
you know it?--and even recounted extracts from it to us: and that’s the
whole of her education. And now may I venture to address you, honoured
sir, on my own account with a private question. Do you suppose that
a respectable poor girl can earn much by honest work? Not fifteen
farthings a day can she earn, if she is respectable and has no special
talent and that without putting her work down for an instant! And what’s
more, Ivan Ivanitch Klopstock the civil counsellor--have you heard of
him?--has not to this day paid her for the half-dozen linen shirts she
made him and drove her roughly away, stamping and reviling her, on the
pretext that the shirt collars were not made like the pattern and were
put in askew. And there are the little ones hungry.... And Katerina
Ivanovna walking up and down and wringing her hands, her cheeks flushed
red, as they always are in that disease: ‘Here you live with us,’ says
she, ‘you eat and drink and are kept warm and you do nothing to help.’
And much she gets to eat and drink when there is not a crust for the
little ones for three days! I was lying at the time... well, what of
it! I was lying drunk and I heard my Sonia speaking (she is a gentle
creature with a soft little voice... fair hair and such a pale, thin
little face). She said: ‘Katerina Ivanovna, am I really to do a thing
like that?’ And Darya Frantsovna, a woman of evil character and very
well known to the police, had two or three times tried to get at her
through the landlady. ‘And why not?’ said Katerina Ivanovna with a jeer,
‘you are something mighty precious to be so careful of!’ But don’t blame
her, don’t blame her, honoured sir, don’t blame her! She was not herself
when she spoke, but driven to distraction by her illness and the crying
of the hungry children; and it was said more to wound her than anything
else.... For that’s Katerina Ivanovna’s character, and when children
cry, even from hunger, she falls to beating them at once. At six o’clock
I saw Sonia get up, put on her kerchief and her cape, and go out of the
room and about nine o’clock she came back. She walked straight up to
Katerina Ivanovna and she laid thirty roubles on the table before her
in silence. She did not utter a word, she did not even look at her, she
simply picked up our big green _drap de dames_ shawl (we have a shawl,
made of _drap de dames_), put it over her head and face and lay down
on the bed with her face to the wall; only her little shoulders and her
body kept shuddering.... And I went on lying there, just as before....
And then I saw, young man, I saw Katerina Ivanovna, in the same silence
go up to Sonia’s little bed; she was on her knees all the evening
kissing Sonia’s feet, and would not get up, and then they both fell
asleep in each other’s arms... together, together... yes... and I... lay
drunk.”

Marmeladov stopped short, as though his voice had failed him. Then he
hurriedly filled his glass, drank, and cleared his throat.

“Since then, sir,” he went on after a brief pause--“Since then, owing
to an unfortunate occurrence and through information given by
evil-intentioned persons--in all which Darya Frantsovna took a
leading part on the pretext that she had been treated with want of
respect--since then my daughter Sofya Semyonovna has been forced to take
a yellow ticket, and owing to that she is unable to go on living with
us. For our landlady, Amalia Fyodorovna would not hear of it (though
she had backed up Darya Frantsovna before) and Mr. Lebeziatnikov too...
hm.... All the trouble between him and Katerina Ivanovna was on Sonia’s
account. At first he was for making up to Sonia himself and then all of
a sudden he stood on his dignity: ‘how,’ said he, ‘can a highly educated
man like me live in the same rooms with a girl like that?’ And Katerina
Ivanovna would not let it pass, she stood up for her... and so that’s
how it happened. And Sonia comes to us now, mostly after dark; she
comforts Katerina Ivanovna and gives her all she can.... She has a room
at the Kapernaumovs’ the tailors, she lodges with them; Kapernaumov is
a lame man with a cleft palate and all of his numerous family have cleft
palates too. And his wife, too, has a cleft palate. They all live in one
room, but Sonia has her own, partitioned off.... Hm... yes... very poor
people and all with cleft palates... yes. Then I got up in the morning,
and put on my rags, lifted up my hands to heaven and set off to his
excellency Ivan Afanasyvitch. His excellency Ivan Afanasyvitch, do you
know him? No? Well, then, it’s a man of God you don’t know. He is wax...
wax before the face of the Lord; even as wax melteth!... His eyes were
dim when he heard my story. ‘Marmeladov, once already you have
deceived my expectations... I’ll take you once more on my own
responsibility’--that’s what he said, ‘remember,’ he said, ‘and now you
can go.’ I kissed the dust at his feet--in thought only, for in reality
he would not have allowed me to do it, being a statesman and a man of
modern political and enlightened ideas. I returned home, and when I
announced that I’d been taken back into the service and should receive a
salary, heavens, what a to-do there was!...”

Marmeladov stopped again in violent excitement. At that moment a whole
party of revellers already drunk came in from the street, and the sounds
of a hired concertina and the cracked piping voice of a child of seven
singing “The Hamlet” were heard in the entry. The room was filled with
noise. The tavern-keeper and the boys were busy with the new-comers.
Marmeladov paying no attention to the new arrivals continued his story.
He appeared by now to be extremely weak, but as he became more and more
drunk, he became more and more talkative. The recollection of his
recent success in getting the situation seemed to revive him, and was
positively reflected in a sort of radiance on his face. Raskolnikov
listened attentively.

“That was five weeks ago, sir. Yes.... As soon as Katerina Ivanovna
and Sonia heard of it, mercy on us, it was as though I stepped into the
kingdom of Heaven. It used to be: you can lie like a beast, nothing but
abuse. Now they were walking on tiptoe, hushing the children. ‘Semyon
Zaharovitch is tired with his work at the office, he is resting, shh!’
They made me coffee before I went to work and boiled cream for me! They
began to get real cream for me, do you hear that? And how they managed
to get together the money for a decent outfit--eleven roubles, fifty
copecks, I can’t guess. Boots, cotton shirt-fronts--most magnificent,
a uniform, they got up all in splendid style, for eleven roubles and
a half. The first morning I came back from the office I found Katerina
Ivanovna had cooked two courses for dinner--soup and salt meat with
horse radish--which we had never dreamed of till then. She had not any
dresses... none at all, but she got herself up as though she were going
on a visit; and not that she’d anything to do it with, she smartened
herself up with nothing at all, she’d done her hair nicely, put on a
clean collar of some sort, cuffs, and there she was, quite a different
person, she was younger and better looking. Sonia, my little darling,
had only helped with money ‘for the time,’ she said, ‘it won’t do for me
to come and see you too often. After dark maybe when no one can see.’ Do
you hear, do you hear? I lay down for a nap after dinner and what do you
think: though Katerina Ivanovna had quarrelled to the last degree with
our landlady Amalia Fyodorovna only a week before, she could not
resist then asking her in to coffee. For two hours they were sitting,
whispering together. ‘Semyon Zaharovitch is in the service again,
now, and receiving a salary,’ says she, ‘and he went himself to his
excellency and his excellency himself came out to him, made all the
others wait and led Semyon Zaharovitch by the hand before everybody into
his study.’ Do you hear, do you hear? ‘To be sure,’ says he, ‘Semyon
Zaharovitch, remembering your past services,’ says he, ‘and in spite
of your propensity to that foolish weakness, since you promise now and
since moreover we’ve got on badly without you,’ (do you hear, do you
hear;) ‘and so,’ says he, ‘I rely now on your word as a gentleman.’ And
all that, let me tell you, she has simply made up for herself, and not
simply out of wantonness, for the sake of bragging; no, she believes it
all herself, she amuses herself with her own fancies, upon my word she
does! And I don’t blame her for it, no, I don’t blame her!... Six days
ago when I brought her my first earnings in full--twenty-three roubles
forty copecks altogether--she called me her poppet: ‘poppet,’ said she,
‘my little poppet.’ And when we were by ourselves, you understand?
You would not think me a beauty, you would not think much of me as a
husband, would you?... Well, she pinched my cheek, ‘my little poppet,’
said she.”

Marmeladov broke off, tried to smile, but suddenly his chin began
to twitch. He controlled himself however. The tavern, the degraded
appearance of the man, the five nights in the hay barge, and the pot of
spirits, and yet this poignant love for his wife and children bewildered
his listener. Raskolnikov listened intently but with a sick sensation.
He felt vexed that he had come here.

“Honoured sir, honoured sir,” cried Marmeladov recovering himself--“Oh,
sir, perhaps all this seems a laughing matter to you, as it does to
others, and perhaps I am only worrying you with the stupidity of all the
trivial details of my home life, but it is not a laughing matter to me.
For I can feel it all.... And the whole of that heavenly day of my life
and the whole of that evening I passed in fleeting dreams of how I would
arrange it all, and how I would dress all the children, and how I should
give her rest, and how I should rescue my own daughter from dishonour
and restore her to the bosom of her family.... And a great deal more....
Quite excusable, sir. Well, then, sir” (Marmeladov suddenly gave a sort
of start, raised his head and gazed intently at his listener) “well, on
the very next day after all those dreams, that is to say, exactly five
days ago, in the evening, by a cunning trick, like a thief in the night,
I stole from Katerina Ivanovna the key of her box, took out what was
left of my earnings, how much it was I have forgotten, and now look
at me, all of you! It’s the fifth day since I left home, and they are
looking for me there and it’s the end of my employment, and my uniform
is lying in a tavern on the Egyptian bridge. I exchanged it for the
garments I have on... and it’s the end of everything!”

Marmeladov struck his forehead with his fist, clenched his teeth, closed
his eyes and leaned heavily with his elbow on the table. But a minute
later his face suddenly changed and with a certain assumed slyness and
affectation of bravado, he glanced at Raskolnikov, laughed and said:

“This morning I went to see Sonia, I went to ask her for a pick-me-up!
He-he-he!”

“You don’t say she gave it to you?” cried one of the new-comers; he
shouted the words and went off into a guffaw.

“This very quart was bought with her money,” Marmeladov declared,
addressing himself exclusively to Raskolnikov. “Thirty copecks she gave
me with her own hands, her last, all she had, as I saw.... She said
nothing, she only looked at me without a word.... Not on earth, but up
yonder... they grieve over men, they weep, but they don’t blame them,
they don’t blame them! But it hurts more, it hurts more when they don’t
blame! Thirty copecks yes! And maybe she needs them now, eh? What do
you think, my dear sir? For now she’s got to keep up her appearance. It
costs money, that smartness, that special smartness, you know? Do you
understand? And there’s pomatum, too, you see, she must have things;
petticoats, starched ones, shoes, too, real jaunty ones to show off her
foot when she has to step over a puddle. Do you understand, sir, do you
understand what all that smartness means? And here I, her own father,
here I took thirty copecks of that money for a drink! And I am drinking
it! And I have already drunk it! Come, who will have pity on a man like
me, eh? Are you sorry for me, sir, or not? Tell me, sir, are you sorry
or not? He-he-he!”

He would have filled his glass, but there was no drink left. The pot was
empty.

“What are you to be pitied for?” shouted the tavern-keeper who was again
near them.

Shouts of laughter and even oaths followed. The laughter and the oaths
came from those who were listening and also from those who had heard
nothing but were simply looking at the figure of the discharged
government clerk.

“To be pitied! Why am I to be pitied?” Marmeladov suddenly declaimed,
standing up with his arm outstretched, as though he had been only
waiting for that question.

“Why am I to be pitied, you say? Yes! there’s nothing to pity me for! I
ought to be crucified, crucified on a cross, not pitied! Crucify me,
oh judge, crucify me but pity me! And then I will go of myself to be
crucified, for it’s not merry-making I seek but tears and tribulation!...
Do you suppose, you that sell, that this pint of yours has been
sweet to me? It was tribulation I sought at the bottom of it, tears and
tribulation, and have found it, and I have tasted it; but He will pity
us Who has had pity on all men, Who has understood all men and all
things, He is the One, He too is the judge. He will come in that day
and He will ask: ‘Where is the daughter who gave herself for her cross,
consumptive step-mother and for the little children of another? Where is
the daughter who had pity upon the filthy drunkard, her earthly father,
undismayed by his beastliness?’ And He will say, ‘Come to me! I have
already forgiven thee once.... I have forgiven thee once.... Thy sins
which are many are forgiven thee for thou hast loved much....’ And he
will forgive my Sonia, He will forgive, I know it... I felt it in my
heart when I was with her just now! And He will judge and will forgive
all, the good and the evil, the wise and the meek.... And when He has
done with all of them, then He will summon us. ‘You too come forth,’
He will say, ‘Come forth ye drunkards, come forth, ye weak ones, come
forth, ye children of shame!’ And we shall all come forth, without shame
and shall stand before him. And He will say unto us, ‘Ye are swine, made
in the Image of the Beast and with his mark; but come ye also!’ And the
wise ones and those of understanding will say, ‘Oh Lord, why dost Thou
receive these men?’ And He will say, ‘This is why I receive them, oh ye
wise, this is why I receive them, oh ye of understanding, that not one
of them believed himself to be worthy of this.’ And He will hold out His
hands to us and we shall fall down before him... and we shall weep...
and we shall understand all things! Then we shall understand all!... and
all will understand, Katerina Ivanovna even... she will understand....
Lord, Thy kingdom come!” And he sank down on the bench exhausted, and
helpless, looking at no one, apparently oblivious of his surroundings
and plunged in deep thought. His words had created a certain impression;
there was a moment of silence; but soon laughter and oaths were heard
again.

“That’s his notion!”

“Talked himself silly!”

“A fine clerk he is!”

And so on, and so on.

“Let us go, sir,” said Marmeladov all at once, raising his head and
addressing Raskolnikov--“come along with me... Kozel’s house, looking
into the yard. I’m going to Katerina Ivanovna--time I did.”

Raskolnikov had for some time been wanting to go and he had meant to
help him. Marmeladov was much unsteadier on his legs than in his speech
and leaned heavily on the young man. They had two or three hundred
paces to go. The drunken man was more and more overcome by dismay and
confusion as they drew nearer the house.

“It’s not Katerina Ivanovna I am afraid of now,” he muttered in
agitation--“and that she will begin pulling my hair. What does my hair
matter! Bother my hair! That’s what I say! Indeed it will be better if
she does begin pulling it, that’s not what I am afraid of... it’s her
eyes I am afraid of... yes, her eyes... the red on her cheeks, too,
frightens me... and her breathing too.... Have you noticed how people
in that disease breathe... when they are excited? I am frightened of
the children’s crying, too.... For if Sonia has not taken them food...
I don’t know what’s happened! I don’t know! But blows I am not afraid
of.... Know, sir, that such blows are not a pain to me, but even an
enjoyment. In fact I can’t get on without it.... It’s better so. Let
her strike me, it relieves her heart... it’s better so... There is the
house. The house of Kozel, the cabinet-maker... a German, well-to-do.
Lead the way!”

They went in from the yard and up to the fourth storey. The staircase
got darker and darker as they went up. It was nearly eleven o’clock
and although in summer in Petersburg there is no real night, yet it was
quite dark at the top of the stairs.

A grimy little door at the very top of the stairs stood ajar. A very
poor-looking room about ten paces long was lighted up by a candle-end;
the whole of it was visible from the entrance. It was all in disorder,
littered up with rags of all sorts, especially children’s garments.
Across the furthest corner was stretched a ragged sheet. Behind it
probably was the bed. There was nothing in the room except two chairs
and a sofa covered with American leather, full of holes, before which
stood an old deal kitchen-table, unpainted and uncovered. At the edge
of the table stood a smoldering tallow-candle in an iron candlestick. It
appeared that the family had a room to themselves, not part of a room,
but their room was practically a passage. The door leading to the other
rooms, or rather cupboards, into which Amalia Lippevechsel’s flat was
divided stood half open, and there was shouting, uproar and laughter
within. People seemed to be playing cards and drinking tea there. Words
of the most unceremonious kind flew out from time to time.

Raskolnikov recognised Katerina Ivanovna at once. She was a rather tall,
slim and graceful woman, terribly emaciated, with magnificent dark brown
hair and with a hectic flush in her cheeks. She was pacing up and down
in her little room, pressing her hands against her chest; her lips
were parched and her breathing came in nervous broken gasps. Her eyes
glittered as in fever and looked about with a harsh immovable stare. And
that consumptive and excited face with the last flickering light of the
candle-end playing upon it made a sickening impression. She seemed to
Raskolnikov about thirty years old and was certainly a strange wife for
Marmeladov.... She had not heard them and did not notice them coming in.
She seemed to be lost in thought, hearing and seeing nothing. The room
was close, but she had not opened the window; a stench rose from the
staircase, but the door on to the stairs was not closed. From the inner
rooms clouds of tobacco smoke floated in, she kept coughing, but did not
close the door. The youngest child, a girl of six, was asleep, sitting
curled up on the floor with her head on the sofa. A boy a year older
stood crying and shaking in the corner, probably he had just had a
beating. Beside him stood a girl of nine years old, tall and thin,
wearing a thin and ragged chemise with an ancient cashmere pelisse flung
over her bare shoulders, long outgrown and barely reaching her knees.
Her arm, as thin as a stick, was round her brother’s neck. She was
trying to comfort him, whispering something to him, and doing all she
could to keep him from whimpering again. At the same time her large
dark eyes, which looked larger still from the thinness of her frightened
face, were watching her mother with alarm. Marmeladov did not enter the
door, but dropped on his knees in the very doorway, pushing Raskolnikov
in front of him. The woman seeing a stranger stopped indifferently
facing him, coming to herself for a moment and apparently wondering what
he had come for. But evidently she decided that he was going into
the next room, as he had to pass through hers to get there. Taking no
further notice of him, she walked towards the outer door to close it
and uttered a sudden scream on seeing her husband on his knees in the
doorway.

“Ah!” she cried out in a frenzy, “he has come back! The criminal! the
monster!... And where is the money? What’s in your pocket, show me! And
your clothes are all different! Where are your clothes? Where is the
money! Speak!”

And she fell to searching him. Marmeladov submissively and obediently
held up both arms to facilitate the search. Not a farthing was there.

“Where is the money?” she cried--“Mercy on us, can he have drunk it all?
There were twelve silver roubles left in the chest!” and in a fury
she seized him by the hair and dragged him into the room. Marmeladov
seconded her efforts by meekly crawling along on his knees.

“And this is a consolation to me! This does not hurt me, but is a
positive con-so-la-tion, ho-nou-red sir,” he called out, shaken to and
fro by his hair and even once striking the ground with his forehead.
The child asleep on the floor woke up, and began to cry. The boy in the
corner losing all control began trembling and screaming and rushed
to his sister in violent terror, almost in a fit. The eldest girl was
shaking like a leaf.

“He’s drunk it! he’s drunk it all,” the poor woman screamed in
despair--“and his clothes are gone! And they are hungry, hungry!”--and
wringing her hands she pointed to the children. “Oh, accursed life!
And you, are you not ashamed?”--she pounced all at once upon
Raskolnikov--“from the tavern! Have you been drinking with him? You have
been drinking with him, too! Go away!”

The young man was hastening away without uttering a word. The inner door
was thrown wide open and inquisitive faces were peering in at it. Coarse
laughing faces with pipes and cigarettes and heads wearing caps thrust
themselves in at the doorway. Further in could be seen figures in
dressing gowns flung open, in costumes of unseemly scantiness, some of
them with cards in their hands. They were particularly diverted, when
Marmeladov, dragged about by his hair, shouted that it was a consolation
to him. They even began to come into the room; at last a sinister shrill
outcry was heard: this came from Amalia Lippevechsel herself pushing her
way amongst them and trying to restore order after her own fashion and
for the hundredth time to frighten the poor woman by ordering her
with coarse abuse to clear out of the room next day. As he went out,
Raskolnikov had time to put his hand into his pocket, to snatch up the
coppers he had received in exchange for his rouble in the tavern and to
lay them unnoticed on the window. Afterwards on the stairs, he changed
his mind and would have gone back.

“What a stupid thing I’ve done,” he thought to himself, “they have Sonia
and I want it myself.” But reflecting that it would be impossible to
take it back now and that in any case he would not have taken it, he
dismissed it with a wave of his hand and went back to his lodging.
“Sonia wants pomatum too,” he said as he walked along the street, and he
laughed malignantly--“such smartness costs money.... Hm! And maybe Sonia
herself will be bankrupt to-day, for there is always a risk, hunting
big game... digging for gold... then they would all be without a crust
to-morrow except for my money. Hurrah for Sonia! What a mine they’ve dug
there! And they’re making the most of it! Yes, they are making the most
of it! They’ve wept over it and grown used to it. Man grows used to
everything, the scoundrel!”

He sank into thought.

“And what if I am wrong,” he cried suddenly after a moment’s thought.
“What if man is not really a scoundrel, man in general, I mean, the
whole race of mankind--then all the rest is prejudice, simply artificial
terrors and there are no barriers and it’s all as it should be.”



CHAPTER III

He waked up late next day after a broken sleep. But his sleep had not
refreshed him; he waked up bilious, irritable, ill-tempered, and looked
with hatred at his room. It was a tiny cupboard of a room about six
paces in length. It had a poverty-stricken appearance with its dusty
yellow paper peeling off the walls, and it was so low-pitched that a man
of more than average height was ill at ease in it and felt every moment
that he would knock his head against the ceiling. The furniture was in
keeping with the room: there were three old chairs, rather rickety; a
painted table in the corner on which lay a few manuscripts and books;
the dust that lay thick upon them showed that they had been long
untouched. A big clumsy sofa occupied almost the whole of one wall and
half the floor space of the room; it was once covered with chintz, but
was now in rags and served Raskolnikov as a bed. Often he went to sleep
on it, as he was, without undressing, without sheets, wrapped in his old
student’s overcoat, with his head on one little pillow, under which he
heaped up all the linen he had, clean and dirty, by way of a bolster. A
little table stood in front of the sofa.

It would have been difficult to sink to a lower ebb of disorder, but to
Raskolnikov in his present state of mind this was positively agreeable.
He had got completely away from everyone, like a tortoise in its shell,
and even the sight of a servant girl who had to wait upon him and looked
sometimes into his room made him writhe with nervous irritation. He was
in the condition that overtakes some monomaniacs entirely concentrated
upon one thing. His landlady had for the last fortnight given up sending
him in meals, and he had not yet thought of expostulating with her,
though he went without his dinner. Nastasya, the cook and only servant,
was rather pleased at the lodger’s mood and had entirely given up
sweeping and doing his room, only once a week or so she would stray into
his room with a broom. She waked him up that day.

“Get up, why are you asleep?” she called to him. “It’s past nine, I have
brought you some tea; will you have a cup? I should think you’re fairly
starving?”

Raskolnikov opened his eyes, started and recognised Nastasya.

“From the landlady, eh?” he asked, slowly and with a sickly face sitting
up on the sofa.

“From the landlady, indeed!”

She set before him her own cracked teapot full of weak and stale tea and
laid two yellow lumps of sugar by the side of it.

“Here, Nastasya, take it please,” he said, fumbling in his pocket (for
he had slept in his clothes) and taking out a handful of coppers--“run
and buy me a loaf. And get me a little sausage, the cheapest, at the
pork-butcher’s.”

“The loaf I’ll fetch you this very minute, but wouldn’t you rather have
some cabbage soup instead of sausage? It’s capital soup, yesterday’s. I
saved it for you yesterday, but you came in late. It’s fine soup.”

When the soup had been brought, and he had begun upon it, Nastasya
sat down beside him on the sofa and began chatting. She was a country
peasant-woman and a very talkative one.

“Praskovya Pavlovna means to complain to the police about you,” she
said.

He scowled.

“To the police? What does she want?”

“You don’t pay her money and you won’t turn out of the room. That’s what
she wants, to be sure.”

“The devil, that’s the last straw,” he muttered, grinding his teeth,
“no, that would not suit me... just now. She is a fool,” he added aloud.
“I’ll go and talk to her to-day.”

“Fool she is and no mistake, just as I am. But why, if you are so
clever, do you lie here like a sack and have nothing to show for it? One
time you used to go out, you say, to teach children. But why is it you
do nothing now?”

“I am doing...” Raskolnikov began sullenly and reluctantly.

“What are you doing?”

“Work...”

“What sort of work?”

“I am thinking,” he answered seriously after a pause.

Nastasya was overcome with a fit of laughter. She was given to laughter
and when anything amused her, she laughed inaudibly, quivering and
shaking all over till she felt ill.

“And have you made much money by your thinking?” she managed to
articulate at last.

“One can’t go out to give lessons without boots. And I’m sick of it.”

“Don’t quarrel with your bread and butter.”

“They pay so little for lessons. What’s the use of a few coppers?” he
answered, reluctantly, as though replying to his own thought.

“And you want to get a fortune all at once?”

He looked at her strangely.

“Yes, I want a fortune,” he answered firmly, after a brief pause.

“Don’t be in such a hurry, you quite frighten me! Shall I get you the
loaf or not?”

“As you please.”

“Ah, I forgot! A letter came for you yesterday when you were out.”

“A letter? for me! from whom?”

“I can’t say. I gave three copecks of my own to the postman for it. Will
you pay me back?”

“Then bring it to me, for God’s sake, bring it,” cried Raskolnikov
greatly excited--“good God!”

A minute later the letter was brought him. That was it: from his mother,
from the province of R----. He turned pale when he took it. It was a
long while since he had received a letter, but another feeling also
suddenly stabbed his heart.

“Nastasya, leave me alone, for goodness’ sake; here are your three
copecks, but for goodness’ sake, make haste and go!”

The letter was quivering in his hand; he did not want to open it in her
presence; he wanted to be left _alone_ with this letter. When Nastasya
had gone out, he lifted it quickly to his lips and kissed it; then he
gazed intently at the address, the small, sloping handwriting, so dear
and familiar, of the mother who had once taught him to read and write.
He delayed; he seemed almost afraid of something. At last he opened it;
it was a thick heavy letter, weighing over two ounces, two large sheets
of note paper were covered with very small handwriting.

“My dear Rodya,” wrote his mother--“it’s two months since I last had a
talk with you by letter which has distressed me and even kept me
awake at night, thinking. But I am sure you will not blame me for my
inevitable silence. You know how I love you; you are all we have to look
to, Dounia and I, you are our all, our one hope, our one stay. What a
grief it was to me when I heard that you had given up the university
some months ago, for want of means to keep yourself and that you had
lost your lessons and your other work! How could I help you out of my
hundred and twenty roubles a year pension? The fifteen roubles I sent
you four months ago I borrowed, as you know, on security of my pension,
from Vassily Ivanovitch Vahrushin a merchant of this town. He is a
kind-hearted man and was a friend of your father’s too. But having given
him the right to receive the pension, I had to wait till the debt was
paid off and that is only just done, so that I’ve been unable to send
you anything all this time. But now, thank God, I believe I shall
be able to send you something more and in fact we may congratulate
ourselves on our good fortune now, of which I hasten to inform you. In
the first place, would you have guessed, dear Rodya, that your sister
has been living with me for the last six weeks and we shall not be
separated in the future. Thank God, her sufferings are over, but I will
tell you everything in order, so that you may know just how everything
has happened and all that we have hitherto concealed from you. When you
wrote to me two months ago that you had heard that Dounia had a great
deal to put up with in the Svidrigaïlovs’ house, when you wrote that
and asked me to tell you all about it--what could I write in answer to
you? If I had written the whole truth to you, I dare say you would have
thrown up everything and have come to us, even if you had to walk all
the way, for I know your character and your feelings, and you would not
let your sister be insulted. I was in despair myself, but what could I
do? And, besides, I did not know the whole truth myself then. What
made it all so difficult was that Dounia received a hundred roubles
in advance when she took the place as governess in their family, on
condition of part of her salary being deducted every month, and so it
was impossible to throw up the situation without repaying the debt.
This sum (now I can explain it all to you, my precious Rodya) she took
chiefly in order to send you sixty roubles, which you needed so terribly
then and which you received from us last year. We deceived you then,
writing that this money came from Dounia’s savings, but that was not
so, and now I tell you all about it, because, thank God, things have
suddenly changed for the better, and that you may know how Dounia loves
you and what a heart she has. At first indeed Mr. Svidrigaïlov treated
her very rudely and used to make disrespectful and jeering remarks at
table.... But I don’t want to go into all those painful details, so as
not to worry you for nothing when it is now all over. In short, in spite
of the kind and generous behaviour of Marfa Petrovna, Mr. Svidrigaïlov’s
wife, and all the rest of the household, Dounia had a very hard time,
especially when Mr. Svidrigaïlov, relapsing into his old regimental
habits, was under the influence of Bacchus. And how do you think it
was all explained later on? Would you believe that the crazy fellow had
conceived a passion for Dounia from the beginning, but had concealed
it under a show of rudeness and contempt. Possibly he was ashamed and
horrified himself at his own flighty hopes, considering his years and
his being the father of a family; and that made him angry with Dounia.
And possibly, too, he hoped by his rude and sneering behaviour to hide
the truth from others. But at last he lost all control and had the face
to make Dounia an open and shameful proposal, promising her all sorts of
inducements and offering, besides, to throw up everything and take her
to another estate of his, or even abroad. You can imagine all she went
through! To leave her situation at once was impossible not only on
account of the money debt, but also to spare the feelings of Marfa
Petrovna, whose suspicions would have been aroused: and then Dounia
would have been the cause of a rupture in the family. And it would
have meant a terrible scandal for Dounia too; that would have been
inevitable. There were various other reasons owing to which Dounia could
not hope to escape from that awful house for another six weeks. You know
Dounia, of course; you know how clever she is and what a strong will she
has. Dounia can endure a great deal and even in the most difficult cases
she has the fortitude to maintain her firmness. She did not even write
to me about everything for fear of upsetting me, although we were
constantly in communication. It all ended very unexpectedly. Marfa
Petrovna accidentally overheard her husband imploring Dounia in the
garden, and, putting quite a wrong interpretation on the position, threw
the blame upon her, believing her to be the cause of it all. An awful
scene took place between them on the spot in the garden; Marfa Petrovna
went so far as to strike Dounia, refused to hear anything and was
shouting at her for a whole hour and then gave orders that Dounia should
be packed off at once to me in a plain peasant’s cart, into which they
flung all her things, her linen and her clothes, all pell-mell, without
folding it up and packing it. And a heavy shower of rain came on, too,
and Dounia, insulted and put to shame, had to drive with a peasant in an
open cart all the seventeen versts into town. Only think now what answer
could I have sent to the letter I received from you two months ago and
what could I have written? I was in despair; I dared not write to
you the truth because you would have been very unhappy, mortified
and indignant, and yet what could you do? You could only perhaps ruin
yourself, and, besides, Dounia would not allow it; and fill up my letter
with trifles when my heart was so full of sorrow, I could not. For a
whole month the town was full of gossip about this scandal, and it came
to such a pass that Dounia and I dared not even go to church on account
of the contemptuous looks, whispers, and even remarks made aloud about
us. All our acquaintances avoided us, nobody even bowed to us in the
street, and I learnt that some shopmen and clerks were intending to
insult us in a shameful way, smearing the gates of our house with pitch,
so that the landlord began to tell us we must leave. All this was set
going by Marfa Petrovna who managed to slander Dounia and throw dirt at
her in every family. She knows everyone in the neighbourhood, and that
month she was continually coming into the town, and as she is
rather talkative and fond of gossiping about her family affairs and
particularly of complaining to all and each of her husband--which is not
at all right--so in a short time she had spread her story not only in
the town, but over the whole surrounding district. It made me ill, but
Dounia bore it better than I did, and if only you could have seen how
she endured it all and tried to comfort me and cheer me up! She is
an angel! But by God’s mercy, our sufferings were cut short: Mr.
Svidrigaïlov returned to his senses and repented and, probably
feeling sorry for Dounia, he laid before Marfa Petrovna a complete and
unmistakable proof of Dounia’s innocence, in the form of a letter Dounia
had been forced to write and give to him, before Marfa Petrovna
came upon them in the garden. This letter, which remained in Mr.
Svidrigaïlov’s hands after her departure, she had written to refuse
personal explanations and secret interviews, for which he was entreating
her. In that letter she reproached him with great heat and indignation
for the baseness of his behaviour in regard to Marfa Petrovna, reminding
him that he was the father and head of a family and telling him how
infamous it was of him to torment and make unhappy a defenceless girl,
unhappy enough already. Indeed, dear Rodya, the letter was so nobly and
touchingly written that I sobbed when I read it and to this day I cannot
read it without tears. Moreover, the evidence of the servants, too,
cleared Dounia’s reputation; they had seen and known a great deal more
than Mr. Svidrigaïlov had himself supposed--as indeed is always the case
with servants. Marfa Petrovna was completely taken aback, and ‘again
crushed’ as she said herself to us, but she was completely convinced of
Dounia’s innocence. The very next day, being Sunday, she went straight
to the Cathedral, knelt down and prayed with tears to Our Lady to give
her strength to bear this new trial and to do her duty. Then she
came straight from the Cathedral to us, told us the whole story, wept
bitterly and, fully penitent, she embraced Dounia and besought her to
forgive her. The same morning without any delay, she went round to all
the houses in the town and everywhere, shedding tears, she asserted in
the most flattering terms Dounia’s innocence and the nobility of
her feelings and her behavior. What was more, she showed and read to
everyone the letter in Dounia’s own handwriting to Mr. Svidrigaïlov and
even allowed them to take copies of it--which I must say I think was
superfluous. In this way she was busy for several days in driving about
the whole town, because some people had taken offence through precedence
having been given to others. And therefore they had to take turns, so
that in every house she was expected before she arrived, and everyone
knew that on such and such a day Marfa Petrovna would be reading the
letter in such and such a place and people assembled for every reading
of it, even many who had heard it several times already both in their
own houses and in other people’s. In my opinion a great deal, a very
great deal of all this was unnecessary; but that’s Marfa Petrovna’s
character. Anyway she succeeded in completely re-establishing Dounia’s
reputation and the whole ignominy of this affair rested as an indelible
disgrace upon her husband, as the only person to blame, so that I really
began to feel sorry for him; it was really treating the crazy fellow too
harshly. Dounia was at once asked to give lessons in several families,
but she refused. All of a sudden everyone began to treat her with marked
respect and all this did much to bring about the event by which, one may
say, our whole fortunes are now transformed. You must know, dear Rodya,
that Dounia has a suitor and that she has already consented to marry
him. I hasten to tell you all about the matter, and though it has been
arranged without asking your consent, I think you will not be aggrieved
with me or with your sister on that account, for you will see that we
could not wait and put off our decision till we heard from you. And you
could not have judged all the facts without being on the spot. This
was how it happened. He is already of the rank of a counsellor, Pyotr
Petrovitch Luzhin, and is distantly related to Marfa Petrovna, who
has been very active in bringing the match about. It began with his
expressing through her his desire to make our acquaintance. He was
properly received, drank coffee with us and the very next day he sent
us a letter in which he very courteously made an offer and begged for a
speedy and decided answer. He is a very busy man and is in a great hurry
to get to Petersburg, so that every moment is precious to him. At first,
of course, we were greatly surprised, as it had all happened so quickly
and unexpectedly. We thought and talked it over the whole day. He is a
well-to-do man, to be depended upon, he has two posts in the government
and has already made his fortune. It is true that he is forty-five years
old, but he is of a fairly prepossessing appearance and might still be
thought attractive by women, and he is altogether a very respectable and
presentable man, only he seems a little morose and somewhat conceited.
But possibly that may only be the impression he makes at first sight.
And beware, dear Rodya, when he comes to Petersburg, as he shortly will
do, beware of judging him too hastily and severely, as your way is, if
there is anything you do not like in him at first sight. I give you this
warning, although I feel sure that he will make a favourable impression
upon you. Moreover, in order to understand any man one must be
deliberate and careful to avoid forming prejudices and mistaken ideas,
which are very difficult to correct and get over afterwards. And Pyotr
Petrovitch, judging by many indications, is a thoroughly estimable man.
At his first visit, indeed, he told us that he was a practical man, but
still he shares, as he expressed it, many of the convictions ‘of our
most rising generation’ and he is an opponent of all prejudices. He
said a good deal more, for he seems a little conceited and likes to be
listened to, but this is scarcely a vice. I, of course, understood very
little of it, but Dounia explained to me that, though he is not a man
of great education, he is clever and seems to be good-natured. You know
your sister’s character, Rodya. She is a resolute, sensible, patient and
generous girl, but she has a passionate heart, as I know very well.
Of course, there is no great love either on his side, or on hers, but
Dounia is a clever girl and has the heart of an angel, and will make
it her duty to make her husband happy who on his side will make her
happiness his care. Of that we have no good reason to doubt, though it
must be admitted the matter has been arranged in great haste. Besides he
is a man of great prudence and he will see, to be sure, of himself, that
his own happiness will be the more secure, the happier Dounia is with
him. And as for some defects of character, for some habits and even
certain differences of opinion--which indeed are inevitable even in
the happiest marriages--Dounia has said that, as regards all that, she
relies on herself, that there is nothing to be uneasy about, and
that she is ready to put up with a great deal, if only their future
relationship can be an honourable and straightforward one. He struck me,
for instance, at first, as rather abrupt, but that may well come
from his being an outspoken man, and that is no doubt how it is. For
instance, at his second visit, after he had received Dounia’s consent,
in the course of conversation, he declared that before making
Dounia’s acquaintance, he had made up his mind to marry a girl of
good reputation, without dowry and, above all, one who had experienced
poverty, because, as he explained, a man ought not to be indebted to his
wife, but that it is better for a wife to look upon her husband as her
benefactor. I must add that he expressed it more nicely and politely
than I have done, for I have forgotten his actual phrases and only
remember the meaning. And, besides, it was obviously not said of design,
but slipped out in the heat of conversation, so that he tried afterwards
to correct himself and smooth it over, but all the same it did strike
me as somewhat rude, and I said so afterwards to Dounia. But Dounia was
vexed, and answered that ‘words are not deeds,’ and that, of course, is
perfectly true. Dounia did not sleep all night before she made up
her mind, and, thinking that I was asleep, she got out of bed and was
walking up and down the room all night; at last she knelt down before
the ikon and prayed long and fervently and in the morning she told me
that she had decided.

“I have mentioned already that Pyotr Petrovitch is just setting off for
Petersburg, where he has a great deal of business, and he wants to open
a legal bureau. He has been occupied for many years in conducting civil
and commercial litigation, and only the other day he won an important
case. He has to be in Petersburg because he has an important case before
the Senate. So, Rodya dear, he may be of the greatest use to you, in
every way indeed, and Dounia and I have agreed that from this very day
you could definitely enter upon your career and might consider that
your future is marked out and assured for you. Oh, if only this comes to
pass! This would be such a benefit that we could only look upon it as a
providential blessing. Dounia is dreaming of nothing else. We have even
ventured already to drop a few words on the subject to Pyotr Petrovitch.
He was cautious in his answer, and said that, of course, as he could not
get on without a secretary, it would be better to be paying a salary to
a relation than to a stranger, if only the former were fitted for the
duties (as though there could be doubt of your being fitted!) but then
he expressed doubts whether your studies at the university would leave
you time for work at his office. The matter dropped for the time, but
Dounia is thinking of nothing else now. She has been in a sort of fever
for the last few days, and has already made a regular plan for
your becoming in the end an associate and even a partner in Pyotr
Petrovitch’s business, which might well be, seeing that you are a
student of law. I am in complete agreement with her, Rodya, and share
all her plans and hopes, and think there is every probability of
realising them. And in spite of Pyotr Petrovitch’s evasiveness, very
natural at present (since he does not know you), Dounia is firmly
persuaded that she will gain everything by her good influence over her
future husband; this she is reckoning upon. Of course we are careful
not to talk of any of these more remote plans to Pyotr Petrovitch,
especially of your becoming his partner. He is a practical man and might
take this very coldly, it might all seem to him simply a day-dream. Nor
has either Dounia or I breathed a word to him of the great hopes we have
of his helping us to pay for your university studies; we have not spoken
of it in the first place, because it will come to pass of itself,
later on, and he will no doubt without wasting words offer to do it of
himself, (as though he could refuse Dounia that) the more readily since
you may by your own efforts become his right hand in the office, and
receive this assistance not as a charity, but as a salary earned by your
own work. Dounia wants to arrange it all like this and I quite agree
with her. And we have not spoken of our plans for another reason, that
is, because I particularly wanted you to feel on an equal footing when
you first meet him. When Dounia spoke to him with enthusiasm about
you, he answered that one could never judge of a man without seeing
him close, for oneself, and that he looked forward to forming his own
opinion when he makes your acquaintance. Do you know, my precious
Rodya, I think that perhaps for some reasons (nothing to do with Pyotr
Petrovitch though, simply for my own personal, perhaps old-womanish,
fancies) I should do better to go on living by myself, apart, than with
them, after the wedding. I am convinced that he will be generous and
delicate enough to invite me and to urge me to remain with my daughter
for the future, and if he has said nothing about it hitherto, it is
simply because it has been taken for granted; but I shall refuse. I have
noticed more than once in my life that husbands don’t quite get on with
their mothers-in-law, and I don’t want to be the least bit in anyone’s
way, and for my own sake, too, would rather be quite independent, so
long as I have a crust of bread of my own, and such children as you and
Dounia. If possible, I would settle somewhere near you, for the most
joyful piece of news, dear Rodya, I have kept for the end of my letter:
know then, my dear boy, that we may, perhaps, be all together in a
very short time and may embrace one another again after a separation of
almost three years! It is settled _for certain_ that Dounia and I are to
set off for Petersburg, exactly when I don’t know, but very, very soon,
possibly in a week. It all depends on Pyotr Petrovitch who will let us
know when he has had time to look round him in Petersburg. To suit his
own arrangements he is anxious to have the ceremony as soon as possible,
even before the fast of Our Lady, if it could be managed, or if that is
too soon to be ready, immediately after. Oh, with what happiness I shall
press you to my heart! Dounia is all excitement at the joyful thought
of seeing you, she said one day in joke that she would be ready to marry
Pyotr Petrovitch for that alone. She is an angel! She is not writing
anything to you now, and has only told me to write that she has so much,
so much to tell you that she is not going to take up her pen now, for
a few lines would tell you nothing, and it would only mean upsetting
herself; she bids me send you her love and innumerable kisses. But
although we shall be meeting so soon, perhaps I shall send you as much
money as I can in a day or two. Now that everyone has heard that Dounia
is to marry Pyotr Petrovitch, my credit has suddenly improved and I know
that Afanasy Ivanovitch will trust me now even to seventy-five roubles
on the security of my pension, so that perhaps I shall be able to send
you twenty-five or even thirty roubles. I would send you more, but I am
uneasy about our travelling expenses; for though Pyotr Petrovitch has
been so kind as to undertake part of the expenses of the journey, that
is to say, he has taken upon himself the conveyance of our bags and big
trunk (which will be conveyed through some acquaintances of his), we
must reckon upon some expense on our arrival in Petersburg, where we
can’t be left without a halfpenny, at least for the first few days. But
we have calculated it all, Dounia and I, to the last penny, and we see
that the journey will not cost very much. It is only ninety versts from
us to the railway and we have come to an agreement with a driver we
know, so as to be in readiness; and from there Dounia and I can travel
quite comfortably third class. So that I may very likely be able to send
to you not twenty-five, but thirty roubles. But enough; I have covered
two sheets already and there is no space left for more; our whole
history, but so many events have happened! And now, my precious Rodya,
I embrace you and send you a mother’s blessing till we meet. Love Dounia
your sister, Rodya; love her as she loves you and understand that she
loves you beyond everything, more than herself. She is an angel and you,
Rodya, you are everything to us--our one hope, our one consolation. If
only you are happy, we shall be happy. Do you still say your prayers,
Rodya, and believe in the mercy of our Creator and our Redeemer? I am
afraid in my heart that you may have been visited by the new spirit of
infidelity that is abroad to-day; If it is so, I pray for you. Remember,
dear boy, how in your childhood, when your father was living, you used
to lisp your prayers at my knee, and how happy we all were in those
days. Good-bye, till we meet then--I embrace you warmly, warmly, with
many kisses.

“Yours till death,

“PULCHERIA RASKOLNIKOV.”


Almost from the first, while he read the letter, Raskolnikov’s face was
wet with tears; but when he finished it, his face was pale and distorted
and a bitter, wrathful and malignant smile was on his lips. He laid his
head down on his threadbare dirty pillow and pondered, pondered a long
time. His heart was beating violently, and his brain was in a turmoil.
At last he felt cramped and stifled in the little yellow room that was
like a cupboard or a box. His eyes and his mind craved for space. He
took up his hat and went out, this time without dread of meeting
anyone; he had forgotten his dread. He turned in the direction of the
Vassilyevsky Ostrov, walking along Vassilyevsky Prospect, as though
hastening on some business, but he walked, as his habit was, without
noticing his way, muttering and even speaking aloud to himself, to the
astonishment of the passers-by. Many of them took him to be drunk.



CHAPTER IV

His mother’s letter had been a torture to him, but as regards the chief
fact in it, he had felt not one moment’s hesitation, even whilst he was
reading the letter. The essential question was settled, and irrevocably
settled, in his mind: “Never such a marriage while I am alive and
Mr. Luzhin be damned!” “The thing is perfectly clear,” he muttered
to himself, with a malignant smile anticipating the triumph of his
decision. “No, mother, no, Dounia, you won’t deceive me! and then they
apologise for not asking my advice and for taking the decision without
me! I dare say! They imagine it is arranged now and can’t be broken
off; but we will see whether it can or not! A magnificent excuse:
‘Pyotr Petrovitch is such a busy man that even his wedding has to be in
post-haste, almost by express.’ No, Dounia, I see it all and I know what
you want to say to me; and I know too what you were thinking about, when
you walked up and down all night, and what your prayers were like before
the Holy Mother of Kazan who stands in mother’s bedroom. Bitter is
the ascent to Golgotha.... Hm... so it is finally settled; you have
determined to marry a sensible business man, Avdotya Romanovna, one
who has a fortune (has _already_ made his fortune, that is so much
more solid and impressive), a man who holds two government posts and who
shares the ideas of our most rising generation, as mother writes, and
who _seems_ to be kind, as Dounia herself observes. That _seems_ beats
everything! And that very Dounia for that very ‘_seems_’ is marrying
him! Splendid! splendid!

“... But I should like to know why mother has written to me about ‘our
most rising generation’? Simply as a descriptive touch, or with the idea
of prepossessing me in favour of Mr. Luzhin? Oh, the cunning of them!
I should like to know one thing more: how far they were open with one
another that day and night and all this time since? Was it all put into
_words_, or did both understand that they had the same thing at heart
and in their minds, so that there was no need to speak of it aloud, and
better not to speak of it. Most likely it was partly like that, from
mother’s letter it’s evident: he struck her as rude _a little_, and
mother in her simplicity took her observations to Dounia. And she was
sure to be vexed and ‘answered her angrily.’ I should think so! Who
would not be angered when it was quite clear without any naïve questions
and when it was understood that it was useless to discuss it. And why
does she write to me, ‘love Dounia, Rodya, and she loves you more than
herself’? Has she a secret conscience-prick at sacrificing her daughter
to her son? ‘You are our one comfort, you are everything to us.’ Oh,
mother!”

His bitterness grew more and more intense, and if he had happened to
meet Mr. Luzhin at the moment, he might have murdered him.

“Hm... yes, that’s true,” he continued, pursuing the whirling ideas that
chased each other in his brain, “it is true that ‘it needs time and care
to get to know a man,’ but there is no mistake about Mr. Luzhin. The
chief thing is he is ‘a man of business and _seems_ kind,’ that was
something, wasn’t it, to send the bags and big box for them! A kind man,
no doubt after that! But his _bride_ and her mother are to drive in a
peasant’s cart covered with sacking (I know, I have been driven in
it). No matter! It is only ninety versts and then they can ‘travel very
comfortably, third class,’ for a thousand versts! Quite right, too. One
must cut one’s coat according to one’s cloth, but what about you, Mr.
Luzhin? She is your bride.... And you must be aware that her mother has
to raise money on her pension for the journey. To be sure it’s a matter
of business, a partnership for mutual benefit, with equal shares and
expenses;--food and drink provided, but pay for your tobacco. The
business man has got the better of them, too. The luggage will cost less
than their fares and very likely go for nothing. How is it that they
don’t both see all that, or is it that they don’t want to see? And
they are pleased, pleased! And to think that this is only the first
blossoming, and that the real fruits are to come! But what really
matters is not the stinginess, is not the meanness, but the _tone_
of the whole thing. For that will be the tone after marriage, it’s a
foretaste of it. And mother too, why should she be so lavish? What will
she have by the time she gets to Petersburg? Three silver roubles or
two ‘paper ones’ as _she_ says.... that old woman... hm. What does
she expect to live upon in Petersburg afterwards? She has her reasons
already for guessing that she _could not_ live with Dounia after the
marriage, even for the first few months. The good man has no doubt let
slip something on that subject also, though mother would deny it: ‘I
shall refuse,’ says she. On whom is she reckoning then? Is she counting
on what is left of her hundred and twenty roubles of pension when
Afanasy Ivanovitch’s debt is paid? She knits woollen shawls and
embroiders cuffs, ruining her old eyes. And all her shawls don’t add
more than twenty roubles a year to her hundred and twenty, I know
that. So she is building all her hopes all the time on Mr. Luzhin’s
generosity; ‘he will offer it of himself, he will press it on me.’
You may wait a long time for that! That’s how it always is with these
Schilleresque noble hearts; till the last moment every goose is a swan
with them, till the last moment, they hope for the best and will see
nothing wrong, and although they have an inkling of the other side of
the picture, yet they won’t face the truth till they are forced to; the
very thought of it makes them shiver; they thrust the truth away with
both hands, until the man they deck out in false colours puts a fool’s
cap on them with his own hands. I should like to know whether Mr. Luzhin
has any orders of merit; I bet he has the Anna in his buttonhole and
that he puts it on when he goes to dine with contractors or merchants.
He will be sure to have it for his wedding, too! Enough of him, confound
him!

“Well,... mother I don’t wonder at, it’s like her, God bless her, but
how could Dounia? Dounia darling, as though I did not know you! You were
nearly twenty when I saw you last: I understood you then. Mother writes
that ‘Dounia can put up with a great deal.’ I know that very well. I
knew that two years and a half ago, and for the last two and a half
years I have been thinking about it, thinking of just that, that ‘Dounia
can put up with a great deal.’ If she could put up with Mr. Svidrigaïlov
and all the rest of it, she certainly can put up with a great deal. And
now mother and she have taken it into their heads that she can put up
with Mr. Luzhin, who propounds the theory of the superiority of
wives raised from destitution and owing everything to their husband’s
bounty--who propounds it, too, almost at the first interview. Granted
that he ‘let it slip,’ though he is a sensible man, (yet maybe it
was not a slip at all, but he meant to make himself clear as soon as
possible) but Dounia, Dounia? She understands the man, of course, but
she will have to live with the man. Why! she’d live on black bread
and water, she would not sell her soul, she would not barter her moral
freedom for comfort; she would not barter it for all Schleswig-Holstein,
much less Mr. Luzhin’s money. No, Dounia was not that sort when I knew
her and... she is still the same, of course! Yes, there’s no denying,
the Svidrigaïlovs are a bitter pill! It’s a bitter thing to spend one’s
life a governess in the provinces for two hundred roubles, but I know
she would rather be a nigger on a plantation or a Lett with a German
master than degrade her soul, and her moral dignity, by binding herself
for ever to a man whom she does not respect and with whom she has
nothing in common--for her own advantage. And if Mr. Luzhin had been of
unalloyed gold, or one huge diamond, she would never have consented to
become his legal concubine. Why is she consenting then? What’s the
point of it? What’s the answer? It’s clear enough: for herself, for her
comfort, to save her life she would not sell herself, but for someone
else she is doing it! For one she loves, for one she adores, she will
sell herself! That’s what it all amounts to; for her brother, for her
mother, she will sell herself! She will sell everything! In such cases,
‘we overcome our moral feeling if necessary,’ freedom, peace, conscience
even, all, all are brought into the market. Let my life go, if only my
dear ones may be happy! More than that, we become casuists, we learn
to be Jesuitical and for a time maybe we can soothe ourselves, we can
persuade ourselves that it is one’s duty for a good object. That’s just
like us, it’s as clear as daylight. It’s clear that Rodion Romanovitch
Raskolnikov is the central figure in the business, and no one else. Oh,
yes, she can ensure his happiness, keep him in the university, make him
a partner in the office, make his whole future secure; perhaps he may
even be a rich man later on, prosperous, respected, and may even end his
life a famous man! But my mother? It’s all Rodya, precious Rodya, her
first born! For such a son who would not sacrifice such a daughter! Oh,
loving, over-partial hearts! Why, for his sake we would not shrink even
from Sonia’s fate. Sonia, Sonia Marmeladov, the eternal victim so long
as the world lasts. Have you taken the measure of your sacrifice, both
of you? Is it right? Can you bear it? Is it any use? Is there sense in
it? And let me tell you, Dounia, Sonia’s life is no worse than life with
Mr. Luzhin. ‘There can be no question of love,’ mother writes. And what
if there can be no respect either, if on the contrary there is aversion,
contempt, repulsion, what then? So you will have to ‘keep up your
appearance,’ too. Is not that so? Do you understand what that smartness
means? Do you understand that the Luzhin smartness is just the same
thing as Sonia’s and may be worse, viler, baser, because in your case,
Dounia, it’s a bargain for luxuries, after all, but with Sonia it’s
simply a question of starvation. It has to be paid for, it has to be
paid for, Dounia, this smartness. And what if it’s more than you can
bear afterwards, if you regret it? The bitterness, the misery, the
curses, the tears hidden from all the world, for you are not a Marfa
Petrovna. And how will your mother feel then? Even now she is uneasy,
she is worried, but then, when she sees it all clearly? And I? Yes,
indeed, what have you taken me for? I won’t have your sacrifice, Dounia,
I won’t have it, mother! It shall not be, so long as I am alive, it
shall not, it shall not! I won’t accept it!”

He suddenly paused in his reflection and stood still.

“It shall not be? But what are you going to do to prevent it? You’ll
forbid it? And what right have you? What can you promise them on your
side to give you such a right? Your whole life, your whole future, you
will devote to them _when you have finished your studies and obtained a
post_? Yes, we have heard all that before, and that’s all _words_, but
now? Now something must be done, now, do you understand that? And
what are you doing now? You are living upon them. They borrow on their
hundred roubles pension. They borrow from the Svidrigaïlovs. How are
you going to save them from Svidrigaïlovs, from Afanasy Ivanovitch
Vahrushin, oh, future millionaire Zeus who would arrange their lives for
them? In another ten years? In another ten years, mother will be blind
with knitting shawls, maybe with weeping too. She will be worn to a
shadow with fasting; and my sister? Imagine for a moment what may have
become of your sister in ten years? What may happen to her during those
ten years? Can you fancy?”

So he tortured himself, fretting himself with such questions, and
finding a kind of enjoyment in it. And yet all these questions were not
new ones suddenly confronting him, they were old familiar aches. It was
long since they had first begun to grip and rend his heart. Long, long
ago his present anguish had its first beginnings; it had waxed and
gathered strength, it had matured and concentrated, until it had taken
the form of a fearful, frenzied and fantastic question, which tortured
his heart and mind, clamouring insistently for an answer. Now his
mother’s letter had burst on him like a thunderclap. It was clear
that he must not now suffer passively, worrying himself over unsolved
questions, but that he must do something, do it at once, and do it
quickly. Anyway he must decide on something, or else...

“Or throw up life altogether!” he cried suddenly, in a frenzy--“accept
one’s lot humbly as it is, once for all and stifle everything in
oneself, giving up all claim to activity, life and love!”

“Do you understand, sir, do you understand what it means when you have
absolutely nowhere to turn?” Marmeladov’s question came suddenly into
his mind, “for every man must have somewhere to turn....”

He gave a sudden start; another thought, that he had had yesterday,
slipped back into his mind. But he did not start at the thought
recurring to him, for he knew, he had _felt beforehand_, that it must
come back, he was expecting it; besides it was not only yesterday’s
thought. The difference was that a month ago, yesterday even, the
thought was a mere dream: but now... now it appeared not a dream at all,
it had taken a new menacing and quite unfamiliar shape, and he suddenly
became aware of this himself.... He felt a hammering in his head, and
there was a darkness before his eyes.

He looked round hurriedly, he was searching for something. He wanted
to sit down and was looking for a seat; he was walking along the K----
Boulevard. There was a seat about a hundred paces in front of him. He
walked towards it as fast he could; but on the way he met with a little
adventure which absorbed all his attention. Looking for the seat, he had
noticed a woman walking some twenty paces in front of him, but at first
he took no more notice of her than of other objects that crossed his
path. It had happened to him many times going home not to notice the
road by which he was going, and he was accustomed to walk like that. But
there was at first sight something so strange about the woman in front
of him, that gradually his attention was riveted upon her, at first
reluctantly and, as it were, resentfully, and then more and more
intently. He felt a sudden desire to find out what it was that was so
strange about the woman. In the first place, she appeared to be a girl
quite young, and she was walking in the great heat bareheaded and with
no parasol or gloves, waving her arms about in an absurd way. She had
on a dress of some light silky material, but put on strangely awry, not
properly hooked up, and torn open at the top of the skirt, close to the
waist: a great piece was rent and hanging loose. A little kerchief was
flung about her bare throat, but lay slanting on one side. The girl was
walking unsteadily, too, stumbling and staggering from side to side. She
drew Raskolnikov’s whole attention at last. He overtook the girl at the
seat, but, on reaching it, she dropped down on it, in the corner;
she let her head sink on the back of the seat and closed her eyes,
apparently in extreme exhaustion. Looking at her closely, he saw at once
that she was completely drunk. It was a strange and shocking sight. He
could hardly believe that he was not mistaken. He saw before him the
face of a quite young, fair-haired girl--sixteen, perhaps not more than
fifteen, years old, pretty little face, but flushed and heavy looking
and, as it were, swollen. The girl seemed hardly to know what she was
doing; she crossed one leg over the other, lifting it indecorously, and
showed every sign of being unconscious that she was in the street.

Raskolnikov did not sit down, but he felt unwilling to leave her,
and stood facing her in perplexity. This boulevard was never much
frequented; and now, at two o’clock, in the stifling heat, it was quite
deserted. And yet on the further side of the boulevard, about fifteen
paces away, a gentleman was standing on the edge of the pavement. He,
too, would apparently have liked to approach the girl with some object
of his own. He, too, had probably seen her in the distance and had
followed her, but found Raskolnikov in his way. He looked angrily at
him, though he tried to escape his notice, and stood impatiently biding
his time, till the unwelcome man in rags should have moved away. His
intentions were unmistakable. The gentleman was a plump, thickly-set
man, about thirty, fashionably dressed, with a high colour, red lips and
moustaches. Raskolnikov felt furious; he had a sudden longing to insult
this fat dandy in some way. He left the girl for a moment and walked
towards the gentleman.

“Hey! You Svidrigaïlov! What do you want here?” he shouted, clenching
his fists and laughing, spluttering with rage.

“What do you mean?” the gentleman asked sternly, scowling in haughty
astonishment.

“Get away, that’s what I mean.”

“How dare you, you low fellow!”

He raised his cane. Raskolnikov rushed at him with his fists, without
reflecting that the stout gentleman was a match for two men like
himself. But at that instant someone seized him from behind, and a
police constable stood between them.

“That’s enough, gentlemen, no fighting, please, in a public place. What
do you want? Who are you?” he asked Raskolnikov sternly, noticing his
rags.

Raskolnikov looked at him intently. He had a straight-forward, sensible,
soldierly face, with grey moustaches and whiskers.

“You are just the man I want,” Raskolnikov cried, catching at his arm.
“I am a student, Raskolnikov.... You may as well know that too,” he
added, addressing the gentleman, “come along, I have something to show
you.”

And taking the policeman by the hand he drew him towards the seat.

“Look here, hopelessly drunk, and she has just come down the boulevard.
There is no telling who and what she is, she does not look like a
professional. It’s more likely she has been given drink and deceived
somewhere... for the first time... you understand? and they’ve put her
out into the street like that. Look at the way her dress is torn, and
the way it has been put on: she has been dressed by somebody, she has
not dressed herself, and dressed by unpractised hands, by a man’s hands;
that’s evident. And now look there: I don’t know that dandy with whom I
was going to fight, I see him for the first time, but he, too, has seen
her on the road, just now, drunk, not knowing what she is doing, and now
he is very eager to get hold of her, to get her away somewhere while she
is in this state... that’s certain, believe me, I am not wrong. I saw
him myself watching her and following her, but I prevented him, and he
is just waiting for me to go away. Now he has walked away a little, and
is standing still, pretending to make a cigarette.... Think how can we
keep her out of his hands, and how are we to get her home?”

The policeman saw it all in a flash. The stout gentleman was easy to
understand, he turned to consider the girl. The policeman bent over to
examine her more closely, and his face worked with genuine compassion.

“Ah, what a pity!” he said, shaking his head--“why, she is quite a
child! She has been deceived, you can see that at once. Listen, lady,”
 he began addressing her, “where do you live?” The girl opened her weary
and sleepy-looking eyes, gazed blankly at the speaker and waved her
hand.

“Here,” said Raskolnikov feeling in his pocket and finding twenty
copecks, “here, call a cab and tell him to drive her to her address. The
only thing is to find out her address!”

“Missy, missy!” the policeman began again, taking the money. “I’ll fetch
you a cab and take you home myself. Where shall I take you, eh? Where do
you live?”

“Go away! They won’t let me alone,” the girl muttered, and once more
waved her hand.

“Ach, ach, how shocking! It’s shameful, missy, it’s a shame!” He shook
his head again, shocked, sympathetic and indignant.

“It’s a difficult job,” the policeman said to Raskolnikov, and as he
did so, he looked him up and down in a rapid glance. He, too, must have
seemed a strange figure to him: dressed in rags and handing him money!

“Did you meet her far from here?” he asked him.

“I tell you she was walking in front of me, staggering, just here, in
the boulevard. She only just reached the seat and sank down on it.”

“Ah, the shameful things that are done in the world nowadays, God have
mercy on us! An innocent creature like that, drunk already! She has been
deceived, that’s a sure thing. See how her dress has been torn too....
Ah, the vice one sees nowadays! And as likely as not she belongs to
gentlefolk too, poor ones maybe.... There are many like that nowadays.
She looks refined, too, as though she were a lady,” and he bent over her
once more.

Perhaps he had daughters growing up like that, “looking like ladies and
refined” with pretensions to gentility and smartness....

“The chief thing is,” Raskolnikov persisted, “to keep her out of this
scoundrel’s hands! Why should he outrage her? It’s as clear as day what
he is after; ah, the brute, he is not moving off!”

Raskolnikov spoke aloud and pointed to him. The gentleman heard him,
and seemed about to fly into a rage again, but thought better of it, and
confined himself to a contemptuous look. He then walked slowly another
ten paces away and again halted.

“Keep her out of his hands we can,” said the constable thoughtfully,
“if only she’d tell us where to take her, but as it is.... Missy, hey,
missy!” he bent over her once more.

She opened her eyes fully all of a sudden, looked at him intently, as
though realising something, got up from the seat and walked away in the
direction from which she had come. “Oh shameful wretches, they won’t let
me alone!” she said, waving her hand again. She walked quickly, though
staggering as before. The dandy followed her, but along another avenue,
keeping his eye on her.

“Don’t be anxious, I won’t let him have her,” the policeman said
resolutely, and he set off after them.

“Ah, the vice one sees nowadays!” he repeated aloud, sighing.

At that moment something seemed to sting Raskolnikov; in an instant a
complete revulsion of feeling came over him.

“Hey, here!” he shouted after the policeman.

The latter turned round.

“Let them be! What is it to do with you? Let her go! Let him amuse
himself.” He pointed at the dandy, “What is it to do with you?”

The policeman was bewildered, and stared at him open-eyed. Raskolnikov
laughed.

“Well!” ejaculated the policeman, with a gesture of contempt, and he
walked after the dandy and the girl, probably taking Raskolnikov for a
madman or something even worse.

“He has carried off my twenty copecks,” Raskolnikov murmured angrily
when he was left alone. “Well, let him take as much from the other
fellow to allow him to have the girl and so let it end. And why did I
want to interfere? Is it for me to help? Have I any right to help? Let
them devour each other alive--what is it to me? How did I dare to give him
twenty copecks? Were they mine?”

In spite of those strange words he felt very wretched. He sat down on
the deserted seat. His thoughts strayed aimlessly.... He found it hard
to fix his mind on anything at that moment. He longed to forget himself
altogether, to forget everything, and then to wake up and begin life
anew....

“Poor girl!” he said, looking at the empty corner where she had
sat--“She will come to herself and weep, and then her mother will find
out.... She will give her a beating, a horrible, shameful beating and
then maybe, turn her out of doors.... And even if she does not, the
Darya Frantsovnas will get wind of it, and the girl will soon be
slipping out on the sly here and there. Then there will be the hospital
directly (that’s always the luck of those girls with respectable
mothers, who go wrong on the sly) and then... again the hospital...
drink... the taverns... and more hospital, in two or three years--a
wreck, and her life over at eighteen or nineteen.... Have not I seen
cases like that? And how have they been brought to it? Why, they’ve all
come to it like that. Ugh! But what does it matter? That’s as it should
be, they tell us. A certain percentage, they tell us, must every year
go... that way... to the devil, I suppose, so that the rest may remain
chaste, and not be interfered with. A percentage! What splendid words
they have; they are so scientific, so consolatory.... Once you’ve said
‘percentage’ there’s nothing more to worry about. If we had any other
word... maybe we might feel more uneasy.... But what if Dounia were one
of the percentage! Of another one if not that one?

“But where am I going?” he thought suddenly. “Strange, I came out for
something. As soon as I had read the letter I came out.... I was going
to Vassilyevsky Ostrov, to Razumihin. That’s what it was... now I
remember. What for, though? And what put the idea of going to Razumihin
into my head just now? That’s curious.”

He wondered at himself. Razumihin was one of his old comrades at the
university. It was remarkable that Raskolnikov had hardly any friends at
the university; he kept aloof from everyone, went to see no one, and did
not welcome anyone who came to see him, and indeed everyone soon gave
him up. He took no part in the students’ gatherings, amusements or
conversations. He worked with great intensity without sparing himself,
and he was respected for this, but no one liked him. He was very poor,
and there was a sort of haughty pride and reserve about him, as though
he were keeping something to himself. He seemed to some of his comrades
to look down upon them all as children, as though he were superior in
development, knowledge and convictions, as though their beliefs and
interests were beneath him.

With Razumihin he had got on, or, at least, he was more unreserved and
communicative with him. Indeed it was impossible to be on any other
terms with Razumihin. He was an exceptionally good-humoured and candid
youth, good-natured to the point of simplicity, though both depth and
dignity lay concealed under that simplicity. The better of his comrades
understood this, and all were fond of him. He was extremely intelligent,
though he was certainly rather a simpleton at times. He was of striking
appearance--tall, thin, black-haired and always badly shaved. He was
sometimes uproarious and was reputed to be of great physical strength.
One night, when out in a festive company, he had with one blow laid
a gigantic policeman on his back. There was no limit to his drinking
powers, but he could abstain from drink altogether; he sometimes went
too far in his pranks; but he could do without pranks altogether.
Another thing striking about Razumihin, no failure distressed him, and
it seemed as though no unfavourable circumstances could crush him. He
could lodge anywhere, and bear the extremes of cold and hunger. He was
very poor, and kept himself entirely on what he could earn by work of
one sort or another. He knew of no end of resources by which to earn
money. He spent one whole winter without lighting his stove, and used to
declare that he liked it better, because one slept more soundly in
the cold. For the present he, too, had been obliged to give up the
university, but it was only for a time, and he was working with all his
might to save enough to return to his studies again. Raskolnikov had
not been to see him for the last four months, and Razumihin did not even
know his address. About two months before, they had met in the street,
but Raskolnikov had turned away and even crossed to the other side that
he might not be observed. And though Razumihin noticed him, he passed
him by, as he did not want to annoy him.



CHAPTER V

“Of course, I’ve been meaning lately to go to Razumihin’s to ask for
work, to ask him to get me lessons or something...” Raskolnikov thought,
“but what help can he be to me now? Suppose he gets me lessons, suppose
he shares his last farthing with me, if he has any farthings, so that
I could get some boots and make myself tidy enough to give lessons...
hm... Well and what then? What shall I do with the few coppers I
earn? That’s not what I want now. It’s really absurd for me to go to
Razumihin....”

The question why he was now going to Razumihin agitated him even more
than he was himself aware; he kept uneasily seeking for some sinister
significance in this apparently ordinary action.

“Could I have expected to set it all straight and to find a way out by
means of Razumihin alone?” he asked himself in perplexity.

He pondered and rubbed his forehead, and, strange to say, after long
musing, suddenly, as if it were spontaneously and by chance, a fantastic
thought came into his head.

“Hm... to Razumihin’s,” he said all at once, calmly, as though he had
reached a final determination. “I shall go to Razumihin’s of course,
but... not now. I shall go to him... on the next day after It, when It
will be over and everything will begin afresh....”

And suddenly he realised what he was thinking.

“After It,” he shouted, jumping up from the seat, “but is It really
going to happen? Is it possible it really will happen?” He left the
seat, and went off almost at a run; he meant to turn back, homewards,
but the thought of going home suddenly filled him with intense loathing;
in that hole, in that awful little cupboard of his, all _this_ had for a
month past been growing up in him; and he walked on at random.

His nervous shudder had passed into a fever that made him feel
shivering; in spite of the heat he felt cold. With a kind of effort he
began almost unconsciously, from some inner craving, to stare at all
the objects before him, as though looking for something to distract his
attention; but he did not succeed, and kept dropping every moment into
brooding. When with a start he lifted his head again and looked round,
he forgot at once what he had just been thinking about and even where he
was going. In this way he walked right across Vassilyevsky Ostrov, came
out on to the Lesser Neva, crossed the bridge and turned towards the
islands. The greenness and freshness were at first restful to his weary
eyes after the dust of the town and the huge houses that hemmed him in
and weighed upon him. Here there were no taverns, no stifling closeness,
no stench. But soon these new pleasant sensations passed into morbid
irritability. Sometimes he stood still before a brightly painted summer
villa standing among green foliage, he gazed through the fence, he saw
in the distance smartly dressed women on the verandahs and balconies,
and children running in the gardens. The flowers especially caught his
attention; he gazed at them longer than at anything. He was met, too, by
luxurious carriages and by men and women on horseback; he watched them
with curious eyes and forgot about them before they had vanished from
his sight. Once he stood still and counted his money; he found he had
thirty copecks. “Twenty to the policeman, three to Nastasya for the
letter, so I must have given forty-seven or fifty to the Marmeladovs
yesterday,” he thought, reckoning it up for some unknown reason, but he
soon forgot with what object he had taken the money out of his pocket.
He recalled it on passing an eating-house or tavern, and felt that he
was hungry.... Going into the tavern he drank a glass of vodka and ate a
pie of some sort. He finished eating it as he walked away. It was a long
while since he had taken vodka and it had an effect upon him at once,
though he only drank a wineglassful. His legs felt suddenly heavy and
a great drowsiness came upon him. He turned homewards, but reaching
Petrovsky Ostrov he stopped completely exhausted, turned off the road
into the bushes, sank down upon the grass and instantly fell asleep.

In a morbid condition of the brain, dreams often have a singular
actuality, vividness, and extraordinary semblance of reality. At times
monstrous images are created, but the setting and the whole picture are
so truth-like and filled with details so delicate, so unexpectedly, but
so artistically consistent, that the dreamer, were he an artist like
Pushkin or Turgenev even, could never have invented them in the waking
state. Such sick dreams always remain long in the memory and make a
powerful impression on the overwrought and deranged nervous system.

Raskolnikov had a fearful dream. He dreamt he was back in his childhood
in the little town of his birth. He was a child about seven years old,
walking into the country with his father on the evening of a holiday. It
was a grey and heavy day, the country was exactly as he remembered it;
indeed he recalled it far more vividly in his dream than he had done in
memory. The little town stood on a level flat as bare as the hand, not
even a willow near it; only in the far distance, a copse lay, a dark
blur on the very edge of the horizon. A few paces beyond the last market
garden stood a tavern, a big tavern, which had always aroused in him a
feeling of aversion, even of fear, when he walked by it with his father.
There was always a crowd there, always shouting, laughter and abuse,
hideous hoarse singing and often fighting. Drunken and horrible-looking
figures were hanging about the tavern. He used to cling close to his
father, trembling all over when he met them. Near the tavern the road
became a dusty track, the dust of which was always black. It was a
winding road, and about a hundred paces further on, it turned to the
right to the graveyard. In the middle of the graveyard stood a stone
church with a green cupola where he used to go to mass two or three
times a year with his father and mother, when a service was held in
memory of his grandmother, who had long been dead, and whom he had never
seen. On these occasions they used to take on a white dish tied up in a
table napkin a special sort of rice pudding with raisins stuck in it in
the shape of a cross. He loved that church, the old-fashioned, unadorned
ikons and the old priest with the shaking head. Near his grandmother’s
grave, which was marked by a stone, was the little grave of his younger
brother who had died at six months old. He did not remember him at all,
but he had been told about his little brother, and whenever he visited
the graveyard he used religiously and reverently to cross himself and
to bow down and kiss the little grave. And now he dreamt that he was
walking with his father past the tavern on the way to the graveyard; he
was holding his father’s hand and looking with dread at the tavern. A
peculiar circumstance attracted his attention: there seemed to be
some kind of festivity going on, there were crowds of gaily dressed
townspeople, peasant women, their husbands, and riff-raff of all sorts,
all singing and all more or less drunk. Near the entrance of the tavern
stood a cart, but a strange cart. It was one of those big carts usually
drawn by heavy cart-horses and laden with casks of wine or other heavy
goods. He always liked looking at those great cart-horses, with their
long manes, thick legs, and slow even pace, drawing along a perfect
mountain with no appearance of effort, as though it were easier going
with a load than without it. But now, strange to say, in the shafts of
such a cart he saw a thin little sorrel beast, one of those peasants’
nags which he had often seen straining their utmost under a heavy load
of wood or hay, especially when the wheels were stuck in the mud or in
a rut. And the peasants would beat them so cruelly, sometimes even
about the nose and eyes, and he felt so sorry, so sorry for them that
he almost cried, and his mother always used to take him away from the
window. All of a sudden there was a great uproar of shouting, singing
and the balalaïka, and from the tavern a number of big and very drunken
peasants came out, wearing red and blue shirts and coats thrown over
their shoulders.

“Get in, get in!” shouted one of them, a young thick-necked peasant with
a fleshy face red as a carrot. “I’ll take you all, get in!”

But at once there was an outbreak of laughter and exclamations in the
crowd.

“Take us all with a beast like that!”

“Why, Mikolka, are you crazy to put a nag like that in such a cart?”

“And this mare is twenty if she is a day, mates!”

“Get in, I’ll take you all,” Mikolka shouted again, leaping first into
the cart, seizing the reins and standing straight up in front. “The bay
has gone with Matvey,” he shouted from the cart--“and this brute, mates,
is just breaking my heart, I feel as if I could kill her. She’s just
eating her head off. Get in, I tell you! I’ll make her gallop! She’ll
gallop!” and he picked up the whip, preparing himself with relish to
flog the little mare.

“Get in! Come along!” The crowd laughed. “D’you hear, she’ll gallop!”

“Gallop indeed! She has not had a gallop in her for the last ten years!”

“She’ll jog along!”

“Don’t you mind her, mates, bring a whip each of you, get ready!”

“All right! Give it to her!”

They all clambered into Mikolka’s cart, laughing and making jokes. Six
men got in and there was still room for more. They hauled in a fat,
rosy-cheeked woman. She was dressed in red cotton, in a pointed, beaded
headdress and thick leather shoes; she was cracking nuts and laughing.
The crowd round them was laughing too and indeed, how could they help
laughing? That wretched nag was to drag all the cartload of them at a
gallop! Two young fellows in the cart were just getting whips ready to
help Mikolka. With the cry of “now,” the mare tugged with all her might,
but far from galloping, could scarcely move forward; she struggled with
her legs, gasping and shrinking from the blows of the three whips which
were showered upon her like hail. The laughter in the cart and in the
crowd was redoubled, but Mikolka flew into a rage and furiously thrashed
the mare, as though he supposed she really could gallop.

“Let me get in, too, mates,” shouted a young man in the crowd whose
appetite was aroused.

“Get in, all get in,” cried Mikolka, “she will draw you all. I’ll beat
her to death!” And he thrashed and thrashed at the mare, beside himself
with fury.

“Father, father,” he cried, “father, what are they doing? Father, they
are beating the poor horse!”

“Come along, come along!” said his father. “They are drunken and
foolish, they are in fun; come away, don’t look!” and he tried to draw
him away, but he tore himself away from his hand, and, beside himself
with horror, ran to the horse. The poor beast was in a bad way. She was
gasping, standing still, then tugging again and almost falling.

“Beat her to death,” cried Mikolka, “it’s come to that. I’ll do for
her!”

“What are you about, are you a Christian, you devil?” shouted an old man
in the crowd.

“Did anyone ever see the like? A wretched nag like that pulling such a
cartload,” said another.

“You’ll kill her,” shouted the third.

“Don’t meddle! It’s my property, I’ll do what I choose. Get in, more of
you! Get in, all of you! I will have her go at a gallop!...”

All at once laughter broke into a roar and covered everything: the mare,
roused by the shower of blows, began feebly kicking. Even the old man
could not help smiling. To think of a wretched little beast like that
trying to kick!

Two lads in the crowd snatched up whips and ran to the mare to beat her
about the ribs. One ran each side.

“Hit her in the face, in the eyes, in the eyes,” cried Mikolka.

“Give us a song, mates,” shouted someone in the cart and everyone in the
cart joined in a riotous song, jingling a tambourine and whistling. The
woman went on cracking nuts and laughing.

... He ran beside the mare, ran in front of her, saw her being whipped
across the eyes, right in the eyes! He was crying, he felt choking, his
tears were streaming. One of the men gave him a cut with the whip across
the face, he did not feel it. Wringing his hands and screaming, he
rushed up to the grey-headed old man with the grey beard, who was
shaking his head in disapproval. One woman seized him by the hand and
would have taken him away, but he tore himself from her and ran back to
the mare. She was almost at the last gasp, but began kicking once more.

“I’ll teach you to kick,” Mikolka shouted ferociously. He threw down
the whip, bent forward and picked up from the bottom of the cart a long,
thick shaft, he took hold of one end with both hands and with an effort
brandished it over the mare.

“He’ll crush her,” was shouted round him. “He’ll kill her!”

“It’s my property,” shouted Mikolka and brought the shaft down with a
swinging blow. There was a sound of a heavy thud.

“Thrash her, thrash her! Why have you stopped?” shouted voices in the
crowd.

And Mikolka swung the shaft a second time and it fell a second time
on the spine of the luckless mare. She sank back on her haunches, but
lurched forward and tugged forward with all her force, tugged first on
one side and then on the other, trying to move the cart. But the six
whips were attacking her in all directions, and the shaft was raised
again and fell upon her a third time, then a fourth, with heavy measured
blows. Mikolka was in a fury that he could not kill her at one blow.

“She’s a tough one,” was shouted in the crowd.

“She’ll fall in a minute, mates, there will soon be an end of her,” said
an admiring spectator in the crowd.

“Fetch an axe to her! Finish her off,” shouted a third.

“I’ll show you! Stand off,” Mikolka screamed frantically; he threw down
the shaft, stooped down in the cart and picked up an iron crowbar. “Look
out,” he shouted, and with all his might he dealt a stunning blow at the
poor mare. The blow fell; the mare staggered, sank back, tried to pull,
but the bar fell again with a swinging blow on her back and she fell on
the ground like a log.

“Finish her off,” shouted Mikolka and he leapt beside himself, out of
the cart. Several young men, also flushed with drink, seized anything
they could come across--whips, sticks, poles, and ran to the dying
mare. Mikolka stood on one side and began dealing random blows with the
crowbar. The mare stretched out her head, drew a long breath and died.

“You butchered her,” someone shouted in the crowd.

“Why wouldn’t she gallop then?”

“My property!” shouted Mikolka, with bloodshot eyes, brandishing the bar
in his hands. He stood as though regretting that he had nothing more to
beat.

“No mistake about it, you are not a Christian,” many voices were
shouting in the crowd.

But the poor boy, beside himself, made his way, screaming, through the
crowd to the sorrel nag, put his arms round her bleeding dead head and
kissed it, kissed the eyes and kissed the lips.... Then he jumped up and
flew in a frenzy with his little fists out at Mikolka. At that instant
his father, who had been running after him, snatched him up and carried
him out of the crowd.

“Come along, come! Let us go home,” he said to him.

“Father! Why did they... kill... the poor horse!” he sobbed, but his
voice broke and the words came in shrieks from his panting chest.

“They are drunk.... They are brutal... it’s not our business!” said his
father. He put his arms round his father but he felt choked, choked. He
tried to draw a breath, to cry out--and woke up.

He waked up, gasping for breath, his hair soaked with perspiration, and
stood up in terror.

“Thank God, that was only a dream,” he said, sitting down under a tree
and drawing deep breaths. “But what is it? Is it some fever coming on?
Such a hideous dream!”

He felt utterly broken: darkness and confusion were in his soul. He
rested his elbows on his knees and leaned his head on his hands.

“Good God!” he cried, “can it be, can it be, that I shall really take an
axe, that I shall strike her on the head, split her skull open... that I
shall tread in the sticky warm blood, break the lock, steal and tremble;
hide, all spattered in the blood... with the axe.... Good God, can it
be?”

He was shaking like a leaf as he said this.

“But why am I going on like this?” he continued, sitting up again, as it
were in profound amazement. “I knew that I could never bring myself
to it, so what have I been torturing myself for till now? Yesterday,
yesterday, when I went to make that... _experiment_, yesterday I
realised completely that I could never bear to do it.... Why am I going
over it again, then? Why am I hesitating? As I came down the stairs
yesterday, I said myself that it was base, loathsome, vile, vile... the
very thought of it made me feel sick and filled me with horror.

“No, I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t do it! Granted, granted that there is
no flaw in all that reasoning, that all that I have concluded this last
month is clear as day, true as arithmetic.... My God! Anyway I couldn’t
bring myself to it! I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t do it! Why, why then am
I still...?”

He rose to his feet, looked round in wonder as though surprised at
finding himself in this place, and went towards the bridge. He was pale,
his eyes glowed, he was exhausted in every limb, but he seemed suddenly
to breathe more easily. He felt he had cast off that fearful burden that
had so long been weighing upon him, and all at once there was a sense
of relief and peace in his soul. “Lord,” he prayed, “show me my path--I
renounce that accursed... dream of mine.”

Crossing the bridge, he gazed quietly and calmly at the Neva, at the
glowing red sun setting in the glowing sky. In spite of his weakness he
was not conscious of fatigue. It was as though an abscess that had been
forming for a month past in his heart had suddenly broken. Freedom,
freedom! He was free from that spell, that sorcery, that obsession!

Later on, when he recalled that time and all that happened to him during
those days, minute by minute, point by point, he was superstitiously
impressed by one circumstance, which, though in itself not very
exceptional, always seemed to him afterwards the predestined
turning-point of his fate. He could never understand and explain to
himself why, when he was tired and worn out, when it would have been
more convenient for him to go home by the shortest and most direct way,
he had returned by the Hay Market where he had no need to go. It was
obviously and quite unnecessarily out of his way, though not much so. It
is true that it happened to him dozens of times to return home without
noticing what streets he passed through. But why, he was always asking
himself, why had such an important, such a decisive and at the same time
such an absolutely chance meeting happened in the Hay Market (where he
had moreover no reason to go) at the very hour, the very minute of his
life when he was just in the very mood and in the very circumstances
in which that meeting was able to exert the gravest and most decisive
influence on his whole destiny? As though it had been lying in wait for
him on purpose!

It was about nine o’clock when he crossed the Hay Market. At the tables
and the barrows, at the booths and the shops, all the market people were
closing their establishments or clearing away and packing up their
wares and, like their customers, were going home. Rag pickers and
costermongers of all kinds were crowding round the taverns in the dirty
and stinking courtyards of the Hay Market. Raskolnikov particularly
liked this place and the neighbouring alleys, when he wandered aimlessly
in the streets. Here his rags did not attract contemptuous attention,
and one could walk about in any attire without scandalising people. At
the corner of an alley a huckster and his wife had two tables set out
with tapes, thread, cotton handkerchiefs, etc. They, too, had got up to
go home, but were lingering in conversation with a friend, who had just
come up to them. This friend was Lizaveta Ivanovna, or, as everyone
called her, Lizaveta, the younger sister of the old pawnbroker, Alyona
Ivanovna, whom Raskolnikov had visited the previous day to pawn his
watch and make his _experiment_.... He already knew all about Lizaveta
and she knew him a little too. She was a single woman of about
thirty-five, tall, clumsy, timid, submissive and almost idiotic. She was
a complete slave and went in fear and trembling of her sister, who
made her work day and night, and even beat her. She was standing with
a bundle before the huckster and his wife, listening earnestly and
doubtfully. They were talking of something with special warmth. The
moment Raskolnikov caught sight of her, he was overcome by a strange
sensation as it were of intense astonishment, though there was nothing
astonishing about this meeting.

“You could make up your mind for yourself, Lizaveta Ivanovna,” the
huckster was saying aloud. “Come round to-morrow about seven. They will
be here too.”

“To-morrow?” said Lizaveta slowly and thoughtfully, as though unable to
make up her mind.

“Upon my word, what a fright you are in of Alyona Ivanovna,” gabbled
the huckster’s wife, a lively little woman. “I look at you, you are like
some little babe. And she is not your own sister either--nothing but a
step-sister and what a hand she keeps over you!”

“But this time don’t say a word to Alyona Ivanovna,” her husband
interrupted; “that’s my advice, but come round to us without asking.
It will be worth your while. Later on your sister herself may have a
notion.”

“Am I to come?”

“About seven o’clock to-morrow. And they will be here. You will be able
to decide for yourself.”

“And we’ll have a cup of tea,” added his wife.

“All right, I’ll come,” said Lizaveta, still pondering, and she began
slowly moving away.

Raskolnikov had just passed and heard no more. He passed softly,
unnoticed, trying not to miss a word. His first amazement was followed
by a thrill of horror, like a shiver running down his spine. He had
learnt, he had suddenly quite unexpectedly learnt, that the next day at
seven o’clock Lizaveta, the old woman’s sister and only companion, would
be away from home and that therefore at seven o’clock precisely the old
woman _would be left alone_.

He was only a few steps from his lodging. He went in like a man
condemned to death. He thought of nothing and was incapable of thinking;
but he felt suddenly in his whole being that he had no more freedom
of thought, no will, and that everything was suddenly and irrevocably
decided.

Certainly, if he had to wait whole years for a suitable opportunity, he
could not reckon on a more certain step towards the success of the plan
than that which had just presented itself. In any case, it would have
been difficult to find out beforehand and with certainty, with
greater exactness and less risk, and without dangerous inquiries and
investigations, that next day at a certain time an old woman, on whose
life an attempt was contemplated, would be at home and entirely alone.



CHAPTER VI

Later on Raskolnikov happened to find out why the huckster and his
wife had invited Lizaveta. It was a very ordinary matter and there was
nothing exceptional about it. A family who had come to the town and been
reduced to poverty were selling their household goods and clothes, all
women’s things. As the things would have fetched little in the market,
they were looking for a dealer. This was Lizaveta’s business. She
undertook such jobs and was frequently employed, as she was very honest
and always fixed a fair price and stuck to it. She spoke as a rule
little and, as we have said already, she was very submissive and timid.

But Raskolnikov had become superstitious of late. The traces of
superstition remained in him long after, and were almost ineradicable.
And in all this he was always afterwards disposed to see something
strange and mysterious, as it were, the presence of some peculiar
influences and coincidences. In the previous winter a student he knew
called Pokorev, who had left for Harkov, had chanced in conversation to
give him the address of Alyona Ivanovna, the old pawnbroker, in case he
might want to pawn anything. For a long while he did not go to her, for
he had lessons and managed to get along somehow. Six weeks ago he had
remembered the address; he had two articles that could be pawned: his
father’s old silver watch and a little gold ring with three red stones,
a present from his sister at parting. He decided to take the ring. When
he found the old woman he had felt an insurmountable repulsion for her
at the first glance, though he knew nothing special about her. He got
two roubles from her and went into a miserable little tavern on his way
home. He asked for tea, sat down and sank into deep thought. A strange
idea was pecking at his brain like a chicken in the egg, and very, very
much absorbed him.

Almost beside him at the next table there was sitting a student, whom he
did not know and had never seen, and with him a young officer. They had
played a game of billiards and began drinking tea. All at once he heard
the student mention to the officer the pawnbroker Alyona Ivanovna and
give him her address. This of itself seemed strange to Raskolnikov; he
had just come from her and here at once he heard her name. Of course
it was a chance, but he could not shake off a very extraordinary
impression, and here someone seemed to be speaking expressly for him;
the student began telling his friend various details about Alyona
Ivanovna.

“She is first-rate,” he said. “You can always get money from her. She is
as rich as a Jew, she can give you five thousand roubles at a time and
she is not above taking a pledge for a rouble. Lots of our fellows have
had dealings with her. But she is an awful old harpy....”

And he began describing how spiteful and uncertain she was, how if you
were only a day late with your interest the pledge was lost; how she
gave a quarter of the value of an article and took five and even seven
percent a month on it and so on. The student chattered on, saying
that she had a sister Lizaveta, whom the wretched little creature was
continually beating, and kept in complete bondage like a small child,
though Lizaveta was at least six feet high.

“There’s a phenomenon for you,” cried the student and he laughed.

They began talking about Lizaveta. The student spoke about her with a
peculiar relish and was continually laughing and the officer listened
with great interest and asked him to send Lizaveta to do some mending
for him. Raskolnikov did not miss a word and learned everything about
her. Lizaveta was younger than the old woman and was her half-sister,
being the child of a different mother. She was thirty-five. She worked
day and night for her sister, and besides doing the cooking and the
washing, she did sewing and worked as a charwoman and gave her sister
all she earned. She did not dare to accept an order or job of any kind
without her sister’s permission. The old woman had already made her
will, and Lizaveta knew of it, and by this will she would not get a
farthing; nothing but the movables, chairs and so on; all the money was
left to a monastery in the province of N----, that prayers might be
said for her in perpetuity. Lizaveta was of lower rank than her sister,
unmarried and awfully uncouth in appearance, remarkably tall with long
feet that looked as if they were bent outwards. She always wore battered
goatskin shoes, and was clean in her person. What the student expressed
most surprise and amusement about was the fact that Lizaveta was
continually with child.

“But you say she is hideous?” observed the officer.

“Yes, she is so dark-skinned and looks like a soldier dressed up, but
you know she is not at all hideous. She has such a good-natured face
and eyes. Strikingly so. And the proof of it is that lots of people are
attracted by her. She is such a soft, gentle creature, ready to put up
with anything, always willing, willing to do anything. And her smile is
really very sweet.”

“You seem to find her attractive yourself,” laughed the officer.

“From her queerness. No, I’ll tell you what. I could kill that damned
old woman and make off with her money, I assure you, without the
faintest conscience-prick,” the student added with warmth. The officer
laughed again while Raskolnikov shuddered. How strange it was!

“Listen, I want to ask you a serious question,” the student said hotly.
“I was joking of course, but look here; on one side we have a stupid,
senseless, worthless, spiteful, ailing, horrid old woman, not simply
useless but doing actual mischief, who has not an idea what she is
living for herself, and who will die in a day or two in any case. You
understand? You understand?”

“Yes, yes, I understand,” answered the officer, watching his excited
companion attentively.

“Well, listen then. On the other side, fresh young lives thrown away for
want of help and by thousands, on every side! A hundred thousand good
deeds could be done and helped, on that old woman’s money which will be
buried in a monastery! Hundreds, thousands perhaps, might be set on the
right path; dozens of families saved from destitution, from ruin, from
vice, from the Lock hospitals--and all with her money. Kill her, take
her money and with the help of it devote oneself to the service of
humanity and the good of all. What do you think, would not one tiny
crime be wiped out by thousands of good deeds? For one life thousands
would be saved from corruption and decay. One death, and a hundred lives
in exchange--it’s simple arithmetic! Besides, what value has the life of
that sickly, stupid, ill-natured old woman in the balance of existence!
No more than the life of a louse, of a black-beetle, less in fact
because the old woman is doing harm. She is wearing out the lives of
others; the other day she bit Lizaveta’s finger out of spite; it almost
had to be amputated.”

“Of course she does not deserve to live,” remarked the officer, “but
there it is, it’s nature.”

“Oh, well, brother, but we have to correct and direct nature, and, but
for that, we should drown in an ocean of prejudice. But for that,
there would never have been a single great man. They talk of
duty, conscience--I don’t want to say anything against duty and
conscience;--but the point is, what do we mean by them? Stay, I have
another question to ask you. Listen!”

“No, you stay, I’ll ask you a question. Listen!”

“Well?”

“You are talking and speechifying away, but tell me, would you kill the
old woman _yourself_?”

“Of course not! I was only arguing the justice of it.... It’s nothing to
do with me....”

“But I think, if you would not do it yourself, there’s no justice about
it.... Let us have another game.”

Raskolnikov was violently agitated. Of course, it was all ordinary
youthful talk and thought, such as he had often heard before in
different forms and on different themes. But why had he happened to hear
such a discussion and such ideas at the very moment when his own brain
was just conceiving... _the very same ideas_? And why, just at the
moment when he had brought away the embryo of his idea from the old
woman had he dropped at once upon a conversation about her? This
coincidence always seemed strange to him. This trivial talk in a tavern
had an immense influence on him in his later action; as though there had
really been in it something preordained, some guiding hint....

*****

On returning from the Hay Market he flung himself on the sofa and sat
for a whole hour without stirring. Meanwhile it got dark; he had no
candle and, indeed, it did not occur to him to light up. He could never
recollect whether he had been thinking about anything at that time. At
last he was conscious of his former fever and shivering, and he realised
with relief that he could lie down on the sofa. Soon heavy, leaden sleep
came over him, as it were crushing him.

He slept an extraordinarily long time and without dreaming. Nastasya,
coming into his room at ten o’clock the next morning, had difficulty
in rousing him. She brought him in tea and bread. The tea was again the
second brew and again in her own tea-pot.

“My goodness, how he sleeps!” she cried indignantly. “And he is always
asleep.”

He got up with an effort. His head ached, he stood up, took a turn in
his garret and sank back on the sofa again.

“Going to sleep again,” cried Nastasya. “Are you ill, eh?”

He made no reply.

“Do you want some tea?”

“Afterwards,” he said with an effort, closing his eyes again and turning
to the wall.

Nastasya stood over him.

“Perhaps he really is ill,” she said, turned and went out. She came in
again at two o’clock with soup. He was lying as before. The tea stood
untouched. Nastasya felt positively offended and began wrathfully
rousing him.

“Why are you lying like a log?” she shouted, looking at him with
repulsion.

He got up, and sat down again, but said nothing and stared at the floor.

“Are you ill or not?” asked Nastasya and again received no answer.
“You’d better go out and get a breath of air,” she said after a pause.
“Will you eat it or not?”

“Afterwards,” he said weakly. “You can go.”

And he motioned her out.

She remained a little longer, looked at him with compassion and went
out.

A few minutes afterwards, he raised his eyes and looked for a long while
at the tea and the soup. Then he took the bread, took up a spoon and
began to eat.

He ate a little, three or four spoonfuls, without appetite, as it were
mechanically. His head ached less. After his meal he stretched himself
on the sofa again, but now he could not sleep; he lay without stirring,
with his face in the pillow. He was haunted by day-dreams and such
strange day-dreams; in one, that kept recurring, he fancied that he was
in Africa, in Egypt, in some sort of oasis. The caravan was resting,
the camels were peacefully lying down; the palms stood all around in a
complete circle; all the party were at dinner. But he was drinking water
from a spring which flowed gurgling close by. And it was so cool, it was
wonderful, wonderful, blue, cold water running among the parti-coloured
stones and over the clean sand which glistened here and there like
gold.... Suddenly he heard a clock strike. He started, roused himself,
raised his head, looked out of the window, and seeing how late it was,
suddenly jumped up wide awake as though someone had pulled him off the
sofa. He crept on tiptoe to the door, stealthily opened it and began
listening on the staircase. His heart beat terribly. But all was quiet
on the stairs as if everyone was asleep.... It seemed to him strange and
monstrous that he could have slept in such forgetfulness from the
previous day and had done nothing, had prepared nothing yet.... And
meanwhile perhaps it had struck six. And his drowsiness and stupefaction
were followed by an extraordinary, feverish, as it were distracted
haste. But the preparations to be made were few. He concentrated all his
energies on thinking of everything and forgetting nothing; and his heart
kept beating and thumping so that he could hardly breathe. First he had
to make a noose and sew it into his overcoat--a work of a moment. He
rummaged under his pillow and picked out amongst the linen stuffed away
under it, a worn out, old unwashed shirt. From its rags he tore a long
strip, a couple of inches wide and about sixteen inches long. He folded
this strip in two, took off his wide, strong summer overcoat of some
stout cotton material (his only outer garment) and began sewing the two
ends of the rag on the inside, under the left armhole. His hands shook
as he sewed, but he did it successfully so that nothing showed outside
when he put the coat on again. The needle and thread he had got ready
long before and they lay on his table in a piece of paper. As for the
noose, it was a very ingenious device of his own; the noose was intended
for the axe. It was impossible for him to carry the axe through the
street in his hands. And if hidden under his coat he would still have
had to support it with his hand, which would have been noticeable. Now
he had only to put the head of the axe in the noose, and it would hang
quietly under his arm on the inside. Putting his hand in his coat
pocket, he could hold the end of the handle all the way, so that it did
not swing; and as the coat was very full, a regular sack in fact, it
could not be seen from outside that he was holding something with the
hand that was in the pocket. This noose, too, he had designed a
fortnight before.

When he had finished with this, he thrust his hand into a little opening
between his sofa and the floor, fumbled in the left corner and drew out
the _pledge_, which he had got ready long before and hidden there. This
pledge was, however, only a smoothly planed piece of wood the size and
thickness of a silver cigarette case. He picked up this piece of wood
in one of his wanderings in a courtyard where there was some sort of
a workshop. Afterwards he had added to the wood a thin smooth piece
of iron, which he had also picked up at the same time in the street.
Putting the iron which was a little the smaller on the piece of wood,
he fastened them very firmly, crossing and re-crossing the thread round
them; then wrapped them carefully and daintily in clean white paper and
tied up the parcel so that it would be very difficult to untie it. This
was in order to divert the attention of the old woman for a time, while
she was trying to undo the knot, and so to gain a moment. The iron strip
was added to give weight, so that the woman might not guess the first
minute that the “thing” was made of wood. All this had been stored by
him beforehand under the sofa. He had only just got the pledge out when
he heard someone suddenly about in the yard.

“It struck six long ago.”

“Long ago! My God!”

He rushed to the door, listened, caught up his hat and began to descend
his thirteen steps cautiously, noiselessly, like a cat. He had still the
most important thing to do--to steal the axe from the kitchen. That the
deed must be done with an axe he had decided long ago. He had also a
pocket pruning-knife, but he could not rely on the knife and still less
on his own strength, and so resolved finally on the axe. We may note in
passing, one peculiarity in regard to all the final resolutions taken by
him in the matter; they had one strange characteristic: the more final
they were, the more hideous and the more absurd they at once became in
his eyes. In spite of all his agonising inward struggle, he never for
a single instant all that time could believe in the carrying out of his
plans.

And, indeed, if it had ever happened that everything to the least point
could have been considered and finally settled, and no uncertainty of
any kind had remained, he would, it seems, have renounced it all
as something absurd, monstrous and impossible. But a whole mass of
unsettled points and uncertainties remained. As for getting the axe,
that trifling business cost him no anxiety, for nothing could be easier.
Nastasya was continually out of the house, especially in the evenings;
she would run in to the neighbours or to a shop, and always left the
door ajar. It was the one thing the landlady was always scolding her
about. And so, when the time came, he would only have to go quietly into
the kitchen and to take the axe, and an hour later (when everything
was over) go in and put it back again. But these were doubtful points.
Supposing he returned an hour later to put it back, and Nastasya had
come back and was on the spot. He would of course have to go by and wait
till she went out again. But supposing she were in the meantime to miss
the axe, look for it, make an outcry--that would mean suspicion or at
least grounds for suspicion.

But those were all trifles which he had not even begun to consider, and
indeed he had no time. He was thinking of the chief point, and put off
trifling details, until _he could believe in it all_. But that seemed
utterly unattainable. So it seemed to himself at least. He could not
imagine, for instance, that he would sometime leave off thinking, get
up and simply go there.... Even his late experiment (i.e. his visit with
the object of a final survey of the place) was simply an attempt at
an experiment, far from being the real thing, as though one should say
“come, let us go and try it--why dream about it!”--and at once he
had broken down and had run away cursing, in a frenzy with himself.
Meanwhile it would seem, as regards the moral question, that his
analysis was complete; his casuistry had become keen as a razor, and he
could not find rational objections in himself. But in the last resort
he simply ceased to believe in himself, and doggedly, slavishly sought
arguments in all directions, fumbling for them, as though someone were
forcing and drawing him to it.

At first--long before indeed--he had been much occupied with one
question; why almost all crimes are so badly concealed and so easily
detected, and why almost all criminals leave such obvious traces? He
had come gradually to many different and curious conclusions, and in his
opinion the chief reason lay not so much in the material impossibility
of concealing the crime, as in the criminal himself. Almost every
criminal is subject to a failure of will and reasoning power by a
childish and phenomenal heedlessness, at the very instant when prudence
and caution are most essential. It was his conviction that this eclipse
of reason and failure of will power attacked a man like a disease,
developed gradually and reached its highest point just before the
perpetration of the crime, continued with equal violence at the moment
of the crime and for longer or shorter time after, according to the
individual case, and then passed off like any other disease. The
question whether the disease gives rise to the crime, or whether the
crime from its own peculiar nature is always accompanied by something of
the nature of disease, he did not yet feel able to decide.

When he reached these conclusions, he decided that in his own case there
could not be such a morbid reaction, that his reason and will would
remain unimpaired at the time of carrying out his design, for the
simple reason that his design was “not a crime....” We will omit all the
process by means of which he arrived at this last conclusion; we have
run too far ahead already.... We may add only that the practical, purely
material difficulties of the affair occupied a secondary position in his
mind. “One has but to keep all one’s will-power and reason to deal
with them, and they will all be overcome at the time when once one has
familiarised oneself with the minutest details of the business....” But
this preparation had never been begun. His final decisions were what he
came to trust least, and when the hour struck, it all came to pass quite
differently, as it were accidentally and unexpectedly.

One trifling circumstance upset his calculations, before he had even
left the staircase. When he reached the landlady’s kitchen, the door
of which was open as usual, he glanced cautiously in to see whether, in
Nastasya’s absence, the landlady herself was there, or if not, whether
the door to her own room was closed, so that she might not peep out when
he went in for the axe. But what was his amazement when he suddenly
saw that Nastasya was not only at home in the kitchen, but was occupied
there, taking linen out of a basket and hanging it on a line. Seeing
him, she left off hanging the clothes, turned to him and stared at him
all the time he was passing. He turned away his eyes, and walked past as
though he noticed nothing. But it was the end of everything; he had not
the axe! He was overwhelmed.

“What made me think,” he reflected, as he went under the gateway, “what
made me think that she would be sure not to be at home at that moment!
Why, why, why did I assume this so certainly?”

He was crushed and even humiliated. He could have laughed at himself in
his anger.... A dull animal rage boiled within him.

He stood hesitating in the gateway. To go into the street, to go a walk
for appearance’ sake was revolting; to go back to his room, even more
revolting. “And what a chance I have lost for ever!” he muttered,
standing aimlessly in the gateway, just opposite the porter’s little
dark room, which was also open. Suddenly he started. From the porter’s
room, two paces away from him, something shining under the bench to the
right caught his eye.... He looked about him--nobody. He approached the
room on tiptoe, went down two steps into it and in a faint voice called
the porter. “Yes, not at home! Somewhere near though, in the yard, for
the door is wide open.” He dashed to the axe (it was an axe) and pulled
it out from under the bench, where it lay between two chunks of wood;
at once, before going out, he made it fast in the noose, he thrust both
hands into his pockets and went out of the room; no one had noticed him!
“When reason fails, the devil helps!” he thought with a strange grin.
This chance raised his spirits extraordinarily.

He walked along quietly and sedately, without hurry, to avoid awakening
suspicion. He scarcely looked at the passers-by, tried to escape looking
at their faces at all, and to be as little noticeable as possible.
Suddenly he thought of his hat. “Good heavens! I had the money the day
before yesterday and did not get a cap to wear instead!” A curse rose
from the bottom of his soul.

Glancing out of the corner of his eye into a shop, he saw by a clock on
the wall that it was ten minutes past seven. He had to make haste and at
the same time to go someway round, so as to approach the house from the
other side....

When he had happened to imagine all this beforehand, he had sometimes
thought that he would be very much afraid. But he was not very much
afraid now, was not afraid at all, indeed. His mind was even occupied
by irrelevant matters, but by nothing for long. As he passed the Yusupov
garden, he was deeply absorbed in considering the building of great
fountains, and of their refreshing effect on the atmosphere in all
the squares. By degrees he passed to the conviction that if the summer
garden were extended to the field of Mars, and perhaps joined to the
garden of the Mihailovsky Palace, it would be a splendid thing and a
great benefit to the town. Then he was interested by the question why
in all great towns men are not simply driven by necessity, but in some
peculiar way inclined to live in those parts of the town where there
are no gardens nor fountains; where there is most dirt and smell and all
sorts of nastiness. Then his own walks through the Hay Market came back
to his mind, and for a moment he waked up to reality. “What nonsense!”
 he thought, “better think of nothing at all!”

“So probably men led to execution clutch mentally at every object that
meets them on the way,” flashed through his mind, but simply flashed,
like lightning; he made haste to dismiss this thought.... And by now
he was near; here was the house, here was the gate. Suddenly a clock
somewhere struck once. “What! can it be half-past seven? Impossible, it
must be fast!”

Luckily for him, everything went well again at the gates. At that very
moment, as though expressly for his benefit, a huge waggon of hay had
just driven in at the gate, completely screening him as he passed under
the gateway, and the waggon had scarcely had time to drive through into
the yard, before he had slipped in a flash to the right. On the other
side of the waggon he could hear shouting and quarrelling; but no one
noticed him and no one met him. Many windows looking into that huge
quadrangular yard were open at that moment, but he did not raise his
head--he had not the strength to. The staircase leading to the old
woman’s room was close by, just on the right of the gateway. He was
already on the stairs....

Drawing a breath, pressing his hand against his throbbing heart, and
once more feeling for the axe and setting it straight, he began softly
and cautiously ascending the stairs, listening every minute. But the
stairs, too, were quite deserted; all the doors were shut; he met no
one. One flat indeed on the first floor was wide open and painters were
at work in it, but they did not glance at him. He stood still, thought
a minute and went on. “Of course it would be better if they had not been
here, but... it’s two storeys above them.”

And there was the fourth storey, here was the door, here was the
flat opposite, the empty one. The flat underneath the old woman’s was
apparently empty also; the visiting card nailed on the door had been
torn off--they had gone away!... He was out of breath. For one instant
the thought floated through his mind, “Shall I go back?” But he made no
answer and began listening at the old woman’s door, a dead silence. Then
he listened again on the staircase, listened long and intently...
then looked about him for the last time, pulled himself together, drew
himself up, and once more tried the axe in the noose. “Am I very pale?”
 he wondered. “Am I not evidently agitated? She is mistrustful.... Had I
better wait a little longer... till my heart leaves off thumping?”

But his heart did not leave off. On the contrary, as though to spite
him, it throbbed more and more violently. He could stand it no longer,
he slowly put out his hand to the bell and rang. Half a minute later he
rang again, more loudly.

No answer. To go on ringing was useless and out of place. The old woman
was, of course, at home, but she was suspicious and alone. He had some
knowledge of her habits... and once more he put his ear to the door.
Either his senses were peculiarly keen (which it is difficult to
suppose), or the sound was really very distinct. Anyway, he suddenly
heard something like the cautious touch of a hand on the lock and the
rustle of a skirt at the very door. Someone was standing stealthily
close to the lock and just as he was doing on the outside was secretly
listening within, and seemed to have her ear to the door.... He moved
a little on purpose and muttered something aloud that he might not have
the appearance of hiding, then rang a third time, but quietly, soberly,
and without impatience, Recalling it afterwards, that moment stood out
in his mind vividly, distinctly, for ever; he could not make out how he
had had such cunning, for his mind was as it were clouded at moments and
he was almost unconscious of his body.... An instant later he heard the
latch unfastened.



CHAPTER VII

The door was as before opened a tiny crack, and again two sharp and
suspicious eyes stared at him out of the darkness. Then Raskolnikov lost
his head and nearly made a great mistake.

Fearing the old woman would be frightened by their being alone, and not
hoping that the sight of him would disarm her suspicions, he took
hold of the door and drew it towards him to prevent the old woman from
attempting to shut it again. Seeing this she did not pull the door back,
but she did not let go the handle so that he almost dragged her out with
it on to the stairs. Seeing that she was standing in the doorway not
allowing him to pass, he advanced straight upon her. She stepped back
in alarm, tried to say something, but seemed unable to speak and stared
with open eyes at him.

“Good evening, Alyona Ivanovna,” he began, trying to speak easily, but
his voice would not obey him, it broke and shook. “I have come... I have
brought something... but we’d better come in... to the light....”

And leaving her, he passed straight into the room uninvited. The old
woman ran after him; her tongue was unloosed.

“Good heavens! What it is? Who is it? What do you want?”

“Why, Alyona Ivanovna, you know me... Raskolnikov... here, I brought you
the pledge I promised the other day...” And he held out the pledge.

The old woman glanced for a moment at the pledge, but at once stared in
the eyes of her uninvited visitor. She looked intently, maliciously and
mistrustfully. A minute passed; he even fancied something like a sneer
in her eyes, as though she had already guessed everything. He felt that
he was losing his head, that he was almost frightened, so frightened
that if she were to look like that and not say a word for another half
minute, he thought he would have run away from her.

“Why do you look at me as though you did not know me?” he said suddenly,
also with malice. “Take it if you like, if not I’ll go elsewhere, I am
in a hurry.”

He had not even thought of saying this, but it was suddenly said of
itself. The old woman recovered herself, and her visitor’s resolute tone
evidently restored her confidence.

“But why, my good sir, all of a minute.... What is it?” she asked,
looking at the pledge.

“The silver cigarette case; I spoke of it last time, you know.”

She held out her hand.

“But how pale you are, to be sure... and your hands are trembling too?
Have you been bathing, or what?”

“Fever,” he answered abruptly. “You can’t help getting pale... if you’ve
nothing to eat,” he added, with difficulty articulating the words.

His strength was failing him again. But his answer sounded like the
truth; the old woman took the pledge.

“What is it?” she asked once more, scanning Raskolnikov intently, and
weighing the pledge in her hand.

“A thing... cigarette case.... Silver.... Look at it.”

“It does not seem somehow like silver.... How he has wrapped it up!”

Trying to untie the string and turning to the window, to the light (all
her windows were shut, in spite of the stifling heat), she left
him altogether for some seconds and stood with her back to him. He
unbuttoned his coat and freed the axe from the noose, but did not yet
take it out altogether, simply holding it in his right hand under the
coat. His hands were fearfully weak, he felt them every moment growing
more numb and more wooden. He was afraid he would let the axe slip and
fall.... A sudden giddiness came over him.

“But what has he tied it up like this for?” the old woman cried with
vexation and moved towards him.

He had not a minute more to lose. He pulled the axe quite out, swung
it with both arms, scarcely conscious of himself, and almost without
effort, almost mechanically, brought the blunt side down on her head. He
seemed not to use his own strength in this. But as soon as he had once
brought the axe down, his strength returned to him.

The old woman was as always bareheaded. Her thin, light hair, streaked
with grey, thickly smeared with grease, was plaited in a rat’s tail and
fastened by a broken horn comb which stood out on the nape of her neck.
As she was so short, the blow fell on the very top of her skull. She
cried out, but very faintly, and suddenly sank all of a heap on the
floor, raising her hands to her head. In one hand she still held “the
pledge.” Then he dealt her another and another blow with the blunt side
and on the same spot. The blood gushed as from an overturned glass, the
body fell back. He stepped back, let it fall, and at once bent over her
face; she was dead. Her eyes seemed to be starting out of their sockets,
the brow and the whole face were drawn and contorted convulsively.

He laid the axe on the ground near the dead body and felt at once in her
pocket (trying to avoid the streaming body)--the same right-hand pocket
from which she had taken the key on his last visit. He was in full
possession of his faculties, free from confusion or giddiness, but his
hands were still trembling. He remembered afterwards that he had been
particularly collected and careful, trying all the time not to get
smeared with blood.... He pulled out the keys at once, they were all,
as before, in one bunch on a steel ring. He ran at once into the bedroom
with them. It was a very small room with a whole shrine of holy images.
Against the other wall stood a big bed, very clean and covered with
a silk patchwork wadded quilt. Against a third wall was a chest of
drawers. Strange to say, so soon as he began to fit the keys into the
chest, so soon as he heard their jingling, a convulsive shudder passed
over him. He suddenly felt tempted again to give it all up and go
away. But that was only for an instant; it was too late to go back.
He positively smiled at himself, when suddenly another terrifying idea
occurred to his mind. He suddenly fancied that the old woman might be
still alive and might recover her senses. Leaving the keys in the chest,
he ran back to the body, snatched up the axe and lifted it once more
over the old woman, but did not bring it down. There was no doubt that
she was dead. Bending down and examining her again more closely, he saw
clearly that the skull was broken and even battered in on one side. He
was about to feel it with his finger, but drew back his hand and indeed
it was evident without that. Meanwhile there was a perfect pool of
blood. All at once he noticed a string on her neck; he tugged at it, but
the string was strong and did not snap and besides, it was soaked
with blood. He tried to pull it out from the front of the dress, but
something held it and prevented its coming. In his impatience he raised
the axe again to cut the string from above on the body, but did not
dare, and with difficulty, smearing his hand and the axe in the blood,
after two minutes’ hurried effort, he cut the string and took it off
without touching the body with the axe; he was not mistaken--it was a
purse. On the string were two crosses, one of Cyprus wood and one of
copper, and an image in silver filigree, and with them a small greasy
chamois leather purse with a steel rim and ring. The purse was stuffed
very full; Raskolnikov thrust it in his pocket without looking at it,
flung the crosses on the old woman’s body and rushed back into the
bedroom, this time taking the axe with him.

He was in terrible haste, he snatched the keys, and began trying them
again. But he was unsuccessful. They would not fit in the locks. It
was not so much that his hands were shaking, but that he kept making
mistakes; though he saw for instance that a key was not the right one
and would not fit, still he tried to put it in. Suddenly he remembered
and realised that the big key with the deep notches, which was hanging
there with the small keys could not possibly belong to the chest of
drawers (on his last visit this had struck him), but to some strong box,
and that everything perhaps was hidden in that box. He left the chest
of drawers, and at once felt under the bedstead, knowing that old
women usually keep boxes under their beds. And so it was; there was a
good-sized box under the bed, at least a yard in length, with an arched
lid covered with red leather and studded with steel nails. The notched
key fitted at once and unlocked it. At the top, under a white sheet, was
a coat of red brocade lined with hareskin; under it was a silk dress,
then a shawl and it seemed as though there was nothing below but
clothes. The first thing he did was to wipe his blood-stained hands on
the red brocade. “It’s red, and on red blood will be less noticeable,”
 the thought passed through his mind; then he suddenly came to himself.
“Good God, am I going out of my senses?” he thought with terror.

But no sooner did he touch the clothes than a gold watch slipped from
under the fur coat. He made haste to turn them all over. There turned
out to be various articles made of gold among the clothes--probably
all pledges, unredeemed or waiting to be redeemed--bracelets, chains,
ear-rings, pins and such things. Some were in cases, others simply
wrapped in newspaper, carefully and exactly folded, and tied round with
tape. Without any delay, he began filling up the pockets of his trousers
and overcoat without examining or undoing the parcels and cases; but he
had not time to take many....

He suddenly heard steps in the room where the old woman lay. He stopped
short and was still as death. But all was quiet, so it must have been
his fancy. All at once he heard distinctly a faint cry, as though
someone had uttered a low broken moan. Then again dead silence for
a minute or two. He sat squatting on his heels by the box and waited
holding his breath. Suddenly he jumped up, seized the axe and ran out of
the bedroom.

In the middle of the room stood Lizaveta with a big bundle in her arms.
She was gazing in stupefaction at her murdered sister, white as a sheet
and seeming not to have the strength to cry out. Seeing him run out
of the bedroom, she began faintly quivering all over, like a leaf, a
shudder ran down her face; she lifted her hand, opened her mouth, but
still did not scream. She began slowly backing away from him into the
corner, staring intently, persistently at him, but still uttered no
sound, as though she could not get breath to scream. He rushed at her
with the axe; her mouth twitched piteously, as one sees babies’ mouths,
when they begin to be frightened, stare intently at what frightens them
and are on the point of screaming. And this hapless Lizaveta was so
simple and had been so thoroughly crushed and scared that she did not
even raise a hand to guard her face, though that was the most necessary
and natural action at the moment, for the axe was raised over her face.
She only put up her empty left hand, but not to her face, slowly holding
it out before her as though motioning him away. The axe fell with the
sharp edge just on the skull and split at one blow all the top of the
head. She fell heavily at once. Raskolnikov completely lost his head,
snatching up her bundle, dropped it again and ran into the entry.

Fear gained more and more mastery over him, especially after this
second, quite unexpected murder. He longed to run away from the place
as fast as possible. And if at that moment he had been capable of seeing
and reasoning more correctly, if he had been able to realise all the
difficulties of his position, the hopelessness, the hideousness and the
absurdity of it, if he could have understood how many obstacles and,
perhaps, crimes he had still to overcome or to commit, to get out of
that place and to make his way home, it is very possible that he would
have flung up everything, and would have gone to give himself up, and
not from fear, but from simple horror and loathing of what he had
done. The feeling of loathing especially surged up within him and grew
stronger every minute. He would not now have gone to the box or even
into the room for anything in the world.

But a sort of blankness, even dreaminess, had begun by degrees to take
possession of him; at moments he forgot himself, or rather, forgot what
was of importance, and caught at trifles. Glancing, however, into the
kitchen and seeing a bucket half full of water on a bench, he bethought
him of washing his hands and the axe. His hands were sticky with blood.
He dropped the axe with the blade in the water, snatched a piece of soap
that lay in a broken saucer on the window, and began washing his hands
in the bucket. When they were clean, he took out the axe, washed the
blade and spent a long time, about three minutes, washing the wood where
there were spots of blood rubbing them with soap. Then he wiped it all
with some linen that was hanging to dry on a line in the kitchen and
then he was a long while attentively examining the axe at the window.
There was no trace left on it, only the wood was still damp. He
carefully hung the axe in the noose under his coat. Then as far as was
possible, in the dim light in the kitchen, he looked over his overcoat,
his trousers and his boots. At the first glance there seemed to be
nothing but stains on the boots. He wetted the rag and rubbed the boots.
But he knew he was not looking thoroughly, that there might be something
quite noticeable that he was overlooking. He stood in the middle of the
room, lost in thought. Dark agonising ideas rose in his mind--the idea
that he was mad and that at that moment he was incapable of reasoning,
of protecting himself, that he ought perhaps to be doing something
utterly different from what he was now doing. “Good God!” he muttered,
“I must fly, fly,” and he rushed into the entry. But here a shock of
terror awaited him such as he had never known before.

He stood and gazed and could not believe his eyes: the door, the outer
door from the stairs, at which he had not long before waited and rung,
was standing unfastened and at least six inches open. No lock, no bolt,
all the time, all that time! The old woman had not shut it after him
perhaps as a precaution. But, good God! Why, he had seen Lizaveta
afterwards! And how could he, how could he have failed to reflect that
she must have come in somehow! She could not have come through the wall!

He dashed to the door and fastened the latch.

“But no, the wrong thing again! I must get away, get away....”

He unfastened the latch, opened the door and began listening on the
staircase.

He listened a long time. Somewhere far away, it might be in the gateway,
two voices were loudly and shrilly shouting, quarrelling and scolding.
“What are they about?” He waited patiently. At last all was still, as
though suddenly cut off; they had separated. He was meaning to go out,
but suddenly, on the floor below, a door was noisily opened and someone
began going downstairs humming a tune. “How is it they all make such
a noise?” flashed through his mind. Once more he closed the door and
waited. At last all was still, not a soul stirring. He was just taking a
step towards the stairs when he heard fresh footsteps.

The steps sounded very far off, at the very bottom of the stairs, but
he remembered quite clearly and distinctly that from the first sound he
began for some reason to suspect that this was someone coming _there_,
to the fourth floor, to the old woman. Why? Were the sounds somehow
peculiar, significant? The steps were heavy, even and unhurried. Now
_he_ had passed the first floor, now he was mounting higher, it was
growing more and more distinct! He could hear his heavy breathing. And
now the third storey had been reached. Coming here! And it seemed to
him all at once that he was turned to stone, that it was like a dream
in which one is being pursued, nearly caught and will be killed, and is
rooted to the spot and cannot even move one’s arms.

At last when the unknown was mounting to the fourth floor, he suddenly
started, and succeeded in slipping neatly and quickly back into the
flat and closing the door behind him. Then he took the hook and softly,
noiselessly, fixed it in the catch. Instinct helped him. When he had
done this, he crouched holding his breath, by the door. The unknown
visitor was by now also at the door. They were now standing opposite one
another, as he had just before been standing with the old woman, when
the door divided them and he was listening.

The visitor panted several times. “He must be a big, fat man,” thought
Raskolnikov, squeezing the axe in his hand. It seemed like a dream
indeed. The visitor took hold of the bell and rang it loudly.

As soon as the tin bell tinkled, Raskolnikov seemed to be aware of
something moving in the room. For some seconds he listened quite
seriously. The unknown rang again, waited and suddenly tugged violently
and impatiently at the handle of the door. Raskolnikov gazed in horror
at the hook shaking in its fastening, and in blank terror expected every
minute that the fastening would be pulled out. It certainly did seem
possible, so violently was he shaking it. He was tempted to hold the
fastening, but _he_ might be aware of it. A giddiness came over him
again. “I shall fall down!” flashed through his mind, but the unknown
began to speak and he recovered himself at once.

“What’s up? Are they asleep or murdered? D-damn them!” he bawled in a
thick voice, “Hey, Alyona Ivanovna, old witch! Lizaveta Ivanovna, hey,
my beauty! open the door! Oh, damn them! Are they asleep or what?”

And again, enraged, he tugged with all his might a dozen times at
the bell. He must certainly be a man of authority and an intimate
acquaintance.

At this moment light hurried steps were heard not far off, on the
stairs. Someone else was approaching. Raskolnikov had not heard them at
first.

“You don’t say there’s no one at home,” the new-comer cried in a
cheerful, ringing voice, addressing the first visitor, who still went on
pulling the bell. “Good evening, Koch.”

“From his voice he must be quite young,” thought Raskolnikov.

“Who the devil can tell? I’ve almost broken the lock,” answered Koch.
“But how do you come to know me?”

“Why! The day before yesterday I beat you three times running at
billiards at Gambrinus’.”

“Oh!”

“So they are not at home? That’s queer. It’s awfully stupid though.
Where could the old woman have gone? I’ve come on business.”

“Yes; and I have business with her, too.”

“Well, what can we do? Go back, I suppose, Aie--aie! And I was hoping to
get some money!” cried the young man.

“We must give it up, of course, but what did she fix this time for? The
old witch fixed the time for me to come herself. It’s out of my way.
And where the devil she can have got to, I can’t make out. She sits here
from year’s end to year’s end, the old hag; her legs are bad and yet
here all of a sudden she is out for a walk!”

“Hadn’t we better ask the porter?”

“What?”

“Where she’s gone and when she’ll be back.”

“Hm.... Damn it all!... We might ask.... But you know she never does go
anywhere.”

And he once more tugged at the door-handle.

“Damn it all. There’s nothing to be done, we must go!”

“Stay!” cried the young man suddenly. “Do you see how the door shakes if
you pull it?”

“Well?”

“That shows it’s not locked, but fastened with the hook! Do you hear how
the hook clanks?”

“Well?”

“Why, don’t you see? That proves that one of them is at home. If they
were all out, they would have locked the door from the outside with the
key and not with the hook from inside. There, do you hear how the hook
is clanking? To fasten the hook on the inside they must be at home,
don’t you see? So there they are sitting inside and don’t open the
door!”

“Well! And so they must be!” cried Koch, astonished. “What are they
about in there?” And he began furiously shaking the door.

“Stay!” cried the young man again. “Don’t pull at it! There must be
something wrong.... Here, you’ve been ringing and pulling at the door
and still they don’t open! So either they’ve both fainted or...”

“What?”

“I tell you what. Let’s go fetch the porter, let him wake them up.”

“All right.”

Both were going down.

“Stay. You stop here while I run down for the porter.”

“What for?”

“Well, you’d better.”

“All right.”

“I’m studying the law you see! It’s evident, e-vi-dent there’s something
wrong here!” the young man cried hotly, and he ran downstairs.

Koch remained. Once more he softly touched the bell which gave one
tinkle, then gently, as though reflecting and looking about him, began
touching the door-handle pulling it and letting it go to make sure once
more that it was only fastened by the hook. Then puffing and panting he
bent down and began looking at the keyhole: but the key was in the lock
on the inside and so nothing could be seen.

Raskolnikov stood keeping tight hold of the axe. He was in a sort of
delirium. He was even making ready to fight when they should come in.
While they were knocking and talking together, the idea several times
occurred to him to end it all at once and shout to them through the
door. Now and then he was tempted to swear at them, to jeer at them,
while they could not open the door! “Only make haste!” was the thought
that flashed through his mind.

“But what the devil is he about?...” Time was passing, one minute, and
another--no one came. Koch began to be restless.

“What the devil?” he cried suddenly and in impatience deserting his
sentry duty, he, too, went down, hurrying and thumping with his heavy
boots on the stairs. The steps died away.

“Good heavens! What am I to do?”

Raskolnikov unfastened the hook, opened the door--there was no sound.
Abruptly, without any thought at all, he went out, closing the door as
thoroughly as he could, and went downstairs.

He had gone down three flights when he suddenly heard a loud voice
below--where could he go! There was nowhere to hide. He was just going
back to the flat.

“Hey there! Catch the brute!”

Somebody dashed out of a flat below, shouting, and rather fell than ran
down the stairs, bawling at the top of his voice.

“Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! Blast him!”

The shout ended in a shriek; the last sounds came from the yard; all was
still. But at the same instant several men talking loud and fast began
noisily mounting the stairs. There were three or four of them. He
distinguished the ringing voice of the young man. “Hey!”

Filled with despair he went straight to meet them, feeling “come what
must!” If they stopped him--all was lost; if they let him pass--all was
lost too; they would remember him. They were approaching; they were only
a flight from him--and suddenly deliverance! A few steps from him on the
right, there was an empty flat with the door wide open, the flat on the
second floor where the painters had been at work, and which, as though
for his benefit, they had just left. It was they, no doubt, who had just
run down, shouting. The floor had only just been painted, in the middle
of the room stood a pail and a broken pot with paint and brushes. In one
instant he had whisked in at the open door and hidden behind the wall
and only in the nick of time; they had already reached the landing.
Then they turned and went on up to the fourth floor, talking loudly. He
waited, went out on tiptoe and ran down the stairs.

No one was on the stairs, nor in the gateway. He passed quickly through
the gateway and turned to the left in the street.

He knew, he knew perfectly well that at that moment they were at the
flat, that they were greatly astonished at finding it unlocked, as
the door had just been fastened, that by now they were looking at the
bodies, that before another minute had passed they would guess and
completely realise that the murderer had just been there, and had
succeeded in hiding somewhere, slipping by them and escaping. They would
guess most likely that he had been in the empty flat, while they were
going upstairs. And meanwhile he dared not quicken his pace much, though
the next turning was still nearly a hundred yards away. “Should he
slip through some gateway and wait somewhere in an unknown street? No,
hopeless! Should he fling away the axe? Should he take a cab? Hopeless,
hopeless!”

At last he reached the turning. He turned down it more dead than alive.
Here he was half way to safety, and he understood it; it was less risky
because there was a great crowd of people, and he was lost in it like a
grain of sand. But all he had suffered had so weakened him that he could
scarcely move. Perspiration ran down him in drops, his neck was all wet.
“My word, he has been going it!” someone shouted at him when he came out
on the canal bank.

He was only dimly conscious of himself now, and the farther he went the
worse it was. He remembered however, that on coming out on to the canal
bank, he was alarmed at finding few people there and so being more
conspicuous, and he had thought of turning back. Though he was almost
falling from fatigue, he went a long way round so as to get home from
quite a different direction.

He was not fully conscious when he passed through the gateway of his
house! He was already on the staircase before he recollected the axe.
And yet he had a very grave problem before him, to put it back and to
escape observation as far as possible in doing so. He was of course
incapable of reflecting that it might perhaps be far better not to
restore the axe at all, but to drop it later on in somebody’s yard. But
it all happened fortunately, the door of the porter’s room was closed
but not locked, so that it seemed most likely that the porter was at
home. But he had so completely lost all power of reflection that he
walked straight to the door and opened it. If the porter had asked him,
“What do you want?” he would perhaps have simply handed him the axe. But
again the porter was not at home, and he succeeded in putting the axe
back under the bench, and even covering it with the chunk of wood as
before. He met no one, not a soul, afterwards on the way to his room;
the landlady’s door was shut. When he was in his room, he flung himself
on the sofa just as he was--he did not sleep, but sank into blank
forgetfulness. If anyone had come into his room then, he would have
jumped up at once and screamed. Scraps and shreds of thoughts were
simply swarming in his brain, but he could not catch at one, he could
not rest on one, in spite of all his efforts....




PART II



CHAPTER I

So he lay a very long while. Now and then he seemed to wake up, and at
such moments he noticed that it was far into the night, but it did not
occur to him to get up. At last he noticed that it was beginning to get
light. He was lying on his back, still dazed from his recent oblivion.
Fearful, despairing cries rose shrilly from the street, sounds which he
heard every night, indeed, under his window after two o’clock. They woke
him up now.

“Ah! the drunken men are coming out of the taverns,” he thought, “it’s
past two o’clock,” and at once he leaped up, as though someone had
pulled him from the sofa.

“What! Past two o’clock!”

He sat down on the sofa--and instantly recollected everything! All at
once, in one flash, he recollected everything.

For the first moment he thought he was going mad. A dreadful chill came
over him; but the chill was from the fever that had begun long before in
his sleep. Now he was suddenly taken with violent shivering, so that his
teeth chattered and all his limbs were shaking. He opened the door and
began listening--everything in the house was asleep. With amazement he
gazed at himself and everything in the room around him, wondering how he
could have come in the night before without fastening the door, and have
flung himself on the sofa without undressing, without even taking his
hat off. It had fallen off and was lying on the floor near his pillow.

“If anyone had come in, what would he have thought? That I’m drunk
but...”

He rushed to the window. There was light enough, and he began hurriedly
looking himself all over from head to foot, all his clothes; were there
no traces? But there was no doing it like that; shivering with cold, he
began taking off everything and looking over again. He turned everything
over to the last threads and rags, and mistrusting himself, went through
his search three times.

But there seemed to be nothing, no trace, except in one place, where
some thick drops of congealed blood were clinging to the frayed edge
of his trousers. He picked up a big claspknife and cut off the frayed
threads. There seemed to be nothing more.

Suddenly he remembered that the purse and the things he had taken out of
the old woman’s box were still in his pockets! He had not thought till
then of taking them out and hiding them! He had not even thought of them
while he was examining his clothes! What next? Instantly he rushed
to take them out and fling them on the table. When he had pulled out
everything, and turned the pocket inside out to be sure there was
nothing left, he carried the whole heap to the corner. The paper had
come off the bottom of the wall and hung there in tatters. He began
stuffing all the things into the hole under the paper: “They’re in! All
out of sight, and the purse too!” he thought gleefully, getting up and
gazing blankly at the hole which bulged out more than ever. Suddenly
he shuddered all over with horror; “My God!” he whispered in despair:
“what’s the matter with me? Is that hidden? Is that the way to hide
things?”

He had not reckoned on having trinkets to hide. He had only thought of
money, and so had not prepared a hiding-place.

“But now, now, what am I glad of?” he thought, “Is that hiding things?
My reason’s deserting me--simply!”

He sat down on the sofa in exhaustion and was at once shaken by another
unbearable fit of shivering. Mechanically he drew from a chair beside
him his old student’s winter coat, which was still warm though almost in
rags, covered himself up with it and once more sank into drowsiness and
delirium. He lost consciousness.

Not more than five minutes had passed when he jumped up a second time,
and at once pounced in a frenzy on his clothes again.

“How could I go to sleep again with nothing done? Yes, yes; I have not
taken the loop off the armhole! I forgot it, forgot a thing like that!
Such a piece of evidence!”

He pulled off the noose, hurriedly cut it to pieces and threw the bits
among his linen under the pillow.

“Pieces of torn linen couldn’t rouse suspicion, whatever happened; I
think not, I think not, any way!” he repeated, standing in the middle
of the room, and with painful concentration he fell to gazing about
him again, at the floor and everywhere, trying to make sure he had not
forgotten anything. The conviction that all his faculties, even memory,
and the simplest power of reflection were failing him, began to be an
insufferable torture.

“Surely it isn’t beginning already! Surely it isn’t my punishment coming
upon me? It is!”

The frayed rags he had cut off his trousers were actually lying on the
floor in the middle of the room, where anyone coming in would see them!

“What is the matter with me!” he cried again, like one distraught.

Then a strange idea entered his head; that, perhaps, all his clothes
were covered with blood, that, perhaps, there were a great many
stains, but that he did not see them, did not notice them because
his perceptions were failing, were going to pieces... his reason was
clouded.... Suddenly he remembered that there had been blood on the
purse too. “Ah! Then there must be blood on the pocket too, for I put
the wet purse in my pocket!”

In a flash he had turned the pocket inside out and, yes!--there were
traces, stains on the lining of the pocket!

“So my reason has not quite deserted me, so I still have some sense and
memory, since I guessed it of myself,” he thought triumphantly, with
a deep sigh of relief; “it’s simply the weakness of fever, a moment’s
delirium,” and he tore the whole lining out of the left pocket of his
trousers. At that instant the sunlight fell on his left boot; on the
sock which poked out from the boot, he fancied there were traces! He
flung off his boots; “traces indeed! The tip of the sock was soaked with
blood;” he must have unwarily stepped into that pool.... “But what am I
to do with this now? Where am I to put the sock and rags and pocket?”

He gathered them all up in his hands and stood in the middle of the
room.

“In the stove? But they would ransack the stove first of all. Burn them?
But what can I burn them with? There are no matches even. No, better
go out and throw it all away somewhere. Yes, better throw it away,” he
repeated, sitting down on the sofa again, “and at once, this minute,
without lingering...”

But his head sank on the pillow instead. Again the unbearable icy
shivering came over him; again he drew his coat over him.

And for a long while, for some hours, he was haunted by the impulse to
“go off somewhere at once, this moment, and fling it all away, so that
it may be out of sight and done with, at once, at once!” Several times
he tried to rise from the sofa, but could not.

He was thoroughly waked up at last by a violent knocking at his door.

“Open, do, are you dead or alive? He keeps sleeping here!” shouted
Nastasya, banging with her fist on the door. “For whole days together
he’s snoring here like a dog! A dog he is too. Open, I tell you. It’s
past ten.”

“Maybe he’s not at home,” said a man’s voice.

“Ha! that’s the porter’s voice.... What does he want?”

He jumped up and sat on the sofa. The beating of his heart was a
positive pain.

“Then who can have latched the door?” retorted Nastasya. “He’s taken to
bolting himself in! As if he were worth stealing! Open, you stupid, wake
up!”

“What do they want? Why the porter? All’s discovered. Resist or open?
Come what may!...”

He half rose, stooped forward and unlatched the door.

His room was so small that he could undo the latch without leaving the
bed. Yes; the porter and Nastasya were standing there.

Nastasya stared at him in a strange way. He glanced with a defiant and
desperate air at the porter, who without a word held out a grey folded
paper sealed with bottle-wax.

“A notice from the office,” he announced, as he gave him the paper.

“From what office?”

“A summons to the police office, of course. You know which office.”

“To the police?... What for?...”

“How can I tell? You’re sent for, so you go.”

The man looked at him attentively, looked round the room and turned to
go away.

“He’s downright ill!” observed Nastasya, not taking her eyes off him.
The porter turned his head for a moment. “He’s been in a fever since
yesterday,” she added.

Raskolnikov made no response and held the paper in his hands, without
opening it. “Don’t you get up then,” Nastasya went on compassionately,
seeing that he was letting his feet down from the sofa. “You’re ill, and
so don’t go; there’s no such hurry. What have you got there?”

He looked; in his right hand he held the shreds he had cut from his
trousers, the sock, and the rags of the pocket. So he had been asleep
with them in his hand. Afterwards reflecting upon it, he remembered that
half waking up in his fever, he had grasped all this tightly in his hand
and so fallen asleep again.

“Look at the rags he’s collected and sleeps with them, as though he has
got hold of a treasure...”

And Nastasya went off into her hysterical giggle.

Instantly he thrust them all under his great coat and fixed his
eyes intently upon her. Far as he was from being capable of rational
reflection at that moment, he felt that no one would behave like that
with a person who was going to be arrested. “But... the police?”

“You’d better have some tea! Yes? I’ll bring it, there’s some left.”

“No... I’m going; I’ll go at once,” he muttered, getting on to his feet.

“Why, you’ll never get downstairs!”

“Yes, I’ll go.”

“As you please.”

She followed the porter out.

At once he rushed to the light to examine the sock and the rags.

“There are stains, but not very noticeable; all covered with dirt,
and rubbed and already discoloured. No one who had no suspicion could
distinguish anything. Nastasya from a distance could not have noticed,
thank God!” Then with a tremor he broke the seal of the notice and began
reading; he was a long while reading, before he understood. It was an
ordinary summons from the district police-station to appear that day at
half-past nine at the office of the district superintendent.

“But when has such a thing happened? I never have anything to do with
the police! And why just to-day?” he thought in agonising bewilderment.
“Good God, only get it over soon!”

He was flinging himself on his knees to pray, but broke into
laughter--not at the idea of prayer, but at himself.

He began, hurriedly dressing. “If I’m lost, I am lost, I don’t care!
Shall I put the sock on?” he suddenly wondered, “it will get dustier
still and the traces will be gone.”

But no sooner had he put it on than he pulled it off again in loathing
and horror. He pulled it off, but reflecting that he had no other socks,
he picked it up and put it on again--and again he laughed.

“That’s all conventional, that’s all relative, merely a way of looking
at it,” he thought in a flash, but only on the top surface of his
mind, while he was shuddering all over, “there, I’ve got it on! I have
finished by getting it on!”

But his laughter was quickly followed by despair.

“No, it’s too much for me...” he thought. His legs shook. “From fear,”
 he muttered. His head swam and ached with fever. “It’s a trick! They
want to decoy me there and confound me over everything,” he mused, as
he went out on to the stairs--“the worst of it is I’m almost
light-headed... I may blurt out something stupid...”

On the stairs he remembered that he was leaving all the things just as
they were in the hole in the wall, “and very likely, it’s on purpose
to search when I’m out,” he thought, and stopped short. But he was
possessed by such despair, such cynicism of misery, if one may so call
it, that with a wave of his hand he went on. “Only to get it over!”

In the street the heat was insufferable again; not a drop of rain had
fallen all those days. Again dust, bricks and mortar, again the stench
from the shops and pot-houses, again the drunken men, the Finnish
pedlars and half-broken-down cabs. The sun shone straight in his eyes,
so that it hurt him to look out of them, and he felt his head going
round--as a man in a fever is apt to feel when he comes out into the
street on a bright sunny day.

When he reached the turning into _the_ street, in an agony of
trepidation he looked down it... at _the_ house... and at once averted
his eyes.

“If they question me, perhaps I’ll simply tell,” he thought, as he drew
near the police-station.

The police-station was about a quarter of a mile off. It had lately been
moved to new rooms on the fourth floor of a new house. He had been once
for a moment in the old office but long ago. Turning in at the gateway,
he saw on the right a flight of stairs which a peasant was mounting with
a book in his hand. “A house-porter, no doubt; so then, the office is
here,” and he began ascending the stairs on the chance. He did not want
to ask questions of anyone.

“I’ll go in, fall on my knees, and confess everything...” he thought, as
he reached the fourth floor.

The staircase was steep, narrow and all sloppy with dirty water. The
kitchens of the flats opened on to the stairs and stood open almost
the whole day. So there was a fearful smell and heat. The staircase
was crowded with porters going up and down with their books under their
arms, policemen, and persons of all sorts and both sexes. The door of
the office, too, stood wide open. Peasants stood waiting within. There,
too, the heat was stifling and there was a sickening smell of fresh
paint and stale oil from the newly decorated rooms.

After waiting a little, he decided to move forward into the next room.
All the rooms were small and low-pitched. A fearful impatience drew him
on and on. No one paid attention to him. In the second room some
clerks sat writing, dressed hardly better than he was, and rather a
queer-looking set. He went up to one of them.

“What is it?”

He showed the notice he had received.

“You are a student?” the man asked, glancing at the notice.

“Yes, formerly a student.”

The clerk looked at him, but without the slightest interest. He was a
particularly unkempt person with the look of a fixed idea in his eye.

“There would be no getting anything out of him, because he has no
interest in anything,” thought Raskolnikov.

“Go in there to the head clerk,” said the clerk, pointing towards the
furthest room.

He went into that room--the fourth in order; it was a small room and
packed full of people, rather better dressed than in the outer rooms.
Among them were two ladies. One, poorly dressed in mourning, sat at the
table opposite the chief clerk, writing something at his dictation.
The other, a very stout, buxom woman with a purplish-red, blotchy face,
excessively smartly dressed with a brooch on her bosom as big as a
saucer, was standing on one side, apparently waiting for something.
Raskolnikov thrust his notice upon the head clerk. The latter glanced
at it, said: “Wait a minute,” and went on attending to the lady in
mourning.

He breathed more freely. “It can’t be that!”

By degrees he began to regain confidence, he kept urging himself to have
courage and be calm.

“Some foolishness, some trifling carelessness, and I may betray myself!
Hm... it’s a pity there’s no air here,” he added, “it’s stifling.... It
makes one’s head dizzier than ever... and one’s mind too...”

He was conscious of a terrible inner turmoil. He was afraid of losing
his self-control; he tried to catch at something and fix his mind on it,
something quite irrelevant, but he could not succeed in this at all. Yet
the head clerk greatly interested him, he kept hoping to see through him
and guess something from his face.

He was a very young man, about two and twenty, with a dark mobile
face that looked older than his years. He was fashionably dressed and
foppish, with his hair parted in the middle, well combed and pomaded,
and wore a number of rings on his well-scrubbed fingers and a gold chain
on his waistcoat. He said a couple of words in French to a foreigner who
was in the room, and said them fairly correctly.

“Luise Ivanovna, you can sit down,” he said casually to the
gaily-dressed, purple-faced lady, who was still standing as though not
venturing to sit down, though there was a chair beside her.

“Ich danke,” said the latter, and softly, with a rustle of silk she sank
into the chair. Her light blue dress trimmed with white lace floated
about the table like an air-balloon and filled almost half the room. She
smelt of scent. But she was obviously embarrassed at filling half
the room and smelling so strongly of scent; and though her smile was
impudent as well as cringing, it betrayed evident uneasiness.

The lady in mourning had done at last, and got up. All at once, with
some noise, an officer walked in very jauntily, with a peculiar swing of
his shoulders at each step. He tossed his cockaded cap on the table and
sat down in an easy-chair. The small lady positively skipped from her
seat on seeing him, and fell to curtsying in a sort of ecstasy; but the
officer took not the smallest notice of her, and she did not venture to
sit down again in his presence. He was the assistant superintendent. He
had a reddish moustache that stood out horizontally on each side of his
face, and extremely small features, expressive of nothing much except
a certain insolence. He looked askance and rather indignantly at
Raskolnikov; he was so very badly dressed, and in spite of his
humiliating position, his bearing was by no means in keeping with his
clothes. Raskolnikov had unwarily fixed a very long and direct look on
him, so that he felt positively affronted.

“What do you want?” he shouted, apparently astonished that such a ragged
fellow was not annihilated by the majesty of his glance.

“I was summoned... by a notice...” Raskolnikov faltered.

“For the recovery of money due, from _the student_,” the head clerk
interfered hurriedly, tearing himself from his papers. “Here!” and he
flung Raskolnikov a document and pointed out the place. “Read that!”

“Money? What money?” thought Raskolnikov, “but... then... it’s certainly
not _that_.”

And he trembled with joy. He felt sudden intense indescribable relief. A
load was lifted from his back.

“And pray, what time were you directed to appear, sir?” shouted the
assistant superintendent, seeming for some unknown reason more and more
aggrieved. “You are told to come at nine, and now it’s twelve!”

“The notice was only brought me a quarter of an hour ago,” Raskolnikov
answered loudly over his shoulder. To his own surprise he, too, grew
suddenly angry and found a certain pleasure in it. “And it’s enough that
I have come here ill with fever.”

“Kindly refrain from shouting!”

“I’m not shouting, I’m speaking very quietly, it’s you who are shouting
at me. I’m a student, and allow no one to shout at me.”

The assistant superintendent was so furious that for the first minute he
could only splutter inarticulately. He leaped up from his seat.

“Be silent! You are in a government office. Don’t be impudent, sir!”

“You’re in a government office, too,” cried Raskolnikov, “and you’re
smoking a cigarette as well as shouting, so you are showing disrespect
to all of us.”

He felt an indescribable satisfaction at having said this.

The head clerk looked at him with a smile. The angry assistant
superintendent was obviously disconcerted.

“That’s not your business!” he shouted at last with unnatural loudness.
“Kindly make the declaration demanded of you. Show him. Alexandr
Grigorievitch. There is a complaint against you! You don’t pay your
debts! You’re a fine bird!”

But Raskolnikov was not listening now; he had eagerly clutched at the
paper, in haste to find an explanation. He read it once, and a second
time, and still did not understand.

“What is this?” he asked the head clerk.

“It is for the recovery of money on an I O U, a writ. You must
either pay it, with all expenses, costs and so on, or give a written
declaration when you can pay it, and at the same time an undertaking not
to leave the capital without payment, and nor to sell or conceal your
property. The creditor is at liberty to sell your property, and proceed
against you according to the law.”

“But I... am not in debt to anyone!”

“That’s not our business. Here, an I O U for a hundred and fifteen
roubles, legally attested, and due for payment, has been brought us
for recovery, given by you to the widow of the assessor Zarnitsyn, nine
months ago, and paid over by the widow Zarnitsyn to one Mr. Tchebarov.
We therefore summon you, hereupon.”

“But she is my landlady!”

“And what if she is your landlady?”

The head clerk looked at him with a condescending smile of compassion,
and at the same time with a certain triumph, as at a novice under fire
for the first time--as though he would say: “Well, how do you feel now?”
 But what did he care now for an I O U, for a writ of recovery! Was that
worth worrying about now, was it worth attention even! He stood, he
read, he listened, he answered, he even asked questions himself, but
all mechanically. The triumphant sense of security, of deliverance from
overwhelming danger, that was what filled his whole soul that moment
without thought for the future, without analysis, without suppositions
or surmises, without doubts and without questioning. It was an instant
of full, direct, purely instinctive joy. But at that very moment
something like a thunderstorm took place in the office. The assistant
superintendent, still shaken by Raskolnikov’s disrespect, still fuming
and obviously anxious to keep up his wounded dignity, pounced on the
unfortunate smart lady, who had been gazing at him ever since he came in
with an exceedingly silly smile.

“You shameful hussy!” he shouted suddenly at the top of his voice. (The
lady in mourning had left the office.) “What was going on at your house
last night? Eh! A disgrace again, you’re a scandal to the whole street.
Fighting and drinking again. Do you want the house of correction? Why,
I have warned you ten times over that I would not let you off the
eleventh! And here you are again, again, you... you...!”

The paper fell out of Raskolnikov’s hands, and he looked wildly at the
smart lady who was so unceremoniously treated. But he soon saw what it
meant, and at once began to find positive amusement in the scandal. He
listened with pleasure, so that he longed to laugh and laugh... all his
nerves were on edge.

“Ilya Petrovitch!” the head clerk was beginning anxiously, but stopped
short, for he knew from experience that the enraged assistant could not
be stopped except by force.

As for the smart lady, at first she positively trembled before the
storm. But, strange to say, the more numerous and violent the terms of
abuse became, the more amiable she looked, and the more seductive the
smiles she lavished on the terrible assistant. She moved uneasily, and
curtsied incessantly, waiting impatiently for a chance of putting in her
word: and at last she found it.

“There was no sort of noise or fighting in my house, Mr. Captain,” she
pattered all at once, like peas dropping, speaking Russian confidently,
though with a strong German accent, “and no sort of scandal, and his
honour came drunk, and it’s the whole truth I am telling, Mr. Captain,
and I am not to blame.... Mine is an honourable house, Mr. Captain,
and honourable behaviour, Mr. Captain, and I always, always dislike any
scandal myself. But he came quite tipsy, and asked for three bottles
again, and then he lifted up one leg, and began playing the pianoforte
with one foot, and that is not at all right in an honourable house, and
he _ganz_ broke the piano, and it was very bad manners indeed and I said
so. And he took up a bottle and began hitting everyone with it. And then
I called the porter, and Karl came, and he took Karl and hit him in the
eye; and he hit Henriette in the eye, too, and gave me five slaps on the
cheek. And it was so ungentlemanly in an honourable house, Mr. Captain,
and I screamed. And he opened the window over the canal, and stood in
the window, squealing like a little pig; it was a disgrace. The idea of
squealing like a little pig at the window into the street! Fie upon him!
And Karl pulled him away from the window by his coat, and it is true,
Mr. Captain, he tore _sein rock_. And then he shouted that _man muss_
pay him fifteen roubles damages. And I did pay him, Mr. Captain, five
roubles for _sein rock_. And he is an ungentlemanly visitor and caused
all the scandal. ‘I will show you up,’ he said, ‘for I can write to all
the papers about you.’”

“Then he was an author?”

“Yes, Mr. Captain, and what an ungentlemanly visitor in an honourable
house....”

“Now then! Enough! I have told you already...”

“Ilya Petrovitch!” the head clerk repeated significantly.

The assistant glanced rapidly at him; the head clerk slightly shook his
head.

“... So I tell you this, most respectable Luise Ivanovna, and I tell it
you for the last time,” the assistant went on. “If there is a scandal
in your honourable house once again, I will put you yourself in the
lock-up, as it is called in polite society. Do you hear? So a literary
man, an author took five roubles for his coat-tail in an ‘honourable
house’? A nice set, these authors!”

And he cast a contemptuous glance at Raskolnikov. “There was a scandal
the other day in a restaurant, too. An author had eaten his dinner and
would not pay; ‘I’ll write a satire on you,’ says he. And there was
another of them on a steamer last week used the most disgraceful
language to the respectable family of a civil councillor, his wife and
daughter. And there was one of them turned out of a confectioner’s shop
the other day. They are like that, authors, literary men, students,
town-criers.... Pfoo! You get along! I shall look in upon you myself one
day. Then you had better be careful! Do you hear?”

With hurried deference, Luise Ivanovna fell to curtsying in all
directions, and so curtsied herself to the door. But at the door, she
stumbled backwards against a good-looking officer with a fresh, open
face and splendid thick fair whiskers. This was the superintendent of
the district himself, Nikodim Fomitch. Luise Ivanovna made haste
to curtsy almost to the ground, and with mincing little steps, she
fluttered out of the office.

“Again thunder and lightning--a hurricane!” said Nikodim Fomitch to Ilya
Petrovitch in a civil and friendly tone. “You are aroused again, you are
fuming again! I heard it on the stairs!”

“Well, what then!” Ilya Petrovitch drawled with gentlemanly nonchalance;
and he walked with some papers to another table, with a jaunty swing of
his shoulders at each step. “Here, if you will kindly look: an author,
or a student, has been one at least, does not pay his debts, has given
an I O U, won’t clear out of his room, and complaints are constantly
being lodged against him, and here he has been pleased to make a protest
against my smoking in his presence! He behaves like a cad himself, and
just look at him, please. Here’s the gentleman, and very attractive he
is!”

“Poverty is not a vice, my friend, but we know you go off like powder,
you can’t bear a slight, I daresay you took offence at something and
went too far yourself,” continued Nikodim Fomitch, turning affably to
Raskolnikov. “But you were wrong there; he is a capital fellow, I assure
you, but explosive, explosive! He gets hot, fires up, boils over, and no
stopping him! And then it’s all over! And at the bottom he’s a heart of
gold! His nickname in the regiment was the Explosive Lieutenant....”

“And what a regiment it was, too,” cried Ilya Petrovitch, much gratified
at this agreeable banter, though still sulky.

Raskolnikov had a sudden desire to say something exceptionally pleasant
to them all. “Excuse me, Captain,” he began easily, suddenly addressing
Nikodim Fomitch, “will you enter into my position?... I am ready to
ask pardon, if I have been ill-mannered. I am a poor student, sick
and shattered (shattered was the word he used) by poverty. I am not
studying, because I cannot keep myself now, but I shall get money.... I
have a mother and sister in the province of X. They will send it to
me, and I will pay. My landlady is a good-hearted woman, but she is so
exasperated at my having lost my lessons, and not paying her for the
last four months, that she does not even send up my dinner... and I
don’t understand this I O U at all. She is asking me to pay her on this
I O U. How am I to pay her? Judge for yourselves!...”

“But that is not our business, you know,” the head clerk was observing.

“Yes, yes. I perfectly agree with you. But allow me to explain...”
 Raskolnikov put in again, still addressing Nikodim Fomitch, but trying
his best to address Ilya Petrovitch also, though the latter persistently
appeared to be rummaging among his papers and to be contemptuously
oblivious of him. “Allow me to explain that I have been living with her
for nearly three years and at first... at first... for why should I not
confess it, at the very beginning I promised to marry her daughter, it
was a verbal promise, freely given... she was a girl... indeed, I liked
her, though I was not in love with her... a youthful affair in fact...
that is, I mean to say, that my landlady gave me credit freely in those
days, and I led a life of... I was very heedless...”

“Nobody asks you for these personal details, sir, we’ve no time to
waste,” Ilya Petrovitch interposed roughly and with a note of triumph;
but Raskolnikov stopped him hotly, though he suddenly found it
exceedingly difficult to speak.

“But excuse me, excuse me. It is for me to explain... how it all
happened... In my turn... though I agree with you... it is unnecessary.
But a year ago, the girl died of typhus. I remained lodging there as
before, and when my landlady moved into her present quarters, she said
to me... and in a friendly way... that she had complete trust in me,
but still, would I not give her an I O U for one hundred and fifteen
roubles, all the debt I owed her. She said if only I gave her that,
she would trust me again, as much as I liked, and that she would never,
never--those were her own words--make use of that I O U till I could pay
of myself... and now, when I have lost my lessons and have nothing to
eat, she takes action against me. What am I to say to that?”

“All these affecting details are no business of ours.” Ilya Petrovitch
interrupted rudely. “You must give a written undertaking but as for your
love affairs and all these tragic events, we have nothing to do with
that.”

“Come now... you are harsh,” muttered Nikodim Fomitch, sitting down at
the table and also beginning to write. He looked a little ashamed.

“Write!” said the head clerk to Raskolnikov.

“Write what?” the latter asked, gruffly.

“I will dictate to you.”

Raskolnikov fancied that the head clerk treated him more casually and
contemptuously after his speech, but strange to say he suddenly felt
completely indifferent to anyone’s opinion, and this revulsion took
place in a flash, in one instant. If he had cared to think a little,
he would have been amazed indeed that he could have talked to them like
that a minute before, forcing his feelings upon them. And where had
those feelings come from? Now if the whole room had been filled, not
with police officers, but with those nearest and dearest to him, he
would not have found one human word for them, so empty was his heart. A
gloomy sensation of agonising, everlasting solitude and remoteness, took
conscious form in his soul. It was not the meanness of his sentimental
effusions before Ilya Petrovitch, nor the meanness of the latter’s
triumph over him that had caused this sudden revulsion in his heart.
Oh, what had he to do now with his own baseness, with all these petty
vanities, officers, German women, debts, police-offices? If he had been
sentenced to be burnt at that moment, he would not have stirred, would
hardly have heard the sentence to the end. Something was happening to
him entirely new, sudden and unknown. It was not that he understood, but
he felt clearly with all the intensity of sensation that he could
never more appeal to these people in the police-office with sentimental
effusions like his recent outburst, or with anything whatever; and that
if they had been his own brothers and sisters and not police-officers,
it would have been utterly out of the question to appeal to them in any
circumstance of life. He had never experienced such a strange and awful
sensation. And what was most agonising--it was more a sensation than a
conception or idea, a direct sensation, the most agonising of all the
sensations he had known in his life.

The head clerk began dictating to him the usual form of declaration,
that he could not pay, that he undertook to do so at a future date, that
he would not leave the town, nor sell his property, and so on.

“But you can’t write, you can hardly hold the pen,” observed the head
clerk, looking with curiosity at Raskolnikov. “Are you ill?”

“Yes, I am giddy. Go on!”

“That’s all. Sign it.”

The head clerk took the paper, and turned to attend to others.

Raskolnikov gave back the pen; but instead of getting up and going away,
he put his elbows on the table and pressed his head in his hands. He
felt as if a nail were being driven into his skull. A strange idea
suddenly occurred to him, to get up at once, to go up to Nikodim
Fomitch, and tell him everything that had happened yesterday, and then
to go with him to his lodgings and to show him the things in the hole
in the corner. The impulse was so strong that he got up from his seat
to carry it out. “Hadn’t I better think a minute?” flashed through his
mind. “No, better cast off the burden without thinking.” But all at once
he stood still, rooted to the spot. Nikodim Fomitch was talking eagerly
with Ilya Petrovitch, and the words reached him:

“It’s impossible, they’ll both be released. To begin with, the whole
story contradicts itself. Why should they have called the porter, if it
had been their doing? To inform against themselves? Or as a blind? No,
that would be too cunning! Besides, Pestryakov, the student, was seen at
the gate by both the porters and a woman as he went in. He was walking
with three friends, who left him only at the gate, and he asked the
porters to direct him, in the presence of the friends. Now, would he
have asked his way if he had been going with such an object? As for
Koch, he spent half an hour at the silversmith’s below, before he went
up to the old woman and he left him at exactly a quarter to eight. Now
just consider...”

“But excuse me, how do you explain this contradiction? They state
themselves that they knocked and the door was locked; yet three minutes
later when they went up with the porter, it turned out the door was
unfastened.”

“That’s just it; the murderer must have been there and bolted himself
in; and they’d have caught him for a certainty if Koch had not been
an ass and gone to look for the porter too. _He_ must have seized the
interval to get downstairs and slip by them somehow. Koch keeps crossing
himself and saying: ‘If I had been there, he would have jumped out and
killed me with his axe.’ He is going to have a thanksgiving service--ha,
ha!”

“And no one saw the murderer?”

“They might well not see him; the house is a regular Noah’s Ark,” said
the head clerk, who was listening.

“It’s clear, quite clear,” Nikodim Fomitch repeated warmly.

“No, it is anything but clear,” Ilya Petrovitch maintained.

Raskolnikov picked up his hat and walked towards the door, but he did
not reach it....

When he recovered consciousness, he found himself sitting in a chair,
supported by someone on the right side, while someone else was standing
on the left, holding a yellowish glass filled with yellow water, and
Nikodim Fomitch standing before him, looking intently at him. He got up
from the chair.

“What’s this? Are you ill?” Nikodim Fomitch asked, rather sharply.

“He could hardly hold his pen when he was signing,” said the head clerk,
settling back in his place, and taking up his work again.

“Have you been ill long?” cried Ilya Petrovitch from his place, where
he, too, was looking through papers. He had, of course, come to look at
the sick man when he fainted, but retired at once when he recovered.

“Since yesterday,” muttered Raskolnikov in reply.

“Did you go out yesterday?”

“Yes.”

“Though you were ill?”

“Yes.”

“At what time?”

“About seven.”

“And where did you go, may I ask?”

“Along the street.”

“Short and clear.”

Raskolnikov, white as a handkerchief, had answered sharply, jerkily,
without dropping his black feverish eyes before Ilya Petrovitch’s stare.

“He can scarcely stand upright. And you...” Nikodim Fomitch was
beginning.

“No matter,” Ilya Petrovitch pronounced rather peculiarly.

Nikodim Fomitch would have made some further protest, but glancing at
the head clerk who was looking very hard at him, he did not speak. There
was a sudden silence. It was strange.

“Very well, then,” concluded Ilya Petrovitch, “we will not detain you.”

Raskolnikov went out. He caught the sound of eager conversation on his
departure, and above the rest rose the questioning voice of Nikodim
Fomitch. In the street, his faintness passed off completely.

“A search--there will be a search at once,” he repeated to himself,
hurrying home. “The brutes! they suspect.”

His former terror mastered him completely again.



CHAPTER II

“And what if there has been a search already? What if I find them in my
room?”

But here was his room. Nothing and no one in it. No one had peeped in.
Even Nastasya had not touched it. But heavens! how could he have left
all those things in the hole?

He rushed to the corner, slipped his hand under the paper, pulled the
things out and lined his pockets with them. There were eight articles in
all: two little boxes with ear-rings or something of the sort, he hardly
looked to see; then four small leather cases. There was a chain, too,
merely wrapped in newspaper and something else in newspaper, that looked
like a decoration.... He put them all in the different pockets of his
overcoat, and the remaining pocket of his trousers, trying to conceal
them as much as possible. He took the purse, too. Then he went out of
his room, leaving the door open. He walked quickly and resolutely, and
though he felt shattered, he had his senses about him. He was afraid of
pursuit, he was afraid that in another half-hour, another quarter of an
hour perhaps, instructions would be issued for his pursuit, and so at
all costs, he must hide all traces before then. He must clear everything
up while he still had some strength, some reasoning power left him....
Where was he to go?

That had long been settled: “Fling them into the canal, and all traces
hidden in the water, the thing would be at an end.” So he had decided in
the night of his delirium when several times he had had the impulse to
get up and go away, to make haste, and get rid of it all. But to get
rid of it, turned out to be a very difficult task. He wandered along
the bank of the Ekaterininsky Canal for half an hour or more and looked
several times at the steps running down to the water, but he could not
think of carrying out his plan; either rafts stood at the steps’ edge,
and women were washing clothes on them, or boats were moored there, and
people were swarming everywhere. Moreover he could be seen and noticed
from the banks on all sides; it would look suspicious for a man to go
down on purpose, stop, and throw something into the water. And what if
the boxes were to float instead of sinking? And of course they would.
Even as it was, everyone he met seemed to stare and look round, as if
they had nothing to do but to watch him. “Why is it, or can it be my
fancy?” he thought.

At last the thought struck him that it might be better to go to the
Neva. There were not so many people there, he would be less observed,
and it would be more convenient in every way, above all it was further
off. He wondered how he could have been wandering for a good half-hour,
worried and anxious in this dangerous past without thinking of it
before. And that half-hour he had lost over an irrational plan, simply
because he had thought of it in delirium! He had become extremely absent
and forgetful and he was aware of it. He certainly must make haste.

He walked towards the Neva along V---- Prospect, but on the way
another idea struck him. “Why to the Neva? Would it not be better to go
somewhere far off, to the Islands again, and there hide the things
in some solitary place, in a wood or under a bush, and mark the spot
perhaps?” And though he felt incapable of clear judgment, the idea
seemed to him a sound one. But he was not destined to go there. For
coming out of V---- Prospect towards the square, he saw on the left a
passage leading between two blank walls to a courtyard. On the right
hand, the blank unwhitewashed wall of a four-storied house stretched far
into the court; on the left, a wooden hoarding ran parallel with it for
twenty paces into the court, and then turned sharply to the left. Here
was a deserted fenced-off place where rubbish of different sorts was
lying. At the end of the court, the corner of a low, smutty, stone shed,
apparently part of some workshop, peeped from behind the hoarding. It
was probably a carriage builder’s or carpenter’s shed; the whole place
from the entrance was black with coal dust. Here would be the place to
throw it, he thought. Not seeing anyone in the yard, he slipped in, and
at once saw near the gate a sink, such as is often put in yards where
there are many workmen or cab-drivers; and on the hoarding above had
been scribbled in chalk the time-honoured witticism, “Standing here
strictly forbidden.” This was all the better, for there would be nothing
suspicious about his going in. “Here I could throw it all in a heap and
get away!”

Looking round once more, with his hand already in his pocket, he noticed
against the outer wall, between the entrance and the sink, a big unhewn
stone, weighing perhaps sixty pounds. The other side of the wall was a
street. He could hear passers-by, always numerous in that part, but he
could not be seen from the entrance, unless someone came in from the
street, which might well happen indeed, so there was need of haste.

He bent down over the stone, seized the top of it firmly in both hands,
and using all his strength turned it over. Under the stone was a small
hollow in the ground, and he immediately emptied his pocket into it.
The purse lay at the top, and yet the hollow was not filled up. Then he
seized the stone again and with one twist turned it back, so that it was
in the same position again, though it stood a very little higher. But
he scraped the earth about it and pressed it at the edges with his foot.
Nothing could be noticed.

Then he went out, and turned into the square. Again an intense,
almost unbearable joy overwhelmed him for an instant, as it had in
the police-office. “I have buried my tracks! And who, who can think of
looking under that stone? It has been lying there most likely ever since
the house was built, and will lie as many years more. And if it were
found, who would think of me? It is all over! No clue!” And he laughed.
Yes, he remembered that he began laughing a thin, nervous noiseless
laugh, and went on laughing all the time he was crossing the square. But
when he reached the K---- Boulevard where two days before he had come
upon that girl, his laughter suddenly ceased. Other ideas crept into his
mind. He felt all at once that it would be loathsome to pass that seat
on which after the girl was gone, he had sat and pondered, and that it
would be hateful, too, to meet that whiskered policeman to whom he had
given the twenty copecks: “Damn him!”

He walked, looking about him angrily and distractedly. All his ideas now
seemed to be circling round some single point, and he felt that there
really was such a point, and that now, now, he was left facing that
point--and for the first time, indeed, during the last two months.

“Damn it all!” he thought suddenly, in a fit of ungovernable fury.
“If it has begun, then it has begun. Hang the new life! Good Lord, how
stupid it is!... And what lies I told to-day! How despicably I fawned
upon that wretched Ilya Petrovitch! But that is all folly! What do I
care for them all, and my fawning upon them! It is not that at all! It
is not that at all!”

Suddenly he stopped; a new utterly unexpected and exceedingly simple
question perplexed and bitterly confounded him.

“If it all has really been done deliberately and not idiotically, if
I really had a certain and definite object, how is it I did not even
glance into the purse and don’t know what I had there, for which I have
undergone these agonies, and have deliberately undertaken this base,
filthy degrading business? And here I wanted at once to throw into the
water the purse together with all the things which I had not seen
either... how’s that?”

Yes, that was so, that was all so. Yet he had known it all before, and
it was not a new question for him, even when it was decided in the night
without hesitation and consideration, as though so it must be, as though
it could not possibly be otherwise.... Yes, he had known it all, and
understood it all; it surely had all been settled even yesterday at the
moment when he was bending over the box and pulling the jewel-cases out
of it.... Yes, so it was.

“It is because I am very ill,” he decided grimly at last, “I have been
worrying and fretting myself, and I don’t know what I am doing....
Yesterday and the day before yesterday and all this time I have been
worrying myself.... I shall get well and I shall not worry.... But what
if I don’t get well at all? Good God, how sick I am of it all!”

He walked on without resting. He had a terrible longing for some
distraction, but he did not know what to do, what to attempt. A new
overwhelming sensation was gaining more and more mastery over him
every moment; this was an immeasurable, almost physical, repulsion for
everything surrounding him, an obstinate, malignant feeling of hatred.
All who met him were loathsome to him--he loathed their faces, their
movements, their gestures. If anyone had addressed him, he felt that he
might have spat at him or bitten him....

He stopped suddenly, on coming out on the bank of the Little Neva, near
the bridge to Vassilyevsky Ostrov. “Why, he lives here, in that house,”
 he thought, “why, I have not come to Razumihin of my own accord! Here
it’s the same thing over again.... Very interesting to know, though;
have I come on purpose or have I simply walked here by chance? Never
mind, I said the day before yesterday that I would go and see him the
day _after_; well, and so I will! Besides I really cannot go further
now.”

He went up to Razumihin’s room on the fifth floor.

The latter was at home in his garret, busily writing at the moment, and
he opened the door himself. It was four months since they had seen each
other. Razumihin was sitting in a ragged dressing-gown, with slippers on
his bare feet, unkempt, unshaven and unwashed. His face showed surprise.

“Is it you?” he cried. He looked his comrade up and down; then after a
brief pause, he whistled. “As hard up as all that! Why, brother, you’ve
cut me out!” he added, looking at Raskolnikov’s rags. “Come sit down,
you are tired, I’ll be bound.”

And when he had sunk down on the American leather sofa, which was
in even worse condition than his own, Razumihin saw at once that his
visitor was ill.

“Why, you are seriously ill, do you know that?” He began feeling his
pulse. Raskolnikov pulled away his hand.

“Never mind,” he said, “I have come for this: I have no lessons.... I
wanted,... but I don’t really want lessons....”

“But I say! You are delirious, you know!” Razumihin observed, watching
him carefully.

“No, I am not.”

Raskolnikov got up from the sofa. As he had mounted the stairs to
Razumihin’s, he had not realised that he would be meeting his friend
face to face. Now, in a flash, he knew, that what he was least of all
disposed for at that moment was to be face to face with anyone in the
wide world. His spleen rose within him. He almost choked with rage at
himself as soon as he crossed Razumihin’s threshold.

“Good-bye,” he said abruptly, and walked to the door.

“Stop, stop! You queer fish.”

“I don’t want to,” said the other, again pulling away his hand.

“Then why the devil have you come? Are you mad, or what? Why, this
is... almost insulting! I won’t let you go like that.”

“Well, then, I came to you because I know no one but you who could
help... to begin... because you are kinder than anyone--cleverer, I
mean, and can judge... and now I see that I want nothing. Do you hear?
Nothing at all... no one’s services... no one’s sympathy. I am by
myself... alone. Come, that’s enough. Leave me alone.”

“Stay a minute, you sweep! You are a perfect madman. As you like for all
I care. I have no lessons, do you see, and I don’t care about that, but
there’s a bookseller, Heruvimov--and he takes the place of a lesson.
I would not exchange him for five lessons. He’s doing publishing of a
kind, and issuing natural science manuals and what a circulation they
have! The very titles are worth the money! You always maintained that I
was a fool, but by Jove, my boy, there are greater fools than I am!
Now he is setting up for being advanced, not that he has an inkling of
anything, but, of course, I encourage him. Here are two signatures of
the German text--in my opinion, the crudest charlatanism; it discusses
the question, ‘Is woman a human being?’ And, of course, triumphantly
proves that she is. Heruvimov is going to bring out this work as a
contribution to the woman question; I am translating it; he will expand
these two and a half signatures into six, we shall make up a gorgeous
title half a page long and bring it out at half a rouble. It will do! He
pays me six roubles the signature, it works out to about fifteen roubles
for the job, and I’ve had six already in advance. When we have finished
this, we are going to begin a translation about whales, and then some of
the dullest scandals out of the second part of _Les Confessions_ we have
marked for translation; somebody has told Heruvimov, that Rousseau was
a kind of Radishchev. You may be sure I don’t contradict him, hang him!
Well, would you like to do the second signature of ‘_Is woman a human
being?_’ If you would, take the German and pens and paper--all those
are provided, and take three roubles; for as I have had six roubles in
advance on the whole thing, three roubles come to you for your share.
And when you have finished the signature there will be another three
roubles for you. And please don’t think I am doing you a service; quite
the contrary, as soon as you came in, I saw how you could help me; to
begin with, I am weak in spelling, and secondly, I am sometimes utterly
adrift in German, so that I make it up as I go along for the most part.
The only comfort is, that it’s bound to be a change for the better.
Though who can tell, maybe it’s sometimes for the worse. Will you take
it?”

Raskolnikov took the German sheets in silence, took the three roubles
and without a word went out. Razumihin gazed after him in astonishment.
But when Raskolnikov was in the next street, he turned back, mounted the
stairs to Razumihin’s again and laying on the table the German article
and the three roubles, went out again, still without uttering a word.

“Are you raving, or what?” Razumihin shouted, roused to fury at last.
“What farce is this? You’ll drive me crazy too... what did you come to
see me for, damn you?”

“I don’t want... translation,” muttered Raskolnikov from the stairs.

“Then what the devil do you want?” shouted Razumihin from above.
Raskolnikov continued descending the staircase in silence.

“Hey, there! Where are you living?”

No answer.

“Well, confound you then!”

But Raskolnikov was already stepping into the street. On the Nikolaevsky
Bridge he was roused to full consciousness again by an unpleasant
incident. A coachman, after shouting at him two or three times, gave him
a violent lash on the back with his whip, for having almost fallen under
his horses’ hoofs. The lash so infuriated him that he dashed away to the
railing (for some unknown reason he had been walking in the very middle
of the bridge in the traffic). He angrily clenched and ground his teeth.
He heard laughter, of course.

“Serves him right!”

“A pickpocket I dare say.”

“Pretending to be drunk, for sure, and getting under the wheels on
purpose; and you have to answer for him.”

“It’s a regular profession, that’s what it is.”

But while he stood at the railing, still looking angry and bewildered
after the retreating carriage, and rubbing his back, he suddenly felt
someone thrust money into his hand. He looked. It was an elderly woman
in a kerchief and goatskin shoes, with a girl, probably her daughter,
wearing a hat, and carrying a green parasol.

“Take it, my good man, in Christ’s name.”

He took it and they passed on. It was a piece of twenty copecks. From
his dress and appearance they might well have taken him for a beggar
asking alms in the streets, and the gift of the twenty copecks he
doubtless owed to the blow, which made them feel sorry for him.

He closed his hand on the twenty copecks, walked on for ten paces, and
turned facing the Neva, looking towards the palace. The sky was without
a cloud and the water was almost bright blue, which is so rare in the
Neva. The cupola of the cathedral, which is seen at its best from the
bridge about twenty paces from the chapel, glittered in the sunlight,
and in the pure air every ornament on it could be clearly distinguished.
The pain from the lash went off, and Raskolnikov forgot about it; one
uneasy and not quite definite idea occupied him now completely. He stood
still, and gazed long and intently into the distance; this spot was
especially familiar to him. When he was attending the university, he had
hundreds of times--generally on his way home--stood still on this spot,
gazed at this truly magnificent spectacle and almost always marvelled at
a vague and mysterious emotion it roused in him. It left him strangely
cold; this gorgeous picture was for him blank and lifeless. He wondered
every time at his sombre and enigmatic impression and, mistrusting
himself, put off finding the explanation of it. He vividly recalled
those old doubts and perplexities, and it seemed to him that it was
no mere chance that he recalled them now. It struck him as strange and
grotesque, that he should have stopped at the same spot as before,
as though he actually imagined he could think the same thoughts, be
interested in the same theories and pictures that had interested him...
so short a time ago. He felt it almost amusing, and yet it wrung his
heart. Deep down, hidden far away out of sight all that seemed to him
now--all his old past, his old thoughts, his old problems and theories,
his old impressions and that picture and himself and all, all.... He
felt as though he were flying upwards, and everything were vanishing
from his sight. Making an unconscious movement with his hand, he
suddenly became aware of the piece of money in his fist. He opened his
hand, stared at the coin, and with a sweep of his arm flung it into
the water; then he turned and went home. It seemed to him, he had cut
himself off from everyone and from everything at that moment.

Evening was coming on when he reached home, so that he must have been
walking about six hours. How and where he came back he did not remember.
Undressing, and quivering like an overdriven horse, he lay down on the
sofa, drew his greatcoat over him, and at once sank into oblivion....

It was dusk when he was waked up by a fearful scream. Good God, what a
scream! Such unnatural sounds, such howling, wailing, grinding, tears,
blows and curses he had never heard.

He could never have imagined such brutality, such frenzy. In terror he
sat up in bed, almost swooning with agony. But the fighting, wailing
and cursing grew louder and louder. And then to his intense amazement
he caught the voice of his landlady. She was howling, shrieking and
wailing, rapidly, hurriedly, incoherently, so that he could not make
out what she was talking about; she was beseeching, no doubt, not to be
beaten, for she was being mercilessly beaten on the stairs. The voice of
her assailant was so horrible from spite and rage that it was almost
a croak; but he, too, was saying something, and just as quickly
and indistinctly, hurrying and spluttering. All at once Raskolnikov
trembled; he recognised the voice--it was the voice of Ilya Petrovitch.
Ilya Petrovitch here and beating the landlady! He is kicking her,
banging her head against the steps--that’s clear, that can be told
from the sounds, from the cries and the thuds. How is it, is the world
topsy-turvy? He could hear people running in crowds from all the storeys
and all the staircases; he heard voices, exclamations, knocking, doors
banging. “But why, why, and how could it be?” he repeated, thinking
seriously that he had gone mad. But no, he heard too distinctly! And
they would come to him then next, “for no doubt... it’s all about
that... about yesterday.... Good God!” He would have fastened his door
with the latch, but he could not lift his hand... besides, it would
be useless. Terror gripped his heart like ice, tortured him and numbed
him.... But at last all this uproar, after continuing about ten minutes,
began gradually to subside. The landlady was moaning and groaning; Ilya
Petrovitch was still uttering threats and curses.... But at last he,
too, seemed to be silent, and now he could not be heard. “Can he have
gone away? Good Lord!” Yes, and now the landlady is going too, still
weeping and moaning... and then her door slammed.... Now the crowd was
going from the stairs to their rooms, exclaiming, disputing, calling
to one another, raising their voices to a shout, dropping them to a
whisper. There must have been numbers of them--almost all the inmates
of the block. “But, good God, how could it be! And why, why had he come
here!”

Raskolnikov sank worn out on the sofa, but could not close his eyes. He
lay for half an hour in such anguish, such an intolerable sensation of
infinite terror as he had never experienced before. Suddenly a bright
light flashed into his room. Nastasya came in with a candle and a plate
of soup. Looking at him carefully and ascertaining that he was not
asleep, she set the candle on the table and began to lay out what she
had brought--bread, salt, a plate, a spoon.

“You’ve eaten nothing since yesterday, I warrant. You’ve been trudging
about all day, and you’re shaking with fever.”

“Nastasya... what were they beating the landlady for?”

She looked intently at him.

“Who beat the landlady?”

“Just now... half an hour ago, Ilya Petrovitch, the assistant
superintendent, on the stairs.... Why was he ill-treating her like that,
and... why was he here?”

Nastasya scrutinised him, silent and frowning, and her scrutiny lasted a
long time. He felt uneasy, even frightened at her searching eyes.

“Nastasya, why don’t you speak?” he said timidly at last in a weak
voice.

“It’s the blood,” she answered at last softly, as though speaking to
herself.

“Blood? What blood?” he muttered, growing white and turning towards the
wall.

Nastasya still looked at him without speaking.

“Nobody has been beating the landlady,” she declared at last in a firm,
resolute voice.

He gazed at her, hardly able to breathe.

“I heard it myself.... I was not asleep... I was sitting up,” he
said still more timidly. “I listened a long while. The assistant
superintendent came.... Everyone ran out on to the stairs from all the
flats.”

“No one has been here. That’s the blood crying in your ears. When
there’s no outlet for it and it gets clotted, you begin fancying
things.... Will you eat something?”

He made no answer. Nastasya still stood over him, watching him.

“Give me something to drink... Nastasya.”

She went downstairs and returned with a white earthenware jug of water.
He remembered only swallowing one sip of the cold water and spilling
some on his neck. Then followed forgetfulness.



CHAPTER III

He was not completely unconscious, however, all the time he was ill; he
was in a feverish state, sometimes delirious, sometimes half conscious.
He remembered a great deal afterwards. Sometimes it seemed as though
there were a number of people round him; they wanted to take him away
somewhere, there was a great deal of squabbling and discussing about
him. Then he would be alone in the room; they had all gone away afraid
of him, and only now and then opened the door a crack to look at him;
they threatened him, plotted something together, laughed, and mocked
at him. He remembered Nastasya often at his bedside; he distinguished
another person, too, whom he seemed to know very well, though he could
not remember who he was, and this fretted him, even made him cry.
Sometimes he fancied he had been lying there a month; at other times
it all seemed part of the same day. But of _that_--of _that_ he had
no recollection, and yet every minute he felt that he had forgotten
something he ought to remember. He worried and tormented himself trying
to remember, moaned, flew into a rage, or sank into awful, intolerable
terror. Then he struggled to get up, would have run away, but someone
always prevented him by force, and he sank back into impotence and
forgetfulness. At last he returned to complete consciousness.

It happened at ten o’clock in the morning. On fine days the sun shone
into the room at that hour, throwing a streak of light on the right
wall and the corner near the door. Nastasya was standing beside him
with another person, a complete stranger, who was looking at him
very inquisitively. He was a young man with a beard, wearing a full,
short-waisted coat, and looked like a messenger. The landlady was
peeping in at the half-opened door. Raskolnikov sat up.

“Who is this, Nastasya?” he asked, pointing to the young man.

“I say, he’s himself again!” she said.

“He is himself,” echoed the man.

Concluding that he had returned to his senses, the landlady closed the
door and disappeared. She was always shy and dreaded conversations or
discussions. She was a woman of forty, not at all bad-looking, fat
and buxom, with black eyes and eyebrows, good-natured from fatness and
laziness, and absurdly bashful.

“Who... are you?” he went on, addressing the man. But at that moment
the door was flung open, and, stooping a little, as he was so tall,
Razumihin came in.

“What a cabin it is!” he cried. “I am always knocking my head. You call
this a lodging! So you are conscious, brother? I’ve just heard the news
from Pashenka.”

“He has just come to,” said Nastasya.

“Just come to,” echoed the man again, with a smile.

“And who are you?” Razumihin asked, suddenly addressing him. “My name is
Vrazumihin, at your service; not Razumihin, as I am always called, but
Vrazumihin, a student and gentleman; and he is my friend. And who are
you?”

“I am the messenger from our office, from the merchant Shelopaev, and
I’ve come on business.”

“Please sit down.” Razumihin seated himself on the other side of the
table. “It’s a good thing you’ve come to, brother,” he went on to
Raskolnikov. “For the last four days you have scarcely eaten or drunk
anything. We had to give you tea in spoonfuls. I brought Zossimov to see
you twice. You remember Zossimov? He examined you carefully and said at
once it was nothing serious--something seemed to have gone to your head.
Some nervous nonsense, the result of bad feeding, he says you have not
had enough beer and radish, but it’s nothing much, it will pass and you
will be all right. Zossimov is a first-rate fellow! He is making quite a
name. Come, I won’t keep you,” he said, addressing the man again. “Will
you explain what you want? You must know, Rodya, this is the second time
they have sent from the office; but it was another man last time, and I
talked to him. Who was it came before?”

“That was the day before yesterday, I venture to say, if you please,
sir. That was Alexey Semyonovitch; he is in our office, too.”

“He was more intelligent than you, don’t you think so?”

“Yes, indeed, sir, he is of more weight than I am.”

“Quite so; go on.”

“At your mamma’s request, through Afanasy Ivanovitch Vahrushin, of whom
I presume you have heard more than once, a remittance is sent to you
from our office,” the man began, addressing Raskolnikov. “If you are in
an intelligible condition, I’ve thirty-five roubles to remit to you, as
Semyon Semyonovitch has received from Afanasy Ivanovitch at your mamma’s
request instructions to that effect, as on previous occasions. Do you
know him, sir?”

“Yes, I remember... Vahrushin,” Raskolnikov said dreamily.

“You hear, he knows Vahrushin,” cried Razumihin. “He is in ‘an
intelligible condition’! And I see you are an intelligent man too. Well,
it’s always pleasant to hear words of wisdom.”

“That’s the gentleman, Vahrushin, Afanasy Ivanovitch. And at the request
of your mamma, who has sent you a remittance once before in the
same manner through him, he did not refuse this time also, and sent
instructions to Semyon Semyonovitch some days since to hand you
thirty-five roubles in the hope of better to come.”

“That ‘hoping for better to come’ is the best thing you’ve said, though
‘your mamma’ is not bad either. Come then, what do you say? Is he fully
conscious, eh?”

“That’s all right. If only he can sign this little paper.”

“He can scrawl his name. Have you got the book?”

“Yes, here’s the book.”

“Give it to me. Here, Rodya, sit up. I’ll hold you. Take the pen and
scribble ‘Raskolnikov’ for him. For just now, brother, money is sweeter
to us than treacle.”

“I don’t want it,” said Raskolnikov, pushing away the pen.

“Not want it?”

“I won’t sign it.”

“How the devil can you do without signing it?”

“I don’t want... the money.”

“Don’t want the money! Come, brother, that’s nonsense, I bear witness.
Don’t trouble, please, it’s only that he is on his travels again. But
that’s pretty common with him at all times though.... You are a man of
judgment and we will take him in hand, that is, more simply, take his
hand and he will sign it. Here.”

“But I can come another time.”

“No, no. Why should we trouble you? You are a man of judgment.... Now,
Rodya, don’t keep your visitor, you see he is waiting,” and he made
ready to hold Raskolnikov’s hand in earnest.

“Stop, I’ll do it alone,” said the latter, taking the pen and signing
his name.

The messenger took out the money and went away.

“Bravo! And now, brother, are you hungry?”

“Yes,” answered Raskolnikov.

“Is there any soup?”

“Some of yesterday’s,” answered Nastasya, who was still standing there.

“With potatoes and rice in it?”

“Yes.”

“I know it by heart. Bring soup and give us some tea.”

“Very well.”

Raskolnikov looked at all this with profound astonishment and a dull,
unreasoning terror. He made up his mind to keep quiet and see what
would happen. “I believe I am not wandering. I believe it’s reality,” he
thought.

In a couple of minutes Nastasya returned with the soup, and announced
that the tea would be ready directly. With the soup she brought two
spoons, two plates, salt, pepper, mustard for the beef, and so on. The
table was set as it had not been for a long time. The cloth was clean.

“It would not be amiss, Nastasya, if Praskovya Pavlovna were to send us
up a couple of bottles of beer. We could empty them.”

“Well, you are a cool hand,” muttered Nastasya, and she departed to
carry out his orders.

Raskolnikov still gazed wildly with strained attention. Meanwhile
Razumihin sat down on the sofa beside him, as clumsily as a bear put his
left arm round Raskolnikov’s head, although he was able to sit up, and
with his right hand gave him a spoonful of soup, blowing on it that
it might not burn him. But the soup was only just warm. Raskolnikov
swallowed one spoonful greedily, then a second, then a third. But after
giving him a few more spoonfuls of soup, Razumihin suddenly stopped, and
said that he must ask Zossimov whether he ought to have more.

Nastasya came in with two bottles of beer.

“And will you have tea?”

“Yes.”

“Cut along, Nastasya, and bring some tea, for tea we may venture on
without the faculty. But here is the beer!” He moved back to his chair,
pulled the soup and meat in front of him, and began eating as though he
had not touched food for three days.

“I must tell you, Rodya, I dine like this here every day now,” he
mumbled with his mouth full of beef, “and it’s all Pashenka, your dear
little landlady, who sees to that; she loves to do anything for me. I
don’t ask for it, but, of course, I don’t object. And here’s Nastasya
with the tea. She is a quick girl. Nastasya, my dear, won’t you have
some beer?”

“Get along with your nonsense!”

“A cup of tea, then?”

“A cup of tea, maybe.”

“Pour it out. Stay, I’ll pour it out myself. Sit down.”

He poured out two cups, left his dinner, and sat on the sofa again. As
before, he put his left arm round the sick man’s head, raised him up
and gave him tea in spoonfuls, again blowing each spoonful steadily and
earnestly, as though this process was the principal and most effective
means towards his friend’s recovery. Raskolnikov said nothing and made
no resistance, though he felt quite strong enough to sit up on the sofa
without support and could not merely have held a cup or a spoon, but
even perhaps could have walked about. But from some queer, almost
animal, cunning he conceived the idea of hiding his strength and lying
low for a time, pretending if necessary not to be yet in full possession
of his faculties, and meanwhile listening to find out what was going on.
Yet he could not overcome his sense of repugnance. After sipping a dozen
spoonfuls of tea, he suddenly released his head, pushed the spoon away
capriciously, and sank back on the pillow. There were actually real
pillows under his head now, down pillows in clean cases, he observed
that, too, and took note of it.

“Pashenka must give us some raspberry jam to-day to make him some
raspberry tea,” said Razumihin, going back to his chair and attacking
his soup and beer again.

“And where is she to get raspberries for you?” asked Nastasya, balancing
a saucer on her five outspread fingers and sipping tea through a lump of
sugar.

“She’ll get it at the shop, my dear. You see, Rodya, all sorts of things
have been happening while you have been laid up. When you decamped in
that rascally way without leaving your address, I felt so angry that I
resolved to find you out and punish you. I set to work that very day.
How I ran about making inquiries for you! This lodging of yours I had
forgotten, though I never remembered it, indeed, because I did not know
it; and as for your old lodgings, I could only remember it was at the
Five Corners, Harlamov’s house. I kept trying to find that Harlamov’s
house, and afterwards it turned out that it was not Harlamov’s, but
Buch’s. How one muddles up sound sometimes! So I lost my temper, and I
went on the chance to the address bureau next day, and only fancy, in
two minutes they looked you up! Your name is down there.”

“My name!”

“I should think so; and yet a General Kobelev they could not find while
I was there. Well, it’s a long story. But as soon as I did land on this
place, I soon got to know all your affairs--all, all, brother, I know
everything; Nastasya here will tell you. I made the acquaintance of
Nikodim Fomitch and Ilya Petrovitch, and the house-porter and Mr.
Zametov, Alexandr Grigorievitch, the head clerk in the police office,
and, last, but not least, of Pashenka; Nastasya here knows....”

“He’s got round her,” Nastasya murmured, smiling slyly.

“Why don’t you put the sugar in your tea, Nastasya Nikiforovna?”

“You are a one!” Nastasya cried suddenly, going off into a giggle. “I am
not Nikiforovna, but Petrovna,” she added suddenly, recovering from her
mirth.

“I’ll make a note of it. Well, brother, to make a long story short,
I was going in for a regular explosion here to uproot all malignant
influences in the locality, but Pashenka won the day. I had not
expected, brother, to find her so... prepossessing. Eh, what do you
think?”

Raskolnikov did not speak, but he still kept his eyes fixed upon him,
full of alarm.

“And all that could be wished, indeed, in every respect,” Razumihin went
on, not at all embarrassed by his silence.

“Ah, the sly dog!” Nastasya shrieked again. This conversation afforded
her unspeakable delight.

“It’s a pity, brother, that you did not set to work in the right way
at first. You ought to have approached her differently. She is, so
to speak, a most unaccountable character. But we will talk about her
character later.... How could you let things come to such a pass that
she gave up sending you your dinner? And that I O U? You must have been
mad to sign an I O U. And that promise of marriage when her daughter,
Natalya Yegorovna, was alive?... I know all about it! But I see that’s
a delicate matter and I am an ass; forgive me. But, talking of
foolishness, do you know Praskovya Pavlovna is not nearly so foolish as
you would think at first sight?”

“No,” mumbled Raskolnikov, looking away, but feeling that it was better
to keep up the conversation.

“She isn’t, is she?” cried Razumihin, delighted to get an answer out
of him. “But she is not very clever either, eh? She is essentially,
essentially an unaccountable character! I am sometimes quite at a loss,
I assure you.... She must be forty; she says she is thirty-six, and
of course she has every right to say so. But I swear I judge her
intellectually, simply from the metaphysical point of view; there is a
sort of symbolism sprung up between us, a sort of algebra or what not!
I don’t understand it! Well, that’s all nonsense. Only, seeing that you
are not a student now and have lost your lessons and your clothes, and
that through the young lady’s death she has no need to treat you as
a relation, she suddenly took fright; and as you hid in your den and
dropped all your old relations with her, she planned to get rid of you.
And she’s been cherishing that design a long time, but was sorry to lose
the I O U, for you assured her yourself that your mother would pay.”

“It was base of me to say that.... My mother herself is almost
a beggar... and I told a lie to keep my lodging... and be fed,”
 Raskolnikov said loudly and distinctly.

“Yes, you did very sensibly. But the worst of it is that at that point
Mr. Tchebarov turns up, a business man. Pashenka would never have
thought of doing anything on her own account, she is too retiring; but
the business man is by no means retiring, and first thing he puts the
question, ‘Is there any hope of realising the I O U?’ Answer: there is,
because he has a mother who would save her Rodya with her hundred and
twenty-five roubles pension, if she has to starve herself; and a sister,
too, who would go into bondage for his sake. That’s what he was building
upon.... Why do you start? I know all the ins and outs of your affairs
now, my dear boy--it’s not for nothing that you were so open with
Pashenka when you were her prospective son-in-law, and I say all this as
a friend.... But I tell you what it is; an honest and sensitive man is
open; and a business man ‘listens and goes on eating’ you up. Well,
then she gave the I O U by way of payment to this Tchebarov, and without
hesitation he made a formal demand for payment. When I heard of all this
I wanted to blow him up, too, to clear my conscience, but by that time
harmony reigned between me and Pashenka, and I insisted on stopping
the whole affair, engaging that you would pay. I went security for you,
brother. Do you understand? We called Tchebarov, flung him ten
roubles and got the I O U back from him, and here I have the honour of
presenting it to you. She trusts your word now. Here, take it, you see I
have torn it.”

Razumihin put the note on the table. Raskolnikov looked at him and
turned to the wall without uttering a word. Even Razumihin felt a
twinge.

“I see, brother,” he said a moment later, “that I have been playing the
fool again. I thought I should amuse you with my chatter, and I believe
I have only made you cross.”

“Was it you I did not recognise when I was delirious?” Raskolnikov
asked, after a moment’s pause without turning his head.

“Yes, and you flew into a rage about it, especially when I brought
Zametov one day.”

“Zametov? The head clerk? What for?” Raskolnikov turned round quickly
and fixed his eyes on Razumihin.

“What’s the matter with you?... What are you upset about? He wanted to
make your acquaintance because I talked to him a lot about you.... How
could I have found out so much except from him? He is a capital
fellow, brother, first-rate... in his own way, of course. Now we are
friends--see each other almost every day. I have moved into this part,
you know. I have only just moved. I’ve been with him to Luise Ivanovna
once or twice.... Do you remember Luise, Luise Ivanovna?”

“Did I say anything in delirium?”

“I should think so! You were beside yourself.”

“What did I rave about?”

“What next? What did you rave about? What people do rave about.... Well,
brother, now I must not lose time. To work.” He got up from the table
and took up his cap.

“What did I rave about?”

“How he keeps on! Are you afraid of having let out some secret? Don’t
worry yourself; you said nothing about a countess. But you said a lot
about a bulldog, and about ear-rings and chains, and about Krestovsky
Island, and some porter, and Nikodim Fomitch and Ilya Petrovitch, the
assistant superintendent. And another thing that was of special interest
to you was your own sock. You whined, ‘Give me my sock.’ Zametov
hunted all about your room for your socks, and with his own scented,
ring-bedecked fingers he gave you the rag. And only then were you
comforted, and for the next twenty-four hours you held the wretched
thing in your hand; we could not get it from you. It is most likely
somewhere under your quilt at this moment. And then you asked so
piteously for fringe for your trousers. We tried to find out what sort
of fringe, but we could not make it out. Now to business! Here are
thirty-five roubles; I take ten of them, and shall give you an account
of them in an hour or two. I will let Zossimov know at the same time,
though he ought to have been here long ago, for it is nearly twelve. And
you, Nastasya, look in pretty often while I am away, to see whether he
wants a drink or anything else. And I will tell Pashenka what is wanted
myself. Good-bye!”

“He calls her Pashenka! Ah, he’s a deep one!” said Nastasya as he went
out; then she opened the door and stood listening, but could not resist
running downstairs after him. She was very eager to hear what he would
say to the landlady. She was evidently quite fascinated by Razumihin.

No sooner had she left the room than the sick man flung off the
bedclothes and leapt out of bed like a madman. With burning, twitching
impatience he had waited for them to be gone so that he might set to
work. But to what work? Now, as though to spite him, it eluded him.

“Good God, only tell me one thing: do they know of it yet or not? What
if they know it and are only pretending, mocking me while I am laid up,
and then they will come in and tell me that it’s been discovered long
ago and that they have only... What am I to do now? That’s what I’ve
forgotten, as though on purpose; forgotten it all at once, I remembered
a minute ago.”

He stood in the middle of the room and gazed in miserable bewilderment
about him; he walked to the door, opened it, listened; but that was not
what he wanted. Suddenly, as though recalling something, he rushed to
the corner where there was a hole under the paper, began examining it,
put his hand into the hole, fumbled--but that was not it. He went to the
stove, opened it and began rummaging in the ashes; the frayed edges of
his trousers and the rags cut off his pocket were lying there just as
he had thrown them. No one had looked, then! Then he remembered the sock
about which Razumihin had just been telling him. Yes, there it lay on
the sofa under the quilt, but it was so covered with dust and grime that
Zametov could not have seen anything on it.

“Bah, Zametov! The police office! And why am I sent for to the police
office? Where’s the notice? Bah! I am mixing it up; that was then. I
looked at my sock then, too, but now... now I have been ill. But
what did Zametov come for? Why did Razumihin bring him?” he muttered,
helplessly sitting on the sofa again. “What does it mean? Am I still in
delirium, or is it real? I believe it is real.... Ah, I remember; I must
escape! Make haste to escape. Yes, I must, I must escape! Yes... but
where? And where are my clothes? I’ve no boots. They’ve taken them away!
They’ve hidden them! I understand! Ah, here is my coat--they passed that
over! And here is money on the table, thank God! And here’s the I O U...
I’ll take the money and go and take another lodging. They won’t find
me!... Yes, but the address bureau? They’ll find me, Razumihin will find
me. Better escape altogether... far away... to America, and let them
do their worst! And take the I O U... it would be of use there.... What
else shall I take? They think I am ill! They don’t know that I can walk,
ha-ha-ha! I could see by their eyes that they know all about it! If
only I could get downstairs! And what if they have set a watch
there--policemen! What’s this tea? Ah, and here is beer left, half a
bottle, cold!”

He snatched up the bottle, which still contained a glassful of beer, and
gulped it down with relish, as though quenching a flame in his breast.
But in another minute the beer had gone to his head, and a faint and
even pleasant shiver ran down his spine. He lay down and pulled the
quilt over him. His sick and incoherent thoughts grew more and more
disconnected, and soon a light, pleasant drowsiness came upon him. With
a sense of comfort he nestled his head into the pillow, wrapped more
closely about him the soft, wadded quilt which had replaced the old,
ragged greatcoat, sighed softly and sank into a deep, sound, refreshing
sleep.

He woke up, hearing someone come in. He opened his eyes and saw
Razumihin standing in the doorway, uncertain whether to come in or
not. Raskolnikov sat up quickly on the sofa and gazed at him, as though
trying to recall something.

“Ah, you are not asleep! Here I am! Nastasya, bring in the parcel!”
 Razumihin shouted down the stairs. “You shall have the account
directly.”

“What time is it?” asked Raskolnikov, looking round uneasily.

“Yes, you had a fine sleep, brother, it’s almost evening, it will be six
o’clock directly. You have slept more than six hours.”

“Good heavens! Have I?”

“And why not? It will do you good. What’s the hurry? A tryst, is it?
We’ve all time before us. I’ve been waiting for the last three hours for
you; I’ve been up twice and found you asleep. I’ve called on Zossimov
twice; not at home, only fancy! But no matter, he will turn up. And
I’ve been out on my own business, too. You know I’ve been moving to-day,
moving with my uncle. I have an uncle living with me now. But that’s
no matter, to business. Give me the parcel, Nastasya. We will open it
directly. And how do you feel now, brother?”

“I am quite well, I am not ill. Razumihin, have you been here long?”

“I tell you I’ve been waiting for the last three hours.”

“No, before.”

“How do you mean?”

“How long have you been coming here?”

“Why I told you all about it this morning. Don’t you remember?”

Raskolnikov pondered. The morning seemed like a dream to him. He could
not remember alone, and looked inquiringly at Razumihin.

“Hm!” said the latter, “he has forgotten. I fancied then that you were
not quite yourself. Now you are better for your sleep.... You really
look much better. First-rate! Well, to business. Look here, my dear
boy.”

He began untying the bundle, which evidently interested him.

“Believe me, brother, this is something specially near my heart. For we
must make a man of you. Let’s begin from the top. Do you see this
cap?” he said, taking out of the bundle a fairly good though cheap and
ordinary cap. “Let me try it on.”

“Presently, afterwards,” said Raskolnikov, waving it off pettishly.

“Come, Rodya, my boy, don’t oppose it, afterwards will be too late; and
I shan’t sleep all night, for I bought it by guess, without measure.
Just right!” he cried triumphantly, fitting it on, “just your size! A
proper head-covering is the first thing in dress and a recommendation in
its own way. Tolstyakov, a friend of mine, is always obliged to take off
his pudding basin when he goes into any public place where other
people wear their hats or caps. People think he does it from slavish
politeness, but it’s simply because he is ashamed of his bird’s nest;
he is such a boastful fellow! Look, Nastasya, here are two specimens of
headgear: this Palmerston”--he took from the corner Raskolnikov’s old,
battered hat, which for some unknown reason, he called a Palmerston--“or
this jewel! Guess the price, Rodya, what do you suppose I paid for it,
Nastasya!” he said, turning to her, seeing that Raskolnikov did not
speak.

“Twenty copecks, no more, I dare say,” answered Nastasya.

“Twenty copecks, silly!” he cried, offended. “Why, nowadays you would
cost more than that--eighty copecks! And that only because it has been
worn. And it’s bought on condition that when’s it’s worn out, they will
give you another next year. Yes, on my word! Well, now let us pass to
the United States of America, as they called them at school. I assure
you I am proud of these breeches,” and he exhibited to Raskolnikov a
pair of light, summer trousers of grey woollen material. “No holes, no
spots, and quite respectable, although a little worn; and a waistcoat
to match, quite in the fashion. And its being worn really is an
improvement, it’s softer, smoother.... You see, Rodya, to my thinking,
the great thing for getting on in the world is always to keep to the
seasons; if you don’t insist on having asparagus in January, you keep
your money in your purse; and it’s the same with this purchase. It’s
summer now, so I’ve been buying summer things--warmer materials will be
wanted for autumn, so you will have to throw these away in any case...
especially as they will be done for by then from their own lack of
coherence if not your higher standard of luxury. Come, price them! What
do you say? Two roubles twenty-five copecks! And remember the condition:
if you wear these out, you will have another suit for nothing! They only
do business on that system at Fedyaev’s; if you’ve bought a thing once,
you are satisfied for life, for you will never go there again of your
own free will. Now for the boots. What do you say? You see that they are
a bit worn, but they’ll last a couple of months, for it’s foreign work
and foreign leather; the secretary of the English Embassy sold them last
week--he had only worn them six days, but he was very short of cash.
Price--a rouble and a half. A bargain?”

“But perhaps they won’t fit,” observed Nastasya.

“Not fit? Just look!” and he pulled out of his pocket Raskolnikov’s
old, broken boot, stiffly coated with dry mud. “I did not go
empty-handed--they took the size from this monster. We all did our best.
And as to your linen, your landlady has seen to that. Here, to begin
with are three shirts, hempen but with a fashionable front.... Well
now then, eighty copecks the cap, two roubles twenty-five copecks the
suit--together three roubles five copecks--a rouble and a half for the
boots--for, you see, they are very good--and that makes four roubles
fifty-five copecks; five roubles for the underclothes--they were
bought in the lot--which makes exactly nine roubles fifty-five copecks.
Forty-five copecks change in coppers. Will you take it? And so, Rodya,
you are set up with a complete new rig-out, for your overcoat will
serve, and even has a style of its own. That comes from getting one’s
clothes from Sharmer’s! As for your socks and other things, I leave them
to you; we’ve twenty-five roubles left. And as for Pashenka and paying
for your lodging, don’t you worry. I tell you she’ll trust you for
anything. And now, brother, let me change your linen, for I daresay you
will throw off your illness with your shirt.”

“Let me be! I don’t want to!” Raskolnikov waved him off. He had listened
with disgust to Razumihin’s efforts to be playful about his purchases.

“Come, brother, don’t tell me I’ve been trudging around for nothing,”
 Razumihin insisted. “Nastasya, don’t be bashful, but help me--that’s
it,” and in spite of Raskolnikov’s resistance he changed his linen. The
latter sank back on the pillows and for a minute or two said nothing.

“It will be long before I get rid of them,” he thought. “What money was
all that bought with?” he asked at last, gazing at the wall.

“Money? Why, your own, what the messenger brought from Vahrushin, your
mother sent it. Have you forgotten that, too?”

“I remember now,” said Raskolnikov after a long, sullen silence.
Razumihin looked at him, frowning and uneasy.

The door opened and a tall, stout man whose appearance seemed familiar
to Raskolnikov came in.



CHAPTER IV

Zossimov was a tall, fat man with a puffy, colourless, clean-shaven face
and straight flaxen hair. He wore spectacles, and a big gold ring on
his fat finger. He was twenty-seven. He had on a light grey fashionable
loose coat, light summer trousers, and everything about him loose,
fashionable and spick and span; his linen was irreproachable, his
watch-chain was massive. In manner he was slow and, as it were,
nonchalant, and at the same time studiously free and easy; he made
efforts to conceal his self-importance, but it was apparent at every
instant. All his acquaintances found him tedious, but said he was clever
at his work.

“I’ve been to you twice to-day, brother. You see, he’s come to himself,”
 cried Razumihin.

“I see, I see; and how do we feel now, eh?” said Zossimov to
Raskolnikov, watching him carefully and, sitting down at the foot of the
sofa, he settled himself as comfortably as he could.

“He is still depressed,” Razumihin went on. “We’ve just changed his
linen and he almost cried.”

“That’s very natural; you might have put it off if he did not wish
it.... His pulse is first-rate. Is your head still aching, eh?”

“I am well, I am perfectly well!” Raskolnikov declared positively
and irritably. He raised himself on the sofa and looked at them with
glittering eyes, but sank back on to the pillow at once and turned to
the wall. Zossimov watched him intently.

“Very good.... Going on all right,” he said lazily. “Has he eaten
anything?”

They told him, and asked what he might have.

“He may have anything... soup, tea... mushrooms and cucumbers, of
course, you must not give him; he’d better not have meat either, and...
but no need to tell you that!” Razumihin and he looked at each
other. “No more medicine or anything. I’ll look at him again to-morrow.
Perhaps, to-day even... but never mind...”

“To-morrow evening I shall take him for a walk,” said Razumihin. “We are
going to the Yusupov garden and then to the Palais de Cristal.”

“I would not disturb him to-morrow at all, but I don’t know... a little,
maybe... but we’ll see.”

“Ach, what a nuisance! I’ve got a house-warming party to-night; it’s
only a step from here. Couldn’t he come? He could lie on the sofa. You
are coming?” Razumihin said to Zossimov. “Don’t forget, you promised.”

“All right, only rather later. What are you going to do?”

“Oh, nothing--tea, vodka, herrings. There will be a pie... just our
friends.”

“And who?”

“All neighbours here, almost all new friends, except my old uncle, and
he is new too--he only arrived in Petersburg yesterday to see to some
business of his. We meet once in five years.”

“What is he?”

“He’s been stagnating all his life as a district postmaster; gets a
little pension. He is sixty-five--not worth talking about.... But I
am fond of him. Porfiry Petrovitch, the head of the Investigation
Department here... But you know him.”

“Is he a relation of yours, too?”

“A very distant one. But why are you scowling? Because you quarrelled
once, won’t you come then?”

“I don’t care a damn for him.”

“So much the better. Well, there will be some students, a teacher, a
government clerk, a musician, an officer and Zametov.”

“Do tell me, please, what you or he”--Zossimov nodded at
Raskolnikov--“can have in common with this Zametov?”

“Oh, you particular gentleman! Principles! You are worked by principles,
as it were by springs; you won’t venture to turn round on your own
account. If a man is a nice fellow, that’s the only principle I go upon.
Zametov is a delightful person.”

“Though he does take bribes.”

“Well, he does! and what of it? I don’t care if he does take bribes,”
 Razumihin cried with unnatural irritability. “I don’t praise him for
taking bribes. I only say he is a nice man in his own way! But if one
looks at men in all ways--are there many good ones left? Why, I am sure
I shouldn’t be worth a baked onion myself... perhaps with you thrown
in.”

“That’s too little; I’d give two for you.”

“And I wouldn’t give more than one for you. No more of your jokes!
Zametov is no more than a boy. I can pull his hair and one must draw him
not repel him. You’ll never improve a man by repelling him, especially
a boy. One has to be twice as careful with a boy. Oh, you progressive
dullards! You don’t understand. You harm yourselves running another man
down.... But if you want to know, we really have something in common.”

“I should like to know what.”

“Why, it’s all about a house-painter.... We are getting him out of
a mess! Though indeed there’s nothing to fear now. The matter is
absolutely self-evident. We only put on steam.”

“A painter?”

“Why, haven’t I told you about it? I only told you the beginning then
about the murder of the old pawnbroker-woman. Well, the painter is mixed
up in it...”

“Oh, I heard about that murder before and was rather interested in it...
partly... for one reason.... I read about it in the papers, too....”

“Lizaveta was murdered, too,” Nastasya blurted out, suddenly addressing
Raskolnikov. She remained in the room all the time, standing by the door
listening.

“Lizaveta,” murmured Raskolnikov hardly audibly.

“Lizaveta, who sold old clothes. Didn’t you know her? She used to come
here. She mended a shirt for you, too.”

Raskolnikov turned to the wall where in the dirty, yellow paper he
picked out one clumsy, white flower with brown lines on it and began
examining how many petals there were in it, how many scallops in the
petals and how many lines on them. He felt his arms and legs as lifeless
as though they had been cut off. He did not attempt to move, but stared
obstinately at the flower.

“But what about the painter?” Zossimov interrupted Nastasya’s chatter
with marked displeasure. She sighed and was silent.

“Why, he was accused of the murder,” Razumihin went on hotly.

“Was there evidence against him then?”

“Evidence, indeed! Evidence that was no evidence, and that’s what we
have to prove. It was just as they pitched on those fellows, Koch and
Pestryakov, at first. Foo! how stupidly it’s all done, it makes one
sick, though it’s not one’s business! Pestryakov may be coming
to-night.... By the way, Rodya, you’ve heard about the business already;
it happened before you were ill, the day before you fainted at the
police office while they were talking about it.”

Zossimov looked curiously at Raskolnikov. He did not stir.

“But I say, Razumihin, I wonder at you. What a busybody you are!”
 Zossimov observed.

“Maybe I am, but we will get him off anyway,” shouted Razumihin,
bringing his fist down on the table. “What’s the most offensive is not
their lying--one can always forgive lying--lying is a delightful thing,
for it leads to truth--what is offensive is that they lie and worship
their own lying.... I respect Porfiry, but... What threw them out at
first? The door was locked, and when they came back with the porter
it was open. So it followed that Koch and Pestryakov were the
murderers--that was their logic!”

“But don’t excite yourself; they simply detained them, they could not
help that.... And, by the way, I’ve met that man Koch. He used to buy
unredeemed pledges from the old woman? Eh?”

“Yes, he is a swindler. He buys up bad debts, too. He makes a profession
of it. But enough of him! Do you know what makes me angry? It’s their
sickening rotten, petrified routine.... And this case might be the means
of introducing a new method. One can show from the psychological data
alone how to get on the track of the real man. ‘We have facts,’ they
say. But facts are not everything--at least half the business lies in
how you interpret them!”

“Can you interpret them, then?”

“Anyway, one can’t hold one’s tongue when one has a feeling, a tangible
feeling, that one might be a help if only.... Eh! Do you know the
details of the case?”

“I am waiting to hear about the painter.”

“Oh, yes! Well, here’s the story. Early on the third day after the
murder, when they were still dandling Koch and Pestryakov--though they
accounted for every step they took and it was as plain as a pikestaff--an
unexpected fact turned up. A peasant called Dushkin, who keeps a
dram-shop facing the house, brought to the police office a jeweller’s
case containing some gold ear-rings, and told a long rigamarole. ‘The
day before yesterday, just after eight o’clock’--mark the day and the
hour!--‘a journeyman house-painter, Nikolay, who had been in to see me
already that day, brought me this box of gold ear-rings and stones, and
asked me to give him two roubles for them. When I asked him where he got
them, he said that he picked them up in the street. I did not ask him
anything more.’ I am telling you Dushkin’s story. ‘I gave him a note’--a
rouble that is--‘for I thought if he did not pawn it with me he would
with another. It would all come to the same thing--he’d spend it on
drink, so the thing had better be with me. The further you hide it
the quicker you will find it, and if anything turns up, if I hear any
rumours, I’ll take it to the police.’ Of course, that’s all taradiddle;
he lies like a horse, for I know this Dushkin, he is a pawnbroker and
a receiver of stolen goods, and he did not cheat Nikolay out of a
thirty-rouble trinket in order to give it to the police. He was simply
afraid. But no matter, to return to Dushkin’s story. ‘I’ve known
this peasant, Nikolay Dementyev, from a child; he comes from the same
province and district of Zaraïsk, we are both Ryazan men. And though
Nikolay is not a drunkard, he drinks, and I knew he had a job in that
house, painting work with Dmitri, who comes from the same village, too.
As soon as he got the rouble he changed it, had a couple of glasses,
took his change and went out. But I did not see Dmitri with him then.
And the next day I heard that someone had murdered Alyona Ivanovna and
her sister, Lizaveta Ivanovna, with an axe. I knew them, and I felt
suspicious about the ear-rings at once, for I knew the murdered woman
lent money on pledges. I went to the house, and began to make careful
inquiries without saying a word to anyone. First of all I asked, “Is
Nikolay here?” Dmitri told me that Nikolay had gone off on the spree; he
had come home at daybreak drunk, stayed in the house about ten minutes,
and went out again. Dmitri didn’t see him again and is finishing the
job alone. And their job is on the same staircase as the murder, on
the second floor. When I heard all that I did not say a word to
anyone’--that’s Dushkin’s tale--‘but I found out what I could about
the murder, and went home feeling as suspicious as ever. And at eight
o’clock this morning’--that was the third day, you understand--‘I saw
Nikolay coming in, not sober, though not to say very drunk--he could
understand what was said to him. He sat down on the bench and did not
speak. There was only one stranger in the bar and a man I knew asleep
on a bench and our two boys. “Have you seen Dmitri?” said I. “No, I
haven’t,” said he. “And you’ve not been here either?” “Not since the day
before yesterday,” said he. “And where did you sleep last night?”
 “In Peski, with the Kolomensky men.” “And where did you get those
ear-rings?” I asked. “I found them in the street,” and the way he said
it was a bit queer; he did not look at me. “Did you hear what happened
that very evening, at that very hour, on that same staircase?” said I.
“No,” said he, “I had not heard,” and all the while he was listening,
his eyes were staring out of his head and he turned as white as chalk. I
told him all about it and he took his hat and began getting up. I wanted
to keep him. “Wait a bit, Nikolay,” said I, “won’t you have a drink?”
 And I signed to the boy to hold the door, and I came out from behind the
bar; but he darted out and down the street to the turning at a run.
I have not seen him since. Then my doubts were at an end--it was his
doing, as clear as could be....’”

“I should think so,” said Zossimov.

“Wait! Hear the end. Of course they sought high and low for Nikolay;
they detained Dushkin and searched his house; Dmitri, too, was arrested;
the Kolomensky men also were turned inside out. And the day before
yesterday they arrested Nikolay in a tavern at the end of the town. He
had gone there, taken the silver cross off his neck and asked for a dram
for it. They gave it to him. A few minutes afterwards the woman went
to the cowshed, and through a crack in the wall she saw in the stable
adjoining he had made a noose of his sash from the beam, stood on a
block of wood, and was trying to put his neck in the noose. The woman
screeched her hardest; people ran in. ‘So that’s what you are up to!’
‘Take me,’ he says, ‘to such-and-such a police officer; I’ll confess
everything.’ Well, they took him to that police station--that is
here--with a suitable escort. So they asked him this and that, how old
he is, ‘twenty-two,’ and so on. At the question, ‘When you were working
with Dmitri, didn’t you see anyone on the staircase at such-and-such a
time?’--answer: ‘To be sure folks may have gone up and down, but I did
not notice them.’ ‘And didn’t you hear anything, any noise, and so on?’
‘We heard nothing special.’ ‘And did you hear, Nikolay, that on the same
day Widow So-and-so and her sister were murdered and robbed?’ ‘I
never knew a thing about it. The first I heard of it was from Afanasy
Pavlovitch the day before yesterday.’ ‘And where did you find the
ear-rings?’ ‘I found them on the pavement.’ ‘Why didn’t you go to work
with Dmitri the other day?’ ‘Because I was drinking.’ ‘And where were
you drinking?’ ‘Oh, in such-and-such a place.’ ‘Why did you run away
from Dushkin’s?’ ‘Because I was awfully frightened.’ ‘What were
you frightened of?’ ‘That I should be accused.’ ‘How could you be
frightened, if you felt free from guilt?’ Now, Zossimov, you may not
believe me, that question was put literally in those words. I know it
for a fact, it was repeated to me exactly! What do you say to that?”

“Well, anyway, there’s the evidence.”

“I am not talking of the evidence now, I am talking about that question,
of their own idea of themselves. Well, so they squeezed and squeezed
him and he confessed: ‘I did not find it in the street, but in the flat
where I was painting with Dmitri.’ ‘And how was that?’ ‘Why, Dmitri and
I were painting there all day, and we were just getting ready to go, and
Dmitri took a brush and painted my face, and he ran off and I after him.
I ran after him, shouting my hardest, and at the bottom of the stairs I
ran right against the porter and some gentlemen--and how many gentlemen
were there I don’t remember. And the porter swore at me, and the other
porter swore, too, and the porter’s wife came out, and swore at us, too;
and a gentleman came into the entry with a lady, and he swore at us,
too, for Dmitri and I lay right across the way. I got hold of Dmitri’s
hair and knocked him down and began beating him. And Dmitri, too, caught
me by the hair and began beating me. But we did it all not for temper
but in a friendly way, for sport. And then Dmitri escaped and ran into
the street, and I ran after him; but I did not catch him, and went back
to the flat alone; I had to clear up my things. I began putting them
together, expecting Dmitri to come, and there in the passage, in the
corner by the door, I stepped on the box. I saw it lying there wrapped
up in paper. I took off the paper, saw some little hooks, undid them,
and in the box were the ear-rings....’”

“Behind the door? Lying behind the door? Behind the door?” Raskolnikov
cried suddenly, staring with a blank look of terror at Razumihin, and he
slowly sat up on the sofa, leaning on his hand.

“Yes... why? What’s the matter? What’s wrong?” Razumihin, too, got up
from his seat.

“Nothing,” Raskolnikov answered faintly, turning to the wall. All were
silent for a while.

“He must have waked from a dream,” Razumihin said at last, looking
inquiringly at Zossimov. The latter slightly shook his head.

“Well, go on,” said Zossimov. “What next?”

“What next? As soon as he saw the ear-rings, forgetting Dmitri and
everything, he took up his cap and ran to Dushkin and, as we know, got
a rouble from him. He told a lie saying he found them in the street, and
went off drinking. He keeps repeating his old story about the murder:
‘I know nothing of it, never heard of it till the day before yesterday.’
‘And why didn’t you come to the police till now?’ ‘I was frightened.’
‘And why did you try to hang yourself?’ ‘From anxiety.’ ‘What anxiety?’
‘That I should be accused of it.’ Well, that’s the whole story. And now
what do you suppose they deduced from that?”

“Why, there’s no supposing. There’s a clue, such as it is, a fact. You
wouldn’t have your painter set free?”

“Now they’ve simply taken him for the murderer. They haven’t a shadow of
doubt.”

“That’s nonsense. You are excited. But what about the ear-rings? You
must admit that, if on the very same day and hour ear-rings from the old
woman’s box have come into Nikolay’s hands, they must have come there
somehow. That’s a good deal in such a case.”

“How did they get there? How did they get there?” cried Razumihin.
“How can you, a doctor, whose duty it is to study man and who has more
opportunity than anyone else for studying human nature--how can you fail
to see the character of the man in the whole story? Don’t you see at
once that the answers he has given in the examination are the holy
truth? They came into his hand precisely as he has told us--he stepped
on the box and picked it up.”

“The holy truth! But didn’t he own himself that he told a lie at first?”

“Listen to me, listen attentively. The porter and Koch and Pestryakov
and the other porter and the wife of the first porter and the woman who
was sitting in the porter’s lodge and the man Kryukov, who had just got
out of a cab at that minute and went in at the entry with a lady on his
arm, that is eight or ten witnesses, agree that Nikolay had Dmitri on
the ground, was lying on him beating him, while Dmitri hung on to his
hair, beating him, too. They lay right across the way, blocking the
thoroughfare. They were sworn at on all sides while they ‘like children’
(the very words of the witnesses) were falling over one another,
squealing, fighting and laughing with the funniest faces, and, chasing
one another like children, they ran into the street. Now take careful
note. The bodies upstairs were warm, you understand, warm when they
found them! If they, or Nikolay alone, had murdered them and broken open
the boxes, or simply taken part in the robbery, allow me to ask you one
question: do their state of mind, their squeals and giggles and childish
scuffling at the gate fit in with axes, bloodshed, fiendish cunning,
robbery? They’d just killed them, not five or ten minutes before, for
the bodies were still warm, and at once, leaving the flat open, knowing
that people would go there at once, flinging away their booty, they
rolled about like children, laughing and attracting general attention.
And there are a dozen witnesses to swear to that!”

“Of course it is strange! It’s impossible, indeed, but...”

“No, brother, no _buts_. And if the ear-rings being found in Nikolay’s
hands at the very day and hour of the murder constitutes an important
piece of circumstantial evidence against him--although the explanation
given by him accounts for it, and therefore it does not tell seriously
against him--one must take into consideration the facts which prove him
innocent, especially as they are facts that _cannot be denied_. And
do you suppose, from the character of our legal system, that they will
accept, or that they are in a position to accept, this fact--resting
simply on a psychological impossibility--as irrefutable and conclusively
breaking down the circumstantial evidence for the prosecution? No, they
won’t accept it, they certainly won’t, because they found the jewel-case
and the man tried to hang himself, ‘which he could not have done if he
hadn’t felt guilty.’ That’s the point, that’s what excites me, you must
understand!”

“Oh, I see you are excited! Wait a bit. I forgot to ask you; what proof
is there that the box came from the old woman?”

“That’s been proved,” said Razumihin with apparent reluctance, frowning.
“Koch recognised the jewel-case and gave the name of the owner, who
proved conclusively that it was his.”

“That’s bad. Now another point. Did anyone see Nikolay at the time
that Koch and Pestryakov were going upstairs at first, and is there no
evidence about that?”

“Nobody did see him,” Razumihin answered with vexation. “That’s the
worst of it. Even Koch and Pestryakov did not notice them on their way
upstairs, though, indeed, their evidence could not have been worth much.
They said they saw the flat was open, and that there must be work going
on in it, but they took no special notice and could not remember whether
there actually were men at work in it.”

“Hm!... So the only evidence for the defence is that they were beating
one another and laughing. That constitutes a strong presumption, but...
How do you explain the facts yourself?”

“How do I explain them? What is there to explain? It’s clear. At any
rate, the direction in which explanation is to be sought is clear, and
the jewel-case points to it. The real murderer dropped those ear-rings.
The murderer was upstairs, locked in, when Koch and Pestryakov knocked
at the door. Koch, like an ass, did not stay at the door; so the
murderer popped out and ran down, too; for he had no other way of
escape. He hid from Koch, Pestryakov and the porter in the flat when
Nikolay and Dmitri had just run out of it. He stopped there while the
porter and others were going upstairs, waited till they were out of
hearing, and then went calmly downstairs at the very minute when Dmitri
and Nikolay ran out into the street and there was no one in the entry;
possibly he was seen, but not noticed. There are lots of people going
in and out. He must have dropped the ear-rings out of his pocket when
he stood behind the door, and did not notice he dropped them, because he
had other things to think of. The jewel-case is a conclusive proof that
he did stand there.... That’s how I explain it.”

“Too clever! No, my boy, you’re too clever. That beats everything.”

“But, why, why?”

“Why, because everything fits too well... it’s too melodramatic.”

“A-ach!” Razumihin was exclaiming, but at that moment the door opened
and a personage came in who was a stranger to all present.



CHAPTER V

This was a gentleman no longer young, of a stiff and portly appearance,
and a cautious and sour countenance. He began by stopping short in the
doorway, staring about him with offensive and undisguised astonishment,
as though asking himself what sort of place he had come to.
Mistrustfully and with an affectation of being alarmed and almost
affronted, he scanned Raskolnikov’s low and narrow “cabin.” With the
same amazement he stared at Raskolnikov, who lay undressed, dishevelled,
unwashed, on his miserable dirty sofa, looking fixedly at him. Then with
the same deliberation he scrutinised the uncouth, unkempt figure and
unshaven face of Razumihin, who looked him boldly and inquiringly in the
face without rising from his seat. A constrained silence lasted for a
couple of minutes, and then, as might be expected, some scene-shifting
took place. Reflecting, probably from certain fairly unmistakable signs,
that he would get nothing in this “cabin” by attempting to overawe them,
the gentleman softened somewhat, and civilly, though with some severity,
emphasising every syllable of his question, addressed Zossimov:

“Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov, a student, or formerly a student?”

Zossimov made a slight movement, and would have answered, had not
Razumihin anticipated him.

“Here he is lying on the sofa! What do you want?”

This familiar “what do you want” seemed to cut the ground from the
feet of the pompous gentleman. He was turning to Razumihin, but checked
himself in time and turned to Zossimov again.

“This is Raskolnikov,” mumbled Zossimov, nodding towards him. Then he
gave a prolonged yawn, opening his mouth as wide as possible. Then he
lazily put his hand into his waistcoat-pocket, pulled out a huge gold
watch in a round hunter’s case, opened it, looked at it and as slowly
and lazily proceeded to put it back.

Raskolnikov himself lay without speaking, on his back, gazing
persistently, though without understanding, at the stranger. Now that
his face was turned away from the strange flower on the paper, it
was extremely pale and wore a look of anguish, as though he had just
undergone an agonising operation or just been taken from the rack. But
the new-comer gradually began to arouse his attention, then his wonder,
then suspicion and even alarm. When Zossimov said “This is Raskolnikov”
 he jumped up quickly, sat on the sofa and with an almost defiant, but
weak and breaking, voice articulated:

“Yes, I am Raskolnikov! What do you want?”

The visitor scrutinised him and pronounced impressively:

“Pyotr Petrovitch Luzhin. I believe I have reason to hope that my name
is not wholly unknown to you?”

But Raskolnikov, who had expected something quite different, gazed
blankly and dreamily at him, making no reply, as though he heard the
name of Pyotr Petrovitch for the first time.

“Is it possible that you can up to the present have received no
information?” asked Pyotr Petrovitch, somewhat disconcerted.

In reply Raskolnikov sank languidly back on the pillow, put his hands
behind his head and gazed at the ceiling. A look of dismay came into
Luzhin’s face. Zossimov and Razumihin stared at him more inquisitively
than ever, and at last he showed unmistakable signs of embarrassment.

“I had presumed and calculated,” he faltered, “that a letter posted more
than ten days, if not a fortnight ago...”

“I say, why are you standing in the doorway?” Razumihin interrupted
suddenly. “If you’ve something to say, sit down. Nastasya and you are so
crowded. Nastasya, make room. Here’s a chair, thread your way in!”

He moved his chair back from the table, made a little space between the
table and his knees, and waited in a rather cramped position for the
visitor to “thread his way in.” The minute was so chosen that it was
impossible to refuse, and the visitor squeezed his way through, hurrying
and stumbling. Reaching the chair, he sat down, looking suspiciously at
Razumihin.

“No need to be nervous,” the latter blurted out. “Rodya has been ill for
the last five days and delirious for three, but now he is recovering and
has got an appetite. This is his doctor, who has just had a look at him.
I am a comrade of Rodya’s, like him, formerly a student, and now I am
nursing him; so don’t you take any notice of us, but go on with your
business.”

“Thank you. But shall I not disturb the invalid by my presence and
conversation?” Pyotr Petrovitch asked of Zossimov.

“N-no,” mumbled Zossimov; “you may amuse him.” He yawned again.

“He has been conscious a long time, since the morning,” went on
Razumihin, whose familiarity seemed so much like unaffected good-nature
that Pyotr Petrovitch began to be more cheerful, partly, perhaps,
because this shabby and impudent person had introduced himself as a
student.

“Your mamma,” began Luzhin.

“Hm!” Razumihin cleared his throat loudly. Luzhin looked at him
inquiringly.

“That’s all right, go on.”

Luzhin shrugged his shoulders.

“Your mamma had commenced a letter to you while I was sojourning in
her neighbourhood. On my arrival here I purposely allowed a few days to
elapse before coming to see you, in order that I might be fully
assured that you were in full possession of the tidings; but now, to my
astonishment...”

“I know, I know!” Raskolnikov cried suddenly with impatient vexation.
“So you are the _fiancé_? I know, and that’s enough!”

There was no doubt about Pyotr Petrovitch’s being offended this time,
but he said nothing. He made a violent effort to understand what it all
meant. There was a moment’s silence.

Meanwhile Raskolnikov, who had turned a little towards him when he
answered, began suddenly staring at him again with marked curiosity, as
though he had not had a good look at him yet, or as though something
new had struck him; he rose from his pillow on purpose to stare at
him. There certainly was something peculiar in Pyotr Petrovitch’s whole
appearance, something which seemed to justify the title of “fiancé” so
unceremoniously applied to him. In the first place, it was evident, far
too much so indeed, that Pyotr Petrovitch had made eager use of his few
days in the capital to get himself up and rig himself out in expectation
of his betrothed--a perfectly innocent and permissible proceeding,
indeed. Even his own, perhaps too complacent, consciousness of the
agreeable improvement in his appearance might have been forgiven in such
circumstances, seeing that Pyotr Petrovitch had taken up the rôle of
fiancé. All his clothes were fresh from the tailor’s and were all
right, except for being too new and too distinctly appropriate. Even
the stylish new round hat had the same significance. Pyotr Petrovitch
treated it too respectfully and held it too carefully in his hands. The
exquisite pair of lavender gloves, real Louvain, told the same tale,
if only from the fact of his not wearing them, but carrying them in
his hand for show. Light and youthful colours predominated in Pyotr
Petrovitch’s attire. He wore a charming summer jacket of a fawn shade,
light thin trousers, a waistcoat of the same, new and fine linen, a
cravat of the lightest cambric with pink stripes on it, and the best
of it was, this all suited Pyotr Petrovitch. His very fresh and even
handsome face looked younger than his forty-five years at all times.
His dark, mutton-chop whiskers made an agreeable setting on both sides,
growing thickly upon his shining, clean-shaven chin. Even his hair,
touched here and there with grey, though it had been combed and curled
at a hairdresser’s, did not give him a stupid appearance, as curled hair
usually does, by inevitably suggesting a German on his wedding-day.
If there really was something unpleasing and repulsive in his rather
good-looking and imposing countenance, it was due to quite other
causes. After scanning Mr. Luzhin unceremoniously, Raskolnikov smiled
malignantly, sank back on the pillow and stared at the ceiling as
before.

But Mr. Luzhin hardened his heart and seemed to determine to take no
notice of their oddities.

“I feel the greatest regret at finding you in this situation,” he began,
again breaking the silence with an effort. “If I had been aware of your
illness I should have come earlier. But you know what business is. I
have, too, a very important legal affair in the Senate, not to mention
other preoccupations which you may well conjecture. I am expecting your
mamma and sister any minute.”

Raskolnikov made a movement and seemed about to speak; his face showed
some excitement. Pyotr Petrovitch paused, waited, but as nothing
followed, he went on:

“... Any minute. I have found a lodging for them on their arrival.”

“Where?” asked Raskolnikov weakly.

“Very near here, in Bakaleyev’s house.”

“That’s in Voskresensky,” put in Razumihin. “There are two storeys of
rooms, let by a merchant called Yushin; I’ve been there.”

“Yes, rooms...”

“A disgusting place--filthy, stinking and, what’s more, of doubtful
character. Things have happened there, and there are all sorts of queer
people living there. And I went there about a scandalous business. It’s
cheap, though...”

“I could not, of course, find out so much about it, for I am a stranger
in Petersburg myself,” Pyotr Petrovitch replied huffily. “However, the
two rooms are exceedingly clean, and as it is for so short a time...
I have already taken a permanent, that is, our future flat,” he said,
addressing Raskolnikov, “and I am having it done up. And meanwhile I am
myself cramped for room in a lodging with my friend Andrey Semyonovitch
Lebeziatnikov, in the flat of Madame Lippevechsel; it was he who told me
of Bakaleyev’s house, too...”

“Lebeziatnikov?” said Raskolnikov slowly, as if recalling something.

“Yes, Andrey Semyonovitch Lebeziatnikov, a clerk in the Ministry. Do you
know him?”

“Yes... no,” Raskolnikov answered.

“Excuse me, I fancied so from your inquiry. I was once his guardian....
A very nice young man and advanced. I like to meet young people: one
learns new things from them.” Luzhin looked round hopefully at them all.

“How do you mean?” asked Razumihin.

“In the most serious and essential matters,” Pyotr Petrovitch replied,
as though delighted at the question. “You see, it’s ten years since I
visited Petersburg. All the novelties, reforms, ideas have reached us in
the provinces, but to see it all more clearly one must be in Petersburg.
And it’s my notion that you observe and learn most by watching the
younger generation. And I confess I am delighted...”

“At what?”

“Your question is a wide one. I may be mistaken, but I fancy I find
clearer views, more, so to say, criticism, more practicality...”

“That’s true,” Zossimov let drop.

“Nonsense! There’s no practicality.” Razumihin flew at him.
“Practicality is a difficult thing to find; it does not drop down from
heaven. And for the last two hundred years we have been divorced from
all practical life. Ideas, if you like, are fermenting,” he said to
Pyotr Petrovitch, “and desire for good exists, though it’s in a childish
form, and honesty you may find, although there are crowds of brigands.
Anyway, there’s no practicality. Practicality goes well shod.”

“I don’t agree with you,” Pyotr Petrovitch replied, with evident
enjoyment. “Of course, people do get carried away and make mistakes,
but one must have indulgence; those mistakes are merely evidence of
enthusiasm for the cause and of abnormal external environment. If little
has been done, the time has been but short; of means I will not speak.
It’s my personal view, if you care to know, that something has been
accomplished already. New valuable ideas, new valuable works are
circulating in the place of our old dreamy and romantic authors.
Literature is taking a maturer form, many injurious prejudices have been
rooted up and turned into ridicule.... In a word, we have cut ourselves
off irrevocably from the past, and that, to my thinking, is a great
thing...”

“He’s learnt it by heart to show off!” Raskolnikov pronounced suddenly.

“What?” asked Pyotr Petrovitch, not catching his words; but he received
no reply.

“That’s all true,” Zossimov hastened to interpose.

“Isn’t it so?” Pyotr Petrovitch went on, glancing affably at Zossimov.
“You must admit,” he went on, addressing Razumihin with a shade of
triumph and superciliousness--he almost added “young man”--“that there
is an advance, or, as they say now, progress in the name of science and
economic truth...”

“A commonplace.”

“No, not a commonplace! Hitherto, for instance, if I were told, ‘love
thy neighbour,’ what came of it?” Pyotr Petrovitch went on, perhaps with
excessive haste. “It came to my tearing my coat in half to share with my
neighbour and we both were left half naked. As a Russian proverb has
it, ‘Catch several hares and you won’t catch one.’ Science now tells
us, love yourself before all men, for everything in the world rests on
self-interest. You love yourself and manage your own affairs properly
and your coat remains whole. Economic truth adds that the better private
affairs are organised in society--the more whole coats, so to say--the
firmer are its foundations and the better is the common welfare
organised too. Therefore, in acquiring wealth solely and exclusively for
myself, I am acquiring, so to speak, for all, and helping to bring to
pass my neighbour’s getting a little more than a torn coat; and that not
from private, personal liberality, but as a consequence of the general
advance. The idea is simple, but unhappily it has been a long time
reaching us, being hindered by idealism and sentimentality. And yet it
would seem to want very little wit to perceive it...”

“Excuse me, I’ve very little wit myself,” Razumihin cut in sharply,
“and so let us drop it. I began this discussion with an object, but I’ve
grown so sick during the last three years of this chattering to amuse
oneself, of this incessant flow of commonplaces, always the same, that,
by Jove, I blush even when other people talk like that. You are in a
hurry, no doubt, to exhibit your acquirements; and I don’t blame you,
that’s quite pardonable. I only wanted to find out what sort of man you
are, for so many unscrupulous people have got hold of the progressive
cause of late and have so distorted in their own interests everything
they touched, that the whole cause has been dragged in the mire. That’s
enough!”

“Excuse me, sir,” said Luzhin, affronted, and speaking with excessive
dignity. “Do you mean to suggest so unceremoniously that I too...”

“Oh, my dear sir... how could I?... Come, that’s enough,” Razumihin
concluded, and he turned abruptly to Zossimov to continue their previous
conversation.

Pyotr Petrovitch had the good sense to accept the disavowal. He made up
his mind to take leave in another minute or two.

“I trust our acquaintance,” he said, addressing Raskolnikov, “may, upon
your recovery and in view of the circumstances of which you are aware,
become closer... Above all, I hope for your return to health...”

Raskolnikov did not even turn his head. Pyotr Petrovitch began getting
up from his chair.

“One of her customers must have killed her,” Zossimov declared
positively.

“Not a doubt of it,” replied Razumihin. “Porfiry doesn’t give his
opinion, but is examining all who have left pledges with her there.”

“Examining them?” Raskolnikov asked aloud.

“Yes. What then?”

“Nothing.”

“How does he get hold of them?” asked Zossimov.

“Koch has given the names of some of them, other names are on the
wrappers of the pledges and some have come forward of themselves.”

“It must have been a cunning and practised ruffian! The boldness of it!
The coolness!”

“That’s just what it wasn’t!” interposed Razumihin. “That’s what throws
you all off the scent. But I maintain that he is not cunning, not
practised, and probably this was his first crime! The supposition that
it was a calculated crime and a cunning criminal doesn’t work. Suppose
him to have been inexperienced, and it’s clear that it was only a chance
that saved him--and chance may do anything. Why, he did not foresee
obstacles, perhaps! And how did he set to work? He took jewels worth
ten or twenty roubles, stuffing his pockets with them, ransacked the
old woman’s trunks, her rags--and they found fifteen hundred roubles,
besides notes, in a box in the top drawer of the chest! He did not know
how to rob; he could only murder. It was his first crime, I assure you,
his first crime; he lost his head. And he got off more by luck than good
counsel!”

“You are talking of the murder of the old pawnbroker, I believe?” Pyotr
Petrovitch put in, addressing Zossimov. He was standing, hat and gloves
in hand, but before departing he felt disposed to throw off a few more
intellectual phrases. He was evidently anxious to make a favourable
impression and his vanity overcame his prudence.

“Yes. You’ve heard of it?”

“Oh, yes, being in the neighbourhood.”

“Do you know the details?”

“I can’t say that; but another circumstance interests me in the
case--the whole question, so to say. Not to speak of the fact that crime
has been greatly on the increase among the lower classes during the last
five years, not to speak of the cases of robbery and arson everywhere,
what strikes me as the strangest thing is that in the higher classes,
too, crime is increasing proportionately. In one place one hears of a
student’s robbing the mail on the high road; in another place people of
good social position forge false banknotes; in Moscow of late a whole
gang has been captured who used to forge lottery tickets, and one of
the ringleaders was a lecturer in universal history; then our secretary
abroad was murdered from some obscure motive of gain.... And if this old
woman, the pawnbroker, has been murdered by someone of a higher class
in society--for peasants don’t pawn gold trinkets--how are we to explain
this demoralisation of the civilised part of our society?”

“There are many economic changes,” put in Zossimov.

“How are we to explain it?” Razumihin caught him up. “It might be
explained by our inveterate impracticality.”

“How do you mean?”

“What answer had your lecturer in Moscow to make to the question why he
was forging notes? ‘Everybody is getting rich one way or another, so I
want to make haste to get rich too.’ I don’t remember the exact words,
but the upshot was that he wants money for nothing, without waiting or
working! We’ve grown used to having everything ready-made, to walking
on crutches, to having our food chewed for us. Then the great hour
struck,[*] and every man showed himself in his true colours.”

     [*] The emancipation of the serfs in 1861 is meant.
     --TRANSLATOR’S NOTE.

“But morality? And so to speak, principles...”

“But why do you worry about it?” Raskolnikov interposed suddenly. “It’s
in accordance with your theory!”

“In accordance with my theory?”

“Why, carry out logically the theory you were advocating just now, and
it follows that people may be killed...”

“Upon my word!” cried Luzhin.

“No, that’s not so,” put in Zossimov.

Raskolnikov lay with a white face and twitching upper lip, breathing
painfully.

“There’s a measure in all things,” Luzhin went on superciliously.
“Economic ideas are not an incitement to murder, and one has but to
suppose...”

“And is it true,” Raskolnikov interposed once more suddenly, again in a
voice quivering with fury and delight in insulting him, “is it true that
you told your _fiancée_... within an hour of her acceptance, that what
pleased you most... was that she was a beggar... because it was better
to raise a wife from poverty, so that you may have complete control over
her, and reproach her with your being her benefactor?”

“Upon my word,” Luzhin cried wrathfully and irritably, crimson with
confusion, “to distort my words in this way! Excuse me, allow me to
assure you that the report which has reached you, or rather, let me say,
has been conveyed to you, has no foundation in truth, and I... suspect
who... in a word... this arrow... in a word, your mamma... She seemed
to me in other things, with all her excellent qualities, of a somewhat
high-flown and romantic way of thinking.... But I was a thousand miles
from supposing that she would misunderstand and misrepresent things in
so fanciful a way.... And indeed... indeed...”

“I tell you what,” cried Raskolnikov, raising himself on his pillow and
fixing his piercing, glittering eyes upon him, “I tell you what.”

“What?” Luzhin stood still, waiting with a defiant and offended face.
Silence lasted for some seconds.

“Why, if ever again... you dare to mention a single word... about my
mother... I shall send you flying downstairs!”

“What’s the matter with you?” cried Razumihin.

“So that’s how it is?” Luzhin turned pale and bit his lip. “Let me tell
you, sir,” he began deliberately, doing his utmost to restrain himself
but breathing hard, “at the first moment I saw you you were ill-disposed
to me, but I remained here on purpose to find out more. I could forgive
a great deal in a sick man and a connection, but you... never after
this...”

“I am not ill,” cried Raskolnikov.

“So much the worse...”

“Go to hell!”

But Luzhin was already leaving without finishing his speech, squeezing
between the table and the chair; Razumihin got up this time to let him
pass. Without glancing at anyone, and not even nodding to Zossimov, who
had for some time been making signs to him to let the sick man alone,
he went out, lifting his hat to the level of his shoulders to avoid
crushing it as he stooped to go out of the door. And even the curve of
his spine was expressive of the horrible insult he had received.

“How could you--how could you!” Razumihin said, shaking his head in
perplexity.

“Let me alone--let me alone all of you!” Raskolnikov cried in a frenzy.
“Will you ever leave off tormenting me? I am not afraid of you! I am
not afraid of anyone, anyone now! Get away from me! I want to be alone,
alone, alone!”

“Come along,” said Zossimov, nodding to Razumihin.

“But we can’t leave him like this!”

“Come along,” Zossimov repeated insistently, and he went out. Razumihin
thought a minute and ran to overtake him.

“It might be worse not to obey him,” said Zossimov on the stairs. “He
mustn’t be irritated.”

“What’s the matter with him?”

“If only he could get some favourable shock, that’s what would do it! At
first he was better.... You know he has got something on his mind! Some
fixed idea weighing on him.... I am very much afraid so; he must have!”

“Perhaps it’s that gentleman, Pyotr Petrovitch. From his conversation
I gather he is going to marry his sister, and that he had received a
letter about it just before his illness....”

“Yes, confound the man! he may have upset the case altogether. But have
you noticed, he takes no interest in anything, he does not respond to
anything except one point on which he seems excited--that’s the murder?”

“Yes, yes,” Razumihin agreed, “I noticed that, too. He is interested,
frightened. It gave him a shock on the day he was ill in the police
office; he fainted.”

“Tell me more about that this evening and I’ll tell you something
afterwards. He interests me very much! In half an hour I’ll go and see
him again.... There’ll be no inflammation though.”

“Thanks! And I’ll wait with Pashenka meantime and will keep watch on him
through Nastasya....”

Raskolnikov, left alone, looked with impatience and misery at Nastasya,
but she still lingered.

“Won’t you have some tea now?” she asked.

“Later! I am sleepy! Leave me.”

He turned abruptly to the wall; Nastasya went out.



CHAPTER VI

But as soon as she went out, he got up, latched the door, undid the
parcel which Razumihin had brought in that evening and had tied up again
and began dressing. Strange to say, he seemed immediately to have become
perfectly calm; not a trace of his recent delirium nor of the panic
fear that had haunted him of late. It was the first moment of a strange
sudden calm. His movements were precise and definite; a firm purpose was
evident in them. “To-day, to-day,” he muttered to himself. He understood
that he was still weak, but his intense spiritual concentration gave him
strength and self-confidence. He hoped, moreover, that he would not
fall down in the street. When he had dressed in entirely new clothes, he
looked at the money lying on the table, and after a moment’s thought
put it in his pocket. It was twenty-five roubles. He took also all the
copper change from the ten roubles spent by Razumihin on the clothes.
Then he softly unlatched the door, went out, slipped downstairs and
glanced in at the open kitchen door. Nastasya was standing with her back
to him, blowing up the landlady’s samovar. She heard nothing. Who would
have dreamed of his going out, indeed? A minute later he was in the
street.

It was nearly eight o’clock, the sun was setting. It was as stifling as
before, but he eagerly drank in the stinking, dusty town air. His head
felt rather dizzy; a sort of savage energy gleamed suddenly in his
feverish eyes and his wasted, pale and yellow face. He did not know and
did not think where he was going, he had one thought only: “that all
_this_ must be ended to-day, once for all, immediately; that he would
not return home without it, because he _would not go on living like
that_.” How, with what to make an end? He had not an idea about it,
he did not even want to think of it. He drove away thought; thought
tortured him. All he knew, all he felt was that everything must be
changed “one way or another,” he repeated with desperate and immovable
self-confidence and determination.

From old habit he took his usual walk in the direction of the Hay
Market. A dark-haired young man with a barrel organ was standing in
the road in front of a little general shop and was grinding out a very
sentimental song. He was accompanying a girl of fifteen, who stood
on the pavement in front of him. She was dressed up in a crinoline, a
mantle and a straw hat with a flame-coloured feather in it, all very
old and shabby. In a strong and rather agreeable voice, cracked and
coarsened by street singing, she sang in hope of getting a copper from
the shop. Raskolnikov joined two or three listeners, took out a five
copeck piece and put it in the girl’s hand. She broke off abruptly on a
sentimental high note, shouted sharply to the organ grinder “Come on,”
 and both moved on to the next shop.

“Do you like street music?” said Raskolnikov, addressing a middle-aged
man standing idly by him. The man looked at him, startled and wondering.

“I love to hear singing to a street organ,” said Raskolnikov, and his
manner seemed strangely out of keeping with the subject--“I like it
on cold, dark, damp autumn evenings--they must be damp--when all the
passers-by have pale green, sickly faces, or better still when wet
snow is falling straight down, when there’s no wind--you know what I
mean?--and the street lamps shine through it...”

“I don’t know.... Excuse me...” muttered the stranger, frightened by the
question and Raskolnikov’s strange manner, and he crossed over to the
other side of the street.

Raskolnikov walked straight on and came out at the corner of the Hay
Market, where the huckster and his wife had talked with Lizaveta; but
they were not there now. Recognising the place, he stopped, looked round
and addressed a young fellow in a red shirt who stood gaping before a
corn chandler’s shop.

“Isn’t there a man who keeps a booth with his wife at this corner?”

“All sorts of people keep booths here,” answered the young man, glancing
superciliously at Raskolnikov.

“What’s his name?”

“What he was christened.”

“Aren’t you a Zaraïsky man, too? Which province?”

The young man looked at Raskolnikov again.

“It’s not a province, your excellency, but a district. Graciously
forgive me, your excellency!”

“Is that a tavern at the top there?”

“Yes, it’s an eating-house and there’s a billiard-room and you’ll find
princesses there too.... La-la!”

Raskolnikov crossed the square. In that corner there was a dense crowd
of peasants. He pushed his way into the thickest part of it, looking
at the faces. He felt an unaccountable inclination to enter into
conversation with people. But the peasants took no notice of him; they
were all shouting in groups together. He stood and thought a little and
took a turning to the right in the direction of V.

He had often crossed that little street which turns at an angle, leading
from the market-place to Sadovy Street. Of late he had often felt drawn
to wander about this district, when he felt depressed, that he might
feel more so.

Now he walked along, thinking of nothing. At that point there is a great
block of buildings, entirely let out in dram shops and eating-houses;
women were continually running in and out, bare-headed and in their
indoor clothes. Here and there they gathered in groups, on the pavement,
especially about the entrances to various festive establishments in
the lower storeys. From one of these a loud din, sounds of singing, the
tinkling of a guitar and shouts of merriment, floated into the street.
A crowd of women were thronging round the door; some were sitting on the
steps, others on the pavement, others were standing talking. A drunken
soldier, smoking a cigarette, was walking near them in the road,
swearing; he seemed to be trying to find his way somewhere, but had
forgotten where. One beggar was quarrelling with another, and a man dead
drunk was lying right across the road. Raskolnikov joined the throng of
women, who were talking in husky voices. They were bare-headed and wore
cotton dresses and goatskin shoes. There were women of forty and some
not more than seventeen; almost all had blackened eyes.

He felt strangely attracted by the singing and all the noise and
uproar in the saloon below.... someone could be heard within dancing
frantically, marking time with his heels to the sounds of the guitar
and of a thin falsetto voice singing a jaunty air. He listened intently,
gloomily and dreamily, bending down at the entrance and peeping
inquisitively in from the pavement.

  “Oh, my handsome soldier
   Don’t beat me for nothing,”

trilled the thin voice of the singer. Raskolnikov felt a great desire to
make out what he was singing, as though everything depended on that.

“Shall I go in?” he thought. “They are laughing. From drink. Shall I get
drunk?”

“Won’t you come in?” one of the women asked him. Her voice was
still musical and less thick than the others, she was young and not
repulsive--the only one of the group.

“Why, she’s pretty,” he said, drawing himself up and looking at her.

She smiled, much pleased at the compliment.

“You’re very nice looking yourself,” she said.

“Isn’t he thin though!” observed another woman in a deep bass. “Have you
just come out of a hospital?”

“They’re all generals’ daughters, it seems, but they have all snub
noses,” interposed a tipsy peasant with a sly smile on his face, wearing
a loose coat. “See how jolly they are.”

“Go along with you!”

“I’ll go, sweetie!”

And he darted down into the saloon below. Raskolnikov moved on.

“I say, sir,” the girl shouted after him.

“What is it?”

She hesitated.

“I’ll always be pleased to spend an hour with you, kind gentleman, but
now I feel shy. Give me six copecks for a drink, there’s a nice young
man!”

Raskolnikov gave her what came first--fifteen copecks.

“Ah, what a good-natured gentleman!”

“What’s your name?”

“Ask for Duclida.”

“Well, that’s too much,” one of the women observed, shaking her head
at Duclida. “I don’t know how you can ask like that. I believe I should
drop with shame....”

Raskolnikov looked curiously at the speaker. She was a pock-marked wench
of thirty, covered with bruises, with her upper lip swollen. She made
her criticism quietly and earnestly. “Where is it,” thought Raskolnikov.
“Where is it I’ve read that someone condemned to death says or thinks,
an hour before his death, that if he had to live on some high rock,
on such a narrow ledge that he’d only room to stand, and the ocean,
everlasting darkness, everlasting solitude, everlasting tempest around
him, if he had to remain standing on a square yard of space all his
life, a thousand years, eternity, it were better to live so than to die
at once! Only to live, to live and live! Life, whatever it may be!...
How true it is! Good God, how true! Man is a vile creature!... And vile
is he who calls him vile for that,” he added a moment later.

He went into another street. “Bah, the Palais de Cristal! Razumihin
was just talking of the Palais de Cristal. But what on earth was it
I wanted? Yes, the newspapers.... Zossimov said he’d read it in the
papers. Have you the papers?” he asked, going into a very spacious and
positively clean restaurant, consisting of several rooms, which were,
however, rather empty. Two or three people were drinking tea, and in a
room further away were sitting four men drinking champagne. Raskolnikov
fancied that Zametov was one of them, but he could not be sure at that
distance. “What if it is?” he thought.

“Will you have vodka?” asked the waiter.

“Give me some tea and bring me the papers, the old ones for the last
five days, and I’ll give you something.”

“Yes, sir, here’s to-day’s. No vodka?”

The old newspapers and the tea were brought. Raskolnikov sat down and
began to look through them.

“Oh, damn... these are the items of intelligence. An accident on a
staircase, spontaneous combustion of a shopkeeper from alcohol, a fire
in Peski... a fire in the Petersburg quarter... another fire in the
Petersburg quarter... and another fire in the Petersburg quarter....
Ah, here it is!” He found at last what he was seeking and began to
read it. The lines danced before his eyes, but he read it all and began
eagerly seeking later additions in the following numbers. His hands
shook with nervous impatience as he turned the sheets. Suddenly someone
sat down beside him at his table. He looked up, it was the head clerk
Zametov, looking just the same, with the rings on his fingers and the
watch-chain, with the curly, black hair, parted and pomaded, with the
smart waistcoat, rather shabby coat and doubtful linen. He was in a good
humour, at least he was smiling very gaily and good-humouredly. His dark
face was rather flushed from the champagne he had drunk.

“What, you here?” he began in surprise, speaking as though he’d known
him all his life. “Why, Razumihin told me only yesterday you were
unconscious. How strange! And do you know I’ve been to see you?”

Raskolnikov knew he would come up to him. He laid aside the papers and
turned to Zametov. There was a smile on his lips, and a new shade of
irritable impatience was apparent in that smile.

“I know you have,” he answered. “I’ve heard it. You looked for my
sock.... And you know Razumihin has lost his heart to you? He says
you’ve been with him to Luise Ivanovna’s--you know, the woman you tried
to befriend, for whom you winked to the Explosive Lieutenant and he
would not understand. Do you remember? How could he fail to
understand--it was quite clear, wasn’t it?”

“What a hot head he is!”

“The explosive one?”

“No, your friend Razumihin.”

“You must have a jolly life, Mr. Zametov; entrance free to the most
agreeable places. Who’s been pouring champagne into you just now?”

“We’ve just been... having a drink together.... You talk about pouring
it into me!”

“By way of a fee! You profit by everything!” Raskolnikov laughed, “it’s
all right, my dear boy,” he added, slapping Zametov on the shoulder. “I
am not speaking from temper, but in a friendly way, for sport, as that
workman of yours said when he was scuffling with Dmitri, in the case of
the old woman....”

“How do you know about it?”

“Perhaps I know more about it than you do.”

“How strange you are.... I am sure you are still very unwell. You
oughtn’t to have come out.”

“Oh, do I seem strange to you?”

“Yes. What are you doing, reading the papers?”

“Yes.”

“There’s a lot about the fires.”

“No, I am not reading about the fires.” Here he looked mysteriously at
Zametov; his lips were twisted again in a mocking smile. “No, I am not
reading about the fires,” he went on, winking at Zametov. “But confess
now, my dear fellow, you’re awfully anxious to know what I am reading
about?”

“I am not in the least. Mayn’t I ask a question? Why do you keep
on...?”

“Listen, you are a man of culture and education?”

“I was in the sixth class at the gymnasium,” said Zametov with some
dignity.

“Sixth class! Ah, my cock-sparrow! With your parting and your rings--you
are a gentleman of fortune. Foo! what a charming boy!” Here Raskolnikov
broke into a nervous laugh right in Zametov’s face. The latter drew
back, more amazed than offended.

“Foo! how strange you are!” Zametov repeated very seriously. “I can’t
help thinking you are still delirious.”

“I am delirious? You are fibbing, my cock-sparrow! So I am strange? You
find me curious, do you?”

“Yes, curious.”

“Shall I tell you what I was reading about, what I was looking for? See
what a lot of papers I’ve made them bring me. Suspicious, eh?”

“Well, what is it?”

“You prick up your ears?”

“How do you mean--‘prick up my ears’?”

“I’ll explain that afterwards, but now, my boy, I declare to you... no,
better ‘I confess’... No, that’s not right either; ‘I make a deposition
and you take it.’ I depose that I was reading, that I was looking and
searching....” he screwed up his eyes and paused. “I was searching--and
came here on purpose to do it--for news of the murder of the old
pawnbroker woman,” he articulated at last, almost in a whisper, bringing
his face exceedingly close to the face of Zametov. Zametov looked at him
steadily, without moving or drawing his face away. What struck Zametov
afterwards as the strangest part of it all was that silence followed for
exactly a minute, and that they gazed at one another all the while.

“What if you have been reading about it?” he cried at last, perplexed
and impatient. “That’s no business of mine! What of it?”

“The same old woman,” Raskolnikov went on in the same whisper, not
heeding Zametov’s explanation, “about whom you were talking in the
police-office, you remember, when I fainted. Well, do you understand
now?”

“What do you mean? Understand... what?” Zametov brought out, almost
alarmed.

Raskolnikov’s set and earnest face was suddenly transformed, and he
suddenly went off into the same nervous laugh as before, as though
utterly unable to restrain himself. And in one flash he recalled with
extraordinary vividness of sensation a moment in the recent past, that
moment when he stood with the axe behind the door, while the latch
trembled and the men outside swore and shook it, and he had a sudden
desire to shout at them, to swear at them, to put out his tongue at
them, to mock them, to laugh, and laugh, and laugh!

“You are either mad, or...” began Zametov, and he broke off, as though
stunned by the idea that had suddenly flashed into his mind.

“Or? Or what? What? Come, tell me!”

“Nothing,” said Zametov, getting angry, “it’s all nonsense!”

Both were silent. After his sudden fit of laughter Raskolnikov became
suddenly thoughtful and melancholy. He put his elbow on the table and
leaned his head on his hand. He seemed to have completely forgotten
Zametov. The silence lasted for some time.

“Why don’t you drink your tea? It’s getting cold,” said Zametov.

“What! Tea? Oh, yes....” Raskolnikov sipped the glass, put a morsel of
bread in his mouth and, suddenly looking at Zametov, seemed to remember
everything and pulled himself together. At the same moment his face
resumed its original mocking expression. He went on drinking tea.

“There have been a great many of these crimes lately,” said Zametov.
“Only the other day I read in the _Moscow News_ that a whole gang of
false coiners had been caught in Moscow. It was a regular society. They
used to forge tickets!”

“Oh, but it was a long time ago! I read about it a month ago,”
 Raskolnikov answered calmly. “So you consider them criminals?” he added,
smiling.

“Of course they are criminals.”

“They? They are children, simpletons, not criminals! Why, half a hundred
people meeting for such an object--what an idea! Three would be too
many, and then they want to have more faith in one another than in
themselves! One has only to blab in his cups and it all collapses.
Simpletons! They engaged untrustworthy people to change the notes--what
a thing to trust to a casual stranger! Well, let us suppose that these
simpletons succeed and each makes a million, and what follows for the
rest of their lives? Each is dependent on the others for the rest of his
life! Better hang oneself at once! And they did not know how to change
the notes either; the man who changed the notes took five thousand
roubles, and his hands trembled. He counted the first four thousand,
but did not count the fifth thousand--he was in such a hurry to get the
money into his pocket and run away. Of course he roused suspicion. And
the whole thing came to a crash through one fool! Is it possible?”

“That his hands trembled?” observed Zametov, “yes, that’s quite
possible. That, I feel quite sure, is possible. Sometimes one can’t
stand things.”

“Can’t stand that?”

“Why, could you stand it then? No, I couldn’t. For the sake of a hundred
roubles to face such a terrible experience? To go with false notes
into a bank where it’s their business to spot that sort of thing! No, I
should not have the face to do it. Would you?”

Raskolnikov had an intense desire again “to put his tongue out.” Shivers
kept running down his spine.

“I should do it quite differently,” Raskolnikov began. “This is how I
would change the notes: I’d count the first thousand three or four times
backwards and forwards, looking at every note and then I’d set to the
second thousand; I’d count that half-way through and then hold some
fifty-rouble note to the light, then turn it, then hold it to the light
again--to see whether it was a good one. ‘I am afraid,’ I would say, ‘a
relation of mine lost twenty-five roubles the other day through a
false note,’ and then I’d tell them the whole story. And after I began
counting the third, ‘No, excuse me,’ I would say, ‘I fancy I made a
mistake in the seventh hundred in that second thousand, I am not sure.’
And so I would give up the third thousand and go back to the second and
so on to the end. And when I had finished, I’d pick out one from the
fifth and one from the second thousand and take them again to the light
and ask again, ‘Change them, please,’ and put the clerk into such a stew
that he would not know how to get rid of me. When I’d finished and had
gone out, I’d come back, ‘No, excuse me,’ and ask for some explanation.
That’s how I’d do it.”

“Foo! what terrible things you say!” said Zametov, laughing. “But all
that is only talk. I dare say when it came to deeds you’d make a slip.
I believe that even a practised, desperate man cannot always reckon on
himself, much less you and I. To take an example near home--that old
woman murdered in our district. The murderer seems to have been a
desperate fellow, he risked everything in open daylight, was saved by
a miracle--but his hands shook, too. He did not succeed in robbing the
place, he couldn’t stand it. That was clear from the...”

Raskolnikov seemed offended.

“Clear? Why don’t you catch him then?” he cried, maliciously gibing at
Zametov.

“Well, they will catch him.”

“Who? You? Do you suppose you could catch him? You’ve a tough job! A
great point for you is whether a man is spending money or not. If he had
no money and suddenly begins spending, he must be the man. So that any
child can mislead you.”

“The fact is they always do that, though,” answered Zametov. “A man will
commit a clever murder at the risk of his life and then at once he goes
drinking in a tavern. They are caught spending money, they are not all
as cunning as you are. You wouldn’t go to a tavern, of course?”

Raskolnikov frowned and looked steadily at Zametov.

“You seem to enjoy the subject and would like to know how I should
behave in that case, too?” he asked with displeasure.

“I should like to,” Zametov answered firmly and seriously. Somewhat too
much earnestness began to appear in his words and looks.

“Very much?”

“Very much!”

“All right then. This is how I should behave,” Raskolnikov began, again
bringing his face close to Zametov’s, again staring at him and speaking
in a whisper, so that the latter positively shuddered. “This is what
I should have done. I should have taken the money and jewels, I should
have walked out of there and have gone straight to some deserted place
with fences round it and scarcely anyone to be seen, some kitchen garden
or place of that sort. I should have looked out beforehand some stone
weighing a hundredweight or more which had been lying in the corner from
the time the house was built. I would lift that stone--there would sure
to be a hollow under it, and I would put the jewels and money in that
hole. Then I’d roll the stone back so that it would look as before,
would press it down with my foot and walk away. And for a year or two,
three maybe, I would not touch it. And, well, they could search! There’d
be no trace.”

“You are a madman,” said Zametov, and for some reason he too spoke in a
whisper, and moved away from Raskolnikov, whose eyes were glittering. He
had turned fearfully pale and his upper lip was twitching and quivering.
He bent down as close as possible to Zametov, and his lips began to move
without uttering a word. This lasted for half a minute; he knew what he
was doing, but could not restrain himself. The terrible word trembled on
his lips, like the latch on that door; in another moment it will break
out, in another moment he will let it go, he will speak out.

“And what if it was I who murdered the old woman and Lizaveta?” he said
suddenly and--realised what he had done.

Zametov looked wildly at him and turned white as the tablecloth. His
face wore a contorted smile.

“But is it possible?” he brought out faintly. Raskolnikov looked
wrathfully at him.

“Own up that you believed it, yes, you did?”

“Not a bit of it, I believe it less than ever now,” Zametov cried
hastily.

“I’ve caught my cock-sparrow! So you did believe it before, if now you
believe less than ever?”

“Not at all,” cried Zametov, obviously embarrassed. “Have you been
frightening me so as to lead up to this?”

“You don’t believe it then? What were you talking about behind my
back when I went out of the police-office? And why did the explosive
lieutenant question me after I fainted? Hey, there,” he shouted to the
waiter, getting up and taking his cap, “how much?”

“Thirty copecks,” the latter replied, running up.

“And there is twenty copecks for vodka. See what a lot of money!” he
held out his shaking hand to Zametov with notes in it. “Red notes and
blue, twenty-five roubles. Where did I get them? And where did my new
clothes come from? You know I had not a copeck. You’ve cross-examined my
landlady, I’ll be bound.... Well, that’s enough! _Assez causé!_ Till we
meet again!”

He went out, trembling all over from a sort of wild hysterical
sensation, in which there was an element of insufferable rapture. Yet he
was gloomy and terribly tired. His face was twisted as after a fit.
His fatigue increased rapidly. Any shock, any irritating sensation
stimulated and revived his energies at once, but his strength failed as
quickly when the stimulus was removed.

Zametov, left alone, sat for a long time in the same place, plunged in
thought. Raskolnikov had unwittingly worked a revolution in his brain on
a certain point and had made up his mind for him conclusively.

“Ilya Petrovitch is a blockhead,” he decided.

Raskolnikov had hardly opened the door of the restaurant when he
stumbled against Razumihin on the steps. They did not see each other
till they almost knocked against each other. For a moment they stood
looking each other up and down. Razumihin was greatly astounded, then
anger, real anger gleamed fiercely in his eyes.

“So here you are!” he shouted at the top of his voice--“you ran away
from your bed! And here I’ve been looking for you under the sofa! We
went up to the garret. I almost beat Nastasya on your account. And here
he is after all. Rodya! What is the meaning of it? Tell me the whole
truth! Confess! Do you hear?”

“It means that I’m sick to death of you all and I want to be alone,”
 Raskolnikov answered calmly.

“Alone? When you are not able to walk, when your face is as white as a
sheet and you are gasping for breath! Idiot!... What have you been doing
in the Palais de Cristal? Own up at once!”

“Let me go!” said Raskolnikov and tried to pass him. This was too much
for Razumihin; he gripped him firmly by the shoulder.

“Let you go? You dare tell me to let you go? Do you know what I’ll do
with you directly? I’ll pick you up, tie you up in a bundle, carry you
home under my arm and lock you up!”

“Listen, Razumihin,” Raskolnikov began quietly, apparently calm--“can’t
you see that I don’t want your benevolence? A strange desire you have to
shower benefits on a man who... curses them, who feels them a burden in
fact! Why did you seek me out at the beginning of my illness? Maybe I
was very glad to die. Didn’t I tell you plainly enough to-day that
you were torturing me, that I was... sick of you! You seem to want to
torture people! I assure you that all that is seriously hindering my
recovery, because it’s continually irritating me. You saw Zossimov
went away just now to avoid irritating me. You leave me alone too, for
goodness’ sake! What right have you, indeed, to keep me by force? Don’t
you see that I am in possession of all my faculties now? How, how can
I persuade you not to persecute me with your kindness? I may be
ungrateful, I may be mean, only let me be, for God’s sake, let me be!
Let me be, let me be!”

He began calmly, gloating beforehand over the venomous phrases he was
about to utter, but finished, panting for breath, in a frenzy, as he had
been with Luzhin.

Razumihin stood a moment, thought and let his hand drop.

“Well, go to hell then,” he said gently and thoughtfully. “Stay,” he
roared, as Raskolnikov was about to move. “Listen to me. Let me tell
you, that you are all a set of babbling, posing idiots! If you’ve any
little trouble you brood over it like a hen over an egg. And you are
plagiarists even in that! There isn’t a sign of independent life in
you! You are made of spermaceti ointment and you’ve lymph in your veins
instead of blood. I don’t believe in anyone of you! In any circumstances
the first thing for all of you is to be unlike a human being! Stop!” he
cried with redoubled fury, noticing that Raskolnikov was again making
a movement--“hear me out! You know I’m having a house-warming this
evening, I dare say they’ve arrived by now, but I left my uncle there--I
just ran in--to receive the guests. And if you weren’t a fool, a common
fool, a perfect fool, if you were an original instead of a translation...
you see, Rodya, I recognise you’re a clever fellow, but you’re a
fool!--and if you weren’t a fool you’d come round to me this evening
instead of wearing out your boots in the street! Since you have gone
out, there’s no help for it! I’d give you a snug easy chair, my landlady
has one... a cup of tea, company.... Or you could lie on the sofa--any
way you would be with us.... Zossimov will be there too. Will you come?”

“No.”

“R-rubbish!” Razumihin shouted, out of patience. “How do you know?
You can’t answer for yourself! You don’t know anything about it....
Thousands of times I’ve fought tooth and nail with people and run back
to them afterwards.... One feels ashamed and goes back to a man! So
remember, Potchinkov’s house on the third storey....”

“Why, Mr. Razumihin, I do believe you’d let anybody beat you from sheer
benevolence.”

“Beat? Whom? Me? I’d twist his nose off at the mere idea! Potchinkov’s
house, 47, Babushkin’s flat....”

“I shall not come, Razumihin.” Raskolnikov turned and walked away.

“I bet you will,” Razumihin shouted after him. “I refuse to know you if
you don’t! Stay, hey, is Zametov in there?”

“Yes.”

“Did you see him?”

“Yes.”

“Talked to him?”

“Yes.”

“What about? Confound you, don’t tell me then. Potchinkov’s house, 47,
Babushkin’s flat, remember!”

Raskolnikov walked on and turned the corner into Sadovy Street.
Razumihin looked after him thoughtfully. Then with a wave of his hand he
went into the house but stopped short of the stairs.

“Confound it,” he went on almost aloud. “He talked sensibly but yet...
I am a fool! As if madmen didn’t talk sensibly! And this was just what
Zossimov seemed afraid of.” He struck his finger on his forehead. “What
if... how could I let him go off alone? He may drown himself.... Ach,
what a blunder! I can’t.” And he ran back to overtake Raskolnikov, but
there was no trace of him. With a curse he returned with rapid steps to
the Palais de Cristal to question Zametov.

Raskolnikov walked straight to X---- Bridge, stood in the middle, and
leaning both elbows on the rail stared into the distance. On parting
with Razumihin, he felt so much weaker that he could scarcely reach this
place. He longed to sit or lie down somewhere in the street. Bending
over the water, he gazed mechanically at the last pink flush of the
sunset, at the row of houses growing dark in the gathering twilight, at
one distant attic window on the left bank, flashing as though on fire in
the last rays of the setting sun, at the darkening water of the canal,
and the water seemed to catch his attention. At last red circles flashed
before his eyes, the houses seemed moving, the passers-by, the canal
banks, the carriages, all danced before his eyes. Suddenly he started,
saved again perhaps from swooning by an uncanny and hideous sight. He
became aware of someone standing on the right side of him; he looked
and saw a tall woman with a kerchief on her head, with a long, yellow,
wasted face and red sunken eyes. She was looking straight at him, but
obviously she saw nothing and recognised no one. Suddenly she leaned her
right hand on the parapet, lifted her right leg over the railing, then
her left and threw herself into the canal. The filthy water parted and
swallowed up its victim for a moment, but an instant later the drowning
woman floated to the surface, moving slowly with the current, her head
and legs in the water, her skirt inflated like a balloon over her back.

“A woman drowning! A woman drowning!” shouted dozens of voices; people
ran up, both banks were thronged with spectators, on the bridge people
crowded about Raskolnikov, pressing up behind him.

“Mercy on it! it’s our Afrosinya!” a woman cried tearfully close by.
“Mercy! save her! kind people, pull her out!”

“A boat, a boat!” was shouted in the crowd. But there was no need of a
boat; a policeman ran down the steps to the canal, threw off his great
coat and his boots and rushed into the water. It was easy to reach her:
she floated within a couple of yards from the steps, he caught hold of
her clothes with his right hand and with his left seized a pole which a
comrade held out to him; the drowning woman was pulled out at once. They
laid her on the granite pavement of the embankment. She soon recovered
consciousness, raised her head, sat up and began sneezing and coughing,
stupidly wiping her wet dress with her hands. She said nothing.

“She’s drunk herself out of her senses,” the same woman’s voice wailed
at her side. “Out of her senses. The other day she tried to hang
herself, we cut her down. I ran out to the shop just now, left my little
girl to look after her--and here she’s in trouble again! A neighbour,
gentleman, a neighbour, we live close by, the second house from the end,
see yonder....”

The crowd broke up. The police still remained round the woman, someone
mentioned the police station.... Raskolnikov looked on with a strange
sensation of indifference and apathy. He felt disgusted. “No, that’s
loathsome... water... it’s not good enough,” he muttered to himself.
“Nothing will come of it,” he added, “no use to wait. What about the
police office...? And why isn’t Zametov at the police office? The police
office is open till ten o’clock....” He turned his back to the railing
and looked about him.

“Very well then!” he said resolutely; he moved from the bridge and
walked in the direction of the police office. His heart felt hollow and
empty. He did not want to think. Even his depression had passed, there
was not a trace now of the energy with which he had set out “to make an
end of it all.” Complete apathy had succeeded to it.

“Well, it’s a way out of it,” he thought, walking slowly and listlessly
along the canal bank. “Anyway, I’ll make an end, for I want to.... But
is it a way out? What does it matter! There’ll be the square yard of
space--ha! But what an end! Is it really the end? Shall I tell them or
not? Ah... damn! How tired I am! If I could find somewhere to sit or lie
down soon! What I am most ashamed of is its being so stupid. But I don’t
care about that either! What idiotic ideas come into one’s head.”

To reach the police office he had to go straight forward and take the
second turning to the left. It was only a few paces away. But at the
first turning he stopped and, after a minute’s thought, turned into a
side street and went two streets out of his way, possibly without any
object, or possibly to delay a minute and gain time. He walked, looking
at the ground; suddenly someone seemed to whisper in his ear; he lifted
his head and saw that he was standing at the very gate of _the_ house.
He had not passed it, he had not been near it since _that_ evening.
An overwhelming, unaccountable prompting drew him on. He went into the
house, passed through the gateway, then into the first entrance on the
right, and began mounting the familiar staircase to the fourth storey.
The narrow, steep staircase was very dark. He stopped at each landing
and looked round him with curiosity; on the first landing the framework
of the window had been taken out. “That wasn’t so then,” he thought.
Here was the flat on the second storey where Nikolay and Dmitri had been
working. “It’s shut up and the door newly painted. So it’s to let.” Then
the third storey and the fourth. “Here!” He was perplexed to find the
door of the flat wide open. There were men there, he could hear voices;
he had not expected that. After brief hesitation he mounted the last
stairs and went into the flat. It, too, was being done up; there were
workmen in it. This seemed to amaze him; he somehow fancied that he
would find everything as he left it, even perhaps the corpses in the
same places on the floor. And now, bare walls, no furniture; it seemed
strange. He walked to the window and sat down on the window-sill. There
were two workmen, both young fellows, but one much younger than the
other. They were papering the walls with a new white paper covered with
lilac flowers, instead of the old, dirty, yellow one. Raskolnikov for
some reason felt horribly annoyed by this. He looked at the new paper
with dislike, as though he felt sorry to have it all so changed.
The workmen had obviously stayed beyond their time and now they were
hurriedly rolling up their paper and getting ready to go home. They took
no notice of Raskolnikov’s coming in; they were talking. Raskolnikov
folded his arms and listened.

“She comes to me in the morning,” said the elder to the younger, “very
early, all dressed up. ‘Why are you preening and prinking?’ says I. ‘I
am ready to do anything to please you, Tit Vassilitch!’ That’s a way of
going on! And she dressed up like a regular fashion book!”

“And what is a fashion book?” the younger one asked. He obviously
regarded the other as an authority.

“A fashion book is a lot of pictures, coloured, and they come to the
tailors here every Saturday, by post from abroad, to show folks how
to dress, the male sex as well as the female. They’re pictures. The
gentlemen are generally wearing fur coats and for the ladies’ fluffles,
they’re beyond anything you can fancy.”

“There’s nothing you can’t find in Petersburg,” the younger cried
enthusiastically, “except father and mother, there’s everything!”

“Except them, there’s everything to be found, my boy,” the elder
declared sententiously.

Raskolnikov got up and walked into the other room where the strong box,
the bed, and the chest of drawers had been; the room seemed to him very
tiny without furniture in it. The paper was the same; the paper in the
corner showed where the case of ikons had stood. He looked at it and
went to the window. The elder workman looked at him askance.

“What do you want?” he asked suddenly.

Instead of answering Raskolnikov went into the passage and pulled the
bell. The same bell, the same cracked note. He rang it a second and
a third time; he listened and remembered. The hideous and agonisingly
fearful sensation he had felt then began to come back more and more
vividly. He shuddered at every ring and it gave him more and more
satisfaction.

“Well, what do you want? Who are you?” the workman shouted, going out to
him. Raskolnikov went inside again.

“I want to take a flat,” he said. “I am looking round.”

“It’s not the time to look at rooms at night! and you ought to come up
with the porter.”

“The floors have been washed, will they be painted?” Raskolnikov went
on. “Is there no blood?”

“What blood?”

“Why, the old woman and her sister were murdered here. There was a
perfect pool there.”

“But who are you?” the workman cried, uneasy.

“Who am I?”

“Yes.”

“You want to know? Come to the police station, I’ll tell you.”

The workmen looked at him in amazement.

“It’s time for us to go, we are late. Come along, Alyoshka. We must lock
up,” said the elder workman.

“Very well, come along,” said Raskolnikov indifferently, and going
out first, he went slowly downstairs. “Hey, porter,” he cried in the
gateway.

At the entrance several people were standing, staring at the passers-by;
the two porters, a peasant woman, a man in a long coat and a few others.
Raskolnikov went straight up to them.

“What do you want?” asked one of the porters.

“Have you been to the police office?”

“I’ve just been there. What do you want?”

“Is it open?”

“Of course.”

“Is the assistant there?”

“He was there for a time. What do you want?”

Raskolnikov made no reply, but stood beside them lost in thought.

“He’s been to look at the flat,” said the elder workman, coming forward.

“Which flat?”

“Where we are at work. ‘Why have you washed away the blood?’ says he.
‘There has been a murder here,’ says he, ‘and I’ve come to take it.’
And he began ringing at the bell, all but broke it. ‘Come to the police
station,’ says he. ‘I’ll tell you everything there.’ He wouldn’t leave
us.”

The porter looked at Raskolnikov, frowning and perplexed.

“Who are you?” he shouted as impressively as he could.

“I am Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov, formerly a student, I live in
Shil’s house, not far from here, flat Number 14, ask the porter, he
knows me.” Raskolnikov said all this in a lazy, dreamy voice, not
turning round, but looking intently into the darkening street.

“Why have you been to the flat?”

“To look at it.”

“What is there to look at?”

“Take him straight to the police station,” the man in the long coat
jerked in abruptly.

Raskolnikov looked intently at him over his shoulder and said in the
same slow, lazy tones:

“Come along.”

“Yes, take him,” the man went on more confidently. “Why was he going
into _that_, what’s in his mind, eh?”

“He’s not drunk, but God knows what’s the matter with him,” muttered the
workman.

“But what do you want?” the porter shouted again, beginning to get angry
in earnest--“Why are you hanging about?”

“You funk the police station then?” said Raskolnikov jeeringly.

“How funk it? Why are you hanging about?”

“He’s a rogue!” shouted the peasant woman.

“Why waste time talking to him?” cried the other porter, a huge peasant
in a full open coat and with keys on his belt. “Get along! He is a rogue
and no mistake. Get along!”

And seizing Raskolnikov by the shoulder he flung him into the street. He
lurched forward, but recovered his footing, looked at the spectators in
silence and walked away.

“Strange man!” observed the workman.

“There are strange folks about nowadays,” said the woman.

“You should have taken him to the police station all the same,” said the
man in the long coat.

“Better have nothing to do with him,” decided the big porter. “A regular
rogue! Just what he wants, you may be sure, but once take him up, you
won’t get rid of him.... We know the sort!”

“Shall I go there or not?” thought Raskolnikov, standing in the middle
of the thoroughfare at the cross-roads, and he looked about him, as
though expecting from someone a decisive word. But no sound came, all
was dead and silent like the stones on which he walked, dead to him, to
him alone.... All at once at the end of the street, two hundred yards
away, in the gathering dusk he saw a crowd and heard talk and shouts.
In the middle of the crowd stood a carriage.... A light gleamed in the
middle of the street. “What is it?” Raskolnikov turned to the right
and went up to the crowd. He seemed to clutch at everything and smiled
coldly when he recognised it, for he had fully made up his mind to go to
the police station and knew that it would all soon be over.



CHAPTER VII

An elegant carriage stood in the middle of the road with a pair of
spirited grey horses; there was no one in it, and the coachman had got
off his box and stood by; the horses were being held by the bridle....
A mass of people had gathered round, the police standing in front. One
of them held a lighted lantern which he was turning on something lying
close to the wheels. Everyone was talking, shouting, exclaiming; the
coachman seemed at a loss and kept repeating:

“What a misfortune! Good Lord, what a misfortune!”

Raskolnikov pushed his way in as far as he could, and succeeded at last
in seeing the object of the commotion and interest. On the ground a
man who had been run over lay apparently unconscious, and covered with
blood; he was very badly dressed, but not like a workman. Blood was
flowing from his head and face; his face was crushed, mutilated and
disfigured. He was evidently badly injured.

“Merciful heaven!” wailed the coachman, “what more could I do? If I’d
been driving fast or had not shouted to him, but I was going quietly,
not in a hurry. Everyone could see I was going along just like everybody
else. A drunken man can’t walk straight, we all know.... I saw him
crossing the street, staggering and almost falling. I shouted again
and a second and a third time, then I held the horses in, but he fell
straight under their feet! Either he did it on purpose or he was very
tipsy.... The horses are young and ready to take fright... they started,
he screamed... that made them worse. That’s how it happened!”

“That’s just how it was,” a voice in the crowd confirmed.

“He shouted, that’s true, he shouted three times,” another voice
declared.

“Three times it was, we all heard it,” shouted a third.

But the coachman was not very much distressed and frightened. It was
evident that the carriage belonged to a rich and important person who
was awaiting it somewhere; the police, of course, were in no little
anxiety to avoid upsetting his arrangements. All they had to do was to
take the injured man to the police station and the hospital. No one knew
his name.

Meanwhile Raskolnikov had squeezed in and stooped closer over him. The
lantern suddenly lighted up the unfortunate man’s face. He recognised
him.

“I know him! I know him!” he shouted, pushing to the front. “It’s a
government clerk retired from the service, Marmeladov. He lives close
by in Kozel’s house.... Make haste for a doctor! I will pay, see?” He
pulled money out of his pocket and showed it to the policeman. He was in
violent agitation.

The police were glad that they had found out who the man was.
Raskolnikov gave his own name and address, and, as earnestly as if it
had been his father, he besought the police to carry the unconscious
Marmeladov to his lodging at once.

“Just here, three houses away,” he said eagerly, “the house belongs to
Kozel, a rich German. He was going home, no doubt drunk. I know him,
he is a drunkard. He has a family there, a wife, children, he has one
daughter.... It will take time to take him to the hospital, and there is
sure to be a doctor in the house. I’ll pay, I’ll pay! At least he will
be looked after at home... they will help him at once. But he’ll die
before you get him to the hospital.” He managed to slip something
unseen into the policeman’s hand. But the thing was straightforward
and legitimate, and in any case help was closer here. They raised the
injured man; people volunteered to help.

Kozel’s house was thirty yards away. Raskolnikov walked behind,
carefully holding Marmeladov’s head and showing the way.

“This way, this way! We must take him upstairs head foremost. Turn
round! I’ll pay, I’ll make it worth your while,” he muttered.

Katerina Ivanovna had just begun, as she always did at every free
moment, walking to and fro in her little room from window to stove and
back again, with her arms folded across her chest, talking to herself
and coughing. Of late she had begun to talk more than ever to her eldest
girl, Polenka, a child of ten, who, though there was much she did not
understand, understood very well that her mother needed her, and so
always watched her with her big clever eyes and strove her utmost
to appear to understand. This time Polenka was undressing her little
brother, who had been unwell all day and was going to bed. The boy was
waiting for her to take off his shirt, which had to be washed at night.
He was sitting straight and motionless on a chair, with a silent,
serious face, with his legs stretched out straight before him--heels
together and toes turned out.

He was listening to what his mother was saying to his sister, sitting
perfectly still with pouting lips and wide-open eyes, just as all good
little boys have to sit when they are undressed to go to bed. A little
girl, still younger, dressed literally in rags, stood at the screen,
waiting for her turn. The door on to the stairs was open to relieve
them a little from the clouds of tobacco smoke which floated in from the
other rooms and brought on long terrible fits of coughing in the poor,
consumptive woman. Katerina Ivanovna seemed to have grown even thinner
during that week and the hectic flush on her face was brighter than
ever.

“You wouldn’t believe, you can’t imagine, Polenka,” she said, walking
about the room, “what a happy luxurious life we had in my papa’s house
and how this drunkard has brought me, and will bring you all, to ruin!
Papa was a civil colonel and only a step from being a governor; so that
everyone who came to see him said, ‘We look upon you, Ivan Mihailovitch,
as our governor!’ When I... when...” she coughed violently, “oh, cursed
life,” she cried, clearing her throat and pressing her hands to her
breast, “when I... when at the last ball... at the marshal’s...
Princess Bezzemelny saw me--who gave me the blessing when your father
and I were married, Polenka--she asked at once ‘Isn’t that the pretty
girl who danced the shawl dance at the breaking-up?’ (You must mend
that tear, you must take your needle and darn it as I showed you, or
to-morrow--cough, cough, cough--he will make the hole bigger,” she
articulated with effort.) “Prince Schegolskoy, a kammerjunker, had just
come from Petersburg then... he danced the mazurka with me and wanted to
make me an offer next day; but I thanked him in flattering expressions
and told him that my heart had long been another’s. That other was your
father, Polya; papa was fearfully angry.... Is the water ready? Give me
the shirt, and the stockings! Lida,” said she to the youngest one, “you
must manage without your chemise to-night... and lay your stockings out
with it... I’ll wash them together.... How is it that drunken vagabond
doesn’t come in? He has worn his shirt till it looks like a dish-clout,
he has torn it to rags! I’d do it all together, so as not to have to
work two nights running! Oh, dear! (Cough, cough, cough, cough!) Again!
What’s this?” she cried, noticing a crowd in the passage and the men,
who were pushing into her room, carrying a burden. “What is it? What are
they bringing? Mercy on us!”

“Where are we to put him?” asked the policeman, looking round when
Marmeladov, unconscious and covered with blood, had been carried in.

“On the sofa! Put him straight on the sofa, with his head this way,”
 Raskolnikov showed him.

“Run over in the road! Drunk!” someone shouted in the passage.

Katerina Ivanovna stood, turning white and gasping for breath. The
children were terrified. Little Lida screamed, rushed to Polenka and
clutched at her, trembling all over.

Having laid Marmeladov down, Raskolnikov flew to Katerina Ivanovna.

“For God’s sake be calm, don’t be frightened!” he said, speaking
quickly, “he was crossing the road and was run over by a carriage, don’t
be frightened, he will come to, I told them bring him here... I’ve been
here already, you remember? He will come to; I’ll pay!”

“He’s done it this time!” Katerina Ivanovna cried despairingly and she
rushed to her husband.

Raskolnikov noticed at once that she was not one of those women who
swoon easily. She instantly placed under the luckless man’s head a
pillow, which no one had thought of and began undressing and examining
him. She kept her head, forgetting herself, biting her trembling lips
and stifling the screams which were ready to break from her.

Raskolnikov meanwhile induced someone to run for a doctor. There was a
doctor, it appeared, next door but one.

“I’ve sent for a doctor,” he kept assuring Katerina Ivanovna, “don’t be
uneasy, I’ll pay. Haven’t you water?... and give me a napkin or a towel,
anything, as quick as you can.... He is injured, but not killed, believe
me.... We shall see what the doctor says!”

Katerina Ivanovna ran to the window; there, on a broken chair in the
corner, a large earthenware basin full of water had been stood, in
readiness for washing her children’s and husband’s linen that night.
This washing was done by Katerina Ivanovna at night at least twice a
week, if not oftener. For the family had come to such a pass that they
were practically without change of linen, and Katerina Ivanovna could
not endure uncleanliness and, rather than see dirt in the house, she
preferred to wear herself out at night, working beyond her strength when
the rest were asleep, so as to get the wet linen hung on a line and dry
by the morning. She took up the basin of water at Raskolnikov’s request,
but almost fell down with her burden. But the latter had already
succeeded in finding a towel, wetted it and began washing the blood off
Marmeladov’s face.

Katerina Ivanovna stood by, breathing painfully and pressing her hands
to her breast. She was in need of attention herself. Raskolnikov began
to realise that he might have made a mistake in having the injured man
brought here. The policeman, too, stood in hesitation.

“Polenka,” cried Katerina Ivanovna, “run to Sonia, make haste. If you
don’t find her at home, leave word that her father has been run over
and that she is to come here at once... when she comes in. Run, Polenka!
there, put on the shawl.”

“Run your fastest!” cried the little boy on the chair suddenly, after
which he relapsed into the same dumb rigidity, with round eyes, his
heels thrust forward and his toes spread out.

Meanwhile the room had become so full of people that you couldn’t have
dropped a pin. The policemen left, all except one, who remained for a
time, trying to drive out the people who came in from the stairs. Almost
all Madame Lippevechsel’s lodgers had streamed in from the inner rooms
of the flat; at first they were squeezed together in the doorway, but
afterwards they overflowed into the room. Katerina Ivanovna flew into a
fury.

“You might let him die in peace, at least,” she shouted at the crowd,
“is it a spectacle for you to gape at? With cigarettes! (Cough, cough,
cough!) You might as well keep your hats on.... And there is one in his
hat!... Get away! You should respect the dead, at least!”

Her cough choked her--but her reproaches were not without result. They
evidently stood in some awe of Katerina Ivanovna. The lodgers, one after
another, squeezed back into the doorway with that strange inner feeling
of satisfaction which may be observed in the presence of a sudden
accident, even in those nearest and dearest to the victim, from which
no living man is exempt, even in spite of the sincerest sympathy and
compassion.

Voices outside were heard, however, speaking of the hospital and saying
that they’d no business to make a disturbance here.

“No business to die!” cried Katerina Ivanovna, and she was rushing to
the door to vent her wrath upon them, but in the doorway came face to
face with Madame Lippevechsel who had only just heard of the accident
and ran in to restore order. She was a particularly quarrelsome and
irresponsible German.

“Ah, my God!” she cried, clasping her hands, “your husband drunken
horses have trampled! To the hospital with him! I am the landlady!”

“Amalia Ludwigovna, I beg you to recollect what you are saying,”
 Katerina Ivanovna began haughtily (she always took a haughty tone with
the landlady that she might “remember her place” and even now could not
deny herself this satisfaction). “Amalia Ludwigovna...”

“I have you once before told that you to call me Amalia Ludwigovna may
not dare; I am Amalia Ivanovna.”

“You are not Amalia Ivanovna, but Amalia Ludwigovna, and as I am not
one of your despicable flatterers like Mr. Lebeziatnikov, who’s laughing
behind the door at this moment (a laugh and a cry of ‘they are at it
again’ was in fact audible at the door) so I shall always call you
Amalia Ludwigovna, though I fail to understand why you dislike that
name. You can see for yourself what has happened to Semyon Zaharovitch;
he is dying. I beg you to close that door at once and to admit no one.
Let him at least die in peace! Or I warn you the Governor-General,
himself, shall be informed of your conduct to-morrow. The prince knew
me as a girl; he remembers Semyon Zaharovitch well and has often been
a benefactor to him. Everyone knows that Semyon Zaharovitch had many
friends and protectors, whom he abandoned himself from an honourable
pride, knowing his unhappy weakness, but now (she pointed to
Raskolnikov) a generous young man has come to our assistance, who has
wealth and connections and whom Semyon Zaharovitch has known from a
child. You may rest assured, Amalia Ludwigovna...”

All this was uttered with extreme rapidity, getting quicker and quicker,
but a cough suddenly cut short Katerina Ivanovna’s eloquence. At that
instant the dying man recovered consciousness and uttered a groan; she
ran to him. The injured man opened his eyes and without recognition or
understanding gazed at Raskolnikov who was bending over him. He drew
deep, slow, painful breaths; blood oozed at the corners of his mouth
and drops of perspiration came out on his forehead. Not recognising
Raskolnikov, he began looking round uneasily. Katerina Ivanovna looked
at him with a sad but stern face, and tears trickled from her eyes.

“My God! His whole chest is crushed! How he is bleeding,” she said
in despair. “We must take off his clothes. Turn a little, Semyon
Zaharovitch, if you can,” she cried to him.

Marmeladov recognised her.

“A priest,” he articulated huskily.

Katerina Ivanovna walked to the window, laid her head against the window
frame and exclaimed in despair:

“Oh, cursed life!”

“A priest,” the dying man said again after a moment’s silence.

“They’ve gone for him,” Katerina Ivanovna shouted to him, he obeyed her
shout and was silent. With sad and timid eyes he looked for her; she
returned and stood by his pillow. He seemed a little easier but not for
long.

Soon his eyes rested on little Lida, his favourite, who was shaking in
the corner, as though she were in a fit, and staring at him with her
wondering childish eyes.

“A-ah,” he signed towards her uneasily. He wanted to say something.

“What now?” cried Katerina Ivanovna.

“Barefoot, barefoot!” he muttered, indicating with frenzied eyes the
child’s bare feet.

“Be silent,” Katerina Ivanovna cried irritably, “you know why she is
barefooted.”

“Thank God, the doctor,” exclaimed Raskolnikov, relieved.

The doctor came in, a precise little old man, a German, looking about
him mistrustfully; he went up to the sick man, took his pulse, carefully
felt his head and with the help of Katerina Ivanovna he unbuttoned the
blood-stained shirt, and bared the injured man’s chest. It was gashed,
crushed and fractured, several ribs on the right side were broken.
On the left side, just over the heart, was a large, sinister-looking
yellowish-black bruise--a cruel kick from the horse’s hoof. The doctor
frowned. The policeman told him that he was caught in the wheel and
turned round with it for thirty yards on the road.

“It’s wonderful that he has recovered consciousness,” the doctor
whispered softly to Raskolnikov.

“What do you think of him?” he asked.

“He will die immediately.”

“Is there really no hope?”

“Not the faintest! He is at the last gasp.... His head is badly injured,
too... Hm... I could bleed him if you like, but... it would be useless.
He is bound to die within the next five or ten minutes.”

“Better bleed him then.”

“If you like.... But I warn you it will be perfectly useless.”

At that moment other steps were heard; the crowd in the passage parted,
and the priest, a little, grey old man, appeared in the doorway bearing
the sacrament. A policeman had gone for him at the time of the accident.
The doctor changed places with him, exchanging glances with him.
Raskolnikov begged the doctor to remain a little while. He shrugged his
shoulders and remained.

All stepped back. The confession was soon over. The dying man probably
understood little; he could only utter indistinct broken sounds.
Katerina Ivanovna took little Lida, lifted the boy from the chair, knelt
down in the corner by the stove and made the children kneel in front of
her. The little girl was still trembling; but the boy, kneeling on his
little bare knees, lifted his hand rhythmically, crossing himself with
precision and bowed down, touching the floor with his forehead, which
seemed to afford him especial satisfaction. Katerina Ivanovna bit her
lips and held back her tears; she prayed, too, now and then pulling
straight the boy’s shirt, and managed to cover the girl’s bare shoulders
with a kerchief, which she took from the chest without rising from her
knees or ceasing to pray. Meanwhile the door from the inner rooms was
opened inquisitively again. In the passage the crowd of spectators from
all the flats on the staircase grew denser and denser, but they did not
venture beyond the threshold. A single candle-end lighted up the scene.

At that moment Polenka forced her way through the crowd at the door. She
came in panting from running so fast, took off her kerchief, looked for
her mother, went up to her and said, “She’s coming, I met her in the
street.” Her mother made her kneel beside her.

Timidly and noiselessly a young girl made her way through the crowd,
and strange was her appearance in that room, in the midst of want, rags,
death and despair. She, too, was in rags, her attire was all of
the cheapest, but decked out in gutter finery of a special stamp,
unmistakably betraying its shameful purpose. Sonia stopped short in the
doorway and looked about her bewildered, unconscious of everything.
She forgot her fourth-hand, gaudy silk dress, so unseemly here with
its ridiculous long train, and her immense crinoline that filled up the
whole doorway, and her light-coloured shoes, and the parasol she brought
with her, though it was no use at night, and the absurd round straw hat
with its flaring flame-coloured feather. Under this rakishly-tilted hat
was a pale, frightened little face with lips parted and eyes staring in
terror. Sonia was a small thin girl of eighteen with fair hair, rather
pretty, with wonderful blue eyes. She looked intently at the bed and the
priest; she too was out of breath with running. At last whispers, some
words in the crowd probably, reached her. She looked down and took a
step forward into the room, still keeping close to the door.

The service was over. Katerina Ivanovna went up to her husband again.
The priest stepped back and turned to say a few words of admonition and
consolation to Katerina Ivanovna on leaving.

“What am I to do with these?” she interrupted sharply and irritably,
pointing to the little ones.

“God is merciful; look to the Most High for succour,” the priest began.

“Ach! He is merciful, but not to us.”

“That’s a sin, a sin, madam,” observed the priest, shaking his head.

“And isn’t that a sin?” cried Katerina Ivanovna, pointing to the dying
man.

“Perhaps those who have involuntarily caused the accident will agree to
compensate you, at least for the loss of his earnings.”

“You don’t understand!” cried Katerina Ivanovna angrily waving her hand.
“And why should they compensate me? Why, he was drunk and threw himself
under the horses! What earnings? He brought us in nothing but misery.
He drank everything away, the drunkard! He robbed us to get drink, he
wasted their lives and mine for drink! And thank God he’s dying! One
less to keep!”

“You must forgive in the hour of death, that’s a sin, madam, such
feelings are a great sin.”

Katerina Ivanovna was busy with the dying man; she was giving him water,
wiping the blood and sweat from his head, setting his pillow straight,
and had only turned now and then for a moment to address the priest. Now
she flew at him almost in a frenzy.

“Ah, father! That’s words and only words! Forgive! If he’d not been run
over, he’d have come home to-day drunk and his only shirt dirty and
in rags and he’d have fallen asleep like a log, and I should have been
sousing and rinsing till daybreak, washing his rags and the children’s
and then drying them by the window and as soon as it was daylight I
should have been darning them. That’s how I spend my nights!... What’s
the use of talking of forgiveness! I have forgiven as it is!”

A terrible hollow cough interrupted her words. She put her handkerchief
to her lips and showed it to the priest, pressing her other hand to her
aching chest. The handkerchief was covered with blood. The priest bowed
his head and said nothing.

Marmeladov was in the last agony; he did not take his eyes off the face
of Katerina Ivanovna, who was bending over him again. He kept trying
to say something to her; he began moving his tongue with difficulty and
articulating indistinctly, but Katerina Ivanovna, understanding that he
wanted to ask her forgiveness, called peremptorily to him:

“Be silent! No need! I know what you want to say!” And the sick man
was silent, but at the same instant his wandering eyes strayed to the
doorway and he saw Sonia.

Till then he had not noticed her: she was standing in the shadow in a
corner.

“Who’s that? Who’s that?” he said suddenly in a thick gasping voice,
in agitation, turning his eyes in horror towards the door where his
daughter was standing, and trying to sit up.

“Lie down! Lie do-own!” cried Katerina Ivanovna.

With unnatural strength he had succeeded in propping himself on his
elbow. He looked wildly and fixedly for some time on his daughter, as
though not recognising her. He had never seen her before in such attire.
Suddenly he recognised her, crushed and ashamed in her humiliation and
gaudy finery, meekly awaiting her turn to say good-bye to her dying
father. His face showed intense suffering.

“Sonia! Daughter! Forgive!” he cried, and he tried to hold out his hand
to her, but losing his balance, he fell off the sofa, face downwards on
the floor. They rushed to pick him up, they put him on the sofa; but he
was dying. Sonia with a faint cry ran up, embraced him and remained so
without moving. He died in her arms.

“He’s got what he wanted,” Katerina Ivanovna cried, seeing her husband’s
dead body. “Well, what’s to be done now? How am I to bury him! What can
I give them to-morrow to eat?”

Raskolnikov went up to Katerina Ivanovna.

“Katerina Ivanovna,” he began, “last week your husband told me all his
life and circumstances.... Believe me, he spoke of you with passionate
reverence. From that evening, when I learnt how devoted he was to you
all and how he loved and respected you especially, Katerina Ivanovna,
in spite of his unfortunate weakness, from that evening we became
friends.... Allow me now... to do something... to repay my debt to my
dead friend. Here are twenty roubles, I think--and if that can be of any
assistance to you, then... I... in short, I will come again, I will
be sure to come again... I shall, perhaps, come again to-morrow....
Good-bye!”

And he went quickly out of the room, squeezing his way through the crowd
to the stairs. But in the crowd he suddenly jostled against Nikodim
Fomitch, who had heard of the accident and had come to give instructions
in person. They had not met since the scene at the police station, but
Nikodim Fomitch knew him instantly.

“Ah, is that you?” he asked him.

“He’s dead,” answered Raskolnikov. “The doctor and the priest have been,
all as it should have been. Don’t worry the poor woman too much, she is
in consumption as it is. Try and cheer her up, if possible... you are a
kind-hearted man, I know...” he added with a smile, looking straight in
his face.

“But you are spattered with blood,” observed Nikodim Fomitch, noticing
in the lamplight some fresh stains on Raskolnikov’s waistcoat.

“Yes... I’m covered with blood,” Raskolnikov said with a peculiar air;
then he smiled, nodded and went downstairs.

He walked down slowly and deliberately, feverish but not conscious
of it, entirely absorbed in a new overwhelming sensation of life and
strength that surged up suddenly within him. This sensation might be
compared to that of a man condemned to death who has suddenly been
pardoned. Halfway down the staircase he was overtaken by the priest on
his way home; Raskolnikov let him pass, exchanging a silent greeting
with him. He was just descending the last steps when he heard rapid
footsteps behind him. Someone overtook him; it was Polenka. She was
running after him, calling “Wait! wait!”

He turned round. She was at the bottom of the staircase and stopped
short a step above him. A dim light came in from the yard. Raskolnikov
could distinguish the child’s thin but pretty little face, looking at
him with a bright childish smile. She had run after him with a message
which she was evidently glad to give.

“Tell me, what is your name?... and where do you live?” she said
hurriedly in a breathless voice.

He laid both hands on her shoulders and looked at her with a sort of
rapture. It was such a joy to him to look at her, he could not have said
why.

“Who sent you?”

“Sister Sonia sent me,” answered the girl, smiling still more brightly.

“I knew it was sister Sonia sent you.”

“Mamma sent me, too... when sister Sonia was sending me, mamma came up,
too, and said ‘Run fast, Polenka.’”

“Do you love sister Sonia?”

“I love her more than anyone,” Polenka answered with a peculiar
earnestness, and her smile became graver.

“And will you love me?”

By way of answer he saw the little girl’s face approaching him, her full
lips naïvely held out to kiss him. Suddenly her arms as thin as sticks
held him tightly, her head rested on his shoulder and the little girl
wept softly, pressing her face against him.

“I am sorry for father,” she said a moment later, raising her
tear-stained face and brushing away the tears with her hands. “It’s
nothing but misfortunes now,” she added suddenly with that peculiarly
sedate air which children try hard to assume when they want to speak
like grown-up people.

“Did your father love you?”

“He loved Lida most,” she went on very seriously without a smile,
exactly like grown-up people, “he loved her because she is little and
because she is ill, too. And he always used to bring her presents. But
he taught us to read and me grammar and scripture, too,” she added with
dignity. “And mother never used to say anything, but we knew that she
liked it and father knew it, too. And mother wants to teach me French,
for it’s time my education began.”

“And do you know your prayers?”

“Of course, we do! We knew them long ago. I say my prayers to myself
as I am a big girl now, but Kolya and Lida say them aloud with mother.
First they repeat the ‘Ave Maria’ and then another prayer: ‘Lord,
forgive and bless sister Sonia,’ and then another, ‘Lord, forgive and
bless our second father.’ For our elder father is dead and this is
another one, but we do pray for the other as well.”

“Polenka, my name is Rodion. Pray sometimes for me, too. ‘And Thy
servant Rodion,’ nothing more.”

“I’ll pray for you all the rest of my life,” the little girl declared
hotly, and suddenly smiling again she rushed at him and hugged him
warmly once more.

Raskolnikov told her his name and address and promised to be sure to
come next day. The child went away quite enchanted with him. It was past
ten when he came out into the street. In five minutes he was standing on
the bridge at the spot where the woman had jumped in.

“Enough,” he pronounced resolutely and triumphantly. “I’ve done with
fancies, imaginary terrors and phantoms! Life is real! haven’t I lived
just now? My life has not yet died with that old woman! The Kingdom of
Heaven to her--and now enough, madam, leave me in peace! Now for the
reign of reason and light... and of will, and of strength... and now
we will see! We will try our strength!” he added defiantly, as though
challenging some power of darkness. “And I was ready to consent to live
in a square of space!

“I am very weak at this moment, but... I believe my illness is all over.
I knew it would be over when I went out. By the way, Potchinkov’s house
is only a few steps away. I certainly must go to Razumihin even if
it were not close by... let him win his bet! Let us give him some
satisfaction, too--no matter! Strength, strength is what one wants, you
can get nothing without it, and strength must be won by strength--that’s
what they don’t know,” he added proudly and self-confidently and
he walked with flagging footsteps from the bridge. Pride and
self-confidence grew continually stronger in him; he was becoming
a different man every moment. What was it had happened to work this
revolution in him? He did not know himself; like a man catching at a
straw, he suddenly felt that he, too, ‘could live, that there was still
life for him, that his life had not died with the old woman.’ Perhaps he
was in too great a hurry with his conclusions, but he did not think of
that.

“But I did ask her to remember ‘Thy servant Rodion’ in her prayers,” the
idea struck him. “Well, that was... in case of emergency,” he added and
laughed himself at his boyish sally. He was in the best of spirits.

He easily found Razumihin; the new lodger was already known at
Potchinkov’s and the porter at once showed him the way. Half-way
upstairs he could hear the noise and animated conversation of a big
gathering of people. The door was wide open on the stairs; he could
hear exclamations and discussion. Razumihin’s room was fairly large; the
company consisted of fifteen people. Raskolnikov stopped in the entry,
where two of the landlady’s servants were busy behind a screen with two
samovars, bottles, plates and dishes of pie and savouries, brought up
from the landlady’s kitchen. Raskolnikov sent in for Razumihin. He ran
out delighted. At the first glance it was apparent that he had had a
great deal to drink and, though no amount of liquor made Razumihin quite
drunk, this time he was perceptibly affected by it.

“Listen,” Raskolnikov hastened to say, “I’ve only just come to tell you
you’ve won your bet and that no one really knows what may not happen to
him. I can’t come in; I am so weak that I shall fall down directly. And
so good evening and good-bye! Come and see me to-morrow.”

“Do you know what? I’ll see you home. If you say you’re weak yourself,
you must...”

“And your visitors? Who is the curly-headed one who has just peeped
out?”

“He? Goodness only knows! Some friend of uncle’s, I expect, or perhaps
he has come without being invited... I’ll leave uncle with them, he
is an invaluable person, pity I can’t introduce you to him now. But
confound them all now! They won’t notice me, and I need a little fresh
air, for you’ve come just in the nick of time--another two minutes and I
should have come to blows! They are talking such a lot of wild stuff...
you simply can’t imagine what men will say! Though why shouldn’t you
imagine? Don’t we talk nonsense ourselves? And let them... that’s the
way to learn not to!... Wait a minute, I’ll fetch Zossimov.”

Zossimov pounced upon Raskolnikov almost greedily; he showed a special
interest in him; soon his face brightened.

“You must go to bed at once,” he pronounced, examining the patient as
far as he could, “and take something for the night. Will you take it? I
got it ready some time ago... a powder.”

“Two, if you like,” answered Raskolnikov. The powder was taken at once.

“It’s a good thing you are taking him home,” observed Zossimov to
Razumihin--“we shall see how he is to-morrow, to-day he’s not at all
amiss--a considerable change since the afternoon. Live and learn...”

“Do you know what Zossimov whispered to me when we were coming out?”
 Razumihin blurted out, as soon as they were in the street. “I won’t tell
you everything, brother, because they are such fools. Zossimov told me
to talk freely to you on the way and get you to talk freely to me, and
afterwards I am to tell him about it, for he’s got a notion in his head
that you are... mad or close on it. Only fancy! In the first place,
you’ve three times the brains he has; in the second, if you are not mad,
you needn’t care a hang that he has got such a wild idea; and thirdly,
that piece of beef whose specialty is surgery has gone mad on mental
diseases, and what’s brought him to this conclusion about you was your
conversation to-day with Zametov.”

“Zametov told you all about it?”

“Yes, and he did well. Now I understand what it all means and so does
Zametov.... Well, the fact is, Rodya... the point is... I am a little
drunk now.... But that’s... no matter... the point is that this
idea... you understand? was just being hatched in their brains... you
understand? That is, no one ventured to say it aloud, because the idea
is too absurd and especially since the arrest of that painter, that
bubble’s burst and gone for ever. But why are they such fools? I gave
Zametov a bit of a thrashing at the time--that’s between ourselves,
brother; please don’t let out a hint that you know of it; I’ve noticed
he is a ticklish subject; it was at Luise Ivanovna’s. But to-day, to-day
it’s all cleared up. That Ilya Petrovitch is at the bottom of it! He
took advantage of your fainting at the police station, but he is ashamed
of it himself now; I know that...”

Raskolnikov listened greedily. Razumihin was drunk enough to talk too
freely.

“I fainted then because it was so close and the smell of paint,” said
Raskolnikov.

“No need to explain that! And it wasn’t the paint only: the fever had
been coming on for a month; Zossimov testifies to that! But how crushed
that boy is now, you wouldn’t believe! ‘I am not worth his little
finger,’ he says. Yours, he means. He has good feelings at times,
brother. But the lesson, the lesson you gave him to-day in the Palais
de Cristal, that was too good for anything! You frightened him at first,
you know, he nearly went into convulsions! You almost convinced
him again of the truth of all that hideous nonsense, and then you
suddenly--put out your tongue at him: ‘There now, what do you make of
it?’ It was perfect! He is crushed, annihilated now! It was masterly, by
Jove, it’s what they deserve! Ah, that I wasn’t there! He was hoping to
see you awfully. Porfiry, too, wants to make your acquaintance...”

“Ah!... he too... but why did they put me down as mad?”

“Oh, not mad. I must have said too much, brother.... What struck him,
you see, was that only that subject seemed to interest you; now it’s
clear why it did interest you; knowing all the circumstances... and
how that irritated you and worked in with your illness... I am a little
drunk, brother, only, confound him, he has some idea of his own... I
tell you, he’s mad on mental diseases. But don’t you mind him...”

For half a minute both were silent.

“Listen, Razumihin,” began Raskolnikov, “I want to tell you plainly:
I’ve just been at a death-bed, a clerk who died... I gave them all my
money... and besides I’ve just been kissed by someone who, if I had
killed anyone, would just the same... in fact I saw someone else
there... with a flame-coloured feather... but I am talking nonsense; I
am very weak, support me... we shall be at the stairs directly...”

“What’s the matter? What’s the matter with you?” Razumihin asked
anxiously.

“I am a little giddy, but that’s not the point, I am so sad, so sad...
like a woman. Look, what’s that? Look, look!”

“What is it?”

“Don’t you see? A light in my room, you see? Through the crack...”

They were already at the foot of the last flight of stairs, at the level
of the landlady’s door, and they could, as a fact, see from below that
there was a light in Raskolnikov’s garret.

“Queer! Nastasya, perhaps,” observed Razumihin.

“She is never in my room at this time and she must be in bed long ago,
but... I don’t care! Good-bye!”

“What do you mean? I am coming with you, we’ll come in together!”

“I know we are going in together, but I want to shake hands here and say
good-bye to you here. So give me your hand, good-bye!”

“What’s the matter with you, Rodya?”

“Nothing... come along... you shall be witness.”

They began mounting the stairs, and the idea struck Razumihin that
perhaps Zossimov might be right after all. “Ah, I’ve upset him with my
chatter!” he muttered to himself.

When they reached the door they heard voices in the room.

“What is it?” cried Razumihin. Raskolnikov was the first to open the
door; he flung it wide and stood still in the doorway, dumbfoundered.

His mother and sister were sitting on his sofa and had been waiting an
hour and a half for him. Why had he never expected, never thought of
them, though the news that they had started, were on their way and would
arrive immediately, had been repeated to him only that day? They had
spent that hour and a half plying Nastasya with questions. She was
standing before them and had told them everything by now. They were
beside themselves with alarm when they heard of his “running away”
 to-day, ill and, as they understood from her story, delirious! “Good
Heavens, what had become of him?” Both had been weeping, both had been
in anguish for that hour and a half.

A cry of joy, of ecstasy, greeted Raskolnikov’s entrance. Both rushed to
him. But he stood like one dead; a sudden intolerable sensation struck
him like a thunderbolt. He did not lift his arms to embrace them, he
could not. His mother and sister clasped him in their arms, kissed him,
laughed and cried. He took a step, tottered and fell to the ground,
fainting.

Anxiety, cries of horror, moans... Razumihin who was standing in the
doorway flew into the room, seized the sick man in his strong arms and
in a moment had him on the sofa.

“It’s nothing, nothing!” he cried to the mother and sister--“it’s only a
faint, a mere trifle! Only just now the doctor said he was much better,
that he is perfectly well! Water! See, he is coming to himself, he is
all right again!”

And seizing Dounia by the arm so that he almost dislocated it, he made
her bend down to see that “he is all right again.” The mother and sister
looked on him with emotion and gratitude, as their Providence. They
had heard already from Nastasya all that had been done for their Rodya
during his illness, by this “very competent young man,” as Pulcheria
Alexandrovna Raskolnikov called him that evening in conversation with
Dounia.




PART III



CHAPTER I

Raskolnikov got up, and sat down on the sofa. He waved his hand weakly
to Razumihin to cut short the flow of warm and incoherent consolations
he was addressing to his mother and sister, took them both by the hand
and for a minute or two gazed from one to the other without speaking.
His mother was alarmed by his expression. It revealed an emotion
agonisingly poignant, and at the same time something immovable, almost
insane. Pulcheria Alexandrovna began to cry.

Avdotya Romanovna was pale; her hand trembled in her brother’s.

“Go home... with him,” he said in a broken voice, pointing to Razumihin,
“good-bye till to-morrow; to-morrow everything... Is it long since you
arrived?”

“This evening, Rodya,” answered Pulcheria Alexandrovna, “the train was
awfully late. But, Rodya, nothing would induce me to leave you now! I
will spend the night here, near you...”

“Don’t torture me!” he said with a gesture of irritation.

“I will stay with him,” cried Razumihin, “I won’t leave him for a
moment. Bother all my visitors! Let them rage to their hearts’ content!
My uncle is presiding there.”

“How, how can I thank you!” Pulcheria Alexandrovna was beginning, once
more pressing Razumihin’s hands, but Raskolnikov interrupted her again.

“I can’t have it! I can’t have it!” he repeated irritably, “don’t worry
me! Enough, go away... I can’t stand it!”

“Come, mamma, come out of the room at least for a minute,” Dounia
whispered in dismay; “we are distressing him, that’s evident.”

“Mayn’t I look at him after three years?” wept Pulcheria Alexandrovna.

“Stay,” he stopped them again, “you keep interrupting me, and my ideas
get muddled.... Have you seen Luzhin?”

“No, Rodya, but he knows already of our arrival. We have heard, Rodya,
that Pyotr Petrovitch was so kind as to visit you today,” Pulcheria
Alexandrovna added somewhat timidly.

“Yes... he was so kind... Dounia, I promised Luzhin I’d throw him
downstairs and told him to go to hell....”

“Rodya, what are you saying! Surely, you don’t mean to tell us...”
 Pulcheria Alexandrovna began in alarm, but she stopped, looking at
Dounia.

Avdotya Romanovna was looking attentively at her brother, waiting
for what would come next. Both of them had heard of the quarrel from
Nastasya, so far as she had succeeded in understanding and reporting it,
and were in painful perplexity and suspense.

“Dounia,” Raskolnikov continued with an effort, “I don’t want that
marriage, so at the first opportunity to-morrow you must refuse Luzhin,
so that we may never hear his name again.”

“Good Heavens!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna.

“Brother, think what you are saying!” Avdotya Romanovna began
impetuously, but immediately checked herself. “You are not fit to talk
now, perhaps; you are tired,” she added gently.

“You think I am delirious? No... You are marrying Luzhin for _my_
sake. But I won’t accept the sacrifice. And so write a letter before
to-morrow, to refuse him... Let me read it in the morning and that will
be the end of it!”

“That I can’t do!” the girl cried, offended, “what right have you...”

“Dounia, you are hasty, too, be quiet, to-morrow... Don’t you see...”
 the mother interposed in dismay. “Better come away!”

“He is raving,” Razumihin cried tipsily, “or how would he dare!
To-morrow all this nonsense will be over... to-day he certainly did
drive him away. That was so. And Luzhin got angry, too.... He made
speeches here, wanted to show off his learning and he went out
crest-fallen....”

“Then it’s true?” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna.

“Good-bye till to-morrow, brother,” said Dounia compassionately--“let us
go, mother... Good-bye, Rodya.”

“Do you hear, sister,” he repeated after them, making a last effort,
“I am not delirious; this marriage is--an infamy. Let me act like
a scoundrel, but you mustn’t... one is enough... and though I am a
scoundrel, I wouldn’t own such a sister. It’s me or Luzhin! Go now....”

“But you’re out of your mind! Despot!” roared Razumihin; but Raskolnikov
did not and perhaps could not answer. He lay down on the sofa, and
turned to the wall, utterly exhausted. Avdotya Romanovna looked with
interest at Razumihin; her black eyes flashed; Razumihin positively
started at her glance.

Pulcheria Alexandrovna stood overwhelmed.

“Nothing would induce me to go,” she whispered in despair to Razumihin.
“I will stay somewhere here... escort Dounia home.”

“You’ll spoil everything,” Razumihin answered in the same whisper,
losing patience--“come out on to the stairs, anyway. Nastasya, show a
light! I assure you,” he went on in a half whisper on the stairs--“that
he was almost beating the doctor and me this afternoon! Do you
understand? The doctor himself! Even he gave way and left him, so as not
to irritate him. I remained downstairs on guard, but he dressed at once
and slipped off. And he will slip off again if you irritate him, at this
time of night, and will do himself some mischief....”

“What are you saying?”

“And Avdotya Romanovna can’t possibly be left in those lodgings without
you. Just think where you are staying! That blackguard Pyotr Petrovitch
couldn’t find you better lodgings... But you know I’ve had a little to
drink, and that’s what makes me... swear; don’t mind it....”

“But I’ll go to the landlady here,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna insisted,
“I’ll beseech her to find some corner for Dounia and me for the night. I
can’t leave him like that, I cannot!”

This conversation took place on the landing just before the landlady’s
door. Nastasya lighted them from a step below. Razumihin was in
extraordinary excitement. Half an hour earlier, while he was bringing
Raskolnikov home, he had indeed talked too freely, but he was aware of
it himself, and his head was clear in spite of the vast quantities he
had imbibed. Now he was in a state bordering on ecstasy, and all that he
had drunk seemed to fly to his head with redoubled effect. He stood with
the two ladies, seizing both by their hands, persuading them, and giving
them reasons with astonishing plainness of speech, and at almost every
word he uttered, probably to emphasise his arguments, he squeezed their
hands painfully as in a vise. He stared at Avdotya Romanovna without the
least regard for good manners. They sometimes pulled their hands out of
his huge bony paws, but far from noticing what was the matter, he drew
them all the closer to him. If they’d told him to jump head foremost
from the staircase, he would have done it without thought or hesitation
in their service. Though Pulcheria Alexandrovna felt that the young man
was really too eccentric and pinched her hand too much, in her anxiety
over her Rodya she looked on his presence as providential, and was
unwilling to notice all his peculiarities. But though Avdotya Romanovna
shared her anxiety, and was not of timorous disposition, she could not
see the glowing light in his eyes without wonder and almost alarm. It
was only the unbounded confidence inspired by Nastasya’s account of her
brother’s queer friend, which prevented her from trying to run away from
him, and to persuade her mother to do the same. She realised, too,
that even running away was perhaps impossible now. Ten minutes later,
however, she was considerably reassured; it was characteristic of
Razumihin that he showed his true nature at once, whatever mood he might
be in, so that people quickly saw the sort of man they had to deal with.

“You can’t go to the landlady, that’s perfect nonsense!” he cried. “If
you stay, though you are his mother, you’ll drive him to a frenzy, and
then goodness knows what will happen! Listen, I’ll tell you what I’ll
do: Nastasya will stay with him now, and I’ll conduct you both home, you
can’t be in the streets alone; Petersburg is an awful place in that
way.... But no matter! Then I’ll run straight back here and a quarter of
an hour later, on my word of honour, I’ll bring you news how he is,
whether he is asleep, and all that. Then, listen! Then I’ll run home in
a twinkling--I’ve a lot of friends there, all drunk--I’ll fetch
Zossimov--that’s the doctor who is looking after him, he is there, too,
but he is not drunk; he is not drunk, he is never drunk! I’ll drag him
to Rodya, and then to you, so that you’ll get two reports in the
hour--from the doctor, you understand, from the doctor himself, that’s a
very different thing from my account of him! If there’s anything wrong,
I swear I’ll bring you here myself, but, if it’s all right, you go to
bed. And I’ll spend the night here, in the passage, he won’t hear me,
and I’ll tell Zossimov to sleep at the landlady’s, to be at hand. Which
is better for him: you or the doctor? So come home then! But the
landlady is out of the question; it’s all right for me, but it’s out of
the question for you: she wouldn’t take you, for she’s... for she’s a
fool... She’d be jealous on my account of Avdotya Romanovna and of you,
too, if you want to know... of Avdotya Romanovna certainly. She is an
absolutely, absolutely unaccountable character! But I am a fool, too!...
No matter! Come along! Do you trust me? Come, do you trust me or not?”

“Let us go, mother,” said Avdotya Romanovna, “he will certainly do what
he has promised. He has saved Rodya already, and if the doctor really
will consent to spend the night here, what could be better?”

“You see, you... you... understand me, because you are an angel!”
 Razumihin cried in ecstasy, “let us go! Nastasya! Fly upstairs and sit
with him with a light; I’ll come in a quarter of an hour.”

Though Pulcheria Alexandrovna was not perfectly convinced, she made no
further resistance. Razumihin gave an arm to each and drew them down
the stairs. He still made her uneasy, as though he was competent and
good-natured, was he capable of carrying out his promise? He seemed in
such a condition....

“Ah, I see you think I am in such a condition!” Razumihin broke in upon
her thoughts, guessing them, as he strolled along the pavement with huge
steps, so that the two ladies could hardly keep up with him, a fact he
did not observe, however. “Nonsense! That is... I am drunk like a fool,
but that’s not it; I am not drunk from wine. It’s seeing you has turned
my head... But don’t mind me! Don’t take any notice: I am talking
nonsense, I am not worthy of you.... I am utterly unworthy of you! The
minute I’ve taken you home, I’ll pour a couple of pailfuls of water over
my head in the gutter here, and then I shall be all right.... If only
you knew how I love you both! Don’t laugh, and don’t be angry! You may
be angry with anyone, but not with me! I am his friend, and therefore I
am your friend, too, I want to be... I had a presentiment... Last year
there was a moment... though it wasn’t a presentiment really, for
you seem to have fallen from heaven. And I expect I shan’t sleep all
night... Zossimov was afraid a little time ago that he would go mad...
that’s why he mustn’t be irritated.”

“What do you say?” cried the mother.

“Did the doctor really say that?” asked Avdotya Romanovna, alarmed.

“Yes, but it’s not so, not a bit of it. He gave him some medicine, a
powder, I saw it, and then your coming here.... Ah! It would have been
better if you had come to-morrow. It’s a good thing we went away. And in
an hour Zossimov himself will report to you about everything. He is not
drunk! And I shan’t be drunk.... And what made me get so tight? Because
they got me into an argument, damn them! I’ve sworn never to argue! They
talk such trash! I almost came to blows! I’ve left my uncle to preside.
Would you believe, they insist on complete absence of individualism
and that’s just what they relish! Not to be themselves, to be as unlike
themselves as they can. That’s what they regard as the highest point of
progress. If only their nonsense were their own, but as it is...”

“Listen!” Pulcheria Alexandrovna interrupted timidly, but it only added
fuel to the flames.

“What do you think?” shouted Razumihin, louder than ever, “you think I
am attacking them for talking nonsense? Not a bit! I like them to talk
nonsense. That’s man’s one privilege over all creation. Through error
you come to the truth! I am a man because I err! You never reach any
truth without making fourteen mistakes and very likely a hundred and
fourteen. And a fine thing, too, in its way; but we can’t even make
mistakes on our own account! Talk nonsense, but talk your own nonsense,
and I’ll kiss you for it. To go wrong in one’s own way is better than
to go right in someone else’s. In the first case you are a man, in the
second you’re no better than a bird. Truth won’t escape you, but life
can be cramped. There have been examples. And what are we doing now?
In science, development, thought, invention, ideals, aims, liberalism,
judgment, experience and everything, everything, everything, we are
still in the preparatory class at school. We prefer to live on other
people’s ideas, it’s what we are used to! Am I right, am I right?” cried
Razumihin, pressing and shaking the two ladies’ hands.

“Oh, mercy, I do not know,” cried poor Pulcheria Alexandrovna.

“Yes, yes... though I don’t agree with you in everything,” added Avdotya
Romanovna earnestly and at once uttered a cry, for he squeezed her hand
so painfully.

“Yes, you say yes... well after that you... you...” he cried in
a transport, “you are a fount of goodness, purity, sense... and
perfection. Give me your hand... you give me yours, too! I want to kiss
your hands here at once, on my knees...” and he fell on his knees on the
pavement, fortunately at that time deserted.

“Leave off, I entreat you, what are you doing?” Pulcheria Alexandrovna
cried, greatly distressed.

“Get up, get up!” said Dounia laughing, though she, too, was upset.

“Not for anything till you let me kiss your hands! That’s it! Enough! I
get up and we’ll go on! I am a luckless fool, I am unworthy of you and
drunk... and I am ashamed.... I am not worthy to love you, but to do
homage to you is the duty of every man who is not a perfect beast! And
I’ve done homage.... Here are your lodgings, and for that alone Rodya
was right in driving your Pyotr Petrovitch away.... How dare he! how
dare he put you in such lodgings! It’s a scandal! Do you know the
sort of people they take in here? And you his betrothed! You are
his betrothed? Yes? Well, then, I’ll tell you, your _fiancé_ is a
scoundrel.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Razumihin, you are forgetting...” Pulcheria Alexandrovna
was beginning.

“Yes, yes, you are right, I did forget myself, I am ashamed of it,”
 Razumihin made haste to apologise. “But... but you can’t be angry with
me for speaking so! For I speak sincerely and not because... hm, hm!
That would be disgraceful; in fact not because I’m in... hm! Well,
anyway, I won’t say why, I daren’t.... But we all saw to-day when he
came in that that man is not of our sort. Not because he had his hair
curled at the barber’s, not because he was in such a hurry to show his
wit, but because he is a spy, a speculator, because he is a skin-flint
and a buffoon. That’s evident. Do you think him clever? No, he is a
fool, a fool. And is he a match for you? Good heavens! Do you see,
ladies?” he stopped suddenly on the way upstairs to their rooms, “though
all my friends there are drunk, yet they are all honest, and though we
do talk a lot of trash, and I do, too, yet we shall talk our way to the
truth at last, for we are on the right path, while Pyotr Petrovitch...
is not on the right path. Though I’ve been calling them all sorts of
names just now, I do respect them all... though I don’t respect Zametov,
I like him, for he is a puppy, and that bullock Zossimov, because he
is an honest man and knows his work. But enough, it’s all said and
forgiven. Is it forgiven? Well, then, let’s go on. I know this corridor,
I’ve been here, there was a scandal here at Number 3.... Where are you
here? Which number? eight? Well, lock yourselves in for the night, then.
Don’t let anybody in. In a quarter of an hour I’ll come back with news,
and half an hour later I’ll bring Zossimov, you’ll see! Good-bye, I’ll
run.”

“Good heavens, Dounia, what is going to happen?” said Pulcheria
Alexandrovna, addressing her daughter with anxiety and dismay.

“Don’t worry yourself, mother,” said Dounia, taking off her hat and
cape. “God has sent this gentleman to our aid, though he has come from a
drinking party. We can depend on him, I assure you. And all that he has
done for Rodya....”

“Ah. Dounia, goodness knows whether he will come! How could I bring
myself to leave Rodya?... And how different, how different I had fancied
our meeting! How sullen he was, as though not pleased to see us....”

Tears came into her eyes.

“No, it’s not that, mother. You didn’t see, you were crying all the
time. He is quite unhinged by serious illness--that’s the reason.”

“Ah, that illness! What will happen, what will happen? And how he talked
to you, Dounia!” said the mother, looking timidly at her daughter,
trying to read her thoughts and, already half consoled by Dounia’s
standing up for her brother, which meant that she had already forgiven
him. “I am sure he will think better of it to-morrow,” she added,
probing her further.

“And I am sure that he will say the same to-morrow... about that,”
 Avdotya Romanovna said finally. And, of course, there was no going
beyond that, for this was a point which Pulcheria Alexandrovna was
afraid to discuss. Dounia went up and kissed her mother. The latter
warmly embraced her without speaking. Then she sat down to wait
anxiously for Razumihin’s return, timidly watching her daughter who
walked up and down the room with her arms folded, lost in thought.
This walking up and down when she was thinking was a habit of Avdotya
Romanovna’s and the mother was always afraid to break in on her
daughter’s mood at such moments.

Razumihin, of course, was ridiculous in his sudden drunken infatuation
for Avdotya Romanovna. Yet apart from his eccentric condition, many
people would have thought it justified if they had seen Avdotya
Romanovna, especially at that moment when she was walking to and
fro with folded arms, pensive and melancholy. Avdotya Romanovna was
remarkably good-looking; she was tall, strikingly well-proportioned,
strong and self-reliant--the latter quality was apparent in every
gesture, though it did not in the least detract from the grace and
softness of her movements. In face she resembled her brother, but she
might be described as really beautiful. Her hair was dark brown, a
little lighter than her brother’s; there was a proud light in her almost
black eyes and yet at times a look of extraordinary kindness. She was
pale, but it was a healthy pallor; her face was radiant with freshness
and vigour. Her mouth was rather small; the full red lower lip projected
a little as did her chin; it was the only irregularity in her beautiful
face, but it gave it a peculiarly individual and almost haughty
expression. Her face was always more serious and thoughtful than gay;
but how well smiles, how well youthful, lighthearted, irresponsible,
laughter suited her face! It was natural enough that a warm, open,
simple-hearted, honest giant like Razumihin, who had never seen anyone
like her and was not quite sober at the time, should lose his head
immediately. Besides, as chance would have it, he saw Dounia for the
first time transfigured by her love for her brother and her joy at
meeting him. Afterwards he saw her lower lip quiver with indignation
at her brother’s insolent, cruel and ungrateful words--and his fate was
sealed.

He had spoken the truth, moreover, when he blurted out in his drunken
talk on the stairs that Praskovya Pavlovna, Raskolnikov’s eccentric
landlady, would be jealous of Pulcheria Alexandrovna as well as of
Avdotya Romanovna on his account. Although Pulcheria Alexandrovna was
forty-three, her face still retained traces of her former beauty; she
looked much younger than her age, indeed, which is almost always the
case with women who retain serenity of spirit, sensitiveness and pure
sincere warmth of heart to old age. We may add in parenthesis that to
preserve all this is the only means of retaining beauty to old age. Her
hair had begun to grow grey and thin, there had long been little crow’s
foot wrinkles round her eyes, her cheeks were hollow and sunken from
anxiety and grief, and yet it was a handsome face. She was Dounia
over again, twenty years older, but without the projecting underlip.
Pulcheria Alexandrovna was emotional, but not sentimental, timid and
yielding, but only to a certain point. She could give way and accept a
great deal even of what was contrary to her convictions, but there was a
certain barrier fixed by honesty, principle and the deepest convictions
which nothing would induce her to cross.

Exactly twenty minutes after Razumihin’s departure, there came two
subdued but hurried knocks at the door: he had come back.

“I won’t come in, I haven’t time,” he hastened to say when the door was
opened. “He sleeps like a top, soundly, quietly, and God grant he may
sleep ten hours. Nastasya’s with him; I told her not to leave till I
came. Now I am fetching Zossimov, he will report to you and then you’d
better turn in; I can see you are too tired to do anything....”

And he ran off down the corridor.

“What a very competent and... devoted young man!” cried Pulcheria
Alexandrovna exceedingly delighted.

“He seems a splendid person!” Avdotya Romanovna replied with some
warmth, resuming her walk up and down the room.

It was nearly an hour later when they heard footsteps in the corridor
and another knock at the door. Both women waited this time completely
relying on Razumihin’s promise; he actually had succeeded in bringing
Zossimov. Zossimov had agreed at once to desert the drinking party to
go to Raskolnikov’s, but he came reluctantly and with the greatest
suspicion to see the ladies, mistrusting Razumihin in his exhilarated
condition. But his vanity was at once reassured and flattered; he saw
that they were really expecting him as an oracle. He stayed just ten
minutes and succeeded in completely convincing and comforting Pulcheria
Alexandrovna. He spoke with marked sympathy, but with the reserve and
extreme seriousness of a young doctor at an important consultation.
He did not utter a word on any other subject and did not display the
slightest desire to enter into more personal relations with the two
ladies. Remarking at his first entrance the dazzling beauty of Avdotya
Romanovna, he endeavoured not to notice her at all during his visit and
addressed himself solely to Pulcheria Alexandrovna. All this gave him
extraordinary inward satisfaction. He declared that he thought the
invalid at this moment going on very satisfactorily. According to his
observations the patient’s illness was due partly to his unfortunate
material surroundings during the last few months, but it had partly also
a moral origin, “was, so to speak, the product of several material and
moral influences, anxieties, apprehensions, troubles, certain ideas...
and so on.” Noticing stealthily that Avdotya Romanovna was following his
words with close attention, Zossimov allowed himself to enlarge on this
theme. On Pulcheria Alexandrovna’s anxiously and timidly inquiring as
to “some suspicion of insanity,” he replied with a composed and candid
smile that his words had been exaggerated; that certainly the patient
had some fixed idea, something approaching a monomania--he, Zossimov,
was now particularly studying this interesting branch of medicine--but
that it must be recollected that until to-day the patient had been in
delirium and... and that no doubt the presence of his family would have
a favourable effect on his recovery and distract his mind, “if only all
fresh shocks can be avoided,” he added significantly. Then he got up,
took leave with an impressive and affable bow, while blessings, warm
gratitude, and entreaties were showered upon him, and Avdotya Romanovna
spontaneously offered her hand to him. He went out exceedingly pleased
with his visit and still more so with himself.

“We’ll talk to-morrow; go to bed at once!” Razumihin said in conclusion,
following Zossimov out. “I’ll be with you to-morrow morning as early as
possible with my report.”

“That’s a fetching little girl, Avdotya Romanovna,” remarked Zossimov,
almost licking his lips as they both came out into the street.

“Fetching? You said fetching?” roared Razumihin and he flew at Zossimov
and seized him by the throat. “If you ever dare.... Do you understand?
Do you understand?” he shouted, shaking him by the collar and squeezing
him against the wall. “Do you hear?”

“Let me go, you drunken devil,” said Zossimov, struggling and when he
had let him go, he stared at him and went off into a sudden guffaw.
Razumihin stood facing him in gloomy and earnest reflection.

“Of course, I am an ass,” he observed, sombre as a storm cloud, “but
still... you are another.”

“No, brother, not at all such another. I am not dreaming of any folly.”

They walked along in silence and only when they were close to
Raskolnikov’s lodgings, Razumihin broke the silence in considerable
anxiety.

“Listen,” he said, “you’re a first-rate fellow, but among your other
failings, you’re a loose fish, that I know, and a dirty one, too. You
are a feeble, nervous wretch, and a mass of whims, you’re getting fat
and lazy and can’t deny yourself anything--and I call that dirty because
it leads one straight into the dirt. You’ve let yourself get so slack
that I don’t know how it is you are still a good, even a devoted doctor.
You--a doctor--sleep on a feather bed and get up at night to your
patients! In another three or four years you won’t get up for your
patients... But hang it all, that’s not the point!... You are going
to spend to-night in the landlady’s flat here. (Hard work I’ve had to
persuade her!) And I’ll be in the kitchen. So here’s a chance for you to
get to know her better.... It’s not as you think! There’s not a trace of
anything of the sort, brother...!”

“But I don’t think!”

“Here you have modesty, brother, silence, bashfulness, a savage
virtue... and yet she’s sighing and melting like wax, simply melting!
Save me from her, by all that’s unholy! She’s most prepossessing... I’ll
repay you, I’ll do anything....”

Zossimov laughed more violently than ever.

“Well, you are smitten! But what am I to do with her?”

“It won’t be much trouble, I assure you. Talk any rot you like to her,
as long as you sit by her and talk. You’re a doctor, too; try curing
her of something. I swear you won’t regret it. She has a piano, and you
know, I strum a little. I have a song there, a genuine Russian one: ‘I
shed hot tears.’ She likes the genuine article--and well, it all
began with that song; Now you’re a regular performer, a _maître_, a
Rubinstein.... I assure you, you won’t regret it!”

“But have you made her some promise? Something signed? A promise of
marriage, perhaps?”

“Nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of the kind! Besides she is not
that sort at all.... Tchebarov tried that....”

“Well then, drop her!”

“But I can’t drop her like that!”

“Why can’t you?”

“Well, I can’t, that’s all about it! There’s an element of attraction
here, brother.”

“Then why have you fascinated her?”

“I haven’t fascinated her; perhaps I was fascinated myself in my folly.
But she won’t care a straw whether it’s you or I, so long as somebody
sits beside her, sighing.... I can’t explain the position, brother...
look here, you are good at mathematics, and working at it now... begin
teaching her the integral calculus; upon my soul, I’m not joking, I’m
in earnest, it’ll be just the same to her. She will gaze at you and sigh
for a whole year together. I talked to her once for two days at a time
about the Prussian House of Lords (for one must talk of something)--she
just sighed and perspired! And you mustn’t talk of love--she’s bashful
to hysterics--but just let her see you can’t tear yourself away--that’s
enough. It’s fearfully comfortable; you’re quite at home, you can
read, sit, lie about, write. You may even venture on a kiss, if you’re
careful.”

“But what do I want with her?”

“Ach, I can’t make you understand! You see, you are made for each other!
I have often been reminded of you!... You’ll come to it in the end! So
does it matter whether it’s sooner or later? There’s the feather-bed
element here, brother--ach! and not only that! There’s an attraction
here--here you have the end of the world, an anchorage, a quiet haven,
the navel of the earth, the three fishes that are the foundation of the
world, the essence of pancakes, of savoury fish-pies, of the evening
samovar, of soft sighs and warm shawls, and hot stoves to sleep on--as
snug as though you were dead, and yet you’re alive--the advantages
of both at once! Well, hang it, brother, what stuff I’m talking, it’s
bedtime! Listen. I sometimes wake up at night; so I’ll go in and look at
him. But there’s no need, it’s all right. Don’t you worry yourself,
yet if you like, you might just look in once, too. But if you notice
anything--delirium or fever--wake me at once. But there can’t be....”



CHAPTER II

Razumihin waked up next morning at eight o’clock, troubled and serious.
He found himself confronted with many new and unlooked-for perplexities.
He had never expected that he would ever wake up feeling like that. He
remembered every detail of the previous day and he knew that a perfectly
novel experience had befallen him, that he had received an impression
unlike anything he had known before. At the same time he recognised
clearly that the dream which had fired his imagination was hopelessly
unattainable--so unattainable that he felt positively ashamed of it, and
he hastened to pass to the other more practical cares and difficulties
bequeathed him by that “thrice accursed yesterday.”

The most awful recollection of the previous day was the way he had shown
himself “base and mean,” not only because he had been drunk, but
because he had taken advantage of the young girl’s position to abuse
her _fiancé_ in his stupid jealousy, knowing nothing of their mutual
relations and obligations and next to nothing of the man himself. And
what right had he to criticise him in that hasty and unguarded manner?
Who had asked for his opinion? Was it thinkable that such a creature as
Avdotya Romanovna would be marrying an unworthy man for money? So there
must be something in him. The lodgings? But after all how could he know
the character of the lodgings? He was furnishing a flat... Foo! how
despicable it all was! And what justification was it that he was drunk?
Such a stupid excuse was even more degrading! In wine is truth, and the
truth had all come out, “that is, all the uncleanness of his coarse
and envious heart”! And would such a dream ever be permissible to
him, Razumihin? What was he beside such a girl--he, the drunken noisy
braggart of last night? Was it possible to imagine so absurd and cynical
a juxtaposition? Razumihin blushed desperately at the very idea and
suddenly the recollection forced itself vividly upon him of how he had
said last night on the stairs that the landlady would be jealous of
Avdotya Romanovna... that was simply intolerable. He brought his fist
down heavily on the kitchen stove, hurt his hand and sent one of the
bricks flying.

“Of course,” he muttered to himself a minute later with a feeling of
self-abasement, “of course, all these infamies can never be wiped out or
smoothed over... and so it’s useless even to think of it, and I must
go to them in silence and do my duty... in silence, too... and not ask
forgiveness, and say nothing... for all is lost now!”

And yet as he dressed he examined his attire more carefully than usual.
He hadn’t another suit--if he had had, perhaps he wouldn’t have put it
on. “I would have made a point of not putting it on.” But in any case he
could not remain a cynic and a dirty sloven; he had no right to offend
the feelings of others, especially when they were in need of his
assistance and asking him to see them. He brushed his clothes carefully.
His linen was always decent; in that respect he was especially clean.

He washed that morning scrupulously--he got some soap from Nastasya--he
washed his hair, his neck and especially his hands. When it came to the
question whether to shave his stubbly chin or not (Praskovya Pavlovna
had capital razors that had been left by her late husband), the question
was angrily answered in the negative. “Let it stay as it is! What if
they think that I shaved on purpose to...? They certainly would think
so! Not on any account!”

“And... the worst of it was he was so coarse, so dirty, he had the
manners of a pothouse; and... and even admitting that he knew he had
some of the essentials of a gentleman... what was there in that to be
proud of? Everyone ought to be a gentleman and more than that... and all
the same (he remembered) he, too, had done little things... not exactly
dishonest, and yet.... And what thoughts he sometimes had; hm... and to
set all that beside Avdotya Romanovna! Confound it! So be it! Well, he’d
make a point then of being dirty, greasy, pothouse in his manners and he
wouldn’t care! He’d be worse!”

He was engaged in such monologues when Zossimov, who had spent the night
in Praskovya Pavlovna’s parlour, came in.

He was going home and was in a hurry to look at the invalid first.
Razumihin informed him that Raskolnikov was sleeping like a dormouse.
Zossimov gave orders that they shouldn’t wake him and promised to see
him again about eleven.

“If he is still at home,” he added. “Damn it all! If one can’t control
one’s patients, how is one to cure them? Do you know whether _he_ will
go to them, or whether _they_ are coming here?”

“They are coming, I think,” said Razumihin, understanding the object
of the question, “and they will discuss their family affairs, no doubt.
I’ll be off. You, as the doctor, have more right to be here than I.”

“But I am not a father confessor; I shall come and go away; I’ve plenty
to do besides looking after them.”

“One thing worries me,” interposed Razumihin, frowning. “On the way home
I talked a lot of drunken nonsense to him... all sorts of things... and
amongst them that you were afraid that he... might become insane.”

“You told the ladies so, too.”

“I know it was stupid! You may beat me if you like! Did you think so
seriously?”

“That’s nonsense, I tell you, how could I think it seriously? You,
yourself, described him as a monomaniac when you fetched me to
him... and we added fuel to the fire yesterday, you did, that is, with
your story about the painter; it was a nice conversation, when he was,
perhaps, mad on that very point! If only I’d known what happened then
at the police station and that some wretch... had insulted him with this
suspicion! Hm... I would not have allowed that conversation yesterday.
These monomaniacs will make a mountain out of a mole-hill... and
see their fancies as solid realities.... As far as I remember, it was
Zametov’s story that cleared up half the mystery, to my mind. Why, I
know one case in which a hypochondriac, a man of forty, cut the throat
of a little boy of eight, because he couldn’t endure the jokes he made
every day at table! And in this case his rags, the insolent police
officer, the fever and this suspicion! All that working upon a man half
frantic with hypochondria, and with his morbid exceptional vanity! That
may well have been the starting-point of illness. Well, bother it
all!... And, by the way, that Zametov certainly is a nice fellow, but
hm... he shouldn’t have told all that last night. He is an awful
chatterbox!”

“But whom did he tell it to? You and me?”

“And Porfiry.”

“What does that matter?”

“And, by the way, have you any influence on them, his mother and sister?
Tell them to be more careful with him to-day....”

“They’ll get on all right!” Razumihin answered reluctantly.

“Why is he so set against this Luzhin? A man with money and she doesn’t
seem to dislike him... and they haven’t a farthing, I suppose? eh?”

“But what business is it of yours?” Razumihin cried with annoyance. “How
can I tell whether they’ve a farthing? Ask them yourself and perhaps
you’ll find out....”

“Foo! what an ass you are sometimes! Last night’s wine has not gone off
yet.... Good-bye; thank your Praskovya Pavlovna from me for my night’s
lodging. She locked herself in, made no reply to my _bonjour_ through
the door; she was up at seven o’clock, the samovar was taken into her
from the kitchen. I was not vouchsafed a personal interview....”

At nine o’clock precisely Razumihin reached the lodgings at Bakaleyev’s
house. Both ladies were waiting for him with nervous impatience. They
had risen at seven o’clock or earlier. He entered looking as black as
night, bowed awkwardly and was at once furious with himself for it. He
had reckoned without his host: Pulcheria Alexandrovna fairly rushed at
him, seized him by both hands and was almost kissing them. He glanced
timidly at Avdotya Romanovna, but her proud countenance wore at that
moment an expression of such gratitude and friendliness, such
complete and unlooked-for respect (in place of the sneering looks and
ill-disguised contempt he had expected), that it threw him into greater
confusion than if he had been met with abuse. Fortunately there was a
subject for conversation, and he made haste to snatch at it.

Hearing that everything was going well and that Rodya had not yet waked,
Pulcheria Alexandrovna declared that she was glad to hear it, because
“she had something which it was very, very necessary to talk over
beforehand.” Then followed an inquiry about breakfast and an invitation
to have it with them; they had waited to have it with him. Avdotya
Romanovna rang the bell: it was answered by a ragged dirty waiter, and
they asked him to bring tea which was served at last, but in such
a dirty and disorderly way that the ladies were ashamed. Razumihin
vigorously attacked the lodgings, but, remembering Luzhin, stopped
in embarrassment and was greatly relieved by Pulcheria Alexandrovna’s
questions, which showered in a continual stream upon him.

He talked for three quarters of an hour, being constantly interrupted
by their questions, and succeeded in describing to them all the
most important facts he knew of the last year of Raskolnikov’s life,
concluding with a circumstantial account of his illness. He omitted,
however, many things, which were better omitted, including the scene at
the police station with all its consequences. They listened eagerly
to his story, and, when he thought he had finished and satisfied his
listeners, he found that they considered he had hardly begun.

“Tell me, tell me! What do you think...? Excuse me, I still don’t know
your name!” Pulcheria Alexandrovna put in hastily.

“Dmitri Prokofitch.”

“I should like very, very much to know, Dmitri Prokofitch... how he
looks... on things in general now, that is, how can I explain, what are
his likes and dislikes? Is he always so irritable? Tell me, if you can,
what are his hopes and, so to say, his dreams? Under what influences is
he now? In a word, I should like...”

“Ah, mother, how can he answer all that at once?” observed Dounia.

“Good heavens, I had not expected to find him in the least like this,
Dmitri Prokofitch!”

“Naturally,” answered Razumihin. “I have no mother, but my uncle comes
every year and almost every time he can scarcely recognise me, even in
appearance, though he is a clever man; and your three years’ separation
means a great deal. What am I to tell you? I have known Rodion for
a year and a half; he is morose, gloomy, proud and haughty, and of
late--and perhaps for a long time before--he has been suspicious and
fanciful. He has a noble nature and a kind heart. He does not like
showing his feelings and would rather do a cruel thing than open his
heart freely. Sometimes, though, he is not at all morbid, but simply
cold and inhumanly callous; it’s as though he were alternating between
two characters. Sometimes he is fearfully reserved! He says he is
so busy that everything is a hindrance, and yet he lies in bed doing
nothing. He doesn’t jeer at things, not because he hasn’t the wit, but
as though he hadn’t time to waste on such trifles. He never listens
to what is said to him. He is never interested in what interests other
people at any given moment. He thinks very highly of himself and perhaps
he is right. Well, what more? I think your arrival will have a most
beneficial influence upon him.”

“God grant it may,” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna, distressed by
Razumihin’s account of her Rodya.

And Razumihin ventured to look more boldly at Avdotya Romanovna at last.
He glanced at her often while he was talking, but only for a moment and
looked away again at once. Avdotya Romanovna sat at the table, listening
attentively, then got up again and began walking to and fro with her
arms folded and her lips compressed, occasionally putting in a question,
without stopping her walk. She had the same habit of not listening to
what was said. She was wearing a dress of thin dark stuff and she had a
white transparent scarf round her neck. Razumihin soon detected signs of
extreme poverty in their belongings. Had Avdotya Romanovna been dressed
like a queen, he felt that he would not be afraid of her, but perhaps
just because she was poorly dressed and that he noticed all the misery
of her surroundings, his heart was filled with dread and he began to be
afraid of every word he uttered, every gesture he made, which was very
trying for a man who already felt diffident.

“You’ve told us a great deal that is interesting about my brother’s
character... and have told it impartially. I am glad. I thought that you
were too uncritically devoted to him,” observed Avdotya Romanovna with
a smile. “I think you are right that he needs a woman’s care,” she added
thoughtfully.

“I didn’t say so; but I daresay you are right, only...”

“What?”

“He loves no one and perhaps he never will,” Razumihin declared
decisively.

“You mean he is not capable of love?”

“Do you know, Avdotya Romanovna, you are awfully like your brother, in
everything, indeed!” he blurted out suddenly to his own surprise, but
remembering at once what he had just before said of her brother,
he turned as red as a crab and was overcome with confusion. Avdotya
Romanovna couldn’t help laughing when she looked at him.

“You may both be mistaken about Rodya,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna remarked,
slightly piqued. “I am not talking of our present difficulty, Dounia.
What Pyotr Petrovitch writes in this letter and what you and I have
supposed may be mistaken, but you can’t imagine, Dmitri Prokofitch, how
moody and, so to say, capricious he is. I never could depend on what
he would do when he was only fifteen. And I am sure that he might
do something now that nobody else would think of doing... Well, for
instance, do you know how a year and a half ago he astounded me and gave
me a shock that nearly killed me, when he had the idea of marrying that
girl--what was her name--his landlady’s daughter?”

“Did you hear about that affair?” asked Avdotya Romanovna.

“Do you suppose----” Pulcheria Alexandrovna continued warmly. “Do you
suppose that my tears, my entreaties, my illness, my possible death from
grief, our poverty would have made him pause? No, he would calmly have
disregarded all obstacles. And yet it isn’t that he doesn’t love us!”

“He has never spoken a word of that affair to me,” Razumihin answered
cautiously. “But I did hear something from Praskovya Pavlovna herself,
though she is by no means a gossip. And what I heard certainly was
rather strange.”

“And what did you hear?” both the ladies asked at once.

“Well, nothing very special. I only learned that the marriage, which
only failed to take place through the girl’s death, was not at all to
Praskovya Pavlovna’s liking. They say, too, the girl was not at all
pretty, in fact I am told positively ugly... and such an invalid... and
queer. But she seems to have had some good qualities. She must have
had some good qualities or it’s quite inexplicable.... She had no money
either and he wouldn’t have considered her money.... But it’s always
difficult to judge in such matters.”

“I am sure she was a good girl,” Avdotya Romanovna observed briefly.

“God forgive me, I simply rejoiced at her death. Though I don’t know
which of them would have caused most misery to the other--he to her
or she to him,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna concluded. Then she began
tentatively questioning him about the scene on the previous day with
Luzhin, hesitating and continually glancing at Dounia, obviously to
the latter’s annoyance. This incident more than all the rest evidently
caused her uneasiness, even consternation. Razumihin described it in
detail again, but this time he added his own conclusions: he openly
blamed Raskolnikov for intentionally insulting Pyotr Petrovitch, not
seeking to excuse him on the score of his illness.

“He had planned it before his illness,” he added.

“I think so, too,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna agreed with a dejected air.
But she was very much surprised at hearing Razumihin express himself
so carefully and even with a certain respect about Pyotr Petrovitch.
Avdotya Romanovna, too, was struck by it.

“So this is your opinion of Pyotr Petrovitch?” Pulcheria Alexandrovna
could not resist asking.

“I can have no other opinion of your daughter’s future husband,”
 Razumihin answered firmly and with warmth, “and I don’t say it simply
from vulgar politeness, but because... simply because Avdotya Romanovna
has of her own free will deigned to accept this man. If I spoke so
rudely of him last night, it was because I was disgustingly drunk and...
mad besides; yes, mad, crazy, I lost my head completely... and this
morning I am ashamed of it.”

He crimsoned and ceased speaking. Avdotya Romanovna flushed, but did not
break the silence. She had not uttered a word from the moment they began
to speak of Luzhin.

Without her support Pulcheria Alexandrovna obviously did not know what
to do. At last, faltering and continually glancing at her daughter, she
confessed that she was exceedingly worried by one circumstance.

“You see, Dmitri Prokofitch,” she began. “I’ll be perfectly open with
Dmitri Prokofitch, Dounia?”

“Of course, mother,” said Avdotya Romanovna emphatically.

“This is what it is,” she began in haste, as though the permission to
speak of her trouble lifted a weight off her mind. “Very early this
morning we got a note from Pyotr Petrovitch in reply to our letter
announcing our arrival. He promised to meet us at the station, you
know; instead of that he sent a servant to bring us the address of these
lodgings and to show us the way; and he sent a message that he would
be here himself this morning. But this morning this note came from him.
You’d better read it yourself; there is one point in it which worries me
very much... you will soon see what that is, and... tell me your candid
opinion, Dmitri Prokofitch! You know Rodya’s character better than
anyone and no one can advise us better than you can. Dounia, I must tell
you, made her decision at once, but I still don’t feel sure how to act
and I... I’ve been waiting for your opinion.”

Razumihin opened the note which was dated the previous evening and read
as follows:

“Dear Madam, Pulcheria Alexandrovna, I have the honour to inform you
that owing to unforeseen obstacles I was rendered unable to meet you at
the railway station; I sent a very competent person with the same object
in view. I likewise shall be deprived of the honour of an interview with
you to-morrow morning by business in the Senate that does not admit of
delay, and also that I may not intrude on your family circle while you
are meeting your son, and Avdotya Romanovna her brother. I shall have
the honour of visiting you and paying you my respects at your lodgings
not later than to-morrow evening at eight o’clock precisely, and
herewith I venture to present my earnest and, I may add, imperative
request that Rodion Romanovitch may not be present at our interview--as
he offered me a gross and unprecedented affront on the occasion of my
visit to him in his illness yesterday, and, moreover, since I desire
from you personally an indispensable and circumstantial explanation
upon a certain point, in regard to which I wish to learn your own
interpretation. I have the honour to inform you, in anticipation,
that if, in spite of my request, I meet Rodion Romanovitch, I shall be
compelled to withdraw immediately and then you have only yourself to
blame. I write on the assumption that Rodion Romanovitch who appeared so
ill at my visit, suddenly recovered two hours later and so, being able
to leave the house, may visit you also. I was confirmed in that belief
by the testimony of my own eyes in the lodging of a drunken man who
was run over and has since died, to whose daughter, a young woman of
notorious behaviour, he gave twenty-five roubles on the pretext of the
funeral, which gravely surprised me knowing what pains you were at to
raise that sum. Herewith expressing my special respect to your estimable
daughter, Avdotya Romanovna, I beg you to accept the respectful homage
of

“Your humble servant,

“P. LUZHIN.”


“What am I to do now, Dmitri Prokofitch?” began Pulcheria Alexandrovna,
almost weeping. “How can I ask Rodya not to come? Yesterday he insisted
so earnestly on our refusing Pyotr Petrovitch and now we are ordered not
to receive Rodya! He will come on purpose if he knows, and... what will
happen then?”

“Act on Avdotya Romanovna’s decision,” Razumihin answered calmly at
once.

“Oh, dear me! She says... goodness knows what she says, she doesn’t
explain her object! She says that it would be best, at least, not that
it would be best, but that it’s absolutely necessary that Rodya should
make a point of being here at eight o’clock and that they must meet....
I didn’t want even to show him the letter, but to prevent him
from coming by some stratagem with your help... because he is so
irritable.... Besides I don’t understand about that drunkard who died
and that daughter, and how he could have given the daughter all the
money... which...”

“Which cost you such sacrifice, mother,” put in Avdotya Romanovna.

“He was not himself yesterday,” Razumihin said thoughtfully, “if you
only knew what he was up to in a restaurant yesterday, though there
was sense in it too.... Hm! He did say something, as we were going home
yesterday evening, about a dead man and a girl, but I didn’t understand
a word.... But last night, I myself...”

“The best thing, mother, will be for us to go to him ourselves and
there I assure you we shall see at once what’s to be done. Besides,
it’s getting late--good heavens, it’s past ten,” she cried looking at
a splendid gold enamelled watch which hung round her neck on a thin
Venetian chain, and looked entirely out of keeping with the rest of her
dress. “A present from her _fiancé_,” thought Razumihin.

“We must start, Dounia, we must start,” her mother cried in a flutter.
“He will be thinking we are still angry after yesterday, from our coming
so late. Merciful heavens!”

While she said this she was hurriedly putting on her hat and mantle;
Dounia, too, put on her things. Her gloves, as Razumihin noticed, were
not merely shabby but had holes in them, and yet this evident poverty
gave the two ladies an air of special dignity, which is always found in
people who know how to wear poor clothes. Razumihin looked reverently
at Dounia and felt proud of escorting her. “The queen who mended her
stockings in prison,” he thought, “must have looked then every inch a
queen and even more a queen than at sumptuous banquets and levées.”

“My God!” exclaimed Pulcheria Alexandrovna, “little did I think that I
should ever fear seeing my son, my darling, darling Rodya! I am afraid,
Dmitri Prokofitch,” she added, glancing at him timidly.

“Don’t be afraid, mother,” said Dounia, kissing her, “better have faith
in him.”

“Oh, dear, I have faith in him, but I haven’t slept all night,”
 exclaimed the poor woman.

They came out into the street.

“Do you know, Dounia, when I dozed a little this morning I dreamed of
Marfa Petrovna... she was all in white... she came up to me, took
my hand, and shook her head at me, but so sternly as though she were
blaming me.... Is that a good omen? Oh, dear me! You don’t know, Dmitri
Prokofitch, that Marfa Petrovna’s dead!”

“No, I didn’t know; who is Marfa Petrovna?”

“She died suddenly; and only fancy...”

“Afterwards, mamma,” put in Dounia. “He doesn’t know who Marfa Petrovna
is.”

“Ah, you don’t know? And I was thinking that you knew all about us.
Forgive me, Dmitri Prokofitch, I don’t know what I am thinking about
these last few days. I look upon you really as a providence for us, and
so I took it for granted that you knew all about us. I look on you as a
relation.... Don’t be angry with me for saying so. Dear me, what’s the
matter with your right hand? Have you knocked it?”

“Yes, I bruised it,” muttered Razumihin overjoyed.

“I sometimes speak too much from the heart, so that Dounia finds fault
with me.... But, dear me, what a cupboard he lives in! I wonder whether
he is awake? Does this woman, his landlady, consider it a room? Listen,
you say he does not like to show his feelings, so perhaps I shall annoy
him with my... weaknesses? Do advise me, Dmitri Prokofitch, how am I to
treat him? I feel quite distracted, you know.”

“Don’t question him too much about anything if you see him frown; don’t
ask him too much about his health; he doesn’t like that.”

“Ah, Dmitri Prokofitch, how hard it is to be a mother! But here are the
stairs.... What an awful staircase!”

“Mother, you are quite pale, don’t distress yourself, darling,” said
Dounia caressing her, then with flashing eyes she added: “He ought to be
happy at seeing you, and you are tormenting yourself so.”

“Wait, I’ll peep in and see whether he has waked up.”

The ladies slowly followed Razumihin, who went on before, and when they
reached the landlady’s door on the fourth storey, they noticed that her
door was a tiny crack open and that two keen black eyes were watching
them from the darkness within. When their eyes met, the door was
suddenly shut with such a slam that Pulcheria Alexandrovna almost cried
out.



CHAPTER III

“He is well, quite well!” Zossimov cried cheerfully as they entered.

He had come in ten minutes earlier and was sitting in the same place
as before, on the sofa. Raskolnikov was sitting in the opposite corner,
fully dressed and carefully washed and combed, as he had not been for
some time past. The room was immediately crowded, yet Nastasya managed
to follow the visitors in and stayed to listen.

Raskolnikov really was almost well, as compared with his condition the
day before, but he was still pale, listless, and sombre. He looked like
a wounded man or one who has undergone some terrible physical suffering.
His brows were knitted, his lips compressed, his eyes feverish. He spoke
little and reluctantly, as though performing a duty, and there was a
restlessness in his movements.

He only wanted a sling on his arm or a bandage on his finger to complete
the impression of a man with a painful abscess or a broken arm. The
pale, sombre face lighted up for a moment when his mother and sister
entered, but this only gave it a look of more intense suffering, in
place of its listless dejection. The light soon died away, but the look
of suffering remained, and Zossimov, watching and studying his patient
with all the zest of a young doctor beginning to practise, noticed
in him no joy at the arrival of his mother and sister, but a sort of
bitter, hidden determination to bear another hour or two of inevitable
torture. He saw later that almost every word of the following
conversation seemed to touch on some sore place and irritate it. But
at the same time he marvelled at the power of controlling himself
and hiding his feelings in a patient who the previous day had, like a
monomaniac, fallen into a frenzy at the slightest word.

“Yes, I see myself now that I am almost well,” said Raskolnikov,
giving his mother and sister a kiss of welcome which made Pulcheria
Alexandrovna radiant at once. “And I don’t say this _as I did
yesterday_,” he said, addressing Razumihin, with a friendly pressure of
his hand.

“Yes, indeed, I am quite surprised at him to-day,” began Zossimov, much
delighted at the ladies’ entrance, for he had not succeeded in keeping
up a conversation with his patient for ten minutes. “In another three or
four days, if he goes on like this, he will be just as before, that is,
as he was a month ago, or two... or perhaps even three. This has been
coming on for a long while.... eh? Confess, now, that it has been
perhaps your own fault?” he added, with a tentative smile, as though
still afraid of irritating him.

“It is very possible,” answered Raskolnikov coldly.

“I should say, too,” continued Zossimov with zest, “that your complete
recovery depends solely on yourself. Now that one can talk to you,
I should like to impress upon you that it is essential to avoid the
elementary, so to speak, fundamental causes tending to produce your
morbid condition: in that case you will be cured, if not, it will go
from bad to worse. These fundamental causes I don’t know, but they must
be known to you. You are an intelligent man, and must have observed
yourself, of course. I fancy the first stage of your derangement
coincides with your leaving the university. You must not be left without
occupation, and so, work and a definite aim set before you might, I
fancy, be very beneficial.”

“Yes, yes; you are perfectly right.... I will make haste and return to
the university: and then everything will go smoothly....”

Zossimov, who had begun his sage advice partly to make an effect before
the ladies, was certainly somewhat mystified, when, glancing at his
patient, he observed unmistakable mockery on his face. This lasted
an instant, however. Pulcheria Alexandrovna began at once thanking
Zossimov, especially for his visit to their lodging the previous night.

“What! he saw you last night?” Raskolnikov asked, as though startled.
“Then you have not slept either after your journey.”

“Ach, Rodya, that was only till two o’clock. Dounia and I never go to
bed before two at home.”

“I don’t know how to thank him either,” Raskolnikov went on,
suddenly frowning and looking down. “Setting aside the question of
payment--forgive me for referring to it (he turned to Zossimov)--I
really don’t know what I have done to deserve such special attention
from you! I simply don’t understand it... and... and... it weighs upon
me, indeed, because I don’t understand it. I tell you so candidly.”

“Don’t be irritated.” Zossimov forced himself to laugh. “Assume that you
are my first patient--well--we fellows just beginning to practise love
our first patients as if they were our children, and some almost fall in
love with them. And, of course, I am not rich in patients.”

“I say nothing about him,” added Raskolnikov, pointing to Razumihin,
“though he has had nothing from me either but insult and trouble.”

“What nonsense he is talking! Why, you are in a sentimental mood to-day,
are you?” shouted Razumihin.

If he had had more penetration he would have seen that there was no
trace of sentimentality in him, but something indeed quite the opposite.
But Avdotya Romanovna noticed it. She was intently and uneasily watching
her brother.

“As for you, mother, I don’t dare to speak,” he went on, as though
repeating a lesson learned by heart. “It is only to-day that I have
been able to realise a little how distressed you must have been here
yesterday, waiting for me to come back.”

When he had said this, he suddenly held out his hand to his sister,
smiling without a word. But in this smile there was a flash of real
unfeigned feeling. Dounia caught it at once, and warmly pressed his
hand, overjoyed and thankful. It was the first time he had addressed her
since their dispute the previous day. The mother’s face lighted up
with ecstatic happiness at the sight of this conclusive unspoken
reconciliation. “Yes, that is what I love him for,” Razumihin,
exaggerating it all, muttered to himself, with a vigorous turn in his
chair. “He has these movements.”

“And how well he does it all,” the mother was thinking to herself. “What
generous impulses he has, and how simply, how delicately he put an end
to all the misunderstanding with his sister--simply by holding out his
hand at the right minute and looking at her like that.... And what
fine eyes he has, and how fine his whole face is!... He is even better
looking than Dounia.... But, good heavens, what a suit--how terribly
he’s dressed!... Vasya, the messenger boy in Afanasy Ivanitch’s shop, is
better dressed! I could rush at him and hug him... weep over him--but
I am afraid.... Oh, dear, he’s so strange! He’s talking kindly, but I’m
afraid! Why, what am I afraid of?...”

“Oh, Rodya, you wouldn’t believe,” she began suddenly, in haste to
answer his words to her, “how unhappy Dounia and I were yesterday! Now
that it’s all over and done with and we are quite happy again--I can
tell you. Fancy, we ran here almost straight from the train to embrace
you and that woman--ah, here she is! Good morning, Nastasya!... She told
us at once that you were lying in a high fever and had just run away
from the doctor in delirium, and they were looking for you in the
streets. You can’t imagine how we felt! I couldn’t help thinking of the
tragic end of Lieutenant Potanchikov, a friend of your father’s--you
can’t remember him, Rodya--who ran out in the same way in a high fever
and fell into the well in the court-yard and they couldn’t pull him out
till next day. Of course, we exaggerated things. We were on the point of
rushing to find Pyotr Petrovitch to ask him to help.... Because we were
alone, utterly alone,” she said plaintively and stopped short,
suddenly, recollecting it was still somewhat dangerous to speak of Pyotr
Petrovitch, although “we are quite happy again.”

“Yes, yes.... Of course it’s very annoying....” Raskolnikov muttered in
reply, but with such a preoccupied and inattentive air that Dounia gazed
at him in perplexity.

“What else was it I wanted to say?” He went on trying to recollect. “Oh,
yes; mother, and you too, Dounia, please don’t think that I didn’t mean
to come and see you to-day and was waiting for you to come first.”

“What are you saying, Rodya?” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. She, too,
was surprised.

“Is he answering us as a duty?” Dounia wondered. “Is he being reconciled
and asking forgiveness as though he were performing a rite or repeating
a lesson?”

“I’ve only just waked up, and wanted to go to you, but was delayed owing
to my clothes; I forgot yesterday to ask her... Nastasya... to wash out
the blood... I’ve only just dressed.”

“Blood! What blood?” Pulcheria Alexandrovna asked in alarm.

“Oh, nothing--don’t be uneasy. It was when I was wandering about
yesterday, rather delirious, I chanced upon a man who had been run
over... a clerk...”

“Delirious? But you remember everything!” Razumihin interrupted.

“That’s true,” Raskolnikov answered with special carefulness. “I
remember everything even to the slightest detail, and yet--why I did
that and went there and said that, I can’t clearly explain now.”

“A familiar phenomenon,” interposed Zossimov, “actions are sometimes
performed in a masterly and most cunning way, while the direction of the
actions is deranged and dependent on various morbid impressions--it’s
like a dream.”

“Perhaps it’s a good thing really that he should think me almost a
madman,” thought Raskolnikov.

“Why, people in perfect health act in the same way too,” observed
Dounia, looking uneasily at Zossimov.

“There is some truth in your observation,” the latter replied. “In that
sense we are certainly all not infrequently like madmen, but with the
slight difference that the deranged are somewhat madder, for we
must draw a line. A normal man, it is true, hardly exists. Among
dozens--perhaps hundreds of thousands--hardly one is to be met with.”

At the word “madman,” carelessly dropped by Zossimov in his chatter on
his favourite subject, everyone frowned.

Raskolnikov sat seeming not to pay attention, plunged in thought with a
strange smile on his pale lips. He was still meditating on something.

“Well, what about the man who was run over? I interrupted you!”
 Razumihin cried hastily.

“What?” Raskolnikov seemed to wake up. “Oh... I got spattered with
blood helping to carry him to his lodging. By the way, mamma, I did an
unpardonable thing yesterday. I was literally out of my mind. I gave
away all the money you sent me... to his wife for the funeral. She’s
a widow now, in consumption, a poor creature... three little children,
starving... nothing in the house... there’s a daughter, too... perhaps
you’d have given it yourself if you’d seen them. But I had no right to
do it I admit, especially as I knew how you needed the money yourself.
To help others one must have the right to do it, or else _Crevez,
chiens, si vous n’êtes pas contents_.” He laughed, “That’s right, isn’t
it, Dounia?”

“No, it’s not,” answered Dounia firmly.

“Bah! you, too, have ideals,” he muttered, looking at her almost with
hatred, and smiling sarcastically. “I ought to have considered that....
Well, that’s praiseworthy, and it’s better for you... and if you reach a
line you won’t overstep, you will be unhappy... and if you overstep it,
maybe you will be still unhappier.... But all that’s nonsense,” he added
irritably, vexed at being carried away. “I only meant to say that I beg
your forgiveness, mother,” he concluded, shortly and abruptly.

“That’s enough, Rodya, I am sure that everything you do is very good,”
 said his mother, delighted.

“Don’t be too sure,” he answered, twisting his mouth into a smile.

A silence followed. There was a certain constraint in all this
conversation, and in the silence, and in the reconciliation, and in the
forgiveness, and all were feeling it.

“It is as though they were afraid of me,” Raskolnikov was thinking
to himself, looking askance at his mother and sister. Pulcheria
Alexandrovna was indeed growing more timid the longer she kept silent.

“Yet in their absence I seemed to love them so much,” flashed through
his mind.

“Do you know, Rodya, Marfa Petrovna is dead,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna
suddenly blurted out.

“What Marfa Petrovna?”

“Oh, mercy on us--Marfa Petrovna Svidrigaïlov. I wrote you so much about
her.”

“A-a-h! Yes, I remember.... So she’s dead! Oh, really?” he roused
himself suddenly, as if waking up. “What did she die of?”

“Only imagine, quite suddenly,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna answered
hurriedly, encouraged by his curiosity. “On the very day I was sending
you that letter! Would you believe it, that awful man seems to have been
the cause of her death. They say he beat her dreadfully.”

“Why, were they on such bad terms?” he asked, addressing his sister.

“Not at all. Quite the contrary indeed. With her, he was always very
patient, considerate even. In fact, all those seven years of their
married life he gave way to her, too much so indeed, in many cases. All
of a sudden he seems to have lost patience.”

“Then he could not have been so awful if he controlled himself for seven
years? You seem to be defending him, Dounia?”

“No, no, he’s an awful man! I can imagine nothing more awful!” Dounia
answered, almost with a shudder, knitting her brows, and sinking into
thought.

“That had happened in the morning,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna went on
hurriedly. “And directly afterwards she ordered the horses to be
harnessed to drive to the town immediately after dinner. She always used
to drive to the town in such cases. She ate a very good dinner, I am
told....”

“After the beating?”

“That was always her... habit; and immediately after dinner, so as not
to be late in starting, she went to the bath-house.... You see, she was
undergoing some treatment with baths. They have a cold spring there, and
she used to bathe in it regularly every day, and no sooner had she got
into the water when she suddenly had a stroke!”

“I should think so,” said Zossimov.

“And did he beat her badly?”

“What does that matter!” put in Dounia.

“H’m! But I don’t know why you want to tell us such gossip, mother,”
 said Raskolnikov irritably, as it were in spite of himself.

“Ah, my dear, I don’t know what to talk about,” broke from Pulcheria
Alexandrovna.

“Why, are you all afraid of me?” he asked, with a constrained smile.

“That’s certainly true,” said Dounia, looking directly and sternly at
her brother. “Mother was crossing herself with terror as she came up the
stairs.”

His face worked, as though in convulsion.

“Ach, what are you saying, Dounia! Don’t be angry, please, Rodya....
Why did you say that, Dounia?” Pulcheria Alexandrovna began,
overwhelmed--“You see, coming here, I was dreaming all the way, in the
train, how we should meet, how we should talk over everything
together.... And I was so happy, I did not notice the journey! But what
am I saying? I am happy now.... You should not, Dounia.... I am happy
now--simply in seeing you, Rodya....”

“Hush, mother,” he muttered in confusion, not looking at her, but
pressing her hand. “We shall have time to speak freely of everything!”

As he said this, he was suddenly overwhelmed with confusion and turned
pale. Again that awful sensation he had known of late passed with deadly
chill over his soul. Again it became suddenly plain and perceptible to
him that he had just told a fearful lie--that he would never now be
able to speak freely of everything--that he would never again be able to
_speak_ of anything to anyone. The anguish of this thought was such that
for a moment he almost forgot himself. He got up from his seat, and not
looking at anyone walked towards the door.

“What are you about?” cried Razumihin, clutching him by the arm.

He sat down again, and began looking about him, in silence. They were
all looking at him in perplexity.

“But what are you all so dull for?” he shouted, suddenly and quite
unexpectedly. “Do say something! What’s the use of sitting like this?
Come, do speak. Let us talk.... We meet together and sit in silence....
Come, anything!”

“Thank God; I was afraid the same thing as yesterday was beginning
again,” said Pulcheria Alexandrovna, crossing herself.

“What is the matter, Rodya?” asked Avdotya Romanovna, distrustfully.

“Oh, nothing! I remembered something,” he answered, and suddenly
laughed.

“Well, if you remembered something; that’s all right!... I was beginning
to think...” muttered Zossimov, getting up from the sofa. “It is time
for me to be off. I will look in again perhaps... if I can...” He made
his bows, and went out.

“What an excellent man!” observed Pulcheria Alexandrovna.

“Yes, excellent, splendid, well-educated, intelligent,” Raskolnikov
began, suddenly speaking with surprising rapidity, and a liveliness he
had not shown till then. “I can’t remember where I met him before my
illness.... I believe I have met him somewhere----... And this is a good
man, too,” he nodded at Razumihin. “Do you like him, Dounia?” he asked
her; and suddenly, for some unknown reason, laughed.

“Very much,” answered Dounia.

“Foo!--what a pig you are!” Razumihin protested, blushing in terrible
confusion, and he got up from his chair. Pulcheria Alexandrovna smiled
faintly, but Raskolnikov laughed aloud.

“Where are you off to?”

“I must go.”

“You need not at all. Stay. Zossimov has gone, so you must. Don’t go.
What’s the time? Is it twelve o’clock? What a pretty watch you have got,
Dounia. But why are you all silent again? I do all the talking.”

“It was a present from Marfa Petrovna,” answered Dounia.

“And a very expensive one!” added Pulcheria Alexandrovna.

“A-ah! What a big one! Hardly like a lady’s.”

“I like that sort,” said Dounia.

“So it is not a present from her _fiancé_,” thought Razumihin, and was
unreasonably delighted.

“I thought it was Luzhin’s present,” observed Raskolnikov.

“No, he has not made Dounia any presents yet.”

“A-ah! And do you remember, mother, I was in love and wanted to get
married?” he said suddenly, looking at his mother, who was disconcerted
by the sudden change of subject and the way he spoke of it.

“Oh, yes, my dear.”

Pulcheria Alexandrovna exchanged glances with Dounia and Razumihin.

“H’m, yes. What shall I tell you? I don’t remember much indeed. She was
such a sickly girl,” he went on, growing dreamy and looking down again.
“Quite an invalid. She was fond of giving alms to the poor, and was
always dreaming of a nunnery, and once she burst into tears when she
began talking to me about it. Yes, yes, I remember. I remember very
well. She was an ugly little thing. I really don’t know what drew me
to her then--I think it was because she was always ill. If she had been
lame or hunchback, I believe I should have liked her better still,” he
smiled dreamily. “Yes, it was a sort of spring delirium.”

“No, it was not only spring delirium,” said Dounia, with warm feeling.

He fixed a strained intent look on his sister, but did not hear or did
not understand her words. Then, completely lost in thought, he got up,
went up to his mother, kissed her, went back to his place and sat down.

“You love her even now?” said Pulcheria Alexandrovna, touched.

“Her? Now? Oh, yes.... You ask about her? No... that’s all now, as
it were, in another world... and so long ago. And indeed everything
happening here seems somehow far away.” He looked attentively at them.
“You, now... I seem to be looking at you from a thousand miles away...
but, goodness knows why we are talking of that! And what’s the use of
asking about it?” he added with annoyance, and biting his nails, fell
into dreamy silence again.

“What a wretched lodging you have, Rodya! It’s like a tomb,” said
Pulcheria Alexandrovna, suddenly breaking the oppressive silence. “I
am sure it’s quite half through your lodging you have become so
melancholy.”

“My lodging,” he answered, listlessly. “Yes, the lodging had a great
deal to do with it.... I thought that, too.... If only you knew, though,
what a strange thing you said just now, mother,” he said, laughing
strangely.

A little more, and their companionship, this mother and this sister,
with him after three years’ absence, this intimate tone of conversation,
in face of the utter impossibility of really speaking about anything,
would have been beyond his power of endurance. But there was one urgent
matter which must be settled one way or the other that day--so he had
decided when he woke. Now he was glad to remember it, as a means of
escape.

“Listen, Dounia,” he began, gravely and drily, “of course I beg your
pardon for yesterday, but I consider it my duty to tell you again that
I do not withdraw from my chief point. It is me or Luzhin. If I am a
scoundrel, you must not be. One is enough. If you marry Luzhin, I cease
at once to look on you as a sister.”

“Rodya, Rodya! It is the same as yesterday again,” Pulcheria
Alexandrovna cried, mournfully. “And why do you call yourself a
scoundrel? I can’t bear it. You said the same yesterday.”

“Brother,” Dounia answered firmly and with the same dryness. “In all
this there is a mistake on your part. I thought it over at night,
and found out the mistake. It is all because you seem to fancy I am
sacrificing myself to someone and for someone. That is not the case at
all. I am simply marrying for my own sake, because things are hard for
me. Though, of course, I shall be glad if I succeed in being useful to
my family. But that is not the chief motive for my decision....”

“She is lying,” he thought to himself, biting his nails vindictively.
“Proud creature! She won’t admit she wants to do it out of charity! Too
haughty! Oh, base characters! They even love as though they hate.... Oh,
how I... hate them all!”

“In fact,” continued Dounia, “I am marrying Pyotr Petrovitch because of
two evils I choose the less. I intend to do honestly all he expects of
me, so I am not deceiving him.... Why did you smile just now?” She, too,
flushed, and there was a gleam of anger in her eyes.

“All?” he asked, with a malignant grin.

“Within certain limits. Both the manner and form of Pyotr Petrovitch’s
courtship showed me at once what he wanted. He may, of course, think too
well of himself, but I hope he esteems me, too.... Why are you laughing
again?”

“And why are you blushing again? You are lying, sister. You are
intentionally lying, simply from feminine obstinacy, simply to hold your
own against me.... You cannot respect Luzhin. I have seen him and talked
with him. So you are selling yourself for money, and so in any case you
are acting basely, and I am glad at least that you can blush for it.”

“It is not true. I am not lying,” cried Dounia, losing her composure.
“I would not marry him if I were not convinced that he esteems me
and thinks highly of me. I would not marry him if I were not firmly
convinced that I can respect him. Fortunately, I can have convincing
proof of it this very day... and such a marriage is not a vileness, as
you say! And even if you were right, if I really had determined on a
vile action, is it not merciless on your part to speak to me like that?
Why do you demand of me a heroism that perhaps you have not either? It
is despotism; it is tyranny. If I ruin anyone, it is only myself.... I
am not committing a murder. Why do you look at me like that? Why are you
so pale? Rodya, darling, what’s the matter?”

“Good heavens! You have made him faint,” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna.

“No, no, nonsense! It’s nothing. A little giddiness--not fainting. You
have fainting on the brain. H’m, yes, what was I saying? Oh, yes. In
what way will you get convincing proof to-day that you can respect him,
and that he... esteems you, as you said. I think you said to-day?”

“Mother, show Rodya Pyotr Petrovitch’s letter,” said Dounia.

With trembling hands, Pulcheria Alexandrovna gave him the letter. He
took it with great interest, but, before opening it, he suddenly looked
with a sort of wonder at Dounia.

“It is strange,” he said, slowly, as though struck by a new idea. “What
am I making such a fuss for? What is it all about? Marry whom you like!”

He said this as though to himself, but said it aloud, and looked for
some time at his sister, as though puzzled. He opened the letter at
last, still with the same look of strange wonder on his face. Then,
slowly and attentively, he began reading, and read it through twice.
Pulcheria Alexandrovna showed marked anxiety, and all indeed expected
something particular.

“What surprises me,” he began, after a short pause, handing the letter
to his mother, but not addressing anyone in particular, “is that he is a
business man, a lawyer, and his conversation is pretentious indeed, and
yet he writes such an uneducated letter.”

They all started. They had expected something quite different.

“But they all write like that, you know,” Razumihin observed, abruptly.

“Have you read it?”

“Yes.”

“We showed him, Rodya. We... consulted him just now,” Pulcheria
Alexandrovna began, embarrassed.

“That’s just the jargon of the courts,” Razumihin put in. “Legal
documents are written like that to this day.”

“Legal? Yes, it’s just legal--business language--not so very uneducated,
and not quite educated--business language!”

“Pyotr Petrovitch makes no secret of the fact that he had a cheap
education, he is proud indeed of having made his own way,” Avdotya
Romanovna observed, somewhat offended by her brother’s tone.

“Well, if he’s proud of it, he has reason, I don’t deny it. You seem to
be offended, sister, at my making only such a frivolous criticism on the
letter, and to think that I speak of such trifling matters on purpose to
annoy you. It is quite the contrary, an observation apropos of the style
occurred to me that is by no means irrelevant as things stand. There
is one expression, ‘blame yourselves’, put in very significantly and
plainly, and there is besides a threat that he will go away at once if I
am present. That threat to go away is equivalent to a threat to abandon
you both if you are disobedient, and to abandon you now after summoning
you to Petersburg. Well, what do you think? Can one resent such an
expression from Luzhin, as we should if he (he pointed to Razumihin) had
written it, or Zossimov, or one of us?”

“N-no,” answered Dounia, with more animation. “I saw clearly that it
was too naïvely expressed, and that perhaps he simply has no skill
in writing... that is a true criticism, brother. I did not expect,
indeed...”

“It is expressed in legal style, and sounds coarser than perhaps he
intended. But I must disillusion you a little. There is one expression
in the letter, one slander about me, and rather a contemptible one. I
gave the money last night to the widow, a woman in consumption, crushed
with trouble, and not ‘on the pretext of the funeral,’ but simply to pay
for the funeral, and not to the daughter--a young woman, as he writes,
of notorious behaviour (whom I saw last night for the first time in my
life)--but to the widow. In all this I see a too hasty desire to slander
me and to raise dissension between us. It is expressed again in legal
jargon, that is to say, with a too obvious display of the aim, and
with a very naïve eagerness. He is a man of intelligence, but to act
sensibly, intelligence is not enough. It all shows the man and... I
don’t think he has a great esteem for you. I tell you this simply to
warn you, because I sincerely wish for your good...”

Dounia did not reply. Her resolution had been taken. She was only
awaiting the evening.

“Then what is your decision, Rodya?” asked Pulcheria Alexandrovna, who
was more uneasy than ever at the sudden, new businesslike tone of his
talk.

“What decision?”

“You see Pyotr Petrovitch writes that you are not to be with us this
evening, and that he will go away if you come. So will you... come?”

“That, of course, is not for me to decide, but for you first, if you are
not offended by such a request; and secondly, by Dounia, if she, too, is
not offended. I will do what you think best,” he added, drily.

“Dounia has already decided, and I fully agree with her,” Pulcheria
Alexandrovna hastened to declare.

“I decided to ask you, Rodya, to urge you not to fail to be with us at
this interview,” said Dounia. “Will you come?”

“Yes.”

“I will ask you, too, to be with us at eight o’clock,” she said,
addressing Razumihin. “Mother, I am inviting him, too.”

“Quite right, Dounia. Well, since you have decided,” added Pulcheria
Alexandrovna, “so be it. I shall feel easier myself. I do not like
concealment and deception. Better let us have the whole truth.... Pyotr
Petrovitch may be angry or not, now!”



CHAPTER IV

At that moment the door was softly opened, and a young girl walked into
the room, looking timidly about her. Everyone turned towards her with
surprise and curiosity. At first sight, Raskolnikov did not recognise
her. It was Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladov. He had seen her yesterday for
the first time, but at such a moment, in such surroundings and in such
a dress, that his memory retained a very different image of her. Now she
was a modestly and poorly-dressed young girl, very young, indeed,
almost like a child, with a modest and refined manner, with a candid but
somewhat frightened-looking face. She was wearing a very plain indoor
dress, and had on a shabby old-fashioned hat, but she still carried a
parasol. Unexpectedly finding the room full of people, she was not so
much embarrassed as completely overwhelmed with shyness, like a
little child. She was even about to retreat. “Oh... it’s you!” said
Raskolnikov, extremely astonished, and he, too, was confused. He at once
recollected that his mother and sister knew through Luzhin’s letter
of “some young woman of notorious behaviour.” He had only just been
protesting against Luzhin’s calumny and declaring that he had seen the
girl last night for the first time, and suddenly she had walked in. He
remembered, too, that he had not protested against the expression “of
notorious behaviour.” All this passed vaguely and fleetingly through
his brain, but looking at her more intently, he saw that the humiliated
creature was so humiliated that he felt suddenly sorry for her. When she
made a movement to retreat in terror, it sent a pang to his heart.

“I did not expect you,” he said, hurriedly, with a look that made her
stop. “Please sit down. You come, no doubt, from Katerina Ivanovna.
Allow me--not there. Sit here....”

At Sonia’s entrance, Razumihin, who had been sitting on one of
Raskolnikov’s three chairs, close to the door, got up to allow her to
enter. Raskolnikov had at first shown her the place on the sofa where
Zossimov had been sitting, but feeling that the sofa which served him
as a bed, was too _familiar_ a place, he hurriedly motioned her to
Razumihin’s chair.

“You sit here,” he said to Razumihin, putting him on the sofa.

Sonia sat down, almost shaking with terror, and looked timidly at the
two ladies. It was evidently almost inconceivable to herself that she
could sit down beside them. At the thought of it, she was so frightened
that she hurriedly got up again, and in utter confusion addressed
Raskolnikov.

“I... I... have come for one minute. Forgive me for disturbing you,” she
began falteringly. “I come from Katerina Ivanovna, and she had no one to
send. Katerina Ivanovna told me to beg you... to be at the service... in
the morning... at Mitrofanievsky... and then... to us... to her...
to do her the honour... she told me to beg you...” Sonia stammered and
ceased speaking.

“I will try, certainly, most certainly,” answered Raskolnikov. He,
too, stood up, and he, too, faltered and could not finish his sentence.
“Please sit down,” he said, suddenly. “I want to talk to you. You are
perhaps in a hurry, but please, be so kind, spare me two minutes,” and
he drew up a chair for her.

Sonia sat down again, and again timidly she took a hurried, frightened
look at the two ladies, and dropped her eyes. Raskolnikov’s pale face
flushed, a shudder passed over him, his eyes glowed.

“Mother,” he said, firmly and insistently, “this is Sofya Semyonovna
Marmeladov, the daughter of that unfortunate Mr. Marmeladov, who was run
over yesterday before my eyes, and of whom I was just telling you.”

Pulcheria Alexandrovna glanced at Sonia, and slightly screwed up
her eyes. In spite of her embarrassment before Rodya’s urgent and
challenging look, she could not deny herself that satisfaction. Dounia
gazed gravely and intently into the poor girl’s face, and scrutinised
her with perplexity. Sonia, hearing herself introduced, tried to raise
her eyes again, but was more embarrassed than ever.

“I wanted to ask you,” said Raskolnikov, hastily, “how things were
arranged yesterday. You were not worried by the police, for instance?”

“No, that was all right... it was too evident, the cause of death...
they did not worry us... only the lodgers are angry.”

“Why?”

“At the body’s remaining so long. You see it is hot now. So that,
to-day, they will carry it to the cemetery, into the chapel, until
to-morrow. At first Katerina Ivanovna was unwilling, but now she sees
herself that it’s necessary...”

“To-day, then?”

“She begs you to do us the honour to be in the church to-morrow for the
service, and then to be present at the funeral lunch.”

“She is giving a funeral lunch?”

“Yes... just a little.... She told me to thank you very much for helping
us yesterday. But for you, we should have had nothing for the funeral.”

All at once her lips and chin began trembling, but, with an effort, she
controlled herself, looking down again.

During the conversation, Raskolnikov watched her carefully. She had a
thin, very thin, pale little face, rather irregular and angular, with a
sharp little nose and chin. She could not have been called pretty, but
her blue eyes were so clear, and when they lighted up, there was such
a kindliness and simplicity in her expression that one could not help
being attracted. Her face, and her whole figure indeed, had another
peculiar characteristic. In spite of her eighteen years, she looked
almost a little girl--almost a child. And in some of her gestures, this
childishness seemed almost absurd.

“But has Katerina Ivanovna been able to manage with such small means?
Does she even mean to have a funeral lunch?” Raskolnikov asked,
persistently keeping up the conversation.

“The coffin will be plain, of course... and everything will be plain, so
it won’t cost much. Katerina Ivanovna and I have reckoned it all out, so
that there will be enough left... and Katerina Ivanovna was very anxious
it should be so. You know one can’t... it’s a comfort to her... she is
like that, you know....”

“I understand, I understand... of course... why do you look at my room
like that? My mother has just said it is like a tomb.”

“You gave us everything yesterday,” Sonia said suddenly, in reply, in a
loud rapid whisper; and again she looked down in confusion. Her lips
and chin were trembling once more. She had been struck at once
by Raskolnikov’s poor surroundings, and now these words broke out
spontaneously. A silence followed. There was a light in Dounia’s eyes,
and even Pulcheria Alexandrovna looked kindly at Sonia.

“Rodya,” she said, getting up, “we shall have dinner together, of
course. Come, Dounia.... And you, Rodya, had better go for a little
walk, and then rest and lie down before you come to see us.... I am
afraid we have exhausted you....”

“Yes, yes, I’ll come,” he answered, getting up fussily. “But I have
something to see to.”

“But surely you will have dinner together?” cried Razumihin, looking in
surprise at Raskolnikov. “What do you mean?”

“Yes, yes, I am coming... of course, of course! And you stay a minute.
You do not want him just now, do you, mother? Or perhaps I am taking him
from you?”

“Oh, no, no. And will you, Dmitri Prokofitch, do us the favour of dining
with us?”

“Please do,” added Dounia.

Razumihin bowed, positively radiant. For one moment, they were all
strangely embarrassed.

“Good-bye, Rodya, that is till we meet. I do not like saying good-bye.
Good-bye, Nastasya. Ah, I have said good-bye again.”

Pulcheria Alexandrovna meant to greet Sonia, too; but it somehow failed
to come off, and she went in a flutter out of the room.

But Avdotya Romanovna seemed to await her turn, and following her mother
out, gave Sonia an attentive, courteous bow. Sonia, in confusion, gave
a hurried, frightened curtsy. There was a look of poignant discomfort
in her face, as though Avdotya Romanovna’s courtesy and attention were
oppressive and painful to her.

“Dounia, good-bye,” called Raskolnikov, in the passage. “Give me your
hand.”

“Why, I did give it to you. Have you forgotten?” said Dounia, turning
warmly and awkwardly to him.

“Never mind, give it to me again.” And he squeezed her fingers warmly.

Dounia smiled, flushed, pulled her hand away, and went off quite happy.

“Come, that’s capital,” he said to Sonia, going back and looking
brightly at her. “God give peace to the dead, the living have still to
live. That is right, isn’t it?”

Sonia looked surprised at the sudden brightness of his face. He looked
at her for some moments in silence. The whole history of the dead father
floated before his memory in those moments....

*****

“Heavens, Dounia,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna began, as soon as they were in
the street, “I really feel relieved myself at coming away--more at ease.
How little did I think yesterday in the train that I could ever be glad
of that.”

“I tell you again, mother, he is still very ill. Don’t you see it?
Perhaps worrying about us upset him. We must be patient, and much, much
can be forgiven.”

“Well, you were not very patient!” Pulcheria Alexandrovna caught her up,
hotly and jealously. “Do you know, Dounia, I was looking at you two. You
are the very portrait of him, and not so much in face as in soul. You
are both melancholy, both morose and hot-tempered, both haughty and both
generous.... Surely he can’t be an egoist, Dounia. Eh? When I think of
what is in store for us this evening, my heart sinks!”

“Don’t be uneasy, mother. What must be, will be.”

“Dounia, only think what a position we are in! What if Pyotr Petrovitch
breaks it off?” poor Pulcheria Alexandrovna blurted out, incautiously.

“He won’t be worth much if he does,” answered Dounia, sharply and
contemptuously.

“We did well to come away,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna hurriedly broke in.
“He was in a hurry about some business or other. If he gets out and has
a breath of air... it is fearfully close in his room.... But where is
one to get a breath of air here? The very streets here feel like shut-up
rooms. Good heavens! what a town!... stay... this side... they will
crush you--carrying something. Why, it is a piano they have got, I
declare... how they push!... I am very much afraid of that young woman,
too.”

“What young woman, mother?”

“Why, that Sofya Semyonovna, who was there just now.”

“Why?”

“I have a presentiment, Dounia. Well, you may believe it or not, but
as soon as she came in, that very minute, I felt that she was the chief
cause of the trouble....”

“Nothing of the sort!” cried Dounia, in vexation. “What nonsense, with
your presentiments, mother! He only made her acquaintance the evening
before, and he did not know her when she came in.”

“Well, you will see.... She worries me; but you will see, you will
see! I was so frightened. She was gazing at me with those eyes. I could
scarcely sit still in my chair when he began introducing her, do you
remember? It seems so strange, but Pyotr Petrovitch writes like that
about her, and he introduces her to us--to you! So he must think a great
deal of her.”

“People will write anything. We were talked about and written about,
too. Have you forgotten? I am sure that she is a good girl, and that it
is all nonsense.”

“God grant it may be!”

“And Pyotr Petrovitch is a contemptible slanderer,” Dounia snapped out,
suddenly.

Pulcheria Alexandrovna was crushed; the conversation was not resumed.

*****

“I will tell you what I want with you,” said Raskolnikov, drawing
Razumihin to the window.

“Then I will tell Katerina Ivanovna that you are coming,” Sonia said
hurriedly, preparing to depart.

“One minute, Sofya Semyonovna. We have no secrets. You are not in our
way. I want to have another word or two with you. Listen!” he turned
suddenly to Razumihin again. “You know that... what’s his name...
Porfiry Petrovitch?”

“I should think so! He is a relation. Why?” added the latter, with
interest.

“Is not he managing that case... you know, about that murder?... You
were speaking about it yesterday.”

“Yes... well?” Razumihin’s eyes opened wide.

“He was inquiring for people who had pawned things, and I have some
pledges there, too--trifles--a ring my sister gave me as a keepsake when
I left home, and my father’s silver watch--they are only worth five or
six roubles altogether... but I value them. So what am I to do now? I
do not want to lose the things, especially the watch. I was quaking just
now, for fear mother would ask to look at it, when we spoke of Dounia’s
watch. It is the only thing of father’s left us. She would be ill if
it were lost. You know what women are. So tell me what to do. I know I
ought to have given notice at the police station, but would it not be
better to go straight to Porfiry? Eh? What do you think? The matter
might be settled more quickly. You see, mother may ask for it before
dinner.”

“Certainly not to the police station. Certainly to Porfiry,” Razumihin
shouted in extraordinary excitement. “Well, how glad I am. Let us go at
once. It is a couple of steps. We shall be sure to find him.”

“Very well, let us go.”

“And he will be very, very glad to make your acquaintance. I have
often talked to him of you at different times. I was speaking of you
yesterday. Let us go. So you knew the old woman? So that’s it! It is all
turning out splendidly.... Oh, yes, Sofya Ivanovna...”

“Sofya Semyonovna,” corrected Raskolnikov. “Sofya Semyonovna, this is my
friend Razumihin, and he is a good man.”

“If you have to go now,” Sonia was beginning, not looking at Razumihin
at all, and still more embarrassed.

“Let us go,” decided Raskolnikov. “I will come to you to-day, Sofya
Semyonovna. Only tell me where you live.”

He was not exactly ill at ease, but seemed hurried, and avoided her
eyes. Sonia gave her address, and flushed as she did so. They all went
out together.

“Don’t you lock up?” asked Razumihin, following him on to the stairs.

“Never,” answered Raskolnikov. “I have been meaning to buy a lock for
these two years. People are happy who have no need of locks,” he said,
laughing, to Sonia. They stood still in the gateway.

“Do you go to the right, Sofya Semyonovna? How did you find me, by the
way?” he added, as though he wanted to say something quite different. He
wanted to look at her soft clear eyes, but this was not easy.

“Why, you gave your address to Polenka yesterday.”

“Polenka? Oh, yes; Polenka, that is the little girl. She is your sister?
Did I give her the address?”

“Why, had you forgotten?”

“No, I remember.”

“I had heard my father speak of you... only I did not know your name,
and he did not know it. And now I came... and as I had learnt your name,
I asked to-day, ‘Where does Mr. Raskolnikov live?’ I did not know you
had only a room too.... Good-bye, I will tell Katerina Ivanovna.”

She was extremely glad to escape at last; she went away looking down,
hurrying to get out of sight as soon as possible, to walk the twenty
steps to the turning on the right and to be at last alone, and then
moving rapidly along, looking at no one, noticing nothing, to think, to
remember, to meditate on every word, every detail. Never, never had she
felt anything like this. Dimly and unconsciously a whole new world was
opening before her. She remembered suddenly that Raskolnikov meant to
come to her that day, perhaps at once!

“Only not to-day, please, not to-day!” she kept muttering with a sinking
heart, as though entreating someone, like a frightened child. “Mercy! to
me... to that room... he will see... oh, dear!”

She was not capable at that instant of noticing an unknown gentleman who
was watching her and following at her heels. He had accompanied her from
the gateway. At the moment when Razumihin, Raskolnikov, and she stood
still at parting on the pavement, this gentleman, who was just passing,
started on hearing Sonia’s words: “and I asked where Mr. Raskolnikov
lived?” He turned a rapid but attentive look upon all three, especially
upon Raskolnikov, to whom Sonia was speaking; then looked back and noted
the house. All this was done in an instant as he passed, and trying not
to betray his interest, he walked on more slowly as though waiting for
something. He was waiting for Sonia; he saw that they were parting, and
that Sonia was going home.

“Home? Where? I’ve seen that face somewhere,” he thought. “I must find
out.”

At the turning he crossed over, looked round, and saw Sonia coming the
same way, noticing nothing. She turned the corner. He followed her on
the other side. After about fifty paces he crossed over again, overtook
her and kept two or three yards behind her.

He was a man about fifty, rather tall and thickly set, with broad high
shoulders which made him look as though he stooped a little. He wore
good and fashionable clothes, and looked like a gentleman of position.
He carried a handsome cane, which he tapped on the pavement at each
step; his gloves were spotless. He had a broad, rather pleasant face
with high cheek-bones and a fresh colour, not often seen in Petersburg.
His flaxen hair was still abundant, and only touched here and there with
grey, and his thick square beard was even lighter than his hair.
His eyes were blue and had a cold and thoughtful look; his lips were
crimson. He was a remarkedly well-preserved man and looked much younger
than his years.

When Sonia came out on the canal bank, they were the only two persons on
the pavement. He observed her dreaminess and preoccupation. On reaching
the house where she lodged, Sonia turned in at the gate; he followed
her, seeming rather surprised. In the courtyard she turned to the right
corner. “Bah!” muttered the unknown gentleman, and mounted the stairs
behind her. Only then Sonia noticed him. She reached the third storey,
turned down the passage, and rang at No. 9. On the door was inscribed
in chalk, “Kapernaumov, Tailor.” “Bah!” the stranger repeated again,
wondering at the strange coincidence, and he rang next door, at No. 8.
The doors were two or three yards apart.

“You lodge at Kapernaumov’s,” he said, looking at Sonia and laughing.
“He altered a waistcoat for me yesterday. I am staying close here at
Madame Resslich’s. How odd!” Sonia looked at him attentively.

“We are neighbours,” he went on gaily. “I only came to town the day
before yesterday. Good-bye for the present.”

Sonia made no reply; the door opened and she slipped in. She felt for
some reason ashamed and uneasy.

*****

On the way to Porfiry’s, Razumihin was obviously excited.

“That’s capital, brother,” he repeated several times, “and I am glad! I
am glad!”

“What are you glad about?” Raskolnikov thought to himself.

“I didn’t know that you pledged things at the old woman’s, too. And...
was it long ago? I mean, was it long since you were there?”

“What a simple-hearted fool he is!”

“When was it?” Raskolnikov stopped still to recollect. “Two or three
days before her death it must have been. But I am not going to redeem
the things now,” he put in with a sort of hurried and conspicuous
solicitude about the things. “I’ve not more than a silver rouble
left... after last night’s accursed delirium!”

He laid special emphasis on the delirium.

“Yes, yes,” Razumihin hastened to agree--with what was not clear. “Then
that’s why you... were stuck... partly... you know in your delirium you
were continually mentioning some rings or chains! Yes, yes... that’s
clear, it’s all clear now.”

“Hullo! How that idea must have got about among them. Here this man will
go to the stake for me, and I find him delighted at having it _cleared
up_ why I spoke of rings in my delirium! What a hold the idea must have
on all of them!”

“Shall we find him?” he asked suddenly.

“Oh, yes,” Razumihin answered quickly. “He is a nice fellow, you will
see, brother. Rather clumsy, that is to say, he is a man of polished
manners, but I mean clumsy in a different sense. He is an intelligent
fellow, very much so indeed, but he has his own range of ideas.... He
is incredulous, sceptical, cynical... he likes to impose on people, or
rather to make fun of them. His is the old, circumstantial method....
But he understands his work... thoroughly.... Last year he cleared up a
case of murder in which the police had hardly a clue. He is very, very
anxious to make your acquaintance!”

“On what grounds is he so anxious?”

“Oh, it’s not exactly... you see, since you’ve been ill I happen to have
mentioned you several times.... So, when he heard about you... about
your being a law student and not able to finish your studies, he said,
‘What a pity!’ And so I concluded... from everything together, not only
that; yesterday Zametov... you know, Rodya, I talked some nonsense on
the way home to you yesterday, when I was drunk... I am afraid, brother,
of your exaggerating it, you see.”

“What? That they think I am a madman? Maybe they are right,” he said
with a constrained smile.

“Yes, yes.... That is, pooh, no!... But all that I said (and there was
something else too) it was all nonsense, drunken nonsense.”

“But why are you apologising? I am so sick of it all!” Raskolnikov cried
with exaggerated irritability. It was partly assumed, however.

“I know, I know, I understand. Believe me, I understand. One’s ashamed
to speak of it.”

“If you are ashamed, then don’t speak of it.”

Both were silent. Razumihin was more than ecstatic and Raskolnikov
perceived it with repulsion. He was alarmed, too, by what Razumihin had
just said about Porfiry.

“I shall have to pull a long face with him too,” he thought, with a
beating heart, and he turned white, “and do it naturally, too. But the
most natural thing would be to do nothing at all. Carefully do nothing
at all! No, _carefully_ would not be natural again.... Oh, well, we
shall see how it turns out.... We shall see... directly. Is it a good
thing to go or not? The butterfly flies to the light. My heart is
beating, that’s what’s bad!”

“In this grey house,” said Razumihin.

“The most important thing, does Porfiry know that I was at the old
hag’s flat yesterday... and asked about the blood? I must find that out
instantly, as soon as I go in, find out from his face; otherwise... I’ll
find out, if it’s my ruin.”

“I say, brother,” he said suddenly, addressing Razumihin, with a sly
smile, “I have been noticing all day that you seem to be curiously
excited. Isn’t it so?”

“Excited? Not a bit of it,” said Razumihin, stung to the quick.

“Yes, brother, I assure you it’s noticeable. Why, you sat on your chair
in a way you never do sit, on the edge somehow, and you seemed to be
writhing all the time. You kept jumping up for nothing. One moment you
were angry, and the next your face looked like a sweetmeat. You even
blushed; especially when you were invited to dinner, you blushed
awfully.”

“Nothing of the sort, nonsense! What do you mean?”

“But why are you wriggling out of it, like a schoolboy? By Jove, there
he’s blushing again.”

“What a pig you are!”

“But why are you so shamefaced about it? Romeo! Stay, I’ll tell of you
to-day. Ha-ha-ha! I’ll make mother laugh, and someone else, too...”

“Listen, listen, listen, this is serious.... What next, you fiend!”
 Razumihin was utterly overwhelmed, turning cold with horror. “What will
you tell them? Come, brother... foo! what a pig you are!”

“You are like a summer rose. And if only you knew how it suits you; a
Romeo over six foot high! And how you’ve washed to-day--you cleaned your
nails, I declare. Eh? That’s something unheard of! Why, I do believe
you’ve got pomatum on your hair! Bend down.”

“Pig!”

Raskolnikov laughed as though he could not restrain himself. So
laughing, they entered Porfiry Petrovitch’s flat. This is what
Raskolnikov wanted: from within they could be heard laughing as they
came in, still guffawing in the passage.

“Not a word here or I’ll... brain you!” Razumihin whispered furiously,
seizing Raskolnikov by the shoulder.



CHAPTER V

Raskolnikov was already entering the room. He came in looking as though
he had the utmost difficulty not to burst out laughing again. Behind him
Razumihin strode in gawky and awkward, shamefaced and red as a peony,
with an utterly crestfallen and ferocious expression. His face and
whole figure really were ridiculous at that moment and amply justified
Raskolnikov’s laughter. Raskolnikov, not waiting for an introduction,
bowed to Porfiry Petrovitch, who stood in the middle of the room
looking inquiringly at them. He held out his hand and shook hands, still
apparently making desperate efforts to subdue his mirth and utter a few
words to introduce himself. But he had no sooner succeeded in assuming
a serious air and muttering something when he suddenly glanced again as
though accidentally at Razumihin, and could no longer control himself:
his stifled laughter broke out the more irresistibly the more he tried
to restrain it. The extraordinary ferocity with which Razumihin received
this “spontaneous” mirth gave the whole scene the appearance of most
genuine fun and naturalness. Razumihin strengthened this impression as
though on purpose.

“Fool! You fiend,” he roared, waving his arm which at once struck a
little round table with an empty tea-glass on it. Everything was sent
flying and crashing.

“But why break chairs, gentlemen? You know it’s a loss to the Crown,”
 Porfiry Petrovitch quoted gaily.

Raskolnikov was still laughing, with his hand in Porfiry Petrovitch’s,
but anxious not to overdo it, awaited the right moment to put a natural
end to it. Razumihin, completely put to confusion by upsetting the table
and smashing the glass, gazed gloomily at the fragments, cursed and
turned sharply to the window where he stood looking out with his back
to the company with a fiercely scowling countenance, seeing nothing.
Porfiry Petrovitch laughed and was ready to go on laughing, but
obviously looked for explanations. Zametov had been sitting in the
corner, but he rose at the visitors’ entrance and was standing in
expectation with a smile on his lips, though he looked with surprise and
even it seemed incredulity at the whole scene and at Raskolnikov with a
certain embarrassment. Zametov’s unexpected presence struck Raskolnikov
unpleasantly.

“I’ve got to think of that,” he thought. “Excuse me, please,” he began,
affecting extreme embarrassment. “Raskolnikov.”

“Not at all, very pleasant to see you... and how pleasantly you’ve come
in.... Why, won’t he even say good-morning?” Porfiry Petrovitch nodded
at Razumihin.

“Upon my honour I don’t know why he is in such a rage with me. I only
told him as we came along that he was like Romeo... and proved it. And
that was all, I think!”

“Pig!” ejaculated Razumihin, without turning round.

“There must have been very grave grounds for it, if he is so furious at
the word,” Porfiry laughed.

“Oh, you sharp lawyer!... Damn you all!” snapped Razumihin, and suddenly
bursting out laughing himself, he went up to Porfiry with a more
cheerful face as though nothing had happened. “That’ll do! We are
all fools. To come to business. This is my friend Rodion Romanovitch
Raskolnikov; in the first place he has heard of you and wants to make
your acquaintance, and secondly, he has a little matter of business with
you. Bah! Zametov, what brought you here? Have you met before? Have you
known each other long?”

“What does this mean?” thought Raskolnikov uneasily.

Zametov seemed taken aback, but not very much so.

“Why, it was at your rooms we met yesterday,” he said easily.

“Then I have been spared the trouble. All last week he was begging me
to introduce him to you. Porfiry and you have sniffed each other out
without me. Where is your tobacco?”

Porfiry Petrovitch was wearing a dressing-gown, very clean linen, and
trodden-down slippers. He was a man of about five and thirty, short,
stout even to corpulence, and clean shaven. He wore his hair cut short
and had a large round head, particularly prominent at the back. His
soft, round, rather snub-nosed face was of a sickly yellowish colour,
but had a vigorous and rather ironical expression. It would have been
good-natured except for a look in the eyes, which shone with a watery,
mawkish light under almost white, blinking eyelashes. The expression
of those eyes was strangely out of keeping with his somewhat womanish
figure, and gave it something far more serious than could be guessed at
first sight.

As soon as Porfiry Petrovitch heard that his visitor had a little matter
of business with him, he begged him to sit down on the sofa and sat down
himself on the other end, waiting for him to explain his business, with
that careful and over-serious attention which is at once oppressive and
embarrassing, especially to a stranger, and especially if what you are
discussing is in your opinion of far too little importance for such
exceptional solemnity. But in brief and coherent phrases Raskolnikov
explained his business clearly and exactly, and was so well satisfied
with himself that he even succeeded in taking a good look at Porfiry.
Porfiry Petrovitch did not once take his eyes off him. Razumihin,
sitting opposite at the same table, listened warmly and impatiently,
looking from one to the other every moment with rather excessive
interest.

“Fool,” Raskolnikov swore to himself.

“You have to give information to the police,” Porfiry replied, with a
most businesslike air, “that having learnt of this incident, that is of
the murder, you beg to inform the lawyer in charge of the case that such
and such things belong to you, and that you desire to redeem them...
or... but they will write to you.”

“That’s just the point, that at the present moment,” Raskolnikov tried
his utmost to feign embarrassment, “I am not quite in funds... and
even this trifling sum is beyond me... I only wanted, you see, for
the present to declare that the things are mine, and that when I have
money....”

“That’s no matter,” answered Porfiry Petrovitch, receiving his
explanation of his pecuniary position coldly, “but you can, if you
prefer, write straight to me, to say, that having been informed of the
matter, and claiming such and such as your property, you beg...”

“On an ordinary sheet of paper?” Raskolnikov interrupted eagerly, again
interested in the financial side of the question.

“Oh, the most ordinary,” and suddenly Porfiry Petrovitch looked with
obvious irony at him, screwing up his eyes and, as it were, winking at
him. But perhaps it was Raskolnikov’s fancy, for it all lasted but a
moment. There was certainly something of the sort, Raskolnikov could
have sworn he winked at him, goodness knows why.

“He knows,” flashed through his mind like lightning.

“Forgive my troubling you about such trifles,” he went on, a little
disconcerted, “the things are only worth five roubles, but I prize them
particularly for the sake of those from whom they came to me, and I must
confess that I was alarmed when I heard...”

“That’s why you were so much struck when I mentioned to Zossimov that
Porfiry was inquiring for everyone who had pledges!” Razumihin put in
with obvious intention.

This was really unbearable. Raskolnikov could not help glancing at him
with a flash of vindictive anger in his black eyes, but immediately
recollected himself.

“You seem to be jeering at me, brother?” he said to him, with a
well-feigned irritability. “I dare say I do seem to you absurdly anxious
about such trash; but you mustn’t think me selfish or grasping for that,
and these two things may be anything but trash in my eyes. I told you
just now that the silver watch, though it’s not worth a cent, is the
only thing left us of my father’s. You may laugh at me, but my mother is
here,” he turned suddenly to Porfiry, “and if she knew,” he turned again
hurriedly to Razumihin, carefully making his voice tremble, “that the
watch was lost, she would be in despair! You know what women are!”

“Not a bit of it! I didn’t mean that at all! Quite the contrary!”
 shouted Razumihin distressed.

“Was it right? Was it natural? Did I overdo it?” Raskolnikov asked
himself in a tremor. “Why did I say that about women?”

“Oh, your mother is with you?” Porfiry Petrovitch inquired.

“Yes.”

“When did she come?”

“Last night.”

Porfiry paused as though reflecting.

“Your things would not in any case be lost,” he went on calmly and
coldly. “I have been expecting you here for some time.”

And as though that was a matter of no importance, he carefully offered
the ash-tray to Razumihin, who was ruthlessly scattering cigarette ash
over the carpet. Raskolnikov shuddered, but Porfiry did not seem to be
looking at him, and was still concerned with Razumihin’s cigarette.

“What? Expecting him? Why, did you know that he had pledges _there_?”
 cried Razumihin.

Porfiry Petrovitch addressed himself to Raskolnikov.

“Your things, the ring and the watch, were wrapped up together, and on
the paper your name was legibly written in pencil, together with the
date on which you left them with her...”

“How observant you are!” Raskolnikov smiled awkwardly, doing his very
utmost to look him straight in the face, but he failed, and suddenly
added:

“I say that because I suppose there were a great many pledges... that it
must be difficult to remember them all.... But you remember them all so
clearly, and... and...”

“Stupid! Feeble!” he thought. “Why did I add that?”

“But we know all who had pledges, and you are the only one who hasn’t
come forward,” Porfiry answered with hardly perceptible irony.

“I haven’t been quite well.”

“I heard that too. I heard, indeed, that you were in great distress
about something. You look pale still.”

“I am not pale at all.... No, I am quite well,” Raskolnikov snapped
out rudely and angrily, completely changing his tone. His anger was
mounting, he could not repress it. “And in my anger I shall betray
myself,” flashed through his mind again. “Why are they torturing me?”

“Not quite well!” Razumihin caught him up. “What next! He was
unconscious and delirious all yesterday. Would you believe, Porfiry, as
soon as our backs were turned, he dressed, though he could hardly stand,
and gave us the slip and went off on a spree somewhere till midnight,
delirious all the time! Would you believe it! Extraordinary!”

“Really delirious? You don’t say so!” Porfiry shook his head in a
womanish way.

“Nonsense! Don’t you believe it! But you don’t believe it anyway,”
 Raskolnikov let slip in his anger. But Porfiry Petrovitch did not seem
to catch those strange words.

“But how could you have gone out if you hadn’t been delirious?”
 Razumihin got hot suddenly. “What did you go out for? What was the
object of it? And why on the sly? Were you in your senses when you did
it? Now that all danger is over I can speak plainly.”

“I was awfully sick of them yesterday.” Raskolnikov addressed Porfiry
suddenly with a smile of insolent defiance, “I ran away from them to
take lodgings where they wouldn’t find me, and took a lot of money with
me. Mr. Zametov there saw it. I say, Mr. Zametov, was I sensible or
delirious yesterday; settle our dispute.”

He could have strangled Zametov at that moment, so hateful were his
expression and his silence to him.

“In my opinion you talked sensibly and even artfully, but you were
extremely irritable,” Zametov pronounced dryly.

“And Nikodim Fomitch was telling me to-day,” put in Porfiry Petrovitch,
“that he met you very late last night in the lodging of a man who had
been run over.”

“And there,” said Razumihin, “weren’t you mad then? You gave your last
penny to the widow for the funeral. If you wanted to help, give fifteen
or twenty even, but keep three roubles for yourself at least, but he
flung away all the twenty-five at once!”

“Maybe I found a treasure somewhere and you know nothing of it? So
that’s why I was liberal yesterday.... Mr. Zametov knows I’ve found a
treasure! Excuse us, please, for disturbing you for half an hour
with such trivialities,” he said, turning to Porfiry Petrovitch, with
trembling lips. “We are boring you, aren’t we?”

“Oh no, quite the contrary, quite the contrary! If only you knew how you
interest me! It’s interesting to look on and listen... and I am really
glad you have come forward at last.”

“But you might give us some tea! My throat’s dry,” cried Razumihin.

“Capital idea! Perhaps we will all keep you company. Wouldn’t you
like... something more essential before tea?”

“Get along with you!”

Porfiry Petrovitch went out to order tea.

Raskolnikov’s thoughts were in a whirl. He was in terrible exasperation.

“The worst of it is they don’t disguise it; they don’t care to stand on
ceremony! And how if you didn’t know me at all, did you come to talk
to Nikodim Fomitch about me? So they don’t care to hide that they are
tracking me like a pack of dogs. They simply spit in my face.” He was
shaking with rage. “Come, strike me openly, don’t play with me like a
cat with a mouse. It’s hardly civil, Porfiry Petrovitch, but perhaps I
won’t allow it! I shall get up and throw the whole truth in your ugly
faces, and you’ll see how I despise you.” He could hardly breathe.
“And what if it’s only my fancy? What if I am mistaken, and through
inexperience I get angry and don’t keep up my nasty part? Perhaps it’s
all unintentional. All their phrases are the usual ones, but there is
something about them.... It all might be said, but there is something.
Why did he say bluntly, ‘With her’? Why did Zametov add that I spoke
artfully? Why do they speak in that tone? Yes, the tone.... Razumihin
is sitting here, why does he see nothing? That innocent blockhead never
does see anything! Feverish again! Did Porfiry wink at me just now? Of
course it’s nonsense! What could he wink for? Are they trying to upset
my nerves or are they teasing me? Either it’s ill fancy or they know!
Even Zametov is rude.... Is Zametov rude? Zametov has changed his mind.
I foresaw he would change his mind! He is at home here, while it’s my
first visit. Porfiry does not consider him a visitor; sits with his back
to him. They’re as thick as thieves, no doubt, over me! Not a doubt they
were talking about me before we came. Do they know about the flat? If
only they’d make haste! When I said that I ran away to take a flat he
let it pass.... I put that in cleverly about a flat, it may be of use
afterwards.... Delirious, indeed... ha-ha-ha! He knows all about last
night! He didn’t know of my mother’s arrival! The hag had written the
date on in pencil! You are wrong, you won’t catch me! There are no
facts... it’s all supposition! You produce facts! The flat even isn’t a
fact but delirium. I know what to say to them.... Do they know about the
flat? I won’t go without finding out. What did I come for? But my being
angry now, maybe is a fact! Fool, how irritable I am! Perhaps that’s
right; to play the invalid.... He is feeling me. He will try to catch
me. Why did I come?”

All this flashed like lightning through his mind.

Porfiry Petrovitch returned quickly. He became suddenly more jovial.

“Your party yesterday, brother, has left my head rather.... And I am out
of sorts altogether,” he began in quite a different tone, laughing to
Razumihin.

“Was it interesting? I left you yesterday at the most interesting point.
Who got the best of it?”

“Oh, no one, of course. They got on to everlasting questions, floated
off into space.”

“Only fancy, Rodya, what we got on to yesterday. Whether there is such a
thing as crime. I told you that we talked our heads off.”

“What is there strange? It’s an everyday social question,” Raskolnikov
answered casually.

“The question wasn’t put quite like that,” observed Porfiry.

“Not quite, that’s true,” Razumihin agreed at once, getting warm and
hurried as usual. “Listen, Rodion, and tell us your opinion, I want to
hear it. I was fighting tooth and nail with them and wanted you to
help me. I told them you were coming.... It began with the socialist
doctrine. You know their doctrine; crime is a protest against the
abnormality of the social organisation and nothing more, and nothing
more; no other causes admitted!...”

“You are wrong there,” cried Porfiry Petrovitch; he was noticeably
animated and kept laughing as he looked at Razumihin, which made him
more excited than ever.

“Nothing is admitted,” Razumihin interrupted with heat.

“I am not wrong. I’ll show you their pamphlets. Everything with them
is ‘the influence of environment,’ and nothing else. Their favourite
phrase! From which it follows that, if society is normally organised,
all crime will cease at once, since there will be nothing to protest
against and all men will become righteous in one instant. Human nature
is not taken into account, it is excluded, it’s not supposed to exist!
They don’t recognise that humanity, developing by a historical living
process, will become at last a normal society, but they believe that a
social system that has come out of some mathematical brain is going
to organise all humanity at once and make it just and sinless in an
instant, quicker than any living process! That’s why they instinctively
dislike history, ‘nothing but ugliness and stupidity in it,’ and they
explain it all as stupidity! That’s why they so dislike the _living_
process of life; they don’t want a _living soul_! The living soul
demands life, the soul won’t obey the rules of mechanics, the soul is an
object of suspicion, the soul is retrograde! But what they want though
it smells of death and can be made of India-rubber, at least is not
alive, has no will, is servile and won’t revolt! And it comes in the end
to their reducing everything to the building of walls and the planning
of rooms and passages in a phalanstery! The phalanstery is ready,
indeed, but your human nature is not ready for the phalanstery--it
wants life, it hasn’t completed its vital process, it’s too soon for the
graveyard! You can’t skip over nature by logic. Logic presupposes three
possibilities, but there are millions! Cut away a million, and reduce
it all to the question of comfort! That’s the easiest solution of the
problem! It’s seductively clear and you musn’t think about it. That’s
the great thing, you mustn’t think! The whole secret of life in two
pages of print!”

“Now he is off, beating the drum! Catch hold of him, do!” laughed
Porfiry. “Can you imagine,” he turned to Raskolnikov, “six people
holding forth like that last night, in one room, with punch as a
preliminary! No, brother, you are wrong, environment accounts for a
great deal in crime; I can assure you of that.”

“Oh, I know it does, but just tell me: a man of forty violates a child
of ten; was it environment drove him to it?”

“Well, strictly speaking, it did,” Porfiry observed with noteworthy
gravity; “a crime of that nature may be very well ascribed to the
influence of environment.”

Razumihin was almost in a frenzy. “Oh, if you like,” he roared. “I’ll
prove to you that your white eyelashes may very well be ascribed to the
Church of Ivan the Great’s being two hundred and fifty feet high, and I
will prove it clearly, exactly, progressively, and even with a Liberal
tendency! I undertake to! Will you bet on it?”

“Done! Let’s hear, please, how he will prove it!”

“He is always humbugging, confound him,” cried Razumihin, jumping up and
gesticulating. “What’s the use of talking to you? He does all that
on purpose; you don’t know him, Rodion! He took their side yesterday,
simply to make fools of them. And the things he said yesterday! And they
were delighted! He can keep it up for a fortnight together. Last year he
persuaded us that he was going into a monastery: he stuck to it for two
months. Not long ago he took it into his head to declare he was going
to get married, that he had everything ready for the wedding. He ordered
new clothes indeed. We all began to congratulate him. There was no
bride, nothing, all pure fantasy!”

“Ah, you are wrong! I got the clothes before. It was the new clothes in
fact that made me think of taking you in.”

“Are you such a good dissembler?” Raskolnikov asked carelessly.

“You wouldn’t have supposed it, eh? Wait a bit, I shall take you in,
too. Ha-ha-ha! No, I’ll tell you the truth. All these questions about
crime, environment, children, recall to my mind an article of yours
which interested me at the time. ‘On Crime’... or something of the
sort, I forget the title, I read it with pleasure two months ago in the
_Periodical Review_.”

“My article? In the _Periodical Review_?” Raskolnikov asked in
astonishment. “I certainly did write an article upon a book six months
ago when I left the university, but I sent it to the _Weekly Review_.”

“But it came out in the _Periodical_.”

“And the _Weekly Review_ ceased to exist, so that’s why it wasn’t
printed at the time.”

“That’s true; but when it ceased to exist, the _Weekly Review_ was
amalgamated with the _Periodical_, and so your article appeared two
months ago in the latter. Didn’t you know?”

Raskolnikov had not known.

“Why, you might get some money out of them for the article! What a
strange person you are! You lead such a solitary life that you know
nothing of matters that concern you directly. It’s a fact, I assure
you.”

“Bravo, Rodya! I knew nothing about it either!” cried Razumihin. “I’ll
run to-day to the reading-room and ask for the number. Two months ago?
What was the date? It doesn’t matter though, I will find it. Think of
not telling us!”

“How did you find out that the article was mine? It’s only signed with
an initial.”

“I only learnt it by chance, the other day. Through the editor; I know
him.... I was very much interested.”

“I analysed, if I remember, the psychology of a criminal before and
after the crime.”

“Yes, and you maintained that the perpetration of a crime is always
accompanied by illness. Very, very original, but... it was not that part
of your article that interested me so much, but an idea at the end of
the article which I regret to say you merely suggested without working
it out clearly. There is, if you recollect, a suggestion that there are
certain persons who can... that is, not precisely are able to, but have
a perfect right to commit breaches of morality and crimes, and that the
law is not for them.”

Raskolnikov smiled at the exaggerated and intentional distortion of his
idea.

“What? What do you mean? A right to crime? But not because of the
influence of environment?” Razumihin inquired with some alarm even.

“No, not exactly because of it,” answered Porfiry. “In his article all
men are divided into ‘ordinary’ and ‘extraordinary.’ Ordinary men have
to live in submission, have no right to transgress the law, because,
don’t you see, they are ordinary. But extraordinary men have a right to
commit any crime and to transgress the law in any way, just because they
are extraordinary. That was your idea, if I am not mistaken?”

“What do you mean? That can’t be right?” Razumihin muttered in
bewilderment.

Raskolnikov smiled again. He saw the point at once, and knew where they
wanted to drive him. He decided to take up the challenge.

“That wasn’t quite my contention,” he began simply and modestly. “Yet
I admit that you have stated it almost correctly; perhaps, if you like,
perfectly so.” (It almost gave him pleasure to admit this.) “The only
difference is that I don’t contend that extraordinary people are always
bound to commit breaches of morals, as you call it. In fact, I doubt
whether such an argument could be published. I simply hinted that an
‘extraordinary’ man has the right... that is not an official right, but
an inner right to decide in his own conscience to overstep... certain
obstacles, and only in case it is essential for the practical fulfilment
of his idea (sometimes, perhaps, of benefit to the whole of humanity).
You say that my article isn’t definite; I am ready to make it as clear
as I can. Perhaps I am right in thinking you want me to; very well. I
maintain that if the discoveries of Kepler and Newton could not have
been made known except by sacrificing the lives of one, a dozen, a
hundred, or more men, Newton would have had the right, would indeed have
been in duty-bound... to _eliminate_ the dozen or the hundred men for
the sake of making his discoveries known to the whole of humanity. But
it does not follow from that that Newton had a right to murder people
right and left and to steal every day in the market. Then, I remember, I
maintain in my article that all... well, legislators and leaders of men,
such as Lycurgus, Solon, Mahomet, Napoleon, and so on, were all without
exception criminals, from the very fact that, making a new law, they
transgressed the ancient one, handed down from their ancestors and held
sacred by the people, and they did not stop short at bloodshed either,
if that bloodshed--often of innocent persons fighting bravely in defence
of ancient law--were of use to their cause. It’s remarkable, in fact,
that the majority, indeed, of these benefactors and leaders of humanity
were guilty of terrible carnage. In short, I maintain that all great men
or even men a little out of the common, that is to say capable of giving
some new word, must from their very nature be criminals--more or less,
of course. Otherwise it’s hard for them to get out of the common rut;
and to remain in the common rut is what they can’t submit to, from their
very nature again, and to my mind they ought not, indeed, to submit to
it. You see that there is nothing particularly new in all that. The
same thing has been printed and read a thousand times before. As for my
division of people into ordinary and extraordinary, I acknowledge that
it’s somewhat arbitrary, but I don’t insist upon exact numbers. I only
believe in my leading idea that men are _in general_ divided by a law
of nature into two categories, inferior (ordinary), that is, so to say,
material that serves only to reproduce its kind, and men who have
the gift or the talent to utter _a new word_. There are, of course,
innumerable sub-divisions, but the distinguishing features of both
categories are fairly well marked. The first category, generally
speaking, are men conservative in temperament and law-abiding; they live
under control and love to be controlled. To my thinking it is their duty
to be controlled, because that’s their vocation, and there is nothing
humiliating in it for them. The second category all transgress the
law; they are destroyers or disposed to destruction according to their
capacities. The crimes of these men are of course relative and varied;
for the most part they seek in very varied ways the destruction of the
present for the sake of the better. But if such a one is forced for the
sake of his idea to step over a corpse or wade through blood, he can, I
maintain, find within himself, in his conscience, a sanction for wading
through blood--that depends on the idea and its dimensions, note that.
It’s only in that sense I speak of their right to crime in my article
(you remember it began with the legal question). There’s no need for
such anxiety, however; the masses will scarcely ever admit this right,
they punish them or hang them (more or less), and in doing so fulfil
quite justly their conservative vocation. But the same masses set these
criminals on a pedestal in the next generation and worship them (more or
less). The first category is always the man of the present, the second
the man of the future. The first preserve the world and people it, the
second move the world and lead it to its goal. Each class has an equal
right to exist. In fact, all have equal rights with me--and _vive la
guerre éternelle_--till the New Jerusalem, of course!”

“Then you believe in the New Jerusalem, do you?”

“I do,” Raskolnikov answered firmly; as he said these words and during
the whole preceding tirade he kept his eyes on one spot on the carpet.

“And... and do you believe in God? Excuse my curiosity.”

“I do,” repeated Raskolnikov, raising his eyes to Porfiry.

“And... do you believe in Lazarus’ rising from the dead?”

“I... I do. Why do you ask all this?”

“You believe it literally?”

“Literally.”

“You don’t say so.... I asked from curiosity. Excuse me. But let us
go back to the question; they are not always executed. Some, on the
contrary...”

“Triumph in their lifetime? Oh, yes, some attain their ends in this
life, and then...”

“They begin executing other people?”

“If it’s necessary; indeed, for the most part they do. Your remark is
very witty.”

“Thank you. But tell me this: how do you distinguish those extraordinary
people from the ordinary ones? Are there signs at their birth? I feel
there ought to be more exactitude, more external definition. Excuse the
natural anxiety of a practical law-abiding citizen, but couldn’t they
adopt a special uniform, for instance, couldn’t they wear something, be
branded in some way? For you know if confusion arises and a member of
one category imagines that he belongs to the other, begins to ‘eliminate
obstacles’ as you so happily expressed it, then...”

“Oh, that very often happens! That remark is wittier than the other.”

“Thank you.”

“No reason to; but take note that the mistake can only arise in
the first category, that is among the ordinary people (as I perhaps
unfortunately called them). In spite of their predisposition to
obedience very many of them, through a playfulness of nature, sometimes
vouchsafed even to the cow, like to imagine themselves advanced people,
‘destroyers,’ and to push themselves into the ‘new movement,’ and
this quite sincerely. Meanwhile the really _new_ people are very often
unobserved by them, or even despised as reactionaries of grovelling
tendencies. But I don’t think there is any considerable danger here,
and you really need not be uneasy for they never go very far. Of course,
they might have a thrashing sometimes for letting their fancy run away
with them and to teach them their place, but no more; in fact, even
this isn’t necessary as they castigate themselves, for they are very
conscientious: some perform this service for one another and others
chastise themselves with their own hands.... They will impose various
public acts of penitence upon themselves with a beautiful and edifying
effect; in fact you’ve nothing to be uneasy about.... It’s a law of
nature.”

“Well, you have certainly set my mind more at rest on that score; but
there’s another thing worries me. Tell me, please, are there many people
who have the right to kill others, these extraordinary people? I am
ready to bow down to them, of course, but you must admit it’s alarming
if there are a great many of them, eh?”

“Oh, you needn’t worry about that either,” Raskolnikov went on in the
same tone. “People with new ideas, people with the faintest capacity for
saying something _new_, are extremely few in number, extraordinarily
so in fact. One thing only is clear, that the appearance of all these
grades and sub-divisions of men must follow with unfailing regularity
some law of nature. That law, of course, is unknown at present, but I am
convinced that it exists, and one day may become known. The vast mass of
mankind is mere material, and only exists in order by some great effort,
by some mysterious process, by means of some crossing of races and
stocks, to bring into the world at last perhaps one man out of a
thousand with a spark of independence. One in ten thousand perhaps--I
speak roughly, approximately--is born with some independence, and with
still greater independence one in a hundred thousand. The man of genius
is one of millions, and the great geniuses, the crown of humanity,
appear on earth perhaps one in many thousand millions. In fact I have
not peeped into the retort in which all this takes place. But there
certainly is and must be a definite law, it cannot be a matter of
chance.”

“Why, are you both joking?” Razumihin cried at last. “There you sit,
making fun of one another. Are you serious, Rodya?”

Raskolnikov raised his pale and almost mournful face and made no reply.
And the unconcealed, persistent, nervous, and _discourteous_ sarcasm of
Porfiry seemed strange to Razumihin beside that quiet and mournful face.

“Well, brother, if you are really serious... You are right, of course,
in saying that it’s not new, that it’s like what we’ve read and heard a
thousand times already; but what is really original in all this, and is
exclusively your own, to my horror, is that you sanction bloodshed
_in the name of conscience_, and, excuse my saying so, with such
fanaticism.... That, I take it, is the point of your article. But that
sanction of bloodshed _by conscience_ is to my mind... more terrible
than the official, legal sanction of bloodshed....”

“You are quite right, it is more terrible,” Porfiry agreed.

“Yes, you must have exaggerated! There is some mistake, I shall read it.
You can’t think that! I shall read it.”

“All that is not in the article, there’s only a hint of it,” said
Raskolnikov.

“Yes, yes.” Porfiry couldn’t sit still. “Your attitude to crime is
pretty clear to me now, but... excuse me for my impertinence (I am
really ashamed to be worrying you like this), you see, you’ve removed
my anxiety as to the two grades getting mixed, but... there are various
practical possibilities that make me uneasy! What if some man or youth
imagines that he is a Lycurgus or Mahomet--a future one of course--and
suppose he begins to remove all obstacles.... He has some great
enterprise before him and needs money for it... and tries to get it...
do you see?”

Zametov gave a sudden guffaw in his corner. Raskolnikov did not even
raise his eyes to him.

“I must admit,” he went on calmly, “that such cases certainly must
arise. The vain and foolish are particularly apt to fall into that
snare; young people especially.”

“Yes, you see. Well then?”

“What then?” Raskolnikov smiled in reply; “that’s not my fault. So it is
and so it always will be. He said just now (he nodded at Razumihin)
that I sanction bloodshed. Society is too well protected by prisons,
banishment, criminal investigators, penal servitude. There’s no need to
be uneasy. You have but to catch the thief.”

“And what if we do catch him?”

“Then he gets what he deserves.”

“You are certainly logical. But what of his conscience?”

“Why do you care about that?”

“Simply from humanity.”

“If he has a conscience he will suffer for his mistake. That will be his
punishment--as well as the prison.”

“But the real geniuses,” asked Razumihin frowning, “those who have
the right to murder? Oughtn’t they to suffer at all even for the blood
they’ve shed?”

“Why the word _ought_? It’s not a matter of permission or prohibition.
He will suffer if he is sorry for his victim. Pain and suffering are
always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The
really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth,” he added
dreamily, not in the tone of the conversation.

He raised his eyes, looked earnestly at them all, smiled, and took his
cap. He was too quiet by comparison with his manner at his entrance, and
he felt this. Everyone got up.

“Well, you may abuse me, be angry with me if you like,” Porfiry
Petrovitch began again, “but I can’t resist. Allow me one little
question (I know I am troubling you). There is just one little notion I
want to express, simply that I may not forget it.”

“Very good, tell me your little notion,” Raskolnikov stood waiting, pale
and grave before him.

“Well, you see... I really don’t know how to express it properly....
It’s a playful, psychological idea.... When you were writing your
article, surely you couldn’t have helped, he-he! fancying yourself...
just a little, an ‘extraordinary’ man, uttering a _new word_ in your
sense.... That’s so, isn’t it?”

“Quite possibly,” Raskolnikov answered contemptuously.

Razumihin made a movement.

“And, if so, could you bring yourself in case of worldly difficulties
and hardship or for some service to humanity--to overstep obstacles?...
For instance, to rob and murder?”

And again he winked with his left eye, and laughed noiselessly just as
before.

“If I did I certainly should not tell you,” Raskolnikov answered with
defiant and haughty contempt.

“No, I was only interested on account of your article, from a literary
point of view...”

“Foo! how obvious and insolent that is!” Raskolnikov thought with
repulsion.

“Allow me to observe,” he answered dryly, “that I don’t consider myself
a Mahomet or a Napoleon, nor any personage of that kind, and not being
one of them I cannot tell you how I should act.”

“Oh, come, don’t we all think ourselves Napoleons now in Russia?”
 Porfiry Petrovitch said with alarming familiarity.

Something peculiar betrayed itself in the very intonation of his voice.

“Perhaps it was one of these future Napoleons who did for Alyona
Ivanovna last week?” Zametov blurted out from the corner.

Raskolnikov did not speak, but looked firmly and intently at Porfiry.
Razumihin was scowling gloomily. He seemed before this to be noticing
something. He looked angrily around. There was a minute of gloomy
silence. Raskolnikov turned to go.

“Are you going already?” Porfiry said amiably, holding out his hand with
excessive politeness. “Very, very glad of your acquaintance. As for your
request, have no uneasiness, write just as I told you, or, better still,
come to me there yourself in a day or two... to-morrow, indeed. I shall
be there at eleven o’clock for certain. We’ll arrange it all; we’ll have
a talk. As one of the last to be _there_, you might perhaps be able to
tell us something,” he added with a most good-natured expression.

“You want to cross-examine me officially in due form?” Raskolnikov asked
sharply.

“Oh, why? That’s not necessary for the present. You misunderstand me.
I lose no opportunity, you see, and... I’ve talked with all who had
pledges.... I obtained evidence from some of them, and you are the
last.... Yes, by the way,” he cried, seemingly suddenly delighted, “I
just remember, what was I thinking of?” he turned to Razumihin, “you
were talking my ears off about that Nikolay... of course, I know, I know
very well,” he turned to Raskolnikov, “that the fellow is innocent, but
what is one to do? We had to trouble Dmitri too.... This is the point,
this is all: when you went up the stairs it was past seven, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” answered Raskolnikov, with an unpleasant sensation at the very
moment he spoke that he need not have said it.

“Then when you went upstairs between seven and eight, didn’t you see in
a flat that stood open on a second storey, do you remember? two workmen
or at least one of them? They were painting there, didn’t you notice
them? It’s very, very important for them.”

“Painters? No, I didn’t see them,” Raskolnikov answered slowly, as
though ransacking his memory, while at the same instant he was racking
every nerve, almost swooning with anxiety to conjecture as quickly as
possible where the trap lay and not to overlook anything. “No, I didn’t
see them, and I don’t think I noticed a flat like that open.... But on
the fourth storey” (he had mastered the trap now and was triumphant)
“I remember now that someone was moving out of the flat opposite Alyona
Ivanovna’s.... I remember... I remember it clearly. Some porters
were carrying out a sofa and they squeezed me against the wall. But
painters... no, I don’t remember that there were any painters, and I
don’t think that there was a flat open anywhere, no, there wasn’t.”

“What do you mean?” Razumihin shouted suddenly, as though he had
reflected and realised. “Why, it was on the day of the murder the
painters were at work, and he was there three days before? What are you
asking?”

“Foo! I have muddled it!” Porfiry slapped himself on the forehead.
“Deuce take it! This business is turning my brain!” he addressed
Raskolnikov somewhat apologetically. “It would be such a great thing for
us to find out whether anyone had seen them between seven and eight at
the flat, so I fancied you could perhaps have told us something.... I
quite muddled it.”

“Then you should be more careful,” Razumihin observed grimly.

The last words were uttered in the passage. Porfiry Petrovitch saw them
to the door with excessive politeness.

They went out into the street gloomy and sullen, and for some steps they
did not say a word. Raskolnikov drew a deep breath.



CHAPTER VI

“I don’t believe it, I can’t believe it!” repeated Razumihin, trying in
perplexity to refute Raskolnikov’s arguments.

They were by now approaching Bakaleyev’s lodgings, where Pulcheria
Alexandrovna and Dounia had been expecting them a long while. Razumihin
kept stopping on the way in the heat of discussion, confused and excited
by the very fact that they were for the first time speaking openly about
_it_.

“Don’t believe it, then!” answered Raskolnikov, with a cold, careless
smile. “You were noticing nothing as usual, but I was weighing every
word.”

“You are suspicious. That is why you weighed their words... h’m...
certainly, I agree, Porfiry’s tone was rather strange, and still
more that wretch Zametov!... You are right, there was something about
him--but why? Why?”

“He has changed his mind since last night.”

“Quite the contrary! If they had that brainless idea, they would do
their utmost to hide it, and conceal their cards, so as to catch you
afterwards.... But it was all impudent and careless.”

“If they had had facts--I mean, real facts--or at least grounds for
suspicion, then they would certainly have tried to hide their game,
in the hope of getting more (they would have made a search long ago
besides). But they have no facts, not one. It is all mirage--all
ambiguous. Simply a floating idea. So they try to throw me out by
impudence. And perhaps, he was irritated at having no facts, and blurted
it out in his vexation--or perhaps he has some plan... he seems an
intelligent man. Perhaps he wanted to frighten me by pretending to
know. They have a psychology of their own, brother. But it is loathsome
explaining it all. Stop!”

“And it’s insulting, insulting! I understand you. But... since we have
spoken openly now (and it is an excellent thing that we have at last--I
am glad) I will own now frankly that I noticed it in them long ago,
this idea. Of course the merest hint only--an insinuation--but why an
insinuation even? How dare they? What foundation have they? If only you
knew how furious I have been. Think only! Simply because a poor student,
unhinged by poverty and hypochondria, on the eve of a severe delirious
illness (note that), suspicious, vain, proud, who has not seen a soul to
speak to for six months, in rags and in boots without soles, has to
face some wretched policemen and put up with their insolence; and
the unexpected debt thrust under his nose, the I.O.U. presented
by Tchebarov, the new paint, thirty degrees Reaumur and a stifling
atmosphere, a crowd of people, the talk about the murder of a person
where he had been just before, and all that on an empty stomach--he
might well have a fainting fit! And that, that is what they found it
all on! Damn them! I understand how annoying it is, but in your place,
Rodya, I would laugh at them, or better still, spit in their ugly faces,
and spit a dozen times in all directions. I’d hit out in all
directions, neatly too, and so I’d put an end to it. Damn them! Don’t be
downhearted. It’s a shame!”

“He really has put it well, though,” Raskolnikov thought.

“Damn them? But the cross-examination again, to-morrow?” he said with
bitterness. “Must I really enter into explanations with them? I feel
vexed as it is, that I condescended to speak to Zametov yesterday in the
restaurant....”

“Damn it! I will go myself to Porfiry. I will squeeze it out of him, as
one of the family: he must let me know the ins and outs of it all! And
as for Zametov...”

“At last he sees through him!” thought Raskolnikov.

“Stay!” cried Razumihin, seizing him by the shoulder again. “Stay! you
were wrong. I have thought it out. You are wrong! How was that a trap?
You say that the question about the workmen was a trap. But if you had
done _that_, could you have said you had seen them painting the flat...
and the workmen? On the contrary, you would have seen nothing, even if
you had seen it. Who would own it against himself?”

“If I had done _that thing_, I should certainly have said that I had
seen the workmen and the flat,” Raskolnikov answered, with reluctance
and obvious disgust.

“But why speak against yourself?”

“Because only peasants, or the most inexperienced novices deny
everything flatly at examinations. If a man is ever so little developed
and experienced, he will certainly try to admit all the external facts
that can’t be avoided, but will seek other explanations of them, will
introduce some special, unexpected turn, that will give them another
significance and put them in another light. Porfiry might well reckon
that I should be sure to answer so, and say I had seen them to give an
air of truth, and then make some explanation.”

“But he would have told you at once that the workmen could not have been
there two days before, and that therefore you must have been there on
the day of the murder at eight o’clock. And so he would have caught you
over a detail.”

“Yes, that is what he was reckoning on, that I should not have time to
reflect, and should be in a hurry to make the most likely answer, and
so would forget that the workmen could not have been there two days
before.”

“But how could you forget it?”

“Nothing easier. It is in just such stupid things clever people are most
easily caught. The more cunning a man is, the less he suspects that he
will be caught in a simple thing. The more cunning a man is, the simpler
the trap he must be caught in. Porfiry is not such a fool as you
think....”

“He is a knave then, if that is so!”

Raskolnikov could not help laughing. But at the very moment, he was
struck by the strangeness of his own frankness, and the eagerness
with which he had made this explanation, though he had kept up all the
preceding conversation with gloomy repulsion, obviously with a motive,
from necessity.

“I am getting a relish for certain aspects!” he thought to himself.
But almost at the same instant he became suddenly uneasy, as though an
unexpected and alarming idea had occurred to him. His uneasiness kept on
increasing. They had just reached the entrance to Bakaleyev’s.

“Go in alone!” said Raskolnikov suddenly. “I will be back directly.”

“Where are you going? Why, we are just here.”

“I can’t help it.... I will come in half an hour. Tell them.”

“Say what you like, I will come with you.”

“You, too, want to torture me!” he screamed, with such bitter
irritation, such despair in his eyes that Razumihin’s hands dropped.
He stood for some time on the steps, looking gloomily at Raskolnikov
striding rapidly away in the direction of his lodging. At last, gritting
his teeth and clenching his fist, he swore he would squeeze Porfiry
like a lemon that very day, and went up the stairs to reassure Pulcheria
Alexandrovna, who was by now alarmed at their long absence.

When Raskolnikov got home, his hair was soaked with sweat and he was
breathing heavily. He went rapidly up the stairs, walked into his
unlocked room and at once fastened the latch. Then in senseless terror
he rushed to the corner, to that hole under the paper where he had put
the things; put his hand in, and for some minutes felt carefully in the
hole, in every crack and fold of the paper. Finding nothing, he got up
and drew a deep breath. As he was reaching the steps of Bakaleyev’s, he
suddenly fancied that something, a chain, a stud or even a bit of paper
in which they had been wrapped with the old woman’s handwriting on it,
might somehow have slipped out and been lost in some crack, and then
might suddenly turn up as unexpected, conclusive evidence against him.

He stood as though lost in thought, and a strange, humiliated, half
senseless smile strayed on his lips. He took his cap at last and went
quietly out of the room. His ideas were all tangled. He went dreamily
through the gateway.

“Here he is himself,” shouted a loud voice.

He raised his head.

The porter was standing at the door of his little room and was pointing
him out to a short man who looked like an artisan, wearing a long coat
and a waistcoat, and looking at a distance remarkably like a woman. He
stooped, and his head in a greasy cap hung forward. From his wrinkled
flabby face he looked over fifty; his little eyes were lost in fat and
they looked out grimly, sternly and discontentedly.

“What is it?” Raskolnikov asked, going up to the porter.

The man stole a look at him from under his brows and he looked at him
attentively, deliberately; then he turned slowly and went out of the
gate into the street without saying a word.

“What is it?” cried Raskolnikov.

“Why, he there was asking whether a student lived here, mentioned your
name and whom you lodged with. I saw you coming and pointed you out and
he went away. It’s funny.”

The porter too seemed rather puzzled, but not much so, and after
wondering for a moment he turned and went back to his room.

Raskolnikov ran after the stranger, and at once caught sight of
him walking along the other side of the street with the same even,
deliberate step with his eyes fixed on the ground, as though in
meditation. He soon overtook him, but for some time walked behind him.
At last, moving on to a level with him, he looked at his face. The man
noticed him at once, looked at him quickly, but dropped his eyes again;
and so they walked for a minute side by side without uttering a word.

“You were inquiring for me... of the porter?” Raskolnikov said at last,
but in a curiously quiet voice.

The man made no answer; he didn’t even look at him. Again they were both
silent.

“Why do you... come and ask for me... and say nothing.... What’s the
meaning of it?”

Raskolnikov’s voice broke and he seemed unable to articulate the words
clearly.

The man raised his eyes this time and turned a gloomy sinister look at
Raskolnikov.

“Murderer!” he said suddenly in a quiet but clear and distinct voice.

Raskolnikov went on walking beside him. His legs felt suddenly weak, a
cold shiver ran down his spine, and his heart seemed to stand still for
a moment, then suddenly began throbbing as though it were set free. So
they walked for about a hundred paces, side by side in silence.

The man did not look at him.

“What do you mean... what is.... Who is a murderer?” muttered
Raskolnikov hardly audibly.

“_You_ are a murderer,” the man answered still more articulately and
emphatically, with a smile of triumphant hatred, and again he looked
straight into Raskolnikov’s pale face and stricken eyes.

They had just reached the cross-roads. The man turned to the left
without looking behind him. Raskolnikov remained standing, gazing after
him. He saw him turn round fifty paces away and look back at him still
standing there. Raskolnikov could not see clearly, but he fancied that
he was again smiling the same smile of cold hatred and triumph.

With slow faltering steps, with shaking knees, Raskolnikov made his way
back to his little garret, feeling chilled all over. He took off his cap
and put it on the table, and for ten minutes he stood without moving.
Then he sank exhausted on the sofa and with a weak moan of pain he
stretched himself on it. So he lay for half an hour.

He thought of nothing. Some thoughts or fragments of thoughts, some
images without order or coherence floated before his mind--faces of
people he had seen in his childhood or met somewhere once, whom he would
never have recalled, the belfry of the church at V., the billiard table
in a restaurant and some officers playing billiards, the smell of cigars
in some underground tobacco shop, a tavern room, a back staircase quite
dark, all sloppy with dirty water and strewn with egg-shells, and the
Sunday bells floating in from somewhere.... The images followed one
another, whirling like a hurricane. Some of them he liked and tried
to clutch at, but they faded and all the while there was an oppression
within him, but it was not overwhelming, sometimes it was even
pleasant.... The slight shivering still persisted, but that too
was an almost pleasant sensation.

He heard the hurried footsteps of Razumihin; he closed his eyes and
pretended to be asleep. Razumihin opened the door and stood for some
time in the doorway as though hesitating, then he stepped softly into
the room and went cautiously to the sofa. Raskolnikov heard Nastasya’s
whisper:

“Don’t disturb him! Let him sleep. He can have his dinner later.”

“Quite so,” answered Razumihin. Both withdrew carefully and closed the
door. Another half-hour passed. Raskolnikov opened his eyes, turned on
his back again, clasping his hands behind his head.

“Who is he? Who is that man who sprang out of the earth? Where was he,
what did he see? He has seen it all, that’s clear. Where was he then?
And from where did he see? Why has he only now sprung out of the earth?
And how could he see? Is it possible? Hm...” continued Raskolnikov,
turning cold and shivering, “and the jewel case Nikolay found behind the
door--was that possible? A clue? You miss an infinitesimal line and you
can build it into a pyramid of evidence! A fly flew by and saw it! Is it
possible?” He felt with sudden loathing how weak, how physically weak he
had become. “I ought to have known it,” he thought with a bitter smile.
“And how dared I, knowing myself, knowing how I should be, take up an
axe and shed blood! I ought to have known beforehand.... Ah, but I did
know!” he whispered in despair. At times he came to a standstill at some
thought.

“No, those men are not made so. The real _Master_ to whom all is
permitted storms Toulon, makes a massacre in Paris, _forgets_ an army in
Egypt, _wastes_ half a million men in the Moscow expedition and gets off
with a jest at Vilna. And altars are set up to him after his death, and
so _all_ is permitted. No, such people, it seems, are not of flesh but
of bronze!”

One sudden irrelevant idea almost made him laugh. Napoleon, the
pyramids, Waterloo, and a wretched skinny old woman, a pawnbroker with
a red trunk under her bed--it’s a nice hash for Porfiry Petrovitch to
digest! How can they digest it! It’s too inartistic. “A Napoleon creep
under an old woman’s bed! Ugh, how loathsome!”

At moments he felt he was raving. He sank into a state of feverish
excitement. “The old woman is of no consequence,” he thought, hotly and
incoherently. “The old woman was a mistake perhaps, but she is not
what matters! The old woman was only an illness.... I was in a hurry to
overstep.... I didn’t kill a human being, but a principle! I killed the
principle, but I didn’t overstep, I stopped on this side.... I was
only capable of killing. And it seems I wasn’t even capable of that...
Principle? Why was that fool Razumihin abusing the socialists? They are
industrious, commercial people; ‘the happiness of all’ is their case.
No, life is only given to me once and I shall never have it again; I
don’t want to wait for ‘the happiness of all.’ I want to live myself,
or else better not live at all. I simply couldn’t pass by my mother
starving, keeping my rouble in my pocket while I waited for the
‘happiness of all.’ I am putting my little brick into the happiness of
all and so my heart is at peace. Ha-ha! Why have you let me slip? I only
live once, I too want.... Ech, I am an æsthetic louse and nothing
more,” he added suddenly, laughing like a madman. “Yes, I am certainly a
louse,” he went on, clutching at the idea, gloating over it and playing
with it with vindictive pleasure. “In the first place, because I can
reason that I am one, and secondly, because for a month past I have been
troubling benevolent Providence, calling it to witness that not for
my own fleshly lusts did I undertake it, but with a grand and noble
object--ha-ha! Thirdly, because I aimed at carrying it out as justly as
possible, weighing, measuring and calculating. Of all the lice I picked
out the most useless one and proposed to take from her only as much as I
needed for the first step, no more nor less (so the rest would have gone
to a monastery, according to her will, ha-ha!). And what shows that I
am utterly a louse,” he added, grinding his teeth, “is that I am
perhaps viler and more loathsome than the louse I killed, and _I felt
beforehand_ that I should tell myself so _after_ killing her. Can
anything be compared with the horror of that? The vulgarity! The
abjectness! I understand the ‘prophet’ with his sabre, on his steed:
Allah commands and ‘trembling’ creation must obey! The ‘prophet’ is
right, he is right when he sets a battery across the street and blows up
the innocent and the guilty without deigning to explain! It’s for you to
obey, trembling creation, and not _to have desires_, for that’s not for
you!... I shall never, never forgive the old woman!”

His hair was soaked with sweat, his quivering lips were parched, his
eyes were fixed on the ceiling.

“Mother, sister--how I loved them! Why do I hate them now? Yes, I hate
them, I feel a physical hatred for them, I can’t bear them near me....
I went up to my mother and kissed her, I remember.... To embrace her
and think if she only knew... shall I tell her then? That’s just what
I might do.... _She_ must be the same as I am,” he added, straining
himself to think, as it were struggling with delirium. “Ah, how I hate
the old woman now! I feel I should kill her again if she came to life!
Poor Lizaveta! Why did she come in?... It’s strange though, why is it
I scarcely ever think of her, as though I hadn’t killed her? Lizaveta!
Sonia! Poor gentle things, with gentle eyes.... Dear women! Why don’t
they weep? Why don’t they moan? They give up everything... their eyes
are soft and gentle.... Sonia, Sonia! Gentle Sonia!”

He lost consciousness; it seemed strange to him that he didn’t remember
how he got into the street. It was late evening. The twilight had fallen
and the full moon was shining more and more brightly; but there was a
peculiar breathlessness in the air. There were crowds of people in the
street; workmen and business people were making their way home; other
people had come out for a walk; there was a smell of mortar, dust and
stagnant water. Raskolnikov walked along, mournful and anxious; he was
distinctly aware of having come out with a purpose, of having to do
something in a hurry, but what it was he had forgotten. Suddenly he
stood still and saw a man standing on the other side of the street,
beckoning to him. He crossed over to him, but at once the man turned and
walked away with his head hanging, as though he had made no sign to
him. “Stay, did he really beckon?” Raskolnikov wondered, but he tried
to overtake him. When he was within ten paces he recognised him and
was frightened; it was the same man with stooping shoulders in the long
coat. Raskolnikov followed him at a distance; his heart was beating;
they went down a turning; the man still did not look round. “Does he
know I am following him?” thought Raskolnikov. The man went into the
gateway of a big house. Raskolnikov hastened to the gate and looked in
to see whether he would look round and sign to him. In the court-yard
the man did turn round and again seemed to beckon him. Raskolnikov at
once followed him into the yard, but the man was gone. He must have
gone up the first staircase. Raskolnikov rushed after him. He heard
slow measured steps two flights above. The staircase seemed strangely
familiar. He reached the window on the first floor; the moon shone
through the panes with a melancholy and mysterious light; then he
reached the second floor. Bah! this is the flat where the painters were
at work... but how was it he did not recognise it at once? The steps
of the man above had died away. “So he must have stopped or hidden
somewhere.” He reached the third storey, should he go on? There was a
stillness that was dreadful.... But he went on. The sound of his own
footsteps scared and frightened him. How dark it was! The man must be
hiding in some corner here. Ah! the flat was standing wide open, he
hesitated and went in. It was very dark and empty in the passage, as
though everything had been removed; he crept on tiptoe into the parlour
which was flooded with moonlight. Everything there was as before, the
chairs, the looking-glass, the yellow sofa and the pictures in the
frames. A huge, round, copper-red moon looked in at the windows.
“It’s the moon that makes it so still, weaving some mystery,” thought
Raskolnikov. He stood and waited, waited a long while, and the more
silent the moonlight, the more violently his heart beat, till it was
painful. And still the same hush. Suddenly he heard a momentary sharp
crack like the snapping of a splinter and all was still again. A fly
flew up suddenly and struck the window pane with a plaintive buzz. At
that moment he noticed in the corner between the window and the little
cupboard something like a cloak hanging on the wall. “Why is that cloak
here?” he thought, “it wasn’t there before....” He went up to it quietly
and felt that there was someone hiding behind it. He cautiously moved
the cloak and saw, sitting on a chair in the corner, the old woman bent
double so that he couldn’t see her face; but it was she. He stood over
her. “She is afraid,” he thought. He stealthily took the axe from the
noose and struck her one blow, then another on the skull. But strange
to say she did not stir, as though she were made of wood. He was
frightened, bent down nearer and tried to look at her; but she, too,
bent her head lower. He bent right down to the ground and peeped up
into her face from below, he peeped and turned cold with horror: the old
woman was sitting and laughing, shaking with noiseless laughter, doing
her utmost that he should not hear it. Suddenly he fancied that the door
from the bedroom was opened a little and that there was laughter and
whispering within. He was overcome with frenzy and he began hitting the
old woman on the head with all his force, but at every blow of the axe
the laughter and whispering from the bedroom grew louder and the old
woman was simply shaking with mirth. He was rushing away, but the
passage was full of people, the doors of the flats stood open and on the
landing, on the stairs and everywhere below there were people, rows of
heads, all looking, but huddled together in silence and expectation.
Something gripped his heart, his legs were rooted to the spot, they
would not move.... He tried to scream and woke up.

He drew a deep breath--but his dream seemed strangely to persist:
his door was flung open and a man whom he had never seen stood in the
doorway watching him intently.

Raskolnikov had hardly opened his eyes and he instantly closed them
again. He lay on his back without stirring.

“Is it still a dream?” he wondered and again raised his eyelids hardly
perceptibly; the stranger was standing in the same place, still watching
him.

He stepped cautiously into the room, carefully closing the door after
him, went up to the table, paused a moment, still keeping his eyes on
Raskolnikov, and noiselessly seated himself on the chair by the sofa; he
put his hat on the floor beside him and leaned his hands on his cane
and his chin on his hands. It was evident that he was prepared to wait
indefinitely. As far as Raskolnikov could make out from his stolen
glances, he was a man no longer young, stout, with a full, fair, almost
whitish beard.

Ten minutes passed. It was still light, but beginning to get dusk. There
was complete stillness in the room. Not a sound came from the stairs.
Only a big fly buzzed and fluttered against the window pane. It was
unbearable at last. Raskolnikov suddenly got up and sat on the sofa.

“Come, tell me what you want.”

“I knew you were not asleep, but only pretending,” the stranger answered
oddly, laughing calmly. “Arkady Ivanovitch Svidrigaïlov, allow me to
introduce myself....”




PART IV



CHAPTER I

“Can this be still a dream?” Raskolnikov thought once more.

He looked carefully and suspiciously at the unexpected visitor.

“Svidrigaïlov! What nonsense! It can’t be!” he said at last aloud in
bewilderment.

His visitor did not seem at all surprised at this exclamation.

“I’ve come to you for two reasons. In the first place, I wanted to make
your personal acquaintance, as I have already heard a great deal about
you that is interesting and flattering; secondly, I cherish the hope
that you may not refuse to assist me in a matter directly concerning the
welfare of your sister, Avdotya Romanovna. For without your support she
might not let me come near her now, for she is prejudiced against me,
but with your assistance I reckon on...”

“You reckon wrongly,” interrupted Raskolnikov.

“They only arrived yesterday, may I ask you?”

Raskolnikov made no reply.

“It was yesterday, I know. I only arrived myself the day before. Well,
let me tell you this, Rodion Romanovitch, I don’t consider it necessary
to justify myself, but kindly tell me what was there particularly
criminal on my part in all this business, speaking without prejudice,
with common sense?”

Raskolnikov continued to look at him in silence.

“That in my own house I persecuted a defenceless girl and ‘insulted her
with my infamous proposals’--is that it? (I am anticipating you.) But
you’ve only to assume that I, too, am a man _et nihil humanum_... in a
word, that I am capable of being attracted and falling in love (which
does not depend on our will), then everything can be explained in the
most natural manner. The question is, am I a monster, or am I myself
a victim? And what if I am a victim? In proposing to the object of my
passion to elope with me to America or Switzerland, I may have cherished
the deepest respect for her and may have thought that I was promoting
our mutual happiness! Reason is the slave of passion, you know; why,
probably, I was doing more harm to myself than anyone!”

“But that’s not the point,” Raskolnikov interrupted with disgust. “It’s
simply that whether you are right or wrong, we dislike you. We don’t
want to have anything to do with you. We show you the door. Go out!”

Svidrigaïlov broke into a sudden laugh.

“But you’re... but there’s no getting round you,” he said, laughing in
the frankest way. “I hoped to get round you, but you took up the right
line at once!”

“But you are trying to get round me still!”

“What of it? What of it?” cried Svidrigaïlov, laughing openly. “But this
is what the French call _bonne guerre_, and the most innocent form of
deception!... But still you have interrupted me; one way or another, I
repeat again: there would never have been any unpleasantness except for
what happened in the garden. Marfa Petrovna...”

“You have got rid of Marfa Petrovna, too, so they say?” Raskolnikov
interrupted rudely.

“Oh, you’ve heard that, too, then? You’d be sure to, though.... But
as for your question, I really don’t know what to say, though my own
conscience is quite at rest on that score. Don’t suppose that I am in
any apprehension about it. All was regular and in order; the medical
inquiry diagnosed apoplexy due to bathing immediately after a heavy
dinner and a bottle of wine, and indeed it could have proved nothing
else. But I’ll tell you what I have been thinking to myself of late, on
my way here in the train, especially: didn’t I contribute to all that...
calamity, morally, in a way, by irritation or something of the
sort. But I came to the conclusion that that, too, was quite out of the
question.”

Raskolnikov laughed.

“I wonder you trouble yourself about it!”

“But what are you laughing at? Only consider, I struck her just twice
with a switch--there were no marks even... don’t regard me as a cynic,
please; I am perfectly aware how atrocious it was of me and all that;
but I know for certain, too, that Marfa Petrovna was very likely pleased
at my, so to say, warmth. The story of your sister had been wrung out to
the last drop; for the last three days Marfa Petrovna had been forced to
sit at home; she had nothing to show herself with in the town. Besides,
she had bored them so with that letter (you heard about her reading the
letter). And all of a sudden those two switches fell from heaven! Her
first act was to order the carriage to be got out.... Not to speak
of the fact that there are cases when women are very, very glad to be
insulted in spite of all their show of indignation. There are instances
of it with everyone; human beings in general, indeed, greatly love to
be insulted, have you noticed that? But it’s particularly so with women.
One might even say it’s their only amusement.”

At one time Raskolnikov thought of getting up and walking out and so
finishing the interview. But some curiosity and even a sort of prudence
made him linger for a moment.

“You are fond of fighting?” he asked carelessly.

“No, not very,” Svidrigaïlov answered, calmly. “And Marfa Petrovna and
I scarcely ever fought. We lived very harmoniously, and she was always
pleased with me. I only used the whip twice in all our seven years (not
counting a third occasion of a very ambiguous character). The first
time, two months after our marriage, immediately after we arrived in the
country, and the last time was that of which we are speaking. Did you
suppose I was such a monster, such a reactionary, such a slave driver?
Ha, ha! By the way, do you remember, Rodion Romanovitch, how a few years
ago, in those days of beneficent publicity, a nobleman, I’ve forgotten
his name, was put to shame everywhere, in all the papers, for having
thrashed a German woman in the railway train. You remember? It was in
those days, that very year I believe, the ‘disgraceful action of the
_Age_’ took place (you know, ‘The Egyptian Nights,’ that public reading,
you remember? The dark eyes, you know! Ah, the golden days of our youth,
where are they?). Well, as for the gentleman who thrashed the German,
I feel no sympathy with him, because after all what need is there
for sympathy? But I must say that there are sometimes such provoking
‘Germans’ that I don’t believe there is a progressive who could quite
answer for himself. No one looked at the subject from that point of view
then, but that’s the truly humane point of view, I assure you.”

After saying this, Svidrigaïlov broke into a sudden laugh again.
Raskolnikov saw clearly that this was a man with a firm purpose in his
mind and able to keep it to himself.

“I expect you’ve not talked to anyone for some days?” he asked.

“Scarcely anyone. I suppose you are wondering at my being such an
adaptable man?”

“No, I am only wondering at your being too adaptable a man.”

“Because I am not offended at the rudeness of your questions? Is that
it? But why take offence? As you asked, so I answered,” he replied,
with a surprising expression of simplicity. “You know, there’s
hardly anything I take interest in,” he went on, as it were dreamily,
“especially now, I’ve nothing to do.... You are quite at liberty to
imagine though that I am making up to you with a motive, particularly as
I told you I want to see your sister about something. But I’ll confess
frankly, I am very much bored. The last three days especially, so I am
delighted to see you.... Don’t be angry, Rodion Romanovitch, but you
seem to be somehow awfully strange yourself. Say what you like, there’s
something wrong with you, and now, too... not this very minute, I mean,
but now, generally.... Well, well, I won’t, I won’t, don’t scowl! I am
not such a bear, you know, as you think.”

Raskolnikov looked gloomily at him.

“You are not a bear, perhaps, at all,” he said. “I fancy indeed that
you are a man of very good breeding, or at least know how on occasion to
behave like one.”

“I am not particularly interested in anyone’s opinion,” Svidrigaïlov
answered, dryly and even with a shade of haughtiness, “and therefore why
not be vulgar at times when vulgarity is such a convenient cloak for our
climate... and especially if one has a natural propensity that way,” he
added, laughing again.

“But I’ve heard you have many friends here. You are, as they say, ‘not
without connections.’ What can you want with me, then, unless you’ve
some special object?”

“That’s true that I have friends here,” Svidrigaïlov admitted, not
replying to the chief point. “I’ve met some already. I’ve been lounging
about for the last three days, and I’ve seen them, or they’ve seen me.
That’s a matter of course. I am well dressed and reckoned not a poor
man; the emancipation of the serfs hasn’t affected me; my property
consists chiefly of forests and water meadows. The revenue has not
fallen off; but... I am not going to see them, I was sick of them long
ago. I’ve been here three days and have called on no one.... What a town
it is! How has it come into existence among us, tell me that? A town of
officials and students of all sorts. Yes, there’s a great deal I didn’t
notice when I was here eight years ago, kicking up my heels.... My only
hope now is in anatomy, by Jove, it is!”

“Anatomy?”

“But as for these clubs, Dussauts, parades, or progress, indeed,
maybe--well, all that can go on without me,” he went on, again without
noticing the question. “Besides, who wants to be a card-sharper?”

“Why, have you been a card-sharper then?”

“How could I help being? There was a regular set of us, men of the best
society, eight years ago; we had a fine time. And all men of breeding,
you know, poets, men of property. And indeed as a rule in our Russian
society the best manners are found among those who’ve been thrashed,
have you noticed that? I’ve deteriorated in the country. But I did get
into prison for debt, through a low Greek who came from Nezhin. Then
Marfa Petrovna turned up; she bargained with him and bought me off for
thirty thousand silver pieces (I owed seventy thousand). We were united
in lawful wedlock and she bore me off into the country like a treasure.
You know she was five years older than I. She was very fond of me. For
seven years I never left the country. And, take note, that all my life
she held a document over me, the IOU for thirty thousand roubles, so
if I were to elect to be restive about anything I should be trapped at
once! And she would have done it! Women find nothing incompatible in
that.”

“If it hadn’t been for that, would you have given her the slip?”

“I don’t know what to say. It was scarcely the document restrained me. I
didn’t want to go anywhere else. Marfa Petrovna herself invited me to go
abroad, seeing I was bored, but I’ve been abroad before, and always
felt sick there. For no reason, but the sunrise, the bay of Naples, the
sea--you look at them and it makes you sad. What’s most revolting is
that one is really sad! No, it’s better at home. Here at least one
blames others for everything and excuses oneself. I should have gone
perhaps on an expedition to the North Pole, because _j’ai le vin
mauvais_ and hate drinking, and there’s nothing left but wine. I have
tried it. But, I say, I’ve been told Berg is going up in a great balloon
next Sunday from the Yusupov Garden and will take up passengers at a
fee. Is it true?”

“Why, would you go up?”

“I... No, oh, no,” muttered Svidrigaïlov really seeming to be deep in
thought.

“What does he mean? Is he in earnest?” Raskolnikov wondered.

“No, the document didn’t restrain me,” Svidrigaïlov went on,
meditatively. “It was my own doing, not leaving the country, and nearly
a year ago Marfa Petrovna gave me back the document on my name-day
and made me a present of a considerable sum of money, too. She had a
fortune, you know. ‘You see how I trust you, Arkady Ivanovitch’--that
was actually her expression. You don’t believe she used it? But do
you know I managed the estate quite decently, they know me in the
neighbourhood. I ordered books, too. Marfa Petrovna at first approved,
but afterwards she was afraid of my over-studying.”

“You seem to be missing Marfa Petrovna very much?”

“Missing her? Perhaps. Really, perhaps I am. And, by the way, do you
believe in ghosts?”

“What ghosts?”

“Why, ordinary ghosts.”

“Do you believe in them?”

“Perhaps not, _pour vous plaire_.... I wouldn’t say no exactly.”

“Do you see them, then?”

Svidrigaïlov looked at him rather oddly.

“Marfa Petrovna is pleased to visit me,” he said, twisting his mouth
into a strange smile.

“How do you mean ‘she is pleased to visit you’?”

“She has been three times. I saw her first on the very day of the
funeral, an hour after she was buried. It was the day before I left to
come here. The second time was the day before yesterday, at daybreak, on
the journey at the station of Malaya Vishera, and the third time was two
hours ago in the room where I am staying. I was alone.”

“Were you awake?”

“Quite awake. I was wide awake every time. She comes, speaks to me for
a minute and goes out at the door--always at the door. I can almost hear
her.”

“What made me think that something of the sort must be happening to
you?” Raskolnikov said suddenly.

At the same moment he was surprised at having said it. He was much
excited.

“What! Did you think so?” Svidrigaïlov asked in astonishment. “Did you
really? Didn’t I say that there was something in common between us, eh?”

“You never said so!” Raskolnikov cried sharply and with heat.

“Didn’t I?”

“No!”

“I thought I did. When I came in and saw you lying with your eyes shut,
pretending, I said to myself at once, ‘Here’s the man.’”

“What do you mean by ‘the man?’ What are you talking about?” cried
Raskolnikov.

“What do I mean? I really don’t know....” Svidrigaïlov muttered
ingenuously, as though he, too, were puzzled.

For a minute they were silent. They stared in each other’s faces.

“That’s all nonsense!” Raskolnikov shouted with vexation. “What does she
say when she comes to you?”

“She! Would you believe it, she talks of the silliest trifles and--man
is a strange creature--it makes me angry. The first time she came in (I
was tired you know: the funeral service, the funeral ceremony, the lunch
afterwards. At last I was left alone in my study. I lighted a cigar and
began to think), she came in at the door. ‘You’ve been so busy to-day,
Arkady Ivanovitch, you have forgotten to wind the dining-room clock,’
she said. All those seven years I’ve wound that clock every week, and if
I forgot it she would always remind me. The next day I set off on my way
here. I got out at the station at daybreak; I’d been asleep, tired out,
with my eyes half open, I was drinking some coffee. I looked up and
there was suddenly Marfa Petrovna sitting beside me with a pack of
cards in her hands. ‘Shall I tell your fortune for the journey, Arkady
Ivanovitch?’ She was a great hand at telling fortunes. I shall never
forgive myself for not asking her to. I ran away in a fright, and,
besides, the bell rang. I was sitting to-day, feeling very heavy after a
miserable dinner from a cookshop; I was sitting smoking, all of a sudden
Marfa Petrovna again. She came in very smart in a new green silk dress
with a long train. ‘Good day, Arkady Ivanovitch! How do you like my
dress? Aniska can’t make like this.’ (Aniska was a dressmaker in the
country, one of our former serf girls who had been trained in Moscow, a
pretty wench.) She stood turning round before me. I looked at the dress,
and then I looked carefully, very carefully, at her face. ‘I wonder
you trouble to come to me about such trifles, Marfa Petrovna.’ ‘Good
gracious, you won’t let one disturb you about anything!’ To tease her
I said, ‘I want to get married, Marfa Petrovna.’ ‘That’s just like you,
Arkady Ivanovitch; it does you very little credit to come looking for a
bride when you’ve hardly buried your wife. And if you could make a good
choice, at least, but I know it won’t be for your happiness or hers, you
will only be a laughing-stock to all good people.’ Then she went out and
her train seemed to rustle. Isn’t it nonsense, eh?”

“But perhaps you are telling lies?” Raskolnikov put in.

“I rarely lie,” answered Svidrigaïlov thoughtfully, apparently not
noticing the rudeness of the question.

“And in the past, have you ever seen ghosts before?”

“Y-yes, I have seen them, but only once in my life, six years ago. I had
a serf, Filka; just after his burial I called out forgetting ‘Filka, my
pipe!’ He came in and went to the cupboard where my pipes were. I sat
still and thought ‘he is doing it out of revenge,’ because we had a
violent quarrel just before his death. ‘How dare you come in with a hole
in your elbow?’ I said. ‘Go away, you scamp!’ He turned and went out,
and never came again. I didn’t tell Marfa Petrovna at the time. I wanted
to have a service sung for him, but I was ashamed.”

“You should go to a doctor.”

“I know I am not well, without your telling me, though I don’t know
what’s wrong; I believe I am five times as strong as you are. I didn’t
ask you whether you believe that ghosts are seen, but whether you
believe that they exist.”

“No, I won’t believe it!” Raskolnikov cried, with positive anger.

“What do people generally say?” muttered Svidrigaïlov, as though
speaking to himself, looking aside and bowing his head. “They say, ‘You
are ill, so what appears to you is only unreal fantasy.’ But that’s not
strictly logical. I agree that ghosts only appear to the sick, but that
only proves that they are unable to appear except to the sick, not that
they don’t exist.”

“Nothing of the sort,” Raskolnikov insisted irritably.

“No? You don’t think so?” Svidrigaïlov went on, looking at him
deliberately. “But what do you say to this argument (help me with
it): ghosts are, as it were, shreds and fragments of other worlds, the
beginning of them. A man in health has, of course, no reason to see
them, because he is above all a man of this earth and is bound for the
sake of completeness and order to live only in this life. But as soon
as one is ill, as soon as the normal earthly order of the organism is
broken, one begins to realise the possibility of another world; and the
more seriously ill one is, the closer becomes one’s contact with that
other world, so that as soon as the man dies he steps straight into that
world. I thought of that long ago. If you believe in a future life, you
could believe in that, too.”

“I don’t believe in a future life,” said Raskolnikov.

Svidrigaïlov sat lost in thought.

“And what if there are only spiders there, or something of that sort,”
 he said suddenly.

“He is a madman,” thought Raskolnikov.

“We always imagine eternity as something beyond our conception,
something vast, vast! But why must it be vast? Instead of all that, what
if it’s one little room, like a bath house in the country, black
and grimy and spiders in every corner, and that’s all eternity is? I
sometimes fancy it like that.”

“Can it be you can imagine nothing juster and more comforting than
that?” Raskolnikov cried, with a feeling of anguish.

“Juster? And how can we tell, perhaps that is just, and do you know
it’s what I would certainly have made it,” answered Svidrigaïlov, with a
vague smile.

This horrible answer sent a cold chill through Raskolnikov. Svidrigaïlov
raised his head, looked at him, and suddenly began laughing.

“Only think,” he cried, “half an hour ago we had never seen each other,
we regarded each other as enemies; there is a matter unsettled between
us; we’ve thrown it aside, and away we’ve gone into the abstract! Wasn’t
I right in saying that we were birds of a feather?”

“Kindly allow me,” Raskolnikov went on irritably, “to ask you to explain
why you have honoured me with your visit... and... and I am in a hurry,
I have no time to waste. I want to go out.”

“By all means, by all means. Your sister, Avdotya Romanovna, is going to
be married to Mr. Luzhin, Pyotr Petrovitch?”

“Can you refrain from any question about my sister and from mentioning
her name? I can’t understand how you dare utter her name in my presence,
if you really are Svidrigaïlov.”

“Why, but I’ve come here to speak about her; how can I avoid mentioning
her?”

“Very good, speak, but make haste.”

“I am sure that you must have formed your own opinion of this Mr.
Luzhin, who is a connection of mine through my wife, if you have only
seen him for half an hour, or heard any facts about him. He is no
match for Avdotya Romanovna. I believe Avdotya Romanovna is sacrificing
herself generously and imprudently for the sake of... for the sake of
her family. I fancied from all I had heard of you that you would be very
glad if the match could be broken off without the sacrifice of worldly
advantages. Now I know you personally, I am convinced of it.”

“All this is very naïve... excuse me, I should have said impudent on
your part,” said Raskolnikov.

“You mean to say that I am seeking my own ends. Don’t be uneasy, Rodion
Romanovitch, if I were working for my own advantage, I would not have
spoken out so directly. I am not quite a fool. I will confess something
psychologically curious about that: just now, defending my love for
Avdotya Romanovna, I said I was myself the victim. Well, let me tell you
that I’ve no feeling of love now, not the slightest, so that I wonder
myself indeed, for I really did feel something...”

“Through idleness and depravity,” Raskolnikov put in.

“I certainly am idle and depraved, but your sister has such qualities
that even I could not help being impressed by them. But that’s all
nonsense, as I see myself now.”

“Have you seen that long?”

“I began to be aware of it before, but was only perfectly sure of it the
day before yesterday, almost at the moment I arrived in Petersburg. I
still fancied in Moscow, though, that I was coming to try to get Avdotya
Romanovna’s hand and to cut out Mr. Luzhin.”

“Excuse me for interrupting you; kindly be brief, and come to the object
of your visit. I am in a hurry, I want to go out...”

“With the greatest pleasure. On arriving here and determining on a
certain... journey, I should like to make some necessary preliminary
arrangements. I left my children with an aunt; they are well provided
for; and they have no need of me personally. And a nice father I should
make, too! I have taken nothing but what Marfa Petrovna gave me a year
ago. That’s enough for me. Excuse me, I am just coming to the point.
Before the journey which may come off, I want to settle Mr. Luzhin, too.
It’s not that I detest him so much, but it was through him I quarrelled
with Marfa Petrovna when I learned that she had dished up this marriage.
I want now to see Avdotya Romanovna through your mediation, and if you
like in your presence, to explain to her that in the first place she
will never gain anything but harm from Mr. Luzhin. Then, begging
her pardon for all past unpleasantness, to make her a present of ten
thousand roubles and so assist the rupture with Mr. Luzhin, a rupture to
which I believe she is herself not disinclined, if she could see the way
to it.”

“You are certainly mad,” cried Raskolnikov not so much angered as
astonished. “How dare you talk like that!”

“I knew you would scream at me; but in the first place, though I am not
rich, this ten thousand roubles is perfectly free; I have absolutely no
need for it. If Avdotya Romanovna does not accept it, I shall waste
it in some more foolish way. That’s the first thing. Secondly, my
conscience is perfectly easy; I make the offer with no ulterior motive.
You may not believe it, but in the end Avdotya Romanovna and you will
know. The point is, that I did actually cause your sister, whom I
greatly respect, some trouble and unpleasantness, and so, sincerely
regretting it, I want--not to compensate, not to repay her for the
unpleasantness, but simply to do something to her advantage, to show
that I am not, after all, privileged to do nothing but harm. If there
were a millionth fraction of self-interest in my offer, I should not
have made it so openly; and I should not have offered her ten thousand
only, when five weeks ago I offered her more, Besides, I may, perhaps,
very soon marry a young lady, and that alone ought to prevent suspicion
of any design on Avdotya Romanovna. In conclusion, let me say that
in marrying Mr. Luzhin, she is taking money just the same, only from
another man. Don’t be angry, Rodion Romanovitch, think it over coolly
and quietly.”

Svidrigaïlov himself was exceedingly cool and quiet as he was saying
this.

“I beg you to say no more,” said Raskolnikov. “In any case this is
unpardonable impertinence.”

“Not in the least. Then a man may do nothing but harm to his neighbour
in this world, and is prevented from doing the tiniest bit of good
by trivial conventional formalities. That’s absurd. If I died, for
instance, and left that sum to your sister in my will, surely she
wouldn’t refuse it?”

“Very likely she would.”

“Oh, no, indeed. However, if you refuse it, so be it, though ten
thousand roubles is a capital thing to have on occasion. In any case I
beg you to repeat what I have said to Avdotya Romanovna.”

“No, I won’t.”

“In that case, Rodion Romanovitch, I shall be obliged to try and see her
myself and worry her by doing so.”

“And if I do tell her, will you not try to see her?”

“I don’t know really what to say. I should like very much to see her
once more.”

“Don’t hope for it.”

“I’m sorry. But you don’t know me. Perhaps we may become better
friends.”

“You think we may become friends?”

“And why not?” Svidrigaïlov said, smiling. He stood up and took his hat.
“I didn’t quite intend to disturb you and I came here without reckoning
on it... though I was very much struck by your face this morning.”

“Where did you see me this morning?” Raskolnikov asked uneasily.

“I saw you by chance.... I kept fancying there is something about you
like me.... But don’t be uneasy. I am not intrusive; I used to get on
all right with card-sharpers, and I never bored Prince Svirbey, a great
personage who is a distant relation of mine, and I could write about
Raphael’s _Madonna_ in Madam Prilukov’s album, and I never left Marfa
Petrovna’s side for seven years, and I used to stay the night at
Viazemsky’s house in the Hay Market in the old days, and I may go up in
a balloon with Berg, perhaps.”

“Oh, all right. Are you starting soon on your travels, may I ask?”

“What travels?”

“Why, on that ‘journey’; you spoke of it yourself.”

“A journey? Oh, yes. I did speak of a journey. Well, that’s a wide
subject.... if only you knew what you are asking,” he added, and gave
a sudden, loud, short laugh. “Perhaps I’ll get married instead of the
journey. They’re making a match for me.”

“Here?”

“Yes.”

“How have you had time for that?”

“But I am very anxious to see Avdotya Romanovna once. I earnestly beg
it. Well, good-bye for the present. Oh, yes. I have forgotten something.
Tell your sister, Rodion Romanovitch, that Marfa Petrovna remembered
her in her will and left her three thousand roubles. That’s absolutely
certain. Marfa Petrovna arranged it a week before her death, and it was
done in my presence. Avdotya Romanovna will be able to receive the money
in two or three weeks.”

“Are you telling the truth?”

“Yes, tell her. Well, your servant. I am staying very near you.”

As he went out, Svidrigaïlov ran up against Razumihin in the doorway.



CHAPTER II

It was nearly eight o’clock. The two young men hurried to Bakaleyev’s,
to arrive before Luzhin.

“Why, who was that?” asked Razumihin, as soon as they were in the
street.

“It was Svidrigaïlov, that landowner in whose house my sister was
insulted when she was their governess. Through his persecuting her with
his attentions, she was turned out by his wife, Marfa Petrovna. This
Marfa Petrovna begged Dounia’s forgiveness afterwards, and she’s just
died suddenly. It was of her we were talking this morning. I don’t
know why I’m afraid of that man. He came here at once after his wife’s
funeral. He is very strange, and is determined on doing something.... We
must guard Dounia from him... that’s what I wanted to tell you, do you
hear?”

“Guard her! What can he do to harm Avdotya Romanovna? Thank you, Rodya,
for speaking to me like that.... We will, we will guard her. Where does
he live?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why didn’t you ask? What a pity! I’ll find out, though.”

“Did you see him?” asked Raskolnikov after a pause.

“Yes, I noticed him, I noticed him well.”

“You did really see him? You saw him clearly?” Raskolnikov insisted.

“Yes, I remember him perfectly, I should know him in a thousand; I have
a good memory for faces.”

They were silent again.

“Hm!... that’s all right,” muttered Raskolnikov. “Do you know, I
fancied... I keep thinking that it may have been an hallucination.”

“What do you mean? I don’t understand you.”

“Well, you all say,” Raskolnikov went on, twisting his mouth into a
smile, “that I am mad. I thought just now that perhaps I really am mad,
and have only seen a phantom.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why, who can tell? Perhaps I am really mad, and perhaps everything that
happened all these days may be only imagination.”

“Ach, Rodya, you have been upset again!... But what did he say, what did
he come for?”

Raskolnikov did not answer. Razumihin thought a minute.

“Now let me tell you my story,” he began, “I came to you, you were
asleep. Then we had dinner and then I went to Porfiry’s, Zametov was
still with him. I tried to begin, but it was no use. I couldn’t speak in
the right way. They don’t seem to understand and can’t understand, but
are not a bit ashamed. I drew Porfiry to the window, and began talking
to him, but it was still no use. He looked away and I looked away. At
last I shook my fist in his ugly face, and told him as a cousin I’d
brain him. He merely looked at me, I cursed and came away. That was
all. It was very stupid. To Zametov I didn’t say a word. But, you see, I
thought I’d made a mess of it, but as I went downstairs a brilliant idea
struck me: why should we trouble? Of course if you were in any danger
or anything, but why need you care? You needn’t care a hang for them. We
shall have a laugh at them afterwards, and if I were in your place I’d
mystify them more than ever. How ashamed they’ll be afterwards! Hang
them! We can thrash them afterwards, but let’s laugh at them now!”

“To be sure,” answered Raskolnikov. “But what will you say to-morrow?”
 he thought to himself. Strange to say, till that moment it had never
occurred to him to wonder what Razumihin would think when he knew. As he
thought it, Raskolnikov looked at him. Razumihin’s account of his visit
to Porfiry had very little interest for him, so much had come and gone
since then.

In the corridor they came upon Luzhin; he had arrived punctually
at eight, and was looking for the number, so that all three went in
together without greeting or looking at one another. The young men
walked in first, while Pyotr Petrovitch, for good manners, lingered a
little in the passage, taking off his coat. Pulcheria Alexandrovna came
forward at once to greet him in the doorway, Dounia was welcoming her
brother. Pyotr Petrovitch walked in and quite amiably, though with
redoubled dignity, bowed to the ladies. He looked, however, as though
he were a little put out and could not yet recover himself. Pulcheria
Alexandrovna, who seemed also a little embarrassed, hastened to make
them all sit down at the round table where a samovar was boiling. Dounia
and Luzhin were facing one another on opposite sides of the table.
Razumihin and Raskolnikov were facing Pulcheria Alexandrovna, Razumihin
was next to Luzhin and Raskolnikov was beside his sister.

A moment’s silence followed. Pyotr Petrovitch deliberately drew out a
cambric handkerchief reeking of scent and blew his nose with an air of
a benevolent man who felt himself slighted, and was firmly resolved to
insist on an explanation. In the passage the idea had occurred to him to
keep on his overcoat and walk away, and so give the two ladies a sharp
and emphatic lesson and make them feel the gravity of the position.
But he could not bring himself to do this. Besides, he could not endure
uncertainty, and he wanted an explanation: if his request had been so
openly disobeyed, there was something behind it, and in that case it was
better to find it out beforehand; it rested with him to punish them and
there would always be time for that.

“I trust you had a favourable journey,” he inquired officially of
Pulcheria Alexandrovna.

“Oh, very, Pyotr Petrovitch.”

“I am gratified to hear it. And Avdotya Romanovna is not over-fatigued
either?”

“I am young and strong, I don’t get tired, but it was a great strain for
mother,” answered Dounia.

“That’s unavoidable! our national railways are of terrible length.
‘Mother Russia,’ as they say, is a vast country.... In spite of all my
desire to do so, I was unable to meet you yesterday. But I trust all
passed off without inconvenience?”

“Oh, no, Pyotr Petrovitch, it was all terribly disheartening,” Pulcheria
Alexandrovna hastened to declare with peculiar intonation, “and if
Dmitri Prokofitch had not been sent us, I really believe by God Himself,
we should have been utterly lost. Here, he is! Dmitri Prokofitch
Razumihin,” she added, introducing him to Luzhin.

“I had the pleasure... yesterday,” muttered Pyotr Petrovitch with a
hostile glance sidelong at Razumihin; then he scowled and was silent.

Pyotr Petrovitch belonged to that class of persons, on the surface very
polite in society, who make a great point of punctiliousness, but who,
directly they are crossed in anything, are completely disconcerted, and
become more like sacks of flour than elegant and lively men of society.
Again all was silent; Raskolnikov was obstinately mute, Avdotya
Romanovna was unwilling to open the conversation too soon. Razumihin had
nothing to say, so Pulcheria Alexandrovna was anxious again.

“Marfa Petrovna is dead, have you heard?” she began having recourse to
her leading item of conversation.

“To be sure, I heard so. I was immediately informed, and I have come to
make you acquainted with the fact that Arkady Ivanovitch Svidrigaïlov
set off in haste for Petersburg immediately after his wife’s funeral. So
at least I have excellent authority for believing.”

“To Petersburg? here?” Dounia asked in alarm and looked at her mother.

“Yes, indeed, and doubtless not without some design, having in view the
rapidity of his departure, and all the circumstances preceding it.”

“Good heavens! won’t he leave Dounia in peace even here?” cried
Pulcheria Alexandrovna.

“I imagine that neither you nor Avdotya Romanovna have any grounds for
uneasiness, unless, of course, you are yourselves desirous of getting
into communication with him. For my part I am on my guard, and am now
discovering where he is lodging.”

“Oh, Pyotr Petrovitch, you would not believe what a fright you have
given me,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna went on: “I’ve only seen him twice,
but I thought him terrible, terrible! I am convinced that he was the
cause of Marfa Petrovna’s death.”

“It’s impossible to be certain about that. I have precise information. I
do not dispute that he may have contributed to accelerate the course of
events by the moral influence, so to say, of the affront; but as to the
general conduct and moral characteristics of that personage, I am
in agreement with you. I do not know whether he is well off now, and
precisely what Marfa Petrovna left him; this will be known to me within
a very short period; but no doubt here in Petersburg, if he has any
pecuniary resources, he will relapse at once into his old ways. He is
the most depraved, and abjectly vicious specimen of that class of men.
I have considerable reason to believe that Marfa Petrovna, who was so
unfortunate as to fall in love with him and to pay his debts eight years
ago, was of service to him also in another way. Solely by her exertions
and sacrifices, a criminal charge, involving an element of fantastic
and homicidal brutality for which he might well have been sentenced to
Siberia, was hushed up. That’s the sort of man he is, if you care to
know.”

“Good heavens!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. Raskolnikov listened
attentively.

“Are you speaking the truth when you say that you have good evidence of
this?” Dounia asked sternly and emphatically.

“I only repeat what I was told in secret by Marfa Petrovna. I must
observe that from the legal point of view the case was far from clear.
There was, and I believe still is, living here a woman called Resslich,
a foreigner, who lent small sums of money at interest, and did other
commissions, and with this woman Svidrigaïlov had for a long while close
and mysterious relations. She had a relation, a niece I believe, living
with her, a deaf and dumb girl of fifteen, or perhaps not more than
fourteen. Resslich hated this girl, and grudged her every crust; she
used to beat her mercilessly. One day the girl was found hanging in
the garret. At the inquest the verdict was suicide. After the usual
proceedings the matter ended, but, later on, information was given that
the child had been... cruelly outraged by Svidrigaïlov. It is true, this
was not clearly established, the information was given by another German
woman of loose character whose word could not be trusted; no statement
was actually made to the police, thanks to Marfa Petrovna’s money and
exertions; it did not get beyond gossip. And yet the story is a very
significant one. You heard, no doubt, Avdotya Romanovna, when you were
with them the story of the servant Philip who died of ill treatment he
received six years ago, before the abolition of serfdom.”

“I heard, on the contrary, that this Philip hanged himself.”

“Quite so, but what drove him, or rather perhaps disposed him,
to suicide was the systematic persecution and severity of Mr.
Svidrigaïlov.”

“I don’t know that,” answered Dounia, dryly. “I only heard a queer story
that Philip was a sort of hypochondriac, a sort of domestic philosopher,
the servants used to say, ‘he read himself silly,’ and that he hanged
himself partly on account of Mr. Svidrigaïlov’s mockery of him and not
his blows. When I was there he behaved well to the servants, and they
were actually fond of him, though they certainly did blame him for
Philip’s death.”

“I perceive, Avdotya Romanovna, that you seem disposed to undertake his
defence all of a sudden,” Luzhin observed, twisting his lips into
an ambiguous smile, “there’s no doubt that he is an astute man, and
insinuating where ladies are concerned, of which Marfa Petrovna, who has
died so strangely, is a terrible instance. My only desire has been to be
of service to you and your mother with my advice, in view of the renewed
efforts which may certainly be anticipated from him. For my part it’s
my firm conviction, that he will end in a debtor’s prison again.
Marfa Petrovna had not the slightest intention of settling anything
substantial on him, having regard for his children’s interests, and,
if she left him anything, it would only be the merest sufficiency,
something insignificant and ephemeral, which would not last a year for a
man of his habits.”

“Pyotr Petrovitch, I beg you,” said Dounia, “say no more of Mr.
Svidrigaïlov. It makes me miserable.”

“He has just been to see me,” said Raskolnikov, breaking his silence for
the first time.

There were exclamations from all, and they all turned to him. Even Pyotr
Petrovitch was roused.

“An hour and a half ago, he came in when I was asleep, waked me, and
introduced himself,” Raskolnikov continued. “He was fairly cheerful
and at ease, and quite hopes that we shall become friends. He is
particularly anxious, by the way, Dounia, for an interview with you, at
which he asked me to assist. He has a proposition to make to you, and
he told me about it. He told me, too, that a week before her death Marfa
Petrovna left you three thousand roubles in her will, Dounia, and that
you can receive the money very shortly.”

“Thank God!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna, crossing herself. “Pray for
her soul, Dounia!”

“It’s a fact!” broke from Luzhin.

“Tell us, what more?” Dounia urged Raskolnikov.

“Then he said that he wasn’t rich and all the estate was left to his
children who are now with an aunt, then that he was staying somewhere
not far from me, but where, I don’t know, I didn’t ask....”

“But what, what does he want to propose to Dounia?” cried Pulcheria
Alexandrovna in a fright. “Did he tell you?”

“Yes.”

“What was it?”

“I’ll tell you afterwards.”

Raskolnikov ceased speaking and turned his attention to his tea.

Pyotr Petrovitch looked at his watch.

“I am compelled to keep a business engagement, and so I shall not be in
your way,” he added with an air of some pique and he began getting up.

“Don’t go, Pyotr Petrovitch,” said Dounia, “you intended to spend
the evening. Besides, you wrote yourself that you wanted to have an
explanation with mother.”

“Precisely so, Avdotya Romanovna,” Pyotr Petrovitch answered
impressively, sitting down again, but still holding his hat. “I
certainly desired an explanation with you and your honoured mother upon
a very important point indeed. But as your brother cannot speak openly
in my presence of some proposals of Mr. Svidrigaïlov, I, too, do not
desire and am not able to speak openly... in the presence of others...
of certain matters of the greatest gravity. Moreover, my most weighty
and urgent request has been disregarded....”

Assuming an aggrieved air, Luzhin relapsed into dignified silence.

“Your request that my brother should not be present at our meeting was
disregarded solely at my insistence,” said Dounia. “You wrote that you
had been insulted by my brother; I think that this must be explained at
once, and you must be reconciled. And if Rodya really has insulted you,
then he _should_ and _will_ apologise.”

Pyotr Petrovitch took a stronger line.

“There are insults, Avdotya Romanovna, which no goodwill can make us
forget. There is a line in everything which it is dangerous to overstep;
and when it has been overstepped, there is no return.”

“That wasn’t what I was speaking of exactly, Pyotr Petrovitch,” Dounia
interrupted with some impatience. “Please understand that our whole
future depends now on whether all this is explained and set right as
soon as possible. I tell you frankly at the start that I cannot look at
it in any other light, and if you have the least regard for me, all this
business must be ended to-day, however hard that may be. I repeat that
if my brother is to blame he will ask your forgiveness.”

“I am surprised at your putting the question like that,” said Luzhin,
getting more and more irritated. “Esteeming, and so to say, adoring you,
I may at the same time, very well indeed, be able to dislike some member
of your family. Though I lay claim to the happiness of your hand, I
cannot accept duties incompatible with...”

“Ah, don’t be so ready to take offence, Pyotr Petrovitch,” Dounia
interrupted with feeling, “and be the sensible and generous man I have
always considered, and wish to consider, you to be. I’ve given you a
great promise, I am your betrothed. Trust me in this matter and, believe
me, I shall be capable of judging impartially. My assuming the part of
judge is as much a surprise for my brother as for you. When I insisted
on his coming to our interview to-day after your letter, I told
him nothing of what I meant to do. Understand that, if you are not
reconciled, I must choose between you--it must be either you or he. That
is how the question rests on your side and on his. I don’t want to be
mistaken in my choice, and I must not be. For your sake I must break off
with my brother, for my brother’s sake I must break off with you. I can
find out for certain now whether he is a brother to me, and I want to
know it; and of you, whether I am dear to you, whether you esteem me,
whether you are the husband for me.”

“Avdotya Romanovna,” Luzhin declared huffily, “your words are of too
much consequence to me; I will say more, they are offensive in view
of the position I have the honour to occupy in relation to you. To say
nothing of your strange and offensive setting me on a level with an
impertinent boy, you admit the possibility of breaking your promise to
me. You say ‘you or he,’ showing thereby of how little consequence I
am in your eyes... I cannot let this pass considering the relationship
and... the obligations existing between us.”

“What!” cried Dounia, flushing. “I set your interest beside all that has
hitherto been most precious in my life, what has made up the _whole_ of
my life, and here you are offended at my making too _little_ account of
you.”

Raskolnikov smiled sarcastically, Razumihin fidgeted, but Pyotr
Petrovitch did not accept the reproof; on the contrary, at every word he
became more persistent and irritable, as though he relished it.

“Love for the future partner of your life, for your husband, ought to
outweigh your love for your brother,” he pronounced sententiously, “and
in any case I cannot be put on the same level.... Although I said so
emphatically that I would not speak openly in your brother’s presence,
nevertheless, I intend now to ask your honoured mother for a necessary
explanation on a point of great importance closely affecting my dignity.
Your son,” he turned to Pulcheria Alexandrovna, “yesterday in the
presence of Mr. Razsudkin (or... I think that’s it? excuse me, I have
forgotten your surname”) (he bowed politely to Razumihin), “insulted me
by misrepresenting the idea I expressed to you in a private
conversation, drinking coffee, that is, that marriage with a poor girl
who has had experience of trouble is more advantageous from the conjugal
point of view than with one who has lived in luxury, since it is more
profitable for the moral character. Your son intentionally exaggerated
the significance of my words and made them ridiculous, accusing me of
malicious intentions, and, as far as I could see, relied upon your
correspondence with him. I shall consider myself happy, Pulcheria
Alexandrovna, if it is possible for you to convince me of an opposite
conclusion, and thereby considerately reassure me. Kindly let me know
in what terms precisely you repeated my words in your letter to Rodion
Romanovitch.”

“I don’t remember,” faltered Pulcheria Alexandrovna. “I repeated them as
I understood them. I don’t know how Rodya repeated them to you, perhaps
he exaggerated.”

“He could not have exaggerated them, except at your instigation.”

“Pyotr Petrovitch,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna declared with dignity, “the
proof that Dounia and I did not take your words in a very bad sense is
the fact that we are here.”

“Good, mother,” said Dounia approvingly.

“Then this is my fault again,” said Luzhin, aggrieved.

“Well, Pyotr Petrovitch, you keep blaming Rodion, but you yourself have
just written what was false about him,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna added,
gaining courage.

“I don’t remember writing anything false.”

“You wrote,” Raskolnikov said sharply, not turning to Luzhin, “that I
gave money yesterday not to the widow of the man who was killed, as was
the fact, but to his daughter (whom I had never seen till yesterday).
You wrote this to make dissension between me and my family, and for that
object added coarse expressions about the conduct of a girl whom you
don’t know. All that is mean slander.”

“Excuse me, sir,” said Luzhin, quivering with fury. “I enlarged upon
your qualities and conduct in my letter solely in response to your
sister’s and mother’s inquiries, how I found you, and what impression
you made on me. As for what you’ve alluded to in my letter, be so good
as to point out one word of falsehood, show, that is, that you didn’t
throw away your money, and that there are not worthless persons in that
family, however unfortunate.”

“To my thinking, you, with all your virtues, are not worth the little
finger of that unfortunate girl at whom you throw stones.”

“Would you go so far then as to let her associate with your mother and
sister?”

“I have done so already, if you care to know. I made her sit down to-day
with mother and Dounia.”

“Rodya!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. Dounia crimsoned, Razumihin
knitted his brows. Luzhin smiled with lofty sarcasm.

“You may see for yourself, Avdotya Romanovna,” he said, “whether it is
possible for us to agree. I hope now that this question is at an end,
once and for all. I will withdraw, that I may not hinder the pleasures
of family intimacy, and the discussion of secrets.” He got up from his
chair and took his hat. “But in withdrawing, I venture to request
that for the future I may be spared similar meetings, and, so to
say, compromises. I appeal particularly to you, honoured Pulcheria
Alexandrovna, on this subject, the more as my letter was addressed to
you and to no one else.”

Pulcheria Alexandrovna was a little offended.

“You seem to think we are completely under your authority, Pyotr
Petrovitch. Dounia has told you the reason your desire was disregarded,
she had the best intentions. And indeed you write as though you were
laying commands upon me. Are we to consider every desire of yours as
a command? Let me tell you on the contrary that you ought to show
particular delicacy and consideration for us now, because we have thrown
up everything, and have come here relying on you, and so we are in any
case in a sense in your hands.”

“That is not quite true, Pulcheria Alexandrovna, especially at the
present moment, when the news has come of Marfa Petrovna’s legacy, which
seems indeed very apropos, judging from the new tone you take to me,” he
added sarcastically.

“Judging from that remark, we may certainly presume that you were
reckoning on our helplessness,” Dounia observed irritably.

“But now in any case I cannot reckon on it, and I particularly desire
not to hinder your discussion of the secret proposals of Arkady
Ivanovitch Svidrigaïlov, which he has entrusted to your brother and
which have, I perceive, a great and possibly a very agreeable interest
for you.”

“Good heavens!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna.

Razumihin could not sit still on his chair.

“Aren’t you ashamed now, sister?” asked Raskolnikov.

“I am ashamed, Rodya,” said Dounia. “Pyotr Petrovitch, go away,” she
turned to him, white with anger.

Pyotr Petrovitch had apparently not at all expected such a conclusion.
He had too much confidence in himself, in his power and in the
helplessness of his victims. He could not believe it even now. He turned
pale, and his lips quivered.

“Avdotya Romanovna, if I go out of this door now, after such a
dismissal, then, you may reckon on it, I will never come back. Consider
what you are doing. My word is not to be shaken.”

“What insolence!” cried Dounia, springing up from her seat. “I don’t
want you to come back again.”

“What! So that’s how it stands!” cried Luzhin, utterly unable to the
last moment to believe in the rupture and so completely thrown out of
his reckoning now. “So that’s how it stands! But do you know, Avdotya
Romanovna, that I might protest?”

“What right have you to speak to her like that?” Pulcheria Alexandrovna
intervened hotly. “And what can you protest about? What rights have you?
Am I to give my Dounia to a man like you? Go away, leave us altogether!
We are to blame for having agreed to a wrong action, and I above
all....”

“But you have bound me, Pulcheria Alexandrovna,” Luzhin stormed in a
frenzy, “by your promise, and now you deny it and... besides... I have
been led on account of that into expenses....”

This last complaint was so characteristic of Pyotr Petrovitch, that
Raskolnikov, pale with anger and with the effort of restraining it,
could not help breaking into laughter. But Pulcheria Alexandrovna was
furious.

“Expenses? What expenses? Are you speaking of our trunk? But the
conductor brought it for nothing for you. Mercy on us, we have bound
you! What are you thinking about, Pyotr Petrovitch, it was you bound us,
hand and foot, not we!”

“Enough, mother, no more please,” Avdotya Romanovna implored. “Pyotr
Petrovitch, do be kind and go!”

“I am going, but one last word,” he said, quite unable to control
himself. “Your mamma seems to have entirely forgotten that I made up my
mind to take you, so to speak, after the gossip of the town had spread
all over the district in regard to your reputation. Disregarding public
opinion for your sake and reinstating your reputation, I certainly
might very well reckon on a fitting return, and might indeed look for
gratitude on your part. And my eyes have only now been opened! I see
myself that I may have acted very, very recklessly in disregarding the
universal verdict....”

“Does the fellow want his head smashed?” cried Razumihin, jumping up.

“You are a mean and spiteful man!” cried Dounia.

“Not a word! Not a movement!” cried Raskolnikov, holding Razumihin back;
then going close up to Luzhin, “Kindly leave the room!” he said quietly
and distinctly, “and not a word more or...”

Pyotr Petrovitch gazed at him for some seconds with a pale face that
worked with anger, then he turned, went out, and rarely has any man
carried away in his heart such vindictive hatred as he felt against
Raskolnikov. Him, and him alone, he blamed for everything. It is
noteworthy that as he went downstairs he still imagined that his case
was perhaps not utterly lost, and that, so far as the ladies were
concerned, all might “very well indeed” be set right again.



CHAPTER III

The fact was that up to the last moment he had never expected such an
ending; he had been overbearing to the last degree, never dreaming that
two destitute and defenceless women could escape from his control. This
conviction was strengthened by his vanity and conceit, a conceit to
the point of fatuity. Pyotr Petrovitch, who had made his way up from
insignificance, was morbidly given to self-admiration, had the highest
opinion of his intelligence and capacities, and sometimes even gloated
in solitude over his image in the glass. But what he loved and valued
above all was the money he had amassed by his labour, and by all sorts
of devices: that money made him the equal of all who had been his
superiors.

When he had bitterly reminded Dounia that he had decided to take her in
spite of evil report, Pyotr Petrovitch had spoken with perfect sincerity
and had, indeed, felt genuinely indignant at such “black ingratitude.”
 And yet, when he made Dounia his offer, he was fully aware of the
groundlessness of all the gossip. The story had been everywhere
contradicted by Marfa Petrovna, and was by then disbelieved by all the
townspeople, who were warm in Dounia’s defence. And he would not have
denied that he knew all that at the time. Yet he still thought highly
of his own resolution in lifting Dounia to his level and regarded it as
something heroic. In speaking of it to Dounia, he had let out the secret
feeling he cherished and admired, and he could not understand that
others should fail to admire it too. He had called on Raskolnikov with
the feelings of a benefactor who is about to reap the fruits of his good
deeds and to hear agreeable flattery. And as he went downstairs now, he
considered himself most undeservedly injured and unrecognised.

Dounia was simply essential to him; to do without her was unthinkable.
For many years he had had voluptuous dreams of marriage, but he had
gone on waiting and amassing money. He brooded with relish, in profound
secret, over the image of a girl--virtuous, poor (she must be poor),
very young, very pretty, of good birth and education, very timid, one
who had suffered much, and was completely humbled before him, one who
would all her life look on him as her saviour, worship him, admire him
and only him. How many scenes, how many amorous episodes he had imagined
on this seductive and playful theme, when his work was over! And,
behold, the dream of so many years was all but realised; the beauty and
education of Avdotya Romanovna had impressed him; her helpless position
had been a great allurement; in her he had found even more than he
dreamed of. Here was a girl of pride, character, virtue, of education
and breeding superior to his own (he felt that), and this creature would
be slavishly grateful all her life for his heroic condescension, and
would humble herself in the dust before him, and he would have absolute,
unbounded power over her!... Not long before, he had, too, after long
reflection and hesitation, made an important change in his career and
was now entering on a wider circle of business. With this change his
cherished dreams of rising into a higher class of society seemed likely
to be realised.... He was, in fact, determined to try his fortune
in Petersburg. He knew that women could do a very great deal. The
fascination of a charming, virtuous, highly educated woman might make
his way easier, might do wonders in attracting people to him, throwing
an aureole round him, and now everything was in ruins! This sudden
horrible rupture affected him like a clap of thunder; it was like a
hideous joke, an absurdity. He had only been a tiny bit masterful,
had not even time to speak out, had simply made a joke, been carried
away--and it had ended so seriously. And, of course, too, he did love
Dounia in his own way; he already possessed her in his dreams--and all
at once! No! The next day, the very next day, it must all be set right,
smoothed over, settled. Above all he must crush that conceited milksop
who was the cause of it all. With a sick feeling he could not help
recalling Razumihin too, but, he soon reassured himself on that score;
as though a fellow like that could be put on a level with him! The man
he really dreaded in earnest was Svidrigaïlov.... He had, in short, a
great deal to attend to....

*****

“No, I, I am more to blame than anyone!” said Dounia, kissing and
embracing her mother. “I was tempted by his money, but on my honour,
brother, I had no idea he was such a base man. If I had seen through him
before, nothing would have tempted me! Don’t blame me, brother!”

“God has delivered us! God has delivered us!” Pulcheria Alexandrovna
muttered, but half consciously, as though scarcely able to realise what
had happened.

They were all relieved, and in five minutes they were laughing. Only now
and then Dounia turned white and frowned, remembering what had passed.
Pulcheria Alexandrovna was surprised to find that she, too, was glad:
she had only that morning thought rupture with Luzhin a terrible
misfortune. Razumihin was delighted. He did not yet dare to express his
joy fully, but he was in a fever of excitement as though a ton-weight
had fallen off his heart. Now he had the right to devote his life to
them, to serve them.... Anything might happen now! But he felt afraid to
think of further possibilities and dared not let his imagination
range. But Raskolnikov sat still in the same place, almost sullen and
indifferent. Though he had been the most insistent on getting rid of
Luzhin, he seemed now the least concerned at what had happened. Dounia
could not help thinking that he was still angry with her, and Pulcheria
Alexandrovna watched him timidly.

“What did Svidrigaïlov say to you?” said Dounia, approaching him.

“Yes, yes!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna.

Raskolnikov raised his head.

“He wants to make you a present of ten thousand roubles and he desires
to see you once in my presence.”

“See her! On no account!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. “And how dare he
offer her money!”

Then Raskolnikov repeated (rather dryly) his conversation with
Svidrigaïlov, omitting his account of the ghostly visitations of Marfa
Petrovna, wishing to avoid all unnecessary talk.

“What answer did you give him?” asked Dounia.

“At first I said I would not take any message to you. Then he said that
he would do his utmost to obtain an interview with you without my help.
He assured me that his passion for you was a passing infatuation, now he
has no feeling for you. He doesn’t want you to marry Luzhin.... His talk
was altogether rather muddled.”

“How do you explain him to yourself, Rodya? How did he strike you?”

“I must confess I don’t quite understand him. He offers you ten
thousand, and yet says he is not well off. He says he is going away, and
in ten minutes he forgets he has said it. Then he says he is going to be
married and has already fixed on the girl.... No doubt he has a motive,
and probably a bad one. But it’s odd that he should be so clumsy about
it if he had any designs against you.... Of course, I refused this
money on your account, once for all. Altogether, I thought him very
strange.... One might almost think he was mad. But I may be mistaken;
that may only be the part he assumes. The death of Marfa Petrovna seems
to have made a great impression on him.”

“God rest her soul,” exclaimed Pulcheria Alexandrovna. “I shall always,
always pray for her! Where should we be now, Dounia, without this three
thousand! It’s as though it had fallen from heaven! Why, Rodya, this
morning we had only three roubles in our pocket and Dounia and I were
just planning to pawn her watch, so as to avoid borrowing from that man
until he offered help.”

Dounia seemed strangely impressed by Svidrigaïlov’s offer. She still
stood meditating.

“He has got some terrible plan,” she said in a half whisper to herself,
almost shuddering.

Raskolnikov noticed this disproportionate terror.

“I fancy I shall have to see him more than once again,” he said to
Dounia.

“We will watch him! I will track him out!” cried Razumihin, vigorously.
“I won’t lose sight of him. Rodya has given me leave. He said to me
himself just now. ‘Take care of my sister.’ Will you give me leave, too,
Avdotya Romanovna?”

Dounia smiled and held out her hand, but the look of anxiety did not
leave her face. Pulcheria Alexandrovna gazed at her timidly, but the
three thousand roubles had obviously a soothing effect on her.

A quarter of an hour later, they were all engaged in a lively
conversation. Even Raskolnikov listened attentively for some time,
though he did not talk. Razumihin was the speaker.

“And why, why should you go away?” he flowed on ecstatically. “And what
are you to do in a little town? The great thing is, you are all here
together and you need one another--you do need one another, believe me.
For a time, anyway.... Take me into partnership, and I assure you we’ll
plan a capital enterprise. Listen! I’ll explain it all in detail to
you, the whole project! It all flashed into my head this morning,
before anything had happened... I tell you what; I have an uncle, I must
introduce him to you (a most accommodating and respectable old man).
This uncle has got a capital of a thousand roubles, and he lives on his
pension and has no need of that money. For the last two years he has
been bothering me to borrow it from him and pay him six per cent
interest. I know what that means; he simply wants to help me. Last year
I had no need of it, but this year I resolved to borrow it as soon as
he arrived. Then you lend me another thousand of your three and we have
enough for a start, so we’ll go into partnership, and what are we going
to do?”

Then Razumihin began to unfold his project, and he explained at length
that almost all our publishers and booksellers know nothing at all
of what they are selling, and for that reason they are usually bad
publishers, and that any decent publications pay as a rule and give
a profit, sometimes a considerable one. Razumihin had, indeed, been
dreaming of setting up as a publisher. For the last two years he had
been working in publishers’ offices, and knew three European languages
well, though he had told Raskolnikov six days before that he was
“schwach” in German with an object of persuading him to take half his
translation and half the payment for it. He had told a lie then, and
Raskolnikov knew he was lying.

“Why, why should we let our chance slip when we have one of the chief
means of success--money of our own!” cried Razumihin warmly. “Of course
there will be a lot of work, but we will work, you, Avdotya Romanovna,
I, Rodion.... You get a splendid profit on some books nowadays! And
the great point of the business is that we shall know just what wants
translating, and we shall be translating, publishing, learning all at
once. I can be of use because I have experience. For nearly two years
I’ve been scuttling about among the publishers, and now I know every
detail of their business. You need not be a saint to make pots, believe
me! And why, why should we let our chance slip! Why, I know--and I kept
the secret--two or three books which one might get a hundred roubles
simply for thinking of translating and publishing. Indeed, and I would
not take five hundred for the very idea of one of them. And what do you
think? If I were to tell a publisher, I dare say he’d hesitate--they are
such blockheads! And as for the business side, printing, paper, selling,
you trust to me, I know my way about. We’ll begin in a small way and go
on to a large. In any case it will get us our living and we shall get
back our capital.”

Dounia’s eyes shone.

“I like what you are saying, Dmitri Prokofitch!” she said.

“I know nothing about it, of course,” put in Pulcheria Alexandrovna,
“it may be a good idea, but again God knows. It’s new and untried. Of
course, we must remain here at least for a time.” She looked at Rodya.

“What do you think, brother?” said Dounia.

“I think he’s got a very good idea,” he answered. “Of course, it’s too
soon to dream of a publishing firm, but we certainly might bring out
five or six books and be sure of success. I know of one book myself
which would be sure to go well. And as for his being able to manage it,
there’s no doubt about that either. He knows the business.... But we can
talk it over later....”

“Hurrah!” cried Razumihin. “Now, stay, there’s a flat here in this
house, belonging to the same owner. It’s a special flat apart, not
communicating with these lodgings. It’s furnished, rent moderate,
three rooms. Suppose you take them to begin with. I’ll pawn your watch
to-morrow and bring you the money, and everything can be arranged then.
You can all three live together, and Rodya will be with you. But where
are you off to, Rodya?”

“What, Rodya, you are going already?” Pulcheria Alexandrovna asked in
dismay.

“At such a minute?” cried Razumihin.

Dounia looked at her brother with incredulous wonder. He held his cap in
his hand, he was preparing to leave them.

“One would think you were burying me or saying good-bye for ever,” he
said somewhat oddly. He attempted to smile, but it did not turn out a
smile. “But who knows, perhaps it is the last time we shall see each
other...” he let slip accidentally. It was what he was thinking, and it
somehow was uttered aloud.

“What is the matter with you?” cried his mother.

“Where are you going, Rodya?” asked Dounia rather strangely.

“Oh, I’m quite obliged to...” he answered vaguely, as though hesitating
what he would say. But there was a look of sharp determination in his
white face.

“I meant to say... as I was coming here... I meant to tell you, mother,
and you, Dounia, that it would be better for us to part for a time. I
feel ill, I am not at peace.... I will come afterwards, I will come of
myself... when it’s possible. I remember you and love you.... Leave me,
leave me alone. I decided this even before... I’m absolutely resolved on
it. Whatever may come to me, whether I come to ruin or not, I want to be
alone. Forget me altogether, it’s better. Don’t inquire about me. When
I can, I’ll come of myself or... I’ll send for you. Perhaps it will all
come back, but now if you love me, give me up... else I shall begin to
hate you, I feel it.... Good-bye!”

“Good God!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. Both his mother and his sister
were terribly alarmed. Razumihin was also.

“Rodya, Rodya, be reconciled with us! Let us be as before!” cried his
poor mother.

He turned slowly to the door and slowly went out of the room. Dounia
overtook him.

“Brother, what are you doing to mother?” she whispered, her eyes
flashing with indignation.

He looked dully at her.

“No matter, I shall come.... I’m coming,” he muttered in an undertone,
as though not fully conscious of what he was saying, and he went out of
the room.

“Wicked, heartless egoist!” cried Dounia.

“He is insane, but not heartless. He is mad! Don’t you see it? You’re
heartless after that!” Razumihin whispered in her ear, squeezing
her hand tightly. “I shall be back directly,” he shouted to the
horror-stricken mother, and he ran out of the room.

Raskolnikov was waiting for him at the end of the passage.

“I knew you would run after me,” he said. “Go back to them--be with
them... be with them to-morrow and always.... I... perhaps I shall
come... if I can. Good-bye.”

And without holding out his hand he walked away.

“But where are you going? What are you doing? What’s the matter with
you? How can you go on like this?” Razumihin muttered, at his wits’ end.

Raskolnikov stopped once more.

“Once for all, never ask me about anything. I have nothing to tell you.
Don’t come to see me. Maybe I’ll come here.... Leave me, but _don’t
leave_ them. Do you understand me?”

It was dark in the corridor, they were standing near the lamp. For a
minute they were looking at one another in silence. Razumihin remembered
that minute all his life. Raskolnikov’s burning and intent eyes
grew more penetrating every moment, piercing into his soul, into his
consciousness. Suddenly Razumihin started. Something strange, as it
were, passed between them.... Some idea, some hint, as it were, slipped,
something awful, hideous, and suddenly understood on both sides....
Razumihin turned pale.

“Do you understand now?” said Raskolnikov, his face twitching nervously.
“Go back, go to them,” he said suddenly, and turning quickly, he went
out of the house.

I will not attempt to describe how Razumihin went back to the ladies,
how he soothed them, how he protested that Rodya needed rest in his
illness, protested that Rodya was sure to come, that he would come every
day, that he was very, very much upset, that he must not be irritated,
that he, Razumihin, would watch over him, would get him a doctor, the
best doctor, a consultation.... In fact from that evening Razumihin took
his place with them as a son and a brother.



CHAPTER IV

Raskolnikov went straight to the house on the canal bank where Sonia
lived. It was an old green house of three storeys. He found the
porter and obtained from him vague directions as to the whereabouts of
Kapernaumov, the tailor. Having found in the corner of the courtyard
the entrance to the dark and narrow staircase, he mounted to the second
floor and came out into a gallery that ran round the whole second storey
over the yard. While he was wandering in the darkness, uncertain where
to turn for Kapernaumov’s door, a door opened three paces from him; he
mechanically took hold of it.

“Who is there?” a woman’s voice asked uneasily.

“It’s I... come to see you,” answered Raskolnikov, and he walked into
the tiny entry.

On a broken chair stood a candle in a battered copper candlestick.

“It’s you! Good heavens!” cried Sonia weakly, and she stood rooted to
the spot.

“Which is your room? This way?” and Raskolnikov, trying not to look at
her, hastened in.

A minute later Sonia, too, came in with the candle, set down the
candlestick and, completely disconcerted, stood before him inexpressibly
agitated and apparently frightened by his unexpected visit. The colour
rushed suddenly to her pale face and tears came into her eyes... She
felt sick and ashamed and happy, too.... Raskolnikov turned away quickly
and sat on a chair by the table. He scanned the room in a rapid glance.

It was a large but exceedingly low-pitched room, the only one let by the
Kapernaumovs, to whose rooms a closed door led in the wall on the left.
In the opposite side on the right hand wall was another door, always
kept locked. That led to the next flat, which formed a separate lodging.
Sonia’s room looked like a barn; it was a very irregular quadrangle and
this gave it a grotesque appearance. A wall with three windows looking
out on to the canal ran aslant so that one corner formed a very acute
angle, and it was difficult to see in it without very strong light.
The other corner was disproportionately obtuse. There was scarcely any
furniture in the big room: in the corner on the right was a bedstead,
beside it, nearest the door, a chair. A plain, deal table covered by a
blue cloth stood against the same wall, close to the door into the other
flat. Two rush-bottom chairs stood by the table. On the opposite
wall near the acute angle stood a small plain wooden chest of drawers
looking, as it were, lost in a desert. That was all there was in the
room. The yellow, scratched and shabby wall-paper was black in the
corners. It must have been damp and full of fumes in the winter. There
was every sign of poverty; even the bedstead had no curtain.

Sonia looked in silence at her visitor, who was so attentively and
unceremoniously scrutinising her room, and even began at last to tremble
with terror, as though she was standing before her judge and the arbiter
of her destinies.

“I am late.... It’s eleven, isn’t it?” he asked, still not lifting his
eyes.

“Yes,” muttered Sonia, “oh yes, it is,” she added, hastily, as though in
that lay her means of escape. “My landlady’s clock has just struck... I
heard it myself....”

“I’ve come to you for the last time,” Raskolnikov went on gloomily,
although this was the first time. “I may perhaps not see you again...”

“Are you... going away?”

“I don’t know... to-morrow....”

“Then you are not coming to Katerina Ivanovna to-morrow?” Sonia’s voice
shook.

“I don’t know. I shall know to-morrow morning.... Never mind that: I’ve
come to say one word....”

He raised his brooding eyes to her and suddenly noticed that he was
sitting down while she was all the while standing before him.

“Why are you standing? Sit down,” he said in a changed voice, gentle and
friendly.

She sat down. He looked kindly and almost compassionately at her.

“How thin you are! What a hand! Quite transparent, like a dead hand.”

He took her hand. Sonia smiled faintly.

“I have always been like that,” she said.

“Even when you lived at home?”

“Yes.”

“Of course, you were,” he added abruptly and the expression of his face
and the sound of his voice changed again suddenly.

He looked round him once more.

“You rent this room from the Kapernaumovs?”

“Yes....”

“They live there, through that door?”

“Yes.... They have another room like this.”

“All in one room?”

“Yes.”

“I should be afraid in your room at night,” he observed gloomily.

“They are very good people, very kind,” answered Sonia, who still seemed
bewildered, “and all the furniture, everything... everything is theirs.
And they are very kind and the children, too, often come to see me.”

“They all stammer, don’t they?”

“Yes.... He stammers and he’s lame. And his wife, too.... It’s not
exactly that she stammers, but she can’t speak plainly. She is a very
kind woman. And he used to be a house serf. And there are seven
children... and it’s only the eldest one that stammers and the others
are simply ill... but they don’t stammer.... But where did you hear
about them?” she added with some surprise.

“Your father told me, then. He told me all about you.... And how you
went out at six o’clock and came back at nine and how Katerina Ivanovna
knelt down by your bed.”

Sonia was confused.

“I fancied I saw him to-day,” she whispered hesitatingly.

“Whom?”

“Father. I was walking in the street, out there at the corner, about ten
o’clock and he seemed to be walking in front. It looked just like him. I
wanted to go to Katerina Ivanovna....”

“You were walking in the streets?”

“Yes,” Sonia whispered abruptly, again overcome with confusion and
looking down.

“Katerina Ivanovna used to beat you, I dare say?”

“Oh no, what are you saying? No!” Sonia looked at him almost with
dismay.

“You love her, then?”

“Love her? Of course!” said Sonia with plaintive emphasis, and she
clasped her hands in distress. “Ah, you don’t.... If you only knew!
You see, she is quite like a child.... Her mind is quite unhinged, you
see... from sorrow. And how clever she used to be... how generous... how
kind! Ah, you don’t understand, you don’t understand!”

Sonia said this as though in despair, wringing her hands in excitement
and distress. Her pale cheeks flushed, there was a look of anguish in
her eyes. It was clear that she was stirred to the very depths, that
she was longing to speak, to champion, to express something. A sort
of _insatiable_ compassion, if one may so express it, was reflected in
every feature of her face.

“Beat me! how can you? Good heavens, beat me! And if she did beat me,
what then? What of it? You know nothing, nothing about it.... She is so
unhappy... ah, how unhappy! And ill.... She is seeking righteousness,
she is pure. She has such faith that there must be righteousness
everywhere and she expects it.... And if you were to torture her, she
wouldn’t do wrong. She doesn’t see that it’s impossible for people to
be righteous and she is angry at it. Like a child, like a child. She is
good!”

“And what will happen to you?”

Sonia looked at him inquiringly.

“They are left on your hands, you see. They were all on your hands
before, though.... And your father came to you to beg for drink. Well,
how will it be now?”

“I don’t know,” Sonia articulated mournfully.

“Will they stay there?”

“I don’t know.... They are in debt for the lodging, but the landlady,
I hear, said to-day that she wanted to get rid of them, and Katerina
Ivanovna says that she won’t stay another minute.”

“How is it she is so bold? She relies upon you?”

“Oh, no, don’t talk like that.... We are one, we live like one.” Sonia
was agitated again and even angry, as though a canary or some other
little bird were to be angry. “And what could she do? What, what could
she do?” she persisted, getting hot and excited. “And how she cried
to-day! Her mind is unhinged, haven’t you noticed it? At one minute she
is worrying like a child that everything should be right to-morrow, the
lunch and all that.... Then she is wringing her hands, spitting blood,
weeping, and all at once she will begin knocking her head against the
wall, in despair. Then she will be comforted again. She builds all her
hopes on you; she says that you will help her now and that she will
borrow a little money somewhere and go to her native town with me and
set up a boarding school for the daughters of gentlemen and take me to
superintend it, and we will begin a new splendid life. And she kisses
and hugs me, comforts me, and you know she has such faith, such faith in
her fancies! One can’t contradict her. And all the day long she has been
washing, cleaning, mending. She dragged the wash tub into the room with
her feeble hands and sank on the bed, gasping for breath. We went this
morning to the shops to buy shoes for Polenka and Lida for theirs are
quite worn out. Only the money we’d reckoned wasn’t enough, not nearly
enough. And she picked out such dear little boots, for she has taste,
you don’t know. And there in the shop she burst out crying before the
shopmen because she hadn’t enough.... Ah, it was sad to see her....”

“Well, after that I can understand your living like this,” Raskolnikov
said with a bitter smile.

“And aren’t you sorry for them? Aren’t you sorry?” Sonia flew at him
again. “Why, I know, you gave your last penny yourself, though you’d
seen nothing of it, and if you’d seen everything, oh dear! And how
often, how often I’ve brought her to tears! Only last week! Yes, I! Only
a week before his death. I was cruel! And how often I’ve done it! Ah,
I’ve been wretched at the thought of it all day!”

Sonia wrung her hands as she spoke at the pain of remembering it.

“You were cruel?”

“Yes, I--I. I went to see them,” she went on, weeping, “and father said,
‘read me something, Sonia, my head aches, read to me, here’s a book.’ He
had a book he had got from Andrey Semyonovitch Lebeziatnikov, he lives
there, he always used to get hold of such funny books. And I said, ‘I
can’t stay,’ as I didn’t want to read, and I’d gone in chiefly to show
Katerina Ivanovna some collars. Lizaveta, the pedlar, sold me some
collars and cuffs cheap, pretty, new, embroidered ones. Katerina
Ivanovna liked them very much; she put them on and looked at herself
in the glass and was delighted with them. ‘Make me a present of them,
Sonia,’ she said, ‘please do.’ ‘_Please do_,’ she said, she wanted them
so much. And when could she wear them? They just reminded her of her old
happy days. She looked at herself in the glass, admired herself, and she
has no clothes at all, no things of her own, hasn’t had all these years!
And she never asks anyone for anything; she is proud, she’d sooner give
away everything. And these she asked for, she liked them so much. And I
was sorry to give them. ‘What use are they to you, Katerina Ivanovna?’ I
said. I spoke like that to her, I ought not to have said that! She gave
me such a look. And she was so grieved, so grieved at my refusing her.
And it was so sad to see.... And she was not grieved for the collars,
but for my refusing, I saw that. Ah, if only I could bring it all back,
change it, take back those words! Ah, if I... but it’s nothing to you!”

“Did you know Lizaveta, the pedlar?”

“Yes.... Did you know her?” Sonia asked with some surprise.

“Katerina Ivanovna is in consumption, rapid consumption; she will soon
die,” said Raskolnikov after a pause, without answering her question.

“Oh, no, no, no!”

And Sonia unconsciously clutched both his hands, as though imploring
that she should not.

“But it will be better if she does die.”

“No, not better, not at all better!” Sonia unconsciously repeated in
dismay.

“And the children? What can you do except take them to live with you?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” cried Sonia, almost in despair, and she put her
hands to her head.

It was evident that that idea had very often occurred to her before and
he had only roused it again.

“And, what, if even now, while Katerina Ivanovna is alive, you get ill
and are taken to the hospital, what will happen then?” he persisted
pitilessly.

“How can you? That cannot be!”

And Sonia’s face worked with awful terror.

“Cannot be?” Raskolnikov went on with a harsh smile. “You are not
insured against it, are you? What will happen to them then? They will
be in the street, all of them, she will cough and beg and knock her head
against some wall, as she did to-day, and the children will cry....
Then she will fall down, be taken to the police station and to the
hospital, she will die, and the children...”

“Oh, no.... God will not let it be!” broke at last from Sonia’s
overburdened bosom.

She listened, looking imploringly at him, clasping her hands in dumb
entreaty, as though it all depended upon him.

Raskolnikov got up and began to walk about the room. A minute passed.
Sonia was standing with her hands and her head hanging in terrible
dejection.

“And can’t you save? Put by for a rainy day?” he asked, stopping
suddenly before her.

“No,” whispered Sonia.

“Of course not. Have you tried?” he added almost ironically.

“Yes.”

“And it didn’t come off! Of course not! No need to ask.”

And again he paced the room. Another minute passed.

“You don’t get money every day?”

Sonia was more confused than ever and colour rushed into her face again.

“No,” she whispered with a painful effort.

“It will be the same with Polenka, no doubt,” he said suddenly.

“No, no! It can’t be, no!” Sonia cried aloud in desperation, as though
she had been stabbed. “God would not allow anything so awful!”

“He lets others come to it.”

“No, no! God will protect her, God!” she repeated beside herself.

“But, perhaps, there is no God at all,” Raskolnikov answered with a sort
of malignance, laughed and looked at her.

Sonia’s face suddenly changed; a tremor passed over it. She looked at
him with unutterable reproach, tried to say something, but could not
speak and broke into bitter, bitter sobs, hiding her face in her hands.

“You say Katerina Ivanovna’s mind is unhinged; your own mind is
unhinged,” he said after a brief silence.

Five minutes passed. He still paced up and down the room in silence, not
looking at her. At last he went up to her; his eyes glittered. He put
his two hands on her shoulders and looked straight into her tearful
face. His eyes were hard, feverish and piercing, his lips were
twitching. All at once he bent down quickly and dropping to the
ground, kissed her foot. Sonia drew back from him as from a madman. And
certainly he looked like a madman.

“What are you doing to me?” she muttered, turning pale, and a sudden
anguish clutched at her heart.

He stood up at once.

“I did not bow down to you, I bowed down to all the suffering of
humanity,” he said wildly and walked away to the window. “Listen,” he
added, turning to her a minute later. “I said just now to an insolent
man that he was not worth your little finger... and that I did my sister
honour making her sit beside you.”

“Ach, you said that to them! And in her presence?” cried Sonia,
frightened. “Sit down with me! An honour! Why, I’m... dishonourable....
Ah, why did you say that?”

“It was not because of your dishonour and your sin I said that of you,
but because of your great suffering. But you are a great sinner, that’s
true,” he added almost solemnly, “and your worst sin is that you have
destroyed and betrayed yourself _for nothing_. Isn’t that fearful? Isn’t
it fearful that you are living in this filth which you loathe so, and at
the same time you know yourself (you’ve only to open your eyes) that you
are not helping anyone by it, not saving anyone from anything? Tell me,”
 he went on almost in a frenzy, “how this shame and degradation can exist
in you side by side with other, opposite, holy feelings? It would be
better, a thousand times better and wiser to leap into the water and end
it all!”

“But what would become of them?” Sonia asked faintly, gazing at him with
eyes of anguish, but not seeming surprised at his suggestion.

Raskolnikov looked strangely at her. He read it all in her face; so she
must have had that thought already, perhaps many times, and earnestly
she had thought out in her despair how to end it and so earnestly, that
now she scarcely wondered at his suggestion. She had not even noticed
the cruelty of his words. (The significance of his reproaches and his
peculiar attitude to her shame she had, of course, not noticed either,
and that, too, was clear to him.) But he saw how monstrously the thought
of her disgraceful, shameful position was torturing her and had long
tortured her. “What, what,” he thought, “could hitherto have hindered
her from putting an end to it?” Only then he realised what those poor
little orphan children and that pitiful half-crazy Katerina Ivanovna,
knocking her head against the wall in her consumption, meant for Sonia.

But, nevertheless, it was clear to him again that with her character and
the amount of education she had after all received, she could not in any
case remain so. He was still confronted by the question, how could she
have remained so long in that position without going out of her mind,
since she could not bring herself to jump into the water? Of course he
knew that Sonia’s position was an exceptional case, though unhappily not
unique and not infrequent, indeed; but that very exceptionalness, her
tinge of education, her previous life might, one would have thought,
have killed her at the first step on that revolting path. What held her
up--surely not depravity? All that infamy had obviously only touched
her mechanically, not one drop of real depravity had penetrated to her
heart; he saw that. He saw through her as she stood before him....

“There are three ways before her,” he thought, “the canal, the madhouse,
or... at last to sink into depravity which obscures the mind and turns
the heart to stone.”

The last idea was the most revolting, but he was a sceptic, he was
young, abstract, and therefore cruel, and so he could not help believing
that the last end was the most likely.

“But can that be true?” he cried to himself. “Can that creature who has
still preserved the purity of her spirit be consciously drawn at last
into that sink of filth and iniquity? Can the process already have
begun? Can it be that she has only been able to bear it till now,
because vice has begun to be less loathsome to her? No, no, that cannot
be!” he cried, as Sonia had just before. “No, what has kept her from the
canal till now is the idea of sin and they, the children.... And if she
has not gone out of her mind... but who says she has not gone out of her
mind? Is she in her senses? Can one talk, can one reason as she does?
How can she sit on the edge of the abyss of loathsomeness into which she
is slipping and refuse to listen when she is told of danger? Does she
expect a miracle? No doubt she does. Doesn’t that all mean madness?”

He stayed obstinately at that thought. He liked that explanation indeed
better than any other. He began looking more intently at her.

“So you pray to God a great deal, Sonia?” he asked her.

Sonia did not speak; he stood beside her waiting for an answer.

“What should I be without God?” she whispered rapidly, forcibly,
glancing at him with suddenly flashing eyes, and squeezing his hand.

“Ah, so that is it!” he thought.

“And what does God do for you?” he asked, probing her further.

Sonia was silent a long while, as though she could not answer. Her weak
chest kept heaving with emotion.

“Be silent! Don’t ask! You don’t deserve!” she cried suddenly, looking
sternly and wrathfully at him.

“That’s it, that’s it,” he repeated to himself.

“He does everything,” she whispered quickly, looking down again.

“That’s the way out! That’s the explanation,” he decided, scrutinising
her with eager curiosity, with a new, strange, almost morbid feeling.
He gazed at that pale, thin, irregular, angular little face, those soft
blue eyes, which could flash with such fire, such stern energy, that
little body still shaking with indignation and anger--and it all seemed
to him more and more strange, almost impossible. “She is a religious
maniac!” he repeated to himself.

There was a book lying on the chest of drawers. He had noticed it every
time he paced up and down the room. Now he took it up and looked at it.
It was the New Testament in the Russian translation. It was bound in
leather, old and worn.

“Where did you get that?” he called to her across the room.

She was still standing in the same place, three steps from the table.

“It was brought me,” she answered, as it were unwillingly, not looking
at him.

“Who brought it?”

“Lizaveta, I asked her for it.”

“Lizaveta! strange!” he thought.

Everything about Sonia seemed to him stranger and more wonderful every
moment. He carried the book to the candle and began to turn over the
pages.

“Where is the story of Lazarus?” he asked suddenly.

Sonia looked obstinately at the ground and would not answer. She was
standing sideways to the table.

“Where is the raising of Lazarus? Find it for me, Sonia.”

She stole a glance at him.

“You are not looking in the right place.... It’s in the fourth gospel,”
 she whispered sternly, without looking at him.

“Find it and read it to me,” he said. He sat down with his elbow on the
table, leaned his head on his hand and looked away sullenly, prepared to
listen.

“In three weeks’ time they’ll welcome me in the madhouse! I shall be
there if I am not in a worse place,” he muttered to himself.

Sonia heard Raskolnikov’s request distrustfully and moved hesitatingly
to the table. She took the book however.

“Haven’t you read it?” she asked, looking up at him across the table.

Her voice became sterner and sterner.

“Long ago.... When I was at school. Read!”

“And haven’t you heard it in church?”

“I... haven’t been. Do you often go?”

“N-no,” whispered Sonia.

Raskolnikov smiled.

“I understand.... And you won’t go to your father’s funeral to-morrow?”

“Yes, I shall. I was at church last week, too... I had a requiem
service.”

“For whom?”

“For Lizaveta. She was killed with an axe.”

His nerves were more and more strained. His head began to go round.

“Were you friends with Lizaveta?”

“Yes.... She was good... she used to come... not often... she
couldn’t.... We used to read together and... talk. She will see God.”

The last phrase sounded strange in his ears. And here was something new
again: the mysterious meetings with Lizaveta and both of them--religious
maniacs.

“I shall be a religious maniac myself soon! It’s infectious!”

“Read!” he cried irritably and insistently.

Sonia still hesitated. Her heart was throbbing. She hardly dared to read
to him. He looked almost with exasperation at the “unhappy lunatic.”

“What for? You don’t believe?...” she whispered softly and as it were
breathlessly.

“Read! I want you to,” he persisted. “You used to read to Lizaveta.”

Sonia opened the book and found the place. Her hands were shaking, her
voice failed her. Twice she tried to begin and could not bring out the
first syllable.

“Now a certain man was sick named Lazarus of Bethany...” she forced
herself at last to read, but at the third word her voice broke like an
overstrained string. There was a catch in her breath.

Raskolnikov saw in part why Sonia could not bring herself to read to him
and the more he saw this, the more roughly and irritably he insisted on
her doing so. He understood only too well how painful it was for her
to betray and unveil all that was her _own_. He understood that these
feelings really were her _secret treasure_, which she had kept perhaps
for years, perhaps from childhood, while she lived with an unhappy
father and a distracted stepmother crazed by grief, in the midst of
starving children and unseemly abuse and reproaches. But at the same
time he knew now and knew for certain that, although it filled her with
dread and suffering, yet she had a tormenting desire to read and to read
to _him_ that he might hear it, and to read _now_ whatever might come of
it!... He read this in her eyes, he could see it in her intense emotion.
She mastered herself, controlled the spasm in her throat and went on
reading the eleventh chapter of St. John. She went on to the nineteenth
verse:

“And many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary to comfort them concerning
their brother.

“Then Martha as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming went and met
Him: but Mary sat still in the house.

“Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother
had not died.

“But I know that even now whatsoever Thou wilt ask of God, God will give
it Thee....”

Then she stopped again with a shamefaced feeling that her voice would
quiver and break again.

“Jesus said unto her, thy brother shall rise again.

“Martha saith unto Him, I know that he shall rise again in the
resurrection, at the last day.

“Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life: he that
believeth in Me though he were dead, yet shall he live.

“And whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die. Believest
thou this?

“She saith unto Him,”

(And drawing a painful breath, Sonia read distinctly and forcibly as
though she were making a public confession of faith.)

“Yea, Lord: I believe that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God Which
should come into the world.”

She stopped and looked up quickly at him, but controlling herself went
on reading. Raskolnikov sat without moving, his elbows on the table and
his eyes turned away. She read to the thirty-second verse.

“Then when Mary was come where Jesus was and saw Him, she fell down at
His feet, saying unto Him, Lord if Thou hadst been here, my brother had
not died.

“When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which
came with her, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled,

“And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto Him, Lord, come and
see.

“Jesus wept.

“Then said the Jews, behold how He loved him!

“And some of them said, could not this Man which opened the eyes of the
blind, have caused that even this man should not have died?”

Raskolnikov turned and looked at her with emotion. Yes, he had known it!
She was trembling in a real physical fever. He had expected it. She was
getting near the story of the greatest miracle and a feeling of immense
triumph came over her. Her voice rang out like a bell; triumph and joy
gave it power. The lines danced before her eyes, but she knew what she
was reading by heart. At the last verse “Could not this Man which opened
the eyes of the blind...” dropping her voice she passionately reproduced
the doubt, the reproach and censure of the blind disbelieving Jews, who
in another moment would fall at His feet as though struck by
thunder, sobbing and believing.... “And _he, he_--too, is blinded and
unbelieving, he, too, will hear, he, too, will believe, yes, yes! At
once, now,” was what she was dreaming, and she was quivering with happy
anticipation.

“Jesus therefore again groaning in Himself cometh to the grave. It was a
cave, and a stone lay upon it.

“Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was
dead, saith unto Him, Lord by this time he stinketh: for he hath been
dead four days.”

She laid emphasis on the word _four_.

“Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee that if thou wouldest
believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?

“Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid.
And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, Father, I thank Thee that Thou
hast heard Me.

“And I knew that Thou hearest Me always; but because of the people which
stand by I said it, that they may believe that Thou hast sent Me.

“And when He thus had spoken, He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come
forth.

“And he that was dead came forth.”

(She read loudly, cold and trembling with ecstasy, as though she were
seeing it before her eyes.)

“Bound hand and foot with graveclothes; and his face was bound about
with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him and let him go.

“Then many of the Jews which came to Mary and had seen the things which
Jesus did believed on Him.”

She could read no more, closed the book and got up from her chair
quickly.

“That is all about the raising of Lazarus,” she whispered severely and
abruptly, and turning away she stood motionless, not daring to raise
her eyes to him. She still trembled feverishly. The candle-end was
flickering out in the battered candlestick, dimly lighting up in the
poverty-stricken room the murderer and the harlot who had so strangely
been reading together the eternal book. Five minutes or more passed.

“I came to speak of something,” Raskolnikov said aloud, frowning. He got
up and went to Sonia. She lifted her eyes to him in silence. His face
was particularly stern and there was a sort of savage determination in
it.

“I have abandoned my family to-day,” he said, “my mother and sister. I
am not going to see them. I’ve broken with them completely.”

“What for?” asked Sonia amazed. Her recent meeting with his mother and
sister had left a great impression which she could not analyse. She
heard his news almost with horror.

“I have only you now,” he added. “Let us go together.... I’ve come to
you, we are both accursed, let us go our way together!”

His eyes glittered “as though he were mad,” Sonia thought, in her turn.

“Go where?” she asked in alarm and she involuntarily stepped back.

“How do I know? I only know it’s the same road, I know that and nothing
more. It’s the same goal!”

She looked at him and understood nothing. She knew only that he was
terribly, infinitely unhappy.

“No one of them will understand, if you tell them, but I have
understood. I need you, that is why I have come to you.”

“I don’t understand,” whispered Sonia.

“You’ll understand later. Haven’t you done the same? You, too, have
transgressed... have had the strength to transgress. You have laid
hands on yourself, you have destroyed a life... _your own_ (it’s all the
same!). You might have lived in spirit and understanding, but you’ll
end in the Hay Market.... But you won’t be able to stand it, and if
you remain alone you’ll go out of your mind like me. You are like a mad
creature already. So we must go together on the same road! Let us go!”

“What for? What’s all this for?” said Sonia, strangely and violently
agitated by his words.

“What for? Because you can’t remain like this, that’s why! You must look
things straight in the face at last, and not weep like a child and cry
that God won’t allow it. What will happen, if you should really be taken
to the hospital to-morrow? She is mad and in consumption, she’ll soon
die and the children? Do you mean to tell me Polenka won’t come to
grief? Haven’t you seen children here at the street corners sent out
by their mothers to beg? I’ve found out where those mothers live and in
what surroundings. Children can’t remain children there! At seven the
child is vicious and a thief. Yet children, you know, are the image of
Christ: ‘theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.’ He bade us honour and love
them, they are the humanity of the future....”

“What’s to be done, what’s to be done?” repeated Sonia, weeping
hysterically and wringing her hands.

“What’s to be done? Break what must be broken, once for all, that’s all,
and take the suffering on oneself. What, you don’t understand? You’ll
understand later.... Freedom and power, and above all, power! Over all
trembling creation and all the ant-heap!... That’s the goal, remember
that! That’s my farewell message. Perhaps it’s the last time I shall
speak to you. If I don’t come to-morrow, you’ll hear of it all, and then
remember these words. And some day later on, in years to come, you’ll
understand perhaps what they meant. If I come to-morrow, I’ll tell you
who killed Lizaveta.... Good-bye.”

Sonia started with terror.

“Why, do you know who killed her?” she asked, chilled with horror,
looking wildly at him.

“I know and will tell... you, only you. I have chosen you out. I’m not
coming to you to ask forgiveness, but simply to tell you. I chose you
out long ago to hear this, when your father talked of you and when
Lizaveta was alive, I thought of it. Good-bye, don’t shake hands.
To-morrow!”

He went out. Sonia gazed at him as at a madman. But she herself was like
one insane and felt it. Her head was going round.

“Good heavens, how does he know who killed Lizaveta? What did those
words mean? It’s awful!” But at the same time _the idea_ did not enter
her head, not for a moment! “Oh, he must be terribly unhappy!... He has
abandoned his mother and sister.... What for? What has happened? And
what had he in his mind? What did he say to her? He had kissed her foot
and said... said (yes, he had said it clearly) that he could not live
without her.... Oh, merciful heavens!”

Sonia spent the whole night feverish and delirious. She jumped up from
time to time, wept and wrung her hands, then sank again into feverish
sleep and dreamt of Polenka, Katerina Ivanovna and Lizaveta, of reading
the gospel and him... him with pale face, with burning eyes... kissing
her feet, weeping.

On the other side of the door on the right, which divided Sonia’s room
from Madame Resslich’s flat, was a room which had long stood empty. A
card was fixed on the gate and a notice stuck in the windows over the
canal advertising it to let. Sonia had long been accustomed to the
room’s being uninhabited. But all that time Mr. Svidrigaïlov had been
standing, listening at the door of the empty room. When Raskolnikov went
out he stood still, thought a moment, went on tiptoe to his own room
which adjoined the empty one, brought a chair and noiselessly carried it
to the door that led to Sonia’s room. The conversation had struck him
as interesting and remarkable, and he had greatly enjoyed it--so much so
that he brought a chair that he might not in the future, to-morrow, for
instance, have to endure the inconvenience of standing a whole hour, but
might listen in comfort.



CHAPTER V

When next morning at eleven o’clock punctually Raskolnikov went into the
department of the investigation of criminal causes and sent his name in
to Porfiry Petrovitch, he was surprised at being kept waiting so long:
it was at least ten minutes before he was summoned. He had expected
that they would pounce upon him. But he stood in the waiting-room, and
people, who apparently had nothing to do with him, were continually
passing to and fro before him. In the next room which looked like an
office, several clerks were sitting writing and obviously they had
no notion who or what Raskolnikov might be. He looked uneasily and
suspiciously about him to see whether there was not some guard, some
mysterious watch being kept on him to prevent his escape. But there was
nothing of the sort: he saw only the faces of clerks absorbed in petty
details, then other people, no one seemed to have any concern with him.
He might go where he liked for them. The conviction grew stronger in him
that if that enigmatic man of yesterday, that phantom sprung out of the
earth, had seen everything, they would not have let him stand and wait
like that. And would they have waited till he elected to appear at
eleven? Either the man had not yet given information, or... or simply
he knew nothing, had seen nothing (and how could he have seen anything?)
and so all that had happened to him the day before was again a phantom
exaggerated by his sick and overstrained imagination. This conjecture
had begun to grow strong the day before, in the midst of all his
alarm and despair. Thinking it all over now and preparing for a fresh
conflict, he was suddenly aware that he was trembling--and he felt a
rush of indignation at the thought that he was trembling with fear at
facing that hateful Porfiry Petrovitch. What he dreaded above all was
meeting that man again; he hated him with an intense, unmitigated hatred
and was afraid his hatred might betray him. His indignation was such
that he ceased trembling at once; he made ready to go in with a cold and
arrogant bearing and vowed to himself to keep as silent as possible,
to watch and listen and for once at least to control his overstrained
nerves. At that moment he was summoned to Porfiry Petrovitch.

He found Porfiry Petrovitch alone in his study. His study was a room
neither large nor small, furnished with a large writing-table, that
stood before a sofa, upholstered in checked material, a bureau, a
bookcase in the corner and several chairs--all government furniture,
of polished yellow wood. In the further wall there was a closed door,
beyond it there were no doubt other rooms. On Raskolnikov’s entrance
Porfiry Petrovitch had at once closed the door by which he had come in
and they remained alone. He met his visitor with an apparently genial
and good-tempered air, and it was only after a few minutes that
Raskolnikov saw signs of a certain awkwardness in him, as though he had
been thrown out of his reckoning or caught in something very secret.

“Ah, my dear fellow! Here you are... in our domain”... began Porfiry,
holding out both hands to him. “Come, sit down, old man... or perhaps
you don’t like to be called ‘my dear fellow’ and ‘old man!’--_tout
court_? Please don’t think it too familiar.... Here, on the sofa.”

Raskolnikov sat down, keeping his eyes fixed on him. “In our domain,”
 the apologies for familiarity, the French phrase _tout court_, were all
characteristic signs.

“He held out both hands to me, but he did not give me one--he drew it
back in time,” struck him suspiciously. Both were watching each other,
but when their eyes met, quick as lightning they looked away.

“I brought you this paper... about the watch. Here it is. Is it all
right or shall I copy it again?”

“What? A paper? Yes, yes, don’t be uneasy, it’s all right,” Porfiry
Petrovitch said as though in haste, and after he had said it he took the
paper and looked at it. “Yes, it’s all right. Nothing more is needed,”
 he declared with the same rapidity and he laid the paper on the table.

A minute later when he was talking of something else he took it from the
table and put it on his bureau.

“I believe you said yesterday you would like to question me...
formally... about my acquaintance with the murdered woman?” Raskolnikov
was beginning again. “Why did I put in ‘I believe’” passed through
his mind in a flash. “Why am I so uneasy at having put in that ‘_I
believe_’?” came in a second flash. And he suddenly felt that his
uneasiness at the mere contact with Porfiry, at the first words, at the
first looks, had grown in an instant to monstrous proportions, and that
this was fearfully dangerous. His nerves were quivering, his emotion was
increasing. “It’s bad, it’s bad! I shall say too much again.”

“Yes, yes, yes! There’s no hurry, there’s no hurry,” muttered Porfiry
Petrovitch, moving to and fro about the table without any apparent aim,
as it were making dashes towards the window, the bureau and the table,
at one moment avoiding Raskolnikov’s suspicious glance, then again
standing still and looking him straight in the face.

His fat round little figure looked very strange, like a ball rolling
from one side to the other and rebounding back.

“We’ve plenty of time. Do you smoke? have you your own? Here, a
cigarette!” he went on, offering his visitor a cigarette. “You know I am
receiving you here, but my own quarters are through there, you know, my
government quarters. But I am living outside for the time, I had to
have some repairs done here. It’s almost finished now.... Government
quarters, you know, are a capital thing. Eh, what do you think?”

“Yes, a capital thing,” answered Raskolnikov, looking at him almost
ironically.

“A capital thing, a capital thing,” repeated Porfiry Petrovitch, as
though he had just thought of something quite different. “Yes, a capital
thing,” he almost shouted at last, suddenly staring at Raskolnikov and
stopping short two steps from him.

This stupid repetition was too incongruous in its ineptitude with the
serious, brooding and enigmatic glance he turned upon his visitor.

But this stirred Raskolnikov’s spleen more than ever and he could not
resist an ironical and rather incautious challenge.

“Tell me, please,” he asked suddenly, looking almost insolently at him
and taking a kind of pleasure in his own insolence. “I believe it’s a
sort of legal rule, a sort of legal tradition--for all investigating
lawyers--to begin their attack from afar, with a trivial, or at least
an irrelevant subject, so as to encourage, or rather, to divert the man
they are cross-examining, to disarm his caution and then all at once to
give him an unexpected knock-down blow with some fatal question. Isn’t
that so? It’s a sacred tradition, mentioned, I fancy, in all the manuals
of the art?”

“Yes, yes.... Why, do you imagine that was why I spoke about government
quarters... eh?”

And as he said this Porfiry Petrovitch screwed up his eyes and winked;
a good-humoured, crafty look passed over his face. The wrinkles on his
forehead were smoothed out, his eyes contracted, his features broadened
and he suddenly went off into a nervous prolonged laugh, shaking all
over and looking Raskolnikov straight in the face. The latter forced
himself to laugh, too, but when Porfiry, seeing that he was laughing,
broke into such a guffaw that he turned almost crimson, Raskolnikov’s
repulsion overcame all precaution; he left off laughing, scowled and
stared with hatred at Porfiry, keeping his eyes fixed on him while his
intentionally prolonged laughter lasted. There was lack of precaution on
both sides, however, for Porfiry Petrovitch seemed to be laughing in
his visitor’s face and to be very little disturbed at the annoyance with
which the visitor received it. The latter fact was very significant
in Raskolnikov’s eyes: he saw that Porfiry Petrovitch had not been
embarrassed just before either, but that he, Raskolnikov, had perhaps
fallen into a trap; that there must be something, some motive here
unknown to him; that, perhaps, everything was in readiness and in
another moment would break upon him...

He went straight to the point at once, rose from his seat and took his
cap.

“Porfiry Petrovitch,” he began resolutely, though with considerable
irritation, “yesterday you expressed a desire that I should come to you
for some inquiries” (he laid special stress on the word “inquiries”). “I
have come and if you have anything to ask me, ask it, and if not, allow
me to withdraw. I have no time to spare.... I have to be at the funeral
of that man who was run over, of whom you... know also,” he added,
feeling angry at once at having made this addition and more irritated at
his anger. “I am sick of it all, do you hear? and have long been. It’s
partly what made me ill. In short,” he shouted, feeling that the phrase
about his illness was still more out of place, “in short, kindly examine
me or let me go, at once. And if you must examine me, do so in the
proper form! I will not allow you to do so otherwise, and so meanwhile,
good-bye, as we have evidently nothing to keep us now.”

“Good heavens! What do you mean? What shall I question you about?”
 cackled Porfiry Petrovitch with a change of tone, instantly leaving off
laughing. “Please don’t disturb yourself,” he began fidgeting from place
to place and fussily making Raskolnikov sit down. “There’s no hurry,
there’s no hurry, it’s all nonsense. Oh, no, I’m very glad you’ve come
to see me at last... I look upon you simply as a visitor. And as for
my confounded laughter, please excuse it, Rodion Romanovitch. Rodion
Romanovitch? That is your name?... It’s my nerves, you tickled me
so with your witty observation; I assure you, sometimes I shake with
laughter like an india-rubber ball for half an hour at a time.... I’m
often afraid of an attack of paralysis. Do sit down. Please do, or I
shall think you are angry...”

Raskolnikov did not speak; he listened, watching him, still frowning
angrily. He did sit down, but still held his cap.

“I must tell you one thing about myself, my dear Rodion Romanovitch,”
 Porfiry Petrovitch continued, moving about the room and again avoiding
his visitor’s eyes. “You see, I’m a bachelor, a man of no consequence
and not used to society; besides, I have nothing before me, I’m set, I’m
running to seed and... and have you noticed, Rodion Romanovitch, that in
our Petersburg circles, if two clever men meet who are not intimate, but
respect each other, like you and me, it takes them half an hour before
they can find a subject for conversation--they are dumb, they sit
opposite each other and feel awkward. Everyone has subjects of
conversation, ladies for instance... people in high society always have
their subjects of conversation, _c’est de rigueur_, but people of the
middle sort like us, thinking people that is, are always tongue-tied
and awkward. What is the reason of it? Whether it is the lack of public
interest, or whether it is we are so honest we don’t want to deceive one
another, I don’t know. What do you think? Do put down your cap, it
looks as if you were just going, it makes me uncomfortable... I am so
delighted...”

Raskolnikov put down his cap and continued listening in silence with
a serious frowning face to the vague and empty chatter of Porfiry
Petrovitch. “Does he really want to distract my attention with his silly
babble?”

“I can’t offer you coffee here; but why not spend five minutes with a
friend?” Porfiry pattered on, “and you know all these official
duties... please don’t mind my running up and down, excuse it, my dear
fellow, I am very much afraid of offending you, but exercise is
absolutely indispensable for me. I’m always sitting and so glad to be
moving about for five minutes... I suffer from my sedentary life... I
always intend to join a gymnasium; they say that officials of all ranks,
even Privy Councillors, may be seen skipping gaily there; there you have
it, modern science... yes, yes.... But as for my duties here, inquiries
and all such formalities... you mentioned inquiries yourself just now...
I assure you these interrogations are sometimes more embarrassing for
the interrogator than for the interrogated.... You made the observation
yourself just now very aptly and wittily.” (Raskolnikov had made no
observation of the kind.) “One gets into a muddle! A regular muddle! One
keeps harping on the same note, like a drum! There is to be a reform and
we shall be called by a different name, at least, he-he-he! And as for
our legal tradition, as you so wittily called it, I thoroughly agree
with you. Every prisoner on trial, even the rudest peasant, knows that
they begin by disarming him with irrelevant questions (as you so happily
put it) and then deal him a knock-down blow, he-he-he!--your felicitous
comparison, he-he! So you really imagined that I meant by ‘government
quarters’... he-he! You are an ironical person. Come. I won’t go on! Ah,
by the way, yes! One word leads to another. You spoke of formality just
now, apropos of the inquiry, you know. But what’s the use of formality?
In many cases it’s nonsense. Sometimes one has a friendly chat and gets
a good deal more out of it. One can always fall back on formality, allow
me to assure you. And after all, what does it amount to? An examining
lawyer cannot be bounded by formality at every step. The work of
investigation is, so to speak, a free art in its own way, he-he-he!”

Porfiry Petrovitch took breath a moment. He had simply babbled on
uttering empty phrases, letting slip a few enigmatic words and again
reverting to incoherence. He was almost running about the room, moving
his fat little legs quicker and quicker, looking at the ground, with his
right hand behind his back, while with his left making gesticulations
that were extraordinarily incongruous with his words. Raskolnikov
suddenly noticed that as he ran about the room he seemed twice to stop
for a moment near the door, as though he were listening.

“Is he expecting anything?”

“You are certainly quite right about it,” Porfiry began gaily, looking
with extraordinary simplicity at Raskolnikov (which startled him and
instantly put him on his guard); “certainly quite right in laughing so
wittily at our legal forms, he-he! Some of these elaborate psychological
methods are exceedingly ridiculous and perhaps useless, if one adheres
too closely to the forms. Yes... I am talking of forms again. Well, if
I recognise, or more strictly speaking, if I suspect someone or other to
be a criminal in any case entrusted to me... you’re reading for the law,
of course, Rodion Romanovitch?”

“Yes, I was...”

“Well, then it is a precedent for you for the future--though don’t
suppose I should venture to instruct you after the articles you publish
about crime! No, I simply make bold to state it by way of fact, if I
took this man or that for a criminal, why, I ask, should I worry him
prematurely, even though I had evidence against him? In one case I may
be bound, for instance, to arrest a man at once, but another may be in
quite a different position, you know, so why shouldn’t I let him walk
about the town a bit? he-he-he! But I see you don’t quite understand, so
I’ll give you a clearer example. If I put him in prison too soon, I
may very likely give him, so to speak, moral support, he-he! You’re
laughing?”

Raskolnikov had no idea of laughing. He was sitting with compressed
lips, his feverish eyes fixed on Porfiry Petrovitch’s.

“Yet that is the case, with some types especially, for men are so
different. You say ‘evidence’. Well, there may be evidence. But
evidence, you know, can generally be taken two ways. I am an examining
lawyer and a weak man, I confess it. I should like to make a proof, so
to say, mathematically clear. I should like to make a chain of evidence
such as twice two are four, it ought to be a direct, irrefutable proof!
And if I shut him up too soon--even though I might be convinced _he_
was the man, I should very likely be depriving myself of the means of
getting further evidence against him. And how? By giving him, so to
speak, a definite position, I shall put him out of suspense and set his
mind at rest, so that he will retreat into his shell. They say that at
Sevastopol, soon after Alma, the clever people were in a terrible fright
that the enemy would attack openly and take Sevastopol at once. But when
they saw that the enemy preferred a regular siege, they were delighted,
I am told and reassured, for the thing would drag on for two months at
least. You’re laughing, you don’t believe me again? Of course, you’re
right, too. You’re right, you’re right. These are special cases, I
admit. But you must observe this, my dear Rodion Romanovitch, the
general case, the case for which all legal forms and rules are intended,
for which they are calculated and laid down in books, does not exist at
all, for the reason that every case, every crime, for instance, so soon
as it actually occurs, at once becomes a thoroughly special case and
sometimes a case unlike any that’s gone before. Very comic cases of that
sort sometimes occur. If I leave one man quite alone, if I don’t touch
him and don’t worry him, but let him know or at least suspect every
moment that I know all about it and am watching him day and night, and
if he is in continual suspicion and terror, he’ll be bound to lose his
head. He’ll come of himself, or maybe do something which will make it as
plain as twice two are four--it’s delightful. It may be so with a simple
peasant, but with one of our sort, an intelligent man cultivated on a
certain side, it’s a dead certainty. For, my dear fellow, it’s a very
important matter to know on what side a man is cultivated. And then
there are nerves, there are nerves, you have overlooked them! Why, they
are all sick, nervous and irritable!... And then how they all suffer
from spleen! That I assure you is a regular gold-mine for us. And it’s
no anxiety to me, his running about the town free! Let him, let him walk
about for a bit! I know well enough that I’ve caught him and that he
won’t escape me. Where could he escape to, he-he? Abroad, perhaps? A
Pole will escape abroad, but not here, especially as I am watching
and have taken measures. Will he escape into the depths of the country
perhaps? But you know, peasants live there, real rude Russian peasants.
A modern cultivated man would prefer prison to living with such
strangers as our peasants. He-he! But that’s all nonsense, and on
the surface. It’s not merely that he has nowhere to run to, he is
_psychologically_ unable to escape me, he-he! What an expression!
Through a law of nature he can’t escape me if he had anywhere to go.
Have you seen a butterfly round a candle? That’s how he will keep
circling and circling round me. Freedom will lose its attractions. He’ll
begin to brood, he’ll weave a tangle round himself, he’ll worry himself
to death! What’s more, he will provide me with a mathematical proof--if
I only give him long enough interval.... And he’ll keep circling round
me, getting nearer and nearer and then--flop! He’ll fly straight into my
mouth and I’ll swallow him, and that will be very amusing, he-he-he! You
don’t believe me?”

Raskolnikov made no reply; he sat pale and motionless, still gazing with
the same intensity into Porfiry’s face.

“It’s a lesson,” he thought, turning cold. “This is beyond the cat
playing with a mouse, like yesterday. He can’t be showing off his power
with no motive... prompting me; he is far too clever for that... he must
have another object. What is it? It’s all nonsense, my friend, you are
pretending, to scare me! You’ve no proofs and the man I saw had no
real existence. You simply want to make me lose my head, to work me up
beforehand and so to crush me. But you are wrong, you won’t do it! But
why give me such a hint? Is he reckoning on my shattered nerves? No, my
friend, you are wrong, you won’t do it even though you have some trap
for me... let us see what you have in store for me.”

And he braced himself to face a terrible and unknown ordeal. At times
he longed to fall on Porfiry and strangle him. This anger was what he
dreaded from the beginning. He felt that his parched lips were flecked
with foam, his heart was throbbing. But he was still determined not to
speak till the right moment. He realised that this was the best
policy in his position, because instead of saying too much he would be
irritating his enemy by his silence and provoking him into speaking too
freely. Anyhow, this was what he hoped for.

“No, I see you don’t believe me, you think I am playing a harmless joke
on you,” Porfiry began again, getting more and more lively, chuckling
at every instant and again pacing round the room. “And to be sure you’re
right: God has given me a figure that can awaken none but comic ideas in
other people; a buffoon; but let me tell you, and I repeat it, excuse
an old man, my dear Rodion Romanovitch, you are a man still young, so to
say, in your first youth and so you put intellect above everything, like
all young people. Playful wit and abstract arguments fascinate you and
that’s for all the world like the old Austrian _Hof-kriegsrath_, as
far as I can judge of military matters, that is: on paper they’d beaten
Napoleon and taken him prisoner, and there in their study they worked it
all out in the cleverest fashion, but look you, General Mack surrendered
with all his army, he-he-he! I see, I see, Rodion Romanovitch, you are
laughing at a civilian like me, taking examples out of military history!
But I can’t help it, it’s my weakness. I am fond of military science.
And I’m ever so fond of reading all military histories. I’ve certainly
missed my proper career. I ought to have been in the army, upon my
word I ought. I shouldn’t have been a Napoleon, but I might have been a
major, he-he! Well, I’ll tell you the whole truth, my dear fellow, about
this _special case_, I mean: actual fact and a man’s temperament, my
dear sir, are weighty matters and it’s astonishing how they sometimes
deceive the sharpest calculation! I--listen to an old man--am speaking
seriously, Rodion Romanovitch” (as he said this Porfiry Petrovitch, who
was scarcely five-and-thirty, actually seemed to have grown old; even
his voice changed and he seemed to shrink together) “Moreover, I’m
a candid man... am I a candid man or not? What do you say? I fancy I
really am: I tell you these things for nothing and don’t even expect a
reward for it, he-he! Well, to proceed, wit in my opinion is a splendid
thing, it is, so to say, an adornment of nature and a consolation of
life, and what tricks it can play! So that it sometimes is hard for a
poor examining lawyer to know where he is, especially when he’s liable
to be carried away by his own fancy, too, for you know he is a man after
all! But the poor fellow is saved by the criminal’s temperament, worse
luck for him! But young people carried away by their own wit don’t think
of that ‘when they overstep all obstacles,’ as you wittily and cleverly
expressed it yesterday. He will lie--that is, the man who is a _special
case_, the incognito, and he will lie well, in the cleverest fashion;
you might think he would triumph and enjoy the fruits of his wit, but at
the most interesting, the most flagrant moment he will faint. Of course
there may be illness and a stuffy room as well, but anyway! Anyway he’s
given us the idea! He lied incomparably, but he didn’t reckon on his
temperament. That’s what betrays him! Another time he will be carried
away by his playful wit into making fun of the man who suspects him, he
will turn pale as it were on purpose to mislead, but his paleness will
be _too natural_, too much like the real thing, again he has given us
an idea! Though his questioner may be deceived at first, he will think
differently next day if he is not a fool, and, of course, it is like
that at every step! He puts himself forward where he is not wanted,
speaks continually when he ought to keep silent, brings in all sorts of
allegorical allusions, he-he! Comes and asks why didn’t you take me long
ago? he-he-he! And that can happen, you know, with the cleverest man,
the psychologist, the literary man. The temperament reflects everything
like a mirror! Gaze into it and admire what you see! But why are you so
pale, Rodion Romanovitch? Is the room stuffy? Shall I open the window?”

“Oh, don’t trouble, please,” cried Raskolnikov and he suddenly broke
into a laugh. “Please don’t trouble.”

Porfiry stood facing him, paused a moment and suddenly he too laughed.
Raskolnikov got up from the sofa, abruptly checking his hysterical
laughter.

“Porfiry Petrovitch,” he began, speaking loudly and distinctly, though
his legs trembled and he could scarcely stand. “I see clearly at last
that you actually suspect me of murdering that old woman and her sister
Lizaveta. Let me tell you for my part that I am sick of this. If you
find that you have a right to prosecute me legally, to arrest me, then
prosecute me, arrest me. But I will not let myself be jeered at to my
face and worried...”

His lips trembled, his eyes glowed with fury and he could not restrain
his voice.

“I won’t allow it!” he shouted, bringing his fist down on the table. “Do
you hear that, Porfiry Petrovitch? I won’t allow it.”

“Good heavens! What does it mean?” cried Porfiry Petrovitch, apparently
quite frightened. “Rodion Romanovitch, my dear fellow, what is the
matter with you?”

“I won’t allow it,” Raskolnikov shouted again.

“Hush, my dear man! They’ll hear and come in. Just think, what could we
say to them?” Porfiry Petrovitch whispered in horror, bringing his face
close to Raskolnikov’s.

“I won’t allow it, I won’t allow it,” Raskolnikov repeated mechanically,
but he too spoke in a sudden whisper.

Porfiry turned quickly and ran to open the window.

“Some fresh air! And you must have some water, my dear fellow. You’re
ill!” and he was running to the door to call for some when he found a
decanter of water in the corner. “Come, drink a little,” he whispered,
rushing up to him with the decanter. “It will be sure to do you good.”

Porfiry Petrovitch’s alarm and sympathy were so natural that Raskolnikov
was silent and began looking at him with wild curiosity. He did not take
the water, however.

“Rodion Romanovitch, my dear fellow, you’ll drive yourself out of your
mind, I assure you, ach, ach! Have some water, do drink a little.”

He forced him to take the glass. Raskolnikov raised it mechanically to
his lips, but set it on the table again with disgust.

“Yes, you’ve had a little attack! You’ll bring back your illness again,
my dear fellow,” Porfiry Petrovitch cackled with friendly sympathy,
though he still looked rather disconcerted. “Good heavens, you must
take more care of yourself! Dmitri Prokofitch was here, came to see me
yesterday--I know, I know, I’ve a nasty, ironical temper, but what they
made of it!... Good heavens, he came yesterday after you’d been. We
dined and he talked and talked away, and I could only throw up my hands
in despair! Did he come from you? But do sit down, for mercy’s sake, sit
down!”

“No, not from me, but I knew he went to you and why he went,”
 Raskolnikov answered sharply.

“You knew?”

“I knew. What of it?”

“Why this, Rodion Romanovitch, that I know more than that about you;
I know about everything. I know how you went _to take a flat_ at night
when it was dark and how you rang the bell and asked about the blood, so
that the workmen and the porter did not know what to make of it. Yes, I
understand your state of mind at that time... but you’ll drive yourself
mad like that, upon my word! You’ll lose your head! You’re full of
generous indignation at the wrongs you’ve received, first from destiny,
and then from the police officers, and so you rush from one thing to
another to force them to speak out and make an end of it all, because
you are sick of all this suspicion and foolishness. That’s so, isn’t
it? I have guessed how you feel, haven’t I? Only in that way you’ll
lose your head and Razumihin’s, too; he’s too _good_ a man for such
a position, you must know that. You are ill and he is good and your
illness is infectious for him... I’ll tell you about it when you are
more yourself.... But do sit down, for goodness’ sake. Please rest, you
look shocking, do sit down.”

Raskolnikov sat down; he no longer shivered, he was hot all over. In
amazement he listened with strained attention to Porfiry Petrovitch who
still seemed frightened as he looked after him with friendly solicitude.
But he did not believe a word he said, though he felt a strange
inclination to believe. Porfiry’s unexpected words about the flat had
utterly overwhelmed him. “How can it be, he knows about the flat then,”
 he thought suddenly, “and he tells it me himself!”

“Yes, in our legal practice there was a case almost exactly similar, a
case of morbid psychology,” Porfiry went on quickly. “A man confessed to
murder and how he kept it up! It was a regular hallucination; he brought
forward facts, he imposed upon everyone and why? He had been partly, but
only partly, unintentionally the cause of a murder and when he knew that
he had given the murderers the opportunity, he sank into dejection, it
got on his mind and turned his brain, he began imagining things and he
persuaded himself that he was the murderer. But at last the High Court
of Appeal went into it and the poor fellow was acquitted and put under
proper care. Thanks to the Court of Appeal! Tut-tut-tut! Why, my dear
fellow, you may drive yourself into delirium if you have the impulse
to work upon your nerves, to go ringing bells at night and asking about
blood! I’ve studied all this morbid psychology in my practice. A man
is sometimes tempted to jump out of a window or from a belfry. Just the
same with bell-ringing.... It’s all illness, Rodion Romanovitch! You
have begun to neglect your illness. You should consult an experienced
doctor, what’s the good of that fat fellow? You are lightheaded! You
were delirious when you did all this!”

For a moment Raskolnikov felt everything going round.

“Is it possible, is it possible,” flashed through his mind, “that he is
still lying? He can’t be, he can’t be.” He rejected that idea, feeling
to what a degree of fury it might drive him, feeling that that fury
might drive him mad.

“I was not delirious. I knew what I was doing,” he cried, straining
every faculty to penetrate Porfiry’s game, “I was quite myself, do you
hear?”

“Yes, I hear and understand. You said yesterday you were not delirious,
you were particularly emphatic about it! I understand all you can tell
me! A-ach!... Listen, Rodion Romanovitch, my dear fellow. If you were
actually a criminal, or were somehow mixed up in this damnable business,
would you insist that you were not delirious but in full possession
of your faculties? And so emphatically and persistently? Would it be
possible? Quite impossible, to my thinking. If you had anything on
your conscience, you certainly ought to insist that you were delirious.
That’s so, isn’t it?”

There was a note of slyness in this inquiry. Raskolnikov drew back on
the sofa as Porfiry bent over him and stared in silent perplexity at
him.

“Another thing about Razumihin--you certainly ought to have said that he
came of his own accord, to have concealed your part in it! But you don’t
conceal it! You lay stress on his coming at your instigation.”

Raskolnikov had not done so. A chill went down his back.

“You keep telling lies,” he said slowly and weakly, twisting his lips
into a sickly smile, “you are trying again to show that you know all
my game, that you know all I shall say beforehand,” he said, conscious
himself that he was not weighing his words as he ought. “You want to
frighten me... or you are simply laughing at me...”

He still stared at him as he said this and again there was a light of
intense hatred in his eyes.

“You keep lying,” he said. “You know perfectly well that the best
policy for the criminal is to tell the truth as nearly as possible... to
conceal as little as possible. I don’t believe you!”

“What a wily person you are!” Porfiry tittered, “there’s no catching
you; you’ve a perfect monomania. So you don’t believe me? But still you
do believe me, you believe a quarter; I’ll soon make you believe the
whole, because I have a sincere liking for you and genuinely wish you
good.”

Raskolnikov’s lips trembled.

“Yes, I do,” went on Porfiry, touching Raskolnikov’s arm genially, “you
must take care of your illness. Besides, your mother and sister are here
now; you must think of them. You must soothe and comfort them and you do
nothing but frighten them...”

“What has that to do with you? How do you know it? What concern is it of
yours? You are keeping watch on me and want to let me know it?”

“Good heavens! Why, I learnt it all from you yourself! You don’t
notice that in your excitement you tell me and others everything. From
Razumihin, too, I learnt a number of interesting details yesterday. No,
you interrupted me, but I must tell you that, for all your wit, your
suspiciousness makes you lose the common-sense view of things. To return
to bell-ringing, for instance. I, an examining lawyer, have betrayed a
precious thing like that, a real fact (for it is a fact worth having),
and you see nothing in it! Why, if I had the slightest suspicion of you,
should I have acted like that? No, I should first have disarmed your
suspicions and not let you see I knew of that fact, should have diverted
your attention and suddenly have dealt you a knock-down blow (your
expression) saying: ‘And what were you doing, sir, pray, at ten or
nearly eleven at the murdered woman’s flat and why did you ring the bell
and why did you ask about blood? And why did you invite the porters
to go with you to the police station, to the lieutenant?’ That’s how
I ought to have acted if I had a grain of suspicion of you. I ought to
have taken your evidence in due form, searched your lodging and perhaps
have arrested you, too... so I have no suspicion of you, since I have
not done that! But you can’t look at it normally and you see nothing, I
say again.”

Raskolnikov started so that Porfiry Petrovitch could not fail to
perceive it.

“You are lying all the while,” he cried, “I don’t know your object,
but you are lying. You did not speak like that just now and I cannot be
mistaken!”

“I am lying?” Porfiry repeated, apparently incensed, but preserving
a good-humoured and ironical face, as though he were not in the least
concerned at Raskolnikov’s opinion of him. “I am lying... but how did
I treat you just now, I, the examining lawyer? Prompting you and giving
you every means for your defence; illness, I said, delirium, injury,
melancholy and the police officers and all the rest of it? Ah! He-he-he!
Though, indeed, all those psychological means of defence are not very
reliable and cut both ways: illness, delirium, I don’t remember--that’s
all right, but why, my good sir, in your illness and in your delirium
were you haunted by just those delusions and not by any others? There
may have been others, eh? He-he-he!”

Raskolnikov looked haughtily and contemptuously at him.

“Briefly,” he said loudly and imperiously, rising to his feet and in so
doing pushing Porfiry back a little, “briefly, I want to know, do you
acknowledge me perfectly free from suspicion or not? Tell me, Porfiry
Petrovitch, tell me once for all and make haste!”

“What a business I’m having with you!” cried Porfiry with a perfectly
good-humoured, sly and composed face. “And why do you want to know, why
do you want to know so much, since they haven’t begun to worry you? Why,
you are like a child asking for matches! And why are you so uneasy? Why
do you force yourself upon us, eh? He-he-he!”

“I repeat,” Raskolnikov cried furiously, “that I can’t put up with it!”

“With what? Uncertainty?” interrupted Porfiry.

“Don’t jeer at me! I won’t have it! I tell you I won’t have it. I can’t
and I won’t, do you hear, do you hear?” he shouted, bringing his fist
down on the table again.

“Hush! Hush! They’ll overhear! I warn you seriously, take care of
yourself. I am not joking,” Porfiry whispered, but this time there was
not the look of old womanish good nature and alarm in his face. Now
he was peremptory, stern, frowning and for once laying aside all
mystification.

But this was only for an instant. Raskolnikov, bewildered, suddenly fell
into actual frenzy, but, strange to say, he again obeyed the command to
speak quietly, though he was in a perfect paroxysm of fury.

“I will not allow myself to be tortured,” he whispered, instantly
recognising with hatred that he could not help obeying the command and
driven to even greater fury by the thought. “Arrest me, search me, but
kindly act in due form and don’t play with me! Don’t dare!”

“Don’t worry about the form,” Porfiry interrupted with the same sly
smile, as it were, gloating with enjoyment over Raskolnikov. “I invited
you to see me quite in a friendly way.”

“I don’t want your friendship and I spit on it! Do you hear? And, here,
I take my cap and go. What will you say now if you mean to arrest me?”

He took up his cap and went to the door.

“And won’t you see my little surprise?” chuckled Porfiry, again taking
him by the arm and stopping him at the door.

He seemed to become more playful and good-humoured, which maddened
Raskolnikov.

“What surprise?” he asked, standing still and looking at Porfiry in
alarm.

“My little surprise, it’s sitting there behind the door, he-he-he!”
 (He pointed to the locked door.) “I locked him in that he should not
escape.”

“What is it? Where? What?...”

Raskolnikov walked to the door and would have opened it, but it was
locked.

“It’s locked, here is the key!”

And he brought a key out of his pocket.

“You are lying,” roared Raskolnikov without restraint, “you lie, you
damned punchinello!” and he rushed at Porfiry who retreated to the other
door, not at all alarmed.

“I understand it all! You are lying and mocking so that I may betray
myself to you...”

“Why, you could not betray yourself any further, my dear Rodion
Romanovitch. You are in a passion. Don’t shout, I shall call the
clerks.”

“You are lying! Call the clerks! You knew I was ill and tried to work
me into a frenzy to make me betray myself, that was your object! Produce
your facts! I understand it all. You’ve no evidence, you have only
wretched rubbishly suspicions like Zametov’s! You knew my character, you
wanted to drive me to fury and then to knock me down with priests and
deputies.... Are you waiting for them? eh! What are you waiting for?
Where are they? Produce them?”

“Why deputies, my good man? What things people will imagine! And to do
so would not be acting in form as you say, you don’t know the business,
my dear fellow.... And there’s no escaping form, as you see,” Porfiry
muttered, listening at the door through which a noise could be heard.

“Ah, they’re coming,” cried Raskolnikov. “You’ve sent for them! You
expected them! Well, produce them all: your deputies, your witnesses,
what you like!... I am ready!”

But at this moment a strange incident occurred, something so unexpected
that neither Raskolnikov nor Porfiry Petrovitch could have looked for
such a conclusion to their interview.



CHAPTER VI

When he remembered the scene afterwards, this is how Raskolnikov saw it.

The noise behind the door increased, and suddenly the door was opened a
little.

“What is it?” cried Porfiry Petrovitch, annoyed. “Why, I gave orders...”

For an instant there was no answer, but it was evident that there were
several persons at the door, and that they were apparently pushing
somebody back.

“What is it?” Porfiry Petrovitch repeated, uneasily.

“The prisoner Nikolay has been brought,” someone answered.

“He is not wanted! Take him away! Let him wait! What’s he doing here?
How irregular!” cried Porfiry, rushing to the door.

“But he...” began the same voice, and suddenly ceased.

Two seconds, not more, were spent in actual struggle, then someone gave
a violent shove, and then a man, very pale, strode into the room.

This man’s appearance was at first sight very strange. He stared
straight before him, as though seeing nothing. There was a determined
gleam in his eyes; at the same time there was a deathly pallor in his
face, as though he were being led to the scaffold. His white lips were
faintly twitching.

He was dressed like a workman and was of medium height, very young,
slim, his hair cut in round crop, with thin spare features. The man whom
he had thrust back followed him into the room and succeeded in seizing
him by the shoulder; he was a warder; but Nikolay pulled his arm away.

Several persons crowded inquisitively into the doorway. Some of them
tried to get in. All this took place almost instantaneously.

“Go away, it’s too soon! Wait till you are sent for!... Why have you
brought him so soon?” Porfiry Petrovitch muttered, extremely annoyed,
and as it were thrown out of his reckoning.

But Nikolay suddenly knelt down.

“What’s the matter?” cried Porfiry, surprised.

“I am guilty! Mine is the sin! I am the murderer,” Nikolay articulated
suddenly, rather breathless, but speaking fairly loudly.

For ten seconds there was silence as though all had been struck dumb;
even the warder stepped back, mechanically retreated to the door, and
stood immovable.

“What is it?” cried Porfiry Petrovitch, recovering from his momentary
stupefaction.

“I... am the murderer,” repeated Nikolay, after a brief pause.

“What... you... what... whom did you kill?” Porfiry Petrovitch was
obviously bewildered.

Nikolay again was silent for a moment.

“Alyona Ivanovna and her sister Lizaveta Ivanovna, I... killed... with
an axe. Darkness came over me,” he added suddenly, and was again silent.

He still remained on his knees. Porfiry Petrovitch stood for some
moments as though meditating, but suddenly roused himself and waved back
the uninvited spectators. They instantly vanished and closed the door.
Then he looked towards Raskolnikov, who was standing in the corner,
staring wildly at Nikolay and moved towards him, but stopped short,
looked from Nikolay to Raskolnikov and then again at Nikolay, and
seeming unable to restrain himself darted at the latter.

“You’re in too great a hurry,” he shouted at him, almost angrily. “I
didn’t ask you what came over you.... Speak, did you kill them?”

“I am the murderer.... I want to give evidence,” Nikolay pronounced.

“Ach! What did you kill them with?”

“An axe. I had it ready.”

“Ach, he is in a hurry! Alone?”

Nikolay did not understand the question.

“Did you do it alone?”

“Yes, alone. And Mitka is not guilty and had no share in it.”

“Don’t be in a hurry about Mitka! A-ach! How was it you ran downstairs
like that at the time? The porters met you both!”

“It was to put them off the scent... I ran after Mitka,” Nikolay replied
hurriedly, as though he had prepared the answer.

“I knew it!” cried Porfiry, with vexation. “It’s not his own tale he is
telling,” he muttered as though to himself, and suddenly his eyes rested
on Raskolnikov again.

He was apparently so taken up with Nikolay that for a moment he had
forgotten Raskolnikov. He was a little taken aback.

“My dear Rodion Romanovitch, excuse me!” he flew up to him, “this won’t
do; I’m afraid you must go... it’s no good your staying... I will...
you see, what a surprise!... Good-bye!”

And taking him by the arm, he showed him to the door.

“I suppose you didn’t expect it?” said Raskolnikov who, though he had
not yet fully grasped the situation, had regained his courage.

“You did not expect it either, my friend. See how your hand is
trembling! He-he!”

“You’re trembling, too, Porfiry Petrovitch!”

“Yes, I am; I didn’t expect it.”

They were already at the door; Porfiry was impatient for Raskolnikov to
be gone.

“And your little surprise, aren’t you going to show it to me?”
 Raskolnikov said, sarcastically.

“Why, his teeth are chattering as he asks, he-he! You are an ironical
person! Come, till we meet!”

“I believe we can say _good-bye_!”

“That’s in God’s hands,” muttered Porfiry, with an unnatural smile.

As he walked through the office, Raskolnikov noticed that many people
were looking at him. Among them he saw the two porters from _the_ house,
whom he had invited that night to the police station. They stood there
waiting. But he was no sooner on the stairs than he heard the voice of
Porfiry Petrovitch behind him. Turning round, he saw the latter running
after him, out of breath.

“One word, Rodion Romanovitch; as to all the rest, it’s in God’s hands,
but as a matter of form there are some questions I shall have to ask
you... so we shall meet again, shan’t we?”

And Porfiry stood still, facing him with a smile.

“Shan’t we?” he added again.

He seemed to want to say something more, but could not speak out.

“You must forgive me, Porfiry Petrovitch, for what has just passed... I
lost my temper,” began Raskolnikov, who had so far regained his courage
that he felt irresistibly inclined to display his coolness.

“Don’t mention it, don’t mention it,” Porfiry replied, almost gleefully.
“I myself, too... I have a wicked temper, I admit it! But we shall meet
again. If it’s God’s will, we may see a great deal of one another.”

“And will get to know each other through and through?” added
Raskolnikov.

“Yes; know each other through and through,” assented Porfiry Petrovitch,
and he screwed up his eyes, looking earnestly at Raskolnikov. “Now
you’re going to a birthday party?”

“To a funeral.”

“Of course, the funeral! Take care of yourself, and get well.”

“I don’t know what to wish you,” said Raskolnikov, who had begun to
descend the stairs, but looked back again. “I should like to wish you
success, but your office is such a comical one.”

“Why comical?” Porfiry Petrovitch had turned to go, but he seemed to
prick up his ears at this.

“Why, how you must have been torturing and harassing that poor Nikolay
psychologically, after your fashion, till he confessed! You must have
been at him day and night, proving to him that he was the murderer, and
now that he has confessed, you’ll begin vivisecting him again. ‘You are
lying,’ you’ll say. ‘You are not the murderer! You can’t be! It’s not
your own tale you are telling!’ You must admit it’s a comical business!”

“He-he-he! You noticed then that I said to Nikolay just now that it was
not his own tale he was telling?”

“How could I help noticing it!”

“He-he! You are quick-witted. You notice everything! You’ve really a
playful mind! And you always fasten on the comic side... he-he! They say
that was the marked characteristic of Gogol, among the writers.”

“Yes, of Gogol.”

“Yes, of Gogol.... I shall look forward to meeting you.”

“So shall I.”

Raskolnikov walked straight home. He was so muddled and bewildered that
on getting home he sat for a quarter of an hour on the sofa, trying to
collect his thoughts. He did not attempt to think about Nikolay; he
was stupefied; he felt that his confession was something inexplicable,
amazing--something beyond his understanding. But Nikolay’s confession
was an actual fact. The consequences of this fact were clear to him at
once, its falsehood could not fail to be discovered, and then they
would be after him again. Till then, at least, he was free and must do
something for himself, for the danger was imminent.

But how imminent? His position gradually became clear to him.
Remembering, sketchily, the main outlines of his recent scene with
Porfiry, he could not help shuddering again with horror. Of course,
he did not yet know all Porfiry’s aims, he could not see into all his
calculations. But he had already partly shown his hand, and no one knew
better than Raskolnikov how terrible Porfiry’s “lead” had been for
him. A little more and he _might_ have given himself away completely,
circumstantially. Knowing his nervous temperament and from the first
glance seeing through him, Porfiry, though playing a bold game, was
bound to win. There’s no denying that Raskolnikov had compromised
himself seriously, but no _facts_ had come to light as yet; there was
nothing positive. But was he taking a true view of the position? Wasn’t
he mistaken? What had Porfiry been trying to get at? Had he really some
surprise prepared for him? And what was it? Had he really been expecting
something or not? How would they have parted if it had not been for the
unexpected appearance of Nikolay?

Porfiry had shown almost all his cards--of course, he had risked
something in showing them--and if he had really had anything up his
sleeve (Raskolnikov reflected), he would have shown that, too. What was
that “surprise”? Was it a joke? Had it meant anything? Could it have
concealed anything like a fact, a piece of positive evidence? His
yesterday’s visitor? What had become of him? Where was he to-day? If
Porfiry really had any evidence, it must be connected with him....

He sat on the sofa with his elbows on his knees and his face hidden in
his hands. He was still shivering nervously. At last he got up, took his
cap, thought a minute, and went to the door.

He had a sort of presentiment that for to-day, at least, he might
consider himself out of danger. He had a sudden sense almost of joy; he
wanted to make haste to Katerina Ivanovna’s. He would be too late for
the funeral, of course, but he would be in time for the memorial dinner,
and there at once he would see Sonia.

He stood still, thought a moment, and a suffering smile came for a
moment on to his lips.

“To-day! To-day,” he repeated to himself. “Yes, to-day! So it must
be....”

But as he was about to open the door, it began opening of itself. He
started and moved back. The door opened gently and slowly, and there
suddenly appeared a figure--yesterday’s visitor _from underground_.

The man stood in the doorway, looked at Raskolnikov without speaking,
and took a step forward into the room. He was exactly the same as
yesterday; the same figure, the same dress, but there was a great change
in his face; he looked dejected and sighed deeply. If he had only put
his hand up to his cheek and leaned his head on one side he would have
looked exactly like a peasant woman.

“What do you want?” asked Raskolnikov, numb with terror. The man was
still silent, but suddenly he bowed down almost to the ground, touching
it with his finger.

“What is it?” cried Raskolnikov.

“I have sinned,” the man articulated softly.

“How?”

“By evil thoughts.”

They looked at one another.

“I was vexed. When you came, perhaps in drink, and bade the porters go
to the police station and asked about the blood, I was vexed that they
let you go and took you for drunken. I was so vexed that I lost my
sleep. And remembering the address we came here yesterday and asked for
you....”

“Who came?” Raskolnikov interrupted, instantly beginning to recollect.

“I did, I’ve wronged you.”

“Then you come from that house?”

“I was standing at the gate with them... don’t you remember? We have
carried on our trade in that house for years past. We cure and prepare
hides, we take work home... most of all I was vexed....”

And the whole scene of the day before yesterday in the gateway came
clearly before Raskolnikov’s mind; he recollected that there had
been several people there besides the porters, women among them.
He remembered one voice had suggested taking him straight to the
police-station. He could not recall the face of the speaker, and even
now he did not recognise it, but he remembered that he had turned round
and made him some answer....

So this was the solution of yesterday’s horror. The most awful thought
was that he had been actually almost lost, had almost done for himself
on account of such a _trivial_ circumstance. So this man could tell
nothing except his asking about the flat and the blood stains. So
Porfiry, too, had nothing but that _delirium_, no facts but this
_psychology_ which _cuts both ways_, nothing positive. So if no more
facts come to light (and they must not, they must not!) then... then
what can they do to him? How can they convict him, even if they arrest
him? And Porfiry then had only just heard about the flat and had not
known about it before.

“Was it you who told Porfiry... that I’d been there?” he cried, struck
by a sudden idea.

“What Porfiry?”

“The head of the detective department?”

“Yes. The porters did not go there, but I went.”

“To-day?”

“I got there two minutes before you. And I heard, I heard it all, how he
worried you.”

“Where? What? When?”

“Why, in the next room. I was sitting there all the time.”

“What? Why, then you were the surprise? But how could it happen? Upon my
word!”

“I saw that the porters did not want to do what I said,” began the man;
“for it’s too late, said they, and maybe he’ll be angry that we did not
come at the time. I was vexed and I lost my sleep, and I began making
inquiries. And finding out yesterday where to go, I went to-day. The
first time I went he wasn’t there, when I came an hour later he couldn’t
see me. I went the third time, and they showed me in. I informed him of
everything, just as it happened, and he began skipping about the room
and punching himself on the chest. ‘What do you scoundrels mean by it?
If I’d known about it I should have arrested him!’ Then he ran out,
called somebody and began talking to him in the corner, then he turned
to me, scolding and questioning me. He scolded me a great deal; and I
told him everything, and I told him that you didn’t dare to say a word
in answer to me yesterday and that you didn’t recognise me. And he
fell to running about again and kept hitting himself on the chest, and
getting angry and running about, and when you were announced he told
me to go into the next room. ‘Sit there a bit,’ he said. ‘Don’t move,
whatever you may hear.’ And he set a chair there for me and locked
me in. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘I may call you.’ And when Nikolay’d been
brought he let me out as soon as you were gone. ‘I shall send for you
again and question you,’ he said.”

“And did he question Nikolay while you were there?”

“He got rid of me as he did of you, before he spoke to Nikolay.”

The man stood still, and again suddenly bowed down, touching the ground
with his finger.

“Forgive me for my evil thoughts, and my slander.”

“May God forgive you,” answered Raskolnikov.

And as he said this, the man bowed down again, but not to the ground,
turned slowly and went out of the room.

“It all cuts both ways, now it all cuts both ways,” repeated
Raskolnikov, and he went out more confident than ever.

“Now we’ll make a fight for it,” he said, with a malicious smile, as he
went down the stairs. His malice was aimed at himself; with shame and
contempt he recollected his “cowardice.”




PART V



CHAPTER I

The morning that followed the fateful interview with Dounia and
her mother brought sobering influences to bear on Pyotr Petrovitch.
Intensely unpleasant as it was, he was forced little by little to accept
as a fact beyond recall what had seemed to him only the day before
fantastic and incredible. The black snake of wounded vanity had been
gnawing at his heart all night. When he got out of bed, Pyotr Petrovitch
immediately looked in the looking-glass. He was afraid that he had
jaundice. However his health seemed unimpaired so far, and looking at
his noble, clear-skinned countenance which had grown fattish of
late, Pyotr Petrovitch for an instant was positively comforted in the
conviction that he would find another bride and, perhaps, even a better
one. But coming back to the sense of his present position, he turned
aside and spat vigorously, which excited a sarcastic smile in Andrey
Semyonovitch Lebeziatnikov, the young friend with whom he was staying.
That smile Pyotr Petrovitch noticed, and at once set it down against his
young friend’s account. He had set down a good many points against him
of late. His anger was redoubled when he reflected that he ought not to
have told Andrey Semyonovitch about the result of yesterday’s interview.
That was the second mistake he had made in temper, through impulsiveness
and irritability.... Moreover, all that morning one unpleasantness
followed another. He even found a hitch awaiting him in his legal case
in the senate. He was particularly irritated by the owner of the flat
which had been taken in view of his approaching marriage and was being
redecorated at his own expense; the owner, a rich German tradesman,
would not entertain the idea of breaking the contract which had just
been signed and insisted on the full forfeit money, though Pyotr
Petrovitch would be giving him back the flat practically redecorated. In
the same way the upholsterers refused to return a single rouble of the
instalment paid for the furniture purchased but not yet removed to the
flat.

“Am I to get married simply for the sake of the furniture?” Pyotr
Petrovitch ground his teeth and at the same time once more he had a
gleam of desperate hope. “Can all that be really so irrevocably over?
Is it no use to make another effort?” The thought of Dounia sent a
voluptuous pang through his heart. He endured anguish at that moment,
and if it had been possible to slay Raskolnikov instantly by wishing it,
Pyotr Petrovitch would promptly have uttered the wish.

“It was my mistake, too, not to have given them money,” he thought, as
he returned dejectedly to Lebeziatnikov’s room, “and why on earth was I
such a Jew? It was false economy! I meant to keep them without a penny
so that they should turn to me as their providence, and look at them!
foo! If I’d spent some fifteen hundred roubles on them for the trousseau
and presents, on knick-knacks, dressing-cases, jewellery, materials, and
all that sort of trash from Knopp’s and the English shop, my position
would have been better and... stronger! They could not have refused me
so easily! They are the sort of people that would feel bound to return
money and presents if they broke it off; and they would find it hard to
do it! And their conscience would prick them: how can we dismiss a man
who has hitherto been so generous and delicate?.... H’m! I’ve made a
blunder.”

And grinding his teeth again, Pyotr Petrovitch called himself a
fool--but not aloud, of course.

He returned home, twice as irritated and angry as before. The
preparations for the funeral dinner at Katerina Ivanovna’s excited
his curiosity as he passed. He had heard about it the day before; he
fancied, indeed, that he had been invited, but absorbed in his own cares
he had paid no attention. Inquiring of Madame Lippevechsel who was busy
laying the table while Katerina Ivanovna was away at the cemetery, he
heard that the entertainment was to be a great affair, that all the
lodgers had been invited, among them some who had not known the dead
man, that even Andrey Semyonovitch Lebeziatnikov was invited in spite of
his previous quarrel with Katerina Ivanovna, that he, Pyotr Petrovitch,
was not only invited, but was eagerly expected as he was the most
important of the lodgers. Amalia Ivanovna herself had been invited with
great ceremony in spite of the recent unpleasantness, and so she was
very busy with preparations and was taking a positive pleasure in them;
she was moreover dressed up to the nines, all in new black silk, and she
was proud of it. All this suggested an idea to Pyotr Petrovitch and he
went into his room, or rather Lebeziatnikov’s, somewhat thoughtful. He
had learnt that Raskolnikov was to be one of the guests.

Andrey Semyonovitch had been at home all the morning. The attitude of
Pyotr Petrovitch to this gentleman was strange, though perhaps natural.
Pyotr Petrovitch had despised and hated him from the day he came to stay
with him and at the same time he seemed somewhat afraid of him. He
had not come to stay with him on his arrival in Petersburg simply from
parsimony, though that had been perhaps his chief object. He had heard
of Andrey Semyonovitch, who had once been his ward, as a leading young
progressive who was taking an important part in certain interesting
circles, the doings of which were a legend in the provinces. It had
impressed Pyotr Petrovitch. These powerful omniscient circles who
despised everyone and showed everyone up had long inspired in him a
peculiar but quite vague alarm. He had not, of course, been able to form
even an approximate notion of what they meant. He, like everyone, had
heard that there were, especially in Petersburg, progressives of some
sort, nihilists and so on, and, like many people, he exaggerated and
distorted the significance of those words to an absurd degree. What for
many years past he had feared more than anything was _being shown
up_ and this was the chief ground for his continual uneasiness at the
thought of transferring his business to Petersburg. He was afraid of
this as little children are sometimes panic-stricken. Some years before,
when he was just entering on his own career, he had come upon two cases
in which rather important personages in the province, patrons of his,
had been cruelly shown up. One instance had ended in great scandal
for the person attacked and the other had very nearly ended in serious
trouble. For this reason Pyotr Petrovitch intended to go into the
subject as soon as he reached Petersburg and, if necessary, to
anticipate contingencies by seeking the favour of “our younger
generation.” He relied on Andrey Semyonovitch for this and before
his visit to Raskolnikov he had succeeded in picking up some current
phrases. He soon discovered that Andrey Semyonovitch was a commonplace
simpleton, but that by no means reassured Pyotr Petrovitch. Even if he
had been certain that all the progressives were fools like him, it
would not have allayed his uneasiness. All the doctrines, the ideas, the
systems, with which Andrey Semyonovitch pestered him had no interest for
him. He had his own object--he simply wanted to find out at once what
was happening _here_. Had these people any power or not? Had he anything
to fear from them? Would they expose any enterprise of his? And what
precisely was now the object of their attacks? Could he somehow make up
to them and get round them if they really were powerful? Was this the
thing to do or not? Couldn’t he gain something through them? In fact
hundreds of questions presented themselves.

Andrey Semyonovitch was an anæmic, scrofulous little man, with strangely
flaxen mutton-chop whiskers of which he was very proud. He was a clerk
and had almost always something wrong with his eyes. He was rather
soft-hearted, but self-confident and sometimes extremely conceited in
speech, which had an absurd effect, incongruous with his little figure.
He was one of the lodgers most respected by Amalia Ivanovna, for he did
not get drunk and paid regularly for his lodgings. Andrey Semyonovitch
really was rather stupid; he attached himself to the cause of progress
and “our younger generation” from enthusiasm. He was one of the numerous
and varied legion of dullards, of half-animate abortions, conceited,
half-educated coxcombs, who attach themselves to the idea most in
fashion only to vulgarise it and who caricature every cause they serve,
however sincerely.

Though Lebeziatnikov was so good-natured, he, too, was beginning to
dislike Pyotr Petrovitch. This happened on both sides unconsciously.
However simple Andrey Semyonovitch might be, he began to see that Pyotr
Petrovitch was duping him and secretly despising him, and that “he was
not the right sort of man.” He had tried expounding to him the system of
Fourier and the Darwinian theory, but of late Pyotr Petrovitch began to
listen too sarcastically and even to be rude. The fact was he had begun
instinctively to guess that Lebeziatnikov was not merely a commonplace
simpleton, but, perhaps, a liar, too, and that he had no connections of
any consequence even in his own circle, but had simply picked things up
third-hand; and that very likely he did not even know much about his own
work of propaganda, for he was in too great a muddle. A fine person he
would be to show anyone up! It must be noted, by the way, that Pyotr
Petrovitch had during those ten days eagerly accepted the strangest
praise from Andrey Semyonovitch; he had not protested, for instance,
when Andrey Semyonovitch belauded him for being ready to contribute to
the establishment of the new “commune,” or to abstain from christening
his future children, or to acquiesce if Dounia were to take a lover a
month after marriage, and so on. Pyotr Petrovitch so enjoyed hearing
his own praises that he did not disdain even such virtues when they were
attributed to him.

Pyotr Petrovitch had had occasion that morning to realise some
five-per-cent bonds and now he sat down to the table and counted over
bundles of notes. Andrey Semyonovitch who hardly ever had any money
walked about the room pretending to himself to look at all those bank
notes with indifference and even contempt. Nothing would have convinced
Pyotr Petrovitch that Andrey Semyonovitch could really look on the money
unmoved, and the latter, on his side, kept thinking bitterly that Pyotr
Petrovitch was capable of entertaining such an idea about him and
was, perhaps, glad of the opportunity of teasing his young friend by
reminding him of his inferiority and the great difference between them.

He found him incredibly inattentive and irritable, though he, Andrey
Semyonovitch, began enlarging on his favourite subject, the foundation
of a new special “commune.” The brief remarks that dropped from Pyotr
Petrovitch between the clicking of the beads on the reckoning frame
betrayed unmistakable and discourteous irony. But the “humane” Andrey
Semyonovitch ascribed Pyotr Petrovitch’s ill-humour to his recent breach
with Dounia and he was burning with impatience to discourse on that
theme. He had something progressive to say on the subject which
might console his worthy friend and “could not fail” to promote his
development.

“There is some sort of festivity being prepared at that... at the
widow’s, isn’t there?” Pyotr Petrovitch asked suddenly, interrupting
Andrey Semyonovitch at the most interesting passage.

“Why, don’t you know? Why, I was telling you last night what I think
about all such ceremonies. And she invited you too, I heard. You were
talking to her yesterday...”

“I should never have expected that beggarly fool would have spent on
this feast all the money she got from that other fool, Raskolnikov. I
was surprised just now as I came through at the preparations there, the
wines! Several people are invited. It’s beyond everything!” continued
Pyotr Petrovitch, who seemed to have some object in pursuing the
conversation. “What? You say I am asked too? When was that? I don’t
remember. But I shan’t go. Why should I? I only said a word to her in
passing yesterday of the possibility of her obtaining a year’s salary as
a destitute widow of a government clerk. I suppose she has invited me on
that account, hasn’t she? He-he-he!”

“I don’t intend to go either,” said Lebeziatnikov.

“I should think not, after giving her a thrashing! You might well
hesitate, he-he!”

“Who thrashed? Whom?” cried Lebeziatnikov, flustered and blushing.

“Why, you thrashed Katerina Ivanovna a month ago. I heard so
yesterday... so that’s what your convictions amount to... and the woman
question, too, wasn’t quite sound, he-he-he!” and Pyotr Petrovitch, as
though comforted, went back to clicking his beads.

“It’s all slander and nonsense!” cried Lebeziatnikov, who was always
afraid of allusions to the subject. “It was not like that at all, it
was quite different. You’ve heard it wrong; it’s a libel. I was simply
defending myself. She rushed at me first with her nails, she pulled
out all my whiskers.... It’s permissable for anyone, I should hope,
to defend himself and I never allow anyone to use violence to me on
principle, for it’s an act of despotism. What was I to do? I simply
pushed her back.”

“He-he-he!” Luzhin went on laughing maliciously.

“You keep on like that because you are out of humour yourself.... But
that’s nonsense and it has nothing, nothing whatever to do with the
woman question! You don’t understand; I used to think, indeed, that
if women are equal to men in all respects, even in strength (as is
maintained now) there ought to be equality in that, too. Of course, I
reflected afterwards that such a question ought not really to arise,
for there ought not to be fighting and in the future society fighting is
unthinkable... and that it would be a queer thing to seek for equality
in fighting. I am not so stupid... though, of course, there is
fighting... there won’t be later, but at present there is... confound
it! How muddled one gets with you! It’s not on that account that I
am not going. I am not going on principle, not to take part in the
revolting convention of memorial dinners, that’s why! Though, of course,
one might go to laugh at it.... I am sorry there won’t be any priests at
it. I should certainly go if there were.”

“Then you would sit down at another man’s table and insult it and those
who invited you. Eh?”

“Certainly not insult, but protest. I should do it with a good object. I
might indirectly assist the cause of enlightenment and propaganda. It’s
a duty of every man to work for enlightenment and propaganda and the
more harshly, perhaps, the better. I might drop a seed, an idea.... And
something might grow up from that seed. How should I be insulting them?
They might be offended at first, but afterwards they’d see I’d done them
a service. You know, Terebyeva (who is in the community now) was blamed
because when she left her family and... devoted... herself, she wrote to
her father and mother that she wouldn’t go on living conventionally and
was entering on a free marriage and it was said that that was too harsh,
that she might have spared them and have written more kindly. I think
that’s all nonsense and there’s no need of softness; on the contrary,
what’s wanted is protest. Varents had been married seven years, she
abandoned her two children, she told her husband straight out in a
letter: ‘I have realised that I cannot be happy with you. I can never
forgive you that you have deceived me by concealing from me that there
is another organisation of society by means of the communities. I have
only lately learned it from a great-hearted man to whom I have given
myself and with whom I am establishing a community. I speak plainly
because I consider it dishonest to deceive you. Do as you think best.
Do not hope to get me back, you are too late. I hope you will be happy.’
That’s how letters like that ought to be written!”

“Is that Terebyeva the one you said had made a third free marriage?”

“No, it’s only the second, really! But what if it were the fourth, what
if it were the fifteenth, that’s all nonsense! And if ever I regretted
the death of my father and mother, it is now, and I sometimes think
if my parents were living what a protest I would have aimed at them! I
would have done something on purpose... I would have shown them! I would
have astonished them! I am really sorry there is no one!”

“To surprise! He-he! Well, be that as you will,” Pyotr Petrovitch
interrupted, “but tell me this; do you know the dead man’s daughter, the
delicate-looking little thing? It’s true what they say about her, isn’t
it?”

“What of it? I think, that is, it is my own personal conviction that
this is the normal condition of women. Why not? I mean, _distinguons_.
In our present society it is not altogether normal, because it is
compulsory, but in the future society it will be perfectly normal,
because it will be voluntary. Even as it is, she was quite right: she
was suffering and that was her asset, so to speak, her capital which
she had a perfect right to dispose of. Of course, in the future
society there will be no need of assets, but her part will have another
significance, rational and in harmony with her environment. As to Sofya
Semyonovna personally, I regard her action as a vigorous protest against
the organisation of society, and I respect her deeply for it; I rejoice
indeed when I look at her!”

“I was told that you got her turned out of these lodgings.”

Lebeziatnikov was enraged.

“That’s another slander,” he yelled. “It was not so at all! That was all
Katerina Ivanovna’s invention, for she did not understand! And I never
made love to Sofya Semyonovna! I was simply developing her, entirely
disinterestedly, trying to rouse her to protest.... All I wanted was her
protest and Sofya Semyonovna could not have remained here anyway!”

“Have you asked her to join your community?”

“You keep on laughing and very inappropriately, allow me to tell
you. You don’t understand! There is no such rôle in a community. The
community is established that there should be no such rôles. In a
community, such a rôle is essentially transformed and what is stupid
here is sensible there, what, under present conditions, is unnatural
becomes perfectly natural in the community. It all depends on the
environment. It’s all the environment and man himself is nothing. And
I am on good terms with Sofya Semyonovna to this day, which is a proof
that she never regarded me as having wronged her. I am trying now to
attract her to the community, but on quite, quite a different footing.
What are you laughing at? We are trying to establish a community of
our own, a special one, on a broader basis. We have gone further in our
convictions. We reject more! And meanwhile I’m still developing Sofya
Semyonovna. She has a beautiful, beautiful character!”

“And you take advantage of her fine character, eh? He-he!”

“No, no! Oh, no! On the contrary.”

“Oh, on the contrary! He-he-he! A queer thing to say!”

“Believe me! Why should I disguise it? In fact, I feel it strange myself
how timid, chaste and modern she is with me!”

“And you, of course, are developing her... he-he! trying to prove to her
that all that modesty is nonsense?”

“Not at all, not at all! How coarsely, how stupidly--excuse me saying
so--you misunderstand the word development! Good heavens, how... crude
you still are! We are striving for the freedom of women and you have
only one idea in your head.... Setting aside the general question
of chastity and feminine modesty as useless in themselves and indeed
prejudices, I fully accept her chastity with me, because that’s for her
to decide. Of course if she were to tell me herself that she wanted me,
I should think myself very lucky, because I like the girl very much; but
as it is, no one has ever treated her more courteously than I, with more
respect for her dignity... I wait in hopes, that’s all!”

“You had much better make her a present of something. I bet you never
thought of that.”

“You don’t understand, as I’ve told you already! Of course, she is in
such a position, but it’s another question. Quite another question!
You simply despise her. Seeing a fact which you mistakenly consider
deserving of contempt, you refuse to take a humane view of a fellow
creature. You don’t know what a character she is! I am only sorry that
of late she has quite given up reading and borrowing books. I used
to lend them to her. I am sorry, too, that with all the energy and
resolution in protesting--which she has already shown once--she has
little self-reliance, little, so to say, independence, so as to
break free from certain prejudices and certain foolish ideas. Yet she
thoroughly understands some questions, for instance about kissing of
hands, that is, that it’s an insult to a woman for a man to kiss her
hand, because it’s a sign of inequality. We had a debate about it and
I described it to her. She listened attentively to an account of the
workmen’s associations in France, too. Now I am explaining the question
of coming into the room in the future society.”

“And what’s that, pray?”

“We had a debate lately on the question: Has a member of the community
the right to enter another member’s room, whether man or woman, at any
time... and we decided that he has!”

“It might be at an inconvenient moment, he-he!”

Lebeziatnikov was really angry.

“You are always thinking of something unpleasant,” he cried with
aversion. “Tfoo! How vexed I am that when I was expounding our system, I
referred prematurely to the question of personal privacy! It’s always
a stumbling-block to people like you, they turn it into ridicule before
they understand it. And how proud they are of it, too! Tfoo! I’ve often
maintained that that question should not be approached by a novice till
he has a firm faith in the system. And tell me, please, what do you
find so shameful even in cesspools? I should be the first to be ready
to clean out any cesspool you like. And it’s not a question of
self-sacrifice, it’s simply work, honourable, useful work which is
as good as any other and much better than the work of a Raphael and a
Pushkin, because it is more useful.”

“And more honourable, more honourable, he-he-he!”

“What do you mean by ‘more honourable’? I don’t understand such
expressions to describe human activity. ‘More honourable,’ ‘nobler’--all
those are old-fashioned prejudices which I reject. Everything which is
_of use_ to mankind is honourable. I only understand one word: _useful_!
You can snigger as much as you like, but that’s so!”

Pyotr Petrovitch laughed heartily. He had finished counting the money
and was putting it away. But some of the notes he left on the table. The
“cesspool question” had already been a subject of dispute between them.
What was absurd was that it made Lebeziatnikov really angry, while it
amused Luzhin and at that moment he particularly wanted to anger his
young friend.

“It’s your ill-luck yesterday that makes you so ill-humoured and
annoying,” blurted out Lebeziatnikov, who in spite of his “independence”
 and his “protests” did not venture to oppose Pyotr Petrovitch and still
behaved to him with some of the respect habitual in earlier years.

“You’d better tell me this,” Pyotr Petrovitch interrupted with haughty
displeasure, “can you... or rather are you really friendly enough with
that young person to ask her to step in here for a minute? I think
they’ve all come back from the cemetery... I heard the sound of
steps... I want to see her, that young person.”

“What for?” Lebeziatnikov asked with surprise.

“Oh, I want to. I am leaving here to-day or to-morrow and therefore I
wanted to speak to her about... However, you may be present during the
interview. It’s better you should be, indeed. For there’s no knowing
what you might imagine.”

“I shan’t imagine anything. I only asked and, if you’ve anything to say
to her, nothing is easier than to call her in. I’ll go directly and you
may be sure I won’t be in your way.”

Five minutes later Lebeziatnikov came in with Sonia. She came in very
much surprised and overcome with shyness as usual. She was always shy in
such circumstances and was always afraid of new people, she had been as
a child and was even more so now.... Pyotr Petrovitch met her “politely
and affably,” but with a certain shade of bantering familiarity which in
his opinion was suitable for a man of his respectability and weight
in dealing with a creature so young and so _interesting_ as she. He
hastened to “reassure” her and made her sit down facing him at the
table. Sonia sat down, looked about her--at Lebeziatnikov, at the notes
lying on the table and then again at Pyotr Petrovitch and her eyes
remained riveted on him. Lebeziatnikov was moving to the door. Pyotr
Petrovitch signed to Sonia to remain seated and stopped Lebeziatnikov.

“Is Raskolnikov in there? Has he come?” he asked him in a whisper.

“Raskolnikov? Yes. Why? Yes, he is there. I saw him just come in....
Why?”

“Well, I particularly beg you to remain here with us and not to leave
me alone with this... young woman. I only want a few words with her,
but God knows what they may make of it. I shouldn’t like Raskolnikov to
repeat anything.... You understand what I mean?”

“I understand!” Lebeziatnikov saw the point. “Yes, you are right.... Of
course, I am convinced personally that you have no reason to be uneasy,
but... still, you are right. Certainly I’ll stay. I’ll stand here at the
window and not be in your way... I think you are right...”

Pyotr Petrovitch returned to the sofa, sat down opposite Sonia, looked
attentively at her and assumed an extremely dignified, even severe
expression, as much as to say, “don’t you make any mistake, madam.”
 Sonia was overwhelmed with embarrassment.

“In the first place, Sofya Semyonovna, will you make my excuses to your
respected mamma.... That’s right, isn’t it? Katerina Ivanovna stands
in the place of a mother to you?” Pyotr Petrovitch began with great
dignity, though affably.

It was evident that his intentions were friendly.

“Quite so, yes; the place of a mother,” Sonia answered, timidly and
hurriedly.

“Then will you make my apologies to her? Through inevitable
circumstances I am forced to be absent and shall not be at the dinner in
spite of your mamma’s kind invitation.”

“Yes... I’ll tell her... at once.”

And Sonia hastily jumped up from her seat.

“Wait, that’s not all,” Pyotr Petrovitch detained her, smiling at her
simplicity and ignorance of good manners, “and you know me little, my
dear Sofya Semyonovna, if you suppose I would have ventured to trouble
a person like you for a matter of so little consequence affecting myself
only. I have another object.”

Sonia sat down hurriedly. Her eyes rested again for an instant on the
grey-and-rainbow-coloured notes that remained on the table, but she
quickly looked away and fixed her eyes on Pyotr Petrovitch. She felt it
horribly indecorous, especially for _her_, to look at another person’s
money. She stared at the gold eye-glass which Pyotr Petrovitch held
in his left hand and at the massive and extremely handsome ring with a
yellow stone on his middle finger. But suddenly she looked away and, not
knowing where to turn, ended by staring Pyotr Petrovitch again straight
in the face. After a pause of still greater dignity he continued.

“I chanced yesterday in passing to exchange a couple of words with
Katerina Ivanovna, poor woman. That was sufficient to enable me to
ascertain that she is in a position--preternatural, if one may so
express it.”

“Yes... preternatural...” Sonia hurriedly assented.

“Or it would be simpler and more comprehensible to say, ill.”

“Yes, simpler and more comprehen... yes, ill.”

“Quite so. So then from a feeling of humanity and so to speak
compassion, I should be glad to be of service to her in any way,
foreseeing her unfortunate position. I believe the whole of this
poverty-stricken family depends now entirely on you?”

“Allow me to ask,” Sonia rose to her feet, “did you say something to her
yesterday of the possibility of a pension? Because she told me you had
undertaken to get her one. Was that true?”

“Not in the slightest, and indeed it’s an absurdity! I merely hinted at
her obtaining temporary assistance as the widow of an official who had
died in the service--if only she has patronage... but apparently your
late parent had not served his full term and had not indeed been in the
service at all of late. In fact, if there could be any hope, it would be
very ephemeral, because there would be no claim for assistance in
that case, far from it.... And she is dreaming of a pension already,
he-he-he!... A go-ahead lady!”

“Yes, she is. For she is credulous and good-hearted, and she believes
everything from the goodness of her heart and... and... and she is like
that... yes... You must excuse her,” said Sonia, and again she got up to
go.

“But you haven’t heard what I have to say.”

“No, I haven’t heard,” muttered Sonia.

“Then sit down.” She was terribly confused; she sat down again a third
time.

“Seeing her position with her unfortunate little ones, I should be glad,
as I have said before, so far as lies in my power, to be of service,
that is, so far as is in my power, not more. One might for instance get
up a subscription for her, or a lottery, something of the sort, such as
is always arranged in such cases by friends or even outsiders desirous
of assisting people. It was of that I intended to speak to you; it might
be done.”

“Yes, yes... God will repay you for it,” faltered Sonia, gazing intently
at Pyotr Petrovitch.

“It might be, but we will talk of it later. We might begin it to-day, we
will talk it over this evening and lay the foundation so to speak. Come
to me at seven o’clock. Mr. Lebeziatnikov, I hope, will assist us. But
there is one circumstance of which I ought to warn you beforehand and
for which I venture to trouble you, Sofya Semyonovna, to come here. In
my opinion money cannot be, indeed it’s unsafe to put it into Katerina
Ivanovna’s own hands. The dinner to-day is a proof of that. Though she
has not, so to speak, a crust of bread for to-morrow and... well, boots
or shoes, or anything; she has bought to-day Jamaica rum, and even,
I believe, Madeira and... and coffee. I saw it as I passed through.
To-morrow it will all fall upon you again, they won’t have a crust of
bread. It’s absurd, really, and so, to my thinking, a subscription ought
to be raised so that the unhappy widow should not know of the money, but
only you, for instance. Am I right?”

“I don’t know... this is only to-day, once in her life.... She was
so anxious to do honour, to celebrate the memory.... And she is very
sensible... but just as you think and I shall be very, very... they will
all be... and God will reward... and the orphans...”

Sonia burst into tears.

“Very well, then, keep it in mind; and now will you accept for the
benefit of your relation the small sum that I am able to spare, from me
personally. I am very anxious that my name should not be mentioned in
connection with it. Here... having so to speak anxieties of my own, I
cannot do more...”

And Pyotr Petrovitch held out to Sonia a ten-rouble note carefully
unfolded. Sonia took it, flushed crimson, jumped up, muttered something
and began taking leave. Pyotr Petrovitch accompanied her ceremoniously
to the door. She got out of the room at last, agitated and distressed,
and returned to Katerina Ivanovna, overwhelmed with confusion.

All this time Lebeziatnikov had stood at the window or walked about the
room, anxious not to interrupt the conversation; when Sonia had gone he
walked up to Pyotr Petrovitch and solemnly held out his hand.

“I heard and _saw_ everything,” he said, laying stress on the last verb.
“That is honourable, I mean to say, it’s humane! You wanted to avoid
gratitude, I saw! And although I cannot, I confess, in principle
sympathise with private charity, for it not only fails to eradicate the
evil but even promotes it, yet I must admit that I saw your action with
pleasure--yes, yes, I like it.”

“That’s all nonsense,” muttered Pyotr Petrovitch, somewhat disconcerted,
looking carefully at Lebeziatnikov.

“No, it’s not nonsense! A man who has suffered distress and annoyance as
you did yesterday and who yet can sympathise with the misery of others,
such a man... even though he is making a social mistake--is still
deserving of respect! I did not expect it indeed of you, Pyotr
Petrovitch, especially as according to your ideas... oh, what a drawback
your ideas are to you! How distressed you are for instance by your
ill-luck yesterday,” cried the simple-hearted Lebeziatnikov, who felt
a return of affection for Pyotr Petrovitch. “And, what do you want with
marriage, with _legal_ marriage, my dear, noble Pyotr Petrovitch? Why do
you cling to this _legality_ of marriage? Well, you may beat me if you
like, but I am glad, positively glad it hasn’t come off, that you are
free, that you are not quite lost for humanity.... you see, I’ve spoken
my mind!”

“Because I don’t want in your free marriage to be made a fool of and
to bring up another man’s children, that’s why I want legal marriage,”
 Luzhin replied in order to make some answer.

He seemed preoccupied by something.

“Children? You referred to children,” Lebeziatnikov started off like
a warhorse at the trumpet call. “Children are a social question and a
question of first importance, I agree; but the question of children has
another solution. Some refuse to have children altogether, because they
suggest the institution of the family. We’ll speak of children later,
but now as to the question of honour, I confess that’s my weak point.
That horrid, military, Pushkin expression is unthinkable in the
dictionary of the future. What does it mean indeed? It’s nonsense,
there will be no deception in a free marriage! That is only the natural
consequence of a legal marriage, so to say, its corrective, a protest.
So that indeed it’s not humiliating... and if I ever, to suppose an
absurdity, were to be legally married, I should be positively glad of
it. I should say to my wife: ‘My dear, hitherto I have loved you, now
I respect you, for you’ve shown you can protest!’ You laugh! That’s
because you are incapable of getting away from prejudices. Confound
it all! I understand now where the unpleasantness is of being deceived
in a legal marriage, but it’s simply a despicable consequence of a
despicable position in which both are humiliated. When the deception is
open, as in a free marriage, then it does not exist, it’s unthinkable.
Your wife will only prove how she respects you by considering you
incapable of opposing her happiness and avenging yourself on her for
her new husband. Damn it all! I sometimes dream if I were to be married,
pfoo! I mean if I were to marry, legally or not, it’s just the same,
I should present my wife with a lover if she had not found one for
herself. ‘My dear,’ I should say, ‘I love you, but even more than that I
desire you to respect me. See!’ Am I not right?”

Pyotr Petrovitch sniggered as he listened, but without much merriment.
He hardly heard it indeed. He was preoccupied with something else and
even Lebeziatnikov at last noticed it. Pyotr Petrovitch seemed excited
and rubbed his hands. Lebeziatnikov remembered all this and reflected
upon it afterwards.



CHAPTER II

It would be difficult to explain exactly what could have originated the
idea of that senseless dinner in Katerina Ivanovna’s disordered brain.
Nearly ten of the twenty roubles, given by Raskolnikov for Marmeladov’s
funeral, were wasted upon it. Possibly Katerina Ivanovna felt obliged to
honour the memory of the deceased “suitably,” that all the lodgers,
and still more Amalia Ivanovna, might know “that he was in no way their
inferior, and perhaps very much their superior,” and that no one had the
right “to turn up his nose at him.” Perhaps the chief element was that
peculiar “poor man’s pride,” which compels many poor people to spend
their last savings on some traditional social ceremony, simply in order
to do “like other people,” and not to “be looked down upon.” It is very
probable, too, that Katerina Ivanovna longed on this occasion, at
the moment when she seemed to be abandoned by everyone, to show those
“wretched contemptible lodgers” that she knew “how to do things, how
to entertain” and that she had been brought up “in a genteel, she might
almost say aristocratic colonel’s family” and had not been meant for
sweeping floors and washing the children’s rags at night. Even the
poorest and most broken-spirited people are sometimes liable to these
paroxysms of pride and vanity which take the form of an irresistible
nervous craving. And Katerina Ivanovna was not broken-spirited; she
might have been killed by circumstance, but her spirit could not have
been broken, that is, she could not have been intimidated, her will
could not be crushed. Moreover Sonia had said with good reason that her
mind was unhinged. She could not be said to be insane, but for a year
past she had been so harassed that her mind might well be overstrained.
The later stages of consumption are apt, doctors tell us, to affect the
intellect.

There was no great variety of wines, nor was there Madeira; but wine
there was. There was vodka, rum and Lisbon wine, all of the poorest
quality but in sufficient quantity. Besides the traditional rice and
honey, there were three or four dishes, one of which consisted of
pancakes, all prepared in Amalia Ivanovna’s kitchen. Two samovars were
boiling, that tea and punch might be offered after dinner. Katerina
Ivanovna had herself seen to purchasing the provisions, with the help
of one of the lodgers, an unfortunate little Pole who had somehow been
stranded at Madame Lippevechsel’s. He promptly put himself at Katerina
Ivanovna’s disposal and had been all that morning and all the day before
running about as fast as his legs could carry him, and very anxious
that everyone should be aware of it. For every trifle he ran to Katerina
Ivanovna, even hunting her out at the bazaar, at every instant called
her “_Pani_.” She was heartily sick of him before the end, though
she had declared at first that she could not have got on without this
“serviceable and magnanimous man.” It was one of Katerina Ivanovna’s
characteristics to paint everyone she met in the most glowing colours.
Her praises were so exaggerated as sometimes to be embarrassing; she
would invent various circumstances to the credit of her new acquaintance
and quite genuinely believe in their reality. Then all of a sudden she
would be disillusioned and would rudely and contemptuously repulse the
person she had only a few hours before been literally adoring. She
was naturally of a gay, lively and peace-loving disposition, but from
continual failures and misfortunes she had come to desire so _keenly_
that all should live in peace and joy and should not _dare_ to break the
peace, that the slightest jar, the smallest disaster reduced her almost
to frenzy, and she would pass in an instant from the brightest hopes and
fancies to cursing her fate and raving, and knocking her head against
the wall.

Amalia Ivanovna, too, suddenly acquired extraordinary importance in
Katerina Ivanovna’s eyes and was treated by her with extraordinary
respect, probably only because Amalia Ivanovna had thrown herself heart
and soul into the preparations. She had undertaken to lay the table,
to provide the linen, crockery, etc., and to cook the dishes in her
kitchen, and Katerina Ivanovna had left it all in her hands and gone
herself to the cemetery. Everything had been well done. Even the
table-cloth was nearly clean; the crockery, knives, forks and glasses
were, of course, of all shapes and patterns, lent by different lodgers,
but the table was properly laid at the time fixed, and Amalia Ivanovna,
feeling she had done her work well, had put on a black silk dress and
a cap with new mourning ribbons and met the returning party with some
pride. This pride, though justifiable, displeased Katerina Ivanovna for
some reason: “as though the table could not have been laid except by
Amalia Ivanovna!” She disliked the cap with new ribbons, too. “Could she
be stuck up, the stupid German, because she was mistress of the house,
and had consented as a favour to help her poor lodgers! As a favour!
Fancy that! Katerina Ivanovna’s father who had been a colonel and almost
a governor had sometimes had the table set for forty persons, and then
anyone like Amalia Ivanovna, or rather Ludwigovna, would not have been
allowed into the kitchen.”

Katerina Ivanovna, however, put off expressing her feelings for the
time and contented herself with treating her coldly, though she decided
inwardly that she would certainly have to put Amalia Ivanovna down
and set her in her proper place, for goodness only knew what she was
fancying herself. Katerina Ivanovna was irritated too by the fact that
hardly any of the lodgers invited had come to the funeral, except
the Pole who had just managed to run into the cemetery, while to the
memorial dinner the poorest and most insignificant of them had turned
up, the wretched creatures, many of them not quite sober. The older
and more respectable of them all, as if by common consent, stayed away.
Pyotr Petrovitch Luzhin, for instance, who might be said to be the most
respectable of all the lodgers, did not appear, though Katerina Ivanovna
had the evening before told all the world, that is Amalia Ivanovna,
Polenka, Sonia and the Pole, that he was the most generous,
noble-hearted man with a large property and vast connections, who had
been a friend of her first husband’s, and a guest in her father’s
house, and that he had promised to use all his influence to secure her
a considerable pension. It must be noted that when Katerina Ivanovna
exalted anyone’s connections and fortune, it was without any ulterior
motive, quite disinterestedly, for the mere pleasure of adding to
the consequence of the person praised. Probably “taking his cue” from
Luzhin, “that contemptible wretch Lebeziatnikov had not turned up
either. What did he fancy himself? He was only asked out of kindness
and because he was sharing the same room with Pyotr Petrovitch and was a
friend of his, so that it would have been awkward not to invite him.”

Among those who failed to appear were “the genteel lady and her
old-maidish daughter,” who had only been lodgers in the house for the
last fortnight, but had several times complained of the noise and uproar
in Katerina Ivanovna’s room, especially when Marmeladov had come
back drunk. Katerina Ivanovna heard this from Amalia Ivanovna who,
quarrelling with Katerina Ivanovna, and threatening to turn the whole
family out of doors, had shouted at her that they “were not worth the
foot” of the honourable lodgers whom they were disturbing. Katerina
Ivanovna determined now to invite this lady and her daughter, “whose
foot she was not worth,” and who had turned away haughtily when she
casually met them, so that they might know that “she was more noble in
her thoughts and feelings and did not harbour malice,” and might see
that she was not accustomed to her way of living. She had proposed to
make this clear to them at dinner with allusions to her late father’s
governorship, and also at the same time to hint that it was exceedingly
stupid of them to turn away on meeting her. The fat colonel-major (he
was really a discharged officer of low rank) was also absent, but it
appeared that he had been “not himself” for the last two days. The party
consisted of the Pole, a wretched looking clerk with a spotty face and
a greasy coat, who had not a word to say for himself, and smelt
abominably, a deaf and almost blind old man who had once been in the
post office and who had been from immemorial ages maintained by someone
at Amalia Ivanovna’s.

A retired clerk of the commissariat department came, too; he was
drunk, had a loud and most unseemly laugh and only fancy--was without
a waistcoat! One of the visitors sat straight down to the table without
even greeting Katerina Ivanovna. Finally one person having no suit
appeared in his dressing-gown, but this was too much, and the efforts of
Amalia Ivanovna and the Pole succeeded in removing him. The Pole brought
with him, however, two other Poles who did not live at Amalia Ivanovna’s
and whom no one had seen here before. All this irritated Katerina
Ivanovna intensely. “For whom had they made all these preparations
then?” To make room for the visitors the children had not even been laid
for at the table; but the two little ones were sitting on a bench in the
furthest corner with their dinner laid on a box, while Polenka as a big
girl had to look after them, feed them, and keep their noses wiped like
well-bred children’s.

Katerina Ivanovna, in fact, could hardly help meeting her guests with
increased dignity, and even haughtiness. She stared at some of them with
special severity, and loftily invited them to take their seats. Rushing
to the conclusion that Amalia Ivanovna must be responsible for those who
were absent, she began treating her with extreme nonchalance, which the
latter promptly observed and resented. Such a beginning was no good omen
for the end. All were seated at last.

Raskolnikov came in almost at the moment of their return from the
cemetery. Katerina Ivanovna was greatly delighted to see him, in the
first place, because he was the one “educated visitor, and, as everyone
knew, was in two years to take a professorship in the university,” and
secondly because he immediately and respectfully apologised for having
been unable to be at the funeral. She positively pounced upon him, and
made him sit on her left hand (Amalia Ivanovna was on her right). In
spite of her continual anxiety that the dishes should be passed round
correctly and that everyone should taste them, in spite of the agonising
cough which interrupted her every minute and seemed to have grown worse
during the last few days, she hastened to pour out in a half whisper to
Raskolnikov all her suppressed feelings and her just indignation at
the failure of the dinner, interspersing her remarks with lively and
uncontrollable laughter at the expense of her visitors and especially of
her landlady.

“It’s all that cuckoo’s fault! You know whom I mean? Her, her!” Katerina
Ivanovna nodded towards the landlady. “Look at her, she’s making round
eyes, she feels that we are talking about her and can’t understand.
Pfoo, the owl! Ha-ha! (Cough-cough-cough.) And what does she put on that
cap for? (Cough-cough-cough.) Have you noticed that she wants everyone
to consider that she is patronising me and doing me an honour by being
here? I asked her like a sensible woman to invite people, especially
those who knew my late husband, and look at the set of fools she has
brought! The sweeps! Look at that one with the spotty face. And those
wretched Poles, ha-ha-ha! (Cough-cough-cough.) Not one of them has ever
poked his nose in here, I’ve never set eyes on them. What have they come
here for, I ask you? There they sit in a row. Hey, _pan_!” she cried
suddenly to one of them, “have you tasted the pancakes? Take some more!
Have some beer! Won’t you have some vodka? Look, he’s jumped up and is
making his bows, they must be quite starved, poor things. Never mind,
let them eat! They don’t make a noise, anyway, though I’m really afraid
for our landlady’s silver spoons... Amalia Ivanovna!” she addressed her
suddenly, almost aloud, “if your spoons should happen to be stolen,
I won’t be responsible, I warn you! Ha-ha-ha!” She laughed turning to
Raskolnikov, and again nodding towards the landlady, in high glee at her
sally. “She didn’t understand, she didn’t understand again! Look how
she sits with her mouth open! An owl, a real owl! An owl in new ribbons,
ha-ha-ha!”

Here her laugh turned again to an insufferable fit of coughing that
lasted five minutes. Drops of perspiration stood out on her forehead
and her handkerchief was stained with blood. She showed Raskolnikov
the blood in silence, and as soon as she could get her breath began
whispering to him again with extreme animation and a hectic flush on her
cheeks.

“Do you know, I gave her the most delicate instructions, so to speak,
for inviting that lady and her daughter, you understand of whom I am
speaking? It needed the utmost delicacy, the greatest nicety, but she
has managed things so that that fool, that conceited baggage, that
provincial nonentity, simply because she is the widow of a major, and
has come to try and get a pension and to fray out her skirts in the
government offices, because at fifty she paints her face (everybody
knows it)... a creature like that did not think fit to come, and has
not even answered the invitation, which the most ordinary good manners
required! I can’t understand why Pyotr Petrovitch has not come? But
where’s Sonia? Where has she gone? Ah, there she is at last! what is it,
Sonia, where have you been? It’s odd that even at your father’s funeral
you should be so unpunctual. Rodion Romanovitch, make room for her
beside you. That’s your place, Sonia... take what you like. Have some of
the cold entrée with jelly, that’s the best. They’ll bring the pancakes
directly. Have they given the children some? Polenka, have you got
everything? (Cough-cough-cough.) That’s all right. Be a good girl, Lida,
and, Kolya, don’t fidget with your feet; sit like a little gentleman.
What are you saying, Sonia?”

Sonia hastened to give her Pyotr Petrovitch’s apologies, trying to
speak loud enough for everyone to hear and carefully choosing the most
respectful phrases which she attributed to Pyotr Petrovitch. She added
that Pyotr Petrovitch had particularly told her to say that, as soon as
he possibly could, he would come immediately to discuss _business_ alone
with her and to consider what could be done for her, etc., etc.

Sonia knew that this would comfort Katerina Ivanovna, would flatter her
and gratify her pride. She sat down beside Raskolnikov; she made him a
hurried bow, glancing curiously at him. But for the rest of the time
she seemed to avoid looking at him or speaking to him. She seemed
absent-minded, though she kept looking at Katerina Ivanovna, trying
to please her. Neither she nor Katerina Ivanovna had been able to get
mourning; Sonia was wearing dark brown, and Katerina Ivanovna had on her
only dress, a dark striped cotton one.

The message from Pyotr Petrovitch was very successful. Listening to
Sonia with dignity, Katerina Ivanovna inquired with equal dignity how
Pyotr Petrovitch was, then at once whispered almost aloud to
Raskolnikov that it certainly would have been strange for a man of
Pyotr Petrovitch’s position and standing to find himself in such
“extraordinary company,” in spite of his devotion to her family and his
old friendship with her father.

“That’s why I am so grateful to you, Rodion Romanovitch, that you have
not disdained my hospitality, even in such surroundings,” she added
almost aloud. “But I am sure that it was only your special affection for
my poor husband that has made you keep your promise.”

Then once more with pride and dignity she scanned her visitors, and
suddenly inquired aloud across the table of the deaf man: “Wouldn’t he
have some more meat, and had he been given some wine?” The old man made
no answer and for a long while could not understand what he was asked,
though his neighbours amused themselves by poking and shaking him. He
simply gazed about him with his mouth open, which only increased the
general mirth.

“What an imbecile! Look, look! Why was he brought? But as to Pyotr
Petrovitch, I always had confidence in him,” Katerina Ivanovna
continued, “and, of course, he is not like...” with an extremely stern
face she addressed Amalia Ivanovna so sharply and loudly that the latter
was quite disconcerted, “not like your dressed up draggletails whom
my father would not have taken as cooks into his kitchen, and my late
husband would have done them honour if he had invited them in the
goodness of his heart.”

“Yes, he was fond of drink, he was fond of it, he did drink!” cried the
commissariat clerk, gulping down his twelfth glass of vodka.

“My late husband certainly had that weakness, and everyone knows
it,” Katerina Ivanovna attacked him at once, “but he was a kind and
honourable man, who loved and respected his family. The worst of it was
his good nature made him trust all sorts of disreputable people, and he
drank with fellows who were not worth the sole of his shoe. Would you
believe it, Rodion Romanovitch, they found a gingerbread cock in his
pocket; he was dead drunk, but he did not forget the children!”

“A cock? Did you say a cock?” shouted the commissariat clerk.

Katerina Ivanovna did not vouchsafe a reply. She sighed, lost in
thought.

“No doubt you think, like everyone, that I was too severe with him,” she
went on, addressing Raskolnikov. “But that’s not so! He respected me, he
respected me very much! He was a kind-hearted man! And how sorry I was
for him sometimes! He would sit in a corner and look at me, I used to
feel so sorry for him, I used to want to be kind to him and then would
think to myself: ‘Be kind to him and he will drink again,’ it was only
by severity that you could keep him within bounds.”

“Yes, he used to get his hair pulled pretty often,” roared the
commissariat clerk again, swallowing another glass of vodka.

“Some fools would be the better for a good drubbing, as well as having
their hair pulled. I am not talking of my late husband now!” Katerina
Ivanovna snapped at him.

The flush on her cheeks grew more and more marked, her chest heaved. In
another minute she would have been ready to make a scene. Many of the
visitors were sniggering, evidently delighted. They began poking the
commissariat clerk and whispering something to him. They were evidently
trying to egg him on.

“Allow me to ask what are you alluding to,” began the clerk, “that is
to say, whose... about whom... did you say just now... But I don’t care!
That’s nonsense! Widow! I forgive you.... Pass!”

And he took another drink of vodka.

Raskolnikov sat in silence, listening with disgust. He only ate from
politeness, just tasting the food that Katerina Ivanovna was continually
putting on his plate, to avoid hurting her feelings. He watched Sonia
intently. But Sonia became more and more anxious and distressed; she,
too, foresaw that the dinner would not end peaceably, and saw with
terror Katerina Ivanovna’s growing irritation. She knew that she, Sonia,
was the chief reason for the ‘genteel’ ladies’ contemptuous treatment of
Katerina Ivanovna’s invitation. She had heard from Amalia Ivanovna that
the mother was positively offended at the invitation and had asked the
question: “How could she let her daughter sit down beside _that young
person_?” Sonia had a feeling that Katerina Ivanovna had already heard
this and an insult to Sonia meant more to Katerina Ivanovna than an
insult to herself, her children, or her father. Sonia knew that
Katerina Ivanovna would not be satisfied now, “till she had shown those
draggletails that they were both...” To make matters worse someone
passed Sonia, from the other end of the table, a plate with two hearts
pierced with an arrow, cut out of black bread. Katerina Ivanovna flushed
crimson and at once said aloud across the table that the man who sent it
was “a drunken ass!”

Amalia Ivanovna was foreseeing something amiss, and at the same time
deeply wounded by Katerina Ivanovna’s haughtiness, and to restore the
good-humour of the company and raise herself in their esteem she began,
apropos of nothing, telling a story about an acquaintance of hers “Karl
from the chemist’s,” who was driving one night in a cab, and that “the
cabman wanted him to kill, and Karl very much begged him not to kill,
and wept and clasped hands, and frightened and from fear pierced his
heart.” Though Katerina Ivanovna smiled, she observed at once that
Amalia Ivanovna ought not to tell anecdotes in Russian; the latter was
still more offended, and she retorted that her “_Vater aus Berlin_ was a
very important man, and always went with his hands in pockets.” Katerina
Ivanovna could not restrain herself and laughed so much that Amalia
Ivanovna lost patience and could scarcely control herself.

“Listen to the owl!” Katerina Ivanovna whispered at once, her
good-humour almost restored, “she meant to say he kept his hands in
his pockets, but she said he put his hands in people’s pockets.
(Cough-cough.) And have you noticed, Rodion Romanovitch, that all these
Petersburg foreigners, the Germans especially, are all stupider than
we! Can you fancy anyone of us telling how ‘Karl from the chemist’s’
‘pierced his heart from fear’ and that the idiot, instead of punishing
the cabman, ‘clasped his hands and wept, and much begged.’ Ah, the fool!
And you know she fancies it’s very touching and does not suspect how
stupid she is! To my thinking that drunken commissariat clerk is a great
deal cleverer, anyway one can see that he has addled his brains with
drink, but you know, these foreigners are always so well behaved
and serious.... Look how she sits glaring! She is angry, ha-ha!
(Cough-cough-cough.)”

Regaining her good-humour, Katerina Ivanovna began at once telling
Raskolnikov that when she had obtained her pension, she intended to open
a school for the daughters of gentlemen in her native town T----.
This was the first time she had spoken to him of the project, and she
launched out into the most alluring details. It suddenly appeared that
Katerina Ivanovna had in her hands the very certificate of honour of
which Marmeladov had spoken to Raskolnikov in the tavern, when he told
him that Katerina Ivanovna, his wife, had danced the shawl dance
before the governor and other great personages on leaving school. This
certificate of honour was obviously intended now to prove Katerina
Ivanovna’s right to open a boarding-school; but she had armed herself
with it chiefly with the object of overwhelming “those two stuck-up
draggletails” if they came to the dinner, and proving incontestably
that Katerina Ivanovna was of the most noble, “she might even say
aristocratic family, a colonel’s daughter and was far superior to
certain adventuresses who have been so much to the fore of late.” The
certificate of honour immediately passed into the hands of the drunken
guests, and Katerina Ivanovna did not try to retain it, for it actually
contained the statement _en toutes lettres_, that her father was of the
rank of a major, and also a companion of an order, so that she really
was almost the daughter of a colonel.

Warming up, Katerina Ivanovna proceeded to enlarge on the peaceful and
happy life they would lead in T----, on the gymnasium teachers whom
she would engage to give lessons in her boarding-school, one a most
respectable old Frenchman, one Mangot, who had taught Katerina Ivanovna
herself in old days and was still living in T----, and would no doubt
teach in her school on moderate terms. Next she spoke of Sonia who would
go with her to T---- and help her in all her plans. At this someone at
the further end of the table gave a sudden guffaw.

Though Katerina Ivanovna tried to appear to be disdainfully unaware of
it, she raised her voice and began at once speaking with conviction of
Sonia’s undoubted ability to assist her, of “her gentleness, patience,
devotion, generosity and good education,” tapping Sonia on the cheek and
kissing her warmly twice. Sonia flushed crimson, and Katerina Ivanovna
suddenly burst into tears, immediately observing that she was “nervous
and silly, that she was too much upset, that it was time to finish, and
as the dinner was over, it was time to hand round the tea.”

At that moment, Amalia Ivanovna, deeply aggrieved at taking no part in
the conversation, and not being listened to, made one last effort,
and with secret misgivings ventured on an exceedingly deep and weighty
observation, that “in the future boarding-school she would have to pay
particular attention to _die Wäsche_, and that there certainly must be a
good _dame_ to look after the linen, and secondly that the young ladies
must not novels at night read.”

Katerina Ivanovna, who certainly was upset and very tired, as well as
heartily sick of the dinner, at once cut short Amalia Ivanovna, saying
“she knew nothing about it and was talking nonsense, that it was the
business of the laundry maid, and not of the directress of a high-class
boarding-school to look after _die Wäsche_, and as for novel-reading,
that was simply rudeness, and she begged her to be silent.” Amalia
Ivanovna fired up and getting angry observed that she only “meant her
good,” and that “she had meant her very good,” and that “it was long
since she had paid her _gold_ for the lodgings.”

Katerina Ivanovna at once “set her down,” saying that it was a lie to
say she wished her good, because only yesterday when her dead husband
was lying on the table, she had worried her about the lodgings. To this
Amalia Ivanovna very appropriately observed that she had invited those
ladies, but “those ladies had not come, because those ladies _are_
ladies and cannot come to a lady who is not a lady.” Katerina Ivanovna
at once pointed out to her, that as she was a slut she could not judge
what made one really a lady. Amalia Ivanovna at once declared that her
“_Vater aus Berlin_ was a very, very important man, and both hands in
pockets went, and always used to say: ‘Poof! poof!’” and she leapt
up from the table to represent her father, sticking her hands in her
pockets, puffing her cheeks, and uttering vague sounds resembling “poof!
poof!” amid loud laughter from all the lodgers, who purposely encouraged
Amalia Ivanovna, hoping for a fight.

But this was too much for Katerina Ivanovna, and she at once declared,
so that all could hear, that Amalia Ivanovna probably never had a
father, but was simply a drunken Petersburg Finn, and had certainly once
been a cook and probably something worse. Amalia Ivanovna turned as red
as a lobster and squealed that perhaps Katerina Ivanovna never had a
father, “but she had a _Vater aus Berlin_ and that he wore a long coat
and always said poof-poof-poof!”

Katerina Ivanovna observed contemptuously that all knew what her family
was and that on that very certificate of honour it was stated in print
that her father was a colonel, while Amalia Ivanovna’s father--if she
really had one--was probably some Finnish milkman, but that probably she
never had a father at all, since it was still uncertain whether her name
was Amalia Ivanovna or Amalia Ludwigovna.

At this Amalia Ivanovna, lashed to fury, struck the table with her fist,
and shrieked that she was Amalia Ivanovna, and not Ludwigovna, “that
her _Vater_ was named Johann and that he was a burgomeister, and that
Katerina Ivanovna’s _Vater_ was quite never a burgomeister.” Katerina
Ivanovna rose from her chair, and with a stern and apparently calm voice
(though she was pale and her chest was heaving) observed that “if she
dared for one moment to set her contemptible wretch of a father on a
level with her papa, she, Katerina Ivanovna, would tear her cap off her
head and trample it under foot.” Amalia Ivanovna ran about the room,
shouting at the top of her voice, that she was mistress of the house and
that Katerina Ivanovna should leave the lodgings that minute; then she
rushed for some reason to collect the silver spoons from the table.
There was a great outcry and uproar, the children began crying. Sonia
ran to restrain Katerina Ivanovna, but when Amalia Ivanovna shouted
something about “the yellow ticket,” Katerina Ivanovna pushed Sonia
away, and rushed at the landlady to carry out her threat.

At that minute the door opened, and Pyotr Petrovitch Luzhin appeared
on the threshold. He stood scanning the party with severe and vigilant
eyes. Katerina Ivanovna rushed to him.



CHAPTER III

“Pyotr Petrovitch,” she cried, “protect me... you at least! Make this
foolish woman understand that she can’t behave like this to a lady in
misfortune... that there is a law for such things.... I’ll go to the
governor-general himself.... She shall answer for it.... Remembering my
father’s hospitality protect these orphans.”

“Allow me, madam.... Allow me.” Pyotr Petrovitch waved her off. “Your
papa as you are well aware I had not the honour of knowing” (someone
laughed aloud) “and I do not intend to take part in your everlasting
squabbles with Amalia Ivanovna.... I have come here to speak of my own
affairs... and I want to have a word with your stepdaughter, Sofya...
Ivanovna, I think it is? Allow me to pass.”

Pyotr Petrovitch, edging by her, went to the opposite corner where Sonia
was.

Katerina Ivanovna remained standing where she was, as though
thunderstruck. She could not understand how Pyotr Petrovitch could deny
having enjoyed her father’s hospitality. Though she had invented it
herself, she believed in it firmly by this time. She was struck too
by the businesslike, dry and even contemptuous menacing tone of Pyotr
Petrovitch. All the clamour gradually died away at his entrance. Not
only was this “serious business man” strikingly incongruous with the
rest of the party, but it was evident, too, that he had come upon some
matter of consequence, that some exceptional cause must have brought him
and that therefore something was going to happen. Raskolnikov, standing
beside Sonia, moved aside to let him pass; Pyotr Petrovitch did not
seem to notice him. A minute later Lebeziatnikov, too, appeared in the
doorway; he did not come in, but stood still, listening with marked
interest, almost wonder, and seemed for a time perplexed.

“Excuse me for possibly interrupting you, but it’s a matter of
some importance,” Pyotr Petrovitch observed, addressing the company
generally. “I am glad indeed to find other persons present. Amalia
Ivanovna, I humbly beg you as mistress of the house to pay careful
attention to what I have to say to Sofya Ivanovna. Sofya Ivanovna,”
 he went on, addressing Sonia, who was very much surprised and already
alarmed, “immediately after your visit I found that a hundred-rouble
note was missing from my table, in the room of my friend Mr.
Lebeziatnikov. If in any way whatever you know and will tell us where
it is now, I assure you on my word of honour and call all present to
witness that the matter shall end there. In the opposite case I shall be
compelled to have recourse to very serious measures and then... you must
blame yourself.”

Complete silence reigned in the room. Even the crying children were
still. Sonia stood deadly pale, staring at Luzhin and unable to say a
word. She seemed not to understand. Some seconds passed.

“Well, how is it to be then?” asked Luzhin, looking intently at her.

“I don’t know.... I know nothing about it,” Sonia articulated faintly at
last.

“No, you know nothing?” Luzhin repeated and again he paused for some
seconds. “Think a moment, mademoiselle,” he began severely, but still,
as it were, admonishing her. “Reflect, I am prepared to give you time
for consideration. Kindly observe this: if I were not so entirely
convinced I should not, you may be sure, with my experience venture to
accuse you so directly. Seeing that for such direct accusation before
witnesses, if false or even mistaken, I should myself in a certain sense
be made responsible, I am aware of that. This morning I changed for
my own purposes several five-per-cent securities for the sum of
approximately three thousand roubles. The account is noted down in my
pocket-book. On my return home I proceeded to count the money--as Mr.
Lebeziatnikov will bear witness--and after counting two thousand three
hundred roubles I put the rest in my pocket-book in my coat pocket.
About five hundred roubles remained on the table and among them three
notes of a hundred roubles each. At that moment you entered (at my
invitation)--and all the time you were present you were exceedingly
embarrassed; so that three times you jumped up in the middle of the
conversation and tried to make off. Mr. Lebeziatnikov can bear witness
to this. You yourself, mademoiselle, probably will not refuse to confirm
my statement that I invited you through Mr. Lebeziatnikov, solely in
order to discuss with you the hopeless and destitute position of your
relative, Katerina Ivanovna (whose dinner I was unable to attend),
and the advisability of getting up something of the nature of a
subscription, lottery or the like, for her benefit. You thanked me and
even shed tears. I describe all this as it took place, primarily to
recall it to your mind and secondly to show you that not the slightest
detail has escaped my recollection. Then I took a ten-rouble note from
the table and handed it to you by way of first instalment on my part
for the benefit of your relative. Mr. Lebeziatnikov saw all this. Then
I accompanied you to the door--you being still in the same state of
embarrassment--after which, being left alone with Mr. Lebeziatnikov I
talked to him for ten minutes--then Mr. Lebeziatnikov went out and I
returned to the table with the money lying on it, intending to count
it and to put it aside, as I proposed doing before. To my surprise one
hundred-rouble note had disappeared. Kindly consider the position.
Mr. Lebeziatnikov I cannot suspect. I am ashamed to allude to such
a supposition. I cannot have made a mistake in my reckoning, for the
minute before your entrance I had finished my accounts and found the
total correct. You will admit that recollecting your embarrassment, your
eagerness to get away and the fact that you kept your hands for some
time on the table, and taking into consideration your social position
and the habits associated with it, I was, so to say, with horror and
positively against my will, _compelled_ to entertain a suspicion--a
cruel, but justifiable suspicion! I will add further and repeat that in
spite of my positive conviction, I realise that I run a certain risk in
making this accusation, but as you see, I could not let it pass. I have
taken action and I will tell you why: solely, madam, solely owing
to your black ingratitude! Why! I invite you for the benefit of your
destitute relative, I present you with my donation of ten roubles and
you, on the spot, repay me for all that with such an action. It is too
bad! You need a lesson. Reflect! Moreover, like a true friend I beg
you--and you could have no better friend at this moment--think what you
are doing, otherwise I shall be immovable! Well, what do you say?”

“I have taken nothing,” Sonia whispered in terror, “you gave me ten
roubles, here it is, take it.”

Sonia pulled her handkerchief out of her pocket, untied a corner of it,
took out the ten-rouble note and gave it to Luzhin.

“And the hundred roubles you do not confess to taking?” he insisted
reproachfully, not taking the note.

Sonia looked about her. All were looking at her with such awful, stern,
ironical, hostile eyes. She looked at Raskolnikov... he stood against
the wall, with his arms crossed, looking at her with glowing eyes.

“Good God!” broke from Sonia.

“Amalia Ivanovna, we shall have to send word to the police and therefore
I humbly beg you meanwhile to send for the house porter,” Luzhin said
softly and even kindly.

“_Gott der Barmherzige!_ I knew she was the thief,” cried Amalia
Ivanovna, throwing up her hands.

“You knew it?” Luzhin caught her up, “then I suppose you had some reason
before this for thinking so. I beg you, worthy Amalia Ivanovna, to
remember your words which have been uttered before witnesses.”

There was a buzz of loud conversation on all sides. All were in
movement.

“What!” cried Katerina Ivanovna, suddenly realising the position, and
she rushed at Luzhin. “What! You accuse her of stealing? Sonia? Ah, the
wretches, the wretches!”

And running to Sonia she flung her wasted arms round her and held her as
in a vise.

“Sonia! how dared you take ten roubles from him? Foolish girl! Give it
to me! Give me the ten roubles at once--here!”

And snatching the note from Sonia, Katerina Ivanovna crumpled it up and
flung it straight into Luzhin’s face. It hit him in the eye and fell
on the ground. Amalia Ivanovna hastened to pick it up. Pyotr Petrovitch
lost his temper.

“Hold that mad woman!” he shouted.

At that moment several other persons, besides Lebeziatnikov, appeared in
the doorway, among them the two ladies.

“What! Mad? Am I mad? Idiot!” shrieked Katerina Ivanovna. “You are an
idiot yourself, pettifogging lawyer, base man! Sonia, Sonia take his
money! Sonia a thief! Why, she’d give away her last penny!” and Katerina
Ivanovna broke into hysterical laughter. “Did you ever see such an
idiot?” she turned from side to side. “And you too?” she suddenly saw
the landlady, “and you too, sausage eater, you declare that she is a
thief, you trashy Prussian hen’s leg in a crinoline! She hasn’t been
out of this room: she came straight from you, you wretch, and sat down
beside me, everyone saw her. She sat here, by Rodion Romanovitch. Search
her! Since she’s not left the room, the money would have to be on her!
Search her, search her! But if you don’t find it, then excuse me, my
dear fellow, you’ll answer for it! I’ll go to our Sovereign, to our
Sovereign, to our gracious Tsar himself, and throw myself at his feet,
to-day, this minute! I am alone in the world! They would let me in! Do
you think they wouldn’t? You’re wrong, I will get in! I will get in!
You reckoned on her meekness! You relied upon that! But I am not so
submissive, let me tell you! You’ve gone too far yourself. Search her,
search her!”

And Katerina Ivanovna in a frenzy shook Luzhin and dragged him towards
Sonia.

“I am ready, I’ll be responsible... but calm yourself, madam, calm
yourself. I see that you are not so submissive!... Well, well, but as to
that...” Luzhin muttered, “that ought to be before the police... though
indeed there are witnesses enough as it is.... I am ready.... But in
any case it’s difficult for a man... on account of her sex.... But with
the help of Amalia Ivanovna... though, of course, it’s not the way to do
things.... How is it to be done?”

“As you will! Let anyone who likes search her!” cried Katerina Ivanovna.
“Sonia, turn out your pockets! See! Look, monster, the pocket is empty,
here was her handkerchief! Here is the other pocket, look! D’you see,
d’you see?”

And Katerina Ivanovna turned--or rather snatched--both pockets inside
out. But from the right pocket a piece of paper flew out and describing
a parabola in the air fell at Luzhin’s feet. Everyone saw it, several
cried out. Pyotr Petrovitch stooped down, picked up the paper in two
fingers, lifted it where all could see it and opened it. It was a
hundred-rouble note folded in eight. Pyotr Petrovitch held up the note
showing it to everyone.

“Thief! Out of my lodging. Police, police!” yelled Amalia Ivanovna.
“They must to Siberia be sent! Away!”

Exclamations arose on all sides. Raskolnikov was silent, keeping his
eyes fixed on Sonia, except for an occasional rapid glance at Luzhin.
Sonia stood still, as though unconscious. She was hardly able to feel
surprise. Suddenly the colour rushed to her cheeks; she uttered a cry
and hid her face in her hands.

“No, it wasn’t I! I didn’t take it! I know nothing about it,” she cried
with a heartrending wail, and she ran to Katerina Ivanovna, who clasped
her tightly in her arms, as though she would shelter her from all the
world.

“Sonia! Sonia! I don’t believe it! You see, I don’t believe it!” she
cried in the face of the obvious fact, swaying her to and fro in her
arms like a baby, kissing her face continually, then snatching at her
hands and kissing them, too, “you took it! How stupid these people are!
Oh dear! You are fools, fools,” she cried, addressing the whole room,
“you don’t know, you don’t know what a heart she has, what a girl she
is! She take it, she? She’d sell her last rag, she’d go barefoot to help
you if you needed it, that’s what she is! She has the yellow passport
because my children were starving, she sold herself for us! Ah, husband,
husband! Do you see? Do you see? What a memorial dinner for you!
Merciful heavens! Defend her, why are you all standing still? Rodion
Romanovitch, why don’t you stand up for her? Do you believe it, too? You
are not worth her little finger, all of you together! Good God! Defend
her now, at least!”

The wail of the poor, consumptive, helpless woman seemed to produce a
great effect on her audience. The agonised, wasted, consumptive face,
the parched blood-stained lips, the hoarse voice, the tears unrestrained
as a child’s, the trustful, childish and yet despairing prayer for help
were so piteous that everyone seemed to feel for her. Pyotr Petrovitch
at any rate was at once moved to _compassion_.

“Madam, madam, this incident does not reflect upon you!” he cried
impressively, “no one would take upon himself to accuse you of being an
instigator or even an accomplice in it, especially as you have proved
her guilt by turning out her pockets, showing that you had no previous
idea of it. I am most ready, most ready to show compassion, if poverty,
so to speak, drove Sofya Semyonovna to it, but why did you refuse to
confess, mademoiselle? Were you afraid of the disgrace? The first step?
You lost your head, perhaps? One can quite understand it.... But how
could you have lowered yourself to such an action? Gentlemen,” he
addressed the whole company, “gentlemen! Compassionate and, so to say,
commiserating these people, I am ready to overlook it even now in spite
of the personal insult lavished upon me! And may this disgrace be a
lesson to you for the future,” he said, addressing Sonia, “and I will
carry the matter no further. Enough!”

Pyotr Petrovitch stole a glance at Raskolnikov. Their eyes met, and the
fire in Raskolnikov’s seemed ready to reduce him to ashes. Meanwhile
Katerina Ivanovna apparently heard nothing. She was kissing and hugging
Sonia like a madwoman. The children, too, were embracing Sonia on
all sides, and Polenka--though she did not fully understand what was
wrong--was drowned in tears and shaking with sobs, as she hid her pretty
little face, swollen with weeping, on Sonia’s shoulder.

“How vile!” a loud voice cried suddenly in the doorway.

Pyotr Petrovitch looked round quickly.

“What vileness!” Lebeziatnikov repeated, staring him straight in the
face.

Pyotr Petrovitch gave a positive start--all noticed it and recalled it
afterwards. Lebeziatnikov strode into the room.

“And you dared to call me as witness?” he said, going up to Pyotr
Petrovitch.

“What do you mean? What are you talking about?” muttered Luzhin.

“I mean that you... are a slanderer, that’s what my words mean!”
 Lebeziatnikov said hotly, looking sternly at him with his short-sighted
eyes.

He was extremely angry. Raskolnikov gazed intently at him, as though
seizing and weighing each word. Again there was a silence. Pyotr
Petrovitch indeed seemed almost dumbfounded for the first moment.

“If you mean that for me,...” he began, stammering. “But what’s the
matter with you? Are you out of your mind?”

“I’m in my mind, but you are a scoundrel! Ah, how vile! I have heard
everything. I kept waiting on purpose to understand it, for I must own
even now it is not quite logical.... What you have done it all for I
can’t understand.”

“Why, what have I done then? Give over talking in your nonsensical
riddles! Or maybe you are drunk!”

“You may be a drunkard, perhaps, vile man, but I am not! I never touch
vodka, for it’s against my convictions. Would you believe it, he, he
himself, with his own hands gave Sofya Semyonovna that hundred-rouble
note--I saw it, I was a witness, I’ll take my oath! He did it, he!”
 repeated Lebeziatnikov, addressing all.

“Are you crazy, milksop?” squealed Luzhin. “She is herself before
you--she herself here declared just now before everyone that I gave her
only ten roubles. How could I have given it to her?”

“I saw it, I saw it,” Lebeziatnikov repeated, “and though it is against
my principles, I am ready this very minute to take any oath you like
before the court, for I saw how you slipped it in her pocket. Only
like a fool I thought you did it out of kindness! When you were saying
good-bye to her at the door, while you held her hand in one hand, with
the other, the left, you slipped the note into her pocket. I saw it, I
saw it!”

Luzhin turned pale.

“What lies!” he cried impudently, “why, how could you, standing by the
window, see the note? You fancied it with your short-sighted eyes. You
are raving!”

“No, I didn’t fancy it. And though I was standing some way off, I saw
it all. And though it certainly would be hard to distinguish a note from
the window--that’s true--I knew for certain that it was a hundred-rouble
note, because, when you were going to give Sofya Semyonovna ten roubles,
you took up from the table a hundred-rouble note (I saw it because I
was standing near then, and an idea struck me at once, so that I did not
forget you had it in your hand). You folded it and kept it in your hand
all the time. I didn’t think of it again until, when you were getting
up, you changed it from your right hand to your left and nearly dropped
it! I noticed it because the same idea struck me again, that you meant
to do her a kindness without my seeing. You can fancy how I watched you
and I saw how you succeeded in slipping it into her pocket. I saw it, I
saw it, I’ll take my oath.”

Lebeziatnikov was almost breathless. Exclamations arose on all hands
chiefly expressive of wonder, but some were menacing in tone. They all
crowded round Pyotr Petrovitch. Katerina Ivanovna flew to Lebeziatnikov.

“I was mistaken in you! Protect her! You are the only one to take her
part! She is an orphan. God has sent you!”

Katerina Ivanovna, hardly knowing what she was doing, sank on her knees
before him.

“A pack of nonsense!” yelled Luzhin, roused to fury, “it’s all nonsense
you’ve been talking! ‘An idea struck you, you didn’t think, you
noticed’--what does it amount to? So I gave it to her on the sly on
purpose? What for? With what object? What have I to do with this...?”

“What for? That’s what I can’t understand, but that what I am telling
you is the fact, that’s certain! So far from my being mistaken, you
infamous criminal man, I remember how, on account of it, a question
occurred to me at once, just when I was thanking you and pressing
your hand. What made you put it secretly in her pocket? Why you did it
secretly, I mean? Could it be simply to conceal it from me, knowing that
my convictions are opposed to yours and that I do not approve of private
benevolence, which effects no radical cure? Well, I decided that you
really were ashamed of giving such a large sum before me. Perhaps,
too, I thought, he wants to give her a surprise, when she finds a whole
hundred-rouble note in her pocket. (For I know, some benevolent people
are very fond of decking out their charitable actions in that way.) Then
the idea struck me, too, that you wanted to test her, to see whether,
when she found it, she would come to thank you. Then, too, that you
wanted to avoid thanks and that, as the saying is, your right hand
should not know... something of that sort, in fact. I thought of so
many possibilities that I put off considering it, but still thought it
indelicate to show you that I knew your secret. But another idea struck
me again that Sofya Semyonovna might easily lose the money before she
noticed it, that was why I decided to come in here to call her out of
the room and to tell her that you put a hundred roubles in her pocket.
But on my way I went first to Madame Kobilatnikov’s to take them the
‘General Treatise on the Positive Method’ and especially to recommend
Piderit’s article (and also Wagner’s); then I come on here and what a
state of things I find! Now could I, could I, have all these ideas and
reflections if I had not seen you put the hundred-rouble note in her
pocket?”

When Lebeziatnikov finished his long-winded harangue with the logical
deduction at the end, he was quite tired, and the perspiration streamed
from his face. He could not, alas, even express himself correctly
in Russian, though he knew no other language, so that he was quite
exhausted, almost emaciated after this heroic exploit. But his speech
produced a powerful effect. He had spoken with such vehemence, with such
conviction that everyone obviously believed him. Pyotr Petrovitch felt
that things were going badly with him.

“What is it to do with me if silly ideas did occur to you?” he shouted,
“that’s no evidence. You may have dreamt it, that’s all! And I tell you,
you are lying, sir. You are lying and slandering from some spite against
me, simply from pique, because I did not agree with your free-thinking,
godless, social propositions!”

But this retort did not benefit Pyotr Petrovitch. Murmurs of disapproval
were heard on all sides.

“Ah, that’s your line now, is it!” cried Lebeziatnikov, “that’s
nonsense! Call the police and I’ll take my oath! There’s only one thing
I can’t understand: what made him risk such a contemptible action. Oh,
pitiful, despicable man!”

“I can explain why he risked such an action, and if necessary, I, too,
will swear to it,” Raskolnikov said at last in a firm voice, and he
stepped forward.

He appeared to be firm and composed. Everyone felt clearly, from the
very look of him that he really knew about it and that the mystery would
be solved.

“Now I can explain it all to myself,” said Raskolnikov, addressing
Lebeziatnikov. “From the very beginning of the business, I suspected
that there was some scoundrelly intrigue at the bottom of it. I began
to suspect it from some special circumstances known to me only, which
I will explain at once to everyone: they account for everything. Your
valuable evidence has finally made everything clear to me. I beg all,
all to listen. This gentleman (he pointed to Luzhin) was recently
engaged to be married to a young lady--my sister, Avdotya Romanovna
Raskolnikov. But coming to Petersburg he quarrelled with me, the day
before yesterday, at our first meeting and I drove him out of my room--I
have two witnesses to prove it. He is a very spiteful man.... The day
before yesterday I did not know that he was staying here, in your room,
and that consequently on the very day we quarrelled--the day before
yesterday--he saw me give Katerina Ivanovna some money for the funeral,
as a friend of the late Mr. Marmeladov. He at once wrote a note to
my mother and informed her that I had given away all my money, not
to Katerina Ivanovna but to Sofya Semyonovna, and referred in a most
contemptible way to the... character of Sofya Semyonovna, that is,
hinted at the character of my attitude to Sofya Semyonovna. All this you
understand was with the object of dividing me from my mother and sister,
by insinuating that I was squandering on unworthy objects the money
which they had sent me and which was all they had. Yesterday evening,
before my mother and sister and in his presence, I declared that I had
given the money to Katerina Ivanovna for the funeral and not to Sofya
Semyonovna and that I had no acquaintance with Sofya Semyonovna and had
never seen her before, indeed. At the same time I added that he,
Pyotr Petrovitch Luzhin, with all his virtues, was not worth Sofya
Semyonovna’s little finger, though he spoke so ill of her. To his
question--would I let Sofya Semyonovna sit down beside my sister, I
answered that I had already done so that day. Irritated that my mother
and sister were unwilling to quarrel with me at his insinuations, he
gradually began being unpardonably rude to them. A final rupture took
place and he was turned out of the house. All this happened yesterday
evening. Now I beg your special attention: consider: if he had now
succeeded in proving that Sofya Semyonovna was a thief, he would
have shown to my mother and sister that he was almost right in his
suspicions, that he had reason to be angry at my putting my sister on
a level with Sofya Semyonovna, that, in attacking me, he was protecting
and preserving the honour of my sister, his betrothed. In fact he might
even, through all this, have been able to estrange me from my family,
and no doubt he hoped to be restored to favour with them; to say nothing
of revenging himself on me personally, for he has grounds for supposing
that the honour and happiness of Sofya Semyonovna are very precious to
me. That was what he was working for! That’s how I understand it. That’s
the whole reason for it and there can be no other!”

It was like this, or somewhat like this, that Raskolnikov wound up his
speech which was followed very attentively, though often interrupted by
exclamations from his audience. But in spite of interruptions he spoke
clearly, calmly, exactly, firmly. His decisive voice, his tone of
conviction and his stern face made a great impression on everyone.

“Yes, yes, that’s it,” Lebeziatnikov assented gleefully, “that must be
it, for he asked me, as soon as Sofya Semyonovna came into our room,
whether you were here, whether I had seen you among Katerina Ivanovna’s
guests. He called me aside to the window and asked me in secret. It was
essential for him that you should be here! That’s it, that’s it!”

Luzhin smiled contemptuously and did not speak. But he was very pale. He
seemed to be deliberating on some means of escape. Perhaps he would have
been glad to give up everything and get away, but at the moment this
was scarcely possible. It would have implied admitting the truth of
the accusations brought against him. Moreover, the company, which had
already been excited by drink, was now too much stirred to allow it. The
commissariat clerk, though indeed he had not grasped the whole position,
was shouting louder than anyone and was making some suggestions very
unpleasant to Luzhin. But not all those present were drunk; lodgers came
in from all the rooms. The three Poles were tremendously excited
and were continually shouting at him: “The _pan_ is a _lajdak_!” and
muttering threats in Polish. Sonia had been listening with strained
attention, though she too seemed unable to grasp it all; she seemed as
though she had just returned to consciousness. She did not take her
eyes off Raskolnikov, feeling that all her safety lay in him. Katerina
Ivanovna breathed hard and painfully and seemed fearfully exhausted.
Amalia Ivanovna stood looking more stupid than anyone, with her mouth
wide open, unable to make out what had happened. She only saw that Pyotr
Petrovitch had somehow come to grief.

Raskolnikov was attempting to speak again, but they did not let him.
Everyone was crowding round Luzhin with threats and shouts of abuse.
But Pyotr Petrovitch was not intimidated. Seeing that his accusation of
Sonia had completely failed, he had recourse to insolence:

“Allow me, gentlemen, allow me! Don’t squeeze, let me pass!” he said,
making his way through the crowd. “And no threats, if you please! I
assure you it will be useless, you will gain nothing by it. On the
contrary, you’ll have to answer, gentlemen, for violently obstructing
the course of justice. The thief has been more than unmasked, and I
shall prosecute. Our judges are not so blind and... not so drunk, and
will not believe the testimony of two notorious infidels, agitators, and
atheists, who accuse me from motives of personal revenge which they are
foolish enough to admit.... Yes, allow me to pass!”

“Don’t let me find a trace of you in my room! Kindly leave at once, and
everything is at an end between us! When I think of the trouble I’ve
been taking, the way I’ve been expounding... all this fortnight!”

“I told you myself to-day that I was going, when you tried to keep me;
now I will simply add that you are a fool. I advise you to see a doctor
for your brains and your short sight. Let me pass, gentlemen!”

He forced his way through. But the commissariat clerk was unwilling to
let him off so easily: he picked up a glass from the table, brandished
it in the air and flung it at Pyotr Petrovitch; but the glass flew
straight at Amalia Ivanovna. She screamed, and the clerk, overbalancing,
fell heavily under the table. Pyotr Petrovitch made his way to his room
and half an hour later had left the house. Sonia, timid by nature, had
felt before that day that she could be ill-treated more easily than
anyone, and that she could be wronged with impunity. Yet till that
moment she had fancied that she might escape misfortune by care,
gentleness and submissiveness before everyone. Her disappointment was
too great. She could, of course, bear with patience and almost without
murmur anything, even this. But for the first minute she felt it too
bitter. In spite of her triumph and her justification--when her first
terror and stupefaction had passed and she could understand it all
clearly--the feeling of her helplessness and of the wrong done to her
made her heart throb with anguish and she was overcome with hysterical
weeping. At last, unable to bear any more, she rushed out of the room
and ran home, almost immediately after Luzhin’s departure. When amidst
loud laughter the glass flew at Amalia Ivanovna, it was more than the
landlady could endure. With a shriek she rushed like a fury at Katerina
Ivanovna, considering her to blame for everything.

“Out of my lodgings! At once! Quick march!”

And with these words she began snatching up everything she could lay
her hands on that belonged to Katerina Ivanovna, and throwing it on the
floor. Katerina Ivanovna, pale, almost fainting, and gasping for breath,
jumped up from the bed where she had sunk in exhaustion and darted at
Amalia Ivanovna. But the battle was too unequal: the landlady waved her
away like a feather.

“What! As though that godless calumny was not enough--this vile creature
attacks me! What! On the day of my husband’s funeral I am turned out of
my lodging! After eating my bread and salt she turns me into the street,
with my orphans! Where am I to go?” wailed the poor woman, sobbing and
gasping. “Good God!” she cried with flashing eyes, “is there no justice
upon earth? Whom should you protect if not us orphans? We shall see!
There is law and justice on earth, there is, I will find it! Wait a bit,
godless creature! Polenka, stay with the children, I’ll come back. Wait
for me, if you have to wait in the street. We will see whether there is
justice on earth!”

And throwing over her head that green shawl which Marmeladov had
mentioned to Raskolnikov, Katerina Ivanovna squeezed her way through the
disorderly and drunken crowd of lodgers who still filled the room, and,
wailing and tearful, she ran into the street--with a vague intention
of going at once somewhere to find justice. Polenka with the two little
ones in her arms crouched, terrified, on the trunk in the corner of the
room, where she waited trembling for her mother to come back. Amalia
Ivanovna raged about the room, shrieking, lamenting and throwing
everything she came across on the floor. The lodgers talked
incoherently, some commented to the best of their ability on what had
happened, others quarrelled and swore at one another, while others
struck up a song....

“Now it’s time for me to go,” thought Raskolnikov. “Well, Sofya
Semyonovna, we shall see what you’ll say now!”

And he set off in the direction of Sonia’s lodgings.



CHAPTER IV

Raskolnikov had been a vigorous and active champion of Sonia against
Luzhin, although he had such a load of horror and anguish in his own
heart. But having gone through so much in the morning, he found a sort
of relief in a change of sensations, apart from the strong personal
feeling which impelled him to defend Sonia. He was agitated too,
especially at some moments, by the thought of his approaching interview
with Sonia: he _had_ to tell her who had killed Lizaveta. He knew the
terrible suffering it would be to him and, as it were, brushed away the
thought of it. So when he cried as he left Katerina Ivanovna’s, “Well,
Sofya Semyonovna, we shall see what you’ll say now!” he was still
superficially excited, still vigorous and defiant from his triumph over
Luzhin. But, strange to say, by the time he reached Sonia’s lodging, he
felt a sudden impotence and fear. He stood still in hesitation at the
door, asking himself the strange question: “Must he tell her who killed
Lizaveta?” It was a strange question because he felt at the very time
not only that he could not help telling her, but also that he could
not put off the telling. He did not yet know why it must be so, he
only _felt_ it, and the agonising sense of his impotence before
the inevitable almost crushed him. To cut short his hesitation and
suffering, he quickly opened the door and looked at Sonia from the
doorway. She was sitting with her elbows on the table and her face in
her hands, but seeing Raskolnikov she got up at once and came to meet
him as though she were expecting him.

“What would have become of me but for you?” she said quickly, meeting
him in the middle of the room.

Evidently she was in haste to say this to him. It was what she had been
waiting for.

Raskolnikov went to the table and sat down on the chair from which she
had only just risen. She stood facing him, two steps away, just as she
had done the day before.

“Well, Sonia?” he said, and felt that his voice was trembling, “it was
all due to ‘your social position and the habits associated with it.’ Did
you understand that just now?”

Her face showed her distress.

“Only don’t talk to me as you did yesterday,” she interrupted him.
“Please don’t begin it. There is misery enough without that.”

She made haste to smile, afraid that he might not like the reproach.

“I was silly to come away from there. What is happening there now? I
wanted to go back directly, but I kept thinking that... you would come.”

He told her that Amalia Ivanovna was turning them out of their lodging
and that Katerina Ivanovna had run off somewhere “to seek justice.”

“My God!” cried Sonia, “let’s go at once....”

And she snatched up her cape.

“It’s everlastingly the same thing!” said Raskolnikov, irritably.
“You’ve no thought except for them! Stay a little with me.”

“But... Katerina Ivanovna?”

“You won’t lose Katerina Ivanovna, you may be sure, she’ll come to you
herself since she has run out,” he added peevishly. “If she doesn’t find
you here, you’ll be blamed for it....”

Sonia sat down in painful suspense. Raskolnikov was silent, gazing at
the floor and deliberating.

“This time Luzhin did not want to prosecute you,” he began, not looking
at Sonia, “but if he had wanted to, if it had suited his plans, he would
have sent you to prison if it had not been for Lebeziatnikov and me.
Ah?”

“Yes,” she assented in a faint voice. “Yes,” she repeated, preoccupied
and distressed.

“But I might easily not have been there. And it was quite an accident
Lebeziatnikov’s turning up.”

Sonia was silent.

“And if you’d gone to prison, what then? Do you remember what I said
yesterday?”

Again she did not answer. He waited.

“I thought you would cry out again ‘don’t speak of it, leave off.’”
 Raskolnikov gave a laugh, but rather a forced one. “What, silence
again?” he asked a minute later. “We must talk about something, you
know. It would be interesting for me to know how you would decide a
certain ‘problem’ as Lebeziatnikov would say.” (He was beginning to lose
the thread.) “No, really, I am serious. Imagine, Sonia, that you had
known all Luzhin’s intentions beforehand. Known, that is, for a fact,
that they would be the ruin of Katerina Ivanovna and the children and
yourself thrown in--since you don’t count yourself for anything--Polenka
too... for she’ll go the same way. Well, if suddenly it all depended on
your decision whether he or they should go on living, that is whether
Luzhin should go on living and doing wicked things, or Katerina Ivanovna
should die? How would you decide which of them was to die? I ask you?”

Sonia looked uneasily at him. There was something peculiar in this
hesitating question, which seemed approaching something in a roundabout
way.

“I felt that you were going to ask some question like that,” she said,
looking inquisitively at him.

“I dare say you did. But how is it to be answered?”

“Why do you ask about what could not happen?” said Sonia reluctantly.

“Then it would be better for Luzhin to go on living and doing wicked
things? You haven’t dared to decide even that!”

“But I can’t know the Divine Providence.... And why do you ask what
can’t be answered? What’s the use of such foolish questions? How could
it happen that it should depend on my decision--who has made me a judge
to decide who is to live and who is not to live?”

“Oh, if the Divine Providence is to be mixed up in it, there is no doing
anything,” Raskolnikov grumbled morosely.

“You’d better say straight out what you want!” Sonia cried in distress.
“You are leading up to something again.... Can you have come simply to
torture me?”

She could not control herself and began crying bitterly. He looked at
her in gloomy misery. Five minutes passed.

“Of course you’re right, Sonia,” he said softly at last. He was suddenly
changed. His tone of assumed arrogance and helpless defiance was gone.
Even his voice was suddenly weak. “I told you yesterday that I was not
coming to ask forgiveness and almost the first thing I’ve said is to ask
forgiveness.... I said that about Luzhin and Providence for my own sake.
I was asking forgiveness, Sonia....”

He tried to smile, but there was something helpless and incomplete in
his pale smile. He bowed his head and hid his face in his hands.

And suddenly a strange, surprising sensation of a sort of bitter hatred
for Sonia passed through his heart. As it were wondering and frightened
of this sensation, he raised his head and looked intently at her; but he
met her uneasy and painfully anxious eyes fixed on him; there was
love in them; his hatred vanished like a phantom. It was not the real
feeling; he had taken the one feeling for the other. It only meant that
_that_ minute had come.

He hid his face in his hands again and bowed his head. Suddenly he
turned pale, got up from his chair, looked at Sonia, and without
uttering a word sat down mechanically on her bed.

His sensations that moment were terribly like the moment when he had
stood over the old woman with the axe in his hand and felt that “he must
not lose another minute.”

“What’s the matter?” asked Sonia, dreadfully frightened.

He could not utter a word. This was not at all, not at all the way he
had intended to “tell” and he did not understand what was happening to
him now. She went up to him, softly, sat down on the bed beside him and
waited, not taking her eyes off him. Her heart throbbed and sank. It
was unendurable; he turned his deadly pale face to her. His lips worked,
helplessly struggling to utter something. A pang of terror passed
through Sonia’s heart.

“What’s the matter?” she repeated, drawing a little away from him.

“Nothing, Sonia, don’t be frightened.... It’s nonsense. It really is
nonsense, if you think of it,” he muttered, like a man in delirium. “Why
have I come to torture you?” he added suddenly, looking at her. “Why,
really? I keep asking myself that question, Sonia....”

He had perhaps been asking himself that question a quarter of an hour
before, but now he spoke helplessly, hardly knowing what he said and
feeling a continual tremor all over.

“Oh, how you are suffering!” she muttered in distress, looking intently
at him.

“It’s all nonsense.... Listen, Sonia.” He suddenly smiled, a pale
helpless smile for two seconds. “You remember what I meant to tell you
yesterday?”

Sonia waited uneasily.

“I said as I went away that perhaps I was saying good-bye for ever, but
that if I came to-day I would tell you who... who killed Lizaveta.”

She began trembling all over.

“Well, here I’ve come to tell you.”

“Then you really meant it yesterday?” she whispered with difficulty.
“How do you know?” she asked quickly, as though suddenly regaining her
reason.

Sonia’s face grew paler and paler, and she breathed painfully.

“I know.”

She paused a minute.

“Have they found him?” she asked timidly.

“No.”

“Then how do you know about _it_?” she asked again, hardly audibly and
again after a minute’s pause.

He turned to her and looked very intently at her.

“Guess,” he said, with the same distorted helpless smile.

A shudder passed over her.

“But you... why do you frighten me like this?” she said, smiling like a
child.

“I must be a great friend of _his_... since I know,” Raskolnikov went
on, still gazing into her face, as though he could not turn his eyes
away. “He... did not mean to kill that Lizaveta... he... killed her
accidentally.... He meant to kill the old woman when she was alone and
he went there... and then Lizaveta came in... he killed her too.”

Another awful moment passed. Both still gazed at one another.

“You can’t guess, then?” he asked suddenly, feeling as though he were
flinging himself down from a steeple.

“N-no...” whispered Sonia.

“Take a good look.”

As soon as he had said this again, the same familiar sensation froze his
heart. He looked at her and all at once seemed to see in her face the
face of Lizaveta. He remembered clearly the expression in Lizaveta’s
face, when he approached her with the axe and she stepped back to the
wall, putting out her hand, with childish terror in her face, looking
as little children do when they begin to be frightened of something,
looking intently and uneasily at what frightens them, shrinking back and
holding out their little hands on the point of crying. Almost the same
thing happened now to Sonia. With the same helplessness and the same
terror, she looked at him for a while and, suddenly putting out her left
hand, pressed her fingers faintly against his breast and slowly began to
get up from the bed, moving further from him and keeping her eyes fixed
even more immovably on him. Her terror infected him. The same fear
showed itself on his face. In the same way he stared at her and almost
with the same _childish_ smile.

“Have you guessed?” he whispered at last.

“Good God!” broke in an awful wail from her bosom.

She sank helplessly on the bed with her face in the pillows, but a
moment later she got up, moved quickly to him, seized both his hands
and, gripping them tight in her thin fingers, began looking into his
face again with the same intent stare. In this last desperate look she
tried to look into him and catch some last hope. But there was no hope;
there was no doubt remaining; it was all true! Later on, indeed, when
she recalled that moment, she thought it strange and wondered why she
had seen at once that there was no doubt. She could not have said, for
instance, that she had foreseen something of the sort--and yet now, as
soon as he told her, she suddenly fancied that she had really foreseen
this very thing.

“Stop, Sonia, enough! don’t torture me,” he begged her miserably.

It was not at all, not at all like this he had thought of telling her,
but this is how it happened.

She jumped up, seeming not to know what she was doing, and, wringing her
hands, walked into the middle of the room; but quickly went back and sat
down again beside him, her shoulder almost touching his. All of a sudden
she started as though she had been stabbed, uttered a cry and fell on
her knees before him, she did not know why.

“What have you done--what have you done to yourself?” she said in
despair, and, jumping up, she flung herself on his neck, threw her arms
round him, and held him tightly.

Raskolnikov drew back and looked at her with a mournful smile.

“You are a strange girl, Sonia--you kiss me and hug me when I tell you
about that.... You don’t think what you are doing.”

“There is no one--no one in the whole world now so unhappy as you!” she
cried in a frenzy, not hearing what he said, and she suddenly broke into
violent hysterical weeping.

A feeling long unfamiliar to him flooded his heart and softened it at
once. He did not struggle against it. Two tears started into his eyes
and hung on his eyelashes.

“Then you won’t leave me, Sonia?” he said, looking at her almost with
hope.

“No, no, never, nowhere!” cried Sonia. “I will follow you, I will follow
you everywhere. Oh, my God! Oh, how miserable I am!... Why, why didn’t I
know you before! Why didn’t you come before? Oh, dear!”

“Here I have come.”

“Yes, now! What’s to be done now?... Together, together!” she repeated
as it were unconsciously, and she hugged him again. “I’ll follow you to
Siberia!”

He recoiled at this, and the same hostile, almost haughty smile came to
his lips.

“Perhaps I don’t want to go to Siberia yet, Sonia,” he said.

Sonia looked at him quickly.

Again after her first passionate, agonising sympathy for the unhappy man
the terrible idea of the murder overwhelmed her. In his changed tone she
seemed to hear the murderer speaking. She looked at him bewildered. She
knew nothing as yet, why, how, with what object it had been. Now all
these questions rushed at once into her mind. And again she could not
believe it: “He, he is a murderer! Could it be true?”

“What’s the meaning of it? Where am I?” she said in complete
bewilderment, as though still unable to recover herself. “How could you,
you, a man like you.... How could you bring yourself to it?... What does
it mean?”

“Oh, well--to plunder. Leave off, Sonia,” he answered wearily, almost
with vexation.

Sonia stood as though struck dumb, but suddenly she cried:

“You were hungry! It was... to help your mother? Yes?”

“No, Sonia, no,” he muttered, turning away and hanging his head. “I was
not so hungry.... I certainly did want to help my mother, but... that’s
not the real thing either.... Don’t torture me, Sonia.”

Sonia clasped her hands.

“Could it, could it all be true? Good God, what a truth! Who could
believe it? And how could you give away your last farthing and yet
rob and murder! Ah,” she cried suddenly, “that money you gave Katerina
Ivanovna... that money.... Can that money...”

“No, Sonia,” he broke in hurriedly, “that money was not it. Don’t worry
yourself! That money my mother sent me and it came when I was ill, the
day I gave it to you.... Razumihin saw it... he received it for me....
That money was mine--my own.”

Sonia listened to him in bewilderment and did her utmost to comprehend.

“And _that_ money.... I don’t even know really whether there was any
money,” he added softly, as though reflecting. “I took a purse off her
neck, made of chamois leather... a purse stuffed full of something...
but I didn’t look in it; I suppose I hadn’t time.... And the
things--chains and trinkets--I buried under a stone with the purse next
morning in a yard off the V---- Prospect. They are all there now....”

Sonia strained every nerve to listen.

“Then why... why, you said you did it to rob, but you took nothing?” she
asked quickly, catching at a straw.

“I don’t know.... I haven’t yet decided whether to take that money or
not,” he said, musing again; and, seeming to wake up with a start, he
gave a brief ironical smile. “Ach, what silly stuff I am talking, eh?”

The thought flashed through Sonia’s mind, wasn’t he mad? But she
dismissed it at once. “No, it was something else.” She could make
nothing of it, nothing.

“Do you know, Sonia,” he said suddenly with conviction, “let me tell
you: if I’d simply killed because I was hungry,” laying stress on
every word and looking enigmatically but sincerely at her, “I should
be _happy_ now. You must believe that! What would it matter to you,” he
cried a moment later with a sort of despair, “what would it matter to
you if I were to confess that I did wrong? What do you gain by such
a stupid triumph over me? Ah, Sonia, was it for that I’ve come to you
to-day?”

Again Sonia tried to say something, but did not speak.

“I asked you to go with me yesterday because you are all I have left.”

“Go where?” asked Sonia timidly.

“Not to steal and not to murder, don’t be anxious,” he smiled bitterly.
“We are so different.... And you know, Sonia, it’s only now, only this
moment that I understand _where_ I asked you to go with me yesterday!
Yesterday when I said it I did not know where. I asked you for one
thing, I came to you for one thing--not to leave me. You won’t leave me,
Sonia?”

She squeezed his hand.

“And why, why did I tell her? Why did I let her know?” he cried a minute
later in despair, looking with infinite anguish at her. “Here you expect
an explanation from me, Sonia; you are sitting and waiting for it, I see
that. But what can I tell you? You won’t understand and will only suffer
misery... on my account! Well, you are crying and embracing me again.
Why do you do it? Because I couldn’t bear my burden and have come to
throw it on another: you suffer too, and I shall feel better! And can
you love such a mean wretch?”

“But aren’t you suffering, too?” cried Sonia.

Again a wave of the same feeling surged into his heart, and again for an
instant softened it.

“Sonia, I have a bad heart, take note of that. It may explain a great
deal. I have come because I am bad. There are men who wouldn’t have
come. But I am a coward and... a mean wretch. But... never mind! That’s
not the point. I must speak now, but I don’t know how to begin.”

He paused and sank into thought.

“Ach, we are so different,” he cried again, “we are not alike. And why,
why did I come? I shall never forgive myself that.”

“No, no, it was a good thing you came,” cried Sonia. “It’s better I
should know, far better!”

He looked at her with anguish.

“What if it were really that?” he said, as though reaching a conclusion.
“Yes, that’s what it was! I wanted to become a Napoleon, that is why I
killed her.... Do you understand now?”

“N-no,” Sonia whispered naïvely and timidly. “Only speak, speak, I shall
understand, I shall understand _in myself_!” she kept begging him.

“You’ll understand? Very well, we shall see!” He paused and was for some
time lost in meditation.

“It was like this: I asked myself one day this question--what if
Napoleon, for instance, had happened to be in my place, and if he had
not had Toulon nor Egypt nor the passage of Mont Blanc to begin his
career with, but instead of all those picturesque and monumental things,
there had simply been some ridiculous old hag, a pawnbroker, who had
to be murdered too to get money from her trunk (for his career, you
understand). Well, would he have brought himself to that if there had
been no other means? Wouldn’t he have felt a pang at its being so far
from monumental and... and sinful, too? Well, I must tell you that I
worried myself fearfully over that ‘question’ so that I was awfully
ashamed when I guessed at last (all of a sudden, somehow) that it would
not have given him the least pang, that it would not even have struck
him that it was not monumental... that he would not have seen that there
was anything in it to pause over, and that, if he had had no other way,
he would have strangled her in a minute without thinking about it!
Well, I too... left off thinking about it... murdered her, following
his example. And that’s exactly how it was! Do you think it funny? Yes,
Sonia, the funniest thing of all is that perhaps that’s just how it
was.”

Sonia did not think it at all funny.

“You had better tell me straight out... without examples,” she begged,
still more timidly and scarcely audibly.

He turned to her, looked sadly at her and took her hands.

“You are right again, Sonia. Of course that’s all nonsense, it’s almost
all talk! You see, you know of course that my mother has scarcely
anything, my sister happened to have a good education and was condemned
to drudge as a governess. All their hopes were centered on me. I was a
student, but I couldn’t keep myself at the university and was forced
for a time to leave it. Even if I had lingered on like that, in ten
or twelve years I might (with luck) hope to be some sort of teacher or
clerk with a salary of a thousand roubles” (he repeated it as though it
were a lesson) “and by that time my mother would be worn out with grief
and anxiety and I could not succeed in keeping her in comfort while my
sister... well, my sister might well have fared worse! And it’s a hard
thing to pass everything by all one’s life, to turn one’s back upon
everything, to forget one’s mother and decorously accept the insults
inflicted on one’s sister. Why should one? When one has buried them to
burden oneself with others--wife and children--and to leave them again
without a farthing? So I resolved to gain possession of the old woman’s
money and to use it for my first years without worrying my mother,
to keep myself at the university and for a little while after leaving
it--and to do this all on a broad, thorough scale, so as to build up
a completely new career and enter upon a new life of independence....
Well... that’s all.... Well, of course in killing the old woman I did
wrong.... Well, that’s enough.”

He struggled to the end of his speech in exhaustion and let his head
sink.

“Oh, that’s not it, that’s not it,” Sonia cried in distress. “How could
one... no, that’s not right, not right.”

“You see yourself that it’s not right. But I’ve spoken truly, it’s the
truth.”

“As though that could be the truth! Good God!”

“I’ve only killed a louse, Sonia, a useless, loathsome, harmful
creature.”

“A human being--a louse!”

“I too know it wasn’t a louse,” he answered, looking strangely at
her. “But I am talking nonsense, Sonia,” he added. “I’ve been talking
nonsense a long time.... That’s not it, you are right there. There were
quite, quite other causes for it! I haven’t talked to anyone for so
long, Sonia.... My head aches dreadfully now.”

His eyes shone with feverish brilliance. He was almost delirious; an
uneasy smile strayed on his lips. His terrible exhaustion could be seen
through his excitement. Sonia saw how he was suffering. She too
was growing dizzy. And he talked so strangely; it seemed somehow
comprehensible, but yet... “But how, how! Good God!” And she wrung her
hands in despair.

“No, Sonia, that’s not it,” he began again suddenly, raising his head,
as though a new and sudden train of thought had struck and as it were
roused him--“that’s not it! Better... imagine--yes, it’s certainly
better--imagine that I am vain, envious, malicious, base, vindictive
and... well, perhaps with a tendency to insanity. (Let’s have it all out
at once! They’ve talked of madness already, I noticed.) I told you just
now I could not keep myself at the university. But do you know that
perhaps I might have done? My mother would have sent me what I needed
for the fees and I could have earned enough for clothes, boots and food,
no doubt. Lessons had turned up at half a rouble. Razumihin works! But I
turned sulky and wouldn’t. (Yes, sulkiness, that’s the right word for
it!) I sat in my room like a spider. You’ve been in my den, you’ve seen
it.... And do you know, Sonia, that low ceilings and tiny rooms cramp
the soul and the mind? Ah, how I hated that garret! And yet I wouldn’t
go out of it! I wouldn’t on purpose! I didn’t go out for days together,
and I wouldn’t work, I wouldn’t even eat, I just lay there doing
nothing. If Nastasya brought me anything, I ate it, if she didn’t, I
went all day without; I wouldn’t ask, on purpose, from sulkiness! At
night I had no light, I lay in the dark and I wouldn’t earn money for
candles. I ought to have studied, but I sold my books; and the dust lies
an inch thick on the notebooks on my table. I preferred lying still and
thinking. And I kept thinking.... And I had dreams all the time, strange
dreams of all sorts, no need to describe! Only then I began to fancy
that... No, that’s not it! Again I am telling you wrong! You see I kept
asking myself then: why am I so stupid that if others are stupid--and I
know they are--yet I won’t be wiser? Then I saw, Sonia, that if one
waits for everyone to get wiser it will take too long.... Afterwards I
understood that that would never come to pass, that men won’t change and
that nobody can alter it and that it’s not worth wasting effort over it.
Yes, that’s so. That’s the law of their nature, Sonia,... that’s so!...
And I know now, Sonia, that whoever is strong in mind and spirit will
have power over them. Anyone who is greatly daring is right in their
eyes. He who despises most things will be a lawgiver among them and he
who dares most of all will be most in the right! So it has been till now
and so it will always be. A man must be blind not to see it!”

Though Raskolnikov looked at Sonia as he said this, he no longer cared
whether she understood or not. The fever had complete hold of him; he
was in a sort of gloomy ecstasy (he certainly had been too long without
talking to anyone). Sonia felt that his gloomy creed had become his
faith and code.

“I divined then, Sonia,” he went on eagerly, “that power is only
vouchsafed to the man who dares to stoop and pick it up. There is only
one thing, one thing needful: one has only to dare! Then for the first
time in my life an idea took shape in my mind which no one had ever
thought of before me, no one! I saw clear as daylight how strange it is
that not a single person living in this mad world has had the daring to
go straight for it all and send it flying to the devil! I... I wanted
_to have the daring_... and I killed her. I only wanted to have the
daring, Sonia! That was the whole cause of it!”

“Oh hush, hush,” cried Sonia, clasping her hands. “You turned away from
God and God has smitten you, has given you over to the devil!”

“Then Sonia, when I used to lie there in the dark and all this became
clear to me, was it a temptation of the devil, eh?”

“Hush, don’t laugh, blasphemer! You don’t understand, you don’t
understand! Oh God! He won’t understand!”

“Hush, Sonia! I am not laughing. I know myself that it was the devil
leading me. Hush, Sonia, hush!” he repeated with gloomy insistence. “I
know it all, I have thought it all over and over and whispered it all
over to myself, lying there in the dark.... I’ve argued it all over with
myself, every point of it, and I know it all, all! And how sick, how
sick I was then of going over it all! I have kept wanting to forget it
and make a new beginning, Sonia, and leave off thinking. And you don’t
suppose that I went into it headlong like a fool? I went into it like a
wise man, and that was just my destruction. And you mustn’t suppose that
I didn’t know, for instance, that if I began to question myself whether
I had the right to gain power--I certainly hadn’t the right--or that if
I asked myself whether a human being is a louse it proved that it wasn’t
so for me, though it might be for a man who would go straight to his
goal without asking questions.... If I worried myself all those days,
wondering whether Napoleon would have done it or not, I felt clearly
of course that I wasn’t Napoleon. I had to endure all the agony of that
battle of ideas, Sonia, and I longed to throw it off: I wanted to murder
without casuistry, to murder for my own sake, for myself alone! I didn’t
want to lie about it even to myself. It wasn’t to help my mother I did
the murder--that’s nonsense--I didn’t do the murder to gain wealth and
power and to become a benefactor of mankind. Nonsense! I simply did it;
I did the murder for myself, for myself alone, and whether I became a
benefactor to others, or spent my life like a spider catching men in
my web and sucking the life out of men, I couldn’t have cared at that
moment.... And it was not the money I wanted, Sonia, when I did it. It
was not so much the money I wanted, but something else.... I know it all
now.... Understand me! Perhaps I should never have committed a murder
again. I wanted to find out something else; it was something else led
me on. I wanted to find out then and quickly whether I was a louse
like everybody else or a man. Whether I can step over barriers or
not, whether I dare stoop to pick up or not, whether I am a trembling
creature or whether I have the _right_...”

“To kill? Have the right to kill?” Sonia clasped her hands.

“Ach, Sonia!” he cried irritably and seemed about to make some retort,
but was contemptuously silent. “Don’t interrupt me, Sonia. I want to
prove one thing only, that the devil led me on then and he has shown me
since that I had not the right to take that path, because I am just such
a louse as all the rest. He was mocking me and here I’ve come to you
now! Welcome your guest! If I were not a louse, should I have come to
you? Listen: when I went then to the old woman’s I only went to
_try_.... You may be sure of that!”

“And you murdered her!”

“But how did I murder her? Is that how men do murders? Do men go to
commit a murder as I went then? I will tell you some day how I went!
Did I murder the old woman? I murdered myself, not her! I crushed myself
once for all, for ever.... But it was the devil that killed that old
woman, not I. Enough, enough, Sonia, enough! Let me be!” he cried in a
sudden spasm of agony, “let me be!”

He leaned his elbows on his knees and squeezed his head in his hands as
in a vise.

“What suffering!” A wail of anguish broke from Sonia.

“Well, what am I to do now?” he asked, suddenly raising his head and
looking at her with a face hideously distorted by despair.

“What are you to do?” she cried, jumping up, and her eyes that had been
full of tears suddenly began to shine. “Stand up!” (She seized him by
the shoulder, he got up, looking at her almost bewildered.) “Go at once,
this very minute, stand at the cross-roads, bow down, first kiss the
earth which you have defiled and then bow down to all the world and say
to all men aloud, ‘I am a murderer!’ Then God will send you life again.
Will you go, will you go?” she asked him, trembling all over, snatching
his two hands, squeezing them tight in hers and gazing at him with eyes
full of fire.

He was amazed at her sudden ecstasy.

“You mean Siberia, Sonia? I must give myself up?” he asked gloomily.

“Suffer and expiate your sin by it, that’s what you must do.”

“No! I am not going to them, Sonia!”

“But how will you go on living? What will you live for?” cried Sonia,
“how is it possible now? Why, how can you talk to your mother? (Oh, what
will become of them now?) But what am I saying? You have abandoned your
mother and your sister already. He has abandoned them already! Oh,
God!” she cried, “why, he knows it all himself. How, how can he live by
himself! What will become of you now?”

“Don’t be a child, Sonia,” he said softly. “What wrong have I done
them? Why should I go to them? What should I say to them? That’s only a
phantom.... They destroy men by millions themselves and look on it as a
virtue. They are knaves and scoundrels, Sonia! I am not going to them.
And what should I say to them--that I murdered her, but did not dare to
take the money and hid it under a stone?” he added with a bitter smile.
“Why, they would laugh at me, and would call me a fool for not getting
it. A coward and a fool! They wouldn’t understand and they don’t deserve
to understand. Why should I go to them? I won’t. Don’t be a child,
Sonia....”

“It will be too much for you to bear, too much!” she repeated, holding
out her hands in despairing supplication.

“Perhaps I’ve been unfair to myself,” he observed gloomily, pondering,
“perhaps after all I am a man and not a louse and I’ve been in too great
a hurry to condemn myself. I’ll make another fight for it.”

A haughty smile appeared on his lips.

“What a burden to bear! And your whole life, your whole life!”

“I shall get used to it,” he said grimly and thoughtfully. “Listen,” he
began a minute later, “stop crying, it’s time to talk of the facts: I’ve
come to tell you that the police are after me, on my track....”

“Ach!” Sonia cried in terror.

“Well, why do you cry out? You want me to go to Siberia and now you are
frightened? But let me tell you: I shall not give myself up. I shall
make a struggle for it and they won’t do anything to me. They’ve no real
evidence. Yesterday I was in great danger and believed I was lost; but
to-day things are going better. All the facts they know can be explained
two ways, that’s to say I can turn their accusations to my credit, do
you understand? And I shall, for I’ve learnt my lesson. But they will
certainly arrest me. If it had not been for something that happened,
they would have done so to-day for certain; perhaps even now they will
arrest me to-day.... But that’s no matter, Sonia; they’ll let me out
again... for there isn’t any real proof against me, and there won’t be,
I give you my word for it. And they can’t convict a man on what they
have against me. Enough.... I only tell you that you may know.... I will
try to manage somehow to put it to my mother and sister so that they
won’t be frightened.... My sister’s future is secure, however, now, I
believe... and my mother’s must be too.... Well, that’s all. Be careful,
though. Will you come and see me in prison when I am there?”

“Oh, I will, I will.”

They sat side by side, both mournful and dejected, as though they had
been cast up by the tempest alone on some deserted shore. He looked at
Sonia and felt how great was her love for him, and strange to say he
felt it suddenly burdensome and painful to be so loved. Yes, it was a
strange and awful sensation! On his way to see Sonia he had felt that
all his hopes rested on her; he expected to be rid of at least part
of his suffering, and now, when all her heart turned towards him, he
suddenly felt that he was immeasurably unhappier than before.

“Sonia,” he said, “you’d better not come and see me when I am in
prison.”

Sonia did not answer, she was crying. Several minutes passed.

“Have you a cross on you?” she asked, as though suddenly thinking of it.

He did not at first understand the question.

“No, of course not. Here, take this one, of cypress wood. I have
another, a copper one that belonged to Lizaveta. I changed with
Lizaveta: she gave me her cross and I gave her my little ikon. I will
wear Lizaveta’s now and give you this. Take it... it’s mine! It’s mine,
you know,” she begged him. “We will go to suffer together, and together
we will bear our cross!”

“Give it me,” said Raskolnikov.

He did not want to hurt her feelings. But immediately he drew back the
hand he held out for the cross.

“Not now, Sonia. Better later,” he added to comfort her.

“Yes, yes, better,” she repeated with conviction, “when you go to meet
your suffering, then put it on. You will come to me, I’ll put it on you,
we will pray and go together.”

At that moment someone knocked three times at the door.

“Sofya Semyonovna, may I come in?” they heard in a very familiar and
polite voice.

Sonia rushed to the door in a fright. The flaxen head of Mr.
Lebeziatnikov appeared at the door.



CHAPTER V

Lebeziatnikov looked perturbed.

“I’ve come to you, Sofya Semyonovna,” he began. “Excuse me... I thought
I should find you,” he said, addressing Raskolnikov suddenly, “that is,
I didn’t mean anything... of that sort... But I just thought... Katerina
Ivanovna has gone out of her mind,” he blurted out suddenly, turning
from Raskolnikov to Sonia.

Sonia screamed.

“At least it seems so. But... we don’t know what to do, you see! She
came back--she seems to have been turned out somewhere, perhaps
beaten.... So it seems at least.... She had run to your father’s former
chief, she didn’t find him at home: he was dining at some other
general’s.... Only fancy, she rushed off there, to the other general’s,
and, imagine, she was so persistent that she managed to get the chief to
see her, had him fetched out from dinner, it seems. You can imagine what
happened. She was turned out, of course; but, according to her own
story, she abused him and threw something at him. One may well believe
it.... How it is she wasn’t taken up, I can’t understand! Now she is
telling everyone, including Amalia Ivanovna; but it’s difficult to
understand her, she is screaming and flinging herself about.... Oh yes,
she shouts that since everyone has abandoned her, she will take the
children and go into the street with a barrel-organ, and the children
will sing and dance, and she too, and collect money, and will go every
day under the general’s window... ‘to let everyone see well-born
children, whose father was an official, begging in the street.’ She
keeps beating the children and they are all crying. She is teaching Lida
to sing ‘My Village,’ the boy to dance, Polenka the same. She is tearing
up all the clothes, and making them little caps like actors; she means
to carry a tin basin and make it tinkle, instead of music.... She won’t
listen to anything.... Imagine the state of things! It’s beyond
anything!”

Lebeziatnikov would have gone on, but Sonia, who had heard him almost
breathless, snatched up her cloak and hat, and ran out of the room,
putting on her things as she went. Raskolnikov followed her and
Lebeziatnikov came after him.

“She has certainly gone mad!” he said to Raskolnikov, as they went out
into the street. “I didn’t want to frighten Sofya Semyonovna, so I said
‘it seemed like it,’ but there isn’t a doubt of it. They say that in
consumption the tubercles sometimes occur in the brain; it’s a pity I
know nothing of medicine. I did try to persuade her, but she wouldn’t
listen.”

“Did you talk to her about the tubercles?”

“Not precisely of the tubercles. Besides, she wouldn’t have understood!
But what I say is, that if you convince a person logically that he
has nothing to cry about, he’ll stop crying. That’s clear. Is it your
conviction that he won’t?”

“Life would be too easy if it were so,” answered Raskolnikov.

“Excuse me, excuse me; of course it would be rather difficult for
Katerina Ivanovna to understand, but do you know that in Paris they have
been conducting serious experiments as to the possibility of curing the
insane, simply by logical argument? One professor there, a scientific
man of standing, lately dead, believed in the possibility of such
treatment. His idea was that there’s nothing really wrong with the
physical organism of the insane, and that insanity is, so to say, a
logical mistake, an error of judgment, an incorrect view of things. He
gradually showed the madman his error and, would you believe it, they
say he was successful? But as he made use of douches too, how far
success was due to that treatment remains uncertain.... So it seems at
least.”

Raskolnikov had long ceased to listen. Reaching the house where he
lived, he nodded to Lebeziatnikov and went in at the gate. Lebeziatnikov
woke up with a start, looked about him and hurried on.

Raskolnikov went into his little room and stood still in the middle
of it. Why had he come back here? He looked at the yellow and tattered
paper, at the dust, at his sofa.... From the yard came a loud continuous
knocking; someone seemed to be hammering... He went to the window, rose
on tiptoe and looked out into the yard for a long time with an air of
absorbed attention. But the yard was empty and he could not see who was
hammering. In the house on the left he saw some open windows; on the
window-sills were pots of sickly-looking geraniums. Linen was hung out
of the windows... He knew it all by heart. He turned away and sat down
on the sofa.

Never, never had he felt himself so fearfully alone!

Yes, he felt once more that he would perhaps come to hate Sonia, now
that he had made her more miserable.

“Why had he gone to her to beg for her tears? What need had he to poison
her life? Oh, the meanness of it!”

“I will remain alone,” he said resolutely, “and she shall not come to
the prison!”

Five minutes later he raised his head with a strange smile. That was a
strange thought.

“Perhaps it really would be better in Siberia,” he thought suddenly.

He could not have said how long he sat there with vague thoughts surging
through his mind. All at once the door opened and Dounia came in. At
first she stood still and looked at him from the doorway, just as he
had done at Sonia; then she came in and sat down in the same place
as yesterday, on the chair facing him. He looked silently and almost
vacantly at her.

“Don’t be angry, brother; I’ve only come for one minute,” said Dounia.

Her face looked thoughtful but not stern. Her eyes were bright and soft.
He saw that she too had come to him with love.

“Brother, now I know all, _all_. Dmitri Prokofitch has explained and
told me everything. They are worrying and persecuting you through a
stupid and contemptible suspicion.... Dmitri Prokofitch told me that
there is no danger, and that you are wrong in looking upon it with such
horror. I don’t think so, and I fully understand how indignant you must
be, and that that indignation may have a permanent effect on you. That’s
what I am afraid of. As for your cutting yourself off from us, I don’t
judge you, I don’t venture to judge you, and forgive me for having
blamed you for it. I feel that I too, if I had so great a trouble,
should keep away from everyone. I shall tell mother nothing _of this_,
but I shall talk about you continually and shall tell her from you that
you will come very soon. Don’t worry about her; _I_ will set her mind at
rest; but don’t you try her too much--come once at least; remember that
she is your mother. And now I have come simply to say” (Dounia began
to get up) “that if you should need me or should need... all my life or
anything... call me, and I’ll come. Good-bye!”

She turned abruptly and went towards the door.

“Dounia!” Raskolnikov stopped her and went towards her. “That Razumihin,
Dmitri Prokofitch, is a very good fellow.”

Dounia flushed slightly.

“Well?” she asked, waiting a moment.

“He is competent, hardworking, honest and capable of real love....
Good-bye, Dounia.”

Dounia flushed crimson, then suddenly she took alarm.

“But what does it mean, brother? Are we really parting for ever that
you... give me such a parting message?”

“Never mind.... Good-bye.”

He turned away, and walked to the window. She stood a moment, looked at
him uneasily, and went out troubled.

No, he was not cold to her. There was an instant (the very last one)
when he had longed to take her in his arms and _say good-bye_ to her,
and even _to tell_ her, but he had not dared even to touch her hand.

“Afterwards she may shudder when she remembers that I embraced her, and
will feel that I stole her kiss.”

“And would _she_ stand that test?” he went on a few minutes later to
himself. “No, she wouldn’t; girls like that can’t stand things! They
never do.”

And he thought of Sonia.

There was a breath of fresh air from the window. The daylight was
fading. He took up his cap and went out.

He could not, of course, and would not consider how ill he was. But all
this continual anxiety and agony of mind could not but affect him. And
if he were not lying in high fever it was perhaps just because this
continual inner strain helped to keep him on his legs and in possession
of his faculties. But this artificial excitement could not last long.

He wandered aimlessly. The sun was setting. A special form of misery had
begun to oppress him of late. There was nothing poignant, nothing acute
about it; but there was a feeling of permanence, of eternity about it;
it brought a foretaste of hopeless years of this cold leaden misery, a
foretaste of an eternity “on a square yard of space.” Towards evening
this sensation usually began to weigh on him more heavily.

“With this idiotic, purely physical weakness, depending on the sunset or
something, one can’t help doing something stupid! You’ll go to Dounia,
as well as to Sonia,” he muttered bitterly.

He heard his name called. He looked round. Lebeziatnikov rushed up to
him.

“Only fancy, I’ve been to your room looking for you. Only fancy, she’s
carried out her plan, and taken away the children. Sofya Semyonovna and
I have had a job to find them. She is rapping on a frying-pan and making
the children dance. The children are crying. They keep stopping at the
cross-roads and in front of shops; there’s a crowd of fools running
after them. Come along!”

“And Sonia?” Raskolnikov asked anxiously, hurrying after Lebeziatnikov.

“Simply frantic. That is, it’s not Sofya Semyonovna’s frantic, but
Katerina Ivanovna, though Sofya Semyonova’s frantic too. But Katerina
Ivanovna is absolutely frantic. I tell you she is quite mad. They’ll be
taken to the police. You can fancy what an effect that will have....
They are on the canal bank, near the bridge now, not far from Sofya
Semyonovna’s, quite close.”

On the canal bank near the bridge and not two houses away from the one
where Sonia lodged, there was a crowd of people, consisting principally
of gutter children. The hoarse broken voice of Katerina Ivanovna could
be heard from the bridge, and it certainly was a strange spectacle
likely to attract a street crowd. Katerina Ivanovna in her old dress
with the green shawl, wearing a torn straw hat, crushed in a hideous way
on one side, was really frantic. She was exhausted and breathless. Her
wasted consumptive face looked more suffering than ever, and indeed out
of doors in the sunshine a consumptive always looks worse than at home.
But her excitement did not flag, and every moment her irritation grew
more intense. She rushed at the children, shouted at them, coaxed
them, told them before the crowd how to dance and what to sing, began
explaining to them why it was necessary, and driven to desperation by
their not understanding, beat them.... Then she would make a rush at the
crowd; if she noticed any decently dressed person stopping to look, she
immediately appealed to him to see what these children “from a genteel,
one may say aristocratic, house” had been brought to. If she heard
laughter or jeering in the crowd, she would rush at once at the scoffers
and begin squabbling with them. Some people laughed, others shook their
heads, but everyone felt curious at the sight of the madwoman with the
frightened children. The frying-pan of which Lebeziatnikov had spoken
was not there, at least Raskolnikov did not see it. But instead of
rapping on the pan, Katerina Ivanovna began clapping her wasted hands,
when she made Lida and Kolya dance and Polenka sing. She too joined in
the singing, but broke down at the second note with a fearful cough,
which made her curse in despair and even shed tears. What made her most
furious was the weeping and terror of Kolya and Lida. Some effort had
been made to dress the children up as street singers are dressed. The
boy had on a turban made of something red and white to look like a Turk.
There had been no costume for Lida; she simply had a red knitted cap,
or rather a night cap that had belonged to Marmeladov, decorated with
a broken piece of white ostrich feather, which had been Katerina
Ivanovna’s grandmother’s and had been preserved as a family possession.
Polenka was in her everyday dress; she looked in timid perplexity at her
mother, and kept at her side, hiding her tears. She dimly realised her
mother’s condition, and looked uneasily about her. She was terribly
frightened of the street and the crowd. Sonia followed Katerina
Ivanovna, weeping and beseeching her to return home, but Katerina
Ivanovna was not to be persuaded.

“Leave off, Sonia, leave off,” she shouted, speaking fast, panting and
coughing. “You don’t know what you ask; you are like a child! I’ve
told you before that I am not coming back to that drunken German. Let
everyone, let all Petersburg see the children begging in the streets,
though their father was an honourable man who served all his life in
truth and fidelity, and one may say died in the service.” (Katerina
Ivanovna had by now invented this fantastic story and thoroughly
believed it.) “Let that wretch of a general see it! And you are silly,
Sonia: what have we to eat? Tell me that. We have worried you enough, I
won’t go on so! Ah, Rodion Romanovitch, is that you?” she cried, seeing
Raskolnikov and rushing up to him. “Explain to this silly girl, please,
that nothing better could be done! Even organ-grinders earn their
living, and everyone will see at once that we are different, that we are
an honourable and bereaved family reduced to beggary. And that general
will lose his post, you’ll see! We shall perform under his windows every
day, and if the Tsar drives by, I’ll fall on my knees, put the children
before me, show them to him, and say ‘Defend us father.’ He is the
father of the fatherless, he is merciful, he’ll protect us, you’ll
see, and that wretch of a general.... Lida, _tenez vous droite_! Kolya,
you’ll dance again. Why are you whimpering? Whimpering again! What
are you afraid of, stupid? Goodness, what am I to do with them, Rodion
Romanovitch? If you only knew how stupid they are! What’s one to do with
such children?”

And she, almost crying herself--which did not stop her uninterrupted,
rapid flow of talk--pointed to the crying children. Raskolnikov tried
to persuade her to go home, and even said, hoping to work on her vanity,
that it was unseemly for her to be wandering about the streets like
an organ-grinder, as she was intending to become the principal of a
boarding-school.

“A boarding-school, ha-ha-ha! A castle in the air,” cried Katerina
Ivanovna, her laugh ending in a cough. “No, Rodion Romanovitch, that
dream is over! All have forsaken us!... And that general.... You know,
Rodion Romanovitch, I threw an inkpot at him--it happened to be standing
in the waiting-room by the paper where you sign your name. I wrote my
name, threw it at him and ran away. Oh, the scoundrels, the scoundrels!
But enough of them, now I’ll provide for the children myself, I won’t
bow down to anybody! She has had to bear enough for us!” she pointed
to Sonia. “Polenka, how much have you got? Show me! What, only two
farthings! Oh, the mean wretches! They give us nothing, only run after
us, putting their tongues out. There, what is that blockhead laughing
at?” (She pointed to a man in the crowd.) “It’s all because Kolya here
is so stupid; I have such a bother with him. What do you want, Polenka?
Tell me in French, _parlez-moi français_. Why, I’ve taught you, you know
some phrases. Else how are you to show that you are of good family, well
brought-up children, and not at all like other organ-grinders? We aren’t
going to have a Punch and Judy show in the street, but to sing a genteel
song.... Ah, yes,... What are we to sing? You keep putting me out,
but we... you see, we are standing here, Rodion Romanovitch, to find
something to sing and get money, something Kolya can dance to.... For,
as you can fancy, our performance is all impromptu.... We must talk it
over and rehearse it all thoroughly, and then we shall go to Nevsky,
where there are far more people of good society, and we shall be noticed
at once. Lida knows ‘My Village’ only, nothing but ‘My Village,’ and
everyone sings that. We must sing something far more genteel.... Well,
have you thought of anything, Polenka? If only you’d help your mother!
My memory’s quite gone, or I should have thought of something. We really
can’t sing ‘An Hussar.’ Ah, let us sing in French, ‘Cinq sous,’ I have
taught it you, I have taught it you. And as it is in French, people will
see at once that you are children of good family, and that will be much
more touching.... You might sing ‘Marlborough s’en va-t-en guerre,’
for that’s quite a child’s song and is sung as a lullaby in all the
aristocratic houses.

“_Marlborough s’en va-t-en guerre Ne sait quand reviendra_...”
 she began singing. “But no, better sing ‘Cinq sous.’ Now, Kolya, your
hands on your hips, make haste, and you, Lida, keep turning the other
way, and Polenka and I will sing and clap our hands!

“_Cinq sous, cinq sous Pour monter notre menage_.”

(Cough-cough-cough!) “Set your dress straight, Polenka, it’s slipped
down on your shoulders,” she observed, panting from coughing. “Now it’s
particularly necessary to behave nicely and genteelly, that all may
see that you are well-born children. I said at the time that the bodice
should be cut longer, and made of two widths. It was your fault, Sonia,
with your advice to make it shorter, and now you see the child is quite
deformed by it.... Why, you’re all crying again! What’s the matter,
stupids? Come, Kolya, begin. Make haste, make haste! Oh, what an
unbearable child!

“Cinq sous, cinq sous.

“A policeman again! What do you want?”

A policeman was indeed forcing his way through the crowd. But at that
moment a gentleman in civilian uniform and an overcoat--a solid-looking
official of about fifty with a decoration on his neck (which delighted
Katerina Ivanovna and had its effect on the policeman)--approached and
without a word handed her a green three-rouble note. His face wore
a look of genuine sympathy. Katerina Ivanovna took it and gave him a
polite, even ceremonious, bow.

“I thank you, honoured sir,” she began loftily. “The causes that have
induced us (take the money, Polenka: you see there are generous and
honourable people who are ready to help a poor gentlewoman in distress).
You see, honoured sir, these orphans of good family--I might even say of
aristocratic connections--and that wretch of a general sat eating
grouse... and stamped at my disturbing him. ‘Your excellency,’ I said,
‘protect the orphans, for you knew my late husband, Semyon Zaharovitch,
and on the very day of his death the basest of scoundrels slandered his
only daughter.’... That policeman again! Protect me,” she cried to the
official. “Why is that policeman edging up to me? We have only just run
away from one of them. What do you want, fool?”

“It’s forbidden in the streets. You mustn’t make a disturbance.”

“It’s you’re making a disturbance. It’s just the same as if I were
grinding an organ. What business is it of yours?”

“You have to get a licence for an organ, and you haven’t got one, and in
that way you collect a crowd. Where do you lodge?”

“What, a license?” wailed Katerina Ivanovna. “I buried my husband
to-day. What need of a license?”

“Calm yourself, madam, calm yourself,” began the official. “Come along;
I will escort you.... This is no place for you in the crowd. You are
ill.”

“Honoured sir, honoured sir, you don’t know,” screamed Katerina
Ivanovna. “We are going to the Nevsky.... Sonia, Sonia! Where is she?
She is crying too! What’s the matter with you all? Kolya, Lida, where
are you going?” she cried suddenly in alarm. “Oh, silly children! Kolya,
Lida, where are they off to?...”

Kolya and Lida, scared out of their wits by the crowd, and their
mother’s mad pranks, suddenly seized each other by the hand, and ran off
at the sight of the policeman who wanted to take them away somewhere.
Weeping and wailing, poor Katerina Ivanovna ran after them. She was
a piteous and unseemly spectacle, as she ran, weeping and panting for
breath. Sonia and Polenka rushed after them.

“Bring them back, bring them back, Sonia! Oh stupid, ungrateful
children!... Polenka! catch them.... It’s for your sakes I...”

She stumbled as she ran and fell down.

“She’s cut herself, she’s bleeding! Oh, dear!” cried Sonia, bending over
her.

All ran up and crowded around. Raskolnikov and Lebeziatnikov were the
first at her side, the official too hastened up, and behind him the
policeman who muttered, “Bother!” with a gesture of impatience, feeling
that the job was going to be a troublesome one.

“Pass on! Pass on!” he said to the crowd that pressed forward.

“She’s dying,” someone shouted.

“She’s gone out of her mind,” said another.

“Lord have mercy upon us,” said a woman, crossing herself. “Have they
caught the little girl and the boy? They’re being brought back, the
elder one’s got them.... Ah, the naughty imps!”

When they examined Katerina Ivanovna carefully, they saw that she had
not cut herself against a stone, as Sonia thought, but that the blood
that stained the pavement red was from her chest.

“I’ve seen that before,” muttered the official to Raskolnikov and
Lebeziatnikov; “that’s consumption; the blood flows and chokes the
patient. I saw the same thing with a relative of my own not long ago...
nearly a pint of blood, all in a minute.... What’s to be done though?
She is dying.”

“This way, this way, to my room!” Sonia implored. “I live here!... See,
that house, the second from here.... Come to me, make haste,” she turned
from one to the other. “Send for the doctor! Oh, dear!”

Thanks to the official’s efforts, this plan was adopted, the policeman
even helping to carry Katerina Ivanovna. She was carried to Sonia’s
room, almost unconscious, and laid on the bed. The blood was still
flowing, but she seemed to be coming to herself. Raskolnikov,
Lebeziatnikov, and the official accompanied Sonia into the room and were
followed by the policeman, who first drove back the crowd which followed
to the very door. Polenka came in holding Kolya and Lida, who
were trembling and weeping. Several persons came in too from the
Kapernaumovs’ room; the landlord, a lame one-eyed man of strange
appearance with whiskers and hair that stood up like a brush, his
wife, a woman with an everlastingly scared expression, and several
open-mouthed children with wonder-struck faces. Among these,
Svidrigaïlov suddenly made his appearance. Raskolnikov looked at him
with surprise, not understanding where he had come from and not having
noticed him in the crowd. A doctor and priest were spoken of. The
official whispered to Raskolnikov that he thought it was too late now
for the doctor, but he ordered him to be sent for. Kapernaumov ran
himself.

Meanwhile Katerina Ivanovna had regained her breath. The bleeding ceased
for a time. She looked with sick but intent and penetrating eyes at
Sonia, who stood pale and trembling, wiping the sweat from her brow with
a handkerchief. At last she asked to be raised. They sat her up on the
bed, supporting her on both sides.

“Where are the children?” she said in a faint voice. “You’ve brought
them, Polenka? Oh the sillies! Why did you run away.... Och!”

Once more her parched lips were covered with blood. She moved her eyes,
looking about her.

“So that’s how you live, Sonia! Never once have I been in your room.”

She looked at her with a face of suffering.

“We have been your ruin, Sonia. Polenka, Lida, Kolya, come here! Well,
here they are, Sonia, take them all! I hand them over to you, I’ve had
enough! The ball is over.” (Cough!) “Lay me down, let me die in peace.”

They laid her back on the pillow.

“What, the priest? I don’t want him. You haven’t got a rouble to spare.
I have no sins. God must forgive me without that. He knows how I have
suffered.... And if He won’t forgive me, I don’t care!”

She sank more and more into uneasy delirium. At times she shuddered,
turned her eyes from side to side, recognised everyone for a minute,
but at once sank into delirium again. Her breathing was hoarse and
difficult, there was a sort of rattle in her throat.

“I said to him, your excellency,” she ejaculated, gasping after each
word. “That Amalia Ludwigovna, ah! Lida, Kolya, hands on your hips,
make haste! _Glissez, glissez! pas de basque!_ Tap with your heels, be a
graceful child!

“_Du hast Diamanten und Perlen_

“What next? That’s the thing to sing.

“_Du hast die schönsten Augen Mädchen, was willst du mehr?_

“What an idea! _Was willst du mehr?_ What things the fool invents! Ah,
yes!

“In the heat of midday in the vale of Dagestan.

“Ah, how I loved it! I loved that song to distraction, Polenka! Your
father, you know, used to sing it when we were engaged.... Oh, those
days! Oh, that’s the thing for us to sing! How does it go? I’ve
forgotten. Remind me! How was it?”

She was violently excited and tried to sit up. At last, in a horribly
hoarse, broken voice, she began, shrieking and gasping at every word,
with a look of growing terror.

“In the heat of midday!... in the vale!... of Dagestan!... With lead in
my breast!...”

“Your excellency!” she wailed suddenly with a heart-rending scream and
a flood of tears, “protect the orphans! You have been their father’s
guest... one may say aristocratic....” She started, regaining
consciousness, and gazed at all with a sort of terror, but at once
recognised Sonia.

“Sonia, Sonia!” she articulated softly and caressingly, as though
surprised to find her there. “Sonia darling, are you here, too?”

They lifted her up again.

“Enough! It’s over! Farewell, poor thing! I am done for! I am broken!”
 she cried with vindictive despair, and her head fell heavily back on the
pillow.

She sank into unconsciousness again, but this time it did not last long.
Her pale, yellow, wasted face dropped back, her mouth fell open, her leg
moved convulsively, she gave a deep, deep sigh and died.

Sonia fell upon her, flung her arms about her, and remained motionless
with her head pressed to the dead woman’s wasted bosom. Polenka threw
herself at her mother’s feet, kissing them and weeping violently. Though
Kolya and Lida did not understand what had happened, they had a feeling
that it was something terrible; they put their hands on each other’s
little shoulders, stared straight at one another and both at once opened
their mouths and began screaming. They were both still in their fancy
dress; one in a turban, the other in the cap with the ostrich feather.

And how did “the certificate of merit” come to be on the bed beside
Katerina Ivanovna? It lay there by the pillow; Raskolnikov saw it.

He walked away to the window. Lebeziatnikov skipped up to him.

“She is dead,” he said.

“Rodion Romanovitch, I must have two words with you,” said Svidrigaïlov,
coming up to them.

Lebeziatnikov at once made room for him and delicately withdrew.
Svidrigaïlov drew Raskolnikov further away.

“I will undertake all the arrangements, the funeral and that. You know
it’s a question of money and, as I told you, I have plenty to spare. I
will put those two little ones and Polenka into some good orphan asylum,
and I will settle fifteen hundred roubles to be paid to each on coming
of age, so that Sofya Semyonovna need have no anxiety about them. And I
will pull her out of the mud too, for she is a good girl, isn’t she? So
tell Avdotya Romanovna that that is how I am spending her ten thousand.”

“What is your motive for such benevolence?” asked Raskolnikov.

“Ah! you sceptical person!” laughed Svidrigaïlov. “I told you I had no
need of that money. Won’t you admit that it’s simply done from humanity?
She wasn’t ‘a louse,’ you know” (he pointed to the corner where the
dead woman lay), “was she, like some old pawnbroker woman? Come, you’ll
agree, is Luzhin to go on living, and doing wicked things or is she to
die? And if I didn’t help them, Polenka would go the same way.”

He said this with an air of a sort of gay winking slyness, keeping his
eyes fixed on Raskolnikov, who turned white and cold, hearing his own
phrases, spoken to Sonia. He quickly stepped back and looked wildly at
Svidrigaïlov.

“How do you know?” he whispered, hardly able to breathe.

“Why, I lodge here at Madame Resslich’s, the other side of the wall.
Here is Kapernaumov, and there lives Madame Resslich, an old and devoted
friend of mine. I am a neighbour.”

“You?”

“Yes,” continued Svidrigaïlov, shaking with laughter. “I assure you
on my honour, dear Rodion Romanovitch, that you have interested me
enormously. I told you we should become friends, I foretold it. Well,
here we have. And you will see what an accommodating person I am. You’ll
see that you can get on with me!”




PART VI



CHAPTER I

A strange period began for Raskolnikov: it was as though a fog had
fallen upon him and wrapped him in a dreary solitude from which there
was no escape. Recalling that period long after, he believed that his
mind had been clouded at times, and that it had continued so, with
intervals, till the final catastrophe. He was convinced that he had been
mistaken about many things at that time, for instance as to the date
of certain events. Anyway, when he tried later on to piece his
recollections together, he learnt a great deal about himself from what
other people told him. He had mixed up incidents and had explained
events as due to circumstances which existed only in his imagination. At
times he was a prey to agonies of morbid uneasiness, amounting sometimes
to panic. But he remembered, too, moments, hours, perhaps whole days,
of complete apathy, which came upon him as a reaction from his previous
terror and might be compared with the abnormal insensibility, sometimes
seen in the dying. He seemed to be trying in that latter stage to escape
from a full and clear understanding of his position. Certain essential
facts which required immediate consideration were particularly irksome
to him. How glad he would have been to be free from some cares, the
neglect of which would have threatened him with complete, inevitable
ruin.

He was particularly worried about Svidrigaïlov, he might be said to be
permanently thinking of Svidrigaïlov. From the time of Svidrigaïlov’s
too menacing and unmistakable words in Sonia’s room at the moment of
Katerina Ivanovna’s death, the normal working of his mind seemed to
break down. But although this new fact caused him extreme uneasiness,
Raskolnikov was in no hurry for an explanation of it. At times, finding
himself in a solitary and remote part of the town, in some wretched
eating-house, sitting alone lost in thought, hardly knowing how he had
come there, he suddenly thought of Svidrigaïlov. He recognised
suddenly, clearly, and with dismay that he ought at once to come to an
understanding with that man and to make what terms he could. Walking
outside the city gates one day, he positively fancied that they had
fixed a meeting there, that he was waiting for Svidrigaïlov. Another
time he woke up before daybreak lying on the ground under some bushes
and could not at first understand how he had come there.

But during the two or three days after Katerina Ivanovna’s death, he
had two or three times met Svidrigaïlov at Sonia’s lodging, where he
had gone aimlessly for a moment. They exchanged a few words and made no
reference to the vital subject, as though they were tacitly agreed not
to speak of it for a time.

Katerina Ivanovna’s body was still lying in the coffin, Svidrigaïlov was
busy making arrangements for the funeral. Sonia too was very busy. At
their last meeting Svidrigaïlov informed Raskolnikov that he had made
an arrangement, and a very satisfactory one, for Katerina Ivanovna’s
children; that he had, through certain connections, succeeded in getting
hold of certain personages by whose help the three orphans could be at
once placed in very suitable institutions; that the money he had settled
on them had been of great assistance, as it is much easier to place
orphans with some property than destitute ones. He said something
too about Sonia and promised to come himself in a day or two to see
Raskolnikov, mentioning that “he would like to consult with him, that
there were things they must talk over....”

This conversation took place in the passage on the stairs. Svidrigaïlov
looked intently at Raskolnikov and suddenly, after a brief pause,
dropping his voice, asked: “But how is it, Rodion Romanovitch; you
don’t seem yourself? You look and you listen, but you don’t seem to
understand. Cheer up! We’ll talk things over; I am only sorry, I’ve
so much to do of my own business and other people’s. Ah, Rodion
Romanovitch,” he added suddenly, “what all men need is fresh air, fresh
air... more than anything!”

He moved to one side to make way for the priest and server, who
were coming up the stairs. They had come for the requiem service. By
Svidrigaïlov’s orders it was sung twice a day punctually. Svidrigaïlov
went his way. Raskolnikov stood still a moment, thought, and followed
the priest into Sonia’s room. He stood at the door. They began quietly,
slowly and mournfully singing the service. From his childhood the
thought of death and the presence of death had something oppressive
and mysteriously awful; and it was long since he had heard the requiem
service. And there was something else here as well, too awful and
disturbing. He looked at the children: they were all kneeling by the
coffin; Polenka was weeping. Behind them Sonia prayed, softly and, as it
were, timidly weeping.

“These last two days she hasn’t said a word to me, she hasn’t glanced at
me,” Raskolnikov thought suddenly. The sunlight was bright in the room;
the incense rose in clouds; the priest read, “Give rest, oh Lord....”
 Raskolnikov stayed all through the service. As he blessed them and
took his leave, the priest looked round strangely. After the service,
Raskolnikov went up to Sonia. She took both his hands and let her
head sink on his shoulder. This slight friendly gesture bewildered
Raskolnikov. It seemed strange to him that there was no trace of
repugnance, no trace of disgust, no tremor in her hand. It was the
furthest limit of self-abnegation, at least so he interpreted it.

Sonia said nothing. Raskolnikov pressed her hand and went out. He felt
very miserable. If it had been possible to escape to some solitude, he
would have thought himself lucky, even if he had to spend his whole life
there. But although he had almost always been by himself of late, he had
never been able to feel alone. Sometimes he walked out of the town on to
the high road, once he had even reached a little wood, but the lonelier
the place was, the more he seemed to be aware of an uneasy presence near
him. It did not frighten him, but greatly annoyed him, so that he
made haste to return to the town, to mingle with the crowd, to enter
restaurants and taverns, to walk in busy thoroughfares. There he felt
easier and even more solitary. One day at dusk he sat for an hour
listening to songs in a tavern and he remembered that he positively
enjoyed it. But at last he had suddenly felt the same uneasiness again,
as though his conscience smote him. “Here I sit listening to singing,
is that what I ought to be doing?” he thought. Yet he felt at once
that that was not the only cause of his uneasiness; there was something
requiring immediate decision, but it was something he could not clearly
understand or put into words. It was a hopeless tangle. “No, better the
struggle again! Better Porfiry again... or Svidrigaïlov.... Better some
challenge again... some attack. Yes, yes!” he thought. He went out of
the tavern and rushed away almost at a run. The thought of Dounia and
his mother suddenly reduced him almost to a panic. That night he woke
up before morning among some bushes in Krestovsky Island, trembling
all over with fever; he walked home, and it was early morning when he
arrived. After some hours’ sleep the fever left him, but he woke up
late, two o’clock in the afternoon.

He remembered that Katerina Ivanovna’s funeral had been fixed for that
day, and was glad that he was not present at it. Nastasya brought him
some food; he ate and drank with appetite, almost with greediness. His
head was fresher and he was calmer than he had been for the last three
days. He even felt a passing wonder at his previous attacks of panic.

The door opened and Razumihin came in.

“Ah, he’s eating, then he’s not ill,” said Razumihin. He took a chair
and sat down at the table opposite Raskolnikov.

He was troubled and did not attempt to conceal it. He spoke with evident
annoyance, but without hurry or raising his voice. He looked as though
he had some special fixed determination.

“Listen,” he began resolutely. “As far as I am concerned, you may all go
to hell, but from what I see, it’s clear to me that I can’t make head or
tail of it; please don’t think I’ve come to ask you questions. I don’t
want to know, hang it! If you begin telling me your secrets, I dare say
I shouldn’t stay to listen, I should go away cursing. I have only come
to find out once for all whether it’s a fact that you are mad? There is
a conviction in the air that you are mad or very nearly so. I admit
I’ve been disposed to that opinion myself, judging from your stupid,
repulsive and quite inexplicable actions, and from your recent behavior
to your mother and sister. Only a monster or a madman could treat them
as you have; so you must be mad.”

“When did you see them last?”

“Just now. Haven’t you seen them since then? What have you been doing
with yourself? Tell me, please. I’ve been to you three times already.
Your mother has been seriously ill since yesterday. She had made up
her mind to come to you; Avdotya Romanovna tried to prevent her; she
wouldn’t hear a word. ‘If he is ill, if his mind is giving way, who can
look after him like his mother?’ she said. We all came here together, we
couldn’t let her come alone all the way. We kept begging her to be calm.
We came in, you weren’t here; she sat down, and stayed ten minutes,
while we stood waiting in silence. She got up and said: ‘If he’s
gone out, that is, if he is well, and has forgotten his mother, it’s
humiliating and unseemly for his mother to stand at his door begging for
kindness.’ She returned home and took to her bed; now she is in a fever.
‘I see,’ she said, ‘that he has time for _his girl_.’ She means by _your
girl_ Sofya Semyonovna, your betrothed or your mistress, I don’t know. I
went at once to Sofya Semyonovna’s, for I wanted to know what was going
on. I looked round, I saw the coffin, the children crying, and
Sofya Semyonovna trying them on mourning dresses. No sign of you. I
apologised, came away, and reported to Avdotya Romanovna. So that’s all
nonsense and you haven’t got a girl; the most likely thing is that you
are mad. But here you sit, guzzling boiled beef as though you’d not had
a bite for three days. Though as far as that goes, madmen eat too, but
though you have not said a word to me yet... you are not mad! That I’d
swear! Above all, you are not mad! So you may go to hell, all of you,
for there’s some mystery, some secret about it, and I don’t intend to
worry my brains over your secrets. So I’ve simply come to swear at you,”
 he finished, getting up, “to relieve my mind. And I know what to do
now.”

“What do you mean to do now?”

“What business is it of yours what I mean to do?”

“You are going in for a drinking bout.”

“How... how did you know?”

“Why, it’s pretty plain.”

Razumihin paused for a minute.

“You always have been a very rational person and you’ve never been mad,
never,” he observed suddenly with warmth. “You’re right: I shall drink.
Good-bye!”

And he moved to go out.

“I was talking with my sister--the day before yesterday, I think it
was--about you, Razumihin.”

“About me! But... where can you have seen her the day before yesterday?”
 Razumihin stopped short and even turned a little pale.

One could see that his heart was throbbing slowly and violently.

“She came here by herself, sat there and talked to me.”

“She did!”

“Yes.”

“What did you say to her... I mean, about me?”

“I told her you were a very good, honest, and industrious man. I didn’t
tell her you love her, because she knows that herself.”

“She knows that herself?”

“Well, it’s pretty plain. Wherever I might go, whatever happened to me,
you would remain to look after them. I, so to speak, give them into your
keeping, Razumihin. I say this because I know quite well how you love
her, and am convinced of the purity of your heart. I know that she too
may love you and perhaps does love you already. Now decide for yourself,
as you know best, whether you need go in for a drinking bout or not.”

“Rodya! You see... well.... Ach, damn it! But where do you mean to go?
Of course, if it’s all a secret, never mind.... But I... I shall find
out the secret... and I am sure that it must be some ridiculous nonsense
and that you’ve made it all up. Anyway you are a capital fellow, a
capital fellow!...”

“That was just what I wanted to add, only you interrupted, that that was
a very good decision of yours not to find out these secrets. Leave it to
time, don’t worry about it. You’ll know it all in time when it must be.
Yesterday a man said to me that what a man needs is fresh air, fresh
air, fresh air. I mean to go to him directly to find out what he meant
by that.”

Razumihin stood lost in thought and excitement, making a silent
conclusion.

“He’s a political conspirator! He must be. And he’s on the eve of some
desperate step, that’s certain. It can only be that! And... and Dounia
knows,” he thought suddenly.

“So Avdotya Romanovna comes to see you,” he said, weighing each
syllable, “and you’re going to see a man who says we need more air, and
so of course that letter... that too must have something to do with it,”
 he concluded to himself.

“What letter?”

“She got a letter to-day. It upset her very much--very much indeed. Too
much so. I began speaking of you, she begged me not to. Then... then
she said that perhaps we should very soon have to part... then she began
warmly thanking me for something; then she went to her room and locked
herself in.”

“She got a letter?” Raskolnikov asked thoughtfully.

“Yes, and you didn’t know? hm...”

They were both silent.

“Good-bye, Rodion. There was a time, brother, when I.... Never mind,
good-bye. You see, there was a time.... Well, good-bye! I must be off
too. I am not going to drink. There’s no need now.... That’s all stuff!”

He hurried out; but when he had almost closed the door behind him, he
suddenly opened it again, and said, looking away:

“Oh, by the way, do you remember that murder, you know Porfiry’s, that
old woman? Do you know the murderer has been found, he has confessed
and given the proofs. It’s one of those very workmen, the painter, only
fancy! Do you remember I defended them here? Would you believe it, all
that scene of fighting and laughing with his companions on the stairs
while the porter and the two witnesses were going up, he got up on
purpose to disarm suspicion. The cunning, the presence of mind of the
young dog! One can hardly credit it; but it’s his own explanation, he
has confessed it all. And what a fool I was about it! Well, he’s simply
a genius of hypocrisy and resourcefulness in disarming the suspicions of
the lawyers--so there’s nothing much to wonder at, I suppose! Of course
people like that are always possible. And the fact that he couldn’t keep
up the character, but confessed, makes him easier to believe in. But
what a fool I was! I was frantic on their side!”

“Tell me, please, from whom did you hear that, and why does it interest
you so?” Raskolnikov asked with unmistakable agitation.

“What next? You ask me why it interests me!... Well, I heard it from
Porfiry, among others... It was from him I heard almost all about it.”

“From Porfiry?”

“From Porfiry.”

“What... what did he say?” Raskolnikov asked in dismay.

“He gave me a capital explanation of it. Psychologically, after his
fashion.”

“He explained it? Explained it himself?”

“Yes, yes; good-bye. I’ll tell you all about it another time, but now
I’m busy. There was a time when I fancied... But no matter, another
time!... What need is there for me to drink now? You have made me drunk
without wine. I am drunk, Rodya! Good-bye, I’m going. I’ll come again
very soon.”

He went out.

“He’s a political conspirator, there’s not a doubt about it,” Razumihin
decided, as he slowly descended the stairs. “And he’s drawn his sister
in; that’s quite, quite in keeping with Avdotya Romanovna’s character.
There are interviews between them!... She hinted at it too... So many of
her words.... and hints... bear that meaning! And how else can all this
tangle be explained? Hm! And I was almost thinking... Good heavens,
what I thought! Yes, I took leave of my senses and I wronged him! It was
his doing, under the lamp in the corridor that day. Pfoo! What a crude,
nasty, vile idea on my part! Nikolay is a brick, for confessing.... And
how clear it all is now! His illness then, all his strange actions...
before this, in the university, how morose he used to be, how gloomy....
But what’s the meaning now of that letter? There’s something in that,
too, perhaps. Whom was it from? I suspect...! No, I must find out!”

He thought of Dounia, realising all he had heard and his heart throbbed,
and he suddenly broke into a run.

As soon as Razumihin went out, Raskolnikov got up, turned to the window,
walked into one corner and then into another, as though forgetting the
smallness of his room, and sat down again on the sofa. He felt, so to
speak, renewed; again the struggle, so a means of escape had come.

“Yes, a means of escape had come! It had been too stifling, too
cramping, the burden had been too agonising. A lethargy had come upon
him at times. From the moment of the scene with Nikolay at Porfiry’s he
had been suffocating, penned in without hope of escape. After Nikolay’s
confession, on that very day had come the scene with Sonia; his
behaviour and his last words had been utterly unlike anything he
could have imagined beforehand; he had grown feebler, instantly and
fundamentally! And he had agreed at the time with Sonia, he had agreed
in his heart he could not go on living alone with such a thing on his
mind!

“And Svidrigaïlov was a riddle... He worried him, that was true, but
somehow not on the same point. He might still have a struggle to come
with Svidrigaïlov. Svidrigaïlov, too, might be a means of escape; but
Porfiry was a different matter.

“And so Porfiry himself had explained it to Razumihin, had explained it
_psychologically_. He had begun bringing in his damned psychology again!
Porfiry? But to think that Porfiry should for one moment believe that
Nikolay was guilty, after what had passed between them before Nikolay’s
appearance, after that tête-à-tête interview, which could have only
_one_ explanation? (During those days Raskolnikov had often recalled
passages in that scene with Porfiry; he could not bear to let his mind
rest on it.) Such words, such gestures had passed between them, they
had exchanged such glances, things had been said in such a tone and had
reached such a pass, that Nikolay, whom Porfiry had seen through at the
first word, at the first gesture, could not have shaken his conviction.

“And to think that even Razumihin had begun to suspect! The scene in the
corridor under the lamp had produced its effect then. He had rushed to
Porfiry.... But what had induced the latter to receive him like that?
What had been his object in putting Razumihin off with Nikolay? He must
have some plan; there was some design, but what was it? It was true that
a long time had passed since that morning--too long a time--and no sight
nor sound of Porfiry. Well, that was a bad sign....”

Raskolnikov took his cap and went out of the room, still pondering. It
was the first time for a long while that he had felt clear in his mind,
at least. “I must settle Svidrigaïlov,” he thought, “and as soon as
possible; he, too, seems to be waiting for me to come to him of my own
accord.” And at that moment there was such a rush of hate in his
weary heart that he might have killed either of those two--Porfiry or
Svidrigaïlov. At least he felt that he would be capable of doing it
later, if not now.

“We shall see, we shall see,” he repeated to himself.

But no sooner had he opened the door than he stumbled upon Porfiry
himself in the passage. He was coming in to see him. Raskolnikov was
dumbfounded for a minute, but only for one minute. Strange to say, he
was not very much astonished at seeing Porfiry and scarcely afraid of
him. He was simply startled, but was quickly, instantly, on his guard.
“Perhaps this will mean the end? But how could Porfiry have approached
so quietly, like a cat, so that he had heard nothing? Could he have been
listening at the door?”

“You didn’t expect a visitor, Rodion Romanovitch,” Porfiry explained,
laughing. “I’ve been meaning to look in a long time; I was passing by
and thought why not go in for five minutes. Are you going out? I won’t
keep you long. Just let me have one cigarette.”

“Sit down, Porfiry Petrovitch, sit down.” Raskolnikov gave his visitor
a seat with so pleased and friendly an expression that he would have
marvelled at himself, if he could have seen it.

The last moment had come, the last drops had to be drained! So a man
will sometimes go through half an hour of mortal terror with a brigand,
yet when the knife is at his throat at last, he feels no fear.

Raskolnikov seated himself directly facing Porfiry, and looked at him
without flinching. Porfiry screwed up his eyes and began lighting a
cigarette.

“Speak, speak,” seemed as though it would burst from Raskolnikov’s
heart. “Come, why don’t you speak?”



CHAPTER II

“Ah these cigarettes!” Porfiry Petrovitch ejaculated at last, having
lighted one. “They are pernicious, positively pernicious, and yet I
can’t give them up! I cough, I begin to have tickling in my throat and
a difficulty in breathing. You know I am a coward, I went lately to
Dr. B----n; he always gives at least half an hour to each patient. He
positively laughed looking at me; he sounded me: ‘Tobacco’s bad for
you,’ he said, ‘your lungs are affected.’ But how am I to give it up?
What is there to take its place? I don’t drink, that’s the mischief,
he-he-he, that I don’t. Everything is relative, Rodion Romanovitch,
everything is relative!”

“Why, he’s playing his professional tricks again,” Raskolnikov thought
with disgust. All the circumstances of their last interview suddenly
came back to him, and he felt a rush of the feeling that had come upon
him then.

“I came to see you the day before yesterday, in the evening; you didn’t
know?” Porfiry Petrovitch went on, looking round the room. “I came into
this very room. I was passing by, just as I did to-day, and I thought
I’d return your call. I walked in as your door was wide open, I looked
round, waited and went out without leaving my name with your servant.
Don’t you lock your door?”

Raskolnikov’s face grew more and more gloomy. Porfiry seemed to guess
his state of mind.

“I’ve come to have it out with you, Rodion Romanovitch, my dear fellow!
I owe you an explanation and must give it to you,” he continued with a
slight smile, just patting Raskolnikov’s knee.

But almost at the same instant a serious and careworn look came into his
face; to his surprise Raskolnikov saw a touch of sadness in it. He had
never seen and never suspected such an expression in his face.

“A strange scene passed between us last time we met, Rodion Romanovitch.
Our first interview, too, was a strange one; but then... and one thing
after another! This is the point: I have perhaps acted unfairly to you;
I feel it. Do you remember how we parted? Your nerves were unhinged and
your knees were shaking and so were mine. And, you know, our behaviour
was unseemly, even ungentlemanly. And yet we are gentlemen, above all,
in any case, gentlemen; that must be understood. Do you remember what we
came to?... and it was quite indecorous.”

“What is he up to, what does he take me for?” Raskolnikov asked himself
in amazement, raising his head and looking with open eyes on Porfiry.

“I’ve decided openness is better between us,” Porfiry Petrovitch went
on, turning his head away and dropping his eyes, as though unwilling to
disconcert his former victim and as though disdaining his former wiles.
“Yes, such suspicions and such scenes cannot continue for long. Nikolay
put a stop to it, or I don’t know what we might not have come to. That
damned workman was sitting at the time in the next room--can you realise
that? You know that, of course; and I am aware that he came to you
afterwards. But what you supposed then was not true: I had not sent for
anyone, I had made no kind of arrangements. You ask why I hadn’t? What
shall I say to you? it had all come upon me so suddenly. I had scarcely
sent for the porters (you noticed them as you went out, I dare say).
An idea flashed upon me; I was firmly convinced at the time, you see,
Rodion Romanovitch. Come, I thought--even if I let one thing slip for
a time, I shall get hold of something else--I shan’t lose what I want,
anyway. You are nervously irritable, Rodion Romanovitch, by temperament;
it’s out of proportion with other qualities of your heart and character,
which I flatter myself I have to some extent divined. Of course I did
reflect even then that it does not always happen that a man gets up and
blurts out his whole story. It does happen sometimes, if you make a
man lose all patience, though even then it’s rare. I was capable of
realising that. If I only had a fact, I thought, the least little fact
to go upon, something I could lay hold of, something tangible, not
merely psychological. For if a man is guilty, you must be able to get
something substantial out of him; one may reckon upon most surprising
results indeed. I was reckoning on your temperament, Rodion Romanovitch,
on your temperament above all things! I had great hopes of you at that
time.”

“But what are you driving at now?” Raskolnikov muttered at last, asking
the question without thinking.

“What is he talking about?” he wondered distractedly, “does he really
take me to be innocent?”

“What am I driving at? I’ve come to explain myself, I consider it my
duty, so to speak. I want to make clear to you how the whole business,
the whole misunderstanding arose. I’ve caused you a great deal of
suffering, Rodion Romanovitch. I am not a monster. I understand what
it must mean for a man who has been unfortunate, but who is proud,
imperious and above all, impatient, to have to bear such treatment!
I regard you in any case as a man of noble character and not without
elements of magnanimity, though I don’t agree with all your convictions.
I wanted to tell you this first, frankly and quite sincerely, for above
all I don’t want to deceive you. When I made your acquaintance, I felt
attracted by you. Perhaps you will laugh at my saying so. You have a
right to. I know you disliked me from the first and indeed you’ve no
reason to like me. You may think what you like, but I desire now to do
all I can to efface that impression and to show that I am a man of heart
and conscience. I speak sincerely.”

Porfiry Petrovitch made a dignified pause. Raskolnikov felt a rush of
renewed alarm. The thought that Porfiry believed him to be innocent
began to make him uneasy.

“It’s scarcely necessary to go over everything in detail,” Porfiry
Petrovitch went on. “Indeed, I could scarcely attempt it. To begin with
there were rumours. Through whom, how, and when those rumours came to
me... and how they affected you, I need not go into. My suspicions
were aroused by a complete accident, which might just as easily not have
happened. What was it? Hm! I believe there is no need to go into that
either. Those rumours and that accident led to one idea in my mind. I
admit it openly--for one may as well make a clean breast of it--I was
the first to pitch on you. The old woman’s notes on the pledges and
the rest of it--that all came to nothing. Yours was one of a hundred.
I happened, too, to hear of the scene at the office, from a man who
described it capitally, unconsciously reproducing the scene with great
vividness. It was just one thing after another, Rodion Romanovitch, my
dear fellow! How could I avoid being brought to certain ideas? From a
hundred rabbits you can’t make a horse, a hundred suspicions don’t make
a proof, as the English proverb says, but that’s only from the rational
point of view--you can’t help being partial, for after all a lawyer
is only human. I thought, too, of your article in that journal, do you
remember, on your first visit we talked of it? I jeered at you at the
time, but that was only to lead you on. I repeat, Rodion Romanovitch,
you are ill and impatient. That you were bold, headstrong, in earnest
and... had felt a great deal I recognised long before. I, too, have felt
the same, so that your article seemed familiar to me. It was conceived
on sleepless nights, with a throbbing heart, in ecstasy and suppressed
enthusiasm. And that proud suppressed enthusiasm in young people is
dangerous! I jeered at you then, but let me tell you that, as a literary
amateur, I am awfully fond of such first essays, full of the heat of
youth. There is a mistiness and a chord vibrating in the mist. Your
article is absurd and fantastic, but there’s a transparent sincerity,
a youthful incorruptible pride and the daring of despair in it. It’s a
gloomy article, but that’s what’s fine in it. I read your article and
put it aside, thinking as I did so ‘that man won’t go the common way.’
Well, I ask you, after that as a preliminary, how could I help being
carried away by what followed? Oh, dear, I am not saying anything, I
am not making any statement now. I simply noted it at the time. What is
there in it? I reflected. There’s nothing in it, that is really nothing
and perhaps absolutely nothing. And it’s not at all the thing for
the prosecutor to let himself be carried away by notions: here I have
Nikolay on my hands with actual evidence against him--you may think what
you like of it, but it’s evidence. He brings in his psychology, too; one
has to consider him, too, for it’s a matter of life and death. Why am
I explaining this to you? That you may understand, and not blame my
malicious behaviour on that occasion. It was not malicious, I assure
you, he-he! Do you suppose I didn’t come to search your room at the
time? I did, I did, he-he! I was here when you were lying ill in bed,
not officially, not in my own person, but I was here. Your room was
searched to the last thread at the first suspicion; but _umsonst_! I
thought to myself, now that man will come, will come of himself and
quickly, too; if he’s guilty, he’s sure to come. Another man wouldn’t,
but he will. And you remember how Mr. Razumihin began discussing the
subject with you? We arranged that to excite you, so we purposely spread
rumours, that he might discuss the case with you, and Razumihin is not a
man to restrain his indignation. Mr. Zametov was tremendously struck by
your anger and your open daring. Think of blurting out in a restaurant
‘I killed her.’ It was too daring, too reckless. I thought so myself, if
he is guilty he will be a formidable opponent. That was what I thought
at the time. I was expecting you. But you simply bowled Zametov over
and... well, you see, it all lies in this--that this damnable psychology
can be taken two ways! Well, I kept expecting you, and so it was, you
came! My heart was fairly throbbing. Ach!

“Now, why need you have come? Your laughter, too, as you came in, do you
remember? I saw it all plain as daylight, but if I hadn’t expected you
so specially, I should not have noticed anything in your laughter. You
see what influence a mood has! Mr. Razumihin then--ah, that stone, that
stone under which the things were hidden! I seem to see it somewhere
in a kitchen garden. It was in a kitchen garden, you told Zametov and
afterwards you repeated that in my office? And when we began picking
your article to pieces, how you explained it! One could take every word
of yours in two senses, as though there were another meaning hidden.

“So in this way, Rodion Romanovitch, I reached the furthest limit, and
knocking my head against a post, I pulled myself up, asking myself what
I was about. After all, I said, you can take it all in another sense if
you like, and it’s more natural so, indeed. I couldn’t help admitting
it was more natural. I was bothered! ‘No, I’d better get hold of some
little fact’ I said. So when I heard of the bell-ringing, I held my
breath and was all in a tremor. ‘Here is my little fact,’ thought I, and
I didn’t think it over, I simply wouldn’t. I would have given a thousand
roubles at that minute to have seen you with my own eyes, when you
walked a hundred paces beside that workman, after he had called you
murderer to your face, and you did not dare to ask him a question
all the way. And then what about your trembling, what about your
bell-ringing in your illness, in semi-delirium?

“And so, Rodion Romanovitch, can you wonder that I played such pranks on
you? And what made you come at that very minute? Someone seemed to
have sent you, by Jove! And if Nikolay had not parted us... and do you
remember Nikolay at the time? Do you remember him clearly? It was a
thunderbolt, a regular thunderbolt! And how I met him! I didn’t believe
in the thunderbolt, not for a minute. You could see it for yourself;
and how could I? Even afterwards, when you had gone and he began making
very, very plausible answers on certain points, so that I was surprised
at him myself, even then I didn’t believe his story! You see what it is
to be as firm as a rock! No, thought I, _Morgenfrüh_. What has Nikolay
got to do with it!”

“Razumihin told me just now that you think Nikolay guilty and had
yourself assured him of it....”

His voice failed him, and he broke off. He had been listening in
indescribable agitation, as this man who had seen through and through
him, went back upon himself. He was afraid of believing it and did not
believe it. In those still ambiguous words he kept eagerly looking for
something more definite and conclusive.

“Mr. Razumihin!” cried Porfiry Petrovitch, seeming glad of a question
from Raskolnikov, who had till then been silent. “He-he-he! But I had to
put Mr. Razumihin off; two is company, three is none. Mr. Razumihin is
not the right man, besides he is an outsider. He came running to me
with a pale face.... But never mind him, why bring him in? To return
to Nikolay, would you like to know what sort of a type he is, how I
understand him, that is? To begin with, he is still a child and not
exactly a coward, but something by way of an artist. Really, don’t laugh
at my describing him so. He is innocent and responsive to influence. He
has a heart, and is a fantastic fellow. He sings and dances, he tells
stories, they say, so that people come from other villages to hear him.
He attends school too, and laughs till he cries if you hold up a finger
to him; he will drink himself senseless--not as a regular vice, but at
times, when people treat him, like a child. And he stole, too, then,
without knowing it himself, for ‘How can it be stealing, if one picks it
up?’ And do you know he is an Old Believer, or rather a dissenter? There
have been Wanderers[*] in his family, and he was for two years in his
village under the spiritual guidance of a certain elder. I learnt all
this from Nikolay and from his fellow villagers. And what’s more, he
wanted to run into the wilderness! He was full of fervour, prayed at
night, read the old books, ‘the true’ ones, and read himself crazy.

     [*] A religious sect.--TRANSLATOR’S NOTE.

“Petersburg had a great effect upon him, especially the women and the
wine. He responds to everything and he forgot the elder and all that. I
learnt that an artist here took a fancy to him, and used to go and see
him, and now this business came upon him.

“Well, he was frightened, he tried to hang himself! He ran away! How can
one get over the idea the people have of Russian legal proceedings? The
very word ‘trial’ frightens some of them. Whose fault is it? We shall
see what the new juries will do. God grant they do good! Well, in
prison, it seems, he remembered the venerable elder; the Bible, too,
made its appearance again. Do you know, Rodion Romanovitch, the force of
the word ‘suffering’ among some of these people! It’s not a question of
suffering for someone’s benefit, but simply, ‘one must suffer.’ If they
suffer at the hands of the authorities, so much the better. In my time
there was a very meek and mild prisoner who spent a whole year in prison
always reading his Bible on the stove at night and he read himself
crazy, and so crazy, do you know, that one day, apropos of nothing, he
seized a brick and flung it at the governor; though he had done him
no harm. And the way he threw it too: aimed it a yard on one side
on purpose, for fear of hurting him. Well, we know what happens to
a prisoner who assaults an officer with a weapon. So ‘he took his
suffering.’

“So I suspect now that Nikolay wants to take his suffering or something
of the sort. I know it for certain from facts, indeed. Only he doesn’t
know that I know. What, you don’t admit that there are such fantastic
people among the peasants? Lots of them. The elder now has begun
influencing him, especially since he tried to hang himself. But he’ll
come and tell me all himself. You think he’ll hold out? Wait a bit,
he’ll take his words back. I am waiting from hour to hour for him to
come and abjure his evidence. I have come to like that Nikolay and am
studying him in detail. And what do you think? He-he! He answered me
very plausibly on some points, he obviously had collected some evidence
and prepared himself cleverly. But on other points he is simply at sea,
knows nothing and doesn’t even suspect that he doesn’t know!

“No, Rodion Romanovitch, Nikolay doesn’t come in! This is a fantastic,
gloomy business, a modern case, an incident of to-day when the heart
of man is troubled, when the phrase is quoted that blood ‘renews,’ when
comfort is preached as the aim of life. Here we have bookish dreams, a
heart unhinged by theories. Here we see resolution in the first stage,
but resolution of a special kind: he resolved to do it like jumping over
a precipice or from a bell tower and his legs shook as he went to the
crime. He forgot to shut the door after him, and murdered two people for
a theory. He committed the murder and couldn’t take the money, and what
he did manage to snatch up he hid under a stone. It wasn’t enough for
him to suffer agony behind the door while they battered at the door and
rung the bell, no, he had to go to the empty lodging, half delirious, to
recall the bell-ringing, he wanted to feel the cold shiver over again....
Well, that we grant, was through illness, but consider this: he is
a murderer, but looks upon himself as an honest man, despises others,
poses as injured innocence. No, that’s not the work of a Nikolay, my
dear Rodion Romanovitch!”

All that had been said before had sounded so like a recantation that
these words were too great a shock. Raskolnikov shuddered as though he
had been stabbed.

“Then... who then... is the murderer?” he asked in a breathless voice,
unable to restrain himself.

Porfiry Petrovitch sank back in his chair, as though he were amazed at
the question.

“Who is the murderer?” he repeated, as though unable to believe his
ears. “Why, _you_, Rodion Romanovitch! You are the murderer,” he added,
almost in a whisper, in a voice of genuine conviction.

Raskolnikov leapt from the sofa, stood up for a few seconds and sat down
again without uttering a word. His face twitched convulsively.

“Your lip is twitching just as it did before,” Porfiry Petrovitch
observed almost sympathetically. “You’ve been misunderstanding me, I
think, Rodion Romanovitch,” he added after a brief pause, “that’s why
you are so surprised. I came on purpose to tell you everything and deal
openly with you.”

“It was not I murdered her,” Raskolnikov whispered like a frightened
child caught in the act.

“No, it was you, you Rodion Romanovitch, and no one else,” Porfiry
whispered sternly, with conviction.

They were both silent and the silence lasted strangely long, about ten
minutes. Raskolnikov put his elbow on the table and passed his fingers
through his hair. Porfiry Petrovitch sat quietly waiting. Suddenly
Raskolnikov looked scornfully at Porfiry.

“You are at your old tricks again, Porfiry Petrovitch! Your old method
again. I wonder you don’t get sick of it!”

“Oh, stop that, what does that matter now? It would be a different
matter if there were witnesses present, but we are whispering alone. You
see yourself that I have not come to chase and capture you like a hare.
Whether you confess it or not is nothing to me now; for myself, I am
convinced without it.”

“If so, what did you come for?” Raskolnikov asked irritably. “I ask you
the same question again: if you consider me guilty, why don’t you take
me to prison?”

“Oh, that’s your question! I will answer you, point for point. In the
first place, to arrest you so directly is not to my interest.”

“How so? If you are convinced you ought....”

“Ach, what if I am convinced? That’s only my dream for the time. Why
should I put you in safety? You know that’s it, since you ask me to do
it. If I confront you with that workman for instance and you say to him
‘were you drunk or not? Who saw me with you? I simply took you to be
drunk, and you were drunk, too.’ Well, what could I answer, especially
as your story is a more likely one than his? for there’s nothing but
psychology to support his evidence--that’s almost unseemly with his ugly
mug, while you hit the mark exactly, for the rascal is an inveterate
drunkard and notoriously so. And I have myself admitted candidly several
times already that that psychology can be taken in two ways and that the
second way is stronger and looks far more probable, and that apart from
that I have as yet nothing against you. And though I shall put you in
prison and indeed have come--quite contrary to etiquette--to inform you
of it beforehand, yet I tell you frankly, also contrary to etiquette,
that it won’t be to my advantage. Well, secondly, I’ve come to you
because...”

“Yes, yes, secondly?” Raskolnikov was listening breathless.

“Because, as I told you just now, I consider I owe you an explanation. I
don’t want you to look upon me as a monster, as I have a genuine liking
for you, you may believe me or not. And in the third place I’ve come to
you with a direct and open proposition--that you should surrender
and confess. It will be infinitely more to your advantage and to my
advantage too, for my task will be done. Well, is this open on my part
or not?”

Raskolnikov thought a minute.

“Listen, Porfiry Petrovitch. You said just now you have nothing but
psychology to go on, yet now you’ve gone on mathematics. Well, what if
you are mistaken yourself, now?”

“No, Rodion Romanovitch, I am not mistaken. I have a little fact even
then, Providence sent it me.”

“What little fact?”

“I won’t tell you what, Rodion Romanovitch. And in any case, I haven’t
the right to put it off any longer, I must arrest you. So think it over:
it makes no difference to me _now_ and so I speak only for your sake.
Believe me, it will be better, Rodion Romanovitch.”

Raskolnikov smiled malignantly.

“That’s not simply ridiculous, it’s positively shameless. Why, even if I
were guilty, which I don’t admit, what reason should I have to confess,
when you tell me yourself that I shall be in greater safety in prison?”

“Ah, Rodion Romanovitch, don’t put too much faith in words, perhaps
prison will not be altogether a restful place. That’s only theory and
my theory, and what authority am I for you? Perhaps, too, even now I am
hiding something from you? I can’t lay bare everything, he-he! And how
can you ask what advantage? Don’t you know how it would lessen your
sentence? You would be confessing at a moment when another man has taken
the crime on himself and so has muddled the whole case. Consider that! I
swear before God that I will so arrange that your confession shall
come as a complete surprise. We will make a clean sweep of all these
psychological points, of a suspicion against you, so that your crime
will appear to have been something like an aberration, for in truth it
was an aberration. I am an honest man, Rodion Romanovitch, and will keep
my word.”

Raskolnikov maintained a mournful silence and let his head sink
dejectedly. He pondered a long while and at last smiled again, but his
smile was sad and gentle.

“No!” he said, apparently abandoning all attempt to keep up appearances
with Porfiry, “it’s not worth it, I don’t care about lessening the
sentence!”

“That’s just what I was afraid of!” Porfiry cried warmly and, as it
seemed, involuntarily. “That’s just what I feared, that you wouldn’t
care about the mitigation of sentence.”

Raskolnikov looked sadly and expressively at him.

“Ah, don’t disdain life!” Porfiry went on. “You have a great deal of
it still before you. How can you say you don’t want a mitigation of
sentence? You are an impatient fellow!”

“A great deal of what lies before me?”

“Of life. What sort of prophet are you, do you know much about it? Seek
and ye shall find. This may be God’s means for bringing you to Him. And
it’s not for ever, the bondage....”

“The time will be shortened,” laughed Raskolnikov.

“Why, is it the bourgeois disgrace you are afraid of? It may be that you
are afraid of it without knowing it, because you are young! But anyway
_you_ shouldn’t be afraid of giving yourself up and confessing.”

“Ach, hang it!” Raskolnikov whispered with loathing and contempt, as
though he did not want to speak aloud.

He got up again as though he meant to go away, but sat down again in
evident despair.

“Hang it, if you like! You’ve lost faith and you think that I am
grossly flattering you; but how long has your life been? How much do
you understand? You made up a theory and then were ashamed that it broke
down and turned out to be not at all original! It turned out something
base, that’s true, but you are not hopelessly base. By no means so base!
At least you didn’t deceive yourself for long, you went straight to the
furthest point at one bound. How do I regard you? I regard you as one
of those men who would stand and smile at their torturer while he cuts
their entrails out, if only they have found faith or God. Find it and
you will live. You have long needed a change of air. Suffering, too,
is a good thing. Suffer! Maybe Nikolay is right in wanting to suffer.
I know you don’t believe in it--but don’t be over-wise; fling yourself
straight into life, without deliberation; don’t be afraid--the flood
will bear you to the bank and set you safe on your feet again. What
bank? How can I tell? I only believe that you have long life before
you. I know that you take all my words now for a set speech prepared
beforehand, but maybe you will remember them after. They may be of use
some time. That’s why I speak. It’s as well that you only killed the
old woman. If you’d invented another theory you might perhaps have
done something a thousand times more hideous. You ought to thank God,
perhaps. How do you know? Perhaps God is saving you for something.
But keep a good heart and have less fear! Are you afraid of the great
expiation before you? No, it would be shameful to be afraid of it. Since
you have taken such a step, you must harden your heart. There is justice
in it. You must fulfil the demands of justice. I know that you don’t
believe it, but indeed, life will bring you through. You will live it
down in time. What you need now is fresh air, fresh air, fresh air!”

Raskolnikov positively started.

“But who are you? what prophet are you? From the height of what majestic
calm do you proclaim these words of wisdom?”

“Who am I? I am a man with nothing to hope for, that’s all. A man
perhaps of feeling and sympathy, maybe of some knowledge too, but my day
is over. But you are a different matter, there is life waiting for you.
Though, who knows? maybe your life, too, will pass off in smoke and come
to nothing. Come, what does it matter, that you will pass into another
class of men? It’s not comfort you regret, with your heart! What of
it that perhaps no one will see you for so long? It’s not time, but
yourself that will decide that. Be the sun and all will see you. The
sun has before all to be the sun. Why are you smiling again? At my being
such a Schiller? I bet you’re imagining that I am trying to get round
you by flattery. Well, perhaps I am, he-he-he! Perhaps you’d better not
believe my word, perhaps you’d better never believe it altogether--I’m
made that way, I confess it. But let me add, you can judge for yourself,
I think, how far I am a base sort of man and how far I am honest.”

“When do you mean to arrest me?”

“Well, I can let you walk about another day or two. Think it over, my
dear fellow, and pray to God. It’s more in your interest, believe me.”

“And what if I run away?” asked Raskolnikov with a strange smile.

“No, you won’t run away. A peasant would run away, a fashionable
dissenter would run away, the flunkey of another man’s thought, for
you’ve only to show him the end of your little finger and he’ll be ready
to believe in anything for the rest of his life. But you’ve ceased to
believe in your theory already, what will you run away with? And what
would you do in hiding? It would be hateful and difficult for you, and
what you need more than anything in life is a definite position, an
atmosphere to suit you. And what sort of atmosphere would you have? If
you ran away, you’d come back of yourself. _You can’t get on without
us._ And if I put you in prison--say you’ve been there a month, or two,
or three--remember my word, you’ll confess of yourself and perhaps to
your own surprise. You won’t know an hour beforehand that you are coming
with a confession. I am convinced that you will decide, ‘to take your
suffering.’ You don’t believe my words now, but you’ll come to it of
yourself. For suffering, Rodion Romanovitch, is a great thing. Never
mind my having grown fat, I know all the same. Don’t laugh at it,
there’s an idea in suffering, Nikolay is right. No, you won’t run away,
Rodion Romanovitch.”

Raskolnikov got up and took his cap. Porfiry Petrovitch also rose.

“Are you going for a walk? The evening will be fine, if only we don’t
have a storm. Though it would be a good thing to freshen the air.”

He, too, took his cap.

“Porfiry Petrovitch, please don’t take up the notion that I have
confessed to you to-day,” Raskolnikov pronounced with sullen insistence.
“You’re a strange man and I have listened to you from simple curiosity.
But I have admitted nothing, remember that!”

“Oh, I know that, I’ll remember. Look at him, he’s trembling! Don’t
be uneasy, my dear fellow, have it your own way. Walk about a bit, you
won’t be able to walk too far. If anything happens, I have one request
to make of you,” he added, dropping his voice. “It’s an awkward one, but
important. If anything were to happen (though indeed I don’t believe
in it and think you quite incapable of it), yet in case you were taken
during these forty or fifty hours with the notion of putting an end to
the business in some other way, in some fantastic fashion--laying hands
on yourself--(it’s an absurd proposition, but you must forgive me for
it) do leave a brief but precise note, only two lines, and mention the
stone. It will be more generous. Come, till we meet! Good thoughts and
sound decisions to you!”

Porfiry went out, stooping and avoiding looking at Raskolnikov. The
latter went to the window and waited with irritable impatience till he
calculated that Porfiry had reached the street and moved away. Then he
too went hurriedly out of the room.



CHAPTER III

He hurried to Svidrigaïlov’s. What he had to hope from that man he
did not know. But that man had some hidden power over him. Having once
recognised this, he could not rest, and now the time had come.

On the way, one question particularly worried him: had Svidrigaïlov been
to Porfiry’s?

As far as he could judge, he would swear to it, that he had not. He
pondered again and again, went over Porfiry’s visit; no, he hadn’t been,
of course he hadn’t.

But if he had not been yet, would he go? Meanwhile, for the present he
fancied he couldn’t. Why? He could not have explained, but if he could,
he would not have wasted much thought over it at the moment. It all
worried him and at the same time he could not attend to it. Strange to
say, none would have believed it perhaps, but he only felt a faint vague
anxiety about his immediate future. Another, much more important anxiety
tormented him--it concerned himself, but in a different, more vital way.
Moreover, he was conscious of immense moral fatigue, though his mind was
working better that morning than it had done of late.

And was it worth while, after all that had happened, to contend with
these new trivial difficulties? Was it worth while, for instance, to
manoeuvre that Svidrigaïlov should not go to Porfiry’s? Was it worth
while to investigate, to ascertain the facts, to waste time over anyone
like Svidrigaïlov?

Oh, how sick he was of it all!

And yet he was hastening to Svidrigaïlov; could he be expecting
something _new_ from him, information, or means of escape? Men will
catch at straws! Was it destiny or some instinct bringing them together?
Perhaps it was only fatigue, despair; perhaps it was not Svidrigaïlov
but some other whom he needed, and Svidrigaïlov had simply presented
himself by chance. Sonia? But what should he go to Sonia for now? To beg
her tears again? He was afraid of Sonia, too. Sonia stood before him as
an irrevocable sentence. He must go his own way or hers. At that moment
especially he did not feel equal to seeing her. No, would it not be
better to try Svidrigaïlov? And he could not help inwardly owning that
he had long felt that he must see him for some reason.

But what could they have in common? Their very evil-doing could not
be of the same kind. The man, moreover, was very unpleasant, evidently
depraved, undoubtedly cunning and deceitful, possibly malignant. Such
stories were told about him. It is true he was befriending Katerina
Ivanovna’s children, but who could tell with what motive and what it
meant? The man always had some design, some project.

There was another thought which had been continually hovering of late
about Raskolnikov’s mind, and causing him great uneasiness. It was so
painful that he made distinct efforts to get rid of it. He sometimes
thought that Svidrigaïlov was dogging his footsteps. Svidrigaïlov had
found out his secret and had had designs on Dounia. What if he had them
still? Wasn’t it practically certain that he had? And what if, having
learnt his secret and so having gained power over him, he were to use it
as a weapon against Dounia?

This idea sometimes even tormented his dreams, but it had never
presented itself so vividly to him as on his way to Svidrigaïlov.
The very thought moved him to gloomy rage. To begin with, this would
transform everything, even his own position; he would have at once to
confess his secret to Dounia. Would he have to give himself up perhaps
to prevent Dounia from taking some rash step? The letter? This morning
Dounia had received a letter. From whom could she get letters in
Petersburg? Luzhin, perhaps? It’s true Razumihin was there to protect
her, but Razumihin knew nothing of the position. Perhaps it was his duty
to tell Razumihin? He thought of it with repugnance.

In any case he must see Svidrigaïlov as soon as possible, he decided
finally. Thank God, the details of the interview were of little
consequence, if only he could get at the root of the matter; but
if Svidrigaïlov were capable... if he were intriguing against
Dounia--then...

Raskolnikov was so exhausted by what he had passed through that month
that he could only decide such questions in one way; “then I shall kill
him,” he thought in cold despair.

A sudden anguish oppressed his heart, he stood still in the middle of
the street and began looking about to see where he was and which way he
was going. He found himself in X. Prospect, thirty or forty paces from
the Hay Market, through which he had come. The whole second storey of
the house on the left was used as a tavern. All the windows were wide
open; judging from the figures moving at the windows, the rooms were
full to overflowing. There were sounds of singing, of clarionet and
violin, and the boom of a Turkish drum. He could hear women shrieking.
He was about to turn back wondering why he had come to the X. Prospect,
when suddenly at one of the end windows he saw Svidrigaïlov, sitting
at a tea-table right in the open window with a pipe in his mouth.
Raskolnikov was dreadfully taken aback, almost terrified. Svidrigaïlov
was silently watching and scrutinising him and, what struck Raskolnikov
at once, seemed to be meaning to get up and slip away unobserved.
Raskolnikov at once pretended not to have seen him, but to be looking
absent-mindedly away, while he watched him out of the corner of his eye.
His heart was beating violently. Yet, it was evident that Svidrigaïlov
did not want to be seen. He took the pipe out of his mouth and was on
the point of concealing himself, but as he got up and moved back his
chair, he seemed to have become suddenly aware that Raskolnikov had seen
him, and was watching him. What had passed between them was much the
same as what happened at their first meeting in Raskolnikov’s room. A
sly smile came into Svidrigaïlov’s face and grew broader and
broader. Each knew that he was seen and watched by the other. At last
Svidrigaïlov broke into a loud laugh.

“Well, well, come in if you want me; I am here!” he shouted from the
window.

Raskolnikov went up into the tavern. He found Svidrigaïlov in a tiny
back room, adjoining the saloon in which merchants, clerks and numbers
of people of all sorts were drinking tea at twenty little tables to the
desperate bawling of a chorus of singers. The click of billiard balls
could be heard in the distance. On the table before Svidrigaïlov stood
an open bottle and a glass half full of champagne. In the room he found
also a boy with a little hand organ, a healthy-looking red-cheeked girl
of eighteen, wearing a tucked-up striped skirt, and a Tyrolese hat with
ribbons. In spite of the chorus in the other room, she was singing some
servants’ hall song in a rather husky contralto, to the accompaniment of
the organ.

“Come, that’s enough,” Svidrigaïlov stopped her at Raskolnikov’s
entrance. The girl at once broke off and stood waiting respectfully.
She had sung her guttural rhymes, too, with a serious and respectful
expression in her face.

“Hey, Philip, a glass!” shouted Svidrigaïlov.

“I won’t drink anything,” said Raskolnikov.

“As you like, I didn’t mean it for you. Drink, Katia! I don’t want
anything more to-day, you can go.” He poured her out a full glass, and
laid down a yellow note.

Katia drank off her glass of wine, as women do, without putting it down,
in twenty gulps, took the note and kissed Svidrigaïlov’s hand, which he
allowed quite seriously. She went out of the room and the boy trailed
after her with the organ. Both had been brought in from the street.
Svidrigaïlov had not been a week in Petersburg, but everything about him
was already, so to speak, on a patriarchal footing; the waiter, Philip,
was by now an old friend and very obsequious.

The door leading to the saloon had a lock on it. Svidrigaïlov was at
home in this room and perhaps spent whole days in it. The tavern was
dirty and wretched, not even second-rate.

“I was going to see you and looking for you,” Raskolnikov began, “but
I don’t know what made me turn from the Hay Market into the X. Prospect
just now. I never take this turning. I turn to the right from the Hay
Market. And this isn’t the way to you. I simply turned and here you are.
It is strange!”

“Why don’t you say at once ‘it’s a miracle’?”

“Because it may be only chance.”

“Oh, that’s the way with all you folk,” laughed Svidrigaïlov. “You won’t
admit it, even if you do inwardly believe it a miracle! Here you say
that it may be only chance. And what cowards they all are here, about
having an opinion of their own, you can’t fancy, Rodion Romanovitch. I
don’t mean you, you have an opinion of your own and are not afraid to
have it. That’s how it was you attracted my curiosity.”

“Nothing else?”

“Well, that’s enough, you know,” Svidrigaïlov was obviously exhilarated,
but only slightly so, he had not had more than half a glass of wine.

“I fancy you came to see me before you knew that I was capable of having
what you call an opinion of my own,” observed Raskolnikov.

“Oh, well, it was a different matter. Everyone has his own plans. And
apropos of the miracle let me tell you that I think you have been asleep
for the last two or three days. I told you of this tavern myself, there
is no miracle in your coming straight here. I explained the way myself,
told you where it was, and the hours you could find me here. Do you
remember?”

“I don’t remember,” answered Raskolnikov with surprise.

“I believe you. I told you twice. The address has been stamped
mechanically on your memory. You turned this way mechanically and yet
precisely according to the direction, though you are not aware of
it. When I told you then, I hardly hoped you understood me. You give
yourself away too much, Rodion Romanovitch. And another thing, I’m
convinced there are lots of people in Petersburg who talk to themselves
as they walk. This is a town of crazy people. If only we had scientific
men, doctors, lawyers and philosophers might make most valuable
investigations in Petersburg each in his own line. There are few places
where there are so many gloomy, strong and queer influences on the soul
of man as in Petersburg. The mere influences of climate mean so much.
And it’s the administrative centre of all Russia and its character must
be reflected on the whole country. But that is neither here nor there
now. The point is that I have several times watched you. You walk out
of your house--holding your head high--twenty paces from home you let it
sink, and fold your hands behind your back. You look and evidently see
nothing before nor beside you. At last you begin moving your lips and
talking to yourself, and sometimes you wave one hand and declaim, and at
last stand still in the middle of the road. That’s not at all the thing.
Someone may be watching you besides me, and it won’t do you any good.
It’s nothing really to do with me and I can’t cure you, but, of course,
you understand me.”

“Do you know that I am being followed?” asked Raskolnikov, looking
inquisitively at him.

“No, I know nothing about it,” said Svidrigaïlov, seeming surprised.

“Well, then, let us leave me alone,” Raskolnikov muttered, frowning.

“Very good, let us leave you alone.”

“You had better tell me, if you come here to drink, and directed me
twice to come here to you, why did you hide, and try to get away just
now when I looked at the window from the street? I saw it.”

“He-he! And why was it you lay on your sofa with closed eyes and
pretended to be asleep, though you were wide awake while I stood in your
doorway? I saw it.”

“I may have had... reasons. You know that yourself.”

“And I may have had my reasons, though you don’t know them.”

Raskolnikov dropped his right elbow on the table, leaned his chin in the
fingers of his right hand, and stared intently at Svidrigaïlov. For a
full minute he scrutinised his face, which had impressed him before. It
was a strange face, like a mask; white and red, with bright red lips,
with a flaxen beard, and still thick flaxen hair. His eyes were somehow
too blue and their expression somehow too heavy and fixed. There was
something awfully unpleasant in that handsome face, which looked so
wonderfully young for his age. Svidrigaïlov was smartly dressed in light
summer clothes and was particularly dainty in his linen. He wore a huge
ring with a precious stone in it.

“Have I got to bother myself about you, too, now?” said Raskolnikov
suddenly, coming with nervous impatience straight to the point. “Even
though perhaps you are the most dangerous man if you care to injure me,
I don’t want to put myself out any more. I will show you at once that I
don’t prize myself as you probably think I do. I’ve come to tell you at
once that if you keep to your former intentions with regard to my sister
and if you think to derive any benefit in that direction from what has
been discovered of late, I will kill you before you get me locked up.
You can reckon on my word. You know that I can keep it. And in the
second place if you want to tell me anything--for I keep fancying all
this time that you have something to tell me--make haste and tell it,
for time is precious and very likely it will soon be too late.”

“Why in such haste?” asked Svidrigaïlov, looking at him curiously.

“Everyone has his plans,” Raskolnikov answered gloomily and impatiently.

“You urged me yourself to frankness just now, and at the first question
you refuse to answer,” Svidrigaïlov observed with a smile. “You
keep fancying that I have aims of my own and so you look at me with
suspicion. Of course it’s perfectly natural in your position. But
though I should like to be friends with you, I shan’t trouble myself
to convince you of the contrary. The game isn’t worth the candle and I
wasn’t intending to talk to you about anything special.”

“What did you want me for, then? It was you who came hanging about me.”

“Why, simply as an interesting subject for observation. I liked the
fantastic nature of your position--that’s what it was! Besides, you are
the brother of a person who greatly interested me, and from that person
I had in the past heard a very great deal about you, from which I
gathered that you had a great influence over her; isn’t that enough?
Ha-ha-ha! Still I must admit that your question is rather complex, and
is difficult for me to answer. Here, you, for instance, have come to me
not only for a definite object, but for the sake of hearing something
new. Isn’t that so? Isn’t that so?” persisted Svidrigaïlov with a sly
smile. “Well, can’t you fancy then that I, too, on my way here in the
train was reckoning on you, on your telling me something new, and on my
making some profit out of you! You see what rich men we are!”

“What profit could you make?”

“How can I tell you? How do I know? You see in what a tavern I spend all
my time and it’s my enjoyment, that’s to say it’s no great enjoyment,
but one must sit somewhere; that poor Katia now--you saw her?... If only
I had been a glutton now, a club gourmand, but you see I can eat this.”

He pointed to a little table in the corner where the remnants of a
terrible-looking beef-steak and potatoes lay on a tin dish.

“Have you dined, by the way? I’ve had something and want nothing more.
I don’t drink, for instance, at all. Except for champagne I never touch
anything, and not more than a glass of that all the evening, and even
that is enough to make my head ache. I ordered it just now to wind
myself up, for I am just going off somewhere and you see me in a
peculiar state of mind. That was why I hid myself just now like a
schoolboy, for I was afraid you would hinder me. But I believe,” he
pulled out his watch, “I can spend an hour with you. It’s half-past
four now. If only I’d been something, a landowner, a father, a cavalry
officer, a photographer, a journalist... I am nothing, no specialty,
and sometimes I am positively bored. I really thought you would tell me
something new.”

“But what are you, and why have you come here?”

“What am I? You know, a gentleman, I served for two years in the
cavalry, then I knocked about here in Petersburg, then I married Marfa
Petrovna and lived in the country. There you have my biography!”

“You are a gambler, I believe?”

“No, a poor sort of gambler. A card-sharper--not a gambler.”

“You have been a card-sharper then?”

“Yes, I’ve been a card-sharper too.”

“Didn’t you get thrashed sometimes?”

“It did happen. Why?”

“Why, you might have challenged them... altogether it must have been
lively.”

“I won’t contradict you, and besides I am no hand at philosophy. I
confess that I hastened here for the sake of the women.”

“As soon as you buried Marfa Petrovna?”

“Quite so,” Svidrigaïlov smiled with engaging candour. “What of it? You
seem to find something wrong in my speaking like that about women?”

“You ask whether I find anything wrong in vice?”

“Vice! Oh, that’s what you are after! But I’ll answer you in order,
first about women in general; you know I am fond of talking. Tell me,
what should I restrain myself for? Why should I give up women, since I
have a passion for them? It’s an occupation, anyway.”

“So you hope for nothing here but vice?”

“Oh, very well, for vice then. You insist on its being vice. But anyway
I like a direct question. In this vice at least there is something
permanent, founded indeed upon nature and not dependent on fantasy,
something present in the blood like an ever-burning ember, for ever
setting one on fire and, maybe, not to be quickly extinguished, even
with years. You’ll agree it’s an occupation of a sort.”

“That’s nothing to rejoice at, it’s a disease and a dangerous one.”

“Oh, that’s what you think, is it! I agree, that it is a disease like
everything that exceeds moderation. And, of course, in this one must
exceed moderation. But in the first place, everybody does so in one way
or another, and in the second place, of course, one ought to be moderate
and prudent, however mean it may be, but what am I to do? If I hadn’t
this, I might have to shoot myself. I am ready to admit that a decent
man ought to put up with being bored, but yet...”

“And could you shoot yourself?”

“Oh, come!” Svidrigaïlov parried with disgust. “Please don’t speak of
it,” he added hurriedly and with none of the bragging tone he had shown
in all the previous conversation. His face quite changed. “I admit it’s
an unpardonable weakness, but I can’t help it. I am afraid of death and
I dislike its being talked of. Do you know that I am to a certain extent
a mystic?”

“Ah, the apparitions of Marfa Petrovna! Do they still go on visiting
you?”

“Oh, don’t talk of them; there have been no more in Petersburg, confound
them!” he cried with an air of irritation. “Let’s rather talk of that...
though... H’m! I have not much time, and can’t stay long with you,
it’s a pity! I should have found plenty to tell you.”

“What’s your engagement, a woman?”

“Yes, a woman, a casual incident.... No, that’s not what I want to talk
of.”

“And the hideousness, the filthiness of all your surroundings, doesn’t
that affect you? Have you lost the strength to stop yourself?”

“And do you pretend to strength, too? He-he-he! You surprised me just
now, Rodion Romanovitch, though I knew beforehand it would be so.
You preach to me about vice and æsthetics! You--a Schiller, you--an
idealist! Of course that’s all as it should be and it would be
surprising if it were not so, yet it is strange in reality.... Ah,
what a pity I have no time, for you’re a most interesting type! And,
by-the-way, are you fond of Schiller? I am awfully fond of him.”

“But what a braggart you are,” Raskolnikov said with some disgust.

“Upon my word, I am not,” answered Svidrigaïlov laughing. “However, I
won’t dispute it, let me be a braggart, why not brag, if it hurts no
one? I spent seven years in the country with Marfa Petrovna, so now when
I come across an intelligent person like you--intelligent and highly
interesting--I am simply glad to talk and, besides, I’ve drunk that
half-glass of champagne and it’s gone to my head a little. And besides,
there’s a certain fact that has wound me up tremendously, but about that
I... will keep quiet. Where are you off to?” he asked in alarm.

Raskolnikov had begun getting up. He felt oppressed and stifled and,
as it were, ill at ease at having come here. He felt convinced that
Svidrigaïlov was the most worthless scoundrel on the face of the earth.

“A-ach! Sit down, stay a little!” Svidrigaïlov begged. “Let them bring
you some tea, anyway. Stay a little, I won’t talk nonsense, about
myself, I mean. I’ll tell you something. If you like I’ll tell you how a
woman tried ‘to save’ me, as you would call it? It will be an answer to
your first question indeed, for the woman was your sister. May I tell
you? It will help to spend the time.”

“Tell me, but I trust that you...”

“Oh, don’t be uneasy. Besides, even in a worthless low fellow like me,
Avdotya Romanovna can only excite the deepest respect.”



CHAPTER IV

“You know perhaps--yes, I told you myself,” began Svidrigaïlov, “that
I was in the debtors’ prison here, for an immense sum, and had not
any expectation of being able to pay it. There’s no need to go into
particulars how Marfa Petrovna bought me out; do you know to what a
point of insanity a woman can sometimes love? She was an honest woman,
and very sensible, although completely uneducated. Would you believe
that this honest and jealous woman, after many scenes of hysterics and
reproaches, condescended to enter into a kind of contract with me which
she kept throughout our married life? She was considerably older than
I, and besides, she always kept a clove or something in her mouth. There
was so much swinishness in my soul and honesty too, of a sort, as to
tell her straight out that I couldn’t be absolutely faithful to her.
This confession drove her to frenzy, but yet she seems in a way to have
liked my brutal frankness. She thought it showed I was unwilling to
deceive her if I warned her like this beforehand and for a jealous
woman, you know, that’s the first consideration. After many tears an
unwritten contract was drawn up between us: first, that I would never
leave Marfa Petrovna and would always be her husband; secondly, that I
would never absent myself without her permission; thirdly, that I would
never set up a permanent mistress; fourthly, in return for this, Marfa
Petrovna gave me a free hand with the maidservants, but only with her
secret knowledge; fifthly, God forbid my falling in love with a woman of
our class; sixthly, in case I--which God forbid--should be visited by
a great serious passion I was bound to reveal it to Marfa Petrovna. On
this last score, however, Marfa Petrovna was fairly at ease. She was a
sensible woman and so she could not help looking upon me as a dissolute
profligate incapable of real love. But a sensible woman and a jealous
woman are two very different things, and that’s where the trouble
came in. But to judge some people impartially we must renounce certain
preconceived opinions and our habitual attitude to the ordinary people
about us. I have reason to have faith in your judgment rather than
in anyone’s. Perhaps you have already heard a great deal that was
ridiculous and absurd about Marfa Petrovna. She certainly had some very
ridiculous ways, but I tell you frankly that I feel really sorry for the
innumerable woes of which I was the cause. Well, and that’s enough, I
think, by way of a decorous _oraison funèbre_ for the most tender wife
of a most tender husband. When we quarrelled, I usually held my tongue
and did not irritate her and that gentlemanly conduct rarely failed to
attain its object, it influenced her, it pleased her, indeed. These were
times when she was positively proud of me. But your sister she couldn’t
put up with, anyway. And however she came to risk taking such a
beautiful creature into her house as a governess. My explanation is that
Marfa Petrovna was an ardent and impressionable woman and simply fell
in love herself--literally fell in love--with your sister. Well, little
wonder--look at Avdotya Romanovna! I saw the danger at the first glance
and what do you think, I resolved not to look at her even. But Avdotya
Romanovna herself made the first step, would you believe it? Would you
believe it too that Marfa Petrovna was positively angry with me at first
for my persistent silence about your sister, for my careless reception
of her continual adoring praises of Avdotya Romanovna. I don’t know
what it was she wanted! Well, of course, Marfa Petrovna told Avdotya
Romanovna every detail about me. She had the unfortunate habit of
telling literally everyone all our family secrets and continually
complaining of me; how could she fail to confide in such a delightful
new friend? I expect they talked of nothing else but me and no doubt
Avdotya Romanovna heard all those dark mysterious rumours that were
current about me.... I don’t mind betting that you too have heard
something of the sort already?”

“I have. Luzhin charged you with having caused the death of a child. Is
that true?”

“Don’t refer to those vulgar tales, I beg,” said Svidrigaïlov with
disgust and annoyance. “If you insist on wanting to know about all that
idiocy, I will tell you one day, but now...”

“I was told too about some footman of yours in the country whom you
treated badly.”

“I beg you to drop the subject,” Svidrigaïlov interrupted again with
obvious impatience.

“Was that the footman who came to you after death to fill your pipe?...
you told me about it yourself.” Raskolnikov felt more and more
irritated.

Svidrigaïlov looked at him attentively and Raskolnikov fancied he caught
a flash of spiteful mockery in that look. But Svidrigaïlov restrained
himself and answered very civilly:

“Yes, it was. I see that you, too, are extremely interested and shall
feel it my duty to satisfy your curiosity at the first opportunity. Upon
my soul! I see that I really might pass for a romantic figure with
some people. Judge how grateful I must be to Marfa Petrovna for having
repeated to Avdotya Romanovna such mysterious and interesting gossip
about me. I dare not guess what impression it made on her, but in any
case it worked in my interests. With all Avdotya Romanovna’s natural
aversion and in spite of my invariably gloomy and repellent aspect--she
did at least feel pity for me, pity for a lost soul. And if once a
girl’s heart is moved to _pity_, it’s more dangerous than anything. She
is bound to want to ‘save him,’ to bring him to his senses, and lift
him up and draw him to nobler aims, and restore him to new life and
usefulness--well, we all know how far such dreams can go. I saw at once
that the bird was flying into the cage of herself. And I too made ready.
I think you are frowning, Rodion Romanovitch? There’s no need. As you
know, it all ended in smoke. (Hang it all, what a lot I am drinking!)
Do you know, I always, from the very beginning, regretted that it wasn’t
your sister’s fate to be born in the second or third century A.D., as
the daughter of a reigning prince or some governor or pro-consul in Asia
Minor. She would undoubtedly have been one of those who would endure
martyrdom and would have smiled when they branded her bosom with hot
pincers. And she would have gone to it of herself. And in the fourth or
fifth century she would have walked away into the Egyptian desert and
would have stayed there thirty years living on roots and ecstasies and
visions. She is simply thirsting to face some torture for someone, and
if she can’t get her torture, she’ll throw herself out of a window. I’ve
heard something of a Mr. Razumihin--he’s said to be a sensible fellow;
his surname suggests it, indeed. He’s probably a divinity student. Well,
he’d better look after your sister! I believe I understand her, and I am
proud of it. But at the beginning of an acquaintance, as you know, one
is apt to be more heedless and stupid. One doesn’t see clearly. Hang it
all, why is she so handsome? It’s not my fault. In fact, it began on
my side with a most irresistible physical desire. Avdotya Romanovna is
awfully chaste, incredibly and phenomenally so. Take note, I tell you
this about your sister as a fact. She is almost morbidly chaste, in
spite of her broad intelligence, and it will stand in her way. There
happened to be a girl in the house then, Parasha, a black-eyed
wench, whom I had never seen before--she had just come from another
village--very pretty, but incredibly stupid: she burst into tears,
wailed so that she could be heard all over the place and caused scandal.
One day after dinner Avdotya Romanovna followed me into an avenue in
the garden and with flashing eyes _insisted_ on my leaving poor Parasha
alone. It was almost our first conversation by ourselves. I, of course,
was only too pleased to obey her wishes, tried to appear disconcerted,
embarrassed, in fact played my part not badly. Then came interviews,
mysterious conversations, exhortations, entreaties, supplications, even
tears--would you believe it, even tears? Think what the passion for
propaganda will bring some girls to! I, of course, threw it all on
my destiny, posed as hungering and thirsting for light, and finally
resorted to the most powerful weapon in the subjection of the
female heart, a weapon which never fails one. It’s the well-known
resource--flattery. Nothing in the world is harder than speaking the
truth and nothing easier than flattery. If there’s the hundredth part
of a false note in speaking the truth, it leads to a discord, and that
leads to trouble. But if all, to the last note, is false in flattery, it
is just as agreeable, and is heard not without satisfaction. It may be
a coarse satisfaction, but still a satisfaction. And however coarse the
flattery, at least half will be sure to seem true. That’s so for all
stages of development and classes of society. A vestal virgin might be
seduced by flattery. I can never remember without laughter how I once
seduced a lady who was devoted to her husband, her children, and her
principles. What fun it was and how little trouble! And the lady really
had principles--of her own, anyway. All my tactics lay in simply being
utterly annihilated and prostrate before her purity. I flattered her
shamelessly, and as soon as I succeeded in getting a pressure of
the hand, even a glance from her, I would reproach myself for having
snatched it by force, and would declare that she had resisted, so that
I could never have gained anything but for my being so unprincipled.
I maintained that she was so innocent that she could not foresee my
treachery, and yielded to me unconsciously, unawares, and so on. In
fact, I triumphed, while my lady remained firmly convinced that she was
innocent, chaste, and faithful to all her duties and obligations and
had succumbed quite by accident. And how angry she was with me when I
explained to her at last that it was my sincere conviction that she was
just as eager as I. Poor Marfa Petrovna was awfully weak on the side of
flattery, and if I had only cared to, I might have had all her property
settled on me during her lifetime. (I am drinking an awful lot of wine
now and talking too much.) I hope you won’t be angry if I mention now
that I was beginning to produce the same effect on Avdotya Romanovna.
But I was stupid and impatient and spoiled it all. Avdotya Romanovna had
several times--and one time in particular--been greatly displeased by
the expression of my eyes, would you believe it? There was sometimes a
light in them which frightened her and grew stronger and stronger and
more unguarded till it was hateful to her. No need to go into detail,
but we parted. There I acted stupidly again. I fell to jeering in the
coarsest way at all such propaganda and efforts to convert me; Parasha
came on to the scene again, and not she alone; in fact there was a
tremendous to-do. Ah, Rodion Romanovitch, if you could only see how your
sister’s eyes can flash sometimes! Never mind my being drunk at this
moment and having had a whole glass of wine. I am speaking the truth.
I assure you that this glance has haunted my dreams; the very rustle of
her dress was more than I could stand at last. I really began to think
that I might become epileptic. I could never have believed that I could
be moved to such a frenzy. It was essential, indeed, to be reconciled,
but by then it was impossible. And imagine what I did then! To what
a pitch of stupidity a man can be brought by frenzy! Never undertake
anything in a frenzy, Rodion Romanovitch. I reflected that Avdotya
Romanovna was after all a beggar (ach, excuse me, that’s not the word...
but does it matter if it expresses the meaning?), that she lived by
her work, that she had her mother and you to keep (ach, hang it, you
are frowning again), and I resolved to offer her all my money--thirty
thousand roubles I could have realised then--if she would run away with
me here, to Petersburg. Of course I should have vowed eternal love,
rapture, and so on. Do you know, I was so wild about her at that time
that if she had told me to poison Marfa Petrovna or to cut her throat
and to marry herself, it would have been done at once! But it ended in
the catastrophe of which you know already. You can fancy how frantic I
was when I heard that Marfa Petrovna had got hold of that scoundrelly
attorney, Luzhin, and had almost made a match between them--which would
really have been just the same thing as I was proposing. Wouldn’t it?
Wouldn’t it? I notice that you’ve begun to be very attentive... you
interesting young man....”

Svidrigaïlov struck the table with his fist impatiently. He was flushed.
Raskolnikov saw clearly that the glass or glass and a half of champagne
that he had sipped almost unconsciously was affecting him--and he
resolved to take advantage of the opportunity. He felt very suspicious
of Svidrigaïlov.

“Well, after what you have said, I am fully convinced that you have
come to Petersburg with designs on my sister,” he said directly to
Svidrigaïlov, in order to irritate him further.

“Oh, nonsense,” said Svidrigaïlov, seeming to rouse himself. “Why, I
told you... besides your sister can’t endure me.”

“Yes, I am certain that she can’t, but that’s not the point.”

“Are you so sure that she can’t?” Svidrigaïlov screwed up his eyes and
smiled mockingly. “You are right, she doesn’t love me, but you can
never be sure of what has passed between husband and wife or lover and
mistress. There’s always a little corner which remains a secret to
the world and is only known to those two. Will you answer for it that
Avdotya Romanovna regarded me with aversion?”

“From some words you’ve dropped, I notice that you still have
designs--and of course evil ones--on Dounia and mean to carry them out
promptly.”

“What, have I dropped words like that?” Svidrigaïlov asked in naïve
dismay, taking not the slightest notice of the epithet bestowed on his
designs.

“Why, you are dropping them even now. Why are you so frightened? What
are you so afraid of now?”

“Me--afraid? Afraid of you? You have rather to be afraid of me, _cher
ami_. But what nonsense.... I’ve drunk too much though, I see that. I
was almost saying too much again. Damn the wine! Hi! there, water!”

He snatched up the champagne bottle and flung it without ceremony out of
the window. Philip brought the water.

“That’s all nonsense!” said Svidrigaïlov, wetting a towel and putting it
to his head. “But I can answer you in one word and annihilate all your
suspicions. Do you know that I am going to get married?”

“You told me so before.”

“Did I? I’ve forgotten. But I couldn’t have told you so for certain for
I had not even seen my betrothed; I only meant to. But now I really
have a betrothed and it’s a settled thing, and if it weren’t that I have
business that can’t be put off, I would have taken you to see them
at once, for I should like to ask your advice. Ach, hang it, only ten
minutes left! See, look at the watch. But I must tell you, for it’s an
interesting story, my marriage, in its own way. Where are you off to?
Going again?”

“No, I’m not going away now.”

“Not at all? We shall see. I’ll take you there, I’ll show you my
betrothed, only not now. For you’ll soon have to be off. You have to go
to the right and I to the left. Do you know that Madame Resslich, the
woman I am lodging with now, eh? I know what you’re thinking, that she’s
the woman whose girl they say drowned herself in the winter. Come, are
you listening? She arranged it all for me. You’re bored, she said,
you want something to fill up your time. For, you know, I am a gloomy,
depressed person. Do you think I’m light-hearted? No, I’m gloomy. I do
no harm, but sit in a corner without speaking a word for three days at a
time. And that Resslich is a sly hussy, I tell you. I know what she has
got in her mind; she thinks I shall get sick of it, abandon my wife and
depart, and she’ll get hold of her and make a profit out of her--in our
class, of course, or higher. She told me the father was a broken-down
retired official, who has been sitting in a chair for the last three
years with his legs paralysed. The mamma, she said, was a sensible
woman. There is a son serving in the provinces, but he doesn’t help;
there is a daughter, who is married, but she doesn’t visit them. And
they’ve two little nephews on their hands, as though their own children
were not enough, and they’ve taken from school their youngest daughter,
a girl who’ll be sixteen in another month, so that then she can be
married. She was for me. We went there. How funny it was! I present
myself--a landowner, a widower, of a well-known name, with connections,
with a fortune. What if I am fifty and she is not sixteen? Who thinks
of that? But it’s fascinating, isn’t it? It is fascinating, ha-ha! You
should have seen how I talked to the papa and mamma. It was worth paying
to have seen me at that moment. She comes in, curtseys, you can fancy,
still in a short frock--an unopened bud! Flushing like a sunset--she had
been told, no doubt. I don’t know how you feel about female faces, but
to my mind these sixteen years, these childish eyes, shyness and tears
of bashfulness are better than beauty; and she is a perfect little
picture, too. Fair hair in little curls, like a lamb’s, full little rosy
lips, tiny feet, a charmer!... Well, we made friends. I told them I was
in a hurry owing to domestic circumstances, and the next day, that is
the day before yesterday, we were betrothed. When I go now I take her on
my knee at once and keep her there.... Well, she flushes like a sunset
and I kiss her every minute. Her mamma of course impresses on her that
this is her husband and that this must be so. It’s simply delicious! The
present betrothed condition is perhaps better than marriage. Here you
have what is called _la nature et la vérité_, ha-ha! I’ve talked to her
twice, she is far from a fool. Sometimes she steals a look at me that
positively scorches me. Her face is like Raphael’s Madonna. You know,
the Sistine Madonna’s face has something fantastic in it, the face
of mournful religious ecstasy. Haven’t you noticed it? Well, she’s
something in that line. The day after we’d been betrothed, I bought her
presents to the value of fifteen hundred roubles--a set of diamonds and
another of pearls and a silver dressing-case as large as this, with all
sorts of things in it, so that even my Madonna’s face glowed. I sat her
on my knee, yesterday, and I suppose rather too unceremoniously--she
flushed crimson and the tears started, but she didn’t want to show it.
We were left alone, she suddenly flung herself on my neck (for the first
time of her own accord), put her little arms round me, kissed me, and
vowed that she would be an obedient, faithful, and good wife, would make
me happy, would devote all her life, every minute of her life, would
sacrifice everything, everything, and that all she asks in return is
my _respect_, and that she wants ‘nothing, nothing more from me, no
presents.’ You’ll admit that to hear such a confession, alone, from an
angel of sixteen in a muslin frock, with little curls, with a flush
of maiden shyness in her cheeks and tears of enthusiasm in her eyes is
rather fascinating! Isn’t it fascinating? It’s worth paying for, isn’t
it? Well... listen, we’ll go to see my betrothed, only not just now!”

“The fact is this monstrous difference in age and development excites
your sensuality! Will you really make such a marriage?”

“Why, of course. Everyone thinks of himself, and he lives most gaily who
knows best how to deceive himself. Ha-ha! But why are you so keen about
virtue? Have mercy on me, my good friend. I am a sinful man. Ha-ha-ha!”

“But you have provided for the children of Katerina Ivanovna. Though...
though you had your own reasons.... I understand it all now.”

“I am always fond of children, very fond of them,” laughed Svidrigaïlov.
“I can tell you one curious instance of it. The first day I came here I
visited various haunts, after seven years I simply rushed at them. You
probably notice that I am not in a hurry to renew acquaintance with my
old friends. I shall do without them as long as I can. Do you know, when
I was with Marfa Petrovna in the country, I was haunted by the thought
of these places where anyone who knows his way about can find a great
deal. Yes, upon my soul! The peasants have vodka, the educated young
people, shut out from activity, waste themselves in impossible dreams
and visions and are crippled by theories; Jews have sprung up and are
amassing money, and all the rest give themselves up to debauchery. From
the first hour the town reeked of its familiar odours. I chanced to be
in a frightful den--I like my dens dirty--it was a dance, so called, and
there was a _cancan_ such as I never saw in my day. Yes, there you
have progress. All of a sudden I saw a little girl of thirteen, nicely
dressed, dancing with a specialist in that line, with another one
_vis-à-vis_. Her mother was sitting on a chair by the wall. You can’t
fancy what a _cancan_ that was! The girl was ashamed, blushed, at
last felt insulted, and began to cry. Her partner seized her and began
whirling her round and performing before her; everyone laughed and--I
like your public, even the _cancan_ public--they laughed and shouted,
‘Serves her right--serves her right! Shouldn’t bring children!’ Well,
it’s not my business whether that consoling reflection was logical or
not. I at once fixed on my plan, sat down by the mother, and began by
saying that I too was a stranger and that people here were ill-bred and
that they couldn’t distinguish decent folks and treat them with respect,
gave her to understand that I had plenty of money, offered to take them
home in my carriage. I took them home and got to know them. They were
lodging in a miserable little hole and had only just arrived from the
country. She told me that she and her daughter could only regard my
acquaintance as an honour. I found out that they had nothing of their
own and had come to town upon some legal business. I proffered my
services and money. I learnt that they had gone to the dancing saloon
by mistake, believing that it was a genuine dancing class. I offered to
assist in the young girl’s education in French and dancing. My offer was
accepted with enthusiasm as an honour--and we are still friendly.... If
you like, we’ll go and see them, only not just now.”

“Stop! Enough of your vile, nasty anecdotes, depraved vile, sensual
man!”

“Schiller, you are a regular Schiller! _O la vertu va-t-elle se nicher?_
But you know I shall tell you these things on purpose, for the pleasure
of hearing your outcries!”

“I dare say. I can see I am ridiculous myself,” muttered Raskolnikov
angrily.

Svidrigaïlov laughed heartily; finally he called Philip, paid his bill,
and began getting up.

“I say, but I am drunk, _assez causé_,” he said. “It’s been a pleasure.”

“I should rather think it must be a pleasure!” cried Raskolnikov,
getting up. “No doubt it is a pleasure for a worn-out profligate to
describe such adventures with a monstrous project of the same sort in
his mind--especially under such circumstances and to such a man as
me.... It’s stimulating!”

“Well, if you come to that,” Svidrigaïlov answered, scrutinising
Raskolnikov with some surprise, “if you come to that, you are a thorough
cynic yourself. You’ve plenty to make you so, anyway. You can understand
a great deal... and you can do a great deal too. But enough. I sincerely
regret not having had more talk with you, but I shan’t lose sight of
you.... Only wait a bit.”

Svidrigaïlov walked out of the restaurant. Raskolnikov walked out after
him. Svidrigaïlov was not however very drunk, the wine had affected him
for a moment, but it was passing off every minute. He was preoccupied
with something of importance and was frowning. He was apparently excited
and uneasy in anticipation of something. His manner to Raskolnikov had
changed during the last few minutes, and he was ruder and more sneering
every moment. Raskolnikov noticed all this, and he too was uneasy. He
became very suspicious of Svidrigaïlov and resolved to follow him.

They came out on to the pavement.

“You go to the right, and I to the left, or if you like, the other way.
Only _adieu, mon plaisir_, may we meet again.”

And he walked to the right towards the Hay Market.



CHAPTER V

Raskolnikov walked after him.

“What’s this?” cried Svidrigaïlov turning round, “I thought I said...”

“It means that I am not going to lose sight of you now.”

“What?”

Both stood still and gazed at one another, as though measuring their
strength.

“From all your half tipsy stories,” Raskolnikov observed harshly, “I am
_positive_ that you have not given up your designs on my sister, but
are pursuing them more actively than ever. I have learnt that my sister
received a letter this morning. You have hardly been able to sit still
all this time.... You may have unearthed a wife on the way, but that
means nothing. I should like to make certain myself.”

Raskolnikov could hardly have said himself what he wanted and of what he
wished to make certain.

“Upon my word! I’ll call the police!”

“Call away!”

Again they stood for a minute facing each other. At last Svidrigaïlov’s
face changed. Having satisfied himself that Raskolnikov was not
frightened at his threat, he assumed a mirthful and friendly air.

“What a fellow! I purposely refrained from referring to your affair,
though I am devoured by curiosity. It’s a fantastic affair. I’ve put it
off till another time, but you’re enough to rouse the dead.... Well, let
us go, only I warn you beforehand I am only going home for a moment,
to get some money; then I shall lock up the flat, take a cab and go to
spend the evening at the Islands. Now, now are you going to follow me?”

“I’m coming to your lodgings, not to see you but Sofya Semyonovna, to
say I’m sorry not to have been at the funeral.”

“That’s as you like, but Sofya Semyonovna is not at home. She has taken
the three children to an old lady of high rank, the patroness of some
orphan asylums, whom I used to know years ago. I charmed the old lady by
depositing a sum of money with her to provide for the three children of
Katerina Ivanovna and subscribing to the institution as well. I told her
too the story of Sofya Semyonovna in full detail, suppressing nothing.
It produced an indescribable effect on her. That’s why Sofya Semyonovna
has been invited to call to-day at the X. Hotel where the lady is
staying for the time.”

“No matter, I’ll come all the same.”

“As you like, it’s nothing to me, but I won’t come with you; here we are
at home. By the way, I am convinced that you regard me with suspicion
just because I have shown such delicacy and have not so far troubled
you with questions... you understand? It struck you as extraordinary; I
don’t mind betting it’s that. Well, it teaches one to show delicacy!”

“And to listen at doors!”

“Ah, that’s it, is it?” laughed Svidrigaïlov. “Yes, I should have been
surprised if you had let that pass after all that has happened. Ha-ha!
Though I did understand something of the pranks you had been up to and
were telling Sofya Semyonovna about, what was the meaning of it? Perhaps
I am quite behind the times and can’t understand. For goodness’ sake,
explain it, my dear boy. Expound the latest theories!”

“You couldn’t have heard anything. You’re making it all up!”

“But I’m not talking about that (though I did hear something). No, I’m
talking of the way you keep sighing and groaning now. The Schiller in
you is in revolt every moment, and now you tell me not to listen at
doors. If that’s how you feel, go and inform the police that you had
this mischance: you made a little mistake in your theory. But if you are
convinced that one mustn’t listen at doors, but one may murder old women
at one’s pleasure, you’d better be off to America and make haste. Run,
young man! There may still be time. I’m speaking sincerely. Haven’t you
the money? I’ll give you the fare.”

“I’m not thinking of that at all,” Raskolnikov interrupted with disgust.

“I understand (but don’t put yourself out, don’t discuss it if you don’t
want to). I understand the questions you are worrying over--moral ones,
aren’t they? Duties of citizen and man? Lay them all aside. They are
nothing to you now, ha-ha! You’ll say you are still a man and a citizen.
If so you ought not to have got into this coil. It’s no use taking up a
job you are not fit for. Well, you’d better shoot yourself, or don’t you
want to?”

“You seem trying to enrage me, to make me leave you.”

“What a queer fellow! But here we are. Welcome to the staircase. You
see, that’s the way to Sofya Semyonovna. Look, there is no one at home.
Don’t you believe me? Ask Kapernaumov. She leaves the key with him. Here
is Madame de Kapernaumov herself. Hey, what? She is rather deaf. Has she
gone out? Where? Did you hear? She is not in and won’t be till late in
the evening probably. Well, come to my room; you wanted to come and see
me, didn’t you? Here we are. Madame Resslich’s not at home. She is a
woman who is always busy, an excellent woman I assure you.... She might
have been of use to you if you had been a little more sensible. Now,
see! I take this five-per-cent bond out of the bureau--see what a lot
I’ve got of them still--this one will be turned into cash to-day. I
mustn’t waste any more time. The bureau is locked, the flat is locked,
and here we are again on the stairs. Shall we take a cab? I’m going to
the Islands. Would you like a lift? I’ll take this carriage. Ah, you
refuse? You are tired of it! Come for a drive! I believe it will come on
to rain. Never mind, we’ll put down the hood....”

Svidrigaïlov was already in the carriage. Raskolnikov decided that his
suspicions were at least for that moment unjust. Without answering a
word he turned and walked back towards the Hay Market. If he had only
turned round on his way he might have seen Svidrigaïlov get out not a
hundred paces off, dismiss the cab and walk along the pavement. But he
had turned the corner and could see nothing. Intense disgust drew him
away from Svidrigaïlov.

“To think that I could for one instant have looked for help from that
coarse brute, that depraved sensualist and blackguard!” he cried.

Raskolnikov’s judgment was uttered too lightly and hastily: there was
something about Svidrigaïlov which gave him a certain original, even a
mysterious character. As concerned his sister, Raskolnikov was convinced
that Svidrigaïlov would not leave her in peace. But it was too tiresome
and unbearable to go on thinking and thinking about this.

When he was alone, he had not gone twenty paces before he sank, as
usual, into deep thought. On the bridge he stood by the railing and
began gazing at the water. And his sister was standing close by him.

He met her at the entrance to the bridge, but passed by without seeing
her. Dounia had never met him like this in the street before and was
struck with dismay. She stood still and did not know whether to call
to him or not. Suddenly she saw Svidrigaïlov coming quickly from the
direction of the Hay Market.

He seemed to be approaching cautiously. He did not go on to the
bridge, but stood aside on the pavement, doing all he could to avoid
Raskolnikov’s seeing him. He had observed Dounia for some time and had
been making signs to her. She fancied he was signalling to beg her not
to speak to her brother, but to come to him.

That was what Dounia did. She stole by her brother and went up to
Svidrigaïlov.

“Let us make haste away,” Svidrigaïlov whispered to her, “I don’t want
Rodion Romanovitch to know of our meeting. I must tell you I’ve been
sitting with him in the restaurant close by, where he looked me up and
I had great difficulty in getting rid of him. He has somehow heard of
my letter to you and suspects something. It wasn’t you who told him, of
course, but if not you, who then?”

“Well, we’ve turned the corner now,” Dounia interrupted, “and my brother
won’t see us. I have to tell you that I am going no further with you.
Speak to me here. You can tell it all in the street.”

“In the first place, I can’t say it in the street; secondly, you must
hear Sofya Semyonovna too; and, thirdly, I will show you some papers....
Oh well, if you won’t agree to come with me, I shall refuse to give
any explanation and go away at once. But I beg you not to forget that
a very curious secret of your beloved brother’s is entirely in my
keeping.”

Dounia stood still, hesitating, and looked at Svidrigaïlov with
searching eyes.

“What are you afraid of?” he observed quietly. “The town is not the
country. And even in the country you did me more harm than I did you.”

“Have you prepared Sofya Semyonovna?”

“No, I have not said a word to her and am not quite certain whether she
is at home now. But most likely she is. She has buried her stepmother
to-day: she is not likely to go visiting on such a day. For the time I
don’t want to speak to anyone about it and I half regret having spoken
to you. The slightest indiscretion is as bad as betrayal in a thing like
this. I live there in that house, we are coming to it. That’s the porter
of our house--he knows me very well; you see, he’s bowing; he sees I’m
coming with a lady and no doubt he has noticed your face already and you
will be glad of that if you are afraid of me and suspicious. Excuse
my putting things so coarsely. I haven’t a flat to myself; Sofya
Semyonovna’s room is next to mine--she lodges in the next flat. The
whole floor is let out in lodgings. Why are you frightened like a child?
Am I really so terrible?”

Svidrigaïlov’s lips were twisted in a condescending smile; but he was in
no smiling mood. His heart was throbbing and he could scarcely breathe.
He spoke rather loud to cover his growing excitement. But Dounia did not
notice this peculiar excitement, she was so irritated by his remark that
she was frightened of him like a child and that he was so terrible to
her.

“Though I know that you are not a man... of honour, I am not in the
least afraid of you. Lead the way,” she said with apparent composure,
but her face was very pale.

Svidrigaïlov stopped at Sonia’s room.

“Allow me to inquire whether she is at home.... She is not. How
unfortunate! But I know she may come quite soon. If she’s gone out, it
can only be to see a lady about the orphans. Their mother is dead....
I’ve been meddling and making arrangements for them. If Sofya Semyonovna
does not come back in ten minutes, I will send her to you, to-day if
you like. This is my flat. These are my two rooms. Madame Resslich,
my landlady, has the next room. Now, look this way. I will show you
my chief piece of evidence: this door from my bedroom leads into two
perfectly empty rooms, which are to let. Here they are... You must look
into them with some attention.”

Svidrigaïlov occupied two fairly large furnished rooms. Dounia was
looking about her mistrustfully, but saw nothing special in the
furniture or position of the rooms. Yet there was something to observe,
for instance, that Svidrigaïlov’s flat was exactly between two sets of
almost uninhabited apartments. His rooms were not entered directly
from the passage, but through the landlady’s two almost empty rooms.
Unlocking a door leading out of his bedroom, Svidrigaïlov showed Dounia
the two empty rooms that were to let. Dounia stopped in the doorway, not
knowing what she was called to look upon, but Svidrigaïlov hastened to
explain.

“Look here, at this second large room. Notice that door, it’s locked.
By the door stands a chair, the only one in the two rooms. I brought it
from my rooms so as to listen more conveniently. Just the other side of
the door is Sofya Semyonovna’s table; she sat there talking to Rodion
Romanovitch. And I sat here listening on two successive evenings, for
two hours each time--and of course I was able to learn something, what
do you think?”

“You listened?”

“Yes, I did. Now come back to my room; we can’t sit down here.”

He brought Avdotya Romanovna back into his sitting-room and offered her
a chair. He sat down at the opposite side of the table, at least seven
feet from her, but probably there was the same glow in his eyes which
had once frightened Dounia so much. She shuddered and once more looked
about her distrustfully. It was an involuntary gesture; she evidently
did not wish to betray her uneasiness. But the secluded position of
Svidrigaïlov’s lodging had suddenly struck her. She wanted to ask
whether his landlady at least were at home, but pride kept her from
asking. Moreover, she had another trouble in her heart incomparably
greater than fear for herself. She was in great distress.

“Here is your letter,” she said, laying it on the table. “Can it be true
what you write? You hint at a crime committed, you say, by my brother.
You hint at it too clearly; you daren’t deny it now. I must tell you
that I’d heard of this stupid story before you wrote and don’t believe a
word of it. It’s a disgusting and ridiculous suspicion. I know the story
and why and how it was invented. You can have no proofs. You promised to
prove it. Speak! But let me warn you that I don’t believe you! I don’t
believe you!”

Dounia said this, speaking hurriedly, and for an instant the colour
rushed to her face.

“If you didn’t believe it, how could you risk coming alone to my rooms?
Why have you come? Simply from curiosity?”

“Don’t torment me. Speak, speak!”

“There’s no denying that you are a brave girl. Upon my word, I thought
you would have asked Mr. Razumihin to escort you here. But he was not
with you nor anywhere near. I was on the look-out. It’s spirited of
you, it proves you wanted to spare Rodion Romanovitch. But everything
is divine in you.... About your brother, what am I to say to you? You’ve
just seen him yourself. What did you think of him?”

“Surely that’s not the only thing you are building on?”

“No, not on that, but on his own words. He came here on two successive
evenings to see Sofya Semyonovna. I’ve shown you where they sat. He made
a full confession to her. He is a murderer. He killed an old woman, a
pawnbroker, with whom he had pawned things himself. He killed her sister
too, a pedlar woman called Lizaveta, who happened to come in while he
was murdering her sister. He killed them with an axe he brought with
him. He murdered them to rob them and he did rob them. He took money and
various things.... He told all this, word for word, to Sofya Semyonovna,
the only person who knows his secret. But she has had no share by word
or deed in the murder; she was as horrified at it as you are now. Don’t
be anxious, she won’t betray him.”

“It cannot be,” muttered Dounia, with white lips. She gasped for breath.
“It cannot be. There was not the slightest cause, no sort of ground....
It’s a lie, a lie!”

“He robbed her, that was the cause, he took money and things. It’s true
that by his own admission he made no use of the money or things, but hid
them under a stone, where they are now. But that was because he dared
not make use of them.”

“But how could he steal, rob? How could he dream of it?” cried Dounia,
and she jumped up from the chair. “Why, you know him, and you’ve seen
him, can he be a thief?”

She seemed to be imploring Svidrigaïlov; she had entirely forgotten her
fear.

“There are thousands and millions of combinations and possibilities,
Avdotya Romanovna. A thief steals and knows he is a scoundrel, but I’ve
heard of a gentleman who broke open the mail. Who knows, very likely he
thought he was doing a gentlemanly thing! Of course I should not have
believed it myself if I’d been told of it as you have, but I believe my
own ears. He explained all the causes of it to Sofya Semyonovna too, but
she did not believe her ears at first, yet she believed her own eyes at
last.”

“What... were the causes?”

“It’s a long story, Avdotya Romanovna. Here’s... how shall I tell
you?--A theory of a sort, the same one by which I for instance consider
that a single misdeed is permissible if the principal aim is right, a
solitary wrongdoing and hundreds of good deeds! It’s galling too, of
course, for a young man of gifts and overweening pride to know that if
he had, for instance, a paltry three thousand, his whole career, his
whole future would be differently shaped and yet not to have that three
thousand. Add to that, nervous irritability from hunger, from lodging
in a hole, from rags, from a vivid sense of the charm of his social
position and his sister’s and mother’s position too. Above all, vanity,
pride and vanity, though goodness knows he may have good qualities
too.... I am not blaming him, please don’t think it; besides, it’s not
my business. A special little theory came in too--a theory of a
sort--dividing mankind, you see, into material and superior persons,
that is persons to whom the law does not apply owing to their
superiority, who make laws for the rest of mankind, the material, that
is. It’s all right as a theory, _une théorie comme une autre_. Napoleon
attracted him tremendously, that is, what affected him was that a
great many men of genius have not hesitated at wrongdoing, but have
overstepped the law without thinking about it. He seems to have fancied
that he was a genius too--that is, he was convinced of it for a time. He
has suffered a great deal and is still suffering from the idea that he
could make a theory, but was incapable of boldly overstepping the law,
and so he is not a man of genius. And that’s humiliating for a young man
of any pride, in our day especially....”

“But remorse? You deny him any moral feeling then? Is he like that?”

“Ah, Avdotya Romanovna, everything is in a muddle now; not that it was
ever in very good order. Russians in general are broad in their ideas,
Avdotya Romanovna, broad like their land and exceedingly disposed to
the fantastic, the chaotic. But it’s a misfortune to be broad without
a special genius. Do you remember what a lot of talk we had together on
this subject, sitting in the evenings on the terrace after supper? Why,
you used to reproach me with breadth! Who knows, perhaps we were talking
at the very time when he was lying here thinking over his plan. There
are no sacred traditions amongst us, especially in the educated class,
Avdotya Romanovna. At the best someone will make them up somehow for
himself out of books or from some old chronicle. But those are for the
most part the learned and all old fogeys, so that it would be almost
ill-bred in a man of society. You know my opinions in general, though. I
never blame anyone. I do nothing at all, I persevere in that. But
we’ve talked of this more than once before. I was so happy indeed as to
interest you in my opinions.... You are very pale, Avdotya Romanovna.”

“I know his theory. I read that article of his about men to whom all is
permitted. Razumihin brought it to me.”

“Mr. Razumihin? Your brother’s article? In a magazine? Is there such an
article? I didn’t know. It must be interesting. But where are you going,
Avdotya Romanovna?”

“I want to see Sofya Semyonovna,” Dounia articulated faintly. “How do I
go to her? She has come in, perhaps. I must see her at once. Perhaps
she...”

Avdotya Romanovna could not finish. Her breath literally failed her.

“Sofya Semyonovna will not be back till night, at least I believe not.
She was to have been back at once, but if not, then she will not be in
till quite late.”

“Ah, then you are lying! I see... you were lying... lying all the
time.... I don’t believe you! I don’t believe you!” cried Dounia,
completely losing her head.

Almost fainting, she sank on to a chair which Svidrigaïlov made haste to
give her.

“Avdotya Romanovna, what is it? Control yourself! Here is some water.
Drink a little....”

He sprinkled some water over her. Dounia shuddered and came to herself.

“It has acted violently,” Svidrigaïlov muttered to himself, frowning.
“Avdotya Romanovna, calm yourself! Believe me, he has friends. We will
save him. Would you like me to take him abroad? I have money, I can get
a ticket in three days. And as for the murder, he will do all sorts of
good deeds yet, to atone for it. Calm yourself. He may become a great
man yet. Well, how are you? How do you feel?”

“Cruel man! To be able to jeer at it! Let me go...”

“Where are you going?”

“To him. Where is he? Do you know? Why is this door locked? We came in
at that door and now it is locked. When did you manage to lock it?”

“We couldn’t be shouting all over the flat on such a subject. I am far
from jeering; it’s simply that I’m sick of talking like this. But how
can you go in such a state? Do you want to betray him? You will drive
him to fury, and he will give himself up. Let me tell you, he is already
being watched; they are already on his track. You will simply be giving
him away. Wait a little: I saw him and was talking to him just now. He
can still be saved. Wait a bit, sit down; let us think it over together.
I asked you to come in order to discuss it alone with you and to
consider it thoroughly. But do sit down!”

“How can you save him? Can he really be saved?”

Dounia sat down. Svidrigaïlov sat down beside her.

“It all depends on you, on you, on you alone,” he began with glowing
eyes, almost in a whisper and hardly able to utter the words for
emotion.

Dounia drew back from him in alarm. He too was trembling all over.

“You... one word from you, and he is saved. I... I’ll save him. I have
money and friends. I’ll send him away at once. I’ll get a passport,
two passports, one for him and one for me. I have friends... capable
people.... If you like, I’ll take a passport for you... for your
mother.... What do you want with Razumihin? I love you too.... I love
you beyond everything.... Let me kiss the hem of your dress, let me, let
me.... The very rustle of it is too much for me. Tell me, ‘do that,’
and I’ll do it. I’ll do everything. I will do the impossible. What you
believe, I will believe. I’ll do anything--anything! Don’t, don’t look
at me like that. Do you know that you are killing me?...”

He was almost beginning to rave.... Something seemed suddenly to go to
his head. Dounia jumped up and rushed to the door.

“Open it! Open it!” she called, shaking the door. “Open it! Is there no
one there?”

Svidrigaïlov got up and came to himself. His still trembling lips slowly
broke into an angry mocking smile.

“There is no one at home,” he said quietly and emphatically. “The
landlady has gone out, and it’s waste of time to shout like that. You
are only exciting yourself uselessly.”

“Where is the key? Open the door at once, at once, base man!”

“I have lost the key and cannot find it.”

“This is an outrage,” cried Dounia, turning pale as death. She rushed
to the furthest corner, where she made haste to barricade herself with a
little table.

She did not scream, but she fixed her eyes on her tormentor and watched
every movement he made.

Svidrigaïlov remained standing at the other end of the room facing her.
He was positively composed, at least in appearance, but his face was
pale as before. The mocking smile did not leave his face.

“You spoke of outrage just now, Avdotya Romanovna. In that case you
may be sure I’ve taken measures. Sofya Semyonovna is not at home. The
Kapernaumovs are far away--there are five locked rooms between. I am at
least twice as strong as you are and I have nothing to fear, besides.
For you could not complain afterwards. You surely would not be willing
actually to betray your brother? Besides, no one would believe you. How
should a girl have come alone to visit a solitary man in his lodgings?
So that even if you do sacrifice your brother, you could prove nothing.
It is very difficult to prove an assault, Avdotya Romanovna.”

“Scoundrel!” whispered Dounia indignantly.

“As you like, but observe I was only speaking by way of a general
proposition. It’s my personal conviction that you are perfectly
right--violence is hateful. I only spoke to show you that you need have
no remorse even if... you were willing to save your brother of your
own accord, as I suggest to you. You would be simply submitting to
circumstances, to violence, in fact, if we must use that word. Think
about it. Your brother’s and your mother’s fate are in your hands. I
will be your slave... all my life... I will wait here.”

Svidrigaïlov sat down on the sofa about eight steps from Dounia. She had
not the slightest doubt now of his unbending determination. Besides, she
knew him. Suddenly she pulled out of her pocket a revolver, cocked it
and laid it in her hand on the table. Svidrigaïlov jumped up.

“Aha! So that’s it, is it?” he cried, surprised but smiling maliciously.
“Well, that completely alters the aspect of affairs. You’ve made things
wonderfully easier for me, Avdotya Romanovna. But where did you get the
revolver? Was it Mr. Razumihin? Why, it’s my revolver, an old friend!
And how I’ve hunted for it! The shooting lessons I’ve given you in the
country have not been thrown away.”

“It’s not your revolver, it belonged to Marfa Petrovna, whom you killed,
wretch! There was nothing of yours in her house. I took it when I began
to suspect what you were capable of. If you dare to advance one step, I
swear I’ll kill you.” She was frantic.

“But your brother? I ask from curiosity,” said Svidrigaïlov, still
standing where he was.

“Inform, if you want to! Don’t stir! Don’t come nearer! I’ll shoot! You
poisoned your wife, I know; you are a murderer yourself!” She held the
revolver ready.

“Are you so positive I poisoned Marfa Petrovna?”

“You did! You hinted it yourself; you talked to me of poison.... I know
you went to get it... you had it in readiness.... It was your doing....
It must have been your doing.... Scoundrel!”

“Even if that were true, it would have been for your sake... you would
have been the cause.”

“You are lying! I hated you always, always....”

“Oho, Avdotya Romanovna! You seem to have forgotten how you softened
to me in the heat of propaganda. I saw it in your eyes. Do you remember
that moonlight night, when the nightingale was singing?”

“That’s a lie,” there was a flash of fury in Dounia’s eyes, “that’s a
lie and a libel!”

“A lie? Well, if you like, it’s a lie. I made it up. Women ought not
to be reminded of such things,” he smiled. “I know you will shoot, you
pretty wild creature. Well, shoot away!”

Dounia raised the revolver, and deadly pale, gazed at him, measuring the
distance and awaiting the first movement on his part. Her lower lip was
white and quivering and her big black eyes flashed like fire. He had
never seen her so handsome. The fire glowing in her eyes at the moment
she raised the revolver seemed to kindle him and there was a pang of
anguish in his heart. He took a step forward and a shot rang out. The
bullet grazed his hair and flew into the wall behind. He stood still and
laughed softly.

“The wasp has stung me. She aimed straight at my head. What’s this?
Blood?” he pulled out his handkerchief to wipe the blood, which flowed
in a thin stream down his right temple. The bullet seemed to have just
grazed the skin.

Dounia lowered the revolver and looked at Svidrigaïlov not so much in
terror as in a sort of wild amazement. She seemed not to understand what
she was doing and what was going on.

“Well, you missed! Fire again, I’ll wait,” said Svidrigaïlov softly,
still smiling, but gloomily. “If you go on like that, I shall have time
to seize you before you cock again.”

Dounia started, quickly cocked the pistol and again raised it.

“Let me be,” she cried in despair. “I swear I’ll shoot again. I... I’ll
kill you.”

“Well... at three paces you can hardly help it. But if you don’t...
then.” His eyes flashed and he took two steps forward. Dounia shot
again: it missed fire.

“You haven’t loaded it properly. Never mind, you have another charge
there. Get it ready, I’ll wait.”

He stood facing her, two paces away, waiting and gazing at her with wild
determination, with feverishly passionate, stubborn, set eyes. Dounia
saw that he would sooner die than let her go. “And... now, of course she
would kill him, at two paces!” Suddenly she flung away the revolver.

“She’s dropped it!” said Svidrigaïlov with surprise, and he drew a deep
breath. A weight seemed to have rolled from his heart--perhaps not only
the fear of death; indeed he may scarcely have felt it at that moment.
It was the deliverance from another feeling, darker and more bitter,
which he could not himself have defined.

He went to Dounia and gently put his arm round her waist. She did not
resist, but, trembling like a leaf, looked at him with suppliant eyes.
He tried to say something, but his lips moved without being able to
utter a sound.

“Let me go,” Dounia implored. Svidrigaïlov shuddered. Her voice now was
quite different.

“Then you don’t love me?” he asked softly. Dounia shook her head.

“And... and you can’t? Never?” he whispered in despair.

“Never!”

There followed a moment of terrible, dumb struggle in the heart of
Svidrigaïlov. He looked at her with an indescribable gaze. Suddenly
he withdrew his arm, turned quickly to the window and stood facing it.
Another moment passed.

“Here’s the key.”

He took it out of the left pocket of his coat and laid it on the table
behind him, without turning or looking at Dounia.

“Take it! Make haste!”

He looked stubbornly out of the window. Dounia went up to the table to
take the key.

“Make haste! Make haste!” repeated Svidrigaïlov, still without turning
or moving. But there seemed a terrible significance in the tone of that
“make haste.”

Dounia understood it, snatched up the key, flew to the door, unlocked it
quickly and rushed out of the room. A minute later, beside herself, she
ran out on to the canal bank in the direction of X. Bridge.

Svidrigaïlov remained three minutes standing at the window. At last he
slowly turned, looked about him and passed his hand over his forehead. A
strange smile contorted his face, a pitiful, sad, weak smile, a smile of
despair. The blood, which was already getting dry, smeared his hand.
He looked angrily at it, then wetted a towel and washed his temple.
The revolver which Dounia had flung away lay near the door and suddenly
caught his eye. He picked it up and examined it. It was a little pocket
three-barrel revolver of old-fashioned construction. There were still
two charges and one capsule left in it. It could be fired again. He
thought a little, put the revolver in his pocket, took his hat and went
out.



CHAPTER VI

He spent that evening till ten o’clock going from one low haunt to
another. Katia too turned up and sang another gutter song, how a certain
“villain and tyrant”

    “began kissing Katia.”

Svidrigaïlov treated Katia and the organ-grinder and some singers and
the waiters and two little clerks. He was particularly drawn to these
clerks by the fact that they both had crooked noses, one bent to the
left and the other to the right. They took him finally to a pleasure
garden, where he paid for their entrance. There was one lanky
three-year-old pine-tree and three bushes in the garden, besides a
“Vauxhall,” which was in reality a drinking-bar where tea too was
served, and there were a few green tables and chairs standing round it.
A chorus of wretched singers and a drunken but exceedingly depressed
German clown from Munich with a red nose entertained the public. The
clerks quarrelled with some other clerks and a fight seemed imminent.
Svidrigaïlov was chosen to decide the dispute. He listened to them for
a quarter of an hour, but they shouted so loud that there was no
possibility of understanding them. The only fact that seemed certain was
that one of them had stolen something and had even succeeded in
selling it on the spot to a Jew, but would not share the spoil with his
companion. Finally it appeared that the stolen object was a teaspoon
belonging to the Vauxhall. It was missed and the affair began to seem
troublesome. Svidrigaïlov paid for the spoon, got up, and walked out of
the garden. It was about six o’clock. He had not drunk a drop of wine
all this time and had ordered tea more for the sake of appearances than
anything.

It was a dark and stifling evening. Threatening storm-clouds came over
the sky about ten o’clock. There was a clap of thunder, and the rain
came down like a waterfall. The water fell not in drops, but beat on the
earth in streams. There were flashes of lightning every minute and each
flash lasted while one could count five.

Drenched to the skin, he went home, locked himself in, opened the
bureau, took out all his money and tore up two or three papers. Then,
putting the money in his pocket, he was about to change his clothes,
but, looking out of the window and listening to the thunder and the
rain, he gave up the idea, took up his hat and went out of the room
without locking the door. He went straight to Sonia. She was at home.

She was not alone: the four Kapernaumov children were with her. She
was giving them tea. She received Svidrigaïlov in respectful silence,
looking wonderingly at his soaking clothes. The children all ran away at
once in indescribable terror.

Svidrigaïlov sat down at the table and asked Sonia to sit beside him.
She timidly prepared to listen.

“I may be going to America, Sofya Semyonovna,” said Svidrigaïlov, “and
as I am probably seeing you for the last time, I have come to make some
arrangements. Well, did you see the lady to-day? I know what she said to
you, you need not tell me.” (Sonia made a movement and blushed.) “Those
people have their own way of doing things. As to your sisters and your
brother, they are really provided for and the money assigned to them
I’ve put into safe keeping and have received acknowledgments. You had
better take charge of the receipts, in case anything happens. Here, take
them! Well now, that’s settled. Here are three 5-per-cent bonds to the
value of three thousand roubles. Take those for yourself, entirely for
yourself, and let that be strictly between ourselves, so that no one
knows of it, whatever you hear. You will need the money, for to go on
living in the old way, Sofya Semyonovna, is bad, and besides there is no
need for it now.”

“I am so much indebted to you, and so are the children and my
stepmother,” said Sonia hurriedly, “and if I’ve said so little... please
don’t consider...”

“That’s enough! that’s enough!”

“But as for the money, Arkady Ivanovitch, I am very grateful to you,
but I don’t need it now. I can always earn my own living. Don’t think me
ungrateful. If you are so charitable, that money....”

“It’s for you, for you, Sofya Semyonovna, and please don’t waste words
over it. I haven’t time for it. You will want it. Rodion Romanovitch
has two alternatives: a bullet in the brain or Siberia.” (Sonia looked
wildly at him, and started.) “Don’t be uneasy, I know all about it from
himself and I am not a gossip; I won’t tell anyone. It was good advice
when you told him to give himself up and confess. It would be much
better for him. Well, if it turns out to be Siberia, he will go and
you will follow him. That’s so, isn’t it? And if so, you’ll need money.
You’ll need it for him, do you understand? Giving it to you is the same
as my giving it to him. Besides, you promised Amalia Ivanovna to pay
what’s owing. I heard you. How can you undertake such obligations so
heedlessly, Sofya Semyonovna? It was Katerina Ivanovna’s debt and not
yours, so you ought not to have taken any notice of the German woman.
You can’t get through the world like that. If you are ever questioned
about me--to-morrow or the day after you will be asked--don’t say
anything about my coming to see you now and don’t show the money to
anyone or say a word about it. Well, now good-bye.” (He got up.) “My
greetings to Rodion Romanovitch. By the way, you’d better put the money
for the present in Mr. Razumihin’s keeping. You know Mr. Razumihin? Of
course you do. He’s not a bad fellow. Take it to him to-morrow or...
when the time comes. And till then, hide it carefully.”

Sonia too jumped up from her chair and looked in dismay at Svidrigaïlov.
She longed to speak, to ask a question, but for the first moments she
did not dare and did not know how to begin.

“How can you... how can you be going now, in such rain?”

“Why, be starting for America, and be stopped by rain! Ha, ha! Good-bye,
Sofya Semyonovna, my dear! Live and live long, you will be of use to
others. By the way... tell Mr. Razumihin I send my greetings to him.
Tell him Arkady Ivanovitch Svidrigaïlov sends his greetings. Be sure
to.”

He went out, leaving Sonia in a state of wondering anxiety and vague
apprehension.

It appeared afterwards that on the same evening, at twenty past eleven,
he made another very eccentric and unexpected visit. The rain still
persisted. Drenched to the skin, he walked into the little flat where
the parents of his betrothed lived, in Third Street in Vassilyevsky
Island. He knocked some time before he was admitted, and his visit
at first caused great perturbation; but Svidrigaïlov could be
very fascinating when he liked, so that the first, and indeed very
intelligent surmise of the sensible parents that Svidrigaïlov had
probably had so much to drink that he did not know what he was doing
vanished immediately. The decrepit father was wheeled in to see
Svidrigaïlov by the tender and sensible mother, who as usual began the
conversation with various irrelevant questions. She never asked a direct
question, but began by smiling and rubbing her hands and then, if she
were obliged to ascertain something--for instance, when Svidrigaïlov
would like to have the wedding--she would begin by interested and
almost eager questions about Paris and the court life there, and only
by degrees brought the conversation round to Third Street. On other
occasions this had of course been very impressive, but this time Arkady
Ivanovitch seemed particularly impatient, and insisted on seeing his
betrothed at once, though he had been informed, to begin with, that she
had already gone to bed. The girl of course appeared.

Svidrigaïlov informed her at once that he was obliged by very important
affairs to leave Petersburg for a time, and therefore brought her
fifteen thousand roubles and begged her accept them as a present from
him, as he had long been intending to make her this trifling present
before their wedding. The logical connection of the present with his
immediate departure and the absolute necessity of visiting them for that
purpose in pouring rain at midnight was not made clear. But it all went
off very well; even the inevitable ejaculations of wonder and regret,
the inevitable questions were extraordinarily few and restrained. On the
other hand, the gratitude expressed was most glowing and was reinforced
by tears from the most sensible of mothers. Svidrigaïlov got up,
laughed, kissed his betrothed, patted her cheek, declared he would soon
come back, and noticing in her eyes, together with childish curiosity, a
sort of earnest dumb inquiry, reflected and kissed her again, though
he felt sincere anger inwardly at the thought that his present would be
immediately locked up in the keeping of the most sensible of mothers. He
went away, leaving them all in a state of extraordinary excitement, but
the tender mamma, speaking quietly in a half whisper, settled some of
the most important of their doubts, concluding that Svidrigaïlov was
a great man, a man of great affairs and connections and of great
wealth--there was no knowing what he had in his mind. He would start
off on a journey and give away money just as the fancy took him, so that
there was nothing surprising about it. Of course it was strange that he
was wet through, but Englishmen, for instance, are even more eccentric,
and all these people of high society didn’t think of what was said of
them and didn’t stand on ceremony. Possibly, indeed, he came like that
on purpose to show that he was not afraid of anyone. Above all, not a
word should be said about it, for God knows what might come of it, and
the money must be locked up, and it was most fortunate that Fedosya, the
cook, had not left the kitchen. And above all not a word must be said
to that old cat, Madame Resslich, and so on and so on. They sat up
whispering till two o’clock, but the girl went to bed much earlier,
amazed and rather sorrowful.

Svidrigaïlov meanwhile, exactly at midnight, crossed the bridge on the
way back to the mainland. The rain had ceased and there was a roaring
wind. He began shivering, and for one moment he gazed at the black
waters of the Little Neva with a look of special interest, even inquiry.
But he soon felt it very cold, standing by the water; he turned and
went towards Y. Prospect. He walked along that endless street for a long
time, almost half an hour, more than once stumbling in the dark on the
wooden pavement, but continually looking for something on the right side
of the street. He had noticed passing through this street lately that
there was a hotel somewhere towards the end, built of wood, but fairly
large, and its name he remembered was something like Adrianople. He was
not mistaken: the hotel was so conspicuous in that God-forsaken place
that he could not fail to see it even in the dark. It was a long,
blackened wooden building, and in spite of the late hour there were
lights in the windows and signs of life within. He went in and asked
a ragged fellow who met him in the corridor for a room. The latter,
scanning Svidrigaïlov, pulled himself together and led him at once to a
close and tiny room in the distance, at the end of the corridor, under
the stairs. There was no other, all were occupied. The ragged fellow
looked inquiringly.

“Is there tea?” asked Svidrigaïlov.

“Yes, sir.”

“What else is there?”

“Veal, vodka, savouries.”

“Bring me tea and veal.”

“And you want nothing else?” he asked with apparent surprise.

“Nothing, nothing.”

The ragged man went away, completely disillusioned.

“It must be a nice place,” thought Svidrigaïlov. “How was it I didn’t
know it? I expect I look as if I came from a café chantant and have
had some adventure on the way. It would be interesting to know who stayed
here?”

He lighted the candle and looked at the room more carefully. It was a
room so low-pitched that Svidrigaïlov could only just stand up in it;
it had one window; the bed, which was very dirty, and the plain-stained
chair and table almost filled it up. The walls looked as though they
were made of planks, covered with shabby paper, so torn and dusty
that the pattern was indistinguishable, though the general
colour--yellow--could still be made out. One of the walls was cut short
by the sloping ceiling, though the room was not an attic but just under
the stairs.

Svidrigaïlov set down the candle, sat down on the bed and sank into
thought. But a strange persistent murmur which sometimes rose to a shout
in the next room attracted his attention. The murmur had not ceased from
the moment he entered the room. He listened: someone was upbraiding and
almost tearfully scolding, but he heard only one voice.

Svidrigaïlov got up, shaded the light with his hand and at once he saw
light through a crack in the wall; he went up and peeped through. The
room, which was somewhat larger than his, had two occupants. One of
them, a very curly-headed man with a red inflamed face, was standing
in the pose of an orator, without his coat, with his legs wide apart to
preserve his balance, and smiting himself on the breast. He reproached
the other with being a beggar, with having no standing whatever. He
declared that he had taken the other out of the gutter and he could turn
him out when he liked, and that only the finger of Providence sees it
all. The object of his reproaches was sitting in a chair, and had the
air of a man who wants dreadfully to sneeze, but can’t. He sometimes
turned sheepish and befogged eyes on the speaker, but obviously had not
the slightest idea what he was talking about and scarcely heard it. A
candle was burning down on the table; there were wine-glasses, a nearly
empty bottle of vodka, bread and cucumber, and glasses with the dregs
of stale tea. After gazing attentively at this, Svidrigaïlov turned away
indifferently and sat down on the bed.

The ragged attendant, returning with the tea, could not resist asking
him again whether he didn’t want anything more, and again receiving a
negative reply, finally withdrew. Svidrigaïlov made haste to drink a
glass of tea to warm himself, but could not eat anything. He began
to feel feverish. He took off his coat and, wrapping himself in the
blanket, lay down on the bed. He was annoyed. “It would have been better
to be well for the occasion,” he thought with a smile. The room was
close, the candle burnt dimly, the wind was roaring outside, he heard
a mouse scratching in the corner and the room smelt of mice and of
leather. He lay in a sort of reverie: one thought followed another. He
felt a longing to fix his imagination on something. “It must be a garden
under the window,” he thought. “There’s a sound of trees. How I dislike
the sound of trees on a stormy night, in the dark! They give one a
horrid feeling.” He remembered how he had disliked it when he passed
Petrovsky Park just now. This reminded him of the bridge over the Little
Neva and he felt cold again as he had when standing there. “I never have
liked water,” he thought, “even in a landscape,” and he suddenly smiled
again at a strange idea: “Surely now all these questions of taste and
comfort ought not to matter, but I’ve become more particular, like an
animal that picks out a special place... for such an occasion. I ought
to have gone into the Petrovsky Park! I suppose it seemed dark, cold,
ha-ha! As though I were seeking pleasant sensations!... By the way, why
haven’t I put out the candle?” he blew it out. “They’ve gone to bed next
door,” he thought, not seeing the light at the crack. “Well, now, Marfa
Petrovna, now is the time for you to turn up; it’s dark, and the very
time and place for you. But now you won’t come!”

He suddenly recalled how, an hour before carrying out his design on
Dounia, he had recommended Raskolnikov to trust her to Razumihin’s
keeping. “I suppose I really did say it, as Raskolnikov guessed, to
tease myself. But what a rogue that Raskolnikov is! He’s gone through a
good deal. He may be a successful rogue in time when he’s got over
his nonsense. But now he’s _too_ eager for life. These young men
are contemptible on that point. But, hang the fellow! Let him please
himself, it’s nothing to do with me.”

He could not get to sleep. By degrees Dounia’s image rose before him,
and a shudder ran over him. “No, I must give up all that now,” he
thought, rousing himself. “I must think of something else. It’s queer
and funny. I never had a great hatred for anyone, I never particularly
desired to avenge myself even, and that’s a bad sign, a bad sign, a bad
sign. I never liked quarrelling either, and never lost my temper--that’s
a bad sign too. And the promises I made her just now, too--Damnation!
But--who knows?--perhaps she would have made a new man of me
somehow....”

He ground his teeth and sank into silence again. Again Dounia’s image
rose before him, just as she was when, after shooting the first time,
she had lowered the revolver in terror and gazed blankly at him, so that
he might have seized her twice over and she would not have lifted a hand
to defend herself if he had not reminded her. He recalled how at that
instant he felt almost sorry for her, how he had felt a pang at his
heart...

“Aïe! Damnation, these thoughts again! I must put it away!”

He was dozing off; the feverish shiver had ceased, when suddenly
something seemed to run over his arm and leg under the bedclothes. He
started. “Ugh! hang it! I believe it’s a mouse,” he thought, “that’s the
veal I left on the table.” He felt fearfully disinclined to pull off the
blanket, get up, get cold, but all at once something unpleasant ran over
his leg again. He pulled off the blanket and lighted the candle. Shaking
with feverish chill he bent down to examine the bed: there was nothing.
He shook the blanket and suddenly a mouse jumped out on the sheet.
He tried to catch it, but the mouse ran to and fro in zigzags without
leaving the bed, slipped between his fingers, ran over his hand and
suddenly darted under the pillow. He threw down the pillow, but in one
instant felt something leap on his chest and dart over his body and down
his back under his shirt. He trembled nervously and woke up.

The room was dark. He was lying on the bed and wrapped up in the blanket
as before. The wind was howling under the window. “How disgusting,” he
thought with annoyance.

He got up and sat on the edge of the bedstead with his back to the
window. “It’s better not to sleep at all,” he decided. There was a cold
damp draught from the window, however; without getting up he drew the
blanket over him and wrapped himself in it. He was not thinking of
anything and did not want to think. But one image rose after another,
incoherent scraps of thought without beginning or end passed through his
mind. He sank into drowsiness. Perhaps the cold, or the dampness, or
the dark, or the wind that howled under the window and tossed the trees
roused a sort of persistent craving for the fantastic. He kept dwelling
on images of flowers, he fancied a charming flower garden, a bright,
warm, almost hot day, a holiday--Trinity day. A fine, sumptuous country
cottage in the English taste overgrown with fragrant flowers, with
flower beds going round the house; the porch, wreathed in climbers, was
surrounded with beds of roses. A light, cool staircase, carpeted with
rich rugs, was decorated with rare plants in china pots. He noticed
particularly in the windows nosegays of tender, white, heavily fragrant
narcissus bending over their bright, green, thick long stalks. He was
reluctant to move away from them, but he went up the stairs and came
into a large, high drawing-room and again everywhere--at the windows,
the doors on to the balcony, and on the balcony itself--were flowers.
The floors were strewn with freshly-cut fragrant hay, the windows
were open, a fresh, cool, light air came into the room. The birds were
chirruping under the window, and in the middle of the room, on a table
covered with a white satin shroud, stood a coffin. The coffin was
covered with white silk and edged with a thick white frill; wreaths of
flowers surrounded it on all sides. Among the flowers lay a girl in a
white muslin dress, with her arms crossed and pressed on her bosom, as
though carved out of marble. But her loose fair hair was wet; there was
a wreath of roses on her head. The stern and already rigid profile of
her face looked as though chiselled of marble too, and the smile on her
pale lips was full of an immense unchildish misery and sorrowful appeal.
Svidrigaïlov knew that girl; there was no holy image, no burning candle
beside the coffin; no sound of prayers: the girl had drowned herself.
She was only fourteen, but her heart was broken. And she had destroyed
herself, crushed by an insult that had appalled and amazed that childish
soul, had smirched that angel purity with unmerited disgrace and torn
from her a last scream of despair, unheeded and brutally disregarded, on
a dark night in the cold and wet while the wind howled....

Svidrigaïlov came to himself, got up from the bed and went to the
window. He felt for the latch and opened it. The wind lashed furiously
into the little room and stung his face and his chest, only covered with
his shirt, as though with frost. Under the window there must have been
something like a garden, and apparently a pleasure garden. There, too,
probably there were tea-tables and singing in the daytime. Now drops of
rain flew in at the window from the trees and bushes; it was dark as
in a cellar, so that he could only just make out some dark blurs of
objects. Svidrigaïlov, bending down with elbows on the window-sill,
gazed for five minutes into the darkness; the boom of a cannon, followed
by a second one, resounded in the darkness of the night. “Ah, the
signal! The river is overflowing,” he thought. “By morning it will be
swirling down the street in the lower parts, flooding the basements and
cellars. The cellar rats will swim out, and men will curse in the rain
and wind as they drag their rubbish to their upper storeys. What time is
it now?” And he had hardly thought it when, somewhere near, a clock on
the wall, ticking away hurriedly, struck three.

“Aha! It will be light in an hour! Why wait? I’ll go out at once
straight to the park. I’ll choose a great bush there drenched with rain,
so that as soon as one’s shoulder touches it, millions of drops drip on
one’s head.”

He moved away from the window, shut it, lighted the candle, put on his
waistcoat, his overcoat and his hat and went out, carrying the candle,
into the passage to look for the ragged attendant who would be asleep
somewhere in the midst of candle-ends and all sorts of rubbish, to pay
him for the room and leave the hotel. “It’s the best minute; I couldn’t
choose a better.”

He walked for some time through a long narrow corridor without finding
anyone and was just going to call out, when suddenly in a dark corner
between an old cupboard and the door he caught sight of a strange object
which seemed to be alive. He bent down with the candle and saw a little
girl, not more than five years old, shivering and crying, with her
clothes as wet as a soaking house-flannel. She did not seem afraid of
Svidrigaïlov, but looked at him with blank amazement out of her big
black eyes. Now and then she sobbed as children do when they have been
crying a long time, but are beginning to be comforted. The child’s face
was pale and tired, she was numb with cold. “How can she have come here?
She must have hidden here and not slept all night.” He began questioning
her. The child suddenly becoming animated, chattered away in her baby
language, something about “mammy” and that “mammy would beat her,” and
about some cup that she had “bwoken.” The child chattered on without
stopping. He could only guess from what she said that she was a
neglected child, whose mother, probably a drunken cook, in the service
of the hotel, whipped and frightened her; that the child had broken
a cup of her mother’s and was so frightened that she had run away the
evening before, had hidden for a long while somewhere outside in the
rain, at last had made her way in here, hidden behind the cupboard and
spent the night there, crying and trembling from the damp, the darkness
and the fear that she would be badly beaten for it. He took her in his
arms, went back to his room, sat her on the bed, and began undressing
her. The torn shoes which she had on her stockingless feet were as
wet as if they had been standing in a puddle all night. When he had
undressed her, he put her on the bed, covered her up and wrapped her in
the blanket from her head downwards. She fell asleep at once. Then he
sank into dreary musing again.

“What folly to trouble myself,” he decided suddenly with an oppressive
feeling of annoyance. “What idiocy!” In vexation he took up the candle
to go and look for the ragged attendant again and make haste to go away.
“Damn the child!” he thought as he opened the door, but he turned again
to see whether the child was asleep. He raised the blanket carefully.
The child was sleeping soundly, she had got warm under the blanket,
and her pale cheeks were flushed. But strange to say that flush seemed
brighter and coarser than the rosy cheeks of childhood. “It’s a flush
of fever,” thought Svidrigaïlov. It was like the flush from drinking, as
though she had been given a full glass to drink. Her crimson lips were
hot and glowing; but what was this? He suddenly fancied that her long
black eyelashes were quivering, as though the lids were opening and a
sly crafty eye peeped out with an unchildlike wink, as though the little
girl were not asleep, but pretending. Yes, it was so. Her lips parted in
a smile. The corners of her mouth quivered, as though she were trying to
control them. But now she quite gave up all effort, now it was a grin,
a broad grin; there was something shameless, provocative in that quite
unchildish face; it was depravity, it was the face of a harlot, the
shameless face of a French harlot. Now both eyes opened wide; they
turned a glowing, shameless glance upon him; they laughed, invited
him.... There was something infinitely hideous and shocking in that
laugh, in those eyes, in such nastiness in the face of a child. “What,
at five years old?” Svidrigaïlov muttered in genuine horror. “What does
it mean?” And now she turned to him, her little face all aglow, holding
out her arms.... “Accursed child!” Svidrigaïlov cried, raising his hand
to strike her, but at that moment he woke up.

He was in the same bed, still wrapped in the blanket. The candle had not
been lighted, and daylight was streaming in at the windows.

“I’ve had nightmare all night!” He got up angrily, feeling utterly
shattered; his bones ached. There was a thick mist outside and he could
see nothing. It was nearly five. He had overslept himself! He got up,
put on his still damp jacket and overcoat. Feeling the revolver in his
pocket, he took it out and then he sat down, took a notebook out of his
pocket and in the most conspicuous place on the title page wrote a few
lines in large letters. Reading them over, he sank into thought with his
elbows on the table. The revolver and the notebook lay beside him. Some
flies woke up and settled on the untouched veal, which was still on
the table. He stared at them and at last with his free right hand began
trying to catch one. He tried till he was tired, but could not catch it.
At last, realising that he was engaged in this interesting pursuit, he
started, got up and walked resolutely out of the room. A minute later he
was in the street.

A thick milky mist hung over the town. Svidrigaïlov walked along the
slippery dirty wooden pavement towards the Little Neva. He was picturing
the waters of the Little Neva swollen in the night, Petrovsky Island,
the wet paths, the wet grass, the wet trees and bushes and at last the
bush.... He began ill-humouredly staring at the houses, trying to think
of something else. There was not a cabman or a passer-by in the street.
The bright yellow, wooden, little houses looked dirty and dejected with
their closed shutters. The cold and damp penetrated his whole body and
he began to shiver. From time to time he came across shop signs and read
each carefully. At last he reached the end of the wooden pavement and
came to a big stone house. A dirty, shivering dog crossed his path with
its tail between its legs. A man in a greatcoat lay face downwards, dead
drunk, across the pavement. He looked at him and went on. A high tower
stood up on the left. “Bah!” he shouted, “here is a place. Why should
it be Petrovsky? It will be in the presence of an official witness
anyway....”

He almost smiled at this new thought and turned into the street where
there was the big house with the tower. At the great closed gates of
the house, a little man stood with his shoulder leaning against them,
wrapped in a grey soldier’s coat, with a copper Achilles helmet on his
head. He cast a drowsy and indifferent glance at Svidrigaïlov. His
face wore that perpetual look of peevish dejection, which is so sourly
printed on all faces of Jewish race without exception. They both,
Svidrigaïlov and Achilles, stared at each other for a few minutes
without speaking. At last it struck Achilles as irregular for a man
not drunk to be standing three steps from him, staring and not saying a
word.

“What do you want here?” he said, without moving or changing his
position.

“Nothing, brother, good morning,” answered Svidrigaïlov.

“This isn’t the place.”

“I am going to foreign parts, brother.”

“To foreign parts?”

“To America.”

“America.”

Svidrigaïlov took out the revolver and cocked it. Achilles raised his
eyebrows.

“I say, this is not the place for such jokes!”

“Why shouldn’t it be the place?”

“Because it isn’t.”

“Well, brother, I don’t mind that. It’s a good place. When you are
asked, you just say he was going, he said, to America.”

He put the revolver to his right temple.

“You can’t do it here, it’s not the place,” cried Achilles, rousing
himself, his eyes growing bigger and bigger.

Svidrigaïlov pulled the trigger.



CHAPTER VII

The same day, about seven o’clock in the evening, Raskolnikov was on
his way to his mother’s and sister’s lodging--the lodging in Bakaleyev’s
house which Razumihin had found for them. The stairs went up from
the street. Raskolnikov walked with lagging steps, as though still
hesitating whether to go or not. But nothing would have turned him back:
his decision was taken.

“Besides, it doesn’t matter, they still know nothing,” he thought, “and
they are used to thinking of me as eccentric.”

He was appallingly dressed: his clothes torn and dirty, soaked with a
night’s rain. His face was almost distorted from fatigue, exposure, the
inward conflict that had lasted for twenty-four hours. He had spent all
the previous night alone, God knows where. But anyway he had reached a
decision.

He knocked at the door which was opened by his mother. Dounia was not
at home. Even the servant happened to be out. At first Pulcheria
Alexandrovna was speechless with joy and surprise; then she took him by
the hand and drew him into the room.

“Here you are!” she began, faltering with joy. “Don’t be angry with
me, Rodya, for welcoming you so foolishly with tears: I am laughing, not
crying. Did you think I was crying? No, I am delighted, but I’ve got
into such a stupid habit of shedding tears. I’ve been like that ever
since your father’s death. I cry for anything. Sit down, dear boy, you
must be tired; I see you are. Ah, how muddy you are.”

“I was in the rain yesterday, mother....” Raskolnikov began.

“No, no,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna hurriedly interrupted, “you thought I
was going to cross-question you in the womanish way I used to; don’t be
anxious, I understand, I understand it all: now I’ve learned the ways
here and truly I see for myself that they are better. I’ve made up my
mind once for all: how could I understand your plans and expect you to
give an account of them? God knows what concerns and plans you may have,
or what ideas you are hatching; so it’s not for me to keep nudging your
elbow, asking you what you are thinking about? But, my goodness! why
am I running to and fro as though I were crazy...? I am reading your
article in the magazine for the third time, Rodya. Dmitri Prokofitch
brought it to me. Directly I saw it I cried out to myself: ‘There,
foolish one,’ I thought, ‘that’s what he is busy about; that’s the
solution of the mystery! Learned people are always like that. He may
have some new ideas in his head just now; he is thinking them over and I
worry him and upset him.’ I read it, my dear, and of course there was a
great deal I did not understand; but that’s only natural--how should I?”

“Show me, mother.”

Raskolnikov took the magazine and glanced at his article. Incongruous
as it was with his mood and his circumstances, he felt that strange and
bitter sweet sensation that every author experiences the first time he
sees himself in print; besides, he was only twenty-three. It lasted only
a moment. After reading a few lines he frowned and his heart throbbed
with anguish. He recalled all the inward conflict of the preceding
months. He flung the article on the table with disgust and anger.

“But, however foolish I may be, Rodya, I can see for myself that you
will very soon be one of the leading--if not the leading man--in the
world of Russian thought. And they dared to think you were mad! You
don’t know, but they really thought that. Ah, the despicable creatures,
how could they understand genius! And Dounia, Dounia was all but
believing it--what do you say to that? Your father sent twice to
magazines--the first time poems (I’ve got the manuscript and will show
you) and the second time a whole novel (I begged him to let me copy it
out) and how we prayed that they should be taken--they weren’t! I was
breaking my heart, Rodya, six or seven days ago over your food and your
clothes and the way you are living. But now I see again how foolish
I was, for you can attain any position you like by your intellect and
talent. No doubt you don’t care about that for the present and you are
occupied with much more important matters....”

“Dounia’s not at home, mother?”

“No, Rodya. I often don’t see her; she leaves me alone. Dmitri
Prokofitch comes to see me, it’s so good of him, and he always talks
about you. He loves you and respects you, my dear. I don’t say that
Dounia is very wanting in consideration. I am not complaining. She has
her ways and I have mine; she seems to have got some secrets of late and
I never have any secrets from you two. Of course, I am sure that Dounia
has far too much sense, and besides she loves you and me... but I don’t
know what it will all lead to. You’ve made me so happy by coming now,
Rodya, but she has missed you by going out; when she comes in I’ll tell
her: ‘Your brother came in while you were out. Where have you been all
this time?’ You mustn’t spoil me, Rodya, you know; come when you can,
but if you can’t, it doesn’t matter, I can wait. I shall know, anyway,
that you are fond of me, that will be enough for me. I shall read what
you write, I shall hear about you from everyone, and sometimes you’ll
come yourself to see me. What could be better? Here you’ve come now to
comfort your mother, I see that.”

Here Pulcheria Alexandrovna began to cry.

“Here I am again! Don’t mind my foolishness. My goodness, why am I
sitting here?” she cried, jumping up. “There is coffee and I don’t offer
you any. Ah, that’s the selfishness of old age. I’ll get it at once!”

“Mother, don’t trouble, I am going at once. I haven’t come for that.
Please listen to me.”

Pulcheria Alexandrovna went up to him timidly.

“Mother, whatever happens, whatever you hear about me, whatever you are
told about me, will you always love me as you do now?” he asked suddenly
from the fullness of his heart, as though not thinking of his words and
not weighing them.

“Rodya, Rodya, what is the matter? How can you ask me such a question?
Why, who will tell me anything about you? Besides, I shouldn’t believe
anyone, I should refuse to listen.”

“I’ve come to assure you that I’ve always loved you and I am glad
that we are alone, even glad Dounia is out,” he went on with the same
impulse. “I have come to tell you that though you will be unhappy, you
must believe that your son loves you now more than himself, and that all
you thought about me, that I was cruel and didn’t care about you, was
all a mistake. I shall never cease to love you.... Well, that’s enough:
I thought I must do this and begin with this....”

Pulcheria Alexandrovna embraced him in silence, pressing him to her
bosom and weeping gently.

“I don’t know what is wrong with you, Rodya,” she said at last. “I’ve
been thinking all this time that we were simply boring you and now I see
that there is a great sorrow in store for you, and that’s why you are
miserable. I’ve foreseen it a long time, Rodya. Forgive me for speaking
about it. I keep thinking about it and lie awake at nights. Your sister
lay talking in her sleep all last night, talking of nothing but you. I
caught something, but I couldn’t make it out. I felt all the morning
as though I were going to be hanged, waiting for something, expecting
something, and now it has come! Rodya, Rodya, where are you going? You
are going away somewhere?”

“Yes.”

“That’s what I thought! I can come with you, you know, if you need
me. And Dounia, too; she loves you, she loves you dearly--and Sofya
Semyonovna may come with us if you like. You see, I am glad to look upon
her as a daughter even... Dmitri Prokofitch will help us to go together.
But... where... are you going?”

“Good-bye, mother.”

“What, to-day?” she cried, as though losing him for ever.

“I can’t stay, I must go now....”

“And can’t I come with you?”

“No, but kneel down and pray to God for me. Your prayer perhaps will
reach Him.”

“Let me bless you and sign you with the cross. That’s right, that’s
right. Oh, God, what are we doing?”

Yes, he was glad, he was very glad that there was no one there, that
he was alone with his mother. For the first time after all those awful
months his heart was softened. He fell down before her, he kissed her
feet and both wept, embracing. And she was not surprised and did not
question him this time. For some days she had realised that something
awful was happening to her son and that now some terrible minute had
come for him.

“Rodya, my darling, my first born,” she said sobbing, “now you are just
as when you were little. You would run like this to me and hug me and
kiss me. When your father was living and we were poor, you comforted us
simply by being with us and when I buried your father, how often we
wept together at his grave and embraced, as now. And if I’ve been crying
lately, it’s that my mother’s heart had a foreboding of trouble. The
first time I saw you, that evening, you remember, as soon as we arrived
here, I guessed simply from your eyes. My heart sank at once, and to-day
when I opened the door and looked at you, I thought the fatal hour had
come. Rodya, Rodya, you are not going away to-day?”

“No!”

“You’ll come again?”

“Yes... I’ll come.”

“Rodya, don’t be angry, I don’t dare to question you. I know I mustn’t.
Only say two words to me--is it far where you are going?”

“Very far.”

“What is awaiting you there? Some post or career for you?”

“What God sends... only pray for me.” Raskolnikov went to the door, but
she clutched him and gazed despairingly into his eyes. Her face worked
with terror.

“Enough, mother,” said Raskolnikov, deeply regretting that he had come.

“Not for ever, it’s not yet for ever? You’ll come, you’ll come
to-morrow?”

“I will, I will, good-bye.” He tore himself away at last.

It was a warm, fresh, bright evening; it had cleared up in the morning.
Raskolnikov went to his lodgings; he made haste. He wanted to finish all
before sunset. He did not want to meet anyone till then. Going up the
stairs he noticed that Nastasya rushed from the samovar to watch him
intently. “Can anyone have come to see me?” he wondered. He had a
disgusted vision of Porfiry. But opening his door he saw Dounia. She
was sitting alone, plunged in deep thought, and looked as though she had
been waiting a long time. He stopped short in the doorway. She rose from
the sofa in dismay and stood up facing him. Her eyes, fixed upon him,
betrayed horror and infinite grief. And from those eyes alone he saw at
once that she knew.

“Am I to come in or go away?” he asked uncertainly.

“I’ve been all day with Sofya Semyonovna. We were both waiting for you.
We thought that you would be sure to come there.”

Raskolnikov went into the room and sank exhausted on a chair.

“I feel weak, Dounia, I am very tired; and I should have liked at this
moment to be able to control myself.”

He glanced at her mistrustfully.

“Where were you all night?”

“I don’t remember clearly. You see, sister, I wanted to make up my mind
once for all, and several times I walked by the Neva, I remember that
I wanted to end it all there, but... I couldn’t make up my mind,” he
whispered, looking at her mistrustfully again.

“Thank God! That was just what we were afraid of, Sofya Semyonovna and
I. Then you still have faith in life? Thank God, thank God!”

Raskolnikov smiled bitterly.

“I haven’t faith, but I have just been weeping in mother’s arms; I
haven’t faith, but I have just asked her to pray for me. I don’t know
how it is, Dounia, I don’t understand it.”

“Have you been at mother’s? Have you told her?” cried Dounia,
horror-stricken. “Surely you haven’t done that?”

“No, I didn’t tell her... in words; but she understood a great deal.
She heard you talking in your sleep. I am sure she half understands it
already. Perhaps I did wrong in going to see her. I don’t know why I did
go. I am a contemptible person, Dounia.”

“A contemptible person, but ready to face suffering! You are, aren’t
you?”

“Yes, I am going. At once. Yes, to escape the disgrace I thought of
drowning myself, Dounia, but as I looked into the water, I thought that
if I had considered myself strong till now I’d better not be afraid of
disgrace,” he said, hurrying on. “It’s pride, Dounia.”

“Pride, Rodya.”

There was a gleam of fire in his lustreless eyes; he seemed to be glad
to think that he was still proud.

“You don’t think, sister, that I was simply afraid of the water?” he
asked, looking into her face with a sinister smile.

“Oh, Rodya, hush!” cried Dounia bitterly. Silence lasted for two
minutes. He sat with his eyes fixed on the floor; Dounia stood at the
other end of the table and looked at him with anguish. Suddenly he got
up.

“It’s late, it’s time to go! I am going at once to give myself up. But I
don’t know why I am going to give myself up.”

Big tears fell down her cheeks.

“You are crying, sister, but can you hold out your hand to me?”

“You doubted it?”

She threw her arms round him.

“Aren’t you half expiating your crime by facing the suffering?” she
cried, holding him close and kissing him.

“Crime? What crime?” he cried in sudden fury. “That I killed a vile
noxious insect, an old pawnbroker woman, of use to no one!... Killing
her was atonement for forty sins. She was sucking the life out of poor
people. Was that a crime? I am not thinking of it and I am not thinking
of expiating it, and why are you all rubbing it in on all sides? ‘A
crime! a crime!’ Only now I see clearly the imbecility of my cowardice,
now that I have decided to face this superfluous disgrace. It’s simply
because I am contemptible and have nothing in me that I have decided to,
perhaps too for my advantage, as that... Porfiry... suggested!”

“Brother, brother, what are you saying? Why, you have shed blood?” cried
Dounia in despair.

“Which all men shed,” he put in almost frantically, “which flows and has
always flowed in streams, which is spilt like champagne, and for which
men are crowned in the Capitol and are called afterwards benefactors of
mankind. Look into it more carefully and understand it! I too wanted to
do good to men and would have done hundreds, thousands of good deeds
to make up for that one piece of stupidity, not stupidity even, simply
clumsiness, for the idea was by no means so stupid as it seems now
that it has failed.... (Everything seems stupid when it fails.) By that
stupidity I only wanted to put myself into an independent position, to
take the first step, to obtain means, and then everything would have
been smoothed over by benefits immeasurable in comparison.... But I...
I couldn’t carry out even the first step, because I am contemptible,
that’s what’s the matter! And yet I won’t look at it as you do. If I had
succeeded I should have been crowned with glory, but now I’m trapped.”

“But that’s not so, not so! Brother, what are you saying?”

“Ah, it’s not picturesque, not æsthetically attractive! I fail to
understand why bombarding people by regular siege is more honourable.
The fear of appearances is the first symptom of impotence. I’ve never,
never recognised this more clearly than now, and I am further than ever
from seeing that what I did was a crime. I’ve never, never been stronger
and more convinced than now.”

The colour had rushed into his pale exhausted face, but as he uttered
his last explanation, he happened to meet Dounia’s eyes and he saw such
anguish in them that he could not help being checked. He felt that he
had, anyway, made these two poor women miserable, that he was, anyway,
the cause...

“Dounia darling, if I am guilty forgive me (though I cannot be forgiven
if I am guilty). Good-bye! We won’t dispute. It’s time, high time to go.
Don’t follow me, I beseech you, I have somewhere else to go.... But you
go at once and sit with mother. I entreat you to! It’s my last request
of you. Don’t leave her at all; I left her in a state of anxiety, that
she is not fit to bear; she will die or go out of her mind. Be with
her! Razumihin will be with you. I’ve been talking to him.... Don’t cry
about me: I’ll try to be honest and manly all my life, even if I am a
murderer. Perhaps I shall some day make a name. I won’t disgrace you,
you will see; I’ll still show.... Now good-bye for the present,” he
concluded hurriedly, noticing again a strange expression in Dounia’s
eyes at his last words and promises. “Why are you crying? Don’t cry,
don’t cry: we are not parting for ever! Ah, yes! Wait a minute, I’d
forgotten!”

He went to the table, took up a thick dusty book, opened it and took
from between the pages a little water-colour portrait on ivory. It was
the portrait of his landlady’s daughter, who had died of fever, that
strange girl who had wanted to be a nun. For a minute he gazed at the
delicate expressive face of his betrothed, kissed the portrait and gave
it to Dounia.

“I used to talk a great deal about it to her, only to her,” he said
thoughtfully. “To her heart I confided much of what has since been so
hideously realised. Don’t be uneasy,” he returned to Dounia, “she was
as much opposed to it as you, and I am glad that she is gone. The great
point is that everything now is going to be different, is going to
be broken in two,” he cried, suddenly returning to his dejection.
“Everything, everything, and am I prepared for it? Do I want it myself?
They say it is necessary for me to suffer! What’s the object of these
senseless sufferings? shall I know any better what they are for, when I
am crushed by hardships and idiocy, and weak as an old man after twenty
years’ penal servitude? And what shall I have to live for then? Why am I
consenting to that life now? Oh, I knew I was contemptible when I stood
looking at the Neva at daybreak to-day!”

At last they both went out. It was hard for Dounia, but she loved him.
She walked away, but after going fifty paces she turned round to look
at him again. He was still in sight. At the corner he too turned and for
the last time their eyes met; but noticing that she was looking at him,
he motioned her away with impatience and even vexation, and turned the
corner abruptly.

“I am wicked, I see that,” he thought to himself, feeling ashamed a
moment later of his angry gesture to Dounia. “But why are they so fond
of me if I don’t deserve it? Oh, if only I were alone and no one loved
me and I too had never loved anyone! _Nothing of all this would have
happened._ But I wonder shall I in those fifteen or twenty years grow so
meek that I shall humble myself before people and whimper at every word
that I am a criminal? Yes, that’s it, that’s it, that’s what they are
sending me there for, that’s what they want. Look at them running to and
fro about the streets, every one of them a scoundrel and a criminal at
heart and, worse still, an idiot. But try to get me off and they’d be
wild with righteous indignation. Oh, how I hate them all!”

He fell to musing by what process it could come to pass, that he could
be humbled before all of them, indiscriminately--humbled by conviction.
And yet why not? It must be so. Would not twenty years of continual
bondage crush him utterly? Water wears out a stone. And why, why should
he live after that? Why should he go now when he knew that it would be
so? It was the hundredth time perhaps that he had asked himself that
question since the previous evening, but still he went.



CHAPTER VIII

When he went into Sonia’s room, it was already getting dark. All day
Sonia had been waiting for him in terrible anxiety. Dounia had been
waiting with her. She had come to her that morning, remembering
Svidrigaïlov’s words that Sonia knew. We will not describe the
conversation and tears of the two girls, and how friendly they became.
Dounia gained one comfort at least from that interview, that her
brother would not be alone. He had gone to her, Sonia, first with his
confession; he had gone to her for human fellowship when he needed it;
she would go with him wherever fate might send him. Dounia did not ask,
but she knew it was so. She looked at Sonia almost with reverence and
at first almost embarrassed her by it. Sonia was almost on the point
of tears. She felt herself, on the contrary, hardly worthy to look at
Dounia. Dounia’s gracious image when she had bowed to her so attentively
and respectfully at their first meeting in Raskolnikov’s room had
remained in her mind as one of the fairest visions of her life.

Dounia at last became impatient and, leaving Sonia, went to her
brother’s room to await him there; she kept thinking that he would come
there first. When she had gone, Sonia began to be tortured by the dread
of his committing suicide, and Dounia too feared it. But they had spent
the day trying to persuade each other that that could not be, and both
were less anxious while they were together. As soon as they parted, each
thought of nothing else. Sonia remembered how Svidrigaïlov had said to
her the day before that Raskolnikov had two alternatives--Siberia or...
Besides she knew his vanity, his pride and his lack of faith.

“Is it possible that he has nothing but cowardice and fear of death to
make him live?” she thought at last in despair.

Meanwhile the sun was setting. Sonia was standing in dejection, looking
intently out of the window, but from it she could see nothing but the
unwhitewashed blank wall of the next house. At last when she began to
feel sure of his death--he walked into the room.

She gave a cry of joy, but looking carefully into his face she turned
pale.

“Yes,” said Raskolnikov, smiling. “I have come for your cross, Sonia. It
was you told me to go to the cross-roads; why is it you are frightened
now it’s come to that?”

Sonia gazed at him astonished. His tone seemed strange to her; a cold
shiver ran over her, but in a moment she guessed that the tone and the
words were a mask. He spoke to her looking away, as though to avoid
meeting her eyes.

“You see, Sonia, I’ve decided that it will be better so. There is one
fact.... But it’s a long story and there’s no need to discuss it. But
do you know what angers me? It annoys me that all those stupid brutish
faces will be gaping at me directly, pestering me with their stupid
questions, which I shall have to answer--they’ll point their fingers at
me.... Tfoo! You know I am not going to Porfiry, I am sick of him. I’d
rather go to my friend, the Explosive Lieutenant; how I shall surprise
him, what a sensation I shall make! But I must be cooler; I’ve become
too irritable of late. You know I was nearly shaking my fist at my
sister just now, because she turned to take a last look at me. It’s
a brutal state to be in! Ah! what am I coming to! Well, where are the
crosses?”

He seemed hardly to know what he was doing. He could not stay still or
concentrate his attention on anything; his ideas seemed to gallop after
one another, he talked incoherently, his hands trembled slightly.

Without a word Sonia took out of the drawer two crosses, one of cypress
wood and one of copper. She made the sign of the cross over herself and
over him, and put the wooden cross on his neck.

“It’s the symbol of my taking up the cross,” he laughed. “As though I
had not suffered much till now! The wooden cross, that is the peasant
one; the copper one, that is Lizaveta’s--you will wear yourself, show
me! So she had it on... at that moment? I remember two things like
these too, a silver one and a little ikon. I threw them back on the old
woman’s neck. Those would be appropriate now, really, those are what I
ought to put on now.... But I am talking nonsense and forgetting what
matters; I’m somehow forgetful.... You see I have come to warn you,
Sonia, so that you might know... that’s all--that’s all I came for. But
I thought I had more to say. You wanted me to go yourself. Well, now I
am going to prison and you’ll have your wish. Well, what are you crying
for? You too? Don’t. Leave off! Oh, how I hate it all!”

But his feeling was stirred; his heart ached, as he looked at her. “Why
is she grieving too?” he thought to himself. “What am I to her? Why does
she weep? Why is she looking after me, like my mother or Dounia? She’ll
be my nurse.”

“Cross yourself, say at least one prayer,” Sonia begged in a timid
broken voice.

“Oh certainly, as much as you like! And sincerely, Sonia, sincerely....”

But he wanted to say something quite different.

He crossed himself several times. Sonia took up her shawl and put
it over her head. It was the green _drap de dames_ shawl of which
Marmeladov had spoken, “the family shawl.” Raskolnikov thought of that
looking at it, but he did not ask. He began to feel himself that he
was certainly forgetting things and was disgustingly agitated. He was
frightened at this. He was suddenly struck too by the thought that Sonia
meant to go with him.

“What are you doing? Where are you going? Stay here, stay! I’ll go
alone,” he cried in cowardly vexation, and almost resentful, he moved
towards the door. “What’s the use of going in procession?” he muttered
going out.

Sonia remained standing in the middle of the room. He had not even said
good-bye to her; he had forgotten her. A poignant and rebellious doubt
surged in his heart.

“Was it right, was it right, all this?” he thought again as he went down
the stairs. “Couldn’t he stop and retract it all... and not go?”

But still he went. He felt suddenly once for all that he mustn’t ask
himself questions. As he turned into the street he remembered that he
had not said good-bye to Sonia, that he had left her in the middle of
the room in her green shawl, not daring to stir after he had shouted
at her, and he stopped short for a moment. At the same instant, another
thought dawned upon him, as though it had been lying in wait to strike
him then.

“Why, with what object did I go to her just now? I told her--on
business; on what business? I had no sort of business! To tell her I was
_going_; but where was the need? Do I love her? No, no, I drove her away
just now like a dog. Did I want her crosses? Oh, how low I’ve sunk! No,
I wanted her tears, I wanted to see her terror, to see how her heart
ached! I had to have something to cling to, something to delay me, some
friendly face to see! And I dared to believe in myself, to dream of what
I would do! I am a beggarly contemptible wretch, contemptible!”

He walked along the canal bank, and he had not much further to go. But
on reaching the bridge he stopped and turning out of his way along it
went to the Hay Market.

He looked eagerly to right and left, gazed intently at every object and
could not fix his attention on anything; everything slipped away. “In
another week, another month I shall be driven in a prison van over this
bridge, how shall I look at the canal then? I should like to remember
this!” slipped into his mind. “Look at this sign! How shall I read those
letters then? It’s written here ‘Campany,’ that’s a thing to remember,
that letter _a_, and to look at it again in a month--how shall I look
at it then? What shall I be feeling and thinking then?... How trivial
it all must be, what I am fretting about now! Of course it must all be
interesting... in its way... (Ha-ha-ha! What am I thinking about?) I am
becoming a baby, I am showing off to myself; why am I ashamed? Foo! how
people shove! that fat man--a German he must be--who pushed against
me, does he know whom he pushed? There’s a peasant woman with a baby,
begging. It’s curious that she thinks me happier than she is. I might
give her something, for the incongruity of it. Here’s a five copeck
piece left in my pocket, where did I get it? Here, here... take it, my
good woman!”

“God bless you,” the beggar chanted in a lachrymose voice.

He went into the Hay Market. It was distasteful, very distasteful to be
in a crowd, but he walked just where he saw most people. He would have
given anything in the world to be alone; but he knew himself that he
would not have remained alone for a moment. There was a man drunk and
disorderly in the crowd; he kept trying to dance and falling down. There
was a ring round him. Raskolnikov squeezed his way through the crowd,
stared for some minutes at the drunken man and suddenly gave a short
jerky laugh. A minute later he had forgotten him and did not see him,
though he still stared. He moved away at last, not remembering where he
was; but when he got into the middle of the square an emotion suddenly
came over him, overwhelming him body and mind.

He suddenly recalled Sonia’s words, “Go to the cross-roads, bow down to
the people, kiss the earth, for you have sinned against it too, and say
aloud to the whole world, ‘I am a murderer.’” He trembled, remembering
that. And the hopeless misery and anxiety of all that time, especially
of the last hours, had weighed so heavily upon him that he positively
clutched at the chance of this new unmixed, complete sensation. It came
over him like a fit; it was like a single spark kindled in his soul and
spreading fire through him. Everything in him softened at once and the
tears started into his eyes. He fell to the earth on the spot....

He knelt down in the middle of the square, bowed down to the earth, and
kissed that filthy earth with bliss and rapture. He got up and bowed
down a second time.

“He’s boozed,” a youth near him observed.

There was a roar of laughter.

“He’s going to Jerusalem, brothers, and saying good-bye to his children
and his country. He’s bowing down to all the world and kissing the great
city of St. Petersburg and its pavement,” added a workman who was a
little drunk.

“Quite a young man, too!” observed a third.

“And a gentleman,” someone observed soberly.

“There’s no knowing who’s a gentleman and who isn’t nowadays.”

These exclamations and remarks checked Raskolnikov, and the words, “I am
a murderer,” which were perhaps on the point of dropping from his lips,
died away. He bore these remarks quietly, however, and, without looking
round, he turned down a street leading to the police office. He had a
glimpse of something on the way which did not surprise him; he had felt
that it must be so. The second time he bowed down in the Hay Market he
saw, standing fifty paces from him on the left, Sonia. She was hiding
from him behind one of the wooden shanties in the market-place. She had
followed him then on his painful way! Raskolnikov at that moment felt
and knew once for all that Sonia was with him for ever and would follow
him to the ends of the earth, wherever fate might take him. It wrung his
heart... but he was just reaching the fatal place.

He went into the yard fairly resolutely. He had to mount to the third
storey. “I shall be some time going up,” he thought. He felt as though
the fateful moment was still far off, as though he had plenty of time
left for consideration.

Again the same rubbish, the same eggshells lying about on the spiral
stairs, again the open doors of the flats, again the same kitchens and
the same fumes and stench coming from them. Raskolnikov had not been
here since that day. His legs were numb and gave way under him, but
still they moved forward. He stopped for a moment to take breath, to
collect himself, so as to enter _like a man_. “But why? what for?” he
wondered, reflecting. “If I must drink the cup what difference does it
make? The more revolting the better.” He imagined for an instant the
figure of the “explosive lieutenant,” Ilya Petrovitch. Was he actually
going to him? Couldn’t he go to someone else? To Nikodim Fomitch?
Couldn’t he turn back and go straight to Nikodim Fomitch’s lodgings?
At least then it would be done privately.... No, no! To the “explosive
lieutenant”! If he must drink it, drink it off at once.

Turning cold and hardly conscious, he opened the door of the office.
There were very few people in it this time--only a house porter and a
peasant. The doorkeeper did not even peep out from behind his screen.
Raskolnikov walked into the next room. “Perhaps I still need not speak,”
 passed through his mind. Some sort of clerk not wearing a uniform was
settling himself at a bureau to write. In a corner another clerk was
seating himself. Zametov was not there, nor, of course, Nikodim Fomitch.

“No one in?” Raskolnikov asked, addressing the person at the bureau.

“Whom do you want?”

“A-ah! Not a sound was heard, not a sight was seen, but I scent the
Russian... how does it go on in the fairy tale... I’ve forgotten! ‘At
your service!’” a familiar voice cried suddenly.

Raskolnikov shuddered. The Explosive Lieutenant stood before him. He
had just come in from the third room. “It is the hand of fate,” thought
Raskolnikov. “Why is he here?”

“You’ve come to see us? What about?” cried Ilya Petrovitch. He
was obviously in an exceedingly good humour and perhaps a trifle
exhilarated. “If it’s on business you are rather early.[*] It’s only a
chance that I am here... however I’ll do what I can. I must admit, I...
what is it, what is it? Excuse me....”

     [*] Dostoevsky appears to have forgotten that it is after
     sunset, and that the last time Raskolnikov visited the
     police office at two in the afternoon he was reproached for
     coming too late.--TRANSLATOR.

“Raskolnikov.”

“Of course, Raskolnikov. You didn’t imagine I’d forgotten? Don’t think I
am like that... Rodion Ro--Ro--Rodionovitch, that’s it, isn’t it?”

“Rodion Romanovitch.”

“Yes, yes, of course, Rodion Romanovitch! I was just getting at it. I
made many inquiries about you. I assure you I’ve been genuinely grieved
since that... since I behaved like that... it was explained to me
afterwards that you were a literary man... and a learned one too... and
so to say the first steps... Mercy on us! What literary or scientific
man does not begin by some originality of conduct! My wife and I have
the greatest respect for literature, in my wife it’s a genuine passion!
Literature and art! If only a man is a gentleman, all the rest can be
gained by talents, learning, good sense, genius. As for a hat--well,
what does a hat matter? I can buy a hat as easily as I can a bun; but
what’s under the hat, what the hat covers, I can’t buy that! I was even
meaning to come and apologise to you, but thought maybe you’d... But I
am forgetting to ask you, is there anything you want really? I hear your
family have come?”

“Yes, my mother and sister.”

“I’ve even had the honour and happiness of meeting your sister--a highly
cultivated and charming person. I confess I was sorry I got so hot with
you. There it is! But as for my looking suspiciously at your fainting
fit--that affair has been cleared up splendidly! Bigotry and fanaticism!
I understand your indignation. Perhaps you are changing your lodging on
account of your family’s arriving?”

“No, I only looked in... I came to ask... I thought that I should find
Zametov here.”

“Oh, yes! Of course, you’ve made friends, I heard. Well, no, Zametov is
not here. Yes, we’ve lost Zametov. He’s not been here since yesterday...
he quarrelled with everyone on leaving... in the rudest way. He is a
feather-headed youngster, that’s all; one might have expected something
from him, but there, you know what they are, our brilliant young men.
He wanted to go in for some examination, but it’s only to talk and
boast about it, it will go no further than that. Of course it’s a very
different matter with you or Mr. Razumihin there, your friend. Your
career is an intellectual one and you won’t be deterred by failure. For
you, one may say, all the attractions of life _nihil est_--you are an
ascetic, a monk, a hermit!... A book, a pen behind your ear, a learned
research--that’s where your spirit soars! I am the same way myself....
Have you read Livingstone’s Travels?”

“No.”

“Oh, I have. There are a great many Nihilists about nowadays, you know,
and indeed it is not to be wondered at. What sort of days are they? I
ask you. But we thought... you are not a Nihilist of course? Answer me
openly, openly!”

“N-no...”

“Believe me, you can speak openly to me as you would to yourself!
Official duty is one thing but... you are thinking I meant to say
_friendship_ is quite another? No, you’re wrong! It’s not friendship,
but the feeling of a man and a citizen, the feeling of humanity and of
love for the Almighty. I may be an official, but I am always bound
to feel myself a man and a citizen.... You were asking about Zametov.
Zametov will make a scandal in the French style in a house of bad
reputation, over a glass of champagne... that’s all your Zametov is good
for! While I’m perhaps, so to speak, burning with devotion and lofty
feelings, and besides I have rank, consequence, a post! I am married and
have children, I fulfil the duties of a man and a citizen, but who is
he, may I ask? I appeal to you as a man ennobled by education... Then
these midwives, too, have become extraordinarily numerous.”

Raskolnikov raised his eyebrows inquiringly. The words of Ilya
Petrovitch, who had obviously been dining, were for the most part a
stream of empty sounds for him. But some of them he understood. He
looked at him inquiringly, not knowing how it would end.

“I mean those crop-headed wenches,” the talkative Ilya Petrovitch
continued. “Midwives is my name for them. I think it a very satisfactory
one, ha-ha! They go to the Academy, study anatomy. If I fall ill, am
I to send for a young lady to treat me? What do you say? Ha-ha!” Ilya
Petrovitch laughed, quite pleased with his own wit. “It’s an immoderate
zeal for education, but once you’re educated, that’s enough. Why abuse
it? Why insult honourable people, as that scoundrel Zametov does? Why
did he insult me, I ask you? Look at these suicides, too, how common
they are, you can’t fancy! People spend their last halfpenny and kill
themselves, boys and girls and old people. Only this morning we heard
about a gentleman who had just come to town. Nil Pavlitch, I say, what
was the name of that gentleman who shot himself?”

“Svidrigaïlov,” someone answered from the other room with drowsy
listlessness.

Raskolnikov started.

“Svidrigaïlov! Svidrigaïlov has shot himself!” he cried.

“What, do you know Svidrigaïlov?”

“Yes... I knew him.... He hadn’t been here long.”

“Yes, that’s so. He had lost his wife, was a man of reckless habits and
all of a sudden shot himself, and in such a shocking way.... He left
in his notebook a few words: that he dies in full possession of his
faculties and that no one is to blame for his death. He had money, they
say. How did you come to know him?”

“I... was acquainted... my sister was governess in his family.”

“Bah-bah-bah! Then no doubt you can tell us something about him. You had
no suspicion?”

“I saw him yesterday... he... was drinking wine; I knew nothing.”

Raskolnikov felt as though something had fallen on him and was stifling
him.

“You’ve turned pale again. It’s so stuffy here...”

“Yes, I must go,” muttered Raskolnikov. “Excuse my troubling you....”

“Oh, not at all, as often as you like. It’s a pleasure to see you and I
am glad to say so.”

Ilya Petrovitch held out his hand.

“I only wanted... I came to see Zametov.”

“I understand, I understand, and it’s a pleasure to see you.”

“I... am very glad... good-bye,” Raskolnikov smiled.

He went out; he reeled, he was overtaken with giddiness and did not know
what he was doing. He began going down the stairs, supporting himself
with his right hand against the wall. He fancied that a porter pushed
past him on his way upstairs to the police office, that a dog in
the lower storey kept up a shrill barking and that a woman flung a
rolling-pin at it and shouted. He went down and out into the yard.
There, not far from the entrance, stood Sonia, pale and horror-stricken.
She looked wildly at him. He stood still before her. There was a look of
poignant agony, of despair, in her face. She clasped her hands. His lips
worked in an ugly, meaningless smile. He stood still a minute, grinned
and went back to the police office.

Ilya Petrovitch had sat down and was rummaging among some papers. Before
him stood the same peasant who had pushed by on the stairs.

“Hulloa! Back again! have you left something behind? What’s the matter?”

Raskolnikov, with white lips and staring eyes, came slowly nearer.
He walked right to the table, leaned his hand on it, tried to say
something, but could not; only incoherent sounds were audible.

“You are feeling ill, a chair! Here, sit down! Some water!”

Raskolnikov dropped on to a chair, but he kept his eyes fixed on the
face of Ilya Petrovitch, which expressed unpleasant surprise. Both
looked at one another for a minute and waited. Water was brought.

“It was I...” began Raskolnikov.

“Drink some water.”

Raskolnikov refused the water with his hand, and softly and brokenly,
but distinctly said:

“_It was I killed the old pawnbroker woman and her sister Lizaveta with
an axe and robbed them._”

Ilya Petrovitch opened his mouth. People ran up on all sides.

Raskolnikov repeated his statement.



EPILOGUE

I

Siberia. On the banks of a broad solitary river stands a town, one of
the administrative centres of Russia; in the town there is a fortress,
in the fortress there is a prison. In the prison the second-class
convict Rodion Raskolnikov has been confined for nine months. Almost a
year and a half has passed since his crime.

There had been little difficulty about his trial. The criminal adhered
exactly, firmly, and clearly to his statement. He did not confuse nor
misrepresent the facts, nor soften them in his own interest, nor omit
the smallest detail. He explained every incident of the murder, the
secret of _the pledge_ (the piece of wood with a strip of metal) which
was found in the murdered woman’s hand. He described minutely how he
had taken her keys, what they were like, as well as the chest and its
contents; he explained the mystery of Lizaveta’s murder; described how
Koch and, after him, the student knocked, and repeated all they had said
to one another; how he afterwards had run downstairs and heard Nikolay
and Dmitri shouting; how he had hidden in the empty flat and afterwards
gone home. He ended by indicating the stone in the yard off the
Voznesensky Prospect under which the purse and the trinkets were found.
The whole thing, in fact, was perfectly clear. The lawyers and the
judges were very much struck, among other things, by the fact that he
had hidden the trinkets and the purse under a stone, without making
use of them, and that, what was more, he did not now remember what the
trinkets were like, or even how many there were. The fact that he had
never opened the purse and did not even know how much was in it seemed
incredible. There turned out to be in the purse three hundred and
seventeen roubles and sixty copecks. From being so long under the stone,
some of the most valuable notes lying uppermost had suffered from the
damp. They were a long while trying to discover why the accused man
should tell a lie about this, when about everything else he had made
a truthful and straightforward confession. Finally some of the lawyers
more versed in psychology admitted that it was possible he had really
not looked into the purse, and so didn’t know what was in it when he
hid it under the stone. But they immediately drew the deduction that
the crime could only have been committed through temporary mental
derangement, through homicidal mania, without object or the pursuit of
gain. This fell in with the most recent fashionable theory of temporary
insanity, so often applied in our days in criminal cases. Moreover
Raskolnikov’s hypochondriacal condition was proved by many witnesses, by
Dr. Zossimov, his former fellow students, his landlady and her servant.
All this pointed strongly to the conclusion that Raskolnikov was not
quite like an ordinary murderer and robber, but that there was another
element in the case.

To the intense annoyance of those who maintained this opinion, the
criminal scarcely attempted to defend himself. To the decisive question
as to what motive impelled him to the murder and the robbery, he
answered very clearly with the coarsest frankness that the cause was
his miserable position, his poverty and helplessness, and his desire to
provide for his first steps in life by the help of the three thousand
roubles he had reckoned on finding. He had been led to the murder
through his shallow and cowardly nature, exasperated moreover by
privation and failure. To the question what led him to confess, he
answered that it was his heartfelt repentance. All this was almost
coarse....

The sentence however was more merciful than could have been expected,
perhaps partly because the criminal had not tried to justify himself,
but had rather shown a desire to exaggerate his guilt. All the strange
and peculiar circumstances of the crime were taken into consideration.
There could be no doubt of the abnormal and poverty-stricken condition
of the criminal at the time. The fact that he had made no use of what he
had stolen was put down partly to the effect of remorse, partly to his
abnormal mental condition at the time of the crime. Incidentally the
murder of Lizaveta served indeed to confirm the last hypothesis: a man
commits two murders and forgets that the door is open! Finally, the
confession, at the very moment when the case was hopelessly muddled by
the false evidence given by Nikolay through melancholy and fanaticism,
and when, moreover, there were no proofs against the real criminal, no
suspicions even (Porfiry Petrovitch fully kept his word)--all this did
much to soften the sentence. Other circumstances, too, in the prisoner’s
favour came out quite unexpectedly. Razumihin somehow discovered and
proved that while Raskolnikov was at the university he had helped a poor
consumptive fellow student and had spent his last penny on supporting
him for six months, and when this student died, leaving a decrepit
old father whom he had maintained almost from his thirteenth year,
Raskolnikov had got the old man into a hospital and paid for his funeral
when he died. Raskolnikov’s landlady bore witness, too, that when they
had lived in another house at Five Corners, Raskolnikov had rescued two
little children from a house on fire and was burnt in doing so. This was
investigated and fairly well confirmed by many witnesses. These facts
made an impression in his favour.

And in the end the criminal was, in consideration of extenuating
circumstances, condemned to penal servitude in the second class for a
term of eight years only.

At the very beginning of the trial Raskolnikov’s mother fell ill. Dounia
and Razumihin found it possible to get her out of Petersburg during the
trial. Razumihin chose a town on the railway not far from Petersburg, so
as to be able to follow every step of the trial and at the same time
to see Avdotya Romanovna as often as possible. Pulcheria Alexandrovna’s
illness was a strange nervous one and was accompanied by a partial
derangement of her intellect.

When Dounia returned from her last interview with her brother, she
had found her mother already ill, in feverish delirium. That evening
Razumihin and she agreed what answers they must make to her mother’s
questions about Raskolnikov and made up a complete story for her
mother’s benefit of his having to go away to a distant part of Russia
on a business commission, which would bring him in the end money and
reputation.

But they were struck by the fact that Pulcheria Alexandrovna never
asked them anything on the subject, neither then nor thereafter. On the
contrary, she had her own version of her son’s sudden departure; she
told them with tears how he had come to say good-bye to her, hinting
that she alone knew many mysterious and important facts, and that Rodya
had many very powerful enemies, so that it was necessary for him to be
in hiding. As for his future career, she had no doubt that it would be
brilliant when certain sinister influences could be removed. She assured
Razumihin that her son would be one day a great statesman, that his
article and brilliant literary talent proved it. This article she was
continually reading, she even read it aloud, almost took it to bed
with her, but scarcely asked where Rodya was, though the subject was
obviously avoided by the others, which might have been enough to awaken
her suspicions.

They began to be frightened at last at Pulcheria Alexandrovna’s strange
silence on certain subjects. She did not, for instance, complain of
getting no letters from him, though in previous years she had only lived
on the hope of letters from her beloved Rodya. This was the cause of
great uneasiness to Dounia; the idea occurred to her that her mother
suspected that there was something terrible in her son’s fate and was
afraid to ask, for fear of hearing something still more awful. In any
case, Dounia saw clearly that her mother was not in full possession of
her faculties.

It happened once or twice, however, that Pulcheria Alexandrovna gave
such a turn to the conversation that it was impossible to answer her
without mentioning where Rodya was, and on receiving unsatisfactory and
suspicious answers she became at once gloomy and silent, and this mood
lasted for a long time. Dounia saw at last that it was hard to deceive
her and came to the conclusion that it was better to be absolutely
silent on certain points; but it became more and more evident that
the poor mother suspected something terrible. Dounia remembered her
brother’s telling her that her mother had overheard her talking in her
sleep on the night after her interview with Svidrigaïlov and before the
fatal day of the confession: had not she made out something from that?
Sometimes days and even weeks of gloomy silence and tears would be
succeeded by a period of hysterical animation, and the invalid would
begin to talk almost incessantly of her son, of her hopes of his
future.... Her fancies were sometimes very strange. They humoured her,
pretended to agree with her (she saw perhaps that they were pretending),
but she still went on talking.

Five months after Raskolnikov’s confession, he was sentenced. Razumihin
and Sonia saw him in prison as often as it was possible. At last
the moment of separation came. Dounia swore to her brother that the
separation should not be for ever, Razumihin did the same. Razumihin, in
his youthful ardour, had firmly resolved to lay the foundations at least
of a secure livelihood during the next three or four years, and saving
up a certain sum, to emigrate to Siberia, a country rich in every
natural resource and in need of workers, active men and capital. There
they would settle in the town where Rodya was and all together would
begin a new life. They all wept at parting.

Raskolnikov had been very dreamy for a few days before. He asked a great
deal about his mother and was constantly anxious about her. He worried
so much about her that it alarmed Dounia. When he heard about his
mother’s illness he became very gloomy. With Sonia he was particularly
reserved all the time. With the help of the money left to her by
Svidrigaïlov, Sonia had long ago made her preparations to follow the
party of convicts in which he was despatched to Siberia. Not a word
passed between Raskolnikov and her on the subject, but both knew it
would be so. At the final leave-taking he smiled strangely at his
sister’s and Razumihin’s fervent anticipations of their happy future
together when he should come out of prison. He predicted that their
mother’s illness would soon have a fatal ending. Sonia and he at last
set off.

Two months later Dounia was married to Razumihin. It was a quiet and
sorrowful wedding; Porfiry Petrovitch and Zossimov were invited however.
During all this period Razumihin wore an air of resolute determination.
Dounia put implicit faith in his carrying out his plans and indeed she
could not but believe in him. He displayed a rare strength of will.
Among other things he began attending university lectures again in order
to take his degree. They were continually making plans for the future;
both counted on settling in Siberia within five years at least. Till
then they rested their hopes on Sonia.

Pulcheria Alexandrovna was delighted to give her blessing to Dounia’s
marriage with Razumihin; but after the marriage she became even more
melancholy and anxious. To give her pleasure Razumihin told her how
Raskolnikov had looked after the poor student and his decrepit father
and how a year ago he had been burnt and injured in rescuing two
little children from a fire. These two pieces of news excited Pulcheria
Alexandrovna’s disordered imagination almost to ecstasy. She was
continually talking about them, even entering into conversation with
strangers in the street, though Dounia always accompanied her. In public
conveyances and shops, wherever she could capture a listener, she would
begin the discourse about her son, his article, how he had helped the
student, how he had been burnt at the fire, and so on! Dounia did
not know how to restrain her. Apart from the danger of her morbid
excitement, there was the risk of someone’s recalling Raskolnikov’s name
and speaking of the recent trial. Pulcheria Alexandrovna found out the
address of the mother of the two children her son had saved and insisted
on going to see her.

At last her restlessness reached an extreme point. She would sometimes
begin to cry suddenly and was often ill and feverishly delirious. One
morning she declared that by her reckoning Rodya ought soon to be home,
that she remembered when he said good-bye to her he said that they must
expect him back in nine months. She began to prepare for his coming,
began to do up her room for him, to clean the furniture, to wash and
put up new hangings and so on. Dounia was anxious, but said nothing and
helped her to arrange the room. After a fatiguing day spent in continual
fancies, in joyful day-dreams and tears, Pulcheria Alexandrovna was
taken ill in the night and by morning she was feverish and delirious.
It was brain fever. She died within a fortnight. In her delirium she
dropped words which showed that she knew a great deal more about her
son’s terrible fate than they had supposed.

For a long time Raskolnikov did not know of his mother’s death, though
a regular correspondence had been maintained from the time he reached
Siberia. It was carried on by means of Sonia, who wrote every month
to the Razumihins and received an answer with unfailing regularity. At
first they found Sonia’s letters dry and unsatisfactory, but later on
they came to the conclusion that the letters could not be better, for
from these letters they received a complete picture of their unfortunate
brother’s life. Sonia’s letters were full of the most matter-of-fact
detail, the simplest and clearest description of all Raskolnikov’s
surroundings as a convict. There was no word of her own hopes, no
conjecture as to the future, no description of her feelings. Instead of
any attempt to interpret his state of mind and inner life, she gave the
simple facts--that is, his own words, an exact account of his health,
what he asked for at their interviews, what commission he gave her
and so on. All these facts she gave with extraordinary minuteness. The
picture of their unhappy brother stood out at last with great clearness
and precision. There could be no mistake, because nothing was given but
facts.

But Dounia and her husband could get little comfort out of the news,
especially at first. Sonia wrote that he was constantly sullen and not
ready to talk, that he scarcely seemed interested in the news she gave
him from their letters, that he sometimes asked after his mother and
that when, seeing that he had guessed the truth, she told him at last
of her death, she was surprised to find that he did not seem greatly
affected by it, not externally at any rate. She told them that, although
he seemed so wrapped up in himself and, as it were, shut himself off
from everyone--he took a very direct and simple view of his new life;
that he understood his position, expected nothing better for the time,
had no ill-founded hopes (as is so common in his position) and scarcely
seemed surprised at anything in his surroundings, so unlike anything he
had known before. She wrote that his health was satisfactory; he did his
work without shirking or seeking to do more; he was almost indifferent
about food, but except on Sundays and holidays the food was so bad that
at last he had been glad to accept some money from her, Sonia, to have
his own tea every day. He begged her not to trouble about anything else,
declaring that all this fuss about him only annoyed him. Sonia wrote
further that in prison he shared the same room with the rest, that she
had not seen the inside of their barracks, but concluded that they were
crowded, miserable and unhealthy; that he slept on a plank bed with a
rug under him and was unwilling to make any other arrangement. But that
he lived so poorly and roughly, not from any plan or design, but simply
from inattention and indifference.

Sonia wrote simply that he had at first shown no interest in her visits,
had almost been vexed with her indeed for coming, unwilling to talk and
rude to her. But that in the end these visits had become a habit and
almost a necessity for him, so that he was positively distressed when
she was ill for some days and could not visit him. She used to see him
on holidays at the prison gates or in the guard-room, to which he was
brought for a few minutes to see her. On working days she would go to
see him at work either at the workshops or at the brick kilns, or at the
sheds on the banks of the Irtish.

About herself, Sonia wrote that she had succeeded in making some
acquaintances in the town, that she did sewing, and, as there
was scarcely a dressmaker in the town, she was looked upon as an
indispensable person in many houses. But she did not mention that the
authorities were, through her, interested in Raskolnikov; that his task
was lightened and so on.

At last the news came (Dounia had indeed noticed signs of alarm and
uneasiness in the preceding letters) that he held aloof from everyone,
that his fellow prisoners did not like him, that he kept silent for days
at a time and was becoming very pale. In the last letter Sonia wrote
that he had been taken very seriously ill and was in the convict ward of
the hospital.



II

He was ill a long time. But it was not the horrors of prison life, not
the hard labour, the bad food, the shaven head, or the patched clothes
that crushed him. What did he care for all those trials and hardships!
he was even glad of the hard work. Physically exhausted, he could at
least reckon on a few hours of quiet sleep. And what was the food to
him--the thin cabbage soup with beetles floating in it? In the past as a
student he had often not had even that. His clothes were warm and suited
to his manner of life. He did not even feel the fetters. Was he ashamed
of his shaven head and parti-coloured coat? Before whom? Before Sonia?
Sonia was afraid of him, how could he be ashamed before her? And yet he
was ashamed even before Sonia, whom he tortured because of it with
his contemptuous rough manner. But it was not his shaven head and his
fetters he was ashamed of: his pride had been stung to the quick. It was
wounded pride that made him ill. Oh, how happy he would have been if he
could have blamed himself! He could have borne anything then, even
shame and disgrace. But he judged himself severely, and his exasperated
conscience found no particularly terrible fault in his past, except
a simple _blunder_ which might happen to anyone. He was ashamed just
because he, Raskolnikov, had so hopelessly, stupidly come to grief
through some decree of blind fate, and must humble himself and submit to
“the idiocy” of a sentence, if he were anyhow to be at peace.

Vague and objectless anxiety in the present, and in the future a
continual sacrifice leading to nothing--that was all that lay before
him. And what comfort was it to him that at the end of eight years he
would only be thirty-two and able to begin a new life! What had he to
live for? What had he to look forward to? Why should he strive? To live
in order to exist? Why, he had been ready a thousand times before to
give up existence for the sake of an idea, for a hope, even for a fancy.
Mere existence had always been too little for him; he had always wanted
more. Perhaps it was just because of the strength of his desires that he
had thought himself a man to whom more was permissible than to others.

And if only fate would have sent him repentance--burning repentance that
would have torn his heart and robbed him of sleep, that repentance, the
awful agony of which brings visions of hanging or drowning! Oh, he would
have been glad of it! Tears and agonies would at least have been life.
But he did not repent of his crime.

At least he might have found relief in raging at his stupidity, as he
had raged at the grotesque blunders that had brought him to prison.
But now in prison, _in freedom_, he thought over and criticised all his
actions again and by no means found them so blundering and so grotesque
as they had seemed at the fatal time.

“In what way,” he asked himself, “was my theory stupider than others
that have swarmed and clashed from the beginning of the world? One has
only to look at the thing quite independently, broadly, and uninfluenced
by commonplace ideas, and my idea will by no means seem so... strange.
Oh, sceptics and halfpenny philosophers, why do you halt half-way!

“Why does my action strike them as so horrible?” he said to himself. “Is
it because it was a crime? What is meant by crime? My conscience is at
rest. Of course, it was a legal crime, of course, the letter of the law
was broken and blood was shed. Well, punish me for the letter of the
law... and that’s enough. Of course, in that case many of the
benefactors of mankind who snatched power for themselves instead of
inheriting it ought to have been punished at their first steps. But
those men succeeded and so _they were right_, and I didn’t, and so I
had no right to have taken that step.”

It was only in that that he recognised his criminality, only in the fact
that he had been unsuccessful and had confessed it.

He suffered too from the question: why had he not killed himself? Why
had he stood looking at the river and preferred to confess? Was the
desire to live so strong and was it so hard to overcome it? Had not
Svidrigaïlov overcome it, although he was afraid of death?

In misery he asked himself this question, and could not understand that,
at the very time he had been standing looking into the river, he had
perhaps been dimly conscious of the fundamental falsity in himself and
his convictions. He didn’t understand that that consciousness might be
the promise of a future crisis, of a new view of life and of his future
resurrection.

He preferred to attribute it to the dead weight of instinct which he
could not step over, again through weakness and meanness. He looked at
his fellow prisoners and was amazed to see how they all loved life and
prized it. It seemed to him that they loved and valued life more in
prison than in freedom. What terrible agonies and privations some of
them, the tramps for instance, had endured! Could they care so much for
a ray of sunshine, for the primeval forest, the cold spring hidden away
in some unseen spot, which the tramp had marked three years before, and
longed to see again, as he might to see his sweetheart, dreaming of the
green grass round it and the bird singing in the bush? As he went on he
saw still more inexplicable examples.

In prison, of course, there was a great deal he did not see and did not
want to see; he lived as it were with downcast eyes. It was loathsome
and unbearable for him to look. But in the end there was much that
surprised him and he began, as it were involuntarily, to notice much
that he had not suspected before. What surprised him most of all was
the terrible impossible gulf that lay between him and all the rest. They
seemed to be a different species, and he looked at them and they at
him with distrust and hostility. He felt and knew the reasons of his
isolation, but he would never have admitted till then that those reasons
were so deep and strong. There were some Polish exiles, political
prisoners, among them. They simply looked down upon all the rest as
ignorant churls; but Raskolnikov could not look upon them like that.
He saw that these ignorant men were in many respects far wiser than the
Poles. There were some Russians who were just as contemptuous, a former
officer and two seminarists. Raskolnikov saw their mistake as clearly.
He was disliked and avoided by everyone; they even began to hate him at
last--why, he could not tell. Men who had been far more guilty despised
and laughed at his crime.

“You’re a gentleman,” they used to say. “You shouldn’t hack about with
an axe; that’s not a gentleman’s work.”

The second week in Lent, his turn came to take the sacrament with his
gang. He went to church and prayed with the others. A quarrel broke out
one day, he did not know how. All fell on him at once in a fury.

“You’re an infidel! You don’t believe in God,” they shouted. “You ought
to be killed.”

He had never talked to them about God nor his belief, but they wanted to
kill him as an infidel. He said nothing. One of the prisoners rushed at
him in a perfect frenzy. Raskolnikov awaited him calmly and silently;
his eyebrows did not quiver, his face did not flinch. The guard
succeeded in intervening between him and his assailant, or there would
have been bloodshed.

There was another question he could not decide: why were they all so
fond of Sonia? She did not try to win their favour; she rarely met
them, sometimes only she came to see him at work for a moment. And yet
everybody knew her, they knew that she had come out to follow _him_,
knew how and where she lived. She never gave them money, did them no
particular services. Only once at Christmas she sent them all presents
of pies and rolls. But by degrees closer relations sprang up between
them and Sonia. She would write and post letters for them to their
relations. Relations of the prisoners who visited the town, at their
instructions, left with Sonia presents and money for them. Their wives
and sweethearts knew her and used to visit her. And when she visited
Raskolnikov at work, or met a party of the prisoners on the road, they
all took off their hats to her. “Little mother Sofya Semyonovna, you
are our dear, good little mother,” coarse branded criminals said to that
frail little creature. She would smile and bow to them and everyone was
delighted when she smiled. They even admired her gait and turned round
to watch her walking; they admired her too for being so little, and, in
fact, did not know what to admire her most for. They even came to her
for help in their illnesses.

He was in the hospital from the middle of Lent till after Easter. When
he was better, he remembered the dreams he had had while he was feverish
and delirious. He dreamt that the whole world was condemned to a
terrible new strange plague that had come to Europe from the depths of
Asia. All were to be destroyed except a very few chosen. Some new sorts
of microbes were attacking the bodies of men, but these microbes were
endowed with intelligence and will. Men attacked by them became at once
mad and furious. But never had men considered themselves so intellectual
and so completely in possession of the truth as these sufferers, never
had they considered their decisions, their scientific conclusions, their
moral convictions so infallible. Whole villages, whole towns and peoples
went mad from the infection. All were excited and did not understand
one another. Each thought that he alone had the truth and was wretched
looking at the others, beat himself on the breast, wept, and wrung
his hands. They did not know how to judge and could not agree what to
consider evil and what good; they did not know whom to blame, whom
to justify. Men killed each other in a sort of senseless spite. They
gathered together in armies against one another, but even on the march
the armies would begin attacking each other, the ranks would be broken
and the soldiers would fall on each other, stabbing and cutting, biting
and devouring each other. The alarm bell was ringing all day long in
the towns; men rushed together, but why they were summoned and who was
summoning them no one knew. The most ordinary trades were abandoned,
because everyone proposed his own ideas, his own improvements, and they
could not agree. The land too was abandoned. Men met in groups, agreed
on something, swore to keep together, but at once began on something
quite different from what they had proposed. They accused one another,
fought and killed each other. There were conflagrations and famine. All
men and all things were involved in destruction. The plague spread and
moved further and further. Only a few men could be saved in the whole
world. They were a pure chosen people, destined to found a new race and
a new life, to renew and purify the earth, but no one had seen these
men, no one had heard their words and their voices.

Raskolnikov was worried that this senseless dream haunted his memory so
miserably, the impression of this feverish delirium persisted so long.
The second week after Easter had come. There were warm bright spring
days; in the prison ward the grating windows under which the sentinel
paced were opened. Sonia had only been able to visit him twice during
his illness; each time she had to obtain permission, and it was
difficult. But she often used to come to the hospital yard, especially
in the evening, sometimes only to stand a minute and look up at the
windows of the ward.

One evening, when he was almost well again, Raskolnikov fell asleep. On
waking up he chanced to go to the window, and at once saw Sonia in the
distance at the hospital gate. She seemed to be waiting for someone.
Something stabbed him to the heart at that minute. He shuddered and
moved away from the window. Next day Sonia did not come, nor the day
after; he noticed that he was expecting her uneasily. At last he was
discharged. On reaching the prison he learnt from the convicts that
Sofya Semyonovna was lying ill at home and was unable to go out.

He was very uneasy and sent to inquire after her; he soon learnt that
her illness was not dangerous. Hearing that he was anxious about her,
Sonia sent him a pencilled note, telling him that she was much better,
that she had a slight cold and that she would soon, very soon come and
see him at his work. His heart throbbed painfully as he read it.

Again it was a warm bright day. Early in the morning, at six o’clock, he
went off to work on the river bank, where they used to pound alabaster
and where there was a kiln for baking it in a shed. There were only
three of them sent. One of the convicts went with the guard to the
fortress to fetch a tool; the other began getting the wood ready and
laying it in the kiln. Raskolnikov came out of the shed on to the river
bank, sat down on a heap of logs by the shed and began gazing at the
wide deserted river. From the high bank a broad landscape opened before
him, the sound of singing floated faintly audible from the other bank.
In the vast steppe, bathed in sunshine, he could just see, like black
specks, the nomads’ tents. There there was freedom, there other men were
living, utterly unlike those here; there time itself seemed to stand
still, as though the age of Abraham and his flocks had not passed.
Raskolnikov sat gazing, his thoughts passed into day-dreams, into
contemplation; he thought of nothing, but a vague restlessness excited
and troubled him. Suddenly he found Sonia beside him; she had come up
noiselessly and sat down at his side. It was still quite early; the
morning chill was still keen. She wore her poor old burnous and the
green shawl; her face still showed signs of illness, it was thinner and
paler. She gave him a joyful smile of welcome, but held out her hand
with her usual timidity. She was always timid of holding out her hand
to him and sometimes did not offer it at all, as though afraid he would
repel it. He always took her hand as though with repugnance, always
seemed vexed to meet her and was sometimes obstinately silent throughout
her visit. Sometimes she trembled before him and went away deeply
grieved. But now their hands did not part. He stole a rapid glance
at her and dropped his eyes on the ground without speaking. They were
alone, no one had seen them. The guard had turned away for the time.

How it happened he did not know. But all at once something seemed to
seize him and fling him at her feet. He wept and threw his arms round
her knees. For the first instant she was terribly frightened and she
turned pale. She jumped up and looked at him trembling. But at the same
moment she understood, and a light of infinite happiness came into her
eyes. She knew and had no doubt that he loved her beyond everything and
that at last the moment had come....

They wanted to speak, but could not; tears stood in their eyes. They
were both pale and thin; but those sick pale faces were bright with the
dawn of a new future, of a full resurrection into a new life. They were
renewed by love; the heart of each held infinite sources of life for the
heart of the other.

They resolved to wait and be patient. They had another seven years to
wait, and what terrible suffering and what infinite happiness before
them! But he had risen again and he knew it and felt it in all his
being, while she--she only lived in his life.

On the evening of the same day, when the barracks were locked,
Raskolnikov lay on his plank bed and thought of her. He had even fancied
that day that all the convicts who had been his enemies looked at him
differently; he had even entered into talk with them and they answered
him in a friendly way. He remembered that now, and thought it was bound
to be so. Wasn’t everything now bound to be changed?

He thought of her. He remembered how continually he had tormented her
and wounded her heart. He remembered her pale and thin little face.
But these recollections scarcely troubled him now; he knew with what
infinite love he would now repay all her sufferings. And what were all,
_all_ the agonies of the past! Everything, even his crime, his sentence
and imprisonment, seemed to him now in the first rush of feeling an
external, strange fact with which he had no concern. But he could not
think for long together of anything that evening, and he could not have
analysed anything consciously; he was simply feeling. Life had stepped
into the place of theory and something quite different would work itself
out in his mind.

Under his pillow lay the New Testament. He took it up mechanically.
The book belonged to Sonia; it was the one from which she had read the
raising of Lazarus to him. At first he was afraid that she would worry
him about religion, would talk about the gospel and pester him with
books. But to his great surprise she had not once approached the subject
and had not even offered him the Testament. He had asked her for it
himself not long before his illness and she brought him the book without
a word. Till now he had not opened it.

He did not open it now, but one thought passed through his mind: “Can
her convictions not be mine now? Her feelings, her aspirations at
least....”

She too had been greatly agitated that day, and at night she was taken
ill again. But she was so happy--and so unexpectedly happy--that she was
almost frightened of her happiness. Seven years, _only_ seven years! At
the beginning of their happiness at some moments they were both ready
to look on those seven years as though they were seven days. He did not
know that the new life would not be given him for nothing, that he would
have to pay dearly for it, that it would cost him great striving, great
suffering.

But that is the beginning of a new story--the story of the gradual
renewal of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration, of his passing
from one world into another, of his initiation into a new unknown life.
That might be the subject of a new story, but our present story is
ended.










The
Iliad of Homer

Translated by
Alexander Pope,

With Notes and Introduction
by the
Rev. Theodore Alois Buckley, M.A., F.S.A.

and
Flaxman’s Designs.

1899


Contents

 INTRODUCTION.
 POPE’S PREFACE TO THE ILIAD OF HOMER

 THE ILIAD
 BOOK I.
 BOOK II.
 BOOK III.
 BOOK IV.
 BOOK V.
 BOOK VI.
 BOOK VII.
 BOOK VIII.
 BOOK IX.
 BOOK X.
 BOOK XI.
 BOOK XII.
 BOOK XIII.
 BOOK XIV.
 BOOK XV.
 BOOK XVI.
 BOOK XVII.
 BOOK XVIII.
 BOOK XIX.
 BOOK XX.
 BOOK XXI.
 BOOK XXII.
 BOOK XXIII.
 BOOK XXIV.

 CONCLUDING NOTE.




Illustrations

 HOMER INVOKING THE MUSE
 MARS
 MINERVA REPRESSING THE FURY OF ACHILLES
 THE DEPARTURE OF BRISEIS FROM THE TENT OF ACHILLES
 THETIS CALLING BRIAREUS TO THE ASSISTANCE OF JUPITER
 THETIS ENTREATING JUPITER TO HONOUR ACHILLES
 VULCAN
 JUPITER
 THE APOTHEOSIS OF HOMER
 JUPITER SENDING THE EVIL DREAM TO AGAMEMNON
 NEPTUNE
 VENUS, DISGUISED, INVITING HELEN TO THE CHAMBER OF PARIS
 VENUS PRESENTING HELEN TO PARIS
 VENUS
 Map, titled “GRÆCIÆ ANTIQUÆ”
 THE COUNCIL OF THE GODS
 Map of the Plain of Troy
 VENUS, WOUNDED IN THE HAND, CONDUCTED BY IRIS TO MARS
 OTUS AND EPHIALTES HOLDING MARS CAPTIVE
 DIOMED CASTING HIS SPEAR AT MARS
 JUNO
 HECTOR CHIDING PARIS
 THE MEETING OF HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE
 BOWS AND BOW CASE
 IRIS
 HECTOR AND AJAX SEPARATED BY THE HERALDS
 GREEK AMPHORA—WINE VESSELS
 JUNO AND MINERVA GOING TO ASSIST THE GREEKS
 THE HOURS TAKING THE HORSES FROM JUNO’S CAR
 THE SHIELD OF ACHILLES
 PLUTO
 THE EMBASSY TO ACHILLES
 GREEK GALLEY
 PROSERPINE
 ACHILLES
 DIOMED AND ULYSSES RETURNING WITH THE SPOILS OF RHESUS
 THE DESCENT OF DISCORD
 HERCULES
 POLYDAMAS ADVISING HECTOR
 GREEK ALTAR
 NEPTUNE RISING FROM THE SEA
 GREEK EARRINGS
 SLEEP ESCAPING FROM THE WRATH OF JUPITER
 GREEK SHIELD
 BACCHUS
 AJAX DEFENDING THE GREEK SHIPS
 CASTOR AND POLLUX
 Buckles
 DIANA
 SLEEP AND DEATH CONVEYING THE BODY OF SARPEDON TO LYCIA
 ÆSCULAPIUS
 FIGHT FOR THE BODY OF PATROCLUS
 VULCAN FROM AN ANTIQUE GEM
 THETIS ORDERING THE NEREIDS TO DESCEND INTO THE SEA
 JUNO COMMANDING THE SUN TO SET
 TRIPOD
 THETIS AND EURYNOME RECEIVING THE INFANT VULCAN
 VULCAN AND CHARIS RECEIVING THETIS
 THETIS BRINGING THE ARMOUR TO ACHILLES
 HERCULES
 THE GODS DESCENDING TO BATTLE
 CENTAUR
 ACHILLES CONTENDING WITH THE RIVERS
 THE BATH
 ANDROMACHE FAINTING ON THE WALL
 THE FUNERAL PILE OF PATROCLUS
 CERES
 HECTOR’S BODY AT THE CAR OF ACHILLES
 THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS
 IRIS ADVISES PRIAM TO OBTAIN THE BODY OF HECTOR
 FUNERAL OF HECTOR




INTRODUCTION.


Scepticism is as much the result of knowledge, as knowledge is of
scepticism. To be content with what we at present know, is, for the
most part, to shut our ears against conviction; since, from the very
gradual character of our education, we must continually forget, and
emancipate ourselves from, knowledge previously acquired; we must set
aside old notions and embrace fresh ones; and, as we learn, we must be
daily unlearning something which it has cost us no small labour and
anxiety to acquire.

And this difficulty attaches itself more closely to an age in which
progress has gained a strong ascendency over prejudice, and in which
persons and things are, day by day, finding their real level, in lieu
of their conventional value. The same principles which have swept away
traditional abuses, and which are making rapid havoc among the revenues
of sinecurists, and stripping the thin, tawdry veil from attractive
superstitions, are working as actively in literature as in society. The
credulity of one writer, or the partiality of another, finds as
powerful a touchstone and as wholesome a chastisement in the healthy
scepticism of a temperate class of antagonists, as the dreams of
conservatism, or the impostures of pluralist sinecures in the Church.
History and tradition, whether of ancient or comparatively recent
times, are subjected to very different handling from that which the
indulgence or credulity of former ages could allow. Mere statements are
jealously watched, and the motives of the writer form as important an
ingredient in the analysis of his history, as the facts he records.
Probability is a powerful and troublesome test; and it is by this
troublesome standard that a large portion of historical evidence is
sifted. Consistency is no less pertinacious and exacting in its
demands. In brief, to write a history, we must know more than mere
facts. Human nature, viewed under an induction of extended experience,
is the best help to the criticism of human history. Historical
characters can only be estimated by the standard which human
experience, whether actual or traditionary, has furnished. To form
correct views of individuals we must regard them as forming parts of a
great whole—we must measure them by their relation to the mass of
beings by whom they are surrounded, and, in contemplating the incidents
in their lives or condition which tradition has handed down to us, we
must rather consider the general bearing of the whole narrative, than
the respective probability of its details.

It is unfortunate for us, that, of some of the greatest men, we know
least, and talk most. Homer, Socrates, and Shakespere[1] have, perhaps,
contributed more to the intellectual enlightenment of mankind than any
other three writers who could be named, and yet the history of all
three has given rise to a boundless ocean of discussion, which has left
us little save the option of choosing which theory or theories we will
follow. The personality of Shakespere is, perhaps, the only thing in
which critics will allow us to believe without controversy; but upon
everything else, even down to the authorship of plays, there is more or
less of doubt and uncertainty. Of Socrates we know as little as the
contradictions of Plato and Xenophon will allow us to know. He was one
of the _dramatis personæ_ in two dramas as unlike in principles as in
style. He appears as the enunciator of opinions as different in their
tone as those of the writers who have handed them down. When we have
read Plato _or_ Xenophon, we think we know something of Socrates; when
we have fairly read and examined both, we feel convinced that we are
something worse than ignorant.

It has been an easy, and a popular expedient, of late years, to deny
the personal or real existence of men and things whose life and
condition were too much for our belief. This system—which has often
comforted the religious sceptic, and substituted the consolations of
Strauss for those of the New Testament—has been of incalculable value
to the historical theorists of the last and present centuries. To
question the existence of Alexander the Great, would be a more
excusable act, than to believe in that of Romulus. To deny a fact
related in Herodotus, because it is inconsistent with a theory
developed from an Assyrian inscription which no two scholars read in
the same way, is more pardonable, than to believe in the good-natured
old king whom the elegant pen of Florian has idealized—_Numa
Pompilius._

Scepticism has attained its culminating point with respect to Homer,
and the state of our Homeric knowledge may be described as a free
permission to believe any theory, provided we throw overboard all
written tradition, concerning the author or authors of the Iliad and
Odyssey. What few authorities exist on the subject, are summarily
dismissed, although the arguments appear to run in a circle. “This
cannot be true, because it is not true; and, that is not true, because
it cannot be true.” Such seems to be the style, in which testimony upon
testimony, statement upon statement, is consigned to denial and
oblivion.

It is, however, unfortunate that the professed biographies of Homer are
partly forgeries, partly freaks of ingenuity and imagination, in which
truth is the requisite most wanting. Before taking a brief review of
the Homeric theory in its present conditions, some notice must be taken
of the treatise on the Life of Homer which has been attributed to
Herodotus.

According to this document, the city of Cumæ in Æolia, was, at an
early period, the seat of frequent immigrations from various parts of
Greece. Among the immigrants was Menapolus, the son of Ithagenes.
Although poor, he married, and the result of the union was a girl named
Critheïs. The girl was left an orphan at an early age, under the
guardianship of Cleanax, of Argos. It is to the indiscretion of this
maiden that we “are indebted for so much happiness.” Homer was the
first fruit of her juvenile frailty, and received the name of
Melesigenes, from having been born near the river Meles, in Bœotia,
whither Critheïs had been transported in order to save her reputation.

“At this time,” continues our narrative, “there lived at Smyrna a man
named Phemius, a teacher of literature and music, who, not being
married, engaged Critheïs to manage his household, and spin the flax he
received as the price of his scholastic labours. So satisfactory was
her performance of this task, and so modest her conduct, that he made
proposals of marriage, declaring himself, as a further inducement,
willing to adopt her son, who, he asserted, would become a clever man,
if he were carefully brought up.”

They were married; careful cultivation ripened the talents which nature
had bestowed, and Melesigenes soon surpassed his schoolfellows in every
attainment, and, when older, rivalled his preceptor in wisdom. Phemius
died, leaving him sole heir to his property, and his mother soon
followed. Melesigenes carried on his adopted father’s school with great
success, exciting the admiration not only of the inhabitants of Smyrna,
but also of the strangers whom the trade carried on there, especially
in the exportation of corn, attracted to that city. Among these
visitors, one Mentes, from Leucadia, the modern Santa Maura, who
evinced a knowledge and intelligence rarely found in those times,
persuaded Melesigenes to close his school, and accompany him on his
travels. He promised not only to pay his expenses, but to furnish him
with a further stipend, urging, that, “While he was yet young, it was
fitting that he should see with his own eyes the countries and cities
which might hereafter be the subjects of his discourses.” Melesigenes
consented, and set out with his patron, “examining all the curiosities
of the countries they visited, and informing himself of everything by
interrogating those whom he met.” We may also suppose, that he wrote
memoirs of all that he deemed worthy of preservation.[2] Having set
sail from Tyrrhenia and Iberia, they reached Ithaca. Here Melesigenes,
who had already suffered in his eyes, became much worse, and Mentes,
who was about to leave for Leucadia, left him to the medical
superintendence of a friend of his, named Mentor, the son of Alcinor.
Under his hospitable and intelligent host, Melesigenes rapidly became
acquainted with the legends respecting Ulysses, which afterwards formed
the subject of the Odyssey. The inhabitants of Ithaca assert, that it
was here that Melesigenes became blind, but the Colophomans make their
city the seat of that misfortune. He then returned to Smyrna, where he
applied himself to the study of poetry.[3]

But poverty soon drove him to Cumæ. Having passed over the Hermæan
plain, he arrived at Neon Teichos, the New Wall, a colony of Cumæ.
Here his misfortunes and poetical talent gained him the friendship of
one Tychias, an armourer. “And up to my time,” continued the author,
“the inhabitants showed the place where he used to sit when giving a
recitation of his verses, and they greatly honoured the spot. Here also
a poplar grew, which they said had sprung up ever since Melesigenes
arrived”.[4]

But poverty still drove him on, and he went by way of Larissa, as being
the most convenient road. Here, the Cumans say, he composed an epitaph
on Gordius, king of Phrygia, which has however, and with greater
probability, been attributed to Cleobulus of Lindus.[5]

Arrived at Cumæ, he frequented the _converzationes_[6] of the old men,
and delighted all by the charms of his poetry. Encouraged by this
favourable reception, he declared that, if they would allow him a
public maintenance, he would render their city most gloriously
renowned. They avowed their willingness to support him in the measure
he proposed, and procured him an audience in the council. Having made
the speech, with the purport of which our author has forgotten to
acquaint us, he retired, and left them to debate respecting the answer
to be given to his proposal.

The greater part of the assembly seemed favourable to the poet’s
demand, but one man observed that “if they were to feed _Homers_, they
would be encumbered with a multitude of useless people.” “From this
circumstance,” says the writer, “Melesigenes acquired the name of
Homer, for the Cumans call blind men _Homers_.”[7] With a love of
economy, which shows how similar the world has always been in its
treatment of literary men, the pension was denied, and the poet vented
his disappointment in a wish that Cumæa might never produce a poet
capable of giving it renown and glory.

At Phocœa, Homer was destined to experience another literary distress.
One Thestorides, who aimed at the reputation of poetical genius, kept
Homer in his own house, and allowed him a pittance, on condition of the
verses of the poet passing in his name. Having collected sufficient
poetry to be profitable, Thestorides, like some would-be-literary
publishers, neglected the man whose brains he had sucked, and left him.
At his departure, Homer is said to have observed: “O Thestorides, of
the many things hidden from the knowledge of man, nothing is more
unintelligible than the human heart.”[8]

Homer continued his career of difficulty and distress, until some Chian
merchants, struck by the similarity of the verses they heard him
recite, acquainted him with the fact that Thestorides was pursuing a
profitable livelihood by the recital of the very same poems. This at
once determined him to set out for Chios. No vessel happened then to be
setting sail thither, but he found one ready to start for Erythræ, a
town of Ionia, which faces that island, and he prevailed upon the
seamen to allow him to accompany them. Having embarked, he invoked a
favourable wind, and prayed that he might be able to expose the
imposture of Thestorides, who, by his breach of hospitality, had drawn
down the wrath of Jove the Hospitable.

At Erythræ, Homer fortunately met with a person who had known him in
Phocœa, by whose assistance he at length, after some difficulty,
reached the little hamlet of Pithys. Here he met with an adventure,
which we will continue in the words of our author. “Having set out from
Pithys, Homer went on, attracted by the cries of some goats that were
pasturing. The dogs barked on his approach, and he cried out. Glaucus
(for that was the name of the goat-herd) heard his voice, ran up
quickly, called off his dogs, and drove them away from Homer. For some
time he stood wondering how a blind man should have reached such a
place alone, and what could be his design in coming. He then went up to
him, and inquired who he was, and how he had come to desolate places
and untrodden spots, and of what he stood in need. Homer, by recounting
to him the whole history of his misfortunes, moved him with compassion;
and he took him, and led him to his cot, and having lit a fire, bade
him sup.[9]

“The dogs, instead of eating, kept barking at the stranger, according
to their usual habit. Whereupon Homer addressed Glaucus thus: O
Glaucus, my friend, prythee attend to my behest. First give the dogs
their supper at the doors of the hut: for so it is better, since,
whilst they watch, nor thief nor wild beast will approach the fold.

Glaucus was pleased with the advice, and marvelled at its author.
Having finished supper, they banqueted[10] afresh on conversation,
Homer narrating his wanderings, and telling of the cities he had
visited.

At length they retired to rest; but on the following morning, Glaucus
resolved to go to his master, and acquaint him with his meeting with
Homer. Having left the goats in charge of a fellow-servant, he left
Homer at home, promising to return quickly. Having arrived at Bolissus,
a place near the farm, and finding his mate, he told him the whole
story respecting Homer and his journey. He paid little attention to
what he said, and blamed Glaucus for his stupidity in taking in and
feeding maimed and enfeebled persons. However, he bade him bring the
stranger to him.

Glaucus told Homer what had taken place, and bade him follow him,
assuring him that good fortune would be the result. Conversation soon
showed that the stranger was a man of much cleverness and general
knowledge, and the Chian persuaded him to remain, and to undertake the
charge of his children.[11]

Besides the satisfaction of driving the impostor Thestorides from the
island, Homer enjoyed considerable success as a teacher. In the town of
Chios he established a school where he taught the precepts of poetry.
“To this day,” says Chandler,[12] “the most curious remaining is that
which has been named, without reason, the School of Homer. It is on the
coast, at some distance from the city, northward, and appears to have
been an open temple of Cybele, formed on the top of a rock. The shape
is oval, and in the centre is the image of the goddess, the head and an
arm wanting. She is represented, as usual, sitting. The chair has a
lion carved on each side, and on the back. The area is bounded by a low
rim, or seat, and about five yards over. The whole is hewn out of the
mountain, is rude, indistinct, and probably of the most remote
antiquity.”

So successful was this school, that Homer realised a considerable
fortune. He married, and had two daughters, one of whom died single,
the other married a Chian.

The following passage betrays the same tendency to connect the
personages of the poems with the history of the poet, which has already
been mentioned:—

“In his poetical compositions Homer displays great gratitude towards
Mentor of Ithaca, in the Odyssey, whose name he has inserted in his
poem as the companion of Ulysses,[13] in return for the care taken of
him when afflicted with blindness. He also testifies his gratitude to
Phemius, who had given him both sustenance and instruction.”

His celebrity continued to increase, and many persons advised him to
visit Greece, whither his reputation had now extended. Having, it is
said, made some additions to his poems calculated to please the vanity
of the Athenians, of whose city he had hitherto made no mention,[14] he
sent out for Samos. Here being recognized by a Samian, who had met with
him in Chios, he was handsomely received, and invited to join in
celebrating the Apaturian festival. He recited some verses, which gave
great satisfaction, and by singing the Eiresione at the New Moon
festivals, he earned a subsistence, visiting the houses of the rich,
with whose children he was very popular.

In the spring he sailed for Athens, and arrived at the island of Ios,
now Ino, where he fell extremely ill, and died. It is said that his
death arose from vexation, at not having been able to unravel an enigma
proposed by some fishermen’s children.[15]

Such is, in brief, the substance of the earliest life of Homer we
possess, and so broad are the evidences of its historical
worthlessness, that it is scarcely necessary to point them out in
detail. Let us now consider some of the opinions to which a
persevering, patient, and learned—but by no means consistent—series of
investigations has led. In doing so, I profess to bring forward
statements, not to vouch for their reasonableness or probability.

“Homer appeared. The history of this poet and his works is lost in
doubtful obscurity, as is the history of many of the first minds who
have done honour to humanity, because they rose amidst darkness. The
majestic stream of his song, blessing and fertilizing, flows like the
Nile, through many lands and nations; and, like the sources of the
Nile, its fountains will ever remain concealed.”

Such are the words in which one of the most judicious German critics
has eloquently described the uncertainty in which the whole of the
Homeric question is involved. With no less truth and feeling he
proceeds:—

“It seems here of chief importance to expect no more than the nature of
things makes possible. If the period of tradition in history is the
region of twilight, we should not expect in it perfect light. The
creations of genius always seem like miracles, because they are, for
the most part, created far out of the reach of observation. If we were
in possession of all the historical testimonies, we never could wholly
explain the origin of the Iliad and the Odyssey; for their origin, in
all essential points, must have remained the secret of the poet.”[16]

From this criticism, which shows as much insight into the depths of
human nature as into the minute wire-drawings of scholastic
investigation, let us pass on to the main question at issue. Was Homer
an individual?[17] or were the Iliad and Odyssey the result of an
ingenious arrangement of fragments by earlier poets?

Well has Landor remarked: “Some tell us there were twenty Homers; some
deny that there was ever one. It were idle and foolish to shake the
contents of a vase, in order to let them settle at last. We are
perpetually labouring to destroy our delights, our composure, our
devotion to superior power. Of all the animals on earth we least know
what is good for us. My opinion is, that what is best for us is our
admiration of good. No man living venerates Homer more than I do.”[18]

But, greatly as we admire the generous enthusiasm which rests contented
with the poetry on which its best impulses had been nurtured and
fostered, without seeking to destroy the vividness of first impressions
by minute analysis—our editorial office compels us to give some
attention to the doubts and difficulties with which the Homeric
question is beset, and to entreat our reader, for a brief period, to
prefer his judgment to his imagination, and to condescend to dry
details.

Before, however, entering into particulars respecting the question of
this unity of the Homeric poems, (at least of the Iliad,) I must
express my sympathy with the sentiments expressed in the following
remarks:—

“We cannot but think the universal admiration of its unity by the
better, the poetic age of Greece, almost conclusive testimony to its
original composition. It was not till the age of the grammarians that
its primitive integrity was called in question; nor is it injustice to
assert, that the minute and analytical spirit of a grammarian is not
the best qualification for the profound feeling, the comprehensive
conception of an harmonious whole. The most exquisite anatomist may be
no judge of the symmetry of the human frame: and we would take the
opinion of Chantrey or Westmacott on the proportions and general beauty
of a form, rather than that of Mr. Brodie or Sir Astley Cooper.

“There is some truth, though some malicious exaggeration, in the lines
of Pope.—

“‘The critic eye—that microscope of wit
Sees hairs and pores, examines bit by bit,
How parts relate to parts, or they to whole,
The body’s harmony, the beaming soul,
Are things which Kuster, Burmann, Wasse, shall see,
When man’s whole frame is obvious to a flea.’”[19]


Long was the time which elapsed before any one dreamt of questioning
the unity of the authorship of the Homeric poems. The grave and
cautious Thucydides quoted without hesitation the Hymn to Apollo,[20]
the authenticity of which has been already disclaimed by modern
critics. Longinus, in an oft quoted passage, merely expressed an
opinion touching the comparative inferiority of the Odyssey to the
Iliad,[21] and, among a mass of ancient authors, whose very names[22]
it would be tedious to detail, no suspicion of the personal
non-existence of Homer ever arose. So far, the voice of antiquity seems
to be in favour of our early ideas on the subject; let us now see what
are the discoveries to which more modern investigations lay claim.

At the end of the seventeenth century, doubts had begun to awaken on
the subject, and we find Bentley remarking that “Homer wrote a sequel
of songs and rhapsodies, to be sung by himself, for small comings and
good cheer, at festivals and other days of merriment. These loose songs
were not collected together, in the form of an epic poem, till about
Peisistratus’ time, about five hundred years after.”[23]

Two French writers—Hedelin and Perrault—avowed a similar scepticism on
the subject; but it is in the “Scienza Nuova” of Battista Vico, that we
first meet with the germ of the theory, subsequently defended by Wolf
with so much learning and acuteness. Indeed, it is with the Wolfian
theory that we have chiefly to deal, and with the following bold
hypothesis, which we will detail in the words of Grote:—[24]

“Half a century ago, the acute and valuable Prolegomena of F. A. Wolf,
turning to account the Venetian Scholia, which had then been recently
published, first opened philosophical discussion as to the history of
the Homeric text. A considerable part of that dissertation (though by
no means the whole) is employed in vindicating the position, previously
announced by Bentley, amongst others, that the separate constituent
portions of the Iliad and Odyssey had not been cemented together into
any compact body and unchangeable order, until the days of
Peisistratus, in the sixth century before Christ. As a step towards
that conclusion, Wolf maintained that no written copies of either poem
could be shown to have existed during the earlier times, to which their
composition is referred; and that without writing, neither the perfect
symmetry of so complicated a work could have been originally conceived
by any poet, nor, if realized by him, transmitted with assurance to
posterity. The absence of easy and convenient writing, such as must be
indispensably supposed for long manuscripts, among the early Greeks,
was thus one of the points in Wolf’s case against the primitive
integrity of the Iliad and Odyssey. By Nitzsch, and other leading
opponents of Wolf, the connection of the one with the other seems to
have been accepted as he originally put it; and it has been considered
incumbent on those who defended the ancient aggregate character of the
Iliad and Odyssey, to maintain that they were written poems from the
beginning.

“To me it appears, that the architectonic functions ascribed by Wolf to
Peisistratus and his associates, in reference to the Homeric poems, are
nowise admissible. But much would undoubtedly be gained towards that
view of the question, if it could be shown, that, in order to
controvert it, we were driven to the necessity of admitting long
written poems, in the ninth century before the Christian æra. Few
things, in my opinion, can be more improbable; and Mr. Payne Knight,
opposed as he is to the Wolfian hypothesis, admits this no less than
Wolf himself. The traces of writing in Greece, even in the seventh
century before the Christian æra, are exceedingly trifling. We have no
remaining inscription earlier than the fortieth Olympiad, and the early
inscriptions are rude and unskilfully executed; nor can we even assure
ourselves whether Archilochus, Simonidês of Amorgus, Kallinus,
Tyrtæus, Xanthus, and the other early elegiac and lyric poets,
committed their compositions to writing, or at what time the practice
of doing so became familiar. The first positive ground which authorizes
us to presume the existence of a manuscript of Homer, is in the famous
ordinance of Solôn, with regard to the rhapsodies at the Panathenæa:
but for what length of time previously manuscripts had existed, we are
unable to say.

“Those who maintain the Homeric poems to have been written from the
beginning, rest their case, not upon positive proofs, nor yet upon the
existing habits of society with regard to poetry—for they admit
generally that the Iliad and Odyssey were not read, but recited and
heard,—but upon the supposed necessity that there must have been
manuscripts to ensure the preservation of the poems—the unassisted
memory of reciters being neither sufficient nor trustworthy. But here
we only escape a smaller difficulty by running into a greater; for the
existence of trained bards, gifted with extraordinary memory,[25] is
far less astonishing than that of long manuscripts, in an age
essentially non-reading and non-writing, and when even suitable
instruments and materials for the process are not obvious. Moreover,
there is a strong positive reason for believing that the bard was under
no necessity of refreshing his memory by consulting a manuscript; for
if such had been the fact, blindness would have been a disqualification
for the profession, which we know that it was not, as well from the
example of Demodokus, in the Odyssey, as from that of the blind bard of
Chios, in the Hymn to the Delian Apollo, whom Thucydides, as well as
the general tenor of Grecian legend, identifies with Homer himself. The
author of that hymn, be he who he may, could never have described a
blind man as attaining the utmost perfection in his art, if he had been
conscious that the memory of the bard was only maintained by constant
reference to the manuscript in his chest.”

The loss of the digamma, that _crux_ of critics, that quicksand upon
which even the acumen of Bentley was shipwrecked, seems to prove beyond
a doubt, that the pronunciation of the Greek language had undergone a
considerable change. Now it is certainly difficult to suppose that the
Homeric poems could have suffered by this change, had written copies
been preserved. If Chaucer’s poetry, for instance, had not been
written, it could only have come down to us in a softened form, more
like the effeminate version of Dryden, than the rough, quaint, noble
original.

“At what period,” continues Grote, “these poems, or indeed any other
Greek poems, first began to be written, must be matter of conjecture,
though there is ground for assurance that it was before the time of
Solôn. If, in the absence of evidence, we may venture upon naming any
more determinate period, the question at once suggests itself, What
were the purposes which, in that state of society, a manuscript at its
first commencement must have been intended to answer? For whom was a
written Iliad necessary? Not for the rhapsodes; for with them it was
not only planted in the memory, but also interwoven with the feelings,
and conceived in conjunction with all those flexions and intonations of
voice, pauses, and other oral artifices which were required for
emphatic delivery, and which the naked manuscript could never
reproduce. Not for the general public—they were accustomed to receive
it with its rhapsodic delivery, and with its accompaniments of a solemn
and crowded festival. The only persons for whom the written Iliad would
be suitable would be a select few; studious and curious men; a class of
readers capable of analyzing the complicated emotions which they had
experienced as hearers in the crowd, and who would, on perusing the
written words, realize in their imaginations a sensible portion of the
impression communicated by the reciter. Incredible as the statement may
seem in an age like the present, there is in all early societies, and
there was in early Greece, a time when no such reading class existed.
If we could discover at what time such a class first began to be
formed, we should be able to make a guess at the time when the old epic
poems were first committed to writing. Now the period which may with
the greatest probability be fixed upon as having first witnessed the
formation even of the narrowest reading class in Greece, is the middle
of the seventh century before the Christian æra (B.C. 660 to B.C.
630), the age of Terpander, Kallinus, Archilochus, Simonidês of
Amorgus, &c. I ground this supposition on the change then operated in
the character and tendencies of Grecian poetry and music—the elegiac
and the iambic measures having been introduced as rivals to the
primitive hexameter, and poetical compositions having been transferred
from the epical past to the affairs of present and real life. Such a
change was important at a time when poetry was the only known mode of
publication (to use a modern phrase not altogether suitable, yet the
nearest approaching to the sense). It argued a new way of looking at
the old epical treasures of the people as well as a thirst for new
poetical effect; and the men who stood forward in it, may well be
considered as desirous to study, and competent to criticize, from their
own individual point of view, the written words of the Homeric
rhapsodies, just as we are told that Kallinus both noticed and
eulogized the Thebaïs as the production of Homer. There seems,
therefore, ground for conjecturing that (for the use of this
newly-formed and important, but very narrow class), manuscripts of the
Homeric poems and other old epics,—the Thebaïs and the Cypria, as well
as the Iliad and the Odyssey,—began to be compiled towards the middle
of the seventh century (B.C. 1); and the opening of Egypt to Grecian
commerce, which took place about the same period, would furnish
increased facilities for obtaining the requisite papyrus to write upon.
A reading class, when once formed, would doubtless slowly increase, and
the number of manuscripts along with it; so that before the time of
Solôn, fifty years afterwards, both readers and manuscripts, though
still comparatively few, might have attained a certain recognized
authority, and formed a tribunal of reference against the carelessness
of individual rhapsodes.”[26]

But even Peisistratus has not been suffered to remain in possession of
the credit, and we cannot help feeling the force of the following
observations—

“There are several incidental circumstances which, in our opinion,
throw some suspicion over the whole history of the Peisistratid
compilation, at least over the theory, that the Iliad was cast into its
present stately and harmonious form by the directions of the Athenian
ruler. If the great poets, who flourished at the bright period of
Grecian song, of which, alas! we have inherited little more than the
fame, and the faint echo, if Stesichorus, Anacreon, and Simonidês were
employed in the noble task of compiling the Iliad and Odyssey, so much
must have been done to arrange, to connect, to harmonize, that it is
almost incredible, that stronger marks of Athenian manufacture should
not remain. Whatever occasional anomalies may be detected, anomalies
which no doubt arise out of our own ignorance of the language of the
Homeric age, however the irregular use of the digamma may have
perplexed our Bentleys, to whom the name of Helen is said to have
caused as much disquiet and distress as the fair one herself among the
heroes of her age, however Mr. Knight may have failed in reducing the
Homeric language to its primitive form; however, finally, the Attic
dialect may not have assumed all its more marked and distinguishing
characteristics—still it is difficult to suppose that the language,
particularly in the joinings and transitions, and connecting parts,
should not more clearly betray the incongruity between the more ancient
and modern forms of expression. It is not quite in character with such
a period to imitate an antique style, in order to piece out an
imperfect poem in the character of the original, as Sir Walter Scott
has done in his continuation of Sir Tristram.

“If, however, not even such faint and indistinct traces of Athenian
compilation are discoverable in the language of the poems, the total
absence of Athenian national feeling is perhaps no less worthy of
observation. In later, and it may fairly be suspected in earlier times,
the Athenians were more than ordinarily jealous of the fame of their
ancestors. But, amid all the traditions of the glories of early Greece
embodied in the Iliad, the Athenians play a most subordinate and
insignificant part. Even the few passages which relate to their
ancestors, Mr. Knight suspects to be interpolations. It is possible,
indeed, that in its leading outline, the Iliad may be true to historic
fact, that in the great maritime expedition of western Greece against
the rival and half-kindred empire of the Laomedontiadæ, the chieftain
of Thessaly, from his valour and the number of his forces, may have
been the most important ally of the Peloponnesian sovereign; the
preeminent value of the ancient poetry on the Trojan war may thus have
forced the national feeling of the Athenians to yield to their taste.
The songs which spoke of their own great ancestor were, no doubt, of
far inferior sublimity and popularity, or, at first sight, a Theseid
would have been much more likely to have emanated from an Athenian
synod of compilers of ancient song, than an Achilleid or an Olysseid.
Could France have given birth to a Tasso, Tancred would have been the
hero of the Jerusalem. If, however, the Homeric ballads, as they are
sometimes called, which related the wrath of Achilles, with all its
direful consequences, were so far superior to the rest of the poetic
cycle, as to admit no rivalry,—it is still surprising, that throughout
the whole poem the callida junctura should never betray the workmanship
of an Athenian hand, and that the national spirit of a race, who have
at a later period not inaptly been compared to our self admiring
neighbours, the French, should submit with lofty self denial to the
almost total exclusion of their own ancestors—or, at least, to the
questionable dignity of only having produced a leader tolerably skilled
in the military tactics of his age.”[27]

To return to the Wolfian theory. While it is to be confessed, that
Wolf’s objections to the primitive integrity of the Iliad and Odyssey
have never been wholly got over, we cannot help discovering that they
have failed to enlighten us as to any substantial point, and that the
difficulties with which the whole subject is beset, are rather
augmented than otherwise, if we admit his hypothesis. Nor is
Lachmann’s[28] modification of his theory any better. He divides the
first twenty-two books of the Iliad into sixteen different songs, and
treats as ridiculous the belief that their amalgamation into one
regular poem belongs to a period earlier than the age of Peisistratus.
This, as Grote observes, “explains the gaps and contradictions in the
narrative, but it explains nothing else.” Moreover, we find no
contradictions warranting this belief, and the so-called sixteen poets
concur in getting rid of the following leading men in the first battle
after the secession of Achilles: Elphenor, chief of the Eubœans;
Tlepolemus, of the Rhodians; Pandarus, of the Lycians; Odius, of the
Halizonians; Pirous and Acamas, of the Thracians. None of these heroes
again make their appearance, and we can but agree with Colonel Mure,
that “it seems strange that any number of independent poets should have
so harmoniously dispensed with the services of all six in the sequel.”
The discrepancy, by which Pylæmenes, who is represented as dead in the
fifth book, weeps at his son’s funeral in the thirteenth, can only be
regarded as the result of an interpolation.

Grote, although not very distinct in stating his own opinions on the
subject, has done much to clearly show the incongruity of the Wolfian
theory, and of Lachmann’s modifications with the character of
Peisistratus. But he has also shown, and we think with equal success,
that the two questions relative to the primitive unity of these poems,
or, supposing that impossible, the unison of these parts by
Peisistratus, and not before his time, are essentially distinct. In
short, “a man may believe the Iliad to have been put together out of
pre-existing songs, without recognising the age of Peisistratus as the
period of its first compilation.” The friends or literary _employês_ of
Peisistratus must have found an Iliad that was already ancient, and the
silence of the Alexandrine critics respecting the Peisistratic
“recension,” goes far to prove, that, among the numerous manuscripts
they examined, this was either wanting, or thought unworthy of
attention.

“Moreover,” he continues, “the whole tenor of the poems themselves
confirms what is here remarked. There is nothing, either in the Iliad
or Odyssey, which savours of modernism, applying that term to the age
of Peisistratus—nothing which brings to our view the alterations
brought about by two centuries, in the Greek language, the coined
money, the habits of writing and reading, the despotisms and republican
governments, the close military array, the improved construction of
ships, the Amphiktyonic convocations, the mutual frequentation of
religious festivals, the Oriental and Egyptian veins of religion, &c.,
familiar to the latter epoch. These alterations Onomakritus, and the
other literary friends of Peisistratus, could hardly have failed to
notice, even without design, had they then, for the first time,
undertaken the task of piecing together many self existent epics into
one large aggregate. Everything in the two great Homeric poems, both in
substance and in language, belongs to an age two or three centuries
earlier than Peisistratus. Indeed, even the interpolations (or those
passages which, on the best grounds, are pronounced to be such) betray
no trace of the sixth century before Christ, and may well have been
heard by Archilochus and Kallinus—in some cases even by Arktinus and
Hesiod—as genuine Homeric matter.[29] As far as the evidences on the
case, as well internal as external, enable us to judge, we seem
warranted in believing that the Iliad and Odyssey were recited
substantially as they now stand (always allowing for partial
divergences of text and interpolations) in 776 B.C., our first
trustworthy mark of Grecian time; and this ancient date, let it be
added, as it is the best-authenticated fact, so it is also the most
important attribute of the Homeric poems, considered in reference to
Grecian history; for they thus afford us an insight into the
anti-historical character of the Greeks, enabling us to trace the
subsequent forward march of the nation, and to seize instructive
contrasts between their former and their later condition.”[30]

On the whole, I am inclined to believe, that the labours of
Peisistratus were wholly of an editorial character, although, I must
confess, that I can lay down nothing respecting the extent of his
labours. At the same time, so far from believing that the composition
or primary arrangement of these poems, in their present form, was the
work of Peisistratus, I am rather persuaded that the fine taste and
elegant mind of that Athenian[31] would lead him to preserve an ancient
and traditional order of the poems, rather than to patch and
re-construct them according to a fanciful hypothesis. I will not repeat
the many discussions respecting whether the poems were written or not,
or whether the art of writing was known in the time of their reputed
author. Suffice it to say, that the more we read, the less satisfied we
are upon either subject.

I cannot, however, help thinking, that the story which attributes the
preservation of these poems to Lycurgus, is little else than a version
of the same story as that of Peisistratus, while its historical
probability must be measured by that of many others relating to the
Spartan Confucius.

I will conclude this sketch of the Homeric theories, with an attempt,
made by an ingenious friend, to unite them into something like
consistency. It is as follows:—

“No doubt the common soldiers of that age had, like the common sailors
of some fifty years ago, some one qualified to ‘discourse in excellent
music’ among them. Many of these, like those of the negroes in the
United States, were extemporaneous, and allusive to events passing
around them. But what was passing around them? The grand events of a
spirit-stirring war; occurrences likely to impress themselves, as the
mystical legends of former times had done, upon their memory; besides
which, a retentive memory was deemed a virtue of the first water, and
was cultivated accordingly in those ancient times. Ballads at first,
and down to the beginning of the war with Troy, were merely
recitations, with an intonation. Then followed a species of recitative,
probably with an intoned burden. Tune next followed, as it aided the
memory considerably.

“It was at this period, about four hundred years after the war, that a
poet flourished of the name of Melesigenes, or Mœonides, but most
probably the former. He saw that these ballads might be made of great
utility to his purpose of writing a poem on the social position of
Hellas, and, as a collection, he published these lays, connecting them
by a tale of his own. This poem now exists, under the title of the
‘Odyssea.’ The author, however, did not affix his own name to the poem,
which, in fact, was, great part of it, remodelled from the archaic
dialect of Crete, in which tongue the ballads were found by him. He
therefore called it the poem of Homeros, or the Collector; but this is
rather a proof of his modesty and talent, than of his mere drudging
arrangement of other people’s ideas; for, as Grote has finely observed,
arguing for the unity of authorship, ‘a great poet might have re-cast
pre-existing separate songs into one comprehensive whole; but no mere
arrangers or compilers would be competent to do so.’

“While employed on the wild legend of Odysseus, he met with a ballad,
recording the quarrel of Achilles and Agamemnon. His noble mind seized
the hint that there presented itself, and the Achilleïs[32] grew under
his hand. Unity of design, however, caused him to publish the poem
under the same pseudonyme as his former work: and the disjointed lays
of the ancient bards were joined together, like those relating to the
Cid, into a chronicle history, named the Iliad. Melesigenes knew that
the poem was destined to be a lasting one, and so it has proved; but,
first, the poems were destined to undergo many vicissitudes and
corruptions, by the people who took to singing them in the streets,
assemblies, and agoras. However, Solôn first, and then Peisistratus,
and afterwards Aristoteles and others, revised the poems, and restored
the works of Melesigenes Homeros to their original integrity in a great
measure.”[33]

Having thus given some general notion of the strange theories which
have developed themselves respecting this most interesting subject, I
must still express my conviction as to the unity of the authorship of
the Homeric poems. To deny that many corruptions and interpolations
disfigure them, and that the intrusive hand of the poetasters may here
and there have inflicted a wound more serious than the negligence of
the copyist, would be an absurd and captious assumption, but it is to a
higher criticism that we must appeal, if we would either understand or
enjoy these poems. In maintaining the authenticity and personality of
their one author, be he Homer or Melesigenes, _quocunque nomine vocari
eum jus fasque sit_, I feel conscious that, while the whole weight of
historical evidence is against the hypothesis which would assign these
great works to a plurality of authors, the most powerful internal
evidence, and that which springs from the deepest and most immediate
impulse of the soul, also speaks eloquently to the contrary.

The minutiæ of verbal criticism I am far from seeking to despise.
Indeed, considering the character of some of my own books, such an
attempt would be gross inconsistency. But, while I appreciate its
importance in a philological view, I am inclined to set little store on
its æsthetic value, especially in poetry. Three parts of the
emendations made upon poets are mere alterations, some of which, had
they been suggested to the author by his Mæcenas or Africanus, he
would probably have adopted. Moreover, those who are most exact in
laying down rules of verbal criticism and interpretation, are often
least competent to carry out their own precepts. Grammarians are not
poets by profession, but may be so _per accidens_. I do not at this
moment remember two emendations on Homer, calculated to substantially
improve the poetry of a passage, although a mass of remarks, from
Herodotus down to Loewe, have given us the history of a thousand minute
points, without which our Greek knowledge would be gloomy and jejune.

But it is not on words only that grammarians, mere grammarians, will
exercise their elaborate and often tiresome ingenuity. Binding down an
heroic or dramatic poet to the block upon which they have previously
dissected his words and sentences, they proceed to use the axe and the
pruning knife by wholesale, and inconsistent in everything but their
wish to make out a case of unlawful affiliation, they cut out book
after book, passage after passage, till the author is reduced to a
collection of fragments, or till those, who fancied they possessed the
works of some great man, find that they have been put off with a vile
counterfeit got up at second hand. If we compare the theories of
Knight, Wolf, Lachmann, and others, we shall feel better satisfied of
the utter uncertainty of criticism than of the apocryphal position of
Homer. One rejects what another considers the turning-point of his
theory. One cuts a supposed knot by expunging what another would
explain by omitting something else.

Nor is this morbid species of sagacity by any means to be looked upon
as a literary novelty. Justus Lipsius, a scholar of no ordinary skill,
seems to revel in the imaginary discovery, that the tragedies
attributed to Seneca are by _four_ different authors.[34] Now, I will
venture to assert, that these tragedies are so uniform, not only in
their borrowed phraseology—a phraseology with which writers like
Boethius and Saxo Grammaticus were more charmed than ourselves—in their
freedom from real poetry, and last, but not least, in an ultra-refined
and consistent abandonment of good taste, that few writers of the
present day would question the capabilities of the same gentleman, be
he Seneca or not, to produce not only these, but a great many more
equally bad. With equal sagacity, Father Hardouin astonished the world
with the startling announcement that the Æneid of Virgil, and the
satires of Horace, were literary deceptions. Now, without wishing to
say one word of disrespect against the industry and learning—nay, the
refined acuteness—which scholars, like Wolf, have bestowed upon this
subject, I must express my fears, that many of our modern Homeric
theories will become matter for the surprise and entertainment, rather
than the instruction, of posterity. Nor can I help thinking, that the
literary history of more recent times will account for many points of
difficulty in the transmission of the Iliad and Odyssey to a period so
remote from that of their first creation.

I have already expressed my belief that the labours of Peisistratus
were of a purely editorial character; and there seems no more reason
why corrupt and imperfect editions of Homer may not have been abroad in
his day, than that the poems of Valerius Flaccus and Tibullus should
have given so much trouble to Poggio, Scaliger, and others. But, after
all, the main fault in all the Homeric theories is, that they demand
too great a sacrifice of those feelings to which poetry most powerfully
appeals, and which are its most fitting judges. The ingenuity which has
sought to rob us of the name and existence of Homer, does too much
violence to that inward emotion, which makes our whole soul yearn with
love and admiration for the blind bard of Chios. To believe the author
of the Iliad a mere compiler, is to degrade the powers of human
invention; to elevate analytical judgment at the expense of the most
ennobling impulses of the soul; and to forget the ocean in the
contemplation of a polypus. There is a catholicity, so to speak, in the
very name of Homer. Our faith in the author of the Iliad may be a
mistaken one, but as yet nobody has taught us a better.

While, however, I look upon the belief in Homer as one that has nature
herself for its mainspring; while I can join with old Ennius in
believing in Homer as the ghost, who, like some patron saint, hovers
round the bed of the poet, and even bestows rare gifts from that wealth
of imagination which a host of imitators could not exhaust,—still I am
far from wishing to deny that the author of these great poems found a
rich fund of tradition, a well-stocked mythical storehouse from whence
he might derive both subject and embellishment. But it is one thing to
_use_ existing romances in the embellishment of a poem, another to
patch up the poem itself from such materials. What consistency of style
and execution can be hoped for from such an attempt? or, rather, what
bad taste and tedium will not be the infallible result?

A blending of popular legends, and a free use of the songs of other
bards, are features perfectly consistent with poetical originality. In
fact, the most original writer is still drawing upon outward
impressions—nay, even his own thoughts are a kind of secondary agents
which support and feed the impulses of imagination. But unless there be
some grand pervading principle—some invisible, yet most distinctly
stamped archetypus of the great whole, a poem like the Iliad can never
come to the birth. Traditions the most picturesque, episodes the most
pathetic, local associations teeming with the thoughts of gods and
great men, may crowd in one mighty vision, or reveal themselves in more
substantial forms to the mind of the poet; but, except the power to
create a grand whole, to which these shall be but as details and
embellishments, be present, we shall have nought but a scrap-book, a
parterre filled with flowers and weeds strangling each other in their
wild redundancy: we shall have a cento of rags and tatters, which will
require little acuteness to detect.

Sensible as I am of the difficulty of disproving a negative, and aware
as I must be of the weighty grounds there are for opposing my belief,
it still seems to me that the Homeric question is one that is reserved
for a higher criticism than it has often obtained. We are not by nature
intended to know all things; still less, to compass the powers by which
the greatest blessings of life have been placed at our disposal. Were
faith no virtue, then we might indeed wonder why God willed our
ignorance on any matter. But we are too well taught the contrary
lesson; and it seems as though our faith should be especially tried
touching the men and the events which have wrought most influence upon
the condition of humanity. And there is a kind of sacredness attached
to the memory of the great and the good, which seems to bid us repulse
the scepticism which would allegorize their existence into a pleasing
apologue, and measure the giants of intellect by an homeopathic
dynameter.

Long and habitual reading of Homer appears to familiarize our thoughts
even to his incongruities; or rather, if we read in a right spirit and
with a heartfelt appreciation, we are too much dazzled, too deeply
wrapped in admiration of the whole, to dwell upon the minute spots
which mere analysis can discover. In reading an heroic poem we must
transform ourselves into heroes of the time being, we in imagination
must fight over the same battles, woo the same loves, burn with the
same sense of injury, as an Achilles or a Hector. And if we can but
attain this degree of enthusiasm (and less enthusiasm will scarcely
suffice for the reading of Homer), we shall feel that the poems of
Homer are not only the work of one writer, but of the greatest writer
that ever touched the hearts of men by the power of song.

And it was this supposed unity of authorship which gave these poems
their powerful influence over the minds of the men of old. Heeren, who
is evidently little disposed in favour of modern theories, finely
observes:—

“It was Homer who formed the character of the Greek nation. No poet has
ever, as a poet, exercised a similar influence over his countrymen.
Prophets, lawgivers, and sages have formed the character of other
nations; it was reserved to a poet to form that of the Greeks. This is
a feature in their character which was not wholly erased even in the
period of their degeneracy. When lawgivers and sages appeared in
Greece, the work of the poet had already been accomplished; and they
paid homage to his superior genius. He held up before his nation the
mirror, in which they were to behold the world of gods and heroes no
less than of feeble mortals, and to behold them reflected with purity
and truth. His poems are founded on the first feeling of human nature;
on the love of children, wife, and country; on that passion which
outweighs all others, the love of glory. His songs were poured forth
from a breast which sympathized with all the feelings of man; and
therefore they enter, and will continue to enter, every breast which
cherishes the same sympathies. If it is granted to his immortal spirit,
from another heaven than any of which he dreamed on earth, to look down
on his race, to see the nations from the fields of Asia to the forests
of Hercynia, performing pilgrimages to the fountain which his magic
wand caused to flow; if it is permitted to him to view the vast
assemblage of grand, of elevated, of glorious productions, which had
been called into being by means of his songs; wherever his immortal
spirit may reside, this alone would suffice to complete his
happiness.”[35]

Can we contemplate that ancient monument, on which the “Apotheosis of
Homer”[36] is depictured, and not feel how much of pleasing
association, how much that appeals most forcibly and most distinctly to
our minds, is lost by the admittance of any theory but our old
tradition? The more we read, and the more we think—think as becomes the
readers of Homer,—the more rooted becomes the conviction that the
Father of Poetry gave us this rich inheritance, whole and entire.
Whatever were the means of its preservation, let us rather be thankful
for the treasury of taste and eloquence thus laid open to our use, than
seek to make it a mere centre around which to drive a series of
theories, whose wildness is only equalled by their inconsistency with
each other.

As the hymns, and some other poems usually ascribed to Homer, are not
included in Pope’s translation, I will content myself with a brief
account of the Battle of the Frogs and Mice, from the pen of a writer
who has done it full justice[37]:—

“This poem,” says Coleridge, “is a short mock-heroic of ancient date.
The text varies in different editions, and is obviously disturbed and
corrupt to a great degree; it is commonly said to have been a juvenile
essay of Homer’s genius; others have attributed it to the same Pigrees,
mentioned above, and whose reputation for humour seems to have invited
the appropriation of any piece of ancient wit, the author of which was
uncertain; so little did the Greeks, before the age of the Ptolemies,
know or care about that department of criticism employed in determining
the genuineness of ancient writings. As to this little poem being a
youthful profusion of Homer, it seems sufficient to say that from the
beginning to the end it is a plain and palpable parody, not only of the
general spirit, but of the numerous passages of the Iliad itself; and
even, if no such intention to parody were discernible in it, the
objection would still remain, that to suppose a work of mere burlesque
to be the primary effort of poetry in a simple age, seems to reverse
that order in the development of national taste, which the history of
every other people in Europe, and of many in Asia, has almost
ascertained to be a law of the human mind; it is in a state of society
much more refined and permanent than that described in the Iliad, that
any popularity would attend such a ridicule of war and the gods as is
contained in this poem; and the fact of there having existed three
other poems of the same kind attributed, for aught we can see, with as
much reason to Homer, is a strong inducement to believe that none of
them were of the Homeric age. Knight infers from the usage of the word
deltos, “writing tablet,” instead of διφθέρα, “skin,” which, according
to Herod. 5, 58, was the material employed by the Asiatic Greeks for
that purpose, that this poem was another offspring of Attic ingenuity;
and generally that the familiar mention of the cock (v. 191) is a
strong argument against so ancient a date for its composition.”

Having thus given a brief account of the poems comprised in Pope’s
design, I will now proceed to make a few remarks on his translation,
and on my own purpose in the present edition.

Pope was not a Grecian. His whole education had been irregular, and his
earliest acquaintance with the poet was through the version of Ogilby.
It is not too much to say that his whole work bears the impress of a
disposition to be satisfied with the general sense, rather than to dive
deeply into the minute and delicate features of language. Hence his
whole work is to be looked upon rather as an elegant paraphrase than a
translation. There are, to be sure, certain conventional anecdotes,
which prove that Pope consulted various friends, whose classical
attainments were sounder than his own, during the undertaking; but it
is probable that these examinations were the result rather of the
contradictory versions already existing, than of a desire to make a
perfect transcript of the original. And in those days, what is called
literal translation was less cultivated than at present. If something
like the general sense could be decorated with the easy gracefulness of
a practised poet; if the charms of metrical cadence and a pleasing
fluency could be made consistent with a fair interpretation of the
poet’s meaning, his _words_ were less jealously sought for, and those
who could read so good a poem as Pope’s Iliad had fair reason to be
satisfied.

It would be absurd, therefore, to test Pope’s translation by our own
advancing knowledge of the original text. We must be content to look at
it as a most delightful work in itself,—a work which is as much a part
of English literature as Homer himself is of Greek. We must not be torn
from our kindly associations with the old Iliad, that once was our most
cherished companion, or our most looked-for prize, merely because
Buttmann, Loewe, and Liddell have made us so much more accurate as to
ἀμφικύπελλον being an adjective, and not a substantive. Far be it from
us to defend the faults of Pope, especially when we think of Chapman’s
fine, bold, rough old English;—far be it from us to hold up his
translation as what a translation of Homer _might_ be. But we can still
dismiss Pope’s Iliad to the hands of our readers, with the
consciousness that they must have read a very great number of books
before they have read its fellow.

As to the Notes accompanying the present volume, they are drawn up
without pretension, and mainly with the view of helping the general
reader. Having some little time since translated all the works of Homer
for another publisher, I might have brought a large amount of
accumulated matter, sometimes of a critical character, to bear upon the
text. But Pope’s version was no field for such a display; and my
purpose was to touch briefly on antiquarian or mythological allusions,
to notice occasionally _some_ departures from the original, and to give
a few parallel passages from our English Homer, Milton. In the latter
task I cannot pretend to novelty, but I trust that my other
annotations, while utterly disclaiming high scholastic views, will be
found to convey as much as is wanted; at least, as far as the necessary
limits of these volumes could be expected to admit. To write a
commentary on Homer is not my present aim; but if I have made Pope’s
translation a little more entertaining and instructive to a mass of
miscellaneous readers, I shall consider my wishes satisfactorily
accomplished.

THEODORE ALOIS BUCKLEY.


_Christ Church_.




POPE’S PREFACE TO THE ILIAD OF HOMER


Homer is universally allowed to have had the greatest invention of any
writer whatever. The praise of judgment Virgil has justly contested
with him, and others may have their pretensions as to particular
excellences; but his invention remains yet unrivalled. Nor is it a
wonder if he has ever been acknowledged the greatest of poets, who most
excelled in that which is the very foundation of poetry. It is the
invention that, in different degrees, distinguishes all great geniuses:
the utmost stretch of human study, learning, and industry, which
masters everything besides, can never attain to this. It furnishes art
with all her materials, and without it judgment itself can at best but
“steal wisely:” for art is only like a prudent steward that lives on
managing the riches of nature. Whatever praises may be given to works
of judgment, there is not even a single beauty in them to which the
invention must not contribute: as in the most regular gardens, art can
only reduce beauties of nature to more regularity, and such a figure,
which the common eye may better take in, and is, therefore, more
entertained with. And, perhaps, the reason why common critics are
inclined to prefer a judicious and methodical genius to a great and
fruitful one, is, because they find it easier for themselves to pursue
their observations through a uniform and bounded walk of art, than to
comprehend the vast and various extent of nature.

Our author’s work is a wild paradise, where, if we cannot see all the
beauties so distinctly as in an ordered garden, it is only because the
number of them is infinitely greater. It is like a copious nursery,
which contains the seeds and first productions of every kind, out of
which those who followed him have but selected some particular plants,
each according to his fancy, to cultivate and beautify. If some things
are too luxuriant it is owing to the richness of the soil; and if
others are not arrived to perfection or maturity, it is only because
they are overrun and oppressed by those of a stronger nature.

It is to the strength of this amazing invention we are to attribute
that unequalled fire and rapture which is so forcible in Homer, that no
man of a true poetical spirit is master of himself while he reads him.
What he writes is of the most animated nature imaginable; every thing
moves, every thing lives, and is put in action. If a council be called,
or a battle fought, you are not coldly informed of what was said or
done as from a third person; the reader is hurried out of himself by
the force of the poet’s imagination, and turns in one place to a
hearer, in another to a spectator. The course of his verses resembles
that of the army he describes,

    Οἵδ’ ἄῤ ἴσαν, ὡσεί τε πυρὶ χθὼν πἆσα νέμοιτο.

“They pour along like a fire that sweeps the whole earth before it.” It
is, however, remarkable, that his fancy, which is everywhere vigorous,
is not discovered immediately at the beginning of his poem in its
fullest splendour: it grows in the progress both upon himself and
others, and becomes on fire, like a chariot-wheel, by its own rapidity.
Exact disposition, just thought, correct elocution, polished numbers,
may have been found in a thousand; but this poetic fire, this “vivida
vis animi,” in a very few. Even in works where all those are imperfect
or neglected, this can overpower criticism, and make us admire even
while we disapprove. Nay, where this appears, though attended with
absurdities, it brightens all the rubbish about it, till we see nothing
but its own splendour. This fire is discerned in Virgil, but discerned
as through a glass, reflected from Homer, more shining than fierce, but
everywhere equal and constant: in Lucan and Statius it bursts out in
sudden, short, and interrupted flashes: In Milton it glows like a
furnace kept up to an uncommon ardour by the force of art: in
Shakspeare it strikes before we are aware, like an accidental fire from
heaven: but in Homer, and in him only, it burns everywhere clearly and
everywhere irresistibly.

I shall here endeavour to show how this vast invention exerts itself in
a manner superior to that of any poet through all the main constituent
parts of his work: as it is the great and peculiar characteristic which
distinguishes him from all other authors.

This strong and ruling faculty was like a powerful star, which, in the
violence of its course, drew all things within its vortex. It seemed
not enough to have taken in the whole circle of arts, and the whole
compass of nature, to supply his maxims and reflections; all the inward
passions and affections of mankind, to furnish his characters: and all
the outward forms and images of things for his descriptions: but
wanting yet an ampler sphere to expatiate in, he opened a new and
boundless walk for his imagination, and created a world for himself in
the invention of fable. That which Aristotle calls “the soul of
poetry,” was first breathed into it by Homer. I shall begin with
considering him in his part, as it is naturally the first; and I speak
of it both as it means the design of a poem, and as it is taken for
fiction.


Fable may be divided into the probable, the allegorical, and the
marvellous. The probable fable is the recital of such actions as,
though they did not happen, yet might, in the common course of nature;
or of such as, though they did, became fables by the additional
episodes and manner of telling them. Of this sort is the main story of
an epic poem, “The return of Ulysses, the settlement of the Trojans in
Italy,” or the like. That of the Iliad is the “anger of Achilles,” the
most short and single subject that ever was chosen by any poet. Yet
this he has supplied with a vaster variety of incidents and events, and
crowded with a greater number of councils, speeches, battles, and
episodes of all kinds, than are to be found even in those poems whose
schemes are of the utmost latitude and irregularity. The action is
hurried on with the most vehement spirit, and its whole duration
employs not so much as fifty days. Virgil, for want of so warm a
genius, aided himself by taking in a more extensive subject, as well as
a greater length of time, and contracting the design of both Homer’s
poems into one, which is yet but a fourth part as large as his. The
other epic poets have used the same practice, but generally carried it
so far as to superinduce a multiplicity of fables, destroy the unity of
action, and lose their readers in an unreasonable length of time. Nor
is it only in the main design that they have been unable to add to his
invention, but they have followed him in every episode and part of
story. If he has given a regular catalogue of an army, they all draw up
their forces in the same order. If he has funeral games for Patroclus,
Virgil has the same for Anchises, and Statius (rather than omit them)
destroys the unity of his actions for those of Archemorus. If Ulysses
visit the shades, the Æneas of Virgil and Scipio of Silius are sent
after him. If he be detained from his return by the allurements of
Calypso, so is Æneas by Dido, and Rinaldo by Armida. If Achilles be
absent from the army on the score of a quarrel through half the poem,
Rinaldo must absent himself just as long on the like account. If he
gives his hero a suit of celestial armour, Virgil and Tasso make the
same present to theirs. Virgil has not only observed this close
imitation of Homer, but, where he had not led the way, supplied the
want from other Greek authors. Thus the story of Sinon, and the taking
of Troy, was copied (says Macrobius) almost word for word from
Pisander, as the loves of Dido and Æneas are taken from those of Medea
and Jason in Apollonius, and several others in the same manner.


To proceed to the allegorical fable—If we reflect upon those
innumerable knowledges, those secrets of nature and physical philosophy
which Homer is generally supposed to have wrapped up in his allegories,
what a new and ample scene of wonder may this consideration afford us!
How fertile will that imagination appear, which was able to clothe all
the properties of elements, the qualifications of the mind, the virtues
and vices, in forms and persons, and to introduce them into actions
agreeable to the nature of the things they shadowed! This is a field in
which no succeeding poets could dispute with Homer, and whatever
commendations have been allowed them on this head, are by no means for
their invention in having enlarged his circle, but for their judgment
in having contracted it. For when the mode of learning changed in the
following ages, and science was delivered in a plainer manner, it then
became as reasonable in the more modern poets to lay it aside, as it
was in Homer to make use of it. And perhaps it was no unhappy
circumstance for Virgil, that there was not in his time that demand
upon him of so great an invention as might be capable of furnishing all
those allegorical parts of a poem.


The marvellous fable includes whatever is supernatural, and especially
the machines of the gods. If Homer was not the first who introduced the
deities (as Herodotus imagines) into the religion of Greece, he seems
the first who brought them into a system of machinery for poetry, and
such a one as makes its greatest importance and dignity: for we find
those authors who have been offended at the literal notion of the gods,
constantly laying their accusation against Homer as the chief support
of it. But whatever cause there might be to blame his machines in a
philosophical or religious view, they are so perfect in the poetic,
that mankind have been ever since contented to follow them: none have
been able to enlarge the sphere of poetry beyond the limits he has set:
every attempt of this nature has proved unsuccessful; and after all the
various changes of times and religions, his gods continue to this day
the gods of poetry.


We come now to the characters of his persons; and here we shall find no
author has ever drawn so many, with so visible and surprising a
variety, or given us such lively and affecting impressions of them.
Every one has something so singularly his own, that no painter could
have distinguished them more by their features, than the poet has by
their manners. Nothing can be more exact than the distinctions he has
observed in the different degrees of virtues and vices. The single
quality of courage is wonderfully diversified in the several characters
of the Iliad. That of Achilles is furious and intractable; that of
Diomede forward, yet listening to advice, and subject to command; that
of Ajax is heavy and self-confiding; of Hector, active and vigilant:
the courage of Agamemnon is inspirited by love of empire and ambition;
that of Menelaus mixed with softness and tenderness for his people: we
find in Idomeneus a plain direct soldier; in Sarpedon a gallant and
generous one. Nor is this judicious and astonishing diversity to be
found only in the principal quality which constitutes the main of each
character, but even in the under parts of it, to which he takes care to
give a tincture of that principal one. For example: the main characters
of Ulysses and Nestor consist in wisdom; and they are distinct in this,
that the wisdom of one is artificial and various, of the other natural,
open, and regular. But they have, besides, characters of courage; and
this quality also takes a different turn in each from the difference of
his prudence; for one in the war depends still upon caution, the other
upon experience. It would be endless to produce instances of these
kinds. The characters of Virgil are far from striking us in this open
manner; they lie, in a great degree, hidden and undistinguished; and,
where they are marked most evidently affect us not in proportion to
those of Homer. His characters of valour are much alike; even that of
Turnus seems no way peculiar, but, as it is, in a superior degree; and
we see nothing that differences the courage of Mnestheus from that of
Sergestus, Cloanthus, or the rest. In like manner it may be remarked of
Statius’s heroes, that an air of impetuosity runs through them all; the
same horrid and savage courage appears in his Capaneus, Tydeus,
Hippomedon, &c. They have a parity of character, which makes them seem
brothers of one family. I believe when the reader is led into this
tract of reflection, if he will pursue it through the epic and tragic
writers, he will be convinced how infinitely superior, in this point,
the invention of Homer was to that of all others.


The speeches are to be considered as they flow from the characters;
being perfect or defective as they agree or disagree with the manners,
of those who utter them. As there is more variety of characters in the
Iliad, so there is of speeches, than in any other poem. “Everything in
it has manner” (as Aristotle expresses it), that is, everything is
acted or spoken. It is hardly credible, in a work of such length, how
small a number of lines are employed in narration. In Virgil the
dramatic part is less in proportion to the narrative, and the speeches
often consist of general reflections or thoughts, which might be
equally just in any person’s mouth upon the same occasion. As many of
his persons have no apparent characters, so many of his speeches escape
being applied and judged by the rule of propriety. We oftener think of
the author himself when we read Virgil, than when we are engaged in
Homer, all which are the effects of a colder invention, that interests
us less in the action described. Homer makes us hearers, and Virgil
leaves us readers.


If, in the next place, we take a view of the sentiments, the same
presiding faculty is eminent in the sublimity and spirit of his
thoughts. Longinus has given his opinion, that it was in this part
Homer principally excelled. What were alone sufficient to prove the
grandeur and excellence of his sentiments in general, is, that they
have so remarkable a parity with those of the Scripture. Duport, in his
Gnomologia Homerica, has collected innumerable instances of this sort.
And it is with justice an excellent modern writer allows, that if
Virgil has not so many thoughts that are low and vulgar, he has not so
many that are sublime and noble; and that the Roman author seldom rises
into very astonishing sentiments where he is not fired by the Iliad.


If we observe his descriptions, images, and similes, we shall find the
invention still predominant. To what else can we ascribe that vast
comprehension of images of every sort, where we see each circumstance
of art, and individual of nature, summoned together by the extent and
fecundity of his imagination to which all things, in their various
views presented themselves in an instant, and had their impressions
taken off to perfection at a heat? Nay, he not only gives us the full
prospects of things, but several unexpected peculiarities and side
views, unobserved by any painter but Homer. Nothing is so surprising as
the descriptions of his battles, which take up no less than half the
Iliad, and are supplied with so vast a variety of incidents, that no
one bears a likeness to another; such different kinds of deaths, that
no two heroes are wounded in the same manner, and such a profusion of
noble ideas, that every battle rises above the last in greatness,
horror, and confusion. It is certain there is not near that number of
images and descriptions in any epic poet, though every one has assisted
himself with a great quantity out of him; and it is evident of Virgil
especially, that he has scarce any comparisons which are not drawn from
his master.


If we descend from hence to the expression, we see the bright
imagination of Homer shining out in the most enlivened forms of it. We
acknowledge him the father of poetical diction; the first who taught
that “language of the gods” to men. His expression is like the
colouring of some great masters, which discovers itself to be laid on
boldly, and executed with rapidity. It is, indeed, the strongest and
most glowing imaginable, and touched with the greatest spirit.
Aristotle had reason to say, he was the only poet who had found out
“living words;” there are in him more daring figures and metaphors than
in any good author whatever. An arrow is “impatient” to be on the wing,
a weapon “thirsts” to drink the blood of an enemy, and the like, yet
his expression is never too big for the sense, but justly great in
proportion to it. It is the sentiment that swells and fills out the
diction, which rises with it, and forms itself about it, for in the
same degree that a thought is warmer, an expression will be brighter,
as that is more strong, this will become more perspicuous; like glass
in the furnace, which grows to a greater magnitude, and refines to a
greater clearness, only as the breath within is more powerful, and the
heat more intense.


To throw his language more out of prose, Homer seems to have affected
the compound epithets. This was a sort of composition peculiarly proper
to poetry, not only as it heightened the diction, but as it assisted
and filled the numbers with greater sound and pomp, and likewise
conduced in some measure to thicken the images. On this last
consideration I cannot but attribute these also to the fruitfulness of
his invention, since (as he has managed them) they are a sort of
supernumerary pictures of the persons or things to which they were
joined. We see the motion of Hector’s plumes in the epithet
Κορυθαίολος, the landscape of Mount Neritus in that of Εἰνοσίφυλλος,
and so of others, which particular images could not have been insisted
upon so long as to express them in a description (though but of a
single line) without diverting the reader too much from the principal
action or figure. As a metaphor is a short simile, one of these
epithets is a short description.


Lastly, if we consider his versification, we shall be sensible what a
share of praise is due to his invention in that also. He was not
satisfied with his language as he found it settled in any one part of
Greece, but searched through its different dialects with this
particular view, to beautify and perfect his numbers he considered
these as they had a greater mixture of vowels or consonants, and
accordingly employed them as the verse required either a greater
smoothness or strength. What he most affected was the Ionic, which has
a peculiar sweetness, from its never using contractions, and from its
custom of resolving the diphthongs into two syllables, so as to make
the words open themselves with a more spreading and sonorous fluency.
With this he mingled the Attic contractions, the broader Doric, and the
feebler Æolic, which often rejects its aspirate, or takes off its
accent, and completed this variety by altering some letters with the
licence of poetry. Thus his measures, instead of being fetters to his
sense, were always in readiness to run along with the warmth of his
rapture, and even to give a further representation of his notions, in
the correspondence of their sounds to what they signified. Out of all
these he has derived that harmony which makes us confess he had not
only the richest head, but the finest ear in the world. This is so
great a truth, that whoever will but consult the tune of his verses,
even without understanding them (with the same sort of diligence as we
daily see practised in the case of Italian operas), will find more
sweetness, variety, and majesty of sound, than in any other language of
poetry. The beauty of his numbers is allowed by the critics to be
copied but faintly by Virgil himself, though they are so just as to
ascribe it to the nature of the Latin tongue: indeed the Greek has some
advantages both from the natural sound of its words, and the turn and
cadence of its verse, which agree with the genius of no other language.
Virgil was very sensible of this, and used the utmost diligence in
working up a more intractable language to whatsoever graces it was
capable of, and, in particular, never failed to bring the sound of his
line to a beautiful agreement with its sense. If the Grecian poet has
not been so frequently celebrated on this account as the Roman, the
only reason is, that fewer critics have understood one language than
the other. Dionysius of Halicarnassus has pointed out many of our
author’s beauties in this kind, in his treatise of the Composition of
Words. It suffices at present to observe of his numbers, that they flow
with so much ease, as to make one imagine Homer had no other care than
to transcribe as fast as the Muses dictated, and, at the same time,
with so much force and inspiriting vigour, that they awaken and raise
us like the sound of a trumpet. They roll along as a plentiful river,
always in motion, and always full; while we are borne away by a tide of
verse, the most rapid, and yet the most smooth imaginable.


Thus on whatever side we contemplate Homer, what principally strikes us
is his invention. It is that which forms the character of each part of
his work; and accordingly we find it to have made his fable more
extensive and copious than any other, his manners more lively and
strongly marked, his speeches more affecting and transported, his
sentiments more warm and sublime, his images and descriptions more full
and animated, his expression more raised and daring, and his numbers
more rapid and various. I hope, in what has been said of Virgil, with
regard to any of these heads, I have no way derogated from his
character. Nothing is more absurd or endless, than the common method of
comparing eminent writers by an opposition of particular passages in
them, and forming a judgment from thence of their merit upon the whole.
We ought to have a certain knowledge of the principal character and
distinguishing excellence of each: it is in that we are to consider
him, and in proportion to his degree in that we are to admire him. No
author or man ever excelled all the world in more than one faculty; and
as Homer has done this in invention, Virgil has in judgment. Not that
we are to think that Homer wanted judgment, because Virgil had it in a
more eminent degree; or that Virgil wanted invention, because Homer
possessed a larger share of it; each of these great authors had more of
both than perhaps any man besides, and are only said to have less in
comparison with one another. Homer was the greater genius, Virgil the
better artist. In one we most admire the man, in the other the work.
Homer hurries and transports us with a commanding impetuosity; Virgil
leads us with an attractive majesty; Homer scatters with a generous
profusion; Virgil bestows with a careful magnificence; Homer, like the
Nile, pours out his riches with a boundless overflow; Virgil, like a
river in its banks, with a gentle and constant stream. When we behold
their battles, methinks the two poets resemble the heroes they
celebrate. Homer, boundless and resistless as Achilles, bears all
before him, and shines more and more as the tumult increases; Virgil,
calmly daring, like Æneas, appears undisturbed in the midst of the
action; disposes all about him, and conquers with tranquillity. And
when we look upon their machines, Homer seems like his own Jupiter in
his terrors, shaking Olympus, scattering the lightnings, and firing the
heavens: Virgil, like the same power in his benevolence, counselling
with the gods, laying plans for empires, and regularly ordering his
whole creation.


But after all, it is with great parts, as with great virtues, they
naturally border on some imperfection; and it is often hard to
distinguish exactly where the virtue ends, or the fault begins. As
prudence may sometimes sink to suspicion, so may a great judgment
decline to coldness; and as magnanimity may run up to profusion or
extravagance, so may a great invention to redundancy or wildness. If we
look upon Homer in this view, we shall perceive the chief objections
against him to proceed from so noble a cause as the excess of this
faculty.


Among these we may reckon some of his marvellous fictions, upon which
so much criticism has been spent, as surpassing all the bounds of
probability. Perhaps it may be with great and superior souls, as with
gigantic bodies, which, exerting themselves with unusual strength,
exceed what is commonly thought the due proportion of parts, to become
miracles in the whole; and, like the old heroes of that make, commit
something near extravagance, amidst a series of glorious and inimitable
performances. Thus Homer has his “speaking horses;” and Virgil his
“myrtles distilling blood;” where the latter has not so much as
contrived the easy intervention of a deity to save the probability.


It is owing to the same vast invention, that his similes have been
thought too exuberant and full of circumstances. The force of this
faculty is seen in nothing more, than in its inability to confine
itself to that single circumstance upon which the comparison is
grounded: it runs out into embellishments of additional images, which,
however, are so managed as not to overpower the main one. His similes
are like pictures, where the principal figure has not only its
proportion given agreeable to the original, but is also set off with
occasional ornaments and prospects. The same will account for his
manner of heaping a number of comparisons together in one breath, when
his fancy suggested to him at once so many various and correspondent
images. The reader will easily extend this observation to more
objections of the same kind.


If there are others which seem rather to charge him with a defect or
narrowness of genius, than an excess of it, those seeming defects will
be found upon examination to proceed wholly from the nature of the
times he lived in. Such are his grosser representations of the gods;
and the vicious and imperfect manners of his heroes; but I must here
speak a word of the latter, as it is a point generally carried into
extremes, both by the censurers and defenders of Homer. It must be a
strange partiality to antiquity, to think with Madame Dacier,[38] “that
those times and manners are so much the more excellent, as they are
more contrary to ours.” Who can be so prejudiced in their favour as to
magnify the felicity of those ages, when a spirit of revenge and
cruelty, joined with the practice of rapine and robbery, reigned
through the world: when no mercy was shown but for the sake of lucre;
when the greatest princes were put to the sword, and their wives and
daughters made slaves and concubines? On the other side, I would not be
so delicate as those modern critics, who are shocked at the servile
offices and mean employments in which we sometimes see the heroes of
Homer engaged. There is a pleasure in taking a view of that simplicity,
in opposition to the luxury of succeeding ages: in beholding monarchs
without their guards; princes tending their flocks, and princesses
drawing water from the springs. When we read Homer, we ought to reflect
that we are reading the most ancient author in the heathen world; and
those who consider him in this light, will double their pleasure in the
perusal of him. Let them think they are growing acquainted with nations
and people that are now no more; that they are stepping almost three
thousand years back into the remotest antiquity, and entertaining
themselves with a clear and surprising vision of things nowhere else to
be found, the only true mirror of that ancient world. By this means
alone their greatest obstacles will vanish; and what usually creates
their dislike, will become a satisfaction.

This consideration may further serve to answer for the constant use of
the same epithets to his gods and heroes; such as the “far-darting
Phœbus,” the “blue-eyed Pallas,” the “swift-footed Achilles,” &c.,
which some have censured as impertinent, and tediously repeated. Those
of the gods depended upon the powers and offices then believed to
belong to them; and had contracted a weight and veneration from the
rites and solemn devotions in which they were used: they were a sort of
attributes with which it was a matter of religion to salute them on all
occasions, and which it was an irreverence to omit. As for the epithets
of great men, Mons. Boileau is of opinion, that they were in the nature
of surnames, and repeated as such; for the Greeks having no names
derived from their fathers, were obliged to add some other distinction
of each person; either naming his parents expressly, or his place of
birth, profession, or the like: as Alexander the son of Philip,
Herodotus of Halicarnassus, Diogenes the Cynic, &c. Homer, therefore,
complying with the custom of his country, used such distinctive
additions as better agreed with poetry. And, indeed, we have something
parallel to these in modern times, such as the names of Harold
Harefoot, Edmund Ironside, Edward Longshanks, Edward the Black Prince,
&c. If yet this be thought to account better for the propriety than for
the repetition, I shall add a further conjecture. Hesiod, dividing the
world into its different ages, has placed a fourth age, between the
brazen and the iron one, of “heroes distinct from other men; a divine
race who fought at Thebes and Troy, are called demi-gods, and live by
the care of Jupiter in the islands of the blessed.”[39] Now among the
divine honours which were paid them, they might have this also in
common with the gods, not to be mentioned without the solemnity of an
epithet, and such as might be acceptable to them by celebrating their
families, actions or qualities.

What other cavils have been raised against Homer, are such as hardly
deserve a reply, but will yet be taken notice of as they occur in the
course of the work. Many have been occasioned by an injudicious
endeavour to exalt Virgil; which is much the same, as if one should
think to raise the superstructure by undermining the foundation: one
would imagine, by the whole course of their parallels, that these
critics never so much as heard of Homer’s having written first; a
consideration which whoever compares these two poets ought to have
always in his eye. Some accuse him for the same things which they
overlook or praise in the other; as when they prefer the fable and
moral of the Æneis to those of the Iliad, for the same reasons which
might set the Odyssey above the Æneis; as that the hero is a wiser man,
and the action of the one more beneficial to his country than that of
the other; or else they blame him for not doing what he never designed;
as because Achilles is not as good and perfect a prince as Æneas, when
the very moral of his poem required a contrary character: it is thus
that Rapin judges in his comparison of Homer and Virgil. Others select
those particular passages of Homer which are not so laboured as some
that Virgil drew out of them: this is the whole management of Scaliger
in his Poetics. Others quarrel with what they take for low and mean
expressions, sometimes through a false delicacy and refinement, oftener
from an ignorance of the graces of the original, and then triumph in
the awkwardness of their own translations: this is the conduct of
Perrault in his Parallels. Lastly, there are others, who, pretending to
a fairer proceeding, distinguish between the personal merit of Homer,
and that of his work; but when they come to assign the causes of the
great reputation of the Iliad, they found it upon the ignorance of his
times, and the prejudice of those that followed; and in pursuance of
this principle, they make those accidents (such as the contention of
the cities, &c.) to be the causes of his fame, which were in reality
the consequences of his merit. The same might as well be said of
Virgil, or any great author whose general character will infallibly
raise many casual additions to their reputation. This is the method of
Mons. de la Mott; who yet confesses upon the whole that in whatever age
Homer had lived, he must have been the greatest poet of his nation, and
that he may be said in his sense to be the master even of those who
surpassed him.

In all these objections we see nothing that contradicts his title to
the honour of the chief invention: and as long as this (which is indeed
the characteristic of poetry itself) remains unequalled by his
followers, he still continues superior to them. A cooler judgment may
commit fewer faults, and be more approved in the eyes of one sort of
critics: but that warmth of fancy will carry the loudest and most
universal applauses which holds the heart of a reader under the
strongest enchantment. Homer not only appears the inventor of poetry,
but excels all the inventors of other arts, in this, that he has
swallowed up the honour of those who succeeded him. What he has done
admitted no increase, it only left room for contraction or regulation.
He showed all the stretch of fancy at once; and if he has failed in
some of his flights, it was but because he attempted everything. A work
of this kind seems like a mighty tree, which rises from the most
vigorous seed, is improved with industry, flourishes, and produces the
finest fruit: nature and art conspire to raise it; pleasure and profit
join to make it valuable: and they who find the justest faults, have
only said that a few branches which run luxuriant through a richness of
nature, might be lopped into form to give it a more regular appearance.

Having now spoken of the beauties and defects of the original, it
remains to treat of the translation, with the same view to the chief
characteristic. As far as that is seen in the main parts of the poem,
such as the fable, manners, and sentiments, no translator can prejudice
it but by wilful omissions or contractions. As it also breaks out in
every particular image, description, and simile, whoever lessens or too
much softens those, takes off from this chief character. It is the
first grand duty of an interpreter to give his author entire and
unmaimed; and for the rest, the diction and versification only are his
proper province, since these must be his own, but the others he is to
take as he finds them.

It should then be considered what methods may afford some equivalent in
our language for the graces of these in the Greek. It is certain no
literal translation can be just to an excellent original in a superior
language: but it is a great mistake to imagine (as many have done) that
a rash paraphrase can make amends for this general defect; which is no
less in danger to lose the spirit of an ancient, by deviating into the
modern manners of expression. If there be sometimes a darkness, there
is often a light in antiquity, which nothing better preserves than a
version almost literal. I know no liberties one ought to take, but
those which are necessary to transfusing the spirit of the original,
and supporting the poetical style of the translation: and I will
venture to say, there have not been more men misled in former times by
a servile, dull adherence to the letter, than have been deluded in ours
by a chimerical, insolent hope of raising and improving their author.
It is not to be doubted, that the fire of the poem is what a translator
should principally regard, as it is most likely to expire in his
managing: however, it is his safest way to be content with preserving
this to his utmost in the whole, without endeavouring to be more than
he finds his author is, in any particular place. It is a great secret
in writing, to know when to be plain, and when poetical and figurative;
and it is what Homer will teach us, if we will but follow modestly in
his footsteps. Where his diction is bold and lofty, let us raise ours
as high as we can; but where his is plain and humble, we ought not to
be deterred from imitating him by the fear of incurring the censure of
a mere English critic. Nothing that belongs to Homer seems to have been
more commonly mistaken than the just pitch of his style: some of his
translators having swelled into fustian in a proud confidence of the
sublime; others sunk into flatness, in a cold and timorous notion of
simplicity. Methinks I see these different followers of Homer, some
sweating and straining after him by violent leaps and bounds (the
certain signs of false mettle), others slowly and servilely creeping in
his train, while the poet himself is all the time proceeding with an
unaffected and equal majesty before them. However, of the two extremes
one could sooner pardon frenzy than frigidity; no author is to be
envied for such commendations, as he may gain by that character of
style, which his friends must agree together to call simplicity, and
the rest of the world will call dulness. There is a graceful and
dignified simplicity, as well as a bold and sordid one; which differ as
much from each other as the air of a plain man from that of a sloven:
it is one thing to be tricked up, and another not to be dressed at all.
Simplicity is the mean between ostentation and rusticity.

This pure and noble simplicity is nowhere in such perfection as in the
Scripture and our author. One may affirm, with all respect to the
inspired writings, that the Divine Spirit made use of no other words
but what were intelligible and common to men at that time, and in that
part of the world; and, as Homer is the author nearest to those, his
style must of course bear a greater resemblance to the sacred books
than that of any other writer. This consideration (together with what
has been observed of the parity of some of his thoughts) may, methinks,
induce a translator, on the one hand, to give in to several of those
general phrases and manners of expression, which have attained a
veneration even in our language from being used in the Old Testament;
as, on the other, to avoid those which have been appropriated to the
Divinity, and in a manner consigned to mystery and religion.

For a further preservation of this air of simplicity, a particular care
should be taken to express with all plainness those moral sentences and
proverbial speeches which are so numerous in this poet. They have
something venerable, and as I may say, oracular, in that unadorned
gravity and shortness with which they are delivered: a grace which
would be utterly lost by endeavouring to give them what we call a more
ingenious (that is, a more modern) turn in the paraphrase.

Perhaps the mixture of some Græcisms and old words after the manner of
Milton, if done without too much affectation, might not have an ill
effect in a version of this particular work, which most of any other
seems to require a venerable, antique cast. But certainly the use of
modern terms of war and government, such as “platoon, campaign, junto,”
or the like, (into which some of his translators have fallen) cannot be
allowable; those only excepted without which it is impossible to treat
the subjects in any living language.

There are two peculiarities in Homer’s diction, which are a sort of
marks or moles by which every common eye distinguishes him at first
sight; those who are not his greatest admirers look upon them as
defects, and those who are, seemed pleased with them as beauties. I
speak of his compound epithets, and of his repetitions. Many of the
former cannot be done literally into English without destroying the
purity of our language. I believe such should be retained as slide
easily of themselves into an English compound, without violence to the
ear or to the received rules of composition, as well as those which
have received a sanction from the authority of our best poets, and are
become familiar through their use of them; such as “the
cloud-compelling Jove,” &c. As for the rest, whenever any can be as
fully and significantly expressed in a single word as in a compounded
one, the course to be taken is obvious.

Some that cannot be so turned, as to preserve their full image by one
or two words, may have justice done them by circumlocution; as the
epithet εἰνοσίφυλλος to a mountain, would appear little or ridiculous
translated literally “leaf-shaking,” but affords a majestic idea in the
periphrasis: “the lofty mountain shakes his waving woods.” Others that
admit of different significations, may receive an advantage from a
judicious variation, according to the occasions on which they are
introduced. For example, the epithet of Apollo, ἑκηβόλος or
“far-shooting,” is capable of two explications; one literal, in respect
of the darts and bow, the ensigns of that god; the other allegorical,
with regard to the rays of the sun; therefore, in such places where
Apollo is represented as a god in person, I would use the former
interpretation; and where the effects of the sun are described, I would
make choice of the latter. Upon the whole, it will be necessary to
avoid that perpetual repetition of the same epithets which we find in
Homer, and which, though it might be accommodated (as has been already
shown) to the ear of those times, is by no means so to ours: but one
may wait for opportunities of placing them, where they derive an
additional beauty from the occasions on which they are employed; and in
doing this properly, a translator may at once show his fancy and his
judgment.

As for Homer’s repetitions, we may divide them into three sorts: of
whole narrations and speeches, of single sentences, and of one verse or
hemistitch. I hope it is not impossible to have such a regard to these,
as neither to lose so known a mark of the author on the one hand, nor
to offend the reader too much on the other. The repetition is not
ungraceful in those speeches, where the dignity of the speaker renders
it a sort of insolence to alter his words; as in the messages from gods
to men, or from higher powers to inferiors in concerns of state, or
where the ceremonial of religion seems to require it, in the solemn
forms of prayers, oaths, or the like. In other cases, I believe the
best rule is, to be guided by the nearness, or distance, at which the
repetitions are placed in the original: when they follow too close, one
may vary the expression; but it is a question, whether a professed
translator be authorized to omit any: if they be tedious, the author is
to answer for it.

It only remains to speak of the versification. Homer (as has been said)
is perpetually applying the sound to the sense, and varying it on every
new subject. This is indeed one of the most exquisite beauties of
poetry, and attainable by very few: I only know of Homer eminent for it
in the Greek, and Virgil in the Latin. I am sensible it is what may
sometimes happen by chance, when a writer is warm, and fully possessed
of his image: however, it may reasonably be believed they designed
this, in whose verse it so manifestly appears in a superior degree to
all others. Few readers have the ear to be judges of it: but those who
have, will see I have endeavoured at this beauty.

Upon the whole, I must confess myself utterly incapable of doing
justice to Homer. I attempt him in no other hope but that which one may
entertain without much vanity, of giving a more tolerable copy of him
than any entire translation in verse has yet done. We have only those
of Chapman, Hobbes, and Ogilby. Chapman has taken the advantage of an
immeasurable length of verse, notwithstanding which, there is scarce
any paraphrase more loose and rambling than his. He has frequent
interpolations of four or six lines; and I remember one in the
thirteenth book of the Odyssey, ver. 312, where he has spun twenty
verses out of two. He is often mistaken in so bold a manner, that one
might think he deviated on purpose, if he did not in other places of
his notes insist so much upon verbal trifles. He appears to have had a
strong affectation of extracting new meanings out of his author;
insomuch as to promise, in his rhyming preface, a poem of the mysteries
he had revealed in Homer; and perhaps he endeavoured to strain the
obvious sense to this end. His expression is involved in fustian; a
fault for which he was remarkable in his original writings, as in the
tragedy of Bussy d’Amboise, &c. In a word, the nature of the man may
account for his whole performance; for he appears, from his preface and
remarks, to have been of an arrogant turn, and an enthusiast in poetry.
His own boast, of having finished half the Iliad in less than fifteen
weeks, shows with what negligence his version was performed. But that
which is to be allowed him, and which very much contributed to cover
his defects, is a daring fiery spirit that animates his translation,
which is something like what one might imagine Homer himself would have
writ before he arrived at years of discretion.

Hobbes has given us a correct explanation of the sense in general; but
for particulars and circumstances he continually lops them, and often
omits the most beautiful. As for its being esteemed a close
translation, I doubt not many have been led into that error by the
shortness of it, which proceeds not from his following the original
line by line, but from the contractions above mentioned. He sometimes
omits whole similes and sentences; and is now and then guilty of
mistakes, into which no writer of his learning could have fallen, but
through carelessness. His poetry, as well as Ogilby’s, is too mean for
criticism.

It is a great loss to the poetical world that Mr. Dryden did not live
to translate the Iliad. He has left us only the first book, and a small
part of the sixth; in which if he has in some places not truly
interpreted the sense, or preserved the antiquities, it ought to be
excused on account of the haste he was obliged to write in. He seems to
have had too much regard to Chapman, whose words he sometimes copies,
and has unhappily followed him in passages where he wanders from the
original. However, had he translated the whole work, I would no more
have attempted Homer after him than Virgil: his version of whom
(notwithstanding some human errors) is the most noble and spirited
translation I know in any language. But the fate of great geniuses is
like that of great ministers: though they are confessedly the first in
the commonwealth of letters, they must be envied and calumniated only
for being at the head of it.

That which, in my opinion, ought to be the endeavour of any one who
translates Homer, is above all things to keep alive that spirit and
fire which makes his chief character: in particular places, where the
sense can bear any doubt, to follow the strongest and most poetical, as
most agreeing with that character; to copy him in all the variations of
his style, and the different modulations of his numbers; to preserve,
in the more active or descriptive parts, a warmth and elevation; in the
more sedate or narrative, a plainness and solemnity; in the speeches, a
fulness and perspicuity; in the sentences, a shortness and gravity; not
to neglect even the little figures and turns on the words, nor
sometimes the very cast of the periods; neither to omit nor confound
any rites or customs of antiquity: perhaps too he ought to include the
whole in a shorter compass than has hitherto been done by any
translator who has tolerably preserved either the sense or poetry. What
I would further recommend to him is, to study his author rather from
his own text, than from any commentaries, how learned soever, or
whatever figure they may make in the estimation of the world; to
consider him attentively in comparison with Virgil above all the
ancients, and with Milton above all the moderns. Next these, the
Archbishop of Cambray’s Telemachus may give him the truest idea of the
spirit and turn of our author; and Bossu’s admirable Treatise of the
Epic Poem the justest notion of his design and conduct. But after all,
with whatever judgment and study a man may proceed, or with whatever
happiness he may perform such a work, he must hope to please but a few;
those only who have at once a taste of poetry, and competent learning.
For to satisfy such a want either, is not in the nature of this
undertaking; since a mere modern wit can like nothing that is not
modern, and a pedant nothing that is not Greek.

What I have done is submitted to the public; from whose opinions I am
prepared to learn; though I fear no judges so little as our best poets,
who are most sensible of the weight of this task. As for the worst,
whatever they shall please to say, they may give me some concern as
they are unhappy men, but none as they are malignant writers. I was
guided in this translation by judgments very different from theirs, and
by persons for whom they can have no kindness, if an old observation be
true, that the strongest antipathy in the world is that of fools to men
of wit. Mr. Addison was the first whose advice determined me to
undertake this task; who was pleased to write to me upon that occasion
in such terms as I cannot repeat without vanity. I was obliged to Sir
Richard Steele for a very early recommendation of my undertaking to the
public. Dr. Swift promoted my interest with that warmth with which he
always serves his friend. The humanity and frankness of Sir Samuel
Garth are what I never knew wanting on any occasion. I must also
acknowledge, with infinite pleasure, the many friendly offices, as well
as sincere criticisms, of Mr. Congreve, who had led me the way in
translating some parts of Homer. I must add the names of Mr. Rowe, and
Dr. Parnell, though I shall take a further opportunity of doing justice
to the last, whose good nature (to give it a great panegyric), is no
less extensive than his learning. The favour of these gentlemen is not
entirely undeserved by one who bears them so true an affection. But
what can I say of the honour so many of the great have done me; while
the first names of the age appear as my subscribers, and the most
distinguished patrons and ornaments of learning as my chief
encouragers? Among these it is a particular pleasure to me to find,
that my highest obligations are to such who have done most honour to
the name of poet: that his grace the Duke of Buckingham was not
displeased I should undertake the author to whom he has given (in his
excellent Essay), so complete a praise:

“Read Homer once, and you can read no more;
For all books else appear so mean, so poor,
Verse will seem prose: but still persist to read,
And Homer will be all the books you need.”


That the Earl of Halifax was one of the first to favour me; of whom it
is hard to say whether the advancement of the polite arts is more owing
to his generosity or his example: that such a genius as my Lord
Bolingbroke, not more distinguished in the great scenes of business,
than in all the useful and entertaining parts of learning, has not
refused to be the critic of these sheets, and the patron of their
writer: and that the noble author of the tragedy of “Heroic Love” has
continued his partiality to me, from my writing pastorals to my
attempting the Iliad. I cannot deny myself the pride of confessing,
that I have had the advantage not only of their advice for the conduct
in general, but their correction of several particulars of this
translation.

I could say a great deal of the pleasure of being distinguished by the
Earl of Carnarvon; but it is almost absurd to particularize any one
generous action in a person whose whole life is a continued series of
them. Mr. Stanhope, the present secretary of state, will pardon my
desire of having it known that he was pleased to promote this affair.
The particular zeal of Mr. Harcourt (the son of the late Lord
Chancellor) gave me a proof how much I am honoured in a share of his
friendship. I must attribute to the same motive that of several others
of my friends: to whom all acknowledgments are rendered unnecessary by
the privileges of a familiar correspondence; and I am satisfied I can
no way better oblige men of their turn than by my silence.

In short, I have found more patrons than ever Homer wanted. He would
have thought himself happy to have met the same favour at Athens that
has been shown me by its learned rival, the University of Oxford. And I
can hardly envy him those pompous honours he received after death, when
I reflect on the enjoyment of so many agreeable obligations, and easy
friendships, which make the satisfaction of life. This distinction is
the more to be acknowledged, as it is shown to one whose pen has never
gratified the prejudices of particular parties, or the vanities of
particular men. Whatever the success may prove, I shall never repent of
an undertaking in which I have experienced the candour and friendship
of so many persons of merit; and in which I hope to pass some of those
years of youth that are generally lost in a circle of follies, after a
manner neither wholly unuseful to others, nor disagreeable to myself.




THE ILIAD.




BOOK I.


ARGUMENT.[40]


THE CONTENTION OF ACHILLES AND AGAMEMNON.


In the war of Troy, the Greeks having sacked some of the neighbouring
towns, and taken from thence two beautiful captives, Chryseïs and
Briseïs, allotted the first to Agamemnon, and the last to Achilles.
Chryses, the father of Chryseïs, and priest of Apollo, comes to the
Grecian camp to ransom her; with which the action of the poem opens, in
the tenth year of the siege. The priest being refused, and insolently
dismissed by Agamemnon, entreats for vengeance from his god; who
inflicts a pestilence on the Greeks. Achilles calls a council, and
encourages Chalcas to declare the cause of it; who attributes it to the
refusal of Chryseïs. The king, being obliged to send back his captive,
enters into a furious contest with Achilles, which Nestor pacifies;
however, as he had the absolute command of the army, he seizes on
Briseïs in revenge. Achilles in discontent withdraws himself and his
forces from the rest of the Greeks; and complaining to Thetis, she
supplicates Jupiter to render them sensible of the wrong done to her
son, by giving victory to the Trojans. Jupiter, granting her suit,
incenses Juno: between whom the debate runs high, till they are
reconciled by the address of Vulcan.
    The time of two-and-twenty days is taken up in this book: nine
    during the plague, one in the council and quarrel of the princes,
    and twelve for Jupiter’s stay with the Æthiopians, at whose return
    Thetis prefers her petition. The scene lies in the Grecian camp,
    then changes to Chrysa, and lastly to Olympus.


Achilles’ wrath, to Greece the direful spring
Of woes unnumber’d, heavenly goddess, sing!
That wrath which hurl’d to Pluto’s gloomy reign
The souls of mighty chiefs untimely slain;
Whose limbs unburied on the naked shore,
Devouring dogs and hungry vultures tore.[41]
Since great Achilles and Atrides strove,
Such was the sovereign doom, and such the will of Jove![42]

Declare, O Muse! in what ill-fated hour[43]
Sprung the fierce strife, from what offended power
Latona’s son a dire contagion spread,[44]
And heap’d the camp with mountains of the dead;
The king of men his reverent priest defied,[45]
And for the king’s offence the people died.

For Chryses sought with costly gifts to gain
His captive daughter from the victor’s chain.
Suppliant the venerable father stands;
Apollo’s awful ensigns grace his hands:
By these he begs; and lowly bending down,
Extends the sceptre and the laurel crown.
He sued to all, but chief implored for grace
The brother-kings, of Atreus’ royal race[46]

“Ye kings and warriors! may your vows be crown’d,
And Troy’s proud walls lie level with the ground.
May Jove restore you when your toils are o’er
Safe to the pleasures of your native shore.
But, oh! relieve a wretched parent’s pain,
And give Chryseïs to these arms again;
If mercy fail, yet let my presents move,
And dread avenging Phœbus, son of Jove.”

The Greeks in shouts their joint assent declare,
The priest to reverence, and release the fair.
Not so Atrides; he, with kingly pride,
Repulsed the sacred sire, and thus replied:
“Hence on thy life, and fly these hostile plains,
Nor ask, presumptuous, what the king detains:

Hence, with thy laurel crown, and golden rod,
Nor trust too far those ensigns of thy god.
Mine is thy daughter, priest, and shall remain;
And prayers, and tears, and bribes, shall plead in vain;
Till time shall rifle every youthful grace,
And age dismiss her from my cold embrace,
In daily labours of the loom employ’d,
Or doom’d to deck the bed she once enjoy’d.
Hence then; to Argos shall the maid retire,
Far from her native soil and weeping sire.”


[Illustration: ] HOMER INVOKING THE MUSE


The trembling priest along the shore return’d,
And in the anguish of a father mourn’d.
Disconsolate, not daring to complain,
Silent he wander’d by the sounding main;
Till, safe at distance, to his god he prays,
The god who darts around the world his rays.

“O Smintheus! sprung from fair Latona’s line,[47]
Thou guardian power of Cilla the divine,[48]
Thou source of light! whom Tenedos adores,
And whose bright presence gilds thy Chrysa’s shores.
If e’er with wreaths I hung thy sacred fane,[49]
Or fed the flames with fat of oxen slain;
God of the silver bow! thy shafts employ,
Avenge thy servant, and the Greeks destroy.”

Thus Chryses pray’d:—the favouring power attends,
And from Olympus’ lofty tops descends.
Bent was his bow, the Grecian hearts to wound;[50]
Fierce as he moved, his silver shafts resound.
Breathing revenge, a sudden night he spread,
And gloomy darkness roll’d about his head.
The fleet in view, he twang’d his deadly bow,
And hissing fly the feather’d fates below.
On mules and dogs the infection first began;[51]
And last, the vengeful arrows fix’d in man.
For nine long nights, through all the dusky air,
The pyres, thick-flaming, shot a dismal glare.
But ere the tenth revolving day was run,
Inspired by Juno, Thetis’ godlike son
Convened to council all the Grecian train;
For much the goddess mourn’d her heroes slain.[52]
The assembly seated, rising o’er the rest,
Achilles thus the king of men address’d:

“Why leave we not the fatal Trojan shore,
And measure back the seas we cross’d before?
The plague destroying whom the sword would spare,
’Tis time to save the few remains of war.
But let some prophet, or some sacred sage,
Explore the cause of great Apollo’s rage;
Or learn the wasteful vengeance to remove
By mystic dreams, for dreams descend from Jove.[53]
If broken vows this heavy curse have laid,
Let altars smoke, and hecatombs be paid.
So Heaven, atoned, shall dying Greece restore,
And Phœbus dart his burning shafts no more.”

He said, and sat: when Chalcas thus replied;
Chalcas the wise, the Grecian priest and guide,
That sacred seer, whose comprehensive view,
The past, the present, and the future knew:
Uprising slow, the venerable sage
Thus spoke the prudence and the fears of age:

“Beloved of Jove, Achilles! would’st thou know
Why angry Phœbus bends his fatal bow?
First give thy faith, and plight a prince’s word
Of sure protection, by thy power and sword:
For I must speak what wisdom would conceal,
And truths, invidious to the great, reveal,
Bold is the task, when subjects, grown too wise,
Instruct a monarch where his error lies;
For though we deem the short-lived fury past,
’Tis sure the mighty will revenge at last.”
To whom Pelides:—“From thy inmost soul
Speak what thou know’st, and speak without control.
E’en by that god I swear who rules the day,
To whom thy hands the vows of Greece convey.
And whose bless’d oracles thy lips declare;
Long as Achilles breathes this vital air,
No daring Greek, of all the numerous band,
Against his priest shall lift an impious hand;
Not e’en the chief by whom our hosts are led,
The king of kings, shall touch that sacred head.”

Encouraged thus, the blameless man replies:
“Nor vows unpaid, nor slighted sacrifice,
But he, our chief, provoked the raging pest,
Apollo’s vengeance for his injured priest.
Nor will the god’s awaken’d fury cease,
But plagues shall spread, and funeral fires increase,
Till the great king, without a ransom paid,
To her own Chrysa send the black-eyed maid.[54]
Perhaps, with added sacrifice and prayer,
The priest may pardon, and the god may spare.”

The prophet spoke: when with a gloomy frown
The monarch started from his shining throne;
Black choler fill’d his breast that boil’d with ire,
And from his eye-balls flash’d the living fire:
“Augur accursed! denouncing mischief still,
Prophet of plagues, for ever boding ill!
Still must that tongue some wounding message bring,
And still thy priestly pride provoke thy king?
For this are Phœbus’ oracles explored,
To teach the Greeks to murmur at their lord?
For this with falsehood is my honour stain’d,
Is heaven offended, and a priest profaned;
Because my prize, my beauteous maid, I hold,
And heavenly charms prefer to proffer’d gold?
A maid, unmatch’d in manners as in face,
Skill’d in each art, and crown’d with every grace;
Not half so dear were Clytæmnestra’s charms,
When first her blooming beauties bless’d my arms.
Yet, if the gods demand her, let her sail;
Our cares are only for the public weal:
Let me be deem’d the hateful cause of all,
And suffer, rather than my people fall.
The prize, the beauteous prize, I will resign,
So dearly valued, and so justly mine.
But since for common good I yield the fair,
My private loss let grateful Greece repair;
Nor unrewarded let your prince complain,
That he alone has fought and bled in vain.”
“Insatiate king (Achilles thus replies),
Fond of the power, but fonder of the prize!
Would’st thou the Greeks their lawful prey should yield,
The due reward of many a well-fought field?

The spoils of cities razed and warriors slain,
We share with justice, as with toil we gain;
But to resume whate’er thy avarice craves
(That trick of tyrants) may be borne by slaves.
Yet if our chief for plunder only fight,
The spoils of Ilion shall thy loss requite,
Whene’er, by Jove’s decree, our conquering powers
Shall humble to the dust her lofty towers.”

Then thus the king: “Shall I my prize resign
With tame content, and thou possess’d of thine?
Great as thou art, and like a god in fight,
Think not to rob me of a soldier’s right.
At thy demand shall I restore the maid?
First let the just equivalent be paid;
Such as a king might ask; and let it be
A treasure worthy her, and worthy me.
Or grant me this, or with a monarch’s claim
This hand shall seize some other captive dame.
The mighty Ajax shall his prize resign;[55]
Ulysses’ spoils, or even thy own, be mine.
The man who suffers, loudly may complain;
And rage he may, but he shall rage in vain.
But this when time requires.—It now remains
We launch a bark to plough the watery plains,
And waft the sacrifice to Chrysa’s shores,
With chosen pilots, and with labouring oars.
Soon shall the fair the sable ship ascend,
And some deputed prince the charge attend:
This Creta’s king, or Ajax shall fulfil,
Or wise Ulysses see perform’d our will;
Or, if our royal pleasure shall ordain,
Achilles’ self conduct her o’er the main;
Let fierce Achilles, dreadful in his rage,
The god propitiate, and the pest assuage.”


[Illustration: ] MARS


At this, Pelides, frowning stern, replied:
“O tyrant, arm’d with insolence and pride!
Inglorious slave to interest, ever join’d
With fraud, unworthy of a royal mind!
What generous Greek, obedient to thy word,
Shall form an ambush, or shall lift the sword?
What cause have I to war at thy decree?
The distant Trojans never injured me;
To Phthia’s realms no hostile troops they led:
Safe in her vales my warlike coursers fed;
Far hence removed, the hoarse-resounding main,
And walls of rocks, secure my native reign,
Whose fruitful soil luxuriant harvests grace,
Rich in her fruits, and in her martial race.
Hither we sail’d, a voluntary throng,
To avenge a private, not a public wrong:
What else to Troy the assembled nations draws,
But thine, ungrateful, and thy brother’s cause?
Is this the pay our blood and toils deserve;
Disgraced and injured by the man we serve?
And darest thou threat to snatch my prize away,
Due to the deeds of many a dreadful day?
A prize as small, O tyrant! match’d with thine,
As thy own actions if compared to mine.
Thine in each conquest is the wealthy prey,
Though mine the sweat and danger of the day.
Some trivial present to my ships I bear:
Or barren praises pay the wounds of war.
But know, proud monarch, I’m thy slave no more;
My fleet shall waft me to Thessalia’s shore:
Left by Achilles on the Trojan plain,
What spoils, what conquests, shall Atrides gain?”

To this the king: “Fly, mighty warrior! fly;
Thy aid we need not, and thy threats defy.
There want not chiefs in such a cause to fight,
And Jove himself shall guard a monarch’s right.
Of all the kings (the god’s distinguish’d care)
To power superior none such hatred bear:
Strife and debate thy restless soul employ,
And wars and horrors are thy savage joy,
If thou hast strength, ’twas Heaven that strength bestow’d;
For know, vain man! thy valour is from God.
Haste, launch thy vessels, fly with speed away;
Rule thy own realms with arbitrary sway;
I heed thee not, but prize at equal rate
Thy short-lived friendship, and thy groundless hate.
Go, threat thy earth-born Myrmidons:—but here[56]
’Tis mine to threaten, prince, and thine to fear.
Know, if the god the beauteous dame demand,
My bark shall waft her to her native land;
But then prepare, imperious prince! prepare,
Fierce as thou art, to yield thy captive fair:
Even in thy tent I’ll seize the blooming prize,
Thy loved Briseïs with the radiant eyes.
Hence shalt thou prove my might, and curse the hour
Thou stood’st a rival of imperial power;
And hence, to all our hosts it shall be known,
That kings are subject to the gods alone.”

Achilles heard, with grief and rage oppress’d,
His heart swell’d high, and labour’d in his breast;
Distracting thoughts by turns his bosom ruled;
Now fired by wrath, and now by reason cool’d:
That prompts his hand to draw the deadly sword,
Force through the Greeks, and pierce their haughty lord;
This whispers soft his vengeance to control,
And calm the rising tempest of his soul.
Just as in anguish of suspense he stay’d,
While half unsheathed appear’d the glittering blade,[57]
Minerva swift descended from above,
Sent by the sister and the wife of Jove
(For both the princes claim’d her equal care);
Behind she stood, and by the golden hair
Achilles seized; to him alone confess’d;
A sable cloud conceal’d her from the rest.
He sees, and sudden to the goddess cries,
Known by the flames that sparkle from her eyes:


[Illustration: ] MINERVA REPRESSING THE FURY OF ACHILLES


“Descends Minerva, in her guardian care,
A heavenly witness of the wrongs I bear
From Atreus’ son?—Then let those eyes that view
The daring crime, behold the vengeance too.”

“Forbear (the progeny of Jove replies)
To calm thy fury I forsake the skies:
Let great Achilles, to the gods resign’d,
To reason yield the empire o’er his mind.
By awful Juno this command is given;
The king and you are both the care of heaven.
The force of keen reproaches let him feel;
But sheathe, obedient, thy revenging steel.
For I pronounce (and trust a heavenly power)
Thy injured honour has its fated hour,
When the proud monarch shall thy arms implore,
And bribe thy friendship with a boundless store.
Then let revenge no longer bear the sway;
Command thy passions, and the gods obey.”

To her Pelides:—“With regardful ear,
’Tis just, O goddess! I thy dictates hear.
Hard as it is, my vengeance I suppress:
Those who revere the gods the gods will bless.”
He said, observant of the blue-eyed maid;
Then in the sheath return’d the shining blade.
The goddess swift to high Olympus flies,
And joins the sacred senate of the skies.

Nor yet the rage his boiling breast forsook,
Which thus redoubling on Atrides broke:
“O monster! mix’d of insolence and fear,
Thou dog in forehead, but in heart a deer!
When wert thou known in ambush’d fights to dare,
Or nobly face the horrid front of war?
’Tis ours, the chance of fighting fields to try;
Thine to look on, and bid the valiant die:
So much ’tis safer through the camp to go,
And rob a subject, than despoil a foe.
Scourge of thy people, violent and base!
Sent in Jove’s anger on a slavish race;
Who, lost to sense of generous freedom past,
Are tamed to wrongs;—or this had been thy last.
Now by this sacred sceptre hear me swear,
Which never more shall leaves or blossoms bear,
Which sever’d from the trunk (as I from thee)
On the bare mountains left its parent tree;
This sceptre, form’d by temper’d steel to prove
An ensign of the delegates of Jove,
From whom the power of laws and justice springs
(Tremendous oath! inviolate to kings);
By this I swear:—when bleeding Greece again
Shall call Achilles, she shall call in vain.
When, flush’d with slaughter, Hector comes to spread
The purpled shore with mountains of the dead,
Then shalt thou mourn the affront thy madness gave,
Forced to deplore when impotent to save:
Then rage in bitterness of soul to know
This act has made the bravest Greek thy foe.”

He spoke; and furious hurl’d against the ground
His sceptre starr’d with golden studs around:
Then sternly silent sat. With like disdain
The raging king return’d his frowns again.

To calm their passion with the words of age,
Slow from his seat arose the Pylian sage,
Experienced Nestor, in persuasion skill’d;
Words, sweet as honey, from his lips distill’d:[58]
Two generations now had pass’d away,
Wise by his rules, and happy by his sway;
Two ages o’er his native realm he reign’d,
And now the example of the third remain’d.
All view’d with awe the venerable man;
Who thus with mild benevolence began:—

“What shame, what woe is this to Greece! what joy
To Troy’s proud monarch, and the friends of Troy!
That adverse gods commit to stern debate
The best, the bravest, of the Grecian state.
Young as ye are, this youthful heat restrain,
Nor think your Nestor’s years and wisdom vain.
A godlike race of heroes once I knew,
Such as no more these aged eyes shall view!
Lives there a chief to match Pirithous’ fame,
Dryas the bold, or Ceneus’ deathless name;
Theseus, endued with more than mortal might,
Or Polyphemus, like the gods in fight?
With these of old, to toils of battle bred,
In early youth my hardy days I led;
Fired with the thirst which virtuous envy breeds,
And smit with love of honourable deeds,
Strongest of men, they pierced the mountain boar,
Ranged the wild deserts red with monsters’ gore,
And from their hills the shaggy Centaurs tore:
Yet these with soft persuasive arts I sway’d;
When Nestor spoke, they listen’d and obey’d.
If in my youth, even these esteem’d me wise;
Do you, young warriors, hear my age advise.
Atrides, seize not on the beauteous slave;
That prize the Greeks by common suffrage gave:
Nor thou, Achilles, treat our prince with pride;
Let kings be just, and sovereign power preside.
Thee, the first honours of the war adorn,
Like gods in strength, and of a goddess born;
Him, awful majesty exalts above
The powers of earth, and sceptred sons of Jove.
Let both unite with well-consenting mind,
So shall authority with strength be join’d.
Leave me, O king! to calm Achilles’ rage;
Rule thou thyself, as more advanced in age.
Forbid it, gods! Achilles should be lost,
The pride of Greece, and bulwark of our host.”

This said, he ceased. The king of men replies:
“Thy years are awful, and thy words are wise.
But that imperious, that unconquer’d soul,
No laws can limit, no respect control.
Before his pride must his superiors fall;
His word the law, and he the lord of all?
Him must our hosts, our chiefs, ourself obey?
What king can bear a rival in his sway?
Grant that the gods his matchless force have given;
Has foul reproach a privilege from heaven?”

Here on the monarch’s speech Achilles broke,
And furious, thus, and interrupting spoke:
“Tyrant, I well deserved thy galling chain,
To live thy slave, and still to serve in vain,
Should I submit to each unjust decree:—
Command thy vassals, but command not me.
Seize on Briseïs, whom the Grecians doom’d
My prize of war, yet tamely see resumed;
And seize secure; no more Achilles draws
His conquering sword in any woman’s cause.
The gods command me to forgive the past:
But let this first invasion be the last:
For know, thy blood, when next thou darest invade,
Shall stream in vengeance on my reeking blade.”

At this they ceased: the stern debate expired:
The chiefs in sullen majesty retired.

Achilles with Patroclus took his way
Where near his tents his hollow vessels lay.
Meantime Atrides launch’d with numerous oars
A well-rigg’d ship for Chrysa’s sacred shores:
High on the deck was fair Chryseïs placed,
And sage Ulysses with the conduct graced:
Safe in her sides the hecatomb they stow’d,
Then swiftly sailing, cut the liquid road.

The host to expiate next the king prepares,
With pure lustrations, and with solemn prayers.
Wash’d by the briny wave, the pious train[59]
Are cleansed; and cast the ablutions in the main.
Along the shore whole hecatombs were laid,
And bulls and goats to Phœbus’ altars paid;
The sable fumes in curling spires arise,
And waft their grateful odours to the skies.

The army thus in sacred rites engaged,
Atrides still with deep resentment raged.
To wait his will two sacred heralds stood,
Talthybius and Eurybates the good.
“Haste to the fierce Achilles’ tent (he cries),
Thence bear Briseïs as our royal prize:
Submit he must; or if they will not part,
Ourself in arms shall tear her from his heart.”

The unwilling heralds act their lord’s commands;
Pensive they walk along the barren sands:
Arrived, the hero in his tent they find,
With gloomy aspect on his arm reclined.
At awful distance long they silent stand,
Loth to advance, and speak their hard command;
Decent confusion! This the godlike man
Perceived, and thus with accent mild began:

“With leave and honour enter our abodes,
Ye sacred ministers of men and gods![60]
I know your message; by constraint you came;
Not you, but your imperious lord I blame.
Patroclus, haste, the fair Briseïs bring;
Conduct my captive to the haughty king.
But witness, heralds, and proclaim my vow,
Witness to gods above, and men below!
But first, and loudest, to your prince declare
(That lawless tyrant whose commands you bear),
Unmoved as death Achilles shall remain,
Though prostrate Greece shall bleed at every vein:
The raging chief in frantic passion lost,
Blind to himself, and useless to his host,
Unskill’d to judge the future by the past,
In blood and slaughter shall repent at last.”


[Illustration: ] THE DEPARTURE OF BRISEIS FROM THE TENT OF ACHILLES


Patroclus now the unwilling beauty brought;
She, in soft sorrows, and in pensive thought,
Pass’d silent, as the heralds held her hand,
And oft look’d back, slow-moving o’er the strand.
Not so his loss the fierce Achilles bore;
But sad, retiring to the sounding shore,
O’er the wild margin of the deep he hung,
That kindred deep from whence his mother sprung:[61]
There bathed in tears of anger and disdain,
Thus loud lamented to the stormy main:

“O parent goddess! since in early bloom
Thy son must fall, by too severe a doom;
Sure to so short a race of glory born,
Great Jove in justice should this span adorn:
Honour and fame at least the thunderer owed;
And ill he pays the promise of a god,
If yon proud monarch thus thy son defies,
Obscures my glories, and resumes my prize.”

Far from the deep recesses of the main,
Where aged Ocean holds his watery reign,
The goddess-mother heard. The waves divide;
And like a mist she rose above the tide;
Beheld him mourning on the naked shores,
And thus the sorrows of his soul explores.
“Why grieves my son? Thy anguish let me share;
Reveal the cause, and trust a parent’s care.”

He deeply sighing said: “To tell my woe
Is but to mention what too well you know.
From Thebé, sacred to Apollo’s name[62]
(Aëtion’s realm), our conquering army came,
With treasure loaded and triumphant spoils,
Whose just division crown’d the soldier’s toils;
But bright Chryseïs, heavenly prize! was led,
By vote selected, to the general’s bed.
The priest of Phœbus sought by gifts to gain
His beauteous daughter from the victor’s chain;
The fleet he reach’d, and, lowly bending down,
Held forth the sceptre and the laurel crown,
Intreating all; but chief implored for grace
The brother-kings of Atreus’ royal race:
The generous Greeks their joint consent declare,
The priest to reverence, and release the fair;
Not so Atrides: he, with wonted pride,
The sire insulted, and his gifts denied:
The insulted sire (his god’s peculiar care)
To Phœbus pray’d, and Phœbus heard the prayer:
A dreadful plague ensues: the avenging darts
Incessant fly, and pierce the Grecian hearts.
A prophet then, inspired by heaven, arose,
And points the crime, and thence derives the woes:
Myself the first the assembled chiefs incline
To avert the vengeance of the power divine;
Then rising in his wrath, the monarch storm’d;
Incensed he threaten’d, and his threats perform’d:
The fair Chryseïs to her sire was sent,
With offer’d gifts to make the god relent;
But now he seized Briseïs’ heavenly charms,
And of my valour’s prize defrauds my arms,
Defrauds the votes of all the Grecian train;[63]
And service, faith, and justice, plead in vain.
But, goddess! thou thy suppliant son attend.
To high Olympus’ shining court ascend,
Urge all the ties to former service owed,
And sue for vengeance to the thundering god.
Oft hast thou triumph’d in the glorious boast,
That thou stood’st forth of all the ethereal host,
When bold rebellion shook the realms above,
The undaunted guard of cloud-compelling Jove:
When the bright partner of his awful reign,
The warlike maid, and monarch of the main,
The traitor-gods, by mad ambition driven,
Durst threat with chains the omnipotence of Heaven.
Then, call’d by thee, the monster Titan came
(Whom gods Briareus, men Ægeon name),
Through wondering skies enormous stalk’d along;
Not he that shakes the solid earth so strong:
With giant-pride at Jove’s high throne he stands,
And brandish’d round him all his hundred hands:
The affrighted gods confess’d their awful lord,
They dropp’d the fetters, trembled, and adored.[64]
This, goddess, this to his remembrance call,
Embrace his knees, at his tribunal fall;
Conjure him far to drive the Grecian train,
To hurl them headlong to their fleet and main,
To heap the shores with copious death, and bring
The Greeks to know the curse of such a king.
Let Agamemnon lift his haughty head
O’er all his wide dominion of the dead,
And mourn in blood that e’er he durst disgrace
The boldest warrior of the Grecian race.”


[Illustration: ] THETIS CALLING BRIAREUS TO THE ASSISTANCE OF JUPITER


“Unhappy son! (fair Thetis thus replies,
While tears celestial trickle from her eyes)
Why have I borne thee with a mother’s throes,
To Fates averse, and nursed for future woes?[65]
So short a space the light of heaven to view!
So short a space! and fill’d with sorrow too!
O might a parent’s careful wish prevail,
Far, far from Ilion should thy vessels sail,
And thou, from camps remote, the danger shun
Which now, alas! too nearly threats my son.
Yet (what I can) to move thy suit I’ll go
To great Olympus crown’d with fleecy snow.
Meantime, secure within thy ships, from far
Behold the field, not mingle in the war.
The sire of gods and all the ethereal train,
On the warm limits of the farthest main,
Now mix with mortals, nor disdain to grace
The feasts of Æthiopia’s blameless race,[66]
Twelve days the powers indulge the genial rite,
Returning with the twelfth revolving light.
Then will I mount the brazen dome, and move
The high tribunal of immortal Jove.”

The goddess spoke: the rolling waves unclose;
Then down the steep she plunged from whence she rose,
And left him sorrowing on the lonely coast,
In wild resentment for the fair he lost.

In Chrysa’s port now sage Ulysses rode;
Beneath the deck the destined victims stow’d:
The sails they furl’d, they lash the mast aside,
And dropp’d their anchors, and the pinnace tied.
Next on the shore their hecatomb they land;
Chryseïs last descending on the strand.
Her, thus returning from the furrow’d main,
Ulysses led to Phœbus’ sacred fane;
Where at his solemn altar, as the maid
He gave to Chryses, thus the hero said:

“Hail, reverend priest! to Phœbus’ awful dome
A suppliant I from great Atrides come:
Unransom’d, here receive the spotless fair;
Accept the hecatomb the Greeks prepare;
And may thy god who scatters darts around,
Atoned by sacrifice, desist to wound.”[67]

At this, the sire embraced the maid again,
So sadly lost, so lately sought in vain.
Then near the altar of the darting king,
Disposed in rank their hecatomb they bring;
With water purify their hands, and take
The sacred offering of the salted cake;
While thus with arms devoutly raised in air,
And solemn voice, the priest directs his prayer:

“God of the silver bow, thy ear incline,
Whose power incircles Cilla the divine;
Whose sacred eye thy Tenedos surveys,
And gilds fair Chrysa with distinguish’d rays!
If, fired to vengeance at thy priest’s request,
Thy direful darts inflict the raging pest:
Once more attend! avert the wasteful woe,
And smile propitious, and unbend thy bow.”

So Chryses pray’d. Apollo heard his prayer:
And now the Greeks their hecatomb prepare;
Between their horns the salted barley threw,
And, with their heads to heaven, the victims slew:[68]
The limbs they sever from the inclosing hide;
The thighs, selected to the gods, divide:
On these, in double cauls involved with art,
The choicest morsels lay from every part.
The priest himself before his altar stands,
And burns the offering with his holy hands.
Pours the black wine, and sees the flames aspire;
The youth with instruments surround the fire:
The thighs thus sacrificed, and entrails dress’d,
The assistants part, transfix, and roast the rest:
Then spread the tables, the repast prepare;
Each takes his seat, and each receives his share.
When now the rage of hunger was repress’d,
With pure libations they conclude the feast;
The youths with wine the copious goblets crown’d,[69]
And, pleased, dispense the flowing bowls around
With hymns divine the joyous banquet ends,
The pæans lengthen’d till the sun descends:
The Greeks, restored, the grateful notes prolong;
Apollo listens, and approves the song.

’Twas night; the chiefs beside their vessel lie,
Till rosy morn had purpled o’er the sky:
Then launch, and hoist the mast: indulgent gales,
Supplied by Phœbus, fill the swelling sails;
The milk-white canvas bellying as they blow,
The parted ocean foams and roars below:
Above the bounding billows swift they flew,
Till now the Grecian camp appear’d in view.
Far on the beach they haul their bark to land,
(The crooked keel divides the yellow sand,)
Then part, where stretch’d along the winding bay,
The ships and tents in mingled prospect lay.

But raging still, amidst his navy sat
The stern Achilles, stedfast in his hate;
Nor mix’d in combat, nor in council join’d;
But wasting cares lay heavy on his mind:
In his black thoughts revenge and slaughter roll,
And scenes of blood rise dreadful in his soul.

Twelve days were past, and now the dawning light
The gods had summon’d to the Olympian height:
Jove, first ascending from the watery bowers,
Leads the long order of ethereal powers.
When, like the morning-mist in early day,
Rose from the flood the daughter of the sea:
And to the seats divine her flight address’d.
There, far apart, and high above the rest,
The thunderer sat; where old Olympus shrouds
His hundred heads in heaven, and props the clouds.
Suppliant the goddess stood: one hand she placed
Beneath his beard, and one his knees embraced.
“If e’er, O father of the gods! (she said)
My words could please thee, or my actions aid,
Some marks of honour on my son bestow,
And pay in glory what in life you owe.
Fame is at least by heavenly promise due
To life so short, and now dishonour’d too.
Avenge this wrong, O ever just and wise!
Let Greece be humbled, and the Trojans rise;
Till the proud king and all the Achaian race
Shall heap with honours him they now disgrace.”


[Illustration: ] THETIS ENTREATING JUPITER TO HONOUR ACHILLES


Thus Thetis spoke; but Jove in silence held
The sacred counsels of his breast conceal’d.
Not so repulsed, the goddess closer press’d,
Still grasp’d his knees, and urged the dear request.
“O sire of gods and men! thy suppliant hear;
Refuse, or grant; for what has Jove to fear?
Or oh! declare, of all the powers above,
Is wretched Thetis least the care of Jove?”

She said; and, sighing, thus the god replies,
Who rolls the thunder o’er the vaulted skies:

“What hast thou ask’d? ah, why should Jove engage
In foreign contests and domestic rage,
The gods’ complaints, and Juno’s fierce alarms,
While I, too partial, aid the Trojan arms?
Go, lest the haughty partner of my sway
With jealous eyes thy close access survey;
But part in peace, secure thy prayer is sped:
Witness the sacred honours of our head,
The nod that ratifies the will divine,
The faithful, fix’d, irrevocable sign;
This seals thy suit, and this fulfils thy vows—”
He spoke, and awful bends his sable brows,[70]
Shakes his ambrosial curls, and gives the nod,
The stamp of fate and sanction of the god:
High heaven with trembling the dread signal took,
And all Olympus to the centre shook.[71]

Swift to the seas profound the goddess flies,
Jove to his starry mansions in the skies.
The shining synod of the immortals wait
The coming god, and from their thrones of state
Arising silent, wrapp’d in holy fear,
Before the majesty of heaven appear.
Trembling they stand, while Jove assumes the throne,
All, but the god’s imperious queen alone:
Late had she view’d the silver-footed dame,
And all her passions kindled into flame.
“Say, artful manager of heaven (she cries),
Who now partakes the secrets of the skies?
Thy Juno knows not the decrees of fate,
In vain the partner of imperial state.
What favourite goddess then those cares divides,
Which Jove in prudence from his consort hides?”

To this the thunderer: “Seek not thou to find
The sacred counsels of almighty mind:
Involved in darkness lies the great decree,
Nor can the depths of fate be pierced by thee.
What fits thy knowledge, thou the first shalt know;
The first of gods above, and men below;
But thou, nor they, shall search the thoughts that roll
Deep in the close recesses of my soul.”

Full on the sire the goddess of the skies
Roll’d the large orbs of her majestic eyes,
And thus return’d:—“Austere Saturnius, say,
From whence this wrath, or who controls thy sway?
Thy boundless will, for me, remains in force,
And all thy counsels take the destined course.
But ’tis for Greece I fear: for late was seen,
In close consult, the silver-footed queen.
Jove to his Thetis nothing could deny,
Nor was the signal vain that shook the sky.
What fatal favour has the goddess won,
To grace her fierce, inexorable son?
Perhaps in Grecian blood to drench the plain,
And glut his vengeance with my people slain.”

Then thus the god: “O restless fate of pride,
That strives to learn what heaven resolves to hide;
Vain is the search, presumptuous and abhorr’d,
Anxious to thee, and odious to thy lord.
Let this suffice: the immutable decree
No force can shake: what is, that ought to be.
Goddess, submit; nor dare our will withstand,
But dread the power of this avenging hand:
The united strength of all the gods above
In vain resists the omnipotence of Jove.”


[Illustration: ] VULCAN


The thunderer spoke, nor durst the queen reply;
A reverent horror silenced all the sky.
The feast disturb’d, with sorrow Vulcan saw
His mother menaced, and the gods in awe;
Peace at his heart, and pleasure his design,
Thus interposed the architect divine:
“The wretched quarrels of the mortal state
Are far unworthy, gods! of your debate:
Let men their days in senseless strife employ,
We, in eternal peace and constant joy.
Thou, goddess-mother, with our sire comply,
Nor break the sacred union of the sky:
Lest, roused to rage, he shake the bless’d abodes,
Launch the red lightning, and dethrone the gods.
If you submit, the thunderer stands appeased;
The gracious power is willing to be pleased.”

Thus Vulcan spoke: and rising with a bound,
The double bowl with sparkling nectar crown’d,[72]
Which held to Juno in a cheerful way,
“Goddess (he cried), be patient and obey.
Dear as you are, if Jove his arm extend,
I can but grieve, unable to defend.
What god so daring in your aid to move,
Or lift his hand against the force of Jove?
Once in your cause I felt his matchless might,
Hurl’d headlong down from the ethereal height;[73]
Toss’d all the day in rapid circles round,
Nor till the sun descended touch’d the ground.
Breathless I fell, in giddy motion lost;
The Sinthians raised me on the Lemnian coast;[74]

He said, and to her hands the goblet heaved,
Which, with a smile, the white-arm’d queen received
Then, to the rest he fill’d; and in his turn,
Each to his lips applied the nectar’d urn,
Vulcan with awkward grace his office plies,
And unextinguish’d laughter shakes the skies.

Thus the blest gods the genial day prolong,
In feasts ambrosial, and celestial song.[75]
Apollo tuned the lyre; the Muses round
With voice alternate aid the silver sound.
Meantime the radiant sun to mortal sight
Descending swift, roll’d down the rapid light:
Then to their starry domes the gods depart,
The shining monuments of Vulcan’s art:
Jove on his couch reclined his awful head,
And Juno slumber’d on the golden bed.


[Illustration: ] JUPITER


[Illustration: ] THE APOTHEOSIS OF HOMER




BOOK II.


ARGUMENT.


THE TRIAL OF THE ARMY, AND CATALOGUE OF THE FORCES.


Jupiter, in pursuance of the request of Thetis, sends a deceitful
vision to Agamemnon, persuading him to lead the army to battle, in
order to make the Greeks sensible of their want of Achilles. The
general, who is deluded with the hopes of taking Troy without his
assistance, but fears the army was discouraged by his absence, and the
late plague, as well as by the length of time, contrives to make trial
of their disposition by a stratagem. He first communicates his design
to the princes in council, that he would propose a return to the
soldiers, and that they should put a stop to them if the proposal was
embraced. Then he assembles the whole host, and upon moving for a
return to Greece, they unanimously agree to it, and run to prepare the
ships. They are detained by the management of Ulysses, who chastises
the insolence of Thersites. The assembly is recalled, several speeches
made on the occasion, and at length the advice of Nestor followed,
which was to make a general muster of the troops, and to divide them
into their several nations, before they proceeded to battle. This gives
occasion to the poet to enumerate all the forces of the Greeks and
Trojans, and in a large catalogue.
    The time employed in this book consists not entirely of one day.
    The scene lies in the Grecian camp, and upon the sea-shore; towards
    the end it removes to Troy.


Now pleasing sleep had seal’d each mortal eye,
Stretch’d in the tents the Grecian leaders lie:
The immortals slumber’d on their thrones above;
All, but the ever-wakeful eyes of Jove.[76]
To honour Thetis’ son he bends his care,
And plunge the Greeks in all the woes of war:
Then bids an empty phantom rise to sight,
And thus commands the vision of the night.

“Fly hence, deluding Dream! and light as air,[77]
To Agamemnon’s ample tent repair.
Bid him in arms draw forth the embattled train,
Lead all his Grecians to the dusty plain.
Declare, e’en now ’tis given him to destroy
The lofty towers of wide-extended Troy.
For now no more the gods with fate contend,
At Juno’s suit the heavenly factions end.
Destruction hangs o’er yon devoted wall,
And nodding Ilion waits the impending fall.”

Swift as the word the vain illusion fled,
Descends, and hovers o’er Atrides’ head;
Clothed in the figure of the Pylian sage,
Renown’d for wisdom, and revered for age:
Around his temples spreads his golden wing,
And thus the flattering dream deceives the king.


[Illustration: ] JUPITER SENDING THE EVIL DREAM TO AGAMEMNON


“Canst thou, with all a monarch’s cares oppress’d,
O Atreus’ son! canst thou indulge thy rest?[78]
Ill fits a chief who mighty nations guides,
Directs in council, and in war presides,
To whom its safety a whole people owes,
To waste long nights in indolent repose.[79]
Monarch, awake! ’tis Jove’s command I bear;
Thou, and thy glory, claim his heavenly care.
In just array draw forth the embattled train,
Lead all thy Grecians to the dusty plain;
E’en now, O king! ’tis given thee to destroy
The lofty towers of wide-extended Troy.
For now no more the gods with fate contend,
At Juno’s suit the heavenly factions end.
Destruction hangs o’er yon devoted wall,
And nodding Ilion waits the impending fall.
Awake, but waking this advice approve,
And trust the vision that descends from Jove.”

The phantom said; then vanish’d from his sight,
Resolves to air, and mixes with the night.
A thousand schemes the monarch’s mind employ;
Elate in thought he sacks untaken Troy:
Vain as he was, and to the future blind,
Nor saw what Jove and secret fate design’d,
What mighty toils to either host remain,
What scenes of grief, and numbers of the slain!
Eager he rises, and in fancy hears
The voice celestial murmuring in his ears.
First on his limbs a slender vest he drew,
Around him next the regal mantle threw,
The embroider’d sandals on his feet were tied;
The starry falchion glitter’d at his side;
And last, his arm the massy sceptre loads,
Unstain’d, immortal, and the gift of gods.

Now rosy Morn ascends the court of Jove,
Lifts up her light, and opens day above.
The king despatch’d his heralds with commands
To range the camp and summon all the bands:
The gathering hosts the monarch’s word obey;
While to the fleet Atrides bends his way.
In his black ship the Pylian prince he found;
There calls a senate of the peers around:
The assembly placed, the king of men express’d
The counsels labouring in his artful breast.

“Friends and confederates! with attentive ear
Receive my words, and credit what you hear.
Late as I slumber’d in the shades of night,
A dream divine appear’d before my sight;
Whose visionary form like Nestor came,
The same in habit, and in mien the same.[80]
The heavenly phantom hover’d o’er my head,
‘And, dost thou sleep, O Atreus’ son? (he said)
Ill fits a chief who mighty nations guides,
Directs in council, and in war presides;
To whom its safety a whole people owes,
To waste long nights in indolent repose.
Monarch, awake! ’tis Jove’s command I bear,
Thou and thy glory claim his heavenly care.
In just array draw forth the embattled train,
And lead the Grecians to the dusty plain;
E’en now, O king! ’tis given thee to destroy
The lofty towers of wide-extended Troy.
For now no more the gods with fate contend,
At Juno’s suit the heavenly factions end.
Destruction hangs o’er yon devoted wall,
And nodding Ilion waits the impending fall.

This hear observant, and the gods obey!’
The vision spoke, and pass’d in air away.
Now, valiant chiefs! since heaven itself alarms,
Unite, and rouse the sons of Greece to arms.
But first, with caution, try what yet they dare,
Worn with nine years of unsuccessful war.
To move the troops to measure back the main,
Be mine; and yours the province to detain.”

He spoke, and sat: when Nestor, rising said,
(Nestor, whom Pylos’ sandy realms obey’d,)
“Princes of Greece, your faithful ears incline,
Nor doubt the vision of the powers divine;
Sent by great Jove to him who rules the host,
Forbid it, heaven! this warning should be lost!
Then let us haste, obey the god’s alarms,
And join to rouse the sons of Greece to arms.”

Thus spoke the sage: the kings without delay
Dissolve the council, and their chief obey:
The sceptred rulers lead; the following host,
Pour’d forth by thousands, darkens all the coast.
As from some rocky cleft the shepherd sees
Clustering in heaps on heaps the driving bees,
Rolling and blackening, swarms succeeding swarms,
With deeper murmurs and more hoarse alarms;
Dusky they spread, a close embodied crowd,
And o’er the vale descends the living cloud.[81]
So, from the tents and ships, a lengthen’d train
Spreads all the beach, and wide o’ershades the plain:
Along the region runs a deafening sound;
Beneath their footsteps groans the trembling ground.
Fame flies before the messenger of Jove,
And shining soars, and claps her wings above.
Nine sacred heralds now, proclaiming loud[82]
The monarch’s will, suspend the listening crowd.
Soon as the throngs in order ranged appear,
And fainter murmurs died upon the ear,
The king of kings his awful figure raised:
High in his hand the golden sceptre blazed;
The golden sceptre, of celestial flame,
By Vulcan form’d, from Jove to Hermes came.
To Pelops he the immortal gift resign’d;
The immortal gift great Pelops left behind,
In Atreus’ hand, which not with Atreus ends,
To rich Thyestes next the prize descends;
And now the mark of Agamemnon’s reign,
Subjects all Argos, and controls the main.[83]

On this bright sceptre now the king reclined,
And artful thus pronounced the speech design’d:
“Ye sons of Mars, partake your leader’s care,
Heroes of Greece, and brothers of the war!
Of partial Jove with justice I complain,
And heavenly oracles believed in vain
A safe return was promised to our toils,
Renown’d, triumphant, and enrich’d with spoils.
Now shameful flight alone can save the host,
Our blood, our treasure, and our glory lost.
So Jove decrees, resistless lord of all!
At whose command whole empires rise or fall:
He shakes the feeble props of human trust,
And towns and armies humbles to the dust.
What shame to Greece a fruitful war to wage,
Oh, lasting shame in every future age!
Once great in arms, the common scorn we grow,
Repulsed and baffled by a feeble foe.
So small their number, that if wars were ceased,
And Greece triumphant held a general feast,
All rank’d by tens, whole decades when they dine
Must want a Trojan slave to pour the wine.[84]
But other forces have our hopes o’erthrown,
And Troy prevails by armies not her own.
Now nine long years of mighty Jove are run,
Since first the labours of this war begun:
Our cordage torn, decay’d our vessels lie,
And scarce insure the wretched power to fly.
Haste, then, for ever leave the Trojan wall!
Our weeping wives, our tender children call:
Love, duty, safety, summon us away,
’Tis nature’s voice, and nature we obey.
Our shatter’d barks may yet transport us o’er,
Safe and inglorious, to our native shore.
Fly, Grecians, fly, your sails and oars employ,
And dream no more of heaven-defended Troy.”

His deep design unknown, the hosts approve
Atrides’ speech. The mighty numbers move.
So roll the billows to the Icarian shore,
From east and south when winds begin to roar,
Burst their dark mansions in the clouds, and sweep
The whitening surface of the ruffled deep.
And as on corn when western gusts descend,[85]
Before the blast the lofty harvests bend:
Thus o’er the field the moving host appears,
With nodding plumes and groves of waving spears.
The gathering murmur spreads, their trampling feet
Beat the loose sands, and thicken to the fleet;
With long-resounding cries they urge the train
To fit the ships, and launch into the main.
They toil, they sweat, thick clouds of dust arise,
The doubling clamours echo to the skies.
E’en then the Greeks had left the hostile plain,
And fate decreed the fall of Troy in vain;
But Jove’s imperial queen their flight survey’d,
And sighing thus bespoke the blue-eyed maid:

“Shall then the Grecians fly! O dire disgrace!
And leave unpunish’d this perfidious race?
Shall Troy, shall Priam, and the adulterous spouse,
In peace enjoy the fruits of broken vows?
And bravest chiefs, in Helen’s quarrel slain,
Lie unrevenged on yon detested plain?
No: let my Greeks, unmoved by vain alarms,
Once more refulgent shine in brazen arms.
Haste, goddess, haste! the flying host detain,
Nor let one sail be hoisted on the main.”

Pallas obeys, and from Olympus’ height
Swift to the ships precipitates her flight.
Ulysses, first in public cares, she found,
For prudent counsel like the gods renown’d:
Oppress’d with generous grief the hero stood,
Nor drew his sable vessels to the flood.
“And is it thus, divine Laertes’ son,
Thus fly the Greeks (the martial maid begun),
Thus to their country bear their own disgrace,
And fame eternal leave to Priam’s race?
Shall beauteous Helen still remain unfreed,
Still unrevenged, a thousand heroes bleed!
Haste, generous Ithacus! prevent the shame,
Recall your armies, and your chiefs reclaim.
Your own resistless eloquence employ,
And to the immortals trust the fall of Troy.”

The voice divine confess’d the warlike maid,
Ulysses heard, nor uninspired obey’d:
Then meeting first Atrides, from his hand
Received the imperial sceptre of command.
Thus graced, attention and respect to gain,
He runs, he flies through all the Grecian train;
Each prince of name, or chief in arms approved,
He fired with praise, or with persuasion moved.

“Warriors like you, with strength and wisdom bless’d,
By brave examples should confirm the rest.
The monarch’s will not yet reveal’d appears;
He tries our courage, but resents our fears.
The unwary Greeks his fury may provoke;
Not thus the king in secret council spoke.
Jove loves our chief, from Jove his honour springs,
Beware! for dreadful is the wrath of kings.”

But if a clamorous vile plebeian rose,
Him with reproof he check’d or tamed with blows.
“Be still, thou slave, and to thy betters yield;
Unknown alike in council and in field!
Ye gods, what dastards would our host command!
Swept to the war, the lumber of a land.
Be silent, wretch, and think not here allow’d
That worst of tyrants, an usurping crowd.
To one sole monarch Jove commits the sway;
His are the laws, and him let all obey.”[86]

With words like these the troops Ulysses ruled,
The loudest silenced, and the fiercest cool’d.
Back to the assembly roll the thronging train,
Desert the ships, and pour upon the plain.
Murmuring they move, as when old ocean roars,
And heaves huge surges to the trembling shores;
The groaning banks are burst with bellowing sound,
The rocks remurmur and the deeps rebound.
At length the tumult sinks, the noises cease,
And a still silence lulls the camp to peace.
Thersites only clamour’d in the throng,
Loquacious, loud, and turbulent of tongue:
Awed by no shame, by no respect controll’d,
In scandal busy, in reproaches bold:
With witty malice studious to defame,
Scorn all his joy, and laughter all his aim:—
But chief he gloried with licentious style
To lash the great, and monarchs to revile.
His figure such as might his soul proclaim;
One eye was blinking, and one leg was lame:
His mountain shoulders half his breast o’erspread,
Thin hairs bestrew’d his long misshapen head.
Spleen to mankind his envious heart possess’d,
And much he hated all, but most the best:
Ulysses or Achilles still his theme;
But royal scandal his delight supreme,
Long had he lived the scorn of every Greek,
Vex’d when he spoke, yet still they heard him speak.
Sharp was his voice; which in the shrillest tone,
Thus with injurious taunts attack’d the throne.

“Amidst the glories of so bright a reign,
What moves the great Atrides to complain?
’Tis thine whate’er the warrior’s breast inflames,
The golden spoil, and thine the lovely dames.
With all the wealth our wars and blood bestow,
Thy tents are crowded and thy chests o’erflow.
Thus at full ease in heaps of riches roll’d,
What grieves the monarch? Is it thirst of gold?
Say, shall we march with our unconquer’d powers
(The Greeks and I) to Ilion’s hostile towers,
And bring the race of royal bastards here,
For Troy to ransom at a price too dear?
But safer plunder thy own host supplies;
Say, wouldst thou seize some valiant leader’s prize?
Or, if thy heart to generous love be led,
Some captive fair, to bless thy kingly bed?
Whate’er our master craves submit we must,
Plagued with his pride, or punish’d for his lust.
Oh women of Achaia; men no more!
Hence let us fly, and let him waste his store
In loves and pleasures on the Phrygian shore.
We may be wanted on some busy day,
When Hector comes: so great Achilles may:
From him he forced the prize we jointly gave,
From him, the fierce, the fearless, and the brave:
And durst he, as he ought, resent that wrong,
This mighty tyrant were no tyrant long.”

Fierce from his seat at this Ulysses springs,[87]
In generous vengeance of the king of kings.
With indignation sparkling in his eyes,
He views the wretch, and sternly thus replies:

“Peace, factious monster, born to vex the state,
With wrangling talents form’d for foul debate:
Curb that impetuous tongue, nor rashly vain,
And singly mad, asperse the sovereign reign.
Have we not known thee, slave! of all our host,
The man who acts the least, upbraids the most?
Think not the Greeks to shameful flight to bring,
Nor let those lips profane the name of king.
For our return we trust the heavenly powers;
Be that their care; to fight like men be ours.
But grant the host with wealth the general load,
Except detraction, what hast thou bestow’d?
Suppose some hero should his spoils resign,
Art thou that hero, could those spoils be thine?
Gods! let me perish on this hateful shore,
And let these eyes behold my son no more;
If, on thy next offence, this hand forbear
To strip those arms thou ill deserv’st to wear,
Expel the council where our princes meet,
And send thee scourged and howling through the fleet.”

He said, and cowering as the dastard bends,
The weighty sceptre on his back descends.[88]
On the round bunch the bloody tumours rise:
The tears spring starting from his haggard eyes;
Trembling he sat, and shrunk in abject fears,
From his vile visage wiped the scalding tears;
While to his neighbour each express’d his thought:

“Ye gods! what wonders has Ulysses wrought!
What fruits his conduct and his courage yield!
Great in the council, glorious in the field.
Generous he rises in the crown’s defence,
To curb the factious tongue of insolence,
Such just examples on offenders shown,
Sedition silence, and assert the throne.”

’Twas thus the general voice the hero praised,
Who, rising, high the imperial sceptre raised:
The blue-eyed Pallas, his celestial friend,
(In form a herald,) bade the crowds attend.
The expecting crowds in still attention hung,
To hear the wisdom of his heavenly tongue.
Then deeply thoughtful, pausing ere he spoke,
His silence thus the prudent hero broke:

“Unhappy monarch! whom the Grecian race
With shame deserting, heap with vile disgrace.
Not such at Argos was their generous vow:
Once all their voice, but ah! forgotten now:
Ne’er to return, was then the common cry,
Till Troy’s proud structures should in ashes lie.
Behold them weeping for their native shore;
What could their wives or helpless children more?
What heart but melts to leave the tender train,
And, one short month, endure the wintry main?
Few leagues removed, we wish our peaceful seat,
When the ship tosses, and the tempests beat:
Then well may this long stay provoke their tears,
The tedious length of nine revolving years.
Not for their grief the Grecian host I blame;
But vanquish’d! baffled! oh, eternal shame!
Expect the time to Troy’s destruction given.
And try the faith of Chalcas and of heaven.
What pass’d at Aulis, Greece can witness bear,[89]
And all who live to breathe this Phrygian air.
Beside a fountain’s sacred brink we raised
Our verdant altars, and the victims blazed:
’Twas where the plane-tree spread its shades around,
The altars heaved; and from the crumbling ground
A mighty dragon shot, of dire portent;
From Jove himself the dreadful sign was sent.
Straight to the tree his sanguine spires he roll’d,
And curl’d around in many a winding fold;
The topmost branch a mother-bird possess’d;
Eight callow infants fill’d the mossy nest;
Herself the ninth; the serpent, as he hung,
Stretch’d his black jaws and crush’d the crying young;
While hovering near, with miserable moan,
The drooping mother wail’d her children gone.
The mother last, as round the nest she flew,
Seized by the beating wing, the monster slew;
Nor long survived: to marble turn’d, he stands
A lasting prodigy on Aulis’ sands.
Such was the will of Jove; and hence we dare
Trust in his omen, and support the war.
For while around we gazed with wondering eyes,
And trembling sought the powers with sacrifice,
Full of his god, the reverend Chalcas cried,[90]
‘Ye Grecian warriors! lay your fears aside.
This wondrous signal Jove himself displays,
Of long, long labours, but eternal praise.
As many birds as by the snake were slain,
So many years the toils of Greece remain;
But wait the tenth, for Ilion’s fall decreed:’
Thus spoke the prophet, thus the Fates succeed.
Obey, ye Grecians! with submission wait,
Nor let your flight avert the Trojan fate.”
He said: the shores with loud applauses sound,
The hollow ships each deafening shout rebound.
Then Nestor thus—“These vain debates forbear,
Ye talk like children, not like heroes dare.
Where now are all your high resolves at last?
Your leagues concluded, your engagements past?
Vow’d with libations and with victims then,
Now vanish’d like their smoke: the faith of men!
While useless words consume the unactive hours,
No wonder Troy so long resists our powers.
Rise, great Atrides! and with courage sway;
We march to war, if thou direct the way.
But leave the few that dare resist thy laws,
The mean deserters of the Grecian cause,
To grudge the conquests mighty Jove prepares,
And view with envy our successful wars.
On that great day, when first the martial train,
Big with the fate of Ilion, plough’d the main,
Jove, on the right, a prosperous signal sent,
And thunder rolling shook the firmament.
Encouraged hence, maintain the glorious strife,
Till every soldier grasp a Phrygian wife,
Till Helen’s woes at full revenged appear,
And Troy’s proud matrons render tear for tear.
Before that day, if any Greek invite
His country’s troops to base, inglorious flight,
Stand forth that Greek! and hoist his sail to fly,
And die the dastard first, who dreads to die.
But now, O monarch! all thy chiefs advise:[91]
Nor what they offer, thou thyself despise.
Among those counsels, let not mine be vain;
In tribes and nations to divide thy train:
His separate troops let every leader call,
Each strengthen each, and all encourage all.
What chief, or soldier, of the numerous band,
Or bravely fights, or ill obeys command,
When thus distinct they war, shall soon be known
And what the cause of Ilion not o’erthrown;
If fate resists, or if our arms are slow,
If gods above prevent, or men below.”

To him the king: “How much thy years excel
In arts of counsel, and in speaking well!
O would the gods, in love to Greece, decree
But ten such sages as they grant in thee;
Such wisdom soon should Priam’s force destroy,
And soon should fall the haughty towers of Troy!
But Jove forbids, who plunges those he hates
In fierce contention and in vain debates:
Now great Achilles from our aid withdraws,
By me provoked; a captive maid the cause:
If e’er as friends we join, the Trojan wall
Must shake, and heavy will the vengeance fall!
But now, ye warriors, take a short repast;
And, well refresh’d, to bloody conflict haste.
His sharpen’d spear let every Grecian wield,
And every Grecian fix his brazen shield,
Let all excite the fiery steeds of war,
And all for combat fit the rattling car.
This day, this dreadful day, let each contend;
No rest, no respite, till the shades descend;
Till darkness, or till death, shall cover all:
Let the war bleed, and let the mighty fall;
Till bathed in sweat be every manly breast,
With the huge shield each brawny arm depress’d,
Each aching nerve refuse the lance to throw,
And each spent courser at the chariot blow.
Who dares, inglorious, in his ships to stay,
Who dares to tremble on this signal day;
That wretch, too mean to fall by martial power,
The birds shall mangle, and the dogs devour.”

The monarch spoke; and straight a murmur rose,
Loud as the surges when the tempest blows,
That dash’d on broken rocks tumultuous roar,
And foam and thunder on the stony shore.
Straight to the tents the troops dispersing bend,
The fires are kindled, and the smokes ascend;
With hasty feasts they sacrifice, and pray,
To avert the dangers of the doubtful day.
A steer of five years’ age, large limb’d, and fed,[92]
To Jove’s high altars Agamemnon led:
There bade the noblest of the Grecian peers;
And Nestor first, as most advanced in years.
Next came Idomeneus,[93] and Tydeus’ son,[94]
Ajax the less, and Ajax Telamon;[95]
Then wise Ulysses in his rank was placed;
And Menelaus came, unbid, the last.[96]
The chiefs surround the destined beast, and take
The sacred offering of the salted cake:
When thus the king prefers his solemn prayer;
“O thou! whose thunder rends the clouded air,
Who in the heaven of heavens hast fixed thy throne,
Supreme of gods! unbounded, and alone!
Hear! and before the burning sun descends,
Before the night her gloomy veil extends,
Low in the dust be laid yon hostile spires,
Be Priam’s palace sunk in Grecian fires.
In Hector’s breast be plunged this shining sword,
And slaughter’d heroes groan around their lord!”

Thus prayed the chief: his unavailing prayer
Great Jove refused, and toss’d in empty air:
The God averse, while yet the fumes arose,
Prepared new toils, and doubled woes on woes.
Their prayers perform’d the chiefs the rite pursue,
The barley sprinkled, and the victim slew.
The limbs they sever from the inclosing hide,
The thighs, selected to the gods, divide.
On these, in double cauls involved with art,
The choicest morsels lie from every part,
From the cleft wood the crackling flames aspire
While the fat victims feed the sacred fire.
The thighs thus sacrificed, and entrails dress’d
The assistants part, transfix, and roast the rest;
Then spread the tables, the repast prepare,
Each takes his seat, and each receives his share.
Soon as the rage of hunger was suppress’d,
The generous Nestor thus the prince address’d.

“Now bid thy heralds sound the loud alarms,
And call the squadrons sheathed in brazen arms;
Now seize the occasion, now the troops survey,
And lead to war when heaven directs the way.”

He said; the monarch issued his commands;
Straight the loud heralds call the gathering bands;
The chiefs inclose their king; the hosts divide,
In tribes and nations rank’d on either side.
High in the midst the blue-eyed virgin flies;
From rank to rank she darts her ardent eyes;
The dreadful ægis, Jove’s immortal shield,
Blazed on her arm, and lighten’d all the field:
Round the vast orb a hundred serpents roll’d,
Form’d the bright fringe, and seem’d to burn in gold,
With this each Grecian’s manly breast she warms,
Swells their bold hearts, and strings their nervous arms,
No more they sigh, inglorious, to return,
But breathe revenge, and for the combat burn.

As on some mountain, through the lofty grove,
The crackling flames ascend, and blaze above;
The fires expanding, as the winds arise,
Shoot their long beams, and kindle half the skies:
So from the polish’d arms, and brazen shields,
A gleamy splendour flash’d along the fields.
Not less their number than the embodied cranes,
Or milk-white swans in Asius’ watery plains.
That, o’er the windings of Cayster’s springs,[97]
Stretch their long necks, and clap their rustling wings,
Now tower aloft, and course in airy rounds,
Now light with noise; with noise the field resounds.
Thus numerous and confused, extending wide,
The legions crowd Scamander’s flowery side;[98]
With rushing troops the plains are cover’d o’er,
And thundering footsteps shake the sounding shore.
Along the river’s level meads they stand,
Thick as in spring the flowers adorn the land,
Or leaves the trees; or thick as insects play,
The wandering nation of a summer’s day:
That, drawn by milky steams, at evening hours,
In gather’d swarms surround the rural bowers;
From pail to pail with busy murmur run
The gilded legions, glittering in the sun.
So throng’d, so close, the Grecian squadrons stood
In radiant arms, and thirst for Trojan blood.
Each leader now his scatter’d force conjoins
In close array, and forms the deepening lines.
Not with more ease the skilful shepherd-swain
Collects his flocks from thousands on the plain.
The king of kings, majestically tall,
Towers o’er his armies, and outshines them all;
Like some proud bull, that round the pastures leads
His subject herds, the monarch of the meads,
Great as the gods, the exalted chief was seen,
His strength like Neptune, and like Mars his mien;[99]
Jove o’er his eyes celestial glories spread,
And dawning conquest played around his head.

Say, virgins, seated round the throne divine,
All-knowing goddesses! immortal nine![100]
Since earth’s wide regions, heaven’s umneasur’d height,
And hell’s abyss, hide nothing from your sight,
(We, wretched mortals! lost in doubts below,
But guess by rumour, and but boast we know,)
O say what heroes, fired by thirst of fame,
Or urged by wrongs, to Troy’s destruction came.
To count them all, demands a thousand tongues,
A throat of brass, and adamantine lungs.
Daughters of Jove, assist! inspired by you
The mighty labour dauntless I pursue;
What crowded armies, from what climes they bring,
Their names, their numbers, and their chiefs I sing.

THE CATALOGUE OF THE SHIPS.[101]


[Illustration: ] NEPTUNE


The hardy warriors whom Bœotia bred,
Penelius, Leitus, Prothoënor, led:
With these Arcesilaus and Clonius stand,
Equal in arms, and equal in command.
These head the troops that rocky Aulis yields,
And Eteon’s hills, and Hyrie’s watery fields,
And Schoenos, Scholos, Græa near the main,
And Mycalessia’s ample piny plain;
Those who in Peteon or Ilesion dwell,
Or Harma where Apollo’s prophet fell;
Heleon and Hylè, which the springs o’erflow;
And Medeon lofty, and Ocalea low;
Or in the meads of Haliartus stray,
Or Thespia sacred to the god of day:
Onchestus, Neptune’s celebrated groves;
Copæ, and Thisbè, famed for silver doves;
For flocks Erythræ, Glissa for the vine;
Platea green, and Nysa the divine;
And they whom Thebé’s well-built walls inclose,
Where Mydè, Eutresis, Coronè, rose;
And Arnè rich, with purple harvests crown’d;
And Anthedon, Bœotia’s utmost bound.
Full fifty ships they send, and each conveys
Twice sixty warriors through the foaming seas.[102]

To these succeed Aspledon’s martial train,
Who plough the spacious Orchomenian plain.
Two valiant brothers rule the undaunted throng,
Iälmen and Ascalaphus the strong:
Sons of Astyochè, the heavenly fair,
Whose virgin charms subdued the god of war:
(In Actor’s court as she retired to rest,
The strength of Mars the blushing maid compress’d)
Their troops in thirty sable vessels sweep,
With equal oars, the hoarse-resounding deep.

The Phocians next in forty barks repair;
Epistrophus and Schedius head the war:
From those rich regions where Cephisus leads
His silver current through the flowery meads;
From Panopëa, Chrysa the divine,
Where Anemoria’s stately turrets shine,
Where Pytho, Daulis, Cyparissus stood,
And fair Lilæ views the rising flood.
These, ranged in order on the floating tide,
Close, on the left, the bold Bœotians’ side.

Fierce Ajax led the Locrian squadrons on,
Ajax the less, Oïleus’ valiant son;
Skill’d to direct the flying dart aright;
Swift in pursuit, and active in the fight.
Him, as their chief, the chosen troops attend,
Which Bessa, Thronus, and rich Cynos send;
Opus, Calliarus, and Scarphe’s bands;
And those who dwell where pleasing Augia stands,
And where Boägrius floats the lowly lands,
Or in fair Tarphe’s sylvan seats reside:
In forty vessels cut the yielding tide.

Eubœa next her martial sons prepares,
And sends the brave Abantes to the wars:
Breathing revenge, in arms they take their way
From Chalcis’ walls, and strong Eretria;
The Isteian fields for generous vines renown’d,
The fair Caristos, and the Styrian ground;
Where Dios from her towers o’erlooks the plain,
And high Cerinthus views the neighbouring main.
Down their broad shoulders falls a length of hair;
Their hands dismiss not the long lance in air;
But with protended spears in fighting fields
Pierce the tough corslets and the brazen shields.
Twice twenty ships transport the warlike bands,
Which bold Elphenor, fierce in arms, commands.

Full fifty more from Athens stem the main,
Led by Menestheus through the liquid plain.
(Athens the fair, where great Erectheus sway’d,
That owed his nurture to the blue-eyed maid,
But from the teeming furrow took his birth,
The mighty offspring of the foodful earth.
Him Pallas placed amidst her wealthy fane,
Adored with sacrifice and oxen slain;
Where, as the years revolve, her altars blaze,
And all the tribes resound the goddess’ praise.)
No chief like thee, Menestheus! Greece could yield,
To marshal armies in the dusty field,
The extended wings of battle to display,
Or close the embodied host in firm array.
Nestor alone, improved by length of days,
For martial conduct bore an equal praise.

With these appear the Salaminian bands,
Whom the gigantic Telamon commands;
In twelve black ships to Troy they steer their course,
And with the great Athenians join their force.

Next move to war the generous Argive train,
From high Trœzenè, and Maseta’s plain,
And fair Ægina circled by the main:
Whom strong Tyrinthe’s lofty walls surround,
And Epidaure with viny harvests crown’d:
And where fair Asinen and Hermoin show
Their cliffs above, and ample bay below.
These by the brave Euryalus were led,
Great Sthenelus, and greater Diomed;
But chief Tydides bore the sovereign sway:
In fourscore barks they plough the watery way.

The proud Mycenè arms her martial powers,
Cleonè, Corinth, with imperial towers,[103]
Fair Aræthyrea, Ornia’s fruitful plain,
And Ægion, and Adrastus’ ancient reign;
And those who dwell along the sandy shore,
And where Pellenè yields her fleecy store,
Where Helicè and Hyperesia lie,
And Gonoëssa’s spires salute the sky.
Great Agamemnon rules the numerous band,
A hundred vessels in long order stand,
And crowded nations wait his dread command.
High on the deck the king of men appears,
And his refulgent arms in triumph wears;
Proud of his host, unrivall’d in his reign,
In silent pomp he moves along the main.

His brother follows, and to vengeance warms
The hardy Spartans, exercised in arms:
Phares and Brysia’s valiant troops, and those
Whom Lacedæmon’s lofty hills inclose;
Or Messé’s towers for silver doves renown’d,
Amyclæ, Laäs, Augia’s happy ground,
And those whom Œtylos’ low walls contain,
And Helos, on the margin of the main.
These, o’er the bending ocean, Helen’s cause,
In sixty ships with Menelaus draws:
Eager and loud from man to man he flies,
Revenge and fury flaming in his eyes;
While vainly fond, in fancy oft he hears
The fair one’s grief, and sees her falling tears.

In ninety sail, from Pylos’ sandy coast,
Nestor the sage conducts his chosen host:
From Amphigenia’s ever-fruitful land,
Where Æpy high, and little Pteleon stand;
Where beauteous Arene her structures shows,
And Thryon’s walls Alpheus’ streams inclose:
And Dorion, famed for Thamyris’ disgrace,
Superior once of all the tuneful race,
Till, vain of mortals’ empty praise, he strove
To match the seed of cloud-compelling Jove!
Too daring bard! whose unsuccessful pride
The immortal Muses in their art defied.
The avenging Muses of the light of day
Deprived his eyes, and snatch’d his voice away;
No more his heavenly voice was heard to sing,
His hand no more awaked the silver string.

Where under high Cyllenè, crown’d with wood,
The shaded tomb of old Æpytus stood;
From Ripè, Stratie, Tegea’s bordering towns,
The Phenean fields, and Orchomenian downs,
Where the fat herds in plenteous pasture rove;
And Stymphelus with her surrounding grove;
Parrhasia, on her snowy cliffs reclined,
And high Enispè shook by wintry wind,
And fair Mantinea’s ever-pleasing site;
In sixty sail the Arcadian bands unite.
Bold Agapenor, glorious at their head,
(Ancæus’ son) the mighty squadron led.
Their ships, supplied by Agamemnon’s care,
Through roaring seas the wondering warriors bear;
The first to battle on the appointed plain,
But new to all the dangers of the main.

Those, where fair Elis and Buprasium join;
Whom Hyrmin, here, and Myrsinus confine,
And bounded there, where o’er the valleys rose
The Olenian rock; and where Alisium flows;
Beneath four chiefs (a numerous army) came:
The strength and glory of the Epean name.
In separate squadrons these their train divide,
Each leads ten vessels through the yielding tide.
One was Amphimachus, and Thalpius one;
(Eurytus’ this, and that Teätus’ son;)
Diores sprung from Amarynceus’ line;
And great Polyxenus, of force divine.

But those who view fair Elis o’er the seas
From the blest islands of the Echinades,
In forty vessels under Meges move,
Begot by Phyleus, the beloved of Jove:
To strong Dulichium from his sire he fled,
And thence to Troy his hardy warriors led.

Ulysses follow’d through the watery road,
A chief, in wisdom equal to a god.
With those whom Cephalenia’s line inclosed,
Or till their fields along the coast opposed;
Or where fair Ithaca o’erlooks the floods,
Where high Neritos shakes his waving woods,
Where Ægilipa’s rugged sides are seen,
Crocylia rocky, and Zacynthus green.
These in twelve galleys with vermilion prores,
Beneath his conduct sought the Phrygian shores.

Thoas came next, Andræmon’s valiant son,
From Pleuron’s walls, and chalky Calydon,
And rough Pylene, and the Olenian steep,
And Chalcis, beaten by the rolling deep.
He led the warriors from the Ætolian shore,
For now the sons of Œneus were no more!
The glories of the mighty race were fled!
Œneus himself, and Meleager dead!
To Thoas’ care now trust the martial train,
His forty vessels follow through the main.

Next, eighty barks the Cretan king commands,
Of Gnossus, Lyctus, and Gortyna’s bands;
And those who dwell where Rhytion’s domes arise,
Or white Lycastus glitters to the skies,
Or where by Phæstus silver Jardan runs;
Crete’s hundred cities pour forth all her sons.
These march’d, Idomeneus, beneath thy care,
And Merion, dreadful as the god of war.

Tlepolemus, the son of Hercules,
Led nine swift vessels through the foamy seas,
From Rhodes, with everlasting sunshine bright,
Jalyssus, Lindus, and Camirus white.
His captive mother fierce Alcides bore
From Ephyr’s walls and Sellè’s winding shore,
Where mighty towns in ruins spread the plain,
And saw their blooming warriors early slain.
The hero, when to manly years he grew,
Alcides’ uncle, old Licymnius, slew;
For this, constrain’d to quit his native place,
And shun the vengeance of the Herculean race,
A fleet he built, and with a numerous train
Of willing exiles wander’d o’er the main;
Where, many seas and many sufferings past,
On happy Rhodes the chief arrived at last:
There in three tribes divides his native band,
And rules them peaceful in a foreign land;
Increased and prosper’d in their new abodes
By mighty Jove, the sire of men and gods;
With joy they saw the growing empire rise,
And showers of wealth descending from the skies.

Three ships with Nireus sought the Trojan shore,
Nireus, whom Agäle to Charopus bore,
Nireus, in faultless shape and blooming grace,
The loveliest youth of all the Grecian race;[104]
Pelides only match’d his early charms;
But few his troops, and small his strength in arms.

Next thirty galleys cleave the liquid plain,
Of those Calydnæ’s sea-girt isles contain;
With them the youth of Nisyrus repair,
Casus the strong, and Crapathus the fair;
Cos, where Eurypylus possess’d the sway,
Till great Alcides made the realms obey:
These Antiphus and bold Phidippus bring,
Sprung from the god by Thessalus the king.

Now, Muse, recount Pelasgic Argos’ powers,
From Alos, Alopé, and Trechin’s towers:
From Phthia’s spacious vales; and Hella, bless’d
With female beauty far beyond the rest.
Full fifty ships beneath Achilles’ care,
The Achaians, Myrmidons, Hellenians bear;
Thessalians all, though various in their name;
The same their nation, and their chief the same.
But now inglorious, stretch’d along the shore,
They hear the brazen voice of war no more;
No more the foe they face in dire array:
Close in his fleet the angry leader lay;
Since fair Briseïs from his arms was torn,
The noblest spoil from sack’d Lyrnessus borne,
Then, when the chief the Theban walls o’erthrew,
And the bold sons of great Evenus slew.
There mourn’d Achilles, plunged in depth of care,
But soon to rise in slaughter, blood, and war.

To these the youth of Phylacè succeed,
Itona, famous for her fleecy breed,
And grassy Pteleon deck’d with cheerful greens,
The bowers of Ceres, and the sylvan scenes.
Sweet Pyrrhasus, with blooming flowerets crown’d,
And Antron’s watery dens, and cavern’d ground.
These own’d, as chief, Protesilas the brave,
Who now lay silent in the gloomy grave:
The first who boldly touch’d the Trojan shore,
And dyed a Phrygian lance with Grecian gore;
There lies, far distant from his native plain;
Unfinish’d his proud palaces remain,
And his sad consort beats her breast in vain.
His troops in forty ships Podarces led,
Iphiclus’ son, and brother to the dead;
Nor he unworthy to command the host;
Yet still they mourn’d their ancient leader lost.

The men who Glaphyra’s fair soil partake,
Where hills incircle Bœbe’s lowly lake,
Where Phære hears the neighbouring waters fall,
Or proud Iölcus lifts her airy wall,
In ten black ships embark’d for Ilion’s shore,
With bold Eumelus, whom Alcestè bore:
All Pelias’ race Alcestè far outshined,
The grace and glory of the beauteous kind,

The troops Methonè or Thaumacia yields,
Olizon’s rocks, or Melibœa’s fields,
With Philoctetes sail’d whose matchless art
From the tough bow directs the feather’d dart.
Seven were his ships; each vessel fifty row,
Skill’d in his science of the dart and bow.
But he lay raging on the Lemnian ground,
A poisonous hydra gave the burning wound;
There groan’d the chief in agonizing pain,
Whom Greece at length shall wish, nor wish in vain.
His forces Medon led from Lemnos’ shore,
Oïleus’ son, whom beauteous Rhena bore.

The Œchalian race, in those high towers contain’d
Where once Eurytus in proud triumph reign’d,
Or where her humbler turrets Tricca rears,
Or where Ithome, rough with rocks, appears,
In thirty sail the sparkling waves divide,
Which Podalirius and Machaon guide.
To these his skill their parent-god imparts,
Divine professors of the healing arts.

The bold Ormenian and Asterian bands
In forty barks Eurypylus commands.
Where Titan hides his hoary head in snow,
And where Hyperia’s silver fountains flow.
Thy troops, Argissa, Polypœtes leads,
And Eleon, shelter’d by Olympus’ shades,
Gyrtonè’s warriors; and where Orthè lies,
And Oloösson’s chalky cliffs arise.
Sprung from Pirithous of immortal race,
The fruit of fair Hippodame’s embrace,
(That day, when hurl’d from Pelion’s cloudy head,
To distant dens the shaggy Centaurs fled)
With Polypœtes join’d in equal sway
Leonteus leads, and forty ships obey.

In twenty sail the bold Perrhæbians came
From Cyphus, Guneus was their leader’s name.
With these the Enians join’d, and those who freeze
Where cold Dodona lifts her holy trees;
Or where the pleasing Titaresius glides,
And into Peneus rolls his easy tides;
Yet o’er the silvery surface pure they flow,
The sacred stream unmix’d with streams below,
Sacred and awful! from the dark abodes
Styx pours them forth, the dreadful oath of gods!

Last, under Prothous the Magnesians stood,
(Prothous the swift, of old Tenthredon’s blood;)
Who dwell where Pelion, crown’d with piny boughs,
Obscures the glade, and nods his shaggy brows;
Or where through flowery Tempe Peneus stray’d:
(The region stretch’d beneath his mighty shade:)
In forty sable barks they stemm’d the main;
Such were the chiefs, and such the Grecian train.

Say next, O Muse! of all Achaia breeds,
Who bravest fought, or rein’d the noblest steeds?
Eumelus’ mares were foremost in the chase,
As eagles fleet, and of Pheretian race;
Bred where Pieria’s fruitful fountains flow,
And train’d by him who bears the silver bow.
Fierce in the fight their nostrils breathed a flame,
Their height, their colour, and their age the same;
O’er fields of death they whirl the rapid car,
And break the ranks, and thunder through the war.
Ajax in arms the first renown acquired,
While stern Achilles in his wrath retired:
(His was the strength that mortal might exceeds,
And his the unrivall’d race of heavenly steeds:)
But Thetis’ son now shines in arms no more;
His troops, neglected on the sandy shore.
In empty air their sportive javelins throw,
Or whirl the disk, or bend an idle bow:
Unstain’d with blood his cover’d chariots stand;
The immortal coursers graze along the strand;
But the brave chiefs the inglorious life deplored,
And, wandering o’er the camp, required their lord.

Now, like a deluge, covering all around,
The shining armies sweep along the ground;
Swift as a flood of fire, when storms arise,
Floats the wild field, and blazes to the skies.
Earth groan’d beneath them; as when angry Jove
Hurls down the forky lightning from above,
On Arimé when he the thunder throws,
And fires Typhœus with redoubled blows,
Where Typhon, press’d beneath the burning load,
Still feels the fury of the avenging god.

But various Iris, Jove’s commands to bear,
Speeds on the wings of winds through liquid air;
In Priam’s porch the Trojan chiefs she found,
The old consulting, and the youths around.
Polites’ shape, the monarch’s son, she chose,
Who from Æsetes’ tomb observed the foes,[105]
High on the mound; from whence in prospect lay
The fields, the tents, the navy, and the bay.
In this dissembled form, she hastes to bring
The unwelcome message to the Phrygian king.

“Cease to consult, the time for action calls;
War, horrid war, approaches to your walls!
Assembled armies oft have I beheld;
But ne’er till now such numbers charged a field:
Thick as autumnal leaves or driving sand,
The moving squadrons blacken all the strand.
Thou, godlike Hector! all thy force employ,
Assemble all the united bands of Troy;
In just array let every leader call
The foreign troops: this day demands them all!”

The voice divine the mighty chief alarms;
The council breaks, the warriors rush to arms.
The gates unfolding pour forth all their train,
Nations on nations fill the dusky plain,
Men, steeds, and chariots, shake the trembling ground:
The tumult thickens, and the skies resound.

Amidst the plain, in sight of Ilion, stands
A rising mount, the work of human hands;
(This for Myrinne’s tomb the immortals know,
Though call’d Bateïa in the world below;)
Beneath their chiefs in martial order here,
The auxiliar troops and Trojan hosts appear.

The godlike Hector, high above the rest,
Shakes his huge spear, and nods his plumy crest:
In throngs around his native bands repair,
And groves of lances glitter in the air.

Divine Æneas brings the Dardan race,
Anchises’ son, by Venus’ stolen embrace,
Born in the shades of Ida’s secret grove;
(A mortal mixing with the queen of love;)
Archilochus and Acamas divide
The warrior’s toils, and combat by his side.

Who fair Zeleia’s wealthy valleys till,[106]
Fast by the foot of Ida’s sacred hill,
Or drink, Æsepus, of thy sable flood,
Were led by Pandarus, of royal blood;
To whom his art Apollo deign’d to show,
Graced with the presents of his shafts and bow.

From rich Apæsus and Adrestia’s towers,
High Teree’s summits, and Pityea’s bowers;
From these the congregated troops obey
Young Amphius and Adrastus’ equal sway;
Old Merops’ sons; whom, skill’d in fates to come,
The sire forewarn’d, and prophesied their doom:
Fate urged them on! the sire forewarn’d in vain,
They rush’d to war, and perish’d on the plain.

From Practius’ stream, Percotè’s pasture lands,
And Sestos and Abydos’ neighbouring strands,
From great Arisba’s walls and Sellè’s coast,
Asius Hyrtacides conducts his host:
High on his car he shakes the flowing reins,
His fiery coursers thunder o’er the plains.

The fierce Pelasgi next, in war renown’d,
March from Larissa’s ever-fertile ground:
In equal arms their brother leaders shine,
Hippothous bold, and Pyleus the divine.

Next Acamas and Pyrous lead their hosts,
In dread array, from Thracia’s wintry coasts;
Round the bleak realms where Hellespontus roars,
And Boreas beats the hoarse-resounding shores.

With great Euphemus the Ciconians move,
Sprung from Trœzenian Ceüs, loved by Jove.

Pyræchmes the Pæonian troops attend,
Skill’d in the fight their crooked bows to bend;
From Axius’ ample bed he leads them on,
Axius, that laves the distant Amydon,
Axius, that swells with all his neighbouring rills,
And wide around the floating region fills.

The Paphlagonians Pylæmenes rules,
Where rich Henetia breeds her savage mules,
Where Erythinus’ rising cliffs are seen,
Thy groves of box, Cytorus! ever green,
And where Ægialus and Cromna lie,
And lofty Sesamus invades the sky,
And where Parthenius, roll’d through banks of flowers,
Reflects her bordering palaces and bowers.

Here march’d in arms the Halizonian band,
Whom Odius and Epistrophus command,
From those far regions where the sun refines
The ripening silver in Alybean mines.

There mighty Chromis led the Mysian train,
And augur Ennomus, inspired in vain;
For stern Achilles lopp’d his sacred head,
Roll’d down Scamander with the vulgar dead.

Phorcys and brave Ascanius here unite
The Ascanian Phrygians, eager for the fight.

Of those who round Mæonia’s realms reside,
Or whom the vales in shades of Tmolus hide,
Mestles and Antiphus the charge partake,
Born on the banks of Gyges’ silent lake.
There, from the fields where wild Mæander flows,
High Mycale, and Latmos’ shady brows,
And proud Miletus, came the Carian throngs,
With mingled clamours and with barbarous tongues.[107]
Amphimachus and Naustes guide the train,
Naustes the bold, Amphimachus the vain,
Who, trick’d with gold, and glittering on his car,
Rode like a woman to the field of war.
Fool that he was! by fierce Achilles slain,
The river swept him to the briny main:
There whelm’d with waves the gaudy warrior lies
The valiant victor seized the golden prize.

The forces last in fair array succeed,
Which blameless Glaucus and Sarpedon lead
The warlike bands that distant Lycia yields,
Where gulfy Xanthus foams along the fields.




BOOK III.


ARGUMENT.


THE DUEL OF MENELAUS AND PARIS.


The armies being ready to engage, a single combat is agreed upon
between Menelaus and Paris (by the intervention of Hector) for the
determination of the war. Iris is sent to call Helen to behold the
fight. She leads her to the walls of Troy, where Priam sat with his
counsellers observing the Grecian leaders on the plain below, to whom
Helen gives an account of the chief of them. The kings on either part
take the solemn oath for the conditions of the combat. The duel ensues;
wherein Paris being overcome, he is snatched away in a cloud by Venus,
and transported to his apartment. She then calls Helen from the walls,
and brings the lovers together. Agamemnon, on the part of the Grecians,
demands the restoration of Helen, and the performance of the articles.
    The three-and-twentieth day still continues throughout this book.
    The scene is sometimes in the fields before Troy, and sometimes in
    Troy itself.


Thus by their leaders’ care each martial band
Moves into ranks, and stretches o’er the land.
With shouts the Trojans, rushing from afar,
Proclaim their motions, and provoke the war.
So when inclement winters vex the plain
With piercing frosts, or thick-descending rain,
To warmer seas the cranes embodied fly,[108]
With noise, and order, through the midway sky;
To pigmy nations wounds and death they bring,
And all the war descends upon the wing,
But silent, breathing rage, resolved and skill’d[109]
By mutual aids to fix a doubtful field,
Swift march the Greeks: the rapid dust around
Darkening arises from the labour’d ground.
Thus from his flaggy wings when Notus sheds
A night of vapours round the mountain heads,
Swift-gliding mists the dusky fields invade,
To thieves more grateful than the midnight shade;
While scarce the swains their feeding flocks survey,
Lost and confused amidst the thicken’d day:
So wrapp’d in gathering dust, the Grecian train,
A moving cloud, swept on, and hid the plain.

Now front to front the hostile armies stand,
Eager of fight, and only wait command;
When, to the van, before the sons of fame
Whom Troy sent forth, the beauteous Paris came:
In form a god! the panther’s speckled hide
Flow’d o’er his armour with an easy pride:
His bended bow across his shoulders flung,
His sword beside him negligently hung;
Two pointed spears he shook with gallant grace,
And dared the bravest of the Grecian race.

As thus, with glorious air and proud disdain,
He boldly stalk’d, the foremost on the plain,
Him Menelaus, loved of Mars, espies,
With heart elated, and with joyful eyes:
So joys a lion, if the branching deer,
Or mountain goat, his bulky prize, appear;
Eager he seizes and devours the slain,
Press’d by bold youths and baying dogs in vain.
Thus fond of vengeance, with a furious bound,
In clanging arms he leaps upon the ground
From his high chariot: him, approaching near,
The beauteous champion views with marks of fear,
Smit with a conscious sense, retires behind,
And shuns the fate he well deserved to find.
As when some shepherd, from the rustling trees[110]
Shot forth to view, a scaly serpent sees,
Trembling and pale, he starts with wild affright
And all confused precipitates his flight:
So from the king the shining warrior flies,
And plunged amid the thickest Trojans lies.

As godlike Hector sees the prince retreat,
He thus upbraids him with a generous heat:
“Unhappy Paris![111] but to women brave!
So fairly form’d, and only to deceive!
Oh, hadst thou died when first thou saw’st the light,
Or died at least before thy nuptial rite!
A better fate than vainly thus to boast,
And fly, the scandal of thy Trojan host.
Gods! how the scornful Greeks exult to see
Their fears of danger undeceived in thee!
Thy figure promised with a martial air,
But ill thy soul supplies a form so fair.
In former days, in all thy gallant pride,
When thy tall ships triumphant stemm’d the tide,
When Greece beheld thy painted canvas flow,
And crowds stood wondering at the passing show,
Say, was it thus, with such a baffled mien,
You met the approaches of the Spartan queen,
Thus from her realm convey’d the beauteous prize,
And both her warlike lords outshined in Helen’s eyes?
This deed, thy foes’ delight, thy own disgrace,
Thy father’s grief, and ruin of thy race;
This deed recalls thee to the proffer’d fight;
Or hast thou injured whom thou dar’st not right?
Soon to thy cost the field would make thee know
Thou keep’st the consort of a braver foe.
Thy graceful form instilling soft desire,
Thy curling tresses, and thy silver lyre,
Beauty and youth; in vain to these you trust,
When youth and beauty shall be laid in dust:
Troy yet may wake, and one avenging blow
Crush the dire author of his country’s woe.”

His silence here, with blushes, Paris breaks:
“’Tis just, my brother, what your anger speaks:
But who like thee can boast a soul sedate,
So firmly proof to all the shocks of fate?
Thy force, like steel, a temper’d hardness shows,
Still edged to wound, and still untired with blows,
Like steel, uplifted by some strenuous swain,
With falling woods to strew the wasted plain.
Thy gifts I praise; nor thou despise the charms
With which a lover golden Venus arms;
Soft moving speech, and pleasing outward show,
No wish can gain them, but the gods bestow.
Yet, would’st thou have the proffer’d combat stand,
The Greeks and Trojans seat on either hand;
Then let a midway space our hosts divide,
And, on that stage of war, the cause be tried:
By Paris there the Spartan king be fought,
For beauteous Helen and the wealth she brought;
And who his rival can in arms subdue,
His be the fair, and his the treasure too.
Thus with a lasting league your toils may cease,
And Troy possess her fertile fields in peace;
Thus may the Greeks review their native shore,
Much famed for generous steeds, for beauty more.”

He said. The challenge Hector heard with joy,
Then with his spear restrain’d the youth of Troy,
Held by the midst, athwart; and near the foe
Advanced with steps majestically slow:
While round his dauntless head the Grecians pour
Their stones and arrows in a mingled shower.

Then thus the monarch, great Atrides, cried:
“Forbear, ye warriors! lay the darts aside:
A parley Hector asks, a message bears;
We know him by the various plume he wears.”
Awed by his high command the Greeks attend,
The tumult silence, and the fight suspend.

While from the centre Hector rolls his eyes
On either host, and thus to both applies:
“Hear, all ye Trojan, all ye Grecian bands,
What Paris, author of the war, demands.
Your shining swords within the sheath restrain,
And pitch your lances in the yielding plain.
Here in the midst, in either army’s sight,
He dares the Spartan king to single fight;
And wills that Helen and the ravish’d spoil,
That caused the contest, shall reward the toil.
Let these the brave triumphant victor grace,
And different nations part in leagues of peace.”

He spoke: in still suspense on either side
Each army stood: the Spartan chief replied:

“Me too, ye warriors, hear, whose fatal right
A world engages in the toils of fight.
To me the labour of the field resign;
Me Paris injured; all the war be mine.
Fall he that must, beneath his rival’s arms;
And live the rest, secure of future harms.
Two lambs, devoted by your country’s rite,
To earth a sable, to the sun a white,
Prepare, ye Trojans! while a third we bring
Select to Jove, the inviolable king.
Let reverend Priam in the truce engage,
And add the sanction of considerate age;
His sons are faithless, headlong in debate,
And youth itself an empty wavering state;
Cool age advances, venerably wise,
Turns on all hands its deep-discerning eyes;
Sees what befell, and what may yet befall,
Concludes from both, and best provides for all.

The nations hear with rising hopes possess’d,
And peaceful prospects dawn in every breast.
Within the lines they drew their steeds around,
And from their chariots issued on the ground;
Next, all unbuckling the rich mail they wore,
Laid their bright arms along the sable shore.
On either side the meeting hosts are seen
With lances fix’d, and close the space between.
Two heralds now, despatch’d to Troy, invite
The Phrygian monarch to the peaceful rite.

Talthybius hastens to the fleet, to bring
The lamb for Jove, the inviolable king.

Meantime to beauteous Helen, from the skies
The various goddess of the rainbow flies:
(Like fair Laodice in form and face,
The loveliest nymph of Priam’s royal race:)
Her in the palace, at her loom she found;
The golden web her own sad story crown’d,
The Trojan wars she weaved (herself the prize)
And the dire triumphs of her fatal eyes.
To whom the goddess of the painted bow:
“Approach, and view the wondrous scene below![112]
Each hardy Greek, and valiant Trojan knight,
So dreadful late, and furious for the fight,
Now rest their spears, or lean upon their shields;
Ceased is the war, and silent all the fields.
Paris alone and Sparta’s king advance,
In single fight to toss the beamy lance;
Each met in arms, the fate of combat tries,
Thy love the motive, and thy charms the prize.”

This said, the many-coloured maid inspires
Her husband’s love, and wakes her former fires;
Her country, parents, all that once were dear,
Rush to her thought, and force a tender tear,
O’er her fair face a snowy veil she threw,
And, softly sighing, from the loom withdrew.
Her handmaids, Clymene and Æthra, wait
Her silent footsteps to the Scæan gate.

There sat the seniors of the Trojan race:
(Old Priam’s chiefs, and most in Priam’s grace,)
The king the first; Thymœtes at his side;
Lampus and Clytius, long in council tried;
Panthus, and Hicetaon, once the strong;
And next, the wisest of the reverend throng,
Antenor grave, and sage Ucalegon,
Lean’d on the walls and bask’d before the sun:
Chiefs, who no more in bloody fights engage,
But wise through time, and narrative with age,
In summer days, like grasshoppers rejoice,
A bloodless race, that send a feeble voice.
These, when the Spartan queen approach’d the tower,
In secret own’d resistless beauty’s power:
They cried, “No wonder[113] such celestial charms
For nine long years have set the world in arms;
What winning graces! what majestic mien!
She moves a goddess, and she looks a queen!
Yet hence, O Heaven, convey that fatal face,
And from destruction save the Trojan race.”

The good old Priam welcomed her, and cried,
“Approach, my child, and grace thy father’s side.
See on the plain thy Grecian spouse appears,
The friends and kindred of thy former years.
No crime of thine our present sufferings draws,
Not thou, but Heaven’s disposing will, the cause
The gods these armies and this force employ,
The hostile gods conspire the fate of Troy.
But lift thy eyes, and say, what Greek is he
(Far as from hence these aged orbs can see)
Around whose brow such martial graces shine,
So tall, so awful, and almost divine!
Though some of larger stature tread the green,
None match his grandeur and exalted mien:
He seems a monarch, and his country’s pride.”
Thus ceased the king, and thus the fair replied:

“Before thy presence, father, I appear,
With conscious shame and reverential fear.
Ah! had I died, ere to these walls I fled,
False to my country, and my nuptial bed;
My brothers, friends, and daughter left behind,
False to them all, to Paris only kind!
For this I mourn, till grief or dire disease
Shall waste the form whose fault it was to please!
The king of kings, Atrides, you survey,
Great in the war, and great in arts of sway:
My brother once, before my days of shame!
And oh! that still he bore a brother’s name!”

With wonder Priam view’d the godlike man,
Extoll’d the happy prince, and thus began:
“O bless’d Atrides! born to prosperous fate,
Successful monarch of a mighty state!
How vast thy empire! Of your matchless train
What numbers lost, what numbers yet remain!
In Phrygia once were gallant armies known,
In ancient time, when Otreus fill’d the throne,
When godlike Mygdon led their troops of horse,
And I, to join them, raised the Trojan force:
Against the manlike Amazons we stood,[114]
And Sangar’s stream ran purple with their blood.
But far inferior those, in martial grace,
And strength of numbers, to this Grecian race.”

This said, once more he view’d the warrior train;
“What’s he, whose arms lie scatter’d on the plain?
Broad is his breast, his shoulders larger spread,
Though great Atrides overtops his head.
Nor yet appear his care and conduct small;
From rank to rank he moves, and orders all.
The stately ram thus measures o’er the ground,
And, master of the flock, surveys them round.”

Then Helen thus: “Whom your discerning eyes
Have singled out, is Ithacus the wise;
A barren island boasts his glorious birth;
His fame for wisdom fills the spacious earth.”

Antenor took the word, and thus began:[115]
“Myself, O king! have seen that wondrous man
When, trusting Jove and hospitable laws,
To Troy he came, to plead the Grecian cause;
(Great Menelaus urged the same request;)
My house was honour’d with each royal guest:
I knew their persons, and admired their parts,
Both brave in arms, and both approved in arts.
Erect, the Spartan most engaged our view;
Ulysses seated, greater reverence drew.
When Atreus’ son harangued the listening train,
Just was his sense, and his expression plain,
His words succinct, yet full, without a fault;
He spoke no more than just the thing he ought.
But when Ulysses rose, in thought profound,[116]
His modest eyes he fix’d upon the ground;
As one unskill’d or dumb, he seem’d to stand,
Nor raised his head, nor stretch’d his sceptred hand;
But, when he speaks, what elocution flows!
Soft as the fleeces of descending snows,[117]
The copious accents fall, with easy art;
Melting they fall, and sink into the heart!
Wondering we hear, and fix’d in deep surprise,
Our ears refute the censure of our eyes.”

The king then ask’d (as yet the camp he view’d)
“What chief is that, with giant strength endued,
Whose brawny shoulders, and whose swelling chest,
And lofty stature, far exceed the rest?
“Ajax the great, (the beauteous queen replied,)
Himself a host: the Grecian strength and pride.
See! bold Idomeneus superior towers
Amid yon circle of his Cretan powers,
Great as a god! I saw him once before,
With Menelaus on the Spartan shore.
The rest I know, and could in order name;
All valiant chiefs, and men of mighty fame.
Yet two are wanting of the numerous train,
Whom long my eyes have sought, but sought in vain:
Castor and Pollux, first in martial force,
One bold on foot, and one renown’d for horse.
My brothers these; the same our native shore,
One house contain’d us, as one mother bore.
Perhaps the chiefs, from warlike toils at ease,
For distant Troy refused to sail the seas;
Perhaps their swords some nobler quarrel draws,
Ashamed to combat in their sister’s cause.”

So spoke the fair, nor knew her brothers’ doom;[118]
Wrapt in the cold embraces of the tomb;
Adorn’d with honours in their native shore,
Silent they slept, and heard of wars no more.

Meantime the heralds, through the crowded town,
Bring the rich wine and destined victims down.
Idæus’ arms the golden goblets press’d,[119]
Who thus the venerable king address’d:
“Arise, O father of the Trojan state!
The nations call, thy joyful people wait
To seal the truce, and end the dire debate.
Paris, thy son, and Sparta’s king advance,
In measured lists to toss the weighty lance;
And who his rival shall in arms subdue,
His be the dame, and his the treasure too.
Thus with a lasting league our toils may cease,
And Troy possess her fertile fields in peace:
So shall the Greeks review their native shore,
Much famed for generous steeds, for beauty more.”

With grief he heard, and bade the chiefs prepare
To join his milk-white coursers to the car;
He mounts the seat, Antenor at his side;
The gentle steeds through Scæa’s gates they guide:[120]
Next from the car descending on the plain,
Amid the Grecian host and Trojan train,
Slow they proceed: the sage Ulysses then
Arose, and with him rose the king of men.
On either side a sacred herald stands,
The wine they mix, and on each monarch’s hands
Pour the full urn; then draws the Grecian lord
His cutlass sheathed beside his ponderous sword;
From the sign’d victims crops the curling hair;[121]
The heralds part it, and the princes share;
Then loudly thus before the attentive bands
He calls the gods, and spreads his lifted hands:

“O first and greatest power! whom all obey,
Who high on Ida’s holy mountain sway,
Eternal Jove! and you bright orb that roll
From east to west, and view from pole to pole!
Thou mother Earth! and all ye living floods!
Infernal furies, and Tartarean gods,
Who rule the dead, and horrid woes prepare
For perjured kings, and all who falsely swear!
Hear, and be witness. If, by Paris slain,
Great Menelaus press the fatal plain;
The dame and treasures let the Trojan keep,
And Greece returning plough the watery deep.
If by my brother’s lance the Trojan bleed,
Be his the wealth and beauteous dame decreed:
The appointed fine let Ilion justly pay,
And every age record the signal day.
This if the Phrygians shall refuse to yield,
Arms must revenge, and Mars decide the field.”

With that the chief the tender victims slew,
And in the dust their bleeding bodies threw;
The vital spirit issued at the wound,
And left the members quivering on the ground.
From the same urn they drink the mingled wine,
And add libations to the powers divine.
While thus their prayers united mount the sky,
“Hear, mighty Jove! and hear, ye gods on high!
And may their blood, who first the league confound,
Shed like this wine, disdain the thirsty ground;
May all their consorts serve promiscuous lust,
And all their lust be scatter’d as the dust!”
Thus either host their imprecations join’d,
Which Jove refused, and mingled with the wind.

The rites now finish’d, reverend Priam rose,
And thus express’d a heart o’ercharged with woes:
“Ye Greeks and Trojans, let the chiefs engage,
But spare the weakness of my feeble age:
In yonder walls that object let me shun,
Nor view the danger of so dear a son.
Whose arms shall conquer and what prince shall fall,
Heaven only knows; for heaven disposes all.”

This said, the hoary king no longer stay’d,
But on his car the slaughter’d victims laid:
Then seized the reins his gentle steeds to guide,
And drove to Troy, Antenor at his side.

Bold Hector and Ulysses now dispose
The lists of combat, and the ground inclose:
Next to decide, by sacred lots prepare,
Who first shall launch his pointed spear in air.
The people pray with elevated hands,
And words like these are heard through all the bands:
“Immortal Jove, high Heaven’s superior lord,
On lofty Ida’s holy mount adored!
Whoe’er involved us in this dire debate,
O give that author of the war to fate
And shades eternal! let division cease,
And joyful nations join in leagues of peace.”

With eyes averted Hector hastes to turn
The lots of fight and shakes the brazen urn.
Then, Paris, thine leap’d forth; by fatal chance
Ordain’d the first to whirl the weighty lance.
Both armies sat the combat to survey.
Beside each chief his azure armour lay,
And round the lists the generous coursers neigh.
The beauteous warrior now arrays for fight,
In gilded arms magnificently bright:
The purple cuishes clasp his thighs around,
With flowers adorn’d, with silver buckles bound:
Lycaon’s corslet his fair body dress’d,
Braced in and fitted to his softer breast;
A radiant baldric, o’er his shoulder tied,
Sustain’d the sword that glitter’d at his side:
His youthful face a polish’d helm o’erspread;
The waving horse-hair nodded on his head:
His figured shield, a shining orb, he takes,
And in his hand a pointed javelin shakes.
With equal speed and fired by equal charms,
The Spartan hero sheathes his limbs in arms.

Now round the lists the admiring armies stand,
With javelins fix’d, the Greek and Trojan band.
Amidst the dreadful vale, the chiefs advance,
All pale with rage, and shake the threatening lance.
The Trojan first his shining javelin threw;
Full on Atrides’ ringing shield it flew,
Nor pierced the brazen orb, but with a bound[122]
Leap’d from the buckler, blunted, on the ground.
Atrides then his massy lance prepares,
In act to throw, but first prefers his prayers:

“Give me, great Jove! to punish lawless lust,
And lay the Trojan gasping in the dust:
Destroy the aggressor, aid my righteous cause,
Avenge the breach of hospitable laws!
Let this example future times reclaim,
And guard from wrong fair friendship’s holy name,”
He said, and poised in air the javelin sent,
Through Paris’ shield the forceful weapon went,
His corslet pierces, and his garment rends,
And glancing downward, near his flank descends.
The wary Trojan, bending from the blow,
Eludes the death, and disappoints his foe:
But fierce Atrides waved his sword, and strook
Full on his casque: the crested helmet shook;
The brittle steel, unfaithful to his hand,
Broke short: the fragments glitter’d on the sand.
The raging warrior to the spacious skies
Raised his upbraiding voice and angry eyes:
“Then is it vain in Jove himself to trust?
And is it thus the gods assist the just?
When crimes provoke us, Heaven success denies;
The dart falls harmless, and the falchion flies.”
Furious he said, and towards the Grecian crew
(Seized by the crest) the unhappy warrior drew;
Struggling he followed, while the embroider’d thong
That tied his helmet, dragg’d the chief along.
Then had his ruin crown’d Atrides’ joy,
But Venus trembled for the prince of Troy:
Unseen she came, and burst the golden band;
And left an empty helmet in his hand.
The casque, enraged, amidst the Greeks he threw;
The Greeks with smiles the polish’d trophy view.
Then, as once more he lifts the deadly dart,
In thirst of vengeance, at his rival’s heart;
The queen of love her favour’d champion shrouds
(For gods can all things) in a veil of clouds.
Raised from the field the panting youth she led,
And gently laid him on the bridal bed,
With pleasing sweets his fainting sense renews,
And all the dome perfumes with heavenly dews.
Meantime the brightest of the female kind,
The matchless Helen, o’er the walls reclined;
To her, beset with Trojan beauties, came,
In borrow’d form, the laughter-loving dame.
(She seem’d an ancient maid, well-skill’d to cull
The snowy fleece, and wind the twisted wool.)
The goddess softly shook her silken vest,
That shed perfumes, and whispering thus address’d:


[Illustration: ] VENUS, DISGUISED, INVITING HELEN TO THE CHAMBER OF
PARIS


“Haste, happy nymph! for thee thy Paris calls,
Safe from the fight, in yonder lofty walls,
Fair as a god; with odours round him spread,
He lies, and waits thee on the well-known bed;
Not like a warrior parted from the foe,
But some gay dancer in the public show.”

She spoke, and Helen’s secret soul was moved;
She scorn’d the champion, but the man she loved.
Fair Venus’ neck, her eyes that sparkled fire,
And breast, reveal’d the queen of soft desire.[123]
Struck with her presence, straight the lively red
Forsook her cheek; and trembling, thus she said:
“Then is it still thy pleasure to deceive?
And woman’s frailty always to believe!
Say, to new nations must I cross the main,
Or carry wars to some soft Asian plain?
For whom must Helen break her second vow?
What other Paris is thy darling now?
Left to Atrides, (victor in the strife,)
An odious conquest and a captive wife,
Hence let me sail; and if thy Paris bear
My absence ill, let Venus ease his care.
A handmaid goddess at his side to wait,
Renounce the glories of thy heavenly state,
Be fix’d for ever to the Trojan shore,
His spouse, or slave; and mount the skies no more.
For me, to lawless love no longer led,
I scorn the coward, and detest his bed;
Else should I merit everlasting shame,
And keen reproach, from every Phrygian dame:
Ill suits it now the joys of love to know,
Too deep my anguish, and too wild my woe.”


[Illustration: ] VENUS PRESENTING HELEN TO PARIS


Then thus incensed, the Paphian queen replies:
“Obey the power from whom thy glories rise:
Should Venus leave thee, every charm must fly,
Fade from thy cheek, and languish in thy eye.
Cease to provoke me, lest I make thee more
The world’s aversion, than their love before;
Now the bright prize for which mankind engage,
Than, the sad victim, of the public rage.”

At this, the fairest of her sex obey’d,
And veil’d her blushes in a silken shade;
Unseen, and silent, from the train she moves,
Led by the goddess of the Smiles and Loves.
Arrived, and enter’d at the palace gate,
The maids officious round their mistress wait;
Then, all dispersing, various tasks attend;
The queen and goddess to the prince ascend.
Full in her Paris’ sight, the queen of love
Had placed the beauteous progeny of Jove;
Where, as he view’d her charms, she turn’d away
Her glowing eyes, and thus began to say:

“Is this the chief, who, lost to sense of shame,
Late fled the field, and yet survives his fame?
O hadst thou died beneath the righteous sword
Of that brave man whom once I call’d my lord!
The boaster Paris oft desired the day
With Sparta’s king to meet in single fray:
Go now, once more thy rival’s rage excite,
Provoke Atrides, and renew the fight:
Yet Helen bids thee stay, lest thou unskill’d
Shouldst fall an easy conquest on the field.”

The prince replies: “Ah cease, divinely fair,
Nor add reproaches to the wounds I bear;
This day the foe prevail’d by Pallas’ power:
We yet may vanquish in a happier hour:
There want not gods to favour us above;
But let the business of our life be love:
These softer moments let delights employ,
And kind embraces snatch the hasty joy.
Not thus I loved thee, when from Sparta’s shore
My forced, my willing heavenly prize I bore,
When first entranced in Cranae’s isle I lay,[124]
Mix’d with thy soul, and all dissolved away!”
Thus having spoke, the enamour’d Phrygian boy
Rush’d to the bed, impatient for the joy.
Him Helen follow’d slow with bashful charms,
And clasp’d the blooming hero in her arms.

While these to love’s delicious rapture yield,
The stern Atrides rages round the field:
So some fell lion whom the woods obey,
Roars through the desert, and demands his prey.
Paris he seeks, impatient to destroy,
But seeks in vain along the troops of Troy;
Even those had yielded to a foe so brave
The recreant warrior, hateful as the grave.
Then speaking thus, the king of kings arose,
“Ye Trojans, Dardans, all our generous foes!
Hear and attest! from Heaven with conquest crown’d,
Our brother’s arms the just success have found:
Be therefore now the Spartan wealth restor’d,
Let Argive Helen own her lawful lord;
The appointed fine let Ilion justly pay,
And age to age record this signal day.”

He ceased; his army’s loud applauses rise,
And the long shout runs echoing through the skies.


[Illustration: ] VENUS

[Illustration: ] Map, titled “GRÆCIÆ ANTIQUÆ”




BOOK IV.


ARGUMENT.


THE BREACH OF THE TRUCE, AND THE FIRST BATTLE.


The gods deliberate in council concerning the Trojan war: they agree
upon the continuation of it, and Jupiter sends down Minerva to break
the truce. She persuades Pandarus to aim an arrow at Menelaus, who is
wounded, but cured by Machaon. In the meantime some of the Trojan
troops attack the Greeks. Agamemnon is distinguished in all the parts
of a good general; he reviews the troops, and exhorts the leaders, some
by praises and others by reproof. Nestor is particularly celebrated for
his military discipline. The battle joins, and great numbers are slain
on both sides.
    The same day continues through this as through the last book (as it
    does also through the two following, and almost to the end of the
    seventh book). The scene is wholly in the field before Troy.


And now Olympus’ shining gates unfold;
The gods, with Jove, assume their thrones of gold:
Immortal Hebe, fresh with bloom divine,
The golden goblet crowns with purple wine:
While the full bowls flow round, the powers employ
Their careful eyes on long-contended Troy.

When Jove, disposed to tempt Saturnia’s spleen,
Thus waked the fury of his partial queen,
“Two powers divine the son of Atreus aid,
Imperial Juno, and the martial maid;[125]
But high in heaven they sit, and gaze from far,
The tame spectators of his deeds of war.
Not thus fair Venus helps her favour’d knight,
The queen of pleasures shares the toils of fight,
Each danger wards, and constant in her care,
Saves in the moment of the last despair.
Her act has rescued Paris’ forfeit life,
Though great Atrides gain’d the glorious strife.
Then say, ye powers! what signal issue waits
To crown this deed, and finish all the fates!
Shall Heaven by peace the bleeding kingdoms spare,
Or rouse the furies, and awake the war?
Yet, would the gods for human good provide,
Atrides soon might gain his beauteous bride,
Still Priam’s walls in peaceful honours grow,
And through his gates the crowding nations flow.”

Thus while he spoke, the queen of heaven, enraged,
And queen of war, in close consult engaged:
Apart they sit, their deep designs employ,
And meditate the future woes of Troy.
Though secret anger swell’d Minerva’s breast,
The prudent goddess yet her wrath suppress’d;
But Juno, impotent of passion, broke
Her sullen silence, and with fury spoke:


[Illustration: ] THE COUNCIL OF THE GODS


“Shall then, O tyrant of the ethereal reign!
My schemes, my labours, and my hopes be vain?
Have I, for this, shook Ilion with alarms,
Assembled nations, set two worlds in arms?
To spread the war, I flew from shore to shore;
The immortal coursers scarce the labour bore.
At length ripe vengeance o’er their heads impends,
But Jove himself the faithless race defends.
Loth as thou art to punish lawless lust,
Not all the gods are partial and unjust.”

The sire whose thunder shakes the cloudy skies,
Sighs from his inmost soul, and thus replies:
“Oh lasting rancour! oh insatiate hate
To Phrygia’s monarch, and the Phrygian state!
What high offence has fired the wife of Jove?
Can wretched mortals harm the powers above,
That Troy, and Troy’s whole race thou wouldst confound,
And yon fair structures level with the ground!
Haste, leave the skies, fulfil thy stern desire,
Burst all her gates, and wrap her walls in fire!
Let Priam bleed! if yet you thirst for more,
Bleed all his sons, and Ilion float with gore:
To boundless vengeance the wide realm be given,
Till vast destruction glut the queen of heaven!
So let it be, and Jove his peace enjoy,[126]
When heaven no longer hears the name of Troy.
But should this arm prepare to wreak our hate
On thy loved realms, whose guilt demands their fate;
Presume not thou the lifted bolt to stay,
Remember Troy, and give the vengeance way.
For know, of all the numerous towns that rise
Beneath the rolling sun and starry skies,
Which gods have raised, or earth-born men enjoy,
None stands so dear to Jove as sacred Troy.
No mortals merit more distinguish’d grace
Than godlike Priam, or than Priam’s race.
Still to our name their hecatombs expire,
And altars blaze with unextinguish’d fire.”

At this the goddess rolled her radiant eyes,
Then on the Thunderer fix’d them, and replies:
“Three towns are Juno’s on the Grecian plains,
More dear than all the extended earth contains,
Mycenæ, Argos, and the Spartan wall;[127]

These thou mayst raze, nor I forbid their fall:
’Tis not in me the vengeance to remove;
The crime’s sufficient that they share my love.
Of power superior why should I complain?
Resent I may, but must resent in vain.
Yet some distinction Juno might require,
Sprung with thyself from one celestial sire,
A goddess born, to share the realms above,
And styled the consort of the thundering Jove;
Nor thou a wife and sister’s right deny;[128]
Let both consent, and both by terms comply;
So shall the gods our joint decrees obey,
And heaven shall act as we direct the way.
See ready Pallas waits thy high commands
To raise in arms the Greek and Phrygian bands;
Their sudden friendship by her arts may cease,
And the proud Trojans first infringe the peace.”

The sire of men and monarch of the sky
The advice approved, and bade Minerva fly,
Dissolve the league, and all her arts employ
To make the breach the faithless act of Troy.
Fired with the charge, she headlong urged her flight,
And shot like lightning from Olympus’ height.
As the red comet, from Saturnius sent
To fright the nations with a dire portent,
(A fatal sign to armies on the plain,
Or trembling sailors on the wintry main,)
With sweeping glories glides along in air,
And shakes the sparkles from its blazing hair:[129]
Between both armies thus, in open sight
Shot the bright goddess in a trail of light,
With eyes erect the gazing hosts admire
The power descending, and the heavens on fire!
“The gods (they cried), the gods this signal sent,
And fate now labours with some vast event:
Jove seals the league, or bloodier scenes prepares;
Jove, the great arbiter of peace and wars.”

They said, while Pallas through the Trojan throng,
(In shape a mortal,) pass’d disguised along.
Like bold Laodocus, her course she bent,
Who from Antenor traced his high descent.
Amidst the ranks Lycaon’s son she found,
The warlike Pandarus, for strength renown’d;
Whose squadrons, led from black Æsepus’ flood,[130]
With flaming shields in martial circle stood.
To him the goddess: “Phrygian! canst thou hear
A well-timed counsel with a willing ear?
What praise were thine, couldst thou direct thy dart,
Amidst his triumph, to the Spartan’s heart?
What gifts from Troy, from Paris wouldst thou gain,
Thy country’s foe, the Grecian glory slain?
Then seize the occasion, dare the mighty deed,
Aim at his breast, and may that aim succeed!
But first, to speed the shaft, address thy vow
To Lycian Phœbus with the silver bow,
And swear the firstlings of thy flock to pay,
On Zelia’s altars, to the god of day.”[131]

He heard, and madly at the motion pleased,
His polish’d bow with hasty rashness seized.
’Twas form’d of horn, and smooth’d with artful toil:
A mountain goat resign’d the shining spoil.
Who pierced long since beneath his arrows bled;
The stately quarry on the cliffs lay dead,
And sixteen palms his brow’s large honours spread:
The workmen join’d, and shaped the bended horns,
And beaten gold each taper point adorns.
This, by the Greeks unseen, the warrior bends,
Screen’d by the shields of his surrounding friends:
There meditates the mark; and couching low,
Fits the sharp arrow to the well-strung bow.
One from a hundred feather’d deaths he chose,
Fated to wound, and cause of future woes;
Then offers vows with hecatombs to crown
Apollo’s altars in his native town.

Now with full force the yielding horn he bends,
Drawn to an arch, and joins the doubling ends;
Close to his breast he strains the nerve below,
Till the barb’d points approach the circling bow;
The impatient weapon whizzes on the wing;
Sounds the tough horn, and twangs the quivering string.

But thee, Atrides! in that dangerous hour
The gods forget not, nor thy guardian power,
Pallas assists, and (weakened in its force)
Diverts the weapon from its destined course:
So from her babe, when slumber seals his eye,
The watchful mother wafts the envenom’d fly.
Just where his belt with golden buckles join’d,
Where linen folds the double corslet lined,
She turn’d the shaft, which, hissing from above,
Pass’d the broad belt, and through the corslet drove;
The folds it pierced, the plaited linen tore,
And razed the skin, and drew the purple gore.
As when some stately trappings are decreed
To grace a monarch on his bounding steed,
A nymph in Caria or Mæonia bred,
Stains the pure ivory with a lively red;
With equal lustre various colours vie,
The shining whiteness, and the Tyrian dye:
So great Atrides! show’d thy sacred blood,
As down thy snowy thigh distill’d the streaming flood.
With horror seized, the king of men descried
The shaft infix’d, and saw the gushing tide:
Nor less the Spartan fear’d, before he found
The shining barb appear above the wound,
Then, with a sigh, that heaved his manly breast,
The royal brother thus his grief express’d,
And grasp’d his hand; while all the Greeks around
With answering sighs return’d the plaintive sound.

“Oh, dear as life! did I for this agree
The solemn truce, a fatal truce to thee!
Wert thou exposed to all the hostile train,
To fight for Greece, and conquer, to be slain!
The race of Trojans in thy ruin join,
And faith is scorn’d by all the perjured line.
Not thus our vows, confirm’d with wine and gore,
Those hands we plighted, and those oaths we swore,
Shall all be vain: when Heaven’s revenge is slow,
Jove but prepares to strike the fiercer blow.
The day shall come, that great avenging day,
When Troy’s proud glories in the dust shall lay,
When Priam’s powers and Priam’s self shall fall,
And one prodigious ruin swallow all.
I see the god, already, from the pole
Bare his red arm, and bid the thunder roll;
I see the Eternal all his fury shed,
And shake his ægis o’er their guilty head.
Such mighty woes on perjured princes wait;
But thou, alas! deserv’st a happier fate.
Still must I mourn the period of thy days,
And only mourn, without my share of praise?
Deprived of thee, the heartless Greeks no more
Shall dream of conquests on the hostile shore;
Troy seized of Helen, and our glory lost,
Thy bones shall moulder on a foreign coast;
While some proud Trojan thus insulting cries,
(And spurns the dust where Menelaus lies,)
‘Such are the trophies Greece from Ilion brings,
And such the conquest of her king of kings!
Lo his proud vessels scatter’d o’er the main,
And unrevenged, his mighty brother slain.’
Oh! ere that dire disgrace shall blast my fame,
O’erwhelm me, earth! and hide a monarch’s shame.”

He said: a leader’s and a brother’s fears
Possess his soul, which thus the Spartan cheers:
“Let not thy words the warmth of Greece abate;
The feeble dart is guiltless of my fate:
Stiff with the rich embroider’d work around,
My varied belt repell’d the flying wound.”

To whom the king: “My brother and my friend,
Thus, always thus, may Heaven thy life defend!
Now seek some skilful hand, whose powerful art
May stanch the effusion, and extract the dart.
Herald, be swift, and bid Machaon bring
His speedy succour to the Spartan king;
Pierced with a winged shaft (the deed of Troy),
The Grecian’s sorrow, and the Dardan’s joy.”

With hasty zeal the swift Talthybius flies;
Through the thick files he darts his searching eyes,
And finds Machaon, where sublime he stands[132]
In arms incircled with his native bands.
Then thus: “Machaon, to the king repair,
His wounded brother claims thy timely care;
Pierced by some Lycian or Dardanian bow,
A grief to us, a triumph to the foe.”

The heavy tidings grieved the godlike man:
Swift to his succour through the ranks he ran.
The dauntless king yet standing firm he found,
And all the chiefs in deep concern around.
Where to the steely point the reed was join’d,
The shaft he drew, but left the head behind.
Straight the broad belt with gay embroidery graced,
He loosed; the corslet from his breast unbraced;
Then suck’d the blood, and sovereign balm infused,[133]
Which Chiron gave, and Æsculapius used.

While round the prince the Greeks employ their care,
The Trojans rush tumultuous to the war;
Once more they glitter in refulgent arms,
Once more the fields are fill’d with dire alarms.
Nor had you seen the king of men appear
Confused, unactive, or surprised with fear;
But fond of glory, with severe delight,
His beating bosom claim’d the rising fight.
No longer with his warlike steeds he stay’d,
Or press’d the car with polish’d brass inlaid
But left Eurymedon the reins to guide;
The fiery coursers snorted at his side.
On foot through all the martial ranks he moves
And these encourages, and those reproves.
“Brave men!” he cries, (to such who boldly dare
Urge their swift steeds to face the coming war),
“Your ancient valour on the foes approve;
Jove is with Greece, and let us trust in Jove.
’Tis not for us, but guilty Troy, to dread,
Whose crimes sit heavy on her perjured head;
Her sons and matrons Greece shall lead in chains,
And her dead warriors strew the mournful plains.”

Thus with new ardour he the brave inspires;
Or thus the fearful with reproaches fires:
“Shame to your country, scandal of your kind;
Born to the fate ye well deserve to find!
Why stand ye gazing round the dreadful plain,
Prepared for flight, but doom’d to fly in vain?
Confused and panting thus, the hunted deer
Falls as he flies, a victim to his fear.
Still must ye wait the foes, and still retire,
Till yon tall vessels blaze with Trojan fire?
Or trust ye, Jove a valiant foe shall chase,
To save a trembling, heartless, dastard race?”

This said, he stalk’d with ample strides along,
To Crete’s brave monarch and his martial throng;
High at their head he saw the chief appear,
And bold Meriones excite the rear.
At this the king his generous joy express’d,
And clasp’d the warrior to his armed breast.
“Divine Idomeneus! what thanks we owe
To worth like thine! what praise shall we bestow?
To thee the foremost honours are decreed,
First in the fight and every graceful deed.
For this, in banquets, when the generous bowls
Restore our blood, and raise the warriors’ souls,
Though all the rest with stated rules we bound,
Unmix’d, unmeasured, are thy goblets crown’d.
Be still thyself, in arms a mighty name;
Maintain thy honours, and enlarge thy fame.”
To whom the Cretan thus his speech address’d:
“Secure of me, O king! exhort the rest.
Fix’d to thy side, in every toil I share,
Thy firm associate in the day of war.
But let the signal be this moment given;
To mix in fight is all I ask of Heaven.
The field shall prove how perjuries succeed,
And chains or death avenge the impious deed.”

Charm’d with this heat, the king his course pursues,
And next the troops of either Ajax views:
In one firm orb the bands were ranged around,
A cloud of heroes blacken’d all the ground.
Thus from the lofty promontory’s brow
A swain surveys the gathering storm below;
Slow from the main the heavy vapours rise,
Spread in dim streams, and sail along the skies,
Till black as night the swelling tempest shows,
The cloud condensing as the west-wind blows:
He dreads the impending storm, and drives his flock
To the close covert of an arching rock.

Such, and so thick, the embattled squadrons stood,
With spears erect, a moving iron wood:
A shady light was shot from glimmering shields,
And their brown arms obscured the dusky fields.

“O heroes! worthy such a dauntless train,
Whose godlike virtue we but urge in vain,
(Exclaim’d the king), who raise your eager bands
With great examples, more than loud commands.
Ah! would the gods but breathe in all the rest
Such souls as burn in your exalted breast,
Soon should our arms with just success be crown’d,
And Troy’s proud walls lie smoking on the ground.”

Then to the next the general bends his course;
(His heart exults, and glories in his force);
There reverend Nestor ranks his Pylian bands,
And with inspiring eloquence commands;
With strictest order sets his train in arms,
The chiefs advises, and the soldiers warms.
Alastor, Chromius, Haemon, round him wait,
Bias the good, and Pelagon the great.
The horse and chariots to the front assign’d,
The foot (the strength of war) he ranged behind;
The middle space suspected troops supply,
Inclosed by both, nor left the power to fly;
He gives command to “curb the fiery steed,
Nor cause confusion, nor the ranks exceed:
Before the rest let none too rashly ride;
No strength nor skill, but just in time, be tried:
The charge once made, no warrior turn the rein,
But fight, or fall; a firm embodied train.
He whom the fortune of the field shall cast
From forth his chariot, mount the next in haste;
Nor seek unpractised to direct the car,
Content with javelins to provoke the war.
Our great forefathers held this prudent course,
Thus ruled their ardour, thus preserved their force;
By laws like these immortal conquests made,
And earth’s proud tyrants low in ashes laid.”

So spoke the master of the martial art,
And touch’d with transport great Atrides’ heart.
“Oh! hadst thou strength to match thy brave desires,
And nerves to second what thy soul inspires!
But wasting years, that wither human race,
Exhaust thy spirits, and thy arms unbrace.
What once thou wert, oh ever mightst thou be!
And age the lot of any chief but thee.”

Thus to the experienced prince Atrides cried;
He shook his hoary locks, and thus replied:
“Well might I wish, could mortal wish renew[134]
That strength which once in boiling youth I knew;
Such as I was, when Ereuthalion, slain
Beneath this arm, fell prostrate on the plain.
But heaven its gifts not all at once bestows,
These years with wisdom crowns, with action those:
The field of combat fits the young and bold,
The solemn council best becomes the old:
To you the glorious conflict I resign,
Let sage advice, the palm of age, be mine.”

He said. With joy the monarch march’d before,
And found Menestheus on the dusty shore,
With whom the firm Athenian phalanx stands;
And next Ulysses, with his subject bands.
Remote their forces lay, nor knew so far
The peace infringed, nor heard the sounds of war;
The tumult late begun, they stood intent
To watch the motion, dubious of the event.
The king, who saw their squadrons yet unmoved,
With hasty ardour thus the chiefs reproved:

“Can Peleus’ son forget a warrior’s part.
And fears Ulysses, skill’d in every art?
Why stand you distant, and the rest expect
To mix in combat which yourselves neglect?
From you ’twas hoped among the first to dare
The shock of armies, and commence the war;
For this your names are call’d before the rest,
To share the pleasures of the genial feast:
And can you, chiefs! without a blush survey
Whole troops before you labouring in the fray?
Say, is it thus those honours you requite?
The first in banquets, but the last in fight.”

Ulysses heard: the hero’s warmth o’erspread
His cheek with blushes: and severe, he said:
“Take back the unjust reproach! Behold we stand
Sheathed in bright arms, and but expect command.
If glorious deeds afford thy soul delight,
Behold me plunging in the thickest fight.
Then give thy warrior-chief a warrior’s due,
Who dares to act whate’er thou dar’st to view.”
Struck with his generous wrath, the king replies:

“O great in action, and in council wise!
With ours, thy care and ardour are the same,
Nor need I to commend, nor aught to blame.
Sage as thou art, and learn’d in human kind,
Forgive the transport of a martial mind.
Haste to the fight, secure of just amends;
The gods that make, shall keep the worthy, friends.”

He said, and pass’d where great Tydides lay,
His steeds and chariots wedged in firm array;
(The warlike Sthenelus attends his side;)[135]
To whom with stern reproach the monarch cried:
“O son of Tydeus! (he, whose strength could tame
The bounding steed, in arms a mighty name)
Canst thou, remote, the mingling hosts descry,
With hands unactive, and a careless eye?
Not thus thy sire the fierce encounter fear’d;
Still first in front the matchless prince appear’d:
What glorious toils, what wonders they recite,
Who view’d him labouring through the ranks of fight?
I saw him once, when gathering martial powers,
A peaceful guest, he sought Mycenæ’s towers;
Armies he ask’d, and armies had been given,
Not we denied, but Jove forbade from heaven;
While dreadful comets glaring from afar,
Forewarn’d the horrors of the Theban war.[136]
Next, sent by Greece from where Asopus flows,
A fearless envoy, he approach’d the foes;
Thebes’ hostile walls unguarded and alone,
Dauntless he enters, and demands the throne.
The tyrant feasting with his chiefs he found,
And dared to combat all those chiefs around:
Dared, and subdued before their haughty lord;
For Pallas strung his arm and edged his sword.
Stung with the shame, within the winding way,
To bar his passage fifty warriors lay;
Two heroes led the secret squadron on,
Mason the fierce, and hardy Lycophon;
Those fifty slaughter’d in the gloomy vale.
He spared but one to bear the dreadful tale,
Such Tydeus was, and such his martial fire;
Gods! how the son degenerates from the sire!”

No words the godlike Diomed return’d,
But heard respectful, and in secret burn’d:
Not so fierce Capaneus’ undaunted son;
Stern as his sire, the boaster thus begun:

“What needs, O monarch! this invidious praise,
Ourselves to lessen, while our sire you raise?
Dare to be just, Atrides! and confess
Our value equal, though our fury less.
With fewer troops we storm’d the Theban wall,
And happier saw the sevenfold city fall,[137]
In impious acts the guilty father died;
The sons subdued, for Heaven was on their side.
Far more than heirs of all our parents’ fame,
Our glories darken their diminish’d name.”

To him Tydides thus: “My friend, forbear;
Suppress thy passion, and the king revere:
His high concern may well excuse this rage,
Whose cause we follow, and whose war we wage:
His the first praise, were Ilion’s towers o’erthrown,
And, if we fail, the chief disgrace his own.
Let him the Greeks to hardy toils excite,
’Tis ours to labour in the glorious fight.”

He spoke, and ardent, on the trembling ground
Sprung from his car: his ringing arms resound.
Dire was the clang, and dreadful from afar,
Of arm’d Tydides rushing to the war.
As when the winds, ascending by degrees,[138]
First move the whitening surface of the seas,
The billows float in order to the shore,
The wave behind rolls on the wave before;
Till, with the growing storm, the deeps arise,
Foam o’er the rocks, and thunder to the skies.
So to the fight the thick battalions throng,
Shields urged on shields, and men drove men along
Sedate and silent move the numerous bands;
No sound, no whisper, but the chief’s commands,
Those only heard; with awe the rest obey,
As if some god had snatch’d their voice away.
Not so the Trojans; from their host ascends
A general shout that all the region rends.
As when the fleecy flocks unnumber’d stand
In wealthy folds, and wait the milker’s hand,
The hollow vales incessant bleating fills,
The lambs reply from all the neighbouring hills:
Such clamours rose from various nations round,
Mix’d was the murmur, and confused the sound.
Each host now joins, and each a god inspires,
These Mars incites, and those Minerva fires,
Pale flight around, and dreadful terror reign;
And discord raging bathes the purple plain;
Discord! dire sister of the slaughtering power,
Small at her birth, but rising every hour,
While scarce the skies her horrid head can bound,
She stalks on earth, and shakes the world around;[139]
The nations bleed, where’er her steps she turns,
The groan still deepens, and the combat burns.

Now shield with shield, with helmet helmet closed,
To armour armour, lance to lance opposed,
Host against host with shadowy squadrons drew,
The sounding darts in iron tempests flew,
Victors and vanquish’d join’d promiscuous cries,
And shrilling shouts and dying groans arise;
With streaming blood the slippery fields are dyed,
And slaughter’d heroes swell the dreadful tide.

As torrents roll, increased by numerous rills,
With rage impetuous, down their echoing hills
Rush to the vales, and pour’d along the plain,
Roar through a thousand channels to the main:
The distant shepherd trembling hears the sound;
So mix both hosts, and so their cries rebound.

The bold Antilochus the slaughter led,
The first who struck a valiant Trojan dead:
At great Echepolus the lance arrives,
Razed his high crest, and through his helmet drives;
Warm’d in the brain the brazen weapon lies,
And shades eternal settle o’er his eyes.
So sinks a tower, that long assaults had stood
Of force and fire, its walls besmear’d with blood.
Him, the bold leader of the Abantian throng,[140]
Seized to despoil, and dragg’d the corpse along:
But while he strove to tug the inserted dart,
Agenor’s javelin reach’d the hero’s heart.
His flank, unguarded by his ample shield,
Admits the lance: he falls, and spurns the field;
The nerves, unbraced, support his limbs no more;
The soul comes floating in a tide of gore.
Trojans and Greeks now gather round the slain;
The war renews, the warriors bleed again:
As o’er their prey rapacious wolves engage,
Man dies on man, and all is blood and rage.

In blooming youth fair Simoisius fell,
Sent by great Ajax to the shades of hell;
Fair Simoisius, whom his mother bore
Amid the flocks on silver Simois’ shore:
The nymph descending from the hills of Ide,
To seek her parents on his flowery side,
Brought forth the babe, their common care and joy,
And thence from Simois named the lovely boy.
Short was his date! by dreadful Ajax slain,
He falls, and renders all their cares in vain!
So falls a poplar, that in watery ground
Raised high the head, with stately branches crown’d,
(Fell’d by some artist with his shining steel,
To shape the circle of the bending wheel,)
Cut down it lies, tall, smooth, and largely spread,
With all its beauteous honours on its head
There, left a subject to the wind and rain,
And scorch’d by suns, it withers on the plain
Thus pierced by Ajax, Simoisius lies
Stretch’d on the shore, and thus neglected dies.

At Ajax, Antiphus his javelin threw;
The pointed lance with erring fury flew,
And Leucus, loved by wise Ulysses, slew.
He drops the corpse of Simoisius slain,
And sinks a breathless carcase on the plain.
This saw Ulysses, and with grief enraged,
Strode where the foremost of the foes engaged;
Arm’d with his spear, he meditates the wound,
In act to throw; but cautious look’d around,
Struck at his sight the Trojans backward drew,
And trembling heard the javelin as it flew.
A chief stood nigh, who from Abydos came,
Old Priam’s son, Democoon was his name.
The weapon entered close above his ear,
Cold through his temples glides the whizzing spear;[141]
With piercing shrieks the youth resigns his breath,
His eye-balls darken with the shades of death;
Ponderous he falls; his clanging arms resound,
And his broad buckler rings against the ground.

Seized with affright the boldest foes appear;
E’en godlike Hector seems himself to fear;
Slow he gave way, the rest tumultuous fled;
The Greeks with shouts press on, and spoil the dead:
But Phœbus now from Ilion’s towering height
Shines forth reveal’d, and animates the fight.
“Trojans, be bold, and force with force oppose;
Your foaming steeds urge headlong on the foes!
Nor are their bodies rocks, nor ribb’d with steel;
Your weapons enter, and your strokes they feel.
Have ye forgot what seem’d your dread before?
The great, the fierce Achilles fights no more.”

Apollo thus from Ilion’s lofty towers,
Array’d in terrors, roused the Trojan powers:
While war’s fierce goddess fires the Grecian foe,
And shouts and thunders in the fields below.
Then great Diores fell, by doom divine,
In vain his valour and illustrious line.
A broken rock the force of Pyrus threw,
(Who from cold Ænus led the Thracian crew,)[142]
Full on his ankle dropp’d the ponderous stone,
Burst the strong nerves, and crash’d the solid bone.
Supine he tumbles on the crimson sands,
Before his helpless friends, and native bands,
And spreads for aid his unavailing hands.
The foe rush’d furious as he pants for breath,
And through his navel drove the pointed death:
His gushing entrails smoked upon the ground,
And the warm life came issuing from the wound.

His lance bold Thoas at the conqueror sent,
Deep in his breast above the pap it went,
Amid the lungs was fix’d the winged wood,
And quivering in his heaving bosom stood:
Till from the dying chief, approaching near,
The Ætolian warrior tugg’d his weighty spear:
Then sudden waved his flaming falchion round,
And gash’d his belly with a ghastly wound;
The corpse now breathless on the bloody plain,
To spoil his arms the victor strove in vain;
The Thracian bands against the victor press’d,
A grove of lances glitter’d at his breast.
Stern Thoas, glaring with revengeful eyes,
In sullen fury slowly quits the prize.

Thus fell two heroes; one the pride of Thrace,
And one the leader of the Epeian race;
Death’s sable shade at once o’ercast their eyes,
In dust the vanquish’d and the victor lies.
With copious slaughter all the fields are red,
And heap’d with growing mountains of the dead.

Had some brave chief this martial scene beheld,
By Pallas guarded through the dreadful field;
Might darts be bid to turn their points away,
And swords around him innocently play;
The war’s whole art with wonder had he seen,
And counted heroes where he counted men.

So fought each host, with thirst of glory fired,
And crowds on crowds triumphantly expired.

[Illustration: ] Map of the Plain of Troy




BOOK V.


ARGUMENT.


THE ACTS OF DIOMED.


Diomed, assisted by Pallas, performs wonders in this day’s battle.
Pandarus wounds him with an arrow, but the goddess cures him, enables
him to discern gods from mortals, and prohibits him from contending
with any of the former, excepting Venus. Æneas joins Pandarus to oppose
him; Pandarus is killed, and Æneas in great danger but for the
assistance of Venus; who, as she is removing her son from the fight, is
wounded on the hand by Diomed. Apollo seconds her in his rescue, and at
length carries off Æneas to Troy, where he is healed in the temple of
Pergamus. Mars rallies the Trojans, and assists Hector to make a stand.
In the meantime Æneas is restored to the field, and they overthrow
several of the Greeks; among the rest Tlepolemus is slain by Sarpedon.
Juno and Minerva descend to resist Mars; the latter incites Diomed to
go against that god; he wounds him, and sends him groaning to heaven.
    The first battle continues through this book. The scene is the same
    as in the former.


But Pallas now Tydides’ soul inspires,[143]
Fills with her force, and warms with all her fires,
Above the Greeks his deathless fame to raise,
And crown her hero with distinguish’d praise.
High on his helm celestial lightnings play,
His beamy shield emits a living ray;
The unwearied blaze incessant streams supplies,
Like the red star that fires the autumnal skies,
When fresh he rears his radiant orb to sight,
And, bathed in ocean, shoots a keener light.
Such glories Pallas on the chief bestow’d,
Such, from his arms, the fierce effulgence flow’d:
Onward she drives him, furious to engage,
Where the fight burns, and where the thickest rage.

The sons of Dares first the combat sought,
A wealthy priest, but rich without a fault;
In Vulcan’s fane the father’s days were led,
The sons to toils of glorious battle bred;
These singled from their troops the fight maintain,
These, from their steeds, Tydides on the plain.
Fierce for renown the brother-chiefs draw near,
And first bold Phegeus cast his sounding spear,
Which o’er the warrior’s shoulder took its course,
And spent in empty air its erring force.
Not so, Tydides, flew thy lance in vain,
But pierced his breast, and stretch’d him on the plain.
Seized with unusual fear, Idæus fled,
Left the rich chariot, and his brother dead.
And had not Vulcan lent celestial aid,
He too had sunk to death’s eternal shade;
But in a smoky cloud the god of fire
Preserved the son, in pity to the sire.
The steeds and chariot, to the navy led,
Increased the spoils of gallant Diomed.

Struck with amaze and shame, the Trojan crew,
Or slain, or fled, the sons of Dares view;
When by the blood-stain’d hand Minerva press’d
The god of battles, and this speech address’d:

“Stern power of war! by whom the mighty fall,
Who bathe in blood, and shake the lofty wall!
Let the brave chiefs their glorious toils divide;
And whose the conquest, mighty Jove decide:
While we from interdicted fields retire,
Nor tempt the wrath of heaven’s avenging sire.”

Her words allay the impetuous warrior’s heat,
The god of arms and martial maid retreat;
Removed from fight, on Xanthus’ flowery bounds
They sat, and listen’d to the dying sounds.

Meantime, the Greeks the Trojan race pursue,
And some bold chieftain every leader slew:
First Odius falls, and bites the bloody sand,
His death ennobled by Atrides’ hand:

As he to flight his wheeling car address’d,
The speedy javelin drove from back to breast.
In dust the mighty Halizonian lay,
His arms resound, the spirit wings its way.

Thy fate was next, O Phæstus! doom’d to feel
The great Idomeneus’ protended steel;
Whom Borus sent (his son and only joy)
From fruitful Tarne to the fields of Troy.
The Cretan javelin reach’d him from afar,
And pierced his shoulder as he mounts his car;
Back from the car he tumbles to the ground,
And everlasting shades his eyes surround.

Then died Scamandrius, expert in the chase,
In woods and wilds to wound the savage race;
Diana taught him all her sylvan arts,
To bend the bow, and aim unerring darts:
But vainly here Diana’s arts he tries,
The fatal lance arrests him as he flies;
From Menelaus’ arm the weapon sent,
Through his broad back and heaving bosom went:
Down sinks the warrior with a thundering sound,
His brazen armour rings against the ground.

Next artful Phereclus untimely fell;
Bold Merion sent him to the realms of hell.
Thy father’s skill, O Phereclus! was thine,
The graceful fabric and the fair design;
For loved by Pallas, Pallas did impart
To him the shipwright’s and the builder’s art.
Beneath his hand the fleet of Paris rose,
The fatal cause of all his country’s woes;
But he, the mystic will of heaven unknown,
Nor saw his country’s peril, nor his own.
The hapless artist, while confused he fled,
The spear of Merion mingled with the dead.
Through his right hip, with forceful fury cast,
Between the bladder and the bone it pass’d;
Prone on his knees he falls with fruitless cries,
And death in lasting slumber seals his eyes.

From Meges’ force the swift Pedaeus fled,
Antenor’s offspring from a foreign bed,
Whose generous spouse, Theanor, heavenly fair,
Nursed the young stranger with a mother’s care.
How vain those cares! when Meges in the rear
Full in his nape infix’d the fatal spear;
Swift through his crackling jaws the weapon glides,
And the cold tongue and grinning teeth divides.

Then died Hypsenor, generous and divine,
Sprung from the brave Dolopion’s mighty line,
Who near adored Scamander made abode,
Priest of the stream, and honoured as a god.
On him, amidst the flying numbers found,
Eurypylus inflicts a deadly wound;
On his broad shoulders fell the forceful brand,
Thence glancing downwards, lopp’d his holy hand,
Which stain’d with sacred blood the blushing sand.
Down sunk the priest: the purple hand of death
Closed his dim eye, and fate suppress’d his breath.

Thus toil’d the chiefs, in different parts engaged.
In every quarter fierce Tydides raged;
Amid the Greek, amid the Trojan train,
Rapt through the ranks he thunders o’er the plain;
Now here, now there, he darts from place to place,
Pours on the rear, or lightens in their face.
Thus from high hills the torrents swift and strong
Deluge whole fields, and sweep the trees along,
Through ruin’d moles the rushing wave resounds,
O’erwhelm’s the bridge, and bursts the lofty bounds;
The yellow harvests of the ripen’d year,
And flatted vineyards, one sad waste appear![144]
While Jove descends in sluicy sheets of rain,
And all the labours of mankind are vain.

So raged Tydides, boundless in his ire,
Drove armies back, and made all Troy retire.
With grief the leader of the Lycian band
Saw the wide waste of his destructive hand:
His bended bow against the chief he drew;
Swift to the mark the thirsty arrow flew,
Whose forky point the hollow breastplate tore,
Deep in his shoulder pierced, and drank the gore:
The rushing stream his brazen armour dyed,
While the proud archer thus exulting cried:

“Hither, ye Trojans, hither drive your steeds!
Lo! by our hand the bravest Grecian bleeds,
Not long the deathful dart he can sustain;
Or Phœbus urged me to these fields in vain.”
So spoke he, boastful: but the winged dart
Stopp’d short of life, and mock’d the shooter’s art.
The wounded chief, behind his car retired,
The helping hand of Sthenelus required;
Swift from his seat he leap’d upon the ground,
And tugg’d the weapon from the gushing wound;
When thus the king his guardian power address’d,
The purple current wandering o’er his vest:

“O progeny of Jove! unconquer’d maid!
If e’er my godlike sire deserved thy aid,
If e’er I felt thee in the fighting field;
Now, goddess, now, thy sacred succour yield.
O give my lance to reach the Trojan knight,
Whose arrow wounds the chief thou guard’st in fight;
And lay the boaster grovelling on the shore,
That vaunts these eyes shall view the light no more.”

Thus pray’d Tydides, and Minerva heard,
His nerves confirm’d, his languid spirits cheer’d;
He feels each limb with wonted vigour light;
His beating bosom claim’d the promised fight.
“Be bold, (she cried), in every combat shine,
War be thy province, thy protection mine;
Rush to the fight, and every foe control;
Wake each paternal virtue in thy soul:
Strength swells thy boiling breast, infused by me,
And all thy godlike father breathes in thee;
Yet more, from mortal mists I purge thy eyes,[145]
And set to view the warring deities.
These see thou shun, through all the embattled plain;
Nor rashly strive where human force is vain.
If Venus mingle in the martial band,
Her shalt thou wound: so Pallas gives command.”

With that, the blue-eyed virgin wing’d her flight;
The hero rush’d impetuous to the fight;
With tenfold ardour now invades the plain,
Wild with delay, and more enraged by pain.
As on the fleecy flocks when hunger calls,
Amidst the field a brindled lion falls;
If chance some shepherd with a distant dart
The savage wound, he rouses at the smart,
He foams, he roars; the shepherd dares not stay,
But trembling leaves the scattering flocks a prey;
Heaps fall on heaps; he bathes with blood the ground,
Then leaps victorious o’er the lofty mound.
Not with less fury stern Tydides flew;
And two brave leaders at an instant slew;
Astynous breathless fell, and by his side,
His people’s pastor, good Hypenor, died;
Astynous’ breast the deadly lance receives,
Hypenor’s shoulder his broad falchion cleaves.
Those slain he left, and sprung with noble rage
Abas and Polyidus to engage;
Sons of Eurydamus, who, wise and old,
Could fate foresee, and mystic dreams unfold;
The youths return’d not from the doubtful plain,
And the sad father tried his arts in vain;
No mystic dream could make their fates appear,
Though now determined by Tydides’ spear.

Young Xanthus next, and Thoon felt his rage;
The joy and hope of Phaenops’ feeble age:
Vast was his wealth, and these the only heirs
Of all his labours and a life of cares.
Cold death o’ertakes them in their blooming years,
And leaves the father unavailing tears:
To strangers now descends his heapy store,
The race forgotten, and the name no more.

Two sons of Priam in one chariot ride,
Glittering in arms, and combat side by side.
As when the lordly lion seeks his food
Where grazing heifers range the lonely wood,
He leaps amidst them with a furious bound,
Bends their strong necks, and tears them to the ground:
So from their seats the brother chiefs are torn,
Their steeds and chariot to the navy borne.

With deep concern divine Æneas view’d
The foe prevailing, and his friends pursued;
Through the thick storm of singing spears he flies,
Exploring Pandarus with careful eyes.
At length he found Lycaon’s mighty son;
To whom the chief of Venus’ race begun:

“Where, Pandarus, are all thy honours now,
Thy winged arrows and unerring bow,
Thy matchless skill, thy yet unrivall’d fame,
And boasted glory of the Lycian name?
O pierce that mortal! if we mortal call
That wondrous force by which whole armies fall;
Or god incensed, who quits the distant skies
To punish Troy for slighted sacrifice;
(Which, oh avert from our unhappy state!
For what so dreadful as celestial hate)?
Whoe’er he be, propitiate Jove with prayer;
If man, destroy; if god, entreat to spare.”

To him the Lycian: “Whom your eyes behold,
If right I judge, is Diomed the bold:
Such coursers whirl him o’er the dusty field,
So towers his helmet, and so flames his shield.
If ’tis a god, he wears that chief’s disguise:
Or if that chief, some guardian of the skies,
Involved in clouds, protects him in the fray,
And turns unseen the frustrate dart away.
I wing’d an arrow, which not idly fell,
The stroke had fix’d him to the gates of hell;
And, but some god, some angry god withstands,
His fate was due to these unerring hands.
Skill’d in the bow, on foot I sought the war,
Nor join’d swift horses to the rapid car.
Ten polish’d chariots I possess’d at home,
And still they grace Lycaon’s princely dome:
There veil’d in spacious coverlets they stand;
And twice ten coursers wait their lord’s command.
The good old warrior bade me trust to these,
When first for Troy I sail’d the sacred seas;
In fields, aloft, the whirling car to guide,
And through the ranks of death triumphant ride.
But vain with youth, and yet to thrift inclined,
I heard his counsels with unheedful mind,
And thought the steeds (your large supplies unknown)
Might fail of forage in the straiten’d town;
So took my bow and pointed darts in hand
And left the chariots in my native land.

“Too late, O friend! my rashness I deplore;
These shafts, once fatal, carry death no more.
Tydeus’ and Atreus’ sons their points have found,
And undissembled gore pursued the wound.
In vain they bleed: this unavailing bow
Serves, not to slaughter, but provoke the foe.
In evil hour these bended horns I strung,
And seized the quiver where it idly hung.
Cursed be the fate that sent me to the field
Without a warrior’s arms, the spear and shield!
If e’er with life I quit the Trojan plain,
If e’er I see my spouse and sire again,
This bow, unfaithful to my glorious aims,
Broke by my hand, shall feed the blazing flames.”

To whom the leader of the Dardan race:
“Be calm, nor Phœbus’ honour’d gift disgrace.
The distant dart be praised, though here we need
The rushing chariot and the bounding steed.
Against yon hero let us bend our course,
And, hand to hand, encounter force with force.
Now mount my seat, and from the chariot’s height
Observe my father’s steeds, renown’d in fight;
Practised alike to turn, to stop, to chase,
To dare the shock, or urge the rapid race;
Secure with these, through fighting fields we go;
Or safe to Troy, if Jove assist the foe.
Haste, seize the whip, and snatch the guiding rein;
The warrior’s fury let this arm sustain;
Or, if to combat thy bold heart incline,
Take thou the spear, the chariot’s care be mine.”

“O prince! (Lycaon’s valiant son replied)
As thine the steeds, be thine the task to guide.
The horses, practised to their lord’s command,
Shall bear the rein, and answer to thy hand;
But, if, unhappy, we desert the fight,
Thy voice alone can animate their flight;
Else shall our fates be number’d with the dead,
And these, the victor’s prize, in triumph led.
Thine be the guidance, then: with spear and shield
Myself will charge this terror of the field.”

And now both heroes mount the glittering car;
The bounding coursers rush amidst the war;
Their fierce approach bold Sthenelus espied,
Who thus, alarm’d, to great Tydides cried:

“O friend! two chiefs of force immense I see,
Dreadful they come, and bend their rage on thee:
Lo the brave heir of old Lycaon’s line,
And great Æneas, sprung from race divine!
Enough is given to fame. Ascend thy car!
And save a life, the bulwark of our war.”

At this the hero cast a gloomy look,
Fix’d on the chief with scorn; and thus he spoke:

“Me dost thou bid to shun the coming fight?
Me wouldst thou move to base, inglorious flight?
Know, ’tis not honest in my soul to fear,
Nor was Tydides born to tremble here.
I hate the cumbrous chariot’s slow advance,
And the long distance of the flying lance;
But while my nerves are strong, my force entire,
Thus front the foe, and emulate my sire.
Nor shall yon steeds, that fierce to fight convey
Those threatening heroes, bear them both away;
One chief at least beneath this arm shall die;
So Pallas tells me, and forbids to fly.
But if she dooms, and if no god withstand,
That both shall fall by one victorious hand,
Then heed my words: my horses here detain,
Fix’d to the chariot by the straiten’d rein;
Swift to Æneas’ empty seat proceed,
And seize the coursers of ethereal breed;
The race of those, which once the thundering god[146]
For ravish’d Ganymede on Tros bestow’d,
The best that e’er on earth’s broad surface run,
Beneath the rising or the setting sun.
Hence great Anchises stole a breed unknown,
By mortal mares, from fierce Laomedon:
Four of this race his ample stalls contain,
And two transport Æneas o’er the plain.
These, were the rich immortal prize our own,
Through the wide world should make our glory known.”

Thus while they spoke, the foe came furious on,
And stern Lycaon’s warlike race begun:

“Prince, thou art met. Though late in vain assail’d,
The spear may enter where the arrow fail’d.”

He said, then shook the ponderous lance, and flung;
On his broad shield the sounding weapon rung,
Pierced the tough orb, and in his cuirass hung,
“He bleeds! the pride of Greece! (the boaster cries,)
Our triumph now, the mighty warrior lies!”
“Mistaken vaunter! (Diomed replied;)
Thy dart has erred, and now my spear be tried;
Ye ’scape not both; one, headlong from his car,
With hostile blood shall glut the god of war.”

He spoke, and rising hurl’d his forceful dart,
Which, driven by Pallas, pierced a vital part;
Full in his face it enter’d, and betwixt
The nose and eye-ball the proud Lycian fix’d;
Crash’d all his jaws, and cleft the tongue within,
Till the bright point look’d out beneath the chin.
Headlong he falls, his helmet knocks the ground:
Earth groans beneath him, and his arms resound;
The starting coursers tremble with affright;
The soul indignant seeks the realms of night.

To guard his slaughter’d friend, Æneas flies,
His spear extending where the carcase lies;
Watchful he wheels, protects it every way,
As the grim lion stalks around his prey.
O’er the fall’n trunk his ample shield display’d,
He hides the hero with his mighty shade,
And threats aloud! the Greeks with longing eyes
Behold at distance, but forbear the prize.
Then fierce Tydides stoops; and from the fields
Heaved with vast force, a rocky fragment wields.
Not two strong men the enormous weight could raise,
Such men as live in these degenerate days:[147]
He swung it round; and, gathering strength to throw,
Discharged the ponderous ruin at the foe.
Where to the hip the inserted thigh unites,
Full on the bone the pointed marble lights;
Through both the tendons broke the rugged stone,
And stripp’d the skin, and crack’d the solid bone.
Sunk on his knees, and staggering with his pains,
His falling bulk his bended arm sustains;
Lost in a dizzy mist the warrior lies;
A sudden cloud comes swimming o’er his eyes.
There the brave chief, who mighty numbers sway’d,
Oppress’d had sunk to death’s eternal shade,
But heavenly Venus, mindful of the love
She bore Anchises in the Idaean grove,
His danger views with anguish and despair,
And guards her offspring with a mother’s care.
About her much-loved son her arms she throws,
Her arms whose whiteness match the falling snows.
Screen’d from the foe behind her shining veil,
The swords wave harmless, and the javelins fail;
Safe through the rushing horse, and feather’d flight
Of sounding shafts, she bears him from the fight.

Nor Sthenelus, with unassisting hands,
Remain’d unheedful of his lord’s commands:
His panting steeds, removed from out the war,
He fix’d with straiten’d traces to the car,
Next, rushing to the Dardan spoil, detains
The heavenly coursers with the flowing manes:
These in proud triumph to the fleet convey’d,
No longer now a Trojan lord obey’d.
That charge to bold Deipylus he gave,
(Whom most he loved, as brave men love the brave,)
Then mounting on his car, resumed the rein,
And follow’d where Tydides swept the plain.

Meanwhile (his conquest ravished from his eyes)
The raging chief in chase of Venus flies:
No goddess she, commission’d to the field,
Like Pallas dreadful with her sable shield,
Or fierce Bellona thundering at the wall,
While flames ascend, and mighty ruins fall;
He knew soft combats suit the tender dame,
New to the field, and still a foe to fame.
Through breaking ranks his furious course he bends,
And at the goddess his broad lance extends;
Through her bright veil the daring weapon drove,
The ambrosial veil which all the Graces wove;
Her snowy hand the razing steel profaned,
And the transparent skin with crimson stain’d,
From the clear vein a stream immortal flow’d,
Such stream as issues from a wounded god;[148]
Pure emanation! uncorrupted flood!
Unlike our gross, diseased, terrestrial blood:
(For not the bread of man their life sustains,
Nor wine’s inflaming juice supplies their veins:)
With tender shrieks the goddess fill’d the place,
And dropp’d her offspring from her weak embrace.
Him Phœbus took: he casts a cloud around
The fainting chief, and wards the mortal wound.

Then with a voice that shook the vaulted skies,
The king insults the goddess as she flies:
“Ill with Jove’s daughter bloody fights agree,
The field of combat is no scene for thee:
Go, let thy own soft sex employ thy care,
Go, lull the coward, or delude the fair.
Taught by this stroke renounce the war’s alarms,
And learn to tremble at the name of arms.”

Tydides thus. The goddess, seized with dread,
Confused, distracted, from the conflict fled.
To aid her, swift the winged Iris flew,
Wrapt in a mist above the warring crew.
The queen of love with faded charms she found.
Pale was her cheek, and livid look’d the wound.
To Mars, who sat remote, they bent their way:
Far, on the left, with clouds involved he lay;
Beside him stood his lance, distain’d with gore,
And, rein’d with gold, his foaming steeds before.
Low at his knee, she begg’d with streaming eyes
Her brother’s car, to mount the distant skies,
And show’d the wound by fierce Tydides given,
A mortal man, who dares encounter heaven.
Stern Mars attentive hears the queen complain,
And to her hand commits the golden rein;
She mounts the seat, oppress’d with silent woe,
Driven by the goddess of the painted bow.
The lash resounds, the rapid chariot flies,
And in a moment scales the lofty skies:
They stopp’d the car, and there the coursers stood,
Fed by fair Iris with ambrosial food;
Before her mother, love’s bright queen appears,
O’erwhelmed with anguish, and dissolved in tears:
She raised her in her arms, beheld her bleed,
And ask’d what god had wrought this guilty deed?


[Illustration: ] VENUS, WOUNDED IN THE HAND, CONDUCTED BY IRIS TO MARS


Then she: “This insult from no god I found,
An impious mortal gave the daring wound!
Behold the deed of haughty Diomed!
’Twas in the son’s defence the mother bled.
The war with Troy no more the Grecians wage;
But with the gods (the immortal gods) engage.”

Dione then: “Thy wrongs with patience bear,
And share those griefs inferior powers must share:
Unnumber’d woes mankind from us sustain,
And men with woes afflict the gods again.
The mighty Mars in mortal fetters bound,[149]
And lodged in brazen dungeons underground,
Full thirteen moons imprison’d roar’d in vain;
Otus and Ephialtes held the chain:
Perhaps had perish’d had not Hermes’ care
Restored the groaning god to upper air.
Great Juno’s self has borne her weight of pain,
The imperial partner of the heavenly reign;
Amphitryon’s son infix’d the deadly dart,[150]
And fill’d with anguish her immortal heart.
E’en hell’s grim king Alcides’ power confess’d,
The shaft found entrance in his iron breast;
To Jove’s high palace for a cure he fled,
Pierced in his own dominions of the dead;
Where Paeon, sprinkling heavenly balm around,
Assuaged the glowing pangs, and closed the wound.
Rash, impious man! to stain the bless’d abodes,
And drench his arrows in the blood of gods!


[Illustration: ] OTUS AND EPHIALTES HOLDING MARS CAPTIVE


“But thou (though Pallas urged thy frantic deed),
Whose spear ill-fated makes a goddess bleed,
Know thou, whoe’er with heavenly power contends,
Short is his date, and soon his glory ends;
From fields of death when late he shall retire,
No infant on his knees shall call him sire.
Strong as thou art, some god may yet be found,
To stretch thee pale and gasping on the ground;
Thy distant wife, Ægialé the fair,[151]
Starting from sleep with a distracted air,
Shall rouse thy slaves, and her lost lord deplore,
The brave, the great, the glorious now no more!”

This said, she wiped from Venus’ wounded palm
The sacred ichor, and infused the balm.
Juno and Pallas with a smile survey’d,
And thus to Jove began the blue-eyed maid:

“Permit thy daughter, gracious Jove! to tell
How this mischance the Cyprian queen befell,
As late she tried with passion to inflame
The tender bosom of a Grecian dame;
Allured the fair, with moving thoughts of joy,
To quit her country for some youth of Troy;
The clasping zone, with golden buckles bound,
Razed her soft hand with this lamented wound.”

The sire of gods and men superior smiled,
And, calling Venus, thus address’d his child:
“Not these, O daughter are thy proper cares,
Thee milder arts befit, and softer wars;
Sweet smiles are thine, and kind endearing charms;
To Mars and Pallas leave the deeds of arms.”

Thus they in heaven: while on the plain below
The fierce Tydides charged his Dardan foe,
Flush’d with celestial blood pursued his way,
And fearless dared the threatening god of day;
Already in his hopes he saw him kill’d,
Though screen’d behind Apollo’s mighty shield.
Thrice rushing furious, at the chief he strook;
His blazing buckler thrice Apollo shook:
He tried the fourth: when, breaking from the cloud,
A more than mortal voice was heard aloud.

“O son of Tydeus, cease! be wise and see
How vast the difference of the gods and thee;
Distance immense! between the powers that shine
Above, eternal, deathless, and divine,
And mortal man! a wretch of humble birth,
A short-lived reptile in the dust of earth.”

So spoke the god who darts celestial fires:
He dreads his fury, and some steps retires.
Then Phœbus bore the chief of Venus’ race
To Troy’s high fane, and to his holy place;
Latona there and Phoebe heal’d the wound,
With vigour arm’d him, and with glory crown’d.
This done, the patron of the silver bow
A phantom raised, the same in shape and show
With great Æneas; such the form he bore,
And such in fight the radiant arms he wore.
Around the spectre bloody wars are waged,
And Greece and Troy with clashing shields engaged.
Meantime on Ilion’s tower Apollo stood,
And calling Mars, thus urged the raging god:

“Stern power of arms, by whom the mighty fall;
Who bathest in blood, and shakest the embattled wall,
Rise in thy wrath! to hell’s abhorr’d abodes
Despatch yon Greek, and vindicate the gods.
First rosy Venus felt his brutal rage;
Me next he charged, and dares all heaven engage:
The wretch would brave high heaven’s immortal sire,
His triple thunder, and his bolts of fire.”

The god of battle issues on the plain,
Stirs all the ranks, and fires the Trojan train;
In form like Acamas, the Thracian guide,
Enraged to Troy’s retiring chiefs he cried:

“How long, ye sons of Priam! will ye fly,
And unrevenged see Priam’s people die?
Still unresisted shall the foe destroy,
And stretch the slaughter to the gates of Troy?
Lo, brave Æneas sinks beneath his wound,
Not godlike Hector more in arms renown’d:
Haste all, and take the generous warrior’s part.
He said;—new courage swell’d each hero’s heart.
Sarpedon first his ardent soul express’d,
And, turn’d to Hector, these bold words address’d:

“Say, chief, is all thy ancient valour lost?
Where are thy threats, and where thy glorious boast,
That propp’d alone by Priam’s race should stand
Troy’s sacred walls, nor need a foreign hand?
Now, now thy country calls her wonted friends,
And the proud vaunt in just derision ends.
Remote they stand while alien troops engage,
Like trembling hounds before the lion’s rage.
Far distant hence I held my wide command,
Where foaming Xanthus laves the Lycian land;
With ample wealth (the wish of mortals) bless’d,
A beauteous wife, and infant at her breast;
With those I left whatever dear could be:
Greece, if she conquers, nothing wins from me;
Yet first in fight my Lycian bands I cheer,
And long to meet this mighty man ye fear;
While Hector idle stands, nor bids the brave
Their wives, their infants, and their altars save.
Haste, warrior, haste! preserve thy threaten’d state,
Or one vast burst of all-involving fate
Full o’er your towers shall fall, and sweep away
Sons, sires, and wives, an undistinguish’d prey.
Rouse all thy Trojans, urge thy aids to fight;
These claim thy thoughts by day, thy watch by night;
With force incessant the brave Greeks oppose;
Such cares thy friends deserve, and such thy foes.”

Stung to the heart the generous Hector hears,
But just reproof with decent silence bears.
From his proud car the prince impetuous springs,
On earth he leaps, his brazen armour rings.
Two shining spears are brandish’d in his hands;
Thus arm’d, he animates his drooping bands,
Revives their ardour, turns their steps from flight,
And wakes anew the dying flames of fight.
They turn, they stand; the Greeks their fury dare,
Condense their powers, and wait the growing war.

As when, on Ceres’ sacred floor, the swain
Spreads the wide fan to clear the golden grain,
And the light chaff, before the breezes borne,
Ascends in clouds from off the heapy corn;
The grey dust, rising with collected winds,
Drives o’er the barn, and whitens all the hinds:
So white with dust the Grecian host appears,
From trampling steeds, and thundering charioteers.
The dusky clouds from labour’d earth arise,
And roll in smoking volumes to the skies.
Mars hovers o’er them with his sable shield,
And adds new horrors to the darken’d field:
Pleased with his charge, and ardent to fulfil,
In Troy’s defence, Apollo’s heavenly will:
Soon as from fight the blue-eyed maid retires,
Each Trojan bosom with new warmth he fires.
And now the god, from forth his sacred fane,
Produced Æneas to the shouting train;
Alive, unharm’d, with all his peers around,
Erect he stood, and vigorous from his wound:
Inquiries none they made; the dreadful day
No pause of words admits, no dull delay;
Fierce Discord storms, Apollo loud exclaims,
Fame calls, Mars thunders, and the field’s in flames.

Stern Diomed with either Ajax stood,
And great Ulysses, bathed in hostile blood.
Embodied close, the labouring Grecian train
The fiercest shock of charging hosts sustain.
Unmoved and silent, the whole war they wait
Serenely dreadful, and as fix’d as fate.
So when the embattled clouds in dark array,
Along the skies their gloomy lines display;
When now the North his boisterous rage has spent,
And peaceful sleeps the liquid element:
The low-hung vapours, motionless and still,
Rest on the summits of the shaded hill;
Till the mass scatters as the winds arise,
Dispersed and broken through the ruffled skies.

Nor was the general wanting to his train;
From troop to troop he toils through all the plain,
“Ye Greeks, be men! the charge of battle bear;
Your brave associates and yourselves revere!
Let glorious acts more glorious acts inspire,
And catch from breast to breast the noble fire!
On valour’s side the odds of combat lie,
The brave live glorious, or lamented die;
The wretch who trembles in the field of fame,
Meets death, and worse than death, eternal shame!”

These words he seconds with his flying lance,
To meet whose point was strong Deicoon’s chance:
Æneas’ friend, and in his native place
Honour’d and loved like Priam’s royal race:
Long had he fought the foremost in the field,
But now the monarch’s lance transpierced his shield:
His shield too weak the furious dart to stay,
Through his broad belt the weapon forced its way:
The grisly wound dismiss’d his soul to hell,
His arms around him rattled as he fell.

Then fierce Æneas, brandishing his blade,
In dust Orsilochus and Crethon laid,
Whose sire Diocleus, wealthy, brave and great,
In well-built Pheræ held his lofty seat:[152]
Sprung from Alpheus’ plenteous stream, that yields
Increase of harvests to the Pylian fields.
He got Orsilochus, Diocleus he,
And these descended in the third degree.
Too early expert in the martial toil,
In sable ships they left their native soil,
To avenge Atrides: now, untimely slain,
They fell with glory on the Phrygian plain.
So two young mountain lions, nursed with blood
In deep recesses of the gloomy wood,
Rush fearless to the plains, and uncontroll’d
Depopulate the stalls and waste the fold:
Till pierced at distance from their native den,
O’erpowered they fall beneath the force of men.
Prostrate on earth their beauteous bodies lay,
Like mountain firs, as tall and straight as they.
Great Menelaus views with pitying eyes,
Lifts his bright lance, and at the victor flies;
Mars urged him on; yet, ruthless in his hate,
The god but urged him to provoke his fate.
He thus advancing, Nestor’s valiant son
Shakes for his danger, and neglects his own;
Struck with the thought, should Helen’s lord be slain,
And all his country’s glorious labours vain.
Already met, the threatening heroes stand;
The spears already tremble in their hand:
In rush’d Antilochus, his aid to bring,
And fall or conquer by the Spartan king.
These seen, the Dardan backward turn’d his course,
Brave as he was, and shunn’d unequal force.
The breathless bodies to the Greeks they drew,
Then mix in combat, and their toils renew.

First, Pylæmenes, great in battle, bled,
Who sheathed in brass the Paphlagonians led.
Atrides mark’d him where sublime he stood;
Fix’d in his throat the javelin drank his blood.
The faithful Mydon, as he turn’d from fight
His flying coursers, sunk to endless night;
A broken rock by Nestor’s son was thrown:
His bended arm received the falling stone;
From his numb’d hand the ivory-studded reins,
Dropp’d in the dust, are trail’d along the plains:
Meanwhile his temples feel a deadly wound;
He groans in death, and ponderous sinks to ground:
Deep drove his helmet in the sands, and there
The head stood fix’d, the quivering legs in air,
Till trampled flat beneath the coursers’ feet:
The youthful victor mounts his empty seat,
And bears the prize in triumph to the fleet.

Great Hector saw, and, raging at the view,
Pours on the Greeks: the Trojan troops pursue:
He fires his host with animating cries,
And brings along the furies of the skies,
Mars, stern destroyer! and Bellona dread,
Flame in the front, and thunder at their head:
This swells the tumult and the rage of fight;
That shakes a spear that casts a dreadful light.
Where Hector march’d, the god of battles shined,
Now storm’d before him, and now raged behind.

Tydides paused amidst his full career;
Then first the hero’s manly breast knew fear.
As when some simple swain his cot forsakes,
And wide through fens an unknown journey takes:
If chance a swelling brook his passage stay,
And foam impervious ’cross the wanderer’s way,
Confused he stops, a length of country pass’d,
Eyes the rough waves, and tired, returns at last.
Amazed no less the great Tydides stands:
He stay’d, and turning thus address’d his bands:

“No wonder, Greeks! that all to Hector yield;
Secure of favouring gods, he takes the field;
His strokes they second, and avert our spears.
Behold where Mars in mortal arms appears!
Retire then, warriors, but sedate and slow;
Retire, but with your faces to the foe.
Trust not too much your unavailing might;
’Tis not with Troy, but with the gods ye fight.”

Now near the Greeks the black battalions drew;
And first two leaders valiant Hector slew:
His force Anchialus and Mnesthes found,
In every art of glorious war renown’d;
In the same car the chiefs to combat ride,
And fought united, and united died.
Struck at the sight, the mighty Ajax glows
With thirst of vengeance, and assaults the foes.
His massy spear with matchless fury sent,
Through Amphius’ belt and heaving belly went;
Amphius Apæsus’ happy soil possess’d,
With herds abounding, and with treasure bless’d;
But fate resistless from his country led
The chief, to perish at his people’s head.
Shook with his fall his brazen armour rung,
And fierce, to seize it, conquering Ajax sprung;
Around his head an iron tempest rain’d;
A wood of spears his ample shield sustain’d:
Beneath one foot the yet warm corpse he press’d,
And drew his javelin from the bleeding breast:
He could no more; the showering darts denied
To spoil his glittering arms, and plumy pride.
Now foes on foes came pouring on the fields,
With bristling lances, and compacted shields;
Till in the steely circle straiten’d round,
Forced he gives way, and sternly quits the ground.

While thus they strive, Tlepolemus the great,[153]
Urged by the force of unresisted fate,
Burns with desire Sarpedon’s strength to prove;
Alcides’ offspring meets the son of Jove.
Sheathed in bright arms each adverse chief came on.
Jove’s great descendant, and his greater son.
Prepared for combat, ere the lance he toss’d,
The daring Rhodian vents his haughty boast:

“What brings this Lycian counsellor so far,
To tremble at our arms, not mix in war!
Know thy vain self, nor let their flattery move,
Who style thee son of cloud-compelling Jove.
How far unlike those chiefs of race divine,
How vast the difference of their deeds and thine!
Jove got such heroes as my sire, whose soul
No fear could daunt, nor earth nor hell control.
Troy felt his arm, and yon proud ramparts stand
Raised on the ruins of his vengeful hand:
With six small ships, and but a slender train,
He left the town a wide-deserted plain.
But what art thou, who deedless look’st around,
While unrevenged thy Lycians bite the ground!
Small aid to Troy thy feeble force can be;
But wert thou greater, thou must yield to me.
Pierced by my spear, to endless darkness go!
I make this present to the shades below.”

The son of Hercules, the Rhodian guide,
Thus haughty spoke. The Lycian king replied:

“Thy sire, O prince! o’erturn’d the Trojan state,
Whose perjured monarch well deserved his fate;
Those heavenly steeds the hero sought so far,
False he detain’d, the just reward of war.
Nor so content, the generous chief defied,
With base reproaches and unmanly pride.
But you, unworthy the high race you boast,
Shall raise my glory when thy own is lost:
Now meet thy fate, and by Sarpedon slain,
Add one more ghost to Pluto’s gloomy reign.”

He said: both javelins at an instant flew;
Both struck, both wounded, but Sarpedon’s slew:
Full in the boaster’s neck the weapon stood,
Transfix’d his throat, and drank the vital blood;
The soul disdainful seeks the caves of night,
And his seal’d eyes for ever lose the light.

Yet not in vain, Tlepolemus, was thrown
Thy angry lance; which piercing to the bone
Sarpedon’s thigh, had robb’d the chief of breath;
But Jove was present, and forbade the death.
Borne from the conflict by his Lycian throng,
The wounded hero dragg’d the lance along.
(His friends, each busied in his several part,
Through haste, or danger, had not drawn the dart.)
The Greeks with slain Tlepolemus retired;
Whose fall Ulysses view’d, with fury fired;
Doubtful if Jove’s great son he should pursue,
Or pour his vengeance on the Lycian crew.
But heaven and fate the first design withstand,
Nor this great death must grace Ulysses’ hand.
Minerva drives him on the Lycian train;
Alastor, Cronius, Halius, strew’d the plain,
Alcander, Prytanis, Noëmon fell:[154]
And numbers more his sword had sent to hell,
But Hector saw; and, furious at the sight,
Rush’d terrible amidst the ranks of fight.
With joy Sarpedon view’d the wish’d relief,
And, faint, lamenting, thus implored the chief:

“O suffer not the foe to bear away
My helpless corpse, an unassisted prey;
If I, unbless’d, must see my son no more,
My much-loved consort, and my native shore,
Yet let me die in Ilion’s sacred wall;
Troy, in whose cause I fell, shall mourn my fall.”

He said, nor Hector to the chief replies,
But shakes his plume, and fierce to combat flies;
Swift as a whirlwind, drives the scattering foes;
And dyes the ground with purple as he goes.

Beneath a beech, Jove’s consecrated shade,
His mournful friends divine Sarpedon laid:
Brave Pelagon, his favourite chief, was nigh,
Who wrench’d the javelin from his sinewy thigh.
The fainting soul stood ready wing’d for flight,
And o’er his eye-balls swam the shades of night;
But Boreas rising fresh, with gentle breath,
Recall’d his spirit from the gates of death.

The generous Greeks recede with tardy pace,
Though Mars and Hector thunder in their face;
None turn their backs to mean ignoble flight,
Slow they retreat, and even retreating fight.
Who first, who last, by Mars’ and Hector’s hand,
Stretch’d in their blood, lay gasping on the sand?
Tenthras the great, Orestes the renown’d
For managed steeds, and Trechus press’d the ground;
Next Œnomaus and OEnops’ offspring died;
Oresbius last fell groaning at their side:
Oresbius, in his painted mitre gay,
In fat Bœotia held his wealthy sway,
Where lakes surround low Hylè’s watery plain;
A prince and people studious of their gain.

The carnage Juno from the skies survey’d,
And touch’d with grief bespoke the blue-eyed maid:
“Oh, sight accursed! Shall faithless Troy prevail,
And shall our promise to our people fail?
How vain the word to Menelaus given
By Jove’s great daughter and the queen of heaven,
Beneath his arms that Priam’s towers should fall,
If warring gods for ever guard the wall!
Mars, red with slaughter, aids our hated foes:
Haste, let us arm, and force with force oppose!”

She spoke; Minerva burns to meet the war:
And now heaven’s empress calls her blazing car.
At her command rush forth the steeds divine;
Rich with immortal gold their trappings shine.
Bright Hebe waits; by Hebe, ever young,
The whirling wheels are to the chariot hung.
On the bright axle turns the bidden wheel
Of sounding brass; the polished axle steel.
Eight brazen spokes in radiant order flame;
The circles gold, of uncorrupted frame,
Such as the heavens produce: and round the gold
Two brazen rings of work divine were roll’d.
The bossy naves of sold silver shone;
Braces of gold suspend the moving throne:
The car, behind, an arching figure bore;
The bending concave form’d an arch before.
Silver the beam, the extended yoke was gold,
And golden reins the immortal coursers hold.
Herself, impatient, to the ready car,
The coursers joins, and breathes revenge and war.

Pallas disrobes; her radiant veil untied,
With flowers adorn’d, with art diversified,
(The laboured veil her heavenly fingers wove,)
Flows on the pavement of the court of Jove.
Now heaven’s dread arms her mighty limbs invest,
Jove’s cuirass blazes on her ample breast;
Deck’d in sad triumph for the mournful field,
O’er her broad shoulders hangs his horrid shield,
Dire, black, tremendous! Round the margin roll’d,
A fringe of serpents hissing guards the gold:
Here all the terrors of grim War appear,
Here rages Force, here tremble Flight and Fear,
Here storm’d Contention, and here Fury frown’d,
And the dire orb portentous Gorgon crown’d.
The massy golden helm she next assumes,
That dreadful nods with four o’ershading plumes;
So vast, the broad circumference contains
A hundred armies on a hundred plains.
The goddess thus the imperial car ascends;
Shook by her arm the mighty javelin bends,
Ponderous and huge; that when her fury burns,
Proud tyrants humbles, and whole hosts o’erturns.

Swift at the scourge the ethereal coursers fly,
While the smooth chariot cuts the liquid sky.
Heaven’s gates spontaneous open to the powers,[155]
Heaven’s golden gates, kept by the winged Hours;[156]
Commission’d in alternate watch they stand,
The sun’s bright portals and the skies command,
Involve in clouds the eternal gates of day,
Or the dark barrier roll with ease away.
The sounding hinges ring, on either side
The gloomy volumes, pierced with light, divide.
The chariot mounts, where deep in ambient skies,
Confused, Olympus’ hundred heads arise;
Where far apart the Thunderer fills his throne,
O’er all the gods superior and alone.
There with her snowy hand the queen restrains
The fiery steeds, and thus to Jove complains:

“O sire! can no resentment touch thy soul?
Can Mars rebel, and does no thunder roll?
What lawless rage on yon forbidden plain,
What rash destruction! and what heroes slain!
Venus, and Phœbus with the dreadful bow,
Smile on the slaughter, and enjoy my woe.
Mad, furious power! whose unrelenting mind
No god can govern, and no justice bind.
Say, mighty father! shall we scourge this pride,
And drive from fight the impetuous homicide?”

To whom assenting, thus the Thunderer said:
“Go! and the great Minerva be thy aid.
To tame the monster-god Minerva knows,
And oft afflicts his brutal breast with woes.”

He said; Saturnia, ardent to obey,
Lash’d her white steeds along the aerial way.
Swift down the steep of heaven the chariot rolls,
Between the expanded earth and starry poles.
Far as a shepherd, from some point on high,[157]
O’er the wide main extends his boundless eye,
Through such a space of air, with thundering sound,
At every leap the immortal coursers bound
Troy now they reach’d and touch’d those banks divine,
Where silver Simois and Scamander join.
There Juno stopp’d, and (her fair steeds unloosed)
Of air condensed a vapour circumfused:
For these, impregnate with celestial dew,
On Simois’ brink ambrosial herbage grew.
Thence to relieve the fainting Argive throng,
Smooth as the sailing doves they glide along.

The best and bravest of the Grecian band
(A warlike circle) round Tydides stand.
Such was their look as lions bathed in blood,
Or foaming boars, the terror of the wood.
Heaven’s empress mingles with the mortal crowd,
And shouts, in Stentor’s sounding voice, aloud;
Stentor the strong, endued with brazen lungs,[158]
Whose throats surpass’d the force of fifty tongues.

“Inglorious Argives! to your race a shame,
And only men in figure and in name!
Once from the walls your timorous foes engaged,
While fierce in war divine Achilles raged;
Now issuing fearless they possess the plain,
Now win the shores, and scarce the seas remain.”

Her speech new fury to their hearts convey’d;
While near Tydides stood the Athenian maid;
The king beside his panting steeds she found,
O’erspent with toil reposing on the ground;
To cool his glowing wound he sat apart,
(The wound inflicted by the Lycian dart.)
Large drops of sweat from all his limbs descend,
Beneath his ponderous shield his sinews bend,
Whose ample belt, that o’er his shoulder lay,
He eased; and wash’d the clotted gore away.
The goddess leaning o’er the bending yoke,
Beside his coursers, thus her silence broke:

“Degenerate prince! and not of Tydeus’ kind,
Whose little body lodged a mighty mind;
Foremost he press’d in glorious toils to share,
And scarce refrain’d when I forbade the war.
Alone, unguarded, once he dared to go,
And feast, incircled by the Theban foe;
There braved, and vanquish’d, many a hardy knight;
Such nerves I gave him, and such force in fight.
Thou too no less hast been my constant care;
Thy hands I arm’d, and sent thee forth to war:
But thee or fear deters, or sloth detains;
No drop of all thy father warms thy veins.”

The chief thus answered mild: “Immortal maid!
I own thy presence, and confess thy aid.
Not fear, thou know’st, withholds me from the plains,
Nor sloth hath seized me, but thy word restrains:
From warring gods thou bad’st me turn my spear,
And Venus only found resistance here.
Hence, goddess! heedful of thy high commands,
Loth I gave way, and warn’d our Argive bands:
For Mars, the homicide, these eyes beheld,
With slaughter red, and raging round the field.”

Then thus Minerva:—“Brave Tydides, hear!
Not Mars himself, nor aught immortal, fear.
Full on the god impel thy foaming horse:
Pallas commands, and Pallas lends thee force.
Rash, furious, blind, from these to those he flies,
And every side of wavering combat tries;
Large promise makes, and breaks the promise made:
Now gives the Grecians, now the Trojans aid.”[159]

She said, and to the steeds approaching near,
Drew from his seat the martial charioteer.
The vigorous power the trembling car ascends,
Fierce for revenge; and Diomed attends:
The groaning axle bent beneath the load;
So great a hero, and so great a god.
She snatch’d the reins, she lash’d with all her force,
And full on Mars impelled the foaming horse:
But first, to hide her heavenly visage, spread
Black Orcus’ helmet o’er her radiant head.


[Illustration: ] DIOMED CASTING HIS SPEAR AT MARS


Just then gigantic Periphas lay slain,
The strongest warrior of the Ætolian train;
The god, who slew him, leaves his prostrate prize
Stretch’d where he fell, and at Tydides flies.
Now rushing fierce, in equal arms appear
The daring Greek, the dreadful god of war!
Full at the chief, above his courser’s head,
From Mars’s arm the enormous weapon fled:
Pallas opposed her hand, and caused to glance
Far from the car the strong immortal lance.
Then threw the force of Tydeus’ warlike son;
The javelin hiss’d; the goddess urged it on:
Where the broad cincture girt his armour round,
It pierced the god: his groin received the wound.
From the rent skin the warrior tugs again
The smoking steel. Mars bellows with the pain:
Loud as the roar encountering armies yield,
When shouting millions shake the thundering field.
Both armies start, and trembling gaze around;
And earth and heaven re-bellow to the sound.
As vapours blown by Auster’s sultry breath,
Pregnant with plagues, and shedding seeds of death,
Beneath the rage of burning Sirius rise,
Choke the parch’d earth, and blacken all the skies;
In such a cloud the god from combat driven,
High o’er the dusky whirlwind scales the heaven.
Wild with his pain, he sought the bright abodes,
There sullen sat beneath the sire of gods,
Show’d the celestial blood, and with a groan
Thus pour’d his plaints before the immortal throne:

“Can Jove, supine, flagitious facts survey,
And brook the furies of this daring day?
For mortal men celestial powers engage,
And gods on gods exert eternal rage:
From thee, O father! all these ills we bear,
And thy fell daughter with the shield and spear;
Thou gavest that fury to the realms of light,
Pernicious, wild, regardless of the right.
All heaven beside reveres thy sovereign sway,
Thy voice we hear, and thy behests obey:
’Tis hers to offend, and even offending share
Thy breast, thy counsels, thy distinguish’d care:
So boundless she, and thou so partial grown,
Well may we deem the wondrous birth thy own.
Now frantic Diomed, at her command,
Against the immortals lifts his raging hand:
The heavenly Venus first his fury found,
Me next encountering, me he dared to wound;
Vanquish’d I fled; even I, the god of fight,
From mortal madness scarce was saved by flight.
Else hadst thou seen me sink on yonder plain,
Heap’d round, and heaving under loads of slain!
Or pierced with Grecian darts, for ages lie,
Condemn’d to pain, though fated not to die.”

Him thus upbraiding, with a wrathful look
The lord of thunders view’d, and stern bespoke:
“To me, perfidious! this lamenting strain?
Of lawless force shall lawless Mars complain?
Of all the gods who tread the spangled skies,
Thou most unjust, most odious in our eyes!
Inhuman discord is thy dire delight,
The waste of slaughter, and the rage of fight.
No bounds, no law, thy fiery temper quells,
And all thy mother in thy soul rebels.
In vain our threats, in vain our power we use;
She gives the example, and her son pursues.
Yet long the inflicted pangs thou shall not mourn,
Sprung since thou art from Jove, and heavenly-born.
Else, singed with lightning, hadst thou hence been thrown,
Where chain’d on burning rocks the Titans groan.”

Thus he who shakes Olympus with his nod;
Then gave to Pæon’s care the bleeding god.[160]
With gentle hand the balm he pour’d around,
And heal’d the immortal flesh, and closed the wound.
As when the fig’s press’d juice, infused in cream,
To curds coagulates the liquid stream,
Sudden the fluids fix the parts combined;
Such, and so soon, the ethereal texture join’d.
Cleansed from the dust and gore, fair Hebe dress’d
His mighty limbs in an immortal vest.
Glorious he sat, in majesty restored,
Fast by the throne of heaven’s superior lord.
Juno and Pallas mount the bless’d abodes,
Their task perform’d, and mix among the gods.


[Illustration: ] JUNO




BOOK VI.


ARGUMENT.


THE EPISODES OF GLAUCUS AND DIOMED, AND OF HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE.


The gods having left the field, the Grecians prevail. Helenus, the
chief augur of Troy, commands Hector to return to the city, in order to
appoint a solemn procession of the queen and the Trojan matrons to the
temple of Minerva, to entreat her to remove Diomed from the fight. The
battle relaxing during the absence of Hector, Glaucus and Diomed have
an interview between the two armies; where, coming to the knowledge, of
the friendship and hospitality passed between their ancestors, they
make exchange of their arms. Hector, having performed the orders of
Helenus, prevails upon Paris to return to the battle, and, taking a
tender leave of his wife Andromache, hastens again to the field.
    The scene is first in the field of battle, between the rivers
    Simois and Scamander, and then changes to Troy.


Now heaven forsakes the fight: the immortals yield
To human force and human skill the field:
Dark showers of javelins fly from foes to foes;
Now here, now there, the tide of combat flows;
While Troy’s famed streams, that bound the deathful plain
On either side, run purple to the main.

Great Ajax first to conquest led the way,
Broke the thick ranks, and turn’d the doubtful day.
The Thracian Acamas his falchion found,
And hew’d the enormous giant to the ground;
His thundering arm a deadly stroke impress’d
Where the black horse-hair nodded o’er his crest;
Fix’d in his front the brazen weapon lies,
And seals in endless shades his swimming eyes.
Next Teuthras’ son distain’d the sands with blood,
Axylus, hospitable, rich, and good:
In fair Arisbe’s walls (his native place)[161]
He held his seat! a friend to human race.
Fast by the road, his ever-open door
Obliged the wealthy, and relieved the poor.
To stern Tydides now he falls a prey,
No friend to guard him in the dreadful day!
Breathless the good man fell, and by his side
His faithful servant, old Calesius died.

By great Euryalus was Dresus slain,
And next he laid Opheltius on the plain.
Two twins were near, bold, beautiful, and young,
From a fair naiad and Bucolion sprung:
(Laomedon’s white flocks Bucolion fed,
That monarch’s first-born by a foreign bed;
In secret woods he won the naiad’s grace,
And two fair infants crown’d his strong embrace:)
Here dead they lay in all their youthful charms;
The ruthless victor stripp’d their shining arms.

Astyalus by Polypœtes fell;
Ulysses’ spear Pidytes sent to hell;
By Teucer’s shaft brave Aretaon bled,
And Nestor’s son laid stern Ablerus dead;
Great Agamemnon, leader of the brave,
The mortal wound of rich Elatus gave,
Who held in Pedasus his proud abode,[162]
And till’d the banks where silver Satnio flow’d.
Melanthius by Eurypylus was slain;
And Phylacus from Leitus flies in vain.

Unbless’d Adrastus next at mercy lies
Beneath the Spartan spear, a living prize.
Scared with the din and tumult of the fight,
His headlong steeds, precipitate in flight,
Rush’d on a tamarisk’s strong trunk, and broke
The shatter’d chariot from the crooked yoke;
Wide o’er the field, resistless as the wind,
For Troy they fly, and leave their lord behind.
Prone on his face he sinks beside the wheel:
Atrides o’er him shakes his vengeful steel;
The fallen chief in suppliant posture press’d
The victor’s knees, and thus his prayer address’d:

“O spare my youth, and for the life I owe
Large gifts of price my father shall bestow.
When fame shall tell, that, not in battle slain,
Thy hollow ships his captive son detain:
Rich heaps of brass shall in thy tent be told,[163]
And steel well-temper’d, and persuasive gold.”

He said: compassion touch’d the hero’s heart
He stood, suspended with the lifted dart:
As pity pleaded for his vanquish’d prize,
Stern Agamemnon swift to vengeance flies,
And, furious, thus: “Oh impotent of mind![164]
Shall these, shall these Atrides’ mercy find?
Well hast thou known proud Troy’s perfidious land,
And well her natives merit at thy hand!
Not one of all the race, nor sex, nor age,
Shall save a Trojan from our boundless rage:
Ilion shall perish whole, and bury all;
Her babes, her infants at the breast, shall fall;[165]
A dreadful lesson of exampled fate,
To warn the nations, and to curb the great!”

The monarch spoke; the words, with warmth address’d,
To rigid justice steel’d his brother’s breast.
Fierce from his knees the hapless chief he thrust;
The monarch’s javelin stretch’d him in the dust,
Then pressing with his foot his panting heart,
Forth from the slain he tugg’d the reeking dart.
Old Nestor saw, and roused the warrior’s rage;
“Thus, heroes! thus the vigorous combat wage;
No son of Mars descend, for servile gains,
To touch the booty, while a foe remains.
Behold yon glittering host, your future spoil!
First gain the conquest, then reward the toil.”

And now had Greece eternal fame acquired,
And frighted Troy within her walls, retired,
Had not sage Helenus her state redress’d,
Taught by the gods that moved his sacred breast.
Where Hector stood, with great Æneas join’d,
The seer reveal’d the counsels of his mind:

“Ye generous chiefs! on whom the immortals lay
The cares and glories of this doubtful day;
On whom your aids, your country’s hopes depend;
Wise to consult, and active to defend!
Here, at our gates, your brave efforts unite,
Turn back the routed, and forbid the flight,
Ere yet their wives’ soft arms the cowards gain,
The sport and insult of the hostile train.
When your commands have hearten’d every band,
Ourselves, here fix’d, will make the dangerous stand;
Press’d as we are, and sore of former fight,
These straits demand our last remains of might.
Meanwhile thou, Hector, to the town retire,
And teach our mother what the gods require:
Direct the queen to lead the assembled train
Of Troy’s chief matrons to Minerva’s fane;[166]
Unbar the sacred gates, and seek the power,
With offer’d vows, in Ilion’s topmost tower.
The largest mantle her rich wardrobes hold,
Most prized for art, and labour’d o’er with gold,
Before the goddess’ honour’d knees be spread,
And twelve young heifers to her altars led:
If so the power, atoned by fervent prayer,
Our wives, our infants, and our city spare,
And far avert Tydides’ wasteful ire,
That mows whole troops, and makes all Troy retire;
Not thus Achilles taught our hosts to dread,
Sprung though he was from more than mortal bed;
Not thus resistless ruled the stream of fight,
In rage unbounded, and unmatch’d in might.”

Hector obedient heard: and, with a bound,
Leap’d from his trembling chariot to the ground;
Through all his host inspiring force he flies,
And bids the thunder of the battle rise.
With rage recruited the bold Trojans glow,
And turn the tide of conflict on the foe:
Fierce in the front he shakes two dazzling spears;
All Greece recedes, and ’midst her triumphs fears;
Some god, they thought, who ruled the fate of wars,
Shot down avenging from the vault of stars.

Then thus aloud: “Ye dauntless Dardans, hear!
And you whom distant nations send to war!
Be mindful of the strength your fathers bore;
Be still yourselves, and Hector asks no more.
One hour demands me in the Trojan wall,
To bid our altars flame, and victims fall:
Nor shall, I trust, the matrons’ holy train,
And reverend elders, seek the gods in vain.”

This said, with ample strides the hero pass’d;
The shield’s large orb behind his shoulder cast,
His neck o’ershading, to his ankle hung;
And as he march’d the brazen buckler rung.

Now paused the battle (godlike Hector gone),[167]
Where daring Glaucus and great Tydeus’ son
Between both armies met: the chiefs from far
Observed each other, and had mark’d for war.
Near as they drew, Tydides thus began:

“What art thou, boldest of the race of man?
Our eyes till now that aspect ne’er beheld,
Where fame is reap’d amid the embattled field;
Yet far before the troops thou dar’st appear,
And meet a lance the fiercest heroes fear.
Unhappy they, and born of luckless sires,
Who tempt our fury when Minerva fires!
But if from heaven, celestial, thou descend,
Know with immortals we no more contend.
Not long Lycurgus view’d the golden light,
That daring man who mix’d with gods in fight.
Bacchus, and Bacchus’ votaries, he drove,
With brandish’d steel, from Nyssa’s sacred grove:
Their consecrated spears lay scatter’d round,
With curling vines and twisted ivy bound;
While Bacchus headlong sought the briny flood,
And Thetis’ arms received the trembling god.
Nor fail’d the crime the immortals’ wrath to move;
(The immortals bless’d with endless ease above;)
Deprived of sight by their avenging doom,
Cheerless he breathed, and wander’d in the gloom,
Then sunk unpitied to the dire abodes,
A wretch accursed, and hated by the gods!
I brave not heaven: but if the fruits of earth
Sustain thy life, and human be thy birth,
Bold as thou art, too prodigal of breath,
Approach, and enter the dark gates of death.”

“What, or from whence I am, or who my sire,
(Replied the chief,) can Tydeus’ son inquire?
Like leaves on trees the race of man is found,
Now green in youth, now withering on the ground;
Another race the following spring supplies;
They fall successive, and successive rise:
So generations in their course decay;
So flourish these, when those are pass’d away.
But if thou still persist to search my birth,
Then hear a tale that fills the spacious earth.

“A city stands on Argos’ utmost bound,
(Argos the fair, for warlike steeds renown’d,)
Æolian Sisyphus, with wisdom bless’d,
In ancient time the happy wall possess’d,
Then call’d Ephyre: Glaucus was his son;
Great Glaucus, father of Bellerophon,
Who o’er the sons of men in beauty shined,
Loved for that valour which preserves mankind.
Then mighty Praetus Argos’ sceptre sway’d,
Whose hard commands Bellerophon obey’d.
With direful jealousy the monarch raged,
And the brave prince in numerous toils engaged.
For him Antaea burn’d with lawless flame,
And strove to tempt him from the paths of fame:
In vain she tempted the relentless youth,
Endued with wisdom, sacred fear, and truth.
Fired at his scorn the queen to Praetus fled,
And begg’d revenge for her insulted bed:
Incensed he heard, resolving on his fate;
But hospitable laws restrain’d his hate:
To Lycia the devoted youth he sent,
With tablets seal’d, that told his dire intent.[168]
Now bless’d by every power who guards the good,
The chief arrived at Xanthus’ silver flood:
There Lycia’s monarch paid him honours due,
Nine days he feasted, and nine bulls he slew.
But when the tenth bright morning orient glow’d,
The faithful youth his monarch’s mandate show’d:
The fatal tablets, till that instant seal’d,
The deathful secret to the king reveal’d.
First, dire Chimaera’s conquest was enjoin’d;
A mingled monster of no mortal kind!
Behind, a dragon’s fiery tail was spread;
A goat’s rough body bore a lion’s head;
Her pitchy nostrils flaky flames expire;
Her gaping throat emits infernal fire.

“This pest he slaughter’d, (for he read the skies,
And trusted heaven’s informing prodigies,)
Then met in arms the Solymæan crew,[169]
(Fiercest of men,) and those the warrior slew;
Next the bold Amazons’ whole force defied;
And conquer’d still, for heaven was on his side.

“Nor ended here his toils: his Lycian foes,
At his return, a treacherous ambush rose,
With levell’d spears along the winding shore:
There fell they breathless, and return’d no more.

“At length the monarch, with repentant grief,
Confess’d the gods, and god-descended chief;
His daughter gave, the stranger to detain,
With half the honours of his ample reign:
The Lycians grant a chosen space of ground,
With woods, with vineyards, and with harvests crown’d.
There long the chief his happy lot possess’d,
With two brave sons and one fair daughter bless’d;
(Fair e’en in heavenly eyes: her fruitful love
Crown’d with Sarpedon’s birth the embrace of Jove;)
But when at last, distracted in his mind,
Forsook by heaven, forsaking humankind,
Wide o’er the Aleian field he chose to stray,
A long, forlorn, uncomfortable way![170]
Woes heap’d on woes consumed his wasted heart:
His beauteous daughter fell by Phoebe’s dart;
His eldest born by raging Mars was slain,
In combat on the Solymaean plain.
Hippolochus survived: from him I came,
The honour’d author of my birth and name;
By his decree I sought the Trojan town;
By his instructions learn to win renown,
To stand the first in worth as in command,
To add new honours to my native land,
Before my eyes my mighty sires to place,
And emulate the glories of our race.”

He spoke, and transport fill’d Tydides’ heart;
In earth the generous warrior fix’d his dart,
Then friendly, thus the Lycian prince address’d:
“Welcome, my brave hereditary guest!
Thus ever let us meet, with kind embrace,
Nor stain the sacred friendship of our race.
Know, chief, our grandsires have been guests of old;
Œneus the strong, Bellerophon the bold:
Our ancient seat his honour’d presence graced,
Where twenty days in genial rites he pass’d.
The parting heroes mutual presents left;
A golden goblet was thy grandsire’s gift;
Œneus a belt of matchless work bestowed,
That rich with Tyrian dye refulgent glow’d.
(This from his pledge I learn’d, which, safely stored
Among my treasures, still adorns my board:
For Tydeus left me young, when Thebe’s wall
Beheld the sons of Greece untimely fall.)
Mindful of this, in friendship let us join;
If heaven our steps to foreign lands incline,
My guest in Argos thou, and I in Lycia thine.
Enough of Trojans to this lance shall yield,
In the full harvest of yon ample field;
Enough of Greeks shall dye thy spear with gore;
But thou and Diomed be foes no more.
Now change we arms, and prove to either host
We guard the friendship of the line we boast.”

Thus having said, the gallant chiefs alight,
Their hands they join, their mutual faith they plight;
Brave Glaucus then each narrow thought resign’d,
(Jove warm’d his bosom, and enlarged his mind,)
For Diomed’s brass arms, of mean device,
For which nine oxen paid, (a vulgar price,)
He gave his own, of gold divinely wrought,[171]
A hundred beeves the shining purchase bought.

Meantime the guardian of the Trojan state,
Great Hector, enter’d at the Scæan gate.[172]
Beneath the beech-tree’s consecrated shades,
The Trojan matrons and the Trojan maids
Around him flock’d, all press’d with pious care
For husbands, brothers, sons, engaged in war.
He bids the train in long procession go,
And seek the gods, to avert the impending woe.
And now to Priam’s stately courts he came,
Rais’d on arch’d columns of stupendous frame;
O’er these a range of marble structure runs,
The rich pavilions of his fifty sons,
In fifty chambers lodged: and rooms of state,[173]
Opposed to those, where Priam’s daughters sate.
Twelve domes for them and their loved spouses shone,
Of equal beauty, and of polish’d stone.
Hither great Hector pass’d, nor pass’d unseen
Of royal Hecuba, his mother-queen.
(With her Laodice, whose beauteous face
Surpass’d the nymphs of Troy’s illustrious race.)
Long in a strict embrace she held her son,
And press’d his hand, and tender thus begun:

“O Hector! say, what great occasion calls
My son from fight, when Greece surrounds our walls;
Com’st thou to supplicate the almighty power
With lifted hands, from Ilion’s lofty tower?
Stay, till I bring the cup with Bacchus crown’d,
In Jove’s high name, to sprinkle on the ground,
And pay due vows to all the gods around.
Then with a plenteous draught refresh thy soul,
And draw new spirits from the generous bowl;
Spent as thou art with long laborious fight,
The brave defender of thy country’s right.”

“Far hence be Bacchus’ gifts; (the chief rejoin’d;)
Inflaming wine, pernicious to mankind,
Unnerves the limbs, and dulls the noble mind.
Let chiefs abstain, and spare the sacred juice
To sprinkle to the gods, its better use.
By me that holy office were profaned;
Ill fits it me, with human gore distain’d,
To the pure skies these horrid hands to raise,
Or offer heaven’s great Sire polluted praise.
You, with your matrons, go! a spotless train,
And burn rich odours in Minerva’s fane.
The largest mantle your full wardrobes hold,
Most prized for art, and labour’d o’er with gold,
Before the goddess’ honour’d knees be spread,
And twelve young heifers to her altar led.
So may the power, atoned by fervent prayer,
Our wives, our infants, and our city spare;
And far avert Tydides’ wasteful ire,
Who mows whole troops, and makes all Troy retire.
Be this, O mother, your religious care:
I go to rouse soft Paris to the war;
If yet not lost to all the sense of shame,
The recreant warrior hear the voice of fame.
Oh, would kind earth the hateful wretch embrace,
That pest of Troy, that ruin of our race![174]
Deep to the dark abyss might he descend,
Troy yet should flourish, and my sorrows end.”

This heard, she gave command: and summon’d came
Each noble matron and illustrious dame.
The Phrygian queen to her rich wardrobe went,
Where treasured odours breathed a costly scent.
There lay the vestures of no vulgar art,
Sidonian maids embroider’d every part,
Whom from soft Sidon youthful Paris bore,
With Helen touching on the Tyrian shore.
Here, as the queen revolved with careful eyes
The various textures and the various dyes,
She chose a veil that shone superior far,
And glow’d refulgent as the morning star.
Herself with this the long procession leads;
The train majestically slow proceeds.
Soon as to Ilion’s topmost tower they come,
And awful reach the high Palladian dome,
Antenor’s consort, fair Theano, waits
As Pallas’ priestess, and unbars the gates.
With hands uplifted and imploring eyes,
They fill the dome with supplicating cries.
The priestess then the shining veil displays,
Placed on Minerva’s knees, and thus she prays:

“Oh awful goddess! ever-dreadful maid,
Troy’s strong defence, unconquer’d Pallas, aid!
Break thou Tydides’ spear, and let him fall
Prone on the dust before the Trojan wall!
So twelve young heifers, guiltless of the yoke,
Shall fill thy temple with a grateful smoke.
But thou, atoned by penitence and prayer,
Ourselves, our infants, and our city spare!”
So pray’d the priestess in her holy fane;
So vow’d the matrons, but they vow’d in vain.

While these appear before the power with prayers,
Hector to Paris’ lofty dome repairs.[175]
Himself the mansion raised, from every part
Assembling architects of matchless art.
Near Priam’s court and Hector’s palace stands
The pompous structure, and the town commands.
A spear the hero bore of wondrous strength,
Of full ten cubits was the lance’s length,
The steely point with golden ringlets join’d,
Before him brandish’d, at each motion shined
Thus entering, in the glittering rooms he found
His brother-chief, whose useless arms lay round,
His eyes delighting with their splendid show,
Brightening the shield, and polishing the bow.
Beside him Helen with her virgins stands,
Guides their rich labours, and instructs their hands.

Him thus inactive, with an ardent look
The prince beheld, and high-resenting spoke.
“Thy hate to Troy, is this the time to show?
(O wretch ill-fated, and thy country’s foe!)
Paris and Greece against us both conspire,
Thy close resentment, and their vengeful ire.
For thee great Ilion’s guardian heroes fall,
Till heaps of dead alone defend her wall,
For thee the soldier bleeds, the matron mourns,
And wasteful war in all its fury burns.
Ungrateful man! deserves not this thy care,
Our troops to hearten, and our toils to share?
Rise, or behold the conquering flames ascend,
And all the Phrygian glories at an end.”

“Brother, ’tis just, (replied the beauteous youth,)
Thy free remonstrance proves thy worth and truth:
Yet charge my absence less, O generous chief!
On hate to Troy, than conscious shame and grief:
Here, hid from human eyes, thy brother sate,
And mourn’d, in secret, his and Ilion’s fate.
’Tis now enough; now glory spreads her charms,
And beauteous Helen calls her chief to arms.
Conquest to-day my happier sword may bless,
’Tis man’s to fight, but heaven’s to give success.
But while I arm, contain thy ardent mind;
Or go, and Paris shall not lag behind.”


[Illustration: ] HECTOR CHIDING PARIS


He said, nor answer’d Priam’s warlike son;
When Helen thus with lowly grace begun:

“Oh, generous brother! (if the guilty dame
That caused these woes deserve a sister’s name!)
Would heaven, ere all these dreadful deeds were done,
The day that show’d me to the golden sun
Had seen my death! why did not whirlwinds bear
The fatal infant to the fowls of air?
Why sunk I not beneath the whelming tide,
And midst the roarings of the waters died?
Heaven fill’d up all my ills, and I accursed
Bore all, and Paris of those ills the worst.
Helen at least a braver spouse might claim,
Warm’d with some virtue, some regard of fame!
Now tired with toils, thy fainting limbs recline,
With toils, sustain’d for Paris’ sake and mine
The gods have link’d our miserable doom,
Our present woe, and infamy to come:
Wide shall it spread, and last through ages long,
Example sad! and theme of future song.”

The chief replied: “This time forbids to rest;
The Trojan bands, by hostile fury press’d,
Demand their Hector, and his arm require;
The combat urges, and my soul’s on fire.
Urge thou thy knight to march where glory calls,
And timely join me, ere I leave the walls.
Ere yet I mingle in the direful fray,
My wife, my infant, claim a moment’s stay;
This day (perhaps the last that sees me here)
Demands a parting word, a tender tear:
This day, some god who hates our Trojan land
May vanquish Hector by a Grecian hand.”

He said, and pass’d with sad presaging heart
To seek his spouse, his soul’s far dearer part;
At home he sought her, but he sought in vain;
She, with one maid of all her menial train,
Had hence retired; and with her second joy,
The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy,
Pensive she stood on Ilion’s towery height,
Beheld the war, and sicken’d at the sight;
There her sad eyes in vain her lord explore,
Or weep the wounds her bleeding country bore.

But he who found not whom his soul desired,
Whose virtue charm’d him as her beauty fired,
Stood in the gates, and ask’d “what way she bent
Her parting step? If to the fane she went,
Where late the mourning matrons made resort;
Or sought her sisters in the Trojan court?”
“Not to the court, (replied the attendant train,)
Nor mix’d with matrons to Minerva’s fane:
To Ilion’s steepy tower she bent her way,
To mark the fortunes of the doubtful day.
Troy fled, she heard, before the Grecian sword;
She heard, and trembled for her absent lord:
Distracted with surprise, she seem’d to fly,
Fear on her cheek, and sorrow in her eye.
The nurse attended with her infant boy,
The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy.”

Hector this heard, return’d without delay;
Swift through the town he trod his former way,
Through streets of palaces, and walks of state;
And met the mourner at the Scæan gate.
With haste to meet him sprung the joyful fair.
His blameless wife, Aëtion’s wealthy heir
(Cilician Thebe great Aëtion sway’d,
And Hippoplacus’ wide extended shade):
The nurse stood near, in whose embraces press’d,
His only hope hung smiling at her breast,
Whom each soft charm and early grace adorn,
Fair as the new-born star that gilds the morn.
To this loved infant Hector gave the name
Scamandrius, from Scamander’s honour’d stream;
Astyanax the Trojans call’d the boy,
From his great father, the defence of Troy.
Silent the warrior smiled, and pleased resign’d
To tender passions all his mighty mind;
His beauteous princess cast a mournful look,
Hung on his hand, and then dejected spoke;
Her bosom laboured with a boding sigh,
And the big tear stood trembling in her eye.


[Illustration: ] THE MEETING OF HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE


“Too daring prince! ah, whither dost thou run?
Ah, too forgetful of thy wife and son!
And think’st thou not how wretched we shall be,
A widow I, a helpless orphan he?
For sure such courage length of life denies,
And thou must fall, thy virtue’s sacrifice.
Greece in her single heroes strove in vain;
Now hosts oppose thee, and thou must be slain.
O grant me, gods, ere Hector meets his doom,
All I can ask of heaven, an early tomb!
So shall my days in one sad tenor run,
And end with sorrows as they first begun.
No parent now remains my griefs to share,
No father’s aid, no mother’s tender care.
The fierce Achilles wrapt our walls in fire,
Laid Thebe waste, and slew my warlike sire!
His fate compassion in the victor bred;
Stern as he was, he yet revered the dead,
His radiant arms preserved from hostile spoil,
And laid him decent on the funeral pile;
Then raised a mountain where his bones were burn’d,
The mountain-nymphs the rural tomb adorn’d,
Jove’s sylvan daughters bade their elms bestow
A barren shade, and in his honour grow.

“By the same arm my seven brave brothers fell;
In one sad day beheld the gates of hell;
While the fat herds and snowy flocks they fed,
Amid their fields the hapless heroes bled!
My mother lived to wear the victor’s bands,
The queen of Hippoplacia’s sylvan lands:
Redeem’d too late, she scarce beheld again
Her pleasing empire and her native plain,
When ah! oppress’d by life-consuming woe,
She fell a victim to Diana’s bow.

“Yet while my Hector still survives, I see
My father, mother, brethren, all, in thee:
Alas! my parents, brothers, kindred, all
Once more will perish, if my Hector fall,
Thy wife, thy infant, in thy danger share:
Oh, prove a husband’s and a father’s care!
That quarter most the skilful Greeks annoy,
Where yon wild fig-trees join the wall of Troy;
Thou, from this tower defend the important post;
There Agamemnon points his dreadful host,
That pass Tydides, Ajax, strive to gain,
And there the vengeful Spartan fires his train.
Thrice our bold foes the fierce attack have given,
Or led by hopes, or dictated from heaven.
Let others in the field their arms employ,
But stay my Hector here, and guard his Troy.”

The chief replied: “That post shall be my care,
Not that alone, but all the works of war.
How would the sons of Troy, in arms renown’d,
And Troy’s proud dames, whose garments sweep the ground
Attaint the lustre of my former name,
Should Hector basely quit the field of fame?
My early youth was bred to martial pains,
My soul impels me to the embattled plains!
Let me be foremost to defend the throne,
And guard my father’s glories, and my own.

“Yet come it will, the day decreed by fates!
(How my heart trembles while my tongue relates!)
The day when thou, imperial Troy! must bend,
And see thy warriors fall, thy glories end.
And yet no dire presage so wounds my mind,
My mother’s death, the ruin of my kind,
Not Priam’s hoary hairs defiled with gore,
Not all my brothers gasping on the shore;
As thine, Andromache! Thy griefs I dread:
I see thee trembling, weeping, captive led!
In Argive looms our battles to design,
And woes, of which so large a part was thine!
To bear the victor’s hard commands, or bring
The weight of waters from Hyperia’s spring.
There while you groan beneath the load of life,
They cry, ‘Behold the mighty Hector’s wife!’
Some haughty Greek, who lives thy tears to see,
Imbitters all thy woes, by naming me.
The thoughts of glory past, and present shame,
A thousand griefs shall waken at the name!
May I lie cold before that dreadful day,
Press’d with a load of monumental clay!
Thy Hector, wrapt in everlasting sleep,
Shall neither hear thee sigh, nor see thee weep.”

Thus having spoke, the illustrious chief of Troy
Stretch’d his fond arms to clasp the lovely boy.
The babe clung crying to his nurse’s breast,
Scared at the dazzling helm, and nodding crest.
With secret pleasure each fond parent smiled,
And Hector hasted to relieve his child,
The glittering terrors from his brows unbound,
And placed the beaming helmet on the ground;
Then kiss’d the child, and, lifting high in air,
Thus to the gods preferr’d a father’s prayer:

“O thou! whose glory fills the ethereal throne,
And all ye deathless powers! protect my son!
Grant him, like me, to purchase just renown,
To guard the Trojans, to defend the crown,
Against his country’s foes the war to wage,
And rise the Hector of the future age!
So when triumphant from successful toils
Of heroes slain he bears the reeking spoils,
Whole hosts may hail him with deserved acclaim,
And say, ‘This chief transcends his father’s fame:’
While pleased amidst the general shouts of Troy,
His mother’s conscious heart o’erflows with joy.”

He spoke, and fondly gazing on her charms,
Restored the pleasing burden to her arms;
Soft on her fragrant breast the babe she laid,
Hush’d to repose, and with a smile survey’d.
The troubled pleasure soon chastised by fear,
She mingled with a smile a tender tear.
The soften’d chief with kind compassion view’d,
And dried the falling drops, and thus pursued:

“Andromache! my soul’s far better part,
Why with untimely sorrows heaves thy heart?
No hostile hand can antedate my doom,
Till fate condemns me to the silent tomb.
Fix’d is the term to all the race of earth;
And such the hard condition of our birth:
No force can then resist, no flight can save,
All sink alike, the fearful and the brave.
No more—but hasten to thy tasks at home,
There guide the spindle, and direct the loom:
Me glory summons to the martial scene,
The field of combat is the sphere for men.
Where heroes war, the foremost place I claim,
The first in danger as the first in fame.”

Thus having said, the glorious chief resumes
His towery helmet, black with shading plumes.
His princess parts with a prophetic sigh,
Unwilling parts, and oft reverts her eye
That stream’d at every look; then, moving slow,
Sought her own palace, and indulged her woe.
There, while her tears deplored the godlike man,
Through all her train the soft infection ran;
The pious maids their mingled sorrows shed,
And mourn the living Hector, as the dead.

But now, no longer deaf to honour’s call,
Forth issues Paris from the palace wall.
In brazen arms that cast a gleamy ray,
Swift through the town the warrior bends his way.
The wanton courser thus with reins unbound[176]
Breaks from his stall, and beats the trembling ground;
Pamper’d and proud, he seeks the wonted tides,
And laves, in height of blood his shining sides;
His head now freed, he tosses to the skies;
His mane dishevell’d o’er his shoulders flies;
He snuffs the females in the distant plain,
And springs, exulting, to his fields again.
With equal triumph, sprightly, bold, and gay,
In arms refulgent as the god of day,
The son of Priam, glorying in his might,
Rush’d forth with Hector to the fields of fight.

And now, the warriors passing on the way,
The graceful Paris first excused his stay.
To whom the noble Hector thus replied:
“O chief! in blood, and now in arms, allied!
Thy power in war with justice none contest;
Known is thy courage, and thy strength confess’d.
What pity sloth should seize a soul so brave,
Or godlike Paris live a woman’s slave!
My heart weeps blood at what the Trojans say,
And hopes thy deeds shall wipe the stain away.
Haste then, in all their glorious labours share,
For much they suffer, for thy sake, in war.
These ills shall cease, whene’er by Jove’s decree
We crown the bowl to heaven and liberty:
While the proud foe his frustrate triumphs mourns,
And Greece indignant through her seas returns.”


[Illustration: ] BOWS AND BOW CASE


[Illustration: ] IRIS




BOOK VII.


ARGUMENT


THE SINGLE COMBAT OF HECTOR AND AJAX.


The battle renewing with double ardour upon the return of Hector,
Minerva is under apprehensions for the Greeks. Apollo, seeing her
descend from Olympus, joins her near the Scæan gate. They agree to put
off the general engagement for that day, and incite Hector to challenge
the Greeks to a single combat. Nine of the princes accepting the
challenge, the lot is cast and falls upon Ajax. These heroes, after
several attacks, are parted by the night. The Trojans calling a
council, Antenor purposes the delivery of Helen to the Greeks, to which
Paris will not consent, but offers to restore them her riches. Priam
sends a herald to make this offer, and to demand a truce for burning
the dead, the last of which only is agreed to by Agamemnon. When the
funerals are performed, the Greeks, pursuant to the advice of Nestor,
erect a fortification to protect their fleet and camp, flanked with
towers, and defended by a ditch and palisades. Neptune testifies his
jealousy at this work, but is pacified by a promise from Jupiter. Both
armies pass the night in feasting but Jupiter disheartens the Trojans
with thunder, and other signs of his wrath.
    The three and twentieth day ends with the duel of Hector and Ajax,
    the next day the truce is agreed; another is taken up in the
    funeral rites of the slain and one more in building the
    fortification before the ships. So that somewhat about three days
    is employed in this book. The scene lies wholly in the field.


So spoke the guardian of the Trojan state,
Then rush’d impetuous through the Scæan gate.
Him Paris follow’d to the dire alarms;
Both breathing slaughter, both resolved in arms.
As when to sailors labouring through the main,
That long have heaved the weary oar in vain,
Jove bids at length the expected gales arise;
The gales blow grateful, and the vessel flies.
So welcome these to Troy’s desiring train,
The bands are cheer’d, the war awakes again.

Bold Paris first the work of death begun
On great Menestheus, Areithous’ son,
Sprung from the fair Philomeda’s embrace,
The pleasing Arnè was his native place.
Then sunk Eioneus to the shades below,
Beneath his steely casque[177] he felt the blow
Full on his neck, from Hector’s weighty hand;
And roll’d, with limbs relax’d, along the land.
By Glaucus’ spear the bold Iphinous bleeds,
Fix’d in the shoulder as he mounts his steeds;
Headlong he tumbles: his slack nerves unbound,
Drop the cold useless members on the ground.

When now Minerva saw her Argives slain,
From vast Olympus to the gleaming plain
Fierce she descends: Apollo marked her flight,
Nor shot less swift from Ilion’s towery height.
Radiant they met, beneath the beechen shade;
When thus Apollo to the blue-eyed maid:

“What cause, O daughter of Almighty Jove!
Thus wings thy progress from the realms above?
Once more impetuous dost thou bend thy way,
To give to Greece the long divided day?
Too much has Troy already felt thy hate,
Now breathe thy rage, and hush the stern debate;
This day, the business of the field suspend;
War soon shall kindle, and great Ilion bend;
Since vengeful goddesses confederate join
To raze her walls, though built by hands divine.”

To whom the progeny of Jove replies:
“I left, for this, the council of the skies:
But who shall bid conflicting hosts forbear,
What art shall calm the furious sons of war?”
To her the god: “Great Hector’s soul incite
To dare the boldest Greek to single fight,
Till Greece, provoked, from all her numbers show
A warrior worthy to be Hector’s foe.”

At this agreed, the heavenly powers withdrew;
Sage Helenus their secret counsels knew;
Hector, inspired, he sought: to him address’d,
Thus told the dictates of his sacred breast:
“O son of Priam! let thy faithful ear
Receive my words: thy friend and brother hear!
Go forth persuasive, and a while engage
The warring nations to suspend their rage;
Then dare the boldest of the hostile train
To mortal combat on the listed plain.
For not this day shall end thy glorious date;
The gods have spoke it, and their voice is fate.”

He said: the warrior heard the word with joy;
Then with his spear restrain’d the youth of Troy,
Held by the midst athwart. On either hand
The squadrons part; the expecting Trojans stand;
Great Agamemnon bids the Greeks forbear:
They breathe, and hush the tumult of the war.
The Athenian maid,[178] and glorious god of day,
With silent joy the settling hosts survey:
In form of vultures, on the beech’s height
They sit conceal’d, and wait the future fight.

The thronging troops obscure the dusky fields,
Horrid with bristling spears, and gleaming shields.
As when a general darkness veils the main,
(Soft Zephyr curling the wide wat’ry plain,)
The waves scarce heave, the face of ocean sleeps,
And a still horror saddens all the deeps;
Thus in thick orders settling wide around,
At length composed they sit, and shade the ground.
Great Hector first amidst both armies broke
The solemn silence, and their powers bespoke:

“Hear, all ye Trojan, all ye Grecian bands,
What my soul prompts, and what some god commands.
Great Jove, averse our warfare to compose,
O’erwhelms the nations with new toils and woes;
War with a fiercer tide once more returns,
Till Ilion falls, or till yon navy burns.
You then, O princes of the Greeks! appear;
’Tis Hector speaks, and calls the gods to hear:
From all your troops select the boldest knight,
And him, the boldest, Hector dares to fight.
Here if I fall, by chance of battle slain,
Be his my spoil, and his these arms remain;
But let my body, to my friends return’d,
By Trojan hands and Trojan flames be burn’d.
And if Apollo, in whose aid I trust,
Shall stretch your daring champion in the dust;
If mine the glory to despoil the foe;
On Phœbus’ temple I’ll his arms bestow:
The breathless carcase to your navy sent,
Greece on the shore shall raise a monument;
Which when some future mariner surveys,
Wash’d by broad Hellespont’s resounding seas,
Thus shall he say, ‘A valiant Greek lies there,
By Hector slain, the mighty man of war,’
The stone shall tell your vanquish’d hero’s name
And distant ages learn the victor’s fame.”

This fierce defiance Greece astonish’d heard,
Blush’d to refuse, and to accept it fear’d.
Stern Menelaus first the silence broke,
And, inly groaning, thus opprobrious spoke:

“Women of Greece! O scandal of your race,
Whose coward souls your manly form disgrace,
How great the shame, when every age shall know
That not a Grecian met this noble foe!
Go then! resolve to earth, from whence ye grew,
A heartless, spiritless, inglorious crew!
Be what ye seem, unanimated clay,
Myself will dare the danger of the day;
’Tis man’s bold task the generous strife to try,
But in the hands of God is victory.”

These words scarce spoke, with generous ardour press’d,
His manly limbs in azure arms he dress’d.
That day, Atrides! a superior hand
Had stretch’d thee breathless on the hostile strand;
But all at once, thy fury to compose,
The kings of Greece, an awful band, arose;
Even he their chief, great Agamemnon, press’d
Thy daring hand, and this advice address’d:
“Whither, O Menelaus! wouldst thou run,
And tempt a fate which prudence bids thee shun?
Grieved though thou art, forbear the rash design;
Great Hector’s arm is mightier far than thine:
Even fierce Achilles learn’d its force to fear,
And trembling met this dreadful son of war.
Sit thou secure, amidst thy social band;
Greece in our cause shall arm some powerful hand.
The mightiest warrior of the Achaian name,
Though bold and burning with desire of fame,
Content the doubtful honour might forego,
So great the danger, and so brave the foe.”

He said, and turn’d his brother’s vengeful mind;
He stoop’d to reason, and his rage resign’d,
No longer bent to rush on certain harms;
His joyful friends unbrace his azure arms.

He from whose lips divine persuasion flows,
Grave Nestor, then, in graceful act arose;
Thus to the kings he spoke: “What grief, what shame
Attend on Greece, and all the Grecian name!
How shall, alas! her hoary heroes mourn
Their sons degenerate, and their race a scorn!
What tears shall down thy silvery beard be roll’d,
O Peleus, old in arms, in wisdom old!
Once with what joy the generous prince would hear
Of every chief who fought this glorious war,
Participate their fame, and pleased inquire
Each name, each action, and each hero’s sire!
Gods! should he see our warriors trembling stand,
And trembling all before one hostile hand;
How would he lift his aged arms on high,
Lament inglorious Greece, and beg to die!
Oh! would to all the immortal powers above,
Minerva, Phœbus, and almighty Jove!
Years might again roll back, my youth renew,
And give this arm the spring which once it knew
When fierce in war, where Jardan’s waters fall,
I led my troops to Phea’s trembling wall,
And with the Arcadian spears my prowess tried,
Where Celadon rolls down his rapid tide.[179]
There Ereuthalion braved us in the field,
Proud Areithous’ dreadful arms to wield;
Great Areithous, known from shore to shore
By the huge, knotted, iron mace he bore;
No lance he shook, nor bent the twanging bow,
But broke, with this, the battle of the foe.
Him not by manly force Lycurgus slew,
Whose guileful javelin from the thicket flew,
Deep in a winding way his breast assailed,
Nor aught the warrior’s thundering mace avail’d.
Supine he fell: those arms which Mars before
Had given the vanquish’d, now the victor bore:
But when old age had dimm’d Lycurgus’ eyes,
To Ereuthalion he consign’d the prize.
Furious with this he crush’d our levell’d bands,
And dared the trial of the strongest hands;
Nor could the strongest hands his fury stay:
All saw, and fear’d, his huge tempestuous sway
Till I, the youngest of the host, appear’d,
And, youngest, met whom all our army fear’d.
I fought the chief: my arms Minerva crown’d:
Prone fell the giant o’er a length of ground.
What then I was, O were your Nestor now!
Not Hector’s self should want an equal foe.
But, warriors, you that youthful vigour boast,
The flower of Greece, the examples of our host,
Sprung from such fathers, who such numbers sway,
Can you stand trembling, and desert the day?”

His warm reproofs the listening kings inflame;
And nine, the noblest of the Grecian name,
Up-started fierce: but far before the rest
The king of men advanced his dauntless breast:
Then bold Tydides, great in arms, appear’d;
And next his bulk gigantic Ajax rear’d;
Oïleus follow’d; Idomen was there,[180]
And Merion, dreadful as the god of war:
With these Eurypylus and Thoas stand,
And wise Ulysses closed the daring band.
All these, alike inspired with noble rage,
Demand the fight. To whom the Pylian sage:

“Lest thirst of glory your brave souls divide,
What chief shall combat, let the gods decide.
Whom heaven shall choose, be his the chance to raise
His country’s fame, his own immortal praise.”

The lots produced, each hero signs his own:
Then in the general’s helm the fates are thrown,[181]
The people pray, with lifted eyes and hands,
And vows like these ascend from all the bands:
“Grant, thou Almighty! in whose hand is fate,
A worthy champion for the Grecian state:
This task let Ajax or Tydides prove,
Or he, the king of kings, beloved by Jove.”
Old Nestor shook the casque. By heaven inspired,
Leap’d forth the lot, of every Greek desired.
This from the right to left the herald bears,
Held out in order to the Grecian peers;
Each to his rival yields the mark unknown,
Till godlike Ajax finds the lot his own;
Surveys the inscription with rejoicing eyes,
Then casts before him, and with transport cries:

“Warriors! I claim the lot, and arm with joy;
Be mine the conquest of this chief of Troy.
Now while my brightest arms my limbs invest,
To Saturn’s son be all your vows address’d:
But pray in secret, lest the foes should hear,
And deem your prayers the mean effect of fear.
Said I in secret? No, your vows declare
In such a voice as fills the earth and air,
Lives there a chief whom Ajax ought to dread?
Ajax, in all the toils of battle bred!
From warlike Salamis I drew my birth,
And, born to combats, fear no force on earth.”

He said. The troops with elevated eyes,
Implore the god whose thunder rends the skies:
“O father of mankind, superior lord!
On lofty Ida’s holy hill adored:
Who in the highest heaven hast fix’d thy throne,
Supreme of gods! unbounded and alone:
Grant thou, that Telamon may bear away
The praise and conquest of this doubtful day;
Or, if illustrious Hector be thy care,
That both may claim it, and that both may share.”

Now Ajax braced his dazzling armour on;
Sheathed in bright steel the giant-warrior shone:
He moves to combat with majestic pace;
So stalks in arms the grisly god of Thrace,[182]
When Jove to punish faithless men prepares,
And gives whole nations to the waste of wars,
Thus march’d the chief, tremendous as a god;
Grimly he smiled; earth trembled as he strode:[183]
His massy javelin quivering in his hand,
He stood, the bulwark of the Grecian band.
Through every Argive heart new transport ran;
All Troy stood trembling at the mighty man:
Even Hector paused; and with new doubt oppress’d,
Felt his great heart suspended in his breast:
’Twas vain to seek retreat, and vain to fear;
Himself had challenged, and the foe drew near.

Stern Telamon behind his ample shield,
As from a brazen tower, o’erlook’d the field.
Huge was its orb, with seven thick folds o’ercast,
Of tough bull-hides; of solid brass the last,
(The work of Tychius, who in Hylè dwell’d
And in all arts of armoury excell’d,)
This Ajax bore before his manly breast,
And, threatening, thus his adverse chief address’d:

“Hector! approach my arm, and singly know
What strength thou hast, and what the Grecian foe.
Achilles shuns the fight; yet some there are,
Not void of soul, and not unskill’d in war:
Let him, unactive on the sea-beat shore,
Indulge his wrath, and aid our arms no more;
Whole troops of heroes Greece has yet to boast,
And sends thee one, a sample of her host,
Such as I am, I come to prove thy might;
No more—be sudden, and begin the fight.”

“O son of Telamon, thy country’s pride!
(To Ajax thus the Trojan prince replied)
Me, as a boy, or woman, wouldst thou fright,
New to the field, and trembling at the fight?
Thou meet’st a chief deserving of thy arms,
To combat born, and bred amidst alarms:
I know to shift my ground, remount the car,
Turn, charge, and answer every call of war;
To right, to left, the dexterous lance I wield,
And bear thick battle on my sounding shield;
But open be our fight, and bold each blow;
I steal no conquest from a noble foe.”

He said, and rising, high above the field
Whirl’d the long lance against the sevenfold shield.
Full on the brass descending from above
Through six bull-hides the furious weapon drove,
Till in the seventh it fix’d. Then Ajax threw;
Through Hector’s shield the forceful javelin flew,
His corslet enters, and his garment rends,
And glancing downwards, near his flank descends.
The wary Trojan shrinks, and bending low
Beneath his buckler, disappoints the blow.
From their bored shields the chiefs their javelins drew,
Then close impetuous, and the charge renew;
Fierce as the mountain-lions bathed in blood,
Or foaming boars, the terror of the wood.
At Ajax, Hector his long lance extends;
The blunted point against the buckler bends;
But Ajax, watchful as his foe drew near,
Drove through the Trojan targe the knotty spear;
It reach’d his neck, with matchless strength impell’d!
Spouts the black gore, and dims his shining shield.
Yet ceased not Hector thus; but stooping down,
In his strong hand up-heaved a flinty stone,
Black, craggy, vast: to this his force he bends;
Full on the brazen boss the stone descends;
The hollow brass resounded with the shock:
Then Ajax seized the fragment of a rock,
Applied each nerve, and swinging round on high,
With force tempestuous, let the ruin fly;
The huge stone thundering through his buckler broke:
His slacken’d knees received the numbing stroke;
Great Hector falls extended on the field,
His bulk supporting on the shatter’d shield:
Nor wanted heavenly aid: Apollo’s might
Confirm’d his sinews, and restored to fight.
And now both heroes their broad falchions drew
In flaming circles round their heads they flew;
But then by heralds’ voice the word was given.
The sacred ministers of earth and heaven:
Divine Talthybius, whom the Greeks employ,
And sage Idæus on the part of Troy,
Between the swords their peaceful sceptres rear’d;
And first Idæus’ awful voice was heard:


[Illustration: ] HECTOR AND AJAX SEPARATED BY THE HERALDS


“Forbear, my sons! your further force to prove,
Both dear to men, and both beloved of Jove.
To either host your matchless worth is known,
Each sounds your praise, and war is all your own.
But now the Night extends her awful shade;
The goddess parts you; be the night obey’d.”[184]

To whom great Ajax his high soul express’d:
“O sage! to Hector be these words address’d.
Let him, who first provoked our chiefs to fight,
Let him demand the sanction of the night;
If first he ask’d it, I content obey,
And cease the strife when Hector shows the way.”

“O first of Greeks! (his noble foe rejoin’d)
Whom heaven adorns, superior to thy kind,
With strength of body, and with worth of mind!
Now martial law commands us to forbear;
Hereafter we shall meet in glorious war,
Some future day shall lengthen out the strife,
And let the gods decide of death or life!
Since, then, the night extends her gloomy shade,
And heaven enjoins it, be the night obey’d.
Return, brave Ajax, to thy Grecian friends,
And joy the nations whom thy arm defends;
As I shall glad each chief, and Trojan wife,
Who wearies heaven with vows for Hector’s life.
But let us, on this memorable day,
Exchange some gift: that Greece and Troy may say,
‘Not hate, but glory, made these chiefs contend;
And each brave foe was in his soul a friend.’”

With that, a sword with stars of silver graced,
The baldric studded, and the sheath enchased,
He gave the Greek. The generous Greek bestow’d
A radiant belt that rich with purple glow’d.
Then with majestic grace they quit the plain;
This seeks the Grecian, that the Phrygian train.

The Trojan bands returning Hector wait,
And hail with joy the Champion of their state;
Escaped great Ajax, they survey him round,
Alive, unarm’d, and vigorous from his wound;
To Troy’s high gates the godlike man they bear
Their present triumph, as their late despair.

But Ajax, glorying in his hardy deed,
The well-arm’d Greeks to Agamemnon lead.
A steer for sacrifice the king design’d,
Of full five years, and of the nobler kind.
The victim falls; they strip the smoking hide,
The beast they quarter, and the joints divide;
Then spread the tables, the repast prepare,
Each takes his seat, and each receives his share.
The king himself (an honorary sign)
Before great Ajax placed the mighty chine.[185]
When now the rage of hunger was removed,
Nestor, in each persuasive art approved,
The sage whose counsels long had sway’d the rest,
In words like these his prudent thought express’d:

“How dear, O kings! this fatal day has cost,
What Greeks are perish’d! what a people lost!
What tides of blood have drench’d Scamander’s shore!
What crowds of heroes sunk to rise no more!
Then hear me, chief! nor let the morrow’s light
Awake thy squadrons to new toils of fight:
Some space at least permit the war to breathe,
While we to flames our slaughter’d friends bequeath,
From the red field their scatter’d bodies bear,
And nigh the fleet a funeral structure rear;
So decent urns their snowy bones may keep,
And pious children o’er their ashes weep.
Here, where on one promiscuous pile they blazed,
High o’er them all a general tomb be raised;
Next, to secure our camp and naval powers,
Raise an embattled wall, with lofty towers;
From space to space be ample gates around,
For passing chariots; and a trench profound.
So Greece to combat shall in safety go,
Nor fear the fierce incursions of the foe.”
’Twas thus the sage his wholesome counsel moved;
The sceptred kings of Greece his words approved.

Meanwhile, convened at Priam’s palace-gate,
The Trojan peers in nightly council sate;
A senate void of order, as of choice:
Their hearts were fearful, and confused their voice.
Antenor, rising, thus demands their ear:
“Ye Trojans, Dardans, and auxiliars, hear!
’Tis heaven the counsel of my breast inspires,
And I but move what every god requires:
Let Sparta’s treasures be this hour restored,
And Argive Helen own her ancient lord.
The ties of faith, the sworn alliance, broke,
Our impious battles the just gods provoke.
As this advice ye practise, or reject,
So hope success, or dread the dire effect.”

The senior spoke and sate. To whom replied
The graceful husband of the Spartan bride:
“Cold counsels, Trojan, may become thy years
But sound ungrateful in a warrior’s ears:
Old man, if void of fallacy or art,
Thy words express the purpose of thy heart,
Thou, in thy time, more sound advice hast given;
But wisdom has its date, assign’d by heaven.
Then hear me, princes of the Trojan name!
Their treasures I’ll restore, but not the dame;
My treasures too, for peace, I will resign;
But be this bright possession ever mine.”

’Twas then, the growing discord to compose,
Slow from his seat the reverend Priam rose:
His godlike aspect deep attention drew:
He paused, and these pacific words ensue:

“Ye Trojans, Dardans, and auxiliar bands!
Now take refreshment as the hour demands;
Guard well the walls, relieve the watch of night.
Till the new sun restores the cheerful light.
Then shall our herald, to the Atrides sent,
Before their ships proclaim my son’s intent.
Next let a truce be ask’d, that Troy may burn
Her slaughter’d heroes, and their bones inurn;
That done, once more the fate of war be tried,
And whose the conquest, mighty Jove decide!”

The monarch spoke: the warriors snatch’d with haste
(Each at his post in arms) a short repast.
Soon as the rosy morn had waked the day,
To the black ships Idæus bent his way;
There, to the sons of Mars, in council found,
He raised his voice: the host stood listening round.

“Ye sons of Atreus, and ye Greeks, give ear!
The words of Troy, and Troy’s great monarch, hear.
Pleased may ye hear (so heaven succeed my prayers)
What Paris, author of the war, declares.
The spoils and treasures he to Ilion bore
(Oh had he perish’d ere they touch’d our shore!)
He proffers injured Greece: with large increase
Of added Trojan wealth to buy the peace.
But to restore the beauteous bride again,
This Greece demands, and Troy requests in vain.
Next, O ye chiefs! we ask a truce to burn
Our slaughter’d heroes, and their bones inurn.
That done, once more the fate of war be tried,
And whose the conquest, mighty Jove decide!”

The Greeks gave ear, but none the silence broke;
At length Tydides rose, and rising spoke:
“Oh, take not, friends! defrauded of your fame,
Their proffer’d wealth, nor even the Spartan dame.
Let conquest make them ours: fate shakes their wall,
And Troy already totters to her fall.”

The admiring chiefs, and all the Grecian name,
With general shouts return’d him loud acclaim.
Then thus the king of kings rejects the peace:
“Herald! in him thou hear’st the voice of Greece
For what remains; let funeral flames be fed
With heroes’ corps: I war not with the dead:
Go search your slaughtered chiefs on yonder plain,
And gratify the manes of the slain.
Be witness, Jove, whose thunder rolls on high!”
He said, and rear’d his sceptre to the sky.

To sacred Troy, where all her princes lay
To wait the event, the herald bent his way.
He came, and standing in the midst, explain’d
The peace rejected, but the truce obtain’d.
Straight to their several cares the Trojans move,
Some search the plains, some fell the sounding grove:
Nor less the Greeks, descending on the shore,
Hew’d the green forests, and the bodies bore.
And now from forth the chambers of the main,
To shed his sacred light on earth again,
Arose the golden chariot of the day,
And tipp’d the mountains with a purple ray.
In mingled throngs the Greek and Trojan train
Through heaps of carnage search’d the mournful plain.
Scarce could the friend his slaughter’d friend explore,
With dust dishonour’d, and deformed with gore.
The wounds they wash’d, their pious tears they shed,
And, laid along their cars, deplored the dead.
Sage Priam check’d their grief: with silent haste
The bodies decent on the piles were placed:
With melting hearts the cold remains they burn’d,
And, sadly slow, to sacred Troy return’d.
Nor less the Greeks their pious sorrows shed,
And decent on the pile dispose the dead;
The cold remains consume with equal care;
And slowly, sadly, to their fleet repair.
Now, ere the morn had streak’d with reddening light
The doubtful confines of the day and night,
About the dying flames the Greeks appear’d,
And round the pile a general tomb they rear’d.
Then, to secure the camp and naval powers,
They raised embattled walls with lofty towers:[186]
From space to space were ample gates around,
For passing chariots, and a trench profound
Of large extent; and deep in earth below,
Strong piles infix’d stood adverse to the foe.

So toil’d the Greeks: meanwhile the gods above,
In shining circle round their father Jove,
Amazed beheld the wondrous works of man:
Then he, whose trident shakes the earth, began:

“What mortals henceforth shall our power adore,
Our fanes frequent, our oracles implore,
If the proud Grecians thus successful boast
Their rising bulwarks on the sea-beat coast?
See the long walls extending to the main,
No god consulted, and no victim slain!
Their fame shall fill the world’s remotest ends,
Wide as the morn her golden beam extends;
While old Laomedon’s divine abodes,
Those radiant structures raised by labouring gods,
Shall, razed and lost, in long oblivion sleep.”
Thus spoke the hoary monarch of the deep.

The almighty Thunderer with a frown replies,
That clouds the world, and blackens half the skies:
“Strong god of ocean! thou, whose rage can make
The solid earth’s eternal basis shake!
What cause of fear from mortal works could move[187]
The meanest subject of our realms above?
Where’er the sun’s refulgent rays are cast,
Thy power is honour’d, and thy fame shall last.
But yon proud work no future age shall view,
No trace remain where once the glory grew.
The sapp’d foundations by thy force shall fall,
And, whelm’d beneath the waves, drop the huge wall:
Vast drifts of sand shall change the former shore:
The ruin vanish’d, and the name no more.”

Thus they in heaven: while, o’er the Grecian train,
The rolling sun descending to the main
Beheld the finish’d work. Their bulls they slew;
Back from the tents the savoury vapour flew.
And now the fleet, arrived from Lemnos’ strands,
With Bacchus’ blessings cheered the generous bands.
Of fragrant wines the rich Eunaeus sent
A thousant measures to the royal tent.
(Eunaeus, whom Hypsipyle of yore
To Jason, shepherd of his people, bore,)
The rest they purchased at their proper cost,
And well the plenteous freight supplied the host:
Each, in exchange, proportion’d treasures gave;[188]
Some, brass or iron; some, an ox, or slave.
All night they feast, the Greek and Trojan powers:
Those on the fields, and these within their towers.
But Jove averse the signs of wrath display’d,
And shot red lightnings through the gloomy shade:
Humbled they stood; pale horror seized on all,
While the deep thunder shook the aerial hall.
Each pour’d to Jove before the bowl was crown’d;
And large libations drench’d the thirsty ground:
Then late, refresh’d with sleep from toils of fight,
Enjoy’d the balmy blessings of the night.


[Illustration: ] GREEK AMPHORA—WINE VESSELS




BOOK VIII.


ARGUMENT.


THE SECOND BATTLE, AND THE DISTRESS OF THE GREEKS.


Jupiter assembles a council of the deities, and threatens them with the
pains of Tartarus if they assist either side: Minerva only obtains of
him that she may direct the Greeks by her counsels. The armies join
battle: Jupiter on Mount Ida weighs in his balances the fates of both,
and affrights the Greeks with his thunders and lightnings. Nestor alone
continues in the field in great danger: Diomed relieves him; whose
exploits, and those of Hector, are excellently described. Juno
endeavours to animate Neptune to the assistance of the Greeks, but in
vain. The acts of Teucer, who is at length wounded by Hector, and
carried off. Juno and Minerva prepare to aid the Grecians, but are
restrained by Iris, sent from Jupiter. The night puts an end to the
battle. Hector continues in the field, (the Greeks being driven to
their fortifications before the ships,) and gives orders to keep the
watch all night in the camp, to prevent the enemy from re-embarking and
escaping by flight. They kindle fires through all the fields, and pass
the night under arms.
    The time of seven and twenty days is employed from the opening of
    the poem to the end of this book. The scene here (except of the
    celestial machines) lies in the field towards the seashore.


Aurora now, fair daughter of the dawn,
Sprinkled with rosy light the dewy lawn;
When Jove convened the senate of the skies,
Where high Olympus’ cloudy tops arise,
The sire of gods his awful silence broke;
The heavens attentive trembled as he spoke:[189]

“Celestial states! immortal gods! give ear,
Hear our decree, and reverence what ye hear;
The fix’d decree which not all heaven can move;
Thou, fate! fulfil it! and, ye powers, approve!
What god but enters yon forbidden field,
Who yields assistance, or but wills to yield,
Back to the skies with shame he shall be driven,
Gash’d with dishonest wounds, the scorn of heaven;
Or far, oh far, from steep Olympus thrown,
Low in the dark Tartarean gulf shall groan,
With burning chains fix’d to the brazen floors,
And lock’d by hell’s inexorable doors;
As deep beneath the infernal centre hurl’d,[190]
As from that centre to the ethereal world.
Let him who tempts me, dread those dire abodes:
And know, the Almighty is the god of gods.
League all your forces, then, ye powers above,
Join all, and try the omnipotence of Jove.
Let down our golden everlasting chain[191]
Whose strong embrace holds heaven, and earth, and main
Strive all, of mortal and immortal birth,
To drag, by this, the Thunderer down to earth:
Ye strive in vain! if I but stretch this hand,
I heave the gods, the ocean, and the land;
I fix the chain to great Olympus’ height,
And the vast world hangs trembling in my sight!
For such I reign, unbounded and above;
And such are men, and gods, compared to Jove.”

The all-mighty spoke, nor durst the powers reply:
A reverend horror silenced all the sky;
Trembling they stood before their sovereign’s look;
At length his best-beloved, the power of wisdom, spoke:

“O first and greatest! God, by gods adored
We own thy might, our father and our lord!
But, ah! permit to pity human state:
If not to help, at least lament their fate.
From fields forbidden we submiss refrain,
With arms unaiding mourn our Argives slain;
Yet grant my counsels still their breasts may move,
Or all must perish in the wrath of Jove.”

The cloud-compelling god her suit approved,
And smiled superior on his best beloved;
Then call’d his coursers, and his chariot took;
The stedfast firmament beneath them shook:
Rapt by the ethereal steeds the chariot roll’d;
Brass were their hoofs, their curling manes of gold:
Of heaven’s undrossy gold the gods array,
Refulgent, flash’d intolerable day.
High on the throne he shines: his coursers fly
Between the extended earth and starry sky.
But when to Ida’s topmost height he came,
(Fair nurse of fountains, and of savage game,)
Where o’er her pointed summits proudly raised,
His fane breathed odours, and his altar blazed:
There, from his radiant car, the sacred sire
Of gods and men released the steeds of fire:
Blue ambient mists the immortal steeds embraced;
High on the cloudy point his seat he placed;
Thence his broad eye the subject world surveys,
The town, and tents, and navigable seas.

Now had the Grecians snatch’d a short repast,
And buckled on their shining arms with haste.
Troy roused as soon; for on this dreadful day
The fate of fathers, wives, and infants lay.
The gates unfolding pour forth all their train;
Squadrons on squadrons cloud the dusky plain:
Men, steeds, and chariots shake the trembling ground,
The tumult thickens, and the skies resound;
And now with shouts the shocking armies closed,
To lances lances, shields to shields opposed,
Host against host with shadowy legends drew,
The sounding darts in iron tempests flew;
Victors and vanquish’d join promiscuous cries,
Triumphant shouts and dying groans arise;
With streaming blood the slippery fields are dyed,
And slaughter’d heroes swell the dreadful tide.
Long as the morning beams, increasing bright,
O’er heaven’s clear azure spread the sacred light,
Commutual death the fate of war confounds,
Each adverse battle gored with equal wounds.
But when the sun the height of heaven ascends,
The sire of gods his golden scales suspends,[192]
With equal hand: in these explored the fate
Of Greece and Troy, and poised the mighty weight:
Press’d with its load, the Grecian balance lies
Low sunk on earth, the Trojan strikes the skies.
Then Jove from Ida’s top his horrors spreads;
The clouds burst dreadful o’er the Grecian heads;
Thick lightnings flash; the muttering thunder rolls;
Their strength he withers, and unmans their souls.
Before his wrath the trembling hosts retire;
The gods in terrors, and the skies on fire.
Nor great Idomeneus that sight could bear,
Nor each stern Ajax, thunderbolts of war:
Nor he, the king of war, the alarm sustain’d
Nestor alone, amidst the storm remain’d.
Unwilling he remain’d, for Paris’ dart
Had pierced his courser in a mortal part;
Fix’d in the forehead, where the springing mane
Curl’d o’er the brow, it stung him to the brain;
Mad with his anguish, he begins to rear,
Paw with his hoofs aloft, and lash the air.
Scarce had his falchion cut the reins, and freed
The encumber’d chariot from the dying steed,
When dreadful Hector, thundering through the war,
Pour’d to the tumult on his whirling car.
That day had stretch’d beneath his matchless hand
The hoary monarch of the Pylian band,
But Diomed beheld; from forth the crowd
He rush’d, and on Ulysses call’d aloud:

“Whither, oh whither does Ulysses run?
Oh, flight unworthy great Laertes’ son!
Mix’d with the vulgar shall thy fate be found,
Pierced in the back, a vile, dishonest wound?
Oh turn and save from Hector’s direful rage
The glory of the Greeks, the Pylian sage.”
His fruitless words are lost unheard in air,
Ulysses seeks the ships, and shelters there.
But bold Tydides to the rescue goes,
A single warrior midst a host of foes;
Before the coursers with a sudden spring
He leap’d, and anxious thus bespoke the king:

“Great perils, father! wait the unequal fight;
These younger champions will oppress thy might.
Thy veins no more with ancient vigour glow,
Weak is thy servant, and thy coursers slow.
Then haste, ascend my seat, and from the car
Observe the steeds of Tros, renown’d in war.
Practised alike to turn, to stop, to chase,
To dare the fight, or urge the rapid race:
These late obey’d Æneas’ guiding rein;
Leave thou thy chariot to our faithful train;
With these against yon Trojans will we go,
Nor shall great Hector want an equal foe;
Fierce as he is, even he may learn to fear
The thirsty fury of my flying spear.”

Thus said the chief; and Nestor, skill’d in war,
Approves his counsel, and ascends the car:
The steeds he left, their trusty servants hold;
Eurymedon, and Sthenelus the bold:
The reverend charioteer directs the course,
And strains his aged arm to lash the horse.
Hector they face; unknowing how to fear,
Fierce he drove on; Tydides whirl’d his spear.
The spear with erring haste mistook its way,
But plunged in Eniopeus’ bosom lay.
His opening hand in death forsakes the rein;
The steeds fly back: he falls, and spurns the plain.
Great Hector sorrows for his servant kill’d,
Yet unrevenged permits to press the field;
Till, to supply his place and rule the car,
Rose Archeptolemus, the fierce in war.
And now had death and horror cover’d all;[193]
Like timorous flocks the Trojans in their wall
Inclosed had bled: but Jove with awful sound
Roll’d the big thunder o’er the vast profound:
Full in Tydides’ face the lightning flew;
The ground before him flamed with sulphur blue;
The quivering steeds fell prostrate at the sight;
And Nestor’s trembling hand confess’d his fright:
He dropp’d the reins: and, shook with sacred dread,
Thus, turning, warn’d the intrepid Diomed:

“O chief! too daring in thy friend’s defence
Retire advised, and urge the chariot hence.
This day, averse, the sovereign of the skies
Assists great Hector, and our palm denies.
Some other sun may see the happier hour,
When Greece shall conquer by his heavenly power.
’Tis not in man his fix’d decree to move:
The great will glory to submit to Jove.”

“O reverend prince! (Tydides thus replies)
Thy years are awful, and thy words are wise.
But ah, what grief! should haughty Hector boast
I fled inglorious to the guarded coast.
Before that dire disgrace shall blast my fame,
O’erwhelm me, earth; and hide a warrior’s shame!”
To whom Gerenian Nestor thus replied:[194]
“Gods! can thy courage fear the Phrygian’s pride?
Hector may vaunt, but who shall heed the boast?
Not those who felt thy arm, the Dardan host,
Nor Troy, yet bleeding in her heroes lost;
Not even a Phrygian dame, who dreads the sword
That laid in dust her loved, lamented lord.”
He said, and, hasty, o’er the gasping throng
Drives the swift steeds: the chariot smokes along;
The shouts of Trojans thicken in the wind;
The storm of hissing javelins pours behind.
Then with a voice that shakes the solid skies,
Pleased, Hector braves the warrior as he flies.
“Go, mighty hero! graced above the rest
In seats of council and the sumptuous feast:
Now hope no more those honours from thy train;
Go less than woman, in the form of man!
To scale our walls, to wrap our towers in flames,
To lead in exile the fair Phrygian dames,
Thy once proud hopes, presumptuous prince! are fled;
This arm shall reach thy heart, and stretch thee dead.”

Now fears dissuade him, and now hopes invite.
To stop his coursers, and to stand the fight;
Thrice turn’d the chief, and thrice imperial Jove
On Ida’s summits thunder’d from above.
Great Hector heard; he saw the flashing light,
(The sign of conquest,) and thus urged the fight:

“Hear, every Trojan, Lycian, Dardan band,
All famed in war, and dreadful hand to hand.
Be mindful of the wreaths your arms have won,
Your great forefathers’ glories, and your own.
Heard ye the voice of Jove? Success and fame
Await on Troy, on Greece eternal shame.
In vain they skulk behind their boasted wall,
Weak bulwarks; destined by this arm to fall.
High o’er their slighted trench our steeds shall bound,
And pass victorious o’er the levell’d mound.
Soon as before yon hollow ships we stand,
Fight each with flames, and toss the blazing brand;
Till, their proud navy wrapt in smoke and fires,
All Greece, encompass’d, in one blaze expires.”

Furious he said; then bending o’er the yoke,
Encouraged his proud steeds, while thus he spoke:

“Now, Xanthus, Æthon, Lampus, urge the chase,
And thou, Podargus! prove thy generous race;
Be fleet, be fearless, this important day,
And all your master’s well-spent care repay.
For this, high-fed, in plenteous stalls ye stand,
Served with pure wheat, and by a princess’ hand;
For this my spouse, of great Aëtion’s line,
So oft has steep’d the strengthening grain in wine.
Now swift pursue, now thunder uncontroll’d:
Give me to seize rich Nestor’s shield of gold;
From Tydeus’ shoulders strip the costly load,
Vulcanian arms, the labour of a god:
These if we gain, then victory, ye powers!
This night, this glorious night, the fleet is ours!”

That heard, deep anguish stung Saturnia’s soul;
She shook her throne, that shook the starry pole:
And thus to Neptune: “Thou, whose force can make
The stedfast earth from her foundations shake,
Seest thou the Greeks by fates unjust oppress’d,
Nor swells thy heart in that immortal breast?
Yet Ægae, Helicè, thy power obey,[195]
And gifts unceasing on thine altars lay.
Would all the deities of Greece combine,
In vain the gloomy Thunderer might repine:
Sole should he sit, with scarce a god to friend,
And see his Trojans to the shades descend:
Such be the scene from his Idaean bower;
Ungrateful prospect to the sullen power!”

Neptune with wrath rejects the rash design:
“What rage, what madness, furious queen! is thine?
I war not with the highest. All above
Submit and tremble at the hand of Jove.”

Now godlike Hector, to whose matchless might
Jove gave the glory of the destined fight,
Squadrons on squadrons drives, and fills the fields
With close-ranged chariots, and with thicken’d shields.
Where the deep trench in length extended lay,
Compacted troops stand wedged in firm array,
A dreadful front! they shake the brands, and threat
With long-destroying flames the hostile fleet.
The king of men, by Juno’s self inspired,
Toil’d through the tents, and all his army fired.
Swift as he moved, he lifted in his hand
His purple robe, bright ensign of command.
High on the midmost bark the king appear’d:
There, from Ulysses’ deck, his voice was heard:
To Ajax and Achilles reach’d the sound,
Whose distant ships the guarded navy bound.
“O Argives! shame of human race! (he cried:
The hollow vessels to his voice replied,)
Where now are all your glorious boasts of yore,
Your hasty triumphs on the Lemnian shore?
Each fearless hero dares a hundred foes,
While the feast lasts, and while the goblet flows;
But who to meet one martial man is found,
When the fight rages, and the flames surround?
O mighty Jove! O sire of the distress’d!
Was ever king like me, like me oppress’d?
With power immense, with justice arm’d in vain;
My glory ravish’d, and my people slain!
To thee my vows were breathed from every shore;
What altar smoked not with our victims’ gore?
With fat of bulls I fed the constant flame,
And ask’d destruction to the Trojan name.
Now, gracious god! far humbler our demand;
Give these at least to ’scape from Hector’s hand,
And save the relics of the Grecian land!”

Thus pray’d the king, and heaven’s great father heard
His vows, in bitterness of soul preferr’d:
The wrath appeased, by happy signs declares,
And gives the people to their monarch’s prayers.
His eagle, sacred bird of heaven! he sent,
A fawn his talons truss’d, (divine portent!)
High o’er the wondering hosts he soar’d above,
Who paid their vows to Panomphaean Jove;
Then let the prey before his altar fall;
The Greeks beheld, and transport seized on all:
Encouraged by the sign, the troops revive,
And fierce on Troy with doubled fury drive.
Tydides first, of all the Grecian force,
O’er the broad ditch impell’d his foaming horse,
Pierced the deep ranks, their strongest battle tore,
And dyed his javelin red with Trojan gore.
Young Agelaus (Phradmon was his sire)
With flying coursers shunn’d his dreadful ire;
Struck through the back, the Phrygian fell oppress’d;
The dart drove on, and issued at his breast:
Headlong he quits the car: his arms resound;
His ponderous buckler thunders on the ground.
Forth rush a tide of Greeks, the passage freed;
The Atridae first, the Ajaces next succeed:
Meriones, like Mars in arms renown’d,
And godlike Idomen, now passed the mound;
Evaemon’s son next issues to the foe,
And last young Teucer with his bended bow.
Secure behind the Telamonian shield
The skilful archer wide survey’d the field,
With every shaft some hostile victim slew,
Then close beneath the sevenfold orb withdrew:
The conscious infant so, when fear alarms,
Retires for safety to the mother’s arms.
Thus Ajax guards his brother in the field,
Moves as he moves, and turns the shining shield.
Who first by Teucer’s mortal arrows bled?
Orsilochus; then fell Ormenus dead:
The godlike Lycophon next press’d the plain,
With Chromius, Daetor, Ophelestes slain:
Bold Hamopaon breathless sunk to ground;
The bloody pile great Melanippus crown’d.
Heaps fell on heaps, sad trophies of his art,
A Trojan ghost attending every dart.
Great Agamemnon views with joyful eye
The ranks grow thinner as his arrows fly:
“O youth forever dear! (the monarch cried)
Thus, always thus, thy early worth be tried;
Thy brave example shall retrieve our host,
Thy country’s saviour, and thy father’s boast!
Sprung from an alien’s bed thy sire to grace,
The vigorous offspring of a stolen embrace:
Proud of his boy, he own’d the generous flame,
And the brave son repays his cares with fame.
Now hear a monarch’s vow: If heaven’s high powers
Give me to raze Troy’s long-defended towers;
Whatever treasures Greece for me design,
The next rich honorary gift be thine:
Some golden tripod, or distinguished car,
With coursers dreadful in the ranks of war:
Or some fair captive, whom thy eyes approve,
Shall recompense the warrior’s toils with love.”

To this the chief: “With praise the rest inspire,
Nor urge a soul already fill’d with fire.
What strength I have, be now in battle tried,
Till every shaft in Phrygian blood be dyed.
Since rallying from our wall we forced the foe,
Still aim’d at Hector have I bent my bow:
Eight forky arrows from this hand have fled,
And eight bold heroes by their points lie dead:
But sure some god denies me to destroy
This fury of the field, this dog of Troy.”

He said, and twang’d the string. The weapon flies
At Hector’s breast, and sings along the skies:
He miss’d the mark; but pierced Gorgythio’s heart,
And drench’d in royal blood the thirsty dart.
(Fair Castianira, nymph of form divine,
This offspring added to king Priam’s line.)
As full-blown poppies, overcharged with rain,[196]
Decline the head, and drooping kiss the plain;
So sinks the youth: his beauteous head, depress’d
Beneath his helmet, drops upon his breast.
Another shaft the raging archer drew,
That other shaft with erring fury flew,
(From Hector, Phœbus turn’d the flying wound,)
Yet fell not dry or guiltless to the ground:
Thy breast, brave Archeptolemus! it tore,
And dipp’d its feathers in no vulgar gore.
Headlong he falls: his sudden fall alarms
The steeds, that startle at his sounding arms.
Hector with grief his charioteer beheld
All pale and breathless on the sanguine field:
Then bids Cebriones direct the rein,
Quits his bright car, and issues on the plain.
Dreadful he shouts: from earth a stone he took,
And rush’d on Teucer with the lifted rock.
The youth already strain’d the forceful yew;
The shaft already to his shoulder drew;
The feather in his hand, just wing’d for flight,
Touch’d where the neck and hollow chest unite;
There, where the juncture knits the channel bone,
The furious chief discharged the craggy stone:
The bow-string burst beneath the ponderous blow,
And his numb’d hand dismiss’d his useless bow.
He fell: but Ajax his broad shield display’d,
And screen’d his brother with the mighty shade;
Till great Alaster, and Mecistheus, bore
The batter’d archer groaning to the shore.

Troy yet found grace before the Olympian sire,
He arm’d their hands, and fill’d their breasts with fire.
The Greeks repulsed, retreat behind their wall,
Or in the trench on heaps confusedly fall.
First of the foe, great Hector march’d along,
With terror clothed, and more than mortal strong.
As the bold hound, that gives the lion chase,
With beating bosom, and with eager pace,
Hangs on his haunch, or fastens on his heels,
Guards as he turns, and circles as he wheels;
Thus oft the Grecians turn’d, but still they flew;
Thus following, Hector still the hindmost slew.
When flying they had pass’d the trench profound,
And many a chief lay gasping on the ground;
Before the ships a desperate stand they made,
And fired the troops, and called the gods to aid.
Fierce on his rattling chariot Hector came:
His eyes like Gorgon shot a sanguine flame
That wither’d all their host: like Mars he stood:
Dire as the monster, dreadful as the god!
Their strong distress the wife of Jove survey’d;
Then pensive thus, to war’s triumphant maid:

“O daughter of that god, whose arm can wield
The avenging bolt, and shake the sable shield!
Now, in this moment of her last despair,
Shall wretched Greece no more confess our care,
Condemn’d to suffer the full force of fate,
And drain the dregs of heaven’s relentless hate?
Gods! shall one raging hand thus level all?
What numbers fell! what numbers yet shall fall!
What power divine shall Hector’s wrath assuage?
Still swells the slaughter, and still grows the rage!”

So spake the imperial regent of the skies;
To whom the goddess with the azure eyes:

“Long since had Hector stain’d these fields with gore,
Stretch’d by some Argive on his native shore:
But he above, the sire of heaven, withstands,
Mocks our attempts, and slights our just demands;
The stubborn god, inflexible and hard,
Forgets my service and deserved reward:
Saved I, for this, his favourite son distress’d,
By stern Eurystheus with long labours press’d?
He begg’d, with tears he begg’d, in deep dismay;
I shot from heaven, and gave his arm the day.
Oh had my wisdom known this dire event,
When to grim Pluto’s gloomy gates he went;
The triple dog had never felt his chain,
Nor Styx been cross’d, nor hell explored in vain.
Averse to me of all his heaven of gods,
At Thetis’ suit the partial Thunderer nods;
To grace her gloomy, fierce, resenting son,
My hopes are frustrate, and my Greeks undone.
Some future day, perhaps, he may be moved
To call his blue-eyed maid his best beloved.
Haste, launch thy chariot, through yon ranks to ride;
Myself will arm, and thunder at thy side.
Then, goddess! say, shall Hector glory then?
(That terror of the Greeks, that man of men)
When Juno’s self, and Pallas shall appear,
All dreadful in the crimson walks of war!
What mighty Trojan then, on yonder shore,
Expiring, pale, and terrible no more,
Shall feast the fowls, and glut the dogs with gore?”

She ceased, and Juno rein’d the steeds with care:
(Heaven’s awful empress, Saturn’s other heir:)
Pallas, meanwhile, her various veil unbound,
With flowers adorn’d, with art immortal crown’d;
The radiant robe her sacred fingers wove
Floats in rich waves, and spreads the court of Jove.
Her father’s arms her mighty limbs invest,
His cuirass blazes on her ample breast.
The vigorous power the trembling car ascends:
Shook by her arm, the massy javelin bends:
Huge, ponderous, strong! that when her fury burns
Proud tyrants humbles, and whole hosts o’erturns.

Saturnia lends the lash; the coursers fly;
Smooth glides the chariot through the liquid sky.
Heaven’s gates spontaneous open to the powers,
Heaven’s golden gates, kept by the winged Hours.
Commission’d in alternate watch they stand,
The sun’s bright portals and the skies command;
Close, or unfold, the eternal gates of day
Bar heaven with clouds, or roll those clouds away.
The sounding hinges ring, the clouds divide.
Prone down the steep of heaven their course they guide.
But Jove, incensed, from Ida’s top survey’d,
And thus enjoin’d the many-colour’d maid.


[Illustration: ] JUNO AND MINERVA GOING TO ASSIST THE GREEKS


“Thaumantia! mount the winds, and stop their car;
Against the highest who shall wage the war?
If furious yet they dare the vain debate,
Thus have I spoke, and what I speak is fate:
Their coursers crush’d beneath the wheels shall lie,
Their car in fragments, scatter’d o’er the sky:
My lightning these rebellious shall confound,
And hurl them flaming, headlong, to the ground,
Condemn’d for ten revolving years to weep
The wounds impress’d by burning thunder deep.
So shall Minerva learn to fear our ire,
Nor dare to combat hers and nature’s sire.
For Juno, headstrong and imperious still,
She claims some title to transgress our will.”

Swift as the wind, the various-colour’d maid
From Ida’s top her golden wings display’d;
To great Olympus’ shining gate she flies,
There meets the chariot rushing down the skies,
Restrains their progress from the bright abodes,
And speaks the mandate of the sire of gods.

“What frenzy goddesses! what rage can move
Celestial minds to tempt the wrath of Jove?
Desist, obedient to his high command:
This is his word; and know his word shall stand:
His lightning your rebellion shall confound,
And hurl ye headlong, flaming, to the ground;
Your horses crush’d beneath the wheels shall lie,
Your car in fragments scatter’d o’er the sky;
Yourselves condemn’d ten rolling years to weep
The wounds impress’d by burning thunder deep.
So shall Minerva learn to fear his ire,
Nor dare to combat hers and nature’s sire.
For Juno, headstrong and imperious still,
She claims some title to transgress his will:
But thee, what desperate insolence has driven
To lift thy lance against the king of heaven?”

Then, mounting on the pinions of the wind,
She flew; and Juno thus her rage resign’d:

“O daughter of that god, whose arm can wield
The avenging bolt, and shake the saber shield!
No more let beings of superior birth
Contend with Jove for this low race of earth;
Triumphant now, now miserably slain,
They breathe or perish as the fates ordain:
But Jove’s high counsels full effect shall find;
And, ever constant, ever rule mankind.”

She spoke, and backward turn’d her steeds of light,
Adorn’d with manes of gold, and heavenly bright.
The Hours unloosed them, panting as they stood,
And heap’d their mangers with ambrosial food.
There tied, they rest in high celestial stalls;
The chariot propp’d against the crystal walls,
The pensive goddesses, abash’d, controll’d,
Mix with the gods, and fill their seats of gold.


[Illustration: ] THE HOURS TAKING THE HORSES FROM JUNO’S CAR


And now the Thunderer meditates his flight
From Ida’s summits to the Olympian height.
Swifter than thought, the wheels instinctive fly,
Flame through the vast of air, and reach the sky.
’Twas Neptune’s charge his coursers to unbrace,
And fix the car on its immortal base;
There stood the chariot, beaming forth its rays,
Till with a snowy veil he screen’d the blaze.
He, whose all-conscious eyes the world behold,
The eternal Thunderer sat, enthroned in gold.
High heaven the footstool of his feet he makes,
And wide beneath him all Olympus shakes.
Trembling afar the offending powers appear’d,
Confused and silent, for his frown they fear’d.
He saw their soul, and thus his word imparts:
“Pallas and Juno! say, why heave your hearts?
Soon was your battle o’er: proud Troy retired
Before your face, and in your wrath expired.
But know, whoe’er almighty power withstand!
Unmatch’d our force, unconquer’d is our hand:
Who shall the sovereign of the skies control?
Not all the gods that crown the starry pole.
Your hearts shall tremble, if our arms we take,
And each immortal nerve with horror shake.
For thus I speak, and what I speak shall stand;
What power soe’er provokes our lifted hand,
On this our hill no more shall hold his place;
Cut off, and exiled from the ethereal race.”

Juno and Pallas grieving hear the doom,
But feast their souls on Ilion’s woes to come.
Though secret anger swell’d Minerva’s breast,
The prudent goddess yet her wrath repress’d;
But Juno, impotent of rage, replies:
“What hast thou said, O tyrant of the skies!
Strength and omnipotence invest thy throne;
’Tis thine to punish; ours to grieve alone.
For Greece we grieve, abandon’d by her fate
To drink the dregs of thy unmeasured hate.
From fields forbidden we submiss refrain,
With arms unaiding see our Argives slain;
Yet grant our counsels still their breasts may move,
Lest all should perish in the rage of Jove.”

The goddess thus; and thus the god replies,
Who swells the clouds, and blackens all the skies:

“The morning sun, awaked by loud alarms,
Shall see the almighty Thunderer in arms.
What heaps of Argives then shall load the plain,
Those radiant eyes shall view, and view in vain.
Nor shall great Hector cease the rage of fight,
The navy flaming, and thy Greeks in flight,
Even till the day when certain fates ordain
That stern Achilles (his Patroclus slain)
Shall rise in vengeance, and lay waste the plain.
For such is fate, nor canst thou turn its course
With all thy rage, with all thy rebel force.
Fly, if thy wilt, to earth’s remotest bound,
Where on her utmost verge the seas resound;
Where cursed Iapetus and Saturn dwell,
Fast by the brink, within the streams of hell;
No sun e’er gilds the gloomy horrors there;
No cheerful gales refresh the lazy air:
There arm once more the bold Titanian band;
And arm in vain; for what I will, shall stand.”

Now deep in ocean sunk the lamp of light,
And drew behind the cloudy veil of night:
The conquering Trojans mourn his beams decay’d;
The Greeks rejoicing bless the friendly shade.

The victors keep the field; and Hector calls
A martial council near the navy walls;
These to Scamander’s bank apart he led,
Where thinly scatter’d lay the heaps of dead.
The assembled chiefs, descending on the ground,
Attend his order, and their prince surround.
A massy spear he bore of mighty strength,
Of full ten cubits was the lance’s length;
The point was brass, refulgent to behold,
Fix’d to the wood with circling rings of gold:
The noble Hector on his lance reclined,
And, bending forward, thus reveal’d his mind:

“Ye valiant Trojans, with attention hear!
Ye Dardan bands, and generous aids, give ear!
This day, we hoped, would wrap in conquering flame
Greece with her ships, and crown our toils with fame.
But darkness now, to save the cowards, falls,
And guards them trembling in their wooden walls.
Obey the night, and use her peaceful hours
Our steeds to forage, and refresh our powers.
Straight from the town be sheep and oxen sought,
And strengthening bread and generous wine be brought.
Wide o’er the field, high blazing to the sky,
Let numerous fires the absent sun supply,
The flaming piles with plenteous fuel raise,
Till the bright morn her purple beam displays;
Lest, in the silence and the shades of night,
Greece on her sable ships attempt her flight.
Not unmolested let the wretches gain
Their lofty decks, or safely cleave the main;
Some hostile wound let every dart bestow,
Some lasting token of the Phrygian foe,
Wounds, that long hence may ask their spouses’ care.
And warn their children from a Trojan war.
Now through the circuit of our Ilion wall,
Let sacred heralds sound the solemn call;
To bid the sires with hoary honours crown’d,
And beardless youths, our battlements surround.
Firm be the guard, while distant lie our powers,
And let the matrons hang with lights the towers;
Lest, under covert of the midnight shade,
The insidious foe the naked town invade.
Suffice, to-night, these orders to obey;
A nobler charge shall rouse the dawning day.
The gods, I trust, shall give to Hector’s hand
From these detested foes to free the land,
Who plough’d, with fates averse, the watery way:
For Trojan vultures a predestined prey.
Our common safety must be now the care;
But soon as morning paints the fields of air,
Sheathed in bright arms let every troop engage,
And the fired fleet behold the battle rage.
Then, then shall Hector and Tydides prove
Whose fates are heaviest in the scales of Jove.
To-morrow’s light (O haste the glorious morn!)
Shall see his bloody spoils in triumph borne,
With this keen javelin shall his breast be gored,
And prostrate heroes bleed around their lord.
Certain as this, oh! might my days endure,
From age inglorious, and black death secure;
So might my life and glory know no bound,
Like Pallas worshipp’d, like the sun renown’d!
As the next dawn, the last they shall enjoy,
Shall crush the Greeks, and end the woes of Troy.”

The leader spoke. From all his host around
Shouts of applause along the shores resound.
Each from the yoke the smoking steeds untied,
And fix’d their headstalls to his chariot-side.
Fat sheep and oxen from the town are led,
With generous wine, and all-sustaining bread,
Full hecatombs lay burning on the shore:
The winds to heaven the curling vapours bore.
Ungrateful offering to the immortal powers![197]
Whose wrath hung heavy o’er the Trojan towers:
Nor Priam nor his sons obtain’d their grace;
Proud Troy they hated, and her guilty race.

The troops exulting sat in order round,
And beaming fires illumined all the ground.
As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night,[198]
O’er heaven’s pure azure spreads her sacred light,
When not a breath disturbs the deep serene,
And not a cloud o’ercasts the solemn scene,
Around her throne the vivid planets roll,
And stars unnumber’d gild the glowing pole,
O’er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed,
And tip with silver every mountain’s head:
Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise,
A flood of glory bursts from all the skies:
The conscious swains, rejoicing in the sight,
Eye the blue vault, and bless the useful light.
So many flames before proud Ilion blaze,
And lighten glimmering Xanthus with their rays.
The long reflections of the distant fires
Gleam on the walls, and tremble on the spires.
A thousand piles the dusky horrors gild,
And shoot a shady lustre o’er the field.
Full fifty guards each flaming pile attend,
Whose umber’d arms, by fits, thick flashes send,
Loud neigh the coursers o’er their heaps of corn,
And ardent warriors wait the rising morn.


[Illustration: ] THE SHIELD OF ACHILLES




BOOK IX.


ARGUMENT.


THE EMBASSY TO ACHILLES.


Agamemnon, after the last day’s defeat, proposes to the Greeks to quit
the siege, and return to their country. Diomed opposes this, and Nestor
seconds him, praising his wisdom and resolution. He orders the guard to
be strengthened, and a council summoned to deliberate what measures are
to be followed in this emergency. Agamemnon pursues this advice, and
Nestor further prevails upon him to send ambassadors to Achilles, in
order to move him to a reconciliation. Ulysses and Ajax are made choice
of, who are accompanied by old Phœnix. They make, each of them, very
moving and pressing speeches, but are rejected with roughness by
Achilles, who notwithstanding retains Phœnix in his tent. The
ambassadors return unsuccessfully to the camp, and the troops betake
themselves to sleep.
    This book, and the next following, take up the space of one night,
    which is the twenty-seventh from the beginning of the poem. The
    scene lies on the sea-shore, the station of the Grecian ships.


Thus joyful Troy maintain’d the watch of night;
While fear, pale comrade of inglorious flight,[199]
And heaven-bred horror, on the Grecian part,
Sat on each face, and sadden’d every heart.
As from its cloudy dungeon issuing forth,
A double tempest of the west and north
Swells o’er the sea, from Thracia’s frozen shore,
Heaps waves on waves, and bids the Ægean roar:
This way and that the boiling deeps are toss’d:
Such various passions urged the troubled host,
Great Agamemnon grieved above the rest;
Superior sorrows swell’d his royal breast;
Himself his orders to the heralds bears,
To bid to council all the Grecian peers,
But bid in whispers: these surround their chief,
In solemn sadness and majestic grief.
The king amidst the mournful circle rose:
Down his wan cheek a briny torrent flows.
So silent fountains, from a rock’s tall head,
In sable streams soft-trickling waters shed.
With more than vulgar grief he stood oppress’d;
Words, mix’d with sighs, thus bursting from his breast:

“Ye sons of Greece! partake your leader’s care;
Fellows in arms and princes of the war!
Of partial Jove too justly we complain,
And heavenly oracles believed in vain.
A safe return was promised to our toils,
With conquest honour’d and enrich’d with spoils:
Now shameful flight alone can save the host;
Our wealth, our people, and our glory lost.
So Jove decrees, almighty lord of all!
Jove, at whose nod whole empires rise or fall,
Who shakes the feeble props of human trust,
And towers and armies humbles to the dust.
Haste then, for ever quit these fatal fields,
Haste to the joys our native country yields;
Spread all your canvas, all your oars employ,
Nor hope the fall of heaven-defended Troy.”

He said: deep silence held the Grecian band;
Silent, unmov’d in dire dismay they stand;
A pensive scene! till Tydeus’ warlike son
Roll’d on the king his eyes, and thus begun:
“When kings advise us to renounce our fame,
First let him speak who first has suffer’d shame.
If I oppose thee, prince! thy wrath withhold,
The laws of council bid my tongue be bold.
Thou first, and thou alone, in fields of fight,
Durst brand my courage, and defame my might:
Nor from a friend the unkind reproach appear’d,
The Greeks stood witness, all our army heard.
The gods, O chief! from whom our honours spring,
The gods have made thee but by halves a king:
They gave thee sceptres, and a wide command;
They gave dominion o’er the seas and land;
The noblest power that might the world control
They gave thee not—a brave and virtuous soul.
Is this a general’s voice, that would suggest
Fears like his own to every Grecian breast?
Confiding in our want of worth, he stands;
And if we fly, ’tis what our king commands.
Go thou, inglorious! from the embattled plain;
Ships thou hast store, and nearest to the main;
A noble care the Grecians shall employ,
To combat, conquer, and extirpate Troy.
Here Greece shall stay; or, if all Greece retire,
Myself shall stay, till Troy or I expire;
Myself, and Sthenelus, will fight for fame;
God bade us fight, and ’twas with God we came.”

He ceased; the Greeks loud acclamations raise,
And voice to voice resounds Tydides’ praise.
Wise Nestor then his reverend figure rear’d;
He spoke: the host in still attention heard:[200]

“O truly great! in whom the gods have join’d
Such strength of body with such force of mind:
In conduct, as in courage, you excel,
Still first to act what you advise so well.
These wholesome counsels which thy wisdom moves,
Applauding Greece with common voice approves.
Kings thou canst blame; a bold but prudent youth:
And blame even kings with praise, because with truth.
And yet those years that since thy birth have run
Would hardly style thee Nestor’s youngest son.
Then let me add what yet remains behind,
A thought unfinish’d in that generous mind;
Age bids me speak! nor shall the advice I bring
Distaste the people, or offend the king:

“Cursed is the man, and void of law and right,
Unworthy property, unworthy light,
Unfit for public rule, or private care,
That wretch, that monster, who delights in war;
Whose lust is murder, and whose horrid joy,
To tear his country, and his kind destroy!
This night, refresh and fortify thy train;
Between the trench and wall let guards remain:
Be that the duty of the young and bold;
But thou, O king, to council call the old;
Great is thy sway, and weighty are thy cares;
Thy high commands must spirit all our wars.
With Thracian wines recruit thy honour’d guests,
For happy counsels flow from sober feasts.
Wise, weighty counsels aid a state distress’d,
And such a monarch as can choose the best.
See what a blaze from hostile tents aspires,
How near our fleet approach the Trojan fires!
Who can, unmoved, behold the dreadful light?
What eye beholds them, and can close to-night?
This dreadful interval determines all;
To-morrow, Troy must flame, or Greece must fall.”

Thus spoke the hoary sage: the rest obey;
Swift through the gates the guards direct their way.
His son was first to pass the lofty mound,
The generous Thrasymed, in arms renown’d:
Next him, Ascalaphus, Iälmen, stood,
The double offspring of the warrior-god:
Deipyrus, Aphareus, Merion join,
And Lycomed of Creon’s noble line.
Seven were the leaders of the nightly bands,
And each bold chief a hundred spears commands.
The fires they light, to short repasts they fall,
Some line the trench, and others man the wall.

The king of men, on public counsels bent,
Convened the princes in his ample tent,
Each seized a portion of the kingly feast,
But stay’d his hand when thirst and hunger ceased.
Then Nestor spoke, for wisdom long approved,
And slowly rising, thus the council moved.

“Monarch of nations! whose superior sway
Assembled states, and lords of earth obey,
The laws and sceptres to thy hand are given,
And millions own the care of thee and Heaven.
O king! the counsels of my age attend;
With thee my cares begin, with thee must end.
Thee, prince! it fits alike to speak and hear,
Pronounce with judgment, with regard give ear,
To see no wholesome motion be withstood,
And ratify the best for public good.
Nor, though a meaner give advice, repine,
But follow it, and make the wisdom thine.
Hear then a thought, not now conceived in haste,
At once my present judgment and my past.
When from Pelides’ tent you forced the maid,
I first opposed, and faithful, durst dissuade;
But bold of soul, when headlong fury fired,
You wronged the man, by men and gods admired:
Now seek some means his fatal wrath to end,
With prayers to move him, or with gifts to bend.”

To whom the king. “With justice hast thou shown
A prince’s faults, and I with reason own.
That happy man, whom Jove still honours most,
Is more than armies, and himself a host.
Bless’d in his love, this wondrous hero stands;
Heaven fights his war, and humbles all our bands.
Fain would my heart, which err’d through frantic rage,
The wrathful chief and angry gods assuage.
If gifts immense his mighty soul can bow,[201]
Hear, all ye Greeks, and witness what I vow.
Ten weighty talents of the purest gold,
And twice ten vases of refulgent mould:
Seven sacred tripods, whose unsullied frame
Yet knows no office, nor has felt the flame;
Twelve steeds unmatch’d in fleetness and in force,
And still victorious in the dusty course;
(Rich were the man whose ample stores exceed
The prizes purchased by their winged speed;)
Seven lovely captives of the Lesbian line,
Skill’d in each art, unmatch’d in form divine,
The same I chose for more than vulgar charms,
When Lesbos sank beneath the hero’s arms:
All these, to buy his friendship, shall be paid,
And join’d with these the long-contested maid;
With all her charms, Briseïs I resign,
And solemn swear those charms were never mine;
Untouch’d she stay’d, uninjured she removes,
Pure from my arms, and guiltless of my loves,[202]
These instant shall be his; and if the powers
Give to our arms proud Ilion’s hostile towers,
Then shall he store (when Greece the spoil divides)
With gold and brass his loaded navy’s sides:
Besides, full twenty nymphs of Trojan race
With copious love shall crown his warm embrace,
Such as himself will choose; who yield to none,
Or yield to Helen’s heavenly charms alone.
Yet hear me further: when our wars are o’er,
If safe we land on Argos’ fruitful shore,
There shall he live my son, our honours share,
And with Orestes’ self divide my care.
Yet more—three daughters in my court are bred,
And each well worthy of a royal bed;
Laodice and Iphigenia fair,[203]
And bright Chrysothemis with golden hair;
Her let him choose whom most his eyes approve,
I ask no presents, no reward for love:
Myself will give the dower; so vast a store
As never father gave a child before.
Seven ample cities shall confess his sway,
Him Enope, and Pheræ him obey,
Cardamyle with ample turrets crown’d,
And sacred Pedasus for vines renown’d;
Æpea fair, the pastures Hira yields,
And rich Antheia with her flowery fields:[204]
The whole extent to Pylos’ sandy plain,
Along the verdant margin of the main.
There heifers graze, and labouring oxen toil;
Bold are the men, and generous is the soil;
There shall he reign, with power and justice crown’d,
And rule the tributary realms around.
All this I give, his vengeance to control,
And sure all this may move his mighty soul.
Pluto, the grisly god, who never spares,
Who feels no mercy, and who hears no prayers,
Lives dark and dreadful in deep hell’s abodes,
And mortals hate him, as the worst of gods.
Great though he be, it fits him to obey,
Since more than his my years, and more my sway.”


[Illustration: ] PLUTO


The monarch thus. The reverend Nestor then:
“Great Agamemnon! glorious king of men!
Such are thy offers as a prince may take,
And such as fits a generous king to make.
Let chosen delegates this hour be sent
(Myself will name them) to Pelides’ tent.
Let Phœnix lead, revered for hoary age,
Great Ajax next, and Ithacus the sage.
Yet more to sanctify the word you send,
Let Hodius and Eurybates attend.
Now pray to Jove to grant what Greece demands;
Pray in deep silence,[205] and with purest hands.”[206]


[Illustration: ] THE EMBASSY TO ACHILLES


He said; and all approved. The heralds bring
The cleansing water from the living spring.
The youth with wine the sacred goblets crown’d,
And large libations drench’d the sands around.
The rite perform’d, the chiefs their thirst allay,
Then from the royal tent they take their way;
Wise Nestor turns on each his careful eye,
Forbids to offend, instructs them to apply;
Much he advised them all, Ulysses most,
To deprecate the chief, and save the host.
Through the still night they march, and hear the roar
Of murmuring billows on the sounding shore.
To Neptune, ruler of the seas profound,
Whose liquid arms the mighty globe surround,
They pour forth vows, their embassy to bless,
And calm the rage of stern Æacides.
And now, arrived, where on the sandy bay
The Myrmidonian tents and vessels lay;
Amused at ease, the godlike man they found,
Pleased with the solemn harp’s harmonious sound.
(The well wrought harp from conquered Thebae came;
Of polish’d silver was its costly frame.)
With this he soothes his angry soul, and sings
The immortal deeds of heroes and of kings.
Patroclus only of the royal train,
Placed in his tent, attends the lofty strain:
Full opposite he sat, and listen’d long,
In silence waiting till he ceased the song.
Unseen the Grecian embassy proceeds
To his high tent; the great Ulysses leads.
Achilles starting, as the chiefs he spied,
Leap’d from his seat, and laid the harp aside.
With like surprise arose Menoetius’ son:
Pelides grasp’d their hands, and thus begun:

“Princes, all hail! whatever brought you here.
Or strong necessity, or urgent fear;
Welcome, though Greeks! for not as foes ye came;
To me more dear than all that bear the name.”

With that, the chiefs beneath his roof he led,
And placed in seats with purple carpets spread.
Then thus—“Patroclus, crown a larger bowl,
Mix purer wine, and open every soul.
Of all the warriors yonder host can send,
Thy friend most honours these, and these thy friend.”

He said: Patroclus o’er the blazing fire
Heaps in a brazen vase three chines entire:
The brazen vase Automedon sustains,
Which flesh of porker, sheep, and goat contains.
Achilles at the genial feast presides,
The parts transfixes, and with skill divides.
Meanwhile Patroclus sweats, the fire to raise;
The tent is brighten’d with the rising blaze:
Then, when the languid flames at length subside,
He strows a bed of glowing embers wide,
Above the coals the smoking fragments turns
And sprinkles sacred salt from lifted urns;
With bread the glittering canisters they load,
Which round the board Menoetius’ son bestow’d;
Himself, opposed to Ulysses full in sight,
Each portion parts, and orders every rite.
The first fat offering to the immortals due,
Amidst the greedy flames Patroclus threw;
Then each, indulging in the social feast,
His thirst and hunger soberly repress’d.
That done, to Phœnix Ajax gave the sign:
Not unperceived; Ulysses crown’d with wine
The foaming bowl, and instant thus began,
His speech addressing to the godlike man.

“Health to Achilles! happy are thy guests!
Not those more honour’d whom Atrides feasts:
Though generous plenty crown thy loaded boards,
That, Agamemnon’s regal tent affords;
But greater cares sit heavy on our souls,
Nor eased by banquets or by flowing bowls.
What scenes of slaughter in yon fields appear!
The dead we mourn, and for the living fear;
Greece on the brink of fate all doubtful stands,
And owns no help but from thy saving hands:
Troy and her aids for ready vengeance call;
Their threatening tents already shade our wall:
Hear how with shouts their conquest they proclaim,
And point at every ship their vengeful flame!
For them the father of the gods declares,
Theirs are his omens, and his thunder theirs.
See, full of Jove, avenging Hector rise!
See! heaven and earth the raging chief defies;
What fury in his breast, what lightning in his eyes!
He waits but for the morn, to sink in flame
The ships, the Greeks, and all the Grecian name.
Heavens! how my country’s woes distract my mind,
Lest Fate accomplish all his rage design’d!
And must we, gods! our heads inglorious lay
In Trojan dust, and this the fatal day?
Return, Achilles: oh return, though late,
To save thy Greeks, and stop the course of Fate;
If in that heart or grief or courage lies,
Rise to redeem; ah, yet to conquer, rise!
The day may come, when, all our warriors slain,
That heart shall melt, that courage rise in vain:
Regard in time, O prince divinely brave!
Those wholesome counsels which thy father gave.
When Peleus in his aged arms embraced
His parting son, these accents were his last:

“‘My child! with strength, with glory, and success,
Thy arms may Juno and Minerva bless!
Trust that to Heaven: but thou, thy cares engage
To calm thy passions, and subdue thy rage:
From gentler manners let thy glory grow,
And shun contention, the sure source of woe;
That young and old may in thy praise combine,
The virtues of humanity be thine—’
This now-despised advice thy father gave;
Ah! check thy anger; and be truly brave.
If thou wilt yield to great Atrides’ prayers,
Gifts worthy thee his royal hand prepares;
If not—but hear me, while I number o’er
The proffer’d presents, an exhaustless store.
Ten weighty talents of the purest gold,
And twice ten vases of refulgent mould;
Seven sacred tripods, whose unsullied frame
Yet knows no office, nor has felt the flame;
Twelve steeds unmatched in fleetness and in force,
And still victorious in the dusty course;
(Rich were the man, whose ample stores exceed
The prizes purchased by their winged speed;)
Seven lovely captives of the Lesbian line,
Skill’d in each art, unmatch’d in form divine,
The same he chose for more than vulgar charms,
When Lesbos sank beneath thy conquering arms.
All these, to buy thy friendship shall be paid,
And, join’d with these, the long-contested maid;
With all her charms, Briseïs he’ll resign,
And solemn swear those charms were only thine;
Untouch’d she stay’d, uninjured she removes,
Pure from his arms, and guiltless of his loves.
These instant shall be thine; and if the powers
Give to our arms proud Ilion’s hostile towers,
Then shalt thou store (when Greece the spoil divides)
With gold and brass thy loaded navy’s sides.
Besides, full twenty nymphs of Trojan race
With copious love shall crown thy warm embrace;
Such as thyself shall chose; who yield to none,
Or yield to Helen’s heavenly charms alone.
Yet hear me further: when our wars are o’er,
If safe we land on Argos’ fruitful shore,
There shalt thou live his son, his honour share,
And with Orestes’ self divide his care.
Yet more—three daughters in his court are bred,
And each well worthy of a royal bed:
Laodice and Iphigenia fair,
And bright Chrysothemis with golden hair:
Her shalt thou wed whom most thy eyes approve;
He asks no presents, no reward for love:
Himself will give the dower; so vast a store
As never father gave a child before.
Seven ample cities shall confess thy sway,
The Enope and Pheræ thee obey,
Cardamyle with ample turrets crown’d,
And sacred Pedasus, for vines renown’d:
Æpea fair, the pastures Hira yields,
And rich Antheia with her flowery fields;
The whole extent to Pylos’ sandy plain,
Along the verdant margin of the main.
There heifers graze, and labouring oxen toil;
Bold are the men, and generous is the soil.
There shalt thou reign, with power and justice crown’d,
And rule the tributary realms around.
Such are the proffers which this day we bring,
Such the repentance of a suppliant king.
But if all this, relentless, thou disdain,
If honour and if interest plead in vain,
Yet some redress to suppliant Greece afford,
And be, amongst her guardian gods, adored.
If no regard thy suffering country claim,
Hear thy own glory, and the voice of fame:
For now that chief, whose unresisted ire
Made nations tremble, and whole hosts retire,
Proud Hector, now, the unequal fight demands,
And only triumphs to deserve thy hands.”

Then thus the goddess-born: “Ulysses, hear
A faithful speech, that knows nor art nor fear;
What in my secret soul is understood,
My tongue shall utter, and my deeds make good.
Let Greece then know, my purpose I retain:
Nor with new treaties vex my peace in vain.
Who dares think one thing, and another tell,
My heart detests him as the gates of hell.

“Then thus in short my fix’d resolves attend,
Which nor Atrides nor his Greeks can bend;
Long toils, long perils in their cause I bore,
But now the unfruitful glories charm no more.
Fight or not fight, a like reward we claim,
The wretch and hero find their prize the same.
Alike regretted in the dust he lies,
Who yields ignobly, or who bravely dies.
Of all my dangers, all my glorious pains,
A life of labours, lo! what fruit remains?
As the bold bird her helpless young attends,
From danger guards them, and from want defends;
In search of prey she wings the spacious air,
And with the untasted food supplies her care:
For thankless Greece such hardships have I braved,
Her wives, her infants, by my labours saved;
Long sleepless nights in heavy arms I stood,
And sweat laborious days in dust and blood.
I sack’d twelve ample cities on the main,[207]
And twelve lay smoking on the Trojan plain:
Then at Atrides’ haughty feet were laid
The wealth I gathered, and the spoils I made.
Your mighty monarch these in peace possess’d;
Some few my soldiers had, himself the rest.
Some present, too, to every prince was paid;
And every prince enjoys the gift he made:
I only must refund, of all his train;
See what pre-eminence our merits gain!
My spoil alone his greedy soul delights:
My spouse alone must bless his lustful nights:
The woman, let him (as he may) enjoy;
But what’s the quarrel, then, of Greece to Troy?
What to these shores the assembled nations draws,
What calls for vengeance but a woman’s cause?
Are fair endowments and a beauteous face
Beloved by none but those of Atreus’ race?
The wife whom choice and passion doth approve,
Sure every wise and worthy man will love.
Nor did my fair one less distinction claim;
Slave as she was, my soul adored the dame.
Wrong’d in my love, all proffers I disdain;
Deceived for once, I trust not kings again.
Ye have my answer—what remains to do,
Your king, Ulysses, may consult with you.
What needs he the defence this arm can make?
Has he not walls no human force can shake?
Has he not fenced his guarded navy round
With piles, with ramparts, and a trench profound?
And will not these (the wonders he has done)
Repel the rage of Priam’s single son?
There was a time (’twas when for Greece I fought)
When Hector’s prowess no such wonders wrought;
He kept the verge of Troy, nor dared to wait
Achilles’ fury at the Scæan gate;
He tried it once, and scarce was saved by fate.
But now those ancient enmities are o’er;
To-morrow we the favouring gods implore;
Then shall you see our parting vessels crown’d,
And hear with oars the Hellespont resound.
The third day hence shall Pythia greet our sails,[208]
If mighty Neptune send propitious gales;
Pythia to her Achilles shall restore
The wealth he left for this detested shore:
Thither the spoils of this long war shall pass,
The ruddy gold, the steel, and shining brass:
My beauteous captives thither I’ll convey,
And all that rests of my unravish’d prey.
One only valued gift your tyrant gave,
And that resumed—the fair Lyrnessian slave.
Then tell him: loud, that all the Greeks may hear,
And learn to scorn the wretch they basely fear;
(For arm’d in impudence, mankind he braves,
And meditates new cheats on all his slaves;
Though shameless as he is, to face these eyes
Is what he dares not: if he dares he dies;)
Tell him, all terms, all commerce I decline,
Nor share his council, nor his battle join;
For once deceiv’d, was his; but twice were mine,
No—let the stupid prince, whom Jove deprives
Of sense and justice, run where frenzy drives;
His gifts are hateful: kings of such a kind
Stand but as slaves before a noble mind,
Not though he proffer’d all himself possess’d,
And all his rapine could from others wrest:
Not all the golden tides of wealth that crown
The many-peopled Orchomenian town;[209]
Not all proud Thebes’ unrivall’d walls contain,
The world’s great empress on the Egyptian plain
(That spreads her conquests o’er a thousand states,
And pours her heroes through a hundred gates,
Two hundred horsemen and two hundred cars
From each wide portal issuing to the wars);[210]
Though bribes were heap’d on bribes, in number more
Than dust in fields, or sands along the shore;
Should all these offers for my friendship call,
’Tis he that offers, and I scorn them all.
Atrides’ daughter never shall be led
(An ill-match’d consort) to Achilles’ bed;
Like golden Venus though she charm’d the heart,
And vied with Pallas in the works of art;
Some greater Greek let those high nuptials grace,
I hate alliance with a tyrant’s race.
If heaven restore me to my realms with life,
The reverend Peleus shall elect my wife;
Thessalian nymphs there are of form divine,
And kings that sue to mix their blood with mine.
Bless’d in kind love, my years shall glide away,
Content with just hereditary sway;
There, deaf for ever to the martial strife,
Enjoy the dear prerogative of life.
Life is not to be bought with heaps of gold.
Not all Apollo’s Pythian treasures hold,
Or Troy once held, in peace and pride of sway,
Can bribe the poor possession of a day!
Lost herds and treasures we by arms regain,
And steeds unrivall’d on the dusty plain:
But from our lips the vital spirit fled,
Returns no more to wake the silent dead.
My fates long since by Thetis were disclosed,
And each alternate, life or fame, proposed;
Here, if I stay, before the Trojan town,
Short is my date, but deathless my renown:
If I return, I quit immortal praise
For years on years, and long-extended days.
Convinced, though late, I find my fond mistake,
And warn the Greeks the wiser choice to make;
To quit these shores, their native seats enjoy,
Nor hope the fall of heaven-defended Troy.
Jove’s arm display’d asserts her from the skies!
Her hearts are strengthen’d, and her glories rise.
Go then to Greece, report our fix’d design;
Bid all your counsels, all your armies join,
Let all your forces, all your arts conspire,
To save the ships, the troops, the chiefs, from fire.
One stratagem has fail’d, and others will:
Ye find, Achilles is unconquer’d still.
Go then—digest my message as ye may—
But here this night let reverend Phœnix stay:
His tedious toils and hoary hairs demand
A peaceful death in Pythia’s friendly land.
But whether he remain or sail with me,
His age be sacred, and his will be free.”


[Illustration: ] GREEK GALLEY


The son of Peleus ceased: the chiefs around
In silence wrapt, in consternation drown’d,
Attend the stern reply. Then Phœnix rose;
(Down his white beard a stream of sorrow flows;)
And while the fate of suffering Greece he mourn’d,
With accent weak these tender words return’d.


[Illustration: ] PROSERPINE


“Divine Achilles! wilt thou then retire,
And leave our hosts in blood, our fleets on fire?
If wrath so dreadful fill thy ruthless mind,
How shall thy friend, thy Phœnix, stay behind?
The royal Peleus, when from Pythia’s coast
He sent thee early to the Achaian host;
Thy youth as then in sage debates unskill’d,
And new to perils of the direful field:
He bade me teach thee all the ways of war,
To shine in councils, and in camps to dare.
Never, ah, never let me leave thy side!
No time shall part us, and no fate divide,
Not though the god, that breathed my life, restore
The bloom I boasted, and the port I bore,
When Greece of old beheld my youthful flames
(Delightful Greece, the land of lovely dames),
My father faithless to my mother’s arms,
Old as he was, adored a stranger’s charms.
I tried what youth could do (at her desire)
To win the damsel, and prevent my sire.
My sire with curses loads my hated head,
And cries, ‘Ye furies! barren be his bed.’
Infernal Jove, the vengeful fiends below,
And ruthless Proserpine, confirm’d his vow.
Despair and grief distract my labouring mind!
Gods! what a crime my impious heart design’d!
I thought (but some kind god that thought suppress’d)
To plunge the poniard in my father’s breast;
Then meditate my flight: my friends in vain
With prayers entreat me, and with force detain.
On fat of rams, black bulls, and brawny swine,
They daily feast, with draughts of fragrant wine;
Strong guards they placed, and watch’d nine nights entire;
The roofs and porches flamed with constant fire.
The tenth, I forced the gates, unseen of all:
And, favour’d by the night, o’erleap’d the wall,
My travels thence through spacious Greece extend;
In Phthia’s court at last my labours end.
Your sire received me, as his son caress’d,
With gifts enrich’d, and with possessions bless’d.
The strong Dolopians thenceforth own’d my reign,
And all the coast that runs along the main.
By love to thee his bounties I repaid,
And early wisdom to thy soul convey’d:
Great as thou art, my lessons made thee brave:
A child I took thee, but a hero gave.
Thy infant breast a like affection show’d;
Still in my arms (an ever-pleasing load)
Or at my knee, by Phœnix wouldst thou stand;
No food was grateful but from Phœnix’ hand.[211]
I pass my watchings o’er thy helpless years,
The tender labours, the compliant cares,
The gods (I thought) reversed their hard decree,
And Phœnix felt a father’s joys in thee:
Thy growing virtues justified my cares,
And promised comfort to my silver hairs.
Now be thy rage, thy fatal rage, resign’d;
A cruel heart ill suits a manly mind:
The gods (the only great, and only wise)
Are moved by offerings, vows, and sacrifice;
Offending man their high compassion wins,
And daily prayers atone for daily sins.
Prayers are Jove’s daughters, of celestial race,
Lame are their feet, and wrinkled is their face;
With humble mien, and with dejected eyes,
Constant they follow, where injustice flies.
Injustice swift, erect, and unconfined,
Sweeps the wide earth, and tramples o’er mankind,
While Prayers, to heal her wrongs, move slow behind.
Who hears these daughters of almighty Jove,
For him they mediate to the throne above:
When man rejects the humble suit they make,
The sire revenges for the daughters’ sake;
From Jove commission’d, fierce injustice then
Descends to punish unrelenting men.
O let not headlong passion bear the sway
These reconciling goddesses obey:
Due honours to the seed of Jove belong,
Due honours calm the fierce, and bend the strong.
Were these not paid thee by the terms we bring,
Were rage still harbour’d in the haughty king;
Nor Greece nor all her fortunes should engage
Thy friend to plead against so just a rage.
But since what honour asks the general sends,
And sends by those whom most thy heart commends;
The best and noblest of the Grecian train;
Permit not these to sue, and sue in vain!
Let me (my son) an ancient fact unfold,
A great example drawn from times of old;
Hear what our fathers were, and what their praise,
Who conquer’d their revenge in former days.

“Where Calydon on rocky mountains stands[212]
Once fought the Ætolian and Curetian bands;
To guard it those; to conquer, these advance;
And mutual deaths were dealt with mutual chance.
The silver Cynthia bade contention rise,
In vengeance of neglected sacrifice;
On Œneus fields she sent a monstrous boar,
That levell’d harvests, and whole forests tore:
This beast (when many a chief his tusks had slain)
Great Meleager stretch’d along the plain,
Then, for his spoils, a new debate arose,
The neighbour nations thence commencing foes.
Strong as they were, the bold Curetes fail’d,
While Meleager’s thundering arm prevail’d:
Till rage at length inflamed his lofty breast
(For rage invades the wisest and the best).

“Cursed by Althaea, to his wrath he yields,
And in his wife’s embrace forgets the fields.
(She from Marpessa sprung, divinely fair,
And matchless Idas, more than man in war:
The god of day adored the mother’s charms;
Against the god the father bent his arms:
The afflicted pair, their sorrows to proclaim,
From Cleopatra changed their daughter’s name,
And call’d Alcyone; a name to show
The father’s grief, the mourning mother’s woe.)
To her the chief retired from stern debate,
But found no peace from fierce Althaea’s hate:
Althaea’s hate the unhappy warrior drew,
Whose luckless hand his royal uncle slew;
She beat the ground, and call’d the powers beneath
On her own son to wreak her brother’s death;
Hell heard her curses from the realms profound,
And the red fiends that walk the nightly round.
In vain Ætolia her deliverer waits,
War shakes her walls, and thunders at her gates.
She sent ambassadors, a chosen band,
Priests of the gods, and elders of the land;
Besought the chief to save the sinking state:
Their prayers were urgent, and their proffers great:
(Full fifty acres of the richest ground,
Half pasture green, and half with vineyards crown’d:)
His suppliant father, aged Œneus, came;
His sisters follow’d; even the vengeful dame,
Althaea, sues; his friends before him fall:
He stands relentless, and rejects them all.
Meanwhile the victor’s shouts ascend the skies;
The walls are scaled; the rolling flames arise;
At length his wife (a form divine) appears,
With piercing cries, and supplicating tears;
She paints the horrors of a conquer’d town,
The heroes slain, the palaces o’erthrown,
The matrons ravish’d, the whole race enslaved:
The warrior heard, he vanquish’d, and he saved.
The Ætolians, long disdain’d, now took their turn,
And left the chief their broken faith to mourn.
Learn hence, betimes to curb pernicious ire,
Nor stay till yonder fleets ascend in fire;
Accept the presents; draw thy conquering sword;
And be amongst our guardian gods adored.”

Thus he: the stern Achilles thus replied:
“My second father, and my reverend guide:
Thy friend, believe me, no such gifts demands,
And asks no honours from a mortal’s hands;
Jove honours me, and favours my designs;
His pleasure guides me, and his will confines;
And here I stay (if such his high behest)
While life’s warm spirit beats within my breast.
Yet hear one word, and lodge it in thy heart:
No more molest me on Atrides’ part:
Is it for him these tears are taught to flow,
For him these sorrows? for my mortal foe?
A generous friendship no cold medium knows,
Burns with one love, with one resentment glows;
One should our interests and our passions be;
My friend must hate the man that injures me.
Do this, my Phœnix, ’tis a generous part;
And share my realms, my honours, and my heart.
Let these return: our voyage, or our stay,
Rest undetermined till the dawning day.”

He ceased; then order’d for the sage’s bed
A warmer couch with numerous carpets spread.
With that, stern Ajax his long silence broke,
And thus, impatient, to Ulysses spoke:

“Hence let us go—why waste we time in vain?
See what effect our low submissions gain!
Liked or not liked, his words we must relate,
The Greeks expect them, and our heroes wait.
Proud as he is, that iron heart retains
Its stubborn purpose, and his friends disdains.
Stern and unpitying! if a brother bleed,
On just atonement, we remit the deed;
A sire the slaughter of his son forgives;
The price of blood discharged, the murderer lives:
The haughtiest hearts at length their rage resign,
And gifts can conquer every soul but thine.[213]
The gods that unrelenting breast have steel’d,
And cursed thee with a mind that cannot yield.
One woman-slave was ravish’d from thy arms:
Lo, seven are offer’d, and of equal charms.
Then hear, Achilles! be of better mind;
Revere thy roof, and to thy guests be kind;
And know the men of all the Grecian host,
Who honour worth, and prize thy valour most.”

“O soul of battles, and thy people’s guide!
(To Ajax thus the first of Greeks replied)
Well hast thou spoke; but at the tyrant’s name
My rage rekindles, and my soul’s on flame:
’Tis just resentment, and becomes the brave:
Disgraced, dishonour’d, like the vilest slave!
Return, then, heroes! and our answer bear,
The glorious combat is no more my care;
Not till, amidst yon sinking navy slain,
The blood of Greeks shall dye the sable main;
Not till the flames, by Hector’s fury thrown,
Consume your vessels, and approach my own;
Just there, the impetuous homicide shall stand,
There cease his battle, and there feel our hand.”

This said, each prince a double goblet crown’d,
And cast a large libation on the ground;
Then to their vessels, through the gloomy shades,
The chiefs return; divine Ulysses leads.
Meantime Achilles’ slaves prepared a bed,
With fleeces, carpets, and soft linen spread:
There, till the sacred morn restored the day,
In slumber sweet the reverend Phœnix lay.
But in his inner tent, an ampler space,
Achilles slept; and in his warm embrace
Fair Diomede of the Lesbian race.
Last, for Patroclus was the couch prepared,
Whose nightly joys the beauteous Iphis shared;
Achilles to his friend consign’d her charms
When Scyros fell before his conquering arms.

And now the elected chiefs whom Greece had sent,
Pass’d through the hosts, and reach’d the royal tent.
Then rising all, with goblets in their hands,
The peers and leaders of the Achaian bands
Hail’d their return: Atrides first begun:

“Say what success? divine Laertes’ son!
Achilles’ high resolves declare to all:
Returns the chief, or must our navy fall?”

“Great king of nations! (Ithacus replied)
Fix’d is his wrath, unconquer’d is his pride;
He slights thy friendship, thy proposals scorns,
And, thus implored, with fiercer fury burns.
To save our army, and our fleets to free,
Is not his care; but left to Greece and thee.
Your eyes shall view, when morning paints the sky,
Beneath his oars the whitening billows fly;
Us too he bids our oars and sails employ,
Nor hope the fall of heaven-protected Troy;
For Jove o’ershades her with his arm divine,
Inspires her war, and bids her glory shine.
Such was his word: what further he declared,
These sacred heralds and great Ajax heard.
But Phœnix in his tent the chief retains,
Safe to transport him to his native plains
When morning dawns; if other he decree,
His age is sacred, and his choice is free.”

Ulysses ceased: the great Achaian host,
With sorrow seized, in consternation lost,
Attend the stern reply. Tydides broke
The general silence, and undaunted spoke.
“Why should we gifts to proud Achilles send,
Or strive with prayers his haughty soul to bend?
His country’s woes he glories to deride,
And prayers will burst that swelling heart with pride.
Be the fierce impulse of his rage obey’d,
Our battles let him or desert or aid;
Then let him arm when Jove or he think fit:
That, to his madness, or to Heaven commit:
What for ourselves we can, is always ours;
This night, let due repast refresh our powers;
(For strength consists in spirits and in blood,
And those are owed to generous wine and food;)
But when the rosy messenger of day
Strikes the blue mountains with her golden ray,
Ranged at the ships, let all our squadrons shine
In flaming arms, a long-extended line:
In the dread front let great Atrides stand,
The first in danger, as in high command.”

Shouts of acclaim the listening heroes raise,
Then each to Heaven the due libations pays;
Till sleep, descending o’er the tents, bestows
The grateful blessings of desired repose.[214]


[Illustration: ] ACHILLES




BOOK X.


ARGUMENT.


THE NIGHT-ADVENTURE OF DIOMED AND ULYSSES.


Upon the refusal of Achilles to return to the army, the distress of
Agamemnon is described in the most lively manner. He takes no rest that
night, but passes through the camp, awaking the leaders, and contriving
all possible methods for the public safety. Menelaus, Nestor, Ulysses,
and Diomed are employed in raising the rest of the captains. They call
a council of war, and determine to send scouts into the enemies’ camp,
to learn their posture, and discover their intentions. Diomed
undertakes this hazardous enterprise, and makes choice of Ulysses for
his companion. In their passage they surprise Dolon, whom Hector had
sent on a like design to the camp of the Grecians. From him they are
informed of the situation of the Trojan and auxiliary forces, and
particularly of Rhesus, and the Thracians who were lately arrived. They
pass on with success; kill Rhesus, with several of his officers, and
seize the famous horses of that prince, with which they return in
triumph to the camp.
    The same night continues; the scene lies in the two camps.


All night the chiefs before their vessels lay,
And lost in sleep the labours of the day:
All but the king: with various thoughts oppress’d,[215]
His country’s cares lay rolling in his breast.
As when by lightnings Jove’s ethereal power
Foretels the rattling hail, or weighty shower,
Or sends soft snows to whiten all the shore,
Or bids the brazen throat of war to roar;
By fits one flash succeeds as one expires,
And heaven flames thick with momentary fires:
So bursting frequent from Atrides’ breast,
Sighs following sighs his inward fears confess’d.
Now o’er the fields, dejected, he surveys
From thousand Trojan fires the mounting blaze;
Hears in the passing wind their music blow,
And marks distinct the voices of the foe.
Now looking backwards to the fleet and coast,
Anxious he sorrows for the endangered host.
He rends his hair, in sacrifice to Jove,
And sues to him that ever lives above:
Inly he groans; while glory and despair
Divide his heart, and wage a double war.

A thousand cares his labouring breast revolves;
To seek sage Nestor now the chief resolves,
With him, in wholesome counsels, to debate
What yet remains to save the afflicted state.
He rose, and first he cast his mantle round,
Next on his feet the shining sandals bound;
A lion’s yellow spoils his back conceal’d;
His warlike hand a pointed javelin held.
Meanwhile his brother, press’d with equal woes,
Alike denied the gifts of soft repose,
Laments for Greece, that in his cause before
So much had suffer’d and must suffer more.
A leopard’s spotted hide his shoulders spread:
A brazen helmet glitter’d on his head:
Thus (with a javelin in his hand) he went
To wake Atrides in the royal tent.
Already waked, Atrides he descried,
His armour buckling at his vessel’s side.
Joyful they met; the Spartan thus begun:
“Why puts my brother his bright armour on?
Sends he some spy, amidst these silent hours,
To try yon camp, and watch the Trojan powers?
But say, what hero shall sustain that task?
Such bold exploits uncommon courage ask;
Guideless, alone, through night’s dark shade to go,
And midst a hostile camp explore the foe.”

To whom the king: “In such distress we stand,
No vulgar counsel our affairs demand;
Greece to preserve, is now no easy part,
But asks high wisdom, deep design, and art.
For Jove, averse, our humble prayer denies,
And bows his head to Hector’s sacrifice.
What eye has witness’d, or what ear believed,
In one great day, by one great arm achieved,
Such wondrous deeds as Hector’s hand has done,
And we beheld, the last revolving sun?
What honours the beloved of Jove adorn!
Sprung from no god, and of no goddess born;
Yet such his acts, as Greeks unborn shall tell,
And curse the battle where their fathers fell.

“Now speed thy hasty course along the fleet,
There call great Ajax, and the prince of Crete;
Ourself to hoary Nestor will repair;
To keep the guards on duty be his care,
(For Nestor’s influence best that quarter guides,
Whose son with Merion, o’er the watch presides.”)
To whom the Spartan: “These thy orders borne,
Say, shall I stay, or with despatch return?”
“There shall thou stay, (the king of men replied,)
Else may we miss to meet, without a guide,
The paths so many, and the camp so wide.
Still, with your voice the slothful soldiers raise,
Urge by their fathers’ fame their future praise.
Forget we now our state and lofty birth;
Not titles here, but works, must prove our worth.
To labour is the lot of man below;
And when Jove gave us life, he gave us woe.”

This said, each parted to his several cares:
The king to Nestor’s sable ship repairs;
The sage protector of the Greeks he found
Stretch’d in his bed with all his arms around;
The various-colour’d scarf, the shield he rears,
The shining helmet, and the pointed spears;
The dreadful weapons of the warrior’s rage,
That, old in arms, disdain’d the peace of age.
Then, leaning on his hand his watchful head,
The hoary monarch raised his eyes and said:

“What art thou, speak, that on designs unknown,
While others sleep, thus range the camp alone;
Seek’st thou some friend or nightly sentinel?
Stand off, approach not, but thy purpose tell.”

“O son of Neleus, (thus the king rejoin’d,)
Pride of the Greeks, and glory of thy kind!
Lo, here the wretched Agamemnon stands,
The unhappy general of the Grecian bands,
Whom Jove decrees with daily cares to bend,
And woes, that only with his life shall end!
Scarce can my knees these trembling limbs sustain,
And scarce my heart support its load of pain.
No taste of sleep these heavy eyes have known,
Confused, and sad, I wander thus alone,
With fears distracted, with no fix’d design;
And all my people’s miseries are mine.
If aught of use thy waking thoughts suggest,
(Since cares, like mine, deprive thy soul of rest,)
Impart thy counsel, and assist thy friend;
Now let us jointly to the trench descend,
At every gate the fainting guard excite,
Tired with the toils of day and watch of night;
Else may the sudden foe our works invade,
So near, and favour’d by the gloomy shade.”

To him thus Nestor: “Trust the powers above,
Nor think proud Hector’s hopes confirm’d by Jove:
How ill agree the views of vain mankind,
And the wise counsels of the eternal mind!
Audacious Hector, if the gods ordain
That great Achilles rise and rage again,
What toils attend thee, and what woes remain!
Lo, faithful Nestor thy command obeys;
The care is next our other chiefs to raise:
Ulysses, Diomed, we chiefly need;
Meges for strength, Oïleus famed for speed.
Some other be despatch’d of nimbler feet,
To those tall ships, remotest of the fleet,
Where lie great Ajax and the king of Crete.[216]
To rouse the Spartan I myself decree;
Dear as he is to us, and dear to thee,
Yet must I tax his sloth, that claims no share
With his great brother in his martial care:
Him it behoved to every chief to sue,
Preventing every part perform’d by you;
For strong necessity our toils demands,
Claims all our hearts, and urges all our hands.”

To whom the king: “With reverence we allow
Thy just rebukes, yet learn to spare them now:
My generous brother is of gentle kind,
He seems remiss, but bears a valiant mind;
Through too much deference to our sovereign sway,
Content to follow when we lead the way:
But now, our ills industrious to prevent,
Long ere the rest he rose, and sought my tent.
The chiefs you named, already at his call,
Prepare to meet us near the navy-wall;
Assembling there, between the trench and gates,
Near the night-guards, our chosen council waits.”

“Then none (said Nestor) shall his rule withstand,
For great examples justify command.”
With that, the venerable warrior rose;
The shining greaves his manly legs enclose;
His purple mantle golden buckles join’d,
Warm with the softest wool, and doubly lined.
Then rushing from his tent, he snatch’d in haste
His steely lance, that lighten’d as he pass’d.
The camp he traversed through the sleeping crowd,
Stopp’d at Ulysses’ tent, and call’d aloud.
Ulysses, sudden as the voice was sent,
Awakes, starts up, and issues from his tent.
“What new distress, what sudden cause of fright,
Thus leads you wandering in the silent night?”
“O prudent chief! (the Pylian sage replied)
Wise as thou art, be now thy wisdom tried:
Whatever means of safety can be sought,
Whatever counsels can inspire our thought,
Whatever methods, or to fly or fight;
All, all depend on this important night!”
He heard, return’d, and took his painted shield;
Then join’d the chiefs, and follow’d through the field.
Without his tent, bold Diomed they found,
All sheathed in arms, his brave companions round:
Each sunk in sleep, extended on the field,
His head reclining on his bossy shield.
A wood of spears stood by, that, fix’d upright,
Shot from their flashing points a quivering light.
A bull’s black hide composed the hero’s bed;
A splendid carpet roll’d beneath his head.
Then, with his foot, old Nestor gently shakes
The slumbering chief, and in these words awakes:

“Rise, son of Tydeus! to the brave and strong
Rest seems inglorious, and the night too long.
But sleep’st thou now, when from yon hill the foe
Hangs o’er the fleet, and shades our walls below?”

At this, soft slumber from his eyelids fled;
The warrior saw the hoary chief, and said:
“Wondrous old man! whose soul no respite knows,
Though years and honours bid thee seek repose,
Let younger Greeks our sleeping warriors wake;
Ill fits thy age these toils to undertake.”
“My friend, (he answered,) generous is thy care;
These toils, my subjects and my sons might bear;
Their loyal thoughts and pious love conspire
To ease a sovereign and relieve a sire:
But now the last despair surrounds our host;
No hour must pass, no moment must be lost;
Each single Greek, in this conclusive strife,
Stands on the sharpest edge of death or life:
Yet, if my years thy kind regard engage,
Employ thy youth as I employ my age;
Succeed to these my cares, and rouse the rest;
He serves me most, who serves his country best.”

This said, the hero o’er his shoulders flung
A lion’s spoils, that to his ankles hung;
Then seized his ponderous lance, and strode along.
Meges the bold, with Ajax famed for speed,
The warrior roused, and to the entrenchments lead.

And now the chiefs approach the nightly guard;
A wakeful squadron, each in arms prepared:
The unwearied watch their listening leaders keep,
And, couching close, repel invading sleep.
So faithful dogs their fleecy charge maintain,
With toil protected from the prowling train;
When the gaunt lioness, with hunger bold,
Springs from the mountains toward the guarded fold:
Through breaking woods her rustling course they hear;
Loud, and more loud, the clamours strike their ear
Of hounds and men: they start, they gaze around,
Watch every side, and turn to every sound.
Thus watch’d the Grecians, cautious of surprise,
Each voice, each motion, drew their ears and eyes:
Each step of passing feet increased the affright;
And hostile Troy was ever full in sight.
Nestor with joy the wakeful band survey’d,
And thus accosted through the gloomy shade.
“’Tis well, my sons! your nightly cares employ;
Else must our host become the scorn of Troy.
Watch thus, and Greece shall live.” The hero said;
Then o’er the trench the following chieftains led.
His son, and godlike Merion, march’d behind
(For these the princes to their council join’d).
The trenches pass’d, the assembled kings around
In silent state the consistory crown’d.
A place there was, yet undefiled with gore,
The spot where Hector stopp’d his rage before;
When night descending, from his vengeful hand
Reprieved the relics of the Grecian band:
(The plain beside with mangled corps was spread,
And all his progress mark’d by heaps of dead:)
There sat the mournful kings: when Neleus’ son,
The council opening, in these words begun:

“Is there (said he) a chief so greatly brave,
His life to hazard, and his country save?
Lives there a man, who singly dares to go
To yonder camp, or seize some straggling foe?
Or favour’d by the night approach so near,
Their speech, their counsels, and designs to hear?
If to besiege our navies they prepare,
Or Troy once more must be the seat of war?
This could he learn, and to our peers recite,
And pass unharm’d the dangers of the night;
What fame were his through all succeeding days,
While Phœbus shines, or men have tongues to praise!
What gifts his grateful country would bestow!
What must not Greece to her deliverer owe?
A sable ewe each leader should provide,
With each a sable lambkin by her side;
At every rite his share should be increased,
And his the foremost honours of the feast.”

Fear held them mute: alone, untaught to fear,
Tydides spoke—“The man you seek is here.
Through yon black camps to bend my dangerous way,
Some god within commands, and I obey.
But let some other chosen warrior join,
To raise my hopes, and second my design.
By mutual confidence and mutual aid,
Great deeds are done, and great discoveries made;
The wise new prudence from the wise acquire,
And one brave hero fans another’s fire.”

Contending leaders at the word arose;
Each generous breast with emulation glows;
So brave a task each Ajax strove to share,
Bold Merion strove, and Nestor’s valiant heir;
The Spartan wish’d the second place to gain,
And great Ulysses wish’d, nor wish’d in vain.
Then thus the king of men the contest ends:
“Thou first of warriors, and thou best of friends,
Undaunted Diomed! what chief to join
In this great enterprise, is only thine.
Just be thy choice, without affection made;
To birth, or office, no respect be paid;
Let worth determine here.” The monarch spake,
And inly trembled for his brother’s sake.

“Then thus (the godlike Diomed rejoin’d)
My choice declares the impulse of my mind.
How can I doubt, while great Ulysses stands
To lend his counsels and assist our hands?
A chief, whose safety is Minerva’s care;
So famed, so dreadful, in the works of war:
Bless’d in his conduct, I no aid require;
Wisdom like his might pass through flames of fire.”

“It fits thee not, before these chiefs of fame,
(Replied the sage,) to praise me, or to blame:
Praise from a friend, or censure from a foe,
Are lost on hearers that our merits know.
But let us haste—Night rolls the hours away,
The reddening orient shows the coming day,
The stars shine fainter on the ethereal plains,
And of night’s empire but a third remains.”

Thus having spoke, with generous ardour press’d,
In arms terrific their huge limbs they dress’d.
A two-edged falchion Thrasymed the brave,
And ample buckler, to Tydides gave:
Then in a leathern helm he cased his head,
Short of its crest, and with no plume o’erspread:
(Such as by youths unused to arms are worn:)
No spoils enrich it, and no studs adorn.
Next him Ulysses took a shining sword,
A bow and quiver, with bright arrows stored:
A well-proved casque, with leather braces bound,
(Thy gift, Meriones,) his temples crown’d;
Soft wool within; without, in order spread,[217]
A boar’s white teeth grinn’d horrid o’er his head.
This from Amyntor, rich Ormenus’ son,
Autolycus by fraudful rapine won,
And gave Amphidamas; from him the prize
Molus received, the pledge of social ties;
The helmet next by Merion was possess’d,
And now Ulysses’ thoughtful temples press’d.
Thus sheathed in arms, the council they forsake,
And dark through paths oblique their progress take.
Just then, in sign she favour’d their intent,
A long-wing’d heron great Minerva sent:
This, though surrounding shades obscured their view,
By the shrill clang and whistling wings they knew.
As from the right she soar’d, Ulysses pray’d,
Hail’d the glad omen, and address’d the maid:

“O daughter of that god whose arm can wield
The avenging bolt, and shake the saber shield!
O thou! for ever present in my way,
Who all my motions, all my toils survey!
Safe may we pass beneath the gloomy shade,
Safe by thy succour to our ships convey’d,
And let some deed this signal night adorn,
To claim the tears of Trojans yet unborn.”

Then godlike Diomed preferr’d his prayer:
“Daughter of Jove, unconquer’d Pallas! hear.
Great queen of arms, whose favour Tydeus won,
As thou defend’st the sire, defend the son.
When on Æsopus’ banks the banded powers
Of Greece he left, and sought the Theban towers,
Peace was his charge; received with peaceful show,
He went a legate, but return’d a foe:
Then help’d by thee, and cover’d by thy shield,
He fought with numbers, and made numbers yield.
So now be present, O celestial maid!
So still continue to the race thine aid!
A youthful steer shall fall beneath the stroke,
Untamed, unconscious of the galling yoke,
With ample forehead, and with spreading horns,
Whose taper tops refulgent gold adorns.”
The heroes pray’d, and Pallas from the skies
Accords their vow, succeeds their enterprise.
Now, like two lions panting for the prey,
With dreadful thoughts they trace the dreary way,
Through the black horrors of the ensanguined plain,
Through dust, through blood, o’er arms, and hills of slain.

Nor less bold Hector, and the sons of Troy,
On high designs the wakeful hours employ;
The assembled peers their lofty chief enclosed;
Who thus the counsels of his breast proposed:

“What glorious man, for high attempts prepared,
Dares greatly venture for a rich reward?
Of yonder fleet a bold discovery make,
What watch they keep, and what resolves they take?
If now subdued they meditate their flight,
And, spent with toil, neglect the watch of night?
His be the chariot that shall please him most,
Of all the plunder of the vanquish’d host;
His the fair steeds that all the rest excel,
And his the glory to have served so well.”

A youth there was among the tribes of Troy,
Dolon his name, Eumedes’ only boy,
(Five girls beside the reverend herald told.)
Rich was the son in brass, and rich in gold;
Not bless’d by nature with the charms of face,
But swift of foot, and matchless in the race.
“Hector! (he said) my courage bids me meet
This high achievement, and explore the fleet:
But first exalt thy sceptre to the skies,
And swear to grant me the demanded prize;
The immortal coursers, and the glittering car,
That bear Pelides through the ranks of war.
Encouraged thus, no idle scout I go,
Fulfil thy wish, their whole intention know,
Even to the royal tent pursue my way,
And all their counsels, all their aims betray.”

The chief then heaved the golden sceptre high,
Attesting thus the monarch of the sky:
“Be witness thou! immortal lord of all!
Whose thunder shakes the dark aerial hall:
By none but Dolon shall this prize be borne,
And him alone the immortal steeds adorn.”

Thus Hector swore: the gods were call’d in vain,
But the rash youth prepares to scour the plain:
Across his back the bended bow he flung,
A wolf’s grey hide around his shoulders hung,
A ferret’s downy fur his helmet lined,
And in his hand a pointed javelin shined.
Then (never to return) he sought the shore,
And trod the path his feet must tread no more.
Scarce had he pass’d the steeds and Trojan throng,
(Still bending forward as he coursed along,)
When, on the hollow way, the approaching tread
Ulysses mark’d, and thus to Diomed;

“O friend! I hear some step of hostile feet,
Moving this way, or hastening to the fleet;
Some spy, perhaps, to lurk beside the main;
Or nightly pillager that strips the slain.
Yet let him pass, and win a little space;
Then rush behind him, and prevent his pace.
But if too swift of foot he flies before,
Confine his course along the fleet and shore,
Betwixt the camp and him our spears employ,
And intercept his hoped return to Troy.”

With that they stepp’d aside, and stoop’d their head,
(As Dolon pass’d,) behind a heap of dead:
Along the path the spy unwary flew;
Soft, at just distance, both the chiefs pursue.
So distant they, and such the space between,
As when two teams of mules divide the green,
(To whom the hind like shares of land allows,)
When now new furrows part the approaching ploughs.
Now Dolon, listening, heard them as they pass’d;
Hector (he thought) had sent, and check’d his haste,
Till scarce at distance of a javelin’s throw,
No voice succeeding, he perceived the foe.
As when two skilful hounds the leveret wind;
Or chase through woods obscure the trembling hind;
Now lost, now seen, they intercept his way,
And from the herd still turn the flying prey:
So fast, and with such fears, the Trojan flew;
So close, so constant, the bold Greeks pursue.
Now almost on the fleet the dastard falls,
And mingles with the guards that watch the walls;
When brave Tydides stopp’d; a gen’rous thought
(Inspired by Pallas) in his bosom wrought,
Lest on the foe some forward Greek advance,
And snatch the glory from his lifted lance.
Then thus aloud: “Whoe’er thou art, remain;
This javelin else shall fix thee to the plain.”
He said, and high in air the weapon cast,
Which wilful err’d, and o’er his shoulder pass’d;
Then fix’d in earth. Against the trembling wood
The wretch stood propp’d, and quiver’d as he stood;
A sudden palsy seized his turning head;
His loose teeth chatter’d, and his colour fled;
The panting warriors seize him as he stands,
And with unmanly tears his life demands.

“O spare my youth, and for the breath I owe,
Large gifts of price my father shall bestow:
Vast heaps of brass shall in your ships be told,
And steel well-temper’d and refulgent gold.”

To whom Ulysses made this wise reply:
“Whoe’er thou art, be bold, nor fear to die.
What moves thee, say, when sleep has closed the sight,
To roam the silent fields in dead of night?
Cam’st thou the secrets of our camp to find,
By Hector prompted, or thy daring mind?
Or art some wretch by hopes of plunder led,
Through heaps of carnage, to despoil the dead?”

Then thus pale Dolon, with a fearful look:
(Still, as he spoke, his limbs with horror shook:)
“Hither I came, by Hector’s words deceived;
Much did he promise, rashly I believed:
No less a bribe than great Achilles’ car,
And those swift steeds that sweep the ranks of war,
Urged me, unwilling, this attempt to make;
To learn what counsels, what resolves you take:
If now subdued, you fix your hopes on flight,
And, tired with toils, neglect the watch of night.”

“Bold was thy aim, and glorious was the prize,
(Ulysses, with a scornful smile, replies,)
Far other rulers those proud steeds demand,
And scorn the guidance of a vulgar hand;
Even great Achilles scarce their rage can tame,
Achilles sprung from an immortal dame.
But say, be faithful, and the truth recite!
Where lies encamp’d the Trojan chief to-night?
Where stand his coursers? in what quarter sleep
Their other princes? tell what watch they keep:
Say, since this conquest, what their counsels are;
Or here to combat, from their city far,
Or back to Ilion’s walls transfer the war?”

Ulysses thus, and thus Eumedes’ son:
“What Dolon knows, his faithful tongue shall own.
Hector, the peers assembling in his tent,
A council holds at Ilus’ monument.
No certain guards the nightly watch partake;
Where’er yon fires ascend, the Trojans wake:
Anxious for Troy, the guard the natives keep;
Safe in their cares, the auxiliar forces sleep,
Whose wives and infants, from the danger far,
Discharge their souls of half the fears of war.”

“Then sleep those aids among the Trojan train,
(Inquired the chief,) or scattered o’er the plain?”
To whom the spy: “Their powers they thus dispose
The Paeons, dreadful with their bended bows,
The Carians, Caucons, the Pelasgian host,
And Leleges, encamp along the coast.
Not distant far, lie higher on the land
The Lycian, Mysian, and Mæonian band,
And Phrygia’s horse, by Thymbras’ ancient wall;
The Thracians utmost, and apart from all.
These Troy but lately to her succour won,
Led on by Rhesus, great Eioneus’ son:
I saw his coursers in proud triumph go,
Swift as the wind, and white as winter-snow;
Rich silver plates his shining car infold;
His solid arms, refulgent, flame with gold;
No mortal shoulders suit the glorious load,
Celestial panoply, to grace a god!
Let me, unhappy, to your fleet be borne,
Or leave me here, a captive’s fate to mourn,
In cruel chains, till your return reveal
The truth or falsehood of the news I tell.”

To this Tydides, with a gloomy frown:
“Think not to live, though all the truth be shown:
Shall we dismiss thee, in some future strife
To risk more bravely thy now forfeit life?
Or that again our camps thou may’st explore?
No—once a traitor, thou betray’st no more.”

Sternly he spoke, and as the wretch prepared
With humble blandishment to stroke his beard,
Like lightning swift the wrathful falchion flew,
Divides the neck, and cuts the nerves in two;
One instant snatch’d his trembling soul to hell,
The head, yet speaking, mutter’d as it fell.
The furry helmet from his brow they tear,
The wolf’s grey hide, the unbended bow and spear;
These great Ulysses lifting to the skies,
To favouring Pallas dedicates the prize:

“Great queen of arms, receive this hostile spoil,
And let the Thracian steeds reward our toil;
Thee, first of all the heavenly host, we praise;
O speed our labours, and direct our ways!”
This said, the spoils, with dropping gore defaced,
High on a spreading tamarisk he placed;
Then heap’d with reeds and gathered boughs the plain,
To guide their footsteps to the place again.

Through the still night they cross the devious fields,
Slippery with blood, o’er arms and heaps of shields,
Arriving where the Thracian squadrons lay,
And eased in sleep the labours of the day.
Ranged in three lines they view the prostrate band:
The horses yoked beside each warrior stand.
Their arms in order on the ground reclined,
Through the brown shade the fulgid weapons shined:
Amidst lay Rhesus, stretch’d in sleep profound,
And the white steeds behind his chariot bound.
The welcome sight Ulysses first descries,
And points to Diomed the tempting prize.
“The man, the coursers, and the car behold!
Described by Dolon, with the arms of gold.
Now, brave Tydides! now thy courage try,
Approach the chariot, and the steeds untie;
Or if thy soul aspire to fiercer deeds,
Urge thou the slaughter, while I seize the steeds.”

Pallas (this said) her hero’s bosom warms,
Breathed in his heart, and strung his nervous arms;
Where’er he pass’d, a purple stream pursued
His thirsty falchion, fat with hostile blood,
Bathed all his footsteps, dyed the fields with gore,
And a low groan remurmur’d through the shore.
So the grim lion, from his nightly den,
O’erleaps the fences, and invades the pen,
On sheep or goats, resistless in his way,
He falls, and foaming rends the guardless prey;
Nor stopp’d the fury of his vengeful hand,
Till twelve lay breathless of the Thracian band.
Ulysses following, as his partner slew,
Back by the foot each slaughter’d warrior drew;
The milk-white coursers studious to convey
Safe to the ships, he wisely cleared the way:
Lest the fierce steeds, not yet to battles bred,
Should start, and tremble at the heaps of dead.
Now twelve despatch’d, the monarch last they found;
Tydides’ falchion fix’d him to the ground.
Just then a deathful dream Minerva sent,
A warlike form appear’d before his tent,
Whose visionary steel his bosom tore:
So dream’d the monarch, and awaked no more.[218]

Ulysses now the snowy steeds detains,
And leads them, fasten’d by the silver reins;
These, with his bow unbent, he lash’d along;
(The scourge forgot, on Rhesus’ chariot hung;)
Then gave his friend the signal to retire;
But him, new dangers, new achievements fire;
Doubtful he stood, or with his reeking blade
To send more heroes to the infernal shade,
Drag off the car where Rhesus’ armour lay,
Or heave with manly force, and lift away.
While unresolved the son of Tydeus stands,
Pallas appears, and thus her chief commands:

“Enough, my son; from further slaughter cease,
Regard thy safety, and depart in peace;
Haste to the ships, the gotten spoils enjoy,
Nor tempt too far the hostile gods of Troy.”

The voice divine confess’d the martial maid;
In haste he mounted, and her word obey’d;
The coursers fly before Ulysses’ bow,
Swift as the wind, and white as winter-snow.

Not unobserved they pass’d: the god of light
Had watch’d his Troy, and mark’d Minerva’s flight,
Saw Tydeus’ son with heavenly succour bless’d,
And vengeful anger fill’d his sacred breast.
Swift to the Trojan camp descends the power,
And wakes Hippocoon in the morning-hour;
(On Rhesus’ side accustom’d to attend,
A faithful kinsman, and instructive friend;)
He rose, and saw the field deform’d with blood,
An empty space where late the coursers stood,
The yet-warm Thracians panting on the coast;
For each he wept, but for his Rhesus most:
Now while on Rhesus’ name he calls in vain,
The gathering tumult spreads o’er all the plain;
On heaps the Trojans rush, with wild affright,
And wondering view the slaughters of the night.

Meanwhile the chiefs, arriving at the shade
Where late the spoils of Hector’s spy were laid,
Ulysses stopp’d; to him Tydides bore
The trophy, dropping yet with Dolon’s gore:
Then mounts again; again their nimbler feet
The coursers ply, and thunder towards the fleet.


[Illustration: ] DIOMED AND ULYSSES RETURNING WITH THE SPOILS OF RHESUS


Old Nestor first perceived the approaching sound,
Bespeaking thus the Grecian peers around:
“Methinks the noise of trampling steeds I hear,
Thickening this way, and gathering on my ear;
Perhaps some horses of the Trojan breed
(So may, ye gods! my pious hopes succeed)
The great Tydides and Ulysses bear,
Return’d triumphant with this prize of war.
Yet much I fear (ah, may that fear be vain!)
The chiefs outnumber’d by the Trojan train;
Perhaps, even now pursued, they seek the shore;
Or, oh! perhaps those heroes are no more.”

Scarce had he spoke, when, lo! the chiefs appear,
And spring to earth; the Greeks dismiss their fear:
With words of friendship and extended hands
They greet the kings; and Nestor first demands:

“Say thou, whose praises all our host proclaim,
Thou living glory of the Grecian name!
Say whence these coursers? by what chance bestow’d,
The spoil of foes, or present of a god?
Not those fair steeds, so radiant and so gay,
That draw the burning chariot of the day.
Old as I am, to age I scorn to yield,
And daily mingle in the martial field;
But sure till now no coursers struck my sight
Like these, conspicuous through the ranks of fight.
Some god, I deem, conferred the glorious prize,
Bless’d as ye are, and favourites of the skies;
The care of him who bids the thunder roar,
And her, whose fury bathes the world with gore.”

“Father! not so, (sage Ithacus rejoin’d,)
The gifts of heaven are of a nobler kind.
Of Thracian lineage are the steeds ye view,
Whose hostile king the brave Tydides slew;
Sleeping he died, with all his guards around,
And twelve beside lay gasping on the ground.
These other spoils from conquer’d Dolon came,
A wretch, whose swiftness was his only fame;
By Hector sent our forces to explore,
He now lies headless on the sandy shore.”

Then o’er the trench the bounding coursers flew;
The joyful Greeks with loud acclaim pursue.
Straight to Tydides’ high pavilion borne,
The matchless steeds his ample stalls adorn:
The neighing coursers their new fellows greet,
And the full racks are heap’d with generous wheat.
But Dolon’s armour, to his ships convey’d,
High on the painted stern Ulysses laid,
A trophy destin’d to the blue-eyed maid.

Now from nocturnal sweat and sanguine stain
They cleanse their bodies in the neighb’ring main:
Then in the polished bath, refresh’d from toil,
Their joints they supple with dissolving oil,
In due repast indulge the genial hour,
And first to Pallas the libations pour:
They sit, rejoicing in her aid divine,
And the crown’d goblet foams with floods of wine.




BOOK XI.


ARGUMENT


THE THIRD BATTLE, AND THE ACTS OF AGAMEMNON.


Agamemnon, having armed himself, leads the Grecians to battle; Hector
prepares the Trojans to receive them, while Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva
give the signals of war. Agamemnon bears all before him and Hector is
commanded by Jupiter (who sends Iris for that purpose) to decline the
engagement, till the king shall be wounded and retire from the field.
He then makes a great slaughter of the enemy. Ulysses and Diomed put a
stop to him for a time but the latter, being wounded by Paris, is
obliged to desert his companion, who is encompassed by the Trojans,
wounded, and in the utmost danger, till Menelaus and Ajax rescue him.
Hector comes against Ajax, but that hero alone opposes multitudes, and
rallies the Greeks. In the meantime Machaon, in the other wing of the
army, is pierced with an arrow by Paris, and carried from the fight in
Nestor’s chariot. Achilles (who overlooked the action from his ship)
sent Patroclus to inquire which of the Greeks was wounded in that
manner; Nestor entertains him in his tent with an account of the
accidents of the day, and a long recital of some former wars which he
remembered, tending to put Patroclus upon persuading Achilles to fight
for his countrymen, or at least to permit him to do it, clad in
Achilles’ armour. Patroclus, on his return, meets Eurypylus also
wounded, and assists him in that distress.
    This book opens with the eight-and-twentieth day of the poem, and
    the same day, with its various actions and adventures is extended
    through the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth,
    seventeenth, and part of the eighteenth books. The scene lies in
    the field near the monument of Ilus.


The saffron morn, with early blushes spread,[219]
Now rose refulgent from Tithonus’ bed;
With new-born day to gladden mortal sight,
And gild the courts of heaven with sacred light:
When baleful Eris, sent by Jove’s command,
The torch of discord blazing in her hand,
Through the red skies her bloody sign extends,
And, wrapt in tempests, o’er the fleet descends.
High on Ulysses’ bark her horrid stand
She took, and thunder’d through the seas and land.

Even Ajax and Achilles heard the sound,
Whose ships, remote, the guarded navy bound,
Thence the black fury through the Grecian throng
With horror sounds the loud Orthian song:
The navy shakes, and at the dire alarms
Each bosom boils, each warrior starts to arms.
No more they sigh, inglorious to return,
But breathe revenge, and for the combat burn.


[Illustration: ] THE DESCENT OF DISCORD


The king of men his hardy host inspires
With loud command, with great example fires!
Himself first rose, himself before the rest
His mighty limbs in radiant armour dress’d,
And first he cased his manly legs around
In shining greaves with silver buckles bound;
The beaming cuirass next adorn’d his breast,
The same which once king Cinyras possess’d:
(The fame of Greece and her assembled host
Had reach’d that monarch on the Cyprian coast;
’Twas then, the friendship of the chief to gain,
This glorious gift he sent, nor sent in vain:)
Ten rows of azure steel the work infold,
Twice ten of tin, and twelve of ductile gold;
Three glittering dragons to the gorget rise,
Whose imitated scales against the skies
Reflected various light, and arching bow’d,
Like colour’d rainbows o’er a showery cloud
(Jove’s wondrous bow, of three celestial dies,
Placed as a sign to man amidst the skies).
A radiant baldric, o’er his shoulder tied,
Sustain’d the sword that glitter’d at his side:
Gold was the hilt, a silver sheath encased
The shining blade, and golden hangers graced.
His buckler’s mighty orb was next display’d,
That round the warrior cast a dreadful shade;
Ten zones of brass its ample brim surround,
And twice ten bosses the bright convex crown’d:
Tremendous Gorgon frown’d upon its field,
And circling terrors fill’d the expressive shield:
Within its concave hung a silver thong,
On which a mimic serpent creeps along,
His azure length in easy waves extends,
Till in three heads the embroider’d monster ends.
Last o’er his brows his fourfold helm he placed,
With nodding horse-hair formidably graced;
And in his hands two steely javelins wields,
That blaze to heaven, and lighten all the fields.

That instant Juno, and the martial maid,
In happy thunders promised Greece their aid;
High o’er the chief they clash’d their arms in air,
And, leaning from the clouds, expect the war.

Close to the limits of the trench and mound,
The fiery coursers to their chariots bound
The squires restrain’d: the foot, with those who wield
The lighter arms, rush forward to the field.
To second these, in close array combined,
The squadrons spread their sable wings behind.
Now shouts and tumults wake the tardy sun,
As with the light the warriors’ toils begun.
Even Jove, whose thunder spoke his wrath, distill’d
Red drops of blood o’er all the fatal field;[220]
The woes of men unwilling to survey,
And all the slaughters that must stain the day.

Near Ilus’ tomb, in order ranged around,
The Trojan lines possess’d the rising ground:
There wise Polydamas and Hector stood;
Æneas, honour’d as a guardian god;
Bold Polybus, Agenor the divine;
The brother-warriors of Antenor’s line:
With youthful Acamas, whose beauteous face
And fair proportion match’d the ethereal race.
Great Hector, cover’d with his spacious shield,
Plies all the troops, and orders all the field.
As the red star now shows his sanguine fires
Through the dark clouds, and now in night retires,
Thus through the ranks appear’d the godlike man,
Plunged in the rear, or blazing in the van;
While streamy sparkles, restless as he flies,
Flash from his arms, as lightning from the skies.
As sweating reapers in some wealthy field,
Ranged in two bands, their crooked weapons wield,
Bear down the furrows, till their labours meet;
Thick fall the heapy harvests at their feet:
So Greece and Troy the field of war divide,
And falling ranks are strow’d on every side.
None stoop’d a thought to base inglorious flight;[221]
But horse to horse, and man to man they fight,
Not rabid wolves more fierce contest their prey;
Each wounds, each bleeds, but none resign the day.
Discord with joy the scene of death descries,
And drinks large slaughter at her sanguine eyes:
Discord alone, of all the immortal train,
Swells the red horrors of this direful plain:
The gods in peace their golden mansions fill,
Ranged in bright order on the Olympian hill:
But general murmurs told their griefs above,
And each accused the partial will of Jove.
Meanwhile apart, superior, and alone,
The eternal Monarch, on his awful throne,
Wrapt in the blaze of boundless glory sate;
And fix’d, fulfill’d the just decrees of fate.
On earth he turn’d his all-considering eyes,
And mark’d the spot where Ilion’s towers arise;
The sea with ships, the fields with armies spread,
The victor’s rage, the dying, and the dead.

Thus while the morning-beams, increasing bright,
O’er heaven’s pure azure spread the glowing light,
Commutual death the fate of war confounds,
Each adverse battle gored with equal wounds.
But now (what time in some sequester’d vale
The weary woodman spreads his sparing meal,
When his tired arms refuse the axe to rear,
And claim a respite from the sylvan war;
But not till half the prostrate forests lay
Stretch’d in long ruin, and exposed to day)
Then, nor till then, the Greeks’ impulsive might
Pierced the black phalanx, and let in the light.
Great Agamemnon then the slaughter led,
And slew Bienor at his people’s head:
Whose squire Oïleus, with a sudden spring,
Leap’d from the chariot to revenge his king;
But in his front he felt the fatal wound,
Which pierced his brain, and stretch’d him on the ground.
Atrides spoil’d, and left them on the plain:
Vain was their youth, their glittering armour vain:
Now soil’d with dust, and naked to the sky,
Their snowy limbs and beauteous bodies lie.

Two sons of Priam next to battle move,
The product, one of marriage, one of love:[222]
In the same car the brother-warriors ride;
This took the charge to combat, that to guide:
Far other task, than when they wont to keep,
On Ida’s tops, their father’s fleecy sheep.
These on the mountains once Achilles found,
And captive led, with pliant osiers bound;
Then to their sire for ample sums restored;
But now to perish by Atrides’ sword:
Pierced in the breast the base-born Isus bleeds:
Cleft through the head his brother’s fate succeeds,
Swift to the spoil the hasty victor falls,
And, stript, their features to his mind recalls.
The Trojans see the youths untimely die,
But helpless tremble for themselves, and fly.
So when a lion ranging o’er the lawns,
Finds, on some grassy lair, the couching fawns,
Their bones he cracks, their reeking vitals draws,
And grinds the quivering flesh with bloody jaws;
The frighted hind beholds, and dares not stay,
But swift through rustling thickets bursts her way;
All drown’d in sweat, the panting mother flies,
And the big tears roll trickling from her eyes.

Amidst the tumult of the routed train,
The sons of false Antimachus were slain;
He who for bribes his faithless counsels sold,
And voted Helen’s stay for Paris’ gold.
Atrides mark’d, as these their safety sought,
And slew the children for the father’s fault;
Their headstrong horse unable to restrain,
They shook with fear, and dropp’d the silken rein;
Then in the chariot on their knees they fall,
And thus with lifted hands for mercy call:

“O spare our youth, and for the life we owe,
Antimachus shall copious gifts bestow:
Soon as he hears, that, not in battle slain,
The Grecian ships his captive sons detain,
Large heaps of brass in ransom shall be told,
And steel well-tempered, and persuasive gold.”

These words, attended with the flood of tears,
The youths address’d to unrelenting ears:
The vengeful monarch gave this stern reply:
“If from Antimachus ye spring, ye die;
The daring wretch who once in council stood
To shed Ulysses’ and my brother’s blood,
For proffer’d peace! and sues his seed for grace?
No, die, and pay the forfeit of your race.”

This said, Pisander from the car he cast,
And pierced his breast: supine he breathed his last.
His brother leap’d to earth; but, as he lay,
The trenchant falchion lopp’d his hands away;
His sever’d head was toss’d among the throng,
And, rolling, drew a bloody train along.
Then, where the thickest fought, the victor flew;
The king’s example all his Greeks pursue.
Now by the foot the flying foot were slain,
Horse trod by horse, lay foaming on the plain.
From the dry fields thick clouds of dust arise,
Shade the black host, and intercept the skies.
The brass-hoof’d steeds tumultuous plunge and bound,
And the thick thunder beats the labouring ground,
Still slaughtering on, the king of men proceeds;
The distanced army wonders at his deeds,
As when the winds with raging flames conspire,
And o’er the forests roll the flood of fire,
In blazing heaps the grove’s old honours fall,
And one refulgent ruin levels all:
Before Atrides’ rage so sinks the foe,
Whole squadrons vanish, and proud heads lie low.
The steeds fly trembling from his waving sword,
And many a car, now lighted of its lord,
Wide o’er the field with guideless fury rolls,
Breaking their ranks, and crushing out their souls;
While his keen falchion drinks the warriors’ lives;
More grateful, now, to vultures than their wives!

Perhaps great Hector then had found his fate,
But Jove and destiny prolong’d his date.
Safe from the darts, the care of heaven he stood,
Amidst alarms, and death, and dust, and blood.

Now past the tomb where ancient Ilus lay,
Through the mid field the routed urge their way:
Where the wild figs the adjoining summit crown,
The path they take, and speed to reach the town.
As swift, Atrides with loud shouts pursued,
Hot with his toil, and bathed in hostile blood.
Now near the beech-tree, and the Scæan gates,
The hero halts, and his associates waits.
Meanwhile on every side around the plain,
Dispersed, disorder’d, fly the Trojan train.
So flies a herd of beeves, that hear dismay’d
The lion’s roaring through the midnight shade;
On heaps they tumble with successless haste;
The savage seizes, draws, and rends the last.
Not with less fury stern Atrides flew,
Still press’d the rout, and still the hindmost slew;
Hurl’d from their cars the bravest chiefs are kill’d,
And rage, and death, and carnage load the field.

Now storms the victor at the Trojan wall;
Surveys the towers, and meditates their fall.
But Jove descending shook the Idaean hills,
And down their summits pour’d a hundred rills:
The unkindled lightning in his hand he took,
And thus the many-coloured maid bespoke:

“Iris, with haste thy golden wings display,
To godlike Hector this our word convey—
While Agamemnon wastes the ranks around,
Fights in the front, and bathes with blood the ground,
Bid him give way; but issue forth commands,
And trust the war to less important hands:
But when, or wounded by the spear or dart,
That chief shall mount his chariot, and depart,
Then Jove shall string his arm, and fire his breast,
Then to her ships shall flying Greece be press’d,
Till to the main the burning sun descend,
And sacred night her awful shade extend.”

He spoke, and Iris at his word obey’d;
On wings of winds descends the various maid.
The chief she found amidst the ranks of war,
Close to the bulwarks, on his glittering car.
The goddess then: “O son of Priam, hear!
From Jove I come, and his high mandate bear.
While Agamemnon wastes the ranks around,
Fights in the front, and bathes with blood the ground,
Abstain from fight; yet issue forth commands,
And trust the war to less important hands:
But when, or wounded by the spear or dart,
The chief shall mount his chariot, and depart,
Then Jove shall string thy arm, and fire thy breast,
Then to her ships shall flying Greece be press’d,
Till to the main the burning sun descend,
And sacred night her awful shade extend.”

She said, and vanish’d. Hector, with a bound,
Springs from his chariot on the trembling ground,
In clanging arms: he grasps in either hand
A pointed lance, and speeds from band to band;
Revives their ardour, turns their steps from flight,
And wakes anew the dying flames of fight.
They stand to arms: the Greeks their onset dare,
Condense their powers, and wait the coming war.
New force, new spirit, to each breast returns;
The fight renew’d with fiercer fury burns:
The king leads on: all fix on him their eye,
And learn from him to conquer, or to die.

Ye sacred nine! celestial Muses! tell,
Who faced him first, and by his prowess fell?
The great Iphidamas, the bold and young,
From sage Antenor and Theano sprung;
Whom from his youth his grandsire Cisseus bred,
And nursed in Thrace where snowy flocks are fed.
Scarce did the down his rosy cheeks invest,
And early honour warm his generous breast,
When the kind sire consign’d his daughter’s charms
(Theano’s sister) to his youthful arms.
But call’d by glory to the wars of Troy,
He leaves untasted the first fruits of joy;
From his loved bride departs with melting eyes,
And swift to aid his dearer country flies.
With twelve black ships he reach’d Percope’s strand,
Thence took the long laborious march by land.
Now fierce for fame, before the ranks he springs,
Towering in arms, and braves the king of kings.
Atrides first discharged the missive spear;
The Trojan stoop’d, the javelin pass’d in air.
Then near the corslet, at the monarch’s heart,
With all his strength, the youth directs his dart:
But the broad belt, with plates of silver bound,
The point rebated, and repell’d the wound.
Encumber’d with the dart, Atrides stands,
Till, grasp’d with force, he wrench’d it from his hands;
At once his weighty sword discharged a wound
Full on his neck, that fell’d him to the ground.
Stretch’d in the dust the unhappy warrior lies,
And sleep eternal seals his swimming eyes.
Oh worthy better fate! oh early slain!
Thy country’s friend; and virtuous, though in vain!
No more the youth shall join his consort’s side,
At once a virgin, and at once a bride!
No more with presents her embraces meet,
Or lay the spoils of conquest at her feet,
On whom his passion, lavish of his store,
Bestow’d so much, and vainly promised more!
Unwept, uncover’d, on the plain he lay,
While the proud victor bore his arms away.

Coon, Antenor’s eldest hope, was nigh:
Tears, at the sight, came starting from his eye,
While pierced with grief the much-loved youth he view’d,
And the pale features now deform’d with blood.
Then, with his spear, unseen, his time he took,
Aim’d at the king, and near his elbow strook.
The thrilling steel transpierced the brawny part,
And through his arm stood forth the barbed dart.
Surprised the monarch feels, yet void of fear
On Coon rushes with his lifted spear:
His brother’s corpse the pious Trojan draws,
And calls his country to assert his cause;
Defends him breathless on the sanguine field,
And o’er the body spreads his ample shield.
Atrides, marking an unguarded part,
Transfix’d the warrior with his brazen dart;
Prone on his brother’s bleeding breast he lay,
The monarch’s falchion lopp’d his head away:
The social shades the same dark journey go,
And join each other in the realms below.

The vengeful victor rages round the fields,
With every weapon art or fury yields:
By the long lance, the sword, or ponderous stone,
Whole ranks are broken, and whole troops o’erthrown.
This, while yet warm distill’d the purple flood;
But when the wound grew stiff with clotted blood,
Then grinding tortures his strong bosom rend,
Less keen those darts the fierce Ilythiae send:
(The powers that cause the teeming matron’s throes,
Sad mothers of unutterable woes!)
Stung with the smart, all-panting with the pain,
He mounts the car, and gives his squire the rein;
Then with a voice which fury made more strong,
And pain augmented, thus exhorts the throng:

“O friends! O Greeks! assert your honours won;
Proceed, and finish what this arm begun:
Lo! angry Jove forbids your chief to stay,
And envies half the glories of the day.”

He said: the driver whirls his lengthful thong;
The horses fly; the chariot smokes along.
Clouds from their nostrils the fierce coursers blow,
And from their sides the foam descends in snow;
Shot through the battle in a moment’s space,
The wounded monarch at his tent they place.

No sooner Hector saw the king retired,
But thus his Trojans and his aids he fired:
“Hear, all ye Dardan, all ye Lycian race!
Famed in close fight, and dreadful face to face:
Now call to mind your ancient trophies won,
Your great forefathers’ virtues, and your own.
Behold, the general flies! deserts his powers!
Lo, Jove himself declares the conquest ours!
Now on yon ranks impel your foaming steeds;
And, sure of glory, dare immortal deeds.”

With words like these the fiery chief alarms
His fainting host, and every bosom warms.
As the bold hunter cheers his hounds to tear
The brindled lion, or the tusky bear:
With voice and hand provokes their doubting heart,
And springs the foremost with his lifted dart:
So godlike Hector prompts his troops to dare;
Nor prompts alone, but leads himself the war.
On the black body of the foe he pours;
As from the cloud’s deep bosom, swell’d with showers,
A sudden storm the purple ocean sweeps,
Drives the wild waves, and tosses all the deeps.
Say, Muse! when Jove the Trojan’s glory crown’d,
Beneath his arm what heroes bit the ground?
Assaeus, Dolops, and Autonous died,
Opites next was added to their side;
Then brave Hipponous, famed in many a fight,
Opheltius, Orus, sunk to endless night;
Æsymnus, Agelaus; all chiefs of name;
The rest were vulgar deaths unknown to fame.
As when a western whirlwind, charged with storms,
Dispels the gather’d clouds that Notus forms:
The gust continued, violent and strong,
Rolls sable clouds in heaps on heaps along;
Now to the skies the foaming billows rears,
Now breaks the surge, and wide the bottom bares:
Thus, raging Hector, with resistless hands,
O’erturns, confounds, and scatters all their bands.
Now the last ruin the whole host appals;
Now Greece had trembled in her wooden walls;
But wise Ulysses call’d Tydides forth,
His soul rekindled, and awaked his worth.
“And stand we deedless, O eternal shame!
Till Hector’s arm involve the ships in flame?
Haste, let us join, and combat side by side.”
The warrior thus, and thus the friend replied:

“No martial toil I shun, no danger fear;
Let Hector come; I wait his fury here.
But Jove with conquest crowns the Trojan train:
And, Jove our foe, all human force is vain.”

He sigh’d; but, sighing, raised his vengeful steel,
And from his car the proud Thymbraeus fell:
Molion, the charioteer, pursued his lord,
His death ennobled by Ulysses’ sword.
There slain, they left them in eternal night,
Then plunged amidst the thickest ranks of fight.
So two wild boars outstrip the following hounds,
Then swift revert, and wounds return for wounds.
Stern Hector’s conquests in the middle plain
Stood check’d awhile, and Greece respired again.

The sons of Merops shone amidst the war;
Towering they rode in one refulgent car:
In deep prophetic arts their father skill’d,
Had warn’d his children from the Trojan field.
Fate urged them on: the father warn’d in vain;
They rush’d to fight, and perish’d on the plain;
Their breasts no more the vital spirit warms;
The stern Tydides strips their shining arms.
Hypirochus by great Ulysses dies,
And rich Hippodamus becomes his prize.
Great Jove from Ide with slaughter fills his sight,
And level hangs the doubtful scale of fight.
By Tydeus’ lance Agastrophus was slain,
The far-famed hero of Pæonian strain;
Wing’d with his fears, on foot he strove to fly,
His steeds too distant, and the foe too nigh:
Through broken orders, swifter than the wind,
He fled, but flying left his life behind.
This Hector sees, as his experienced eyes
Traverse the files, and to the rescue flies;
Shouts, as he pass’d, the crystal regions rend,
And moving armies on his march attend.
Great Diomed himself was seized with fear,
And thus bespoke his brother of the war:

“Mark how this way yon bending squadrons yield!
The storm rolls on, and Hector rules the field:
Here stand his utmost force.”—The warrior said;
Swift at the word his ponderous javelin fled;
Nor miss’d its aim, but where the plumage danced
Razed the smooth cone, and thence obliquely glanced.
Safe in his helm (the gift of Phœbus’ hands)
Without a wound the Trojan hero stands;
But yet so stunn’d, that, staggering on the plain.
His arm and knee his sinking bulk sustain;
O’er his dim sight the misty vapours rise,
And a short darkness shades his swimming eyes.
Tydides followed to regain his lance;
While Hector rose, recover’d from the trance,
Remounts his car, and herds amidst the crowd:
The Greek pursues him, and exults aloud:
“Once more thank Phœbus for thy forfeit breath,
Or thank that swiftness which outstrips the death.
Well by Apollo are thy prayers repaid,
And oft that partial power has lent his aid.
Thou shall not long the death deserved withstand,
If any god assist Tydides’ hand.
Fly then, inglorious! but thy flight, this day,
Whole hecatombs of Trojan ghosts shall pay,”

Him, while he triumph’d, Paris eyed from far,
(The spouse of Helen, the fair cause of war;)
Around the fields his feather’d shafts he sent,
From ancient Ilus’ ruin’d monument:
Behind the column placed, he bent his bow,
And wing’d an arrow at the unwary foe;
Just as he stoop’d, Agastrophus’s crest
To seize, and drew the corslet from his breast,
The bowstring twang’d; nor flew the shaft in vain,
But pierced his foot, and nail’d it to the plain.
The laughing Trojan, with a joyful spring.
Leaps from his ambush, and insults the king.

“He bleeds! (he cries) some god has sped my dart!
Would the same god had fix’d it in his heart!
So Troy, relieved from that wide-wasting hand,
Should breathe from slaughter and in combat stand:
Whose sons now tremble at his darted spear,
As scatter’d lambs the rushing lion fear.”

He dauntless thus: “Thou conqueror of the fair,
Thou woman-warrior with the curling hair;
Vain archer! trusting to the distant dart,
Unskill’d in arms to act a manly part!
Thou hast but done what boys or women can;
Such hands may wound, but not incense a man.
Nor boast the scratch thy feeble arrow gave,
A coward’s weapon never hurts the brave.
Not so this dart, which thou may’st one day feel;
Fate wings its flight, and death is on the steel:
Where this but lights, some noble life expires;
Its touch makes orphans, bathes the cheeks of sires,
Steeps earth in purple, gluts the birds of air,
And leaves such objects as distract the fair.”
Ulysses hastens with a trembling heart,
Before him steps, and bending draws the dart:
Forth flows the blood; an eager pang succeeds;
Tydides mounts, and to the navy speeds.

Now on the field Ulysses stands alone,
The Greeks all fled, the Trojans pouring on;
But stands collected in himself, and whole,
And questions thus his own unconquer’d soul:

“What further subterfuge, what hopes remain?
What shame, inglorious if I quit the plain?
What danger, singly if I stand the ground,
My friends all scatter’d, all the foes around?
Yet wherefore doubtful? let this truth suffice,
The brave meets danger, and the coward flies.
To die or conquer, proves a hero’s heart;
And, knowing this, I know a soldier’s part.”

Such thoughts revolving in his careful breast,
Near, and more near, the shady cohorts press’d;
These, in the warrior, their own fate enclose;
And round him deep the steely circle grows.
So fares a boar whom all the troop surrounds
Of shouting huntsmen and of clamorous hounds;
He grinds his ivory tusks; he foams with ire;
His sanguine eye-balls glare with living fire;
By these, by those, on every part is plied;
And the red slaughter spreads on every side.
Pierced through the shoulder, first Deiopis fell;
Next Ennomus and Thoon sank to hell;
Chersidamas, beneath the navel thrust,
Falls prone to earth, and grasps the bloody dust.
Charops, the son of Hippasus, was near;
Ulysses reach’d him with the fatal spear;
But to his aid his brother Socus flies,
Socus the brave, the generous, and the wise.
Near as he drew, the warrior thus began:

“O great Ulysses! much-enduring man!
Not deeper skill’d in every martial sleight,
Than worn to toils, and active in the fight!
This day two brothers shall thy conquest grace,
And end at once the great Hippasian race,
Or thou beneath this lance must press the field.”
He said, and forceful pierced his spacious shield:
Through the strong brass the ringing javelin thrown,
Plough’d half his side, and bared it to the bone.
By Pallas’ care, the spear, though deep infix’d,
Stopp’d short of life, nor with his entrails mix’d.

The wound not mortal wise Ulysses knew,
Then furious thus (but first some steps withdrew):
“Unhappy man! whose death our hands shall grace,
Fate calls thee hence and finish’d is thy race.
Nor longer check my conquests on the foe;
But, pierced by this, to endless darkness go,
And add one spectre to the realms below!”

He spoke, while Socus, seized with sudden fright,
Trembling gave way, and turn’d his back to flight;
Between his shoulders pierced the following dart,
And held its passage through the panting heart:
Wide in his breast appear’d the grisly wound;
He falls; his armour rings against the ground.
Then thus Ulysses, gazing on the slain:
“Famed son of Hippasus! there press the plain;
There ends thy narrow span assign’d by fate,
Heaven owes Ulysses yet a longer date.
Ah, wretch! no father shall thy corpse compose;
Thy dying eyes no tender mother close;
But hungry birds shall tear those balls away,
And hovering vultures scream around their prey.
Me Greece shall honour, when I meet my doom,
With solemn funerals and a lasting tomb.”

Then raging with intolerable smart,
He writhes his body, and extracts the dart.
The dart a tide of spouting gore pursued,
And gladden’d Troy with sight of hostile blood.
Now troops on troops the fainting chief invade,
Forced he recedes, and loudly calls for aid.
Thrice to its pitch his lofty voice he rears;
The well-known voice thrice Menelaus hears:
Alarm’d, to Ajax Telamon he cried,
Who shares his labours, and defends his side:
“O friend! Ulysses’ shouts invade my ear;
Distressed he seems, and no assistance near;
Strong as he is, yet one opposed to all,
Oppress’d by multitudes, the best may fall.
Greece robb’d of him must bid her host despair,
And feel a loss not ages can repair.”

Then, where the cry directs, his course he bends;
Great Ajax, like the god of war, attends,
The prudent chief in sore distress they found,
With bands of furious Trojans compass’d round.[223]
As when some huntsman, with a flying spear,
From the blind thicket wounds a stately deer;
Down his cleft side, while fresh the blood distils,
He bounds aloft, and scuds from hills to hills,
Till life’s warm vapour issuing through the wound,
Wild mountain-wolves the fainting beast surround:
Just as their jaws his prostrate limbs invade,
The lion rushes through the woodland shade,
The wolves, though hungry, scour dispersed away;
The lordly savage vindicates his prey.
Ulysses thus, unconquer’d by his pains,
A single warrior half a host sustains:
But soon as Ajax leaves his tower-like shield,
The scattered crowds fly frighted o’er the field;
Atrides’ arm the sinking hero stays,
And, saved from numbers, to his car conveys.

Victorious Ajax plies the routed crew;
And first Doryclus, Priam’s son, he slew,
On strong Pandocus next inflicts a wound,
And lays Lysander bleeding on the ground.
As when a torrent, swell’d with wintry rains,
Pours from the mountains o’er the deluged plains,
And pines and oaks, from their foundations torn,
A country’s ruins! to the seas are borne:
Fierce Ajax thus o’erwhelms the yielding throng;
Men, steeds, and chariots, roll in heaps along.

But Hector, from this scene of slaughter far,
Raged on the left, and ruled the tide of war:
Loud groans proclaim his progress through the plain,
And deep Scamander swells with heaps of slain.
There Nestor and Idomeneus oppose
The warrior’s fury; there the battle glows;
There fierce on foot, or from the chariot’s height,
His sword deforms the beauteous ranks of fight.
The spouse of Helen, dealing darts around,
Had pierced Machaon with a distant wound:
In his right shoulder the broad shaft appear’d,
And trembling Greece for her physician fear’d.
To Nestor then Idomeneus begun:
“Glory of Greece, old Neleus’ valiant son!
Ascend thy chariot, haste with speed away,
And great Machaon to the ships convey;
A wise physician skill’d our wounds to heal,
Is more than armies to the public weal.”
Old Nestor mounts the seat; beside him rode
The wounded offspring of the healing god.
He lends the lash; the steeds with sounding feet
Shake the dry field, and thunder toward the fleet.

But now Cebriones, from Hector’s car,
Survey’d the various fortune of the war:
“While here (he cried) the flying Greeks are slain,
Trojans on Trojans yonder load the plain.
Before great Ajax see the mingled throng
Of men and chariots driven in heaps along!
I know him well, distinguish’d o’er the field
By the broad glittering of the sevenfold shield.
Thither, O Hector, thither urge thy steeds,
There danger calls, and there the combat bleeds;
There horse and foot in mingled deaths unite,
And groans of slaughter mix with shouts of fight.”

Thus having spoke, the driver’s lash resounds;
Swift through the ranks the rapid chariot bounds;
Stung by the stroke, the coursers scour the fields,
O’er heaps of carcases, and hills of shields.
The horses’ hoofs are bathed in heroes’ gore,
And, dashing, purple all the car before;
The groaning axle sable drops distils,
And mangled carnage clogs the rapid wheels.
Here Hector, plunging through the thickest fight,
Broke the dark phalanx, and let in the light:
(By the long lance, the sword, or ponderous stone,
The ranks he scatter’d and the troops o’erthrown:)
Ajax he shuns, through all the dire debate,
And fears that arm whose force he felt so late.
But partial Jove, espousing Hector’s part,
Shot heaven-bred horror through the Grecian’s heart;
Confused, unnerved in Hector’s presence grown,
Amazed he stood, with terrors not his own.
O’er his broad back his moony shield he threw,
And, glaring round, by tardy steps withdrew.
Thus the grim lion his retreat maintains,
Beset with watchful dogs, and shouting swains;
Repulsed by numbers from the nightly stalls,
Though rage impels him, and though hunger calls,
Long stands the showering darts, and missile fires;
Then sourly slow the indignant beast retires:
So turn’d stern Ajax, by whole hosts repell’d,
While his swoln heart at every step rebell’d.

As the slow beast, with heavy strength endued,
In some wide field by troops of boys pursued,
Though round his sides a wooden tempest rain,
Crops the tall harvest, and lays waste the plain;
Thick on his hide the hollow blows resound,
The patient animal maintains his ground,
Scarce from the field with all their efforts chased,
And stirs but slowly when he stirs at last:
On Ajax thus a weight of Trojans hung,
The strokes redoubled on his buckler rung;
Confiding now in bulky strength he stands,
Now turns, and backward bears the yielding bands;
Now stiff recedes, yet hardly seems to fly,
And threats his followers with retorted eye.
Fix’d as the bar between two warring powers,
While hissing darts descend in iron showers:
In his broad buckler many a weapon stood,
Its surface bristled with a quivering wood;
And many a javelin, guiltless on the plain,
Marks the dry dust, and thirsts for blood in vain.
But bold Eurypylus his aid imparts,
And dauntless springs beneath a cloud of darts;
Whose eager javelin launch’d against the foe,
Great Apisaon felt the fatal blow;
From his torn liver the red current flow’d,
And his slack knees desert their dying load.
The victor rushing to despoil the dead,
From Paris’ bow a vengeful arrow fled;
Fix’d in his nervous thigh the weapon stood,
Fix’d was the point, but broken was the wood.
Back to the lines the wounded Greek retired,
Yet thus retreating, his associates fired:

“What god, O Grecians! has your hearts dismay’d?
Oh, turn to arms; ’tis Ajax claims your aid.
This hour he stands the mark of hostile rage,
And this the last brave battle he shall wage:
Haste, join your forces; from the gloomy grave
The warrior rescue, and your country save.”
Thus urged the chief: a generous troop appears,
Who spread their bucklers, and advance their spears,
To guard their wounded friend: while thus they stand
With pious care, great Ajax joins the band:
Each takes new courage at the hero’s sight;
The hero rallies, and renews the fight.

Thus raged both armies like conflicting fires,
While Nestor’s chariot far from fight retires:
His coursers steep’d in sweat, and stain’d with gore,
The Greeks’ preserver, great Machaon, bore.
That hour Achilles, from the topmost height
Of his proud fleet, o’erlook’d the fields of fight;
His feasted eyes beheld around the plain
The Grecian rout, the slaying, and the slain.
His friend Machaon singled from the rest,
A transient pity touch’d his vengeful breast.
Straight to Menoetius’ much-loved son he sent:
Graceful as Mars, Patroclus quits his tent;
In evil hour! Then fate decreed his doom,
And fix’d the date of all his woes to come.

“Why calls my friend? thy loved injunctions lay;
Whate’er thy will, Patroclus shall obey.”

“O first of friends! (Pelides thus replied)
Still at my heart, and ever at my side!
The time is come, when yon despairing host
Shall learn the value of the man they lost:
Now at my knees the Greeks shall pour their moan,
And proud Atrides tremble on his throne.
Go now to Nestor, and from him be taught
What wounded warrior late his chariot brought:
For, seen at distance, and but seen behind,
His form recall’d Machaon to my mind;
Nor could I, through yon cloud, discern his face,
The coursers pass’d me with so swift a pace.”

The hero said. His friend obey’d with haste,
Through intermingled ships and tents he pass’d;
The chiefs descending from their car he found:
The panting steeds Eurymedon unbound.
The warriors standing on the breezy shore,
To dry their sweat, and wash away the gore,
Here paused a moment, while the gentle gale
Convey’d that freshness the cool seas exhale;
Then to consult on farther methods went,
And took their seats beneath the shady tent.
The draught prescribed, fair Hecamede prepares,
Arsinous’ daughter, graced with golden hairs:
(Whom to his aged arms, a royal slave,
Greece, as the prize of Nestor’s wisdom gave:)
A table first with azure feet she placed;
Whose ample orb a brazen charger graced;
Honey new-press’d, the sacred flour of wheat,
And wholesome garlic, crown’d the savoury treat,
Next her white hand an antique goblet brings,
A goblet sacred to the Pylian kings
From eldest times: emboss’d with studs of gold,
Two feet support it, and four handles hold;
On each bright handle, bending o’er the brink,
In sculptured gold, two turtles seem to drink:
A massy weight, yet heaved with ease by him,
When the brisk nectar overlook’d the brim.
Temper’d in this, the nymph of form divine
Pours a large portion of the Pramnian wine;
With goat’s-milk cheese a flavourous taste bestows,
And last with flour the smiling surface strows:
This for the wounded prince the dame prepares:
The cordial beverage reverend Nestor shares:
Salubrious draughts the warriors’ thirst allay,
And pleasing conference beguiles the day.

Meantime Patroclus, by Achilles sent,
Unheard approached, and stood before the tent.
Old Nestor, rising then, the hero led
To his high seat: the chief refused and said:

“’Tis now no season for these kind delays;
The great Achilles with impatience stays.
To great Achilles this respect I owe;
Who asks, what hero, wounded by the foe,
Was borne from combat by thy foaming steeds?
With grief I see the great Machaon bleeds.
This to report, my hasty course I bend;
Thou know’st the fiery temper of my friend.”
“Can then the sons of Greece (the sage rejoin’d)
Excite compassion in Achilles’ mind?
Seeks he the sorrows of our host to know?
This is not half the story of our woe.
Tell him, not great Machaon bleeds alone,
Our bravest heroes in the navy groan,
Ulysses, Agamemnon, Diomed,
And stern Eurypylus, already bleed.
But, ah! what flattering hopes I entertain!
Achilles heeds not, but derides our pain:
Even till the flames consume our fleet he stays,
And waits the rising of the fatal blaze.
Chief after chief the raging foe destroys;
Calm he looks on, and every death enjoys.
Now the slow course of all-impairing time
Unstrings my nerves, and ends my manly prime;
Oh! had I still that strength my youth possess’d,
When this bold arm the Epeian powers oppress’d,
The bulls of Elis in glad triumph led,
And stretch’d the great Itymonaeus dead!
Then from my fury fled the trembling swains,
And ours was all the plunder of the plains:
Fifty white flocks, full fifty herds of swine,
As many goats, as many lowing kine:
And thrice the number of unrivall’d steeds,
All teeming females, and of generous breeds.
These, as my first essay of arms, I won;
Old Neleus gloried in his conquering son.
Thus Elis forced, her long arrears restored,
And shares were parted to each Pylian lord.
The state of Pyle was sunk to last despair,
When the proud Elians first commenced the war:
For Neleus’ sons Alcides’ rage had slain;
Of twelve bold brothers, I alone remain!
Oppress’d, we arm’d; and now this conquest gain’d,
My sire three hundred chosen sheep obtain’d.
(That large reprisal he might justly claim,
For prize defrauded, and insulted fame,
When Elis’ monarch, at the public course,
Detain’d his chariot, and victorious horse.)
The rest the people shared; myself survey’d
The just partition, and due victims paid.
Three days were past, when Elis rose to war,
With many a courser, and with many a car;
The sons of Actor at their army’s head
(Young as they were) the vengeful squadrons led.
High on the rock fair Thryoessa stands,
Our utmost frontier on the Pylian lands:
Not far the streams of famed Alphaeus flow:
The stream they pass’d, and pitch’d their tents below.
Pallas, descending in the shades of night,
Alarms the Pylians and commands the fight.
Each burns for fame, and swells with martial pride,
Myself the foremost; but my sire denied;
Fear’d for my youth, exposed to stern alarms;
And stopp’d my chariot, and detain’d my arms.
My sire denied in vain: on foot I fled
Amidst our chariots; for the goddess led.

“Along fair Arene’s delightful plain
Soft Minyas rolls his waters to the main:
There, horse and foot, the Pylian troops unite,
And sheathed in arms, expect the dawning light.
Thence, ere the sun advanced his noon-day flame,
To great Alphaeus’ sacred source we came.
There first to Jove our solemn rites were paid;
An untamed heifer pleased the blue-eyed maid;
A bull, Alphaeus; and a bull was slain
To the blue monarch of the watery main.
In arms we slept, beside the winding flood,
While round the town the fierce Epeians stood.
Soon as the sun, with all-revealing ray,
Flamed in the front of Heaven, and gave the day.
Bright scenes of arms, and works of war appear;
The nations meet; there Pylos, Elis here.
The first who fell, beneath my javelin bled;
King Augias’ son, and spouse of Agamede:
(She that all simples’ healing virtues knew,
And every herb that drinks the morning dew:)
I seized his car, the van of battle led;
The Epeians saw, they trembled, and they fled.
The foe dispersed, their bravest warrior kill’d,
Fierce as the whirlwind now I swept the field:
Full fifty captive chariots graced my train;
Two chiefs from each fell breathless to the plain.
Then Actor’s sons had died, but Neptune shrouds
The youthful heroes in a veil of clouds.
O’er heapy shields, and o’er the prostrate throng,
Collecting spoils, and slaughtering all along,
Through wide Buprasian fields we forced the foes,
Where o’er the vales the Olenian rocks arose;
Till Pallas stopp’d us where Alisium flows.
Even there the hindmost of the rear I slay,
And the same arm that led concludes the day;
Then back to Pyle triumphant take my way.
There to high Jove were public thanks assign’d,
As first of gods; to Nestor, of mankind.
Such then I was, impell’d by youthful blood;
So proved my valour for my country’s good.

“Achilles with unactive fury glows,
And gives to passion what to Greece he owes.
How shall he grieve, when to the eternal shade
Her hosts shall sink, nor his the power to aid!
O friend! my memory recalls the day,
When, gathering aids along the Grecian sea,
I, and Ulysses, touch’d at Phthia’s port,
And entered Peleus’ hospitable court.
A bull to Jove he slew in sacrifice,
And pour’d libations on the flaming thighs.
Thyself, Achilles, and thy reverend sire
Menoetius, turn’d the fragments on the fire.
Achilles sees us, to the feast invites;
Social we sit, and share the genial rites.
We then explained the cause on which we came,
Urged you to arms, and found you fierce for fame.
Your ancient fathers generous precepts gave;
Peleus said only this:—‘My son! be brave.’
Menoetius thus: ‘Though great Achilles shine
In strength superior, and of race divine,
Yet cooler thoughts thy elder years attend;
Let thy just counsels aid, and rule thy friend.’
Thus spoke your father at Thessalia’s court:
Words now forgot, though now of vast import.
Ah! try the utmost that a friend can say:
Such gentle force the fiercest minds obey;
Some favouring god Achilles’ heart may move;
Though deaf to glory, he may yield to love.
If some dire oracle his breast alarm,
If aught from Heaven withhold his saving arm,
Some beam of comfort yet on Greece may shine,
If thou but lead the Myrmidonian line;
Clad in Achilles’ arms, if thou appear,
Proud Troy may tremble, and desist from war;
Press’d by fresh forces, her o’er-labour’d train
Shall seek their walls, and Greece respire again.”

This touch’d his generous heart, and from the tent
Along the shore with hasty strides he went;
Soon as he came, where, on the crowded strand,
The public mart and courts of justice stand,
Where the tall fleet of great Ulysses lies,
And altars to the guardian gods arise;
There, sad, he met the brave Euaemon’s son,
Large painful drops from all his members run;
An arrow’s head yet rooted in his wound,
The sable blood in circles mark’d the ground.
As faintly reeling he confess’d the smart,
Weak was his pace, but dauntless was his heart.
Divine compassion touch’d Patroclus’ breast,
Who, sighing, thus his bleeding friend address’d:

“Ah, hapless leaders of the Grecian host!
Thus must ye perish on a barbarous coast?
Is this your fate, to glut the dogs with gore,
Far from your friends, and from your native shore?
Say, great Eurypylus! shall Greece yet stand?
Resists she yet the raging Hector’s hand?
Or are her heroes doom’d to die with shame,
And this the period of our wars and fame?”

Eurypylus replies: “No more, my friend;
Greece is no more! this day her glories end;
Even to the ships victorious Troy pursues,
Her force increasing as her toil renews.
Those chiefs, that used her utmost rage to meet,
Lie pierced with wounds, and bleeding in the fleet.
But, thou, Patroclus! act a friendly part,
Lead to my ships, and draw this deadly dart;
With lukewarm water wash the gore away;
With healing balms the raging smart allay,
Such as sage Chiron, sire of pharmacy,
Once taught Achilles, and Achilles thee.
Of two famed surgeons, Podalirius stands
This hour surrounded by the Trojan bands;
And great Machaon, wounded in his tent,
Now wants that succour which so oft he lent.”

To him the chief: “What then remains to do?
The event of things the gods alone can view.
Charged by Achilles’ great command I fly,
And bear with haste the Pylian king’s reply:
But thy distress this instant claims relief.”
He said, and in his arms upheld the chief.
The slaves their master’s slow approach survey’d,
And hides of oxen on the floor display’d:
There stretch’d at length the wounded hero lay;
Patroclus cut the forky steel away:
Then in his hands a bitter root he bruised;
The wound he wash’d, the styptic juice infused.
The closing flesh that instant ceased to glow,
The wound to torture, and the blood to flow.


[Illustration: ] HERCULES




BOOK XII.


ARGUMENT.


THE BATTLE AT THE GRECIAN WALL.


The Greeks having retired into their intrenchments, Hector attempts to
force them; but it proving impossible to pass the ditch, Polydamas
advises to quit their chariots, and manage the attack on foot. The
Trojans follow his counsel; and having divided their army into five
bodies of foot, begin the assault. But upon the signal of an eagle with
a serpent in his talons, which appeared on the left hand of the
Trojans, Polydamas endeavours to withdraw them again. This Hector
opposes, and continues the attack; in which, after many actions,
Sarpedon makes the first breach in the wall. Hector also, casting a
stone of vast size, forces open one of the gates, and enters at the
head of his troops, who victoriously pursue the Grecians even to their
ships.


While thus the hero’s pious cares attend
The cure and safety of his wounded friend,
Trojans and Greeks with clashing shields engage,
And mutual deaths are dealt with mutual rage.
Nor long the trench or lofty walls oppose;
With gods averse the ill-fated works arose;
Their powers neglected, and no victim slain,
The walls were raised, the trenches sunk in vain.

Without the gods, how short a period stands
The proudest monument of mortal hands!
This stood while Hector and Achilles raged,
While sacred Troy the warring hosts engaged;
But when her sons were slain, her city burn’d,
And what survived of Greece to Greece return’d;
Then Neptune and Apollo shook the shore,
Then Ida’s summits pour’d their watery store;
Rhesus and Rhodius then unite their rills,
Caresus roaring down the stony hills,
Æsepus, Granicus, with mingled force,
And Xanthus foaming from his fruitful source;
And gulfy Simois, rolling to the main[224]
Helmets, and shields, and godlike heroes slain:
These, turn’d by Phœbus from their wonted ways,
Deluged the rampire nine continual days;
The weight of waters saps the yielding wall,
And to the sea the floating bulwarks fall.
Incessant cataracts the Thunderer pours,
And half the skies descend in sluicy showers.
The god of ocean, marching stern before,
With his huge trident wounds the trembling shore,
Vast stones and piles from their foundation heaves,
And whelms the smoky ruin in the waves.
Now smooth’d with sand, and levell’d by the flood,
No fragment tells where once the wonder stood;
In their old bounds the rivers roll again,
Shine ’twixt the hills, or wander o’er the plain.[225]

But this the gods in later times perform;
As yet the bulwark stood, and braved the storm;
The strokes yet echoed of contending powers;
War thunder’d at the gates, and blood distain’d the towers.
Smote by the arm of Jove with dire dismay,
Close by their hollow ships the Grecians lay:
Hector’s approach in every wind they hear,
And Hector’s fury every moment fear.
He, like a whirlwind, toss’d the scattering throng,
Mingled the troops, and drove the field along.
So ’midst the dogs and hunters’ daring bands,
Fierce of his might, a boar or lion stands;
Arm’d foes around a dreadful circle form,
And hissing javelins rain an iron storm:
His powers untamed, their bold assault defy,
And where he turns the rout disperse or die:
He foams, he glares, he bounds against them all,
And if he falls, his courage makes him fall.
With equal rage encompass’d Hector glows;
Exhorts his armies, and the trenches shows.
The panting steeds impatient fury breathe,
And snort and tremble at the gulf beneath;
Just at the brink they neigh, and paw the ground,
And the turf trembles, and the skies resound.
Eager they view’d the prospect dark and deep,
Vast was the leap, and headlong hung the steep;
The bottom bare, (a formidable show!)
And bristled thick with sharpen’d stakes below.
The foot alone this strong defence could force,
And try the pass impervious to the horse.
This saw Polydamas; who, wisely brave,
Restrain’d great Hector, and this counsel gave:

“O thou, bold leader of the Trojan bands!
And you, confederate chiefs from foreign lands!
What entrance here can cumbrous chariots find,
The stakes beneath, the Grecian walls behind?
No pass through those, without a thousand wounds,
No space for combat in yon narrow bounds.
Proud of the favours mighty Jove has shown,
On certain dangers we too rashly run:
If ’tis his will our haughty foes to tame,
Oh may this instant end the Grecian name!
Here, far from Argos, let their heroes fall,
And one great day destroy and bury all!
But should they turn, and here oppress our train,
What hopes, what methods of retreat remain?
Wedged in the trench, by our own troops confused,
In one promiscuous carnage crush’d and bruised,
All Troy must perish, if their arms prevail,
Nor shall a Trojan live to tell the tale.
Hear then, ye warriors! and obey with speed;
Back from the trenches let your steeds be led;
Then all alighting, wedged in firm array,
Proceed on foot, and Hector lead the way.
So Greece shall stoop before our conquering power,
And this (if Jove consent) her fatal hour.”


[Illustration: ] POLYDAMAS ADVISING HECTOR


This counsel pleased: the godlike Hector sprung
Swift from his seat; his clanging armour rung.
The chief’s example follow’d by his train,
Each quits his car, and issues on the plain,
By orders strict the charioteers enjoin’d
Compel the coursers to their ranks behind.
The forces part in five distinguish’d bands,
And all obey their several chiefs’ commands.
The best and bravest in the first conspire,
Pant for the fight, and threat the fleet with fire:
Great Hector glorious in the van of these,
Polydamas, and brave Cebriones.
Before the next the graceful Paris shines,
And bold Alcathous, and Agenor joins.
The sons of Priam with the third appear,
Deiphobus, and Helenas the seer;
In arms with these the mighty Asius stood,
Who drew from Hyrtacus his noble blood,
And whom Arisba’s yellow coursers bore,
The coursers fed on Sellè’s winding shore.
Antenor’s sons the fourth battalion guide,
And great Æneas, born on fountful Ide.
Divine Sarpedon the last band obey’d,
Whom Glaucus and Asteropaeus aid.
Next him, the bravest, at their army’s head,
But he more brave than all the hosts he led.

Now with compacted shields in close array,
The moving legions speed their headlong way:
Already in their hopes they fire the fleet,
And see the Grecians gasping at their feet.

While every Trojan thus, and every aid,
The advice of wise Polydamas obey’d,
Asius alone, confiding in his car,
His vaunted coursers urged to meet the war.
Unhappy hero! and advised in vain;
Those wheels returning ne’er shall mark the plain;
No more those coursers with triumphant joy
Restore their master to the gates of Troy!
Black death attends behind the Grecian wall,
And great Idomeneus shall boast thy fall!
Fierce to the left he drives, where from the plain
The flying Grecians strove their ships to gain;
Swift through the wall their horse and chariots pass’d,
The gates half-open’d to receive the last.
Thither, exulting in his force, he flies:
His following host with clamours rend the skies:
To plunge the Grecians headlong in the main,
Such their proud hopes; but all their hopes were vain!

To guard the gates, two mighty chiefs attend,
Who from the Lapiths’ warlike race descend;
This Polypœtes, great Perithous’ heir,
And that Leonteus, like the god of war.
As two tall oaks, before the wall they rise;
Their roots in earth, their heads amidst the skies:
Whose spreading arms with leafy honours crown’d,
Forbid the tempest, and protect the ground;
High on the hills appears their stately form,
And their deep roots for ever brave the storm.
So graceful these, and so the shock they stand
Of raging Asius, and his furious band.
Orestes, Acamas, in front appear,
And Œnomaus and Thoon close the rear:
In vain their clamours shake the ambient fields,
In vain around them beat their hollow shields;
The fearless brothers on the Grecians call,
To guard their navies, and defend the wall.
Even when they saw Troy’s sable troops impend,
And Greece tumultuous from her towers descend,
Forth from the portals rush’d the intrepid pair,
Opposed their breasts, and stood themselves the war.
So two wild boars spring furious from their den,
Roused with the cries of dogs and voice of men;
On every side the crackling trees they tear,
And root the shrubs, and lay the forest bare;
They gnash their tusks, with fire their eye-balls roll,
Till some wide wound lets out their mighty soul.
Around their heads the whistling javelins sung,
With sounding strokes their brazen targets rung;
Fierce was the fight, while yet the Grecian powers
Maintain’d the walls, and mann’d the lofty towers:
To save their fleet their last efforts they try,
And stones and darts in mingled tempests fly.

As when sharp Boreas blows abroad, and brings
The dreary winter on his frozen wings;
Beneath the low-hung clouds the sheets of snow
Descend, and whiten all the fields below:
So fast the darts on either army pour,
So down the rampires rolls the rocky shower:
Heavy, and thick, resound the batter’d shields,
And the deaf echo rattles round the fields.

With shame repulsed, with grief and fury driven,
The frantic Asius thus accuses Heaven:
“In powers immortal who shall now believe?
Can those too flatter, and can Jove deceive?
What man could doubt but Troy’s victorious power
Should humble Greece, and this her fatal hour?
But like when wasps from hollow crannies drive,
To guard the entrance of their common hive,
Darkening the rock, while with unwearied wings
They strike the assailants, and infix their stings;
A race determined, that to death contend:
So fierce these Greeks their last retreats defend.
Gods! shall two warriors only guard their gates,
Repel an army, and defraud the fates?”

These empty accents mingled with the wind,
Nor moved great Jove’s unalterable mind;
To godlike Hector and his matchless might
Was owed the glory of the destined fight.
Like deeds of arms through all the forts were tried,
And all the gates sustain’d an equal tide;
Through the long walls the stony showers were heard,
The blaze of flames, the flash of arms appear’d.
The spirit of a god my breast inspire,
To raise each act to life, and sing with fire!
While Greece unconquer’d kept alive the war,
Secure of death, confiding in despair;
And all her guardian gods, in deep dismay,
With unassisting arms deplored the day.

Even yet the dauntless Lapithae maintain
The dreadful pass, and round them heap the slain.
First Damasus, by Polypœtes’ steel,
Pierced through his helmet’s brazen visor, fell;
The weapon drank the mingled brains and gore!
The warrior sinks, tremendous now no more!
Next Ormenus and Pylon yield their breath:
Nor less Leonteus strews the field with death;
First through the belt Hippomachus he gored,
Then sudden waved his unresisted sword:
Antiphates, as through the ranks he broke,
The falchion struck, and fate pursued the stroke:
Iamenus, Orestes, Menon, bled;
And round him rose a monument of dead.
Meantime, the bravest of the Trojan crew,
Bold Hector and Polydamas, pursue;
Fierce with impatience on the works to fall,
And wrap in rolling flames the fleet and wall.
These on the farther bank now stood and gazed,
By Heaven alarm’d, by prodigies amazed:
A signal omen stopp’d the passing host,
Their martial fury in their wonder lost.
Jove’s bird on sounding pinions beat the skies;
A bleeding serpent of enormous size,
His talons truss’d; alive, and curling round,
He stung the bird, whose throat received the wound:
Mad with the smart, he drops the fatal prey,
In airy circles wings his painful way,
Floats on the winds, and rends the heaven with cries:
Amidst the host the fallen serpent lies.
They, pale with terror, mark its spires unroll’d,
And Jove’s portent with beating hearts behold.
Then first Polydamas the silence broke,
Long weigh’d the signal, and to Hector spoke:

“How oft, my brother, thy reproach I bear,
For words well meant, and sentiments sincere?
True to those counsels which I judge the best,
I tell the faithful dictates of my breast.
To speak his thoughts is every freeman’s right,
In peace, in war, in council, and in fight;
And all I move, deferring to thy sway,
But tends to raise that power which I obey.
Then hear my words, nor may my words be vain!
Seek not this day the Grecian ships to gain;
For sure, to warn us, Jove his omen sent,
And thus my mind explains its clear event:
The victor eagle, whose sinister flight
Retards our host, and fills our hearts with fright,
Dismiss’d his conquest in the middle skies,
Allow’d to seize, but not possess the prize;
Thus, though we gird with fires the Grecian fleet,
Though these proud bulwalks tumble at our feet,
Toils unforeseen, and fiercer, are decreed;
More woes shall follow, and more heroes bleed.
So bodes my soul, and bids me thus advise;
For thus a skilful seer would read the skies.”

To him then Hector with disdain return’d:
(Fierce as he spoke, his eyes with fury burn’d:)
“Are these the faithful counsels of thy tongue?
Thy will is partial, not thy reason wrong:
Or if the purpose of thy heart thou vent,
Sure heaven resumes the little sense it lent.
What coward counsels would thy madness move
Against the word, the will reveal’d of Jove?
The leading sign, the irrevocable nod,
And happy thunders of the favouring god,
These shall I slight, and guide my wavering mind
By wandering birds that flit with every wind?
Ye vagrants of the sky! your wings extend,
Or where the suns arise, or where descend;
To right, to left, unheeded take your way,
While I the dictates of high heaven obey.
Without a sign his sword the brave man draws,
And asks no omen but his country’s cause.
But why should’st thou suspect the war’s success?
None fears it more, as none promotes it less:
Though all our chiefs amidst yon ships expire,
Trust thy own cowardice to escape their fire.
Troy and her sons may find a general grave,
But thou canst live, for thou canst be a slave.
Yet should the fears that wary mind suggests
Spread their cold poison through our soldiers’ breasts,
My javelin can revenge so base a part,
And free the soul that quivers in thy heart.”

Furious he spoke, and, rushing to the wall,
Calls on his host; his host obey the call;
With ardour follow where their leader flies:
Redoubling clamours thunder in the skies.
Jove breathes a whirlwind from the hills of Ide,
And drifts of dust the clouded navy hide;
He fills the Greeks with terror and dismay,
And gives great Hector the predestined day.
Strong in themselves, but stronger in his aid,
Close to the works their rigid siege they laid.
In vain the mounds and massy beams defend,
While these they undermine, and those they rend;
Upheaved the piles that prop the solid wall;
And heaps on heaps the smoky ruins fall.
Greece on her ramparts stands the fierce alarms;
The crowded bulwarks blaze with waving arms,
Shield touching shield, a long refulgent row;
Whence hissing darts, incessant, rain below.
The bold Ajaces fly from tower to tower,
And rouse, with flame divine, the Grecian power.
The generous impulse every Greek obeys;
Threats urge the fearful; and the valiant, praise.

“Fellows in arms! whose deeds are known to fame,
And you, whose ardour hopes an equal name!
Since not alike endued with force or art;
Behold a day when each may act his part!
A day to fire the brave, and warm the cold,
To gain new glories, or augment the old.
Urge those who stand, and those who faint, excite;
Drown Hector’s vaunts in loud exhorts of fight;
Conquest, not safety, fill the thoughts of all;
Seek not your fleet, but sally from the wall;
So Jove once more may drive their routed train,
And Troy lie trembling in her walls again.”

Their ardour kindles all the Grecian powers;
And now the stones descend in heavier showers.
As when high Jove his sharp artillery forms,
And opes his cloudy magazine of storms;
In winter’s bleak uncomfortable reign,
A snowy inundation hides the plain;
He stills the winds, and bids the skies to sleep;
Then pours the silent tempest thick and deep;
And first the mountain-tops are cover’d o’er,
Then the green fields, and then the sandy shore;
Bent with the weight, the nodding woods are seen,
And one bright waste hides all the works of men:
The circling seas, alone absorbing all,
Drink the dissolving fleeces as they fall:
So from each side increased the stony rain,
And the white ruin rises o’er the plain.

Thus godlike Hector and his troops contend
To force the ramparts, and the gates to rend:
Nor Troy could conquer, nor the Greeks would yield,
Till great Sarpedon tower’d amid the field;
For mighty Jove inspired with martial flame
His matchless son, and urged him on to fame.
In arms he shines, conspicuous from afar,
And bears aloft his ample shield in air;
Within whose orb the thick bull-hides were roll’d,
Ponderous with brass, and bound with ductile gold:
And while two pointed javelins arm his hands,
Majestic moves along, and leads his Lycian bands.

So press’d with hunger, from the mountain’s brow
Descends a lion on the flocks below;
So stalks the lordly savage o’er the plain,
In sullen majesty, and stern disdain:
In vain loud mastiffs bay him from afar,
And shepherds gall him with an iron war;
Regardless, furious, he pursues his way;
He foams, he roars, he rends the panting prey.

Resolved alike, divine Sarpedon glows
With generous rage that drives him on the foes.
He views the towers, and meditates their fall,
To sure destruction dooms the aspiring wall;
Then casting on his friend an ardent look,
Fired with the thirst of glory, thus he spoke:

“Why boast we, Glaucus! our extended reign,[226]
Where Xanthus’ streams enrich the Lycian plain,
Our numerous herds that range the fruitful field,
And hills where vines their purple harvest yield,
Our foaming bowls with purer nectar crown’d,
Our feasts enhanced with music’s sprightly sound?
Why on those shores are we with joy survey’d,
Admired as heroes, and as gods obey’d,
Unless great acts superior merit prove,
And vindicate the bounteous powers above?
’Tis ours, the dignity they give to grace;
The first in valour, as the first in place;
That when with wondering eyes our martial bands
Behold our deeds transcending our commands,
Such, they may cry, deserve the sovereign state,
Whom those that envy dare not imitate!
Could all our care elude the gloomy grave,
Which claims no less the fearful and the brave,
For lust of fame I should not vainly dare
In fighting fields, nor urge thy soul to war.
But since, alas! ignoble age must come,
Disease, and death’s inexorable doom,
The life, which others pay, let us bestow,
And give to fame what we to nature owe;
Brave though we fall, and honour’d if we live,
Or let us glory gain, or glory give!”

He said; his words the listening chief inspire
With equal warmth, and rouse the warrior’s fire;
The troops pursue their leaders with delight,
Rush to the foe, and claim the promised fight.
Menestheus from on high the storm beheld
Threatening the fort, and blackening in the field:
Around the walls he gazed, to view from far
What aid appear’d to avert the approaching war,
And saw where Teucer with the Ajaces stood,
Of fight insatiate, prodigal of blood.
In vain he calls; the din of helms and shields
Rings to the skies, and echoes through the fields,
The brazen hinges fly, the walls resound,
Heaven trembles, roar the mountains, thunders all the ground.
Then thus to Thoos: “Hence with speed (he said),
And urge the bold Ajaces to our aid;
Their strength, united, best may help to bear
The bloody labours of the doubtful war:
Hither the Lycian princes bend their course,
The best and bravest of the hostile force.
But if too fiercely there the foes contend,
Let Telamon, at least, our towers defend,
And Teucer haste with his unerring bow
To share the danger, and repel the foe.”

Swift, at the word, the herald speeds along
The lofty ramparts, through the martial throng,
And finds the heroes bathed in sweat and gore,
Opposed in combat on the dusty shore.
“Ye valiant leaders of our warlike bands!
Your aid (said Thoos) Peteus’ son demands;
Your strength, united, best may help to bear
The bloody labours of the doubtful war:
Thither the Lycian princes bend their course,
The best and bravest of the hostile force.
But if too fiercely, here, the foes contend,
At least, let Telamon those towers defend,
And Teucer haste with his unerring bow
To share the danger, and repel the foe.”

Straight to the fort great Ajax turn’d his care,
And thus bespoke his brothers of the war:
“Now, valiant Lycomede! exert your might,
And, brave Oïleus, prove your force in fight;
To you I trust the fortune of the field,
Till by this arm the foe shall be repell’d:
That done, expect me to complete the day.
Then with his sevenfold shield he strode away.”
With equal steps bold Teucer press’d the shore,
Whose fatal bow the strong Pandion bore.

High on the walls appear’d the Lycian powers,
Like some black tempest gathering round the towers:
The Greeks, oppress’d, their utmost force unite,
Prepared to labour in the unequal fight:
The war renews, mix’d shouts and groans arise;
Tumultuous clamour mounts, and thickens in the skies.
Fierce Ajax first the advancing host invades,
And sends the brave Epicles to the shades,
Sarpedon’s friend. Across the warrior’s way,
Rent from the walls, a rocky fragment lay;
In modern ages not the strongest swain
Could heave the unwieldy burden from the plain:
He poised, and swung it round; then toss’d on high,
It flew with force, and labour’d up the sky;
Full on the Lycian’s helmet thundering down,
The ponderous ruin crush’d his batter’d crown.
As skilful divers from some airy steep
Headlong descend, and shoot into the deep,
So falls Epicles; then in groans expires,
And murmuring to the shades the soul retires.

While to the ramparts daring Glaucus drew,
From Teucer’s hand a winged arrow flew;
The bearded shaft the destined passage found,
And on his naked arm inflicts a wound.
The chief, who fear’d some foe’s insulting boast
Might stop the progress of his warlike host,
Conceal’d the wound, and, leaping from his height
Retired reluctant from the unfinish’d fight.
Divine Sarpedon with regret beheld
Disabled Glaucus slowly quit the field;
His beating breast with generous ardour glows,
He springs to fight, and flies upon the foes.
Alcmaon first was doom’d his force to feel;
Deep in his breast he plunged the pointed steel;
Then from the yawning wound with fury tore
The spear, pursued by gushing streams of gore:
Down sinks the warrior with a thundering sound,
His brazen armour rings against the ground.

Swift to the battlement the victor flies,
Tugs with full force, and every nerve applies:
It shakes; the ponderous stones disjointed yield;
The rolling ruins smoke along the field.
A mighty breach appears; the walls lie bare;
And, like a deluge, rushes in the war.
At once bold Teucer draws the twanging bow,
And Ajax sends his javelin at the foe;
Fix’d in his belt the feather’d weapon stood,
And through his buckler drove the trembling wood;
But Jove was present in the dire debate,
To shield his offspring, and avert his fate.
The prince gave back, not meditating flight,
But urging vengeance, and severer fight;
Then raised with hope, and fired with glory’s charms,
His fainting squadrons to new fury warms.
“O where, ye Lycians, is the strength you boast?
Your former fame and ancient virtue lost!
The breach lies open, but your chief in vain
Attempts alone the guarded pass to gain:
Unite, and soon that hostile fleet shall fall:
The force of powerful union conquers all.”

This just rebuke inflamed the Lycian crew;
They join, they thicken, and the assault renew:
Unmoved the embodied Greeks their fury dare,
And fix’d support the weight of all the war;
Nor could the Greeks repel the Lycian powers,
Nor the bold Lycians force the Grecian towers.
As on the confines of adjoining grounds,
Two stubborn swains with blows dispute their bounds;
They tug, they sweat; but neither gain, nor yield,
One foot, one inch, of the contended field;
Thus obstinate to death, they fight, they fall;
Nor these can keep, nor those can win the wall.
Their manly breasts are pierced with many a wound,
Loud strokes are heard, and rattling arms resound;
The copious slaughter covers all the shore,
And the high ramparts drip with human gore.

As when two scales are charged with doubtful loads,
From side to side the trembling balance nods,
(While some laborious matron, just and poor,
With nice exactness weighs her woolly store,)
Till poised aloft, the resting beam suspends
Each equal weight; nor this, nor that, descends:[227]
So stood the war, till Hector’s matchless might,
With fates prevailing, turn’d the scale of fight.
Fierce as a whirlwind up the walls he flies,
And fires his host with loud repeated cries.
“Advance, ye Trojans! lend your valiant hands,
Haste to the fleet, and toss the blazing brands!”
They hear, they run; and, gathering at his call,
Raise scaling engines, and ascend the wall:
Around the works a wood of glittering spears
Shoots up, and all the rising host appears.
A ponderous stone bold Hector heaved to throw,
Pointed above, and rough and gross below:
Not two strong men the enormous weight could raise,
Such men as live in these degenerate days:
Yet this, as easy as a swain could bear
The snowy fleece, he toss’d, and shook in air;
For Jove upheld, and lighten’d of its load
The unwieldy rock, the labour of a god.
Thus arm’d, before the folded gates he came,
Of massy substance, and stupendous frame;
With iron bars and brazen hinges strong,
On lofty beams of solid timber hung:
Then thundering through the planks with forceful sway,
Drives the sharp rock; the solid beams give way,
The folds are shatter’d; from the crackling door
Leap the resounding bars, the flying hinges roar.
Now rushing in, the furious chief appears,
Gloomy as night![228] and shakes two shining spears:
A dreadful gleam from his bright armour came,
And from his eye-balls flash’d the living flame.
He moves a god, resistless in his course,
And seems a match for more than mortal force.
Then pouring after, through the gaping space,
A tide of Trojans flows, and fills the place;
The Greeks behold, they tremble, and they fly;
The shore is heap’d with death, and tumult rends the sky.


[Illustration: ] GREEK ALTAR




BOOK XIII.


ARGUMENT.


THE FOURTH BATTLE CONTINUED, IN WHICH NEPTUNE ASSISTS THE GREEKS: THE
ACTS OF IDOMENEUS.


Neptune, concerned for the loss of the Grecians, upon seeing the
fortification forced by Hector, (who had entered the gate near the
station of the Ajaces,) assumes the shape of Calchas, and inspires
those heroes to oppose him: then, in the form of one of the generals,
encourages the other Greeks who had retired to their vessels. The
Ajaces form their troops in a close phalanx, and put a stop to Hector
and the Trojans. Several deeds of valour are performed; Meriones,
losing his spear in the encounter, repairs to seek another at the tent
of Idomeneus: this occasions a conversation between those two warriors,
who return together to the battle. Idomeneus signalizes his courage
above the rest; he kills Othryoneus, Asius, and Alcathous: Deiphobus
and Æneas march against him, and at length Idomeneus retires. Menelaus
wounds Helenus, and kills Pisander. The Trojans are repulsed on the
left wing; Hector still keeps his ground against the Ajaces, till,
being galled by the Locrian slingers and archers, Polydamas advises to
call a council of war: Hector approves of his advice, but goes first to
rally the Trojans; upbraids Paris, rejoins Polydamas, meets Ajax again,
and renews the attack.
    The eight-and-twentieth day still continues. The scene is between
    the Grecian wall and the sea-shore.


When now the Thunderer on the sea-beat coast
Had fix’d great Hector and his conquering host,
He left them to the fates, in bloody fray
To toil and struggle through the well-fought day.
Then turn’d to Thracia from the field of fight
Those eyes that shed insufferable light,
To where the Mysians prove their martial force,
And hardy Thracians tame the savage horse;
And where the far-famed Hippomolgian strays,
Renown’d for justice and for length of days;[229]
Thrice happy race! that, innocent of blood,
From milk, innoxious, seek their simple food:
Jove sees delighted; and avoids the scene
Of guilty Troy, of arms, and dying men:
No aid, he deems, to either host is given,
While his high law suspends the powers of Heaven.

Meantime the monarch of the watery main
Observed the Thunderer, nor observed in vain.
In Samothracia, on a mountain’s brow,
Whose waving woods o’erhung the deeps below,
He sat; and round him cast his azure eyes
Where Ida’s misty tops confusedly rise;
Below, fair Ilion’s glittering spires were seen;
The crowded ships and sable seas between.
There, from the crystal chambers of the main
Emerged, he sat, and mourn’d his Argives slain.
At Jove incensed, with grief and fury stung,
Prone down the rocky steep he rush’d along;
Fierce as he pass’d, the lofty mountains nod,
The forest shakes; earth trembled as he trod,
And felt the footsteps of the immortal god.
From realm to realm three ample strides he took,
And, at the fourth, the distant Ægae shook.

Far in the bay his shining palace stands,
Eternal frame! not raised by mortal hands:
This having reach’d, his brass-hoof’d steeds he reins,
Fleet as the winds, and deck’d with golden manes.
Refulgent arms his mighty limbs infold,
Immortal arms of adamant and gold.
He mounts the car, the golden scourge applies,
He sits superior, and the chariot flies:
His whirling wheels the glassy surface sweep;
The enormous monsters rolling o’er the deep
Gambol around him on the watery way,
And heavy whales in awkward measures play;
The sea subsiding spreads a level plain,
Exults, and owns the monarch of the main;
The parting waves before his coursers fly;
The wondering waters leave his axle dry.

Deep in the liquid regions lies a cave,
Between where Tenedos the surges lave,
And rocky Imbrus breaks the rolling wave:
There the great ruler of the azure round
Stopp’d his swift chariot, and his steeds unbound,
Fed with ambrosial herbage from his hand,
And link’d their fetlocks with a golden band,
Infrangible, immortal: there they stay:
The father of the floods pursues his way:
Where, like a tempest, darkening heaven around,
Or fiery deluge that devours the ground,
The impatient Trojans, in a gloomy throng,
Embattled roll’d, as Hector rush’d along:
To the loud tumult and the barbarous cry
The heavens re-echo, and the shores reply:
They vow destruction to the Grecian name,
And in their hopes the fleets already flame.

But Neptune, rising from the seas profound,
The god whose earthquakes rock the solid ground,
Now wears a mortal form; like Calchas seen,
Such his loud voice, and such his manly mien;
His shouts incessant every Greek inspire,
But most the Ajaces, adding fire to fire.


[Illustration: ] NEPTUNE RISING FROM THE SEA


“’Tis yours, O warriors, all our hopes to raise:
Oh recollect your ancient worth and praise!
’Tis yours to save us, if you cease to fear;
Flight, more than shameful, is destructive here.
On other works though Troy with fury fall,
And pour her armies o’er our batter’d wall:
There Greece has strength: but this, this part o’erthrown,
Her strength were vain; I dread for you alone:
Here Hector rages like the force of fire,
Vaunts of his gods, and calls high Jove his sire:
If yet some heavenly power your breast excite,
Breathe in your hearts, and string your arms to fight,
Greece yet may live, her threaten’d fleet maintain:
And Hector’s force, and Jove’s own aid, be vain.”

Then with his sceptre, that the deep controls,
He touch’d the chiefs, and steel’d their manly souls:
Strength, not their own, the touch divine imparts,
Prompts their light limbs, and swells their daring hearts.
Then, as a falcon from the rocky height,
Her quarry seen, impetuous at the sight,
Forth-springing instant, darts herself from high,
Shoots on the wing, and skims along the sky:
Such, and so swift, the power of ocean flew;
The wide horizon shut him from their view.

The inspiring god Oïleus’ active son
Perceived the first, and thus to Telamon:

“Some god, my friend, some god in human form
Favouring descends, and wills to stand the storm.
Not Calchas this, the venerable seer;
Short as he turned, I saw the power appear:
I mark’d his parting, and the steps he trod;
His own bright evidence reveals a god.
Even now some energy divine I share,
And seem to walk on wings, and tread in air!”

“With equal ardour (Telamon returns)
My soul is kindled, and my bosom burns;
New rising spirits all my force alarm,
Lift each impatient limb, and brace my arm.
This ready arm, unthinking, shakes the dart;
The blood pours back, and fortifies my heart:
Singly, methinks, yon towering chief I meet,
And stretch the dreadful Hector at my feet.”

Full of the god that urged their burning breast,
The heroes thus their mutual warmth express’d.
Neptune meanwhile the routed Greeks inspired;
Who, breathless, pale, with length of labours tired,
Pant in the ships; while Troy to conquest calls,
And swarms victorious o’er their yielding walls:
Trembling before the impending storm they lie,
While tears of rage stand burning in their eye.
Greece sunk they thought, and this their fatal hour;
But breathe new courage as they feel the power.
Teucer and Leitus first his words excite;
Then stern Peneleus rises to the fight;
Thoas, Deipyrus, in arms renown’d,
And Merion next, the impulsive fury found;
Last Nestor’s son the same bold ardour takes,
While thus the god the martial fire awakes:

“Oh lasting infamy, oh dire disgrace
To chiefs of vigorous youth, and manly race!
I trusted in the gods, and you, to see
Brave Greece victorious, and her navy free:
Ah, no—the glorious combat you disclaim,
And one black day clouds all her former fame.
Heavens! what a prodigy these eyes survey,
Unseen, unthought, till this amazing day!
Fly we at length from Troy’s oft-conquer’d bands?
And falls our fleet by such inglorious hands?
A rout undisciplined, a straggling train,
Not born to glories of the dusty plain;
Like frighted fawns from hill to hill pursued,
A prey to every savage of the wood:
Shall these, so late who trembled at your name,
Invade your camps, involve your ships in flame?
A change so shameful, say, what cause has wrought?
The soldiers’ baseness, or the general’s fault?
Fools! will ye perish for your leader’s vice;
The purchase infamy, and life the price?
’Tis not your cause, Achilles’ injured fame:
Another’s is the crime, but yours the shame.
Grant that our chief offend through rage or lust,
Must you be cowards, if your king’s unjust?
Prevent this evil, and your country save:
Small thought retrieves the spirits of the brave.
Think, and subdue! on dastards dead to fame
I waste no anger, for they feel no shame:
But you, the pride, the flower of all our host,
My heart weeps blood to see your glory lost!
Nor deem this day, this battle, all you lose;
A day more black, a fate more vile, ensues.
Let each reflect, who prizes fame or breath,
On endless infamy, on instant death:
For, lo! the fated time, the appointed shore:
Hark! the gates burst, the brazen barriers roar!
Impetuous Hector thunders at the wall;
The hour, the spot, to conquer, or to fall.”

These words the Grecians’ fainting hearts inspire,
And listening armies catch the godlike fire.
Fix’d at his post was each bold Ajax found,
With well-ranged squadrons strongly circled round:
So close their order, so disposed their fight,
As Pallas’ self might view with fix’d delight;
Or had the god of war inclined his eyes,
The god of war had own’d a just surprise.
A chosen phalanx, firm, resolved as fate,
Descending Hector and his battle wait.
An iron scene gleams dreadful o’er the fields,
Armour in armour lock’d, and shields in shields,
Spears lean on spears, on targets targets throng,
Helms stuck to helms, and man drove man along.
The floating plumes unnumber’d wave above,
As when an earthquake stirs the nodding grove;
And levell’d at the skies with pointing rays,
Their brandish’d lances at each motion blaze.

Thus breathing death, in terrible array,
The close compacted legions urged their way:
Fierce they drove on, impatient to destroy;
Troy charged the first, and Hector first of Troy.
As from some mountain’s craggy forehead torn,
A rock’s round fragment flies, with fury borne,
(Which from the stubborn stone a torrent rends,)
Precipitate the ponderous mass descends:
From steep to steep the rolling ruin bounds;
At every shock the crackling wood resounds;
Still gathering force, it smokes; and urged amain,
Whirls, leaps, and thunders down, impetuous to the plain:
There stops—so Hector. Their whole force he proved,[230]
Resistless when he raged, and, when he stopp’d, unmoved.

On him the war is bent, the darts are shed,
And all their falchions wave around his head:
Repulsed he stands, nor from his stand retires;
But with repeated shouts his army fires.
“Trojans! be firm; this arm shall make your way
Through yon square body, and that black array:
Stand, and my spear shall rout their scattering power,
Strong as they seem, embattled like a tower;
For he that Juno’s heavenly bosom warms,
The first of gods, this day inspires our arms.”

He said; and roused the soul in every breast:
Urged with desire of fame, beyond the rest,
Forth march’d Deiphobus; but, marching, held
Before his wary steps his ample shield.
Bold Merion aim’d a stroke (nor aim’d it wide);
The glittering javelin pierced the tough bull-hide;
But pierced not through: unfaithful to his hand,
The point broke short, and sparkled in the sand.
The Trojan warrior, touch’d with timely fear,
On the raised orb to distance bore the spear.
The Greek, retreating, mourn’d his frustrate blow,
And cursed the treacherous lance that spared a foe;
Then to the ships with surly speed he went,
To seek a surer javelin in his tent.

Meanwhile with rising rage the battle glows,
The tumult thickens, and the clamour grows.
By Teucer’s arm the warlike Imbrius bleeds,
The son of Mentor, rich in generous steeds.
Ere yet to Troy the sons of Greece were led,
In fair Pedaeus’ verdant pastures bred,
The youth had dwelt, remote from war’s alarms,
And blest in bright Medesicaste’s arms:
(This nymph, the fruit of Priam’s ravish’d joy,
Allied the warrior to the house of Troy:)
To Troy, when glory call’d his arms, he came,
And match’d the bravest of her chiefs in fame:
With Priam’s sons, a guardian of the throne,
He lived, beloved and honour’d as his own.
Him Teucer pierced between the throat and ear:
He groans beneath the Telamonian spear.
As from some far-seen mountain’s airy crown,
Subdued by steel, a tall ash tumbles down,
And soils its verdant tresses on the ground;
So falls the youth; his arms the fall resound.
Then Teucer rushing to despoil the dead,
From Hector’s hand a shining javelin fled:
He saw, and shunn’d the death; the forceful dart
Sung on, and pierced Amphimachus’s heart,
Cteatus’ son, of Neptune’s forceful line;
Vain was his courage, and his race divine!
Prostrate he falls; his clanging arms resound,
And his broad buckler thunders on the ground.
To seize his beamy helm the victor flies,
And just had fastened on the dazzling prize,
When Ajax’ manly arm a javelin flung;
Full on the shield’s round boss the weapon rung;
He felt the shock, nor more was doom’d to feel,
Secure in mail, and sheath’d in shining steel.
Repulsed he yields; the victor Greeks obtain
The spoils contested, and bear off the slain.
Between the leaders of the Athenian line,
(Stichius the brave, Menestheus the divine,)
Deplored Amphimachus, sad object! lies;
Imbrius remains the fierce Ajaces’ prize.
As two grim lions bear across the lawn,
Snatch’d from devouring hounds, a slaughter’d fawn.
In their fell jaws high-lifting through the wood,
And sprinkling all the shrubs with drops of blood;
So these, the chief: great Ajax from the dead
Strips his bright arms; Oïleus lops his head:
Toss’d like a ball, and whirl’d in air away,
At Hector’s feet the gory visage lay.

The god of ocean, fired with stern disdain,
And pierced with sorrow for his grandson slain,
Inspires the Grecian hearts, confirms their hands,
And breathes destruction on the Trojan bands.
Swift as a whirlwind rushing to the fleet,
He finds the lance-famed Idomen of Crete,
His pensive brow the generous care express’d
With which a wounded soldier touch’d his breast,
Whom in the chance of war a javelin tore,
And his sad comrades from the battle bore;
Him to the surgeons of the camp he sent:
That office paid, he issued from his tent
Fierce for the fight: to whom the god begun,
In Thoas’ voice, Andræmon’s valiant son,
Who ruled where Calydon’s white rocks arise,
And Pleuron’s chalky cliffs emblaze the skies:

“Where’s now the imperious vaunt, the daring boast,
Of Greece victorious, and proud Ilion lost?”

To whom the king: “On Greece no blame be thrown;
Arms are her trade, and war is all her own.
Her hardy heroes from the well-fought plains
Nor fear withholds, nor shameful sloth detains:
’Tis heaven, alas! and Jove’s all-powerful doom,
That far, far distant from our native home
Wills us to fall inglorious! Oh, my friend!
Once foremost in the fight, still prone to lend
Or arms or counsels, now perform thy best,
And what thou canst not singly, urge the rest.”

Thus he: and thus the god whose force can make
The solid globe’s eternal basis shake:
“Ah! never may he see his native land,
But feed the vultures on this hateful strand,
Who seeks ignobly in his ships to stay,
Nor dares to combat on this signal day!
For this, behold! in horrid arms I shine,
And urge thy soul to rival acts with mine.
Together let us battle on the plain;
Two, not the worst; nor even this succour vain:
Not vain the weakest, if their force unite;
But ours, the bravest have confess’d in fight.”

This said, he rushes where the combat burns;
Swift to his tent the Cretan king returns:
From thence, two javelins glittering in his hand,
And clad in arms that lighten’d all the strand,
Fierce on the foe the impetuous hero drove,
Like lightning bursting from the arm of Jove,
Which to pale man the wrath of heaven declares,
Or terrifies the offending world with wars;
In streamy sparkles, kindling all the skies,
From pole to pole the trail of glory flies:
Thus his bright armour o’er the dazzled throng
Gleam’d dreadful, as the monarch flash’d along.

Him, near his tent, Meriones attends;
Whom thus he questions: “Ever best of friends!
O say, in every art of battle skill’d,
What holds thy courage from so brave a field?
On some important message art thou bound,
Or bleeds my friend by some unhappy wound?
Inglorious here, my soul abhors to stay,
And glows with prospects of th’ approaching day.”

“O prince! (Meriones replies) whose care
Leads forth the embattled sons of Crete to war;
This speaks my grief: this headless lance I wield;
The rest lies rooted in a Trojan shield.”

To whom the Cretan: “Enter, and receive
The wonted weapons; those my tent can give;
Spears I have store, (and Trojan lances all,)
That shed a lustre round the illumined wall,
Though I, disdainful of the distant war,
Nor trust the dart, nor aim the uncertain spear,
Yet hand to hand I fight, and spoil the slain;
And thence these trophies, and these arms I gain.
Enter, and see on heaps the helmets roll’d,
And high-hung spears, and shields that flame with gold.”

“Nor vain (said Merion) are our martial toils;
We too can boast of no ignoble spoils:
But those my ship contains; whence distant far,
I fight conspicuous in the van of war,
What need I more? If any Greek there be
Who knows not Merion, I appeal to thee.”

To this, Idomeneus: “The fields of fight
Have proved thy valour, and unconquer’d might:
And were some ambush for the foes design’d,
Even there thy courage would not lag behind:
In that sharp service, singled from the rest,
The fear of each, or valour, stands confess’d.
No force, no firmness, the pale coward shows;
He shifts his place: his colour comes and goes:
A dropping sweat creeps cold on every part;
Against his bosom beats his quivering heart;
Terror and death in his wild eye-balls stare;
With chattering teeth he stands, and stiffening hair,
And looks a bloodless image of despair!
Not so the brave—still dauntless, still the same,
Unchanged his colour, and unmoved his frame:
Composed his thought, determined is his eye,
And fix’d his soul, to conquer or to die:
If aught disturb the tenour of his breast,
’Tis but the wish to strike before the rest.

“In such assays thy blameless worth is known,
And every art of dangerous war thy own.
By chance of fight whatever wounds you bore,
Those wounds were glorious all, and all before;
Such as may teach, ’twas still thy brave delight
T’oppose thy bosom where thy foremost fight.
But why, like infants, cold to honour’s charms,
Stand we to talk, when glory calls to arms?
Go—from my conquer’d spears the choicest take,
And to their owners send them nobly back.”

Swift at the word bold Merion snatch’d a spear
And, breathing slaughter, follow’d to the war.
So Mars armipotent invades the plain,
(The wide destroyer of the race of man,)
Terror, his best-beloved son, attends his course,
Arm’d with stern boldness, and enormous force;
The pride of haughty warriors to confound,
And lay the strength of tyrants on the ground:
From Thrace they fly, call’d to the dire alarms
Of warring Phlegyans, and Ephyrian arms;
Invoked by both, relentless they dispose,
To these glad conquest, murderous rout to those.
So march’d the leaders of the Cretan train,
And their bright arms shot horror o’er the plain.

Then first spake Merion: “Shall we join the right,
Or combat in the centre of the fight?
Or to the left our wonted succour lend?
Hazard and fame all parts alike attend.”

“Not in the centre (Idomen replied:)
Our ablest chieftains the main battle guide;
Each godlike Ajax makes that post his care,
And gallant Teucer deals destruction there,
Skill’d or with shafts to gall the distant field,
Or bear close battle on the sounding shield.
These can the rage of haughty Hector tame:
Safe in their arms, the navy fears no flame,
Till Jove himself descends, his bolts to shed,
And hurl the blazing ruin at our head.
Great must he be, of more than human birth,
Nor feed like mortals on the fruits of earth.
Him neither rocks can crush, nor steel can wound,
Whom Ajax fells not on the ensanguined ground.
In standing fight he mates Achilles’ force,
Excell’d alone in swiftness in the course.
Then to the left our ready arms apply,
And live with glory, or with glory die.”

He said: and Merion to th’ appointed place,
Fierce as the god of battles, urged his pace.
Soon as the foe the shining chiefs beheld
Rush like a fiery torrent o’er the field,
Their force embodied in a tide they pour;
The rising combat sounds along the shore.
As warring winds, in Sirius’ sultry reign,
From different quarters sweep the sandy plain;
On every side the dusty whirlwinds rise,
And the dry fields are lifted to the skies:
Thus by despair, hope, rage, together driven,
Met the black hosts, and, meeting, darken’d heaven.
All dreadful glared the iron face of war,
Bristled with upright spears, that flash’d afar;
Dire was the gleam of breastplates, helms, and shields,
And polish’d arms emblazed the flaming fields:
Tremendous scene! that general horror gave,
But touch’d with joy the bosoms of the brave.

Saturn’s great sons in fierce contention vied,
And crowds of heroes in their anger died.
The sire of earth and heaven, by Thetis won
To crown with glory Peleus’ godlike son,
Will’d not destruction to the Grecian powers,
But spared awhile the destined Trojan towers;
While Neptune, rising from his azure main,
Warr’d on the king of heaven with stern disdain,
And breathed revenge, and fired the Grecian train.
Gods of one source, of one ethereal race,
Alike divine, and heaven their native place;
But Jove the greater; first-born of the skies,
And more than men, or gods, supremely wise.
For this, of Jove’s superior might afraid,
Neptune in human form conceal’d his aid.
These powers enfold the Greek and Trojan train
In war and discord’s adamantine chain,
Indissolubly strong: the fatal tie
Is stretch’d on both, and close compell’d they die.

Dreadful in arms, and grown in combats grey,
The bold Idomeneus controls the day.
First by his hand Othryoneus was slain,
Swell’d with false hopes, with mad ambition vain;
Call’d by the voice of war to martial fame,
From high Cabesus’ distant walls he came;
Cassandra’s love he sought, with boasts of power,
And promised conquest was the proffer’d dower.
The king consented, by his vaunts abused;
The king consented, but the fates refused.
Proud of himself, and of the imagined bride,
The field he measured with a larger stride.
Him as he stalk’d, the Cretan javelin found;
Vain was his breastplate to repel the wound:
His dream of glory lost, he plunged to hell;
His arms resounded as the boaster fell.
The great Idomeneus bestrides the dead;
“And thus (he cries) behold thy promise sped!
Such is the help thy arms to Ilion bring,
And such the contract of the Phrygian king!
Our offers now, illustrious prince! receive;
For such an aid what will not Argos give?
To conquer Troy, with ours thy forces join,
And count Atrides’ fairest daughter thine.
Meantime, on further methods to advise,
Come, follow to the fleet thy new allies;
There hear what Greece has on her part to say.”
He spoke, and dragg’d the gory corse away.
This Asius view’d, unable to contain,
Before his chariot warring on the plain:
(His crowded coursers, to his squire consign’d,
Impatient panted on his neck behind:)
To vengeance rising with a sudden spring,
He hoped the conquest of the Cretan king.
The wary Cretan, as his foe drew near,
Full on his throat discharged the forceful spear:
Beneath the chin the point was seen to glide,
And glitter’d, extant at the further side.
As when the mountain-oak, or poplar tall,
Or pine, fit mast for some great admiral,
Groans to the oft-heaved axe, with many a wound,
Then spreads a length of ruin o’er the ground:
So sunk proud Asius in that dreadful day,
And stretch’d before his much-loved coursers lay.
He grinds the dust distain’d with streaming gore,
And, fierce in death, lies foaming on the shore.
Deprived of motion, stiff with stupid fear,
Stands all aghast his trembling charioteer,
Nor shuns the foe, nor turns the steeds away,
But falls transfix’d, an unresisting prey:
Pierced by Antilochus, he pants beneath
The stately car, and labours out his breath.
Thus Asius’ steeds (their mighty master gone)
Remain the prize of Nestor’s youthful son.

Stabb’d at the sight, Deiphobus drew nigh,
And made, with force, the vengeful weapon fly.
The Cretan saw; and, stooping, caused to glance
From his slope shield the disappointed lance.
Beneath the spacious targe, (a blazing round,
Thick with bull-hides and brazen orbits bound,
On his raised arm by two strong braces stay’d,)
He lay collected in defensive shade.
O’er his safe head the javelin idly sung,
And on the tinkling verge more faintly rung.
Even then the spear the vigorous arm confess’d,
And pierced, obliquely, king Hypsenor’s breast:
Warm’d in his liver, to the ground it bore
The chief, his people’s guardian now no more!

“Not unattended (the proud Trojan cries)
Nor unrevenged, lamented Asius lies:
For thee, through hell’s black portals stand display’d,
This mate shall joy thy melancholy shade.”

Heart-piercing anguish, at the haughty boast,
Touch’d every Greek, but Nestor’s son the most.
Grieved as he was, his pious arms attend,
And his broad buckler shields his slaughter’d friend:
Till sad Mecistheus and Alastor bore
His honour’d body to the tented shore.

Nor yet from fight Idomeneus withdraws;
Resolved to perish in his country’s cause,
Or find some foe, whom heaven and he shall doom
To wail his fate in death’s eternal gloom.
He sees Alcathous in the front aspire:
Great Æsyetes was the hero’s sire;
His spouse Hippodame, divinely fair,
Anchises’ eldest hope, and darling care:
Who charm’d her parents’ and her husband’s heart
With beauty, sense, and every work of art:
He once of Ilion’s youth the loveliest boy,
The fairest she of all the fair of Troy.
By Neptune now the hapless hero dies,
Who covers with a cloud those beauteous eyes,
And fetters every limb: yet bent to meet
His fate he stands; nor shuns the lance of Crete.
Fix’d as some column, or deep-rooted oak,
While the winds sleep; his breast received the stroke.
Before the ponderous stroke his corslet yields,
Long used to ward the death in fighting fields.
The riven armour sends a jarring sound;
His labouring heart heaves with so strong a bound,
The long lance shakes, and vibrates in the wound;
Fast flowing from its source, as prone he lay,
Life’s purple tide impetuous gush’d away.

Then Idomen, insulting o’er the slain:
“Behold, Deiphobus! nor vaunt in vain:
See! on one Greek three Trojan ghosts attend;
This, my third victim, to the shades I send.
Approaching now thy boasted might approve,
And try the prowess of the seed of Jove.
From Jove, enamour’d of a mortal dame,
Great Minos, guardian of his country, came:
Deucalion, blameless prince, was Minos’ heir;
His first-born I, the third from Jupiter:
O’er spacious Crete, and her bold sons, I reign,
And thence my ships transport me through the main:
Lord of a host, o’er all my host I shine,
A scourge to thee, thy father, and thy line.”

The Trojan heard; uncertain or to meet,
Alone, with venturous arms the king of Crete,
Or seek auxiliar force; at length decreed
To call some hero to partake the deed,
Forthwith Æneas rises to his thought:
For him in Troy’s remotest lines he sought,
Where he, incensed at partial Priam, stands,
And sees superior posts in meaner hands.
To him, ambitious of so great an aid,
The bold Deiphobus approach’d, and said:

“Now, Trojan prince, employ thy pious arms,
If e’er thy bosom felt fair honour’s charms.
Alcathous dies, thy brother and thy friend;
Come, and the warrior’s loved remains defend.
Beneath his cares thy early youth was train’d,
One table fed you, and one roof contain’d.
This deed to fierce Idomeneus we owe;
Haste, and revenge it on th’ insulting foe.”

Æneas heard, and for a space resign’d
To tender pity all his manly mind;
Then rising in his rage, he burns to fight:
The Greek awaits him with collected might.
As the fell boar, on some rough mountain’s head,
Arm’d with wild terrors, and to slaughter bred,
When the loud rustics rise, and shout from far,
Attends the tumult, and expects the war;
O’er his bent back the bristly horrors rise;
Fires stream in lightning from his sanguine eyes,
His foaming tusks both dogs and men engage;
But most his hunters rouse his mighty rage:
So stood Idomeneus, his javelin shook,
And met the Trojan with a lowering look.
Antilochus, Deipyrus, were near,
The youthful offspring of the god of war,
Merion, and Aphareus, in field renown’d:
To these the warrior sent his voice around.
“Fellows in arms! your timely aid unite;
Lo, great Æneas rushes to the fight:
Sprung from a god, and more than mortal bold;
He fresh in youth, and I in arms grown old.
Else should this hand, this hour decide the strife,
The great dispute, of glory, or of life.”

He spoke, and all, as with one soul, obey’d;
Their lifted bucklers cast a dreadful shade
Around the chief. Æneas too demands
Th’ assisting forces of his native bands;
Paris, Deiphobus, Agenor, join;
(Co-aids and captains of the Trojan line;)
In order follow all th’ embodied train,
Like Ida’s flocks proceeding o’er the plain;
Before his fleecy care, erect and bold,
Stalks the proud ram, the father of the bold.
With joy the swain surveys them, as he leads
To the cool fountains, through the well-known meads:
So joys Æneas, as his native band
Moves on in rank, and stretches o’er the land.

Round dread Alcathous now the battle rose;
On every side the steely circle grows;
Now batter’d breast-plates and hack’d helmets ring,
And o’er their heads unheeded javelins sing.
Above the rest, two towering chiefs appear,
There great Idomeneus, Æneas here.
Like gods of war, dispensing fate, they stood,
And burn’d to drench the ground with mutual blood.
The Trojan weapon whizz’d along in air;
The Cretan saw, and shunn’d the brazen spear:
Sent from an arm so strong, the missive wood
Stuck deep in earth, and quiver’d where it stood.
But OEnomas received the Cretan’s stroke;
The forceful spear his hollow corslet broke,
It ripp’d his belly with a ghastly wound,
And roll’d the smoking entrails on the ground.
Stretch’d on the plain, he sobs away his breath,
And, furious, grasps the bloody dust in death.
The victor from his breast the weapon tears;
His spoils he could not, for the shower of spears.
Though now unfit an active war to wage,
Heavy with cumbrous arms, stiff with cold age,
His listless limbs unable for the course,
In standing fight he yet maintains his force;
Till faint with labour, and by foes repell’d,
His tired slow steps he drags from off the field.
Deiphobus beheld him as he pass’d,
And, fired with hate, a parting javelin cast:
The javelin err’d, but held its course along,
And pierced Ascalaphus, the brave and young:
The son of Mars fell gasping on the ground,
And gnash’d the dust, all bloody with his wound.

Nor knew the furious father of his fall;
High-throned amidst the great Olympian hall,
On golden clouds th’ immortal synod sate;
Detain’d from bloody war by Jove and Fate.

Now, where in dust the breathless hero lay,
For slain Ascalaphus commenced the fray,
Deiphobus to seize his helmet flies,
And from his temples rends the glittering prize;
Valiant as Mars, Meriones drew near,
And on his loaded arm discharged his spear:
He drops the weight, disabled with the pain;
The hollow helmet rings against the plain.
Swift as a vulture leaping on his prey,
From his torn arm the Grecian rent away
The reeking javelin, and rejoin’d his friends.
His wounded brother good Polites tends;
Around his waist his pious arms he threw,
And from the rage of battle gently drew:
Him his swift coursers, on his splendid car,
Rapt from the lessening thunder of the war;
To Troy they drove him, groaning from the shore,
And sprinkling, as he pass’d, the sands with gore.

Meanwhile fresh slaughter bathes the sanguine ground,
Heaps fall on heaps, and heaven and earth resound.
Bold Aphareus by great Æneas bled;
As toward the chief he turn’d his daring head,
He pierced his throat; the bending head, depress’d
Beneath his helmet, nods upon his breast;
His shield reversed o’er the fallen warrior lies,
And everlasting slumber seals his eyes.
Antilochus, as Thoon turn’d him round,
Transpierced his back with a dishonest wound:
The hollow vein, that to the neck extends
Along the chine, his eager javelin rends:
Supine he falls, and to his social train
Spreads his imploring arms, but spreads in vain.
Thv exulting victor, leaping where he lay,
From his broad shoulders tore the spoils away;
His time observed; for closed by foes around,
On all sides thick the peals of arms resound.
His shield emboss’d the ringing storm sustains,
But he impervious and untouch’d remains.
(Great Neptune’s care preserved from hostile rage
This youth, the joy of Nestor’s glorious age.)
In arms intrepid, with the first he fought,
Faced every foe, and every danger sought;
His winged lance, resistless as the wind,
Obeys each motion of the master’s mind!
Restless it flies, impatient to be free,
And meditates the distant enemy.
The son of Asius, Adamas, drew near,
And struck his target with the brazen spear
Fierce in his front: but Neptune wards the blow,
And blunts the javelin of th’ eluded foe:
In the broad buckler half the weapon stood,
Splinter’d on earth flew half the broken wood.
Disarm’d, he mingled in the Trojan crew;
But Merion’s spear o’ertook him as he flew,
Deep in the belly’s rim an entrance found,
Where sharp the pang, and mortal is the wound.
Bending he fell, and doubled to the ground,
Lay panting. Thus an ox in fetters tied,
While death’s strong pangs distend his labouring side,
His bulk enormous on the field displays;
His heaving heart beats thick as ebbing life decays.
The spear the conqueror from his body drew,
And death’s dim shadows swarm before his view.
Next brave Deipyrus in dust was laid:
King Helenus waved high the Thracian blade,
And smote his temples with an arm so strong,
The helm fell off, and roll’d amid the throng:
There for some luckier Greek it rests a prize;
For dark in death the godlike owner lies!
Raging with grief, great Menelaus burns,
And fraught with vengeance, to the victor turns:
That shook the ponderous lance, in act to throw;
And this stood adverse with the bended bow:
Full on his breast the Trojan arrow fell,
But harmless bounded from the plated steel.
As on some ample barn’s well harden’d floor,
(The winds collected at each open door,)
While the broad fan with force is whirl’d around,
Light leaps the golden grain, resulting from the ground:
So from the steel that guards Atrides’ heart,
Repell’d to distance flies the bounding dart.
Atrides, watchful of the unwary foe,
Pierced with his lance the hand that grasp’d the bow.
And nailed it to the yew: the wounded hand
Trail’d the long lance that mark’d with blood the sand:
But good Agenor gently from the wound
The spear solicits, and the bandage bound;
A sling’s soft wool, snatch’d from a soldier’s side,
At once the tent and ligature supplied.

Behold! Pisander, urged by fate’s decree,
Springs through the ranks to fall, and fall by thee,
Great Menelaus! to enchance thy fame:
High-towering in the front, the warrior came.
First the sharp lance was by Atrides thrown;
The lance far distant by the winds was blown.
Nor pierced Pisander through Atrides’ shield:
Pisander’s spear fell shiver’d on the field.
Not so discouraged, to the future blind,
Vain dreams of conquest swell his haughty mind;
Dauntless he rushes where the Spartan lord
Like lightning brandish’d his far beaming sword.
His left arm high opposed the shining shield:
His right beneath, the cover’d pole-axe held;
(An olive’s cloudy grain the handle made,
Distinct with studs, and brazen was the blade;)
This on the helm discharged a noble blow;
The plume dropp’d nodding to the plain below,
Shorn from the crest. Atrides waved his steel:
Deep through his front the weighty falchion fell;
The crashing bones before its force gave way;
In dust and blood the groaning hero lay:
Forced from their ghastly orbs, and spouting gore,
The clotted eye-balls tumble on the shore.
And fierce Atrides spurn’d him as he bled,
Tore off his arms, and, loud-exulting, said:

“Thus, Trojans, thus, at length be taught to fear;
O race perfidious, who delight in war!
Already noble deeds ye have perform’d;
A princess raped transcends a navy storm’d:
In such bold feats your impious might approve,
Without th’ assistance, or the fear of Jove.
The violated rites, the ravish’d dame;
Our heroes slaughter’d and our ships on flame,
Crimes heap’d on crimes, shall bend your glory down,
And whelm in ruins yon flagitious town.
O thou, great father! lord of earth and skies,
Above the thought of man, supremely wise!
If from thy hand the fates of mortals flow,
From whence this favour to an impious foe?
A godless crew, abandon’d and unjust,
Still breathing rapine, violence, and lust?
The best of things, beyond their measure, cloy;
Sleep’s balmy blessing, love’s endearing joy;
The feast, the dance; whate’er mankind desire,
Even the sweet charms of sacred numbers tire.
But Troy for ever reaps a dire delight
In thirst of slaughter, and in lust of fight.”

This said, he seized (while yet the carcase heaved)
The bloody armour, which his train received:
Then sudden mix’d among the warring crew,
And the bold son of Pylæmenes slew.
Harpalion had through Asia travell’d far,
Following his martial father to the war:
Through filial love he left his native shore,
Never, ah, never to behold it more!
His unsuccessful spear he chanced to fling
Against the target of the Spartan king;
Thus of his lance disarm’d, from death he flies,
And turns around his apprehensive eyes.
Him, through the hip transpiercing as he fled,
The shaft of Merion mingled with the dead.
Beneath the bone the glancing point descends,
And, driving down, the swelling bladder rends:
Sunk in his sad companions’ arms he lay,
And in short pantings sobb’d his soul away;
(Like some vile worm extended on the ground;)
While life’s red torrent gush’d from out the wound.

Him on his car the Paphlagonian train
In slow procession bore from off the plain.
The pensive father, father now no more!
Attends the mournful pomp along the shore;
And unavailing tears profusely shed;
And, unrevenged, deplored his offspring dead.

Paris from far the moving sight beheld,
With pity soften’d and with fury swell’d:
His honour’d host, a youth of matchless grace,
And loved of all the Paphlagonian race!
With his full strength he bent his angry bow,
And wing’d the feather’d vengeance at the foe.
A chief there was, the brave Euchenor named,
For riches much, and more for virtue famed.
Who held his seat in Corinth’s stately town;
Polydus’ son, a seer of old renown.
Oft had the father told his early doom,
By arms abroad, or slow disease at home:
He climb’d his vessel, prodigal of breath,
And chose the certain glorious path to death.
Beneath his ear the pointed arrow went;
The soul came issuing at the narrow vent:
His limbs, unnerved, drop useless on the ground,
And everlasting darkness shades him round.

Nor knew great Hector how his legions yield,
(Wrapp’d in the cloud and tumult of the field:)
Wide on the left the force of Greece commands,
And conquest hovers o’er th’ Achaian bands;
With such a tide superior virtue sway’d,
And he that shakes the solid earth gave aid.
But in the centre Hector fix’d remain’d,
Where first the gates were forced, and bulwarks gain’d;
There, on the margin of the hoary deep,
(Their naval station where the Ajaces keep.
And where low walls confine the beating tides,
Whose humble barrier scarce the foe divides;
Where late in fight both foot and horse engaged,
And all the thunder of the battle raged,)
There join’d, the whole Bœotian strength remains,
The proud Iaonians with their sweeping trains,
Locrians and Phthians, and th’ Epaean force;
But join’d, repel not Hector’s fiery course.
The flower of Athens, Stichius, Phidas, led;
Bias and great Menestheus at their head:
Meges the strong the Epaean bands controll’d,
And Dracius prudent, and Amphion bold:
The Phthians, Medon, famed for martial might,
And brave Podarces, active in the fight.
This drew from Phylacus his noble line;
Iphiclus’ son: and that (Oïleus) thine:
(Young Ajax’ brother, by a stolen embrace;
He dwelt far distant from his native place,
By his fierce step-dame from his father’s reign
Expell’d and exiled for her brother slain:)
These rule the Phthians, and their arms employ,
Mix’d with Bœotians, on the shores of Troy.

Now side by side, with like unwearied care,
Each Ajax laboured through the field of war:
So when two lordly bulls, with equal toil,
Force the bright ploughshare through the fallow soil,
Join’d to one yoke, the stubborn earth they tear,
And trace large furrows with the shining share;
O’er their huge limbs the foam descends in snow,
And streams of sweat down their sour foreheads flow.
A train of heroes followed through the field,
Who bore by turns great Ajax’ sevenfold shield;
Whene’er he breathed, remissive of his might,
Tired with the incessant slaughters of the fight.
No following troops his brave associate grace:
In close engagement an unpractised race,
The Locrian squadrons nor the javelin wield,
Nor bear the helm, nor lift the moony shield;
But skill’d from far the flying shaft to wing,
Or whirl the sounding pebble from the sling,
Dexterous with these they aim a certain wound,
Or fell the distant warrior to the ground.
Thus in the van the Telamonian train,
Throng’d in bright arms, a pressing fight maintain:
Far in the rear the Locrian archers lie,
Whose stones and arrows intercept the sky,
The mingled tempest on the foes they pour;
Troy’s scattering orders open to the shower.

Now had the Greeks eternal fame acquired,
And the gall’d Ilians to their walls retired;
But sage Polydamas, discreetly brave,
Address’d great Hector, and this counsel gave:

“Though great in all, thou seem’st averse to lend
Impartial audience to a faithful friend;
To gods and men thy matchless worth is known,
And every art of glorious war thy own;
But in cool thought and counsel to excel,
How widely differs this from warring well!
Content with what the bounteous gods have given,
Seek not alone to engross the gifts of Heaven.
To some the powers of bloody war belong,
To some sweet music and the charm of song;
To few, and wondrous few, has Jove assign’d
A wise, extensive, all-considering mind;
Their guardians these, the nations round confess,
And towns and empires for their safety bless.
If Heaven have lodged this virtue in my breast,
Attend, O Hector! what I judge the best,
See, as thou mov’st, on dangers dangers spread,
And war’s whole fury burns around thy head.
Behold! distress’d within yon hostile wall,
How many Trojans yield, disperse, or fall!
What troops, out-number’d, scarce the war maintain!
And what brave heroes at the ships lie slain!
Here cease thy fury: and, the chiefs and kings
Convoked to council, weigh the sum of things.
Whether (the gods succeeding our desires)
To yon tall ships to bear the Trojan fires;
Or quit the fleet, and pass unhurt away,
Contented with the conquest of the day.
I fear, I fear, lest Greece, not yet undone,
Pay the large debt of last revolving sun;
Achilles, great Achilles, yet remains
On yonder decks, and yet o’erlooks the plains!”

The counsel pleased; and Hector, with a bound,
Leap’d from his chariot on the trembling ground;
Swift as he leap’d his clanging arms resound.
“To guard this post (he cried) thy art employ,
And here detain the scatter’d youth of Troy;
Where yonder heroes faint, I bend my way,
And hasten back to end the doubtful day.”

This said, the towering chief prepares to go,
Shakes his white plumes that to the breezes flow,
And seems a moving mountain topp’d with snow.
Through all his host, inspiring force, he flies,
And bids anew the martial thunder rise.
To Panthus’ son, at Hector’s high command
Haste the bold leaders of the Trojan band:
But round the battlements, and round the plain,
For many a chief he look’d, but look’d in vain;
Deiphobus, nor Helenus the seer,
Nor Asius’ son, nor Asius’ self appear:
For these were pierced with many a ghastly wound,
Some cold in death, some groaning on the ground;
Some low in dust, (a mournful object) lay;
High on the wall some breathed their souls away.

Far on the left, amid the throng he found
(Cheering the troops, and dealing deaths around)
The graceful Paris; whom, with fury moved,
Opprobrious thus, th’ impatient chief reproved:

“Ill-fated Paris! slave to womankind,
As smooth of face as fraudulent of mind!
Where is Deiphobus, where Asius gone?
The godlike father, and th’ intrepid son?
The force of Helenus, dispensing fate;
And great Othryoneus, so fear’d of late?
Black fate hang’s o’er thee from th’ avenging gods,
Imperial Troy from her foundations nods;
Whelm’d in thy country’s ruin shalt thou fall,
And one devouring vengeance swallow all.”

When Paris thus: “My brother and my friend,
Thy warm impatience makes thy tongue offend,
In other battles I deserved thy blame,
Though then not deedless, nor unknown to fame:
But since yon rampart by thy arms lay low,
I scatter’d slaughter from my fatal bow.
The chiefs you seek on yonder shore lie slain;
Of all those heroes, two alone remain;
Deiphobus, and Helenus the seer,
Each now disabled by a hostile spear.
Go then, successful, where thy soul inspires:
This heart and hand shall second all thy fires:
What with this arm I can, prepare to know,
Till death for death be paid, and blow for blow.
But ’tis not ours, with forces not our own
To combat: strength is of the gods alone.”
These words the hero’s angry mind assuage:
Then fierce they mingle where the thickest rage.
Around Polydamas, distain’d with blood,
Cebrion, Phalces, stern Orthaeus stood,
Palmus, with Polypœtes the divine,
And two bold brothers of Hippotion’s line
(Who reach’d fair Ilion, from Ascania far,
The former day; the next engaged in war).
As when from gloomy clouds a whirlwind springs,
That bears Jove’s thunder on its dreadful wings,
Wide o’er the blasted fields the tempest sweeps;
Then, gather’d, settles on the hoary deeps;
The afflicted deeps tumultuous mix and roar;
The waves behind impel the waves before,
Wide rolling, foaming high, and tumbling to the shore:
Thus rank on rank, the thick battalions throng,
Chief urged on chief, and man drove man along.
Far o’er the plains, in dreadful order bright,
The brazen arms reflect a beamy light:
Full in the blazing van great Hector shined,
Like Mars commission’d to confound mankind.
Before him flaming his enormous shield,
Like the broad sun, illumined all the field;
His nodding helm emits a streamy ray;
His piercing eyes through all the battle stray,
And, while beneath his targe he flash’d along,
Shot terrors round, that wither’d e’en the strong.

Thus stalk’d he, dreadful; death was in his look:
Whole nations fear’d; but not an Argive shook.
The towering Ajax, with an ample stride,
Advanced the first, and thus the chief defied:

“Hector! come on; thy empty threats forbear;
’Tis not thy arm, ’tis thundering Jove we fear:
The skill of war to us not idly given,
Lo! Greece is humbled, not by Troy, but Heaven.
Vain are the hopes that haughty mind imparts,
To force our fleet: the Greeks have hands and hearts.
Long ere in flames our lofty navy fall,
Your boasted city, and your god-built wall,
Shall sink beneath us, smoking on the ground;
And spread a long unmeasured ruin round.
The time shall come, when, chased along the plain,
Even thou shalt call on Jove, and call in vain;
Even thou shalt wish, to aid thy desperate course,
The wings of falcons for thy flying horse;
Shalt run, forgetful of a warrior’s fame,
While clouds of friendly dust conceal thy shame.”

As thus he spoke, behold, in open view,
On sounding wings a dexter eagle flew.
To Jove’s glad omen all the Grecians rise,
And hail, with shouts, his progress through the skies:
Far-echoing clamours bound from side to side;
They ceased; and thus the chief of Troy replied:

“From whence this menace, this insulting strain?
Enormous boaster! doom’d to vaunt in vain.
So may the gods on Hector life bestow,
(Not that short life which mortals lead below,
But such as those of Jove’s high lineage born,
The blue-eyed maid, or he that gilds the morn,)
As this decisive day shall end the fame
Of Greece, and Argos be no more a name.
And thou, imperious! if thy madness wait
The lance of Hector, thou shalt meet thy fate:
That giant-corse, extended on the shore,
Shall largely feast the fowls with fat and gore.”

He said; and like a lion stalk’d along:
With shouts incessant earth and ocean rung,
Sent from his following host: the Grecian train
With answering thunders fill’d the echoing plain;
A shout that tore heaven’s concave, and, above,
Shook the fix’d splendours of the throne of Jove.


[Illustration: ] GREEK EARRINGS




BOOK XIV.


ARGUMENT.[231]


JUNO DECEIVES JUPITER BY THE GIRDLE OF VENUS.


Nestor, sitting at the table with Machaon, is alarmed with the
increasing clamour of war, and hastens to Agamemnon; on his way he
meets that prince with Diomed and Ulysses, whom he informs of the
extremity of the danger. Agamemnon proposes to make their escape by
night, which Ulysses withstands; to which Diomed adds his advice, that,
wounded as they were, they should go forth and encourage the army with
their presence, which advice is pursued. Juno, seeing the partiality of
Jupiter to the Trojans, forms a design to over-reach him: she sets off
her charms with the utmost care, and (the more surely to enchant him)
obtains the magic girdle of Venus. She then applies herself to the god
of sleep, and, with some difficulty, persuades him to seal the eyes of
Jupiter: this done, she goes to mount Ida, where the god, at first
sight, is ravished with her beauty, sinks in her embraces, and is laid
asleep. Neptune takes advantage of his slumber, and succours the
Greeks: Hector is struck to the ground with a prodigious stone by Ajax,
and carried off from the battle: several actions succeed, till the
Trojans, much distressed, are obliged to give way: the lesser Ajax
signalizes himself in a particular manner.


But not the genial feast, nor flowing bowl,
Could charm the cares of Nestor’s watchful soul;
His startled ears the increasing cries attend;
Then thus, impatient, to his wounded friend:

“What new alarm, divine Machaon, say,
What mix’d events attend this mighty day?
Hark! how the shouts divide, and how they meet,
And now come full, and thicken to the fleet!
Here with the cordial draught dispel thy care,
Let Hecamede the strengthening bath prepare,
Refresh thy wound, and cleanse the clotted gore;
While I the adventures of the day explore.”

He said: and, seizing Thrasymedes’ shield,
(His valiant offspring,) hasten’d to the field;
(That day the son his father’s buckler bore;)
Then snatch’d a lance, and issued from the door.
Soon as the prospect open’d to his view,
His wounded eyes the scene of sorrow knew;
Dire disarray! the tumult of the fight,
The wall in ruins, and the Greeks in flight.
As when old ocean’s silent surface sleeps,
The waves just heaving on the purple deeps:
While yet the expected tempest hangs on high,
Weighs down the cloud, and blackens in the sky,
The mass of waters will no wind obey;
Jove sends one gust, and bids them roll away.
While wavering counsels thus his mind engage,
Fluctuates in doubtful thought the Pylian sage,
To join the host, or to the general haste;
Debating long, he fixes on the last:
Yet, as he moves, the sight his bosom warms,
The field rings dreadful with the clang of arms,
The gleaming falchions flash, the javelins fly;
Blows echo blows, and all or kill or die.

Him, in his march, the wounded princes meet,
By tardy steps ascending from the fleet:
The king of men, Ulysses the divine,
And who to Tydeus owes his noble line[232]
(Their ships at distance from the battle stand,
In lines advanced along the shelving strand:
Whose bay, the fleet unable to contain
At length; beside the margin of the main,
Rank above rank, the crowded ships they moor:
Who landed first, lay highest on the shore.)
Supported on the spears, they took their way,
Unfit to fight, but anxious for the day.
Nestor’s approach alarm’d each Grecian breast,
Whom thus the general of the host address’d:

“O grace and glory of the Achaian name;
What drives thee, Nestor, from the field of fame?
Shall then proud Hector see his boast fulfill’d,
Our fleets in ashes, and our heroes kill’d?
Such was his threat, ah! now too soon made good,
On many a Grecian bosom writ in blood.
Is every heart inflamed with equal rage
Against your king, nor will one chief engage?
And have I lived to see with mournful eyes
In every Greek a new Achilles rise?”

Gerenian Nestor then: “So fate has will’d;
And all-confirming time has fate fulfill’d.
Not he that thunders from the aerial bower,
Not Jove himself, upon the past has power.
The wall, our late inviolable bound,
And best defence, lies smoking on the ground:
Even to the ships their conquering arms extend,
And groans of slaughter’d Greeks to heaven ascend.
On speedy measures then employ your thought
In such distress! if counsel profit aught:
Arms cannot much: though Mars our souls incite,
These gaping wounds withhold us from the fight.”

To him the monarch: “That our army bends,
That Troy triumphant our high fleet ascends,
And that the rampart, late our surest trust
And best defence, lies smoking in the dust;
All this from Jove’s afflictive hand we bear,
Who, far from Argos, wills our ruin here.
Past are the days when happier Greece was blest,
And all his favour, all his aid confess’d;
Now heaven averse, our hands from battle ties,
And lifts the Trojan glory to the skies.
Cease we at length to waste our blood in vain,
And launch what ships lie nearest to the main;
Leave these at anchor, till the coming night:
Then, if impetuous Troy forbear the fight,
Bring all to sea, and hoist each sail for flight.
Better from evils, well foreseen, to run,
Than perish in the danger we may shun.”

Thus he. The sage Ulysses thus replies,
While anger flash’d from his disdainful eyes:
“What shameful words (unkingly as thou art)
Fall from that trembling tongue and timorous heart?
Oh were thy sway the curse of meaner powers,
And thou the shame of any host but ours!
A host, by Jove endued with martial might,
And taught to conquer, or to fall in fight:
Adventurous combats and bold wars to wage,
Employ’d our youth, and yet employs our age.
And wilt thou thus desert the Trojan plain?
And have whole streams of blood been spilt in vain?
In such base sentence if thou couch thy fear,
Speak it in whispers, lest a Greek should hear.
Lives there a man so dead to fame, who dares
To think such meanness, or the thought declares?
And comes it even from him whose sovereign sway
The banded legions of all Greece obey?
Is this a general’s voice that calls to flight,
While war hangs doubtful, while his soldiers fight?
What more could Troy? What yet their fate denies
Thou givest the foe: all Greece becomes their prize.
No more the troops (our hoisted sails in view,
Themselves abandon’d) shall the fight pursue;
But thy ships flying, with despair shall see;
And owe destruction to a prince like thee.”

“Thy just reproofs (Atrides calm replies)
Like arrows pierce me, for thy words are wise.
Unwilling as I am to lose the host,
I force not Greece to quit this hateful coast;
Glad I submit, whoe’er, or young, or old,
Aught, more conducive to our weal, unfold.”

Tydides cut him short, and thus began:
“Such counsel if you seek, behold the man
Who boldly gives it, and what he shall say,
Young though he be, disdain not to obey:
A youth, who from the mighty Tydeus springs,
May speak to councils and assembled kings.
Hear then in me the great OEnides’ son,
Whose honoured dust (his race of glory run)
Lies whelm’d in ruins of the Theban wall;
Brave in his life, and glorious in his fall.
With three bold sons was generous Prothous bless’d,
Who Pleuron’s walls and Calydon possess’d;
Melas and Agrius, but (who far surpass’d
The rest in courage) Œneus was the last.
From him, my sire. From Calydon expell’d,
He pass’d to Argos, and in exile dwell’d;
The monarch’s daughter there (so Jove ordain’d)
He won, and flourish’d where Adrastus reign’d;
There, rich in fortune’s gifts, his acres till’d,
Beheld his vines their liquid harvest yield,
And numerous flocks that whiten’d all the field.
Such Tydeus was, the foremost once in fame!
Nor lives in Greece a stranger to his name.
Then, what for common good my thoughts inspire,
Attend, and in the son respect the sire.
Though sore of battle, though with wounds oppress’d,
Let each go forth, and animate the rest,
Advance the glory which he cannot share,
Though not partaker, witness of the war.
But lest new wounds on wounds o’erpower us quite,
Beyond the missile javelin’s sounding flight,
Safe let us stand; and, from the tumult far,
Inspire the ranks, and rule the distant war.”

He added not: the listening kings obey,
Slow moving on; Atrides leads the way.
The god of ocean (to inflame their rage)
Appears a warrior furrowed o’er with age;
Press’d in his own, the general’s hand he took,
And thus the venerable hero spoke:

“Atrides! lo! with what disdainful eye
Achilles sees his country’s forces fly;
Blind, impious man! whose anger is his guide,
Who glories in unutterable pride.
So may he perish, so may Jove disclaim
The wretch relentless, and o’erwhelm with shame!
But Heaven forsakes not thee: o’er yonder sands
Soon shall thou view the scattered Trojan bands
Fly diverse; while proud kings, and chiefs renown’d,
Driven heaps on heaps, with clouds involved around
Of rolling dust, their winged wheels employ
To hide their ignominious heads in Troy.”

He spoke, then rush’d amid the warrior crew,
And sent his voice before him as he flew,
Loud, as the shout encountering armies yield
When twice ten thousand shake the labouring field;
Such was the voice, and such the thundering sound
Of him whose trident rends the solid ground.
Each Argive bosom beats to meet the fight,
And grisly war appears a pleasing sight.

Meantime Saturnia from Olympus’ brow,
High-throned in gold, beheld the fields below;
With joy the glorious conflict she survey’d,
Where her great brother gave the Grecians aid.
But placed aloft, on Ida’s shady height
She sees her Jove, and trembles at the sight.
Jove to deceive, what methods shall she try,
What arts, to blind his all-beholding eye?
At length she trusts her power; resolved to prove
The old, yet still successful, cheat of love;
Against his wisdom to oppose her charms,
And lull the lord of thunders in her arms.

Swift to her bright apartment she repairs,
Sacred to dress and beauty’s pleasing cares:
With skill divine had Vulcan form’d the bower,
Safe from access of each intruding power.
Touch’d with her secret key, the doors unfold:
Self-closed, behind her shut the valves of gold.
Here first she bathes; and round her body pours
Soft oils of fragrance, and ambrosial showers:
The winds, perfumed, the balmy gale convey
Through heaven, through earth, and all the aerial way:
Spirit divine! whose exhalation greets
The sense of gods with more than mortal sweets.
Thus while she breathed of heaven, with decent pride
Her artful hands the radiant tresses tied;
Part on her head in shining ringlets roll’d,
Part o’er her shoulders waved like melted gold.
Around her next a heavenly mantle flow’d,
That rich with Pallas’ labour’d colours glow’d:
Large clasps of gold the foldings gather’d round,
A golden zone her swelling bosom bound.
Far-beaming pendants tremble in her ear,
Each gem illumined with a triple star.
Then o’er her head she cast a veil more white
Than new-fallen snow, and dazzling as the light.
Last her fair feet celestial sandals grace.
Thus issuing radiant with majestic pace,
Forth from the dome the imperial goddess moves,
And calls the mother of the smiles and loves.

“How long (to Venus thus apart she cried)
Shall human strife celestial minds divide?
Ah yet, will Venus aid Saturnia’s joy,
And set aside the cause of Greece and Troy?”

“Let heaven’s dread empress (Cytheraea said)
Speak her request, and deem her will obey’d.”

“Then grant me (said the queen) those conquering charms,
That power, which mortals and immortals warms,
That love, which melts mankind in fierce desires,
And burns the sons of heaven with sacred fires!

“For lo! I haste to those remote abodes,
Where the great parents, (sacred source of gods!)
Ocean and Tethys their old empire keep,
On the last limits of the land and deep.
In their kind arms my tender years were past;
What time old Saturn, from Olympus cast,
Of upper heaven to Jove resign’d the reign,
Whelm’d under the huge mass of earth and main.
For strife, I hear, has made the union cease,
Which held so long that ancient pair in peace.
What honour, and what love, shall I obtain,
If I compose those fatal feuds again;
Once more their minds in mutual ties engage,
And, what my youth has owed, repay their age!”

She said. With awe divine, the queen of love
Obey’d the sister and the wife of Jove;
And from her fragrant breast the zone embraced,[233]
With various skill and high embroidery graced.
In this was every art, and every charm,
To win the wisest, and the coldest warm:
Fond love, the gentle vow, the gay desire,
The kind deceit, the still-reviving fire,
Persuasive speech, and the more persuasive sighs,
Silence that spoke, and eloquence of eyes.
This on her hand the Cyprian Goddess laid:
“Take this, and with it all thy wish;” she said.
With smiles she took the charm; and smiling press’d
The powerful cestus to her snowy breast.

Then Venus to the courts of Jove withdrew;
Whilst from Olympus pleased Saturnia flew.
O’er high Pieria thence her course she bore,
O’er fair Emathia’s ever-pleasing shore,
O’er Hemus’ hills with snows eternal crown’d;
Nor once her flying foot approach’d the ground.
Then taking wing from Athos’ lofty steep,
She speeds to Lemnos o’er the rolling deep,
And seeks the cave of Death’s half-brother, Sleep.[234]

“Sweet pleasing Sleep! (Saturnia thus began)
Who spread’st thy empire o’er each god and man;
If e’er obsequious to thy Juno’s will,
O power of slumbers! hear, and favour still.
Shed thy soft dews on Jove’s immortal eyes,
While sunk in love’s entrancing joys he lies.
A splendid footstool, and a throne, that shine
With gold unfading, Somnus, shall be thine;
The work of Vulcan; to indulge thy ease,
When wine and feasts thy golden humours please.”

“Imperial dame (the balmy power replies),
Great Saturn’s heir, and empress of the skies!
O’er other gods I spread my easy chain;
The sire of all, old Ocean, owns my reign.
And his hush’d waves lie silent on the main.
But how, unbidden, shall I dare to steep
Jove’s awful temples in the dew of sleep?
Long since, too venturous, at thy bold command,
On those eternal lids I laid my hand;
What time, deserting Ilion’s wasted plain,
His conquering son, Alcides, plough’d the main.
When lo! the deeps arise, the tempests roar,
And drive the hero to the Coan shore:
Great Jove, awaking, shook the blest abodes
With rising wrath, and tumbled gods on gods;
Me chief he sought, and from the realms on high
Had hurl’d indignant to the nether sky,
But gentle Night, to whom I fled for aid,
(The friend of earth and heaven,) her wings display’d;
Impower’d the wrath of gods and men to tame,
Even Jove revered the venerable dame.”

“Vain are thy fears (the queen of heaven replies,
And, speaking, rolls her large majestic eyes);
Think’st thou that Troy has Jove’s high favour won,
Like great Alcides, his all-conquering son?
Hear, and obey the mistress of the skies,
Nor for the deed expect a vulgar prize;
For know, thy loved-one shall be ever thine,
The youngest Grace, Pasithaë the divine.”[235]

“Swear then (he said) by those tremendous floods
That roar through hell, and bind the invoking gods:
Let the great parent earth one hand sustain,
And stretch the other o’er the sacred main:
Call the black Titans, that with Chronos dwell,
To hear and witness from the depths of hell;
That she, my loved-one, shall be ever mine,
The youngest Grace, Pasithaë the divine.”

The queen assents, and from the infernal bowers
Invokes the sable subtartarean powers,
And those who rule the inviolable floods,
Whom mortals name the dread Titanian gods.


[Illustration: ] SLEEP ESCAPING FROM THE WRATH OF JUPITER


Then swift as wind, o’er Lemnos’ smoky isle
They wing their way, and Imbrus’ sea-beat soil;
Through air, unseen, involved in darkness glide,
And light on Lectos, on the point of Ide:
(Mother of savages, whose echoing hills
Are heard resounding with a hundred rills:)
Fair Ida trembles underneath the god;
Hush’d are her mountains, and her forests nod.
There on a fir, whose spiry branches rise
To join its summit to the neighbouring skies;
Dark in embowering shade, conceal’d from sight,
Sat Sleep, in likeness of the bird of night.
(Chalcis his name by those of heavenly birth,
But call’d Cymindis by the race of earth.)

To Ida’s top successful Juno flies;
Great Jove surveys her with desiring eyes:
The god, whose lightning sets the heavens on fire,
Through all his bosom feels the fierce desire;
Fierce as when first by stealth he seized her charms,
Mix’d with her soul, and melted in her arms:
Fix’d on her eyes he fed his eager look,
Then press’d her hand, and thus with transport spoke:

“Why comes my goddess from the ethereal sky,
And not her steeds and flaming chariot nigh?”

Then she—“I haste to those remote abodes
Where the great parents of the deathless gods,
The reverend Ocean and gray Tethys, reign,
On the last limits of the land and main.
I visit these, to whose indulgent cares
I owe the nursing of my tender years:
For strife, I hear, has made that union cease
Which held so long that ancient pair in peace.
The steeds, prepared my chariot to convey
O’er earth and seas, and through the aerial way,
Wait under Ide: of thy superior power
To ask consent, I leave the Olympian bower;
Nor seek, unknown to thee, the sacred cells
Deep under seas, where hoary Ocean dwells.”

“For that (said Jove) suffice another day!
But eager love denies the least delay.
Let softer cares the present hour employ,
And be these moments sacred all to joy.
Ne’er did my soul so strong a passion prove,
Or for an earthly, or a heavenly love:
Not when I press’d Ixion’s matchless dame,
Whence rose Pirithous like the gods in fame:
Not when fair Danae felt the shower of gold
Stream into life, whence Perseus brave and bold.
Not thus I burn’d for either Theban dame:
(Bacchus from this, from that Alcides came:)
Nor Phœnix’ daughter, beautiful and young,
Whence godlike Rhadamanth and Minos sprung.[236]
Not thus I burn’d for fair Latona’s face,
Nor comelier Ceres’ more majestic grace.
Not thus even for thyself I felt desire,
As now my veins receive the pleasing fire.”

He spoke; the goddess with the charming eyes
Glows with celestial red, and thus replies:
“Is this a scene for love? On Ida’s height,
Exposed to mortal and immortal sight!
Our joys profaned by each familiar eye;
The sport of heaven, and fable of the sky:
How shall I e’er review the blest abodes,
Or mix among the senate of the gods?
Shall I not think, that, with disorder’d charms,
All heaven beholds me recent from thy arms?
With skill divine has Vulcan form’d thy bower,
Sacred to love and to the genial hour;
If such thy will, to that recess retire,
In secret there indulge thy soft desire.”

She ceased; and, smiling with superior love,
Thus answer’d mild the cloud-compelling Jove:
“Nor god nor mortal shall our joys behold,
Shaded with clouds, and circumfused in gold;
Not even the sun, who darts through heaven his rays,
And whose broad eye the extended earth surveys.”

Gazing he spoke, and, kindling at the view,
His eager arms around the goddess threw.
Glad Earth perceives, and from her bosom pours
Unbidden herbs and voluntary flowers:
Thick new-born violets a soft carpet spread,
And clustering lotos swell’d the rising bed,
And sudden hyacinths the turf bestrow,[237]
And flamy crocus made the mountain glow
There golden clouds conceal the heavenly pair,
Steep’d in soft joys and circumfused with air;
Celestial dews, descending o’er the ground,
Perfume the mount, and breathe ambrosia round:
At length, with love and sleep’s soft power oppress’d,
The panting thunderer nods, and sinks to rest.

Now to the navy borne on silent wings,
To Neptune’s ear soft Sleep his message brings;
Beside him sudden, unperceived, he stood,
And thus with gentle words address’d the god:

“Now, Neptune! now, the important hour employ,
To check a while the haughty hopes of Troy:
While Jove yet rests, while yet my vapours shed
The golden vision round his sacred head;
For Juno’s love, and Somnus’ pleasing ties,
Have closed those awful and eternal eyes.”
Thus having said, the power of slumber flew,
On human lids to drop the balmy dew.
Neptune, with zeal increased, renews his care,
And towering in the foremost ranks of war,
Indignant thus—“Oh once of martial fame!
O Greeks! if yet ye can deserve the name!
This half-recover’d day shall Troy obtain?
Shall Hector thunder at your ships again?
Lo! still he vaunts, and threats the fleet with fires,
While stern Achilles in his wrath retires.
One hero’s loss too tamely you deplore,
Be still yourselves, and ye shall need no more.
Oh yet, if glory any bosom warms,
Brace on your firmest helms, and stand to arms:
His strongest spear each valiant Grecian wield,
Each valiant Grecian seize his broadest shield;
Let to the weak the lighter arms belong,
The ponderous targe be wielded by the strong.
Thus arm’d, not Hector shall our presence stay;
Myself, ye Greeks! myself will lead the way.”


[Illustration: ] GREEK SHIELD


The troops assent; their martial arms they change:
The busy chiefs their banded legions range.
The kings, though wounded, and oppress’d with pain,
With helpful hands themselves assist the train.
The strong and cumbrous arms the valiant wield,
The weaker warrior takes a lighter shield.
Thus sheath’d in shining brass, in bright array
The legions march, and Neptune leads the way:
His brandish’d falchion flames before their eyes,
Like lightning flashing through the frighted skies.
Clad in his might, the earth-shaking power appears;
Pale mortals tremble, and confess their fears.

Troy’s great defender stands alone unawed,
Arms his proud host, and dares oppose a god:
And lo! the god, and wondrous man, appear:
The sea’s stern ruler there, and Hector here.
The roaring main, at her great master’s call,
Rose in huge ranks, and form’d a watery wall
Around the ships: seas hanging o’er the shores,
Both armies join: earth thunders, ocean roars.
Not half so loud the bellowing deeps resound,
When stormy winds disclose the dark profound;
Less loud the winds that from the Æolian hall
Roar through the woods, and make whole forests fall;
Less loud the woods, when flames in torrents pour,
Catch the dry mountain, and its shades devour;
With such a rage the meeting hosts are driven,
And such a clamour shakes the sounding heaven.
The first bold javelin, urged by Hector’s force,
Direct at Ajax’ bosom winged its course;
But there no pass the crossing belts afford,
(One braced his shield, and one sustain’d his sword.)
Then back the disappointed Trojan drew,
And cursed the lance that unavailing flew:
But ’scaped not Ajax; his tempestuous hand
A ponderous stone upheaving from the sand,
(Where heaps laid loose beneath the warrior’s feet,
Or served to ballast, or to prop the fleet,)
Toss’d round and round, the missive marble flings;
On the razed shield the fallen ruin rings,
Full on his breast and throat with force descends;
Nor deaden’d there its giddy fury spends,
But whirling on, with many a fiery round,
Smokes in the dust, and ploughs into the ground.
As when the bolt, red-hissing from above,
Darts on the consecrated plant of Jove,
The mountain-oak in flaming ruin lies,
Black from the blow, and smokes of sulphur rise;
Stiff with amaze the pale beholders stand,
And own the terrors of the almighty hand!
So lies great Hector prostrate on the shore;
His slacken’d hand deserts the lance it bore;
His following shield the fallen chief o’erspread;
Beneath his helmet dropp’d his fainting head;
His load of armour, sinking to the ground,
Clanks on the field, a dead and hollow sound.
Loud shouts of triumph fill the crowded plain;
Greece sees, in hope, Troy’s great defender slain:
All spring to seize him; storms of arrows fly,
And thicker javelins intercept the sky.
In vain an iron tempest hisses round;
He lies protected, and without a wound.[238]
Polydamas, Agenor the divine,
The pious warrior of Anchises’ line,
And each bold leader of the Lycian band,
With covering shields (a friendly circle) stand,
His mournful followers, with assistant care,
The groaning hero to his chariot bear;
His foaming coursers, swifter than the wind,
Speed to the town, and leave the war behind.

When now they touch’d the mead’s enamell’d side,
Where gentle Xanthus rolls his easy tide,
With watery drops the chief they sprinkle round,
Placed on the margin of the flowery ground.
Raised on his knees, he now ejects the gore;
Now faints anew, low-sinking on the shore;
By fits he breathes, half views the fleeting skies,
And seals again, by fits, his swimming eyes.

Soon as the Greeks the chief’s retreat beheld,
With double fury each invades the field.
Oilean Ajax first his javelin sped,
Pierced by whose point the son of Enops bled;
(Satnius the brave, whom beauteous Neis bore
Amidst her flocks on Satnio’s silver shore;)
Struck through the belly’s rim, the warrior lies
Supine, and shades eternal veil his eyes.
An arduous battle rose around the dead;
By turns the Greeks, by turns the Trojans bled.

Fired with revenge, Polydamas drew near,
And at Prothoënor shook the trembling spear;
The driving javelin through his shoulder thrust,
He sinks to earth, and grasps the bloody dust.
“Lo thus (the victor cries) we rule the field,
And thus their arms the race of Panthus wield:
From this unerring hand there flies no dart
But bathes its point within a Grecian heart.
Propp’d on that spear to which thou owest thy fall,
Go, guide thy darksome steps to Pluto’s dreary hall.”

He said, and sorrow touch’d each Argive breast:
The soul of Ajax burn’d above the rest.
As by his side the groaning warrior fell,
At the fierce foe he launch’d his piercing steel;
The foe, reclining, shunn’d the flying death;
But fate, Archilochus, demands thy breath:
Thy lofty birth no succour could impart,
The wings of death o’ertook thee on the dart;
Swift to perform heaven’s fatal will, it fled
Full on the juncture of the neck and head,
And took the joint, and cut the nerves in twain:
The dropping head first tumbled on the plain.
So just the stroke, that yet the body stood
Erect, then roll’d along the sands in blood.

“Here, proud Polydamas, here turn thy eyes!
(The towering Ajax loud-insulting cries:)
Say, is this chief extended on the plain
A worthy vengeance for Prothoënor slain?
Mark well his port! his figure and his face
Nor speak him vulgar, nor of vulgar race;
Some lines, methinks, may make his lineage known,
Antenor’s brother, or perhaps his son.”

He spake, and smiled severe, for well he knew
The bleeding youth: Troy sadden’d at the view.
But furious Acamas avenged his cause;
As Promachus his slaughtered brother draws,
He pierced his heart—“Such fate attends you all,
Proud Argives! destined by our arms to fall.
Not Troy alone, but haughty Greece, shall share
The toils, the sorrows, and the wounds of war.
Behold your Promachus deprived of breath,
A victim owed to my brave brother’s death.
Not unappeased he enters Pluto’s gate,
Who leaves a brother to revenge his fate.”

Heart-piercing anguish struck the Grecian host,
But touch’d the breast of bold Peneleus most;
At the proud boaster he directs his course;
The boaster flies, and shuns superior force.
But young Ilioneus received the spear;
Ilioneus, his father’s only care:
(Phorbas the rich, of all the Trojan train
Whom Hermes loved, and taught the arts of gain:)
Full in his eye the weapon chanced to fall,
And from the fibres scoop’d the rooted ball,
Drove through the neck, and hurl’d him to the plain;
He lifts his miserable arms in vain!
Swift his broad falchion fierce Peneleus spread,
And from the spouting shoulders struck his head;
To earth at once the head and helmet fly;
The lance, yet sticking through the bleeding eye,
The victor seized; and, as aloft he shook
The gory visage, thus insulting spoke:

“Trojans! your great Ilioneus behold!
Haste, to his father let the tale be told:
Let his high roofs resound with frantic woe,
Such as the house of Promachus must know;
Let doleful tidings greet his mother’s ear,
Such as to Promachus’ sad spouse we bear,
When we victorious shall to Greece return,
And the pale matron in our triumphs mourn.”

Dreadful he spoke, then toss’d the head on high;
The Trojans hear, they tremble, and they fly:
Aghast they gaze around the fleet and wall,
And dread the ruin that impends on all.

Daughters of Jove! that on Olympus shine,
Ye all-beholding, all-recording nine!
O say, when Neptune made proud Ilion yield,
What chief, what hero first embrued the field?
Of all the Grecians what immortal name,
And whose bless’d trophies, will ye raise to fame?

Thou first, great Ajax! on the unsanguined plain
Laid Hyrtius, leader of the Mysian train.
Phalces and Mermer, Nestor’s son o’erthrew,
Bold Merion, Morys and Hippotion slew.
Strong Periphaetes and Prothoon bled,
By Teucer’s arrows mingled with the dead,
Pierced in the flank by Menelaus’ steel,
His people’s pastor, Hyperenor fell;
Eternal darkness wrapp’d the warrior round,
And the fierce soul came rushing through the wound.
But stretch’d in heaps before Oïleus’ son,
Fall mighty numbers, mighty numbers run;
Ajax the less, of all the Grecian race
Skill’d in pursuit, and swiftest in the chase.


[Illustration: ] BACCHUS




BOOK XV.


ARGUMENT.


THE FIFTH BATTLE AT THE SHIPS; AND THE ACTS OF AJAX.


Jupiter, awaking, sees the Trojans repulsed from the trenches, Hector
in a swoon, and Neptune at the head of the Greeks: he is highly
incensed at the artifice of Juno, who appeases him by her submissions;
she is then sent to Iris and Apollo. Juno, repairing to the assembly of
the gods, attempts, with extraordinary address, to incense them against
Jupiter; in particular she touches Mars with a violent resentment; he
is ready to take arms, but is prevented by Minerva. Iris and Apollo
obey the orders of Jupiter; Iris commands Neptune to leave the battle,
to which, after much reluctance and passion, he consents. Apollo
reinspires Hector with vigour, brings him back to the battle, marches
before him with his ægis, and turns the fortune of the fight. He
breaks down great part of the Grecian wall: the Trojans rush in, and
attempt to fire the first line of the fleet, but are, as yet, repelled
by the greater Ajax with a prodigious slaughter.


Now in swift flight they pass the trench profound,
And many a chief lay gasping on the ground:
Then stopp’d and panted, where the chariots lie
Fear on their cheek, and horror in their eye.
Meanwhile, awaken’d from his dream of love,
On Ida’s summit sat imperial Jove:
Round the wide fields he cast a careful view,
There saw the Trojans fly, the Greeks pursue;
These proud in arms, those scatter’d o’er the plain
And, ’midst the war, the monarch of the main.
Not far, great Hector on the dust he spies,
(His sad associates round with weeping eyes,)
Ejecting blood, and panting yet for breath,
His senses wandering to the verge of death.
The god beheld him with a pitying look,
And thus, incensed, to fraudful Juno spoke:

“O thou, still adverse to the eternal will,
For ever studious in promoting ill!
Thy arts have made the godlike Hector yield,
And driven his conquering squadrons from the field.
Canst thou, unhappy in thy wiles, withstand
Our power immense, and brave the almighty hand?
Hast thou forgot, when, bound and fix’d on high,
From the vast concave of the spangled sky,
I hung thee trembling in a golden chain,
And all the raging gods opposed in vain?
Headlong I hurl’d them from the Olympian hall,
Stunn’d in the whirl, and breathless with the fall.
For godlike Hercules these deeds were done,
Nor seem’d the vengeance worthy such a son:
When, by thy wiles induced, fierce Boreas toss’d
The shipwreck’d hero on the Coan coast,
Him through a thousand forms of death I bore,
And sent to Argos, and his native shore.
Hear this, remember, and our fury dread,
Nor pull the unwilling vengeance on thy head;
Lest arts and blandishments successless prove,
Thy soft deceits, and well-dissembled love.”

The Thunderer spoke: imperial Juno mourn’d,
And, trembling, these submissive words return’d:

“By every oath that powers immortal ties,
The foodful earth and all-infolding skies;
By thy black waves, tremendous Styx! that flow
Through the drear realms of gliding ghosts below;
By the dread honours of thy sacred head,
And that unbroken vow, our virgin bed!
Not by my arts the ruler of the main
Steeps Troy in blood, and ranges round the plain:
By his own ardour, his own pity sway’d,
To help his Greeks, he fought and disobey’d:
Else had thy Juno better counsels given,
And taught submission to the sire of heaven.”

“Think’st thou with me? fair empress of the skies!
(The immortal father with a smile replies;)
Then soon the haughty sea-god shall obey,
Nor dare to act but when we point the way.
If truth inspires thy tongue, proclaim our will
To yon bright synod on the Olympian hill;
Our high decree let various Iris know,
And call the god that bears the silver bow.
Let her descend, and from the embattled plain
Command the sea-god to his watery reign:
While Phœbus hastes great Hector to prepare
To rise afresh, and once more wake the war:
His labouring bosom re-inspires with breath,
And calls his senses from the verge of death.
Greece chased by Troy, even to Achilles’ fleet,
Shall fall by thousands at the hero’s feet.
He, not untouch’d with pity, to the plain
Shall send Patroclus, but shall send in vain.
What youths he slaughters under Ilion’s walls!
Even my loved son, divine Sarpedon, falls!
Vanquish’d at last by Hector’s lance he lies.
Then, nor till then, shall great Achilles rise:
And lo! that instant, godlike Hector dies.
From that great hour the war’s whole fortune turns,
Pallas assists, and lofty Ilion burns.
Not till that day shall Jove relax his rage,
Nor one of all the heavenly host engage
In aid of Greece. The promise of a god
I gave, and seal’d it with the almighty nod,
Achilles’ glory to the stars to raise;
Such was our word, and fate the word obeys.”

The trembling queen (the almighty order given)
Swift from the Idaean summit shot to heaven.
As some wayfaring man, who wanders o’er
In thought a length of lands he trod before,
Sends forth his active mind from place to place,
Joins hill to dale, and measures space with space:
So swift flew Juno to the bless’d abodes,
If thought of man can match the speed of gods.
There sat the powers in awful synod placed;
They bow’d, and made obeisance as she pass’d
Through all the brazen dome:[239] with goblets crown’d
They hail her queen; the nectar streams around.
Fair Themis first presents the golden bowl,
And anxious asks what cares disturb her soul?

To whom the white-arm’d goddess thus replies:
“Enough thou know’st the tyrant of the skies,
Severely bent his purpose to fulfil,
Unmoved his mind, and unrestrain’d his will.
Go thou, the feasts of heaven attend thy call;
Bid the crown’d nectar circle round the hall:
But Jove shall thunder through the ethereal dome
Such stern decrees, such threaten’d woes to come,
As soon shall freeze mankind with dire surprise,
And damp the eternal banquets of the skies.”

The goddess said, and sullen took her place;
Black horror sadden’d each celestial face.
To see the gathering grudge in every breast,
Smiles on her lips a spleenful joy express’d;
While on her wrinkled front, and eyebrow bent,
Sat stedfast care, and lowering discontent.
Thus she proceeds—“Attend, ye powers above!
But know, ’tis madness to contest with Jove:
Supreme he sits; and sees, in pride of sway.
Your vassal godheads grudgingly obey:
Fierce in the majesty of power controls;
Shakes all the thrones of heaven, and bends the poles.
Submiss, immortals! all he wills, obey:
And thou, great Mars, begin and show the way.
Behold Ascalaphus! behold him die,
But dare not murmur, dare not vent a sigh;
Thy own loved boasted offspring lies o’erthrown,
If that loved boasted offspring be thy own.”

Stern Mars, with anguish for his slaughter’d son,
Smote his rebelling breast, and fierce begun:
“Thus then, immortals! thus shall Mars obey;
Forgive me, gods, and yield my vengeance way:
Descending first to yon forbidden plain,
The god of battles dares avenge the slain;
Dares, though the thunder bursting o’er my head
Should hurl me blazing on those heaps of dead.”

With that he gives command to Fear and Flight
To join his rapid coursers for the fight:
Then grim in arms, with hasty vengeance flies;
Arms that reflect a radiance through the skies.
And now had Jove, by bold rebellion driven,
Discharged his wrath on half the host of heaven;
But Pallas, springing through the bright abode,
Starts from her azure throne to calm the god.
Struck for the immortal race with timely fear,
From frantic Mars she snatch’d the shield and spear;
Then the huge helmet lifting from his head,
Thus to the impetuous homicide she said:

“By what wild passion, furious! art thou toss’d?
Striv’st thou with Jove? thou art already lost.
Shall not the Thunderer’s dread command restrain,
And was imperial Juno heard in vain?
Back to the skies wouldst thou with shame be driven,
And in thy guilt involve the host of heaven?
Ilion and Greece no more should Jove engage,
The skies would yield an ampler scene of rage;
Guilty and guiltless find an equal fate
And one vast ruin whelm the Olympian state.
Cease then thy offspring’s death unjust to call;
Heroes as great have died, and yet shall fall.
Why should heaven’s law with foolish man comply
Exempted from the race ordain’d to die?”

This menace fix’d the warrior to his throne;
Sullen he sat, and curb’d the rising groan.
Then Juno call’d (Jove’s orders to obey)
The winged Iris, and the god of day.
“Go wait the Thunderer’s will (Saturnia cried)
On yon tall summit of the fountful Ide:
There in the father’s awful presence stand,
Receive, and execute his dread command.”

She said, and sat; the god that gilds the day,
And various Iris, wing their airy way.
Swift as the wind, to Ida’s hills they came,
(Fair nurse of fountains, and of savage game)
There sat the eternal; he whose nod controls
The trembling world, and shakes the steady poles.
Veil’d in a mist of fragrance him they found,
With clouds of gold and purple circled round.
Well-pleased the Thunderer saw their earnest care,
And prompt obedience to the queen of air;
Then (while a smile serenes his awful brow)
Commands the goddess of the showery bow:

“Iris! descend, and what we here ordain,
Report to yon mad tyrant of the main.
Bid him from fight to his own deeps repair,
Or breathe from slaughter in the fields of air.
If he refuse, then let him timely weigh
Our elder birthright, and superior sway.
How shall his rashness stand the dire alarms,
If heaven’s omnipotence descend in arms?
Strives he with me, by whom his power was given,
And is there equal to the lord of heaven?”

The all-mighty spoke; the goddess wing’d her flight
To sacred Ilion from the Idaean height.
Swift as the rattling hail, or fleecy snows,
Drive through the skies, when Boreas fiercely blows;
So from the clouds descending Iris falls,
And to blue Neptune thus the goddess calls:

“Attend the mandate of the sire above!
In me behold the messenger of Jove:
He bids thee from forbidden wars repair
To thine own deeps, or to the fields of air.
This if refused, he bids thee timely weigh
His elder birthright, and superior sway.
How shall thy rashness stand the dire alarms
If heaven’s omnipotence descend in arms?
Striv’st thou with him by whom all power is given?
And art thou equal to the lord of heaven?”

“What means the haughty sovereign of the skies?
(The king of ocean thus, incensed, replies;)
Rule as he will his portion’d realms on high;
No vassal god, nor of his train, am I.
Three brother deities from Saturn came,
And ancient Rhea, earth’s immortal dame:
Assign’d by lot, our triple rule we know;
Infernal Pluto sways the shades below;
O’er the wide clouds, and o’er the starry plain,
Ethereal Jove extends his high domain;
My court beneath the hoary waves I keep,
And hush the roarings of the sacred deep;
Olympus, and this earth, in common lie:
What claim has here the tyrant of the sky?
Far in the distant clouds let him control,
And awe the younger brothers of the pole;
There to his children his commands be given,
The trembling, servile, second race of heaven.”

“And must I then (said she), O sire of floods!
Bear this fierce answer to the king of gods?
Correct it yet, and change thy rash intent;
A noble mind disdains not to repent.
To elder brothers guardian fiends are given,
To scourge the wretch insulting them and heaven.”

“Great is the profit (thus the god rejoin’d)
When ministers are blest with prudent mind:
Warn’d by thy words, to powerful Jove I yield,
And quit, though angry, the contended field:
Not but his threats with justice I disclaim,
The same our honours, and our birth the same.
If yet, forgetful of his promise given
To Hermes, Pallas, and the queen of heaven,
To favour Ilion, that perfidious place,
He breaks his faith with half the ethereal race;
Give him to know, unless the Grecian train
Lay yon proud structures level with the plain,
Howe’er the offence by other gods be pass’d,
The wrath of Neptune shall for ever last.”

Thus speaking, furious from the field he strode,
And plunged into the bosom of the flood.
The lord of thunders, from his lofty height
Beheld, and thus bespoke the source of light:

“Behold! the god whose liquid arms are hurl’d
Around the globe, whose earthquakes rock the world,
Desists at length his rebel-war to wage,
Seeks his own seas, and trembles at our rage;
Else had my wrath, heaven’s thrones all shaking round,
Burn’d to the bottom of his seas profound;
And all the gods that round old Saturn dwell
Had heard the thunders to the deeps of hell.
Well was the crime, and well the vengeance spared;
Even power immense had found such battle hard.
Go thou, my son! the trembling Greeks alarm,
Shake my broad ægis on thy active arm,
Be godlike Hector thy peculiar care,
Swell his bold heart, and urge his strength to war:
Let Ilion conquer, till the Achaian train
Fly to their ships and Hellespont again:
Then Greece shall breathe from toils.” The godhead said;
His will divine the son of Jove obey’d.
Not half so swift the sailing falcon flies,
That drives a turtle through the liquid skies,
As Phœbus, shooting from the Idaean brow,
Glides down the mountain to the plain below.
There Hector seated by the stream he sees,
His sense returning with the coming breeze;
Again his pulses beat, his spirits rise;
Again his loved companions meet his eyes;
Jove thinking of his pains, they pass’d away,
To whom the god who gives the golden day:

“Why sits great Hector from the field so far?
What grief, what wound, withholds thee from the war?”

The fainting hero, as the vision bright
Stood shining o’er him, half unseal’d his sight:

“What blest immortal, with commanding breath,
Thus wakens Hector from the sleep of death?
Has fame not told, how, while my trusty sword
Bathed Greece in slaughter, and her battle gored,
The mighty Ajax with a deadly blow
Had almost sunk me to the shades below?
Even yet, methinks, the gliding ghosts I spy,
And hell’s black horrors swim before my eye.”

To him Apollo: “Be no more dismay’d;
See, and be strong! the Thunderer sends thee aid.
Behold! thy Phœbus shall his arms employ,
Phœbus, propitious still to thee and Troy.
Inspire thy warriors then with manly force,
And to the ships impel thy rapid horse:
Even I will make thy fiery coursers way,
And drive the Grecians headlong to the sea.”

Thus to bold Hector spoke the son of Jove,
And breathed immortal ardour from above.
As when the pamper’d steed, with reins unbound,
Breaks from his stall, and pours along the ground;
With ample strokes he rushes to the flood,
To bathe his sides, and cool his fiery blood;
His head, now freed, he tosses to the skies;
His mane dishevell’d o’er his shoulders flies:
He snuffs the females in the well-known plain,
And springs, exulting, to his fields again:
Urged by the voice divine, thus Hector flew,
Full of the god; and all his hosts pursue.
As when the force of men and dogs combined
Invade the mountain goat, or branching hind;
Far from the hunter’s rage secure they lie
Close in the rock, (not fated yet to die)
When lo! a lion shoots across the way!
They fly: at once the chasers and the prey.
So Greece, that late in conquering troops pursued,
And mark’d their progress through the ranks in blood,
Soon as they see the furious chief appear,
Forget to vanquish, and consent to fear.

Thoas with grief observed his dreadful course,
Thoas, the bravest of the Ætolian force;
Skill’d to direct the javelin’s distant flight,
And bold to combat in the standing fight,
Not more in councils famed for solid sense,
Than winning words and heavenly eloquence.
“Gods! what portent (he cried) these eyes invades?
Lo! Hector rises from the Stygian shades!
We saw him, late, by thundering Ajax kill’d:
What god restores him to the frighted field;
And not content that half of Greece lie slain,
Pours new destruction on her sons again?
He comes not, Jove! without thy powerful will;
Lo! still he lives, pursues, and conquers still!
Yet hear my counsel, and his worst withstand:
The Greeks’ main body to the fleet command;
But let the few whom brisker spirits warm,
Stand the first onset, and provoke the storm.
Thus point your arms; and when such foes appear,
Fierce as he is, let Hector learn to fear.”

The warrior spoke; the listening Greeks obey,
Thickening their ranks, and form a deep array.

Each Ajax, Teucer, Merion gave command,
The valiant leader of the Cretan band;
And Mars-like Meges: these the chiefs excite,
Approach the foe, and meet the coming fight.
Behind, unnumber’d multitudes attend,
To flank the navy, and the shores defend.
Full on the front the pressing Trojans bear,
And Hector first came towering to the war.
Phœbus himself the rushing battle led;
A veil of clouds involved his radiant head:
High held before him, Jove’s enormous shield
Portentous shone, and shaded all the field;
Vulcan to Jove the immortal gift consign’d,
To scatter hosts and terrify mankind,
The Greeks expect the shock, the clamours rise
From different parts, and mingle in the skies.
Dire was the hiss of darts, by heroes flung,
And arrows leaping from the bow-string sung;
These drink the life of generous warriors slain:
Those guiltless fall, and thirst for blood in vain.
As long as Phœbus bore unmoved the shield,
Sat doubtful conquest hovering o’er the field;
But when aloft he shakes it in the skies,
Shouts in their ears, and lightens in their eyes,
Deep horror seizes every Grecian breast,
Their force is humbled, and their fear confess’d.
So flies a herd of oxen, scatter’d wide,
No swain to guard them, and no day to guide,
When two fell lions from the mountain come,
And spread the carnage through the shady gloom.
Impending Phœbus pours around them fear,
And Troy and Hector thunder in the rear.
Heaps fall on heaps: the slaughter Hector leads,
First great Arcesilas, then Stichius bleeds;
One to the bold Bœotians ever dear,
And one Menestheus’ friend and famed compeer.
Medon and Iasus, Æneas sped;
This sprang from Phelus, and the Athenians led;
But hapless Medon from Oïleus came;
Him Ajax honour’d with a brother’s name,
Though born of lawless love: from home expell’d,
A banish’d man, in Phylacè he dwell’d,
Press’d by the vengeance of an angry wife;
Troy ends at last his labours and his life.
Mecystes next Polydamas o’erthrew;
And thee, brave Clonius, great Agenor slew.
By Paris, Deiochus inglorious dies,
Pierced through the shoulder as he basely flies.
Polites’ arm laid Echius on the plain;
Stretch’d on one heap, the victors spoil the slain.
The Greeks dismay’d, confused, disperse or fall,
Some seek the trench, some skulk behind the wall.
While these fly trembling, others pant for breath,
And o’er the slaughter stalks gigantic death.
On rush’d bold Hector, gloomy as the night;
Forbids to plunder, animates the fight,
Points to the fleet: “For, by the gods! who flies,[240]
Who dares but linger, by this hand he dies;
No weeping sister his cold eye shall close,
No friendly hand his funeral pyre compose.
Who stops to plunder at this signal hour,
The birds shall tear him, and the dogs devour.”
Furious he said; the smarting scourge resounds;
The coursers fly; the smoking chariot bounds;
The hosts rush on; loud clamours shake the shore;
The horses thunder, earth and ocean roar!
Apollo, planted at the trench’s bound,
Push’d at the bank: down sank the enormous mound:
Roll’d in the ditch the heapy ruin lay;
A sudden road! a long and ample way.
O’er the dread fosse (a late impervious space)
Now steeds, and men, and cars tumultuous pass.
The wondering crowds the downward level trod;
Before them flamed the shield, and march’d the god.
Then with his hand he shook the mighty wall;
And lo! the turrets nod, the bulwarks fall:
Easy as when ashore an infant stands,
And draws imagined houses in the sands;
The sportive wanton, pleased with some new play,
Sweeps the slight works and fashion’d domes away:
Thus vanish’d at thy touch, the towers and walls;
The toil of thousands in a moment falls.

The Grecians gaze around with wild despair,
Confused, and weary all the powers with prayer:
Exhort their men, with praises, threats, commands;
And urge the gods, with voices, eyes, and hands.
Experienced Nestor chief obtests the skies,
And weeps his country with a father’s eyes.

“O Jove! if ever, on his native shore,
One Greek enrich’d thy shrine with offer’d gore;
If e’er, in hope our country to behold,
We paid the fattest firstlings of the fold;
If e’er thou sign’st our wishes with thy nod:
Perform the promise of a gracious god!
This day preserve our navies from the flame,
And save the relics of the Grecian name.”

Thus prayed the sage: the eternal gave consent,
And peals of thunder shook the firmament.
Presumptuous Troy mistook the accepting sign,
And catch’d new fury at the voice divine.
As, when black tempests mix the seas and skies,
The roaring deeps in watery mountains rise,
Above the sides of some tall ship ascend,
Its womb they deluge, and its ribs they rend:
Thus loudly roaring, and o’erpowering all,
Mount the thick Trojans up the Grecian wall;
Legions on legions from each side arise:
Thick sound the keels; the storm of arrows flies.
Fierce on the ships above, the cars below,
These wield the mace, and those the javelin throw.

While thus the thunder of the battle raged,
And labouring armies round the works engaged,
Still in the tent Patroclus sat to tend
The good Eurypylus, his wounded friend.
He sprinkles healing balms, to anguish kind,
And adds discourse, the medicine of the mind.
But when he saw, ascending up the fleet,
Victorious Troy; then, starting from his seat,
With bitter groans his sorrows he express’d,
He wrings his hands, he beats his manly breast.
“Though yet thy state require redress (he cries)
Depart I must: what horrors strike my eyes!
Charged with Achilles’ high command I go,
A mournful witness of this scene of woe;
I haste to urge him by his country’s care
To rise in arms, and shine again in war.
Perhaps some favouring god his soul may bend;
The voice is powerful of a faithful friend.”

He spoke; and, speaking, swifter than the wind
Sprung from the tent, and left the war behind.
The embodied Greeks the fierce attack sustain,
But strive, though numerous, to repulse in vain:
Nor could the Trojans, through that firm array,
Force to the fleet and tents the impervious way.
As when a shipwright, with Palladian art,
Smooths the rough wood, and levels every part;
With equal hand he guides his whole design,
By the just rule, and the directing line:
The martial leaders, with like skill and care,
Preserved their line, and equal kept the war.
Brave deeds of arms through all the ranks were tried,
And every ship sustained an equal tide.
At one proud bark, high-towering o’er the fleet,
Ajax the great, and godlike Hector meet;
For one bright prize the matchless chiefs contend,
Nor this the ships can fire, nor that defend:
One kept the shore, and one the vessel trod;
That fix’d as fate, this acted by a god.
The son of Clytius in his daring hand,
The deck approaching, shakes a flaming brand;
But, pierced by Telamon’s huge lance, expires:
Thundering he falls, and drops the extinguish’d fires.
Great Hector view’d him with a sad survey,
As stretch’d in dust before the stern he lay.
“Oh! all of Trojan, all of Lycian race!
Stand to your arms, maintain this arduous space:
Lo! where the son of royal Clytius lies;
Ah, save his arms, secure his obsequies!”

This said, his eager javelin sought the foe:
But Ajax shunn’d the meditated blow.
Not vainly yet the forceful lance was thrown;
It stretch’d in dust unhappy Lycophron:
An exile long, sustain’d at Ajax’ board,
A faithful servant to a foreign lord;
In peace, and war, for ever at his side,
Near his loved master, as he lived, he died.
From the high poop he tumbles on the sand,
And lies a lifeless load along the land.
With anguish Ajax views the piercing sight,
And thus inflames his brother to the fight:

“Teucer, behold! extended on the shore
Our friend, our loved companion! now no more!
Dear as a parent, with a parent’s care
To fight our wars he left his native air.
This death deplored, to Hector’s rage we owe;
Revenge, revenge it on the cruel foe.
Where are those darts on which the fates attend?
And where the bow which Phœbus taught to bend?”

Impatient Teucer, hastening to his aid,
Before the chief his ample bow display’d;
The well-stored quiver on his shoulders hung:
Then hiss’d his arrow, and the bowstring sung.
Clytus, Pisenor’s son, renown’d in fame,
(To thee, Polydamas! an honour’d name)
Drove through the thickest of the embattled plains
The startling steeds, and shook his eager reins.
As all on glory ran his ardent mind,
The pointed death arrests him from behind:
Through his fair neck the thrilling arrow flies;
In youth’s first bloom reluctantly he dies.
Hurl’d from the lofty seat, at distance far,
The headlong coursers spurn his empty car;
Till sad Polydamas the steeds restrain’d,
And gave, Astynous, to thy careful hand;
Then, fired to vengeance, rush’d amidst the foe:
Rage edged his sword, and strengthen’d every blow.

Once more bold Teucer, in his country’s cause,
At Hector’s breast a chosen arrow draws:
And had the weapon found the destined way,
Thy fall, great Trojan! had renown’d that day.
But Hector was not doom’d to perish then:
The all-wise disposer of the fates of men
(Imperial Jove) his present death withstands;
Nor was such glory due to Teucer’s hands.
At its full stretch as the tough string he drew,
Struck by an arm unseen, it burst in two;
Down dropp’d the bow: the shaft with brazen head
Fell innocent, and on the dust lay dead.
The astonish’d archer to great Ajax cries;
“Some god prevents our destined enterprise:
Some god, propitious to the Trojan foe,
Has, from my arm unfailing, struck the bow,
And broke the nerve my hands had twined with art,
Strong to impel the flight of many a dart.”

“Since heaven commands it (Ajax made reply)
Dismiss the bow, and lay thy arrows by:
Thy arms no less suffice the lance to wield,
And quit the quiver for the ponderous shield.
In the first ranks indulge thy thirst of fame,
Thy brave example shall the rest inflame.
Fierce as they are, by long successes vain;
To force our fleet, or even a ship to gain,
Asks toil, and sweat, and blood: their utmost might
Shall find its match—No more: ’tis ours to fight.”

Then Teucer laid his faithless bow aside;
The fourfold buckler o’er his shoulder tied;
On his brave head a crested helm he placed,
With nodding horse-hair formidably graced;
A dart, whose point with brass refulgent shines,
The warrior wields; and his great brother joins.

This Hector saw, and thus express’d his joy:
“Ye troops of Lycia, Dardanus, and Troy!
Be mindful of yourselves, your ancient fame,
And spread your glory with the navy’s flame.
Jove is with us; I saw his hand, but now,
From the proud archer strike his vaunted bow:
Indulgent Jove! how plain thy favours shine,
When happy nations bear the marks divine!
How easy then, to see the sinking state
Of realms accursed, deserted, reprobate!
Such is the fate of Greece, and such is ours:
Behold, ye warriors, and exert your powers.
Death is the worst; a fate which all must try;
And for our country, ’tis a bliss to die.
The gallant man, though slain in fight he be,
Yet leaves his nation safe, his children free;
Entails a debt on all the grateful state;
His own brave friends shall glory in his fate;
His wife live honour’d, all his race succeed,
And late posterity enjoy the deed!”

This roused the soul in every Trojan breast:
The godlike Ajax next his Greeks address’d:

“How long, ye warriors of the Argive race,
(To generous Argos what a dire disgrace!)
How long on these cursed confines will ye lie,
Yet undetermined, or to live or die?
What hopes remain, what methods to retire,
If once your vessels catch the Trojan fire?
Mark how the flames approach, how near they fall,
How Hector calls, and Troy obeys his call!
Not to the dance that dreadful voice invites,
It calls to death, and all the rage of fights.
’Tis now no time for wisdom or debates;
To your own hands are trusted all your fates;
And better far in one decisive strife,
One day should end our labour or our life,
Than keep this hard-got inch of barren sands,
Still press’d, and press’d by such inglorious hands.”

The listening Grecians feel their leader’s flame,
And every kindling bosom pants for fame.
Then mutual slaughters spread on either side;
By Hector here the Phocian Schedius died;
There, pierced by Ajax, sunk Laodamas,
Chief of the foot, of old Antenor’s race.
Polydamas laid Otus on the sand,
The fierce commander of the Epeian band.
His lance bold Meges at the victor threw;
The victor, stooping, from the death withdrew;
(That valued life, O Phœbus! was thy care)
But Croesmus’ bosom took the flying spear:
His corpse fell bleeding on the slippery shore;
His radiant arms triumphant Meges bore.
Dolops, the son of Lampus, rushes on,
Sprung from the race of old Laomedon,
And famed for prowess in a well-fought field,
He pierced the centre of his sounding shield:
But Meges, Phyleus’ ample breastplate wore,
(Well-known in fight on Sellè’s winding shore;
For king Euphetes gave the golden mail,
Compact, and firm with many a jointed scale)
Which oft, in cities storm’d, and battles won,
Had saved the father, and now saves the son.
Full at the Trojan’s head he urged his lance,
Where the high plumes above the helmet dance,
New ting’d with Tyrian dye: in dust below,
Shorn from the crest, the purple honours glow.
Meantime their fight the Spartan king survey’d,
And stood by Meges’ side a sudden aid.
Through Dolops’ shoulder urged his forceful dart,
Which held its passage through the panting heart,
And issued at his breast. With thundering sound
The warrior falls, extended on the ground.
In rush the conquering Greeks to spoil the slain:
But Hector’s voice excites his kindred train;
The hero most, from Hicetaon sprung,
Fierce Melanippus, gallant, brave, and young.
He (ere to Troy the Grecians cross’d the main)
Fed his large oxen on Percotè’s plain;
But when oppress’d, his country claim’d his care,
Return’d to Ilion, and excell’d in war;
For this, in Priam’s court, he held his place,
Beloved no less than Priam’s royal race.
Him Hector singled, as his troops he led,
And thus inflamed him, pointing to the dead.

“Lo, Melanippus! lo, where Dolops lies;
And is it thus our royal kinsman dies?
O’ermatch’d he falls; to two at once a prey,
And lo! they bear the bloody arms away!
Come on—a distant war no longer wage,
But hand to hand thy country’s foes engage:
Till Greece at once, and all her glory end;
Or Ilion from her towery height descend,
Heaved from the lowest stone; and bury all
In one sad sepulchre, one common fall.”

Hector (this said) rush’d forward on the foes:
With equal ardour Melanippus glows:
Then Ajax thus—“O Greeks! respect your fame,
Respect yourselves, and learn an honest shame:
Let mutual reverence mutual warmth inspire,
And catch from breast to breast the noble fire,
On valour’s side the odds of combat lie;
The brave live glorious, or lamented die;
The wretch that trembles in the field of fame,
Meets death, and worse than death, eternal shame.”

His generous sense he not in vain imparts;
It sunk, and rooted in the Grecian hearts:
They join, they throng, they thicken at his call,
And flank the navy with a brazen wall;
Shields touching shields, in order blaze above,
And stop the Trojans, though impell’d by Jove.
The fiery Spartan first, with loud applause.
Warms the bold son of Nestor in his cause.
“Is there (he said) in arms a youth like you,
So strong to fight, so active to pursue?
Why stand you distant, nor attempt a deed?
Lift the bold lance, and make some Trojan bleed.”

He said; and backward to the lines retired;
Forth rush’d the youth with martial fury fired,
Beyond the foremost ranks; his lance he threw,
And round the black battalions cast his view.
The troops of Troy recede with sudden fear,
While the swift javelin hiss’d along in air.
Advancing Melanippus met the dart
With his bold breast, and felt it in his heart:
Thundering he falls; his falling arms resound,
And his broad buckler rings against the ground.
The victor leaps upon his prostrate prize:
Thus on a roe the well-breath’d beagle flies,
And rends his side, fresh-bleeding with the dart
The distant hunter sent into his heart.
Observing Hector to the rescue flew;
Bold as he was, Antilochus withdrew.
So when a savage, ranging o’er the plain,
Has torn the shepherd’s dog, or shepherd’s swain,
While conscious of the deed, he glares around,
And hears the gathering multitude resound,
Timely he flies the yet-untasted food,
And gains the friendly shelter of the wood:
So fears the youth; all Troy with shouts pursue,
While stones and darts in mingled tempest flew;
But enter’d in the Grecian ranks, he turns
His manly breast, and with new fury burns.

Now on the fleet the tides of Trojans drove,
Fierce to fulfil the stern decrees of Jove:
The sire of gods, confirming Thetis’ prayer,
The Grecian ardour quench’d in deep despair;
But lifts to glory Troy’s prevailing bands,
Swells all their hearts, and strengthens all their hands.
On Ida’s top he waits with longing eyes,
To view the navy blazing to the skies;
Then, nor till then, the scale of war shall turn,
The Trojans fly, and conquer’d Ilion burn.
These fates revolved in his almighty mind,
He raises Hector to the work design’d,
Bids him with more than mortal fury glow,
And drives him, like a lightning, on the foe.
So Mars, when human crimes for vengeance call,
Shakes his huge javelin, and whole armies fall.
Not with more rage a conflagration rolls,
Wraps the vast mountains, and involves the poles.
He foams with wrath; beneath his gloomy brow
Like fiery meteors his red eye-balls glow:
The radiant helmet on his temple burns,
Waves when he nods, and lightens as he turns:
For Jove his splendour round the chief had thrown,
And cast the blaze of both the hosts on one.
Unhappy glories! for his fate was near,
Due to stern Pallas, and Pelides’ spear:
Yet Jove deferr’d the death he was to pay,
And gave what fate allow’d, the honours of a day!

Now all on fire for fame, his breast, his eyes
Burn at each foe, and single every prize;
Still at the closest ranks, the thickest fight,
He points his ardour, and exerts his might.
The Grecian phalanx, moveless as a tower,
On all sides batter’d, yet resists his power:
So some tall rock o’erhangs the hoary main,[241]
By winds assail’d, by billows beat in vain,
Unmoved it hears, above, the tempest blow,
And sees the watery mountains break below.
Girt in surrounding flames, he seems to fall
Like fire from Jove, and bursts upon them all:
Bursts as a wave that from the cloud impends,
And, swell’d with tempests, on the ship descends;
White are the decks with foam; the winds aloud
Howl o’er the masts, and sing through every shroud:
Pale, trembling, tired, the sailors freeze with fears;
And instant death on every wave appears.
So pale the Greeks the eyes of Hector meet,
The chief so thunders, and so shakes the fleet.

As when a lion, rushing from his den,
Amidst the plain of some wide-water’d fen,
(Where numerous oxen, as at ease they feed,
At large expatiate o’er the ranker mead)
Leaps on the herds before the herdsman’s eyes;
The trembling herdsman far to distance flies;
Some lordly bull (the rest dispersed and fled)
He singles out; arrests, and lays him dead.
Thus from the rage of Jove-like Hector flew
All Greece in heaps; but one he seized, and slew:
Mycenian Periphes, a mighty name,
In wisdom great, in arms well known to fame;
The minister of stern Eurystheus’ ire
Against Alcides, Copreus was his sire:
The son redeem’d the honours of the race,
A son as generous as the sire was base;
O’er all his country’s youth conspicuous far
In every virtue, or of peace or war:
But doom’d to Hector’s stronger force to yield!
Against the margin of his ample shield
He struck his hasty foot: his heels up-sprung;
Supine he fell; his brazen helmet rung.
On the fallen chief the invading Trojan press’d,
And plunged the pointed javelin in his breast.
His circling friends, who strove to guard too late
The unhappy hero, fled, or shared his fate.

Chased from the foremost line, the Grecian train
Now man the next, receding toward the main:
Wedged in one body at the tents they stand,
Wall’d round with sterns, a gloomy, desperate band.
Now manly shame forbids the inglorious flight;
Now fear itself confines them to the fight:
Man courage breathes in man; but Nestor most
(The sage preserver of the Grecian host)
Exhorts, adjures, to guard these utmost shores;
And by their parents, by themselves implores.

“Oh friends! be men: your generous breasts inflame
With mutual honour, and with mutual shame!
Think of your hopes, your fortunes; all the care
Your wives, your infants, and your parents share:
Think of each living father’s reverend head;
Think of each ancestor with glory dead;
Absent, by me they speak, by me they sue,
They ask their safety, and their fame, from you:
The gods their fates on this one action lay,
And all are lost, if you desert the day.”

He spoke, and round him breathed heroic fires;
Minerva seconds what the sage inspires.
The mist of darkness Jove around them threw
She clear’d, restoring all the war to view;
A sudden ray shot beaming o’er the plain,
And show’d the shores, the navy, and the main:
Hector they saw, and all who fly, or fight,
The scene wide-opening to the blaze of light,
First of the field great Ajax strikes their eyes,
His port majestic, and his ample size:
A ponderous mace with studs of iron crown’d,
Full twenty cubits long, he swings around;
Nor fights, like others, fix’d to certain stands
But looks a moving tower above the bands;
High on the decks with vast gigantic stride,
The godlike hero stalks from side to side.
So when a horseman from the watery mead
(Skill’d in the manage of the bounding steed)
Drives four fair coursers, practised to obey,
To some great city through the public way;
Safe in his art, as side by side they run,
He shifts his seat, and vaults from one to one;
And now to this, and now to that he flies;
Admiring numbers follow with their eyes.

From ship to ship thus Ajax swiftly flew,
No less the wonder of the warring crew.
As furious, Hector thunder’d threats aloud,
And rush’d enraged before the Trojan crowd;
Then swift invades the ships, whose beaky prores
Lay rank’d contiguous on the bending shores;
So the strong eagle from his airy height,
Who marks the swans’ or cranes’ embodied flight,
Stoops down impetuous, while they light for food,
And, stooping, darkens with his wings the flood.
Jove leads him on with his almighty hand,
And breathes fierce spirits in his following band.
The warring nations meet, the battle roars,
Thick beats the combat on the sounding prores.
Thou wouldst have thought, so furious was their fire,
No force could tame them, and no toil could tire;
As if new vigour from new fights they won,
And the long battle was but then begun.
Greece, yet unconquer’d, kept alive the war,
Secure of death, confiding in despair:
Troy in proud hopes already view’d the main
Bright with the blaze, and red with heroes slain:
Like strength is felt from hope, and from despair,
And each contends, as his were all the war.

’Twas thou, bold Hector! whose resistless hand
First seized a ship on that contested strand;
The same which dead Protesilaüs bore,[242]
The first that touch’d the unhappy Trojan shore:
For this in arms the warring nations stood,
And bathed their generous breasts with mutual blood.
No room to poise the lance or bend the bow;
But hand to hand, and man to man, they grow:
Wounded, they wound; and seek each other’s hearts
With falchions, axes, swords, and shorten’d darts.
The falchions ring, shields rattle, axes sound,
Swords flash in air, or glitter on the ground;
With streaming blood the slippery shores are dyed,
And slaughter’d heroes swell the dreadful tide.

Still raging, Hector with his ample hand
Grasps the high stern, and gives this loud command:


[Illustration: ] AJAX DEFENDING THE GREEK SHIPS


“Haste, bring the flames! that toil of ten long years
Is finished; and the day desired appears!
This happy day with acclamations greet,
Bright with destruction of yon hostile fleet.
The coward-counsels of a timorous throng
Of reverend dotards check’d our glory long:
Too long Jove lull’d us with lethargic charms,
But now in peals of thunder calls to arms:
In this great day he crowns our full desires,
Wakes all our force, and seconds all our fires.”

He spoke—the warriors at his fierce command
Pour a new deluge on the Grecian band.
Even Ajax paused, (so thick the javelins fly,)
Stepp’d back, and doubted or to live or die.
Yet, where the oars are placed, he stands to wait
What chief approaching dares attempt his fate:
Even to the last his naval charge defends,
Now shakes his spear, now lifts, and now protends;
Even yet, the Greeks with piercing shouts inspires,
Amidst attacks, and deaths, and darts, and fires.

“O friends! O heroes! names for ever dear,
Once sons of Mars, and thunderbolts of war!
Ah! yet be mindful of your old renown,
Your great forefathers’ virtues and your own.
What aids expect you in this utmost strait?
What bulwarks rising between you and fate?
No aids, no bulwarks your retreat attend,
No friends to help, no city to defend.
This spot is all you have, to lose or keep;
There stand the Trojans, and here rolls the deep.
’Tis hostile ground you tread; your native lands
Far, far from hence: your fates are in your hands.”

Raging he spoke; nor further wastes his breath,
But turns his javelin to the work of death.
Whate’er bold Trojan arm’d his daring hands,
Against the sable ships, with flaming brands,
So well the chief his naval weapon sped,
The luckless warrior at his stern lay dead:
Full twelve, the boldest, in a moment fell,
Sent by great Ajax to the shades of hell.


[Illustration: ] CASTOR AND POLLUX




BOOK XVI.


ARGUMENT


THE SIXTH BATTLE, THE ACTS AND DEATH OF PATROCLUS


Patroclus (in pursuance of the request of Nestor in the eleventh book)
entreats Achilles to suffer him to go to the assistance of the Greeks
with Achilles’ troops and armour. He agrees to it, but at the same time
charges him to content himself with rescuing the fleet, without further
pursuit of the enemy. The armour, horses, soldiers, and officers are
described. Achilles offers a libation for the success of his friend,
after which Patroclus leads the Myrmidons to battle. The Trojans, at
the sight of Patroclus in Achilles’ armour, taking him for that hero,
are cast into the uttermost consternation; he beats them off from the
vessels, Hector himself flies, Sarpedon is killed, though Jupiter was
averse to his fate. Several other particulars of the battle are
described; in the heat of which, Patroclus, neglecting the orders of
Achilles, pursues the foe to the walls of Troy, where Apollo repulses
and disarms him, Euphorbus wounds him, and Hector kills him, which
concludes the book.


So warr’d both armies on the ensanguined shore,
While the black vessels smoked with human gore.
Meantime Patroclus to Achilles flies;
The streaming tears fall copious from his eyes.
Not faster, trickling to the plains below,
From the tall rock the sable waters flow.
Divine Pelides, with compassion moved.
Thus spoke, indulgent, to his best beloved:[243]

“Patroclus, say, what grief thy bosom bears,
That flows so fast in these unmanly tears?
No girl, no infant whom the mother keeps
From her loved breast, with fonder passion weeps;
Not more the mother’s soul, that infant warms,
Clung to her knees, and reaching at her arms,
Than thou hast mine! Oh tell me, to what end
Thy melting sorrows thus pursue thy friend?

“Griev’st thou for me, or for my martial band?
Or come sad tidings from our native land?
Our fathers live (our first, most tender care),
Thy good Menoetius breathes the vital air,
And hoary Peleus yet extends his days;
Pleased in their age to hear their children’s praise.
Or may some meaner cause thy pity claim?
Perhaps yon relics of the Grecian name,
Doom’d in their ships to sink by fire and sword,
And pay the forfeit of their haughty lord?
Whate’er the cause, reveal thy secret care,
And speak those sorrows which a friend would share.”
A sigh that instant from his bosom broke,
Another follow’d, and Patroclus spoke:

“Let Greece at length with pity touch thy breast,
Thyself a Greek; and, once, of Greeks the best!
Lo! every chief that might her fate prevent,
Lies pierced with wounds, and bleeding in his tent:
Eurypylus, Tydides, Atreus’ son,
And wise Ulysses, at the navy groan,
More for their country’s wounds than for their own.
Their pain soft arts of pharmacy can ease,
Thy breast alone no lenitives appease.
May never rage like thine my soul enslave,
O great in vain! unprofitably brave!
Thy country slighted in her last distress,
What friend, what man, from thee shall hope redress?
No—men unborn, and ages yet behind,
Shall curse that fierce, that unforgiving mind.

“O man unpitying! if of man thy race;
But sure thou spring’st not from a soft embrace,
Nor ever amorous hero caused thy birth,
Nor ever tender goddess brought thee forth:
Some rugged rock’s hard entrails gave thee form,
And raging seas produced thee in a storm,
A soul well suiting that tempestuous kind,
So rough thy manners, so untamed thy mind.

“If some dire oracle thy breast alarm,
If aught from Jove, or Thetis, stop thy arm,
Some beam of comfort yet on Greece may shine,
If I but lead the Myrmidonian line:
Clad in thy dreadful arms if I appear,
Proud Troy shall tremble, and desert the war;
Without thy person Greece shall win the day,
And thy mere image chase her foes away.
Press’d by fresh forces, her o’erlabour’d train
Shall quit the ships, and Greece respire again.”
Thus, blind to fate! with supplicating breath,
Thou begg’st his arms, and in his arms thy death.
Unfortunately good! a boding sigh
Thy friend return’d; and with it, this reply:
“Patroclus! thy Achilles knows no fears;
Nor words from Jove nor oracles he hears;
Nor aught a mother’s caution can suggest;
The tyrant’s pride lies rooted in my breast.
My wrongs, my wrongs, my constant thought engage,
Those, my sole oracles, inspire my rage:
I made him tyrant: gave him power to wrong
Even me: I felt it; and shall feel it long.
The maid, my black-eyed maid, he forced away,
Due to the toils of many a well-fought day;
Due to my conquest of her father’s reign;
Due to the votes of all the Grecian train.
From me he forced her; me, the bold and brave,
Disgraced, dishonour’d, like the meanest slave.
But bear we this—the wrongs I grieve are past;
’Tis time our fury should relent at last:
I fix’d its date; the day I wish’d appears:
How Hector to my ships his battle bears,
The flames my eyes, the shouts invade my ears.
Go then, Patroclus! court fair honour’s charms
In Troy’s famed fields, and in Achilles’ arms:
Lead forth my martial Myrmidons to fight,
Go save the fleets, and conquer in my right.
See the thin relics of their baffled band
At the last edge of yon deserted land!
Behold all Ilion on their ships descends;
How the cloud blackens, how the storm impends!
It was not thus, when, at my sight amazed,
Troy saw and trembled, as this helmet blazed:
Had not the injurious king our friendship lost,
Yon ample trench had buried half her host.
No camps, no bulwarks now the Trojans fear,
Those are not dreadful, no Achilles there;
No longer flames the lance of Tydeus’ son;
No more your general calls his heroes on:
Hector, alone, I hear; his dreadful breath
Commands your slaughter, or proclaims your death.
Yet now, Patroclus, issue to the plain:
Now save the ships, the rising fires restrain,
And give the Greeks to visit Greece again.
But heed my words, and mark a friend’s command,
Who trusts his fame and honours in thy hand,
And from thy deeds expects the Achaian host
Shall render back the beauteous maid he lost:
Rage uncontroll’d through all the hostile crew,
But touch not Hector, Hector is my due.
Though Jove in thunder should command the war,
Be just, consult my glory, and forbear.
The fleet once saved, desist from further chase,
Nor lead to Ilion’s walls the Grecian race;
Some adverse god thy rashness may destroy;
Some god, like Phœbus, ever kind to Troy.
Let Greece, redeem’d from this destructive strait,
Do her own work; and leave the rest to fate.
O! would to all the immortal powers above,
Apollo, Pallas, and almighty Jove!
That not one Trojan might be left alive,
And not a Greek of all the race survive:
Might only we the vast destruction shun,
And only we destroy the accursed town!”
Such conference held the chiefs; while on the strand
Great Jove with conquest crown’d the Trojan band.
Ajax no more the sounding storm sustain’d,
So thick the darts an iron tempest rain’d:
On his tired arm the weighty buckler hung;
His hollow helm with falling javelins rung;
His breath, in quick short pantings, comes and goes;
And painful sweat from all his members flows.
Spent and o’erpower’d, he barely breathes at most;
Yet scarce an army stirs him from his post;
Dangers on dangers all around him glow,
And toil to toil, and woe succeeds to woe.

Say, Muses, throned above the starry frame,
How first the navy blazed with Trojan flame?

Stern Hector waved his sword, and standing near,
Where furious Ajax plied his ashen spear,
Full on the lance a stroke so justly sped,
That the broad falchion lopp’d its brazen head;
His pointless spear the warrior shakes in vain;
The brazen head falls sounding on the plain.
Great Ajax saw, and own’d the hand divine;
Confessing Jove, and trembling at the sign,
Warn’d he retreats. Then swift from all sides pour
The hissing brands; thick streams the fiery shower;
O’er the high stern the curling volumes rise,
And sheets of rolling smoke involve the skies.

Divine Achilles view’d the rising flames,
And smote his thigh, and thus aloud exclaims:
“Arm, arm, Patroclus! Lo, the blaze aspires!
The glowing ocean reddens with the fires.
Arm, ere our vessels catch the spreading flame;
Arm, ere the Grecians be no more a name;
I haste to bring the troops.”—The hero said;
The friend with ardour and with joy obey’d.

He cased his limbs in brass; and first around
His manly legs, with silver buckles bound
The clasping greaves; then to his breast applies
The flaming cuirass of a thousand dyes;
Emblazed with studs of gold his falchion shone
In the rich belt, as in a starry zone:
Achilles’ shield his ample shoulders spread,
Achilles’ helmet nodded o’er his head:
Adorn’d in all his terrible array,
He flash’d around intolerable day.
Alone untouch’d, Pelides’ javelin stands,
Not to be poised but by Pelides’ hands:
From Pelion’s shady brow the plant entire
Old Chiron rent, and shaped it for his sire;
Whose son’s great arm alone the weapon wields,
The death of heroes, and the dread of fields.


[Illustration: ] Buckles


The brave Automedon (an honour’d name,
The second to his lord in love and fame,
In peace his friend, and partner of the war)
The winged coursers harness’d to the car;
Xanthus and Balius, of immortal breed,
Sprung from the wind, and like the wind in speed.
Whom the wing’d harpy, swift Podarge, bore,
By Zephyr pregnant on the breezy shore:
Swift Pedasus was added to their side,
(Once great Aëtion’s, now Achilles’ pride)
Who, like in strength, in swiftness, and in grace,
A mortal courser match’d the immortal race.

Achilles speeds from tent to tent, and warms
His hardy Myrmidons to blood and arms.
All breathing death, around the chief they stand,
A grim, terrific, formidable band:
Grim as voracious wolves, that seek the springs[244]
When scalding thirst their burning bowels wrings;
When some tall stag, fresh-slaughtered in the wood,
Has drench’d their wide insatiate throats with blood,
To the black fount they rush, a hideous throng,
With paunch distended, and with lolling tongue,
Fire fills their eye, their black jaws belch the gore,
And gorged with slaughter still they thirst for more.
Like furious, rush’d the Myrmidonian crew,
Such their dread strength, and such their deathful view.

High in the midst the great Achilles stands,
Directs their order, and the war commands.
He, loved of Jove, had launch’d for Ilion’s shores
Full fifty vessels, mann’d with fifty oars:
Five chosen leaders the fierce bands obey,
Himself supreme in valour, as in sway.

First march’d Menestheus, of celestial birth,
Derived from thee, whose waters wash the earth,
Divine Sperchius! Jove-descended flood!
A mortal mother mixing with a god.
Such was Menestheus, but miscall’d by fame
The son of Borus, that espoused the dame.

Eudorus next; whom Polymele the gay,
Famed in the graceful dance, produced to-day.
Her, sly Cellenius loved: on her would gaze,
As with swift step she form’d the running maze:
To her high chamber from Diana’s quire,
The god pursued her, urged, and crown’d his fire.
The son confess’d his father’s heavenly race,
And heir’d his mother’s swiftness in the chase.
Strong Echecleus, bless’d in all those charms
That pleased a god, succeeded to her arms;
Not conscious of those loves, long hid from fame,
With gifts of price he sought and won the dame;
Her secret offspring to her sire she bare;
Her sire caress’d him with a parent’s care.

Pisander follow’d; matchless in his art
To wing the spear, or aim the distant dart;
No hand so sure of all the Emathian line,
Or if a surer, great Patroclus! thine.

The fourth by Phœnix’ grave command was graced,
Laerces’ valiant offspring led the last.

Soon as Achilles with superior care
Had call’d the chiefs, and order’d all the war,
This stern remembrance to his troops he gave:
“Ye far-famed Myrmidons, ye fierce and brave!
Think with what threats you dared the Trojan throng,
Think what reproach these ears endured so long;
‘Stern son of Peleus, (thus ye used to say,
While restless, raging, in your ships you lay)
Oh nursed with gall, unknowing how to yield;
Whose rage defrauds us of so famed a field:
If that dire fury must for ever burn,
What make we here? Return, ye chiefs, return!’
Such were your words—Now, warriors! grieve no more,
Lo there the Trojans; bathe your swords in gore!
This day shall give you all your soul demands,
Glut all your hearts, and weary all your hands!”


[Illustration: ] DIANA


Thus while he roused the fire in every breast,
Close and more close the listening cohorts press’d;
Ranks wedged in ranks; of arms a steely ring
Still grows, and spreads, and thickens round the king.
As when a circling wall the builder forms,
Of strength defensive against wind and storms,
Compacted stones the thickening work compose,
And round him wide the rising structure grows:
So helm to helm, and crest to crest they throng,
Shield urged on shield, and man drove man along;
Thick, undistinguish’d plumes, together join’d,
Float in one sea, and wave before the wind.

Far o’er the rest in glittering pomp appear,
There bold Automedon, Patroclus here;
Brothers in arms, with equal fury fired;
Two friends, two bodies with one soul inspired.

But mindful of the gods, Achilles went
To the rich coffer in his shady tent;
There lay on heaps his various garments roll’d,
And costly furs, and carpets stiff with gold,
(The presents of the silver-footed dame)
From thence he took a bowl, of antique frame,
Which never man had stained with ruddy wine,
Nor raised in offerings to the power divine,
But Peleus’ son; and Peleus’ son to none
Had raised in offerings, but to Jove alone.
This tinged with sulphur, sacred first to flame,
He purged; and wash’d it in the running stream.
Then cleansed his hands; and fixing for a space
His eyes on heaven, his feet upon the place
Of sacrifice, the purple draught he pour’d
Forth in the midst; and thus the god implored:

“O thou supreme! high-throned all height above!
O great Pelasgic, Dodonaean Jove!
Who ’midst surrounding frosts, and vapours chill,
Presid’st on bleak Dodona’s vocal hill:
(Whose groves the Selli, race austere! surround,
Their feet unwash’d, their slumbers on the ground;
Who hear, from rustling oaks, thy dark decrees;
And catch the fates, low-whispered in the breeze;)
Hear, as of old! Thou gav’st, at Thetis’ prayer,
Glory to me, and to the Greeks despair.
Lo, to the dangers of the fighting field
The best, the dearest of my friends, I yield,
Though still determined, to my ships confined;
Patroclus gone, I stay but half behind.
Oh! be his guard thy providential care,
Confirm his heart, and string his arm to war:
Press’d by his single force let Hector see
His fame in arms not owing all to me.
But when the fleets are saved from foes and fire,
Let him with conquest and renown retire;
Preserve his arms, preserve his social train,
And safe return him to these eyes again!”

Great Jove consents to half the chief’s request,
But heaven’s eternal doom denies the rest;
To free the fleet was granted to his prayer;
His safe return, the winds dispersed in air.
Back to his tent the stern Achilles flies,
And waits the combat with impatient eyes.

Meanwhile the troops beneath Patroclus’ care,
Invade the Trojans, and commence the war.
As wasps, provoked by children in their play,
Pour from their mansions by the broad highway,
In swarms the guiltless traveller engage,
Whet all their stings, and call forth all their rage:
All rise in arms, and, with a general cry,
Assert their waxen domes, and buzzing progeny.
Thus from the tents the fervent legion swarms,
So loud their clamours, and so keen their arms:
Their rising rage Patroclus’ breath inspires,
Who thus inflames them with heroic fires:

“O warriors, partners of Achilles’ praise!
Be mindful of your deeds in ancient days;
Your godlike master let your acts proclaim,
And add new glories to his mighty name.
Think your Achilles sees you fight: be brave,
And humble the proud monarch whom you save.”

Joyful they heard, and kindling as he spoke,
Flew to the fleet, involved in fire and smoke.
From shore to shore the doubling shouts resound,
The hollow ships return a deeper sound.
The war stood still, and all around them gazed,
When great Achilles’ shining armour blazed:
Troy saw, and thought the dread Achilles nigh,
At once they see, they tremble, and they fly.

Then first thy spear, divine Patroclus! flew,
Where the war raged, and where the tumult grew.
Close to the stern of that famed ship which bore
Unbless’d Protesilaus to Ilion’s shore,
The great Pæonian, bold Pyrechmes stood;
(Who led his bands from Axius’ winding flood;)
His shoulder-blade receives the fatal wound;
The groaning warrior pants upon the ground.
His troops, that see their country’s glory slain,
Fly diverse, scatter’d o’er the distant plain.
Patroclus’ arm forbids the spreading fires,
And from the half-burn’d ship proud Troy retires;
Clear’d from the smoke the joyful navy lies;
In heaps on heaps the foe tumultuous flies;
Triumphant Greece her rescued decks ascends,
And loud acclaim the starry region rends.
So when thick clouds enwrap the mountain’s head,
O’er heaven’s expanse like one black ceiling spread;
Sudden the Thunderer, with a flashing ray,
Bursts through the darkness, and lets down the day:
The hills shine out, the rocks in prospect rise,
And streams, and vales, and forests, strike the eyes;
The smiling scene wide opens to the sight,
And all the unmeasured ether flames with light.

But Troy repulsed, and scatter’d o’er the plains,
Forced from the navy, yet the fight maintains.
Now every Greek some hostile hero slew,
But still the foremost, bold Patroclus flew:
As Areilycus had turn’d him round,
Sharp in his thigh he felt the piercing wound;
The brazen-pointed spear, with vigour thrown,
The thigh transfix’d, and broke the brittle bone:
Headlong he fell. Next, Thoas was thy chance;
Thy breast, unarm’d, received the Spartan lance.
Phylides’ dart (as Amphidus drew nigh)
His blow prevented, and transpierced his thigh,
Tore all the brawn, and rent the nerves away;
In darkness, and in death, the warrior lay.

In equal arms two sons of Nestor stand,
And two bold brothers of the Lycian band:
By great Antilochus, Atymnius dies,
Pierced in the flank, lamented youth! he lies,
Kind Maris, bleeding in his brother’s wound,
Defends the breathless carcase on the ground;
Furious he flies, his murderer to engage:
But godlike Thrasimed prevents his rage,
Between his arm and shoulder aims a blow;
His arm falls spouting on the dust below:
He sinks, with endless darkness cover’d o’er:
And vents his soul, effused with gushing gore.

Slain by two brothers, thus two brothers bleed,
Sarpedon’s friends, Amisodarus’ seed;
Amisodarus, who, by Furies led,
The bane of men, abhorr’d Chimaera bred;
Skill’d in the dart in vain, his sons expire,
And pay the forfeit of their guilty sire.

Stopp’d in the tumult Cleobulus lies,
Beneath Oïleus’ arm, a living prize;
A living prize not long the Trojan stood;
The thirsty falchion drank his reeking blood:
Plunged in his throat the smoking weapon lies;
Black death, and fate unpitying, seal his eyes.

Amid the ranks, with mutual thirst of fame,
Lycon the brave, and fierce Peneleus came;
In vain their javelins at each other flew,
Now, met in arms, their eager swords they drew.
On the plumed crest of his Bœotian foe
The daring Lycon aim’d a noble blow;
The sword broke short; but his, Peneleus sped
Full on the juncture of the neck and head:
The head, divided by a stroke so just,
Hung by the skin; the body sunk to dust.

O’ertaken Neamas by Merion bleeds,
Pierced through the shoulder as he mounts his steeds;
Back from the car he tumbles to the ground:
His swimming eyes eternal shades surround.

Next Erymas was doom’d his fate to feel,
His open’d mouth received the Cretan steel:
Beneath the brain the point a passage tore,
Crash’d the thin bones, and drown’d the teeth in gore:
His mouth, his eyes, his nostrils, pour a flood;
He sobs his soul out in the gush of blood.

As when the flocks neglected by the swain,
Or kids, or lambs, lie scatter’d o’er the plain,
A troop of wolves the unguarded charge survey,
And rend the trembling, unresisting prey:
Thus on the foe the Greeks impetuous came;
Troy fled, unmindful of her former fame.

But still at Hector godlike Ajax aim’d,
Still, pointed at his breast, his javelin flamed.
The Trojan chief, experienced in the field,
O’er his broad shoulders spread the massy shield,
Observed the storm of darts the Grecians pour,
And on his buckler caught the ringing shower:
He sees for Greece the scale of conquest rise,
Yet stops, and turns, and saves his loved allies.

As when the hand of Jove a tempest forms,
And rolls the cloud to blacken heaven with storms,
Dark o’er the fields the ascending vapour flies,
And shades the sun, and blots the golden skies:
So from the ships, along the dusky plain,
Dire Flight and Terror drove the Trojan train.
Even Hector fled; through heads of disarray
The fiery coursers forced their lord away:
While far behind his Trojans fall confused;
Wedged in the trench, in one vast carnage bruised:
Chariots on chariots roll: the clashing spokes
Shock; while the madding steeds break short their yokes.
In vain they labour up the steepy mound;
Their charioteers lie foaming on the ground.
Fierce on the rear, with shouts Patroclus flies;
Tumultuous clamour fills the fields and skies;
Thick drifts of dust involve their rapid flight;
Clouds rise on clouds, and heaven is snatch’d from sight.
The affrighted steeds their dying lords cast down,
Scour o’er the fields, and stretch to reach the town.
Loud o’er the rout was heard the victor’s cry,
Where the war bleeds, and where the thickest die,
Where horse and arms, and chariots lie o’erthrown,
And bleeding heroes under axles groan.
No stop, no check, the steeds of Peleus knew:
From bank to bank the immortal coursers flew.
High-bounding o’er the fosse, the whirling car
Smokes through the ranks, o’ertakes the flying war,
And thunders after Hector; Hector flies,
Patroclus shakes his lance; but fate denies.
Not with less noise, with less impetuous force,
The tide of Trojans urge their desperate course,
Than when in autumn Jove his fury pours,
And earth is loaden with incessant showers;
(When guilty mortals break the eternal laws,
Or judges, bribed, betray the righteous cause;)
From their deep beds he bids the rivers rise,
And opens all the flood-gates of the skies:
The impetuous torrents from their hills obey,
Whole fields are drown’d, and mountains swept away;
Loud roars the deluge till it meets the main;
And trembling man sees all his labours vain!

And now the chief (the foremost troops repell’d)
Back to the ships his destined progress held,
Bore down half Troy in his resistless way,
And forced the routed ranks to stand the day.
Between the space where silver Simois flows,
Where lay the fleets, and where the rampires rose,
All grim in dust and blood Patroclus stands,
And turns the slaughter on the conquering bands.
First Pronous died beneath his fiery dart,
Which pierced below the shield his valiant heart.
Thestor was next, who saw the chief appear,
And fell the victim of his coward fear;
Shrunk up he sat, with wild and haggard eye,
Nor stood to combat, nor had force to fly;
Patroclus mark’d him as he shunn’d the war,
And with unmanly tremblings shook the car,
And dropp’d the flowing reins. Him ’twixt the jaws,
The javelin sticks, and from the chariot draws.
As on a rock that overhangs the main,
An angler, studious of the line and cane,
Some mighty fish draws panting to the shore:
Not with less ease the barbed javelin bore
The gaping dastard; as the spear was shook,
He fell, and life his heartless breast forsook.

Next on Eryalus he flies; a stone,
Large as a rock, was by his fury thrown:
Full on his crown the ponderous fragment flew,
And burst the helm, and cleft the head in two:
Prone to the ground the breathless warrior fell,
And death involved him with the shades of hell.
Then low in dust Epaltes, Echius, lie;
Ipheas, Evippus, Polymelus, die;
Amphoterus and Erymas succeed;
And last Tlepolemus and Pyres bleed.
Where’er he moves, the growing slaughters spread
In heaps on heaps a monument of dead.

When now Sarpedon his brave friends beheld
Grovelling in dust, and gasping on the field,
With this reproach his flying host he warms:
“Oh stain to honour! oh disgrace to arms!
Forsake, inglorious, the contended plain;
This hand unaided shall the war sustain:
The task be mine this hero’s strength to try,
Who mows whole troops, and makes an army fly.”

He spake: and, speaking, leaps from off the car:
Patroclus lights, and sternly waits the war.
As when two vultures on the mountain’s height
Stoop with resounding pinions to the fight;
They cuff, they tear, they raise a screaming cry;
The desert echoes, and the rocks reply:
The warriors thus opposed in arms, engage
With equal clamours, and with equal rage.

Jove view’d the combat: whose event foreseen,
He thus bespoke his sister and his queen:
“The hour draws on; the destinies ordain,[245]
My godlike son shall press the Phrygian plain:
Already on the verge of death he stands,
His life is owed to fierce Patroclus’ hands,
What passions in a parent’s breast debate!
Say, shall I snatch him from impending fate,
And send him safe to Lycia, distant far
From all the dangers and the toils of war;
Or to his doom my bravest offspring yield,
And fatten, with celestial blood, the field?”

Then thus the goddess with the radiant eyes:
“What words are these, O sovereign of the skies!
Short is the date prescribed to mortal man;
Shall Jove for one extend the narrow span,
Whose bounds were fix’d before his race began?
How many sons of gods, foredoom’d to death,
Before proud Ilion must resign their breath!
Were thine exempt, debate would rise above,
And murmuring powers condemn their partial Jove.
Give the bold chief a glorious fate in fight;
And when the ascending soul has wing’d her flight,
Let Sleep and Death convey, by thy command,
The breathless body to his native land.
His friends and people, to his future praise,
A marble tomb and pyramid shall raise,
And lasting honours to his ashes give;
His fame (’tis all the dead can have) shall live.”

She said: the cloud-compeller, overcome,
Assents to fate, and ratifies the doom.
Then touch’d with grief, the weeping heavens distill’d
A shower of blood o’er all the fatal field:
The god, his eyes averting from the plain,
Laments his son, predestined to be slain,
Far from the Lycian shores, his happy native reign.
Now met in arms, the combatants appear;
Each heaved the shield, and poised the lifted spear;
From strong Patroclus’ hand the javelin fled,
And pass’d the groin of valiant Thrasymed;
The nerves unbraced no more his bulk sustain,
He falls, and falling bites the bloody plain.
Two sounding darts the Lycian leader threw:
The first aloof with erring fury flew,
The next transpierced Achilles’ mortal steed,
The generous Pedasus of Theban breed:
Fix’d in the shoulder’s joint, he reel’d around,
Roll’d in the bloody dust, and paw’d the slippery ground.
His sudden fall the entangled harness broke;
Each axle crackled, and the chariot shook:
When bold Automedon, to disengage
The starting coursers, and restrain their rage,
Divides the traces with his sword, and freed
The encumbered chariot from the dying steed:
The rest move on, obedient to the rein:
The car rolls slowly o’er the dusty plain.

The towering chiefs to fiercer fight advance:
And first Sarpedon whirl’d his weighty lance,
Which o’er the warrior’s shoulder took its course,
And spent in empty air its dying force.
Not so Patroclus’ never-erring dart;
Aim’d at his breast it pierced a mortal part,
Where the strong fibres bind the solid heart.
Then as the mountain oak, or poplar tall,
Or pine (fit mast for some great admiral)
Nods to the axe, till with a groaning sound
It sinks, and spreads its honours on the ground,
Thus fell the king; and laid on earth supine,
Before his chariot stretch’d his form divine:
He grasp’d the dust distain’d with streaming gore,
And, pale in death, lay groaning on the shore.
So lies a bull beneath the lion’s paws,
While the grim savage grinds with foamy jaws
The trembling limbs, and sucks the smoking blood;
Deep groans, and hollow roars, rebellow through the wood.

Then to the leader of the Lycian band
The dying chief address’d his last command;
“Glaucus, be bold; thy task be first to dare
The glorious dangers of destructive war,
To lead my troops, to combat at their head,
Incite the living, and supply the dead.
Tell them, I charged them with my latest breath
Not unrevenged to bear Sarpedon’s death.
What grief, what shame, must Glaucus undergo,
If these spoil’d arms adorn a Grecian foe!
Then as a friend, and as a warrior fight;
Defend my body, conquer in my right:
That, taught by great examples, all may try
Like thee to vanquish, or like me to die.”
He ceased; the Fates suppress’d his labouring breath,
And his eyes darken’d with the shades of death.
The insulting victor with disdain bestrode
The prostrate prince, and on his bosom trod;
Then drew the weapon from his panting heart,
The reeking fibres clinging to the dart;
From the wide wound gush’d out a stream of blood,
And the soul issued in the purple flood.
His flying steeds the Myrmidons detain,
Unguided now, their mighty master slain.
All-impotent of aid, transfix’d with grief,
Unhappy Glaucus heard the dying chief:
His painful arm, yet useless with the smart
Inflicted late by Teucer’s deadly dart,
Supported on his better hand he stay’d:
To Phœbus then (’twas all he could) he pray’d:

“All-seeing monarch! whether Lycia’s coast,
Or sacred Ilion, thy bright presence boast,
Powerful alike to ease the wretch’s smart;
O hear me! god of every healing art!
Lo! stiff with clotted blood, and pierced with pain,
That thrills my arm, and shoots through every vein,
I stand unable to sustain the spear,
And sigh, at distance from the glorious war.
Low in the dust is great Sarpedon laid,
Nor Jove vouchsafed his hapless offspring aid;
But thou, O god of health! thy succour lend,
To guard the relics of my slaughter’d friend:
For thou, though distant, canst restore my might,
To head my Lycians, and support the fight.”

Apollo heard; and, suppliant as he stood,
His heavenly hand restrain’d the flux of blood;
He drew the dolours from the wounded part,
And breathed a spirit in his rising heart.
Renew’d by art divine, the hero stands,
And owns the assistance of immortal hands.
First to the fight his native troops he warms,
Then loudly calls on Troy’s vindictive arms;
With ample strides he stalks from place to place;
Now fires Agenor, now Polydamas:
Æneas next, and Hector he accosts;
Inflaming thus the rage of all their hosts.

“What thoughts, regardless chief! thy breast employ?
Oh too forgetful of the friends of Troy!
Those generous friends, who, from their country far,
Breathe their brave souls out in another’s war.
See! where in dust the great Sarpedon lies,
In action valiant, and in council wise,
Who guarded right, and kept his people free;
To all his Lycians lost, and lost to thee!
Stretch’d by Patroclus’ arm on yonder plains,
O save from hostile rage his loved remains!
Ah let not Greece his conquer’d trophies boast,
Nor on his corse revenge her heroes lost!”

He spoke: each leader in his grief partook:
Troy, at the loss, through all her legions shook.
Transfix’d with deep regret, they view o’erthrown
At once his country’s pillar, and their own;
A chief, who led to Troy’s beleaguer’d wall
A host of heroes, and outshined them all.
Fired, they rush on; first Hector seeks the foes,
And with superior vengeance greatly glows.

But o’er the dead the fierce Patroclus stands,
And rousing Ajax, roused the listening bands:

“Heroes, be men; be what you were before;
Or weigh the great occasion, and be more.
The chief who taught our lofty walls to yield,
Lies pale in death, extended on the field.
To guard his body Troy in numbers flies;
’Tis half the glory to maintain our prize.
Haste, strip his arms, the slaughter round him spread,
And send the living Lycians to the dead.”

The heroes kindle at his fierce command;
The martial squadrons close on either hand:
Here Troy and Lycia charge with loud alarms,
Thessalia there, and Greece, oppose their arms.
With horrid shouts they circle round the slain;
The clash of armour rings o’er all the plain.
Great Jove, to swell the horrors of the fight,
O’er the fierce armies pours pernicious night,
And round his son confounds the warring hosts,
His fate ennobling with a crowd of ghosts.

Now Greece gives way, and great Epigeus falls;
Agacleus’ son, from Budium’s lofty walls;
Who chased for murder thence a suppliant came
To Peleus, and the silver-footed dame;
Now sent to Troy, Achilles’ arms to aid,
He pays due vengeance to his kinsman’s shade.
Soon as his luckless hand had touch’d the dead,
A rock’s large fragment thunder’d on his head;
Hurl’d by Hectorean force it cleft in twain
His shatter’d helm, and stretch’d him o’er the slain.

Fierce to the van of fight Patroclus came,
And, like an eagle darting at his game,
Sprung on the Trojan and the Lycian band.
What grief thy heart, what fury urged thy hand,
O generous Greek! when with full vigour thrown,
At Sthenelaus flew the weighty stone,
Which sunk him to the dead: when Troy, too near
That arm, drew back; and Hector learn’d to fear.
Far as an able hand a lance can throw,
Or at the lists, or at the fighting foe;
So far the Trojans from their lines retired;
Till Glaucus, turning, all the rest inspired.
Then Bathyclaeus fell beneath his rage,
The only hope of Chalcon’s trembling age;
Wide o’er the land was stretch’d his large domain,
With stately seats, and riches blest in vain:
Him, bold with youth, and eager to pursue
The flying Lycians, Glaucus met and slew;
Pierced through the bosom with a sudden wound,
He fell, and falling made the fields resound.
The Achaians sorrow for their heroes slain;
With conquering shouts the Trojans shake the plain,
And crowd to spoil the dead: the Greeks oppose;
An iron circle round the carcase grows.

Then brave Laogonus resign’d his breath,
Despatch’d by Merion to the shades of death:
On Ida’s holy hill he made abode,
The priest of Jove, and honour’d like his god.
Between the jaw and ear the javelin went;
The soul, exhaling, issued at the vent.
His spear Æneas at the victor threw,
Who stooping forward from the death withdrew;
The lance hiss’d harmless o’er his covering shield,
And trembling struck, and rooted in the field;
There yet scarce spent, it quivers on the plain,
Sent by the great Æneas’ arm in vain.
“Swift as thou art (the raging hero cries)
And skill’d in dancing to dispute the prize,
My spear, the destined passage had it found,
Had fix’d thy active vigour to the ground.”

“O valiant leader of the Dardan host!
(Insulted Merion thus retorts the boast)
Strong as you are, ’tis mortal force you trust,
An arm as strong may stretch thee in the dust.
And if to this my lance thy fate be given,
Vain are thy vaunts; success is still from heaven:
This, instant, sends thee down to Pluto’s coast;
Mine is the glory, his thy parting ghost.”

“O friend (Menoetius’ son this answer gave)
With words to combat, ill befits the brave;
Not empty boasts the sons of Troy repel,
Your swords must plunge them to the shades of hell.
To speak, beseems the council; but to dare
In glorious action, is the task of war.”

This said, Patroclus to the battle flies;
Great Merion follows, and new shouts arise:
Shields, helmets rattle, as the warriors close;
And thick and heavy sounds the storm of blows.
As through the shrilling vale, or mountain ground,
The labours of the woodman’s axe resound;
Blows following blows are heard re-echoing wide,
While crackling forests fall on every side:
Thus echoed all the fields with loud alarms,
So fell the warriors, and so rung their arms.

Now great Sarpedon on the sandy shore,
His heavenly form defaced with dust and gore,
And stuck with darts by warring heroes shed,
Lies undistinguish’d from the vulgar dead.
His long-disputed corse the chiefs enclose,
On every side the busy combat grows;
Thick as beneath some shepherd’s thatch’d abode
(The pails high foaming with a milky flood)
The buzzing flies, a persevering train,
Incessant swarm, and chased return again.

Jove view’d the combat with a stern survey,
And eyes that flash’d intolerable day.
Fix’d on the field his sight, his breast debates
The vengeance due, and meditates the fates:
Whether to urge their prompt effect, and call
The force of Hector to Patroclus’ fall,
This instant see his short-lived trophies won,
And stretch him breathless on his slaughter’d son;
Or yet, with many a soul’s untimely flight,
Augment the fame and horror of the fight.
To crown Achilles’ valiant friend with praise
At length he dooms; and, that his last of days
Shall set in glory, bids him drive the foe;
Nor unattended see the shades below.
Then Hector’s mind he fills with dire dismay;
He mounts his car, and calls his hosts away;
Sunk with Troy’s heavy fates, he sees decline
The scales of Jove, and pants with awe divine.

Then, nor before, the hardy Lycians fled,
And left their monarch with the common dead:
Around, in heaps on heaps, a dreadful wall
Of carnage rises, as the heroes fall.
(So Jove decreed!) At length the Greeks obtain
The prize contested, and despoil the slain.
The radiant arms are by Patroclus borne;
Patroclus’ ships the glorious spoils adorn.

Then thus to Phœbus, in the realms above,
Spoke from his throne the cloud-compelling Jove:
“Descend, my Phœbus! on the Phrygian plain,
And from the fight convey Sarpedon slain;
Then bathe his body in the crystal flood,
With dust dishonour’d, and deform’d with blood;
O’er all his limbs ambrosial odours shed,
And with celestial robes adorn the dead.
Those rites discharged, his sacred corse bequeath
To the soft arms of silent Sleep and Death.
They to his friends the immortal charge shall bear;
His friends a tomb and pyramid shall rear:
What honour mortals after death receive,
Those unavailing honours we may give!”


[Illustration: ] SLEEP AND DEATH CONVEYING THE BODY OF SARPEDON TO
LYCIA


Apollo bows, and from mount Ida’s height,
Swift to the field precipitates his flight;
Thence from the war the breathless hero bore,
Veil’d in a cloud, to silver Simois’ shore;
There bathed his honourable wounds, and dress’d
His manly members in the immortal vest;
And with perfumes of sweet ambrosial dews
Restores his freshness, and his form renews.
Then Sleep and Death, two twins of winged race,
Of matchless swiftness, but of silent pace,
Received Sarpedon, at the god’s command,
And in a moment reach’d the Lycian land;
The corse amidst his weeping friends they laid,
Where endless honours wait the sacred shade.

Meanwhile Patroclus pours along the plains,
With foaming coursers, and with loosen’d reins.
Fierce on the Trojan and the Lycian crew,
Ah blind to fate! thy headlong fury flew:
Against what fate and powerful Jove ordain,
Vain was thy friend’s command, thy courage vain.
For he, the god, whose counsels uncontroll’d
Dismay the mighty, and confound the bold;
The god who gives, resumes, and orders all,
He urged thee on, and urged thee on to fall.

Who first, brave hero! by that arm was slain,
Who last beneath thy vengeance press’d the plain;
When heaven itself thy fatal fury led,
And call’d to fill the number of the dead?
Adrestus first; Autonous then succeeds;
Echeclus follows; next young Megas bleeds,
Epistor, Melanippus, bite the ground;
The slaughter, Elasus and Mulius crown’d:
Then sunk Pylartes to eternal night;
The rest, dispersing, trust their fates to flight.

Now Troy had stoop’d beneath his matchless power,
But flaming Phœbus kept the sacred tower.
Thrice at the battlements Patroclus strook;[246]
His blazing ægis thrice Apollo shook;
He tried the fourth; when, bursting from the cloud,
A more than mortal voice was heard aloud.

“Patroclus! cease; this heaven-defended wall
Defies thy lance; not fated yet to fall;
Thy friend, thy greater far, it shall withstand,
Troy shall not stoop even to Achilles’ hand.”

So spoke the god who darts celestial fires;
The Greek obeys him, and with awe retires.
While Hector, checking at the Scæan gates
His panting coursers, in his breast debates,
Or in the field his forces to employ,
Or draw the troops within the walls of Troy.
Thus while he thought, beside him Phœbus stood,
In Asius’ shape, who reigned by Sangar’s flood;
(Thy brother, Hecuba! from Dymas sprung,
A valiant warrior, haughty, bold, and young;)
Thus he accosts him. “What a shameful sight!
God! is it Hector that forbears the fight?
Were thine my vigour this successful spear
Should soon convince thee of so false a fear.
Turn thee, ah turn thee to the field of fame,
And in Patroclus’ blood efface thy shame.
Perhaps Apollo shall thy arms succeed,
And heaven ordains him by thy lance to bleed.”

So spoke the inspiring god; then took his flight,
And plunged amidst the tumult of the fight.
He bids Cebrion drive the rapid car;
The lash resounds, the coursers rush to war.
The god the Grecians’ sinking souls depress’d,
And pour’d swift spirits through each Trojan breast.
Patroclus lights, impatient for the fight;
A spear his left, a stone employs his right:
With all his nerves he drives it at the foe.
Pointed above, and rough and gross below:
The falling ruin crush’d Cebrion’s head,
The lawless offspring of king Priam’s bed;
His front, brows, eyes, one undistinguish’d wound:
The bursting balls drop sightless to the ground.
The charioteer, while yet he held the rein,
Struck from the car, falls headlong on the plain.
To the dark shades the soul unwilling glides,
While the proud victor thus his fall derides.

“Good heaven! what active feats yon artist shows!
What skilful divers are our Phrygian foes!
Mark with what ease they sink into the sand!
Pity that all their practice is by land!”

Then rushing sudden on his prostrate prize,
To spoil the carcase fierce Patroclus flies:
Swift as a lion, terrible and bold,
That sweeps the field, depopulates the fold;
Pierced through the dauntless heart, then tumbles slain,
And from his fatal courage finds his bane.
At once bold Hector leaping from his car,
Defends the body, and provokes the war.
Thus for some slaughter’d hind, with equal rage,
Two lordly rulers of the wood engage;
Stung with fierce hunger, each the prey invades,
And echoing roars rebellow through the shades.
Stern Hector fastens on the warrior’s head,
And by the foot Patroclus drags the dead:
While all around, confusion, rage, and fright,
Mix the contending hosts in mortal fight.
So pent by hills, the wild winds roar aloud
In the deep bosom of some gloomy wood;
Leaves, arms, and trees, aloft in air are blown,
The broad oaks crackle, and the Sylvans groan;
This way and that, the rattling thicket bends,
And the whole forest in one crash descends.
Not with less noise, with less tumultuous rage,
In dreadful shock the mingled hosts engage.
Darts shower’d on darts, now round the carcase ring;
Now flights of arrows bounding from the string:
Stones follow stones; some clatter on the fields,
Some hard, and heavy, shake the sounding shields.
But where the rising whirlwind clouds the plains,
Sunk in soft dust the mighty chief remains,
And, stretch’d in death, forgets the guiding reins!

Now flaming from the zenith, Sol had driven
His fervid orb through half the vault of heaven;
While on each host with equal tempests fell
The showering darts, and numbers sank to hell.
But when his evening wheels o’erhung the main,
Glad conquest rested on the Grecian train.
Then from amidst the tumult and alarms,
They draw the conquer’d corse and radiant arms.
Then rash Patroclus with new fury glows,
And breathing slaughter, pours amid the foes.
Thrice on the press like Mars himself he flew,
And thrice three heroes at each onset slew.
There ends thy glory! there the Fates untwine
The last, black remnant of so bright a line:
Apollo dreadful stops thy middle way;
Death calls, and heaven allows no longer day!

For lo! the god in dusky clouds enshrined,
Approaching dealt a staggering blow behind.
The weighty shock his neck and shoulders feel;
His eyes flash sparkles, his stunn’d senses reel
In giddy darkness; far to distance flung,
His bounding helmet on the champaign rung.
Achilles’ plume is stain’d with dust and gore;
That plume which never stoop’d to earth before;
Long used, untouch’d, in fighting fields to shine,
And shade the temples of the mad divine.
Jove dooms it now on Hector’s helm to nod;
Not long—for fate pursues him, and the god.

His spear in shivers falls; his ample shield
Drops from his arm: his baldric strows the field:
The corslet his astonish’d breast forsakes:
Loose is each joint; each nerve with horror shakes;
Stupid he stares, and all-assistless stands:
Such is the force of more than mortal hands!

A Dardan youth there was, well known to fame,
From Panthus sprung, Euphorbus was his name;
Famed for the manage of the foaming horse,
Skill’d in the dart, and matchless in the course:
Full twenty knights he tumbled from the car,
While yet he learn’d his rudiments of war.
His venturous spear first drew the hero’s gore;
He struck, he wounded, but he durst no more.
Nor, though disarm’d, Patroclus’ fury stood:
But swift withdrew the long-protended wood.
And turn’d him short, and herded in the crowd.
Thus, by an arm divine, and mortal spear,
Wounded, at once, Patroclus yields to fear,
Retires for succour to his social train,
And flies the fate, which heaven decreed, in vain.
Stern Hector, as the bleeding chief he views,
Breaks through the ranks, and his retreat pursues:
The lance arrests him with a mortal wound;
He falls, earth thunders, and his arms resound.
With him all Greece was sunk; that moment all
Her yet-surviving heroes seem’d to fall.
So, scorch’d with heat, along the desert score,
The roaming lion meets a bristly boar,
Fast by the spring; they both dispute the flood,
With flaming eyes, and jaws besmear’d with blood;
At length the sovereign savage wins the strife;
And the torn boar resigns his thirst and life.
Patroclus thus, so many chiefs o’erthrown,
So many lives effused, expires his own.
As dying now at Hector’s feet he lies,
He sternly views him, and triumphant cries:

“Lie there, Patroclus! and with thee, the joy
Thy pride once promised, of subverting Troy;
The fancied scenes of Ilion wrapt in flames,
And thy soft pleasures served with captive dames.
Unthinking man! I fought those towers to free,
And guard that beauteous race from lords like thee:
But thou a prey to vultures shalt be made;
Thy own Achilles cannot lend thee aid;
Though much at parting that great chief might say,
And much enjoin thee, this important day.

‘Return not, my brave friend (perhaps he said),
Without the bloody arms of Hector dead.’
He spoke, Patroclus march’d, and thus he sped.”

Supine, and wildly gazing on the skies,
With faint, expiring breath, the chief replies:

“Vain boaster! cease, and know the powers divine!
Jove’s and Apollo’s is this deed, not thine;
To heaven is owed whate’er your own you call,
And heaven itself disarm’d me ere my fall.
Had twenty mortals, each thy match in might,
Opposed me fairly, they had sunk in fight:
By fate and Phœbus was I first o’erthrown,
Euphorbus next; the third mean part thy own.
But thou, imperious! hear my latest breath;
The gods inspire it, and it sounds thy death:
Insulting man, thou shalt be soon as I;
Black fate o’erhangs thee, and thy hour draws nigh;
Even now on life’s last verge I see thee stand,
I see thee fall, and by Achilles’ hand.”

He faints: the soul unwilling wings her way,
(The beauteous body left a load of clay)
Flits to the lone, uncomfortable coast;
A naked, wandering, melancholy ghost!

Then Hector pausing, as his eyes he fed
On the pale carcase, thus address’d the dead:

“From whence this boding speech, the stern decree
Of death denounced, or why denounced to me?
Why not as well Achilles’ fate be given
To Hector’s lance? Who knows the will of heaven?”

Pensive he said; then pressing as he lay
His breathless bosom, tore the lance away;
And upwards cast the corse: the reeking spear
He shakes, and charges the bold charioteer.
But swift Automedon with loosen’d reins
Rapt in the chariot o’er the distant plains,
Far from his rage the immortal coursers drove;
The immortal coursers were the gift of Jove.


[Illustration: ] ÆSCULAPIUS




BOOK XVII.


ARGUMENT.


THE SEVENTH BATTLE, FOR THE BODY OF PATROCLUS.—THE ACTS OF MENELAUS.


Menelaus, upon the death of Patroclus, defends his body from the enemy:
Euphorbus, who attempts it, is slain. Hector advancing, Menelaus
retires; but soon returns with Ajax, and drives him off. This, Glaucus
objects to Hector as a flight, who thereupon puts on the armour he had
won from Patroclus, and renews the battle. The Greeks give way, till
Ajax rallies them: Æneas sustains the Trojans. Æneas and Hector attempt
the chariot of Achilles, which is borne off by Automedon. The horses of
Achilles deplore the loss of Patroclus: Jupiter covers his body with a
thick darkness: the noble prayer of Ajax on that occasion. Menelaus
sends Antilochus to Achilles, with the news of Patroclus’ death: then
returns to the fight, where, though attacked with the utmost fury, he
and Meriones, assisted by the Ajaces, bear off the body to the ships.
    The time is the evening of the eight-and-twentieth day. The scene
    lies in the fields before Troy.


On the cold earth divine Patroclus spread,
Lies pierced with wounds among the vulgar dead.
Great Menelaus, touch’d with generous woe,
Springs to the front, and guards him from the foe.
Thus round her new-fallen young the heifer moves,
Fruit of her throes, and first-born of her loves;
And anxious (helpless as he lies, and bare)
Turns, and re-turns her, with a mother’s care,
Opposed to each that near the carcase came,
His broad shield glimmers, and his lances flame.

The son of Panthus, skill’d the dart to send,
Eyes the dead hero, and insults the friend.
“This hand, Atrides, laid Patroclus low;
Warrior! desist, nor tempt an equal blow:
To me the spoils my prowess won, resign:
Depart with life, and leave the glory mine.”

The Trojan thus: the Spartan monarch burn’d
With generous anguish, and in scorn return’d:
“Laugh’st thou not, Jove! from thy superior throne,
When mortals boast of prowess not their own?
Not thus the lion glories in his might,
Nor panther braves his spotted foe in fight,
Nor thus the boar (those terrors of the plain;)
Man only vaunts his force, and vaunts in vain.
But far the vainest of the boastful kind,
These sons of Panthus vent their haughty mind.
Yet ’twas but late, beneath my conquering steel
This boaster’s brother, Hyperenor, fell;
Against our arm which rashly he defied,
Vain was his vigour, and as vain his pride.
These eyes beheld him on the dust expire,
No more to cheer his spouse, or glad his sire.
Presumptuous youth! like his shall be thy doom,
Go, wait thy brother to the Stygian gloom;
Or, while thou may’st, avoid the threaten’d fate;
Fools stay to feel it, and are wise too late.”

Unmoved, Euphorbus thus: “That action known,
Come, for my brother’s blood repay thy own.
His weeping father claims thy destined head,
And spouse, a widow in her bridal bed.
On these thy conquer’d spoils I shall bestow,
To soothe a consort’s and a parent’s woe.
No longer then defer the glorious strife,
Let heaven decide our fortune, fame, and life.”

Swift as the word the missile lance he flings;
The well-aim’d weapon on the buckler rings,
But blunted by the brass, innoxious falls.
On Jove the father great Atrides calls,
Nor flies the javelin from his arm in vain,
It pierced his throat, and bent him to the plain;
Wide through the neck appears the grisly wound,
Prone sinks the warrior, and his arms resound.
The shining circlets of his golden hair,
Which even the Graces might be proud to wear,
Instarr’d with gems and gold, bestrow the shore,
With dust dishonour’d, and deform’d with gore.

As the young olive, in some sylvan scene,
Crown’d by fresh fountains with eternal green,
Lifts the gay head, in snowy flowerets fair,
And plays and dances to the gentle air;
When lo! a whirlwind from high heaven invades
The tender plant, and withers all its shades;
It lies uprooted from its genial bed,
A lovely ruin now defaced and dead:
Thus young, thus beautiful, Euphorbus lay,
While the fierce Spartan tore his arms away.
Proud of his deed, and glorious in the prize,
Affrighted Troy the towering victor flies:
Flies, as before some mountain lion’s ire
The village curs and trembling swains retire,
When o’er the slaughter’d bull they hear him roar,
And see his jaws distil with smoking gore:
All pale with fear, at distance scatter’d round,
They shout incessant, and the vales resound.

Meanwhile Apollo view’d with envious eyes,
And urged great Hector to dispute the prize;
(In Mentes’ shape, beneath whose martial care
The rough Ciconians learn’d the trade of war;)[247]
“Forbear (he cried) with fruitless speed to chase
Achilles’ coursers, of ethereal race;
They stoop not, these, to mortal man’s command,
Or stoop to none but great Achilles’ hand.
Too long amused with a pursuit so vain,
Turn, and behold the brave Euphorbus slain;
By Sparta slain! for ever now suppress’d
The fire which burn’d in that undaunted breast!”

Thus having spoke, Apollo wing’d his flight,
And mix’d with mortals in the toils of fight:
His words infix’d unutterable care
Deep in great Hector’s soul: through all the war
He darts his anxious eye; and, instant, view’d
The breathless hero in his blood imbued,
(Forth welling from the wound, as prone he lay)
And in the victor’s hands the shining prey.
Sheath’d in bright arms, through cleaving ranks he flies,
And sends his voice in thunder to the skies:
Fierce as a flood of flame by Vulcan sent,
It flew, and fired the nations as it went.
Atrides from the voice the storm divined,
And thus explored his own unconquer’d mind:

“Then shall I quit Patroclus on the plain,
Slain in my cause, and for my honour slain!
Desert the arms, the relics, of my friend?
Or singly, Hector and his troops attend?
Sure where such partial favour heaven bestow’d,
To brave the hero were to brave the god:
Forgive me, Greece, if once I quit the field;
’Tis not to Hector, but to heaven I yield.
Yet, nor the god, nor heaven, should give me fear,
Did but the voice of Ajax reach my ear:
Still would we turn, still battle on the plains,
And give Achilles all that yet remains
Of his and our Patroclus—” This, no more
The time allow’d: Troy thicken’d on the shore.
A sable scene! The terrors Hector led.
Slow he recedes, and sighing quits the dead.

So from the fold the unwilling lion parts,
Forced by loud clamours, and a storm of darts;
He flies indeed, but threatens as he flies,
With heart indignant and retorted eyes.
Now enter’d in the Spartan ranks, he turn’d
His manly breast, and with new fury burn’d;
O’er all the black battalions sent his view,
And through the cloud the godlike Ajax knew;
Where labouring on the left the warrior stood,
All grim in arms, and cover’d o’er with blood;
There breathing courage, where the god of day
Had sunk each heart with terror and dismay.

To him the king: “Oh Ajax, oh my friend!
Haste, and Patroclus’ loved remains defend:
The body to Achilles to restore
Demands our care; alas, we can no more!
For naked now, despoiled of arms, he lies;
And Hector glories in the dazzling prize.”
He said, and touch’d his heart. The raging pair
Pierced the thick battle, and provoke the war.
Already had stern Hector seized his head,
And doom’d to Trojan gods the unhappy dead;
But soon as Ajax rear’d his tower-like shield,
Sprung to his car, and measured back the field,
His train to Troy the radiant armour bear,
To stand a trophy of his fame in war.

Meanwhile great Ajax (his broad shield display’d)
Guards the dead hero with the dreadful shade;
And now before, and now behind he stood:
Thus in the centre of some gloomy wood,
With many a step, the lioness surrounds
Her tawny young, beset by men and hounds;
Elate her heart, and rousing all her powers,
Dark o’er the fiery balls each hanging eyebrow lours.
Fast by his side the generous Spartan glows
With great revenge, and feeds his inward woes.

But Glaucus, leader of the Lycian aids,
On Hector frowning, thus his flight upbraids:

“Where now in Hector shall we Hector find?
A manly form, without a manly mind.
Is this, O chief! a hero’s boasted fame?
How vain, without the merit, is the name!
Since battle is renounced, thy thoughts employ
What other methods may preserve thy Troy:
’Tis time to try if Ilion’s state can stand
By thee alone, nor ask a foreign hand:
Mean, empty boast! but shall the Lycians stake
Their lives for you? those Lycians you forsake?
What from thy thankless arms can we expect?
Thy friend Sarpedon proves thy base neglect;
Say, shall our slaughter’d bodies guard your walls,
While unreveng’d the great Sarpedon falls?
Even where he died for Troy, you left him there,
A feast for dogs, and all the fowls of air.
On my command if any Lycian wait,
Hence let him march, and give up Troy to fate.
Did such a spirit as the gods impart
Impel one Trojan hand or Trojan heart,
(Such as should burn in every soul that draws
The sword for glory, and his country’s cause)
Even yet our mutual arms we might employ,
And drag yon carcase to the walls of Troy.
Oh! were Patroclus ours, we might obtain
Sarpedon’s arms and honour’d corse again!
Greece with Achilles’ friend should be repaid,
And thus due honours purchased to his shade.
But words are vain—Let Ajax once appear,
And Hector trembles and recedes with fear;
Thou dar’st not meet the terrors of his eye;
And lo! already thou prepar’st to fly.”

The Trojan chief with fix’d resentment eyed
The Lycian leader, and sedate replied:

“Say, is it just, my friend, that Hector’s ear
From such a warrior such a speech should hear?
I deem’d thee once the wisest of thy kind,
But ill this insult suits a prudent mind.
I shun great Ajax? I desert my train?
’Tis mine to prove the rash assertion vain;
I joy to mingle where the battle bleeds,
And hear the thunder of the sounding steeds.
But Jove’s high will is ever uncontroll’d,
The strong he withers, and confounds the bold;
Now crowns with fame the mighty man, and now
Strikes the fresh garland from the victor’s brow!
Come, through yon squadrons let us hew the way,
And thou be witness, if I fear to-day;
If yet a Greek the sight of Hector dread,
Or yet their hero dare defend the dead.”

Then turning to the martial hosts, he cries:
“Ye Trojans, Dardans, Lycians, and allies!
Be men, my friends, in action as in name,
And yet be mindful of your ancient fame.
Hector in proud Achilles’ arms shall shine,
Torn from his friend, by right of conquest mine.”

He strode along the field, as thus he said:
(The sable plumage nodded o’er his head:)
Swift through the spacious plain he sent a look;
One instant saw, one instant overtook
The distant band, that on the sandy shore
The radiant spoils to sacred Ilion bore.
There his own mail unbraced the field bestrow’d;
His train to Troy convey’d the massy load.
Now blazing in the immortal arms he stands;
The work and present of celestial hands;
By aged Peleus to Achilles given,
As first to Peleus by the court of heaven:
His father’s arms not long Achilles wears,
Forbid by fate to reach his father’s years.

Him, proud in triumph, glittering from afar,
The god whose thunder rends the troubled air
Beheld with pity; as apart he sat,
And, conscious, look’d through all the scene of fate.
He shook the sacred honours of his head;
Olympus trembled, and the godhead said;
“Ah, wretched man! unmindful of thy end!
A moment’s glory; and what fates attend!
In heavenly panoply divinely bright
Thou stand’st, and armies tremble at thy sight,
As at Achilles’ self! beneath thy dart
Lies slain the great Achilles’ dearer part.
Thou from the mighty dead those arms hast torn,
Which once the greatest of mankind had worn.
Yet live! I give thee one illustrious day,
A blaze of glory ere thou fad’st away.
For ah! no more Andromache shall come
With joyful tears to welcome Hector home;
No more officious, with endearing charms,
From thy tired limbs unbrace Pelides’ arms!”

Then with his sable brow he gave the nod
That seals his word; the sanction of the god.
The stubborn arms (by Jove’s command disposed)
Conform’d spontaneous, and around him closed:
Fill’d with the god, enlarged his members grew,
Through all his veins a sudden vigour flew,
The blood in brisker tides began to roll,
And Mars himself came rushing on his soul.
Exhorting loud through all the field he strode,
And look’d, and moved, Achilles, or a god.
Now Mesthles, Glaucus, Medon, he inspires,
Now Phorcys, Chromius, and Hippothous fires;
The great Thersilochus like fury found,
Asteropaeus kindled at the sound,
And Ennomus, in augury renown’d.

“Hear, all ye hosts, and hear, unnumber’d bands
Of neighbouring nations, or of distant lands!
’Twas not for state we summon’d you so far,
To boast our numbers, and the pomp of war:
Ye came to fight; a valiant foe to chase,
To save our present, and our future race.
For this, our wealth, our products, you enjoy,
And glean the relics of exhausted Troy.
Now then, to conquer or to die prepare;
To die or conquer are the terms of war.
Whatever hand shall win Patroclus slain,
Whoe’er shall drag him to the Trojan train,
With Hector’s self shall equal honours claim;
With Hector part the spoil, and share the fame.”

Fired by his words, the troops dismiss their fears,
They join, they thicken, they protend their spears;
Full on the Greeks they drive in firm array,
And each from Ajax hopes the glorious prey:
Vain hope! what numbers shall the field o’erspread,
What victims perish round the mighty dead!

Great Ajax mark’d the growing storm from far,
And thus bespoke his brother of the war:
“Our fatal day, alas! is come, my friend;
And all our wars and glories at an end!
’Tis not this corse alone we guard in vain,
Condemn’d to vultures on the Trojan plain;
We too must yield: the same sad fate must fall
On thee, on me, perhaps, my friend, on all.
See what a tempest direful Hector spreads,
And lo! it bursts, it thunders on our heads!
Call on our Greeks, if any hear the call,
The bravest Greeks: this hour demands them all.”

The warrior raised his voice, and wide around
The field re-echoed the distressful sound.
“O chiefs! O princes, to whose hand is given
The rule of men; whose glory is from heaven!
Whom with due honours both Atrides grace:
Ye guides and guardians of our Argive race!
All, whom this well-known voice shall reach from far,
All, whom I see not through this cloud of war;
Come all! let generous rage your arms employ,
And save Patroclus from the dogs of Troy.”

Oilean Ajax first the voice obey’d,
Swift was his pace, and ready was his aid:
Next him Idomeneus, more slow with age,
And Merion, burning with a hero’s rage.
The long-succeeding numbers who can name?
But all were Greeks, and eager all for fame.
Fierce to the charge great Hector led the throng;
Whole Troy embodied rush’d with shouts along.
Thus, when a mountain billow foams and raves,
Where some swoln river disembogues his waves,
Full in the mouth is stopp’d the rushing tide,
The boiling ocean works from side to side,
The river trembles to his utmost shore,
And distant rocks re-bellow to the roar.

Nor less resolved, the firm Achaian band
With brazen shields in horrid circle stand.
Jove, pouring darkness o’er the mingled fight,
Conceals the warriors’ shining helms in night:
To him, the chief for whom the hosts contend
Had lived not hateful, for he lived a friend:
Dead he protects him with superior care.
Nor dooms his carcase to the birds of air.


[Illustration: ] FIGHT FOR THE BODY OF PATROCLUS


The first attack the Grecians scarce sustain,
Repulsed, they yield; the Trojans seize the slain.
Then fierce they rally, to revenge led on
By the swift rage of Ajax Telamon.
(Ajax to Peleus’ son the second name,
In graceful stature next, and next in fame.)
With headlong force the foremost ranks he tore;
So through the thicket bursts the mountain boar,
And rudely scatters, for a distance round,
The frighted hunter and the baying hound.
The son of Lethus, brave Pelasgus’ heir,
Hippothous, dragg’d the carcase through the war;
The sinewy ankles bored, the feet he bound
With thongs inserted through the double wound:
Inevitable fate o’ertakes the deed;
Doom’d by great Ajax’ vengeful lance to bleed:
It cleft the helmet’s brazen cheeks in twain;
The shatter’d crest and horse-hair strow the plain:
With nerves relax’d he tumbles to the ground:
The brain comes gushing through the ghastly wound:
He drops Patroclus’ foot, and o’er him spread,
Now lies a sad companion of the dead:
Far from Larissa lies, his native air,
And ill requites his parents’ tender care.
Lamented youth! in life’s first bloom he fell,
Sent by great Ajax to the shades of hell.

Once more at Ajax Hector’s javelin flies;
The Grecian marking, as it cut the skies,
Shunn’d the descending death; which hissing on,
Stretch’d in the dust the great Iphytus’ son,
Schedius the brave, of all the Phocian kind
The boldest warrior and the noblest mind:
In little Panope, for strength renown’d,
He held his seat, and ruled the realms around.
Plunged in his throat, the weapon drank his blood,
And deep transpiercing through the shoulder stood;
In clanging arms the hero fell and all
The fields resounded with his weighty fall.

Phorcys, as slain Hippothous he defends,
The Telamonian lance his belly rends;
The hollow armour burst before the stroke,
And through the wound the rushing entrails broke:
In strong convulsions panting on the sands
He lies, and grasps the dust with dying hands.

Struck at the sight, recede the Trojan train:
The shouting Argives strip the heroes slain.
And now had Troy, by Greece compell’d to yield,
Fled to her ramparts, and resign’d the field;
Greece, in her native fortitude elate,
With Jove averse, had turn’d the scale of fate:
But Phœbus urged Æneas to the fight;
He seem’d like aged Periphas to sight:
(A herald in Anchises’ love grown old,
Revered for prudence, and with prudence bold.)

Thus he—“What methods yet, O chief! remain,
To save your Troy, though heaven its fall ordain?
There have been heroes, who, by virtuous care,
By valour, numbers, and by arts of war,
Have forced the powers to spare a sinking state,
And gain’d at length the glorious odds of fate:
But you, when fortune smiles, when Jove declares
His partial favour, and assists your wars,
Your shameful efforts ’gainst yourselves employ,
And force the unwilling god to ruin Troy.”

Æneas through the form assumed descries
The power conceal’d, and thus to Hector cries:
“Oh lasting shame! to our own fears a prey,
We seek our ramparts, and desert the day.
A god, nor is he less, my bosom warms,
And tells me, Jove asserts the Trojan arms.”

He spoke, and foremost to the combat flew:
The bold example all his hosts pursue.
Then, first, Leocritus beneath him bled,
In vain beloved by valiant Lycomede;
Who view’d his fall, and, grieving at the chance,
Swift to revenge it sent his angry lance;
The whirling lance, with vigorous force address’d,
Descends, and pants in Apisaon’s breast;
From rich Paeonia’s vales the warrior came,
Next thee, Asteropeus! in place and fame.
Asteropeus with grief beheld the slain,
And rush’d to combat, but he rush’d in vain:
Indissolubly firm, around the dead,
Rank within rank, on buckler buckler spread,
And hemm’d with bristled spears, the Grecians stood,
A brazen bulwark, and an iron wood.
Great Ajax eyes them with incessant care,
And in an orb contracts the crowded war,
Close in their ranks commands to fight or fall,
And stands the centre and the soul of all:
Fix’d on the spot they war, and wounded, wound;
A sanguine torrent steeps the reeking ground:
On heaps the Greeks, on heaps the Trojans bled,
And, thickening round them, rise the hills of dead.

Greece, in close order, and collected might,
Yet suffers least, and sways the wavering fight;
Fierce as conflicting fires the combat burns,
And now it rises, now it sinks by turns.
In one thick darkness all the fight was lost;
The sun, the moon, and all the ethereal host
Seem’d as extinct: day ravish’d from their eyes,
And all heaven’s splendours blotted from the skies.
Such o’er Patroclus’ body hung the night,
The rest in sunshine fought, and open light;
Unclouded there, the aerial azure spread,
No vapour rested on the mountain’s head,
The golden sun pour’d forth a stronger ray,
And all the broad expansion flamed with day.
Dispersed around the plain, by fits they fight,
And here and there their scatter’d arrows light:
But death and darkness o’er the carcase spread,
There burn’d the war, and there the mighty bled.

Meanwhile the sons of Nestor, in the rear,
(Their fellows routed,) toss the distant spear,
And skirmish wide: so Nestor gave command,
When from the ships he sent the Pylian band.
The youthful brothers thus for fame contend,
Nor knew the fortune of Achilles’ friend;
In thought they view’d him still, with martial joy,
Glorious in arms, and dealing death to Troy.

But round the corse the heroes pant for breath,
And thick and heavy grows the work of death:
O’erlabour’d now, with dust, and sweat, and gore,
Their knees, their legs, their feet, are covered o’er;
Drops follow drops, the clouds on clouds arise,
And carnage clogs their hands, and darkness fills their eyes.
As when a slaughter’d bull’s yet reeking hide,
Strain’d with full force, and tugg’d from side to side,
The brawny curriers stretch; and labour o’er
The extended surface, drunk with fat and gore:
So tugging round the corse both armies stood;
The mangled body bathed in sweat and blood;
While Greeks and Ilians equal strength employ,
Now to the ships to force it, now to Troy.
Not Pallas’ self, her breast when fury warms,
Nor he whose anger sets the world in arms,
Could blame this scene; such rage, such horror reign’d;
Such, Jove to honour the great dead ordain’d.

Achilles in his ships at distance lay,
Nor knew the fatal fortune of the day;
He, yet unconscious of Patroclus’ fall,
In dust extended under Ilion’s wall,
Expects him glorious from the conquered plain,
And for his wish’d return prepares in vain;
Though well he knew, to make proud Ilion bend
Was more than heaven had destined to his friend.
Perhaps to him: this Thetis had reveal’d;
The rest, in pity to her son, conceal’d.

Still raged the conflict round the hero dead,
And heaps on heaps by mutual wounds they bled.
“Cursed be the man (even private Greeks would say)
Who dares desert this well-disputed day!
First may the cleaving earth before our eyes
Gape wide, and drink our blood for sacrifice;
First perish all, ere haughty Troy shall boast
We lost Patroclus, and our glory lost!”

Thus they: while with one voice the Trojans said,
“Grant this day, Jove! or heap us on the dead!”

Then clash their sounding arms; the clangours rise,
And shake the brazen concave of the skies.

Meantime, at distance from the scene of blood,
The pensive steeds of great Achilles stood:
Their godlike master slain before their eyes,
They wept, and shared in human miseries.[248]
In vain Automedon now shakes the rein,
Now plies the lash, and soothes and threats in vain;
Nor to the fight nor Hellespont they go,
Restive they stood, and obstinate in woe:
Still as a tombstone, never to be moved,
On some good man or woman unreproved
Lays its eternal weight; or fix’d, as stands
A marble courser by the sculptor’s hands,
Placed on the hero’s grave. Along their face
The big round drops coursed down with silent pace,
Conglobing on the dust. Their manes, that late
Circled their arched necks, and waved in state,
Trail’d on the dust beneath the yoke were spread,
And prone to earth was hung their languid head:
Nor Jove disdain’d to cast a pitying look,
While thus relenting to the steeds he spoke:

“Unhappy coursers of immortal strain,
Exempt from age, and deathless, now in vain;
Did we your race on mortal man bestow,
Only, alas! to share in mortal woe?
For ah! what is there of inferior birth,
That breathes or creeps upon the dust of earth;
What wretched creature of what wretched kind,
Than man more weak, calamitous, and blind?
A miserable race! but cease to mourn:
For not by you shall Priam’s son be borne
High on the splendid car: one glorious prize
He rashly boasts: the rest our will denies.
Ourself will swiftness to your nerves impart,
Ourself with rising spirits swell your heart.
Automedon your rapid flight shall bear
Safe to the navy through the storm of war.
For yet ’tis given to Troy to ravage o’er
The field, and spread her slaughters to the shore;
The sun shall see her conquer, till his fall
With sacred darkness shades the face of all.”

He said; and breathing in the immortal horse
Excessive spirit, urged them to the course;
From their high manes they shake the dust, and bear
The kindling chariot through the parted war:
So flies a vulture through the clamorous train
Of geese, that scream, and scatter round the plain.
From danger now with swiftest speed they flew,
And now to conquest with like speed pursue;
Sole in the seat the charioteer remains,
Now plies the javelin, now directs the reins:
Him brave Alcimedon beheld distress’d,
Approach’d the chariot, and the chief address’d:

“What god provokes thee rashly thus to dare,
Alone, unaided, in the thickest war?
Alas! thy friend is slain, and Hector wields
Achilles’ arms triumphant in the fields.”

“In happy time (the charioteer replies)
The bold Alcimedon now greets my eyes;
No Greek like him the heavenly steeds restrains,
Or holds their fury in suspended reins:
Patroclus, while he lived, their rage could tame,
But now Patroclus is an empty name!
To thee I yield the seat, to thee resign
The ruling charge: the task of fight be mine.”

He said. Alcimedon, with active heat,
Snatches the reins, and vaults into the seat.
His friend descends. The chief of Troy descried,
And call’d Æneas fighting near his side.

“Lo, to my sight, beyond our hope restored,
Achilles’ car, deserted of its lord!
The glorious steeds our ready arms invite,
Scarce their weak drivers guide them through the fight.
Can such opponents stand when we assail?
Unite thy force, my friend, and we prevail.”

The son of Venus to the counsel yields;
Then o’er their backs they spread their solid shields:
With brass refulgent the broad surface shined,
And thick bull-hides the spacious concave lined.
Them Chromius follows, Aretus succeeds;
Each hopes the conquest of the lofty steeds:
In vain, brave youths, with glorious hopes ye burn,
In vain advance! not fated to return.

Unmov’d, Automedon attends the fight,
Implores the Eternal, and collects his might.
Then turning to his friend, with dauntless mind:
“Oh keep the foaming coursers close behind!
Full on my shoulders let their nostrils blow,
For hard the fight, determined is the foe;
’Tis Hector comes: and when he seeks the prize,
War knows no mean; he wins it or he dies.”

Then through the field he sends his voice aloud,
And calls the Ajaces from the warring crowd,
With great Atrides. “Hither turn, (he said,)
Turn where distress demands immediate aid;
The dead, encircled by his friends, forego,
And save the living from a fiercer foe.
Unhelp’d we stand, unequal to engage
The force of Hector, and Æneas’ rage:
Yet mighty as they are, my force to prove
Is only mine: the event belongs to Jove.”

He spoke, and high the sounding javelin flung,
Which pass’d the shield of Aretus the young:
It pierced his belt, emboss’d with curious art,
Then in the lower belly struck the dart.
As when a ponderous axe, descending full,
Cleaves the broad forehead of some brawny bull:[249]
Struck ’twixt the horns, he springs with many a bound,
Then tumbling rolls enormous on the ground:
Thus fell the youth; the air his soul received,
And the spear trembled as his entrails heaved.

Now at Automedon the Trojan foe
Discharged his lance; the meditated blow,
Stooping, he shunn’d; the javelin idly fled,
And hiss’d innoxious o’er the hero’s head;
Deep rooted in the ground, the forceful spear
In long vibrations spent its fury there.
With clashing falchions now the chiefs had closed,
But each brave Ajax heard, and interposed;
Nor longer Hector with his Trojans stood,
But left their slain companion in his blood:
His arms Automedon divests, and cries,
“Accept, Patroclus, this mean sacrifice:
Thus have I soothed my griefs, and thus have paid,
Poor as it is, some offering to thy shade.”

So looks the lion o’er a mangled boar,
All grim with rage, and horrible with gore;
High on the chariot at one bound he sprung,
And o’er his seat the bloody trophies hung.

And now Minerva from the realms of air
Descends impetuous, and renews the war;
For, pleased at length the Grecian arms to aid,
The lord of thunders sent the blue-eyed maid.
As when high Jove denouncing future woe,
O’er the dark clouds extends his purple bow,
(In sign of tempests from the troubled air,
Or from the rage of man, destructive war,)
The drooping cattle dread the impending skies,
And from his half-till’d field the labourer flies:
In such a form the goddess round her drew
A livid cloud, and to the battle flew.
Assuming Phœnix’ shape on earth she falls,
And in his well-known voice to Sparta calls:
“And lies Achilles’ friend, beloved by all,
A prey to dogs beneath the Trojan wall?
What shame 'o Greece for future times to tell,
To thee the greatest in whose cause he fell!”
“O chief, O father! (Atreus’ son replies)
O full of days! by long experience wise!
What more desires my soul, than here unmoved
To guard the body of the man I loved?
Ah, would Minerva send me strength to rear
This wearied arm, and ward the storm of war!
But Hector, like the rage of fire, we dread,
And Jove’s own glories blaze around his head!”

Pleased to be first of all the powers address’d,
She breathes new vigour in her hero’s breast,
And fills with keen revenge, with fell despite,
Desire of blood, and rage, and lust of fight.
So burns the vengeful hornet (soul all o’er),
Repulsed in vain, and thirsty still of gore;
(Bold son of air and heat) on angry wings
Untamed, untired, he turns, attacks, and stings.
Fired with like ardour fierce Atrides flew,
And sent his soul with every lance he threw.

There stood a Trojan, not unknown to fame,
Aëtion’s son, and Podes was his name:
With riches honour’d, and with courage bless’d,
By Hector loved, his comrade, and his guest;
Through his broad belt the spear a passage found,
And, ponderous as he falls, his arms resound.
Sudden at Hector’s side Apollo stood,
Like Phaenops, Asius’ son, appear’d the god;
(Asius the great, who held his wealthy reign
In fair Abydos, by the rolling main.)

“Oh prince! (he cried) Oh foremost once in fame!
What Grecian now shall tremble at thy name?
Dost thou at length to Menelaus yield,
A chief once thought no terror of the field?
Yet singly, now, the long-disputed prize
He bears victorious, while our army flies:
By the same arm illustrious Podes bled;
The friend of Hector, unrevenged, is dead!”
This heard, o’er Hector spreads a cloud of woe,
Rage lifts his lance, and drives him on the foe.

But now the Eternal shook his sable shield,
That shaded Ide and all the subject field
Beneath its ample verge. A rolling cloud
Involved the mount; the thunder roar’d aloud;
The affrighted hills from their foundations nod,
And blaze beneath the lightnings of the god:
At one regard of his all-seeing eye
The vanquish’d triumph, and the victors fly.

Then trembled Greece: the flight Peneleus led;
For as the brave Bœotian turn’d his head
To face the foe, Polydamas drew near,
And razed his shoulder with a shorten’d spear:
By Hector wounded, Leitus quits the plain,
Pierced through the wrist; and raging with the pain,
Grasps his once formidable lance in vain.

As Hector follow’d, Idomen address’d
The flaming javelin to his manly breast;
The brittle point before his corslet yields;
Exulting Troy with clamour fills the fields:
High on his chariots the Cretan stood,
The son of Priam whirl’d the massive wood.
But erring from its aim, the impetuous spear
Struck to the dust the squire and charioteer
Of martial Merion: Coeranus his name,
Who left fair Lyctus for the fields of fame.
On foot bold Merion fought; and now laid low,
Had graced the triumphs of his Trojan foe,
But the brave squire the ready coursers brought,
And with his life his master’s safety bought.
Between his cheek and ear the weapon went,
The teeth it shatter’d, and the tongue it rent.
Prone from the seat he tumbles to the plain;
His dying hand forgets the falling rein:
This Merion reaches, bending from the car,
And urges to desert the hopeless war:
Idomeneus consents; the lash applies;
And the swift chariot to the navy flies.

Not Ajax less the will of heaven descried,
And conquest shifting to the Trojan side,
Turn’d by the hand of Jove. Then thus begun,
To Atreus’s seed, the godlike Telamon:

“Alas! who sees not Jove’s almighty hand
Transfers the glory to the Trojan band?
Whether the weak or strong discharge the dart,
He guides each arrow to a Grecian heart:
Not so our spears; incessant though they rain,
He suffers every lance to fall in vain.
Deserted of the god, yet let us try
What human strength and prudence can supply;
If yet this honour’d corse, in triumph borne,
May glad the fleets that hope not our return,
Who tremble yet, scarce rescued from their fates,
And still hear Hector thundering at their gates.
Some hero too must be despatch’d to bear
The mournful message to Pelides’ ear;
For sure he knows not, distant on the shore,
His friend, his loved Patroclus, is no more.
But such a chief I spy not through the host:
The men, the steeds, the armies, all are lost
In general darkness—Lord of earth and air!
Oh king! Oh father! hear my humble prayer:
Dispel this cloud, the light of heaven restore;
Give me to see, and Ajax asks no more:
If Greece must perish, we thy will obey,
But let us perish in the face of day!”

With tears the hero spoke, and at his prayer
The god relenting clear’d the clouded air;
Forth burst the sun with all-enlightening ray;
The blaze of armour flash’d against the day.
“Now, now, Atrides! cast around thy sight;
If yet Antilochus survives the fight,
Let him to great Achilles’ ear convey
The fatal news”—Atrides hastes away.

So turns the lion from the nightly fold,
Though high in courage, and with hunger bold,
Long gall’d by herdsmen, and long vex’d by hounds,
Stiff with fatigue, and fretted sore with wounds;
The darts fly round him from a hundred hands,
And the red terrors of the blazing brands:
Till late, reluctant, at the dawn of day
Sour he departs, and quits the untasted prey,
So moved Atrides from his dangerous place
With weary limbs, but with unwilling pace;
The foe, he fear’d, might yet Patroclus gain,
And much admonish’d, much adjured his train:

“O guard these relics to your charge consign’d,
And bear the merits of the dead in mind;
How skill’d he was in each obliging art;
The mildest manners, and the gentlest heart:
He was, alas! but fate decreed his end,
In death a hero, as in life a friend!”

So parts the chief; from rank to rank he flew,
And round on all sides sent his piercing view.
As the bold bird, endued with sharpest eye
Of all that wings the mid aërial sky,
The sacred eagle, from his walks above
Looks down, and sees the distant thicket move;
Then stoops, and sousing on the quivering hare,
Snatches his life amid the clouds of air.
Not with less quickness, his exerted sight
Pass’d this and that way, through the ranks of fight:
Till on the left the chief he sought, he found,
Cheering his men, and spreading deaths around:

To him the king: “Beloved of Jove! draw near,
For sadder tidings never touch’d thy ear;
Thy eyes have witness’d what a fatal turn!
How Ilion triumphs, and the Achaians mourn.
This is not all: Patroclus, on the shore
Now pale and dead, shall succour Greece no more.
Fly to the fleet, this instant fly, and tell
The sad Achilles, how his loved-one fell:
He too may haste the naked corse to gain:
The arms are Hector’s, who despoil’d the slain.”

The youthful warrior heard with silent woe,
From his fair eyes the tears began to flow:
Big with the mighty grief, he strove to say
What sorrow dictates, but no word found way.
To brave Laodocus his arms he flung,
Who, near him wheeling, drove his steeds along;
Then ran the mournful message to impart,
With tearful eyes, and with dejected heart.

Swift fled the youth: nor Menelaus stands
(Though sore distress’d) to aid the Pylian bands;
But bids bold Thrasymede those troops sustain;
Himself returns to his Patroclus slain.
“Gone is Antilochus (the hero said);
But hope not, warriors, for Achilles’ aid:
Though fierce his rage, unbounded be his woe,
Unarm’d, he fights not with the Trojan foe.
’Tis in our hands alone our hopes remain,
’Tis our own vigour must the dead regain,
And save ourselves, while with impetuous hate
Troy pours along, and this way rolls our fate.”

“’Tis well (said Ajax), be it then thy care,
With Merion’s aid, the weighty corse to rear;
Myself, and my bold brother will sustain
The shock of Hector and his charging train:
Nor fear we armies, fighting side by side;
What Troy can dare, we have already tried,
Have tried it, and have stood.” The hero said.
High from the ground the warriors heave the dead.
A general clamour rises at the sight:
Loud shout the Trojans, and renew the fight.
Not fiercer rush along the gloomy wood,
With rage insatiate, and with thirst of blood,
Voracious hounds, that many a length before
Their furious hunters, drive the wounded boar;
But if the savage turns his glaring eye,
They howl aloof, and round the forest fly.
Thus on retreating Greece the Trojans pour,
Wave their thick falchions, and their javelins shower:
But Ajax turning, to their fears they yield,
All pale they tremble and forsake the field.

While thus aloft the hero’s corse they bear,
Behind them rages all the storm of war:
Confusion, tumult, horror, o’er the throng
Of men, steeds, chariots, urged the rout along:
Less fierce the winds with rising flames conspire
To whelm some city under waves of fire;
Now sink in gloomy clouds the proud abodes,
Now crack the blazing temples of the gods;
The rumbling torrent through the ruin rolls,
And sheets of smoke mount heavy to the poles.
The heroes sweat beneath their honour’d load:
As when two mules, along the rugged road,
From the steep mountain with exerted strength
Drag some vast beam, or mast’s unwieldy length;
Inly they groan, big drops of sweat distil,
The enormous timber lumbering down the hill:
So these—Behind, the bulk of Ajax stands,
And breaks the torrent of the rushing bands.
Thus when a river swell’d with sudden rains
Spreads his broad waters o’er the level plains,
Some interposing hill the stream divides,
And breaks its force, and turns the winding tides.
Still close they follow, close the rear engage;
Æneas storms, and Hector foams with rage:
While Greece a heavy, thick retreat maintains,
Wedged in one body, like a flight of cranes,
That shriek incessant, while the falcon, hung
High on poised pinions, threats their callow young.
So from the Trojan chiefs the Grecians fly,
Such the wild terror, and the mingled cry:
Within, without the trench, and all the way,
Strow’d in bright heaps, their arms and armour lay;
Such horror Jove impress’d! yet still proceeds
The work of death, and still the battle bleeds.


[Illustration: ] VULCAN FROM AN ANTIQUE GEM




BOOK XVIII.


ARGUMENT.


THE GRIEF OF ACHILLES, AND NEW ARMOUR MADE HIM BY VULCAN.


The news of the death of Patroclus is brought to Achilles by
Antilochus. Thetis, hearing his lamentations, comes with all her sea-
nymphs to comfort him. The speeches of the mother and son on this
occasion. Iris appears to Achilles by the command of Juno, and orders
him to show himself at the head of the intrenchments. The sight of him
turns the fortunes of the day, and the body of Patroclus is carried off
by the Greeks. The Trojans call a council, where Hector and Polydamas
disagree in their opinions: but the advice of the former prevails, to
remain encamped in the field. The grief of Achilles over the body of
Patroclus.
    Thetis goes to the palace of Vulcan to obtain new arms for her son.
    The description of the wonderful works of Vulcan: and, lastly, that
    noble one of the shield of Achilles.
    The latter part of the nine-and-twentieth day, and the night
    ensuing, take up this book: the scene is at Achilles’ tent on the
    sea-shore, from whence it changes to the palace of Vulcan.


Thus like the rage of fire the combat burns,[250]
And now it rises, now it sinks by turns.
Meanwhile, where Hellespont’s broad waters flow,
Stood Nestor’s son, the messenger of woe:
There sat Achilles, shaded by his sails,
On hoisted yards extended to the gales;
Pensive he sat; for all that fate design’d
Rose in sad prospect to his boding mind.
Thus to his soul he said: “Ah! what constrains
The Greeks, late victors, now to quit the plains?
Is this the day, which heaven so long ago
Ordain’d, to sink me with the weight of woe?
(So Thetis warn’d;) when by a Trojan hand
The bravest of the Myrmidonian band
Should lose the light! Fulfilled is that decree;
Fallen is the warrior, and Patroclus he!
In vain I charged him soon to quit the plain,
And warn’d to shun Hectorean force in vain!”

Thus while he thinks, Antilochus appears,
And tells the melancholy tale with tears.
“Sad tidings, son of Peleus! thou must hear;
And wretched I, the unwilling messenger!
Dead is Patroclus! For his corse they fight;
His naked corse: his arms are Hector’s right.”

A sudden horror shot through all the chief,
And wrapp’d his senses in the cloud of grief;
Cast on the ground, with furious hands he spread
The scorching ashes o’er his graceful head;
His purple garments, and his golden hairs,
Those he deforms with dust, and these he tears;
On the hard soil his groaning breast he threw,
And roll’d and grovell’d, as to earth he grew.
The virgin captives, with disorder’d charms,
(Won by his own, or by Patroclus’ arms,)
Rush’d from their tents with cries; and gathering round,
Beat their white breasts, and fainted on the ground:
While Nestor’s son sustains a manlier part,
And mourns the warrior with a warrior’s heart;
Hangs on his arms, amidst his frantic woe,
And oft prevents the meditated blow.

Far in the deep abysses of the main,[251]
With hoary Nereus, and the watery train,
The mother-goddess from her crystal throne
Heard his loud cries, and answer’d groan for groan.
The circling Nereids with their mistress weep,
And all the sea-green sisters of the deep.
Thalia, Glauce (every watery name),
Nesaea mild, and silver Spio came:
Cymothoe and Cymodoce were nigh,
And the blue languish of soft Alia’s eye.
Their locks Actaea and Limnoria rear,
Then Proto, Doris, Panope appear,
Thoa, Pherusa, Doto, Melita;
Agave gentle, and Amphithoe gay:
Next Callianira, Callianassa show
Their sister looks; Dexamene the slow,
And swift Dynamene, now cut the tides:
Iaera now the verdant wave divides:
Nemertes with Apseudes lifts the head,
Bright Galatea quits her pearly bed;
These Orythia, Clymene, attend,
Maera, Amphinome, the train extend;
And black Janira, and Janassa fair,
And Amatheia with her amber hair.
All these, and all that deep in ocean held
Their sacred seats, the glimmering grotto fill’d;
Each beat her ivory breast with silent woe,
Till Thetis’ sorrows thus began to flow:

“Hear me, and judge, ye sisters of the main!
How just a cause has Thetis to complain!
How wretched, were I mortal, were my fate!
How more than wretched in the immortal state!
Sprung from my bed a godlike hero came,
The bravest far that ever bore the name;
Like some fair olive, by my careful hand
He grew, he flourish’d and adorn’d the land!
To Troy I sent him: but the fates ordain
He never, never must return again.
So short a space the light of heaven to view,
So short, alas! and fill’d with anguish too!
Hear how his sorrows echo through the shore!
I cannot ease them, but I must deplore;
I go at least to bear a tender part,
And mourn my loved-one with a mother’s heart.”

She said, and left the caverns of the main,
All bathed in tears; the melancholy train
Attend her way. Wide-opening part the tides,
While the long pomp the silver wave divides.
Approaching now, they touch’d the Trojan land;
Then, two by two, ascended up the strand.
The immortal mother, standing close beside
Her mournful offspring, to his sighs replied;
Along the coast their mingled clamours ran,
And thus the silver-footed dame began:

“Why mourns my son? thy late preferr’d request
The god has granted, and the Greeks distress’d:
Why mourns my son? thy anguish let me share,
Reveal the cause, and trust a parent’s care.”

He, deeply groaning—“To this cureless grief,
Not even the Thunderer’s favour brings relief.
Patroclus—Ah!—say, goddess, can I boast
A pleasure now? revenge itself is lost;
Patroclus, loved of all my martial train,
Beyond mankind, beyond myself is slain!
Lost are those arms the gods themselves bestow’d
On Peleus; Hector bears the glorious load.
Cursed be that day, when all the powers above
Thy charms submitted to a mortal love:
O hadst thou still, a sister of the main,
Pursued the pleasures of the watery reign:
And happier Peleus, less ambitious, led
A mortal beauty to his equal bed!
Ere the sad fruit of thy unhappy womb
Had caused such sorrows past, and woes to come.
For soon, alas! that wretched offspring slain,
New woes, new sorrows, shall create again.
’Tis not in fate the alternate now to give;
Patroclus dead, Achilles hates to live.
Let me revenge it on proud Hector’s heart,
Let his last spirit smoke upon my dart;
On these conditions will I breathe: till then,
I blush to walk among the race of men.”

A flood of tears, at this, the goddess shed:
“Ah then, I see thee dying, see thee dead!
When Hector falls, thou diest.”—“Let Hector die,
And let me fall! (Achilles made reply)
Far lies Patroclus from his native plain!
He fell, and falling, wish’d my aid in vain.
Ah then, since from this miserable day
I cast all hope of my return away;
Since, unrevenged, a hundred ghosts demand
The fate of Hector from Achilles’ hand;
Since here, for brutal courage far renown’d,
I live an idle burden to the ground,
(Others in council famed for nobler skill,
More useful to preserve, than I to kill,)
Let me—But oh! ye gracious powers above!
Wrath and revenge from men and gods remove:
Far, far too dear to every mortal breast,
Sweet to the soul, as honey to the taste:
Gathering like vapours of a noxious kind
From fiery blood, and darkening all the mind.
Me Agamemnon urged to deadly hate;
’Tis past—I quell it; I resign to fate.
Yes—I will meet the murderer of my friend;
Or (if the gods ordain it) meet my end.
The stroke of fate the strongest cannot shun:
The great Alcides, Jove’s unequall’d son,
To Juno’s hate, at length resign’d his breath,
And sunk the victim of all-conquering death.
So shall Achilles fall! stretch’d pale and dead,
No more the Grecian hope, or Trojan dread!
Let me, this instant, rush into the fields,
And reap what glory life’s short harvest yields.
Shall I not force some widow’d dame to tear
With frantic hands her long dishevell’d hair?
Shall I not force her breast to heave with sighs,
And the soft tears to trickle from her eyes?
Yes, I shall give the fair those mournful charms—
In vain you hold me—Hence! my arms! my arms!—
Soon shall the sanguine torrent spread so wide,
That all shall know Achilles swells the tide.”

“My son (coerulean Thetis made reply,
To fate submitting with a secret sigh,)
The host to succour, and thy friends to save,
Is worthy thee; the duty of the brave.
But canst thou, naked, issue to the plains?
Thy radiant arms the Trojan foe detains.
Insulting Hector bears the spoils on high,
But vainly glories, for his fate is nigh.
Yet, yet awhile thy generous ardour stay;
Assured, I meet thee at the dawn of day,
Charged with refulgent arms (a glorious load),
Vulcanian arms, the labour of a god.”

Then turning to the daughters of the main,
The goddess thus dismiss’d her azure train:

“Ye sister Nereids! to your deeps descend;
Haste, and our father’s sacred seat attend;
I go to find the architect divine,
Where vast Olympus’ starry summits shine:
So tell our hoary sire”—This charge she gave:
The sea-green sisters plunge beneath the wave:
Thetis once more ascends the bless’d abodes,
And treads the brazen threshold of the gods.


[Illustration: ] THETIS ORDERING THE NEREIDS TO DESCEND INTO THE SEA


And now the Greeks from furious Hector’s force,
Urge to broad Hellespont their headlong course;
Nor yet their chiefs Patroclus’ body bore
Safe through the tempest to the tented shore.
The horse, the foot, with equal fury join’d,
Pour’d on the rear, and thunder’d close behind:
And like a flame through fields of ripen’d corn,
The rage of Hector o’er the ranks was borne.
Thrice the slain hero by the foot he drew;
Thrice to the skies the Trojan clamours flew:
As oft the Ajaces his assault sustain;
But check’d, he turns; repuls’d, attacks again.
With fiercer shouts his lingering troops he fires,
Nor yields a step, nor from his post retires:
So watchful shepherds strive to force, in vain,
The hungry lion from a carcase slain.
Even yet Patroclus had he borne away,
And all the glories of the extended day,
Had not high Juno from the realms of air,
Secret, despatch’d her trusty messenger.
The various goddess of the showery bow,
Shot in a whirlwind to the shore below;
To great Achilles at his ships she came,
And thus began the many-colour’d dame:

“Rise, son of Peleus! rise, divinely brave!
Assist the combat, and Patroclus save:
For him the slaughter to the fleet they spread,
And fall by mutual wounds around the dead.
To drag him back to Troy the foe contends:
Nor with his death the rage of Hector ends:
A prey to dogs he dooms the corse to lie,
And marks the place to fix his head on high.
Rise, and prevent (if yet you think of fame)
Thy friend’s disgrace, thy own eternal shame!”

“Who sends thee, goddess, from the ethereal skies?”
Achilles thus. And Iris thus replies:

“I come, Pelides! from the queen of Jove,
The immortal empress of the realms above;
Unknown to him who sits remote on high,
Unknown to all the synod of the sky.”
“Thou comest in vain (he cries, with fury warm’d);
Arms I have none, and can I fight unarm’d?
Unwilling as I am, of force I stay,
Till Thetis bring me at the dawn of day
Vulcanian arms: what other can I wield,
Except the mighty Telamonian shield?
That, in my friend’s defence, has Ajax spread,
While his strong lance around him heaps the dead:
The gallant chief defends Menoetius’ son,
And does what his Achilles should have done.”

“Thy want of arms (said Iris) well we know;
But though unarm’d, yet clad in terrors, go!
Let but Achilles o’er yon trench appear,
Proud Troy shall tremble, and consent to fear;
Greece from one glance of that tremendous eye
Shall take new courage, and disdain to fly.”

She spoke, and pass’d in air. The hero rose:
Her ægis Pallas o’er his shoulder throws;
Around his brows a golden cloud she spread;
A stream of glory flamed above his head.
As when from some beleaguer’d town arise
The smokes, high curling to the shaded skies;
(Seen from some island, o’er the main afar,
When men distress’d hang out the sign of war;)
Soon as the sun in ocean hides his rays,
Thick on the hills the flaming beacons blaze;
With long-projected beams the seas are bright,
And heaven’s high arch reflects the ruddy light:
So from Achilles’ head the splendours rise,
Reflecting blaze on blaze against the skies.
Forth march’d the chief, and distant from the crowd,
High on the rampart raised his voice aloud;
With her own shout Minerva swells the sound;
Troy starts astonish’d, and the shores rebound.
As the loud trumpet’s brazen mouth from far
With shrilling clangour sounds the alarm of war,
Struck from the walls, the echoes float on high,
And the round bulwarks and thick towers reply;
So high his brazen voice the hero rear’d:
Hosts dropp’d their arms, and trembled as they heard:
And back the chariots roll, and coursers bound,
And steeds and men lie mingled on the ground.
Aghast they see the living lightnings play,
And turn their eyeballs from the flashing ray.
Thrice from the trench his dreadful voice he raised,
And thrice they fled, confounded and amazed.
Twelve in the tumult wedged, untimely rush’d
On their own spears, by their own chariots crush’d:
While, shielded from the darts, the Greeks obtain
The long-contended carcase of the slain.

A lofty bier the breathless warrior bears:
Around, his sad companions melt in tears.
But chief Achilles, bending down his head,
Pours unavailing sorrows o’er the dead,
Whom late triumphant, with his steeds and car,
He sent refulgent to the field of war;
(Unhappy change!) now senseless, pale, he found,
Stretch’d forth, and gash’d with many a gaping wound.

Meantime, unwearied with his heavenly way,
In ocean’s waves the unwilling light of day
Quench’d his red orb, at Juno’s high command,
And from their labours eased the Achaian band.
The frighted Trojans (panting from the war,
Their steeds unharness’d from the weary car)
A sudden council call’d: each chief appear’d
In haste, and standing; for to sit they fear’d.
’Twas now no season for prolong’d debate;
They saw Achilles, and in him their fate.
Silent they stood: Polydamas at last,
Skill’d to discern the future by the past,
The son of Panthus, thus express’d his fears
(The friend of Hector, and of equal years;
The self-same night to both a being gave,
One wise in council, one in action brave):


[Illustration: ] JUNO COMMANDING THE SUN TO SET


“In free debate, my friends, your sentence speak;
For me, I move, before the morning break,
To raise our camp: too dangerous here our post,
Far from Troy walls, and on a naked coast.
I deem’d not Greece so dreadful, while engaged
In mutual feuds her king and hero raged;
Then, while we hoped our armies might prevail
We boldly camp’d beside a thousand sail.
I dread Pelides now: his rage of mind
Not long continues to the shores confined,
Nor to the fields, where long in equal fray
Contending nations won and lost the day;
For Troy, for Troy, shall henceforth be the strife,
And the hard contest not for fame, but life.
Haste then to Ilion, while the favouring night
Detains these terrors, keeps that arm from fight.
If but the morrow’s sun behold us here,
That arm, those terrors, we shall feel, not fear;
And hearts that now disdain, shall leap with joy,
If heaven permit them then to enter Troy.
Let not my fatal prophecy be true,
Nor what I tremble but to think, ensue.
Whatever be our fate, yet let us try
What force of thought and reason can supply;
Let us on counsel for our guard depend;
The town her gates and bulwarks shall defend.
When morning dawns, our well-appointed powers,
Array’d in arms, shall line the lofty towers.
Let the fierce hero, then, when fury calls,
Vent his mad vengeance on our rocky walls,
Or fetch a thousand circles round the plain,
Till his spent coursers seek the fleet again:
So may his rage be tired, and labour’d down!
And dogs shall tear him ere he sack the town.”

“Return! (said Hector, fired with stern disdain)
What! coop whole armies in our walls again?
Was’t not enough, ye valiant warriors, say,
Nine years imprison’d in those towers ye lay?
Wide o’er the world was Ilion famed of old
For brass exhaustless, and for mines of gold:
But while inglorious in her walls we stay’d,
Sunk were her treasures, and her stores decay’d;
The Phrygians now her scatter’d spoils enjoy,
And proud Mæonia wastes the fruits of Troy.
Great Jove at length my arms to conquest calls,
And shuts the Grecians in their wooden walls,
Darest thou dispirit whom the gods incite?
Flies any Trojan? I shall stop his flight.
To better counsel then attention lend;
Take due refreshment, and the watch attend.
If there be one whose riches cost him care,
Forth let him bring them for the troops to share;
’Tis better generously bestow’d on those,
Than left the plunder of our country’s foes.
Soon as the morn the purple orient warms,
Fierce on yon navy will we pour our arms.
If great Achilles rise in all his might,
His be the danger: I shall stand the fight.
Honour, ye gods! or let me gain or give;
And live he glorious, whosoe’er shall live!
Mars is our common lord, alike to all;
And oft the victor triumphs, but to fall.”

The shouting host in loud applauses join’d;
So Pallas robb’d the many of their mind;
To their own sense condemn’d, and left to choose
The worst advice, the better to refuse.

While the long night extends her sable reign,
Around Patroclus mourn’d the Grecian train.
Stern in superior grief Pelides stood;
Those slaughtering arms, so used to bathe in blood,
Now clasp his clay-cold limbs: then gushing start
The tears, and sighs burst from his swelling heart.
The lion thus, with dreadful anguish stung,
Roars through the desert, and demands his young;
When the grim savage, to his rifled den
Too late returning, snuffs the track of men,
And o’er the vales and o’er the forest bounds;
His clamorous grief the bellowing wood resounds.
So grieves Achilles; and, impetuous, vents
To all his Myrmidons his loud laments.

“In what vain promise, gods! did I engage,
When to console Menoetius’ feeble age,
I vowed his much-loved offspring to restore,
Charged with rich spoils, to fair Opuntia’s shore?[252]
But mighty Jove cuts short, with just disdain,
The long, long views of poor designing man!
One fate the warrior and the friend shall strike,
And Troy’s black sands must drink our blood alike:
Me too a wretched mother shall deplore,
An aged father never see me more!
Yet, my Patroclus! yet a space I stay,
Then swift pursue thee on the darksome way.
Ere thy dear relics in the grave are laid,
Shall Hector’s head be offer’d to thy shade;
That, with his arms, shall hang before thy shrine;
And twelve, the noblest of the Trojan line,
Sacred to vengeance, by this hand expire;
Their lives effused around thy flaming pyre.
Thus let me lie till then! thus, closely press’d,
Bathe thy cold face, and sob upon thy breast!
While Trojan captives here thy mourners stay,
Weep all the night and murmur all the day:
Spoils of my arms, and thine; when, wasting wide,
Our swords kept time, and conquer’d side by side.”

He spoke, and bade the sad attendants round
Cleanse the pale corse, and wash each honour’d wound.
A massy caldron of stupendous frame
They brought, and placed it o’er the rising flame:
Then heap’d the lighted wood; the flame divides
Beneath the vase, and climbs around the sides:
In its wide womb they pour the rushing stream;
The boiling water bubbles to the brim.
The body then they bathe with pious toil,
Embalm the wounds, anoint the limbs with oil,
High on a bed of state extended laid,
And decent cover’d with a linen shade;
Last o’er the dead the milk-white veil they threw;
That done, their sorrows and their sighs renew.

Meanwhile to Juno, in the realms above,
(His wife and sister,) spoke almighty Jove.
“At last thy will prevails: great Peleus’ son
Rises in arms: such grace thy Greeks have won.
Say (for I know not), is their race divine,
And thou the mother of that martial line?”

“What words are these? (the imperial dame replies,
While anger flash’d from her majestic eyes)
Succour like this a mortal arm might lend,
And such success mere human wit attend:
And shall not I, the second power above,
Heaven’s queen, and consort of the thundering Jove,
Say, shall not I one nation’s fate command,
Not wreak my vengeance on one guilty land?”


[Illustration: ] TRIPOD


So they. Meanwhile the silver-footed dame
Reach’d the Vulcanian dome, eternal frame!
High-eminent amid the works divine,
Where heaven’s far-beaming brazen mansions shine.
There the lame architect the goddess found,
Obscure in smoke, his forges flaming round,
While bathed in sweat from fire to fire he flew;
And puffing loud, the roaring billows blew.
That day no common task his labour claim’d:
Full twenty tripods for his hall he framed,
That placed on living wheels of massy gold,
(Wondrous to tell,) instinct with spirit roll’d
From place to place, around the bless’d abodes
Self-moved, obedient to the beck of gods:
For their fair handles now, o’erwrought with flowers,
In moulds prepared, the glowing ore he pours.
Just as responsive to his thought the frame
Stood prompt to move, the azure goddess came:
Charis, his spouse, a grace divinely fair,
(With purple fillets round her braided hair,)
Observed her entering; her soft hand she press’d,
And, smiling, thus the watery queen address’d:

“What, goddess! this unusual favour draws?
All hail, and welcome! whatsoe’er the cause;
Till now a stranger, in a happy hour
Approach, and taste the dainties of the bower.”


[Illustration: ] THETIS AND EURYNOME RECEIVING THE INFANT VULCAN


High on a throne, with stars of silver graced,
And various artifice, the queen she placed;
A footstool at her feet: then calling, said,
“Vulcan, draw near, ’tis Thetis asks your aid.”
“Thetis (replied the god) our powers may claim,
An ever-dear, an ever-honour’d name!
When my proud mother hurl’d me from the sky,
(My awkward form, it seems, displeased her eye,)
She, and Eurynome, my griefs redress’d,
And soft received me on their silver breast.
Even then these arts employ’d my infant thought:
Chains, bracelets, pendants, all their toys, I wrought.
Nine years kept secret in the dark abode,
Secure I lay, conceal’d from man and god:
Deep in a cavern’d rock my days were led;
The rushing ocean murmur’d o’er my head.
Now, since her presence glads our mansion, say,
For such desert what service can I pay?
Vouchsafe, O Thetis! at our board to share
The genial rites, and hospitable fare;
While I the labours of the forge forego,
And bid the roaring bellows cease to blow.”

Then from his anvil the lame artist rose;
Wide with distorted legs oblique he goes,
And stills the bellows, and (in order laid)
Locks in their chests his instruments of trade.
Then with a sponge the sooty workman dress’d
His brawny arms embrown’d, and hairy breast.
With his huge sceptre graced, and red attire,
Came halting forth the sovereign of the fire:
The monarch’s steps two female forms uphold,
That moved and breathed in animated gold;
To whom was voice, and sense, and science given
Of works divine (such wonders are in heaven!)
On these supported, with unequal gait,
He reach’d the throne where pensive Thetis sate;
There placed beside her on the shining frame,
He thus address’d the silver-footed dame:

“Thee, welcome, goddess! what occasion calls
(So long a stranger) to these honour’d walls?
’Tis thine, fair Thetis, the command to lay,
And Vulcan’s joy and duty to obey.”


[Illustration: ] VULCAN AND CHARIS RECEIVING THETIS


To whom the mournful mother thus replies:
(The crystal drops stood trembling in her eyes:)
“O Vulcan! say, was ever breast divine
So pierced with sorrows, so o’erwhelm’d as mine?
Of all the goddesses, did Jove prepare
For Thetis only such a weight of care?
I, only I, of all the watery race
By force subjected to a man’s embrace,
Who, sinking now with age and sorrow, pays
The mighty fine imposed on length of days.
Sprung from my bed, a godlike hero came,
The bravest sure that ever bore the name;
Like some fair plant beneath my careful hand
He grew, he flourish’d, and adorn’d the land!
To Troy I sent him! but his native shore
Never, ah never, shall receive him more;
(Even while he lives, he wastes with secret woe;)
Nor I, a goddess, can retard the blow!
Robb’d of the prize the Grecian suffrage gave,
The king of nations forced his royal slave:
For this he grieved; and, till the Greeks oppress’d
Required his arm, he sorrow’d unredress’d.
Large gifts they promise, and their elders send;
In vain—he arms not, but permits his friend
His arms, his steeds, his forces to employ:
He marches, combats, almost conquers Troy:
Then slain by Phœbus (Hector had the name)
At once resigns his armour, life, and fame.
But thou, in pity, by my prayer be won:
Grace with immortal arms this short-lived son,
And to the field in martial pomp restore,
To shine with glory, till he shines no more!”

To her the artist-god: “Thy griefs resign,
Secure, what Vulcan can, is ever thine.
O could I hide him from the Fates, as well,
Or with these hands the cruel stroke repel,
As I shall forge most envied arms, the gaze
Of wondering ages, and the world’s amaze!”

Thus having said, the father of the fires
To the black labours of his forge retires.
Soon as he bade them blow, the bellows turn’d
Their iron mouths; and where the furnace burn’d,
Resounding breathed: at once the blast expires,
And twenty forges catch at once the fires;
Just as the god directs, now loud, now low,
They raise a tempest, or they gently blow;
In hissing flames huge silver bars are roll’d,
And stubborn brass, and tin, and solid gold;
Before, deep fix’d, the eternal anvils stand;
The ponderous hammer loads his better hand,
His left with tongs turns the vex’d metal round,
And thick, strong strokes, the doubling vaults rebound.

Then first he form’d the immense and solid shield;
Rich various artifice emblazed the field;
Its utmost verge a threefold circle bound;[253]
A silver chain suspends the massy round;
Five ample plates the broad expanse compose,
And godlike labours on the surface rose.
There shone the image of the master-mind:
There earth, there heaven, there ocean he design’d;
The unwearied sun, the moon completely round;
The starry lights that heaven’s high convex crown’d;
The Pleiads, Hyads, with the northern team;
And great Orion’s more refulgent beam;
To which, around the axle of the sky,
The Bear, revolving, points his golden eye,
Still shines exalted on the ethereal plain,
Nor bathes his blazing forehead in the main.

Two cities radiant on the shield appear,
The image one of peace, and one of war.
Here sacred pomp and genial feast delight,
And solemn dance, and hymeneal rite;
Along the street the new-made brides are led,
With torches flaming, to the nuptial bed:
The youthful dancers in a circle bound
To the soft flute, and cithern’s silver sound:
Through the fair streets the matrons in a row
Stand in their porches, and enjoy the show.

There in the forum swarm a numerous train;
The subject of debate, a townsman slain:
One pleads the fine discharged, which one denied,
And bade the public and the laws decide:
The witness is produced on either hand:
For this, or that, the partial people stand:
The appointed heralds still the noisy bands,
And form a ring, with sceptres in their hands:
On seats of stone, within the sacred place,[254]
The reverend elders nodded o’er the case;
Alternate, each the attesting sceptre took,
And rising solemn, each his sentence spoke.
Two golden talents lay amidst, in sight,
The prize of him who best adjudged the right.

Another part (a prospect differing far)[255]
Glow’d with refulgent arms, and horrid war.
Two mighty hosts a leaguer’d town embrace,
And one would pillage, one would burn the place.
Meantime the townsmen, arm’d with silent care,
A secret ambush on the foe prepare:
Their wives, their children, and the watchful band
Of trembling parents, on the turrets stand.
They march; by Pallas and by Mars made bold:
Gold were the gods, their radiant garments gold,
And gold their armour: these the squadron led,
August, divine, superior by the head!
A place for ambush fit they found, and stood,
Cover’d with shields, beside a silver flood.
Two spies at distance lurk, and watchful seem
If sheep or oxen seek the winding stream.
Soon the white flocks proceeded o’er the plains,
And steers slow-moving, and two shepherd swains;
Behind them piping on their reeds they go,
Nor fear an ambush, nor suspect a foe.
In arms the glittering squadron rising round
Rush sudden; hills of slaughter heap the ground;
Whole flocks and herds lie bleeding on the plains,
And, all amidst them, dead, the shepherd swains!
The bellowing oxen the besiegers hear;
They rise, take horse, approach, and meet the war,
They fight, they fall, beside the silver flood;
The waving silver seem’d to blush with blood.
There Tumult, there Contention stood confess’d;
One rear’d a dagger at a captive’s breast;
One held a living foe, that freshly bled
With new-made wounds; another dragg’d a dead;
Now here, now there, the carcases they tore:
Fate stalk’d amidst them, grim with human gore.
And the whole war came out, and met the eye;
And each bold figure seem’d to live or die.

A field deep furrow’d next the god design’d,[256]
The third time labour’d by the sweating hind;
The shining shares full many ploughmen guide,
And turn their crooked yokes on every side.
Still as at either end they wheel around,
The master meets them with his goblet crown’d;
The hearty draught rewards, renews their toil,
Then back the turning ploughshares cleave the soil:
Behind, the rising earth in ridges roll’d;
And sable look’d, though form’d of molten gold.

Another field rose high with waving grain;
With bended sickles stand the reaper train:
Here stretched in ranks the levell’d swarths are found,
Sheaves heap’d on sheaves here thicken up the ground.
With sweeping stroke the mowers strow the lands;
The gatherers follow, and collect in bands;
And last the children, in whose arms are borne
(Too short to gripe them) the brown sheaves of corn.
The rustic monarch of the field descries,
With silent glee, the heaps around him rise.
A ready banquet on the turf is laid,
Beneath an ample oak’s expanded shade.
The victim ox the sturdy youth prepare;
The reaper’s due repast, the woman’s care.

Next, ripe in yellow gold, a vineyard shines,
Bent with the ponderous harvest of its vines;
A deeper dye the dangling clusters show,
And curl’d on silver props, in order glow:
A darker metal mix’d intrench’d the place;
And pales of glittering tin the inclosure grace.
To this, one pathway gently winding leads,
Where march a train with baskets on their heads,
(Fair maids and blooming youths,) that smiling bear
The purple product of the autumnal year.
To these a youth awakes the warbling strings,
Whose tender lay the fate of Linus sings;
In measured dance behind him move the train,
Tune soft the voice, and answer to the strain.

Here herds of oxen march, erect and bold,
Rear high their horns, and seem to low in gold,
And speed to meadows on whose sounding shores
A rapid torrent through the rushes roars:
Four golden herdsmen as their guardians stand,
And nine sour dogs complete the rustic band.
Two lions rushing from the wood appear’d;
And seized a bull, the master of the herd:
He roar’d: in vain the dogs, the men withstood;
They tore his flesh, and drank his sable blood.
The dogs (oft cheer’d in vain) desert the prey,
Dread the grim terrors, and at distance bay.

Next this, the eye the art of Vulcan leads
Deep through fair forests, and a length of meads,
And stalls, and folds, and scatter’d cots between;
And fleecy flocks, that whiten all the scene.

A figured dance succeeds; such once was seen
In lofty Gnossus for the Cretan queen,
Form’d by Daedalean art; a comely band
Of youths and maidens, bounding hand in hand.
The maids in soft simars of linen dress’d;
The youths all graceful in the glossy vest:
Of those the locks with flowery wreath inroll’d;
Of these the sides adorn’d with swords of gold,
That glittering gay, from silver belts depend.
Now all at once they rise, at once descend,
With well-taught feet: now shape in oblique ways,
Confusedly regular, the moving maze:
Now forth at once, too swift for sight, they spring,
And undistinguish’d blend the flying ring:
So whirls a wheel, in giddy circle toss’d,
And, rapid as it runs, the single spokes are lost.
The gazing multitudes admire around:
Two active tumblers in the centre bound;
Now high, now low, their pliant limbs they bend:
And general songs the sprightly revel end.

Thus the broad shield complete the artist crown’d
With his last hand, and pour’d the ocean round:
In living silver seem’d the waves to roll,
And beat the buckler’s verge, and bound the whole.

This done, whate’er a warrior’s use requires
He forged; the cuirass that outshone the fires,
The greaves of ductile tin, the helm impress’d
With various sculpture, and the golden crest.
At Thetis’ feet the finished labour lay:
She, as a falcon cuts the aerial way,
Swift from Olympus’ snowy summit flies,
And bears the blazing present through the skies.[257]




BOOK XIX.


ARGUMENT.


THE RECONCILIATION OF ACHILLES AND AGAMEMNON.


Thetis brings to her son the armour made by Vulcan. She preserves the
body of his friend from corruption, and commands him to assemble the
army, to declare his resentment at an end. Agamemnon and Achilles are
solemnly reconciled: the speeches, presents, and ceremonies on that
occasion. Achilles is with great difficulty persuaded to refrain from
the battle till the troops have refreshed themselves by the advice of
Ulysses. The presents are conveyed to the tent of Achilles, where
Briseïs laments over the body of Patroclus. The hero obstinately
refuses all repast, and gives himself up to lamentations for his
friend. Minerva descends to strengthen him, by the order of Jupiter. He
arms for the fight: his appearance described. He addresses himself to
his horses, and reproaches them with the death of Patroclus. One of
them is miraculously endued with voice, and inspired to prophesy his
fate: but the hero, not astonished by that prodigy, rushes with fury to
the combat.
    The thirtieth day. The scene is on the sea-shore.


Soon as Aurora heaved her Orient head
Above the waves, that blush’d with early red,
(With new-born day to gladden mortal sight,
And gild the courts of heaven with sacred light,)
The immortal arms the goddess-mother bears
Swift to her son: her son she finds in tears
Stretch’d o’er Patroclus’ corse; while all the rest
Their sovereign’s sorrows in their own express’d.
A ray divine her heavenly presence shed,
And thus, his hand soft touching, Thetis said:

“Suppress, my son, this rage of grief, and know
It was not man, but heaven, that gave the blow;
Behold what arms by Vulcan are bestow’d,
Arms worthy thee, or fit to grace a god.”

Then drops the radiant burden on the ground;
Clang the strong arms, and ring the shores around;
Back shrink the Myrmidons with dread surprise,
And from the broad effulgence turn their eyes.
Unmoved the hero kindles at the show,
And feels with rage divine his bosom glow;
From his fierce eyeballs living flames expire,
And flash incessant like a stream of fire:
He turns the radiant gift: and feeds his mind
On all the immortal artist had design’d.

“Goddess! (he cried,) these glorious arms, that shine
With matchless art, confess the hand divine.
Now to the bloody battle let me bend:
But ah! the relics of my slaughter’d friend!
In those wide wounds through which his spirit fled,
Shall flies, and worms obscene, pollute the dead?”

“That unavailing care be laid aside,
(The azure goddess to her son replied,)
Whole years untouch’d, uninjured shall remain,
Fresh as in life, the carcase of the slain.
But go, Achilles, as affairs require,
Before the Grecian peers renounce thine ire:
Then uncontroll’d in boundless war engage,
And heaven with strength supply the mighty rage!”


[Illustration: ] THETIS BRINGING THE ARMOUR TO ACHILLES


Then in the nostrils of the slain she pour’d
Nectareous drops, and rich ambrosia shower’d
O’er all the corse. The flies forbid their prey,
Untouch’d it rests, and sacred from decay.
Achilles to the strand obedient went:
The shores resounded with the voice he sent.
The heroes heard, and all the naval train
That tend the ships, or guide them o’er the main,
Alarm’d, transported, at the well-known sound,
Frequent and full, the great assembly crown’d;
Studious to see the terror of the plain,
Long lost to battle, shine in arms again.
Tydides and Ulysses first appear,
Lame with their wounds, and leaning on the spear;
These on the sacred seats of council placed,
The king of men, Atrides, came the last:
He too sore wounded by Agenor’s son.
Achilles (rising in the midst) begun:

“O monarch! better far had been the fate
Of thee, of me, of all the Grecian state,
If (ere the day when by mad passion sway’d,
Rash we contended for the black-eyed maid)
Preventing Dian had despatch’d her dart,
And shot the shining mischief to the heart!
Then many a hero had not press’d the shore,
Nor Troy’s glad fields been fatten’d with our gore.
Long, long shall Greece the woes we caused bewail,
And sad posterity repeat the tale.
But this, no more the subject of debate,
Is past, forgotten, and resign’d to fate.
Why should, alas, a mortal man, as I,
Burn with a fury that can never die?
Here then my anger ends: let war succeed,
And even as Greece has bled, let Ilion bleed.
Now call the hosts, and try if in our sight
Troy yet shall dare to camp a second night!
I deem, their mightiest, when this arm he knows,
Shall ’scape with transport, and with joy repose.”

He said: his finish’d wrath with loud acclaim
The Greeks accept, and shout Pelides’ name.
When thus, not rising from his lofty throne,
In state unmoved, the king of men begun:

“Hear me, ye sons of Greece! with silence hear!
And grant your monarch an impartial ear:
Awhile your loud, untimely joy suspend,
And let your rash, injurious clamours end:
Unruly murmurs, or ill-timed applause,
Wrong the best speaker, and the justest cause.
Nor charge on me, ye Greeks, the dire debate:
Know, angry Jove, and all-compelling Fate,
With fell Erinnys, urged my wrath that day
When from Achilles’ arms I forced the prey.
What then could I against the will of heaven?
Not by myself, but vengeful Ate driven;
She, Jove’s dread daughter, fated to infest
The race of mortals, enter’d in my breast.
Not on the ground that haughty fury treads,
But prints her lofty footsteps on the heads
Of mighty men; inflicting as she goes
Long-festering wounds, inextricable woes!
Of old, she stalk’d amid the bright abodes;
And Jove himself, the sire of men and gods,
The world’s great ruler, felt her venom’d dart;
Deceived by Juno’s wiles, and female art:
For when Alcmena’s nine long months were run,
And Jove expected his immortal son,
To gods and goddesses the unruly joy
He show’d, and vaunted of his matchless boy:
‘From us, (he said) this day an infant springs,
Fated to rule, and born a king of kings.’
Saturnia ask’d an oath, to vouch the truth,
And fix dominion on the favour’d youth.
The Thunderer, unsuspicious of the fraud,
Pronounced those solemn words that bind a god.
The joyful goddess, from Olympus’ height,
Swift to Achaian Argos bent her flight:
Scarce seven moons gone, lay Sthenelus’s wife;
She push’d her lingering infant into life:
Her charms Alcmena’s coming labours stay,
And stop the babe, just issuing to the day.
Then bids Saturnius bear his oath in mind;
‘A youth (said she) of Jove’s immortal kind
Is this day born: from Sthenelus he springs,
And claims thy promise to be king of kings.’
Grief seized the Thunderer, by his oath engaged;
Stung to the soul, he sorrow’d, and he raged.
From his ambrosial head, where perch’d she sate,
He snatch’d the fury-goddess of debate,
The dread, the irrevocable oath he swore,
The immortal seats should ne’er behold her more;
And whirl’d her headlong down, for ever driven
From bright Olympus and the starry heaven:
Thence on the nether world the fury fell;
Ordain’d with man’s contentious race to dwell.
Full oft the god his son’s hard toils bemoan’d,
Cursed the dire fury, and in secret groan’d.[258]
Even thus, like Jove himself, was I misled,
While raging Hector heap’d our camps with dead.
What can the errors of my rage atone?
My martial troops, my treasures are thy own:
This instant from the navy shall be sent
Whate’er Ulysses promised at thy tent:
But thou! appeased, propitious to our prayer,
Resume thy arms, and shine again in war.”

“O king of nations! whose superior sway
(Returns Achilles) all our hosts obey!
To keep or send the presents, be thy care;
To us, ’tis equal: all we ask is war.
While yet we talk, or but an instant shun
The fight, our glorious work remains undone.
Let every Greek, who sees my spear confound
The Trojan ranks, and deal destruction round,
With emulation, what I act survey,
And learn from thence the business of the day.”

The son of Peleus thus; and thus replies
The great in councils, Ithacus the wise:
“Though, godlike, thou art by no toils oppress’d,
At least our armies claim repast and rest:
Long and laborious must the combat be,
When by the gods inspired, and led by thee.
Strength is derived from spirits and from blood,
And those augment by generous wine and food:
What boastful son of war, without that stay,
Can last a hero through a single day?
Courage may prompt; but, ebbing out his strength,
Mere unsupported man must yield at length;
Shrunk with dry famine, and with toils declined,
The drooping body will desert the mind:
But built anew with strength-conferring fare,
With limbs and soul untamed, he tires a war.
Dismiss the people, then, and give command,
With strong repast to hearten every band;
But let the presents to Achilles made,
In full assembly of all Greece be laid.
The king of men shall rise in public sight,
And solemn swear (observant of the rite)
That, spotless, as she came, the maid removes,
Pure from his arms, and guiltless of his loves.
That done, a sumptuous banquet shall be made,
And the full price of injured honour paid.
Stretch not henceforth, O prince! thy sovereign might
Beyond the bounds of reason and of right;
’Tis the chief praise that e’er to kings belong’d,
To right with justice whom with power they wrong’d.”

To him the monarch: “Just is thy decree,
Thy words give joy, and wisdom breathes in thee.
Each due atonement gladly I prepare;
And heaven regard me as I justly swear!
Here then awhile let Greece assembled stay,
Nor great Achilles grudge this short delay.
Till from the fleet our presents be convey’d,
And Jove attesting, the firm compact made.
A train of noble youths the charge shall bear;
These to select, Ulysses, be thy care:
In order rank’d let all our gifts appear,
And the fair train of captives close the rear:
Talthybius shall the victim boar convey,
Sacred to Jove, and yon bright orb of day.”

“For this (the stern Æacides replies)
Some less important season may suffice,
When the stern fury of the war is o’er,
And wrath, extinguish’d, burns my breast no more.
By Hector slain, their faces to the sky,
All grim with gaping wounds, our heroes lie:
Those call to war! and might my voice incite,
Now, now, this instant, shall commence the fight:
Then, when the day’s complete, let generous bowls,
And copious banquets, glad your weary souls.
Let not my palate know the taste of food,
Till my insatiate rage be cloy’d with blood:
Pale lies my friend, with wounds disfigured o’er,
And his cold feet are pointed to the door.
Revenge is all my soul! no meaner care,
Interest, or thought, has room to harbour there;
Destruction be my feast, and mortal wounds,
And scenes of blood, and agonizing sounds.”

“O first of Greeks, (Ulysses thus rejoin’d,)
The best and bravest of the warrior kind!
Thy praise it is in dreadful camps to shine,
But old experience and calm wisdom mine.
Then hear my counsel, and to reason yield,
The bravest soon are satiate of the field;
Though vast the heaps that strow the crimson plain,
The bloody harvest brings but little gain:
The scale of conquest ever wavering lies,
Great Jove but turns it, and the victor dies!
The great, the bold, by thousands daily fall,
And endless were the grief, to weep for all.
Eternal sorrows what avails to shed?
Greece honours not with solemn fasts the dead:
Enough, when death demands the brave, to pay
The tribute of a melancholy day.
One chief with patience to the grave resign’d,
Our care devolves on others left behind.
Let generous food supplies of strength produce,
Let rising spirits flow from sprightly juice,
Let their warm heads with scenes of battle glow,
And pour new furies on the feebler foe.
Yet a short interval, and none shall dare
Expect a second summons to the war;
Who waits for that, the dire effects shall find,
If trembling in the ships he lags behind.
Embodied, to the battle let us bend,
And all at once on haughty Troy descend.”

And now the delegates Ulysses sent,
To bear the presents from the royal tent:
The sons of Nestor, Phyleus’ valiant heir,
Thias and Merion, thunderbolts of war,
With Lycomedes of Creiontian strain,
And Melanippus, form’d the chosen train.
Swift as the word was given, the youths obey’d:
Twice ten bright vases in the midst they laid;
A row of six fair tripods then succeeds;
And twice the number of high-bounding steeds:
Seven captives next a lovely line compose;
The eighth Briseïs, like the blooming rose,
Closed the bright band: great Ithacus, before,
First of the train, the golden talents bore:
The rest in public view the chiefs dispose,
A splendid scene! then Agamemnon rose:
The boar Talthybius held: the Grecian lord
Drew the broad cutlass sheath’d beside his sword:
The stubborn bristles from the victim’s brow
He crops, and offering meditates his vow.
His hands uplifted to the attesting skies,
On heaven’s broad marble roof were fixed his eyes.
The solemn words a deep attention draw,
And Greece around sat thrill’d with sacred awe.

“Witness thou first! thou greatest power above,
All-good, all-wise, and all-surveying Jove!
And mother-earth, and heaven’s revolving light,
And ye, fell furies of the realms of night,
Who rule the dead, and horrid woes prepare
For perjured kings, and all who falsely swear!
The black-eyed maid inviolate removes,
Pure and unconscious of my manly loves.
If this be false, heaven all its vengeance shed,
And levell’d thunder strike my guilty head!”

With that, his weapon deep inflicts the wound;
The bleeding savage tumbles to the ground;
The sacred herald rolls the victim slain
(A feast for fish) into the foaming main.

Then thus Achilles: “Hear, ye Greeks! and know
Whate’er we feel, ’tis Jove inflicts the woe;
Not else Atrides could our rage inflame,
Nor from my arms, unwilling, force the dame.
’Twas Jove’s high will alone, o’erruling all,
That doom’d our strife, and doom’d the Greeks to fall.
Go then, ye chiefs! indulge the genial rite;
Achilles waits ye, and expects the fight.”

The speedy council at his word adjourn’d:
To their black vessels all the Greeks return’d.
Achilles sought his tent. His train before
March’d onward, bending with the gifts they bore.
Those in the tents the squires industrious spread:
The foaming coursers to the stalls they led;
To their new seats the female captives move.
Briseïs, radiant as the queen of love,
Slow as she pass’d, beheld with sad survey
Where, gash’d with cruel wounds, Patroclus lay.
Prone on the body fell the heavenly fair,
Beat her sad breast, and tore her golden hair;
All beautiful in grief, her humid eyes
Shining with tears she lifts, and thus she cries:

“Ah, youth for ever dear, for ever kind,
Once tender friend of my distracted mind!
I left thee fresh in life, in beauty gay;
Now find thee cold, inanimated clay!
What woes my wretched race of life attend!
Sorrows on sorrows, never doom’d to end!
The first loved consort of my virgin bed
Before these eyes in fatal battle bled:
My three brave brothers in one mournful day
All trod the dark, irremeable way:
Thy friendly hand uprear’d me from the plain,
And dried my sorrows for a husband slain;
Achilles’ care you promised I should prove,
The first, the dearest partner of his love;
That rites divine should ratify the band,
And make me empress in his native land.
Accept these grateful tears! for thee they flow,
For thee, that ever felt another’s woe!”

Her sister captives echoed groan for groan,
Nor mourn’d Patroclus’ fortunes, but their own.
The leaders press’d the chief on every side;
Unmoved he heard them, and with sighs denied.

“If yet Achilles have a friend, whose care
Is bent to please him, this request forbear;
Till yonder sun descend, ah, let me pay
To grief and anguish one abstemious day.”

He spoke, and from the warriors turn’d his face:
Yet still the brother-kings of Atreus’ race.
Nestor, Idomeneus, Ulysses sage,
And Phœnix, strive to calm his grief and rage:
His rage they calm not, nor his grief control;
He groans, he raves, he sorrows from his soul.

“Thou too, Patroclus! (thus his heart he vents)
Once spread the inviting banquet in our tents:
Thy sweet society, thy winning care,
Once stay’d Achilles, rushing to the war.
But now, alas! to death’s cold arms resign’d,
What banquet but revenge can glad my mind?
What greater sorrow could afflict my breast,
What more if hoary Peleus were deceased?
Who now, perhaps, in Phthia dreads to hear
His son’s sad fate, and drops a tender tear.
What more, should Neoptolemus the brave,
My only offspring, sink into the grave?
If yet that offspring lives; (I distant far,
Of all neglectful, wage a hateful war.)
I could not this, this cruel stroke attend;
Fate claim’d Achilles, but might spare his friend.
I hoped Patroclus might survive, to rear
My tender orphan with a parent’s care,
From Scyros’ isle conduct him o’er the main,
And glad his eyes with his paternal reign,
The lofty palace, and the large domain.
For Peleus breathes no more the vital air;
Or drags a wretched life of age and care,
But till the news of my sad fate invades
His hastening soul, and sinks him to the shades.”

Sighing he said: his grief the heroes join’d,
Each stole a tear for what he left behind.
Their mingled grief the sire of heaven survey’d,
And thus with pity to his blue-eyed maid:

“Is then Achilles now no more thy care,
And dost thou thus desert the great in war?
Lo, where yon sails their canvas wings extend,
All comfortless he sits, and wails his friend:
Ere thirst and want his forces have oppress’d,
Haste and infuse ambrosia in his breast.”

He spoke; and sudden, at the word of Jove,
Shot the descending goddess from above.
So swift through ether the shrill harpy springs,
The wide air floating to her ample wings,
To great Achilles she her flight address’d,
And pour’d divine ambrosia in his breast,[259]
With nectar sweet, (refection of the gods!)
Then, swift ascending, sought the bright abodes.

Now issued from the ships the warrior-train,
And like a deluge pour’d upon the plain.
As when the piercing blasts of Boreas blow,
And scatter o’er the fields the driving snow;
From dusky clouds the fleecy winter flies,
Whose dazzling lustre whitens all the skies:
So helms succeeding helms, so shields from shields,
Catch the quick beams, and brighten all the fields;
Broad glittering breastplates, spears with pointed rays,
Mix in one stream, reflecting blaze on blaze;
Thick beats the centre as the coursers bound;
With splendour flame the skies, and laugh the fields around,

Full in the midst, high-towering o’er the rest,
His limbs in arms divine Achilles dress’d;
Arms which the father of the fire bestow’d,
Forged on the eternal anvils of the god.
Grief and revenge his furious heart inspire,
His glowing eyeballs roll with living fire;
He grinds his teeth, and furious with delay
O’erlooks the embattled host, and hopes the bloody day.

The silver cuishes first his thighs infold;
Then o’er his breast was braced the hollow gold;
The brazen sword a various baldric tied,
That, starr’d with gems, hung glittering at his side;
And, like the moon, the broad refulgent shield
Blazed with long rays, and gleam’d athwart the field.

So to night-wandering sailors, pale with fears,
Wide o’er the watery waste, a light appears,
Which on the far-seen mountain blazing high,
Streams from some lonely watch-tower to the sky:
With mournful eyes they gaze, and gaze again;
Loud howls the storm, and drives them o’er the main.

Next, his high head the helmet graced; behind
The sweepy crest hung floating in the wind:
Like the red star, that from his flaming hair
Shakes down diseases, pestilence, and war;
So stream’d the golden honours from his head,
Trembled the sparkling plumes, and the loose glories shed.
The chief beholds himself with wondering eyes;
His arms he poises, and his motions tries;
Buoy’d by some inward force, he seems to swim,
And feels a pinion lifting every limb.

And now he shakes his great paternal spear,
Ponderous and huge, which not a Greek could rear,
From Pelion’s cloudy top an ash entire
Old Chiron fell’d, and shaped it for his sire;
A spear which stern Achilles only wields,
The death of heroes, and the dread of fields.

Automedon and Alcimus prepare
The immortal coursers, and the radiant car;
(The silver traces sweeping at their side;)
Their fiery mouths resplendent bridles tied;
The ivory-studded reins, return’d behind,
Waved o’er their backs, and to the chariot join’d.
The charioteer then whirl’d the lash around,
And swift ascended at one active bound.
All bright in heavenly arms, above his squire
Achilles mounts, and sets the field on fire;
Not brighter Phœbus in the ethereal way
Flames from his chariot, and restores the day.
High o’er the host, all terrible he stands,
And thunders to his steeds these dread commands:

“Xanthus and Balius! of Podarges’ strain,
(Unless ye boast that heavenly race in vain,)
Be swift, be mindful of the load ye bear,
And learn to make your master more your care:
Through falling squadrons bear my slaughtering sword,
Nor, as ye left Patroclus, leave your lord.”

The generous Xanthus, as the words he said,
Seem’d sensible of woe, and droop’d his head:
Trembling he stood before the golden wain,
And bow’d to dust the honours of his mane.
When, strange to tell! (so Juno will’d) he broke
Eternal silence, and portentous spoke.
“Achilles! yes! this day at least we bear
Thy rage in safety through the files of war:
But come it will, the fatal time must come,
Not ours the fault, but God decrees thy doom.
Not through our crime, or slowness in the course,
Fell thy Patroclus, but by heavenly force;
The bright far-shooting god who gilds the day
(Confess’d we saw him) tore his arms away.
No—could our swiftness o’er the winds prevail,
Or beat the pinions of the western gale,
All were in vain—the Fates thy death demand,
Due to a mortal and immortal hand.”

Then ceased for ever, by the Furies tied,
His fateful voice. The intrepid chief replied
With unabated rage—“So let it be!
Portents and prodigies are lost on me.
I know my fate: to die, to see no more
My much-loved parents, and my native shore—
Enough—when heaven ordains, I sink in night:
Now perish Troy!” He said, and rush’d to fight.


[Illustration: ] HERCULES




BOOK XX.


ARGUMENT.


THE BATTLE OF THE GODS, AND THE ACTS OF ACHILLES.


Jupiter, upon Achilles’ return to the battle, calls a council of the
gods, and permits them to assist either party. The terrors of the
combat described, when the deities are engaged. Apollo encourages Æneas
to meet Achilles. After a long conversation, these two heroes
encounter; but Æneas is preserved by the assistance of Neptune.
Achilles falls upon the rest of the Trojans, and is upon the point of
killing Hector, but Apollo conveys him away in a cloud. Achilles
pursues the Trojans with a great slaughter.
    The same day continues. The scene is in the field before Troy.


Thus round Pelides breathing war and blood
Greece, sheathed in arms, beside her vessels stood;
While near impending from a neighbouring height,
Troy’s black battalions wait the shock of fight.
Then Jove to Themis gives command, to call
The gods to council in the starry hall:
Swift o’er Olympus’ hundred hills she flies,
And summons all the senate of the skies.
These shining on, in long procession come
To Jove’s eternal adamantine dome.
Not one was absent, not a rural power
That haunts the verdant gloom, or rosy bower;
Each fair-hair’d dryad of the shady wood,
Each azure sister of the silver flood;
All but old Ocean, hoary sire! who keeps
His ancient seat beneath the sacred deeps.
On marble thrones, with lucid columns crown’d,
(The work of Vulcan,) sat the powers around.
Even he whose trident sways the watery reign
Heard the loud summons, and forsook the main,
Assumed his throne amid the bright abodes,
And question’d thus the sire of men and gods:

“What moves the god who heaven and earth commands,
And grasps the thunder in his awful hands,
Thus to convene the whole ethereal state?
Is Greece and Troy the subject in debate?
Already met, the louring hosts appear,
And death stands ardent on the edge of war.”

“’Tis true (the cloud-compelling power replies)
This day we call the council of the skies
In care of human race; even Jove’s own eye
Sees with regret unhappy mortals die.
Far on Olympus’ top in secret state
Ourself will sit, and see the hand of fate
Work out our will. Celestial powers! descend,
And as your minds direct, your succour lend
To either host. Troy soon must lie o’erthrown,
If uncontroll’d Achilles fights alone:
Their troops but lately durst not meet his eyes;
What can they now, if in his rage he rise?
Assist them, gods! or Ilion’s sacred wall
May fall this day, though fate forbids the fall.”
He said, and fired their heavenly breasts with rage.

On adverse parts the warring gods engage:
Heaven’s awful queen; and he whose azure round
Girds the vast globe; the maid in arms renown’d;
Hermes, of profitable arts the sire;
And Vulcan, the black sovereign of the fire:
These to the fleet repair with instant flight;
The vessels tremble as the gods alight.
In aid of Troy, Latona, Phœbus came,
Mars fiery-helm’d, the laughter-loving dame,
Xanthus, whose streams in golden currents flow,
And the chaste huntress of the silver bow.
Ere yet the gods their various aid employ,
Each Argive bosom swell’d with manly joy,
While great Achilles (terror of the plain),
Long lost to battle, shone in arms again.
Dreadful he stood in front of all his host;
Pale Troy beheld, and seem’d already lost;
Her bravest heroes pant with inward fear,
And trembling see another god of war.

But when the powers descending swell’d the fight,
Then tumult rose: fierce rage and pale affright
Varied each face: then Discord sounds alarms,
Earth echoes, and the nations rush to arms.
Now through the trembling shores Minerva calls,
And now she thunders from the Grecian walls.
Mars hovering o’er his Troy, his terror shrouds
In gloomy tempests, and a night of clouds:
Now through each Trojan heart he fury pours
With voice divine, from Ilion’s topmost towers:
Now shouts to Simois, from her beauteous hill;
The mountain shook, the rapid stream stood still.

Above, the sire of gods his thunder rolls,
And peals on peals redoubled rend the poles.
Beneath, stern Neptune shakes the solid ground;
The forests wave, the mountains nod around;
Through all their summits tremble Ida’s woods,
And from their sources boil her hundred floods.
Troy’s turrets totter on the rocking plain,
And the toss’d navies beat the heaving main.
Deep in the dismal regions of the dead,[260]
The infernal monarch rear’d his horrid head,
Leap’d from his throne, lest Neptune’s arm should lay
His dark dominions open to the day,
And pour in light on Pluto’s drear abodes,
Abhorr’d by men, and dreadful even to gods.[261]


[Illustration: ] THE GODS DESCENDING TO BATTLE


Such war the immortals wage; such horrors rend
The world’s vast concave, when the gods contend.
First silver-shafted Phœbus took the plain
Against blue Neptune, monarch of the main.
The god of arms his giant bulk display’d,
Opposed to Pallas, war’s triumphant maid.
Against Latona march’d the son of May.
The quiver’d Dian, sister of the day,
(Her golden arrows sounding at her side,)
Saturnia, majesty of heaven, defied.
With fiery Vulcan last in battle stands
The sacred flood that rolls on golden sands;
Xanthus his name with those of heavenly birth,
But called Scamander by the sons of earth.

While thus the gods in various league engage,
Achilles glow’d with more than mortal rage:
Hector he sought; in search of Hector turn’d
His eyes around, for Hector only burn’d;
And burst like lightning through the ranks, and vow’d
To glut the god of battles with his blood.

Æneas was the first who dared to stay;
Apollo wedged him in the warrior’s way,
But swell’d his bosom with undaunted might,
Half-forced and half-persuaded to the fight.
Like young Lycaon, of the royal line,
In voice and aspect, seem’d the power divine;
And bade the chief reflect, how late with scorn
In distant threats he braved the goddess-born.

Then thus the hero of Anchises’ strain:
“To meet Pelides you persuade in vain:
Already have I met, nor void of fear
Observed the fury of his flying spear;
From Ida’s woods he chased us to the field,
Our force he scattered, and our herds he kill’d;
Lyrnessus, Pedasus in ashes lay;
But (Jove assisting) I survived the day:
Else had I sunk oppress’d in fatal fight
By fierce Achilles and Minerva’s might.
Where’er he moved, the goddess shone before,
And bathed his brazen lance in hostile gore.
What mortal man Achilles can sustain?
The immortals guard him through the dreadful plain,
And suffer not his dart to fall in vain.
Were God my aid, this arm should check his power,
Though strong in battle as a brazen tower.”

To whom the son of Jove: “That god implore,
And be what great Achilles was before.
From heavenly Venus thou deriv’st thy strain,
And he but from a sister of the main;
An aged sea-god father of his line;
But Jove himself the sacred source of thine.
Then lift thy weapon for a noble blow,
Nor fear the vaunting of a mortal foe.”

This said, and spirit breathed into his breast,
Through the thick troops the embolden’d hero press’d:
His venturous act the white-arm’d queen survey’d,
And thus, assembling all the powers, she said:

“Behold an action, gods! that claims your care,
Lo great Æneas rushing to the war!
Against Pelides he directs his course,
Phœbus impels, and Phœbus gives him force.
Restrain his bold career; at least, to attend
Our favour’d hero, let some power descend.
To guard his life, and add to his renown,
We, the great armament of heaven, came down.
Hereafter let him fall, as Fates design,
That spun so short his life’s illustrious line:[262]
But lest some adverse god now cross his way,
Give him to know what powers assist this day:
For how shall mortal stand the dire alarms,
When heaven’s refulgent host appear in arms?”[263]

Thus she; and thus the god whose force can make
The solid globe’s eternal basis shake:
“Against the might of man, so feeble known,
Why should celestial powers exert their own?
Suffice from yonder mount to view the scene,
And leave to war the fates of mortal men.
But if the armipotent, or god of light,
Obstruct Achilles, or commence the fight,
Thence on the gods of Troy we swift descend:
Full soon, I doubt not, shall the conflict end;
And these, in ruin and confusion hurl’d,
Yield to our conquering arms the lower world.”

Thus having said, the tyrant of the sea,
Coerulean Neptune, rose, and led the way.
Advanced upon the field there stood a mound
Of earth congested, wall’d, and trench’d around;
In elder times to guard Alcides made,
(The work of Trojans, with Minerva’s aid,)
What time a vengeful monster of the main
Swept the wide shore, and drove him to the plain.

Here Neptune and the gods of Greece repair,
With clouds encompass’d, and a veil of air:
The adverse powers, around Apollo laid,
Crown the fair hills that silver Simois shade.
In circle close each heavenly party sat,
Intent to form the future scheme of fate;
But mix not yet in fight, though Jove on high
Gives the loud signal, and the heavens reply.

Meanwhile the rushing armies hide the ground;
The trampled centre yields a hollow sound:
Steeds cased in mail, and chiefs in armour bright,
The gleaming champaign glows with brazen light.
Amid both hosts (a dreadful space) appear,
There great Achilles; bold Æneas, here.
With towering strides Æneas first advanced;
The nodding plumage on his helmet danced:
Spread o’er his breast the fencing shield he bore,
And, so he moved, his javelin flamed before.
Not so Pelides; furious to engage,
He rush’d impetuous. Such the lion’s rage,
Who viewing first his foes with scornful eyes,
Though all in arms the peopled city rise,
Stalks careless on, with unregarding pride;
Till at the length, by some brave youth defied,
To his bold spear the savage turns alone,
He murmurs fury with a hollow groan;
He grins, he foams, he rolls his eyes around,
Lash’d by his tail his heaving sides resound;
He calls up all his rage; he grinds his teeth,
Resolved on vengeance, or resolved on death.
So fierce Achilles on Æneas flies;
So stands Æneas, and his force defies.
Ere yet the stern encounter join’d, begun
The seed of Thetis thus to Venus’ son:

“Why comes Æneas through the ranks so far?
Seeks he to meet Achilles’ arm in war,
In hope the realms of Priam to enjoy,
And prove his merits to the throne of Troy?
Grant that beneath thy lance Achilles dies,
The partial monarch may refuse the prize;
Sons he has many; those thy pride may quell:
And ’tis his fault to love those sons too well,
Or, in reward of thy victorious hand,
Has Troy proposed some spacious tract of land,
An ample forest, or a fair domain,
Of hills for vines, and arable for grain?
Even this, perhaps, will hardly prove thy lot.
But can Achilles be so soon forgot?
Once (as I think) you saw this brandish’d spear,
And then the great Æneas seem’d to fear:
With hearty haste from Ida’s mount he fled,
Nor, till he reach’d Lyrnessus, turn’d his head.
Her lofty walls not long our progress stay’d;
Those, Pallas, Jove, and we, in ruins laid:
In Grecian chains her captive race were cast;
’Tis true, the great Æneas fled too fast.
Defrauded of my conquest once before,
What then I lost, the gods this day restore.
Go; while thou may’st, avoid the threaten’d fate;
Fools stay to feel it, and are wise too late.”

To this Anchises’ son: “Such words employ
To one that fears thee, some unwarlike boy;
Such we disdain; the best may be defied
With mean reproaches, and unmanly pride;
Unworthy the high race from which we came
Proclaim’d so loudly by the voice of fame:
Each from illustrious fathers draws his line;
Each goddess-born; half human, half divine.
Thetis’ this day, or Venus’ offspring dies,
And tears shall trickle from celestial eyes:
For when two heroes, thus derived, contend,
’Tis not in words the glorious strife can end.
If yet thou further seek to learn my birth
(A tale resounded through the spacious earth)
Hear how the glorious origin we prove
From ancient Dardanus, the first from Jove:
Dardania’s walls he raised; for Ilion, then,
(The city since of many-languaged men,)
Was not. The natives were content to till
The shady foot of Ida’s fountful hill.[264]
From Dardanus great Erichthonius springs,
The richest, once, of Asia’s wealthy kings;
Three thousand mares his spacious pastures bred,
Three thousand foals beside their mothers fed.
Boreas, enamour’d of the sprightly train,
Conceal’d his godhead in a flowing mane,
With voice dissembled to his loves he neigh’d,
And coursed the dappled beauties o’er the mead:
Hence sprung twelve others of unrivall’d kind,
Swift as their mother mares, and father wind.
These lightly skimming, when they swept the plain,
Nor plied the grass, nor bent the tender grain;
And when along the level seas they flew,[265]
Scarce on the surface curl’d the briny dew.
Such Erichthonius was: from him there came
The sacred Tros, of whom the Trojan name.
Three sons renown’d adorn’d his nuptial bed,
Ilus, Assaracus, and Ganymed:
The matchless Ganymed, divinely fair,
Whom heaven, enamour’d, snatch’d to upper air,
To bear the cup of Jove (ethereal guest,
The grace and glory of the ambrosial feast).
The two remaining sons the line divide:
First rose Laomedon from Ilus’ side;
From him Tithonus, now in cares grown old,
And Priam, bless’d with Hector, brave and bold;
Clytius and Lampus, ever-honour’d pair;
And Hicetaon, thunderbolt of war.
From great Assaracus sprang Capys, he
Begat Anchises, and Anchises me.
Such is our race: ’tis fortune gives us birth,
But Jove alone endues the soul with worth:
He, source of power and might! with boundless sway,
All human courage gives, or takes away.
Long in the field of words we may contend,
Reproach is infinite, and knows no end,
Arm’d or with truth or falsehood, right or wrong;
So voluble a weapon is the tongue;
Wounded, we wound; and neither side can fail,
For every man has equal strength to rail:
Women alone, when in the streets they jar,
Perhaps excel us in this wordy war;
Like us they stand, encompass’d with the crowd,
And vent their anger impotent and loud.
Cease then—Our business in the field of fight
Is not to question, but to prove our might.
To all those insults thou hast offer’d here,
Receive this answer: ’tis my flying spear.”

He spoke. With all his force the javelin flung,
Fix’d deep, and loudly in the buckler rung.
Far on his outstretch’d arm, Pelides held
(To meet the thundering lance) his dreadful shield,
That trembled as it stuck; nor void of fear
Saw, ere it fell, the immeasurable spear.
His fears were vain; impenetrable charms
Secured the temper of the ethereal arms.
Through two strong plates the point its passage held,
But stopp’d, and rested, by the third repell’d.
Five plates of various metal, various mould,
Composed the shield; of brass each outward fold,
Of tin each inward, and the middle gold:
There stuck the lance. Then rising ere he threw,
The forceful spear of great Achilles flew,
And pierced the Dardan shield’s extremest bound,
Where the shrill brass return’d a sharper sound:
Through the thin verge the Pelean weapon glides,
And the slight covering of expanded hides.
Æneas his contracted body bends,
And o’er him high the riven targe extends,
Sees, through its parting plates, the upper air,
And at his back perceives the quivering spear:
A fate so near him, chills his soul with fright;
And swims before his eyes the many-colour’d light.
Achilles, rushing in with dreadful cries,
Draws his broad blade, and at Æneas flies:
Æneas rousing as the foe came on,
With force collected, heaves a mighty stone:
A mass enormous! which in modern days
No two of earth’s degenerate sons could raise.
But ocean’s god, whose earthquakes rock the ground
Saw the distress, and moved the powers around:

“Lo! on the brink of fate Æneas stands,
An instant victim to Achilles’ hands;
By Phœbus urged; but Phœbus has bestow’d
His aid in vain: the man o’erpowers the god.
And can ye see this righteous chief atone
With guiltless blood for vices not his own?
To all the gods his constant vows were paid;
Sure, though he wars for Troy, he claims our aid.
Fate wills not this; nor thus can Jove resign
The future father of the Dardan line:[266]
The first great ancestor obtain’d his grace,
And still his love descends on all the race:
For Priam now, and Priam’s faithless kind,
At length are odious to the all-seeing mind;
On great Æneas shall devolve the reign,
And sons succeeding sons the lasting line sustain.”

The great earth-shaker thus: to whom replies
The imperial goddess with the radiant eyes:
“Good as he is, to immolate or spare
The Dardan prince, O Neptune! be thy care;
Pallas and I, by all that gods can bind,
Have sworn destruction to the Trojan kind;
Not even an instant to protract their fate,
Or save one member of the sinking state;
Till her last flame be quench’d with her last gore,
And even her crumbling ruins are no more.”

The king of ocean to the fight descends,
Through all the whistling darts his course he bends,
Swift interposed between the warrior flies,
And casts thick darkness o’er Achilles’ eyes.[267]
From great Æneas’ shield the spear he drew,
And at his master’s feet the weapon threw.
That done, with force divine he snatch’d on high
The Dardan prince, and bore him through the sky,
Smooth-gliding without step, above the heads
Of warring heroes, and of bounding steeds:
Till at the battle’s utmost verge they light,
Where the slow Caucans close the rear of fight.
The godhead there (his heavenly form confess’d)
With words like these the panting chief address’d:

“What power, O prince! with force inferior far,
Urged thee to meet Achilles’ arm in war?
Henceforth beware, nor antedate thy doom,
Defrauding fate of all thy fame to come.
But when the day decreed (for come it must)
Shall lay this dreadful hero in the dust,
Let then the furies of that arm be known,
Secure no Grecian force transcends thy own.”

With that, he left him wondering as he lay,
Then from Achilles chased the mist away:
Sudden, returning with a stream of light,
The scene of war came rushing on his sight.
Then thus, amazed; “What wonders strike my mind!
My spear, that parted on the wings of wind,
Laid here before me! and the Dardan lord,
That fell this instant, vanish’d from my sword!
I thought alone with mortals to contend,
But powers celestial sure this foe defend.
Great as he is, our arms he scarce will try,
Content for once, with all his gods, to fly.
Now then let others bleed.” This said, aloud
He vents his fury and inflames the crowd:
“O Greeks! (he cries, and every rank alarms)
Join battle, man to man, and arms to arms!
’Tis not in me, though favour’d by the sky,
To mow whole troops, and make whole armies fly:
No god can singly such a host engage,
Not Mars himself, nor great Minerva’s rage.
But whatsoe’er Achilles can inspire,
Whate’er of active force, or acting fire;
Whate’er this heart can prompt, or hand obey;
All, all Achilles, Greeks! is yours to-day.
Through yon wide host this arm shall scatter fear,
And thin the squadrons with my single spear.”

He said: nor less elate with martial joy,
The godlike Hector warm’d the troops of Troy:
“Trojans, to war! Think, Hector leads you on;
Nor dread the vaunts of Peleus’ haughty son.
Deeds must decide our fate. E’en these with words
Insult the brave, who tremble at their swords:
The weakest atheist-wretch all heaven defies,
But shrinks and shudders when the thunder flies.
Nor from yon boaster shall your chief retire,
Not though his heart were steel, his hands were fire;
That fire, that steel, your Hector should withstand,
And brave that vengeful heart, that dreadful hand.”

Thus (breathing rage through all) the hero said;
A wood of lances rises round his head,
Clamours on clamours tempest all the air,
They join, they throng, they thicken to the war.
But Phœbus warns him from high heaven to shun
The single fight with Thetis’ godlike son;
More safe to combat in the mingled band,
Nor tempt too near the terrors of his hand.
He hears, obedient to the god of light,
And, plunged within the ranks, awaits the fight.

Then fierce Achilles, shouting to the skies,
On Troy’s whole force with boundless fury flies.
First falls Iphytion, at his army’s head;
Brave was the chief, and brave the host he led;
From great Otrynteus he derived his blood,
His mother was a Nais, of the flood;
Beneath the shades of Tmolus, crown’d with snow,
From Hyde’s walls he ruled the lands below.
Fierce as he springs, the sword his head divides:
The parted visage falls on equal sides:
With loud-resounding arms he strikes the plain;
While thus Achilles glories o’er the slain:

“Lie there, Otryntides! the Trojan earth
Receives thee dead, though Gygae boast thy birth;
Those beauteous fields where Hyllus’ waves are roll’d,
And plenteous Hermus swells with tides of gold,
Are thine no more.”—The insulting hero said,
And left him sleeping in eternal shade.
The rolling wheels of Greece the body tore,
And dash’d their axles with no vulgar gore.

Demoleon next, Antenor’s offspring, laid
Breathless in dust, the price of rashness paid.
The impatient steel with full-descending sway
Forced through his brazen helm its furious way,
Resistless drove the batter’d skull before,
And dash’d and mingled all the brains with gore.
This sees Hippodamas, and seized with fright,
Deserts his chariot for a swifter flight:
The lance arrests him: an ignoble wound
The panting Trojan rivets to the ground.
He groans away his soul: not louder roars,
At Neptune’s shrine on Helicè’s high shores,
The victim bull; the rocks re-bellow round,
And ocean listens to the grateful sound.
Then fell on Polydore his vengeful rage,[268]
The youngest hope of Priam’s stooping age:
(Whose feet for swiftness in the race surpass’d:)
Of all his sons, the dearest, and the last.
To the forbidden field he takes his flight,
In the first folly of a youthful knight,
To vaunt his swiftness wheels around the plain,
But vaunts not long, with all his swiftness slain:
Struck where the crossing belts unite behind,
And golden rings the double back-plate join’d
Forth through the navel burst the thrilling steel;
And on his knees with piercing shrieks he fell;
The rushing entrails pour’d upon the ground
His hands collect; and darkness wraps him round.
When Hector view’d, all ghastly in his gore,
Thus sadly slain the unhappy Polydore,
A cloud of sorrow overcast his sight,
His soul no longer brook’d the distant fight:
Full in Achilles’ dreadful front he came,
And shook his javelin like a waving flame.
The son of Peleus sees, with joy possess’d,
His heart high-bounding in his rising breast.
“And, lo! the man on whom black fates attend;
The man, that slew Achilles, is his friend!
No more shall Hector’s and Pelides’ spear
Turn from each other in the walks of war.”—
Then with revengeful eyes he scann’d him o’er:
“Come, and receive thy fate!” He spake no more.

Hector, undaunted, thus: “Such words employ
To one that dreads thee, some unwarlike boy:
Such we could give, defying and defied,
Mean intercourse of obloquy and pride!
I know thy force to mine superior far;
But heaven alone confers success in war:
Mean as I am, the gods may guide my dart,
And give it entrance in a braver heart.”

Then parts the lance: but Pallas’ heavenly breath
Far from Achilles wafts the winged death:
The bidden dart again to Hector flies,
And at the feet of its great master lies.
Achilles closes with his hated foe,
His heart and eyes with flaming fury glow:
But present to his aid, Apollo shrouds
The favour’d hero in a veil of clouds.
Thrice struck Pelides with indignant heart,
Thrice in impassive air he plunged the dart;
The spear a fourth time buried in the cloud.
He foams with fury, and exclaims aloud:

“Wretch! thou hast ’scaped again; once more thy flight
Has saved thee, and the partial god of light.
But long thou shalt not thy just fate withstand,
If any power assist Achilles’ hand.
Fly then inglorious! but thy flight this day
Whole hecatombs of Trojan ghosts shall pay.”

With that, he gluts his rage on numbers slain:
Then Dryops tumbled to the ensanguined plain,
Pierced through the neck: he left him panting there,
And stopp’d Demuchus, great Philetor’s heir.
Gigantic chief! deep gash’d the enormous blade,
And for the soul an ample passage made.
Laoganus and Dardanus expire,
The valiant sons of an unhappy sire;
Both in one instant from the chariot hurl’d,
Sunk in one instant to the nether world:
This difference only their sad fates afford
That one the spear destroy’d, and one the sword.

Nor less unpitied, young Alastor bleeds;
In vain his youth, in vain his beauty pleads;
In vain he begs thee, with a suppliant’s moan,
To spare a form, an age so like thy own!
Unhappy boy! no prayer, no moving art,
E’er bent that fierce, inexorable heart!
While yet he trembled at his knees, and cried,
The ruthless falchion oped his tender side;
The panting liver pours a flood of gore
That drowns his bosom till he pants no more.

Through Mulius’ head then drove the impetuous spear:
The warrior falls, transfix’d from ear to ear.
Thy life, Echeclus! next the sword bereaves,
Deep though the front the ponderous falchion cleaves;
Warm’d in the brain the smoking weapon lies,
The purple death comes floating o’er his eyes.
Then brave Deucalion died: the dart was flung
Where the knit nerves the pliant elbow strung;
He dropp’d his arm, an unassisting weight,
And stood all impotent, expecting fate:
Full on his neck the falling falchion sped,
From his broad shoulders hew’d his crested head:
Forth from the bone the spinal marrow flies,
And, sunk in dust, the corpse extended lies.
Rhigmas, whose race from fruitful Thracia came,
(The son of Pierus, an illustrious name,)
Succeeds to fate: the spear his belly rends;
Prone from his car the thundering chief descends.
The squire, who saw expiring on the ground
His prostrate master, rein’d the steeds around;
His back, scarce turn’d, the Pelian javelin gored,
And stretch’d the servant o’er his dying lord.
As when a flame the winding valley fills,
And runs on crackling shrubs between the hills;
Then o’er the stubble up the mountain flies,
Fires the high woods, and blazes to the skies,
This way and that, the spreading torrent roars:
So sweeps the hero through the wasted shores;
Around him wide, immense destruction pours
And earth is deluged with the sanguine showers,
As with autumnal harvests cover’d o’er,
And thick bestrewn, lies Ceres’ sacred floor;
When round and round, with never-wearied pain,
The trampling steers beat out the unnumber’d grain:
So the fierce coursers, as the chariot rolls,
Tread down whole ranks, and crush out heroes’ souls,
Dash’d from their hoofs while o’er the dead they fly,
Black, bloody drops the smoking chariot dye:
The spiky wheels through heaps of carnage tore;
And thick the groaning axles dropp’d with gore.
High o’er the scene of death Achilles stood,
All grim with dust, all horrible in blood:
Yet still insatiate, still with rage on flame;
Such is the lust of never-dying fame!


[Illustration: ] CENTAUR




BOOK XXI.


ARGUMENT.


THE BATTLE IN THE RIVER SCAMANDER.[269]


The Trojans fly before Achilles, some towards the town, others to the
river Scamander: he falls upon the latter with great slaughter: takes
twelve captives alive, to sacrifice to the shade of Patroclus; and
kills Lycaon and Asteropeus. Scamander attacks him with all his waves:
Neptune and Pallas assist the hero: Simois joins Scamander: at length
Vulcan, by the instigation of Juno, almost dries up the river. This
combat ended, the other gods engage each other. Meanwhile Achilles
continues the slaughter, drives the rest into Troy: Agenor only makes a
stand, and is conveyed away in a cloud by Apollo; who (to delude
Achilles) takes upon him Agenor’s shape, and while he pursues him in
that disguise, gives the Trojans an opportunity of retiring into their
city.
    The same day continues. The scene is on the banks and in the stream
    of Scamander.


And now to Xanthus’ gliding stream they drove,
Xanthus, immortal progeny of Jove.
The river here divides the flying train,
Part to the town fly diverse o’er the plain,
Where late their troops triumphant bore the fight,
Now chased, and trembling in ignoble flight:
(These with a gathered mist Saturnia shrouds,
And rolls behind the rout a heap of clouds:)
Part plunge into the stream: old Xanthus roars,
The flashing billows beat the whiten’d shores:
With cries promiscuous all the banks resound,
And here, and there, in eddies whirling round,
The flouncing steeds and shrieking warriors drown’d.
As the scorch’d locusts from their fields retire,
While fast behind them runs the blaze of fire;
Driven from the land before the smoky cloud,
The clustering legions rush into the flood:
So, plunged in Xanthus by Achilles’ force,
Roars the resounding surge with men and horse.
His bloody lance the hero casts aside,
(Which spreading tamarisks on the margin hide,)
Then, like a god, the rapid billows braves,
Arm’d with his sword, high brandish’d o’er the waves:
Now down he plunges, now he whirls it round,
Deep groan’d the waters with the dying sound;
Repeated wounds the reddening river dyed,
And the warm purple circled on the tide.
Swift through the foamy flood the Trojans fly,
And close in rocks or winding caverns lie:
So the huge dolphin tempesting the main,
In shoals before him fly the scaly train,
Confusedly heap’d they seek their inmost caves,
Or pant and heave beneath the floating waves.
Now, tired with slaughter, from the Trojan band
Twelve chosen youths he drags alive to land;
With their rich belts their captive arms restrains
(Late their proud ornaments, but now their chains).
These his attendants to the ships convey’d,
Sad victims destined to Patroclus’ shade;

Then, as once more he plunged amid the flood,
The young Lycaon in his passage stood;
The son of Priam; whom the hero’s hand
But late made captive in his father’s land
(As from a sycamore, his sounding steel
Lopp’d the green arms to spoke a chariot wheel)
To Lemnos’ isle he sold the royal slave,
Where Jason’s son the price demanded gave;
But kind Eetion, touching on the shore,
The ransom’d prince to fair Arisbe bore.
Ten days were past, since in his father’s reign
He felt the sweets of liberty again;
The next, that god whom men in vain withstand
Gives the same youth to the same conquering hand
Now never to return! and doom’d to go
A sadder journey to the shades below.
His well-known face when great Achilles eyed,
(The helm and visor he had cast aside
With wild affright, and dropp’d upon the field
His useless lance and unavailing shield,)
As trembling, panting, from the stream he fled,
And knock’d his faltering knees, the hero said:
“Ye mighty gods! what wonders strike my view!
Is it in vain our conquering arms subdue?
Sure I shall see yon heaps of Trojans kill’d
Rise from the shades, and brave me on the field;
As now the captive, whom so late I bound
And sold to Lemnos, stalks on Trojan ground!
Not him the sea’s unmeasured deeps detain,
That bar such numbers from their native plain;
Lo! he returns. Try, then, my flying spear!
Try, if the grave can hold the wanderer;
If earth, at length this active prince can seize,
Earth, whose strong grasp has held down Hercules.”

Thus while he spoke, the Trojan pale with fears
Approach’d, and sought his knees with suppliant tears
Loth as he was to yield his youthful breath,
And his soul shivering at the approach of death.
Achilles raised the spear, prepared to wound;
He kiss’d his feet, extended on the ground:
And while, above, the spear suspended stood,
Longing to dip its thirsty point in blood,
One hand embraced them close, one stopp’d the dart,
While thus these melting words attempt his heart:

“Thy well-known captive, great Achilles! see,
Once more Lycaon trembles at thy knee.
Some pity to a suppliant’s name afford,
Who shared the gifts of Ceres at thy board;
Whom late thy conquering arm to Lemnos bore,
Far from his father, friends, and native shore;
A hundred oxen were his price that day,
Now sums immense thy mercy shall repay.
Scarce respited from woes I yet appear,
And scarce twelve morning suns have seen me here;
Lo! Jove again submits me to thy hands,
Again, her victim cruel Fate demands!
I sprang from Priam, and Laothoe fair,
(Old Altes’ daughter, and Lelegia’s heir;
Who held in Pedasus his famed abode,
And ruled the fields where silver Satnio flow’d,)
Two sons (alas! unhappy sons) she bore;
For ah! one spear shall drink each brother’s gore,
And I succeed to slaughter’d Polydore.
How from that arm of terror shall I fly?
Some demon urges! ’tis my doom to die!
If ever yet soft pity touch’d thy mind,
Ah! think not me too much of Hector’s kind!
Not the same mother gave thy suppliant breath,
With his, who wrought thy loved Patroclus’ death.”

These words, attended with a shower of tears,
The youth address’d to unrelenting ears:
“Talk not of life, or ransom (he replies):
Patroclus dead, whoever meets me, dies:
In vain a single Trojan sues for grace;
But least, the sons of Priam’s hateful race.
Die then, my friend! what boots it to deplore?
The great, the good Patroclus is no more!
He, far thy better, was foredoom’d to die,
And thou, dost thou bewail mortality?
Seest thou not me, whom nature’s gifts adorn,
Sprung from a hero, from a goddess born?
The day shall come (which nothing can avert)
When by the spear, the arrow, or the dart,
By night, or day, by force, or by design,
Impending death and certain fate are mine!
Die then,”—He said; and as the word he spoke,
The fainting stripling sank before the stroke:
His hand forgot its grasp, and left the spear,
While all his trembling frame confess’d his fear:
Sudden, Achilles his broad sword display’d,
And buried in his neck the reeking blade.
Prone fell the youth; and panting on the land,
The gushing purple dyed the thirsty sand.
The victor to the stream the carcase gave,
And thus insults him, floating on the wave:

“Lie there, Lycaon! let the fish surround
Thy bloated corpse, and suck thy gory wound:
There no sad mother shall thy funerals weep,
But swift Scamander roll thee to the deep,
Whose every wave some watery monster brings,
To feast unpunish’d on the fat of kings.
So perish Troy, and all the Trojan line!
Such ruin theirs, and such compassion mine.
What boots ye now Scamander’s worshipp’d stream,
His earthly honours, and immortal name?
In vain your immolated bulls are slain,
Your living coursers glut his gulfs in vain!
Thus he rewards you, with this bitter fate;
Thus, till the Grecian vengeance is complete:
Thus is atoned Patroclus’ honour’d shade,
And the short absence of Achilles paid.”

These boastful words provoked the raging god;
With fury swells the violated flood.
What means divine may yet the power employ
To check Achilles, and to rescue Troy?
Meanwhile the hero springs in arms, to dare
The great Asteropeus to mortal war;
The son of Pelagon, whose lofty line
Flows from the source of Axius, stream divine!
(Fair Peribaea’s love the god had crown’d,
With all his refluent waters circled round:)
On him Achilles rush’d; he fearless stood,
And shook two spears, advancing from the flood;
The flood impell’d him, on Pelides’ head
To avenge his waters choked with heaps of dead.
Near as they drew, Achilles thus began:

“What art thou, boldest of the race of man?
Who, or from whence? Unhappy is the sire
Whose son encounters our resistless ire.”

“O son of Peleus! what avails to trace
(Replied the warrior) our illustrious race?
From rich Paeonia’s valleys I command,
Arm’d with protended spears, my native band;
Now shines the tenth bright morning since I came
In aid of Ilion to the fields of fame:
Axius, who swells with all the neighbouring rills,
And wide around the floated region fills,
Begot my sire, whose spear much glory won:
Now lift thy arm, and try that hero’s son!”

Threatening he said: the hostile chiefs advance;
At once Asteropeus discharged each lance,
(For both his dexterous hands the lance could wield,)
One struck, but pierced not, the Vulcanian shield;
One razed Achilles’ hand; the spouting blood
Spun forth; in earth the fasten’d weapon stood.
Like lightning next the Pelean javelin flies:
Its erring fury hiss’d along the skies;
Deep in the swelling bank was driven the spear,
Even to the middle earth; and quiver’d there.
Then from his side the sword Pelides drew,
And on his foe with double fury flew.
The foe thrice tugg’d, and shook the rooted wood;
Repulsive of his might the weapon stood:
The fourth, he tries to break the spear in vain;
Bent as he stands, he tumbles to the plain;
His belly open’d with a ghastly wound,
The reeking entrails pour upon the ground.
Beneath the hero’s feet he panting lies,
And his eye darkens, and his spirit flies;
While the proud victor thus triumphing said,
His radiant armour tearing from the dead:

“So ends thy glory! Such the fate they prove,
Who strive presumptuous with the sons of Jove!
Sprung from a river, didst thou boast thy line?
But great Saturnius is the source of mine.
How durst thou vaunt thy watery progeny?
Of Peleus, Æacus, and Jove, am I.
The race of these superior far to those,
As he that thunders to the stream that flows.
What rivers can, Scamander might have shown;
But Jove he dreads, nor wars against his son.
Even Achelous might contend in vain,
And all the roaring billows of the main.
The eternal ocean, from whose fountains flow
The seas, the rivers, and the springs below,
The thundering voice of Jove abhors to hear,
And in his deep abysses shakes with fear.”

He said: then from the bank his javelin tore,
And left the breathless warrior in his gore.
The floating tides the bloody carcase lave,
And beat against it, wave succeeding wave;
Till, roll’d between the banks, it lies the food
Of curling eels, and fishes of the flood.
All scatter’d round the stream (their mightiest slain)
The amazed Pæonians scour along the plain;
He vents his fury on the flying crew,
Thrasius, Astyplus, and Mnesus slew;
Mydon, Thersilochus, with Ænius, fell;
And numbers more his lance had plunged to hell,
But from the bottom of his gulfs profound
Scamander spoke; the shores return’d the sound.

“O first of mortals! (for the gods are thine)
In valour matchless, and in force divine!
If Jove have given thee every Trojan head,
’Tis not on me thy rage should heap the dead.
See! my choked streams no more their course can keep,
Nor roll their wonted tribute to the deep.
Turn then, impetuous! from our injured flood;
Content, thy slaughters could amaze a god.”

In human form, confess’d before his eyes,
The river thus; and thus the chief replies:
“O sacred stream! thy word we shall obey;
But not till Troy the destined vengeance pay,
Not till within her towers the perjured train
Shall pant, and tremble at our arms again;
Not till proud Hector, guardian of her wall,
Or stain this lance, or see Achilles fall.”

He said; and drove with fury on the foe.
Then to the godhead of the silver bow
The yellow flood began: “O son of Jove!
Was not the mandate of the sire above
Full and express, that Phœbus should employ
His sacred arrows in defence of Troy,
And make her conquer, till Hyperion’s fall
In awful darkness hide the face of all?”

He spoke in vain—The chief without dismay
Ploughs through the boiling surge his desperate way.
Then rising in his rage above the shores,
From all his deep the bellowing river roars,
Huge heaps of slain disgorges on the coast,
And round the banks the ghastly dead are toss’d.
While all before, the billows ranged on high,
(A watery bulwark,) screen the bands who fly.
Now bursting on his head with thundering sound,
The falling deluge whelms the hero round:
His loaded shield bends to the rushing tide;
His feet, upborne, scarce the strong flood divide,
Sliddering, and staggering. On the border stood
A spreading elm, that overhung the flood;
He seized a bending bough, his steps to stay;
The plant uprooted to his weight gave way.[270]
Heaving the bank, and undermining all;
Loud flash the waters to the rushing fall
Of the thick foliage. The large trunk display’d
Bridged the rough flood across: the hero stay’d
On this his weight, and raised upon his hand,
Leap’d from the channel, and regain’d the land.
Then blacken’d the wild waves: the murmur rose:
The god pursues, a huger billow throws,
And bursts the bank, ambitious to destroy
The man whose fury is the fate of Troy.
He like the warlike eagle speeds his pace
(Swiftest and strongest of the aerial race);
Far as a spear can fly, Achilles springs;
At every bound his clanging armour rings:
Now here, now there, he turns on every side,
And winds his course before the following tide;
The waves flow after, wheresoe’er he wheels,
And gather fast, and murmur at his heels.
So when a peasant to his garden brings
Soft rills of water from the bubbling springs,
And calls the floods from high, to bless his bowers,
And feed with pregnant streams the plants and flowers:
Soon as he clears whate’er their passage stay’d,
And marks the future current with his spade,
Swift o’er the rolling pebbles, down the hills,
Louder and louder purl the falling rills;
Before him scattering, they prevent his pains,
And shine in mazy wanderings o’er the plains.

Still flies Achilles, but before his eyes
Still swift Scamander rolls where’er he flies:
Not all his speed escapes the rapid floods;
The first of men, but not a match for gods.
Oft as he turn’d the torrent to oppose,
And bravely try if all the powers were foes;
So oft the surge, in watery mountains spread,
Beats on his back, or bursts upon his head.
Yet dauntless still the adverse flood he braves,
And still indignant bounds above the waves.
Tired by the tides, his knees relax with toil;
Wash’d from beneath him slides the slimy soil;
When thus (his eyes on heaven’s expansion thrown)
Forth bursts the hero with an angry groan:

“Is there no god Achilles to befriend,
No power to avert his miserable end?
Prevent, O Jove! this ignominious date,[271]
And make my future life the sport of fate.
Of all heaven’s oracles believed in vain,
But most of Thetis must her son complain;
By Phœbus’ darts she prophesied my fall,
In glorious arms before the Trojan wall.
Oh! had I died in fields of battle warm,
Stretch’d like a hero, by a hero’s arm!
Might Hector’s spear this dauntless bosom rend,
And my swift soul o’ertake my slaughter’d friend.
Ah no! Achilles meets a shameful fate,
Oh how unworthy of the brave and great!
Like some vile swain, whom on a rainy day,
Crossing a ford, the torrent sweeps away,
An unregarded carcase to the sea.”

Neptune and Pallas haste to his relief,
And thus in human form address’d the chief:
The power of ocean first: “Forbear thy fear,
O son of Peleus! Lo, thy gods appear!
Behold! from Jove descending to thy aid,
Propitious Neptune, and the blue-eyed maid.
Stay, and the furious flood shall cease to rave
’Tis not thy fate to glut his angry wave.
But thou, the counsel heaven suggests, attend!
Nor breathe from combat, nor thy sword suspend,
Till Troy receive her flying sons, till all
Her routed squadrons pant behind their wall:
Hector alone shall stand his fatal chance,
And Hector’s blood shall smoke upon thy lance.
Thine is the glory doom’d.” Thus spake the gods:
Then swift ascended to the bright abodes.

Stung with new ardour, thus by heaven impell’d,
He springs impetuous, and invades the field:
O’er all the expanded plain the waters spread;
Heaved on the bounding billows danced the dead,
Floating ’midst scatter’d arms; while casques of gold
And turn’d-up bucklers glitter’d as they roll’d.
High o’er the surging tide, by leaps and bounds,
He wades, and mounts; the parted wave resounds.
Not a whole river stops the hero’s course,
While Pallas fills him with immortal force.
With equal rage, indignant Xanthus roars,
And lifts his billows, and o’erwhelms his shores.

Then thus to Simois! “Haste, my brother flood;
And check this mortal that controls a god;
Our bravest heroes else shall quit the fight,
And Ilion tumble from her towery height.
Call then thy subject streams, and bid them roar,
From all thy fountains swell thy watery store,
With broken rocks, and with a load of dead,
Charge the black surge, and pour it on his head.
Mark how resistless through the floods he goes,
And boldly bids the warring gods be foes!
But nor that force, nor form divine to sight,
Shall aught avail him, if our rage unite:
Whelm’d under our dark gulfs those arms shall lie,
That blaze so dreadful in each Trojan eye;
And deep beneath a sandy mountain hurl’d,
Immersed remain this terror of the world.
Such ponderous ruin shall confound the place,
No Greeks shall e’er his perish’d relics grace,
No hand his bones shall gather, or inhume;
These his cold rites, and this his watery tomb.”


[Illustration: ] ACHILLES CONTENDING WITH THE RIVERS


He said; and on the chief descends amain,
Increased with gore, and swelling with the slain.
Then, murmuring from his beds, he boils, he raves,
And a foam whitens on the purple waves:
At every step, before Achilles stood
The crimson surge, and deluged him with blood.
Fear touch’d the queen of heaven: she saw dismay’d,
She call’d aloud, and summon’d Vulcan’s aid.

“Rise to the war! the insulting flood requires
Thy wasteful arm! assemble all thy fires!
While to their aid, by our command enjoin’d,
Rush the swift eastern and the western wind:
These from old ocean at my word shall blow,
Pour the red torrent on the watery foe,
Corses and arms to one bright ruin turn,
And hissing rivers to their bottoms burn.
Go, mighty in thy rage! display thy power,
Drink the whole flood, the crackling trees devour.
Scorch all the banks! and (till our voice reclaim)
Exert the unwearied furies of the flame!”

The power ignipotent her word obeys:
Wide o’er the plain he pours the boundless blaze;
At once consumes the dead, and dries the soil
And the shrunk waters in their channel boil.
As when autumnal Boreas sweeps the sky,
And instant blows the water’d gardens dry:
So look’d the field, so whiten’d was the ground,
While Vulcan breathed the fiery blast around.
Swift on the sedgy reeds the ruin preys;
Along the margin winds the running blaze:
The trees in flaming rows to ashes turn,
The flowering lotos and the tamarisk burn,
Broad elm, and cypress rising in a spire;
The watery willows hiss before the fire.
Now glow the waves, the fishes pant for breath,
The eels lie twisting in the pangs of death:
Now flounce aloft, now dive the scaly fry,
Or, gasping, turn their bellies to the sky.
At length the river rear’d his languid head,
And thus, short-panting, to the god he said:

“Oh Vulcan! oh! what power resists thy might?
I faint, I sink, unequal to the fight—
I yield—Let Ilion fall; if fate decree—
Ah—bend no more thy fiery arms on me!”

He ceased; wide conflagration blazing round;
The bubbling waters yield a hissing sound.
As when the flames beneath a cauldron rise,[272]
To melt the fat of some rich sacrifice,
Amid the fierce embrace of circling fires
The waters foam, the heavy smoke aspires:
So boils the imprison’d flood, forbid to flow,
And choked with vapours feels his bottom glow.
To Juno then, imperial queen of air,
The burning river sends his earnest prayer:

“Ah why, Saturnia; must thy son engage
Me, only me, with all his wasteful rage?
On other gods his dreadful arm employ,
For mightier gods assert the cause of Troy.
Submissive I desist, if thou command;
But ah! withdraw this all-destroying hand.
Hear then my solemn oath, to yield to fate
Unaided Ilion, and her destined state,
Till Greece shall gird her with destructive flame,
And in one ruin sink the Trojan name.”

His warm entreaty touch’d Saturnia’s ear:
She bade the ignipotent his rage forbear,
Recall the flame, nor in a mortal cause
Infest a god: the obedient flame withdraws:
Again the branching streams begin to spread,
And soft remurmur in their wonted bed.

While these by Juno’s will the strife resign,
The warring gods in fierce contention join:
Rekindling rage each heavenly breast alarms:
With horrid clangour shock the ethereal arms:
Heaven in loud thunder bids the trumpet sound;
And wide beneath them groans the rending ground.
Jove, as his sport, the dreadful scene descries,
And views contending gods with careless eyes.
The power of battles lifts his brazen spear,
And first assaults the radiant queen of war:

“What moved thy madness, thus to disunite
Ethereal minds, and mix all heaven in fight?
What wonder this, when in thy frantic mood
Thou drovest a mortal to insult a god?
Thy impious hand Tydides’ javelin bore,
And madly bathed it in celestial gore.”

He spoke, and smote the long-resounding shield,
Which bears Jove’s thunder on its dreadful field:
The adamantine ægis of her sire,
That turns the glancing bolt and forked fire.

Then heaved the goddess in her mighty hand
A stone, the limit of the neighbouring land,
There fix’d from eldest times; black, craggy, vast;
This at the heavenly homicide she cast.
Thundering he falls, a mass of monstrous size:
And seven broad acres covers as he lies.
The stunning stroke his stubborn nerves unbound:
Loud o’er the fields his ringing arms resound:
The scornful dame her conquest views with smiles,
And, glorying, thus the prostrate god reviles:

“Hast thou not yet, insatiate fury! known
How far Minerva’s force transcends thy own?
Juno, whom thou rebellious darest withstand,
Corrects thy folly thus by Pallas’ hand;
Thus meets thy broken faith with just disgrace,
And partial aid to Troy’s perfidious race.”

The goddess spoke, and turn’d her eyes away,
That, beaming round, diffused celestial day.
Jove’s Cyprian daughter, stooping on the land,
Lent to the wounded god her tender hand:
Slowly he rises, scarcely breathes with pain,
And, propp’d on her fair arm, forsakes the plain.
This the bright empress of the heavens survey’d,
And, scoffing, thus to war’s victorious maid:

“Lo! what an aid on Mars’s side is seen!
The smiles’ and loves’ unconquerable queen!
Mark with what insolence, in open view,
She moves: let Pallas, if she dares, pursue.”

Minerva smiling heard, the pair o’ertook,
And slightly on her breast the wanton strook:
She, unresisting, fell (her spirits fled);
On earth together lay the lovers spread.
“And like these heroes be the fate of all
(Minerva cries) who guard the Trojan wall!
To Grecian gods such let the Phrygian be,
So dread, so fierce, as Venus is to me;
Then from the lowest stone shall Troy be moved.”
Thus she, and Juno with a smile approved.

Meantime, to mix in more than mortal fight,
The god of ocean dares the god of light.
“What sloth has seized us, when the fields around
Ring with conflicting powers, and heaven returns the sound:
Shall, ignominious, we with shame retire,
No deed perform’d, to our Olympian sire?
Come, prove thy arm! for first the war to wage,
Suits not my greatness, or superior age:
Rash as thou art to prop the Trojan throne,
(Forgetful of my wrongs, and of thy own,)
And guard the race of proud Laomedon!
Hast thou forgot, how, at the monarch’s prayer,
We shared the lengthen’d labours of a year?
Troy walls I raised (for such were Jove’s commands),
And yon proud bulwarks grew beneath my hands:
Thy task it was to feed the bellowing droves
Along fair Ida’s vales and pendant groves.
But when the circling seasons in their train
Brought back the grateful day that crown’d our pain,
With menace stern the fraudful king defied
Our latent godhead, and the prize denied:
Mad as he was, he threaten’d servile bands,
And doom’d us exiles far in barbarous lands.[273]
Incensed, we heavenward fled with swiftest wing,
And destined vengeance on the perjured king.
Dost thou, for this, afford proud Ilion grace,
And not, like us, infest the faithless race;
Like us, their present, future sons destroy,
And from its deep foundations heave their Troy?”

Apollo thus: “To combat for mankind
Ill suits the wisdom of celestial mind;
For what is man? Calamitous by birth,
They owe their life and nourishment to earth;
Like yearly leaves, that now, with beauty crown’d,
Smile on the sun; now, wither on the ground.
To their own hands commit the frantic scene,
Nor mix immortals in a cause so mean.”

Then turns his face, far-beaming heavenly fires,
And from the senior power submiss retires:
Him thus retreating, Artemis upbraids,
The quiver’d huntress of the sylvan shades:

“And is it thus the youthful Phœbus flies,
And yields to ocean’s hoary sire the prize?
How vain that martial pomp, and dreadful show
Of pointed arrows and the silver bow!
Now boast no more in yon celestial bower,
Thy force can match the great earth-shaking power.”

Silent he heard the queen of woods upbraid:
Not so Saturnia bore the vaunting maid:
But furious thus: “What insolence has driven
Thy pride to face the majesty of heaven?
What though by Jove the female plague design’d,
Fierce to the feeble race of womankind,
The wretched matron feels thy piercing dart;
Thy sex’s tyrant, with a tiger’s heart?
What though tremendous in the woodland chase
Thy certain arrows pierce the savage race?
How dares thy rashness on the powers divine
Employ those arms, or match thy force with mine?
Learn hence, no more unequal war to wage—”
She said, and seized her wrists with eager rage;
These in her left hand lock’d, her right untied
The bow, the quiver, and its plumy pride.
About her temples flies the busy bow;
Now here, now there, she winds her from the blow;
The scattering arrows, rattling from the case,
Drop round, and idly mark the dusty place.
Swift from the field the baffled huntress flies,
And scarce restrains the torrent in her eyes:
So, when the falcon wings her way above,
To the cleft cavern speeds the gentle dove;
(Not fated yet to die;) there safe retreats,
Yet still her heart against the marble beats.

To her Latona hastes with tender care;
Whom Hermes viewing, thus declines the war:
“How shall I face the dame, who gives delight
To him whose thunders blacken heaven with night?
Go, matchless goddess! triumph in the skies,
And boast my conquest, while I yield the prize.”

He spoke; and pass’d: Latona, stooping low,
Collects the scatter’d shafts and fallen bow,
That, glittering on the dust, lay here and there
Dishonour’d relics of Diana’s war:
Then swift pursued her to her blest abode,
Where, all confused, she sought the sovereign god;
Weeping, she grasp’d his knees: the ambrosial vest
Shook with her sighs, and panted on her breast.

The sire superior smiled, and bade her show
What heavenly hand had caused his daughter’s woe?
Abash’d, she names his own imperial spouse;
And the pale crescent fades upon her brows.

Thus they above: while, swiftly gliding down,
Apollo enters Ilion’s sacred town;
The guardian-god now trembled for her wall,
And fear’d the Greeks, though fate forbade her fall.
Back to Olympus, from the war’s alarms,
Return the shining bands of gods in arms;
Some proud in triumph, some with rage on fire;
And take their thrones around the ethereal sire.

Through blood, through death, Achilles still proceeds,
O’er slaughter’d heroes, and o’er rolling steeds.
As when avenging flames with fury driven
On guilty towns exert the wrath of heaven;
The pale inhabitants, some fall, some fly;
And the red vapours purple all the sky:
So raged Achilles: death and dire dismay,
And toils, and terrors, fill’d the dreadful day.

High on a turret hoary Priam stands,
And marks the waste of his destructive hands;
Views, from his arm, the Trojans’ scatter’d flight,
And the near hero rising on his sight!
No stop, no check, no aid! With feeble pace,
And settled sorrow on his aged face,
Fast as he could, he sighing quits the walls;
And thus descending, on the guards he calls:

“You to whose care our city-gates belong,
Set wide your portals to the flying throng:
For lo! he comes, with unresisted sway;
He comes, and desolation marks his way!
But when within the walls our troops take breath,
Lock fast the brazen bars, and shut out death.”
Thus charged the reverend monarch: wide were flung
The opening folds; the sounding hinges rung.
Phœbus rush’d forth, the flying bands to meet;
Struck slaughter back, and cover’d the retreat,
On heaps the Trojans crowd to gain the gate,
And gladsome see their last escape from fate.
Thither, all parch’d with thirst, a heartless train,
Hoary with dust, they beat the hollow plain:
And gasping, panting, fainting, labour on
With heavier strides, that lengthen toward the town.
Enraged Achilles follows with his spear;
Wild with revenge, insatiable of war.

Then had the Greeks eternal praise acquired,
And Troy inglorious to her walls retired;
But he, the god who darts ethereal flame,
Shot down to save her, and redeem her fame:
To young Agenor force divine he gave;
(Antenor’s offspring, haughty, bold, and brave;)
In aid of him, beside the beech he sate,
And wrapt in clouds, restrain’d the hand of fate.
When now the generous youth Achilles spies,
Thick beats his heart, the troubled motions rise.
(So, ere a storm, the waters heave and roll.)
He stops, and questions thus his mighty soul;

“What, shall I fly this terror of the plain!
Like others fly, and be like others slain?
Vain hope! to shun him by the self-same road
Yon line of slaughter’d Trojans lately trod.
No: with the common heap I scorn to fall—
What if they pass’d me to the Trojan wall,
While I decline to yonder path, that leads
To Ida’s forests and surrounding shades?
So may I reach, conceal’d, the cooling flood,
From my tired body wash the dirt and blood,
As soon as night her dusky veil extends,
Return in safety to my Trojan friends.
What if?—But wherefore all this vain debate?
Stand I to doubt, within the reach of fate?
Even now perhaps, ere yet I turn the wall,
The fierce Achilles sees me, and I fall:
Such is his swiftness, ’tis in vain to fly,
And such his valour, that who stands must die.
Howe’er ’tis better, fighting for the state,
Here, and in public view, to meet my fate.
Yet sure he too is mortal; he may feel
(Like all the sons of earth) the force of steel.
One only soul informs that dreadful frame:
And Jove’s sole favour gives him all his fame.”

He said, and stood, collected, in his might;
And all his beating bosom claim’d the fight.
So from some deep-grown wood a panther starts,
Roused from his thicket by a storm of darts:
Untaught to fear or fly, he hears the sounds
Of shouting hunters, and of clamorous hounds;
Though struck, though wounded, scarce perceives the pain;
And the barb’d javelin stings his breast in vain:
On their whole war, untamed, the savage flies;
And tears his hunter, or beneath him dies.
Not less resolved, Antenor’s valiant heir
Confronts Achilles, and awaits the war,
Disdainful of retreat: high held before,
His shield (a broad circumference) he bore;
Then graceful as he stood, in act to throw
The lifted javelin, thus bespoke the foe:

“How proud Achilles glories in his fame!
And hopes this day to sink the Trojan name
Beneath her ruins! Know, that hope is vain;
A thousand woes, a thousand toils remain.
Parents and children our just arms employ,
And strong and many are the sons of Troy.
Great as thou art, even thou may’st stain with gore
These Phrygian fields, and press a foreign shore.”

He said: with matchless force the javelin flung
Smote on his knee; the hollow cuishes rung
Beneath the pointed steel; but safe from harms
He stands impassive in the ethereal arms.
Then fiercely rushing on the daring foe,
His lifted arm prepares the fatal blow:
But, jealous of his fame, Apollo shrouds
The god-like Trojan in a veil of clouds.
Safe from pursuit, and shut from mortal view,
Dismiss’d with fame, the favoured youth withdrew.
Meanwhile the god, to cover their escape,
Assumes Agenor’s habit, voice and shape,
Flies from the furious chief in this disguise;
The furious chief still follows where he flies.
Now o’er the fields they stretch with lengthen’d strides,
Now urge the course where swift Scamander glides:
The god, now distant scarce a stride before,
Tempts his pursuit, and wheels about the shore;
While all the flying troops their speed employ,
And pour on heaps into the walls of Troy:
No stop, no stay; no thought to ask, or tell,
Who ’scaped by flight, or who by battle fell.
’Twas tumult all, and violence of flight;
And sudden joy confused, and mix’d affright.
Pale Troy against Achilles shuts her gate:
And nations breathe, deliver’d from their fate.




BOOK XXII.


ARGUMENT.


THE DEATH OF HECTOR.


The Trojans being safe within the walls, Hector only stays to oppose
Achilles. Priam is struck at his approach, and tries to persuade his
son to re-enter the town. Hecuba joins her entreaties, but in vain.
Hector consults within himself what measures to take; but at the
advance of Achilles, his resolution fails him, and he flies. Achilles
pursues him thrice round the walls of Troy. The gods debate concerning
the fate of Hector; at length Minerva descends to the aid of Achilles.
She deludes Hector in the shape of Deiphobus; he stands the combat, and
is slain. Achilles drags the dead body at his chariot in the sight of
Priam and Hecuba. Their lamentations, tears, and despair. Their cries
reach the ears of Andromache, who, ignorant of this, was retired into
the inner part of the palace: she mounts up to the walls, and beholds
her dead husband. She swoons at the spectacle. Her excess of grief and
lamentation.
    The thirtieth day still continues. The scene lies under the walls,
    and on the battlements of Troy.


Thus to their bulwarks, smit with panic fear,
The herded Ilians rush like driven deer:
There safe they wipe the briny drops away,
And drown in bowls the labours of the day.
Close to the walls, advancing o’er the fields
Beneath one roof of well-compacted shields,
March, bending on, the Greeks’ embodied powers,
Far stretching in the shade of Trojan towers.
Great Hector singly stay’d: chain’d down by fate
There fix’d he stood before the Scæan gate;
Still his bold arms determined to employ,
The guardian still of long-defended Troy.

Apollo now to tired Achilles turns:
(The power confess’d in all his glory burns:)
“And what (he cries) has Peleus’ son in view,
With mortal speed a godhead to pursue?
For not to thee to know the gods is given,
Unskill’d to trace the latent marks of heaven.
What boots thee now, that Troy forsook the plain?
Vain thy past labour, and thy present vain:
Safe in their walls are now her troops bestow’d,
While here thy frantic rage attacks a god.”

The chief incensed—“Too partial god of day!
To check my conquests in the middle way:
How few in Ilion else had refuge found!
What gasping numbers now had bit the ground!
Thou robb’st me of a glory justly mine,
Powerful of godhead, and of fraud divine:
Mean fame, alas! for one of heavenly strain,
To cheat a mortal who repines in vain.”

Then to the city, terrible and strong,
With high and haughty steps he tower’d along,
So the proud courser, victor of the prize,
To the near goal with double ardour flies.
Him, as he blazing shot across the field,
The careful eyes of Priam first beheld.
Not half so dreadful rises to the sight,[274]
Through the thick gloom of some tempestuous night,
Orion’s dog (the year when autumn weighs),
And o’er the feebler stars exerts his rays;
Terrific glory! for his burning breath
Taints the red air with fevers, plagues, and death.
So flamed his fiery mail. Then wept the sage:
He strikes his reverend head, now white with age;
He lifts his wither’d arms; obtests the skies;
He calls his much-loved son with feeble cries:
The son, resolved Achilles’ force to dare,
Full at the Scæan gates expects the war;
While the sad father on the rampart stands,
And thus adjures him with extended hands:

“Ah stay not, stay not! guardless and alone;
Hector! my loved, my dearest, bravest son!
Methinks already I behold thee slain,
And stretch’d beneath that fury of the plain.
Implacable Achilles! might’st thou be
To all the gods no dearer than to me!
Thee, vultures wild should scatter round the shore,
And bloody dogs grow fiercer from thy gore.
How many valiant sons I late enjoy’d,
Valiant in vain! by thy cursed arm destroy’d:
Or, worse than slaughtered, sold in distant isles
To shameful bondage, and unworthy toils.
Two, while I speak, my eyes in vain explore,
Two from one mother sprung, my Polydore,
And loved Lycaon; now perhaps no more!
Oh! if in yonder hostile camp they live,
What heaps of gold, what treasures would I give!
(Their grandsire’s wealth, by right of birth their own,
Consign’d his daughter with Lelegia’s throne:)
But if (which Heaven forbid) already lost,
All pale they wander on the Stygian coast;
What sorrows then must their sad mother know,
What anguish I? unutterable woe!
Yet less that anguish, less to her, to me,
Less to all Troy, if not deprived of thee.
Yet shun Achilles! enter yet the wall;
And spare thyself, thy father, spare us all!
Save thy dear life; or, if a soul so brave
Neglect that thought, thy dearer glory save.
Pity, while yet I live, these silver hairs;
While yet thy father feels the woes he bears,
Yet cursed with sense! a wretch, whom in his rage
(All trembling on the verge of helpless age)
Great Jove has placed, sad spectacle of pain!
The bitter dregs of fortune’s cup to drain:
To fill with scenes of death his closing eyes,
And number all his days by miseries!
My heroes slain, my bridal bed o’erturn’d,
My daughters ravish’d, and my city burn’d,
My bleeding infants dash’d against the floor;
These I have yet to see, perhaps yet more!
Perhaps even I, reserved by angry fate,
The last sad relic of my ruin’d state,
(Dire pomp of sovereign wretchedness!) must fall,
And stain the pavement of my regal hall;
Where famish’d dogs, late guardians of my door,
Shall lick their mangled master’s spatter’d gore.
Yet for my sons I thank ye, gods! ’tis well;
Well have they perish’d, for in fight they fell.
Who dies in youth and vigour, dies the best,
Struck through with wounds, all honest on the breast.
But when the fates, in fulness of their rage,
Spurn the hoar head of unresisting age,
In dust the reverend lineaments deform,
And pour to dogs the life-blood scarcely warm:
This, this is misery! the last, the worse,
That man can feel! man, fated to be cursed!”

He said, and acting what no words could say,
Rent from his head the silver locks away.
With him the mournful mother bears a part;
Yet all her sorrows turn not Hector’s heart.
The zone unbraced, her bosom she display’d;
And thus, fast-falling the salt tears, she said:

“Have mercy on me, O my son! revere
The words of age; attend a parent’s prayer!
If ever thee in these fond arms I press’d,
Or still’d thy infant clamours at this breast;
Ah do not thus our helpless years forego,
But, by our walls secured, repel the foe.
Against his rage if singly thou proceed,
Should’st thou, (but Heaven avert it!) should’st thou bleed,
Nor must thy corse lie honour’d on the bier,
Nor spouse, nor mother, grace thee with a tear!
Far from our pious rites those dear remains
Must feast the vultures on the naked plains.”

So they, while down their cheeks the torrents roll;
But fix’d remains the purpose of his soul;
Resolved he stands, and with a fiery glance
Expects the hero’s terrible advance.
So, roll’d up in his den, the swelling snake
Beholds the traveller approach the brake;
When fed with noxious herbs his turgid veins
Have gather’d half the poisons of the plains;
He burns, he stiffens with collected ire,
And his red eyeballs glare with living fire.
Beneath a turret, on his shield reclined,
He stood, and question’d thus his mighty mind:[275]

“Where lies my way? to enter in the wall?
Honour and shame the ungenerous thought recall:
Shall proud Polydamas before the gate
Proclaim, his counsels are obey’d too late,
Which timely follow’d but the former night,
What numbers had been saved by Hector’s flight?
That wise advice rejected with disdain,
I feel my folly in my people slain.
Methinks my suffering country’s voice I hear,
But most her worthless sons insult my ear,
On my rash courage charge the chance of war,
And blame those virtues which they cannot share.
No—if I e’er return, return I must
Glorious, my country’s terror laid in dust:
Or if I perish, let her see me fall
In field at least, and fighting for her wall.
And yet suppose these measures I forego,
Approach unarm’d, and parley with the foe,
The warrior-shield, the helm, and lance, lay down,
And treat on terms of peace to save the town:
The wife withheld, the treasure ill-detain’d
(Cause of the war, and grievance of the land)
With honourable justice to restore:
And add half Ilion’s yet remaining store,
Which Troy shall, sworn, produce; that injured Greece
May share our wealth, and leave our walls in peace.
But why this thought? Unarm’d if I should go,
What hope of mercy from this vengeful foe,
But woman-like to fall, and fall without a blow?
We greet not here, as man conversing man,
Met at an oak, or journeying o’er a plain;
No season now for calm familiar talk,
Like youths and maidens in an evening walk:
War is our business, but to whom is given
To die, or triumph, that, determine Heaven!”

Thus pondering, like a god the Greek drew nigh;
His dreadful plumage nodded from on high;
The Pelian javelin, in his better hand,
Shot trembling rays that glitter’d o’er the land;
And on his breast the beamy splendour shone,
Like Jove’s own lightning, or the rising sun.
As Hector sees, unusual terrors rise,
Struck by some god, he fears, recedes, and flies.
He leaves the gates, he leaves the wall behind:
Achilles follows like the winged wind.
Thus at the panting dove a falcon flies
(The swiftest racer of the liquid skies),
Just when he holds, or thinks he holds his prey,
Obliquely wheeling through the aerial way,
With open beak and shrilling cries he springs,
And aims his claws, and shoots upon his wings:
No less fore-right the rapid chase they held,
One urged by fury, one by fear impell’d:
Now circling round the walls their course maintain,
Where the high watch-tower overlooks the plain;
Now where the fig-trees spread their umbrage broad,
(A wider compass,) smoke along the road.
Next by Scamander’s double source they bound,
Where two famed fountains burst the parted ground;
This hot through scorching clefts is seen to rise,
With exhalations steaming to the skies;
That the green banks in summer’s heat o’erflows,
Like crystal clear, and cold as winter snows:
Each gushing fount a marble cistern fills,
Whose polish’d bed receives the falling rills;
Where Trojan dames (ere yet alarm’d by Greece)
Wash’d their fair garments in the days of peace.[276]
By these they pass’d, one chasing, one in flight:
(The mighty fled, pursued by stronger might:)
Swift was the course; no vulgar prize they play,
No vulgar victim must reward the day:
(Such as in races crown the speedy strife:)
The prize contended was great Hector’s life.
As when some hero’s funerals are decreed
In grateful honour of the mighty dead;
Where high rewards the vigorous youth inflame
(Some golden tripod, or some lovely dame)
The panting coursers swiftly turn the goal,
And with them turns the raised spectator’s soul:
Thus three times round the Trojan wall they fly.
The gazing gods lean forward from the sky;
To whom, while eager on the chase they look,
The sire of mortals and immortals spoke:

“Unworthy sight! the man beloved of heaven,
Behold, inglorious round yon city driven!
My heart partakes the generous Hector’s pain;
Hector, whose zeal whole hecatombs has slain,
Whose grateful fumes the gods received with joy,
From Ida’s summits, and the towers of Troy:
Now see him flying; to his fears resign’d,
And fate, and fierce Achilles, close behind.
Consult, ye powers! (’tis worthy your debate)
Whether to snatch him from impending fate,
Or let him bear, by stern Pelides slain,
(Good as he is) the lot imposed on man.”

Then Pallas thus: “Shall he whose vengeance forms
The forky bolt, and blackens heaven with storms,
Shall he prolong one Trojan’s forfeit breath?
A man, a mortal, pre-ordain’d to death!
And will no murmurs fill the courts above?
No gods indignant blame their partial Jove?”

“Go then (return’d the sire) without delay,
Exert thy will: I give the Fates their way.”
Swift at the mandate pleased Tritonia flies,
And stoops impetuous from the cleaving skies.

As through the forest, o’er the vale and lawn,
The well-breath’d beagle drives the flying fawn,
In vain he tries the covert of the brakes,
Or deep beneath the trembling thicket shakes;
Sure of the vapour in the tainted dews,
The certain hound his various maze pursues.
Thus step by step, where’er the Trojan wheel’d,
There swift Achilles compass’d round the field.
Oft as to reach the Dardan gates he bends,
And hopes the assistance of his pitying friends,
(Whose showering arrows, as he coursed below,
From the high turrets might oppress the foe,)
So oft Achilles turns him to the plain:
He eyes the city, but he eyes in vain.
As men in slumbers seem with speedy pace,
One to pursue, and one to lead the chase,
Their sinking limbs the fancied course forsake,
Nor this can fly, nor that can overtake:
No less the labouring heroes pant and strain:
While that but flies, and this pursues in vain.

What god, O muse, assisted Hector’s force
With fate itself so long to hold the course?
Phœbus it was; who, in his latest hour,
Endued his knees with strength, his nerves with power:
And great Achilles, lest some Greek’s advance
Should snatch the glory from his lifted lance,
Sign’d to the troops to yield his foe the way,
And leave untouch’d the honours of the day.

Jove lifts the golden balances, that show
The fates of mortal men, and things below:
Here each contending hero’s lot he tries,
And weighs, with equal hand, their destinies.
Low sinks the scale surcharged with Hector’s fate;
Heavy with death it sinks, and hell receives the weight.

Then Phœbus left him. Fierce Minerva flies
To stern Pelides, and triumphing, cries:
“O loved of Jove! this day our labours cease,
And conquest blazes with full beams on Greece.
Great Hector falls; that Hector famed so far,
Drunk with renown, insatiable of war,
Falls by thy hand, and mine! nor force, nor flight,
Shall more avail him, nor his god of light.
See, where in vain he supplicates above,
Roll’d at the feet of unrelenting Jove;
Rest here: myself will lead the Trojan on,
And urge to meet the fate he cannot shun.”

Her voice divine the chief with joyful mind
Obey’d; and rested, on his lance reclined
While like Deiphobus the martial dame
(Her face, her gesture, and her arms the same),
In show an aid, by hapless Hector’s side
Approach’d, and greets him thus with voice belied:

“Too long, O Hector! have I borne the sight
Of this distress, and sorrow’d in thy flight:
It fits us now a noble stand to make,
And here, as brothers, equal fates partake.”

Then he: “O prince! allied in blood and fame,
Dearer than all that own a brother’s name;
Of all that Hecuba to Priam bore,
Long tried, long loved: much loved, but honoured more!
Since you, of all our numerous race alone
Defend my life, regardless of your own.”

Again the goddess: “Much my father’s prayer,
And much my mother’s, press’d me to forbear:
My friends embraced my knees, adjured my stay,
But stronger love impell’d, and I obey.
Come then, the glorious conflict let us try,
Let the steel sparkle, and the javelin fly;
Or let us stretch Achilles on the field,
Or to his arm our bloody trophies yield.”

Fraudful she said; then swiftly march’d before:
The Dardan hero shuns his foe no more.
Sternly they met. The silence Hector broke:
His dreadful plumage nodded as he spoke:

“Enough, O son of Peleus! Troy has view’d
Her walls thrice circled, and her chief pursued.
But now some god within me bids me try
Thine, or my fate: I kill thee, or I die.
Yet on the verge of battle let us stay,
And for a moment’s space suspend the day;
Let Heaven’s high powers be call’d to arbitrate
The just conditions of this stern debate,
(Eternal witnesses of all below,
And faithful guardians of the treasured vow!)
To them I swear; if, victor in the strife,
Jove by these hands shall shed thy noble life,
No vile dishonour shall thy corse pursue;
Stripp’d of its arms alone (the conqueror’s due)
The rest to Greece uninjured I’ll restore:
Now plight thy mutual oath, I ask no more.”

“Talk not of oaths (the dreadful chief replies,
While anger flash’d from his disdainful eyes),
Detested as thou art, and ought to be,
Nor oath nor pact Achilles plights with thee:
Such pacts as lambs and rabid wolves combine,
Such leagues as men and furious lions join,
To such I call the gods! one constant state
Of lasting rancour and eternal hate:
No thought but rage, and never-ceasing strife,
Till death extinguish rage, and thought, and life.
Rouse then thy forces this important hour,
Collect thy soul, and call forth all thy power.
No further subterfuge, no further chance;
’Tis Pallas, Pallas gives thee to my lance.
Each Grecian ghost, by thee deprived of breath,
Now hovers round, and calls thee to thy death.”

He spoke, and launch’d his javelin at the foe;
But Hector shunn’d the meditated blow:
He stoop’d, while o’er his head the flying spear
Sang innocent, and spent its force in air.
Minerva watch’d it falling on the land,
Then drew, and gave to great Achilles’ hand,
Unseen of Hector, who, elate with joy,
Now shakes his lance, and braves the dread of Troy.

“The life you boasted to that javelin given,
Prince! you have miss’d. My fate depends on Heaven,
To thee, presumptuous as thou art, unknown,
Or what must prove my fortune, or thy own.
Boasting is but an art, our fears to blind,
And with false terrors sink another’s mind.
But know, whatever fate I am to try,
By no dishonest wound shall Hector die.
I shall not fall a fugitive at least,
My soul shall bravely issue from my breast.
But first, try thou my arm; and may this dart
End all my country’s woes, deep buried in thy heart.”

The weapon flew, its course unerring held,
Unerring, but the heavenly shield repell’d
The mortal dart; resulting with a bound
From off the ringing orb, it struck the ground.
Hector beheld his javelin fall in vain,
Nor other lance, nor other hope remain;
He calls Deiphobus, demands a spear—
In vain, for no Deiphobus was there.
All comfortless he stands: then, with a sigh;
“’Tis so—Heaven wills it, and my hour is nigh!
I deem’d Deiphobus had heard my call,
But he secure lies guarded in the wall.
A god deceived me; Pallas, ’twas thy deed,
Death and black fate approach! ’tis I must bleed.
No refuge now, no succour from above,
Great Jove deserts me, and the son of Jove,
Propitious once, and kind! Then welcome fate!
’Tis true I perish, yet I perish great:
Yet in a mighty deed I shall expire,
Let future ages hear it, and admire!”

Fierce, at the word, his weighty sword he drew,
And, all collected, on Achilles flew.
So Jove’s bold bird, high balanced in the air,
Stoops from the clouds to truss the quivering hare.
Nor less Achilles his fierce soul prepares:
Before his breast the flaming shield he bears,
Refulgent orb! above his fourfold cone
The gilded horse-hair sparkled in the sun.
Nodding at every step: (Vulcanian frame!)
And as he moved, his figure seem’d on flame.
As radiant Hesper shines with keener light,[277]
Far-beaming o’er the silver host of night,
When all the starry train emblaze the sphere:
So shone the point of great Achilles’ spear.
In his right hand he waves the weapon round,
Eyes the whole man, and meditates the wound;
But the rich mail Patroclus lately wore
Securely cased the warrior’s body o’er.
One space at length he spies, to let in fate,
Where ’twixt the neck and throat the jointed plate
Gave entrance: through that penetrable part
Furious he drove the well-directed dart:
Nor pierced the windpipe yet, nor took the power
Of speech, unhappy! from thy dying hour.
Prone on the field the bleeding warrior lies,
While, thus triumphing, stern Achilles cries:

“At last is Hector stretch’d upon the plain,
Who fear’d no vengeance for Patroclus slain:
Then, prince! you should have fear’d, what now you feel;
Achilles absent was Achilles still:
Yet a short space the great avenger stayed,
Then low in dust thy strength and glory laid.
Peaceful he sleeps, with all our rites adorn’d,
For ever honour’d, and for ever mourn’d:
While cast to all the rage of hostile power,
Thee birds shall mangle, and the gods devour.”

Then Hector, fainting at the approach of death:
“By thy own soul! by those who gave thee breath!
By all the sacred prevalence of prayer;
Ah, leave me not for Grecian dogs to tear!
The common rites of sepulture bestow,
To soothe a father’s and a mother’s woe:
Let their large gifts procure an urn at least,
And Hector’s ashes in his country rest.”

“No, wretch accursed! relentless he replies;
(Flames, as he spoke, shot flashing from his eyes;)
Not those who gave me breath should bid me spare,
Nor all the sacred prevalence of prayer.
Could I myself the bloody banquet join!
No—to the dogs that carcase I resign.
Should Troy, to bribe me, bring forth all her store,
And giving thousands, offer thousands more;
Should Dardan Priam, and his weeping dame,
Drain their whole realm to buy one funeral flame:
Their Hector on the pile they should not see,
Nor rob the vultures of one limb of thee.”

Then thus the chief his dying accents drew:
“Thy rage, implacable! too well I knew:
The Furies that relentless breast have steel’d,
And cursed thee with a heart that cannot yield.
Yet think, a day will come, when fate’s decree
And angry gods shall wreak this wrong on thee;
Phœbus and Paris shall avenge my fate,
And stretch thee here before the Scæan gate.”[278]

He ceased. The Fates suppress’d his labouring breath,
And his eyes stiffen’d at the hand of death;
To the dark realm the spirit wings its way,
(The manly body left a load of clay,)
And plaintive glides along the dreary coast,
A naked, wandering, melancholy ghost!

Achilles, musing as he roll’d his eyes
O’er the dead hero, thus unheard, replies:
“Die thou the first! When Jove and heaven ordain,
I follow thee”—He said, and stripp’d the slain.
Then forcing backward from the gaping wound
The reeking javelin, cast it on the ground.
The thronging Greeks behold with wondering eyes
His manly beauty and superior size;
While some, ignobler, the great dead deface
With wounds ungenerous, or with taunts disgrace:

“How changed that Hector, who like Jove of late
Sent lightning on our fleets, and scatter’d fate!”

High o’er the slain the great Achilles stands,
Begirt with heroes and surrounding bands;
And thus aloud, while all the host attends:
“Princes and leaders! countrymen and friends!
Since now at length the powerful will of heaven
The dire destroyer to our arm has given,
Is not Troy fallen already? Haste, ye powers!
See, if already their deserted towers
Are left unmann’d; or if they yet retain
The souls of heroes, their great Hector slain.
But what is Troy, or glory what to me?
Or why reflects my mind on aught but thee,
Divine Patroclus! Death hath seal’d his eyes;
Unwept, unhonour’d, uninterr’d he lies!
Can his dear image from my soul depart,
Long as the vital spirit moves my heart?
If in the melancholy shades below,
The flames of friends and lovers cease to glow,
Yet mine shall sacred last; mine, undecay’d,
Burn on through death, and animate my shade.
Meanwhile, ye sons of Greece, in triumph bring
The corpse of Hector, and your pæans sing.
Be this the song, slow-moving toward the shore,
“Hector is dead, and Ilion is no more.””

Then his fell soul a thought of vengeance bred;
(Unworthy of himself, and of the dead;)
The nervous ancles bored, his feet he bound
With thongs inserted through the double wound;
These fix’d up high behind the rolling wain,
His graceful head was trail’d along the plain.
Proud on his car the insulting victor stood,
And bore aloft his arms, distilling blood.
He smites the steeds; the rapid chariot flies;
The sudden clouds of circling dust arise.
Now lost is all that formidable air;
The face divine, and long-descending hair,
Purple the ground, and streak the sable sand;
Deform’d, dishonour’d, in his native land,
Given to the rage of an insulting throng,
And, in his parents’ sight, now dragg’d along!

The mother first beheld with sad survey;
She rent her tresses, venerable grey,
And cast, far off, the regal veils away.
With piercing shrieks his bitter fate she moans,
While the sad father answers groans with groans,
Tears after tears his mournful cheeks o’erflow,
And the whole city wears one face of woe:
No less than if the rage of hostile fires,
From her foundations curling to her spires,
O’er the proud citadel at length should rise,
And the last blaze send Ilion to the skies.
The wretched monarch of the falling state,
Distracted, presses to the Dardan gate.
Scarce the whole people stop his desperate course,
While strong affliction gives the feeble force:
Grief tears his heart, and drives him to and fro,
In all the raging impotence of woe.
At length he roll’d in dust, and thus begun,
Imploring all, and naming one by one:
“Ah! let me, let me go where sorrow calls;
I, only I, will issue from your walls
(Guide or companion, friends! I ask ye none),
And bow before the murderer of my son.
My grief perhaps his pity may engage;
Perhaps at least he may respect my age.
He has a father too; a man like me;
One, not exempt from age and misery
(Vigorous no more, as when his young embrace
Begot this pest of me, and all my race).
How many valiant sons, in early bloom,
Has that cursed hand sent headlong to the tomb!
Thee, Hector! last: thy loss (divinely brave)
Sinks my sad soul with sorrow to the grave.
O had thy gentle spirit pass’d in peace,
The son expiring in the sire’s embrace,
While both thy parents wept the fatal hour,
And, bending o’er thee, mix’d the tender shower!
Some comfort that had been, some sad relief,
To melt in full satiety of grief!”

Thus wail’d the father, grovelling on the ground,
And all the eyes of Ilion stream’d around.

Amidst her matrons Hecuba appears:
(A mourning princess, and a train in tears;)
“Ah why has Heaven prolong’d this hated breath,
Patient of horrors, to behold thy death?
O Hector! late thy parents’ pride and joy,
The boast of nations! the defence of Troy!
To whom her safety and her fame she owed;
Her chief, her hero, and almost her god!
O fatal change! become in one sad day
A senseless corse! inanimated clay!”

But not as yet the fatal news had spread
To fair Andromache, of Hector dead;
As yet no messenger had told his fate,
Not e’en his stay without the Scæan gate.
Far in the close recesses of the dome,
Pensive she plied the melancholy loom;
A growing work employ’d her secret hours,
Confusedly gay with intermingled flowers.
Her fair-haired handmaids heat the brazen urn,
The bath preparing for her lord’s return
In vain; alas! her lord returns no more;
Unbathed he lies, and bleeds along the shore!
Now from the walls the clamours reach her ear,
And all her members shake with sudden fear:
Forth from her ivory hand the shuttle falls,
And thus, astonish’d, to her maids she calls:


[Illustration: ] THE BATH


“Ah follow me! (she cried) what plaintive noise
Invades my ear? ’Tis sure my mother’s voice.
My faltering knees their trembling frame desert,
A pulse unusual flutters at my heart;
Some strange disaster, some reverse of fate
(Ye gods avert it!) threats the Trojan state.
Far be the omen which my thoughts suggest!
But much I fear my Hector’s dauntless breast
Confronts Achilles; chased along the plain,
Shut from our walls! I fear, I fear him slain!
Safe in the crowd he ever scorn’d to wait,
And sought for glory in the jaws of fate:
Perhaps that noble heat has cost his breath,
Now quench’d for ever in the arms of death.”

She spoke: and furious, with distracted pace,
Fears in her heart, and anguish in her face,
Flies through the dome (the maids her steps pursue),
And mounts the walls, and sends around her view.
Too soon her eyes the killing object found,
The godlike Hector dragg’d along the ground.
A sudden darkness shades her swimming eyes:
She faints, she falls; her breath, her colour flies.
Her hair’s fair ornaments, the braids that bound,
The net that held them, and the wreath that crown’d,
The veil and diadem flew far away
(The gift of Venus on her bridal day).
Around a train of weeping sisters stands,
To raise her sinking with assistant hands.
Scarce from the verge of death recall’d, again
She faints, or but recovers to complain.


[Illustration: ] ANDROMACHE FAINTING ON THE WALL


“O wretched husband of a wretched wife!
Born with one fate, to one unhappy life!
For sure one star its baneful beam display’d
On Priam’s roof, and Hippoplacia’s shade.
From different parents, different climes we came.
At different periods, yet our fate the same!
Why was my birth to great Aëtion owed,
And why was all that tender care bestow’d?
Would I had never been!—O thou, the ghost
Of my dead husband! miserably lost!
Thou to the dismal realms for ever gone!
And I abandon’d, desolate, alone!
An only child, once comfort of my pains,
Sad product now of hapless love, remains!
No more to smile upon his sire; no friend
To help him now! no father to defend!
For should he ’scape the sword, the common doom,
What wrongs attend him, and what griefs to come!
Even from his own paternal roof expell’d,
Some stranger ploughs his patrimonial field.
The day, that to the shades the father sends,
Robs the sad orphan of his father’s friends:
He, wretched outcast of mankind! appears
For ever sad, for ever bathed in tears;
Amongst the happy, unregarded, he
Hangs on the robe, or trembles at the knee,
While those his father’s former bounty fed
Nor reach the goblet, nor divide the bread:
The kindest but his present wants allay,
To leave him wretched the succeeding day.
Frugal compassion! Heedless, they who boast
Both parents still, nor feel what he has lost,
Shall cry, ‘Begone! thy father feasts not here:’
The wretch obeys, retiring with a tear.
Thus wretched, thus retiring all in tears,
To my sad soul Astyanax appears!
Forced by repeated insults to return,
And to his widow’d mother vainly mourn:
He, who, with tender delicacy bred,
With princes sported, and on dainties fed,
And when still evening gave him up to rest,
Sunk soft in down upon the nurse’s breast,
Must—ah what must he not? Whom Ilion calls
Astyanax, from her well-guarded walls,[279]
Is now that name no more, unhappy boy!
Since now no more thy father guards his Troy.
But thou, my Hector, liest exposed in air,
Far from thy parents’ and thy consort’s care;
Whose hand in vain, directed by her love,
The martial scarf and robe of triumph wove.
Now to devouring flames be these a prey,
Useless to thee, from this accursed day!
Yet let the sacrifice at least be paid,
An honour to the living, not the dead!”


So spake the mournful dame: her matrons hear, Sigh back her sighs, and
answer tear with tear.




BOOK XXIII.


ARGUMENT.


FUNERAL GAMES IN HONOUR OF PATROCLUS.[280]


Achilles and the Myrmidons do honours to the body of Patroclus. After
the funeral feast he retires to the sea-shore, where, falling asleep,
the ghost of his friend appears to him, and demands the rites of
burial; the next morning the soldiers are sent with mules and waggons
to fetch wood for the pyre. The funeral procession, and the offering
their hair to the dead. Achilles sacrifices several animals, and lastly
twelve Trojan captives, at the pile; then sets fire to it. He pays
libations to the Winds, which (at the instance of Iris) rise, and raise
the flames. When the pile has burned all night, they gather the bones,
place them in an urn of gold, and raise the tomb. Achilles institutes
the funeral games: the chariot-race, the fight of the caestus, the
wrestling, the foot-race, the single combat, the discus, the shooting
with arrows, the darting the javelin: the various descriptions of
which, and the various success of the several antagonists, make the
greatest part of the book.
    In this book ends the thirtieth day. The night following, the ghost
    of Patroclus appears to Achilles: the one-and-thirtieth day is
    employed in felling the timber for the pile: the two-and-thirtieth
    in burning it; and the three-and-thirtieth in the games. The scene
    is generally on the sea-shore.


Thus humbled in the dust, the pensive train
Through the sad city mourn’d her hero slain.
The body soil’d with dust, and black with gore,
Lies on broad Hellespont’s resounding shore.
The Grecians seek their ships, and clear the strand,
All, but the martial Myrmidonian band:
These yet assembled great Achilles holds,
And the stern purpose of his mind unfolds:

“Not yet, my brave companions of the war,
Release your smoking coursers from the car;
But, with his chariot each in order led,
Perform due honours to Patroclus dead.
Ere yet from rest or food we seek relief,
Some rites remain, to glut our rage of grief.”

The troops obey’d; and thrice in order led[281]
(Achilles first) their coursers round the dead;
And thrice their sorrows and laments renew;
Tears bathe their arms, and tears the sands bedew.
For such a warrior Thetis aids their woe,
Melts their strong hearts, and bids their eyes to flow.
But chief, Pelides: thick-succeeding sighs
Burst from his heart, and torrents from his eyes:
His slaughtering hands, yet red with blood, he laid
On his dead friend’s cold breast, and thus he said:

“All hail, Patroclus! let thy honour’d ghost
Hear, and rejoice on Pluto’s dreary coast;
Behold! Achilles’ promise is complete;
The bloody Hector stretch’d before thy feet.
Lo! to the dogs his carcase I resign;
And twelve sad victims, of the Trojan line,
Sacred to vengeance, instant shall expire;
Their lives effused around thy funeral pyre.”

Gloomy he said, and (horrible to view)
Before the bier the bleeding Hector threw,
Prone on the dust. The Myrmidons around
Unbraced their armour, and the steeds unbound.
All to Achilles’ sable ship repair,
Frequent and full, the genial feast to share.
Now from the well-fed swine black smokes aspire,
The bristly victims hissing o’er the fire:
The huge ox bellowing falls; with feebler cries
Expires the goat; the sheep in silence dies.
Around the hero’s prostrate body flow’d,
In one promiscuous stream, the reeking blood.
And now a band of Argive monarchs brings
The glorious victor to the king of kings.
From his dead friend the pensive warrior went,
With steps unwilling, to the regal tent.
The attending heralds, as by office bound,
With kindled flames the tripod-vase surround:
To cleanse his conquering hands from hostile gore,
They urged in vain; the chief refused, and swore:[282]

“No drop shall touch me, by almighty Jove!
The first and greatest of the gods above!
Till on the pyre I place thee; till I rear
The grassy mound, and clip thy sacred hair.
Some ease at least those pious rites may give,
And soothe my sorrows, while I bear to live.
Howe’er, reluctant as I am, I stay
And share your feast; but with the dawn of day,
(O king of men!) it claims thy royal care,
That Greece the warrior’s funeral pile prepare,
And bid the forests fall: (such rites are paid
To heroes slumbering in eternal shade:)
Then, when his earthly part shall mount in fire,
Let the leagued squadrons to their posts retire.”

He spoke: they hear him, and the word obey;
The rage of hunger and of thirst allay,
Then ease in sleep the labours of the day.
But great Pelides, stretch’d along the shore,
Where, dash’d on rocks, the broken billows roar,
Lies inly groaning; while on either hand
The martial Myrmidons confusedly stand.
Along the grass his languid members fall,
Tired with his chase around the Trojan wall;
Hush’d by the murmurs of the rolling deep,
At length he sinks in the soft arms of sleep.
When lo! the shade, before his closing eyes,
Of sad Patroclus rose, or seem’d to rise:
In the same robe he living wore, he came:
In stature, voice, and pleasing look, the same.
The form familiar hover’d o’er his head,
“And sleeps Achilles? (thus the phantom said:)
Sleeps my Achilles, his Patroclus dead?
Living, I seem’d his dearest, tenderest care,
But now forgot, I wander in the air.
Let my pale corse the rites of burial know,
And give me entrance in the realms below:
Till then the spirit finds no resting-place,
But here and there the unbodied spectres chase
The vagrant dead around the dark abode,
Forbid to cross the irremeable flood.
Now give thy hand; for to the farther shore
When once we pass, the soul returns no more:
When once the last funereal flames ascend,
No more shall meet Achilles and his friend;
No more our thoughts to those we loved make known;
Or quit the dearest, to converse alone.
Me fate has sever’d from the sons of earth,
The fate fore-doom’d that waited from my birth:
Thee too it waits; before the Trojan wall
Even great and godlike thou art doom’d to fall.
Hear then; and as in fate and love we join,
Ah suffer that my bones may rest with thine!
Together have we lived; together bred,
One house received us, and one table fed;
That golden urn, thy goddess-mother gave,
May mix our ashes in one common grave.”

“And is it thou? (he answers) To my sight[283]
Once more return’st thou from the realms of night?
O more than brother! Think each office paid,
Whate’er can rest a discontented shade;
But grant one last embrace, unhappy boy!
Afford at least that melancholy joy.”

He said, and with his longing arms essay’d
In vain to grasp the visionary shade!
Like a thin smoke he sees the spirit fly,[284]
And hears a feeble, lamentable cry.
Confused he wakes; amazement breaks the bands
Of golden sleep, and starting from the sands,
Pensive he muses with uplifted hands:

“’Tis true, ’tis certain; man, though dead, retains
Part of himself; the immortal mind remains:
The form subsists without the body’s aid,
Aerial semblance, and an empty shade!
This night my friend, so late in battle lost,
Stood at my side, a pensive, plaintive ghost:
Even now familiar, as in life, he came;
Alas! how different! yet how like the same!”

Thus while he spoke, each eye grew big with tears:
And now the rosy-finger’d morn appears,
Shows every mournful face with tears o’erspread,
And glares on the pale visage of the dead.
But Agamemnon, as the rites demand,
With mules and waggons sends a chosen band
To load the timber, and the pile to rear;
A charge consign’d to Merion’s faithful care.
With proper instruments they take the road,
Axes to cut, and ropes to sling the load.
First march the heavy mules, securely slow,
O’er hills, o’er dales, o’er crags, o’er rocks they go:[285]
Jumping, high o’er the shrubs of the rough ground,
Rattle the clattering cars, and the shock’d axles bound.
But when arrived at Ida’s spreading woods,[286]
(Fair Ida, water’d with descending floods,)
Loud sounds the axe, redoubling strokes on strokes;
On all sides round the forest hurls her oaks
Headlong. Deep echoing groan the thickets brown;
Then rustling, crackling, crashing, thunder down.
The wood the Grecians cleave, prepared to burn;
And the slow mules the same rough road return.
The sturdy woodmen equal burdens bore
(Such charge was given them) to the sandy shore;
There on the spot which great Achilles show’d,
They eased their shoulders, and disposed the load;
Circling around the place, where times to come
Shall view Patroclus’ and Achilles’ tomb.
The hero bids his martial troops appear
High on their cars in all the pomp of war;
Each in refulgent arms his limbs attires,
All mount their chariots, combatants and squires.
The chariots first proceed, a shining train;
Then clouds of foot that smoke along the plain;
Next these the melancholy band appear;
Amidst, lay dead Patroclus on the bier;
O’er all the corse their scattered locks they throw;
Achilles next, oppress’d with mighty woe,
Supporting with his hands the hero’s head,
Bends o’er the extended body of the dead.
Patroclus decent on the appointed ground
They place, and heap the sylvan pile around.
But great Achilles stands apart in prayer,
And from his head divides the yellow hair;
Those curling locks which from his youth he vow’d,[287]
And sacred grew, to Sperchius’ honour’d flood:
Then sighing, to the deep his locks he cast,
And roll’d his eyes around the watery waste:

“Sperchius! whose waves in mazy errors lost
Delightful roll along my native coast!
To whom we vainly vow’d, at our return,
These locks to fall, and hecatombs to burn:
Full fifty rams to bleed in sacrifice,
Where to the day thy silver fountains rise,
And where in shade of consecrated bowers
Thy altars stand, perfumed with native flowers!
So vow’d my father, but he vow’d in vain;
No more Achilles sees his native plain;
In that vain hope these hairs no longer grow,
Patroclus bears them to the shades below.”

Thus o’er Patroclus while the hero pray’d,
On his cold hand the sacred lock he laid.
Once more afresh the Grecian sorrows flow:
And now the sun had set upon their woe;
But to the king of men thus spoke the chief:
“Enough, Atrides! give the troops relief:
Permit the mourning legions to retire,
And let the chiefs alone attend the pyre;
The pious care be ours, the dead to burn—”
He said: the people to their ships return:
While those deputed to inter the slain
Heap with a rising pyramid the plain.[288]
A hundred foot in length, a hundred wide,
The growing structure spreads on every side;
High on the top the manly corse they lay,
And well-fed sheep and sable oxen slay:
Achilles covered with their fat the dead,
And the piled victims round the body spread;
Then jars of honey, and of fragrant oil,
Suspends around, low-bending o’er the pile.
Four sprightly coursers, with a deadly groan
Pour forth their lives, and on the pyre are thrown.
Of nine large dogs, domestic at his board,
Fall two, selected to attend their lord,
Then last of all, and horrible to tell,
Sad sacrifice! twelve Trojan captives fell.[289]
On these the rage of fire victorious preys,
Involves and joins them in one common blaze.
Smear’d with the bloody rites, he stands on high,
And calls the spirit with a dreadful cry:[290]

“All hail, Patroclus! let thy vengeful ghost
Hear, and exult, on Pluto’s dreary coast.
Behold Achilles’ promise fully paid,
Twelve Trojan heroes offer’d to thy shade;
But heavier fates on Hector’s corse attend,
Saved from the flames, for hungry dogs to rend.”

So spake he, threatening: but the gods made vain
His threat, and guard inviolate the slain:
Celestial Venus hover’d o’er his head,
And roseate unguents, heavenly fragrance! shed:
She watch’d him all the night and all the day,
And drove the bloodhounds from their destined prey.
Nor sacred Phœbus less employ’d his care;
He pour’d around a veil of gather’d air,
And kept the nerves undried, the flesh entire,
Against the solar beam and Sirian fire.


[Illustration: ] THE FUNERAL PILE OF PATROCLUS


Nor yet the pile, where dead Patroclus lies,
Smokes, nor as yet the sullen flames arise;
But, fast beside, Achilles stood in prayer,
Invoked the gods whose spirit moves the air,
And victims promised, and libations cast,
To gentle Zephyr and the Boreal blast:
He call’d the aerial powers, along the skies
To breathe, and whisper to the fires to rise.
The winged Iris heard the hero’s call,
And instant hasten’d to their airy hall,
Where in old Zephyr’s open courts on high,
Sat all the blustering brethren of the sky.
She shone amidst them, on her painted bow;
The rocky pavement glitter’d with the show.
All from the banquet rise, and each invites
The various goddess to partake the rites.
“Not so (the dame replied), I haste to go
To sacred Ocean, and the floods below:
Even now our solemn hecatombs attend,
And heaven is feasting on the world’s green end
With righteous Ethiops (uncorrupted train!)
Far on the extremest limits of the main.
But Peleus’ son entreats, with sacrifice,
The western spirit, and the north, to rise!
Let on Patroclus’ pile your blast be driven,
And bear the blazing honours high to heaven.”

Swift as the word she vanish’d from their view;
Swift as the word the winds tumultuous flew;
Forth burst the stormy band with thundering roar,
And heaps on heaps the clouds are toss’d before.
To the wide main then stooping from the skies,
The heaving deeps in watery mountains rise:
Troy feels the blast along her shaking walls,
Till on the pile the gather’d tempest falls.
The structure crackles in the roaring fires,
And all the night the plenteous flame aspires.
All night Achilles hails Patroclus’ soul,
With large libations from the golden bowl.
As a poor father, helpless and undone,
Mourns o’er the ashes of an only son,
Takes a sad pleasure the last bones to burn,
And pours in tears, ere yet they close the urn:
So stay’d Achilles, circling round the shore,
So watch’d the flames, till now they flame no more.
’Twas when, emerging through the shades of night,
The morning planet told the approach of light;
And, fast behind, Aurora’s warmer ray
O’er the broad ocean pour’d the golden day:
Then sank the blaze, the pile no longer burn’d,
And to their caves the whistling winds return’d:
Across the Thracian seas their course they bore;
The ruffled seas beneath their passage roar.

Then parting from the pile he ceased to weep,
And sank to quiet in the embrace of sleep,
Exhausted with his grief: meanwhile the crowd
Of thronging Grecians round Achilles stood;
The tumult waked him: from his eyes he shook
Unwilling slumber, and the chiefs bespoke:

“Ye kings and princes of the Achaian name!
First let us quench the yet remaining flame
With sable wine; then, as the rites direct,
The hero’s bones with careful view select:
(Apart, and easy to be known they lie
Amidst the heap, and obvious to the eye:
The rest around the margin will be seen
Promiscuous, steeds and immolated men:)
These wrapp’d in double cauls of fat, prepare;
And in the golden vase dispose with care;
There let them rest with decent honour laid,
Till I shall follow to the infernal shade.
Meantime erect the tomb with pious hands,
A common structure on the humble sands:
Hereafter Greece some nobler work may raise,
And late posterity record our praise!”

The Greeks obey; where yet the embers glow,
Wide o’er the pile the sable wine they throw,
And deep subsides the ashy heap below.
Next the white bones his sad companions place,
With tears collected, in the golden vase.
The sacred relics to the tent they bore;
The urn a veil of linen covered o’er.
That done, they bid the sepulchre aspire,
And cast the deep foundations round the pyre;
High in the midst they heap the swelling bed
Of rising earth, memorial of the dead.

The swarming populace the chief detains,
And leads amidst a wide extent of plains;
There placed them round: then from the ships proceeds
A train of oxen, mules, and stately steeds,
Vases and tripods (for the funeral games),
Resplendent brass, and more resplendent dames.
First stood the prizes to reward the force
Of rapid racers in the dusty course:
A woman for the first, in beauty’s bloom,
Skill’d in the needle, and the labouring loom;
And a large vase, where two bright handles rise,
Of twenty measures its capacious size.
The second victor claims a mare unbroke,
Big with a mule, unknowing of the yoke:
The third, a charger yet untouch’d by flame;
Four ample measures held the shining frame:
Two golden talents for the fourth were placed:
An ample double bowl contents the last.
These in fair order ranged upon the plain,
The hero, rising, thus address’d the train:

“Behold the prizes, valiant Greeks! decreed
To the brave rulers of the racing steed;
Prizes which none beside ourself could gain,
Should our immortal coursers take the plain;
(A race unrivall’d, which from ocean’s god
Peleus received, and on his son bestow’d.)
But this no time our vigour to display;
Nor suit, with them, the games of this sad day:
Lost is Patroclus now, that wont to deck
Their flowing manes, and sleek their glossy neck.
Sad, as they shared in human grief, they stand,
And trail those graceful honours on the sand!
Let others for the noble task prepare,
Who trust the courser and the flying car.”

Fired at his word the rival racers rise;
But far the first Eumelus hopes the prize,
Famed though Pieria for the fleetest breed,
And skill’d to manage the high-bounding steed.
With equal ardour bold Tydides swell’d,
The steeds of Tros beneath his yoke compell’d
(Which late obey’d the Dardan chief’s command,
When scarce a god redeem’d him from his hand).
Then Menelaus his Podargus brings,
And the famed courser of the king of kings:
Whom rich Echepolus (more rich than brave),
To ’scape the wars, to Agamemnon gave,
(Æthe her name) at home to end his days;
Base wealth preferring to eternal praise.
Next him Antilochus demands the course
With beating heart, and cheers his Pylian horse.
Experienced Nestor gives his son the reins,
Directs his judgment, and his heat restrains;
Nor idly warns the hoary sire, nor hears
The prudent son with unattending ears.

“My son! though youthful ardour fire thy breast,
The gods have loved thee, and with arts have bless’d;
Neptune and Jove on thee conferr’d the skill
Swift round the goal to turn the flying wheel.
To guide thy conduct little precept needs;
But slow, and past their vigour, are my steeds.
Fear not thy rivals, though for swiftness known;
Compare those rivals’ judgment and thy own:
It is not strength, but art, obtains the prize,
And to be swift is less than to be wise.
’Tis more by art than force of numerous strokes
The dexterous woodman shapes the stubborn oaks;
By art the pilot, through the boiling deep
And howling tempest, steers the fearless ship;
And ’tis the artist wins the glorious course;
Not those who trust in chariots and in horse.
In vain, unskilful to the goal they strive,
And short, or wide, the ungovern’d courser drive:
While with sure skill, though with inferior steeds,
The knowing racer to his end proceeds;
Fix’d on the goal his eye foreruns the course,
His hand unerring steers the steady horse,
And now contracts, or now extends the rein,
Observing still the foremost on the plain.
Mark then the goal, ’tis easy to be found;
Yon aged trunk, a cubit from the ground;
Of some once stately oak the last remains,
Or hardy fir, unperish’d with the rains:
Inclosed with stones, conspicuous from afar;
And round, a circle for the wheeling car.
(Some tomb perhaps of old, the dead to grace;
Or then, as now, the limit of a race.)
Bear close to this, and warily proceed,
A little bending to the left-hand steed;
But urge the right, and give him all the reins;
While thy strict hand his fellow’s head restrains,
And turns him short; till, doubling as they roll,
The wheel’s round naves appear to brush the goal.
Yet (not to break the car, or lame the horse)
Clear of the stony heap direct the course;
Lest through incaution failing, thou mayst be
A joy to others, a reproach to me.
So shalt thou pass the goal, secure of mind,
And leave unskilful swiftness far behind:
Though thy fierce rival drove the matchless steed
Which bore Adrastus, of celestial breed;
Or the famed race, through all the regions known,
That whirl’d the car of proud Laomedon.”

Thus (nought unsaid) the much-advising sage
Concludes; then sat, stiff with unwieldy age.
Next bold Meriones was seen to rise,
The last, but not least ardent for the prize.
They mount their seats; the lots their place dispose
(Roll’d in his helmet, these Achilles throws).
Young Nestor leads the race: Eumelus then;
And next the brother of the king of men:
Thy lot, Meriones, the fourth was cast;
And, far the bravest, Diomed, was last.
They stand in order, an impatient train:
Pelides points the barrier on the plain,
And sends before old Phœnix to the place,
To mark the racers, and to judge the race.
At once the coursers from the barrier bound;
The lifted scourges all at once resound;
Their heart, their eyes, their voice, they send before;
And up the champaign thunder from the shore:
Thick, where they drive, the dusty clouds arise,
And the lost courser in the whirlwind flies;
Loose on their shoulders the long manes reclined,
Float in their speed, and dance upon the wind:
The smoking chariots, rapid as they bound,
Now seem to touch the sky, and now the ground.
While hot for fame, and conquest all their care,
(Each o’er his flying courser hung in air,)
Erect with ardour, poised upon the rein,
They pant, they stretch, they shout along the plain.
Now (the last compass fetch’d around the goal)
At the near prize each gathers all his soul,
Each burns with double hope, with double pain,
Tears up the shore, and thunders toward the main.
First flew Eumelus on Pheretian steeds;
With those of Tros bold Diomed succeeds:
Close on Eumelus’ back they puff the wind,
And seem just mounting on his car behind;
Full on his neck he feels the sultry breeze,
And, hovering o’er, their stretching shadows sees.
Then had he lost, or left a doubtful prize;
But angry Phœbus to Tydides flies,
Strikes from his hand the scourge, and renders vain
His matchless horses’ labour on the plain.
Rage fills his eye with anguish, to survey
Snatch’d from his hope the glories of the day.
The fraud celestial Pallas sees with pain,
Springs to her knight, and gives the scourge again,
And fills his steeds with vigour. At a stroke
She breaks his rival’s chariot from the yoke:
No more their way the startled horses held;
The car reversed came rattling on the field;
Shot headlong from his seat, beside the wheel,
Prone on the dust the unhappy master fell;
His batter’d face and elbows strike the ground;
Nose, mouth, and front, one undistinguish’d wound:
Grief stops his voice, a torrent drowns his eyes:
Before him far the glad Tydides flies;
Minerva’s spirit drives his matchless pace,
And crowns him victor of the labour’d race.

The next, though distant, Menelaus succeeds;
While thus young Nestor animates his steeds:
“Now, now, my generous pair, exert your force;
Not that we hope to match Tydides’ horse,
Since great Minerva wings their rapid way,
And gives their lord the honours of the day;
But reach Atrides! shall his mare outgo
Your swiftness? vanquish’d by a female foe?
Through your neglect, if lagging on the plain
The last ignoble gift be all we gain,
No more shall Nestor’s hand your food supply,
The old man’s fury rises, and ye die.
Haste then: yon narrow road, before our sight,
Presents the occasion, could we use it right.”

Thus he. The coursers at their master’s threat
With quicker steps the sounding champaign beat.
And now Antilochus with nice survey
Observes the compass of the hollow way.
’Twas where, by force of wintry torrents torn,
Fast by the road a precipice was worn:
Here, where but one could pass, to shun the throng
The Spartan hero’s chariot smoked along.
Close up the venturous youth resolves to keep,
Still edging near, and bears him toward the steep.
Atrides, trembling, casts his eye below,
And wonders at the rashness of his foe.
“Hold, stay your steeds—What madness thus to ride
This narrow way! take larger field (he cried),
Or both must fall.”—Atrides cried in vain;
He flies more fast, and throws up all the rein.
Far as an able arm the disk can send,
When youthful rivals their full force extend,
So far, Antilochus! thy chariot flew
Before the king: he, cautious, backward drew
His horse compell’d; foreboding in his fears
The rattling ruin of the clashing cars,
The floundering coursers rolling on the plain,
And conquest lost through frantic haste to gain.
But thus upbraids his rival as he flies:
“Go, furious youth! ungenerous and unwise!
Go, but expect not I’ll the prize resign;
Add perjury to fraud, and make it thine—”
Then to his steeds with all his force he cries,
“Be swift, be vigorous, and regain the prize!
Your rivals, destitute of youthful force,
With fainting knees shall labour in the course,
And yield the glory yours.”—The steeds obey;
Already at their heels they wing their way,
And seem already to retrieve the day.

Meantime the Grecians in a ring beheld
The coursers bounding o’er the dusty field.
The first who mark’d them was the Cretan king;
High on a rising ground, above the ring,
The monarch sat: from whence with sure survey
He well observed the chief who led the way,
And heard from far his animating cries,
And saw the foremost steed with sharpen’d eyes;
On whose broad front a blaze of shining white,
Like the full moon, stood obvious to the sight.
He saw; and rising, to the Greeks begun:
“Are yonder horse discern’d by me alone?
Or can ye, all, another chief survey,
And other steeds than lately led the way?
Those, though the swiftest, by some god withheld,
Lie sure disabled in the middle field:
For, since the goal they doubled, round the plain
I search to find them, but I search in vain.
Perchance the reins forsook the driver’s hand,
And, turn’d too short, he tumbled on the strand,
Shot from the chariot; while his coursers stray
With frantic fury from the destined way.
Rise then some other, and inform my sight,
For these dim eyes, perhaps, discern not right;
Yet sure he seems, to judge by shape and air,
The great Ætolian chief, renown’d in war.”

“Old man! (Oïleus rashly thus replies)
Thy tongue too hastily confers the prize;
Of those who view the course, nor sharpest eyed,
Nor youngest, yet the readiest to decide.
Eumelus’ steeds, high bounding in the chase,
Still, as at first, unrivall’d lead the race:
I well discern him, as he shakes the rein,
And hear his shouts victorious o’er the plain.”

Thus he. Idomeneus, incensed, rejoin’d:
“Barbarous of words! and arrogant of mind!
Contentious prince, of all the Greeks beside
The last in merit, as the first in pride!
To vile reproach what answer can we make?
A goblet or a tripod let us stake,
And be the king the judge. The most unwise
Will learn their rashness, when they pay the price.”

He said: and Ajax, by mad passion borne,
Stern had replied; fierce scorn enhancing scorn
To fell extremes. But Thetis’ godlike son
Awful amidst them rose, and thus begun:

“Forbear, ye chiefs! reproachful to contend;
Much would ye blame, should others thus offend:
And lo! the approaching steeds your contest end.”
No sooner had he spoke, but thundering near,
Drives, through a stream of dust, the charioteer.
High o’er his head the circling lash he wields:
His bounding horses scarcely touch the fields:
His car amidst the dusty whirlwind roll’d,
Bright with the mingled blaze of tin and gold,
Refulgent through the cloud: no eye could find
The track his flying wheels had left behind:
And the fierce coursers urged their rapid pace
So swift, it seem’d a flight, and not a race.
Now victor at the goal Tydides stands,
Quits his bright car, and springs upon the sands;
From the hot steeds the sweaty torrents stream;
The well-plied whip is hung athwart the beam:
With joy brave Sthenelus receives the prize,
The tripod-vase, and dame with radiant eyes:
These to the ships his train triumphant leads,
The chief himself unyokes the panting steeds.

Young Nestor follows (who by art, not force,
O’erpass’d Atrides) second in the course.
Behind, Atrides urged the race, more near
Than to the courser in his swift career
The following car, just touching with his heel
And brushing with his tail the whirling wheel:
Such, and so narrow now the space between
The rivals, late so distant on the green;
So soon swift Æthe her lost ground regain’d,
One length, one moment, had the race obtain’d.

Merion pursued, at greater distance still,
With tardier coursers, and inferior skill.
Last came, Admetus! thy unhappy son;
Slow dragged the steeds his batter’d chariot on:
Achilles saw, and pitying thus begun:

“Behold! the man whose matchless art surpass’d
The sons of Greece! the ablest, yet the last!
Fortune denies, but justice bids us pay
(Since great Tydides bears the first away)
To him the second honours of the day.”

The Greeks consent with loud-applauding cries,
And then Eumelus had received the prize,
But youthful Nestor, jealous of his fame,
The award opposes, and asserts his claim.
“Think not (he cries) I tamely will resign,
O Peleus’ son! the mare so justly mine.
What if the gods, the skilful to confound,
Have thrown the horse and horseman to the ground?
Perhaps he sought not heaven by sacrifice,
And vows omitted forfeited the prize.
If yet (distinction to thy friend to show,
And please a soul desirous to bestow)
Some gift must grace Eumelus, view thy store
Of beauteous handmaids, steeds, and shining ore;
An ample present let him thence receive,
And Greece shall praise thy generous thirst to give.
But this my prize I never shall forego;
This, who but touches, warriors! is my foe.”

Thus spake the youth; nor did his words offend;
Pleased with the well-turn’d flattery of a friend,
Achilles smiled: “The gift proposed (he cried),
Antilochus! we shall ourself provide.
With plates of brass the corslet cover’d o’er,
(The same renown’d Asteropaeus wore,)
Whose glittering margins raised with silver shine,
(No vulgar gift,) Eumelus! shall be thine.”

He said: Automedon at his command
The corslet brought, and gave it to his hand.
Distinguish’d by his friend, his bosom glows
With generous joy: then Menelaus rose;
The herald placed the sceptre in his hands,
And still’d the clamour of the shouting bands.
Not without cause incensed at Nestor’s son,
And inly grieving, thus the king begun:

“The praise of wisdom, in thy youth obtain’d,
An act so rash, Antilochus! has stain’d.
Robb’d of my glory and my just reward,
To you, O Grecians! be my wrong declared:
So not a leader shall our conduct blame,
Or judge me envious of a rival’s fame.
But shall not we, ourselves, the truth maintain?
What needs appealing in a fact so plain?
What Greek shall blame me, if I bid thee rise,
And vindicate by oath th’ ill-gotten prize?
Rise if thou darest, before thy chariot stand,
The driving scourge high-lifted in thy hand;
And touch thy steeds, and swear thy whole intent
Was but to conquer, not to circumvent.
Swear by that god whose liquid arms surround
The globe, and whose dread earthquakes heave the ground!”

The prudent chief with calm attention heard;
Then mildly thus: “Excuse, if youth have err’d;
Superior as thou art, forgive the offence,
Nor I thy equal, or in years, or sense.
Thou know’st the errors of unripen’d age,
Weak are its counsels, headlong is its rage.
The prize I quit, if thou thy wrath resign;
The mare, or aught thou ask’st, be freely thine
Ere I become (from thy dear friendship torn)
Hateful to thee, and to the gods forsworn.”

So spoke Antilochus; and at the word
The mare contested to the king restored.
Joy swells his soul: as when the vernal grain
Lifts the green ear above the springing plain,
The fields their vegetable life renew,
And laugh and glitter with the morning dew;
Such joy the Spartan’s shining face o’erspread,
And lifted his gay heart, while thus he said:

“Still may our souls, O generous youth! agree
’Tis now Atrides’ turn to yield to thee.
Rash heat perhaps a moment might control,
Not break, the settled temper of thy soul.
Not but (my friend) ’tis still the wiser way
To waive contention with superior sway;
For ah! how few, who should like thee offend,
Like thee, have talents to regain the friend!
To plead indulgence, and thy fault atone,
Suffice thy father’s merit and thy own:
Generous alike, for me, the sire and son
Have greatly suffer’d, and have greatly done.
I yield; that all may know, my soul can bend,
Nor is my pride preferr’d before my friend.”

He said; and pleased his passion to command,
Resign’d the courser to Noemon’s hand,
Friend of the youthful chief: himself content,
The shining charger to his vessel sent.
The golden talents Merion next obtain’d;
The fifth reward, the double bowl, remain’d.
Achilles this to reverend Nestor bears.
And thus the purpose of his gift declares:
“Accept thou this, O sacred sire! (he said)
In dear memorial of Patroclus dead;
Dead and for ever lost Patroclus lies,
For ever snatch’d from our desiring eyes!
Take thou this token of a grateful heart,
Though ’tis not thine to hurl the distant dart,
The quoit to toss, the ponderous mace to wield,
Or urge the race, or wrestle on the field:
Thy pristine vigour age has overthrown,
But left the glory of the past thy own.”

He said, and placed the goblet at his side;
With joy the venerable king replied:

“Wisely and well, my son, thy words have proved
A senior honour’d, and a friend beloved!
Too true it is, deserted of my strength,
These wither’d arms and limbs have fail’d at length.
Oh! had I now that force I felt of yore,
Known through Buprasium and the Pylian shore!
Victorious then in every solemn game,
Ordain’d to Amarynces’ mighty name;
The brave Epeians gave my glory way,
Ætolians, Pylians, all resign’d the day.
I quell’d Clytomedes in fights of hand,
And backward hurl’d Ancæus on the sand,
Surpass’d Iphyclus in the swift career,
Phyleus and Polydorus with the spear.
The sons of Actor won the prize of horse,
But won by numbers, not by art or force:
For the famed twins, impatient to survey
Prize after prize by Nestor borne away,
Sprung to their car; and with united pains
One lash’d the coursers, while one ruled the reins.
Such once I was! Now to these tasks succeeds
A younger race, that emulate our deeds:
I yield, alas! (to age who must not yield?)
Though once the foremost hero of the field.
Go thou, my son! by generous friendship led,
With martial honours decorate the dead:
While pleased I take the gift thy hands present,
(Pledge of benevolence, and kind intent,)
Rejoiced, of all the numerous Greeks, to see
Not one but honours sacred age and me:
Those due distinctions thou so well canst pay,
May the just gods return another day!”

Proud of the gift, thus spake the full of days:
Achilles heard him, prouder of the praise.

The prizes next are order’d to the field,
For the bold champions who the caestus wield.
A stately mule, as yet by toils unbroke,
Of six years’ age, unconscious of the yoke,
Is to the circus led, and firmly bound;
Next stands a goblet, massy, large, and round.
Achilles rising, thus: “Let Greece excite
Two heroes equal to this hardy fight;
Who dare the foe with lifted arms provoke,
And rush beneath the long-descending stroke.
On whom Apollo shall the palm bestow,
And whom the Greeks supreme by conquest know,
This mule his dauntless labours shall repay,
The vanquish’d bear the massy bowl away.”

This dreadful combat great Epeüs chose;[291]
High o’er the crowd, enormous bulk! he rose,
And seized the beast, and thus began to say:
“Stand forth some man, to bear the bowl away!
(Price of his ruin: for who dares deny
This mule my right; the undoubted victor I)
Others, ’tis own’d, in fields of battle shine,
But the first honours of this fight are mine;
For who excels in all? Then let my foe
Draw near, but first his certain fortune know;
Secure this hand shall his whole frame confound,
Mash all his bones, and all his body pound:
So let his friends be nigh, a needful train,
To heave the batter’d carcase off the plain.”

The giant spoke; and in a stupid gaze
The host beheld him, silent with amaze!
’Twas thou, Euryalus! who durst aspire
To meet his might, and emulate thy sire,
The great Mecistheus; who in days of yore
In Theban games the noblest trophy bore,
(The games ordain’d dead OEdipus to grace,)
And singly vanquish the Cadmean race.
Him great Tydides urges to contend,
Warm with the hopes of conquest for his friend;
Officious with the cincture girds him round;
And to his wrist the gloves of death are bound.
Amid the circle now each champion stands,
And poises high in air his iron hands;
With clashing gauntlets now they fiercely close,
Their crackling jaws re-echo to the blows,
And painful sweat from all their members flows.
At length Epeus dealt a weighty blow
Full on the cheek of his unwary foe;
Beneath that ponderous arm’s resistless sway
Down dropp’d he, nerveless, and extended lay.
As a large fish, when winds and waters roar,
By some huge billow dash’d against the shore,
Lies panting; not less batter’d with his wound,
The bleeding hero pants upon the ground.
To rear his fallen foe, the victor lends,
Scornful, his hand; and gives him to his friends;
Whose arms support him, reeling through the throng,
And dragging his disabled legs along;
Nodding, his head hangs down his shoulder o’er;
His mouth and nostrils pour the clotted gore;[292]
Wrapp’d round in mists he lies, and lost to thought;
His friends receive the bowl, too dearly bought.

The third bold game Achilles next demands,
And calls the wrestlers to the level sands:
A massy tripod for the victor lies,
Of twice six oxen its reputed price;
And next, the loser’s spirits to restore,
A female captive, valued but at four.
Scarce did the chief the vigorous strife propose
When tower-like Ajax and Ulysses rose.
Amid the ring each nervous rival stands,
Embracing rigid with implicit hands.
Close lock’d above, their heads and arms are mix’d:
Below, their planted feet at distance fix’d;
Like two strong rafters which the builder forms,
Proof to the wintry winds and howling storms,
Their tops connected, but at wider space
Fix’d on the centre stands their solid base.
Now to the grasp each manly body bends;
The humid sweat from every pore descends;
Their bones resound with blows: sides, shoulders, thighs
Swell to each gripe, and bloody tumours rise.
Nor could Ulysses, for his art renown’d,
O’erturn the strength of Ajax on the ground;
Nor could the strength of Ajax overthrow
The watchful caution of his artful foe.
While the long strife even tired the lookers on,
Thus to Ulysses spoke great Telamon:
“Or let me lift thee, chief, or lift thou me:
Prove we our force, and Jove the rest decree.”

He said; and, straining, heaved him off the ground
With matchless strength; that time Ulysses found
The strength to evade, and where the nerves combine
His ankle struck: the giant fell supine;
Ulysses, following, on his bosom lies;
Shouts of applause run rattling through the skies.
Ajax to lift Ulysses next essays;
He barely stirr’d him, but he could not raise:
His knee lock’d fast, the foe’s attempt denied;
And grappling close, they tumbled side by side.
Defiled with honourable dust they roll,
Still breathing strife, and unsubdued of soul:
Again they rage, again to combat rise;
When great Achilles thus divides the prize:

“Your noble vigour, O my friends, restrain;
Nor weary out your generous strength in vain.
Ye both have won: let others who excel,
Now prove that prowess you have proved so well.”

The hero’s words the willing chiefs obey,
From their tired bodies wipe the dust away,
And, clothed anew, the following games survey.

And now succeed the gifts ordain’d to grace
The youths contending in the rapid race:
A silver urn that full six measures held,
By none in weight or workmanship excell’d:
Sidonian artists taught the frame to shine,
Elaborate, with artifice divine;
Whence Tyrian sailors did the prize transport,
And gave to Thoas at the Lemnian port:
From him descended, good Eunaeus heir’d
The glorious gift; and, for Lycaon spared,
To brave Patroclus gave the rich reward:
Now, the same hero’s funeral rites to grace,
It stands the prize of swiftness in the race.
A well-fed ox was for the second placed;
And half a talent must content the last.
Achilles rising then bespoke the train:
“Who hope the palm of swiftness to obtain,
Stand forth, and bear these prizes from the plain.”

The hero said, and starting from his place,
Oilean Ajax rises to the race;
Ulysses next; and he whose speed surpass’d
His youthful equals, Nestor’s son, the last.
Ranged in a line the ready racers stand;
Pelides points the barrier with his hand;
All start at once; Oïleus led the race;
The next Ulysses, measuring pace with pace;
Behind him, diligently close, he sped,
As closely following as the running thread
The spindle follows, and displays the charms
Of the fair spinster’s breast and moving arms:
Graceful in motion thus, his foe he plies,
And treads each footstep ere the dust can rise;
His glowing breath upon his shoulders plays:
The admiring Greeks loud acclamations raise:
To him they give their wishes, hearts, and eyes,
And send their souls before him as he flies.
Now three times turn’d in prospect of the goal,
The panting chief to Pallas lifts his soul:
“Assist, O goddess!” thus in thought he pray’d!
And present at his thought descends the maid.
Buoy’d by her heavenly force, he seems to swim,
And feels a pinion lifting every limb.
All fierce, and ready now the prize to gain,
Unhappy Ajax stumbles on the plain
(O’erturn’d by Pallas), where the slippery shore
Was clogg’d with slimy dung and mingled gore.
(The self-same place beside Patroclus’ pyre,
Where late the slaughter’d victims fed the fire.)
Besmear’d with filth, and blotted o’er with clay,
Obscene to sight, the rueful racer lay;
The well-fed bull (the second prize) he shared,
And left the urn Ulysses’ rich reward.
Then, grasping by the horn the mighty beast,
The baffled hero thus the Greeks address’d:

“Accursed fate! the conquest I forego;
A mortal I, a goddess was my foe;
She urged her favourite on the rapid way,
And Pallas, not Ulysses, won the day.”

Thus sourly wail’d he, sputtering dirt and gore;
A burst of laughter echoed through the shore.
Antilochus, more humorous than the rest,
Takes the last prize, and takes it with a jest:

“Why with our wiser elders should we strive?
The gods still love them, and they always thrive.
Ye see, to Ajax I must yield the prize:
He to Ulysses, still more aged and wise;
(A green old age unconscious of decays,
That proves the hero born in better days!)
Behold his vigour in this active race!
Achilles only boasts a swifter pace:
For who can match Achilles? He who can,
Must yet be more than hero, more than man.”

The effect succeeds the speech. Pelides cries,
“Thy artful praise deserves a better prize.
Nor Greece in vain shall hear thy friend extoll’d;
Receive a talent of the purest gold.”
The youth departs content. The host admire
The son of Nestor, worthy of his sire.

Next these a buckler, spear, and helm, he brings;
Cast on the plain, the brazen burden rings:
Arms which of late divine Sarpedon wore,
And great Patroclus in short triumph bore.
“Stand forth the bravest of our host! (he cries)
Whoever dares deserve so rich a prize,
Now grace the lists before our army’s sight,
And sheathed in steel, provoke his foe to fight.
Who first the jointed armour shall explore,
And stain his rival’s mail with issuing gore,
The sword Asteropaeus possess’d of old,
(A Thracian blade, distinct with studs of gold,)
Shall pay the stroke, and grace the striker’s side:
These arms in common let the chiefs divide:
For each brave champion, when the combat ends,
A sumptuous banquet at our tents attends.”

Fierce at the word uprose great Tydeus’ son,
And the huge bulk of Ajax Telamon.
Clad in refulgent steel, on either hand,
The dreadful chiefs amid the circle stand;
Louring they meet, tremendous to the sight;
Each Argive bosom beats with fierce delight.
Opposed in arms not long they idly stood,
But thrice they closed, and thrice the charge renew’d.
A furious pass the spear of Ajax made
Through the broad shield, but at the corslet stay’d.
Not thus the foe: his javelin aim’d above
The buckler’s margin, at the neck he drove.
But Greece, now trembling for her hero’s life,
Bade share the honours, and surcease the strife.
Yet still the victor’s due Tydides gains,
With him the sword and studded belt remains.

Then hurl’d the hero, thundering on the ground,
A mass of iron (an enormous round),
Whose weight and size the circling Greeks admire,
Rude from the furnace, and but shaped by fire.
This mighty quoit Aëtion wont to rear,
And from his whirling arm dismiss in air;
The giant by Achilles slain, he stow’d
Among his spoils this memorable load.
For this, he bids those nervous artists vie,
That teach the disk to sound along the sky.
“Let him, whose might can hurl this bowl, arise;
Who farthest hurls it, take it as his prize;
If he be one enrich’d with large domain
Of downs for flocks, and arable for grain,
Small stock of iron needs that man provide;
His hinds and swains whole years shall be supplied
From hence; nor ask the neighbouring city’s aid
For ploughshares, wheels, and all the rural trade.”

Stern Polypœtes stepp’d before the throng,
And great Leonteus, more than mortal strong;
Whose force with rival forces to oppose,
Uprose great Ajax; up Epeus rose.
Each stood in order: first Epeus threw;
High o’er the wondering crowds the whirling circle flew.
Leonteus next a little space surpass’d;
And third, the strength of godlike Ajax cast.
O’er both their marks it flew; till fiercely flung
From Polypœtes’ arm the discus sung:
Far as a swain his whirling sheephook throws,
That distant falls among the grazing cows,
So past them all the rapid circle flies:
His friends, while loud applauses shake the skies,
With force conjoin’d heave off the weighty prize.

Those, who in skilful archery contend,
He next invites the twanging bow to bend;
And twice ten axes casts amidst the round,
Ten double-edged, and ten that singly wound
The mast, which late a first-rate galley bore,
The hero fixes in the sandy shore;
To the tall top a milk-white dove they tie,
The trembling mark at which their arrows fly.

“Whose weapon strikes yon fluttering bird, shall bear
These two-edged axes, terrible in war;
The single, he whose shaft divides the cord.”
He said: experienced Merion took the word;
And skilful Teucer: in the helm they threw
Their lots inscribed, and forth the latter flew.
Swift from the string the sounding arrow flies;
But flies unbless’d! No grateful sacrifice,
No firstling lambs, unheedful! didst thou vow
To Phœbus, patron of the shaft and bow.
For this, thy well-aim’d arrow turn’d aside,
Err’d from the dove, yet cut the cord that tied:
Adown the mainmast fell the parted string,
And the free bird to heaven displays her wing:
Sea, shores, and skies, with loud applause resound,
And Merion eager meditates the wound:
He takes the bow, directs the shaft above,
And following with his eye the soaring dove,
Implores the god to speed it through the skies,
With vows of firstling lambs, and grateful sacrifice,
The dove, in airy circles as she wheels,
Amid the clouds the piercing arrow feels;
Quite through and through the point its passage found,
And at his feet fell bloody to the ground.
The wounded bird, ere yet she breathed her last,
With flagging wings alighted on the mast,
A moment hung, and spread her pinions there,
Then sudden dropp’d, and left her life in air.
From the pleased crowd new peals of thunder rise,
And to the ships brave Merion bears the prize.

To close the funeral games, Achilles last
A massy spear amid the circle placed,
And ample charger of unsullied frame,
With flowers high-wrought, not blacken’d yet by flame.
For these he bids the heroes prove their art,
Whose dexterous skill directs the flying dart.
Here too great Merion hopes the noble prize;
Nor here disdain’d the king of men to rise.
With joy Pelides saw the honour paid,
Rose to the monarch, and respectful said:

“Thee first in virtue, as in power supreme,
O king of nations! all thy Greeks proclaim;
In every martial game thy worth attest,
And know thee both their greatest and their best.
Take then the prize, but let brave Merion bear
This beamy javelin in thy brother’s war.”

Pleased from the hero’s lips his praise to hear,
The king to Merion gives the brazen spear:
But, set apart for sacred use, commands
The glittering charger to Talthybius’ hands.


[Illustration: ] CERES




BOOK XXIV.


ARGUMENT.


THE REDEMPTION OF THE BODY OF HECTOR.


The gods deliberate about the redemption of Hector’s body. Jupiter
sends Thetis to Achilles, to dispose him for the restoring it, and Iris
to Priam, to encourage him to go in person and treat for it. The old
king, notwithstanding the remonstrances of his queen, makes ready for
the journey, to which he is encouraged by an omen from Jupiter. He sets
forth in his chariot, with a waggon loaded with presents, under the
charge of Idæus the herald. Mercury descends in the shape of a young
man, and conducts him to the pavilion of Achilles. Their conversation
on the way. Priam finds Achilles at his table, casts himself at his
feet, and begs for the body of his son: Achilles, moved with
compassion, grants his request, detains him one night in his tent, and
the next morning sends him home with the body: the Trojans run out to
meet him. The lamentations of Andromache, Hecuba, and Helen, with the
solemnities of the funeral.
    The time of twelve days is employed in this book, while the body of
    Hector lies in the tent of Achilles; and as many more are spent in
    the truce allowed for his interment. The scene is partly in
    Achilles’ camp, and partly in Troy.


Now from the finish’d games the Grecian band
Seek their black ships, and clear the crowded strand,
All stretch’d at ease the genial banquet share,
And pleasing slumbers quiet all their care.
Not so Achilles: he, to grief resign’d,
His friend’s dear image present to his mind,
Takes his sad couch, more unobserved to weep;
Nor tastes the gifts of all-composing sleep.
Restless he roll’d around his weary bed,
And all his soul on his Patroclus fed:
The form so pleasing, and the heart so kind,
That youthful vigour, and that manly mind,
What toils they shared, what martial works they wrought,
What seas they measured, and what fields they fought;
All pass’d before him in remembrance dear,
Thought follows thought, and tear succeeds to tear.
And now supine, now prone, the hero lay,
Now shifts his side, impatient for the day:
Then starting up, disconsolate he goes
Wide on the lonely beach to vent his woes.
There as the solitary mourner raves,
The ruddy morning rises o’er the waves:
Soon as it rose, his furious steeds he join’d!
The chariot flies, and Hector trails behind.
And thrice, Patroclus! round thy monument
Was Hector dragg’d, then hurried to the tent.
There sleep at last o’ercomes the hero’s eyes;
While foul in dust the unhonour’d carcase lies,
But not deserted by the pitying skies:
For Phœbus watch’d it with superior care,
Preserved from gaping wounds and tainting air;
And, ignominious as it swept the field,
Spread o’er the sacred corse his golden shield.
All heaven was moved, and Hermes will’d to go
By stealth to snatch him from the insulting foe:
But Neptune this, and Pallas this denies,
And th’ unrelenting empress of the skies,
E’er since that day implacable to Troy,
What time young Paris, simple shepherd boy,
Won by destructive lust (reward obscene),
Their charms rejected for the Cyprian queen.
But when the tenth celestial morning broke,
To heaven assembled, thus Apollo spoke:


[Illustration: ] HECTOR’S BODY AT THE CAR OF ACHILLES


“Unpitying powers! how oft each holy fane
Has Hector tinged with blood of victims slain?
And can ye still his cold remains pursue?
Still grudge his body to the Trojans’ view?
Deny to consort, mother, son, and sire,
The last sad honours of a funeral fire?
Is then the dire Achilles all your care?
That iron heart, inflexibly severe;
A lion, not a man, who slaughters wide,
In strength of rage, and impotence of pride;
Who hastes to murder with a savage joy,
Invades around, and breathes but to destroy!
Shame is not of his soul; nor understood,
The greatest evil and the greatest good.
Still for one loss he rages unresign’d,
Repugnant to the lot of all mankind;
To lose a friend, a brother, or a son,
Heaven dooms each mortal, and its will is done:
Awhile they sorrow, then dismiss their care;
Fate gives the wound, and man is born to bear.
But this insatiate, the commission given
By fate exceeds, and tempts the wrath of heaven:
Lo, how his rage dishonest drags along
Hector’s dead earth, insensible of wrong!
Brave though he be, yet by no reason awed,
He violates the laws of man and god.”


[Illustration: ] THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS


“If equal honours by the partial skies
Are doom’d both heroes, (Juno thus replies,)
If Thetis’ son must no distinction know,
Then hear, ye gods! the patron of the bow.
But Hector only boasts a mortal claim,
His birth deriving from a mortal dame:
Achilles, of your own ethereal race,
Springs from a goddess by a man’s embrace
(A goddess by ourself to Peleus given,
A man divine, and chosen friend of heaven)
To grace those nuptials, from the bright abode
Yourselves were present; where this minstrel-god,
Well pleased to share the feast, amid the quire
Stood proud to hymn, and tune his youthful lyre.”

Then thus the Thunderer checks the imperial dame:
“Let not thy wrath the court of heaven inflame;
Their merits, nor their honours, are the same.
But mine, and every god’s peculiar grace
Hector deserves, of all the Trojan race:
Still on our shrines his grateful offerings lay,
(The only honours men to gods can pay,)
Nor ever from our smoking altar ceased
The pure libation, and the holy feast:
Howe’er by stealth to snatch the corse away,
We will not: Thetis guards it night and day.
But haste, and summon to our courts above
The azure queen; let her persuasion move
Her furious son from Priam to receive
The proffer’d ransom, and the corse to leave.”

He added not: and Iris from the skies,
Swift as a whirlwind, on the message flies,
Meteorous the face of ocean sweeps,
Refulgent gliding o’er the sable deeps.
Between where Samos wide his forests spreads,
And rocky Imbrus lifts its pointed heads,
Down plunged the maid; (the parted waves resound;)
She plunged and instant shot the dark profound.
As bearing death in the fallacious bait,
From the bent angle sinks the leaden weight;
So pass’d the goddess through the closing wave,
Where Thetis sorrow’d in her secret cave:
There placed amidst her melancholy train
(The blue-hair’d sisters of the sacred main)
Pensive she sat, revolving fates to come,
And wept her godlike son’s approaching doom.
Then thus the goddess of the painted bow:
“Arise, O Thetis! from thy seats below,
’Tis Jove that calls.”—“And why (the dame replies)
Calls Jove his Thetis to the hated skies?
Sad object as I am for heavenly sight!
Ah may my sorrows ever shun the light!
Howe’er, be heaven’s almighty sire obey’d—”
She spake, and veil’d her head in sable shade,
Which, flowing long, her graceful person clad;
And forth she paced, majestically sad.

Then through the world of waters they repair
(The way fair Iris led) to upper air.
The deeps dividing, o’er the coast they rise,
And touch with momentary flight the skies.
There in the lightning’s blaze the sire they found,
And all the gods in shining synod round.
Thetis approach’d with anguish in her face,
(Minerva rising, gave the mourner place,)
Even Juno sought her sorrows to console,
And offer’d from her hand the nectar-bowl:
She tasted, and resign’d it: then began
The sacred sire of gods and mortal man:

“Thou comest, fair Thetis, but with grief o’ercast;
Maternal sorrows; long, ah, long to last!
Suffice, we know and we partake thy cares;
But yield to fate, and hear what Jove declares.
Nine days are past since all the court above
In Hector’s cause have moved the ear of Jove;
’Twas voted, Hermes from his godlike foe
By stealth should bear him, but we will’d not so:
We will, thy son himself the corse restore,
And to his conquest add this glory more.
Then hie thee to him, and our mandate bear:
Tell him he tempts the wrath of heaven too far;
Nor let him more (our anger if he dread)
Vent his mad vengeance on the sacred dead;
But yield to ransom and the father’s prayer;
The mournful father, Iris shall prepare
With gifts to sue; and offer to his hands
Whate’er his honour asks, or heart demands.”

His word the silver-footed queen attends,
And from Olympus’ snowy tops descends.
Arrived, she heard the voice of loud lament,
And echoing groans that shook the lofty tent:
His friends prepare the victim, and dispose
Repast unheeded, while he vents his woes;
The goddess seats her by her pensive son,
She press’d his hand, and tender thus begun:

“How long, unhappy! shall thy sorrows flow,
And thy heart waste with life-consuming woe:
Mindless of food, or love, whose pleasing reign
Soothes weary life, and softens human pain?
O snatch the moments yet within thy power;
Not long to live, indulge the amorous hour!
Lo! Jove himself (for Jove’s command I bear)
Forbids to tempt the wrath of heaven too far.
No longer then (his fury if thou dread)
Detain the relics of great Hector dead;
Nor vent on senseless earth thy vengeance vain,
But yield to ransom, and restore the slain.”

To whom Achilles: “Be the ransom given,
And we submit, since such the will of heaven.”

While thus they communed, from the Olympian bowers
Jove orders Iris to the Trojan towers:
“Haste, winged goddess! to the sacred town,
And urge her monarch to redeem his son.
Alone the Ilian ramparts let him leave,
And bear what stern Achilles may receive:
Alone, for so we will; no Trojan near
Except, to place the dead with decent care,
Some aged herald, who with gentle hand
May the slow mules and funeral car command.
Nor let him death, nor let him danger dread,
Safe through the foe by our protection led:
Him Hermes to Achilles shall convey,
Guard of his life, and partner of his way.
Fierce as he is, Achilles’ self shall spare
His age, nor touch one venerable hair:
Some thought there must be in a soul so brave,
Some sense of duty, some desire to save.”


[Illustration: ] IRIS ADVISES PRIAM TO OBTAIN THE BODY OF HECTOR


Then down her bow the winged Iris drives,
And swift at Priam’s mournful court arrives:
Where the sad sons beside their father’s throne
Sat bathed in tears, and answer’d groan with groan.
And all amidst them lay the hoary sire,
(Sad scene of woe!) his face his wrapp’d attire
Conceal’d from sight; with frantic hands he spread
A shower of ashes o’er his neck and head.
From room to room his pensive daughters roam;
Whose shrieks and clamours fill the vaulted dome;
Mindful of those, who late their pride and joy,
Lie pale and breathless round the fields of Troy!
Before the king Jove’s messenger appears,
And thus in whispers greets his trembling ears:

“Fear not, O father! no ill news I bear;
From Jove I come, Jove makes thee still his care;
For Hector’s sake these walls he bids thee leave,
And bear what stern Achilles may receive;
Alone, for so he wills; no Trojan near,
Except, to place the dead with decent care,
Some aged herald, who with gentle hand
May the slow mules and funeral car command.
Nor shalt thou death, nor shalt thou danger dread:
Safe through the foe by his protection led:
Thee Hermes to Pelides shall convey,
Guard of thy life, and partner of thy way.
Fierce as he is, Achilles’ self shall spare
Thy age, nor touch one venerable hair;
Some thought there must be in a soul so brave,
Some sense of duty, some desire to save.”

She spoke, and vanish’d. Priam bids prepare
His gentle mules and harness to the car;
There, for the gifts, a polish’d casket lay:
His pious sons the king’s command obey.
Then pass’d the monarch to his bridal-room,
Where cedar-beams the lofty roofs perfume,
And where the treasures of his empire lay;
Then call’d his queen, and thus began to say:

“Unhappy consort of a king distress’d!
Partake the troubles of thy husband’s breast:
I saw descend the messenger of Jove,
Who bids me try Achilles’ mind to move;
Forsake these ramparts, and with gifts obtain
The corse of Hector, at yon navy slain.
Tell me thy thought: my heart impels to go
Through hostile camps, and bears me to the foe.”

The hoary monarch thus. Her piercing cries
Sad Hecuba renews, and then replies:
“Ah! whither wanders thy distemper’d mind?
And where the prudence now that awed mankind?
Through Phrygia once and foreign regions known;
Now all confused, distracted, overthrown!
Singly to pass through hosts of foes! to face
(O heart of steel!) the murderer of thy race!
To view that deathful eye, and wander o’er
Those hands yet red with Hector’s noble gore!
Alas! my lord! he knows not how to spare,
And what his mercy, thy slain sons declare;
So brave! so many fallen! To claim his rage
Vain were thy dignity, and vain thy age.
No—pent in this sad palace, let us give
To grief the wretched days we have to live.
Still, still for Hector let our sorrows flow,
Born to his own, and to his parents’ woe!
Doom’d from the hour his luckless life begun,
To dogs, to vultures, and to Peleus’ son!
Oh! in his dearest blood might I allay
My rage, and these barbarities repay!
For ah! could Hector merit thus, whose breath
Expired not meanly, in unactive death?
He poured his latest blood in manly fight,
And fell a hero in his country’s right.”

“Seek not to stay me, nor my soul affright
With words of omen, like a bird of night,
(Replied unmoved the venerable man;)
’Tis heaven commands me, and you urge in vain.
Had any mortal voice the injunction laid,
Nor augur, priest, nor seer, had been obey’d.
A present goddess brought the high command,
I saw, I heard her, and the word shall stand.
I go, ye gods! obedient to your call:
If in yon camp your powers have doom’d my fall,
Content—By the same hand let me expire!
Add to the slaughter’d son the wretched sire!
One cold embrace at least may be allow’d,
And my last tears flow mingled with his blood!”

From forth his open’d stores, this said, he drew
Twelve costly carpets of refulgent hue,
As many vests, as many mantles told,
And twelve fair veils, and garments stiff with gold,
Two tripods next, and twice two chargers shine,
With ten pure talents from the richest mine;
And last a large well-labour’d bowl had place,
(The pledge of treaties once with friendly Thrace:)
Seem’d all too mean the stores he could employ,
For one last look to buy him back to Troy!

Lo! the sad father, frantic with his pain,
Around him furious drives his menial train:
In vain each slave with duteous care attends,
Each office hurts him, and each face offends.
“What make ye here, officious crowds! (he cries):
Hence! nor obtrude your anguish on my eyes.
Have ye no griefs at home, to fix ye there:
Am I the only object of despair?
Am I become my people’s common show,
Set up by Jove your spectacle of woe?
No, you must feel him too; yourselves must fall;
The same stern god to ruin gives you all:
Nor is great Hector lost by me alone;
Your sole defence, your guardian power is gone!
I see your blood the fields of Phrygia drown,
I see the ruins of your smoking town!
O send me, gods! ere that sad day shall come,
A willing ghost to Pluto’s dreary dome!”

He said, and feebly drives his friends away:
The sorrowing friends his frantic rage obey.
Next on his sons his erring fury falls,
Polites, Paris, Agathon, he calls;
His threats Deiphobus and Dius hear,
Hippothous, Pammon, Helenes the seer,
And generous Antiphon: for yet these nine
Survived, sad relics of his numerous line.

“Inglorious sons of an unhappy sire!
Why did not all in Hector’s cause expire?
Wretch that I am! my bravest offspring slain.
You, the disgrace of Priam’s house, remain!
Mestor the brave, renown’d in ranks of war,
With Troilus, dreadful on his rushing car,[293]
And last great Hector, more than man divine,
For sure he seem’d not of terrestrial line!
All those relentless Mars untimely slew,
And left me these, a soft and servile crew,
Whose days the feast and wanton dance employ,
Gluttons and flatterers, the contempt of Troy!
Why teach ye not my rapid wheels to run,
And speed my journey to redeem my son?”

The sons their father’s wretched age revere,
Forgive his anger, and produce the car.
High on the seat the cabinet they bind:
The new-made car with solid beauty shined;
Box was the yoke, emboss’d with costly pains,
And hung with ringlets to receive the reins;
Nine cubits long, the traces swept the ground:
These to the chariot’s polish’d pole they bound.
Then fix’d a ring the running reins to guide,
And close beneath the gather’d ends were tied.
Next with the gifts (the price of Hector slain)
The sad attendants load the groaning wain:
Last to the yoke the well-matched mules they bring,
(The gift of Mysia to the Trojan king.)
But the fair horses, long his darling care,
Himself received, and harness’d to his car:
Grieved as he was, he not this task denied;
The hoary herald help’d him, at his side.
While careful these the gentle coursers join’d,
Sad Hecuba approach’d with anxious mind;
A golden bowl that foam’d with fragrant wine,
(Libation destined to the power divine,)
Held in her right, before the steed she stands,
And thus consigns it to the monarch’s hands:

“Take this, and pour to Jove; that safe from harms
His grace restore thee to our roof and arms.
Since victor of thy fears, and slighting mine,
Heaven, or thy soul, inspires this bold design;
Pray to that god, who high on Ida’s brow
Surveys thy desolated realms below,
His winged messenger to send from high,
And lead thy way with heavenly augury:
Let the strong sovereign of the plumy race
Tower on the right of yon ethereal space.
That sign beheld, and strengthen’d from above,
Boldly pursue the journey mark’d by Jove:
But if the god his augury denies,
Suppress thy impulse, nor reject advice.”

“’Tis just (said Priam) to the sire above
To raise our hands; for who so good as Jove?”
He spoke, and bade the attendant handmaid bring
The purest water of the living spring:
(Her ready hands the ewer and bason held:)
Then took the golden cup his queen had fill’d;
On the mid pavement pours the rosy wine,
Uplifts his eyes, and calls the power divine:

“O first and greatest! heaven’s imperial lord!
On lofty Ida’s holy hill adored!
To stern Achilles now direct my ways,
And teach him mercy when a father prays.
If such thy will, despatch from yonder sky
Thy sacred bird, celestial augury!
Let the strong sovereign of the plumy race
Tower on the right of yon ethereal space;
So shall thy suppliant, strengthen’d from above,
Fearless pursue the journey mark’d by Jove.”

Jove heard his prayer, and from the throne on high,
Despatch’d his bird, celestial augury!
The swift-wing’d chaser of the feather’d game,
And known to gods by Percnos’ lofty name.
Wide as appears some palace-gate display’d,
So broad, his pinions stretch’d their ample shade,
As stooping dexter with resounding wings
The imperial bird descends in airy rings.
A dawn of joy in every face appears:
The mourning matron dries her timorous tears:
Swift on his car the impatient monarch sprung;
The brazen portal in his passage rung;
The mules preceding draw the loaded wain,
Charged with the gifts: Idæus holds the rein:
The king himself his gentle steeds controls,
And through surrounding friends the chariot rolls.
On his slow wheels the following people wait,
Mourn at each step, and give him up to fate;
With hands uplifted eye him as he pass’d,
And gaze upon him as they gazed their last.
Now forward fares the father on his way,
Through the lone fields, and back to Ilion they.
Great Jove beheld him as he cross’d the plain,
And felt the woes of miserable man.
Then thus to Hermes: “Thou whose constant cares
Still succour mortals, and attend their prayers;
Behold an object to thy charge consign’d:
If ever pity touch’d thee for mankind,
Go, guard the sire: the observing foe prevent,
And safe conduct him to Achilles’ tent.”

The god obeys, his golden pinions binds,[294]
And mounts incumbent on the wings of winds,
That high, through fields of air, his flight sustain,
O’er the wide earth, and o’er the boundless main;
Then grasps the wand that causes sleep to fly,
Or in soft slumbers seals the wakeful eye:
Thus arm’d, swift Hermes steers his airy way,
And stoops on Hellespont’s resounding sea.
A beauteous youth, majestic and divine,
He seem’d; fair offspring of some princely line!
Now twilight veil’d the glaring face of day,
And clad the dusky fields in sober grey;
What time the herald and the hoary king
(Their chariots stopping at the silver spring,
That circling Ilus’ ancient marble flows)
Allow’d their mules and steeds a short repose,
Through the dim shade the herald first espies
A man’s approach, and thus to Priam cries:
“I mark some foe’s advance: O king! beware;
This hard adventure claims thy utmost care!
For much I fear destruction hovers nigh:
Our state asks counsel; is it best to fly?
Or old and helpless, at his feet to fall,
Two wretched suppliants, and for mercy call?”

The afflicted monarch shiver’d with despair;
Pale grew his face, and upright stood his hair;
Sunk was his heart; his colour went and came;
A sudden trembling shook his aged frame:
When Hermes, greeting, touch’d his royal hand,
And, gentle, thus accosts with kind demand:

“Say whither, father! when each mortal sight
Is seal’d in sleep, thou wanderest through the night?
Why roam thy mules and steeds the plains along,
Through Grecian foes, so numerous and so strong?
What couldst thou hope, should these thy treasures view;
These, who with endless hate thy race pursue?
For what defence, alas! could’st thou provide;
Thyself not young, a weak old man thy guide?
Yet suffer not thy soul to sink with dread;
From me no harm shall touch thy reverend head;
From Greece I’ll guard thee too; for in those lines
The living image of my father shines.”

“Thy words, that speak benevolence of mind,
Are true, my son! (the godlike sire rejoin’d:)
Great are my hazards; but the gods survey
My steps, and send thee, guardian of my way.
Hail, and be bless’d! For scarce of mortal kind
Appear thy form, thy feature, and thy mind.”

“Nor true are all thy words, nor erring wide;
(The sacred messenger of heaven replied;)
But say, convey’st thou through the lonely plains
What yet most precious of thy store remains,
To lodge in safety with some friendly hand:
Prepared, perchance, to leave thy native land?
Or fliest thou now?—What hopes can Troy retain,
Thy matchless son, her guard and glory, slain?”

The king, alarm’d: “Say what, and whence thou art
Who search the sorrows of a parent’s heart,
And know so well how godlike Hector died?”
Thus Priam spoke, and Hermes thus replied:

“You tempt me, father, and with pity touch:
On this sad subject you inquire too much.
Oft have these eyes that godlike Hector view’d
In glorious fight, with Grecian blood embrued:
I saw him when, like Jove, his flames he toss’d
On thousand ships, and wither’d half a host:
I saw, but help’d not: stern Achilles’ ire
Forbade assistance, and enjoy’d the fire.
For him I serve, of Myrmidonian race;
One ship convey’d us from our native place;
Polyctor is my sire, an honour’d name,
Old like thyself, and not unknown to fame;
Of seven his sons, by whom the lot was cast
To serve our prince, it fell on me, the last.
To watch this quarter, my adventure falls:
For with the morn the Greeks attack your walls;
Sleepless they sit, impatient to engage,
And scarce their rulers check their martial rage.”

“If then thou art of stern Pelides’ train,
(The mournful monarch thus rejoin’d again,)
Ah tell me truly, where, oh! where are laid
My son’s dear relics? what befalls him dead?
Have dogs dismember’d (on the naked plains),
Or yet unmangled rest, his cold remains?”

“O favour’d of the skies! (thus answered then
The power that mediates between god and men)
Nor dogs nor vultures have thy Hector rent,
But whole he lies, neglected in the tent:
This the twelfth evening since he rested there,
Untouch’d by worms, untainted by the air.
Still as Aurora’s ruddy beam is spread,
Round his friend’s tomb Achilles drags the dead:
Yet undisfigured, or in limb or face,
All fresh he lies, with every living grace,
Majestical in death! No stains are found
O’er all the corse, and closed is every wound,
Though many a wound they gave. Some heavenly care,
Some hand divine, preserves him ever fair:
Or all the host of heaven, to whom he led
A life so grateful, still regard him dead.”

Thus spoke to Priam the celestial guide,
And joyful thus the royal sire replied:
“Blest is the man who pays the gods above
The constant tribute of respect and love!
Those who inhabit the Olympian bower
My son forgot not, in exalted power;
And heaven, that every virtue bears in mind,
Even to the ashes of the just is kind.
But thou, O generous youth! this goblet take,
A pledge of gratitude for Hector’s sake;
And while the favouring gods our steps survey,
Safe to Pelides’ tent conduct my way.”

To whom the latent god: “O king, forbear
To tempt my youth, for apt is youth to err.
But can I, absent from my prince’s sight,
Take gifts in secret, that must shun the light?
What from our master’s interest thus we draw,
Is but a licensed theft that ’scapes the law.
Respecting him, my soul abjures the offence;
And as the crime, I dread the consequence.
Thee, far as Argos, pleased I could convey;
Guard of thy life, and partner of thy way:
On thee attend, thy safety to maintain,
O’er pathless forests, or the roaring main.”

He said, then took the chariot at a bound,
And snatch’d the reins, and whirl’d the lash around:
Before the inspiring god that urged them on,
The coursers fly with spirit not their own.
And now they reach’d the naval walls, and found
The guards repasting, while the bowls go round;
On these the virtue of his wand he tries,
And pours deep slumber on their watchful eyes:
Then heaved the massy gates, removed the bars,
And o’er the trenches led the rolling cars.
Unseen, through all the hostile camp they went,
And now approach’d Pelides’ lofty tent.
On firs the roof was raised, and cover’d o’er
With reeds collected from the marshy shore;
And, fenced with palisades, a hall of state,
(The work of soldiers,) where the hero sat:
Large was the door, whose well-compacted strength
A solid pine-tree barr’d of wondrous length:
Scarce three strong Greeks could lift its mighty weight,
But great Achilles singly closed the gate.
This Hermes (such the power of gods) set wide;
Then swift alighted the celestial guide,
And thus reveal’d—”Hear, prince! and understand
Thou ow’st thy guidance to no mortal hand:
Hermes I am, descended from above,
The king of arts, the messenger of Jove,
Farewell: to shun Achilles’ sight I fly;
Uncommon are such favours of the sky,
Nor stand confess’d to frail mortality.
Now fearless enter, and prefer thy prayers;
Adjure him by his father’s silver hairs,
His son, his mother! urge him to bestow
Whatever pity that stern heart can know.”

Thus having said, he vanish’d from his eyes,
And in a moment shot into the skies:
The king, confirm’d from heaven, alighted there,
And left his aged herald on the car,
With solemn pace through various rooms he went,
And found Achilles in his inner tent:
There sat the hero: Alcimus the brave,
And great Automedon, attendance gave:
These served his person at the royal feast;
Around, at awful distance, stood the rest.

Unseen by these, the king his entry made:
And, prostrate now before Achilles laid,
Sudden (a venerable sight!) appears;
Embraced his knees, and bathed his hands in tears;
Those direful hands his kisses press’d, embrued
Even with the best, the dearest of his blood!

As when a wretch (who, conscious of his crime,
Pursued for murder, flies his native clime)
Just gains some frontier, breathless, pale, amazed,
All gaze, all wonder: thus Achilles gazed:
Thus stood the attendants stupid with surprise:
All mute, yet seem’d to question with their eyes:
Each look’d on other, none the silence broke,
Till thus at last the kingly suppliant spoke:

“Ah think, thou favour’d of the powers divine![295]
Think of thy father’s age, and pity mine!
In me that father’s reverend image trace,
Those silver hairs, that venerable face;
His trembling limbs, his helpless person, see!
In all my equal, but in misery!
Yet now, perhaps, some turn of human fate
Expels him helpless from his peaceful state;
Think, from some powerful foe thou seest him fly,
And beg protection with a feeble cry.
Yet still one comfort in his soul may rise;
He hears his son still lives to glad his eyes,
And, hearing, still may hope a better day
May send him thee, to chase that foe away.
No comfort to my griefs, no hopes remain,
The best, the bravest, of my sons are slain!
Yet what a race! ere Greece to Ilion came,
The pledge of many a loved and loving dame:
Nineteen one mother bore—Dead, all are dead!
How oft, alas! has wretched Priam bled!
Still one was left their loss to recompense;
His father’s hope, his country’s last defence.
Him too thy rage has slain! beneath thy steel,
Unhappy in his country’s cause he fell!

“For him through hostile camps I bent my way,
For him thus prostrate at thy feet I lay;
Large gifts proportion’d to thy wrath I bear;
O hear the wretched, and the gods revere!

“Think of thy father, and this face behold!
See him in me, as helpless and as old!
Though not so wretched: there he yields to me,
The first of men in sovereign misery!
Thus forced to kneel, thus grovelling to embrace
The scourge and ruin of my realm and race;
Suppliant my children’s murderer to implore,
And kiss those hands yet reeking with their gore!”

These words soft pity in the chief inspire,
Touch’d with the dear remembrance of his sire.
Then with his hand (as prostrate still he lay)
The old man’s cheek he gently turn’d away.
Now each by turns indulged the gush of woe;
And now the mingled tides together flow:
This low on earth, that gently bending o’er;
A father one, and one a son deplore:
But great Achilles different passions rend,
And now his sire he mourns, and now his friend.
The infectious softness through the heroes ran;
One universal solemn shower began;
They bore as heroes, but they felt as man.

Satiate at length with unavailing woes,
From the high throne divine Achilles rose;
The reverend monarch by the hand he raised;
On his white beard and form majestic gazed,
Not unrelenting; then serene began
With words to soothe the miserable man:

“Alas, what weight of anguish hast thou known,
Unhappy prince! thus guardless and alone
To pass through foes, and thus undaunted face
The man whose fury has destroy’d thy race!
Heaven sure has arm’d thee with a heart of steel,
A strength proportion’d to the woes you feel.
Rise, then: let reason mitigate your care:
To mourn avails not: man is born to bear.
Such is, alas! the gods’ severe decree:
They, only they are blest, and only free.
Two urns by Jove’s high throne have ever stood,
The source of evil one, and one of good;
From thence the cup of mortal man he fills,
Blessings to these, to those distributes ill;
To most he mingles both: the wretch decreed
To taste the bad unmix’d, is cursed indeed;
Pursued by wrongs, by meagre famine driven,
He wanders, outcast both of earth and heaven.
The happiest taste not happiness sincere;
But find the cordial draught is dash’d with care.
Who more than Peleus shone in wealth and power
What stars concurring bless’d his natal hour!
A realm, a goddess, to his wishes given;
Graced by the gods with all the gifts of heaven.
One evil yet o’ertakes his latest day:
No race succeeding to imperial sway;
An only son; and he, alas! ordain’d
To fall untimely in a foreign land.
See him, in Troy, the pious care decline
Of his weak age, to live the curse of thine!
Thou too, old man, hast happier days beheld;
In riches once, in children once excell’d;
Extended Phrygia own’d thy ample reign,
And all fair Lesbos’ blissful seats contain,
And all wide Hellespont’s unmeasured main.
But since the god his hand has pleased to turn,
And fill thy measure from his bitter urn,
What sees the sun, but hapless heroes’ falls?
War, and the blood of men, surround thy walls!
What must be, must be. Bear thy lot, nor shed
These unavailing sorrows o’er the dead;
Thou canst not call him from the Stygian shore,
But thou, alas! may’st live to suffer more!”

To whom the king: “O favour’d of the skies!
Here let me grow to earth! since Hector lies
On the bare beach deprived of obsequies.
O give me Hector! to my eyes restore
His corse, and take the gifts: I ask no more.
Thou, as thou may’st, these boundless stores enjoy;
Safe may’st thou sail, and turn thy wrath from Troy;
So shall thy pity and forbearance give
A weak old man to see the light and live!”

“Move me no more, (Achilles thus replies,
While kindling anger sparkled in his eyes,)
Nor seek by tears my steady soul to bend:
To yield thy Hector I myself intend:
For know, from Jove my goddess-mother came,
(Old Ocean’s daughter, silver-footed dame,)
Nor comest thou but by heaven; nor comest alone,
Some god impels with courage not thy own:
No human hand the weighty gates unbarr’d,
Nor could the boldest of our youth have dared
To pass our outworks, or elude the guard.
Cease; lest, neglectful of high Jove’s command,
I show thee, king! thou tread’st on hostile land;
Release my knees, thy suppliant arts give o’er,
And shake the purpose of my soul no more.”

The sire obey’d him, trembling and o’eraw’d.
Achilles, like a lion, rush’d abroad:
Automedon and Alcimus attend,
(Whom most he honour’d, since he lost his friend,)
These to unyoke the mules and horses went,
And led the hoary herald to the tent;
Next, heap’d on high, the numerous presents bear,
(Great Hector’s ransom,) from the polish’d car.
Two splendid mantles, and a carpet spread,
They leave: to cover and enwrap the dead.
Then call the handmaids, with assistant toil
To wash the body and anoint with oil,
Apart from Priam: lest the unhappy sire,
Provoked to passion, once more rouse to ire
The stern Pelides; and nor sacred age,
Nor Jove’s command, should check the rising rage.
This done, the garments o’er the corse they spread;
Achilles lifts it to the funeral bed:
Then, while the body on the car they laid,
He groans, and calls on loved Patroclus’ shade:

“If, in that gloom which never light must know,
The deeds of mortals touch the ghosts below,
O friend! forgive me, that I thus fulfil
(Restoring Hector) heaven’s unquestion’d will.
The gifts the father gave, be ever thine,
To grace thy manes, and adorn thy shrine.”[296]

He said, and, entering, took his seat of state;
Where full before him reverend Priam sate;
To whom, composed, the godlike chief begun:
“Lo! to thy prayer restored, thy breathless son;
Extended on the funeral couch he lies;
And soon as morning paints the eastern skies,
The sight is granted to thy longing eyes:
But now the peaceful hours of sacred night
Demand reflection, and to rest invite:
Nor thou, O father! thus consumed with woe,
The common cares that nourish life forego.
Not thus did Niobe, of form divine,
A parent once, whose sorrows equall’d thine:
Six youthful sons, as many blooming maids,
In one sad day beheld the Stygian shades;
Those by Apollo’s silver bow were slain,
These, Cynthia’s arrows stretch’d upon the plain:
So was her pride chastised by wrath divine,
Who match’d her own with bright Latona’s line;
But two the goddess, twelve the queen enjoy’d;
Those boasted twelve, the avenging two destroy’d.
Steep’d in their blood, and in the dust outspread,
Nine days, neglected, lay exposed the dead;
None by to weep them, to inhume them none;
(For Jove had turn’d the nation all to stone.)
The gods themselves, at length relenting gave
The unhappy race the honours of a grave.
Herself a rock (for such was heaven’s high will)
Through deserts wild now pours a weeping rill;
Where round the bed whence Achelous springs,
The watery fairies dance in mazy rings;
There high on Sipylus’s shaggy brow,
She stands, her own sad monument of woe;
The rock for ever lasts, the tears for ever flow.

“Such griefs, O king! have other parents known;
Remember theirs, and mitigate thy own.
The care of heaven thy Hector has appear’d,
Nor shall he lie unwept, and uninterr’d;
Soon may thy aged cheeks in tears be drown’d,
And all the eyes of Ilion stream around.”

He said, and, rising, chose the victim ewe
With silver fleece, which his attendants slew.
The limbs they sever from the reeking hide,
With skill prepare them, and in parts divide:
Each on the coals the separate morsels lays,
And, hasty, snatches from the rising blaze.
With bread the glittering canisters they load,
Which round the board Automedon bestow’d.
The chief himself to each his portion placed,
And each indulging shared in sweet repast.
When now the rage of hunger was repress’d,
The wondering hero eyes his royal guest:
No less the royal guest the hero eyes,
His godlike aspect and majestic size;
Here, youthful grace and noble fire engage;
And there, the mild benevolence of age.
Thus gazing long, the silence neither broke,
(A solemn scene!) at length the father spoke:

“Permit me now, beloved of Jove! to steep
My careful temples in the dew of sleep:
For, since the day that number’d with the dead
My hapless son, the dust has been my bed;
Soft sleep a stranger to my weeping eyes;
My only food, my sorrows and my sighs!
Till now, encouraged by the grace you give,
I share thy banquet, and consent to live.”

With that, Achilles bade prepare the bed,
With purple soft and shaggy carpets spread;
Forth, by the flaming lights, they bend their way,
And place the couches, and the coverings lay.
Then he: “Now, father, sleep, but sleep not here;
Consult thy safety, and forgive my fear,
Lest any Argive, at this hour awake,
To ask our counsel, or our orders take,
Approaching sudden to our open’d tent,
Perchance behold thee, and our grace prevent.
Should such report thy honour’d person here,
The king of men the ransom might defer;
But say with speed, if aught of thy desire
Remains unask’d; what time the rites require
To inter thy Hector? For, so long we stay
Our slaughtering arm, and bid the hosts obey.”

“If then thy will permit (the monarch said)
To finish all due honours to the dead,
This of thy grace accord: to thee are known
The fears of Ilion, closed within her town;
And at what distance from our walls aspire
The hills of Ide, and forests for the fire.
Nine days to vent our sorrows I request,
The tenth shall see the funeral and the feast;
The next, to raise his monument be given;
The twelfth we war, if war be doom’d by heaven!”

“This thy request (replied the chief) enjoy:
Till then our arms suspend the fall of Troy.”

Then gave his hand at parting, to prevent
The old man’s fears, and turn’d within the tent;
Where fair Briseïs, bright in blooming charms,
Expects her hero with desiring arms.
But in the porch the king and herald rest;
Sad dreams of care yet wandering in their breast.
Now gods and men the gifts of sleep partake;
Industrious Hermes only was awake,
The king’s return revolving in his mind,
To pass the ramparts, and the watch to blind.
The power descending hover’d o’er his head:
“And sleep’st thou, father! (thus the vision said:)
Now dost thou sleep, when Hector is restored?
Nor fear the Grecian foes, or Grecian lord?
Thy presence here should stern Atrides see,
Thy still surviving sons may sue for thee;
May offer all thy treasures yet contain,
To spare thy age; and offer all in vain.”

Waked with the word the trembling sire arose,
And raised his friend: the god before him goes:
He joins the mules, directs them with his hand,
And moves in silence through the hostile land.
When now to Xanthus’ yellow stream they drove,
(Xanthus, immortal progeny of Jove,)
The winged deity forsook their view,
And in a moment to Olympus flew.
Now shed Aurora round her saffron ray,
Sprang through the gates of light, and gave the day:
Charged with the mournful load, to Ilion go
The sage and king, majestically slow.
Cassandra first beholds, from Ilion’s spire,
The sad procession of her hoary sire;
Then, as the pensive pomp advanced more near,
(Her breathless brother stretched upon the bier,)
A shower of tears o’erflows her beauteous eyes,
Alarming thus all Ilion with her cries:

“Turn here your steps, and here your eyes employ,
Ye wretched daughters, and ye sons of Troy!
If e’er ye rush’d in crowds, with vast delight,
To hail your hero glorious from the fight,
Now meet him dead, and let your sorrows flow;
Your common triumph, and your common woe.”

In thronging crowds they issue to the plains;
Nor man nor woman in the walls remains;
In every face the self-same grief is shown;
And Troy sends forth one universal groan.
At Scæa’s gates they meet the mourning wain,
Hang on the wheels, and grovel round the slain.
The wife and mother, frantic with despair,
Kiss his pale cheek, and rend their scatter’d hair:
Thus wildly wailing, at the gates they lay;
And there had sigh’d and sorrow’d out the day;
But godlike Priam from the chariot rose:
“Forbear (he cried) this violence of woes;
First to the palace let the car proceed,
Then pour your boundless sorrows o’er the dead.”

The waves of people at his word divide,
Slow rolls the chariot through the following tide;
Even to the palace the sad pomp they wait:
They weep, and place him on the bed of state.
A melancholy choir attend around,
With plaintive sighs, and music’s solemn sound:
Alternately they sing, alternate flow
The obedient tears, melodious in their woe.
While deeper sorrows groan from each full heart,
And nature speaks at every pause of art.

First to the corse the weeping consort flew;
Around his neck her milk-white arms she threw,
“And oh, my Hector! Oh, my lord! (she cries)
Snatch’d in thy bloom from these desiring eyes!
Thou to the dismal realms for ever gone!
And I abandon’d, desolate, alone!
An only son, once comfort of our pains,
Sad product now of hapless love, remains!
Never to manly age that son shall rise,
Or with increasing graces glad my eyes:
For Ilion now (her great defender slain)
Shall sink a smoking ruin on the plain.
Who now protects her wives with guardian care?
Who saves her infants from the rage of war?
Now hostile fleets must waft those infants o’er
(Those wives must wait them) to a foreign shore:
Thou too, my son, to barbarous climes shall go,
The sad companion of thy mother’s woe;
Driven hence a slave before the victor’s sword
Condemn’d to toil for some inhuman lord:
Or else some Greek whose father press’d the plain,
Or son, or brother, by great Hector slain,
In Hector’s blood his vengeance shall enjoy,
And hurl thee headlong from the towers of Troy.[297]
For thy stern father never spared a foe:
Thence all these tears, and all this scene of woe!
Thence many evils his sad parents bore,
His parents many, but his consort more.
Why gav’st thou not to me thy dying hand?
And why received not I thy last command?
Some word thou would’st have spoke, which, sadly dear,
My soul might keep, or utter with a tear;
Which never, never could be lost in air,
Fix’d in my heart, and oft repeated there!”

Thus to her weeping maids she makes her moan,
Her weeping handmaids echo groan for groan.

The mournful mother next sustains her part:
“O thou, the best, the dearest to my heart!
Of all my race thou most by heaven approved,
And by the immortals even in death beloved!
While all my other sons in barbarous bands
Achilles bound, and sold to foreign lands,
This felt no chains, but went a glorious ghost,
Free, and a hero, to the Stygian coast.
Sentenced, ’tis true, by his inhuman doom,
Thy noble corse was dragg’d around the tomb;
(The tomb of him thy warlike arm had slain;)
Ungenerous insult, impotent and vain!
Yet glow’st thou fresh with every living grace;
No mark of pain, or violence of face:
Rosy and fair! as Phœbus’ silver bow
Dismiss’d thee gently to the shades below.”

Thus spoke the dame, and melted into tears.
Sad Helen next in pomp of grief appears;
Fast from the shining sluices of her eyes
Fall the round crystal drops, while thus she cries.

“Ah, dearest friend! in whom the gods had join’d[298]
The mildest manners with the bravest mind,
Now twice ten years (unhappy years) are o’er
Since Paris brought me to the Trojan shore,
(O had I perish’d, ere that form divine
Seduced this soft, this easy heart of mine!)
Yet was it ne’er my fate, from thee to find
A deed ungentle, or a word unkind.
When others cursed the authoress of their woe,
Thy pity check’d my sorrows in their flow.
If some proud brother eyed me with disdain,
Or scornful sister with her sweeping train,
Thy gentle accents soften’d all my pain.
For thee I mourn, and mourn myself in thee,
The wretched source of all this misery.
The fate I caused, for ever I bemoan;
Sad Helen has no friend, now thou art gone!
Through Troy’s wide streets abandon’d shall I roam!
In Troy deserted, as abhorr’d at home!”

So spoke the fair, with sorrow-streaming eye.
Distressful beauty melts each stander-by.
On all around the infectious sorrow grows;
But Priam check’d the torrent as it rose:
“Perform, ye Trojans! what the rites require,
And fell the forests for a funeral pyre;
Twelve days, nor foes nor secret ambush dread;
Achilles grants these honours to the dead.”[299]


[Illustration: ] FUNERAL OF HECTOR


He spoke, and, at his word, the Trojan train
Their mules and oxen harness to the wain,
Pour through the gates, and fell’d from Ida’s crown,
Roll back the gather’d forests to the town.
These toils continue nine succeeding days,
And high in air a sylvan structure raise.
But when the tenth fair morn began to shine,
Forth to the pile was borne the man divine,
And placed aloft; while all, with streaming eyes,
Beheld the flames and rolling smokes arise.
Soon as Aurora, daughter of the dawn,
With rosy lustre streak’d the dewy lawn,
Again the mournful crowds surround the pyre,
And quench with wine the yet remaining fire.
The snowy bones his friends and brothers place
(With tears collected) in a golden vase;
The golden vase in purple palls they roll’d,
Of softest texture, and inwrought with gold.
Last o’er the urn the sacred earth they spread,
And raised the tomb, memorial of the dead.
(Strong guards and spies, till all the rites were done,
Watch’d from the rising to the setting sun.)
All Troy then moves to Priam’s court again,
A solemn, silent, melancholy train:
Assembled there, from pious toil they rest,
And sadly shared the last sepulchral feast.
Such honours Ilion to her hero paid,
And peaceful slept the mighty Hector’s shade.[300]




CONCLUDING NOTE.


We have now passed through the Iliad, and seen the anger of Achilles,
and the terrible effects of it, at an end: as that only was the subject
of the poem, and the nature of epic poetry would not permit our author
to proceed to the event of the war, it perhaps may be acceptable to the
common reader to give a short account of what happened to Troy and the
chief actors in this poem after the conclusion of it.

I need not mention that Troy was taken soon after the death of Hector
by the stratagem of the wooden horse, the particulars of which are
described by Virgil in the second book of the Æneid.

Achilles fell before Troy, by the hand of Paris, by the shot of an
arrow in his heel, as Hector had prophesied at his death, lib. xxii.

The unfortunate Priam was killed by Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles.

Ajax, after the death of Achilles, had a contest with Ulysses for the
armour of Vulcan, but being defeated in his aim, he slew himself
through indignation.

Helen, after the death of Paris, married Deiphobus his brother, and at
the taking of Troy betrayed him, in order to reconcile herself to
Menelaus her first husband, who received her again into favour.

Agamemnon at his return was barbarously murdered by Ægysthus, at the
instigation of Clytemnestra his wife, who in his absence had
dishonoured his bed with Ægysthus.

Diomed, after the fall of Troy, was expelled his own country, and
scarce escaped with his life from his adulterous wife Ægialé; but at
last was received by Daunus in Apulia, and shared his kingdom; it is
uncertain how he died.

Nestor lived in peace with his children, in Pylos, his native country.

Ulysses also, after innumerable troubles by sea and land, at last
returned in safety to Ithaca, which is the subject of Homer’s Odyssey.

For what remains, I beg to be excused from the ceremonies of taking
leave at the end of my work, and from embarrassing myself, or others,
with any defences or apologies about it. But instead of endeavouring to
raise a vain monument to myself, of the merits or difficulties of it
(which must be left to the world, to truth, and to posterity), let me
leave behind me a memorial of my friendship with one of the most
valuable of men, as well as finest writers, of my age and country, one
who has tried, and knows by his own experience, how hard an undertaking
it is to do justice to Homer, and one whom (I am sure) sincerely
rejoices with me at the period of my labours. To him, therefore, having
brought this long work to a conclusion, I desire to dedicate it, and to
have the honour and satisfaction of placing together, in this manner,
the names of Mr. CONGREVE, and of

March 25, 1720

A. POPE


Ton theon de eupoiia—to mae epi pleon me procophai en poiaetiki kai
allois epitaeoeimasi en ois isos a kateschethaen, ei aesthomaen emautan
euodos proionta.

M. AUREL ANTON _de Seipso_, lib. i. § 17.


END OF THE ILIAD




Footnotes


 [1] “What,” says Archdeacon Wilberforce, “is the natural root of
 loyalty as distinguished from such mere selfish desire of personal
 security as is apt to take its place in civilized times, but that
 consciousness of a natural bond among the families of men which gives
 a fellow-feeling to whole clans and nations, and thus enlists their
 affections in behalf of those time-honoured representatives of their
 ancient blood, in whose success they feel a personal interest? Hence
 the delight when we recognize an act of nobility or justice in our
 hereditary princes

“‘Tuque prior, tu parce genus qui ducis Olympo,
Projice tela manu _sanguis meus_’

“So strong is this feeling, that it regains an engrafted influence even
when history witnesses that vast convulsions have rent and weakened it
and the Celtic feeling towards the Stuarts has been rekindled in our
own days towards the granddaughter of George the Third of Hanover.
    “Somewhat similar may be seen in the disposition to idolize those
    great lawgivers of man’s race, who have given expression, in the
    immortal language of song, to the deeper inspirations of our
    nature. The thoughts of Homer or of Shakespere are the universal
    inheritance of the human race. In this mutual ground every man
    meets his brother, they have been set forth by the providence of
    God to vindicate for all of us what nature could effect, and that,
    in these representatives of our race, we might recognize our common
    benefactors.’—_Doctrine of the Incarnation_, pp. 9, 10.

 [2] Εἰκος δέ μιν ἦν καὶ μνημόσυνα πάντων γράφεσθαι. Vit. Hom. in
 Schweigh. Herodot. t. iv. p. 299, sq. § 6. I may observe that this
 Life has been paraphrased in English by my learned young friend
 Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie, and appended to my prose translation of the
 Odyssey. The present abridgement however, will contain all that is of
 use to the reader, for the biographical value of the treatise is most
 insignificant.

 [3] _I.e._ both of composing and reciting verses for as Blair
 observes, “The first poets sang their own verses.” Sextus Empir. adv.
 Mus. p. 360 ed. Fabric. Οὐ ἀμελει γέ τοι καὶ οἰ ποιηταὶ μελοποιοὶ
 λέγονται, καὶ τὰ Ὁμήρου ἕπη τὸ πάλαι πρὸς λύραν ἤδετο.
    “The voice,” observes Heeren, “was always accompanied by some
 instrument. The bard was provided with a harp on which he played a
 prelude, to elevate and inspire his mind, and with which he
 accompanied the song when begun. His voice probably preserved a medium
 between singing and recitation; the words, and not the melody were
 regarded by the listeners, hence it was necessary for him to remain
 intelligible to all. In countries where nothing similar is found, it
 is difficult to represent such scenes to the mind; but whoever has had
 an opportunity of listening to the improvisation of Italy, can easily
 form an idea of Demodocus and Phemius.”—_Ancient Greece_, p. 94.

 [4] “Should it not be, since _my_ arrival? asks Mackenzie, observing
 that “poplars can hardly live so long”. But setting aside the fact
 that we must not expect consistency in a mere romance, the ancients
 had a superstitious belief in the great age of trees which grew near
 places consecrated by the presence of gods and great men. See Cicero
 de Legg II I, sub init., where he speaks of the plane tree under which
 Socrates used to walk and of the tree at Delos, where Latona gave
 birth to Apollo. This passage is referred to by Stephanus of
 Byzantium, _s. v._ N. T. p. 490, ed. de Pinedo. I omit quoting any of
 the dull epigrams ascribed to Homer for, as Mr. Justice Talfourd
 rightly observes, “The authenticity of these fragments depends upon
 that of the pseudo Herodotean Life of Homer, from which they are
 taken.” Lit of Greece, pp. 38 in Encycl. Metrop. Cf. Coleridge,
 Classic Poets, p. 317.

 [5] It is quoted as the work of Cleobulus, by Diogenes Laert. Vit.
 Cleob. p. 62, ed. Casaub.

 [6] I trust I am justified in employing this as an equivalent for the
 Greek λέσχαι.

 [7] Ὡς εἰ τοὺς Ὁμήρους δόξει τρέφειν αὐτοῖς, ὅμιλον πολλόν τε και
 ἀχρεοῖν ἕξουσιν. ἐι τεῦθεν δὲ και τοὔνομα Ὁμηρος ἐπεκράτησε τῷ
 Μελησιγενεῖ ἀπὸ τῆς συμφορης. οἱ γὰρ Κυμαῖοι τοὺς τυφλοὺς Ὁμήρους
 λέγουσιν. Vit. Hom. _l. c._ p. 311. The etymology has been condemned
 by recent scholars. See Welcker, Epische Cyclus, p. 127, and
 Mackenzie’s note, p. xiv.

 [8] Θεστορίδης, θνητοῖσιν ἀνωἷστων πολεών περ, οὐδὲν ἀφραστότερον
 πέλεται νόου ἀνθρώποισιν. Ibid. p. 315. During his stay at Phocœa,
 Homer is said to have composed the Little Iliad, and the Phocœid. See
 Muller’s Hist. of Lit., vi. § 3. Welcker, _l. c._ pp. 132, 272, 358,
 sqq., and Mure, Gr. Lit. vol. ii. p. 284, sq.

 [9] This is so pretty a picture of early manners and hospitality, that
 it is almost a pity to find that it is obviously a copy from the
 Odyssey. See the fourteenth book. In fact, whoever was the author of
 this fictitious biography, he showed some tact in identifying Homer
 with certain events described in his poems, and in eliciting from them
 the germs of something like a personal narrative.

 [10] Διὰ λόγων ἐστιῶντο. A common metaphor. So Plato calls the parties
 conversing δαιτύμονες, or ἐστιάτορες, Tim. i. p. 522 A. Cf. Themist.
 Orat. vi. p. 168, and xvi. p. 374, ed. Petav. So διηγήμασι σοφοῖς ὁμοῦ
 καὶ τερπνοῖς ἡδίω τὴν θοινην τοῖς ἑστιωμένοις ἐποίει, Choricius in
 Fabric. Bibl. Gr. T. viii. P. 851. λόγοις γὰρ ἑστίᾳ, Athenæus vii p
 275, A.

 [11] It was at Bolissus, and in the house of this Chian citizen, that
 Homer is said to have written the Batrachomyomachia, or Battle of the
 Frogs and Mice, the Epicichlidia, and some other minor works.

 [12] Chandler, Travels, vol. i. p. 61, referred to in the Voyage
 Pittoresque dans la Grèce, vol. i. P. 92, where a view of the spot is
 given of which the author candidly says,— “Je ne puis répondre d’une
 exactitude scrupuleuse dans la vue générale que j’en donne, car étant
 allé seul pour l’examiner je perdis mon crayon, et je fus obligé de
 m’en fier à ma mémoire. Je ne crois cependant pas avoir trop à me
 plaindre d’elle en cette occasion.”

 [13] A more probable reason for this companionship, and for the
 character of Mentor itself, is given by the allegorists, viz.: the
 assumption of Mentor’s form by the guardian deity of the wise Ulysses,
 Minerva. The classical reader may compare Plutarch, Opp. t. ii. p.
 880; _Xyland_. Heraclid. Pont. Alleg. Hom. p. 531-5, of Gale’s Opusc.
 Mythol. Dionys. Halic. de Hom. Poes. c. 15; Apul. de Deo Socrat. s. f.

 [14] Vit. Hom. § 28.

 [15] The riddle is given in Section 35. Compare Mackenzie’s note, p.
 xxx.

 [16] Heeren’s Ancient Greece, p. 96.

 [17] Compare Sir E. L. Bulwer’s Caxtons v. i. p. 4.

 [18] Pericles and Aspasia, Letter lxxxiv., Works, vol ii. p. 387.

 [19] Quarterly Review, No. lxxxvii., p. 147.

 [20] Viz., the following beautiful passage, for the translation of
 which I am indebted to Coleridge, Classic Poets, p. 286.

“Origias, farewell! and oh! remember me
Hereafter, when some stranger from the sea,
A hapless wanderer, may your isle explore,
And ask you, maid, of all the bards you boast,
Who sings the sweetest, and delights you most
Oh! answer all,—‘A blind old man and poor
Sweetest he sings—and dwells on Chios’ rocky shore.’”

_See_ Thucyd. iii, 104.

 [21] Longin., de Sublim., ix. § 26. Ὅθεν ἐν τῇ Ὀδυσσείᾳ παρεικάσαι τις
 ἂν καταδυομένῳ τὸν Ὅμηρον ἡλίῳ, οδ δίχα τῆς σφοδρότητος παραμένει το
 μέγεθος.

 [22] See Tatian, quoted in Fabric. Bibl. Gr. v. II t. ii. Mr.
 Mackenzie has given three brief but elaborate papers on the different
 writers on the subject, which deserve to be consulted. See Notes and
 Queries, vol. v. pp. 99, 171, and 221. His own views are moderate, and
 perhaps as satisfactory, on the whole, as any of the hypotheses
 hitherto put forth. In fact, they consist in an attempt to blend those
 hypotheses into something like consistency, rather than in advocating
 any individual theory.

 [23] Letters to Phileleuth; Lips.

 [24] Hist. of Greece, vol. ii. p. 191, sqq.

 [25] It is, indeed not easy to calculate the height to which the
 memory may be cultivated. To take an ordinary case, we might refer to
 that of any first rate actor, who must be prepared, at a very short
 warning, to ‘rhapsodize,’ night after night, parts which when laid
 together, would amount to an immense number of lines. But all this is
 nothing to two instances of our own day. Visiting at Naples a
 gentleman of the highest intellectual attainments, and who held a
 distinguished rank among the men of letters in the last century, he
 informed us that the day before he had passed much time in examining a
 man, not highly educated, who had learned to repeat the whole
 Gierusalemme of Tasso, not only to recite it consecutively, but also
 to repeat those stanzas in utter defiance of the sense, either
 forwards or backwards, or from the eighth line to the first,
 alternately the odd and even lines—in short, whatever the passage
 required; the memory, which seemed to cling to the words much more
 than to the sense, had it at such perfect command, that it could
 produce it under any form. Our informant went on to state that this
 singular being was proceeding to learn the Orlando Furioso in the same
 manner. But even this instance is less wonderful than one as to which
 we may appeal to any of our readers that happened some twenty years
 ago to visit the town of Stirling, in Scotland. No such person can
 have forgotten the poor, uneducated man Blind Jamie who could actually
 repeat, after a few minutes consideration any verse required from any
 part of the Bible—even the obscurest and most unimportant enumeration
 of mere proper names not excepted. We do not mention these facts as
 touching the more difficult part of the question before us, but facts
 they are; and if we find so much difficulty in calculating the extent
 to which the mere memory may be cultivated, are we, in these days of
 multifarious reading, and of countless distracting affairs, fair
 judges of the perfection to which the invention and the memory
 combined may attain in a simpler age, and among a more single minded
 people?—Quarterly Review, _l. c._, p. 143, sqq.
    Heeren steers between the two opinions, observing that, “The
    Dschungariade of the Calmucks is said to surpass the poems of Homer
    in length, as much as it stands beneath them in merit, and yet it
    exists only in the memory of a people which is not unacquainted
    with writing. But the songs of a nation are probably the last
    things which are committed to writing, for the very reason that
    they are remembered.”— _Ancient Greece_. p. 100.

 [26] Vol. II p. 198, sqq.

 [27] Quarterly Review, _l. c._, p. 131 sq.

 [28] Betrachtungen über die Ilias. Berol. 1841. See Grote, p. 204.
 Notes and Queries, vol. v. p. 221.

 [29] Prolegg. pp. xxxii., xxxvi., &c.

 [30] Vol. ii. p. 214 sqq.

 [31] “Who,” says Cicero, de Orat. iii. 34, “was more learned in that
 age, or whose eloquence is reported to have been more perfected by
 literature than that of Peisistratus, who is said first to have
 disposed the books of Homer in the order in which we now have them?”
 Compare Wolf’s Prolegomena 33, §.

 [32] “The first book, together with the eighth, and the books from the
 eleventh to the twenty-second inclusive, seems to form the primary
 organization of the poem, then properly an Achilleïs.”—Grote, vol. ii.
 p. 235

 [33] K. R. H. Mackenzie, Notes and Queries, p. 222 sqq.

 [34] See his Epistle to Raphelingius, in Schroeder’s edition, 4to.,
 Delphis, 1728.

 [35] Ancient Greece, p. 101.

 [36] The best description of this monument will be found in Vaux’s
 “Antiquities of the British Museum,” p. 198 sq. The monument itself
 (Towneley Sculptures, No. 123) is well known.

 [37] Coleridge, Classic Poets, p. 276.

 [38] Preface to her Homer.

 [39] Hesiod. Opp. et Dier. Lib. I. vers. 155, &c.

 [40] The following argument of the Iliad, corrected in a few
 particulars, is translated from Bitaubé, and is, perhaps, the neatest
 summary that has ever been drawn up:—“A hero, injured by his general,
 and animated with a noble resentment, retires to his tent; and for a
 season withdraws himself and his troops from the war. During this
 interval, victory abandons the army, which for nine years has been
 occupied in a great enterprise, upon the successful termination of
 which the honour of their country depends. The general, at length
 opening his eyes to the fault which he had committed, deputes the
 principal officers of his army to the incensed hero, with commission
 to make compensation for the injury, and to tender magnificent
 presents. The hero, according to the proud obstinacy of his character,
 persists in his animosity; the army is again defeated, and is on the
 verge of entire destruction. This inexorable man has a friend; this
 friend weeps before him, and asks for the hero’s arms, and for
 permission to go to the war in his stead. The eloquence of friendship
 prevails more than the intercession of the ambassadors or the gifts of
 the general. He lends his armour to his friend, but commands him not
 to engage with the chief of the enemy’s army, because he reserves to
 himself the honour of that combat, and because he also fears for his
 friend’s life. The prohibition is forgotten; the friend listens to
 nothing but his courage; his corpse is brought back to the hero, and
 the hero’s arms become the prize of the conqueror. Then the hero,
 given up to the most lively despair, prepares to fight; he receives
 from a divinity new armour, is reconciled with his general and,
 thirsting for glory and revenge, enacts prodigies of valour, recovers
 the victory, slays the enemy’s chief, honours his friend with superb
 funeral rites, and exercises a cruel vengeance on the body of his
 destroyer; but finally appeased by the tears and prayers of the father
 of the slain warrior, restores to the old man the corpse of his son,
 which he buries with due solemnities.’—Coleridge, p. 177, sqq.

 [41] Vultures: Pope is more accurate than the poet he translates, for
 Homer writes “a prey to dogs and to _all_ kinds of birds. But all
 kinds of birds are not carnivorous.

 [42] _i.e._ during the whole time of their striving the will of Jove
 was being gradually accomplished.

 [43] Compare Milton’s “Paradise Lost” i. 6

“Sing, heavenly Muse, that on the secret top
Of Horeb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That shepherd.”

 [44] _Latona’s son: i.e._ Apollo.

 [45] _King of men:_ Agamemnon.

 [46] _Brother kings:_ Menelaus and Agamemnon.

 [47] _Smintheus_ an epithet taken from sminthos, the Phrygian name
 for a _mouse_, was applied to Apollo for having put an end to a plague
 of mice which had harassed that territory. Strabo, however, says, that
 when the Teucri were migrating from Crete, they were told by an oracle
 to settle in that place, where they should not be attacked by the
 original inhabitants of the land, and that, having halted for the
 night, a number of field-mice came and gnawed away the leathern straps
 of their baggage, and thongs of their armour. In fulfilment of the
 oracle, they settled on the spot, and raised a temple to Sminthean
 Apollo. Grote, “History of Greece,” i. p. 68, remarks that the
 “worship of Sminthean Apollo, in various parts of the Troad and its
 neighboring territory, dates before the earliest period of Æolian
 colonization.”

 [48] _Cilla_, a town of Troas near Thebe, so called from Cillus, a
 sister of Hippodamia, slain by Œnomaus.

 [49] A mistake. It should be,

“If e’er I roofed thy graceful fane,”

for the custom of decorating temples with garlands was of later date.

 [50] _Bent was his bow_ “The Apollo of Homer, it must be borne in
 mind, is a different character from the deity of the same name in the
 later classical pantheon. Throughout both poems, all deaths from
 unforeseen or invisible causes, the ravages of pestilence, the fate of
 the young child or promising adult, cut off in the germ of infancy or
 flower of youth, of the old man dropping peacefully into the grave, or
 of the reckless sinner suddenly checked in his career of crime, are
 ascribed to the arrows of Apollo or Diana. The oracular functions of
 the god rose naturally out of the above fundamental attributes, for
 who could more appropriately impart to mortals what little
 foreknowledge Fate permitted of her decrees than the agent of her most
 awful dispensations? The close union of the arts of prophecy and song
 explains his additional office of god of music, while the arrows with
 which he and his sister were armed, symbols of sudden death in every
 age, no less naturally procured him that of god of archery. Of any
 connection between Apollo and the Sun, whatever may have existed in
 the more esoteric doctrine of the Greek sanctuaries, there is no trace
 in either Iliad or Odyssey.”—Mure, “History of Greek Literature,” vol.
 i. p. 478, sq.

 [51] It has frequently been observed, that most pestilences begin with
 animals, and that Homer had this fact in mind.

 [52] _Convened to council_. The public assembly in the heroic times is
 well characterized by Grote, vol. ii. p 92. “It is an assembly for
 talk. Communication and discussion to a certain extent by the chiefs
 in person, of the people as listeners and sympathizers—often for
 eloquence, and sometimes for quarrel—but here its ostensible purposes
 end.”

 [53] Old Jacob Duport, whose “Gnomologia Homerica” is full of curious
 and useful things, quotes several passages of the ancients, in which
 reference is made to these words of Homer, in maintenance of the
 belief that dreams had a divine origin and an import in which men were
 interested.

 [54] Rather, “bright-eyed.” See the German critics quoted by Arnold.

 [55] The prize given to Ajax was Tecmessa, while Ulysses received
 Laodice, the daughter of Cycnus.

 [56] The Myrmidons dwelt on the southern borders of Thessaly, and took
 their origin from Myrmido, son of Jupiter and Eurymedusa. It is
 fancifully supposed that the name was derived from myrmaex, an _ant_,
 “because they imitated the diligence of the ants, and like them were
 indefatigable, continually employed in cultivating the earth; the
 change from ants to men is founded merely on the equivocation of their
 name, which resembles that of the ant: they bore a further resemblance
 to these little animals, in that instead of inhabiting towns or
 villages, at first they commonly resided in the open fields, having no
 other retreats but dens and the cavities of trees, until Ithacus
 brought them together, and settled them in more secure and comfortable
 habitations.”—Anthon’s “Lempriere.”

 [57] Eustathius, after Heraclides Ponticus and others, allegorizes
 this apparition, as if the appearance of Minerva to Achilles, unseen
 by the rest, was intended to point out the sudden recollection that he
 would gain nothing by intemperate wrath, and that it were best to
 restrain his anger, and only gratify it by withdrawing his services.
 The same idea is rather cleverly worked out by Apuleius, “De Deo
 Socratis.”

 [58] Compare Milton, “Paradise Lost,” bk. ii:

“Though his tongue
Dropp’d manna.”

So Proverbs v. 3, “For the lips of a strange woman drop as an
honey-comb.”

 [59] Salt water was chiefly used in lustrations, from its being
 supposed to possess certain fiery particles. Hence, if sea-water could
 not be obtained, salt was thrown into the fresh water to be used for
 the lustration. Menander, in Clem. Alex. vii. p.713, hydati
 perriranai, embalon alas, phakois.

 [60] The persons of heralds were held inviolable, and they were at
 liberty to travel whither they would without fear of molestation.
 Pollux, Onom. viii. p. 159. The office was generally given to old men,
 and they were believed to be under the especial protection of Jove and
 Mercury.

 [61] His mother, Thetis, the daughter of Nereus and Doris, who was
 courted by Neptune and Jupiter. When, however, it was known that the
 son to whom she would give birth must prove greater than his father,
 it was determined to wed her to a mortal, and Peleus, with great
 difficulty, succeeded in obtaining her hand, as she eluded him by
 assuming various forms. Her children were all destroyed by fire
 through her attempts to see whether they were immortal, and Achilles
 would have shared the same fate had not his father rescued him. She
 afterwards rendered him invulnerable by plunging him into the waters
 of the Styx, with the exception of that part of the heel by which she
 held him. Hygin. Fab. 54

 [62] Thebé was a city of Mysia, north of Adramyttium.

 [63] That is, defrauds me of the prize allotted me by their votes.

 [64] Quintus Calaber goes still further in his account of the service
 rendered to Jove by Thetis:

“Nay more, the fetters of Almighty Jove
She loosed”—Dyce’s “Calaber,” s. 58.

 [65] _To Fates averse_. Of the gloomy destiny reigning throughout the
 Homeric poems, and from which even the gods are not exempt, Schlegel
 well observes, “This power extends also to the world of gods— for the
 Grecian gods are mere powers of nature—and although immeasurably
 higher than mortal man, yet, compared with infinitude, they are on an
 equal footing with himself.”—‘Lectures on the Drama’ v. p. 67.

 [66] It has been observed that the annual procession of the sacred
 ship so often represented on Egyptian monuments, and the return of the
 deity from Ethiopia after some days’ absence, serves to show the
 Ethiopian origin of Thebes, and of the worship of Jupiter Ammon. “I
 think,” says Heeren, after quoting a passage from Diodorus about the
 holy ship, “that this procession is represented in one of the great
 sculptured reliefs on the temple of Karnak. The sacred ship of Ammon
 is on the shore with its whole equipment, and is towed along by
 another boat. It is therefore on its voyage. This must have been one
 of the most celebrated festivals, since, even according to the
 interpretation of antiquity, Homer alludes to it when he speaks of
 Jupiter’s visit to the Ethiopians, and his twelve days’
 absence.”—Long, “Egyptian Antiquities” vol. 1 p. 96. Eustathius, vol.
 1 p. 98, sq. (ed. Basil) gives this interpretation, and likewise an
 allegorical one, which we will spare the reader.

 [67] _Atoned_, i.e. reconciled. This is the proper and most natural
 meaning of the word, as may be seen from Taylor’s remarks in Calmet’s
 Dictionary, p.110, of my edition.

 [68] That is, drawing back their necks while they cut their throats.
 “If the sacrifice was in honour of the celestial gods, the throat was
 bent upwards towards heaven; but if made to the heroes, or infernal
 deities, it was killed with its throat toward the ground.”— “Elgin
 Marbles,” vol i. p.81.

“The jolly crew, unmindful of the past,
The quarry share, their plenteous dinner haste,
Some strip the skin; some portion out the spoil;
The limbs yet trembling, in the caldrons boil;
Some on the fire the reeking entrails broil.
Stretch’d on the grassy turf, at ease they dine,
Restore their strength with meat, and cheer their souls with wine.”

Dryden’s “Virgil,” i. 293.

 [69] _Crown’d, i.e._ filled to the brim. The custom of adorning
 goblets with flowers was of later date.

 [70] _He spoke_, &c. “When a friend inquired of Phidias what pattern
 he had formed his Olympian Jupiter, he is said to have answered by
 repeating the lines of the first Iliad in which the poet represents
 the majesty of the god in the most sublime terms; thereby signifying
 that the genius of Homer had inspired him with it. Those who beheld
 this statue are said to have been so struck with it as to have asked
 whether Jupiter had descended from heaven to show himself to Phidias,
 or whether Phidias had been carried thither to contemplate the god.”—
 “Elgin Marbles,” vol. xii p.124.

 [71] “So was his will
Pronounced among the gods, and by an oath,
That shook heav’n’s whole circumference, confirm’d.”

“Paradise Lost” ii. 351.

 [72] _A double bowl, i.e._ a vessel with a cup at both ends, something
 like the measures by which a halfpenny or pennyworth of nuts is sold.
 See Buttmann, Lexic. p. 93 sq.

 [73] “Paradise Lost,” i. 44.

“Him th’ Almighty power
Hurl’d headlong flaming from th ethereal sky,
With hideous ruin and combustion”

 [74] The occasion on which Vulcan incurred Jove’s displeasure was
 this—After Hercules, had taken and pillaged Troy, Juno raised a storm,
 which drove him to the island of Cos, having previously cast Jove into
 a sleep, to prevent him aiding his son. Jove, in revenge, fastened
 iron anvils to her feet, and hung her from the sky, and Vulcan,
 attempting to relieve her, was kicked down from Olympus in the manner
 described. The allegorists have gone mad in finding deep explanations
 for this amusing fiction. See Heraclides, “Ponticus,” p. 463 sq., ed
 Gale. The story is told by Homer himself in Book xv. The Sinthians
 were a race of robbers, the ancient inhabitants of Lemnos which island
 was ever after sacred to Vulcan.

“Nor was his name unheard or unadored
In ancient Greece, and in Ausonian land
Men call’d him Mulciber, and how he fell
From heaven, they fabled, thrown by angry Jove
Sheer o’er the crystal battlements from morn
To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,
A summer’s day and with the setting sun
Dropp’d from the zenith like a falling star
On Lemnos, th’ Aegean isle thus they relate.”

“Paradise Lost,” i. 738

 [75] It is ingeniously observed by Grote, vol i p. 463, that “The gods
 formed a sort of political community of their own which had its
 hierarchy, its distribution of ranks and duties, its contentions for
 power and occasional revolutions, its public meetings in the agora of
 Olympus, and its multitudinous banquets or festivals.”

 [76] Plato, Rep. iii. p. 437, was so scandalized at this deception of
 Jupiter’s, and at his other attacks on the character of the gods, that
 he would fain sentence him to an honourable banishment. (See Minucius
 Felix, Section 22.) Coleridge, Introd. p. 154, well observes, that the
 supreme father of gods and men had a full right to employ a lying
 spirit to work out his ultimate will. Compare “Paradise Lost,” v. 646:

“And roseate dews disposed
All but the unsleeping eyes of God to rest.”

 [77] —_Dream_ ought to be spelt with a capital letter, being, I think,
 evidently personified as the god of dreams. See Anthon and others.

“When, by Minerva sent, a _fraudful_ Dream
Rush’d from the skies, the bane of her and Troy.”

Dyce’s “Select Translations from Quintus Calaber,” p.10.

 [78] “Sleep’st thou, companion dear, what sleep can close
Thy eye-lids?”—“Paradise Lost,” v. 673.

 [79] This truly military sentiment has been echoed by the approving
 voice of many a general and statesman of antiquity. See Pliny’s
 Panegyric on Trajan. Silius neatly translates it,

“Turpe duci totam somno consumere noctem.”

 [80] _The same in habit_, &c.

“To whom once more the winged god appears;
His former youthful mien and shape he wears.”

Dryden’s Virgil, iv. 803.

 [81] “As bees in spring-time, when
The sun with Taurus rides,
Pour forth their populous youth about the hive
In clusters; they among fresh dews and flowers
Fly to and fro, or on the smoothed plank,
The suburb of this straw-built citadel,
New-nibb’d with balm, expatiate and confer
Their state affairs. So thick the very crowd
Swarm’d and were straiten’d.”—“Paradise Lost” i. 768.

 [82] It was the herald’s duty to make the people sit down. “A
 _standing_ agora is a symptom of manifest terror (II. Xviii. 246) an
 evening agora, to which men came elevated by wine, is also the
 forerunner of mischief (‘Odyssey,’ iii. 138).”—Grote, ii. p. 91,
 _note_.

 [83] This sceptre, like that of Judah (Genesis xlix. 10), is a type of
 the supreme and far-spread dominion of the house of the Atrides. See
 Thucydides i. 9. “It is traced through the hands of Hermes, he being
 the wealth giving god, whose blessing is most efficacious in
 furthering the process of acquisition.”—Grote, i. p. 212. Compare
 Quintus Calaber (Dyce’s Selections, p. 43).

“Thus the monarch spoke,
Then pledged the chief in a capacious cup,
Golden, and framed by art divine (a gift
Which to Almighty Jove lame Vulcan brought
Upon his nuptial day, when he espoused
The Queen of Love), the sire of gods bestow’d
The cup on Dardanus, who gave it next
To Ericthonius Tros received it then,
And left it, with his wealth, to be possess’d
By Ilus he to great Laomedon
Gave it, and last to Priam’s lot it fell.”

 [84] Grote, i, p. 393, states the number of the Grecian forces at
 upwards of 100,000 men. Nichols makes a total of 135,000.

 [85] “As thick as when a field
Of Ceres, ripe for harvest, waving bends
His bearded grove of ears, which way the wind
Sways them.”—Paradise Lost,” iv. 980, sqq.

 [86] This sentiment used to be a popular one with some of the greatest
 tyrants, who abused it into a pretext for unlimited usurpation of
 power. Dion, Caligula, and Domitian were particularly fond of it, and,
 in an extended form, we find the maxim propounded by Creon in the
 Antigone of Sophocles. See some important remarks of Heeren, “Ancient
 Greece,” ch. vi. p. 105.

 [87] It may be remarked, that the character of Thersites, revolting
 and contemptible as it is, serves admirably to develop the disposition
 of Ulysses in a new light, in which mere cunning is less prominent. Of
 the gradual and individual development of Homer’s heroes, Schlegel
 well observes, “In bas-relief the figures are usually in profile, and
 in the epos all are characterized in the simplest manner in relief;
 they are not grouped together, but follow one another; so Homer’s
 heroes advance, one by one, in succession before us. It has been
 remarked that the _Iliad_ is not definitively closed, but that we are
 left to suppose something both to precede and to follow it. The
 bas-relief is equally without limit, and may be continued _ad
 infinitum_, either from before or behind, on which account the
 ancients preferred for it such subjects as admitted of an indefinite
 extension, sacrificial processions, dances, and lines of combatants,
 and hence they also exhibit bas-reliefs on curved surfaces, such as
 vases, or the frieze of a rotunda, where, by the curvature, the two
 ends are withdrawn from our sight, and where, while we advance, one
 object appears as another disappears. Reading Homer is very much like
 such a circuit; the present object alone arresting our attention, we
 lose sight of what precedes, and do not concern ourselves about what
 is to follow.”—“Dramatic Literature,” p. 75.

 [88] “There cannot be a clearer indication than this description —so
 graphic in the original poem—of the true character of the Homeric
 agora. The multitude who compose it are listening and acquiescent, not
 often hesitating, and never refractory to the chief. The fate which
 awaits a presumptuous critic, even where his virulent reproaches are
 substantially well-founded, is plainly set forth in the treatment of
 Thersites; while the unpopularity of such a character is attested even
 more by the excessive pains which Homer takes to heap upon him
 repulsive personal deformities, than by the chastisement of Odysseus
 he is lame, bald, crook-backed, of misshapen head, and squinting
 vision.”—Grote, vol. i. p. 97.

 [89] According to Pausanias, both the sprig and the remains of the
 tree were exhibited in his time. The tragedians, Lucretius and others,
 adopted a different fable to account for the stoppage at Aulis, and
 seem to have found the sacrifice of Iphigena better suited to form the
 subject of a tragedy. Compare Dryden’s “Æneid,” vol. iii. sqq.

 [90] _Full of his god, i.e._, Apollo, filled with the prophetic
 spirit. “_The_ god” would be more simple and emphatic.

 [91] Those critics who have maintained that the “Catalogue of Ships”
 is an interpolation, should have paid more attention to these lines,
 which form a most natural introduction to their enumeration.

 [92] The following observation will be useful to Homeric readers:
 “Particular animals were, at a later time, consecrated to particular
 deities. To Jupiter, Ceres, Juno, Apollo, and Bacchus victims of
 advanced age might be offered. An ox of five years old was considered
 especially acceptable to Jupiter. A black bull, a ram, or a boar pig,
 were offerings for Neptune. A heifer, or a sheep, for Minerva. To
 Ceres a sow was sacrificed, as an enemy to corn. The goat to Bacchus,
 because he fed on vines. Diana was propitiated with a stag; and to
 Venus the dove was consecrated. The infernal and evil deities were to
 be appeased with black victims. The most acceptable of all sacrifices
 was the heifer of a year old, which had never borne the yoke. It was
 to be perfect in every limb, healthy, and without blemish.”—“Elgin
 Marbles,” vol. i. p. 78.

 [93] _Idomeneus_, son of Deucalion, was king of Crete. Having vowed,
 during a tempest, on his return from Troy, to sacrifice to Neptune the
 first creature that should present itself to his eye on the Cretan
 shore, his son fell a victim to his rash vow.

 [94] _Tydeus’ son, i.e._ Diomed.

 [95] That is, Ajax, the son of Oïleus, a Locrian. He must be
 distinguished from the other, who was king of Salamis.

 [96] A great deal of nonsense has been written to account for the word
 _unbid_, in this line. Even Plato, “Sympos.” p. 315, has found some
 curious meaning in what, to us, appears to need no explanation. Was
 there any _heroic_ rule of etiquette which prevented one brother-king
 visiting another without a formal invitation?

 [97] Fresh water fowl, especially swans, were found in great numbers
 about the Asian Marsh, a fenny tract of country in Lydia, formed by
 the river Cayster, near its mouth. See Virgil, “Georgics,” vol. i.
 383, sq.

 [98] _Scamander_, or Scamandros, was a river of Troas, rising,
 according to Strabo, on the highest part of Mount Ida, in the same
 hill with the Granicus and the OEdipus, and falling into the sea at
 Sigaeum; everything tends to identify it with Mendere, as Wood,
 Rennell, and others maintain; the Mendere is 40 miles long, 300 feet
 broad, deep in the time of flood, nearly dry in the summer. Dr. Clarke
 successfully combats the opinion of those who make the Scamander to
 have arisen from the springs of Bounabarshy, and traces the source of
 the river to the highest mountain in the chain of Ida, now Kusdaghy;
 receives the Simois in its course; towards its mouth it is very muddy,
 and flows through marshes. Between the Scamander and Simois, Homer’s
 Troy is supposed to have stood: this river, according to Homer, was
 called Xanthus by the gods, Scamander by men. The waters of the
 Scamander had the singular property of giving a beautiful colour to
 the hair or wool of such animals as bathed in them; hence the three
 goddesses, Minerva, Juno, and Venus, bathed there before they appeared
 before Paris to obtain the golden apple: the name Xanthus, “yellow,”
 was given to the Scamander, from the peculiar colour of its waters,
 still applicable to the Mendere, the yellow colour of whose waters
 attracts the attention of travellers.

 [99] It should be “his _chest_ like Neptune.” The torso of Neptune, in
 the “Elgin Marbles,” No. 103, (vol. ii. p. 26,) is remarkable for its
 breadth and massiveness of development.

 [100] “Say first, for heav’n hides nothing from thy view.”—“Paradise
 Lost,” i. 27.

“Ma di’ tu, Musa, come i primi danni
Mandassero à Cristiani, e di quai parti:
Tu ’l sai; ma di tant’ opra a noi si lunge
Debil aura di fama appena giunge.”—“Gier. Lib.” iv. 19.

 [101] “The Catalogue is, perhaps, the portion of the poem in favour of
 which a claim to separate authorship has been most plausibly urged.
 Although the example of Homer has since rendered some such formal
 enumeration of the forces engaged, a common practice in epic poems
 descriptive of great warlike adventures, still so minute a statistical
 detail can neither be considered as imperatively required, nor perhaps
 such as would, in ordinary cases, suggest itself to the mind of a
 poet. Yet there is scarcely any portion of the Iliad where both
 historical and internal evidence are more clearly in favour of a
 connection from the remotest period, with the remainder of the work.
 The composition of the Catalogue, whensoever it may have taken place,
 necessarily presumes its author’s acquaintance with a previously
 existing Iliad. It were impossible otherwise to account for the
 harmony observable in the recurrence of so vast a number of proper
 names, most of them historically unimportant, and not a few altogether
 fictitious: or of so many geographical and genealogical details as are
 condensed in these few hundred lines, and incidentally scattered over
 the thousands which follow: equally inexplicable were the pointed
 allusions occurring in this episode to events narrated in the previous
 and subsequent text, several of which could hardly be of traditional
 notoriety, but through the medium of the Iliad.”—Mure, “Language and
 Literature of Greece,” vol. i. p. 263.

 [102] _Twice Sixty:_ “Thucydides observes that the Bœotian vessels,
 which carried one hundred and twenty men each, were probably meant to
 be the largest in the fleet, and those of Philoctetes, carrying fifty
 each, the smallest. The average would be eighty-five, and Thucydides
 supposes the troops to have rowed and navigated themselves; and that
 very few, besides the chiefs, went as mere passengers or landsmen. In
 short, we have in the Homeric descriptions the complete picture of an
 Indian or African war canoe, many of which are considerably larger
 than the largest scale assigned to those of the Greeks. If the total
 number of the Greek ships be taken at twelve hundred, according to
 Thucydides, although in point of fact there are only eleven hundred
 and eighty-six in the Catalogue, the amount of the army, upon the
 foregoing average, will be about a hundred and two thousand men. The
 historian considers this a small force as representing all Greece.
 Bryant, comparing it with the allied army at Platae, thinks it so
 large as to prove the entire falsehood of the whole story; and his
 reasonings and calculations are, for their curiosity, well worth a
 careful perusal.”—Coleridge, p. 211, sq.

 [103] The mention of Corinth is an anachronism, as that city was
 called Ephyre before its capture by the Dorians. But Velleius, vol. i.
 p. 3, well observes, that the poet would naturally speak of various
 towns and cities by the names by which they were known in his own
 time.

 [104] “Adam, the goodliest man of men since born, His sons, the
 fairest of her daughters Eve.’—“Paradise Lost,” iv. 323.

 [105] _Æsetes’ tomb_. Monuments were often built on the sea-coast, and
 of a considerable height, so as to serve as watch-towers or land
 marks. See my notes to my prose translations of the “Odyssey,” ii. p.
 21, or on Eur. “Alcest.” vol. i. p. 240.

 [106] _Zeleia_, another name for Lycia. The inhabitants were greatly
 devoted to the worship of Apollo. See Muller, “Dorians,” vol. i. p.
 248.

 [107] _Barbarous tongues_. “Various as were the dialects of the
 Greeks—and these differences existed not only between the several
 tribes, but even between neighbouring cities—they yet acknowledged in
 their language that they formed but one nation were but branches of
 the same family. Homer has ‘men of other tongues:’ and yet Homer had
 no general name for the Greek nation.”—Heeren, “Ancient Greece,”
 Section vii. p. 107, sq.

 [108] _The cranes_.
“Marking the tracts of air, the clamorous cranes
Wheel their due flight in varied ranks descried:
And each with outstretch’d neck his rank maintains,
In marshall’d order through th’ ethereal void.”

Lorenzo de Medici, in Roscoe’s Life, Appendix.

See Cary’s Dante: “Hell,” canto v.

 [109] _Silent, breathing rage._
“Thus they,
Breathing united force with fixed thought,
Moved on in silence.”

“Paradise Lost,” book i. 559.

 [110] “As when some peasant in a bushy brake
Has with unwary footing press’d a snake;
He starts aside, astonish’d, when he spies
His rising crest, blue neck, and rolling eyes”

Dryden’s Virgil, ii. 510.

 [111] Dysparis, _i.e._ unlucky, ill fated, Paris. This alludes to the
 evils which resulted from his having been brought up, despite the
 omens which attended his birth.

 [112] The following scene, in which Homer has contrived to introduce
 so brilliant a sketch of the Grecian warriors, has been imitated by
 Euripides, who in his “Phoenissae” represents Antigone surveying the
 opposing champions from a high tower, while the paedagogus describes
 their insignia and details their histories.

 [113] _No wonder_, &c. Zeuxis, the celebrated artist, is said to have
 appended these lines to his picture of Helen, as a motto. Valer Max.
 iii. 7.

 [114] The early epic was largely occupied with the exploits and
 sufferings of women, or heroines, the wives and daughters of the
 Grecian heroes. A nation of courageous, hardy, indefatigable women,
 dwelling apart from men, permitting only a short temporary
 intercourse, for the purpose of renovating their numbers, burning out
 their right breast with a view of enabling themselves to draw the bow
 freely; this was at once a general type, stimulating to the fancy of
 the poet, and a theme eminently popular with his hearers. We find
 these warlike females constantly reappearing in the ancient poems, and
 universally accepted as past realities in the Iliad. When Priam wishes
 to illustrate emphatically the most numerous host in which he ever
 found himself included, he tells us that it was assembled in Phrygia,
 on the banks of the Sangarius, for the purpose of resisting the
 formidable Amazons. When Bellerophon is to be employed in a deadly and
 perilous undertaking, by those who prudently wished to procure his
 death, he is despatched against the Amazons.—Grote, vol. i p. 289.

 [115] _Antenor_, like Æneas, had always been favourable to the
 restoration of Helen. Liv 1. 2.

 [116]
“His lab’ring heart with sudden rapture seized
He paus’d, and on the ground in silence gazed.
Unskill’d and uninspired he seems to stand,
Nor lifts the eye, nor graceful moves the hand:
Then, while the chiefs in still attention hung,
Pours the full tide of eloquence along;
While from his lips the melting torrent flows,
Soft as the fleeces of descending snows.
Now stronger notes engage the listening crowd,
Louder the accents rise, and yet more loud,
Like thunders rolling from a distant cloud.”

Merrick’s “Tryphiodorus,” 148, 99.

 [117] Duport, “Gnomol. Homer,” p. 20, well observes that this
 comparison may also be sarcastically applied to the _frigid_ style of
 oratory. It, of course, here merely denotes the ready fluency of
 Ulysses.

 [118] _Her brothers’ doom_. They perished in combat with Lynceus and
 Idas, whilst besieging Sparta. See Hygin. Poet Astr. 32, 22. Virgil
 and others, however, make them share immortality by turns.

 [119] Idreus was the arm-bearer and charioteer of king Priam, slain
 during this war. Cf. Æn, vi. 487.

 [120] _Scæa’s gates_, rather _Scæan gates_, _i.e._ the left-hand
 gates.

 [121] This was customary in all sacrifices. Hence we find Iras
 descending to cut off the hair of Dido, before which she could not
 expire.

 [122] _Nor pierced_.

“This said, his feeble hand a jav’lin threw,
Which, flutt’ring, seemed to loiter as it flew,
Just, and but barely, to the mark it held,
And faintly tinkled on the brazen shield.”

Dryden’s Virgil, ii. 742.

 [123] _Reveal’d the queen_.

“Thus having said, she turn’d and made appear
Her neck refulgent and dishevell’d hair,
Which, flowing from her shoulders, reach’d the ground,
And widely spread ambrosial scents around.
In length of train descends her sweeping gown;
And, by her graceful walk, the queen of love is known.”

Dryden’s Virgil, i. 556.

 [124] _Cranae’s isle, i.e._ Athens. See the “Schol.” and Alberti’s
 “Hesychius,” vol. ii. p. 338. This name was derived from one of its
 early kings, Cranaus.

 [125] _The martial maid_. In the original, “Minerva Alalcomeneis,”
 _i.e. the defender_, so called from her temple at Alalcomene in
 Bœotia.

 [126] “Anything for a quiet life!”

 [127] —_Argos_. The worship of Juno at Argos was very celebrated in
 ancient times, and she was regarded as the patron deity of that city.
 Apul. Met., vi. p. 453; Servius on Virg. Æn., i. 28.

 [128] —_A wife and sister_.

“But I, who walk in awful state above
The majesty of heav’n, the sister-wife of Jove.”

Dryden’s “Virgil,” i. 70.

So Apuleius, _l. c._ speaks of her as “Jovis germana et conjux, and so
Horace, Od. iii. 3, 64, “conjuge me Jovis et sorore.”

 [129]
“Thither came Uriel, gleaming through the even
On a sunbeam, swift as a shooting star
In autumn thwarts the night, when vapours fired
Impress the air, and shows the mariner
From what point of his compass to beware
Impetuous winds.”

—“Paradise Lost,” iv. 555.

 [130] _Æsepus’ flood_. A river of Mysia, rising from Mount Cotyius, in
 the southern part of the chain of Ida.

 [131] _Zelia_, a town of Troas, at the foot of Ida.

 [132] _Podaleirius_ and _Machäon_ are the leeches of the Grecian army,
 highly prized and consulted by all the wounded chiefs. Their medical
 renown was further prolonged in the subsequent poem of Arktinus, the
 Iliou Persis, wherein the one was represented as unrivalled in
 surgical operations, the other as sagacious in detecting and
 appreciating morbid symptoms. It was Podaleirius who first noticed the
 glaring eyes and disturbed deportment which preceded the suicide of
 Ajax.
    “Galen appears uncertain whether Asklepius (as well as Dionysus)
    was originally a god, or whether he was first a man and then became
    afterwards a god; but Apollodorus professed to fix the exact date
    of his apotheosis. Throughout all the historical ages the
    descendants of Asklepius were numerous and widely diffused. The
    many families or gentes, called Asklepiads, who devoted themselves
    to the study and practice of medicine, and who principally dwelt
    near the temples of Asklepius, whither sick and suffering men came
    to obtain relief—all recognized the god not merely as the object of
    their common worship, but also as their actual progenitor.”—Grote
    vol. i. p. 248.

 [133]
“The plant she bruises with a stone, and stands
Tempering the juice between her ivory hands
This o’er her breast she sheds with sovereign art
And bathes with gentle touch the wounded part
The wound such virtue from the juice derives,
At once the blood is stanch’d, the youth revives.”

“Orlando Furioso,” book 1.

 [134] _Well might I wish._

“Would heav’n (said he) my strength and youth recall,
Such as I was beneath Praeneste’s wall—
Then when I made the foremost foes retire,
And set whole heaps of conquer’d shields on fire;
When Herilus in single fight I slew,
Whom with three lives Feronia did endue.”

Dryden’s Virgil, viii. 742.

 [135] _Sthenelus_, a son of Capaneus, one of the Epigoni. He was one
 of the suitors of Helen, and is said to have been one of those who
 entered Troy inside the wooden horse.

 [136] _Forwarn’d the horrors_. The same portent has already been
 mentioned. To this day, modern nations are not wholly free from this
 superstition.

 [137] _Sevenfold city_, Bœotian Thebes, which had seven gates.

 [138] _As when the winds_.

“Thus, when a black-brow’d gust begins to rise,
White foam at first on the curl’d ocean fries;
Then roars the main, the billows mount the skies,
Till, by the fury of the storm full blown,
The muddy billow o’er the clouds is thrown.”

Dryden’s Virgil, vii. 736.

 [139]
“Stood
Like Teneriffe or Atlas unremoved;
His stature reach’d the sky.”

—“Paradise Lost,” iv. 986.

 [140] The Abantes seem to have been of Thracian origin.

 [141] I may, once for all, remark that Homer is most anatomically
 correct as to the parts of the body in which a wound would be
 immediately mortal.

 [142] _Ænus_, a fountain almost proverbial for its coldness.

 [143] Compare Tasso, Gier. Lib., xx. 7:

“Nuovo favor del cielo in lui niluce
E ’l fa grande, et angusto oltre il costume.
Gl’ empie d’ honor la faccia, e vi riduce
Di giovinezza il bel purpureo lume.”

 [144]
“Or deluges, descending on the plains,
Sweep o’er the yellow year, destroy the pains
Of lab’ring oxen, and the peasant’s gains;
Uproot the forest oaks, and bear away
Flocks, folds, and trees, an undistinguish’d prey.”

Dryden’s Virgil ii. 408.

 [145] _From mortal mists_.

“But to nobler sights
Michael from Adam’s eyes the film removed.”

“Paradise Lost,” xi. 411.

 [146] _The race of those_.

“A pair of coursers, born of heav’nly breed,
Who from their nostrils breathed ethereal fire;
Whom Circe stole from her celestial sire,
By substituting mares produced on earth,
Whose wombs conceived a more than mortal birth.

Dryden’s Virgil, vii. 386, sqq.

 [147] The belief in the existence of men of larger stature in earlier
 times, is by no means confined to Homer.

 [148] _Such stream, i.e._ the _ichor_, or blood of the gods.

“A stream of nect’rous humour issuing flow’d,
Sanguine, such as celestial spirits may bleed.”

“Paradise Lost,” vi. 339.

 [149] This was during the wars with the Titans.

 [150] _Amphitryon’s son_, Hercules, born to Jove by Alcmena, the wife
 of Amphitryon.

 [151] _Ægialé_ daughter of Adrastus. The Cyclic poets (See Anthon’s
 Lempriere, _s. v._) assert Venus incited her to infidelity, in revenge
 for the wound she had received from her husband.

 [152] _Pheræ_, a town of Pelasgiotis, in Thessaly.

 [153] _Tlepolemus_, son of Hercules and Astyochia. Having left his
 native country, Argos, in consequence of the accidental murder of
 Liscymnius, he was commanded by an oracle to retire to Rhodes. Here he
 was chosen king, and accompanied the Trojan expedition. After his
 death, certain games were instituted at Rhodes in his honour, the
 victors being rewarded with crowns of poplar.

 [154] These heroes’ names have since passed into a kind of proverb,
 designating the _oi polloi_ or mob.

 [155] _Spontaneous open_.

“Veil’d with his gorgeous wings, upspringing light
Flew through the midst of heaven; th’ angelic quires,
On each hand parting, to his speed gave way
Through all th’ empyreal road; till at the gate
Of heaven arrived, the gate self-open’d wide,
On golden hinges turning.”

—“Paradise Lost,” v. 250.

 [156]
“Till Morn,
Waked by the circling Hours, with rosy hand
Unbarr’d the gates of light.”

—“Paradise Lost,” vi, 2.

 [157] _Far as a shepherd_. “With what majesty and pomp does Homer
 exalt his deities! He here measures the leap of the horses by the
 extent of the world. And who is there, that, considering the exceeding
 greatness of the space would not with reason cry out that ‘If the
 steeds of the deity were to take a second leap, the world would want
 room for it’?”—Longinus, Section 8.

 [158] “No trumpets, or any other instruments of sound, are used in the
 Homeric action itself; but the trumpet was known, and is introduced
 for the purpose of illustration as employed in war. Hence arose the
 value of a loud voice in a commander; Stentor was an indispensable
 officer... In the early Saracen campaigns frequent mention is made of
 the service rendered by men of uncommonly strong voices; the battle of
 Honain was restored by the shouts and menaces of Abbas, the uncle of
 Mohammed,” &c.—Coleridge, p. 213.

 [159] “Long had the wav’ring god the war delay’d,
While Greece and Troy alternate own’d his aid.”

Merrick’s “Tryphiodorus,” vi. 761, sq.

 [160] _Pæon_ seems to have been to the gods, what Podaleirius and
 Machaon were to the Grecian heroes.

 [161] _Arisbe_, a colony of the Mitylenaeans in Troas.

 [162] _Pedasus_, a town near Pylos.

 [163] _Rich heaps of brass_. “The halls of Alkinous and Menelaus
 glitter with gold, copper, and electrum; while large stocks of yet
 unemployed metal—gold, copper, and iron are stored up in the
 treasure-chamber of Odysseus and other chiefs. Coined money is unknown
 in the Homeric age—the trade carried on being one of barter. In
 reference also to the metals, it deserves to be remarked, that the
 Homeric descriptions universally suppose copper, and not iron, to be
 employed for arms, both offensive and defensive. By what process the
 copper was tempered and hardened, so as to serve the purpose of the
 warrior, we do not know; but the use of iron for these objects belongs
 to a later age.”—Grote, vol. ii. p. 142.

 [164] _Oh impotent_, &c. “In battle, quarter seems never to have been
 given, except with a view to the ransom of the prisoner. Agamemnon
 reproaches Menelaus with unmanly softness, when he is on the point of
 sparing a fallen enemy, and himself puts the suppliant to the
 sword.”—Thirlwall, vol. i. p. 181

 [165]
“The ruthless steel, impatient of delay,
Forbade the sire to linger out the day.
It struck the bending father to the earth,
And cropt the wailing infant at the birth.
Can innocents the rage of parties know,
And they who ne’er offended find a foe?”

Rowe’s Lucan, bk. ii.

 [166]
“Meantime the Trojan dames, oppress’d with woe,
To Pallas’ fane in long procession go,
In hopes to reconcile their heav’nly foe:
They weep; they beat their breasts; they rend their hair,
And rich embroider’d vests for presents bear.”

Dryden’s Virgil, i. 670

 [167] The manner in which this episode is introduced, is well
 illustrated by the following remarks of Mure, vol. i. p.298: “The
 poet’s method of introducing his episode, also, illustrates in a
 curious manner his tact in the dramatic department of his art. Where,
 for example, one or more heroes are despatched on some commission, to
 be executed at a certain distance of time or place, the fulfilment of
 this task is not, as a general rule, immediately described. A certain
 interval is allowed them for reaching the appointed scene of action,
 which interval is dramatised, as it were, either by a temporary
 continuation of the previous narrative, or by fixing attention for a
 while on some new transaction, at the close of which the further
 account of the mission is resumed.”

 [168] _With tablets sealed_. These probably were only devices of a
 hieroglyphical character. Whether writing was known in the Homeric
 times is utterly uncertain. See Grote, vol ii. p. 192, sqq.

 [169] _Solymæan crew_, a people of Lycia.

 [170] From this “melancholy madness” of Bellerophon, hypochondria
 received the name of “Morbus Bellerophonteus.” See my notes in my
 prose translation, p. 112. The “Aleian field,” _i.e._ “the plain of
 wandering,” was situated between the rivers Pyramus and Pinarus, in
 Cilicia.

 [171] _His own, of gold_. This bad bargain has passed into a common
 proverb. See Aulus Gellius, ii, 23.

 [172] _Scæan, i e._ left hand.

 [173] _In fifty chambers_.

“The fifty nuptial beds, (such hopes had he,
So large a promise of a progeny,)
The ports of plated gold, and hung with spoils.”

Dryden’s Virgil, ii.658

 [174] _O would kind earth_, &c. “It is apparently a sudden, irregular
 burst of popular indignation to which Hector alludes, when he regrets
 that the Trojans had not spirit enough to cover Paris with a mantle of
 stones. This, however, was also one of the ordinary formal modes of
 punishment for great public offences. It may have been originally
 connected with the same feeling—the desire of avoiding the pollution
 of bloodshed—which seems to have suggested the practice of burying
 prisoners alive, with a scantling of food by their side. Though Homer
 makes no mention of this horrible usage, the example of the Roman
 Vestals affords reasons for believing that, in ascribing it to the
 heroic ages, Sophocles followed an authentic tradition.”—Thirlwall’s
 Greece, vol. i. p. 171, sq.

 [175] _Paris’ lofty dome_. “With respect to the private dwellings,
 which are oftenest described, the poet’s language barely enables us to
 form a general notion of their ordinary plan, and affords no
 conception of the style which prevailed in them or of their effect on
 the eye. It seems indeed probable, from the manner in which he dwells
 on their metallic ornaments that the higher beauty of proportion was
 but little required or understood, and it is, perhaps, strength and
 convenience, rather than elegance, that he means to commend, in
 speaking of the fair house which Paris had built for himself with the
 aid of the most skilful masons of Troy.”—Thirlwall’s Greece, vol. i.
 p. 231.

 [176] _The wanton courser_.

“Come destrier, che da le regie stalle
    Ove a l’usa de l’arme si riserba,
Fugge, e libero al fiu per largo calle
    Va tragl’ armenti, o al fiume usato, o a l’herba.”

Gier, Lib. ix. 75.

 [177] _Casque_. The original word is stephanae, about the meaning of
 which there is some little doubt. Some take it for a different kind of
 cap or helmet, others for the rim, others for the cone, of the helmet.

 [178] _Athenian maid:_ Minerva.

 [179] _Celadon_, a river of Elis.

 [180] _Oïleus, i.e._ Ajax, the son of Oïleus, in contradistinction to
 Ajax, son of Telamon.

 [181] _In the general’s helm_. It was customary to put the lots into a
 helmet, in which they were well shaken up; each man then took his
 choice.

 [182] _God of Thrace_. Mars, or Mavors, according to his Thracian
 epithet. Hence “Mavortia Mœnia.”

 [183] _Grimly he smiled_.

“And death
Grinn’d horribly a ghastly smile.”

—“Paradise Lost,” ii. 845.

“There Mavors stands
Grinning with ghastly feature.”

—Carey’s Dante: Hell, v.

 [184]
“Sete ò guerrieri, incomincio Pindoro,
Con pari honor di pari ambo possenti,
Dunque cessi la pugna, e non sian rotte
Le ragioni, e ’l riposo, e de la notte.”

—Gier. Lib. vi. 51.

 [185] It was an ancient style of compliment to give a larger portion
 of food to the conqueror, or person to whom respect was to be shown.
 See Virg. Æn. viii. 181. Thus Benjamin was honoured with a “double
 portion.” Gen. xliii. 34.

 [186] _Embattled walls._ “Another essential basis of mechanical unity
 in the poem is the construction of the rampart. This takes place in
 the seventh book. The reason ascribed for the glaring improbability
 that the Greeks should have left their camp and fleet unfortified
 during nine years, in the midst of a hostile country, is a purely
 poetical one: ‘So long as Achilles fought, the terror of his name
 sufficed to keep every foe at a distance.’ The disasters consequent on
 his secession first led to the necessity of other means of protection.
 Accordingly, in the battles previous to the eighth book, no allusion
 occurs to a rampart; in all those which follow it forms a prominent
 feature. Here, then, in the anomaly as in the propriety of the Iliad,
 the destiny of Achilles, or rather this peculiar crisis of it, forms
 the pervading bond of connexion to the whole poem.”—Mure, vol. i., p.
 257.

 [187] _What cause of fear_, &c.

“Seest thou not this? Or do we fear in vain
Thy boasted thunders, and thy thoughtless reign?”

Dryden’s Virgil, iv. 304.

 [188] _In exchange_. These lines are referred to by Theophilus, the
 Roman lawyer, iii. tit. xxiii. § 1, as exhibiting the most ancient
 mention of barter.

 [189] “A similar bond of connexion, in the military details of the
 narrative, is the decree issued by Jupiter, at the commencement of the
 eighth book, against any further interference of the gods in the
 battles. In the opening of the twentieth book this interdict is
 withdrawn. During the twelve intermediate books it is kept steadily in
 view. No interposition takes place but on the part of the specially
 authorised agents of Jove, or on that of one or two contumacious
 deities, described as boldly setting his commands at defiance, but
 checked and reprimanded for their disobedience; while the other divine
 warriors, who in the previous and subsequent cantos are so active in
 support of their favourite heroes, repeatedly allude to the supreme
 edict as the cause of their present inactivity.”—Mure, vol. i. p 257.
 See however, Muller, “Greek Literature,” ch. v. Section 6, and Grote,
 vol. ii. p. 252.

 [190] “As far removed from God and light of heaven,
As from the centre thrice to th’ utmost pole.”

—“Paradise Lost.”

“E quanto è da le stelle al basso inferno,
Tanto è più in sù de la stellata spera”

—Gier. Lib. i. 7.

“Some of the epithets which Homer applies to the heavens seem to imply
that he considered it as a solid vault of metal. But it is not
necessary to construe these epithets so literally, nor to draw any such
inference from his description of Atlas, who holds the lofty pillars
which keep earth and heaven asunder. Yet it would seem, from the manner
in which the height of heaven is compared with the depth of Tartarus,
that the region of light was thought to have certain bounds. The summit
of the Thessalian Olympus was regarded as the highest point on the
earth, and it is not always carefully distinguished from the aerian
regions above The idea of a seat of the gods—perhaps derived from a
more ancient tradition, in which it was not attached to any
geographical site—seems to be indistinctly blended in the poet’s mind
with that of the real mountain.”—Thirlwall’s Greece, vol. i. p. 217,
sq.

 [191]
“Now lately heav’n, earth, another world
Hung e’er my realm, link’d in a golden chain
To that side heav’n.”

—“Paradise Lost,” ii. 1004.

 [192] _His golden scales_.

“Jove now, sole arbiter of peace and war,
Held forth the fatal balance from afar:
Each host he weighs; by turns they both prevail,
Till Troy descending fix’d the doubtful scale.”

Merrick’s Tryphiodorus, v 687, sqq.

“Oh’ Eternal, to prevent such horrid fray,
Hung forth in heav’n his golden scales,
Wherein all things created first he weighed;
The pendulous round earth, with balanced air
In counterpoise; now ponders all events,
Battles and realms. In these he puts two weights,
The sequel each of parting and of fight:
The latter quick up flew, and kick’d the beam.”

“Paradise Lost,” iv. 496.

 [193] _And now_, &c.

“And now all heaven
Had gone to wrack, with ruin overspread;
Had not th’ Almighty Father, where he sits
... foreseen.”

—“Paradise Lost,” vi. 669.

 [194] _Gerenian Nestor_. The epithet _Gerenian_ either refers to the
 name of a place in which Nestor was educated, or merely signifies
 honoured, revered. See Schol. Venet. in II. B. 336; Strabo, viii. p.
 340.

 [195] _Ægae, Helicè_. Both these towns were conspicuous for their
 worship of Neptune.

 [196] _As full blown_, &c.

“Il suo Lesbia quasi bel fior succiso,
E in atto si gentil languir tremanti
Gl’ occhi, e cader siu ’l tergo il collo mira.”

Gier. Lib. ix. 85.

 [197] _Ungrateful_, because the cause in which they were engaged was
 unjust.

“Struck by the lab’ring priests’ uplifted hands
The victims fall: to heav’n they make their pray’r,
The curling vapours load the ambient air.
But vain their toil: the pow’rs who rule the skies
Averse beheld the ungrateful sacrifice.”

Merrick’s Tryphiodorus, vi. 527, sqq.

 [198]
“As when about the silver moon, when aire is free from winde,
And stars shine cleare, to whose sweet beams high prospects on the
brows
Of all steepe hills and pinnacles thrust up themselves for shows,
And even the lowly valleys joy to glitter in their sight;
When the unmeasured firmament bursts to disclose her light,
And all the signs in heaven are seene, that glad the shepherd’s heart.”

Chapman.

 [199] This flight of the Greeks, according to Buttmann, Lexil. p. 358,
 was not a supernatural flight caused by the gods, but “a great and
 general one, caused by Hector and the Trojans, but with the approval
 of Jove.”

 [200] Grote, vol. ii. p. 91, after noticing the modest calmness and
 respect with which Nestor addresses Agamemnon, observes, “The Homeric
 Council is a purely consultative body, assembled not with any power of
 peremptorily arresting mischievous resolves of the king, but solely
 for his information and guidance.”

 [201] In the heroic times, it is not unfrequent for the king to
 receive presents to purchase freedom from his wrath, or immunity from
 his exactions. Such gifts gradually became regular, and formed the
 income of the German, (Tacit. Germ. Section 15) Persian, (Herodot.
 iii.89), and other kings. So, too, in the middle ages, ‘The feudal
 aids are the beginning of taxation, of which they for a long time
 answered the purpose.’ (Hallam, Middle Ages, ch. x. pt. 1, p. 189)
 This fact frees Achilles from the apparent charge of sordidness.
 Plato, however, (De Rep. vi. 4), says, “We cannot commend Phœnix, the
 tutor of Achilles, as if he spoke correctly, when counselling him to
 accept of presents and assist the Greeks, but, without presents, not
 to desist from his wrath, nor again, should we commend Achilles
 himself, or approve of his being so covetous as to receive presents
 from Agamemnon,” &c.

 [202] It may be observed, that, brief as is the mention of Briseïs in
 the Iliad, and small the part she plays—what little is said is
 pre-eminently calculated to enhance her fitness to be the bride of
 Achilles. Purity, and retiring delicacy, are features well contrasted
 with the rough, but tender disposition of the hero.

 [203] _Laodice_. Iphianassa, or Iphigenia, is not mentioned by Homer,
 among the daughters of Agamemnon.

 [204] “Agamemnon, when he offers to transfer to Achilles seven towns
 inhabited by wealthy husbandmen, who would enrich their lord by
 presents and tribute, seems likewise to assume rather a property in
 them, than an authority over them. And the same thing may be intimated
 when it is said that Peleus bestowed a great people, the Dolopes of
 Phthia, on Phœnix.”—Thirlwall’s Greece, vol. i Section 6, p. 162,
 note.

 [205] _Pray in deep silence_. Rather: “use well-omened words;” or, as
 Kennedy has explained it, “Abstain from expressions unsuitable to the
 solemnity of the occasion, which, by offending the god, might defeat
 the object of their supplications.”

 [206] _Purest hands_. This is one of the most ancient superstitions
 respecting prayer, and one founded as much in nature as in tradition.

 [207] It must be recollected, that the war at Troy was not a settled
 siege, and that many of the chieftains busied themselves in piratical
 expeditions about its neighborhood. Such a one was that of which
 Achilles now speaks. From the following verses, it is evident that
 fruits of these maraudings went to the common support of the
 expedition, and not to the successful plunderer.

 [208] _Pythia_, the capital of Achilles’ Thessalian domains.

 [209] _Orchomenian town_. The topography of Orchomenus, in Bœotia,
 “situated,” as it was, “on the northern bank of the lake Æpais, which
 receives not only the river Cephisus from the valleys of Phocis, but
 also other rivers from Parnassus and Helicon” (Grote, vol. p. 181),
 was a sufficient reason for its prosperity and decay. “As long as the
 channels of these waters were diligently watched and kept clear, a
 large portion of the lake was in the condition of alluvial land,
 pre-eminently rich and fertile. But when the channels came to be
 either neglected, or designedly choked up by an enemy, the water
 accumulated in such a degree as to occupy the soil of more than one
 ancient islet, and to occasion the change of the site of Orchomenus
 itself from the plain to the declivity of Mount Hyphanteion.” (Ibid.)

 [210] The phrase “hundred gates,” &c., seems to be merely expressive
 of a great number. See notes to my prose translation, p. 162.

 [211] Compare the following pretty lines of Quintus Calaber (Dyce’s
 Select Translations, p 88).—

“Many gifts he gave, and o’er
Dolopia bade me rule; thee in his arms
He brought an infant, on my bosom laid
The precious charge, and anxiously enjoin’d
That I should rear thee as my own with all
A parent’s love. I fail’d not in my trust
And oft, while round my neck thy hands were lock’d,
From thy sweet lips the half articulate sound
Of Father came; and oft, as children use,
Mewling and puking didst thou drench my tunic.”

“This description,” observes my learned friend (notes, p. 121) “is
taken from the passage of Homer, II ix, in translating which, Pope,
with that squeamish, artificial taste, which distinguished the age of
Anne, omits the natural (and, let me add, affecting) circumstance.”

“And the wine
Held to thy lips, and many a time in fits
Of infant frowardness the purple juice
Rejecting thou hast deluged all my vest,

And fill’d my bosom.” —Cowper.

 [212] _Where Calydon_. For a good sketch of the story of Meleager, too
 long to be inserted here, see Grote, vol. i. p. 195, sqq.; and for the
 authorities, see my notes to the prose translation, p. 166.

 [213] “_Gifts can conquer_”—It is well observed by Bishop Thirlwall,
 “Greece,” vol. i. p, 180, that the law of honour among the Greeks did
 not compel them to treasure up in their memory the offensive language
 which might be addressed to them by a passionate adversary, nor to
 conceive that it left a stain which could only be washed away by
 blood. Even for real and deep injuries they were commonly willing to
 accept a pecuniary compensation.”

 [214] “The boon of sleep.”—Milton

 [215]
“All else of nature’s common gift partake:
Unhappy Dido was alone awake.”

—Dryden’s Virgil, iv. 767.

 [216] _The king of Crete:_ Idomeneus.

 [217] _Soft wool within, i e._ a kind of woollen stuffing, pressed in
 between the straps, to protect the head, and make the helmet fit
 close.

 [218] “All the circumstances of this action—the night, Rhesus buried
 in a profound sleep, and Diomede with the sword in his hand hanging
 over the head of that prince—furnished Homer with the idea of this
 fiction, which represents Rhesus lying fast asleep, and, as it were,
 beholding his enemy in a dream, plunging the sword into his bosom.
 This image is very natural; for a man in his condition awakes no
 farther than to see confusedly what environs him, and to think it not
 a reality but a dream.”—Pope.

“There’s one did laugh in his sleep, and one cry’d murder;
They wak’d each other.”

—_Macbeth_.

 [219]
“Aurora now had left her saffron bed,
And beams of early light the heavens o’erspread.”

Dryden’s Virgil, iv. 639

 [220] _Red drops of blood_. “This phenomenon, if a mere fruit of the
 poet’s imagination, might seem arbitrary or far-fetched. It is one,
 however, of ascertained reality, and of no uncommon occurrence in the
 climate of Greece.”—Mure, i p. 493. Cf. Tasso, Gier. Lib. ix. 15:

“La terra in vece del notturno gelo
Bagnan rugiade tepide, e sanguigne.”

 [221]
“No thought of flight,
None of retreat, no unbecoming deed
That argued fear.”

—“Paradise Lost,” vi. 236.

 [222] _One of love_. Although a bastard brother received only a small
 portion of the inheritance, he was commonly very well treated. Priam
 appears to be the only one of whom polygamy is directly asserted in
 the Iliad. Grote, vol. ii. p. 114, note.

 [223] “Circled with foes as when a packe of bloodie jackals cling
 About a goodly palmed hart, hurt with a hunter’s bow Whose escape his
 nimble feet insure, whilst his warm blood doth flow, And his light
 knees have power to move: but (maistred by his wound) Embost within a
 shady hill, the jackals charge him round, And teare his flesh—when
 instantly fortune sends in the powers Of some sterne lion, with whose
 sighte they flie and he devours. So they around Ulysses prest.”

—Chapman.

 [224] _Simois, railing_, &c.

“In those bloody fields
Where Simois rolls the bodies and the shields
Of heroes.”

—Dryden’s Virgil, i. 142.

 [225]
“Where yon disorder’d heap of ruin lies,
Stones rent from stones,—where clouds of dust arise,—
Amid that smother, Neptune holds his place,
Below the wall’s foundation drives his mace,
And heaves the building from the solid base.”

Dryden’s Virgil, ii. 825.

 [226] _Why boast we_.

“Wherefore do I assume
These royalties and not refuse to reign,
Refusing to accept as great a share
Of hazard as of honour, due alike to him
Who reigns, and so much to him due
Of hazard more, as he above the rest
High honour’d sits.”

—“Paradise Lost,” ii. 450.

 [227] _Each equal weight_.

“Long time in even scale
The battle hung.”

—“Paradise Lost,” vi. 245.

 [228]
“He on his impious foes right onward drove,
_Gloomy as night_.”

—“Paradise Lost,” vi. 831

 [229] _Renown’d for justice and for length of days_, Arrian. de Exp.
 Alex. iv. p. 239, also speaks of the independence of these people,
 which he regards as the result of their poverty and uprightness. Some
 authors have regarded the phrase “Hippomolgian,” _i.e._ “milking their
 mares,” as an epithet applicable to numerous tribes, since the oldest
 of the Samatian nomads made their mares’ milk one of their chief
 articles of diet. The epithet abion or abion, in this passage, has
 occasioned much discussion. It may mean, according as we read it,
 either “long-lived,” or “bowless,” the latter epithet indicating that
 they did not depend upon archery for subsistence.

 [230] Compare Chapman’s quaint, bold verses:—

“And as a round piece of a rocke, which with a winter’s flood
Is from his top torn, when a shoure poured from a bursten cloud,
Hath broke the naturall band it had within the roughftey rock,
Flies jumping all adourne the woods, resounding everie shocke,
And on, uncheckt, it headlong leaps till in a plaine it stay,
And then (tho’ never so impelled), it stirs not any way:—
So Hector,—”

 [231] This book forms a most agreeable interruption to the continuous
 round of battles, which occupy the latter part of the Iliad. It is as
 well to observe, that the sameness of these scenes renders many notes
 unnecessary.

 [232] _Who to Tydeus owes, i.e._ Diomed.

 [233] Compare Tasso:—

Teneri sdegni, e placide, e tranquille
Repulse, e cari vezzi, e liete paci,
Sorrisi, parolette, e dolci stille
Di pianto, e sospir tronchi, e molli baci.”

Gier. Lib. xvi. 25

 [234] Compare the description of the dwelling of Sleep in Orlando
 Furioso, bk. vi.

 [235]
“Twice seven, the charming daughters of the main—
Around my person wait, and bear my train:
Succeed my wish, and second my design,
The fairest, Deiopeia, shall be thine.”

Dryden’s Virgil, Æn. i. 107, seq.

 [236] _And Minos_. “By Homer, Minos is described as the son of
 Jupiter, and of the daughter of Phœnix, whom all succeeding authors
 name Europa; and he is thus carried back into the remotest period of
 Cretan antiquity known to the poet, apparently as a native hero,
 Illustrious enough for a divine parentage, and too ancient to allow
 his descent to be traced to any other source. But in a genealogy
 recorded by later writers, he is likewise the adopted son of Asterius,
 as descendant of Dorus, the son of Helen, and is thus connected with a
 colony said to have been led into Creta by Tentamus, or Tectamus, son
 of Dorus, who is related either to have crossed over from Thessaly, or
 to have embarked at Malea after having led his followers by land into
 Laconia.”—Thirlwall, p. 136, seq.

 [237] Milton has emulated this passage, in describing the couch of our
 first parents:—

“Underneath the violet,
Crocus, and hyacinth with rich inlay,
’Broider’d the ground.”

—“Paradise Lost,” iv. 700.

 [238] _He lies protected_.

“Forthwith on all sides to his aid was run
By angels many and strong, who interpos’d
Defence, while others bore him on their shields
Back to his chariot, where it stood retir’d
From off the files of war; there they him laid,
Gnashing for anguish, and despite, and shame.”

“Paradise Lost,” vi. 335, seq.

 [239] _The brazen dome_. See the note on Bk. viii. Page 142.

 [240] _For, by the gods! who flies_. Observe the bold ellipsis of “he
 cries,” and the transition from the direct to the oblique
 construction. So in Milton:—

“Thus at their shady lodge arriv’d, both stood,
Both turn’d, and under open sky ador’d
The God that made both sky, air, earth, and heaven,
Which they beheld, the moon’s resplendent globe,
And starry pole.—Thou also mad’st the night,
Maker omnipotent, and thou the day.”

Milton, “Paradise Lost,” Book iv.

 [241] _So some tall rock_.

“But like a rock unmov’d, a rock that braves
The raging tempest, and the rising waves—
Propp’d on himself he stands: his solid sides
Wash off the sea-weeds, and the sounding tides.”

Dryden’s Virgil, vii. 809.

 [242] Protesilaus was the first Greek who fell, slain by Hector, as he
 leaped from the vessel to the Trojan shore. He was buried on the
 Chersonese, near the city of Plagusa. Hygin Fab. ciii. Tzetz. on
 Lycophr. 245, 528. There is a most elegant tribute to his memory in
 the Preface to the Heroica of Philostratus.

 [243] _His best beloved_. The following elegant remarks of Thirlwall
 (Greece, vol. i, p. 176 seq.) well illustrate the character of the
 friendship subsisting between these two heroes—
    “One of the noblest and most amiable sides of the Greek character,
    is the readiness with which it lent itself to construct intimate
    and durable friendships, and this is a feature no less prominent in
    the earliest than in later times. It was indeed connected with the
    comparatively low estimation in which female society was held; but
    the devotedness and constancy with which these attachments were
    maintained, was not the less admirable and engaging. The heroic
    companions whom we find celebrated partly by Homer and partly in
    traditions which, if not of equal antiquity, were grounded on the
    same feeling, seem to have but one heart and soul, with scarcely a
    wish or object apart, and only to live as they are always ready to
    die for one another. It is true that the relation between them is
    not always one of perfect equality; but this is a circumstance
    which, while it often adds a peculiar charm to the poetical
    description, detracts little from the dignity of the idea which it
    presents. Such were the friendships of Hercules and Iolaus, of
    Theseus and Pirithous, of Orestes and Pylades; and though These may
    owe the greater part of their fame to the later epic or even
    dramatic poetry, the moral groundwork undoubtedly subsisted in the
    period to which the traditions are referred. The argument of the
    Iliad mainly turns on the affection of Achilles for Patroclus,
    whose love for the greater hero is only tempered by reverence for
    his higher birth and his unequalled prowess. But the mutual regard
    which united Idomeneus and Meriones, Diomedes and Sthenelus,
    though, as the persons themselves are less important, it is kept
    more in the back-ground, is manifestly viewed by the poet in the
    same light. The idea of a Greek hero seems not to have been thought
    complete, without such a brother in arms by his side.”—Thirlwall,
    Greece, vol. i. p. 176, seq.

 [244]
“As hungry wolves with raging appetite,
Scour through the fields, ne’er fear the stormy night—
Their whelps at home expect the promised food,
And long to temper their dry chaps in blood—
So rush’d we forth at once.”

—Dryden’s Virgil, ii. 479.

 [245] _The destinies ordain_.—“In the mythology, also, of the Iliad,
 purely Pagan as it is, we discover one important truth unconsciously
 involved, which was almost entirely lost from view amidst the nearly
 equal scepticism and credulity of subsequent ages. Zeus or Jupiter is
 popularly to be taken as omnipotent. No distinct empire is assigned to
 fate or fortune; the will of the father of gods and men is absolute
 and uncontrollable. This seems to be the true character of the Homeric
 deity, and it is very necessary that the student of Greek literature
 should bear it constantly in mind. A strong instance in the Iliad
 itself to illustrate this position, is the passage where Jupiter
 laments to Juno the approaching death of Sarpedon. ‘Alas me!’ says he
 ‘since it is fated (moira) that Sarpedon, dearest to me of men, should
 be slain by Patroclus, the son of Menoetius! Indeed, my heart is
 divided within me while I ruminate it in my mind, whether having
 snatched him up from out of the lamentable battle, I should not at
 once place him alive in the fertile land of his own Lycia, or whether
 I should now destroy him by the hands of the son of Menoetius!’ To
 which Juno answers—‘Dost thou mean to rescue from death a mortal man,
 long since destined by fate (palai pepromenon)? You may do it—but we,
 the rest of the gods, do not sanction it.’ Here it is clear from both
 speakers, that although Sarpedon is said to be fated to die, Jupiter
 might still, if he pleased, save him, and place him entirely out of
 the reach of any such event, and further, in the alternative, that
 Jupiter himself would destroy him by the hands of another.”—Coleridge,
 p. 156. seq.

 [246] _Thrice at the battlements_. “The art military of the Homeric
 age is upon a level with the state of navigation just described,
 personal prowess decided every thing; the night attack and the
 ambuscade, although much esteemed, were never upon a large scale. The
 chiefs fight in advance, and enact almost as much as the knights of
 romance. The siege of Troy was as little like a modern siege as a
 captain in the guards is like Achilles. There is no mention of a ditch
 or any other line or work round the town, and the wall itself was
 accessible without a ladder. It was probably a vast mound of earth
 with a declivity outwards. Patroclus thrice mounts it in armour. The
 Trojans are in no respects blockaded, and receive assistance from
 their allies to the very end.”—Coleridge, p. 212.

 [247] _Ciconians_.—A people of Thrace, near the Hebrus.

 [248] _They wept_.

“Fast by the manger stands the inactive steed,
And, sunk in sorrow, hangs his languid head;
He stands, and careless of his golden grain,
Weeps his associates and his master slain.”

Merrick’s Tryphiodorus, v. 18-24.

“Nothing is heard upon the mountains now,
But pensive herds that for their master low,
Straggling and comfortless about they rove,
Unmindful of their pasture and their love.”

Moschus, id. 3, parodied, _ibid._

“To close the pomp, Æthon, the steed of state,
Is led, the funeral of his lord to wait.
Stripp’d of his trappings, with a sullen pace
He walks, and the big tears run rolling down his face.”

Dryden’s Virgil, bk. ii

 [249] _Some brawny bull_.

“Like to a bull, that with impetuous spring
Darts, at the moment when the fatal blow
Hath struck him, but unable to proceed
Plunges on either side.”

—Carey’s Dante: Hell, c. xii.

 [250] This is connected with the earlier part of last book, the
 regular narrative being interrupted by the message of Antilochus and
 the lamentations of Achilles.

 [251] _Far in the deep_. So Oceanus hears the lamentations of
 Prometheus, in the play of Æschylus, and comes from the depths of the
 sea to comfort him.

 [252] Opuntia, a city of Locris.

 [253] Quintus Calaber, lib. v., has attempted to rival Homer in his
 description of the shield of the same hero. A few extracts from Mr.
 Dyce’s version (Select Translations, p. 104, seq.) may here be
 introduced.

“In the wide circle of the shield were seen
Refulgent images of various forms,
The work of Vulcan; who had there described
The heaven, the ether, and the earth and sea,
The winds, the clouds, the moon, the sun, apart
In different stations; and you there might view
The stars that gem the still-revolving heaven,
And, under them, the vast expanse of air,
In which, with outstretch’d wings, the long-beak’d bird
Winnow’d the gale, as if instinct with life.
Around the shield the waves of ocean flow’d,
The realms of Tethys, which unnumber’d streams,
In azure mazes rolling o’er the earth,
Seem’d to augment.”

 [254] _On seats of stone_. “Several of the old northern Sagas
 represent the old men assembled for the purpose of judging as sitting
 on great stones, in a circle called the Urtheilsring or gerichtsring”—
 Grote, ii. p. 100, note. On the independence of the judicial office in
 The heroic times, see Thirlwall’s Greece, vol. i. p. 166.

 [255] _Another part_, &c.

“And here
Were horrid wars depicted; grimly pale
Were heroes lying with their slaughter’d steeds
Upon the ground incarnadin’d with blood.
Stern stalked Bellona, smear’d with reeking gore,
Through charging ranks; beside her Rout was seen,
And Terror, Discord to the fatal strife
Inciting men, and Furies breathing flames:
Nor absent were the Fates, and the tall shape
Of ghastly Death, round whom did Battles throng,
Their limbs distilling plenteous blood and sweat;
And Gorgons, whose long locks were twisting snakes.
That shot their forky tongues incessant forth.
Such were the horrors of dire war.”

—Dyce’s Calaber.

 [256] _A field deep furrowed_.

“Here was a corn field; reapers in a row,
Each with a sharp-tooth’d sickle in his hand,
Work’d busily, and, as the harvest fell,
Others were ready still to bind the sheaves:
Yoked to a wain that bore the corn away
The steers were moving; sturdy bullocks here
The plough were drawing, and the furrow’d glebe
Was black behind them, while with goading wand
The active youths impell’d them. Here a feast
Was graved: to the shrill pipe and ringing lyre
A band of blooming virgins led the dance.
As if endued with life.”
—Dyce’s Calaber.

 [257] Coleridge (Greek Classic Poets, p. 182, seq.) has diligently
 compared this with the description of the shield of Hercules by
 Hesiod. He remarks that, “with two or three exceptions, the imagery
 differs in little more than the names and arrangements; and the
 difference of arrangement in the Shield of Hercules is altogether for
 the worse. The natural consecution of the Homeric images needs no
 exposition: it constitutes in itself one of the beauties of the work.
 The Hesiodic images are huddled together without connection or
 congruity: Mars and Pallas are awkwardly introduced among the Centaurs
 and Lapithae;— but the gap is wide indeed between them and Apollo with
 the Muses, waking the echoes of Olympus to celestial harmonies; whence
 however, we are hurried back to Perseus, the Gorgons, and other images
 of war, over an arm of the sea, in which the sporting dolphins, the
 fugitive fishes, and the fisherman on the shore with his casting net,
 are minutely represented. As to the Hesiodic images themselves, the
 leading remark is, that they catch at beauty by ornament, and at
 sublimity by exaggeration; and upon the untenable supposition of the
 genuineness of this poem, there is this curious peculiarity, that, in
 the description of scenes of rustic peace, the superiority of Homer is
 decisive—while in those of war and tumult it may be thought, perhaps,
 that the Hesiodic poet has more than once the advantage.”

 [258] “This legend is one of the most pregnant and characteristic in
 the Grecian Mythology; it explains, according to the religious ideas
 familiar to the old epic poets, both the distinguishing attributes and
 the endless toil and endurances of Heracles, the most renowned
 subjugator of all the semi-divine personages worshipped by the
 Hellenes,—a being of irresistible force, and especially beloved by
 Zeus, yet condemned constantly to labour for others and to obey the
 commands of a worthless and cowardly persecutor. His recompense is
 reserved to the close of his career, when his afflicting trials are
 brought to a close: he is then admitted to the godhead, and receives
 in marriage Hebe.”—Grote, vol. i. p. 128.

 [259] _Ambrosia_.

“The blue-eyed maid,
In ev’ry breast new vigour to infuse.
Brings nectar temper’d with ambrosial dews.”

Merrick’s Tryphiodorus, vi. 249.

 [260] “Hell is naked before him, and destruction hath no covering. He
 stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth
 upon nothing. He bindeth up the waters in his thick clouds; and the
 cloud is not rent under them.” Job xxvi. 6-8.

 [261]
“Swift from his throne the infernal monarch ran,
All pale and trembling, lest the race of man,v Slain by Jove’s wrath,
and led by Hermes’ rod,
Should fill (a countless throng!) his dark abode.”

Merrick’s Tryphiodorus, vi. 769, sqq.

 [262] These words seem to imply the old belief, that the Fates might
 be delayed, but never wholly set aside.

 [263] It was anciently believed that it was dangerous, if not fatal,
 to behold a deity. See Exod. xxxiii. 20; Judg. xiii. 22.

 [264]
“Ere Ilium and the Trojan tow’rs arose,
In humble vales they built their soft abodes.”

Dryden’s Virgil, iii. 150.

 [265] _Along the level seas_. Compare Virgil’s description of Camilla,
 who

“Outstripp’d the winds in speed upon the plain,
Flew o’er the field, nor hurt the bearded grain:
She swept the seas, and, as she skimm’d along,
Her flying feet unbathed on billows hung.”

Dryden, vii. 1100.

 [266] _The future father_. “Æneas and Antenor stand distinguished from
 the other Trojans by a dissatisfaction with Priam, and a sympathy with
 the Greeks, which is by Sophocles and others construed as treacherous
 collusion,—a suspicion indirectly glanced at, though emphatically
 repelled, in the Æneas of Virgil.”—Grote, i. p. 427.

 [267] Neptune thus recounts his services to Æneas:

“When your Æneas fought, but fought with odds
Of force unequal, and unequal gods:
I spread a cloud before the victor’s sight,
Sustain’d the vanquish’d, and secured his flight—
Even then secured him, when I sought with joy
The vow’d destruction of ungrateful Troy.”

Dryden’s Virgil, v. 1058.

 [268] _On Polydore_. Euripides, Virgil, and others, relate that
 Polydore was sent into Thrace, to the house of Polymestor, for
 protection, being the youngest of Priam’s sons, and that he was
 treacherously murdered by his host for the sake of the treasure sent
 with him.

 [269] “Perhaps the boldest excursion of Homer into this region of
 poetical fancy is the collision into which, in the twenty-first of the
 Iliad, he has brought the river god Scamander, first with Achilles,
 and afterwards with Vulcan, when summoned by Juno to the hero’s aid.
 The overwhelming fury of the stream finds the natural interpretation
 in the character of the mountain torrents of Greece and Asia Minor.
 Their wide, shingly beds are in summer comparatively dry, so as to be
 easily forded by the foot passenger. But a thunder-shower in the
 mountains, unobserved perhaps by the traveller on the plain, may
 suddenly immerse him in the flood of a mighty river. The rescue of
 Achilles by the fiery arms of Vulcan scarcely admits of the same ready
 explanation from physical causes. Yet the subsiding of the flood at
 the critical moment when the hero’s destruction appeared imminent,
 might, by a slight extension of the figurative parallel, be ascribed
 to a god symbolic of the influences opposed to all atmospheric
 moisture.”—Mure, vol. i. p. 480, sq.

 [270] Wood has observed, that “the circumstance of a falling tree,
 which is described as reaching from one of its banks to the other,
 affords a very just idea of the breadth of the Scamander.”

 [271] _Ignominious_. Drowning, as compared with a death in the field
 of battle, was considered utterly disgraceful.

 [272] _Beneath a caldron_.

“So, when with crackling flames a caldron fries,
The bubbling waters from the bottom rise.
Above the brims they force their fiery way;
Black vapours climb aloft, and cloud the day.”

Dryden’s Virgil, vii. 644.

 [273] “This tale of the temporary servitude of particular gods, by
 order of Jove, as a punishment for misbehaviour, recurs not
 unfrequently among the incidents of the Mythical world.”—Grote, vol.
 i. p. 156.

 [274] _Not half so dreadful_.

“On the other side,
Incensed with indignation, Satan stood
Unterrified, and like a comet burn’d,
That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge
In the arctic sky, and from his horrid hair
Shakes pestilence and war.”

—“Paradise Lost,” xi. 708.

 [275] “And thus his own undaunted mind explores.”—“Paradise Lost,” vi.
 113.

 [276] The example of Nausicaa, in the Odyssey, proves that the duties
 of the laundry were not thought derogatory, even from the dignity of a
 princess, in the heroic times.

 [277] _Hesper shines with keener light_.

“Fairest of stars, last in the train of night,
If better thou belong not to the dawn.”

“Paradise Lost,” v. 166.

 [278] Such was his fate. After chasing the Trojans into the town, he
 was slain by an arrow from the quiver of Paris, directed under the
 unerring auspices of Apollo. The greatest efforts were made by the
 Trojans to possess themselves of the body, which was however rescued
 and borne off to the Grecian camp by the valour of Ajax and Ulysses.
 Thetis stole away the body, just as the Greeks were about to burn it
 with funeral honours, and conveyed it away to a renewed life of
 immortality in the isle of Leuke in the Euxine.

 [279] _Astyanax_, i.e. the _city-king_ or guardian. It is amusing that
 Plato, who often finds fault with Homer without reason, should have
 copied this twaddling etymology into his Cratylus.

 [280] This book has been closely imitated by Virgil in his fifth book,
 but it is almost useless to attempt a selection of passages for
 comparison.

 [281] _Thrice in order led_. This was a frequent rite at funerals. The
 Romans had the same custom, which they called _decursio_. Plutarch
 states that Alexander, in after times, renewed these same honours to
 the memory of Achilles himself.

 [282] _And swore_. Literally, and called Orcus, the god of oaths, to
 witness. See Buttmann, Lexilog, p. 436.

 [283]
“O, long expected by thy friends! from whence
Art thou so late return’d for our defence?
Do we behold thee, wearied as we are
With length of labours, and with, toils of war?
After so many funerals of thy own,
Art thou restored to thy declining town?
But say, what wounds are these? what new disgrace
Deforms the manly features of thy face?”

Dryden, xi. 369.

 [284] _Like a thin smoke_. Virgil, Georg. iv. 72.

“In vain I reach my feeble hands to join
In sweet embraces—ah! no longer thine!
She said, and from his eyes the fleeting fair
Retired, like subtle smoke dissolved in air.”

Dryden.

 [285] So Milton:—

“So eagerly the fiend
O’er bog, o’er steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare,
With head, hands, wings, or feet pursues his way,
And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.”

“Paradise Lost,” ii. 948.

 [286]
“An ancient forest, for the work design’d
(The shady covert of the savage kind).
The Trojans found: the sounding axe is placed:
Firs, pines, and pitch-trees, and the tow’ring pride
Of forest ashes, feel the fatal stroke,
And piercing wedges cleave the stubborn oak.
High trunks of trees, fell’d from the steepy crown
Of the bare mountains, roll with ruin down.”

Dryden’s Virgil, vi. 261.

 [287] _He vowed_. This was a very ancient custom.

 [288] The height of the tomb or pile was a great proof of the dignity
 of the deceased, and the honour in which he was held.

 [289] On the prevalence of this cruel custom amongst the northern
 nations, see Mallet, p. 213.

 [290] _And calls the spirit_. Such was the custom anciently, even at
 the Roman funerals.

“Hail, O ye holy manes! hail again,
Paternal ashes, now revived in vain.”

Dryden’s Virgil, v. 106.

 [291] Virgil, by making the boaster vanquished, has drawn a better
 moral from this episode than Homer. The following lines deserve
 comparison:—

“The haughty Dares in the lists appears:
Walking he strides, his head erected bears:
His nervous arms the weighty gauntlet wield,
And loud applauses echo through the field.
* * * *
Such Dares was, and such he strode along,
And drew the wonder of the gazing throng
His brawny breast and ample chest he shows;
His lifted arms around his head he throws,
And deals in whistling air his empty blows.
His match is sought, but, through the trembling band,
No one dares answer to the proud demand.
Presuming of his force, with sparkling eyes,
Already he devours the promised prize.
* * * *
If none my matchless valour dares oppose,
How long shall Dares wait his dastard foes?”

Dryden’s Virgil, v. 486, seq.

 [292]
“The gauntlet-fight thus ended, from the shore
His faithful friends unhappy Dares bore:
His mouth and nostrils pour’d a purple flood,
And pounded teeth came rushing with his blood.”

Dryden’s Virgil, v. 623.

 [293] “Troilus is only once named in the Iliad; he was mentioned also
 in the Cypriad but his youth, beauty, and untimely end made him an
 object of great interest with the subsequent poets.”—Grote, i, p. 399.

 [294] Milton has rivalled this passage describing the descent of
 Gabriel, “Paradise Lost,” bk. v. 266, seq.

“Down thither prone in flight
He speeds, and through the vast ethereal sky
Sails between worlds and worlds, with steady wing,
Now on the polar winds, then with quick fan
Winnows the buxom air. * * * *
* * * *
At once on th’ eastern cliff of Paradise
He lights, and to his proper shape returns
A seraph wing’d. * * * *
Like Maia’s son he stood,
And shook his plumes, that heavenly fragrance fill’d
The circuit wide.”

Virgil, Æn. iv. 350:—

“Hermes obeys; with golden pinions binds
His flying feet, and mounts the western winds:
And whether o’er the seas or earth he flies,
With rapid force they bear him down the skies
But first he grasps within his awful hand
The mark of sovereign power, his magic wand;
With this he draws the ghost from hollow graves;
With this he drives them from the Stygian waves:
* * * *
Thus arm’d, the god begins his airy race,v And drives the racking
clouds along the liquid space.”

Dryden.

 [295] In reference to the whole scene that follows, the remarks of
 Coleridge are well worth reading:—
    “By a close study of life, and by a true and natural mode of
    expressing everything, Homer was enabled to venture upon the most
    peculiar and difficult situations, and to extricate himself from
    them with the completest success. The whole scene between Achilles
    and Priam, when the latter comes to the Greek camp for the purpose
    of redeeming the body of Hector, is at once the most profoundly
    skilful, and yet the simplest and most affecting passage in the
    Iliad. Quinctilian has taken notice of the following speech of
    Priam, the rhetorical artifice of which is so transcendent, that if
    genius did not often, especially in oratory, unconsciously fulfil
    the most subtle precepts of criticism, we might be induced, on this
    account alone, to consider the last book of the Iliad as what is
    called spurious, in other words, of later date than the rest of the
    poem. Observe the exquisite taste of Priam in occupying the mind of
    Achilles, from the outset, with the image of his father; in
    gradually introducing the parallel of his own situation; and,
    lastly, mentioning Hector’s name when he perceives that the hero is
    softened, and then only in such a manner as to flatter the pride of
    the conqueror. The ego d’eleeinoteros per, and the apusato aecha
    geronta, are not exactly like the tone of the earlier parts of the
    Iliad. They are almost too fine and pathetic. The whole passage
    defies translation, for there is that about the Greek which has no
    name, but which is of so fine and ethereal a subtlety that it can
    only be felt in the original, and is lost in an attempt to
    transfuse it into another language.”—Coleridge, p. 195.

 [296] “Achilles’ ferocious treatment of the corpse of Hector cannot
 but offend as referred to the modern standard of humanity. The heroic
 age, however, must be judged by its own moral laws. Retributive
 vengeance on the dead, as well as the living, was a duty inculcated by
 the religion of those barbarous times which not only taught that evil
 inflicted on the author of evil was a solace to the injured man; but
 made the welfare of the soul after death dependent on the fate of the
 body from which it had separated. Hence a denial of the rites
 essential to the soul’s admission into the more favoured regions of
 the lower world was a cruel punishment to the wanderer on the dreary
 shores of the infernal river. The complaint of the ghost of Patroclus
 to Achilles, of but a brief postponement of his own obsequies, shows
 how efficacious their refusal to the remains of his destroyer must
 have been in satiating the thirst of revenge, which, even after death,
 was supposed to torment the dwellers in Hades. Hence before yielding
 up the body of Hector to Priam, Achilles asks pardon of Patroclus for
 even this partial cession of his just rights of retribution.”—Mure,
 vol. i. 289.

 [297] Such was the fate of Astyanax, when Troy was taken.

“Here, from the tow’r by stern Ulysses thrown,
Andromache bewail’d her infant son.”

Merrick’s Tryphiodorus, v. 675.

 [298] The following observations of Coleridge furnish a most gallant
 and interesting view of Helen’s character—
    “Few things are more interesting than to observe how the same hand
    that has given us the fury and inconsistency of Achilles, gives us
    also the consummate elegance and tenderness of Helen. She is
    through the Iliad a genuine lady, graceful in motion and speech,
    noble in her associations, full of remorse for a fault for which
    higher powers seem responsible, yet grateful and affectionate
    towards those with whom that fault had committed her. I have always
    thought the following speech in which Helen laments Hector, and
    hints at her own invidious and unprotected situation in Troy, as
    almost the sweetest passage in the poem. It is another striking
    instance of that refinement of feeling and softness of tone which
    so generally distinguish the last book of the Iliad from the
    rest.”—Classic Poets, p. 198, seq.

 [299] “And here we part with Achilles at the moment best calculated to
 exalt and purify our impression of his character. We had accompanied
 him through the effervescence, undulations, and final subsidence of
 his stormy passions. We now leave him in repose and under the full
 influence of the more amiable affections, while our admiration of his
 great qualities is chastened by the reflection that, within a few
 short days the mighty being in whom they were united was himself to be
 suddenly cut off in the full vigour of their exercise.
    The frequent and touching allusions, interspersed throughout the
    Iliad, to the speedy termination of its hero’s course, and the
    moral on the vanity of human life which they indicate, are among
    the finest evidences of the spirit of ethic unity by which the
    whole framework of the poem is united.”—Mure, vol. i. p 201.

 [300] Cowper says,—“I cannot take my leave of this noble poem without
 expressing how much I am struck with the plain conclusion of it. It is
 like the exit of a great man out of company, whom he has entertained
 magnificently; neither pompous nor familiar; not contemptuous, yet
 without much ceremony.” Coleridge, p. 227, considers the termination
 of “Paradise Lost” somewhat similar.










MOBY-DICK;

or, THE WHALE.

By Herman Melville



CONTENTS

ETYMOLOGY.

EXTRACTS (Supplied by a Sub-Sub-Librarian).

CHAPTER 1. Loomings.

CHAPTER 2. The Carpet-Bag.

CHAPTER 3. The Spouter-Inn.

CHAPTER 4. The Counterpane.

CHAPTER 5. Breakfast.

CHAPTER 6. The Street.

CHAPTER 7. The Chapel.

CHAPTER 8. The Pulpit.

CHAPTER 9. The Sermon.

CHAPTER 10. A Bosom Friend.

CHAPTER 11. Nightgown.

CHAPTER 12. Biographical.

CHAPTER 13. Wheelbarrow.

CHAPTER 14. Nantucket.

CHAPTER 15. Chowder.

CHAPTER 16. The Ship.

CHAPTER 17. The Ramadan.

CHAPTER 18. His Mark.

CHAPTER 19. The Prophet.

CHAPTER 20. All Astir.

CHAPTER 21. Going Aboard.

CHAPTER 22. Merry Christmas.

CHAPTER 23. The Lee Shore.

CHAPTER 24. The Advocate.

CHAPTER 25. Postscript.

CHAPTER 26. Knights and Squires.

CHAPTER 27. Knights and Squires.

CHAPTER 28. Ahab.

CHAPTER 29. Enter Ahab; to Him, Stubb.

CHAPTER 30. The Pipe.

CHAPTER 31. Queen Mab.

CHAPTER 32. Cetology.

CHAPTER 33. The Specksnyder.

CHAPTER 34. The Cabin-Table.

CHAPTER 35. The Mast-Head.

CHAPTER 36. The Quarter-Deck.

CHAPTER 37. Sunset.

CHAPTER 38. Dusk.

CHAPTER 39. First Night-Watch.

CHAPTER 40. Midnight, Forecastle.

CHAPTER 41. Moby Dick.

CHAPTER 42. The Whiteness of the Whale.

CHAPTER 43. Hark!

CHAPTER 44. The Chart.

CHAPTER 45. The Affidavit.

CHAPTER 46. Surmises.

CHAPTER 47. The Mat-Maker.

CHAPTER 48. The First Lowering.

CHAPTER 49. The Hyena.

CHAPTER 50. Ahab’s Boat and Crew. Fedallah.

CHAPTER 51. The Spirit-Spout.

CHAPTER 52. The Albatross.

CHAPTER 53. The Gam.

CHAPTER 54. The Town-Ho’s Story.

CHAPTER 55. Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales.

CHAPTER 56. Of the Less Erroneous Pictures of Whales, and the True
Pictures of Whaling Scenes.

CHAPTER 57. Of Whales in Paint; in Teeth; in Wood; in Sheet-Iron; in
Stone; in Mountains; in Stars.

CHAPTER 58. Brit.

CHAPTER 59. Squid.

CHAPTER 60. The Line.

CHAPTER 61. Stubb Kills a Whale.

CHAPTER 62. The Dart.

CHAPTER 63. The Crotch.

CHAPTER 64. Stubb’s Supper.

CHAPTER 65. The Whale as a Dish.

CHAPTER 66. The Shark Massacre.

CHAPTER 67. Cutting In.

CHAPTER 68. The Blanket.

CHAPTER 69. The Funeral.

CHAPTER 70. The Sphynx.

CHAPTER 71. The Jeroboam’s Story.

CHAPTER 72. The Monkey-Rope.

CHAPTER 73. Stubb and Flask kill a Right Whale; and Then Have a Talk
over Him.

CHAPTER 74. The Sperm Whale’s Head—Contrasted View.

CHAPTER 75. The Right Whale’s Head—Contrasted View.

CHAPTER 76. The Battering-Ram.

CHAPTER 77. The Great Heidelburgh Tun.

CHAPTER 78. Cistern and Buckets.

CHAPTER 79. The Prairie.

CHAPTER 80. The Nut.

CHAPTER 81. The Pequod Meets The Virgin.

CHAPTER 82. The Honor and Glory of Whaling.

CHAPTER 83. Jonah Historically Regarded.

CHAPTER 84. Pitchpoling.

CHAPTER 85. The Fountain.

CHAPTER 86. The Tail.

CHAPTER 87. The Grand Armada.

CHAPTER 88. Schools and Schoolmasters.

CHAPTER 89. Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish.

CHAPTER 90. Heads or Tails.

CHAPTER 91. The Pequod Meets The Rose-Bud.

CHAPTER 92. Ambergris.

CHAPTER 93. The Castaway.

CHAPTER 94. A Squeeze of the Hand.

CHAPTER 95. The Cassock.

CHAPTER 96. The Try-Works.

CHAPTER 97. The Lamp.

CHAPTER 98. Stowing Down and Clearing Up.

CHAPTER 99. The Doubloon.

CHAPTER 100. Leg and Arm.

CHAPTER 101. The Decanter.

CHAPTER 102. A Bower in the Arsacides.

CHAPTER 103. Measurement of The Whale’s Skeleton.

CHAPTER 104. The Fossil Whale.

CHAPTER 105. Does the Whale’s Magnitude Diminish?—Will He Perish?

CHAPTER 106. Ahab’s Leg.

CHAPTER 107. The Carpenter.

CHAPTER 108. Ahab and the Carpenter.

CHAPTER 109. Ahab and Starbuck in the Cabin.

CHAPTER 110. Queequeg in His Coffin.

CHAPTER 111. The Pacific.

CHAPTER 112. The Blacksmith.

CHAPTER 113. The Forge.

CHAPTER 114. The Gilder.

CHAPTER 115. The Pequod Meets The Bachelor.

CHAPTER 116. The Dying Whale.

CHAPTER 117. The Whale Watch.

CHAPTER 118. The Quadrant.

CHAPTER 119. The Candles.

CHAPTER 120. The Deck Towards the End of the First Night Watch.

CHAPTER 121. Midnight.—The Forecastle Bulwarks.

CHAPTER 122. Midnight Aloft.—Thunder and Lightning.

CHAPTER 123. The Musket.

CHAPTER 124. The Needle.

CHAPTER 125. The Log and Line.

CHAPTER 126. The Life-Buoy.

CHAPTER 127. The Deck.

CHAPTER 128. The Pequod Meets The Rachel.

CHAPTER 129. The Cabin.

CHAPTER 130. The Hat.

CHAPTER 131. The Pequod Meets The Delight.

CHAPTER 132. The Symphony.

CHAPTER 133. The Chase—First Day.

CHAPTER 134. The Chase—Second Day.

CHAPTER 135. The Chase.—Third Day.

Epilogue




Original Transcriber’s Notes:

This text is a combination of etexts, one from the now-defunct ERIS
project at Virginia Tech and one from Project Gutenberg’s archives. The
proofreaders of this version are indebted to The University of Adelaide
Library for preserving the Virginia Tech version. The resulting etext
was compared with a public domain hard copy version of the text.





  ETYMOLOGY.


  (Supplied by a Late Consumptive Usher to a Grammar School.)

  The pale Usher—threadbare in coat, heart, body, and brain; I see him
  now. He was ever dusting his old lexicons and grammars, with a queer
  handkerchief, mockingly embellished with all the gay flags of all the
  known nations of the world. He loved to dust his old grammars; it
  somehow mildly reminded him of his mortality.

  “While you take in hand to school others, and to teach them by what
  name a whale-fish is to be called in our tongue, leaving out, through
  ignorance, the letter H, which almost alone maketh up the
  signification of the word, you deliver that which is not true.”
  —_Hackluyt._

  “WHALE. * * * Sw. and Dan. _hval_. This animal is named from
  roundness or rolling; for in Dan. _hvalt_ is arched or vaulted.”
  —_Webster’s Dictionary._

  “WHALE. * * * It is more immediately from the Dut. and Ger. _Wallen_;
  A.S. _Walw-ian_, to roll, to wallow.” —_Richardson’s Dictionary._


  ‏חו‎,                _Hebrew_.
  ϰητος,             _Greek_.
  CETUS,             _Latin_.
  WHŒL,              _Anglo-Saxon_.
  HVALT,             _Danish_.
  WAL,               _Dutch_.
  HWAL,              _Swedish_.
  HVALUR,            _Icelandic_.
  WHALE,             _English_.
  BALEINE,           _French_.
  BALLENA,           _Spanish_.
  PEKEE-NUEE-NUEE,   _Fegee_.
  PEHEE-NUEE-NUEE,   _Erromangoan_.


  EXTRACTS. (Supplied by a Sub-Sub-Librarian).



  It will be seen that this mere painstaking burrower and grub-worm of
  a poor devil of a Sub-Sub appears to have gone through the long
  Vaticans and street-stalls of the earth, picking up whatever random
  allusions to whales he could anyways find in any book whatsoever,
  sacred or profane. Therefore you must not, in every case at least,
  take the higgledy-piggledy whale statements, however authentic, in
  these extracts, for veritable gospel cetology. Far from it. As
  touching the ancient authors generally, as well as the poets here
  appearing, these extracts are solely valuable or entertaining, as
  affording a glancing bird’s eye view of what has been promiscuously
  said, thought, fancied, and sung of Leviathan, by many nations and
  generations, including our own.

  So fare thee well, poor devil of a Sub-Sub, whose commentator I am.
  Thou belongest to that hopeless, sallow tribe which no wine of this
  world will ever warm; and for whom even Pale Sherry would be too
  rosy-strong; but with whom one sometimes loves to sit, and feel
  poor-devilish, too; and grow convivial upon tears; and say to them
  bluntly, with full eyes and empty glasses, and in not altogether
  unpleasant sadness—Give it up, Sub-Subs! For by how much the more
  pains ye take to please the world, by so much the more shall ye for
  ever go thankless! Would that I could clear out Hampton Court and the
  Tuileries for ye! But gulp down your tears and hie aloft to the
  royal-mast with your hearts; for your friends who have gone before
  are clearing out the seven-storied heavens, and making refugees of
  long-pampered Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael, against your coming.
  Here ye strike but splintered hearts together—there, ye shall strike
  unsplinterable glasses!

EXTRACTS.

  “And God created great whales.” —_Genesis_.

  “Leviathan maketh a path to shine after him; One would think the deep
  to be hoary.” —_Job_.

  “Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah.”
  —_Jonah_.

  “There go the ships; there is that Leviathan whom thou hast made to
  play therein.” —_Psalms_.

  “In that day, the Lord with his sore, and great, and strong sword,
  shall punish Leviathan the piercing serpent, even Leviathan that
  crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.”
  —_Isaiah_.

  “And what thing soever besides cometh within the chaos of this
  monster’s mouth, be it beast, boat, or stone, down it goes all
  incontinently that foul great swallow of his, and perisheth in the
  bottomless gulf of his paunch.” —_Holland’s Plutarch’s Morals_.

  “The Indian Sea breedeth the most and the biggest fishes that are:
  among which the Whales and Whirlpooles called Balaene, take up as
  much in length as four acres or arpens of land.” —_Holland’s Pliny_.

  “Scarcely had we proceeded two days on the sea, when about sunrise a
  great many Whales and other monsters of the sea, appeared. Among the
  former, one was of a most monstrous size.... This came towards us,
  open-mouthed, raising the waves on all sides, and beating the sea
  before him into a foam.” —_Tooke’s Lucian_. “_The True History_.”




  “He visited this country also with a view of catching horse-whales,
  which had bones of very great value for their teeth, of which he
  brought some to the king.... The best whales were catched in his own
  country, of which some were forty-eight, some fifty yards long. He
  said that he was one of six who had killed sixty in two days.”
  —_Other or Other’s verbal narrative taken down from his mouth by King
  Alfred, A.D._ 890.

  “And whereas all the other things, whether beast or vessel, that
  enter into the dreadful gulf of this monster’s (whale’s) mouth, are
  immediately lost and swallowed up, the sea-gudgeon retires into it in
  great security, and there sleeps.” —MONTAIGNE. —_Apology for Raimond
  Sebond_.

  “Let us fly, let us fly! Old Nick take me if it is not Leviathan
  described by the noble prophet Moses in the life of patient Job.”
  —_Rabelais_.

  “This whale’s liver was two cartloads.” —_Stowe’s Annals_.

  “The great Leviathan that maketh the seas to seethe like boiling
  pan.” —_Lord Bacon’s Version of the Psalms_.

  “Touching that monstrous bulk of the whale or ork we have received
  nothing certain. They grow exceeding fat, insomuch that an incredible
  quantity of oil will be extracted out of one whale.” —_Ibid_.
  “_History of Life and Death_.”




  “The sovereignest thing on earth is parmacetti for an inward bruise.”
  —_King Henry_.

  “Very like a whale.” —_Hamlet_.


  “Which to secure, no skill of leach’s art Mote him availle, but to
  returne againe To his wound’s worker, that with lowly dart, Dinting
  his breast, had bred his restless paine, Like as the wounded whale to
  shore flies thro’ the maine.” —_The Fairie Queen_.



  “Immense as whales, the motion of whose vast bodies can in a peaceful
  calm trouble the ocean till it boil.” —_Sir William Davenant. Preface
  to Gondibert_.

  “What spermacetti is, men might justly doubt, since the learned
  Hosmannus in his work of thirty years, saith plainly, _Nescio quid
  sit_.” —_Sir T. Browne. Of Sperma Ceti and the Sperma Ceti Whale.
  Vide his V. E._


  “Like Spencer’s Talus with his modern flail He threatens ruin with
  his ponderous tail. ... Their fixed jav’lins in his side he wears,
  And on his back a grove of pikes appears.” —_Waller’s Battle of the
  Summer Islands_.



  “By art is created that great Leviathan, called a Commonwealth or
  State—(in Latin, Civitas) which is but an artificial man.” —_Opening
  sentence of Hobbes’s Leviathan_.

  “Silly Mansoul swallowed it without chewing, as if it had been a
  sprat in the mouth of a whale.” —_Pilgrim’s Progress_.


  “That sea beast Leviathan, which God of all his works Created hugest
  that swim the ocean stream.” —_Paradise Lost_.

  —“There Leviathan, Hugest of living creatures, in the deep Stretched
  like a promontory sleeps or swims, And seems a moving land; and at
  his gills Draws in, and at his breath spouts out a sea.” —_Ibid_.



  “The mighty whales which swim in a sea of water, and have a sea of
  oil swimming in them.” —_Fuller’s Profane and Holy State_.


  “So close behind some promontory lie The huge Leviathan to attend
  their prey, And give no chance, but swallow in the fry, Which through
  their gaping jaws mistake the way.” —_Dryden’s Annus Mirabilis_.



  “While the whale is floating at the stern of the ship, they cut off
  his head, and tow it with a boat as near the shore as it will come;
  but it will be aground in twelve or thirteen feet water.” —_Thomas
  Edge’s Ten Voyages to Spitzbergen, in Purchas_.

  “In their way they saw many whales sporting in the ocean, and in
  wantonness fuzzing up the water through their pipes and vents, which
  nature has placed on their shoulders.” —_Sir T. Herbert’s Voyages
  into Asia and Africa. Harris Coll_.

  “Here they saw such huge troops of whales, that they were forced to
  proceed with a great deal of caution for fear they should run their
  ship upon them.” —_Schouten’s Sixth Circumnavigation_.

  “We set sail from the Elbe, wind N.E. in the ship called The
  Jonas-in-the-Whale.... Some say the whale can’t open his mouth, but
  that is a fable.... They frequently climb up the masts to see whether
  they can see a whale, for the first discoverer has a ducat for his
  pains.... I was told of a whale taken near Shetland, that had above a
  barrel of herrings in his belly.... One of our harpooneers told me
  that he caught once a whale in Spitzbergen that was white all over.”
  —_A Voyage to Greenland, A.D._ 1671. _Harris Coll_.

  “Several whales have come in upon this coast (Fife) Anno 1652, one
  eighty feet in length of the whale-bone kind came in, which (as I was
  informed), besides a vast quantity of oil, did afford 500 weight of
  baleen. The jaws of it stand for a gate in the garden of Pitferren.”
  —_Sibbald’s Fife and Kinross_.

  “Myself have agreed to try whether I can master and kill this
  Sperma-ceti whale, for I could never hear of any of that sort that
  was killed by any man, such is his fierceness and swiftness.”
  —_Richard Strafford’s Letter from the Bermudas. Phil. Trans. A.D._
  1668.

  “Whales in the sea God’s voice obey.” —_N. E. Primer_.

  “We saw also abundance of large whales, there being more in those
  southern seas, as I may say, by a hundred to one; than we have to the
  northward of us.” —_Captain Cowley’s Voyage round the Globe, A.D._
  1729.

  “... and the breath of the whale is frequently attended with such an
  insupportable smell, as to bring on a disorder of the brain.”
  —_Ulloa’s South America_.


  “To fifty chosen sylphs of special note, We trust the important
  charge, the petticoat. Oft have we known that seven-fold fence to
  fail, Tho’ stuffed with hoops and armed with ribs of whale.” —_Rape
  of the Lock_.



  “If we compare land animals in respect to magnitude, with those that
  take up their abode in the deep, we shall find they will appear
  contemptible in the comparison. The whale is doubtless the largest
  animal in creation.” —_Goldsmith, Nat. Hist_.

  “If you should write a fable for little fishes, you would make them
  speak like great whales.” —_Goldsmith to Johnson_.

  “In the afternoon we saw what was supposed to be a rock, but it was
  found to be a dead whale, which some Asiatics had killed, and were
  then towing ashore. They seemed to endeavor to conceal themselves
  behind the whale, in order to avoid being seen by us.” —_Cook’s
  Voyages_.

  “The larger whales, they seldom venture to attack. They stand in so
  great dread of some of them, that when out at sea they are afraid to
  mention even their names, and carry dung, lime-stone, juniper-wood,
  and some other articles of the same nature in their boats, in order
  to terrify and prevent their too near approach.” —_Uno Von Troil’s
  Letters on Banks’s and Solander’s Voyage to Iceland in_ 1772.

  “The Spermacetti Whale found by the Nantuckois, is an active, fierce
  animal, and requires vast address and boldness in the fishermen.”
  —_Thomas Jefferson’s Whale Memorial to the French minister in_ 1778.

  “And pray, sir, what in the world is equal to it?” —_Edmund Burke’s
  reference in Parliament to the Nantucket Whale-Fishery_.

  “Spain—a great whale stranded on the shores of Europe.” —_Edmund
  Burke_. (_somewhere_.)

  “A tenth branch of the king’s ordinary revenue, said to be grounded
  on the consideration of his guarding and protecting the seas from
  pirates and robbers, is the right to _royal_ fish, which are whale
  and sturgeon. And these, when either thrown ashore or caught near the
  coast, are the property of the king.” —_Blackstone_.


  “Soon to the sport of death the crews repair: Rodmond unerring o’er
  his head suspends The barbed steel, and every turn attends.”
  —_Falconer’s Shipwreck_.

  “Bright shone the roofs, the domes, the spires, And rockets blew self
  driven, To hang their momentary fire Around the vault of heaven.

  “So fire with water to compare, The ocean serves on high, Up-spouted
  by a whale in air, To express unwieldy joy.” —_Cowper, on the Queen’s
  Visit to London_.



  “Ten or fifteen gallons of blood are thrown out of the heart at a
  stroke, with immense velocity.” —_John Hunter’s account of the
  dissection of a whale_. (_A small sized one_.)

  “The aorta of a whale is larger in the bore than the main pipe of the
  water-works at London Bridge, and the water roaring in its passage
  through that pipe is inferior in impetus and velocity to the blood
  gushing from the whale’s heart.” —_Paley’s Theology_.

  “The whale is a mammiferous animal without hind feet.” —_Baron
  Cuvier_.

  “In 40 degrees south, we saw Spermacetti Whales, but did not take any
  till the first of May, the sea being then covered with them.”
  —_Colnett’s Voyage for the Purpose of Extending the Spermaceti Whale
  Fishery_.


  “In the free element beneath me swam, Floundered and dived, in play,
  in chace, in battle, Fishes of every colour, form, and kind; Which
  language cannot paint, and mariner Had never seen; from dread
  Leviathan To insect millions peopling every wave: Gather’d in shoals
  immense, like floating islands, Led by mysterious instincts through
  that waste And trackless region, though on every side Assaulted by
  voracious enemies, Whales, sharks, and monsters, arm’d in front or
  jaw, With swords, saws, spiral horns, or hooked fangs.”
  —_Montgomery’s World before the Flood_.

  “Io!  Paean!  Io! sing. To the finny people’s king. Not a mightier
  whale than this In the vast Atlantic is; Not a fatter fish than he,
  Flounders round the Polar Sea.” —_Charles Lamb’s Triumph of the
  Whale_.



  “In the year 1690 some persons were on a high hill observing the
  whales spouting and sporting with each other, when one observed:
  there—pointing to the sea—is a green pasture where our children’s
  grand-children will go for bread.” —_Obed Macy’s History of
  Nantucket_.

  “I built a cottage for Susan and myself and made a gateway in the
  form of a Gothic Arch, by setting up a whale’s jaw bones.”
  —_Hawthorne’s Twice Told Tales_.

  “She came to bespeak a monument for her first love, who had been
  killed by a whale in the Pacific ocean, no less than forty years
  ago.” —_Ibid_.

  “No, Sir, ’tis a Right Whale,” answered Tom; “I saw his sprout; he
  threw up a pair of as pretty rainbows as a Christian would wish to
  look at. He’s a raal oil-butt, that fellow!” —_Cooper’s Pilot_.

  “The papers were brought in, and we saw in the Berlin Gazette that
  whales had been introduced on the stage there.” —_Eckermann’s
  Conversations with Goethe_.

  “My God! Mr. Chace, what is the matter?” I answered, “we have been
  stove by a whale.” —“_Narrative of the Shipwreck of the Whale Ship
  Essex of Nantucket, which was attacked and finally destroyed by a
  large Sperm Whale in the Pacific Ocean_.” _By Owen Chace of
  Nantucket, first mate of said vessel. New York_, 1821.


  “A mariner sat in the shrouds one night, The wind was piping free;
  Now bright, now dimmed, was the moonlight pale, And the phospher
  gleamed in the wake of the whale, As it floundered in the sea.”
  —_Elizabeth Oakes Smith_.



  “The quantity of line withdrawn from the boats engaged in the capture
  of this one whale, amounted altogether to 10,440 yards or nearly six
  English miles....

  “Sometimes the whale shakes its tremendous tail in the air, which,
  cracking like a whip, resounds to the distance of three or four
  miles.” —_Scoresby_.

  “Mad with the agonies he endures from these fresh attacks, the
  infuriated Sperm Whale rolls over and over; he rears his enormous
  head, and with wide expanded jaws snaps at everything around him; he
  rushes at the boats with his head; they are propelled before him with
  vast swiftness, and sometimes utterly destroyed.... It is a matter of
  great astonishment that the consideration of the habits of so
  interesting, and, in a commercial point of view, so important an
  animal (as the Sperm Whale) should have been so entirely neglected,
  or should have excited so little curiosity among the numerous, and
  many of them competent observers, that of late years, must have
  possessed the most abundant and the most convenient opportunities of
  witnessing their habitudes.” —_Thomas Beale’s History of the Sperm
  Whale_, 1839.

  “The Cachalot” (Sperm Whale) “is not only better armed than the True
  Whale” (Greenland or Right Whale) “in possessing a formidable weapon
  at either extremity of its body, but also more frequently displays a
  disposition to employ these weapons offensively and in manner at once
  so artful, bold, and mischievous, as to lead to its being regarded as
  the most dangerous to attack of all the known species of the whale
  tribe.” —_Frederick Debell Bennett’s Whaling Voyage Round the Globe_,
  1840.


  October 13.  “There she blows,” was sung out from the mast-head.
  “Where away?” demanded the captain. “Three points off the lee bow,
  sir.” “Raise up your wheel.  Steady!”  “Steady, sir.” “Mast-head
  ahoy! Do you see that whale now?” “Ay ay, sir!  A shoal of Sperm
  Whales! There she blows!  There she breaches!” “Sing out! sing out
  every time!” “Ay Ay, sir!  There she blows! there—there—_thar_ she
  blows—bowes—bo-o-os!” “How far off?” “Two miles and a half.” “Thunder
  and lightning! so near!  Call all hands.” —_J. Ross Browne’s Etchings
  of a Whaling Cruize_.  1846.



  “The Whale-ship Globe, on board of which vessel occurred the horrid
  transactions we are about to relate, belonged to the island of
  Nantucket.” —“_Narrative of the Globe Mutiny_,” _by Lay and Hussey
  survivors. A.D._ 1828.

  Being once pursued by a whale which he had wounded, he parried the
  assault for some time with a lance; but the furious monster at length
  rushed on the boat; himself and comrades only being preserved by
  leaping into the water when they saw the onset was inevitable.”
  —_Missionary Journal of Tyerman and Bennett_.

  “Nantucket itself,” said Mr. Webster, “is a very striking and
  peculiar portion of the National interest. There is a population of
  eight or nine thousand persons living here in the sea, adding largely
  every year to the National wealth by the boldest and most persevering
  industry.” —_Report of Daniel Webster’s Speech in the U. S. Senate,
  on the application for the Erection of a Breakwater at Nantucket_.
  1828.

  “The whale fell directly over him, and probably killed him in a
  moment.” —“_The Whale and his Captors, or The Whaleman’s Adventures
  and the Whale’s Biography, gathered on the Homeward Cruise of the
  Commodore Preble_.” _By Rev. Henry T. Cheever_.

  “If you make the least damn bit of noise,” replied Samuel, “I will
  send you to hell.” —_Life of Samuel Comstock_ (_the mutineer_), _by
  his brother, William Comstock. Another Version of the whale-ship
  Globe narrative_.

  “The voyages of the Dutch and English to the Northern Ocean, in
  order, if possible, to discover a passage through it to India, though
  they failed of their main object, laid-open the haunts of the whale.”
  —_McCulloch’s Commercial Dictionary_.

  “These things are reciprocal; the ball rebounds, only to bound
  forward again; for now in laying open the haunts of the whale, the
  whalemen seem to have indirectly hit upon new clews to that same
  mystic North-West Passage.” —_From_ “_Something_” _unpublished_.

  “It is impossible to meet a whale-ship on the ocean without being
  struck by her near appearance. The vessel under short sail, with
  look-outs at the mast-heads, eagerly scanning the wide expanse around
  them, has a totally different air from those engaged in regular
  voyage.” —_Currents and Whaling. U.S. Ex. Ex_.

  “Pedestrians in the vicinity of London and elsewhere may recollect
  having seen large curved bones set upright in the earth, either to
  form arches over gateways, or entrances to alcoves, and they may
  perhaps have been told that these were the ribs of whales.” —_Tales
  of a Whale Voyager to the Arctic Ocean_.

  “It was not till the boats returned from the pursuit of these whales,
  that the whites saw their ship in bloody possession of the savages
  enrolled among the crew.” —_Newspaper Account of the Taking and
  Retaking of the Whale-Ship Hobomack_.

  “It is generally well known that out of the crews of Whaling vessels
  (American) few ever return in the ships on board of which they
  departed.” —_Cruise in a Whale Boat_.

  “Suddenly a mighty mass emerged from the water, and shot up
  perpendicularly into the air. It was the whale.” —_Miriam Coffin or
  the Whale Fisherman_.

  “The Whale is harpooned to be sure; but bethink you, how you would
  manage a powerful unbroken colt, with the mere appliance of a rope
  tied to the root of his tail.” —_A Chapter on Whaling in Ribs and
  Trucks_.

  “On one occasion I saw two of these monsters (whales) probably male
  and female, slowly swimming, one after the other, within less than a
  stone’s throw of the shore” (Terra Del Fuego), “over which the beech
  tree extended its branches.” —_Darwin’s Voyage of a Naturalist_.

  “‘Stern all!’ exclaimed the mate, as upon turning his head, he saw
  the distended jaws of a large Sperm Whale close to the head of the
  boat, threatening it with instant destruction;—‘Stern all, for your
  lives!’” —_Wharton the Whale Killer_.

  “So be cheery, my lads, let your hearts never fail, While the bold
  harpooneer is striking the whale!” —_Nantucket Song_.


  “Oh, the rare old Whale, mid storm and gale In his ocean home will be
  A giant in might, where might is right, And King of the boundless
  sea.” —_Whale Song_.





CHAPTER 1. Loomings.

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having
little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me
on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part
of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and
regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about
the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever
I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and
bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever
my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral
principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and
methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to
get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball.
With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I
quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they
but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other,
cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.

There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by
wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs—commerce surrounds it with her
surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Its extreme
downtown is the battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and
cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of
land. Look at the crowds of water-gazers there.

Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears
Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What
do you see?—Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand
thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Some
leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads; some
looking over the bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft in the
rigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep. But these
are all landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and plaster—tied to
counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks. How then is this? Are
the green fields gone? What do they here?

But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and
seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the
extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder
warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the water
as they possibly can without falling in. And there they stand—miles of
them—leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets
and avenues—north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite. Tell
me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses of all
those ships attract them thither?

Once more. Say you are in the country; in some high land of lakes. Take
almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in a
dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is magic in
it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest
reveries—stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will
infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region.
Should you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try this
experiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical
professor. Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for
ever.

But here is an artist. He desires to paint you the dreamiest, shadiest,
quietest, most enchanting bit of romantic landscape in all the valley
of the Saco. What is the chief element he employs? There stand his
trees, each with a hollow trunk, as if a hermit and a crucifix were
within; and here sleeps his meadow, and there sleep his cattle; and up
from yonder cottage goes a sleepy smoke. Deep into distant woodlands
winds a mazy way, reaching to overlapping spurs of mountains bathed in
their hill-side blue. But though the picture lies thus tranced, and
though this pine-tree shakes down its sighs like leaves upon this
shepherd’s head, yet all were vain, unless the shepherd’s eye were
fixed upon the magic stream before him. Go visit the Prairies in June,
when for scores on scores of miles you wade knee-deep among
Tiger-lilies—what is the one charm wanting?—Water—there is not a drop
of water there! Were Niagara but a cataract of sand, would you travel
your thousand miles to see it? Why did the poor poet of Tennessee, upon
suddenly receiving two handfuls of silver, deliberate whether to buy
him a coat, which he sadly needed, or invest his money in a pedestrian
trip to Rockaway Beach? Why is almost every robust healthy boy with a
robust healthy soul in him, at some time or other crazy to go to sea?
Why upon your first voyage as a passenger, did you yourself feel such a
mystical vibration, when first told that you and your ship were now out
of sight of land? Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did
the Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother of Jove? Surely
all this is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that
story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild
image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that
same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image
of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.

Now, when I say that I am in the habit of going to sea whenever I begin
to grow hazy about the eyes, and begin to be over conscious of my
lungs, I do not mean to have it inferred that I ever go to sea as a
passenger. For to go as a passenger you must needs have a purse, and a
purse is but a rag unless you have something in it. Besides, passengers
get sea-sick—grow quarrelsome—don’t sleep of nights—do not enjoy
themselves much, as a general thing;—no, I never go as a passenger;
nor, though I am something of a salt, do I ever go to sea as a
Commodore, or a Captain, or a Cook. I abandon the glory and distinction
of such offices to those who like them. For my part, I abominate all
honorable respectable toils, trials, and tribulations of every kind
whatsoever. It is quite as much as I can do to take care of myself,
without taking care of ships, barques, brigs, schooners, and what not.
And as for going as cook,—though I confess there is considerable glory
in that, a cook being a sort of officer on ship-board—yet, somehow, I
never fancied broiling fowls;—though once broiled, judiciously
buttered, and judgmatically salted and peppered, there is no one who
will speak more respectfully, not to say reverentially, of a broiled
fowl than I will. It is out of the idolatrous dotings of the old
Egyptians upon broiled ibis and roasted river horse, that you see the
mummies of those creatures in their huge bake-houses the pyramids.

No, when I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor, right before the mast,
plumb down into the forecastle, aloft there to the royal mast-head.
True, they rather order me about some, and make me jump from spar to
spar, like a grasshopper in a May meadow. And at first, this sort of
thing is unpleasant enough. It touches one’s sense of honor,
particularly if you come of an old established family in the land, the
Van Rensselaers, or Randolphs, or Hardicanutes. And more than all, if
just previous to putting your hand into the tar-pot, you have been
lording it as a country schoolmaster, making the tallest boys stand in
awe of you. The transition is a keen one, I assure you, from a
schoolmaster to a sailor, and requires a strong decoction of Seneca and
the Stoics to enable you to grin and bear it. But even this wears off
in time.

What of it, if some old hunks of a sea-captain orders me to get a broom
and sweep down the decks? What does that indignity amount to, weighed,
I mean, in the scales of the New Testament? Do you think the archangel
Gabriel thinks anything the less of me, because I promptly and
respectfully obey that old hunks in that particular instance? Who ain’t
a slave? Tell me that. Well, then, however the old sea-captains may
order me about—however they may thump and punch me about, I have the
satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is
one way or other served in much the same way—either in a physical or
metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the universal thump is
passed round, and all hands should rub each other’s shoulder-blades,
and be content.

Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point of
paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a single
penny that I ever heard of. On the contrary, passengers themselves must
pay. And there is all the difference in the world between paying and
being paid. The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable
infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But _being
paid_,—what will compare with it? The urbane activity with which a man
receives money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly
believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no
account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign
ourselves to perdition!

Finally, I always go to sea as a sailor, because of the wholesome
exercise and pure air of the fore-castle deck. For as in this world,
head winds are far more prevalent than winds from astern (that is, if
you never violate the Pythagorean maxim), so for the most part the
Commodore on the quarter-deck gets his atmosphere at second hand from
the sailors on the forecastle. He thinks he breathes it first; but not
so. In much the same way do the commonalty lead their leaders in many
other things, at the same time that the leaders little suspect it. But
wherefore it was that after having repeatedly smelt the sea as a
merchant sailor, I should now take it into my head to go on a whaling
voyage; this the invisible police officer of the Fates, who has the
constant surveillance of me, and secretly dogs me, and influences me in
some unaccountable way—he can better answer than any one else. And,
doubtless, my going on this whaling voyage, formed part of the grand
programme of Providence that was drawn up a long time ago. It came in
as a sort of brief interlude and solo between more extensive
performances. I take it that this part of the bill must have run
something like this:

“_Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States._
“WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL. “BLOODY BATTLE IN AFFGHANISTAN.”

Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers, the
Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage, when
others were set down for magnificent parts in high tragedies, and short
and easy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in farces—though I
cannot tell why this was exactly; yet, now that I recall all the
circumstances, I think I can see a little into the springs and motives
which being cunningly presented to me under various disguises, induced
me to set about performing the part I did, besides cajoling me into the
delusion that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill
and discriminating judgment.

Chief among these motives was the overwhelming idea of the great whale
himself. Such a portentous and mysterious monster roused all my
curiosity. Then the wild and distant seas where he rolled his island
bulk; the undeliverable, nameless perils of the whale; these, with all
the attending marvels of a thousand Patagonian sights and sounds,
helped to sway me to my wish. With other men, perhaps, such things
would not have been inducements; but as for me, I am tormented with an
everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and
land on barbarous coasts. Not ignoring what is good, I am quick to
perceive a horror, and could still be social with it—would they let
me—since it is but well to be on friendly terms with all the inmates of
the place one lodges in.

By reason of these things, then, the whaling voyage was welcome; the
great flood-gates of the wonder-world swung open, and in the wild
conceits that swayed me to my purpose, two and two there floated into
my inmost soul, endless processions of the whale, and, mid most of them
all, one grand hooded phantom, like a snow hill in the air.


CHAPTER 2. The Carpet-Bag.

I stuffed a shirt or two into my old carpet-bag, tucked it under my
arm, and started for Cape Horn and the Pacific. Quitting the good city
of old Manhatto, I duly arrived in New Bedford. It was a Saturday night
in December. Much was I disappointed upon learning that the little
packet for Nantucket had already sailed, and that no way of reaching
that place would offer, till the following Monday.

As most young candidates for the pains and penalties of whaling stop at
this same New Bedford, thence to embark on their voyage, it may as well
be related that I, for one, had no idea of so doing. For my mind was
made up to sail in no other than a Nantucket craft, because there was a
fine, boisterous something about everything connected with that famous
old island, which amazingly pleased me. Besides though New Bedford has
of late been gradually monopolising the business of whaling, and though
in this matter poor old Nantucket is now much behind her, yet Nantucket
was her great original—the Tyre of this Carthage;—the place where the
first dead American whale was stranded. Where else but from Nantucket
did those aboriginal whalemen, the Red-Men, first sally out in canoes
to give chase to the Leviathan? And where but from Nantucket, too, did
that first adventurous little sloop put forth, partly laden with
imported cobblestones—so goes the story—to throw at the whales, in
order to discover when they were nigh enough to risk a harpoon from the
bowsprit?

Now having a night, a day, and still another night following before me
in New Bedford, ere I could embark for my destined port, it became a
matter of concernment where I was to eat and sleep meanwhile. It was a
very dubious-looking, nay, a very dark and dismal night, bitingly cold
and cheerless. I knew no one in the place. With anxious grapnels I had
sounded my pocket, and only brought up a few pieces of silver,—So,
wherever you go, Ishmael, said I to myself, as I stood in the middle of
a dreary street shouldering my bag, and comparing the gloom towards the
north with the darkness towards the south—wherever in your wisdom you
may conclude to lodge for the night, my dear Ishmael, be sure to
inquire the price, and don’t be too particular.

With halting steps I paced the streets, and passed the sign of “The
Crossed Harpoons”—but it looked too expensive and jolly there. Further
on, from the bright red windows of the “Sword-Fish Inn,” there came
such fervent rays, that it seemed to have melted the packed snow and
ice from before the house, for everywhere else the congealed frost lay
ten inches thick in a hard, asphaltic pavement,—rather weary for me,
when I struck my foot against the flinty projections, because from
hard, remorseless service the soles of my boots were in a most
miserable plight. Too expensive and jolly, again thought I, pausing one
moment to watch the broad glare in the street, and hear the sounds of
the tinkling glasses within. But go on, Ishmael, said I at last; don’t
you hear? get away from before the door; your patched boots are
stopping the way. So on I went. I now by instinct followed the streets
that took me waterward, for there, doubtless, were the cheapest, if not
the cheeriest inns.

Such dreary streets! blocks of blackness, not houses, on either hand,
and here and there a candle, like a candle moving about in a tomb. At
this hour of the night, of the last day of the week, that quarter of
the town proved all but deserted. But presently I came to a smoky light
proceeding from a low, wide building, the door of which stood
invitingly open. It had a careless look, as if it were meant for the
uses of the public; so, entering, the first thing I did was to stumble
over an ash-box in the porch. Ha! thought I, ha, as the flying
particles almost choked me, are these ashes from that destroyed city,
Gomorrah? But “The Crossed Harpoons,” and “The Sword-Fish?”—this, then
must needs be the sign of “The Trap.” However, I picked myself up and
hearing a loud voice within, pushed on and opened a second, interior
door.

It seemed the great Black Parliament sitting in Tophet. A hundred black
faces turned round in their rows to peer; and beyond, a black Angel of
Doom was beating a book in a pulpit. It was a negro church; and the
preacher’s text was about the blackness of darkness, and the weeping
and wailing and teeth-gnashing there. Ha, Ishmael, muttered I, backing
out, Wretched entertainment at the sign of ‘The Trap!’

Moving on, I at last came to a dim sort of light not far from the
docks, and heard a forlorn creaking in the air; and looking up, saw a
swinging sign over the door with a white painting upon it, faintly
representing a tall straight jet of misty spray, and these words
underneath—“The Spouter Inn:—Peter Coffin.”

Coffin?—Spouter?—Rather ominous in that particular connexion, thought
I. But it is a common name in Nantucket, they say, and I suppose this
Peter here is an emigrant from there. As the light looked so dim, and
the place, for the time, looked quiet enough, and the dilapidated
little wooden house itself looked as if it might have been carted here
from the ruins of some burnt district, and as the swinging sign had a
poverty-stricken sort of creak to it, I thought that here was the very
spot for cheap lodgings, and the best of pea coffee.

It was a queer sort of place—a gable-ended old house, one side palsied
as it were, and leaning over sadly. It stood on a sharp bleak corner,
where that tempestuous wind Euroclydon kept up a worse howling than
ever it did about poor Paul’s tossed craft. Euroclydon, nevertheless,
is a mighty pleasant zephyr to any one in-doors, with his feet on the
hob quietly toasting for bed. “In judging of that tempestuous wind
called Euroclydon,” says an old writer—of whose works I possess the
only copy extant—“it maketh a marvellous difference, whether thou
lookest out at it from a glass window where the frost is all on the
outside, or whether thou observest it from that sashless window, where
the frost is on both sides, and of which the wight Death is the only
glazier.” True enough, thought I, as this passage occurred to my
mind—old black-letter, thou reasonest well. Yes, these eyes are
windows, and this body of mine is the house. What a pity they didn’t
stop up the chinks and the crannies though, and thrust in a little lint
here and there. But it’s too late to make any improvements now. The
universe is finished; the copestone is on, and the chips were carted
off a million years ago. Poor Lazarus there, chattering his teeth
against the curbstone for his pillow, and shaking off his tatters with
his shiverings, he might plug up both ears with rags, and put a
corn-cob into his mouth, and yet that would not keep out the
tempestuous Euroclydon. Euroclydon! says old Dives, in his red silken
wrapper—(he had a redder one afterwards) pooh, pooh! What a fine frosty
night; how Orion glitters; what northern lights! Let them talk of their
oriental summer climes of everlasting conservatories; give me the
privilege of making my own summer with my own coals.

But what thinks Lazarus? Can he warm his blue hands by holding them up
to the grand northern lights? Would not Lazarus rather be in Sumatra
than here? Would he not far rather lay him down lengthwise along the
line of the equator; yea, ye gods! go down to the fiery pit itself, in
order to keep out this frost?

Now, that Lazarus should lie stranded there on the curbstone before the
door of Dives, this is more wonderful than that an iceberg should be
moored to one of the Moluccas. Yet Dives himself, he too lives like a
Czar in an ice palace made of frozen sighs, and being a president of a
temperance society, he only drinks the tepid tears of orphans.

But no more of this blubbering now, we are going a-whaling, and there
is plenty of that yet to come. Let us scrape the ice from our frosted
feet, and see what sort of a place this “Spouter” may be.


CHAPTER 3. The Spouter-Inn.

Entering that gable-ended Spouter-Inn, you found yourself in a wide,
low, straggling entry with old-fashioned wainscots, reminding one of
the bulwarks of some condemned old craft. On one side hung a very large
oilpainting so thoroughly besmoked, and every way defaced, that in the
unequal crosslights by which you viewed it, it was only by diligent
study and a series of systematic visits to it, and careful inquiry of
the neighbors, that you could any way arrive at an understanding of its
purpose. Such unaccountable masses of shades and shadows, that at first
you almost thought some ambitious young artist, in the time of the New
England hags, had endeavored to delineate chaos bewitched. But by dint
of much and earnest contemplation, and oft repeated ponderings, and
especially by throwing open the little window towards the back of the
entry, you at last come to the conclusion that such an idea, however
wild, might not be altogether unwarranted.

But what most puzzled and confounded you was a long, limber,
portentous, black mass of something hovering in the centre of the
picture over three blue, dim, perpendicular lines floating in a
nameless yeast. A boggy, soggy, squitchy picture truly, enough to drive
a nervous man distracted. Yet was there a sort of indefinite,
half-attained, unimaginable sublimity about it that fairly froze you to
it, till you involuntarily took an oath with yourself to find out what
that marvellous painting meant. Ever and anon a bright, but, alas,
deceptive idea would dart you through.—It’s the Black Sea in a midnight
gale.—It’s the unnatural combat of the four primal elements.—It’s a
blasted heath.—It’s a Hyperborean winter scene.—It’s the breaking-up of
the icebound stream of Time. But at last all these fancies yielded to
that one portentous something in the picture’s midst. _That_ once found
out, and all the rest were plain. But stop; does it not bear a faint
resemblance to a gigantic fish? even the great leviathan himself?

In fact, the artist’s design seemed this: a final theory of my own,
partly based upon the aggregated opinions of many aged persons with
whom I conversed upon the subject. The picture represents a Cape-Horner
in a great hurricane; the half-foundered ship weltering there with its
three dismantled masts alone visible; and an exasperated whale,
purposing to spring clean over the craft, is in the enormous act of
impaling himself upon the three mast-heads.

The opposite wall of this entry was hung all over with a heathenish
array of monstrous clubs and spears. Some were thickly set with
glittering teeth resembling ivory saws; others were tufted with knots
of human hair; and one was sickle-shaped, with a vast handle sweeping
round like the segment made in the new-mown grass by a long-armed
mower. You shuddered as you gazed, and wondered what monstrous cannibal
and savage could ever have gone a death-harvesting with such a hacking,
horrifying implement. Mixed with these were rusty old whaling lances
and harpoons all broken and deformed. Some were storied weapons. With
this once long lance, now wildly elbowed, fifty years ago did Nathan
Swain kill fifteen whales between a sunrise and a sunset. And that
harpoon—so like a corkscrew now—was flung in Javan seas, and run away
with by a whale, years afterwards slain off the Cape of Blanco. The
original iron entered nigh the tail, and, like a restless needle
sojourning in the body of a man, travelled full forty feet, and at last
was found imbedded in the hump.

Crossing this dusky entry, and on through yon low-arched way—cut
through what in old times must have been a great central chimney with
fireplaces all round—you enter the public room. A still duskier place
is this, with such low ponderous beams above, and such old wrinkled
planks beneath, that you would almost fancy you trod some old craft’s
cockpits, especially of such a howling night, when this corner-anchored
old ark rocked so furiously. On one side stood a long, low, shelf-like
table covered with cracked glass cases, filled with dusty rarities
gathered from this wide world’s remotest nooks. Projecting from the
further angle of the room stands a dark-looking den—the bar—a rude
attempt at a right whale’s head. Be that how it may, there stands the
vast arched bone of the whale’s jaw, so wide, a coach might almost
drive beneath it. Within are shabby shelves, ranged round with old
decanters, bottles, flasks; and in those jaws of swift destruction,
like another cursed Jonah (by which name indeed they called him),
bustles a little withered old man, who, for their money, dearly sells
the sailors deliriums and death.

Abominable are the tumblers into which he pours his poison. Though true
cylinders without—within, the villanous green goggling glasses
deceitfully tapered downwards to a cheating bottom. Parallel meridians
rudely pecked into the glass, surround these footpads’ goblets. Fill to
_this_ mark, and your charge is but a penny; to _this_ a penny more;
and so on to the full glass—the Cape Horn measure, which you may gulp
down for a shilling.

Upon entering the place I found a number of young seamen gathered about
a table, examining by a dim light divers specimens of _skrimshander_. I
sought the landlord, and telling him I desired to be accommodated with
a room, received for answer that his house was full—not a bed
unoccupied. “But avast,” he added, tapping his forehead, “you haint no
objections to sharing a harpooneer’s blanket, have ye? I s’pose you are
goin’ a-whalin’, so you’d better get used to that sort of thing.”

I told him that I never liked to sleep two in a bed; that if I should
ever do so, it would depend upon who the harpooneer might be, and that
if he (the landlord) really had no other place for me, and the
harpooneer was not decidedly objectionable, why rather than wander
further about a strange town on so bitter a night, I would put up with
the half of any decent man’s blanket.

“I thought so. All right; take a seat. Supper?—you want supper?
Supper’ll be ready directly.”

I sat down on an old wooden settle, carved all over like a bench on the
Battery. At one end a ruminating tar was still further adorning it with
his jack-knife, stooping over and diligently working away at the space
between his legs. He was trying his hand at a ship under full sail, but
he didn’t make much headway, I thought.

At last some four or five of us were summoned to our meal in an
adjoining room. It was cold as Iceland—no fire at all—the landlord said
he couldn’t afford it. Nothing but two dismal tallow candles, each in a
winding sheet. We were fain to button up our monkey jackets, and hold
to our lips cups of scalding tea with our half frozen fingers. But the
fare was of the most substantial kind—not only meat and potatoes, but
dumplings; good heavens! dumplings for supper! One young fellow in a
green box coat, addressed himself to these dumplings in a most direful
manner.

“My boy,” said the landlord, “you’ll have the nightmare to a dead
sartainty.”

“Landlord,” I whispered, “that aint the harpooneer is it?”

“Oh, no,” said he, looking a sort of diabolically funny, “the
harpooneer is a dark complexioned chap. He never eats dumplings, he
don’t—he eats nothing but steaks, and he likes ’em rare.”

“The devil he does,” says I. “Where is that harpooneer? Is he here?”

“He’ll be here afore long,” was the answer.

I could not help it, but I began to feel suspicious of this “dark
complexioned” harpooneer. At any rate, I made up my mind that if it so
turned out that we should sleep together, he must undress and get into
bed before I did.

Supper over, the company went back to the bar-room, when, knowing not
what else to do with myself, I resolved to spend the rest of the
evening as a looker on.

Presently a rioting noise was heard without. Starting up, the landlord
cried, “That’s the Grampus’s crew. I seed her reported in the offing
this morning; a three years’ voyage, and a full ship. Hurrah, boys; now
we’ll have the latest news from the Feegees.”

A tramping of sea boots was heard in the entry; the door was flung
open, and in rolled a wild set of mariners enough. Enveloped in their
shaggy watch coats, and with their heads muffled in woollen comforters,
all bedarned and ragged, and their beards stiff with icicles, they
seemed an eruption of bears from Labrador. They had just landed from
their boat, and this was the first house they entered. No wonder, then,
that they made a straight wake for the whale’s mouth—the bar—when the
wrinkled little old Jonah, there officiating, soon poured them out
brimmers all round. One complained of a bad cold in his head, upon
which Jonah mixed him a pitch-like potion of gin and molasses, which he
swore was a sovereign cure for all colds and catarrhs whatsoever, never
mind of how long standing, or whether caught off the coast of Labrador,
or on the weather side of an ice-island.

The liquor soon mounted into their heads, as it generally does even
with the arrantest topers newly landed from sea, and they began
capering about most obstreperously.

I observed, however, that one of them held somewhat aloof, and though
he seemed desirous not to spoil the hilarity of his shipmates by his
own sober face, yet upon the whole he refrained from making as much
noise as the rest. This man interested me at once; and since the
sea-gods had ordained that he should soon become my shipmate (though
but a sleeping-partner one, so far as this narrative is concerned), I
will here venture upon a little description of him. He stood full six
feet in height, with noble shoulders, and a chest like a coffer-dam. I
have seldom seen such brawn in a man. His face was deeply brown and
burnt, making his white teeth dazzling by the contrast; while in the
deep shadows of his eyes floated some reminiscences that did not seem
to give him much joy. His voice at once announced that he was a
Southerner, and from his fine stature, I thought he must be one of
those tall mountaineers from the Alleghanian Ridge in Virginia. When
the revelry of his companions had mounted to its height, this man
slipped away unobserved, and I saw no more of him till he became my
comrade on the sea. In a few minutes, however, he was missed by his
shipmates, and being, it seems, for some reason a huge favourite with
them, they raised a cry of “Bulkington! Bulkington! where’s
Bulkington?” and darted out of the house in pursuit of him.

It was now about nine o’clock, and the room seeming almost
supernaturally quiet after these orgies, I began to congratulate myself
upon a little plan that had occurred to me just previous to the
entrance of the seamen.

No man prefers to sleep two in a bed. In fact, you would a good deal
rather not sleep with your own brother. I don’t know how it is, but
people like to be private when they are sleeping. And when it comes to
sleeping with an unknown stranger, in a strange inn, in a strange town,
and that stranger a harpooneer, then your objections indefinitely
multiply. Nor was there any earthly reason why I as a sailor should
sleep two in a bed, more than anybody else; for sailors no more sleep
two in a bed at sea, than bachelor Kings do ashore. To be sure they all
sleep together in one apartment, but you have your own hammock, and
cover yourself with your own blanket, and sleep in your own skin.

The more I pondered over this harpooneer, the more I abominated the
thought of sleeping with him. It was fair to presume that being a
harpooneer, his linen or woollen, as the case might be, would not be of
the tidiest, certainly none of the finest. I began to twitch all over.
Besides, it was getting late, and my decent harpooneer ought to be home
and going bedwards. Suppose now, he should tumble in upon me at
midnight—how could I tell from what vile hole he had been coming?

“Landlord! I’ve changed my mind about that harpooneer.—I shan’t sleep
with him. I’ll try the bench here.”

“Just as you please; I’m sorry I can’t spare ye a tablecloth for a
mattress, and it’s a plaguy rough board here”—feeling of the knots and
notches. “But wait a bit, Skrimshander; I’ve got a carpenter’s plane
there in the bar—wait, I say, and I’ll make ye snug enough.” So saying
he procured the plane; and with his old silk handkerchief first dusting
the bench, vigorously set to planing away at my bed, the while grinning
like an ape. The shavings flew right and left; till at last the
plane-iron came bump against an indestructible knot. The landlord was
near spraining his wrist, and I told him for heaven’s sake to quit—the
bed was soft enough to suit me, and I did not know how all the planing
in the world could make eider down of a pine plank. So gathering up the
shavings with another grin, and throwing them into the great stove in
the middle of the room, he went about his business, and left me in a
brown study.

I now took the measure of the bench, and found that it was a foot too
short; but that could be mended with a chair. But it was a foot too
narrow, and the other bench in the room was about four inches higher
than the planed one—so there was no yoking them. I then placed the
first bench lengthwise along the only clear space against the wall,
leaving a little interval between, for my back to settle down in. But I
soon found that there came such a draught of cold air over me from
under the sill of the window, that this plan would never do at all,
especially as another current from the rickety door met the one from
the window, and both together formed a series of small whirlwinds in
the immediate vicinity of the spot where I had thought to spend the
night.

The devil fetch that harpooneer, thought I, but stop, couldn’t I steal
a march on him—bolt his door inside, and jump into his bed, not to be
wakened by the most violent knockings? It seemed no bad idea; but upon
second thoughts I dismissed it. For who could tell but what the next
morning, so soon as I popped out of the room, the harpooneer might be
standing in the entry, all ready to knock me down!

Still, looking round me again, and seeing no possible chance of
spending a sufferable night unless in some other person’s bed, I began
to think that after all I might be cherishing unwarrantable prejudices
against this unknown harpooneer. Thinks I, I’ll wait awhile; he must be
dropping in before long. I’ll have a good look at him then, and perhaps
we may become jolly good bedfellows after all—there’s no telling.

But though the other boarders kept coming in by ones, twos, and threes,
and going to bed, yet no sign of my harpooneer.

“Landlord!” said I, “what sort of a chap is he—does he always keep such
late hours?” It was now hard upon twelve o’clock.

The landlord chuckled again with his lean chuckle, and seemed to be
mightily tickled at something beyond my comprehension. “No,” he
answered, “generally he’s an early bird—airley to bed and airley to
rise—yes, he’s the bird what catches the worm. But to-night he went out
a peddling, you see, and I don’t see what on airth keeps him so late,
unless, may be, he can’t sell his head.”

“Can’t sell his head?—What sort of a bamboozingly story is this you are
telling me?” getting into a towering rage. “Do you pretend to say,
landlord, that this harpooneer is actually engaged this blessed
Saturday night, or rather Sunday morning, in peddling his head around
this town?”

“That’s precisely it,” said the landlord, “and I told him he couldn’t
sell it here, the market’s overstocked.”

“With what?” shouted I.

“With heads to be sure; ain’t there too many heads in the world?”

“I tell you what it is, landlord,” said I quite calmly, “you’d better
stop spinning that yarn to me—I’m not green.”

“May be not,” taking out a stick and whittling a toothpick, “but I
rayther guess you’ll be done _brown_ if that ere harpooneer hears you a
slanderin’ his head.”

“I’ll break it for him,” said I, now flying into a passion again at
this unaccountable farrago of the landlord’s.

“It’s broke a’ready,” said he.

“Broke,” said I—“_broke_, do you mean?”

“Sartain, and that’s the very reason he can’t sell it, I guess.”

“Landlord,” said I, going up to him as cool as Mt. Hecla in a
snow-storm—“landlord, stop whittling. You and I must understand one
another, and that too without delay. I come to your house and want a
bed; you tell me you can only give me half a one; that the other half
belongs to a certain harpooneer. And about this harpooneer, whom I have
not yet seen, you persist in telling me the most mystifying and
exasperating stories tending to beget in me an uncomfortable feeling
towards the man whom you design for my bedfellow—a sort of connexion,
landlord, which is an intimate and confidential one in the highest
degree. I now demand of you to speak out and tell me who and what this
harpooneer is, and whether I shall be in all respects safe to spend the
night with him. And in the first place, you will be so good as to unsay
that story about selling his head, which if true I take to be good
evidence that this harpooneer is stark mad, and I’ve no idea of
sleeping with a madman; and you, sir, _you_ I mean, landlord, _you_,
sir, by trying to induce me to do so knowingly, would thereby render
yourself liable to a criminal prosecution.”

“Wall,” said the landlord, fetching a long breath, “that’s a purty long
sarmon for a chap that rips a little now and then. But be easy, be
easy, this here harpooneer I have been tellin’ you of has just arrived
from the south seas, where he bought up a lot of ’balmed New Zealand
heads (great curios, you know), and he’s sold all on ’em but one, and
that one he’s trying to sell to-night, cause to-morrow’s Sunday, and it
would not do to be sellin’ human heads about the streets when folks is
goin’ to churches. He wanted to, last Sunday, but I stopped him just as
he was goin’ out of the door with four heads strung on a string, for
all the airth like a string of inions.”

This account cleared up the otherwise unaccountable mystery, and showed
that the landlord, after all, had had no idea of fooling me—but at the
same time what could I think of a harpooneer who stayed out of a
Saturday night clean into the holy Sabbath, engaged in such a cannibal
business as selling the heads of dead idolators?

“Depend upon it, landlord, that harpooneer is a dangerous man.”

“He pays reg’lar,” was the rejoinder. “But come, it’s getting dreadful
late, you had better be turning flukes—it’s a nice bed; Sal and me
slept in that ere bed the night we were spliced. There’s plenty of room
for two to kick about in that bed; it’s an almighty big bed that. Why,
afore we give it up, Sal used to put our Sam and little Johnny in the
foot of it. But I got a dreaming and sprawling about one night, and
somehow, Sam got pitched on the floor, and came near breaking his arm.
Arter that, Sal said it wouldn’t do. Come along here, I’ll give ye a
glim in a jiffy;” and so saying he lighted a candle and held it towards
me, offering to lead the way. But I stood irresolute; when looking at a
clock in the corner, he exclaimed “I vum it’s Sunday—you won’t see that
harpooneer to-night; he’s come to anchor somewhere—come along then;
_do_ come; _won’t_ ye come?”

I considered the matter a moment, and then up stairs we went, and I was
ushered into a small room, cold as a clam, and furnished, sure enough,
with a prodigious bed, almost big enough indeed for any four
harpooneers to sleep abreast.

“There,” said the landlord, placing the candle on a crazy old sea chest
that did double duty as a wash-stand and centre table; “there, make
yourself comfortable now, and good night to ye.” I turned round from
eyeing the bed, but he had disappeared.

Folding back the counterpane, I stooped over the bed. Though none of
the most elegant, it yet stood the scrutiny tolerably well. I then
glanced round the room; and besides the bedstead and centre table,
could see no other furniture belonging to the place, but a rude shelf,
the four walls, and a papered fireboard representing a man striking a
whale. Of things not properly belonging to the room, there was a
hammock lashed up, and thrown upon the floor in one corner; also a
large seaman’s bag, containing the harpooneer’s wardrobe, no doubt in
lieu of a land trunk. Likewise, there was a parcel of outlandish bone
fish hooks on the shelf over the fire-place, and a tall harpoon
standing at the head of the bed.

But what is this on the chest? I took it up, and held it close to the
light, and felt it, and smelt it, and tried every way possible to
arrive at some satisfactory conclusion concerning it. I can compare it
to nothing but a large door mat, ornamented at the edges with little
tinkling tags something like the stained porcupine quills round an
Indian moccasin. There was a hole or slit in the middle of this mat, as
you see the same in South American ponchos. But could it be possible
that any sober harpooneer would get into a door mat, and parade the
streets of any Christian town in that sort of guise? I put it on, to
try it, and it weighed me down like a hamper, being uncommonly shaggy
and thick, and I thought a little damp, as though this mysterious
harpooneer had been wearing it of a rainy day. I went up in it to a bit
of glass stuck against the wall, and I never saw such a sight in my
life. I tore myself out of it in such a hurry that I gave myself a kink
in the neck.

I sat down on the side of the bed, and commenced thinking about this
head-peddling harpooneer, and his door mat. After thinking some time on
the bed-side, I got up and took off my monkey jacket, and then stood in
the middle of the room thinking. I then took off my coat, and thought a
little more in my shirt sleeves. But beginning to feel very cold now,
half undressed as I was, and remembering what the landlord said about
the harpooneer’s not coming home at all that night, it being so very
late, I made no more ado, but jumped out of my pantaloons and boots,
and then blowing out the light tumbled into bed, and commended myself
to the care of heaven.

Whether that mattress was stuffed with corn-cobs or broken crockery,
there is no telling, but I rolled about a good deal, and could not
sleep for a long time. At last I slid off into a light doze, and had
pretty nearly made a good offing towards the land of Nod, when I heard
a heavy footfall in the passage, and saw a glimmer of light come into
the room from under the door.

Lord save me, thinks I, that must be the harpooneer, the infernal
head-peddler. But I lay perfectly still, and resolved not to say a word
till spoken to. Holding a light in one hand, and that identical New
Zealand head in the other, the stranger entered the room, and without
looking towards the bed, placed his candle a good way off from me on
the floor in one corner, and then began working away at the knotted
cords of the large bag I before spoke of as being in the room. I was
all eagerness to see his face, but he kept it averted for some time
while employed in unlacing the bag’s mouth. This accomplished, however,
he turned round—when, good heavens! what a sight! Such a face! It was
of a dark, purplish, yellow colour, here and there stuck over with
large blackish looking squares. Yes, it’s just as I thought, he’s a
terrible bedfellow; he’s been in a fight, got dreadfully cut, and here
he is, just from the surgeon. But at that moment he chanced to turn his
face so towards the light, that I plainly saw they could not be
sticking-plasters at all, those black squares on his cheeks. They were
stains of some sort or other. At first I knew not what to make of this;
but soon an inkling of the truth occurred to me. I remembered a story
of a white man—a whaleman too—who, falling among the cannibals, had
been tattooed by them. I concluded that this harpooneer, in the course
of his distant voyages, must have met with a similar adventure. And
what is it, thought I, after all! It’s only his outside; a man can be
honest in any sort of skin. But then, what to make of his unearthly
complexion, that part of it, I mean, lying round about, and completely
independent of the squares of tattooing. To be sure, it might be
nothing but a good coat of tropical tanning; but I never heard of a hot
sun’s tanning a white man into a purplish yellow one. However, I had
never been in the South Seas; and perhaps the sun there produced these
extraordinary effects upon the skin. Now, while all these ideas were
passing through me like lightning, this harpooneer never noticed me at
all. But, after some difficulty having opened his bag, he commenced
fumbling in it, and presently pulled out a sort of tomahawk, and a
seal-skin wallet with the hair on. Placing these on the old chest in
the middle of the room, he then took the New Zealand head—a ghastly
thing enough—and crammed it down into the bag. He now took off his
hat—a new beaver hat—when I came nigh singing out with fresh surprise.
There was no hair on his head—none to speak of at least—nothing but a
small scalp-knot twisted up on his forehead. His bald purplish head now
looked for all the world like a mildewed skull. Had not the stranger
stood between me and the door, I would have bolted out of it quicker
than ever I bolted a dinner.

Even as it was, I thought something of slipping out of the window, but
it was the second floor back. I am no coward, but what to make of this
head-peddling purple rascal altogether passed my comprehension.
Ignorance is the parent of fear, and being completely nonplussed and
confounded about the stranger, I confess I was now as much afraid of
him as if it was the devil himself who had thus broken into my room at
the dead of night. In fact, I was so afraid of him that I was not game
enough just then to address him, and demand a satisfactory answer
concerning what seemed inexplicable in him.

Meanwhile, he continued the business of undressing, and at last showed
his chest and arms. As I live, these covered parts of him were
checkered with the same squares as his face; his back, too, was all
over the same dark squares; he seemed to have been in a Thirty Years’
War, and just escaped from it with a sticking-plaster shirt. Still
more, his very legs were marked, as if a parcel of dark green frogs
were running up the trunks of young palms. It was now quite plain that
he must be some abominable savage or other shipped aboard of a whaleman
in the South Seas, and so landed in this Christian country. I quaked to
think of it. A peddler of heads too—perhaps the heads of his own
brothers. He might take a fancy to mine—heavens! look at that tomahawk!

But there was no time for shuddering, for now the savage went about
something that completely fascinated my attention, and convinced me
that he must indeed be a heathen. Going to his heavy grego, or wrapall,
or dreadnaught, which he had previously hung on a chair, he fumbled in
the pockets, and produced at length a curious little deformed image
with a hunch on its back, and exactly the colour of a three days’ old
Congo baby. Remembering the embalmed head, at first I almost thought
that this black manikin was a real baby preserved in some similar
manner. But seeing that it was not at all limber, and that it glistened
a good deal like polished ebony, I concluded that it must be nothing
but a wooden idol, which indeed it proved to be. For now the savage
goes up to the empty fire-place, and removing the papered fire-board,
sets up this little hunch-backed image, like a tenpin, between the
andirons. The chimney jambs and all the bricks inside were very sooty,
so that I thought this fire-place made a very appropriate little shrine
or chapel for his Congo idol.

I now screwed my eyes hard towards the half hidden image, feeling but
ill at ease meantime—to see what was next to follow. First he takes
about a double handful of shavings out of his grego pocket, and places
them carefully before the idol; then laying a bit of ship biscuit on
top and applying the flame from the lamp, he kindled the shavings into
a sacrificial blaze. Presently, after many hasty snatches into the
fire, and still hastier withdrawals of his fingers (whereby he seemed
to be scorching them badly), he at last succeeded in drawing out the
biscuit; then blowing off the heat and ashes a little, he made a polite
offer of it to the little negro. But the little devil did not seem to
fancy such dry sort of fare at all; he never moved his lips. All these
strange antics were accompanied by still stranger guttural noises from
the devotee, who seemed to be praying in a sing-song or else singing
some pagan psalmody or other, during which his face twitched about in
the most unnatural manner. At last extinguishing the fire, he took the
idol up very unceremoniously, and bagged it again in his grego pocket
as carelessly as if he were a sportsman bagging a dead woodcock.

All these queer proceedings increased my uncomfortableness, and seeing
him now exhibiting strong symptoms of concluding his business
operations, and jumping into bed with me, I thought it was high time,
now or never, before the light was put out, to break the spell in which
I had so long been bound.

But the interval I spent in deliberating what to say, was a fatal one.
Taking up his tomahawk from the table, he examined the head of it for
an instant, and then holding it to the light, with his mouth at the
handle, he puffed out great clouds of tobacco smoke. The next moment
the light was extinguished, and this wild cannibal, tomahawk between
his teeth, sprang into bed with me. I sang out, I could not help it
now; and giving a sudden grunt of astonishment he began feeling me.

Stammering out something, I knew not what, I rolled away from him
against the wall, and then conjured him, whoever or whatever he might
be, to keep quiet, and let me get up and light the lamp again. But his
guttural responses satisfied me at once that he but ill comprehended my
meaning.

“Who-e debel you?”—he at last said—“you no speak-e, dam-me, I kill-e.”
And so saying the lighted tomahawk began flourishing about me in the
dark.

“Landlord, for God’s sake, Peter Coffin!” shouted I. “Landlord! Watch!
Coffin! Angels! save me!”

“Speak-e! tell-ee me who-ee be, or dam-me, I kill-e!” again growled the
cannibal, while his horrid flourishings of the tomahawk scattered the
hot tobacco ashes about me till I thought my linen would get on fire.
But thank heaven, at that moment the landlord came into the room light
in hand, and leaping from the bed I ran up to him.

“Don’t be afraid now,” said he, grinning again, “Queequeg here wouldn’t
harm a hair of your head.”

“Stop your grinning,” shouted I, “and why didn’t you tell me that that
infernal harpooneer was a cannibal?”

“I thought ye know’d it;—didn’t I tell ye, he was a peddlin’ heads
around town?—but turn flukes again and go to sleep. Queequeg, look
here—you sabbee me, I sabbee—you this man sleepe you—you sabbee?”

“Me sabbee plenty”—grunted Queequeg, puffing away at his pipe and
sitting up in bed.

“You gettee in,” he added, motioning to me with his tomahawk, and
throwing the clothes to one side. He really did this in not only a
civil but a really kind and charitable way. I stood looking at him a
moment. For all his tattooings he was on the whole a clean, comely
looking cannibal. What’s all this fuss I have been making about,
thought I to myself—the man’s a human being just as I am: he has just
as much reason to fear me, as I have to be afraid of him. Better sleep
with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.

“Landlord,” said I, “tell him to stash his tomahawk there, or pipe, or
whatever you call it; tell him to stop smoking, in short, and I will
turn in with him. But I don’t fancy having a man smoking in bed with
me. It’s dangerous. Besides, I ain’t insured.”

This being told to Queequeg, he at once complied, and again politely
motioned me to get into bed—rolling over to one side as much as to
say—“I won’t touch a leg of ye.”

“Good night, landlord,” said I, “you may go.”

I turned in, and never slept better in my life.


CHAPTER 4. The Counterpane.

Upon waking next morning about daylight, I found Queequeg’s arm thrown
over me in the most loving and affectionate manner. You had almost
thought I had been his wife. The counterpane was of patchwork, full of
odd little parti-coloured squares and triangles; and this arm of his
tattooed all over with an interminable Cretan labyrinth of a figure, no
two parts of which were of one precise shade—owing I suppose to his
keeping his arm at sea unmethodically in sun and shade, his shirt
sleeves irregularly rolled up at various times—this same arm of his, I
say, looked for all the world like a strip of that same patchwork
quilt. Indeed, partly lying on it as the arm did when I first awoke, I
could hardly tell it from the quilt, they so blended their hues
together; and it was only by the sense of weight and pressure that I
could tell that Queequeg was hugging me.

My sensations were strange. Let me try to explain them. When I was a
child, I well remember a somewhat similar circumstance that befell me;
whether it was a reality or a dream, I never could entirely settle. The
circumstance was this. I had been cutting up some caper or other—I
think it was trying to crawl up the chimney, as I had seen a little
sweep do a few days previous; and my stepmother who, somehow or other,
was all the time whipping me, or sending me to bed supperless,—my
mother dragged me by the legs out of the chimney and packed me off to
bed, though it was only two o’clock in the afternoon of the 21st June,
the longest day in the year in our hemisphere. I felt dreadfully. But
there was no help for it, so up stairs I went to my little room in the
third floor, undressed myself as slowly as possible so as to kill time,
and with a bitter sigh got between the sheets.

I lay there dismally calculating that sixteen entire hours must elapse
before I could hope for a resurrection. Sixteen hours in bed! the small
of my back ached to think of it. And it was so light too; the sun
shining in at the window, and a great rattling of coaches in the
streets, and the sound of gay voices all over the house. I felt worse
and worse—at last I got up, dressed, and softly going down in my
stockinged feet, sought out my stepmother, and suddenly threw myself at
her feet, beseeching her as a particular favour to give me a good
slippering for my misbehaviour; anything indeed but condemning me to
lie abed such an unendurable length of time. But she was the best and
most conscientious of stepmothers, and back I had to go to my room. For
several hours I lay there broad awake, feeling a great deal worse than
I have ever done since, even from the greatest subsequent misfortunes.
At last I must have fallen into a troubled nightmare of a doze; and
slowly waking from it—half steeped in dreams—I opened my eyes, and the
before sun-lit room was now wrapped in outer darkness. Instantly I felt
a shock running through all my frame; nothing was to be seen, and
nothing was to be heard; but a supernatural hand seemed placed in mine.
My arm hung over the counterpane, and the nameless, unimaginable,
silent form or phantom, to which the hand belonged, seemed closely
seated by my bed-side. For what seemed ages piled on ages, I lay there,
frozen with the most awful fears, not daring to drag away my hand; yet
ever thinking that if I could but stir it one single inch, the horrid
spell would be broken. I knew not how this consciousness at last glided
away from me; but waking in the morning, I shudderingly remembered it
all, and for days and weeks and months afterwards I lost myself in
confounding attempts to explain the mystery. Nay, to this very hour, I
often puzzle myself with it.

Now, take away the awful fear, and my sensations at feeling the
supernatural hand in mine were very similar, in their strangeness, to
those which I experienced on waking up and seeing Queequeg’s pagan arm
thrown round me. But at length all the past night’s events soberly
recurred, one by one, in fixed reality, and then I lay only alive to
the comical predicament. For though I tried to move his arm—unlock his
bridegroom clasp—yet, sleeping as he was, he still hugged me tightly,
as though naught but death should part us twain. I now strove to rouse
him—“Queequeg!”—but his only answer was a snore. I then rolled over, my
neck feeling as if it were in a horse-collar; and suddenly felt a
slight scratch. Throwing aside the counterpane, there lay the tomahawk
sleeping by the savage’s side, as if it were a hatchet-faced baby. A
pretty pickle, truly, thought I; abed here in a strange house in the
broad day, with a cannibal and a tomahawk! “Queequeg!—in the name of
goodness, Queequeg, wake!” At length, by dint of much wriggling, and
loud and incessant expostulations upon the unbecomingness of his
hugging a fellow male in that matrimonial sort of style, I succeeded in
extracting a grunt; and presently, he drew back his arm, shook himself
all over like a Newfoundland dog just from the water, and sat up in
bed, stiff as a pike-staff, looking at me, and rubbing his eyes as if
he did not altogether remember how I came to be there, though a dim
consciousness of knowing something about me seemed slowly dawning over
him. Meanwhile, I lay quietly eyeing him, having no serious misgivings
now, and bent upon narrowly observing so curious a creature. When, at
last, his mind seemed made up touching the character of his bedfellow,
and he became, as it were, reconciled to the fact; he jumped out upon
the floor, and by certain signs and sounds gave me to understand that,
if it pleased me, he would dress first and then leave me to dress
afterwards, leaving the whole apartment to myself. Thinks I, Queequeg,
under the circumstances, this is a very civilized overture; but, the
truth is, these savages have an innate sense of delicacy, say what you
will; it is marvellous how essentially polite they are. I pay this
particular compliment to Queequeg, because he treated me with so much
civility and consideration, while I was guilty of great rudeness;
staring at him from the bed, and watching all his toilette motions; for
the time my curiosity getting the better of my breeding. Nevertheless,
a man like Queequeg you don’t see every day, he and his ways were well
worth unusual regarding.

He commenced dressing at top by donning his beaver hat, a very tall
one, by the by, and then—still minus his trowsers—he hunted up his
boots. What under the heavens he did it for, I cannot tell, but his
next movement was to crush himself—boots in hand, and hat on—under the
bed; when, from sundry violent gaspings and strainings, I inferred he
was hard at work booting himself; though by no law of propriety that I
ever heard of, is any man required to be private when putting on his
boots. But Queequeg, do you see, was a creature in the transition
stage—neither caterpillar nor butterfly. He was just enough civilized
to show off his outlandishness in the strangest possible manners. His
education was not yet completed. He was an undergraduate. If he had not
been a small degree civilized, he very probably would not have troubled
himself with boots at all; but then, if he had not been still a savage,
he never would have dreamt of getting under the bed to put them on. At
last, he emerged with his hat very much dented and crushed down over
his eyes, and began creaking and limping about the room, as if, not
being much accustomed to boots, his pair of damp, wrinkled cowhide
ones—probably not made to order either—rather pinched and tormented him
at the first go off of a bitter cold morning.

Seeing, now, that there were no curtains to the window, and that the
street being very narrow, the house opposite commanded a plain view
into the room, and observing more and more the indecorous figure that
Queequeg made, staving about with little else but his hat and boots on;
I begged him as well as I could, to accelerate his toilet somewhat, and
particularly to get into his pantaloons as soon as possible. He
complied, and then proceeded to wash himself. At that time in the
morning any Christian would have washed his face; but Queequeg, to my
amazement, contented himself with restricting his ablutions to his
chest, arms, and hands. He then donned his waistcoat, and taking up a
piece of hard soap on the wash-stand centre table, dipped it into water
and commenced lathering his face. I was watching to see where he kept
his razor, when lo and behold, he takes the harpoon from the bed
corner, slips out the long wooden stock, unsheathes the head, whets it
a little on his boot, and striding up to the bit of mirror against the
wall, begins a vigorous scraping, or rather harpooning of his cheeks.
Thinks I, Queequeg, this is using Rogers’s best cutlery with a
vengeance. Afterwards I wondered the less at this operation when I came
to know of what fine steel the head of a harpoon is made, and how
exceedingly sharp the long straight edges are always kept.

The rest of his toilet was soon achieved, and he proudly marched out of
the room, wrapped up in his great pilot monkey jacket, and sporting his
harpoon like a marshal’s baton.


CHAPTER 5. Breakfast.

I quickly followed suit, and descending into the bar-room accosted the
grinning landlord very pleasantly. I cherished no malice towards him,
though he had been skylarking with me not a little in the matter of my
bedfellow.

However, a good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce a
good thing; the more’s the pity. So, if any one man, in his own proper
person, afford stuff for a good joke to anybody, let him not be
backward, but let him cheerfully allow himself to spend and be spent in
that way. And the man that has anything bountifully laughable about
him, be sure there is more in that man than you perhaps think for.

The bar-room was now full of the boarders who had been dropping in the
night previous, and whom I had not as yet had a good look at. They were
nearly all whalemen; chief mates, and second mates, and third mates,
and sea carpenters, and sea coopers, and sea blacksmiths, and
harpooneers, and ship keepers; a brown and brawny company, with bosky
beards; an unshorn, shaggy set, all wearing monkey jackets for morning
gowns.

You could pretty plainly tell how long each one had been ashore. This
young fellow’s healthy cheek is like a sun-toasted pear in hue, and
would seem to smell almost as musky; he cannot have been three days
landed from his Indian voyage. That man next him looks a few shades
lighter; you might say a touch of satin wood is in him. In the
complexion of a third still lingers a tropic tawn, but slightly
bleached withal; _he_ doubtless has tarried whole weeks ashore. But who
could show a cheek like Queequeg? which, barred with various tints,
seemed like the Andes’ western slope, to show forth in one array,
contrasting climates, zone by zone.

“Grub, ho!” now cried the landlord, flinging open a door, and in we
went to breakfast.

They say that men who have seen the world, thereby become quite at ease
in manner, quite self-possessed in company. Not always, though:
Ledyard, the great New England traveller, and Mungo Park, the Scotch
one; of all men, they possessed the least assurance in the parlor. But
perhaps the mere crossing of Siberia in a sledge drawn by dogs as
Ledyard did, or the taking a long solitary walk on an empty stomach, in
the negro heart of Africa, which was the sum of poor Mungo’s
performances—this kind of travel, I say, may not be the very best mode
of attaining a high social polish. Still, for the most part, that sort
of thing is to be had anywhere.

These reflections just here are occasioned by the circumstance that
after we were all seated at the table, and I was preparing to hear some
good stories about whaling; to my no small surprise, nearly every man
maintained a profound silence. And not only that, but they looked
embarrassed. Yes, here were a set of sea-dogs, many of whom without the
slightest bashfulness had boarded great whales on the high seas—entire
strangers to them—and duelled them dead without winking; and yet, here
they sat at a social breakfast table—all of the same calling, all of
kindred tastes—looking round as sheepishly at each other as though they
had never been out of sight of some sheepfold among the Green
Mountains. A curious sight; these bashful bears, these timid warrior
whalemen!

But as for Queequeg—why, Queequeg sat there among them—at the head of
the table, too, it so chanced; as cool as an icicle. To be sure I
cannot say much for his breeding. His greatest admirer could not have
cordially justified his bringing his harpoon into breakfast with him,
and using it there without ceremony; reaching over the table with it,
to the imminent jeopardy of many heads, and grappling the beefsteaks
towards him. But _that_ was certainly very coolly done by him, and
every one knows that in most people’s estimation, to do anything coolly
is to do it genteelly.

We will not speak of all Queequeg’s peculiarities here; how he eschewed
coffee and hot rolls, and applied his undivided attention to
beefsteaks, done rare. Enough, that when breakfast was over he withdrew
like the rest into the public room, lighted his tomahawk-pipe, and was
sitting there quietly digesting and smoking with his inseparable hat
on, when I sallied out for a stroll.


CHAPTER 6. The Street.

If I had been astonished at first catching a glimpse of so outlandish
an individual as Queequeg circulating among the polite society of a
civilized town, that astonishment soon departed upon taking my first
daylight stroll through the streets of New Bedford.

In thoroughfares nigh the docks, any considerable seaport will
frequently offer to view the queerest looking nondescripts from foreign
parts. Even in Broadway and Chestnut streets, Mediterranean mariners
will sometimes jostle the affrighted ladies. Regent Street is not
unknown to Lascars and Malays; and at Bombay, in the Apollo Green, live
Yankees have often scared the natives. But New Bedford beats all Water
Street and Wapping. In these last-mentioned haunts you see only
sailors; but in New Bedford, actual cannibals stand chatting at street
corners; savages outright; many of whom yet carry on their bones unholy
flesh. It makes a stranger stare.

But, besides the Feegeeans, Tongatobooarrs, Erromanggoans, Pannangians,
and Brighggians, and, besides the wild specimens of the whaling-craft
which unheeded reel about the streets, you will see other sights still
more curious, certainly more comical. There weekly arrive in this town
scores of green Vermonters and New Hampshire men, all athirst for gain
and glory in the fishery. They are mostly young, of stalwart frames;
fellows who have felled forests, and now seek to drop the axe and
snatch the whale-lance. Many are as green as the Green Mountains whence
they came. In some things you would think them but a few hours old.
Look there! that chap strutting round the corner. He wears a beaver hat
and swallow-tailed coat, girdled with a sailor-belt and sheath-knife.
Here comes another with a sou’-wester and a bombazine cloak.

No town-bred dandy will compare with a country-bred one—I mean a
downright bumpkin dandy—a fellow that, in the dog-days, will mow his
two acres in buckskin gloves for fear of tanning his hands. Now when a
country dandy like this takes it into his head to make a distinguished
reputation, and joins the great whale-fishery, you should see the
comical things he does upon reaching the seaport. In bespeaking his
sea-outfit, he orders bell-buttons to his waistcoats; straps to his
canvas trowsers. Ah, poor Hay-Seed! how bitterly will burst those
straps in the first howling gale, when thou art driven, straps,
buttons, and all, down the throat of the tempest.

But think not that this famous town has only harpooneers, cannibals,
and bumpkins to show her visitors. Not at all. Still New Bedford is a
queer place. Had it not been for us whalemen, that tract of land would
this day perhaps have been in as howling condition as the coast of
Labrador. As it is, parts of her back country are enough to frighten
one, they look so bony. The town itself is perhaps the dearest place to
live in, in all New England. It is a land of oil, true enough: but not
like Canaan; a land, also, of corn and wine. The streets do not run
with milk; nor in the spring-time do they pave them with fresh eggs.
Yet, in spite of this, nowhere in all America will you find more
patrician-like houses; parks and gardens more opulent, than in New
Bedford. Whence came they? how planted upon this once scraggy scoria of
a country?

Go and gaze upon the iron emblematical harpoons round yonder lofty
mansion, and your question will be answered. Yes; all these brave
houses and flowery gardens came from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian
oceans. One and all, they were harpooned and dragged up hither from the
bottom of the sea. Can Herr Alexander perform a feat like that?

In New Bedford, fathers, they say, give whales for dowers to their
daughters, and portion off their nieces with a few porpoises a-piece.
You must go to New Bedford to see a brilliant wedding; for, they say,
they have reservoirs of oil in every house, and every night recklessly
burn their lengths in spermaceti candles.

In summer time, the town is sweet to see; full of fine maples—long
avenues of green and gold. And in August, high in air, the beautiful
and bountiful horse-chestnuts, candelabra-wise, proffer the passer-by
their tapering upright cones of congregated blossoms. So omnipotent is
art; which in many a district of New Bedford has superinduced bright
terraces of flowers upon the barren refuse rocks thrown aside at
creation’s final day.

And the women of New Bedford, they bloom like their own red roses. But
roses only bloom in summer; whereas the fine carnation of their cheeks
is perennial as sunlight in the seventh heavens. Elsewhere match that
bloom of theirs, ye cannot, save in Salem, where they tell me the young
girls breathe such musk, their sailor sweethearts smell them miles off
shore, as though they were drawing nigh the odorous Moluccas instead of
the Puritanic sands.


CHAPTER 7. The Chapel.

In this same New Bedford there stands a Whaleman’s Chapel, and few are
the moody fishermen, shortly bound for the Indian Ocean or Pacific, who
fail to make a Sunday visit to the spot. I am sure that I did not.

Returning from my first morning stroll, I again sallied out upon this
special errand. The sky had changed from clear, sunny cold, to driving
sleet and mist. Wrapping myself in my shaggy jacket of the cloth called
bearskin, I fought my way against the stubborn storm. Entering, I found
a small scattered congregation of sailors, and sailors’ wives and
widows. A muffled silence reigned, only broken at times by the shrieks
of the storm. Each silent worshipper seemed purposely sitting apart
from the other, as if each silent grief were insular and
incommunicable. The chaplain had not yet arrived; and there these
silent islands of men and women sat steadfastly eyeing several marble
tablets, with black borders, masoned into the wall on either side the
pulpit. Three of them ran something like the following, but I do not
pretend to quote:—

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF JOHN TALBOT, Who, at the age of eighteen, was
lost overboard, Near the Isle of Desolation, off Patagonia, _November_
1_st_, 1836. THIS TABLET Is erected to his Memory BY HIS SISTER.

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF ROBERT LONG, WILLIS ELLERY, NATHAN COLEMAN,
WALTER CANNY, SETH MACY, AND SAMUEL GLEIG, Forming one of the boats’
crews OF THE SHIP ELIZA Who were towed out of sight by a Whale, On the
Off-shore Ground in the PACIFIC, _December_ 31_st_, 1839. THIS MARBLE
Is here placed by their surviving SHIPMATES.

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF The late CAPTAIN EZEKIEL HARDY, Who in the bows
of his boat was killed by a Sperm Whale on the coast of Japan, _August_
3_d_, 1833. THIS TABLET Is erected to his Memory BY HIS WIDOW.

Shaking off the sleet from my ice-glazed hat and jacket, I seated
myself near the door, and turning sideways was surprised to see
Queequeg near me. Affected by the solemnity of the scene, there was a
wondering gaze of incredulous curiosity in his countenance. This savage
was the only person present who seemed to notice my entrance; because
he was the only one who could not read, and, therefore, was not reading
those frigid inscriptions on the wall. Whether any of the relatives of
the seamen whose names appeared there were now among the congregation,
I knew not; but so many are the unrecorded accidents in the fishery,
and so plainly did several women present wear the countenance if not
the trappings of some unceasing grief, that I feel sure that here
before me were assembled those, in whose unhealing hearts the sight of
those bleak tablets sympathetically caused the old wounds to bleed
afresh.

Oh! ye whose dead lie buried beneath the green grass; who standing
among flowers can say—here, _here_ lies my beloved; ye know not the
desolation that broods in bosoms like these. What bitter blanks in
those black-bordered marbles which cover no ashes! What despair in
those immovable inscriptions! What deadly voids and unbidden
infidelities in the lines that seem to gnaw upon all Faith, and refuse
resurrections to the beings who have placelessly perished without a
grave. As well might those tablets stand in the cave of Elephanta as
here.

In what census of living creatures, the dead of mankind are included;
why it is that a universal proverb says of them, that they tell no
tales, though containing more secrets than the Goodwin Sands; how it is
that to his name who yesterday departed for the other world, we prefix
so significant and infidel a word, and yet do not thus entitle him, if
he but embarks for the remotest Indies of this living earth; why the
Life Insurance Companies pay death-forfeitures upon immortals; in what
eternal, unstirring paralysis, and deadly, hopeless trance, yet lies
antique Adam who died sixty round centuries ago; how it is that we
still refuse to be comforted for those who we nevertheless maintain are
dwelling in unspeakable bliss; why all the living so strive to hush all
the dead; wherefore but the rumor of a knocking in a tomb will terrify
a whole city. All these things are not without their meanings.

But Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these
dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.

It needs scarcely to be told, with what feelings, on the eve of a
Nantucket voyage, I regarded those marble tablets, and by the murky
light of that darkened, doleful day read the fate of the whalemen who
had gone before me. Yes, Ishmael, the same fate may be thine. But
somehow I grew merry again. Delightful inducements to embark, fine
chance for promotion, it seems—aye, a stove boat will make me an
immortal by brevet. Yes, there is death in this business of whaling—a
speechlessly quick chaotic bundling of a man into Eternity. But what
then? Methinks we have hugely mistaken this matter of Life and Death.
Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true
substance. Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too
much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking
that thick water the thinnest of air. Methinks my body is but the lees
of my better being. In fact take my body who will, take it I say, it is
not me. And therefore three cheers for Nantucket; and come a stove boat
and stove body when they will, for stave my soul, Jove himself cannot.


CHAPTER 8. The Pulpit.

I had not been seated very long ere a man of a certain venerable
robustness entered; immediately as the storm-pelted door flew back upon
admitting him, a quick regardful eyeing of him by all the congregation,
sufficiently attested that this fine old man was the chaplain. Yes, it
was the famous Father Mapple, so called by the whalemen, among whom he
was a very great favourite. He had been a sailor and a harpooneer in
his youth, but for many years past had dedicated his life to the
ministry. At the time I now write of, Father Mapple was in the hardy
winter of a healthy old age; that sort of old age which seems merging
into a second flowering youth, for among all the fissures of his
wrinkles, there shone certain mild gleams of a newly developing
bloom—the spring verdure peeping forth even beneath February’s snow. No
one having previously heard his history, could for the first time
behold Father Mapple without the utmost interest, because there were
certain engrafted clerical peculiarities about him, imputable to that
adventurous maritime life he had led. When he entered I observed that
he carried no umbrella, and certainly had not come in his carriage, for
his tarpaulin hat ran down with melting sleet, and his great pilot
cloth jacket seemed almost to drag him to the floor with the weight of
the water it had absorbed. However, hat and coat and overshoes were one
by one removed, and hung up in a little space in an adjacent corner;
when, arrayed in a decent suit, he quietly approached the pulpit.

Like most old fashioned pulpits, it was a very lofty one, and since a
regular stairs to such a height would, by its long angle with the
floor, seriously contract the already small area of the chapel, the
architect, it seemed, had acted upon the hint of Father Mapple, and
finished the pulpit without a stairs, substituting a perpendicular side
ladder, like those used in mounting a ship from a boat at sea. The wife
of a whaling captain had provided the chapel with a handsome pair of
red worsted man-ropes for this ladder, which, being itself nicely
headed, and stained with a mahogany colour, the whole contrivance,
considering what manner of chapel it was, seemed by no means in bad
taste. Halting for an instant at the foot of the ladder, and with both
hands grasping the ornamental knobs of the man-ropes, Father Mapple
cast a look upwards, and then with a truly sailor-like but still
reverential dexterity, hand over hand, mounted the steps as if
ascending the main-top of his vessel.

The perpendicular parts of this side ladder, as is usually the case
with swinging ones, were of cloth-covered rope, only the rounds were of
wood, so that at every step there was a joint. At my first glimpse of
the pulpit, it had not escaped me that however convenient for a ship,
these joints in the present instance seemed unnecessary. For I was not
prepared to see Father Mapple after gaining the height, slowly turn
round, and stooping over the pulpit, deliberately drag up the ladder
step by step, till the whole was deposited within, leaving him
impregnable in his little Quebec.

I pondered some time without fully comprehending the reason for this.
Father Mapple enjoyed such a wide reputation for sincerity and
sanctity, that I could not suspect him of courting notoriety by any
mere tricks of the stage. No, thought I, there must be some sober
reason for this thing; furthermore, it must symbolize something unseen.
Can it be, then, that by that act of physical isolation, he signifies
his spiritual withdrawal for the time, from all outward worldly ties
and connexions? Yes, for replenished with the meat and wine of the
word, to the faithful man of God, this pulpit, I see, is a
self-containing stronghold—a lofty Ehrenbreitstein, with a perennial
well of water within the walls.

But the side ladder was not the only strange feature of the place,
borrowed from the chaplain’s former sea-farings. Between the marble
cenotaphs on either hand of the pulpit, the wall which formed its back
was adorned with a large painting representing a gallant ship beating
against a terrible storm off a lee coast of black rocks and snowy
breakers. But high above the flying scud and dark-rolling clouds, there
floated a little isle of sunlight, from which beamed forth an angel’s
face; and this bright face shed a distinct spot of radiance upon the
ship’s tossed deck, something like that silver plate now inserted into
the Victory’s plank where Nelson fell. “Ah, noble ship,” the angel
seemed to say, “beat on, beat on, thou noble ship, and bear a hardy
helm; for lo! the sun is breaking through; the clouds are rolling
off—serenest azure is at hand.”

Nor was the pulpit itself without a trace of the same sea-taste that
had achieved the ladder and the picture. Its panelled front was in the
likeness of a ship’s bluff bows, and the Holy Bible rested on a
projecting piece of scroll work, fashioned after a ship’s fiddle-headed
beak.

What could be more full of meaning?—for the pulpit is ever this earth’s
foremost part; all the rest comes in its rear; the pulpit leads the
world. From thence it is the storm of God’s quick wrath is first
descried, and the bow must bear the earliest brunt. From thence it is
the God of breezes fair or foul is first invoked for favourable winds.
Yes, the world’s a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete;
and the pulpit is its prow.


CHAPTER 9. The Sermon.

Father Mapple rose, and in a mild voice of unassuming authority ordered
the scattered people to condense. “Starboard gangway, there! side away
to larboard—larboard gangway to starboard! Midships! midships!”

There was a low rumbling of heavy sea-boots among the benches, and a
still slighter shuffling of women’s shoes, and all was quiet again, and
every eye on the preacher.

He paused a little; then kneeling in the pulpit’s bows, folded his
large brown hands across his chest, uplifted his closed eyes, and
offered a prayer so deeply devout that he seemed kneeling and praying
at the bottom of the sea.

This ended, in prolonged solemn tones, like the continual tolling of a
bell in a ship that is foundering at sea in a fog—in such tones he
commenced reading the following hymn; but changing his manner towards
the concluding stanzas, burst forth with a pealing exultation and joy—


  “The ribs and terrors in the whale, Arched over me a dismal gloom,
  While all God’s sun-lit waves rolled by, And lift me deepening down
  to doom.

  “I saw the opening maw of hell, With endless pains and sorrows there;
  Which none but they that feel can tell— Oh, I was plunging to
  despair.

  “In black distress, I called my God, When I could scarce believe him
  mine, He bowed his ear to my complaints— No more the whale did me
  confine.

  “With speed he flew to my relief, As on a radiant dolphin borne;
  Awful, yet bright, as lightning shone The face of my Deliverer God.

  “My song for ever shall record That terrible, that joyful hour; I
  give the glory to my God, His all the mercy and the power.”




Nearly all joined in singing this hymn, which swelled high above the
howling of the storm. A brief pause ensued; the preacher slowly turned
over the leaves of the Bible, and at last, folding his hand down upon
the proper page, said: “Beloved shipmates, clinch the last verse of the
first chapter of Jonah—‘And God had prepared a great fish to swallow up
Jonah.’”

“Shipmates, this book, containing only four chapters—four yarns—is one
of the smallest strands in the mighty cable of the Scriptures. Yet what
depths of the soul does Jonah’s deep sealine sound! what a pregnant
lesson to us is this prophet! What a noble thing is that canticle in
the fish’s belly! How billow-like and boisterously grand! We feel the
floods surging over us; we sound with him to the kelpy bottom of the
waters; sea-weed and all the slime of the sea is about us! But _what_
is this lesson that the book of Jonah teaches? Shipmates, it is a
two-stranded lesson; a lesson to us all as sinful men, and a lesson to
me as a pilot of the living God. As sinful men, it is a lesson to us
all, because it is a story of the sin, hard-heartedness, suddenly
awakened fears, the swift punishment, repentance, prayers, and finally
the deliverance and joy of Jonah. As with all sinners among men, the
sin of this son of Amittai was in his wilful disobedience of the
command of God—never mind now what that command was, or how
conveyed—which he found a hard command. But all the things that God
would have us do are hard for us to do—remember that—and hence, he
oftener commands us than endeavors to persuade. And if we obey God, we
must disobey ourselves; and it is in this disobeying ourselves, wherein
the hardness of obeying God consists.

“With this sin of disobedience in him, Jonah still further flouts at
God, by seeking to flee from Him. He thinks that a ship made by men
will carry him into countries where God does not reign, but only the
Captains of this earth. He skulks about the wharves of Joppa, and seeks
a ship that’s bound for Tarshish. There lurks, perhaps, a hitherto
unheeded meaning here. By all accounts Tarshish could have been no
other city than the modern Cadiz. That’s the opinion of learned men.
And where is Cadiz, shipmates? Cadiz is in Spain; as far by water, from
Joppa, as Jonah could possibly have sailed in those ancient days, when
the Atlantic was an almost unknown sea. Because Joppa, the modern
Jaffa, shipmates, is on the most easterly coast of the Mediterranean,
the Syrian; and Tarshish or Cadiz more than two thousand miles to the
westward from that, just outside the Straits of Gibraltar. See ye not
then, shipmates, that Jonah sought to flee world-wide from God?
Miserable man! Oh! most contemptible and worthy of all scorn; with
slouched hat and guilty eye, skulking from his God; prowling among the
shipping like a vile burglar hastening to cross the seas. So
disordered, self-condemning is his look, that had there been policemen
in those days, Jonah, on the mere suspicion of something wrong, had
been arrested ere he touched a deck. How plainly he’s a fugitive! no
baggage, not a hat-box, valise, or carpet-bag,—no friends accompany him
to the wharf with their adieux. At last, after much dodging search, he
finds the Tarshish ship receiving the last items of her cargo; and as
he steps on board to see its Captain in the cabin, all the sailors for
the moment desist from hoisting in the goods, to mark the stranger’s
evil eye. Jonah sees this; but in vain he tries to look all ease and
confidence; in vain essays his wretched smile. Strong intuitions of the
man assure the mariners he can be no innocent. In their gamesome but
still serious way, one whispers to the other—“Jack, he’s robbed a
widow;” or, “Joe, do you mark him; he’s a bigamist;” or, “Harry lad, I
guess he’s the adulterer that broke jail in old Gomorrah, or belike,
one of the missing murderers from Sodom.” Another runs to read the bill
that’s stuck against the spile upon the wharf to which the ship is
moored, offering five hundred gold coins for the apprehension of a
parricide, and containing a description of his person. He reads, and
looks from Jonah to the bill; while all his sympathetic shipmates now
crowd round Jonah, prepared to lay their hands upon him. Frighted Jonah
trembles, and summoning all his boldness to his face, only looks so
much the more a coward. He will not confess himself suspected; but that
itself is strong suspicion. So he makes the best of it; and when the
sailors find him not to be the man that is advertised, they let him
pass, and he descends into the cabin.

“‘Who’s there?’ cries the Captain at his busy desk, hurriedly making
out his papers for the Customs—‘Who’s there?’ Oh! how that harmless
question mangles Jonah! For the instant he almost turns to flee again.
But he rallies. ‘I seek a passage in this ship to Tarshish; how soon
sail ye, sir?’ Thus far the busy Captain had not looked up to Jonah,
though the man now stands before him; but no sooner does he hear that
hollow voice, than he darts a scrutinizing glance. ‘We sail with the
next coming tide,’ at last he slowly answered, still intently eyeing
him. ‘No sooner, sir?’—‘Soon enough for any honest man that goes a
passenger.’ Ha! Jonah, that’s another stab. But he swiftly calls away
the Captain from that scent. ‘I’ll sail with ye,’—he says,—‘the passage
money how much is that?—I’ll pay now.’ For it is particularly written,
shipmates, as if it were a thing not to be overlooked in this history,
‘that he paid the fare thereof’ ere the craft did sail. And taken with
the context, this is full of meaning.

“Now Jonah’s Captain, shipmates, was one whose discernment detects
crime in any, but whose cupidity exposes it only in the penniless. In
this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely, and
without a passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all
frontiers. So Jonah’s Captain prepares to test the length of Jonah’s
purse, ere he judge him openly. He charges him thrice the usual sum;
and it’s assented to. Then the Captain knows that Jonah is a fugitive;
but at the same time resolves to help a flight that paves its rear with
gold. Yet when Jonah fairly takes out his purse, prudent suspicions
still molest the Captain. He rings every coin to find a counterfeit.
Not a forger, any way, he mutters; and Jonah is put down for his
passage. ‘Point out my state-room, Sir,’ says Jonah now, ‘I’m
travel-weary; I need sleep.’ ‘Thou lookest like it,’ says the Captain,
‘there’s thy room.’ Jonah enters, and would lock the door, but the lock
contains no key. Hearing him foolishly fumbling there, the Captain
laughs lowly to himself, and mutters something about the doors of
convicts’ cells being never allowed to be locked within. All dressed
and dusty as he is, Jonah throws himself into his berth, and finds the
little state-room ceiling almost resting on his forehead. The air is
close, and Jonah gasps. Then, in that contracted hole, sunk, too,
beneath the ship’s water-line, Jonah feels the heralding presentiment
of that stifling hour, when the whale shall hold him in the smallest of
his bowels’ wards.

“Screwed at its axis against the side, a swinging lamp slightly
oscillates in Jonah’s room; and the ship, heeling over towards the
wharf with the weight of the last bales received, the lamp, flame and
all, though in slight motion, still maintains a permanent obliquity
with reference to the room; though, in truth, infallibly straight
itself, it but made obvious the false, lying levels among which it
hung. The lamp alarms and frightens Jonah; as lying in his berth his
tormented eyes roll round the place, and this thus far successful
fugitive finds no refuge for his restless glance. But that
contradiction in the lamp more and more appals him. The floor, the
ceiling, and the side, are all awry. ‘Oh! so my conscience hangs in
me!’ he groans, ‘straight upwards, so it burns; but the chambers of my
soul are all in crookedness!’

“Like one who after a night of drunken revelry hies to his bed, still
reeling, but with conscience yet pricking him, as the plungings of the
Roman race-horse but so much the more strike his steel tags into him;
as one who in that miserable plight still turns and turns in giddy
anguish, praying God for annihilation until the fit be passed; and at
last amid the whirl of woe he feels, a deep stupor steals over him, as
over the man who bleeds to death, for conscience is the wound, and
there’s naught to staunch it; so, after sore wrestlings in his berth,
Jonah’s prodigy of ponderous misery drags him drowning down to sleep.

“And now the time of tide has come; the ship casts off her cables; and
from the deserted wharf the uncheered ship for Tarshish, all careening,
glides to sea. That ship, my friends, was the first of recorded
smugglers! the contraband was Jonah. But the sea rebels; he will not
bear the wicked burden. A dreadful storm comes on, the ship is like to
break. But now when the boatswain calls all hands to lighten her; when
boxes, bales, and jars are clattering overboard; when the wind is
shrieking, and the men are yelling, and every plank thunders with
trampling feet right over Jonah’s head; in all this raging tumult,
Jonah sleeps his hideous sleep. He sees no black sky and raging sea,
feels not the reeling timbers, and little hears he or heeds he the far
rush of the mighty whale, which even now with open mouth is cleaving
the seas after him. Aye, shipmates, Jonah was gone down into the sides
of the ship—a berth in the cabin as I have taken it, and was fast
asleep. But the frightened master comes to him, and shrieks in his dead
ear, ‘What meanest thou, O, sleeper! arise!’ Startled from his lethargy
by that direful cry, Jonah staggers to his feet, and stumbling to the
deck, grasps a shroud, to look out upon the sea. But at that moment he
is sprung upon by a panther billow leaping over the bulwarks. Wave
after wave thus leaps into the ship, and finding no speedy vent runs
roaring fore and aft, till the mariners come nigh to drowning while yet
afloat. And ever, as the white moon shows her affrighted face from the
steep gullies in the blackness overhead, aghast Jonah sees the rearing
bowsprit pointing high upward, but soon beat downward again towards the
tormented deep.

“Terrors upon terrors run shouting through his soul. In all his
cringing attitudes, the God-fugitive is now too plainly known. The
sailors mark him; more and more certain grow their suspicions of him,
and at last, fully to test the truth, by referring the whole matter to
high Heaven, they fall to casting lots, to see for whose cause this
great tempest was upon them. The lot is Jonah’s; that discovered, then
how furiously they mob him with their questions. ‘What is thine
occupation? Whence comest thou? Thy country? What people? But mark now,
my shipmates, the behavior of poor Jonah. The eager mariners but ask
him who he is, and where from; whereas, they not only receive an answer
to those questions, but likewise another answer to a question not put
by them, but the unsolicited answer is forced from Jonah by the hard
hand of God that is upon him.

“‘I am a Hebrew,’ he cries—and then—‘I fear the Lord the God of Heaven
who hath made the sea and the dry land!’ Fear him, O Jonah? Aye, well
mightest thou fear the Lord God _then!_ Straightway, he now goes on to
make a full confession; whereupon the mariners became more and more
appalled, but still are pitiful. For when Jonah, not yet supplicating
God for mercy, since he but too well knew the darkness of his
deserts,—when wretched Jonah cries out to them to take him and cast him
forth into the sea, for he knew that for _his_ sake this great tempest
was upon them; they mercifully turn from him, and seek by other means
to save the ship. But all in vain; the indignant gale howls louder;
then, with one hand raised invokingly to God, with the other they not
unreluctantly lay hold of Jonah.

“And now behold Jonah taken up as an anchor and dropped into the sea;
when instantly an oily calmness floats out from the east, and the sea
is still, as Jonah carries down the gale with him, leaving smooth water
behind. He goes down in the whirling heart of such a masterless
commotion that he scarce heeds the moment when he drops seething into
the yawning jaws awaiting him; and the whale shoots-to all his ivory
teeth, like so many white bolts, upon his prison. Then Jonah prayed
unto the Lord out of the fish’s belly. But observe his prayer, and
learn a weighty lesson. For sinful as he is, Jonah does not weep and
wail for direct deliverance. He feels that his dreadful punishment is
just. He leaves all his deliverance to God, contenting himself with
this, that spite of all his pains and pangs, he will still look towards
His holy temple. And here, shipmates, is true and faithful repentance;
not clamorous for pardon, but grateful for punishment. And how pleasing
to God was this conduct in Jonah, is shown in the eventual deliverance
of him from the sea and the whale. Shipmates, I do not place Jonah
before you to be copied for his sin but I do place him before you as a
model for repentance. Sin not; but if you do, take heed to repent of it
like Jonah.”

While he was speaking these words, the howling of the shrieking,
slanting storm without seemed to add new power to the preacher, who,
when describing Jonah’s sea-storm, seemed tossed by a storm himself.
His deep chest heaved as with a ground-swell; his tossed arms seemed
the warring elements at work; and the thunders that rolled away from
off his swarthy brow, and the light leaping from his eye, made all his
simple hearers look on him with a quick fear that was strange to them.

There now came a lull in his look, as he silently turned over the
leaves of the Book once more; and, at last, standing motionless, with
closed eyes, for the moment, seemed communing with God and himself.

But again he leaned over towards the people, and bowing his head lowly,
with an aspect of the deepest yet manliest humility, he spake these
words:

“Shipmates, God has laid but one hand upon you; both his hands press
upon me. I have read ye by what murky light may be mine the lesson that
Jonah teaches to all sinners; and therefore to ye, and still more to
me, for I am a greater sinner than ye. And now how gladly would I come
down from this mast-head and sit on the hatches there where you sit,
and listen as you listen, while some one of you reads _me_ that other
and more awful lesson which Jonah teaches to _me_, as a pilot of the
living God. How being an anointed pilot-prophet, or speaker of true
things, and bidden by the Lord to sound those unwelcome truths in the
ears of a wicked Nineveh, Jonah, appalled at the hostility he should
raise, fled from his mission, and sought to escape his duty and his God
by taking ship at Joppa. But God is everywhere; Tarshish he never
reached. As we have seen, God came upon him in the whale, and swallowed
him down to living gulfs of doom, and with swift slantings tore him
along ‘into the midst of the seas,’ where the eddying depths sucked him
ten thousand fathoms down, and ‘the weeds were wrapped about his head,’
and all the watery world of woe bowled over him. Yet even then beyond
the reach of any plummet—‘out of the belly of hell’—when the whale
grounded upon the ocean’s utmost bones, even then, God heard the
engulphed, repenting prophet when he cried. Then God spake unto the
fish; and from the shuddering cold and blackness of the sea, the whale
came breeching up towards the warm and pleasant sun, and all the
delights of air and earth; and ‘vomited out Jonah upon the dry land;’
when the word of the Lord came a second time; and Jonah, bruised and
beaten—his ears, like two sea-shells, still multitudinously murmuring
of the ocean—Jonah did the Almighty’s bidding. And what was that,
shipmates? To preach the Truth to the face of Falsehood! That was it!

“This, shipmates, this is that other lesson; and woe to that pilot of
the living God who slights it. Woe to him whom this world charms from
Gospel duty! Woe to him who seeks to pour oil upon the waters when God
has brewed them into a gale! Woe to him who seeks to please rather than
to appal! Woe to him whose good name is more to him than goodness! Woe
to him who, in this world, courts not dishonor! Woe to him who would
not be true, even though to be false were salvation! Yea, woe to him
who, as the great Pilot Paul has it, while preaching to others is
himself a castaway!”

He dropped and fell away from himself for a moment; then lifting his
face to them again, showed a deep joy in his eyes, as he cried out with
a heavenly enthusiasm,—“But oh! shipmates! on the starboard hand of
every woe, there is a sure delight; and higher the top of that delight,
than the bottom of the woe is deep. Is not the main-truck higher than
the kelson is low? Delight is to him—a far, far upward, and inward
delight—who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever
stands forth his own inexorable self. Delight is to him whose strong
arms yet support him, when the ship of this base treacherous world has
gone down beneath him. Delight is to him, who gives no quarter in the
truth, and kills, burns, and destroys all sin though he pluck it out
from under the robes of Senators and Judges. Delight,—top-gallant
delight is to him, who acknowledges no law or lord, but the Lord his
God, and is only a patriot to heaven. Delight is to him, whom all the
waves of the billows of the seas of the boisterous mob can never shake
from this sure Keel of the Ages. And eternal delight and deliciousness
will be his, who coming to lay him down, can say with his final
breath—O Father!—chiefly known to me by Thy rod—mortal or immortal,
here I die. I have striven to be Thine, more than to be this world’s,
or mine own. Yet this is nothing: I leave eternity to Thee; for what is
man that he should live out the lifetime of his God?”

He said no more, but slowly waving a benediction, covered his face with
his hands, and so remained kneeling, till all the people had departed,
and he was left alone in the place.


CHAPTER 10. A Bosom Friend.

Returning to the Spouter-Inn from the Chapel, I found Queequeg there
quite alone; he having left the Chapel before the benediction some
time. He was sitting on a bench before the fire, with his feet on the
stove hearth, and in one hand was holding close up to his face that
little negro idol of his; peering hard into its face, and with a
jack-knife gently whittling away at its nose, meanwhile humming to
himself in his heathenish way.

But being now interrupted, he put up the image; and pretty soon, going
to the table, took up a large book there, and placing it on his lap
began counting the pages with deliberate regularity; at every fiftieth
page—as I fancied—stopping a moment, looking vacantly around him, and
giving utterance to a long-drawn gurgling whistle of astonishment. He
would then begin again at the next fifty; seeming to commence at number
one each time, as though he could not count more than fifty, and it was
only by such a large number of fifties being found together, that his
astonishment at the multitude of pages was excited.

With much interest I sat watching him. Savage though he was, and
hideously marred about the face—at least to my taste—his countenance
yet had a something in it which was by no means disagreeable. You
cannot hide the soul. Through all his unearthly tattooings, I thought I
saw the traces of a simple honest heart; and in his large, deep eyes,
fiery black and bold, there seemed tokens of a spirit that would dare a
thousand devils. And besides all this, there was a certain lofty
bearing about the Pagan, which even his uncouthness could not
altogether maim. He looked like a man who had never cringed and never
had had a creditor. Whether it was, too, that his head being shaved,
his forehead was drawn out in freer and brighter relief, and looked
more expansive than it otherwise would, this I will not venture to
decide; but certain it was his head was phrenologically an excellent
one. It may seem ridiculous, but it reminded me of General Washington’s
head, as seen in the popular busts of him. It had the same long
regularly graded retreating slope from above the brows, which were
likewise very projecting, like two long promontories thickly wooded on
top. Queequeg was George Washington cannibalistically developed.

Whilst I was thus closely scanning him, half-pretending meanwhile to be
looking out at the storm from the casement, he never heeded my
presence, never troubled himself with so much as a single glance; but
appeared wholly occupied with counting the pages of the marvellous
book. Considering how sociably we had been sleeping together the night
previous, and especially considering the affectionate arm I had found
thrown over me upon waking in the morning, I thought this indifference
of his very strange. But savages are strange beings; at times you do
not know exactly how to take them. At first they are overawing; their
calm self-collectedness of simplicity seems a Socratic wisdom. I had
noticed also that Queequeg never consorted at all, or but very little,
with the other seamen in the inn. He made no advances whatever;
appeared to have no desire to enlarge the circle of his acquaintances.
All this struck me as mighty singular; yet, upon second thoughts, there
was something almost sublime in it. Here was a man some twenty thousand
miles from home, by the way of Cape Horn, that is—which was the only
way he could get there—thrown among people as strange to him as though
he were in the planet Jupiter; and yet he seemed entirely at his ease;
preserving the utmost serenity; content with his own companionship;
always equal to himself. Surely this was a touch of fine philosophy;
though no doubt he had never heard there was such a thing as that. But,
perhaps, to be true philosophers, we mortals should not be conscious of
so living or so striving. So soon as I hear that such or such a man
gives himself out for a philosopher, I conclude that, like the
dyspeptic old woman, he must have “broken his digester.”

As I sat there in that now lonely room; the fire burning low, in that
mild stage when, after its first intensity has warmed the air, it then
only glows to be looked at; the evening shades and phantoms gathering
round the casements, and peering in upon us silent, solitary twain; the
storm booming without in solemn swells; I began to be sensible of
strange feelings. I felt a melting in me. No more my splintered heart
and maddened hand were turned against the wolfish world. This soothing
savage had redeemed it. There he sat, his very indifference speaking a
nature in which there lurked no civilized hypocrisies and bland
deceits. Wild he was; a very sight of sights to see; yet I began to
feel myself mysteriously drawn towards him. And those same things that
would have repelled most others, they were the very magnets that thus
drew me. I’ll try a pagan friend, thought I, since Christian kindness
has proved but hollow courtesy. I drew my bench near him, and made some
friendly signs and hints, doing my best to talk with him meanwhile. At
first he little noticed these advances; but presently, upon my
referring to his last night’s hospitalities, he made out to ask me
whether we were again to be bedfellows. I told him yes; whereat I
thought he looked pleased, perhaps a little complimented.

We then turned over the book together, and I endeavored to explain to
him the purpose of the printing, and the meaning of the few pictures
that were in it. Thus I soon engaged his interest; and from that we
went to jabbering the best we could about the various outer sights to
be seen in this famous town. Soon I proposed a social smoke; and,
producing his pouch and tomahawk, he quietly offered me a puff. And
then we sat exchanging puffs from that wild pipe of his, and keeping it
regularly passing between us.

If there yet lurked any ice of indifference towards me in the Pagan’s
breast, this pleasant, genial smoke we had, soon thawed it out, and
left us cronies. He seemed to take to me quite as naturally and
unbiddenly as I to him; and when our smoke was over, he pressed his
forehead against mine, clasped me round the waist, and said that
henceforth we were married; meaning, in his country’s phrase, that we
were bosom friends; he would gladly die for me, if need should be. In a
countryman, this sudden flame of friendship would have seemed far too
premature, a thing to be much distrusted; but in this simple savage
those old rules would not apply.

After supper, and another social chat and smoke, we went to our room
together. He made me a present of his embalmed head; took out his
enormous tobacco wallet, and groping under the tobacco, drew out some
thirty dollars in silver; then spreading them on the table, and
mechanically dividing them into two equal portions, pushed one of them
towards me, and said it was mine. I was going to remonstrate; but he
silenced me by pouring them into my trowsers’ pockets. I let them stay.
He then went about his evening prayers, took out his idol, and removed
the paper fireboard. By certain signs and symptoms, I thought he seemed
anxious for me to join him; but well knowing what was to follow, I
deliberated a moment whether, in case he invited me, I would comply or
otherwise.

I was a good Christian; born and bred in the bosom of the infallible
Presbyterian Church. How then could I unite with this wild idolator in
worshipping his piece of wood? But what is worship? thought I. Do you
suppose now, Ishmael, that the magnanimous God of heaven and
earth—pagans and all included—can possibly be jealous of an
insignificant bit of black wood? Impossible! But what is worship?—to do
the will of God—_that_ is worship. And what is the will of God?—to do
to my fellow man what I would have my fellow man to do to me—_that_ is
the will of God. Now, Queequeg is my fellow man. And what do I wish
that this Queequeg would do to me? Why, unite with me in my particular
Presbyterian form of worship. Consequently, I must then unite with him
in his; ergo, I must turn idolator. So I kindled the shavings; helped
prop up the innocent little idol; offered him burnt biscuit with
Queequeg; salamed before him twice or thrice; kissed his nose; and that
done, we undressed and went to bed, at peace with our own consciences
and all the world. But we did not go to sleep without some little chat.

How it is I know not; but there is no place like a bed for confidential
disclosures between friends. Man and wife, they say, there open the
very bottom of their souls to each other; and some old couples often
lie and chat over old times till nearly morning. Thus, then, in our
hearts’ honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg—a cosy, loving pair.


CHAPTER 11. Nightgown.

We had lain thus in bed, chatting and napping at short intervals, and
Queequeg now and then affectionately throwing his brown tattooed legs
over mine, and then drawing them back; so entirely sociable and free
and easy were we; when, at last, by reason of our confabulations, what
little nappishness remained in us altogether departed, and we felt like
getting up again, though day-break was yet some way down the future.

Yes, we became very wakeful; so much so that our recumbent position
began to grow wearisome, and by little and little we found ourselves
sitting up; the clothes well tucked around us, leaning against the
head-board with our four knees drawn up close together, and our two
noses bending over them, as if our kneepans were warming-pans. We felt
very nice and snug, the more so since it was so chilly out of doors;
indeed out of bed-clothes too, seeing that there was no fire in the
room. The more so, I say, because truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some
small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world
that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If
you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been
so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more. But
if, like Queequeg and me in the bed, the tip of your nose or the crown
of your head be slightly chilled, why then, indeed, in the general
consciousness you feel most delightfully and unmistakably warm. For
this reason a sleeping apartment should never be furnished with a fire,
which is one of the luxurious discomforts of the rich. For the height
of this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blanket
between you and your snugness and the cold of the outer air. Then there
you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal.

We had been sitting in this crouching manner for some time, when all at
once I thought I would open my eyes; for when between sheets, whether
by day or by night, and whether asleep or awake, I have a way of always
keeping my eyes shut, in order the more to concentrate the snugness of
being in bed. Because no man can ever feel his own identity aright
except his eyes be closed; as if darkness were indeed the proper
element of our essences, though light be more congenial to our clayey
part. Upon opening my eyes then, and coming out of my own pleasant and
self-created darkness into the imposed and coarse outer gloom of the
unilluminated twelve-o’clock-at-night, I experienced a disagreeable
revulsion. Nor did I at all object to the hint from Queequeg that
perhaps it were best to strike a light, seeing that we were so wide
awake; and besides he felt a strong desire to have a few quiet puffs
from his Tomahawk. Be it said, that though I had felt such a strong
repugnance to his smoking in the bed the night before, yet see how
elastic our stiff prejudices grow when love once comes to bend them.
For now I liked nothing better than to have Queequeg smoking by me,
even in bed, because he seemed to be full of such serene household joy
then. I no more felt unduly concerned for the landlord’s policy of
insurance. I was only alive to the condensed confidential
comfortableness of sharing a pipe and a blanket with a real friend.
With our shaggy jackets drawn about our shoulders, we now passed the
Tomahawk from one to the other, till slowly there grew over us a blue
hanging tester of smoke, illuminated by the flame of the new-lit lamp.

Whether it was that this undulating tester rolled the savage away to
far distant scenes, I know not, but he now spoke of his native island;
and, eager to hear his history, I begged him to go on and tell it. He
gladly complied. Though at the time I but ill comprehended not a few of
his words, yet subsequent disclosures, when I had become more familiar
with his broken phraseology, now enable me to present the whole story
such as it may prove in the mere skeleton I give.


CHAPTER 12. Biographical.

Queequeg was a native of Rokovoko, an island far away to the West and
South. It is not down in any map; true places never are.

When a new-hatched savage running wild about his native woodlands in a
grass clout, followed by the nibbling goats, as if he were a green
sapling; even then, in Queequeg’s ambitious soul, lurked a strong
desire to see something more of Christendom than a specimen whaler or
two. His father was a High Chief, a King; his uncle a High Priest; and
on the maternal side he boasted aunts who were the wives of
unconquerable warriors. There was excellent blood in his veins—royal
stuff; though sadly vitiated, I fear, by the cannibal propensity he
nourished in his untutored youth.

A Sag Harbor ship visited his father’s bay, and Queequeg sought a
passage to Christian lands. But the ship, having her full complement of
seamen, spurned his suit; and not all the King his father’s influence
could prevail. But Queequeg vowed a vow. Alone in his canoe, he paddled
off to a distant strait, which he knew the ship must pass through when
she quitted the island. On one side was a coral reef; on the other a
low tongue of land, covered with mangrove thickets that grew out into
the water. Hiding his canoe, still afloat, among these thickets, with
its prow seaward, he sat down in the stern, paddle low in hand; and
when the ship was gliding by, like a flash he darted out; gained her
side; with one backward dash of his foot capsized and sank his canoe;
climbed up the chains; and throwing himself at full length upon the
deck, grappled a ring-bolt there, and swore not to let it go, though
hacked in pieces.

In vain the captain threatened to throw him overboard; suspended a
cutlass over his naked wrists; Queequeg was the son of a King, and
Queequeg budged not. Struck by his desperate dauntlessness, and his
wild desire to visit Christendom, the captain at last relented, and
told him he might make himself at home. But this fine young savage—this
sea Prince of Wales, never saw the Captain’s cabin. They put him down
among the sailors, and made a whaleman of him. But like Czar Peter
content to toil in the shipyards of foreign cities, Queequeg disdained
no seeming ignominy, if thereby he might happily gain the power of
enlightening his untutored countrymen. For at bottom—so he told me—he
was actuated by a profound desire to learn among the Christians, the
arts whereby to make his people still happier than they were; and more
than that, still better than they were. But, alas! the practices of
whalemen soon convinced him that even Christians could be both
miserable and wicked; infinitely more so, than all his father’s
heathens. Arrived at last in old Sag Harbor; and seeing what the
sailors did there; and then going on to Nantucket, and seeing how they
spent their wages in _that_ place also, poor Queequeg gave it up for
lost. Thought he, it’s a wicked world in all meridians; I’ll die a
pagan.

And thus an old idolator at heart, he yet lived among these Christians,
wore their clothes, and tried to talk their gibberish. Hence the queer
ways about him, though now some time from home.

By hints, I asked him whether he did not propose going back, and having
a coronation; since he might now consider his father dead and gone, he
being very old and feeble at the last accounts. He answered no, not
yet; and added that he was fearful Christianity, or rather Christians,
had unfitted him for ascending the pure and undefiled throne of thirty
pagan Kings before him. But by and by, he said, he would return,—as
soon as he felt himself baptized again. For the nonce, however, he
proposed to sail about, and sow his wild oats in all four oceans. They
had made a harpooneer of him, and that barbed iron was in lieu of a
sceptre now.

I asked him what might be his immediate purpose, touching his future
movements. He answered, to go to sea again, in his old vocation. Upon
this, I told him that whaling was my own design, and informed him of my
intention to sail out of Nantucket, as being the most promising port
for an adventurous whaleman to embark from. He at once resolved to
accompany me to that island, ship aboard the same vessel, get into the
same watch, the same boat, the same mess with me, in short to share my
every hap; with both my hands in his, boldly dip into the Potluck of
both worlds. To all this I joyously assented; for besides the affection
I now felt for Queequeg, he was an experienced harpooneer, and as such,
could not fail to be of great usefulness to one, who, like me, was
wholly ignorant of the mysteries of whaling, though well acquainted
with the sea, as known to merchant seamen.

His story being ended with his pipe’s last dying puff, Queequeg
embraced me, pressed his forehead against mine, and blowing out the
light, we rolled over from each other, this way and that, and very soon
were sleeping.


CHAPTER 13. Wheelbarrow.

Next morning, Monday, after disposing of the embalmed head to a barber,
for a block, I settled my own and comrade’s bill; using, however, my
comrade’s money. The grinning landlord, as well as the boarders, seemed
amazingly tickled at the sudden friendship which had sprung up between
me and Queequeg—especially as Peter Coffin’s cock and bull stories
about him had previously so much alarmed me concerning the very person
whom I now companied with.

We borrowed a wheelbarrow, and embarking our things, including my own
poor carpet-bag, and Queequeg’s canvas sack and hammock, away we went
down to “the Moss,” the little Nantucket packet schooner moored at the
wharf. As we were going along the people stared; not at Queequeg so
much—for they were used to seeing cannibals like him in their
streets,—but at seeing him and me upon such confidential terms. But we
heeded them not, going along wheeling the barrow by turns, and Queequeg
now and then stopping to adjust the sheath on his harpoon barbs. I
asked him why he carried such a troublesome thing with him ashore, and
whether all whaling ships did not find their own harpoons. To this, in
substance, he replied, that though what I hinted was true enough, yet
he had a particular affection for his own harpoon, because it was of
assured stuff, well tried in many a mortal combat, and deeply intimate
with the hearts of whales. In short, like many inland reapers and
mowers, who go into the farmers’ meadows armed with their own
scythes—though in no wise obliged to furnish them—even so, Queequeg,
for his own private reasons, preferred his own harpoon.

Shifting the barrow from my hand to his, he told me a funny story about
the first wheelbarrow he had ever seen. It was in Sag Harbor. The
owners of his ship, it seems, had lent him one, in which to carry his
heavy chest to his boarding house. Not to seem ignorant about the
thing—though in truth he was entirely so, concerning the precise way in
which to manage the barrow—Queequeg puts his chest upon it; lashes it
fast; and then shoulders the barrow and marches up the wharf. “Why,”
said I, “Queequeg, you might have known better than that, one would
think. Didn’t the people laugh?”

Upon this, he told me another story. The people of his island of
Rokovoko, it seems, at their wedding feasts express the fragrant water
of young cocoanuts into a large stained calabash like a punchbowl; and
this punchbowl always forms the great central ornament on the braided
mat where the feast is held. Now a certain grand merchant ship once
touched at Rokovoko, and its commander—from all accounts, a very
stately punctilious gentleman, at least for a sea captain—this
commander was invited to the wedding feast of Queequeg’s sister, a
pretty young princess just turned of ten. Well; when all the wedding
guests were assembled at the bride’s bamboo cottage, this Captain
marches in, and being assigned the post of honor, placed himself over
against the punchbowl, and between the High Priest and his majesty the
King, Queequeg’s father. Grace being said,—for those people have their
grace as well as we—though Queequeg told me that unlike us, who at such
times look downwards to our platters, they, on the contrary, copying
the ducks, glance upwards to the great Giver of all feasts—Grace, I
say, being said, the High Priest opens the banquet by the immemorial
ceremony of the island; that is, dipping his consecrated and
consecrating fingers into the bowl before the blessed beverage
circulates. Seeing himself placed next the Priest, and noting the
ceremony, and thinking himself—being Captain of a ship—as having plain
precedence over a mere island King, especially in the King’s own
house—the Captain coolly proceeds to wash his hands in the
punchbowl;—taking it I suppose for a huge finger-glass. “Now,” said
Queequeg, “what you tink now?—Didn’t our people laugh?”

At last, passage paid, and luggage safe, we stood on board the
schooner. Hoisting sail, it glided down the Acushnet river. On one
side, New Bedford rose in terraces of streets, their ice-covered trees
all glittering in the clear, cold air. Huge hills and mountains of
casks on casks were piled upon her wharves, and side by side the
world-wandering whale ships lay silent and safely moored at last; while
from others came a sound of carpenters and coopers, with blended noises
of fires and forges to melt the pitch, all betokening that new cruises
were on the start; that one most perilous and long voyage ended, only
begins a second; and a second ended, only begins a third, and so on,
for ever and for aye. Such is the endlessness, yea, the intolerableness
of all earthly effort.

Gaining the more open water, the bracing breeze waxed fresh; the little
Moss tossed the quick foam from her bows, as a young colt his
snortings. How I snuffed that Tartar air!—how I spurned that turnpike
earth!—that common highway all over dented with the marks of slavish
heels and hoofs; and turned me to admire the magnanimity of the sea
which will permit no records.

At the same foam-fountain, Queequeg seemed to drink and reel with me.
His dusky nostrils swelled apart; he showed his filed and pointed
teeth. On, on we flew; and our offing gained, the Moss did homage to
the blast; ducked and dived her bows as a slave before the Sultan.
Sideways leaning, we sideways darted; every ropeyarn tingling like a
wire; the two tall masts buckling like Indian canes in land tornadoes.
So full of this reeling scene were we, as we stood by the plunging
bowsprit, that for some time we did not notice the jeering glances of
the passengers, a lubber-like assembly, who marvelled that two fellow
beings should be so companionable; as though a white man were anything
more dignified than a whitewashed negro. But there were some boobies
and bumpkins there, who, by their intense greenness, must have come
from the heart and centre of all verdure. Queequeg caught one of these
young saplings mimicking him behind his back. I thought the bumpkin’s
hour of doom was come. Dropping his harpoon, the brawny savage caught
him in his arms, and by an almost miraculous dexterity and strength,
sent him high up bodily into the air; then slightly tapping his stern
in mid-somerset, the fellow landed with bursting lungs upon his feet,
while Queequeg, turning his back upon him, lighted his tomahawk pipe
and passed it to me for a puff.

“Capting! Capting!” yelled the bumpkin, running towards that officer;
“Capting, Capting, here’s the devil.”

“Hallo, _you_ sir,” cried the Captain, a gaunt rib of the sea, stalking
up to Queequeg, “what in thunder do you mean by that? Don’t you know
you might have killed that chap?”

“What him say?” said Queequeg, as he mildly turned to me.

“He say,” said I, “that you came near kill-e that man there,” pointing
to the still shivering greenhorn.

“Kill-e,” cried Queequeg, twisting his tattooed face into an unearthly
expression of disdain, “ah! him bevy small-e fish-e; Queequeg no kill-e
so small-e fish-e; Queequeg kill-e big whale!”

“Look you,” roared the Captain, “I’ll kill-e _you_, you cannibal, if
you try any more of your tricks aboard here; so mind your eye.”

But it so happened just then, that it was high time for the Captain to
mind his own eye. The prodigious strain upon the main-sail had parted
the weather-sheet, and the tremendous boom was now flying from side to
side, completely sweeping the entire after part of the deck. The poor
fellow whom Queequeg had handled so roughly, was swept overboard; all
hands were in a panic; and to attempt snatching at the boom to stay it,
seemed madness. It flew from right to left, and back again, almost in
one ticking of a watch, and every instant seemed on the point of
snapping into splinters. Nothing was done, and nothing seemed capable
of being done; those on deck rushed towards the bows, and stood eyeing
the boom as if it were the lower jaw of an exasperated whale. In the
midst of this consternation, Queequeg dropped deftly to his knees, and
crawling under the path of the boom, whipped hold of a rope, secured
one end to the bulwarks, and then flinging the other like a lasso,
caught it round the boom as it swept over his head, and at the next
jerk, the spar was that way trapped, and all was safe. The schooner was
run into the wind, and while the hands were clearing away the stern
boat, Queequeg, stripped to the waist, darted from the side with a long
living arc of a leap. For three minutes or more he was seen swimming
like a dog, throwing his long arms straight out before him, and by
turns revealing his brawny shoulders through the freezing foam. I
looked at the grand and glorious fellow, but saw no one to be saved.
The greenhorn had gone down. Shooting himself perpendicularly from the
water, Queequeg, now took an instant’s glance around him, and seeming
to see just how matters were, dived down and disappeared. A few minutes
more, and he rose again, one arm still striking out, and with the other
dragging a lifeless form. The boat soon picked them up. The poor
bumpkin was restored. All hands voted Queequeg a noble trump; the
captain begged his pardon. From that hour I clove to Queequeg like a
barnacle; yea, till poor Queequeg took his last long dive.

Was there ever such unconsciousness? He did not seem to think that he
at all deserved a medal from the Humane and Magnanimous Societies. He
only asked for water—fresh water—something to wipe the brine off; that
done, he put on dry clothes, lighted his pipe, and leaning against the
bulwarks, and mildly eyeing those around him, seemed to be saying to
himself—“It’s a mutual, joint-stock world, in all meridians. We
cannibals must help these Christians.”


CHAPTER 14. Nantucket.

Nothing more happened on the passage worthy the mentioning; so, after a
fine run, we safely arrived in Nantucket.

Nantucket! Take out your map and look at it. See what a real corner of
the world it occupies; how it stands there, away off shore, more lonely
than the Eddystone lighthouse. Look at it—a mere hillock, and elbow of
sand; all beach, without a background. There is more sand there than
you would use in twenty years as a substitute for blotting paper. Some
gamesome wights will tell you that they have to plant weeds there, they
don’t grow naturally; that they import Canada thistles; that they have
to send beyond seas for a spile to stop a leak in an oil cask; that
pieces of wood in Nantucket are carried about like bits of the true
cross in Rome; that people there plant toadstools before their houses,
to get under the shade in summer time; that one blade of grass makes an
oasis, three blades in a day’s walk a prairie; that they wear quicksand
shoes, something like Laplander snow-shoes; that they are so shut up,
belted about, every way inclosed, surrounded, and made an utter island
of by the ocean, that to their very chairs and tables small clams will
sometimes be found adhering, as to the backs of sea turtles. But these
extravaganzas only show that Nantucket is no Illinois.

Look now at the wondrous traditional story of how this island was
settled by the red-men. Thus goes the legend. In olden times an eagle
swooped down upon the New England coast, and carried off an infant
Indian in his talons. With loud lament the parents saw their child
borne out of sight over the wide waters. They resolved to follow in the
same direction. Setting out in their canoes, after a perilous passage
they discovered the island, and there they found an empty ivory
casket,—the poor little Indian’s skeleton.

What wonder, then, that these Nantucketers, born on a beach, should
take to the sea for a livelihood! They first caught crabs and quohogs
in the sand; grown bolder, they waded out with nets for mackerel; more
experienced, they pushed off in boats and captured cod; and at last,
launching a navy of great ships on the sea, explored this watery world;
put an incessant belt of circumnavigations round it; peeped in at
Behring’s Straits; and in all seasons and all oceans declared
everlasting war with the mightiest animated mass that has survived the
flood; most monstrous and most mountainous! That Himmalehan, salt-sea
Mastodon, clothed with such portentousness of unconscious power, that
his very panics are more to be dreaded than his most fearless and
malicious assaults!

And thus have these naked Nantucketers, these sea hermits, issuing from
their ant-hill in the sea, overrun and conquered the watery world like
so many Alexanders; parcelling out among them the Atlantic, Pacific,
and Indian oceans, as the three pirate powers did Poland. Let America
add Mexico to Texas, and pile Cuba upon Canada; let the English
overswarm all India, and hang out their blazing banner from the sun;
two thirds of this terraqueous globe are the Nantucketer’s. For the sea
is his; he owns it, as Emperors own empires; other seamen having but a
right of way through it. Merchant ships are but extension bridges;
armed ones but floating forts; even pirates and privateers, though
following the sea as highwaymen the road, they but plunder other ships,
other fragments of the land like themselves, without seeking to draw
their living from the bottomless deep itself. The Nantucketer, he alone
resides and riots on the sea; he alone, in Bible language, goes down to
it in ships; to and fro ploughing it as his own special plantation.
_There_ is his home; _there_ lies his business, which a Noah’s flood
would not interrupt, though it overwhelmed all the millions in China.
He lives on the sea, as prairie cocks in the prairie; he hides among
the waves, he climbs them as chamois hunters climb the Alps. For years
he knows not the land; so that when he comes to it at last, it smells
like another world, more strangely than the moon would to an Earthsman.
With the landless gull, that at sunset folds her wings and is rocked to
sleep between billows; so at nightfall, the Nantucketer, out of sight
of land, furls his sails, and lays him to his rest, while under his
very pillow rush herds of walruses and whales.


CHAPTER 15. Chowder.

It was quite late in the evening when the little Moss came snugly to
anchor, and Queequeg and I went ashore; so we could attend to no
business that day, at least none but a supper and a bed. The landlord
of the Spouter-Inn had recommended us to his cousin Hosea Hussey of the
Try Pots, whom he asserted to be the proprietor of one of the best kept
hotels in all Nantucket, and moreover he had assured us that Cousin
Hosea, as he called him, was famous for his chowders. In short, he
plainly hinted that we could not possibly do better than try pot-luck
at the Try Pots. But the directions he had given us about keeping a
yellow warehouse on our starboard hand till we opened a white church to
the larboard, and then keeping that on the larboard hand till we made a
corner three points to the starboard, and that done, then ask the first
man we met where the place was: these crooked directions of his very
much puzzled us at first, especially as, at the outset, Queequeg
insisted that the yellow warehouse—our first point of departure—must be
left on the larboard hand, whereas I had understood Peter Coffin to say
it was on the starboard. However, by dint of beating about a little in
the dark, and now and then knocking up a peaceable inhabitant to
inquire the way, we at last came to something which there was no
mistaking.

Two enormous wooden pots painted black, and suspended by asses’ ears,
swung from the cross-trees of an old top-mast, planted in front of an
old doorway. The horns of the cross-trees were sawed off on the other
side, so that this old top-mast looked not a little like a gallows.
Perhaps I was over sensitive to such impressions at the time, but I
could not help staring at this gallows with a vague misgiving. A sort
of crick was in my neck as I gazed up to the two remaining horns; yes,
_two_ of them, one for Queequeg, and one for me. It’s ominous, thinks
I. A Coffin my Innkeeper upon landing in my first whaling port;
tombstones staring at me in the whalemen’s chapel; and here a gallows!
and a pair of prodigious black pots too! Are these last throwing out
oblique hints touching Tophet?

I was called from these reflections by the sight of a freckled woman
with yellow hair and a yellow gown, standing in the porch of the inn,
under a dull red lamp swinging there, that looked much like an injured
eye, and carrying on a brisk scolding with a man in a purple woollen
shirt.

“Get along with ye,” said she to the man, “or I’ll be combing ye!”

“Come on, Queequeg,” said I, “all right. There’s Mrs. Hussey.”

And so it turned out; Mr. Hosea Hussey being from home, but leaving
Mrs. Hussey entirely competent to attend to all his affairs. Upon
making known our desires for a supper and a bed, Mrs. Hussey,
postponing further scolding for the present, ushered us into a little
room, and seating us at a table spread with the relics of a recently
concluded repast, turned round to us and said—“Clam or Cod?”

“What’s that about Cods, ma’am?” said I, with much politeness.

“Clam or Cod?” she repeated.

“A clam for supper? a cold clam; is _that_ what you mean, Mrs. Hussey?”
says I, “but that’s a rather cold and clammy reception in the winter
time, ain’t it, Mrs. Hussey?”

But being in a great hurry to resume scolding the man in the purple
Shirt, who was waiting for it in the entry, and seeming to hear nothing
but the word “clam,” Mrs. Hussey hurried towards an open door leading
to the kitchen, and bawling out “clam for two,” disappeared.

“Queequeg,” said I, “do you think that we can make out a supper for us
both on one clam?”

However, a warm savory steam from the kitchen served to belie the
apparently cheerless prospect before us. But when that smoking chowder
came in, the mystery was delightfully explained. Oh, sweet friends!
hearken to me. It was made of small juicy clams, scarcely bigger than
hazel nuts, mixed with pounded ship biscuit, and salted pork cut up
into little flakes; the whole enriched with butter, and plentifully
seasoned with pepper and salt. Our appetites being sharpened by the
frosty voyage, and in particular, Queequeg seeing his favourite fishing
food before him, and the chowder being surpassingly excellent, we
despatched it with great expedition: when leaning back a moment and
bethinking me of Mrs. Hussey’s clam and cod announcement, I thought I
would try a little experiment. Stepping to the kitchen door, I uttered
the word “cod” with great emphasis, and resumed my seat. In a few
moments the savoury steam came forth again, but with a different
flavor, and in good time a fine cod-chowder was placed before us.

We resumed business; and while plying our spoons in the bowl, thinks I
to myself, I wonder now if this here has any effect on the head? What’s
that stultifying saying about chowder-headed people? “But look,
Queequeg, ain’t that a live eel in your bowl? Where’s your harpoon?”

Fishiest of all fishy places was the Try Pots, which well deserved its
name; for the pots there were always boiling chowders. Chowder for
breakfast, and chowder for dinner, and chowder for supper, till you
began to look for fish-bones coming through your clothes. The area
before the house was paved with clam-shells. Mrs. Hussey wore a
polished necklace of codfish vertebra; and Hosea Hussey had his account
books bound in superior old shark-skin. There was a fishy flavor to the
milk, too, which I could not at all account for, till one morning
happening to take a stroll along the beach among some fishermen’s
boats, I saw Hosea’s brindled cow feeding on fish remnants, and
marching along the sand with each foot in a cod’s decapitated head,
looking very slip-shod, I assure ye.

Supper concluded, we received a lamp, and directions from Mrs. Hussey
concerning the nearest way to bed; but, as Queequeg was about to
precede me up the stairs, the lady reached forth her arm, and demanded
his harpoon; she allowed no harpoon in her chambers. “Why not?” said I;
“every true whaleman sleeps with his harpoon—but why not?” “Because
it’s dangerous,” says she. “Ever since young Stiggs coming from that
unfort’nt v’y’ge of his, when he was gone four years and a half, with
only three barrels of _ile_, was found dead in my first floor back,
with his harpoon in his side; ever since then I allow no boarders to
take sich dangerous weepons in their rooms at night. So, Mr. Queequeg”
(for she had learned his name), “I will just take this here iron, and
keep it for you till morning. But the chowder; clam or cod to-morrow
for breakfast, men?”

“Both,” says I; “and let’s have a couple of smoked herring by way of
variety.”


CHAPTER 16. The Ship.

In bed we concocted our plans for the morrow. But to my surprise and no
small concern, Queequeg now gave me to understand, that he had been
diligently consulting Yojo—the name of his black little god—and Yojo
had told him two or three times over, and strongly insisted upon it
everyway, that instead of our going together among the whaling-fleet in
harbor, and in concert selecting our craft; instead of this, I say,
Yojo earnestly enjoined that the selection of the ship should rest
wholly with me, inasmuch as Yojo purposed befriending us; and, in order
to do so, had already pitched upon a vessel, which, if left to myself,
I, Ishmael, should infallibly light upon, for all the world as though
it had turned out by chance; and in that vessel I must immediately ship
myself, for the present irrespective of Queequeg.

I have forgotten to mention that, in many things, Queequeg placed great
confidence in the excellence of Yojo’s judgment and surprising forecast
of things; and cherished Yojo with considerable esteem, as a rather
good sort of god, who perhaps meant well enough upon the whole, but in
all cases did not succeed in his benevolent designs.

Now, this plan of Queequeg’s, or rather Yojo’s, touching the selection
of our craft; I did not like that plan at all. I had not a little
relied upon Queequeg’s sagacity to point out the whaler best fitted to
carry us and our fortunes securely. But as all my remonstrances
produced no effect upon Queequeg, I was obliged to acquiesce; and
accordingly prepared to set about this business with a determined
rushing sort of energy and vigor, that should quickly settle that
trifling little affair. Next morning early, leaving Queequeg shut up
with Yojo in our little bedroom—for it seemed that it was some sort of
Lent or Ramadan, or day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer with
Queequeg and Yojo that day; _how_ it was I never could find out, for,
though I applied myself to it several times, I never could master his
liturgies and XXXIX Articles—leaving Queequeg, then, fasting on his
tomahawk pipe, and Yojo warming himself at his sacrificial fire of
shavings, I sallied out among the shipping. After much prolonged
sauntering and many random inquiries, I learnt that there were three
ships up for three-years’ voyages—The Devil-dam, the Tit-bit, and the
Pequod. _Devil-Dam_, I do not know the origin of; _Tit-bit_ is obvious;
_Pequod_, you will no doubt remember, was the name of a celebrated
tribe of Massachusetts Indians; now extinct as the ancient Medes. I
peered and pryed about the Devil-dam; from her, hopped over to the
Tit-bit; and finally, going on board the Pequod, looked around her for
a moment, and then decided that this was the very ship for us.

You may have seen many a quaint craft in your day, for aught I
know;—square-toed luggers; mountainous Japanese junks; butter-box
galliots, and what not; but take my word for it, you never saw such a
rare old craft as this same rare old Pequod. She was a ship of the old
school, rather small if anything; with an old-fashioned claw-footed
look about her. Long seasoned and weather-stained in the typhoons and
calms of all four oceans, her old hull’s complexion was darkened like a
French grenadier’s, who has alike fought in Egypt and Siberia. Her
venerable bows looked bearded. Her masts—cut somewhere on the coast of
Japan, where her original ones were lost overboard in a gale—her masts
stood stiffly up like the spines of the three old kings of Cologne. Her
ancient decks were worn and wrinkled, like the pilgrim-worshipped
flag-stone in Canterbury Cathedral where Becket bled. But to all these
her old antiquities, were added new and marvellous features, pertaining
to the wild business that for more than half a century she had
followed. Old Captain Peleg, many years her chief-mate, before he
commanded another vessel of his own, and now a retired seaman, and one
of the principal owners of the Pequod,—this old Peleg, during the term
of his chief-mateship, had built upon her original grotesqueness, and
inlaid it, all over, with a quaintness both of material and device,
unmatched by anything except it be Thorkill-Hake’s carved buckler or
bedstead. She was apparelled like any barbaric Ethiopian emperor, his
neck heavy with pendants of polished ivory. She was a thing of
trophies. A cannibal of a craft, tricking herself forth in the chased
bones of her enemies. All round, her unpanelled, open bulwarks were
garnished like one continuous jaw, with the long sharp teeth of the
sperm whale, inserted there for pins, to fasten her old hempen thews
and tendons to. Those thews ran not through base blocks of land wood,
but deftly travelled over sheaves of sea-ivory. Scorning a turnstile
wheel at her reverend helm, she sported there a tiller; and that tiller
was in one mass, curiously carved from the long narrow lower jaw of her
hereditary foe. The helmsman who steered by that tiller in a tempest,
felt like the Tartar, when he holds back his fiery steed by clutching
its jaw. A noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy! All noble things
are touched with that.

Now when I looked about the quarter-deck, for some one having
authority, in order to propose myself as a candidate for the voyage, at
first I saw nobody; but I could not well overlook a strange sort of
tent, or rather wigwam, pitched a little behind the main-mast. It
seemed only a temporary erection used in port. It was of a conical
shape, some ten feet high; consisting of the long, huge slabs of limber
black bone taken from the middle and highest part of the jaws of the
right-whale. Planted with their broad ends on the deck, a circle of
these slabs laced together, mutually sloped towards each other, and at
the apex united in a tufted point, where the loose hairy fibres waved
to and fro like the top-knot on some old Pottowottamie Sachem’s head. A
triangular opening faced towards the bows of the ship, so that the
insider commanded a complete view forward.

And half concealed in this queer tenement, I at length found one who by
his aspect seemed to have authority; and who, it being noon, and the
ship’s work suspended, was now enjoying respite from the burden of
command. He was seated on an old-fashioned oaken chair, wriggling all
over with curious carving; and the bottom of which was formed of a
stout interlacing of the same elastic stuff of which the wigwam was
constructed.

There was nothing so very particular, perhaps, about the appearance of
the elderly man I saw; he was brown and brawny, like most old seamen,
and heavily rolled up in blue pilot-cloth, cut in the Quaker style;
only there was a fine and almost microscopic net-work of the minutest
wrinkles interlacing round his eyes, which must have arisen from his
continual sailings in many hard gales, and always looking to
windward;—for this causes the muscles about the eyes to become pursed
together. Such eye-wrinkles are very effectual in a scowl.

“Is this the Captain of the Pequod?” said I, advancing to the door of
the tent.

“Supposing it be the captain of the Pequod, what dost thou want of
him?” he demanded.

“I was thinking of shipping.”

“Thou wast, wast thou? I see thou art no Nantucketer—ever been in a
stove boat?”

“No, Sir, I never have.”

“Dost know nothing at all about whaling, I dare say—eh?

“Nothing, Sir; but I have no doubt I shall soon learn. I’ve been
several voyages in the merchant service, and I think that—”

“Merchant service be damned. Talk not that lingo to me. Dost see that
leg?—I’ll take that leg away from thy stern, if ever thou talkest of
the marchant service to me again. Marchant service indeed! I suppose
now ye feel considerable proud of having served in those marchant
ships. But flukes! man, what makes thee want to go a whaling, eh?—it
looks a little suspicious, don’t it, eh?—Hast not been a pirate, hast
thou?—Didst not rob thy last Captain, didst thou?—Dost not think of
murdering the officers when thou gettest to sea?”

I protested my innocence of these things. I saw that under the mask of
these half humorous innuendoes, this old seaman, as an insulated
Quakerish Nantucketer, was full of his insular prejudices, and rather
distrustful of all aliens, unless they hailed from Cape Cod or the
Vineyard.

“But what takes thee a-whaling? I want to know that before I think of
shipping ye.”

“Well, sir, I want to see what whaling is. I want to see the world.”

“Want to see what whaling is, eh? Have ye clapped eye on Captain Ahab?”

“Who is Captain Ahab, sir?”

“Aye, aye, I thought so. Captain Ahab is the Captain of this ship.”

“I am mistaken then. I thought I was speaking to the Captain himself.”

“Thou art speaking to Captain Peleg—that’s who ye are speaking to,
young man. It belongs to me and Captain Bildad to see the Pequod fitted
out for the voyage, and supplied with all her needs, including crew. We
are part owners and agents. But as I was going to say, if thou wantest
to know what whaling is, as thou tellest ye do, I can put ye in a way
of finding it out before ye bind yourself to it, past backing out. Clap
eye on Captain Ahab, young man, and thou wilt find that he has only one
leg.”

“What do you mean, sir? Was the other one lost by a whale?”

“Lost by a whale! Young man, come nearer to me: it was devoured, chewed
up, crunched by the monstrousest parmacetty that ever chipped a
boat!—ah, ah!”

I was a little alarmed by his energy, perhaps also a little touched at
the hearty grief in his concluding exclamation, but said as calmly as I
could, “What you say is no doubt true enough, sir; but how could I know
there was any peculiar ferocity in that particular whale, though indeed
I might have inferred as much from the simple fact of the accident.”

“Look ye now, young man, thy lungs are a sort of soft, d’ye see; thou
dost not talk shark a bit. _Sure_, ye’ve been to sea before now; sure
of that?”

“Sir,” said I, “I thought I told you that I had been four voyages in
the merchant—”

“Hard down out of that! Mind what I said about the marchant
service—don’t aggravate me—I won’t have it. But let us understand each
other. I have given thee a hint about what whaling is; do ye yet feel
inclined for it?”

“I do, sir.”

“Very good. Now, art thou the man to pitch a harpoon down a live
whale’s throat, and then jump after it? Answer, quick!”

“I am, sir, if it should be positively indispensable to do so; not to
be got rid of, that is; which I don’t take to be the fact.”

“Good again. Now then, thou not only wantest to go a-whaling, to find
out by experience what whaling is, but ye also want to go in order to
see the world? Was not that what ye said? I thought so. Well then, just
step forward there, and take a peep over the weather-bow, and then back
to me and tell me what ye see there.”

For a moment I stood a little puzzled by this curious request, not
knowing exactly how to take it, whether humorously or in earnest. But
concentrating all his crow’s feet into one scowl, Captain Peleg started
me on the errand.

Going forward and glancing over the weather bow, I perceived that the
ship swinging to her anchor with the flood-tide, was now obliquely
pointing towards the open ocean. The prospect was unlimited, but
exceedingly monotonous and forbidding; not the slightest variety that I
could see.

“Well, what’s the report?” said Peleg when I came back; “what did ye
see?”

“Not much,” I replied—“nothing but water; considerable horizon though,
and there’s a squall coming up, I think.”

“Well, what does thou think then of seeing the world? Do ye wish to go
round Cape Horn to see any more of it, eh? Can’t ye see the world where
you stand?”

I was a little staggered, but go a-whaling I must, and I would; and the
Pequod was as good a ship as any—I thought the best—and all this I now
repeated to Peleg. Seeing me so determined, he expressed his
willingness to ship me.

“And thou mayest as well sign the papers right off,” he added—“come
along with ye.” And so saying, he led the way below deck into the
cabin.

Seated on the transom was what seemed to me a most uncommon and
surprising figure. It turned out to be Captain Bildad, who along with
Captain Peleg was one of the largest owners of the vessel; the other
shares, as is sometimes the case in these ports, being held by a crowd
of old annuitants; widows, fatherless children, and chancery wards;
each owning about the value of a timber head, or a foot of plank, or a
nail or two in the ship. People in Nantucket invest their money in
whaling vessels, the same way that you do yours in approved state
stocks bringing in good interest.

Now, Bildad, like Peleg, and indeed many other Nantucketers, was a
Quaker, the island having been originally settled by that sect; and to
this day its inhabitants in general retain in an uncommon measure the
peculiarities of the Quaker, only variously and anomalously modified by
things altogether alien and heterogeneous. For some of these same
Quakers are the most sanguinary of all sailors and whale-hunters. They
are fighting Quakers; they are Quakers with a vengeance.

So that there are instances among them of men, who, named with
Scripture names—a singularly common fashion on the island—and in
childhood naturally imbibing the stately dramatic thee and thou of the
Quaker idiom; still, from the audacious, daring, and boundless
adventure of their subsequent lives, strangely blend with these
unoutgrown peculiarities, a thousand bold dashes of character, not
unworthy a Scandinavian sea-king, or a poetical Pagan Roman. And when
these things unite in a man of greatly superior natural force, with a
globular brain and a ponderous heart; who has also by the stillness and
seclusion of many long night-watches in the remotest waters, and
beneath constellations never seen here at the north, been led to think
untraditionally and independently; receiving all nature’s sweet or
savage impressions fresh from her own virgin voluntary and confiding
breast, and thereby chiefly, but with some help from accidental
advantages, to learn a bold and nervous lofty language—that man makes
one in a whole nation’s census—a mighty pageant creature, formed for
noble tragedies. Nor will it at all detract from him, dramatically
regarded, if either by birth or other circumstances, he have what seems
a half wilful overruling morbidness at the bottom of his nature. For
all men tragically great are made so through a certain morbidness. Be
sure of this, O young ambition, all mortal greatness is but disease.
But, as yet we have not to do with such an one, but with quite another;
and still a man, who, if indeed peculiar, it only results again from
another phase of the Quaker, modified by individual circumstances.

Like Captain Peleg, Captain Bildad was a well-to-do, retired whaleman.
But unlike Captain Peleg—who cared not a rush for what are called
serious things, and indeed deemed those self-same serious things the
veriest of all trifles—Captain Bildad had not only been originally
educated according to the strictest sect of Nantucket Quakerism, but
all his subsequent ocean life, and the sight of many unclad, lovely
island creatures, round the Horn—all that had not moved this native
born Quaker one single jot, had not so much as altered one angle of his
vest. Still, for all this immutableness, was there some lack of common
consistency about worthy Captain Bildad. Though refusing, from
conscientious scruples, to bear arms against land invaders, yet himself
had illimitably invaded the Atlantic and Pacific; and though a sworn
foe to human bloodshed, yet had he in his straight-bodied coat, spilled
tuns upon tuns of leviathan gore. How now in the contemplative evening
of his days, the pious Bildad reconciled these things in the
reminiscence, I do not know; but it did not seem to concern him much,
and very probably he had long since come to the sage and sensible
conclusion that a man’s religion is one thing, and this practical world
quite another. This world pays dividends. Rising from a little
cabin-boy in short clothes of the drabbest drab, to a harpooneer in a
broad shad-bellied waistcoat; from that becoming boat-header,
chief-mate, and captain, and finally a ship owner; Bildad, as I hinted
before, had concluded his adventurous career by wholly retiring from
active life at the goodly age of sixty, and dedicating his remaining
days to the quiet receiving of his well-earned income.

Now, Bildad, I am sorry to say, had the reputation of being an
incorrigible old hunks, and in his sea-going days, a bitter, hard
task-master. They told me in Nantucket, though it certainly seems a
curious story, that when he sailed the old Categut whaleman, his crew,
upon arriving home, were mostly all carried ashore to the hospital,
sore exhausted and worn out. For a pious man, especially for a Quaker,
he was certainly rather hard-hearted, to say the least. He never used
to swear, though, at his men, they said; but somehow he got an
inordinate quantity of cruel, unmitigated hard work out of them. When
Bildad was a chief-mate, to have his drab-coloured eye intently looking
at you, made you feel completely nervous, till you could clutch
something—a hammer or a marling-spike, and go to work like mad, at
something or other, never mind what. Indolence and idleness perished
before him. His own person was the exact embodiment of his utilitarian
character. On his long, gaunt body, he carried no spare flesh, no
superfluous beard, his chin having a soft, economical nap to it, like
the worn nap of his broad-brimmed hat.

Such, then, was the person that I saw seated on the transom when I
followed Captain Peleg down into the cabin. The space between the decks
was small; and there, bolt-upright, sat old Bildad, who always sat so,
and never leaned, and this to save his coat tails. His broad-brim was
placed beside him; his legs were stiffly crossed; his drab vesture was
buttoned up to his chin; and spectacles on nose, he seemed absorbed in
reading from a ponderous volume.

“Bildad,” cried Captain Peleg, “at it again, Bildad, eh? Ye have been
studying those Scriptures, now, for the last thirty years, to my
certain knowledge. How far ye got, Bildad?”

As if long habituated to such profane talk from his old shipmate,
Bildad, without noticing his present irreverence, quietly looked up,
and seeing me, glanced again inquiringly towards Peleg.

“He says he’s our man, Bildad,” said Peleg, “he wants to ship.”

“Dost thee?” said Bildad, in a hollow tone, and turning round to me.

“I _dost_,” said I unconsciously, he was so intense a Quaker.

“What do ye think of him, Bildad?” said Peleg.

“He’ll do,” said Bildad, eyeing me, and then went on spelling away at
his book in a mumbling tone quite audible.

I thought him the queerest old Quaker I ever saw, especially as Peleg,
his friend and old shipmate, seemed such a blusterer. But I said
nothing, only looking round me sharply. Peleg now threw open a chest,
and drawing forth the ship’s articles, placed pen and ink before him,
and seated himself at a little table. I began to think it was high time
to settle with myself at what terms I would be willing to engage for
the voyage. I was already aware that in the whaling business they paid
no wages; but all hands, including the captain, received certain shares
of the profits called _lays_, and that these lays were proportioned to
the degree of importance pertaining to the respective duties of the
ship’s company. I was also aware that being a green hand at whaling, my
own lay would not be very large; but considering that I was used to the
sea, could steer a ship, splice a rope, and all that, I made no doubt
that from all I had heard I should be offered at least the 275th
lay—that is, the 275th part of the clear net proceeds of the voyage,
whatever that might eventually amount to. And though the 275th lay was
what they call a rather _long lay_, yet it was better than nothing; and
if we had a lucky voyage, might pretty nearly pay for the clothing I
would wear out on it, not to speak of my three years’ beef and board,
for which I would not have to pay one stiver.

It might be thought that this was a poor way to accumulate a princely
fortune—and so it was, a very poor way indeed. But I am one of those
that never take on about princely fortunes, and am quite content if the
world is ready to board and lodge me, while I am putting up at this
grim sign of the Thunder Cloud. Upon the whole, I thought that the
275th lay would be about the fair thing, but would not have been
surprised had I been offered the 200th, considering I was of a
broad-shouldered make.

But one thing, nevertheless, that made me a little distrustful about
receiving a generous share of the profits was this: Ashore, I had heard
something of both Captain Peleg and his unaccountable old crony Bildad;
how that they being the principal proprietors of the Pequod, therefore
the other and more inconsiderable and scattered owners, left nearly the
whole management of the ship’s affairs to these two. And I did not know
but what the stingy old Bildad might have a mighty deal to say about
shipping hands, especially as I now found him on board the Pequod,
quite at home there in the cabin, and reading his Bible as if at his
own fireside. Now while Peleg was vainly trying to mend a pen with his
jack-knife, old Bildad, to my no small surprise, considering that he
was such an interested party in these proceedings; Bildad never heeded
us, but went on mumbling to himself out of his book, “_Lay_ not up for
yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth—”

“Well, Captain Bildad,” interrupted Peleg, “what d’ye say, what lay
shall we give this young man?”

“Thou knowest best,” was the sepulchral reply, “the seven hundred and
seventy-seventh wouldn’t be too much, would it?—‘where moth and rust do
corrupt, but _lay_—’”

_Lay_, indeed, thought I, and such a lay! the seven hundred and
seventy-seventh! Well, old Bildad, you are determined that I, for one,
shall not _lay_ up many _lays_ here below, where moth and rust do
corrupt. It was an exceedingly _long lay_ that, indeed; and though from
the magnitude of the figure it might at first deceive a landsman, yet
the slightest consideration will show that though seven hundred and
seventy-seven is a pretty large number, yet, when you come to make a
_teenth_ of it, you will then see, I say, that the seven hundred and
seventy-seventh part of a farthing is a good deal less than seven
hundred and seventy-seven gold doubloons; and so I thought at the time.

“Why, blast your eyes, Bildad,” cried Peleg, “thou dost not want to
swindle this young man! he must have more than that.”

“Seven hundred and seventy-seventh,” again said Bildad, without lifting
his eyes; and then went on mumbling—“for where your treasure is, there
will your heart be also.”

“I am going to put him down for the three hundredth,” said Peleg, “do
ye hear that, Bildad! The three hundredth lay, I say.”

Bildad laid down his book, and turning solemnly towards him said,
“Captain Peleg, thou hast a generous heart; but thou must consider the
duty thou owest to the other owners of this ship—widows and orphans,
many of them—and that if we too abundantly reward the labors of this
young man, we may be taking the bread from those widows and those
orphans. The seven hundred and seventy-seventh lay, Captain Peleg.”

“Thou Bildad!” roared Peleg, starting up and clattering about the
cabin. “Blast ye, Captain Bildad, if I had followed thy advice in these
matters, I would afore now had a conscience to lug about that would be
heavy enough to founder the largest ship that ever sailed round Cape
Horn.”

“Captain Peleg,” said Bildad steadily, “thy conscience may be drawing
ten inches of water, or ten fathoms, I can’t tell; but as thou art
still an impenitent man, Captain Peleg, I greatly fear lest thy
conscience be but a leaky one; and will in the end sink thee foundering
down to the fiery pit, Captain Peleg.”

“Fiery pit! fiery pit! ye insult me, man; past all natural bearing, ye
insult me. It’s an all-fired outrage to tell any human creature that
he’s bound to hell. Flukes and flames! Bildad, say that again to me,
and start my soul-bolts, but I’ll—I’ll—yes, I’ll swallow a live goat
with all his hair and horns on. Out of the cabin, ye canting,
drab-coloured son of a wooden gun—a straight wake with ye!”

As he thundered out this he made a rush at Bildad, but with a
marvellous oblique, sliding celerity, Bildad for that time eluded him.

Alarmed at this terrible outburst between the two principal and
responsible owners of the ship, and feeling half a mind to give up all
idea of sailing in a vessel so questionably owned and temporarily
commanded, I stepped aside from the door to give egress to Bildad, who,
I made no doubt, was all eagerness to vanish from before the awakened
wrath of Peleg. But to my astonishment, he sat down again on the
transom very quietly, and seemed to have not the slightest intention of
withdrawing. He seemed quite used to impenitent Peleg and his ways. As
for Peleg, after letting off his rage as he had, there seemed no more
left in him, and he, too, sat down like a lamb, though he twitched a
little as if still nervously agitated. “Whew!” he whistled at last—“the
squall’s gone off to leeward, I think. Bildad, thou used to be good at
sharpening a lance, mend that pen, will ye. My jack-knife here needs
the grindstone. That’s he; thank ye, Bildad. Now then, my young man,
Ishmael’s thy name, didn’t ye say? Well then, down ye go here, Ishmael,
for the three hundredth lay.”

“Captain Peleg,” said I, “I have a friend with me who wants to ship
too—shall I bring him down to-morrow?”

“To be sure,” said Peleg. “Fetch him along, and we’ll look at him.”

“What lay does he want?” groaned Bildad, glancing up from the book in
which he had again been burying himself.

“Oh! never thee mind about that, Bildad,” said Peleg. “Has he ever
whaled it any?” turning to me.

“Killed more whales than I can count, Captain Peleg.”

“Well, bring him along then.”

And, after signing the papers, off I went; nothing doubting but that I
had done a good morning’s work, and that the Pequod was the identical
ship that Yojo had provided to carry Queequeg and me round the Cape.

But I had not proceeded far, when I began to bethink me that the
Captain with whom I was to sail yet remained unseen by me; though,
indeed, in many cases, a whale-ship will be completely fitted out, and
receive all her crew on board, ere the captain makes himself visible by
arriving to take command; for sometimes these voyages are so prolonged,
and the shore intervals at home so exceedingly brief, that if the
captain have a family, or any absorbing concernment of that sort, he
does not trouble himself much about his ship in port, but leaves her to
the owners till all is ready for sea. However, it is always as well to
have a look at him before irrevocably committing yourself into his
hands. Turning back I accosted Captain Peleg, inquiring where Captain
Ahab was to be found.

“And what dost thou want of Captain Ahab? It’s all right enough; thou
art shipped.”

“Yes, but I should like to see him.”

“But I don’t think thou wilt be able to at present. I don’t know
exactly what’s the matter with him; but he keeps close inside the
house; a sort of sick, and yet he don’t look so. In fact, he ain’t
sick; but no, he isn’t well either. Any how, young man, he won’t always
see me, so I don’t suppose he will thee. He’s a queer man, Captain
Ahab—so some think—but a good one. Oh, thou’lt like him well enough; no
fear, no fear. He’s a grand, ungodly, god-like man, Captain Ahab;
doesn’t speak much; but, when he does speak, then you may well listen.
Mark ye, be forewarned; Ahab’s above the common; Ahab’s been in
colleges, as well as ’mong the cannibals; been used to deeper wonders
than the waves; fixed his fiery lance in mightier, stranger foes than
whales. His lance! aye, the keenest and the surest that out of all our
isle! Oh! he ain’t Captain Bildad; no, and he ain’t Captain Peleg;
_he’s Ahab_, boy; and Ahab of old, thou knowest, was a crowned king!”

“And a very vile one. When that wicked king was slain, the dogs, did
they not lick his blood?”

“Come hither to me—hither, hither,” said Peleg, with a significance in
his eye that almost startled me. “Look ye, lad; never say that on board
the Pequod. Never say it anywhere. Captain Ahab did not name himself.
’Twas a foolish, ignorant whim of his crazy, widowed mother, who died
when he was only a twelvemonth old. And yet the old squaw Tistig, at
Gayhead, said that the name would somehow prove prophetic. And,
perhaps, other fools like her may tell thee the same. I wish to warn
thee. It’s a lie. I know Captain Ahab well; I’ve sailed with him as
mate years ago; I know what he is—a good man—not a pious, good man,
like Bildad, but a swearing good man—something like me—only there’s a
good deal more of him. Aye, aye, I know that he was never very jolly;
and I know that on the passage home, he was a little out of his mind
for a spell; but it was the sharp shooting pains in his bleeding stump
that brought that about, as any one might see. I know, too, that ever
since he lost his leg last voyage by that accursed whale, he’s been a
kind of moody—desperate moody, and savage sometimes; but that will all
pass off. And once for all, let me tell thee and assure thee, young
man, it’s better to sail with a moody good captain than a laughing bad
one. So good-bye to thee—and wrong not Captain Ahab, because he happens
to have a wicked name. Besides, my boy, he has a wife—not three voyages
wedded—a sweet, resigned girl. Think of that; by that sweet girl that
old man has a child: hold ye then there can be any utter, hopeless harm
in Ahab? No, no, my lad; stricken, blasted, if he be, Ahab has his
humanities!”

As I walked away, I was full of thoughtfulness; what had been
incidentally revealed to me of Captain Ahab, filled me with a certain
wild vagueness of painfulness concerning him. And somehow, at the time,
I felt a sympathy and a sorrow for him, but for I don’t know what,
unless it was the cruel loss of his leg. And yet I also felt a strange
awe of him; but that sort of awe, which I cannot at all describe, was
not exactly awe; I do not know what it was. But I felt it; and it did
not disincline me towards him; though I felt impatience at what seemed
like mystery in him, so imperfectly as he was known to me then.
However, my thoughts were at length carried in other directions, so
that for the present dark Ahab slipped my mind.


CHAPTER 17. The Ramadan.

As Queequeg’s Ramadan, or Fasting and Humiliation, was to continue all
day, I did not choose to disturb him till towards night-fall; for I
cherish the greatest respect towards everybody’s religious obligations,
never mind how comical, and could not find it in my heart to undervalue
even a congregation of ants worshipping a toad-stool; or those other
creatures in certain parts of our earth, who with a degree of
footmanism quite unprecedented in other planets, bow down before the
torso of a deceased landed proprietor merely on account of the
inordinate possessions yet owned and rented in his name.

I say, we good Presbyterian Christians should be charitable in these
things, and not fancy ourselves so vastly superior to other mortals,
pagans and what not, because of their half-crazy conceits on these
subjects. There was Queequeg, now, certainly entertaining the most
absurd notions about Yojo and his Ramadan;—but what of that? Queequeg
thought he knew what he was about, I suppose; he seemed to be content;
and there let him rest. All our arguing with him would not avail; let
him be, I say: and Heaven have mercy on us all—Presbyterians and Pagans
alike—for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and
sadly need mending.

Towards evening, when I felt assured that all his performances and
rituals must be over, I went up to his room and knocked at the door;
but no answer. I tried to open it, but it was fastened inside.
“Queequeg,” said I softly through the key-hole:—all silent. “I say,
Queequeg! why don’t you speak? It’s I—Ishmael.” But all remained still
as before. I began to grow alarmed. I had allowed him such abundant
time; I thought he might have had an apoplectic fit. I looked through
the key-hole; but the door opening into an odd corner of the room, the
key-hole prospect was but a crooked and sinister one. I could only see
part of the foot-board of the bed and a line of the wall, but nothing
more. I was surprised to behold resting against the wall the wooden
shaft of Queequeg’s harpoon, which the landlady the evening previous
had taken from him, before our mounting to the chamber. That’s strange,
thought I; but at any rate, since the harpoon stands yonder, and he
seldom or never goes abroad without it, therefore he must be inside
here, and no possible mistake.

“Queequeg!—Queequeg!”—all still. Something must have happened.
Apoplexy! I tried to burst open the door; but it stubbornly resisted.
Running down stairs, I quickly stated my suspicions to the first person
I met—the chamber-maid. “La! la!” she cried, “I thought something must
be the matter. I went to make the bed after breakfast, and the door was
locked; and not a mouse to be heard; and it’s been just so silent ever
since. But I thought, may be, you had both gone off and locked your
baggage in for safe keeping. La! la, ma’am!—Mistress! murder! Mrs.
Hussey! apoplexy!”—and with these cries, she ran towards the kitchen, I
following.

Mrs. Hussey soon appeared, with a mustard-pot in one hand and a
vinegar-cruet in the other, having just broken away from the occupation
of attending to the castors, and scolding her little black boy
meantime.

“Wood-house!” cried I, “which way to it? Run for God’s sake, and fetch
something to pry open the door—the axe!—the axe! he’s had a stroke;
depend upon it!”—and so saying I was unmethodically rushing up stairs
again empty-handed, when Mrs. Hussey interposed the mustard-pot and
vinegar-cruet, and the entire castor of her countenance.

“What’s the matter with you, young man?”

“Get the axe! For God’s sake, run for the doctor, some one, while I pry
it open!”

“Look here,” said the landlady, quickly putting down the vinegar-cruet,
so as to have one hand free; “look here; are you talking about prying
open any of my doors?”—and with that she seized my arm. “What’s the
matter with you? What’s the matter with you, shipmate?”

In as calm, but rapid a manner as possible, I gave her to understand
the whole case. Unconsciously clapping the vinegar-cruet to one side of
her nose, she ruminated for an instant; then exclaimed—“No! I haven’t
seen it since I put it there.” Running to a little closet under the
landing of the stairs, she glanced in, and returning, told me that
Queequeg’s harpoon was missing. “He’s killed himself,” she cried. “It’s
unfort’nate Stiggs done over again—there goes another counterpane—God
pity his poor mother!—it will be the ruin of my house. Has the poor lad
a sister? Where’s that girl?—there, Betty, go to Snarles the Painter,
and tell him to paint me a sign, with—“no suicides permitted here, and
no smoking in the parlor;”—might as well kill both birds at once. Kill?
The Lord be merciful to his ghost! What’s that noise there? You, young
man, avast there!”

And running up after me, she caught me as I was again trying to force
open the door.

“I don’t allow it; I won’t have my premises spoiled. Go for the
locksmith, there’s one about a mile from here. But avast!” putting her
hand in her side-pocket, “here’s a key that’ll fit, I guess; let’s
see.” And with that, she turned it in the lock; but, alas! Queequeg’s
supplemental bolt remained unwithdrawn within.

“Have to burst it open,” said I, and was running down the entry a
little, for a good start, when the landlady caught at me, again vowing
I should not break down her premises; but I tore from her, and with a
sudden bodily rush dashed myself full against the mark.

With a prodigious noise the door flew open, and the knob slamming
against the wall, sent the plaster to the ceiling; and there, good
heavens! there sat Queequeg, altogether cool and self-collected; right
in the middle of the room; squatting on his hams, and holding Yojo on
top of his head. He looked neither one way nor the other way, but sat
like a carved image with scarce a sign of active life.

“Queequeg,” said I, going up to him, “Queequeg, what’s the matter with
you?”

“He hain’t been a sittin’ so all day, has he?” said the landlady.

But all we said, not a word could we drag out of him; I almost felt
like pushing him over, so as to change his position, for it was almost
intolerable, it seemed so painfully and unnaturally constrained;
especially, as in all probability he had been sitting so for upwards of
eight or ten hours, going too without his regular meals.

“Mrs. Hussey,” said I, “he’s _alive_ at all events; so leave us, if you
please, and I will see to this strange affair myself.”

Closing the door upon the landlady, I endeavored to prevail upon
Queequeg to take a chair; but in vain. There he sat; and all he could
do—for all my polite arts and blandishments—he would not move a peg,
nor say a single word, nor even look at me, nor notice my presence in
the slightest way.

I wonder, thought I, if this can possibly be a part of his Ramadan; do
they fast on their hams that way in his native island. It must be so;
yes, it’s part of his creed, I suppose; well, then, let him rest; he’ll
get up sooner or later, no doubt. It can’t last for ever, thank God,
and his Ramadan only comes once a year; and I don’t believe it’s very
punctual then.

I went down to supper. After sitting a long time listening to the long
stories of some sailors who had just come from a plum-pudding voyage,
as they called it (that is, a short whaling-voyage in a schooner or
brig, confined to the north of the line, in the Atlantic Ocean only);
after listening to these plum-puddingers till nearly eleven o’clock, I
went up stairs to go to bed, feeling quite sure by this time Queequeg
must certainly have brought his Ramadan to a termination. But no; there
he was just where I had left him; he had not stirred an inch. I began
to grow vexed with him; it seemed so downright senseless and insane to
be sitting there all day and half the night on his hams in a cold room,
holding a piece of wood on his head.

“For heaven’s sake, Queequeg, get up and shake yourself; get up and
have some supper. You’ll starve; you’ll kill yourself, Queequeg.” But
not a word did he reply.

Despairing of him, therefore, I determined to go to bed and to sleep;
and no doubt, before a great while, he would follow me. But previous to
turning in, I took my heavy bearskin jacket, and threw it over him, as
it promised to be a very cold night; and he had nothing but his
ordinary round jacket on. For some time, do all I would, I could not
get into the faintest doze. I had blown out the candle; and the mere
thought of Queequeg—not four feet off—sitting there in that uneasy
position, stark alone in the cold and dark; this made me really
wretched. Think of it; sleeping all night in the same room with a wide
awake pagan on his hams in this dreary, unaccountable Ramadan!

But somehow I dropped off at last, and knew nothing more till break of
day; when, looking over the bedside, there squatted Queequeg, as if he
had been screwed down to the floor. But as soon as the first glimpse of
sun entered the window, up he got, with stiff and grating joints, but
with a cheerful look; limped towards me where I lay; pressed his
forehead again against mine; and said his Ramadan was over.

Now, as I before hinted, I have no objection to any person’s religion,
be it what it may, so long as that person does not kill or insult any
other person, because that other person don’t believe it also. But when
a man’s religion becomes really frantic; when it is a positive torment
to him; and, in fine, makes this earth of ours an uncomfortable inn to
lodge in; then I think it high time to take that individual aside and
argue the point with him.

And just so I now did with Queequeg. “Queequeg,” said I, “get into bed
now, and lie and listen to me.” I then went on, beginning with the rise
and progress of the primitive religions, and coming down to the various
religions of the present time, during which time I labored to show
Queequeg that all these Lents, Ramadans, and prolonged ham-squattings
in cold, cheerless rooms were stark nonsense; bad for the health;
useless for the soul; opposed, in short, to the obvious laws of Hygiene
and common sense. I told him, too, that he being in other things such
an extremely sensible and sagacious savage, it pained me, very badly
pained me, to see him now so deplorably foolish about this ridiculous
Ramadan of his. Besides, argued I, fasting makes the body cave in;
hence the spirit caves in; and all thoughts born of a fast must
necessarily be half-starved. This is the reason why most dyspeptic
religionists cherish such melancholy notions about their hereafters. In
one word, Queequeg, said I, rather digressively; hell is an idea first
born on an undigested apple-dumpling; and since then perpetuated
through the hereditary dyspepsias nurtured by Ramadans.

I then asked Queequeg whether he himself was ever troubled with
dyspepsia; expressing the idea very plainly, so that he could take it
in. He said no; only upon one memorable occasion. It was after a great
feast given by his father the king, on the gaining of a great battle
wherein fifty of the enemy had been killed by about two o’clock in the
afternoon, and all cooked and eaten that very evening.

“No more, Queequeg,” said I, shuddering; “that will do;” for I knew the
inferences without his further hinting them. I had seen a sailor who
had visited that very island, and he told me that it was the custom,
when a great battle had been gained there, to barbecue all the slain in
the yard or garden of the victor; and then, one by one, they were
placed in great wooden trenchers, and garnished round like a pilau,
with breadfruit and cocoanuts; and with some parsley in their mouths,
were sent round with the victor’s compliments to all his friends, just
as though these presents were so many Christmas turkeys.

After all, I do not think that my remarks about religion made much
impression upon Queequeg. Because, in the first place, he somehow
seemed dull of hearing on that important subject, unless considered
from his own point of view; and, in the second place, he did not more
than one third understand me, couch my ideas simply as I would; and,
finally, he no doubt thought he knew a good deal more about the true
religion than I did. He looked at me with a sort of condescending
concern and compassion, as though he thought it a great pity that such
a sensible young man should be so hopelessly lost to evangelical pagan
piety.

At last we rose and dressed; and Queequeg, taking a prodigiously hearty
breakfast of chowders of all sorts, so that the landlady should not
make much profit by reason of his Ramadan, we sallied out to board the
Pequod, sauntering along, and picking our teeth with halibut bones.


CHAPTER 18. His Mark.

As we were walking down the end of the wharf towards the ship, Queequeg
carrying his harpoon, Captain Peleg in his gruff voice loudly hailed us
from his wigwam, saying he had not suspected my friend was a cannibal,
and furthermore announcing that he let no cannibals on board that
craft, unless they previously produced their papers.

“What do you mean by that, Captain Peleg?” said I, now jumping on the
bulwarks, and leaving my comrade standing on the wharf.

“I mean,” he replied, “he must show his papers.”

“Yes,” said Captain Bildad in his hollow voice, sticking his head from
behind Peleg’s, out of the wigwam. “He must show that he’s converted.
Son of darkness,” he added, turning to Queequeg, “art thou at present
in communion with any Christian church?”

“Why,” said I, “he’s a member of the first Congregational Church.” Here
be it said, that many tattooed savages sailing in Nantucket ships at
last come to be converted into the churches.

“First Congregational Church,” cried Bildad, “what! that worships in
Deacon Deuteronomy Coleman’s meeting-house?” and so saying, taking out
his spectacles, he rubbed them with his great yellow bandana
handkerchief, and putting them on very carefully, came out of the
wigwam, and leaning stiffly over the bulwarks, took a good long look at
Queequeg.

“How long hath he been a member?” he then said, turning to me; “not
very long, I rather guess, young man.”

“No,” said Peleg, “and he hasn’t been baptized right either, or it
would have washed some of that devil’s blue off his face.”

“Do tell, now,” cried Bildad, “is this Philistine a regular member of
Deacon Deuteronomy’s meeting? I never saw him going there, and I pass
it every Lord’s day.”

“I don’t know anything about Deacon Deuteronomy or his meeting,” said
I; “all I know is, that Queequeg here is a born member of the First
Congregational Church. He is a deacon himself, Queequeg is.”

“Young man,” said Bildad sternly, “thou art skylarking with me—explain
thyself, thou young Hittite. What church dost thee mean? answer me.”

Finding myself thus hard pushed, I replied. “I mean, sir, the same
ancient Catholic Church to which you and I, and Captain Peleg there,
and Queequeg here, and all of us, and every mother’s son and soul of us
belong; the great and everlasting First Congregation of this whole
worshipping world; we all belong to that; only some of us cherish some
queer crotchets no ways touching the grand belief; in _that_ we all
join hands.”

“Splice, thou mean’st _splice_ hands,” cried Peleg, drawing nearer.
“Young man, you’d better ship for a missionary, instead of a fore-mast
hand; I never heard a better sermon. Deacon Deuteronomy—why Father
Mapple himself couldn’t beat it, and he’s reckoned something. Come
aboard, come aboard; never mind about the papers. I say, tell Quohog
there—what’s that you call him? tell Quohog to step along. By the great
anchor, what a harpoon he’s got there! looks like good stuff that; and
he handles it about right. I say, Quohog, or whatever your name is, did
you ever stand in the head of a whale-boat? did you ever strike a
fish?”

Without saying a word, Queequeg, in his wild sort of way, jumped upon
the bulwarks, from thence into the bows of one of the whale-boats
hanging to the side; and then bracing his left knee, and poising his
harpoon, cried out in some such way as this:—

“Cap’ain, you see him small drop tar on water dere? You see him? well,
spose him one whale eye, well, den!” and taking sharp aim at it, he
darted the iron right over old Bildad’s broad brim, clean across the
ship’s decks, and struck the glistening tar spot out of sight.

“Now,” said Queequeg, quietly hauling in the line, “spos-ee him whale-e
eye; why, dad whale dead.”

“Quick, Bildad,” said Peleg, his partner, who, aghast at the close
vicinity of the flying harpoon, had retreated towards the cabin
gangway. “Quick, I say, you Bildad, and get the ship’s papers. We must
have Hedgehog there, I mean Quohog, in one of our boats. Look ye,
Quohog, we’ll give ye the ninetieth lay, and that’s more than ever was
given a harpooneer yet out of Nantucket.”

So down we went into the cabin, and to my great joy Queequeg was soon
enrolled among the same ship’s company to which I myself belonged.

When all preliminaries were over and Peleg had got everything ready for
signing, he turned to me and said, “I guess, Quohog there don’t know
how to write, does he? I say, Quohog, blast ye! dost thou sign thy name
or make thy mark?”

But at this question, Queequeg, who had twice or thrice before taken
part in similar ceremonies, looked no ways abashed; but taking the
offered pen, copied upon the paper, in the proper place, an exact
counterpart of a queer round figure which was tattooed upon his arm; so
that through Captain Peleg’s obstinate mistake touching his
appellative, it stood something like this:—

Quohog. his X mark.

Meanwhile Captain Bildad sat earnestly and steadfastly eyeing Queequeg,
and at last rising solemnly and fumbling in the huge pockets of his
broad-skirted drab coat, took out a bundle of tracts, and selecting one
entitled “The Latter Day Coming; or No Time to Lose,” placed it in
Queequeg’s hands, and then grasping them and the book with both his,
looked earnestly into his eyes, and said, “Son of darkness, I must do
my duty by thee; I am part owner of this ship, and feel concerned for
the souls of all its crew; if thou still clingest to thy Pagan ways,
which I sadly fear, I beseech thee, remain not for aye a Belial
bondsman. Spurn the idol Bell, and the hideous dragon; turn from the
wrath to come; mind thine eye, I say; oh! goodness gracious! steer
clear of the fiery pit!”

Something of the salt sea yet lingered in old Bildad’s language,
heterogeneously mixed with Scriptural and domestic phrases.

“Avast there, avast there, Bildad, avast now spoiling our harpooneer,”
cried Peleg. “Pious harpooneers never make good voyagers—it takes the
shark out of ’em; no harpooneer is worth a straw who aint pretty
sharkish. There was young Nat Swaine, once the bravest boat-header out
of all Nantucket and the Vineyard; he joined the meeting, and never
came to good. He got so frightened about his plaguy soul, that he
shrinked and sheered away from whales, for fear of after-claps, in case
he got stove and went to Davy Jones.”

“Peleg! Peleg!” said Bildad, lifting his eyes and hands, “thou thyself,
as I myself, hast seen many a perilous time; thou knowest, Peleg, what
it is to have the fear of death; how, then, can’st thou prate in this
ungodly guise. Thou beliest thine own heart, Peleg. Tell me, when this
same Pequod here had her three masts overboard in that typhoon on
Japan, that same voyage when thou went mate with Captain Ahab, did’st
thou not think of Death and the Judgment then?”

“Hear him, hear him now,” cried Peleg, marching across the cabin, and
thrusting his hands far down into his pockets,—“hear him, all of ye.
Think of that! When every moment we thought the ship would sink! Death
and the Judgment then? What? With all three masts making such an
everlasting thundering against the side; and every sea breaking over
us, fore and aft. Think of Death and the Judgment then? No! no time to
think about Death then. Life was what Captain Ahab and I was thinking
of; and how to save all hands—how to rig jury-masts—how to get into the
nearest port; that was what I was thinking of.”

Bildad said no more, but buttoning up his coat, stalked on deck, where
we followed him. There he stood, very quietly overlooking some
sailmakers who were mending a top-sail in the waist. Now and then he
stooped to pick up a patch, or save an end of tarred twine, which
otherwise might have been wasted.


CHAPTER 19. The Prophet.

“Shipmates, have ye shipped in that ship?”

Queequeg and I had just left the Pequod, and were sauntering away from
the water, for the moment each occupied with his own thoughts, when the
above words were put to us by a stranger, who, pausing before us,
levelled his massive forefinger at the vessel in question. He was but
shabbily apparelled in faded jacket and patched trowsers; a rag of a
black handkerchief investing his neck. A confluent small-pox had in all
directions flowed over his face, and left it like the complicated
ribbed bed of a torrent, when the rushing waters have been dried up.

“Have ye shipped in her?” he repeated.

“You mean the ship Pequod, I suppose,” said I, trying to gain a little
more time for an uninterrupted look at him.

“Aye, the Pequod—that ship there,” he said, drawing back his whole arm,
and then rapidly shoving it straight out from him, with the fixed
bayonet of his pointed finger darted full at the object.

“Yes,” said I, “we have just signed the articles.”

“Anything down there about your souls?”

“About what?”

“Oh, perhaps you hav’n’t got any,” he said quickly. “No matter though,
I know many chaps that hav’n’t got any,—good luck to ’em; and they are
all the better off for it. A soul’s a sort of a fifth wheel to a
wagon.”

“What are you jabbering about, shipmate?” said I.

“_He’s_ got enough, though, to make up for all deficiencies of that
sort in other chaps,” abruptly said the stranger, placing a nervous
emphasis upon the word _he_.

“Queequeg,” said I, “let’s go; this fellow has broken loose from
somewhere; he’s talking about something and somebody we don’t know.”

“Stop!” cried the stranger. “Ye said true—ye hav’n’t seen Old Thunder
yet, have ye?”

“Who’s Old Thunder?” said I, again riveted with the insane earnestness
of his manner.

“Captain Ahab.”

“What! the captain of our ship, the Pequod?”

“Aye, among some of us old sailor chaps, he goes by that name. Ye
hav’n’t seen him yet, have ye?”

“No, we hav’n’t. He’s sick they say, but is getting better, and will be
all right again before long.”

“All right again before long!” laughed the stranger, with a solemnly
derisive sort of laugh. “Look ye; when Captain Ahab is all right, then
this left arm of mine will be all right; not before.”

“What do you know about him?”

“What did they _tell_ you about him? Say that!”

“They didn’t tell much of anything about him; only I’ve heard that he’s
a good whale-hunter, and a good captain to his crew.”

“That’s true, that’s true—yes, both true enough. But you must jump when
he gives an order. Step and growl; growl and go—that’s the word with
Captain Ahab. But nothing about that thing that happened to him off
Cape Horn, long ago, when he lay like dead for three days and nights;
nothing about that deadly skrimmage with the Spaniard afore the altar
in Santa?—heard nothing about that, eh? Nothing about the silver
calabash he spat into? And nothing about his losing his leg last
voyage, according to the prophecy. Didn’t ye hear a word about them
matters and something more, eh? No, I don’t think ye did; how could ye?
Who knows it? Not all Nantucket, I guess. But hows’ever, mayhap, ye’ve
heard tell about the leg, and how he lost it; aye, ye have heard of
that, I dare say. Oh yes, _that_ every one knows a’most—I mean they
know he’s only one leg; and that a parmacetti took the other off.”

“My friend,” said I, “what all this gibberish of yours is about, I
don’t know, and I don’t much care; for it seems to me that you must be
a little damaged in the head. But if you are speaking of Captain Ahab,
of that ship there, the Pequod, then let me tell you, that I know all
about the loss of his leg.”

“_All_ about it, eh—sure you do?—all?”

“Pretty sure.”

With finger pointed and eye levelled at the Pequod, the beggar-like
stranger stood a moment, as if in a troubled reverie; then starting a
little, turned and said:—“Ye’ve shipped, have ye? Names down on the
papers? Well, well, what’s signed, is signed; and what’s to be, will
be; and then again, perhaps it won’t be, after all. Anyhow, it’s all
fixed and arranged a’ready; and some sailors or other must go with him,
I suppose; as well these as any other men, God pity ’em! Morning to ye,
shipmates, morning; the ineffable heavens bless ye; I’m sorry I stopped
ye.”

“Look here, friend,” said I, “if you have anything important to tell
us, out with it; but if you are only trying to bamboozle us, you are
mistaken in your game; that’s all I have to say.”

“And it’s said very well, and I like to hear a chap talk up that way;
you are just the man for him—the likes of ye. Morning to ye, shipmates,
morning! Oh! when ye get there, tell ’em I’ve concluded not to make one
of ’em.”

“Ah, my dear fellow, you can’t fool us that way—you can’t fool us. It
is the easiest thing in the world for a man to look as if he had a
great secret in him.”

“Morning to ye, shipmates, morning.”

“Morning it is,” said I. “Come along, Queequeg, let’s leave this crazy
man. But stop, tell me your name, will you?”

“Elijah.”

Elijah! thought I, and we walked away, both commenting, after each
other’s fashion, upon this ragged old sailor; and agreed that he was
nothing but a humbug, trying to be a bugbear. But we had not gone
perhaps above a hundred yards, when chancing to turn a corner, and
looking back as I did so, who should be seen but Elijah following us,
though at a distance. Somehow, the sight of him struck me so, that I
said nothing to Queequeg of his being behind, but passed on with my
comrade, anxious to see whether the stranger would turn the same corner
that we did. He did; and then it seemed to me that he was dogging us,
but with what intent I could not for the life of me imagine. This
circumstance, coupled with his ambiguous, half-hinting, half-revealing,
shrouded sort of talk, now begat in me all kinds of vague wonderments
and half-apprehensions, and all connected with the Pequod; and Captain
Ahab; and the leg he had lost; and the Cape Horn fit; and the silver
calabash; and what Captain Peleg had said of him, when I left the ship
the day previous; and the prediction of the squaw Tistig; and the
voyage we had bound ourselves to sail; and a hundred other shadowy
things.

I was resolved to satisfy myself whether this ragged Elijah was really
dogging us or not, and with that intent crossed the way with Queequeg,
and on that side of it retraced our steps. But Elijah passed on,
without seeming to notice us. This relieved me; and once more, and
finally as it seemed to me, I pronounced him in my heart, a humbug.


CHAPTER 20. All Astir.

A day or two passed, and there was great activity aboard the Pequod.
Not only were the old sails being mended, but new sails were coming on
board, and bolts of canvas, and coils of rigging; in short, everything
betokened that the ship’s preparations were hurrying to a close.
Captain Peleg seldom or never went ashore, but sat in his wigwam
keeping a sharp look-out upon the hands: Bildad did all the purchasing
and providing at the stores; and the men employed in the hold and on
the rigging were working till long after night-fall.

On the day following Queequeg’s signing the articles, word was given at
all the inns where the ship’s company were stopping, that their chests
must be on board before night, for there was no telling how soon the
vessel might be sailing. So Queequeg and I got down our traps,
resolving, however, to sleep ashore till the last. But it seems they
always give very long notice in these cases, and the ship did not sail
for several days. But no wonder; there was a good deal to be done, and
there is no telling how many things to be thought of, before the Pequod
was fully equipped.

Every one knows what a multitude of things—beds, sauce-pans, knives and
forks, shovels and tongs, napkins, nut-crackers, and what not, are
indispensable to the business of housekeeping. Just so with whaling,
which necessitates a three-years’ housekeeping upon the wide ocean, far
from all grocers, costermongers, doctors, bakers, and bankers. And
though this also holds true of merchant vessels, yet not by any means
to the same extent as with whalemen. For besides the great length of
the whaling voyage, the numerous articles peculiar to the prosecution
of the fishery, and the impossibility of replacing them at the remote
harbors usually frequented, it must be remembered, that of all ships,
whaling vessels are the most exposed to accidents of all kinds, and
especially to the destruction and loss of the very things upon which
the success of the voyage most depends. Hence, the spare boats, spare
spars, and spare lines and harpoons, and spare everythings, almost, but
a spare Captain and duplicate ship.

At the period of our arrival at the Island, the heaviest storage of the
Pequod had been almost completed; comprising her beef, bread, water,
fuel, and iron hoops and staves. But, as before hinted, for some time
there was a continual fetching and carrying on board of divers odds and
ends of things, both large and small.

Chief among those who did this fetching and carrying was Captain
Bildad’s sister, a lean old lady of a most determined and indefatigable
spirit, but withal very kindhearted, who seemed resolved that, if _she_
could help it, nothing should be found wanting in the Pequod, after
once fairly getting to sea. At one time she would come on board with a
jar of pickles for the steward’s pantry; another time with a bunch of
quills for the chief mate’s desk, where he kept his log; a third time
with a roll of flannel for the small of some one’s rheumatic back.
Never did any woman better deserve her name, which was Charity—Aunt
Charity, as everybody called her. And like a sister of charity did this
charitable Aunt Charity bustle about hither and thither, ready to turn
her hand and heart to anything that promised to yield safety, comfort,
and consolation to all on board a ship in which her beloved brother
Bildad was concerned, and in which she herself owned a score or two of
well-saved dollars.

But it was startling to see this excellent hearted Quakeress coming on
board, as she did the last day, with a long oil-ladle in one hand, and
a still longer whaling lance in the other. Nor was Bildad himself nor
Captain Peleg at all backward. As for Bildad, he carried about with him
a long list of the articles needed, and at every fresh arrival, down
went his mark opposite that article upon the paper. Every once in a
while Peleg came hobbling out of his whalebone den, roaring at the men
down the hatchways, roaring up to the riggers at the mast-head, and
then concluded by roaring back into his wigwam.

During these days of preparation, Queequeg and I often visited the
craft, and as often I asked about Captain Ahab, and how he was, and
when he was going to come on board his ship. To these questions they
would answer, that he was getting better and better, and was expected
aboard every day; meantime, the two captains, Peleg and Bildad, could
attend to everything necessary to fit the vessel for the voyage. If I
had been downright honest with myself, I would have seen very plainly
in my heart that I did but half fancy being committed this way to so
long a voyage, without once laying my eyes on the man who was to be the
absolute dictator of it, so soon as the ship sailed out upon the open
sea. But when a man suspects any wrong, it sometimes happens that if he
be already involved in the matter, he insensibly strives to cover up
his suspicions even from himself. And much this way it was with me. I
said nothing, and tried to think nothing.

At last it was given out that some time next day the ship would
certainly sail. So next morning, Queequeg and I took a very early
start.


CHAPTER 21. Going Aboard.

It was nearly six o’clock, but only grey imperfect misty dawn, when we
drew nigh the wharf.

“There are some sailors running ahead there, if I see right,” said I to
Queequeg, “it can’t be shadows; she’s off by sunrise, I guess; come
on!”

“Avast!” cried a voice, whose owner at the same time coming close
behind us, laid a hand upon both our shoulders, and then insinuating
himself between us, stood stooping forward a little, in the uncertain
twilight, strangely peering from Queequeg to me. It was Elijah.

“Going aboard?”

“Hands off, will you,” said I.

“Lookee here,” said Queequeg, shaking himself, “go ’way!”

“Ain’t going aboard, then?”

“Yes, we are,” said I, “but what business is that of yours? Do you
know, Mr. Elijah, that I consider you a little impertinent?”

“No, no, no; I wasn’t aware of that,” said Elijah, slowly and
wonderingly looking from me to Queequeg, with the most unaccountable
glances.

“Elijah,” said I, “you will oblige my friend and me by withdrawing. We
are going to the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and would prefer not to be
detained.”

“Ye be, be ye? Coming back afore breakfast?”

“He’s cracked, Queequeg,” said I, “come on.”

“Holloa!” cried stationary Elijah, hailing us when we had removed a few
paces.

“Never mind him,” said I, “Queequeg, come on.”

But he stole up to us again, and suddenly clapping his hand on my
shoulder, said—“Did ye see anything looking like men going towards that
ship a while ago?”

Struck by this plain matter-of-fact question, I answered, saying, “Yes,
I thought I did see four or five men; but it was too dim to be sure.”

“Very dim, very dim,” said Elijah. “Morning to ye.”

Once more we quitted him; but once more he came softly after us; and
touching my shoulder again, said, “See if you can find ’em now, will
ye?

“Find who?”

“Morning to ye! morning to ye!” he rejoined, again moving off. “Oh! I
was going to warn ye against—but never mind, never mind—it’s all one,
all in the family too;—sharp frost this morning, ain’t it? Good-bye to
ye. Shan’t see ye again very soon, I guess; unless it’s before the
Grand Jury.” And with these cracked words he finally departed, leaving
me, for the moment, in no small wonderment at his frantic impudence.

At last, stepping on board the Pequod, we found everything in profound
quiet, not a soul moving. The cabin entrance was locked within; the
hatches were all on, and lumbered with coils of rigging. Going forward
to the forecastle, we found the slide of the scuttle open. Seeing a
light, we went down, and found only an old rigger there, wrapped in a
tattered pea-jacket. He was thrown at whole length upon two chests, his
face downwards and inclosed in his folded arms. The profoundest slumber
slept upon him.

“Those sailors we saw, Queequeg, where can they have gone to?” said I,
looking dubiously at the sleeper. But it seemed that, when on the
wharf, Queequeg had not at all noticed what I now alluded to; hence I
would have thought myself to have been optically deceived in that
matter, were it not for Elijah’s otherwise inexplicable question. But I
beat the thing down; and again marking the sleeper, jocularly hinted to
Queequeg that perhaps we had best sit up with the body; telling him to
establish himself accordingly. He put his hand upon the sleeper’s rear,
as though feeling if it was soft enough; and then, without more ado,
sat quietly down there.

“Gracious! Queequeg, don’t sit there,” said I.

“Oh! perry dood seat,” said Queequeg, “my country way; won’t hurt him
face.”

“Face!” said I, “call that his face? very benevolent countenance then;
but how hard he breathes, he’s heaving himself; get off, Queequeg, you
are heavy, it’s grinding the face of the poor. Get off, Queequeg! Look,
he’ll twitch you off soon. I wonder he don’t wake.”

Queequeg removed himself to just beyond the head of the sleeper, and
lighted his tomahawk pipe. I sat at the feet. We kept the pipe passing
over the sleeper, from one to the other. Meanwhile, upon questioning
him in his broken fashion, Queequeg gave me to understand that, in his
land, owing to the absence of settees and sofas of all sorts, the king,
chiefs, and great people generally, were in the custom of fattening
some of the lower orders for ottomans; and to furnish a house
comfortably in that respect, you had only to buy up eight or ten lazy
fellows, and lay them round in the piers and alcoves. Besides, it was
very convenient on an excursion; much better than those garden-chairs
which are convertible into walking-sticks; upon occasion, a chief
calling his attendant, and desiring him to make a settee of himself
under a spreading tree, perhaps in some damp marshy place.

While narrating these things, every time Queequeg received the tomahawk
from me, he flourished the hatchet-side of it over the sleeper’s head.

“What’s that for, Queequeg?”

“Perry easy, kill-e; oh! perry easy!”

He was going on with some wild reminiscences about his tomahawk-pipe,
which, it seemed, had in its two uses both brained his foes and soothed
his soul, when we were directly attracted to the sleeping rigger. The
strong vapor now completely filling the contracted hole, it began to
tell upon him. He breathed with a sort of muffledness; then seemed
troubled in the nose; then revolved over once or twice; then sat up and
rubbed his eyes.

“Holloa!” he breathed at last, “who be ye smokers?”

“Shipped men,” answered I, “when does she sail?”

“Aye, aye, ye are going in her, be ye? She sails to-day. The Captain
came aboard last night.”

“What Captain?—Ahab?”

“Who but him indeed?”

I was going to ask him some further questions concerning Ahab, when we
heard a noise on deck.

“Holloa! Starbuck’s astir,” said the rigger. “He’s a lively chief mate,
that; good man, and a pious; but all alive now, I must turn to.” And so
saying he went on deck, and we followed.

It was now clear sunrise. Soon the crew came on board in twos and
threes; the riggers bestirred themselves; the mates were actively
engaged; and several of the shore people were busy in bringing various
last things on board. Meanwhile Captain Ahab remained invisibly
enshrined within his cabin.


CHAPTER 22. Merry Christmas.

At length, towards noon, upon the final dismissal of the ship’s
riggers, and after the Pequod had been hauled out from the wharf, and
after the ever-thoughtful Charity had come off in a whale-boat, with
her last gift—a night-cap for Stubb, the second mate, her
brother-in-law, and a spare Bible for the steward—after all this, the
two Captains, Peleg and Bildad, issued from the cabin, and turning to
the chief mate, Peleg said:

“Now, Mr. Starbuck, are you sure everything is right? Captain Ahab is
all ready—just spoke to him—nothing more to be got from shore, eh?
Well, call all hands, then. Muster ’em aft here—blast ’em!”

“No need of profane words, however great the hurry, Peleg,” said
Bildad, “but away with thee, friend Starbuck, and do our bidding.”

How now! Here upon the very point of starting for the voyage, Captain
Peleg and Captain Bildad were going it with a high hand on the
quarter-deck, just as if they were to be joint-commanders at sea, as
well as to all appearances in port. And, as for Captain Ahab, no sign
of him was yet to be seen; only, they said he was in the cabin. But
then, the idea was, that his presence was by no means necessary in
getting the ship under weigh, and steering her well out to sea. Indeed,
as that was not at all his proper business, but the pilot’s; and as he
was not yet completely recovered—so they said—therefore, Captain Ahab
stayed below. And all this seemed natural enough; especially as in the
merchant service many captains never show themselves on deck for a
considerable time after heaving up the anchor, but remain over the
cabin table, having a farewell merry-making with their shore friends,
before they quit the ship for good with the pilot.

But there was not much chance to think over the matter, for Captain
Peleg was now all alive. He seemed to do most of the talking and
commanding, and not Bildad.

“Aft here, ye sons of bachelors,” he cried, as the sailors lingered at
the main-mast. “Mr. Starbuck, drive ’em aft.”

“Strike the tent there!”—was the next order. As I hinted before, this
whalebone marquee was never pitched except in port; and on board the
Pequod, for thirty years, the order to strike the tent was well known
to be the next thing to heaving up the anchor.

“Man the capstan! Blood and thunder!—jump!”—was the next command, and
the crew sprang for the handspikes.

Now in getting under weigh, the station generally occupied by the pilot
is the forward part of the ship. And here Bildad, who, with Peleg, be
it known, in addition to his other officers, was one of the licensed
pilots of the port—he being suspected to have got himself made a pilot
in order to save the Nantucket pilot-fee to all the ships he was
concerned in, for he never piloted any other craft—Bildad, I say, might
now be seen actively engaged in looking over the bows for the
approaching anchor, and at intervals singing what seemed a dismal stave
of psalmody, to cheer the hands at the windlass, who roared forth some
sort of a chorus about the girls in Booble Alley, with hearty good
will. Nevertheless, not three days previous, Bildad had told them that
no profane songs would be allowed on board the Pequod, particularly in
getting under weigh; and Charity, his sister, had placed a small choice
copy of Watts in each seaman’s berth.

Meantime, overseeing the other part of the ship, Captain Peleg ripped
and swore astern in the most frightful manner. I almost thought he
would sink the ship before the anchor could be got up; involuntarily I
paused on my handspike, and told Queequeg to do the same, thinking of
the perils we both ran, in starting on the voyage with such a devil for
a pilot. I was comforting myself, however, with the thought that in
pious Bildad might be found some salvation, spite of his seven hundred
and seventy-seventh lay; when I felt a sudden sharp poke in my rear,
and turning round, was horrified at the apparition of Captain Peleg in
the act of withdrawing his leg from my immediate vicinity. That was my
first kick.

“Is that the way they heave in the marchant service?” he roared.
“Spring, thou sheep-head; spring, and break thy backbone! Why don’t ye
spring, I say, all of ye—spring! Quohog! spring, thou chap with the red
whiskers; spring there, Scotch-cap; spring, thou green pants. Spring, I
say, all of ye, and spring your eyes out!” And so saying, he moved
along the windlass, here and there using his leg very freely, while
imperturbable Bildad kept leading off with his psalmody. Thinks I,
Captain Peleg must have been drinking something to-day.

At last the anchor was up, the sails were set, and off we glided. It
was a short, cold Christmas; and as the short northern day merged into
night, we found ourselves almost broad upon the wintry ocean, whose
freezing spray cased us in ice, as in polished armor. The long rows of
teeth on the bulwarks glistened in the moonlight; and like the white
ivory tusks of some huge elephant, vast curving icicles depended from
the bows.

Lank Bildad, as pilot, headed the first watch, and ever and anon, as
the old craft deep dived into the green seas, and sent the shivering
frost all over her, and the winds howled, and the cordage rang, his
steady notes were heard,—


_“Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood, Stand dressed in living
green. So to the Jews old Canaan stood, While Jordan rolled between.”_



Never did those sweet words sound more sweetly to me than then. They
were full of hope and fruition. Spite of this frigid winter night in
the boisterous Atlantic, spite of my wet feet and wetter jacket, there
was yet, it then seemed to me, many a pleasant haven in store; and
meads and glades so eternally vernal, that the grass shot up by the
spring, untrodden, unwilted, remains at midsummer.

At last we gained such an offing, that the two pilots were needed no
longer. The stout sail-boat that had accompanied us began ranging
alongside.

It was curious and not unpleasing, how Peleg and Bildad were affected
at this juncture, especially Captain Bildad. For loath to depart, yet;
very loath to leave, for good, a ship bound on so long and perilous a
voyage—beyond both stormy Capes; a ship in which some thousands of his
hard earned dollars were invested; a ship, in which an old shipmate
sailed as captain; a man almost as old as he, once more starting to
encounter all the terrors of the pitiless jaw; loath to say good-bye to
a thing so every way brimful of every interest to him,—poor old Bildad
lingered long; paced the deck with anxious strides; ran down into the
cabin to speak another farewell word there; again came on deck, and
looked to windward; looked towards the wide and endless waters, only
bounded by the far-off unseen Eastern Continents; looked towards the
land; looked aloft; looked right and left; looked everywhere and
nowhere; and at last, mechanically coiling a rope upon its pin,
convulsively grasped stout Peleg by the hand, and holding up a lantern,
for a moment stood gazing heroically in his face, as much as to say,
“Nevertheless, friend Peleg, I can stand it; yes, I can.”

As for Peleg himself, he took it more like a philosopher; but for all
his philosophy, there was a tear twinkling in his eye, when the lantern
came too near. And he, too, did not a little run from cabin to deck—now
a word below, and now a word with Starbuck, the chief mate.

But, at last, he turned to his comrade, with a final sort of look about
him,—“Captain Bildad—come, old shipmate, we must go. Back the main-yard
there! Boat ahoy! Stand by to come close alongside, now! Careful,
careful!—come, Bildad, boy—say your last. Luck to ye, Starbuck—luck to
ye, Mr. Stubb—luck to ye, Mr. Flask—good-bye and good luck to ye
all—and this day three years I’ll have a hot supper smoking for ye in
old Nantucket. Hurrah and away!”

“God bless ye, and have ye in His holy keeping, men,” murmured old
Bildad, almost incoherently. “I hope ye’ll have fine weather now, so
that Captain Ahab may soon be moving among ye—a pleasant sun is all he
needs, and ye’ll have plenty of them in the tropic voyage ye go. Be
careful in the hunt, ye mates. Don’t stave the boats needlessly, ye
harpooneers; good white cedar plank is raised full three per cent.
within the year. Don’t forget your prayers, either. Mr. Starbuck, mind
that cooper don’t waste the spare staves. Oh! the sail-needles are in
the green locker! Don’t whale it too much a’ Lord’s days, men; but
don’t miss a fair chance either, that’s rejecting Heaven’s good gifts.
Have an eye to the molasses tierce, Mr. Stubb; it was a little leaky, I
thought. If ye touch at the islands, Mr. Flask, beware of fornication.
Good-bye, good-bye! Don’t keep that cheese too long down in the hold,
Mr. Starbuck; it’ll spoil. Be careful with the butter—twenty cents the
pound it was, and mind ye, if—”

“Come, come, Captain Bildad; stop palavering,—away!” and with that,
Peleg hurried him over the side, and both dropt into the boat.

Ship and boat diverged; the cold, damp night breeze blew between; a
screaming gull flew overhead; the two hulls wildly rolled; we gave
three heavy-hearted cheers, and blindly plunged like fate into the lone
Atlantic.


CHAPTER 23. The Lee Shore.

Some chapters back, one Bulkington was spoken of, a tall, newlanded
mariner, encountered in New Bedford at the inn.

When on that shivering winter’s night, the Pequod thrust her vindictive
bows into the cold malicious waves, who should I see standing at her
helm but Bulkington! I looked with sympathetic awe and fearfulness upon
the man, who in mid-winter just landed from a four years’ dangerous
voyage, could so unrestingly push off again for still another
tempestuous term. The land seemed scorching to his feet. Wonderfullest
things are ever the unmentionable; deep memories yield no epitaphs;
this six-inch chapter is the stoneless grave of Bulkington. Let me only
say that it fared with him as with the storm-tossed ship, that
miserably drives along the leeward land. The port would fain give
succor; the port is pitiful; in the port is safety, comfort,
hearthstone, supper, warm blankets, friends, all that’s kind to our
mortalities. But in that gale, the port, the land, is that ship’s
direst jeopardy; she must fly all hospitality; one touch of land,
though it but graze the keel, would make her shudder through and
through. With all her might she crowds all sail off shore; in so doing,
fights ’gainst the very winds that fain would blow her homeward; seeks
all the lashed sea’s landlessness again; for refuge’s sake forlornly
rushing into peril; her only friend her bitterest foe!

Know ye now, Bulkington? Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally
intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid
effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the
wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the
treacherous, slavish shore?

But as in landlessness alone resides highest truth, shoreless,
indefinite as God—so, better is it to perish in that howling infinite,
than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety! For
worm-like, then, oh! who would craven crawl to land! Terrors of the
terrible! is all this agony so vain? Take heart, take heart, O
Bulkington! Bear thee grimly, demigod! Up from the spray of thy
ocean-perishing—straight up, leaps thy apotheosis!


CHAPTER 24. The Advocate.

As Queequeg and I are now fairly embarked in this business of whaling;
and as this business of whaling has somehow come to be regarded among
landsmen as a rather unpoetical and disreputable pursuit; therefore, I
am all anxiety to convince ye, ye landsmen, of the injustice hereby
done to us hunters of whales.

In the first place, it may be deemed almost superfluous to establish
the fact, that among people at large, the business of whaling is not
accounted on a level with what are called the liberal professions. If a
stranger were introduced into any miscellaneous metropolitan society,
it would but slightly advance the general opinion of his merits, were
he presented to the company as a harpooneer, say; and if in emulation
of the naval officers he should append the initials S.W.F. (Sperm Whale
Fishery) to his visiting card, such a procedure would be deemed
pre-eminently presuming and ridiculous.

Doubtless one leading reason why the world declines honoring us
whalemen, is this: they think that, at best, our vocation amounts to a
butchering sort of business; and that when actively engaged therein, we
are surrounded by all manner of defilements. Butchers we are, that is
true. But butchers, also, and butchers of the bloodiest badge have been
all Martial Commanders whom the world invariably delights to honor. And
as for the matter of the alleged uncleanliness of our business, ye
shall soon be initiated into certain facts hitherto pretty generally
unknown, and which, upon the whole, will triumphantly plant the sperm
whale-ship at least among the cleanliest things of this tidy earth. But
even granting the charge in question to be true; what disordered
slippery decks of a whale-ship are comparable to the unspeakable
carrion of those battle-fields from which so many soldiers return to
drink in all ladies’ plaudits? And if the idea of peril so much
enhances the popular conceit of the soldier’s profession; let me assure
ye that many a veteran who has freely marched up to a battery, would
quickly recoil at the apparition of the sperm whale’s vast tail,
fanning into eddies the air over his head. For what are the
comprehensible terrors of man compared with the interlinked terrors and
wonders of God!

But, though the world scouts at us whale hunters, yet does it
unwittingly pay us the profoundest homage; yea, an all-abounding
adoration! for almost all the tapers, lamps, and candles that burn
round the globe, burn, as before so many shrines, to our glory!

But look at this matter in other lights; weigh it in all sorts of
scales; see what we whalemen are, and have been.

Why did the Dutch in De Witt’s time have admirals of their whaling
fleets? Why did Louis XVI. of France, at his own personal expense, fit
out whaling ships from Dunkirk, and politely invite to that town some
score or two of families from our own island of Nantucket? Why did
Britain between the years 1750 and 1788 pay to her whalemen in bounties
upwards of £1,000,000? And lastly, how comes it that we whalemen of
America now outnumber all the rest of the banded whalemen in the world;
sail a navy of upwards of seven hundred vessels; manned by eighteen
thousand men; yearly consuming 4,000,000 of dollars; the ships worth,
at the time of sailing, $20,000,000! and every year importing into our
harbors a well reaped harvest of $7,000,000. How comes all this, if
there be not something puissant in whaling?

But this is not the half; look again.

I freely assert, that the cosmopolite philosopher cannot, for his life,
point out one single peaceful influence, which within the last sixty
years has operated more potentially upon the whole broad world, taken
in one aggregate, than the high and mighty business of whaling. One way
and another, it has begotten events so remarkable in themselves, and so
continuously momentous in their sequential issues, that whaling may
well be regarded as that Egyptian mother, who bore offspring themselves
pregnant from her womb. It would be a hopeless, endless task to
catalogue all these things. Let a handful suffice. For many years past
the whale-ship has been the pioneer in ferreting out the remotest and
least known parts of the earth. She has explored seas and archipelagoes
which had no chart, where no Cook or Vancouver had ever sailed. If
American and European men-of-war now peacefully ride in once savage
harbors, let them fire salutes to the honor and glory of the
whale-ship, which originally showed them the way, and first interpreted
between them and the savages. They may celebrate as they will the
heroes of Exploring Expeditions, your Cooks, your Krusensterns; but I
say that scores of anonymous Captains have sailed out of Nantucket,
that were as great, and greater than your Cook and your Krusenstern.
For in their succourless empty-handedness, they, in the heathenish
sharked waters, and by the beaches of unrecorded, javelin islands,
battled with virgin wonders and terrors that Cook with all his marines
and muskets would not willingly have dared. All that is made such a
flourish of in the old South Sea Voyages, those things were but the
life-time commonplaces of our heroic Nantucketers. Often, adventures
which Vancouver dedicates three chapters to, these men accounted
unworthy of being set down in the ship’s common log. Ah, the world! Oh,
the world!

Until the whale fishery rounded Cape Horn, no commerce but colonial,
scarcely any intercourse but colonial, was carried on between Europe
and the long line of the opulent Spanish provinces on the Pacific
coast. It was the whaleman who first broke through the jealous policy
of the Spanish crown, touching those colonies; and, if space permitted,
it might be distinctly shown how from those whalemen at last eventuated
the liberation of Peru, Chili, and Bolivia from the yoke of Old Spain,
and the establishment of the eternal democracy in those parts.

That great America on the other side of the sphere, Australia, was
given to the enlightened world by the whaleman. After its first
blunder-born discovery by a Dutchman, all other ships long shunned
those shores as pestiferously barbarous; but the whale-ship touched
there. The whale-ship is the true mother of that now mighty colony.
Moreover, in the infancy of the first Australian settlement, the
emigrants were several times saved from starvation by the benevolent
biscuit of the whale-ship luckily dropping an anchor in their waters.
The uncounted isles of all Polynesia confess the same truth, and do
commercial homage to the whale-ship, that cleared the way for the
missionary and the merchant, and in many cases carried the primitive
missionaries to their first destinations. If that double-bolted land,
Japan, is ever to become hospitable, it is the whale-ship alone to whom
the credit will be due; for already she is on the threshold.

But if, in the face of all this, you still declare that whaling has no
æsthetically noble associations connected with it, then am I ready to
shiver fifty lances with you there, and unhorse you with a split helmet
every time.

The whale has no famous author, and whaling no famous chronicler, you
will say.

_The whale no famous author, and whaling no famous chronicler?_ Who
wrote the first account of our Leviathan? Who but mighty Job! And who
composed the first narrative of a whaling-voyage? Who, but no less a
prince than Alfred the Great, who, with his own royal pen, took down
the words from Other, the Norwegian whale-hunter of those times! And
who pronounced our glowing eulogy in Parliament? Who, but Edmund Burke!

True enough, but then whalemen themselves are poor devils; they have no
good blood in their veins.

_No good blood in their veins?_ They have something better than royal
blood there. The grandmother of Benjamin Franklin was Mary Morrel;
afterwards, by marriage, Mary Folger, one of the old settlers of
Nantucket, and the ancestress to a long line of Folgers and
harpooneers—all kith and kin to noble Benjamin—this day darting the
barbed iron from one side of the world to the other.

Good again; but then all confess that somehow whaling is not
respectable.

_Whaling not respectable?_ Whaling is imperial! By old English
statutory law, the whale is declared “a royal fish.” *

Oh, that’s only nominal! The whale himself has never figured in any
grand imposing way.

_The whale never figured in any grand imposing way?_ In one of the
mighty triumphs given to a Roman general upon his entering the world’s
capital, the bones of a whale, brought all the way from the Syrian
coast, were the most conspicuous object in the cymballed procession.*

*See subsequent chapters for something more on this head.

Grant it, since you cite it; but, say what you will, there is no real
dignity in whaling.

_No dignity in whaling?_ The dignity of our calling the very heavens
attest. Cetus is a constellation in the South! No more! Drive down your
hat in presence of the Czar, and take it off to Queequeg! No more! I
know a man that, in his lifetime, has taken three hundred and fifty
whales. I account that man more honorable than that great captain of
antiquity who boasted of taking as many walled towns.

And, as for me, if, by any possibility, there be any as yet
undiscovered prime thing in me; if I shall ever deserve any real repute
in that small but high hushed world which I might not be unreasonably
ambitious of; if hereafter I shall do anything that, upon the whole, a
man might rather have done than to have left undone; if, at my death,
my executors, or more properly my creditors, find any precious MSS. in
my desk, then here I prospectively ascribe all the honor and the glory
to whaling; for a whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard.


CHAPTER 25. Postscript.

In behalf of the dignity of whaling, I would fain advance naught but
substantiated facts. But after embattling his facts, an advocate who
should wholly suppress a not unreasonable surmise, which might tell
eloquently upon his cause—such an advocate, would he not be
blameworthy?

It is well known that at the coronation of kings and queens, even
modern ones, a certain curious process of seasoning them for their
functions is gone through. There is a saltcellar of state, so called,
and there may be a castor of state. How they use the salt,
precisely—who knows? Certain I am, however, that a king’s head is
solemnly oiled at his coronation, even as a head of salad. Can it be,
though, that they anoint it with a view of making its interior run
well, as they anoint machinery? Much might be ruminated here,
concerning the essential dignity of this regal process, because in
common life we esteem but meanly and contemptibly a fellow who anoints
his hair, and palpably smells of that anointing. In truth, a mature man
who uses hair-oil, unless medicinally, that man has probably got a
quoggy spot in him somewhere. As a general rule, he can’t amount to
much in his totality.

But the only thing to be considered here, is this—what kind of oil is
used at coronations? Certainly it cannot be olive oil, nor macassar
oil, nor castor oil, nor bear’s oil, nor train oil, nor cod-liver oil.
What then can it possibly be, but sperm oil in its unmanufactured,
unpolluted state, the sweetest of all oils?

Think of that, ye loyal Britons! we whalemen supply your kings and
queens with coronation stuff!


CHAPTER 26. Knights and Squires.

The chief mate of the Pequod was Starbuck, a native of Nantucket, and a
Quaker by descent. He was a long, earnest man, and though born on an
icy coast, seemed well adapted to endure hot latitudes, his flesh being
hard as twice-baked biscuit. Transported to the Indies, his live blood
would not spoil like bottled ale. He must have been born in some time
of general drought and famine, or upon one of those fast days for which
his state is famous. Only some thirty arid summers had he seen; those
summers had dried up all his physical superfluousness. But this, his
thinness, so to speak, seemed no more the token of wasting anxieties
and cares, than it seemed the indication of any bodily blight. It was
merely the condensation of the man. He was by no means ill-looking;
quite the contrary. His pure tight skin was an excellent fit; and
closely wrapped up in it, and embalmed with inner health and strength,
like a revivified Egyptian, this Starbuck seemed prepared to endure for
long ages to come, and to endure always, as now; for be it Polar snow
or torrid sun, like a patent chronometer, his interior vitality was
warranted to do well in all climates. Looking into his eyes, you seemed
to see there the yet lingering images of those thousand-fold perils he
had calmly confronted through life. A staid, steadfast man, whose life
for the most part was a telling pantomime of action, and not a tame
chapter of sounds. Yet, for all his hardy sobriety and fortitude, there
were certain qualities in him which at times affected, and in some
cases seemed well nigh to overbalance all the rest. Uncommonly
conscientious for a seaman, and endued with a deep natural reverence,
the wild watery loneliness of his life did therefore strongly incline
him to superstition; but to that sort of superstition, which in some
organizations seems rather to spring, somehow, from intelligence than
from ignorance. Outward portents and inward presentiments were his. And
if at times these things bent the welded iron of his soul, much more
did his far-away domestic memories of his young Cape wife and child,
tend to bend him still more from the original ruggedness of his nature,
and open him still further to those latent influences which, in some
honest-hearted men, restrain the gush of dare-devil daring, so often
evinced by others in the more perilous vicissitudes of the fishery. “I
will have no man in my boat,” said Starbuck, “who is not afraid of a
whale.” By this, he seemed to mean, not only that the most reliable and
useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the
encountered peril, but that an utterly fearless man is a far more
dangerous comrade than a coward.

“Aye, aye,” said Stubb, the second mate, “Starbuck, there, is as
careful a man as you’ll find anywhere in this fishery.” But we shall
ere long see what that word “careful” precisely means when used by a
man like Stubb, or almost any other whale hunter.

Starbuck was no crusader after perils; in him courage was not a
sentiment; but a thing simply useful to him, and always at hand upon
all mortally practical occasions. Besides, he thought, perhaps, that in
this business of whaling, courage was one of the great staple outfits
of the ship, like her beef and her bread, and not to be foolishly
wasted. Wherefore he had no fancy for lowering for whales after
sun-down; nor for persisting in fighting a fish that too much persisted
in fighting him. For, thought Starbuck, I am here in this critical
ocean to kill whales for my living, and not to be killed by them for
theirs; and that hundreds of men had been so killed Starbuck well knew.
What doom was his own father’s? Where, in the bottomless deeps, could
he find the torn limbs of his brother?

With memories like these in him, and, moreover, given to a certain
superstitiousness, as has been said; the courage of this Starbuck which
could, nevertheless, still flourish, must indeed have been extreme. But
it was not in reasonable nature that a man so organized, and with such
terrible experiences and remembrances as he had; it was not in nature
that these things should fail in latently engendering an element in
him, which, under suitable circumstances, would break out from its
confinement, and burn all his courage up. And brave as he might be, it
was that sort of bravery chiefly, visible in some intrepid men, which,
while generally abiding firm in the conflict with seas, or winds, or
whales, or any of the ordinary irrational horrors of the world, yet
cannot withstand those more terrific, because more spiritual terrors,
which sometimes menace you from the concentrating brow of an enraged
and mighty man.

But were the coming narrative to reveal in any instance, the complete
abasement of poor Starbuck’s fortitude, scarce might I have the heart
to write it; for it is a thing most sorrowful, nay shocking, to expose
the fall of valour in the soul. Men may seem detestable as joint
stock-companies and nations; knaves, fools, and murderers there may be;
men may have mean and meagre faces; but man, in the ideal, is so noble
and so sparkling, such a grand and glowing creature, that over any
ignominious blemish in him all his fellows should run to throw their
costliest robes. That immaculate manliness we feel within ourselves, so
far within us, that it remains intact though all the outer character
seem gone; bleeds with keenest anguish at the undraped spectacle of a
valor-ruined man. Nor can piety itself, at such a shameful sight,
completely stifle her upbraidings against the permitting stars. But
this august dignity I treat of, is not the dignity of kings and robes,
but that abounding dignity which has no robed investiture. Thou shalt
see it shining in the arm that wields a pick or drives a spike; that
democratic dignity which, on all hands, radiates without end from God;
Himself! The great God absolute! The centre and circumference of all
democracy! His omnipresence, our divine equality!

If, then, to meanest mariners, and renegades and castaways, I shall
hereafter ascribe high qualities, though dark; weave round them tragic
graces; if even the most mournful, perchance the most abased, among
them all, shall at times lift himself to the exalted mounts; if I shall
touch that workman’s arm with some ethereal light; if I shall spread a
rainbow over his disastrous set of sun; then against all mortal critics
bear me out in it, thou just Spirit of Equality, which hast spread one
royal mantle of humanity over all my kind! Bear me out in it, thou
great democratic God! who didst not refuse to the swart convict,
Bunyan, the pale, poetic pearl; Thou who didst clothe with doubly
hammered leaves of finest gold, the stumped and paupered arm of old
Cervantes; Thou who didst pick up Andrew Jackson from the pebbles; who
didst hurl him upon a war-horse; who didst thunder him higher than a
throne! Thou who, in all Thy mighty, earthly marchings, ever cullest
Thy selectest champions from the kingly commons; bear me out in it, O
God!


CHAPTER 27. Knights and Squires.

Stubb was the second mate. He was a native of Cape Cod; and hence,
according to local usage, was called a Cape-Cod-man. A happy-go-lucky;
neither craven nor valiant; taking perils as they came with an
indifferent air; and while engaged in the most imminent crisis of the
chase, toiling away, calm and collected as a journeyman joiner engaged
for the year. Good-humored, easy, and careless, he presided over his
whale-boat as if the most deadly encounter were but a dinner, and his
crew all invited guests. He was as particular about the comfortable
arrangement of his part of the boat, as an old stage-driver is about
the snugness of his box. When close to the whale, in the very
death-lock of the fight, he handled his unpitying lance coolly and
off-handedly, as a whistling tinker his hammer. He would hum over his
old rigadig tunes while flank and flank with the most exasperated
monster. Long usage had, for this Stubb, converted the jaws of death
into an easy chair. What he thought of death itself, there is no
telling. Whether he ever thought of it at all, might be a question;
but, if he ever did chance to cast his mind that way after a
comfortable dinner, no doubt, like a good sailor, he took it to be a
sort of call of the watch to tumble aloft, and bestir themselves there,
about something which he would find out when he obeyed the order, and
not sooner.

What, perhaps, with other things, made Stubb such an easy-going,
unfearing man, so cheerily trudging off with the burden of life in a
world full of grave pedlars, all bowed to the ground with their packs;
what helped to bring about that almost impious good-humor of his; that
thing must have been his pipe. For, like his nose, his short, black
little pipe was one of the regular features of his face. You would
almost as soon have expected him to turn out of his bunk without his
nose as without his pipe. He kept a whole row of pipes there ready
loaded, stuck in a rack, within easy reach of his hand; and, whenever
he turned in, he smoked them all out in succession, lighting one from
the other to the end of the chapter; then loading them again to be in
readiness anew. For, when Stubb dressed, instead of first putting his
legs into his trowsers, he put his pipe into his mouth.

I say this continual smoking must have been one cause, at least, of his
peculiar disposition; for every one knows that this earthly air,
whether ashore or afloat, is terribly infected with the nameless
miseries of the numberless mortals who have died exhaling it; and as in
time of the cholera, some people go about with a camphorated
handkerchief to their mouths; so, likewise, against all mortal
tribulations, Stubb’s tobacco smoke might have operated as a sort of
disinfecting agent.

The third mate was Flask, a native of Tisbury, in Martha’s Vineyard. A
short, stout, ruddy young fellow, very pugnacious concerning whales,
who somehow seemed to think that the great leviathans had personally
and hereditarily affronted him; and therefore it was a sort of point of
honor with him, to destroy them whenever encountered. So utterly lost
was he to all sense of reverence for the many marvels of their majestic
bulk and mystic ways; and so dead to anything like an apprehension of
any possible danger from encountering them; that in his poor opinion,
the wondrous whale was but a species of magnified mouse, or at least
water-rat, requiring only a little circumvention and some small
application of time and trouble in order to kill and boil. This
ignorant, unconscious fearlessness of his made him a little waggish in
the matter of whales; he followed these fish for the fun of it; and a
three years’ voyage round Cape Horn was only a jolly joke that lasted
that length of time. As a carpenter’s nails are divided into wrought
nails and cut nails; so mankind may be similarly divided. Little Flask
was one of the wrought ones; made to clinch tight and last long. They
called him King-Post on board of the Pequod; because, in form, he could
be well likened to the short, square timber known by that name in
Arctic whalers; and which by the means of many radiating side timbers
inserted into it, serves to brace the ship against the icy concussions
of those battering seas.

Now these three mates—Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask, were momentous men.
They it was who by universal prescription commanded three of the
Pequod’s boats as headsmen. In that grand order of battle in which
Captain Ahab would probably marshal his forces to descend on the
whales, these three headsmen were as captains of companies. Or, being
armed with their long keen whaling spears, they were as a picked trio
of lancers; even as the harpooneers were flingers of javelins.

And since in this famous fishery, each mate or headsman, like a Gothic
Knight of old, is always accompanied by his boat-steerer or harpooneer,
who in certain conjunctures provides him with a fresh lance, when the
former one has been badly twisted, or elbowed in the assault; and
moreover, as there generally subsists between the two, a close intimacy
and friendliness; it is therefore but meet, that in this place we set
down who the Pequod’s harpooneers were, and to what headsman each of
them belonged.

First of all was Queequeg, whom Starbuck, the chief mate, had selected
for his squire. But Queequeg is already known.

Next was Tashtego, an unmixed Indian from Gay Head, the most westerly
promontory of Martha’s Vineyard, where there still exists the last
remnant of a village of red men, which has long supplied the
neighboring island of Nantucket with many of her most daring
harpooneers. In the fishery, they usually go by the generic name of
Gay-Headers. Tashtego’s long, lean, sable hair, his high cheek bones,
and black rounding eyes—for an Indian, Oriental in their largeness, but
Antarctic in their glittering expression—all this sufficiently
proclaimed him an inheritor of the unvitiated blood of those proud
warrior hunters, who, in quest of the great New England moose, had
scoured, bow in hand, the aboriginal forests of the main. But no longer
snuffing in the trail of the wild beasts of the woodland, Tashtego now
hunted in the wake of the great whales of the sea; the unerring harpoon
of the son fitly replacing the infallible arrow of the sires. To look
at the tawny brawn of his lithe snaky limbs, you would almost have
credited the superstitions of some of the earlier Puritans, and
half-believed this wild Indian to be a son of the Prince of the Powers
of the Air. Tashtego was Stubb the second mate’s squire.

Third among the harpooneers was Daggoo, a gigantic, coal-black
negro-savage, with a lion-like tread—an Ahasuerus to behold. Suspended
from his ears were two golden hoops, so large that the sailors called
them ring-bolts, and would talk of securing the top-sail halyards to
them. In his youth Daggoo had voluntarily shipped on board of a whaler,
lying in a lonely bay on his native coast. And never having been
anywhere in the world but in Africa, Nantucket, and the pagan harbors
most frequented by whalemen; and having now led for many years the bold
life of the fishery in the ships of owners uncommonly heedful of what
manner of men they shipped; Daggoo retained all his barbaric virtues,
and erect as a giraffe, moved about the decks in all the pomp of six
feet five in his socks. There was a corporeal humility in looking up at
him; and a white man standing before him seemed a white flag come to
beg truce of a fortress. Curious to tell, this imperial negro,
Ahasuerus Daggoo, was the Squire of little Flask, who looked like a
chess-man beside him. As for the residue of the Pequod’s company, be it
said, that at the present day not one in two of the many thousand men
before the mast employed in the American whale fishery, are Americans
born, though pretty nearly all the officers are. Herein it is the same
with the American whale fishery as with the American army and military
and merchant navies, and the engineering forces employed in the
construction of the American Canals and Railroads. The same, I say,
because in all these cases the native American liberally provides the
brains, the rest of the world as generously supplying the muscles. No
small number of these whaling seamen belong to the Azores, where the
outward bound Nantucket whalers frequently touch to augment their crews
from the hardy peasants of those rocky shores. In like manner, the
Greenland whalers sailing out of Hull or London, put in at the Shetland
Islands, to receive the full complement of their crew. Upon the passage
homewards, they drop them there again. How it is, there is no telling,
but Islanders seem to make the best whalemen. They were nearly all
Islanders in the Pequod, _Isolatoes_ too, I call such, not
acknowledging the common continent of men, but each _Isolato_ living on
a separate continent of his own. Yet now, federated along one keel,
what a set these Isolatoes were! An Anacharsis Clootz deputation from
all the isles of the sea, and all the ends of the earth, accompanying
Old Ahab in the Pequod to lay the world’s grievances before that bar
from which not very many of them ever come back. Black Little Pip—he
never did—oh, no! he went before. Poor Alabama boy! On the grim
Pequod’s forecastle, ye shall ere long see him, beating his tambourine;
prelusive of the eternal time, when sent for, to the great quarter-deck
on high, he was bid strike in with angels, and beat his tambourine in
glory; called a coward here, hailed a hero there!


CHAPTER 28. Ahab.

For several days after leaving Nantucket, nothing above hatches was
seen of Captain Ahab. The mates regularly relieved each other at the
watches, and for aught that could be seen to the contrary, they seemed
to be the only commanders of the ship; only they sometimes issued from
the cabin with orders so sudden and peremptory, that after all it was
plain they but commanded vicariously. Yes, their supreme lord and
dictator was there, though hitherto unseen by any eyes not permitted to
penetrate into the now sacred retreat of the cabin.

Every time I ascended to the deck from my watches below, I instantly
gazed aft to mark if any strange face were visible; for my first vague
disquietude touching the unknown captain, now in the seclusion of the
sea, became almost a perturbation. This was strangely heightened at
times by the ragged Elijah’s diabolical incoherences uninvitedly
recurring to me, with a subtle energy I could not have before conceived
of. But poorly could I withstand them, much as in other moods I was
almost ready to smile at the solemn whimsicalities of that outlandish
prophet of the wharves. But whatever it was of apprehensiveness or
uneasiness—to call it so—which I felt, yet whenever I came to look
about me in the ship, it seemed against all warrantry to cherish such
emotions. For though the harpooneers, with the great body of the crew,
were a far more barbaric, heathenish, and motley set than any of the
tame merchant-ship companies which my previous experiences had made me
acquainted with, still I ascribed this—and rightly ascribed it—to the
fierce uniqueness of the very nature of that wild Scandinavian vocation
in which I had so abandonedly embarked. But it was especially the
aspect of the three chief officers of the ship, the mates, which was
most forcibly calculated to allay these colourless misgivings, and
induce confidence and cheerfulness in every presentment of the voyage.
Three better, more likely sea-officers and men, each in his own
different way, could not readily be found, and they were every one of
them Americans; a Nantucketer, a Vineyarder, a Cape man. Now, it being
Christmas when the ship shot from out her harbor, for a space we had
biting Polar weather, though all the time running away from it to the
southward; and by every degree and minute of latitude which we sailed,
gradually leaving that merciless winter, and all its intolerable
weather behind us. It was one of those less lowering, but still grey
and gloomy enough mornings of the transition, when with a fair wind the
ship was rushing through the water with a vindictive sort of leaping
and melancholy rapidity, that as I mounted to the deck at the call of
the forenoon watch, so soon as I levelled my glance towards the
taffrail, foreboding shivers ran over me. Reality outran apprehension;
Captain Ahab stood upon his quarter-deck.

There seemed no sign of common bodily illness about him, nor of the
recovery from any. He looked like a man cut away from the stake, when
the fire has overrunningly wasted all the limbs without consuming them,
or taking away one particle from their compacted aged robustness. His
whole high, broad form, seemed made of solid bronze, and shaped in an
unalterable mould, like Cellini’s cast Perseus. Threading its way out
from among his grey hairs, and continuing right down one side of his
tawny scorched face and neck, till it disappeared in his clothing, you
saw a slender rod-like mark, lividly whitish. It resembled that
perpendicular seam sometimes made in the straight, lofty trunk of a
great tree, when the upper lightning tearingly darts down it, and
without wrenching a single twig, peels and grooves out the bark from
top to bottom, ere running off into the soil, leaving the tree still
greenly alive, but branded. Whether that mark was born with him, or
whether it was the scar left by some desperate wound, no one could
certainly say. By some tacit consent, throughout the voyage little or
no allusion was made to it, especially by the mates. But once
Tashtego’s senior, an old Gay-Head Indian among the crew,
superstitiously asserted that not till he was full forty years old did
Ahab become that way branded, and then it came upon him, not in the
fury of any mortal fray, but in an elemental strife at sea. Yet, this
wild hint seemed inferentially negatived, by what a grey Manxman
insinuated, an old sepulchral man, who, having never before sailed out
of Nantucket, had never ere this laid eye upon wild Ahab. Nevertheless,
the old sea-traditions, the immemorial credulities, popularly invested
this old Manxman with preternatural powers of discernment. So that no
white sailor seriously contradicted him when he said that if ever
Captain Ahab should be tranquilly laid out—which might hardly come to
pass, so he muttered—then, whoever should do that last office for the
dead, would find a birth-mark on him from crown to sole.

So powerfully did the whole grim aspect of Ahab affect me, and the
livid brand which streaked it, that for the first few moments I hardly
noted that not a little of this overbearing grimness was owing to the
barbaric white leg upon which he partly stood. It had previously come
to me that this ivory leg had at sea been fashioned from the polished
bone of the sperm whale’s jaw. “Aye, he was dismasted off Japan,” said
the old Gay-Head Indian once; “but like his dismasted craft, he shipped
another mast without coming home for it. He has a quiver of ’em.”

I was struck with the singular posture he maintained. Upon each side of
the Pequod’s quarter deck, and pretty close to the mizzen shrouds,
there was an auger hole, bored about half an inch or so, into the
plank. His bone leg steadied in that hole; one arm elevated, and
holding by a shroud; Captain Ahab stood erect, looking straight out
beyond the ship’s ever-pitching prow. There was an infinity of firmest
fortitude, a determinate, unsurrenderable wilfulness, in the fixed and
fearless, forward dedication of that glance. Not a word he spoke; nor
did his officers say aught to him; though by all their minutest
gestures and expressions, they plainly showed the uneasy, if not
painful, consciousness of being under a troubled master-eye. And not
only that, but moody stricken Ahab stood before them with a crucifixion
in his face; in all the nameless regal overbearing dignity of some
mighty woe.

Ere long, from his first visit in the air, he withdrew into his cabin.
But after that morning, he was every day visible to the crew; either
standing in his pivot-hole, or seated upon an ivory stool he had; or
heavily walking the deck. As the sky grew less gloomy; indeed, began to
grow a little genial, he became still less and less a recluse; as if,
when the ship had sailed from home, nothing but the dead wintry
bleakness of the sea had then kept him so secluded. And, by and by, it
came to pass, that he was almost continually in the air; but, as yet,
for all that he said, or perceptibly did, on the at last sunny deck, he
seemed as unnecessary there as another mast. But the Pequod was only
making a passage now; not regularly cruising; nearly all whaling
preparatives needing supervision the mates were fully competent to, so
that there was little or nothing, out of himself, to employ or excite
Ahab, now; and thus chase away, for that one interval, the clouds that
layer upon layer were piled upon his brow, as ever all clouds choose
the loftiest peaks to pile themselves upon.

Nevertheless, ere long, the warm, warbling persuasiveness of the
pleasant, holiday weather we came to, seemed gradually to charm him
from his mood. For, as when the red-cheeked, dancing girls, April and
May, trip home to the wintry, misanthropic woods; even the barest,
ruggedest, most thunder-cloven old oak will at least send forth some
few green sprouts, to welcome such glad-hearted visitants; so Ahab did,
in the end, a little respond to the playful allurings of that girlish
air. More than once did he put forth the faint blossom of a look,
which, in any other man, would have soon flowered out in a smile.


CHAPTER 29. Enter Ahab; to Him, Stubb.

Some days elapsed, and ice and icebergs all astern, the Pequod now went
rolling through the bright Quito spring, which, at sea, almost
perpetually reigns on the threshold of the eternal August of the
Tropic. The warmly cool, clear, ringing, perfumed, overflowing,
redundant days, were as crystal goblets of Persian sherbet, heaped
up—flaked up, with rose-water snow. The starred and stately nights
seemed haughty dames in jewelled velvets, nursing at home in lonely
pride, the memory of their absent conquering Earls, the golden helmeted
suns! For sleeping man, ’twas hard to choose between such winsome days
and such seducing nights. But all the witcheries of that unwaning
weather did not merely lend new spells and potencies to the outward
world. Inward they turned upon the soul, especially when the still mild
hours of eve came on; then, memory shot her crystals as the clear ice
most forms of noiseless twilights. And all these subtle agencies, more
and more they wrought on Ahab’s texture.

Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less
man has to do with aught that looks like death. Among sea-commanders,
the old greybeards will oftenest leave their berths to visit the
night-cloaked deck. It was so with Ahab; only that now, of late, he
seemed so much to live in the open air, that truly speaking, his visits
were more to the cabin, than from the cabin to the planks. “It feels
like going down into one’s tomb,”—he would mutter to himself—“for an
old captain like me to be descending this narrow scuttle, to go to my
grave-dug berth.”

So, almost every twenty-four hours, when the watches of the night were
set, and the band on deck sentinelled the slumbers of the band below;
and when if a rope was to be hauled upon the forecastle, the sailors
flung it not rudely down, as by day, but with some cautiousness dropt
it to its place for fear of disturbing their slumbering shipmates; when
this sort of steady quietude would begin to prevail, habitually, the
silent steersman would watch the cabin-scuttle; and ere long the old
man would emerge, gripping at the iron banister, to help his crippled
way. Some considering touch of humanity was in him; for at times like
these, he usually abstained from patrolling the quarter-deck; because
to his wearied mates, seeking repose within six inches of his ivory
heel, such would have been the reverberating crack and din of that bony
step, that their dreams would have been on the crunching teeth of
sharks. But once, the mood was on him too deep for common regardings;
and as with heavy, lumber-like pace he was measuring the ship from
taffrail to mainmast, Stubb, the old second mate, came up from below,
with a certain unassured, deprecating humorousness, hinted that if
Captain Ahab was pleased to walk the planks, then, no one could say
nay; but there might be some way of muffling the noise; hinting
something indistinctly and hesitatingly about a globe of tow, and the
insertion into it, of the ivory heel. Ah! Stubb, thou didst not know
Ahab then.

“Am I a cannon-ball, Stubb,” said Ahab, “that thou wouldst wad me that
fashion? But go thy ways; I had forgot. Below to thy nightly grave;
where such as ye sleep between shrouds, to use ye to the filling one at
last.—Down, dog, and kennel!”

Starting at the unforseen concluding exclamation of the so suddenly
scornful old man, Stubb was speechless a moment; then said excitedly,
“I am not used to be spoken to that way, sir; I do but less than half
like it, sir.”

“Avast! gritted Ahab between his set teeth, and violently moving away,
as if to avoid some passionate temptation.

“No, sir; not yet,” said Stubb, emboldened, “I will not tamely be
called a dog, sir.”

“Then be called ten times a donkey, and a mule, and an ass, and begone,
or I’ll clear the world of thee!”

As he said this, Ahab advanced upon him with such overbearing terrors
in his aspect, that Stubb involuntarily retreated.

“I was never served so before without giving a hard blow for it,”
muttered Stubb, as he found himself descending the cabin-scuttle. “It’s
very queer. Stop, Stubb; somehow, now, I don’t well know whether to go
back and strike him, or—what’s that?—down here on my knees and pray for
him? Yes, that was the thought coming up in me; but it would be the
first time I ever _did_ pray. It’s queer; very queer; and he’s queer
too; aye, take him fore and aft, he’s about the queerest old man Stubb
ever sailed with. How he flashed at me!—his eyes like powder-pans! is
he mad? Anyway there’s something on his mind, as sure as there must be
something on a deck when it cracks. He aint in his bed now, either,
more than three hours out of the twenty-four; and he don’t sleep then.
Didn’t that Dough-Boy, the steward, tell me that of a morning he always
finds the old man’s hammock clothes all rumpled and tumbled, and the
sheets down at the foot, and the coverlid almost tied into knots, and
the pillow a sort of frightful hot, as though a baked brick had been on
it? A hot old man! I guess he’s got what some folks ashore call a
conscience; it’s a kind of Tic-Dolly-row they say—worse nor a
toothache. Well, well; I don’t know what it is, but the Lord keep me
from catching it. He’s full of riddles; I wonder what he goes into the
after hold for, every night, as Dough-Boy tells me he suspects; what’s
that for, I should like to know? Who’s made appointments with him in
the hold? Ain’t that queer, now? But there’s no telling, it’s the old
game—Here goes for a snooze. Damn me, it’s worth a fellow’s while to be
born into the world, if only to fall right asleep. And now that I think
of it, that’s about the first thing babies do, and that’s a sort of
queer, too. Damn me, but all things are queer, come to think of ’em.
But that’s against my principles. Think not, is my eleventh
commandment; and sleep when you can, is my twelfth—So here goes again.
But how’s that? didn’t he call me a dog? blazes! he called me ten times
a donkey, and piled a lot of jackasses on top of _that!_ He might as
well have kicked me, and done with it. Maybe he _did_ kick me, and I
didn’t observe it, I was so taken all aback with his brow, somehow. It
flashed like a bleached bone. What the devil’s the matter with me? I
don’t stand right on my legs. Coming afoul of that old man has a sort
of turned me wrong side out. By the Lord, I must have been dreaming,
though—How? how? how?—but the only way’s to stash it; so here goes to
hammock again; and in the morning, I’ll see how this plaguey juggling
thinks over by daylight.”


CHAPTER 30. The Pipe.

When Stubb had departed, Ahab stood for a while leaning over the
bulwarks; and then, as had been usual with him of late, calling a
sailor of the watch, he sent him below for his ivory stool, and also
his pipe. Lighting the pipe at the binnacle lamp and planting the stool
on the weather side of the deck, he sat and smoked.

In old Norse times, the thrones of the sea-loving Danish kings were
fabricated, saith tradition, of the tusks of the narwhale. How could
one look at Ahab then, seated on that tripod of bones, without
bethinking him of the royalty it symbolized? For a Khan of the plank,
and a king of the sea, and a great lord of Leviathans was Ahab.

Some moments passed, during which the thick vapor came from his mouth
in quick and constant puffs, which blew back again into his face. “How
now,” he soliloquized at last, withdrawing the tube, “this smoking no
longer soothes. Oh, my pipe! hard must it go with me if thy charm be
gone! Here have I been unconsciously toiling, not pleasuring—aye, and
ignorantly smoking to windward all the while; to windward, and with
such nervous whiffs, as if, like the dying whale, my final jets were
the strongest and fullest of trouble. What business have I with this
pipe? This thing that is meant for sereneness, to send up mild white
vapors among mild white hairs, not among torn iron-grey locks like
mine. I’ll smoke no more—”

He tossed the still lighted pipe into the sea. The fire hissed in the
waves; the same instant the ship shot by the bubble the sinking pipe
made. With slouched hat, Ahab lurchingly paced the planks.


CHAPTER 31. Queen Mab.

Next morning Stubb accosted Flask.

“Such a queer dream, King-Post, I never had. You know the old man’s
ivory leg, well I dreamed he kicked me with it; and when I tried to
kick back, upon my soul, my little man, I kicked my leg right off! And
then, presto! Ahab seemed a pyramid, and I, like a blazing fool, kept
kicking at it. But what was still more curious, Flask—you know how
curious all dreams are—through all this rage that I was in, I somehow
seemed to be thinking to myself, that after all, it was not much of an
insult, that kick from Ahab. ‘Why,’ thinks I, ‘what’s the row? It’s not
a real leg, only a false leg.’ And there’s a mighty difference between
a living thump and a dead thump. That’s what makes a blow from the
hand, Flask, fifty times more savage to bear than a blow from a cane.
The living member—that makes the living insult, my little man. And
thinks I to myself all the while, mind, while I was stubbing my silly
toes against that cursed pyramid—so confoundedly contradictory was it
all, all the while, I say, I was thinking to myself, ‘what’s his leg
now, but a cane—a whalebone cane. Yes,’ thinks I, ‘it was only a
playful cudgelling—in fact, only a whaleboning that he gave me—not a
base kick. Besides,’ thinks I, ‘look at it once; why, the end of it—the
foot part—what a small sort of end it is; whereas, if a broad footed
farmer kicked me, _there’s_ a devilish broad insult. But this insult is
whittled down to a point only.’ But now comes the greatest joke of the
dream, Flask. While I was battering away at the pyramid, a sort of
badger-haired old merman, with a hump on his back, takes me by the
shoulders, and slews me round. ‘What are you ’bout?’ says he. Slid!
man, but I was frightened. Such a phiz! But, somehow, next moment I was
over the fright. ‘What am I about?’ says I at last. ‘And what business
is that of yours, I should like to know, Mr. Humpback? Do _you_ want a
kick?’ By the lord, Flask, I had no sooner said that, than he turned
round his stern to me, bent over, and dragging up a lot of seaweed he
had for a clout—what do you think, I saw?—why thunder alive, man, his
stern was stuck full of marlinspikes, with the points out. Says I, on
second thoughts, ‘I guess I won’t kick you, old fellow.’ ‘Wise Stubb,’
said he, ‘wise Stubb;’ and kept muttering it all the time, a sort of
eating of his own gums like a chimney hag. Seeing he wasn’t going to
stop saying over his ‘wise Stubb, wise Stubb,’ I thought I might as
well fall to kicking the pyramid again. But I had only just lifted my
foot for it, when he roared out, ‘Stop that kicking!’ ‘Halloa,’ says I,
‘what’s the matter now, old fellow?’ ‘Look ye here,’ says he; ‘let’s
argue the insult. Captain Ahab kicked ye, didn’t he?’ ‘Yes, he did,’
says I—‘right _here_ it was.’ ‘Very good,’ says he—‘he used his ivory
leg, didn’t he?’ ‘Yes, he did,’ says I. ‘Well then,’ says he, ‘wise
Stubb, what have you to complain of? Didn’t he kick with right good
will? it wasn’t a common pitch pine leg he kicked with, was it? No, you
were kicked by a great man, and with a beautiful ivory leg, Stubb. It’s
an honor; I consider it an honor. Listen, wise Stubb. In old England
the greatest lords think it great glory to be slapped by a queen, and
made garter-knights of; but, be _your_ boast, Stubb, that ye were
kicked by old Ahab, and made a wise man of. Remember what I say; _be_
kicked by him; account his kicks honors; and on no account kick back;
for you can’t help yourself, wise Stubb. Don’t you see that pyramid?’
With that, he all of a sudden seemed somehow, in some queer fashion, to
swim off into the air. I snored; rolled over; and there I was in my
hammock! Now, what do you think of that dream, Flask?”

“I don’t know; it seems a sort of foolish to me, tho.’”

“May be; may be. But it’s made a wise man of me, Flask. D’ye see Ahab
standing there, sideways looking over the stern? Well, the best thing
you can do, Flask, is to let the old man alone; never speak to him,
whatever he says. Halloa! What’s that he shouts? Hark!”

“Mast-head, there! Look sharp, all of ye! There are whales hereabouts!

“If ye see a white one, split your lungs for him!

“What do you think of that now, Flask? ain’t there a small drop of
something queer about that, eh? A white whale—did ye mark that, man?
Look ye—there’s something special in the wind. Stand by for it, Flask.
Ahab has that that’s bloody on his mind. But, mum; he comes this way.”


CHAPTER 32. Cetology.

Already we are boldly launched upon the deep; but soon we shall be lost
in its unshored, harbourless immensities. Ere that come to pass; ere
the Pequod’s weedy hull rolls side by side with the barnacled hulls of
the leviathan; at the outset it is but well to attend to a matter
almost indispensable to a thorough appreciative understanding of the
more special leviathanic revelations and allusions of all sorts which
are to follow.

It is some systematized exhibition of the whale in his broad genera,
that I would now fain put before you. Yet is it no easy task. The
classification of the constituents of a chaos, nothing less is here
essayed. Listen to what the best and latest authorities have laid down.

“No branch of Zoology is so much involved as that which is entitled
Cetology,” says Captain Scoresby, A.D. 1820.

“It is not my intention, were it in my power, to enter into the inquiry
as to the true method of dividing the cetacea into groups and families.
* * * Utter confusion exists among the historians of this animal”
(sperm whale), says Surgeon Beale, A.D. 1839.

“Unfitness to pursue our research in the unfathomable waters.”
“Impenetrable veil covering our knowledge of the cetacea.” “A field
strewn with thorns.” “All these incomplete indications but serve to
torture us naturalists.”

Thus speak of the whale, the great Cuvier, and John Hunter, and Lesson,
those lights of zoology and anatomy. Nevertheless, though of real
knowledge there be little, yet of books there are a plenty; and so in
some small degree, with cetology, or the science of whales. Many are
the men, small and great, old and new, landsmen and seamen, who have at
large or in little, written of the whale. Run over a few:—The Authors
of the Bible; Aristotle; Pliny; Aldrovandi; Sir Thomas Browne; Gesner;
Ray; Linnæus; Rondeletius; Willoughby; Green; Artedi; Sibbald; Brisson;
Marten; Lacépède; Bonneterre; Desmarest; Baron Cuvier; Frederick
Cuvier; John Hunter; Owen; Scoresby; Beale; Bennett; J. Ross Browne;
the Author of Miriam Coffin; Olmstead; and the Rev. T. Cheever. But to
what ultimate generalizing purpose all these have written, the above
cited extracts will show.

Of the names in this list of whale authors, only those following Owen
ever saw living whales; and but one of them was a real professional
harpooneer and whaleman. I mean Captain Scoresby. On the separate
subject of the Greenland or right-whale, he is the best existing
authority. But Scoresby knew nothing and says nothing of the great
sperm whale, compared with which the Greenland whale is almost unworthy
mentioning. And here be it said, that the Greenland whale is an usurper
upon the throne of the seas. He is not even by any means the largest of
the whales. Yet, owing to the long priority of his claims, and the
profound ignorance which, till some seventy years back, invested the
then fabulous or utterly unknown sperm-whale, and which ignorance to
this present day still reigns in all but some few scientific retreats
and whale-ports; this usurpation has been every way complete. Reference
to nearly all the leviathanic allusions in the great poets of past
days, will satisfy you that the Greenland whale, without one rival, was
to them the monarch of the seas. But the time has at last come for a
new proclamation. This is Charing Cross; hear ye! good people all,—the
Greenland whale is deposed,—the great sperm whale now reigneth!

There are only two books in being which at all pretend to put the
living sperm whale before you, and at the same time, in the remotest
degree succeed in the attempt. Those books are Beale’s and Bennett’s;
both in their time surgeons to English South-Sea whale-ships, and both
exact and reliable men. The original matter touching the sperm whale to
be found in their volumes is necessarily small; but so far as it goes,
it is of excellent quality, though mostly confined to scientific
description. As yet, however, the sperm whale, scientific or poetic,
lives not complete in any literature. Far above all other hunted
whales, his is an unwritten life.

Now the various species of whales need some sort of popular
comprehensive classification, if only an easy outline one for the
present, hereafter to be filled in all its departments by subsequent
laborers. As no better man advances to take this matter in hand, I
hereupon offer my own poor endeavors. I promise nothing complete;
because any human thing supposed to be complete, must for that very
reason infallibly be faulty. I shall not pretend to a minute anatomical
description of the various species, or—in this place at least—to much
of any description. My object here is simply to project the draught of
a systematization of cetology. I am the architect, not the builder.

But it is a ponderous task; no ordinary letter-sorter in the
Post-Office is equal to it. To grope down into the bottom of the sea
after them; to have one’s hands among the unspeakable foundations,
ribs, and very pelvis of the world; this is a fearful thing. What am I
that I should essay to hook the nose of this leviathan! The awful
tauntings in Job might well appal me. Will he (the leviathan) make a
covenant with thee? Behold the hope of him is vain! But I have swam
through libraries and sailed through oceans; I have had to do with
whales with these visible hands; I am in earnest; and I will try. There
are some preliminaries to settle.

First: The uncertain, unsettled condition of this science of Cetology
is in the very vestibule attested by the fact, that in some quarters it
still remains a moot point whether a whale be a fish. In his System of
Nature, A.D. 1776, Linnæus declares, “I hereby separate the whales from
the fish.” But of my own knowledge, I know that down to the year 1850,
sharks and shad, alewives and herring, against Linnæus’s express edict,
were still found dividing the possession of the same seas with the
Leviathan.

The grounds upon which Linnæus would fain have banished the whales from
the waters, he states as follows: “On account of their warm bilocular
heart, their lungs, their movable eyelids, their hollow ears, penem
intrantem feminam mammis lactantem,” and finally, “ex lege naturæ jure
meritoque.” I submitted all this to my friends Simeon Macey and Charley
Coffin, of Nantucket, both messmates of mine in a certain voyage, and
they united in the opinion that the reasons set forth were altogether
insufficient. Charley profanely hinted they were humbug.

Be it known that, waiving all argument, I take the good old fashioned
ground that the whale is a fish, and call upon holy Jonah to back me.
This fundamental thing settled, the next point is, in what internal
respect does the whale differ from other fish. Above, Linnæus has given
you those items. But in brief, they are these: lungs and warm blood;
whereas, all other fish are lungless and cold blooded.

Next: how shall we define the whale, by his obvious externals, so as
conspicuously to label him for all time to come? To be short, then, a
whale is _a spouting fish with a horizontal tail_. There you have him.
However contracted, that definition is the result of expanded
meditation. A walrus spouts much like a whale, but the walrus is not a
fish, because he is amphibious. But the last term of the definition is
still more cogent, as coupled with the first. Almost any one must have
noticed that all the fish familiar to landsmen have not a flat, but a
vertical, or up-and-down tail. Whereas, among spouting fish the tail,
though it may be similarly shaped, invariably assumes a horizontal
position.

By the above definition of what a whale is, I do by no means exclude
from the leviathanic brotherhood any sea creature hitherto identified
with the whale by the best informed Nantucketers; nor, on the other
hand, link with it any fish hitherto authoritatively regarded as
alien.* Hence, all the smaller, spouting, and horizontal tailed fish
must be included in this ground-plan of Cetology. Now, then, come the
grand divisions of the entire whale host.

*I am aware that down to the present time, the fish styled Lamatins and
Dugongs (Pig-fish and Sow-fish of the Coffins of Nantucket) are
included by many naturalists among the whales. But as these pig-fish
are a noisy, contemptible set, mostly lurking in the mouths of rivers,
and feeding on wet hay, and especially as they do not spout, I deny
their credentials as whales; and have presented them with their
passports to quit the Kingdom of Cetology.

First: According to magnitude I divide the whales into three primary
BOOKS (subdivisible into CHAPTERS), and these shall comprehend them
all, both small and large.

I. THE FOLIO WHALE; II. the OCTAVO WHALE; III. the DUODECIMO WHALE.

As the type of the FOLIO I present the _Sperm Whale_; of the OCTAVO,
the _Grampus_; of the DUODECIMO, the _Porpoise_.

FOLIOS. Among these I here include the following chapters:—I. The
_Sperm Whale_; II. the _Right Whale_; III. the _Fin-Back Whale_; IV.
the _Hump-backed Whale_; V. the _Razor Back Whale_; VI. the _Sulphur
Bottom Whale_.

BOOK I. (_Folio_), CHAPTER I. (_Sperm Whale_).—This whale, among the
English of old vaguely known as the Trumpa whale, and the Physeter
whale, and the Anvil Headed whale, is the present Cachalot of the
French, and the Pottsfich of the Germans, and the Macrocephalus of the
Long Words. He is, without doubt, the largest inhabitant of the globe;
the most formidable of all whales to encounter; the most majestic in
aspect; and lastly, by far the most valuable in commerce; he being the
only creature from which that valuable substance, spermaceti, is
obtained. All his peculiarities will, in many other places, be enlarged
upon. It is chiefly with his name that I now have to do. Philologically
considered, it is absurd. Some centuries ago, when the Sperm whale was
almost wholly unknown in his own proper individuality, and when his oil
was only accidentally obtained from the stranded fish; in those days
spermaceti, it would seem, was popularly supposed to be derived from a
creature identical with the one then known in England as the Greenland
or Right Whale. It was the idea also, that this same spermaceti was
that quickening humor of the Greenland Whale which the first syllable
of the word literally expresses. In those times, also, spermaceti was
exceedingly scarce, not being used for light, but only as an ointment
and medicament. It was only to be had from the druggists as you
nowadays buy an ounce of rhubarb. When, as I opine, in the course of
time, the true nature of spermaceti became known, its original name was
still retained by the dealers; no doubt to enhance its value by a
notion so strangely significant of its scarcity. And so the appellation
must at last have come to be bestowed upon the whale from which this
spermaceti was really derived.

BOOK I. (_Folio_), CHAPTER II. (_Right Whale_).—In one respect this is
the most venerable of the leviathans, being the one first regularly
hunted by man. It yields the article commonly known as whalebone or
baleen; and the oil specially known as “whale oil,” an inferior article
in commerce. Among the fishermen, he is indiscriminately designated by
all the following titles: The Whale; the Greenland Whale; the Black
Whale; the Great Whale; the True Whale; the Right Whale. There is a
deal of obscurity concerning the identity of the species thus
multitudinously baptised. What then is the whale, which I include in
the second species of my Folios? It is the Great Mysticetus of the
English naturalists; the Greenland Whale of the English whalemen; the
Baleine Ordinaire of the French whalemen; the Growlands Walfish of the
Swedes. It is the whale which for more than two centuries past has been
hunted by the Dutch and English in the Arctic seas; it is the whale
which the American fishermen have long pursued in the Indian ocean, on
the Brazil Banks, on the Nor’ West Coast, and various other parts of
the world, designated by them Right Whale Cruising Grounds.

Some pretend to see a difference between the Greenland whale of the
English and the right whale of the Americans. But they precisely agree
in all their grand features; nor has there yet been presented a single
determinate fact upon which to ground a radical distinction. It is by
endless subdivisions based upon the most inconclusive differences, that
some departments of natural history become so repellingly intricate.
The right whale will be elsewhere treated of at some length, with
reference to elucidating the sperm whale.

BOOK I. (_Folio_), CHAPTER III. (_Fin-Back_).—Under this head I reckon
a monster which, by the various names of Fin-Back, Tall-Spout, and
Long-John, has been seen almost in every sea and is commonly the whale
whose distant jet is so often descried by passengers crossing the
Atlantic, in the New York packet-tracks. In the length he attains, and
in his baleen, the Fin-back resembles the right whale, but is of a less
portly girth, and a lighter colour, approaching to olive. His great
lips present a cable-like aspect, formed by the intertwisting, slanting
folds of large wrinkles. His grand distinguishing feature, the fin,
from which he derives his name, is often a conspicuous object. This fin
is some three or four feet long, growing vertically from the hinder
part of the back, of an angular shape, and with a very sharp pointed
end. Even if not the slightest other part of the creature be visible,
this isolated fin will, at times, be seen plainly projecting from the
surface. When the sea is moderately calm, and slightly marked with
spherical ripples, and this gnomon-like fin stands up and casts shadows
upon the wrinkled surface, it may well be supposed that the watery
circle surrounding it somewhat resembles a dial, with its style and
wavy hour-lines graved on it. On that Ahaz-dial the shadow often goes
back. The Fin-Back is not gregarious. He seems a whale-hater, as some
men are man-haters. Very shy; always going solitary; unexpectedly
rising to the surface in the remotest and most sullen waters; his
straight and single lofty jet rising like a tall misanthropic spear
upon a barren plain; gifted with such wondrous power and velocity in
swimming, as to defy all present pursuit from man; this leviathan seems
the banished and unconquerable Cain of his race, bearing for his mark
that style upon his back. From having the baleen in his mouth, the
Fin-Back is sometimes included with the right whale, among a theoretic
species denominated _Whalebone whales_, that is, whales with baleen. Of
these so called Whalebone whales, there would seem to be several
varieties, most of which, however, are little known. Broad-nosed whales
and beaked whales; pike-headed whales; bunched whales; under-jawed
whales and rostrated whales, are the fishermen’s names for a few sorts.

In connection with this appellative of “Whalebone whales,” it is of
great importance to mention, that however such a nomenclature may be
convenient in facilitating allusions to some kind of whales, yet it is
in vain to attempt a clear classification of the Leviathan, founded
upon either his baleen, or hump, or fin, or teeth; notwithstanding that
those marked parts or features very obviously seem better adapted to
afford the basis for a regular system of Cetology than any other
detached bodily distinctions, which the whale, in his kinds, presents.
How then? The baleen, hump, back-fin, and teeth; these are things whose
peculiarities are indiscriminately dispersed among all sorts of whales,
without any regard to what may be the nature of their structure in
other and more essential particulars. Thus, the sperm whale and the
humpbacked whale, each has a hump; but there the similitude ceases.
Then, this same humpbacked whale and the Greenland whale, each of these
has baleen; but there again the similitude ceases. And it is just the
same with the other parts above mentioned. In various sorts of whales,
they form such irregular combinations; or, in the case of any one of
them detached, such an irregular isolation; as utterly to defy all
general methodization formed upon such a basis. On this rock every one
of the whale-naturalists has split.

But it may possibly be conceived that, in the internal parts of the
whale, in his anatomy—there, at least, we shall be able to hit the
right classification. Nay; what thing, for example, is there in the
Greenland whale’s anatomy more striking than his baleen? Yet we have
seen that by his baleen it is impossible correctly to classify the
Greenland whale. And if you descend into the bowels of the various
leviathans, why there you will not find distinctions a fiftieth part as
available to the systematizer as those external ones already
enumerated. What then remains? nothing but to take hold of the whales
bodily, in their entire liberal volume, and boldly sort them that way.
And this is the Bibliographical system here adopted; and it is the only
one that can possibly succeed, for it alone is practicable. To proceed.

BOOK I. (_Folio_) CHAPTER IV. (_Hump Back_).—This whale is often seen
on the northern American coast. He has been frequently captured there,
and towed into harbor. He has a great pack on him like a peddler; or
you might call him the Elephant and Castle whale. At any rate, the
popular name for him does not sufficiently distinguish him, since the
sperm whale also has a hump though a smaller one. His oil is not very
valuable. He has baleen. He is the most gamesome and light-hearted of
all the whales, making more gay foam and white water generally than any
other of them.

BOOK I. (_Folio_), CHAPTER V. (_Razor Back_).—Of this whale little is
known but his name. I have seen him at a distance off Cape Horn. Of a
retiring nature, he eludes both hunters and philosophers. Though no
coward, he has never yet shown any part of him but his back, which
rises in a long sharp ridge. Let him go. I know little more of him, nor
does anybody else.

BOOK I. (_Folio_), CHAPTER VI. (_Sulphur Bottom_).—Another retiring
gentleman, with a brimstone belly, doubtless got by scraping along the
Tartarian tiles in some of his profounder divings. He is seldom seen;
at least I have never seen him except in the remoter southern seas, and
then always at too great a distance to study his countenance. He is
never chased; he would run away with rope-walks of line. Prodigies are
told of him. Adieu, Sulphur Bottom! I can say nothing more that is true
of ye, nor can the oldest Nantucketer.

Thus ends BOOK I. (_Folio_), and now begins BOOK II. (_Octavo_).

OCTAVOES.*—These embrace the whales of middling magnitude, among which
present may be numbered:—I., the _Grampus_; II., the _Black Fish_;
III., the _Narwhale_; IV., the _Thrasher_; V., the _Killer_.

*Why this book of whales is not denominated the Quarto is very plain.
Because, while the whales of this order, though smaller than those of
the former order, nevertheless retain a proportionate likeness to them
in figure, yet the bookbinder’s Quarto volume in its dimensioned form
does not preserve the shape of the Folio volume, but the Octavo volume
does.

BOOK II. (_Octavo_), CHAPTER I. (_Grampus_).—Though this fish, whose
loud sonorous breathing, or rather blowing, has furnished a proverb to
landsmen, is so well known a denizen of the deep, yet is he not
popularly classed among whales. But possessing all the grand
distinctive features of the leviathan, most naturalists have recognised
him for one. He is of moderate octavo size, varying from fifteen to
twenty-five feet in length, and of corresponding dimensions round the
waist. He swims in herds; he is never regularly hunted, though his oil
is considerable in quantity, and pretty good for light. By some
fishermen his approach is regarded as premonitory of the advance of the
great sperm whale.

BOOK II. (_Octavo_), CHAPTER II. (_Black Fish_).—I give the popular
fishermen’s names for all these fish, for generally they are the best.
Where any name happens to be vague or inexpressive, I shall say so, and
suggest another. I do so now, touching the Black Fish, so-called,
because blackness is the rule among almost all whales. So, call him the
Hyena Whale, if you please. His voracity is well known, and from the
circumstance that the inner angles of his lips are curved upwards, he
carries an everlasting Mephistophelean grin on his face. This whale
averages some sixteen or eighteen feet in length. He is found in almost
all latitudes. He has a peculiar way of showing his dorsal hooked fin
in swimming, which looks something like a Roman nose. When not more
profitably employed, the sperm whale hunters sometimes capture the
Hyena whale, to keep up the supply of cheap oil for domestic
employment—as some frugal housekeepers, in the absence of company, and
quite alone by themselves, burn unsavory tallow instead of odorous wax.
Though their blubber is very thin, some of these whales will yield you
upwards of thirty gallons of oil.

BOOK II. (_Octavo_), CHAPTER III. (_Narwhale_), that is, _Nostril
whale_.—Another instance of a curiously named whale, so named I suppose
from his peculiar horn being originally mistaken for a peaked nose. The
creature is some sixteen feet in length, while its horn averages five
feet, though some exceed ten, and even attain to fifteen feet. Strictly
speaking, this horn is but a lengthened tusk, growing out from the jaw
in a line a little depressed from the horizontal. But it is only found
on the sinister side, which has an ill effect, giving its owner
something analogous to the aspect of a clumsy left-handed man. What
precise purpose this ivory horn or lance answers, it would be hard to
say. It does not seem to be used like the blade of the sword-fish and
bill-fish; though some sailors tell me that the Narwhale employs it for
a rake in turning over the bottom of the sea for food. Charley Coffin
said it was used for an ice-piercer; for the Narwhale, rising to the
surface of the Polar Sea, and finding it sheeted with ice, thrusts his
horn up, and so breaks through. But you cannot prove either of these
surmises to be correct. My own opinion is, that however this one-sided
horn may really be used by the Narwhale—however that may be—it would
certainly be very convenient to him for a folder in reading pamphlets.
The Narwhale I have heard called the Tusked whale, the Horned whale,
and the Unicorn whale. He is certainly a curious example of the
Unicornism to be found in almost every kingdom of animated nature. From
certain cloistered old authors I have gathered that this same
sea-unicorn’s horn was in ancient days regarded as the great antidote
against poison, and as such, preparations of it brought immense prices.
It was also distilled to a volatile salts for fainting ladies, the same
way that the horns of the male deer are manufactured into hartshorn.
Originally it was in itself accounted an object of great curiosity.
Black Letter tells me that Sir Martin Frobisher on his return from that
voyage, when Queen Bess did gallantly wave her jewelled hand to him
from a window of Greenwich Palace, as his bold ship sailed down the
Thames; “when Sir Martin returned from that voyage,” saith Black
Letter, “on bended knees he presented to her highness a prodigious long
horn of the Narwhale, which for a long period after hung in the castle
at Windsor.” An Irish author avers that the Earl of Leicester, on
bended knees, did likewise present to her highness another horn,
pertaining to a land beast of the unicorn nature.

The Narwhale has a very picturesque, leopard-like look, being of a
milk-white ground colour, dotted with round and oblong spots of black.
His oil is very superior, clear and fine; but there is little of it,
and he is seldom hunted. He is mostly found in the circumpolar seas.

BOOK II. (_Octavo_), CHAPTER IV. (_Killer_).—Of this whale little is
precisely known to the Nantucketer, and nothing at all to the professed
naturalist. From what I have seen of him at a distance, I should say
that he was about the bigness of a grampus. He is very savage—a sort of
Feegee fish. He sometimes takes the great Folio whales by the lip, and
hangs there like a leech, till the mighty brute is worried to death.
The Killer is never hunted. I never heard what sort of oil he has.
Exception might be taken to the name bestowed upon this whale, on the
ground of its indistinctness. For we are all killers, on land and on
sea; Bonapartes and Sharks included.

BOOK II. (_Octavo_), CHAPTER V. (_Thrasher_).—This gentleman is famous
for his tail, which he uses for a ferule in thrashing his foes. He
mounts the Folio whale’s back, and as he swims, he works his passage by
flogging him; as some schoolmasters get along in the world by a similar
process. Still less is known of the Thrasher than of the Killer. Both
are outlaws, even in the lawless seas.

 Thus ends BOOK II. (_Octavo_), and begins BOOK III. (_Duodecimo_).

DUODECIMOES.—These include the smaller whales. I. The Huzza Porpoise.
II. The Algerine Porpoise. III. The Mealy-mouthed Porpoise.

To those who have not chanced specially to study the subject, it may
possibly seem strange, that fishes not commonly exceeding four or five
feet should be marshalled among WHALES—a word, which, in the popular
sense, always conveys an idea of hugeness. But the creatures set down
above as Duodecimoes are infallibly whales, by the terms of my
definition of what a whale is—_i.e._ a spouting fish, with a horizontal
tail.

BOOK III. (_Duodecimo_), CHAPTER 1. (_Huzza Porpoise_).—This is the
common porpoise found almost all over the globe. The name is of my own
bestowal; for there are more than one sort of porpoises, and something
must be done to distinguish them. I call him thus, because he always
swims in hilarious shoals, which upon the broad sea keep tossing
themselves to heaven like caps in a Fourth-of-July crowd. Their
appearance is generally hailed with delight by the mariner. Full of
fine spirits, they invariably come from the breezy billows to windward.
They are the lads that always live before the wind. They are accounted
a lucky omen. If you yourself can withstand three cheers at beholding
these vivacious fish, then heaven help ye; the spirit of godly
gamesomeness is not in ye. A well-fed, plump Huzza Porpoise will yield
you one good gallon of good oil. But the fine and delicate fluid
extracted from his jaws is exceedingly valuable. It is in request among
jewellers and watchmakers. Sailors put it on their hones. Porpoise meat
is good eating, you know. It may never have occurred to you that a
porpoise spouts. Indeed, his spout is so small that it is not very
readily discernible. But the next time you have a chance, watch him;
and you will then see the great Sperm whale himself in miniature.

BOOK III. (_Duodecimo_), CHAPTER II. (_Algerine Porpoise_).—A pirate.
Very savage. He is only found, I think, in the Pacific. He is somewhat
larger than the Huzza Porpoise, but much of the same general make.
Provoke him, and he will buckle to a shark. I have lowered for him many
times, but never yet saw him captured.

BOOK III. (_Duodecimo_), CHAPTER III. (_Mealy-mouthed Porpoise_).—The
largest kind of Porpoise; and only found in the Pacific, so far as it
is known. The only English name, by which he has hitherto been
designated, is that of the fishers—Right-Whale Porpoise, from the
circumstance that he is chiefly found in the vicinity of that Folio. In
shape, he differs in some degree from the Huzza Porpoise, being of a
less rotund and jolly girth; indeed, he is of quite a neat and
gentleman-like figure. He has no fins on his back (most other porpoises
have), he has a lovely tail, and sentimental Indian eyes of a hazel
hue. But his mealy-mouth spoils all. Though his entire back down to his
side fins is of a deep sable, yet a boundary line, distinct as the mark
in a ship’s hull, called the “bright waist,” that line streaks him from
stem to stern, with two separate colours, black above and white below.
The white comprises part of his head, and the whole of his mouth, which
makes him look as if he had just escaped from a felonious visit to a
meal-bag. A most mean and mealy aspect! His oil is much like that of
the common porpoise.

  * * * * * *

Beyond the DUODECIMO, this system does not proceed, inasmuch as the
Porpoise is the smallest of the whales. Above, you have all the
Leviathans of note. But there are a rabble of uncertain, fugitive,
half-fabulous whales, which, as an American whaleman, I know by
reputation, but not personally. I shall enumerate them by their
fore-castle appellations; for possibly such a list may be valuable to
future investigators, who may complete what I have here but begun. If
any of the following whales, shall hereafter be caught and marked, then
he can readily be incorporated into this System, according to his
Folio, Octavo, or Duodecimo magnitude:—The Bottle-Nose Whale; the Junk
Whale; the Pudding-Headed Whale; the Cape Whale; the Leading Whale; the
Cannon Whale; the Scragg Whale; the Coppered Whale; the Elephant Whale;
the Iceberg Whale; the Quog Whale; the Blue Whale; etc. From Icelandic,
Dutch, and old English authorities, there might be quoted other lists
of uncertain whales, blessed with all manner of uncouth names. But I
omit them as altogether obsolete; and can hardly help suspecting them
for mere sounds, full of Leviathanism, but signifying nothing.

Finally: It was stated at the outset, that this system would not be
here, and at once, perfected. You cannot but plainly see that I have
kept my word. But I now leave my cetological System standing thus
unfinished, even as the great Cathedral of Cologne was left, with the
crane still standing upon the top of the uncompleted tower. For small
erections may be finished by their first architects; grand ones, true
ones, ever leave the copestone to posterity. God keep me from ever
completing anything. This whole book is but a draught—nay, but the
draught of a draught. Oh, Time, Strength, Cash, and Patience!


CHAPTER 33. The Specksnyder.

Concerning the officers of the whale-craft, this seems as good a place
as any to set down a little domestic peculiarity on ship-board, arising
from the existence of the harpooneer class of officers, a class unknown
of course in any other marine than the whale-fleet.

The large importance attached to the harpooneer’s vocation is evinced
by the fact, that originally in the old Dutch Fishery, two centuries
and more ago, the command of a whale ship was not wholly lodged in the
person now called the captain, but was divided between him and an
officer called the Specksnyder. Literally this word means Fat-Cutter;
usage, however, in time made it equivalent to Chief Harpooneer. In
those days, the captain’s authority was restricted to the navigation
and general management of the vessel; while over the whale-hunting
department and all its concerns, the Specksnyder or Chief Harpooneer
reigned supreme. In the British Greenland Fishery, under the corrupted
title of Specksioneer, this old Dutch official is still retained, but
his former dignity is sadly abridged. At present he ranks simply as
senior Harpooneer; and as such, is but one of the captain’s more
inferior subalterns. Nevertheless, as upon the good conduct of the
harpooneers the success of a whaling voyage largely depends, and since
in the American Fishery he is not only an important officer in the
boat, but under certain circumstances (night watches on a whaling
ground) the command of the ship’s deck is also his; therefore the grand
political maxim of the sea demands, that he should nominally live apart
from the men before the mast, and be in some way distinguished as their
professional superior; though always, by them, familiarly regarded as
their social equal.

Now, the grand distinction drawn between officer and man at sea, is
this—the first lives aft, the last forward. Hence, in whale-ships and
merchantmen alike, the mates have their quarters with the captain; and
so, too, in most of the American whalers the harpooneers are lodged in
the after part of the ship. That is to say, they take their meals in
the captain’s cabin, and sleep in a place indirectly communicating with
it.

Though the long period of a Southern whaling voyage (by far the longest
of all voyages now or ever made by man), the peculiar perils of it, and
the community of interest prevailing among a company, all of whom, high
or low, depend for their profits, not upon fixed wages, but upon their
common luck, together with their common vigilance, intrepidity, and
hard work; though all these things do in some cases tend to beget a
less rigorous discipline than in merchantmen generally; yet, never mind
how much like an old Mesopotamian family these whalemen may, in some
primitive instances, live together; for all that, the punctilious
externals, at least, of the quarter-deck are seldom materially relaxed,
and in no instance done away. Indeed, many are the Nantucket ships in
which you will see the skipper parading his quarter-deck with an elated
grandeur not surpassed in any military navy; nay, extorting almost as
much outward homage as if he wore the imperial purple, and not the
shabbiest of pilot-cloth.

And though of all men the moody captain of the Pequod was the least
given to that sort of shallowest assumption; and though the only homage
he ever exacted, was implicit, instantaneous obedience; though he
required no man to remove the shoes from his feet ere stepping upon the
quarter-deck; and though there were times when, owing to peculiar
circumstances connected with events hereafter to be detailed, he
addressed them in unusual terms, whether of condescension or _in
terrorem_, or otherwise; yet even Captain Ahab was by no means
unobservant of the paramount forms and usages of the sea.

Nor, perhaps, will it fail to be eventually perceived, that behind
those forms and usages, as it were, he sometimes masked himself;
incidentally making use of them for other and more private ends than
they were legitimately intended to subserve. That certain sultanism of
his brain, which had otherwise in a good degree remained unmanifested;
through those forms that same sultanism became incarnate in an
irresistible dictatorship. For be a man’s intellectual superiority what
it will, it can never assume the practical, available supremacy over
other men, without the aid of some sort of external arts and
entrenchments, always, in themselves, more or less paltry and base.
This it is, that for ever keeps God’s true princes of the Empire from
the world’s hustings; and leaves the highest honors that this air can
give, to those men who become famous more through their infinite
inferiority to the choice hidden handful of the Divine Inert, than
through their undoubted superiority over the dead level of the mass.
Such large virtue lurks in these small things when extreme political
superstitions invest them, that in some royal instances even to idiot
imbecility they have imparted potency. But when, as in the case of
Nicholas the Czar, the ringed crown of geographical empire encircles an
imperial brain; then, the plebeian herds crouch abased before the
tremendous centralization. Nor, will the tragic dramatist who would
depict mortal indomitableness in its fullest sweep and direct swing,
ever forget a hint, incidentally so important in his art, as the one
now alluded to.

But Ahab, my Captain, still moves before me in all his Nantucket
grimness and shagginess; and in this episode touching Emperors and
Kings, I must not conceal that I have only to do with a poor old
whale-hunter like him; and, therefore, all outward majestical trappings
and housings are denied me. Oh, Ahab! what shall be grand in thee, it
must needs be plucked at from the skies, and dived for in the deep, and
featured in the unbodied air!


CHAPTER 34. The Cabin-Table.

It is noon; and Dough-Boy, the steward, thrusting his pale
loaf-of-bread face from the cabin-scuttle, announces dinner to his lord
and master; who, sitting in the lee quarter-boat, has just been taking
an observation of the sun; and is now mutely reckoning the latitude on
the smooth, medallion-shaped tablet, reserved for that daily purpose on
the upper part of his ivory leg. From his complete inattention to the
tidings, you would think that moody Ahab had not heard his menial. But
presently, catching hold of the mizen shrouds, he swings himself to the
deck, and in an even, unexhilarated voice, saying, “Dinner, Mr.
Starbuck,” disappears into the cabin.

When the last echo of his sultan’s step has died away, and Starbuck,
the first Emir, has every reason to suppose that he is seated, then
Starbuck rouses from his quietude, takes a few turns along the planks,
and, after a grave peep into the binnacle, says, with some touch of
pleasantness, “Dinner, Mr. Stubb,” and descends the scuttle. The second
Emir lounges about the rigging awhile, and then slightly shaking the
main brace, to see whether it will be all right with that important
rope, he likewise takes up the old burden, and with a rapid “Dinner,
Mr. Flask,” follows after his predecessors.

But the third Emir, now seeing himself all alone on the quarter-deck,
seems to feel relieved from some curious restraint; for, tipping all
sorts of knowing winks in all sorts of directions, and kicking off his
shoes, he strikes into a sharp but noiseless squall of a hornpipe right
over the Grand Turk’s head; and then, by a dexterous sleight, pitching
his cap up into the mizentop for a shelf, he goes down rollicking so
far at least as he remains visible from the deck, reversing all other
processions, by bringing up the rear with music. But ere stepping into
the cabin doorway below, he pauses, ships a new face altogether, and,
then, independent, hilarious little Flask enters King Ahab’s presence,
in the character of Abjectus, or the Slave.

It is not the least among the strange things bred by the intense
artificialness of sea-usages, that while in the open air of the deck
some officers will, upon provocation, bear themselves boldly and
defyingly enough towards their commander; yet, ten to one, let those
very officers the next moment go down to their customary dinner in that
same commander’s cabin, and straightway their inoffensive, not to say
deprecatory and humble air towards him, as he sits at the head of the
table; this is marvellous, sometimes most comical. Wherefore this
difference? A problem? Perhaps not. To have been Belshazzar, King of
Babylon; and to have been Belshazzar, not haughtily but courteously,
therein certainly must have been some touch of mundane grandeur. But he
who in the rightly regal and intelligent spirit presides over his own
private dinner-table of invited guests, that man’s unchallenged power
and dominion of individual influence for the time; that man’s royalty
of state transcends Belshazzar’s, for Belshazzar was not the greatest.
Who has but once dined his friends, has tasted what it is to be Cæsar.
It is a witchery of social czarship which there is no withstanding.
Now, if to this consideration you superadd the official supremacy of a
ship-master, then, by inference, you will derive the cause of that
peculiarity of sea-life just mentioned.

Over his ivory-inlaid table, Ahab presided like a mute, maned sea-lion
on the white coral beach, surrounded by his warlike but still
deferential cubs. In his own proper turn, each officer waited to be
served. They were as little children before Ahab; and yet, in Ahab,
there seemed not to lurk the smallest social arrogance. With one mind,
their intent eyes all fastened upon the old man’s knife, as he carved
the chief dish before him. I do not suppose that for the world they
would have profaned that moment with the slightest observation, even
upon so neutral a topic as the weather. No! And when reaching out his
knife and fork, between which the slice of beef was locked, Ahab
thereby motioned Starbuck’s plate towards him, the mate received his
meat as though receiving alms; and cut it tenderly; and a little
started if, perchance, the knife grazed against the plate; and chewed
it noiselessly; and swallowed it, not without circumspection. For, like
the Coronation banquet at Frankfort, where the German Emperor
profoundly dines with the seven Imperial Electors, so these cabin meals
were somehow solemn meals, eaten in awful silence; and yet at table old
Ahab forbade not conversation; only he himself was dumb. What a relief
it was to choking Stubb, when a rat made a sudden racket in the hold
below. And poor little Flask, he was the youngest son, and little boy
of this weary family party. His were the shinbones of the saline beef;
his would have been the drumsticks. For Flask to have presumed to help
himself, this must have seemed to him tantamount to larceny in the
first degree. Had he helped himself at that table, doubtless, never
more would he have been able to hold his head up in this honest world;
nevertheless, strange to say, Ahab never forbade him. And had Flask
helped himself, the chances were Ahab had never so much as noticed it.
Least of all, did Flask presume to help himself to butter. Whether he
thought the owners of the ship denied it to him, on account of its
clotting his clear, sunny complexion; or whether he deemed that, on so
long a voyage in such marketless waters, butter was at a premium, and
therefore was not for him, a subaltern; however it was, Flask, alas!
was a butterless man!

Another thing. Flask was the last person down at the dinner, and Flask
is the first man up. Consider! For hereby Flask’s dinner was badly
jammed in point of time. Starbuck and Stubb both had the start of him;
and yet they also have the privilege of lounging in the rear. If Stubb
even, who is but a peg higher than Flask, happens to have but a small
appetite, and soon shows symptoms of concluding his repast, then Flask
must bestir himself, he will not get more than three mouthfuls that
day; for it is against holy usage for Stubb to precede Flask to the
deck. Therefore it was that Flask once admitted in private, that ever
since he had arisen to the dignity of an officer, from that moment he
had never known what it was to be otherwise than hungry, more or less.
For what he ate did not so much relieve his hunger, as keep it immortal
in him. Peace and satisfaction, thought Flask, have for ever departed
from my stomach. I am an officer; but, how I wish I could fish a bit of
old-fashioned beef in the forecastle, as I used to when I was before
the mast. There’s the fruits of promotion now; there’s the vanity of
glory: there’s the insanity of life! Besides, if it were so that any
mere sailor of the Pequod had a grudge against Flask in Flask’s
official capacity, all that sailor had to do, in order to obtain ample
vengeance, was to go aft at dinner-time, and get a peep at Flask
through the cabin sky-light, sitting silly and dumfoundered before
awful Ahab.

Now, Ahab and his three mates formed what may be called the first table
in the Pequod’s cabin. After their departure, taking place in inverted
order to their arrival, the canvas cloth was cleared, or rather was
restored to some hurried order by the pallid steward. And then the
three harpooneers were bidden to the feast, they being its residuary
legatees. They made a sort of temporary servants’ hall of the high and
mighty cabin.

In strange contrast to the hardly tolerable constraint and nameless
invisible domineerings of the captain’s table, was the entire care-free
license and ease, the almost frantic democracy of those inferior
fellows the harpooneers. While their masters, the mates, seemed afraid
of the sound of the hinges of their own jaws, the harpooneers chewed
their food with such a relish that there was a report to it. They dined
like lords; they filled their bellies like Indian ships all day loading
with spices. Such portentous appetites had Queequeg and Tashtego, that
to fill out the vacancies made by the previous repast, often the pale
Dough-Boy was fain to bring on a great baron of salt-junk, seemingly
quarried out of the solid ox. And if he were not lively about it, if he
did not go with a nimble hop-skip-and-jump, then Tashtego had an
ungentlemanly way of accelerating him by darting a fork at his back,
harpoon-wise. And once Daggoo, seized with a sudden humor, assisted
Dough-Boy’s memory by snatching him up bodily, and thrusting his head
into a great empty wooden trencher, while Tashtego, knife in hand,
began laying out the circle preliminary to scalping him. He was
naturally a very nervous, shuddering sort of little fellow, this
bread-faced steward; the progeny of a bankrupt baker and a hospital
nurse. And what with the standing spectacle of the black terrific Ahab,
and the periodical tumultuous visitations of these three savages,
Dough-Boy’s whole life was one continual lip-quiver. Commonly, after
seeing the harpooneers furnished with all things they demanded, he
would escape from their clutches into his little pantry adjoining, and
fearfully peep out at them through the blinds of its door, till all was
over.

It was a sight to see Queequeg seated over against Tashtego, opposing
his filed teeth to the Indian’s: crosswise to them, Daggoo seated on
the floor, for a bench would have brought his hearse-plumed head to the
low carlines; at every motion of his colossal limbs, making the low
cabin framework to shake, as when an African elephant goes passenger in
a ship. But for all this, the great negro was wonderfully abstemious,
not to say dainty. It seemed hardly possible that by such comparatively
small mouthfuls he could keep up the vitality diffused through so
broad, baronial, and superb a person. But, doubtless, this noble savage
fed strong and drank deep of the abounding element of air; and through
his dilated nostrils snuffed in the sublime life of the worlds. Not by
beef or by bread, are giants made or nourished. But Queequeg, he had a
mortal, barbaric smack of the lip in eating—an ugly sound enough—so
much so, that the trembling Dough-Boy almost looked to see whether any
marks of teeth lurked in his own lean arms. And when he would hear
Tashtego singing out for him to produce himself, that his bones might
be picked, the simple-witted steward all but shattered the crockery
hanging round him in the pantry, by his sudden fits of the palsy. Nor
did the whetstone which the harpooneers carried in their pockets, for
their lances and other weapons; and with which whetstones, at dinner,
they would ostentatiously sharpen their knives; that grating sound did
not at all tend to tranquillize poor Dough-Boy. How could he forget
that in his Island days, Queequeg, for one, must certainly have been
guilty of some murderous, convivial indiscretions. Alas! Dough-Boy!
hard fares the white waiter who waits upon cannibals. Not a napkin
should he carry on his arm, but a buckler. In good time, though, to his
great delight, the three salt-sea warriors would rise and depart; to
his credulous, fable-mongering ears, all their martial bones jingling
in them at every step, like Moorish scimetars in scabbards.

But, though these barbarians dined in the cabin, and nominally lived
there; still, being anything but sedentary in their habits, they were
scarcely ever in it except at mealtimes, and just before sleeping-time,
when they passed through it to their own peculiar quarters.

In this one matter, Ahab seemed no exception to most American whale
captains, who, as a set, rather incline to the opinion that by rights
the ship’s cabin belongs to them; and that it is by courtesy alone that
anybody else is, at any time, permitted there. So that, in real truth,
the mates and harpooneers of the Pequod might more properly be said to
have lived out of the cabin than in it. For when they did enter it, it
was something as a street-door enters a house; turning inwards for a
moment, only to be turned out the next; and, as a permanent thing,
residing in the open air. Nor did they lose much hereby; in the cabin
was no companionship; socially, Ahab was inaccessible. Though nominally
included in the census of Christendom, he was still an alien to it. He
lived in the world, as the last of the Grisly Bears lived in settled
Missouri. And as when Spring and Summer had departed, that wild Logan
of the woods, burying himself in the hollow of a tree, lived out the
winter there, sucking his own paws; so, in his inclement, howling old
age, Ahab’s soul, shut up in the caved trunk of his body, there fed
upon the sullen paws of its gloom!


CHAPTER 35. The Mast-Head.

It was during the more pleasant weather, that in due rotation with the
other seamen my first mast-head came round.

In most American whalemen the mast-heads are manned almost
simultaneously with the vessel’s leaving her port; even though she may
have fifteen thousand miles, and more, to sail ere reaching her proper
cruising ground. And if, after a three, four, or five years’ voyage she
is drawing nigh home with anything empty in her—say, an empty vial
even—then, her mast-heads are kept manned to the last; and not till her
skysail-poles sail in among the spires of the port, does she altogether
relinquish the hope of capturing one whale more.

Now, as the business of standing mast-heads, ashore or afloat, is a
very ancient and interesting one, let us in some measure expatiate
here. I take it, that the earliest standers of mast-heads were the old
Egyptians; because, in all my researches, I find none prior to them.
For though their progenitors, the builders of Babel, must doubtless, by
their tower, have intended to rear the loftiest mast-head in all Asia,
or Africa either; yet (ere the final truck was put to it) as that great
stone mast of theirs may be said to have gone by the board, in the
dread gale of God’s wrath; therefore, we cannot give these Babel
builders priority over the Egyptians. And that the Egyptians were a
nation of mast-head standers, is an assertion based upon the general
belief among archæologists, that the first pyramids were founded for
astronomical purposes: a theory singularly supported by the peculiar
stair-like formation of all four sides of those edifices; whereby, with
prodigious long upliftings of their legs, those old astronomers were
wont to mount to the apex, and sing out for new stars; even as the
look-outs of a modern ship sing out for a sail, or a whale just bearing
in sight. In Saint Stylites, the famous Christian hermit of old times,
who built him a lofty stone pillar in the desert and spent the whole
latter portion of his life on its summit, hoisting his food from the
ground with a tackle; in him we have a remarkable instance of a
dauntless stander-of-mast-heads; who was not to be driven from his
place by fogs or frosts, rain, hail, or sleet; but valiantly facing
everything out to the last, literally died at his post. Of modern
standers-of-mast-heads we have but a lifeless set; mere stone, iron,
and bronze men; who, though well capable of facing out a stiff gale,
are still entirely incompetent to the business of singing out upon
discovering any strange sight. There is Napoleon; who, upon the top of
the column of Vendome, stands with arms folded, some one hundred and
fifty feet in the air; careless, now, who rules the decks below;
whether Louis Philippe, Louis Blanc, or Louis the Devil. Great
Washington, too, stands high aloft on his towering main-mast in
Baltimore, and like one of Hercules’ pillars, his column marks that
point of human grandeur beyond which few mortals will go. Admiral
Nelson, also, on a capstan of gun-metal, stands his mast-head in
Trafalgar Square; and ever when most obscured by that London smoke,
token is yet given that a hidden hero is there; for where there is
smoke, must be fire. But neither great Washington, nor Napoleon, nor
Nelson, will answer a single hail from below, however madly invoked to
befriend by their counsels the distracted decks upon which they gaze;
however it may be surmised, that their spirits penetrate through the
thick haze of the future, and descry what shoals and what rocks must be
shunned.

It may seem unwarrantable to couple in any respect the mast-head
standers of the land with those of the sea; but that in truth it is not
so, is plainly evinced by an item for which Obed Macy, the sole
historian of Nantucket, stands accountable. The worthy Obed tells us,
that in the early times of the whale fishery, ere ships were regularly
launched in pursuit of the game, the people of that island erected
lofty spars along the sea-coast, to which the look-outs ascended by
means of nailed cleats, something as fowls go upstairs in a hen-house.
A few years ago this same plan was adopted by the Bay whalemen of New
Zealand, who, upon descrying the game, gave notice to the ready-manned
boats nigh the beach. But this custom has now become obsolete; turn we
then to the one proper mast-head, that of a whale-ship at sea. The
three mast-heads are kept manned from sun-rise to sun-set; the seamen
taking their regular turns (as at the helm), and relieving each other
every two hours. In the serene weather of the tropics it is exceedingly
pleasant the mast-head; nay, to a dreamy meditative man it is
delightful. There you stand, a hundred feet above the silent decks,
striding along the deep, as if the masts were gigantic stilts, while
beneath you and between your legs, as it were, swim the hugest monsters
of the sea, even as ships once sailed between the boots of the famous
Colossus at old Rhodes. There you stand, lost in the infinite series of
the sea, with nothing ruffled but the waves. The tranced ship
indolently rolls; the drowsy trade winds blow; everything resolves you
into languor. For the most part, in this tropic whaling life, a sublime
uneventfulness invests you; you hear no news; read no gazettes; extras
with startling accounts of commonplaces never delude you into
unnecessary excitements; you hear of no domestic afflictions; bankrupt
securities; fall of stocks; are never troubled with the thought of what
you shall have for dinner—for all your meals for three years and more
are snugly stowed in casks, and your bill of fare is immutable.

In one of those southern whalesmen, on a long three or four years’
voyage, as often happens, the sum of the various hours you spend at the
mast-head would amount to several entire months. And it is much to be
deplored that the place to which you devote so considerable a portion
of the whole term of your natural life, should be so sadly destitute of
anything approaching to a cosy inhabitiveness, or adapted to breed a
comfortable localness of feeling, such as pertains to a bed, a hammock,
a hearse, a sentry box, a pulpit, a coach, or any other of those small
and snug contrivances in which men temporarily isolate themselves. Your
most usual point of perch is the head of the t’ gallant-mast, where you
stand upon two thin parallel sticks (almost peculiar to whalemen)
called the t’ gallant cross-trees. Here, tossed about by the sea, the
beginner feels about as cosy as he would standing on a bull’s horns. To
be sure, in cold weather you may carry your house aloft with you, in
the shape of a watch-coat; but properly speaking the thickest
watch-coat is no more of a house than the unclad body; for as the soul
is glued inside of its fleshy tabernacle, and cannot freely move about
in it, nor even move out of it, without running great risk of perishing
(like an ignorant pilgrim crossing the snowy Alps in winter); so a
watch-coat is not so much of a house as it is a mere envelope, or
additional skin encasing you. You cannot put a shelf or chest of
drawers in your body, and no more can you make a convenient closet of
your watch-coat.

Concerning all this, it is much to be deplored that the mast-heads of a
southern whale ship are unprovided with those enviable little tents or
pulpits, called _crow’s-nests_, in which the look-outs of a Greenland
whaler are protected from the inclement weather of the frozen seas. In
the fireside narrative of Captain Sleet, entitled “A Voyage among the
Icebergs, in quest of the Greenland Whale, and incidentally for the
re-discovery of the Lost Icelandic Colonies of Old Greenland;” in this
admirable volume, all standers of mast-heads are furnished with a
charmingly circumstantial account of the then recently invented
_crow’s-nest_ of the Glacier, which was the name of Captain Sleet’s
good craft. He called it the _Sleet’s crow’s-nest_, in honor of
himself; he being the original inventor and patentee, and free from all
ridiculous false delicacy, and holding that if we call our own children
after our own names (we fathers being the original inventors and
patentees), so likewise should we denominate after ourselves any other
apparatus we may beget. In shape, the Sleet’s crow’s-nest is something
like a large tierce or pipe; it is open above, however, where it is
furnished with a movable side-screen to keep to windward of your head
in a hard gale. Being fixed on the summit of the mast, you ascend into
it through a little trap-hatch in the bottom. On the after side, or
side next the stern of the ship, is a comfortable seat, with a locker
underneath for umbrellas, comforters, and coats. In front is a leather
rack, in which to keep your speaking trumpet, pipe, telescope, and
other nautical conveniences. When Captain Sleet in person stood his
mast-head in this crow’s-nest of his, he tells us that he always had a
rifle with him (also fixed in the rack), together with a powder flask
and shot, for the purpose of popping off the stray narwhales, or
vagrant sea unicorns infesting those waters; for you cannot
successfully shoot at them from the deck owing to the resistance of the
water, but to shoot down upon them is a very different thing. Now, it
was plainly a labor of love for Captain Sleet to describe, as he does,
all the little detailed conveniences of his crow’s-nest; but though he
so enlarges upon many of these, and though he treats us to a very
scientific account of his experiments in this crow’s-nest, with a small
compass he kept there for the purpose of counteracting the errors
resulting from what is called the “local attraction” of all binnacle
magnets; an error ascribable to the horizontal vicinity of the iron in
the ship’s planks, and in the Glacier’s case, perhaps, to there having
been so many broken-down blacksmiths among her crew; I say, that though
the Captain is very discreet and scientific here, yet, for all his
learned “binnacle deviations,” “azimuth compass observations,” and
“approximate errors,” he knows very well, Captain Sleet, that he was
not so much immersed in those profound magnetic meditations, as to fail
being attracted occasionally towards that well replenished little
case-bottle, so nicely tucked in on one side of his crow’s nest, within
easy reach of his hand. Though, upon the whole, I greatly admire and
even love the brave, the honest, and learned Captain; yet I take it
very ill of him that he should so utterly ignore that case-bottle,
seeing what a faithful friend and comforter it must have been, while
with mittened fingers and hooded head he was studying the mathematics
aloft there in that bird’s nest within three or four perches of the
pole.

But if we Southern whale-fishers are not so snugly housed aloft as
Captain Sleet and his Greenlandmen were; yet that disadvantage is
greatly counter-balanced by the widely contrasting serenity of those
seductive seas in which we South fishers mostly float. For one, I used
to lounge up the rigging very leisurely, resting in the top to have a
chat with Queequeg, or any one else off duty whom I might find there;
then ascending a little way further, and throwing a lazy leg over the
top-sail yard, take a preliminary view of the watery pastures, and so
at last mount to my ultimate destination.

Let me make a clean breast of it here, and frankly admit that I kept
but sorry guard. With the problem of the universe revolving in me, how
could I—being left completely to myself at such a thought-engendering
altitude—how could I but lightly hold my obligations to observe all
whale-ships’ standing orders, “Keep your weather eye open, and sing out
every time.”

And let me in this place movingly admonish you, ye ship-owners of
Nantucket! Beware of enlisting in your vigilant fisheries any lad with
lean brow and hollow eye; given to unseasonable meditativeness; and who
offers to ship with the Phædon instead of Bowditch in his head. Beware
of such an one, I say; your whales must be seen before they can be
killed; and this sunken-eyed young Platonist will tow you ten wakes
round the world, and never make you one pint of sperm the richer. Nor
are these monitions at all unneeded. For nowadays, the whale-fishery
furnishes an asylum for many romantic, melancholy, and absent-minded
young men, disgusted with the carking cares of earth, and seeking
sentiment in tar and blubber. Childe Harold not unfrequently perches
himself upon the mast-head of some luckless disappointed whale-ship,
and in moody phrase ejaculates:—


“Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll! Ten thousand
blubber-hunters sweep over thee in vain.”



Very often do the captains of such ships take those absent-minded young
philosophers to task, upbraiding them with not feeling sufficient
“interest” in the voyage; half-hinting that they are so hopelessly lost
to all honorable ambition, as that in their secret souls they would
rather not see whales than otherwise. But all in vain; those young
Platonists have a notion that their vision is imperfect; they are
short-sighted; what use, then, to strain the visual nerve? They have
left their opera-glasses at home.

“Why, thou monkey,” said a harpooneer to one of these lads, “we’ve been
cruising now hard upon three years, and thou hast not raised a whale
yet. Whales are scarce as hen’s teeth whenever thou art up here.”
Perhaps they were; or perhaps there might have been shoals of them in
the far horizon; but lulled into such an opium-like listlessness of
vacant, unconscious reverie is this absent-minded youth by the blending
cadence of waves with thoughts, that at last he loses his identity;
takes the mystic ocean at his feet for the visible image of that deep,
blue, bottomless soul, pervading mankind and nature; and every strange,
half-seen, gliding, beautiful thing that eludes him; every
dimly-discovered, uprising fin of some undiscernible form, seems to him
the embodiment of those elusive thoughts that only people the soul by
continually flitting through it. In this enchanted mood, thy spirit
ebbs away to whence it came; becomes diffused through time and space;
like Cranmer’s sprinkled Pantheistic ashes, forming at last a part of
every shore the round globe over.

There is no life in thee, now, except that rocking life imparted by a
gently rolling ship; by her, borrowed from the sea; by the sea, from
the inscrutable tides of God. But while this sleep, this dream is on
ye, move your foot or hand an inch; slip your hold at all; and your
identity comes back in horror. Over Descartian vortices you hover. And
perhaps, at mid-day, in the fairest weather, with one half-throttled
shriek you drop through that transparent air into the summer sea, no
more to rise for ever. Heed it well, ye Pantheists!


CHAPTER 36. The Quarter-Deck.

(_Enter Ahab: Then, all._)

It was not a great while after the affair of the pipe, that one morning
shortly after breakfast, Ahab, as was his wont, ascended the
cabin-gangway to the deck. There most sea-captains usually walk at that
hour, as country gentlemen, after the same meal, take a few turns in
the garden.

Soon his steady, ivory stride was heard, as to and fro he paced his old
rounds, upon planks so familiar to his tread, that they were all over
dented, like geological stones, with the peculiar mark of his walk. Did
you fixedly gaze, too, upon that ribbed and dented brow; there also,
you would see still stranger foot-prints—the foot-prints of his one
unsleeping, ever-pacing thought.

But on the occasion in question, those dents looked deeper, even as his
nervous step that morning left a deeper mark. And, so full of his
thought was Ahab, that at every uniform turn that he made, now at the
main-mast and now at the binnacle, you could almost see that thought
turn in him as he turned, and pace in him as he paced; so completely
possessing him, indeed, that it all but seemed the inward mould of
every outer movement.

“D’ye mark him, Flask?” whispered Stubb; “the chick that’s in him pecks
the shell. ’Twill soon be out.”

The hours wore on;—Ahab now shut up within his cabin; anon, pacing the
deck, with the same intense bigotry of purpose in his aspect.

It drew near the close of day. Suddenly he came to a halt by the
bulwarks, and inserting his bone leg into the auger-hole there, and
with one hand grasping a shroud, he ordered Starbuck to send everybody
aft.

“Sir!” said the mate, astonished at an order seldom or never given on
ship-board except in some extraordinary case.

“Send everybody aft,” repeated Ahab. “Mast-heads, there! come down!”

When the entire ship’s company were assembled, and with curious and not
wholly unapprehensive faces, were eyeing him, for he looked not unlike
the weather horizon when a storm is coming up, Ahab, after rapidly
glancing over the bulwarks, and then darting his eyes among the crew,
started from his standpoint; and as though not a soul were nigh him
resumed his heavy turns upon the deck. With bent head and half-slouched
hat he continued to pace, unmindful of the wondering whispering among
the men; till Stubb cautiously whispered to Flask, that Ahab must have
summoned them there for the purpose of witnessing a pedestrian feat.
But this did not last long. Vehemently pausing, he cried:—

“What do ye do when ye see a whale, men?”

“Sing out for him!” was the impulsive rejoinder from a score of clubbed
voices.

“Good!” cried Ahab, with a wild approval in his tones; observing the
hearty animation into which his unexpected question had so magnetically
thrown them.

“And what do ye next, men?”

“Lower away, and after him!”

“And what tune is it ye pull to, men?”

“A dead whale or a stove boat!”

More and more strangely and fiercely glad and approving, grew the
countenance of the old man at every shout; while the mariners began to
gaze curiously at each other, as if marvelling how it was that they
themselves became so excited at such seemingly purposeless questions.

But, they were all eagerness again, as Ahab, now half-revolving in his
pivot-hole, with one hand reaching high up a shroud, and tightly,
almost convulsively grasping it, addressed them thus:—

“All ye mast-headers have before now heard me give orders about a white
whale. Look ye! d’ye see this Spanish ounce of gold?”—holding up a
broad bright coin to the sun—“it is a sixteen dollar piece, men. D’ye
see it? Mr. Starbuck, hand me yon top-maul.”

While the mate was getting the hammer, Ahab, without speaking, was
slowly rubbing the gold piece against the skirts of his jacket, as if
to heighten its lustre, and without using any words was meanwhile lowly
humming to himself, producing a sound so strangely muffled and
inarticulate that it seemed the mechanical humming of the wheels of his
vitality in him.

Receiving the top-maul from Starbuck, he advanced towards the main-mast
with the hammer uplifted in one hand, exhibiting the gold with the
other, and with a high raised voice exclaiming: “Whosoever of ye raises
me a white-headed whale with a wrinkled brow and a crooked jaw;
whosoever of ye raises me that white-headed whale, with three holes
punctured in his starboard fluke—look ye, whosoever of ye raises me
that same white whale, he shall have this gold ounce, my boys!”

“Huzza! huzza!” cried the seamen, as with swinging tarpaulins they
hailed the act of nailing the gold to the mast.

“It’s a white whale, I say,” resumed Ahab, as he threw down the
topmaul: “a white whale. Skin your eyes for him, men; look sharp for
white water; if ye see but a bubble, sing out.”

All this while Tashtego, Daggoo, and Queequeg had looked on with even
more intense interest and surprise than the rest, and at the mention of
the wrinkled brow and crooked jaw they had started as if each was
separately touched by some specific recollection.

“Captain Ahab,” said Tashtego, “that white whale must be the same that
some call Moby Dick.”

“Moby Dick?” shouted Ahab. “Do ye know the white whale then, Tash?”

“Does he fan-tail a little curious, sir, before he goes down?” said the
Gay-Header deliberately.

“And has he a curious spout, too,” said Daggoo, “very bushy, even for a
parmacetty, and mighty quick, Captain Ahab?”

“And he have one, two, three—oh! good many iron in him hide, too,
Captain,” cried Queequeg disjointedly, “all twiske-tee be-twisk, like
him—him—” faltering hard for a word, and screwing his hand round and
round as though uncorking a bottle—“like him—him—”

“Corkscrew!” cried Ahab, “aye, Queequeg, the harpoons lie all twisted
and wrenched in him; aye, Daggoo, his spout is a big one, like a whole
shock of wheat, and white as a pile of our Nantucket wool after the
great annual sheep-shearing; aye, Tashtego, and he fan-tails like a
split jib in a squall. Death and devils! men, it is Moby Dick ye have
seen—Moby Dick—Moby Dick!”

“Captain Ahab,” said Starbuck, who, with Stubb and Flask, had thus far
been eyeing his superior with increasing surprise, but at last seemed
struck with a thought which somewhat explained all the wonder. “Captain
Ahab, I have heard of Moby Dick—but it was not Moby Dick that took off
thy leg?”

“Who told thee that?” cried Ahab; then pausing, “Aye, Starbuck; aye, my
hearties all round; it was Moby Dick that dismasted me; Moby Dick that
brought me to this dead stump I stand on now. Aye, aye,” he shouted
with a terrific, loud, animal sob, like that of a heart-stricken moose;
“Aye, aye! it was that accursed white whale that razeed me; made a poor
pegging lubber of me for ever and a day!” Then tossing both arms, with
measureless imprecations he shouted out: “Aye, aye! and I’ll chase him
round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom,
and round perdition’s flames before I give him up. And this is what ye
have shipped for, men! to chase that white whale on both sides of land,
and over all sides of earth, till he spouts black blood and rolls fin
out. What say ye, men, will ye splice hands on it, now? I think ye do
look brave.”

“Aye, aye!” shouted the harpooneers and seamen, running closer to the
excited old man: “A sharp eye for the white whale; a sharp lance for
Moby Dick!”

“God bless ye,” he seemed to half sob and half shout. “God bless ye,
men. Steward! go draw the great measure of grog. But what’s this long
face about, Mr. Starbuck; wilt thou not chase the white whale? art not
game for Moby Dick?”

“I am game for his crooked jaw, and for the jaws of Death too, Captain
Ahab, if it fairly comes in the way of the business we follow; but I
came here to hunt whales, not my commander’s vengeance. How many
barrels will thy vengeance yield thee even if thou gettest it, Captain
Ahab? it will not fetch thee much in our Nantucket market.”

“Nantucket market! Hoot! But come closer, Starbuck; thou requirest a
little lower layer. If money’s to be the measurer, man, and the
accountants have computed their great counting-house the globe, by
girdling it with guineas, one to every three parts of an inch; then,
let me tell thee, that my vengeance will fetch a great premium _here!_”

“He smites his chest,” whispered Stubb, “what’s that for? methinks it
rings most vast, but hollow.”

“Vengeance on a dumb brute!” cried Starbuck, “that simply smote thee
from blindest instinct! Madness! To be enraged with a dumb thing,
Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous.”

“Hark ye yet again—the little lower layer. All visible objects, man,
are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event—in the living act, the
undoubted deed—there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth
the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man
will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach
outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is
that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there’s naught beyond.
But ’tis enough. He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous
strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable
thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the
white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me
of blasphemy, man; I’d strike the sun if it insulted me. For could the
sun do that, then could I do the other; since there is ever a sort of
fair play herein, jealousy presiding over all creations. But not my
master, man, is even that fair play. Who’s over me? Truth hath no
confines. Take off thine eye! more intolerable than fiends’ glarings is
a doltish stare! So, so; thou reddenest and palest; my heat has melted
thee to anger-glow. But look ye, Starbuck, what is said in heat, that
thing unsays itself. There are men from whom warm words are small
indignity. I meant not to incense thee. Let it go. Look! see yonder
Turkish cheeks of spotted tawn—living, breathing pictures painted by
the sun. The Pagan leopards—the unrecking and unworshipping things,
that live; and seek, and give no reasons for the torrid life they feel!
The crew, man, the crew! Are they not one and all with Ahab, in this
matter of the whale? See Stubb! he laughs! See yonder Chilian! he
snorts to think of it. Stand up amid the general hurricane, thy one
tost sapling cannot, Starbuck! And what is it? Reckon it. ’Tis but to
help strike a fin; no wondrous feat for Starbuck. What is it more? From
this one poor hunt, then, the best lance out of all Nantucket, surely
he will not hang back, when every foremast-hand has clutched a
whetstone? Ah! constrainings seize thee; I see! the billow lifts thee!
Speak, but speak!—Aye, aye! thy silence, then, _that_ voices thee.
(_Aside_) Something shot from my dilated nostrils, he has inhaled it in
his lungs. Starbuck now is mine; cannot oppose me now, without
rebellion.”

“God keep me!—keep us all!” murmured Starbuck, lowly.

But in his joy at the enchanted, tacit acquiescence of the mate, Ahab
did not hear his foreboding invocation; nor yet the low laugh from the
hold; nor yet the presaging vibrations of the winds in the cordage; nor
yet the hollow flap of the sails against the masts, as for a moment
their hearts sank in. For again Starbuck’s downcast eyes lighted up
with the stubbornness of life; the subterranean laugh died away; the
winds blew on; the sails filled out; the ship heaved and rolled as
before. Ah, ye admonitions and warnings! why stay ye not when ye come?
But rather are ye predictions than warnings, ye shadows! Yet not so
much predictions from without, as verifications of the foregoing things
within. For with little external to constrain us, the innermost
necessities in our being, these still drive us on.

“The measure! the measure!” cried Ahab.

Receiving the brimming pewter, and turning to the harpooneers, he
ordered them to produce their weapons. Then ranging them before him
near the capstan, with their harpoons in their hands, while his three
mates stood at his side with their lances, and the rest of the ship’s
company formed a circle round the group; he stood for an instant
searchingly eyeing every man of his crew. But those wild eyes met his,
as the bloodshot eyes of the prairie wolves meet the eye of their
leader, ere he rushes on at their head in the trail of the bison; but,
alas! only to fall into the hidden snare of the Indian.

“Drink and pass!” he cried, handing the heavy charged flagon to the
nearest seaman. “The crew alone now drink. Round with it, round! Short
draughts—long swallows, men; ’tis hot as Satan’s hoof. So, so; it goes
round excellently. It spiralizes in ye; forks out at the
serpent-snapping eye. Well done; almost drained. That way it went, this
way it comes. Hand it me—here’s a hollow! Men, ye seem the years; so
brimming life is gulped and gone. Steward, refill!

“Attend now, my braves. I have mustered ye all round this capstan; and
ye mates, flank me with your lances; and ye harpooneers, stand there
with your irons; and ye, stout mariners, ring me in, that I may in some
sort revive a noble custom of my fisherman fathers before me. O men,
you will yet see that—Ha! boy, come back? bad pennies come not sooner.
Hand it me. Why, now, this pewter had run brimming again, wer’t not
thou St. Vitus’ imp—away, thou ague!

“Advance, ye mates! Cross your lances full before me. Well done! Let me
touch the axis.” So saying, with extended arm, he grasped the three
level, radiating lances at their crossed centre; while so doing,
suddenly and nervously twitched them; meanwhile, glancing intently from
Starbuck to Stubb; from Stubb to Flask. It seemed as though, by some
nameless, interior volition, he would fain have shocked into them the
same fiery emotion accumulated within the Leyden jar of his own
magnetic life. The three mates quailed before his strong, sustained,
and mystic aspect. Stubb and Flask looked sideways from him; the honest
eye of Starbuck fell downright.

“In vain!” cried Ahab; “but, maybe, ’tis well. For did ye three but
once take the full-forced shock, then mine own electric thing, _that_
had perhaps expired from out me. Perchance, too, it would have dropped
ye dead. Perchance ye need it not. Down lances! And now, ye mates, I do
appoint ye three cupbearers to my three pagan kinsmen there—yon three
most honorable gentlemen and noblemen, my valiant harpooneers. Disdain
the task? What, when the great Pope washes the feet of beggars, using
his tiara for ewer? Oh, my sweet cardinals! your own condescension,
_that_ shall bend ye to it. I do not order ye; ye will it. Cut your
seizings and draw the poles, ye harpooneers!”

Silently obeying the order, the three harpooneers now stood with the
detached iron part of their harpoons, some three feet long, held, barbs
up, before him.

“Stab me not with that keen steel! Cant them; cant them over! know ye
not the goblet end? Turn up the socket! So, so; now, ye cup-bearers,
advance. The irons! take them; hold them while I fill!” Forthwith,
slowly going from one officer to the other, he brimmed the harpoon
sockets with the fiery waters from the pewter.

“Now, three to three, ye stand. Commend the murderous chalices! Bestow
them, ye who are now made parties to this indissoluble league. Ha!
Starbuck! but the deed is done! Yon ratifying sun now waits to sit upon
it. Drink, ye harpooneers! drink and swear, ye men that man the
deathful whaleboat’s bow—Death to Moby Dick! God hunt us all, if we do
not hunt Moby Dick to his death!” The long, barbed steel goblets were
lifted; and to cries and maledictions against the white whale, the
spirits were simultaneously quaffed down with a hiss. Starbuck paled,
and turned, and shivered. Once more, and finally, the replenished
pewter went the rounds among the frantic crew; when, waving his free
hand to them, they all dispersed; and Ahab retired within his cabin.


CHAPTER 37. Sunset.

_The cabin; by the stern windows; Ahab sitting alone, and gazing out_.

I leave a white and turbid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks, where’er I
sail. The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm my track; let them;
but first I pass.

Yonder, by ever-brimming goblet’s rim, the warm waves blush like wine.
The gold brow plumbs the blue. The diver sun—slow dived from noon—goes
down; my soul mounts up! she wearies with her endless hill. Is, then,
the crown too heavy that I wear? this Iron Crown of Lombardy. Yet is it
bright with many a gem; I the wearer, see not its far flashings; but
darkly feel that I wear that, that dazzlingly confounds. ’Tis iron—that
I know—not gold. ’Tis split, too—that I feel; the jagged edge galls me
so, my brain seems to beat against the solid metal; aye, steel skull,
mine; the sort that needs no helmet in the most brain-battering fight!

Dry heat upon my brow? Oh! time was, when as the sunrise nobly spurred
me, so the sunset soothed. No more. This lovely light, it lights not
me; all loveliness is anguish to me, since I can ne’er enjoy. Gifted
with the high perception, I lack the low, enjoying power; damned, most
subtly and most malignantly! damned in the midst of Paradise! Good
night—good night! (_waving his hand, he moves from the window_.)

’Twas not so hard a task. I thought to find one stubborn, at the least;
but my one cogged circle fits into all their various wheels, and they
revolve. Or, if you will, like so many ant-hills of powder, they all
stand before me; and I their match. Oh, hard! that to fire others, the
match itself must needs be wasting! What I’ve dared, I’ve willed; and
what I’ve willed, I’ll do! They think me mad—Starbuck does; but I’m
demoniac, I am madness maddened! That wild madness that’s only calm to
comprehend itself! The prophecy was that I should be dismembered;
and—Aye! I lost this leg. I now prophesy that I will dismember my
dismemberer. Now, then, be the prophet and the fulfiller one. That’s
more than ye, ye great gods, ever were. I laugh and hoot at ye, ye
cricket-players, ye pugilists, ye deaf Burkes and blinded Bendigoes! I
will not say as schoolboys do to bullies—Take some one of your own
size; don’t pommel _me!_ No, ye’ve knocked me down, and I am up again;
but _ye_ have run and hidden. Come forth from behind your cotton bags!
I have no long gun to reach ye. Come, Ahab’s compliments to ye; come
and see if ye can swerve me. Swerve me? ye cannot swerve me, else ye
swerve yourselves! man has ye there. Swerve me? The path to my fixed
purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run.
Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under
torrents’ beds, unerringly I rush! Naught’s an obstacle, naught’s an
angle to the iron way!


CHAPTER 38. Dusk.

_By the Mainmast; Starbuck leaning against it_.

My soul is more than matched; she’s overmanned; and by a madman!
Insufferable sting, that sanity should ground arms on such a field! But
he drilled deep down, and blasted all my reason out of me! I think I
see his impious end; but feel that I must help him to it. Will I, nill
I, the ineffable thing has tied me to him; tows me with a cable I have
no knife to cut. Horrible old man! Who’s over him, he cries;—aye, he
would be a democrat to all above; look, how he lords it over all below!
Oh! I plainly see my miserable office,—to obey, rebelling; and worse
yet, to hate with touch of pity! For in his eyes I read some lurid woe
would shrivel me up, had I it. Yet is there hope. Time and tide flow
wide. The hated whale has the round watery world to swim in, as the
small gold-fish has its glassy globe. His heaven-insulting purpose, God
may wedge aside. I would up heart, were it not like lead. But my whole
clock’s run down; my heart the all-controlling weight, I have no key to
lift again.

[_A burst of revelry from the forecastle_.]

Oh, God! to sail with such a heathen crew that have small touch of
human mothers in them! Whelped somewhere by the sharkish sea. The white
whale is their demigorgon. Hark! the infernal orgies! that revelry is
forward! mark the unfaltering silence aft! Methinks it pictures life.
Foremost through the sparkling sea shoots on the gay, embattled,
bantering bow, but only to drag dark Ahab after it, where he broods
within his sternward cabin, builded over the dead water of the wake,
and further on, hunted by its wolfish gurglings. The long howl thrills
me through! Peace! ye revellers, and set the watch! Oh, life! ’tis in
an hour like this, with soul beat down and held to knowledge,—as wild,
untutored things are forced to feed—Oh, life! ’tis now that I do feel
the latent horror in thee! but ’tis not me! that horror’s out of me!
and with the soft feeling of the human in me, yet will I try to fight
ye, ye grim, phantom futures! Stand by me, hold me, bind me, O ye
blessed influences!


CHAPTER 39. First Night-Watch.

Fore-Top.

(_Stubb solus, and mending a brace_.)

Ha! ha! ha! ha! hem! clear my throat!—I’ve been thinking over it ever
since, and that ha, ha’s the final consequence. Why so? Because a
laugh’s the wisest, easiest answer to all that’s queer; and come what
will, one comfort’s always left—that unfailing comfort is, it’s all
predestinated. I heard not all his talk with Starbuck; but to my poor
eye Starbuck then looked something as I the other evening felt. Be sure
the old Mogul has fixed him, too. I twigged it, knew it; had had the
gift, might readily have prophesied it—for when I clapped my eye upon
his skull I saw it. Well, Stubb, _wise_ Stubb—that’s my title—well,
Stubb, what of it, Stubb? Here’s a carcase. I know not all that may be
coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing. Such a waggish
leering as lurks in all your horribles! I feel funny. Fa, la! lirra,
skirra! What’s my juicy little pear at home doing now? Crying its eyes
out?—Giving a party to the last arrived harpooneers, I dare say, gay as
a frigate’s pennant, and so am I—fa, la! lirra, skirra! Oh—


We’ll drink to-night with hearts as light, To love, as gay and fleeting
As bubbles that swim, on the beaker’s brim, And break on the lips while
meeting.



A brave stave that—who calls? Mr. Starbuck? Aye, aye, sir—(_Aside_)
he’s my superior, he has his too, if I’m not mistaken.—Aye, aye, sir,
just through with this job—coming.


CHAPTER 40. Midnight, Forecastle.

HARPOONEERS AND SAILORS.

(_Foresail rises and discovers the watch standing, lounging, leaning,
and lying in various attitudes, all singing in chorus_.)


  Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish ladies! Farewell and adieu to you,
  ladies of Spain! Our captain’s commanded.—



1ST NANTUCKET SAILOR. Oh, boys, don’t be sentimental; it’s bad for the
digestion! Take a tonic, follow me!

(_Sings, and all follow._)


 Our captain stood upon the deck, A spy-glass in his hand, A viewing of
 those gallant whales That blew at every strand. Oh, your tubs in your
 boats, my boys, And by your braces stand, And we’ll have one of those
 fine whales, Hand, boys, over hand! So, be cheery, my lads! may your
 hearts never fail! While the bold harpooner is striking the whale!



MATE’S VOICE FROM THE QUARTER-DECK. Eight bells there, forward!

2ND NANTUCKET SAILOR. Avast the chorus! Eight bells there! d’ye hear,
bell-boy? Strike the bell eight, thou Pip! thou blackling! and let me
call the watch. I’ve the sort of mouth for that—the hogshead mouth. So,
so, (_thrusts his head down the scuttle_,) Star-bo-l-e-e-n-s, a-h-o-y!
Eight bells there below! Tumble up!

DUTCH SAILOR. Grand snoozing to-night, maty; fat night for that. I mark
this in our old Mogul’s wine; it’s quite as deadening to some as
filliping to others. We sing; they sleep—aye, lie down there, like
ground-tier butts. At ’em again! There, take this copper-pump, and hail
’em through it. Tell ’em to avast dreaming of their lasses. Tell ’em
it’s the resurrection; they must kiss their last, and come to judgment.
That’s the way—_that’s_ it; thy throat ain’t spoiled with eating
Amsterdam butter.

FRENCH SAILOR. Hist, boys! let’s have a jig or two before we ride to
anchor in Blanket Bay. What say ye? There comes the other watch. Stand
by all legs! Pip! little Pip! hurrah with your tambourine!

PIP. (_Sulky and sleepy._) Don’t know where it is.

FRENCH SAILOR. Beat thy belly, then, and wag thy ears. Jig it, men, I
say; merry’s the word; hurrah! Damn me, won’t you dance? Form, now,
Indian-file, and gallop into the double-shuffle? Throw yourselves!
Legs! legs!

ICELAND SAILOR. I don’t like your floor, maty; it’s too springy to my
taste. I’m used to ice-floors. I’m sorry to throw cold water on the
subject; but excuse me.

MALTESE SAILOR. Me too; where’s your girls? Who but a fool would take
his left hand by his right, and say to himself, how d’ye do? Partners!
I must have partners!

SICILIAN SAILOR. Aye; girls and a green!—then I’ll hop with ye; yea,
turn grasshopper!

LONG-ISLAND SAILOR. Well, well, ye sulkies, there’s plenty more of us.
Hoe corn when you may, say I. All legs go to harvest soon. Ah! here
comes the music; now for it!

AZORE SAILOR. (_Ascending, and pitching the tambourine up the
scuttle_.) Here you are, Pip; and there’s the windlass-bitts; up you
mount! Now, boys! (_The half of them dance to the tambourine; some go
below; some sleep or lie among the coils of rigging. Oaths a-plenty_.)

AZORE SAILOR. (_Dancing_) Go it, Pip! Bang it, bell-boy! Rig it, dig
it, stig it, quig it, bell-boy! Make fire-flies; break the jinglers!

PIP. Jinglers, you say?—there goes another, dropped off; I pound it so.

CHINA SAILOR. Rattle thy teeth, then, and pound away; make a pagoda of
thyself.

FRENCH SAILOR. Merry-mad! Hold up thy hoop, Pip, till I jump through
it! Split jibs! tear yourselves!

TASHTEGO. (_Quietly smoking._) That’s a white man; he calls that fun:
humph! I save my sweat.

OLD MANX SAILOR. I wonder whether those jolly lads bethink them of what
they are dancing over. I’ll dance over your grave, I will—that’s the
bitterest threat of your night-women, that beat head-winds round
corners. O Christ! to think of the green navies and the green-skulled
crews! Well, well; belike the whole world’s a ball, as you scholars
have it; and so ’tis right to make one ballroom of it. Dance on, lads,
you’re young; I was once.

3D NANTUCKET SAILOR. Spell oh!—whew! this is worse than pulling after
whales in a calm—give us a whiff, Tash.

(_They cease dancing, and gather in clusters. Meantime the sky
darkens—the wind rises_.)

LASCAR SAILOR. By Brahma! boys, it’ll be douse sail soon. The sky-born,
high-tide Ganges turned to wind! Thou showest thy black brow, Seeva!

MALTESE SAILOR. (_Reclining and shaking his cap_.) It’s the waves—the
snow’s caps turn to jig it now. They’ll shake their tassels soon. Now
would all the waves were women, then I’d go drown, and chassee with
them evermore! There’s naught so sweet on earth—heaven may not match
it!—as those swift glances of warm, wild bosoms in the dance, when the
over-arboring arms hide such ripe, bursting grapes.

SICILIAN SAILOR. (_Reclining_.) Tell me not of it! Hark ye, lad—fleet
interlacings of the limbs—lithe swayings—coyings—flutterings! lip!
heart! hip! all graze: unceasing touch and go! not taste, observe ye,
else come satiety. Eh, Pagan? (_Nudging_.)

TAHITAN SAILOR. (_Reclining on a mat_.) Hail, holy nakedness of our
dancing girls!—the Heeva-Heeva! Ah! low veiled, high palmed Tahiti! I
still rest me on thy mat, but the soft soil has slid! I saw thee woven
in the wood, my mat! green the first day I brought ye thence; now worn
and wilted quite. Ah me!—not thou nor I can bear the change! How then,
if so be transplanted to yon sky? Hear I the roaring streams from
Pirohitee’s peak of spears, when they leap down the crags and drown the
villages?—The blast! the blast! Up, spine, and meet it! (_Leaps to his
feet_.)

PORTUGUESE SAILOR. How the sea rolls swashing ’gainst the side! Stand
by for reefing, hearties! the winds are just crossing swords, pell-mell
they’ll go lunging presently.

DANISH SAILOR. Crack, crack, old ship! so long as thou crackest, thou
holdest! Well done! The mate there holds ye to it stiffly. He’s no more
afraid than the isle fort at Cattegat, put there to fight the Baltic
with storm-lashed guns, on which the sea-salt cakes!

4TH NANTUCKET SAILOR. He has his orders, mind ye that. I heard old Ahab
tell him he must always kill a squall, something as they burst a
waterspout with a pistol—fire your ship right into it!

ENGLISH SAILOR. Blood! but that old man’s a grand old cove! We are the
lads to hunt him up his whale!

ALL. Aye! aye!

OLD MANX SAILOR. How the three pines shake! Pines are the hardest sort
of tree to live when shifted to any other soil, and here there’s none
but the crew’s cursed clay. Steady, helmsman! steady. This is the sort
of weather when brave hearts snap ashore, and keeled hulls split at
sea. Our captain has his birthmark; look yonder, boys, there’s another
in the sky—lurid-like, ye see, all else pitch black.

DAGGOO. What of that? Who’s afraid of black’s afraid of me! I’m
quarried out of it!

SPANISH SAILOR. (_Aside_.) He wants to bully, ah!—the old grudge makes
me touchy (_Advancing_.) Aye, harpooneer, thy race is the undeniable
dark side of mankind—devilish dark at that. No offence.

DAGGOO (_grimly_). None.

ST. JAGO’S SAILOR. That Spaniard’s mad or drunk. But that can’t be, or
else in his one case our old Mogul’s fire-waters are somewhat long in
working.

5TH NANTUCKET SAILOR. What’s that I saw—lightning? Yes.

SPANISH SAILOR. No; Daggoo showing his teeth.

DAGGOO (_springing_). Swallow thine, mannikin! White skin, white liver!

SPANISH SAILOR (_meeting him_). Knife thee heartily! big frame, small
spirit!

ALL. A row! a row! a row!

TASHTEGO (_with a whiff_). A row a’low, and a row aloft—Gods and
men—both brawlers! Humph!

BELFAST SAILOR. A row! arrah a row! The Virgin be blessed, a row!
Plunge in with ye!

ENGLISH SAILOR. Fair play! Snatch the Spaniard’s knife! A ring, a ring!

OLD MANX SAILOR. Ready formed. There! the ringed horizon. In that ring
Cain struck Abel. Sweet work, right work! No? Why then, God, mad’st
thou the ring?

MATE’S VOICE FROM THE QUARTER-DECK. Hands by the halyards! in
top-gallant sails! Stand by to reef topsails!

ALL. The squall! the squall! jump, my jollies! (_They scatter_.)

PIP (_shrinking under the windlass_). Jollies? Lord help such jollies!
Crish, crash! there goes the jib-stay! Blang-whang! God! Duck lower,
Pip, here comes the royal yard! It’s worse than being in the whirled
woods, the last day of the year! Who’d go climbing after chestnuts now?
But there they go, all cursing, and here I don’t. Fine prospects to
’em; they’re on the road to heaven. Hold on hard! Jimmini, what a
squall! But those chaps there are worse yet—they are your white
squalls, they. White squalls? white whale, shirr! shirr! Here have I
heard all their chat just now, and the white whale—shirr! shirr!—but
spoken of once! and only this evening—it makes me jingle all over like
my tambourine—that anaconda of an old man swore ’em in to hunt him! Oh,
thou big white God aloft there somewhere in yon darkness, have mercy on
this small black boy down here; preserve him from all men that have no
bowels to feel fear!


CHAPTER 41. Moby Dick.

I, Ishmael, was one of that crew; my shouts had gone up with the rest;
my oath had been welded with theirs; and stronger I shouted, and more
did I hammer and clinch my oath, because of the dread in my soul. A
wild, mystical, sympathetical feeling was in me; Ahab’s quenchless feud
seemed mine. With greedy ears I learned the history of that murderous
monster against whom I and all the others had taken our oaths of
violence and revenge.

For some time past, though at intervals only, the unaccompanied,
secluded White Whale had haunted those uncivilized seas mostly
frequented by the Sperm Whale fishermen. But not all of them knew of
his existence; only a few of them, comparatively, had knowingly seen
him; while the number who as yet had actually and knowingly given
battle to him, was small indeed. For, owing to the large number of
whale-cruisers; the disorderly way they were sprinkled over the entire
watery circumference, many of them adventurously pushing their quest
along solitary latitudes, so as seldom or never for a whole twelvemonth
or more on a stretch, to encounter a single news-telling sail of any
sort; the inordinate length of each separate voyage; the irregularity
of the times of sailing from home; all these, with other circumstances,
direct and indirect, long obstructed the spread through the whole
world-wide whaling-fleet of the special individualizing tidings
concerning Moby Dick. It was hardly to be doubted, that several vessels
reported to have encountered, at such or such a time, or on such or
such a meridian, a Sperm Whale of uncommon magnitude and malignity,
which whale, after doing great mischief to his assailants, had
completely escaped them; to some minds it was not an unfair
presumption, I say, that the whale in question must have been no other
than Moby Dick. Yet as of late the Sperm Whale fishery had been marked
by various and not unfrequent instances of great ferocity, cunning, and
malice in the monster attacked; therefore it was, that those who by
accident ignorantly gave battle to Moby Dick; such hunters, perhaps,
for the most part, were content to ascribe the peculiar terror he bred,
more, as it were, to the perils of the Sperm Whale fishery at large,
than to the individual cause. In that way, mostly, the disastrous
encounter between Ahab and the whale had hitherto been popularly
regarded.

And as for those who, previously hearing of the White Whale, by chance
caught sight of him; in the beginning of the thing they had every one
of them, almost, as boldly and fearlessly lowered for him, as for any
other whale of that species. But at length, such calamities did ensue
in these assaults—not restricted to sprained wrists and ankles, broken
limbs, or devouring amputations—but fatal to the last degree of
fatality; those repeated disastrous repulses, all accumulating and
piling their terrors upon Moby Dick; those things had gone far to shake
the fortitude of many brave hunters, to whom the story of the White
Whale had eventually come.

Nor did wild rumors of all sorts fail to exaggerate, and still the more
horrify the true histories of these deadly encounters. For not only do
fabulous rumors naturally grow out of the very body of all surprising
terrible events,—as the smitten tree gives birth to its fungi; but, in
maritime life, far more than in that of terra firma, wild rumors
abound, wherever there is any adequate reality for them to cling to.
And as the sea surpasses the land in this matter, so the whale fishery
surpasses every other sort of maritime life, in the wonderfulness and
fearfulness of the rumors which sometimes circulate there. For not only
are whalemen as a body unexempt from that ignorance and
superstitiousness hereditary to all sailors; but of all sailors, they
are by all odds the most directly brought into contact with whatever is
appallingly astonishing in the sea; face to face they not only eye its
greatest marvels, but, hand to jaw, give battle to them. Alone, in such
remotest waters, that though you sailed a thousand miles, and passed a
thousand shores, you would not come to any chiseled hearth-stone, or
aught hospitable beneath that part of the sun; in such latitudes and
longitudes, pursuing too such a calling as he does, the whaleman is
wrapped by influences all tending to make his fancy pregnant with many
a mighty birth.

No wonder, then, that ever gathering volume from the mere transit over
the widest watery spaces, the outblown rumors of the White Whale did in
the end incorporate with themselves all manner of morbid hints, and
half-formed fœtal suggestions of supernatural agencies, which
eventually invested Moby Dick with new terrors unborrowed from anything
that visibly appears. So that in many cases such a panic did he finally
strike, that few who by those rumors, at least, had heard of the White
Whale, few of those hunters were willing to encounter the perils of his
jaw.

But there were still other and more vital practical influences at work.
Not even at the present day has the original prestige of the Sperm
Whale, as fearfully distinguished from all other species of the
leviathan, died out of the minds of the whalemen as a body. There are
those this day among them, who, though intelligent and courageous
enough in offering battle to the Greenland or Right whale, would
perhaps—either from professional inexperience, or incompetency, or
timidity, decline a contest with the Sperm Whale; at any rate, there
are plenty of whalemen, especially among those whaling nations not
sailing under the American flag, who have never hostilely encountered
the Sperm Whale, but whose sole knowledge of the leviathan is
restricted to the ignoble monster primitively pursued in the North;
seated on their hatches, these men will hearken with a childish
fireside interest and awe, to the wild, strange tales of Southern
whaling. Nor is the pre-eminent tremendousness of the great Sperm Whale
anywhere more feelingly comprehended, than on board of those prows
which stem him.

And as if the now tested reality of his might had in former legendary
times thrown its shadow before it; we find some book
naturalists—Olassen and Povelson—declaring the Sperm Whale not only to
be a consternation to every other creature in the sea, but also to be
so incredibly ferocious as continually to be athirst for human blood.
Nor even down to so late a time as Cuvier’s, were these or almost
similar impressions effaced. For in his Natural History, the Baron
himself affirms that at sight of the Sperm Whale, all fish (sharks
included) are “struck with the most lively terrors,” and “often in the
precipitancy of their flight dash themselves against the rocks with
such violence as to cause instantaneous death.” And however the general
experiences in the fishery may amend such reports as these; yet in
their full terribleness, even to the bloodthirsty item of Povelson, the
superstitious belief in them is, in some vicissitudes of their
vocation, revived in the minds of the hunters.

So that overawed by the rumors and portents concerning him, not a few
of the fishermen recalled, in reference to Moby Dick, the earlier days
of the Sperm Whale fishery, when it was oftentimes hard to induce long
practised Right whalemen to embark in the perils of this new and daring
warfare; such men protesting that although other leviathans might be
hopefully pursued, yet to chase and point lance at such an apparition
as the Sperm Whale was not for mortal man. That to attempt it, would be
inevitably to be torn into a quick eternity. On this head, there are
some remarkable documents that may be consulted.

Nevertheless, some there were, who even in the face of these things
were ready to give chase to Moby Dick; and a still greater number who,
chancing only to hear of him distantly and vaguely, without the
specific details of any certain calamity, and without superstitious
accompaniments, were sufficiently hardy not to flee from the battle if
offered.

One of the wild suggestions referred to, as at last coming to be linked
with the White Whale in the minds of the superstitiously inclined, was
the unearthly conceit that Moby Dick was ubiquitous; that he had
actually been encountered in opposite latitudes at one and the same
instant of time.

Nor, credulous as such minds must have been, was this conceit
altogether without some faint show of superstitious probability. For as
the secrets of the currents in the seas have never yet been divulged,
even to the most erudite research; so the hidden ways of the Sperm
Whale when beneath the surface remain, in great part, unaccountable to
his pursuers; and from time to time have originated the most curious
and contradictory speculations regarding them, especially concerning
the mystic modes whereby, after sounding to a great depth, he
transports himself with such vast swiftness to the most widely distant
points.

It is a thing well known to both American and English whale-ships, and
as well a thing placed upon authoritative record years ago by Scoresby,
that some whales have been captured far north in the Pacific, in whose
bodies have been found the barbs of harpoons darted in the Greenland
seas. Nor is it to be gainsaid, that in some of these instances it has
been declared that the interval of time between the two assaults could
not have exceeded very many days. Hence, by inference, it has been
believed by some whalemen, that the Nor’ West Passage, so long a
problem to man, was never a problem to the whale. So that here, in the
real living experience of living men, the prodigies related in old
times of the inland Strello mountain in Portugal (near whose top there
was said to be a lake in which the wrecks of ships floated up to the
surface); and that still more wonderful story of the Arethusa fountain
near Syracuse (whose waters were believed to have come from the Holy
Land by an underground passage); these fabulous narrations are almost
fully equalled by the realities of the whalemen.

Forced into familiarity, then, with such prodigies as these; and
knowing that after repeated, intrepid assaults, the White Whale had
escaped alive; it cannot be much matter of surprise that some whalemen
should go still further in their superstitions; declaring Moby Dick not
only ubiquitous, but immortal (for immortality is but ubiquity in
time); that though groves of spears should be planted in his flanks, he
would still swim away unharmed; or if indeed he should ever be made to
spout thick blood, such a sight would be but a ghastly deception; for
again in unensanguined billows hundreds of leagues away, his unsullied
jet would once more be seen.

But even stripped of these supernatural surmisings, there was enough in
the earthly make and incontestable character of the monster to strike
the imagination with unwonted power. For, it was not so much his
uncommon bulk that so much distinguished him from other sperm whales,
but, as was elsewhere thrown out—a peculiar snow-white wrinkled
forehead, and a high, pyramidical white hump. These were his prominent
features; the tokens whereby, even in the limitless, uncharted seas, he
revealed his identity, at a long distance, to those who knew him.

The rest of his body was so streaked, and spotted, and marbled with the
same shrouded hue, that, in the end, he had gained his distinctive
appellation of the White Whale; a name, indeed, literally justified by
his vivid aspect, when seen gliding at high noon through a dark blue
sea, leaving a milky-way wake of creamy foam, all spangled with golden
gleamings.

Nor was it his unwonted magnitude, nor his remarkable hue, nor yet his
deformed lower jaw, that so much invested the whale with natural
terror, as that unexampled, intelligent malignity which, according to
specific accounts, he had over and over again evinced in his assaults.
More than all, his treacherous retreats struck more of dismay than
perhaps aught else. For, when swimming before his exulting pursuers,
with every apparent symptom of alarm, he had several times been known
to turn round suddenly, and, bearing down upon them, either stave their
boats to splinters, or drive them back in consternation to their ship.

Already several fatalities had attended his chase. But though similar
disasters, however little bruited ashore, were by no means unusual in
the fishery; yet, in most instances, such seemed the White Whale’s
infernal aforethought of ferocity, that every dismembering or death
that he caused, was not wholly regarded as having been inflicted by an
unintelligent agent.

Judge, then, to what pitches of inflamed, distracted fury the minds of
his more desperate hunters were impelled, when amid the chips of chewed
boats, and the sinking limbs of torn comrades, they swam out of the
white curds of the whale’s direful wrath into the serene, exasperating
sunlight, that smiled on, as if at a birth or a bridal.

His three boats stove around him, and oars and men both whirling in the
eddies; one captain, seizing the line-knife from his broken prow, had
dashed at the whale, as an Arkansas duellist at his foe, blindly
seeking with a six inch blade to reach the fathom-deep life of the
whale. That captain was Ahab. And then it was, that suddenly sweeping
his sickle-shaped lower jaw beneath him, Moby Dick had reaped away
Ahab’s leg, as a mower a blade of grass in the field. No turbaned Turk,
no hired Venetian or Malay, could have smote him with more seeming
malice. Small reason was there to doubt, then, that ever since that
almost fatal encounter, Ahab had cherished a wild vindictiveness
against the whale, all the more fell for that in his frantic morbidness
he at last came to identify with him, not only all his bodily woes, but
all his intellectual and spiritual exasperations. The White Whale swam
before him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious
agencies which some deep men feel eating in them, till they are left
living on with half a heart and half a lung. That intangible malignity
which has been from the beginning; to whose dominion even the modern
Christians ascribe one-half of the worlds; which the ancient Ophites of
the east reverenced in their statue devil;—Ahab did not fall down and
worship it like them; but deliriously transferring its idea to the
abhorred white whale, he pitted himself, all mutilated, against it. All
that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things;
all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the
brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy
Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby
Dick. He piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general
rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if
his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it.

It is not probable that this monomania in him took its instant rise at
the precise time of his bodily dismemberment. Then, in darting at the
monster, knife in hand, he had but given loose to a sudden, passionate,
corporal animosity; and when he received the stroke that tore him, he
probably but felt the agonizing bodily laceration, but nothing more.
Yet, when by this collision forced to turn towards home, and for long
months of days and weeks, Ahab and anguish lay stretched together in
one hammock, rounding in mid winter that dreary, howling Patagonian
Cape; then it was, that his torn body and gashed soul bled into one
another; and so interfusing, made him mad. That it was only then, on
the homeward voyage, after the encounter, that the final monomania
seized him, seems all but certain from the fact that, at intervals
during the passage, he was a raving lunatic; and, though unlimbed of a
leg, yet such vital strength yet lurked in his Egyptian chest, and was
moreover intensified by his delirium, that his mates were forced to
lace him fast, even there, as he sailed, raving in his hammock. In a
strait-jacket, he swung to the mad rockings of the gales. And, when
running into more sufferable latitudes, the ship, with mild stun’sails
spread, floated across the tranquil tropics, and, to all appearances,
the old man’s delirium seemed left behind him with the Cape Horn
swells, and he came forth from his dark den into the blessed light and
air; even then, when he bore that firm, collected front, however pale,
and issued his calm orders once again; and his mates thanked God the
direful madness was now gone; even then, Ahab, in his hidden self,
raved on. Human madness is oftentimes a cunning and most feline thing.
When you think it fled, it may have but become transfigured into some
still subtler form. Ahab’s full lunacy subsided not, but deepeningly
contracted; like the unabated Hudson, when that noble Northman flows
narrowly, but unfathomably through the Highland gorge. But, as in his
narrow-flowing monomania, not one jot of Ahab’s broad madness had been
left behind; so in that broad madness, not one jot of his great natural
intellect had perished. That before living agent, now became the living
instrument. If such a furious trope may stand, his special lunacy
stormed his general sanity, and carried it, and turned all its
concentred cannon upon its own mad mark; so that far from having lost
his strength, Ahab, to that one end, did now possess a thousand fold
more potency than ever he had sanely brought to bear upon any one
reasonable object.

This is much; yet Ahab’s larger, darker, deeper part remains unhinted.
But vain to popularize profundities, and all truth is profound. Winding
far down from within the very heart of this spiked Hotel de Cluny where
we here stand—however grand and wonderful, now quit it;—and take your
way, ye nobler, sadder souls, to those vast Roman halls of Thermes;
where far beneath the fantastic towers of man’s upper earth, his root
of grandeur, his whole awful essence sits in bearded state; an antique
buried beneath antiquities, and throned on torsoes! So with a broken
throne, the great gods mock that captive king; so like a Caryatid, he
patient sits, upholding on his frozen brow the piled entablatures of
ages. Wind ye down there, ye prouder, sadder souls! question that
proud, sad king! A family likeness! aye, he did beget ye, ye young
exiled royalties; and from your grim sire only will the old
State-secret come.

Now, in his heart, Ahab had some glimpse of this, namely: all my means
are sane, my motive and my object mad. Yet without power to kill, or
change, or shun the fact; he likewise knew that to mankind he did long
dissemble; in some sort, did still. But that thing of his dissembling
was only subject to his perceptibility, not to his will determinate.
Nevertheless, so well did he succeed in that dissembling, that when
with ivory leg he stepped ashore at last, no Nantucketer thought him
otherwise than but naturally grieved, and that to the quick, with the
terrible casualty which had overtaken him.

The report of his undeniable delirium at sea was likewise popularly
ascribed to a kindred cause. And so too, all the added moodiness which
always afterwards, to the very day of sailing in the Pequod on the
present voyage, sat brooding on his brow. Nor is it so very unlikely,
that far from distrusting his fitness for another whaling voyage, on
account of such dark symptoms, the calculating people of that prudent
isle were inclined to harbor the conceit, that for those very reasons
he was all the better qualified and set on edge, for a pursuit so full
of rage and wildness as the bloody hunt of whales. Gnawed within and
scorched without, with the infixed, unrelenting fangs of some incurable
idea; such an one, could he be found, would seem the very man to dart
his iron and lift his lance against the most appalling of all brutes.
Or, if for any reason thought to be corporeally incapacitated for that,
yet such an one would seem superlatively competent to cheer and howl on
his underlings to the attack. But be all this as it may, certain it is,
that with the mad secret of his unabated rage bolted up and keyed in
him, Ahab had purposely sailed upon the present voyage with the one
only and all-engrossing object of hunting the White Whale. Had any one
of his old acquaintances on shore but half dreamed of what was lurking
in him then, how soon would their aghast and righteous souls have
wrenched the ship from such a fiendish man! They were bent on
profitable cruises, the profit to be counted down in dollars from the
mint. He was intent on an audacious, immitigable, and supernatural
revenge.

Here, then, was this grey-headed, ungodly old man, chasing with curses
a Job’s whale round the world, at the head of a crew, too, chiefly made
up of mongrel renegades, and castaways, and cannibals—morally enfeebled
also, by the incompetence of mere unaided virtue or right-mindedness in
Starbuck, the invulnerable jollity of indifference and recklessness in
Stubb, and the pervading mediocrity in Flask. Such a crew, so
officered, seemed specially picked and packed by some infernal fatality
to help him to his monomaniac revenge. How it was that they so
aboundingly responded to the old man’s ire—by what evil magic their
souls were possessed, that at times his hate seemed almost theirs; the
White Whale as much their insufferable foe as his; how all this came to
be—what the White Whale was to them, or how to their unconscious
understandings, also, in some dim, unsuspected way, he might have
seemed the gliding great demon of the seas of life,—all this to
explain, would be to dive deeper than Ishmael can go. The subterranean
miner that works in us all, how can one tell whither leads his shaft by
the ever shifting, muffled sound of his pick? Who does not feel the
irresistible arm drag? What skiff in tow of a seventy-four can stand
still? For one, I gave myself up to the abandonment of the time and the
place; but while yet all a-rush to encounter the whale, could see
naught in that brute but the deadliest ill.


CHAPTER 42. The Whiteness of the Whale.

What the white whale was to Ahab, has been hinted; what, at times, he
was to me, as yet remains unsaid.

Aside from those more obvious considerations touching Moby Dick, which
could not but occasionally awaken in any man’s soul some alarm, there
was another thought, or rather vague, nameless horror concerning him,
which at times by its intensity completely overpowered all the rest;
and yet so mystical and well nigh ineffable was it, that I almost
despair of putting it in a comprehensible form. It was the whiteness of
the whale that above all things appalled me. But how can I hope to
explain myself here; and yet, in some dim, random way, explain myself I
must, else all these chapters might be naught.

Though in many natural objects, whiteness refiningly enhances beauty,
as if imparting some special virtue of its own, as in marbles,
japonicas, and pearls; and though various nations have in some way
recognised a certain royal preeminence in this hue; even the barbaric,
grand old kings of Pegu placing the title “Lord of the White Elephants”
above all their other magniloquent ascriptions of dominion; and the
modern kings of Siam unfurling the same snow-white quadruped in the
royal standard; and the Hanoverian flag bearing the one figure of a
snow-white charger; and the great Austrian Empire, Cæsarian, heir to
overlording Rome, having for the imperial colour the same imperial hue;
and though this pre-eminence in it applies to the human race itself,
giving the white man ideal mastership over every dusky tribe; and
though, besides, all this, whiteness has been even made significant of
gladness, for among the Romans a white stone marked a joyful day; and
though in other mortal sympathies and symbolizings, this same hue is
made the emblem of many touching, noble things—the innocence of brides,
the benignity of age; though among the Red Men of America the giving of
the white belt of wampum was the deepest pledge of honor; though in
many climes, whiteness typifies the majesty of Justice in the ermine of
the Judge, and contributes to the daily state of kings and queens drawn
by milk-white steeds; though even in the higher mysteries of the most
august religions it has been made the symbol of the divine spotlessness
and power; by the Persian fire worshippers, the white forked flame
being held the holiest on the altar; and in the Greek mythologies,
Great Jove himself being made incarnate in a snow-white bull; and
though to the noble Iroquois, the midwinter sacrifice of the sacred
White Dog was by far the holiest festival of their theology, that
spotless, faithful creature being held the purest envoy they could send
to the Great Spirit with the annual tidings of their own fidelity; and
though directly from the Latin word for white, all Christian priests
derive the name of one part of their sacred vesture, the alb or tunic,
worn beneath the cassock; and though among the holy pomps of the Romish
faith, white is specially employed in the celebration of the Passion of
our Lord; though in the Vision of St. John, white robes are given to
the redeemed, and the four-and-twenty elders stand clothed in white
before the great white throne, and the Holy One that sitteth there
white like wool; yet for all these accumulated associations, with
whatever is sweet, and honorable, and sublime, there yet lurks an
elusive something in the innermost idea of this hue, which strikes more
of panic to the soul than that redness which affrights in blood.

This elusive quality it is, which causes the thought of whiteness, when
divorced from more kindly associations, and coupled with any object
terrible in itself, to heighten that terror to the furthest bounds.
Witness the white bear of the poles, and the white shark of the
tropics; what but their smooth, flaky whiteness makes them the
transcendent horrors they are? That ghastly whiteness it is which
imparts such an abhorrent mildness, even more loathsome than terrific,
to the dumb gloating of their aspect. So that not the fierce-fanged
tiger in his heraldic coat can so stagger courage as the white-shrouded
bear or shark.*

*With reference to the Polar bear, it may possibly be urged by him who
would fain go still deeper into this matter, that it is not the
whiteness, separately regarded, which heightens the intolerable
hideousness of that brute; for, analysed, that heightened hideousness,
it might be said, only rises from the circumstance, that the
irresponsible ferociousness of the creature stands invested in the
fleece of celestial innocence and love; and hence, by bringing together
two such opposite emotions in our minds, the Polar bear frightens us
with so unnatural a contrast. But even assuming all this to be true;
yet, were it not for the whiteness, you would not have that intensified
terror.

As for the white shark, the white gliding ghostliness of repose in that
creature, when beheld in his ordinary moods, strangely tallies with the
same quality in the Polar quadruped. This peculiarity is most vividly
hit by the French in the name they bestow upon that fish. The Romish
mass for the dead begins with “Requiem eternam” (eternal rest), whence
_Requiem_ denominating the mass itself, and any other funeral music.
Now, in allusion to the white, silent stillness of death in this shark,
and the mild deadliness of his habits, the French call him _Requin_.

Bethink thee of the albatross, whence come those clouds of spiritual
wonderment and pale dread, in which that white phantom sails in all
imaginations? Not Coleridge first threw that spell; but God’s great,
unflattering laureate, Nature.*

*I remember the first albatross I ever saw. It was during a prolonged
gale, in waters hard upon the Antarctic seas. From my forenoon watch
below, I ascended to the overclouded deck; and there, dashed upon the
main hatches, I saw a regal, feathery thing of unspotted whiteness, and
with a hooked, Roman bill sublime. At intervals, it arched forth its
vast archangel wings, as if to embrace some holy ark. Wondrous
flutterings and throbbings shook it. Though bodily unharmed, it uttered
cries, as some king’s ghost in supernatural distress. Through its
inexpressible, strange eyes, methought I peeped to secrets which took
hold of God. As Abraham before the angels, I bowed myself; the white
thing was so white, its wings so wide, and in those for ever exiled
waters, I had lost the miserable warping memories of traditions and of
towns. Long I gazed at that prodigy of plumage. I cannot tell, can only
hint, the things that darted through me then. But at last I awoke; and
turning, asked a sailor what bird was this. A goney, he replied. Goney!
never had heard that name before; is it conceivable that this glorious
thing is utterly unknown to men ashore! never! But some time after, I
learned that goney was some seaman’s name for albatross. So that by no
possibility could Coleridge’s wild Rhyme have had aught to do with
those mystical impressions which were mine, when I saw that bird upon
our deck. For neither had I then read the Rhyme, nor knew the bird to
be an albatross. Yet, in saying this, I do but indirectly burnish a
little brighter the noble merit of the poem and the poet.

I assert, then, that in the wondrous bodily whiteness of the bird
chiefly lurks the secret of the spell; a truth the more evinced in
this, that by a solecism of terms there are birds called grey
albatrosses; and these I have frequently seen, but never with such
emotions as when I beheld the Antarctic fowl.

But how had the mystic thing been caught? Whisper it not, and I will
tell; with a treacherous hook and line, as the fowl floated on the sea.
At last the Captain made a postman of it; tying a lettered, leathern
tally round its neck, with the ship’s time and place; and then letting
it escape. But I doubt not, that leathern tally, meant for man, was
taken off in Heaven, when the white fowl flew to join the wing-folding,
the invoking, and adoring cherubim!

Most famous in our Western annals and Indian traditions is that of the
White Steed of the Prairies; a magnificent milk-white charger,
large-eyed, small-headed, bluff-chested, and with the dignity of a
thousand monarchs in his lofty, overscorning carriage. He was the
elected Xerxes of vast herds of wild horses, whose pastures in those
days were only fenced by the Rocky Mountains and the Alleghanies. At
their flaming head he westward trooped it like that chosen star which
every evening leads on the hosts of light. The flashing cascade of his
mane, the curving comet of his tail, invested him with housings more
resplendent than gold and silver-beaters could have furnished him. A
most imperial and archangelical apparition of that unfallen, western
world, which to the eyes of the old trappers and hunters revived the
glories of those primeval times when Adam walked majestic as a god,
bluff-browed and fearless as this mighty steed. Whether marching amid
his aides and marshals in the van of countless cohorts that endlessly
streamed it over the plains, like an Ohio; or whether with his
circumambient subjects browsing all around at the horizon, the White
Steed gallopingly reviewed them with warm nostrils reddening through
his cool milkiness; in whatever aspect he presented himself, always to
the bravest Indians he was the object of trembling reverence and awe.
Nor can it be questioned from what stands on legendary record of this
noble horse, that it was his spiritual whiteness chiefly, which so
clothed him with divineness; and that this divineness had that in it
which, though commanding worship, at the same time enforced a certain
nameless terror.

But there are other instances where this whiteness loses all that
accessory and strange glory which invests it in the White Steed and
Albatross.

What is it that in the Albino man so peculiarly repels and often shocks
the eye, as that sometimes he is loathed by his own kith and kin! It is
that whiteness which invests him, a thing expressed by the name he
bears. The Albino is as well made as other men—has no substantive
deformity—and yet this mere aspect of all-pervading whiteness makes him
more strangely hideous than the ugliest abortion. Why should this be
so?

Nor, in quite other aspects, does Nature in her least palpable but not
the less malicious agencies, fail to enlist among her forces this
crowning attribute of the terrible. From its snowy aspect, the
gauntleted ghost of the Southern Seas has been denominated the White
Squall. Nor, in some historic instances, has the art of human malice
omitted so potent an auxiliary. How wildly it heightens the effect of
that passage in Froissart, when, masked in the snowy symbol of their
faction, the desperate White Hoods of Ghent murder their bailiff in the
market-place!

Nor, in some things, does the common, hereditary experience of all
mankind fail to bear witness to the supernaturalism of this hue. It
cannot well be doubted, that the one visible quality in the aspect of
the dead which most appals the gazer, is the marble pallor lingering
there; as if indeed that pallor were as much like the badge of
consternation in the other world, as of mortal trepidation here. And
from that pallor of the dead, we borrow the expressive hue of the
shroud in which we wrap them. Nor even in our superstitions do we fail
to throw the same snowy mantle round our phantoms; all ghosts rising in
a milk-white fog—Yea, while these terrors seize us, let us add, that
even the king of terrors, when personified by the evangelist, rides on
his pallid horse.

Therefore, in his other moods, symbolize whatever grand or gracious
thing he will by whiteness, no man can deny that in its profoundest
idealized significance it calls up a peculiar apparition to the soul.

But though without dissent this point be fixed, how is mortal man to
account for it? To analyse it, would seem impossible. Can we, then, by
the citation of some of those instances wherein this thing of
whiteness—though for the time either wholly or in great part stripped
of all direct associations calculated to impart to it aught fearful,
but nevertheless, is found to exert over us the same sorcery, however
modified;—can we thus hope to light upon some chance clue to conduct us
to the hidden cause we seek?

Let us try. But in a matter like this, subtlety appeals to subtlety,
and without imagination no man can follow another into these halls. And
though, doubtless, some at least of the imaginative impressions about
to be presented may have been shared by most men, yet few perhaps were
entirely conscious of them at the time, and therefore may not be able
to recall them now.

Why to the man of untutored ideality, who happens to be but loosely
acquainted with the peculiar character of the day, does the bare
mention of Whitsuntide marshal in the fancy such long, dreary,
speechless processions of slow-pacing pilgrims, down-cast and hooded
with new-fallen snow? Or, to the unread, unsophisticated Protestant of
the Middle American States, why does the passing mention of a White
Friar or a White Nun, evoke such an eyeless statue in the soul?

Or what is there apart from the traditions of dungeoned warriors and
kings (which will not wholly account for it) that makes the White Tower
of London tell so much more strongly on the imagination of an
untravelled American, than those other storied structures, its
neighbors—the Byward Tower, or even the Bloody? And those sublimer
towers, the White Mountains of New Hampshire, whence, in peculiar
moods, comes that gigantic ghostliness over the soul at the bare
mention of that name, while the thought of Virginia’s Blue Ridge is
full of a soft, dewy, distant dreaminess? Or why, irrespective of all
latitudes and longitudes, does the name of the White Sea exert such a
spectralness over the fancy, while that of the Yellow Sea lulls us with
mortal thoughts of long lacquered mild afternoons on the waves,
followed by the gaudiest and yet sleepiest of sunsets? Or, to choose a
wholly unsubstantial instance, purely addressed to the fancy, why, in
reading the old fairy tales of Central Europe, does “the tall pale man”
of the Hartz forests, whose changeless pallor unrustlingly glides
through the green of the groves—why is this phantom more terrible than
all the whooping imps of the Blocksburg?

Nor is it, altogether, the remembrance of her cathedral-toppling
earthquakes; nor the stampedoes of her frantic seas; nor the
tearlessness of arid skies that never rain; nor the sight of her wide
field of leaning spires, wrenched cope-stones, and crosses all adroop
(like canted yards of anchored fleets); and her suburban avenues of
house-walls lying over upon each other, as a tossed pack of cards;—it
is not these things alone which make tearless Lima, the strangest,
saddest city thou can’st see. For Lima has taken the white veil; and
there is a higher horror in this whiteness of her woe. Old as Pizarro,
this whiteness keeps her ruins for ever new; admits not the cheerful
greenness of complete decay; spreads over her broken ramparts the rigid
pallor of an apoplexy that fixes its own distortions.

I know that, to the common apprehension, this phenomenon of whiteness
is not confessed to be the prime agent in exaggerating the terror of
objects otherwise terrible; nor to the unimaginative mind is there
aught of terror in those appearances whose awfulness to another mind
almost solely consists in this one phenomenon, especially when
exhibited under any form at all approaching to muteness or
universality. What I mean by these two statements may perhaps be
respectively elucidated by the following examples.

First: The mariner, when drawing nigh the coasts of foreign lands, if
by night he hear the roar of breakers, starts to vigilance, and feels
just enough of trepidation to sharpen all his faculties; but under
precisely similar circumstances, let him be called from his hammock to
view his ship sailing through a midnight sea of milky whiteness—as if
from encircling headlands shoals of combed white bears were swimming
round him, then he feels a silent, superstitious dread; the shrouded
phantom of the whitened waters is horrible to him as a real ghost; in
vain the lead assures him he is still off soundings; heart and helm
they both go down; he never rests till blue water is under him again.
Yet where is the mariner who will tell thee, “Sir, it was not so much
the fear of striking hidden rocks, as the fear of that hideous
whiteness that so stirred me?”

Second: To the native Indian of Peru, the continual sight of the
snow-howdahed Andes conveys naught of dread, except, perhaps, in the
mere fancying of the eternal frosted desolateness reigning at such vast
altitudes, and the natural conceit of what a fearfulness it would be to
lose oneself in such inhuman solitudes. Much the same is it with the
backwoodsman of the West, who with comparative indifference views an
unbounded prairie sheeted with driven snow, no shadow of tree or twig
to break the fixed trance of whiteness. Not so the sailor, beholding
the scenery of the Antarctic seas; where at times, by some infernal
trick of legerdemain in the powers of frost and air, he, shivering and
half shipwrecked, instead of rainbows speaking hope and solace to his
misery, views what seems a boundless churchyard grinning upon him with
its lean ice monuments and splintered crosses.

But thou sayest, methinks that white-lead chapter about whiteness is
but a white flag hung out from a craven soul; thou surrenderest to a
hypo, Ishmael.

Tell me, why this strong young colt, foaled in some peaceful valley of
Vermont, far removed from all beasts of prey—why is it that upon the
sunniest day, if you but shake a fresh buffalo robe behind him, so that
he cannot even see it, but only smells its wild animal muskiness—why
will he start, snort, and with bursting eyes paw the ground in
phrensies of affright? There is no remembrance in him of any gorings of
wild creatures in his green northern home, so that the strange
muskiness he smells cannot recall to him anything associated with the
experience of former perils; for what knows he, this New England colt,
of the black bisons of distant Oregon?

No: but here thou beholdest even in a dumb brute, the instinct of the
knowledge of the demonism in the world. Though thousands of miles from
Oregon, still when he smells that savage musk, the rending, goring
bison herds are as present as to the deserted wild foal of the
prairies, which this instant they may be trampling into dust.

Thus, then, the muffled rollings of a milky sea; the bleak rustlings of
the festooned frosts of mountains; the desolate shiftings of the
windrowed snows of prairies; all these, to Ishmael, are as the shaking
of that buffalo robe to the frightened colt!

Though neither knows where lie the nameless things of which the mystic
sign gives forth such hints; yet with me, as with the colt, somewhere
those things must exist. Though in many of its aspects this visible
world seems formed in love, the invisible spheres were formed in
fright.

But not yet have we solved the incantation of this whiteness, and
learned why it appeals with such power to the soul; and more strange
and far more portentous—why, as we have seen, it is at once the most
meaning symbol of spiritual things, nay, the very veil of the
Christian’s Deity; and yet should be as it is, the intensifying agent
in things the most appalling to mankind.

Is it that by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless voids
and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind with the
thought of annihilation, when beholding the white depths of the milky
way? Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is not so much a colour as
the visible absence of colour; and at the same time the concrete of all
colours; is it for these reasons that there is such a dumb blankness,
full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows—a colourless, all-colour
of atheism from which we shrink? And when we consider that other theory
of the natural philosophers, that all other earthly hues—every stately
or lovely emblazoning—the sweet tinges of sunset skies and woods; yea,
and the gilded velvets of butterflies, and the butterfly cheeks of
young girls; all these are but subtile deceits, not actually inherent
in substances, but only laid on from without; so that all deified
Nature absolutely paints like the harlot, whose allurements cover
nothing but the charnel-house within; and when we proceed further, and
consider that the mystical cosmetic which produces every one of her
hues, the great principle of light, for ever remains white or colorless
in itself, and if operating without medium upon matter, would touch all
objects, even tulips and roses, with its own blank tinge—pondering all
this, the palsied universe lies before us a leper; and like wilful
travellers in Lapland, who refuse to wear coloured and colouring
glasses upon their eyes, so the wretched infidel gazes himself blind at
the monumental white shroud that wraps all the prospect around him. And
of all these things the Albino whale was the symbol. Wonder ye then at
the fiery hunt?


CHAPTER 43. Hark!

“HIST! Did you hear that noise, Cabaco?”

It was the middle-watch: a fair moonlight; the seamen were standing in
a cordon, extending from one of the fresh-water butts in the waist, to
the scuttle-butt near the taffrail. In this manner, they passed the
buckets to fill the scuttle-butt. Standing, for the most part, on the
hallowed precincts of the quarter-deck, they were careful not to speak
or rustle their feet. From hand to hand, the buckets went in the
deepest silence, only broken by the occasional flap of a sail, and the
steady hum of the unceasingly advancing keel.

It was in the midst of this repose, that Archy, one of the cordon,
whose post was near the after-hatches, whispered to his neighbor, a
Cholo, the words above.

“Hist! did you hear that noise, Cabaco?”

“Take the bucket, will ye, Archy? what noise d’ye mean?”

“There it is again—under the hatches—don’t you hear it—a cough—it
sounded like a cough.”

“Cough be damned! Pass along that return bucket.”

“There again—there it is!—it sounds like two or three sleepers turning
over, now!”

“Caramba! have done, shipmate, will ye? It’s the three soaked biscuits
ye eat for supper turning over inside of ye—nothing else. Look to the
bucket!”

“Say what ye will, shipmate; I’ve sharp ears.”

“Aye, you are the chap, ain’t ye, that heard the hum of the old
Quakeress’s knitting-needles fifty miles at sea from Nantucket; you’re
the chap.”

“Grin away; we’ll see what turns up. Hark ye, Cabaco, there is somebody
down in the after-hold that has not yet been seen on deck; and I
suspect our old Mogul knows something of it too. I heard Stubb tell
Flask, one morning watch, that there was something of that sort in the
wind.”

“Tish! the bucket!”


CHAPTER 44. The Chart.

Had you followed Captain Ahab down into his cabin after the squall that
took place on the night succeeding that wild ratification of his
purpose with his crew, you would have seen him go to a locker in the
transom, and bringing out a large wrinkled roll of yellowish sea
charts, spread them before him on his screwed-down table. Then seating
himself before it, you would have seen him intently study the various
lines and shadings which there met his eye; and with slow but steady
pencil trace additional courses over spaces that before were blank. At
intervals, he would refer to piles of old log-books beside him, wherein
were set down the seasons and places in which, on various former
voyages of various ships, sperm whales had been captured or seen.

While thus employed, the heavy pewter lamp suspended in chains over his
head, continually rocked with the motion of the ship, and for ever
threw shifting gleams and shadows of lines upon his wrinkled brow, till
it almost seemed that while he himself was marking out lines and
courses on the wrinkled charts, some invisible pencil was also tracing
lines and courses upon the deeply marked chart of his forehead.

But it was not this night in particular that, in the solitude of his
cabin, Ahab thus pondered over his charts. Almost every night they were
brought out; almost every night some pencil marks were effaced, and
others were substituted. For with the charts of all four oceans before
him, Ahab was threading a maze of currents and eddies, with a view to
the more certain accomplishment of that monomaniac thought of his soul.

Now, to any one not fully acquainted with the ways of the leviathans,
it might seem an absurdly hopeless task thus to seek out one solitary
creature in the unhooped oceans of this planet. But not so did it seem
to Ahab, who knew the sets of all tides and currents; and thereby
calculating the driftings of the sperm whale’s food; and, also, calling
to mind the regular, ascertained seasons for hunting him in particular
latitudes; could arrive at reasonable surmises, almost approaching to
certainties, concerning the timeliest day to be upon this or that
ground in search of his prey.

So assured, indeed, is the fact concerning the periodicalness of the
sperm whale’s resorting to given waters, that many hunters believe
that, could he be closely observed and studied throughout the world;
were the logs for one voyage of the entire whale fleet carefully
collated, then the migrations of the sperm whale would be found to
correspond in invariability to those of the herring-shoals or the
flights of swallows. On this hint, attempts have been made to construct
elaborate migratory charts of the sperm whale.*


  *Since the above was written, the statement is happily borne out by
  an official circular, issued by Lieutenant Maury, of the National
  Observatory, Washington, April 16th, 1851. By that circular, it
  appears that precisely such a chart is in course of completion; and
  portions of it are presented in the circular. “This chart divides the
  ocean into districts of five degrees of latitude by five degrees of
  longitude; perpendicularly through each of which districts are twelve
  columns for the twelve months; and horizontally through each of which
  districts are three lines; one to show the number of days that have
  been spent in each month in every district, and the two others to
  show the number of days in which whales, sperm or right, have been
  seen.”




Besides, when making a passage from one feeding-ground to another, the
sperm whales, guided by some infallible instinct—say, rather, secret
intelligence from the Deity—mostly swim in _veins_, as they are called;
continuing their way along a given ocean-line with such undeviating
exactitude, that no ship ever sailed her course, by any chart, with one
tithe of such marvellous precision. Though, in these cases, the
direction taken by any one whale be straight as a surveyor’s parallel,
and though the line of advance be strictly confined to its own
unavoidable, straight wake, yet the arbitrary _vein_ in which at these
times he is said to swim, generally embraces some few miles in width
(more or less, as the vein is presumed to expand or contract); but
never exceeds the visual sweep from the whale-ship’s mast-heads, when
circumspectly gliding along this magic zone. The sum is, that at
particular seasons within that breadth and along that path, migrating
whales may with great confidence be looked for.

And hence not only at substantiated times, upon well known separate
feeding-grounds, could Ahab hope to encounter his prey; but in crossing
the widest expanses of water between those grounds he could, by his
art, so place and time himself on his way, as even then not to be
wholly without prospect of a meeting.

There was a circumstance which at first sight seemed to entangle his
delirious but still methodical scheme. But not so in the reality,
perhaps. Though the gregarious sperm whales have their regular seasons
for particular grounds, yet in general you cannot conclude that the
herds which haunted such and such a latitude or longitude this year,
say, will turn out to be identically the same with those that were
found there the preceding season; though there are peculiar and
unquestionable instances where the contrary of this has proved true. In
general, the same remark, only within a less wide limit, applies to the
solitaries and hermits among the matured, aged sperm whales. So that
though Moby Dick had in a former year been seen, for example, on what
is called the Seychelle ground in the Indian ocean, or Volcano Bay on
the Japanese Coast; yet it did not follow, that were the Pequod to
visit either of those spots at any subsequent corresponding season, she
would infallibly encounter him there. So, too, with some other feeding
grounds, where he had at times revealed himself. But all these seemed
only his casual stopping-places and ocean-inns, so to speak, not his
places of prolonged abode. And where Ahab’s chances of accomplishing
his object have hitherto been spoken of, allusion has only been made to
whatever way-side, antecedent, extra prospects were his, ere a
particular set time or place were attained, when all possibilities
would become probabilities, and, as Ahab fondly thought, every
possibility the next thing to a certainty. That particular set time and
place were conjoined in the one technical phrase—the
Season-on-the-Line. For there and then, for several consecutive years,
Moby Dick had been periodically descried, lingering in those waters for
awhile, as the sun, in its annual round, loiters for a predicted
interval in any one sign of the Zodiac. There it was, too, that most of
the deadly encounters with the white whale had taken place; there the
waves were storied with his deeds; there also was that tragic spot
where the monomaniac old man had found the awful motive to his
vengeance. But in the cautious comprehensiveness and unloitering
vigilance with which Ahab threw his brooding soul into this unfaltering
hunt, he would not permit himself to rest all his hopes upon the one
crowning fact above mentioned, however flattering it might be to those
hopes; nor in the sleeplessness of his vow could he so tranquillize his
unquiet heart as to postpone all intervening quest.

Now, the Pequod had sailed from Nantucket at the very beginning of the
Season-on-the-Line. No possible endeavor then could enable her
commander to make the great passage southwards, double Cape Horn, and
then running down sixty degrees of latitude arrive in the equatorial
Pacific in time to cruise there. Therefore, he must wait for the next
ensuing season. Yet the premature hour of the Pequod’s sailing had,
perhaps, been correctly selected by Ahab, with a view to this very
complexion of things. Because, an interval of three hundred and
sixty-five days and nights was before him; an interval which, instead
of impatiently enduring ashore, he would spend in a miscellaneous hunt;
if by chance the White Whale, spending his vacation in seas far remote
from his periodical feeding-grounds, should turn up his wrinkled brow
off the Persian Gulf, or in the Bengal Bay, or China Seas, or in any
other waters haunted by his race. So that Monsoons, Pampas,
Nor’-Westers, Harmattans, Trades; any wind but the Levanter and Simoon,
might blow Moby Dick into the devious zig-zag world-circle of the
Pequod’s circumnavigating wake.

But granting all this; yet, regarded discreetly and coolly, seems it
not but a mad idea, this; that in the broad boundless ocean, one
solitary whale, even if encountered, should be thought capable of
individual recognition from his hunter, even as a white-bearded Mufti
in the thronged thoroughfares of Constantinople? Yes. For the peculiar
snow-white brow of Moby Dick, and his snow-white hump, could not but be
unmistakable. And have I not tallied the whale, Ahab would mutter to
himself, as after poring over his charts till long after midnight he
would throw himself back in reveries—tallied him, and shall he escape?
His broad fins are bored, and scalloped out like a lost sheep’s ear!
And here, his mad mind would run on in a breathless race; till a
weariness and faintness of pondering came over him; and in the open air
of the deck he would seek to recover his strength. Ah, God! what
trances of torments does that man endure who is consumed with one
unachieved revengeful desire. He sleeps with clenched hands; and wakes
with his own bloody nails in his palms.

Often, when forced from his hammock by exhausting and intolerably vivid
dreams of the night, which, resuming his own intense thoughts through
the day, carried them on amid a clashing of phrensies, and whirled them
round and round and round in his blazing brain, till the very throbbing
of his life-spot became insufferable anguish; and when, as was
sometimes the case, these spiritual throes in him heaved his being up
from its base, and a chasm seemed opening in him, from which forked
flames and lightnings shot up, and accursed fiends beckoned him to leap
down among them; when this hell in himself yawned beneath him, a wild
cry would be heard through the ship; and with glaring eyes Ahab would
burst from his state room, as though escaping from a bed that was on
fire. Yet these, perhaps, instead of being the unsuppressable symptoms
of some latent weakness, or fright at his own resolve, were but the
plainest tokens of its intensity. For, at such times, crazy Ahab, the
scheming, unappeasedly steadfast hunter of the white whale; this Ahab
that had gone to his hammock, was not the agent that so caused him to
burst from it in horror again. The latter was the eternal, living
principle or soul in him; and in sleep, being for the time dissociated
from the characterizing mind, which at other times employed it for its
outer vehicle or agent, it spontaneously sought escape from the
scorching contiguity of the frantic thing, of which, for the time, it
was no longer an integral. But as the mind does not exist unless
leagued with the soul, therefore it must have been that, in Ahab’s
case, yielding up all his thoughts and fancies to his one supreme
purpose; that purpose, by its own sheer inveteracy of will, forced
itself against gods and devils into a kind of self-assumed, independent
being of its own. Nay, could grimly live and burn, while the common
vitality to which it was conjoined, fled horror-stricken from the
unbidden and unfathered birth. Therefore, the tormented spirit that
glared out of bodily eyes, when what seemed Ahab rushed from his room,
was for the time but a vacated thing, a formless somnambulistic being,
a ray of living light, to be sure, but without an object to colour, and
therefore a blankness in itself. God help thee, old man, thy thoughts
have created a creature in thee; and he whose intense thinking thus
makes him a Prometheus; a vulture feeds upon that heart for ever; that
vulture the very creature he creates.


CHAPTER 45. The Affidavit.

So far as what there may be of a narrative in this book; and, indeed,
as indirectly touching one or two very interesting and curious
particulars in the habits of sperm whales, the foregoing chapter, in
its earlier part, is as important a one as will be found in this
volume; but the leading matter of it requires to be still further and
more familiarly enlarged upon, in order to be adequately understood,
and moreover to take away any incredulity which a profound ignorance of
the entire subject may induce in some minds, as to the natural verity
of the main points of this affair.

I care not to perform this part of my task methodically; but shall be
content to produce the desired impression by separate citations of
items, practically or reliably known to me as a whaleman; and from
these citations, I take it—the conclusion aimed at will naturally
follow of itself.

First: I have personally known three instances where a whale, after
receiving a harpoon, has effected a complete escape; and, after an
interval (in one instance of three years), has been again struck by the
same hand, and slain; when the two irons, both marked by the same
private cypher, have been taken from the body. In the instance where
three years intervened between the flinging of the two harpoons; and I
think it may have been something more than that; the man who darted
them happening, in the interval, to go in a trading ship on a voyage to
Africa, went ashore there, joined a discovery party, and penetrated far
into the interior, where he travelled for a period of nearly two years,
often endangered by serpents, savages, tigers, poisonous miasmas, with
all the other common perils incident to wandering in the heart of
unknown regions. Meanwhile, the whale he had struck must also have been
on its travels; no doubt it had thrice circumnavigated the globe,
brushing with its flanks all the coasts of Africa; but to no purpose.
This man and this whale again came together, and the one vanquished the
other. I say I, myself, have known three instances similar to this;
that is in two of them I saw the whales struck; and, upon the second
attack, saw the two irons with the respective marks cut in them,
afterwards taken from the dead fish. In the three-year instance, it so
fell out that I was in the boat both times, first and last, and the
last time distinctly recognised a peculiar sort of huge mole under the
whale’s eye, which I had observed there three years previous. I say
three years, but I am pretty sure it was more than that. Here are three
instances, then, which I personally know the truth of; but I have heard
of many other instances from persons whose veracity in the matter there
is no good ground to impeach.

Secondly: It is well known in the Sperm Whale Fishery, however ignorant
the world ashore may be of it, that there have been several memorable
historical instances where a particular whale in the ocean has been at
distant times and places popularly cognisable. Why such a whale became
thus marked was not altogether and originally owing to his bodily
peculiarities as distinguished from other whales; for however peculiar
in that respect any chance whale may be, they soon put an end to his
peculiarities by killing him, and boiling him down into a peculiarly
valuable oil. No: the reason was this: that from the fatal experiences
of the fishery there hung a terrible prestige of perilousness about
such a whale as there did about Rinaldo Rinaldini, insomuch that most
fishermen were content to recognise him by merely touching their
tarpaulins when he would be discovered lounging by them on the sea,
without seeking to cultivate a more intimate acquaintance. Like some
poor devils ashore that happen to know an irascible great man, they
make distant unobtrusive salutations to him in the street, lest if they
pursued the acquaintance further, they might receive a summary thump
for their presumption.

But not only did each of these famous whales enjoy great individual
celebrity—Nay, you may call it an ocean-wide renown; not only was he
famous in life and now is immortal in forecastle stories after death,
but he was admitted into all the rights, privileges, and distinctions
of a name; had as much a name indeed as Cambyses or Cæsar. Was it not
so, O Timor Tom! thou famed leviathan, scarred like an iceberg, who so
long did’st lurk in the Oriental straits of that name, whose spout was
oft seen from the palmy beach of Ombay? Was it not so, O New Zealand
Jack! thou terror of all cruisers that crossed their wakes in the
vicinity of the Tattoo Land? Was it not so, O Morquan! King of Japan,
whose lofty jet they say at times assumed the semblance of a snow-white
cross against the sky? Was it not so, O Don Miguel! thou Chilian whale,
marked like an old tortoise with mystic hieroglyphics upon the back! In
plain prose, here are four whales as well known to the students of
Cetacean History as Marius or Sylla to the classic scholar.

But this is not all. New Zealand Tom and Don Miguel, after at various
times creating great havoc among the boats of different vessels, were
finally gone in quest of, systematically hunted out, chased and killed
by valiant whaling captains, who heaved up their anchors with that
express object as much in view, as in setting out through the
Narragansett Woods, Captain Butler of old had it in his mind to capture
that notorious murderous savage Annawon, the headmost warrior of the
Indian King Philip.

I do not know where I can find a better place than just here, to make
mention of one or two other things, which to me seem important, as in
printed form establishing in all respects the reasonableness of the
whole story of the White Whale, more especially the catastrophe. For
this is one of those disheartening instances where truth requires full
as much bolstering as error. So ignorant are most landsmen of some of
the plainest and most palpable wonders of the world, that without some
hints touching the plain facts, historical and otherwise, of the
fishery, they might scout at Moby Dick as a monstrous fable, or still
worse and more detestable, a hideous and intolerable allegory.

First: Though most men have some vague flitting ideas of the general
perils of the grand fishery, yet they have nothing like a fixed, vivid
conception of those perils, and the frequency with which they recur.
One reason perhaps is, that not one in fifty of the actual disasters
and deaths by casualties in the fishery, ever finds a public record at
home, however transient and immediately forgotten that record. Do you
suppose that that poor fellow there, who this moment perhaps caught by
the whale-line off the coast of New Guinea, is being carried down to
the bottom of the sea by the sounding leviathan—do you suppose that
that poor fellow’s name will appear in the newspaper obituary you will
read to-morrow at your breakfast? No: because the mails are very
irregular between here and New Guinea. In fact, did you ever hear what
might be called regular news direct or indirect from New Guinea? Yet I
tell you that upon one particular voyage which I made to the Pacific,
among many others we spoke thirty different ships, every one of which
had had a death by a whale, some of them more than one, and three that
had each lost a boat’s crew. For God’s sake, be economical with your
lamps and candles! not a gallon you burn, but at least one drop of
man’s blood was spilled for it.

Secondly: People ashore have indeed some indefinite idea that a whale
is an enormous creature of enormous power; but I have ever found that
when narrating to them some specific example of this two-fold
enormousness, they have significantly complimented me upon my
facetiousness; when, I declare upon my soul, I had no more idea of
being facetious than Moses, when he wrote the history of the plagues of
Egypt.

But fortunately the special point I here seek can be established upon
testimony entirely independent of my own. That point is this: The Sperm
Whale is in some cases sufficiently powerful, knowing, and judiciously
malicious, as with direct aforethought to stave in, utterly destroy,
and sink a large ship; and what is more, the Sperm Whale _has_ done it.

First: In the year 1820 the ship Essex, Captain Pollard, of Nantucket,
was cruising in the Pacific Ocean. One day she saw spouts, lowered her
boats, and gave chase to a shoal of sperm whales. Ere long, several of
the whales were wounded; when, suddenly, a very large whale escaping
from the boats, issued from the shoal, and bore directly down upon the
ship. Dashing his forehead against her hull, he so stove her in, that
in less than “ten minutes” she settled down and fell over. Not a
surviving plank of her has been seen since. After the severest
exposure, part of the crew reached the land in their boats. Being
returned home at last, Captain Pollard once more sailed for the Pacific
in command of another ship, but the gods shipwrecked him again upon
unknown rocks and breakers; for the second time his ship was utterly
lost, and forthwith forswearing the sea, he has never tempted it since.
At this day Captain Pollard is a resident of Nantucket. I have seen
Owen Chace, who was chief mate of the Essex at the time of the tragedy;
I have read his plain and faithful narrative; I have conversed with his
son; and all this within a few miles of the scene of the catastrophe.*

*The following are extracts from Chace’s narrative: “Every fact seemed
to warrant me in concluding that it was anything but chance which
directed his operations; he made two several attacks upon the ship, at
a short interval between them, both of which, according to their
direction, were calculated to do us the most injury, by being made
ahead, and thereby combining the speed of the two objects for the
shock; to effect which, the exact manœuvres which he made were
necessary. His aspect was most horrible, and such as indicated
resentment and fury. He came directly from the shoal which we had just
before entered, and in which we had struck three of his companions, as
if fired with revenge for their sufferings.” Again: “At all events, the
whole circumstances taken together, all happening before my own eyes,
and producing, at the time, impressions in my mind of decided,
calculating mischief, on the part of the whale (many of which
impressions I cannot now recall), induce me to be satisfied that I am
correct in my opinion.”

Here are his reflections some time after quitting the ship, during a
black night in an open boat, when almost despairing of reaching any
hospitable shore. “The dark ocean and swelling waters were nothing; the
fears of being swallowed up by some dreadful tempest, or dashed upon
hidden rocks, with all the other ordinary subjects of fearful
contemplation, seemed scarcely entitled to a moment’s thought; the
dismal looking wreck, and _the horrid aspect and revenge of the whale_,
wholly engrossed my reflections, until day again made its appearance.”

In another place—p. 45,—he speaks of “_the mysterious and mortal attack
of the animal_.”

Secondly: The ship Union, also of Nantucket, was in the year 1807
totally lost off the Azores by a similar onset, but the authentic
particulars of this catastrophe I have never chanced to encounter,
though from the whale hunters I have now and then heard casual
allusions to it.

Thirdly: Some eighteen or twenty years ago Commodore J——, then
commanding an American sloop-of-war of the first class, happened to be
dining with a party of whaling captains, on board a Nantucket ship in
the harbor of Oahu, Sandwich Islands. Conversation turning upon whales,
the Commodore was pleased to be sceptical touching the amazing strength
ascribed to them by the professional gentlemen present. He peremptorily
denied for example, that any whale could so smite his stout
sloop-of-war as to cause her to leak so much as a thimbleful. Very
good; but there is more coming. Some weeks after, the Commodore set
sail in this impregnable craft for Valparaiso. But he was stopped on
the way by a portly sperm whale, that begged a few moments’
confidential business with him. That business consisted in fetching the
Commodore’s craft such a thwack, that with all his pumps going he made
straight for the nearest port to heave down and repair. I am not
superstitious, but I consider the Commodore’s interview with that whale
as providential. Was not Saul of Tarsus converted from unbelief by a
similar fright? I tell you, the sperm whale will stand no nonsense.

I will now refer you to Langsdorff’s Voyages for a little circumstance
in point, peculiarly interesting to the writer hereof. Langsdorff, you
must know by the way, was attached to the Russian Admiral Krusenstern’s
famous Discovery Expedition in the beginning of the present century.
Captain Langsdorff thus begins his seventeenth chapter:

“By the thirteenth of May our ship was ready to sail, and the next day
we were out in the open sea, on our way to Ochotsh. The weather was
very clear and fine, but so intolerably cold that we were obliged to
keep on our fur clothing. For some days we had very little wind; it was
not till the nineteenth that a brisk gale from the northwest sprang up.
An uncommon large whale, the body of which was larger than the ship
itself, lay almost at the surface of the water, but was not perceived
by any one on board till the moment when the ship, which was in full
sail, was almost upon him, so that it was impossible to prevent its
striking against him. We were thus placed in the most imminent danger,
as this gigantic creature, setting up its back, raised the ship three
feet at least out of the water. The masts reeled, and the sails fell
altogether, while we who were below all sprang instantly upon the deck,
concluding that we had struck upon some rock; instead of this we saw
the monster sailing off with the utmost gravity and solemnity. Captain
D’Wolf applied immediately to the pumps to examine whether or not the
vessel had received any damage from the shock, but we found that very
happily it had escaped entirely uninjured.”

Now, the Captain D’Wolf here alluded to as commanding the ship in
question, is a New Englander, who, after a long life of unusual
adventures as a sea-captain, this day resides in the village of
Dorchester near Boston. I have the honor of being a nephew of his. I
have particularly questioned him concerning this passage in Langsdorff.
He substantiates every word. The ship, however, was by no means a large
one: a Russian craft built on the Siberian coast, and purchased by my
uncle after bartering away the vessel in which he sailed from home.

In that up and down manly book of old-fashioned adventure, so full,
too, of honest wonders—the voyage of Lionel Wafer, one of ancient
Dampier’s old chums—I found a little matter set down so like that just
quoted from Langsdorff, that I cannot forbear inserting it here for a
corroborative example, if such be needed.

Lionel, it seems, was on his way to “John Ferdinando,” as he calls the
modern Juan Fernandes. “In our way thither,” he says, “about four
o’clock in the morning, when we were about one hundred and fifty
leagues from the Main of America, our ship felt a terrible shock, which
put our men in such consternation that they could hardly tell where
they were or what to think; but every one began to prepare for death.
And, indeed, the shock was so sudden and violent, that we took it for
granted the ship had struck against a rock; but when the amazement was
a little over, we cast the lead, and sounded, but found no ground. * *
* * * The suddenness of the shock made the guns leap in their
carriages, and several of the men were shaken out of their hammocks.
Captain Davis, who lay with his head on a gun, was thrown out of his
cabin!” Lionel then goes on to impute the shock to an earthquake, and
seems to substantiate the imputation by stating that a great
earthquake, somewhere about that time, did actually do great mischief
along the Spanish land. But I should not much wonder if, in the
darkness of that early hour of the morning, the shock was after all
caused by an unseen whale vertically bumping the hull from beneath.

I might proceed with several more examples, one way or another known to
me, of the great power and malice at times of the sperm whale. In more
than one instance, he has been known, not only to chase the assailing
boats back to their ships, but to pursue the ship itself, and long
withstand all the lances hurled at him from its decks. The English ship
Pusie Hall can tell a story on that head; and, as for his strength, let
me say, that there have been examples where the lines attached to a
running sperm whale have, in a calm, been transferred to the ship, and
secured there; the whale towing her great hull through the water, as a
horse walks off with a cart. Again, it is very often observed that, if
the sperm whale, once struck, is allowed time to rally, he then acts,
not so often with blind rage, as with wilful, deliberate designs of
destruction to his pursuers; nor is it without conveying some eloquent
indication of his character, that upon being attacked he will
frequently open his mouth, and retain it in that dread expansion for
several consecutive minutes. But I must be content with only one more
and a concluding illustration; a remarkable and most significant one,
by which you will not fail to see, that not only is the most marvellous
event in this book corroborated by plain facts of the present day, but
that these marvels (like all marvels) are mere repetitions of the ages;
so that for the millionth time we say amen with Solomon—Verily there is
nothing new under the sun.

In the sixth Christian century lived Procopius, a Christian magistrate
of Constantinople, in the days when Justinian was Emperor and
Belisarius general. As many know, he wrote the history of his own
times, a work every way of uncommon value. By the best authorities, he
has always been considered a most trustworthy and unexaggerating
historian, except in some one or two particulars, not at all affecting
the matter presently to be mentioned.

Now, in this history of his, Procopius mentions that, during the term
of his prefecture at Constantinople, a great sea-monster was captured
in the neighboring Propontis, or Sea of Marmora, after having destroyed
vessels at intervals in those waters for a period of more than fifty
years. A fact thus set down in substantial history cannot easily be
gainsaid. Nor is there any reason it should be. Of what precise species
this sea-monster was, is not mentioned. But as he destroyed ships, as
well as for other reasons, he must have been a whale; and I am strongly
inclined to think a sperm whale. And I will tell you why. For a long
time I fancied that the sperm whale had been always unknown in the
Mediterranean and the deep waters connecting with it. Even now I am
certain that those seas are not, and perhaps never can be, in the
present constitution of things, a place for his habitual gregarious
resort. But further investigations have recently proved to me, that in
modern times there have been isolated instances of the presence of the
sperm whale in the Mediterranean. I am told, on good authority, that on
the Barbary coast, a Commodore Davis of the British navy found the
skeleton of a sperm whale. Now, as a vessel of war readily passes
through the Dardanelles, hence a sperm whale could, by the same route,
pass out of the Mediterranean into the Propontis.

In the Propontis, as far as I can learn, none of that peculiar
substance called _brit_ is to be found, the aliment of the right whale.
But I have every reason to believe that the food of the sperm
whale—squid or cuttle-fish—lurks at the bottom of that sea, because
large creatures, but by no means the largest of that sort, have been
found at its surface. If, then, you properly put these statements
together, and reason upon them a bit, you will clearly perceive that,
according to all human reasoning, Procopius’s sea-monster, that for
half a century stove the ships of a Roman Emperor, must in all
probability have been a sperm whale.


CHAPTER 46. Surmises.

Though, consumed with the hot fire of his purpose, Ahab in all his
thoughts and actions ever had in view the ultimate capture of Moby
Dick; though he seemed ready to sacrifice all mortal interests to that
one passion; nevertheless it may have been that he was by nature and
long habituation far too wedded to a fiery whaleman’s ways, altogether
to abandon the collateral prosecution of the voyage. Or at least if
this were otherwise, there were not wanting other motives much more
influential with him. It would be refining too much, perhaps, even
considering his monomania, to hint that his vindictiveness towards the
White Whale might have possibly extended itself in some degree to all
sperm whales, and that the more monsters he slew by so much the more he
multiplied the chances that each subsequently encountered whale would
prove to be the hated one he hunted. But if such an hypothesis be
indeed exceptionable, there were still additional considerations which,
though not so strictly according with the wildness of his ruling
passion, yet were by no means incapable of swaying him.

To accomplish his object Ahab must use tools; and of all tools used in
the shadow of the moon, men are most apt to get out of order. He knew,
for example, that however magnetic his ascendency in some respects was
over Starbuck, yet that ascendency did not cover the complete spiritual
man any more than mere corporeal superiority involves intellectual
mastership; for to the purely spiritual, the intellectual but stand in
a sort of corporeal relation. Starbuck’s body and Starbuck’s coerced
will were Ahab’s, so long as Ahab kept his magnet at Starbuck’s brain;
still he knew that for all this the chief mate, in his soul, abhorred
his captain’s quest, and could he, would joyfully disintegrate himself
from it, or even frustrate it. It might be that a long interval would
elapse ere the White Whale was seen. During that long interval Starbuck
would ever be apt to fall into open relapses of rebellion against his
captain’s leadership, unless some ordinary, prudential, circumstantial
influences were brought to bear upon him. Not only that, but the subtle
insanity of Ahab respecting Moby Dick was noways more significantly
manifested than in his superlative sense and shrewdness in foreseeing
that, for the present, the hunt should in some way be stripped of that
strange imaginative impiousness which naturally invested it; that the
full terror of the voyage must be kept withdrawn into the obscure
background (for few men’s courage is proof against protracted
meditation unrelieved by action); that when they stood their long night
watches, his officers and men must have some nearer things to think of
than Moby Dick. For however eagerly and impetuously the savage crew had
hailed the announcement of his quest; yet all sailors of all sorts are
more or less capricious and unreliable—they live in the varying outer
weather, and they inhale its fickleness—and when retained for any
object remote and blank in the pursuit, however promissory of life and
passion in the end, it is above all things requisite that temporary
interests and employments should intervene and hold them healthily
suspended for the final dash.

Nor was Ahab unmindful of another thing. In times of strong emotion
mankind disdain all base considerations; but such times are evanescent.
The permanent constitutional condition of the manufactured man, thought
Ahab, is sordidness. Granting that the White Whale fully incites the
hearts of this my savage crew, and playing round their savageness even
breeds a certain generous knight-errantism in them, still, while for
the love of it they give chase to Moby Dick, they must also have food
for their more common, daily appetites. For even the high lifted and
chivalric Crusaders of old times were not content to traverse two
thousand miles of land to fight for their holy sepulchre, without
committing burglaries, picking pockets, and gaining other pious
perquisites by the way. Had they been strictly held to their one final
and romantic object—that final and romantic object, too many would have
turned from in disgust. I will not strip these men, thought Ahab, of
all hopes of cash—aye, cash. They may scorn cash now; but let some
months go by, and no perspective promise of it to them, and then this
same quiescent cash all at once mutinying in them, this same cash would
soon cashier Ahab.

Nor was there wanting still another precautionary motive more related
to Ahab personally. Having impulsively, it is probable, and perhaps
somewhat prematurely revealed the prime but private purpose of the
Pequod’s voyage, Ahab was now entirely conscious that, in so doing, he
had indirectly laid himself open to the unanswerable charge of
usurpation; and with perfect impunity, both moral and legal, his crew
if so disposed, and to that end competent, could refuse all further
obedience to him, and even violently wrest from him the command. From
even the barely hinted imputation of usurpation, and the possible
consequences of such a suppressed impression gaining ground, Ahab must
of course have been most anxious to protect himself. That protection
could only consist in his own predominating brain and heart and hand,
backed by a heedful, closely calculating attention to every minute
atmospheric influence which it was possible for his crew to be
subjected to.

For all these reasons then, and others perhaps too analytic to be
verbally developed here, Ahab plainly saw that he must still in a good
degree continue true to the natural, nominal purpose of the Pequod’s
voyage; observe all customary usages; and not only that, but force
himself to evince all his well known passionate interest in the general
pursuit of his profession.

Be all this as it may, his voice was now often heard hailing the three
mast-heads and admonishing them to keep a bright look-out, and not omit
reporting even a porpoise. This vigilance was not long without reward.


CHAPTER 47. The Mat-Maker.

It was a cloudy, sultry afternoon; the seamen were lazily lounging
about the decks, or vacantly gazing over into the lead-coloured waters.
Queequeg and I were mildly employed weaving what is called a sword-mat,
for an additional lashing to our boat. So still and subdued and yet
somehow preluding was all the scene, and such an incantation of reverie
lurked in the air, that each silent sailor seemed resolved into his own
invisible self.

I was the attendant or page of Queequeg, while busy at the mat. As I
kept passing and repassing the filling or woof of marline between the
long yarns of the warp, using my own hand for the shuttle, and as
Queequeg, standing sideways, ever and anon slid his heavy oaken sword
between the threads, and idly looking off upon the water, carelessly
and unthinkingly drove home every yarn: I say so strange a dreaminess
did there then reign all over the ship and all over the sea, only
broken by the intermitting dull sound of the sword, that it seemed as
if this were the Loom of Time, and I myself were a shuttle mechanically
weaving and weaving away at the Fates. There lay the fixed threads of
the warp subject to but one single, ever returning, unchanging
vibration, and that vibration merely enough to admit of the crosswise
interblending of other threads with its own. This warp seemed
necessity; and here, thought I, with my own hand I ply my own shuttle
and weave my own destiny into these unalterable threads. Meantime,
Queequeg’s impulsive, indifferent sword, sometimes hitting the woof
slantingly, or crookedly, or strongly, or weakly, as the case might be;
and by this difference in the concluding blow producing a corresponding
contrast in the final aspect of the completed fabric; this savage’s
sword, thought I, which thus finally shapes and fashions both warp and
woof; this easy, indifferent sword must be chance—aye, chance, free
will, and necessity—nowise incompatible—all interweavingly working
together. The straight warp of necessity, not to be swerved from its
ultimate course—its every alternating vibration, indeed, only tending
to that; free will still free to ply her shuttle between given threads;
and chance, though restrained in its play within the right lines of
necessity, and sideways in its motions directed by free will, though
thus prescribed to by both, chance by turns rules either, and has the
last featuring blow at events.

Thus we were weaving and weaving away when I started at a sound so
strange, long drawn, and musically wild and unearthly, that the ball of
free will dropped from my hand, and I stood gazing up at the clouds
whence that voice dropped like a wing. High aloft in the cross-trees
was that mad Gay-Header, Tashtego. His body was reaching eagerly
forward, his hand stretched out like a wand, and at brief sudden
intervals he continued his cries. To be sure the same sound was that
very moment perhaps being heard all over the seas, from hundreds of
whalemen’s look-outs perched as high in the air; but from few of those
lungs could that accustomed old cry have derived such a marvellous
cadence as from Tashtego the Indian’s.

As he stood hovering over you half suspended in air, so wildly and
eagerly peering towards the horizon, you would have thought him some
prophet or seer beholding the shadows of Fate, and by those wild cries
announcing their coming.

“There she blows! there! there! there! she blows! she blows!”

“Where-away?”

“On the lee-beam, about two miles off! a school of them!”

Instantly all was commotion.

The Sperm Whale blows as a clock ticks, with the same undeviating and
reliable uniformity. And thereby whalemen distinguish this fish from
other tribes of his genus.

“There go flukes!” was now the cry from Tashtego; and the whales
disappeared.

“Quick, steward!” cried Ahab. “Time! time!”

Dough-Boy hurried below, glanced at the watch, and reported the exact
minute to Ahab.

The ship was now kept away from the wind, and she went gently rolling
before it. Tashtego reporting that the whales had gone down heading to
leeward, we confidently looked to see them again directly in advance of
our bows. For that singular craft at times evinced by the Sperm Whale
when, sounding with his head in one direction, he nevertheless, while
concealed beneath the surface, mills round, and swiftly swims off in
the opposite quarter—this deceitfulness of his could not now be in
action; for there was no reason to suppose that the fish seen by
Tashtego had been in any way alarmed, or indeed knew at all of our
vicinity. One of the men selected for shipkeepers—that is, those not
appointed to the boats, by this time relieved the Indian at the
main-mast head. The sailors at the fore and mizzen had come down; the
line tubs were fixed in their places; the cranes were thrust out; the
mainyard was backed, and the three boats swung over the sea like three
samphire baskets over high cliffs. Outside of the bulwarks their eager
crews with one hand clung to the rail, while one foot was expectantly
poised on the gunwale. So look the long line of man-of-war’s men about
to throw themselves on board an enemy’s ship.

But at this critical instant a sudden exclamation was heard that took
every eye from the whale. With a start all glared at dark Ahab, who was
surrounded by five dusky phantoms that seemed fresh formed out of air.


CHAPTER 48. The First Lowering.

The phantoms, for so they then seemed, were flitting on the other side
of the deck, and, with a noiseless celerity, were casting loose the
tackles and bands of the boat which swung there. This boat had always
been deemed one of the spare boats, though technically called the
captain’s, on account of its hanging from the starboard quarter. The
figure that now stood by its bows was tall and swart, with one white
tooth evilly protruding from its steel-like lips. A rumpled Chinese
jacket of black cotton funereally invested him, with wide black
trowsers of the same dark stuff. But strangely crowning this ebonness
was a glistening white plaited turban, the living hair braided and
coiled round and round upon his head. Less swart in aspect, the
companions of this figure were of that vivid, tiger-yellow complexion
peculiar to some of the aboriginal natives of the Manillas;—a race
notorious for a certain diabolism of subtilty, and by some honest white
mariners supposed to be the paid spies and secret confidential agents
on the water of the devil, their lord, whose counting-room they suppose
to be elsewhere.

While yet the wondering ship’s company were gazing upon these
strangers, Ahab cried out to the white-turbaned old man at their head,
“All ready there, Fedallah?”

“Ready,” was the half-hissed reply.

“Lower away then; d’ye hear?” shouting across the deck. “Lower away
there, I say.”

Such was the thunder of his voice, that spite of their amazement the
men sprang over the rail; the sheaves whirled round in the blocks; with
a wallow, the three boats dropped into the sea; while, with a
dexterous, off-handed daring, unknown in any other vocation, the
sailors, goat-like, leaped down the rolling ship’s side into the tossed
boats below.

Hardly had they pulled out from under the ship’s lee, when a fourth
keel, coming from the windward side, pulled round under the stern, and
showed the five strangers rowing Ahab, who, standing erect in the
stern, loudly hailed Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask, to spread themselves
widely, so as to cover a large expanse of water. But with all their
eyes again riveted upon the swart Fedallah and his crew, the inmates of
the other boats obeyed not the command.

“Captain Ahab?—” said Starbuck.

“Spread yourselves,” cried Ahab; “give way, all four boats. Thou,
Flask, pull out more to leeward!”

“Aye, aye, sir,” cheerily cried little King-Post, sweeping round his
great steering oar. “Lay back!” addressing his crew.
“There!—there!—there again! There she blows right ahead, boys!—lay
back!”

“Never heed yonder yellow boys, Archy.”

“Oh, I don’t mind ’em, sir,” said Archy; “I knew it all before now.
Didn’t I hear ’em in the hold? And didn’t I tell Cabaco here of it?
What say ye, Cabaco? They are stowaways, Mr. Flask.”

“Pull, pull, my fine hearts-alive; pull, my children; pull, my little
ones,” drawlingly and soothingly sighed Stubb to his crew, some of whom
still showed signs of uneasiness. “Why don’t you break your backbones,
my boys? What is it you stare at? Those chaps in yonder boat? Tut! They
are only five more hands come to help us—never mind from where—the more
the merrier. Pull, then, do pull; never mind the brimstone—devils are
good fellows enough. So, so; there you are now; that’s the stroke for a
thousand pounds; that’s the stroke to sweep the stakes! Hurrah for the
gold cup of sperm oil, my heroes! Three cheers, men—all hearts alive!
Easy, easy; don’t be in a hurry—don’t be in a hurry. Why don’t you snap
your oars, you rascals? Bite something, you dogs! So, so, so,
then:—softly, softly! That’s it—that’s it! long and strong. Give way
there, give way! The devil fetch ye, ye ragamuffin rapscallions; ye are
all asleep. Stop snoring, ye sleepers, and pull. Pull, will ye? pull,
can’t ye? pull, won’t ye? Why in the name of gudgeons and ginger-cakes
don’t ye pull?—pull and break something! pull, and start your eyes out!
Here!” whipping out the sharp knife from his girdle; “every mother’s
son of ye draw his knife, and pull with the blade between his teeth.
That’s it—that’s it. Now ye do something; that looks like it, my
steel-bits. Start her—start her, my silver-spoons! Start her,
marling-spikes!”

Stubb’s exordium to his crew is given here at large, because he had
rather a peculiar way of talking to them in general, and especially in
inculcating the religion of rowing. But you must not suppose from this
specimen of his sermonizings that he ever flew into downright passions
with his congregation. Not at all; and therein consisted his chief
peculiarity. He would say the most terrific things to his crew, in a
tone so strangely compounded of fun and fury, and the fury seemed so
calculated merely as a spice to the fun, that no oarsman could hear
such queer invocations without pulling for dear life, and yet pulling
for the mere joke of the thing. Besides he all the time looked so easy
and indolent himself, so loungingly managed his steering-oar, and so
broadly gaped—open-mouthed at times—that the mere sight of such a
yawning commander, by sheer force of contrast, acted like a charm upon
the crew. Then again, Stubb was one of those odd sort of humorists,
whose jollity is sometimes so curiously ambiguous, as to put all
inferiors on their guard in the matter of obeying them.

In obedience to a sign from Ahab, Starbuck was now pulling obliquely
across Stubb’s bow; and when for a minute or so the two boats were
pretty near to each other, Stubb hailed the mate.

“Mr. Starbuck! larboard boat there, ahoy! a word with ye, sir, if ye
please!”

“Halloa!” returned Starbuck, turning round not a single inch as he
spoke; still earnestly but whisperingly urging his crew; his face set
like a flint from Stubb’s.

“What think ye of those yellow boys, sir!”

“Smuggled on board, somehow, before the ship sailed. (Strong, strong,
boys!)” in a whisper to his crew, then speaking out loud again: “A sad
business, Mr. Stubb! (seethe her, seethe her, my lads!) but never mind,
Mr. Stubb, all for the best. Let all your crew pull strong, come what
will. (Spring, my men, spring!) There’s hogsheads of sperm ahead, Mr.
Stubb, and that’s what ye came for. (Pull, my boys!) Sperm, sperm’s the
play! This at least is duty; duty and profit hand in hand.”

“Aye, aye, I thought as much,” soliloquized Stubb, when the boats
diverged, “as soon as I clapt eye on ’em, I thought so. Aye, and that’s
what he went into the after hold for, so often, as Dough-Boy long
suspected. They were hidden down there. The White Whale’s at the bottom
of it. Well, well, so be it! Can’t be helped! All right! Give way, men!
It ain’t the White Whale to-day! Give way!”

Now the advent of these outlandish strangers at such a critical instant
as the lowering of the boats from the deck, this had not unreasonably
awakened a sort of superstitious amazement in some of the ship’s
company; but Archy’s fancied discovery having some time previous got
abroad among them, though indeed not credited then, this had in some
small measure prepared them for the event. It took off the extreme edge
of their wonder; and so what with all this and Stubb’s confident way of
accounting for their appearance, they were for the time freed from
superstitious surmisings; though the affair still left abundant room
for all manner of wild conjectures as to dark Ahab’s precise agency in
the matter from the beginning. For me, I silently recalled the
mysterious shadows I had seen creeping on board the Pequod during the
dim Nantucket dawn, as well as the enigmatical hintings of the
unaccountable Elijah.

Meantime, Ahab, out of hearing of his officers, having sided the
furthest to windward, was still ranging ahead of the other boats; a
circumstance bespeaking how potent a crew was pulling him. Those tiger
yellow creatures of his seemed all steel and whalebone; like five
trip-hammers they rose and fell with regular strokes of strength, which
periodically started the boat along the water like a horizontal burst
boiler out of a Mississippi steamer. As for Fedallah, who was seen
pulling the harpooneer oar, he had thrown aside his black jacket, and
displayed his naked chest with the whole part of his body above the
gunwale, clearly cut against the alternating depressions of the watery
horizon; while at the other end of the boat Ahab, with one arm, like a
fencer’s, thrown half backward into the air, as if to counterbalance
any tendency to trip; Ahab was seen steadily managing his steering oar
as in a thousand boat lowerings ere the White Whale had torn him. All
at once the outstretched arm gave a peculiar motion and then remained
fixed, while the boat’s five oars were seen simultaneously peaked. Boat
and crew sat motionless on the sea. Instantly the three spread boats in
the rear paused on their way. The whales had irregularly settled bodily
down into the blue, thus giving no distantly discernible token of the
movement, though from his closer vicinity Ahab had observed it.

“Every man look out along his oars!” cried Starbuck. “Thou, Queequeg,
stand up!”

Nimbly springing up on the triangular raised box in the bow, the savage
stood erect there, and with intensely eager eyes gazed off towards the
spot where the chase had last been descried. Likewise upon the extreme
stern of the boat where it was also triangularly platformed level with
the gunwale, Starbuck himself was seen coolly and adroitly balancing
himself to the jerking tossings of his chip of a craft, and silently
eyeing the vast blue eye of the sea.

Not very far distant Flask’s boat was also lying breathlessly still;
its commander recklessly standing upon the top of the loggerhead, a
stout sort of post rooted in the keel, and rising some two feet above
the level of the stern platform. It is used for catching turns with the
whale line. Its top is not more spacious than the palm of a man’s hand,
and standing upon such a base as that, Flask seemed perched at the
mast-head of some ship which had sunk to all but her trucks. But little
King-Post was small and short, and at the same time little King-Post
was full of a large and tall ambition, so that this loggerhead
stand-point of his did by no means satisfy King-Post.

“I can’t see three seas off; tip us up an oar there, and let me on to
that.”

Upon this, Daggoo, with either hand upon the gunwale to steady his way,
swiftly slid aft, and then erecting himself volunteered his lofty
shoulders for a pedestal.

“Good a mast-head as any, sir. Will you mount?”

“That I will, and thank ye very much, my fine fellow; only I wish you
fifty feet taller.”

Whereupon planting his feet firmly against two opposite planks of the
boat, the gigantic negro, stooping a little, presented his flat palm to
Flask’s foot, and then putting Flask’s hand on his hearse-plumed head
and bidding him spring as he himself should toss, with one dexterous
fling landed the little man high and dry on his shoulders. And here was
Flask now standing, Daggoo with one lifted arm furnishing him with a
breastband to lean against and steady himself by.

At any time it is a strange sight to the tyro to see with what wondrous
habitude of unconscious skill the whaleman will maintain an erect
posture in his boat, even when pitched about by the most riotously
perverse and cross-running seas. Still more strange to see him giddily
perched upon the loggerhead itself, under such circumstances. But the
sight of little Flask mounted upon gigantic Daggoo was yet more
curious; for sustaining himself with a cool, indifferent, easy,
unthought of, barbaric majesty, the noble negro to every roll of the
sea harmoniously rolled his fine form. On his broad back, flaxen-haired
Flask seemed a snow-flake. The bearer looked nobler than the rider.
Though truly vivacious, tumultuous, ostentatious little Flask would now
and then stamp with impatience; but not one added heave did he thereby
give to the negro’s lordly chest. So have I seen Passion and Vanity
stamping the living magnanimous earth, but the earth did not alter her
tides and her seasons for that.

Meanwhile Stubb, the third mate, betrayed no such far-gazing
solicitudes. The whales might have made one of their regular soundings,
not a temporary dive from mere fright; and if that were the case,
Stubb, as his wont in such cases, it seems, was resolved to solace the
languishing interval with his pipe. He withdrew it from his hatband,
where he always wore it aslant like a feather. He loaded it, and rammed
home the loading with his thumb-end; but hardly had he ignited his
match across the rough sandpaper of his hand, when Tashtego, his
harpooneer, whose eyes had been setting to windward like two fixed
stars, suddenly dropped like light from his erect attitude to his seat,
crying out in a quick phrensy of hurry, “Down, down all, and give
way!—there they are!”

To a landsman, no whale, nor any sign of a herring, would have been
visible at that moment; nothing but a troubled bit of greenish white
water, and thin scattered puffs of vapor hovering over it, and
suffusingly blowing off to leeward, like the confused scud from white
rolling billows. The air around suddenly vibrated and tingled, as it
were, like the air over intensely heated plates of iron. Beneath this
atmospheric waving and curling, and partially beneath a thin layer of
water, also, the whales were swimming. Seen in advance of all the other
indications, the puffs of vapor they spouted, seemed their forerunning
couriers and detached flying outriders.

All four boats were now in keen pursuit of that one spot of troubled
water and air. But it bade fair to outstrip them; it flew on and on, as
a mass of interblending bubbles borne down a rapid stream from the
hills.

“Pull, pull, my good boys,” said Starbuck, in the lowest possible but
intensest concentrated whisper to his men; while the sharp fixed glance
from his eyes darted straight ahead of the bow, almost seemed as two
visible needles in two unerring binnacle compasses. He did not say much
to his crew, though, nor did his crew say anything to him. Only the
silence of the boat was at intervals startlingly pierced by one of his
peculiar whispers, now harsh with command, now soft with entreaty.

How different the loud little King-Post. “Sing out and say something,
my hearties. Roar and pull, my thunderbolts! Beach me, beach me on
their black backs, boys; only do that for me, and I’ll sign over to you
my Martha’s Vineyard plantation, boys; including wife and children,
boys. Lay me on—lay me on! O Lord, Lord! but I shall go stark, staring
mad! See! see that white water!” And so shouting, he pulled his hat
from his head, and stamped up and down on it; then picking it up,
flirted it far off upon the sea; and finally fell to rearing and
plunging in the boat’s stern like a crazed colt from the prairie.

“Look at that chap now,” philosophically drawled Stubb, who, with his
unlighted short pipe, mechanically retained between his teeth, at a
short distance, followed after—“He’s got fits, that Flask has. Fits?
yes, give him fits—that’s the very word—pitch fits into ’em. Merrily,
merrily, hearts-alive. Pudding for supper, you know;—merry’s the word.
Pull, babes—pull, sucklings—pull, all. But what the devil are you
hurrying about? Softly, softly, and steadily, my men. Only pull, and
keep pulling; nothing more. Crack all your backbones, and bite your
knives in two—that’s all. Take it easy—why don’t ye take it easy, I
say, and burst all your livers and lungs!”

But what it was that inscrutable Ahab said to that tiger-yellow crew of
his—these were words best omitted here; for you live under the blessed
light of the evangelical land. Only the infidel sharks in the audacious
seas may give ear to such words, when, with tornado brow, and eyes of
red murder, and foam-glued lips, Ahab leaped after his prey.

Meanwhile, all the boats tore on. The repeated specific allusions of
Flask to “that whale,” as he called the fictitious monster which he
declared to be incessantly tantalizing his boat’s bow with its
tail—these allusions of his were at times so vivid and life-like, that
they would cause some one or two of his men to snatch a fearful look
over the shoulder. But this was against all rule; for the oarsmen must
put out their eyes, and ram a skewer through their necks; usage
pronouncing that they must have no organs but ears, and no limbs but
arms, in these critical moments.

It was a sight full of quick wonder and awe! The vast swells of the
omnipotent sea; the surging, hollow roar they made, as they rolled
along the eight gunwales, like gigantic bowls in a boundless
bowling-green; the brief suspended agony of the boat, as it would tip
for an instant on the knife-like edge of the sharper waves, that almost
seemed threatening to cut it in two; the sudden profound dip into the
watery glens and hollows; the keen spurrings and goadings to gain the
top of the opposite hill; the headlong, sled-like slide down its other
side;—all these, with the cries of the headsmen and harpooneers, and
the shuddering gasps of the oarsmen, with the wondrous sight of the
ivory Pequod bearing down upon her boats with outstretched sails, like
a wild hen after her screaming brood;—all this was thrilling.

Not the raw recruit, marching from the bosom of his wife into the fever
heat of his first battle; not the dead man’s ghost encountering the
first unknown phantom in the other world;—neither of these can feel
stranger and stronger emotions than that man does, who for the first
time finds himself pulling into the charmed, churned circle of the
hunted sperm whale.

The dancing white water made by the chase was now becoming more and
more visible, owing to the increasing darkness of the dun cloud-shadows
flung upon the sea. The jets of vapor no longer blended, but tilted
everywhere to right and left; the whales seemed separating their wakes.
The boats were pulled more apart; Starbuck giving chase to three whales
running dead to leeward. Our sail was now set, and, with the still
rising wind, we rushed along; the boat going with such madness through
the water, that the lee oars could scarcely be worked rapidly enough to
escape being torn from the row-locks.

Soon we were running through a suffusing wide veil of mist; neither
ship nor boat to be seen.

“Give way, men,” whispered Starbuck, drawing still further aft the
sheet of his sail; “there is time to kill a fish yet before the squall
comes. There’s white water again!—close to! Spring!”

Soon after, two cries in quick succession on each side of us denoted
that the other boats had got fast; but hardly were they overheard, when
with a lightning-like hurtling whisper Starbuck said: “Stand up!” and
Queequeg, harpoon in hand, sprang to his feet.

Though not one of the oarsmen was then facing the life and death peril
so close to them ahead, yet with their eyes on the intense countenance
of the mate in the stern of the boat, they knew that the imminent
instant had come; they heard, too, an enormous wallowing sound as of
fifty elephants stirring in their litter. Meanwhile the boat was still
booming through the mist, the waves curling and hissing around us like
the erected crests of enraged serpents.

“That’s his hump. _There_, _there_, give it to him!” whispered
Starbuck.

A short rushing sound leaped out of the boat; it was the darted iron of
Queequeg. Then all in one welded commotion came an invisible push from
astern, while forward the boat seemed striking on a ledge; the sail
collapsed and exploded; a gush of scalding vapor shot up near by;
something rolled and tumbled like an earthquake beneath us. The whole
crew were half suffocated as they were tossed helter-skelter into the
white curdling cream of the squall. Squall, whale, and harpoon had all
blended together; and the whale, merely grazed by the iron, escaped.

Though completely swamped, the boat was nearly unharmed. Swimming round
it we picked up the floating oars, and lashing them across the gunwale,
tumbled back to our places. There we sat up to our knees in the sea,
the water covering every rib and plank, so that to our downward gazing
eyes the suspended craft seemed a coral boat grown up to us from the
bottom of the ocean.

The wind increased to a howl; the waves dashed their bucklers together;
the whole squall roared, forked, and crackled around us like a white
fire upon the prairie, in which, unconsumed, we were burning; immortal
in these jaws of death! In vain we hailed the other boats; as well roar
to the live coals down the chimney of a flaming furnace as hail those
boats in that storm. Meanwhile the driving scud, rack, and mist, grew
darker with the shadows of night; no sign of the ship could be seen.
The rising sea forbade all attempts to bale out the boat. The oars were
useless as propellers, performing now the office of life-preservers.
So, cutting the lashing of the waterproof match keg, after many
failures Starbuck contrived to ignite the lamp in the lantern; then
stretching it on a waif pole, handed it to Queequeg as the
standard-bearer of this forlorn hope. There, then, he sat, holding up
that imbecile candle in the heart of that almighty forlornness. There,
then, he sat, the sign and symbol of a man without faith, hopelessly
holding up hope in the midst of despair.

Wet, drenched through, and shivering cold, despairing of ship or boat,
we lifted up our eyes as the dawn came on. The mist still spread over
the sea, the empty lantern lay crushed in the bottom of the boat.
Suddenly Queequeg started to his feet, hollowing his hand to his ear.
We all heard a faint creaking, as of ropes and yards hitherto muffled
by the storm. The sound came nearer and nearer; the thick mists were
dimly parted by a huge, vague form. Affrighted, we all sprang into the
sea as the ship at last loomed into view, bearing right down upon us
within a distance of not much more than its length.

Floating on the waves we saw the abandoned boat, as for one instant it
tossed and gaped beneath the ship’s bows like a chip at the base of a
cataract; and then the vast hull rolled over it, and it was seen no
more till it came up weltering astern. Again we swam for it, were
dashed against it by the seas, and were at last taken up and safely
landed on board. Ere the squall came close to, the other boats had cut
loose from their fish and returned to the ship in good time. The ship
had given us up, but was still cruising, if haply it might light upon
some token of our perishing,—an oar or a lance pole.


CHAPTER 49. The Hyena.

There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed
affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast
practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more
than suspects that the joke is at nobody’s expense but his own.
However, nothing dispirits, and nothing seems worth while disputing. He
bolts down all events, all creeds, and beliefs, and persuasions, all
hard things visible and invisible, never mind how knobby; as an ostrich
of potent digestion gobbles down bullets and gun flints. And as for
small difficulties and worryings, prospects of sudden disaster, peril
of life and limb; all these, and death itself, seem to him only sly,
good-natured hits, and jolly punches in the side bestowed by the unseen
and unaccountable old joker. That odd sort of wayward mood I am
speaking of, comes over a man only in some time of extreme tribulation;
it comes in the very midst of his earnestness, so that what just before
might have seemed to him a thing most momentous, now seems but a part
of the general joke. There is nothing like the perils of whaling to
breed this free and easy sort of genial, desperado philosophy; and with
it I now regarded this whole voyage of the Pequod, and the great White
Whale its object.

“Queequeg,” said I, when they had dragged me, the last man, to the
deck, and I was still shaking myself in my jacket to fling off the
water; “Queequeg, my fine friend, does this sort of thing often
happen?” Without much emotion, though soaked through just like me, he
gave me to understand that such things did often happen.

“Mr. Stubb,” said I, turning to that worthy, who, buttoned up in his
oil-jacket, was now calmly smoking his pipe in the rain; “Mr. Stubb, I
think I have heard you say that of all whalemen you ever met, our chief
mate, Mr. Starbuck, is by far the most careful and prudent. I suppose
then, that going plump on a flying whale with your sail set in a foggy
squall is the height of a whaleman’s discretion?”

“Certain. I’ve lowered for whales from a leaking ship in a gale off
Cape Horn.”

“Mr. Flask,” said I, turning to little King-Post, who was standing
close by; “you are experienced in these things, and I am not. Will you
tell me whether it is an unalterable law in this fishery, Mr. Flask,
for an oarsman to break his own back pulling himself back-foremost into
death’s jaws?”

“Can’t you twist that smaller?” said Flask. “Yes, that’s the law. I
should like to see a boat’s crew backing water up to a whale face
foremost. Ha, ha! the whale would give them squint for squint, mind
that!”

Here then, from three impartial witnesses, I had a deliberate statement
of the entire case. Considering, therefore, that squalls and capsizings
in the water and consequent bivouacks on the deep, were matters of
common occurrence in this kind of life; considering that at the
superlatively critical instant of going on to the whale I must resign
my life into the hands of him who steered the boat—oftentimes a fellow
who at that very moment is in his impetuousness upon the point of
scuttling the craft with his own frantic stampings; considering that
the particular disaster to our own particular boat was chiefly to be
imputed to Starbuck’s driving on to his whale almost in the teeth of a
squall, and considering that Starbuck, notwithstanding, was famous for
his great heedfulness in the fishery; considering that I belonged to
this uncommonly prudent Starbuck’s boat; and finally considering in
what a devil’s chase I was implicated, touching the White Whale: taking
all things together, I say, I thought I might as well go below and make
a rough draft of my will. “Queequeg,” said I, “come along, you shall be
my lawyer, executor, and legatee.”

It may seem strange that of all men sailors should be tinkering at
their last wills and testaments, but there are no people in the world
more fond of that diversion. This was the fourth time in my nautical
life that I had done the same thing. After the ceremony was concluded
upon the present occasion, I felt all the easier; a stone was rolled
away from my heart. Besides, all the days I should now live would be as
good as the days that Lazarus lived after his resurrection; a
supplementary clean gain of so many months or weeks as the case might
be. I survived myself; my death and burial were locked up in my chest.
I looked round me tranquilly and contentedly, like a quiet ghost with a
clean conscience sitting inside the bars of a snug family vault.

Now then, thought I, unconsciously rolling up the sleeves of my frock,
here goes for a cool, collected dive at death and destruction, and the
devil fetch the hindmost.


CHAPTER 50. Ahab’s Boat and Crew. Fedallah.

“Who would have thought it, Flask!” cried Stubb; “if I had but one leg
you would not catch me in a boat, unless maybe to stop the plug-hole
with my timber toe. Oh! he’s a wonderful old man!”

“I don’t think it so strange, after all, on that account,” said Flask.
“If his leg were off at the hip, now, it would be a different thing.
That would disable him; but he has one knee, and good part of the other
left, you know.”

“I don’t know that, my little man; I never yet saw him kneel.”

Among whale-wise people it has often been argued whether, considering
the paramount importance of his life to the success of the voyage, it
is right for a whaling captain to jeopardize that life in the active
perils of the chase. So Tamerlane’s soldiers often argued with tears in
their eyes, whether that invaluable life of his ought to be carried
into the thickest of the fight.

But with Ahab the question assumed a modified aspect. Considering that
with two legs man is but a hobbling wight in all times of danger;
considering that the pursuit of whales is always under great and
extraordinary difficulties; that every individual moment, indeed, then
comprises a peril; under these circumstances is it wise for any maimed
man to enter a whale-boat in the hunt? As a general thing, the
joint-owners of the Pequod must have plainly thought not.

Ahab well knew that although his friends at home would think little of
his entering a boat in certain comparatively harmless vicissitudes of
the chase, for the sake of being near the scene of action and giving
his orders in person, yet for Captain Ahab to have a boat actually
apportioned to him as a regular headsman in the hunt—above all for
Captain Ahab to be supplied with five extra men, as that same boat’s
crew, he well knew that such generous conceits never entered the heads
of the owners of the Pequod. Therefore he had not solicited a boat’s
crew from them, nor had he in any way hinted his desires on that head.
Nevertheless he had taken private measures of his own touching all that
matter. Until Cabaco’s published discovery, the sailors had little
foreseen it, though to be sure when, after being a little while out of
port, all hands had concluded the customary business of fitting the
whaleboats for service; when some time after this Ahab was now and then
found bestirring himself in the matter of making thole-pins with his
own hands for what was thought to be one of the spare boats, and even
solicitously cutting the small wooden skewers, which when the line is
running out are pinned over the groove in the bow: when all this was
observed in him, and particularly his solicitude in having an extra
coat of sheathing in the bottom of the boat, as if to make it better
withstand the pointed pressure of his ivory limb; and also the anxiety
he evinced in exactly shaping the thigh board, or clumsy cleat, as it
is sometimes called, the horizontal piece in the boat’s bow for bracing
the knee against in darting or stabbing at the whale; when it was
observed how often he stood up in that boat with his solitary knee
fixed in the semi-circular depression in the cleat, and with the
carpenter’s chisel gouged out a little here and straightened it a
little there; all these things, I say, had awakened much interest and
curiosity at the time. But almost everybody supposed that this
particular preparative heedfulness in Ahab must only be with a view to
the ultimate chase of Moby Dick; for he had already revealed his
intention to hunt that mortal monster in person. But such a supposition
did by no means involve the remotest suspicion as to any boat’s crew
being assigned to that boat.

Now, with the subordinate phantoms, what wonder remained soon waned
away; for in a whaler wonders soon wane. Besides, now and then such
unaccountable odds and ends of strange nations come up from the unknown
nooks and ash-holes of the earth to man these floating outlaws of
whalers; and the ships themselves often pick up such queer castaway
creatures found tossing about the open sea on planks, bits of wreck,
oars, whaleboats, canoes, blown-off Japanese junks, and what not; that
Beelzebub himself might climb up the side and step down into the cabin
to chat with the captain, and it would not create any unsubduable
excitement in the forecastle.

But be all this as it may, certain it is that while the subordinate
phantoms soon found their place among the crew, though still as it were
somehow distinct from them, yet that hair-turbaned Fedallah remained a
muffled mystery to the last. Whence he came in a mannerly world like
this, by what sort of unaccountable tie he soon evinced himself to be
linked with Ahab’s peculiar fortunes; nay, so far as to have some sort
of a half-hinted influence; Heaven knows, but it might have been even
authority over him; all this none knew. But one cannot sustain an
indifferent air concerning Fedallah. He was such a creature as
civilized, domestic people in the temperate zone only see in their
dreams, and that but dimly; but the like of whom now and then glide
among the unchanging Asiatic communities, especially the Oriental isles
to the east of the continent—those insulated, immemorial, unalterable
countries, which even in these modern days still preserve much of the
ghostly aboriginalness of earth’s primal generations, when the memory
of the first man was a distinct recollection, and all men his
descendants, unknowing whence he came, eyed each other as real
phantoms, and asked of the sun and the moon why they were created and
to what end; when though, according to Genesis, the angels indeed
consorted with the daughters of men, the devils also, add the
uncanonical Rabbins, indulged in mundane amours.


CHAPTER 51. The Spirit-Spout.

Days, weeks passed, and under easy sail, the ivory Pequod had slowly
swept across four several cruising-grounds; that off the Azores; off
the Cape de Verdes; on the Plate (so called), being off the mouth of
the Rio de la Plata; and the Carrol Ground, an unstaked, watery
locality, southerly from St. Helena.

It was while gliding through these latter waters that one serene and
moonlight night, when all the waves rolled by like scrolls of silver;
and, by their soft, suffusing seethings, made what seemed a silvery
silence, not a solitude; on such a silent night a silvery jet was seen
far in advance of the white bubbles at the bow. Lit up by the moon, it
looked celestial; seemed some plumed and glittering god uprising from
the sea. Fedallah first descried this jet. For of these moonlight
nights, it was his wont to mount to the main-mast head, and stand a
look-out there, with the same precision as if it had been day. And yet,
though herds of whales were seen by night, not one whaleman in a
hundred would venture a lowering for them. You may think with what
emotions, then, the seamen beheld this old Oriental perched aloft at
such unusual hours; his turban and the moon, companions in one sky. But
when, after spending his uniform interval there for several successive
nights without uttering a single sound; when, after all this silence,
his unearthly voice was heard announcing that silvery, moon-lit jet,
every reclining mariner started to his feet as if some winged spirit
had lighted in the rigging, and hailed the mortal crew. “There she
blows!” Had the trump of judgment blown, they could not have quivered
more; yet still they felt no terror; rather pleasure. For though it was
a most unwonted hour, yet so impressive was the cry, and so deliriously
exciting, that almost every soul on board instinctively desired a
lowering.

Walking the deck with quick, side-lunging strides, Ahab commanded the
t’gallant sails and royals to be set, and every stunsail spread. The
best man in the ship must take the helm. Then, with every mast-head
manned, the piled-up craft rolled down before the wind. The strange,
upheaving, lifting tendency of the taffrail breeze filling the hollows
of so many sails, made the buoyant, hovering deck to feel like air
beneath the feet; while still she rushed along, as if two antagonistic
influences were struggling in her—one to mount direct to heaven, the
other to drive yawingly to some horizontal goal. And had you watched
Ahab’s face that night, you would have thought that in him also two
different things were warring. While his one live leg made lively
echoes along the deck, every stroke of his dead limb sounded like a
coffin-tap. On life and death this old man walked. But though the ship
so swiftly sped, and though from every eye, like arrows, the eager
glances shot, yet the silvery jet was no more seen that night. Every
sailor swore he saw it once, but not a second time.

This midnight-spout had almost grown a forgotten thing, when, some days
after, lo! at the same silent hour, it was again announced: again it
was descried by all; but upon making sail to overtake it, once more it
disappeared as if it had never been. And so it served us night after
night, till no one heeded it but to wonder at it. Mysteriously jetted
into the clear moonlight, or starlight, as the case might be;
disappearing again for one whole day, or two days, or three; and
somehow seeming at every distinct repetition to be advancing still
further and further in our van, this solitary jet seemed for ever
alluring us on.

Nor with the immemorial superstition of their race, and in accordance
with the preternaturalness, as it seemed, which in many things invested
the Pequod, were there wanting some of the seamen who swore that
whenever and wherever descried; at however remote times, or in however
far apart latitudes and longitudes, that unnearable spout was cast by
one self-same whale; and that whale, Moby Dick. For a time, there
reigned, too, a sense of peculiar dread at this flitting apparition, as
if it were treacherously beckoning us on and on, in order that the
monster might turn round upon us, and rend us at last in the remotest
and most savage seas.

These temporary apprehensions, so vague but so awful, derived a
wondrous potency from the contrasting serenity of the weather, in
which, beneath all its blue blandness, some thought there lurked a
devilish charm, as for days and days we voyaged along, through seas so
wearily, lonesomely mild, that all space, in repugnance to our vengeful
errand, seemed vacating itself of life before our urn-like prow.

But, at last, when turning to the eastward, the Cape winds began
howling around us, and we rose and fell upon the long, troubled seas
that are there; when the ivory-tusked Pequod sharply bowed to the
blast, and gored the dark waves in her madness, till, like showers of
silver chips, the foam-flakes flew over her bulwarks; then all this
desolate vacuity of life went away, but gave place to sights more
dismal than before.

Close to our bows, strange forms in the water darted hither and thither
before us; while thick in our rear flew the inscrutable sea-ravens. And
every morning, perched on our stays, rows of these birds were seen; and
spite of our hootings, for a long time obstinately clung to the hemp,
as though they deemed our ship some drifting, uninhabited craft; a
thing appointed to desolation, and therefore fit roosting-place for
their homeless selves. And heaved and heaved, still unrestingly heaved
the black sea, as if its vast tides were a conscience; and the great
mundane soul were in anguish and remorse for the long sin and suffering
it had bred.

Cape of Good Hope, do they call ye? Rather Cape Tormentoso, as called
of yore; for long allured by the perfidious silences that before had
attended us, we found ourselves launched into this tormented sea, where
guilty beings transformed into those fowls and these fish, seemed
condemned to swim on everlastingly without any haven in store, or beat
that black air without any horizon. But calm, snow-white, and
unvarying; still directing its fountain of feathers to the sky; still
beckoning us on from before, the solitary jet would at times be
descried.

During all this blackness of the elements, Ahab, though assuming for
the time the almost continual command of the drenched and dangerous
deck, manifested the gloomiest reserve; and more seldom than ever
addressed his mates. In tempestuous times like these, after everything
above and aloft has been secured, nothing more can be done but
passively to await the issue of the gale. Then Captain and crew become
practical fatalists. So, with his ivory leg inserted into its
accustomed hole, and with one hand firmly grasping a shroud, Ahab for
hours and hours would stand gazing dead to windward, while an
occasional squall of sleet or snow would all but congeal his very
eyelashes together. Meantime, the crew driven from the forward part of
the ship by the perilous seas that burstingly broke over its bows,
stood in a line along the bulwarks in the waist; and the better to
guard against the leaping waves, each man had slipped himself into a
sort of bowline secured to the rail, in which he swung as in a loosened
belt. Few or no words were spoken; and the silent ship, as if manned by
painted sailors in wax, day after day tore on through all the swift
madness and gladness of the demoniac waves. By night the same muteness
of humanity before the shrieks of the ocean prevailed; still in silence
the men swung in the bowlines; still wordless Ahab stood up to the
blast. Even when wearied nature seemed demanding repose he would not
seek that repose in his hammock. Never could Starbuck forget the old
man’s aspect, when one night going down into the cabin to mark how the
barometer stood, he saw him with closed eyes sitting straight in his
floor-screwed chair; the rain and half-melted sleet of the storm from
which he had some time before emerged, still slowly dripping from the
unremoved hat and coat. On the table beside him lay unrolled one of
those charts of tides and currents which have previously been spoken
of. His lantern swung from his tightly clenched hand. Though the body
was erect, the head was thrown back so that the closed eyes were
pointed towards the needle of the tell-tale that swung from a beam in
the ceiling.*

*The cabin-compass is called the tell-tale, because without going to
the compass at the helm, the Captain, while below, can inform himself
of the course of the ship.

Terrible old man! thought Starbuck with a shudder, sleeping in this
gale, still thou steadfastly eyest thy purpose.


CHAPTER 52. The Albatross.

South-eastward from the Cape, off the distant Crozetts, a good cruising
ground for Right Whalemen, a sail loomed ahead, the Goney (Albatross)
by name. As she slowly drew nigh, from my lofty perch at the
fore-mast-head, I had a good view of that sight so remarkable to a tyro
in the far ocean fisheries—a whaler at sea, and long absent from home.

As if the waves had been fullers, this craft was bleached like the
skeleton of a stranded walrus. All down her sides, this spectral
appearance was traced with long channels of reddened rust, while all
her spars and her rigging were like the thick branches of trees furred
over with hoar-frost. Only her lower sails were set. A wild sight it
was to see her long-bearded look-outs at those three mast-heads. They
seemed clad in the skins of beasts, so torn and bepatched the raiment
that had survived nearly four years of cruising. Standing in iron hoops
nailed to the mast, they swayed and swung over a fathomless sea; and
though, when the ship slowly glided close under our stern, we six men
in the air came so nigh to each other that we might almost have leaped
from the mast-heads of one ship to those of the other; yet, those
forlorn-looking fishermen, mildly eyeing us as they passed, said not
one word to our own look-outs, while the quarter-deck hail was being
heard from below.

“Ship ahoy! Have ye seen the White Whale?”

But as the strange captain, leaning over the pallid bulwarks, was in
the act of putting his trumpet to his mouth, it somehow fell from his
hand into the sea; and the wind now rising amain, he in vain strove to
make himself heard without it. Meantime his ship was still increasing
the distance between. While in various silent ways the seamen of the
Pequod were evincing their observance of this ominous incident at the
first mere mention of the White Whale’s name to another ship, Ahab for
a moment paused; it almost seemed as though he would have lowered a
boat to board the stranger, had not the threatening wind forbade. But
taking advantage of his windward position, he again seized his trumpet,
and knowing by her aspect that the stranger vessel was a Nantucketer
and shortly bound home, he loudly hailed—“Ahoy there! This is the
Pequod, bound round the world! Tell them to address all future letters
to the Pacific ocean! and this time three years, if I am not at home,
tell them to address them to ——”

At that moment the two wakes were fairly crossed, and instantly, then,
in accordance with their singular ways, shoals of small harmless fish,
that for some days before had been placidly swimming by our side,
darted away with what seemed shuddering fins, and ranged themselves
fore and aft with the stranger’s flanks. Though in the course of his
continual voyagings Ahab must often before have noticed a similar
sight, yet, to any monomaniac man, the veriest trifles capriciously
carry meanings.

“Swim away from me, do ye?” murmured Ahab, gazing over into the water.
There seemed but little in the words, but the tone conveyed more of
deep helpless sadness than the insane old man had ever before evinced.
But turning to the steersman, who thus far had been holding the ship in
the wind to diminish her headway, he cried out in his old lion
voice,—“Up helm! Keep her off round the world!”

Round the world! There is much in that sound to inspire proud feelings;
but whereto does all that circumnavigation conduct? Only through
numberless perils to the very point whence we started, where those that
we left behind secure, were all the time before us.

Were this world an endless plain, and by sailing eastward we could for
ever reach new distances, and discover sights more sweet and strange
than any Cyclades or Islands of King Solomon, then there were promise
in the voyage. But in pursuit of those far mysteries we dream of, or in
tormented chase of that demon phantom that, some time or other, swims
before all human hearts; while chasing such over this round globe, they
either lead us on in barren mazes or midway leave us whelmed.


CHAPTER 53. The Gam.

The ostensible reason why Ahab did not go on board of the whaler we had
spoken was this: the wind and sea betokened storms. But even had this
not been the case, he would not after all, perhaps, have boarded
her—judging by his subsequent conduct on similar occasions—if so it had
been that, by the process of hailing, he had obtained a negative answer
to the question he put. For, as it eventually turned out, he cared not
to consort, even for five minutes, with any stranger captain, except he
could contribute some of that information he so absorbingly sought. But
all this might remain inadequately estimated, were not something said
here of the peculiar usages of whaling-vessels when meeting each other
in foreign seas, and especially on a common cruising-ground.

If two strangers crossing the Pine Barrens in New York State, or the
equally desolate Salisbury Plain in England; if casually encountering
each other in such inhospitable wilds, these twain, for the life of
them, cannot well avoid a mutual salutation; and stopping for a moment
to interchange the news; and, perhaps, sitting down for a while and
resting in concert: then, how much more natural that upon the
illimitable Pine Barrens and Salisbury Plains of the sea, two whaling
vessels descrying each other at the ends of the earth—off lone
Fanning’s Island, or the far away King’s Mills; how much more natural,
I say, that under such circumstances these ships should not only
interchange hails, but come into still closer, more friendly and
sociable contact. And especially would this seem to be a matter of
course, in the case of vessels owned in one seaport, and whose
captains, officers, and not a few of the men are personally known to
each other; and consequently, have all sorts of dear domestic things to
talk about.

For the long absent ship, the outward-bounder, perhaps, has letters on
board; at any rate, she will be sure to let her have some papers of a
date a year or two later than the last one on her blurred and
thumb-worn files. And in return for that courtesy, the outward-bound
ship would receive the latest whaling intelligence from the
cruising-ground to which she may be destined, a thing of the utmost
importance to her. And in degree, all this will hold true concerning
whaling vessels crossing each other’s track on the cruising-ground
itself, even though they are equally long absent from home. For one of
them may have received a transfer of letters from some third, and now
far remote vessel; and some of those letters may be for the people of
the ship she now meets. Besides, they would exchange the whaling news,
and have an agreeable chat. For not only would they meet with all the
sympathies of sailors, but likewise with all the peculiar
congenialities arising from a common pursuit and mutually shared
privations and perils.

Nor would difference of country make any very essential difference;
that is, so long as both parties speak one language, as is the case
with Americans and English. Though, to be sure, from the small number
of English whalers, such meetings do not very often occur, and when
they do occur there is too apt to be a sort of shyness between them;
for your Englishman is rather reserved, and your Yankee, he does not
fancy that sort of thing in anybody but himself. Besides, the English
whalers sometimes affect a kind of metropolitan superiority over the
American whalers; regarding the long, lean Nantucketer, with his
nondescript provincialisms, as a sort of sea-peasant. But where this
superiority in the English whalemen does really consist, it would be
hard to say, seeing that the Yankees in one day, collectively, kill
more whales than all the English, collectively, in ten years. But this
is a harmless little foible in the English whale-hunters, which the
Nantucketer does not take much to heart; probably, because he knows
that he has a few foibles himself.

So, then, we see that of all ships separately sailing the sea, the
whalers have most reason to be sociable—and they are so. Whereas, some
merchant ships crossing each other’s wake in the mid-Atlantic, will
oftentimes pass on without so much as a single word of recognition,
mutually cutting each other on the high seas, like a brace of dandies
in Broadway; and all the time indulging, perhaps, in finical criticism
upon each other’s rig. As for Men-of-War, when they chance to meet at
sea, they first go through such a string of silly bowings and
scrapings, such a ducking of ensigns, that there does not seem to be
much right-down hearty good-will and brotherly love about it at all. As
touching Slave-ships meeting, why, they are in such a prodigious hurry,
they run away from each other as soon as possible. And as for Pirates,
when they chance to cross each other’s cross-bones, the first hail
is—“How many skulls?”—the same way that whalers hail—“How many
barrels?” And that question once answered, pirates straightway steer
apart, for they are infernal villains on both sides, and don’t like to
see overmuch of each other’s villanous likenesses.

But look at the godly, honest, unostentatious, hospitable, sociable,
free-and-easy whaler! What does the whaler do when she meets another
whaler in any sort of decent weather? She has a “_Gam_,” a thing so
utterly unknown to all other ships that they never heard of the name
even; and if by chance they should hear of it, they only grin at it,
and repeat gamesome stuff about “spouters” and “blubber-boilers,” and
such like pretty exclamations. Why it is that all Merchant-seamen, and
also all Pirates and Man-of-War’s men, and Slave-ship sailors, cherish
such a scornful feeling towards Whale-ships; this is a question it
would be hard to answer. Because, in the case of pirates, say, I should
like to know whether that profession of theirs has any peculiar glory
about it. It sometimes ends in uncommon elevation, indeed; but only at
the gallows. And besides, when a man is elevated in that odd fashion,
he has no proper foundation for his superior altitude. Hence, I
conclude, that in boasting himself to be high lifted above a whaleman,
in that assertion the pirate has no solid basis to stand on.

But what is a _Gam?_ You might wear out your index-finger running up
and down the columns of dictionaries, and never find the word. Dr.
Johnson never attained to that erudition; Noah Webster’s ark does not
hold it. Nevertheless, this same expressive word has now for many years
been in constant use among some fifteen thousand true born Yankees.
Certainly, it needs a definition, and should be incorporated into the
Lexicon. With that view, let me learnedly define it.

GAM. NOUN—_A social meeting of two_ (_or more_) _Whaleships, generally
on a cruising-ground; when, after exchanging hails, they exchange
visits by boats’ crews: the two captains remaining, for the time, on
board of one ship, and the two chief mates on the other._

There is another little item about Gamming which must not be forgotten
here. All professions have their own little peculiarities of detail; so
has the whale fishery. In a pirate, man-of-war, or slave ship, when the
captain is rowed anywhere in his boat, he always sits in the stern
sheets on a comfortable, sometimes cushioned seat there, and often
steers himself with a pretty little milliner’s tiller decorated with
gay cords and ribbons. But the whale-boat has no seat astern, no sofa
of that sort whatever, and no tiller at all. High times indeed, if
whaling captains were wheeled about the water on castors like gouty old
aldermen in patent chairs. And as for a tiller, the whale-boat never
admits of any such effeminacy; and therefore as in gamming a complete
boat’s crew must leave the ship, and hence as the boat steerer or
harpooneer is of the number, that subordinate is the steersman upon the
occasion, and the captain, having no place to sit in, is pulled off to
his visit all standing like a pine tree. And often you will notice that
being conscious of the eyes of the whole visible world resting on him
from the sides of the two ships, this standing captain is all alive to
the importance of sustaining his dignity by maintaining his legs. Nor
is this any very easy matter; for in his rear is the immense projecting
steering oar hitting him now and then in the small of his back, the
after-oar reciprocating by rapping his knees in front. He is thus
completely wedged before and behind, and can only expand himself
sideways by settling down on his stretched legs; but a sudden, violent
pitch of the boat will often go far to topple him, because length of
foundation is nothing without corresponding breadth. Merely make a
spread angle of two poles, and you cannot stand them up. Then, again,
it would never do in plain sight of the world’s riveted eyes, it would
never do, I say, for this straddling captain to be seen steadying
himself the slightest particle by catching hold of anything with his
hands; indeed, as token of his entire, buoyant self-command, he
generally carries his hands in his trowsers’ pockets; but perhaps being
generally very large, heavy hands, he carries them there for ballast.
Nevertheless there have occurred instances, well authenticated ones
too, where the captain has been known for an uncommonly critical moment
or two, in a sudden squall say—to seize hold of the nearest oarsman’s
hair, and hold on there like grim death.


CHAPTER 54. The Town-Ho’s Story.

(_As told at the Golden Inn._)

The Cape of Good Hope, and all the watery region round about there, is
much like some noted four corners of a great highway, where you meet
more travellers than in any other part.

It was not very long after speaking the Goney that another
homeward-bound whaleman, the Town-Ho,* was encountered. She was manned
almost wholly by Polynesians. In the short gam that ensued she gave us
strong news of Moby Dick. To some the general interest in the White
Whale was now wildly heightened by a circumstance of the Town-Ho’s
story, which seemed obscurely to involve with the whale a certain
wondrous, inverted visitation of one of those so called judgments of
God which at times are said to overtake some men. This latter
circumstance, with its own particular accompaniments, forming what may
be called the secret part of the tragedy about to be narrated, never
reached the ears of Captain Ahab or his mates. For that secret part of
the story was unknown to the captain of the Town-Ho himself. It was the
private property of three confederate white seamen of that ship, one of
whom, it seems, communicated it to Tashtego with Romish injunctions of
secrecy, but the following night Tashtego rambled in his sleep, and
revealed so much of it in that way, that when he was wakened he could
not well withhold the rest. Nevertheless, so potent an influence did
this thing have on those seamen in the Pequod who came to the full
knowledge of it, and by such a strange delicacy, to call it so, were
they governed in this matter, that they kept the secret among
themselves so that it never transpired abaft the Pequod’s main-mast.
Interweaving in its proper place this darker thread with the story as
publicly narrated on the ship, the whole of this strange affair I now
proceed to put on lasting record.

*The ancient whale-cry upon first sighting a whale from the mast-head,
still used by whalemen in hunting the famous Gallipagos terrapin.

For my humor’s sake, I shall preserve the style in which I once
narrated it at Lima, to a lounging circle of my Spanish friends, one
saint’s eve, smoking upon the thick-gilt tiled piazza of the Golden
Inn. Of those fine cavaliers, the young Dons, Pedro and Sebastian, were
on the closer terms with me; and hence the interluding questions they
occasionally put, and which are duly answered at the time.

“Some two years prior to my first learning the events which I am about
rehearsing to you, gentlemen, the Town-Ho, Sperm Whaler of Nantucket,
was cruising in your Pacific here, not very many days’ sail eastward
from the eaves of this good Golden Inn. She was somewhere to the
northward of the Line. One morning upon handling the pumps, according
to daily usage, it was observed that she made more water in her hold
than common. They supposed a sword-fish had stabbed her, gentlemen. But
the captain, having some unusual reason for believing that rare good
luck awaited him in those latitudes; and therefore being very averse to
quit them, and the leak not being then considered at all dangerous,
though, indeed, they could not find it after searching the hold as low
down as was possible in rather heavy weather, the ship still continued
her cruisings, the mariners working at the pumps at wide and easy
intervals; but no good luck came; more days went by, and not only was
the leak yet undiscovered, but it sensibly increased. So much so, that
now taking some alarm, the captain, making all sail, stood away for the
nearest harbor among the islands, there to have his hull hove out and
repaired.

“Though no small passage was before her, yet, if the commonest chance
favoured, he did not at all fear that his ship would founder by the
way, because his pumps were of the best, and being periodically
relieved at them, those six-and-thirty men of his could easily keep the
ship free; never mind if the leak should double on her. In truth, well
nigh the whole of this passage being attended by very prosperous
breezes, the Town-Ho had all but certainly arrived in perfect safety at
her port without the occurrence of the least fatality, had it not been
for the brutal overbearing of Radney, the mate, a Vineyarder, and the
bitterly provoked vengeance of Steelkilt, a Lakeman and desperado from
Buffalo.

“‘Lakeman!—Buffalo! Pray, what is a Lakeman, and where is Buffalo?’
said Don Sebastian, rising in his swinging mat of grass.

“On the eastern shore of our Lake Erie, Don; but—I crave your
courtesy—may be, you shall soon hear further of all that. Now,
gentlemen, in square-sail brigs and three-masted ships, well-nigh as
large and stout as any that ever sailed out of your old Callao to far
Manilla; this Lakeman, in the land-locked heart of our America, had yet
been nurtured by all those agrarian freebooting impressions popularly
connected with the open ocean. For in their interflowing aggregate,
those grand fresh-water seas of ours,—Erie, and Ontario, and Huron, and
Superior, and Michigan,—possess an ocean-like expansiveness, with many
of the ocean’s noblest traits; with many of its rimmed varieties of
races and of climes. They contain round archipelagoes of romantic
isles, even as the Polynesian waters do; in large part, are shored by
two great contrasting nations, as the Atlantic is; they furnish long
maritime approaches to our numerous territorial colonies from the East,
dotted all round their banks; here and there are frowned upon by
batteries, and by the goat-like craggy guns of lofty Mackinaw; they
have heard the fleet thunderings of naval victories; at intervals, they
yield their beaches to wild barbarians, whose red painted faces flash
from out their peltry wigwams; for leagues and leagues are flanked by
ancient and unentered forests, where the gaunt pines stand like serried
lines of kings in Gothic genealogies; those same woods harboring wild
Afric beasts of prey, and silken creatures whose exported furs give
robes to Tartar Emperors; they mirror the paved capitals of Buffalo and
Cleveland, as well as Winnebago villages; they float alike the
full-rigged merchant ship, the armed cruiser of the State, the steamer,
and the beech canoe; they are swept by Borean and dismasting blasts as
direful as any that lash the salted wave; they know what shipwrecks
are, for out of sight of land, however inland, they have drowned full
many a midnight ship with all its shrieking crew. Thus, gentlemen,
though an inlander, Steelkilt was wild-ocean born, and wild-ocean
nurtured; as much of an audacious mariner as any. And for Radney,
though in his infancy he may have laid him down on the lone Nantucket
beach, to nurse at his maternal sea; though in after life he had long
followed our austere Atlantic and your contemplative Pacific; yet was
he quite as vengeful and full of social quarrel as the backwoods
seaman, fresh from the latitudes of buck-horn handled Bowie-knives. Yet
was this Nantucketer a man with some good-hearted traits; and this
Lakeman, a mariner, who though a sort of devil indeed, might yet by
inflexible firmness, only tempered by that common decency of human
recognition which is the meanest slave’s right; thus treated, this
Steelkilt had long been retained harmless and docile. At all events, he
had proved so thus far; but Radney was doomed and made mad, and
Steelkilt—but, gentlemen, you shall hear.

“It was not more than a day or two at the furthest after pointing her
prow for her island haven, that the Town-Ho’s leak seemed again
increasing, but only so as to require an hour or more at the pumps
every day. You must know that in a settled and civilized ocean like our
Atlantic, for example, some skippers think little of pumping their
whole way across it; though of a still, sleepy night, should the
officer of the deck happen to forget his duty in that respect, the
probability would be that he and his shipmates would never again
remember it, on account of all hands gently subsiding to the bottom.
Nor in the solitary and savage seas far from you to the westward,
gentlemen, is it altogether unusual for ships to keep clanging at their
pump-handles in full chorus even for a voyage of considerable length;
that is, if it lie along a tolerably accessible coast, or if any other
reasonable retreat is afforded them. It is only when a leaky vessel is
in some very out of the way part of those waters, some really landless
latitude, that her captain begins to feel a little anxious.

“Much this way had it been with the Town-Ho; so when her leak was found
gaining once more, there was in truth some small concern manifested by
several of her company; especially by Radney the mate. He commanded the
upper sails to be well hoisted, sheeted home anew, and every way
expanded to the breeze. Now this Radney, I suppose, was as little of a
coward, and as little inclined to any sort of nervous apprehensiveness
touching his own person as any fearless, unthinking creature on land or
on sea that you can conveniently imagine, gentlemen. Therefore when he
betrayed this solicitude about the safety of the ship, some of the
seamen declared that it was only on account of his being a part owner
in her. So when they were working that evening at the pumps, there was
on this head no small gamesomeness slily going on among them, as they
stood with their feet continually overflowed by the rippling clear
water; clear as any mountain spring, gentlemen—that bubbling from the
pumps ran across the deck, and poured itself out in steady spouts at
the lee scupper-holes.

“Now, as you well know, it is not seldom the case in this conventional
world of ours—watery or otherwise; that when a person placed in command
over his fellow-men finds one of them to be very significantly his
superior in general pride of manhood, straightway against that man he
conceives an unconquerable dislike and bitterness; and if he have a
chance he will pull down and pulverize that subaltern’s tower, and make
a little heap of dust of it. Be this conceit of mine as it may,
gentlemen, at all events Steelkilt was a tall and noble animal with a
head like a Roman, and a flowing golden beard like the tasseled
housings of your last viceroy’s snorting charger; and a brain, and a
heart, and a soul in him, gentlemen, which had made Steelkilt
Charlemagne, had he been born son to Charlemagne’s father. But Radney,
the mate, was ugly as a mule; yet as hardy, as stubborn, as malicious.
He did not love Steelkilt, and Steelkilt knew it.

“Espying the mate drawing near as he was toiling at the pump with the
rest, the Lakeman affected not to notice him, but unawed, went on with
his gay banterings.

“‘Aye, aye, my merry lads, it’s a lively leak this; hold a cannikin,
one of ye, and let’s have a taste. By the Lord, it’s worth bottling! I
tell ye what, men, old Rad’s investment must go for it! he had best cut
away his part of the hull and tow it home. The fact is, boys, that
sword-fish only began the job; he’s come back again with a gang of
ship-carpenters, saw-fish, and file-fish, and what not; and the whole
posse of ’em are now hard at work cutting and slashing at the bottom;
making improvements, I suppose. If old Rad were here now, I’d tell him
to jump overboard and scatter ’em. They’re playing the devil with his
estate, I can tell him. But he’s a simple old soul,—Rad, and a beauty
too. Boys, they say the rest of his property is invested in
looking-glasses. I wonder if he’d give a poor devil like me the model
of his nose.’

“‘Damn your eyes! what’s that pump stopping for?’ roared Radney,
pretending not to have heard the sailors’ talk. ‘Thunder away at it!’

“‘Aye, aye, sir,’ said Steelkilt, merry as a cricket. ‘Lively, boys,
lively, now!’ And with that the pump clanged like fifty fire-engines;
the men tossed their hats off to it, and ere long that peculiar gasping
of the lungs was heard which denotes the fullest tension of life’s
utmost energies.

“Quitting the pump at last, with the rest of his band, the Lakeman went
forward all panting, and sat himself down on the windlass; his face
fiery red, his eyes bloodshot, and wiping the profuse sweat from his
brow. Now what cozening fiend it was, gentlemen, that possessed Radney
to meddle with such a man in that corporeally exasperated state, I know
not; but so it happened. Intolerably striding along the deck, the mate
commanded him to get a broom and sweep down the planks, and also a
shovel, and remove some offensive matters consequent upon allowing a
pig to run at large.

“Now, gentlemen, sweeping a ship’s deck at sea is a piece of household
work which in all times but raging gales is regularly attended to every
evening; it has been known to be done in the case of ships actually
foundering at the time. Such, gentlemen, is the inflexibility of
sea-usages and the instinctive love of neatness in seamen; some of whom
would not willingly drown without first washing their faces. But in all
vessels this broom business is the prescriptive province of the boys,
if boys there be aboard. Besides, it was the stronger men in the
Town-Ho that had been divided into gangs, taking turns at the pumps;
and being the most athletic seaman of them all, Steelkilt had been
regularly assigned captain of one of the gangs; consequently he should
have been freed from any trivial business not connected with truly
nautical duties, such being the case with his comrades. I mention all
these particulars so that you may understand exactly how this affair
stood between the two men.

“But there was more than this: the order about the shovel was almost as
plainly meant to sting and insult Steelkilt, as though Radney had spat
in his face. Any man who has gone sailor in a whale-ship will
understand this; and all this and doubtless much more, the Lakeman
fully comprehended when the mate uttered his command. But as he sat
still for a moment, and as he steadfastly looked into the mate’s
malignant eye and perceived the stacks of powder-casks heaped up in him
and the slow-match silently burning along towards them; as he
instinctively saw all this, that strange forbearance and unwillingness
to stir up the deeper passionateness in any already ireful being—a
repugnance most felt, when felt at all, by really valiant men even when
aggrieved—this nameless phantom feeling, gentlemen, stole over
Steelkilt.

“Therefore, in his ordinary tone, only a little broken by the bodily
exhaustion he was temporarily in, he answered him saying that sweeping
the deck was not his business, and he would not do it. And then,
without at all alluding to the shovel, he pointed to three lads as the
customary sweepers; who, not being billeted at the pumps, had done
little or nothing all day. To this, Radney replied with an oath, in a
most domineering and outrageous manner unconditionally reiterating his
command; meanwhile advancing upon the still seated Lakeman, with an
uplifted cooper’s club hammer which he had snatched from a cask near
by.

“Heated and irritated as he was by his spasmodic toil at the pumps, for
all his first nameless feeling of forbearance the sweating Steelkilt
could but ill brook this bearing in the mate; but somehow still
smothering the conflagration within him, without speaking he remained
doggedly rooted to his seat, till at last the incensed Radney shook the
hammer within a few inches of his face, furiously commanding him to do
his bidding.

“Steelkilt rose, and slowly retreating round the windlass, steadily
followed by the mate with his menacing hammer, deliberately repeated
his intention not to obey. Seeing, however, that his forbearance had
not the slightest effect, by an awful and unspeakable intimation with
his twisted hand he warned off the foolish and infatuated man; but it
was to no purpose. And in this way the two went once slowly round the
windlass; when, resolved at last no longer to retreat, bethinking him
that he had now forborne as much as comported with his humor, the
Lakeman paused on the hatches and thus spoke to the officer:

“‘Mr. Radney, I will not obey you. Take that hammer away, or look to
yourself.’ But the predestinated mate coming still closer to him, where
the Lakeman stood fixed, now shook the heavy hammer within an inch of
his teeth; meanwhile repeating a string of insufferable maledictions.
Retreating not the thousandth part of an inch; stabbing him in the eye
with the unflinching poniard of his glance, Steelkilt, clenching his
right hand behind him and creepingly drawing it back, told his
persecutor that if the hammer but grazed his cheek he (Steelkilt) would
murder him. But, gentlemen, the fool had been branded for the slaughter
by the gods. Immediately the hammer touched the cheek; the next instant
the lower jaw of the mate was stove in his head; he fell on the hatch
spouting blood like a whale.

“Ere the cry could go aft Steelkilt was shaking one of the backstays
leading far aloft to where two of his comrades were standing their
mastheads. They were both Canallers.

“‘Canallers!’ cried Don Pedro. ‘We have seen many whale-ships in our
harbours, but never heard of your Canallers. Pardon: who and what are
they?’

“‘Canallers, Don, are the boatmen belonging to our grand Erie Canal.
You must have heard of it.’

“‘Nay, Senor; hereabouts in this dull, warm, most lazy, and hereditary
land, we know but little of your vigorous North.’

“‘Aye? Well then, Don, refill my cup. Your chicha’s very fine; and ere
proceeding further I will tell ye what our Canallers are; for such
information may throw side-light upon my story.’

“For three hundred and sixty miles, gentlemen, through the entire
breadth of the state of New York; through numerous populous cities and
most thriving villages; through long, dismal, uninhabited swamps, and
affluent, cultivated fields, unrivalled for fertility; by billiard-room
and bar-room; through the holy-of-holies of great forests; on Roman
arches over Indian rivers; through sun and shade; by happy hearts or
broken; through all the wide contrasting scenery of those noble Mohawk
counties; and especially, by rows of snow-white chapels, whose spires
stand almost like milestones, flows one continual stream of Venetianly
corrupt and often lawless life. There’s your true Ashantee, gentlemen;
there howl your pagans; where you ever find them, next door to you;
under the long-flung shadow, and the snug patronising lee of churches.
For by some curious fatality, as it is often noted of your metropolitan
freebooters that they ever encamp around the halls of justice, so
sinners, gentlemen, most abound in holiest vicinities.

“‘Is that a friar passing?’ said Don Pedro, looking downwards into the
crowded plazza, with humorous concern.

“‘Well for our northern friend, Dame Isabella’s Inquisition wanes in
Lima,’ laughed Don Sebastian. ‘Proceed, Senor.’

“‘A moment! Pardon!’ cried another of the company. ‘In the name of all
us Limeese, I but desire to express to you, sir sailor, that we have by
no means overlooked your delicacy in not substituting present Lima for
distant Venice in your corrupt comparison. Oh! do not bow and look
surprised; you know the proverb all along this coast—“Corrupt as Lima.”
It but bears out your saying, too; churches more plentiful than
billiard-tables, and for ever open—and “Corrupt as Lima.” So, too,
Venice; I have been there; the holy city of the blessed evangelist, St.
Mark!—St. Dominic, purge it! Your cup! Thanks: here I refill; now, you
pour out again.’

“Freely depicted in his own vocation, gentlemen, the Canaller would
make a fine dramatic hero, so abundantly and picturesquely wicked is
he. Like Mark Antony, for days and days along his green-turfed, flowery
Nile, he indolently floats, openly toying with his red-cheeked
Cleopatra, ripening his apricot thigh upon the sunny deck. But ashore,
all this effeminacy is dashed. The brigandish guise which the Canaller
so proudly sports; his slouched and gaily-ribboned hat betoken his
grand features. A terror to the smiling innocence of the villages
through which he floats; his swart visage and bold swagger are not
unshunned in cities. Once a vagabond on his own canal, I have received
good turns from one of these Canallers; I thank him heartily; would
fain be not ungrateful; but it is often one of the prime redeeming
qualities of your man of violence, that at times he has as stiff an arm
to back a poor stranger in a strait, as to plunder a wealthy one. In
sum, gentlemen, what the wildness of this canal life is, is
emphatically evinced by this; that our wild whale-fishery contains so
many of its most finished graduates, and that scarce any race of
mankind, except Sydney men, are so much distrusted by our whaling
captains. Nor does it at all diminish the curiousness of this matter,
that to many thousands of our rural boys and young men born along its
line, the probationary life of the Grand Canal furnishes the sole
transition between quietly reaping in a Christian corn-field, and
recklessly ploughing the waters of the most barbaric seas.

“‘I see! I see!’ impetuously exclaimed Don Pedro, spilling his chicha
upon his silvery ruffles. ‘No need to travel! The world’s one Lima. I
had thought, now, that at your temperate North the generations were
cold and holy as the hills.—But the story.’

“I left off, gentlemen, where the Lakeman shook the backstay. Hardly
had he done so, when he was surrounded by the three junior mates and
the four harpooneers, who all crowded him to the deck. But sliding down
the ropes like baleful comets, the two Canallers rushed into the
uproar, and sought to drag their man out of it towards the forecastle.
Others of the sailors joined with them in this attempt, and a twisted
turmoil ensued; while standing out of harm’s way, the valiant captain
danced up and down with a whale-pike, calling upon his officers to
manhandle that atrocious scoundrel, and smoke him along to the
quarter-deck. At intervals, he ran close up to the revolving border of
the confusion, and prying into the heart of it with his pike, sought to
prick out the object of his resentment. But Steelkilt and his
desperadoes were too much for them all; they succeeded in gaining the
forecastle deck, where, hastily slewing about three or four large casks
in a line with the windlass, these sea-Parisians entrenched themselves
behind the barricade.

“‘Come out of that, ye pirates!’ roared the captain, now menacing them
with a pistol in each hand, just brought to him by the steward. ‘Come
out of that, ye cut-throats!’

“Steelkilt leaped on the barricade, and striding up and down there,
defied the worst the pistols could do; but gave the captain to
understand distinctly, that his (Steelkilt’s) death would be the signal
for a murderous mutiny on the part of all hands. Fearing in his heart
lest this might prove but too true, the captain a little desisted, but
still commanded the insurgents instantly to return to their duty.

“‘Will you promise not to touch us, if we do?’ demanded their
ringleader.

“‘Turn to! turn to!—I make no promise;—to your duty! Do you want to
sink the ship, by knocking off at a time like this? Turn to!’ and he
once more raised a pistol.

“‘Sink the ship?’ cried Steelkilt. ‘Aye, let her sink. Not a man of us
turns to, unless you swear not to raise a rope-yarn against us. What
say ye, men?’ turning to his comrades. A fierce cheer was their
response.

“The Lakeman now patrolled the barricade, all the while keeping his eye
on the Captain, and jerking out such sentences as these:—‘It’s not our
fault; we didn’t want it; I told him to take his hammer away; it was
boy’s business; he might have known me before this; I told him not to
prick the buffalo; I believe I have broken a finger here against his
cursed jaw; ain’t those mincing knives down in the forecastle there,
men? look to those handspikes, my hearties. Captain, by God, look to
yourself; say the word; don’t be a fool; forget it all; we are ready to
turn to; treat us decently, and we’re your men; but we won’t be
flogged.’

“‘Turn to! I make no promises, turn to, I say!’

“‘Look ye, now,’ cried the Lakeman, flinging out his arm towards him,
‘there are a few of us here (and I am one of them) who have shipped for
the cruise, d’ye see; now as you well know, sir, we can claim our
discharge as soon as the anchor is down; so we don’t want a row; it’s
not our interest; we want to be peaceable; we are ready to work, but we
won’t be flogged.’

“‘Turn to!’ roared the Captain.

“Steelkilt glanced round him a moment, and then said:—‘I tell you what
it is now, Captain, rather than kill ye, and be hung for such a shabby
rascal, we won’t lift a hand against ye unless ye attack us; but till
you say the word about not flogging us, we don’t do a hand’s turn.’

“‘Down into the forecastle then, down with ye, I’ll keep ye there till
ye’re sick of it. Down ye go.’

“‘Shall we?’ cried the ringleader to his men. Most of them were against
it; but at length, in obedience to Steelkilt, they preceded him down
into their dark den, growlingly disappearing, like bears into a cave.

“As the Lakeman’s bare head was just level with the planks, the Captain
and his posse leaped the barricade, and rapidly drawing over the slide
of the scuttle, planted their group of hands upon it, and loudly called
for the steward to bring the heavy brass padlock belonging to the
companionway. Then opening the slide a little, the Captain whispered
something down the crack, closed it, and turned the key upon them—ten
in number—leaving on deck some twenty or more, who thus far had
remained neutral.

“All night a wide-awake watch was kept by all the officers, forward and
aft, especially about the forecastle scuttle and fore hatchway; at
which last place it was feared the insurgents might emerge, after
breaking through the bulkhead below. But the hours of darkness passed
in peace; the men who still remained at their duty toiling hard at the
pumps, whose clinking and clanking at intervals through the dreary
night dismally resounded through the ship.

“At sunrise the Captain went forward, and knocking on the deck,
summoned the prisoners to work; but with a yell they refused. Water was
then lowered down to them, and a couple of handfuls of biscuit were
tossed after it; when again turning the key upon them and pocketing it,
the Captain returned to the quarter-deck. Twice every day for three
days this was repeated; but on the fourth morning a confused wrangling,
and then a scuffling was heard, as the customary summons was delivered;
and suddenly four men burst up from the forecastle, saying they were
ready to turn to. The fetid closeness of the air, and a famishing diet,
united perhaps to some fears of ultimate retribution, had constrained
them to surrender at discretion. Emboldened by this, the Captain
reiterated his demand to the rest, but Steelkilt shouted up to him a
terrific hint to stop his babbling and betake himself where he
belonged. On the fifth morning three others of the mutineers bolted up
into the air from the desperate arms below that sought to restrain
them. Only three were left.

“‘Better turn to, now?’ said the Captain with a heartless jeer.

“‘Shut us up again, will ye!’ cried Steelkilt.

“‘Oh certainly,’ said the Captain, and the key clicked.

“It was at this point, gentlemen, that enraged by the defection of
seven of his former associates, and stung by the mocking voice that had
last hailed him, and maddened by his long entombment in a place as
black as the bowels of despair; it was then that Steelkilt proposed to
the two Canallers, thus far apparently of one mind with him, to burst
out of their hole at the next summoning of the garrison; and armed with
their keen mincing knives (long, crescentic, heavy implements with a
handle at each end) run amuck from the bowsprit to the taffrail; and if
by any devilishness of desperation possible, seize the ship. For
himself, he would do this, he said, whether they joined him or not.
That was the last night he should spend in that den. But the scheme met
with no opposition on the part of the other two; they swore they were
ready for that, or for any other mad thing, for anything in short but a
surrender. And what was more, they each insisted upon being the first
man on deck, when the time to make the rush should come. But to this
their leader as fiercely objected, reserving that priority for himself;
particularly as his two comrades would not yield, the one to the other,
in the matter; and both of them could not be first, for the ladder
would but admit one man at a time. And here, gentlemen, the foul play
of these miscreants must come out.

“Upon hearing the frantic project of their leader, each in his own
separate soul had suddenly lighted, it would seem, upon the same piece
of treachery, namely: to be foremost in breaking out, in order to be
the first of the three, though the last of the ten, to surrender; and
thereby secure whatever small chance of pardon such conduct might
merit. But when Steelkilt made known his determination still to lead
them to the last, they in some way, by some subtle chemistry of
villany, mixed their before secret treacheries together; and when their
leader fell into a doze, verbally opened their souls to each other in
three sentences; and bound the sleeper with cords, and gagged him with
cords; and shrieked out for the Captain at midnight.

“Thinking murder at hand, and smelling in the dark for the blood, he
and all his armed mates and harpooneers rushed for the forecastle. In a
few minutes the scuttle was opened, and, bound hand and foot, the still
struggling ringleader was shoved up into the air by his perfidious
allies, who at once claimed the honor of securing a man who had been
fully ripe for murder. But all these were collared, and dragged along
the deck like dead cattle; and, side by side, were seized up into the
mizzen rigging, like three quarters of meat, and there they hung till
morning. ‘Damn ye,’ cried the Captain, pacing to and fro before them,
‘the vultures would not touch ye, ye villains!’

“At sunrise he summoned all hands; and separating those who had
rebelled from those who had taken no part in the mutiny, he told the
former that he had a good mind to flog them all round—thought, upon the
whole, he would do so—he ought to—justice demanded it; but for the
present, considering their timely surrender, he would let them go with
a reprimand, which he accordingly administered in the vernacular.

“‘But as for you, ye carrion rogues,’ turning to the three men in the
rigging—‘for you, I mean to mince ye up for the try-pots;’ and, seizing
a rope, he applied it with all his might to the backs of the two
traitors, till they yelled no more, but lifelessly hung their heads
sideways, as the two crucified thieves are drawn.

“‘My wrist is sprained with ye!’ he cried, at last; ‘but there is still
rope enough left for you, my fine bantam, that wouldn’t give up. Take
that gag from his mouth, and let us hear what he can say for himself.’

“For a moment the exhausted mutineer made a tremulous motion of his
cramped jaws, and then painfully twisting round his head, said in a
sort of hiss, ‘What I say is this—and mind it well—if you flog me, I
murder you!’

“‘Say ye so? then see how ye frighten me’—and the Captain drew off with
the rope to strike.

“‘Best not,’ hissed the Lakeman.

“‘But I must,’—and the rope was once more drawn back for the stroke.

“Steelkilt here hissed out something, inaudible to all but the Captain;
who, to the amazement of all hands, started back, paced the deck
rapidly two or three times, and then suddenly throwing down his rope,
said, ‘I won’t do it—let him go—cut him down: d’ye hear?’

“But as the junior mates were hurrying to execute the order, a pale
man, with a bandaged head, arrested them—Radney the chief mate. Ever
since the blow, he had lain in his berth; but that morning, hearing the
tumult on the deck, he had crept out, and thus far had watched the
whole scene. Such was the state of his mouth, that he could hardly
speak; but mumbling something about _his_ being willing and able to do
what the captain dared not attempt, he snatched the rope and advanced
to his pinioned foe.

“‘You are a coward!’ hissed the Lakeman.

“‘So I am, but take that.’ The mate was in the very act of striking,
when another hiss stayed his uplifted arm. He paused: and then pausing
no more, made good his word, spite of Steelkilt’s threat, whatever that
might have been. The three men were then cut down, all hands were
turned to, and, sullenly worked by the moody seamen, the iron pumps
clanged as before.

“Just after dark that day, when one watch had retired below, a clamor
was heard in the forecastle; and the two trembling traitors running up,
besieged the cabin door, saying they durst not consort with the crew.
Entreaties, cuffs, and kicks could not drive them back, so at their own
instance they were put down in the ship’s run for salvation. Still, no
sign of mutiny reappeared among the rest. On the contrary, it seemed,
that mainly at Steelkilt’s instigation, they had resolved to maintain
the strictest peacefulness, obey all orders to the last, and, when the
ship reached port, desert her in a body. But in order to insure the
speediest end to the voyage, they all agreed to another thing—namely,
not to sing out for whales, in case any should be discovered. For,
spite of her leak, and spite of all her other perils, the Town-Ho still
maintained her mast-heads, and her captain was just as willing to lower
for a fish that moment, as on the day his craft first struck the
cruising ground; and Radney the mate was quite as ready to change his
berth for a boat, and with his bandaged mouth seek to gag in death the
vital jaw of the whale.

“But though the Lakeman had induced the seamen to adopt this sort of
passiveness in their conduct, he kept his own counsel (at least till
all was over) concerning his own proper and private revenge upon the
man who had stung him in the ventricles of his heart. He was in Radney
the chief mate’s watch; and as if the infatuated man sought to run more
than half way to meet his doom, after the scene at the rigging, he
insisted, against the express counsel of the captain, upon resuming the
head of his watch at night. Upon this, and one or two other
circumstances, Steelkilt systematically built the plan of his revenge.

“During the night, Radney had an unseamanlike way of sitting on the
bulwarks of the quarter-deck, and leaning his arm upon the gunwale of
the boat which was hoisted up there, a little above the ship’s side. In
this attitude, it was well known, he sometimes dozed. There was a
considerable vacancy between the boat and the ship, and down between
this was the sea. Steelkilt calculated his time, and found that his
next trick at the helm would come round at two o’clock, in the morning
of the third day from that in which he had been betrayed. At his
leisure, he employed the interval in braiding something very carefully
in his watches below.

“‘What are you making there?’ said a shipmate.

“‘What do you think? what does it look like?’

“‘Like a lanyard for your bag; but it’s an odd one, seems to me.’

“‘Yes, rather oddish,’ said the Lakeman, holding it at arm’s length
before him; ‘but I think it will answer. Shipmate, I haven’t enough
twine,—have you any?’

“But there was none in the forecastle.

“‘Then I must get some from old Rad;’ and he rose to go aft.

“‘You don’t mean to go a begging to _him!_’ said a sailor.

“‘Why not? Do you think he won’t do me a turn, when it’s to help
himself in the end, shipmate?’ and going to the mate, he looked at him
quietly, and asked him for some twine to mend his hammock. It was given
him—neither twine nor lanyard were seen again; but the next night an
iron ball, closely netted, partly rolled from the pocket of the
Lakeman’s monkey jacket, as he was tucking the coat into his hammock
for a pillow. Twenty-four hours after, his trick at the silent
helm—nigh to the man who was apt to doze over the grave always ready
dug to the seaman’s hand—that fatal hour was then to come; and in the
fore-ordaining soul of Steelkilt, the mate was already stark and
stretched as a corpse, with his forehead crushed in.

“But, gentlemen, a fool saved the would-be murderer from the bloody
deed he had planned. Yet complete revenge he had, and without being the
avenger. For by a mysterious fatality, Heaven itself seemed to step in
to take out of his hands into its own the damning thing he would have
done.

“It was just between daybreak and sunrise of the morning of the second
day, when they were washing down the decks, that a stupid Teneriffe
man, drawing water in the main-chains, all at once shouted out, ‘There
she rolls! there she rolls!’ Jesu, what a whale! It was Moby Dick.

“‘Moby Dick!’ cried Don Sebastian; ‘St. Dominic! Sir sailor, but do
whales have christenings? Whom call you Moby Dick?’

“‘A very white, and famous, and most deadly immortal monster, Don;—but
that would be too long a story.’

“‘How? how?’ cried all the young Spaniards, crowding.

“‘Nay, Dons, Dons—nay, nay! I cannot rehearse that now. Let me get more
into the air, Sirs.’

“‘The chicha! the chicha!’ cried Don Pedro; ‘our vigorous friend looks
faint;—fill up his empty glass!’

“No need, gentlemen; one moment, and I proceed.—Now, gentlemen, so
suddenly perceiving the snowy whale within fifty yards of the
ship—forgetful of the compact among the crew—in the excitement of the
moment, the Teneriffe man had instinctively and involuntarily lifted
his voice for the monster, though for some little time past it had been
plainly beheld from the three sullen mast-heads. All was now a phrensy.
‘The White Whale—the White Whale!’ was the cry from captain, mates, and
harpooneers, who, undeterred by fearful rumours, were all anxious to
capture so famous and precious a fish; while the dogged crew eyed
askance, and with curses, the appalling beauty of the vast milky mass,
that lit up by a horizontal spangling sun, shifted and glistened like a
living opal in the blue morning sea. Gentlemen, a strange fatality
pervades the whole career of these events, as if verily mapped out
before the world itself was charted. The mutineer was the bowsman of
the mate, and when fast to a fish, it was his duty to sit next him,
while Radney stood up with his lance in the prow, and haul in or
slacken the line, at the word of command. Moreover, when the four boats
were lowered, the mate’s got the start; and none howled more fiercely
with delight than did Steelkilt, as he strained at his oar. After a
stiff pull, their harpooneer got fast, and, spear in hand, Radney
sprang to the bow. He was always a furious man, it seems, in a boat.
And now his bandaged cry was, to beach him on the whale’s topmost back.
Nothing loath, his bowsman hauled him up and up, through a blinding
foam that blent two whitenesses together; till of a sudden the boat
struck as against a sunken ledge, and keeling over, spilled out the
standing mate. That instant, as he fell on the whale’s slippery back,
the boat righted, and was dashed aside by the swell, while Radney was
tossed over into the sea, on the other flank of the whale. He struck
out through the spray, and, for an instant, was dimly seen through that
veil, wildly seeking to remove himself from the eye of Moby Dick. But
the whale rushed round in a sudden maelstrom; seized the swimmer
between his jaws; and rearing high up with him, plunged headlong again,
and went down.

“Meantime, at the first tap of the boat’s bottom, the Lakeman had
slackened the line, so as to drop astern from the whirlpool; calmly
looking on, he thought his own thoughts. But a sudden, terrific,
downward jerking of the boat, quickly brought his knife to the line. He
cut it; and the whale was free. But, at some distance, Moby Dick rose
again, with some tatters of Radney’s red woollen shirt, caught in the
teeth that had destroyed him. All four boats gave chase again; but the
whale eluded them, and finally wholly disappeared.

“In good time, the Town-Ho reached her port—a savage, solitary
place—where no civilized creature resided. There, headed by the
Lakeman, all but five or six of the foremastmen deliberately deserted
among the palms; eventually, as it turned out, seizing a large double
war-canoe of the savages, and setting sail for some other harbor.

“The ship’s company being reduced to but a handful, the captain called
upon the Islanders to assist him in the laborious business of heaving
down the ship to stop the leak. But to such unresting vigilance over
their dangerous allies was this small band of whites necessitated, both
by night and by day, and so extreme was the hard work they underwent,
that upon the vessel being ready again for sea, they were in such a
weakened condition that the captain durst not put off with them in so
heavy a vessel. After taking counsel with his officers, he anchored the
ship as far off shore as possible; loaded and ran out his two cannon
from the bows; stacked his muskets on the poop; and warning the
Islanders not to approach the ship at their peril, took one man with
him, and setting the sail of his best whale-boat, steered straight
before the wind for Tahiti, five hundred miles distant, to procure a
reinforcement to his crew.

“On the fourth day of the sail, a large canoe was descried, which
seemed to have touched at a low isle of corals. He steered away from
it; but the savage craft bore down on him; and soon the voice of
Steelkilt hailed him to heave to, or he would run him under water. The
captain presented a pistol. With one foot on each prow of the yoked
war-canoes, the Lakeman laughed him to scorn; assuring him that if the
pistol so much as clicked in the lock, he would bury him in bubbles and
foam.

“‘What do you want of me?’ cried the captain.

“‘Where are you bound? and for what are you bound?’ demanded Steelkilt;
‘no lies.’

“‘I am bound to Tahiti for more men.’

“‘Very good. Let me board you a moment—I come in peace.’ With that he
leaped from the canoe, swam to the boat; and climbing the gunwale,
stood face to face with the captain.

“‘Cross your arms, sir; throw back your head. Now, repeat after me. As
soon as Steelkilt leaves me, I swear to beach this boat on yonder
island, and remain there six days. If I do not, may lightnings strike
me!’

“‘A pretty scholar,’ laughed the Lakeman. ‘Adios, Senor!’ and leaping
into the sea, he swam back to his comrades.

“Watching the boat till it was fairly beached, and drawn up to the
roots of the cocoa-nut trees, Steelkilt made sail again, and in due
time arrived at Tahiti, his own place of destination. There, luck
befriended him; two ships were about to sail for France, and were
providentially in want of precisely that number of men which the sailor
headed. They embarked; and so for ever got the start of their former
captain, had he been at all minded to work them legal retribution.

“Some ten days after the French ships sailed, the whale-boat arrived,
and the captain was forced to enlist some of the more civilized
Tahitians, who had been somewhat used to the sea. Chartering a small
native schooner, he returned with them to his vessel; and finding all
right there, again resumed his cruisings.

“Where Steelkilt now is, gentlemen, none know; but upon the island of
Nantucket, the widow of Radney still turns to the sea which refuses to
give up its dead; still in dreams sees the awful white whale that
destroyed him.  * * * *

“‘Are you through?’ said Don Sebastian, quietly.

“‘I am, Don.’

“‘Then I entreat you, tell me if to the best of your own convictions,
this your story is in substance really true? It is so passing
wonderful! Did you get it from an unquestionable source? Bear with me
if I seem to press.’

“‘Also bear with all of us, sir sailor; for we all join in Don
Sebastian’s suit,’ cried the company, with exceeding interest.

“‘Is there a copy of the Holy Evangelists in the Golden Inn,
gentlemen?’

“‘Nay,’ said Don Sebastian; ‘but I know a worthy priest near by, who
will quickly procure one for me. I go for it; but are you well advised?
this may grow too serious.’

“‘Will you be so good as to bring the priest also, Don?’

“‘Though there are no Auto-da-Fés in Lima now,’ said one of the company
to another; ‘I fear our sailor friend runs risk of the archiepiscopacy.
Let us withdraw more out of the moonlight. I see no need of this.’

“‘Excuse me for running after you, Don Sebastian; but may I also beg
that you will be particular in procuring the largest sized Evangelists
you can.’

* * * * * *

“‘This is the priest, he brings you the Evangelists,’ said Don
Sebastian, gravely, returning with a tall and solemn figure.

“‘Let me remove my hat. Now, venerable priest, further into the light,
and hold the Holy Book before me that I may touch it.

“‘So help me Heaven, and on my honor the story I have told ye,
gentlemen, is in substance and its great items, true. I know it to be
true; it happened on this ball; I trod the ship; I knew the crew; I
have seen and talked with Steelkilt since the death of Radney.’”


CHAPTER 55. Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales.

I shall ere long paint to you as well as one can without canvas,
something like the true form of the whale as he actually appears to the
eye of the whaleman when in his own absolute body the whale is moored
alongside the whale-ship so that he can be fairly stepped upon there.
It may be worth while, therefore, previously to advert to those curious
imaginary portraits of him which even down to the present day
confidently challenge the faith of the landsman. It is time to set the
world right in this matter, by proving such pictures of the whale all
wrong.

It may be that the primal source of all those pictorial delusions will
be found among the oldest Hindoo, Egyptian, and Grecian sculptures. For
ever since those inventive but unscrupulous times when on the marble
panellings of temples, the pedestals of statues, and on shields,
medallions, cups, and coins, the dolphin was drawn in scales of
chain-armor like Saladin’s, and a helmeted head like St. George’s; ever
since then has something of the same sort of license prevailed, not
only in most popular pictures of the whale, but in many scientific
presentations of him.

Now, by all odds, the most ancient extant portrait anyways purporting
to be the whale’s, is to be found in the famous cavern-pagoda of
Elephanta, in India. The Brahmins maintain that in the almost endless
sculptures of that immemorial pagoda, all the trades and pursuits,
every conceivable avocation of man, were prefigured ages before any of
them actually came into being. No wonder then, that in some sort our
noble profession of whaling should have been there shadowed forth. The
Hindoo whale referred to, occurs in a separate department of the wall,
depicting the incarnation of Vishnu in the form of leviathan, learnedly
known as the Matse Avatar. But though this sculpture is half man and
half whale, so as only to give the tail of the latter, yet that small
section of him is all wrong. It looks more like the tapering tail of an
anaconda, than the broad palms of the true whale’s majestic flukes.

But go to the old Galleries, and look now at a great Christian
painter’s portrait of this fish; for he succeeds no better than the
antediluvian Hindoo. It is Guido’s picture of Perseus rescuing
Andromeda from the sea-monster or whale. Where did Guido get the model
of such a strange creature as that? Nor does Hogarth, in painting the
same scene in his own “Perseus Descending,” make out one whit better.
The huge corpulence of that Hogarthian monster undulates on the
surface, scarcely drawing one inch of water. It has a sort of howdah on
its back, and its distended tusked mouth into which the billows are
rolling, might be taken for the Traitors’ Gate leading from the Thames
by water into the Tower. Then, there are the Prodromus whales of old
Scotch Sibbald, and Jonah’s whale, as depicted in the prints of old
Bibles and the cuts of old primers. What shall be said of these? As for
the book-binder’s whale winding like a vine-stalk round the stock of a
descending anchor—as stamped and gilded on the backs and title-pages of
many books both old and new—that is a very picturesque but purely
fabulous creature, imitated, I take it, from the like figures on
antique vases. Though universally denominated a dolphin, I nevertheless
call this book-binder’s fish an attempt at a whale; because it was so
intended when the device was first introduced. It was introduced by an
old Italian publisher somewhere about the 15th century, during the
Revival of Learning; and in those days, and even down to a
comparatively late period, dolphins were popularly supposed to be a
species of the Leviathan.

In the vignettes and other embellishments of some ancient books you
will at times meet with very curious touches at the whale, where all
manner of spouts, jets d’eau, hot springs and cold, Saratoga and
Baden-Baden, come bubbling up from his unexhausted brain. In the
title-page of the original edition of the “Advancement of Learning” you
will find some curious whales.

But quitting all these unprofessional attempts, let us glance at those
pictures of leviathan purporting to be sober, scientific delineations,
by those who know. In old Harris’s collection of voyages there are some
plates of whales extracted from a Dutch book of voyages, A.D. 1671,
entitled “A Whaling Voyage to Spitzbergen in the ship Jonas in the
Whale, Peter Peterson of Friesland, master.” In one of those plates the
whales, like great rafts of logs, are represented lying among
ice-isles, with white bears running over their living backs. In another
plate, the prodigious blunder is made of representing the whale with
perpendicular flukes.

Then again, there is an imposing quarto, written by one Captain
Colnett, a Post Captain in the English navy, entitled “A Voyage round
Cape Horn into the South Seas, for the purpose of extending the
Spermaceti Whale Fisheries.” In this book is an outline purporting to
be a “Picture of a Physeter or Spermaceti whale, drawn by scale from
one killed on the coast of Mexico, August, 1793, and hoisted on deck.”
I doubt not the captain had this veracious picture taken for the
benefit of his marines. To mention but one thing about it, let me say
that it has an eye which applied, according to the accompanying scale,
to a full grown sperm whale, would make the eye of that whale a
bow-window some five feet long. Ah, my gallant captain, why did ye not
give us Jonah looking out of that eye!

Nor are the most conscientious compilations of Natural History for the
benefit of the young and tender, free from the same heinousness of
mistake. Look at that popular work “Goldsmith’s Animated Nature.” In
the abridged London edition of 1807, there are plates of an alleged
“whale” and a “narwhale.” I do not wish to seem inelegant, but this
unsightly whale looks much like an amputated sow; and, as for the
narwhale, one glimpse at it is enough to amaze one, that in this
nineteenth century such a hippogriff could be palmed for genuine upon
any intelligent public of schoolboys.

Then, again, in 1825, Bernard Germain, Count de Lacépède, a great
naturalist, published a scientific systemized whale book, wherein are
several pictures of the different species of the Leviathan. All these
are not only incorrect, but the picture of the Mysticetus or Greenland
whale (that is to say, the Right whale), even Scoresby, a long
experienced man as touching that species, declares not to have its
counterpart in nature.

But the placing of the cap-sheaf to all this blundering business was
reserved for the scientific Frederick Cuvier, brother to the famous
Baron. In 1836, he published a Natural History of Whales, in which he
gives what he calls a picture of the Sperm Whale. Before showing that
picture to any Nantucketer, you had best provide for your summary
retreat from Nantucket. In a word, Frederick Cuvier’s Sperm Whale is
not a Sperm Whale, but a squash. Of course, he never had the benefit of
a whaling voyage (such men seldom have), but whence he derived that
picture, who can tell? Perhaps he got it as his scientific predecessor
in the same field, Desmarest, got one of his authentic abortions; that
is, from a Chinese drawing. And what sort of lively lads with the
pencil those Chinese are, many queer cups and saucers inform us.

As for the sign-painters’ whales seen in the streets hanging over the
shops of oil-dealers, what shall be said of them? They are generally
Richard III. whales, with dromedary humps, and very savage;
breakfasting on three or four sailor tarts, that is whaleboats full of
mariners: their deformities floundering in seas of blood and blue
paint.

But these manifold mistakes in depicting the whale are not so very
surprising after all. Consider! Most of the scientific drawings have
been taken from the stranded fish; and these are about as correct as a
drawing of a wrecked ship, with broken back, would correctly represent
the noble animal itself in all its undashed pride of hull and spars.
Though elephants have stood for their full-lengths, the living
Leviathan has never yet fairly floated himself for his portrait. The
living whale, in his full majesty and significance, is only to be seen
at sea in unfathomable waters; and afloat the vast bulk of him is out
of sight, like a launched line-of-battle ship; and out of that element
it is a thing eternally impossible for mortal man to hoist him bodily
into the air, so as to preserve all his mighty swells and undulations.
And, not to speak of the highly presumable difference of contour
between a young sucking whale and a full-grown Platonian Leviathan;
yet, even in the case of one of those young sucking whales hoisted to a
ship’s deck, such is then the outlandish, eel-like, limbered, varying
shape of him, that his precise expression the devil himself could not
catch.

But it may be fancied, that from the naked skeleton of the stranded
whale, accurate hints may be derived touching his true form. Not at
all. For it is one of the more curious things about this Leviathan,
that his skeleton gives very little idea of his general shape. Though
Jeremy Bentham’s skeleton, which hangs for candelabra in the library of
one of his executors, correctly conveys the idea of a burly-browed
utilitarian old gentleman, with all Jeremy’s other leading personal
characteristics; yet nothing of this kind could be inferred from any
leviathan’s articulated bones. In fact, as the great Hunter says, the
mere skeleton of the whale bears the same relation to the fully
invested and padded animal as the insect does to the chrysalis that so
roundingly envelopes it. This peculiarity is strikingly evinced in the
head, as in some part of this book will be incidentally shown. It is
also very curiously displayed in the side fin, the bones of which
almost exactly answer to the bones of the human hand, minus only the
thumb. This fin has four regular bone-fingers, the index, middle, ring,
and little finger. But all these are permanently lodged in their fleshy
covering, as the human fingers in an artificial covering. “However
recklessly the whale may sometimes serve us,” said humorous Stubb one
day, “he can never be truly said to handle us without mittens.”

For all these reasons, then, any way you may look at it, you must needs
conclude that the great Leviathan is that one creature in the world
which must remain unpainted to the last. True, one portrait may hit the
mark much nearer than another, but none can hit it with any very
considerable degree of exactness. So there is no earthly way of finding
out precisely what the whale really looks like. And the only mode in
which you can derive even a tolerable idea of his living contour, is by
going a whaling yourself; but by so doing, you run no small risk of
being eternally stove and sunk by him. Wherefore, it seems to me you
had best not be too fastidious in your curiosity touching this
Leviathan.


CHAPTER 56. Of the Less Erroneous Pictures of Whales, and the True
Pictures of Whaling Scenes.

In connexion with the monstrous pictures of whales, I am strongly
tempted here to enter upon those still more monstrous stories of them
which are to be found in certain books, both ancient and modern,
especially in Pliny, Purchas, Hackluyt, Harris, Cuvier, etc. But I pass
that matter by.

I know of only four published outlines of the great Sperm Whale;
Colnett’s, Huggins’s, Frederick Cuvier’s, and Beale’s. In the previous
chapter Colnett and Cuvier have been referred to. Huggins’s is far
better than theirs; but, by great odds, Beale’s is the best. All
Beale’s drawings of this whale are good, excepting the middle figure in
the picture of three whales in various attitudes, capping his second
chapter. His frontispiece, boats attacking Sperm Whales, though no
doubt calculated to excite the civil scepticism of some parlor men, is
admirably correct and life-like in its general effect. Some of the
Sperm Whale drawings in J. Ross Browne are pretty correct in contour;
but they are wretchedly engraved. That is not his fault though.

Of the Right Whale, the best outline pictures are in Scoresby; but they
are drawn on too small a scale to convey a desirable impression. He has
but one picture of whaling scenes, and this is a sad deficiency,
because it is by such pictures only, when at all well done, that you
can derive anything like a truthful idea of the living whale as seen by
his living hunters.

But, taken for all in all, by far the finest, though in some details
not the most correct, presentations of whales and whaling scenes to be
anywhere found, are two large French engravings, well executed, and
taken from paintings by one Garnery. Respectively, they represent
attacks on the Sperm and Right Whale. In the first engraving a noble
Sperm Whale is depicted in full majesty of might, just risen beneath
the boat from the profundities of the ocean, and bearing high in the
air upon his back the terrific wreck of the stoven planks. The prow of
the boat is partially unbroken, and is drawn just balancing upon the
monster’s spine; and standing in that prow, for that one single
incomputable flash of time, you behold an oarsman, half shrouded by the
incensed boiling spout of the whale, and in the act of leaping, as if
from a precipice. The action of the whole thing is wonderfully good and
true. The half-emptied line-tub floats on the whitened sea; the wooden
poles of the spilled harpoons obliquely bob in it; the heads of the
swimming crew are scattered about the whale in contrasting expressions
of affright; while in the black stormy distance the ship is bearing
down upon the scene. Serious fault might be found with the anatomical
details of this whale, but let that pass; since, for the life of me, I
could not draw so good a one.

In the second engraving, the boat is in the act of drawing alongside
the barnacled flank of a large running Right Whale, that rolls his
black weedy bulk in the sea like some mossy rock-slide from the
Patagonian cliffs. His jets are erect, full, and black like soot; so
that from so abounding a smoke in the chimney, you would think there
must be a brave supper cooking in the great bowels below. Sea fowls are
pecking at the small crabs, shell-fish, and other sea candies and
maccaroni, which the Right Whale sometimes carries on his pestilent
back. And all the while the thick-lipped leviathan is rushing through
the deep, leaving tons of tumultuous white curds in his wake, and
causing the slight boat to rock in the swells like a skiff caught nigh
the paddle-wheels of an ocean steamer. Thus, the foreground is all
raging commotion; but behind, in admirable artistic contrast, is the
glassy level of a sea becalmed, the drooping unstarched sails of the
powerless ship, and the inert mass of a dead whale, a conquered
fortress, with the flag of capture lazily hanging from the whale-pole
inserted into his spout-hole.

Who Garnery the painter is, or was, I know not. But my life for it he
was either practically conversant with his subject, or else
marvellously tutored by some experienced whaleman. The French are the
lads for painting action. Go and gaze upon all the paintings of Europe,
and where will you find such a gallery of living and breathing
commotion on canvas, as in that triumphal hall at Versailles; where the
beholder fights his way, pell-mell, through the consecutive great
battles of France; where every sword seems a flash of the Northern
Lights, and the successive armed kings and Emperors dash by, like a
charge of crowned centaurs? Not wholly unworthy of a place in that
gallery, are these sea battle-pieces of Garnery.

The natural aptitude of the French for seizing the picturesqueness of
things seems to be peculiarly evinced in what paintings and engravings
they have of their whaling scenes. With not one tenth of England’s
experience in the fishery, and not the thousandth part of that of the
Americans, they have nevertheless furnished both nations with the only
finished sketches at all capable of conveying the real spirit of the
whale hunt. For the most part, the English and American whale
draughtsmen seem entirely content with presenting the mechanical
outline of things, such as the vacant profile of the whale; which, so
far as picturesqueness of effect is concerned, is about tantamount to
sketching the profile of a pyramid. Even Scoresby, the justly renowned
Right whaleman, after giving us a stiff full length of the Greenland
whale, and three or four delicate miniatures of narwhales and
porpoises, treats us to a series of classical engravings of boat hooks,
chopping knives, and grapnels; and with the microscopic diligence of a
Leuwenhoeck submits to the inspection of a shivering world ninety-six
fac-similes of magnified Arctic snow crystals. I mean no disparagement
to the excellent voyager (I honor him for a veteran), but in so
important a matter it was certainly an oversight not to have procured
for every crystal a sworn affidavit taken before a Greenland Justice of
the Peace.

In addition to those fine engravings from Garnery, there are two other
French engravings worthy of note, by some one who subscribes himself
“H. Durand.” One of them, though not precisely adapted to our present
purpose, nevertheless deserves mention on other accounts. It is a quiet
noon-scene among the isles of the Pacific; a French whaler anchored,
inshore, in a calm, and lazily taking water on board; the loosened
sails of the ship, and the long leaves of the palms in the background,
both drooping together in the breezeless air. The effect is very fine,
when considered with reference to its presenting the hardy fishermen
under one of their few aspects of oriental repose. The other engraving
is quite a different affair: the ship hove-to upon the open sea, and in
the very heart of the Leviathanic life, with a Right Whale alongside;
the vessel (in the act of cutting-in) hove over to the monster as if to
a quay; and a boat, hurriedly pushing off from this scene of activity,
is about giving chase to whales in the distance. The harpoons and
lances lie levelled for use; three oarsmen are just setting the mast in
its hole; while from a sudden roll of the sea, the little craft stands
half-erect out of the water, like a rearing horse. From the ship, the
smoke of the torments of the boiling whale is going up like the smoke
over a village of smithies; and to windward, a black cloud, rising up
with earnest of squalls and rains, seems to quicken the activity of the
excited seamen.


CHAPTER 57. Of Whales in Paint; in Teeth; in Wood; in Sheet-Iron; in
Stone; in Mountains; in Stars.

On Tower-hill, as you go down to the London docks, you may have seen a
crippled beggar (or _kedger_, as the sailors say) holding a painted
board before him, representing the tragic scene in which he lost his
leg. There are three whales and three boats; and one of the boats
(presumed to contain the missing leg in all its original integrity) is
being crunched by the jaws of the foremost whale. Any time these ten
years, they tell me, has that man held up that picture, and exhibited
that stump to an incredulous world. But the time of his justification
has now come. His three whales are as good whales as were ever
published in Wapping, at any rate; and his stump as unquestionable a
stump as any you will find in the western clearings. But, though for
ever mounted on that stump, never a stump-speech does the poor whaleman
make; but, with downcast eyes, stands ruefully contemplating his own
amputation.

Throughout the Pacific, and also in Nantucket, and New Bedford, and Sag
Harbor, you will come across lively sketches of whales and
whaling-scenes, graven by the fishermen themselves on Sperm
Whale-teeth, or ladies’ busks wrought out of the Right Whale-bone, and
other like skrimshander articles, as the whalemen call the numerous
little ingenious contrivances they elaborately carve out of the rough
material, in their hours of ocean leisure. Some of them have little
boxes of dentistical-looking implements, specially intended for the
skrimshandering business. But, in general, they toil with their
jack-knives alone; and, with that almost omnipotent tool of the sailor,
they will turn you out anything you please, in the way of a mariner’s
fancy.

Long exile from Christendom and civilization inevitably restores a man
to that condition in which God placed him, _i.e._ what is called
savagery. Your true whale-hunter is as much a savage as an Iroquois. I
myself am a savage, owning no allegiance but to the King of the
Cannibals; and ready at any moment to rebel against him.

Now, one of the peculiar characteristics of the savage in his domestic
hours, is his wonderful patience of industry. An ancient Hawaiian
war-club or spear-paddle, in its full multiplicity and elaboration of
carving, is as great a trophy of human perseverance as a Latin lexicon.
For, with but a bit of broken sea-shell or a shark’s tooth, that
miraculous intricacy of wooden net-work has been achieved; and it has
cost steady years of steady application.

As with the Hawaiian savage, so with the white sailor-savage. With the
same marvellous patience, and with the same single shark’s tooth, of
his one poor jack-knife, he will carve you a bit of bone sculpture, not
quite as workmanlike, but as close packed in its maziness of design, as
the Greek savage, Achilles’s shield; and full of barbaric spirit and
suggestiveness, as the prints of that fine old Dutch savage, Albert
Durer.

Wooden whales, or whales cut in profile out of the small dark slabs of
the noble South Sea war-wood, are frequently met with in the
forecastles of American whalers. Some of them are done with much
accuracy.

At some old gable-roofed country houses you will see brass whales hung
by the tail for knockers to the road-side door. When the porter is
sleepy, the anvil-headed whale would be best. But these knocking whales
are seldom remarkable as faithful essays. On the spires of some
old-fashioned churches you will see sheet-iron whales placed there for
weather-cocks; but they are so elevated, and besides that are to all
intents and purposes so labelled with “_Hands off!_” you cannot examine
them closely enough to decide upon their merit.

In bony, ribby regions of the earth, where at the base of high broken
cliffs masses of rock lie strewn in fantastic groupings upon the plain,
you will often discover images as of the petrified forms of the
Leviathan partly merged in grass, which of a windy day breaks against
them in a surf of green surges.

Then, again, in mountainous countries where the traveller is
continually girdled by amphitheatrical heights; here and there from
some lucky point of view you will catch passing glimpses of the
profiles of whales defined along the undulating ridges. But you must be
a thorough whaleman, to see these sights; and not only that, but if you
wish to return to such a sight again, you must be sure and take the
exact intersecting latitude and longitude of your first stand-point,
else so chance-like are such observations of the hills, that your
precise, previous stand-point would require a laborious re-discovery;
like the Soloma Islands, which still remain incognita, though once
high-ruffed Mendanna trod them and old Figuera chronicled them.

Nor when expandingly lifted by your subject, can you fail to trace out
great whales in the starry heavens, and boats in pursuit of them; as
when long filled with thoughts of war the Eastern nations saw armies
locked in battle among the clouds. Thus at the North have I chased
Leviathan round and round the Pole with the revolutions of the bright
points that first defined him to me. And beneath the effulgent
Antarctic skies I have boarded the Argo-Navis, and joined the chase
against the starry Cetus far beyond the utmost stretch of Hydrus and
the Flying Fish.

With a frigate’s anchors for my bridle-bitts and fasces of harpoons for
spurs, would I could mount that whale and leap the topmost skies, to
see whether the fabled heavens with all their countless tents really
lie encamped beyond my mortal sight!


CHAPTER 58. Brit.

Steering north-eastward from the Crozetts, we fell in with vast meadows
of brit, the minute, yellow substance, upon which the Right Whale
largely feeds. For leagues and leagues it undulated round us, so that
we seemed to be sailing through boundless fields of ripe and golden
wheat.

On the second day, numbers of Right Whales were seen, who, secure from
the attack of a Sperm Whaler like the Pequod, with open jaws sluggishly
swam through the brit, which, adhering to the fringing fibres of that
wondrous Venetian blind in their mouths, was in that manner separated
from the water that escaped at the lip.

As morning mowers, who side by side slowly and seethingly advance their
scythes through the long wet grass of marshy meads; even so these
monsters swam, making a strange, grassy, cutting sound; and leaving
behind them endless swaths of blue upon the yellow sea.*

*That part of the sea known among whalemen as the “Brazil Banks” does
not bear that name as the Banks of Newfoundland do, because of there
being shallows and soundings there, but because of this remarkable
meadow-like appearance, caused by the vast drifts of brit continually
floating in those latitudes, where the Right Whale is often chased.

But it was only the sound they made as they parted the brit which at
all reminded one of mowers. Seen from the mast-heads, especially when
they paused and were stationary for a while, their vast black forms
looked more like lifeless masses of rock than anything else. And as in
the great hunting countries of India, the stranger at a distance will
sometimes pass on the plains recumbent elephants without knowing them
to be such, taking them for bare, blackened elevations of the soil;
even so, often, with him, who for the first time beholds this species
of the leviathans of the sea. And even when recognised at last, their
immense magnitude renders it very hard really to believe that such
bulky masses of overgrowth can possibly be instinct, in all parts, with
the same sort of life that lives in a dog or a horse.

Indeed, in other respects, you can hardly regard any creatures of the
deep with the same feelings that you do those of the shore. For though
some old naturalists have maintained that all creatures of the land are
of their kind in the sea; and though taking a broad general view of the
thing, this may very well be; yet coming to specialties, where, for
example, does the ocean furnish any fish that in disposition answers to
the sagacious kindness of the dog? The accursed shark alone can in any
generic respect be said to bear comparative analogy to him.

But though, to landsmen in general, the native inhabitants of the seas
have ever been regarded with emotions unspeakably unsocial and
repelling; though we know the sea to be an everlasting terra incognita,
so that Columbus sailed over numberless unknown worlds to discover his
one superficial western one; though, by vast odds, the most terrific of
all mortal disasters have immemorially and indiscriminately befallen
tens and hundreds of thousands of those who have gone upon the waters;
though but a moment’s consideration will teach, that however baby man
may brag of his science and skill, and however much, in a flattering
future, that science and skill may augment; yet for ever and for ever,
to the crack of doom, the sea will insult and murder him, and pulverize
the stateliest, stiffest frigate he can make; nevertheless, by the
continual repetition of these very impressions, man has lost that sense
of the full awfulness of the sea which aboriginally belongs to it.

The first boat we read of, floated on an ocean, that with Portuguese
vengeance had whelmed a whole world without leaving so much as a widow.
That same ocean rolls now; that same ocean destroyed the wrecked ships
of last year. Yea, foolish mortals, Noah’s flood is not yet subsided;
two thirds of the fair world it yet covers.

Wherein differ the sea and the land, that a miracle upon one is not a
miracle upon the other? Preternatural terrors rested upon the Hebrews,
when under the feet of Korah and his company the live ground opened and
swallowed them up for ever; yet not a modern sun ever sets, but in
precisely the same manner the live sea swallows up ships and crews.

But not only is the sea such a foe to man who is an alien to it, but it
is also a fiend to its own off-spring; worse than the Persian host who
murdered his own guests; sparing not the creatures which itself hath
spawned. Like a savage tigress that tossing in the jungle overlays her
own cubs, so the sea dashes even the mightiest whales against the
rocks, and leaves them there side by side with the split wrecks of
ships. No mercy, no power but its own controls it. Panting and snorting
like a mad battle steed that has lost its rider, the masterless ocean
overruns the globe.

Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures
glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously
hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the devilish
brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the
dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider, once
more, the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey
upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began.

Consider all this; and then turn to this green, gentle, and most docile
earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a
strange analogy to something in yourself? For as this appalling ocean
surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one
insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the
horrors of the half known life. God keep thee! Push not off from that
isle, thou canst never return!


CHAPTER 59. Squid.

Slowly wading through the meadows of brit, the Pequod still held on her
way north-eastward towards the island of Java; a gentle air impelling
her keel, so that in the surrounding serenity her three tall tapering
masts mildly waved to that languid breeze, as three mild palms on a
plain. And still, at wide intervals in the silvery night, the lonely,
alluring jet would be seen.

But one transparent blue morning, when a stillness almost preternatural
spread over the sea, however unattended with any stagnant calm; when
the long burnished sun-glade on the waters seemed a golden finger laid
across them, enjoining some secrecy; when the slippered waves whispered
together as they softly ran on; in this profound hush of the visible
sphere a strange spectre was seen by Daggoo from the main-mast-head.

In the distance, a great white mass lazily rose, and rising higher and
higher, and disentangling itself from the azure, at last gleamed before
our prow like a snow-slide, new slid from the hills. Thus glistening
for a moment, as slowly it subsided, and sank. Then once more arose,
and silently gleamed. It seemed not a whale; and yet is this Moby Dick?
thought Daggoo. Again the phantom went down, but on re-appearing once
more, with a stiletto-like cry that startled every man from his nod,
the negro yelled out—“There! there again! there she breaches! right
ahead! The White Whale, the White Whale!”

Upon this, the seamen rushed to the yard-arms, as in swarming-time the
bees rush to the boughs. Bare-headed in the sultry sun, Ahab stood on
the bowsprit, and with one hand pushed far behind in readiness to wave
his orders to the helmsman, cast his eager glance in the direction
indicated aloft by the outstretched motionless arm of Daggoo.

Whether the flitting attendance of the one still and solitary jet had
gradually worked upon Ahab, so that he was now prepared to connect the
ideas of mildness and repose with the first sight of the particular
whale he pursued; however this was, or whether his eagerness betrayed
him; whichever way it might have been, no sooner did he distinctly
perceive the white mass, than with a quick intensity he instantly gave
orders for lowering.

The four boats were soon on the water; Ahab’s in advance, and all
swiftly pulling towards their prey. Soon it went down, and while, with
oars suspended, we were awaiting its reappearance, lo! in the same spot
where it sank, once more it slowly rose. Almost forgetting for the
moment all thoughts of Moby Dick, we now gazed at the most wondrous
phenomenon which the secret seas have hitherto revealed to mankind. A
vast pulpy mass, furlongs in length and breadth, of a glancing
cream-colour, lay floating on the water, innumerable long arms
radiating from its centre, and curling and twisting like a nest of
anacondas, as if blindly to clutch at any hapless object within reach.
No perceptible face or front did it have; no conceivable token of
either sensation or instinct; but undulated there on the billows, an
unearthly, formless, chance-like apparition of life.

As with a low sucking sound it slowly disappeared again, Starbuck still
gazing at the agitated waters where it had sunk, with a wild voice
exclaimed—“Almost rather had I seen Moby Dick and fought him, than to
have seen thee, thou white ghost!”

“What was it, Sir?” said Flask.

“The great live squid, which, they say, few whale-ships ever beheld,
and returned to their ports to tell of it.”

But Ahab said nothing; turning his boat, he sailed back to the vessel;
the rest as silently following.

Whatever superstitions the sperm whalemen in general have connected
with the sight of this object, certain it is, that a glimpse of it
being so very unusual, that circumstance has gone far to invest it with
portentousness. So rarely is it beheld, that though one and all of them
declare it to be the largest animated thing in the ocean, yet very few
of them have any but the most vague ideas concerning its true nature
and form; notwithstanding, they believe it to furnish to the sperm
whale his only food. For though other species of whales find their food
above water, and may be seen by man in the act of feeding, the
spermaceti whale obtains his whole food in unknown zones below the
surface; and only by inference is it that any one can tell of what,
precisely, that food consists. At times, when closely pursued, he will
disgorge what are supposed to be the detached arms of the squid; some
of them thus exhibited exceeding twenty and thirty feet in length. They
fancy that the monster to which these arms belonged ordinarily clings
by them to the bed of the ocean; and that the sperm whale, unlike other
species, is supplied with teeth in order to attack and tear it.

There seems some ground to imagine that the great Kraken of Bishop
Pontoppodan may ultimately resolve itself into Squid. The manner in
which the Bishop describes it, as alternately rising and sinking, with
some other particulars he narrates, in all this the two correspond. But
much abatement is necessary with respect to the incredible bulk he
assigns it.

By some naturalists who have vaguely heard rumors of the mysterious
creature, here spoken of, it is included among the class of
cuttle-fish, to which, indeed, in certain external respects it would
seem to belong, but only as the Anak of the tribe.


CHAPTER 60. The Line.

With reference to the whaling scene shortly to be described, as well as
for the better understanding of all similar scenes elsewhere presented,
I have here to speak of the magical, sometimes horrible whale-line.

The line originally used in the fishery was of the best hemp, slightly
vapored with tar, not impregnated with it, as in the case of ordinary
ropes; for while tar, as ordinarily used, makes the hemp more pliable
to the rope-maker, and also renders the rope itself more convenient to
the sailor for common ship use; yet, not only would the ordinary
quantity too much stiffen the whale-line for the close coiling to which
it must be subjected; but as most seamen are beginning to learn, tar in
general by no means adds to the rope’s durability or strength, however
much it may give it compactness and gloss.

Of late years the Manilla rope has in the American fishery almost
entirely superseded hemp as a material for whale-lines; for, though not
so durable as hemp, it is stronger, and far more soft and elastic; and
I will add (since there is an æsthetics in all things), is much more
handsome and becoming to the boat, than hemp. Hemp is a dusky, dark
fellow, a sort of Indian; but Manilla is as a golden-haired Circassian
to behold.

The whale-line is only two-thirds of an inch in thickness. At first
sight, you would not think it so strong as it really is. By experiment
its one and fifty yarns will each suspend a weight of one hundred and
twenty pounds; so that the whole rope will bear a strain nearly equal
to three tons. In length, the common sperm whale-line measures
something over two hundred fathoms. Towards the stern of the boat it is
spirally coiled away in the tub, not like the worm-pipe of a still
though, but so as to form one round, cheese-shaped mass of densely
bedded “sheaves,” or layers of concentric spiralizations, without any
hollow but the “heart,” or minute vertical tube formed at the axis of
the cheese. As the least tangle or kink in the coiling would, in
running out, infallibly take somebody’s arm, leg, or entire body off,
the utmost precaution is used in stowing the line in its tub. Some
harpooneers will consume almost an entire morning in this business,
carrying the line high aloft and then reeving it downwards through a
block towards the tub, so as in the act of coiling to free it from all
possible wrinkles and twists.

In the English boats two tubs are used instead of one; the same line
being continuously coiled in both tubs. There is some advantage in
this; because these twin-tubs being so small they fit more readily into
the boat, and do not strain it so much; whereas, the American tub,
nearly three feet in diameter and of proportionate depth, makes a
rather bulky freight for a craft whose planks are but one half-inch in
thickness; for the bottom of the whale-boat is like critical ice, which
will bear up a considerable distributed weight, but not very much of a
concentrated one. When the painted canvas cover is clapped on the
American line-tub, the boat looks as if it were pulling off with a
prodigious great wedding-cake to present to the whales.

Both ends of the line are exposed; the lower end terminating in an
eye-splice or loop coming up from the bottom against the side of the
tub, and hanging over its edge completely disengaged from everything.
This arrangement of the lower end is necessary on two accounts. First:
In order to facilitate the fastening to it of an additional line from a
neighboring boat, in case the stricken whale should sound so deep as to
threaten to carry off the entire line originally attached to the
harpoon. In these instances, the whale of course is shifted like a mug
of ale, as it were, from the one boat to the other; though the first
boat always hovers at hand to assist its consort. Second: This
arrangement is indispensable for common safety’s sake; for were the
lower end of the line in any way attached to the boat, and were the
whale then to run the line out to the end almost in a single, smoking
minute as he sometimes does, he would not stop there, for the doomed
boat would infallibly be dragged down after him into the profundity of
the sea; and in that case no town-crier would ever find her again.

Before lowering the boat for the chase, the upper end of the line is
taken aft from the tub, and passing round the loggerhead there, is
again carried forward the entire length of the boat, resting crosswise
upon the loom or handle of every man’s oar, so that it jogs against his
wrist in rowing; and also passing between the men, as they alternately
sit at the opposite gunwales, to the leaded chocks or grooves in the
extreme pointed prow of the boat, where a wooden pin or skewer the size
of a common quill, prevents it from slipping out. From the chocks it
hangs in a slight festoon over the bows, and is then passed inside the
boat again; and some ten or twenty fathoms (called box-line) being
coiled upon the box in the bows, it continues its way to the gunwale
still a little further aft, and is then attached to the short-warp—the
rope which is immediately connected with the harpoon; but previous to
that connexion, the short-warp goes through sundry mystifications too
tedious to detail.

Thus the whale-line folds the whole boat in its complicated coils,
twisting and writhing around it in almost every direction. All the
oarsmen are involved in its perilous contortions; so that to the timid
eye of the landsman, they seem as Indian jugglers, with the deadliest
snakes sportively festooning their limbs. Nor can any son of mortal
woman, for the first time, seat himself amid those hempen intricacies,
and while straining his utmost at the oar, bethink him that at any
unknown instant the harpoon may be darted, and all these horrible
contortions be put in play like ringed lightnings; he cannot be thus
circumstanced without a shudder that makes the very marrow in his bones
to quiver in him like a shaken jelly. Yet habit—strange thing! what
cannot habit accomplish?—Gayer sallies, more merry mirth, better jokes,
and brighter repartees, you never heard over your mahogany, than you
will hear over the half-inch white cedar of the whale-boat, when thus
hung in hangman’s nooses; and, like the six burghers of Calais before
King Edward, the six men composing the crew pull into the jaws of
death, with a halter around every neck, as you may say.

Perhaps a very little thought will now enable you to account for those
repeated whaling disasters—some few of which are casually chronicled—of
this man or that man being taken out of the boat by the line, and lost.
For, when the line is darting out, to be seated then in the boat, is
like being seated in the midst of the manifold whizzings of a
steam-engine in full play, when every flying beam, and shaft, and
wheel, is grazing you. It is worse; for you cannot sit motionless in
the heart of these perils, because the boat is rocking like a cradle,
and you are pitched one way and the other, without the slightest
warning; and only by a certain self-adjusting buoyancy and
simultaneousness of volition and action, can you escape being made a
Mazeppa of, and run away with where the all-seeing sun himself could
never pierce you out.

Again: as the profound calm which only apparently precedes and
prophesies of the storm, is perhaps more awful than the storm itself;
for, indeed, the calm is but the wrapper and envelope of the storm; and
contains it in itself, as the seemingly harmless rifle holds the fatal
powder, and the ball, and the explosion; so the graceful repose of the
line, as it silently serpentines about the oarsmen before being brought
into actual play—this is a thing which carries more of true terror than
any other aspect of this dangerous affair. But why say more? All men
live enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their
necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death,
that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life.
And if you be a philosopher, though seated in the whale-boat, you would
not at heart feel one whit more of terror, than though seated before
your evening fire with a poker, and not a harpoon, by your side.


CHAPTER 61. Stubb Kills a Whale.

If to Starbuck the apparition of the Squid was a thing of portents, to
Queequeg it was quite a different object.

“When you see him ’quid,” said the savage, honing his harpoon in the
bow of his hoisted boat, “then you quick see him ’parm whale.”

The next day was exceedingly still and sultry, and with nothing special
to engage them, the Pequod’s crew could hardly resist the spell of
sleep induced by such a vacant sea. For this part of the Indian Ocean
through which we then were voyaging is not what whalemen call a lively
ground; that is, it affords fewer glimpses of porpoises, dolphins,
flying-fish, and other vivacious denizens of more stirring waters, than
those off the Rio de la Plata, or the in-shore ground off Peru.

It was my turn to stand at the foremast-head; and with my shoulders
leaning against the slackened royal shrouds, to and fro I idly swayed
in what seemed an enchanted air. No resolution could withstand it; in
that dreamy mood losing all consciousness, at last my soul went out of
my body; though my body still continued to sway as a pendulum will,
long after the power which first moved it is withdrawn.

Ere forgetfulness altogether came over me, I had noticed that the
seamen at the main and mizzen-mast-heads were already drowsy. So that
at last all three of us lifelessly swung from the spars, and for every
swing that we made there was a nod from below from the slumbering
helmsman. The waves, too, nodded their indolent crests; and across the
wide trance of the sea, east nodded to west, and the sun over all.

Suddenly bubbles seemed bursting beneath my closed eyes; like vices my
hands grasped the shrouds; some invisible, gracious agency preserved
me; with a shock I came back to life. And lo! close under our lee, not
forty fathoms off, a gigantic Sperm Whale lay rolling in the water like
the capsized hull of a frigate, his broad, glossy back, of an Ethiopian
hue, glistening in the sun’s rays like a mirror. But lazily undulating
in the trough of the sea, and ever and anon tranquilly spouting his
vapory jet, the whale looked like a portly burgher smoking his pipe of
a warm afternoon. But that pipe, poor whale, was thy last. As if struck
by some enchanter’s wand, the sleepy ship and every sleeper in it all
at once started into wakefulness; and more than a score of voices from
all parts of the vessel, simultaneously with the three notes from
aloft, shouted forth the accustomed cry, as the great fish slowly and
regularly spouted the sparkling brine into the air.

“Clear away the boats! Luff!” cried Ahab. And obeying his own order, he
dashed the helm down before the helmsman could handle the spokes.

The sudden exclamations of the crew must have alarmed the whale; and
ere the boats were down, majestically turning, he swam away to the
leeward, but with such a steady tranquillity, and making so few ripples
as he swam, that thinking after all he might not as yet be alarmed,
Ahab gave orders that not an oar should be used, and no man must speak
but in whispers. So seated like Ontario Indians on the gunwales of the
boats, we swiftly but silently paddled along; the calm not admitting of
the noiseless sails being set. Presently, as we thus glided in chase,
the monster perpendicularly flitted his tail forty feet into the air,
and then sank out of sight like a tower swallowed up.

“There go flukes!” was the cry, an announcement immediately followed by
Stubb’s producing his match and igniting his pipe, for now a respite
was granted. After the full interval of his sounding had elapsed, the
whale rose again, and being now in advance of the smoker’s boat, and
much nearer to it than to any of the others, Stubb counted upon the
honor of the capture. It was obvious, now, that the whale had at length
become aware of his pursuers. All silence of cautiousness was therefore
no longer of use. Paddles were dropped, and oars came loudly into play.
And still puffing at his pipe, Stubb cheered on his crew to the
assault.

Yes, a mighty change had come over the fish. All alive to his jeopardy,
he was going “head out”; that part obliquely projecting from the mad
yeast which he brewed.*

*It will be seen in some other place of what a very light substance the
entire interior of the sperm whale’s enormous head consists. Though
apparently the most massive, it is by far the most buoyant part about
him. So that with ease he elevates it in the air, and invariably does
so when going at his utmost speed. Besides, such is the breadth of the
upper part of the front of his head, and such the tapering cut-water
formation of the lower part, that by obliquely elevating his head, he
thereby may be said to transform himself from a bluff-bowed sluggish
galliot into a sharppointed New York pilot-boat.

“Start her, start her, my men! Don’t hurry yourselves; take plenty of
time—but start her; start her like thunder-claps, that’s all,” cried
Stubb, spluttering out the smoke as he spoke. “Start her, now; give ’em
the long and strong stroke, Tashtego. Start her, Tash, my boy—start
her, all; but keep cool, keep cool—cucumbers is the word—easy,
easy—only start her like grim death and grinning devils, and raise the
buried dead perpendicular out of their graves, boys—that’s all. Start
her!”

“Woo-hoo! Wa-hee!” screamed the Gay-Header in reply, raising some old
war-whoop to the skies; as every oarsman in the strained boat
involuntarily bounced forward with the one tremendous leading stroke
which the eager Indian gave.

But his wild screams were answered by others quite as wild. “Kee-hee!
Kee-hee!” yelled Daggoo, straining forwards and backwards on his seat,
like a pacing tiger in his cage.

“Ka-la! Koo-loo!” howled Queequeg, as if smacking his lips over a
mouthful of Grenadier’s steak. And thus with oars and yells the keels
cut the sea. Meanwhile, Stubb retaining his place in the van, still
encouraged his men to the onset, all the while puffing the smoke from
his mouth. Like desperadoes they tugged and they strained, till the
welcome cry was heard—“Stand up, Tashtego!—give it to him!” The harpoon
was hurled. “Stern all!” The oarsmen backed water; the same moment
something went hot and hissing along every one of their wrists. It was
the magical line. An instant before, Stubb had swiftly caught two
additional turns with it round the loggerhead, whence, by reason of its
increased rapid circlings, a hempen blue smoke now jetted up and
mingled with the steady fumes from his pipe. As the line passed round
and round the loggerhead; so also, just before reaching that point, it
blisteringly passed through and through both of Stubb’s hands, from
which the hand-cloths, or squares of quilted canvas sometimes worn at
these times, had accidentally dropped. It was like holding an enemy’s
sharp two-edged sword by the blade, and that enemy all the time
striving to wrest it out of your clutch.

“Wet the line! wet the line!” cried Stubb to the tub oarsman (him
seated by the tub) who, snatching off his hat, dashed sea-water into
it.* More turns were taken, so that the line began holding its place.
The boat now flew through the boiling water like a shark all fins.
Stubb and Tashtego here changed places—stem for stern—a staggering
business truly in that rocking commotion.

*Partly to show the indispensableness of this act, it may here be
stated, that, in the old Dutch fishery, a mop was used to dash the
running line with water; in many other ships, a wooden piggin, or
bailer, is set apart for that purpose. Your hat, however, is the most
convenient.

From the vibrating line extending the entire length of the upper part
of the boat, and from its now being more tight than a harpstring, you
would have thought the craft had two keels—one cleaving the water, the
other the air—as the boat churned on through both opposing elements at
once. A continual cascade played at the bows; a ceaseless whirling eddy
in her wake; and, at the slightest motion from within, even but of a
little finger, the vibrating, cracking craft canted over her spasmodic
gunwale into the sea. Thus they rushed; each man with might and main
clinging to his seat, to prevent being tossed to the foam; and the tall
form of Tashtego at the steering oar crouching almost double, in order
to bring down his centre of gravity. Whole Atlantics and Pacifics
seemed passed as they shot on their way, till at length the whale
somewhat slackened his flight.

“Haul in—haul in!” cried Stubb to the bowsman! and, facing round
towards the whale, all hands began pulling the boat up to him, while
yet the boat was being towed on. Soon ranging up by his flank, Stubb,
firmly planting his knee in the clumsy cleat, darted dart after dart
into the flying fish; at the word of command, the boat alternately
sterning out of the way of the whale’s horrible wallow, and then
ranging up for another fling.

The red tide now poured from all sides of the monster like brooks down
a hill. His tormented body rolled not in brine but in blood, which
bubbled and seethed for furlongs behind in their wake. The slanting sun
playing upon this crimson pond in the sea, sent back its reflection
into every face, so that they all glowed to each other like red men.
And all the while, jet after jet of white smoke was agonizingly shot
from the spiracle of the whale, and vehement puff after puff from the
mouth of the excited headsman; as at every dart, hauling in upon his
crooked lance (by the line attached to it), Stubb straightened it again
and again, by a few rapid blows against the gunwale, then again and
again sent it into the whale.

“Pull up—pull up!” he now cried to the bowsman, as the waning whale
relaxed in his wrath. “Pull up!—close to!” and the boat ranged along
the fish’s flank. When reaching far over the bow, Stubb slowly churned
his long sharp lance into the fish, and kept it there, carefully
churning and churning, as if cautiously seeking to feel after some gold
watch that the whale might have swallowed, and which he was fearful of
breaking ere he could hook it out. But that gold watch he sought was
the innermost life of the fish. And now it is struck; for, starting
from his trance into that unspeakable thing called his “flurry,” the
monster horribly wallowed in his blood, overwrapped himself in
impenetrable, mad, boiling spray, so that the imperilled craft,
instantly dropping astern, had much ado blindly to struggle out from
that phrensied twilight into the clear air of the day.

And now abating in his flurry, the whale once more rolled out into
view; surging from side to side; spasmodically dilating and contracting
his spout-hole, with sharp, cracking, agonized respirations. At last,
gush after gush of clotted red gore, as if it had been the purple lees
of red wine, shot into the frighted air; and falling back again, ran
dripping down his motionless flanks into the sea. His heart had burst!

“He’s dead, Mr. Stubb,” said Daggoo.

“Yes; both pipes smoked out!” and withdrawing his own from his mouth,
Stubb scattered the dead ashes over the water; and, for a moment, stood
thoughtfully eyeing the vast corpse he had made.


CHAPTER 62. The Dart.

A word concerning an incident in the last chapter.

According to the invariable usage of the fishery, the whale-boat pushes
off from the ship, with the headsman or whale-killer as temporary
steersman, and the harpooneer or whale-fastener pulling the foremost
oar, the one known as the harpooneer-oar. Now it needs a strong,
nervous arm to strike the first iron into the fish; for often, in what
is called a long dart, the heavy implement has to be flung to the
distance of twenty or thirty feet. But however prolonged and exhausting
the chase, the harpooneer is expected to pull his oar meanwhile to the
uttermost; indeed, he is expected to set an example of superhuman
activity to the rest, not only by incredible rowing, but by repeated
loud and intrepid exclamations; and what it is to keep shouting at the
top of one’s compass, while all the other muscles are strained and half
started—what that is none know but those who have tried it. For one, I
cannot bawl very heartily and work very recklessly at one and the same
time. In this straining, bawling state, then, with his back to the
fish, all at once the exhausted harpooneer hears the exciting
cry—“Stand up, and give it to him!” He now has to drop and secure his
oar, turn round on his centre half way, seize his harpoon from the
crotch, and with what little strength may remain, he essays to pitch it
somehow into the whale. No wonder, taking the whole fleet of whalemen
in a body, that out of fifty fair chances for a dart, not five are
successful; no wonder that so many hapless harpooneers are madly cursed
and disrated; no wonder that some of them actually burst their
blood-vessels in the boat; no wonder that some sperm whalemen are
absent four years with four barrels; no wonder that to many ship
owners, whaling is but a losing concern; for it is the harpooneer that
makes the voyage, and if you take the breath out of his body how can
you expect to find it there when most wanted!

Again, if the dart be successful, then at the second critical instant,
that is, when the whale starts to run, the boatheader and harpooneer
likewise start to running fore and aft, to the imminent jeopardy of
themselves and every one else. It is then they change places; and the
headsman, the chief officer of the little craft, takes his proper
station in the bows of the boat.

Now, I care not who maintains the contrary, but all this is both
foolish and unnecessary. The headsman should stay in the bows from
first to last; he should both dart the harpoon and the lance, and no
rowing whatever should be expected of him, except under circumstances
obvious to any fisherman. I know that this would sometimes involve a
slight loss of speed in the chase; but long experience in various
whalemen of more than one nation has convinced me that in the vast
majority of failures in the fishery, it has not by any means been so
much the speed of the whale as the before described exhaustion of the
harpooneer that has caused them.

To insure the greatest efficiency in the dart, the harpooneers of this
world must start to their feet from out of idleness, and not from out
of toil.


CHAPTER 63. The Crotch.

Out of the trunk, the branches grow; out of them, the twigs. So, in
productive subjects, grow the chapters.

The crotch alluded to on a previous page deserves independent mention.
It is a notched stick of a peculiar form, some two feet in length,
which is perpendicularly inserted into the starboard gunwale near the
bow, for the purpose of furnishing a rest for the wooden extremity of
the harpoon, whose other naked, barbed end slopingly projects from the
prow. Thereby the weapon is instantly at hand to its hurler, who
snatches it up as readily from its rest as a backwoodsman swings his
rifle from the wall. It is customary to have two harpoons reposing in
the crotch, respectively called the first and second irons.

But these two harpoons, each by its own cord, are both connected with
the line; the object being this: to dart them both, if possible, one
instantly after the other into the same whale; so that if, in the
coming drag, one should draw out, the other may still retain a hold. It
is a doubling of the chances. But it very often happens that owing to
the instantaneous, violent, convulsive running of the whale upon
receiving the first iron, it becomes impossible for the harpooneer,
however lightning-like in his movements, to pitch the second iron into
him. Nevertheless, as the second iron is already connected with the
line, and the line is running, hence that weapon must, at all events,
be anticipatingly tossed out of the boat, somehow and somewhere; else
the most terrible jeopardy would involve all hands. Tumbled into the
water, it accordingly is in such cases; the spare coils of box line
(mentioned in a preceding chapter) making this feat, in most instances,
prudently practicable. But this critical act is not always unattended
with the saddest and most fatal casualties.

Furthermore: you must know that when the second iron is thrown
overboard, it thenceforth becomes a dangling, sharp-edged terror,
skittishly curvetting about both boat and whale, entangling the lines,
or cutting them, and making a prodigious sensation in all directions.
Nor, in general, is it possible to secure it again until the whale is
fairly captured and a corpse.

Consider, now, how it must be in the case of four boats all engaging
one unusually strong, active, and knowing whale; when owing to these
qualities in him, as well as to the thousand concurring accidents of
such an audacious enterprise, eight or ten loose second irons may be
simultaneously dangling about him. For, of course, each boat is
supplied with several harpoons to bend on to the line should the first
one be ineffectually darted without recovery. All these particulars are
faithfully narrated here, as they will not fail to elucidate several
most important, however intricate passages, in scenes hereafter to be
painted.


CHAPTER 64. Stubb’s Supper.

Stubb’s whale had been killed some distance from the ship. It was a
calm; so, forming a tandem of three boats, we commenced the slow
business of towing the trophy to the Pequod. And now, as we eighteen
men with our thirty-six arms, and one hundred and eighty thumbs and
fingers, slowly toiled hour after hour upon that inert, sluggish corpse
in the sea; and it seemed hardly to budge at all, except at long
intervals; good evidence was hereby furnished of the enormousness of
the mass we moved. For, upon the great canal of Hang-Ho, or whatever
they call it, in China, four or five laborers on the foot-path will
draw a bulky freighted junk at the rate of a mile an hour; but this
grand argosy we towed heavily forged along, as if laden with pig-lead
in bulk.

Darkness came on; but three lights up and down in the Pequod’s
main-rigging dimly guided our way; till drawing nearer we saw Ahab
dropping one of several more lanterns over the bulwarks. Vacantly
eyeing the heaving whale for a moment, he issued the usual orders for
securing it for the night, and then handing his lantern to a seaman,
went his way into the cabin, and did not come forward again until
morning.

Though, in overseeing the pursuit of this whale, Captain Ahab had
evinced his customary activity, to call it so; yet now that the
creature was dead, some vague dissatisfaction, or impatience, or
despair, seemed working in him; as if the sight of that dead body
reminded him that Moby Dick was yet to be slain; and though a thousand
other whales were brought to his ship, all that would not one jot
advance his grand, monomaniac object. Very soon you would have thought
from the sound on the Pequod’s decks, that all hands were preparing to
cast anchor in the deep; for heavy chains are being dragged along the
deck, and thrust rattling out of the port-holes. But by those clanking
links, the vast corpse itself, not the ship, is to be moored. Tied by
the head to the stern, and by the tail to the bows, the whale now lies
with its black hull close to the vessel’s and seen through the darkness
of the night, which obscured the spars and rigging aloft, the two—ship
and whale, seemed yoked together like colossal bullocks, whereof one
reclines while the other remains standing.*

*A little item may as well be related here. The strongest and most
reliable hold which the ship has upon the whale when moored alongside,
is by the flukes or tail; and as from its greater density that part is
relatively heavier than any other (excepting the side-fins), its
flexibility even in death, causes it to sink low beneath the surface;
so that with the hand you cannot get at it from the boat, in order to
put the chain round it. But this difficulty is ingeniously overcome: a
small, strong line is prepared with a wooden float at its outer end,
and a weight in its middle, while the other end is secured to the ship.
By adroit management the wooden float is made to rise on the other side
of the mass, so that now having girdled the whale, the chain is readily
made to follow suit; and being slipped along the body, is at last
locked fast round the smallest part of the tail, at the point of
junction with its broad flukes or lobes.

If moody Ahab was now all quiescence, at least so far as could be known
on deck, Stubb, his second mate, flushed with conquest, betrayed an
unusual but still good-natured excitement. Such an unwonted bustle was
he in that the staid Starbuck, his official superior, quietly resigned
to him for the time the sole management of affairs. One small, helping
cause of all this liveliness in Stubb, was soon made strangely
manifest. Stubb was a high liver; he was somewhat intemperately fond of
the whale as a flavorish thing to his palate.

“A steak, a steak, ere I sleep! You, Daggoo! overboard you go, and cut
me one from his small!”

Here be it known, that though these wild fishermen do not, as a general
thing, and according to the great military maxim, make the enemy defray
the current expenses of the war (at least before realizing the proceeds
of the voyage), yet now and then you find some of these Nantucketers
who have a genuine relish for that particular part of the Sperm Whale
designated by Stubb; comprising the tapering extremity of the body.

About midnight that steak was cut and cooked; and lighted by two
lanterns of sperm oil, Stubb stoutly stood up to his spermaceti supper
at the capstan-head, as if that capstan were a sideboard. Nor was Stubb
the only banqueter on whale’s flesh that night. Mingling their
mumblings with his own mastications, thousands on thousands of sharks,
swarming round the dead leviathan, smackingly feasted on its fatness.
The few sleepers below in their bunks were often startled by the sharp
slapping of their tails against the hull, within a few inches of the
sleepers’ hearts. Peering over the side you could just see them (as
before you heard them) wallowing in the sullen, black waters, and
turning over on their backs as they scooped out huge globular pieces of
the whale of the bigness of a human head. This particular feat of the
shark seems all but miraculous. How at such an apparently unassailable
surface, they contrive to gouge out such symmetrical mouthfuls, remains
a part of the universal problem of all things. The mark they thus leave
on the whale, may best be likened to the hollow made by a carpenter in
countersinking for a screw.

Though amid all the smoking horror and diabolism of a sea-fight, sharks
will be seen longingly gazing up to the ship’s decks, like hungry dogs
round a table where red meat is being carved, ready to bolt down every
killed man that is tossed to them; and though, while the valiant
butchers over the deck-table are thus cannibally carving each other’s
live meat with carving-knives all gilded and tasselled, the sharks,
also, with their jewel-hilted mouths, are quarrelsomely carving away
under the table at the dead meat; and though, were you to turn the
whole affair upside down, it would still be pretty much the same thing,
that is to say, a shocking sharkish business enough for all parties;
and though sharks also are the invariable outriders of all slave ships
crossing the Atlantic, systematically trotting alongside, to be handy
in case a parcel is to be carried anywhere, or a dead slave to be
decently buried; and though one or two other like instances might be
set down, touching the set terms, places, and occasions, when sharks do
most socially congregate, and most hilariously feast; yet is there no
conceivable time or occasion when you will find them in such countless
numbers, and in gayer or more jovial spirits, than around a dead sperm
whale, moored by night to a whaleship at sea. If you have never seen
that sight, then suspend your decision about the propriety of
devil-worship, and the expediency of conciliating the devil.

But, as yet, Stubb heeded not the mumblings of the banquet that was
going on so nigh him, no more than the sharks heeded the smacking of
his own epicurean lips.

“Cook, cook!—where’s that old Fleece?” he cried at length, widening his
legs still further, as if to form a more secure base for his supper;
and, at the same time darting his fork into the dish, as if stabbing
with his lance; “cook, you cook!—sail this way, cook!”

The old black, not in any very high glee at having been previously
roused from his warm hammock at a most unseasonable hour, came
shambling along from his galley, for, like many old blacks, there was
something the matter with his knee-pans, which he did not keep well
scoured like his other pans; this old Fleece, as they called him, came
shuffling and limping along, assisting his step with his tongs, which,
after a clumsy fashion, were made of straightened iron hoops; this old
Ebony floundered along, and in obedience to the word of command, came
to a dead stop on the opposite side of Stubb’s sideboard; when, with
both hands folded before him, and resting on his two-legged cane, he
bowed his arched back still further over, at the same time sideways
inclining his head, so as to bring his best ear into play.

“Cook,” said Stubb, rapidly lifting a rather reddish morsel to his
mouth, “don’t you think this steak is rather overdone? You’ve been
beating this steak too much, cook; it’s too tender. Don’t I always say
that to be good, a whale-steak must be tough? There are those sharks
now over the side, don’t you see they prefer it tough and rare? What a
shindy they are kicking up! Cook, go and talk to ’em; tell ’em they are
welcome to help themselves civilly, and in moderation, but they must
keep quiet. Blast me, if I can hear my own voice. Away, cook, and
deliver my message. Here, take this lantern,” snatching one from his
sideboard; “now then, go and preach to ’em!”

Sullenly taking the offered lantern, old Fleece limped across the deck
to the bulwarks; and then, with one hand dropping his light low over
the sea, so as to get a good view of his congregation, with the other
hand he solemnly flourished his tongs, and leaning far over the side in
a mumbling voice began addressing the sharks, while Stubb, softly
crawling behind, overheard all that was said.

“Fellow-critters: I’se ordered here to say dat you must stop dat dam
noise dare. You hear? Stop dat dam smackin’ ob de lip! Massa Stubb say
dat you can fill your dam bellies up to de hatchings, but by Gor! you
must stop dat dam racket!”

“Cook,” here interposed Stubb, accompanying the word with a sudden slap
on the shoulder,—“Cook! why, damn your eyes, you mustn’t swear that way
when you’re preaching. That’s no way to convert sinners, cook!”

“Who dat? Den preach to him yourself,” sullenly turning to go.

“No, cook; go on, go on.”

“Well, den, Belubed fellow-critters:”—

“Right!” exclaimed Stubb, approvingly, “coax ’em to it; try that,” and
Fleece continued.

“Do you is all sharks, and by natur wery woracious, yet I zay to you,
fellow-critters, dat dat woraciousness—’top dat dam slappin’ ob de
tail! How you tink to hear, spose you keep up such a dam slappin’ and
bitin’ dare?”

“Cook,” cried Stubb, collaring him, “I won’t have that swearing. Talk
to ’em gentlemanly.”

Once more the sermon proceeded.

“Your woraciousness, fellow-critters, I don’t blame ye so much for; dat
is natur, and can’t be helped; but to gobern dat wicked natur, dat is
de pint. You is sharks, sartin; but if you gobern de shark in you, why
den you be angel; for all angel is not’ing more dan de shark well
goberned. Now, look here, bred’ren, just try wonst to be cibil, a
helping yourselbs from dat whale. Don’t be tearin’ de blubber out your
neighbour’s mout, I say. Is not one shark dood right as toder to dat
whale? And, by Gor, none on you has de right to dat whale; dat whale
belong to some one else. I know some o’ you has berry brig mout,
brigger dan oders; but den de brig mouts sometimes has de small
bellies; so dat de brigness of de mout is not to swaller wid, but to
bit off de blubber for de small fry ob sharks, dat can’t get into de
scrouge to help demselves.”

“Well done, old Fleece!” cried Stubb, “that’s Christianity; go on.”

“No use goin’ on; de dam willains will keep a scougin’ and slappin’
each oder, Massa Stubb; dey don’t hear one word; no use a-preachin’ to
such dam g’uttons as you call ’em, till dare bellies is full, and dare
bellies is bottomless; and when dey do get ’em full, dey wont hear you
den; for den dey sink in de sea, go fast to sleep on de coral, and
can’t hear not’ing at all, no more, for eber and eber.”

“Upon my soul, I am about of the same opinion; so give the benediction,
Fleece, and I’ll away to my supper.”

Upon this, Fleece, holding both hands over the fishy mob, raised his
shrill voice, and cried—

“Cussed fellow-critters! Kick up de damndest row as ever you can; fill
your dam’ bellies ’till dey bust—and den die.”

“Now, cook,” said Stubb, resuming his supper at the capstan; “stand
just where you stood before, there, over against me, and pay particular
attention.”

“All dention,” said Fleece, again stooping over upon his tongs in the
desired position.

“Well,” said Stubb, helping himself freely meanwhile; “I shall now go
back to the subject of this steak. In the first place, how old are you,
cook?”

“What dat do wid de ’teak,” said the old black, testily.

“Silence! How old are you, cook?”

“’Bout ninety, dey say,” he gloomily muttered.

“And you have lived in this world hard upon one hundred years, cook,
and don’t know yet how to cook a whale-steak?” rapidly bolting another
mouthful at the last word, so that morsel seemed a continuation of the
question. “Where were you born, cook?”

“’Hind de hatchway, in ferry-boat, goin’ ober de Roanoke.”

“Born in a ferry-boat! That’s queer, too. But I want to know what
country you were born in, cook!”

“Didn’t I say de Roanoke country?” he cried sharply.

“No, you didn’t, cook; but I’ll tell you what I’m coming to, cook. You
must go home and be born over again; you don’t know how to cook a
whale-steak yet.”

“Bress my soul, if I cook noder one,” he growled, angrily, turning
round to depart.

“Come back, cook;—here, hand me those tongs;—now take that bit of steak
there, and tell me if you think that steak cooked as it should be? Take
it, I say”—holding the tongs towards him—“take it, and taste it.”

Faintly smacking his withered lips over it for a moment, the old negro
muttered, “Best cooked ’teak I eber taste; joosy, berry joosy.”

“Cook,” said Stubb, squaring himself once more; “do you belong to the
church?”

“Passed one once in Cape-Down,” said the old man sullenly.

“And you have once in your life passed a holy church in Cape-Town,
where you doubtless overheard a holy parson addressing his hearers as
his beloved fellow-creatures, have you, cook! And yet you come here,
and tell me such a dreadful lie as you did just now, eh?” said Stubb.
“Where do you expect to go to, cook?”

“Go to bed berry soon,” he mumbled, half-turning as he spoke.

“Avast! heave to! I mean when you die, cook. It’s an awful question.
Now what’s your answer?”

“When dis old brack man dies,” said the negro slowly, changing his
whole air and demeanor, “he hisself won’t go nowhere; but some bressed
angel will come and fetch him.”

“Fetch him? How? In a coach and four, as they fetched Elijah? And fetch
him where?”

“Up dere,” said Fleece, holding his tongs straight over his head, and
keeping it there very solemnly.

“So, then, you expect to go up into our main-top, do you, cook, when
you are dead? But don’t you know the higher you climb, the colder it
gets? Main-top, eh?”

“Didn’t say dat t’all,” said Fleece, again in the sulks.

“You said up there, didn’t you? and now look yourself, and see where
your tongs are pointing. But, perhaps you expect to get into heaven by
crawling through the lubber’s hole, cook; but, no, no, cook, you don’t
get there, except you go the regular way, round by the rigging. It’s a
ticklish business, but must be done, or else it’s no go. But none of us
are in heaven yet. Drop your tongs, cook, and hear my orders. Do ye
hear? Hold your hat in one hand, and clap t’other a’top of your heart,
when I’m giving my orders, cook. What! that your heart, there?—that’s
your gizzard! Aloft! aloft!—that’s it—now you have it. Hold it there
now, and pay attention.”

“All ’dention,” said the old black, with both hands placed as desired,
vainly wriggling his grizzled head, as if to get both ears in front at
one and the same time.

“Well then, cook, you see this whale-steak of yours was so very bad,
that I have put it out of sight as soon as possible; you see that,
don’t you? Well, for the future, when you cook another whale-steak for
my private table here, the capstan, I’ll tell you what to do so as not
to spoil it by overdoing. Hold the steak in one hand, and show a live
coal to it with the other; that done, dish it; d’ye hear? And now
to-morrow, cook, when we are cutting in the fish, be sure you stand by
to get the tips of his fins; have them put in pickle. As for the ends
of the flukes, have them soused, cook. There, now ye may go.”

But Fleece had hardly got three paces off, when he was recalled.

“Cook, give me cutlets for supper to-morrow night in the mid-watch.
D’ye hear? away you sail, then.—Halloa! stop! make a bow before you
go.—Avast heaving again! Whale-balls for breakfast—don’t forget.”

“Wish, by gor! whale eat him, ’stead of him eat whale. I’m bressed if
he ain’t more of shark dan Massa Shark hisself,” muttered the old man,
limping away; with which sage ejaculation he went to his hammock.


CHAPTER 65. The Whale as a Dish.

That mortal man should feed upon the creature that feeds his lamp, and,
like Stubb, eat him by his own light, as you may say; this seems so
outlandish a thing that one must needs go a little into the history and
philosophy of it.

It is upon record, that three centuries ago the tongue of the Right
Whale was esteemed a great delicacy in France, and commanded large
prices there. Also, that in Henry VIIIth’s time, a certain cook of the
court obtained a handsome reward for inventing an admirable sauce to be
eaten with barbacued porpoises, which, you remember, are a species of
whale. Porpoises, indeed, are to this day considered fine eating. The
meat is made into balls about the size of billiard balls, and being
well seasoned and spiced might be taken for turtle-balls or veal balls.
The old monks of Dunfermline were very fond of them. They had a great
porpoise grant from the crown.

The fact is, that among his hunters at least, the whale would by all
hands be considered a noble dish, were there not so much of him; but
when you come to sit down before a meat-pie nearly one hundred feet
long, it takes away your appetite. Only the most unprejudiced of men
like Stubb, nowadays partake of cooked whales; but the Esquimaux are
not so fastidious. We all know how they live upon whales, and have rare
old vintages of prime old train oil. Zogranda, one of their most famous
doctors, recommends strips of blubber for infants, as being exceedingly
juicy and nourishing. And this reminds me that certain Englishmen, who
long ago were accidentally left in Greenland by a whaling vessel—that
these men actually lived for several months on the mouldy scraps of
whales which had been left ashore after trying out the blubber. Among
the Dutch whalemen these scraps are called “fritters”; which, indeed,
they greatly resemble, being brown and crisp, and smelling something
like old Amsterdam housewives’ dough-nuts or oly-cooks, when fresh.
They have such an eatable look that the most self-denying stranger can
hardly keep his hands off.

But what further depreciates the whale as a civilized dish, is his
exceeding richness. He is the great prize ox of the sea, too fat to be
delicately good. Look at his hump, which would be as fine eating as the
buffalo’s (which is esteemed a rare dish), were it not such a solid
pyramid of fat. But the spermaceti itself, how bland and creamy that
is; like the transparent, half-jellied, white meat of a cocoanut in the
third month of its growth, yet far too rich to supply a substitute for
butter. Nevertheless, many whalemen have a method of absorbing it into
some other substance, and then partaking of it. In the long try watches
of the night it is a common thing for the seamen to dip their
ship-biscuit into the huge oil-pots and let them fry there awhile. Many
a good supper have I thus made.

In the case of a small Sperm Whale the brains are accounted a fine
dish. The casket of the skull is broken into with an axe, and the two
plump, whitish lobes being withdrawn (precisely resembling two large
puddings), they are then mixed with flour, and cooked into a most
delectable mess, in flavor somewhat resembling calves’ head, which is
quite a dish among some epicures; and every one knows that some young
bucks among the epicures, by continually dining upon calves’ brains, by
and by get to have a little brains of their own, so as to be able to
tell a calf’s head from their own heads; which, indeed, requires
uncommon discrimination. And that is the reason why a young buck with
an intelligent looking calf’s head before him, is somehow one of the
saddest sights you can see. The head looks a sort of reproachfully at
him, with an “Et tu Brute!” expression.

It is not, perhaps, entirely because the whale is so excessively
unctuous that landsmen seem to regard the eating of him with
abhorrence; that appears to result, in some way, from the consideration
before mentioned: _i.e._ that a man should eat a newly murdered thing
of the sea, and eat it too by its own light. But no doubt the first man
that ever murdered an ox was regarded as a murderer; perhaps he was
hung; and if he had been put on his trial by oxen, he certainly would
have been; and he certainly deserved it if any murderer does. Go to the
meat-market of a Saturday night and see the crowds of live bipeds
staring up at the long rows of dead quadrupeds. Does not that sight
take a tooth out of the cannibal’s jaw? Cannibals? who is not a
cannibal? I tell you it will be more tolerable for the Fejee that
salted down a lean missionary in his cellar against a coming famine; it
will be more tolerable for that provident Fejee, I say, in the day of
judgment, than for thee, civilized and enlightened gourmand, who
nailest geese to the ground and feastest on their bloated livers in thy
paté-de-foie-gras.

But Stubb, he eats the whale by its own light, does he? and that is
adding insult to injury, is it? Look at your knife-handle, there, my
civilized and enlightened gourmand dining off that roast beef, what is
that handle made of?—what but the bones of the brother of the very ox
you are eating? And what do you pick your teeth with, after devouring
that fat goose? With a feather of the same fowl. And with what quill
did the Secretary of the Society for the Suppression of Cruelty to
Ganders formally indite his circulars? It is only within the last month
or two that that society passed a resolution to patronize nothing but
steel pens.


CHAPTER 66. The Shark Massacre.

When in the Southern Fishery, a captured Sperm Whale, after long and
weary toil, is brought alongside late at night, it is not, as a general
thing at least, customary to proceed at once to the business of cutting
him in. For that business is an exceedingly laborious one; is not very
soon completed; and requires all hands to set about it. Therefore, the
common usage is to take in all sail; lash the helm a’lee; and then send
every one below to his hammock till daylight, with the reservation
that, until that time, anchor-watches shall be kept; that is, two and
two for an hour, each couple, the crew in rotation shall mount the deck
to see that all goes well.

But sometimes, especially upon the Line in the Pacific, this plan will
not answer at all; because such incalculable hosts of sharks gather
round the moored carcase, that were he left so for six hours, say, on a
stretch, little more than the skeleton would be visible by morning. In
most other parts of the ocean, however, where these fish do not so
largely abound, their wondrous voracity can be at times considerably
diminished, by vigorously stirring them up with sharp whaling-spades, a
procedure notwithstanding, which, in some instances, only seems to
tickle them into still greater activity. But it was not thus in the
present case with the Pequod’s sharks; though, to be sure, any man
unaccustomed to such sights, to have looked over her side that night,
would have almost thought the whole round sea was one huge cheese, and
those sharks the maggots in it.

Nevertheless, upon Stubb setting the anchor-watch after his supper was
concluded; and when, accordingly, Queequeg and a forecastle seaman came
on deck, no small excitement was created among the sharks; for
immediately suspending the cutting stages over the side, and lowering
three lanterns, so that they cast long gleams of light over the turbid
sea, these two mariners, darting their long whaling-spades, kept up an
incessant murdering of the sharks,* by striking the keen steel deep
into their skulls, seemingly their only vital part. But in the foamy
confusion of their mixed and struggling hosts, the marksmen could not
always hit their mark; and this brought about new revelations of the
incredible ferocity of the foe. They viciously snapped, not only at
each other’s disembowelments, but like flexible bows, bent round, and
bit their own; till those entrails seemed swallowed over and over again
by the same mouth, to be oppositely voided by the gaping wound. Nor was
this all. It was unsafe to meddle with the corpses and ghosts of these
creatures. A sort of generic or Pantheistic vitality seemed to lurk in
their very joints and bones, after what might be called the individual
life had departed. Killed and hoisted on deck for the sake of his skin,
one of these sharks almost took poor Queequeg’s hand off, when he tried
to shut down the dead lid of his murderous jaw.

*The whaling-spade used for cutting-in is made of the very best steel;
is about the bigness of a man’s spread hand; and in general shape,
corresponds to the garden implement after which it is named; only its
sides are perfectly flat, and its upper end considerably narrower than
the lower. This weapon is always kept as sharp as possible; and when
being used is occasionally honed, just like a razor. In its socket, a
stiff pole, from twenty to thirty feet long, is inserted for a handle.

“Queequeg no care what god made him shark,” said the savage,
agonizingly lifting his hand up and down; “wedder Fejee god or
Nantucket god; but de god wat made shark must be one dam Ingin.”


CHAPTER 67. Cutting In.

It was a Saturday night, and such a Sabbath as followed! Ex officio
professors of Sabbath breaking are all whalemen. The ivory Pequod was
turned into what seemed a shamble; every sailor a butcher. You would
have thought we were offering up ten thousand red oxen to the sea gods.

In the first place, the enormous cutting tackles, among other ponderous
things comprising a cluster of blocks generally painted green, and
which no single man can possibly lift—this vast bunch of grapes was
swayed up to the main-top and firmly lashed to the lower mast-head, the
strongest point anywhere above a ship’s deck. The end of the
hawser-like rope winding through these intricacies, was then conducted
to the windlass, and the huge lower block of the tackles was swung over
the whale; to this block the great blubber hook, weighing some one
hundred pounds, was attached. And now suspended in stages over the
side, Starbuck and Stubb, the mates, armed with their long spades,
began cutting a hole in the body for the insertion of the hook just
above the nearest of the two side-fins. This done, a broad,
semicircular line is cut round the hole, the hook is inserted, and the
main body of the crew striking up a wild chorus, now commence heaving
in one dense crowd at the windlass. When instantly, the entire ship
careens over on her side; every bolt in her starts like the nail-heads
of an old house in frosty weather; she trembles, quivers, and nods her
frighted mast-heads to the sky. More and more she leans over to the
whale, while every gasping heave of the windlass is answered by a
helping heave from the billows; till at last, a swift, startling snap
is heard; with a great swash the ship rolls upwards and backwards from
the whale, and the triumphant tackle rises into sight dragging after it
the disengaged semicircular end of the first strip of blubber. Now as
the blubber envelopes the whale precisely as the rind does an orange,
so is it stripped off from the body precisely as an orange is sometimes
stripped by spiralizing it. For the strain constantly kept up by the
windlass continually keeps the whale rolling over and over in the
water, and as the blubber in one strip uniformly peels off along the
line called the “scarf,” simultaneously cut by the spades of Starbuck
and Stubb, the mates; and just as fast as it is thus peeled off, and
indeed by that very act itself, it is all the time being hoisted higher
and higher aloft till its upper end grazes the main-top; the men at the
windlass then cease heaving, and for a moment or two the prodigious
blood-dripping mass sways to and fro as if let down from the sky, and
every one present must take good heed to dodge it when it swings, else
it may box his ears and pitch him headlong overboard.

One of the attending harpooneers now advances with a long, keen weapon
called a boarding-sword, and watching his chance he dexterously slices
out a considerable hole in the lower part of the swaying mass. Into
this hole, the end of the second alternating great tackle is then
hooked so as to retain a hold upon the blubber, in order to prepare for
what follows. Whereupon, this accomplished swordsman, warning all hands
to stand off, once more makes a scientific dash at the mass, and with a
few sidelong, desperate, lunging slicings, severs it completely in
twain; so that while the short lower part is still fast, the long upper
strip, called a blanket-piece, swings clear, and is all ready for
lowering. The heavers forward now resume their song, and while the one
tackle is peeling and hoisting a second strip from the whale, the other
is slowly slackened away, and down goes the first strip through the
main hatchway right beneath, into an unfurnished parlor called the
blubber-room. Into this twilight apartment sundry nimble hands keep
coiling away the long blanket-piece as if it were a great live mass of
plaited serpents. And thus the work proceeds; the two tackles hoisting
and lowering simultaneously; both whale and windlass heaving, the
heavers singing, the blubber-room gentlemen coiling, the mates
scarfing, the ship straining, and all hands swearing occasionally, by
way of assuaging the general friction.


CHAPTER 68. The Blanket.

I have given no small attention to that not unvexed subject, the skin
of the whale. I have had controversies about it with experienced
whalemen afloat, and learned naturalists ashore. My original opinion
remains unchanged; but it is only an opinion.

The question is, what and where is the skin of the whale? Already you
know what his blubber is. That blubber is something of the consistence
of firm, close-grained beef, but tougher, more elastic and compact, and
ranges from eight or ten to twelve and fifteen inches in thickness.

Now, however preposterous it may at first seem to talk of any
creature’s skin as being of that sort of consistence and thickness, yet
in point of fact these are no arguments against such a presumption;
because you cannot raise any other dense enveloping layer from the
whale’s body but that same blubber; and the outermost enveloping layer
of any animal, if reasonably dense, what can that be but the skin?
True, from the unmarred dead body of the whale, you may scrape off with
your hand an infinitely thin, transparent substance, somewhat
resembling the thinnest shreds of isinglass, only it is almost as
flexible and soft as satin; that is, previous to being dried, when it
not only contracts and thickens, but becomes rather hard and brittle. I
have several such dried bits, which I use for marks in my whale-books.
It is transparent, as I said before; and being laid upon the printed
page, I have sometimes pleased myself with fancying it exerted a
magnifying influence. At any rate, it is pleasant to read about whales
through their own spectacles, as you may say. But what I am driving at
here is this. That same infinitely thin, isinglass substance, which, I
admit, invests the entire body of the whale, is not so much to be
regarded as the skin of the creature, as the skin of the skin, so to
speak; for it were simply ridiculous to say, that the proper skin of
the tremendous whale is thinner and more tender than the skin of a
new-born child. But no more of this.

Assuming the blubber to be the skin of the whale; then, when this skin,
as in the case of a very large Sperm Whale, will yield the bulk of one
hundred barrels of oil; and, when it is considered that, in quantity,
or rather weight, that oil, in its expressed state, is only three
fourths, and not the entire substance of the coat; some idea may hence
be had of the enormousness of that animated mass, a mere part of whose
mere integument yields such a lake of liquid as that. Reckoning ten
barrels to the ton, you have ten tons for the net weight of only three
quarters of the stuff of the whale’s skin.

In life, the visible surface of the Sperm Whale is not the least among
the many marvels he presents. Almost invariably it is all over
obliquely crossed and re-crossed with numberless straight marks in
thick array, something like those in the finest Italian line
engravings. But these marks do not seem to be impressed upon the
isinglass substance above mentioned, but seem to be seen through it, as
if they were engraved upon the body itself. Nor is this all. In some
instances, to the quick, observant eye, those linear marks, as in a
veritable engraving, but afford the ground for far other delineations.
These are hieroglyphical; that is, if you call those mysterious cyphers
on the walls of pyramids hieroglyphics, then that is the proper word to
use in the present connexion. By my retentive memory of the
hieroglyphics upon one Sperm Whale in particular, I was much struck
with a plate representing the old Indian characters chiselled on the
famous hieroglyphic palisades on the banks of the Upper Mississippi.
Like those mystic rocks, too, the mystic-marked whale remains
undecipherable. This allusion to the Indian rocks reminds me of another
thing. Besides all the other phenomena which the exterior of the Sperm
Whale presents, he not seldom displays the back, and more especially
his flanks, effaced in great part of the regular linear appearance, by
reason of numerous rude scratches, altogether of an irregular, random
aspect. I should say that those New England rocks on the sea-coast,
which Agassiz imagines to bear the marks of violent scraping contact
with vast floating icebergs—I should say, that those rocks must not a
little resemble the Sperm Whale in this particular. It also seems to me
that such scratches in the whale are probably made by hostile contact
with other whales; for I have most remarked them in the large,
full-grown bulls of the species.

A word or two more concerning this matter of the skin or blubber of the
whale. It has already been said, that it is stript from him in long
pieces, called blanket-pieces. Like most sea-terms, this one is very
happy and significant. For the whale is indeed wrapt up in his blubber
as in a real blanket or counterpane; or, still better, an Indian poncho
slipt over his head, and skirting his extremity. It is by reason of
this cosy blanketing of his body, that the whale is enabled to keep
himself comfortable in all weathers, in all seas, times, and tides.
What would become of a Greenland whale, say, in those shuddering, icy
seas of the North, if unsupplied with his cosy surtout? True, other
fish are found exceedingly brisk in those Hyperborean waters; but
these, be it observed, are your cold-blooded, lungless fish, whose very
bellies are refrigerators; creatures, that warm themselves under the
lee of an iceberg, as a traveller in winter would bask before an inn
fire; whereas, like man, the whale has lungs and warm blood. Freeze his
blood, and he dies. How wonderful is it then—except after
explanation—that this great monster, to whom corporeal warmth is as
indispensable as it is to man; how wonderful that he should be found at
home, immersed to his lips for life in those Arctic waters! where, when
seamen fall overboard, they are sometimes found, months afterwards,
perpendicularly frozen into the hearts of fields of ice, as a fly is
found glued in amber. But more surprising is it to know, as has been
proved by experiment, that the blood of a Polar whale is warmer than
that of a Borneo negro in summer.

It does seem to me, that herein we see the rare virtue of a strong
individual vitality, and the rare virtue of thick walls, and the rare
virtue of interior spaciousness. Oh, man! admire and model thyself
after the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice. Do thou, too,
live in this world without being of it. Be cool at the equator; keep
thy blood fluid at the Pole. Like the great dome of St. Peter’s, and
like the great whale, retain, O man! in all seasons a temperature of
thine own.

But how easy and how hopeless to teach these fine things! Of erections,
how few are domed like St. Peter’s! of creatures, how few vast as the
whale!


CHAPTER 69. The Funeral.

“Haul in the chains! Let the carcase go astern!”

The vast tackles have now done their duty. The peeled white body of the
beheaded whale flashes like a marble sepulchre; though changed in hue,
it has not perceptibly lost anything in bulk. It is still colossal.
Slowly it floats more and more away, the water round it torn and
splashed by the insatiate sharks, and the air above vexed with
rapacious flights of screaming fowls, whose beaks are like so many
insulting poniards in the whale. The vast white headless phantom floats
further and further from the ship, and every rod that it so floats,
what seem square roods of sharks and cubic roods of fowls, augment the
murderous din. For hours and hours from the almost stationary ship that
hideous sight is seen. Beneath the unclouded and mild azure sky, upon
the fair face of the pleasant sea, wafted by the joyous breezes, that
great mass of death floats on and on, till lost in infinite
perspectives.

There’s a most doleful and most mocking funeral! The sea-vultures all
in pious mourning, the air-sharks all punctiliously in black or
speckled. In life but few of them would have helped the whale, I ween,
if peradventure he had needed it; but upon the banquet of his funeral
they most piously do pounce. Oh, horrible vultureism of earth! from
which not the mightiest whale is free.

Nor is this the end. Desecrated as the body is, a vengeful ghost
survives and hovers over it to scare. Espied by some timid man-of-war
or blundering discovery-vessel from afar, when the distance obscuring
the swarming fowls, nevertheless still shows the white mass floating in
the sun, and the white spray heaving high against it; straightway the
whale’s unharming corpse, with trembling fingers is set down in the
log—_shoals, rocks, and breakers hereabouts: beware!_ And for years
afterwards, perhaps, ships shun the place; leaping over it as silly
sheep leap over a vacuum, because their leader originally leaped there
when a stick was held. There’s your law of precedents; there’s your
utility of traditions; there’s the story of your obstinate survival of
old beliefs never bottomed on the earth, and now not even hovering in
the air! There’s orthodoxy!

Thus, while in life the great whale’s body may have been a real terror
to his foes, in his death his ghost becomes a powerless panic to a
world.

Are you a believer in ghosts, my friend? There are other ghosts than
the Cock-Lane one, and far deeper men than Doctor Johnson who believe
in them.


CHAPTER 70. The Sphynx.

It should not have been omitted that previous to completely stripping
the body of the leviathan, he was beheaded. Now, the beheading of the
Sperm Whale is a scientific anatomical feat, upon which experienced
whale surgeons very much pride themselves: and not without reason.

Consider that the whale has nothing that can properly be called a neck;
on the contrary, where his head and body seem to join, there, in that
very place, is the thickest part of him. Remember, also, that the
surgeon must operate from above, some eight or ten feet intervening
between him and his subject, and that subject almost hidden in a
discoloured, rolling, and oftentimes tumultuous and bursting sea. Bear
in mind, too, that under these untoward circumstances he has to cut
many feet deep in the flesh; and in that subterraneous manner, without
so much as getting one single peep into the ever-contracting gash thus
made, he must skilfully steer clear of all adjacent, interdicted parts,
and exactly divide the spine at a critical point hard by its insertion
into the skull. Do you not marvel, then, at Stubb’s boast, that he
demanded but ten minutes to behead a sperm whale?

When first severed, the head is dropped astern and held there by a
cable till the body is stripped. That done, if it belong to a small
whale it is hoisted on deck to be deliberately disposed of. But, with a
full grown leviathan this is impossible; for the sperm whale’s head
embraces nearly one third of his entire bulk, and completely to suspend
such a burden as that, even by the immense tackles of a whaler, this
were as vain a thing as to attempt weighing a Dutch barn in jewellers’
scales.

The Pequod’s whale being decapitated and the body stripped, the head
was hoisted against the ship’s side—about half way out of the sea, so
that it might yet in great part be buoyed up by its native element. And
there with the strained craft steeply leaning over to it, by reason of
the enormous downward drag from the lower mast-head, and every yard-arm
on that side projecting like a crane over the waves; there, that
blood-dripping head hung to the Pequod’s waist like the giant
Holofernes’s from the girdle of Judith.

When this last task was accomplished it was noon, and the seamen went
below to their dinner. Silence reigned over the before tumultuous but
now deserted deck. An intense copper calm, like a universal yellow
lotus, was more and more unfolding its noiseless measureless leaves
upon the sea.

A short space elapsed, and up into this noiselessness came Ahab alone
from his cabin. Taking a few turns on the quarter-deck, he paused to
gaze over the side, then slowly getting into the main-chains he took
Stubb’s long spade—still remaining there after the whale’s
decapitation—and striking it into the lower part of the half-suspended
mass, placed its other end crutch-wise under one arm, and so stood
leaning over with eyes attentively fixed on this head.

It was a black and hooded head; and hanging there in the midst of so
intense a calm, it seemed the Sphynx’s in the desert. “Speak, thou vast
and venerable head,” muttered Ahab, “which, though ungarnished with a
beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty
head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou
hast dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams,
has moved amid this world’s foundations. Where unrecorded names and
navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous
hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the
drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar
home. Thou hast been where bell or diver never went; hast slept by many
a sailor’s side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay
them down. Thou saw’st the locked lovers when leaping from their
flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true
to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw’st the
murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours
he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his
murderers still sailed on unharmed—while swift lightnings shivered the
neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to
outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou hast seen enough to split the
planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!”

“Sail ho!” cried a triumphant voice from the main-mast-head.

“Aye? Well, now, that’s cheering,” cried Ahab, suddenly erecting
himself, while whole thunder-clouds swept aside from his brow. “That
lively cry upon this deadly calm might almost convert a better
man.—Where away?”

“Three points on the starboard bow, sir, and bringing down her breeze
to us!

“Better and better, man. Would now St. Paul would come along that way,
and to my breezelessness bring his breeze! O Nature, and O soul of man!
how far beyond all utterance are your linked analogies! not the
smallest atom stirs or lives on matter, but has its cunning duplicate
in mind.”


CHAPTER 71. The Jeroboam’s Story.

Hand in hand, ship and breeze blew on; but the breeze came faster than
the ship, and soon the Pequod began to rock.

By and by, through the glass the stranger’s boats and manned mast-heads
proved her a whale-ship. But as she was so far to windward, and
shooting by, apparently making a passage to some other ground, the
Pequod could not hope to reach her. So the signal was set to see what
response would be made.

Here be it said, that like the vessels of military marines, the ships
of the American Whale Fleet have each a private signal; all which
signals being collected in a book with the names of the respective
vessels attached, every captain is provided with it. Thereby, the whale
commanders are enabled to recognise each other upon the ocean, even at
considerable distances and with no small facility.

The Pequod’s signal was at last responded to by the stranger’s setting
her own; which proved the ship to be the Jeroboam of Nantucket.
Squaring her yards, she bore down, ranged abeam under the Pequod’s lee,
and lowered a boat; it soon drew nigh; but, as the side-ladder was
being rigged by Starbuck’s order to accommodate the visiting captain,
the stranger in question waved his hand from his boat’s stern in token
of that proceeding being entirely unnecessary. It turned out that the
Jeroboam had a malignant epidemic on board, and that Mayhew, her
captain, was fearful of infecting the Pequod’s company. For, though
himself and boat’s crew remained untainted, and though his ship was
half a rifle-shot off, and an incorruptible sea and air rolling and
flowing between; yet conscientiously adhering to the timid quarantine
of the land, he peremptorily refused to come into direct contact with
the Pequod.

But this did by no means prevent all communications. Preserving an
interval of some few yards between itself and the ship, the Jeroboam’s
boat by the occasional use of its oars contrived to keep parallel to
the Pequod, as she heavily forged through the sea (for by this time it
blew very fresh), with her main-topsail aback; though, indeed, at times
by the sudden onset of a large rolling wave, the boat would be pushed
some way ahead; but would be soon skilfully brought to her proper
bearings again. Subject to this, and other the like interruptions now
and then, a conversation was sustained between the two parties; but at
intervals not without still another interruption of a very different
sort.

Pulling an oar in the Jeroboam’s boat, was a man of a singular
appearance, even in that wild whaling life where individual
notabilities make up all totalities. He was a small, short, youngish
man, sprinkled all over his face with freckles, and wearing redundant
yellow hair. A long-skirted, cabalistically-cut coat of a faded walnut
tinge enveloped him; the overlapping sleeves of which were rolled up on
his wrists. A deep, settled, fanatic delirium was in his eyes.

So soon as this figure had been first descried, Stubb had
exclaimed—“That’s he! that’s he!—the long-togged scaramouch the
Town-Ho’s company told us of!” Stubb here alluded to a strange story
told of the Jeroboam, and a certain man among her crew, some time
previous when the Pequod spoke the Town-Ho. According to this account
and what was subsequently learned, it seemed that the scaramouch in
question had gained a wonderful ascendency over almost everybody in the
Jeroboam. His story was this:

He had been originally nurtured among the crazy society of Neskyeuna
Shakers, where he had been a great prophet; in their cracked, secret
meetings having several times descended from heaven by the way of a
trap-door, announcing the speedy opening of the seventh vial, which he
carried in his vest-pocket; but, which, instead of containing
gunpowder, was supposed to be charged with laudanum. A strange,
apostolic whim having seized him, he had left Neskyeuna for Nantucket,
where, with that cunning peculiar to craziness, he assumed a steady,
common-sense exterior, and offered himself as a green-hand candidate
for the Jeroboam’s whaling voyage. They engaged him; but straightway
upon the ship’s getting out of sight of land, his insanity broke out in
a freshet. He announced himself as the archangel Gabriel, and commanded
the captain to jump overboard. He published his manifesto, whereby he
set himself forth as the deliverer of the isles of the sea and
vicar-general of all Oceanica. The unflinching earnestness with which
he declared these things;—the dark, daring play of his sleepless,
excited imagination, and all the preternatural terrors of real
delirium, united to invest this Gabriel in the minds of the majority of
the ignorant crew, with an atmosphere of sacredness. Moreover, they
were afraid of him. As such a man, however, was not of much practical
use in the ship, especially as he refused to work except when he
pleased, the incredulous captain would fain have been rid of him; but
apprised that that individual’s intention was to land him in the first
convenient port, the archangel forthwith opened all his seals and
vials—devoting the ship and all hands to unconditional perdition, in
case this intention was carried out. So strongly did he work upon his
disciples among the crew, that at last in a body they went to the
captain and told him if Gabriel was sent from the ship, not a man of
them would remain. He was therefore forced to relinquish his plan. Nor
would they permit Gabriel to be any way maltreated, say or do what he
would; so that it came to pass that Gabriel had the complete freedom of
the ship. The consequence of all this was, that the archangel cared
little or nothing for the captain and mates; and since the epidemic had
broken out, he carried a higher hand than ever; declaring that the
plague, as he called it, was at his sole command; nor should it be
stayed but according to his good pleasure. The sailors, mostly poor
devils, cringed, and some of them fawned before him; in obedience to
his instructions, sometimes rendering him personal homage, as to a god.
Such things may seem incredible; but, however wondrous, they are true.
Nor is the history of fanatics half so striking in respect to the
measureless self-deception of the fanatic himself, as his measureless
power of deceiving and bedevilling so many others. But it is time to
return to the Pequod.

“I fear not thy epidemic, man,” said Ahab from the bulwarks, to Captain
Mayhew, who stood in the boat’s stern; “come on board.”

But now Gabriel started to his feet.

“Think, think of the fevers, yellow and bilious! Beware of the horrible
plague!”

“Gabriel! Gabriel!” cried Captain Mayhew; “thou must either—” But that
instant a headlong wave shot the boat far ahead, and its seethings
drowned all speech.

“Hast thou seen the White Whale?” demanded Ahab, when the boat drifted
back.

“Think, think of thy whale-boat, stoven and sunk! Beware of the
horrible tail!”

“I tell thee again, Gabriel, that—” But again the boat tore ahead as if
dragged by fiends. Nothing was said for some moments, while a
succession of riotous waves rolled by, which by one of those occasional
caprices of the seas were tumbling, not heaving it. Meantime, the
hoisted sperm whale’s head jogged about very violently, and Gabriel was
seen eyeing it with rather more apprehensiveness than his archangel
nature seemed to warrant.

When this interlude was over, Captain Mayhew began a dark story
concerning Moby Dick; not, however, without frequent interruptions from
Gabriel, whenever his name was mentioned, and the crazy sea that seemed
leagued with him.

It seemed that the Jeroboam had not long left home, when upon speaking
a whale-ship, her people were reliably apprised of the existence of
Moby Dick, and the havoc he had made. Greedily sucking in this
intelligence, Gabriel solemnly warned the captain against attacking the
White Whale, in case the monster should be seen; in his gibbering
insanity, pronouncing the White Whale to be no less a being than the
Shaker God incarnated; the Shakers receiving the Bible. But when, some
year or two afterwards, Moby Dick was fairly sighted from the
mast-heads, Macey, the chief mate, burned with ardour to encounter him;
and the captain himself being not unwilling to let him have the
opportunity, despite all the archangel’s denunciations and
forewarnings, Macey succeeded in persuading five men to man his boat.
With them he pushed off; and, after much weary pulling, and many
perilous, unsuccessful onsets, he at last succeeded in getting one iron
fast. Meantime, Gabriel, ascending to the main-royal mast-head, was
tossing one arm in frantic gestures, and hurling forth prophecies of
speedy doom to the sacrilegious assailants of his divinity. Now, while
Macey, the mate, was standing up in his boat’s bow, and with all the
reckless energy of his tribe was venting his wild exclamations upon the
whale, and essaying to get a fair chance for his poised lance, lo! a
broad white shadow rose from the sea; by its quick, fanning motion,
temporarily taking the breath out of the bodies of the oarsmen. Next
instant, the luckless mate, so full of furious life, was smitten bodily
into the air, and making a long arc in his descent, fell into the sea
at the distance of about fifty yards. Not a chip of the boat was
harmed, nor a hair of any oarsman’s head; but the mate for ever sank.

It is well to parenthesize here, that of the fatal accidents in the
Sperm-Whale Fishery, this kind is perhaps almost as frequent as any.
Sometimes, nothing is injured but the man who is thus annihilated;
oftener the boat’s bow is knocked off, or the thigh-board, in which the
headsman stands, is torn from its place and accompanies the body. But
strangest of all is the circumstance, that in more instances than one,
when the body has been recovered, not a single mark of violence is
discernible; the man being stark dead.

The whole calamity, with the falling form of Macey, was plainly
descried from the ship. Raising a piercing shriek—“The vial! the vial!”
Gabriel called off the terror-stricken crew from the further hunting of
the whale. This terrible event clothed the archangel with added
influence; because his credulous disciples believed that he had
specifically fore-announced it, instead of only making a general
prophecy, which any one might have done, and so have chanced to hit one
of many marks in the wide margin allowed. He became a nameless terror
to the ship.

Mayhew having concluded his narration, Ahab put such questions to him,
that the stranger captain could not forbear inquiring whether he
intended to hunt the White Whale, if opportunity should offer. To which
Ahab answered—“Aye.” Straightway, then, Gabriel once more started to
his feet, glaring upon the old man, and vehemently exclaimed, with
downward pointed finger—“Think, think of the blasphemer—dead, and down
there!—beware of the blasphemer’s end!”

Ahab stolidly turned aside; then said to Mayhew, “Captain, I have just
bethought me of my letter-bag; there is a letter for one of thy
officers, if I mistake not. Starbuck, look over the bag.”

Every whale-ship takes out a goodly number of letters for various
ships, whose delivery to the persons to whom they may be addressed,
depends upon the mere chance of encountering them in the four oceans.
Thus, most letters never reach their mark; and many are only received
after attaining an age of two or three years or more.

Soon Starbuck returned with a letter in his hand. It was sorely
tumbled, damp, and covered with a dull, spotted, green mould, in
consequence of being kept in a dark locker of the cabin. Of such a
letter, Death himself might well have been the post-boy.

“Can’st not read it?” cried Ahab. “Give it me, man. Aye, aye, it’s but
a dim scrawl;—what’s this?” As he was studying it out, Starbuck took a
long cutting-spade pole, and with his knife slightly split the end, to
insert the letter there, and in that way, hand it to the boat, without
its coming any closer to the ship.

Meantime, Ahab holding the letter, muttered, “Mr. Har—yes, Mr. Harry—(a
woman’s pinny hand,—the man’s wife, I’ll wager)—Aye—Mr. Harry Macey,
Ship Jeroboam;—why it’s Macey, and he’s dead!”

“Poor fellow! poor fellow! and from his wife,” sighed Mayhew; “but let
me have it.”

“Nay, keep it thyself,” cried Gabriel to Ahab; “thou art soon going
that way.”

“Curses throttle thee!” yelled Ahab. “Captain Mayhew, stand by now to
receive it”; and taking the fatal missive from Starbuck’s hands, he
caught it in the slit of the pole, and reached it over towards the
boat. But as he did so, the oarsmen expectantly desisted from rowing;
the boat drifted a little towards the ship’s stern; so that, as if by
magic, the letter suddenly ranged along with Gabriel’s eager hand. He
clutched it in an instant, seized the boat-knife, and impaling the
letter on it, sent it thus loaded back into the ship. It fell at Ahab’s
feet. Then Gabriel shrieked out to his comrades to give way with their
oars, and in that manner the mutinous boat rapidly shot away from the
Pequod.

As, after this interlude, the seamen resumed their work upon the jacket
of the whale, many strange things were hinted in reference to this wild
affair.


CHAPTER 72. The Monkey-Rope.

In the tumultuous business of cutting-in and attending to a whale,
there is much running backwards and forwards among the crew. Now hands
are wanted here, and then again hands are wanted there. There is no
staying in any one place; for at one and the same time everything has
to be done everywhere. It is much the same with him who endeavors the
description of the scene. We must now retrace our way a little. It was
mentioned that upon first breaking ground in the whale’s back, the
blubber-hook was inserted into the original hole there cut by the
spades of the mates. But how did so clumsy and weighty a mass as that
same hook get fixed in that hole? It was inserted there by my
particular friend Queequeg, whose duty it was, as harpooneer, to
descend upon the monster’s back for the special purpose referred to.
But in very many cases, circumstances require that the harpooneer shall
remain on the whale till the whole flensing or stripping operation is
concluded. The whale, be it observed, lies almost entirely submerged,
excepting the immediate parts operated upon. So down there, some ten
feet below the level of the deck, the poor harpooneer flounders about,
half on the whale and half in the water, as the vast mass revolves like
a tread-mill beneath him. On the occasion in question, Queequeg figured
in the Highland costume—a shirt and socks—in which to my eyes, at
least, he appeared to uncommon advantage; and no one had a better
chance to observe him, as will presently be seen.

Being the savage’s bowsman, that is, the person who pulled the bow-oar
in his boat (the second one from forward), it was my cheerful duty to
attend upon him while taking that hard-scrabble scramble upon the dead
whale’s back. You have seen Italian organ-boys holding a dancing-ape by
a long cord. Just so, from the ship’s steep side, did I hold Queequeg
down there in the sea, by what is technically called in the fishery a
monkey-rope, attached to a strong strip of canvas belted round his
waist.

It was a humorously perilous business for both of us. For, before we
proceed further, it must be said that the monkey-rope was fast at both
ends; fast to Queequeg’s broad canvas belt, and fast to my narrow
leather one. So that for better or for worse, we two, for the time,
were wedded; and should poor Queequeg sink to rise no more, then both
usage and honor demanded, that instead of cutting the cord, it should
drag me down in his wake. So, then, an elongated Siamese ligature
united us. Queequeg was my own inseparable twin brother; nor could I
any way get rid of the dangerous liabilities which the hempen bond
entailed.

So strongly and metaphysically did I conceive of my situation then,
that while earnestly watching his motions, I seemed distinctly to
perceive that my own individuality was now merged in a joint stock
company of two; that my free will had received a mortal wound; and that
another’s mistake or misfortune might plunge innocent me into unmerited
disaster and death. Therefore, I saw that here was a sort of
interregnum in Providence; for its even-handed equity never could have
so gross an injustice. And yet still further pondering—while I jerked
him now and then from between the whale and ship, which would threaten
to jam him—still further pondering, I say, I saw that this situation of
mine was the precise situation of every mortal that breathes; only, in
most cases, he, one way or other, has this Siamese connexion with a
plurality of other mortals. If your banker breaks, you snap; if your
apothecary by mistake sends you poison in your pills, you die. True,
you may say that, by exceeding caution, you may possibly escape these
and the multitudinous other evil chances of life. But handle Queequeg’s
monkey-rope heedfully as I would, sometimes he jerked it so, that I
came very near sliding overboard. Nor could I possibly forget that, do
what I would, I only had the management of one end of it.*

*The monkey-rope is found in all whalers; but it was only in the Pequod
that the monkey and his holder were ever tied together. This
improvement upon the original usage was introduced by no less a man
than Stubb, in order to afford the imperilled harpooneer the strongest
possible guarantee for the faithfulness and vigilance of his
monkey-rope holder.

I have hinted that I would often jerk poor Queequeg from between the
whale and the ship—where he would occasionally fall, from the incessant
rolling and swaying of both. But this was not the only jamming jeopardy
he was exposed to. Unappalled by the massacre made upon them during the
night, the sharks now freshly and more keenly allured by the before
pent blood which began to flow from the carcass—the rabid creatures
swarmed round it like bees in a beehive.

And right in among those sharks was Queequeg; who often pushed them
aside with his floundering feet. A thing altogether incredible were it
not that attracted by such prey as a dead whale, the otherwise
miscellaneously carnivorous shark will seldom touch a man.

Nevertheless, it may well be believed that since they have such a
ravenous finger in the pie, it is deemed but wise to look sharp to
them. Accordingly, besides the monkey-rope, with which I now and then
jerked the poor fellow from too close a vicinity to the maw of what
seemed a peculiarly ferocious shark—he was provided with still another
protection. Suspended over the side in one of the stages, Tashtego and
Daggoo continually flourished over his head a couple of keen
whale-spades, wherewith they slaughtered as many sharks as they could
reach. This procedure of theirs, to be sure, was very disinterested and
benevolent of them. They meant Queequeg’s best happiness, I admit; but
in their hasty zeal to befriend him, and from the circumstance that
both he and the sharks were at times half hidden by the blood-muddled
water, those indiscreet spades of theirs would come nearer amputating a
leg than a tail. But poor Queequeg, I suppose, straining and gasping
there with that great iron hook—poor Queequeg, I suppose, only prayed
to his Yojo, and gave up his life into the hands of his gods.

Well, well, my dear comrade and twin-brother, thought I, as I drew in
and then slacked off the rope to every swell of the sea—what matters
it, after all? Are you not the precious image of each and all of us men
in this whaling world? That unsounded ocean you gasp in, is Life; those
sharks, your foes; those spades, your friends; and what between sharks
and spades you are in a sad pickle and peril, poor lad.

But courage! there is good cheer in store for you, Queequeg. For now,
as with blue lips and blood-shot eyes the exhausted savage at last
climbs up the chains and stands all dripping and involuntarily
trembling over the side; the steward advances, and with a benevolent,
consolatory glance hands him—what? Some hot Cognac? No! hands him, ye
gods! hands him a cup of tepid ginger and water!

“Ginger? Do I smell ginger?” suspiciously asked Stubb, coming near.
“Yes, this must be ginger,” peering into the as yet untasted cup. Then
standing as if incredulous for a while, he calmly walked towards the
astonished steward slowly saying, “Ginger? ginger? and will you have
the goodness to tell me, Mr. Dough-Boy, where lies the virtue of
ginger? Ginger! is ginger the sort of fuel you use, Dough-boy, to
kindle a fire in this shivering cannibal? Ginger!—what the devil is
ginger? Sea-coal? firewood?—lucifer matches?—tinder?—gunpowder?—what
the devil is ginger, I say, that you offer this cup to our poor
Queequeg here.”

“There is some sneaking Temperance Society movement about this
business,” he suddenly added, now approaching Starbuck, who had just
come from forward. “Will you look at that kannakin, sir: smell of it,
if you please.” Then watching the mate’s countenance, he added, “The
steward, Mr. Starbuck, had the face to offer that calomel and jalap to
Queequeg, there, this instant off the whale. Is the steward an
apothecary, sir? and may I ask whether this is the sort of bitters by
which he blows back the life into a half-drowned man?”

“I trust not,” said Starbuck, “it is poor stuff enough.”

“Aye, aye, steward,” cried Stubb, “we’ll teach you to drug a
harpooneer; none of your apothecary’s medicine here; you want to poison
us, do ye? You have got out insurances on our lives and want to murder
us all, and pocket the proceeds, do ye?”

“It was not me,” cried Dough-Boy, “it was Aunt Charity that brought the
ginger on board; and bade me never give the harpooneers any spirits,
but only this ginger-jub—so she called it.”

“Ginger-jub! you gingerly rascal! take that! and run along with ye to
the lockers, and get something better. I hope I do no wrong, Mr.
Starbuck. It is the captain’s orders—grog for the harpooneer on a
whale.”

“Enough,” replied Starbuck, “only don’t hit him again, but—”

“Oh, I never hurt when I hit, except when I hit a whale or something of
that sort; and this fellow’s a weazel. What were you about saying,
sir?”

“Only this: go down with him, and get what thou wantest thyself.”

When Stubb reappeared, he came with a dark flask in one hand, and a
sort of tea-caddy in the other. The first contained strong spirits, and
was handed to Queequeg; the second was Aunt Charity’s gift, and that
was freely given to the waves.


CHAPTER 73. Stubb and Flask kill a Right Whale; and Then Have a Talk
over Him.

It must be borne in mind that all this time we have a Sperm Whale’s
prodigious head hanging to the Pequod’s side. But we must let it
continue hanging there a while till we can get a chance to attend to
it. For the present other matters press, and the best we can do now for
the head, is to pray heaven the tackles may hold.

Now, during the past night and forenoon, the Pequod had gradually
drifted into a sea, which, by its occasional patches of yellow brit,
gave unusual tokens of the vicinity of Right Whales, a species of the
Leviathan that but few supposed to be at this particular time lurking
anywhere near. And though all hands commonly disdained the capture of
those inferior creatures; and though the Pequod was not commissioned to
cruise for them at all, and though she had passed numbers of them near
the Crozetts without lowering a boat; yet now that a Sperm Whale had
been brought alongside and beheaded, to the surprise of all, the
announcement was made that a Right Whale should be captured that day,
if opportunity offered.

Nor was this long wanting. Tall spouts were seen to leeward; and two
boats, Stubb’s and Flask’s, were detached in pursuit. Pulling further
and further away, they at last became almost invisible to the men at
the mast-head. But suddenly in the distance, they saw a great heap of
tumultuous white water, and soon after news came from aloft that one or
both the boats must be fast. An interval passed and the boats were in
plain sight, in the act of being dragged right towards the ship by the
towing whale. So close did the monster come to the hull, that at first
it seemed as if he meant it malice; but suddenly going down in a
maelstrom, within three rods of the planks, he wholly disappeared from
view, as if diving under the keel. “Cut, cut!” was the cry from the
ship to the boats, which, for one instant, seemed on the point of being
brought with a deadly dash against the vessel’s side. But having plenty
of line yet in the tubs, and the whale not sounding very rapidly, they
paid out abundance of rope, and at the same time pulled with all their
might so as to get ahead of the ship. For a few minutes the struggle
was intensely critical; for while they still slacked out the tightened
line in one direction, and still plied their oars in another, the
contending strain threatened to take them under. But it was only a few
feet advance they sought to gain. And they stuck to it till they did
gain it; when instantly, a swift tremor was felt running like lightning
along the keel, as the strained line, scraping beneath the ship,
suddenly rose to view under her bows, snapping and quivering; and so
flinging off its drippings, that the drops fell like bits of broken
glass on the water, while the whale beyond also rose to sight, and once
more the boats were free to fly. But the fagged whale abated his speed,
and blindly altering his course, went round the stern of the ship
towing the two boats after him, so that they performed a complete
circuit.

Meantime, they hauled more and more upon their lines, till close
flanking him on both sides, Stubb answered Flask with lance for lance;
and thus round and round the Pequod the battle went, while the
multitudes of sharks that had before swum round the Sperm Whale’s body,
rushed to the fresh blood that was spilled, thirstily drinking at every
new gash, as the eager Israelites did at the new bursting fountains
that poured from the smitten rock.

At last his spout grew thick, and with a frightful roll and vomit, he
turned upon his back a corpse.

While the two headsmen were engaged in making fast cords to his flukes,
and in other ways getting the mass in readiness for towing, some
conversation ensued between them.

“I wonder what the old man wants with this lump of foul lard,” said
Stubb, not without some disgust at the thought of having to do with so
ignoble a leviathan.

“Wants with it?” said Flask, coiling some spare line in the boat’s bow,
“did you never hear that the ship which but once has a Sperm Whale’s
head hoisted on her starboard side, and at the same time a Right
Whale’s on the larboard; did you never hear, Stubb, that that ship can
never afterwards capsize?”

“Why not?

“I don’t know, but I heard that gamboge ghost of a Fedallah saying so,
and he seems to know all about ships’ charms. But I sometimes think
he’ll charm the ship to no good at last. I don’t half like that chap,
Stubb. Did you ever notice how that tusk of his is a sort of carved
into a snake’s head, Stubb?”

“Sink him! I never look at him at all; but if ever I get a chance of a
dark night, and he standing hard by the bulwarks, and no one by; look
down there, Flask”—pointing into the sea with a peculiar motion of both
hands—“Aye, will I! Flask, I take that Fedallah to be the devil in
disguise. Do you believe that cock and bull story about his having been
stowed away on board ship? He’s the devil, I say. The reason why you
don’t see his tail, is because he tucks it up out of sight; he carries
it coiled away in his pocket, I guess. Blast him! now that I think of
it, he’s always wanting oakum to stuff into the toes of his boots.”

“He sleeps in his boots, don’t he? He hasn’t got any hammock; but I’ve
seen him lay of nights in a coil of rigging.”

“No doubt, and it’s because of his cursed tail; he coils it down, do ye
see, in the eye of the rigging.”

“What’s the old man have so much to do with him for?”

“Striking up a swap or a bargain, I suppose.”

“Bargain?—about what?”

“Why, do ye see, the old man is hard bent after that White Whale, and
the devil there is trying to come round him, and get him to swap away
his silver watch, or his soul, or something of that sort, and then
he’ll surrender Moby Dick.”

“Pooh! Stubb, you are skylarking; how can Fedallah do that?”

“I don’t know, Flask, but the devil is a curious chap, and a wicked
one, I tell ye. Why, they say as how he went a sauntering into the old
flag-ship once, switching his tail about devilish easy and
gentlemanlike, and inquiring if the old governor was at home. Well, he
was at home, and asked the devil what he wanted. The devil, switching
his hoofs, up and says, ‘I want John.’ ‘What for?’ says the old
governor. ‘What business is that of yours,’ says the devil, getting
mad,—‘I want to use him.’ ‘Take him,’ says the governor—and by the
Lord, Flask, if the devil didn’t give John the Asiatic cholera before
he got through with him, I’ll eat this whale in one mouthful. But look
sharp—ain’t you all ready there? Well, then, pull ahead, and let’s get
the whale alongside.”

“I think I remember some such story as you were telling,” said Flask,
when at last the two boats were slowly advancing with their burden
towards the ship, “but I can’t remember where.”

“Three Spaniards? Adventures of those three bloody-minded soldadoes?
Did ye read it there, Flask? I guess ye did?”

“No: never saw such a book; heard of it, though. But now, tell me,
Stubb, do you suppose that that devil you was speaking of just now, was
the same you say is now on board the Pequod?”

“Am I the same man that helped kill this whale? Doesn’t the devil live
for ever; who ever heard that the devil was dead? Did you ever see any
parson a wearing mourning for the devil? And if the devil has a
latch-key to get into the admiral’s cabin, don’t you suppose he can
crawl into a porthole? Tell me that, Mr. Flask?”

“How old do you suppose Fedallah is, Stubb?”

“Do you see that mainmast there?” pointing to the ship; “well, that’s
the figure one; now take all the hoops in the Pequod’s hold, and string
along in a row with that mast, for oughts, do you see; well, that
wouldn’t begin to be Fedallah’s age. Nor all the coopers in creation
couldn’t show hoops enough to make oughts enough.”

“But see here, Stubb, I thought you a little boasted just now, that you
meant to give Fedallah a sea-toss, if you got a good chance. Now, if
he’s so old as all those hoops of yours come to, and if he is going to
live for ever, what good will it do to pitch him overboard—tell me
that?

“Give him a good ducking, anyhow.”

“But he’d crawl back.”

“Duck him again; and keep ducking him.”

“Suppose he should take it into his head to duck you, though—yes, and
drown you—what then?”

“I should like to see him try it; I’d give him such a pair of black
eyes that he wouldn’t dare to show his face in the admiral’s cabin
again for a long while, let alone down in the orlop there, where he
lives, and hereabouts on the upper decks where he sneaks so much. Damn
the devil, Flask; so you suppose I’m afraid of the devil? Who’s afraid
of him, except the old governor who daresn’t catch him and put him in
double-darbies, as he deserves, but lets him go about kidnapping
people; aye, and signed a bond with him, that all the people the devil
kidnapped, he’d roast for him? There’s a governor!”

“Do you suppose Fedallah wants to kidnap Captain Ahab?”

“Do I suppose it? You’ll know it before long, Flask. But I am going now
to keep a sharp look-out on him; and if I see anything very suspicious
going on, I’ll just take him by the nape of his neck, and say—Look
here, Beelzebub, you don’t do it; and if he makes any fuss, by the Lord
I’ll make a grab into his pocket for his tail, take it to the capstan,
and give him such a wrenching and heaving, that his tail will come
short off at the stump—do you see; and then, I rather guess when he
finds himself docked in that queer fashion, he’ll sneak off without the
poor satisfaction of feeling his tail between his legs.”

“And what will you do with the tail, Stubb?”

“Do with it? Sell it for an ox whip when we get home;—what else?”

“Now, do you mean what you say, and have been saying all along, Stubb?”

“Mean or not mean, here we are at the ship.”

The boats were here hailed, to tow the whale on the larboard side,
where fluke chains and other necessaries were already prepared for
securing him.

“Didn’t I tell you so?” said Flask; “yes, you’ll soon see this right
whale’s head hoisted up opposite that parmacetti’s.”

In good time, Flask’s saying proved true. As before, the Pequod steeply
leaned over towards the sperm whale’s head, now, by the counterpoise of
both heads, she regained her even keel; though sorely strained, you may
well believe. So, when on one side you hoist in Locke’s head, you go
over that way; but now, on the other side, hoist in Kant’s and you come
back again; but in very poor plight. Thus, some minds for ever keep
trimming boat. Oh, ye foolish! throw all these thunder-heads overboard,
and then you will float light and right.

In disposing of the body of a right whale, when brought alongside the
ship, the same preliminary proceedings commonly take place as in the
case of a sperm whale; only, in the latter instance, the head is cut
off whole, but in the former the lips and tongue are separately removed
and hoisted on deck, with all the well known black bone attached to
what is called the crown-piece. But nothing like this, in the present
case, had been done. The carcases of both whales had dropped astern;
and the head-laden ship not a little resembled a mule carrying a pair
of overburdening panniers.

Meantime, Fedallah was calmly eyeing the right whale’s head, and ever
and anon glancing from the deep wrinkles there to the lines in his own
hand. And Ahab chanced so to stand, that the Parsee occupied his
shadow; while, if the Parsee’s shadow was there at all it seemed only
to blend with, and lengthen Ahab’s. As the crew toiled on, Laplandish
speculations were bandied among them, concerning all these passing
things.


CHAPTER 74. The Sperm Whale’s Head—Contrasted View.

Here, now, are two great whales, laying their heads together; let us
join them, and lay together our own.

Of the grand order of folio leviathans, the Sperm Whale and the Right
Whale are by far the most noteworthy. They are the only whales
regularly hunted by man. To the Nantucketer, they present the two
extremes of all the known varieties of the whale. As the external
difference between them is mainly observable in their heads; and as a
head of each is this moment hanging from the Pequod’s side; and as we
may freely go from one to the other, by merely stepping across the
deck:—where, I should like to know, will you obtain a better chance to
study practical cetology than here?

In the first place, you are struck by the general contrast between
these heads. Both are massive enough in all conscience; but there is a
certain mathematical symmetry in the Sperm Whale’s which the Right
Whale’s sadly lacks. There is more character in the Sperm Whale’s head.
As you behold it, you involuntarily yield the immense superiority to
him, in point of pervading dignity. In the present instance, too, this
dignity is heightened by the pepper and salt colour of his head at the
summit, giving token of advanced age and large experience. In short, he
is what the fishermen technically call a “grey-headed whale.”

Let us now note what is least dissimilar in these heads—namely, the two
most important organs, the eye and the ear. Far back on the side of the
head, and low down, near the angle of either whale’s jaw, if you
narrowly search, you will at last see a lashless eye, which you would
fancy to be a young colt’s eye; so out of all proportion is it to the
magnitude of the head.

Now, from this peculiar sideway position of the whale’s eyes, it is
plain that he can never see an object which is exactly ahead, no more
than he can one exactly astern. In a word, the position of the whale’s
eyes corresponds to that of a man’s ears; and you may fancy, for
yourself, how it would fare with you, did you sideways survey objects
through your ears. You would find that you could only command some
thirty degrees of vision in advance of the straight side-line of sight;
and about thirty more behind it. If your bitterest foe were walking
straight towards you, with dagger uplifted in broad day, you would not
be able to see him, any more than if he were stealing upon you from
behind. In a word, you would have two backs, so to speak; but, at the
same time, also, two fronts (side fronts): for what is it that makes
the front of a man—what, indeed, but his eyes?

Moreover, while in most other animals that I can now think of, the eyes
are so planted as imperceptibly to blend their visual power, so as to
produce one picture and not two to the brain; the peculiar position of
the whale’s eyes, effectually divided as they are by many cubic feet of
solid head, which towers between them like a great mountain separating
two lakes in valleys; this, of course, must wholly separate the
impressions which each independent organ imparts. The whale, therefore,
must see one distinct picture on this side, and another distinct
picture on that side; while all between must be profound darkness and
nothingness to him. Man may, in effect, be said to look out on the
world from a sentry-box with two joined sashes for his window. But with
the whale, these two sashes are separately inserted, making two
distinct windows, but sadly impairing the view. This peculiarity of the
whale’s eyes is a thing always to be borne in mind in the fishery; and
to be remembered by the reader in some subsequent scenes.

A curious and most puzzling question might be started concerning this
visual matter as touching the Leviathan. But I must be content with a
hint. So long as a man’s eyes are open in the light, the act of seeing
is involuntary; that is, he cannot then help mechanically seeing
whatever objects are before him. Nevertheless, any one’s experience
will teach him, that though he can take in an undiscriminating sweep of
things at one glance, it is quite impossible for him, attentively, and
completely, to examine any two things—however large or however small—at
one and the same instant of time; never mind if they lie side by side
and touch each other. But if you now come to separate these two
objects, and surround each by a circle of profound darkness; then, in
order to see one of them, in such a manner as to bring your mind to
bear on it, the other will be utterly excluded from your contemporary
consciousness. How is it, then, with the whale? True, both his eyes, in
themselves, must simultaneously act; but is his brain so much more
comprehensive, combining, and subtle than man’s, that he can at the
same moment of time attentively examine two distinct prospects, one on
one side of him, and the other in an exactly opposite direction? If he
can, then is it as marvellous a thing in him, as if a man were able
simultaneously to go through the demonstrations of two distinct
problems in Euclid. Nor, strictly investigated, is there any
incongruity in this comparison.

It may be but an idle whim, but it has always seemed to me, that the
extraordinary vacillations of movement displayed by some whales when
beset by three or four boats; the timidity and liability to queer
frights, so common to such whales; I think that all this indirectly
proceeds from the helpless perplexity of volition, in which their
divided and diametrically opposite powers of vision must involve them.

But the ear of the whale is full as curious as the eye. If you are an
entire stranger to their race, you might hunt over these two heads for
hours, and never discover that organ. The ear has no external leaf
whatever; and into the hole itself you can hardly insert a quill, so
wondrously minute is it. It is lodged a little behind the eye. With
respect to their ears, this important difference is to be observed
between the sperm whale and the right. While the ear of the former has
an external opening, that of the latter is entirely and evenly covered
over with a membrane, so as to be quite imperceptible from without.

Is it not curious, that so vast a being as the whale should see the
world through so small an eye, and hear the thunder through an ear
which is smaller than a hare’s? But if his eyes were broad as the lens
of Herschel’s great telescope; and his ears capacious as the porches of
cathedrals; would that make him any longer of sight, or sharper of
hearing? Not at all.—Why then do you try to “enlarge” your mind?
Subtilize it.

Let us now with whatever levers and steam-engines we have at hand, cant
over the sperm whale’s head, that it may lie bottom up; then, ascending
by a ladder to the summit, have a peep down the mouth; and were it not
that the body is now completely separated from it, with a lantern we
might descend into the great Kentucky Mammoth Cave of his stomach. But
let us hold on here by this tooth, and look about us where we are. What
a really beautiful and chaste-looking mouth! from floor to ceiling,
lined, or rather papered with a glistening white membrane, glossy as
bridal satins.

But come out now, and look at this portentous lower jaw, which seems
like the long narrow lid of an immense snuff-box, with the hinge at one
end, instead of one side. If you pry it up, so as to get it overhead,
and expose its rows of teeth, it seems a terrific portcullis; and such,
alas! it proves to many a poor wight in the fishery, upon whom these
spikes fall with impaling force. But far more terrible is it to behold,
when fathoms down in the sea, you see some sulky whale, floating there
suspended, with his prodigious jaw, some fifteen feet long, hanging
straight down at right-angles with his body, for all the world like a
ship’s jib-boom. This whale is not dead; he is only dispirited; out of
sorts, perhaps; hypochondriac; and so supine, that the hinges of his
jaw have relaxed, leaving him there in that ungainly sort of plight, a
reproach to all his tribe, who must, no doubt, imprecate lock-jaws upon
him.

In most cases this lower jaw—being easily unhinged by a practised
artist—is disengaged and hoisted on deck for the purpose of extracting
the ivory teeth, and furnishing a supply of that hard white whalebone
with which the fishermen fashion all sorts of curious articles,
including canes, umbrella-stocks, and handles to riding-whips.

With a long, weary hoist the jaw is dragged on board, as if it were an
anchor; and when the proper time comes—some few days after the other
work—Queequeg, Daggoo, and Tashtego, being all accomplished dentists,
are set to drawing teeth. With a keen cutting-spade, Queequeg lances
the gums; then the jaw is lashed down to ringbolts, and a tackle being
rigged from aloft, they drag out these teeth, as Michigan oxen drag
stumps of old oaks out of wild wood lands. There are generally
forty-two teeth in all; in old whales, much worn down, but undecayed;
nor filled after our artificial fashion. The jaw is afterwards sawn
into slabs, and piled away like joists for building houses.


CHAPTER 75. The Right Whale’s Head—Contrasted View.

Crossing the deck, let us now have a good long look at the Right
Whale’s head.

As in general shape the noble Sperm Whale’s head may be compared to a
Roman war-chariot (especially in front, where it is so broadly
rounded); so, at a broad view, the Right Whale’s head bears a rather
inelegant resemblance to a gigantic galliot-toed shoe. Two hundred
years ago an old Dutch voyager likened its shape to that of a
shoemaker’s last. And in this same last or shoe, that old woman of the
nursery tale, with the swarming brood, might very comfortably be
lodged, she and all her progeny.

But as you come nearer to this great head it begins to assume different
aspects, according to your point of view. If you stand on its summit
and look at these two F-shaped spoutholes, you would take the whole
head for an enormous bass-viol, and these spiracles, the apertures in
its sounding-board. Then, again, if you fix your eye upon this strange,
crested, comb-like incrustation on the top of the mass—this green,
barnacled thing, which the Greenlanders call the “crown,” and the
Southern fishers the “bonnet” of the Right Whale; fixing your eyes
solely on this, you would take the head for the trunk of some huge oak,
with a bird’s nest in its crotch. At any rate, when you watch those
live crabs that nestle here on this bonnet, such an idea will be almost
sure to occur to you; unless, indeed, your fancy has been fixed by the
technical term “crown” also bestowed upon it; in which case you will
take great interest in thinking how this mighty monster is actually a
diademed king of the sea, whose green crown has been put together for
him in this marvellous manner. But if this whale be a king, he is a
very sulky looking fellow to grace a diadem. Look at that hanging lower
lip! what a huge sulk and pout is there! a sulk and pout, by
carpenter’s measurement, about twenty feet long and five feet deep; a
sulk and pout that will yield you some 500 gallons of oil and more.

A great pity, now, that this unfortunate whale should be hare-lipped.
The fissure is about a foot across. Probably the mother during an
important interval was sailing down the Peruvian coast, when
earthquakes caused the beach to gape. Over this lip, as over a slippery
threshold, we now slide into the mouth. Upon my word were I at
Mackinaw, I should take this to be the inside of an Indian wigwam. Good
Lord! is this the road that Jonah went? The roof is about twelve feet
high, and runs to a pretty sharp angle, as if there were a regular
ridge-pole there; while these ribbed, arched, hairy sides, present us
with those wondrous, half vertical, scimetar-shaped slats of whalebone,
say three hundred on a side, which depending from the upper part of the
head or crown bone, form those Venetian blinds which have elsewhere
been cursorily mentioned. The edges of these bones are fringed with
hairy fibres, through which the Right Whale strains the water, and in
whose intricacies he retains the small fish, when openmouthed he goes
through the seas of brit in feeding time. In the central blinds of
bone, as they stand in their natural order, there are certain curious
marks, curves, hollows, and ridges, whereby some whalemen calculate the
creature’s age, as the age of an oak by its circular rings. Though the
certainty of this criterion is far from demonstrable, yet it has the
savor of analogical probability. At any rate, if we yield to it, we
must grant a far greater age to the Right Whale than at first glance
will seem reasonable.

In old times, there seem to have prevailed the most curious fancies
concerning these blinds. One voyager in Purchas calls them the wondrous
“whiskers” inside of the whale’s mouth;* another, “hogs’ bristles”; a
third old gentleman in Hackluyt uses the following elegant language:
“There are about two hundred and fifty fins growing on each side of his
upper _chop_, which arch over his tongue on each side of his mouth.”

*This reminds us that the Right Whale really has a sort of whisker, or
rather a moustache, consisting of a few scattered white hairs on the
upper part of the outer end of the lower jaw. Sometimes these tufts
impart a rather brigandish expression to his otherwise solemn
countenance.

As every one knows, these same “hogs’ bristles,” “fins,” “whiskers,”
“blinds,” or whatever you please, furnish to the ladies their busks and
other stiffening contrivances. But in this particular, the demand has
long been on the decline. It was in Queen Anne’s time that the bone was
in its glory, the farthingale being then all the fashion. And as those
ancient dames moved about gaily, though in the jaws of the whale, as
you may say; even so, in a shower, with the like thoughtlessness, do we
nowadays fly under the same jaws for protection; the umbrella being a
tent spread over the same bone.

But now forget all about blinds and whiskers for a moment, and,
standing in the Right Whale’s mouth, look around you afresh. Seeing all
these colonnades of bone so methodically ranged about, would you not
think you were inside of the great Haarlem organ, and gazing upon its
thousand pipes? For a carpet to the organ we have a rug of the softest
Turkey—the tongue, which is glued, as it were, to the floor of the
mouth. It is very fat and tender, and apt to tear in pieces in hoisting
it on deck. This particular tongue now before us; at a passing glance I
should say it was a six-barreler; that is, it will yield you about that
amount of oil.

Ere this, you must have plainly seen the truth of what I started
with—that the Sperm Whale and the Right Whale have almost entirely
different heads. To sum up, then: in the Right Whale’s there is no
great well of sperm; no ivory teeth at all; no long, slender mandible
of a lower jaw, like the Sperm Whale’s. Nor in the Sperm Whale are
there any of those blinds of bone; no huge lower lip; and scarcely
anything of a tongue. Again, the Right Whale has two external
spout-holes, the Sperm Whale only one.

Look your last, now, on these venerable hooded heads, while they yet
lie together; for one will soon sink, unrecorded, in the sea; the other
will not be very long in following.

Can you catch the expression of the Sperm Whale’s there? It is the same
he died with, only some of the longer wrinkles in the forehead seem now
faded away. I think his broad brow to be full of a prairie-like
placidity, born of a speculative indifference as to death. But mark the
other head’s expression. See that amazing lower lip, pressed by
accident against the vessel’s side, so as firmly to embrace the jaw.
Does not this whole head seem to speak of an enormous practical
resolution in facing death? This Right Whale I take to have been a
Stoic; the Sperm Whale, a Platonian, who might have taken up Spinoza in
his latter years.


CHAPTER 76. The Battering-Ram.

Ere quitting, for the nonce, the Sperm Whale’s head, I would have you,
as a sensible physiologist, simply—particularly remark its front
aspect, in all its compacted collectedness. I would have you
investigate it now with the sole view of forming to yourself some
unexaggerated, intelligent estimate of whatever battering-ram power may
be lodged there. Here is a vital point; for you must either
satisfactorily settle this matter with yourself, or for ever remain an
infidel as to one of the most appalling, but not the less true events,
perhaps anywhere to be found in all recorded history.

You observe that in the ordinary swimming position of the Sperm Whale,
the front of his head presents an almost wholly vertical plane to the
water; you observe that the lower part of that front slopes
considerably backwards, so as to furnish more of a retreat for the long
socket which receives the boom-like lower jaw; you observe that the
mouth is entirely under the head, much in the same way, indeed, as
though your own mouth were entirely under your chin. Moreover you
observe that the whale has no external nose; and that what nose he
has—his spout hole—is on the top of his head; you observe that his eyes
and ears are at the sides of his head, nearly one third of his entire
length from the front. Wherefore, you must now have perceived that the
front of the Sperm Whale’s head is a dead, blind wall, without a single
organ or tender prominence of any sort whatsoever. Furthermore, you are
now to consider that only in the extreme, lower, backward sloping part
of the front of the head, is there the slightest vestige of bone; and
not till you get near twenty feet from the forehead do you come to the
full cranial development. So that this whole enormous boneless mass is
as one wad. Finally, though, as will soon be revealed, its contents
partly comprise the most delicate oil; yet, you are now to be apprised
of the nature of the substance which so impregnably invests all that
apparent effeminacy. In some previous place I have described to you how
the blubber wraps the body of the whale, as the rind wraps an orange.
Just so with the head; but with this difference: about the head this
envelope, though not so thick, is of a boneless toughness, inestimable
by any man who has not handled it. The severest pointed harpoon, the
sharpest lance darted by the strongest human arm, impotently rebounds
from it. It is as though the forehead of the Sperm Whale were paved
with horses’ hoofs. I do not think that any sensation lurks in it.

Bethink yourself also of another thing. When two large, loaded Indiamen
chance to crowd and crush towards each other in the docks, what do the
sailors do? They do not suspend between them, at the point of coming
contact, any merely hard substance, like iron or wood. No, they hold
there a large, round wad of tow and cork, enveloped in the thickest and
toughest of ox-hide. That bravely and uninjured takes the jam which
would have snapped all their oaken handspikes and iron crow-bars. By
itself this sufficiently illustrates the obvious fact I drive at. But
supplementary to this, it has hypothetically occurred to me, that as
ordinary fish possess what is called a swimming bladder in them,
capable, at will, of distension or contraction; and as the Sperm Whale,
as far as I know, has no such provision in him; considering, too, the
otherwise inexplicable manner in which he now depresses his head
altogether beneath the surface, and anon swims with it high elevated
out of the water; considering the unobstructed elasticity of its
envelope; considering the unique interior of his head; it has
hypothetically occurred to me, I say, that those mystical lung-celled
honeycombs there may possibly have some hitherto unknown and
unsuspected connexion with the outer air, so as to be susceptible to
atmospheric distension and contraction. If this be so, fancy the
irresistibleness of that might, to which the most impalpable and
destructive of all elements contributes.

Now, mark. Unerringly impelling this dead, impregnable, uninjurable
wall, and this most buoyant thing within; there swims behind it all a
mass of tremendous life, only to be adequately estimated as piled wood
is—by the cord; and all obedient to one volition, as the smallest
insect. So that when I shall hereafter detail to you all the
specialities and concentrations of potency everywhere lurking in this
expansive monster; when I shall show you some of his more
inconsiderable braining feats; I trust you will have renounced all
ignorant incredulity, and be ready to abide by this; that though the
Sperm Whale stove a passage through the Isthmus of Darien, and mixed
the Atlantic with the Pacific, you would not elevate one hair of your
eye-brow. For unless you own the whale, you are but a provincial and
sentimentalist in Truth. But clear Truth is a thing for salamander
giants only to encounter; how small the chances for the provincials
then? What befell the weakling youth lifting the dread goddess’s veil
at Lais?


CHAPTER 77. The Great Heidelburgh Tun.

Now comes the Baling of the Case. But to comprehend it aright, you must
know something of the curious internal structure of the thing operated
upon.

Regarding the Sperm Whale’s head as a solid oblong, you may, on an
inclined plane, sideways divide it into two quoins,* whereof the lower
is the bony structure, forming the cranium and jaws, and the upper an
unctuous mass wholly free from bones; its broad forward end forming the
expanded vertical apparent forehead of the whale. At the middle of the
forehead horizontally subdivide this upper quoin, and then you have two
almost equal parts, which before were naturally divided by an internal
wall of a thick tendinous substance.

*Quoin is not a Euclidean term. It belongs to the pure nautical
mathematics. I know not that it has been defined before. A quoin is a
solid which differs from a wedge in having its sharp end formed by the
steep inclination of one side, instead of the mutual tapering of both
sides.

The lower subdivided part, called the junk, is one immense honeycomb of
oil, formed by the crossing and recrossing, into ten thousand
infiltrated cells, of tough elastic white fibres throughout its whole
extent. The upper part, known as the Case, may be regarded as the great
Heidelburgh Tun of the Sperm Whale. And as that famous great tierce is
mystically carved in front, so the whale’s vast plaited forehead forms
innumerable strange devices for the emblematical adornment of his
wondrous tun. Moreover, as that of Heidelburgh was always replenished
with the most excellent of the wines of the Rhenish valleys, so the tun
of the whale contains by far the most precious of all his oily
vintages; namely, the highly-prized spermaceti, in its absolutely pure,
limpid, and odoriferous state. Nor is this precious substance found
unalloyed in any other part of the creature. Though in life it remains
perfectly fluid, yet, upon exposure to the air, after death, it soon
begins to concrete; sending forth beautiful crystalline shoots, as when
the first thin delicate ice is just forming in water. A large whale’s
case generally yields about five hundred gallons of sperm, though from
unavoidable circumstances, considerable of it is spilled, leaks, and
dribbles away, or is otherwise irrevocably lost in the ticklish
business of securing what you can.

I know not with what fine and costly material the Heidelburgh Tun was
coated within, but in superlative richness that coating could not
possibly have compared with the silken pearl-coloured membrane, like
the lining of a fine pelisse, forming the inner surface of the Sperm
Whale’s case.

It will have been seen that the Heidelburgh Tun of the Sperm Whale
embraces the entire length of the entire top of the head; and since—as
has been elsewhere set forth—the head embraces one third of the whole
length of the creature, then setting that length down at eighty feet
for a good sized whale, you have more than twenty-six feet for the
depth of the tun, when it is lengthwise hoisted up and down against a
ship’s side.

As in decapitating the whale, the operator’s instrument is brought
close to the spot where an entrance is subsequently forced into the
spermaceti magazine; he has, therefore, to be uncommonly heedful, lest
a careless, untimely stroke should invade the sanctuary and wastingly
let out its invaluable contents. It is this decapitated end of the
head, also, which is at last elevated out of the water, and retained in
that position by the enormous cutting tackles, whose hempen
combinations, on one side, make quite a wilderness of ropes in that
quarter.

Thus much being said, attend now, I pray you, to that marvellous and—in
this particular instance—almost fatal operation whereby the Sperm
Whale’s great Heidelburgh Tun is tapped.


CHAPTER 78. Cistern and Buckets.

Nimble as a cat, Tashtego mounts aloft; and without altering his erect
posture, runs straight out upon the overhanging mainyard-arm, to the
part where it exactly projects over the hoisted Tun. He has carried
with him a light tackle called a whip, consisting of only two parts,
travelling through a single-sheaved block. Securing this block, so that
it hangs down from the yard-arm, he swings one end of the rope, till it
is caught and firmly held by a hand on deck. Then, hand-over-hand, down
the other part, the Indian drops through the air, till dexterously he
lands on the summit of the head. There—still high elevated above the
rest of the company, to whom he vivaciously cries—he seems some Turkish
Muezzin calling the good people to prayers from the top of a tower. A
short-handled sharp spade being sent up to him, he diligently searches
for the proper place to begin breaking into the Tun. In this business
he proceeds very heedfully, like a treasure-hunter in some old house,
sounding the walls to find where the gold is masoned in. By the time
this cautious search is over, a stout iron-bound bucket, precisely like
a well-bucket, has been attached to one end of the whip; while the
other end, being stretched across the deck, is there held by two or
three alert hands. These last now hoist the bucket within grasp of the
Indian, to whom another person has reached up a very long pole.
Inserting this pole into the bucket, Tashtego downward guides the
bucket into the Tun, till it entirely disappears; then giving the word
to the seamen at the whip, up comes the bucket again, all bubbling like
a dairy-maid’s pail of new milk. Carefully lowered from its height, the
full-freighted vessel is caught by an appointed hand, and quickly
emptied into a large tub. Then remounting aloft, it again goes through
the same round until the deep cistern will yield no more. Towards the
end, Tashtego has to ram his long pole harder and harder, and deeper
and deeper into the Tun, until some twenty feet of the pole have gone
down.

Now, the people of the Pequod had been baling some time in this way;
several tubs had been filled with the fragrant sperm; when all at once
a queer accident happened. Whether it was that Tashtego, that wild
Indian, was so heedless and reckless as to let go for a moment his
one-handed hold on the great cabled tackles suspending the head; or
whether the place where he stood was so treacherous and oozy; or
whether the Evil One himself would have it to fall out so, without
stating his particular reasons; how it was exactly, there is no telling
now; but, on a sudden, as the eightieth or ninetieth bucket came
suckingly up—my God! poor Tashtego—like the twin reciprocating bucket
in a veritable well, dropped head-foremost down into this great Tun of
Heidelburgh, and with a horrible oily gurgling, went clean out of
sight!

“Man overboard!” cried Daggoo, who amid the general consternation first
came to his senses. “Swing the bucket this way!” and putting one foot
into it, so as the better to secure his slippery hand-hold on the whip
itself, the hoisters ran him high up to the top of the head, almost
before Tashtego could have reached its interior bottom. Meantime, there
was a terrible tumult. Looking over the side, they saw the before
lifeless head throbbing and heaving just below the surface of the sea,
as if that moment seized with some momentous idea; whereas it was only
the poor Indian unconsciously revealing by those struggles the perilous
depth to which he had sunk.

At this instant, while Daggoo, on the summit of the head, was clearing
the whip—which had somehow got foul of the great cutting tackles—a
sharp cracking noise was heard; and to the unspeakable horror of all,
one of the two enormous hooks suspending the head tore out, and with a
vast vibration the enormous mass sideways swung, till the drunk ship
reeled and shook as if smitten by an iceberg. The one remaining hook,
upon which the entire strain now depended, seemed every instant to be
on the point of giving way; an event still more likely from the violent
motions of the head.

“Come down, come down!” yelled the seamen to Daggoo, but with one hand
holding on to the heavy tackles, so that if the head should drop, he
would still remain suspended; the negro having cleared the foul line,
rammed down the bucket into the now collapsed well, meaning that the
buried harpooneer should grasp it, and so be hoisted out.

“In heaven’s name, man,” cried Stubb, “are you ramming home a cartridge
there?—Avast! How will that help him; jamming that iron-bound bucket on
top of his head? Avast, will ye!”

“Stand clear of the tackle!” cried a voice like the bursting of a
rocket.

Almost in the same instant, with a thunder-boom, the enormous mass
dropped into the sea, like Niagara’s Table-Rock into the whirlpool; the
suddenly relieved hull rolled away from it, to far down her glittering
copper; and all caught their breath, as half swinging—now over the
sailors’ heads, and now over the water—Daggoo, through a thick mist of
spray, was dimly beheld clinging to the pendulous tackles, while poor,
buried-alive Tashtego was sinking utterly down to the bottom of the
sea! But hardly had the blinding vapor cleared away, when a naked
figure with a boarding-sword in his hand, was for one swift moment seen
hovering over the bulwarks. The next, a loud splash announced that my
brave Queequeg had dived to the rescue. One packed rush was made to the
side, and every eye counted every ripple, as moment followed moment,
and no sign of either the sinker or the diver could be seen. Some hands
now jumped into a boat alongside, and pushed a little off from the
ship.

“Ha! ha!” cried Daggoo, all at once, from his now quiet, swinging perch
overhead; and looking further off from the side, we saw an arm thrust
upright from the blue waves; a sight strange to see, as an arm thrust
forth from the grass over a grave.

“Both! both!—it is both!”—cried Daggoo again with a joyful shout; and
soon after, Queequeg was seen boldly striking out with one hand, and
with the other clutching the long hair of the Indian. Drawn into the
waiting boat, they were quickly brought to the deck; but Tashtego was
long in coming to, and Queequeg did not look very brisk.

Now, how had this noble rescue been accomplished? Why, diving after the
slowly descending head, Queequeg with his keen sword had made side
lunges near its bottom, so as to scuttle a large hole there; then
dropping his sword, had thrust his long arm far inwards and upwards,
and so hauled out poor Tash by the head. He averred, that upon first
thrusting in for him, a leg was presented; but well knowing that that
was not as it ought to be, and might occasion great trouble;—he had
thrust back the leg, and by a dexterous heave and toss, had wrought a
somerset upon the Indian; so that with the next trial, he came forth in
the good old way—head foremost. As for the great head itself, that was
doing as well as could be expected.

And thus, through the courage and great skill in obstetrics of
Queequeg, the deliverance, or rather, delivery of Tashtego, was
successfully accomplished, in the teeth, too, of the most untoward and
apparently hopeless impediments; which is a lesson by no means to be
forgotten. Midwifery should be taught in the same course with fencing
and boxing, riding and rowing.

I know that this queer adventure of the Gay-Header’s will be sure to
seem incredible to some landsmen, though they themselves may have
either seen or heard of some one’s falling into a cistern ashore; an
accident which not seldom happens, and with much less reason too than
the Indian’s, considering the exceeding slipperiness of the curb of the
Sperm Whale’s well.

But, peradventure, it may be sagaciously urged, how is this? We thought
the tissued, infiltrated head of the Sperm Whale, was the lightest and
most corky part about him; and yet thou makest it sink in an element of
a far greater specific gravity than itself. We have thee there. Not at
all, but I have ye; for at the time poor Tash fell in, the case had
been nearly emptied of its lighter contents, leaving little but the
dense tendinous wall of the well—a double welded, hammered substance,
as I have before said, much heavier than the sea water, and a lump of
which sinks in it like lead almost. But the tendency to rapid sinking
in this substance was in the present instance materially counteracted
by the other parts of the head remaining undetached from it, so that it
sank very slowly and deliberately indeed, affording Queequeg a fair
chance for performing his agile obstetrics on the run, as you may say.
Yes, it was a running delivery, so it was.

Now, had Tashtego perished in that head, it had been a very precious
perishing; smothered in the very whitest and daintiest of fragrant
spermaceti; coffined, hearsed, and tombed in the secret inner chamber
and sanctum sanctorum of the whale. Only one sweeter end can readily be
recalled—the delicious death of an Ohio honey-hunter, who seeking honey
in the crotch of a hollow tree, found such exceeding store of it, that
leaning too far over, it sucked him in, so that he died embalmed. How
many, think ye, have likewise fallen into Plato’s honey head, and
sweetly perished there?


CHAPTER 79. The Prairie.

To scan the lines of his face, or feel the bumps on the head of this
Leviathan; this is a thing which no Physiognomist or Phrenologist has
as yet undertaken. Such an enterprise would seem almost as hopeful as
for Lavater to have scrutinized the wrinkles on the Rock of Gibraltar,
or for Gall to have mounted a ladder and manipulated the Dome of the
Pantheon. Still, in that famous work of his, Lavater not only treats of
the various faces of men, but also attentively studies the faces of
horses, birds, serpents, and fish; and dwells in detail upon the
modifications of expression discernible therein. Nor have Gall and his
disciple Spurzheim failed to throw out some hints touching the
phrenological characteristics of other beings than man. Therefore,
though I am but ill qualified for a pioneer, in the application of
these two semi-sciences to the whale, I will do my endeavor. I try all
things; I achieve what I can.

Physiognomically regarded, the Sperm Whale is an anomalous creature. He
has no proper nose. And since the nose is the central and most
conspicuous of the features; and since it perhaps most modifies and
finally controls their combined expression; hence it would seem that
its entire absence, as an external appendage, must very largely affect
the countenance of the whale. For as in landscape gardening, a spire,
cupola, monument, or tower of some sort, is deemed almost indispensable
to the completion of the scene; so no face can be physiognomically in
keeping without the elevated open-work belfry of the nose. Dash the
nose from Phidias’s marble Jove, and what a sorry remainder!
Nevertheless, Leviathan is of so mighty a magnitude, all his
proportions are so stately, that the same deficiency which in the
sculptured Jove were hideous, in him is no blemish at all. Nay, it is
an added grandeur. A nose to the whale would have been impertinent. As
on your physiognomical voyage you sail round his vast head in your
jolly-boat, your noble conceptions of him are never insulted by the
reflection that he has a nose to be pulled. A pestilent conceit, which
so often will insist upon obtruding even when beholding the mightiest
royal beadle on his throne.

In some particulars, perhaps the most imposing physiognomical view to
be had of the Sperm Whale, is that of the full front of his head. This
aspect is sublime.

In thought, a fine human brow is like the East when troubled with the
morning. In the repose of the pasture, the curled brow of the bull has
a touch of the grand in it. Pushing heavy cannon up mountain defiles,
the elephant’s brow is majestic. Human or animal, the mystical brow is
as that great golden seal affixed by the German emperors to their
decrees. It signifies—“God: done this day by my hand.” But in most
creatures, nay in man himself, very often the brow is but a mere strip
of alpine land lying along the snow line. Few are the foreheads which
like Shakespeare’s or Melancthon’s rise so high, and descend so low,
that the eyes themselves seem clear, eternal, tideless mountain lakes;
and all above them in the forehead’s wrinkles, you seem to track the
antlered thoughts descending there to drink, as the Highland hunters
track the snow prints of the deer. But in the great Sperm Whale, this
high and mighty god-like dignity inherent in the brow is so immensely
amplified, that gazing on it, in that full front view, you feel the
Deity and the dread powers more forcibly than in beholding any other
object in living nature. For you see no one point precisely; not one
distinct feature is revealed; no nose, eyes, ears, or mouth; no face;
he has none, proper; nothing but that one broad firmament of a
forehead, pleated with riddles; dumbly lowering with the doom of boats,
and ships, and men. Nor, in profile, does this wondrous brow diminish;
though that way viewed its grandeur does not domineer upon you so. In
profile, you plainly perceive that horizontal, semi-crescentic
depression in the forehead’s middle, which, in man, is Lavater’s mark
of genius.

But how? Genius in the Sperm Whale? Has the Sperm Whale ever written a
book, spoken a speech? No, his great genius is declared in his doing
nothing particular to prove it. It is moreover declared in his
pyramidical silence. And this reminds me that had the great Sperm Whale
been known to the young Orient World, he would have been deified by
their child-magian thoughts. They deified the crocodile of the Nile,
because the crocodile is tongueless; and the Sperm Whale has no tongue,
or at least it is so exceedingly small, as to be incapable of
protrusion. If hereafter any highly cultured, poetical nation shall
lure back to their birth-right, the merry May-day gods of old; and
livingly enthrone them again in the now egotistical sky; in the now
unhaunted hill; then be sure, exalted to Jove’s high seat, the great
Sperm Whale shall lord it.

Champollion deciphered the wrinkled granite hieroglyphics. But there is
no Champollion to decipher the Egypt of every man’s and every being’s
face. Physiognomy, like every other human science, is but a passing
fable. If then, Sir William Jones, who read in thirty languages, could
not read the simplest peasant’s face in its profounder and more subtle
meanings, how may unlettered Ishmael hope to read the awful Chaldee of
the Sperm Whale’s brow? I but put that brow before you. Read it if you
can.


CHAPTER 80. The Nut.

If the Sperm Whale be physiognomically a Sphinx, to the phrenologist
his brain seems that geometrical circle which it is impossible to
square.

In the full-grown creature the skull will measure at least twenty feet
in length. Unhinge the lower jaw, and the side view of this skull is as
the side of a moderately inclined plane resting throughout on a level
base. But in life—as we have elsewhere seen—this inclined plane is
angularly filled up, and almost squared by the enormous superincumbent
mass of the junk and sperm. At the high end the skull forms a crater to
bed that part of the mass; while under the long floor of this crater—in
another cavity seldom exceeding ten inches in length and as many in
depth—reposes the mere handful of this monster’s brain. The brain is at
least twenty feet from his apparent forehead in life; it is hidden away
behind its vast outworks, like the innermost citadel within the
amplified fortifications of Quebec. So like a choice casket is it
secreted in him, that I have known some whalemen who peremptorily deny
that the Sperm Whale has any other brain than that palpable semblance
of one formed by the cubic-yards of his sperm magazine. Lying in
strange folds, courses, and convolutions, to their apprehensions, it
seems more in keeping with the idea of his general might to regard that
mystic part of him as the seat of his intelligence.

It is plain, then, that phrenologically the head of this Leviathan, in
the creature’s living intact state, is an entire delusion. As for his
true brain, you can then see no indications of it, nor feel any. The
whale, like all things that are mighty, wears a false brow to the
common world.

If you unload his skull of its spermy heaps and then take a rear view
of its rear end, which is the high end, you will be struck by its
resemblance to the human skull, beheld in the same situation, and from
the same point of view. Indeed, place this reversed skull (scaled down
to the human magnitude) among a plate of men’s skulls, and you would
involuntarily confound it with them; and remarking the depressions on
one part of its summit, in phrenological phrase you would say—This man
had no self-esteem, and no veneration. And by those negations,
considered along with the affirmative fact of his prodigious bulk and
power, you can best form to yourself the truest, though not the most
exhilarating conception of what the most exalted potency is.

But if from the comparative dimensions of the whale’s proper brain, you
deem it incapable of being adequately charted, then I have another idea
for you. If you attentively regard almost any quadruped’s spine, you
will be struck with the resemblance of its vertebræ to a strung
necklace of dwarfed skulls, all bearing rudimental resemblance to the
skull proper. It is a German conceit, that the vertebræ are absolutely
undeveloped skulls. But the curious external resemblance, I take it the
Germans were not the first men to perceive. A foreign friend once
pointed it out to me, in the skeleton of a foe he had slain, and with
the vertebræ of which he was inlaying, in a sort of basso-relievo, the
beaked prow of his canoe. Now, I consider that the phrenologists have
omitted an important thing in not pushing their investigations from the
cerebellum through the spinal canal. For I believe that much of a man’s
character will be found betokened in his backbone. I would rather feel
your spine than your skull, whoever you are. A thin joist of a spine
never yet upheld a full and noble soul. I rejoice in my spine, as in
the firm audacious staff of that flag which I fling half out to the
world.

Apply this spinal branch of phrenology to the Sperm Whale. His cranial
cavity is continuous with the first neck-vertebra; and in that vertebra
the bottom of the spinal canal will measure ten inches across, being
eight in height, and of a triangular figure with the base downwards. As
it passes through the remaining vertebræ the canal tapers in size, but
for a considerable distance remains of large capacity. Now, of course,
this canal is filled with much the same strangely fibrous substance—the
spinal cord—as the brain; and directly communicates with the brain. And
what is still more, for many feet after emerging from the brain’s
cavity, the spinal cord remains of an undecreasing girth, almost equal
to that of the brain. Under all these circumstances, would it be
unreasonable to survey and map out the whale’s spine phrenologically?
For, viewed in this light, the wonderful comparative smallness of his
brain proper is more than compensated by the wonderful comparative
magnitude of his spinal cord.

But leaving this hint to operate as it may with the phrenologists, I
would merely assume the spinal theory for a moment, in reference to the
Sperm Whale’s hump. This august hump, if I mistake not, rises over one
of the larger vertebræ, and is, therefore, in some sort, the outer
convex mould of it. From its relative situation then, I should call
this high hump the organ of firmness or indomitableness in the Sperm
Whale. And that the great monster is indomitable, you will yet have
reason to know.


CHAPTER 81. The Pequod Meets The Virgin.

The predestinated day arrived, and we duly met the ship Jungfrau,
Derick De Deer, master, of Bremen.

At one time the greatest whaling people in the world, the Dutch and
Germans are now among the least; but here and there at very wide
intervals of latitude and longitude, you still occasionally meet with
their flag in the Pacific.

For some reason, the Jungfrau seemed quite eager to pay her respects.
While yet some distance from the Pequod, she rounded to, and dropping a
boat, her captain was impelled towards us, impatiently standing in the
bows instead of the stern.

“What has he in his hand there?” cried Starbuck, pointing to something
wavingly held by the German. “Impossible!—a lamp-feeder!”

“Not that,” said Stubb, “no, no, it’s a coffee-pot, Mr. Starbuck; he’s
coming off to make us our coffee, is the Yarman; don’t you see that big
tin can there alongside of him?—that’s his boiling water. Oh! he’s all
right, is the Yarman.”

“Go along with you,” cried Flask, “it’s a lamp-feeder and an oil-can.
He’s out of oil, and has come a-begging.”

However curious it may seem for an oil-ship to be borrowing oil on the
whale-ground, and however much it may invertedly contradict the old
proverb about carrying coals to Newcastle, yet sometimes such a thing
really happens; and in the present case Captain Derick De Deer did
indubitably conduct a lamp-feeder as Flask did declare.

As he mounted the deck, Ahab abruptly accosted him, without at all
heeding what he had in his hand; but in his broken lingo, the German
soon evinced his complete ignorance of the White Whale; immediately
turning the conversation to his lamp-feeder and oil can, with some
remarks touching his having to turn into his hammock at night in
profound darkness—his last drop of Bremen oil being gone, and not a
single flying-fish yet captured to supply the deficiency; concluding by
hinting that his ship was indeed what in the Fishery is technically
called a _clean_ one (that is, an empty one), well deserving the name
of Jungfrau or the Virgin.

His necessities supplied, Derick departed; but he had not gained his
ship’s side, when whales were almost simultaneously raised from the
mast-heads of both vessels; and so eager for the chase was Derick, that
without pausing to put his oil-can and lamp-feeder aboard, he slewed
round his boat and made after the leviathan lamp-feeders.

Now, the game having risen to leeward, he and the other three German
boats that soon followed him, had considerably the start of the
Pequod’s keels. There were eight whales, an average pod. Aware of their
danger, they were going all abreast with great speed straight before
the wind, rubbing their flanks as closely as so many spans of horses in
harness. They left a great, wide wake, as though continually unrolling
a great wide parchment upon the sea.

Full in this rapid wake, and many fathoms in the rear, swam a huge,
humped old bull, which by his comparatively slow progress, as well as
by the unusual yellowish incrustations overgrowing him, seemed
afflicted with the jaundice, or some other infirmity. Whether this
whale belonged to the pod in advance, seemed questionable; for it is
not customary for such venerable leviathans to be at all social.
Nevertheless, he stuck to their wake, though indeed their back water
must have retarded him, because the white-bone or swell at his broad
muzzle was a dashed one, like the swell formed when two hostile
currents meet. His spout was short, slow, and laborious; coming forth
with a choking sort of gush, and spending itself in torn shreds,
followed by strange subterranean commotions in him, which seemed to
have egress at his other buried extremity, causing the waters behind
him to upbubble.

“Who’s got some paregoric?” said Stubb, “he has the stomach-ache, I’m
afraid. Lord, think of having half an acre of stomach-ache! Adverse
winds are holding mad Christmas in him, boys. It’s the first foul wind
I ever knew to blow from astern; but look, did ever whale yaw so
before? it must be, he’s lost his tiller.”

As an overladen Indiaman bearing down the Hindostan coast with a deck
load of frightened horses, careens, buries, rolls, and wallows on her
way; so did this old whale heave his aged bulk, and now and then partly
turning over on his cumbrous rib-ends, expose the cause of his devious
wake in the unnatural stump of his starboard fin. Whether he had lost
that fin in battle, or had been born without it, it were hard to say.

“Only wait a bit, old chap, and I’ll give ye a sling for that wounded
arm,” cried cruel Flask, pointing to the whale-line near him.

“Mind he don’t sling thee with it,” cried Starbuck. “Give way, or the
German will have him.”

With one intent all the combined rival boats were pointed for this one
fish, because not only was he the largest, and therefore the most
valuable whale, but he was nearest to them, and the other whales were
going with such great velocity, moreover, as almost to defy pursuit for
the time. At this juncture the Pequod’s keels had shot by the three
German boats last lowered; but from the great start he had had,
Derick’s boat still led the chase, though every moment neared by his
foreign rivals. The only thing they feared, was, that from being
already so nigh to his mark, he would be enabled to dart his iron
before they could completely overtake and pass him. As for Derick, he
seemed quite confident that this would be the case, and occasionally
with a deriding gesture shook his lamp-feeder at the other boats.

“The ungracious and ungrateful dog!” cried Starbuck; “he mocks and
dares me with the very poor-box I filled for him not five minutes
ago!”—then in his old intense whisper—“Give way, greyhounds! Dog to
it!”

“I tell ye what it is, men”—cried Stubb to his crew—“it’s against my
religion to get mad; but I’d like to eat that villainous
Yarman—Pull—won’t ye? Are ye going to let that rascal beat ye? Do ye
love brandy? A hogshead of brandy, then, to the best man. Come, why
don’t some of ye burst a blood-vessel? Who’s that been dropping an
anchor overboard—we don’t budge an inch—we’re becalmed. Halloo, here’s
grass growing in the boat’s bottom—and by the Lord, the mast there’s
budding. This won’t do, boys. Look at that Yarman! The short and long
of it is, men, will ye spit fire or not?”

“Oh! see the suds he makes!” cried Flask, dancing up and down—“What a
hump—Oh, _do_ pile on the beef—lays like a log! Oh! my lads, _do_
spring—slap-jacks and quahogs for supper, you know, my lads—baked clams
and muffins—oh, _do_, _do_, spring,—he’s a hundred barreller—don’t lose
him now—don’t oh, _don’t!_—see that Yarman—Oh, won’t ye pull for your
duff, my lads—such a sog! such a sogger! Don’t ye love sperm? There
goes three thousand dollars, men!—a bank!—a whole bank! The bank of
England!—Oh, _do_, _do_, _do!_—What’s that Yarman about now?”

At this moment Derick was in the act of pitching his lamp-feeder at the
advancing boats, and also his oil-can; perhaps with the double view of
retarding his rivals’ way, and at the same time economically
accelerating his own by the momentary impetus of the backward toss.

“The unmannerly Dutch dogger!” cried Stubb. “Pull now, men, like fifty
thousand line-of-battle-ship loads of red-haired devils. What d’ye say,
Tashtego; are you the man to snap your spine in two-and-twenty pieces
for the honor of old Gayhead? What d’ye say?”

“I say, pull like god-dam,”—cried the Indian.

Fiercely, but evenly incited by the taunts of the German, the Pequod’s
three boats now began ranging almost abreast; and, so disposed,
momentarily neared him. In that fine, loose, chivalrous attitude of the
headsman when drawing near to his prey, the three mates stood up
proudly, occasionally backing the after oarsman with an exhilarating
cry of, “There she slides, now! Hurrah for the white-ash breeze! Down
with the Yarman! Sail over him!”

But so decided an original start had Derick had, that spite of all
their gallantry, he would have proved the victor in this race, had not
a righteous judgment descended upon him in a crab which caught the
blade of his midship oarsman. While this clumsy lubber was striving to
free his white-ash, and while, in consequence, Derick’s boat was nigh
to capsizing, and he thundering away at his men in a mighty rage;—that
was a good time for Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask. With a shout, they took
a mortal start forwards, and slantingly ranged up on the German’s
quarter. An instant more, and all four boats were diagonically in the
whale’s immediate wake, while stretching from them, on both sides, was
the foaming swell that he made.

It was a terrific, most pitiable, and maddening sight. The whale was
now going head out, and sending his spout before him in a continual
tormented jet; while his one poor fin beat his side in an agony of
fright. Now to this hand, now to that, he yawed in his faltering
flight, and still at every billow that he broke, he spasmodically sank
in the sea, or sideways rolled towards the sky his one beating fin. So
have I seen a bird with clipped wing making affrighted broken circles
in the air, vainly striving to escape the piratical hawks. But the bird
has a voice, and with plaintive cries will make known her fear; but the
fear of this vast dumb brute of the sea, was chained up and enchanted
in him; he had no voice, save that choking respiration through his
spiracle, and this made the sight of him unspeakably pitiable; while
still, in his amazing bulk, portcullis jaw, and omnipotent tail, there
was enough to appal the stoutest man who so pitied.

Seeing now that but a very few moments more would give the Pequod’s
boats the advantage, and rather than be thus foiled of his game, Derick
chose to hazard what to him must have seemed a most unusually long
dart, ere the last chance would for ever escape.

But no sooner did his harpooneer stand up for the stroke, than all
three tigers—Queequeg, Tashtego, Daggoo—instinctively sprang to their
feet, and standing in a diagonal row, simultaneously pointed their
barbs; and darted over the head of the German harpooneer, their three
Nantucket irons entered the whale. Blinding vapors of foam and
white-fire! The three boats, in the first fury of the whale’s headlong
rush, bumped the German’s aside with such force, that both Derick and
his baffled harpooneer were spilled out, and sailed over by the three
flying keels.

“Don’t be afraid, my butter-boxes,” cried Stubb, casting a passing
glance upon them as he shot by; “ye’ll be picked up presently—all
right—I saw some sharks astern—St. Bernard’s dogs, you know—relieve
distressed travellers. Hurrah! this is the way to sail now. Every keel
a sunbeam! Hurrah!—Here we go like three tin kettles at the tail of a
mad cougar! This puts me in mind of fastening to an elephant in a
tilbury on a plain—makes the wheel-spokes fly, boys, when you fasten to
him that way; and there’s danger of being pitched out too, when you
strike a hill. Hurrah! this is the way a fellow feels when he’s going
to Davy Jones—all a rush down an endless inclined plane! Hurrah! this
whale carries the everlasting mail!”

But the monster’s run was a brief one. Giving a sudden gasp, he
tumultuously sounded. With a grating rush, the three lines flew round
the loggerheads with such a force as to gouge deep grooves in them;
while so fearful were the harpooneers that this rapid sounding would
soon exhaust the lines, that using all their dexterous might, they
caught repeated smoking turns with the rope to hold on; till at
last—owing to the perpendicular strain from the lead-lined chocks of
the boats, whence the three ropes went straight down into the blue—the
gunwales of the bows were almost even with the water, while the three
sterns tilted high in the air. And the whale soon ceasing to sound, for
some time they remained in that attitude, fearful of expending more
line, though the position was a little ticklish. But though boats have
been taken down and lost in this way, yet it is this “holding on,” as
it is called; this hooking up by the sharp barbs of his live flesh from
the back; this it is that often torments the Leviathan into soon rising
again to meet the sharp lance of his foes. Yet not to speak of the
peril of the thing, it is to be doubted whether this course is always
the best; for it is but reasonable to presume, that the longer the
stricken whale stays under water, the more he is exhausted. Because,
owing to the enormous surface of him—in a full grown sperm whale
something less than 2000 square feet—the pressure of the water is
immense. We all know what an astonishing atmospheric weight we
ourselves stand up under; even here, above-ground, in the air; how
vast, then, the burden of a whale, bearing on his back a column of two
hundred fathoms of ocean! It must at least equal the weight of fifty
atmospheres. One whaleman has estimated it at the weight of twenty
line-of-battle ships, with all their guns, and stores, and men on
board.

As the three boats lay there on that gently rolling sea, gazing down
into its eternal blue noon; and as not a single groan or cry of any
sort, nay, not so much as a ripple or a bubble came up from its depths;
what landsman would have thought, that beneath all that silence and
placidity, the utmost monster of the seas was writhing and wrenching in
agony! Not eight inches of perpendicular rope were visible at the bows.
Seems it credible that by three such thin threads the great Leviathan
was suspended like the big weight to an eight day clock. Suspended? and
to what? To three bits of board. Is this the creature of whom it was
once so triumphantly said—“Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons?
or his head with fish-spears? The sword of him that layeth at him
cannot hold, the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon: he esteemeth iron
as straw; the arrow cannot make him flee; darts are counted as stubble;
he laugheth at the shaking of a spear!” This the creature? this he? Oh!
that unfulfilments should follow the prophets. For with the strength of
a thousand thighs in his tail, Leviathan had run his head under the
mountains of the sea, to hide him from the Pequod’s fish-spears!

In that sloping afternoon sunlight, the shadows that the three boats
sent down beneath the surface, must have been long enough and broad
enough to shade half Xerxes’ army. Who can tell how appalling to the
wounded whale must have been such huge phantoms flitting over his head!

“Stand by, men; he stirs,” cried Starbuck, as the three lines suddenly
vibrated in the water, distinctly conducting upwards to them, as by
magnetic wires, the life and death throbs of the whale, so that every
oarsman felt them in his seat. The next moment, relieved in great part
from the downward strain at the bows, the boats gave a sudden bounce
upwards, as a small icefield will, when a dense herd of white bears are
scared from it into the sea.

“Haul in! Haul in!” cried Starbuck again; “he’s rising.”

The lines, of which, hardly an instant before, not one hand’s breadth
could have been gained, were now in long quick coils flung back all
dripping into the boats, and soon the whale broke water within two
ship’s lengths of the hunters.

His motions plainly denoted his extreme exhaustion. In most land
animals there are certain valves or flood-gates in many of their veins,
whereby when wounded, the blood is in some degree at least instantly
shut off in certain directions. Not so with the whale; one of whose
peculiarities it is to have an entire non-valvular structure of the
blood-vessels, so that when pierced even by so small a point as a
harpoon, a deadly drain is at once begun upon his whole arterial
system; and when this is heightened by the extraordinary pressure of
water at a great distance below the surface, his life may be said to
pour from him in incessant streams. Yet so vast is the quantity of
blood in him, and so distant and numerous its interior fountains, that
he will keep thus bleeding and bleeding for a considerable period; even
as in a drought a river will flow, whose source is in the well-springs
of far-off and undiscernible hills. Even now, when the boats pulled
upon this whale, and perilously drew over his swaying flukes, and the
lances were darted into him, they were followed by steady jets from the
new made wound, which kept continually playing, while the natural
spout-hole in his head was only at intervals, however rapid, sending
its affrighted moisture into the air. From this last vent no blood yet
came, because no vital part of him had thus far been struck. His life,
as they significantly call it, was untouched.

As the boats now more closely surrounded him, the whole upper part of
his form, with much of it that is ordinarily submerged, was plainly
revealed. His eyes, or rather the places where his eyes had been, were
beheld. As strange misgrown masses gather in the knot-holes of the
noblest oaks when prostrate, so from the points which the whale’s eyes
had once occupied, now protruded blind bulbs, horribly pitiable to see.
But pity there was none. For all his old age, and his one arm, and his
blind eyes, he must die the death and be murdered, in order to light
the gay bridals and other merry-makings of men, and also to illuminate
the solemn churches that preach unconditional inoffensiveness by all to
all. Still rolling in his blood, at last he partially disclosed a
strangely discoloured bunch or protuberance, the size of a bushel, low
down on the flank.

“A nice spot,” cried Flask; “just let me prick him there once.”

“Avast!” cried Starbuck, “there’s no need of that!”

But humane Starbuck was too late. At the instant of the dart an
ulcerous jet shot from this cruel wound, and goaded by it into more
than sufferable anguish, the whale now spouting thick blood, with swift
fury blindly darted at the craft, bespattering them and their glorying
crews all over with showers of gore, capsizing Flask’s boat and marring
the bows. It was his death stroke. For, by this time, so spent was he
by loss of blood, that he helplessly rolled away from the wreck he had
made; lay panting on his side, impotently flapped with his stumped fin,
then over and over slowly revolved like a waning world; turned up the
white secrets of his belly; lay like a log, and died. It was most
piteous, that last expiring spout. As when by unseen hands the water is
gradually drawn off from some mighty fountain, and with half-stifled
melancholy gurglings the spray-column lowers and lowers to the
ground—so the last long dying spout of the whale.

Soon, while the crews were awaiting the arrival of the ship, the body
showed symptoms of sinking with all its treasures unrifled.
Immediately, by Starbuck’s orders, lines were secured to it at
different points, so that ere long every boat was a buoy; the sunken
whale being suspended a few inches beneath them by the cords. By very
heedful management, when the ship drew nigh, the whale was transferred
to her side, and was strongly secured there by the stiffest
fluke-chains, for it was plain that unless artificially upheld, the
body would at once sink to the bottom.

It so chanced that almost upon first cutting into him with the spade,
the entire length of a corroded harpoon was found imbedded in his
flesh, on the lower part of the bunch before described. But as the
stumps of harpoons are frequently found in the dead bodies of captured
whales, with the flesh perfectly healed around them, and no prominence
of any kind to denote their place; therefore, there must needs have
been some other unknown reason in the present case fully to account for
the ulceration alluded to. But still more curious was the fact of a
lance-head of stone being found in him, not far from the buried iron,
the flesh perfectly firm about it. Who had darted that stone lance? And
when? It might have been darted by some Nor’ West Indian long before
America was discovered.

What other marvels might have been rummaged out of this monstrous
cabinet there is no telling. But a sudden stop was put to further
discoveries, by the ship’s being unprecedentedly dragged over sideways
to the sea, owing to the body’s immensely increasing tendency to sink.
However, Starbuck, who had the ordering of affairs, hung on to it to
the last; hung on to it so resolutely, indeed, that when at length the
ship would have been capsized, if still persisting in locking arms with
the body; then, when the command was given to break clear from it, such
was the immovable strain upon the timber-heads to which the
fluke-chains and cables were fastened, that it was impossible to cast
them off. Meantime everything in the Pequod was aslant. To cross to the
other side of the deck was like walking up the steep gabled roof of a
house. The ship groaned and gasped. Many of the ivory inlayings of her
bulwarks and cabins were started from their places, by the unnatural
dislocation. In vain handspikes and crows were brought to bear upon the
immovable fluke-chains, to pry them adrift from the timberheads; and so
low had the whale now settled that the submerged ends could not be at
all approached, while every moment whole tons of ponderosity seemed
added to the sinking bulk, and the ship seemed on the point of going
over.

“Hold on, hold on, won’t ye?” cried Stubb to the body, “don’t be in
such a devil of a hurry to sink! By thunder, men, we must do something
or go for it. No use prying there; avast, I say with your handspikes,
and run one of ye for a prayer book and a pen-knife, and cut the big
chains.”

“Knife? Aye, aye,” cried Queequeg, and seizing the carpenter’s heavy
hatchet, he leaned out of a porthole, and steel to iron, began slashing
at the largest fluke-chains. But a few strokes, full of sparks, were
given, when the exceeding strain effected the rest. With a terrific
snap, every fastening went adrift; the ship righted, the carcase sank.

Now, this occasional inevitable sinking of the recently killed Sperm
Whale is a very curious thing; nor has any fisherman yet adequately
accounted for it. Usually the dead Sperm Whale floats with great
buoyancy, with its side or belly considerably elevated above the
surface. If the only whales that thus sank were old, meagre, and
broken-hearted creatures, their pads of lard diminished and all their
bones heavy and rheumatic; then you might with some reason assert that
this sinking is caused by an uncommon specific gravity in the fish so
sinking, consequent upon this absence of buoyant matter in him. But it
is not so. For young whales, in the highest health, and swelling with
noble aspirations, prematurely cut off in the warm flush and May of
life, with all their panting lard about them; even these brawny,
buoyant heroes do sometimes sink.

Be it said, however, that the Sperm Whale is far less liable to this
accident than any other species. Where one of that sort go down, twenty
Right Whales do. This difference in the species is no doubt imputable
in no small degree to the greater quantity of bone in the Right Whale;
his Venetian blinds alone sometimes weighing more than a ton; from this
incumbrance the Sperm Whale is wholly free. But there are instances
where, after the lapse of many hours or several days, the sunken whale
again rises, more buoyant than in life. But the reason of this is
obvious. Gases are generated in him; he swells to a prodigious
magnitude; becomes a sort of animal balloon. A line-of-battle ship
could hardly keep him under then. In the Shore Whaling, on soundings,
among the Bays of New Zealand, when a Right Whale gives token of
sinking, they fasten buoys to him, with plenty of rope; so that when
the body has gone down, they know where to look for it when it shall
have ascended again.

It was not long after the sinking of the body that a cry was heard from
the Pequod’s mast-heads, announcing that the Jungfrau was again
lowering her boats; though the only spout in sight was that of a
Fin-Back, belonging to the species of uncapturable whales, because of
its incredible power of swimming. Nevertheless, the Fin-Back’s spout is
so similar to the Sperm Whale’s, that by unskilful fishermen it is
often mistaken for it. And consequently Derick and all his host were
now in valiant chase of this unnearable brute. The Virgin crowding all
sail, made after her four young keels, and thus they all disappeared
far to leeward, still in bold, hopeful chase.

Oh! many are the Fin-Backs, and many are the Dericks, my friend.


CHAPTER 82. The Honor and Glory of Whaling.

There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the
true method.

The more I dive into this matter of whaling, and push my researches up
to the very spring-head of it so much the more am I impressed with its
great honorableness and antiquity; and especially when I find so many
great demi-gods and heroes, prophets of all sorts, who one way or other
have shed distinction upon it, I am transported with the reflection
that I myself belong, though but subordinately, to so emblazoned a
fraternity.

The gallant Perseus, a son of Jupiter, was the first whaleman; and to
the eternal honor of our calling be it said, that the first whale
attacked by our brotherhood was not killed with any sordid intent.
Those were the knightly days of our profession, when we only bore arms
to succor the distressed, and not to fill men’s lamp-feeders. Every one
knows the fine story of Perseus and Andromeda; how the lovely
Andromeda, the daughter of a king, was tied to a rock on the sea-coast,
and as Leviathan was in the very act of carrying her off, Perseus, the
prince of whalemen, intrepidly advancing, harpooned the monster, and
delivered and married the maid. It was an admirable artistic exploit,
rarely achieved by the best harpooneers of the present day; inasmuch as
this Leviathan was slain at the very first dart. And let no man doubt
this Arkite story; for in the ancient Joppa, now Jaffa, on the Syrian
coast, in one of the Pagan temples, there stood for many ages the vast
skeleton of a whale, which the city’s legends and all the inhabitants
asserted to be the identical bones of the monster that Perseus slew.
When the Romans took Joppa, the same skeleton was carried to Italy in
triumph. What seems most singular and suggestively important in this
story, is this: it was from Joppa that Jonah set sail.

Akin to the adventure of Perseus and Andromeda—indeed, by some supposed
to be indirectly derived from it—is that famous story of St. George and
the Dragon; which dragon I maintain to have been a whale; for in many
old chronicles whales and dragons are strangely jumbled together, and
often stand for each other. “Thou art as a lion of the waters, and as a
dragon of the sea,” saith Ezekiel; hereby, plainly meaning a whale; in
truth, some versions of the Bible use that word itself. Besides, it
would much subtract from the glory of the exploit had St. George but
encountered a crawling reptile of the land, instead of doing battle
with the great monster of the deep. Any man may kill a snake, but only
a Perseus, a St. George, a Coffin, have the heart in them to march
boldly up to a whale.

Let not the modern paintings of this scene mislead us; for though the
creature encountered by that valiant whaleman of old is vaguely
represented of a griffin-like shape, and though the battle is depicted
on land and the saint on horseback, yet considering the great ignorance
of those times, when the true form of the whale was unknown to artists;
and considering that as in Perseus’ case, St. George’s whale might have
crawled up out of the sea on the beach; and considering that the animal
ridden by St. George might have been only a large seal, or sea-horse;
bearing all this in mind, it will not appear altogether incompatible
with the sacred legend and the ancientest draughts of the scene, to
hold this so-called dragon no other than the great Leviathan himself.
In fact, placed before the strict and piercing truth, this whole story
will fare like that fish, flesh, and fowl idol of the Philistines,
Dagon by name; who being planted before the ark of Israel, his horse’s
head and both the palms of his hands fell off from him, and only the
stump or fishy part of him remained. Thus, then, one of our own noble
stamp, even a whaleman, is the tutelary guardian of England; and by
good rights, we harpooneers of Nantucket should be enrolled in the most
noble order of St. George. And therefore, let not the knights of that
honorable company (none of whom, I venture to say, have ever had to do
with a whale like their great patron), let them never eye a Nantucketer
with disdain, since even in our woollen frocks and tarred trowsers we
are much better entitled to St. George’s decoration than they.

Whether to admit Hercules among us or not, concerning this I long
remained dubious: for though according to the Greek mythologies, that
antique Crockett and Kit Carson—that brawny doer of rejoicing good
deeds, was swallowed down and thrown up by a whale; still, whether that
strictly makes a whaleman of him, that might be mooted. It nowhere
appears that he ever actually harpooned his fish, unless, indeed, from
the inside. Nevertheless, he may be deemed a sort of involuntary
whaleman; at any rate the whale caught him, if he did not the whale. I
claim him for one of our clan.

But, by the best contradictory authorities, this Grecian story of
Hercules and the whale is considered to be derived from the still more
ancient Hebrew story of Jonah and the whale; and vice versâ; certainly
they are very similar. If I claim the demi-god then, why not the
prophet?

Nor do heroes, saints, demigods, and prophets alone comprise the whole
roll of our order. Our grand master is still to be named; for like
royal kings of old times, we find the head waters of our fraternity in
nothing short of the great gods themselves. That wondrous oriental
story is now to be rehearsed from the Shaster, which gives us the dread
Vishnoo, one of the three persons in the godhead of the Hindoos; gives
us this divine Vishnoo himself for our Lord;—Vishnoo, who, by the first
of his ten earthly incarnations, has for ever set apart and sanctified
the whale. When Brahma, or the God of Gods, saith the Shaster, resolved
to recreate the world after one of its periodical dissolutions, he gave
birth to Vishnoo, to preside over the work; but the Vedas, or mystical
books, whose perusal would seem to have been indispensable to Vishnoo
before beginning the creation, and which therefore must have contained
something in the shape of practical hints to young architects, these
Vedas were lying at the bottom of the waters; so Vishnoo became
incarnate in a whale, and sounding down in him to the uttermost depths,
rescued the sacred volumes. Was not this Vishnoo a whaleman, then? even
as a man who rides a horse is called a horseman?

Perseus, St. George, Hercules, Jonah, and Vishnoo! there’s a
member-roll for you! What club but the whaleman’s can head off like
that?


CHAPTER 83. Jonah Historically Regarded.

Reference was made to the historical story of Jonah and the whale in
the preceding chapter. Now some Nantucketers rather distrust this
historical story of Jonah and the whale. But then there were some
sceptical Greeks and Romans, who, standing out from the orthodox pagans
of their times, equally doubted the story of Hercules and the whale,
and Arion and the dolphin; and yet their doubting those traditions did
not make those traditions one whit the less facts, for all that.

One old Sag-Harbor whaleman’s chief reason for questioning the Hebrew
story was this:—He had one of those quaint old-fashioned Bibles,
embellished with curious, unscientific plates; one of which represented
Jonah’s whale with two spouts in his head—a peculiarity only true with
respect to a species of the Leviathan (the Right Whale, and the
varieties of that order), concerning which the fishermen have this
saying, “A penny roll would choke him”; his swallow is so very small.
But, to this, Bishop Jebb’s anticipative answer is ready. It is not
necessary, hints the Bishop, that we consider Jonah as tombed in the
whale’s belly, but as temporarily lodged in some part of his mouth. And
this seems reasonable enough in the good Bishop. For truly, the Right
Whale’s mouth would accommodate a couple of whist-tables, and
comfortably seat all the players. Possibly, too, Jonah might have
ensconced himself in a hollow tooth; but, on second thoughts, the Right
Whale is toothless.

Another reason which Sag-Harbor (he went by that name) urged for his
want of faith in this matter of the prophet, was something obscurely in
reference to his incarcerated body and the whale’s gastric juices. But
this objection likewise falls to the ground, because a German exegetist
supposes that Jonah must have taken refuge in the floating body of a
_dead_ whale—even as the French soldiers in the Russian campaign turned
their dead horses into tents, and crawled into them. Besides, it has
been divined by other continental commentators, that when Jonah was
thrown overboard from the Joppa ship, he straightway effected his
escape to another vessel near by, some vessel with a whale for a
figure-head; and, I would add, possibly called “The Whale,” as some
craft are nowadays christened the “Shark,” the “Gull,” the “Eagle.” Nor
have there been wanting learned exegetists who have opined that the
whale mentioned in the book of Jonah merely meant a life-preserver—an
inflated bag of wind—which the endangered prophet swam to, and so was
saved from a watery doom. Poor Sag-Harbor, therefore, seems worsted all
round. But he had still another reason for his want of faith. It was
this, if I remember right: Jonah was swallowed by the whale in the
Mediterranean Sea, and after three days he was vomited up somewhere
within three days’ journey of Nineveh, a city on the Tigris, very much
more than three days’ journey across from the nearest point of the
Mediterranean coast. How is that?

But was there no other way for the whale to land the prophet within
that short distance of Nineveh? Yes. He might have carried him round by
the way of the Cape of Good Hope. But not to speak of the passage
through the whole length of the Mediterranean, and another passage up
the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, such a supposition would involve the
complete circumnavigation of all Africa in three days, not to speak of
the Tigris waters, near the site of Nineveh, being too shallow for any
whale to swim in. Besides, this idea of Jonah’s weathering the Cape of
Good Hope at so early a day would wrest the honor of the discovery of
that great headland from Bartholomew Diaz, its reputed discoverer, and
so make modern history a liar.

But all these foolish arguments of old Sag-Harbor only evinced his
foolish pride of reason—a thing still more reprehensible in him, seeing
that he had but little learning except what he had picked up from the
sun and the sea. I say it only shows his foolish, impious pride, and
abominable, devilish rebellion against the reverend clergy. For by a
Portuguese Catholic priest, this very idea of Jonah’s going to Nineveh
via the Cape of Good Hope was advanced as a signal magnification of the
general miracle. And so it was. Besides, to this day, the highly
enlightened Turks devoutly believe in the historical story of Jonah.
And some three centuries ago, an English traveller in old Harris’s
Voyages, speaks of a Turkish Mosque built in honor of Jonah, in which
Mosque was a miraculous lamp that burnt without any oil.


CHAPTER 84. Pitchpoling.

To make them run easily and swiftly, the axles of carriages are
anointed; and for much the same purpose, some whalers perform an
analogous operation upon their boat; they grease the bottom. Nor is it
to be doubted that as such a procedure can do no harm, it may possibly
be of no contemptible advantage; considering that oil and water are
hostile; that oil is a sliding thing, and that the object in view is to
make the boat slide bravely. Queequeg believed strongly in anointing
his boat, and one morning not long after the German ship Jungfrau
disappeared, took more than customary pains in that occupation;
crawling under its bottom, where it hung over the side, and rubbing in
the unctuousness as though diligently seeking to insure a crop of hair
from the craft’s bald keel. He seemed to be working in obedience to
some particular presentiment. Nor did it remain unwarranted by the
event.

Towards noon whales were raised; but so soon as the ship sailed down to
them, they turned and fled with swift precipitancy; a disordered
flight, as of Cleopatra’s barges from Actium.

Nevertheless, the boats pursued, and Stubb’s was foremost. By great
exertion, Tashtego at last succeeded in planting one iron; but the
stricken whale, without at all sounding, still continued his horizontal
flight, with added fleetness. Such unintermitted strainings upon the
planted iron must sooner or later inevitably extract it. It became
imperative to lance the flying whale, or be content to lose him. But to
haul the boat up to his flank was impossible, he swam so fast and
furious. What then remained?

Of all the wondrous devices and dexterities, the sleights of hand and
countless subtleties, to which the veteran whaleman is so often forced,
none exceed that fine manœuvre with the lance called pitchpoling. Small
sword, or broad sword, in all its exercises boasts nothing like it. It
is only indispensable with an inveterate running whale; its grand fact
and feature is the wonderful distance to which the long lance is
accurately darted from a violently rocking, jerking boat, under extreme
headway. Steel and wood included, the entire spear is some ten or
twelve feet in length; the staff is much slighter than that of the
harpoon, and also of a lighter material—pine. It is furnished with a
small rope called a warp, of considerable length, by which it can be
hauled back to the hand after darting.

But before going further, it is important to mention here, that though
the harpoon may be pitchpoled in the same way with the lance, yet it is
seldom done; and when done, is still less frequently successful, on
account of the greater weight and inferior length of the harpoon as
compared with the lance, which in effect become serious drawbacks. As a
general thing, therefore, you must first get fast to a whale, before
any pitchpoling comes into play.

Look now at Stubb; a man who from his humorous, deliberate coolness and
equanimity in the direst emergencies, was specially qualified to excel
in pitchpoling. Look at him; he stands upright in the tossed bow of the
flying boat; wrapt in fleecy foam, the towing whale is forty feet
ahead. Handling the long lance lightly, glancing twice or thrice along
its length to see if it be exactly straight, Stubb whistlingly gathers
up the coil of the warp in one hand, so as to secure its free end in
his grasp, leaving the rest unobstructed. Then holding the lance full
before his waistband’s middle, he levels it at the whale; when,
covering him with it, he steadily depresses the butt-end in his hand,
thereby elevating the point till the weapon stands fairly balanced upon
his palm, fifteen feet in the air. He minds you somewhat of a juggler,
balancing a long staff on his chin. Next moment with a rapid, nameless
impulse, in a superb lofty arch the bright steel spans the foaming
distance, and quivers in the life spot of the whale. Instead of
sparkling water, he now spouts red blood.

“That drove the spigot out of him!” cried Stubb. “’Tis July’s immortal
Fourth; all fountains must run wine today! Would now, it were old
Orleans whiskey, or old Ohio, or unspeakable old Monongahela! Then,
Tashtego, lad, I’d have ye hold a canakin to the jet, and we’d drink
round it! Yea, verily, hearts alive, we’d brew choice punch in the
spread of his spout-hole there, and from that live punch-bowl quaff the
living stuff.”

Again and again to such gamesome talk, the dexterous dart is repeated,
the spear returning to its master like a greyhound held in skilful
leash. The agonized whale goes into his flurry; the tow-line is
slackened, and the pitchpoler dropping astern, folds his hands, and
mutely watches the monster die.


CHAPTER 85. The Fountain.

That for six thousand years—and no one knows how many millions of ages
before—the great whales should have been spouting all over the sea, and
sprinkling and mistifying the gardens of the deep, as with so many
sprinkling or mistifying pots; and that for some centuries back,
thousands of hunters should have been close by the fountain of the
whale, watching these sprinklings and spoutings—that all this should
be, and yet, that down to this blessed minute (fifteen and a quarter
minutes past one o’clock P.M. of this sixteenth day of December, A.D.
1851), it should still remain a problem, whether these spoutings are,
after all, really water, or nothing but vapor—this is surely a
noteworthy thing.

Let us, then, look at this matter, along with some interesting items
contingent. Every one knows that by the peculiar cunning of their
gills, the finny tribes in general breathe the air which at all times
is combined with the element in which they swim; hence, a herring or a
cod might live a century, and never once raise its head above the
surface. But owing to his marked internal structure which gives him
regular lungs, like a human being’s, the whale can only live by
inhaling the disengaged air in the open atmosphere. Wherefore the
necessity for his periodical visits to the upper world. But he cannot
in any degree breathe through his mouth, for, in his ordinary attitude,
the Sperm Whale’s mouth is buried at least eight feet beneath the
surface; and what is still more, his windpipe has no connexion with his
mouth. No, he breathes through his spiracle alone; and this is on the
top of his head.

If I say, that in any creature breathing is only a function
indispensable to vitality, inasmuch as it withdraws from the air a
certain element, which being subsequently brought into contact with the
blood imparts to the blood its vivifying principle, I do not think I
shall err; though I may possibly use some superfluous scientific words.
Assume it, and it follows that if all the blood in a man could be
aerated with one breath, he might then seal up his nostrils and not
fetch another for a considerable time. That is to say, he would then
live without breathing. Anomalous as it may seem, this is precisely the
case with the whale, who systematically lives, by intervals, his full
hour and more (when at the bottom) without drawing a single breath, or
so much as in any way inhaling a particle of air; for, remember, he has
no gills. How is this? Between his ribs and on each side of his spine
he is supplied with a remarkable involved Cretan labyrinth of
vermicelli-like vessels, which vessels, when he quits the surface, are
completely distended with oxygenated blood. So that for an hour or
more, a thousand fathoms in the sea, he carries a surplus stock of
vitality in him, just as the camel crossing the waterless desert
carries a surplus supply of drink for future use in its four
supplementary stomachs. The anatomical fact of this labyrinth is
indisputable; and that the supposition founded upon it is reasonable
and true, seems the more cogent to me, when I consider the otherwise
inexplicable obstinacy of that leviathan in _having his spoutings out_,
as the fishermen phrase it. This is what I mean. If unmolested, upon
rising to the surface, the Sperm Whale will continue there for a period
of time exactly uniform with all his other unmolested risings. Say he
stays eleven minutes, and jets seventy times, that is, respires seventy
breaths; then whenever he rises again, he will be sure to have his
seventy breaths over again, to a minute. Now, if after he fetches a few
breaths you alarm him, so that he sounds, he will be always dodging up
again to make good his regular allowance of air. And not till those
seventy breaths are told, will he finally go down to stay out his full
term below. Remark, however, that in different individuals these rates
are different; but in any one they are alike. Now, why should the whale
thus insist upon having his spoutings out, unless it be to replenish
his reservoir of air, ere descending for good? How obvious is it, too,
that this necessity for the whale’s rising exposes him to all the fatal
hazards of the chase. For not by hook or by net could this vast
leviathan be caught, when sailing a thousand fathoms beneath the
sunlight. Not so much thy skill, then, O hunter, as the great
necessities that strike the victory to thee!

In man, breathing is incessantly going on—one breath only serving for
two or three pulsations; so that whatever other business he has to
attend to, waking or sleeping, breathe he must, or die he will. But the
Sperm Whale only breathes about one seventh or Sunday of his time.

It has been said that the whale only breathes through his spout-hole;
if it could truthfully be added that his spouts are mixed with water,
then I opine we should be furnished with the reason why his sense of
smell seems obliterated in him; for the only thing about him that at
all answers to his nose is that identical spout-hole; and being so
clogged with two elements, it could not be expected to have the power
of smelling. But owing to the mystery of the spout—whether it be water
or whether it be vapor—no absolute certainty can as yet be arrived at
on this head. Sure it is, nevertheless, that the Sperm Whale has no
proper olfactories. But what does he want of them? No roses, no
violets, no Cologne-water in the sea.

Furthermore, as his windpipe solely opens into the tube of his spouting
canal, and as that long canal—like the grand Erie Canal—is furnished
with a sort of locks (that open and shut) for the downward retention of
air or the upward exclusion of water, therefore the whale has no voice;
unless you insult him by saying, that when he so strangely rumbles, he
talks through his nose. But then again, what has the whale to say?
Seldom have I known any profound being that had anything to say to this
world, unless forced to stammer out something by way of getting a
living. Oh! happy that the world is such an excellent listener!

Now, the spouting canal of the Sperm Whale, chiefly intended as it is
for the conveyance of air, and for several feet laid along,
horizontally, just beneath the upper surface of his head, and a little
to one side; this curious canal is very much like a gas-pipe laid down
in a city on one side of a street. But the question returns whether
this gas-pipe is also a water-pipe; in other words, whether the spout
of the Sperm Whale is the mere vapor of the exhaled breath, or whether
that exhaled breath is mixed with water taken in at the mouth, and
discharged through the spiracle. It is certain that the mouth
indirectly communicates with the spouting canal; but it cannot be
proved that this is for the purpose of discharging water through the
spiracle. Because the greatest necessity for so doing would seem to be,
when in feeding he accidentally takes in water. But the Sperm Whale’s
food is far beneath the surface, and there he cannot spout even if he
would. Besides, if you regard him very closely, and time him with your
watch, you will find that when unmolested, there is an undeviating
rhyme between the periods of his jets and the ordinary periods of
respiration.

But why pester one with all this reasoning on the subject? Speak out!
You have seen him spout; then declare what the spout is; can you not
tell water from air? My dear sir, in this world it is not so easy to
settle these plain things. I have ever found your plain things the
knottiest of all. And as for this whale spout, you might almost stand
in it, and yet be undecided as to what it is precisely.

The central body of it is hidden in the snowy sparkling mist enveloping
it; and how can you certainly tell whether any water falls from it,
when, always, when you are close enough to a whale to get a close view
of his spout, he is in a prodigious commotion, the water cascading all
around him. And if at such times you should think that you really
perceived drops of moisture in the spout, how do you know that they are
not merely condensed from its vapor; or how do you know that they are
not those identical drops superficially lodged in the spout-hole
fissure, which is countersunk into the summit of the whale’s head? For
even when tranquilly swimming through the mid-day sea in a calm, with
his elevated hump sun-dried as a dromedary’s in the desert; even then,
the whale always carries a small basin of water on his head, as under a
blazing sun you will sometimes see a cavity in a rock filled up with
rain.

Nor is it at all prudent for the hunter to be over curious touching the
precise nature of the whale spout. It will not do for him to be peering
into it, and putting his face in it. You cannot go with your pitcher to
this fountain and fill it, and bring it away. For even when coming into
slight contact with the outer, vapory shreds of the jet, which will
often happen, your skin will feverishly smart, from the acridness of
the thing so touching it. And I know one, who coming into still closer
contact with the spout, whether with some scientific object in view, or
otherwise, I cannot say, the skin peeled off from his cheek and arm.
Wherefore, among whalemen, the spout is deemed poisonous; they try to
evade it. Another thing; I have heard it said, and I do not much doubt
it, that if the jet is fairly spouted into your eyes, it will blind
you. The wisest thing the investigator can do then, it seems to me, is
to let this deadly spout alone.

Still, we can hypothesize, even if we cannot prove and establish. My
hypothesis is this: that the spout is nothing but mist. And besides
other reasons, to this conclusion I am impelled, by considerations
touching the great inherent dignity and sublimity of the Sperm Whale; I
account him no common, shallow being, inasmuch as it is an undisputed
fact that he is never found on soundings, or near shores; all other
whales sometimes are. He is both ponderous and profound. And I am
convinced that from the heads of all ponderous profound beings, such as
Plato, Pyrrho, the Devil, Jupiter, Dante, and so on, there always goes
up a certain semi-visible steam, while in the act of thinking deep
thoughts. While composing a little treatise on Eternity, I had the
curiosity to place a mirror before me; and ere long saw reflected
there, a curious involved worming and undulation in the atmosphere over
my head. The invariable moisture of my hair, while plunged in deep
thought, after six cups of hot tea in my thin shingled attic, of an
August noon; this seems an additional argument for the above
supposition.

And how nobly it raises our conceit of the mighty, misty monster, to
behold him solemnly sailing through a calm tropical sea; his vast, mild
head overhung by a canopy of vapor, engendered by his incommunicable
contemplations, and that vapor—as you will sometimes see it—glorified
by a rainbow, as if Heaven itself had put its seal upon his thoughts.
For, d’ye see, rainbows do not visit the clear air; they only irradiate
vapor. And so, through all the thick mists of the dim doubts in my
mind, divine intuitions now and then shoot, enkindling my fog with a
heavenly ray. And for this I thank God; for all have doubts; many deny;
but doubts or denials, few along with them, have intuitions. Doubts of
all things earthly, and intuitions of some things heavenly; this
combination makes neither believer nor infidel, but makes a man who
regards them both with equal eye.


CHAPTER 86. The Tail.

Other poets have warbled the praises of the soft eye of the antelope,
and the lovely plumage of the bird that never alights; less celestial,
I celebrate a tail.

Reckoning the largest sized Sperm Whale’s tail to begin at that point
of the trunk where it tapers to about the girth of a man, it comprises
upon its upper surface alone, an area of at least fifty square feet.
The compact round body of its root expands into two broad, firm, flat
palms or flukes, gradually shoaling away to less than an inch in
thickness. At the crotch or junction, these flukes slightly overlap,
then sideways recede from each other like wings, leaving a wide vacancy
between. In no living thing are the lines of beauty more exquisitely
defined than in the crescentic borders of these flukes. At its utmost
expansion in the full grown whale, the tail will considerably exceed
twenty feet across.

The entire member seems a dense webbed bed of welded sinews; but cut
into it, and you find that three distinct strata compose it:—upper,
middle, and lower. The fibres in the upper and lower layers, are long
and horizontal; those of the middle one, very short, and running
crosswise between the outside layers. This triune structure, as much as
anything else, imparts power to the tail. To the student of old Roman
walls, the middle layer will furnish a curious parallel to the thin
course of tiles always alternating with the stone in those wonderful
relics of the antique, and which undoubtedly contribute so much to the
great strength of the masonry.

But as if this vast local power in the tendinous tail were not enough,
the whole bulk of the leviathan is knit over with a warp and woof of
muscular fibres and filaments, which passing on either side the loins
and running down into the flukes, insensibly blend with them, and
largely contribute to their might; so that in the tail the confluent
measureless force of the whole whale seems concentrated to a point.
Could annihilation occur to matter, this were the thing to do it.

Nor does this—its amazing strength, at all tend to cripple the graceful
flexion of its motions; where infantileness of ease undulates through a
Titanism of power. On the contrary, those motions derive their most
appalling beauty from it. Real strength never impairs beauty or
harmony, but it often bestows it; and in everything imposingly
beautiful, strength has much to do with the magic. Take away the tied
tendons that all over seem bursting from the marble in the carved
Hercules, and its charm would be gone. As devout Eckerman lifted the
linen sheet from the naked corpse of Goethe, he was overwhelmed with
the massive chest of the man, that seemed as a Roman triumphal arch.
When Angelo paints even God the Father in human form, mark what
robustness is there. And whatever they may reveal of the divine love in
the Son, the soft, curled, hermaphroditical Italian pictures, in which
his idea has been most successfully embodied; these pictures, so
destitute as they are of all brawniness, hint nothing of any power, but
the mere negative, feminine one of submission and endurance, which on
all hands it is conceded, form the peculiar practical virtues of his
teachings.

Such is the subtle elasticity of the organ I treat of, that whether
wielded in sport, or in earnest, or in anger, whatever be the mood it
be in, its flexions are invariably marked by exceeding grace. Therein
no fairy’s arm can transcend it.

Five great motions are peculiar to it. First, when used as a fin for
progression; Second, when used as a mace in battle; Third, in sweeping;
Fourth, in lobtailing; Fifth, in peaking flukes.

First: Being horizontal in its position, the Leviathan’s tail acts in a
different manner from the tails of all other sea creatures. It never
wriggles. In man or fish, wriggling is a sign of inferiority. To the
whale, his tail is the sole means of propulsion. Scroll-wise coiled
forwards beneath the body, and then rapidly sprung backwards, it is
this which gives that singular darting, leaping motion to the monster
when furiously swimming. His side-fins only serve to steer by.

Second: It is a little significant, that while one sperm whale only
fights another sperm whale with his head and jaw, nevertheless, in his
conflicts with man, he chiefly and contemptuously uses his tail. In
striking at a boat, he swiftly curves away his flukes from it, and the
blow is only inflicted by the recoil. If it be made in the unobstructed
air, especially if it descend to its mark, the stroke is then simply
irresistible. No ribs of man or boat can withstand it. Your only
salvation lies in eluding it; but if it comes sideways through the
opposing water, then partly owing to the light buoyancy of the
whale-boat, and the elasticity of its materials, a cracked rib or a
dashed plank or two, a sort of stitch in the side, is generally the
most serious result. These submerged side blows are so often received
in the fishery, that they are accounted mere child’s play. Some one
strips off a frock, and the hole is stopped.

Third: I cannot demonstrate it, but it seems to me, that in the whale
the sense of touch is concentrated in the tail; for in this respect
there is a delicacy in it only equalled by the daintiness of the
elephant’s trunk. This delicacy is chiefly evinced in the action of
sweeping, when in maidenly gentleness the whale with a certain soft
slowness moves his immense flukes from side to side upon the surface of
the sea; and if he feel but a sailor’s whisker, woe to that sailor,
whiskers and all. What tenderness there is in that preliminary touch!
Had this tail any prehensile power, I should straightway bethink me of
Darmonodes’ elephant that so frequented the flower-market, and with low
salutations presented nosegays to damsels, and then caressed their
zones. On more accounts than one, a pity it is that the whale does not
possess this prehensile virtue in his tail; for I have heard of yet
another elephant, that when wounded in the fight, curved round his
trunk and extracted the dart.

Fourth: Stealing unawares upon the whale in the fancied security of the
middle of solitary seas, you find him unbent from the vast corpulence
of his dignity, and kitten-like, he plays on the ocean as if it were a
hearth. But still you see his power in his play. The broad palms of his
tail are flirted high into the air; then smiting the surface, the
thunderous concussion resounds for miles. You would almost think a
great gun had been discharged; and if you noticed the light wreath of
vapor from the spiracle at his other extremity, you would think that
that was the smoke from the touch-hole.

Fifth: As in the ordinary floating posture of the leviathan the flukes
lie considerably below the level of his back, they are then completely
out of sight beneath the surface; but when he is about to plunge into
the deeps, his entire flukes with at least thirty feet of his body are
tossed erect in the air, and so remain vibrating a moment, till they
downwards shoot out of view. Excepting the sublime _breach_—somewhere
else to be described—this peaking of the whale’s flukes is perhaps the
grandest sight to be seen in all animated nature. Out of the bottomless
profundities the gigantic tail seems spasmodically snatching at the
highest heaven. So in dreams, have I seen majestic Satan thrusting
forth his tormented colossal claw from the flame Baltic of Hell. But in
gazing at such scenes, it is all in all what mood you are in; if in the
Dantean, the devils will occur to you; if in that of Isaiah, the
archangels. Standing at the mast-head of my ship during a sunrise that
crimsoned sky and sea, I once saw a large herd of whales in the east,
all heading towards the sun, and for a moment vibrating in concert with
peaked flukes. As it seemed to me at the time, such a grand embodiment
of adoration of the gods was never beheld, even in Persia, the home of
the fire worshippers. As Ptolemy Philopater testified of the African
elephant, I then testified of the whale, pronouncing him the most
devout of all beings. For according to King Juba, the military
elephants of antiquity often hailed the morning with their trunks
uplifted in the profoundest silence.

The chance comparison in this chapter, between the whale and the
elephant, so far as some aspects of the tail of the one and the trunk
of the other are concerned, should not tend to place those two opposite
organs on an equality, much less the creatures to which they
respectively belong. For as the mightiest elephant is but a terrier to
Leviathan, so, compared with Leviathan’s tail, his trunk is but the
stalk of a lily. The most direful blow from the elephant’s trunk were
as the playful tap of a fan, compared with the measureless crush and
crash of the sperm whale’s ponderous flukes, which in repeated
instances have one after the other hurled entire boats with all their
oars and crews into the air, very much as an Indian juggler tosses his
balls.*

*Though all comparison in the way of general bulk between the whale and
the elephant is preposterous, inasmuch as in that particular the
elephant stands in much the same respect to the whale that a dog does
to the elephant; nevertheless, there are not wanting some points of
curious similitude; among these is the spout. It is well known that the
elephant will often draw up water or dust in his trunk, and then
elevating it, jet it forth in a stream.

The more I consider this mighty tail, the more do I deplore my
inability to express it. At times there are gestures in it, which,
though they would well grace the hand of man, remain wholly
inexplicable. In an extensive herd, so remarkable, occasionally, are
these mystic gestures, that I have heard hunters who have declared them
akin to Free-Mason signs and symbols; that the whale, indeed, by these
methods intelligently conversed with the world. Nor are there wanting
other motions of the whale in his general body, full of strangeness,
and unaccountable to his most experienced assailant. Dissect him how I
may, then, I but go skin deep; I know him not, and never will. But if I
know not even the tail of this whale, how understand his head? much
more, how comprehend his face, when face he has none? Thou shalt see my
back parts, my tail, he seems to say, but my face shall not be seen.
But I cannot completely make out his back parts; and hint what he will
about his face, I say again he has no face.


CHAPTER 87. The Grand Armada.

The long and narrow peninsula of Malacca, extending south-eastward from
the territories of Birmah, forms the most southerly point of all Asia.
In a continuous line from that peninsula stretch the long islands of
Sumatra, Java, Bally, and Timor; which, with many others, form a vast
mole, or rampart, lengthwise connecting Asia with Australia, and
dividing the long unbroken Indian ocean from the thickly studded
oriental archipelagoes. This rampart is pierced by several sally-ports
for the convenience of ships and whales; conspicuous among which are
the straits of Sunda and Malacca. By the straits of Sunda, chiefly,
vessels bound to China from the west, emerge into the China seas.

Those narrow straits of Sunda divide Sumatra from Java; and standing
midway in that vast rampart of islands, buttressed by that bold green
promontory, known to seamen as Java Head; they not a little correspond
to the central gateway opening into some vast walled empire: and
considering the inexhaustible wealth of spices, and silks, and jewels,
and gold, and ivory, with which the thousand islands of that oriental
sea are enriched, it seems a significant provision of nature, that such
treasures, by the very formation of the land, should at least bear the
appearance, however ineffectual, of being guarded from the all-grasping
western world. The shores of the Straits of Sunda are unsupplied with
those domineering fortresses which guard the entrances to the
Mediterranean, the Baltic, and the Propontis. Unlike the Danes, these
Orientals do not demand the obsequious homage of lowered top-sails from
the endless procession of ships before the wind, which for centuries
past, by night and by day, have passed between the islands of Sumatra
and Java, freighted with the costliest cargoes of the east. But while
they freely waive a ceremonial like this, they do by no means renounce
their claim to more solid tribute.

Time out of mind the piratical proas of the Malays, lurking among the
low shaded coves and islets of Sumatra, have sallied out upon the
vessels sailing through the straits, fiercely demanding tribute at the
point of their spears. Though by the repeated bloody chastisements they
have received at the hands of European cruisers, the audacity of these
corsairs has of late been somewhat repressed; yet, even at the present
day, we occasionally hear of English and American vessels, which, in
those waters, have been remorselessly boarded and pillaged.

With a fair, fresh wind, the Pequod was now drawing nigh to these
straits; Ahab purposing to pass through them into the Javan sea, and
thence, cruising northwards, over waters known to be frequented here
and there by the Sperm Whale, sweep inshore by the Philippine Islands,
and gain the far coast of Japan, in time for the great whaling season
there. By these means, the circumnavigating Pequod would sweep almost
all the known Sperm Whale cruising grounds of the world, previous to
descending upon the Line in the Pacific; where Ahab, though everywhere
else foiled in his pursuit, firmly counted upon giving battle to Moby
Dick, in the sea he was most known to frequent; and at a season when he
might most reasonably be presumed to be haunting it.

But how now? in this zoned quest, does Ahab touch no land? does his
crew drink air? Surely, he will stop for water. Nay. For a long time,
now, the circus-running sun has raced within his fiery ring, and needs
no sustenance but what’s in himself. So Ahab. Mark this, too, in the
whaler. While other hulls are loaded down with alien stuff, to be
transferred to foreign wharves; the world-wandering whale-ship carries
no cargo but herself and crew, their weapons and their wants. She has a
whole lake’s contents bottled in her ample hold. She is ballasted with
utilities; not altogether with unusable pig-lead and kentledge. She
carries years’ water in her. Clear old prime Nantucket water; which,
when three years afloat, the Nantucketer, in the Pacific, prefers to
drink before the brackish fluid, but yesterday rafted off in casks,
from the Peruvian or Indian streams. Hence it is, that, while other
ships may have gone to China from New York, and back again, touching at
a score of ports, the whale-ship, in all that interval, may not have
sighted one grain of soil; her crew having seen no man but floating
seamen like themselves. So that did you carry them the news that
another flood had come; they would only answer—“Well, boys, here’s the
ark!”

Now, as many Sperm Whales had been captured off the western coast of
Java, in the near vicinity of the Straits of Sunda; indeed, as most of
the ground, roundabout, was generally recognised by the fishermen as an
excellent spot for cruising; therefore, as the Pequod gained more and
more upon Java Head, the look-outs were repeatedly hailed, and
admonished to keep wide awake. But though the green palmy cliffs of the
land soon loomed on the starboard bow, and with delighted nostrils the
fresh cinnamon was snuffed in the air, yet not a single jet was
descried. Almost renouncing all thought of falling in with any game
hereabouts, the ship had well nigh entered the straits, when the
customary cheering cry was heard from aloft, and ere long a spectacle
of singular magnificence saluted us.

But here be it premised, that owing to the unwearied activity with
which of late they have been hunted over all four oceans, the Sperm
Whales, instead of almost invariably sailing in small detached
companies, as in former times, are now frequently met with in extensive
herds, sometimes embracing so great a multitude, that it would almost
seem as if numerous nations of them had sworn solemn league and
covenant for mutual assistance and protection. To this aggregation of
the Sperm Whale into such immense caravans, may be imputed the
circumstance that even in the best cruising grounds, you may now
sometimes sail for weeks and months together, without being greeted by
a single spout; and then be suddenly saluted by what sometimes seems
thousands on thousands.

Broad on both bows, at the distance of some two or three miles, and
forming a great semicircle, embracing one half of the level horizon, a
continuous chain of whale-jets were up-playing and sparkling in the
noon-day air. Unlike the straight perpendicular twin-jets of the Right
Whale, which, dividing at top, fall over in two branches, like the
cleft drooping boughs of a willow, the single forward-slanting spout of
the Sperm Whale presents a thick curled bush of white mist, continually
rising and falling away to leeward.

Seen from the Pequod’s deck, then, as she would rise on a high hill of
the sea, this host of vapory spouts, individually curling up into the
air, and beheld through a blending atmosphere of bluish haze, showed
like the thousand cheerful chimneys of some dense metropolis, descried
of a balmy autumnal morning, by some horseman on a height.

As marching armies approaching an unfriendly defile in the mountains,
accelerate their march, all eagerness to place that perilous passage in
their rear, and once more expand in comparative security upon the
plain; even so did this vast fleet of whales now seem hurrying forward
through the straits; gradually contracting the wings of their
semicircle, and swimming on, in one solid, but still crescentic centre.

Crowding all sail the Pequod pressed after them; the harpooneers
handling their weapons, and loudly cheering from the heads of their yet
suspended boats. If the wind only held, little doubt had they, that
chased through these Straits of Sunda, the vast host would only deploy
into the Oriental seas to witness the capture of not a few of their
number. And who could tell whether, in that congregated caravan, Moby
Dick himself might not temporarily be swimming, like the worshipped
white-elephant in the coronation procession of the Siamese! So with
stun-sail piled on stun-sail, we sailed along, driving these leviathans
before us; when, of a sudden, the voice of Tashtego was heard, loudly
directing attention to something in our wake.

Corresponding to the crescent in our van, we beheld another in our
rear. It seemed formed of detached white vapors, rising and falling
something like the spouts of the whales; only they did not so
completely come and go; for they constantly hovered, without finally
disappearing. Levelling his glass at this sight, Ahab quickly revolved
in his pivot-hole, crying, “Aloft there, and rig whips and buckets to
wet the sails;—Malays, sir, and after us!”

As if too long lurking behind the headlands, till the Pequod should
fairly have entered the straits, these rascally Asiatics were now in
hot pursuit, to make up for their over-cautious delay. But when the
swift Pequod, with a fresh leading wind, was herself in hot chase; how
very kind of these tawny philanthropists to assist in speeding her on
to her own chosen pursuit,—mere riding-whips and rowels to her, that
they were. As with glass under arm, Ahab to-and-fro paced the deck; in
his forward turn beholding the monsters he chased, and in the after one
the bloodthirsty pirates chasing _him_; some such fancy as the above
seemed his. And when he glanced upon the green walls of the watery
defile in which the ship was then sailing, and bethought him that
through that gate lay the route to his vengeance, and beheld, how that
through that same gate he was now both chasing and being chased to his
deadly end; and not only that, but a herd of remorseless wild pirates
and inhuman atheistical devils were infernally cheering him on with
their curses;—when all these conceits had passed through his brain,
Ahab’s brow was left gaunt and ribbed, like the black sand beach after
some stormy tide has been gnawing it, without being able to drag the
firm thing from its place.

But thoughts like these troubled very few of the reckless crew; and
when, after steadily dropping and dropping the pirates astern, the
Pequod at last shot by the vivid green Cockatoo Point on the Sumatra
side, emerging at last upon the broad waters beyond; then, the
harpooneers seemed more to grieve that the swift whales had been
gaining upon the ship, than to rejoice that the ship had so
victoriously gained upon the Malays. But still driving on in the wake
of the whales, at length they seemed abating their speed; gradually the
ship neared them; and the wind now dying away, word was passed to
spring to the boats. But no sooner did the herd, by some presumed
wonderful instinct of the Sperm Whale, become notified of the three
keels that were after them,—though as yet a mile in their rear,—than
they rallied again, and forming in close ranks and battalions, so that
their spouts all looked like flashing lines of stacked bayonets, moved
on with redoubled velocity.

Stripped to our shirts and drawers, we sprang to the white-ash, and
after several hours’ pulling were almost disposed to renounce the
chase, when a general pausing commotion among the whales gave animating
token that they were now at last under the influence of that strange
perplexity of inert irresolution, which, when the fishermen perceive it
in the whale, they say he is gallied. The compact martial columns in
which they had been hitherto rapidly and steadily swimming, were now
broken up in one measureless rout; and like King Porus’ elephants in
the Indian battle with Alexander, they seemed going mad with
consternation. In all directions expanding in vast irregular circles,
and aimlessly swimming hither and thither, by their short thick
spoutings, they plainly betrayed their distraction of panic. This was
still more strangely evinced by those of their number, who, completely
paralysed as it were, helplessly floated like water-logged dismantled
ships on the sea. Had these Leviathans been but a flock of simple
sheep, pursued over the pasture by three fierce wolves, they could not
possibly have evinced such excessive dismay. But this occasional
timidity is characteristic of almost all herding creatures. Though
banding together in tens of thousands, the lion-maned buffaloes of the
West have fled before a solitary horseman. Witness, too, all human
beings, how when herded together in the sheepfold of a theatre’s pit,
they will, at the slightest alarm of fire, rush helter-skelter for the
outlets, crowding, trampling, jamming, and remorselessly dashing each
other to death. Best, therefore, withhold any amazement at the
strangely gallied whales before us, for there is no folly of the beasts
of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men.

Though many of the whales, as has been said, were in violent motion,
yet it is to be observed that as a whole the herd neither advanced nor
retreated, but collectively remained in one place. As is customary in
those cases, the boats at once separated, each making for some one lone
whale on the outskirts of the shoal. In about three minutes’ time,
Queequeg’s harpoon was flung; the stricken fish darted blinding spray
in our faces, and then running away with us like light, steered
straight for the heart of the herd. Though such a movement on the part
of the whale struck under such circumstances, is in no wise
unprecedented; and indeed is almost always more or less anticipated;
yet does it present one of the more perilous vicissitudes of the
fishery. For as the swift monster drags you deeper and deeper into the
frantic shoal, you bid adieu to circumspect life and only exist in a
delirious throb.

As, blind and deaf, the whale plunged forward, as if by sheer power of
speed to rid himself of the iron leech that had fastened to him; as we
thus tore a white gash in the sea, on all sides menaced as we flew, by
the crazed creatures to and fro rushing about us; our beset boat was
like a ship mobbed by ice-isles in a tempest, and striving to steer
through their complicated channels and straits, knowing not at what
moment it may be locked in and crushed.

But not a bit daunted, Queequeg steered us manfully; now sheering off
from this monster directly across our route in advance; now edging away
from that, whose colossal flukes were suspended overhead, while all the
time, Starbuck stood up in the bows, lance in hand, pricking out of our
way whatever whales he could reach by short darts, for there was no
time to make long ones. Nor were the oarsmen quite idle, though their
wonted duty was now altogether dispensed with. They chiefly attended to
the shouting part of the business. “Out of the way, Commodore!” cried
one, to a great dromedary that of a sudden rose bodily to the surface,
and for an instant threatened to swamp us. “Hard down with your tail,
there!” cried a second to another, which, close to our gunwale, seemed
calmly cooling himself with his own fan-like extremity.

All whaleboats carry certain curious contrivances, originally invented
by the Nantucket Indians, called druggs. Two thick squares of wood of
equal size are stoutly clenched together, so that they cross each
other’s grain at right angles; a line of considerable length is then
attached to the middle of this block, and the other end of the line
being looped, it can in a moment be fastened to a harpoon. It is
chiefly among gallied whales that this drugg is used. For then, more
whales are close round you than you can possibly chase at one time. But
sperm whales are not every day encountered; while you may, then, you
must kill all you can. And if you cannot kill them all at once, you
must wing them, so that they can be afterwards killed at your leisure.
Hence it is, that at times like these the drugg, comes into
requisition. Our boat was furnished with three of them. The first and
second were successfully darted, and we saw the whales staggeringly
running off, fettered by the enormous sidelong resistance of the towing
drugg. They were cramped like malefactors with the chain and ball. But
upon flinging the third, in the act of tossing overboard the clumsy
wooden block, it caught under one of the seats of the boat, and in an
instant tore it out and carried it away, dropping the oarsman in the
boat’s bottom as the seat slid from under him. On both sides the sea
came in at the wounded planks, but we stuffed two or three drawers and
shirts in, and so stopped the leaks for the time.

It had been next to impossible to dart these drugged-harpoons, were it
not that as we advanced into the herd, our whale’s way greatly
diminished; moreover, that as we went still further and further from
the circumference of commotion, the direful disorders seemed waning. So
that when at last the jerking harpoon drew out, and the towing whale
sideways vanished; then, with the tapering force of his parting
momentum, we glided between two whales into the innermost heart of the
shoal, as if from some mountain torrent we had slid into a serene
valley lake. Here the storms in the roaring glens between the outermost
whales, were heard but not felt. In this central expanse the sea
presented that smooth satin-like surface, called a sleek, produced by
the subtle moisture thrown off by the whale in his more quiet moods.
Yes, we were now in that enchanted calm which they say lurks at the
heart of every commotion. And still in the distracted distance we
beheld the tumults of the outer concentric circles, and saw successive
pods of whales, eight or ten in each, swiftly going round and round,
like multiplied spans of horses in a ring; and so closely shoulder to
shoulder, that a Titanic circus-rider might easily have over-arched the
middle ones, and so have gone round on their backs. Owing to the
density of the crowd of reposing whales, more immediately surrounding
the embayed axis of the herd, no possible chance of escape was at
present afforded us. We must watch for a breach in the living wall that
hemmed us in; the wall that had only admitted us in order to shut us
up. Keeping at the centre of the lake, we were occasionally visited by
small tame cows and calves; the women and children of this routed host.

Now, inclusive of the occasional wide intervals between the revolving
outer circles, and inclusive of the spaces between the various pods in
any one of those circles, the entire area at this juncture, embraced by
the whole multitude, must have contained at least two or three square
miles. At any rate—though indeed such a test at such a time might be
deceptive—spoutings might be discovered from our low boat that seemed
playing up almost from the rim of the horizon. I mention this
circumstance, because, as if the cows and calves had been purposely
locked up in this innermost fold; and as if the wide extent of the herd
had hitherto prevented them from learning the precise cause of its
stopping; or, possibly, being so young, unsophisticated, and every way
innocent and inexperienced; however it may have been, these smaller
whales—now and then visiting our becalmed boat from the margin of the
lake—evinced a wondrous fearlessness and confidence, or else a still
becharmed panic which it was impossible not to marvel at. Like
household dogs they came snuffling round us, right up to our gunwales,
and touching them; till it almost seemed that some spell had suddenly
domesticated them. Queequeg patted their foreheads; Starbuck scratched
their backs with his lance; but fearful of the consequences, for the
time refrained from darting it.

But far beneath this wondrous world upon the surface, another and still
stranger world met our eyes as we gazed over the side. For, suspended
in those watery vaults, floated the forms of the nursing mothers of the
whales, and those that by their enormous girth seemed shortly to become
mothers. The lake, as I have hinted, was to a considerable depth
exceedingly transparent; and as human infants while suckling will
calmly and fixedly gaze away from the breast, as if leading two
different lives at the time; and while yet drawing mortal nourishment,
be still spiritually feasting upon some unearthly reminiscence;—even so
did the young of these whales seem looking up towards us, but not at
us, as if we were but a bit of Gulfweed in their new-born sight.
Floating on their sides, the mothers also seemed quietly eyeing us. One
of these little infants, that from certain queer tokens seemed hardly a
day old, might have measured some fourteen feet in length, and some six
feet in girth. He was a little frisky; though as yet his body seemed
scarce yet recovered from that irksome position it had so lately
occupied in the maternal reticule; where, tail to head, and all ready
for the final spring, the unborn whale lies bent like a Tartar’s bow.
The delicate side-fins, and the palms of his flukes, still freshly
retained the plaited crumpled appearance of a baby’s ears newly arrived
from foreign parts.

“Line! line!” cried Queequeg, looking over the gunwale; “him fast! him
fast!—Who line him! Who struck?—Two whale; one big, one little!”

“What ails ye, man?” cried Starbuck.

“Look-e here,” said Queequeg, pointing down.

As when the stricken whale, that from the tub has reeled out hundreds
of fathoms of rope; as, after deep sounding, he floats up again, and
shows the slackened curling line buoyantly rising and spiralling
towards the air; so now, Starbuck saw long coils of the umbilical cord
of Madame Leviathan, by which the young cub seemed still tethered to
its dam. Not seldom in the rapid vicissitudes of the chase, this
natural line, with the maternal end loose, becomes entangled with the
hempen one, so that the cub is thereby trapped. Some of the subtlest
secrets of the seas seemed divulged to us in this enchanted pond. We
saw young Leviathan amours in the deep.*

*The sperm whale, as with all other species of the Leviathan, but
unlike most other fish, breeds indifferently at all seasons; after a
gestation which may probably be set down at nine months, producing but
one at a time; though in some few known instances giving birth to an
Esau and Jacob:—a contingency provided for in suckling by two teats,
curiously situated, one on each side of the anus; but the breasts
themselves extend upwards from that. When by chance these precious
parts in a nursing whale are cut by the hunter’s lance, the mother’s
pouring milk and blood rivallingly discolour the sea for rods. The milk
is very sweet and rich; it has been tasted by man; it might do well
with strawberries. When overflowing with mutual esteem, the whales
salute _more hominum_.

And thus, though surrounded by circle upon circle of consternations and
affrights, did these inscrutable creatures at the centre freely and
fearlessly indulge in all peaceful concernments; yea, serenely revelled
in dalliance and delight. But even so, amid the tornadoed Atlantic of
my being, do I myself still for ever centrally disport in mute calm;
and while ponderous planets of unwaning woe revolve round me, deep down
and deep inland there I still bathe me in eternal mildness of joy.

Meanwhile, as we thus lay entranced, the occasional sudden frantic
spectacles in the distance evinced the activity of the other boats,
still engaged in drugging the whales on the frontier of the host; or
possibly carrying on the war within the first circle, where abundance
of room and some convenient retreats were afforded them. But the sight
of the enraged drugged whales now and then blindly darting to and fro
across the circles, was nothing to what at last met our eyes. It is
sometimes the custom when fast to a whale more than commonly powerful
and alert, to seek to hamstring him, as it were, by sundering or
maiming his gigantic tail-tendon. It is done by darting a short-handled
cutting-spade, to which is attached a rope for hauling it back again. A
whale wounded (as we afterwards learned) in this part, but not
effectually, as it seemed, had broken away from the boat, carrying
along with him half of the harpoon line; and in the extraordinary agony
of the wound, he was now dashing among the revolving circles like the
lone mounted desperado Arnold, at the battle of Saratoga, carrying
dismay wherever he went.

But agonizing as was the wound of this whale, and an appalling
spectacle enough, any way; yet the peculiar horror with which he seemed
to inspire the rest of the herd, was owing to a cause which at first
the intervening distance obscured from us. But at length we perceived
that by one of the unimaginable accidents of the fishery, this whale
had become entangled in the harpoon-line that he towed; he had also run
away with the cutting-spade in him; and while the free end of the rope
attached to that weapon, had permanently caught in the coils of the
harpoon-line round his tail, the cutting-spade itself had worked loose
from his flesh. So that tormented to madness, he was now churning
through the water, violently flailing with his flexible tail, and
tossing the keen spade about him, wounding and murdering his own
comrades.

This terrific object seemed to recall the whole herd from their
stationary fright. First, the whales forming the margin of our lake
began to crowd a little, and tumble against each other, as if lifted by
half spent billows from afar; then the lake itself began faintly to
heave and swell; the submarine bridal-chambers and nurseries vanished;
in more and more contracting orbits the whales in the more central
circles began to swim in thickening clusters. Yes, the long calm was
departing. A low advancing hum was soon heard; and then like to the
tumultuous masses of block-ice when the great river Hudson breaks up in
Spring, the entire host of whales came tumbling upon their inner
centre, as if to pile themselves up in one common mountain. Instantly
Starbuck and Queequeg changed places; Starbuck taking the stern.

“Oars! Oars!” he intensely whispered, seizing the helm—“gripe your
oars, and clutch your souls, now! My God, men, stand by! Shove him off,
you Queequeg—the whale there!—prick him!—hit him! Stand up—stand up,
and stay so! Spring, men—pull, men; never mind their backs—scrape
them!—scrape away!”

The boat was now all but jammed between two vast black bulks, leaving a
narrow Dardanelles between their long lengths. But by desperate
endeavor we at last shot into a temporary opening; then giving way
rapidly, and at the same time earnestly watching for another outlet.
After many similar hair-breadth escapes, we at last swiftly glided into
what had just been one of the outer circles, but now crossed by random
whales, all violently making for one centre. This lucky salvation was
cheaply purchased by the loss of Queequeg’s hat, who, while standing in
the bows to prick the fugitive whales, had his hat taken clean from his
head by the air-eddy made by the sudden tossing of a pair of broad
flukes close by.

Riotous and disordered as the universal commotion now was, it soon
resolved itself into what seemed a systematic movement; for having
clumped together at last in one dense body, they then renewed their
onward flight with augmented fleetness. Further pursuit was useless;
but the boats still lingered in their wake to pick up what drugged
whales might be dropped astern, and likewise to secure one which Flask
had killed and waifed. The waif is a pennoned pole, two or three of
which are carried by every boat; and which, when additional game is at
hand, are inserted upright into the floating body of a dead whale, both
to mark its place on the sea, and also as token of prior possession,
should the boats of any other ship draw near.

The result of this lowering was somewhat illustrative of that sagacious
saying in the Fishery,—the more whales the less fish. Of all the
drugged whales only one was captured. The rest contrived to escape for
the time, but only to be taken, as will hereafter be seen, by some
other craft than the Pequod.


CHAPTER 88. Schools and Schoolmasters.

The previous chapter gave account of an immense body or herd of Sperm
Whales, and there was also then given the probable cause inducing those
vast aggregations.

Now, though such great bodies are at times encountered, yet, as must
have been seen, even at the present day, small detached bands are
occasionally observed, embracing from twenty to fifty individuals each.
Such bands are known as schools. They generally are of two sorts; those
composed almost entirely of females, and those mustering none but young
vigorous males, or bulls, as they are familiarly designated.

In cavalier attendance upon the school of females, you invariably see a
male of full grown magnitude, but not old; who, upon any alarm, evinces
his gallantry by falling in the rear and covering the flight of his
ladies. In truth, this gentleman is a luxurious Ottoman, swimming about
over the watery world, surroundingly accompanied by all the solaces and
endearments of the harem. The contrast between this Ottoman and his
concubines is striking; because, while he is always of the largest
leviathanic proportions, the ladies, even at full growth, are not more
than one-third of the bulk of an average-sized male. They are
comparatively delicate, indeed; I dare say, not to exceed half a dozen
yards round the waist. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied, that upon the
whole they are hereditarily entitled to _en bon point_.

It is very curious to watch this harem and its lord in their indolent
ramblings. Like fashionables, they are for ever on the move in
leisurely search of variety. You meet them on the Line in time for the
full flower of the Equatorial feeding season, having just returned,
perhaps, from spending the summer in the Northern seas, and so cheating
summer of all unpleasant weariness and warmth. By the time they have
lounged up and down the promenade of the Equator awhile, they start for
the Oriental waters in anticipation of the cool season there, and so
evade the other excessive temperature of the year.

When serenely advancing on one of these journeys, if any strange
suspicious sights are seen, my lord whale keeps a wary eye on his
interesting family. Should any unwarrantably pert young Leviathan
coming that way, presume to draw confidentially close to one of the
ladies, with what prodigious fury the Bashaw assails him, and chases
him away! High times, indeed, if unprincipled young rakes like him are
to be permitted to invade the sanctity of domestic bliss; though do
what the Bashaw will, he cannot keep the most notorious Lothario out of
his bed; for, alas! all fish bed in common. As ashore, the ladies often
cause the most terrible duels among their rival admirers; just so with
the whales, who sometimes come to deadly battle, and all for love. They
fence with their long lower jaws, sometimes locking them together, and
so striving for the supremacy like elks that warringly interweave their
antlers. Not a few are captured having the deep scars of these
encounters,—furrowed heads, broken teeth, scolloped fins; and in some
instances, wrenched and dislocated mouths.

But supposing the invader of domestic bliss to betake himself away at
the first rush of the harem’s lord, then is it very diverting to watch
that lord. Gently he insinuates his vast bulk among them again and
revels there awhile, still in tantalizing vicinity to young Lothario,
like pious Solomon devoutly worshipping among his thousand concubines.
Granting other whales to be in sight, the fishermen will seldom give
chase to one of these Grand Turks; for these Grand Turks are too lavish
of their strength, and hence their unctuousness is small. As for the
sons and the daughters they beget, why, those sons and daughters must
take care of themselves; at least, with only the maternal help. For
like certain other omnivorous roving lovers that might be named, my
Lord Whale has no taste for the nursery, however much for the bower;
and so, being a great traveller, he leaves his anonymous babies all
over the world; every baby an exotic. In good time, nevertheless, as
the ardour of youth declines; as years and dumps increase; as
reflection lends her solemn pauses; in short, as a general lassitude
overtakes the sated Turk; then a love of ease and virtue supplants the
love for maidens; our Ottoman enters upon the impotent, repentant,
admonitory stage of life, forswears, disbands the harem, and grown to
an exemplary, sulky old soul, goes about all alone among the meridians
and parallels saying his prayers, and warning each young Leviathan from
his amorous errors.

Now, as the harem of whales is called by the fishermen a school, so is
the lord and master of that school technically known as the
schoolmaster. It is therefore not in strict character, however
admirably satirical, that after going to school himself, he should then
go abroad inculcating not what he learned there, but the folly of it.
His title, schoolmaster, would very naturally seem derived from the
name bestowed upon the harem itself, but some have surmised that the
man who first thus entitled this sort of Ottoman whale, must have read
the memoirs of Vidocq, and informed himself what sort of a
country-schoolmaster that famous Frenchman was in his younger days, and
what was the nature of those occult lessons he inculcated into some of
his pupils.

The same secludedness and isolation to which the schoolmaster whale
betakes himself in his advancing years, is true of all aged Sperm
Whales. Almost universally, a lone whale—as a solitary Leviathan is
called—proves an ancient one. Like venerable moss-bearded Daniel Boone,
he will have no one near him but Nature herself; and her he takes to
wife in the wilderness of waters, and the best of wives she is, though
she keeps so many moody secrets.

The schools composing none but young and vigorous males, previously
mentioned, offer a strong contrast to the harem schools. For while
those female whales are characteristically timid, the young males, or
forty-barrel-bulls, as they call them, are by far the most pugnacious
of all Leviathans, and proverbially the most dangerous to encounter;
excepting those wondrous grey-headed, grizzled whales, sometimes met,
and these will fight you like grim fiends exasperated by a penal gout.

The Forty-barrel-bull schools are larger than the harem schools. Like a
mob of young collegians, they are full of fight, fun, and wickedness,
tumbling round the world at such a reckless, rollicking rate, that no
prudent underwriter would insure them any more than he would a riotous
lad at Yale or Harvard. They soon relinquish this turbulence though,
and when about three-fourths grown, break up, and separately go about
in quest of settlements, that is, harems.

Another point of difference between the male and female schools is
still more characteristic of the sexes. Say you strike a
Forty-barrel-bull—poor devil! all his comrades quit him. But strike a
member of the harem school, and her companions swim around her with
every token of concern, sometimes lingering so near her and so long, as
themselves to fall a prey.


CHAPTER 89. Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish.

The allusion to the waif and waif-poles in the last chapter but one,
necessitates some account of the laws and regulations of the whale
fishery, of which the waif may be deemed the grand symbol and badge.

It frequently happens that when several ships are cruising in company,
a whale may be struck by one vessel, then escape, and be finally killed
and captured by another vessel; and herein are indirectly comprised
many minor contingencies, all partaking of this one grand feature. For
example,—after a weary and perilous chase and capture of a whale, the
body may get loose from the ship by reason of a violent storm; and
drifting far away to leeward, be retaken by a second whaler, who, in a
calm, snugly tows it alongside, without risk of life or line. Thus the
most vexatious and violent disputes would often arise between the
fishermen, were there not some written or unwritten, universal,
undisputed law applicable to all cases.

Perhaps the only formal whaling code authorized by legislative
enactment, was that of Holland. It was decreed by the States-General in
A.D. 1695. But though no other nation has ever had any written whaling
law, yet the American fishermen have been their own legislators and
lawyers in this matter. They have provided a system which for terse
comprehensiveness surpasses Justinian’s Pandects and the By-laws of the
Chinese Society for the Suppression of Meddling with other People’s
Business. Yes; these laws might be engraven on a Queen Anne’s farthing,
or the barb of a harpoon, and worn round the neck, so small are they.

I. A Fast-Fish belongs to the party fast to it.

II. A Loose-Fish is fair game for anybody who can soonest catch it.

But what plays the mischief with this masterly code is the admirable
brevity of it, which necessitates a vast volume of commentaries to
expound it.

First: What is a Fast-Fish? Alive or dead a fish is technically fast,
when it is connected with an occupied ship or boat, by any medium at
all controllable by the occupant or occupants,—a mast, an oar, a
nine-inch cable, a telegraph wire, or a strand of cobweb, it is all the
same. Likewise a fish is technically fast when it bears a waif, or any
other recognised symbol of possession; so long as the party waifing it
plainly evince their ability at any time to take it alongside, as well
as their intention so to do.

These are scientific commentaries; but the commentaries of the whalemen
themselves sometimes consist in hard words and harder knocks—the
Coke-upon-Littleton of the fist. True, among the more upright and
honorable whalemen allowances are always made for peculiar cases, where
it would be an outrageous moral injustice for one party to claim
possession of a whale previously chased or killed by another party. But
others are by no means so scrupulous.

Some fifty years ago there was a curious case of whale-trover litigated
in England, wherein the plaintiffs set forth that after a hard chase of
a whale in the Northern seas; and when indeed they (the plaintiffs) had
succeeded in harpooning the fish; they were at last, through peril of
their lives, obliged to forsake not only their lines, but their boat
itself. Ultimately the defendants (the crew of another ship) came up
with the whale, struck, killed, seized, and finally appropriated it
before the very eyes of the plaintiffs. And when those defendants were
remonstrated with, their captain snapped his fingers in the plaintiffs’
teeth, and assured them that by way of doxology to the deed he had
done, he would now retain their line, harpoons, and boat, which had
remained attached to the whale at the time of the seizure. Wherefore
the plaintiffs now sued for the recovery of the value of their whale,
line, harpoons, and boat.

Mr. Erskine was counsel for the defendants; Lord Ellenborough was the
judge. In the course of the defence, the witty Erskine went on to
illustrate his position, by alluding to a recent crim. con. case,
wherein a gentleman, after in vain trying to bridle his wife’s
viciousness, had at last abandoned her upon the seas of life; but in
the course of years, repenting of that step, he instituted an action to
recover possession of her. Erskine was on the other side; and he then
supported it by saying, that though the gentleman had originally
harpooned the lady, and had once had her fast, and only by reason of
the great stress of her plunging viciousness, had at last abandoned
her; yet abandon her he did, so that she became a loose-fish; and
therefore when a subsequent gentleman re-harpooned her, the lady then
became that subsequent gentleman’s property, along with whatever
harpoon might have been found sticking in her.

Now in the present case Erskine contended that the examples of the
whale and the lady were reciprocally illustrative of each other.

These pleadings, and the counter pleadings, being duly heard, the very
learned judge in set terms decided, to wit,—That as for the boat, he
awarded it to the plaintiffs, because they had merely abandoned it to
save their lives; but that with regard to the controverted whale,
harpoons, and line, they belonged to the defendants; the whale, because
it was a Loose-Fish at the time of the final capture; and the harpoons
and line because when the fish made off with them, it (the fish)
acquired a property in those articles; and hence anybody who afterwards
took the fish had a right to them. Now the defendants afterwards took
the fish; ergo, the aforesaid articles were theirs.

A common man looking at this decision of the very learned Judge, might
possibly object to it. But ploughed up to the primary rock of the
matter, the two great principles laid down in the twin whaling laws
previously quoted, and applied and elucidated by Lord Ellenborough in
the above cited case; these two laws touching Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish,
I say, will, on reflection, be found the fundamentals of all human
jurisprudence; for notwithstanding its complicated tracery of
sculpture, the Temple of the Law, like the Temple of the Philistines,
has but two props to stand on.

Is it not a saying in every one’s mouth, Possession is half of the law:
that is, regardless of how the thing came into possession? But often
possession is the whole of the law. What are the sinews and souls of
Russian serfs and Republican slaves but Fast-Fish, whereof possession
is the whole of the law? What to the rapacious landlord is the widow’s
last mite but a Fast-Fish? What is yonder undetected villain’s marble
mansion with a door-plate for a waif; what is that but a Fast-Fish?
What is the ruinous discount which Mordecai, the broker, gets from poor
Woebegone, the bankrupt, on a loan to keep Woebegone’s family from
starvation; what is that ruinous discount but a Fast-Fish? What is the
Archbishop of Savesoul’s income of £100,000 seized from the scant bread
and cheese of hundreds of thousands of broken-backed laborers (all sure
of heaven without any of Savesoul’s help) what is that globular
£100,000 but a Fast-Fish? What are the Duke of Dunder’s hereditary
towns and hamlets but Fast-Fish? What to that redoubted harpooneer,
John Bull, is poor Ireland, but a Fast-Fish? What to that apostolic
lancer, Brother Jonathan, is Texas but a Fast-Fish? And concerning all
these, is not Possession the whole of the law?

But if the doctrine of Fast-Fish be pretty generally applicable, the
kindred doctrine of Loose-Fish is still more widely so. That is
internationally and universally applicable.

What was America in 1492 but a Loose-Fish, in which Columbus struck the
Spanish standard by way of waifing it for his royal master and
mistress? What was Poland to the Czar? What Greece to the Turk? What
India to England? What at last will Mexico be to the United States? All
Loose-Fish.

What are the Rights of Man and the Liberties of the World but
Loose-Fish? What all men’s minds and opinions but Loose-Fish? What is
the principle of religious belief in them but a Loose-Fish? What to the
ostentatious smuggling verbalists are the thoughts of thinkers but
Loose-Fish? What is the great globe itself but a Loose-Fish? And what
are you, reader, but a Loose-Fish and a Fast-Fish, too?


CHAPTER 90. Heads or Tails.

“De balena vero sufficit, si rex habeat caput, et regina caudam.”
_Bracton, l. 3, c. 3._

Latin from the books of the Laws of England, which taken along with the
context, means, that of all whales captured by anybody on the coast of
that land, the King, as Honorary Grand Harpooneer, must have the head,
and the Queen be respectfully presented with the tail. A division
which, in the whale, is much like halving an apple; there is no
intermediate remainder. Now as this law, under a modified form, is to
this day in force in England; and as it offers in various respects a
strange anomaly touching the general law of Fast and Loose-Fish, it is
here treated of in a separate chapter, on the same courteous principle
that prompts the English railways to be at the expense of a separate
car, specially reserved for the accommodation of royalty. In the first
place, in curious proof of the fact that the above-mentioned law is
still in force, I proceed to lay before you a circumstance that
happened within the last two years.

It seems that some honest mariners of Dover, or Sandwich, or some one
of the Cinque Ports, had after a hard chase succeeded in killing and
beaching a fine whale which they had originally descried afar off from
the shore. Now the Cinque Ports are partially or somehow under the
jurisdiction of a sort of policeman or beadle, called a Lord Warden.
Holding the office directly from the crown, I believe, all the royal
emoluments incident to the Cinque Port territories become by assignment
his. By some writers this office is called a sinecure. But not so.
Because the Lord Warden is busily employed at times in fobbing his
perquisites; which are his chiefly by virtue of that same fobbing of
them.

Now when these poor sun-burnt mariners, bare-footed, and with their
trowsers rolled high up on their eely legs, had wearily hauled their
fat fish high and dry, promising themselves a good £150 from the
precious oil and bone; and in fantasy sipping rare tea with their
wives, and good ale with their cronies, upon the strength of their
respective shares; up steps a very learned and most Christian and
charitable gentleman, with a copy of Blackstone under his arm; and
laying it upon the whale’s head, he says—“Hands off! this fish, my
masters, is a Fast-Fish. I seize it as the Lord Warden’s.” Upon this
the poor mariners in their respectful consternation—so truly
English—knowing not what to say, fall to vigorously scratching their
heads all round; meanwhile ruefully glancing from the whale to the
stranger. But that did in nowise mend the matter, or at all soften the
hard heart of the learned gentleman with the copy of Blackstone. At
length one of them, after long scratching about for his ideas, made
bold to speak,

“Please, sir, who is the Lord Warden?”

“The Duke.”

“But the duke had nothing to do with taking this fish?”

“It is his.”

“We have been at great trouble, and peril, and some expense, and is all
that to go to the Duke’s benefit; we getting nothing at all for our
pains but our blisters?”

“It is his.”

“Is the Duke so very poor as to be forced to this desperate mode of
getting a livelihood?”

“It is his.”

“I thought to relieve my old bed-ridden mother by part of my share of
this whale.”

“It is his.”

“Won’t the Duke be content with a quarter or a half?”

“It is his.”

In a word, the whale was seized and sold, and his Grace the Duke of
Wellington received the money. Thinking that viewed in some particular
lights, the case might by a bare possibility in some small degree be
deemed, under the circumstances, a rather hard one, an honest clergyman
of the town respectfully addressed a note to his Grace, begging him to
take the case of those unfortunate mariners into full consideration. To
which my Lord Duke in substance replied (both letters were published)
that he had already done so, and received the money, and would be
obliged to the reverend gentleman if for the future he (the reverend
gentleman) would decline meddling with other people’s business. Is this
the still militant old man, standing at the corners of the three
kingdoms, on all hands coercing alms of beggars?

It will readily be seen that in this case the alleged right of the Duke
to the whale was a delegated one from the Sovereign. We must needs
inquire then on what principle the Sovereign is originally invested
with that right. The law itself has already been set forth. But Plowdon
gives us the reason for it. Says Plowdon, the whale so caught belongs
to the King and Queen, “because of its superior excellence.” And by the
soundest commentators this has ever been held a cogent argument in such
matters.

But why should the King have the head, and the Queen the tail? A reason
for that, ye lawyers!

In his treatise on “Queen-Gold,” or Queen-pinmoney, an old King’s Bench
author, one William Prynne, thus discourseth: “Ye tail is ye Queen’s,
that ye Queen’s wardrobe may be supplied with ye whalebone.” Now this
was written at a time when the black limber bone of the Greenland or
Right whale was largely used in ladies’ bodices. But this same bone is
not in the tail; it is in the head, which is a sad mistake for a
sagacious lawyer like Prynne. But is the Queen a mermaid, to be
presented with a tail? An allegorical meaning may lurk here.

There are two royal fish so styled by the English law writers—the whale
and the sturgeon; both royal property under certain limitations, and
nominally supplying the tenth branch of the crown’s ordinary revenue. I
know not that any other author has hinted of the matter; but by
inference it seems to me that the sturgeon must be divided in the same
way as the whale, the King receiving the highly dense and elastic head
peculiar to that fish, which, symbolically regarded, may possibly be
humorously grounded upon some presumed congeniality. And thus there
seems a reason in all things, even in law.


CHAPTER 91. The Pequod Meets The Rose-Bud.

“In vain it was to rake for Ambergriese in the paunch of this
Leviathan, insufferable fetor denying not inquiry.” _Sir T. Browne,
V.E._

It was a week or two after the last whaling scene recounted, and when
we were slowly sailing over a sleepy, vapory, mid-day sea, that the
many noses on the Pequod’s deck proved more vigilant discoverers than
the three pairs of eyes aloft. A peculiar and not very pleasant smell
was smelt in the sea.

“I will bet something now,” said Stubb, “that somewhere hereabouts are
some of those drugged whales we tickled the other day. I thought they
would keel up before long.”

Presently, the vapors in advance slid aside; and there in the distance
lay a ship, whose furled sails betokened that some sort of whale must
be alongside. As we glided nearer, the stranger showed French colours
from his peak; and by the eddying cloud of vulture sea-fowl that
circled, and hovered, and swooped around him, it was plain that the
whale alongside must be what the fishermen call a blasted whale, that
is, a whale that has died unmolested on the sea, and so floated an
unappropriated corpse. It may well be conceived, what an unsavory odor
such a mass must exhale; worse than an Assyrian city in the plague,
when the living are incompetent to bury the departed. So intolerable
indeed is it regarded by some, that no cupidity could persuade them to
moor alongside of it. Yet are there those who will still do it;
notwithstanding the fact that the oil obtained from such subjects is of
a very inferior quality, and by no means of the nature of
attar-of-rose.

Coming still nearer with the expiring breeze, we saw that the Frenchman
had a second whale alongside; and this second whale seemed even more of
a nosegay than the first. In truth, it turned out to be one of those
problematical whales that seem to dry up and die with a sort of
prodigious dyspepsia, or indigestion; leaving their defunct bodies
almost entirely bankrupt of anything like oil. Nevertheless, in the
proper place we shall see that no knowing fisherman will ever turn up
his nose at such a whale as this, however much he may shun blasted
whales in general.

The Pequod had now swept so nigh to the stranger, that Stubb vowed he
recognised his cutting spade-pole entangled in the lines that were
knotted round the tail of one of these whales.

“There’s a pretty fellow, now,” he banteringly laughed, standing in the
ship’s bows, “there’s a jackal for ye! I well know that these Crappoes
of Frenchmen are but poor devils in the fishery; sometimes lowering
their boats for breakers, mistaking them for Sperm Whale spouts; yes,
and sometimes sailing from their port with their hold full of boxes of
tallow candles, and cases of snuffers, foreseeing that all the oil they
will get won’t be enough to dip the Captain’s wick into; aye, we all
know these things; but look ye, here’s a Crappo that is content with
our leavings, the drugged whale there, I mean; aye, and is content too
with scraping the dry bones of that other precious fish he has there.
Poor devil! I say, pass round a hat, some one, and let’s make him a
present of a little oil for dear charity’s sake. For what oil he’ll get
from that drugged whale there, wouldn’t be fit to burn in a jail; no,
not in a condemned cell. And as for the other whale, why, I’ll agree to
get more oil by chopping up and trying out these three masts of ours,
than he’ll get from that bundle of bones; though, now that I think of
it, it may contain something worth a good deal more than oil; yes,
ambergris. I wonder now if our old man has thought of that. It’s worth
trying. Yes, I’m for it;” and so saying he started for the
quarter-deck.

By this time the faint air had become a complete calm; so that whether
or no, the Pequod was now fairly entrapped in the smell, with no hope
of escaping except by its breezing up again. Issuing from the cabin,
Stubb now called his boat’s crew, and pulled off for the stranger.
Drawing across her bow, he perceived that in accordance with the
fanciful French taste, the upper part of her stem-piece was carved in
the likeness of a huge drooping stalk, was painted green, and for
thorns had copper spikes projecting from it here and there; the whole
terminating in a symmetrical folded bulb of a bright red colour. Upon
her head boards, in large gilt letters, he read “Bouton de
Rose,”—Rose-button, or Rose-bud; and this was the romantic name of this
aromatic ship.

Though Stubb did not understand the _Bouton_ part of the inscription,
yet the word _rose_, and the bulbous figure-head put together,
sufficiently explained the whole to him.

“A wooden rose-bud, eh?” he cried with his hand to his nose, “that will
do very well; but how like all creation it smells!”

Now in order to hold direct communication with the people on deck, he
had to pull round the bows to the starboard side, and thus come close
to the blasted whale; and so talk over it.

Arrived then at this spot, with one hand still to his nose, he
bawled—“Bouton-de-Rose, ahoy! are there any of you Bouton-de-Roses that
speak English?”

“Yes,” rejoined a Guernsey-man from the bulwarks, who turned out to be
the chief-mate.

“Well, then, my Bouton-de-Rose-bud, have you seen the White Whale?”

“_What_ whale?”

“The _White_ Whale—a Sperm Whale—Moby Dick, have ye seen him?

“Never heard of such a whale. Cachalot Blanche! White Whale—no.”

“Very good, then; good bye now, and I’ll call again in a minute.”

Then rapidly pulling back towards the Pequod, and seeing Ahab leaning
over the quarter-deck rail awaiting his report, he moulded his two
hands into a trumpet and shouted—“No, Sir! No!” Upon which Ahab
retired, and Stubb returned to the Frenchman.

He now perceived that the Guernsey-man, who had just got into the
chains, and was using a cutting-spade, had slung his nose in a sort of
bag.

“What’s the matter with your nose, there?” said Stubb. “Broke it?”

“I wish it was broken, or that I didn’t have any nose at all!” answered
the Guernsey-man, who did not seem to relish the job he was at very
much. “But what are you holding _yours_ for?”

“Oh, nothing! It’s a wax nose; I have to hold it on. Fine day, ain’t
it? Air rather gardenny, I should say; throw us a bunch of posies, will
ye, Bouton-de-Rose?”

“What in the devil’s name do you want here?” roared the Guernseyman,
flying into a sudden passion.

“Oh! keep cool—cool? yes, that’s the word! why don’t you pack those
whales in ice while you’re working at ’em? But joking aside, though; do
you know, Rose-bud, that it’s all nonsense trying to get any oil out of
such whales? As for that dried up one, there, he hasn’t a gill in his
whole carcase.”

“I know that well enough; but, d’ye see, the Captain here won’t believe
it; this is his first voyage; he was a Cologne manufacturer before. But
come aboard, and mayhap he’ll believe you, if he won’t me; and so I’ll
get out of this dirty scrape.”

“Anything to oblige ye, my sweet and pleasant fellow,” rejoined Stubb,
and with that he soon mounted to the deck. There a queer scene
presented itself. The sailors, in tasselled caps of red worsted, were
getting the heavy tackles in readiness for the whales. But they worked
rather slow and talked very fast, and seemed in anything but a good
humor. All their noses upwardly projected from their faces like so many
jib-booms. Now and then pairs of them would drop their work, and run up
to the mast-head to get some fresh air. Some thinking they would catch
the plague, dipped oakum in coal-tar, and at intervals held it to their
nostrils. Others having broken the stems of their pipes almost short
off at the bowl, were vigorously puffing tobacco-smoke, so that it
constantly filled their olfactories.

Stubb was struck by a shower of outcries and anathemas proceeding from
the Captain’s round-house abaft; and looking in that direction saw a
fiery face thrust from behind the door, which was held ajar from
within. This was the tormented surgeon, who, after in vain
remonstrating against the proceedings of the day, had betaken himself
to the Captain’s round-house (_cabinet_ he called it) to avoid the
pest; but still, could not help yelling out his entreaties and
indignations at times.

Marking all this, Stubb argued well for his scheme, and turning to the
Guernsey-man had a little chat with him, during which the stranger mate
expressed his detestation of his Captain as a conceited ignoramus, who
had brought them all into so unsavory and unprofitable a pickle.
Sounding him carefully, Stubb further perceived that the Guernsey-man
had not the slightest suspicion concerning the ambergris. He therefore
held his peace on that head, but otherwise was quite frank and
confidential with him, so that the two quickly concocted a little plan
for both circumventing and satirizing the Captain, without his at all
dreaming of distrusting their sincerity. According to this little plan
of theirs, the Guernsey-man, under cover of an interpreter’s office,
was to tell the Captain what he pleased, but as coming from Stubb; and
as for Stubb, he was to utter any nonsense that should come uppermost
in him during the interview.

By this time their destined victim appeared from his cabin. He was a
small and dark, but rather delicate looking man for a sea-captain, with
large whiskers and moustache, however; and wore a red cotton velvet
vest with watch-seals at his side. To this gentleman, Stubb was now
politely introduced by the Guernsey-man, who at once ostentatiously put
on the aspect of interpreting between them.

“What shall I say to him first?” said he.

“Why,” said Stubb, eyeing the velvet vest and the watch and seals, “you
may as well begin by telling him that he looks a sort of babyish to me,
though I don’t pretend to be a judge.”

“He says, Monsieur,” said the Guernsey-man, in French, turning to his
captain, “that only yesterday his ship spoke a vessel, whose captain
and chief-mate, with six sailors, had all died of a fever caught from a
blasted whale they had brought alongside.”

Upon this the captain started, and eagerly desired to know more.

“What now?” said the Guernsey-man to Stubb.

“Why, since he takes it so easy, tell him that now I have eyed him
carefully, I’m quite certain that he’s no more fit to command a
whale-ship than a St. Jago monkey. In fact, tell him from me he’s a
baboon.”

“He vows and declares, Monsieur, that the other whale, the dried one,
is far more deadly than the blasted one; in fine, Monsieur, he conjures
us, as we value our lives, to cut loose from these fish.”

Instantly the captain ran forward, and in a loud voice commanded his
crew to desist from hoisting the cutting-tackles, and at once cast
loose the cables and chains confining the whales to the ship.

“What now?” said the Guernsey-man, when the Captain had returned to
them.

“Why, let me see; yes, you may as well tell him now that—that—in fact,
tell him I’ve diddled him, and (aside to himself) perhaps somebody
else.”

“He says, Monsieur, that he’s very happy to have been of any service to
us.”

Hearing this, the captain vowed that they were the grateful parties
(meaning himself and mate) and concluded by inviting Stubb down into
his cabin to drink a bottle of Bordeaux.

“He wants you to take a glass of wine with him,” said the interpreter.

“Thank him heartily; but tell him it’s against my principles to drink
with the man I’ve diddled. In fact, tell him I must go.”

“He says, Monsieur, that his principles won’t admit of his drinking;
but that if Monsieur wants to live another day to drink, then Monsieur
had best drop all four boats, and pull the ship away from these whales,
for it’s so calm they won’t drift.”

By this time Stubb was over the side, and getting into his boat, hailed
the Guernsey-man to this effect,—that having a long tow-line in his
boat, he would do what he could to help them, by pulling out the
lighter whale of the two from the ship’s side. While the Frenchman’s
boats, then, were engaged in towing the ship one way, Stubb
benevolently towed away at his whale the other way, ostentatiously
slacking out a most unusually long tow-line.

Presently a breeze sprang up; Stubb feigned to cast off from the whale;
hoisting his boats, the Frenchman soon increased his distance, while
the Pequod slid in between him and Stubb’s whale. Whereupon Stubb
quickly pulled to the floating body, and hailing the Pequod to give
notice of his intentions, at once proceeded to reap the fruit of his
unrighteous cunning. Seizing his sharp boat-spade, he commenced an
excavation in the body, a little behind the side fin. You would almost
have thought he was digging a cellar there in the sea; and when at
length his spade struck against the gaunt ribs, it was like turning up
old Roman tiles and pottery buried in fat English loam. His boat’s crew
were all in high excitement, eagerly helping their chief, and looking
as anxious as gold-hunters.

And all the time numberless fowls were diving, and ducking, and
screaming, and yelling, and fighting around them. Stubb was beginning
to look disappointed, especially as the horrible nosegay increased,
when suddenly from out the very heart of this plague, there stole a
faint stream of perfume, which flowed through the tide of bad smells
without being absorbed by it, as one river will flow into and then
along with another, without at all blending with it for a time.

“I have it, I have it,” cried Stubb, with delight, striking something
in the subterranean regions, “a purse! a purse!”

Dropping his spade, he thrust both hands in, and drew out handfuls of
something that looked like ripe Windsor soap, or rich mottled old
cheese; very unctuous and savory withal. You might easily dent it with
your thumb; it is of a hue between yellow and ash colour. And this,
good friends, is ambergris, worth a gold guinea an ounce to any
druggist. Some six handfuls were obtained; but more was unavoidably
lost in the sea, and still more, perhaps, might have been secured were
it not for impatient Ahab’s loud command to Stubb to desist, and come
on board, else the ship would bid them good bye.


CHAPTER 92. Ambergris.

Now this ambergris is a very curious substance, and so important as an
article of commerce, that in 1791 a certain Nantucket-born Captain
Coffin was examined at the bar of the English House of Commons on that
subject. For at that time, and indeed until a comparatively late day,
the precise origin of ambergris remained, like amber itself, a problem
to the learned. Though the word ambergris is but the French compound
for grey amber, yet the two substances are quite distinct. For amber,
though at times found on the sea-coast, is also dug up in some far
inland soils, whereas ambergris is never found except upon the sea.
Besides, amber is a hard, transparent, brittle, odorless substance,
used for mouth-pieces to pipes, for beads and ornaments; but ambergris
is soft, waxy, and so highly fragrant and spicy, that it is largely
used in perfumery, in pastiles, precious candles, hair-powders, and
pomatum. The Turks use it in cooking, and also carry it to Mecca, for
the same purpose that frankincense is carried to St. Peter’s in Rome.
Some wine merchants drop a few grains into claret, to flavor it.

Who would think, then, that such fine ladies and gentlemen should
regale themselves with an essence found in the inglorious bowels of a
sick whale! Yet so it is. By some, ambergris is supposed to be the
cause, and by others the effect, of the dyspepsia in the whale. How to
cure such a dyspepsia it were hard to say, unless by administering
three or four boat loads of Brandreth’s pills, and then running out of
harm’s way, as laborers do in blasting rocks.

I have forgotten to say that there were found in this ambergris,
certain hard, round, bony plates, which at first Stubb thought might be
sailors’ trowsers buttons; but it afterwards turned out that they were
nothing more than pieces of small squid bones embalmed in that manner.

Now that the incorruption of this most fragrant ambergris should be
found in the heart of such decay; is this nothing? Bethink thee of that
saying of St. Paul in Corinthians, about corruption and incorruption;
how that we are sown in dishonor, but raised in glory. And likewise
call to mind that saying of Paracelsus about what it is that maketh the
best musk. Also forget not the strange fact that of all things of
ill-savor, Cologne-water, in its rudimental manufacturing stages, is
the worst.

I should like to conclude the chapter with the above appeal, but
cannot, owing to my anxiety to repel a charge often made against
whalemen, and which, in the estimation of some already biased minds,
might be considered as indirectly substantiated by what has been said
of the Frenchman’s two whales. Elsewhere in this volume the slanderous
aspersion has been disproved, that the vocation of whaling is
throughout a slatternly, untidy business. But there is another thing to
rebut. They hint that all whales always smell bad. Now how did this
odious stigma originate?

I opine, that it is plainly traceable to the first arrival of the
Greenland whaling ships in London, more than two centuries ago. Because
those whalemen did not then, and do not now, try out their oil at sea
as the Southern ships have always done; but cutting up the fresh
blubber in small bits, thrust it through the bung holes of large casks,
and carry it home in that manner; the shortness of the season in those
Icy Seas, and the sudden and violent storms to which they are exposed,
forbidding any other course. The consequence is, that upon breaking
into the hold, and unloading one of these whale cemeteries, in the
Greenland dock, a savor is given forth somewhat similar to that arising
from excavating an old city grave-yard, for the foundations of a
Lying-in Hospital.

I partly surmise also, that this wicked charge against whalers may be
likewise imputed to the existence on the coast of Greenland, in former
times, of a Dutch village called Schmerenburgh or Smeerenberg, which
latter name is the one used by the learned Fogo Von Slack, in his great
work on Smells, a text-book on that subject. As its name imports
(smeer, fat; berg, to put up), this village was founded in order to
afford a place for the blubber of the Dutch whale fleet to be tried
out, without being taken home to Holland for that purpose. It was a
collection of furnaces, fat-kettles, and oil sheds; and when the works
were in full operation certainly gave forth no very pleasant savor. But
all this is quite different with a South Sea Sperm Whaler; which in a
voyage of four years perhaps, after completely filling her hold with
oil, does not, perhaps, consume fifty days in the business of boiling
out; and in the state that it is casked, the oil is nearly scentless.
The truth is, that living or dead, if but decently treated, whales as a
species are by no means creatures of ill odor; nor can whalemen be
recognised, as the people of the middle ages affected to detect a Jew
in the company, by the nose. Nor indeed can the whale possibly be
otherwise than fragrant, when, as a general thing, he enjoys such high
health; taking abundance of exercise; always out of doors; though, it
is true, seldom in the open air. I say, that the motion of a Sperm
Whale’s flukes above water dispenses a perfume, as when a musk-scented
lady rustles her dress in a warm parlor. What then shall I liken the
Sperm Whale to for fragrance, considering his magnitude? Must it not be
to that famous elephant, with jewelled tusks, and redolent with myrrh,
which was led out of an Indian town to do honor to Alexander the Great?


CHAPTER 93. The Castaway.

It was but some few days after encountering the Frenchman, that a most
significant event befell the most insignificant of the Pequod’s crew;
an event most lamentable; and which ended in providing the sometimes
madly merry and predestinated craft with a living and ever accompanying
prophecy of whatever shattered sequel might prove her own.

Now, in the whale ship, it is not every one that goes in the boats.
Some few hands are reserved called ship-keepers, whose province it is
to work the vessel while the boats are pursuing the whale. As a general
thing, these ship-keepers are as hardy fellows as the men comprising
the boats’ crews. But if there happen to be an unduly slender, clumsy,
or timorous wight in the ship, that wight is certain to be made a
ship-keeper. It was so in the Pequod with the little negro Pippin by
nick-name, Pip by abbreviation. Poor Pip! ye have heard of him before;
ye must remember his tambourine on that dramatic midnight, so
gloomy-jolly.

In outer aspect, Pip and Dough-Boy made a match, like a black pony and
a white one, of equal developments, though of dissimilar colour, driven
in one eccentric span. But while hapless Dough-Boy was by nature dull
and torpid in his intellects, Pip, though over tender-hearted, was at
bottom very bright, with that pleasant, genial, jolly brightness
peculiar to his tribe; a tribe, which ever enjoy all holidays and
festivities with finer, freer relish than any other race. For blacks,
the year’s calendar should show naught but three hundred and sixty-five
Fourth of Julys and New Year’s Days. Nor smile so, while I write that
this little black was brilliant, for even blackness has its brilliancy;
behold yon lustrous ebony, panelled in king’s cabinets. But Pip loved
life, and all life’s peaceable securities; so that the panic-striking
business in which he had somehow unaccountably become entrapped, had
most sadly blurred his brightness; though, as ere long will be seen,
what was thus temporarily subdued in him, in the end was destined to be
luridly illumined by strange wild fires, that fictitiously showed him
off to ten times the natural lustre with which in his native Tolland
County in Connecticut, he had once enlivened many a fiddler’s frolic on
the green; and at melodious even-tide, with his gay ha-ha! had turned
the round horizon into one star-belled tambourine. So, though in the
clear air of day, suspended against a blue-veined neck, the
pure-watered diamond drop will healthful glow; yet, when the cunning
jeweller would show you the diamond in its most impressive lustre, he
lays it against a gloomy ground, and then lights it up, not by the sun,
but by some unnatural gases. Then come out those fiery effulgences,
infernally superb; then the evil-blazing diamond, once the divinest
symbol of the crystal skies, looks like some crown-jewel stolen from
the King of Hell. But let us to the story.

It came to pass, that in the ambergris affair Stubb’s after-oarsman
chanced so to sprain his hand, as for a time to become quite maimed;
and, temporarily, Pip was put into his place.

The first time Stubb lowered with him, Pip evinced much nervousness;
but happily, for that time, escaped close contact with the whale; and
therefore came off not altogether discreditably; though Stubb observing
him, took care, afterwards, to exhort him to cherish his courageousness
to the utmost, for he might often find it needful.

Now upon the second lowering, the boat paddled upon the whale; and as
the fish received the darted iron, it gave its customary rap, which
happened, in this instance, to be right under poor Pip’s seat. The
involuntary consternation of the moment caused him to leap, paddle in
hand, out of the boat; and in such a way, that part of the slack whale
line coming against his chest, he breasted it overboard with him, so as
to become entangled in it, when at last plumping into the water. That
instant the stricken whale started on a fierce run, the line swiftly
straightened; and presto! poor Pip came all foaming up to the chocks of
the boat, remorselessly dragged there by the line, which had taken
several turns around his chest and neck.

Tashtego stood in the bows. He was full of the fire of the hunt. He
hated Pip for a poltroon. Snatching the boat-knife from its sheath, he
suspended its sharp edge over the line, and turning towards Stubb,
exclaimed interrogatively, “Cut?” Meantime Pip’s blue, choked face
plainly looked, Do, for God’s sake! All passed in a flash. In less than
half a minute, this entire thing happened.

“Damn him, cut!” roared Stubb; and so the whale was lost and Pip was
saved.

So soon as he recovered himself, the poor little negro was assailed by
yells and execrations from the crew. Tranquilly permitting these
irregular cursings to evaporate, Stubb then in a plain, business-like,
but still half humorous manner, cursed Pip officially; and that done,
unofficially gave him much wholesome advice. The substance was, Never
jump from a boat, Pip, except—but all the rest was indefinite, as the
soundest advice ever is. Now, in general, _Stick to the boat_, is your
true motto in whaling; but cases will sometimes happen when _Leap from
the boat_, is still better. Moreover, as if perceiving at last that if
he should give undiluted conscientious advice to Pip, he would be
leaving him too wide a margin to jump in for the future; Stubb suddenly
dropped all advice, and concluded with a peremptory command, “Stick to
the boat, Pip, or by the Lord, I won’t pick you up if you jump; mind
that. We can’t afford to lose whales by the likes of you; a whale would
sell for thirty times what you would, Pip, in Alabama. Bear that in
mind, and don’t jump any more.” Hereby perhaps Stubb indirectly hinted,
that though man loved his fellow, yet man is a money-making animal,
which propensity too often interferes with his benevolence.

But we are all in the hands of the Gods; and Pip jumped again. It was
under very similar circumstances to the first performance; but this
time he did not breast out the line; and hence, when the whale started
to run, Pip was left behind on the sea, like a hurried traveller’s
trunk. Alas! Stubb was but too true to his word. It was a beautiful,
bounteous, blue day; the spangled sea calm and cool, and flatly
stretching away, all round, to the horizon, like gold-beater’s skin
hammered out to the extremest. Bobbing up and down in that sea, Pip’s
ebon head showed like a head of cloves. No boat-knife was lifted when
he fell so rapidly astern. Stubb’s inexorable back was turned upon him;
and the whale was winged. In three minutes, a whole mile of shoreless
ocean was between Pip and Stubb. Out from the centre of the sea, poor
Pip turned his crisp, curling, black head to the sun, another lonely
castaway, though the loftiest and the brightest.

Now, in calm weather, to swim in the open ocean is as easy to the
practised swimmer as to ride in a spring-carriage ashore. But the awful
lonesomeness is intolerable. The intense concentration of self in the
middle of such a heartless immensity, my God! who can tell it? Mark,
how when sailors in a dead calm bathe in the open sea—mark how closely
they hug their ship and only coast along her sides.

But had Stubb really abandoned the poor little negro to his fate? No;
he did not mean to, at least. Because there were two boats in his wake,
and he supposed, no doubt, that they would of course come up to Pip
very quickly, and pick him up; though, indeed, such considerations
towards oarsmen jeopardized through their own timidity, is not always
manifested by the hunters in all similar instances; and such instances
not unfrequently occur; almost invariably in the fishery, a coward, so
called, is marked with the same ruthless detestation peculiar to
military navies and armies.

But it so happened, that those boats, without seeing Pip, suddenly
spying whales close to them on one side, turned, and gave chase; and
Stubb’s boat was now so far away, and he and all his crew so intent
upon his fish, that Pip’s ringed horizon began to expand around him
miserably. By the merest chance the ship itself at last rescued him;
but from that hour the little negro went about the deck an idiot; such,
at least, they said he was. The sea had jeeringly kept his finite body
up, but drowned the infinite of his soul. Not drowned entirely, though.
Rather carried down alive to wondrous depths, where strange shapes of
the unwarped primal world glided to and fro before his passive eyes;
and the miser-merman, Wisdom, revealed his hoarded heaps; and among the
joyous, heartless, ever-juvenile eternities, Pip saw the multitudinous,
God-omnipresent, coral insects, that out of the firmament of waters
heaved the colossal orbs. He saw God’s foot upon the treadle of the
loom, and spoke it; and therefore his shipmates called him mad. So
man’s insanity is heaven’s sense; and wandering from all mortal reason,
man comes at last to that celestial thought, which, to reason, is
absurd and frantic; and weal or woe, feels then uncompromised,
indifferent as his God.

For the rest, blame not Stubb too hardly. The thing is common in that
fishery; and in the sequel of the narrative, it will then be seen what
like abandonment befell myself.


CHAPTER 94. A Squeeze of the Hand.

That whale of Stubb’s, so dearly purchased, was duly brought to the
Pequod’s side, where all those cutting and hoisting operations
previously detailed, were regularly gone through, even to the baling of
the Heidelburgh Tun, or Case.

While some were occupied with this latter duty, others were employed in
dragging away the larger tubs, so soon as filled with the sperm; and
when the proper time arrived, this same sperm was carefully manipulated
ere going to the try-works, of which anon.

It had cooled and crystallized to such a degree, that when, with
several others, I sat down before a large Constantine’s bath of it, I
found it strangely concreted into lumps, here and there rolling about
in the liquid part. It was our business to squeeze these lumps back
into fluid. A sweet and unctuous duty! No wonder that in old times this
sperm was such a favourite cosmetic. Such a clearer! such a sweetener!
such a softener! such a delicious molifier! After having my hands in it
for only a few minutes, my fingers felt like eels, and began, as it
were, to serpentine and spiralise.

As I sat there at my ease, cross-legged on the deck; after the bitter
exertion at the windlass; under a blue tranquil sky; the ship under
indolent sail, and gliding so serenely along; as I bathed my hands
among those soft, gentle globules of infiltrated tissues, woven almost
within the hour; as they richly broke to my fingers, and discharged all
their opulence, like fully ripe grapes their wine; as I snuffed up that
uncontaminated aroma,—literally and truly, like the smell of spring
violets; I declare to you, that for the time I lived as in a musky
meadow; I forgot all about our horrible oath; in that inexpressible
sperm, I washed my hands and my heart of it; I almost began to credit
the old Paracelsan superstition that sperm is of rare virtue in
allaying the heat of anger; while bathing in that bath, I felt divinely
free from all ill-will, or petulance, or malice, of any sort
whatsoever.

Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm
till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a
strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly
squeezing my co-laborers’ hands in it, mistaking their hands for the
gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving
feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually
squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as
much as to say,—Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish
any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come;
let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into
each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and
sperm of kindness.

Would that I could keep squeezing that sperm for ever! For now, since
by many prolonged, repeated experiences, I have perceived that in all
cases man must eventually lower, or at least shift, his conceit of
attainable felicity; not placing it anywhere in the intellect or the
fancy; but in the wife, the heart, the bed, the table, the saddle, the
fireside, the country; now that I have perceived all this, I am ready
to squeeze case eternally. In thoughts of the visions of the night, I
saw long rows of angels in paradise, each with his hands in a jar of
spermaceti.

Now, while discoursing of sperm, it behooves to speak of other things
akin to it, in the business of preparing the sperm whale for the
try-works.

First comes white-horse, so called, which is obtained from the tapering
part of the fish, and also from the thicker portions of his flukes. It
is tough with congealed tendons—a wad of muscle—but still contains some
oil. After being severed from the whale, the white-horse is first cut
into portable oblongs ere going to the mincer. They look much like
blocks of Berkshire marble.

Plum-pudding is the term bestowed upon certain fragmentary parts of the
whale’s flesh, here and there adhering to the blanket of blubber, and
often participating to a considerable degree in its unctuousness. It is
a most refreshing, convivial, beautiful object to behold. As its name
imports, it is of an exceedingly rich, mottled tint, with a bestreaked
snowy and golden ground, dotted with spots of the deepest crimson and
purple. It is plums of rubies, in pictures of citron. Spite of reason,
it is hard to keep yourself from eating it. I confess, that once I
stole behind the foremast to try it. It tasted something as I should
conceive a royal cutlet from the thigh of Louis le Gros might have
tasted, supposing him to have been killed the first day after the
venison season, and that particular venison season contemporary with an
unusually fine vintage of the vineyards of Champagne.

There is another substance, and a very singular one, which turns up in
the course of this business, but which I feel it to be very puzzling
adequately to describe. It is called slobgollion; an appellation
original with the whalemen, and even so is the nature of the substance.
It is an ineffably oozy, stringy affair, most frequently found in the
tubs of sperm, after a prolonged squeezing, and subsequent decanting. I
hold it to be the wondrously thin, ruptured membranes of the case,
coalescing.

Gurry, so called, is a term properly belonging to right whalemen, but
sometimes incidentally used by the sperm fishermen. It designates the
dark, glutinous substance which is scraped off the back of the
Greenland or right whale, and much of which covers the decks of those
inferior souls who hunt that ignoble Leviathan.

Nippers. Strictly this word is not indigenous to the whale’s
vocabulary. But as applied by whalemen, it becomes so. A whaleman’s
nipper is a short firm strip of tendinous stuff cut from the tapering
part of Leviathan’s tail: it averages an inch in thickness, and for the
rest, is about the size of the iron part of a hoe. Edgewise moved along
the oily deck, it operates like a leathern squilgee; and by nameless
blandishments, as of magic, allures along with it all impurities.

But to learn all about these recondite matters, your best way is at
once to descend into the blubber-room, and have a long talk with its
inmates. This place has previously been mentioned as the receptacle for
the blanket-pieces, when stript and hoisted from the whale. When the
proper time arrives for cutting up its contents, this apartment is a
scene of terror to all tyros, especially by night. On one side, lit by
a dull lantern, a space has been left clear for the workmen. They
generally go in pairs,—a pike-and-gaffman and a spade-man. The
whaling-pike is similar to a frigate’s boarding-weapon of the same
name. The gaff is something like a boat-hook. With his gaff, the
gaffman hooks on to a sheet of blubber, and strives to hold it from
slipping, as the ship pitches and lurches about. Meanwhile, the
spade-man stands on the sheet itself, perpendicularly chopping it into
the portable horse-pieces. This spade is sharp as hone can make it; the
spademan’s feet are shoeless; the thing he stands on will sometimes
irresistibly slide away from him, like a sledge. If he cuts off one of
his own toes, or one of his assistants’, would you be very much
astonished? Toes are scarce among veteran blubber-room men.


CHAPTER 95. The Cassock.

Had you stepped on board the Pequod at a certain juncture of this
post-mortemizing of the whale; and had you strolled forward nigh the
windlass, pretty sure am I that you would have scanned with no small
curiosity a very strange, enigmatical object, which you would have seen
there, lying along lengthwise in the lee scuppers. Not the wondrous
cistern in the whale’s huge head; not the prodigy of his unhinged lower
jaw; not the miracle of his symmetrical tail; none of these would so
surprise you, as half a glimpse of that unaccountable cone,—longer than
a Kentuckian is tall, nigh a foot in diameter at the base, and
jet-black as Yojo, the ebony idol of Queequeg. And an idol, indeed, it
is; or, rather, in old times, its likeness was. Such an idol as that
found in the secret groves of Queen Maachah in Judea; and for
worshipping which, King Asa, her son, did depose her, and destroyed the
idol, and burnt it for an abomination at the brook Kedron, as darkly
set forth in the 15th chapter of the First Book of Kings.

Look at the sailor, called the mincer, who now comes along, and
assisted by two allies, heavily backs the grandissimus, as the mariners
call it, and with bowed shoulders, staggers off with it as if he were a
grenadier carrying a dead comrade from the field. Extending it upon the
forecastle deck, he now proceeds cylindrically to remove its dark pelt,
as an African hunter the pelt of a boa. This done he turns the pelt
inside out, like a pantaloon leg; gives it a good stretching, so as
almost to double its diameter; and at last hangs it, well spread, in
the rigging, to dry. Ere long, it is taken down; when removing some
three feet of it, towards the pointed extremity, and then cutting two
slits for arm-holes at the other end, he lengthwise slips himself
bodily into it. The mincer now stands before you invested in the full
canonicals of his calling. Immemorial to all his order, this
investiture alone will adequately protect him, while employed in the
peculiar functions of his office.

That office consists in mincing the horse-pieces of blubber for the
pots; an operation which is conducted at a curious wooden horse,
planted endwise against the bulwarks, and with a capacious tub beneath
it, into which the minced pieces drop, fast as the sheets from a rapt
orator’s desk. Arrayed in decent black; occupying a conspicuous pulpit;
intent on bible leaves; what a candidate for an archbishopric, what a
lad for a Pope were this mincer!*

*Bible leaves! Bible leaves! This is the invariable cry from the mates
to the mincer. It enjoins him to be careful, and cut his work into as
thin slices as possible, inasmuch as by so doing the business of
boiling out the oil is much accelerated, and its quantity considerably
increased, besides perhaps improving it in quality.


CHAPTER 96. The Try-Works.

Besides her hoisted boats, an American whaler is outwardly
distinguished by her try-works. She presents the curious anomaly of the
most solid masonry joining with oak and hemp in constituting the
completed ship. It is as if from the open field a brick-kiln were
transported to her planks.

The try-works are planted between the foremast and mainmast, the most
roomy part of the deck. The timbers beneath are of a peculiar strength,
fitted to sustain the weight of an almost solid mass of brick and
mortar, some ten feet by eight square, and five in height. The
foundation does not penetrate the deck, but the masonry is firmly
secured to the surface by ponderous knees of iron bracing it on all
sides, and screwing it down to the timbers. On the flanks it is cased
with wood, and at top completely covered by a large, sloping, battened
hatchway. Removing this hatch we expose the great try-pots, two in
number, and each of several barrels’ capacity. When not in use, they
are kept remarkably clean. Sometimes they are polished with soapstone
and sand, till they shine within like silver punch-bowls. During the
night-watches some cynical old sailors will crawl into them and coil
themselves away there for a nap. While employed in polishing them—one
man in each pot, side by side—many confidential communications are
carried on, over the iron lips. It is a place also for profound
mathematical meditation. It was in the left hand try-pot of the Pequod,
with the soapstone diligently circling round me, that I was first
indirectly struck by the remarkable fact, that in geometry all bodies
gliding along the cycloid, my soapstone for example, will descend from
any point in precisely the same time.

Removing the fire-board from the front of the try-works, the bare
masonry of that side is exposed, penetrated by the two iron mouths of
the furnaces, directly underneath the pots. These mouths are fitted
with heavy doors of iron. The intense heat of the fire is prevented
from communicating itself to the deck, by means of a shallow reservoir
extending under the entire inclosed surface of the works. By a tunnel
inserted at the rear, this reservoir is kept replenished with water as
fast as it evaporates. There are no external chimneys; they open direct
from the rear wall. And here let us go back for a moment.

It was about nine o’clock at night that the Pequod’s try-works were
first started on this present voyage. It belonged to Stubb to oversee
the business.

“All ready there? Off hatch, then, and start her. You cook, fire the
works.” This was an easy thing, for the carpenter had been thrusting
his shavings into the furnace throughout the passage. Here be it said
that in a whaling voyage the first fire in the try-works has to be fed
for a time with wood. After that no wood is used, except as a means of
quick ignition to the staple fuel. In a word, after being tried out,
the crisp, shrivelled blubber, now called scraps or fritters, still
contains considerable of its unctuous properties. These fritters feed
the flames. Like a plethoric burning martyr, or a self-consuming
misanthrope, once ignited, the whale supplies his own fuel and burns by
his own body. Would that he consumed his own smoke! for his smoke is
horrible to inhale, and inhale it you must, and not only that, but you
must live in it for the time. It has an unspeakable, wild, Hindoo odor
about it, such as may lurk in the vicinity of funereal pyres. It smells
like the left wing of the day of judgment; it is an argument for the
pit.

By midnight the works were in full operation. We were clear from the
carcase; sail had been made; the wind was freshening; the wild ocean
darkness was intense. But that darkness was licked up by the fierce
flames, which at intervals forked forth from the sooty flues, and
illuminated every lofty rope in the rigging, as with the famed Greek
fire. The burning ship drove on, as if remorselessly commissioned to
some vengeful deed. So the pitch and sulphur-freighted brigs of the
bold Hydriote, Canaris, issuing from their midnight harbors, with broad
sheets of flame for sails, bore down upon the Turkish frigates, and
folded them in conflagrations.

The hatch, removed from the top of the works, now afforded a wide
hearth in front of them. Standing on this were the Tartarean shapes of
the pagan harpooneers, always the whale-ship’s stokers. With huge
pronged poles they pitched hissing masses of blubber into the scalding
pots, or stirred up the fires beneath, till the snaky flames darted,
curling, out of the doors to catch them by the feet. The smoke rolled
away in sullen heaps. To every pitch of the ship there was a pitch of
the boiling oil, which seemed all eagerness to leap into their faces.
Opposite the mouth of the works, on the further side of the wide wooden
hearth, was the windlass. This served for a sea-sofa. Here lounged the
watch, when not otherwise employed, looking into the red heat of the
fire, till their eyes felt scorched in their heads. Their tawny
features, now all begrimed with smoke and sweat, their matted beards,
and the contrasting barbaric brilliancy of their teeth, all these were
strangely revealed in the capricious emblazonings of the works. As they
narrated to each other their unholy adventures, their tales of terror
told in words of mirth; as their uncivilized laughter forked upwards
out of them, like the flames from the furnace; as to and fro, in their
front, the harpooneers wildly gesticulated with their huge pronged
forks and dippers; as the wind howled on, and the sea leaped, and the
ship groaned and dived, and yet steadfastly shot her red hell further
and further into the blackness of the sea and the night, and scornfully
champed the white bone in her mouth, and viciously spat round her on
all sides; then the rushing Pequod, freighted with savages, and laden
with fire, and burning a corpse, and plunging into that blackness of
darkness, seemed the material counterpart of her monomaniac commander’s
soul.

So seemed it to me, as I stood at her helm, and for long hours silently
guided the way of this fire-ship on the sea. Wrapped, for that
interval, in darkness myself, I but the better saw the redness, the
madness, the ghastliness of others. The continual sight of the fiend
shapes before me, capering half in smoke and half in fire, these at
last begat kindred visions in my soul, so soon as I began to yield to
that unaccountable drowsiness which ever would come over me at a
midnight helm.

But that night, in particular, a strange (and ever since inexplicable)
thing occurred to me. Starting from a brief standing sleep, I was
horribly conscious of something fatally wrong. The jaw-bone tiller
smote my side, which leaned against it; in my ears was the low hum of
sails, just beginning to shake in the wind; I thought my eyes were
open; I was half conscious of putting my fingers to the lids and
mechanically stretching them still further apart. But, spite of all
this, I could see no compass before me to steer by; though it seemed
but a minute since I had been watching the card, by the steady binnacle
lamp illuminating it. Nothing seemed before me but a jet gloom, now and
then made ghastly by flashes of redness. Uppermost was the impression,
that whatever swift, rushing thing I stood on was not so much bound to
any haven ahead as rushing from all havens astern. A stark, bewildered
feeling, as of death, came over me. Convulsively my hands grasped the
tiller, but with the crazy conceit that the tiller was, somehow, in
some enchanted way, inverted. My God! what is the matter with me?
thought I. Lo! in my brief sleep I had turned myself about, and was
fronting the ship’s stern, with my back to her prow and the compass. In
an instant I faced back, just in time to prevent the vessel from flying
up into the wind, and very probably capsizing her. How glad and how
grateful the relief from this unnatural hallucination of the night, and
the fatal contingency of being brought by the lee!

Look not too long in the face of the fire, O man! Never dream with thy
hand on the helm! Turn not thy back to the compass; accept the first
hint of the hitching tiller; believe not the artificial fire, when its
redness makes all things look ghastly. To-morrow, in the natural sun,
the skies will be bright; those who glared like devils in the forking
flames, the morn will show in far other, at least gentler, relief; the
glorious, golden, glad sun, the only true lamp—all others but liars!

Nevertheless the sun hides not Virginia’s Dismal Swamp, nor Rome’s
accursed Campagna, nor wide Sahara, nor all the millions of miles of
deserts and of griefs beneath the moon. The sun hides not the ocean,
which is the dark side of this earth, and which is two thirds of this
earth. So, therefore, that mortal man who hath more of joy than sorrow
in him, that mortal man cannot be true—not true, or undeveloped. With
books the same. The truest of all men was the Man of Sorrows, and the
truest of all books is Solomon’s, and Ecclesiastes is the fine hammered
steel of woe. “All is vanity.” ALL. This wilful world hath not got hold
of unchristian Solomon’s wisdom yet. But he who dodges hospitals and
jails, and walks fast crossing graveyards, and would rather talk of
operas than hell; calls Cowper, Young, Pascal, Rousseau, poor devils
all of sick men; and throughout a care-free lifetime swears by Rabelais
as passing wise, and therefore jolly;—not that man is fitted to sit
down on tomb-stones, and break the green damp mould with unfathomably
wondrous Solomon.

But even Solomon, he says, “the man that wandereth out of the way of
understanding shall remain” (_i.e._, even while living) “in the
congregation of the dead.” Give not thyself up, then, to fire, lest it
invert thee, deaden thee; as for the time it did me. There is a wisdom
that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a
Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest
gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny
spaces. And even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is
in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle
is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar.


CHAPTER 97. The Lamp.

Had you descended from the Pequod’s try-works to the Pequod’s
forecastle, where the off duty watch were sleeping, for one single
moment you would have almost thought you were standing in some
illuminated shrine of canonized kings and counsellors. There they lay
in their triangular oaken vaults, each mariner a chiselled muteness; a
score of lamps flashing upon his hooded eyes.

In merchantmen, oil for the sailor is more scarce than the milk of
queens. To dress in the dark, and eat in the dark, and stumble in
darkness to his pallet, this is his usual lot. But the whaleman, as he
seeks the food of light, so he lives in light. He makes his berth an
Aladdin’s lamp, and lays him down in it; so that in the pitchiest night
the ship’s black hull still houses an illumination.

See with what entire freedom the whaleman takes his handful of
lamps—often but old bottles and vials, though—to the copper cooler at
the try-works, and replenishes them there, as mugs of ale at a vat. He
burns, too, the purest of oil, in its unmanufactured, and, therefore,
unvitiated state; a fluid unknown to solar, lunar, or astral
contrivances ashore. It is sweet as early grass butter in April. He
goes and hunts for his oil, so as to be sure of its freshness and
genuineness, even as the traveller on the prairie hunts up his own
supper of game.


CHAPTER 98. Stowing Down and Clearing Up.

Already has it been related how the great leviathan is afar off
descried from the mast-head; how he is chased over the watery moors,
and slaughtered in the valleys of the deep; how he is then towed
alongside and beheaded; and how (on the principle which entitled the
headsman of old to the garments in which the beheaded was killed) his
great padded surtout becomes the property of his executioner; how, in
due time, he is condemned to the pots, and, like Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abednego, his spermaceti, oil, and bone pass unscathed through the
fire;—but now it remains to conclude the last chapter of this part of
the description by rehearsing—singing, if I may—the romantic proceeding
of decanting off his oil into the casks and striking them down into the
hold, where once again leviathan returns to his native profundities,
sliding along beneath the surface as before; but, alas! never more to
rise and blow.

While still warm, the oil, like hot punch, is received into the
six-barrel casks; and while, perhaps, the ship is pitching and rolling
this way and that in the midnight sea, the enormous casks are slewed
round and headed over, end for end, and sometimes perilously scoot
across the slippery deck, like so many land slides, till at last
man-handled and stayed in their course; and all round the hoops, rap,
rap, go as many hammers as can play upon them, for now, _ex officio_,
every sailor is a cooper.

At length, when the last pint is casked, and all is cool, then the
great hatchways are unsealed, the bowels of the ship are thrown open,
and down go the casks to their final rest in the sea. This done, the
hatches are replaced, and hermetically closed, like a closet walled up.

In the sperm fishery, this is perhaps one of the most remarkable
incidents in all the business of whaling. One day the planks stream
with freshets of blood and oil; on the sacred quarter-deck enormous
masses of the whale’s head are profanely piled; great rusty casks lie
about, as in a brewery yard; the smoke from the try-works has besooted
all the bulwarks; the mariners go about suffused with unctuousness; the
entire ship seems great leviathan himself; while on all hands the din
is deafening.

But a day or two after, you look about you, and prick your ears in this
self-same ship; and were it not for the tell-tale boats and try-works,
you would all but swear you trod some silent merchant vessel, with a
most scrupulously neat commander. The unmanufactured sperm oil
possesses a singularly cleansing virtue. This is the reason why the
decks never look so white as just after what they call an affair of
oil. Besides, from the ashes of the burned scraps of the whale, a
potent lye is readily made; and whenever any adhesiveness from the back
of the whale remains clinging to the side, that lye quickly
exterminates it. Hands go diligently along the bulwarks, and with
buckets of water and rags restore them to their full tidiness. The soot
is brushed from the lower rigging. All the numerous implements which
have been in use are likewise faithfully cleansed and put away. The
great hatch is scrubbed and placed upon the try-works, completely
hiding the pots; every cask is out of sight; all tackles are coiled in
unseen nooks; and when by the combined and simultaneous industry of
almost the entire ship’s company, the whole of this conscientious duty
is at last concluded, then the crew themselves proceed to their own
ablutions; shift themselves from top to toe; and finally issue to the
immaculate deck, fresh and all aglow, as bridegrooms new-leaped from
out the daintiest Holland.

Now, with elated step, they pace the planks in twos and threes, and
humorously discourse of parlors, sofas, carpets, and fine cambrics;
propose to mat the deck; think of having hanging to the top; object not
to taking tea by moonlight on the piazza of the forecastle. To hint to
such musked mariners of oil, and bone, and blubber, were little short
of audacity. They know not the thing you distantly allude to. Away, and
bring us napkins!

But mark: aloft there, at the three mast heads, stand three men intent
on spying out more whales, which, if caught, infallibly will again soil
the old oaken furniture, and drop at least one small grease-spot
somewhere. Yes; and many is the time, when, after the severest
uninterrupted labors, which know no night; continuing straight through
for ninety-six hours; when from the boat, where they have swelled their
wrists with all day rowing on the Line,—they only step to the deck to
carry vast chains, and heave the heavy windlass, and cut and slash,
yea, and in their very sweatings to be smoked and burned anew by the
combined fires of the equatorial sun and the equatorial try-works;
when, on the heel of all this, they have finally bestirred themselves
to cleanse the ship, and make a spotless dairy room of it; many is the
time the poor fellows, just buttoning the necks of their clean frocks,
are startled by the cry of “There she blows!” and away they fly to
fight another whale, and go through the whole weary thing again. Oh! my
friends, but this is man-killing! Yet this is life. For hardly have we
mortals by long toilings extracted from this world’s vast bulk its
small but valuable sperm; and then, with weary patience, cleansed
ourselves from its defilements, and learned to live here in clean
tabernacles of the soul; hardly is this done, when—_There she
blows!_—the ghost is spouted up, and away we sail to fight some other
world, and go through young life’s old routine again.

Oh! the metempsychosis! Oh! Pythagoras, that in bright Greece, two
thousand years ago, did die, so good, so wise, so mild; I sailed with
thee along the Peruvian coast last voyage—and, foolish as I am, taught
thee, a green simple boy, how to splice a rope!


CHAPTER 99. The Doubloon.

Ere now it has been related how Ahab was wont to pace his quarter-deck,
taking regular turns at either limit, the binnacle and mainmast; but in
the multiplicity of other things requiring narration it has not been
added how that sometimes in these walks, when most plunged in his mood,
he was wont to pause in turn at each spot, and stand there strangely
eyeing the particular object before him. When he halted before the
binnacle, with his glance fastened on the pointed needle in the
compass, that glance shot like a javelin with the pointed intensity of
his purpose; and when resuming his walk he again paused before the
mainmast, then, as the same riveted glance fastened upon the riveted
gold coin there, he still wore the same aspect of nailed firmness, only
dashed with a certain wild longing, if not hopefulness.

But one morning, turning to pass the doubloon, he seemed to be newly
attracted by the strange figures and inscriptions stamped on it, as
though now for the first time beginning to interpret for himself in
some monomaniac way whatever significance might lurk in them. And some
certain significance lurks in all things, else all things are little
worth, and the round world itself but an empty cipher, except to sell
by the cartload, as they do hills about Boston, to fill up some morass
in the Milky Way.

Now this doubloon was of purest, virgin gold, raked somewhere out of
the heart of gorgeous hills, whence, east and west, over golden sands,
the head-waters of many a Pactolus flows. And though now nailed amidst
all the rustiness of iron bolts and the verdigris of copper spikes,
yet, untouchable and immaculate to any foulness, it still preserved its
Quito glow. Nor, though placed amongst a ruthless crew and every hour
passed by ruthless hands, and through the livelong nights shrouded with
thick darkness which might cover any pilfering approach, nevertheless
every sunrise found the doubloon where the sunset left it last. For it
was set apart and sanctified to one awe-striking end; and however
wanton in their sailor ways, one and all, the mariners revered it as
the white whale’s talisman. Sometimes they talked it over in the weary
watch by night, wondering whose it was to be at last, and whether he
would ever live to spend it.

Now those noble golden coins of South America are as medals of the sun
and tropic token-pieces. Here palms, alpacas, and volcanoes; sun’s
disks and stars; ecliptics, horns-of-plenty, and rich banners waving,
are in luxuriant profusion stamped; so that the precious gold seems
almost to derive an added preciousness and enhancing glories, by
passing through those fancy mints, so Spanishly poetic.

It so chanced that the doubloon of the Pequod was a most wealthy
example of these things. On its round border it bore the letters,
REPUBLICA DEL ECUADOR: QUITO. So this bright coin came from a country
planted in the middle of the world, and beneath the great equator, and
named after it; and it had been cast midway up the Andes, in the
unwaning clime that knows no autumn. Zoned by those letters you saw the
likeness of three Andes’ summits; from one a flame; a tower on another;
on the third a crowing cock; while arching over all was a segment of
the partitioned zodiac, the signs all marked with their usual
cabalistics, and the keystone sun entering the equinoctial point at
Libra.

Before this equatorial coin, Ahab, not unobserved by others, was now
pausing.

“There’s something ever egotistical in mountain-tops and towers, and
all other grand and lofty things; look here,—three peaks as proud as
Lucifer. The firm tower, that is Ahab; the volcano, that is Ahab; the
courageous, the undaunted, and victorious fowl, that, too, is Ahab; all
are Ahab; and this round gold is but the image of the rounder globe,
which, like a magician’s glass, to each and every man in turn but
mirrors back his own mysterious self. Great pains, small gains for
those who ask the world to solve them; it cannot solve itself. Methinks
now this coined sun wears a ruddy face; but see! aye, he enters the
sign of storms, the equinox! and but six months before he wheeled out
of a former equinox at Aries! From storm to storm! So be it, then. Born
in throes, ’tis fit that man should live in pains and die in pangs! So
be it, then! Here’s stout stuff for woe to work on. So be it, then.”

“No fairy fingers can have pressed the gold, but devil’s claws must
have left their mouldings there since yesterday,” murmured Starbuck to
himself, leaning against the bulwarks. “The old man seems to read
Belshazzar’s awful writing. I have never marked the coin inspectingly.
He goes below; let me read. A dark valley between three mighty,
heaven-abiding peaks, that almost seem the Trinity, in some faint
earthly symbol. So in this vale of Death, God girds us round; and over
all our gloom, the sun of Righteousness still shines a beacon and a
hope. If we bend down our eyes, the dark vale shows her mouldy soil;
but if we lift them, the bright sun meets our glance half way, to
cheer. Yet, oh, the great sun is no fixture; and if, at midnight, we
would fain snatch some sweet solace from him, we gaze for him in vain!
This coin speaks wisely, mildly, truly, but still sadly to me. I will
quit it, lest Truth shake me falsely.”

“There now’s the old Mogul,” soliloquized Stubb by the try-works, “he’s
been twigging it; and there goes Starbuck from the same, and both with
faces which I should say might be somewhere within nine fathoms long.
And all from looking at a piece of gold, which did I have it now on
Negro Hill or in Corlaer’s Hook, I’d not look at it very long ere
spending it. Humph! in my poor, insignificant opinion, I regard this as
queer. I have seen doubloons before now in my voyagings; your doubloons
of old Spain, your doubloons of Peru, your doubloons of Chili, your
doubloons of Bolivia, your doubloons of Popayan; with plenty of gold
moidores and pistoles, and joes, and half joes, and quarter joes. What
then should there be in this doubloon of the Equator that is so killing
wonderful? By Golconda! let me read it once. Halloa! here’s signs and
wonders truly! That, now, is what old Bowditch in his Epitome calls the
zodiac, and what my almanac below calls ditto. I’ll get the almanac and
as I have heard devils can be raised with Daboll’s arithmetic, I’ll try
my hand at raising a meaning out of these queer curvicues here with the
Massachusetts calendar. Here’s the book. Let’s see now. Signs and
wonders; and the sun, he’s always among ’em. Hem, hem, hem; here they
are—here they go—all alive:—Aries, or the Ram; Taurus, or the Bull and
Jimimi! here’s Gemini himself, or the Twins. Well; the sun he wheels
among ’em. Aye, here on the coin he’s just crossing the threshold
between two of twelve sitting-rooms all in a ring. Book! you lie there;
the fact is, you books must know your places. You’ll do to give us the
bare words and facts, but we come in to supply the thoughts. That’s my
small experience, so far as the Massachusetts calendar, and Bowditch’s
navigator, and Daboll’s arithmetic go. Signs and wonders, eh? Pity if
there is nothing wonderful in signs, and significant in wonders!
There’s a clue somewhere; wait a bit; hist—hark! By Jove, I have it!
Look you, Doubloon, your zodiac here is the life of man in one round
chapter; and now I’ll read it off, straight out of the book. Come,
Almanack! To begin: there’s Aries, or the Ram—lecherous dog, he begets
us; then, Taurus, or the Bull—he bumps us the first thing; then Gemini,
or the Twins—that is, Virtue and Vice; we try to reach Virtue, when lo!
comes Cancer the Crab, and drags us back; and here, going from Virtue,
Leo, a roaring Lion, lies in the path—he gives a few fierce bites and
surly dabs with his paw; we escape, and hail Virgo, the Virgin! that’s
our first love; we marry and think to be happy for aye, when pop comes
Libra, or the Scales—happiness weighed and found wanting; and while we
are very sad about that, Lord! how we suddenly jump, as Scorpio, or the
Scorpion, stings us in the rear; we are curing the wound, when whang
come the arrows all round; Sagittarius, or the Archer, is amusing
himself. As we pluck out the shafts, stand aside! here’s the
battering-ram, Capricornus, or the Goat; full tilt, he comes rushing,
and headlong we are tossed; when Aquarius, or the Water-bearer, pours
out his whole deluge and drowns us; and to wind up with Pisces, or the
Fishes, we sleep. There’s a sermon now, writ in high heaven, and the
sun goes through it every year, and yet comes out of it all alive and
hearty. Jollily he, aloft there, wheels through toil and trouble; and
so, alow here, does jolly Stubb. Oh, jolly’s the word for aye! Adieu,
Doubloon! But stop; here comes little King-Post; dodge round the
try-works, now, and let’s hear what he’ll have to say. There; he’s
before it; he’ll out with something presently. So, so; he’s beginning.”

“I see nothing here, but a round thing made of gold, and whoever raises
a certain whale, this round thing belongs to him. So, what’s all this
staring been about? It is worth sixteen dollars, that’s true; and at
two cents the cigar, that’s nine hundred and sixty cigars. I won’t
smoke dirty pipes like Stubb, but I like cigars, and here’s nine
hundred and sixty of them; so here goes Flask aloft to spy ’em out.”

“Shall I call that wise or foolish, now; if it be really wise it has a
foolish look to it; yet, if it be really foolish, then has it a sort of
wiseish look to it. But, avast; here comes our old Manxman—the old
hearse-driver, he must have been, that is, before he took to the sea.
He luffs up before the doubloon; halloa, and goes round on the other
side of the mast; why, there’s a horse-shoe nailed on that side; and
now he’s back again; what does that mean? Hark! he’s muttering—voice
like an old worn-out coffee-mill. Prick ears, and listen!”

“If the White Whale be raised, it must be in a month and a day, when
the sun stands in some one of these signs. I’ve studied signs, and know
their marks; they were taught me two score years ago, by the old witch
in Copenhagen. Now, in what sign will the sun then be? The horse-shoe
sign; for there it is, right opposite the gold. And what’s the
horse-shoe sign? The lion is the horse-shoe sign—the roaring and
devouring lion. Ship, old ship! my old head shakes to think of thee.”

“There’s another rendering now; but still one text. All sorts of men in
one kind of world, you see. Dodge again! here comes Queequeg—all
tattooing—looks like the signs of the Zodiac himself. What says the
Cannibal? As I live he’s comparing notes; looking at his thigh bone;
thinks the sun is in the thigh, or in the calf, or in the bowels, I
suppose, as the old women talk Surgeon’s Astronomy in the back country.
And by Jove, he’s found something there in the vicinity of his thigh—I
guess it’s Sagittarius, or the Archer. No: he don’t know what to make
of the doubloon; he takes it for an old button off some king’s
trowsers. But, aside again! here comes that ghost-devil, Fedallah; tail
coiled out of sight as usual, oakum in the toes of his pumps as usual.
What does he say, with that look of his? Ah, only makes a sign to the
sign and bows himself; there is a sun on the coin—fire worshipper,
depend upon it. Ho! more and more. This way comes Pip—poor boy! would
he had died, or I; he’s half horrible to me. He too has been watching
all of these interpreters—myself included—and look now, he comes to
read, with that unearthly idiot face. Stand away again and hear him.
Hark!”

“I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look.”

“Upon my soul, he’s been studying Murray’s Grammar! Improving his mind,
poor fellow! But what’s that he says now—hist!”

“I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look.”

“Why, he’s getting it by heart—hist! again.”

“I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look.”

“Well, that’s funny.”

“And I, you, and he; and we, ye, and they, are all bats; and I’m a
crow, especially when I stand a’top of this pine tree here. Caw! caw!
caw! caw! caw! caw! Ain’t I a crow? And where’s the scare-crow? There
he stands; two bones stuck into a pair of old trowsers, and two more
poked into the sleeves of an old jacket.”

“Wonder if he means me?—complimentary!—poor lad!—I could go hang
myself. Any way, for the present, I’ll quit Pip’s vicinity. I can stand
the rest, for they have plain wits; but he’s too crazy-witty for my
sanity. So, so, I leave him muttering.”

“Here’s the ship’s navel, this doubloon here, and they are all on fire
to unscrew it. But, unscrew your navel, and what’s the consequence?
Then again, if it stays here, that is ugly, too, for when aught’s
nailed to the mast it’s a sign that things grow desperate. Ha, ha! old
Ahab! the White Whale; he’ll nail ye! This is a pine tree. My father,
in old Tolland county, cut down a pine tree once, and found a silver
ring grown over in it; some old darkey’s wedding ring. How did it get
there? And so they’ll say in the resurrection, when they come to fish
up this old mast, and find a doubloon lodged in it, with bedded oysters
for the shaggy bark. Oh, the gold! the precious, precious, gold! the
green miser’ll hoard ye soon! Hish! hish! God goes ’mong the worlds
blackberrying. Cook! ho, cook! and cook us! Jenny! hey, hey, hey, hey,
hey, Jenny, Jenny! and get your hoe-cake done!”


CHAPTER 100. Leg and Arm.

The Pequod, of Nantucket, Meets the Samuel Enderby, of London.

“Ship, ahoy! Hast seen the White Whale?”

So cried Ahab, once more hailing a ship showing English colours,
bearing down under the stern. Trumpet to mouth, the old man was
standing in his hoisted quarter-boat, his ivory leg plainly revealed to
the stranger captain, who was carelessly reclining in his own boat’s
bow. He was a darkly-tanned, burly, good-natured, fine-looking man, of
sixty or thereabouts, dressed in a spacious roundabout, that hung round
him in festoons of blue pilot-cloth; and one empty arm of this jacket
streamed behind him like the broidered arm of a hussar’s surcoat.

“Hast seen the White Whale?”

“See you this?” and withdrawing it from the folds that had hidden it,
he held up a white arm of sperm whale bone, terminating in a wooden
head like a mallet.

“Man my boat!” cried Ahab, impetuously, and tossing about the oars near
him—“Stand by to lower!”

In less than a minute, without quitting his little craft, he and his
crew were dropped to the water, and were soon alongside of the
stranger. But here a curious difficulty presented itself. In the
excitement of the moment, Ahab had forgotten that since the loss of his
leg he had never once stepped on board of any vessel at sea but his
own, and then it was always by an ingenious and very handy mechanical
contrivance peculiar to the Pequod, and a thing not to be rigged and
shipped in any other vessel at a moment’s warning. Now, it is no very
easy matter for anybody—except those who are almost hourly used to it,
like whalemen—to clamber up a ship’s side from a boat on the open sea;
for the great swells now lift the boat high up towards the bulwarks,
and then instantaneously drop it half way down to the kelson. So,
deprived of one leg, and the strange ship of course being altogether
unsupplied with the kindly invention, Ahab now found himself abjectly
reduced to a clumsy landsman again; hopelessly eyeing the uncertain
changeful height he could hardly hope to attain.

It has before been hinted, perhaps, that every little untoward
circumstance that befell him, and which indirectly sprang from his
luckless mishap, almost invariably irritated or exasperated Ahab. And
in the present instance, all this was heightened by the sight of the
two officers of the strange ship, leaning over the side, by the
perpendicular ladder of nailed cleets there, and swinging towards him a
pair of tastefully-ornamented man-ropes; for at first they did not seem
to bethink them that a one-legged man must be too much of a cripple to
use their sea bannisters. But this awkwardness only lasted a minute,
because the strange captain, observing at a glance how affairs stood,
cried out, “I see, I see!—avast heaving there! Jump, boys, and swing
over the cutting-tackle.”

As good luck would have it, they had had a whale alongside a day or two
previous, and the great tackles were still aloft, and the massive
curved blubber-hook, now clean and dry, was still attached to the end.
This was quickly lowered to Ahab, who at once comprehending it all,
slid his solitary thigh into the curve of the hook (it was like sitting
in the fluke of an anchor, or the crotch of an apple tree), and then
giving the word, held himself fast, and at the same time also helped to
hoist his own weight, by pulling hand-over-hand upon one of the running
parts of the tackle. Soon he was carefully swung inside the high
bulwarks, and gently landed upon the capstan head. With his ivory arm
frankly thrust forth in welcome, the other captain advanced, and Ahab,
putting out his ivory leg, and crossing the ivory arm (like two
sword-fish blades) cried out in his walrus way, “Aye, aye, hearty! let
us shake bones together!—an arm and a leg!—an arm that never can
shrink, d’ye see; and a leg that never can run. Where did’st thou see
the White Whale?—how long ago?”

“The White Whale,” said the Englishman, pointing his ivory arm towards
the East, and taking a rueful sight along it, as if it had been a
telescope; “there I saw him, on the Line, last season.”

“And he took that arm off, did he?” asked Ahab, now sliding down from
the capstan, and resting on the Englishman’s shoulder, as he did so.

“Aye, he was the cause of it, at least; and that leg, too?”

“Spin me the yarn,” said Ahab; “how was it?”

“It was the first time in my life that I ever cruised on the Line,”
began the Englishman. “I was ignorant of the White Whale at that time.
Well, one day we lowered for a pod of four or five whales, and my boat
fastened to one of them; a regular circus horse he was, too, that went
milling and milling round so, that my boat’s crew could only trim dish,
by sitting all their sterns on the outer gunwale. Presently up breaches
from the bottom of the sea a bouncing great whale, with a milky-white
head and hump, all crows’ feet and wrinkles.”

“It was he, it was he!” cried Ahab, suddenly letting out his suspended
breath.

“And harpoons sticking in near his starboard fin.”

“Aye, aye—they were mine—_my_ irons,” cried Ahab, exultingly—“but on!”

“Give me a chance, then,” said the Englishman, good-humoredly. “Well,
this old great-grandfather, with the white head and hump, runs all
afoam into the pod, and goes to snapping furiously at my fast-line!

“Aye, I see!—wanted to part it; free the fast-fish—an old trick—I know
him.”

“How it was exactly,” continued the one-armed commander, “I do not
know; but in biting the line, it got foul of his teeth, caught there
somehow; but we didn’t know it then; so that when we afterwards pulled
on the line, bounce we came plump on to his hump! instead of the other
whale’s; that went off to windward, all fluking. Seeing how matters
stood, and what a noble great whale it was—the noblest and biggest I
ever saw, sir, in my life—I resolved to capture him, spite of the
boiling rage he seemed to be in. And thinking the hap-hazard line would
get loose, or the tooth it was tangled to might draw (for I have a
devil of a boat’s crew for a pull on a whale-line); seeing all this, I
say, I jumped into my first mate’s boat—Mr. Mounttop’s here (by the
way, Captain—Mounttop; Mounttop—the captain);—as I was saying, I jumped
into Mounttop’s boat, which, d’ye see, was gunwale and gunwale with
mine, then; and snatching the first harpoon, let this old
great-grandfather have it. But, Lord, look you, sir—hearts and souls
alive, man—the next instant, in a jiff, I was blind as a bat—both eyes
out—all befogged and bedeadened with black foam—the whale’s tail
looming straight up out of it, perpendicular in the air, like a marble
steeple. No use sterning all, then; but as I was groping at midday,
with a blinding sun, all crown-jewels; as I was groping, I say, after
the second iron, to toss it overboard—down comes the tail like a Lima
tower, cutting my boat in two, leaving each half in splinters; and,
flukes first, the white hump backed through the wreck, as though it was
all chips. We all struck out. To escape his terrible flailings, I
seized hold of my harpoon-pole sticking in him, and for a moment clung
to that like a sucking fish. But a combing sea dashed me off, and at
the same instant, the fish, taking one good dart forwards, went down
like a flash; and the barb of that cursed second iron towing along near
me caught me here” (clapping his hand just below his shoulder); “yes,
caught me just here, I say, and bore me down to Hell’s flames, I was
thinking; when, when, all of a sudden, thank the good God, the barb
ript its way along the flesh—clear along the whole length of my
arm—came out nigh my wrist, and up I floated;—and that gentleman there
will tell you the rest (by the way, captain—Dr. Bunger, ship’s surgeon:
Bunger, my lad,—the captain). Now, Bunger boy, spin your part of the
yarn.”

The professional gentleman thus familiarly pointed out, had been all
the time standing near them, with nothing specific visible, to denote
his gentlemanly rank on board. His face was an exceedingly round but
sober one; he was dressed in a faded blue woollen frock or shirt, and
patched trowsers; and had thus far been dividing his attention between
a marlingspike he held in one hand, and a pill-box held in the other,
occasionally casting a critical glance at the ivory limbs of the two
crippled captains. But, at his superior’s introduction of him to Ahab,
he politely bowed, and straightway went on to do his captain’s bidding.

“It was a shocking bad wound,” began the whale-surgeon; “and, taking my
advice, Captain Boomer here, stood our old Sammy—”

“Samuel Enderby is the name of my ship,” interrupted the one-armed
captain, addressing Ahab; “go on, boy.”

“Stood our old Sammy off to the northward, to get out of the blazing
hot weather there on the Line. But it was no use—I did all I could; sat
up with him nights; was very severe with him in the matter of diet—”

“Oh, very severe!” chimed in the patient himself; then suddenly
altering his voice, “Drinking hot rum toddies with me every night, till
he couldn’t see to put on the bandages; and sending me to bed, half
seas over, about three o’clock in the morning. Oh, ye stars! he sat up
with me indeed, and was very severe in my diet. Oh! a great watcher,
and very dietetically severe, is Dr. Bunger. (Bunger, you dog, laugh
out! why don’t ye? You know you’re a precious jolly rascal.) But, heave
ahead, boy, I’d rather be killed by you than kept alive by any other
man.”

“My captain, you must have ere this perceived, respected sir”—said the
imperturbable godly-looking Bunger, slightly bowing to Ahab—“is apt to
be facetious at times; he spins us many clever things of that sort. But
I may as well say—en passant, as the French remark—that I myself—that
is to say, Jack Bunger, late of the reverend clergy—am a strict total
abstinence man; I never drink—”

“Water!” cried the captain; “he never drinks it; it’s a sort of fits to
him; fresh water throws him into the hydrophobia; but go on—go on with
the arm story.”

“Yes, I may as well,” said the surgeon, coolly. “I was about observing,
sir, before Captain Boomer’s facetious interruption, that spite of my
best and severest endeavors, the wound kept getting worse and worse;
the truth was, sir, it was as ugly gaping wound as surgeon ever saw;
more than two feet and several inches long. I measured it with the lead
line. In short, it grew black; I knew what was threatened, and off it
came. But I had no hand in shipping that ivory arm there; that thing is
against all rule”—pointing at it with the marlingspike—“that is the
captain’s work, not mine; he ordered the carpenter to make it; he had
that club-hammer there put to the end, to knock some one’s brains out
with, I suppose, as he tried mine once. He flies into diabolical
passions sometimes. Do ye see this dent, sir”—removing his hat, and
brushing aside his hair, and exposing a bowl-like cavity in his skull,
but which bore not the slightest scarry trace, or any token of ever
having been a wound—“Well, the captain there will tell you how that
came here; he knows.”

“No, I don’t,” said the captain, “but his mother did; he was born with
it. Oh, you solemn rogue, you—you Bunger! was there ever such another
Bunger in the watery world? Bunger, when you die, you ought to die in
pickle, you dog; you should be preserved to future ages, you rascal.”

“What became of the White Whale?” now cried Ahab, who thus far had been
impatiently listening to this by-play between the two Englishmen.

“Oh!” cried the one-armed captain, “oh, yes! Well; after he sounded, we
didn’t see him again for some time; in fact, as I before hinted, I
didn’t then know what whale it was that had served me such a trick,
till some time afterwards, when coming back to the Line, we heard about
Moby Dick—as some call him—and then I knew it was he.”

“Did’st thou cross his wake again?”

“Twice.”

“But could not fasten?”

“Didn’t want to try to: ain’t one limb enough? What should I do without
this other arm? And I’m thinking Moby Dick doesn’t bite so much as he
swallows.”

“Well, then,” interrupted Bunger, “give him your left arm for bait to
get the right. Do you know, gentlemen”—very gravely and mathematically
bowing to each Captain in succession—“Do you know, gentlemen, that the
digestive organs of the whale are so inscrutably constructed by Divine
Providence, that it is quite impossible for him to completely digest
even a man’s arm? And he knows it too. So that what you take for the
White Whale’s malice is only his awkwardness. For he never means to
swallow a single limb; he only thinks to terrify by feints. But
sometimes he is like the old juggling fellow, formerly a patient of
mine in Ceylon, that making believe swallow jack-knives, once upon a
time let one drop into him in good earnest, and there it stayed for a
twelvemonth or more; when I gave him an emetic, and he heaved it up in
small tacks, d’ye see. No possible way for him to digest that
jack-knife, and fully incorporate it into his general bodily system.
Yes, Captain Boomer, if you are quick enough about it, and have a mind
to pawn one arm for the sake of the privilege of giving decent burial
to the other, why in that case the arm is yours; only let the whale
have another chance at you shortly, that’s all.”

“No, thank ye, Bunger,” said the English Captain, “he’s welcome to the
arm he has, since I can’t help it, and didn’t know him then; but not to
another one. No more White Whales for me; I’ve lowered for him once,
and that has satisfied me. There would be great glory in killing him, I
know that; and there is a ship-load of precious sperm in him, but, hark
ye, he’s best let alone; don’t you think so, Captain?”—glancing at the
ivory leg.

“He is. But he will still be hunted, for all that. What is best let
alone, that accursed thing is not always what least allures. He’s all a
magnet! How long since thou saw’st him last? Which way heading?”

“Bless my soul, and curse the foul fiend’s,” cried Bunger, stoopingly
walking round Ahab, and like a dog, strangely snuffing; “this man’s
blood—bring the thermometer!—it’s at the boiling point!—his pulse makes
these planks beat!—sir!”—taking a lancet from his pocket, and drawing
near to Ahab’s arm.

“Avast!” roared Ahab, dashing him against the bulwarks—“Man the boat!
Which way heading?”

“Good God!” cried the English Captain, to whom the question was put.
“What’s the matter? He was heading east, I think.—Is your Captain
crazy?” whispering Fedallah.

But Fedallah, putting a finger on his lip, slid over the bulwarks to
take the boat’s steering oar, and Ahab, swinging the cutting-tackle
towards him, commanded the ship’s sailors to stand by to lower.

In a moment he was standing in the boat’s stern, and the Manilla men
were springing to their oars. In vain the English Captain hailed him.
With back to the stranger ship, and face set like a flint to his own,
Ahab stood upright till alongside of the Pequod.


CHAPTER 101. The Decanter.

Ere the English ship fades from sight, be it set down here, that she
hailed from London, and was named after the late Samuel Enderby,
merchant of that city, the original of the famous whaling house of
Enderby & Sons; a house which in my poor whaleman’s opinion, comes not
far behind the united royal houses of the Tudors and Bourbons, in point
of real historical interest. How long, prior to the year of our Lord
1775, this great whaling house was in existence, my numerous
fish-documents do not make plain; but in that year (1775) it fitted out
the first English ships that ever regularly hunted the Sperm Whale;
though for some score of years previous (ever since 1726) our valiant
Coffins and Maceys of Nantucket and the Vineyard had in large fleets
pursued that Leviathan, but only in the North and South Atlantic: not
elsewhere. Be it distinctly recorded here, that the Nantucketers were
the first among mankind to harpoon with civilized steel the great Sperm
Whale; and that for half a century they were the only people of the
whole globe who so harpooned him.

In 1778, a fine ship, the Amelia, fitted out for the express purpose,
and at the sole charge of the vigorous Enderbys, boldly rounded Cape
Horn, and was the first among the nations to lower a whale-boat of any
sort in the great South Sea. The voyage was a skilful and lucky one;
and returning to her berth with her hold full of the precious sperm,
the Amelia’s example was soon followed by other ships, English and
American, and thus the vast Sperm Whale grounds of the Pacific were
thrown open. But not content with this good deed, the indefatigable
house again bestirred itself: Samuel and all his Sons—how many, their
mother only knows—and under their immediate auspices, and partly, I
think, at their expense, the British government was induced to send the
sloop-of-war Rattler on a whaling voyage of discovery into the South
Sea. Commanded by a naval Post-Captain, the Rattler made a rattling
voyage of it, and did some service; how much does not appear. But this
is not all. In 1819, the same house fitted out a discovery whale ship
of their own, to go on a tasting cruise to the remote waters of Japan.
That ship—well called the “Syren”—made a noble experimental cruise; and
it was thus that the great Japanese Whaling Ground first became
generally known. The Syren in this famous voyage was commanded by a
Captain Coffin, a Nantucketer.

All honor to the Enderbies, therefore, whose house, I think, exists to
the present day; though doubtless the original Samuel must long ago
have slipped his cable for the great South Sea of the other world.

The ship named after him was worthy of the honor, being a very fast
sailer and a noble craft every way. I boarded her once at midnight
somewhere off the Patagonian coast, and drank good flip down in the
forecastle. It was a fine gam we had, and they were all trumps—every
soul on board. A short life to them, and a jolly death. And that fine
gam I had—long, very long after old Ahab touched her planks with his
ivory heel—it minds me of the noble, solid, Saxon hospitality of that
ship; and may my parson forget me, and the devil remember me, if I ever
lose sight of it. Flip? Did I say we had flip? Yes, and we flipped it
at the rate of ten gallons the hour; and when the squall came (for it’s
squally off there by Patagonia), and all hands—visitors and all—were
called to reef topsails, we were so top-heavy that we had to swing each
other aloft in bowlines; and we ignorantly furled the skirts of our
jackets into the sails, so that we hung there, reefed fast in the
howling gale, a warning example to all drunken tars. However, the masts
did not go overboard; and by and by we scrambled down, so sober, that
we had to pass the flip again, though the savage salt spray bursting
down the forecastle scuttle, rather too much diluted and pickled it to
my taste.

The beef was fine—tough, but with body in it. They said it was
bull-beef; others, that it was dromedary beef; but I do not know, for
certain, how that was. They had dumplings too; small, but substantial,
symmetrically globular, and indestructible dumplings. I fancied that
you could feel them, and roll them about in you after they were
swallowed. If you stooped over too far forward, you risked their
pitching out of you like billiard-balls. The bread—but that couldn’t be
helped; besides, it was an anti-scorbutic; in short, the bread
contained the only fresh fare they had. But the forecastle was not very
light, and it was very easy to step over into a dark corner when you
ate it. But all in all, taking her from truck to helm, considering the
dimensions of the cook’s boilers, including his own live parchment
boilers; fore and aft, I say, the Samuel Enderby was a jolly ship; of
good fare and plenty; fine flip and strong; crack fellows all, and
capital from boot heels to hat-band.

But why was it, think ye, that the Samuel Enderby, and some other
English whalers I know of—not all though—were such famous, hospitable
ships; that passed round the beef, and the bread, and the can, and the
joke; and were not soon weary of eating, and drinking, and laughing? I
will tell you. The abounding good cheer of these English whalers is
matter for historical research. Nor have I been at all sparing of
historical whale research, when it has seemed needed.

The English were preceded in the whale fishery by the Hollanders,
Zealanders, and Danes; from whom they derived many terms still extant
in the fishery; and what is yet more, their fat old fashions, touching
plenty to eat and drink. For, as a general thing, the English
merchant-ship scrimps her crew; but not so the English whaler. Hence,
in the English, this thing of whaling good cheer is not normal and
natural, but incidental and particular; and, therefore, must have some
special origin, which is here pointed out, and will be still further
elucidated.

During my researches in the Leviathanic histories, I stumbled upon an
ancient Dutch volume, which, by the musty whaling smell of it, I knew
must be about whalers. The title was, “Dan Coopman,” wherefore I
concluded that this must be the invaluable memoirs of some Amsterdam
cooper in the fishery, as every whale ship must carry its cooper. I was
reinforced in this opinion by seeing that it was the production of one
“Fitz Swackhammer.” But my friend Dr. Snodhead, a very learned man,
professor of Low Dutch and High German in the college of Santa Claus
and St. Pott’s, to whom I handed the work for translation, giving him a
box of sperm candles for his trouble—this same Dr. Snodhead, so soon as
he spied the book, assured me that “Dan Coopman” did not mean “The
Cooper,” but “The Merchant.” In short, this ancient and learned Low
Dutch book treated of the commerce of Holland; and, among other
subjects, contained a very interesting account of its whale fishery.
And in this chapter it was, headed, “Smeer,” or “Fat,” that I found a
long detailed list of the outfits for the larders and cellars of 180
sail of Dutch whalemen; from which list, as translated by Dr. Snodhead,
I transcribe the following:

400,000 lbs. of beef. 60,000 lbs. Friesland pork. 150,000 lbs. of stock
fish. 550,000 lbs. of biscuit. 72,000 lbs. of soft bread. 2,800 firkins
of butter. 20,000 lbs. Texel & Leyden cheese. 144,000 lbs. cheese
(probably an inferior article). 550 ankers of Geneva. 10,800 barrels of
beer.

Most statistical tables are parchingly dry in the reading; not so in
the present case, however, where the reader is flooded with whole
pipes, barrels, quarts, and gills of good gin and good cheer.

At the time, I devoted three days to the studious digesting of all this
beer, beef, and bread, during which many profound thoughts were
incidentally suggested to me, capable of a transcendental and Platonic
application; and, furthermore, I compiled supplementary tables of my
own, touching the probable quantity of stock-fish, etc., consumed by
every Low Dutch harpooneer in that ancient Greenland and Spitzbergen
whale fishery. In the first place, the amount of butter, and Texel and
Leyden cheese consumed, seems amazing. I impute it, though, to their
naturally unctuous natures, being rendered still more unctuous by the
nature of their vocation, and especially by their pursuing their game
in those frigid Polar Seas, on the very coasts of that Esquimaux
country where the convivial natives pledge each other in bumpers of
train oil.

The quantity of beer, too, is very large, 10,800 barrels. Now, as those
polar fisheries could only be prosecuted in the short summer of that
climate, so that the whole cruise of one of these Dutch whalemen,
including the short voyage to and from the Spitzbergen sea, did not
much exceed three months, say, and reckoning 30 men to each of their
fleet of 180 sail, we have 5,400 Low Dutch seamen in all; therefore, I
say, we have precisely two barrels of beer per man, for a twelve weeks’
allowance, exclusive of his fair proportion of that 550 ankers of gin.
Now, whether these gin and beer harpooneers, so fuddled as one might
fancy them to have been, were the right sort of men to stand up in a
boat’s head, and take good aim at flying whales; this would seem
somewhat improbable. Yet they did aim at them, and hit them too. But
this was very far North, be it remembered, where beer agrees well with
the constitution; upon the Equator, in our southern fishery, beer would
be apt to make the harpooneer sleepy at the mast-head and boozy in his
boat; and grievous loss might ensue to Nantucket and New Bedford.

But no more; enough has been said to show that the old Dutch whalers of
two or three centuries ago were high livers; and that the English
whalers have not neglected so excellent an example. For, say they, when
cruising in an empty ship, if you can get nothing better out of the
world, get a good dinner out of it, at least. And this empties the
decanter.


CHAPTER 102. A Bower in the Arsacides.

Hitherto, in descriptively treating of the Sperm Whale, I have chiefly
dwelt upon the marvels of his outer aspect; or separately and in detail
upon some few interior structural features. But to a large and thorough
sweeping comprehension of him, it behooves me now to unbutton him still
further, and untagging the points of his hose, unbuckling his garters,
and casting loose the hooks and the eyes of the joints of his innermost
bones, set him before you in his ultimatum; that is to say, in his
unconditional skeleton.

But how now, Ishmael? How is it, that you, a mere oarsman in the
fishery, pretend to know aught about the subterranean parts of the
whale? Did erudite Stubb, mounted upon your capstan, deliver lectures
on the anatomy of the Cetacea; and by help of the windlass, hold up a
specimen rib for exhibition? Explain thyself, Ishmael. Can you land a
full-grown whale on your deck for examination, as a cook dishes a
roast-pig? Surely not. A veritable witness have you hitherto been,
Ishmael; but have a care how you seize the privilege of Jonah alone;
the privilege of discoursing upon the joists and beams; the rafters,
ridge-pole, sleepers, and under-pinnings, making up the frame-work of
leviathan; and belike of the tallow-vats, dairy-rooms, butteries, and
cheeseries in his bowels.

I confess, that since Jonah, few whalemen have penetrated very far
beneath the skin of the adult whale; nevertheless, I have been blessed
with an opportunity to dissect him in miniature. In a ship I belonged
to, a small cub Sperm Whale was once bodily hoisted to the deck for his
poke or bag, to make sheaths for the barbs of the harpoons, and for the
heads of the lances. Think you I let that chance go, without using my
boat-hatchet and jack-knife, and breaking the seal and reading all the
contents of that young cub?

And as for my exact knowledge of the bones of the leviathan in their
gigantic, full grown development, for that rare knowledge I am indebted
to my late royal friend Tranquo, king of Tranque, one of the Arsacides.
For being at Tranque, years ago, when attached to the trading-ship Dey
of Algiers, I was invited to spend part of the Arsacidean holidays with
the lord of Tranque, at his retired palm villa at Pupella; a sea-side
glen not very far distant from what our sailors called Bamboo-Town, his
capital.

Among many other fine qualities, my royal friend Tranquo, being gifted
with a devout love for all matters of barbaric vertu, had brought
together in Pupella whatever rare things the more ingenious of his
people could invent; chiefly carved woods of wonderful devices,
chiselled shells, inlaid spears, costly paddles, aromatic canoes; and
all these distributed among whatever natural wonders, the
wonder-freighted, tribute-rendering waves had cast upon his shores.

Chief among these latter was a great Sperm Whale, which, after an
unusually long raging gale, had been found dead and stranded, with his
head against a cocoa-nut tree, whose plumage-like, tufted droopings
seemed his verdant jet. When the vast body had at last been stripped of
its fathom-deep enfoldings, and the bones become dust dry in the sun,
then the skeleton was carefully transported up the Pupella glen, where
a grand temple of lordly palms now sheltered it.

The ribs were hung with trophies; the vertebræ were carved with
Arsacidean annals, in strange hieroglyphics; in the skull, the priests
kept up an unextinguished aromatic flame, so that the mystic head again
sent forth its vapory spout; while, suspended from a bough, the
terrific lower jaw vibrated over all the devotees, like the hair-hung
sword that so affrighted Damocles.

It was a wondrous sight. The wood was green as mosses of the Icy Glen;
the trees stood high and haughty, feeling their living sap; the
industrious earth beneath was as a weaver’s loom, with a gorgeous
carpet on it, whereof the ground-vine tendrils formed the warp and
woof, and the living flowers the figures. All the trees, with all their
laden branches; all the shrubs, and ferns, and grasses; the
message-carrying air; all these unceasingly were active. Through the
lacings of the leaves, the great sun seemed a flying shuttle weaving
the unwearied verdure. Oh, busy weaver! unseen weaver!—pause!—one
word!—whither flows the fabric? what palace may it deck? wherefore all
these ceaseless toilings? Speak, weaver!—stay thy hand!—but one single
word with thee! Nay—the shuttle flies—the figures float from forth the
loom; the freshet-rushing carpet for ever slides away. The weaver-god,
he weaves; and by that weaving is he deafened, that he hears no mortal
voice; and by that humming, we, too, who look on the loom are deafened;
and only when we escape it shall we hear the thousand voices that speak
through it. For even so it is in all material factories. The spoken
words that are inaudible among the flying spindles; those same words
are plainly heard without the walls, bursting from the opened
casements. Thereby have villainies been detected. Ah, mortal! then, be
heedful; for so, in all this din of the great world’s loom, thy
subtlest thinkings may be overheard afar.

Now, amid the green, life-restless loom of that Arsacidean wood, the
great, white, worshipped skeleton lay lounging—a gigantic idler! Yet,
as the ever-woven verdant warp and woof intermixed and hummed around
him, the mighty idler seemed the cunning weaver; himself all woven over
with the vines; every month assuming greener, fresher verdure; but
himself a skeleton. Life folded Death; Death trellised Life; the grim
god wived with youthful Life, and begat him curly-headed glories.

Now, when with royal Tranquo I visited this wondrous whale, and saw the
skull an altar, and the artificial smoke ascending from where the real
jet had issued, I marvelled that the king should regard a chapel as an
object of vertu. He laughed. But more I marvelled that the priests
should swear that smoky jet of his was genuine. To and fro I paced
before this skeleton—brushed the vines aside—broke through the ribs—and
with a ball of Arsacidean twine, wandered, eddied long amid its many
winding, shaded colonnades and arbours. But soon my line was out; and
following it back, I emerged from the opening where I entered. I saw no
living thing within; naught was there but bones.

Cutting me a green measuring-rod, I once more dived within the
skeleton. From their arrow-slit in the skull, the priests perceived me
taking the altitude of the final rib, “How now!” they shouted; “Dar’st
thou measure this our god! That’s for us.” “Aye, priests—well, how long
do ye make him, then?” But hereupon a fierce contest rose among them,
concerning feet and inches; they cracked each other’s sconces with
their yard-sticks—the great skull echoed—and seizing that lucky chance,
I quickly concluded my own admeasurements.

These admeasurements I now propose to set before you. But first, be it
recorded, that, in this matter, I am not free to utter any fancied
measurement I please. Because there are skeleton authorities you can
refer to, to test my accuracy. There is a Leviathanic Museum, they tell
me, in Hull, England, one of the whaling ports of that country, where
they have some fine specimens of fin-backs and other whales. Likewise,
I have heard that in the museum of Manchester, in New Hampshire, they
have what the proprietors call “the only perfect specimen of a
Greenland or River Whale in the United States.” Moreover, at a place in
Yorkshire, England, Burton Constable by name, a certain Sir Clifford
Constable has in his possession the skeleton of a Sperm Whale, but of
moderate size, by no means of the full-grown magnitude of my friend
King Tranquo’s.

In both cases, the stranded whales to which these two skeletons
belonged, were originally claimed by their proprietors upon similar
grounds. King Tranquo seizing his because he wanted it; and Sir
Clifford, because he was lord of the seignories of those parts. Sir
Clifford’s whale has been articulated throughout; so that, like a great
chest of drawers, you can open and shut him, in all his bony
cavities—spread out his ribs like a gigantic fan—and swing all day upon
his lower jaw. Locks are to be put upon some of his trap-doors and
shutters; and a footman will show round future visitors with a bunch of
keys at his side. Sir Clifford thinks of charging twopence for a peep
at the whispering gallery in the spinal column; threepence to hear the
echo in the hollow of his cerebellum; and sixpence for the unrivalled
view from his forehead.

The skeleton dimensions I shall now proceed to set down are copied
verbatim from my right arm, where I had them tattooed; as in my wild
wanderings at that period, there was no other secure way of preserving
such valuable statistics. But as I was crowded for space, and wished
the other parts of my body to remain a blank page for a poem I was then
composing—at least, what untattooed parts might remain—I did not
trouble myself with the odd inches; nor, indeed, should inches at all
enter into a congenial admeasurement of the whale.


CHAPTER 103. Measurement of The Whale’s Skeleton.

In the first place, I wish to lay before you a particular, plain
statement, touching the living bulk of this leviathan, whose skeleton
we are briefly to exhibit. Such a statement may prove useful here.

According to a careful calculation I have made, and which I partly base
upon Captain Scoresby’s estimate, of seventy tons for the largest sized
Greenland whale of sixty feet in length; according to my careful
calculation, I say, a Sperm Whale of the largest magnitude, between
eighty-five and ninety feet in length, and something less than forty
feet in its fullest circumference, such a whale will weigh at least
ninety tons; so that, reckoning thirteen men to a ton, he would
considerably outweigh the combined population of a whole village of one
thousand one hundred inhabitants.

Think you not then that brains, like yoked cattle, should be put to
this leviathan, to make him at all budge to any landsman’s imagination?

Having already in various ways put before you his skull, spout-hole,
jaw, teeth, tail, forehead, fins, and divers other parts, I shall now
simply point out what is most interesting in the general bulk of his
unobstructed bones. But as the colossal skull embraces so very large a
proportion of the entire extent of the skeleton; as it is by far the
most complicated part; and as nothing is to be repeated concerning it
in this chapter, you must not fail to carry it in your mind, or under
your arm, as we proceed, otherwise you will not gain a complete notion
of the general structure we are about to view.

In length, the Sperm Whale’s skeleton at Tranque measured seventy-two
feet; so that when fully invested and extended in life, he must have
been ninety feet long; for in the whale, the skeleton loses about one
fifth in length compared with the living body. Of this seventy-two
feet, his skull and jaw comprised some twenty feet, leaving some fifty
feet of plain back-bone. Attached to this back-bone, for something less
than a third of its length, was the mighty circular basket of ribs
which once enclosed his vitals.

To me this vast ivory-ribbed chest, with the long, unrelieved spine,
extending far away from it in a straight line, not a little resembled
the hull of a great ship new-laid upon the stocks, when only some
twenty of her naked bow-ribs are inserted, and the keel is otherwise,
for the time, but a long, disconnected timber.

The ribs were ten on a side. The first, to begin from the neck, was
nearly six feet long; the second, third, and fourth were each
successively longer, till you came to the climax of the fifth, or one
of the middle ribs, which measured eight feet and some inches. From
that part, the remaining ribs diminished, till the tenth and last only
spanned five feet and some inches. In general thickness, they all bore
a seemly correspondence to their length. The middle ribs were the most
arched. In some of the Arsacides they are used for beams whereon to lay
footpath bridges over small streams.

In considering these ribs, I could not but be struck anew with the
circumstance, so variously repeated in this book, that the skeleton of
the whale is by no means the mould of his invested form. The largest of
the Tranque ribs, one of the middle ones, occupied that part of the
fish which, in life, is greatest in depth. Now, the greatest depth of
the invested body of this particular whale must have been at least
sixteen feet; whereas, the corresponding rib measured but little more
than eight feet. So that this rib only conveyed half of the true notion
of the living magnitude of that part. Besides, for some way, where I
now saw but a naked spine, all that had been once wrapped round with
tons of added bulk in flesh, muscle, blood, and bowels. Still more, for
the ample fins, I here saw but a few disordered joints; and in place of
the weighty and majestic, but boneless flukes, an utter blank!

How vain and foolish, then, thought I, for timid untravelled man to try
to comprehend aright this wondrous whale, by merely poring over his
dead attenuated skeleton, stretched in this peaceful wood. No. Only in
the heart of quickest perils; only when within the eddyings of his
angry flukes; only on the profound unbounded sea, can the fully
invested whale be truly and livingly found out.

But the spine. For that, the best way we can consider it is, with a
crane, to pile its bones high up on end. No speedy enterprise. But now
it’s done, it looks much like Pompey’s Pillar.

There are forty and odd vertebræ in all, which in the skeleton are not
locked together. They mostly lie like the great knobbed blocks on a
Gothic spire, forming solid courses of heavy masonry. The largest, a
middle one, is in width something less than three feet, and in depth
more than four. The smallest, where the spine tapers away into the
tail, is only two inches in width, and looks something like a white
billiard-ball. I was told that there were still smaller ones, but they
had been lost by some little cannibal urchins, the priest’s children,
who had stolen them to play marbles with. Thus we see how that the
spine of even the hugest of living things tapers off at last into
simple child’s play.


CHAPTER 104. The Fossil Whale.

From his mighty bulk the whale affords a most congenial theme whereon
to enlarge, amplify, and generally expatiate. Would you, you could not
compress him. By good rights he should only be treated of in imperial
folio. Not to tell over again his furlongs from spiracle to tail, and
the yards he measures about the waist; only think of the gigantic
involutions of his intestines, where they lie in him like great cables
and hawsers coiled away in the subterranean orlop-deck of a
line-of-battle-ship.

Since I have undertaken to manhandle this Leviathan, it behooves me to
approve myself omnisciently exhaustive in the enterprise; not
overlooking the minutest seminal germs of his blood, and spinning him
out to the uttermost coil of his bowels. Having already described him
in most of his present habitatory and anatomical peculiarities, it now
remains to magnify him in an archæological, fossiliferous, and
antediluvian point of view. Applied to any other creature than the
Leviathan—to an ant or a flea—such portly terms might justly be deemed
unwarrantably grandiloquent. But when Leviathan is the text, the case
is altered. Fain am I to stagger to this emprise under the weightiest
words of the dictionary. And here be it said, that whenever it has been
convenient to consult one in the course of these dissertations, I have
invariably used a huge quarto edition of Johnson, expressly purchased
for that purpose; because that famous lexicographer’s uncommon personal
bulk more fitted him to compile a lexicon to be used by a whale author
like me.

One often hears of writers that rise and swell with their subject,
though it may seem but an ordinary one. How, then, with me, writing of
this Leviathan? Unconsciously my chirography expands into placard
capitals. Give me a condor’s quill! Give me Vesuvius’ crater for an
inkstand! Friends, hold my arms! For in the mere act of penning my
thoughts of this Leviathan, they weary me, and make me faint with their
outreaching comprehensiveness of sweep, as if to include the whole
circle of the sciences, and all the generations of whales, and men, and
mastodons, past, present, and to come, with all the revolving panoramas
of empire on earth, and throughout the whole universe, not excluding
its suburbs. Such, and so magnifying, is the virtue of a large and
liberal theme! We expand to its bulk. To produce a mighty book, you
must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be
written on the flea, though many there be who have tried it.

Ere entering upon the subject of Fossil Whales, I present my
credentials as a geologist, by stating that in my miscellaneous time I
have been a stone-mason, and also a great digger of ditches, canals and
wells, wine-vaults, cellars, and cisterns of all sorts. Likewise, by
way of preliminary, I desire to remind the reader, that while in the
earlier geological strata there are found the fossils of monsters now
almost completely extinct; the subsequent relics discovered in what are
called the Tertiary formations seem the connecting, or at any rate
intercepted links, between the antichronical creatures, and those whose
remote posterity are said to have entered the Ark; all the Fossil
Whales hitherto discovered belong to the Tertiary period, which is the
last preceding the superficial formations. And though none of them
precisely answer to any known species of the present time, they are yet
sufficiently akin to them in general respects, to justify their taking
rank as Cetacean fossils.

Detached broken fossils of pre-adamite whales, fragments of their bones
and skeletons, have within thirty years past, at various intervals,
been found at the base of the Alps, in Lombardy, in France, in England,
in Scotland, and in the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.
Among the more curious of such remains is part of a skull, which in the
year 1779 was disinterred in the Rue Dauphine in Paris, a short street
opening almost directly upon the palace of the Tuileries; and bones
disinterred in excavating the great docks of Antwerp, in Napoleon’s
time. Cuvier pronounced these fragments to have belonged to some
utterly unknown Leviathanic species.

But by far the most wonderful of all Cetacean relics was the almost
complete vast skeleton of an extinct monster, found in the year 1842,
on the plantation of Judge Creagh, in Alabama. The awe-stricken
credulous slaves in the vicinity took it for the bones of one of the
fallen angels. The Alabama doctors declared it a huge reptile, and
bestowed upon it the name of Basilosaurus. But some specimen bones of
it being taken across the sea to Owen, the English Anatomist, it turned
out that this alleged reptile was a whale, though of a departed
species. A significant illustration of the fact, again and again
repeated in this book, that the skeleton of the whale furnishes but
little clue to the shape of his fully invested body. So Owen
rechristened the monster Zeuglodon; and in his paper read before the
London Geological Society, pronounced it, in substance, one of the most
extraordinary creatures which the mutations of the globe have blotted
out of existence.

When I stand among these mighty Leviathan skeletons, skulls, tusks,
jaws, ribs, and vertebræ, all characterized by partial resemblances to
the existing breeds of sea-monsters; but at the same time bearing on
the other hand similar affinities to the annihilated antichronical
Leviathans, their incalculable seniors; I am, by a flood, borne back to
that wondrous period, ere time itself can be said to have begun; for
time began with man. Here Saturn’s grey chaos rolls over me, and I
obtain dim, shuddering glimpses into those Polar eternities; when
wedged bastions of ice pressed hard upon what are now the Tropics; and
in all the 25,000 miles of this world’s circumference, not an
inhabitable hand’s breadth of land was visible. Then the whole world
was the whale’s; and, king of creation, he left his wake along the
present lines of the Andes and the Himmalehs. Who can show a pedigree
like Leviathan? Ahab’s harpoon had shed older blood than the Pharaoh’s.
Methuselah seems a school-boy. I look round to shake hands with Shem. I
am horror-struck at this antemosaic, unsourced existence of the
unspeakable terrors of the whale, which, having been before all time,
must needs exist after all humane ages are over.

But not alone has this Leviathan left his pre-adamite traces in the
stereotype plates of nature, and in limestone and marl bequeathed his
ancient bust; but upon Egyptian tablets, whose antiquity seems to claim
for them an almost fossiliferous character, we find the unmistakable
print of his fin. In an apartment of the great temple of Denderah, some
fifty years ago, there was discovered upon the granite ceiling a
sculptured and painted planisphere, abounding in centaurs, griffins,
and dolphins, similar to the grotesque figures on the celestial globe
of the moderns. Gliding among them, old Leviathan swam as of yore; was
there swimming in that planisphere, centuries before Solomon was
cradled.

Nor must there be omitted another strange attestation of the antiquity
of the whale, in his own osseous post-diluvian reality, as set down by
the venerable John Leo, the old Barbary traveller.

“Not far from the Sea-side, they have a Temple, the Rafters and Beams
of which are made of Whale-Bones; for Whales of a monstrous size are
oftentimes cast up dead upon that shore. The Common People imagine,
that by a secret Power bestowed by God upon the Temple, no Whale can
pass it without immediate death. But the truth of the Matter is, that
on either side of the Temple, there are Rocks that shoot two Miles into
the Sea, and wound the Whales when they light upon ’em. They keep a
Whale’s Rib of an incredible length for a Miracle, which lying upon the
Ground with its convex part uppermost, makes an Arch, the Head of which
cannot be reached by a Man upon a Camel’s Back. This Rib (says John
Leo) is said to have layn there a hundred Years before I saw it. Their
Historians affirm, that a Prophet who prophesy’d of Mahomet, came from
this Temple, and some do not stand to assert, that the Prophet Jonas
was cast forth by the Whale at the Base of the Temple.”

In this Afric Temple of the Whale I leave you, reader, and if you be a
Nantucketer, and a whaleman, you will silently worship there.


CHAPTER 105. Does the Whale’s Magnitude Diminish?—Will He Perish?

Inasmuch, then, as this Leviathan comes floundering down upon us from
the head-waters of the Eternities, it may be fitly inquired, whether,
in the long course of his generations, he has not degenerated from the
original bulk of his sires.

But upon investigation we find, that not only are the whales of the
present day superior in magnitude to those whose fossil remains are
found in the Tertiary system (embracing a distinct geological period
prior to man), but of the whales found in that Tertiary system, those
belonging to its latter formations exceed in size those of its earlier
ones.

Of all the pre-adamite whales yet exhumed, by far the largest is the
Alabama one mentioned in the last chapter, and that was less than
seventy feet in length in the skeleton. Whereas, we have already seen,
that the tape-measure gives seventy-two feet for the skeleton of a
large sized modern whale. And I have heard, on whalemen’s authority,
that Sperm Whales have been captured near a hundred feet long at the
time of capture.

But may it not be, that while the whales of the present hour are an
advance in magnitude upon those of all previous geological periods; may
it not be, that since Adam’s time they have degenerated?

Assuredly, we must conclude so, if we are to credit the accounts of
such gentlemen as Pliny, and the ancient naturalists generally. For
Pliny tells us of whales that embraced acres of living bulk, and
Aldrovandus of others which measured eight hundred feet in length—Rope
Walks and Thames Tunnels of Whales! And even in the days of Banks and
Solander, Cooke’s naturalists, we find a Danish member of the Academy
of Sciences setting down certain Iceland Whales (reydan-siskur, or
Wrinkled Bellies) at one hundred and twenty yards; that is, three
hundred and sixty feet. And Lacépède, the French naturalist, in his
elaborate history of whales, in the very beginning of his work (page
3), sets down the Right Whale at one hundred metres, three hundred and
twenty-eight feet. And this work was published so late as A.D. 1825.

But will any whaleman believe these stories? No. The whale of to-day is
as big as his ancestors in Pliny’s time. And if ever I go where Pliny
is, I, a whaleman (more than he was), will make bold to tell him so.
Because I cannot understand how it is, that while the Egyptian mummies
that were buried thousands of years before even Pliny was born, do not
measure so much in their coffins as a modern Kentuckian in his socks;
and while the cattle and other animals sculptured on the oldest
Egyptian and Nineveh tablets, by the relative proportions in which they
are drawn, just as plainly prove that the high-bred, stall-fed, prize
cattle of Smithfield, not only equal, but far exceed in magnitude the
fattest of Pharaoh’s fat kine; in the face of all this, I will not
admit that of all animals the whale alone should have degenerated.

But still another inquiry remains; one often agitated by the more
recondite Nantucketers. Whether owing to the almost omniscient
look-outs at the mast-heads of the whale-ships, now penetrating even
through Behring’s straits, and into the remotest secret drawers and
lockers of the world; and the thousand harpoons and lances darted along
all continental coasts; the moot point is, whether Leviathan can long
endure so wide a chase, and so remorseless a havoc; whether he must not
at last be exterminated from the waters, and the last whale, like the
last man, smoke his last pipe, and then himself evaporate in the final
puff.

Comparing the humped herds of whales with the humped herds of buffalo,
which, not forty years ago, overspread by tens of thousands the
prairies of Illinois and Missouri, and shook their iron manes and
scowled with their thunder-clotted brows upon the sites of populous
river-capitals, where now the polite broker sells you land at a dollar
an inch; in such a comparison an irresistible argument would seem
furnished, to show that the hunted whale cannot now escape speedy
extinction.

But you must look at this matter in every light. Though so short a
period ago—not a good lifetime—the census of the buffalo in Illinois
exceeded the census of men now in London, and though at the present day
not one horn or hoof of them remains in all that region; and though the
cause of this wondrous extermination was the spear of man; yet the far
different nature of the whale-hunt peremptorily forbids so inglorious
an end to the Leviathan. Forty men in one ship hunting the Sperm Whales
for forty-eight months think they have done extremely well, and thank
God, if at last they carry home the oil of forty fish. Whereas, in the
days of the old Canadian and Indian hunters and trappers of the West,
when the far west (in whose sunset suns still rise) was a wilderness
and a virgin, the same number of moccasined men, for the same number of
months, mounted on horse instead of sailing in ships, would have slain
not forty, but forty thousand and more buffaloes; a fact that, if need
were, could be statistically stated.

Nor, considered aright, does it seem any argument in favour of the
gradual extinction of the Sperm Whale, for example, that in former
years (the latter part of the last century, say) these Leviathans, in
small pods, were encountered much oftener than at present, and, in
consequence, the voyages were not so prolonged, and were also much more
remunerative. Because, as has been elsewhere noticed, those whales,
influenced by some views to safety, now swim the seas in immense
caravans, so that to a large degree the scattered solitaries, yokes,
and pods, and schools of other days are now aggregated into vast but
widely separated, unfrequent armies. That is all. And equally
fallacious seems the conceit, that because the so-called whale-bone
whales no longer haunt many grounds in former years abounding with
them, hence that species also is declining. For they are only being
driven from promontory to cape; and if one coast is no longer enlivened
with their jets, then, be sure, some other and remoter strand has been
very recently startled by the unfamiliar spectacle.

Furthermore: concerning these last mentioned Leviathans, they have two
firm fortresses, which, in all human probability, will for ever remain
impregnable. And as upon the invasion of their valleys, the frosty
Swiss have retreated to their mountains; so, hunted from the savannas
and glades of the middle seas, the whale-bone whales can at last resort
to their Polar citadels, and diving under the ultimate glassy barriers
and walls there, come up among icy fields and floes; and in a charmed
circle of everlasting December, bid defiance to all pursuit from man.

But as perhaps fifty of these whale-bone whales are harpooned for one
cachalot, some philosophers of the forecastle have concluded that this
positive havoc has already very seriously diminished their battalions.
But though for some time past a number of these whales, not less than
13,000, have been annually slain on the nor’ west coast by the
Americans alone; yet there are considerations which render even this
circumstance of little or no account as an opposing argument in this
matter.

Natural as it is to be somewhat incredulous concerning the populousness
of the more enormous creatures of the globe, yet what shall we say to
Harto, the historian of Goa, when he tells us that at one hunting the
King of Siam took 4,000 elephants; that in those regions elephants are
numerous as droves of cattle in the temperate climes. And there seems
no reason to doubt that if these elephants, which have now been hunted
for thousands of years, by Semiramis, by Porus, by Hannibal, and by all
the successive monarchs of the East—if they still survive there in
great numbers, much more may the great whale outlast all hunting, since
he has a pasture to expatiate in, which is precisely twice as large as
all Asia, both Americas, Europe and Africa, New Holland, and all the
Isles of the sea combined.

Moreover: we are to consider, that from the presumed great longevity of
whales, their probably attaining the age of a century and more,
therefore at any one period of time, several distinct adult generations
must be contemporary. And what that is, we may soon gain some idea of,
by imagining all the grave-yards, cemeteries, and family vaults of
creation yielding up the live bodies of all the men, women, and
children who were alive seventy-five years ago; and adding this
countless host to the present human population of the globe.

Wherefore, for all these things, we account the whale immortal in his
species, however perishable in his individuality. He swam the seas
before the continents broke water; he once swam over the site of the
Tuileries, and Windsor Castle, and the Kremlin. In Noah’s flood he
despised Noah’s Ark; and if ever the world is to be again flooded, like
the Netherlands, to kill off its rats, then the eternal whale will
still survive, and rearing upon the topmost crest of the equatorial
flood, spout his frothed defiance to the skies.


CHAPTER 106. Ahab’s Leg.

The precipitating manner in which Captain Ahab had quitted the Samuel
Enderby of London, had not been unattended with some small violence to
his own person. He had lighted with such energy upon a thwart of his
boat that his ivory leg had received a half-splintering shock. And when
after gaining his own deck, and his own pivot-hole there, he so
vehemently wheeled round with an urgent command to the steersman (it
was, as ever, something about his not steering inflexibly enough);
then, the already shaken ivory received such an additional twist and
wrench, that though it still remained entire, and to all appearances
lusty, yet Ahab did not deem it entirely trustworthy.

And, indeed, it seemed small matter for wonder, that for all his
pervading, mad recklessness, Ahab did at times give careful heed to the
condition of that dead bone upon which he partly stood. For it had not
been very long prior to the Pequod’s sailing from Nantucket, that he
had been found one night lying prone upon the ground, and insensible;
by some unknown, and seemingly inexplicable, unimaginable casualty, his
ivory limb having been so violently displaced, that it had stake-wise
smitten, and all but pierced his groin; nor was it without extreme
difficulty that the agonizing wound was entirely cured.

Nor, at the time, had it failed to enter his monomaniac mind, that all
the anguish of that then present suffering was but the direct issue of
a former woe; and he too plainly seemed to see, that as the most
poisonous reptile of the marsh perpetuates his kind as inevitably as
the sweetest songster of the grove; so, equally with every felicity,
all miserable events do naturally beget their like. Yea, more than
equally, thought Ahab; since both the ancestry and posterity of Grief
go further than the ancestry and posterity of Joy. For, not to hint of
this: that it is an inference from certain canonic teachings, that
while some natural enjoyments here shall have no children born to them
for the other world, but, on the contrary, shall be followed by the
joy-childlessness of all hell’s despair; whereas, some guilty mortal
miseries shall still fertilely beget to themselves an eternally
progressive progeny of griefs beyond the grave; not at all to hint of
this, there still seems an inequality in the deeper analysis of the
thing. For, thought Ahab, while even the highest earthly felicities
ever have a certain unsignifying pettiness lurking in them, but, at
bottom, all heartwoes, a mystic significance, and, in some men, an
archangelic grandeur; so do their diligent tracings-out not belie the
obvious deduction. To trail the genealogies of these high mortal
miseries, carries us at last among the sourceless primogenitures of the
gods; so that, in the face of all the glad, hay-making suns, and soft
cymballing, round harvest-moons, we must needs give in to this: that
the gods themselves are not for ever glad. The ineffaceable, sad
birth-mark in the brow of man, is but the stamp of sorrow in the
signers.

Unwittingly here a secret has been divulged, which perhaps might more
properly, in set way, have been disclosed before. With many other
particulars concerning Ahab, always had it remained a mystery to some,
why it was, that for a certain period, both before and after the
sailing of the Pequod, he had hidden himself away with such
Grand-Lama-like exclusiveness; and, for that one interval, sought
speechless refuge, as it were, among the marble senate of the dead.
Captain Peleg’s bruited reason for this thing appeared by no means
adequate; though, indeed, as touching all Ahab’s deeper part, every
revelation partook more of significant darkness than of explanatory
light. But, in the end, it all came out; this one matter did, at least.
That direful mishap was at the bottom of his temporary recluseness. And
not only this, but to that ever-contracting, dropping circle ashore,
who, for any reason, possessed the privilege of a less banned approach
to him; to that timid circle the above hinted casualty—remaining, as it
did, moodily unaccounted for by Ahab—invested itself with terrors, not
entirely underived from the land of spirits and of wails. So that,
through their zeal for him, they had all conspired, so far as in them
lay, to muffle up the knowledge of this thing from others; and hence it
was, that not till a considerable interval had elapsed, did it
transpire upon the Pequod’s decks.

But be all this as it may; let the unseen, ambiguous synod in the air,
or the vindictive princes and potentates of fire, have to do or not
with earthly Ahab, yet, in this present matter of his leg, he took
plain practical procedures;—he called the carpenter.

And when that functionary appeared before him, he bade him without
delay set about making a new leg, and directed the mates to see him
supplied with all the studs and joists of jaw-ivory (Sperm Whale) which
had thus far been accumulated on the voyage, in order that a careful
selection of the stoutest, clearest-grained stuff might be secured.
This done, the carpenter received orders to have the leg completed that
night; and to provide all the fittings for it, independent of those
pertaining to the distrusted one in use. Moreover, the ship’s forge was
ordered to be hoisted out of its temporary idleness in the hold; and,
to accelerate the affair, the blacksmith was commanded to proceed at
once to the forging of whatever iron contrivances might be needed.


CHAPTER 107. The Carpenter.

Seat thyself sultanically among the moons of Saturn, and take high
abstracted man alone; and he seems a wonder, a grandeur, and a woe. But
from the same point, take mankind in mass, and for the most part, they
seem a mob of unnecessary duplicates, both contemporary and hereditary.
But most humble though he was, and far from furnishing an example of
the high, humane abstraction; the Pequod’s carpenter was no duplicate;
hence, he now comes in person on this stage.

Like all sea-going ship carpenters, and more especially those belonging
to whaling vessels, he was, to a certain off-handed, practical extent,
alike experienced in numerous trades and callings collateral to his
own; the carpenter’s pursuit being the ancient and outbranching trunk
of all those numerous handicrafts which more or less have to do with
wood as an auxiliary material. But, besides the application to him of
the generic remark above, this carpenter of the Pequod was singularly
efficient in those thousand nameless mechanical emergencies continually
recurring in a large ship, upon a three or four years’ voyage, in
uncivilized and far-distant seas. For not to speak of his readiness in
ordinary duties:—repairing stove boats, sprung spars, reforming the
shape of clumsy-bladed oars, inserting bull’s eyes in the deck, or new
tree-nails in the side planks, and other miscellaneous matters more
directly pertaining to his special business; he was moreover
unhesitatingly expert in all manner of conflicting aptitudes, both
useful and capricious.

The one grand stage where he enacted all his various parts so manifold,
was his vice-bench; a long rude ponderous table furnished with several
vices, of different sizes, and both of iron and of wood. At all times
except when whales were alongside, this bench was securely lashed
athwartships against the rear of the Try-works.

A belaying pin is found too large to be easily inserted into its hole:
the carpenter claps it into one of his ever-ready vices, and
straightway files it smaller. A lost land-bird of strange plumage
strays on board, and is made a captive: out of clean shaved rods of
right-whale bone, and cross-beams of sperm whale ivory, the carpenter
makes a pagoda-looking cage for it. An oarsman sprains his wrist: the
carpenter concocts a soothing lotion. Stubb longed for vermillion stars
to be painted upon the blade of his every oar; screwing each oar in his
big vice of wood, the carpenter symmetrically supplies the
constellation. A sailor takes a fancy to wear shark-bone ear-rings: the
carpenter drills his ears. Another has the toothache: the carpenter out
pincers, and clapping one hand upon his bench bids him be seated there;
but the poor fellow unmanageably winces under the unconcluded
operation; whirling round the handle of his wooden vice, the carpenter
signs him to clap his jaw in that, if he would have him draw the tooth.

Thus, this carpenter was prepared at all points, and alike indifferent
and without respect in all. Teeth he accounted bits of ivory; heads he
deemed but top-blocks; men themselves he lightly held for capstans. But
while now upon so wide a field thus variously accomplished and with
such liveliness of expertness in him, too; all this would seem to argue
some uncommon vivacity of intelligence. But not precisely so. For
nothing was this man more remarkable, than for a certain impersonal
stolidity as it were; impersonal, I say; for it so shaded off into the
surrounding infinite of things, that it seemed one with the general
stolidity discernible in the whole visible world; which while
pauselessly active in uncounted modes, still eternally holds its peace,
and ignores you, though you dig foundations for cathedrals. Yet was
this half-horrible stolidity in him, involving, too, as it appeared, an
all-ramifying heartlessness;—yet was it oddly dashed at times, with an
old, crutch-like, antediluvian, wheezing humorousness, not unstreaked
now and then with a certain grizzled wittiness; such as might have
served to pass the time during the midnight watch on the bearded
forecastle of Noah’s ark. Was it that this old carpenter had been a
life-long wanderer, whose much rolling, to and fro, not only had
gathered no moss; but what is more, had rubbed off whatever small
outward clingings might have originally pertained to him? He was a
stript abstract; an unfractioned integral; uncompromised as a new-born
babe; living without premeditated reference to this world or the next.
You might almost say, that this strange uncompromisedness in him
involved a sort of unintelligence; for in his numerous trades, he did
not seem to work so much by reason or by instinct, or simply because he
had been tutored to it, or by any intermixture of all these, even or
uneven; but merely by a kind of deaf and dumb, spontaneous literal
process. He was a pure manipulator; his brain, if he had ever had one,
must have early oozed along into the muscles of his fingers. He was
like one of those unreasoning but still highly useful, _multum in
parvo_, Sheffield contrivances, assuming the exterior—though a little
swelled—of a common pocket knife; but containing, not only blades of
various sizes, but also screw-drivers, cork-screws, tweezers, awls,
pens, rulers, nail-filers, countersinkers. So, if his superiors wanted
to use the carpenter for a screw-driver, all they had to do was to open
that part of him, and the screw was fast: or if for tweezers, take him
up by the legs, and there they were.

Yet, as previously hinted, this omnitooled, open-and-shut carpenter,
was, after all, no mere machine of an automaton. If he did not have a
common soul in him, he had a subtle something that somehow anomalously
did its duty. What that was, whether essence of quicksilver, or a few
drops of hartshorn, there is no telling. But there it was; and there it
had abided for now some sixty years or more. And this it was, this same
unaccountable, cunning life-principle in him; this it was, that kept
him a great part of the time soliloquizing; but only like an
unreasoning wheel, which also hummingly soliloquizes; or rather, his
body was a sentry-box and this soliloquizer on guard there, and talking
all the time to keep himself awake.


CHAPTER 108. Ahab and the Carpenter.

The Deck—First Night Watch.

(_Carpenter standing before his vice-bench, and by the light of two
lanterns busily filing the ivory joist for the leg, which joist is
firmly fixed in the vice. Slabs of ivory, leather straps, pads, screws,
and various tools of all sorts lying about the bench. Forward, the red
flame of the forge is seen, where the blacksmith is at work._)

Drat the file, and drat the bone! That is hard which should be soft,
and that is soft which should be hard. So we go, who file old jaws and
shinbones. Let’s try another. Aye, now, this works better (_sneezes_).
Halloa, this bone dust is (_sneezes_)—why it’s (_sneezes_)—yes it’s
(_sneezes_)—bless my soul, it won’t let me speak! This is what an old
fellow gets now for working in dead lumber. Saw a live tree, and you
don’t get this dust; amputate a live bone, and you don’t get it
(_sneezes_). Come, come, you old Smut, there, bear a hand, and let’s
have that ferule and buckle-screw; I’ll be ready for them presently.
Lucky now (_sneezes_) there’s no knee-joint to make; that might puzzle
a little; but a mere shinbone—why it’s easy as making hop-poles; only I
should like to put a good finish on. Time, time; if I but only had the
time, I could turn him out as neat a leg now as ever (_sneezes_)
scraped to a lady in a parlor. Those buckskin legs and calves of legs
I’ve seen in shop windows wouldn’t compare at all. They soak water,
they do; and of course get rheumatic, and have to be doctored
(_sneezes_) with washes and lotions, just like live legs. There; before
I saw it off, now, I must call his old Mogulship, and see whether the
length will be all right; too short, if anything, I guess. Ha! that’s
the heel; we are in luck; here he comes, or it’s somebody else, that’s
certain.

AHAB (_advancing_). (_During the ensuing scene, the carpenter continues
sneezing at times._)

Well, manmaker!

Just in time, sir. If the captain pleases, I will now mark the length.
Let me measure, sir.

Measured for a leg! good. Well, it’s not the first time. About it!
There; keep thy finger on it. This is a cogent vice thou hast here,
carpenter; let me feel its grip once. So, so; it does pinch some.

Oh, sir, it will break bones—beware, beware!

No fear; I like a good grip; I like to feel something in this slippery
world that can hold, man. What’s Prometheus about there?—the
blacksmith, I mean—what’s he about?

He must be forging the buckle-screw, sir, now.

Right. It’s a partnership; he supplies the muscle part. He makes a
fierce red flame there!

Aye, sir; he must have the white heat for this kind of fine work.

Um-m. So he must. I do deem it now a most meaning thing, that that old
Greek, Prometheus, who made men, they say, should have been a
blacksmith, and animated them with fire; for what’s made in fire must
properly belong to fire; and so hell’s probable. How the soot flies!
This must be the remainder the Greek made the Africans of. Carpenter,
when he’s through with that buckle, tell him to forge a pair of steel
shoulder-blades; there’s a pedlar aboard with a crushing pack.

Sir?

Hold; while Prometheus is about it, I’ll order a complete man after a
desirable pattern. Imprimis, fifty feet high in his socks; then, chest
modelled after the Thames Tunnel; then, legs with roots to ’em, to stay
in one place; then, arms three feet through the wrist; no heart at all,
brass forehead, and about a quarter of an acre of fine brains; and let
me see—shall I order eyes to see outwards? No, but put a sky-light on
top of his head to illuminate inwards. There, take the order, and away.

Now, what’s he speaking about, and who’s he speaking to, I should like
to know? Shall I keep standing here? (_aside_).

’Tis but indifferent architecture to make a blind dome; here’s one. No,
no, no; I must have a lantern.

Ho, ho! That’s it, hey? Here are two, sir; one will serve my turn.

What art thou thrusting that thief-catcher into my face for, man?
Thrusted light is worse than presented pistols.

I thought, sir, that you spoke to carpenter.

Carpenter? why that’s—but no;—a very tidy, and, I may say, an extremely
gentlemanlike sort of business thou art in here, carpenter;—or would’st
thou rather work in clay?

Sir?—Clay? clay, sir? That’s mud; we leave clay to ditchers, sir.

The fellow’s impious! What art thou sneezing about?

Bone is rather dusty, sir.

Take the hint, then; and when thou art dead, never bury thyself under
living people’s noses.

Sir?—oh! ah!—I guess so;—yes—oh, dear!

Look ye, carpenter, I dare say thou callest thyself a right good
workmanlike workman, eh? Well, then, will it speak thoroughly well for
thy work, if, when I come to mount this leg thou makest, I shall
nevertheless feel another leg in the same identical place with it; that
is, carpenter, my old lost leg; the flesh and blood one, I mean. Canst
thou not drive that old Adam away?

Truly, sir, I begin to understand somewhat now. Yes, I have heard
something curious on that score, sir; how that a dismasted man never
entirely loses the feeling of his old spar, but it will be still
pricking him at times. May I humbly ask if it be really so, sir?

It is, man. Look, put thy live leg here in the place where mine once
was; so, now, here is only one distinct leg to the eye, yet two to the
soul. Where thou feelest tingling life; there, exactly there, there to
a hair, do I. Is’t a riddle?

I should humbly call it a poser, sir.

Hist, then. How dost thou know that some entire, living, thinking thing
may not be invisibly and uninterpenetratingly standing precisely where
thou now standest; aye, and standing there in thy spite? In thy most
solitary hours, then, dost thou not fear eavesdroppers? Hold, don’t
speak! And if I still feel the smart of my crushed leg, though it be
now so long dissolved; then, why mayst not thou, carpenter, feel the
fiery pains of hell for ever, and without a body? Hah!

Good Lord! Truly, sir, if it comes to that, I must calculate over
again; I think I didn’t carry a small figure, sir.

Look ye, pudding-heads should never grant premises.—How long before the
leg is done?

Perhaps an hour, sir.

Bungle away at it then, and bring it to me (_turns to go_). Oh, Life!
Here I am, proud as Greek god, and yet standing debtor to this
blockhead for a bone to stand on! Cursed be that mortal
inter-indebtedness which will not do away with ledgers. I would be free
as air; and I’m down in the whole world’s books. I am so rich, I could
have given bid for bid with the wealthiest Prætorians at the auction of
the Roman empire (which was the world’s); and yet I owe for the flesh
in the tongue I brag with. By heavens! I’ll get a crucible, and into
it, and dissolve myself down to one small, compendious vertebra. So.

CARPENTER (_resuming his work_).

Well, well, well! Stubb knows him best of all, and Stubb always says
he’s queer; says nothing but that one sufficient little word queer;
he’s queer, says Stubb; he’s queer—queer, queer; and keeps dinning it
into Mr. Starbuck all the time—queer—sir—queer, queer, very queer. And
here’s his leg! Yes, now that I think of it, here’s his bedfellow! has
a stick of whale’s jaw-bone for a wife! And this is his leg; he’ll
stand on this. What was that now about one leg standing in three
places, and all three places standing in one hell—how was that? Oh! I
don’t wonder he looked so scornful at me! I’m a sort of
strange-thoughted sometimes, they say; but that’s only haphazard-like.
Then, a short, little old body like me, should never undertake to wade
out into deep waters with tall, heron-built captains; the water chucks
you under the chin pretty quick, and there’s a great cry for
life-boats. And here’s the heron’s leg! long and slim, sure enough!
Now, for most folks one pair of legs lasts a lifetime, and that must be
because they use them mercifully, as a tender-hearted old lady uses her
roly-poly old coach-horses. But Ahab; oh he’s a hard driver. Look,
driven one leg to death, and spavined the other for life, and now wears
out bone legs by the cord. Halloa, there, you Smut! bear a hand there
with those screws, and let’s finish it before the resurrection fellow
comes a-calling with his horn for all legs, true or false, as
brewery-men go round collecting old beer barrels, to fill ’em up again.
What a leg this is! It looks like a real live leg, filed down to
nothing but the core; he’ll be standing on this to-morrow; he’ll be
taking altitudes on it. Halloa! I almost forgot the little oval slate,
smoothed ivory, where he figures up the latitude. So, so; chisel, file,
and sand-paper, now!


CHAPTER 109. Ahab and Starbuck in the Cabin.

According to usage they were pumping the ship next morning; and lo! no
inconsiderable oil came up with the water; the casks below must have
sprung a bad leak. Much concern was shown; and Starbuck went down into
the cabin to report this unfavourable affair.*

*In Sperm-whalemen with any considerable quantity of oil on board, it
is a regular semi-weekly duty to conduct a hose into the hold, and
drench the casks with sea-water; which afterwards, at varying
intervals, is removed by the ship’s pumps. Hereby the casks are sought
to be kept damply tight; while by the changed character of the
withdrawn water, the mariners readily detect any serious leakage in the
precious cargo.

Now, from the South and West the Pequod was drawing nigh to Formosa and
the Bashee Isles, between which lies one of the tropical outlets from
the China waters into the Pacific. And so Starbuck found Ahab with a
general chart of the oriental archipelagoes spread before him; and
another separate one representing the long eastern coasts of the
Japanese islands—Niphon, Matsmai, and Sikoke. With his snow-white new
ivory leg braced against the screwed leg of his table, and with a long
pruning-hook of a jack-knife in his hand, the wondrous old man, with
his back to the gangway door, was wrinkling his brow, and tracing his
old courses again.

“Who’s there?” hearing the footstep at the door, but not turning round
to it. “On deck! Begone!”

“Captain Ahab mistakes; it is I. The oil in the hold is leaking, sir.
We must up Burtons and break out.”

“Up Burtons and break out? Now that we are nearing Japan; heave-to here
for a week to tinker a parcel of old hoops?”

“Either do that, sir, or waste in one day more oil than we may make
good in a year. What we come twenty thousand miles to get is worth
saving, sir.”

“So it is, so it is; if we get it.”

“I was speaking of the oil in the hold, sir.”

“And I was not speaking or thinking of that at all. Begone! Let it
leak! I’m all aleak myself. Aye! leaks in leaks! not only full of leaky
casks, but those leaky casks are in a leaky ship; and that’s a far
worse plight than the Pequod’s, man. Yet I don’t stop to plug my leak;
for who can find it in the deep-loaded hull; or how hope to plug it,
even if found, in this life’s howling gale? Starbuck! I’ll not have the
Burtons hoisted.”

“What will the owners say, sir?”

“Let the owners stand on Nantucket beach and outyell the Typhoons. What
cares Ahab? Owners, owners? Thou art always prating to me, Starbuck,
about those miserly owners, as if the owners were my conscience. But
look ye, the only real owner of anything is its commander; and hark ye,
my conscience is in this ship’s keel.—On deck!”

“Captain Ahab,” said the reddening mate, moving further into the cabin,
with a daring so strangely respectful and cautious that it almost
seemed not only every way seeking to avoid the slightest outward
manifestation of itself, but within also seemed more than half
distrustful of itself; “A better man than I might well pass over in
thee what he would quickly enough resent in a younger man; aye, and in
a happier, Captain Ahab.”

“Devils! Dost thou then so much as dare to critically think of me?—On
deck!”

“Nay, sir, not yet; I do entreat. And I do dare, sir—to be forbearing!
Shall we not understand each other better than hitherto, Captain Ahab?”

Ahab seized a loaded musket from the rack (forming part of most
South-Sea-men’s cabin furniture), and pointing it towards Starbuck,
exclaimed: “There is one God that is Lord over the earth, and one
Captain that is lord over the Pequod.—On deck!”

For an instant in the flashing eyes of the mate, and his fiery cheeks,
you would have almost thought that he had really received the blaze of
the levelled tube. But, mastering his emotion, he half calmly rose, and
as he quitted the cabin, paused for an instant and said: “Thou hast
outraged, not insulted me, sir; but for that I ask thee not to beware
of Starbuck; thou wouldst but laugh; but let Ahab beware of Ahab;
beware of thyself, old man.”

“He waxes brave, but nevertheless obeys; most careful bravery that!”
murmured Ahab, as Starbuck disappeared. “What’s that he said—Ahab
beware of Ahab—there’s something there!” Then unconsciously using the
musket for a staff, with an iron brow he paced to and fro in the little
cabin; but presently the thick plaits of his forehead relaxed, and
returning the gun to the rack, he went to the deck.

“Thou art but too good a fellow, Starbuck,” he said lowly to the mate;
then raising his voice to the crew: “Furl the t’gallant-sails, and
close-reef the top-sails, fore and aft; back the main-yard; up Burton,
and break out in the main-hold.”

It were perhaps vain to surmise exactly why it was, that as respecting
Starbuck, Ahab thus acted. It may have been a flash of honesty in him;
or mere prudential policy which, under the circumstance, imperiously
forbade the slightest symptom of open disaffection, however transient,
in the important chief officer of his ship. However it was, his orders
were executed; and the Burtons were hoisted.


CHAPTER 110. Queequeg in His Coffin.

Upon searching, it was found that the casks last struck into the hold
were perfectly sound, and that the leak must be further off. So, it
being calm weather, they broke out deeper and deeper, disturbing the
slumbers of the huge ground-tier butts; and from that black midnight
sending those gigantic moles into the daylight above. So deep did they
go; and so ancient, and corroded, and weedy the aspect of the lowermost
puncheons, that you almost looked next for some mouldy corner-stone
cask containing coins of Captain Noah, with copies of the posted
placards, vainly warning the infatuated old world from the flood.
Tierce after tierce, too, of water, and bread, and beef, and shooks of
staves, and iron bundles of hoops, were hoisted out, till at last the
piled decks were hard to get about; and the hollow hull echoed under
foot, as if you were treading over empty catacombs, and reeled and
rolled in the sea like an air-freighted demijohn. Top-heavy was the
ship as a dinnerless student with all Aristotle in his head. Well was
it that the Typhoons did not visit them then.

Now, at this time it was that my poor pagan companion, and fast
bosom-friend, Queequeg, was seized with a fever, which brought him nigh
to his endless end.

Be it said, that in this vocation of whaling, sinecures are unknown;
dignity and danger go hand in hand; till you get to be Captain, the
higher you rise the harder you toil. So with poor Queequeg, who, as
harpooneer, must not only face all the rage of the living whale, but—as
we have elsewhere seen—mount his dead back in a rolling sea; and
finally descend into the gloom of the hold, and bitterly sweating all
day in that subterraneous confinement, resolutely manhandle the
clumsiest casks and see to their stowage. To be short, among whalemen,
the harpooneers are the holders, so called.

Poor Queequeg! when the ship was about half disembowelled, you should
have stooped over the hatchway, and peered down upon him there; where,
stripped to his woollen drawers, the tattooed savage was crawling about
amid that dampness and slime, like a green spotted lizard at the bottom
of a well. And a well, or an ice-house, it somehow proved to him, poor
pagan; where, strange to say, for all the heat of his sweatings, he
caught a terrible chill which lapsed into a fever; and at last, after
some days’ suffering, laid him in his hammock, close to the very sill
of the door of death. How he wasted and wasted away in those few
long-lingering days, till there seemed but little left of him but his
frame and tattooing. But as all else in him thinned, and his
cheek-bones grew sharper, his eyes, nevertheless, seemed growing fuller
and fuller; they became of a strange softness of lustre; and mildly but
deeply looked out at you there from his sickness, a wondrous testimony
to that immortal health in him which could not die, or be weakened. And
like circles on the water, which, as they grow fainter, expand; so his
eyes seemed rounding and rounding, like the rings of Eternity. An awe
that cannot be named would steal over you as you sat by the side of
this waning savage, and saw as strange things in his face, as any
beheld who were bystanders when Zoroaster died. For whatever is truly
wondrous and fearful in man, never yet was put into words or books. And
the drawing near of Death, which alike levels all, alike impresses all
with a last revelation, which only an author from the dead could
adequately tell. So that—let us say it again—no dying Chaldee or Greek
had higher and holier thoughts than those, whose mysterious shades you
saw creeping over the face of poor Queequeg, as he quietly lay in his
swaying hammock, and the rolling sea seemed gently rocking him to his
final rest, and the ocean’s invisible flood-tide lifted him higher and
higher towards his destined heaven.

Not a man of the crew but gave him up; and, as for Queequeg himself,
what he thought of his case was forcibly shown by a curious favour he
asked. He called one to him in the grey morning watch, when the day was
just breaking, and taking his hand, said that while in Nantucket he had
chanced to see certain little canoes of dark wood, like the rich
war-wood of his native isle; and upon inquiry, he had learned that all
whalemen who died in Nantucket, were laid in those same dark canoes,
and that the fancy of being so laid had much pleased him; for it was
not unlike the custom of his own race, who, after embalming a dead
warrior, stretched him out in his canoe, and so left him to be floated
away to the starry archipelagoes; for not only do they believe that the
stars are isles, but that far beyond all visible horizons, their own
mild, uncontinented seas, interflow with the blue heavens; and so form
the white breakers of the milky way. He added, that he shuddered at the
thought of being buried in his hammock, according to the usual
sea-custom, tossed like something vile to the death-devouring sharks.
No: he desired a canoe like those of Nantucket, all the more congenial
to him, being a whaleman, that like a whale-boat these coffin-canoes
were without a keel; though that involved but uncertain steering, and
much lee-way adown the dim ages.

Now, when this strange circumstance was made known aft, the carpenter
was at once commanded to do Queequeg’s bidding, whatever it might
include. There was some heathenish, coffin-coloured old lumber aboard,
which, upon a long previous voyage, had been cut from the aboriginal
groves of the Lackaday islands, and from these dark planks the coffin
was recommended to be made. No sooner was the carpenter apprised of the
order, than taking his rule, he forthwith with all the indifferent
promptitude of his character, proceeded into the forecastle and took
Queequeg’s measure with great accuracy, regularly chalking Queequeg’s
person as he shifted the rule.

“Ah! poor fellow! he’ll have to die now,” ejaculated the Long Island
sailor.

Going to his vice-bench, the carpenter for convenience sake and general
reference, now transferringly measured on it the exact length the
coffin was to be, and then made the transfer permanent by cutting two
notches at its extremities. This done, he marshalled the planks and his
tools, and to work.

When the last nail was driven, and the lid duly planed and fitted, he
lightly shouldered the coffin and went forward with it, inquiring
whether they were ready for it yet in that direction.

Overhearing the indignant but half-humorous cries with which the people
on deck began to drive the coffin away, Queequeg, to every one’s
consternation, commanded that the thing should be instantly brought to
him, nor was there any denying him; seeing that, of all mortals, some
dying men are the most tyrannical; and certainly, since they will
shortly trouble us so little for evermore, the poor fellows ought to be
indulged.

Leaning over in his hammock, Queequeg long regarded the coffin with an
attentive eye. He then called for his harpoon, had the wooden stock
drawn from it, and then had the iron part placed in the coffin along
with one of the paddles of his boat. All by his own request, also,
biscuits were then ranged round the sides within: a flask of fresh
water was placed at the head, and a small bag of woody earth scraped up
in the hold at the foot; and a piece of sail-cloth being rolled up for
a pillow, Queequeg now entreated to be lifted into his final bed, that
he might make trial of its comforts, if any it had. He lay without
moving a few minutes, then told one to go to his bag and bring out his
little god, Yojo. Then crossing his arms on his breast with Yojo
between, he called for the coffin lid (hatch he called it) to be placed
over him. The head part turned over with a leather hinge, and there lay
Queequeg in his coffin with little but his composed countenance in
view. “Rarmai” (it will do; it is easy), he murmured at last, and
signed to be replaced in his hammock.

But ere this was done, Pip, who had been slily hovering near by all
this while, drew nigh to him where he lay, and with soft sobbings, took
him by the hand; in the other, holding his tambourine.

“Poor rover! will ye never have done with all this weary roving? where
go ye now? But if the currents carry ye to those sweet Antilles where
the beaches are only beat with water-lilies, will ye do one little
errand for me? Seek out one Pip, who’s now been missing long: I think
he’s in those far Antilles. If ye find him, then comfort him; for he
must be very sad; for look! he’s left his tambourine behind;—I found
it. Rig-a-dig, dig, dig! Now, Queequeg, die; and I’ll beat ye your
dying march.”

“I have heard,” murmured Starbuck, gazing down the scuttle, “that in
violent fevers, men, all ignorance, have talked in ancient tongues; and
that when the mystery is probed, it turns out always that in their
wholly forgotten childhood those ancient tongues had been really spoken
in their hearing by some lofty scholars. So, to my fond faith, poor
Pip, in this strange sweetness of his lunacy, brings heavenly vouchers
of all our heavenly homes. Where learned he that, but there?—Hark! he
speaks again: but more wildly now.”

“Form two and two! Let’s make a General of him! Ho, where’s his
harpoon? Lay it across here.—Rig-a-dig, dig, dig! huzza! Oh for a game
cock now to sit upon his head and crow! Queequeg dies game!—mind ye
that; Queequeg dies game!—take ye good heed of that; Queequeg dies
game! I say; game, game, game! but base little Pip, he died a coward;
died all a’shiver;—out upon Pip! Hark ye; if ye find Pip, tell all the
Antilles he’s a runaway; a coward, a coward, a coward! Tell them he
jumped from a whale-boat! I’d never beat my tambourine over base Pip,
and hail him General, if he were once more dying here. No, no! shame
upon all cowards—shame upon them! Let ’em go drown like Pip, that
jumped from a whale-boat. Shame! shame!”

During all this, Queequeg lay with closed eyes, as if in a dream. Pip
was led away, and the sick man was replaced in his hammock.

But now that he had apparently made every preparation for death; now
that his coffin was proved a good fit, Queequeg suddenly rallied; soon
there seemed no need of the carpenter’s box: and thereupon, when some
expressed their delighted surprise, he, in substance, said, that the
cause of his sudden convalescence was this;—at a critical moment, he
had just recalled a little duty ashore, which he was leaving undone;
and therefore had changed his mind about dying: he could not die yet,
he averred. They asked him, then, whether to live or die was a matter
of his own sovereign will and pleasure. He answered, certainly. In a
word, it was Queequeg’s conceit, that if a man made up his mind to
live, mere sickness could not kill him: nothing but a whale, or a gale,
or some violent, ungovernable, unintelligent destroyer of that sort.

Now, there is this noteworthy difference between savage and civilized;
that while a sick, civilized man may be six months convalescing,
generally speaking, a sick savage is almost half-well again in a day.
So, in good time my Queequeg gained strength; and at length after
sitting on the windlass for a few indolent days (but eating with a
vigorous appetite) he suddenly leaped to his feet, threw out his arms
and legs, gave himself a good stretching, yawned a little bit, and then
springing into the head of his hoisted boat, and poising a harpoon,
pronounced himself fit for a fight.

With a wild whimsiness, he now used his coffin for a sea-chest; and
emptying into it his canvas bag of clothes, set them in order there.
Many spare hours he spent, in carving the lid with all manner of
grotesque figures and drawings; and it seemed that hereby he was
striving, in his rude way, to copy parts of the twisted tattooing on
his body. And this tattooing had been the work of a departed prophet
and seer of his island, who, by those hieroglyphic marks, had written
out on his body a complete theory of the heavens and the earth, and a
mystical treatise on the art of attaining truth; so that Queequeg in
his own proper person was a riddle to unfold; a wondrous work in one
volume; but whose mysteries not even himself could read, though his own
live heart beat against them; and these mysteries were therefore
destined in the end to moulder away with the living parchment whereon
they were inscribed, and so be unsolved to the last. And this thought
it must have been which suggested to Ahab that wild exclamation of his,
when one morning turning away from surveying poor Queequeg—“Oh,
devilish tantalization of the gods!”


CHAPTER 111. The Pacific.

When gliding by the Bashee isles we emerged at last upon the great
South Sea; were it not for other things, I could have greeted my dear
Pacific with uncounted thanks, for now the long supplication of my
youth was answered; that serene ocean rolled eastwards from me a
thousand leagues of blue.

There is, one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently
awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath; like those
fabled undulations of the Ephesian sod over the buried Evangelist St.
John. And meet it is, that over these sea-pastures, wide-rolling watery
prairies and Potters’ Fields of all four continents, the waves should
rise and fall, and ebb and flow unceasingly; for here, millions of
mixed shades and shadows, drowned dreams, somnambulisms, reveries; all
that we call lives and souls, lie dreaming, dreaming, still; tossing
like slumberers in their beds; the ever-rolling waves but made so by
their restlessness.

To any meditative Magian rover, this serene Pacific, once beheld, must
ever after be the sea of his adoption. It rolls the midmost waters of
the world, the Indian ocean and Atlantic being but its arms. The same
waves wash the moles of the new-built Californian towns, but yesterday
planted by the recentest race of men, and lave the faded but still
gorgeous skirts of Asiatic lands, older than Abraham; while all between
float milky-ways of coral isles, and low-lying, endless, unknown
Archipelagoes, and impenetrable Japans. Thus this mysterious, divine
Pacific zones the world’s whole bulk about; makes all coasts one bay to
it; seems the tide-beating heart of earth. Lifted by those eternal
swells, you needs must own the seductive god, bowing your head to Pan.

But few thoughts of Pan stirred Ahab’s brain, as standing like an iron
statue at his accustomed place beside the mizen rigging, with one
nostril he unthinkingly snuffed the sugary musk from the Bashee isles
(in whose sweet woods mild lovers must be walking), and with the other
consciously inhaled the salt breath of the new found sea; that sea in
which the hated White Whale must even then be swimming. Launched at
length upon these almost final waters, and gliding towards the Japanese
cruising-ground, the old man’s purpose intensified itself. His firm
lips met like the lips of a vice; the Delta of his forehead’s veins
swelled like overladen brooks; in his very sleep, his ringing cry ran
through the vaulted hull, “Stern all! the White Whale spouts thick
blood!”


CHAPTER 112. The Blacksmith.

Availing himself of the mild, summer-cool weather that now reigned in
these latitudes, and in preparation for the peculiarly active pursuits
shortly to be anticipated, Perth, the begrimed, blistered old
blacksmith, had not removed his portable forge to the hold again, after
concluding his contributory work for Ahab’s leg, but still retained it
on deck, fast lashed to ringbolts by the foremast; being now almost
incessantly invoked by the headsmen, and harpooneers, and bowsmen to do
some little job for them; altering, or repairing, or new shaping their
various weapons and boat furniture. Often he would be surrounded by an
eager circle, all waiting to be served; holding boat-spades,
pike-heads, harpoons, and lances, and jealously watching his every
sooty movement, as he toiled. Nevertheless, this old man’s was a
patient hammer wielded by a patient arm. No murmur, no impatience, no
petulance did come from him. Silent, slow, and solemn; bowing over
still further his chronically broken back, he toiled away, as if toil
were life itself, and the heavy beating of his hammer the heavy beating
of his heart. And so it was.—Most miserable!

A peculiar walk in this old man, a certain slight but painful appearing
yawing in his gait, had at an early period of the voyage excited the
curiosity of the mariners. And to the importunity of their persisted
questionings he had finally given in; and so it came to pass that every
one now knew the shameful story of his wretched fate.

Belated, and not innocently, one bitter winter’s midnight, on the road
running between two country towns, the blacksmith half-stupidly felt
the deadly numbness stealing over him, and sought refuge in a leaning,
dilapidated barn. The issue was, the loss of the extremities of both
feet. Out of this revelation, part by part, at last came out the four
acts of the gladness, and the one long, and as yet uncatastrophied
fifth act of the grief of his life’s drama.

He was an old man, who, at the age of nearly sixty, had postponedly
encountered that thing in sorrow’s technicals called ruin. He had been
an artisan of famed excellence, and with plenty to do; owned a house
and garden; embraced a youthful, daughter-like, loving wife, and three
blithe, ruddy children; every Sunday went to a cheerful-looking church,
planted in a grove. But one night, under cover of darkness, and further
concealed in a most cunning disguisement, a desperate burglar slid into
his happy home, and robbed them all of everything. And darker yet to
tell, the blacksmith himself did ignorantly conduct this burglar into
his family’s heart. It was the Bottle Conjuror! Upon the opening of
that fatal cork, forth flew the fiend, and shrivelled up his home. Now,
for prudent, most wise, and economic reasons, the blacksmith’s shop was
in the basement of his dwelling, but with a separate entrance to it; so
that always had the young and loving healthy wife listened with no
unhappy nervousness, but with vigorous pleasure, to the stout ringing
of her young-armed old husband’s hammer; whose reverberations, muffled
by passing through the floors and walls, came up to her, not unsweetly,
in her nursery; and so, to stout Labor’s iron lullaby, the blacksmith’s
infants were rocked to slumber.

Oh, woe on woe! Oh, Death, why canst thou not sometimes be timely?
Hadst thou taken this old blacksmith to thyself ere his full ruin came
upon him, then had the young widow had a delicious grief, and her
orphans a truly venerable, legendary sire to dream of in their after
years; and all of them a care-killing competency. But Death plucked
down some virtuous elder brother, on whose whistling daily toil solely
hung the responsibilities of some other family, and left the worse than
useless old man standing, till the hideous rot of life should make him
easier to harvest.

Why tell the whole? The blows of the basement hammer every day grew
more and more between; and each blow every day grew fainter than the
last; the wife sat frozen at the window, with tearless eyes,
glitteringly gazing into the weeping faces of her children; the bellows
fell; the forge choked up with cinders; the house was sold; the mother
dived down into the long church-yard grass; her children twice followed
her thither; and the houseless, familyless old man staggered off a
vagabond in crape; his every woe unreverenced; his grey head a scorn to
flaxen curls!

Death seems the only desirable sequel for a career like this; but Death
is only a launching into the region of the strange Untried; it is but
the first salutation to the possibilities of the immense Remote, the
Wild, the Watery, the Unshored; therefore, to the death-longing eyes of
such men, who still have left in them some interior compunctions
against suicide, does the all-contributed and all-receptive ocean
alluringly spread forth his whole plain of unimaginable, taking
terrors, and wonderful, new-life adventures; and from the hearts of
infinite Pacifics, the thousand mermaids sing to them—“Come hither,
broken-hearted; here is another life without the guilt of intermediate
death; here are wonders supernatural, without dying for them. Come
hither! bury thyself in a life which, to your now equally abhorred and
abhorring, landed world, is more oblivious than death. Come hither! put
up _thy_ gravestone, too, within the churchyard, and come hither, till
we marry thee!”

Hearkening to these voices, East and West, by early sunrise, and by
fall of eve, the blacksmith’s soul responded, Aye, I come! And so Perth
went a-whaling.


CHAPTER 113. The Forge.

With matted beard, and swathed in a bristling shark-skin apron, about
mid-day, Perth was standing between his forge and anvil, the latter
placed upon an iron-wood log, with one hand holding a pike-head in the
coals, and with the other at his forge’s lungs, when Captain Ahab came
along, carrying in his hand a small rusty-looking leathern bag. While
yet a little distance from the forge, moody Ahab paused; till at last,
Perth, withdrawing his iron from the fire, began hammering it upon the
anvil—the red mass sending off the sparks in thick hovering flights,
some of which flew close to Ahab.

“Are these thy Mother Carey’s chickens, Perth? they are always flying
in thy wake; birds of good omen, too, but not to all;—look here, they
burn; but thou—thou liv’st among them without a scorch.”

“Because I am scorched all over, Captain Ahab,” answered Perth, resting
for a moment on his hammer; “I am past scorching; not easily can’st
thou scorch a scar.”

“Well, well; no more. Thy shrunk voice sounds too calmly, sanely woeful
to me. In no Paradise myself, I am impatient of all misery in others
that is not mad. Thou should’st go mad, blacksmith; say, why dost thou
not go mad? How can’st thou endure without being mad? Do the heavens
yet hate thee, that thou can’st not go mad?—What wert thou making
there?”

“Welding an old pike-head, sir; there were seams and dents in it.”

“And can’st thou make it all smooth again, blacksmith, after such hard
usage as it had?”

“I think so, sir.”

“And I suppose thou can’st smoothe almost any seams and dents; never
mind how hard the metal, blacksmith?”

“Aye, sir, I think I can; all seams and dents but one.”

“Look ye here, then,” cried Ahab, passionately advancing, and leaning
with both hands on Perth’s shoulders; “look ye here—_here_—can ye
smoothe out a seam like this, blacksmith,” sweeping one hand across his
ribbed brow; “if thou could’st, blacksmith, glad enough would I lay my
head upon thy anvil, and feel thy heaviest hammer between my eyes.
Answer! Can’st thou smoothe this seam?”

“Oh! that is the one, sir! Said I not all seams and dents but one?”

“Aye, blacksmith, it is the one; aye, man, it is unsmoothable; for
though thou only see’st it here in my flesh, it has worked down into
the bone of my skull—_that_ is all wrinkles! But, away with child’s
play; no more gaffs and pikes to-day. Look ye here!” jingling the
leathern bag, as if it were full of gold coins. “I, too, want a harpoon
made; one that a thousand yoke of fiends could not part, Perth;
something that will stick in a whale like his own fin-bone. There’s the
stuff,” flinging the pouch upon the anvil. “Look ye, blacksmith, these
are the gathered nail-stubbs of the steel shoes of racing horses.”

“Horse-shoe stubbs, sir? Why, Captain Ahab, thou hast here, then, the
best and stubbornest stuff we blacksmiths ever work.”

“I know it, old man; these stubbs will weld together like glue from the
melted bones of murderers. Quick! forge me the harpoon. And forge me
first, twelve rods for its shank; then wind, and twist, and hammer
these twelve together like the yarns and strands of a tow-line. Quick!
I’ll blow the fire.”

When at last the twelve rods were made, Ahab tried them, one by one, by
spiralling them, with his own hand, round a long, heavy iron bolt. “A
flaw!” rejecting the last one. “Work that over again, Perth.”

This done, Perth was about to begin welding the twelve into one, when
Ahab stayed his hand, and said he would weld his own iron. As, then,
with regular, gasping hems, he hammered on the anvil, Perth passing to
him the glowing rods, one after the other, and the hard pressed forge
shooting up its intense straight flame, the Parsee passed silently, and
bowing over his head towards the fire, seemed invoking some curse or
some blessing on the toil. But, as Ahab looked up, he slid aside.

“What’s that bunch of lucifers dodging about there for?” muttered
Stubb, looking on from the forecastle. “That Parsee smells fire like a
fusee; and smells of it himself, like a hot musket’s powder-pan.”

At last the shank, in one complete rod, received its final heat; and as
Perth, to temper it, plunged it all hissing into the cask of water near
by, the scalding steam shot up into Ahab’s bent face.

“Would’st thou brand me, Perth?” wincing for a moment with the pain;
“have I been but forging my own branding-iron, then?”

“Pray God, not that; yet I fear something, Captain Ahab. Is not this
harpoon for the White Whale?”

“For the white fiend! But now for the barbs; thou must make them
thyself, man. Here are my razors—the best of steel; here, and make the
barbs sharp as the needle-sleet of the Icy Sea.”

For a moment, the old blacksmith eyed the razors as though he would
fain not use them.

“Take them, man, I have no need for them; for I now neither shave, sup,
nor pray till—but here—to work!”

Fashioned at last into an arrowy shape, and welded by Perth to the
shank, the steel soon pointed the end of the iron; and as the
blacksmith was about giving the barbs their final heat, prior to
tempering them, he cried to Ahab to place the water-cask near.

“No, no—no water for that; I want it of the true death-temper. Ahoy,
there! Tashtego, Queequeg, Daggoo! What say ye, pagans! Will ye give me
as much blood as will cover this barb?” holding it high up. A cluster
of dark nods replied, Yes. Three punctures were made in the heathen
flesh, and the White Whale’s barbs were then tempered.

“Ego non baptizo te in nomine patris, sed in nomine diaboli!”
deliriously howled Ahab, as the malignant iron scorchingly devoured the
baptismal blood.

Now, mustering the spare poles from below, and selecting one of
hickory, with the bark still investing it, Ahab fitted the end to the
socket of the iron. A coil of new tow-line was then unwound, and some
fathoms of it taken to the windlass, and stretched to a great tension.
Pressing his foot upon it, till the rope hummed like a harp-string,
then eagerly bending over it, and seeing no strandings, Ahab exclaimed,
“Good! and now for the seizings.”

At one extremity the rope was unstranded, and the separate spread yarns
were all braided and woven round the socket of the harpoon; the pole
was then driven hard up into the socket; from the lower end the rope
was traced half-way along the pole’s length, and firmly secured so,
with intertwistings of twine. This done, pole, iron, and rope—like the
Three Fates—remained inseparable, and Ahab moodily stalked away with
the weapon; the sound of his ivory leg, and the sound of the hickory
pole, both hollowly ringing along every plank. But ere he entered his
cabin, light, unnatural, half-bantering, yet most piteous sound was
heard. Oh, Pip! thy wretched laugh, thy idle but unresting eye; all thy
strange mummeries not unmeaningly blended with the black tragedy of the
melancholy ship, and mocked it!


CHAPTER 114. The Gilder.

Penetrating further and further into the heart of the Japanese cruising
ground, the Pequod was soon all astir in the fishery. Often, in mild,
pleasant weather, for twelve, fifteen, eighteen, and twenty hours on
the stretch, they were engaged in the boats, steadily pulling, or
sailing, or paddling after the whales, or for an interlude of sixty or
seventy minutes calmly awaiting their uprising; though with but small
success for their pains.

At such times, under an abated sun; afloat all day upon smooth, slow
heaving swells; seated in his boat, light as a birch canoe; and so
sociably mixing with the soft waves themselves, that like hearth-stone
cats they purr against the gunwale; these are the times of dreamy
quietude, when beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the
ocean’s skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it; and
would not willingly remember, that this velvet paw but conceals a
remorseless fang.

These are the times, when in his whale-boat the rover softly feels a
certain filial, confident, land-like feeling towards the sea; that he
regards it as so much flowery earth; and the distant ship revealing
only the tops of her masts, seems struggling forward, not through high
rolling waves, but through the tall grass of a rolling prairie: as when
the western emigrants’ horses only show their erected ears, while their
hidden bodies widely wade through the amazing verdure.

The long-drawn virgin vales; the mild blue hill-sides; as over these
there steals the hush, the hum; you almost swear that play-wearied
children lie sleeping in these solitudes, in some glad May-time, when
the flowers of the woods are plucked. And all this mixes with your most
mystic mood; so that fact and fancy, half-way meeting, interpenetrate,
and form one seamless whole.

Nor did such soothing scenes, however temporary, fail of at least as
temporary an effect on Ahab. But if these secret golden keys did seem
to open in him his own secret golden treasuries, yet did his breath
upon them prove but tarnishing.

Oh, grassy glades! oh, ever vernal endless landscapes in the soul; in
ye,—though long parched by the dead drought of the earthy life,—in ye,
men yet may roll, like young horses in new morning clover; and for some
few fleeting moments, feel the cool dew of the life immortal on them.
Would to God these blessed calms would last. But the mingled, mingling
threads of life are woven by warp and woof: calms crossed by storms, a
storm for every calm. There is no steady unretracing progress in this
life; we do not advance through fixed gradations, and at the last one
pause:—through infancy’s unconscious spell, boyhood’s thoughtless
faith, adolescence’ doubt (the common doom), then scepticism, then
disbelief, resting at last in manhood’s pondering repose of If. But
once gone through, we trace the round again; and are infants, boys, and
men, and Ifs eternally. Where lies the final harbor, whence we unmoor
no more? In what rapt ether sails the world, of which the weariest will
never weary? Where is the foundling’s father hidden? Our souls are like
those orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them: the secret of
our paternity lies in their grave, and we must there to learn it.

And that same day, too, gazing far down from his boat’s side into that
same golden sea, Starbuck lowly murmured:—

“Loveliness unfathomable, as ever lover saw in his young bride’s
eye!—Tell me not of thy teeth-tiered sharks, and thy kidnapping
cannibal ways. Let faith oust fact; let fancy oust memory; I look deep
down and do believe.”

And Stubb, fish-like, with sparkling scales, leaped up in that same
golden light:—

“I am Stubb, and Stubb has his history; but here Stubb takes oaths that
he has always been jolly!”


CHAPTER 115. The Pequod Meets The Bachelor.

And jolly enough were the sights and the sounds that came bearing down
before the wind, some few weeks after Ahab’s harpoon had been welded.

It was a Nantucket ship, the Bachelor, which had just wedged in her
last cask of oil, and bolted down her bursting hatches; and now, in
glad holiday apparel, was joyously, though somewhat vain-gloriously,
sailing round among the widely-separated ships on the ground, previous
to pointing her prow for home.

The three men at her mast-head wore long streamers of narrow red
bunting at their hats; from the stern, a whale-boat was suspended,
bottom down; and hanging captive from the bowsprit was seen the long
lower jaw of the last whale they had slain. Signals, ensigns, and jacks
of all colours were flying from her rigging, on every side. Sideways
lashed in each of her three basketed tops were two barrels of sperm;
above which, in her top-mast cross-trees, you saw slender breakers of
the same precious fluid; and nailed to her main truck was a brazen
lamp.

As was afterwards learned, the Bachelor had met with the most
surprising success; all the more wonderful, for that while cruising in
the same seas numerous other vessels had gone entire months without
securing a single fish. Not only had barrels of beef and bread been
given away to make room for the far more valuable sperm, but additional
supplemental casks had been bartered for, from the ships she had met;
and these were stowed along the deck, and in the captain’s and
officers’ state-rooms. Even the cabin table itself had been knocked
into kindling-wood; and the cabin mess dined off the broad head of an
oil-butt, lashed down to the floor for a centrepiece. In the
forecastle, the sailors had actually caulked and pitched their chests,
and filled them; it was humorously added, that the cook had clapped a
head on his largest boiler, and filled it; that the steward had plugged
his spare coffee-pot and filled it; that the harpooneers had headed the
sockets of their irons and filled them; that indeed everything was
filled with sperm, except the captain’s pantaloons pockets, and those
he reserved to thrust his hands into, in self-complacent testimony of
his entire satisfaction.

As this glad ship of good luck bore down upon the moody Pequod, the
barbarian sound of enormous drums came from her forecastle; and drawing
still nearer, a crowd of her men were seen standing round her huge
try-pots, which, covered with the parchment-like _poke_ or stomach skin
of the black fish, gave forth a loud roar to every stroke of the
clenched hands of the crew. On the quarter-deck, the mates and
harpooneers were dancing with the olive-hued girls who had eloped with
them from the Polynesian Isles; while suspended in an ornamented boat,
firmly secured aloft between the foremast and mainmast, three Long
Island negroes, with glittering fiddle-bows of whale ivory, were
presiding over the hilarious jig. Meanwhile, others of the ship’s
company were tumultuously busy at the masonry of the try-works, from
which the huge pots had been removed. You would have almost thought
they were pulling down the cursed Bastille, such wild cries they
raised, as the now useless brick and mortar were being hurled into the
sea.

Lord and master over all this scene, the captain stood erect on the
ship’s elevated quarter-deck, so that the whole rejoicing drama was
full before him, and seemed merely contrived for his own individual
diversion.

And Ahab, he too was standing on his quarter-deck, shaggy and black,
with a stubborn gloom; and as the two ships crossed each other’s
wakes—one all jubilations for things passed, the other all forebodings
as to things to come—their two captains in themselves impersonated the
whole striking contrast of the scene.

“Come aboard, come aboard!” cried the gay Bachelor’s commander, lifting
a glass and a bottle in the air.

“Hast seen the White Whale?” gritted Ahab in reply.

“No; only heard of him; but don’t believe in him at all,” said the
other good-humoredly. “Come aboard!”

“Thou art too damned jolly. Sail on. Hast lost any men?”

“Not enough to speak of—two islanders, that’s all;—but come aboard, old
hearty, come along. I’ll soon take that black from your brow. Come
along, will ye (merry’s the play); a full ship and homeward-bound.”

“How wondrous familiar is a fool!” muttered Ahab; then aloud, “Thou art
a full ship and homeward bound, thou sayst; well, then, call me an
empty ship, and outward-bound. So go thy ways, and I will mine. Forward
there! Set all sail, and keep her to the wind!”

And thus, while the one ship went cheerily before the breeze, the other
stubbornly fought against it; and so the two vessels parted; the crew
of the Pequod looking with grave, lingering glances towards the
receding Bachelor; but the Bachelor’s men never heeding their gaze for
the lively revelry they were in. And as Ahab, leaning over the
taffrail, eyed the homeward-bound craft, he took from his pocket a
small vial of sand, and then looking from the ship to the vial, seemed
thereby bringing two remote associations together, for that vial was
filled with Nantucket soundings.


CHAPTER 116. The Dying Whale.

Not seldom in this life, when, on the right side, fortune’s favourites
sail close by us, we, though all adroop before, catch somewhat of the
rushing breeze, and joyfully feel our bagging sails fill out. So seemed
it with the Pequod. For next day after encountering the gay Bachelor,
whales were seen and four were slain; and one of them by Ahab.

It was far down the afternoon; and when all the spearings of the
crimson fight were done: and floating in the lovely sunset sea and sky,
sun and whale both stilly died together; then, such a sweetness and
such plaintiveness, such inwreathing orisons curled up in that rosy
air, that it almost seemed as if far over from the deep green convent
valleys of the Manilla isles, the Spanish land-breeze, wantonly turned
sailor, had gone to sea, freighted with these vesper hymns.

Soothed again, but only soothed to deeper gloom, Ahab, who had sterned
off from the whale, sat intently watching his final wanings from the
now tranquil boat. For that strange spectacle observable in all sperm
whales dying—the turning sunwards of the head, and so expiring—that
strange spectacle, beheld of such a placid evening, somehow to Ahab
conveyed a wondrousness unknown before.

“He turns and turns him to it,—how slowly, but how steadfastly, his
homage-rendering and invoking brow, with his last dying motions. He too
worships fire; most faithful, broad, baronial vassal of the sun!—Oh
that these too-favouring eyes should see these too-favouring sights.
Look! here, far water-locked; beyond all hum of human weal or woe; in
these most candid and impartial seas; where to traditions no rocks
furnish tablets; where for long Chinese ages, the billows have still
rolled on speechless and unspoken to, as stars that shine upon the
Niger’s unknown source; here, too, life dies sunwards full of faith;
but see! no sooner dead, than death whirls round the corpse, and it
heads some other way.

“Oh, thou dark Hindoo half of nature, who of drowned bones hast builded
thy separate throne somewhere in the heart of these unverdured seas;
thou art an infidel, thou queen, and too truly speakest to me in the
wide-slaughtering Typhoon, and the hushed burial of its after calm. Nor
has this thy whale sunwards turned his dying head, and then gone round
again, without a lesson to me.

“Oh, trebly hooped and welded hip of power! Oh, high aspiring,
rainbowed jet!—that one strivest, this one jettest all in vain! In
vain, oh whale, dost thou seek intercedings with yon all-quickening
sun, that only calls forth life, but gives it not again. Yet dost thou,
darker half, rock me with a prouder, if a darker faith. All thy
unnamable imminglings float beneath me here; I am buoyed by breaths of
once living things, exhaled as air, but water now.

“Then hail, for ever hail, O sea, in whose eternal tossings the wild
fowl finds his only rest. Born of earth, yet suckled by the sea; though
hill and valley mothered me, ye billows are my foster-brothers!”


CHAPTER 117. The Whale Watch.

The four whales slain that evening had died wide apart; one, far to
windward; one, less distant, to leeward; one ahead; one astern. These
last three were brought alongside ere nightfall; but the windward one
could not be reached till morning; and the boat that had killed it lay
by its side all night; and that boat was Ahab’s.

The waif-pole was thrust upright into the dead whale’s spout-hole; and
the lantern hanging from its top, cast a troubled flickering glare upon
the black, glossy back, and far out upon the midnight waves, which
gently chafed the whale’s broad flank, like soft surf upon a beach.

Ahab and all his boat’s crew seemed asleep but the Parsee; who
crouching in the bow, sat watching the sharks, that spectrally played
round the whale, and tapped the light cedar planks with their tails. A
sound like the moaning in squadrons over Asphaltites of unforgiven
ghosts of Gomorrah, ran shuddering through the air.

Started from his slumbers, Ahab, face to face, saw the Parsee; and
hooped round by the gloom of the night they seemed the last men in a
flooded world. “I have dreamed it again,” said he.

“Of the hearses? Have I not said, old man, that neither hearse nor
coffin can be thine?”

“And who are hearsed that die on the sea?”

“But I said, old man, that ere thou couldst die on this voyage, two
hearses must verily be seen by thee on the sea; the first not made by
mortal hands; and the visible wood of the last one must be grown in
America.”

“Aye, aye! a strange sight that, Parsee:—a hearse and its plumes
floating over the ocean with the waves for the pall-bearers. Ha! Such a
sight we shall not soon see.”

“Believe it or not, thou canst not die till it be seen, old man.”

“And what was that saying about thyself?”

“Though it come to the last, I shall still go before thee thy pilot.”

“And when thou art so gone before—if that ever befall—then ere I can
follow, thou must still appear to me, to pilot me still?—Was it not so?
Well, then, did I believe all ye say, oh my pilot! I have here two
pledges that I shall yet slay Moby Dick and survive it.”

“Take another pledge, old man,” said the Parsee, as his eyes lighted up
like fire-flies in the gloom—“Hemp only can kill thee.”

“The gallows, ye mean.—I am immortal then, on land and on sea,” cried
Ahab, with a laugh of derision;—“Immortal on land and on sea!”

Both were silent again, as one man. The grey dawn came on, and the
slumbering crew arose from the boat’s bottom, and ere noon the dead
whale was brought to the ship.


CHAPTER 118. The Quadrant.

The season for the Line at length drew near; and every day when Ahab,
coming from his cabin, cast his eyes aloft, the vigilant helmsman would
ostentatiously handle his spokes, and the eager mariners quickly run to
the braces, and would stand there with all their eyes centrally fixed
on the nailed doubloon; impatient for the order to point the ship’s
prow for the equator. In good time the order came. It was hard upon
high noon; and Ahab, seated in the bows of his high-hoisted boat, was
about taking his wonted daily observation of the sun to determine his
latitude.

Now, in that Japanese sea, the days in summer are as freshets of
effulgences. That unblinkingly vivid Japanese sun seems the blazing
focus of the glassy ocean’s immeasurable burning-glass. The sky looks
lacquered; clouds there are none; the horizon floats; and this
nakedness of unrelieved radiance is as the insufferable splendors of
God’s throne. Well that Ahab’s quadrant was furnished with coloured
glasses, through which to take sight of that solar fire. So, swinging
his seated form to the roll of the ship, and with his
astrological-looking instrument placed to his eye, he remained in that
posture for some moments to catch the precise instant when the sun
should gain its precise meridian. Meantime while his whole attention
was absorbed, the Parsee was kneeling beneath him on the ship’s deck,
and with face thrown up like Ahab’s, was eyeing the same sun with him;
only the lids of his eyes half hooded their orbs, and his wild face was
subdued to an earthly passionlessness. At length the desired
observation was taken; and with his pencil upon his ivory leg, Ahab
soon calculated what his latitude must be at that precise instant. Then
falling into a moment’s revery, he again looked up towards the sun and
murmured to himself: “Thou sea-mark! thou high and mighty Pilot! thou
tellest me truly where I _am_—but canst thou cast the least hint where
I _shall_ be? Or canst thou tell where some other thing besides me is
this moment living? Where is Moby Dick? This instant thou must be
eyeing him. These eyes of mine look into the very eye that is even now
beholding him; aye, and into the eye that is even now equally beholding
the objects on the unknown, thither side of thee, thou sun!”

Then gazing at his quadrant, and handling, one after the other, its
numerous cabalistical contrivances, he pondered again, and muttered:
“Foolish toy! babies’ plaything of haughty Admirals, and Commodores,
and Captains; the world brags of thee, of thy cunning and might; but
what after all canst thou do, but tell the poor, pitiful point, where
thou thyself happenest to be on this wide planet, and the hand that
holds thee: no! not one jot more! Thou canst not tell where one drop of
water or one grain of sand will be to-morrow noon; and yet with thy
impotence thou insultest the sun! Science! Curse thee, thou vain toy;
and cursed be all the things that cast man’s eyes aloft to that heaven,
whose live vividness but scorches him, as these old eyes are even now
scorched with thy light, O sun! Level by nature to this earth’s horizon
are the glances of man’s eyes; not shot from the crown of his head, as
if God had meant him to gaze on his firmament. Curse thee, thou
quadrant!” dashing it to the deck, “no longer will I guide my earthly
way by thee; the level ship’s compass, and the level dead-reckoning, by
log and by line; _these_ shall conduct me, and show me my place on the
sea. Aye,” lighting from the boat to the deck, “thus I trample on thee,
thou paltry thing that feebly pointest on high; thus I split and
destroy thee!”

As the frantic old man thus spoke and thus trampled with his live and
dead feet, a sneering triumph that seemed meant for Ahab, and a
fatalistic despair that seemed meant for himself—these passed over the
mute, motionless Parsee’s face. Unobserved he rose and glided away;
while, awestruck by the aspect of their commander, the seamen clustered
together on the forecastle, till Ahab, troubledly pacing the deck,
shouted out—“To the braces! Up helm!—square in!”

In an instant the yards swung round; and as the ship half-wheeled upon
her heel, her three firm-seated graceful masts erectly poised upon her
long, ribbed hull, seemed as the three Horatii pirouetting on one
sufficient steed.

Standing between the knight-heads, Starbuck watched the Pequod’s
tumultuous way, and Ahab’s also, as he went lurching along the deck.

“I have sat before the dense coal fire and watched it all aglow, full
of its tormented flaming life; and I have seen it wane at last, down,
down, to dumbest dust. Old man of oceans! of all this fiery life of
thine, what will at length remain but one little heap of ashes!”

“Aye,” cried Stubb, “but sea-coal ashes—mind ye that, Mr.
Starbuck—sea-coal, not your common charcoal. Well, well; I heard Ahab
mutter, ‘Here some one thrusts these cards into these old hands of
mine; swears that I must play them, and no others.’ And damn me, Ahab,
but thou actest right; live in the game, and die in it!”


CHAPTER 119. The Candles.

Warmest climes but nurse the cruellest fangs: the tiger of Bengal
crouches in spiced groves of ceaseless verdure. Skies the most
effulgent but basket the deadliest thunders: gorgeous Cuba knows
tornadoes that never swept tame northern lands. So, too, it is, that in
these resplendent Japanese seas the mariner encounters the direst of
all storms, the Typhoon. It will sometimes burst from out that
cloudless sky, like an exploding bomb upon a dazed and sleepy town.

Towards evening of that day, the Pequod was torn of her canvas, and
bare-poled was left to fight a Typhoon which had struck her directly
ahead. When darkness came on, sky and sea roared and split with the
thunder, and blazed with the lightning, that showed the disabled masts
fluttering here and there with the rags which the first fury of the
tempest had left for its after sport.

Holding by a shroud, Starbuck was standing on the quarter-deck; at
every flash of the lightning glancing aloft, to see what additional
disaster might have befallen the intricate hamper there; while Stubb
and Flask were directing the men in the higher hoisting and firmer
lashing of the boats. But all their pains seemed naught. Though lifted
to the very top of the cranes, the windward quarter boat (Ahab’s) did
not escape. A great rolling sea, dashing high up against the reeling
ship’s high teetering side, stove in the boat’s bottom at the stern,
and left it again, all dripping through like a sieve.

“Bad work, bad work! Mr. Starbuck,” said Stubb, regarding the wreck,
“but the sea will have its way. Stubb, for one, can’t fight it. You
see, Mr. Starbuck, a wave has such a great long start before it leaps,
all round the world it runs, and then comes the spring! But as for me,
all the start I have to meet it, is just across the deck here. But
never mind; it’s all in fun: so the old song says;”—(_sings_.)


  Oh! jolly is the gale, And a joker is the whale, A’ flourishin’ his
  tail,— Such a funny, sporty, gamy, jesty, joky, hoky-poky lad, is the
  Ocean, oh!

  The scud all a flyin’, That’s his flip only foamin’; When he stirs in
  the spicin’,— Such a funny, sporty, gamy, jesty, joky, hoky-poky lad,
  is the Ocean, oh!

  Thunder splits the ships, But he only smacks his lips, A tastin’ of
  this flip,— Such a funny, sporty, gamy, jesty, joky, hoky-poky lad,
  is the Ocean, oh!



“Avast Stubb,” cried Starbuck, “let the Typhoon sing, and strike his
harp here in our rigging; but if thou art a brave man thou wilt hold
thy peace.”

“But I am not a brave man; never said I was a brave man; I am a coward;
and I sing to keep up my spirits. And I tell you what it is, Mr.
Starbuck, there’s no way to stop my singing in this world but to cut my
throat. And when that’s done, ten to one I sing ye the doxology for a
wind-up.”

“Madman! look through my eyes if thou hast none of thine own.”

“What! how can you see better of a dark night than anybody else, never
mind how foolish?”

“Here!” cried Starbuck, seizing Stubb by the shoulder, and pointing his
hand towards the weather bow, “markest thou not that the gale comes
from the eastward, the very course Ahab is to run for Moby Dick? the
very course he swung to this day noon? now mark his boat there; where
is that stove? In the stern-sheets, man; where he is wont to stand—his
stand-point is stove, man! Now jump overboard, and sing away, if thou
must!

“I don’t half understand ye: what’s in the wind?”

“Yes, yes, round the Cape of Good Hope is the shortest way to
Nantucket,” soliloquized Starbuck suddenly, heedless of Stubb’s
question. “The gale that now hammers at us to stave us, we can turn it
into a fair wind that will drive us towards home. Yonder, to windward,
all is blackness of doom; but to leeward, homeward—I see it lightens up
there; but not with the lightning.”

At that moment in one of the intervals of profound darkness, following
the flashes, a voice was heard at his side; and almost at the same
instant a volley of thunder peals rolled overhead.

“Who’s there?”

“Old Thunder!” said Ahab, groping his way along the bulwarks to his
pivot-hole; but suddenly finding his path made plain to him by elbowed
lances of fire.

Now, as the lightning rod to a spire on shore is intended to carry off
the perilous fluid into the soil; so the kindred rod which at sea some
ships carry to each mast, is intended to conduct it into the water. But
as this conductor must descend to considerable depth, that its end may
avoid all contact with the hull; and as moreover, if kept constantly
towing there, it would be liable to many mishaps, besides interfering
not a little with some of the rigging, and more or less impeding the
vessel’s way in the water; because of all this, the lower parts of a
ship’s lightning-rods are not always overboard; but are generally made
in long slender links, so as to be the more readily hauled up into the
chains outside, or thrown down into the sea, as occasion may require.

“The rods! the rods!” cried Starbuck to the crew, suddenly admonished
to vigilance by the vivid lightning that had just been darting
flambeaux, to light Ahab to his post. “Are they overboard? drop them
over, fore and aft. Quick!”

“Avast!” cried Ahab; “let’s have fair play here, though we be the
weaker side. Yet I’ll contribute to raise rods on the Himmalehs and
Andes, that all the world may be secured; but out on privileges! Let
them be, sir.”

“Look aloft!” cried Starbuck. “The corpusants! the corpusants!”

All the yard-arms were tipped with a pallid fire; and touched at each
tri-pointed lightning-rod-end with three tapering white flames, each of
the three tall masts was silently burning in that sulphurous air, like
three gigantic wax tapers before an altar.

“Blast the boat! let it go!” cried Stubb at this instant, as a swashing
sea heaved up under his own little craft, so that its gunwale violently
jammed his hand, as he was passing a lashing. “Blast it!”—but slipping
backward on the deck, his uplifted eyes caught the flames; and
immediately shifting his tone he cried—“The corpusants have mercy on us
all!”

To sailors, oaths are household words; they will swear in the trance of
the calm, and in the teeth of the tempest; they will imprecate curses
from the topsail-yard-arms, when most they teeter over to a seething
sea; but in all my voyagings, seldom have I heard a common oath when
God’s burning finger has been laid on the ship; when His “Mene, Mene,
Tekel Upharsin” has been woven into the shrouds and the cordage.

While this pallidness was burning aloft, few words were heard from the
enchanted crew; who in one thick cluster stood on the forecastle, all
their eyes gleaming in that pale phosphorescence, like a far away
constellation of stars. Relieved against the ghostly light, the
gigantic jet negro, Daggoo, loomed up to thrice his real stature, and
seemed the black cloud from which the thunder had come. The parted
mouth of Tashtego revealed his shark-white teeth, which strangely
gleamed as if they too had been tipped by corpusants; while lit up by
the preternatural light, Queequeg’s tattooing burned like Satanic blue
flames on his body.

The tableau all waned at last with the pallidness aloft; and once more
the Pequod and every soul on her decks were wrapped in a pall. A moment
or two passed, when Starbuck, going forward, pushed against some one.
It was Stubb. “What thinkest thou now, man; I heard thy cry; it was not
the same in the song.”

“No, no, it wasn’t; I said the corpusants have mercy on us all; and I
hope they will, still. But do they only have mercy on long faces?—have
they no bowels for a laugh? And look ye, Mr. Starbuck—but it’s too dark
to look. Hear me, then: I take that mast-head flame we saw for a sign
of good luck; for those masts are rooted in a hold that is going to be
chock a’ block with sperm-oil, d’ye see; and so, all that sperm will
work up into the masts, like sap in a tree. Yes, our three masts will
yet be as three spermaceti candles—that’s the good promise we saw.”

At that moment Starbuck caught sight of Stubb’s face slowly beginning
to glimmer into sight. Glancing upwards, he cried: “See! see!” and once
more the high tapering flames were beheld with what seemed redoubled
supernaturalness in their pallor.

“The corpusants have mercy on us all,” cried Stubb, again.

At the base of the mainmast, full beneath the doubloon and the flame,
the Parsee was kneeling in Ahab’s front, but with his head bowed away
from him; while near by, from the arched and overhanging rigging, where
they had just been engaged securing a spar, a number of the seamen,
arrested by the glare, now cohered together, and hung pendulous, like a
knot of numbed wasps from a drooping, orchard twig. In various
enchanted attitudes, like the standing, or stepping, or running
skeletons in Herculaneum, others remained rooted to the deck; but all
their eyes upcast.

“Aye, aye, men!” cried Ahab. “Look up at it; mark it well; the white
flame but lights the way to the White Whale! Hand me those mainmast
links there; I would fain feel this pulse, and let mine beat against
it; blood against fire! So.”

Then turning—the last link held fast in his left hand, he put his foot
upon the Parsee; and with fixed upward eye, and high-flung right arm,
he stood erect before the lofty tri-pointed trinity of flames.

“Oh! thou clear spirit of clear fire, whom on these seas I as Persian
once did worship, till in the sacramental act so burned by thee, that
to this hour I bear the scar; I now know thee, thou clear spirit, and I
now know that thy right worship is defiance. To neither love nor
reverence wilt thou be kind; and e’en for hate thou canst but kill; and
all are killed. No fearless fool now fronts thee. I own thy speechless,
placeless power; but to the last gasp of my earthquake life will
dispute its unconditional, unintegral mastery in me. In the midst of
the personified impersonal, a personality stands here. Though but a
point at best; whencesoe’er I came; wheresoe’er I go; yet while I
earthly live, the queenly personality lives in me, and feels her royal
rights. But war is pain, and hate is woe. Come in thy lowest form of
love, and I will kneel and kiss thee; but at thy highest, come as mere
supernal power; and though thou launchest navies of full-freighted
worlds, there’s that in here that still remains indifferent. Oh, thou
clear spirit, of thy fire thou madest me, and like a true child of
fire, I breathe it back to thee.”

[_Sudden, repeated flashes of lightning; the nine flames leap
lengthwise to thrice their previous height; Ahab, with the rest, closes
his eyes, his right hand pressed hard upon them._]

“I own thy speechless, placeless power; said I not so? Nor was it wrung
from me; nor do I now drop these links. Thou canst blind; but I can
then grope. Thou canst consume; but I can then be ashes. Take the
homage of these poor eyes, and shutter-hands. I would not take it. The
lightning flashes through my skull; mine eye-balls ache and ache; my
whole beaten brain seems as beheaded, and rolling on some stunning
ground. Oh, oh! Yet blindfold, yet will I talk to thee. Light though
thou be, thou leapest out of darkness; but I am darkness leaping out of
light, leaping out of thee! The javelins cease; open eyes; see, or not?
There burn the flames! Oh, thou magnanimous! now I do glory in my
genealogy. But thou art but my fiery father; my sweet mother, I know
not. Oh, cruel! what hast thou done with her? There lies my puzzle; but
thine is greater. Thou knowest not how came ye, hence callest thyself
unbegotten; certainly knowest not thy beginning, hence callest thyself
unbegun. I know that of me, which thou knowest not of thyself, oh, thou
omnipotent. There is some unsuffusing thing beyond thee, thou clear
spirit, to whom all thy eternity is but time, all thy creativeness
mechanical. Through thee, thy flaming self, my scorched eyes do dimly
see it. Oh, thou foundling fire, thou hermit immemorial, thou too hast
thy incommunicable riddle, thy unparticipated grief. Here again with
haughty agony, I read my sire. Leap! leap up, and lick the sky! I leap
with thee; I burn with thee; would fain be welded with thee; defyingly
I worship thee!”

“The boat! the boat!” cried Starbuck, “look at thy boat, old man!”

Ahab’s harpoon, the one forged at Perth’s fire, remained firmly lashed
in its conspicuous crotch, so that it projected beyond his whale-boat’s
bow; but the sea that had stove its bottom had caused the loose leather
sheath to drop off; and from the keen steel barb there now came a
levelled flame of pale, forked fire. As the silent harpoon burned there
like a serpent’s tongue, Starbuck grasped Ahab by the arm—“God, God is
against thee, old man; forbear! ’tis an ill voyage! ill begun, ill
continued; let me square the yards, while we may, old man, and make a
fair wind of it homewards, to go on a better voyage than this.”

Overhearing Starbuck, the panic-stricken crew instantly ran to the
braces—though not a sail was left aloft. For the moment all the aghast
mate’s thoughts seemed theirs; they raised a half mutinous cry. But
dashing the rattling lightning links to the deck, and snatching the
burning harpoon, Ahab waved it like a torch among them; swearing to
transfix with it the first sailor that but cast loose a rope’s end.
Petrified by his aspect, and still more shrinking from the fiery dart
that he held, the men fell back in dismay, and Ahab again spoke:—

“All your oaths to hunt the White Whale are as binding as mine; and
heart, soul, and body, lungs and life, old Ahab is bound. And that ye
may know to what tune this heart beats; look ye here; thus I blow out
the last fear!” And with one blast of his breath he extinguished the
flame.

As in the hurricane that sweeps the plain, men fly the neighborhood of
some lone, gigantic elm, whose very height and strength but render it
so much the more unsafe, because so much the more a mark for
thunderbolts; so at those last words of Ahab’s many of the mariners did
run from him in a terror of dismay.


CHAPTER 120. The Deck Towards the End of the First Night Watch.

_Ahab standing by the helm. Starbuck approaching him._

“We must send down the main-top-sail yard, sir. The band is working
loose and the lee lift is half-stranded. Shall I strike it, sir?”

“Strike nothing; lash it. If I had sky-sail poles, I’d sway them up
now.”

“Sir!—in God’s name!—sir?”

“Well.”

“The anchors are working, sir. Shall I get them inboard?”

“Strike nothing, and stir nothing, but lash everything. The wind rises,
but it has not got up to my table-lands yet. Quick, and see to it.—By
masts and keels! he takes me for the hunch-backed skipper of some
coasting smack. Send down my main-top-sail yard! Ho, gluepots! Loftiest
trucks were made for wildest winds, and this brain-truck of mine now
sails amid the cloud-scud. Shall I strike that? Oh, none but cowards
send down their brain-trucks in tempest time. What a hooroosh aloft
there! I would e’en take it for sublime, did I not know that the colic
is a noisy malady. Oh, take medicine, take medicine!”


CHAPTER 121. Midnight.—The Forecastle Bulwarks.

_Stubb and Flask mounted on them, and passing additional lashings over
the anchors there hanging._

“No, Stubb; you may pound that knot there as much as you please, but
you will never pound into me what you were just now saying. And how
long ago is it since you said the very contrary? Didn’t you once say
that whatever ship Ahab sails in, that ship should pay something extra
on its insurance policy, just as though it were loaded with powder
barrels aft and boxes of lucifers forward? Stop, now; didn’t you say
so?”

“Well, suppose I did? What then? I’ve part changed my flesh since that
time, why not my mind? Besides, supposing we _are_ loaded with powder
barrels aft and lucifers forward; how the devil could the lucifers get
afire in this drenching spray here? Why, my little man, you have pretty
red hair, but you couldn’t get afire now. Shake yourself; you’re
Aquarius, or the water-bearer, Flask; might fill pitchers at your coat
collar. Don’t you see, then, that for these extra risks the Marine
Insurance companies have extra guarantees? Here are hydrants, Flask.
But hark, again, and I’ll answer ye the other thing. First take your
leg off from the crown of the anchor here, though, so I can pass the
rope; now listen. What’s the mighty difference between holding a mast’s
lightning-rod in the storm, and standing close by a mast that hasn’t
got any lightning-rod at all in a storm? Don’t you see, you
timber-head, that no harm can come to the holder of the rod, unless the
mast is first struck? What are you talking about, then? Not one ship in
a hundred carries rods, and Ahab,—aye, man, and all of us,—were in no
more danger then, in my poor opinion, than all the crews in ten
thousand ships now sailing the seas. Why, you King-Post, you, I suppose
you would have every man in the world go about with a small
lightning-rod running up the corner of his hat, like a militia
officer’s skewered feather, and trailing behind like his sash. Why
don’t ye be sensible, Flask? it’s easy to be sensible; why don’t ye,
then? any man with half an eye can be sensible.”

“I don’t know that, Stubb. You sometimes find it rather hard.”

“Yes, when a fellow’s soaked through, it’s hard to be sensible, that’s
a fact. And I am about drenched with this spray. Never mind; catch the
turn there, and pass it. Seems to me we are lashing down these anchors
now as if they were never going to be used again. Tying these two
anchors here, Flask, seems like tying a man’s hands behind him. And
what big generous hands they are, to be sure. These are your iron
fists, hey? What a hold they have, too! I wonder, Flask, whether the
world is anchored anywhere; if she is, she swings with an uncommon long
cable, though. There, hammer that knot down, and we’ve done. So; next
to touching land, lighting on deck is the most satisfactory. I say,
just wring out my jacket skirts, will ye? Thank ye. They laugh at
long-togs so, Flask; but seems to me, a long tailed coat ought always
to be worn in all storms afloat. The tails tapering down that way,
serve to carry off the water, d’ye see. Same with cocked hats; the
cocks form gable-end eave-troughs, Flask. No more monkey-jackets and
tarpaulins for me; I must mount a swallow-tail, and drive down a
beaver; so. Halloa! whew! there goes my tarpaulin overboard; Lord,
Lord, that the winds that come from heaven should be so unmannerly!
This is a nasty night, lad.”


CHAPTER 122. Midnight Aloft.—Thunder and Lightning.

_The main-top-sail yard_.—_Tashtego passing new lashings around it_.

“Um, um, um. Stop that thunder! Plenty too much thunder up here. What’s
the use of thunder? Um, um, um. We don’t want thunder; we want rum;
give us a glass of rum. Um, um, um!”


CHAPTER 123. The Musket.

During the most violent shocks of the Typhoon, the man at the Pequod’s
jaw-bone tiller had several times been reelingly hurled to the deck by
its spasmodic motions, even though preventer tackles had been attached
to it—for they were slack—because some play to the tiller was
indispensable.

In a severe gale like this, while the ship is but a tossed shuttlecock
to the blast, it is by no means uncommon to see the needles in the
compasses, at intervals, go round and round. It was thus with the
Pequod’s; at almost every shock the helmsman had not failed to notice
the whirling velocity with which they revolved upon the cards; it is a
sight that hardly anyone can behold without some sort of unwonted
emotion.

Some hours after midnight, the Typhoon abated so much, that through the
strenuous exertions of Starbuck and Stubb—one engaged forward and the
other aft—the shivered remnants of the jib and fore and main-top-sails
were cut adrift from the spars, and went eddying away to leeward, like
the feathers of an albatross, which sometimes are cast to the winds
when that storm-tossed bird is on the wing.

The three corresponding new sails were now bent and reefed, and a
storm-trysail was set further aft; so that the ship soon went through
the water with some precision again; and the course—for the present,
East-south-east—which he was to steer, if practicable, was once more
given to the helmsman. For during the violence of the gale, he had only
steered according to its vicissitudes. But as he was now bringing the
ship as near her course as possible, watching the compass meanwhile,
lo! a good sign! the wind seemed coming round astern; aye, the foul
breeze became fair!

Instantly the yards were squared, to the lively song of “_Ho! the fair
wind! oh-ye-ho, cheerly men!_” the crew singing for joy, that so
promising an event should so soon have falsified the evil portents
preceding it.

In compliance with the standing order of his commander—to report
immediately, and at any one of the twenty-four hours, any decided
change in the affairs of the deck,—Starbuck had no sooner trimmed the
yards to the breeze—however reluctantly and gloomily,—than he
mechanically went below to apprise Captain Ahab of the circumstance.

Ere knocking at his state-room, he involuntarily paused before it a
moment. The cabin lamp—taking long swings this way and that—was burning
fitfully, and casting fitful shadows upon the old man’s bolted door,—a
thin one, with fixed blinds inserted, in place of upper panels. The
isolated subterraneousness of the cabin made a certain humming silence
to reign there, though it was hooped round by all the roar of the
elements. The loaded muskets in the rack were shiningly revealed, as
they stood upright against the forward bulkhead. Starbuck was an
honest, upright man; but out of Starbuck’s heart, at that instant when
he saw the muskets, there strangely evolved an evil thought; but so
blent with its neutral or good accompaniments that for the instant he
hardly knew it for itself.

“He would have shot me once,” he murmured, “yes, there’s the very
musket that he pointed at me;—that one with the studded stock; let me
touch it—lift it. Strange, that I, who have handled so many deadly
lances, strange, that I should shake so now. Loaded? I must see. Aye,
aye; and powder in the pan;—that’s not good. Best spill it?—wait. I’ll
cure myself of this. I’ll hold the musket boldly while I think.—I come
to report a fair wind to him. But how fair? Fair for death and
doom,—_that’s_ fair for Moby Dick. It’s a fair wind that’s only fair
for that accursed fish.—The very tube he pointed at me!—the very one;
_this_ one—I hold it here; he would have killed me with the very thing
I handle now.—Aye and he would fain kill all his crew. Does he not say
he will not strike his spars to any gale? Has he not dashed his
heavenly quadrant? and in these same perilous seas, gropes he not his
way by mere dead reckoning of the error-abounding log? and in this very
Typhoon, did he not swear that he would have no lightning-rods? But
shall this crazed old man be tamely suffered to drag a whole ship’s
company down to doom with him?—Yes, it would make him the wilful
murderer of thirty men and more, if this ship come to any deadly harm;
and come to deadly harm, my soul swears this ship will, if Ahab have
his way. If, then, he were this instant—put aside, that crime would not
be his. Ha! is he muttering in his sleep? Yes, just there,—in there,
he’s sleeping. Sleeping? aye, but still alive, and soon awake again. I
can’t withstand thee, then, old man. Not reasoning; not remonstrance;
not entreaty wilt thou hearken to; all this thou scornest. Flat
obedience to thy own flat commands, this is all thou breathest. Aye,
and say’st the men have vow’d thy vow; say’st all of us are Ahabs.
Great God forbid!—But is there no other way? no lawful way?—Make him a
prisoner to be taken home? What! hope to wrest this old man’s living
power from his own living hands? Only a fool would try it. Say he were
pinioned even; knotted all over with ropes and hawsers; chained down to
ring-bolts on this cabin floor; he would be more hideous than a caged
tiger, then. I could not endure the sight; could not possibly fly his
howlings; all comfort, sleep itself, inestimable reason would leave me
on the long intolerable voyage. What, then, remains? The land is
hundreds of leagues away, and locked Japan the nearest. I stand alone
here upon an open sea, with two oceans and a whole continent between me
and law.—Aye, aye, ’tis so.—Is heaven a murderer when its lightning
strikes a would-be murderer in his bed, tindering sheets and skin
together?—And would I be a murderer, then, if”—and slowly, stealthily,
and half sideways looking, he placed the loaded musket’s end against
the door.

“On this level, Ahab’s hammock swings within; his head this way. A
touch, and Starbuck may survive to hug his wife and child again.—Oh
Mary! Mary!—boy! boy! boy!—But if I wake thee not to death, old man,
who can tell to what unsounded deeps Starbuck’s body this day week may
sink, with all the crew! Great God, where art Thou? Shall I? shall
I?—The wind has gone down and shifted, sir; the fore and main topsails
are reefed and set; she heads her course.”

“Stern all! Oh Moby Dick, I clutch thy heart at last!”

Such were the sounds that now came hurtling from out the old man’s
tormented sleep, as if Starbuck’s voice had caused the long dumb dream
to speak.

The yet levelled musket shook like a drunkard’s arm against the panel;
Starbuck seemed wrestling with an angel; but turning from the door, he
placed the death-tube in its rack, and left the place.

“He’s too sound asleep, Mr. Stubb; go thou down, and wake him, and tell
him. I must see to the deck here. Thou know’st what to say.”


CHAPTER 124. The Needle.

Next morning the not-yet-subsided sea rolled in long slow billows of
mighty bulk, and striving in the Pequod’s gurgling track, pushed her on
like giants’ palms outspread. The strong, unstaggering breeze abounded
so, that sky and air seemed vast outbellying sails; the whole world
boomed before the wind. Muffled in the full morning light, the
invisible sun was only known by the spread intensity of his place;
where his bayonet rays moved on in stacks. Emblazonings, as of crowned
Babylonian kings and queens, reigned over everything. The sea was as a
crucible of molten gold, that bubblingly leaps with light and heat.

Long maintaining an enchanted silence, Ahab stood apart; and every time
the tetering ship loweringly pitched down her bowsprit, he turned to
eye the bright sun’s rays produced ahead; and when she profoundly
settled by the stern, he turned behind, and saw the sun’s rearward
place, and how the same yellow rays were blending with his undeviating
wake.

“Ha, ha, my ship! thou mightest well be taken now for the sea-chariot
of the sun. Ho, ho! all ye nations before my prow, I bring the sun to
ye! Yoke on the further billows; hallo! a tandem, I drive the sea!”

But suddenly reined back by some counter thought, he hurried towards
the helm, huskily demanding how the ship was heading.

“East-sou-east, sir,” said the frightened steersman.

“Thou liest!” smiting him with his clenched fist. “Heading East at this
hour in the morning, and the sun astern?”

Upon this every soul was confounded; for the phenomenon just then
observed by Ahab had unaccountably escaped every one else; but its very
blinding palpableness must have been the cause.

Thrusting his head half way into the binnacle, Ahab caught one glimpse
of the compasses; his uplifted arm slowly fell; for a moment he almost
seemed to stagger. Standing behind him Starbuck looked, and lo! the two
compasses pointed East, and the Pequod was as infallibly going West.

But ere the first wild alarm could get out abroad among the crew, the
old man with a rigid laugh exclaimed, “I have it! It has happened
before. Mr. Starbuck, last night’s thunder turned our compasses—that’s
all. Thou hast before now heard of such a thing, I take it.”

“Aye; but never before has it happened to me, sir,” said the pale mate,
gloomily.

Here, it must needs be said, that accidents like this have in more than
one case occurred to ships in violent storms. The magnetic energy, as
developed in the mariner’s needle, is, as all know, essentially one
with the electricity beheld in heaven; hence it is not to be much
marvelled at, that such things should be. Instances where the lightning
has actually struck the vessel, so as to smite down some of the spars
and rigging, the effect upon the needle has at times been still more
fatal; all its loadstone virtue being annihilated, so that the before
magnetic steel was of no more use than an old wife’s knitting needle.
But in either case, the needle never again, of itself, recovers the
original virtue thus marred or lost; and if the binnacle compasses be
affected, the same fate reaches all the others that may be in the ship;
even were the lowermost one inserted into the kelson.

Deliberately standing before the binnacle, and eyeing the transpointed
compasses, the old man, with the sharp of his extended hand, now took
the precise bearing of the sun, and satisfied that the needles were
exactly inverted, shouted out his orders for the ship’s course to be
changed accordingly. The yards were hard up; and once more the Pequod
thrust her undaunted bows into the opposing wind, for the supposed fair
one had only been juggling her.

Meanwhile, whatever were his own secret thoughts, Starbuck said
nothing, but quietly he issued all requisite orders; while Stubb and
Flask—who in some small degree seemed then to be sharing his
feelings—likewise unmurmuringly acquiesced. As for the men, though some
of them lowly rumbled, their fear of Ahab was greater than their fear
of Fate. But as ever before, the pagan harpooneers remained almost
wholly unimpressed; or if impressed, it was only with a certain
magnetism shot into their congenial hearts from inflexible Ahab’s.

For a space the old man walked the deck in rolling reveries. But
chancing to slip with his ivory heel, he saw the crushed copper
sight-tubes of the quadrant he had the day before dashed to the deck.

“Thou poor, proud heaven-gazer and sun’s pilot! yesterday I wrecked
thee, and to-day the compasses would fain have wrecked me. So, so. But
Ahab is lord over the level loadstone yet. Mr. Starbuck—a lance without
a pole; a top-maul, and the smallest of the sail-maker’s needles.
Quick!”

Accessory, perhaps, to the impulse dictating the thing he was now about
to do, were certain prudential motives, whose object might have been to
revive the spirits of his crew by a stroke of his subtile skill, in a
matter so wondrous as that of the inverted compasses. Besides, the old
man well knew that to steer by transpointed needles, though clumsily
practicable, was not a thing to be passed over by superstitious
sailors, without some shudderings and evil portents.

“Men,” said he, steadily turning upon the crew, as the mate handed him
the things he had demanded, “my men, the thunder turned old Ahab’s
needles; but out of this bit of steel Ahab can make one of his own,
that will point as true as any.”

Abashed glances of servile wonder were exchanged by the sailors, as
this was said; and with fascinated eyes they awaited whatever magic
might follow. But Starbuck looked away.

With a blow from the top-maul Ahab knocked off the steel head of the
lance, and then handing to the mate the long iron rod remaining, bade
him hold it upright, without its touching the deck. Then, with the
maul, after repeatedly smiting the upper end of this iron rod, he
placed the blunted needle endwise on the top of it, and less strongly
hammered that, several times, the mate still holding the rod as before.
Then going through some small strange motions with it—whether
indispensable to the magnetizing of the steel, or merely intended to
augment the awe of the crew, is uncertain—he called for linen thread;
and moving to the binnacle, slipped out the two reversed needles there,
and horizontally suspended the sail-needle by its middle, over one of
the compass-cards. At first, the steel went round and round, quivering
and vibrating at either end; but at last it settled to its place, when
Ahab, who had been intently watching for this result, stepped frankly
back from the binnacle, and pointing his stretched arm towards it,
exclaimed,—“Look ye, for yourselves, if Ahab be not lord of the level
loadstone! The sun is East, and that compass swears it!”

One after another they peered in, for nothing but their own eyes could
persuade such ignorance as theirs, and one after another they slunk
away.

In his fiery eyes of scorn and triumph, you then saw Ahab in all his
fatal pride.


CHAPTER 125. The Log and Line.

While now the fated Pequod had been so long afloat this voyage, the log
and line had but very seldom been in use. Owing to a confident reliance
upon other means of determining the vessel’s place, some merchantmen,
and many whalemen, especially when cruising, wholly neglect to heave
the log; though at the same time, and frequently more for form’s sake
than anything else, regularly putting down upon the customary slate the
course steered by the ship, as well as the presumed average rate of
progression every hour. It had been thus with the Pequod. The wooden
reel and angular log attached hung, long untouched, just beneath the
railing of the after bulwarks. Rains and spray had damped it; sun and
wind had warped it; all the elements had combined to rot a thing that
hung so idly. But heedless of all this, his mood seized Ahab, as he
happened to glance upon the reel, not many hours after the magnet
scene, and he remembered how his quadrant was no more, and recalled his
frantic oath about the level log and line. The ship was sailing
plungingly; astern the billows rolled in riots.

“Forward, there! Heave the log!”

Two seamen came. The golden-hued Tahitian and the grizzly Manxman.
“Take the reel, one of ye, I’ll heave.”

They went towards the extreme stern, on the ship’s lee side, where the
deck, with the oblique energy of the wind, was now almost dipping into
the creamy, sidelong-rushing sea.

The Manxman took the reel, and holding it high up, by the projecting
handle-ends of the spindle, round which the spool of line revolved, so
stood with the angular log hanging downwards, till Ahab advanced to
him.

Ahab stood before him, and was lightly unwinding some thirty or forty
turns to form a preliminary hand-coil to toss overboard, when the old
Manxman, who was intently eyeing both him and the line, made bold to
speak.

“Sir, I mistrust it; this line looks far gone, long heat and wet have
spoiled it.”

“’Twill hold, old gentleman. Long heat and wet, have they spoiled thee?
Thou seem’st to hold. Or, truer perhaps, life holds thee; not thou it.”

“I hold the spool, sir. But just as my captain says. With these grey
hairs of mine ’tis not worth while disputing, ’specially with a
superior, who’ll ne’er confess.”

“What’s that? There now’s a patched professor in Queen Nature’s
granite-founded College; but methinks he’s too subservient. Where wert
thou born?”

“In the little rocky Isle of Man, sir.”

“Excellent! Thou’st hit the world by that.”

“I know not, sir, but I was born there.”

“In the Isle of Man, hey? Well, the other way, it’s good. Here’s a man
from Man; a man born in once independent Man, and now unmanned of Man;
which is sucked in—by what? Up with the reel! The dead, blind wall
butts all inquiring heads at last. Up with it! So.”

The log was heaved. The loose coils rapidly straightened out in a long
dragging line astern, and then, instantly, the reel began to whirl. In
turn, jerkingly raised and lowered by the rolling billows, the towing
resistance of the log caused the old reelman to stagger strangely.

“Hold hard!”

Snap! the overstrained line sagged down in one long festoon; the
tugging log was gone.

“I crush the quadrant, the thunder turns the needles, and now the mad
sea parts the log-line. But Ahab can mend all. Haul in here, Tahitian;
reel up, Manxman. And look ye, let the carpenter make another log, and
mend thou the line. See to it.”

“There he goes now; to him nothing’s happened; but to me, the skewer
seems loosening out of the middle of the world. Haul in, haul in,
Tahitian! These lines run whole, and whirling out: come in broken, and
dragging slow. Ha, Pip? come to help; eh, Pip?”

“Pip? whom call ye Pip? Pip jumped from the whale-boat. Pip’s missing.
Let’s see now if ye haven’t fished him up here, fisherman. It drags
hard; I guess he’s holding on. Jerk him, Tahiti! Jerk him off; we haul
in no cowards here. Ho! there’s his arm just breaking water. A hatchet!
a hatchet! cut it off—we haul in no cowards here. Captain Ahab! sir,
sir! here’s Pip, trying to get on board again.”

“Peace, thou crazy loon,” cried the Manxman, seizing him by the arm.
“Away from the quarter-deck!”

“The greater idiot ever scolds the lesser,” muttered Ahab, advancing.
“Hands off from that holiness! Where sayest thou Pip was, boy?

“Astern there, sir, astern! Lo! lo!”

“And who art thou, boy? I see not my reflection in the vacant pupils of
thy eyes. Oh God! that man should be a thing for immortal souls to
sieve through! Who art thou, boy?”

“Bell-boy, sir; ship’s-crier; ding, dong, ding! Pip! Pip! Pip! One
hundred pounds of clay reward for Pip; five feet high—looks
cowardly—quickest known by that! Ding, dong, ding! Who’s seen Pip the
coward?”

“There can be no hearts above the snow-line. Oh, ye frozen heavens!
look down here. Ye did beget this luckless child, and have abandoned
him, ye creative libertines. Here, boy; Ahab’s cabin shall be Pip’s
home henceforth, while Ahab lives. Thou touchest my inmost centre, boy;
thou art tied to me by cords woven of my heart-strings. Come, let’s
down.”

“What’s this? here’s velvet shark-skin,” intently gazing at Ahab’s
hand, and feeling it. “Ah, now, had poor Pip but felt so kind a thing
as this, perhaps he had ne’er been lost! This seems to me, sir, as a
man-rope; something that weak souls may hold by. Oh, sir, let old Perth
now come and rivet these two hands together; the black one with the
white, for I will not let this go.”

“Oh, boy, nor will I thee, unless I should thereby drag thee to worse
horrors than are here. Come, then, to my cabin. Lo! ye believers in
gods all goodness, and in man all ill, lo you! see the omniscient gods
oblivious of suffering man; and man, though idiotic, and knowing not
what he does, yet full of the sweet things of love and gratitude. Come!
I feel prouder leading thee by thy black hand, than though I grasped an
Emperor’s!”

“There go two daft ones now,” muttered the old Manxman. “One daft with
strength, the other daft with weakness. But here’s the end of the
rotten line—all dripping, too. Mend it, eh? I think we had best have a
new line altogether. I’ll see Mr. Stubb about it.”


CHAPTER 126. The Life-Buoy.

Steering now south-eastward by Ahab’s levelled steel, and her progress
solely determined by Ahab’s level log and line; the Pequod held on her
path towards the Equator. Making so long a passage through such
unfrequented waters, descrying no ships, and ere long, sideways
impelled by unvarying trade winds, over waves monotonously mild; all
these seemed the strange calm things preluding some riotous and
desperate scene.

At last, when the ship drew near to the outskirts, as it were, of the
Equatorial fishing-ground, and in the deep darkness that goes before
the dawn, was sailing by a cluster of rocky islets; the watch—then
headed by Flask—was startled by a cry so plaintively wild and
unearthly—like half-articulated wailings of the ghosts of all Herod’s
murdered Innocents—that one and all, they started from their reveries,
and for the space of some moments stood, or sat, or leaned all
transfixedly listening, like the carved Roman slave, while that wild
cry remained within hearing. The Christian or civilized part of the
crew said it was mermaids, and shuddered; but the pagan harpooneers
remained unappalled. Yet the grey Manxman—the oldest mariner of
all—declared that the wild thrilling sounds that were heard, were the
voices of newly drowned men in the sea.

Below in his hammock, Ahab did not hear of this till grey dawn, when he
came to the deck; it was then recounted to him by Flask, not
unaccompanied with hinted dark meanings. He hollowly laughed, and thus
explained the wonder.

Those rocky islands the ship had passed were the resort of great
numbers of seals, and some young seals that had lost their dams, or
some dams that had lost their cubs, must have risen nigh the ship and
kept company with her, crying and sobbing with their human sort of
wail. But this only the more affected some of them, because most
mariners cherish a very superstitious feeling about seals, arising not
only from their peculiar tones when in distress, but also from the
human look of their round heads and semi-intelligent faces, seen
peeringly uprising from the water alongside. In the sea, under certain
circumstances, seals have more than once been mistaken for men.

But the bodings of the crew were destined to receive a most plausible
confirmation in the fate of one of their number that morning. At
sun-rise this man went from his hammock to his mast-head at the fore;
and whether it was that he was not yet half waked from his sleep (for
sailors sometimes go aloft in a transition state), whether it was thus
with the man, there is now no telling; but, be that as it may, he had
not been long at his perch, when a cry was heard—a cry and a
rushing—and looking up, they saw a falling phantom in the air; and
looking down, a little tossed heap of white bubbles in the blue of the
sea.

The life-buoy—a long slender cask—was dropped from the stern, where it
always hung obedient to a cunning spring; but no hand rose to seize it,
and the sun having long beat upon this cask it had shrunken, so that it
slowly filled, and that parched wood also filled at its every pore; and
the studded iron-bound cask followed the sailor to the bottom, as if to
yield him his pillow, though in sooth but a hard one.

And thus the first man of the Pequod that mounted the mast to look out
for the White Whale, on the White Whale’s own peculiar ground; that man
was swallowed up in the deep. But few, perhaps, thought of that at the
time. Indeed, in some sort, they were not grieved at this event, at
least as a portent; for they regarded it, not as a foreshadowing of
evil in the future, but as the fulfilment of an evil already presaged.
They declared that now they knew the reason of those wild shrieks they
had heard the night before. But again the old Manxman said nay.

The lost life-buoy was now to be replaced; Starbuck was directed to see
to it; but as no cask of sufficient lightness could be found, and as in
the feverish eagerness of what seemed the approaching crisis of the
voyage, all hands were impatient of any toil but what was directly
connected with its final end, whatever that might prove to be;
therefore, they were going to leave the ship’s stern unprovided with a
buoy, when by certain strange signs and inuendoes Queequeg hinted a
hint concerning his coffin.

“A life-buoy of a coffin!” cried Starbuck, starting.

“Rather queer, that, I should say,” said Stubb.

“It will make a good enough one,” said Flask, “the carpenter here can
arrange it easily.”

“Bring it up; there’s nothing else for it,” said Starbuck, after a
melancholy pause. “Rig it, carpenter; do not look at me so—the coffin,
I mean. Dost thou hear me? Rig it.”

“And shall I nail down the lid, sir?” moving his hand as with a hammer.

“Aye.”

“And shall I caulk the seams, sir?” moving his hand as with a
caulking-iron.

“Aye.”

“And shall I then pay over the same with pitch, sir?” moving his hand
as with a pitch-pot.

“Away! what possesses thee to this? Make a life-buoy of the coffin, and
no more.—Mr. Stubb, Mr. Flask, come forward with me.”

“He goes off in a huff. The whole he can endure; at the parts he
baulks. Now I don’t like this. I make a leg for Captain Ahab, and he
wears it like a gentleman; but I make a bandbox for Queequeg, and he
won’t put his head into it. Are all my pains to go for nothing with
that coffin? And now I’m ordered to make a life-buoy of it. It’s like
turning an old coat; going to bring the flesh on the other side now. I
don’t like this cobbling sort of business—I don’t like it at all; it’s
undignified; it’s not my place. Let tinkers’ brats do tinkerings; we
are their betters. I like to take in hand none but clean, virgin,
fair-and-square mathematical jobs, something that regularly begins at
the beginning, and is at the middle when midway, and comes to an end at
the conclusion; not a cobbler’s job, that’s at an end in the middle,
and at the beginning at the end. It’s the old woman’s tricks to be
giving cobbling jobs. Lord! what an affection all old women have for
tinkers. I know an old woman of sixty-five who ran away with a
bald-headed young tinker once. And that’s the reason I never would work
for lonely widow old women ashore, when I kept my job-shop in the
Vineyard; they might have taken it into their lonely old heads to run
off with me. But heigh-ho! there are no caps at sea but snow-caps. Let
me see. Nail down the lid; caulk the seams; pay over the same with
pitch; batten them down tight, and hang it with the snap-spring over
the ship’s stern. Were ever such things done before with a coffin? Some
superstitious old carpenters, now, would be tied up in the rigging, ere
they would do the job. But I’m made of knotty Aroostook hemlock; I
don’t budge. Cruppered with a coffin! Sailing about with a grave-yard
tray! But never mind. We workers in woods make bridal-bedsteads and
card-tables, as well as coffins and hearses. We work by the month, or
by the job, or by the profit; not for us to ask the why and wherefore
of our work, unless it be too confounded cobbling, and then we stash it
if we can. Hem! I’ll do the job, now, tenderly. I’ll have me—let’s
see—how many in the ship’s company, all told? But I’ve forgotten. Any
way, I’ll have me thirty separate, Turk’s-headed life-lines, each three
feet long hanging all round to the coffin. Then, if the hull go down,
there’ll be thirty lively fellows all fighting for one coffin, a sight
not seen very often beneath the sun! Come hammer, caulking-iron,
pitch-pot, and marling-spike! Let’s to it.”


CHAPTER 127. The Deck.

_The coffin laid upon two line-tubs, between the vice-bench and the
open hatchway; the Carpenter caulking its seams; the string of twisted
oakum slowly unwinding from a large roll of it placed in the bosom of
his frock.—Ahab comes slowly from the cabin-gangway, and hears Pip
following him._

“Back, lad; I will be with ye again presently. He goes! Not this hand
complies with my humor more genially than that boy.—Middle aisle of a
church! What’s here?”

“Life-buoy, sir. Mr. Starbuck’s orders. Oh, look, sir! Beware the
hatchway!”

“Thank ye, man. Thy coffin lies handy to the vault.”

“Sir? The hatchway? oh! So it does, sir, so it does.”

“Art not thou the leg-maker? Look, did not this stump come from thy
shop?”

“I believe it did, sir; does the ferrule stand, sir?”

“Well enough. But art thou not also the undertaker?”

“Aye, sir; I patched up this thing here as a coffin for Queequeg; but
they’ve set me now to turning it into something else.”

“Then tell me; art thou not an arrant, all-grasping, intermeddling,
monopolising, heathenish old scamp, to be one day making legs, and the
next day coffins to clap them in, and yet again life-buoys out of those
same coffins? Thou art as unprincipled as the gods, and as much of a
jack-of-all-trades.”

“But I do not mean anything, sir. I do as I do.”

“The gods again. Hark ye, dost thou not ever sing working about a
coffin? The Titans, they say, hummed snatches when chipping out the
craters for volcanoes; and the grave-digger in the play sings, spade in
hand. Dost thou never?”

“Sing, sir? Do I sing? Oh, I’m indifferent enough, sir, for that; but
the reason why the grave-digger made music must have been because there
was none in his spade, sir. But the caulking mallet is full of it. Hark
to it.”

“Aye, and that’s because the lid there’s a sounding-board; and what in
all things makes the sounding-board is this—there’s naught beneath. And
yet, a coffin with a body in it rings pretty much the same, Carpenter.
Hast thou ever helped carry a bier, and heard the coffin knock against
the churchyard gate, going in?

“Faith, sir, I’ve——”

“Faith? What’s that?”

“Why, faith, sir, it’s only a sort of exclamation-like—that’s all,
sir.”

“Um, um; go on.”

“I was about to say, sir, that——”

“Art thou a silk-worm? Dost thou spin thy own shroud out of thyself?
Look at thy bosom! Despatch! and get these traps out of sight.”

“He goes aft. That was sudden, now; but squalls come sudden in hot
latitudes. I’ve heard that the Isle of Albemarle, one of the
Gallipagos, is cut by the Equator right in the middle. Seems to me some
sort of Equator cuts yon old man, too, right in his middle. He’s always
under the Line—fiery hot, I tell ye! He’s looking this way—come, oakum;
quick. Here we go again. This wooden mallet is the cork, and I’m the
professor of musical glasses—tap, tap!”

(_Ahab to himself_.)

“There’s a sight! There’s a sound! The greyheaded woodpecker tapping
the hollow tree! Blind and dumb might well be envied now. See! that
thing rests on two line-tubs, full of tow-lines. A most malicious wag,
that fellow. Rat-tat! So man’s seconds tick! Oh! how immaterial are all
materials! What things real are there, but imponderable thoughts? Here
now’s the very dreaded symbol of grim death, by a mere hap, made the
expressive sign of the help and hope of most endangered life. A
life-buoy of a coffin! Does it go further? Can it be that in some
spiritual sense the coffin is, after all, but an immortality-preserver!
I’ll think of that. But no. So far gone am I in the dark side of earth,
that its other side, the theoretic bright one, seems but uncertain
twilight to me. Will ye never have done, Carpenter, with that accursed
sound? I go below; let me not see that thing here when I return again.
Now, then, Pip, we’ll talk this over; I do suck most wondrous
philosophies from thee! Some unknown conduits from the unknown worlds
must empty into thee!”


CHAPTER 128. The Pequod Meets The Rachel.

Next day, a large ship, the Rachel, was descried, bearing directly down
upon the Pequod, all her spars thickly clustering with men. At the time
the Pequod was making good speed through the water; but as the
broad-winged windward stranger shot nigh to her, the boastful sails all
fell together as blank bladders that are burst, and all life fled from
the smitten hull.

“Bad news; she brings bad news,” muttered the old Manxman. But ere her
commander, who, with trumpet to mouth, stood up in his boat; ere he
could hopefully hail, Ahab’s voice was heard.

“Hast seen the White Whale?”

“Aye, yesterday. Have ye seen a whale-boat adrift?”

Throttling his joy, Ahab negatively answered this unexpected question;
and would then have fain boarded the stranger, when the stranger
captain himself, having stopped his vessel’s way, was seen descending
her side. A few keen pulls, and his boat-hook soon clinched the
Pequod’s main-chains, and he sprang to the deck. Immediately he was
recognised by Ahab for a Nantucketer he knew. But no formal salutation
was exchanged.

“Where was he?—not killed!—not killed!” cried Ahab, closely advancing.
“How was it?”

It seemed that somewhat late on the afternoon of the day previous,
while three of the stranger’s boats were engaged with a shoal of
whales, which had led them some four or five miles from the ship; and
while they were yet in swift chase to windward, the white hump and head
of Moby Dick had suddenly loomed up out of the water, not very far to
leeward; whereupon, the fourth rigged boat—a reserved one—had been
instantly lowered in chase. After a keen sail before the wind, this
fourth boat—the swiftest keeled of all—seemed to have succeeded in
fastening—at least, as well as the man at the mast-head could tell
anything about it. In the distance he saw the diminished dotted boat;
and then a swift gleam of bubbling white water; and after that nothing
more; whence it was concluded that the stricken whale must have
indefinitely run away with his pursuers, as often happens. There was
some apprehension, but no positive alarm, as yet. The recall signals
were placed in the rigging; darkness came on; and forced to pick up her
three far to windward boats—ere going in quest of the fourth one in the
precisely opposite direction—the ship had not only been necessitated to
leave that boat to its fate till near midnight, but, for the time, to
increase her distance from it. But the rest of her crew being at last
safe aboard, she crowded all sail—stunsail on stunsail—after the
missing boat; kindling a fire in her try-pots for a beacon; and every
other man aloft on the look-out. But though when she had thus sailed a
sufficient distance to gain the presumed place of the absent ones when
last seen; though she then paused to lower her spare boats to pull all
around her; and not finding anything, had again dashed on; again
paused, and lowered her boats; and though she had thus continued doing
till daylight; yet not the least glimpse of the missing keel had been
seen.

The story told, the stranger Captain immediately went on to reveal his
object in boarding the Pequod. He desired that ship to unite with his
own in the search; by sailing over the sea some four or five miles
apart, on parallel lines, and so sweeping a double horizon, as it were.

“I will wager something now,” whispered Stubb to Flask, “that some one
in that missing boat wore off that Captain’s best coat; mayhap, his
watch—he’s so cursed anxious to get it back. Who ever heard of two
pious whale-ships cruising after one missing whale-boat in the height
of the whaling season? See, Flask, only see how pale he looks—pale in
the very buttons of his eyes—look—it wasn’t the coat—it must have been
the—”

“My boy, my own boy is among them. For God’s sake—I beg, I
conjure”—here exclaimed the stranger Captain to Ahab, who thus far had
but icily received his petition. “For eight-and-forty hours let me
charter your ship—I will gladly pay for it, and roundly pay for it—if
there be no other way—for eight-and-forty hours only—only that—you
must, oh, you must, and you _shall_ do this thing.”

“His son!” cried Stubb, “oh, it’s his son he’s lost! I take back the
coat and watch—what says Ahab? We must save that boy.”

“He’s drowned with the rest on ’em, last night,” said the old Manx
sailor standing behind them; “I heard; all of ye heard their spirits.”

Now, as it shortly turned out, what made this incident of the Rachel’s
the more melancholy, was the circumstance, that not only was one of the
Captain’s sons among the number of the missing boat’s crew; but among
the number of the other boat’s crews, at the same time, but on the
other hand, separated from the ship during the dark vicissitudes of the
chase, there had been still another son; as that for a time, the
wretched father was plunged to the bottom of the cruellest perplexity;
which was only solved for him by his chief mate’s instinctively
adopting the ordinary procedure of a whale-ship in such emergencies,
that is, when placed between jeopardized but divided boats, always to
pick up the majority first. But the captain, for some unknown
constitutional reason, had refrained from mentioning all this, and not
till forced to it by Ahab’s iciness did he allude to his one yet
missing boy; a little lad, but twelve years old, whose father with the
earnest but unmisgiving hardihood of a Nantucketer’s paternal love, had
thus early sought to initiate him in the perils and wonders of a
vocation almost immemorially the destiny of all his race. Nor does it
unfrequently occur, that Nantucket captains will send a son of such
tender age away from them, for a protracted three or four years’ voyage
in some other ship than their own; so that their first knowledge of a
whaleman’s career shall be unenervated by any chance display of a
father’s natural but untimely partiality, or undue apprehensiveness and
concern.

Meantime, now the stranger was still beseeching his poor boon of Ahab;
and Ahab still stood like an anvil, receiving every shock, but without
the least quivering of his own.

“I will not go,” said the stranger, “till you say _aye_ to me. Do to me
as you would have me do to you in the like case. For _you_ too have a
boy, Captain Ahab—though but a child, and nestling safely at home now—a
child of your old age too—Yes, yes, you relent; I see it—run, run, men,
now, and stand by to square in the yards.”

“Avast,” cried Ahab—“touch not a rope-yarn”; then in a voice that
prolongingly moulded every word—“Captain Gardiner, I will not do it.
Even now I lose time. Good-bye, good-bye. God bless ye, man, and may I
forgive myself, but I must go. Mr. Starbuck, look at the binnacle
watch, and in three minutes from this present instant warn off all
strangers: then brace forward again, and let the ship sail as before.”

Hurriedly turning, with averted face, he descended into his cabin,
leaving the strange captain transfixed at this unconditional and utter
rejection of his so earnest suit. But starting from his enchantment,
Gardiner silently hurried to the side; more fell than stepped into his
boat, and returned to his ship.

Soon the two ships diverged their wakes; and long as the strange vessel
was in view, she was seen to yaw hither and thither at every dark spot,
however small, on the sea. This way and that her yards were swung
round; starboard and larboard, she continued to tack; now she beat
against a head sea; and again it pushed her before it; while all the
while, her masts and yards were thickly clustered with men, as three
tall cherry trees, when the boys are cherrying among the boughs.

But by her still halting course and winding, woeful way, you plainly
saw that this ship that so wept with spray, still remained without
comfort. She was Rachel, weeping for her children, because they were
not.


CHAPTER 129. The Cabin.

(_Ahab moving to go on deck; Pip catches him by the hand to follow._)

“Lad, lad, I tell thee thou must not follow Ahab now. The hour is
coming when Ahab would not scare thee from him, yet would not have thee
by him. There is that in thee, poor lad, which I feel too curing to my
malady. Like cures like; and for this hunt, my malady becomes my most
desired health. Do thou abide below here, where they shall serve thee,
as if thou wert the captain. Aye, lad, thou shalt sit here in my own
screwed chair; another screw to it, thou must be.”

“No, no, no! ye have not a whole body, sir; do ye but use poor me for
your one lost leg; only tread upon me, sir; I ask no more, so I remain
a part of ye.”

“Oh! spite of million villains, this makes me a bigot in the fadeless
fidelity of man!—and a black! and crazy!—but methinks like-cures-like
applies to him too; he grows so sane again.”

“They tell me, sir, that Stubb did once desert poor little Pip, whose
drowned bones now show white, for all the blackness of his living skin.
But I will never desert ye, sir, as Stubb did him. Sir, I must go with
ye.”

“If thou speakest thus to me much more, Ahab’s purpose keels up in him.
I tell thee no; it cannot be.”

“Oh good master, master, master!

“Weep so, and I will murder thee! have a care, for Ahab too is mad.
Listen, and thou wilt often hear my ivory foot upon the deck, and still
know that I am there. And now I quit thee. Thy hand!—Met! True art
thou, lad, as the circumference to its centre. So: God for ever bless
thee; and if it come to that,—God for ever save thee, let what will
befall.”

(_Ahab goes; Pip steps one step forward._)

“Here he this instant stood; I stand in his air,—but I’m alone. Now
were even poor Pip here I could endure it, but he’s missing. Pip! Pip!
Ding, dong, ding! Who’s seen Pip? He must be up here; let’s try the
door. What? neither lock, nor bolt, nor bar; and yet there’s no opening
it. It must be the spell; he told me to stay here: Aye, and told me
this screwed chair was mine. Here, then, I’ll seat me, against the
transom, in the ship’s full middle, all her keel and her three masts
before me. Here, our old sailors say, in their black seventy-fours
great admirals sometimes sit at table, and lord it over rows of
captains and lieutenants. Ha! what’s this? epaulets! epaulets! the
epaulets all come crowding! Pass round the decanters; glad to see ye;
fill up, monsieurs! What an odd feeling, now, when a black boy’s host
to white men with gold lace upon their coats!—Monsieurs, have ye seen
one Pip?—a little negro lad, five feet high, hang-dog look, and
cowardly! Jumped from a whale-boat once;—seen him? No! Well then, fill
up again, captains, and let’s drink shame upon all cowards! I name no
names. Shame upon them! Put one foot upon the table. Shame upon all
cowards.—Hist! above there, I hear ivory—Oh, master! master! I am
indeed down-hearted when you walk over me. But here I’ll stay, though
this stern strikes rocks; and they bulge through; and oysters come to
join me.”


CHAPTER 130. The Hat.

And now that at the proper time and place, after so long and wide a
preliminary cruise, Ahab,—all other whaling waters swept—seemed to have
chased his foe into an ocean-fold, to slay him the more securely there;
now, that he found himself hard by the very latitude and longitude
where his tormenting wound had been inflicted; now that a vessel had
been spoken which on the very day preceding had actually encountered
Moby Dick;—and now that all his successive meetings with various ships
contrastingly concurred to show the demoniac indifference with which
the white whale tore his hunters, whether sinning or sinned against;
now it was that there lurked a something in the old man’s eyes, which
it was hardly sufferable for feeble souls to see. As the unsetting
polar star, which through the livelong, arctic, six months’ night
sustains its piercing, steady, central gaze; so Ahab’s purpose now
fixedly gleamed down upon the constant midnight of the gloomy crew. It
domineered above them so, that all their bodings, doubts, misgivings,
fears, were fain to hide beneath their souls, and not sprout forth a
single spear or leaf.

In this foreshadowing interval too, all humor, forced or natural,
vanished. Stubb no more strove to raise a smile; Starbuck no more
strove to check one. Alike, joy and sorrow, hope and fear, seemed
ground to finest dust, and powdered, for the time, in the clamped
mortar of Ahab’s iron soul. Like machines, they dumbly moved about the
deck, ever conscious that the old man’s despot eye was on them.

But did you deeply scan him in his more secret confidential hours; when
he thought no glance but one was on him; then you would have seen that
even as Ahab’s eyes so awed the crew’s, the inscrutable Parsee’s glance
awed his; or somehow, at least, in some wild way, at times affected it.
Such an added, gliding strangeness began to invest the thin Fedallah
now; such ceaseless shudderings shook him; that the men looked dubious
at him; half uncertain, as it seemed, whether indeed he were a mortal
substance, or else a tremulous shadow cast upon the deck by some unseen
being’s body. And that shadow was always hovering there. For not by
night, even, had Fedallah ever certainly been known to slumber, or go
below. He would stand still for hours: but never sat or leaned; his wan
but wondrous eyes did plainly say—We two watchmen never rest.

Nor, at any time, by night or day could the mariners now step upon the
deck, unless Ahab was before them; either standing in his pivot-hole,
or exactly pacing the planks between two undeviating limits,—the
main-mast and the mizen; or else they saw him standing in the
cabin-scuttle,—his living foot advanced upon the deck, as if to step;
his hat slouched heavily over his eyes; so that however motionless he
stood, however the days and nights were added on, that he had not swung
in his hammock; yet hidden beneath that slouching hat, they could never
tell unerringly whether, for all this, his eyes were really closed at
times; or whether he was still intently scanning them; no matter,
though he stood so in the scuttle for a whole hour on the stretch, and
the unheeded night-damp gathered in beads of dew upon that stone-carved
coat and hat. The clothes that the night had wet, the next day’s
sunshine dried upon him; and so, day after day, and night after night;
he went no more beneath the planks; whatever he wanted from the cabin
that thing he sent for.

He ate in the same open air; that is, his two only meals,—breakfast and
dinner: supper he never touched; nor reaped his beard; which darkly
grew all gnarled, as unearthed roots of trees blown over, which still
grow idly on at naked base, though perished in the upper verdure. But
though his whole life was now become one watch on deck; and though the
Parsee’s mystic watch was without intermission as his own; yet these
two never seemed to speak—one man to the other—unless at long intervals
some passing unmomentous matter made it necessary. Though such a potent
spell seemed secretly to join the twain; openly, and to the awe-struck
crew, they seemed pole-like asunder. If by day they chanced to speak
one word; by night, dumb men were both, so far as concerned the
slightest verbal interchange. At times, for longest hours, without a
single hail, they stood far parted in the starlight; Ahab in his
scuttle, the Parsee by the mainmast; but still fixedly gazing upon each
other; as if in the Parsee Ahab saw his forethrown shadow, in Ahab the
Parsee his abandoned substance.

And yet, somehow, did Ahab—in his own proper self, as daily, hourly,
and every instant, commandingly revealed to his subordinates,—Ahab
seemed an independent lord; the Parsee but his slave. Still again both
seemed yoked together, and an unseen tyrant driving them; the lean
shade siding the solid rib. For be this Parsee what he may, all rib and
keel was solid Ahab.

At the first faintest glimmering of the dawn, his iron voice was heard
from aft,—“Man the mast-heads!”—and all through the day, till after
sunset and after twilight, the same voice every hour, at the striking
of the helmsman’s bell, was heard—“What d’ye see?—sharp! sharp!”

But when three or four days had slided by, after meeting the
children-seeking Rachel; and no spout had yet been seen; the monomaniac
old man seemed distrustful of his crew’s fidelity; at least, of nearly
all except the Pagan harpooneers; he seemed to doubt, even, whether
Stubb and Flask might not willingly overlook the sight he sought. But
if these suspicions were really his, he sagaciously refrained from
verbally expressing them, however his actions might seem to hint them.

“I will have the first sight of the whale myself,”—he said. “Aye! Ahab
must have the doubloon!” and with his own hands he rigged a nest of
basketed bowlines; and sending a hand aloft, with a single sheaved
block, to secure to the main-mast head, he received the two ends of the
downward-reeved rope; and attaching one to his basket prepared a pin
for the other end, in order to fasten it at the rail. This done, with
that end yet in his hand and standing beside the pin, he looked round
upon his crew, sweeping from one to the other; pausing his glance long
upon Daggoo, Queequeg, Tashtego; but shunning Fedallah; and then
settling his firm relying eye upon the chief mate, said,—“Take the
rope, sir—I give it into thy hands, Starbuck.” Then arranging his
person in the basket, he gave the word for them to hoist him to his
perch, Starbuck being the one who secured the rope at last; and
afterwards stood near it. And thus, with one hand clinging round the
royal mast, Ahab gazed abroad upon the sea for miles and miles,—ahead,
astern, this side, and that,—within the wide expanded circle commanded
at so great a height.

When in working with his hands at some lofty almost isolated place in
the rigging, which chances to afford no foothold, the sailor at sea is
hoisted up to that spot, and sustained there by the rope; under these
circumstances, its fastened end on deck is always given in strict
charge to some one man who has the special watch of it. Because in such
a wilderness of running rigging, whose various different relations
aloft cannot always be infallibly discerned by what is seen of them at
the deck; and when the deck-ends of these ropes are being every few
minutes cast down from the fastenings, it would be but a natural
fatality, if, unprovided with a constant watchman, the hoisted sailor
should by some carelessness of the crew be cast adrift and fall all
swooping to the sea. So Ahab’s proceedings in this matter were not
unusual; the only strange thing about them seemed to be, that Starbuck,
almost the one only man who had ever ventured to oppose him with
anything in the slightest degree approaching to decision—one of those
too, whose faithfulness on the look-out he had seemed to doubt
somewhat;—it was strange, that this was the very man he should select
for his watchman; freely giving his whole life into such an otherwise
distrusted person’s hands.

Now, the first time Ahab was perched aloft; ere he had been there ten
minutes; one of those red-billed savage sea-hawks which so often fly
incommodiously close round the manned mast-heads of whalemen in these
latitudes; one of these birds came wheeling and screaming round his
head in a maze of untrackably swift circlings. Then it darted a
thousand feet straight up into the air; then spiralized downwards, and
went eddying again round his head.

But with his gaze fixed upon the dim and distant horizon, Ahab seemed
not to mark this wild bird; nor, indeed, would any one else have marked
it much, it being no uncommon circumstance; only now almost the least
heedful eye seemed to see some sort of cunning meaning in almost every
sight.

“Your hat, your hat, sir!” suddenly cried the Sicilian seaman, who
being posted at the mizen-mast-head, stood directly behind Ahab, though
somewhat lower than his level, and with a deep gulf of air dividing
them.

But already the sable wing was before the old man’s eyes; the long
hooked bill at his head: with a scream, the black hawk darted away with
his prize.

An eagle flew thrice round Tarquin’s head, removing his cap to replace
it, and thereupon Tanaquil, his wife, declared that Tarquin would be
king of Rome. But only by the replacing of the cap was that omen
accounted good. Ahab’s hat was never restored; the wild hawk flew on
and on with it; far in advance of the prow: and at last disappeared;
while from the point of that disappearance, a minute black spot was
dimly discerned, falling from that vast height into the sea.


CHAPTER 131. The Pequod Meets The Delight.

The intense Pequod sailed on; the rolling waves and days went by; the
life-buoy-coffin still lightly swung; and another ship, most miserably
misnamed the Delight, was descried. As she drew nigh, all eyes were
fixed upon her broad beams, called shears, which, in some
whaling-ships, cross the quarter-deck at the height of eight or nine
feet; serving to carry the spare, unrigged, or disabled boats.

Upon the stranger’s shears were beheld the shattered, white ribs, and
some few splintered planks, of what had once been a whale-boat; but you
now saw through this wreck, as plainly as you see through the peeled,
half-unhinged, and bleaching skeleton of a horse.

“Hast seen the White Whale?”

“Look!” replied the hollow-cheeked captain from his taffrail; and with
his trumpet he pointed to the wreck.

“Hast killed him?”

“The harpoon is not yet forged that ever will do that,” answered the
other, sadly glancing upon a rounded hammock on the deck, whose
gathered sides some noiseless sailors were busy in sewing together.

“Not forged!” and snatching Perth’s levelled iron from the crotch, Ahab
held it out, exclaiming—“Look ye, Nantucketer; here in this hand I hold
his death! Tempered in blood, and tempered by lightning are these
barbs; and I swear to temper them triply in that hot place behind the
fin, where the White Whale most feels his accursed life!”

“Then God keep thee, old man—see’st thou that”—pointing to the
hammock—“I bury but one of five stout men, who were alive only
yesterday; but were dead ere night. Only _that_ one I bury; the rest
were buried before they died; you sail upon their tomb.” Then turning
to his crew—“Are ye ready there? place the plank then on the rail, and
lift the body; so, then—Oh! God”—advancing towards the hammock with
uplifted hands—“may the resurrection and the life——”

“Brace forward! Up helm!” cried Ahab like lightning to his men.

But the suddenly started Pequod was not quick enough to escape the
sound of the splash that the corpse soon made as it struck the sea; not
so quick, indeed, but that some of the flying bubbles might have
sprinkled her hull with their ghostly baptism.

As Ahab now glided from the dejected Delight, the strange life-buoy
hanging at the Pequod’s stern came into conspicuous relief.

“Ha! yonder! look yonder, men!” cried a foreboding voice in her wake.
“In vain, oh, ye strangers, ye fly our sad burial; ye but turn us your
taffrail to show us your coffin!”


CHAPTER 132. The Symphony.

It was a clear steel-blue day. The firmaments of air and sea were
hardly separable in that all-pervading azure; only, the pensive air was
transparently pure and soft, with a woman’s look, and the robust and
man-like sea heaved with long, strong, lingering swells, as Samson’s
chest in his sleep.

Hither, and thither, on high, glided the snow-white wings of small,
unspeckled birds; these were the gentle thoughts of the feminine air;
but to and fro in the deeps, far down in the bottomless blue, rushed
mighty leviathans, sword-fish, and sharks; and these were the strong,
troubled, murderous thinkings of the masculine sea.

But though thus contrasting within, the contrast was only in shades and
shadows without; those two seemed one; it was only the sex, as it were,
that distinguished them.

Aloft, like a royal czar and king, the sun seemed giving this gentle
air to this bold and rolling sea; even as bride to groom. And at the
girdling line of the horizon, a soft and tremulous motion—most seen
here at the equator—denoted the fond, throbbing trust, the loving
alarms, with which the poor bride gave her bosom away.

Tied up and twisted; gnarled and knotted with wrinkles; haggardly firm
and unyielding; his eyes glowing like coals, that still glow in the
ashes of ruin; untottering Ahab stood forth in the clearness of the
morn; lifting his splintered helmet of a brow to the fair girl’s
forehead of heaven.

Oh, immortal infancy, and innocency of the azure! Invisible winged
creatures that frolic all round us! Sweet childhood of air and sky! how
oblivious were ye of old Ahab’s close-coiled woe! But so have I seen
little Miriam and Martha, laughing-eyed elves, heedlessly gambol around
their old sire; sporting with the circle of singed locks which grew on
the marge of that burnt-out crater of his brain.

Slowly crossing the deck from the scuttle, Ahab leaned over the side
and watched how his shadow in the water sank and sank to his gaze, the
more and the more that he strove to pierce the profundity. But the
lovely aromas in that enchanted air did at last seem to dispel, for a
moment, the cankerous thing in his soul. That glad, happy air, that
winsome sky, did at last stroke and caress him; the step-mother world,
so long cruel—forbidding—now threw affectionate arms round his stubborn
neck, and did seem to joyously sob over him, as if over one, that
however wilful and erring, she could yet find it in her heart to save
and to bless. From beneath his slouched hat Ahab dropped a tear into
the sea; nor did all the Pacific contain such wealth as that one wee
drop.

Starbuck saw the old man; saw him, how he heavily leaned over the side;
and he seemed to hear in his own true heart the measureless sobbing
that stole out of the centre of the serenity around. Careful not to
touch him, or be noticed by him, he yet drew near to him, and stood
there.

Ahab turned.

“Starbuck!”

“Sir.”

“Oh, Starbuck! it is a mild, mild wind, and a mild looking sky. On such
a day—very much such a sweetness as this—I struck my first whale—a
boy-harpooneer of eighteen! Forty—forty—forty years ago!—ago! Forty
years of continual whaling! forty years of privation, and peril, and
storm-time! forty years on the pitiless sea! for forty years has Ahab
forsaken the peaceful land, for forty years to make war on the horrors
of the deep! Aye and yes, Starbuck, out of those forty years I have not
spent three ashore. When I think of this life I have led; the
desolation of solitude it has been; the masoned, walled-town of a
Captain’s exclusiveness, which admits but small entrance to any
sympathy from the green country without—oh, weariness! heaviness!
Guinea-coast slavery of solitary command!—when I think of all this;
only half-suspected, not so keenly known to me before—and how for forty
years I have fed upon dry salted fare—fit emblem of the dry nourishment
of my soil!—when the poorest landsman has had fresh fruit to his daily
hand, and broken the world’s fresh bread to my mouldy crusts—away,
whole oceans away, from that young girl-wife I wedded past fifty, and
sailed for Cape Horn the next day, leaving but one dent in my marriage
pillow—wife? wife?—rather a widow with her husband alive! Aye, I
widowed that poor girl when I married her, Starbuck; and then, the
madness, the frenzy, the boiling blood and the smoking brow, with
which, for a thousand lowerings old Ahab has furiously, foamingly
chased his prey—more a demon than a man!—aye, aye! what a forty years’
fool—fool—old fool, has old Ahab been! Why this strife of the chase?
why weary, and palsy the arm at the oar, and the iron, and the lance?
how the richer or better is Ahab now? Behold. Oh, Starbuck! is it not
hard, that with this weary load I bear, one poor leg should have been
snatched from under me? Here, brush this old hair aside; it blinds me,
that I seem to weep. Locks so grey did never grow but from out some
ashes! But do I look very old, so very, very old, Starbuck? I feel
deadly faint, bowed, and humped, as though I were Adam, staggering
beneath the piled centuries since Paradise. God! God! God!—crack my
heart!—stave my brain!—mockery! mockery! bitter, biting mockery of grey
hairs, have I lived enough joy to wear ye; and seem and feel thus
intolerably old? Close! stand close to me, Starbuck; let me look into a
human eye; it is better than to gaze into sea or sky; better than to
gaze upon God. By the green land; by the bright hearth-stone! this is
the magic glass, man; I see my wife and my child in thine eye. No, no;
stay on board, on board!—lower not when I do; when branded Ahab gives
chase to Moby Dick. That hazard shall not be thine. No, no! not with
the far away home I see in that eye!”

“Oh, my Captain! my Captain! noble soul! grand old heart, after all!
why should any one give chase to that hated fish! Away with me! let us
fly these deadly waters! let us home! Wife and child, too, are
Starbuck’s—wife and child of his brotherly, sisterly, play-fellow
youth; even as thine, sir, are the wife and child of thy loving,
longing, paternal old age! Away! let us away!—this instant let me alter
the course! How cheerily, how hilariously, O my Captain, would we bowl
on our way to see old Nantucket again! I think, sir, they have some
such mild blue days, even as this, in Nantucket.”

“They have, they have. I have seen them—some summer days in the
morning. About this time—yes, it is his noon nap now—the boy
vivaciously wakes; sits up in bed; and his mother tells him of me, of
cannibal old me; how I am abroad upon the deep, but will yet come back
to dance him again.”

“’Tis my Mary, my Mary herself! She promised that my boy, every
morning, should be carried to the hill to catch the first glimpse of
his father’s sail! Yes, yes! no more! it is done! we head for
Nantucket! Come, my Captain, study out the course, and let us away!
See, see! the boy’s face from the window! the boy’s hand on the hill!”

But Ahab’s glance was averted; like a blighted fruit tree he shook, and
cast his last, cindered apple to the soil.

“What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it; what
cozening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor
commands me; that against all natural lovings and longings, I so keep
pushing, and crowding, and jamming myself on all the time; recklessly
making me ready to do what in my own proper, natural heart, I durst not
so much as dare? Is Ahab, Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this
arm? But if the great sun move not of himself; but is as an errand-boy
in heaven; nor one single star can revolve, but by some invisible
power; how then can this one small heart beat; this one small brain
think thoughts; unless God does that beating, does that thinking, does
that living, and not I. By heaven, man, we are turned round and round
in this world, like yonder windlass, and Fate is the handspike. And all
the time, lo! that smiling sky, and this unsounded sea! Look! see yon
Albicore! who put it into him to chase and fang that flying-fish? Where
do murderers go, man! Who’s to doom, when the judge himself is dragged
to the bar? But it is a mild, mild wind, and a mild looking sky; and
the air smells now, as if it blew from a far-away meadow; they have
been making hay somewhere under the slopes of the Andes, Starbuck, and
the mowers are sleeping among the new-mown hay. Sleeping? Aye, toil we
how we may, we all sleep at last on the field. Sleep? Aye, and rust
amid greenness; as last year’s scythes flung down, and left in the
half-cut swaths—Starbuck!”

But blanched to a corpse’s hue with despair, the Mate had stolen away.

Ahab crossed the deck to gaze over on the other side; but started at
two reflected, fixed eyes in the water there. Fedallah was motionlessly
leaning over the same rail.


CHAPTER 133. The Chase—First Day.

That night, in the mid-watch, when the old man—as his wont at
intervals—stepped forth from the scuttle in which he leaned, and went
to his pivot-hole, he suddenly thrust out his face fiercely, snuffing
up the sea air as a sagacious ship’s dog will, in drawing nigh to some
barbarous isle. He declared that a whale must be near. Soon that
peculiar odor, sometimes to a great distance given forth by the living
sperm whale, was palpable to all the watch; nor was any mariner
surprised when, after inspecting the compass, and then the dog-vane,
and then ascertaining the precise bearing of the odor as nearly as
possible, Ahab rapidly ordered the ship’s course to be slightly
altered, and the sail to be shortened.

The acute policy dictating these movements was sufficiently vindicated
at daybreak, by the sight of a long sleek on the sea directly and
lengthwise ahead, smooth as oil, and resembling in the pleated watery
wrinkles bordering it, the polished metallic-like marks of some swift
tide-rip, at the mouth of a deep, rapid stream.

“Man the mast-heads! Call all hands!”

Thundering with the butts of three clubbed handspikes on the forecastle
deck, Daggoo roused the sleepers with such judgment claps that they
seemed to exhale from the scuttle, so instantaneously did they appear
with their clothes in their hands.

“What d’ye see?” cried Ahab, flattening his face to the sky.

“Nothing, nothing sir!” was the sound hailing down in reply.

“T’gallant sails!—stunsails! alow and aloft, and on both sides!”

All sail being set, he now cast loose the life-line, reserved for
swaying him to the main royal-mast head; and in a few moments they were
hoisting him thither, when, while but two thirds of the way aloft, and
while peering ahead through the horizontal vacancy between the
main-top-sail and top-gallant-sail, he raised a gull-like cry in the
air. “There she blows!—there she blows! A hump like a snow-hill! It is
Moby Dick!”

Fired by the cry which seemed simultaneously taken up by the three
look-outs, the men on deck rushed to the rigging to behold the famous
whale they had so long been pursuing. Ahab had now gained his final
perch, some feet above the other look-outs, Tashtego standing just
beneath him on the cap of the top-gallant-mast, so that the Indian’s
head was almost on a level with Ahab’s heel. From this height the whale
was now seen some mile or so ahead, at every roll of the sea revealing
his high sparkling hump, and regularly jetting his silent spout into
the air. To the credulous mariners it seemed the same silent spout they
had so long ago beheld in the moonlit Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

“And did none of ye see it before?” cried Ahab, hailing the perched men
all around him.

“I saw him almost that same instant, sir, that Captain Ahab did, and I
cried out,” said Tashtego.

“Not the same instant; not the same—no, the doubloon is mine, Fate
reserved the doubloon for me. _I_ only; none of ye could have raised
the White Whale first. There she blows!—there she blows!—there she
blows! There again!—there again!” he cried, in long-drawn, lingering,
methodic tones, attuned to the gradual prolongings of the whale’s
visible jets. “He’s going to sound! In stunsails! Down
top-gallant-sails! Stand by three boats. Mr. Starbuck, remember, stay
on board, and keep the ship. Helm there! Luff, luff a point! So;
steady, man, steady! There go flukes! No, no; only black water! All
ready the boats there? Stand by, stand by! Lower me, Mr. Starbuck;
lower, lower,—quick, quicker!” and he slid through the air to the deck.

“He is heading straight to leeward, sir,” cried Stubb, “right away from
us; cannot have seen the ship yet.”

“Be dumb, man! Stand by the braces! Hard down the helm!—brace up!
Shiver her!—shiver her!—So; well that! Boats, boats!”

Soon all the boats but Starbuck’s were dropped; all the boat-sails
set—all the paddles plying; with rippling swiftness, shooting to
leeward; and Ahab heading the onset. A pale, death-glimmer lit up
Fedallah’s sunken eyes; a hideous motion gnawed his mouth.

Like noiseless nautilus shells, their light prows sped through the sea;
but only slowly they neared the foe. As they neared him, the ocean grew
still more smooth; seemed drawing a carpet over its waves; seemed a
noon-meadow, so serenely it spread. At length the breathless hunter
came so nigh his seemingly unsuspecting prey, that his entire dazzling
hump was distinctly visible, sliding along the sea as if an isolated
thing, and continually set in a revolving ring of finest, fleecy,
greenish foam. He saw the vast, involved wrinkles of the slightly
projecting head beyond. Before it, far out on the soft Turkish-rugged
waters, went the glistening white shadow from his broad, milky
forehead, a musical rippling playfully accompanying the shade; and
behind, the blue waters interchangeably flowed over into the moving
valley of his steady wake; and on either hand bright bubbles arose and
danced by his side. But these were broken again by the light toes of
hundreds of gay fowl softly feathering the sea, alternate with their
fitful flight; and like to some flag-staff rising from the painted hull
of an argosy, the tall but shattered pole of a recent lance projected
from the white whale’s back; and at intervals one of the cloud of
soft-toed fowls hovering, and to and fro skimming like a canopy over
the fish, silently perched and rocked on this pole, the long tail
feathers streaming like pennons.

A gentle joyousness—a mighty mildness of repose in swiftness, invested
the gliding whale. Not the white bull Jupiter swimming away with
ravished Europa clinging to his graceful horns; his lovely, leering
eyes sideways intent upon the maid; with smooth bewitching fleetness,
rippling straight for the nuptial bower in Crete; not Jove, not that
great majesty Supreme! did surpass the glorified White Whale as he so
divinely swam.

On each soft side—coincident with the parted swell, that but once
leaving him, then flowed so wide away—on each bright side, the whale
shed off enticings. No wonder there had been some among the hunters who
namelessly transported and allured by all this serenity, had ventured
to assail it; but had fatally found that quietude but the vesture of
tornadoes. Yet calm, enticing calm, oh, whale! thou glidest on, to all
who for the first time eye thee, no matter how many in that same way
thou may’st have bejuggled and destroyed before.

And thus, through the serene tranquillities of the tropical sea, among
waves whose hand-clappings were suspended by exceeding rapture, Moby
Dick moved on, still withholding from sight the full terrors of his
submerged trunk, entirely hiding the wrenched hideousness of his jaw.
But soon the fore part of him slowly rose from the water; for an
instant his whole marbleized body formed a high arch, like Virginia’s
Natural Bridge, and warningly waving his bannered flukes in the air,
the grand god revealed himself, sounded, and went out of sight.
Hoveringly halting, and dipping on the wing, the white sea-fowls
longingly lingered over the agitated pool that he left.

With oars apeak, and paddles down, the sheets of their sails adrift,
the three boats now stilly floated, awaiting Moby Dick’s reappearance.

“An hour,” said Ahab, standing rooted in his boat’s stern; and he gazed
beyond the whale’s place, towards the dim blue spaces and wide wooing
vacancies to leeward. It was only an instant; for again his eyes seemed
whirling round in his head as he swept the watery circle. The breeze
now freshened; the sea began to swell.

“The birds!—the birds!” cried Tashtego.

In long Indian file, as when herons take wing, the white birds were now
all flying towards Ahab’s boat; and when within a few yards began
fluttering over the water there, wheeling round and round, with joyous,
expectant cries. Their vision was keener than man’s; Ahab could
discover no sign in the sea. But suddenly as he peered down and down
into its depths, he profoundly saw a white living spot no bigger than a
white weasel, with wonderful celerity uprising, and magnifying as it
rose, till it turned, and then there were plainly revealed two long
crooked rows of white, glistening teeth, floating up from the
undiscoverable bottom. It was Moby Dick’s open mouth and scrolled jaw;
his vast, shadowed bulk still half blending with the blue of the sea.
The glittering mouth yawned beneath the boat like an open-doored marble
tomb; and giving one sidelong sweep with his steering oar, Ahab whirled
the craft aside from this tremendous apparition. Then, calling upon
Fedallah to change places with him, went forward to the bows, and
seizing Perth’s harpoon, commanded his crew to grasp their oars and
stand by to stern.

Now, by reason of this timely spinning round the boat upon its axis,
its bow, by anticipation, was made to face the whale’s head while yet
under water. But as if perceiving this stratagem, Moby Dick, with that
malicious intelligence ascribed to him, sidelingly transplanted
himself, as it were, in an instant, shooting his pleated head
lengthwise beneath the boat.

Through and through; through every plank and each rib, it thrilled for
an instant, the whale obliquely lying on his back, in the manner of a
biting shark, slowly and feelingly taking its bows full within his
mouth, so that the long, narrow, scrolled lower jaw curled high up into
the open air, and one of the teeth caught in a row-lock. The bluish
pearl-white of the inside of the jaw was within six inches of Ahab’s
head, and reached higher than that. In this attitude the White Whale
now shook the slight cedar as a mildly cruel cat her mouse. With
unastonished eyes Fedallah gazed, and crossed his arms; but the
tiger-yellow crew were tumbling over each other’s heads to gain the
uttermost stern.

And now, while both elastic gunwales were springing in and out, as the
whale dallied with the doomed craft in this devilish way; and from his
body being submerged beneath the boat, he could not be darted at from
the bows, for the bows were almost inside of him, as it were; and while
the other boats involuntarily paused, as before a quick crisis
impossible to withstand, then it was that monomaniac Ahab, furious with
this tantalizing vicinity of his foe, which placed him all alive and
helpless in the very jaws he hated; frenzied with all this, he seized
the long bone with his naked hands, and wildly strove to wrench it from
its gripe. As now he thus vainly strove, the jaw slipped from him; the
frail gunwales bent in, collapsed, and snapped, as both jaws, like an
enormous shears, sliding further aft, bit the craft completely in
twain, and locked themselves fast again in the sea, midway between the
two floating wrecks. These floated aside, the broken ends drooping, the
crew at the stern-wreck clinging to the gunwales, and striving to hold
fast to the oars to lash them across.

At that preluding moment, ere the boat was yet snapped, Ahab, the first
to perceive the whale’s intent, by the crafty upraising of his head, a
movement that loosed his hold for the time; at that moment his hand had
made one final effort to push the boat out of the bite. But only
slipping further into the whale’s mouth, and tilting over sideways as
it slipped, the boat had shaken off his hold on the jaw; spilled him
out of it, as he leaned to the push; and so he fell flat-faced upon the
sea.

Ripplingly withdrawing from his prey, Moby Dick now lay at a little
distance, vertically thrusting his oblong white head up and down in the
billows; and at the same time slowly revolving his whole spindled body;
so that when his vast wrinkled forehead rose—some twenty or more feet
out of the water—the now rising swells, with all their confluent waves,
dazzlingly broke against it; vindictively tossing their shivered spray
still higher into the air.* So, in a gale, the but half baffled Channel
billows only recoil from the base of the Eddystone, triumphantly to
overleap its summit with their scud.

*This motion is peculiar to the sperm whale. It receives its
designation (pitchpoling) from its being likened to that preliminary
up-and-down poise of the whale-lance, in the exercise called
pitchpoling, previously described. By this motion the whale must best
and most comprehensively view whatever objects may be encircling him.

But soon resuming his horizontal attitude, Moby Dick swam swiftly round
and round the wrecked crew; sideways churning the water in his vengeful
wake, as if lashing himself up to still another and more deadly
assault. The sight of the splintered boat seemed to madden him, as the
blood of grapes and mulberries cast before Antiochus’s elephants in the
book of Maccabees. Meanwhile Ahab half smothered in the foam of the
whale’s insolent tail, and too much of a cripple to swim,—though he
could still keep afloat, even in the heart of such a whirlpool as that;
helpless Ahab’s head was seen, like a tossed bubble which the least
chance shock might burst. From the boat’s fragmentary stern, Fedallah
incuriously and mildly eyed him; the clinging crew, at the other
drifting end, could not succor him; more than enough was it for them to
look to themselves. For so revolvingly appalling was the White Whale’s
aspect, and so planetarily swift the ever-contracting circles he made,
that he seemed horizontally swooping upon them. And though the other
boats, unharmed, still hovered hard by; still they dared not pull into
the eddy to strike, lest that should be the signal for the instant
destruction of the jeopardized castaways, Ahab and all; nor in that
case could they themselves hope to escape. With straining eyes, then,
they remained on the outer edge of the direful zone, whose centre had
now become the old man’s head.

Meantime, from the beginning all this had been descried from the ship’s
mast heads; and squaring her yards, she had borne down upon the scene;
and was now so nigh, that Ahab in the water hailed her!—“Sail on
the”—but that moment a breaking sea dashed on him from Moby Dick, and
whelmed him for the time. But struggling out of it again, and chancing
to rise on a towering crest, he shouted,—“Sail on the whale!—Drive him
off!”

The Pequod’s prows were pointed; and breaking up the charmed circle,
she effectually parted the white whale from his victim. As he sullenly
swam off, the boats flew to the rescue.

Dragged into Stubb’s boat with blood-shot, blinded eyes, the white
brine caking in his wrinkles; the long tension of Ahab’s bodily
strength did crack, and helplessly he yielded to his body’s doom: for a
time, lying all crushed in the bottom of Stubb’s boat, like one trodden
under foot of herds of elephants. Far inland, nameless wails came from
him, as desolate sounds from out ravines.

But this intensity of his physical prostration did but so much the more
abbreviate it. In an instant’s compass, great hearts sometimes condense
to one deep pang, the sum total of those shallow pains kindly diffused
through feebler men’s whole lives. And so, such hearts, though summary
in each one suffering; still, if the gods decree it, in their life-time
aggregate a whole age of woe, wholly made up of instantaneous
intensities; for even in their pointless centres, those noble natures
contain the entire circumferences of inferior souls.

“The harpoon,” said Ahab, half way rising, and draggingly leaning on
one bended arm—“is it safe?”

“Aye, sir, for it was not darted; this is it,” said Stubb, showing it.

“Lay it before me;—any missing men?”

“One, two, three, four, five;—there were five oars, sir, and here are
five men.”

“That’s good.—Help me, man; I wish to stand. So, so, I see him! there!
there! going to leeward still; what a leaping spout!—Hands off from me!
The eternal sap runs up in Ahab’s bones again! Set the sail; out oars;
the helm!”

It is often the case that when a boat is stove, its crew, being picked
up by another boat, help to work that second boat; and the chase is
thus continued with what is called double-banked oars. It was thus now.
But the added power of the boat did not equal the added power of the
whale, for he seemed to have treble-banked his every fin; swimming with
a velocity which plainly showed, that if now, under these
circumstances, pushed on, the chase would prove an indefinitely
prolonged, if not a hopeless one; nor could any crew endure for so long
a period, such an unintermitted, intense straining at the oar; a thing
barely tolerable only in some one brief vicissitude. The ship itself,
then, as it sometimes happens, offered the most promising intermediate
means of overtaking the chase. Accordingly, the boats now made for her,
and were soon swayed up to their cranes—the two parts of the wrecked
boat having been previously secured by her—and then hoisting everything
to her side, and stacking her canvas high up, and sideways
outstretching it with stun-sails, like the double-jointed wings of an
albatross; the Pequod bore down in the leeward wake of Moby-Dick. At
the well known, methodic intervals, the whale’s glittering spout was
regularly announced from the manned mast-heads; and when he would be
reported as just gone down, Ahab would take the time, and then pacing
the deck, binnacle-watch in hand, so soon as the last second of the
allotted hour expired, his voice was heard.—“Whose is the doubloon now?
D’ye see him?” and if the reply was, No, sir! straightway he commanded
them to lift him to his perch. In this way the day wore on; Ahab, now
aloft and motionless; anon, unrestingly pacing the planks.

As he was thus walking, uttering no sound, except to hail the men
aloft, or to bid them hoist a sail still higher, or to spread one to a
still greater breadth—thus to and fro pacing, beneath his slouched hat,
at every turn he passed his own wrecked boat, which had been dropped
upon the quarter-deck, and lay there reversed; broken bow to shattered
stern. At last he paused before it; and as in an already over-clouded
sky fresh troops of clouds will sometimes sail across, so over the old
man’s face there now stole some such added gloom as this.

Stubb saw him pause; and perhaps intending, not vainly, though, to
evince his own unabated fortitude, and thus keep up a valiant place in
his Captain’s mind, he advanced, and eyeing the wreck exclaimed—“The
thistle the ass refused; it pricked his mouth too keenly, sir; ha! ha!”

“What soulless thing is this that laughs before a wreck? Man, man! did
I not know thee brave as fearless fire (and as mechanical) I could
swear thou wert a poltroon. Groan nor laugh should be heard before a
wreck.”

“Aye, sir,” said Starbuck drawing near, “’tis a solemn sight; an omen,
and an ill one.”

“Omen? omen?—the dictionary! If the gods think to speak outright to
man, they will honorably speak outright; not shake their heads, and
give an old wives’ darkling hint.—Begone! Ye two are the opposite poles
of one thing; Starbuck is Stubb reversed, and Stubb is Starbuck; and ye
two are all mankind; and Ahab stands alone among the millions of the
peopled earth, nor gods nor men his neighbors! Cold, cold—I shiver!—How
now? Aloft there! D’ye see him? Sing out for every spout, though he
spout ten times a second!”

The day was nearly done; only the hem of his golden robe was rustling.
Soon, it was almost dark, but the look-out men still remained unset.

“Can’t see the spout now, sir;—too dark”—cried a voice from the air.

“How heading when last seen?”

“As before, sir,—straight to leeward.”

“Good! he will travel slower now ’tis night. Down royals and
top-gallant stun-sails, Mr. Starbuck. We must not run over him before
morning; he’s making a passage now, and may heave-to a while. Helm
there! keep her full before the wind!—Aloft! come down!—Mr. Stubb, send
a fresh hand to the fore-mast head, and see it manned till
morning.”—Then advancing towards the doubloon in the main-mast—“Men,
this gold is mine, for I earned it; but I shall let it abide here till
the White Whale is dead; and then, whosoever of ye first raises him,
upon the day he shall be killed, this gold is that man’s; and if on
that day I shall again raise him, then, ten times its sum shall be
divided among all of ye! Away now!—the deck is thine, sir!”

And so saying, he placed himself half way within the scuttle, and
slouching his hat, stood there till dawn, except when at intervals
rousing himself to see how the night wore on.


CHAPTER 134. The Chase—Second Day.

At day-break, the three mast-heads were punctually manned afresh.

“D’ye see him?” cried Ahab after allowing a little space for the light
to spread.

“See nothing, sir.”

“Turn up all hands and make sail! he travels faster than I thought
for;—the top-gallant sails!—aye, they should have been kept on her all
night. But no matter—’tis but resting for the rush.”

Here be it said, that this pertinacious pursuit of one particular
whale, continued through day into night, and through night into day, is
a thing by no means unprecedented in the South sea fishery. For such is
the wonderful skill, prescience of experience, and invincible
confidence acquired by some great natural geniuses among the Nantucket
commanders; that from the simple observation of a whale when last
descried, they will, under certain given circumstances, pretty
accurately foretell both the direction in which he will continue to
swim for a time, while out of sight, as well as his probable rate of
progression during that period. And, in these cases, somewhat as a
pilot, when about losing sight of a coast, whose general trending he
well knows, and which he desires shortly to return to again, but at
some further point; like as this pilot stands by his compass, and takes
the precise bearing of the cape at present visible, in order the more
certainly to hit aright the remote, unseen headland, eventually to be
visited: so does the fisherman, at his compass, with the whale; for
after being chased, and diligently marked, through several hours of
daylight, then, when night obscures the fish, the creature’s future
wake through the darkness is almost as established to the sagacious
mind of the hunter, as the pilot’s coast is to him. So that to this
hunter’s wondrous skill, the proverbial evanescence of a thing writ in
water, a wake, is to all desired purposes well nigh as reliable as the
steadfast land. And as the mighty iron Leviathan of the modern railway
is so familiarly known in its every pace, that, with watches in their
hands, men time his rate as doctors that of a baby’s pulse; and lightly
say of it, the up train or the down train will reach such or such a
spot, at such or such an hour; even so, almost, there are occasions
when these Nantucketers time that other Leviathan of the deep,
according to the observed humor of his speed; and say to themselves, so
many hours hence this whale will have gone two hundred miles, will have
about reached this or that degree of latitude or longitude. But to
render this acuteness at all successful in the end, the wind and the
sea must be the whaleman’s allies; for of what present avail to the
becalmed or windbound mariner is the skill that assures him he is
exactly ninety-three leagues and a quarter from his port? Inferable
from these statements, are many collateral subtile matters touching the
chase of whales.

The ship tore on; leaving such a furrow in the sea as when a
cannon-ball, missent, becomes a plough-share and turns up the level
field.

“By salt and hemp!” cried Stubb, “but this swift motion of the deck
creeps up one’s legs and tingles at the heart. This ship and I are two
brave fellows!—Ha, ha! Some one take me up, and launch me, spine-wise,
on the sea,—for by live-oaks! my spine’s a keel. Ha, ha! we go the gait
that leaves no dust behind!”

“There she blows—she blows!—she blows!—right ahead!” was now the
mast-head cry.

“Aye, aye!” cried Stubb, “I knew it—ye can’t escape—blow on and split
your spout, O whale! the mad fiend himself is after ye! blow your
trump—blister your lungs!—Ahab will dam off your blood, as a miller
shuts his watergate upon the stream!”

And Stubb did but speak out for well nigh all that crew. The frenzies
of the chase had by this time worked them bubblingly up, like old wine
worked anew. Whatever pale fears and forebodings some of them might
have felt before; these were not only now kept out of sight through the
growing awe of Ahab, but they were broken up, and on all sides routed,
as timid prairie hares that scatter before the bounding bison. The hand
of Fate had snatched all their souls; and by the stirring perils of the
previous day; the rack of the past night’s suspense; the fixed,
unfearing, blind, reckless way in which their wild craft went plunging
towards its flying mark; by all these things, their hearts were bowled
along. The wind that made great bellies of their sails, and rushed the
vessel on by arms invisible as irresistible; this seemed the symbol of
that unseen agency which so enslaved them to the race.

They were one man, not thirty. For as the one ship that held them all;
though it was put together of all contrasting things—oak, and maple,
and pine wood; iron, and pitch, and hemp—yet all these ran into each
other in the one concrete hull, which shot on its way, both balanced
and directed by the long central keel; even so, all the individualities
of the crew, this man’s valor, that man’s fear; guilt and guiltiness,
all varieties were welded into oneness, and were all directed to that
fatal goal which Ahab their one lord and keel did point to.

The rigging lived. The mast-heads, like the tops of tall palms, were
outspreadingly tufted with arms and legs. Clinging to a spar with one
hand, some reached forth the other with impatient wavings; others,
shading their eyes from the vivid sunlight, sat far out on the rocking
yards; all the spars in full bearing of mortals, ready and ripe for
their fate. Ah! how they still strove through that infinite blueness to
seek out the thing that might destroy them!

“Why sing ye not out for him, if ye see him?” cried Ahab, when, after
the lapse of some minutes since the first cry, no more had been heard.
“Sway me up, men; ye have been deceived; not Moby Dick casts one odd
jet that way, and then disappears.”

It was even so; in their headlong eagerness, the men had mistaken some
other thing for the whale-spout, as the event itself soon proved; for
hardly had Ahab reached his perch; hardly was the rope belayed to its
pin on deck, when he struck the key-note to an orchestra, that made the
air vibrate as with the combined discharges of rifles. The triumphant
halloo of thirty buckskin lungs was heard, as—much nearer to the ship
than the place of the imaginary jet, less than a mile ahead—Moby Dick
bodily burst into view! For not by any calm and indolent spoutings; not
by the peaceable gush of that mystic fountain in his head, did the
White Whale now reveal his vicinity; but by the far more wondrous
phenomenon of breaching. Rising with his utmost velocity from the
furthest depths, the Sperm Whale thus booms his entire bulk into the
pure element of air, and piling up a mountain of dazzling foam, shows
his place to the distance of seven miles and more. In those moments,
the torn, enraged waves he shakes off, seem his mane; in some cases,
this breaching is his act of defiance.

“There she breaches! there she breaches!” was the cry, as in his
immeasurable bravadoes the White Whale tossed himself salmon-like to
Heaven. So suddenly seen in the blue plain of the sea, and relieved
against the still bluer margin of the sky, the spray that he raised,
for the moment, intolerably glittered and glared like a glacier; and
stood there gradually fading and fading away from its first sparkling
intensity, to the dim mistiness of an advancing shower in a vale.

“Aye, breach your last to the sun, Moby Dick!” cried Ahab, “thy hour
and thy harpoon are at hand!—Down! down all of ye, but one man at the
fore. The boats!—stand by!”

Unmindful of the tedious rope-ladders of the shrouds, the men, like
shooting stars, slid to the deck, by the isolated backstays and
halyards; while Ahab, less dartingly, but still rapidly was dropped
from his perch.

“Lower away,” he cried, so soon as he had reached his boat—a spare one,
rigged the afternoon previous. “Mr. Starbuck, the ship is thine—keep
away from the boats, but keep near them. Lower, all!”

As if to strike a quick terror into them, by this time being the first
assailant himself, Moby Dick had turned, and was now coming for the
three crews. Ahab’s boat was central; and cheering his men, he told
them he would take the whale head-and-head,—that is, pull straight up
to his forehead,—a not uncommon thing; for when within a certain limit,
such a course excludes the coming onset from the whale’s sidelong
vision. But ere that close limit was gained, and while yet all three
boats were plain as the ship’s three masts to his eye; the White Whale
churning himself into furious speed, almost in an instant as it were,
rushing among the boats with open jaws, and a lashing tail, offered
appalling battle on every side; and heedless of the irons darted at him
from every boat, seemed only intent on annihilating each separate plank
of which those boats were made. But skilfully manœuvred, incessantly
wheeling like trained chargers in the field; the boats for a while
eluded him; though, at times, but by a plank’s breadth; while all the
time, Ahab’s unearthly slogan tore every other cry but his to shreds.

But at last in his untraceable evolutions, the White Whale so crossed
and recrossed, and in a thousand ways entangled the slack of the three
lines now fast to him, that they foreshortened, and, of themselves,
warped the devoted boats towards the planted irons in him; though now
for a moment the whale drew aside a little, as if to rally for a more
tremendous charge. Seizing that opportunity, Ahab first paid out more
line: and then was rapidly hauling and jerking in upon it again—hoping
that way to disencumber it of some snarls—when lo!—a sight more savage
than the embattled teeth of sharks!

Caught and twisted—corkscrewed in the mazes of the line, loose harpoons
and lances, with all their bristling barbs and points, came flashing
and dripping up to the chocks in the bows of Ahab’s boat. Only one
thing could be done. Seizing the boat-knife, he critically reached
within—through—and then, without—the rays of steel; dragged in the line
beyond, passed it, inboard, to the bowsman, and then, twice sundering
the rope near the chocks—dropped the intercepted fagot of steel into
the sea; and was all fast again. That instant, the White Whale made a
sudden rush among the remaining tangles of the other lines; by so
doing, irresistibly dragged the more involved boats of Stubb and Flask
towards his flukes; dashed them together like two rolling husks on a
surf-beaten beach, and then, diving down into the sea, disappeared in a
boiling maelstrom, in which, for a space, the odorous cedar chips of
the wrecks danced round and round, like the grated nutmeg in a swiftly
stirred bowl of punch.

While the two crews were yet circling in the waters, reaching out after
the revolving line-tubs, oars, and other floating furniture, while
aslope little Flask bobbed up and down like an empty vial, twitching
his legs upwards to escape the dreaded jaws of sharks; and Stubb was
lustily singing out for some one to ladle him up; and while the old
man’s line—now parting—admitted of his pulling into the creamy pool to
rescue whom he could;—in that wild simultaneousness of a thousand
concreted perils,—Ahab’s yet unstricken boat seemed drawn up towards
Heaven by invisible wires,—as, arrow-like, shooting perpendicularly
from the sea, the White Whale dashed his broad forehead against its
bottom, and sent it, turning over and over, into the air; till it fell
again—gunwale downwards—and Ahab and his men struggled out from under
it, like seals from a sea-side cave.

The first uprising momentum of the whale—modifying its direction as he
struck the surface—involuntarily launched him along it, to a little
distance from the centre of the destruction he had made; and with his
back to it, he now lay for a moment slowly feeling with his flukes from
side to side; and whenever a stray oar, bit of plank, the least chip or
crumb of the boats touched his skin, his tail swiftly drew back, and
came sideways smiting the sea. But soon, as if satisfied that his work
for that time was done, he pushed his pleated forehead through the
ocean, and trailing after him the intertangled lines, continued his
leeward way at a traveller’s methodic pace.

As before, the attentive ship having descried the whole fight, again
came bearing down to the rescue, and dropping a boat, picked up the
floating mariners, tubs, oars, and whatever else could be caught at,
and safely landed them on her decks. Some sprained shoulders, wrists,
and ankles; livid contusions; wrenched harpoons and lances;
inextricable intricacies of rope; shattered oars and planks; all these
were there; but no fatal or even serious ill seemed to have befallen
any one. As with Fedallah the day before, so Ahab was now found grimly
clinging to his boat’s broken half, which afforded a comparatively easy
float; nor did it so exhaust him as the previous day’s mishap.

But when he was helped to the deck, all eyes were fastened upon him; as
instead of standing by himself he still half-hung upon the shoulder of
Starbuck, who had thus far been the foremost to assist him. His ivory
leg had been snapped off, leaving but one short sharp splinter.

“Aye, aye, Starbuck, ’tis sweet to lean sometimes, be the leaner who he
will; and would old Ahab had leaned oftener than he has.”

“The ferrule has not stood, sir,” said the carpenter, now coming up; “I
put good work into that leg.”

“But no bones broken, sir, I hope,” said Stubb with true concern.

“Aye! and all splintered to pieces, Stubb!—d’ye see it.—But even with a
broken bone, old Ahab is untouched; and I account no living bone of
mine one jot more me, than this dead one that’s lost. Nor white whale,
nor man, nor fiend, can so much as graze old Ahab in his own proper and
inaccessible being. Can any lead touch yonder floor, any mast scrape
yonder roof?—Aloft there! which way?”

“Dead to leeward, sir.”

“Up helm, then; pile on the sail again, ship keepers! down the rest of
the spare boats and rig them—Mr. Starbuck away, and muster the boat’s
crews.”

“Let me first help thee towards the bulwarks, sir.”

“Oh, oh, oh! how this splinter gores me now! Accursed fate! that the
unconquerable captain in the soul should have such a craven mate!”

“Sir?”

“My body, man, not thee. Give me something for a cane—there, that
shivered lance will do. Muster the men. Surely I have not seen him yet.
By heaven it cannot be!—missing?—quick! call them all.”

The old man’s hinted thought was true. Upon mustering the company, the
Parsee was not there.

“The Parsee!” cried Stubb—“he must have been caught in——”

“The black vomit wrench thee!—run all of ye above, alow, cabin,
forecastle—find him—not gone—not gone!”

But quickly they returned to him with the tidings that the Parsee was
nowhere to be found.

“Aye, sir,” said Stubb—“caught among the tangles of your line—I thought
I saw him dragging under.”

“_My_ line! _my_ line? Gone?—gone? What means that little word?—What
death-knell rings in it, that old Ahab shakes as if he were the belfry.
The harpoon, too!—toss over the litter there,—d’ye see it?—the forged
iron, men, the white whale’s—no, no, no,—blistered fool! this hand did
dart it!—’tis in the fish!—Aloft there! Keep him nailed—Quick!—all
hands to the rigging of the boats—collect the oars—harpooneers! the
irons, the irons!—hoist the royals higher—a pull on all the
sheets!—helm there! steady, steady for your life! I’ll ten times girdle
the unmeasured globe; yea and dive straight through it, but I’ll slay
him yet!”

“Great God! but for one single instant show thyself,” cried Starbuck;
“never, never wilt thou capture him, old man—In Jesus’ name no more of
this, that’s worse than devil’s madness. Two days chased; twice stove
to splinters; thy very leg once more snatched from under thee; thy evil
shadow gone—all good angels mobbing thee with warnings:—what more
wouldst thou have?—Shall we keep chasing this murderous fish till he
swamps the last man? Shall we be dragged by him to the bottom of the
sea? Shall we be towed by him to the infernal world? Oh, oh,—Impiety
and blasphemy to hunt him more!”

“Starbuck, of late I’ve felt strangely moved to thee; ever since that
hour we both saw—thou know’st what, in one another’s eyes. But in this
matter of the whale, be the front of thy face to me as the palm of this
hand—a lipless, unfeatured blank. Ahab is for ever Ahab, man. This
whole act’s immutably decreed. ’Twas rehearsed by thee and me a billion
years before this ocean rolled. Fool! I am the Fates’ lieutenant; I act
under orders. Look thou, underling! that thou obeyest mine.—Stand round
me, men. Ye see an old man cut down to the stump; leaning on a shivered
lance; propped up on a lonely foot. ’Tis Ahab—his body’s part; but
Ahab’s soul’s a centipede, that moves upon a hundred legs. I feel
strained, half stranded, as ropes that tow dismasted frigates in a
gale; and I may look so. But ere I break, ye’ll hear me crack; and till
ye hear _that_, know that Ahab’s hawser tows his purpose yet. Believe
ye, men, in the things called omens? Then laugh aloud, and cry encore!
For ere they drown, drowning things will twice rise to the surface;
then rise again, to sink for evermore. So with Moby Dick—two days he’s
floated—tomorrow will be the third. Aye, men, he’ll rise once more,—but
only to spout his last! D’ye feel brave men, brave?”

“As fearless fire,” cried Stubb.

“And as mechanical,” muttered Ahab. Then as the men went forward, he
muttered on: “The things called omens! And yesterday I talked the same
to Starbuck there, concerning my broken boat. Oh! how valiantly I seek
to drive out of others’ hearts what’s clinched so fast in mine!—The
Parsee—the Parsee!—gone, gone? and he was to go before:—but still was
to be seen again ere I could perish—How’s that?—There’s a riddle now
might baffle all the lawyers backed by the ghosts of the whole line of
judges:—like a hawk’s beak it pecks my brain. _I’ll_, _I’ll_ solve it,
though!”

When dusk descended, the whale was still in sight to leeward.

So once more the sail was shortened, and everything passed nearly as on
the previous night; only, the sound of hammers, and the hum of the
grindstone was heard till nearly daylight, as the men toiled by
lanterns in the complete and careful rigging of the spare boats and
sharpening their fresh weapons for the morrow. Meantime, of the broken
keel of Ahab’s wrecked craft the carpenter made him another leg; while
still as on the night before, slouched Ahab stood fixed within his
scuttle; his hid, heliotrope glance anticipatingly gone backward on its
dial; sat due eastward for the earliest sun.


CHAPTER 135. The Chase.—Third Day.

The morning of the third day dawned fair and fresh, and once more the
solitary night-man at the fore-mast-head was relieved by crowds of the
daylight look-outs, who dotted every mast and almost every spar.

“D’ye see him?” cried Ahab; but the whale was not yet in sight.

“In his infallible wake, though; but follow that wake, that’s all. Helm
there; steady, as thou goest, and hast been going. What a lovely day
again! were it a new-made world, and made for a summer-house to the
angels, and this morning the first of its throwing open to them, a
fairer day could not dawn upon that world. Here’s food for thought, had
Ahab time to think; but Ahab never thinks; he only feels, feels, feels;
_that’s_ tingling enough for mortal man! to think’s audacity. God only
has that right and privilege. Thinking is, or ought to be, a coolness
and a calmness; and our poor hearts throb, and our poor brains beat too
much for that. And yet, I’ve sometimes thought my brain was very
calm—frozen calm, this old skull cracks so, like a glass in which the
contents turned to ice, and shiver it. And still this hair is growing
now; this moment growing, and heat must breed it; but no, it’s like
that sort of common grass that will grow anywhere, between the earthy
clefts of Greenland ice or in Vesuvius lava. How the wild winds blow
it; they whip it about me as the torn shreds of split sails lash the
tossed ship they cling to. A vile wind that has no doubt blown ere this
through prison corridors and cells, and wards of hospitals, and
ventilated them, and now comes blowing hither as innocent as fleeces.
Out upon it!—it’s tainted. Were I the wind, I’d blow no more on such a
wicked, miserable world. I’d crawl somewhere to a cave, and slink
there. And yet, ’tis a noble and heroic thing, the wind! who ever
conquered it? In every fight it has the last and bitterest blow. Run
tilting at it, and you but run through it. Ha! a coward wind that
strikes stark naked men, but will not stand to receive a single blow.
Even Ahab is a braver thing—a nobler thing than _that_. Would now the
wind but had a body; but all the things that most exasperate and
outrage mortal man, all these things are bodiless, but only bodiless as
objects, not as agents. There’s a most special, a most cunning, oh, a
most malicious difference! And yet, I say again, and swear it now, that
there’s something all glorious and gracious in the wind. These warm
Trade Winds, at least, that in the clear heavens blow straight on, in
strong and steadfast, vigorous mildness; and veer not from their mark,
however the baser currents of the sea may turn and tack, and mightiest
Mississippies of the land swift and swerve about, uncertain where to go
at last. And by the eternal Poles! these same Trades that so directly
blow my good ship on; these Trades, or something like them—something so
unchangeable, and full as strong, blow my keeled soul along! To it!
Aloft there! What d’ye see?”

“Nothing, sir.”

“Nothing! and noon at hand! The doubloon goes a-begging! See the sun!
Aye, aye, it must be so. I’ve oversailed him. How, got the start? Aye,
he’s chasing _me_ now; not I, _him_—that’s bad; I might have known it,
too. Fool! the lines—the harpoons he’s towing. Aye, aye, I have run him
by last night. About! about! Come down, all of ye, but the regular look
outs! Man the braces!”

Steering as she had done, the wind had been somewhat on the Pequod’s
quarter, so that now being pointed in the reverse direction, the braced
ship sailed hard upon the breeze as she rechurned the cream in her own
white wake.

“Against the wind he now steers for the open jaw,” murmured Starbuck to
himself, as he coiled the new-hauled main-brace upon the rail. “God
keep us, but already my bones feel damp within me, and from the inside
wet my flesh. I misdoubt me that I disobey my God in obeying him!”

“Stand by to sway me up!” cried Ahab, advancing to the hempen basket.
“We should meet him soon.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” and straightway Starbuck did Ahab’s bidding, and once
more Ahab swung on high.

A whole hour now passed; gold-beaten out to ages. Time itself now held
long breaths with keen suspense. But at last, some three points off the
weather bow, Ahab descried the spout again, and instantly from the
three mast-heads three shrieks went up as if the tongues of fire had
voiced it.

“Forehead to forehead I meet thee, this third time, Moby Dick! On deck
there!—brace sharper up; crowd her into the wind’s eye. He’s too far
off to lower yet, Mr. Starbuck. The sails shake! Stand over that
helmsman with a top-maul! So, so; he travels fast, and I must down. But
let me have one more good round look aloft here at the sea; there’s
time for that. An old, old sight, and yet somehow so young; aye, and
not changed a wink since I first saw it, a boy, from the sand-hills of
Nantucket! The same!—the same!—the same to Noah as to me. There’s a
soft shower to leeward. Such lovely leewardings! They must lead
somewhere—to something else than common land, more palmy than the
palms. Leeward! the white whale goes that way; look to windward, then;
the better if the bitterer quarter. But good bye, good bye, old
mast-head! What’s this?—green? aye, tiny mosses in these warped cracks.
No such green weather stains on Ahab’s head! There’s the difference now
between man’s old age and matter’s. But aye, old mast, we both grow old
together; sound in our hulls, though, are we not, my ship? Aye, minus a
leg, that’s all. By heaven this dead wood has the better of my live
flesh every way. I can’t compare with it; and I’ve known some ships
made of dead trees outlast the lives of men made of the most vital
stuff of vital fathers. What’s that he said? he should still go before
me, my pilot; and yet to be seen again? But where? Will I have eyes at
the bottom of the sea, supposing I descend those endless stairs? and
all night I’ve been sailing from him, wherever he did sink to. Aye,
aye, like many more thou told’st direful truth as touching thyself, O
Parsee; but, Ahab, there thy shot fell short. Good-bye, mast-head—keep
a good eye upon the whale, the while I’m gone. We’ll talk to-morrow,
nay, to-night, when the white whale lies down there, tied by head and
tail.”

He gave the word; and still gazing round him, was steadily lowered
through the cloven blue air to the deck.

In due time the boats were lowered; but as standing in his shallop’s
stern, Ahab just hovered upon the point of the descent, he waved to the
mate,—who held one of the tackle-ropes on deck—and bade him pause.

“Starbuck!”

“Sir?”

“For the third time my soul’s ship starts upon this voyage, Starbuck.”

“Aye, sir, thou wilt have it so.”

“Some ships sail from their ports, and ever afterwards are missing,
Starbuck!”

“Truth, sir: saddest truth.”

“Some men die at ebb tide; some at low water; some at the full of the
flood;—and I feel now like a billow that’s all one crested comb,
Starbuck. I am old;—shake hands with me, man.”

Their hands met; their eyes fastened; Starbuck’s tears the glue.

“Oh, my captain, my captain!—noble heart—go not—go not!—see, it’s a
brave man that weeps; how great the agony of the persuasion then!”

“Lower away!”—cried Ahab, tossing the mate’s arm from him. “Stand by
the crew!”

In an instant the boat was pulling round close under the stern.

“The sharks! the sharks!” cried a voice from the low cabin-window
there; “O master, my master, come back!”

But Ahab heard nothing; for his own voice was high-lifted then; and the
boat leaped on.

Yet the voice spake true; for scarce had he pushed from the ship, when
numbers of sharks, seemingly rising from out the dark waters beneath
the hull, maliciously snapped at the blades of the oars, every time
they dipped in the water; and in this way accompanied the boat with
their bites. It is a thing not uncommonly happening to the whale-boats
in those swarming seas; the sharks at times apparently following them
in the same prescient way that vultures hover over the banners of
marching regiments in the east. But these were the first sharks that
had been observed by the Pequod since the White Whale had been first
descried; and whether it was that Ahab’s crew were all such
tiger-yellow barbarians, and therefore their flesh more musky to the
senses of the sharks—a matter sometimes well known to affect
them,—however it was, they seemed to follow that one boat without
molesting the others.

“Heart of wrought steel!” murmured Starbuck gazing over the side, and
following with his eyes the receding boat—“canst thou yet ring boldly
to that sight?—lowering thy keel among ravening sharks, and followed by
them, open-mouthed to the chase; and this the critical third day?—For
when three days flow together in one continuous intense pursuit; be
sure the first is the morning, the second the noon, and the third the
evening and the end of that thing—be that end what it may. Oh! my God!
what is this that shoots through me, and leaves me so deadly calm, yet
expectant,—fixed at the top of a shudder! Future things swim before me,
as in empty outlines and skeletons; all the past is somehow grown dim.
Mary, girl! thou fadest in pale glories behind me; boy! I seem to see
but thy eyes grown wondrous blue. Strangest problems of life seem
clearing; but clouds sweep between—Is my journey’s end coming? My legs
feel faint; like his who has footed it all day. Feel thy heart,—beats
it yet? Stir thyself, Starbuck!—stave it off—move, move! speak
aloud!—Mast-head there! See ye my boy’s hand on the hill?—Crazed;—aloft
there!—keep thy keenest eye upon the boats:—mark well the whale!—Ho!
again!—drive off that hawk! see! he pecks—he tears the vane”—pointing
to the red flag flying at the main-truck—“Ha! he soars away with
it!—Where’s the old man now? see’st thou that sight, oh Ahab!—shudder,
shudder!”

The boats had not gone very far, when by a signal from the mast-heads—a
downward pointed arm, Ahab knew that the whale had sounded; but
intending to be near him at the next rising, he held on his way a
little sideways from the vessel; the becharmed crew maintaining the
profoundest silence, as the head-beat waves hammered and hammered
against the opposing bow.

“Drive, drive in your nails, oh ye waves! to their uttermost heads
drive them in! ye but strike a thing without a lid; and no coffin and
no hearse can be mine:—and hemp only can kill me! Ha! ha!”

Suddenly the waters around them slowly swelled in broad circles; then
quickly upheaved, as if sideways sliding from a submerged berg of ice,
swiftly rising to the surface. A low rumbling sound was heard; a
subterraneous hum; and then all held their breaths; as bedraggled with
trailing ropes, and harpoons, and lances, a vast form shot lengthwise,
but obliquely from the sea. Shrouded in a thin drooping veil of mist,
it hovered for a moment in the rainbowed air; and then fell swamping
back into the deep. Crushed thirty feet upwards, the waters flashed for
an instant like heaps of fountains, then brokenly sank in a shower of
flakes, leaving the circling surface creamed like new milk round the
marble trunk of the whale.

“Give way!” cried Ahab to the oarsmen, and the boats darted forward to
the attack; but maddened by yesterday’s fresh irons that corroded in
him, Moby Dick seemed combinedly possessed by all the angels that fell
from heaven. The wide tiers of welded tendons overspreading his broad
white forehead, beneath the transparent skin, looked knitted together;
as head on, he came churning his tail among the boats; and once more
flailed them apart; spilling out the irons and lances from the two
mates’ boats, and dashing in one side of the upper part of their bows,
but leaving Ahab’s almost without a scar.

While Daggoo and Queequeg were stopping the strained planks; and as the
whale swimming out from them, turned, and showed one entire flank as he
shot by them again; at that moment a quick cry went up. Lashed round
and round to the fish’s back; pinioned in the turns upon turns in
which, during the past night, the whale had reeled the involutions of
the lines around him, the half torn body of the Parsee was seen; his
sable raiment frayed to shreds; his distended eyes turned full upon old
Ahab.

The harpoon dropped from his hand.

“Befooled, befooled!”—drawing in a long lean breath—“Aye, Parsee! I see
thee again.—Aye, and thou goest before; and this, _this_ then is the
hearse that thou didst promise. But I hold thee to the last letter of
thy word. Where is the second hearse? Away, mates, to the ship! those
boats are useless now; repair them if ye can in time, and return to me;
if not, Ahab is enough to die—Down, men! the first thing that but
offers to jump from this boat I stand in, that thing I harpoon. Ye are
not other men, but my arms and my legs; and so obey me.—Where’s the
whale? gone down again?”

But he looked too nigh the boat; for as if bent upon escaping with the
corpse he bore, and as if the particular place of the last encounter
had been but a stage in his leeward voyage, Moby Dick was now again
steadily swimming forward; and had almost passed the ship,—which thus
far had been sailing in the contrary direction to him, though for the
present her headway had been stopped. He seemed swimming with his
utmost velocity, and now only intent upon pursuing his own straight
path in the sea.

“Oh! Ahab,” cried Starbuck, “not too late is it, even now, the third
day, to desist. See! Moby Dick seeks thee not. It is thou, thou, that
madly seekest him!”

Setting sail to the rising wind, the lonely boat was swiftly impelled
to leeward, by both oars and canvas. And at last when Ahab was sliding
by the vessel, so near as plainly to distinguish Starbuck’s face as he
leaned over the rail, he hailed him to turn the vessel about, and
follow him, not too swiftly, at a judicious interval. Glancing upwards,
he saw Tashtego, Queequeg, and Daggoo, eagerly mounting to the three
mast-heads; while the oarsmen were rocking in the two staved boats
which had but just been hoisted to the side, and were busily at work in
repairing them. One after the other, through the port-holes, as he
sped, he also caught flying glimpses of Stubb and Flask, busying
themselves on deck among bundles of new irons and lances. As he saw all
this; as he heard the hammers in the broken boats; far other hammers
seemed driving a nail into his heart. But he rallied. And now marking
that the vane or flag was gone from the main-mast-head, he shouted to
Tashtego, who had just gained that perch, to descend again for another
flag, and a hammer and nails, and so nail it to the mast.

Whether fagged by the three days’ running chase, and the resistance to
his swimming in the knotted hamper he bore; or whether it was some
latent deceitfulness and malice in him: whichever was true, the White
Whale’s way now began to abate, as it seemed, from the boat so rapidly
nearing him once more; though indeed the whale’s last start had not
been so long a one as before. And still as Ahab glided over the waves
the unpitying sharks accompanied him; and so pertinaciously stuck to
the boat; and so continually bit at the plying oars, that the blades
became jagged and crunched, and left small splinters in the sea, at
almost every dip.

“Heed them not! those teeth but give new rowlocks to your oars. Pull
on! ’tis the better rest, the shark’s jaw than the yielding water.”

“But at every bite, sir, the thin blades grow smaller and smaller!”

“They will last long enough! pull on!—But who can tell”—he
muttered—“whether these sharks swim to feast on the whale or on
Ahab?—But pull on! Aye, all alive, now—we near him. The helm! take the
helm! let me pass,”—and so saying two of the oarsmen helped him forward
to the bows of the still flying boat.

At length as the craft was cast to one side, and ran ranging along with
the White Whale’s flank, he seemed strangely oblivious of its
advance—as the whale sometimes will—and Ahab was fairly within the
smoky mountain mist, which, thrown off from the whale’s spout, curled
round his great, Monadnock hump; he was even thus close to him; when,
with body arched back, and both arms lengthwise high-lifted to the
poise, he darted his fierce iron, and his far fiercer curse into the
hated whale. As both steel and curse sank to the socket, as if sucked
into a morass, Moby Dick sideways writhed; spasmodically rolled his
nigh flank against the bow, and, without staving a hole in it, so
suddenly canted the boat over, that had it not been for the elevated
part of the gunwale to which he then clung, Ahab would once more have
been tossed into the sea. As it was, three of the oarsmen—who foreknew
not the precise instant of the dart, and were therefore unprepared for
its effects—these were flung out; but so fell, that, in an instant two
of them clutched the gunwale again, and rising to its level on a
combing wave, hurled themselves bodily inboard again; the third man
helplessly dropping astern, but still afloat and swimming.

Almost simultaneously, with a mighty volition of ungraduated,
instantaneous swiftness, the White Whale darted through the weltering
sea. But when Ahab cried out to the steersman to take new turns with
the line, and hold it so; and commanded the crew to turn round on their
seats, and tow the boat up to the mark; the moment the treacherous line
felt that double strain and tug, it snapped in the empty air!

“What breaks in me? Some sinew cracks!—’tis whole again; oars! oars!
Burst in upon him!”

Hearing the tremendous rush of the sea-crashing boat, the whale wheeled
round to present his blank forehead at bay; but in that evolution,
catching sight of the nearing black hull of the ship; seemingly seeing
in it the source of all his persecutions; bethinking it—it may be—a
larger and nobler foe; of a sudden, he bore down upon its advancing
prow, smiting his jaws amid fiery showers of foam.

Ahab staggered; his hand smote his forehead. “I grow blind; hands!
stretch out before me that I may yet grope my way. Is’t night?”

“The whale! The ship!” cried the cringing oarsmen.

“Oars! oars! Slope downwards to thy depths, O sea, that ere it be for
ever too late, Ahab may slide this last, last time upon his mark! I
see: the ship! the ship! Dash on, my men! Will ye not save my ship?”

But as the oarsmen violently forced their boat through the
sledge-hammering seas, the before whale-smitten bow-ends of two planks
burst through, and in an instant almost, the temporarily disabled boat
lay nearly level with the waves; its half-wading, splashing crew,
trying hard to stop the gap and bale out the pouring water.

Meantime, for that one beholding instant, Tashtego’s mast-head hammer
remained suspended in his hand; and the red flag, half-wrapping him as
with a plaid, then streamed itself straight out from him, as his own
forward-flowing heart; while Starbuck and Stubb, standing upon the
bowsprit beneath, caught sight of the down-coming monster just as soon
as he.

“The whale, the whale! Up helm, up helm! Oh, all ye sweet powers of
air, now hug me close! Let not Starbuck die, if die he must, in a
woman’s fainting fit. Up helm, I say—ye fools, the jaw! the jaw! Is
this the end of all my bursting prayers? all my life-long fidelities?
Oh, Ahab, Ahab, lo, thy work. Steady! helmsman, steady. Nay, nay! Up
helm again! He turns to meet us! Oh, his unappeasable brow drives on
towards one, whose duty tells him he cannot depart. My God, stand by me
now!”

“Stand not by me, but stand under me, whoever you are that will now
help Stubb; for Stubb, too, sticks here. I grin at thee, thou grinning
whale! Who ever helped Stubb, or kept Stubb awake, but Stubb’s own
unwinking eye? And now poor Stubb goes to bed upon a mattrass that is
all too soft; would it were stuffed with brushwood! I grin at thee,
thou grinning whale! Look ye, sun, moon, and stars! I call ye assassins
of as good a fellow as ever spouted up his ghost. For all that, I would
yet ring glasses with ye, would ye but hand the cup! Oh, oh! oh, oh!
thou grinning whale, but there’ll be plenty of gulping soon! Why fly ye
not, O Ahab! For me, off shoes and jacket to it; let Stubb die in his
drawers! A most mouldy and over salted death, though;—cherries!
cherries! cherries! Oh, Flask, for one red cherry ere we die!”

“Cherries? I only wish that we were where they grow. Oh, Stubb, I hope
my poor mother’s drawn my part-pay ere this; if not, few coppers will
now come to her, for the voyage is up.”

From the ship’s bows, nearly all the seamen now hung inactive; hammers,
bits of plank, lances, and harpoons, mechanically retained in their
hands, just as they had darted from their various employments; all
their enchanted eyes intent upon the whale, which from side to side
strangely vibrating his predestinating head, sent a broad band of
overspreading semicircular foam before him as he rushed. Retribution,
swift vengeance, eternal malice were in his whole aspect, and spite of
all that mortal man could do, the solid white buttress of his forehead
smote the ship’s starboard bow, till men and timbers reeled. Some fell
flat upon their faces. Like dislodged trucks, the heads of the
harpooneers aloft shook on their bull-like necks. Through the breach,
they heard the waters pour, as mountain torrents down a flume.

“The ship! The hearse!—the second hearse!” cried Ahab from the boat;
“its wood could only be American!”

Diving beneath the settling ship, the whale ran quivering along its
keel; but turning under water, swiftly shot to the surface again, far
off the other bow, but within a few yards of Ahab’s boat, where, for a
time, he lay quiescent.

“I turn my body from the sun. What ho, Tashtego! let me hear thy
hammer. Oh! ye three unsurrendered spires of mine; thou uncracked keel;
and only god-bullied hull; thou firm deck, and haughty helm, and
Pole-pointed prow,—death-glorious ship! must ye then perish, and
without me? Am I cut off from the last fond pride of meanest
shipwrecked captains? Oh, lonely death on lonely life! Oh, now I feel
my topmost greatness lies in my topmost grief. Ho, ho! from all your
furthest bounds, pour ye now in, ye bold billows of my whole foregone
life, and top this one piled comber of my death! Towards thee I roll,
thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with
thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last
breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool!
and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still
chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned whale! _Thus_, I give up
the spear!”

The harpoon was darted; the stricken whale flew forward; with igniting
velocity the line ran through the grooves;—ran foul. Ahab stooped to
clear it; he did clear it; but the flying turn caught him round the
neck, and voicelessly as Turkish mutes bowstring their victim, he was
shot out of the boat, ere the crew knew he was gone. Next instant, the
heavy eye-splice in the rope’s final end flew out of the stark-empty
tub, knocked down an oarsman, and smiting the sea, disappeared in its
depths.

For an instant, the tranced boat’s crew stood still; then turned. “The
ship? Great God, where is the ship?” Soon they through dim, bewildering
mediums saw her sidelong fading phantom, as in the gaseous Fata
Morgana; only the uppermost masts out of water; while fixed by
infatuation, or fidelity, or fate, to their once lofty perches, the
pagan harpooneers still maintained their sinking lookouts on the sea.
And now, concentric circles seized the lone boat itself, and all its
crew, and each floating oar, and every lance-pole, and spinning,
animate and inanimate, all round and round in one vortex, carried the
smallest chip of the Pequod out of sight.

But as the last whelmings intermixingly poured themselves over the
sunken head of the Indian at the mainmast, leaving a few inches of the
erect spar yet visible, together with long streaming yards of the flag,
which calmly undulated, with ironical coincidings, over the destroying
billows they almost touched;—at that instant, a red arm and a hammer
hovered backwardly uplifted in the open air, in the act of nailing the
flag faster and yet faster to the subsiding spar. A sky-hawk that
tauntingly had followed the main-truck downwards from its natural home
among the stars, pecking at the flag, and incommoding Tashtego there;
this bird now chanced to intercept its broad fluttering wing between
the hammer and the wood; and simultaneously feeling that etherial
thrill, the submerged savage beneath, in his death-gasp, kept his
hammer frozen there; and so the bird of heaven, with archangelic
shrieks, and his imperial beak thrust upwards, and his whole captive
form folded in the flag of Ahab, went down with his ship, which, like
Satan, would not sink to hell till she had dragged a living part of
heaven along with her, and helmeted herself with it.

Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf; a sullen
white surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed, and the
great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago.


Epilogue

“AND I ONLY AM ESCAPED ALONE TO TELL THEE” Job.

The drama’s done. Why then here does any one step forth?—Because one
did survive the wreck.

It so chanced, that after the Parsee’s disappearance, I was he whom the
Fates ordained to take the place of Ahab’s bowsman, when that bowsman
assumed the vacant post; the same, who, when on the last day the three
men were tossed from out of the rocking boat, was dropped astern. So,
floating on the margin of the ensuing scene, and in full sight of it,
when the halfspent suction of the sunk ship reached me, I was then, but
slowly, drawn towards the closing vortex. When I reached it, it had
subsided to a creamy pool. Round and round, then, and ever contracting
towards the button-like black bubble at the axis of that slowly
wheeling circle, like another Ixion I did revolve. Till, gaining that
vital centre, the black bubble upward burst; and now, liberated by
reason of its cunning spring, and, owing to its great buoyancy, rising
with great force, the coffin life-buoy shot lengthwise from the sea,
fell over, and floated by my side. Buoyed up by that coffin, for almost
one whole day and night, I floated on a soft and dirgelike main. The
unharming sharks, they glided by as if with padlocks on their mouths;
the savage sea-hawks sailed with sheathed beaks. On the second day, a
sail drew near, nearer, and picked me up at last. It was the
devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing
children, only found another orphan.










cover 



The Mysteries of Udolpho

 A Romance 

 Interspersed With Some Pieces of Poetry 

 By Ann Radcliffe



Contents


 VOLUME I
 CHAPTER I
 CHAPTER II
 CHAPTER III
 CHAPTER IV
 CHAPTER V
 CHAPTER VI
 CHAPTER VII
 CHAPTER VIII
 CHAPTER IX
 CHAPTER X
 CHAPTER XI
 CHAPTER XII
 CHAPTER XIII

 VOLUME II
 CHAPTER I
 CHAPTER II
 CHAPTER III
 CHAPTER IV
 CHAPTER V
 CHAPTER VI
 CHAPTER VII
 CHAPTER VIII
 CHAPTER IX
 CHAPTER X
 CHAPTER XI
 CHAPTER XII

 VOLUME III
 CHAPTER I
 CHAPTER II
 CHAPTER III
 CHAPTER IV
 CHAPTER V
 CHAPTER VI
 CHAPTER VII
 CHAPTER VIII
 CHAPTER IX
 CHAPTER X
 CHAPTER XI
 CHAPTER XII
 CHAPTER XIII

 VOLUME IV
 CHAPTER I
 CHAPTER II
 CHAPTER III
 CHAPTER IV
 CHAPTER V
 CHAPTER VI
 CHAPTER VII
 CHAPTER VIII
 CHAPTER IX
 CHAPTER X
 CHAPTER XI
 CHAPTER XII
 CHAPTER XIII
 CHAPTER XIV
 CHAPTER XV
 CHAPTER XVI
 CHAPTER XVII
 CHAPTER XVIII
 CHAPTER XIX



Fate sits on these dark battlements, and frowns,
And, as the portals open to receive me,
Her voice, in sullen echoes through the courts,
Tells of a nameless deed.




VOLUME 1



CHAPTER I

home is the resort
Of love, of joy, of peace and plenty, where,
Supporting and supported, polish’d friends
And dear relations mingle into bliss.
                    THOMSON


On the pleasant banks of the Garonne, in the province of Gascony,
stood, in the year 1584, the château of Monsieur St. Aubert. From its
windows were seen the pastoral landscapes of Guienne and Gascony
stretching along the river, gay with luxuriant woods and vine, and
plantations of olives. To the south, the view was bounded by the
majestic Pyrenees, whose summits, veiled in clouds, or exhibiting awful
forms, seen, and lost again, as the partial vapours rolled along, were
sometimes barren, and gleamed through the blue tinge of air, and
sometimes frowned with forests of gloomy pine, that swept downward to
their base. These tremendous precipices were contrasted by the soft
green of the pastures and woods that hung upon their skirts; among
whose flocks, and herds, and simple cottages, the eye, after having
scaled the cliffs above, delighted to repose. To the north, and to the
east, the plains of Guienne and Languedoc were lost in the mist of
distance; on the west, Gascony was bounded by the waters of Biscay.

M. St. Aubert loved to wander, with his wife and daughter, on the
margin of the Garonne, and to listen to the music that floated on its
waves. He had known life in other forms than those of pastoral
simplicity, having mingled in the gay and in the busy scenes of the
world; but the flattering portrait of mankind, which his heart had
delineated in early youth, his experience had too sorrowfully
corrected. Yet, amidst the changing visions of life, his principles
remained unshaken, his benevolence unchilled; and he retired from the
multitude “more in _pity_ than in anger,” to scenes of simple nature,
to the pure delights of literature, and to the exercise of domestic
virtues.

He was a descendant from the younger branch of an illustrious family,
and it was designed, that the deficiency of his patrimonial wealth
should be supplied either by a splendid alliance in marriage, or by
success in the intrigues of public affairs. But St. Aubert had too nice
a sense of honour to fulfil the latter hope, and too small a portion of
ambition to sacrifice what he called happiness, to the attainment of
wealth. After the death of his father he married a very amiable woman,
his equal in birth, and not his superior in fortune. The late Monsieur
St. Aubert’s liberality, or extravagance, had so much involved his
affairs, that his son found it necessary to dispose of a part of the
family domain, and, some years after his marriage, he sold it to
Monsieur Quesnel, the brother of his wife, and retired to a small
estate in Gascony, where conjugal felicity, and parental duties,
divided his attention with the treasures of knowledge and the
illuminations of genius.

To this spot he had been attached from his infancy. He had often made
excursions to it when a boy, and the impressions of delight given to
his mind by the homely kindness of the grey-headed peasant, to whom it
was intrusted, and whose fruit and cream never failed, had not been
obliterated by succeeding circumstances. The green pastures along which
he had so often bounded in the exultation of health, and youthful
freedom—the woods, under whose refreshing shade he had first indulged
that pensive melancholy, which afterwards made a strong feature of his
character—the wild walks of the mountains, the river, on whose waves he
had floated, and the distant plains, which seemed boundless as his
early hopes—were never after remembered by St. Aubert but with
enthusiasm and regret. At length he disengaged himself from the world,
and retired hither, to realise the wishes of many years.

The building, as it then stood, was merely a summer cottage, rendered
interesting to a stranger by its neat simplicity, or the beauty of the
surrounding scene; and considerable additions were necessary to make it
a comfortable family residence. St. Aubert felt a kind of affection for
every part of the fabric, which he remembered in his youth, and would
not suffer a stone of it to be removed, so that the new building,
adapted to the style of the old one, formed with it only a simple and
elegant residence. The taste of Madame St. Aubert was conspicuous in
its internal finishing, where the same chaste simplicity was observable
in the furniture, and in the few ornaments of the apartments, that
characterised the manners of its inhabitants.

The library occupied the west side of the château, and was enriched by
a collection of the best books in the ancient and modern languages.
This room opened upon a grove, which stood on the brow of a gentle
declivity, that fell towards the river, and the tall trees gave it a
melancholy and pleasing shade; while from the windows the eye caught,
beneath the spreading branches, the gay and luxuriant landscape
stretching to the west, and overlooked on the left by the bold
precipices of the Pyrenees. Adjoining the library was a green-house,
stored with scarce and beautiful plants; for one of the amusements of
St. Aubert was the study of botany, and among the neighbouring
mountains, which afforded a luxurious feast to the mind of the
naturalist, he often passed the day in the pursuit of his favourite
science. He was sometimes accompanied in these little excursions by
Madame St. Aubert, and frequently by his daughter; when, with a small
osier basket to receive plants, and another filled with cold
refreshments, such as the cabin of the shepherd did not afford, they
wandered away among the most romantic and magnificent scenes, nor
suffered the charms of Nature’s lowly children to abstract them from
the observance of her stupendous works. When weary of sauntering among
cliffs that seemed scarcely accessible but to the steps of the
enthusiast, and where no track appeared on the vegetation, but what the
foot of the izard had left; they would seek one of those green
recesses, which so beautifully adorn the bosom of these mountains,
where, under the shade of the lofty larch, or cedar, they enjoyed their
simple repast, made sweeter by the waters of the cool stream, that
crept along the turf, and by the breath of wild flowers and aromatic
plants, that fringed the rocks, and inlaid the grass.

Adjoining the eastern side of the green-house, looking towards the
plains of Languedoc, was a room, which Emily called hers, and which
contained her books, her drawings, her musical instruments, with some
favourite birds and plants. Here she usually exercised herself in
elegant arts, cultivated only because they were congenial to her taste,
and in which native genius, assisted by the instructions of Monsieur
and Madame St. Aubert, made her an early proficient. The windows of
this room were particularly pleasant; they descended to the floor, and,
opening upon the little lawn that surrounded the house, the eye was led
between groves of almond, palm-trees, flowering-ash, and myrtle, to the
distant landscape, where the Garonne wandered.

The peasants of this gay climate were often seen on an evening, when
the day’s labour was done, dancing in groups on the margin of the
river. Their sprightly melodies, _debonnaire_ steps, the fanciful
figure of their dances, with the tasteful and capricious manner in
which the girls adjusted their simple dress, gave a character to the
scene entirely French.

The front of the château, which, having a southern aspect, opened upon
the grandeur of the mountains, was occupied on the ground floor by a
rustic hall, and two excellent sitting rooms. The first floor, for the
cottage had no second story, was laid out in bed-chambers, except one
apartment that opened to a balcony, and which was generally used for a
breakfast-room.

In the surrounding ground, St. Aubert had made very tasteful
improvements; yet, such was his attachment to objects he had remembered
from his boyish days, that he had in some instances sacrificed taste to
sentiment. There were two old larches that shaded the building, and
interrupted the prospect; St. Aubert had sometimes declared that he
believed he should have been weak enough to have wept at their fall. In
addition to these larches he planted a little grove of beech, pine, and
mountain-ash. On a lofty terrace, formed by the swelling bank of the
river, rose a plantation of orange, lemon, and palm-trees, whose fruit,
in the coolness of evening, breathed delicious fragrance. With these
were mingled a few trees of other species. Here, under the ample shade
of a plane-tree, that spread its majestic canopy towards the river, St.
Aubert loved to sit in the fine evenings of summer, with his wife and
children, watching, beneath its foliage, the setting sun, the mild
splendour of its light fading from the distant landscape, till the
shadows of twilight melted its various features into one tint of sober
grey. Here, too, he loved to read, and to converse with Madame St.
Aubert; or to play with his children, resigning himself to the
influence of those sweet affections, which are ever attendant on
simplicity and nature. He has often said, while tears of pleasure
trembled in his eyes, that these were moments infinitely more
delightful than any passed amid the brilliant and tumultuous scenes
that are courted by the world. His heart was occupied; it had, what can
be so rarely said, no wish for a happiness beyond what it experienced.
The consciousness of acting right diffused a serenity over his manners,
which nothing else could impart to a man of moral perceptions like his,
and which refined his sense of every surrounding blessing.

The deepest shade of twilight did not send him from his favourite
plane-tree. He loved the soothing hour, when the last tints of light
die away; when the stars, one by one, tremble through æther, and are
reflected on the dark mirror of the waters; that hour, which, of all
others, inspires the mind with pensive tenderness, and often elevates
it to sublime contemplation. When the moon shed her soft rays among the
foliage, he still lingered, and his pastoral supper of cream and fruits
was often spread beneath it. Then, on the stillness of night, came the
song of the nightingale, breathing sweetness, and awakening melancholy.

The first interruptions to the happiness he had known since his
retirement, were occasioned by the death of his two sons. He lost them
at that age when infantine simplicity is so fascinating; and though, in
consideration of Madame St. Aubert’s distress, he restrained the
expression of his own, and endeavoured to bear it, as he meant, with
philosophy, he had, in truth, no philosophy that could render him calm
to such losses. One daughter was now his only surviving child; and,
while he watched the unfolding of her infant character, with anxious
fondness, he endeavoured, with unremitting effort, to counteract those
traits in her disposition, which might hereafter lead her from
happiness. She had discovered in her early years uncommon delicacy of
mind, warm affections, and ready benevolence; but with these was
observable a degree of susceptibility too exquisite to admit of lasting
peace. As she advanced in youth, this sensibility gave a pensive tone
to her spirits, and a softness to her manner, which added grace to
beauty, and rendered her a very interesting object to persons of a
congenial disposition. But St. Aubert had too much good sense to prefer
a charm to a virtue; and had penetration enough to see, that this charm
was too dangerous to its possessor to be allowed the character of a
blessing. He endeavoured, therefore, to strengthen her mind; to enure
her to habits of self-command; to teach her to reject the first impulse
of her feelings, and to look, with cool examination, upon the
disappointments he sometimes threw in her way. While he instructed her
to resist first impressions, and to acquire that steady dignity of
mind, that can alone counterbalance the passions, and bear us, as far
as is compatible with our nature, above the reach of circumstances, he
taught himself a lesson of fortitude; for he was often obliged to
witness, with seeming indifference, the tears and struggles which his
caution occasioned her.

In person, Emily resembled her mother; having the same elegant symmetry
of form, the same delicacy of features, and the same blue eyes, full of
tender sweetness. But, lovely as was her person, it was the varied
expression of her countenance, as conversation awakened the nicer
emotions of her mind, that threw such a captivating grace around her:

Those tend’rer tints, that shun the careless eye,
And, in the world’s contagious circle, die.


St. Aubert cultivated her understanding with the most scrupulous care.
He gave her a general view of the sciences, and an exact acquaintance
with every part of elegant literature. He taught her Latin and English,
chiefly that she might understand the sublimity of their best poets.
She discovered in her early years a taste for works of genius; and it
was St. Aubert’s principle, as well as his inclination, to promote
every innocent means of happiness. “A well-informed mind,” he would
say, “is the best security against the contagion of folly and of vice.
The vacant mind is ever on the watch for relief, and ready to plunge
into error, to escape from the languor of idleness. Store it with
ideas, teach it the pleasure of thinking; and the temptations of the
world without, will be counteracted by the gratifications derived from
the world within. Thought, and cultivation, are necessary equally to
the happiness of a country and a city life; in the first they prevent
the uneasy sensations of indolence, and afford a sublime pleasure in
the taste they create for the beautiful, and the grand; in the latter,
they make dissipation less an object of necessity, and consequently of
interest.”

It was one of Emily’s earliest pleasures to ramble among the scenes of
nature; nor was it in the soft and glowing landscape that she most
delighted; she loved more the wild wood-walks, that skirted the
mountain; and still more the mountain’s stupendous recesses, where the
silence and grandeur of solitude impressed a sacred awe upon her heart,
and lifted her thoughts to the GOD OF HEAVEN AND EARTH. In scenes like
these she would often linger along, wrapt in a melancholy charm, till
the last gleam of day faded from the west; till the lonely sound of a
sheep-bell, or the distant bark of a watch-dog, were all that broke on
the stillness of the evening. Then, the gloom of the woods; the
trembling of their leaves, at intervals, in the breeze; the bat,
flitting on the twilight; the cottage-lights, now seen, and now
lost—were circumstances that awakened her mind into effort, and led to
enthusiasm and poetry.

Her favourite walk was to a little fishing-house, belonging to St.
Aubert, in a woody glen, on the margin of a rivulet that descended from
the Pyrenees, and, after foaming among their rocks, wound its silent
way beneath the shades it reflected. Above the woods, that screened
this glen, rose the lofty summits of the Pyrenees, which often burst
boldly on the eye through the glades below. Sometimes the shattered
face of a rock only was seen, crowned with wild shrubs; or a shepherd’s
cabin seated on a cliff, overshadowed by dark cypress, or waving ash.
Emerging from the deep recesses of the woods, the glade opened to the
distant landscape, where the rich pastures and vine-covered slopes of
Gascony gradually declined to the plains; and there, on the winding
shores of the Garonne, groves, and hamlets, and villas—their outlines
softened by distance, melted from the eye into one rich harmonious
tint.

This, too, was the favourite retreat of St. Aubert, to which he
frequently withdrew from the fervour of noon, with his wife, his
daughter, and his books; or came at the sweet evening hour to welcome
the silent dusk, or to listen for the music of the nightingale.
Sometimes, too, he brought music of his own, and awakened every fairy
echo with the tender accents of his oboe; and often have the tones of
Emily’s voice drawn sweetness from the waves, over which they trembled.

It was in one of these excursions to this spot, that she observed the
following lines written with a pencil on a part of the wainscot:

SONNET

Go, pencil! faithful to thy master’s sighs!
Go—tell the Goddess of the fairy scene,
When next her light steps wind these wood-walks green,
Whence all his tears, his tender sorrows, rise;
Ah! paint her form, her soul-illumin’d eyes,
The sweet expression of her pensive face,
The light’ning smile, the animated grace—
The portrait well the lover’s voice supplies;
Speaks all his heart must feel, his tongue would say:
Yet ah! not all his heart must sadly feel!
How oft the flow’ret’s silken leaves conceal
The drug that steals the vital spark away!
And who that gazes on that angel-smile,
Would fear its charm, or think it could beguile!


These lines were not inscribed to any person; Emily therefore could not
apply them to herself, though she was undoubtedly the nymph of these
shades. Having glanced round the little circle of her acquaintance
without being detained by a suspicion as to whom they could be
addressed, she was compelled to rest in uncertainty; an uncertainty
which would have been more painful to an idle mind than it was to hers.
She had no leisure to suffer this circumstance, trifling at first, to
swell into importance by frequent remembrance. The little vanity it had
excited (for the incertitude which forbade her to presume upon having
inspired the sonnet, forbade her also to disbelieve it) passed away,
and the incident was dismissed from her thoughts amid her books, her
studies, and the exercise of social charities.

Soon after this period, her anxiety was awakened by the indisposition
of her father, who was attacked with a fever; which, though not thought
to be of a dangerous kind, gave a severe shock to his constitution.
Madame St. Aubert and Emily attended him with unremitting care; but his
recovery was very slow, and, as he advanced towards health, Madame
seemed to decline.

The first scene he visited, after he was well enough to take the air,
was his favourite fishing-house. A basket of provisions was sent
thither, with books, and Emily’s lute; for fishing-tackle he had no
use, for he never could find amusement in torturing or destroying.

After employing himself, for about an hour, in botanizing, dinner was
served. It was a repast, to which gratitude, for being again permitted
to visit this spot, gave sweetness; and family happiness once more
smiled beneath these shades. Monsieur St. Aubert conversed with unusual
cheerfulness; every object delighted his senses. The refreshing
pleasure from the first view of nature, after the pain of illness, and
the confinement of a sick-chamber, is above the conceptions, as well as
the descriptions, of those in health. The green woods and pastures; the
flowery turf; the blue concave of the heavens; the balmy air; the
murmur of the limpid stream; and even the hum of every little insect of
the shade, seem to revivify the soul, and make mere existence bliss.

Madame St. Aubert, reanimated by the cheerfulness and recovery of her
husband, was no longer sensible of the indisposition which had lately
oppressed her; and, as she sauntered along the wood-walks of this
romantic glen, and conversed with him, and with her daughter, she often
looked at them alternately with a degree of tenderness, that filled her
eyes with tears. St. Aubert observed this more than once, and gently
reproved her for the emotion; but she could only smile, clasp his hand,
and that of Emily, and weep the more. He felt the tender enthusiasm
stealing upon himself in a degree that became almost painful; his
features assumed a serious air, and he could not forbear secretly
sighing—“Perhaps I shall some time look back to these moments, as to
the summit of my happiness, with hopeless regret. But let me not misuse
them by useless anticipation; let me hope I shall not live to mourn the
loss of those who are dearer to me than life.”

To relieve, or perhaps to indulge, the pensive temper of his mind, he
bade Emily fetch the lute she knew how to touch with such sweet pathos.
As she drew near the fishing-house, she was surprised to hear the tones
of the instrument, which were awakened by the hand of taste, and
uttered a plaintive air, whose exquisite melody engaged all her
attention. She listened in profound silence, afraid to move from the
spot, lest the sound of her steps should occasion her to lose a note of
the music, or should disturb the musician. Everything without the
building was still, and no person appeared. She continued to listen,
till timidity succeeded to surprise and delight; a timidity, increased
by a remembrance of the pencilled lines she had formerly seen, and she
hesitated whether to proceed, or to return.

While she paused, the music ceased; and, after a momentary hesitation,
she recollected courage to advance to the fishing-house, which she
entered with faltering steps, and found unoccupied! Her lute lay on the
table; everything seemed undisturbed, and she began to believe it was
another instrument she had heard, till she remembered, that, when she
followed M. and Madame St. Aubert from this spot, her lute was left on
a window seat. She felt alarmed, yet knew not wherefore; the melancholy
gloom of evening, and the profound stillness of the place, interrupted
only by the light trembling of leaves, heightened her fanciful
apprehensions, and she was desirous of quitting the building, but
perceived herself grow faint, and sat down. As she tried to recover
herself, the pencilled lines on the wainscot met her eye; she started,
as if she had seen a stranger; but, endeavouring to conquer the tremor
of her spirits, rose, and went to the window. To the lines before
noticed she now perceived that others were added, in which her name
appeared.

Though no longer suffered to doubt that they were addressed to herself,
she was as ignorant, as before, by whom they could be written. While
she mused, she thought she heard the sound of a step without the
building, and again alarmed, she caught up her lute, and hurried away.
Monsieur and Madame St. Aubert she found in a little path that wound
along the sides of the glen.

Having reached a green summit, shadowed by palm-trees, and overlooking
the valleys and plains of Gascony, they seated themselves on the turf;
and while their eyes wandered over the glorious scene, and they inhaled
the sweet breath of flowers and herbs that enriched the grass, Emily
played and sung several of their favourite airs, with the delicacy of
expression in which she so much excelled.

Music and conversation detained them in this enchanting spot, till the
sun’s last light slept upon the plains; till the white sails that
glided beneath the mountains, where the Garonne wandered, became dim,
and the gloom of evening stole over the landscape. It was a melancholy
but not unpleasing gloom. St. Aubert and his family rose, and left the
place with regret; alas! Madame St. Aubert knew not that she left it
for ever.

When they reached the fishing-house she missed her bracelet, and
recollected that she had taken it from her arm after dinner, and had
left it on the table when she went to walk. After a long search, in
which Emily was very active, she was compelled to resign herself to the
loss of it. What made this bracelet valuable to her was a miniature of
her daughter to which it was attached, esteemed a striking resemblance,
and which had been painted only a few months before. When Emily was
convinced that the bracelet was really gone, she blushed, and became
thoughtful. That some stranger had been in the fishing-house, during
her absence, her lute, and the additional lines of a pencil, had
already informed her: from the purport of these lines it was not
unreasonable to believe, that the poet, the musician, and the thief
were the same person. But though the music she had heard, the written
lines she had seen, and the disappearance of the picture, formed a
combination of circumstances very remarkable, she was irresistibly
restrained from mentioning them; secretly determining, however, never
again to visit the fishing-house without Monsieur or Madame St. Aubert.

They returned pensively to the château, Emily musing on the incident
which had just occurred; St. Aubert reflecting, with placid gratitude,
on the blessings he possessed; and Madame St. Aubert somewhat
disturbed, and perplexed, by the loss of her daughter’s picture. As
they drew near the house, they observed an unusual bustle about it; the
sound of voices was distinctly heard, servants and horses were seen
passing between the trees, and, at length, the wheels of a carriage
rolled along. Having come within view of the front of the château, a
landau, with smoking horses, appeared on the little lawn before it. St.
Aubert perceived the liveries of his brother-in-law, and in the parlour
he found Monsieur and Madame Quesnel already entered. They had left
Paris some days before, and were on the way to their estate, only ten
leagues distant from La Vallée, and which Monsieur Quesnel had
purchased several years before of St. Aubert. This gentleman was the
only brother of Madame St. Aubert; but the ties of relationship having
never been strengthened by congeniality of character, the intercourse
between them had not been frequent. M. Quesnel had lived altogether in
the world; his aim had been consequence; splendour was the object of
his taste; and his address and knowledge of character had carried him
forward to the attainment of almost all that he had courted. By a man
of such a disposition, it is not surprising that the virtues of St.
Aubert should be overlooked; or that his pure taste, simplicity, and
moderated wishes, were considered as marks of a weak intellect, and of
confined views. The marriage of his sister with St. Aubert had been
mortifying to his ambition, for he had designed that the matrimonial
connection she formed should assist him to attain the consequence which
he so much desired; and some offers were made her by persons whose rank
and fortune flattered his warmest hope. But his sister, who was then
addressed also by St. Aubert, perceived, or thought she perceived, that
happiness and splendour were not the same, and she did not hesitate to
forego the last for the attainment of the former. Whether Monsieur
Quesnel thought them the same, or not, he would readily have sacrificed
his sister’s peace to the gratification of his own ambition; and, on
her marriage with St. Aubert, expressed in private his contempt of her
spiritless conduct, and of the connection which it permitted. Madame
St. Aubert, though she concealed this insult from her husband, felt,
perhaps, for the first time, resentment lighted in her heart; and,
though a regard for her own dignity, united with considerations of
prudence, restrained her expression of this resentment, there was ever
after a mild reserve in her manner towards M. Quesnel, which he both
understood and felt.

In his own marriage he did not follow his sister’s example. His lady
was an Italian, and an heiress by birth; and, by nature and education,
was a vain and frivolous woman.

They now determined to pass the night with St. Aubert; and as the
château was not large enough to accommodate their servants, the latter
were dismissed to the neighbouring village. When the first compliments
were over, and the arrangements for the night made M. Quesnel began the
display of his intelligence and his connections; while St. Aubert, who
had been long enough in retirement to find these topics recommended by
their novelty, listened, with a degree of patience and attention, which
his guest mistook for the humility of wonder. The latter, indeed,
described the few festivities which the turbulence of that period
permitted to the court of Henry the Third, with a minuteness, that
somewhat recompensed for his ostentation; but, when he came to speak of
the character of the Duke de Joyeuse, of a secret treaty, which he knew
to be negotiating with the Porte, and of the light in which Henry of
Navarre was received, M. St. Aubert recollected enough of his former
experience to be assured, that his guest could be only of an inferior
class of politicians; and that, from the importance of the subjects
upon which he committed himself, he could not be of the rank to which
he pretended to belong. The opinions delivered by M. Quesnel, were such
as St. Aubert forebore to reply to, for he knew that his guest had
neither humanity to feel, nor discernment to perceive, what is just.

Madame Quesnel, meanwhile, was expressing to Madame St. Aubert her
astonishment, that she could bear to pass her life in this remote
corner of the world, as she called it, and describing, from a wish,
probably, of exciting envy, the splendour of the balls, banquets, and
processions which had just been given by the court, in honour of the
nuptials of the Duke de Joyeuse with Margaretta of Lorrain, the sister
of the Queen. She described with equal minuteness the magnificence she
had seen, and that from which she had been excluded; while Emily’s
vivid fancy, as she listened with the ardent curiosity of youth,
heightened the scenes she heard of; and Madame St. Aubert, looking on
her family, felt, as a tear stole to her eye, that though splendour may
grace happiness, virtue only can bestow it.

“It is now twelve years, St. Aubert,” said M. Quesnel, “since I
purchased your family estate.”—“Somewhere thereabout,” replied St.
Aubert, suppressing a sigh. “It is near five years since I have been
there,” resumed Quesnel; “for Paris and its neighbourhood is the only
place in the world to live in, and I am so immersed in politics, and
have so many affairs of moment on my hands, that I find it difficult to
steal away even for a month or two.” St. Aubert remaining silent, M.
Quesnel proceeded: “I have sometimes wondered how you, who have lived
in the capital, and have been accustomed to company, can exist
elsewhere;—especially in so remote a country as this, where you can
neither hear nor see anything, and can in short be scarcely conscious
of life.”

“I live for my family and myself,” said St. Aubert; “I am now contented
to know only happiness;—formerly I knew life.”

“I mean to expend thirty or forty thousand livres on improvements,”
said M. Quesnel, without seeming to notice the words of St. Aubert;
“for I design, next summer, to bring here my friends, the Duke de
Durefort and the Marquis Ramont, to pass a month or two with me.” To
St. Aubert’s enquiry, as to these intended improvements, he replied,
that he should take down the whole east wing of the château, and raise
upon the site a set of stables. “Then I shall build,” said he, “a
_salle à manger_, a _salon_, a _salle au commune_, and a number of
rooms for servants; for at present there is not accommodation for a
third part of my own people.”

“It accommodated our father’s household,” said St. Aubert, grieved that
the old mansion was to be thus improved, “and that was not a small
one.”

“Our notions are somewhat enlarged since those days,” said M.
Quesnel;—“what was then thought a decent style of living would not now
be endured.” Even the calm St. Aubert blushed at these words, but his
anger soon yielded to contempt. “The ground about the château is
encumbered with trees; I mean to cut some of them down.”

“Cut down the trees too!” said St. Aubert.

“Certainly. Why should I not? they interrupt my prospects. There is a
chesnut which spreads its branches before the whole south side of the
château, and which is so ancient that they tell me the hollow of its
trunk will hold a dozen men. Your enthusiasm will scarcely contend that
there can be either use, or beauty, in such a sapless old tree as
this.”

“Good God!” exclaimed St. Aubert, “you surely will not destroy that
noble chesnut, which has flourished for centuries, the glory of the
estate! It was in its maturity when the present mansion was built. How
often, in my youth, have I climbed among its broad branches, and sat
embowered amidst a world of leaves, while the heavy shower has pattered
above, and not a rain drop reached me! How often I have sat with a book
in my hand, sometimes reading, and sometimes looking out between the
branches upon the wide landscape, and the setting sun, till twilight
came, and brought the birds home to their little nests among the
leaves! How often—but pardon me,” added St. Aubert, recollecting that
he was speaking to a man who could neither comprehend, nor allow his
feelings, “I am talking of times and feelings as old-fashioned as the
taste that would spare that venerable tree.”

“It will certainly come down,” said M. Quesnel; “I believe I shall
plant some Lombardy poplars among the clumps of chesnut, that I shall
leave of the avenue; Madame Quesnel is partial to the poplar, and tells
me how much it adorns a villa of her uncle, not far from Venice.”

“On the banks of the Brenta, indeed,” continued St. Aubert, “where its
spiry form is intermingled with the pine, and the cypress, and where it
plays over light and elegant porticos and colonnades, it,
unquestionably, adorns the scene; but among the giants of the forest,
and near a heavy gothic mansion—”

“Well, my good sir,” said M. Quesnel, “I will not dispute with you. You
must return to Paris before our ideas can at all agree. But _à propos_
of Venice, I have some thoughts of going thither, next summer; events
may call me to take possession of that same villa, too, which they tell
me is the most charming that can be imagined. In that case I shall
leave the improvements I mention to another year, and I may, perhaps,
be tempted to stay some time in Italy.”

Emily was somewhat surprised to hear him talk of being tempted to
remain abroad, after he had mentioned his presence to be so necessary
at Paris, that it was with difficulty he could steal away for a month
or two; but St. Aubert understood the self-importance of the man too
well to wonder at this trait; and the possibility, that these projected
improvements might be deferred, gave him a hope, that they might never
take place.

Before they separated for the night, M. Quesnel desired to speak with
St. Aubert alone, and they retired to another room, where they remained
a considerable time. The subject of this conversation was not known;
but, whatever it might be, St. Aubert, when he returned to the
supper-room, seemed much disturbed, and a shade of sorrow sometimes
fell upon his features that alarmed Madame St. Aubert. When they were
alone she was tempted to enquire the occasion of it, but the delicacy
of mind, which had ever appeared in his conduct, restrained her: she
considered that, if St. Aubert wished her to be acquainted with the
subject of his concern, he would not wait on her enquiries.

On the following day, before M. Quesnel departed, he had a second
conference with St. Aubert.

The guests, after dining at the château, set out in the cool of the day
for Epourville, whither they gave him and Madame St. Aubert a pressing
invitation, prompted rather by the vanity of displaying their
splendour, than by a wish to make their friends happy.

Emily returned, with delight, to the liberty which their presence had
restrained, to her books, her walks, and the rational conversation of
M. and Madame St. Aubert, who seemed to rejoice, no less, that they
were delivered from the shackles, which arrogance and frivolity had
imposed.

Madame St. Aubert excused herself from sharing their usual evening
walk, complaining that she was not quite well, and St. Aubert and Emily
went out together.

They chose a walk towards the mountains, intending to visit some old
pensioners of St. Aubert, which, from his very moderate income, he
contrived to support, though it is probable M. Quesnel, with his very
large one, could not have afforded this.

After distributing to his pensioners their weekly stipends, listening
patiently to the complaints of some, redressing the grievances of
others, and softening the discontents of all, by the look of sympathy,
and the smile of benevolence, St. Aubert returned home through the
woods,

where,
At fall of eve the fairy-people throng,
In various games and revelry to pass
The summer night, as village stories tell.
                    THOMSON


“The evening gloom of woods was always delightful to me,” said St.
Aubert, whose mind now experienced the sweet calm, which results from
the consciousness of having done a beneficent action, and which
disposes it to receive pleasure from every surrounding object. “I
remember that in my youth this gloom used to call forth to my fancy a
thousand fairy visions, and romantic images; and, I own, I am not yet
wholly insensible of that high enthusiasm, which wakes the poet’s
dream: I can linger, with solemn steps, under the deep shades, send
forward a transforming eye into the distant obscurity, and listen with
thrilling delight to the mystic murmuring of the woods.”

“O my dear father,” said Emily, while a sudden tear started to her eye,
“how exactly you describe what I have felt so often, and which I
thought nobody had ever felt but myself! But hark! here comes the
sweeping sound over the wood-tops;—now it dies away;—how solemn the
stillness that succeeds! Now the breeze swells again. It is like the
voice of some supernatural being—the voice of the spirit of the woods,
that watches over them by night. Ah! what light is yonder? But it is
gone. And now it gleams again, near the root of that large chestnut:
look, sir!”

“Are you such an admirer of nature,” said St. Aubert, “and so little
acquainted with her appearances as not to know that for the glow-worm?
But come,” added he gaily, “step a little further, and we shall see
fairies, perhaps; they are often companions. The glow-worm lends his
light, and they in return charm him with music, and the dance. Do you
see nothing tripping yonder?”

Emily laughed. “Well, my dear sir,” said she, “since you allow of this
alliance, I may venture to own I have anticipated you; and almost dare
venture to repeat some verses I made one evening in these very woods.”

“Nay,” replied St. Aubert, “dismiss the _almost_, and venture quite;
let us hear what vagaries fancy has been playing in your mind. If she
has given you one of her spells, you need not envy those of the
fairies.”

“If it is strong enough to enchant your judgment, sir,” said Emily,
“while I disclose her images, I need _not_ envy them. The lines go in a
sort of tripping measure, which I thought might suit the subject well
enough, but I fear they are too irregular.”

THE GLOW-WORM.

How pleasant is the green-wood’s deep-matted shade
On a mid-summer’s eve, when the fresh rain is o’er;
When the yellow beams slope, and sparkle thro’ the glade,
And swiftly in the thin air the light swallows soar!

But sweeter, sweeter still, when the sun sinks to rest,
And twilight comes on, with the fairies so gay
Tripping through the forest-walk, where flow’rs, unprest,
Bow not their tall heads beneath their frolic play.

To music’s softest sounds they dance away the hour,
Till moonlight steals down among the trembling leaves,
And checquers all the ground, and guides them to the bow’r,
The long haunted bow’r, where the nightingale grieves.

Then no more they dance, till her sad song is done,
But, silent as the night, to her mourning attend;
And often as her dying notes their pity have won,
They vow all her sacred haunts from mortals to defend.

When, down among the mountains, sinks the ev’ning star,
And the changing moon forsakes this shadowy sphere,
How cheerless would they be, tho’ they fairies are,
If I, with my pale light, came not near!

Yet cheerless tho’ they’d be, they’re ungrateful to my love!
For, often when the traveller’s benighted on his way,
And I glimmer in his path, and would guide him thro’ the grove,
They bind me in their magic spells to lead him far astray;

And in the mire to leave him, till the stars are all burnt out,
While, in strange-looking shapes, they frisk about the ground,
And, afar in the woods, they raise a dismal shout,
Till I shrink into my cell again for terror of the sound!

But, see where all the tiny elves come dancing in a ring,
With the merry, merry pipe, and the tabor, and the horn,
And the timbrel so clear, and the lute with dulcet string;
Then round about the oak they go till peeping of the morn.

Down yonder glade two lovers steal, to shun the fairy-queen,
Who frowns upon their plighted vows, and jealous is of me,
That yester-eve I lighted them, along the dewy green,
To seek the purple flow’r, whose juice from all her spells can free.

And now, to punish me, she keeps afar her jocund band,
With the merry, merry pipe, and the tabor, and the lute;
If I creep near yonder oak she will wave her fairy wand,
And to me the dance will cease, and the music all be mute.

O! had I but that purple flow’r whose leaves her charms can foil,
And knew like fays to draw the juice, and throw it on the wind,
I’d be her slave no longer, nor the traveller beguile,
And help all faithful lovers, nor fear the fairy kind!

But soon the _vapour of the woods_ will wander afar,
And the fickle moon will fade, and the stars disappear,
Then, cheerless will they be, tho’ they fairies are,
If I, with my pale light, come not near!


Whatever St. Aubert might think of the stanzas, he would not deny his
daughter the pleasure of believing that he approved them; and, having
given his commendation, he sunk into a reverie, and they walked on in
silence.

A faint erroneous ray,
Glanc’d from th’ imperfect surfaces of things,
Flung half an image on the straining eye;
While waving woods, and villages, and streams,
And rocks, and mountain-tops, that long retain
The ascending gleam, are all one swimming scene,
Uncertain if beheld.
                    THOMSON.


St. Aubert continued silent till he reached the château, where his wife
had retired to her chamber. The languor and dejection, that had lately
oppressed her, and which the exertion called forth by the arrival of
her guests had suspended, now returned with increased effect. On the
following day, symptoms of fever appeared, and St. Aubert, having sent
for medical advice, learned, that her disorder was a fever of the same
nature as that, from which he had lately recovered. She had, indeed,
taken the infection, during her attendance upon him, and, her
constitution being too weak to throw out the disease immediately, it
had lurked in her veins, and occasioned the heavy languor of which she
had complained. St. Aubert, whose anxiety for his wife overcame every
other consideration, detained the physician in his house. He remembered
the feelings and the reflections that had called a momentary gloom upon
his mind, on the day when he had last visited the fishing-house, in
company with Madame St. Aubert, and he now admitted a presentiment,
that this illness would be a fatal one. But he effectually concealed
this from her, and from his daughter, whom he endeavoured to reanimate
with hopes that her constant assiduities would not be unavailing. The
physician, when asked by St. Aubert for his opinion of the disorder,
replied, that the event of it depended upon circumstances which he
could not ascertain. Madame St. Aubert seemed to have formed a more
decided one; but her eyes only gave hints of this. She frequently fixed
them upon her anxious friends with an expression of pity, and of
tenderness, as if she anticipated the sorrow that awaited them, and
that seemed to say, it was for their sakes only, for their sufferings,
that she regretted life. On the seventh day, the disorder was at its
crisis. The physician assumed a graver manner, which she observed, and
took occasion, when her family had once quitted the chamber, to tell
him, that she perceived her death was approaching. “Do not attempt to
deceive me,” said she, “I feel that I cannot long survive. I am
prepared for the event, I have long, I hope, been preparing for it.
Since I have not long to live, do not suffer a mistaken compassion to
induce you to flatter my family with false hopes. If you do, their
affliction will only be the heavier when it arrives: I will endeavour
to teach them resignation by my example.”

The physician was affected; he promised to obey her, and told St.
Aubert, somewhat abruptly, that there was nothing to expect. The latter
was not philosopher enough to restrain his feelings when he received
this information; but a consideration of the increased affliction which
the observance of his grief would occasion his wife, enabled him, after
some time, to command himself in her presence. Emily was at first
overwhelmed with the intelligence; then, deluded by the strength of her
wishes, a hope sprung up in her mind that her mother would yet recover,
and to this she pertinaciously adhered almost to the last hour.

The progress of this disorder was marked, on the side of Madame St.
Aubert, by patient suffering, and subjected wishes. The composure, with
which she awaited her death, could be derived only from the retrospect
of a life governed, as far as human frailty permits, by a consciousness
of being always in the presence of the Deity, and by the hope of a
higher world. But her piety could not entirely subdue the grief of
parting from those whom she so dearly loved. During these her last
hours, she conversed much with St. Aubert and Emily, on the prospect of
futurity, and on other religious topics. The resignation she expressed,
with the firm hope of meeting in a future world the friends she left in
this, and the effort which sometimes appeared to conceal her sorrow at
this temporary separation, frequently affected St. Aubert so much as to
oblige him to leave the room. Having indulged his tears a while, he
would dry them and return to the chamber with a countenance composed by
an endeavour which did but increase his grief.

Never had Emily felt the importance of the lessons, which had taught
her to restrain her sensibility, so much as in these moments, and never
had she practised them with a triumph so complete. But when the last
was over, she sunk at once under the pressure of her sorrow, and then
perceived that it was hope, as well as fortitude, which had hitherto
supported her. St. Aubert was for a time too devoid of comfort himself
to bestow any on his daughter.



 CHAPTER II

I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul.
                    SHAKESPEARE


Madame St. Aubert was interred in the neighbouring village church; her
husband and daughter attended her to the grave, followed by a long
train of the peasantry, who were sincere mourners of this excellent
woman.

On his return from the funeral, St. Aubert shut himself in his chamber.
When he came forth, it was with a serene countenance, though pale in
sorrow. He gave orders that his family should attend him. Emily only
was absent; who, overcome with the scene she had just witnessed, had
retired to her closet to weep alone. St. Aubert followed her thither:
he took her hand in silence, while she continued to weep; and it was
some moments before he could so far command his voice as to speak. It
trembled while he said, “My Emily, I am going to prayers with my
family; you will join us. We must ask support from above. Where else
ought we to seek it—where else can we find it?”

Emily checked her tears, and followed her father to the parlour, where,
the servants being assembled, St. Aubert read, in a low and solemn
voice, the evening service, and added a prayer for the soul of the
departed. During this, his voice often faltered, his tears fell upon
the book, and at length he paused. But the sublime emotions of pure
devotion gradually elevated his views above this world, and finally
brought comfort to his heart.

When the service was ended, and the servants were withdrawn, he
tenderly kissed Emily, and said, “I have endeavoured to teach you, from
your earliest youth, the duty of self-command; I have pointed out to
you the great importance of it through life, not only as it preserves
us in the various and dangerous temptations that call us from rectitude
and virtue, but as it limits the indulgences which are termed virtuous,
yet which, extended beyond a certain boundary, are vicious, for their
consequence is evil. All excess is vicious; even that sorrow, which is
amiable in its origin, becomes a selfish and unjust passion, if
indulged at the expence of our duties—by our duties I mean what we owe
to ourselves, as well as to others. The indulgence of excessive grief
enervates the mind, and almost incapacitates it for again partaking of
those various innocent enjoyments which a benevolent God designed to be
the sunshine of our lives. My dear Emily, recollect and practise the
precepts I have so often given you, and which your own experience has
so often shown you to be wise.

“Your sorrow is useless. Do not receive this as merely a commonplace
remark, but let reason _therefore_ restrain sorrow. I would not
annihilate your feelings, my child, I would only teach you to command
them; for whatever may be the evils resulting from a too susceptible
heart, nothing can be hoped from an insensible one; that, on the other
hand, is all vice—vice, of which the deformity is not softened, or the
effect consoled for, by any semblance or possibility of good. You know
my sufferings, and are, therefore, convinced that mine are not the
light words which, on these occasions, are so often repeated to destroy
even the sources of honest emotion, or which merely display the selfish
ostentation of a false philosophy. I will show my Emily, that I can
practise what I advise. I have said thus much, because I cannot bear to
see you wasting in useless sorrow, for want of that resistance which is
due from mind; and I have not said it till now, because there is a
period when all reasoning must yield to nature; that is past: and
another, when excessive indulgence, having sunk into habit, weighs down
the elasticity of the spirits so as to render conquest nearly
impossible; this is to come. You, my Emily, will show that you are
willing to avoid it.”

Emily smiled through her tears upon her father: “Dear sir,” said she,
and her voice trembled; she would have added, “I will show myself
worthy of being your daughter;” but a mingled emotion of gratitude,
affection, and grief overcame her. St. Aubert suffered her to weep
without interruption, and then began to talk on common topics.

The first person who came to condole with St. Aubert was a M. Barreaux,
an austere and seemingly unfeeling man. A taste for botany had
introduced them to each other, for they had frequently met in their
wanderings among the mountains. M. Barreaux had retired from the world,
and almost from society, to live in a pleasant château, on the skirts
of the woods, near La Vallée. He also had been disappointed in his
opinion of mankind; but he did not, like St. Aubert, pity and mourn for
them; he felt more indignation at their vices, than compassion for
their weaknesses.

St. Aubert was somewhat surprised to see him; for, though he had often
pressed him to come to the château, he had never till now accepted the
invitation; and now he came without ceremony or reserve, entering the
parlour as an old friend. The claims of misfortune appeared to have
softened down all the ruggedness and prejudices of his heart. St.
Aubert unhappy, seemed to be the sole idea that occupied his mind. It
was in manners, more than in words, that he appeared to sympathise with
his friends: he spoke little on the subject of their grief; but the
minute attention he gave them, and the modulated voice, and softened
look that accompanied it, came from his heart, and spoke to theirs.

At this melancholy period St. Aubert was likewise visited by Madame
Cheron, his only surviving sister, who had been some years a widow, and
now resided on her own estate near Thoulouse. The intercourse between
them had not been very frequent. In her condolements, words were not
wanting; she understood not the magic of the look that speaks at once
to the soul, or the voice that sinks like balm to the heart: but she
assured St. Aubert that she sincerely sympathised with him, praised the
virtues of his late wife, and then offered what she considered to be
consolation. Emily wept unceasingly while she spoke; St. Aubert was
tranquil, listened to what she said in silence, and then turned the
discourse upon another subject.

At parting she pressed him and her niece to make her an early visit.
“Change of place will amuse you,” said she, “and it is wrong to give
way to grief.” St. Aubert acknowledged the truth of these words of
course; but, at the same time, felt more reluctant than ever to quit
the spot which his past happiness had consecrated. The presence of his
wife had sanctified every surrounding scene, and, each day, as it
gradually softened the acuteness of his suffering, assisted the tender
enchantment that bound him to home.

But there were calls which must be complied with, and of this kind was
the visit he paid to his brother-in-law M. Quesnel. An affair of an
interesting nature made it necessary that he should delay this visit no
longer, and, wishing to rouse Emily from her dejection, he took her
with him to Epourville.

As the carriage entered upon the forest that adjoined his paternal
domain, his eyes once more caught, between the chesnut avenue, the
turreted corners of the château. He sighed to think of what had passed
since he was last there, and that it was now the property of a man who
neither revered nor valued it. At length he entered the avenue, whose
lofty trees had so often delighted him when a boy, and whose melancholy
shade was now so congenial with the tone of his spirits. Every feature
of the edifice, distinguished by an air of heavy grandeur, appeared
successively between the branches of the trees—the broad turret, the
arched gateway that led into the courts, the drawbridge, and the dry
fossé which surrounded the whole.

The sound of carriage wheels brought a troop of servants to the great
gate, where St. Aubert alighted, and from which he led Emily into the
gothic hall, now no longer hung with the arms and ancient banners of
the family. These were displaced, and the oak wainscotting, and beams
that crossed the roof, were painted white. The large table, too, that
used to stretch along the upper end of the hall, where the master of
the mansion loved to display his hospitality, and whence the peal of
laughter, and the song of conviviality had so often resounded, was now
removed; even the benches that had surrounded the hall were no longer
there. The heavy walls were hung with frivolous ornaments, and
everything that appeared denoted the false taste and corrupted
sentiments of the present owner.

St. Aubert followed a gay Parisian servant to a parlour, where sat
Mons. and Madame Quesnel, who received him with a stately politeness,
and, after a few formal words of condolement, seemed to have forgotten
that they ever had a sister.

Emily felt tears swell into her eyes, and then resentment checked them.
St. Aubert, calm and deliberate, preserved his dignity without assuming
importance, and Quesnel was depressed by his presence without exactly
knowing wherefore.

After some general conversation, St. Aubert requested to speak with him
alone; and Emily, being left with Madame Quesnel, soon learned that a
large party was invited to dine at the château, and was compelled to
hear that nothing which was past and irremediable ought to prevent the
festivity of the present hour.

St. Aubert, when he was told that company were expected, felt a mixed
emotion of disgust and indignation against the insensibility of
Quesnel, which prompted him to return home immediately. But he was
informed, that Madame Cheron had been asked to meet him; and, when he
looked at Emily, and considered that a time might come when the enmity
of her uncle would be prejudicial to her, he determined not to incur it
himself, by conduct which would be resented as indecorous, by the very
persons who now showed so little sense of decorum.

Among the visitors assembled at dinner were two Italian gentlemen, of
whom one was named Montoni, a distant relation of Madame Quesnel, a man
about forty, of an uncommonly handsome person, with features manly and
expressive, but whose countenance exhibited, upon the whole, more of
the haughtiness of command, and the quickness of discernment, than of
any other character.

Signor Cavigni, his friend, appeared to be about thirty—inferior in
dignity, but equal to him in penetration of countenance, and superior
in insinuation of manner.

Emily was shocked by the salutation with which Madame Cheron met her
father—“Dear brother,” said she, “I am concerned to see you look so
very ill; do, pray, have advice!” St. Aubert answered, with a
melancholy smile, that he felt himself much as usual; but Emily’s fears
made her now fancy that her father looked worse than he really did.

Emily would have been amused by the new characters she saw, and the
varied conversation that passed during dinner, which was served in a
style of splendour she had seldom seen before, had her spirits been
less oppressed. Of the guests, Signor Montoni was lately come from
Italy, and he spoke of the commotions which at that period agitated the
country; talked of party differences with warmth, and then lamented the
probable consequences of the tumults. His friend spoke with equal
ardour, of the politics of his country; praised the government and
prosperity of Venice, and boasted of its decided superiority over all
the other Italian states. He then turned to the ladies, and talked with
the same eloquence, of Parisian fashions, the French opera, and French
manners; and on the latter subject he did not fail to mingle what is so
particularly agreeable to French taste. The flattery was not detected
by those to whom it was addressed, though its effect, in producing
submissive attention, did not escape his observation. When he could
disengage himself from the assiduities of the other ladies, he
sometimes addressed Emily: but she knew nothing of Parisian fashions,
or Parisian operas; and her modesty, simplicity, and correct manners
formed a decided contrast to those of her female companions.

After dinner, St. Aubert stole from the room to view once more the old
chesnut which Quesnel talked of cutting down. As he stood under its
shade, and looked up among its branches, still luxuriant, and saw here
and there the blue sky trembling between them; the pursuits and events
of his early days crowded fast to his mind, with the figures and
characters of friends—long since gone from the earth; and he now felt
himself to be almost an insulated being, with nobody but his Emily for
his heart to turn to.

He stood lost amid the scenes of years which fancy called up, till the
succession closed with the picture of his dying wife, and he started
away, to forget it, if possible, at the social board.

St. Aubert ordered his carriage at an early hour, and Emily observed,
that he was more than usually silent and dejected on the way home; but
she considered this to be the effect of his visit to a place which
spoke so eloquently of former times, nor suspected that he had a cause
of grief which he concealed from her.

On entering the château she felt more depressed than ever, for she more
than ever missed the presence of that dear parent, who, whenever she
had been from home, used to welcome her return with smiles and
fondness; now, all was silent and forsaken.

But what reason and effort may fail to do, time effects. Week after
week passed away, and each, as it passed, stole something from the
harshness of her affliction, till it was mellowed to that tenderness
which the feeling heart cherishes as sacred. St. Aubert, on the
contrary, visibly declined in health; though Emily, who had been so
constantly with him, was almost the last person who observed it. His
constitution had never recovered from the late attack of the fever, and
the succeeding shock it received from Madame St. Aubert’s death had
produced its present infirmity. His physician now ordered him to
travel; for it was perceptible that sorrow had seized upon his nerves,
weakened as they had been by the preceding illness; and variety of
scene, it was probable, would, by amusing his mind, restore them to
their proper tone.

For some days Emily was occupied in preparations to attend him; and he,
by endeavours to diminish his expences at home during the journey—a
purpose which determined him at length to dismiss his domestics. Emily
seldom opposed her father’s wishes by questions or remonstrances, or
she would now have asked why he did not take a servant, and have
represented that his infirm health made one almost necessary. But when,
on the eve of their departure, she found that he had dismissed Jacques,
Francis, and Mary, and detained only Theresa the old housekeeper, she
was extremely surprised, and ventured to ask his reason for having done
so. “To save expences, my dear,” he replied—“we are going on an
expensive excursion.”

The physician had prescribed the air of Languedoc and Provence; and St.
Aubert determined, therefore, to travel leisurely along the shores of
the Mediterranean, towards Provence.

They retired early to their chamber on the night before their
departure; but Emily had a few books and other things to collect, and
the clock had struck twelve before she had finished, or had remembered
that some of her drawing instruments, which she meant to take with her,
were in the parlour below. As she went to fetch these, she passed her
father’s room, and, perceiving the door half open, concluded that he
was in his study—for, since the death of Madame St. Aubert, it had been
frequently his custom to rise from his restless bed, and go thither to
compose his mind. When she was below stairs she looked into this room,
but without finding him; and as she returned to her chamber, she tapped
at his door, and receiving no answer, stepped softly in, to be certain
whether he was there.

The room was dark, but a light glimmered through some panes of glass
that were placed in the upper part of a closet-door. Emily believed her
father to be in the closet, and, surprised that he was up at so late an
hour, apprehended he was unwell, and was going to enquire; but,
considering that her sudden appearance at this hour might alarm him,
she removed her light to the staircase, and then stepped softly to the
closet. On looking through the panes of glass, she saw him seated at a
small table, with papers before him, some of which he was reading with
deep attention and interest, during which he often wept and sobbed
aloud. Emily, who had come to the door to learn whether her father was
ill, was now detained there by a mixture of curiosity and tenderness.
She could not witness his sorrow, without being anxious to know the
subject of; and she therefore continued to observe him in silence,
concluding that those papers were letters of her late mother. Presently
he knelt down, and with a look so solemn as she had seldom seen him
assume, and which was mingled with a certain wild expression, that
partook more of horror than of any other character, he prayed silently
for a considerable time.

When he rose, a ghastly paleness was on his countenance. Emily was
hastily retiring; but she saw him turn again to the papers, and she
stopped. He took from among them a small case, and from thence a
miniature picture. The rays of light fell strongly upon it, and she
perceived it to be that of a lady, but not of her mother.

St. Aubert gazed earnestly and tenderly upon his portrait, put it to
his lips, and then to his heart, and sighed with a convulsive force.
Emily could scarcely believe what she saw to be real. She never knew
till now that he had a picture of any other lady than her mother, much
less that he had one which he evidently valued so highly; but having
looked repeatedly, to be certain that it was not the resemblance of
Madame St. Aubert, she became entirely convinced that it was designed
for that of some other person.

At length St. Aubert returned the picture to its case; and Emily,
recollecting that she was intruding upon his private sorrows, softly
withdrew from the chamber.



 CHAPTER III

O how canst thou renounce the boundless store
Of charms which nature to her vot’ry yields!
The warbling woodland, the resounding shore,
The pomp of groves, and garniture of fields;
All that the genial ray of morning gilds,
And all that echoes to the song of even;
All that the mountain’s shelt’ring bosom shields,
And all the dread magnificence of heaven;
O how canst thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven!
.....
These charms shall work thy soul’s eternal health,
And love, and gentleness, and joy, impart.
                    THE MINSTREL


St. Aubert, instead of taking the more direct road, that ran along the
feet of the Pyrenees to Languedoc, chose one that, winding over the
heights, afforded more extensive views and greater variety of romantic
scenery. He turned a little out of his way to take leave of M.
Barreaux, whom he found botanizing in the wood near his château, and
who, when he was told the purpose of St. Aubert’s visit, expressed a
degree of concern, such as his friend had thought it was scarcely
possible for him to feel on any similar occasion. They parted with
mutual regret.

“If anything could have tempted me from my retirement,” said M.
Barreaux, “it would have been the pleasure of accompanying you on this
little tour. I do not often offer compliments; you may, therefore,
believe me, when I say, that I shall look for your return with
impatience.”

The travellers proceeded on their journey. As they ascended the
heights, St. Aubert often looked back upon the château, in the plain
below; tender images crowded to his mind; his melancholy imagination
suggested that he should return no more; and though he checked this
wandering thought, still he continued to look, till the haziness of
distance blended his home with the general landscape, and St. Aubert
seemed to

Drag at each remove a lengthening chain.


He and Emily continued sunk in musing silence for some leagues, from
which melancholy reverie Emily first awoke, and her young fancy, struck
with the grandeur of the objects around, gradually yielded to
delightful impressions. The road now descended into glens, confined by
stupendous walls of rock, grey and barren, except where shrubs fringed
their summits, or patches of meagre vegetation tinted their recesses,
in which the wild goat was frequently browsing. And now, the way led to
the lofty cliffs, from whence the landscape was seen extending in all
its magnificence.

Emily could not restrain her transport as she looked over the pine
forests of the mountains upon the vast plains, that, enriched with
woods, towns, blushing vines, and plantations of almonds, palms, and
olives, stretched along, till their various colours melted in distance
into one harmonious hue, that seemed to unite earth with heaven.
Through the whole of this glorious scene the majestic Garonne wandered;
descending from its source among the Pyrenees, and winding its blue
waves towards the Bay of Biscay.

The ruggedness of the unfrequented road often obliged the wanderers to
alight from their little carriage, but they thought themselves amply
repaid for this inconvenience by the grandeur of the scenes; and, while
the muleteer led his animals slowly over the broken ground, the
travellers had leisure to linger amid these solitudes, and to indulge
the sublime reflections, which soften, while they elevate, the heart,
and fill it with the certainty of a present God! Still the enjoyment of
St. Aubert was touched with that pensive melancholy, which gives to
every object a mellower tint, and breathes a sacred charm over all
around.

They had provided against part of the evil to be encountered from a
want of convenient inns, by carrying a stock of provisions in the
carriage, so that they might take refreshment on any pleasant spot, in
the open air, and pass the nights wherever they should happen to meet
with a comfortable cottage. For the mind, also, they had provided, by a
work on botany, written by M. Barreaux, and by several of the Latin and
Italian poets; while Emily’s pencil enabled her to preserve some of
those combinations of forms, which charmed her at every step.

The loneliness of the road, where, only now and then, a peasant was
seen driving his mule, or some mountaineer-children at play among the
rocks, heightened the effect of the scenery. St. Aubert was so much
struck with it, that he determined, if he could hear of a road, to
penetrate further among the mountains, and, bending his way rather more
to the south, to emerge into Rousillon, and coast the Mediterranean
along part of that country to Languedoc.

Soon after mid-day, they reached the summit of one of those cliffs,
which, bright with the verdure of palm-trees, adorn, like gems, the
tremendous walls of the rocks, and which overlooked the greater part of
Gascony, and part of Languedoc. Here was shade, and the fresh water of
a spring, that, gliding among the turf, under the trees, thence
precipitated itself from rock to rock, till its dashing murmurs were
lost in the abyss, though its white foam was long seen amid the
darkness of the pines below.

This was a spot well suited for rest, and the travellers alighted to
dine, while the mules were unharnessed to browse on the savoury herbs
that enriched this summit.

It was some time before St. Aubert or Emily could withdraw their
attention from the surrounding objects, so as to partake of their
little repast. Seated in the shade of the palms, St. Aubert pointed out
to her observation the course of the rivers, the situation of great
towns, and the boundaries of provinces, which science, rather than the
eye, enabled him to describe. Notwithstanding this occupation, when he
had talked awhile he suddenly became silent, thoughtful, and tears
often swelled to his eyes, which Emily observed, and the sympathy of
her own heart told her their cause. The scene before them bore some
resemblance, though it was on a much grander scale, to a favourite one
of the late Madame St. Aubert, within view of the fishing-house. They
both observed this, and thought how delighted she would have been with
the present landscape, while they knew that her eyes must never, never
more open upon this world. St. Aubert remembered the last time of his
visiting that spot in company with her, and also the mournfully
presaging thoughts which had then arisen in his mind, and were now,
even thus soon, realised! The recollections subdued him, and he
abruptly rose from his seat, and walked away to where no eye could
observe his grief.

When he returned, his countenance had recovered its usual serenity; he
took Emily’s hand, pressed it affectionately, without speaking, and
soon after called to the muleteer, who sat at a little distance,
concerning a road among the mountains towards Rousillon. Michael said,
there were several that way, but he did not know how far they extended,
or even whether they were passable; and St. Aubert, who did not intend
to travel after sunset, asked what village they could reach about that
time. The muleteer calculated that they could easily reach Mateau,
which was in their present road; but that, if they took a road that
sloped more to the south, towards Rousillon, there was a hamlet, which
he thought they could gain before the evening shut in.

St. Aubert, after some hesitation, determined to take the latter
course, and Michael, having finished his meal, and harnessed his mules,
again set forward, but soon stopped; and St. Aubert saw him doing
homage to a cross, that stood on a rock impending over their way.
Having concluded his devotions, he smacked his whip in the air, and, in
spite of the rough road, and the pain of his poor mules, which he had
been lately lamenting, rattled, in a full gallop, along the edge of a
precipice, which it made the eye dizzy to look down. Emily was
terrified almost to fainting; and St. Aubert, apprehending still
greater danger from suddenly stopping the driver, was compelled to sit
quietly, and trust his fate to the strength and discretion of the
mules, who seemed to possess a greater portion of the latter quality
than their master; for they carried the travellers safely into the
valley, and there stopped upon the brink of the rivulet that watered
it.

Leaving the splendour of extensive prospects, they now entered this
narrow valley screened by

Rocks on rocks piled, as if by magic spell,
Here scorch’d by lightnings, there with ivy green.


The scene of barrenness was here and there interrupted by the spreading
branches of the larch and cedar, which threw their gloom over the
cliff, or athwart the torrent that rolled in the vale. No living
creature appeared, except the lizard, scrambling among the rocks, and
often hanging upon points so dangerous, that fancy shrunk from the view
of them. This was such a scene as _Salvator_ would have chosen, had he
then existed, for his canvas; St. Aubert, impressed by the romantic
character of the place, almost expected to see banditti start from
behind some projecting rock, and he kept his hand upon the arms with
which he always travelled.

As they advanced, the valley opened; its savage features gradually
softened, and, towards evening, they were among heathy mountains,
stretched in far perspective, along which the solitary sheep-bell was
heard, and the voice of the shepherd calling his wandering flocks to
the nightly fold. His cabin, partly shadowed by the cork-tree and the
ilex, which St. Aubert observed to flourish in higher regions of the
air than any other trees, except the fir, was all the human habitation
that yet appeared. Along the bottom of this valley the most vivid
verdure was spread; and, in the little hollow recesses of the
mountains, under the shade of the oak and chestnut, herds of cattle
were grazing. Groups of them, too, were often seen reposing on the
banks of the rivulet, or laving their sides in the cool stream, and
sipping its wave.

The sun was now setting upon the valley; its last light gleamed upon
the water, and heightened the rich yellow and purple tints of the heath
and broom, that overspread the mountains. St. Aubert enquired of
Michael the distance to the hamlet he had mentioned, but the man could
not with certainty tell; and Emily began to fear that he had mistaken
the road. Here was no human being to assist, or direct them; they had
left the shepherd and his cabin far behind, and the scene became so
obscured in twilight, that the eye could not follow the distant
perspective of the valley in search of a cottage, or a hamlet. A glow
of the horizon still marked the west, and this was of some little use
to the travellers. Michael seemed endeavouring to keep up his courage
by singing; his music, however, was not of a kind to disperse
melancholy; he sung, in a sort of chant, one of the most dismal ditties
his present auditors had ever heard, and St. Aubert at length
discovered it to be a vesper-hymn to his favourite saint.

They travelled on, sunk in that thoughtful melancholy, with which
twilight and solitude impress the mind. Michael had now ended his
ditty, and nothing was heard but the drowsy murmur of the breeze among
the woods, and its light flutter, as it blew freshly into the carriage.
They were at length roused by the sound of fire-arms. St. Aubert called
to the muleteer to stop, and they listened. The noise was not repeated;
but presently they heard a rustling among the brakes. St. Aubert drew
forth a pistol, and ordered Michael to proceed as fast as possible; who
had not long obeyed, before a horn sounded, that made the mountains
ring. He looked again from the window, and then saw a young man spring
from the bushes into the road, followed by a couple of dogs. The
stranger was in a hunter’s dress. His gun was slung across his
shoulders, the hunter’s horn hung from his belt, and in his hand was a
small pike, which, as he held it, added to the manly grace of his
figure, and assisted the agility of his steps.

After a moment’s hesitation, St. Aubert again stopped the carriage, and
waited till he came up, that they might enquire concerning the hamlet
they were in search of. The stranger informed him, that it was only
half a league distant, that he was going thither himself, and would
readily show the way. St. Aubert thanked him for the offer, and,
pleased with his chevalier-like air and open countenance, asked him to
take a seat in the carriage; which the stranger, with an
acknowledgment, declined, adding that he would keep pace with the
mules. “But I fear you will be wretchedly accommodated,” said he: “the
inhabitants of these mountains are a simple people, who are not only
without the luxuries of life, but almost destitute of what in other
places are held to be its necessaries.”

“I perceive you are not one of its inhabitants, sir,” said St. Aubert.

“No, sir, I am only a wanderer here.”

The carriage drove on, and the increasing dusk made the travellers very
thankful that they had a guide; the frequent glens, too, that now
opened among the mountains, would likewise have added to their
perplexity. Emily, as she looked up one of these, saw something at a
great distance like a bright cloud in the air. “What light is yonder,
sir?” said she.

St. Aubert looked, and perceived that it was the snowy summit of a
mountain, so much higher than any around it, that it still reflected
the sun’s rays, while those below lay in deep shade.

At length, the village lights were seen to twinkle through the dusk,
and, soon after, some cottages were discovered in the valley, or rather
were seen by reflection in the stream, on whose margin they stood, and
which still gleamed with the evening light.

The stranger now came up, and St. Aubert, on further enquiry, found not
only that there was no inn in the place, but not any sort of house of
public reception. The stranger, however, offered to walk on, and
enquire for a cottage to accommodate them; for which further civility
St. Aubert returned his thanks, and said, that, as the village was so
near, he would alight, and walk with him. Emily followed slowly in the
carriage.

On the way, St. Aubert asked his companion what success he had had in
the chase. “Not much, sir,” he replied, “nor do I aim at it. I am
pleased with the country, and mean to saunter away a few weeks among
its scenes. My dogs I take with me more for companionship than for
game. This dress, too, gives me an ostensible business, and procures me
that respect from the people, which would, perhaps, be refused to a
lonely stranger, who had no visible motive for coming among them.”

“I admire your taste,” said St. Aubert, “and, if I was a younger man,
should like to pass a few weeks in your way exceedingly. I, too, am a
wanderer, but neither my plan nor pursuits are exactly like yours—I go
in search of health, as much as of amusement.” St. Aubert sighed, and
paused; and then, seeming to recollect himself, he resumed: “If I can
hear of a tolerable road, that shall afford decent accommodation, it is
my intention to pass into Rousillon, and along the sea-shore to
Languedoc. You, sir, seem to be acquainted with the country, and can,
perhaps, give me information on the subject.”

The stranger said, that what information he could give was entirely at
his service; and then mentioned a road rather more to the east, which
led to a town, whence it would be easy to proceed into Rousillon.

They now arrived at the village, and commenced their search for a
cottage, that would afford a night’s lodging. In several, which they
entered, ignorance, poverty, and mirth seemed equally to prevail; and
the owners eyed St. Aubert with a mixture of curiosity and timidity.
Nothing like a bed could be found, and he had ceased to enquire for
one, when Emily joined him, who observed the languor of her father’s
countenance, and lamented, that he had taken a road so ill provided
with the comforts necessary for an invalid. Other cottages, which they
examined, seemed somewhat less savage than the former, consisting of
two rooms, if such they could be called; the first of these occupied by
mules and pigs, the second by the family, which generally consisted of
six or eight children, with their parents, who slept on beds of skins
and dried beech leaves, spread upon a mud floor. Here, light was
admitted, and smoke discharged, through an aperture in the roof; and
here the scent of spirits (for the travelling smugglers, who haunted
the Pyrenees, had made this rude people familiar with the use of
liquors) was generally perceptible enough. Emily turned from such
scenes, and looked at her father with anxious tenderness, which the
young stranger seemed to observe; for, drawing St. Aubert aside, he
made him an offer of his own bed. “It is a decent one,” said he, “when
compared with what we have just seen, yet such as in other
circumstances I should be ashamed to offer you.” St. Aubert
acknowledged how much he felt himself obliged by this kindness, but
refused to accept it, till the young stranger would take no denial. “Do
not give me the pain of knowing, sir,” said he, “that an invalid, like
you, lies on hard skins, while I sleep in a bed. Besides, sir, your
refusal wounds my pride; I must believe you think my offer unworthy
your acceptance. Let me show you the way. I have no doubt my landlady
can accommodate this young lady also.”

St. Aubert at length consented, that, if this could be done, he would
accept his kindness, though he felt rather surprised, that the stranger
had proved himself so deficient in gallantry, as to administer to the
repose of an infirm man, rather than to that of a very lovely young
woman, for he had not once offered the room for Emily. But she thought
not of herself, and the animated smile she gave him, told how much she
felt herself obliged for the preference of her father.

On their way, the stranger, whose name was Valancourt, stepped on first
to speak to his hostess, and she came out to welcome St. Aubert into a
cottage, much superior to any he had seen. This good woman seemed very
willing to accommodate the strangers, who were soon compelled to accept
the only two beds in the place. Eggs and milk were the only food the
cottage afforded; but against scarcity of provisions St. Aubert had
provided, and he requested Valancourt to stay, and partake with him of
less homely fare; an invitation, which was readily accepted, and they
passed an hour in intelligent conversation. St. Aubert was much pleased
with the manly frankness, simplicity, and keen susceptibility to the
grandeur of nature, which his new acquaintance discovered; and, indeed,
he had often been heard to say, that, without a certain simplicity of
heart, this taste could not exist in any strong degree.

The conversation was interrupted by a violent uproar without, in which
the voice of the muleteer was heard above every other sound. Valancourt
started from his seat, and went to enquire the occasion; but the
dispute continued so long afterwards, that St. Aubert went himself, and
found Michael quarrelling with the hostess, because she had refused to
let his mules lie in a little room where he and three of her sons were
to pass the night. The place was wretched enough, but there was no
other for these people to sleep in; and, with somewhat more of delicacy
than was usual among the inhabitants of this wild tract of country, she
persisted in refusing to let the animals have the same _bed-chamber_
with her children. This was a tender point with the muleteer; his
honour was wounded when his mules were treated with disrespect, and he
would have received a blow, perhaps, with more meekness. He declared
that his beasts were as honest beasts, and as good beasts, as any in
the whole province; and that they had a right to be well treated
wherever they went. “They are as harmless as lambs,” said he, “if
people don’t affront them. I never knew them behave themselves amiss
above once or twice in my life, and then they had good reason for doing
so. Once, indeed, they kicked at a boy’s leg that lay asleep in the
stable, and broke it; but I told them they were out there, and by St.
Anthony! I believe they understood me, for they never did so again.”

He concluded this eloquent harangue with protesting, that they should
share with him, go where he would.

The dispute was at length settled by Valancourt, who drew the hostess
aside, and desired she would let the muleteer and his beasts have the
place in question to themselves, while her sons should have the bed of
skins designed for him, for that he would wrap himself in his cloak,
and sleep on the bench by the cottage door. But this she thought it her
duty to oppose, and she felt it to be her inclination to disappoint the
muleteer. Valancourt, however, was positive, and the tedious affair was
at length settled.

It was late when St. Aubert and Emily retired to their rooms, and
Valancourt to his station at the door, which, at this mild season, he
preferred to a close cabin and a bed of skins. St. Aubert was somewhat
surprised to find in his room volumes of Homer, Horace, and Petrarch;
but the name of Valancourt, written in them, told him to whom they
belonged.



 CHAPTER IV

In truth he was a strange and wayward wight,
Fond of each gentle, and each dreadful scene,
In darkness, and in storm he found delight;
Nor less than when on ocean-wave serene
The southern sun diffus’d his dazzling sheen.
Even sad vicissitude amus’d his soul;
And if a sigh would sometimes intervene,
And down his cheek a tear of pity roll,
A sigh, a tear, so sweet, he wish’d not to control.
                    THE MINSTREL


St. Aubert awoke at an early hour, refreshed by sleep, and desirous to
set forward. He invited the stranger to breakfast with him; and,
talking again of the road, Valancourt said, that, some months past, he
had travelled as far as Beaujeu, which was a town of some consequence
on the way to Rousillon. He recommended it to St. Aubert to take that
route, and the latter determined to do so.

“The road from this hamlet,” said Valancourt, “and that to Beaujeu,
part at the distance of about a league and a half from hence; if you
will give me leave, I will direct your muleteer so far. I must wander
somewhere, and your company would make this a pleasanter ramble than
any other I could take.”

St. Aubert thankfully accepted his offer, and they set out together,
the young stranger on foot, for he refused the invitation of St. Aubert
to take a seat in his little carriage.

The road wound along the feet of the mountains through a pastoral
valley, bright with verdure, and varied with groves of dwarf oak, beech
and sycamore, under whose branches herds of cattle reposed. The
mountain-ash too, and the weeping birch, often threw their pendant
foliage over the steeps above, where the scanty soil scarcely concealed
their roots, and where their light branches waved to every breeze that
fluttered from the mountains.

The travellers were frequently met at this early hour, for the sun had
not yet risen upon the valley, by shepherds driving immense flocks from
their folds to feed upon the hills. St. Aubert had set out thus early,
not only that he might enjoy the first appearance of sunrise, but that
he might inhale the first pure breath of morning, which above all
things is refreshing to the spirits of the invalid. In these regions it
was particularly so, where an abundance of wild flowers and aromatic
herbs breathed forth their essence on the air.

The dawn, which softened the scenery with its peculiar grey tint, now
dispersed, and Emily watched the progress of the day, first trembling
on the tops of the highest cliffs, then touching them with splendid
light, while their sides and the vale below were still wrapt in dewy
mist. Meanwhile, the sullen grey of the eastern clouds began to blush,
then to redden, and then to glow with a thousand colours, till the
golden light darted over all the air, touched the lower points of the
mountain’s brow, and glanced in long sloping beams upon the valley and
its stream. All nature seemed to have awakened from death into life;
the spirit of St. Aubert was renovated. His heart was full; he wept,
and his thoughts ascended to the Great Creator.

Emily wished to trip along the turf, so green and bright with dew, and
to taste the full delight of that liberty, which the izard seemed to
enjoy as he bounded along the brow of the cliffs; while Valancourt
often stopped to speak with the travellers, and with social feeling to
point out to them the peculiar objects of his admiration. St. Aubert
was pleased with him: “Here is the real ingenuousness and ardour of
youth,” said he to himself; “this young man has never been at Paris.”

He was sorry when they came to the spot where the roads parted, and his
heart took a more affectionate leave of him than is usual after so
short an acquaintance. Valancourt talked long by the side of the
carriage; seemed more than once to be going, but still lingered, and
appeared to search anxiously for topics of conversation to account for
his delay. At length he took leave. As he went, St. Aubert observed him
look with an earnest and pensive eye at Emily, who bowed to him with a
countenance full of timid sweetness, while the carriage drove on. St.
Aubert, for whatever reason, soon after looked from the window, and saw
Valancourt standing upon the bank of the road, resting on his pike with
folded arms, and following the carriage with his eyes. He waved his
hand, and Valancourt, seeming to awake from his reverie, returned the
salute, and started away.

The aspect of the country now began to change, and the travellers soon
found themselves among mountains covered from their base nearly to
their summits with forests of gloomy pine, except where a rock of
granite shot up from the vale, and lost its snowy top in the clouds.
The rivulet, which had hitherto accompanied them, now expanded into a
river; and, flowing deeply and silently along, reflected, as in a
mirror, the blackness of the impending shades. Sometimes a cliff was
seen lifting its bold head above the woods and the vapours, that
floated mid-way down the mountains; and sometimes a face of
perpendicular marble rose from the water’s edge, over which the larch
threw his gigantic arms, here scathed with lightning, and there
floating in luxuriant foliage.

They continued to travel over a rough and unfrequented road, seeing now
and then at a distance the solitary shepherd, with his dog, stalking
along the valley, and hearing only the dashing of torrents, which the
woods concealed from the eye, the long sullen murmur of the breeze, as
it swept over the pines, or the notes of the eagle and the vulture,
which were seen towering round the beetling cliff.

Often, as the carriage moved slowly over uneven ground, St. Aubert
alighted, and amused himself with examining the curious plants that
grew on the banks of the road, and with which these regions abound;
while Emily, wrapt in high enthusiasm, wandered away under the shades,
listening in deep silence to the lonely murmur of the woods.

Neither village nor hamlet was seen for many leagues; the goat-herd’s
or the hunter’s cabin, perched among the cliffs of the rocks, were the
only human habitations that appeared.

The travellers again took their dinner in the open air, on a pleasant
spot in the valley, under the spreading shade of cedars; and then set
forward towards Beaujeu.

The road now began to descend, and, leaving the pine forests behind,
wound among rocky precipices. The evening twilight again fell over the
scene, and the travellers were ignorant how far they might yet be from
Beaujeu. St. Aubert, however, conjectured that the distance could not
be very great, and comforted himself with the prospect of travelling on
a more frequented road after reaching that town, where he designed to
pass the night. Mingled woods, and rocks, and heathy mountains were now
seen obscurely through the dusk; but soon even these imperfect images
faded in darkness. Michael proceeded with caution, for he could
scarcely distinguish the road; his mules, however, seemed to have more
sagacity, and their steps were sure.

On turning the angle of a mountain, a light appeared at a distance,
that illumined the rocks, and the horizon to a great extent. It was
evidently a large fire, but whether accidental, or otherwise, there
were no means of knowing. St. Aubert thought it was probably kindled by
some of the numerous banditti, that infested the Pyrenees, and he
became watchful and anxious to know whether the road passed near this
fire. He had arms with him, which, on an emergency, might afford some
protection, though certainly a very unequal one, against a band of
robbers, so desperate too as those usually were who haunted these wild
regions. While many reflections rose upon his mind, he heard a voice
shouting from the road behind, and ordering the muleteer to stop. St.
Aubert bade him proceed as fast as possible; but either Michael, or his
mules were obstinate, for they did not quit the old pace. Horses’ feet
were now heard; a man rode up to the carriage, still ordering the
driver to stop; and St. Aubert, who could no longer doubt his purpose,
was with difficulty able to prepare a pistol for his defence, when his
hand was upon the door of the chaise. The man staggered on his horse,
the report of the pistol was followed by a groan, and St. Aubert’s
horror may be imagined, when in the next instant he thought he heard
the faint voice of Valancourt. He now himself bade the muleteer stop;
and, pronouncing the name of Valancourt, was answered in a voice, that
no longer suffered him to doubt. St. Aubert, who instantly alighted and
went to his assistance, found him still sitting on his horse, but
bleeding profusely, and appearing to be in great pain, though he
endeavoured to soften the terror of St. Aubert by assurances that he
was not materially hurt, the wound being only in his arm. St. Aubert,
with the muleteer, assisted him to dismount, and he sat down on the
bank of the road, where St. Aubert tried to bind up his arm, but his
hands trembled so excessively that he could not accomplish it; and,
Michael being now gone in pursuit of the horse, which, on being
disengaged from his rider, had galloped off, he called Emily to his
assistance. Receiving no answer, he went to the carriage, and found her
sunk on the seat in a fainting fit. Between the distress of this
circumstance and that of leaving Valancourt bleeding, he scarcely knew
what he did; he endeavoured, however, to raise her, and called to
Michael to fetch water from the rivulet that flowed by the road, but
Michael was gone beyond the reach of his voice. Valancourt, who heard
these calls, and also the repeated name of Emily, instantly understood
the subject of his distress; and, almost forgetting his own condition,
he hastened to her relief. She was reviving when he reached the
carriage; and then, understanding that anxiety for him had occasioned
her indisposition, he assured her, in a voice that trembled, but not
from anguish, that his wound was of no consequence. While he said this
St. Aubert turned round, and perceiving that he was still bleeding, the
subject of his alarm changed again, and he hastily formed some
handkerchiefs into a bandage. This stopped the effusion of the blood;
but St. Aubert, dreading the consequence of the wound, enquired
repeatedly how far they were from Beaujeu; when, learning that it was
at two leagues’ distance, his distress increased, since he knew not how
Valancourt, in his present state, would bear the motion of the
carriage, and perceived that he was already faint from loss of blood.
When he mentioned the subject of his anxiety, Valancourt entreated that
he would not suffer himself to be thus alarmed on his account, for that
he had no doubt he should be able to support himself very well; and
then he talked of the accident as a slight one. The muleteer being now
returned with Valancourt’s horse, assisted him into the chaise; and, as
Emily was now revived, they moved slowly on towards Beaujeu.

St. Aubert, when he had recovered from the terror occasioned him by
this accident, expressed surprise on seeing Valancourt, who explained
his unexpected appearance by saying, “You, sir, renewed my taste for
society; when you had left the hamlet, it did indeed appear a solitude.
I determined, therefore, since my object was merely amusement, to
change the scene; and I took this road, because I knew it led through a
more romantic tract of mountains than the spot I have left. Besides,”
added he, hesitating for an instant, “I will own, and why should I not?
that I had some hope of overtaking you.”

“And I have made you a very unexpected return for the compliment,” said
St. Aubert, who lamented again the rashness which had produced the
accident, and explained the cause of his late alarm. But Valancourt
seemed anxious only to remove from the minds of his companions every
unpleasant feeling relative to himself; and, for that purpose, still
struggled against a sense of pain, and tried to converse with gaiety.
Emily meanwhile was silent, except when Valancourt particularly
addressed her, and there was at those times a tremulous tone in his
voice that spoke much.

They were now so near the fire, which had long flamed at a distance on
the blackness of night, that it gleamed upon the road, and they could
distinguish figures moving about the blaze. The way winding still
nearer, they perceived in the valley one of those numerous bands of
gipsies, which at that period particularly haunted the wilds of the
Pyrenees, and lived partly by plundering the traveller. Emily looked
with some degree of terror on the savage countenances of these people,
shown by the fire, which heightened the romantic effects of the
scenery, as it threw a red dusky gleam upon the rocks and on the
foliage of the trees, leaving heavy masses of shade and regions of
obscurity, which the eye feared to penetrate.

They were preparing their supper; a large pot stood by the fire, over
which several figures were busy. The blaze discovered a rude kind of
tent, round which many children and dogs were playing, and the whole
formed a picture highly grotesque. The travellers saw plainly their
danger. Valancourt was silent, but laid his hand on one of St. Aubert’s
pistols; St. Aubert drew forth another, and Michael was ordered to
proceed as fast as possible. They passed the place, however, without
being attacked; the rovers being probably unprepared for the
opportunity, and too busy about their supper to feel much interest, at
the moment, in anything besides.

After a league and a half more, passed in darkness, the travellers
arrived at Beaujeu, and drove up to the only inn the place afforded;
which, though superior to any they had seen since they entered the
mountains, was bad enough.

The surgeon of the town was immediately sent for, if a surgeon he could
be called, who prescribed for horses as well as for men, and shaved
faces at least as dexterously as he set bones. After examining
Valancourt’s arm, and perceiving that the bullet had passed through the
flesh without touching the bone, he dressed it, and left him with a
solemn prescription of quiet, which his patient was not inclined to
obey. The delight of ease had now succeeded to pain; for ease may be
allowed to assume a positive quality when contrasted with anguish; and,
his spirits thus reanimated, he wished to partake of the conversation
of St. Aubert and Emily, who, released from so many apprehensions, were
uncommonly cheerful. Late as it was, however, St. Aubert was obliged to
go out with the landlord to buy meat for supper; and Emily, who, during
this interval, had been absent as long as she could, upon excuses of
looking to their accommodation, which she found rather better than she
expected, was compelled to return, and converse with Valancourt alone.
They talked of the character of the scenes they had passed, of the
natural history of the country, of poetry, and of St. Aubert; a subject
on which Emily always spoke and listened to with peculiar pleasure.

The travellers passed an agreeable evening; but St. Aubert was fatigued
with his journey; and, as Valancourt seemed again sensible of pain,
they separated soon after supper.

In the morning St. Aubert found that Valancourt had passed a restless
night; that he was feverish, and his wound very painful. The surgeon,
when he dressed it, advised him to remain quietly at Beaujeu; advice
which was too reasonable to be rejected. St. Aubert, however, had no
favourable opinion of this practitioner, and was anxious to commit
Valancourt into more skilful hands; but learning, upon enquiry, that
there was no town within several leagues which seemed more likely to
afford better advice, he altered the plan of his journey, and
determined to await the recovery of Valancourt, who, with somewhat more
ceremony than sincerity, made many objections to this delay.

By order of his surgeon, Valancourt did not go out of the house that
day; but St. Aubert and Emily surveyed with delight the environs of the
town, situated at the feet of the Pyrenean Alps, that rose, some in
abrupt precipices, and others swelling with woods of cedar, fir, and
cypress, which stretched nearly to their highest summits. The cheerful
green of the beech and mountain-ash was sometimes seen, like a gleam of
light, amidst the dark verdure of the forest; and sometimes a torrent
poured its sparkling flood, high among the woods.

Valancourt’s indisposition detained the travellers at Beaujeu several
days, during which interval St. Aubert had observed his disposition and
his talents with the philosophic inquiry so natural to him. He saw a
frank and generous nature, full of ardour, highly susceptible of
whatever is grand and beautiful, but impetuous, wild, and somewhat
romantic. Valancourt had known little of the world. His perceptions
were clear, and his feelings just; his indignation of an unworthy, or
his admiration of a generous action, were expressed in terms of equal
vehemence. St. Aubert sometimes smiled at his warmth, but seldom
checked it, and often repeated to himself, “This young man has never
been at Paris.” A sigh sometimes followed this silent ejaculation. He
determined not to leave Valancourt till he should be perfectly
recovered; and, as he was now well enough to travel, though not able to
manage his horse, St. Aubert invited him to accompany him for a few
days in the carriage. This he the more readily did, since he had
discovered that Valancourt was of a family of the same name in Gascony,
with whose respectability he was well acquainted. The latter accepted
the offer with great pleasure, and they again set forward among these
romantic wilds about Rousillon.

They travelled leisurely; stopping wherever a scene uncommonly grand
appeared; frequently alighting to walk to an eminence, whither the
mules could not go, from which the prospect opened in greater
magnificence; and often sauntering over hillocks covered with lavender,
wild thyme, juniper, and tamarisc; and under the shades of woods,
between those boles they caught the long mountain-vista, sublime beyond
anything that Emily had ever imagined.

St. Aubert sometimes amused himself with botanizing, while Valancourt
and Emily strolled on; he pointing out to her notice the objects that
particularly charmed him, and reciting beautiful passages from such of
the Latin and Italian poets as he had heard her admire. In the pauses
of conversation, when he thought himself not observed, he frequently
fixed his eyes pensively on her countenance, which expressed with so
much animation the taste and energy of her mind; and when he spoke
again, there was a peculiar tenderness in the tone of his voice, that
defeated any attempt to conceal his sentiments. By degrees these silent
pauses became more frequent; till Emily, only, betrayed an anxiety to
interrupt them; and she; who had been hitherto reserved, would now talk
again, and again, of the woods and the valleys and the mountains, to
avoid the danger of sympathy and silence.

From Beaujeu the road had constantly ascended, conducting the
travellers into the higher regions of the air, where immense glaciers
exhibited their frozen horrors, and eternal snow whitened the summits
of the mountains. They often paused to contemplate these stupendous
scenes, and, seated on some wild cliff, where only the ilex or the
larch could flourish, looked over dark forests of fir, and precipices
where human foot had never wandered, into the glen—so deep, that the
thunder of the torrent, which was seen to foam along the bottom, was
scarcely heard to murmur. Over these crags rose others of stupendous
height, and fantastic shape; some shooting into cones; others impending
far over their base, in huge masses of granite, along whose broken
ridges was often lodged a weight of snow, that, trembling even to the
vibration of a sound, threatened to bear destruction in its course to
the vale. Around, on every side, far as the eye could penetrate, were
seen only forms of grandeur—the long perspective of mountain-tops,
tinged with ethereal blue, or white with snow; valleys of ice, and
forests of gloomy fir. The serenity and clearness of the air in these
high regions were particularly delightful to the travellers; it seemed
to inspire them with a finer spirit, and diffused an indescribable
complacency over their minds. They had no words to express the sublime
emotions they felt. A solemn expression characterised the feelings of
St. Aubert; tears often came to his eyes, and he frequently walked away
from his companions. Valancourt now and then spoke, to point to Emily’s
notice some feature of the scene. The thinness of the atmosphere,
through which every object came so distinctly to the eye, surprised and
deluded her; who could scarcely believe that objects, which appeared so
near, were, in reality, so distant. The deep silence of these solitudes
was broken only at intervals by the scream of the vultures, seen
cowering round some cliff below, or by the cry of the eagle sailing
high in the air; except when the travellers listened to the hollow
thunder that sometimes muttered at their feet. While, above, the deep
blue of the heavens was unobscured by the lightest cloud, half way down
the mountains, long billows of vapour were frequently seen rolling, now
wholly excluding the country below, and now opening, and partially
revealing its features. Emily delighted to observe the grandeur of
these clouds as they changed in shape and tints, and to watch their
various effect on the lower world, whose features, partly veiled, were
continually assuming new forms of sublimity.

After traversing these regions for many leagues, they began to descend
towards Rousillon, and features of beauty then mingled with the scene.
Yet the travellers did not look back without some regret to the sublime
objects they had quitted; though the eye, fatigued with the extension
of its powers, was glad to repose on the verdure of woods and pastures,
that now hung on the margin of the river below; to view again the
humble cottage shaded by cedars, the playful group of
mountaineer-children, and the flowery nooks that appeared among the
hills.

As they descended, they saw at a distance, on the right, one of the
grand passes of the Pyrenees into Spain, gleaming with its battlements
and towers to the splendour of the setting rays, yellow tops of woods
colouring the steeps below, while far above aspired the snowy points of
the mountains, still reflecting a rosy hue.

St. Aubert began to look out for the little town he had been directed
to by the people of Beaujeu, and where he meant to pass the night; but
no habitation yet appeared. Of its distance Valancourt could not assist
him to judge, for he had never been so far along this chain of Alps
before. There was, however, a road to guide them; and there could be
little doubt that it was the right one; for, since they had left
Beaujeu, there had been no variety of tracks to perplex or mislead.

The sun now gave his last light, and St. Aubert bade the muleteer
proceed with all possible dispatch. He found, indeed, the lassitude of
illness return upon him, after a day of uncommon fatigue, both of body
and mind, and he longed for repose. His anxiety was not soothed by
observing a numerous train, consisting of men, horses, and loaded
mules, winding down the steeps of an opposite mountain, appearing and
disappearing at intervals among the woods, so that its numbers could
not be judged of. Something bright, like arms, glanced in the setting
ray, and the military dress was distinguishable upon the men who were
in the van, and on others scattered among the troop that followed. As
these wound into the vale, the rear of the party emerged from the
woods, and exhibited a band of soldiers. St. Aubert’s apprehensions now
subsided; he had no doubt that the train before him consisted of
smugglers, who, in conveying prohibited goods over the Pyrenees, had
been encountered, and conquered by a party of troops.

The travellers had lingered so long among the sublimer scenes of these
mountains, that they found themselves entirely mistaken in their
calculation that they could reach Montigny at sunset; but, as they
wound along the valley, the saw, on a rude Alpine bridge, that united
two lofty crags of the glen, a group of mountaineer-children, amusing
themselves with dropping pebbles into a torrent below, and watching the
stones plunge into the water, that threw up its white spray high in the
air as it received them, and returned a sullen sound, which the echoes
of the mountains prolonged. Under the bridge was seen a perspective of
the valley, with its cataract descending among the rocks, and a cottage
on a cliff, overshadowed with pines. It appeared, that they could not
be far from some small town. St. Aubert bade the muleteer stop, and
then called to the children to enquire if he was near Montigny; but the
distance, and the roaring of the waters, would not suffer his voice to
be heard; and the crags, adjoining the bridge, were of such tremendous
height and steepness, that to have climbed either would have been
scarcely practicable to a person unacquainted with the ascent. St.
Aubert, therefore, did not waste more moments in delay. They continued
to travel long after twilight had obscured the road, which was so
broken, that, now thinking it safer to walk than to ride, they all
alighted. The moon was rising, but her light was yet too feeble to
assist them. While they stepped carefully on, they heard the
vesper-bell of a convent. The twilight would not permit them to
distinguish anything like a building, but the sounds seemed to come
from some woods, that overhung an acclivity to the right. Valancourt
proposed to go in search of this convent. “If they will not accommodate
us with a night’s lodging,” said he, “they may certainly inform us how
far we are from Montigny, and direct us towards it.” He was bounding
forward, without waiting St. Aubert’s reply, when the latter stopped
him. “I am very weary,” said St. Aubert, “and wish for nothing so much
as for immediate rest. We will all go to the convent; your good looks
would defeat our purpose; but when they see mine and Emily’s exhausted
countenances, they will scarcely deny us repose.”

As he said this, he took Emily’s arm within his, and, telling Michael
to wait awhile in the road with the carriage, they began to ascend
towards the woods, guided by the bell of the convent. His steps were
feeble, and Valancourt offered him his arm, which he accepted. The moon
now threw a faint light over their path, and, soon after, enabled them
to distinguish some towers rising above the tops of the woods. Still
following the note of the bell, they entered the shade of those woods,
lighted only by the moonbeams, that glided down between the leaves, and
threw a tremulous uncertain gleam upon the steep track they were
winding. The gloom and the silence that prevailed, except when the bell
returned upon the air, together with the wildness of the surrounding
scene, struck Emily with a degree of fear, which, however, the voice
and conversation of Valancourt somewhat repressed. When they had been
some time ascending, St. Aubert complained of weariness, and they
stopped to rest upon a little green summit, where the trees opened, and
admitted the moonlight. He sat down upon the turf, between Emily and
Valancourt. The bell had now ceased, and the deep repose of the scene
was undisturbed by any sound, for the low dull murmur of some distant
torrents might be said to sooth, rather than to interrupt, the silence.

Before them, extended the valley they had quitted; its rocks, and woods
to the left, just silvered by the rays, formed a contrast to the deep
shadow, that involved the opposite cliffs, whose fringed summits only
were tipped with light; while the distant perspective of the valley was
lost in the yellow mist of moonlight. The travellers sat for some time
wrapt in the complacency which such scenes inspire.

“These scenes,” said Valancourt, at length, “soften the heart, like the
notes of sweet music, and inspire that delicious melancholy which no
person, who had felt it once, would resign for the gayest pleasures.
They waken our best and purest feelings, disposing us to benevolence,
pity, and friendship. Those whom I love—I always seem to love more in
such an hour as this.” His voice trembled, and he paused.

St. Aubert was silent; Emily perceived a warm tear fall upon the hand
he held; she knew the object of his thoughts; hers too had, for some
time, been occupied by the remembrance of her mother. He seemed by an
effort to rouse himself. “Yes,” said he, with a half-suppressed sigh,
“the memory of those we love—of times for ever past! in such an hour as
this steals upon the mind, like a strain of distant music in the
stillness of night;—all tender and harmonious as this landscape,
sleeping in the mellow moonlight.” After the pause of a moment, St.
Aubert added, “I have always fancied, that I thought with more
clearness, and precision, at such an hour than at any other, and that
heart must be insensible in a great degree, that does not soften to its
influence. But many such there are.”

Valancourt sighed.

“Are there, indeed, many such?” said Emily.

“A few years hence, my Emily,” replied St. Aubert, “and you may smile
at the recollection of that question—if you do not weep to it. But
come, I am somewhat refreshed, let us proceed.”

Having emerged from the woods, they saw, upon a turfy hillock above,
the convent of which they were in search. A high wall, that surrounded
it, led them to an ancient gate, at which they knocked; and the poor
monk, who opened it, conducted them into a small adjoining room, where
he desired they would wait while he informed the superior of their
request. In this interval, several friars came in separately to look at
them; and at length the first monk returned, and they followed him to a
room, where the superior was sitting in an arm-chair, with a large
folio volume, printed in black letter, open on a desk before him. He
received them with courtesy, though he did not rise from his seat; and,
having asked them a few questions, granted their request. After a short
conversation, formal and solemn on the part of the superior, they
withdrew to the apartment where they were to sup, and Valancourt, whom
one of the inferior friars civilly desired to accompany, went to seek
Michael and his mules. They had not descended half way down the cliffs,
before they heard the voice of the muleteer echoing far and wide.
Sometimes he called on St. Aubert, and sometimes on Valancourt; who
having, at length, convinced him that he had nothing to fear either for
himself, or his master; and having disposed of him, for the night, in a
cottage on the skirts of the woods, returned to sup with his friends,
on such sober fare as the monks thought it prudent to set before them.
While St. Aubert was too much indisposed to share it, Emily, in her
anxiety for her father, forgot herself; and Valancourt, silent and
thoughtful, yet never inattentive to them, appeared particularly
solicitous to accommodate and relieve St. Aubert, who often observed,
while his daughter was pressing him to eat, or adjusting the pillow she
had placed in the back of his arm-chair, that Valancourt fixed on her a
look of pensive tenderness, which he was not displeased to understand.

They separated at an early hour, and retired to their respective
apartments. Emily was shown to hers by a nun of the convent, whom she
was glad to dismiss, for her heart was melancholy, and her attention so
much abstracted, that conversation with a stranger was painful. She
thought her father daily declining, and attributed his present fatigue
more to the feeble state of his frame, than to the difficulty of the
journey. A train of gloomy ideas haunted her mind, till she fell
asleep.

In about two hours after, she was awakened by the chiming of a bell,
and then heard quick steps pass along the gallery, into which her
chamber opened. She was so little accustomed to the manners of a
convent, as to be alarmed by this circumstance; her fears, ever alive
for her father, suggested that he was very ill, and she rose in haste
to go to him. Having paused, however, to let the persons in the gallery
pass before she opened her door, her thoughts, in the mean time,
recovered from the confusion of sleep, and she understood that the bell
was the call of the monks to prayers. It had now ceased, and, all being
again still, she forbore to go to St. Aubert’s room. Her mind was not
disposed for immediate sleep, and the moonlight, that shone into her
chamber, invited her to open the casement, and look out upon the
country.

It was a still and beautiful night, the sky was unobscured by any
cloud, and scarce a leaf of the woods beneath trembled in the air. As
she listened, the midnight hymn of the monks rose softly from a chapel,
that stood on one of the lower cliffs, a holy strain, that seemed to
ascend through the silence of night to heaven, and her thoughts
ascended with it. From the consideration of His works, her mind arose
to the adoration of the Deity, in His goodness and power; wherever she
turned her view, whether on the sleeping earth, or to the vast regions
of space, glowing with worlds beyond the reach of human thought, the
sublimity of God, and the majesty of His presence appeared. Her eyes
were filled with tears of awful love and admiration; and she felt that
pure devotion, superior to all the distinctions of human system, which
lifts the soul above this world, and seems to expand it into a nobler
nature; such devotion as can, perhaps, only be experienced, when the
mind, rescued, for a moment, from the humbleness of earthly
considerations, aspires to contemplate His power in the sublimity of
His works, and His goodness in the infinity of His blessings.

Is it not now the hour,
The holy hour, when to the cloudless height
Of yon starred concave climbs the full-orbed moon,
And to this nether world in solemn stillness,
Gives sign, that, to the list’ning ear of Heaven
Religion’s voice should plead?  The very babe
Knows this, and, chance awak’d, his little hands
Lifts to the gods, and on his innocent couch
Calls down a blessing.
                    CARACTACUS


The midnight chant of the monks soon after dropped into silence; but
Emily remained at the casement, watching the setting moon, and the
valley sinking into deep shade, and willing to prolong her present
state of mind. At length she retired to her mattress, and sunk into
tranquil slumber.



 CHAPTER V

While in the rosy vale
Love breath’d his infant sighs, from anguish free.
                    THOMSON


St. Aubert, sufficiently restored by a night’s repose to pursue his
journey, set out in the morning, with his family and Valancourt, for
Rousillon, which he hoped to reach before night-fall. The scenes,
through which they now passed, were as wild and romantic, as any they
had yet observed, with this difference, that beauty, every now and
then, softened the landscape into smiles. Little woody recesses
appeared among the mountains, covered with bright verdure and flowers;
or a pastoral valley opened its grassy bosom in the shade of the
cliffs, with flocks and herds loitering along the banks of a rivulet,
that refreshed it with perpetual green. St. Aubert could not repent the
having taken this fatiguing road, though he was this day, also,
frequently obliged to alight, to walk along the rugged precipice, and
to climb the steep and flinty mountain. The wonderful sublimity and
variety of the prospects repaid him for all this, and the enthusiasm,
with which they were viewed by his young companions, heightened his
own, and awakened a remembrance of all the delightful emotions of his
early days, when the sublime charms of nature were first unveiled to
him. He found great pleasure in conversing with Valancourt, and in
listening to his ingenuous remarks. The fire and simplicity of his
manners seemed to render him a characteristic figure in the scenes
around them; and St. Aubert discovered in his sentiments the justness
and the dignity of an elevated mind, unbiased by intercourse with the
world. He perceived, that his opinions were formed, rather than
imbibed; were more the result of thought, than of learning. Of the
world he seemed to know nothing; for he believed well of all mankind,
and this opinion gave him the reflected image of his own heart.

St. Aubert, as he sometimes lingered to examine the wild plants in his
path, often looked forward with pleasure to Emily and Valancourt, as
they strolled on together; he, with a countenance of animated delight,
pointing to her attention some grand feature of the scene; and she,
listening and observing with a look of tender seriousness, that spoke
the elevation of her mind. They appeared like two lovers who had never
strayed beyond these their native mountains; whose situation had
secluded them from the frivolities of common life, whose ideas were
simple and grand, like the landscapes among which they moved, and who
knew no other happiness, than in the union of pure and affectionate
hearts. St. Aubert smiled, and sighed at the romantic picture of
felicity his fancy drew; and sighed again to think, that nature and
simplicity were so little known to the world, as that their pleasures
were thought romantic.

“The world,” said he, pursuing this train of thought, “ridicules a
passion which it seldom feels; its scenes, and its interests, distract
the mind, deprave the taste, corrupt the heart, and love cannot exist
in a heart that has lost the meek dignity of innocence. Virtue and
taste are nearly the same, for virtue is little more than active taste,
and the most delicate affections of each combine in real love. How then
are we to look for love in great cities, where selfishness,
dissipation, and insincerity supply the place of tenderness, simplicity
and truth?”

It was near noon, when the travellers, having arrived at a piece of
steep and dangerous road, alighted to walk. The road wound up an
ascent, that was clothed with wood, and, instead of following the
carriage, they entered the refreshing shade. A dewy coolness was
diffused upon the air, which, with the bright verdure of turf, that
grew under the trees, the mingled fragrance of flowers and of balm,
thyme, and lavender, that enriched it, and the grandeur of the pines,
beech, and chestnuts, that overshadowed them, rendered this a most
delicious retreat. Sometimes, the thick foliage excluded all view of
the country; at others, it admitted some partial catches of the distant
scenery, which gave hints to the imagination to picture landscapes more
interesting, more impressive, than any that had been presented to the
eye. The wanderers often lingered to indulge in these reveries of
fancy.

The pauses of silence, such as had formerly interrupted the
conversations of Valancourt and Emily, were more frequent today than
ever. Valancourt often dropped suddenly from the most animating
vivacity into fits of deep musing, and there was, sometimes, an
unaffected melancholy in his smile, which Emily could not avoid
understanding, for her heart was interested in the sentiment it spoke.

St. Aubert was refreshed by the shades, and they continued to saunter
under them, following, as nearly as they could guess, the direction of
the road, till they perceived that they had totally lost it. They had
continued near the brow of the precipice, allured by the scenery it
exhibited, while the road wound far away over the cliff above.
Valancourt called loudly to Michael, but heard no voice, except his
own, echoing among the rocks, and his various efforts to regain the
road were equally unsuccessful. While they were thus circumstanced,
they perceived a shepherd’s cabin, between the boles of the trees at
some distance, and Valancourt bounded on first to ask assistance. When
he reached it, he saw only two little children, at play, on the turf
before the door. He looked into the hut, but no person was there, and
the eldest of the boys told him that their father was with his flocks,
and their mother was gone down into the vale, but would be back
presently. As he stood, considering what was further to be done, on a
sudden he heard Michael’s voice roaring forth most manfully among the
cliffs above, till he made their echoes ring. Valancourt immediately
answered the call, and endeavoured to make his way through the thicket
that clothed the steeps, following the direction of the sound. After
much struggle over brambles and precipices, he reached Michael, and at
length prevailed with him to be silent, and to listen to him. The road
was at a considerable distance from the spot where St. Aubert and Emily
were; the carriage could not easily return to the entrance of the wood,
and, since it would be very fatiguing for St. Aubert to climb the long
and steep road to the place where it now stood, Valancourt was anxious
to find a more easy ascent, by the way he had himself passed.

Meanwhile St. Aubert and Emily approached the cottage, and rested
themselves on a rustic bench, fastened between two pines, which
overshadowed it, till Valancourt, whose steps they had observed, should
return.

The eldest of the children desisted from his play, and stood still to
observe the strangers, while the younger continued his little gambols,
and teased his brother to join in them. St. Aubert looked with pleasure
upon this picture of infantine simplicity, till it brought to his
remembrance his own boys, whom he had lost about the age of these, and
their lamented mother; and he sunk into a thoughtfulness, which Emily
observing, she immediately began to sing one of those simple and lively
airs he was so fond of, and which she knew how to give with the most
captivating sweetness. St. Aubert smiled on her through his tears, took
her hand and pressed it affectionately, and then tried to dissipate the
melancholy reflections that lingered in his mind.

While she sung, Valancourt approached, who was unwilling to interrupt
her, and paused at a little distance to listen. When she had concluded,
he joined the party, and told them, that he had found Michael, as well
as a way, by which he thought they could ascend the cliff to the
carriage. He pointed to the woody steeps above, which St. Aubert
surveyed with an anxious eye. He was already wearied by his walk, and
this ascent was formidable to him. He thought, however, it would be
less toilsome than the long and broken road, and he determined to
attempt it; but Emily, ever watchful of his ease, proposing that he
should rest, and dine before they proceeded further, Valancourt went to
the carriage for the refreshments deposited there.

On his return, he proposed removing a little higher up the mountain, to
where the woods opened upon a grand and extensive prospect; and thither
they were preparing to go, when they saw a young woman join the
children, and caress and weep over them.

The travellers, interested by her distress, stopped to observe her. She
took the youngest of the children in her arms, and, perceiving the
strangers, hastily dried her tears, and proceeded to the cottage. St.
Aubert, on enquiring the occasion of her sorrow, learned that her
husband, who was a shepherd, and lived here in the summer months to
watch over the flocks he led to feed upon these mountains, had lost, on
the preceding night, his little all. A gang of gipsies, who had for
some time infested the neighbourhood, had driven away several of his
master’s sheep. “Jacques,” added the shepherd’s wife, “had saved a
little money, and had bought a few sheep with it, and now they must go
to his master for those that are stolen; and what is worse than all,
his master, when he comes to know how it is, will trust him no longer
with the care of his flocks, for he is a hard man! and then what is to
become of our children!”

The innocent countenance of the woman, and the simplicity of her manner
in relating her grievance, inclined St. Aubert to believe her story;
and Valancourt, convinced that it was true, asked eagerly what was the
value of the stolen sheep; on hearing which he turned away with a look
of disappointment. St. Aubert put some money into her hand, Emily too
gave something from her little purse, and they walked towards the
cliff; but Valancourt lingered behind, and spoke to the shepherd’s
wife, who was now weeping with gratitude and surprise. He enquired how
much money was yet wanting to replace the stolen sheep, and found, that
it was a sum very little short of all he had about him. He was
perplexed and distressed. “This sum then,” said he to himself, “would
make this poor family completely happy—it is in my power to give it—to
make them completely happy! But what is to become of me?—how shall I
contrive to reach home with the little money that will remain?” For a
moment he stood, unwilling to forego the luxury of raising a family
from ruin to happiness, yet considering the difficulties of pursuing
his journey with so small a sum as would be left.

While he was in this state of perplexity, the shepherd himself
appeared: his children ran to meet him; he took one of them in his
arms, and, with the other clinging to his coat, came forward with a
loitering step. His forlorn and melancholy look determined Valancourt
at once; he threw down all the money he had, except a very few louis,
and bounded away after St. Aubert and Emily, who were proceeding slowly
up the steep. Valancourt had seldom felt his heart so light as at this
moment; his gay spirits danced with pleasure; every object around him
appeared more interesting, or beautiful, than before. St. Aubert
observed the uncommon vivacity of his countenance: “What has pleased
you so much?” said he. “O what a lovely day,” replied Valancourt, “how
brightly the sun shines, how pure is this air, what enchanting
scenery!” “It is indeed enchanting,” said St. Aubert, whom early
experience had taught to understand the nature of Valancourt’s present
feelings. “What pity that the wealthy, who can command such sunshine,
should ever pass their days in gloom—in the cold shade of selfishness!
For you, my young friend, may the sun always shine as brightly as at
this moment; may your own conduct always give you the sunshine of
benevolence and reason united!”

Valancourt, highly flattered by this compliment, could make no reply
but by a smile of gratitude.

They continued to wind under the woods, between the grassy knolls of
the mountain, and, as they reached the shady summit, which he had
pointed out, the whole party burst into an exclamation. Behind the spot
where they stood, the rock rose perpendicularly in a massy wall to a
considerable height, and then branched out into overhanging crags.
Their grey tints were well contrasted by the bright hues of the plants
and wild flowers, that grew in their fractured sides, and were deepened
by the gloom of the pines and cedars, that waved above. The steeps
below, over which the eye passed abruptly to the valley, were fringed
with thickets of alpine shrubs; and, lower still, appeared the tufted
tops of the chesnut woods, that clothed their base, among which peeped
forth the shepherd’s cottage, just left by the travellers, with its
bluish smoke curling high in the air. On every side appeared the
majestic summits of the Pyrenees, some exhibiting tremendous crags of
marble, whose appearance was changing every instant, as the varying
lights fell upon their surface; others, still higher, displaying only
snowy points, while their lower steeps were covered almost invariably
with forests of pine, larch, and oak, that stretched down to the vale.
This was one of the narrow valleys, that open from the Pyrenees into
the country of Rousillon, and whose green pastures, and cultivated
beauty, form a decided and wonderful contrast to the romantic grandeur
that environs it. Through a vista of the mountains appeared the
lowlands of Rousillon, tinted with the blue haze of distance, as they
united with the waters of the Mediterranean; where, on a promontory,
which marked the boundary of the shore, stood a lonely beacon, over
which were seen circling flights of sea-fowl. Beyond, appeared, now and
then, a stealing sail, white with the sunbeam, and whose progress was
perceivable by its approach to the light-house. Sometimes, too, was
seen a sail so distant, that it served only to mark the line of
separation between the sky and the waves.

On the other side of the valley, immediately opposite to the spot where
the travellers rested, a rocky pass opened toward Gascony. Here no sign
of cultivation appeared. The rocks of granite, that screened the glen,
rose abruptly from their base, and stretched their barren points to the
clouds, unvaried with woods, and uncheered even by a hunter’s cabin.
Sometimes, indeed, a gigantic larch threw its long shade over the
precipice, and here and there a cliff reared on its brow a monumental
cross, to tell the traveller the fate of him who had ventured thither
before. This spot seemed the very haunt of banditti; and Emily, as she
looked down upon it, almost expected to see them stealing out from some
hollow cave to look for their prey. Soon after an object not less
terrific struck her,—a gibbet standing on a point of rock near the
entrance of the pass, and immediately over one of the crosses she had
before observed. These were hieroglyphics that told a plain and
dreadful story. She forbore to point it out to St. Aubert, but it threw
a gloom over her spirits, and made her anxious to hasten forward, that
they might with certainty reach Rousillon before night-fall. It was
necessary, however, that St. Aubert should take some refreshment, and,
seating themselves on the short dry turf, they opened the basket of
provisions, while

by breezy murmurs cool’d,
Broad o’er _their_ heads the verdant cedars wave,
And high palmetos lift their graceful shade.
———_they_ draw
Ethereal soul, there drink reviving gales
Profusely breathing from the piney groves,
And vales of fragrance; there at a distance hear
The roaring floods, and cataracts.
                    THOMSON


St. Aubert was revived by rest, and by the serene air of this summit;
and Valancourt was so charmed with all around, and with the
conversation of his companions, that he seemed to have forgotten he had
any further to go. Having concluded their simple repast, they gave a
long farewell look to the scene, and again began to ascend. St. Aubert
rejoiced when he reached the carriage, which Emily entered with him;
but Valancourt, willing to take a more extensive view of the enchanting
country, into which they were about to descend, than he could do from a
carriage, loosened his dogs, and once more bounded with them along the
banks of the road. He often quitted it for points that promised a wider
prospect, and the slow pace, at which the mules travelled, allowed him
to overtake them with ease. Whenever a scene of uncommon magnificence
appeared, he hastened to inform St. Aubert, who, though he was too much
tired to walk himself, sometimes made the chaise wait, while Emily went
to the neighbouring cliff.

It was evening when they descended the lower alps, that bind Rousillon,
and form a majestic barrier round that charming country, leaving it
open only on the east to the Mediterranean. The gay tints of
cultivation once more beautified the landscape; for the lowlands were
coloured with the richest hues, which a luxuriant climate, and an
industrious people can awaken into life. Groves of orange and lemon
perfumed the air, their ripe fruit glowing among the foliage; while,
sloping to the plains, extensive vineyards spread their treasures.
Beyond these, woods and pastures, and mingled towns and hamlets
stretched towards the sea, on whose bright surface gleamed many a
distant sail; while, over the whole scene, was diffused the purple glow
of evening. This landscape with the surrounding alps did, indeed,
present a perfect picture of the lovely and the sublime, of “beauty
sleeping in the lap of horror.”

The travellers, having reached the plains, proceeded, between hedges of
flowering myrtle and pomegranate, to the town of Arles, where they
proposed to rest for the night. They met with simple, but neat
accommodation, and would have passed a happy evening, after the toils
and the delights of this day, had not the approaching separation thrown
a gloom over their spirit. It was St. Aubert’s plan to proceed, on the
morrow, to the borders of the Mediterranean, and travel along its
shores into Languedoc; and Valancourt, since he was now nearly
recovered, and had no longer a pretence for continuing with his new
friends, resolved to leave them here. St. Aubert, who was much pleased
with him, invited him to go further, but did not repeat the invitation,
and Valancourt had resolution enough to forego the temptation of
accepting it, that he might prove himself not unworthy of the favour.
On the following morning, therefore, they were to part, St. Aubert to
pursue his way to Languedoc, and Valancourt to explore new scenes among
the mountains, on his return home. During this evening he was often
silent and thoughtful; St. Aubert’s manner towards him was
affectionate, though grave, and Emily was serious, though she made
frequent efforts to appear cheerful. After one of the most melancholy
evenings they had yet passed together, they separated for the night.



 CHAPTER VI

I care not, Fortune! what you me deny;
You cannot rob me of free nature’s grace;
You cannot shut the windows of the sky,
Through which Aurora shows her brightening face;
You cannot bar my constant feet to trace
The woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve:
Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace,
And I their toys to the great children leave:
Of fancy, reason, virtue, nought can me bereave.
                    THOMSON


In the morning, Valancourt breakfasted with St. Aubert and Emily,
neither of whom seemed much refreshed by sleep. The languor of illness
still hung over St. Aubert, and to Emily’s fears his disorder appeared
to be increasing fast upon him. She watched his looks with anxious
affection, and their expression was always faithfully reflected in her
own.

At the commencement of their acquaintance, Valancourt had made known
his name and family. St. Aubert was not a stranger to either, for the
family estates, which were now in the possession of an elder brother of
Valancourt, were little more than twenty miles distant from La Vallée,
and he had sometimes met the elder Valancourt on visits in the
neighbourhood. This knowledge had made him more willingly receive his
present companion; for, though his countenance and manners would have
won him the acquaintance of St. Aubert, who was very apt to trust to
the intelligence of his own eyes, with respect to countenances, he
would not have accepted these, as sufficient introductions to that of
his daughter.

The breakfast was almost as silent as the supper of the preceding
night; but their musing was at length interrupted by the sound of the
carriage wheels, which were to bear away St. Aubert and Emily.
Valancourt started from his chair, and went to the window; it was
indeed the carriage, and he returned to his seat without speaking. The
moment was now come when they must part. St. Aubert told Valancourt,
that he hoped he would never pass La Vallée without favouring him with
a visit; and Valancourt, eagerly thanking him, assured him that he
never would; as he said which he looked timidly at Emily, who tried to
smile away the seriousness of her spirits. They passed a few minutes in
interesting conversation, and St. Aubert then led the way to the
carriage, Emily and Valancourt following in silence. The latter
lingered at the door several minutes after they were seated, and none
of the party seemed to have courage enough to say—Farewell. At length,
St. Aubert pronounced the melancholy word, which Emily passed to
Valancourt, who returned it, with a dejected smile, and the carriage
drove on.

The travellers remained, for some time, in a state of tranquil
pensiveness, which is not unpleasing. St. Aubert interrupted it by
observing, “This is a very promising young man; it is many years since
I have been so much pleased with any person, on so short an
acquaintance. He brings back to my memory the days of my youth, when
every scene was new and delightful!” St. Aubert sighed, and sunk again
into a reverie; and, as Emily looked back upon the road they had
passed, Valancourt was seen, at the door of the little inn, following
them with his eyes. Her perceived her, and waved his hand; and she
returned the adieu, till the winding road shut her from his sight.

“I remember when I was about his age,” resumed St. Aubert, “and I
thought, and felt exactly as he does. The world was opening upon me
then, now—it is closing.”

“My dear sir, do not think so gloomily,” said Emily in a trembling
voice, “I hope you have many, many years to live—for your own sake—for
_my_ sake.”

“Ah, my Emily!” replied St. Aubert, “for thy sake! Well—I hope it is
so.” He wiped away a tear, that was stealing down his cheek, threw a
smile upon his countenance, and said in a cheering voice, “there is
something in the ardour and ingenuousness of youth, which is
particularly pleasing to the contemplation of an old man, if his
feelings have not been entirely corroded by the world. It is cheering
and reviving, like the view of spring to a sick person; his mind
catches somewhat of the spirit of the season, and his eyes are lighted
up with a transient sunshine. Valancourt is this spring to me.”

Emily, who pressed her father’s hand affectionately, had never before
listened with so much pleasure to the praises he bestowed; no, not even
when he had bestowed them on herself.

They travelled on, among vineyards, woods, and pastures, delighted with
the romantic beauty of the landscape, which was bounded, on one side,
by the grandeur of the Pyrenees, and, on the other, by the ocean; and,
soon after noon, they reached the town of Colioure, situated on the
Mediterranean. Here they dined, and rested till towards the cool of
day, when they pursued their way along the shores—those enchanting
shores!—which extend to Languedoc. Emily gazed with enthusiasm on the
vastness of the sea, its surface varying, as the lights and shadows
fell, and on its woody banks, mellowed with autumnal tints.

St. Aubert was impatient to reach Perpignan, where he expected letters
from M. Quesnel; and it was the expectation of these letters, that had
induced him to leave Colioure, for his feeble frame had required
immediate rest. After travelling a few miles, he fell asleep; and
Emily, who had put two or three books into the carriage, on leaving La
Vallée, had now the leisure for looking into them. She sought for one,
in which Valancourt had been reading the day before, and hoped for the
pleasure of retracing a page, over which the eyes of a beloved friend
had lately passed, of dwelling on the passages, which he had admired,
and of permitting them to speak to her in the language of his own mind,
and to bring himself to her presence. On searching for the book, she
could find it nowhere, but in its stead perceived a volume of
Petrarch’s poems, that had belonged to Valancourt, whose name was
written in it, and from which he had frequently read passages to her,
with all the pathetic expression, that characterised the feelings of
the author. She hesitated in believing, what would have been
sufficiently apparent to almost any other person, that he had purposely
left this book, instead of the one she had lost, and that love had
prompted the exchange; but, having opened it with impatient pleasure,
and observed the lines of his pencil drawn along the various passages
he had read aloud, and under others more descriptive of delicate
tenderness than he had dared to trust his voice with, the conviction
came, at length, to her mind. For some moments she was conscious only
of being beloved; then, a recollection of all the variations of tone
and countenance, with which he had recited these sonnets, and of the
soul, which spoke in their expression, pressed to her memory, and she
wept over the memorial of his affection.

They arrived at Perpignan soon after sunset, where St. Aubert found, as
he had expected, letters from M. Quesnel, the contents of which so
evidently and grievously affected him, that Emily was alarmed, and
pressed him, as far as her delicacy would permit, to disclose the
occasion of his concern; but he answered her only by tears, and
immediately began to talk on other topics. Emily, though she forbore to
press the one most interesting to her, was greatly affected by her
father’s manner, and passed a night of sleepless solicitude.

In the morning they pursued their journey along the coast towards
Leucate, another town on the Mediterranean, situated on the borders of
Languedoc and Rousillon. On the way, Emily renewed the subject of the
preceding night, and appeared so deeply affected by St. Aubert’s
silence and dejection, that he relaxed from his reserve. “I was
unwilling, my dear Emily,” said he, “to throw a cloud over the pleasure
you receive from these scenes, and meant, therefore, to conceal, for
the present, some circumstances, with which, however, you must at
length have been made acquainted. But your anxiety has defeated my
purpose; you suffer as much from this, perhaps, as you will do from a
knowledge of the facts I have to relate. M. Quesnel’s visit proved an
unhappy one to me; he came to tell me part of the news he has now
confirmed. You may have heard me mention a M. Motteville, of Paris, but
you did not know that the chief of my personal property was invested in
his hands. I had great confidence in him, and I am yet willing to
believe, that he is not wholly unworthy of my esteem. A variety of
circumstances have concurred to ruin him, and—I am ruined with him.”

St. Aubert paused to conceal his emotion.

“The letters I have just received from M. Quesnel,” resumed he,
struggling to speak with firmness, “enclosed others from Motteville,
which confirmed all I dreaded.”

“Must we then quit La Vallée?” said Emily, after a long pause of
silence. “That is yet uncertain,” replied St. Aubert, “it will depend
upon the compromise Motteville is able to make with his creditors. My
income, you know, was never large, and now it will be reduced to little
indeed! It is for you, Emily, for you, my child, that I am most
afflicted.” His last words faltered; Emily smiled tenderly upon him
through her tears, and then, endeavouring to overcome her emotion, “My
dear father,” said she, “do not grieve for me, or for yourself; we may
yet be happy;—if La Vallée remains for us, we must be happy. We will
retain only one servant, and you shall scarcely perceive the change in
your income. Be comforted, my dear sir; we shall not feel the want of
those luxuries, which others value so highly, since we never had a
taste for them; and poverty cannot deprive us of many consolations. It
cannot rob us of the affection we have for each other, or degrade us in
our own opinion, or in that of any person, whose opinion we ought to
value.”

St. Aubert concealed his face with his handkerchief, and was unable to
speak; but Emily continued to urge to her father the truths, which
himself had impressed upon her mind.

“Besides, my dear sir, poverty cannot deprive us of intellectual
delights. It cannot deprive you of the comfort of affording me examples
of fortitude and benevolence; nor me of the delight of consoling a
beloved parent. It cannot deaden our taste for the grand, and the
beautiful, or deny us the means of indulging it; for the scenes of
nature—those sublime spectacles, so infinitely superior to all
artificial luxuries! are open for the enjoyment of the poor, as well as
of the rich. Of what, then, have we to complain, so long as we are not
in want of necessaries? Pleasures, such as wealth cannot buy, will
still be ours. We retain, then, the sublime luxuries of nature, and
lose only the frivolous ones of art.”

St. Aubert could not reply: he caught Emily to his bosom, their tears
flowed together, but—they were not tears of sorrow. After this language
of the heart, all other would have been feeble, and they remained
silent for some time. Then, St. Aubert conversed as before; for, if his
mind had not recovered its natural tranquillity, it at least assumed
the appearance of it.

They reached the romantic town of Leucate early in the day, but St.
Aubert was weary, and they determined to pass the night there. In the
evening, he exerted himself so far as to walk with his daughter to view
the environs that overlook the lake of Leucate, the Mediterranean, part
of Rousillon, with the Pyrenees, and a wide extent of the luxuriant
province of Languedoc, now blushing with the ripened vintage, which the
peasants were beginning to gather. St. Aubert and Emily saw the busy
groups, caught the joyous song, that was wafted on the breeze, and
anticipated, with apparent pleasure, their next day’s journey over this
gay region. He designed, however, still to wind along the sea-shore. To
return home immediately was partly his wish, but from this he was
withheld by a desire to lengthen the pleasure, which the journey gave
his daughter, and to try the effect of the sea air on his own disorder.

On the following day, therefore, they recommenced their journey through
Languedoc, winding the shores of the Mediterranean; the Pyrenees still
forming the magnificent back-ground of their prospects, while on their
right was the ocean, and, on their left, wide extended plains melting
into the blue horizon. St. Aubert was pleased, and conversed much with
Emily, yet his cheerfulness was sometimes artificial, and sometimes a
shade of melancholy would steal upon his countenance, and betray him.
This was soon chased away by Emily’s smile; who smiled, however, with
an aching heart, for she saw that his misfortunes preyed upon his mind,
and upon his enfeebled frame.

It was evening when they reached a small village of Upper Languedoc,
where they meant to pass the night, but the place could not afford them
beds; for here, too, it was the time of the vintage, and they were
obliged to proceed to the next post. The languor of illness and of
fatigue, which returned upon St. Aubert, required immediate repose, and
the evening was now far advanced; but from necessity there was no
appeal, and he ordered Michael to proceed.

The rich plains of Languedoc, which exhibited all the glories of the
vintage, with the gaieties of a French festival, no longer awakened St.
Aubert to pleasure, whose condition formed a mournful contrast to the
hilarity and youthful beauty which surrounded him. As his languid eyes
moved over the scene, he considered, that they would soon, perhaps, be
closed for ever on this world. “Those distant and sublime mountains,”
said he secretly, as he gazed on a chain of the Pyrenees that stretched
towards the west, “these luxuriant plains, this blue vault, the
cheerful light of day, will be shut from my eyes! The song of the
peasant, the cheering voice of man—will no longer sound for me!”

The intelligent eyes of Emily seemed to read what passed in the mind of
her father, and she fixed them on his face, with an expression of such
tender pity, as recalled his thoughts from every desultory object of
regret, and he remembered only, that he must leave his daughter without
protection. This reflection changed regret to agony; he sighed deeply,
and remained silent, while she seemed to understand that sigh, for she
pressed his hand affectionately, and then turned to the window to
conceal her tears. The sun now threw a last yellow gleam on the waves
of the Mediterranean, and the gloom of twilight spread fast over the
scene, till only a melancholy ray appeared on the western horizon,
marking the point where the sun had set amid the vapours of an autumnal
evening. A cool breeze now came from the shore, and Emily let down the
glass; but the air, which was refreshing to health, was as chilling to
sickness, and St. Aubert desired, that the window might be drawn up.
Increasing illness made him now more anxious than ever to finish the
day’s journey, and he stopped the muleteer to enquire how far they had
yet to go to the next post. He replied, “Nine miles.” “I feel I am
unable to proceed much further,” said St. Aubert; “enquire, as you go,
if there is any house on the road that would accommodate us for the
night.” He sunk back in the carriage, and Michael, cracking his whip in
the air, set off, and continued on the full gallop, till St. Aubert,
almost fainting, called to him to stop. Emily looked anxiously from the
window, and saw a peasant walking at some little distance on the road,
for whom they waited, till he came up, when he was asked, if there was
any house in the neighbourhood that accommodated travellers. He
replied, that he knew of none. “There is a château, indeed, among those
woods on the right,” added he, “but I believe it receives nobody, and I
cannot show you the way, for I am almost a stranger here.” St. Aubert
was going to ask him some further question concerning the château, but
the man abruptly passed on. After some consideration, he ordered
Michael to proceed slowly to the woods. Every moment now deepened the
twilight, and increased the difficulty of finding the road. Another
peasant soon after passed. “Which is the way to the château in the
woods?” cried Michael.

“The château in the woods!” exclaimed the peasant—“Do you mean that
with the turret, yonder?”

“I don’t know as for the turret, as you call it,” said Michael, “I mean
that white piece of a building, that we see at a distance there, among
the trees.”

“Yes, that is the turret; why, who are you, that you are going
thither?” said the man with surprise.

St. Aubert, on hearing this odd question, and observing the peculiar
tone in which it was delivered, looked out from the carriage. “We are
travellers,” said he, “who are in search of a house of accommodation
for the night; is there any hereabout?”

“None, Monsieur, unless you have a mind to try your luck yonder,”
replied the peasant, pointing to the woods, “but I would not advise you
to go there.”

“To whom does the château belong?”

“I scarcely know myself, Monsieur.”

“It is uninhabited, then?”—“No, not uninhabited; the steward and
housekeeper are there, I believe.”

On hearing this, St. Aubert determined to proceed to the château, and
risk the refusal of being accommodated for the night; he therefore
desired the countryman would show Michael the way, and bade him expect
reward for his trouble. The man was for a moment silent, and then said,
that he was going on other business, but that the road could not be
missed, if they went up an avenue to the right, to which he pointed.
St. Aubert was going to speak, but the peasant wished him good night,
and walked on.

The carriage now moved towards the avenue, which was guarded by a gate,
and Michael having dismounted to open it, they entered between rows of
ancient oak and chesnut, whose intermingled branches formed a lofty
arch above. There was something so gloomy and desolate in the
appearance of this avenue, and its lonely silence, that Emily almost
shuddered as she passed along; and, recollecting the manner in which
the peasant had mentioned the château, she gave a mysterious meaning to
his words, such as she had not suspected when he uttered them. These
apprehensions, however, she tried to check, considering that they were
probably the effect of a melancholy imagination, which her father’s
situation, and a consideration of her own circumstances, had made
sensible to every impression.

They passed slowly on, for they were now almost in darkness, which,
together with the unevenness of the ground, and the frequent roots of
old trees, that shot up above the soil, made it necessary to proceed
with caution. On a sudden Michael stopped the carriage; and, as St.
Aubert looked from the window to enquire the cause, he perceived a
figure at some distance moving up the avenue. The dusk would not permit
him to distinguish what it was, but he bade Michael go on.

“This seems a wild place,” said Michael; “there is no house hereabout,
don’t your honour think we had better turn back?”

“Go a little farther, and if we see no house then, we will return to
the road,” replied St. Aubert.

Michael proceeded with reluctance, and the extreme slowness of his pace
made St. Aubert look again from the window to hasten him, when again he
saw the same figure. He was somewhat startled: probably the gloominess
of the spot made him more liable to alarm than usual; however this
might be, he now stopped Michael, and bade him call to the person in
the avenue.

“Please your honour, he may be a robber,” said Michael. “It does not
please me,” replied St. Aubert, who could not forbear smiling at the
simplicity of his phrase, “and we will, therefore, return to the road,
for I see no probability of meeting here with what we seek.”

Michael turned about immediately, and was retracing his way with
alacrity, when a voice was heard from among the trees on the left. It
was not the voice of command, or distress, but a deep hollow tone,
which seemed to be scarcely human. The man whipped his mules till they
went as fast as possible, regardless of the darkness, the broken
ground, and the necks of the whole party, nor once stopped till he
reached the gate, which opened from the avenue into the high-road,
where he went into a more moderate pace.

“I am very ill,” said St. Aubert, taking his daughter’s hand. “You are
worse, then, sir!” said Emily, extremely alarmed by his manner, “you
are worse, and here is no assistance. Good God! what is to be done!” He
leaned his head on her shoulder, while she endeavoured to support him
with her arm, and Michael was again ordered to stop. When the rattling
of the wheels had ceased, music was heard on their air; it was to Emily
the voice of Hope. “Oh! we are near some human habitation!” said she,
“help may soon be had.”

She listened anxiously; the sounds were distant, and seemed to come
from a remote part of the woods that bordered the road; and, as she
looked towards the spot whence they issued, she perceived in the faint
moonlight something like a château. It was difficult, however, to reach
this; St. Aubert was now too ill to bear the motion of the carriage;
Michael could not quit his mules; and Emily, who still supported her
father, feared to leave him, and also feared to venture alone to such a
distance, she knew not whither, or to whom. Something, however, it was
necessary to determine upon immediately; St. Aubert, therefore, told
Michael to proceed slowly; but they had not gone far, when he fainted,
and the carriage was again stopped. He lay quite senseless.—“My dear,
dear father!” cried Emily in great agony, who began to fear that he was
dying, “speak, if it is only one word to let me hear the sound of your
voice!” But no voice spoke in reply. In the agony of terror she bade
Michael bring water from the rivulet, that flowed along the road; and,
having received some in the man’s hat, with trembling hands she
sprinkled it over her father’s face, which, as the moon’s rays now fell
upon it, seemed to bear the impression of death. Every emotion of
selfish fear now gave way to a stronger influence, and, committing St.
Aubert to the care of Michael, who refused to go far from his mules,
she stepped from the carriage in search of the château she had seen at
a distance. It was a still moonlight night, and the music, which yet
sounded on the air, directed her steps from the high road, up a shadowy
lane, that led to the woods. Her mind was for some time so entirely
occupied by anxiety and terror for her father, that she felt none for
herself, till the deepening gloom of the overhanging foliage, which now
wholly excluded the moonlight, and the wildness of the place, recalled
her to a sense of her adventurous situation. The music had ceased, and
she had no guide but chance. For a moment she paused in terrified
perplexity, till a sense of her father’s condition again overcoming
every consideration for herself, she proceeded. The lane terminated in
the woods, but she looked round in vain for a house, or a human being,
and as vainly listened for a sound to guide her. She hurried on,
however, not knowing whither, avoiding the recesses of the woods, and
endeavouring to keep along their margin, till a rude kind of avenue,
which opened upon a moonlight spot, arrested her attention. The
wildness of this avenue brought to her recollection the one leading to
the turreted château, and she was inclined to believe, that this was a
part of the same domain, and probably led to the same point. While she
hesitated, whether to follow it or not, a sound of many voices in loud
merriment burst upon her ear. It seemed not the laugh of cheerfulness,
but of riot, and she stood appalled. While she paused, she heard a
distant voice, calling from the way she had come, and not doubting but
it was that of Michael, her first impulse was to hasten back; but a
second thought changed her purpose; she believed that nothing less than
the last extremity could have prevailed with Michael to quit his mules,
and fearing that her father was now dying, she rushed forward, with a
feeble hope of obtaining assistance from the people in the woods. Her
heart beat with fearful expectation, as she drew near the spot whence
the voices issued, and she often startled when her steps disturbed the
fallen leaves. The sounds led her towards the moonlight glade she had
before noticed; at a little distance from which she stopped, and saw,
between the boles of the trees, a small circular level of green turf,
surrounded by the woods, on which appeared a group of figures. On
drawing nearer, she distinguished these, by their dress, to be
peasants, and perceived several cottages scattered round the edge of
the woods, which waved loftily over this spot. While she gazed, and
endeavoured to overcome the apprehensions that withheld her steps,
several peasant girls came out of a cottage; music instantly struck up,
and the dance began. It was the joyous music of the vintage—the same
she had before heard upon the air. Her heart, occupied with terror for
her father, could not feel the contrast, which this gay scene offered
to her own distress; she stepped hastily forward towards a group of
elder peasants, who were seated at the door of a cottage, and, having
explained her situation, entreated their assistance. Several of them
rose with alacrity, and, offering any service in their power, followed
Emily, who seemed to move on the wind, as fast as they could towards
the road.

When she reached the carriage she found St. Aubert restored to
animation. On the recovery of his senses, having heard from Michael
whither his daughter was gone, anxiety for her overcame every regard
for himself, and he had sent him in search of her. He was, however,
still languid, and, perceiving himself unable to travel much farther,
he renewed his enquiries for an inn, and concerning the château in the
woods. “The château cannot accommodate you, sir,” said a venerable
peasant who had followed Emily from the woods, “it is scarcely
inhabited; but, if you will do me the honour to visit my cottage, you
shall be welcome to the best bed it affords.”

St. Aubert was himself a Frenchman; he therefore was not surprised at
French courtesy; but, ill as he was, he felt the value of the offer
enhanced by the manner which accompanied it. He had too much delicacy
to apologise, or to appear to hesitate about availing himself of the
peasant’s hospitality, but immediately accepted it with the same
frankness with which it was offered.

The carriage again moved slowly on; Michael following the peasants up
the lane, which Emily had just quitted, till they came to the moonlight
glade. St. Aubert’s spirits were so far restored by the courtesy of his
host, and the near prospect of repose, that he looked with a sweet
complacency upon the moonlight scene, surrounded by the shadowy woods,
through which, here and there, an opening admitted the streaming
splendour, discovering a cottage, or a sparkling rivulet. He listened,
with no painful emotion, to the merry notes of the guitar and
tamborine; and, though tears came to his eyes, when he saw the
_debonnaire_ dance of the peasants, they were not merely tears of
mournful regret. With Emily it was otherwise; immediate terror for her
father had now subsided into a gentle melancholy, which every note of
joy, by awakening comparison, served to heighten.

The dance ceased on the approach of the carriage, which was a
phenomenon in these sequestered woods, and the peasantry flocked round
it with eager curiosity. On learning that it brought a sick stranger,
several girls ran across the turf, and returned with wine and baskets
of grapes, which they presented to the travellers, each with kind
contention pressing for a preference. At length, the carriage stopped
at a neat cottage, and his venerable conductor, having assisted St.
Aubert to alight, led him and Emily to a small inner room, illuminated
only by moonbeams, which the open casement admitted. St. Aubert,
rejoicing in rest, seated himself in an arm-chair, and his senses were
refreshed by the cool and balmy air, that lightly waved the embowering
honeysuckles, and wafted their sweet breath into the apartment. His
host, who was called La Voisin, quitted the room, but soon returned
with fruits, cream, and all the pastoral luxury his cottage afforded;
having set down which, with a smile of unfeigned welcome, he retired
behind the chair of his guest. St. Aubert insisted on his taking a seat
at the table, and, when the fruit had allayed the fever of his palate,
and he found himself somewhat revived, he began to converse with his
host, who communicated several particulars concerning himself and his
family, which were interesting, because they were spoken from the
heart, and delineated a picture of the sweet courtesies of family
kindness. Emily sat by her father, holding his hand, and, while she
listened to the old man, her heart swelled with the affectionate
sympathy he described, and her tears fell to the mournful
consideration, that death would probably soon deprive her of the
dearest blessing she then possessed. The soft moonlight of an autumnal
evening, and the distant music, which now sounded a plaintive strain,
aided the melancholy of her mind. The old man continued to talk of his
family, and St. Aubert remained silent. “I have only one daughter
living,” said La Voisin, “but she is happily married, and is everything
to me. When I lost my wife,” he added with a sigh, “I came to live with
Agnes, and her family; she has several children, who are all dancing on
the green yonder, as merry as grasshoppers—and long may they be so! I
hope to die among them, monsieur. I am old now, and cannot expect to
live long, but there is some comfort in dying surrounded by one’s
children.”

“My good friend,” said St. Aubert, while his voice trembled, “I hope
you will long live surrounded by them.”

“Ah, sir! at my age I must not expect that!” replied the old man, and
he paused: “I can scarcely wish it,” he resumed, “for I trust that
whenever I die I shall go to heaven, where my poor wife is gone before
me. I can sometimes almost fancy I see her of a still moonlight night,
walking among these shades she loved so well. Do you believe, monsieur,
that we shall be permitted to revisit the earth, after we have quitted
the body?”

Emily could no longer stifle the anguish of her heart; her tears fell
fast upon her father’s hand, which she yet held. He made an effort to
speak, and at length said in a low voice, “I hope we shall be permitted
to look down on those we have left on the earth, but I can only hope
it. Futurity is much veiled from our eyes, and faith and hope are our
only guides concerning it. We are not enjoined to believe, that
disembodied spirits watch over the friends they have loved, but we may
innocently hope it. It is a hope which I will never resign,” continued
he, while he wiped the tears from his daughter’s eyes, “it will sweeten
the bitter moments of death!” Tears fell slowly on his cheeks; La
Voisin wept too, and there was a pause of silence. Then, La Voisin,
renewing the subject, said, “But you believe, sir, that we shall meet
in another world the relations we have loved in this; I must believe
this.” “Then do believe it,” replied St. Aubert, “severe, indeed, would
be the pangs of separation, if we believed it to be eternal. Look up,
my dear Emily, we shall meet again!” He lifted his eyes towards heaven,
and a gleam of moonlight, which fell upon his countenance, discovered
peace and resignation, stealing on the lines of sorrow.

La Voisin felt that he had pursued the subject too far, and he dropped
it, saying, “We are in darkness, I forgot to bring a light.”

“No,” said St. Aubert, “this is a light I love. Sit down, my good
friend. Emily, my love, I find myself better than I have been all day;
this air refreshes me. I can enjoy this tranquil hour, and that music,
which floats so sweetly at a distance. Let me see you smile. Who
touches that guitar so tastefully? are there two instruments, or is it
an echo I hear?”

“It is an echo, monsieur, I fancy. That guitar is often heard at night,
when all is still, but nobody knows who touches it, and it is sometimes
accompanied by a voice so sweet, and so sad, one would almost think the
woods were haunted.” “They certainly are haunted,” said St. Aubert with
a smile, “but I believe it is by mortals.” “I have sometimes heard it
at midnight, when I could not sleep,” rejoined La Voisin, not seeming
to notice this remark, “almost under my window, and I never heard any
music like it. It has often made me think of my poor wife till I cried.
I have sometimes got up to the window to look if I could see anybody,
but as soon as I opened the casement all was hushed, and nobody to be
seen; and I have listened, and listened till I have been so timorous,
that even the trembling of the leaves in the breeze has made me start.
They say it often comes to warn people of their death, but I have heard
it these many years, and outlived the warning.”

Emily, though she smiled at the mention of this ridiculous
superstition, could not, in the present tone of her spirits, wholly
resist its contagion.

“Well, but, my good friend,” said St. Aubert, “has nobody had courage
to follow the sounds? If they had, they would probably have discovered
who is the musician.” “Yes, sir, they have followed them some way into
the woods, but the music has still retreated, and seemed as distant as
ever, and the people have at last been afraid of being led into harm,
and would go no further. It is very seldom that I have heard these
sounds so early in the evening. They usually come about midnight, when
that bright planet, which is rising above the turret yonder, sets below
the woods on the left.”

“What turret?” asked St. Aubert with quickness, “I see none.”

“Your pardon, monsieur, you do see one indeed, for the moon shines full
upon it;—up the avenue yonder, a long way off; the château it belongs
to is hid among the trees.”

“Yes, my dear sir,” said Emily, pointing, “don’t you see something
glitter above the dark woods? It is a fane, I fancy, which the rays
fall upon.”

“O yes, I see what you mean; and who does the château belong to?”

“The Marquis de Villeroi was its owner,” replied La Voisin,
emphatically.

“Ah!” said St. Aubert, with a deep sigh, “are we then so near
Le-Blanc!” He appeared much agitated.

“It used to be the Marquis’s favourite residence,” resumed La Voisin,
“but he took a dislike to the place, and has not been there for many
years. We have heard lately that he is dead, and that it is fallen into
other hands.” St. Aubert, who had sat in deep musing, was roused by the
last words. “Dead!” he exclaimed, “Good God! when did he die?”

“He is reported to have died about five weeks since,” replied La
Voisin. “Did you know the Marquis, sir?”

“This is very extraordinary!” said St. Aubert without attending to the
question. “Why is it so, my dear sir?” said Emily, in a voice of timid
curiosity. He made no reply, but sunk again into a reverie; and in a
few moments, when he seemed to have recovered himself, asked who had
succeeded to the estates. “I have forgot his title, monsieur,” said La
Voisin; “but my lord resides at Paris chiefly; I hear no talk of his
coming hither.”

“The château is shut up then, still?”

“Why, little better, sir; the old housekeeper, and her husband the
steward, have the care of it, but they live generally in a cottage hard
by.”

“The château is spacious, I suppose,” said Emily, “and must be desolate
for the residence of only two persons.”

“Desolate enough, mademoiselle,” replied La Voisin, “I would not pass
one night in the château, for the value of the whole domain.”

“What is that?” said St. Aubert, roused again from thoughtfulness. As
his host repeated his last sentence, a groan escaped from St. Aubert,
and then, as if anxious to prevent it from being noticed, he hastily
asked La Voisin how long he had lived in this neighbourhood. “Almost
from my childhood, sir,” replied his host.

“You remember the late marchioness, then?” said St. Aubert in an
altered voice.

“Ah, monsieur!—that I do well. There are many besides me who remember
her.”

“Yes—” said St. Aubert, “and I am one of those.”

“Alas, sir! you remember, then, a most beautiful and excellent lady.
She deserved a better fate.”

Tears stood in St. Aubert’s eyes; “Enough,” said he, in a voice almost
stifled by the violence of his emotions,—“it is enough, my friend.”

Emily, though extremely surprised by her father’s manner, forbore to
express her feelings by any question. La Voisin began to apologise, but
St. Aubert interrupted him; “Apology is quite unnecessary,” said he,
“let us change the topic. You were speaking of the music we just now
heard.”

“I was, monsieur—but hark!—it comes again; listen to that voice!” They
were all silent;

At last a soft and solemn-breathing sound
Rose, like a stream of rich distilled perfumes,
And stole upon the air, that even Silence
Was took ere she was ’ware, and wished she might
Deny her nature, and be never more
Still, to be so displaced.
                    MILTON.


In a few moments the voice died into air, and the instrument, which had
been heard before, sounded in low symphony. St. Aubert now observed,
that it produced a tone much more full and melodious than that of a
guitar, and still more melancholy and soft than the lute. They
continued to listen, but the sounds returned no more. “This is
strange!” said St. Aubert, at length interrupting the silence. “Very
strange!” said Emily. “It is so,” rejoined La Voisin, and they were
again silent.

After a long pause, “It is now about eighteen years since I first heard
that music,” said La Voisin; “I remember it was on a fine summer’s
night, much like this, but later, that I was walking in the woods, and
alone. I remember, too, that my spirits were very low, for one of my
boys was ill, and we feared we should lose him. I had been watching at
his bedside all the evening while his mother slept; for she had sat up
with him the night before. I had been watching, and went out for a
little fresh air, the day had been very sultry. As I walked under the
shades and mused, I heard music at a distance, and thought it was
Claude playing upon his flute, as he often did of a fine evening, at
the cottage door. But, when I came to a place where the trees opened,
(I shall never forget it!) and stood looking up at the north-lights,
which shot up the heaven to a great height, I heard all of a sudden
such sounds!—they came so as I cannot describe. It was like the music
of angels, and I looked up again almost expecting to see them in the
sky. When I came home, I told what I had heard, but they laughed at me,
and said it must be some of the shepherds playing on their pipes, and I
could not persuade them to the contrary. A few nights after, however,
my wife herself heard the same sounds, and was as much surprised as I
was, and Father Denis frightened her sadly by saying, that it was music
come to warn her of her child’s death, and that music often came to
houses where there was a dying person.”

Emily, on hearing this, shrunk with a superstitious dread entirely new
to her, and could scarcely conceal her agitation from St. Aubert.

“But the boy lived, monsieur, in spite of Father Denis.”

“Father Denis!” said St. Aubert, who had listened to ‘narrative old
age’ with patient attention, “are we near a convent, then?”

“Yes, sir; the convent of St. Clair stands at no great distance, on the
sea shore yonder.”

“Ah!” said St. Aubert, as if struck with some sudden remembrance, “the
convent of St. Clair!” Emily observed the clouds of grief, mingled with
a faint expression of horror, gathering on his brow; his countenance
became fixed, and, touched as it now was by the silver whiteness of the
moonlight, he resembled one of those marble statues of a monument,
which seem to bend, in hopeless sorrow, over the ashes of the dead,
shown

by the blunted light
That the dim moon through painted casements lends.
                    THE EMIGRANTS.


“But, my dear sir,” said Emily, anxious to dissipate his thoughts, “you
forget that repose is necessary to you. If our kind host will give me
leave, I will prepare your bed, for I know how you like it to be made.”
St. Aubert, recollecting himself, and smiling affectionately, desired
she would not add to her fatigue by that attention; and La Voisin,
whose consideration for his guest had been suspended by the interests
which his own narrative had recalled, now started from his seat, and,
apologising for not having called Agnes from the green, hurried out of
the room.

In a few moments he returned with his daughter, a young woman of
pleasing countenance, and Emily learned from her, what she had not
before suspected, that, for their accommodation, it was necessary part
of La Voisin’s family should leave their beds; she lamented this
circumstance, but Agnes, by her reply, fully proved that she inherited,
at least, a share of her father’s courteous hospitality. It was
settled, that some of her children and Michael should sleep in the
neighbouring cottage.

“If I am better, tomorrow, my dear,” said St. Aubert when Emily
returned to him, “I mean to set out at an early hour, that we may rest,
during the heat of the day, and will travel towards home. In the
present state of my health and spirits I cannot look on a longer
journey with pleasure, and I am also very anxious to reach La Vallée.”
Emily, though she also desired to return, was grieved at her father’s
sudden wish to do so, which she thought indicated a greater degree of
indisposition than he would acknowledge. St. Aubert now retired to
rest, and Emily to her little chamber, but not to immediate repose. Her
thoughts returned to the late conversation, concerning the state of
departed spirits; a subject, at this time, particularly affecting to
her, when she had every reason to believe that her dear father would
ere long be numbered with them. She leaned pensively on the little open
casement, and in deep thought fixed her eyes on the heaven, whose blue
unclouded concave was studded thick with stars, the worlds, perhaps, of
spirits, unsphered of mortal mould. As her eyes wandered along the
boundless æther, her thoughts rose, as before, towards the sublimity of
the Deity, and to the contemplation of futurity. No busy note of this
world interrupted the course of her mind; the merry dance had ceased,
and every cottager had retired to his home. The still air seemed
scarcely to breathe upon the woods, and, now and then, the distant
sound of a solitary sheep-bell, or of a closing casement, was all that
broke on silence. At length, even this hint of human being was heard no
more. Elevated and enwrapt, while her eyes were often wet with tears of
sublime devotion and solemn awe, she continued at the casement, till
the gloom of midnight hung over the earth, and the planet, which La
Voisin had pointed out, sunk below the woods. She then recollected what
he had said concerning this planet, and the mysterious music; and, as
she lingered at the window, half hoping and half fearing that it would
return, her mind was led to the remembrance of the extreme emotion her
father had shown on mention of the Marquis La Villeroi’s death, and of
the fate of the Marchioness, and she felt strongly interested
concerning the remote cause of this emotion. Her surprise and curiosity
were indeed the greater, because she did not recollect ever to have
heard him mention the name of Villeroi.

No music, however, stole on the silence of the night, and Emily,
perceiving the lateness of the hour, returned to a scene of fatigue,
remembered that she was to rise early in the morning, and withdrew from
the window to repose.



 CHAPTER VII

Let those deplore their doom,
Whose hope still grovels in this dark sojourn.
But lofty souls can look beyond the tomb,
Can smile at fate, and wonder how they mourn.
Shall Spring to these sad scenes no more return?
Is yonder wave the sun’s eternal bed?—
Soon shall the orient with new lustre burn,
And Spring shall soon her vital influence shed,
Again attune the grove, again adorn the mead!
                    BEATTIE


Emily, called, as she had requested, at an early hour, awoke, little
refreshed by sleep, for uneasy dreams had pursued her, and marred the
kindest blessing of the unhappy. But, when she opened her casement,
looked out upon the woods, bright with the morning sun, and inspired
the pure air, her mind was soothed. The scene was filled with that
cheering freshness, which seems to breathe the very spirit of health,
and she heard only sweet and _picturesque_ sounds, if such an
expression may be allowed—the matin-bell of a distant convent, the
faint murmur of the sea-waves, the song of birds, and the far-off low
of cattle, which she saw coming slowly on between the trunks of trees.
Struck with the circumstances of imagery around her, she indulged the
pensive tranquillity which they inspired; and while she leaned on her
window, waiting till St. Aubert should descend to breakfast, her ideas
arranged themselves in the following lines:

THE FIRST HOUR OF MORNING

How sweet to wind the forest’s tangled shade,
    When early twilight, from the eastern bound,
Dawns on the sleeping landscape in the glade,
    And fades as morning spreads her blush around!

When ev’ry infant flower, that wept in night,
    Lifts its chill head soft glowing with a tear,
Expands its tender blossom to the light,
    And gives its incense to the genial air.

How fresh the breeze that wafts the rich perfume,
    And swells the melody of waking birds;
The hum of bees, beneath the verdant gloom,
    And woodman’s song, and low of distant herds!

Then, doubtful gleams the mountain’s hoary head,
    Seen through the parting foliage from afar;
And, farther still, the ocean’s misty bed,
    With flitting sails, that partial sunbeams share.

But, vain the sylvan shade—the breath of May,
    The voice of music floating on the gale,
And forms, that beam through morning’s dewy veil,
    If health no longer bid the heart be gay!

O balmy hour! ’tis thine her wealth to give,
Here spread her blush, and bid the parent live!


Emily now heard persons moving below in the cottage, and presently the
voice of Michael, who was talking to his mules, as he led them forth
from a hut adjoining. As she left her room, St. Aubert, who was now
risen, met her at the door, apparently as little restored by sleep as
herself. She led him down stairs to the little parlour, in which they
had supped on the preceding night, where they found a neat breakfast
set out, while the host and his daughter waited to bid them
good-morrow.

“I envy you this cottage, my good friends,” said St. Aubert, as he met
them, “it is so pleasant, so quiet, and so neat; and this air, that one
breathes—if anything could restore lost health, it would surely be this
air.”

La Voisin bowed gratefully, and replied, with the gallantry of a
Frenchman, “Our cottage may be envied, sir, since you and Mademoiselle
have honoured it with your presence.” St. Aubert gave him a friendly
smile for his compliment, and sat down to a table, spread with cream,
fruit, new cheese, butter, and coffee. Emily, who had observed her
father with attention and thought he looked very ill, endeavoured to
persuade him to defer travelling till the afternoon; but he seemed very
anxious to be at home, and his anxiety he expressed repeatedly, and
with an earnestness that was unusual with him. He now said, he found
himself as well as he had been of late, and that he could bear
travelling better in the cool hour of the morning, than at any other
time. But, while he was talking with his venerable host, and thanking
him for his kind attentions, Emily observed his countenance change,
and, before she could reach him, he fell back in his chair. In a few
moments he recovered from the sudden faintness that had come over him,
but felt so ill, that he perceived himself unable to set out, and,
having remained a little while, struggling against the pressure of
indisposition, he begged he might be helped up stairs to bed. This
request renewed all the terror which Emily had suffered on the
preceding evening; but, though scarcely able to support herself, under
the sudden shock it gave her, she tried to conceal her apprehensions
from St. Aubert, and gave her trembling arm to assist him to the door
of his chamber.

When he was once more in bed, he desired that Emily, who was then
weeping in her own room, might be called; and, as she came, he waved
his hand for every other person to quit the apartment. When they were
alone, he held out his hand to her, and fixed his eyes upon her
countenance, with an expression so full of tenderness and grief, that
all her fortitude forsook her, and she burst into an agony of tears.
St. Aubert seemed struggling to acquire firmness, but was still unable
to speak; he could only press her hand, and check the tears that stood
trembling in his eyes. At length he commanded his voice, “My dear
child,” said he, trying to smile through his anguish, “my dear
Emily!”—and paused again. He raised his eyes to heaven, as if in
prayer, and then, in a firmer tone, and with a look, in which the
tenderness of the father was dignified by the pious solemnity of the
saint, he said, “My dear child, I would soften the painful truth I have
to tell you, but I find myself quite unequal to the art. Alas! I would,
at this moment, conceal it from you, but that it would be most cruel to
deceive you. It cannot be long before we must part; let us talk of it,
that our thoughts and our prayers may prepare us to bear it.” His voice
faltered, while Emily, still weeping, pressed his hand close to her
heart, which swelled with a convulsive sigh, but she could not look up.

“Let me not waste these moments,” said St. Aubert, recovering himself,
“I have much to say. There is a circumstance of solemn consequence,
which I have to mention, and a solemn promise to obtain from you; when
this is done I shall be easier. You have observed, my dear, how anxious
I am to reach home, but know not all my reasons for this. Listen to
what I am going to say.—Yet stay—before I say more give me this
promise, a promise made to your dying father!”—St. Aubert was
interrupted; Emily, struck by his last words, as if for the first time,
with a conviction of his immediate danger, raised her head; her tears
stopped, and, gazing at him for a moment with an expression of
unutterable anguish, a slight convulsion seized her, and she sunk
senseless in her chair. St. Aubert’s cries brought La Voisin and his
daughter to the room, and they administered every means in their power
to restore her, but, for a considerable time, without effect. When she
recovered, St. Aubert was so exhausted by the scene he had witnessed,
that it was many minutes before he had strength to speak; he was,
however, somewhat revived by a cordial, which Emily gave him; and,
being again alone with her, he exerted himself to tranquilize her
spirits, and to offer her all the comfort of which her situation
admitted. She threw herself into his arms, wept on his neck, and grief
made her so insensible to all he said, that he ceased to offer the
alleviations, which he himself could not, at this moment, feel, and
mingled his silent tears with hers. Recalled, at length, to a sense of
duty, she tried to spare her father from a farther view of her
suffering; and, quitting his embrace, dried her tears, and said
something, which she meant for consolation. “My dear Emily,” replied
St. Aubert, “my dear child, we must look up with humble confidence to
that Being, who has protected and comforted us in every danger, and in
every affliction we have known; to whose eye every moment of our lives
has been exposed; he will not, he does not, forsake us now; I feel his
consolations in my heart. I shall leave you, my child, still in his
care; and, though I depart from this world, I shall be still in his
presence. Nay, weep not again, my Emily. In death there is nothing new,
or surprising, since we all know, that we are born to die; and nothing
terrible to those, who can confide in an all-powerful God. Had my life
been spared now, after a very few years, in the course of nature, I
must have resigned it; old age, with all its train of infirmity, its
privations and its sorrows, would have been mine; and then, at last,
death would have come, and called forth the tears you now shed. Rather,
my child, rejoice, that I am saved from such suffering, and that I am
permitted to die with a mind unimpaired, and sensible of the comforts
of faith and resignation.” St. Aubert paused, fatigued with speaking.
Emily again endeavoured to assume an air of composure; and, in replying
to what he had said, tried to sooth him with a belief, that he had not
spoken in vain.

When he had reposed a while, he resumed the conversation. “Let me
return,” said he, “to a subject, which is very near my heart. I said I
had a solemn promise to receive from you; let me receive it now, before
I explain the chief circumstance which it concerns; there are others,
of which your peace requires that you should rest in ignorance.
Promise, then, that you will perform exactly what I shall enjoin.”

Emily, awed by the earnest solemnity of his manner, dried her tears,
that had begun again to flow, in spite of her efforts to suppress them;
and, looking eloquently at St. Aubert, bound herself to do whatever he
should require by a vow, at which she shuddered, yet knew not why.

He proceeded: “I know you too well, my Emily, to believe, that you
would break any promise, much less one thus solemnly given; your
assurance gives me peace, and the observance of it is of the utmost
importance to your tranquillity. Hear, then, what I am going to tell
you. The closet, which adjoins my chamber at La Vallée, has a sliding
board in the floor. You will know it by a remarkable knot in the wood,
and by its being the next board, except one, to the wainscot, which
fronts the door. At the distance of about a yard from that end, nearer
the window, you will perceive a line across it, as if the plank had
been joined;—the way to open it is this:—Press your foot upon the line;
the end of the board will then sink, and you may slide it with ease
beneath the other. Below, you will see a hollow place.” St. Aubert
paused for breath, and Emily sat fixed in deep attention. “Do you
understand these directions, my dear?” said he. Emily, though scarcely
able to speak, assured him that she did.

“When you return home, then,” he added with a deep sigh—

At the mention of her return home, all the melancholy circumstances,
that must attend this return, rushed upon her fancy; she burst into
convulsive grief, and St. Aubert himself, affected beyond the
resistance of the fortitude which he had, at first, summoned, wept with
her. After some moments, he composed himself. “My dear child,” said he,
“be comforted. When I am gone, you will not be forsaken—I leave you
only in the more immediate care of that Providence, which has never yet
forsaken me. Do not afflict me with this excess of grief; rather teach
me by your example to bear my own.” He stopped again, and Emily, the
more she endeavoured to restrain her emotion, found it the less
possible to do so.

St. Aubert, who now spoke with pain, resumed the subject. “That closet,
my dear,—when you return home, go to it; and, beneath the board I have
described, you will find a packet of written papers. Attend to me now,
for the promise you have given particularly relates to what I shall
direct. These papers you must burn—and, solemnly I command you,
_without examining them_.”

Emily’s surprise, for a moment, overcame her grief, and she ventured to
ask, why this must be? St. Aubert replied, that, if it had been right
for him to explain his reasons, her late promise would have been
unnecessarily exacted. “It is sufficient for you, my love, to have a
deep sense of the importance of observing me in this instance.” St.
Aubert proceeded. “Under that board you will also find about two
hundred louis d’ors, wrapped in a silk purse; indeed, it was to secure
whatever money might be in the château, that this secret place was
contrived, at a time when the province was over-run by troops of men,
who took advantage of the tumults, and became plunderers.

“But I have yet another promise to receive from you, which is—that you
will never, whatever may be your future circumstances, _sell_ the
château.” St. Aubert even enjoined her, whenever she might marry, to
make it an article in the contract, that the château should always be
hers. He then gave her a more minute account of his present
circumstances than he had yet done, adding, “The two hundred louis,
with what money you will now find in my purse, is all the ready money I
have to leave you. I have told you how I am circumstanced with M.
Motteville, at Paris. Ah, my child! I leave you poor—but not
destitute,” he added, after a long pause. Emily could make no reply to
anything he now said, but knelt at the bedside, with her face upon the
quilt, weeping over the hand she held there.

After this conversation, the mind of St. Aubert appeared to be much
more at ease; but, exhausted by the effort of speaking, he sunk into a
kind of doze, and Emily continued to watch and weep beside him, till a
gentle tap at the chamber-door roused her. It was La Voisin, come to
say, that a confessor from the neighbouring convent was below, ready to
attend St. Aubert. Emily would not suffer her father to be disturbed,
but desired, that the priest might not leave the cottage. When St.
Aubert awoke from this doze, his senses were confused, and it was some
moments before he recovered them sufficiently to know, that it was
Emily who sat beside him. He then moved his lips, and stretched forth
his hand to her; as she received which, she sunk back in her chair,
overcome by the impression of death on his countenance. In a few
minutes he recovered his voice, and Emily then asked, if he wished to
see the confessor; he replied, that he did; and, when the holy father
appeared, she withdrew. They remained alone together above half an
hour; when Emily was called in, she found St. Aubert more agitated than
when she had left him, and she gazed, with a slight degree of
resentment, at the friar, as the cause of this; who, however, looked
mildly and mournfully at her, and turned away. St. Aubert, in a
tremulous voice, said, he wished her to join in prayer with him, and
asked if La Voisin would do so too. The old man and his daughter came;
they both wept, and knelt with Emily round the bed, while the holy
father read in a solemn voice the service for the dying. St. Aubert lay
with a serene countenance, and seemed to join fervently in the
devotion, while tears often stole from beneath his closed eyelids, and
Emily’s sobs more than once interrupted the service.

When it was concluded, and extreme unction had been administered, the
friar withdrew. St. Aubert then made a sign for La Voisin to come
nearer. He gave him his hand, and was, for a moment, silent. At length,
he said, in a trembling voice, “My good friend, our acquaintance has
been short, but long enough to give you an opportunity of showing me
much kind attention. I cannot doubt, that you will extend this kindness
to my daughter, when I am gone; she will have need of it. I entrust her
to your care during the few days she will remain here. I need say no
more—you know the feelings of a father, for you have children; mine
would be, indeed, severe if I had less confidence in you.” He paused.
La Voisin assured him, and his tears bore testimony to his sincerity,
that he would do all he could to soften her affliction, and that, if
St. Aubert wished it, he would even attend her into Gascony; an offer
so pleasing to St. Aubert, that he had scarcely words to acknowledge
his sense of the old man’s kindness, or to tell him, that he accepted
it. The scene, that followed between St. Aubert and Emily, affected La
Voisin so much, that he quitted the chamber, and she was again left
alone with her father, whose spirits seemed fainting fast, but neither
his senses, nor his voice, yet failed him; and, at intervals, he
employed much of these last awful moments in advising his daughter, as
to her future conduct. Perhaps, he never had thought more justly, or
expressed himself more clearly, than he did now.

“Above all, my dear Emily,” said he, “do not indulge in the pride of
fine feeling, the romantic error of amiable minds. Those, who really
possess sensibility, ought early to be taught, that it is a dangerous
quality, which is continually extracting the excess of misery, or
delight, from every surrounding circumstance. And, since, in our
passage through this world, painful circumstances occur more frequently
than pleasing ones, and since our sense of evil is, I fear, more acute
than our sense of good, we become the victims of our feelings, unless
we can in some degree command them. I know you will say, (for you are
young, my Emily) I know you will say, that you are contented sometimes
to suffer, rather than to give up your refined sense of happiness, at
others; but, when your mind has been long harassed by vicissitude, you
will be content to rest, and you will then recover from your delusion.
You will perceive, that the phantom of happiness is exchanged for the
substance; for happiness arises in a state of peace, not of tumult. It
is of a temperate and uniform nature, and can no more exist in a heart,
that is continually alive to minute circumstances, than in one that is
dead to feeling. You see, my dear, that, though I would guard you
against the dangers of sensibility, I am not an advocate for apathy. At
your age I should have said _that_ is a vice more hateful than all the
errors of sensibility, and I say so still. I call it a _vice_, because
it leads to positive evil; in this, however, it does no more than an
ill-governed sensibility, which, by such a rule, might also be called a
vice; but the evil of the former is of more general consequence. I have
exhausted myself,” said St. Aubert, feebly, “and have wearied you, my
Emily; but, on a subject so important to your future comfort, I am
anxious to be perfectly understood.”

Emily assured him, that his advice was most precious to her, and that
she would never forget it, or cease from endeavouring to profit by it.
St. Aubert smiled affectionately and sorrowfully upon her. “I repeat
it,” said he, “I would not teach you to become insensible, if I could;
I would only warn you of the evils of susceptibility, and point out how
you may avoid them. Beware, my love, I conjure you, of that
self-delusion, which has been fatal to the peace of so many persons;
beware of priding yourself on the gracefulness of sensibility; if you
yield to this vanity, your happiness is lost for ever. Always remember
how much more valuable is the strength of fortitude, than the grace of
sensibility. Do not, however, confound fortitude with apathy; apathy
cannot know the virtue. Remember, too, that one act of beneficence, one
act of real usefulness, is worth all the abstract sentiment in the
world. Sentiment is a disgrace, instead of an ornament, unless it lead
us to good actions. The miser, who thinks himself respectable, merely
because he possesses wealth, and thus mistakes the means of doing good,
for the actual accomplishment of it, is not more blameable than the man
of sentiment, without active virtue. You may have observed persons, who
delight so much in this sort of sensibility to sentiment, which
excludes that to the calls of any practical virtue, that they turn from
the distressed, and, because their sufferings are painful to be
contemplated, do not endeavour to relieve them. How despicable is that
humanity, which can be contented to pity, where it might assuage!”

St. Aubert, some time after, spoke of Madame Cheron, his sister. “Let
me inform you of a circumstance, that nearly affects your welfare,” he
added. “We have, you know, had little intercourse for some years, but,
as she is now your only female relation, I have thought it proper to
consign you to her care, as you will see in my will, till you are of
age, and to recommend you to her protection afterwards. She is not
exactly the person, to whom I would have committed my Emily, but I had
no alternative, and I believe her to be upon the whole—a good kind of
woman. I need not recommend it to your prudence, my love, to endeavour
to conciliate her kindness; you will do this for his sake, who has
often wished to do so for yours.”

Emily assured him, that, whatever he requested she would religiously
perform to the utmost of her ability. “Alas!” added she, in a voice
interrupted by sighs, “that will soon be all which remains for me; it
will be almost my only consolation to fulfil your wishes.”

St. Aubert looked up silently in her face, as if would have spoken, but
his spirit sunk a while, and his eyes became heavy and dull. She felt
that look at her heart. “My dear father!” she exclaimed; and then,
checking herself, pressed his hand closer, and hid her face with her
handkerchief. Her tears were concealed, but St. Aubert heard her
convulsive sobs. His spirits returned. “O my child!” said he, faintly,
“let my consolations be yours. I die in peace; for I know, that I am
about to return to the bosom of my Father, who will still be your
Father, when I am gone. Always trust in him, my love, and he will
support you in these moments, as he supports me.”

Emily could only listen, and weep; but the extreme composure of his
manner, and the faith and hope he expressed, somewhat soothed her
anguish. Yet, whenever she looked upon his emaciated countenance, and
saw the lines of death beginning to prevail over it—saw his sunk eyes,
still bent on her, and their heavy lids pressing to a close, there was
a pang in her heart, such as defied expression, though it required
filial virtue, like hers, to forbear the attempt.

He desired once more to bless her; “Where are you, my dear?” said he,
as he stretched forth his hands. Emily had turned to the window, that
he might not perceive her anguish; she now understood, that his sight
had failed him. When he had given her his blessing, and it seemed to be
the last effort of expiring life, he sunk back on his pillow. She
kissed his forehead; the damps of death had settled there, and,
forgetting her fortitude for a moment, her tears mingled with them. St.
Aubert lifted up his eyes; the spirit of a father returned to them, but
it quickly vanished, and he spoke no more.

St. Aubert lingered till about three o’clock in the afternoon, and,
thus gradually sinking into death, he expired without a struggle, or a
sigh.

Emily was led from the chamber by La Voisin and his daughter, who did
what they could to comfort her. The old man sat and wept with her.
Agnes was more erroneously officious.



 CHAPTER VIII

O’er him, whose doom thy virtues grieve,
Aerial forms shall sit at eve,
and bend the pensive head.
                    COLLINS


The monk, who had before appeared, returned in the evening to offer
consolation to Emily, and brought a kind message from the lady abbess,
inviting her to the convent. Emily, though she did not accept the
offer, returned an answer expressive of her gratitude. The holy
conversation of the friar, whose mild benevolence of manners bore some
resemblance to those of St. Aubert, soothed the violence of her grief,
and lifted her heart to the Being, who, extending through all place and
all eternity, looks on the events of this little world as on the
shadows of a moment, and beholds equally, and in the same instant, the
soul that has passed the gates of death, and that, which still lingers
in the body. “In the sight of God,” said Emily, “my dear father now
exists, as truly as he yesterday existed to me; it is to me only that
he is dead; to God and to himself he yet lives!”

The good monk left her more tranquil than she had been since St. Aubert
died; and, before she retired to her little cabin for the night, she
trusted herself so far as to visit the corpse. Silent, and without
weeping, she stood by its side. The features, placid and serene, told
the nature of the last sensations, that had lingered in the now
deserted frame. For a moment she turned away, in horror of the
stillness in which death had fixed that countenance, never till now
seen otherwise than animated; then gazed on it with a mixture of doubt
and awful astonishment. Her reason could scarcely overcome an
involuntary and unaccountable expectation of seeing that beloved
countenance still susceptible. She continued to gaze wildly; took up
the cold hand; spoke; still gazed, and then burst into a transport of
grief. La Voisin, hearing her sobs, came into the room to lead her
away, but she heard nothing, and only begged that he would leave her.

Again alone, she indulged her tears, and, when the gloom of evening
obscured the chamber, and almost veiled from her eyes the object of her
distress, she still hung over the body; till her spirits, at length,
were exhausted, and she became tranquil. La Voisin again knocked at the
door, and entreated that she would come to the common apartment. Before
she went, she kissed the lips of St. Aubert, as she was wont to do when
she bade him good night. Again she kissed them; her heart felt as if it
would break, a few tears of agony started to her eyes, she looked up to
heaven, then at St. Aubert, and left the room.

Retired to her lonely cabin, her melancholy thoughts still hovered
round the body of her deceased parent; and, when she sunk into a kind
of slumber, the images of her waking mind still haunted her fancy. She
thought she saw her father approaching her with a benign countenance;
then, smiling mournfully and pointing upwards, his lips moved, but,
instead of words, she heard sweet music borne on the distant air, and
presently saw his features glow with the mild rapture of a superior
being. The strain seemed to swell louder, and she awoke. The vision was
gone, but music yet came to her ear in strains such as angels might
breathe. She doubted, listened, raised herself in the bed, and again
listened. It was music, and not an illusion of her imagination. After a
solemn steady harmony, it paused; then rose again, in mournful
sweetness, and then died, in a cadence, that seemed to bear away the
listening soul to heaven. She instantly remembered the music of the
preceding night, with the strange circumstances, related by La Voisin,
and the affecting conversation it had led to, concerning the state of
departed spirits. All that St. Aubert had said, on that subject, now
pressed upon her heart, and overwhelmed it. What a change in a few
hours! He, who then could only conjecture, was now made acquainted with
truth; was himself become one of the departed! As she listened, she was
chilled with superstitious awe, her tears stopped; and she rose, and
went to the window. All without was obscured in shade; but Emily,
turning her eyes from the massy darkness of the woods, whose waving
outline appeared on the horizon, saw, on the left, that effulgent
planet, which the old man had pointed out, setting over the woods. She
remembered what he had said concerning it, and, the music now coming at
intervals on the air, she unclosed the casement to listen to the
strains, that soon gradually sunk to a greater distance, and tried to
discover whence they came. The obscurity prevented her from
distinguishing any object on the green platform below; and the sounds
became fainter and fainter, till they softened into silence. She
listened, but they returned no more. Soon after, she observed the
planet trembling between the fringed tops of the woods, and, in the
next moment, sink behind them. Chilled with a melancholy awe, she
retired once more to her bed, and, at length, forgot for a while her
sorrows in sleep.

On the following morning, she was visited by a sister of the convent,
who came, with kind offices and a second invitation from the lady
abbess; and Emily, though she could not forsake the cottage, while the
remains of her father were in it, consented, however painful such a
visit must be, in the present state of her spirits, to pay her respects
to the abbess, in the evening.

About an hour before sunset, La Voisin showed her the way through the
woods to the convent, which stood in a small bay of the Mediterranean,
crowned by a woody amphitheatre; and Emily, had she been less unhappy,
would have admired the extensive sea view, that appeared from the green
slope, in front of the edifice, and the rich shores, hung with woods
and pastures, that extended on either hand. But her thoughts were now
occupied by one sad idea, and the features of nature were to her
colourless and without form. The bell for vespers struck, as she passed
the ancient gate of the convent, and seemed the funereal note for St.
Aubert. Little incidents affect a mind, enervated by sorrow; Emily
struggled against the sickening faintness, that came over her, and was
led into the presence of the abbess, who received her with an air of
maternal tenderness; an air of such gentle solicitude and
consideration, as touched her with an instantaneous gratitude; her eyes
were filled with tears, and the words she would have spoken faltered on
her lips. The abbess led her to a seat, and sat down beside her, still
holding her hand and regarding her in silence, as Emily dried her tears
and attempted to speak. “Be composed, my daughter,” said the abbess in
a soothing voice, “do not speak yet; I know all you would say. Your
spirits must be soothed. We are going to prayers;—will you attend our
evening service? It is comfortable, my child, to look up in our
afflictions to a father, who sees and pities us, and who chastens in
his mercy.”

Emily’s tears flowed again, but a thousand sweet emotions mingled with
them. The abbess suffered her to weep without interruption, and watched
over her with a look of benignity, that might have characterised the
countenance of a guardian angel. Emily, when she became tranquil, was
encouraged to speak without reserve, and to mention the motive, that
made her unwilling to quit the cottage, which the abbess did not oppose
even by a hint; but praised the filial piety of her conduct, and added
a hope, that she would pass a few days at the convent, before she
returned to La Vallée. “You must allow yourself a little time to
recover from your first shock, my daughter, before you encounter a
second; I will not affect to conceal from you how much I know your
heart must suffer, on returning to the scene of your former happiness.
Here, you will have all, that quiet and sympathy and religion can give,
to restore your spirits. But come,” added she, observing the tears
swell in Emily’s eyes, “we will go to the chapel.”

Emily followed to the parlour, where the nuns were assembled, to whom
the abbess committed her, saying, “This is a daughter, for whom I have
much esteem; be sisters to her.”

They passed on in a train to the chapel, where the solemn devotion,
with which the service was performed, elevated her mind, and brought to
it the comforts of faith and resignation.

Twilight came on, before the abbess’s kindness would suffer Emily to
depart, when she left the convent, with a heart much lighter than she
had entered it, and was reconducted by La Voisin through the woods, the
pensive gloom of which was in unison with the temper of her mind; and
she pursued the little wild path, in musing silence, till her guide
suddenly stopped, looked round, and then struck out of the path into
the high grass, saying he had mistaken the road. He now walked on
quickly, and Emily, proceeding with difficulty over the obscured and
uneven ground, was left at some distance, till her voice arrested him,
who seemed unwilling to stop, and still hurried on. “If you are in
doubt about the way,” said Emily, “had we not better enquire it at the
château yonder, between the trees?”

“No,” replied La Voisin, “there is no occasion. When we reach that
brook, ma’amselle, (you see the light upon the water there, beyond the
woods) when we reach that brook, we shall be at home presently. I don’t
know how I happened to mistake the path; I seldom come this way after
sunset.”

“It is solitary enough,” said Emily, “but you have no banditti here.”

“No, ma’amselle—no banditti.”

“What are you afraid of then, my good friend? you are not
superstitious?” “No, not superstitious; but, to tell you the truth,
lady, nobody likes to go near that château, after dusk.” “By whom is it
inhabited,” said Emily, “that it is so formidable?” “Why, ma’amselle,
it is scarcely inhabited, for our lord the Marquis, and the lord of all
these find woods, too, is dead. He had not once been in it, for these
many years, and his people, who have the care of it, live in a cottage
close by.” Emily now understood this to be the château, which La Voisin
had formerly pointed out, as having belonged to the Marquis Villeroi,
on the mention of which her father had appeared so much affected.

“Ah! it is a desolate place now,” continued La Voisin, “and such a
grand, fine place, as I remember it!” Emily enquired what had
occasioned this lamentable change; but the old man was silent, and
Emily, whose interest was awakened by the fear he had expressed, and
above all by a recollection of her father’s agitation, repeated the
question, and added, “If you are neither afraid of the inhabitants, my
good friend, nor are superstitious, how happens it, that you dread to
pass near that château in the dark?”

“Perhaps, then, I am a little superstitious, ma’amselle; and, if you
knew what I do, you might be so too. Strange things have happened
there. Monsieur, your good father, appeared to have known the late
Marchioness.” “Pray inform me what did happen?” said Emily, with much
emotion.

“Alas! ma’amselle,” answered La Voisin, “enquire no further; it is not
for me to lay open the domestic secrets of my lord.”—Emily, surprised
by the old man’s words, and his manner of delivering them, forbore to
repeat her question; a nearer interest, the remembrance of St. Aubert,
occupied her thoughts, and she was led to recollect the music she heard
on the preceding night, which she mentioned to La Voisin. “You were not
alone, ma’amselle, in this,” he replied, “I heard it too; but I have so
often heard it, at the same hour, that I was scarcely surprised.”

“You doubtless believe this music to have some connection with the
château,” said Emily suddenly, “and are, therefore, superstitious.” “It
may be so, ma’amselle, but there are other circumstances, belonging to
that château, which I remember, and sadly too.” A heavy sigh followed:
but Emily’s delicacy restrained the curiosity these words revived, and
she enquired no further.

On reaching the cottage, all the violence of her grief returned; it
seemed as if she had escaped its heavy pressure only while she was
removed from the object of it. She passed immediately to the chamber,
where the remains of her father were laid, and yielded to all the
anguish of hopeless grief. La Voisin, at length, persuaded her to leave
the room, and she returned to her own, where, exhausted by the
sufferings of the day, she soon fell into deep sleep, and awoke
considerably refreshed.

When the dreadful hour arrived, in which the remains of St. Aubert were
to be taken from her for ever, she went alone to the chamber to look
upon his countenance yet once again, and La Voisin, who had waited
patiently below stairs, till her despair should subside, with the
respect due to grief, forbore to interrupt the indulgence of it, till
surprise, at the length of her stay, and then apprehension overcame his
delicacy, and he went to lead her from the chamber. Having tapped
gently at the door, without receiving an answer, he listened
attentively, but all was still; no sigh, no sob of anguish was heard.
Yet more alarmed by this silence, he opened the door, and found Emily
lying senseless across the foot of the bed, near which stood the
coffin. His calls procured assistance, and she was carried to her room,
where proper applications, at length, restored her.

During her state of insensibility, La Voisin had given directions for
the coffin to be closed, and he succeeded in persuading Emily to
forbear revisiting the chamber. She, indeed, felt herself unequal to
this, and also perceived the necessity of sparing her spirits, and
recollecting fortitude sufficient to bear her through the approaching
scene. St. Aubert had given a particular injunction, that his remains
should be interred in the church of the convent of St. Clair, and, in
mentioning the north chancel, near the ancient tomb of the Villerois,
had pointed out the exact spot, where he wished to be laid. The
superior had granted this place for the interment, and thither,
therefore, the sad procession now moved, which was met, at the gates,
by the venerable priest, followed by a train of friars. Every person,
who heard the solemn chant of the anthem, and the peal of the organ,
that struck up, when the body entered the church, and saw also the
feeble steps, and the assumed tranquillity of Emily, gave her
involuntary tears. She shed none, but walked, her face partly shaded by
a thin black veil, between two persons, who supported her, preceded by
the abbess, and followed by nuns, whose plaintive voices mellowed the
swelling harmony of the dirge. When the procession came to the grave
the music ceased. Emily drew the veil entirely over her face, and, in a
momentary pause, between the anthem and the rest of the service, her
sobs were distinctly audible. The holy father began the service, and
Emily again commanded her feelings, till the coffin was let down, and
she heard the earth rattle on its lid. Then, as she shuddered, a groan
burst from her heart, and she leaned for support on the person who
stood next to her. In a few moments she recovered; and, when she heard
those affecting and sublime words: “His body is buried in peace, and
his soul returns to Him that gave it,” her anguish softened into tears.

The abbess led her from the church into her own parlour, and there
administered all the consolations, that religion and gentle sympathy
can give. Emily struggled against the pressure of grief; but the
abbess, observing her attentively, ordered a bed to be prepared, and
recommended her to retire to repose. She also kindly claimed her
promise to remain a few days at the convent; and Emily, who had no wish
to return to the cottage, the scene of all her sufferings, had leisure,
now that no immediate care pressed upon her attention, to feel the
indisposition, which disabled her from immediately travelling.

Meanwhile, the maternal kindness of the abbess, and the gentle
attentions of the nuns did all, that was possible, towards soothing her
spirits and restoring her health. But the latter was too deeply
wounded, through the medium of her mind, to be quickly revived. She
lingered for some weeks at the convent, under the influence of a slow
fever, wishing to return home, yet unable to go thither; often even
reluctant to leave the spot where her father’s relics were deposited,
and sometimes soothing herself with the consideration, that, if she
died here, her remains would repose beside those of St. Aubert. In the
meanwhile, she sent letters to Madame Cheron and to the old
housekeeper, informing them of the sad event, that had taken place, and
of her own situation. From her aunt she received an answer, abounding
more in common-place condolement, than in traits of real sorrow, which
assured her, that a servant should be sent to conduct her to La Vallée,
for that her own time was so much occupied by company, that she had no
leisure to undertake so long a journey. However Emily might prefer La
Vallée to Thoulouse, she could not be insensible to the indecorous and
unkind conduct of her aunt, in suffering her to return thither, where
she had no longer a relation to console and protect her; a conduct,
which was the more culpable, since St. Aubert had appointed Madame
Cheron the guardian of his orphan daughter.

Madame Cheron’s servant made the attendance of the good La Voisin
unnecessary; and Emily, who felt sensibly her obligations to him, for
all his kind attention to her late father, as well as to herself, was
glad to spare him a long, and what, at his time of life, must have been
a troublesome journey.

During her stay at the convent, the peace and sanctity that reigned
within, the tranquil beauty of the scenery without, and the delicate
attentions of the abbess and the nuns, were circumstances so soothing
to her mind, that they almost tempted her to leave a world, where she
had lost her dearest friends, and devote herself to the cloister, in a
spot, rendered sacred to her by containing the tomb of St. Aubert. The
pensive enthusiasm, too, so natural to her temper, had spread a
beautiful illusion over the sanctified retirement of a nun, that almost
hid from her view the selfishness of its security. But the touches,
which a melancholy fancy, slightly tinctured with superstition, gave to
the monastic scene, began to fade, as her spirits revived, and brought
once more to her heart an image, which had only transiently been
banished thence. By this she was silently awakened to hope and comfort
and sweet affections; visions of happiness gleamed faintly at a
distance, and, though she knew them to be illusions, she could not
resolve to shut them out for ever. It was the remembrance of
Valancourt, of his taste, his genius, and of the countenance which
glowed with both, that, perhaps, alone determined her to return to the
world. The grandeur and sublimity of the scenes, amidst which they had
first met, had fascinated her fancy, and had imperceptibly contributed
to render Valancourt more interesting by seeming to communicate to him
somewhat of their own character. The esteem, too, which St. Aubert had
repeatedly expressed for him, sanctioned this kindness; but, though his
countenance and manner had continually expressed his admiration of her,
he had not otherwise declared it; and even the hope of seeing him again
was so distant, that she was scarcely conscious of it, still less that
it influenced her conduct on this occasion.

It was several days after the arrival of Madame Cheron’s servant before
Emily was sufficiently recovered to undertake the journey to La Vallée.
On the evening preceding her departure, she went to the cottage to take
leave of La Voisin and his family, and to make them a return for their
kindness. The old man she found sitting on a bench at his door, between
his daughter, and his son-in-law, who was just returned from his daily
labour, and who was playing upon a pipe, that, in tone, resembled an
oboe. A flask of wine stood beside the old man, and, before him, a
small table with fruit and bread, round which stood several of his
grandsons, fine rosy children, who were taking their supper, as their
mother distributed it. On the edge of the little green, that spread
before the cottage, were cattle and a few sheep reposing under the
trees. The landscape was touched with the mellow light of the evening
sun, whose long slanting beams played through a vista of the woods, and
lighted up the distant turrets of the château. She paused a moment,
before she emerged from the shade, to gaze upon the happy group before
her—on the complacency and ease of healthy age, depictured on the
countenance of La Voisin; the maternal tenderness of Agnes, as she
looked upon her children, and the innocency of infantine pleasures,
reflected in their smiles. Emily looked again at the venerable old man,
and at the cottage; the memory of her father rose with full force upon
her mind, and she hastily stepped forward, afraid to trust herself with
a longer pause. She took an affectionate and affecting leave of La
Voisin and his family; he seemed to love her as his daughter, and shed
tears; Emily shed many. She avoided going into the cottage, since she
knew it would revive emotions, such as she could not now endure.

One painful scene yet awaited her, for she determined to visit again
her father’s grave; and that she might not be interrupted, or observed
in the indulgence of her melancholy tenderness, she deferred her visit,
till every inhabitant of the convent, except the nun who promised to
bring her the key of the church, should be retired to rest. Emily
remained in her chamber, till she heard the convent bell strike twelve,
when the nun came, as she had appointed, with the key of a private
door, that opened into the church, and they descended together the
narrow winding staircase, that led thither. The nun offered to
accompany Emily to the grave, adding, “It is melancholy to go alone at
this hour;” but the former, thanking her for the consideration, could
not consent to have any witness of her sorrow; and the sister, having
unlocked the door, gave her the lamp. “You will remember, sister,” said
she, “that in the east aisle, which you must pass, is a newly opened
grave; hold the light to the ground, that you may not stumble over the
loose earth.” Emily, thanking her again, took the lamp, and, stepping
into the church, sister Mariette departed. But Emily paused a moment at
the door; a sudden fear came over her, and she returned to the foot of
the staircase, where, as she heard the steps of the nun ascending, and,
while she held up the lamp, saw her black veil waving over the spiral
balusters, she was tempted to call her back. While she hesitated, the
veil disappeared, and, in the next moment, ashamed of her fears, she
returned to the church. The cold air of the aisles chilled her, and
their deep silence and extent, feebly shone upon by the moonlight, that
streamed through a distant gothic window, would at any other time have
awed her into superstition; now, grief occupied all her attention. She
scarcely heard the whispering echoes of her own steps, or thought of
the open grave, till she found herself almost on its brink. A friar of
the convent had been buried there on the preceding evening, and, as she
had sat alone in her chamber at twilight, she heard, at distance, the
monks chanting the requiem for his soul. This brought freshly to her
memory the circumstances of her father’s death; and, as the voices,
mingling with a low querulous peal of the organ, swelled faintly,
gloomy and affecting visions had arisen upon her mind. Now she
remembered them, and, turning aside to avoid the broken ground, these
recollections made her pass on with quicker steps to the grave of St.
Aubert, when in the moonlight, that fell athwart a remote part of the
aisle, she thought she saw a shadow gliding between the pillars. She
stopped to listen, and, not hearing any footstep, believed that her
fancy had deceived her, and, no longer apprehensive of being observed,
proceeded. St. Aubert was buried beneath a plain marble, bearing little
more than his name and the date of his birth and death, near the foot
of the stately monument of the Villerois. Emily remained at his grave,
till a chime, that called the monks to early prayers, warned her to
retire; then, she wept over it a last farewell, and forced herself from
the spot. After this hour of melancholy indulgence, she was refreshed
by a deeper sleep, than she had experienced for a long time, and, on
awakening, her mind was more tranquil and resigned, than it had been
since St. Aubert’s death.

But, when the moment of her departure from the convent arrived, all her
grief returned; the memory of the dead, and the kindness of the living
attached her to the place; and for the sacred spot, where her father’s
remains were interred, she seemed to feel all those tender affections
which we conceive for home. The abbess repeated many kind assurances of
regard at their parting, and pressed her to return, if ever she should
find her condition elsewhere unpleasant; many of the nuns also
expressed unaffected regret at her departure, and Emily left the
convent with many tears, and followed by sincere wishes for her
happiness.

She had travelled several leagues, before the scenes of the country,
through which she passed, had power to rouse her for a moment from the
deep melancholy, into which she was sunk, and, when they did, it was
only to remind her, that, on her last view of them, St. Aubert was at
her side, and to call up to her remembrance the remarks he had
delivered on similar scenery. Thus, without any particular occurrence,
passed the day in languor and dejection. She slept that night in a town
on the skirts of Languedoc, and, on the following morning, entered
Gascony.

Towards the close of this day, Emily came within view of the plains in
the neighbourhood of La Vallée, and the well-known objects of former
times began to press upon her notice, and with them recollections, that
awakened all her tenderness and grief. Often, while she looked through
her tears upon the wild grandeur of the Pyrenees, now varied with the
rich lights and shadows of evening, she remembered, that, when last she
saw them, her father partook with her of the pleasure they inspired.
Suddenly some scene, which he had particularly pointed out to her,
would present itself, and the sick languor of despair would steal upon
her heart. “There!” she would exclaim, “there are the very cliffs,
there the wood of pines, which he looked at with such delight, as we
passed this road together for the last time. There, too, under the crag
of that mountain, is the cottage, peeping from among the cedars, which
he bade me remember, and copy with my pencil. O my father, shall I
never see you more!”

As she drew near the château, these melancholy memorials of past times
multiplied. At length, the château itself appeared, amid the glowing
beauty of St. Aubert’s favourite landscape. This was an object, which
called for fortitude, not for tears; Emily dried hers, and prepared to
meet with calmness the trying moment of her return to that home, where
there was no longer a parent to welcome her. “Yes,” said she, “let me
not forget the lessons he has taught me! How often he has pointed out
the necessity of resisting even virtuous sorrow; how often we have
admired together the greatness of a mind, that can at once suffer and
reason! O my father! if you are permitted to look down upon your child,
it will please you to see, that she remembers, and endeavours to
practise, the precepts you have given her.”

A turn on the road now allowed a nearer view of the château, the
chimneys, tipped with light, rising from behind St. Aubert’s favourite
oaks, whose foliage partly concealed the lower part of the building.
Emily could not suppress a heavy sigh. “This, too, was his favourite
hour,” said she, as she gazed upon the long evening shadows, stretched
athwart the landscape. “How deep the repose, how lovely the scene!
lovely and tranquil as in former days!”

Again she resisted the pressure of sorrow, till her ear caught the gay
melody of the dance, which she had so often listened to, as she walked
with St. Aubert, on the margin of the Garonne, when all her fortitude
forsook her, and she continued to weep, till the carriage stopped at
the little gate, that opened upon what was now her own territory. She
raised her eyes on the sudden stopping of the carriage, and saw her
father’s old housekeeper coming to open the gate. Manchon also came
running, and barking before her; and when his young mistress alighted,
fawned, and played round her, gasping with joy.

“Dear ma’amselle!” said Theresa, and paused, and looked as if she would
have offered something of condolement to Emily, whose tears now
prevented reply. The dog still fawned and ran round her, and then flew
towards the carriage, with a short quick bark. “Ah, ma’amselle!—my poor
master!” said Theresa, whose feelings were more awakened than her
delicacy, “Manchon’s gone to look for him.” Emily sobbed aloud; and, on
looking towards the carriage, which still stood with the door open, saw
the animal spring into it, and instantly leap out, and then with his
nose on the ground run round the horses.

“Don’t cry so, ma’amselle,” said Theresa, “it breaks my heart to see
you.” The dog now came running to Emily, then returned to the carriage,
and then back again to her, whining and discontented. “Poor rogue!”
said Theresa, “thou hast lost thy master, thou mayst well cry! But
come, my dear young lady, be comforted. What shall I get to refresh
you?” Emily gave her hand to the old servant, and tried to restrain her
grief, while she made some kind enquiries concerning her health. But
she still lingered in the walk which led to the château, for within was
no person to meet her with the kiss of affection; her own heart no
longer palpitated with impatient joy to meet again the well-known
smile, and she dreaded to see objects, which would recall the full
remembrance of her former happiness. She moved slowly towards the door,
paused, went on, and paused again. How silent, how forsaken, how
forlorn did the château appear! Trembling to enter it, yet blaming
herself for delaying what she could not avoid, she, at length, passed
into the hall; crossed it with a hurried step, as if afraid to look
round, and opened the door of that room, which she was wont to call her
own. The gloom of evening gave solemnity to its silent and deserted
air. The chairs, the tables, every article of furniture, so familiar to
her in happier times, spoke eloquently to her heart. She seated
herself, without immediately observing it, in a window, which opened
upon the garden, and where St. Aubert had often sat with her, watching
the sun retire from the rich and extensive prospect, that appeared
beyond the groves.

Having indulged her tears for some time, she became more composed; and,
when Theresa, after seeing the baggage deposited in her lady’s room,
again appeared, she had so far recovered her spirits, as to be able to
converse with her.

“I have made up the green bed for you, ma’amselle,” said Theresa, as
she set the coffee upon the table. “I thought you would like it better
than your own now; but I little thought this day month, that you would
come back alone. A-well-a-day! the news almost broke my heart, when it
did come. Who would have believed, that my poor master, when he went
from home, would never return again!” Emily hid her face with her
handkerchief, and waved her hand.

“Do taste the coffee,” said Theresa. “My dear young lady, be
comforted—we must all die. My dear master is a saint above.” Emily took
the handkerchief from her face, and raised her eyes full of tears
towards heaven; soon after she dried them, and, in a calm, but
tremulous voice, began to enquire concerning some of her late father’s
pensioners.

“Alas-a-day!” said Theresa, as she poured out the coffee, and handed it
to her mistress, “all that could come, have been here every day to
enquire after you and my master.” She then proceeded to tell, that some
were dead whom they had left well; and others, who were ill, had
recovered. “And see, ma’amselle,” added Theresa, “there is old Mary
coming up the garden now; she has looked every day these three years as
if she would die, yet she is alive still. She has seen the chaise at
the door, and knows you are come home.”

The sight of this poor old woman would have been too much for Emily,
and she begged Theresa would go and tell her, that she was too ill to
see any person that night. “Tomorrow I shall be better, perhaps; but
give her this token of my remembrance.”

Emily sat for some time, given up to sorrow. Not an object, on which
her eye glanced, but awakened some remembrance, that led immediately to
the subject of her grief. Her favourite plants, which St. Aubert had
taught her to nurse; the little drawings, that adorned the room, which
his taste had instructed her to execute; the books, that he had
selected for her use, and which they had read together; her musical
instruments, whose sounds he loved so well, and which he sometimes
awakened himself—every object gave new force to sorrow. At length, she
roused herself from this melancholy indulgence, and, summoning all her
resolution, stepped forward to go into those forlorn rooms, which,
though she dreaded to enter, she knew would yet more powerfully affect
her, if she delayed to visit them.

Having passed through the green-house, her courage for a moment forsook
her, when she opened the door of the library; and, perhaps, the shade,
which evening and the foliage of the trees near the windows threw
across the room, heightened the solemnity of her feelings on entering
that apartment, where everything spoke of her father. There was an arm
chair, in which he used to sit; she shrunk when she observed it, for
she had so often seen him seated there, and the idea of him rose so
distinctly to her mind, that she almost fancied she saw him before her.
But she checked the illusions of a distempered imagination, though she
could not subdue a certain degree of awe, which now mingled with her
emotions. She walked slowly to the chair, and seated herself in it;
there was a reading-desk before it, on which lay a book open, as it had
been left by her father. It was some moments before she recovered
courage enough to examine it; and, when she looked at the open page,
she immediately recollected, that St. Aubert, on the evening before his
departure from the château, had read to her some passages from this his
favourite author. The circumstance now affected her extremely; she
looked at the page, wept, and looked again. To her the book appeared
sacred and invaluable, and she would not have moved it, or closed the
page, which he had left open, for the treasures of the Indies. Still
she sat before the desk, and could not resolve to quit it, though the
increasing gloom, and the profound silence of the apartment, revived a
degree of painful awe. Her thoughts dwelt on the probable state of
departed spirits, and she remembered the affecting conversation, which
had passed between St. Aubert and La Voisin, on the night preceding his
death.

As she mused she saw the door slowly open, and a rustling sound in a
remote part of the room startled her. Through the dusk she thought she
perceived something move. The subject she had been considering, and the
present tone of her spirits, which made her imagination respond to
every impression of her senses, gave her a sudden terror of something
supernatural. She sat for a moment motionless, and then, her dissipated
reason returning, “What should I fear?” said she. “If the spirits of
those we love ever return to us, it is in kindness.”

The silence, which again reigned, made her ashamed of her late fears,
and she believed, that her imagination had deluded her, or that she had
heard one of those unaccountable noises, which sometimes occur in old
houses. The same sound, however, returned; and, distinguishing
something moving towards her, and in the next instant press beside her
into the chair, she shrieked; but her fleeting senses were instantly
recalled, on perceiving that it was Manchon who sat by her, and who now
licked her hands affectionately.

Perceiving her spirits unequal to the task she had assigned herself of
visiting the deserted rooms of the château this night, when she left
the library, she walked into the garden, and down to the terrace, that
overhung the river. The sun was now set; but, under the dark branches
of the almond trees, was seen the saffron glow of the west, spreading
beyond the twilight of middle air. The bat flitted silently by; and,
now and then, the mourning note of the nightingale was heard. The
circumstances of the hour brought to her recollection some lines, which
she had once heard St. Aubert recite on this very spot, and she had now
a melancholy pleasure in repeating them.

SONNET

Now the bat circles on the breeze of eve,
    That creeps, in shudd’ring fits, along the wave,
    And trembles ’mid the woods, and through the cave
Whose lonely sighs the wanderer deceive;

For oft, when melancholy charms his mind,
    He thinks the Spirit of the rock he hears,
    Nor listens, but with sweetly-thrilling fears,
To the low, mystic murmurs of the wind!

Now the bat circles, and the twilight-dew
    Falls silent round, and, o’er the mountain-cliff,
    The gleaming wave, and far-discover’d skiff,
Spreads the grey veil of soft, harmonious hue.

So falls o’er Grief the dew of pity’s tear
Dimming her lonely visions of despair.


Emily, wandering on, came to St. Aubert’s favourite plane-tree, where
so often, at this hour, they had sat beneath the shade together, and
with her dear mother so often had conversed on the subject of a future
state. How often, too, had her father expressed the comfort he derived
from believing, that they should meet in another world! Emily, overcome
by these recollections, left the plane-tree, and, as she leaned
pensively on the wall of the terrace, she observed a group of peasants
dancing gaily on the banks of the Garonne, which spread in broad
expanse below, and reflected the evening light. What a contrast they
formed to the desolate, unhappy Emily! They were gay and _debonnaire_,
as they were wont to be when she, too, was gay—when St. Aubert used to
listen to their merry music, with a countenance beaming pleasure and
benevolence. Emily, having looked for a moment on this sprightly band,
turned away, unable to bear the remembrances it excited; but where,
alas! could she turn, and not meet new objects to give acuteness to
grief?

As she walked slowly towards the house, she was met by Theresa. “Dear
ma’amselle,” said she, “I have been seeking you up and down this half
hour, and was afraid some accident had happened to you. How can you
like to wander about so in this night air! Do come into the house.
Think what my poor master would have said, if he could see you. I am
sure, when my dear lady died, no gentleman could take it more to heart
than he did, yet you know he seldom shed a tear.”

“Pray, Theresa, cease,” said Emily, wishing to interrupt this
ill-judged, but well-meaning harangue; Theresa’s loquacity, however,
was not to be silenced so easily. “And when you used to grieve so,” she
added, “he often told you how wrong it was—for that my mistress was
happy. And, if she was happy, I am sure he is so too; for the prayers
of the poor, they say, reach heaven.” During this speech, Emily had
walked silently into the château, and Theresa lighted her across the
hall into the common sitting parlour, where she had laid the cloth,
with one solitary knife and fork, for supper. Emily was in the room
before she perceived that it was not her own apartment, but she checked
the emotion which inclined her to leave it, and seated herself quietly
by the little supper table. Her father’s hat hung upon the opposite
wall; while she gazed at it, a faintness came over her. Theresa looked
at her, and then at the object, on which her eyes were settled, and
went to remove it; but Emily waved her hand—“No,” said she, “let it
remain. I am going to my chamber.” “Nay, ma’amselle, supper is ready.”
“I cannot take it,” replied Emily, “I will go to my room, and try to
sleep. Tomorrow I shall be better.”

“This is poor doings!” said Theresa. “Dear lady! do take some food! I
have dressed a pheasant, and a fine one it is. Old Monsieur Barreaux
sent it this morning, for I saw him yesterday, and told him you were
coming. And I know nobody that seemed more concerned, when he heard the
sad news, then he.”

“Did he?” said Emily, in a tender voice, while she felt her poor heart
warmed for a moment by a ray of sympathy.

At length, her spirits were entirely overcome, and she retired to her
room.



 CHAPTER IX

Can Music’s voice, can Beauty’s eye,
Can Painting’s glowing hand supply
A charm so suited to my mind,
As blows this hollow gust of wind?
As drops this little weeping rill,
Soft tinkling down the moss-grown hill;
While, through the west, where sinks the crimson day,
Meek Twilight slowly sails, and waves her banners grey?
                    MASON


Emily, some time after her return to La Vallée, received letters from
her aunt, Madame Cheron, in which, after some common-place condolement
and advice, she invited her to Thoulouse, and added, that, as her late
brother had entrusted Emily’s _education_ to her, she should consider
herself bound to overlook her conduct. Emily, at this time, wished only
to remain at La Vallée, in the scenes of her early happiness, now
rendered infinitely dear to her, as the late residence of those, whom
she had lost for ever, where she could weep unobserved, retrace their
steps, and remember each minute particular of their manners. But she
was equally anxious to avoid the displeasure of Madame Cheron.

Though her affection would not suffer her to question, even a moment,
the propriety of St. Aubert’s conduct in appointing Madame Cheron for
her guardian, she was sensible, that this step had made her happiness
depend, in a great degree, on the humour of her aunt. In her reply, she
begged permission to remain, at present, at La Vallée, mentioning the
extreme dejection of her spirits, and the necessity she felt for quiet
and retirement to restore them. These she knew were not to be found at
Madame Cheron’s, whose inclinations led her into a life of dissipation,
which her ample fortune encouraged; and, having given her answer, she
felt somewhat more at ease.

In the first days of her affliction, she was visited by Monsieur
Barreaux, a sincere mourner for St. Aubert. “I may well lament my
friend,” said he, “for I shall never meet with his resemblance. If I
could have found such a man in what is called society, I should not
have left it.”

M. Barreaux’s admiration of her father endeared him extremely to Emily,
whose heart found almost its first relief in conversing of her parents,
with a man, whom she so much revered, and who, though with such an
ungracious appearance, possessed to much goodness of heart and delicacy
of mind.

Several weeks passed away in quiet retirement, and Emily’s affliction
began to soften into melancholy. She could bear to read the books she
had before read with her father; to sit in his chair in the library—to
watch the flowers his hand had planted—to awaken the tones of that
instrument his fingers had pressed, and sometimes even to play his
favourite air.

When her mind had recovered from the first shock of affliction,
perceiving the danger of yielding to indolence, and that activity alone
could restore its tone, she scrupulously endeavoured to pass all her
hours in employment. And it was now that she understood the full value
of the education she had received from St. Aubert, for in cultivating
her understanding he had secured her an asylum from indolence, without
recourse to dissipation, and rich and varied amusement and information,
independent of the society, from which her situation secluded her. Nor
were the good effects of this education confined to selfish advantages,
since, St. Aubert having nourished every amiable quality of her heart,
it now expanded in benevolence to all around her, and taught her, when
she could not remove the misfortunes of others, at least to soften them
by sympathy and tenderness;—a benevolence that taught her to feel for
all, that could suffer.

Madame Cheron returned no answer to Emily’s letter, who began to hope,
that she should be permitted to remain some time longer in her
retirement, and her mind had now so far recovered its strength, that
she ventured to view the scenes, which most powerfully recalled the
images of past times. Among these was the fishing-house; and, to
indulge still more the affectionate melancholy of the visit, she took
thither her lute, that she might again hear there the tones, to which
St. Aubert and her mother had so often delighted to listen. She went
alone, and at that still hour of the evening which is so soothing to
fancy and to grief. The last time she had been here she was in company
with Monsieur and Madame St. Aubert, a few days preceding that, on
which the latter was seized with a fatal illness. Now, when Emily again
entered the woods, that surrounded the building, they awakened so
forcibly the memory of former times, that her resolution yielded for a
moment to excess of grief. She stopped, leaned for support against a
tree, and wept for some minutes, before she had recovered herself
sufficiently to proceed. The little path, that led to the building, was
overgrown with grass and the flowers which St. Aubert had scattered
carelessly along the border were almost choked with weeds—the tall
thistle—the fox-glove, and the nettle. She often paused to look on the
desolate spot, now so silent and forsaken, and when, with a trembling
hand, she opened the door of the fishing-house, “Ah!” said she,
“everything—everything remains as when I left it last—left it with
those who never must return!” She went to a window, that overhung the
rivulet, and, leaning over it, with her eyes fixed on the current, was
soon lost in melancholy reverie. The lute she had brought lay forgotten
beside her; the mournful sighing of the breeze, as it waved the high
pines above, and its softer whispers among the osiers, that bowed upon
the banks below, was a kind of music more in unison with her feelings.
It did not vibrate on the chords of unhappy memory, but was soothing to
the heart as the voice of Pity. She continued to muse, unconscious of
the gloom of evening, and that the sun’s last light trembled on the
heights above, and would probably have remained so much longer, if a
sudden footstep, without the building, had not alarmed her attention,
and first made her recollect that she was unprotected. In the next
moment, a door opened, and a stranger appeared, who stopped on
perceiving Emily, and then began to apologise for his intrusion. But
Emily, at the sound of his voice, lost her fear in a stronger emotion:
its tones were familiar to her ear, and, though she could not readily
distinguish through the dusk the features of the person who spoke, she
felt a remembrance too strong to be distrusted.

He repeated his apology, and Emily then said something in reply, when
the stranger eagerly advancing, exclaimed, “Good God! can it be—surely
I am not mistaken—ma’amselle St. Aubert?—is it not?”

“It is indeed,” said Emily, who was confirmed in her first conjecture,
for she now distinguished the countenance of Valancourt, lighted up
with still more than its usual animation. A thousand painful
recollections crowded to her mind, and the effort, which she made to
support herself, only served to increase her agitation. Valancourt,
meanwhile, having enquired anxiously after her health, and expressed
his hopes, that M. St. Aubert had found benefit from travelling,
learned from the flood of tears, which she could no longer repress, the
fatal truth. He led her to a seat, and sat down by her, while Emily
continued to weep, and Valancourt to hold the hand, which she was
unconscious he had taken, till it was wet with the tears, which grief
for St. Aubert and sympathy for herself had called forth.

“I feel,” said he at length, “I feel how insufficient all attempt at
consolation must be on this subject. I can only mourn with you, for I
cannot doubt the source of your tears. Would to God I were mistaken!”

Emily could still answer only by tears, till she rose, and begged they
might leave the melancholy spot, when Valancourt, though he saw her
feebleness, could not offer to detain her, but took her arm within his,
and led her from the fishing-house. They walked silently through the
woods, Valancourt anxious to know, yet fearing to ask any particulars
concerning St. Aubert; and Emily too much distressed to converse. After
some time, however, she acquired fortitude enough to speak of her
father, and to give a brief account of the manner of his death; during
which recital Valancourt’s countenance betrayed strong emotion, and,
when he heard that St. Aubert had died on the road, and that Emily had
been left among strangers, he pressed her hand between his, and
involuntarily exclaimed, “Why was I not there!” but in the next moment
recollected himself, for he immediately returned to the mention of her
father; till, perceiving that her spirits were exhausted, he gradually
changed the subject, and spoke of himself. Emily thus learned that,
after they had parted, he had wandered, for some time, along the shores
of the Mediterranean, and had then returned through Languedoc into
Gascony, which was his native province, and where he usually resided.

When he had concluded his little narrative, he sunk into a silence,
which Emily was not disposed to interrupt, and it continued, till they
reached the gate of the château, when he stopped, as if he had known
this to be the limit of his walk. Here, saying, that it was his
intention to return to Estuvière on the following day, he asked her if
she would permit him to take leave of her in the morning; and Emily,
perceiving that she could not reject an ordinary civility, without
expressing by her refusal an expectation of something more, was
compelled to answer, that she should be at home.

She passed a melancholy evening, during which the retrospect of all
that had happened, since she had seen Valancourt, would rise to her
imagination; and the scene of her father’s death appeared in tints as
fresh, as if it had passed on the preceding day. She remembered
particularly the earnest and solemn manner, in which he had required
her to destroy the manuscript papers, and, awakening from the lethargy,
in which sorrow had held her, she was shocked to think she had not yet
obeyed him, and determined, that another day should not reproach her
with the neglect.



 CHAPTER X

Can such things be,
And overcome us like a summer’s cloud,
Without our special wonder?
                    MACBETH


On the next morning, Emily ordered a fire to be lighted in the stove of
the chamber, where St. Aubert used to sleep; and, as soon as she had
breakfasted, went thither to burn the papers. Having fastened the door
to prevent interruption, she opened the closet where they were
concealed, as she entered which, she felt an emotion of unusual awe,
and stood for some moments surveying it, trembling, and almost afraid
to remove the board. There was a great chair in one corner of the
closet, and, opposite to it, stood the table, at which she had seen her
father sit, on the evening that preceded his departure, looking over,
with so much emotion, what she believed to be these very papers.

The solitary life, which Emily had led of late, and the melancholy
subjects, on which she had suffered her thoughts to dwell, had rendered
her at times sensible to the ‘thick-coming fancies’ of a mind greatly
enervated. It was lamentable, that her excellent understanding should
have yielded, even for a moment, to the reveries of superstition, or
rather to those starts of imagination, which deceive the senses into
what can be called nothing less than momentary madness. Instances of
this temporary failure of mind had more than once occurred since her
return home; particularly when, wandering through this lonely mansion
in the evening twilight, she had been alarmed by appearances, which
would have been unseen in her more cheerful days. To this infirm state
of her nerves may be attributed what she imagined, when, her eyes
glancing a second time on the arm-chair, which stood in an obscure part
of the closet, the countenance of her dead father appeared there. Emily
stood fixed for a moment to the floor, after which she left the closet.
Her spirits, however, soon returned; she reproached herself with the
weakness of thus suffering interruption in an act of serious
importance, and again opened the door. By the directions which St.
Aubert had given her, she readily found the board he had described in
an opposite corner of the closet, near the window; she distinguished
also the line he had mentioned, and, pressing it as he had bade her, it
slid down, and disclosed the bundle of papers, together with some
scattered ones, and the purse of louis. With a trembling hand she
removed them, replaced the board, paused a moment, and was rising from
the floor, when, on looking up, there appeared to her alarmed fancy the
same countenance in the chair. The illusion, another instance of the
unhappy effect which solitude and grief had gradually produced upon her
mind, subdued her spirits; she rushed forward into the chamber, and
sunk almost senseless into a chair. Returning reason soon overcame the
dreadful, but pitiable attack of imagination, and she turned to the
papers, though still with so little recollection, that her eyes
involuntarily settled on the writing of some loose sheets, which lay
open; and she was unconscious, that she was transgressing her father’s
strict injunction, till a sentence of dreadful import awakened her
attention and her memory together. She hastily put the papers from her;
but the words, which had roused equally her curiosity and terror, she
could not dismiss from her thoughts. So powerfully had they affected
her, that she even could not resolve to destroy the papers immediately;
and the more she dwelt on the circumstance, the more it inflamed her
imagination. Urged by the most forcible, and apparently the most
necessary, curiosity to enquire farther, concerning the terrible and
mysterious subject, to which she had seen an allusion, she began to
lament her promise to destroy the papers. For a moment, she even
doubted, whether it could justly be obeyed, in contradiction to such
reasons as there appeared to be for further information. But the
delusion was momentary.

“I have given a solemn promise,” said she, “to observe a solemn
injunction, and it is not my business to argue, but to obey. Let me
hasten to remove the temptation, that would destroy my innocence, and
embitter my life with the consciousness of irremediable guilt, while I
have strength to reject it.”

Thus reanimated with a sense of her duty, she completed the triumph of
her integrity over temptation, more forcible than any she had ever
known, and consigned the papers to the flames. Her eyes watched them as
they slowly consumed, she shuddered at the recollection of the sentence
she had just seen, and at the certainty, that the only opportunity of
explaining it was then passing away for ever.

It was long after this, that she recollected the purse; and as she was
depositing it, unopened, in a cabinet, perceiving that it contained
something of a size larger than coin, she examined it. “His hand
deposited them here,” said she, as she kissed some pieces of the coin,
and wetted them with her tears, “his hand—which is now dust!” At the
bottom of the purse was a small packet, having taken out which, and
unfolded paper after paper, she found to be an ivory case, containing
the miniature of a—lady! She started—“The same,” said she, “my father
wept over!” On examining the countenance she could recollect no person
that it resembled. It was of uncommon beauty, and was characterised by
an expression of sweetness, shaded with sorrow, and tempered by
resignation.

St. Aubert had given no directions concerning this picture, nor had
even named it; she, therefore, thought herself justified in preserving
it. More than once remembering his manner, when he had spoken of the
Marchioness of Villeroi, she felt inclined to believe that this was her
resemblance; yet there appeared no reason why he should have preserved
a picture of that lady, or, having preserved it, why he should lament
over it in a manner so striking and affecting as she had witnessed on
the night preceding his departure.

Emily still gazed on the countenance, examining its features, but she
knew not where to detect the charm that captivated her attention, and
inspired sentiments of such love and pity. Dark brown hair played
carelessly along the open forehead; the nose was rather inclined to
aquiline; the lips spoke in a smile, but it was a melancholy one; the
eyes were blue, and were directed upwards with an expression of
peculiar meekness, while the soft cloud of the brow spoke of the fine
sensibility of the temper.

Emily was roused from the musing mood into which the picture had thrown
her, by the closing of the garden gate; and, on turning her eyes to the
window, she saw Valancourt coming towards the château. Her spirits
agitated by the subjects that had lately occupied her mind, she felt
unprepared to see him, and remained a few moments in the chamber to
recover herself.

When she met him in the parlour, she was struck with the change that
appeared in his air and countenance since they had parted in Rousillon,
which twilight and the distress she suffered on the preceding evening
had prevented her from observing. But dejection and languor
disappeared, for a moment, in the smile that now enlightened his
countenance, on perceiving her. “You see,” said he, “I have availed
myself of the permission with which you honoured me—of bidding _you_
farewell, whom I had the happiness of meeting only yesterday.”

Emily smiled faintly, and, anxious to say something, asked if he had
been long in Gascony. “A few days only,” replied Valancourt, while a
blush passed over his cheek. “I engaged in a long ramble after I had
the misfortune of parting with the friends who had made my wanderings
among the Pyrenees so delightful.”

A tear came to Emily’s eye, as Valancourt said this, which he observed;
and, anxious to draw off her attention from the remembrance that had
occasioned it, as well as shocked at his own thoughtlessness, he began
to speak on other subjects, expressing his admiration of the château,
and its prospects. Emily, who felt somewhat embarrassed how to support
a conversation, was glad of such an opportunity to continue it on
indifferent topics. They walked down to the terrace, where Valancourt
was charmed with the river scenery, and the views over the opposite
shores of Guienne.

As he leaned on the wall of the terrace, watching the rapid current of
the Garonne, “I was a few weeks ago,” said he, “at the source of this
noble river; I had not then the happiness of knowing you, or I should
have regretted your absence—it was a scene so exactly suited to your
taste. It rises in a part of the Pyrenees, still wilder and more
sublime, I think, than any we passed in the way to Rousillon.” He then
described its fall among the precipices of the mountains, where its
waters, augmented by the streams that descend from the snowy summits
around, rush into the Vallée d’Aran, between whose romantic heights it
foams along, pursuing its way to the north west till it emerges upon
the plains of Languedoc. Then, washing the walls of Thoulouse, and
turning again to the north west, it assumes a milder character, as it
fertilizes the pastures of Gascony and Guienne, in its progress to the
Bay of Biscay.

Emily and Valancourt talked of the scenes they had passed among the
Pyrenean Alps; as he spoke of which there was often a tremulous
tenderness in his voice, and sometimes he expatiated on them with all
the fire of genius, sometimes would appear scarcely conscious of the
topic, though he continued to speak. This subject recalled forcibly to
Emily the idea of her father, whose image appeared in every landscape,
which Valancourt particularized, whose remarks dwelt upon her memory,
and whose enthusiasm still glowed in her heart. Her silence, at length,
reminded Valancourt how nearly his conversation approached to the
occasion of her grief, and he changed the subject, though for one
scarcely less affecting to Emily. When he admired the grandeur of the
plane-tree, that spread its wide branches over the terrace, and under
whose shade they now sat, she remembered how often she had sat thus
with St. Aubert, and heard him express the same admiration.

“This was a favourite tree with my dear father,” said she; “he used to
love to sit under its foliage with his family about him, in the fine
evenings of summer.”

Valancourt understood her feelings, and was silent; had she raised her
eyes from the ground she would have seen tears in his. He rose, and
leaned on the wall of the terrace, from which, in a few moments, he
returned to his seat, then rose again, and appeared to be greatly
agitated; while Emily found her spirits so much depressed, that several
of her attempts to renew the conversation were ineffectual. Valancourt
again sat down, but was still silent, and trembled. At length he said,
with a hesitating voice, “This lovely scene!—I am going to leave—to
leave you—perhaps for ever! These moments may never return; I cannot
resolve to neglect, though I scarcely dare to avail myself of them. Let
me, however, without offending the delicacy of your sorrow, venture to
declare the admiration I must always feel of your goodness—O! that at
some future period I might be permitted to call it love!”

Emily’s emotion would not suffer her to reply; and Valancourt, who now
ventured to look up, observing her countenance change, expected to see
her faint, and made an involuntary effort to support her, which
recalled Emily to a sense of her situation, and to an exertion of her
spirits. Valancourt did not appear to notice her indisposition, but,
when he spoke again, his voice told the tenderest love. “I will not
presume,” he added, “to intrude this subject longer upon your attention
at this time, but I may, perhaps, be permitted to mention, that these
parting moments would lose much of their bitterness if I might be
allowed to hope the declaration I have made would not exclude me from
your presence in future.”

Emily made another effort to overcome the confusion of her thoughts,
and to speak. She feared to trust the preference her heart acknowledged
towards Valancourt, and to give him any encouragement for hope, on so
short an acquaintance. For though in this narrow period she had
observed much that was admirable in his taste and disposition, and
though these observations had been sanctioned by the opinion of her
father, they were not sufficient testimonies of his general worth to
determine her upon a subject so infinitely important to her future
happiness as that, which now solicited her attention. Yet, though the
thought of dismissing Valancourt was so very painful to her, that she
could scarcely endure to pause upon it, the consciousness of this made
her fear the partiality of her judgment, and hesitate still more to
encourage that suit, for which her own heart too tenderly pleaded. The
family of Valancourt, if not his circumstances, had been known to her
father, and known to be unexceptionable. Of his circumstances,
Valancourt himself hinted as far as delicacy would permit, when he said
he had at present little else to offer but a heart, that adored her. He
had solicited only for a distant hope, and she could not resolve to
forbid, though she scarcely dared to permit it; at length, she acquired
courage to say, that she must think herself honoured by the good
opinion of any person, whom her father had esteemed.

“And was I, then, thought worthy of his esteem?” said Valancourt, in a
voice trembling with anxiety; then checking himself, he added, “But
pardon the question; I scarcely know what I say. If I might dare to
hope, that you think me not unworthy such honour, and might be
permitted sometimes to enquire after your health, I should now leave
you with comparative tranquillity.”

Emily, after a moment’s silence, said, “I will be ingenuous with you,
for I know you will understand, and allow for my situation; you will
consider it as a proof of my—my esteem that I am so. Though I live here
in what was my father’s house, I live here alone. I have, alas! no
longer a parent—a parent, whose presence might sanction your visits. It
is unnecessary for me to point out the impropriety of my receiving
them.”

“Nor will I affect to be insensible of this,” replied Valancourt,
adding mournfully—“but what is to console me for my candour? I distress
you, and would now leave the subject, if I might carry with me a hope
of being some time permitted to renew it, of being allowed to make
myself known to your family.”

Emily was again confused, and again hesitated what to reply; she felt
most acutely the difficulty—the forlornness of her situation, which did
not allow her a single relative, or friend, to whom she could turn for
even a look, that might support and guide her in the present
embarrassing circumstances. Madame Cheron, who was her only relative,
and ought to have been this friend, was either occupied by her own
amusements, or so resentful of the reluctance her niece had shown to
quit La Vallée, that she seemed totally to have abandoned her.

“Ah! I see,” said Valancourt, after a long pause, during which Emily
had begun, and left unfinished two or three sentences, “I see that I
have nothing to hope; my fears were too just, you think me unworthy of
your esteem. That fatal journey! which I considered as the happiest
period of my life—those delightful days were to embitter all my future
ones. How often I have looked back to them with hope and fear—yet never
till this moment could I prevail with myself to regret their enchanting
influence.”

His voice faltered, and he abruptly quitted his seat and walked on the
terrace. There was an expression of despair on his countenance, that
affected Emily. The pleadings of her heart overcame, in some degree,
her extreme timidity, and, when he resumed his seat, she said, in an
accent that betrayed her tenderness, “You do both yourself and me
injustice when you say I think you unworthy of my esteem; I will
acknowledge that you have long possessed it, and—and—”

Valancourt waited impatiently for the conclusion of the sentence, but
the words died on her lips. Her eyes, however, reflected all the
emotions of her heart. Valancourt passed, in an instant, from the
impatience of despair, to that of joy and tenderness. “O Emily!” he
exclaimed, “my own Emily—teach me to sustain this moment! Let me seal
it as the most sacred of my life!”

He pressed her hand to his lips, it was cold and trembling; and,
raising her eyes, he saw the paleness of her countenance. Tears came to
her relief, and Valancourt watched in anxious silence over her. In a
few moments, she recovered herself, and smiling faintly through her
tears, said, “Can you excuse this weakness? My spirits have not yet, I
believe, recovered from the shock they lately received.”

“I cannot excuse myself,” said Valancourt, “but I will forbear to renew
the subject, which may have contributed to agitate them, now that I can
leave you with the sweet certainty of possessing your esteem.”

Then, forgetting his resolution, he again spoke of himself. “You know
not,” said he, “the many anxious hours I have passed near you lately,
when you believed me, if indeed you honoured me with a thought, far
away. I have wandered, near the château, in the still hours of the
night, when no eye could observe me. It was delightful to know I was so
near you, and there was something particularly soothing in the thought,
that I watched round your habitation, while you slept. These grounds
are not entirely new to me. Once I ventured within the fence, and spent
one of the happiest, and yet most melancholy hours of my life in
walking under what I believed to be your window.”

Emily enquired how long Valancourt had been in the neighbourhood.
“Several days,” he replied. “It was my design to avail myself of the
permission M. St. Aubert had given me. I scarcely know how to account
for it; but, though I anxiously wished to do this, my resolution always
failed, when the moment approached, and I constantly deferred my visit.
I lodged in a village at some distance, and wandered with my dogs,
among the scenes of this charming country, wishing continually to meet
you, yet not daring to visit you.”

Having thus continued to converse, without perceiving the flight of
time, Valancourt, at length, seemed to recollect himself. “I must go,”
said he mournfully, “but it is with the hope of seeing you again, of
being permitted to pay my respects to your family; let me hear this
hope confirmed by your voice.” “My family will be happy to see any
friend of my dear father,” said Emily. Valancourt kissed her hand, and
still lingered, unable to depart, while Emily sat silently, with her
eyes bent on the ground; and Valancourt, as he gazed on her, considered
that it would soon be impossible for him to recall, even to his memory,
the exact resemblance of the beautiful countenance he then beheld; at
this moment a hasty footstep approached from behind the plane-tree,
and, turning her eyes, Emily saw Madame Cheron. She felt a blush steal
upon her cheek, and her frame trembled with the emotion of her mind;
but she instantly rose to meet her visitor. “So, niece!” said Madame
Cheron, casting a look of surprise and enquiry on Valancourt, “so
niece, how do you do? But I need not ask, your looks tell me you have
already recovered your loss.”

“My looks do me injustice then, Madame, my loss I know can never be
recovered.”

“Well—well! I will not argue with you; I see you have exactly your
father’s disposition; and let me tell you it would have been much
happier for him, poor man! if it had been a different one.”

A look of dignified displeasure, with which Emily regarded Madame
Cheron, while she spoke, would have touched almost any other heart; she
made no other reply, but introduced Valancourt, who could scarcely
stifle the resentment he felt, and whose bow Madame Cheron returned
with a slight curtsy, and a look of supercilious examination. After a
few moments he took leave of Emily, in a manner, that hastily expressed
his pain both at his own departure, and at leaving her to the society
of Madame Cheron.

“Who is that young man?” said her aunt, in an accent which equally
implied inquisitiveness and censure. “Some idle admirer of yours I
suppose; but I believed niece you had a greater sense of propriety,
than to have received the visits of any young man in your present
unfriended situation. Let me tell you the world will observe those
things, and it will talk, aye and very freely too.”

Emily, extremely shocked at this coarse speech, attempted to interrupt
it; but Madame Cheron would proceed, with all the self-importance of a
person, to whom power is new.

“It is very necessary you should be under the eye of some person more
able to guide you than yourself. I, indeed, have not much leisure for
such a task; however, since your poor father made it his last request,
that I should overlook your conduct—I must even take you under my care.
But this let me tell you niece, that, unless you will determine to be
very conformable to my direction, I shall not trouble myself longer
about you.”

Emily made no attempt to interrupt Madame Cheron a second time, grief
and the pride of conscious innocence kept her silent, till her aunt
said, “I am now come to take you with me to Thoulouse; I am sorry to
find, that your poor father died, after all, in such indifferent
circumstances; however, I shall take you home with me. Ah! poor man, he
was always more generous than provident, or he would not have left his
daughter dependent on his relations.”

“Nor has he done so, I hope, madam,” said Emily calmly, “nor did his
pecuniary misfortunes arise from that noble generosity, which always
distinguished him. The affairs of M. de Motteville may, I trust, yet be
settled without deeply injuring his creditors, and in the meantime I
should be very happy to remain at La Vallée.”

“No doubt you would,” replied Madame Cheron, with a smile of irony,
“and I shall no doubt consent to this, since I see how necessary
tranquillity and retirement are to restore your spirits. I did not
think you capable of so much duplicity, niece; when you pleaded this
excuse for remaining here, I foolishly believed it to be a just one,
nor expected to have found with you so agreeable a companion as this M.
La Val—, I forget his name.”

Emily could no longer endure these cruel indignities. “It was a just
one, madam,” said she; “and now, indeed, I feel more than ever the
value of the retirement I then solicited; and, if the purport of your
visit is only to add insult to the sorrows of your brother’s child, she
could well have spared it.”

“I see that I have undertaken a very troublesome task,” said Madame
Cheron, colouring highly. “I am sure, madam,” said Emily mildly, and
endeavouring to restrain her tears, “I am sure my father did not mean
it should be such. I have the happiness to reflect, that my conduct
under his eye was such as he often delighted to approve. It would be
very painful to me to disobey the sister of such a parent, and, if you
believe the task will really be so troublesome, I must lament, that it
is yours.”

“Well! niece, fine speaking signifies little. I am willing, in
consideration of my poor brother, to overlook the impropriety of your
late conduct, and to try what your future will be.”

Emily interrupted her, to beg she would explain what was the
impropriety she alluded to.

“What impropriety! why that of receiving the visits of a lover unknown
to your family,” replied Madame Cheron, not considering the impropriety
of which she had herself been guilty, in exposing her niece to the
possibility of conduct so erroneous.

A faint blush passed over Emily’s countenance; pride and anxiety
struggled in her breast; and, till she recollected, that appearances
did, in some degree, justify her aunt’s suspicions, she could not
resolve to humble herself so far as to enter into the defence of a
conduct, which had been so innocent and undesigning on her part. She
mentioned the manner of Valancourt’s introduction to her father; the
circumstances of his receiving the pistol-shot, and of their afterwards
travelling together; with the accidental way, in which she had met him,
on the preceding evening. She owned he had declared a partiality for
her, and that he had asked permission to address her family.

“And who is this young adventurer, pray?” said Madame Cheron, “and what
are his pretensions?” “These he must himself explain, madam,” replied
Emily. “Of his family my father was not ignorant, and I believe it is
unexceptionable.” She then proceeded to mention what she knew
concerning it.

“Oh, then, this it seems is a younger brother,” exclaimed her aunt,
“and of course a beggar. A very fine tale indeed! And so my brother
took a fancy to this young man after only a few days acquaintance!—but
that was so like him! In his youth he was always taking these likes and
dislikes, when no other person saw any reason for them at all; nay,
indeed, I have often thought the people he disapproved were much more
agreeable than those he admired;—but there is no accounting for tastes.
He was always so much influenced by people’s countenances; now I, for
my part, have no notion of this, it is all ridiculous enthusiasm. What
has a man’s face to do with his character? Can a man of good character
help having a disagreeable face?”—which last sentence Madame Cheron
delivered with the decisive air of a person who congratulates herself
on having made a grand discovery, and believes the question to be
unanswerably settled.

Emily, desirous of concluding the conversation, enquired if her aunt
would accept some refreshment, and Madame Cheron accompanied her to the
château, but without desisting from a topic, which she discussed with
so much complacency to herself, and severity to her niece.

“I am sorry to perceive, niece,” said she, in allusion to somewhat that
Emily had said, concerning physiognomy, “that you have a great many of
your father’s prejudices, and among them those sudden predilections for
people from their looks. I can perceive, that you imagine yourself to
be violently in love with this young adventurer, after an acquaintance
of only a few days. There was something, too, so charmingly romantic in
the manner of your meeting!”

Emily checked the tears, that trembled in her eyes, while she said,
“When my conduct shall deserve this severity, madam, you will do well
to exercise it; till then justice, if not tenderness, should surely
restrain it. I have never willingly offended you; now I have lost my
parents, you are the only person to whom I can look for kindness. Let
me not lament more than ever the loss of such parents.” The last words
were almost stifled by her emotions, and she burst into tears.
Remembering the delicacy and the tenderness of St. Aubert, the happy,
happy days she had passed in these scenes, and contrasting them with
the coarse and unfeeling behaviour of Madame Cheron, and from the
future hours of mortification she must submit to in her presence—a
degree of grief seized her, that almost reached despair. Madame Cheron,
more offended by the reproof which Emily’s words conveyed, than touched
by the sorrow they expressed, said nothing, that might soften her
grief; but, notwithstanding an apparent reluctance to receive her
niece, she desired her company. The love of sway was her ruling
passion, and she knew it would be highly gratified by taking into her
house a young orphan, who had no appeal from her decisions, and on whom
she could exercise without control the capricious humour of the moment.

On entering the château, Madame Cheron expressed a desire, that she
would put up what she thought necessary to take to Thoulouse, as she
meant to set off immediately. Emily now tried to persuade her to defer
the journey, at least till the next day, and, at length, with much
difficulty, prevailed.

The day passed in the exercise of petty tyranny on the part of Madame
Cheron, and in mournful regret and melancholy anticipation on that of
Emily, who, when her aunt retired to her apartment for the night, went
to take leave of every other room in this her dear native home, which
she was now quitting for she knew not how long, and for a world, to
which she was wholly a stranger. She could not conquer a presentiment,
which frequently occurred to her, this night—that she should never more
return to La Vallée. Having passed a considerable time in what had been
her father’s study, having selected some of his favourite authors, to
put up with her clothes, and shed many tears, as she wiped the dust
from their covers, she seated herself in his chair before the reading
desk, and sat lost in melancholy reflection, till Theresa opened the
door to examine, as was her custom before she went to bed, it was all
safe. She started, on observing her young lady, who bade her come in,
and then gave her some directions for keeping the château in readiness
for her reception at all times.

“Alas-a-day! that you should leave it!” said Theresa, “I think you
would be happier here than where you are going, if one may judge.”
Emily made no reply to this remark; the sorrow Theresa proceeded to
express at her departure affected her, but she found some comfort in
the simple affection of this poor old servant, to whom she gave such
directions as might best conduce to her comfort during her own absence.

Having dismissed Theresa to bed, Emily wandered through every lonely
apartment of the château, lingering long in what had been her father’s
bedroom, indulging melancholy, yet not unpleasing, emotions, and,
having often returned within the door to take another look at it, she
withdrew to her own chamber. From her window she gazed upon the garden
below, shown faintly by the moon, rising over the tops of the
palm-trees, and, at length, the calm beauty of the night increased a
desire of indulging the mournful sweetness of bidding farewell to the
beloved shades of her childhood, till she was tempted to descend.
Throwing over her the light veil, in which she usually walked, she
silently passed into the garden, and, hastening towards the distant
groves, was glad to breathe once more the air of liberty, and to sigh
unobserved. The deep repose of the scene, the rich scents, that floated
on the breeze, the grandeur of the wide horizon and of the clear blue
arch, soothed and gradually elevated her mind to that sublime
complacency, which renders the vexations of this world so insignificant
and mean in our eyes, that we wonder they have had power for a moment
to disturb us. Emily forgot Madame Cheron and all the circumstances of
her conduct, while her thoughts ascended to the contemplation of those
unnumbered worlds, that lie scattered in the depths of æther, thousands
of them hid from human eyes, and almost beyond the flight of human
fancy. As her imagination soared through the regions of space, and
aspired to that Great First Cause, which pervades and governs all
being, the idea of her father scarcely ever left her; but it was a
pleasing idea, since she resigned him to God in the full confidence of
a pure and holy faith. She pursued her way through the groves to the
terrace, often pausing as memory awakened the pang of affection, and as
reason anticipated the exile, into which she was going.

And now the moon was high over the woods, touching their summits with
yellow light, and darting between the foliage long level beams; while
on the rapid Garonne below the trembling radiance was faintly obscured
by the lightest vapour. Emily long watched the playing lustre, listened
to the soothing murmur of the current, and the yet lighter sounds of
the air, as it stirred, at intervals, the lofty palm-trees. “How
delightful is the sweet breath of these groves,” said she. “This lovely
scene!—how often shall I remember and regret it, when I am far away.
Alas! what events may occur before I see it again! O, peaceful, happy
shades!—scenes of my infant delights, of parental tenderness now lost
for ever!—why must I leave ye!—In your retreats I should still find
safety and repose. Sweet hours of my childhood—I am now to leave even
your last memorials! No objects, that would revive your impressions,
will remain for me!”

Then drying her tears and looking up, her thoughts rose again to the
sublime subject she had contemplated; the same divine complacency stole
over her heart, and, hushing its throbs, inspired hope and confidence
and resignation to the will of the Deity, whose works filled her mind
with adoration.

Emily gazed long on the plane-tree, and then seated herself, for the
last time, on the bench under its shade, where she had so often sat
with her parents, and where, only a few hours before, she had conversed
with Valancourt, at the remembrance of whom, thus revived, a mingled
sensation of esteem, tenderness and anxiety rose in her breast. With
this remembrance occurred a recollection of his late confession—that he
had often wandered near her habitation in the night, having even passed
the boundary of the garden, and it immediately occurred to her, that he
might be at this moment in the grounds. The fear of meeting him,
particularly after the declaration he had made, and of incurring a
censure, which her aunt might so reasonably bestow, if it was known,
that she was met by her lover, at this hour, made her instantly leave
her beloved plane-tree, and walk towards the château. She cast an
anxious eye around, and often stopped for a moment to examine the
shadowy scene before she ventured to proceed, but she passed on without
perceiving any person, till, having reached a clump of almond trees,
not far from the house, she rested to take a retrospect of the garden,
and to sigh forth another adieu. As her eyes wandered over the
landscape she thought she perceived a person emerge from the groves,
and pass slowly along a moonlight alley that led between them; but the
distance, and the imperfect light would not suffer her to judge with
any degree of certainty whether this was fancy or reality. She
continued to gaze for some time on the spot, till on the dead stillness
of the air she heard a sudden sound, and in the next instant fancied
she distinguished footsteps near her. Wasting not another moment in
conjecture, she hurried to the château, and, having reached it, retired
to her chamber, where, as she closed her window she looked upon the
garden, and then again thought she distinguished a figure, gliding
between the almond trees she had just left. She immediately withdrew
from the casement, and, though much agitated, sought in sleep the
refreshment of a short oblivion.



 CHAPTER XI

I leave that flowery path for eye
Of childhood, where I sported many a day,
Warbling and sauntering carelessly along;
Where every face was innocent and gay,
Each vale romantic, tuneful every tongue—
Sweet, wild, and artless, all.
                    THE MINSTREL


At an early hour, the carriage, which was to take Emily and Madame
Cheron to Thoulouse, appeared at the door of the château, and Madame
was already in the breakfast-room, when her niece entered it. The
repast was silent and melancholy on the part of Emily; and Madame
Cheron, whose vanity was piqued on observing her dejection, reproved
her in a manner that did not contribute to remove it. It was with much
reluctance, that Emily’s request to take with her the dog, which had
been a favourite of her father, was granted. Her aunt, impatient to be
gone, ordered the carriage to draw up; and, while she passed to the
hall door, Emily gave another look into the library, and another
farewell glance over the garden, and then followed. Old Theresa stood
at the door to take leave of her young lady. “God for ever keep you,
ma’amselle!” said she, while Emily gave her hand in silence, and could
answer only with a pressure of her hand, and a forced smile.

At the gate, which led out of the grounds, several of her father’s
pensioners were assembled to bid her farewell, to whom she would have
spoken, if her aunt would have suffered the driver to stop; and, having
distributed to them almost all the money she had about her, she sunk
back in the carriage, yielding to the melancholy of her heart. Soon
after, she caught, between the steep banks of the road, another view of
the château, peeping from among the high trees, and surrounded by green
slopes and tufted groves, the Garonne winding its way beneath their
shades, sometimes lost among the vineyards, and then rising in greater
majesty in the distant pastures. The towering precipices of the
Pyrenees, that rose to the south, gave Emily a thousand interesting
recollections of her late journey; and these objects of her former
enthusiastic admiration, now excited only sorrow and regret. Having
gazed on the château and its lovely scenery, till the banks again
closed upon them, her mind became too much occupied by mournful
reflections, to permit her to attend to the conversation, which Madame
Cheron had begun on some trivial topic, so that they soon travelled in
profound silence.

Valancourt, meanwhile, was returned to Estuvière, his heart occupied
with the image of Emily; sometimes indulging in reveries of future
happiness, but more frequently shrinking with dread of the opposition
he might encounter from her family. He was the younger son of an
ancient family of Gascony; and, having lost his parents at an early
period of his life, the care of his education and of his small portion
had devolved to his brother, the Count de Duvarney, his senior by
nearly twenty years. Valancourt had been educated in all the
accomplishments of his age, and had an ardour of spirit, and a certain
grandeur of mind, that gave him particular excellence in the exercises
then thought heroic. His little fortune had been diminished by the
necessary expences of his education; but M. La Valancourt, the elder,
seemed to think that his genius and accomplishments would amply supply
the deficiency of his inheritance. They offered flattering hopes of
promotion in the military profession, in those times almost the only
one in which a gentleman could engage without incurring a stain on his
name; and La Valancourt was of course enrolled in the army. The general
genius of his mind was but little understood by his brother. That
ardour for whatever is great and good in the moral world, as well as in
the natural one, displayed itself in his infant years; and the strong
indignation, which he felt and expressed at a criminal, or a mean
action, sometimes drew upon him the displeasure of his tutor; who
reprobated it under the general term of violence of temper; and who,
when haranguing on the virtues of mildness and moderation, seemed to
forget the gentleness and compassion, which always appeared in his
pupil towards objects of misfortune.

He had now obtained leave of absence from his regiment when he made the
excursion into the Pyrenees, which was the means of introducing him to
St. Aubert; and, as this permission was nearly expired, he was the more
anxious to declare himself to Emily’s family, from whom he reasonably
apprehended opposition, since his fortune, though, with a moderate
addition from hers, it would be sufficient to support them, would not
satisfy the views, either of vanity, or ambition. Valancourt was not
without the latter, but he saw golden visions of promotion in the army;
and believed, that with Emily he could, in the mean time, be delighted
to live within the limits of his humble income. His thoughts were now
occupied in considering the means of making himself known to her
family, to whom, however, he had yet no address, for he was entirely
ignorant of Emily’s precipitate departure from La Vallée, of whom he
hoped to obtain it.

Meanwhile, the travellers pursued their journey; Emily making frequent
efforts to appear cheerful, and too often relapsing into silence and
dejection. Madame Cheron, attributing her melancholy solely to the
circumstance of her being removed to a distance from her lover, and
believing, that the sorrow, which her niece still expressed for the
loss of St. Aubert, proceeded partly from an affectation of
sensibility, endeavoured to make it appear ridiculous to her, that such
deep regret should continue to be felt so long after the period usually
allowed for grief.

At length, these unpleasant lectures were interrupted by the arrival of
the travellers at Thoulouse; and Emily, who had not been there for many
years, and had only a very faint recollection of it, was surprised at
the ostentatious style exhibited in her aunt’s house and furniture; the
more so, perhaps, because it was so totally different from the modest
elegance, to which she had been accustomed. She followed Madame Cheron
through a large hall, where several servants in rich liveries appeared,
to a kind of saloon, fitted up with more show than taste; and her aunt,
complaining of fatigue, ordered supper immediately. “I am glad to find
myself in my own house again,” said she, throwing herself on a large
settee, “and to have my own people about me. I detest travelling;
though, indeed, I ought to like it, for what I see abroad always makes
me delighted to return to my own château. What makes you so silent,
child?—What is it that disturbs you now?”

Emily suppressed a starting tear, and tried to smile away the
expression of an oppressed heart; she was thinking of _her_ home, and
felt too sensibly the arrogance and ostentatious vanity of Madame
Cheron’s conversation. “Can this be my father’s sister!” said she to
herself; and then the conviction that she was so, warming her heart
with something like kindness towards her, she felt anxious to soften
the harsh impression her mind had received of her aunt’s character, and
to show a willingness to oblige her. The effort did not entirely fail;
she listened with apparent cheerfulness, while Madame Cheron expatiated
on the splendour of her house, told of the numerous parties she
entertained, and what she should expect of Emily, whose diffidence
assumed the air of a reserve, which her aunt, believing it to be that
of pride and ignorance united, now took occasion to reprehend. She knew
nothing of the conduct of a mind, that fears to trust its own powers;
which, possessing a nice judgment, and inclining to believe, that every
other person perceives still more critically, fears to commit itself to
censure, and seeks shelter in the obscurity of silence. Emily had
frequently blushed at the fearless manners, which she had seen admired,
and the brilliant nothings, which she had heard applauded; yet this
applause, so far from encouraging her to imitate the conduct that had
won it, rather made her shrink into the reserve, that would protect her
from such absurdity.

Madame Cheron looked on her niece’s diffidence with a feeling very near
to contempt, and endeavoured to overcome it by reproof, rather than to
encourage it by gentleness.

The entrance of supper somewhat interrupted the complacent discourse of
Madame Cheron and the painful considerations, which it had forced upon
Emily. When the repast, which was rendered ostentatious by the
attendance of a great number of servants, and by a profusion of plate,
was over, Madame Cheron retired to her chamber, and a female servant
came to show Emily to hers. Having passed up a large staircase, and
through several galleries, they came to a flight of back stairs, which
led into a short passage in a remote part of the château, and there the
servant opened the door of a small chamber, which she said was
Ma’amselle Emily’s, who, once more alone, indulged the tears she had
long tried to restrain.

Those, who know, from experience, how much the heart becomes attached
even to inanimate objects, to which it has been long accustomed, how
unwillingly it resigns them; how with the sensations of an old friend
it meets them, after temporary absence, will understand the forlornness
of Emily’s feelings, of Emily shut out from the only home she had known
from her infancy, and thrown upon a scene, and among persons,
disagreeable for more qualities than their novelty. Her father’s
favourite dog, now in the chamber, thus seemed to acquire the character
and importance of a friend; and, as the animal fawned over her when she
wept, and licked her hands, “Ah, poor Manchon!” said she, “I have
nobody now to love me—but you!” and she wept the more. After some time,
her thoughts returning to her father’s injunctions, she remembered how
often he had blamed her for indulging useless sorrow; how often he had
pointed out to her the necessity of fortitude and patience, assuring
her, that the faculties of the mind strengthen by exertion, till they
finally unnerve affliction, and triumph over it. These recollections
dried her tears, gradually soothed her spirits, and inspired her with
the sweet emulation of practising precepts, which her father had so
frequently inculcated.



 CHAPTER XII

Some pow’r impart the spear and shield,
At which the wizard passions fly,
By which the giant follies die!
                    COLLINS


Madame Cheron’s house stood at a little distance from the city of
Thoulouse, and was surrounded by extensive gardens, in which Emily, who
had risen early, amused herself with wandering before breakfast. From a
terrace, that extended along the highest part of them, was a wide view
over Languedoc. On the distant horizon to the south, she discovered the
wild summits of the Pyrenees, and her fancy immediately painted the
green pastures of Gascony at their feet. Her heart pointed to her
peaceful home—to the neighbourhood where Valancourt was—where St.
Aubert had been; and her imagination, piercing the veil of distance,
brought that home to her eyes in all its interesting and romantic
beauty. She experienced an inexpressible pleasure in believing, that
she beheld the country around it, though no feature could be
distinguished, except the retiring chain of the Pyrenees; and,
inattentive to the scene immediately before her, and to the flight of
time, she continued to lean on the window of a pavilion, that
terminated the terrace, with her eyes fixed on Gascony, and her mind
occupied with the interesting ideas which the view of it awakened, till
a servant came to tell her breakfast was ready. Her thoughts thus
recalled to the surrounding objects, the straight walks, square
parterres, and artificial fountains of the garden, could not fail, as
she passed through it, to appear the worse, opposed to the negligent
graces, and natural beauties of the grounds of La Vallée, upon which
her recollection had been so intensely employed.

“Whither have you been rambling so early?” said Madame Cheron, as her
niece entered the breakfast-room. “I don’t approve of these solitary
walks.” And Emily was surprised, when, having informed her aunt, that
she had been no further than the gardens, she understood these to be
included in the reproof. “I desire you will not walk there again at so
early an hour unattended,” said Madame Cheron; “my gardens are very
extensive; and a young woman, who can make assignations by moonlight at
La Vallée, is not to be trusted to her own inclinations elsewhere.”

Emily, extremely surprised and shocked, had scarcely power to beg an
explanation of these words, and, when she did, her aunt absolutely
refused to give it, though, by her severe looks, and half sentences,
she appeared anxious to impress Emily with a belief, that she was well
informed of some degrading circumstances of her conduct. Conscious
innocence could not prevent a blush from stealing over Emily’s cheek;
she trembled, and looked confusedly under the bold eye of Madame
Cheron, who blushed also; but hers was the blush of triumph, such as
sometimes stains the countenance of a person, congratulating himself on
the penetration which had taught him to suspect another, and who loses
both pity for the supposed criminal, and indignation of his guilt, in
the gratification of his own vanity.

Emily, not doubting that her aunt’s mistake arose from the having
observed her ramble in the garden on the night preceding her departure
from La Vallée, now mentioned the motive of it, at which Madame Cheron
smiled contemptuously, refusing either to accept this explanation, or
to give her reasons for refusing it; and, soon after, she concluded the
subject by saying, “I never trust people’s assertions, I always judge
of them by their actions; but I am willing to try what will be your
behaviour in future.”

Emily, less surprised by her aunt’s moderation and mysterious silence,
than by the accusation she had received, deeply considered the latter,
and scarcely doubted, that it was Valancourt whom she had seen at night
in the gardens of La Vallée, and that he had been observed there by
Madame Cheron; who now passing from one painful topic only to revive
another almost equally so, spoke of the situation of her niece’s
property, in the hands of M. Motteville. While she thus talked with
ostentatious pity of Emily’s misfortunes, she failed not to inculcate
the duties of humility and gratitude, or to render Emily fully sensible
of every cruel mortification, who soon perceived, that she was to be
considered as a dependant, not only by her aunt, but by her aunt’s
servants.

She was now informed, that a large party were expected to dinner, on
which account Madame Cheron repeated the lesson of the preceding night,
concerning her conduct in company, and Emily wished that she might have
courage enough to practise it. Her aunt then proceeded to examine the
simplicity of her dress, adding, that she expected to see her attired
with gaiety and taste; after which she condescended to show Emily the
splendour of her château, and to point out the particular beauty, or
elegance, which she thought distinguished each of her numerous suites
of apartments. She then withdrew to her toilet, the throne of her
homage, and Emily to her chamber, to unpack her books, and to try to
charm her mind by reading, till the hour of dressing.

When the company arrived, Emily entered the saloon with an air of
timidity, which all her efforts could not overcome, and which was
increased by the consciousness of Madame Cheron’s severe observation.
Her mourning dress, the mild dejection of her beautiful countenance,
and the retiring diffidence of her manner, rendered her a very
interesting object to many of the company; among whom she distinguished
Signor Montoni, and his friend Cavigni, the late visitors at M.
Quesnel’s, who now seemed to converse with Madame Cheron with the
familiarity of old acquaintance, and she to attend to them with
particular pleasure.

This Signor Montoni had an air of conscious superiority, animated by
spirit, and strengthened by talents, to which every person seemed
involuntarily to yield. The quickness of his perceptions was strikingly
expressed on his countenance, yet that countenance could submit
implicitly to occasion; and, more than once in this day, the triumph of
art over nature might have been discerned in it. His visage was long,
and rather narrow, yet he was called handsome; and it was, perhaps, the
spirit and vigour of his soul, sparkling through his features, that
triumphed for him. Emily felt admiration, but not the admiration that
leads to esteem; for it was mixed with a degree of fear she knew not
exactly wherefore.

Cavigni was gay and insinuating as formerly; and, though he paid almost
incessant attention to Madame Cheron, he found some opportunities of
conversing with Emily, to whom he directed, at first, the sallies of
his wit, but now and then assumed an air of tenderness, which she
observed, and shrunk from. Though she replied but little, the
gentleness and sweetness of her manners encouraged him to talk, and she
felt relieved when a young lady of the party, who spoke incessantly,
obtruded herself on his notice. This lady, who possessed all the
sprightliness of a Frenchwoman, with all her coquetry, affected to
understand every subject, or rather there was no affectation in the
case; for, never looking beyond the limits of her own ignorance, she
believed she had nothing to learn. She attracted notice from all;
amused some, disgusted others for a moment, and was then forgotten.

This day passed without any material occurrence; and Emily, though
amused by the characters she had seen, was glad when she could retire
to the recollections, which had acquired with her the character of
duties.

A fortnight passed in a round of dissipation and company, and Emily,
who attended Madame Cheron in all her visits, was sometimes
entertained, but oftener wearied. She was struck by the apparent
talents and knowledge displayed in the various conversations she
listened to, and it was long before she discovered, that the talents
were for the most part those of imposture, and the knowledge nothing
more than was necessary to assist them. But what deceived her most, was
the air of constant gaiety and good spirits, displayed by every
visitor, and which she supposed to arise from content as constant, and
from benevolence as ready. At length, from the over-acting of some,
less accomplished than the others, she could perceive, that, though
contentment and benevolence are the only sure sources of cheerfulness,
the immoderate and feverish animation, usually exhibited in large
parties, results partly from an insensibility to the cares, which
benevolence must sometimes derive from the sufferings of others, and
partly from a desire to display the appearance of that prosperity,
which they know will command submission and attention to themselves.

Emily’s pleasantest hours were passed in the pavilion of the terrace,
to which she retired, when she could steal from observation, with a
book to overcome, or a lute to indulge, her melancholy. There, as she
sat with her eyes fixed on the far-distant Pyrenees, and her thoughts
on Valancourt and the beloved scenes of Gascony, she would play the
sweet and melancholy songs of her native province—the popular songs she
had listened to from her childhood.

One evening, having excused herself from accompanying her aunt abroad,
she thus withdrew to the pavilion, with books and her lute. It was the
mild and beautiful evening of a sultry day, and the windows, which
fronted the west, opened upon all the glory of a setting sun. Its rays
illuminated, with strong splendour, the cliffs of the Pyrenees, and
touched their snowy tops with a roseate hue, that remained, long after
the sun had sunk below the horizon, and the shades of twilight had
stolen over the landscape. Emily touched her lute with that fine
melancholy expression, which came from her heart. The pensive hour and
the scene, the evening light on the Garonne, that flowed at no great
distance, and whose waves, as they passed towards La Vallée, she often
viewed with a sigh—these united circumstances disposed her mind to
tenderness, and her thoughts were with Valancourt, of whom she had
heard nothing since her arrival at Thoulouse, and now that she was
removed from him, and in uncertainty, she perceived all the interest he
held in her heart. Before she saw Valancourt she had never met a mind
and taste so accordant with her own, and, though Madame Cheron told her
much of the arts of dissimulation, and that the elegance and propriety
of thought, which she so much admired in her lover, were assumed for
the purpose of pleasing her, she could scarcely doubt their truth. This
possibility, however, faint as it was, was sufficient to harass her
mind with anxiety, and she found, that few conditions are more painful
than that of uncertainty, as to the merit of a beloved object; an
uncertainty, which she would not have suffered, had her confidence in
her own opinions been greater.

She was awakened from her musing by the sound of horses’ feet along a
road, that wound under the windows of the pavilion, and a gentleman
passed on horseback, whose resemblance to Valancourt, in air and
figure, for the twilight did not permit a view of his features,
immediately struck her. She retired hastily from the lattice, fearing
to be seen, yet wishing to observe further, while the stranger passed
on without looking up, and, when she returned to the lattice, she saw
him faintly through the twilight, winding under the high trees, that
led to Thoulouse. This little incident so much disturbed her spirits,
that the temple and its scenery were no longer interesting to her, and,
after walking a while on the terrace, she returned to the château.

Madame Cheron, whether she had seen a rival admired, had lost at play,
or had witnessed an entertainment more splendid than her own, was
returned from her visit with a temper more than usually discomposed;
and Emily was glad, when the hour arrived, in which she could retire to
the solitude of her own apartment.

On the following morning, she was summoned to Madame Cheron, whose
countenance was inflamed with resentment, and, as Emily advanced, she
held out a letter to her.

“Do you know this hand?” said she, in a severe tone, and with a look
that was intended to search her heart, while Emily examined the letter
attentively, and assured her, that she did not.

“Do not provoke me,” said her aunt; “you do know it, confess the truth
immediately. I insist upon your confessing the truth instantly.”

Emily was silent, and turned to leave the room, but Madame called her
back. “O you are guilty, then,” said she, “you do know the hand.” “If
you were before in doubt of this, madam,” replied Emily calmly, “why
did you accuse me of having told a falsehood.” Madame Cheron did not
blush; but her niece did, a moment after, when she heard the name of
Valancourt. It was not, however, with the consciousness of deserving
reproof, for, if she ever had seen his hand-writing, the present
characters did not bring it to her recollection.

“It is useless to deny it,” said Madame Cheron, “I see in your
countenance, that you are no stranger to this letter; and, I dare say,
you have received many such from this impertinent young man, without my
knowledge, in my own house.”

Emily, shocked at the indelicacy of this accusation, still more than by
the vulgarity of the former, instantly forgot the pride, that had
imposed silence, and endeavoured to vindicate herself from the
aspersion, but Madame Cheron was not to be convinced.

“I cannot suppose,” she resumed, “that this young man would have taken
the liberty of writing to me, if you had not encouraged him to do so,
and I must now”

“You will allow me to remind you, madam,” said Emily timidly, “of some
particulars of a conversation we had at La Vallée. I then told you
truly, that I had only not forbade Monsieur Valancourt from addressing
my family.”

“I will not be interrupted,” said Madame Cheron, interrupting her
niece, “I was going to say—I—I—have forgot what I was going to say. But
how happened it that you did not forbid him?” Emily was silent. “How
happened it that you encouraged him to trouble me with this letter?—A
young man that nobody knows;—an utter stranger in the place,—a young
adventurer, no doubt, who is looking out for a good fortune. However,
on that point he has mistaken his aim.”

“His family was known to my father,” said Emily modestly, and without
appearing to be sensible of the last sentence.

“O! that is no recommendation at all,” replied her aunt, with her usual
readiness upon this topic; “he took such strange fancies to people! He
was always judging persons by their countenances, and was continually
deceived.”

“Yet it was but now, madam, that you judged me guilty by my
countenance,” said Emily, with a design of reproving Madame Cheron, to
which she was induced by this disrespectful mention of her father.

“I called you here,” resumed her aunt, colouring, “to tell you, that I
will not be disturbed in my own house by any letters, or visits from
young men, who may take a fancy to flatter you. This M. de Valantine—I
think you call him, has the impertinence to beg I will permit him to
pay his respects to me! I shall send him a proper answer. And for you,
Emily, I repeat it once for all—if you are not contented to conform to
my directions, and to my way of live, I shall give up the task of
overlooking your conduct—I shall no longer trouble myself with your
education, but shall send you to board in a convent.”

“Dear madam,” said Emily, bursting into tears, and overcome by the rude
suspicions her aunt had expressed, “how have I deserved these
reproofs?” She could say no more; and so very fearful was she of acting
with any degree of impropriety in the affair itself, that, at the
present moment, Madame Cheron might perhaps have prevailed with her to
bind herself by a promise to renounce Valancourt for ever. Her mind,
weakened by her terrors, would no longer suffer her to view him as she
had formerly done; she feared the error of her own judgment, not that
of Madame Cheron, and feared also, that, in her former conversation
with him, at La Vallée, she had not conducted herself with sufficient
reserve. She knew, that she did not deserve the coarse suspicions,
which her aunt had thrown out, but a thousand scruples rose to torment
her, such as would never have disturbed the peace of Madame Cheron.
Thus rendered anxious to avoid every opportunity of erring, and willing
to submit to any restrictions, that her aunt should think proper, she
expressed an obedience, to which Madame Cheron did not give much
confidence, and which she seemed to consider as the consequence of
either fear, or artifice.

“Well, then,” said she, “promise me that you will neither see this
young man, nor write to him without my consent.” “Dear madam,” replied
Emily, “can you suppose I would do either, unknown to you!” “I don’t
know what to suppose; there is no knowing how young women will act. It
is difficult to place any confidence in them, for they have seldom
sense enough to wish for the respect of the world.”

“Alas, madam!” said Emily, “I am anxious for my own respect; my father
taught me the value of that; he said if I deserved my own esteem, that
the world would follow of course.”

“My brother was a good kind of a man,” replied Madame Cheron, “but he
did not know the world. I am sure I have always felt a proper respect
for myself, yet—” she stopped, but she might have added, that the world
had not always shown respect to her, and this without impeaching its
judgment.

“Well!” resumed Madame Cheron, “you have not given me the promise,
though, that I demand.”

Emily readily gave it, and, being then suffered to withdraw, she walked
in the garden; tried to compose her spirits, and, at length, arrived at
her favourite pavilion at the end of the terrace, where, seating
herself at one of the embowered windows, that opened upon a balcony,
the stillness and seclusion of the scene allowed her to recollect her
thoughts, and to arrange them so as to form a clearer judgment of her
former conduct. She endeavoured to review with exactness all the
particulars of her conversation with Valancourt at La Vallée, had the
satisfaction to observe nothing, that could alarm her delicate pride,
and thus to be confirmed in the self-esteem, which was so necessary to
her peace. Her mind then became tranquil, and she saw Valancourt
amiable and intelligent, as he had formerly appeared, and Madame Cheron
neither the one, nor the other. The remembrance of her lover, however,
brought with it many very painful emotions, for it by no means
reconciled her to the thought of resigning him; and, Madame Cheron
having already shown how highly she disapproved of the attachment, she
foresaw much suffering from the opposition of interests; yet with all
this was mingled a degree of delight, which, in spite of reason,
partook of hope. She determined, however, that no consideration should
induce her to permit a clandestine correspondence, and to observe in
her conversation with Valancourt, should they ever meet again, the same
nicety of reserve, which had hitherto marked her conduct. As she
repeated the words—“should we ever meet again!” she shrunk as if this
was a circumstance, which had never before occurred to her, and tears
came to her eyes, which she hastily dried, for she heard footsteps
approaching, and then the door of the pavilion open, and, on turning,
she saw—Valancourt.

An emotion of mingled pleasure, surprise and apprehension pressed so
suddenly upon her heart as almost to overcome her spirits; the colour
left her cheeks, then returned brighter than before, and she was for a
moment unable to speak, or to rise from her chair. His countenance was
the mirror, in which she saw her own emotions reflected, and it roused
her to self-command. The joy, which had animated his features, when he
entered the pavilion, was suddenly repressed, as, approaching, he
perceived her agitation, and, in a tremulous voice, enquired after her
health. Recovered from her first surprise, she answered him with a
tempered smile; but a variety of opposite emotions still assailed her
heart, and struggled to subdue the mild dignity of her manner. It was
difficult to tell which predominated—the joy of seeing Valancourt, or
the terror of her aunt’s displeasure, when she should hear of this
meeting. After some short and embarrassed conversation, she led him
into the gardens, and enquired if he had seen Madame Cheron. “No,” said
he, “I have not yet seen her, for they told me she was engaged, and as
soon as I learned that you were in the gardens, I came hither.” He
paused a moment, in great agitation, and then added, “May I venture to
tell you the purport of my visit, without incurring your displeasure,
and to hope, that you will not accuse me of precipitation in now
availing myself of the permission you once gave me of addressing your
family?” Emily, who knew not what to reply, was spared from further
perplexity, and was sensible only of fear, when on raising her eyes,
she saw Madame Cheron turn into the avenue. As the consciousness of
innocence returned, this fear was so far dissipated as to permit her to
appear tranquil, and, instead of avoiding her aunt, she advanced with
Valancourt to meet her. The look of haughty and impatient displeasure,
with which Madame Cheron regarded them, made Emily shrink, who
understood from a single glance, that this meeting was believed to have
been more than accidental: having mentioned Valancourt’s name, she
became again too much agitated to remain with them, and returned into
the château; where she awaited long, in a state of trembling anxiety,
the conclusion of the conference. She knew not how to account for
Valancourt’s visit to her aunt, before he had received the permission
he solicited, since she was ignorant of a circumstance, which would
have rendered the request useless, even if Madame Cheron had been
inclined to grant it. Valancourt, in the agitation of his spirits, had
forgotten to date his letter, so that it was impossible for Madame
Cheron to return an answer; and, when he recollected this circumstance,
he was, perhaps, not so sorry for the omission as glad of the excuse it
allowed him for waiting on her before she could send a refusal.

Madame Cheron had a long conversation with Valancourt, and, when she
returned to the château, her countenance expressed ill-humour, but not
the degree of severity, which Emily had apprehended. “I have dismissed
this young man, at last,” said she, “and I hope my house will never
again be disturbed with similar visits. He assures me, that your
interview was not preconcerted.”

“Dear madam!” said Emily in extreme emotion, “you surely did not ask
him the question!” “Most certainly I did; you could not suppose I
should be so imprudent as to neglect it.”

“Good God!” exclaimed Emily, “what an opinion must he form of me, since
you, Madam, could express a suspicion of such ill conduct!”

“It is of very little consequence what opinion he may form of you,”
replied her aunt, “for I have put an end to the affair; but I believe
he will not form a worse opinion of me for my prudent conduct. I let
him see, that I was not to be trifled with, and that I had more
delicacy, than to permit any clandestine correspondence to be carried
on in my house.”

Emily had frequently heard Madame Cheron use the word delicacy, but she
was now more than usually perplexed to understand how she meant to
apply it in this instance, in which her whole conduct appeared to merit
the very reverse of the term.

“It was very inconsiderate of my brother,” resumed Madame Cheron, “to
leave the trouble of overlooking your conduct to me; I wish you were
well settled in life. But if I find, that I am to be further troubled
with such visitors as this M. Valancourt, I shall place you in a
convent at once;—so remember the alternative. This young man has the
impertinence to own to me,—he owns it! that his fortune is very small,
and that he is chiefly dependent on an elder brother and on the
profession he has chosen! He should have concealed these circumstances,
at least, if he expected to succeed with me. Had he the presumption to
suppose I would marry my niece to a person such as he describes
himself!”

Emily dried her tears when she heard of the candid confession of
Valancourt; and, though the circumstances it discovered were afflicting
to her hopes, his artless conduct gave her a degree of pleasure, that
overcame every other emotion. But she was compelled, even thus early in
life, to observe, that good sense and noble integrity are not always
sufficient to cope with folly and narrow cunning; and her heart was
pure enough to allow her, even at this trying moment, to look with more
pride on the defeat of the former, than with mortification on the
conquests of the latter.

Madame Cheron pursued her triumph. “He has also thought proper to tell
me, that he will receive his dismission from no person but yourself;
this favour, however, I have absolutely refused him. He shall learn,
that it is quite sufficient, that I disapprove him. And I take this
opportunity of repeating,—that if you concert any means of interview
unknown to me, you shall leave my house immediately.”

“How little do you know me, madam, that you should think such an
injunction necessary!” said Emily, trying to suppress her emotion, “how
little of the dear parents, who educated me!”

Madame Cheron now went to dress for an engagement, which she had made
for the evening; and Emily, who would gladly have been excused from
attending her aunt, did not ask to remain at home lest her request
should be attributed to an improper motive. When she retired to her own
room, the little fortitude, which had supported her in the presence of
her relation, forsook her; she remembered only that Valancourt, whose
character appeared more amiable from every circumstance, that unfolded
it, was banished from her presence, perhaps, for ever, and she passed
the time in weeping, which, according to her aunt’s direction, she
ought to have employed in dressing. This important duty was, however,
quickly dispatched; though, when she joined Madame Cheron at table, her
eyes betrayed, that she had been in tears, and drew upon her a severe
reproof.

Her efforts to appear cheerful did not entirely fail when she joined
the company at the house of Madame Clairval, an elderly widow lady, who
had lately come to reside at Thoulouse, on an estate of her late
husband. She had lived many years at Paris in a splendid style; had
naturally a gay temper, and, since her residence at Thoulouse, had
given some of the most magnificent entertainments, that had been seen
in that neighbourhood.

These excited not only the envy, but the trifling ambition of Madame
Cheron, who, since she could not rival the splendour of her
festivities, was desirous of being ranked in the number of her most
intimate friends. For this purpose she paid her the most obsequious
attention, and made a point of being disengaged, whenever she received
an invitation from Madame Clairval, of whom she talked, wherever she
went, and derived much self-consequence from impressing a belief on her
general acquaintance, that they were on the most familiar footing.

The entertainments of this evening consisted of a ball and supper; it
was a fancy ball, and the company danced in groups in the gardens,
which were very extensive. The high and luxuriant trees, under which
the groups assembled, were illuminated with a profusion of lamps,
disposed with taste and fancy. The gay and various dresses of the
company, some of whom were seated on the turf, conversing at their
ease, observing the _cotillons_, taking refreshments, and sometimes
touching sportively a guitar; the gallant manners of the gentlemen, the
exquisitely capricious air of the ladies; the light fantastic steps of
their dances; the musicians, with the lute, the hautboy, and the tabor,
seated at the foot of an elm, and the sylvan scenery of woods around
were circumstances, that unitedly formed a characteristic and striking
picture of French festivity. Emily surveyed the gaiety of the scene
with a melancholy kind of pleasure, and her emotion may be imagined
when, as she stood with her aunt, looking at one of the groups, she
perceived Valancourt; saw him dancing with a young and beautiful lady,
saw him conversing with her with a mixture of attention and
familiarity, such as she had seldom observed in his manner. She turned
hastily from the scene, and attempted to draw away Madame Cheron, who
was conversing with Signor Cavigni, and neither perceived Valancourt,
nor was willing to be interrupted. A faintness suddenly came over
Emily, and, unable to support herself, she sat down on a turf bank
beneath the trees, where several other persons were seated. One of
these, observing the extreme paleness of her countenance, enquired if
she was ill, and begged she would allow him to fetch her a glass of
water, for which politeness she thanked him, but did not accept it. Her
apprehension lest Valancourt should observe her emotion made her
anxious to overcome it, and she succeeded so far as to recompose her
countenance. Madame Cheron was still conversing with Cavigni; and the
Count Bauvillers, who had addressed Emily, made some observations upon
the scene, to which she answered almost unconsciously, for her mind was
still occupied with the idea of Valancourt, to whom it was with extreme
uneasiness that she remained so near. Some remarks, however, which the
Count made upon the dance obliged her to turn her eyes towards it, and,
at that moment, Valancourt’s met hers. Her colour faded again, she
felt, that she was relapsing into faintness, and instantly averted her
looks, but not before she had observed the altered countenance of
Valancourt, on perceiving her. She would have left the spot
immediately, had she not been conscious, that this conduct would have
shown him more obviously the interest he held in her heart; and, having
tried to attend to the Count’s conversation, and to join in it, she, at
length, recovered her spirits. But, when he made some observation on
Valancourt’s partner, the fear of showing that she was interested in
the remark, would have betrayed it to him, had not the Count, while he
spoke, looked towards the person of whom he was speaking. “The lady,”
said he, “dancing with that young Chevalier, who appears to be
accomplished in everything, but in dancing, is ranked among the
beauties of Thoulouse. She is handsome, and her fortune will be very
large. I hope she will make a better choice in a partner for life than
she has done in a partner for the dance, for I observe he has just put
the set into great confusion; he does nothing but commit blunders. I am
surprised, that, with his air and figure, he has not taken more care to
accomplish himself in dancing.”

Emily, whose heart trembled at every word, that was now uttered,
endeavoured to turn the conversation from Valancourt, by enquiring the
name of the lady, with whom he danced; but, before the Count could
reply, the dance concluded, and Emily, perceiving that Valancourt was
coming towards her, rose and joined Madame Cheron.

“Here is the Chevalier Valancourt, madam,” said she in a whisper, “pray
let us go.” Her aunt immediately moved on, but not before Valancourt
had reached them, who bowed lowly to Madame Cheron, and with an earnest
and dejected look to Emily, with whom, notwithstanding all her effort,
an air of more than common reserve prevailed. The presence of Madame
Cheron prevented Valancourt from remaining, and he passed on with a
countenance, whose melancholy reproached her for having increased it.
Emily was called from the musing fit, into which she had fallen, by the
Count Bauvillers, who was known to her aunt.

“I have your pardon to beg, ma’amselle,” said he, “for a rudeness,
which you will readily believe was quite unintentional. I did not know,
that the Chevalier was your acquaintance, when I so freely criticised
his dancing.” Emily blushed and smiled, and Madame Cheron spared her
the difficulty of replying. “If you mean the person, who has just
passed us,” said she, “I can assure you he is no acquaintance of either
mine, or ma’amselle St. Aubert’s: I know nothing of him.”

“O! that is the Chevalier Valancourt,” said Cavigni carelessly, and
looking back. “You know him then?” said Madame Cheron. “I am not
acquainted with him,” replied Cavigni. “You don’t know, then, the
reason I have to call him impertinent;—he has had the presumption to
admire my niece!”

“If every man deserves the title of impertinent, who admires ma’amselle
St. Aubert,” replied Cavigni, “I fear there are a great many
impertinents, and I am willing to acknowledge myself one of the
number.”

“O Signor!” said Madame Cheron, with an affected smile, “I perceive you
have learnt the art of complimenting, since you came into France. But
it is cruel to compliment children, since they mistake flattery for
truth.”

Cavigni turned away his face for a moment, and then said with a studied
air, “Whom then are we to compliment, madam? for it would be absurd to
compliment a woman of refined understanding; _she_ is above all
praise.” As he finished the sentence he gave Emily a sly look, and the
smile, that had lurked in his eye, stole forth. She perfectly
understood it, and blushed for Madame Cheron, who replied, “You are
perfectly right, signor, no woman of understanding can endure
compliment.”

“I have heard Signor Montoni say,” rejoined Cavigni, “that he never
knew but one woman who deserved it.”

“Well!” exclaimed Madame Cheron, with a short laugh, and a smile of
unutterable complacency, “and who could she be?”

“O!” replied Cavigni, “it is impossible to mistake her, for certainly
there is not more than one woman in the world, who has both the merit
to deserve compliment and the wit to refuse it. Most women reverse the
case entirely.” He looked again at Emily, who blushed deeper than
before for her aunt, and turned from him with displeasure.

“Well, signor!” said Madame Cheron, “I protest you are a Frenchman; I
never heard a foreigner say anything half so gallant as that!”

“True, madam,” said the Count, who had been some time silent, and with
a low bow, “but the gallantry of the compliment had been utterly lost,
but for the ingenuity that discovered the application.”

Madame Cheron did not perceive the meaning of this too satirical
sentence, and she, therefore, escaped the pain, which Emily felt on her
account. “O! here comes Signor Montoni himself,” said her aunt, “I
protest I will tell him all the fine things you have been saying to
me.” The Signor, however, passed at this moment into another walk.
“Pray, who is it, that has so much engaged your friend this evening?”
asked Madame Cheron, with an air of chagrin, “I have not seen him
once.”

“He had a very particular engagement with the Marquis La Rivière,”
replied Cavigni, “which has detained him, I perceive, till this moment,
or he would have done himself the honour of paying his respects to you,
madam, sooner, as he commissioned me to say. But, I know not how it
is—your conversation is so fascinating—that it can charm even memory, I
think, or I should certainly have delivered my friend’s apology
before.”

“The apology, sir, would have been more satisfactory from himself,”
said Madame Cheron, whose vanity was more mortified by Montoni’s
neglect, than flattered by Cavigni’s compliment. Her manner, at this
moment, and Cavigni’s late conversation, now awakened a suspicion in
Emily’s mind, which, notwithstanding that some recollections served to
confirm it, appeared preposterous. She thought she perceived, that
Montoni was paying serious addresses to her aunt, and that she not only
accepted them, but was jealously watchful of any appearance of neglect
on his part.—That Madame Cheron at her years should elect a second
husband was ridiculous, though her vanity made it not impossible; but
that Montoni, with his discernment, his figure, and pretensions, should
make a choice of Madame Cheron—appeared most wonderful. Her thoughts,
however, did not dwell long on the subject; nearer interests pressed
upon them; Valancourt, rejected of her aunt, and Valancourt dancing
with a gay and beautiful partner, alternately tormented her mind. As
she passed along the gardens she looked timidly forward, half fearing
and half hoping that he might appear in the crowd; and the
disappointment she felt on not seeing him, told her, that she had hoped
more than she had feared.

Montoni soon after joined the party. He muttered over some short speech
about regret for having been so long detained elsewhere, when he knew
he should have the pleasure of seeing Madame Cheron here; and she,
receiving the apology with the air of a pettish girl, addressed herself
entirely to Cavigni, who looked archly at Montoni, as if he would have
said, “I will not triumph over you too much; I will have the goodness
to bear my honours meekly; but look sharp, Signor, or I shall certainly
run away with your prize.”

The supper was served in different pavilions in the gardens, as well as
in one large saloon of the château, and with more of taste, than either
of splendour, or even of plenty. Madame Cheron and her party supped
with Madame Clairval in the saloon, and Emily, with difficulty,
disguised her emotion, when she saw Valancourt placed at the same table
with herself. There, Madame Cheron having surveyed him with high
displeasure, said to some person who sat next to her, “Pray, who _is_
that young man?” “It is the Chevalier Valancourt,” was the answer.
“Yes, I am not ignorant of his name, but who is this Chevalier
Valancourt that thus intrudes himself at this table?” The attention of
the person, to whom she spoke, was called off before she received a
second reply. The table, at which they sat, was very long, and,
Valancourt being seated, with his partner, near the bottom, and Emily
near the top, the distance between them may account for his not
immediately perceiving her. She avoided looking to that end of the
table, but whenever her eyes happened to glance towards it, she
observed him conversing with his beautiful companion, and the
observation did not contribute to restore her peace, any more than the
accounts she heard of the fortune and accomplishments of this same
lady.

Madame Cheron, to whom these remarks were sometimes addressed, because
they supported topics for trivial conversation, seemed indefatigable in
her attempts to depreciate Valancourt, towards whom she felt all the
petty resentment of a narrow pride. “I admire the lady,” said she, “but
I must condemn her choice of a partner.” “Oh, the Chevalier Valancourt
is one of the most accomplished young men we have,” replied the lady,
to whom this remark was addressed: “it is whispered, that Mademoiselle
d’Emery, and her large fortune, are to be his.”

“Impossible!” exclaimed Madame Cheron, reddening with vexation, “it is
impossible that she can be so destitute of taste; he has so little the
air of a person of condition, that, if I did not see him at the table
of Madame Clairval, I should never have suspected him to be one. I have
besides particular reasons for believing the report to be erroneous.”

“I cannot doubt the truth of it,” replied the lady gravely, disgusted
by the abrupt contradiction she had received, concerning her opinion of
Valancourt’s merit. “You will, perhaps, doubt it,” said Madame Cheron,
“when I assure you, that it was only this morning that I rejected his
suit.”

This was said without any intention of imposing the meaning it
conveyed, but simply from a habit of considering herself to be the most
important person in every affair that concerned her niece, and because
literally _she_ had rejected Valancourt. “Your reasons are indeed such
as cannot be doubted,” replied the lady, with an ironical smile. “Any
more than the discernment of the Chevalier Valancourt,” added Cavigni,
who stood by the chair of Madame Cheron, and had heard her arrogate to
herself, as he thought, a distinction which had been paid to her niece.
“His discernment _may_ be justly questioned, Signor,” said Madame
Cheron, who was not flattered by what she understood to be an encomium
on Emily.

“Alas!” exclaimed Cavigni, surveying Madame Cheron with affected
ecstasy, “how vain is that assertion, while that face—that shape—that
air—combine to refute it! Unhappy Valancourt! his discernment has been
his destruction.”

Emily looked surprised and embarrassed; the lady, who had lately
spoken, astonished, and Madame Cheron, who, though she did not
perfectly understand this speech, was very ready to believe herself
complimented by it, said smilingly, “O Signor! you are very gallant;
but those, who hear you vindicate the Chevalier’s discernment, will
suppose that I am the object of it.”

“They cannot doubt it,” replied Cavigni, bowing low.

“And would not that be very mortifying, Signor?”

“Unquestionably it would,” said Cavigni.

“I cannot endure the thought,” said Madame Cheron.

“It is not to be endured,” replied Cavigni.

“What can be done to prevent so humiliating a mistake?” rejoined Madame
Cheron.

“Alas! I cannot assist you,” replied Cavigni, with a deliberating air.
“Your only chance of refuting the calumny, and of making people
understand what you wish them to believe, is to persist in your first
assertion; for, when they are told of the Chevalier’s want of
discernment, it is possible they may suppose he never presumed to
distress you with his admiration.—But then again—that diffidence, which
renders you so insensible to your own perfections—they will consider
this, and Valancourt’s taste will not be doubted, though you arraign
it. In short, they will, in spite of your endeavours, continue to
believe, what might very naturally have occurred to them without any
hint of mine—that the Chevalier has taste enough to admire a beautiful
woman.”

“All this is very distressing!” said Madame Cheron, with a profound
sigh.

“May I be allowed to ask what is so distressing?” said Madame Clairval,
who was struck with the rueful countenance and doleful accent, with
which this was delivered.

“It is a delicate subject,” replied Madame Cheron, “a very mortifying
one to me.” “I am concerned to hear it,” said Madame Clairval, “I hope
nothing has occurred, this evening, particularly to distress you?”
“Alas, yes! within this half hour; and I know not where the report may
end;—my pride was never so shocked before, but I assure you the report
is totally void of foundation.” “Good God!” exclaimed Madame Clairval,
“what can be done? Can you point out any way, by which I can assist, or
console you?”

“The only way, by which you can do either,” replied Madame Cheron, “is
to contradict the report wherever you go.”

“Well! but pray inform me what I am to contradict.”

“It is so very humiliating, that I know not how to mention it,”
continued Madame Cheron, “but you shall judge. Do you observe that
young man seated near the bottom of the table, who is conversing with
Mademoiselle d’Emery?” “Yes, I perceive whom you mean.” “You observe
how little he has the air of a person of condition; I was saying just
now, that I should not have thought him a gentleman, if I had not seen
him at this table.” “Well! but the report,” said Madame Clairval, “let
me understand the subject of your distress.” “Ah! the subject of my
distress,” replied Madame Cheron; “this person, whom nobody knows—(I
beg pardon, madam, I did not consider what I said)—this impertinent
young man, having had the presumption to address my niece, has, I fear,
given rise to a report, that he had declared himself my admirer. Now
only consider how very mortifying such a report must be! You, I know,
will feel for my situation. A woman of my condition!—think how
degrading even the rumour of such an alliance must be.”

“Degrading indeed, my poor friend!” said Madame Clairval. “You may rely
upon it I will contradict the report wherever I go;” as she said which,
she turned her attention upon another part of the company; and Cavigni,
who had hitherto appeared a grave spectator of the scene, now fearing
he should be unable to smother the laugh, that convulsed him, walked
abruptly away.

“I perceive you do not know,” said the lady who sat near Madame Cheron,
“that the gentleman you have been speaking of is Madame Clairval’s
nephew!” “Impossible!” exclaimed Madame Cheron, who now began to
perceive, that she had been totally mistaken in her judgment of
Valancourt, and to praise him aloud with as much servility, as she had
before censured him with frivolous malignity.

Emily, who, during the greater part of this conversation, had been so
absorbed in thought as to be spared the pain of hearing it, was now
extremely surprised by her aunt’s praise of Valancourt, with whose
relationship to Madame Clairval she was unacquainted; but she was not
sorry when Madame Cheron, who, though she now tried to appear
unconcerned, was really much embarrassed, prepared to withdraw
immediately after supper. Montoni then came to hand Madame Cheron to
her carriage, and Cavigni, with an arch solemnity of countenance,
followed with Emily, who, as she wished them good night, and drew up
the glass, saw Valancourt among the crowd at the gates. Before the
carriage drove off, he disappeared. Madame Cheron forbore to mention
him to Emily, and, as soon as they reached the château, they separated
for the night.

On the following morning, as Emily sat at breakfast with her aunt, a
letter was brought to her, of which she knew the handwriting upon the
cover; and, as she received it with a trembling hand, Madame Cheron
hastily enquired from whom it came. Emily, with her leave, broke the
seal, and, observing the signature of Valancourt, gave it unread to her
aunt, who received it with impatience; and, as she looked it over,
Emily endeavoured to read on her countenance its contents. Having
returned the letter to her niece, whose eyes asked if she might examine
it, “Yes, read it, child,” said Madame Cheron, in a manner less severe
than she had expected, and Emily had, perhaps, never before so
willingly obeyed her aunt. In this letter Valancourt said little of the
interview of the preceding day, but concluded with declaring, that he
would accept his dismission from Emily only, and with entreating, that
she would allow him to wait upon her, on the approaching evening. When
she read this, she was astonished at the moderation of Madame Cheron,
and looked at her with timid expectation, as she said sorrowfully—“What
am I to say, madam?”

“Why—we must see the young man, I believe,” replied her aunt, “and hear
what he has further to say for himself. You may tell him he may come.”
Emily dared scarcely credit what she heard. “Yet, stay,” added Madame
Cheron, “I will tell him so myself.” She called for pen and ink; Emily
still not daring to trust the emotions she felt, and almost sinking
beneath them. Her surprise would have been less had she overheard, on
the preceding evening, what Madame Cheron had not forgotten—that
Valancourt was the nephew of Madame Clairval.

What were the particulars of her aunt’s note Emily did not learn, but
the result was a visit from Valancourt in the evening, whom Madame
Cheron received alone, and they had a long conversation before Emily
was called down. When she entered the room, her aunt was conversing
with complacency, and she saw the eyes of Valancourt, as he impatiently
rose, animated with hope.

“We have been talking over this affair,” said Madame Cheron, “the
chevalier has been telling me, that the late Monsieur Clairval was the
brother of the Countess de Duvarney, his mother. I only wish he had
mentioned his relationship to Madame Clairval before; I certainly
should have considered that circumstance as a sufficient introduction
to my house.” Valancourt bowed, and was going to address Emily, but her
aunt prevented him. “I have, therefore, consented that you shall
receive his visits; and, though I will not bind myself by any promise,
or say, that I shall consider him as my nephew, yet I shall permit the
intercourse, and shall look forward to any further connection as an
event, which may possibly take place in a course of years, provided the
chevalier rises in his profession, or any circumstance occurs, which
may make it prudent for him to take a wife. But Mons. Valancourt will
observe, and you too, Emily, that, till that happens, I positively
forbid any thoughts of marrying.”

Emily’s countenance, during this coarse speech, varied every instant,
and, towards its conclusion, her distress had so much increased, that
she was on the point of leaving the room. Valancourt, meanwhile,
scarcely less embarrassed, did not dare to look at her, for whom he was
thus distressed; but, when Madame Cheron was silent, he said,
“Flattering, madam, as your approbation is to me—highly as I am
honoured by it—I have yet so much to fear, that I scarcely dare to
hope.” “Pray, sir, explain yourself,” said Madame Cheron; an unexpected
requisition, which embarrassed Valancourt again, and almost overcame
him with confusion, at circumstances, on which, had he been only a
spectator of the scene, he would have smiled.

“Till I receive Mademoiselle St. Aubert’s permission to accept your
indulgence,” said he, falteringly—“till she allows me to hope—”

“O! is that all?” interrupted Madame Cheron. “Well, I will take upon me
to answer for her. But at the same time, sir, give me leave to observe
to you, that I am her guardian, and that I expect, in every instance,
that my will is hers.”

As she said this, she rose and quitted the room, leaving Emily and
Valancourt in a state of mutual embarrassment; and, when Valancourt’s
hopes enabled him to overcome his fears, and to address her with the
zeal and sincerity so natural to him, it was a considerable time before
she was sufficiently recovered to hear with distinctness his
solicitations and inquiries.

The conduct of Madame Cheron in this affair had been entirely governed
by selfish vanity. Valancourt, in his first interview, had with great
candour laid open to her the true state of his present circumstances,
and his future expectancies, and she, with more prudence than humanity,
had absolutely and abruptly rejected his suit. She wished her niece to
marry ambitiously, not because she desired to see her in possession of
the happiness, which rank and wealth are usually believed to bestow,
but because she desired to partake the importance, which such an
alliance would give. When, therefore, she discovered that Valancourt
was the nephew of a person of so much consequence as Madame Clairval,
she became anxious for the connection, since the prospect it afforded
of future fortune and distinction for Emily, promised the exaltation
she coveted for herself. Her calculations concerning fortune in this
alliance were guided rather by her wishes, than by any hint of
Valancourt, or strong appearance of probability; and, when she rested
her expectation on the wealth of Madame Clairval, she seemed totally to
have forgotten, that the latter had a daughter. Valancourt, however,
had not forgotten this circumstance, and the consideration of it had
made him so modest in his expectations from Madame Clairval, that he
had not even named the relationship in his first conversation with
Madame Cheron. But, whatever might be the future fortune of Emily, the
present distinction, which the connection would afford for herself, was
certain, since the splendour of Madame Clairval’s establishment was
such as to excite the general envy and partial imitation of the
neighbourhood. Thus had she consented to involve her niece in an
engagement, to which she saw only a distant and uncertain conclusion,
with as little consideration of her happiness, as when she had so
precipitately forbade it: for though she herself possessed the means of
rendering this union not only certain, but prudent, yet to do so was no
part of her present intention.

From this period Valancourt made frequent visits to Madame Cheron, and
Emily passed in his society the happiest hours she had known since the
death of her father. They were both too much engaged by the present
moments to give serious consideration to the future. They loved and
were beloved, and saw not, that the very attachment, which formed the
delight of their present days, might possibly occasion the sufferings
of years. Meanwhile, Madame Cheron’s intercourse with Madame Clairval
became more frequent than before, and her vanity was already gratified
by the opportunity of proclaiming, wherever she went, the attachment
that subsisted between their nephew and niece.

Montoni was now also become a daily guest at the château, and Emily was
compelled to observe, that he really was a suitor, and a favoured
suitor, to her aunt.

Thus passed the winter months, not only in peace, but in happiness, to
Valancourt and Emily; the station of his regiment being so near
Thoulouse, as to allow this frequent intercourse. The pavilion on the
terrace was the favourite scene of their interviews, and there Emily,
with Madame Cheron, would work, while Valancourt read aloud works of
genius and taste, listened to her enthusiasm, expressed his own, and
caught new opportunities of observing, that their minds were formed to
constitute the happiness of each other, the same taste, the same noble
and benevolent sentiments animating each.



 CHAPTER XIII

As when a shepherd of the Hebrid-Isles,
Placed far amid the melancholy main,
(Whether it be lone fancy him beguiles,
Or that aerial beings sometimes deign
To stand embodied to our senses plain)
Sees on the naked hill, or valley low,
The whilst in ocean Phœbus dips his wain,
A vast assembly moving to and fro,
Then all at once in air dissolves the wondrous show.
                    CASTLE OF INDOLENCE


Madame Cheron’s avarice at length yielded to her vanity. Some very
splendid entertainments, which Madame Clairval had given, and the
general adulation, which was paid her, made the former more anxious
than before to secure an alliance, that would so much exalt her in her
own opinion and in that of the world. She proposed terms for the
immediate marriage of her niece, and offered to give Emily a dower,
provided Madame Clairval observed equal terms, on the part of her
nephew. Madame Clairval listened to the proposal, and, considering that
Emily was the apparent heiress of her aunt’s wealth, accepted it.
Meanwhile, Emily knew nothing of the transaction, till Madame Cheron
informed her, that she must make preparation for the nuptials, which
would be celebrated without further delay; then, astonished and wholly
unable to account for this sudden conclusion, which Valancourt had not
solicited (for he was ignorant of what had passed between the elder
ladies, and had not dared to hope such good fortune), she decisively
objected to it. Madame Cheron, however, quite as jealous of
contradiction now, as she had been formerly, contended for a speedy
marriage with as much vehemence as she had formerly opposed whatever
had the most remote possibility of leading to it; and Emily’s scruples
disappeared, when she again saw Valancourt, who was now informed of the
happiness, designed for him, and came to claim a promise of it from
herself.

While preparations were making for these nuptials, Montoni became the
acknowledged lover of Madame Cheron; and, though Madame Clairval was
much displeased, when she heard of the approaching connection, and was
willing to prevent that of Valancourt with Emily, her conscience told
her, that she had no right thus to trifle with their peace, and Madame
Clairval, though a woman of fashion, was far less advanced than her
friend in the art of deriving satisfaction from distinction and
admiration, rather than from conscience.

Emily observed with concern the ascendancy, which Montoni had acquired
over Madame Cheron, as well as the increasing frequency of his visits;
and her own opinion of this Italian was confirmed by that of
Valancourt, who had always expressed a dislike of him. As she was, one
morning, sitting at work in the pavilion, enjoying the pleasant
freshness of spring, whose colours were now spread upon the landscape,
and listening to Valancourt, who was reading, but who often laid aside
the book to converse, she received a summons to attend Madame Cheron
immediately, and had scarcely entered the dressing-room, when she
observed with surprise the dejection of her aunt’s countenance, and the
contrasted gaiety of her dress. “So, niece!”—said Madame, and she
stopped under some degree of embarrassment.—“I sent for you—I—I wished
to see you; I have news to tell you. From this hour you must consider
the Signor Montoni as your uncle—we were married this morning.”

Astonished—not so much at the marriage, as at the secrecy with which it
had been concluded, and the agitation with which it was announced,
Emily, at length, attributed the privacy to the wish of Montoni, rather
than of her aunt. His wife, however, intended, that the contrary should
be believed, and therefore added, “you see I wished to avoid a bustle;
but now the ceremony is over I shall do so no longer; and I wish to
announce to my servants that they must receive the Signor Montoni for
their master.” Emily made a feeble attempt to congratulate her on these
apparently imprudent nuptials. “I shall now celebrate my marriage with
some splendour,” continued Madame Montoni, “and to save time I shall
avail myself of the preparation that has been made for yours, which
will, of course, be delayed a little while. Such of your wedding
clothes as are ready I shall expect you will appear in, to do honour to
this festival. I also wish you to inform Monsieur Valancourt, that I
have changed my name, and he will acquaint Madame Clairval. In a few
days I shall give a grand entertainment, at which I shall request their
presence.”

Emily was so lost in surprise and various thought, that she made Madame
Montoni scarcely any reply, but, at her desire, she returned to inform
Valancourt of what had passed. Surprise was not his predominant emotion
on hearing of these hasty nuptials; and, when he learned, that they
were to be the means of delaying his own, and that the very ornaments
of the château, which had been prepared to grace the nuptial day of his
Emily, were to be degraded to the celebration of Madame Montoni’s,
grief and indignation agitated him alternately. He could conceal
neither from the observation of Emily, whose efforts to abstract him
from these serious emotions, and to laugh at the apprehensive
considerations, that assailed him, were ineffectual; and, when, at
length, he took leave, there was an earnest tenderness in his manner,
that extremely affected her; she even shed tears, when he disappeared
at the end of the terrace, yet knew not exactly why she should do so.

Montoni now took possession of the château, and the command of its
inhabitants, with the ease of a man, who had long considered it to be
his own. His friend Cavigni, who had been extremely serviceable, in
having paid Madame Cheron the attention and flattery, which she
required, but from which Montoni too often revolted, had apartments
assigned to him, and received from the domestics an equal degree of
obedience with the master of the mansion.

Within a few days, Madame Montoni, as she had promised, gave a
magnificent entertainment to a very numerous company, among whom was
Valancourt; but at which Madame Clairval excused herself from
attending. There was a concert, ball and supper. Valancourt was, of
course, Emily’s partner, and though, when he gave a look to the
decorations of the apartments, he could not but remember, that they
were designed for other festivities, than those they now contributed to
celebrate, he endeavoured to check his concern by considering, that a
little while only would elapse before they would be given to their
original destination. During this evening, Madame Montoni danced,
laughed and talked incessantly; while Montoni, silent, reserved and
somewhat haughty, seemed weary of the parade, and of the frivolous
company it had drawn together.

This was the first and the last entertainment, given in celebration of
their nuptials. Montoni, though the severity of his temper and the
gloominess of his pride prevented him from enjoying such festivities,
was extremely willing to promote them. It was seldom, that he could
meet in any company a man of more address, and still seldomer one of
more understanding, than himself; the balance of advantage in such
parties, or in the connections, which might arise from them, must,
therefore, be on his side; and, knowing, as he did, the selfish
purposes, for which they are generally frequented, he had no objection
to measure his talents of dissimulation with those of any other
competitor for distinction and plunder. But his wife, who, when her own
interest was immediately concerned, had sometimes more discernment than
vanity, acquired a consciousness of her inferiority to other women, in
personal attractions, which, uniting with the jealousy natural to the
discovery, counteracted his readiness for mingling with all the parties
Thoulouse could afford. Till she had, as she supposed, the affections
of a husband to lose, she had no motive for discovering the unwelcome
truth, and it had never obtruded itself upon her; but, now that it
influenced her policy, she opposed her husband’s inclination for
company, with the more eagerness, because she believed him to be really
as well received in the female society of the place, as, during his
addresses to her, he had affected to be.

A few weeks only had elapsed, since the marriage, when Madame Montoni
informed Emily, that the Signor intended to return to Italy, as soon as
the necessary preparation could be made for so long a journey. “We
shall go to Venice,” said she, “where the Signor has a fine mansion,
and from thence to his estate in Tuscany. Why do you look so grave,
child?—You, who are so fond of a romantic country and fine views, will
doubtless be delighted with this journey.”

“Am I then to be of the party, madam?” said Emily, with extreme
surprise and emotion. “Most certainly,” replied her aunt, “how could
you imagine we should leave you behind? But I see you are thinking of
the Chevalier; he is not yet, I believe, informed of the journey, but
he very soon will be so. Signor Montoni is gone to acquaint Madame
Clairval of our journey, and to say, that the proposed connection
between the families must from this time be thought of no more.”

The unfeeling manner, in which Madame Montoni thus informed her niece,
that she must be separated, perhaps for ever, from the man, with whom
she was on the point of being united for life, added to the dismay,
which she must otherwise have suffered at such intelligence. When she
could speak, she asked the cause of the sudden change in Madame’s
sentiments towards Valancourt, but the only reply she could obtain was,
that the Signor had forbade the connection, considering it to be
greatly inferior to what Emily might reasonably expect.

“I now leave the affair entirely to the Signor,” added Madame Montoni,
“but I must say, that M. Valancourt never was a favourite with me, and
I was overpersuaded, or I should not have given my consent to the
connection. I was weak enough—I am so foolish sometimes!—to suffer
other people’s uneasiness to affect me, and so my better judgment
yielded to your affliction. But the Signor has very properly pointed
out the folly of this, and he shall not have to reprove me a second
time. I am determined, that you shall submit to those, who know how to
guide you better than yourself—I am determined, that you shall be
conformable.”

Emily would have been astonished at the assertions of this eloquent
speech, had not her mind been so overwhelmed by the sudden shock it had
received, that she scarcely heard a word of what was latterly addressed
to her. Whatever were the weaknesses of Madame Montoni, she might have
avoided to accuse herself with those of compassion and tenderness to
the feelings of others, and especially to those of Emily. It was the
same ambition, that lately prevailed upon her to solicit an alliance
with Madame Clairval’s family, which induced her to withdraw from it,
now that her marriage with Montoni had exalted her self-consequence,
and, with it, her views for her niece.

Emily was, at this time, too much affected to employ either
remonstrance, or entreaty on this topic; and when, at length, she
attempted the latter, her emotion overcame her speech, and she retired
to her apartment, to think, if in the present state of her mind to
think was possible, upon this sudden and overwhelming subject. It was
very long, before her spirits were sufficiently composed to permit the
reflection, which, when it came, was dark and even terrible. She saw,
that Montoni sought to aggrandise himself in his disposal of her, and
it occurred, that his friend Cavigni was the person, for whom he was
interested. The prospect of going to Italy was still rendered darker,
when she considered the tumultuous situation of that country, then torn
by civil commotion, where every petty state was at war with its
neighbour, and even every castle liable to the attack of an invader.
She considered the person, to whose immediate guidance she would be
committed, and the vast distance, that was to separate her from
Valancourt, and, at the recollection of him, every other image vanished
from her mind, and every thought was again obscured by grief.

In this perturbed state she passed some hours, and, when she was
summoned to dinner, she entreated permission to remain in her own
apartment; but Madame Montoni was alone, and the request was refused.
Emily and her aunt said little during the repast; the one occupied by
her griefs, the other engrossed by the disappointment, which the
unexpected absence of Montoni occasioned; for not only was her vanity
piqued by the neglect, but her jealousy alarmed by what she considered
as a mysterious engagement. When the cloth was drawn and they were
alone, Emily renewed the mention of Valancourt; but her aunt, neither
softened to pity, nor awakened to remorse, became enraged, that her
will should be opposed, and the authority of Montoni questioned, though
this was done by Emily with her usual gentleness, who, after a long,
and torturing conversation, retired in tears.

As she crossed the hall, a person entered it by the great door, whom,
as her eyes hastily glanced that way, she imagined to be Montoni, and
she was passing on with quicker steps, when she heard the well-known
voice of Valancourt.

“Emily, O! my Emily!” cried he in a tone faltering with impatience,
while she turned, and, as he advanced, was alarmed at the expression of
his countenance and the eager desperation of his air. “In tears, Emily!
I would speak with you,” said he, “I have much to say; conduct me to
where we may converse. But you tremble—you are ill! Let me lead you to
a seat.”

He observed the open door of an apartment, and hastily took her hand to
lead her thither; but she attempted to withdraw it, and said, with a
languid smile, “I am better already; if you wish to see my aunt she is
in the dining-parlour.” “I must speak with _you_, my Emily,” replied
Valancourt, “Good God! is it already come to this? Are you indeed so
willing to resign me? But this is an improper place—I am overheard. Let
me entreat your attention, if only for a few minutes.”—“When you have
seen my aunt,” said Emily. “I was wretched enough when I came hither,”
exclaimed Valancourt, “do not increase my misery by this coldness—this
cruel refusal.”

The despondency, with which he spoke this, affected her almost to
tears, but she persisted in refusing to hear him, till he had conversed
with Madame Montoni. “Where is her husband, where, then, is Montoni?”
said Valancourt, in an altered tone: “it is he, to whom I must speak.”

Emily, terrified for the consequence of the indignation, that flashed
in his eyes, tremblingly assured him, that Montoni was not at home, and
entreated he would endeavour to moderate his resentment. At the
tremulous accents of her voice, his eyes softened instantly from
wildness into tenderness. “You are ill, Emily,” said he, “they will
destroy us both! Forgive me, that I dared to doubt your affection.”

Emily no longer opposed him, as he led her into an adjoining parlour;
the manner, in which he had named Montoni, had so much alarmed her for
his own safety, that she was now only anxious to prevent the
consequences of his just resentment. He listened to her entreaties,
with attention, but replied to them only with looks of despondency and
tenderness, concealing, as much as possible, the sentiments he felt
towards Montoni, that he might soothe the apprehensions, which
distressed her. But she saw the veil he had spread over his resentment,
and, his assumed tranquillity only alarming her more, she urged, at
length, the impolicy of forcing an interview with Montoni, and of
taking any measure, which might render their separation irremediable.
Valancourt yielded to these remonstrances, and her affecting entreaties
drew from him a promise, that, however Montoni might persist in his
design of disuniting them, he would not seek to redress his wrongs by
violence. “For my sake,” said Emily, “let the consideration of what I
should suffer deter you from such a mode of revenge!” “For your sake,
Emily,” replied Valancourt, his eyes filling with tears of tenderness
and grief, while he gazed upon her. “Yes—yes—I shall subdue myself.
But, though I have given you my solemn promise to do this, do not
expect, that I can tamely submit to the authority of Montoni; if I
could, I should be unworthy of you. Yet, O Emily! how long may he
condemn me to live without you,—how long may it be before you return to
France!”

Emily endeavoured to sooth him with assurances of her unalterable
affection, and by representing, that, in little more than a year, she
should be her own mistress, as far as related to her aunt, from whose
guardianship her age would then release her; assurances, which gave
little consolation to Valancourt, who considered, that she would then
be in Italy and in the power of those, whose dominion over her would
not cease with their rights; but he affected to be consoled by them.
Emily, comforted by the promise she had obtained, and by his apparent
composure, was about to leave him, when her aunt entered the room. She
threw a glance of sharp reproof upon her niece, who immediately
withdrew, and of haughty displeasure upon Valancourt.

“This is not the conduct I should have expected from you, sir;” said
she, “I did not expect to see you in my house, after you had been
informed, that your visits were no longer agreeable, much less, that
you would seek a clandestine interview with my niece, and that she
would grant one.”

Valancourt, perceiving it necessary to vindicate Emily from such a
design, explained, that the purpose of his own visit had been to
request an interview with Montoni, and he then entered upon the subject
of it, with the tempered spirit which the sex, rather than the
respectability, of Madame Montoni, demanded.

His expostulations were answered with severe rebuke; she lamented
again, that her prudence had ever yielded to what she termed
compassion, and added, that she was so sensible of the folly of her
former consent, that, to prevent the possibility of a repetition, she
had committed the affair entirely to the conduct of Signor Montoni.

The feeling eloquence of Valancourt, however, at length, made her
sensible in some measure of her unworthy conduct, and she became
susceptible to shame, but not remorse: she hated Valancourt, who
awakened her to this painful sensation, and, in proportion as she grew
dissatisfied with herself, her abhorrence of him increased. This was
also the more inveterate, because his tempered words and manner were
such as, without accusing her, compelled her to accuse herself, and
neither left her a hope, that the odious portrait was the caricature of
his prejudice, or afforded her an excuse for expressing the violent
resentment, with which she contemplated it. At length, her anger rose
to such a height, that Valancourt was compelled to leave the house
abruptly, lest he should forfeit his own esteem by an intemperate
reply. He was then convinced, that from Madame Montoni he had nothing
to hope, for what of either pity, or justice could be expected from a
person, who could feel the pain of guilt, without the humility of
repentance?

To Montoni he looked with equal despondency, since it was nearly
evident, that this plan of separation originated with him, and it was
not probable, that he would relinquish his own views to entreaties, or
remonstrances, which he must have foreseen and have been prepared to
resist. Yet, remembering his promise to Emily, and more solicitous,
concerning his love, than jealous of his consequence, Valancourt was
careful to do nothing that might unnecessarily irritate Montoni, he
wrote to him, therefore, not to demand an interview, but to solicit
one, and, having done this, he endeavoured to wait with calmness his
reply.

Madame Clairval was passive in the affair. When she gave her
approbation to Valancourt’s marriage, it was in the belief, that Emily
would be the heiress of Madame Montoni’s fortune; and, though, upon the
nuptials of the latter, when she perceived the fallacy of this
expectation, her conscience had withheld her from adopting any measure
to prevent the union, her benevolence was not sufficiently active to
impel her towards any step, that might now promote it. She was, on the
contrary, secretly pleased, that Valancourt was released from an
engagement, which she considered to be as inferior, in point of
fortune, to his merit, as his alliance was thought by Montoni to be
humiliating to the beauty of Emily; and, though her pride was wounded
by this rejection of a member of her family, she disdained to show
resentment otherwise, than by silence.

Montoni, in his reply to Valancourt, said, that as an interview could
neither remove the objections of the one, nor overcome the wishes of
the other, it would serve only to produce useless altercation between
them. He, therefore, thought proper to refuse it.

In consideration of the policy, suggested by Emily, and of his promise
to her, Valancourt restrained the impulse, that urged him to the house
of Montoni, to demand what had been denied to his entreaties. He only
repeated his solicitations to see him; seconding them with all the
arguments his situation could suggest. Thus several days passed, in
remonstrance, on one side, and inflexible denial, on the other; for,
whether it was fear, or shame, or the hatred, which results from both,
that made Montoni shun the man he had injured, he was peremptory in his
refusal, and was neither softened to pity by the agony, which
Valancourt’s letters portrayed, nor awakened to a repentance of his own
injustice by the strong remonstrances he employed. At length,
Valancourt’s letters were returned unopened, and then, in the first
moments of passionate despair, he forgot every promise to Emily, except
the solemn one, which bound him to avoid violence, and hastened to
Montoni’s château, determined to see him by whatever other means might
be necessary. Montoni was denied, and Valancourt, when he afterwards
enquired for Madame, and Ma’amselle St. Aubert, was absolutely refused
admittance by the servants. Not choosing to submit himself to a contest
with these, he, at length, departed, and, returning home in a state of
mind approaching to frenzy, wrote to Emily of what had passed,
expressed without restraint all the agony of his heart, and entreated,
that, since he must not otherwise hope to see her immediately, she
would allow him an interview unknown to Montoni. Soon after he had
dispatched this, his passions becoming more temperate, he was sensible
of the error he had committed in having given Emily a new subject of
distress in the strong mention of his own suffering, and would have
given half the world, had it been his, to recover the letter. Emily,
however, was spared the pain she must have received from it by the
suspicious policy of Madame Montoni, who had ordered, that all letters,
addressed to her niece, should be delivered to herself, and who, after
having perused this and indulged the expressions of resentment, which
Valancourt’s mention of Montoni provoked, had consigned it to the
flames.

Montoni, meanwhile, every day more impatient to leave France, gave
repeated orders for dispatch to the servants employed in preparations
for the journey, and to the persons, with whom he was transacting some
particular business. He preserved a steady silence to the letters in
which Valancourt, despairing of greater good, and having subdued the
passion, that had transgressed against his policy, solicited only the
indulgence of being allowed to bid Emily farewell. But when Valancourt
learned that she was really to set out in a very few days, and that it
was designed he should see her no more, forgetting every consideration
of prudence, he dared, in a second letter to Emily, to propose a
clandestine marriage. This also was transmitted to Madame Montoni, and
the last day of Emily’s stay at Thoulouse arrived, without affording
Valancourt even a line to sooth his sufferings, or a hope, that he
should be allowed a parting interview.

During this period of torturing suspense to Valancourt, Emily was sunk
into that kind of stupor, with which sudden and irremediable misfortune
sometimes overwhelms the mind. Loving him with the tenderest affection,
and having long been accustomed to consider him as the friend and
companion of all her future days, she had no ideas of happiness, that
were not connected with him. What, then, must have been her suffering,
when thus suddenly they were to be separated, perhaps, for ever,
certainly to be thrown into distant parts of the world, where they
could scarcely hear of each other’s existence; and all this in
obedience to the will of a stranger, for such as Montoni, and of a
person, who had but lately been anxious to hasten their nuptials! It
was in vain, that she endeavoured to subdue her grief, and resign
herself to an event, which she could not avoid. The silence of
Valancourt afflicted more than it surprised her, since she attributed
it to its just occasion; but, when the day, preceding that, on which
she was to quit Thoulouse, arrived, and she had heard no mention of his
being permitted to take leave of her, grief overcame every
consideration, that had made her reluctant to speak of him, and she
enquired of Madame Montoni, whether this consolation had been refused.
Her aunt informed her that it had, adding, that, after the provocation
she had herself received from Valancourt, in their last interview, and
the persecution, which the Signor had suffered from his letters, no
entreaties should avail to procure it.

“If the chevalier expected this favour from us,” said she, “he should
have conducted himself in a very different manner; he should have
waited patiently, till he knew whether we were disposed to grant it,
and not have come and reproved me, because I did not think proper to
bestow my niece upon him, and then have persisted in troubling the
Signor, because he did not think proper to enter into any dispute about
so childish an affair. His behaviour throughout has been extremely
presumptuous and impertinent, and I desire, that I may never hear his
name repeated, and that you will get the better of those foolish
sorrows and whims, and look like other people, and not appear with that
dismal countenance, as if you were ready to cry. For, though you say
nothing, you cannot conceal your grief from my penetration. I can see
you are ready to cry at this moment, though I am reproving you for it;
aye, even now, in spite of my commands.”

Emily, having turned away to hide her tears, quitted the room to
indulge them, and the day was passed in an intensity of anguish, such
as she had, perhaps, never known before. When she withdrew to her
chamber for the night, she remained in the chair where she had placed
herself, on entering the room, absorbed in her grief, till long after
every member of the family, except herself, was retired to rest. She
could not divest herself of a belief, that she had parted with
Valancourt to meet no more; a belief, which did not arise merely from
foreseen circumstances, for, though the length of the journey she was
about to commence, the uncertainty as to the period of her return,
together with the prohibitions she had received, seemed to justify it,
she yielded also to an impression, which she mistook for a
presentiment, that she was going from Valancourt for ever. How dreadful
to her imagination, too, was the distance that would separate them—the
Alps, those tremendous barriers! would rise, and whole countries extend
between the regions where each must exist! To live in adjoining
provinces, to live even in the same country, though without seeing him,
was comparative happiness to the conviction of this dreadful length of
distance.

Her mind was, at length, so much agitated by the consideration of her
state, and the belief, that she had seen Valancourt for the last time,
that she suddenly became very faint, and, looking round the chamber for
something, that might revive her, she observed the casements, and had
just strength to throw one open, near which she seated herself. The air
recalled her spirits, and the still moonlight, that fell upon the elms
of a long avenue, fronting the window, somewhat soothed them, and
determined her to try whether exercise and the open air would not
relieve the intense pain that bound her temples. In the château all was
still; and, passing down the great staircase into the hall, from whence
a passage led immediately to the garden, she softly and unheard, as she
thought, unlocked the door, and entered the avenue. Emily passed on
with steps now hurried, and now faltering, as, deceived by the shadows
among the trees, she fancied she saw some person move in the distant
perspective, and feared, that it was a spy of Madame Montoni. Her
desire, however, to revisit the pavilion, where she had passed so many
happy hours with Valancourt, and had admired with him the extensive
prospect over Languedoc and her native Gascony, overcame her
apprehension of being observed, and she moved on towards the terrace,
which, running along the upper garden, commanded the whole of the lower
one, and communicated with it by a flight of marble steps, that
terminated the avenue.

Having reached these steps, she paused a moment to look round, for her
distance from the château now increased the fear, which the stillness
and obscurity of the hour had awakened. But, perceiving nothing that
could justify it, she ascended to the terrace, where the moonlight
showed the long broad walk, with the pavilion at its extremity, while
the rays silvered the foliage of the high trees and shrubs, that
bordered it on the right, and the tufted summits of those, that rose to
a level with the balustrade on the left, from the garden below. Her
distance from the château again alarming her, she paused to listen; the
night was so calm, that no sound could have escaped her, but she heard
only the plaintive sweetness of the nightingale, with the light shiver
of the leaves, and she pursued her way towards the pavilion, having
reached which, its obscurity did not prevent the emotion, that a fuller
view of its well-known scene would have excited. The lattices were
thrown back, and showed beyond their embowered arch the moonlight
landscape, shadowy and soft; its groves, and plains extending gradually
and indistinctly to the eye, its distant mountains catching a stronger
gleam, and the nearer river reflecting the moon, and trembling to her
rays.

Emily, as she approached the lattice, was sensible of the features of
this scene only as they served to bring Valancourt more immediately to
her fancy. “Ah!” said she, with a heavy sigh, as she threw herself into
a chair by the window, “how often have we sat together in this
spot—often have looked upon that landscape! Never, never more shall we
view it together—never—never more, perhaps, shall we look upon each
other!”

Her tears were suddenly stopped by terror—a voice spoke near her in the
pavilion; she shrieked—it spoke again, and she distinguished the
well-known tones of Valancourt. It was indeed Valancourt who supported
her in his arms! For some moments their emotion would not suffer either
to speak. “Emily,” said Valancourt at length, as he pressed her hand in
his. “Emily!” and he was again silent, but the accent, in which he had
pronounced her name, expressed all his tenderness and sorrow.

“O my Emily!” he resumed, after a long pause, “I do then see you once
again, and hear again the sound of that voice! I have haunted this
place—these gardens, for many—many nights, with a faint, very faint
hope of seeing you. This was the only chance that remained to me, and
thank Heaven! it has at length succeeded—I am not condemned to absolute
despair!”

Emily said something, she scarcely knew what, expressive of her
unalterable affection, and endeavoured to calm the agitation of his
mind; but Valancourt could for some time only utter incoherent
expressions of his emotions; and, when he was somewhat more composed,
he said, “I came hither, soon after sunset, and have been watching in
the gardens, and in this pavilion ever since; for, though I had now
given up all hope of seeing you, I could not resolve to tear myself
from a place so near to you, and should probably have lingered about
the château till morning dawned. O how heavily the moments have passed,
yet with what various emotion have they been marked, as I sometimes
thought I heard footsteps, and fancied you were approaching, and then
again—perceived only a dead and dreary silence! But, when you opened
the door of the pavilion, and the darkness prevented my distinguishing
with certainty, whether it was my love—my heart beat so strongly with
hopes and fears, that I could not speak. The instant I heard the
plaintive accents of your voice, my doubts vanished, but not my fears,
till you spoke of me; then, losing the apprehension of alarming you in
the excess of my emotion, I could no longer be silent. O Emily! these
are moments, in which joy and grief struggle so powerfully for
pre-eminence, that the heart can scarcely support the contest!”

Emily’s heart acknowledged the truth of this assertion, but the joy she
felt on thus meeting Valancourt, at the very moment when she was
lamenting, that they must probably meet no more, soon melted into
grief, as reflection stole over her thoughts, and imagination prompted
visions of the future. She struggled to recover the calm dignity of
mind, which was necessary to support her through this last interview,
and which Valancourt found it utterly impossible to attain, for the
transports of his joy changed abruptly into those of suffering, and he
expressed in the most impassioned language his horror of this
separation, and his despair of their ever meeting again. Emily wept
silently as she listened to him, and then, trying to command her own
distress, and to sooth his, she suggested every circumstance that could
lead to hope. But the energy of his fears led him instantly to detect
the friendly fallacies, which she endeavoured to impose on herself and
him, and also to conjure up illusions too powerful for his reason.

“You are going from me,” said he, “to a distant country, O how
distant!—to new society, new friends, new admirers, with people too,
who will try to make you forget me, and to promote new connections! How
can I know this, and not know, that you will never return for me—never
can be mine.” His voice was stifled by sighs.

“You believe, then,” said Emily, “that the pangs I suffer proceed from
a trivial and temporary interest; you believe—”

“Suffer!” interrupted Valancourt, “suffer for me! O Emily—how sweet—how
bitter are those words; what comfort, what anguish do they give! I
ought not to doubt the steadiness of your affection, yet such is the
inconsistency of real love, that it is always awake to suspicion,
however unreasonable; always requiring new assurances from the object
of its interest, and thus it is, that I always feel revived, as by a
new conviction, when your words tell me I am dear to you; and, wanting
these, I relapse into doubt, and too often into despondency.” Then
seeming to recollect himself, he exclaimed, “But what a wretch am I,
thus to torture you, and in these moments, too! I, who ought to support
and comfort you!”

This reflection overcame Valancourt with tenderness, but, relapsing
into despondency, he again felt only for himself, and lamented again
this cruel separation, in a voice and words so impassioned, that Emily
could no longer struggle to repress her own grief, or to sooth his.
Valancourt, between these emotions of love and pity, lost the power,
and almost the wish, of repressing his agitation; and, in the intervals
of convulsive sobs, he, at one moment, kissed away her tears, then told
her cruelly, that possibly she might never again weep for him, and then
tried to speak more calmly, but only exclaimed, “O Emily—my heart will
break!—I cannot—cannot leave you! Now—I gaze upon that countenance, now
I hold you in my arms! a little while, and all this will appear a
dream. I shall look, and cannot see you; shall try to recollect your
features—and the impression will be fled from my imagination;—to hear
the tones of your voice, and even memory will be silent!—I cannot,
cannot leave you! Why should we confide the happiness of our whole
lives to the will of people, who have no right to interrupt, and,
except in giving you to me, have no power to promote it? O Emily!
venture to trust your own heart, venture to be mine for ever!” His
voice trembled, and he was silent; Emily continued to weep, and was
silent also, when Valancourt proceeded to propose an immediate
marriage, and that at an early hour on the following morning, she
should quit Madame Montoni’s house, and be conducted by him to the
church of the Augustines, where a friar should await to unite them.

The silence, with which she listened to a proposal, dictated by love
and despair, and enforced at a moment, when it seemed scarcely possible
for her to oppose it;—when her heart was softened by the sorrows of a
separation, that might be eternal, and her reason obscured by the
illusions of love and terror, encouraged him to hope, that it would not
be rejected. “Speak, my Emily!” said Valancourt eagerly, “let me hear
your voice, let me hear you confirm my fate.” she spoke not; her cheek
was cold, and her senses seemed to fail her, but she did not faint. To
Valancourt’s terrified imagination she appeared to be dying; he called
upon her name, rose to go to the château for assistance, and then,
recollecting her situation, feared to go, or to leave her for a moment.

After a few minutes, she drew a deep sigh, and began to revive. The
conflict she had suffered, between love and the duty she at present
owed to her father’s sister; her repugnance to a clandestine marriage,
her fear of emerging on the world with embarrassments, such as might
ultimately involve the object of her affection in misery and
repentance;—all this various interest was too powerful for a mind,
already enervated by sorrow, and her reason had suffered a transient
suspension. But duty, and good sense, however hard the conflict, at
length, triumphed over affection and mournful presentiment; above all,
she dreaded to involve Valancourt in obscurity and vain regret, which
she saw, or thought she saw, must be the too certain consequence of a
marriage in their present circumstances; and she acted, perhaps, with
somewhat more than female fortitude, when she resolved to endure a
present, rather than provoke a distant misfortune.

With a candour, that proved how truly she esteemed and loved him, and
which endeared her to him, if possible, more than ever, she told
Valancourt all her reasons for rejecting his proposals. Those, which
influenced her concerning his future welfare, he instantly refuted, or
rather contradicted; but they awakened tender considerations for her,
which the frenzy of passion and despair had concealed before, and love,
which had but lately prompted him to propose a clandestine and
immediate marriage, now induced him to renounce it. The triumph was
almost too much for his heart; for Emily’s sake, he endeavoured to
stifle his grief, but the swelling anguish would not be restrained. “O
Emily!” said he, “I must leave you—I _must_ leave you, and I know it is
for ever!”

Convulsive sobs again interrupted his words, and they wept together in
silence, till Emily, recollecting the danger of being discovered, and
the impropriety of prolonging an interview, which might subject her to
censure, summoned all her fortitude to utter a last farewell.

“Stay!” said Valancourt, “I conjure you stay, for I have much to tell
you. The agitation of my mind has hitherto suffered me to speak only on
the subject that occupied it;—I have forborne to mention a doubt of
much importance, partly, lest it should appear as if I told it with an
ungenerous view of alarming you into a compliance with my late
proposal.”

Emily, much agitated, did not leave Valancourt, but she led him from
the pavilion, and, as they walked upon the terrace, he proceeded as
follows:

“This Montoni: I have heard some strange hints concerning him. Are you
certain he is of Madame Quesnel’s family, and that his fortune is what
it appears to be?”

“I have no reason to doubt either,” replied Emily, in a voice of alarm.
“Of the first, indeed, I cannot doubt, but I have no certain means of
judging of the latter, and I entreat you will tell me all you have
heard.”

“That I certainly will, but it is very imperfect, and unsatisfactory
information. I gathered it by accident from an Italian, who was
speaking to another person of this Montoni. They were talking of his
marriage; the Italian said, that if he was the person he meant, he was
not likely to make Madame Cheron happy. He proceeded to speak of him in
general terms of dislike, and then gave some particular hints,
concerning his character, that excited my curiosity, and I ventured to
ask him a few questions. He was reserved in his replies, but, after
hesitating for some time, he owned, that he had understood abroad, that
Montoni was a man of desperate fortune and character. He said something
of a castle of Montoni’s, situated among the Apennines, and of some
strange circumstances, that might be mentioned, as to his former mode
of life. I pressed him to inform me further, but I believe the strong
interest I felt was visible in my manner, and alarmed him; for no
entreaties could prevail with him to give any explanation of the
circumstances he had alluded to, or to mention anything further
concerning Montoni. I observed to him, that, if Montoni was possessed
of a castle in the Apennines, it appeared from such a circumstance,
that he was of some family, and also seemed to contradict the report,
that he was a man of entirely broken fortunes. He shook his head, and
looked as if he could have said a great deal, but made no reply.

“A hope of learning something more satisfactory, or more positive,
detained me in his company a considerable time, and I renewed the
subject repeatedly, but the Italian wrapped himself up in reserve,
said—that what he had mentioned he had caught only from a floating
report, and that reports frequently arose from personal malice, and
were very little to be depended upon. I forbore to press the subject
farther, since it was obvious that he was alarmed for the consequence
of what he had already said, and I was compelled to remain in
uncertainty on a point where suspense is almost intolerable. Think,
Emily, what I must suffer to see you depart for a foreign country,
committed to the power of a man of such doubtful character as is this
Montoni! But I will not alarm you unnecessarily;—it is possible, as the
Italian said, at first, that this is not the Montoni he alluded to.
Yet, Emily, consider well before you resolve to commit yourself to him.
O! I must not trust myself to speak—or I shall renounce all the
motives, which so lately influenced me to resign the hope of your
becoming mine immediately.”

Valancourt walked upon the terrace with hurried steps, while Emily
remained leaning on the balustrade in deep thought. The information she
had just received excited, perhaps, more alarm than it could justify,
and raised once more the conflict of contrasted interests. She had
never liked Montoni. The fire and keenness of his eye, its proud
exultation, its bold fierceness, its sullen watchfulness, as occasion,
and even slight occasion, had called forth the latent soul, she had
often observed with emotion; while from the usual expression of his
countenance she had always shrunk. From such observations she was the
more inclined to believe, that it was this Montoni, of whom the Italian
had uttered his suspicious hints. The thought of being solely in his
power, in a foreign land, was terrifying to her, but it was not by
terror alone that she was urged to an immediate marriage with
Valancourt. The tenderest love had already pleaded his cause, but had
been unable to overcome her opinion, as to her duty, her disinterested
considerations for Valancourt, and the delicacy, which made her revolt
from a clandestine union. It was not to be expected, that a vague
terror would be more powerful, than the united influence of love and
grief. But it recalled all their energy, and rendered a second conquest
necessary.

With Valancourt, whose imagination was now awake to the suggestion of
every passion; whose apprehensions for Emily had acquired strength by
the mere mention of them, and became every instant more powerful, as
his mind brooded over them—with Valancourt no second conquest was
attainable. He thought he saw in the clearest light, and love assisted
the fear, that this journey to Italy would involve Emily in misery; he
determined, therefore, to persevere in opposing it, and in conjuring
her to bestow upon him the title of her lawful protector.

“Emily!” said he, with solemn earnestness, “this is no time for
scrupulous distinctions, for weighing the dubious and comparatively
trifling circumstances, that may affect our future comfort. I now see,
much more clearly than before, the train of serious dangers you are
going to encounter with a man of Montoni’s character. Those dark hints
of the Italian spoke much, but not more than the idea I have of
Montoni’s disposition, as exhibited even in his countenance. I think I
see at this moment all that could have been hinted, written there. He
is the Italian, whom I fear, and I conjure you for your own sake, as
well as for mine, to prevent the evils I shudder to foresee. O Emily!
let my tenderness, my arms withhold you from them—give me the right to
defend you!”

Emily only sighed, while Valancourt proceeded to remonstrate and to
entreat with all the energy that love and apprehension could inspire.
But, as his imagination magnified to her the possible evils she was
going to meet, the mists of her own fancy began to dissipate, and
allowed her to distinguish the exaggerated images, which imposed on his
reason. She considered, that there was no proof of Montoni being the
person, whom the stranger had meant; that, even if he was so, the
Italian had noticed his character and broken fortunes merely from
report; and that, though the countenance of Montoni seemed to give
probability to a part of the rumour, it was not by such circumstances
that an implicit belief of it could be justified. These considerations
would probably not have arisen so distinctly to her mind, at this time,
had not the terrors of Valancourt presented to her such obvious
exaggerations of her danger, as incited her to distrust the fallacies
of passion. But, while she endeavoured in the gentlest manner to
convince him of his error, she plunged him into a new one. His voice
and countenance changed to an expression of dark despair. “Emily!” said
he, “this, this moment is the bitterest that is yet come to me. You do
not—cannot love me!—It would be impossible for you to reason thus
coolly, thus deliberately, if you did. I, _I_ am torn with anguish at
the prospect of our separation, and of the evils that may await you in
consequence of it; I would encounter any hazards to prevent it—to save
you. No! Emily, no!—you cannot love me.”

“We have now little time to waste in exclamation, or assertion,” said
Emily, endeavouring to conceal her emotion: “if you are yet to learn
how dear you are, and ever must be, to my heart, no assurances of mine
can give you conviction.”

The last words faltered on her lips, and her tears flowed fast. These
words and tears brought, once more, and with instantaneous force,
conviction of her love to Valancourt. He could only exclaim, “Emily!
Emily!” and weep over the hand he pressed to his lips; but she, after
some moments, again roused herself from the indulgence of sorrow, and
said, “I must leave you; it is late, and my absence from the château
may be discovered. Think of me—love me—when I am far away; the belief
of this will be my comfort!”

“Think of you!—love you!” exclaimed Valancourt.

“Try to moderate these transports,” said Emily, “for my sake, try.”

“For your sake!”

“Yes, for my sake,” replied Emily, in a tremulous voice, “I cannot
leave you thus!”

“Then do not leave me!” said Valancourt, with quickness. “Why should we
part, or part for longer than till tomorrow?”

“I am, indeed I am, unequal to these moments,” replied Emily, “you tear
my heart, but I never can consent to this hasty, imprudent proposal!”

“If we could command our time, my Emily, it should not be thus hasty;
we must submit to circumstances.”

“We must indeed! I have already told you all my heart—my spirits are
gone. You allowed the force of my objections, till your tenderness
called up vague terrors, which have given us both unnecessary anguish.
Spare me! do not oblige me to repeat the reasons I have already urged.”

“Spare you!” cried Valancourt, “I am a wretch—a very wretch, that have
felt only for myself!—I! who ought to have shown the fortitude of a
man, who ought to have supported you, I have increased your sufferings
by the conduct of a child! Forgive me, Emily! think of the distraction
of my mind now that I am about to part with all that is dear to me—and
forgive me! When you are gone, I shall recollect with bitter remorse
what I have made you suffer, and shall wish in vain that I could see
you, if only for a moment, that I might sooth your grief.”

Tears again interrupted his voice, and Emily wept with him. “I will
show myself more worthy of your love,” said Valancourt, at length; “I
will not prolong these moments. My Emily—my own Emily! never forget me!
God knows when we shall meet again! I resign you to his care.—O God!—O
God!—protect and bless her!”

He pressed her hand to his heart. Emily sunk almost lifeless on his
bosom, and neither wept, nor spoke. Valancourt, now commanding his own
distress, tried to comfort and reassure her, but she appeared totally
unaffected by what he said, and a sigh, which she uttered, now and
then, was all that proved she had not fainted.

He supported her slowly towards the château, weeping and speaking to
her; but she answered only in sighs, till, having reached the gate,
that terminated the avenue, she seemed to have recovered her
consciousness, and, looking round, perceived how near they were to the
château. “We must part here,” said she, stopping, “Why prolong these
moments? Teach me the fortitude I have forgot.”

Valancourt struggled to assume a composed air. “Farewell, my love!”
said he, in a voice of solemn tenderness—“trust me we shall meet
again—meet for each other—meet to part no more!” His voice faltered,
but, recovering it, he proceeded in a firmer tone. “You know not what I
shall suffer, till I hear from you; I shall omit no opportunity of
conveying to you my letters, yet I tremble to think how few may occur.
And trust me, love, for your dear sake, I will try to bear this absence
with fortitude. O how little I have shown tonight!”

“Farewell!” said Emily faintly. “When you are gone, I shall think of
many things I would have said to you.” “And I of many—many!” said
Valancourt; “I never left you yet, that I did not immediately remember
some question, or some entreaty, or some circumstance, concerning my
love, that I earnestly wished to mention, and feel wretched because I
could not. O Emily! this countenance, on which I now gaze—will, in a
moment, be gone from my eyes, and not all the efforts of fancy will be
able to recall it with exactness. O! what an infinite difference
between this moment and the next!—_now_, I am in your presence, can
behold you! _then_, all will be a dreary blank—and I shall be a
wanderer, exiled from my only home!”

Valancourt again pressed her to his heart, and held her there in
silence, weeping. Tears once again calmed her oppressed mind. They
again bade each other farewell, lingered a moment, and then parted.
Valancourt seemed to force himself from the spot; he passed hastily up
the avenue, and Emily, as she moved slowly towards the château, heard
his distant steps. She listened to the sounds, as they sunk fainter and
fainter, till the melancholy stillness of night alone remained; and
then hurried to her chamber, to seek repose, which, alas! was fled from
her wretchedness.



VOLUME 2



 CHAPTER I

Where’er I roam, whatever realms I see,
My heart untravell’d still shall turn to thee.
                    GOLDSMITH


The carriages were at the gates at an early hour; the bustle of the
domestics, passing to and fro in the galleries, awakened Emily from
harassing slumbers: her unquiet mind had, during the night, presented
her with terrific images and obscure circumstances, concerning her
affection and her future life. She now endeavoured to chase away the
impressions they had left on her fancy; but from imaginary evils she
awoke to the consciousness of real ones. Recollecting that she had
parted with Valancourt, perhaps for ever, her heart sickened as memory
revived. But she tried to dismiss the dismal forebodings that crowded
on her mind, and to restrain the sorrow which she could not subdue;
efforts which diffused over the settled melancholy of her countenance
an expression of tempered resignation, as a thin veil, thrown over the
features of beauty, renders them more interesting by a partial
concealment. But Madame Montoni observed nothing in this countenance
except its usual paleness, which attracted her censure. She told her
niece, that she had been indulging in fanciful sorrows, and begged she
would have more regard for decorum, than to let the world see that she
could not renounce an improper attachment; at which Emily’s pale cheek
became flushed with crimson, but it was the blush of pride, and she
made no answer. Soon after, Montoni entered the breakfast room, spoke
little, and seemed impatient to be gone.

The windows of this room opened upon the garden. As Emily passed them,
she saw the spot where she had parted with Valancourt on the preceding
night: the remembrance pressed heavily on her heart, and she turned
hastily away from the object that had awakened it.

The baggage being at length adjusted, the travellers entered their
carriages, and Emily would have left the château without one sigh of
regret, had it not been situated in the neighbourhood of Valancourt’s
residence.

From a little eminence she looked back upon Thoulouse, and the far-seen
plains of Gascony, beyond which the broken summits of the Pyrenees
appeared on the distant horizon, lighted up by a morning sun. “Dear
pleasant mountains!” said she to herself, “how long may it be ere I see
ye again, and how much may happen to make me miserable in the interval!
Oh, could I now be certain, that I should ever return to ye, and find
that Valancourt still lived for me, I should go in peace! He will still
gaze on ye, gaze when I am far away!”

The trees, that impended over the high banks of the road and formed a
line of perspective with the distant country, now threatened to exclude
the view of them; but the bluish mountains still appeared beyond the
dark foliage, and Emily continued to lean from the coach window, till
at length the closing branches shut them from her sight.

Another object soon caught her attention. She had scarcely looked at a
person who walked along the bank, with his hat, in which was the
military feather, drawn over his eyes, before, at the sound of wheels,
he suddenly turned, and she perceived that it was Valancourt himself,
who waved his hand, sprung into the road, and through the window of the
carriage put a letter into her hand. He endeavoured to smile through
the despair that overspread his countenance as she passed on. The
remembrance of that smile seemed impressed on Emily’s mind for ever.
She leaned from the window, and saw him on a knoll of the broken bank,
leaning against the high trees that waved over him, and pursuing the
carriage with his eyes. He waved his hand, and she continued to gaze
till distance confused his figure, and at length another turn of the
road entirely separated him from her sight.

Having stopped to take up Signor Cavigni at a château on the road, the
travellers, of whom Emily was disrespectfully seated with Madame
Montoni’s woman in a second carriage, pursued their way over the plains
of Languedoc. The presence of this servant restrained Emily from
reading Valancourt’s letter, for she did not choose to expose the
emotions it might occasion to the observation of any person. Yet such
was her wish to read this his last communication, that her trembling
hand was every moment on the point of breaking the seal.

At length they reached the village, where they staid only to change
horses, without alighting, and it was not till they stopped to dine,
that Emily had an opportunity of reading the letter. Though she had
never doubted the sincerity of Valancourt’s affection, the fresh
assurances she now received of it revived her spirits; she wept over
his letter in tenderness, laid it by to be referred to when they should
be particularly depressed, and then thought of him with much less
anguish than she had done since they parted. Among some other requests,
which were interesting to her, because expressive of his tenderness,
and because a compliance with them seemed to annihilate for a while the
pain of absence, he entreated she would always think of him at sunset.
“You will then meet me in thought,” said he; “I shall constantly watch
the sunset, and I shall be happy in the belief, that your eyes are
fixed upon the same object with mine, and that our minds are
conversing. You know not, Emily, the comfort I promise myself from
these moments; but I trust you will experience it.”

It is unnecessary to say with what emotion Emily, on this evening,
watched the declining sun, over a long extent of plains, on which she
saw it set without interruption, and sink towards the province which
Valancourt inhabited. After this hour her mind became far more tranquil
and resigned, than it had been since the marriage of Montoni and her
aunt.

During several days the travellers journeyed over the plains of
Languedoc; and then entering Dauphiny, and winding for some time among
the mountains of that romantic province, they quitted their carriages
and began to ascend the Alps. And here such scenes of sublimity opened
upon them as no colours of language must dare to paint! Emily’s mind
was even so much engaged with new and wonderful images, that they
sometimes banished the idea of Valancourt, though they more frequently
revived it. These brought to her recollection the prospects among the
Pyrenees, which they had admired together, and had believed nothing
could excel in grandeur. How often did she wish to express to him the
new emotions which this astonishing scenery awakened, and that he could
partake of them! Sometimes too she endeavoured to anticipate his
remarks, and almost imagined him present. She seemed to have arisen
into another world, and to have left every trifling thought, every
trifling sentiment, in that below; those only of grandeur and sublimity
now dilated her mind, and elevated the affections of her heart.

With what emotions of sublimity, softened by tenderness, did she meet
Valancourt in thought, at the customary hour of sunset, when, wandering
among the Alps, she watched the glorious orb sink amid their summits,
his last tints die away on their snowy points, and a solemn obscurity
steal over the scene! And when the last gleam had faded, she turned her
eyes from the west with somewhat of the melancholy regret that is
experienced after the departure of a beloved friend; while these lonely
feelings were heightened by the spreading gloom, and by the low sounds,
heard only when darkness confines attention, which make the general
stillness more impressive—leaves shook by the air, the last sigh of the
breeze that lingers after sunset, or the murmur of distant streams.

During the first days of this journey among the Alps, the scenery
exhibited a wonderful mixture of solitude and inhabitation, of
cultivation and barrenness. On the edge of tremendous precipices, and
within the hollow of the cliffs, below which the clouds often floated,
were seen villages, spires, and convent towers; while green pastures
and vineyards spread their hues at the feet of perpendicular rocks of
marble, or of granite, whose points, tufted with alpine shrubs, or
exhibiting only massy crags, rose above each other, till they
terminated in the snowtopped mountain, whence the torrent fell, that
thundered along the valley.

The snow was not yet melted on the summit of Mount Cenis, over which
the travellers passed; but Emily, as she looked upon its clear lake and
extended plain, surrounded by broken cliffs, saw, in imagination, the
verdant beauty it would exhibit when the snows should be gone, and the
shepherds, leading up the midsummer flocks from Piedmont, to pasture on
its flowery summit, should add Arcadian figures to Arcadian landscape.

As she descended on the Italian side, the precipices became still more
tremendous, and the prospects still more wild and majestic, over which
the shifting lights threw all the pomp of colouring. Emily delighted to
observe the snowy tops of the mountains under the passing influence of
the day, blushing with morning, glowing with the brightness of noon, or
just tinted with the purple evening. The haunt of man could now only be
discovered by the simple hut of the shepherd and the hunter, or by the
rough pine bridge thrown across the torrent, to assist the latter in
his chase of the chamois over crags where, but for this vestige of man,
it would have been believed only the chamois or the wolf dared to
venture. As Emily gazed upon one of these perilous bridges, with the
cataract foaming beneath it, some images came to her mind, which she
afterwards combined in the following

STORIED SONNET

The weary traveller, who all night long
Has climb’d among the Alps’ tremendous steeps,
Skirting the pathless precipice, where throng
Wild forms of danger; as he onward creeps
If, chance, his anxious eye at distance sees
The mountain-shepherd’s solitary home,
Peeping from forth the moon-illumin’d trees,
What sudden transports to his bosom come!
But, if between some hideous chasm yawn,
Where the cleft pine a doubtful bridge displays,
In dreadful silence, on the brink, forlorn
He stands, and views in the faint rays
Far, far below, the torrent’s rising surge,
And listens to the wild impetuous roar;
Still eyes the depth, still shudders on the verge,
Fears to return, nor dares to venture o’er.
Desperate, at length the tottering plank he tries,
His weak steps slide, he shrieks, he sinks—he dies!


Emily, often as she travelled among the clouds, watched in silent awe
their billowy surges rolling below; sometimes, wholly closing upon the
scene, they appeared like a world of chaos, and, at others, spreading
thinly, they opened and admitted partial catches of the landscape—the
torrent, whose astounding roar had never failed, tumbling down the
rocky chasm, huge cliffs white with snow, or the dark summits of the
pine forests, that stretched mid-way down the mountains. But who may
describe her rapture, when, having passed through a sea of vapour, she
caught a first view of Italy; when, from the ridge of one of those
tremendous precipices that hang upon Mount Cenis and guard the entrance
of that enchanting country, she looked down through the lower clouds,
and, as they floated away, saw the grassy vales of Piedmont at her
feet, and, beyond, the plains of Lombardy extending to the farthest
distance, at which appeared, on the faint horizon, the doubtful towers
of Turin?

The solitary grandeur of the objects that immediately surrounded her,
the mountain-region towering above, the deep precipices that fell
beneath, the waving blackness of the forests of pine and oak, which
skirted their feet, or hung within their recesses, the headlong
torrents that, dashing among their cliffs, sometimes appeared like a
cloud of mist, at others like a sheet of ice—these were features which
received a higher character of sublimity from the reposing beauty of
the Italian landscape below, stretching to the wide horizon, where the
same melting blue tint seemed to unite earth and sky.

Madame Montoni only shuddered as she looked down precipices near whose
edge the chairmen trotted lightly and swiftly, almost, as the chamois
bounded, and from which Emily too recoiled; but with her fears were
mingled such various emotions of delight, such admiration,
astonishment, and awe, as she had never experienced before.

Meanwhile the carriers, having come to a landing-place, stopped to
rest, and the travellers being seated on the point of a cliff, Montoni
and Cavigni renewed a dispute concerning Hannibal’s passage over the
Alps, Montoni contending that he entered Italy by way of Mount Cenis,
and Cavigni, that he passed over Mount St. Bernard. The subject brought
to Emily’s imagination the disasters he had suffered in this bold and
perilous adventure. She saw his vast armies winding among the defiles,
and over the tremendous cliffs of the mountains, which at night were
lighted up by his fires, or by the torches which he caused to be
carried when he pursued his indefatigable march. In the eye of fancy,
she perceived the gleam of arms through the duskiness of night, the
glitter of spears and helmets, and the banners floating dimly on the
twilight; while now and then the blast of a distant trumpet echoed
along the defile, and the signal was answered by a momentary clash of
arms. She looked with horror upon the mountaineers, perched on the
higher cliffs, assailing the troops below with broken fragments of the
mountain; on soldiers and elephants tumbling headlong down the lower
precipices; and, as she listened to the rebounding rocks, that followed
their fall, the terrors of fancy yielded to those of reality, and she
shuddered to behold herself on the dizzy height, whence she had
pictured the descent of others.

Madame Montoni, meantime, as she looked upon Italy, was contemplating
in imagination the splendour of palaces and the grandeur of castles,
such as she believed she was going to be mistress of at Venice and in
the Apennine, and she became, in idea, little less than a princess.
Being no longer under the alarms which had deterred her from giving
entertainments to the beauties of Thoulouse, whom Montoni had mentioned
with more _eclât_ to his own vanity than credit to their discretion, or
regard to truth, she determined to give concerts, though she had
neither ear nor taste for music; _conversazione_, though she had no
talents for conversation; and to outvie, if possible, in the gaieties
of her parties and the magnificence of her liveries, all the noblesse
of Venice. This blissful reverie was somewhat obscured, when she
recollected the Signor, her husband, who, though he was not averse to
the profit which sometimes results from such parties, had always shown
a contempt of the frivolous parade that sometimes attends them; till
she considered that his pride might be gratified by displaying, among
his own friends, in his native city, the wealth which he had neglected
in France; and she courted again the splendid illusions that had
charmed her before.

The travellers, as they descended, gradually, exchanged the region of
winter for the genial warmth and beauty of spring. The sky began to
assume that serene and beautiful tint peculiar to the climate of Italy;
patches of young verdure, fragrant shrubs and flowers looked gaily
among the rocks, often fringing their rugged brows, or hanging in tufts
from their broken sides; and the buds of the oak and mountain ash were
expanding into foliage. Descending lower, the orange and the myrtle,
every now and then, appeared in some sunny nook, with their yellow
blossoms peeping from among the dark green of their leaves, and
mingling with the scarlet flowers of the pomegranate and the paler ones
of the arbutus, that ran mantling to the crags above; while, lower
still, spread the pastures of Piedmont, where early flocks were
cropping the luxuriant herbage of spring.

The river Doria, which, rising on the summit of Mount Cenis, had dashed
for many leagues over the precipices that bordered the road, now began
to assume a less impetuous, though scarcely less romantic character, as
it approached the green valleys of Piedmont, into which the travellers
descended with the evening sun; and Emily found herself once more amid
the tranquil beauty of pastoral scenery; among flocks and herds, and
slopes tufted with woods of lively verdure and with beautiful shrubs,
such as she had often seen waving luxuriantly over the alps above. The
verdure of the pasturage, now varied with the hues of early flowers,
among which were yellow ranunculuses and pansey violets of delicious
fragrance, she had never seen excelled.—Emily almost wished to become a
peasant of Piedmont, to inhabit one of the pleasant embowered cottages
which she saw peeping beneath the cliffs, and to pass her careless
hours among these romantic landscapes. To the hours, the months, she
was to pass under the dominion of Montoni, she looked with
apprehension; while those which were departed she remembered with
regret and sorrow.

In the present scenes her fancy often gave her the figure of
Valancourt, whom she saw on a point of the cliffs, gazing with awe and
admiration on the imagery around him; or wandering pensively along the
vale below, frequently pausing to look back upon the scenery, and then,
his countenance glowing with the poet’s fire, pursuing his way to some
overhanging heights. When she again considered the time and the
distance that were to separate them, that every step she now took
lengthened this distance, her heart sunk, and the surrounding landscape
charmed her no more.

The travellers, passing Novalesa, reached, after the evening had
closed, the small and ancient town of Susa, which had formerly guarded
this pass of the Alps into Piedmont. The heights which command it had,
since the invention of artillery, rendered its fortifications useless;
but these romantic heights, seen by moonlight, with the town below,
surrounded by its walls and watchtowers, and partially illumined,
exhibited an interesting picture to Emily. Here they rested for the
night at an inn, which had little accommodation to boast of; but the
travellers brought with them the hunger that gives delicious flavour to
the coarsest viands, and the weariness that ensures repose; and here
Emily first caught a strain of Italian music, on Italian ground. As she
sat after supper at a little window, that opened upon the country,
observing an effect of the moonlight on the broken surface of the
mountains, and remembering that on such a night as this she once had
sat with her father and Valancourt, resting upon a cliff of the
Pyrenees, she heard from below the long-drawn notes of a violin, of
such tone and delicacy of expression, as harmonised exactly with the
tender emotions she was indulging, and both charmed and surprised her.
Cavigni, who approached the window, smiled at her surprise. “This is
nothing extraordinary,” said he, “you will hear the same, perhaps, at
every inn on our way. It is one of our landlord’s family who plays, I
doubt not,” Emily, as she listened, thought he could be scarcely less
than a professor of music whom she heard; and the sweet and plaintive
strains soon lulled her into a reverie, from which she was very
unwillingly roused by the raillery of Cavigni, and by the voice of
Montoni, who gave orders to a servant to have the carriages ready at an
early hour on the following morning; and added, that he meant to dine
at Turin.

Madame Montoni was exceedingly rejoiced to be once more on level
ground; and, after giving a long detail of the various terrors she had
suffered, which she forgot that she was describing to the companions of
her dangers, she added a hope, that she should soon be beyond the view
of these horrid mountains, “which all the world,” said she, “should not
tempt me to cross again.” Complaining of fatigue she soon retired to
rest, and Emily withdrew to her own room, when she understood from
Annette, her aunt’s woman, that Cavigni was nearly right in his
conjecture concerning the musician, who had awakened the violin with so
much taste, for that he was the son of a peasant inhabiting the
neighbouring valley. “He is going to the Carnival at Venice,” added
Annette, “for they say he has a fine hand at playing, and will get a
world of money; and the Carnival is just going to begin: but for my
part, I should like to live among these pleasant woods and hills,
better than in a town; and they say Ma’amselle, we shall see no woods,
or hills, or fields, at Venice, for that it is built in the very middle
of the sea.”

Emily agreed with the talkative Annette, that this young man was making
a change for the worse, and could not forbear silently lamenting, that
he should be drawn from the innocence and beauty of these scenes, to
the corrupt ones of that voluptuous city.

When she was alone, unable to sleep, the landscapes of her native home,
with Valancourt, and the circumstances of her departure, haunted her
fancy; she drew pictures of social happiness amidst the grand
simplicity of nature, such as she feared she had bade farewell to for
ever; and then, the idea of this young Piedmontese, thus ignorantly
sporting with his happiness, returned to her thoughts, and, glad to
escape a while from the pressure of nearer interests, she indulged her
fancy in composing the following lines.

THE PIEDMONTESE

Ah, merry swain, who laugh’d along the vales,
And with your gay pipe made the mountains ring,
Why leave your cot, your woods, and thymy gales,
And friends belov’d, for aught that wealth can bring?
He goes to wake o’er moonlight seas the string,
Venetian gold his untaught fancy hails!
Yet oft of home his simple carols sing,
And his steps pause, as the last Alp he scales.
Once more he turns to view his native scene—
Far, far below, as roll the clouds away,
He spies his cabin ’mid the pine-tops green,
The well-known woods, clear brook, and pastures gay;
And thinks of friends and parents left behind,
Of sylvan revels, dance, and festive song;
And hears the faint reed swelling in the wind;
And his sad sighs the distant notes prolong!
Thus went the swain, till mountain-shadows fell,
And dimm’d the landscape to his aching sight;
And must he leave the vales he loves so well!
Can foreign wealth, and shows, his heart delight?
No, happy vales! your wild rocks still shall hear
His pipe, light sounding on the morning breeze;
Still shall he lead the flocks to streamlet clear,
And watch at eve beneath the western trees.
Away, Venetian gold—your charm is o’er!
And now his swift step seeks the lowland bow’rs,
Where, through the leaves, his cottage light _once more_
Guides him to happy friends, and jocund hours.
Ah, merry swain! that laugh along the vales,
And with your gay pipe make the mountains ring,
Your cot, your woods, your thymy-scented gales—
And friends belov’d, more joy than wealth can bring!




 CHAPTER II

_Titania_.  If you will patiently dance in our round,
And see our moonlight revels, go with us.
                    MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM


Early on the following morning, the travellers set out for Turin. The
luxuriant plain, that extends from the feet of the Alps to that
magnificent city, was not then, as now, shaded by an avenue of trees
nine miles in length; but plantations of olives, mulberry and palms,
festooned with vines, mingled with the pastoral scenery, through with
the rapid Po, after its descent from the mountains, wandered to meet
the humble Doria at Turin. As they advanced towards this city, the
Alps, seen at some distance, began to appear in all their awful
sublimity; chain rising over chain in long succession, their higher
points darkened by the hovering clouds, sometimes hid, and at others
seen shooting up far above them; while their lower steeps, broken into
fantastic forms, were touched with blue and purplish tints, which, as
they changed in light and shade, seemed to open new scenes to the eye.
To the east stretched the plains of Lombardy, with the towers of Turin
rising at a distance; and beyond, the Apennines, bounding the horizon.

The general magnificence of that city, with its vistas of churches and
palaces, branching from the grand square, each opening to a landscape
of the distant Alps or Apennines, was not only such as Emily had never
seen in France, but such as she had never imagined.

Montoni, who had been often at Turin, and cared little about views of
any kind, did not comply with his wife’s request, that they might
survey some of the palaces; but staying only till the necessary
refreshments could be obtained, they set forward for Venice with all
possible rapidity. Montoni’s manner, during this journey, was grave,
and even haughty; and towards Madame Montoni he was more especially
reserved; but it was not the reserve of respect so much as of pride and
discontent. Of Emily he took little notice. With Cavigni his
conversations were commonly on political or military topics, such as
the convulsed state of their country rendered at this time particularly
interesting, Emily observed, that, at the mention of any daring
exploit, Montoni’s eyes lost their sullenness, and seemed
instantaneously to gleam with fire; yet they still retained somewhat of
a lurking cunning, and she sometimes thought that their fire partook
more of the glare of malice than the brightness of valour, though the
latter would well have harmonised with the high chivalric air of his
figure, in which Cavigni, with all his gay and gallant manners, was his
inferior.

On entering the Milanese, the gentlemen exchanged their French hats for
the Italian cap of scarlet cloth, embroidered; and Emily was somewhat
surprised to observe, that Montoni added to his the military plume,
while Cavigni retained only the feather: which was usually worn with
such caps: but she at length concluded, that Montoni assumed this
ensign of a soldier for convenience, as a means of passing with more
safety through a country over-run with parties of the military.

Over the beautiful plains of this country the devastations of war were
frequently visible. Where the lands had not been suffered to lie
uncultivated, they were often tracked with the steps of the spoiler;
the vines were torn down from the branches that had supported them, the
olives trampled upon the ground, and even the groves of mulberry trees
had been hewn by the enemy to light fires that destroyed the hamlets
and villages of their owners. Emily turned her eyes with a sigh from
these painful vestiges of contention, to the Alps of the Grison, that
overlooked them to the north, whose awful solitudes seemed to offer to
persecuted man a secure asylum.

The travellers frequently distinguished troops of soldiers moving at a
distance; and they experienced, at the little inns on the road, the
scarcity of provision and other inconveniences, which are a part of the
consequence of intestine war; but they had never reason to be much
alarmed for their immediate safety, and they passed on to Milan with
little interruption of any kind, where they staid not to survey the
grandeur of the city, or even to view its vast cathedral, which was
then building.

Beyond Milan, the country wore the aspect of a ruder devastation; and
though everything seemed now quiet, the repose was like that of death,
spread over features, which retain the impression of the last
convulsions.

It was not till they had passed the eastern limits of the Milanese,
that the travellers saw any troops since they had left Milan, when, as
the evening was drawing to a close, they descried what appeared to be
an army winding onward along the distant plains, whose spears and other
arms caught the last rays of the sun. As the column advanced through a
part of the road, contracted between two hillocks, some of the
commanders, on horseback, were distinguished on a small eminence,
pointing and making signals for the march; while several of the
officers were riding along the line directing its progress, according
to the signs communicated by those above; and others, separating from
the vanguard, which had emerged from the pass, were riding carelessly
along the plains at some distance to the right of the army.

As they drew nearer, Montoni, distinguishing the feathers that waved in
their caps, and the banners and liveries of the bands that followed
them, thought he knew this to be the small army commanded by the famous
captain Utaldo, with whom, as well as with some of the other chiefs, he
was personally acquainted. He, therefore, gave orders that the
carriages should draw up by the side of the road, to await their
arrival, and give them the pass. A faint strain of martial music now
stole by, and, gradually strengthening as the troops approached, Emily
distinguished the drums and trumpets, with the clash of cymbals and of
arms, that were struck by a small party, in time to the march.

Montoni being now certain that these were the bands of the victorious
Utaldo, leaned from the carriage window, and hailed their general by
waving his cap in the air; which compliment the chief returned by
raising his spear, and then letting it down again suddenly, while some
of his officers, who were riding at a distance from the troops, came up
to the carriage, and saluted Montoni as an old acquaintance. The
captain himself soon after arriving, his bands halted while he
conversed with Montoni, whom he appeared much rejoiced to see; and from
what he said, Emily understood that this was a victorious army,
returning into their own principality; while the numerous waggons, that
accompanied them, contained the rich spoils of the enemy, their own
wounded soldiers, and the prisoners they had taken in battle, who were
to be ransomed when the peace, then negociating between the
neighbouring states, should be ratified. The chiefs on the following
day were to separate, and each, taking his share of the spoil, was to
return with his own band to his castle. This was therefore to be an
evening of uncommon and general festivity, in commemoration of the
victory they had accomplished together, and of the farewell which the
commanders were about to take of each other.

Emily, as these officers conversed with Montoni, observed with
admiration, tinctured with awe, their high martial air, mingled with
the haughtiness of the noblesse of those days, and heightened by the
gallantry of their dress, by the plumes towering on their caps, the
armorial coat, Persian sash, and ancient Spanish cloak. Utaldo, telling
Montoni that his army were going to encamp for the night near a village
at only a few miles distance, invited him to turn back and partake of
their festivity, assuring the ladies also, that they should be
pleasantly accommodated; but Montoni excused himself, adding, that it
was his design to reach Verona that evening; and, after some
conversation concerning the state of the country towards that city,
they parted.

The travellers proceeded without any interruption; but it was some
hours after sunset before they arrived at Verona, whose beautiful
environs were therefore not seen by Emily till the following morning;
when, leaving that pleasant town at an early hour, they set off for
Padua, where they embarked on the Brenta for Venice. Here the scene was
entirely changed; no vestiges of war, such as had deformed the plains
of the Milanese, appeared; on the contrary, all was peace and elegance.
The verdant banks of the Brenta exhibited a continued landscape of
beauty, gaiety, and splendour. Emily gazed with admiration on the
villas of the Venetian noblesse, with their cool porticos and
colonnades, overhung with poplars and cypresses of majestic height and
lively verdure; on their rich orangeries, whose blossoms perfumed the
air, and on the luxuriant willows, that dipped their light leaves in
the wave, and sheltered from the sun the gay parties whose music came
at intervals on the breeze. The Carnival did, indeed, appear to extend
from Venice along the whole line of these enchanting shores; the river
was gay with boats passing to that city, exhibiting the fantastic
diversity of a masquerade in the dresses of the people within them;
and, towards evening, groups of dancers frequently were seen beneath
the trees.

Cavigni, meanwhile, informed her of the names of the noblemen to whom
the several villas they passed belonged, adding light sketches of their
characters, such as served to amuse rather than to inform, exhibiting
his own wit instead of the delineation of truth. Emily was sometimes
diverted by his conversation; but his gaiety did not entertain Madame
Montoni, as it had formerly done; she was frequently grave, and Montoni
retained his usual reserve.

Nothing could exceed Emily’s admiration on her first view of Venice,
with its islets, palaces, and towers rising out of the sea, whose clear
surface reflected the tremulous picture in all its colours. The sun,
sinking in the west, tinted the waves and the lofty mountains of
Friuli, which skirt the northern shores of the Adriatic, with a saffron
glow, while on the marble porticos and colonnades of St. Mark were
thrown the rich lights and shades of evening. As they glided on, the
grander features of this city appeared more distinctly: its terraces,
crowned with airy yet majestic fabrics, touched, as they now were, with
the splendour of the setting sun, appeared as if they had been called
up from the ocean by the wand of an enchanter, rather than reared by
mortal hands.

The sun, soon after, sinking to the lower world, the shadow of the
earth stole gradually over the waves, and then up the towering sides of
the mountains of Friuli, till it extinguished even the last upward
beams that had lingered on their summits, and the melancholy purple of
evening drew over them, like a thin veil. How deep, how beautiful was
the tranquillity that wrapped the scene! All nature seemed to repose;
the finest emotions of the soul were alone awake. Emily’s eyes filled
with tears of admiration and sublime devotion, as she raised them over
the sleeping world to the vast heavens, and heard the notes of solemn
music, that stole over the waters from a distance. She listened in
still rapture, and no person of the party broke the charm by an
enquiry. The sounds seemed to grow on the air; for so smoothly did the
barge glide along, that its motion was not perceivable, and the fairy
city appeared approaching to welcome the strangers. They now
distinguished a female voice, accompanied by a few instruments, singing
a soft and mournful air; and its fine expression, as sometimes it
seemed pleading with the impassioned tenderness of love, and then
languishing into the cadence of hopeless grief, declared, that it
flowed from no feigned sensibility. Ah! thought Emily, as she sighed
and remembered Valancourt, those strains come from the heart!

She looked round, with anxious enquiry; the deep twilight, that had
fallen over the scene, admitted only imperfect images to the eye, but,
at some distance on the sea, she thought she perceived a gondola: a
chorus of voices and instruments now swelled on the air—so sweet, so
solemn! it seemed like the hymn of angels descending through the
silence of night! Now it died away, and fancy almost beheld the holy
choir reascending towards heaven; then again it swelled with the
breeze, trembled awhile, and again died into silence. It brought to
Emily’s recollection some lines of her late father, and she repeated in
a low voice,

Oft I hear,
Upon the silence of the midnight air,
Celestial voices swell in holy chorus
That bears the soul to heaven!


The deep stillness, that succeeded, was as expressive as the strain
that had just ceased. It was uninterrupted for several minutes, till a
general sigh seemed to release the company from their enchantment.
Emily, however, long indulged the pleasing sadness, that had stolen
upon her spirits; but the gay and busy scene that appeared, as the
barge approached St. Mark’s Place, at length roused her attention. The
rising moon, which threw a shadowy light upon the terraces, and
illumined the porticos and magnificent arcades that crowned them,
discovered the various company, whose light steps, soft guitars, and
softer voices, echoed through the colonnades.

The music they heard before now passed Montoni’s barge, in one of the
gondolas, of which several were seen skimming along the moonlight sea,
full of gay parties, catching the cool breeze. Most of these had music,
made sweeter by the waves over which it floated, and by the measured
sound of oars, as they dashed the sparkling tide. Emily gazed, and
listened, and thought herself in a fairy scene; even Madame Montoni was
pleased; Montoni congratulated himself on his return to Venice, which
he called the first city in the world, and Cavigni was more gay and
animated than ever.

The barge passed on to the grand canal, where Montoni’s mansion was
situated. And here, other forms of beauty and of grandeur, such as her
imagination had never painted, were unfolded to Emily in the palaces of
Sansovino and Palladio, as she glided along the waves. The air bore no
sounds, but those of sweetness, echoing along each margin of the canal,
and from gondolas on its surface, while groups of masks were seen
dancing on the moonlight terraces, and seemed almost to realise the
romance of fairyland.

The barge stopped before the portico of a large house, from whence a
servant of Montoni crossed the terrace, and immediately the party
disembarked. From the portico they passed a noble hall to a staircase
of marble, which led to a saloon, fitted up in a style of magnificence
that surprised Emily. The walls and ceilings were adorned with
historical and allegorical paintings, in _fresco_; silver tripods,
depending from chains of the same metal, illumined the apartment, the
floor of which was covered with Indian mats painted in a variety of
colours and devices; the couches and drapery of the lattices were of
pale green silk, embroidered and fringed with green and gold. Balcony
lattices opened upon the grand canal, whence rose a confusion of voices
and of musical instruments, and the breeze that gave freshness to the
apartment. Emily, considering the gloomy temper of Montoni, looked upon
the splendid furniture of this house with surprise, and remembered the
report of his being a man of broken fortune, with astonishment. “Ah!”
said she to herself, “if Valancourt could but see this mansion, what
peace would it give him! He would then be convinced that the report was
groundless.”

Madame Montoni seemed to assume the air of a princess; but Montoni was
restless and discontented, and did not even observe the civility of
bidding her welcome to her home.

Soon after his arrival, he ordered his gondola, and, with Cavigni, went
out to mingle in the scenes of the evening. Madame then became serious
and thoughtful. Emily, who was charmed with everything she saw,
endeavoured to enliven her; but reflection had not, with Madame
Montoni, subdued caprice and ill-humour, and her answers discovered so
much of both, that Emily gave up the attempt of diverting her, and
withdrew to a lattice, to amuse herself with the scene without, so new
and so enchanting.

The first object that attracted her notice was a group of dancers on
the terrace below, led by a guitar and some other instruments. The
girl, who struck the guitar, and another, who flourished a tambourine,
passed on in a dancing step, and with a light grace and gaiety of
heart, that would have subdued the goddess of spleen in her worst
humour. After these came a group of fantastic figures, some dressed as
gondolieri, others as minstrels, while others seemed to defy all
description. They sung in parts, their voices accompanied by a few soft
instruments. At a little distance from the portico they stopped, and
Emily distinguished the verses of Ariosto. They sung of the wars of the
Moors against Charlemagne, and then of the woes of Orlando: afterwards
the measure changed, and the melancholy sweetness of Petrarch
succeeded. The magic of his grief was assisted by all that Italian
music and Italian expression, heightened by the enchantments of
Venetian moonlight, could give.

Emily, as she listened, caught the pensive enthusiasm; her tears flowed
silently, while her fancy bore her far away to France and to
Valancourt. Each succeeding sonnet, more full of charming sadness than
the last, seemed to bind the spell of melancholy: with extreme regret
she saw the musicians move on, and her attention followed the strain
till the last faint warble died in air. She then remained sunk in that
pensive tranquillity which soft music leaves on the mind—a state like
that produced by the view of a beautiful landscape by moonlight, or by
the recollection of scenes marked with the tenderness of friends lost
for ever, and with sorrows, which time has mellowed into mild regret.
Such scenes are indeed, to the mind, like “those faint traces which the
memory bears of music that is past.”

Other sounds soon awakened her attention: it was the solemn harmony of
horns, that swelled from a distance; and, observing the gondolas
arrange themselves along the margin of the terraces, she threw on her
veil, and, stepping into the balcony, discerned, in the distant
perspective of the canal, something like a procession, floating on the
light surface of the water: as it approached, the horns and other
instruments mingled sweetly, and soon after the fabled deities of the
city seemed to have arisen from the ocean; for Neptune, with Venice
personified as his queen, came on the undulating waves, surrounded by
tritons and sea-nymphs. The fantastic splendour of this spectacle,
together with the grandeur of the surrounding palaces, appeared like
the vision of a poet suddenly embodied, and the fanciful images, which
it awakened in Emily’s mind, lingered there long after the procession
had passed away. She indulged herself in imagining what might be the
manners and delights of a sea-nymph, till she almost wished to throw
off the habit of mortality, and plunge into the green wave to
participate them.

“How delightful,” said she, “to live amidst the coral bowers and
crystal caverns of the ocean, with my sister nymphs, and listen to the
sounding waters above, and to the soft shells of the tritons! and then,
after sunset, to skim on the surface of the waves round wild rocks and
along sequestered shores, where, perhaps, some pensive wanderer comes
to weep! Then would I soothe his sorrows with my sweet music, and offer
him from a shell some of the delicious fruit that hangs round Neptune’s
palace.”

She was recalled from her reverie to a mere mortal supper, and could
not forbear smiling at the fancies she had been indulging, and at her
conviction of the serious displeasure, which Madame Montoni would have
expressed, could she have been made acquainted with them.

After supper, her aunt sat late, but Montoni did not return, and she at
length retired to rest. If Emily had admired the magnificence of the
saloon, she was not less surprised, on observing the half-furnished and
forlorn appearance of the apartments she passed in the way to her
chamber, whither she went through long suites of noble rooms, that
seemed, from their desolate aspect, to have been unoccupied for many
years. On the walls of some were the faded remains of tapestry; from
others, painted in fresco, the damps had almost withdrawn both colours
and design. At length she reached her own chamber, spacious, desolate,
and lofty, like the rest, with high lattices that opened towards the
Adriatic. It brought gloomy images to her mind, but the view of the
Adriatic soon gave her others more airy, among which was that of the
sea-nymph, whose delights she had before amused herself with picturing;
and, anxious to escape from serious reflections, she now endeavoured to
throw her fanciful ideas into a train, and concluded the hour with
composing the following lines:

THE SEA-NYMPH

Down, down a thousand fathom deep,
Among the sounding seas I go;
Play round the foot of ev’ry steep
Whose cliffs above the ocean grow.

There, within their secret cares,
I hear the mighty rivers roar;
And guide their streams through Neptune’s waves
To bless the green earth’s inmost shore:

And bid the freshen’d waters glide,
For fern-crown’d nymphs of lake, or brook,
Through winding woods and pastures wide,
And many a wild, romantic nook.

For this the nymphs, at fall of eave,
Oft dance upon the flow’ry banks,
And sing my name, and garlands weave
To bear beneath the wave their thanks.

In coral bow’rs I love to lie,
And hear the surges roll above,
And through the waters view on high
The proud ships sail, and gay clouds move.

And oft at midnight’s stillest hour,
When summer seas the vessel lave,
I love to prove my charmful pow’r
While floating on the moonlight wave.

And when deep sleep the crew has bound,
And the sad lover musing leans
O’er the ship’s side, I breathe around
Such strains as speak no mortal means!

O’er the dim waves his searching eye
Sees but the vessel’s lengthen’d shade;
Above—the moon and azure sky;
Entranc’d he hears, and half afraid!

Sometimes, a single note I swell,
That, softly sweet, at distance dies;
Then wake the magic of my shell,
And choral voices round me rise!

The trembling youth, charm’d by my strain,
Calls up the crew, who, silent, bend
O’er the high deck, but list in vain;
My song is hush’d, my wonders end!

Within the mountain’s woody bay,
Where the tall bark at anchor rides,
At twilight hour, with tritons gay,
I dance upon the lapsing tides:

And with my sister-nymphs I sport,
Till the broad sun looks o’er the floods;
Then, swift we seek our crystal court,
Deep in the wave, ’mid Neptune’s woods.

In cool arcades and glassy halls
We pass the sultry hours of noon,
Beyond wherever sunbeam falls,
Weaving sea-flowers in gay festoon.

The while we chant our ditties sweet
To some soft shell that warbles near;
Join’d by the murmuring currents, fleet,
That glide along our halls so clear.

There, the pale pearl and sapphire blue,
And ruby red, and em’rald green,
Dart from the domes a changing hue,
And sparry columns deck the scene.

When the dark storm scowls o’er the deep,
And long, long peals of thunder sound,
On some high cliff my watch I keep
O’er all the restless seas around:

Till on the ridgy wave afar
Comes the lone vessel, labouring slow,
Spreading the white foam in the air,
With sail and top-mast bending low.

Then, plunge I ’mid the ocean’s roar,
My way by quiv’ring lightnings shown,
To guide the bark to peaceful shore,
And hush the sailor’s fearful groan.

And if too late I reach its side
To save it from the ’whelming surge,
I call my dolphins o’er the tide,
To bear the crew where isles emerge.

Their mournful spirits soon I cheer,
While round the desert coast I go,
With warbled songs they faintly hear,
Oft as the stormy gust sinks low.

My music leads to lofty groves,
That wild upon the sea-bank wave;
Where sweet fruits bloom, and fresh spring roves,
And closing boughs the tempest brave.

Then, from the air spirits obey
My potent voice they love so well,
And, on the clouds, paint visions gay,
While strains more sweet at distance swell.

And thus the lonely hours I cheat,
Soothing the ship-wreck’d sailor’s heart,
Till from the waves the storms retreat,
And o’er the east the day-beams dart.

Neptune for this oft binds me fast
To rocks below, with coral chain,
Till all the tempest’s over-past,
And drowning seamen cry in vain.

Whoe’er ye are that love my lay,
Come, when red sunset tints the wave,
To the still sands, where fairies play;
There, in cool seas, I love to lave.




 CHAPTER III

He is a great observer, and he looks
Quite through the deeds of men:  he loves no plays,
....................he hears no music;
Seldom he smiles; and smiles in such a sort,
As if he mock’d himself, and scorn’d his spirit
that could be mov’d to smile at anything.
Such men as he be never at heart’s ease,
While they behold a greater than themselves.
                    JULIUS CÆSAR


Montoni and his companion did not return home, till many hours after
the dawn had blushed upon the Adriatic. The airy groups, which had
danced all night along the colonnade of St. Mark, dispersed before the
morning, like so many spirits. Montoni had been otherwise engaged; his
soul was little susceptible of light pleasures. He delighted in the
energies of the passions; the difficulties and tempests of life, which
wreck the happiness of others, roused and strengthened all the powers
of his mind, and afforded him the highest enjoyments, of which his
nature was capable. Without some object of strong interest, life was to
him little more than a sleep; and, when pursuits of real interest
failed, he substituted artificial ones, till habit changed their
nature, and they ceased to be unreal. Of this kind was the habit of
gaming, which he had adopted, first, for the purpose of relieving him
from the languor of inaction, but had since pursued with the ardour of
passion. In this occupation he had passed the night with Cavigni and a
party of young men, who had more money than rank, and more vice than
either. Montoni despised the greater part of these for the inferiority
of their talents, rather than for their vicious inclinations, and
associated with them only to make them the instruments of his purposes.
Among these, however, were some of superior abilities, and a few whom
Montoni admitted to his intimacy, but even towards these he still
preserved a decisive and haughty air, which, while it imposed
submission on weak and timid minds, roused the fierce hatred of strong
ones. He had, of course, many and bitter enemies; but the rancour of
their hatred proved the degree of his power; and, as power was his
chief aim, he gloried more in such hatred, than it was possible he
could in being esteemed. A feeling so tempered as that of esteem, he
despised, and would have despised himself also had he thought himself
capable of being flattered by it.

Among the few whom he distinguished, were the Signors Bertolini,
Orsino, and Verezzi. The first was a man of gay temper, strong
passions, dissipated, and of unbounded extravagance, but generous,
brave, and unsuspicious. Orsino was reserved, and haughty; loving power
more than ostentation; of a cruel and suspicious temper; quick to feel
an injury, and relentless in avenging it; cunning and unsearchable in
contrivance, patient and indefatigable in the execution of his schemes.
He had a perfect command of feature and of his passions, of which he
had scarcely any, but pride, revenge and avarice; and, in the
gratification of these, few considerations had power to restrain him,
few obstacles to withstand the depth of his stratagems. This man was
the chief favourite of Montoni. Verezzi was a man of some talent, of
fiery imagination, and the slave of alternate passions. He was gay,
voluptuous, and daring; yet had neither perseverance nor true courage,
and was meanly selfish in all his aims. Quick to form schemes, and
sanguine in his hope of success, he was the first to undertake, and to
abandon, not only his own plans, but those adopted from other persons.
Proud and impetuous, he revolted against all subordination; yet those
who were acquainted with his character, and watched the turn of his
passions, could lead him like a child.

Such were the friends whom Montoni introduced to his family and his
table, on the day after his arrival at Venice. There were also of the
party a Venetian nobleman, Count Morano, and a Signora Livona, whom
Montoni had introduced to his wife, as a lady of distinguished merit,
and who, having called in the morning to welcome her to Venice, had
been requested to be of the dinner party.

Madame Montoni received with a very ill grace, the compliments of the
Signors. She disliked them, because they were the friends of her
husband; hated them, because she believed they had contributed to
detain him abroad till so late an hour of the preceding morning; and
envied them, since, conscious of her own want of influence, she was
convinced, that he preferred their society to her own. The rank of
Count Morano procured him that distinction which she refused to the
rest of the company. The haughty sullenness of her countenance and
manner, and the ostentatious extravagance of her dress, for she had not
yet adopted the Venetian habit, were strikingly contrasted by the
beauty, modesty, sweetness and simplicity of Emily, who observed, with
more attention than pleasure, the party around her. The beauty and
fascinating manners of Signora Livona, however, won her involuntary
regard; while the sweetness of her accents and her air of gentle
kindness awakened with Emily those pleasing affections, which so long
had slumbered.

In the cool of the evening the party embarked in Montoni’s gondola, and
rowed out upon the sea. The red glow of sunset still touched the waves,
and lingered in the west, where the melancholy gleam seemed slowly
expiring, while the dark blue of the upper æther began to twinkle with
stars. Emily sat, given up to pensive and sweet emotions. The
smoothness of the water, over which she glided, its reflected images—a
new heaven and trembling stars below the waves, with shadowy outlines
of towers and porticos, conspired with the stillness of the hour,
interrupted only by the passing wave, or the notes of distant music, to
raise those emotions to enthusiasm. As she listened to the measured
sound of the oars, and to the remote warblings that came in the breeze,
her softened mind returned to the memory of St. Aubert and to
Valancourt, and tears stole to her eyes. The rays of the moon,
strengthening as the shadows deepened, soon after threw a silvery gleam
upon her countenance, which was partly shaded by a thin black veil, and
touched it with inimitable softness. Hers was the _contour_ of a
Madona, with the sensibility of a Magdalen; and the pensive uplifted
eye, with the tear that glittered on her cheek, confirmed the
expression of the character.

The last strain of distant music now died in air, for the gondola was
far upon the waves, and the party determined to have music of their
own. The Count Morano, who sat next to Emily, and who had been
observing her for some time in silence, snatched up a lute, and struck
the chords with the finger of harmony herself, while his voice, a fine
tenor, accompanied them in a rondeau full of tender sadness. To him,
indeed, might have been applied that beautiful exhortation of an
English poet, had it then existed:

Strike up, my master,
But touch the strings with a religious softness!
Teach sounds to languish through the night’s dull ear
Till Melancholy starts from off her couch,
And Carelessness grows concert to attention!


With such powers of expression the Count sung the following

RONDEAU

Soft as yon silver ray, that sleeps
Upon the ocean’s trembling tide;
Soft as the air, that lightly sweeps
Yon sad, that swells in stately pride:

Soft as the surge’s stealing note,
That dies along the distant shores,
Or warbled strain, that sinks remote—
So soft the sigh my bosom pours!

True as the wave to Cynthia’s ray,
True as the vessel to the breeze,
True as the soul to music’s sway,
Or music to Venetian seas:

Soft as yon silver beams, that sleep
Upon the ocean’s trembling breast;
So soft, so true, fond Love shall weep,
So soft, so true, with _thee_ shall rest.


The cadence with which he returned from the last stanza to a repetition
of the first; the fine modulation in which his voice stole upon the
first line, and the pathetic energy with which it pronounced the last,
were such as only exquisite taste could give. When he had concluded, he
gave the lute with a sigh to Emily, who, to avoid any appearance of
affectation, immediately began to play. She sung a melancholy little
air, one of the popular songs of her native province, with a simplicity
and pathos that made it enchanting. But its well-known melody brought
so forcibly to her fancy the scenes and the persons, among which she
had often heard it, that her spirits were overcome, her voice trembled
and ceased—and the strings of the lute were struck with a disordered
hand; till, ashamed of the emotion she had betrayed, she suddenly
passed on to a song so gay and airy, that the steps of the dance seemed
almost to echo to the notes. _Bravissimo!_ burst instantly from the
lips of her delighted auditors, and she was compelled to repeat the
air. Among the compliments that followed, those of the Count were not
the least audible, and they had not concluded, when Emily gave the
instrument to Signora Livona, whose voice accompanied it with true
Italian taste.

Afterwards, the Count, Emily, Cavigni, and the Signora, sung
_canzonettes_, accompanied by a couple of lutes and a few other
instruments. Sometimes the instruments suddenly ceased, and the voices
dropped from the full swell of harmony into a low chant; then, after a
deep pause, they rose by degrees, the instruments one by one striking
up, till the loud and full chorus soared again to heaven!

Meanwhile, Montoni, who was weary of this harmony, was considering how
he might disengage himself from his party, or withdraw with such of it
as would be willing to play, to a Casino. In a pause of the music, he
proposed returning to shore, a proposal which Orsino eagerly seconded,
but which the Count and the other gentlemen as warmly opposed.

Montoni still meditated how he might excuse himself from longer
attendance upon the Count, for to him only he thought excuse necessary,
and how he might get to land, till the gondolieri of an empty boat,
returning to Venice, hailed his people. Without troubling himself
longer about an excuse, he seized this opportunity of going thither,
and, committing the ladies to the care of his friends, departed with
Orsino, while Emily, for the first time, saw him go with regret; for
she considered his presence a protection, though she knew not what she
should fear. He landed at St. Mark’s, and, hurrying to a Casino, was
soon lost amidst a crowd of gamesters.

Meanwhile, the Count having secretly dispatched a servant in Montoni’s
boat, for his own gondola and musicians, Emily heard, without knowing
his project, the gay song of gondolieri approaching, as they sat on the
stern of the boat, and saw the tremulous gleam of the moonlight wave,
which their oars disturbed. Presently she heard the sound of
instruments, and then a full symphony swelled on the air, and, the
boats meeting, the gondolieri hailed each other. The Count then
explaining himself, the party removed into his gondola, which was
embellished with all that taste could bestow.

While they partook of a collation of fruits and ice, the whole band,
following at a distance in the other boat, played the most sweet and
enchanting strains, and the Count, who had again seated himself by
Emily, paid her unremitted attention, and sometimes, in a low but
impassioned voice, uttered compliments which she could not
misunderstand. To avoid them she conversed with Signora Livona, and her
manner to the Count assumed a mild reserve, which, though dignified,
was too gentle to repress his assiduities: he could see, hear, speak to
no person, but Emily while Cavigni observed him now and then, with a
look of displeasure, and Emily, with one of uneasiness. She now wished
for nothing so much as to return to Venice, but it was near midnight
before the gondolas approached St. Mark’s Place, where the voice of
gaiety and song was loud. The busy hum of mingling sounds was heard at
a considerable distance on the water, and, had not a bright moonlight
discovered the city, with its terraces and towers, a stranger would
almost have credited the fabled wonders of Neptune’s court, and
believed, that the tumult arose from beneath the waves.

They landed at St. Mark’s, where the gaiety of the colonnades and the
beauty of the night, made Madame Montoni willingly submit to the
Count’s solicitations to join the promenade, and afterwards to take a
supper with the rest of the party, at his Casino. If anything could
have dissipated Emily’s uneasiness, it would have been the grandeur,
gaiety, and novelty of the surrounding scene, adorned with Palladio’s
palaces, and busy with parties of masqueraders.

At length they withdrew to the Casino, which was fitted up with
infinite taste, and where a splendid banquet was prepared; but here
Emily’s reserve made the Count perceive, that it was necessary for his
interest to win the favour of Madame Montoni, which, from the
condescension she had already shown to him, appeared to be an
achievement of no great difficulty. He transferred, therefore, part of
his attention from Emily to her aunt, who felt too much flattered by
the distinction even to disguise her emotion; and before the party
broke up, he had entirely engaged the esteem of Madame Montoni.
Whenever he addressed her, her ungracious countenance relaxed into
smiles, and to whatever he proposed she assented. He invited her, with
the rest of the party, to take coffee, in his box at the opera, on the
following evening, and Emily heard the invitation accepted, with strong
anxiety, concerning the means of excusing herself from attending Madame
Montoni thither.

It was very late before their gondola was ordered, and Emily’s surprise
was extreme, when, on quitting the Casino, she beheld the broad sun
rising out of the Adriatic, while St. Mark’s Place was yet crowded with
company. Sleep had long weighed heavily on her eyes, but now the fresh
sea-breeze revived her, and she would have quitted the scene with
regret, had not the Count been present, performing the duty, which he
had imposed upon himself, of escorting them home. There they heard that
Montoni was not yet returned; and his wife, retiring in displeasure to
her apartment, at length released Emily from the fatigue of further
attendance.

Montoni came home late in the morning, in a very ill humour, having
lost considerably at play, and, before he withdrew to rest, had a
private conference with Cavigni, whose manner, on the following day,
seemed to tell, that the subject of it had not been pleasing to him.

In the evening, Madame Montoni, who, during the day, had observed a
sullen silence towards her husband, received visits from some Venetian
ladies, with whose sweet manners Emily was particularly charmed. They
had an air of ease and kindness towards the strangers, as if they had
been their familiar friends for years; and their conversation was by
turns tender, sentimental and gay. Madame, though she had no taste for
such conversation, and whose coarseness and selfishness sometimes
exhibited a ludicrous contrast to their excessive refinement, could not
remain wholly insensible to the captivations of their manner.

In a pause of conversation, a lady who was called Signora Herminia took
up a lute, and began to play and sing, with as much easy gaiety, as if
she had been alone. Her voice was uncommonly rich in tone, and various
in expression; yet she appeared to be entirely unconscious of its
powers, and meant nothing less than to display them. She sung from the
gaiety of her heart, as she sat with her veil half thrown back, holding
gracefully the lute, under the spreading foliage and flowers of some
plants, that rose from baskets, and interlaced one of the lattices of
the saloon. Emily, retiring a little from the company, sketched her
figure, with the miniature scenery around her, and drew a very
interesting picture, which, though it would not, perhaps, have borne
criticism, had spirit and taste enough to awaken both the fancy and the
heart. When she had finished it, she presented it to the beautiful
original, who was delighted with the offering, as well as the sentiment
it conveyed, and assured Emily, with a smile of captivating sweetness,
that she should preserve it as a pledge of her friendship.

In the evening Cavigni joined the ladies, but Montoni had other
engagements; and they embarked in the gondola for St. Mark’s, where the
same gay company seemed to flutter as on the preceding night. The cool
breeze, the glassy sea, the gentle sound of its waves, and the sweeter
murmur of distant music; the lofty porticos and arcades, and the happy
groups that sauntered beneath them; these, with every feature and
circumstance of the scene, united to charm Emily, no longer teased by
the officious attentions of Count Morano. But, as she looked upon the
moonlight sea, undulating along the walls of St. Mark, and, lingering
for a moment over those walls, caught the sweet and melancholy song of
some gondolier as he sat in his boat below, waiting for his master, her
softened mind returned to the memory of her home, of her friends, and
of all that was dear in her native country.

After walking some time, they sat down at the door of a Casino, and,
while Cavigni was accommodating them with coffee and ice, were joined
by Count Morano. He sought Emily with a look of impatient delight, who,
remembering all the attention he had shown her on the preceding
evening, was compelled, as before, to shrink from his assiduities into
a timid reserve, except when she conversed with Signora Herminia and
the other ladies of her party.

It was near midnight before they withdrew to the opera, where Emily was
not so charmed but that, when she remembered the scene she had just
quitted, she felt how infinitely inferior all the splendour of art is
to the sublimity of nature. Her heart was not now affected, tears of
admiration did not start to her eyes, as when she viewed the vast
expanse of ocean, the grandeur of the heavens, and listened to the
rolling waters, and to the faint music that, at intervals, mingled with
their roar. Remembering these, the scene before her faded into
insignificance.

Of the evening, which passed on without any particular incident, she
wished the conclusion, that she might escape from the attentions of the
Count; and, as opposite qualities frequently attract each other in our
thoughts, thus Emily, when she looked on Count Morano, remembered
Valancourt, and a sigh sometimes followed the recollection.

Several weeks passed in the course of customary visits, during which
nothing remarkable occurred. Emily was amused by the manners and scenes
that surrounded her, so different from those of France, but where Count
Morano, too frequently for her comfort, contrived to introduce himself.
His manner, figure and accomplishments, which were generally admired,
Emily would, perhaps, have admired also, had her heart been disengaged
from Valancourt, and had the Count forborne to persecute her with
officious attentions, during which she observed some traits in his
character, that prejudiced her against whatever might otherwise be good
in it.

Soon after his arrival at Venice, Montoni received a packet from M.
Quesnel, in which the latter mentioned the death of his wife’s uncle,
at his villa on the Brenta; and that, in consequence of this event, he
should hasten to take possession of that estate and of other effects
bequeathed to him. This uncle was the brother of Madame Quesnel’s late
mother; Montoni was related to her by the father’s side, and though he
could have had neither claim nor expectation concerning these
possessions, he could scarcely conceal the envy which M. Quesnel’s
letter excited.

Emily had observed with concern, that, since they left France, Montoni
had not even affected kindness towards her aunt, and that, after
treating her, at first, with neglect, he now met her with uniform
ill-humour and reserve. She had never supposed, that her aunt’s foibles
could have escaped the discernment of Montoni, or that her mind or
figure were of a kind to deserve his attention. Her surprise,
therefore, at this match, had been extreme; but since he had made the
choice, she did not suspect that he would so openly have discovered his
contempt of it. But Montoni, who had been allured by the seeming wealth
of Madame Cheron, was now severely disappointed by her comparative
poverty, and highly exasperated by the deceit she had employed to
conceal it, till concealment was no longer necessary. He had been
deceived in an affair, wherein he meant to be the deceiver; out-witted
by the superior cunning of a woman, whose understanding he despised,
and to whom he had sacrificed his pride and his liberty, without saving
himself from the ruin, which had impended over his head. Madame Montoni
had contrived to have the greatest part of what she really did possess,
settled upon herself: what remained, though it was totally inadequate
both to her husband’s expectations, and to his necessities, he had
converted into money, and brought with him to Venice, that he might a
little longer delude society, and make a last effort to regain the
fortunes he had lost.

The hints which had been thrown out to Valancourt, concerning Montoni’s
character and condition, were too true; but it was now left to time and
occasion, to unfold the circumstances, both of what had, and of what
had not been hinted, and to time and occasion we commit them.

Madame Montoni was not of a nature to bear injuries with meekness, or
to resent them with dignity: her exasperated pride displayed itself in
all the violence and acrimony of a little, or at least of an
ill-regulated mind. She would not acknowledge, even to herself, that
she had in any degree provoked contempt by her duplicity, but weakly
persisted in believing, that she alone was to be pitied, and Montoni
alone to be censured; for, as her mind had naturally little perception
of moral obligation, she seldom understood its force but when it
happened to be violated towards herself: her vanity had already been
severely shocked by a discovery of Montoni’s contempt; it remained to
be farther reproved by a discovery of his circumstances. His mansion at
Venice, though its furniture discovered a part of the truth to
unprejudiced persons, told nothing to those who were blinded by a
resolution to believe whatever they wished. Madame Montoni still
thought herself little less than a princess, possessing a palace at
Venice, and a castle among the Apennines. To the castle di Udolpho,
indeed, Montoni sometimes talked of going for a few weeks to examine
into its condition, and to receive some rents; for it appeared that he
had not been there for two years, and that, during this period, it had
been inhabited only by an old servant, whom he called his steward.

Emily listened to the mention of this journey with pleasure, for she
not only expected from it new ideas, but a release from the persevering
assiduities of Count Morano. In the country, too, she would have
leisure to think of Valancourt, and to indulge the melancholy, which
his image, and a recollection of the scenes of La Vallée, always
blessed with the memory of her parents, awakened. The ideal scenes were
dearer, and more soothing to her heart, than all the splendour of gay
assemblies; they were a kind of talisman that expelled the poison of
temporary evils, and supported her hopes of happy days: they appeared
like a beautiful landscape, lighted up by a gleam of sunshine, and seen
through a perspective of dark and rugged rocks.

But Count Morano did not long confine himself to silent assiduities; he
declared his passion to Emily, and made proposals to Montoni, who
encouraged, though Emily rejected, him: with Montoni for his friend,
and an abundance of vanity to delude him, he did not despair of
success. Emily was astonished and highly disgusted at his perseverance,
after she had explained her sentiments with a frankness that would not
allow him to misunderstand them.

He now passed the greater part of his time at Montoni’s, dining there
almost daily, and attending Madame and Emily wherever they went; and
all this, notwithstanding the uniform reserve of Emily, whose aunt
seemed as anxious as Montoni to promote this marriage; and would never
dispense with her attendance at any assembly where the Count proposed
to be present.

Montoni now said nothing of his intended journey, of which Emily waited
impatiently to hear; and he was seldom at home but when the Count, or
Signor Orsino, was there, for between himself and Cavigni a coolness
seemed to subsist, though the latter remained in his house. With
Orsino, Montoni was frequently closeted for hours together, and,
whatever might be the business, upon which they consulted, it appeared
to be of consequence, since Montoni often sacrificed to it his
favourite passion for play, and remained at home the whole night. There
was somewhat of privacy, too, in the manner of Orsino’s visits, which
had never before occurred, and which excited not only surprise, but
some degree of alarm in Emily’s mind, who had unwillingly discovered
much of his character when he had most endeavoured to disguise it.
After these visits, Montoni was often more thoughtful than usual;
sometimes the deep workings of his mind entirely abstracted him from
surrounding objects, and threw a gloom over his visage that rendered it
terrible; at others, his eyes seemed almost to flash fire, and all the
energies of his soul appeared to be roused for some great enterprise.
Emily observed these written characters of his thoughts with deep
interest, and not without some degree of awe, when she considered that
she was entirely in his power; but forbore even to hint her fears, or
her observations, to Madame Montoni, who discerned nothing in her
husband, at these times, but his usual sternness.

A second letter from M. Quesnel announced the arrival of himself and
his lady at the Villa Miarenti; stated several circumstances of his
good fortune, respecting the affair that had brought him into Italy;
and concluded with an earnest request to see Montoni, his wife and
niece, at his new estate.

Emily received, about the same period, a much more interesting letter,
and which soothed for a while every anxiety of her heart. Valancourt,
hoping she might be still at Venice, had trusted a letter to the
ordinary post, that told her of his health, and of his unceasing and
anxious affection. He had lingered at Thoulouse for some time after her
departure, that he might indulge the melancholy pleasure of wandering
through the scenes where he had been accustomed to behold her, and had
thence gone to his brother’s château, which was in the neighbourhood of
La Vallée. Having mentioned this, he added, “If the duty of attending
my regiment did not require my departure, I know not when I should have
resolution enough to quit the neighbourhood of a place which is
endeared by the remembrance of you. The vicinity to La Vallée has alone
detained me thus long at Estuvière: I frequently ride thither early in
the morning, that I may wander, at leisure, through the day, among
scenes, which were once your home, where I have been accustomed to see
you, and to hear you converse. I have renewed my acquaintance with the
good old Theresa, who rejoiced to see me, that she might talk of you: I
need not say how much this circumstance attached me to her, or how
eagerly I listened to her upon her favourite subject. You will guess
the motive that first induced me to make myself known to Theresa: it
was, indeed, no other than that of gaining admittance into the château
and gardens, which my Emily had so lately inhabited: here, then, I
wander, and meet your image under every shade: but chiefly I love to
sit beneath the spreading branches of your favourite plane, where once,
Emily, we sat together; where I first ventured to tell you, that I
loved. O Emily! the remembrance of those moments overcomes me—I sit
lost in reverie—I endeavour to see you dimly through my tears, in all
the heaven of peace and innocence, such as you then appeared to me; to
hear again the accents of that voice, which then thrilled my heart with
tenderness and hope. I lean on the wall of the terrace, where we
together watched the rapid current of the Garonne below, while I
described the wild scenery about its source, but thought only of you. O
Emily! are these moments passed for ever—will they never more return?”

In another part of his letter he wrote thus. “You see my letter is
dated on many different days, and, if you look back to the first, you
will perceive, that I began to write soon after your departure from
France. To write was, indeed, the only employment that withdrew me from
my own melancholy, and rendered your absence supportable, or rather, it
seemed to destroy absence; for, when I was conversing with you on
paper, and telling you every sentiment and affection of my heart, you
almost appeared to be present. This employment has been from time to
time my chief consolation, and I have deferred sending off my packet,
merely for the comfort of prolonging it, though it was certain, that
what I had written, was written to no purpose till you received it.
Whenever my mind has been more than usually depressed I have come to
pour forth its sorrows to you, and have always found consolation; and,
when any little occurrence has interested my heart, and given a gleam
of joy to my spirits, I have hastened to communicate it to you, and
have received reflected satisfaction. Thus, my letter is a kind of
picture of my life and of my thoughts for the last month, and thus,
though it has been deeply interesting to me, while I wrote it, and I
dare hope will, for the same reason, be not indifferent to you, yet to
other readers it would seem to abound only in frivolities. Thus it is
always, when we attempt to describe the finer movements of the heart,
for they are too fine to be discerned, they can only be experienced,
and are therefore passed over by the indifferent observer, while the
interested one feels, that all description is imperfect and
unnecessary, except as it may prove the sincerity of the writer, and
sooth his own sufferings. You will pardon all this egotism—for I am a
lover.”

“I have just heard of a circumstance, which entirely destroys all my
fairy paradise of ideal delight, and which will reconcile me to the
necessity of returning to my regiment, for I must no longer wander
beneath the beloved shades, where I have been accustomed to meet you in
thought.—La Vallée is let! I have reason to believe this is without
your knowledge, from what Theresa told me this morning, and, therefore,
I mention the circumstance. She shed tears, while she related, that she
was going to leave the service of her dear mistress, and the château
where she had lived so many happy years; and all this, added she,
without even a letter from Mademoiselle to soften the news; but it is
all Mons. Quesnel’s doings, and I dare say she does not even know what
is going forward.”

“Theresa added, That she had received a letter from him, informing her
the château was let, and that, as her services would no longer be
required, she must quit the place, on that day week, when the new
tenant would arrive.”

“Theresa had been surprised by a visit from M. Quesnel, some time
before the receipt of this letter, who was accompanied by a stranger
that viewed the premises with much curiosity.”

Towards the conclusion of his letter, which is dated a week after this
sentence, Valancourt adds, “I have received a summons from my regiment,
and I join it without regret, since I am shut out from the scenes that
are so interesting to my heart. I rode to La Vallée this morning, and
heard that the new tenant was arrived, and that Theresa was gone. I
should not treat the subject thus familiarly if I did not believe you
to be uninformed of this disposal of your house; for your satisfaction
I have endeavoured to learn something of the character and fortune of
your tenant, but without success. He is a gentleman, they say, and this
is all I can hear. The place, as I wandered round the boundaries,
appeared more melancholy to my imagination, than I had ever seen it. I
wished earnestly to have got admittance, that I might have taken
another leave of your favourite plane-tree, and thought of you once
more beneath its shade: but I forbore to tempt the curiosity of
strangers: the fishing-house in the woods, however, was still open to
me; thither I went, and passed an hour, which I cannot even look back
upon without emotion. O Emily! surely we are not separated for
ever—surely we shall live for each other!”

This letter brought many tears to Emily’s eyes; tears of tenderness and
satisfaction on learning that Valancourt was well, and that time and
absence had in no degree effaced her image from his heart. There were
passages in this letter which particularly affected her, such as those
describing his visits to La Vallée, and the sentiments of delicate
affection that its scenes had awakened. It was a considerable time
before her mind was sufficiently abstracted from Valancourt to feel the
force of his intelligence concerning La Vallée. That Mons. Quesnel
should let it, without even consulting her on the measure, both
surprised and shocked her, particularly as it proved the absolute
authority he thought himself entitled to exercise in her affairs. It is
true, he had proposed, before she left France, that the château should
be let, during her absence, and to the economical prudence of this she
had nothing to object; but the committing what had been her father’s
villa to the power and caprice of strangers, and the depriving herself
of a sure home, should any unhappy circumstances make her look back to
her home as an asylum, were considerations that made her, even then,
strongly oppose the measure. Her father, too, in his last hour, had
received from her a solemn promise never to dispose of La Vallée; and
this she considered as in some degree violated if she suffered the
place to be let. But it was now evident with how little respect M.
Quesnel had regarded these objections, and how insignificant he
considered every obstacle to pecuniary advantage. It appeared, also,
that he had not even condescended to inform Montoni of the step he had
taken, since no motive was evident for Montoni’s concealing the
circumstance from her, if it had been made known to him: this both
displeased and surprised her; but the chief subjects of her uneasiness
were—the temporary disposal of La Vallée, and the dismission of her
father’s old and faithful servant.—“Poor Theresa,” said Emily, “thou
hadst not saved much in thy servitude, for thou wast always tender
towards the poor, and believd’st thou shouldst die in the family, where
thy best years had been spent. Poor Theresa!—now thou art turned out in
thy old age to seek thy bread!”

Emily wept bitterly as these thoughts passed over her mind, and she
determined to consider what could be done for Theresa, and to talk very
explicitly to M. Quesnel on the subject; but she much feared that his
cold heart could feel only for itself. She determined also to enquire
whether he had made any mention of her affairs, in his letter to
Montoni, who soon gave her the opportunity she sought, by desiring that
she would attend him in his study. She had little doubt, that the
interview was intended for the purpose of communicating to her a part
of M. Quesnel’s letter concerning the transactions at La Vallée, and
she obeyed him immediately. Montoni was alone.

“I have just been writing to Mons. Quesnel,” said he when Emily
appeared, “in reply to the letter I received from him a few days ago,
and I wished to talk to you upon a subject that occupied part of it.”

“I also wished to speak with you on this topic, sir,” said Emily.

“It is a subject of some interest to you, undoubtedly,” rejoined
Montoni, “and I think you must see it in the light that I do; indeed it
will not bear any other. I trust you will agree with me, that any
objection founded on sentiment, as they call it, ought to yield to
circumstances of solid advantage.”

“Granting this, sir,” replied Emily, modestly, “those of humanity ought
surely to be attended to. But I fear it is now too late to deliberate
upon this plan, and I must regret, that it is no longer in my power to
reject it.”

“It is too late,” said Montoni; “but since it is so, I am pleased to
observe, that you submit to reason and necessity without indulging
useless complaint. I applaud this conduct exceedingly, the more,
perhaps, since it discovers a strength of mind seldom observable in
your sex. When you are older you will look back with gratitude to the
friends who assisted in rescuing you from the romantic illusions of
sentiment, and will perceive, that they are only the snares of
childhood, and should be vanquished the moment you escape from the
nursery. I have not closed my letter, and you may add a few lines to
inform your uncle of your acquiescence. You will soon see him, for it
is my intention to take you, with Madame Montoni, in a few days to
Miarenti, and you can then talk over the affair.”

Emily wrote on the opposite page of the paper as follows:

“It is now useless, sir, for me to remonstrate upon the circumstances
of which Signor Montoni informs me that he has written. I could have
wished, at least, that the affair had been concluded with less
precipitation, that I might have taught myself to subdue some
prejudices, as the Signor calls them, which still linger in my heart.
As it is, I submit. In point of prudence nothing certainly can be
objected; but, though I submit, I have yet much to say on some other
points of the subject, when I shall have the honour of seeing you. In
the meantime I entreat you will take care of Theresa, for the sake of,
            “Sir,
            “Your affectionate niece,
            “EMILY ST. AUBERT.”


Montoni smiled satirically at what Emily had written, but did not
object to it, and she withdrew to her own apartment, where she sat down
to begin a letter to Valancourt, in which she related the particulars
of her journey, and her arrival at Venice, described some of the most
striking scenes in the passage over the Alps; her emotions on her first
view of Italy; the manners and characters of the people around her, and
some few circumstances of Montoni’s conduct. But she avoided even
naming Count Morano, much more the declaration he had made, since she
well knew how tremblingly alive to fear is real love, how jealously
watchful of every circumstance that may affect its interest; and she
scrupulously avoided to give Valancourt even the slightest reason for
believing he had a rival.

On the following day Count Morano dined again at Montoni’s. He was in
an uncommon flow of spirits, and Emily thought there was somewhat of
exultation in his manner of addressing her, which she had never
observed before. She endeavoured to repress this by more than her usual
reserve, but the cold civility of her air now seemed rather to
encourage than to depress him. He appeared watchful of an opportunity
of speaking with her alone, and more than once solicited this; but
Emily always replied, that she could hear nothing from him which he
would be unwilling to repeat before the whole company.

In the evening, Madame Montoni and her party went out upon the sea, and
as the Count led Emily to his _zendaletto_, he carried her hand to his
lips, and thanked her for the condescension she had shown him. Emily,
in extreme surprise and displeasure, hastily withdrew her hand, and
concluded that he had spoken ironically; but, on reaching the steps of
the terrace, and observing by the livery, that it was the Count’s
_zendaletto_ which waited below, while the rest of the party, having
arranged themselves in the gondolas, were moving on, she determined not
to permit a separate conversation, and, wishing him a good evening,
returned to the portico. The Count followed to expostulate and entreat,
and Montoni, who then came out, rendered solicitation unnecessary, for,
without condescending to speak, he took her hand, and led her to the
_zendaletto_. Emily was not silent; she entreated Montoni, in a low
voice, to consider the impropriety of these circumstances, and that he
would spare her the mortification of submitting to them; he, however,
was inflexible.

“This caprice is intolerable,” said he, “and shall not be indulged:
there is no impropriety in the case.”

At this moment, Emily’s dislike of Count Morano rose to abhorrence.
That he should, with undaunted assurance, thus pursue her,
notwithstanding all she had expressed on the subject of his addresses,
and think, as it was evident he did, that her opinion of him was of no
consequence, so long as his pretensions were sanctioned by Montoni,
added indignation to the disgust which she had felt towards him. She
was somewhat relieved by observing that Montoni was to be of the party,
who seated himself on one side of her, while Morano placed himself on
the other. There was a pause for some moments as the gondolieri
prepared their oars, and Emily trembled from apprehension of the
discourse that might follow this silence. At length she collected
courage to break it herself, in the hope of preventing fine speeches
from Morano, and reproof from Montoni. To some trivial remark which she
made, the latter returned a short and disobliging reply; but Morano
immediately followed with a general observation, which he contrived to
end with a particular compliment, and, though Emily passed it without
even the notice of a smile, he was not discouraged.

“I have been impatient,” said he, addressing Emily, “to express my
gratitude; to thank you for your goodness; but I must also thank Signor
Montoni, who has allowed me this opportunity of doing so.”

Emily regarded the Count with a look of mingled astonishment and
displeasure.

“Why,” continued he, “should you wish to diminish the delight of this
moment by that air of cruel reserve?—Why seek to throw me again into
the perplexities of doubt, by teaching your eyes to contradict the
kindness of your late declaration? You cannot doubt the sincerity, the
ardour of my passion; it is therefore unnecessary, charming Emily!
surely unnecessary, any longer to attempt a disguise of your
sentiments.”

“If I ever had disguised them, sir,” said Emily, with recollected
spirit, “it would certainly be unnecessary any longer to do so. I had
hoped, sir, that you would have spared me any farther necessity of
alluding to them; but, since you do not grant this, hear me declare,
and for the last time, that your perseverance has deprived you even of
the esteem, which I was inclined to believe you merited.”

“Astonishing!” exclaimed Montoni: “this is beyond even my expectation,
though I have hitherto done justice to the caprice of the sex! But you
will observe, Mademoiselle Emily, that I am no lover, though Count
Morano is, and that I will not be made the amusement of your capricious
moments. Here is the offer of an alliance, which would do honour to any
family; yours, you will recollect, is not noble; you long resisted my
remonstrances, but my honour is now engaged, and it shall not be
trifled with.—You shall adhere to the declaration, which you have made
me an agent to convey to the Count.”

“I must certainly mistake you, sir,” said Emily; “my answers on the
subject have been uniform; it is unworthy of you to accuse me of
caprice. If you have condescended to be my agent, it is an honour I did
not solicit. I myself have constantly assured Count Morano, and you
also, sir, that I never can accept the honour he offers me, and I now
repeat the declaration.”

The Count looked with an air of surprise and enquiry at Montoni, whose
countenance also was marked with surprise, but it was surprise mingled
with indignation.

“Here is confidence, as well as caprice!” said the latter. “Will you
deny your own words, Madam?”

“Such a question is unworthy of an answer, sir;” said Emily blushing;
“you will recollect yourself, and be sorry that you have asked it.”

“Speak to the point,” rejoined Montoni, in a voice of increasing
vehemence. “Will you deny your own words; will you deny, that you
acknowledged, only a few hours ago, that it was too late to recede from
your engagements, and that you accepted the Count’s hand?”

“I will deny all this, for no words of mine ever imported it.”

“Astonishing! Will you deny what you wrote to Mons. Quesnel, your
uncle? If you do, your own hand will bear testimony against you. What
have you now to say?” continued Montoni, observing the silence and
confusion of Emily.

“I now perceive, sir, that you are under a very great error, and that I
have been equally mistaken.”

“No more duplicity, I entreat; be open and candid, if it be possible.”

“I have always been so, sir; and can claim no merit in such conduct,
for I have had nothing to conceal.”

“How is this, Signor?” cried Morano, with trembling emotion.

“Suspend your judgment, Count,” replied Montoni, “the wiles of a female
heart are unsearchable. Now, Madame, your _explanation_.”

“Excuse me, sir, if I withhold my explanation till you appear willing
to give me your confidence; assertion as present can only subject me to
insult.”

“Your explanation, I entreat you!” said Morano.

“Well, well,” rejoined Montoni, “I give you my confidence; let us hear
this explanation.”

“Let me lead to it then, by asking a question.”

“As many as you please,” said Montoni, contemptuously.

“What, then, was the subject of your letter to Mons. Quesnel?”

“The same that was the subject of your note to him, certainly. You did
well to stipulate for my confidence before you demanded that question.”

“I must beg you will be more explicit, sir; what was that subject?”

“What could it be, but the noble offer of Count Morano,” said Montoni.

“Then, sir, we entirely misunderstood each other,” replied Emily.

“We entirely misunderstood each other too, I suppose,” rejoined
Montoni, “in the conversation which preceded the writing of that note?
I must do you the justice to own, that you are very ingenious at this
same art of misunderstanding.”

Emily tried to restrain the tears that came to her eyes, and to answer
with becoming firmness. “Allow me, sir, to explain myself fully, or to
be wholly silent.”

“The explanation may now be dispensed with; it is anticipated. If Count
Morano still thinks one necessary, I will give him an honest one: you
have changed your intention since our last conversation; and, if he can
have patience and humility enough to wait till tomorrow, he will
probably find it changed again: but as I have neither the patience nor
the humility, which you expect from a lover, I warn you of the effect
of my displeasure!”

“Montoni, you are too precipitate,” said the Count, who had listened to
this conversation in extreme agitation and impatience;—“Signora, I
entreat your own explanation of this affair!”

“Signor Montoni has said justly,” replied Emily, “that all explanation
may now be dispensed with; after what has passed I cannot suffer myself
to give one. It is sufficient for me, and for you, sir, that I repeat
my late declaration; let me hope this is the last time it will be
necessary for me to repeat it—I never can accept the honour of your
alliance.”

“Charming Emily!” exclaimed the Count in an impassioned tone, “let not
resentment make you unjust; let me not suffer for the offence of
Montoni!—Revoke—”

“Offence!” interrupted Montoni—“Count, this language is ridiculous,
this submission is childish!—speak as becomes a man, not as the slave
of a pretty tyrant.”

“You distract me, Signor; suffer me to plead my own cause; you have
already proved insufficient to it.”

“All conversation on this subject, sir,” said Emily, “is worse than
useless, since it can bring only pain to each of us: if you would
oblige me, pursue it no farther.”

“It is impossible, Madam, that I can thus easily resign the object of a
passion, which is the delight and torment of my life.—I must still
love—still pursue you with unremitting ardour;—when you shall be
convinced of the strength and constancy of my passion, your heart must
soften into pity and repentance.”

“Is this generous, sir? is this manly? Can it either deserve or obtain
the esteem you solicit, thus to continue a persecution from which I
have no present means of escaping?”

A gleam of moonlight that fell upon Morano’s countenance, revealed the
strong emotions of his soul; and, glancing on Montoni discovered the
dark resentment, which contrasted his features.

“By Heaven this is too much!” suddenly exclaimed the Count; “Signor
Montoni, you treat me ill; it is from you that I shall look for
explanation.”

“From me, sir! you shall have it;” muttered Montoni, “if your
discernment is indeed so far obscured by passion, as to make
explanation necessary. And for you, madam, you should learn, that a man
of honour is not to be trifled with, though you may, perhaps, with
impunity, treat a _boy_ like a puppet.”

This sarcasm roused the pride of Morano, and the resentment which he
had felt at the indifference of Emily, being lost in indignation of the
insolence of Montoni, he determined to mortify him, by defending her.

“This also,” said he, replying to Montoni’s last words, “this also,
shall not pass unnoticed. I bid you learn, sir, that you have a
stronger enemy than a woman to contend with: I will protect Signora St.
Aubert from your threatened resentment. You have misled me, and would
revenge your disappointed views upon the innocent.”

“Misled you!” retorted Montoni with quickness, “is my conduct—my
word”—then pausing, while he seemed endeavouring to restrain the
resentment, that flashed in his eyes, in the next moment he added, in a
subdued voice, “Count Morano, this is a language, a sort of conduct to
which I am not accustomed: it is the conduct of a passionate boy—as
such, I pass it over in contempt.”

“In contempt, Signor?”

“The respect I owe myself,” rejoined Montoni, “requires, that I should
converse more largely with you upon some points of the subject in
dispute. Return with me to Venice, and I will condescend to convince
you of your error.”

“Condescend, sir! but I will not condescend to be so conversed with.”

Montoni smiled contemptuously; and Emily, now terrified for the
consequences of what she saw and heard, could no longer be silent. She
explained the whole subject upon which she had mistaken Montoni in the
morning, declaring, that she understood him to have consulted her
solely concerning the disposal of La Vallée, and concluding with
entreating, that he would write immediately to M. Quesnel, and rectify
the mistake.

But Montoni either was, or affected to be, still incredulous; and Count
Morano was still entangled in perplexity. While she was speaking,
however, the attention of her auditors had been diverted from the
immediate occasion of their resentment, and their passion consequently
became less. Montoni desired the Count would order his servants to row
back to Venice, that he might have some private conversation with him;
and Morano, somewhat soothed by his softened voice and manner, and
eager to examine into the full extent of his difficulties, complied.

Emily, comforted by this prospect of release, employed the present
moments in endeavouring, with conciliating care, to prevent any fatal
mischief between the persons who so lately had persecuted and insulted
her.

Her spirits revived, when she heard once more the voice of song and
laughter, resounding from the grand canal, and at length entered again
between its stately piazzas. The _zendaletto_ stopped at Montoni’s
mansion, and the Count hastily led her into the hall, where Montoni
took his arm, and said something in a low voice, on which Morano kissed
the hand he held, notwithstanding Emily’s effort to disengage it, and,
wishing her a good evening, with an accent and look she could not
misunderstand, returned to his _zendaletto_ with Montoni.

Emily, in her own apartment, considered with intense anxiety all the
unjust and tyrannical conduct of Montoni, the dauntless perseverance of
Morano, and her own desolate situation, removed from her friends and
country. She looked in vain to Valancourt, confined by his profession
to a distant kingdom, as her protector; but it gave her comfort to
know, that there was, at least, one person in the world, who would
sympathise in her afflictions, and whose wishes would fly eagerly to
release her. Yet she determined not to give him unavailing pain by
relating the reasons she had to regret the having rejected his better
judgment concerning Montoni; reasons, however, which could not induce
her to lament the delicacy and disinterested affection that had made
her reject his proposal for a clandestine marriage. The approaching
interview with her uncle she regarded with some degree of hope, for she
determined to represent to him the distresses of her situation, and to
entreat that he would allow her to return to France with him and Madame
Quesnel. Then, suddenly remembering that her beloved La Vallée, her
only home, was no longer at her command, her tears flowed anew, and she
feared that she had little pity to expect from a man who, like M.
Quesnel, could dispose of it without deigning to consult with her, and
could dismiss an aged and faithful servant, destitute of either support
or asylum. But, though it was certain, that she had herself no longer a
home in France, and few, very few friends there, she determined to
return, if possible, that she might be released from the power of
Montoni, whose particularly oppressive conduct towards herself, and
general character as to others, were justly terrible to her
imagination. She had no wish to reside with her uncle, M. Quesnel,
since his behaviour to her late father and to herself, had been
uniformly such as to convince her, that in flying to him she could only
obtain an exchange of oppressors; neither had she the slightest
intention of consenting to the proposal of Valancourt for an immediate
marriage, though this would give her a lawful and a generous protector,
for the chief reasons, which had formerly influenced her conduct, still
existed against it, while others, which seemed to justify the step,
would not be done away; and his interest, his fame were at all times
too dear to her, to suffer her to consent to a union, which, at this
early period of their lives, would probably defeat both. One sure, and
proper asylum, however, would still be open to her in France. She knew
that she could board in the convent, where she had formerly experienced
so much kindness, and which had an affecting and solemn claim upon her
heart, since it contained the remains of her late father. Here she
could remain in safety and tranquillity, till the term, for which La
Vallée might be let, should expire; or, till the arrangement of M.
Motteville’s affairs enabled her so far to estimate the remains of her
fortune, as to judge whether it would be prudent for her to reside
there.

Concerning Montoni’s conduct with respect to his letters to M. Quesnel,
she had many doubts; however he might be at first mistaken on the
subject, she much suspected that he wilfully persevered in his error,
as a means of intimidating her into a compliance with his wishes of
uniting her to Count Morano. Whether this was or was not the fact, she
was extremely anxious to explain the affair to M. Quesnel, and looked
forward with a mixture of impatience, hope and fear, to her approaching
visit.

On the following day, Madame Montoni, being alone with Emily,
introduced the mention of Count Morano, by expressing her surprise,
that she had not joined the party on the water the preceding evening,
and at her abrupt departure to Venice. Emily then related what had
passed, expressed her concern for the mutual mistake that had occurred
between Montoni and herself, and solicited her aunt’s kind offices in
urging him to give a decisive denial to the count’s further addresses;
but she soon perceived, that Madame Montoni had not been ignorant of
the late conversation, when she introduced the present.

“You have no encouragement to expect from me,” said her aunt, “in these
notions. I have already given my opinion on the subject, and think
Signor Montoni right in enforcing, by any means, your consent. If young
persons will be blind to their interest, and obstinately oppose it,
why, the greatest blessings they can have are friends, who will oppose
their folly. Pray what pretensions of any kind do you think you have to
such a match as is now offered you?”

“Not any whatever, Madam,” replied Emily, “and, therefore, at least,
suffer me to be happy in my humility.”

“Nay, niece, it cannot be denied, that you have pride enough; my poor
brother, your father, had his share of pride too; though, let me add,
his fortune did not justify it.”

Emily, somewhat embarrassed by the indignation, which this malevolent
allusion to her father excited, and by the difficulty of rendering her
answer as temperate as it should be reprehensive, hesitated for some
moments, in a confusion, which highly gratified her aunt. At length she
said, “My father’s pride, Madam, had a noble object—the happiness which
he knew could be derived only from goodness, knowledge and charity. As
it never consisted in his superiority, in point of fortune, to some
persons, it was not humbled by his inferiority, in that respect, to
others. He never disdained those, who were wretched by poverty and
misfortune; he did sometimes despise persons, who, with many
opportunities of happiness, rendered themselves miserable by vanity,
ignorance and cruelty. I shall think it my highest glory to emulate
such pride.”

“I do not pretend to understand anything of these high-flown
sentiments, niece; you have all that glory to yourself: I would teach
you a little plain sense, and not have you so wise as to despise
happiness.”

“That would indeed not be wisdom, but folly,” said Emily, “for wisdom
can boast no higher attainment than happiness; but you will allow,
Madam, that our ideas of happiness may differ. I cannot doubt, that you
wish me to be happy, but I must fear you are mistaken in the means of
making me so.”

“I cannot boast of a learned education, niece, such as your father
thought proper to give you, and, therefore, do not pretend to
understand all these fine speeches about happiness. I must be contented
to understand only common sense, and happy would it have been for you
and your father, if that had been included in his education.”

Emily was too much shocked by these reflections on her father’s memory,
to despise this speech as it deserved.

Madame Montoni was about to speak, but Emily quitted the room, and
retired to her own, where the little spirit she had lately exerted
yielded to grief and vexation, and left her only to her tears. From
every review of her situation she could derive, indeed, only new
sorrow. To the discovery, which had just been forced upon her, of
Montoni’s unworthiness, she had now to add, that of the cruel vanity,
for the gratification of which her aunt was about to sacrifice her; of
the effrontery and cunning, with which, at the time that she meditated
the sacrifice, she boasted of her tenderness, or insulted her victim;
and of the venomous envy, which, as it did not scruple to attack her
father’s character, could scarcely be expected to withhold from her
own.

During the few days that intervened between this conversation and the
departure for Miarenti, Montoni did not once address himself to Emily.
His looks sufficiently declared his resentment; but that he should
forbear to renew a mention of the subject of it, exceedingly surprised
her, who was no less astonished, that, during three days, Count Morano
neither visited Montoni, nor was named by him. Several conjectures
arose in her mind. Sometimes she feared that the dispute between them
had been revived, and had ended fatally to the Count. Sometimes she was
inclined to hope, that weariness, or disgust at her firm rejection of
his suit had induced him to relinquish it; and, at others, she
suspected that he had now recourse to stratagem, and forbore his
visits, and prevailed with Montoni to forbear the repetition of his
name, in the expectation that gratitude and generosity would prevail
with her to give him the consent, which he could not hope from love.

Thus passed the time in vain conjecture, and alternate hopes and fears,
till the day arrived when Montoni was to set out for the villa of
Miarenti, which, like the preceding ones, neither brought the Count,
nor the mention of him.

Montoni having determined not to leave Venice, till towards evening,
that he might avoid the heats, and catch the cool breezes of night,
embarked about an hour before sunset, with his family, in a barge, for
the Brenta. Emily sat alone near the stern of the vessel, and, as it
floated slowly on, watched the gay and lofty city lessening from her
view, till its palaces seemed to sink in the distant waves, while its
loftier towers and domes, illumined by the declining sun, appeared on
the horizon, like those far-seen clouds which, in more northern climes,
often linger on the western verge, and catch the last light of a
summer’s evening. Soon after, even these grew dim, and faded in
distance from her sight; but she still sat gazing on the vast scene of
cloudless sky, and mighty waters, and listening in pleasing awe to the
deep-sounding waves, while, as her eyes glanced over the Adriatic,
towards the opposite shores, which were, however, far beyond the reach
of sight, she thought of Greece, and, a thousand classical remembrances
stealing to her mind, she experienced that pensive luxury which is felt
on viewing the scenes of ancient story, and on comparing their present
state of silence and solitude with that of their former grandeur and
animation. The scenes of the Illiad illapsed in glowing colours to her
fancy—scenes, once the haunt of heroes—now lonely, and in ruins; but
which still shone, in the poet’s strain, in all their youthful
splendour.

As her imagination painted with melancholy touches, the deserted plains
of Troy, such as they appeared in this after-day, she reanimated the
landscape with the following little story.

STANZAS

O’er Ilion’s plains, where once the warrior bled,
And once the poet rais’d his deathless strain,
O’er Ilion’s plains a weary driver led
His stately camels:  For the ruin’d fane

Wide round the lonely scene his glance he threw,
For now the red cloud faded in the west,
And twilight o’er the silent landscape drew
Her deep’ning veil; eastward his course he prest:

There, on the grey horizon’s glimm’ring bound,
Rose the proud columns of deserted Troy,
And wandering shepherds now a shelter found
Within those walls, where princes wont to joy.

Beneath a lofty porch the driver pass’d,
Then, from his camels heav’d the heavy load;
Partook with them the simple, cool repast,
And in short vesper gave himself to God.

From distant lands with merchandise he came,
His all of wealth his patient servants bore;
Oft deep-drawn sighs his anxious wish proclaim
To reach, again, his happy cottage door;

For there, his wife, his little children, dwell;
Their smiles shall pay the toil of many an hour:
Ev’n now warm tears to expectation swell,
As fancy o’er his mind extends her pow’r.

A death-like stillness reign’d, where once the song,
The song of heroes, wak’d the midnight air,
Save, when a solemn murmur roll’d along,
That seem’d to say—“for future worlds prepare.”

For Time’s imperious voice was frequent heard
Shaking the marble temple to its fall,
(By hands he long had conquer’d, vainly rear’d),
And distant ruins answer’d to his call.

While Hamet slept, his camels round him lay,
Beneath him, all his store of wealth was piled;
And here, his cruse and empty wallet lay,
And there, the flute that chear’d him in the wild.

The robber Tartar on his slumber stole,
For o’er the waste, at eve, he watch’d his train;
Ah! who his thirst of plunder shall control?
Who calls on him for mercy—calls in vain!

A poison’d poignard in his belt he wore,
A crescent sword depended at his side,
The deathful quiver at his back he bore,
And infants—at his very look had died!

The moon’s cold beam athwart the temple fell,
And to his sleeping prey the Tartar led;
But soft!—a startled camel shook his bell,
Then stretch’d his limbs, and rear’d his drowsy head.

Hamet awoke! the poignard glitter’d high!
Swift from his couch he sprung, and ’scap’d the blow;
When from an unknown hand the arrows fly,
That lay the ruffian, in his vengeance, low.

He groan’d, he died! from forth a column’d gate
A fearful shepherd, pale and silent, crept,
Who, as he watch’d his folded flock star-late,
Had mark’d the robber steal where Hamet slept.

He fear’d his own, and sav’d a stranger’s life!
Poor Hamet clasp’d him to his grateful heart;
Then, rous’d his camels for the dusty strife,
And, with the shepherd, hasten’d to depart.

And now, aurora breathes her fresh’ning gale,
And faintly trembles on the eastern cloud;
And now, the sun, from under twilight’s veil,
Looks gaily forth, and melts her airy shroud.

Wide o’er the level plains, his slanting beams
Dart their long lines on Ilion’s tower’d site;
The distant Hellespont with morning gleams,
And old Scamander winds his waves in light.

All merry sound the camel bells, so gay,
And merry beats fond Hamet’s heart, for he,
E’er the dim evening steals upon the day,
His children, wife and happy home shall see.


As Emily approached the shores of Italy she began to discriminate the
rich features and varied colouring of the landscape—the purple hills,
groves of orange pine and cypress, shading magnificent villas, and
towns rising among vineyards and plantations. The noble Brenta, pouring
its broad waves into the sea, now appeared, and, when she reached its
mouth, the barge stopped, that the horses might be fastened which were
now to tow it up the stream. This done, Emily gave a last look to the
Adriatic, and to the dim sail,

that from the sky-mix’d wave
Dawns on the sight,


and the barge slowly glided between the green and luxuriant slopes of
the river. The grandeur of the Palladian villas, that adorn these
shores, was considerably heightened by the setting rays, which threw
strong contrasts of light and shade upon the porticos and long arcades,
and beamed a mellow lustre upon the orangeries and the tall groves of
pine and cypress, that overhung the buildings. The scent of oranges, of
flowering myrtles, and other odoriferous plants was diffused upon the
air, and often, from these embowered retreats, a strain of music stole
on the calm, and “softened into silence.”

The sun now sunk below the horizon, twilight fell over the landscape,
and Emily, wrapt in musing silence, continued to watch its features
gradually vanishing into obscurity. She remembered her many happy
evenings, when with St. Aubert she had observed the shades of twilight
steal over a scene as beautiful as this, from the gardens of La Vallée,
and a tear fell to the memory of her father. Her spirits were softened
into melancholy by the influence of the hour, by the low murmur of the
wave passing under the vessel, and the stillness of the air, that
trembled only at intervals with distant music:—why else should she, at
these moments, have looked on her attachment to Valancourt with
presages so very afflicting, since she had but lately received letters
from him, that had soothed for a while all her anxieties? It now seemed
to her oppressed mind, that she had taken leave of him for ever, and
that the countries, which separated them, would never more be retraced
by her. She looked upon Count Morano with horror, as in some degree the
cause of this; but apart from him, a conviction, if such that may be
called, which arises from no proof, and which she knew not how to
account for, seized her mind—that she should never see Valancourt
again. Though she knew, that neither Morano’s solicitations, nor
Montoni’s commands had lawful power to enforce her obedience, she
regarded both with a superstitious dread, that they would finally
prevail.

Lost in this melancholy reverie, and shedding frequent tears, Emily was
at length roused by Montoni, and she followed him to the cabin, where
refreshments were spread, and her aunt was seated alone. The
countenance of Madame Montoni was inflamed with resentment, that
appeared to be the consequence of some conversation she had held with
her husband, who regarded her with a kind of sullen disdain, and both
preserved, for some time, a haughty silence. Montoni then spoke to
Emily of Mons. Quesnel: “You will not, I hope, persist in disclaiming
your knowledge of the subject of my letter to him?”

“I had hoped, sir, that it was no longer necessary for me to disclaim
it,” said Emily, “I had hoped, from your silence, that you were
convinced of your error.”

“You have hoped impossibilities then,” replied Montoni; “I might as
reasonably have expected to find sincerity and uniformity of conduct in
one of your sex, as you to convict me of error in this affair.”

Emily blushed, and was silent; she now perceived too clearly, that she
had hoped an impossibility, for, where no mistake had been committed no
conviction could follow; and it was evident, that Montoni’s conduct had
not been the consequence of mistake, but of design.

Anxious to escape from conversation, which was both afflicting and
humiliating to her, she soon returned to the deck, and resumed her
station near the stern, without apprehension of cold, for no vapour
rose from the water, and the air was dry and tranquil; here, at least,
the benevolence of nature allowed her the quiet which Montoni had
denied her elsewhere. It was now past midnight. The stars shed a kind
of twilight, that served to show the dark outline of the shores on
either hand, and the grey surface of the river; till the moon rose from
behind a high palm grove, and shed her mellow lustre over the scene.
The vessel glided smoothly on: amid the stillness of the hour Emily
heard, now and then, the solitary voice of the barge-men on the bank,
as they spoke to their horses; while, from a remote part of the vessel,
with melancholy song,

The sailor sooth’d,
Beneath the trembling moon, the midnight wave.


Emily, meanwhile, anticipated her reception by Mons, and Madame
Quesnel; considered what she should say on the subject of La Vallée;
and then, to withhold her mind from more anxious topics, tried to amuse
herself by discriminating the faint-drawn features of the landscape,
reposing in the moonlight. While her fancy thus wandered, she saw, at a
distance, a building peeping between the moonlight trees, and, as the
barge approached, heard voices speaking, and soon distinguished the
lofty portico of a villa, overshadowed by groves of pine and sycamore,
which she recollected to be the same, that had formerly been pointed
out to her, as belonging to Madame Quesnel’s relative.

The barge stopped at a flight of marble steps, which led up the bank to
a lawn. Lights appeared between some pillars beyond the portico.
Montoni sent forward his servant, and then disembarked with his family.
They found Mons. and Madame Quesnel, with a few friends, seated on
sofas in the portico, enjoying the cool breeze of the night, and eating
fruits and ices, while some of their servants at a little distance, on
the river’s bank, were performing a simple serenade. Emily was now
accustomed to the way of living in this warm country, and was not
surprised to find Mons. and Madame Quesnel in their portico, two hours
after midnight.

The usual salutations being over, the company seated themselves in the
portico, and refreshments were brought them from the adjoining hall,
where a banquet was spread, and servants attended. When the bustle of
this meeting had subsided, and Emily had recovered from the little
flutter into which it had thrown her spirits, she was struck with the
singular beauty of the hall, so perfectly accommodated to the luxuries
of the season. It was of white marble, and the roof, rising into an
open cupola, was supported by columns of the same material. Two
opposite sides of the apartment, terminating in open porticos, admitted
to the hall a full view of the gardens, and of the river scenery; in
the centre a fountain continually refreshed the air, and seemed to
heighten the fragrance, that breathed from the surrounding orangeries,
while its dashing waters gave an agreeable and soothing sound. Etruscan
lamps, suspended from the pillars, diffused a brilliant light over the
interior part of the hall, leaving the remoter porticos to the softer
lustre of the moon.

Mons. Quesnel talked apart to Montoni of his own affairs, in his usual
strain of self-importance; boasted of his new acquisitions, and then
affected to pity some disappointments, which Montoni had lately
sustained. Meanwhile, the latter, whose pride at least enabled him to
despise such vanity as this, and whose discernment at once detected
under this assumed pity, the frivolous malignity of Quesnel’s mind,
listened to him in contemptuous silence, till he named his niece, and
then they left the portico, and walked away into the gardens.

Emily, however, still attended to Madame Quesnel, who spoke of France
(for even the name of her native country was dear to her) and she found
some pleasure in looking at a person, who had lately been in it. That
country, too, was inhabited by Valancourt, and she listened to the
mention of it, with a faint hope, that he also would be named. Madame
Quesnel, who, when she was in France, had talked with rapture of Italy,
now, that she was in Italy, talked with equal praise of France, and
endeavoured to excite the wonder and the envy of her auditors by
accounts of places, which they had not been happy enough to see. In
these descriptions she not only imposed upon them, but upon herself,
for she never thought a present pleasure equal to one, that was passed;
and thus the delicious climate, the fragrant orangeries and all the
luxuries, which surrounded her, slept unnoticed, while her fancy
wandered over the distant scenes of a northern country.

Emily listened in vain for the name of Valancourt. Madame Montoni spoke
in her turn of the delights of Venice, and of the pleasure she expected
from visiting the fine castle of Montoni, on the Apennine; which latter
mention, at least, was merely a retaliating boast, for Emily well knew,
that her aunt had no taste for solitary grandeur, and, particularly,
for such as the castle of Udolpho promised. Thus the party continued to
converse, and, as far as civility would permit, to torture each other
by mutual boasts, while they reclined on sofas in the portico, and were
environed with delights both from nature and art, by which any honest
minds would have been tempered to benevolence, and happy imaginations
would have been soothed into enchantment.

The dawn, soon after, trembled in the eastern horizon, and the light
tints of morning, gradually expanding, showed the beautifully declining
forms of the Italian mountains and the gleaming landscapes, stretched
at their feet. Then the sunbeams, shooting up from behind the hills,
spread over the scene that fine saffron tinge, which seems to impart
repose to all it touches. The landscape no longer gleamed; all its
glowing colours were revealed, except that its remoter features were
still softened and united in the mist of distance, whose sweet effect
was heightened to Emily by the dark verdure of the pines and cypresses,
that over-arched the foreground of the river.

The market people, passing with their boats to Venice, now formed a
moving picture on the Brenta. Most of these had little painted awnings,
to shelter their owners from the sunbeams, which, together with the
piles of fruit and flowers, displayed beneath, and the tasteful
simplicity of the peasant girls, who watched the rural treasures,
rendered them gay and striking objects. The swift movement of the boats
down the current, the quick glance of oars in the water, and now and
then the passing chorus of peasants, who reclined under the sail of
their little bark, or the tones of some rustic instrument, played by a
girl, as she sat near her sylvan cargo, heightened the animation and
festivity of the scene.

When Montoni and M. Quesnel had joined the ladies, the party left the
portico for the gardens, where the charming scenery soon withdrew
Emily’s thoughts from painful subjects. The majestic forms and rich
verdure of cypresses she had never seen so perfect before: groves of
cedar, lemon, and orange, the spiry clusters of the pine and poplar,
the luxuriant chesnut and oriental plane, threw all their pomp of shade
over these gardens; while bowers of flowering myrtle and other spicy
shrubs mingled their fragrance with that of flowers, whose vivid and
various colouring glowed with increased effect beneath the contrasted
umbrage of the groves. The air also was continually refreshed by
rivulets, which, with more taste than fashion, had been suffered to
wander among the green recesses.

Emily often lingered behind the party, to contemplate the distant
landscape, that closed a vista, or that gleamed beneath the dark
foliage of the foreground;—the spiral summits of the mountains, touched
with a purple tint, broken and steep above, but shelving gradually to
their base; the open valley, marked by no formal lines of art; and the
tall groves of cypress, pine and poplar, sometimes embellished by a
ruined villa, whose broken columns appeared between the branches of a
pine, that seemed to droop over their fall.

From other parts of the gardens, the character of the view was entirely
changed, and the fine solitary beauty of the landscape shifted for the
crowded features and varied colouring of inhabitation.

The sun was now gaining fast upon the sky, and the party quitted the
gardens, and retired to repose.



 CHAPTER IV

And poor Misfortune feels the lash of Vice.
                    THOMSON


Emily seized the first opportunity of conversing alone with Mons.
Quesnel, concerning La Vallée. His answers to her enquiries were
concise, and delivered with the air of a man, who is conscious of
possessing absolute power and impatient of hearing it questioned. He
declared, that the disposal of the place was a necessary measure; and
that she might consider herself indebted to his prudence for even the
small income that remained for her. “But, however,” added he, “when
this Venetian Count (I have forgot his name) marries you, your present
disagreeable state of dependence will cease. As a relation to you I
rejoice in the circumstance, which is so fortunate for you, and, I may
add, so unexpected by your friends.” For some moments Emily was chilled
into silence by this speech; and, when she attempted to undeceive him,
concerning the purport of the note she had inclosed in Montoni’s
letter, he appeared to have some private reason for disbelieving her
assertion, and, for a considerable time, persevered in accusing her of
capricious conduct. Being, at length, however, convinced that she
really disliked Morano and had positively rejected his suit, his
resentment was extravagant, and he expressed it in terms equally
pointed and inhuman; for, secretly flattered by the prospect of a
connection with a nobleman, whose title he had affected to forget, he
was incapable of feeling pity for whatever sufferings of his niece
might stand in the way of his ambition.

Emily saw at once in his manner all the difficulties, that awaited her,
and, though no oppression could have power to make her renounce
Valancourt for Morano, her fortitude now trembled at an encounter with
the violent passions of her uncle.

She opposed his turbulence and indignation only by the mild dignity of
a superior mind; but the gentle firmness of her conduct served to
exasperate still more his resentment, since it compelled him to feel
his own inferiority, and, when he left her, he declared, that, if she
persisted in her folly, both himself and Montoni would abandon her to
the contempt of the world.

The calmness she had assumed in his presence failed Emily, when alone,
and she wept bitterly, and called frequently upon the name of her
departed father, whose advice to her from his death-bed she then
remembered. “Alas!” said she, “I do indeed perceive how much more
valuable is the strength of fortitude than the grace of sensibility,
and I will also endeavour to fulfil the promise I then made; I will not
indulge in unavailing lamentation, but will try to endure, with
firmness, the oppression I cannot elude.”

Somewhat soothed by the consciousness of performing a part of St.
Aubert’s last request, and of endeavouring to pursue the conduct which
he would have approved, she overcame her tears, and, when the company
met at dinner, had recovered her usual serenity of countenance.

In the cool of the evening, the ladies took the _fresco_ along the bank
of the Brenta in Madame Quesnel’s carriage. The state of Emily’s mind
was in melancholy contrast with the gay groups assembled beneath the
shades that overhung this enchanting stream. Some were dancing under
the trees, and others reclining on the grass, taking ices and coffee
and calmly enjoying the effect of a beautiful evening, on a luxuriant
landscape. Emily, when she looked at the snow-capped Apennines,
ascending in the distance, thought of Montoni’s castle, and suffered
some terror, lest he should convey her thither, for the purpose of
enforcing her obedience; but the thought vanished, when she considered,
that she was as much in his power at Venice as she could be elsewhere.

It was moonlight before the party returned to the villa, where supper
was spread in the airy hall, which had so much enchanted Emily’s fancy,
on the preceding night. The ladies seated themselves in the portico,
till Mons. Quesnel, Montoni, and other gentlemen should join them at
table, and Emily endeavoured to resign herself to the tranquillity of
the hour. Presently, a barge stopped at the steps that led into the
gardens, and, soon after, she distinguished the voices of Montoni and
Quesnel, and then that of Morano, who, in the next moment, appeared.
His compliments she received in silence, and her cold air seemed at
first to discompose him; but he soon recovered his usual gaiety of
manner, though the officious kindness of M. and Madame Quesnel Emily
perceived disgusted him. Such a degree of attention she had scarcely
believed could be shown by M. Quesnel, for she had never before seen
him otherwise than in the presence of his inferiors or equals.

When she could retire to her own apartment, her mind almost
involuntarily dwelt on the most probable means of prevailing with the
Count to withdraw his suit, and to her liberal mind none appeared more
probable, than that of acknowledging to him a prior attachment and
throwing herself upon his generosity for a release. When, however, on
the following day, he renewed his addresses, she shrunk from the
adoption of the plan she had formed. There was something so repugnant
to her just pride, in laying open the secret of her heart to such a man
as Morano, and in suing to him for compassion, that she impatiently
rejected this design and wondered, that she could have paused upon it
for a moment. The rejection of his suit she repeated in the most
decisive terms she could select, mingling with it a severe censure of
his conduct; but, though the Count appeared mortified by this, he
persevered in the most ardent professions of admiration, till he was
interrupted and Emily released by the presence of Madame Quesnel.

During her stay at this pleasant villa, Emily was thus rendered
miserable by the assiduities of Morano, together with the cruelly
exerted authority of M. Quesnel and Montoni, who, with her aunt, seemed
now more resolutely determined upon this marriage than they had even
appeared to be at Venice. M. Quesnel, finding, that both argument and
menace were ineffectual in enforcing an immediate conclusion to it, at
length relinquished his endeavours, and trusted to the power of Montoni
and to the course of events at Venice. Emily, indeed, looked to Venice
with hope, for there she would be relieved in some measure from the
persecution of Morano, who would no longer be an inhabitant of the same
house with herself, and from that of Montoni, whose engagements would
not permit him to be continually at home. But amidst the pressure of
her own misfortunes, she did not forget those of poor Theresa, for whom
she pleaded with courageous tenderness to Quesnel, who promised, in
slight and general terms, that she should not be forgotten.

Montoni, in a long conversation with M. Quesnel, arranged the plan to
be pursued respecting Emily, and M. Quesnel proposed to be at Venice,
as soon as he should be informed, that the nuptials were concluded.

It was new to Emily to part with any person, with whom she was
connected, without feeling of regret; the moment, however, in which she
took leave of M. and Madame Quesnel, was, perhaps, the only
satisfactory one she had known in their presence.

Morano returned in Montoni’s barge, and Emily, as she watched her
gradual approach to that magic city, saw at her side the only person,
who occasioned her to view it with less than perfect delight. They
arrived there about midnight, when Emily was released from the presence
of the Count, who, with Montoni, went to a Casino, and she was suffered
to retire to her own apartment.

On the following day, Montoni, in a short conversation, which he held
with Emily, informed her, that he would no longer be _trifled_ with,
and that, since her marriage with the Count would be so highly
advantageous to her, that folly only could object to it, and folly of
such extent as was incapable of conviction, it should be celebrated
without further delay, and, if that was necessary, without her consent.

Emily, who had hitherto tried remonstrance, had now recourse to
supplication, for distress prevented her from foreseeing, that, with a
man of Montoni’s disposition, supplication would be equally useless.
She afterwards enquired by what right he exerted this unlimited
authority over her, a question, which her better judgment would have
withheld her, in a calmer moment, from making, since it could avail her
nothing, and would afford Montoni another opportunity of triumphing
over her defenceless condition.

“By what right!” cried Montoni, with a malicious smile, “by the right
of my will; if you can elude that, I will not inquire by what right you
do so. I now remind you, for the last time, that you are a stranger, in
a foreign country, and that it is your interest to make me your friend;
you know the means; if you compel me to become your enemy—I will
venture to tell you, that the punishment shall exceed your expectation.
You may know _I_ am not to be trifled with.”

Emily continued, for some time after Montoni had left her, in a state
of despair, or rather stupefaction; a consciousness of misery was all
that remained in her mind. In this situation Madame Montoni found her,
at the sound of whose voice Emily looked up, and her aunt, somewhat
softened by the expression of despair, that fixed her countenance,
spoke in a manner more kind than she had ever yet done. Emily’s heart
was touched; she shed tears, and, after weeping for some time,
recovered sufficient composure to speak on the subject of her distress,
and to endeavour to interest Madame Montoni in her behalf. But, though
the compassion of her aunt had been surprised, her ambition was not to
be overcome, and her present object was to be the aunt of a Countess.
Emily’s efforts, therefore, were as unsuccessful as they had been with
Montoni, and she withdrew to her apartment to think and weep alone. How
often did she remember the parting scene with Valancourt, and wish,
that the Italian had mentioned Montoni’s character with less reserve!
When her mind, however, had recovered from the first shock of this
behaviour, she considered, that it would be impossible for him to
compel her alliance with Morano, if she persisted in refusing to repeat
any part of the marriage ceremony; and she persevered in her resolution
to await Montoni’s threatened vengeance rather than give herself for
life to a man, whom she must have despised for his present conduct, had
she never even loved Valancourt; yet she trembled at the revenge she
thus resolved to brave.

An affair, however, soon after occurred, which somewhat called off
Montoni’s attention from Emily. The mysterious visits of Orsino were
renewed with more frequency since the return of the former to Venice.
There were others, also, besides Orsino, admitted to these midnight
councils, and among them Cavigni and Verezzi. Montoni became more
reserved and austere in his manner than ever; and Emily, if her own
interests had not made her regardless of his, might have perceived,
that something extraordinary was working in his mind.

One night, on which a council was not held, Orsino came in great
agitation of spirits, and dispatched his confidential servant to
Montoni, who was at a Casino, desiring that he would return home
immediately; but charging the servant not to mention his name. Montoni
obeyed the summons, and, on meeting Orsino, was informed of the
circumstances, that occasioned his visit and his visible alarm, with a
part of which he was already acquainted.

A Venetian nobleman, who had, on some late occasion, provoked the
hatred of Orsino, had been way-laid and poniarded by hired assassins:
and, as the murdered person was of the first connections, the Senate
had taken up the affair. One of the assassins was now apprehended, who
had confessed, that Orsino was his employer in the atrocious deed; and
the latter, informed of his danger, had now come to Montoni to consult
on the measures necessary to favour his escape. He knew, that, at this
time, the officers of the police were upon the watch for him, all over
the city; to leave it, at present, therefore, was impracticable, and
Montoni consented to secrete him for a few days till the vigilance of
justice should relax, and then to assist him in quitting Venice. He
knew the danger he himself incurred by permitting Orsino to remain in
his house, but such was the nature of his obligations to this man, that
he did not think it prudent to refuse him an asylum.

Such was the person whom Montoni had admitted to his confidence, and
for whom he felt as much friendship as was compatible with his
character.

While Orsino remained concealed in his house, Montoni was unwilling to
attract public observation by the nuptials of Count Morano; but this
obstacle was, in a few days, overcome by the departure of his criminal
visitor, and he then informed Emily, that her marriage was to be
celebrated on the following morning. To her repeated assurances, that
it should not take place, he replied only by a malignant smile; and,
telling her that the Count and a priest would be at his house, early in
the morning, he advised her no further to dare his resentment, by
opposition to his will and to her own interest. “I am now going out for
the evening,” said he, “remember, that I shall give your hand to Count
Morano in the morning.” Emily, having, ever since his late threats,
expected, that her trials would at length arrive to this crisis, was
less shocked by the declaration, that she otherwise would have been,
and she endeavoured to support herself by the belief, that the marriage
could not be valid, so long as she refused before the priest to repeat
any part of the ceremony. Yet, as the moment of trial approached, her
long-harassed spirits shrunk almost equally from the encounter of his
vengeance, and from the hand of Count Morano. She was not even
perfectly certain of the consequence of her steady refusal at the
altar, and she trembled, more than ever, at the power of Montoni, which
seemed unlimited as his will, for she saw, that he would not scruple to
transgress any law, if, by so doing, he could accomplish his project.

While her mind was thus suffering and in a state little short of
distraction, she was informed that Morano asked permission to see her,
and the servant had scarcely departed with an excuse, before she
repented that she had sent one. In the next moment, reverting to her
former design, and determining to try, whether expostulation and
entreaty would not succeed, where a refusal and a just disdain had
failed, she recalled the servant, and, sending a different message,
prepared to go down to the Count.

The dignity and assumed composure with which she met him, and the kind
of pensive resignation, that softened her countenance, were
circumstances not likely to induce him to relinquish her, serving, as
they did, to heighten a passion, which had already intoxicated his
judgment. He listened to all she said with an appearance of complacency
and of a wish to oblige her; but his resolution remained invariably the
same, and he endeavoured to win her admiration by every insinuating art
he so well knew how to practise. Being, at length, assured, that she
had nothing to hope from his justice, she repeated, in a solemn and
impressive manner, her absolute rejection of his suit, and quitted him
with an assurance, that her refusal would be effectually maintained
against every circumstance, that could be imagined for subduing it. A
just pride had restrained her tears in his presence, but now they
flowed from the fulness of her heart. She often called upon the name of
her late father, and often dwelt with unutterable anguish on the idea
of Valancourt.

She did not go down to supper, but remained alone in her apartment,
sometimes yielding to the influence of grief and terror, and, at
others, endeavouring to fortify her mind against them, and to prepare
herself to meet, with composed courage, the scene of the following
morning, when all the stratagem of Morano and the violence of Montoni
would be united against her.

The evening was far advanced, when Madame Montoni came to her chamber
with some bridal ornaments, which the Count had sent to Emily. She had,
this day, purposely avoided her niece; perhaps, because her usual
insensibility failed her, and she feared to trust herself with a view
of Emily’s distress; or possibly, though her conscience was seldom
audible, it now reproached her with her conduct to her brother’s orphan
child, whose happiness had been entrusted to her care by a dying
father.

Emily could not look at these presents, and made a last, though almost
hopeless, effort to interest the compassion of Madame Montoni, who, if
she did feel any degree of pity, or remorse, successfully concealed it,
and reproached her niece with folly in being miserable, concerning a
marriage, which ought only to make her happy. “I am sure,” said she,
“if I was unmarried, and the Count had proposed to me, I should have
been flattered by the distinction: and if I should have been so, I am
sure, niece, you, who have no fortune, ought to feel yourself highly
honoured, and show a proper gratitude and humility towards the Count,
for his condescension. I am often surprised, I must own, to observe how
humbly he deports himself to you, notwithstanding the haughty airs you
give yourself; I wonder he has patience to humour you so: if I was he,
I know, I should often be ready to reprehend you, and make you know
yourself a little better. I would not have flattered you, I can tell
you, for it is this absurd flattery that makes you fancy yourself of so
much consequence, that you think nobody can deserve you, and I often
tell the Count so, for I have no patience to hear him pay you such
extravagant compliments, which you believe every word of!”

“Your patience, madam, cannot suffer more cruelly on such occasions,
than my own,” said Emily.

“O! that is all mere affectation,” rejoined her aunt. “I know that his
flattery delights you, and makes you so vain, that you think you may
have the whole world at your feet. But you are very much mistaken; I
can assure you, niece, you will not meet with many such suitors as the
Count: every other person would have turned upon his heel, and left you
to repent at your leisure, long ago.”

“O that the Count had resembled every other person, then!” said Emily,
with a heavy sigh.

“It is happy for you, that he does not,” rejoined Madame Montoni; “and
what I am now saying is from pure kindness. I am endeavouring to
convince you of your good fortune, and to persuade you to submit to
necessity with a good grace. It is nothing to me, you know, whether you
like this marriage or not, for it must be; what I say, therefore, is
from pure kindness. I wish to see you happy, and it is your own fault
if you are not so. I would ask you, now, seriously and calmly, what
kind of a match you can expect, since a Count cannot content your
ambition?”

“I have no ambition whatever, madam,” replied Emily, “my only wish is
to remain in my present station.”

“O! that is speaking quite from the purpose,” said her aunt, “I see you
are still thinking of Mons. Valancourt. Pray get rid of all those
fantastic notions about love, and this ridiculous pride, and be
something like a reasonable creature. But, however, this is nothing to
the purpose—for your marriage with the Count takes place tomorrow, you
know, whether you approve it or not. The Count will be trifled with no
longer.”

Emily made no attempt to reply to this curious speech; she felt it
would be mean, and she knew it would be useless. Madame Montoni laid
the Count’s presents upon the table, on which Emily was leaning, and
then, desiring she would be ready early in the morning, bade her
good-night. “Good-night, madam,” said Emily, with a deep sigh, as the
door closed upon her aunt, and she was left once more to her own sad
reflections. For some time she sat so lost in thought, as to be wholly
unconscious where she was; at length, raising her head, and looking
round the room, its gloom and profound stillness awed her. She fixed
her eyes on the door, through which her aunt had disappeared, and
listened anxiously for some sound, that might relieve the deep
dejection of her spirits; but it was past midnight, and all the family
except the servant, who sat up for Montoni, had retired to bed. Her
mind, long harassed by distress, now yielded to imaginary terrors; she
trembled to look into the obscurity of her spacious chamber, and feared
she knew not what; a state of mind, which continued so long, that she
would have called up Annette, her aunt’s woman, had her fears permitted
her to rise from her chair, and to cross the apartment.

These melancholy illusions at length began to disperse, and she retired
to her bed, not to sleep, for that was scarcely possible, but to try,
at least, to quiet her disturbed fancy, and to collect strength of
spirits sufficient to bear her through the scene of the approaching
morning.



 CHAPTER V

Dark power! with shudd’ring, meek submitted thought
Be mine to read the visions old
Which thy awak’ning bards have told,
And, lest they meet my blasted view,
Hold each strange tale devoutly true.
                    COLLINS’ ODE TO FEAR


Emily was recalled from a kind of slumber, into which she had, at
length, sunk, by a quick knocking at her chamber door. She started up
in terror, for Montoni and Count Morano instantly came to her mind;
but, having listened in silence for some time, and recognising the
voice of Annette, she rose and opened the door. “What brings you hither
so early?” said Emily, trembling excessively. She was unable to support
herself, and sat down on the bed.

“Dear ma’amselle!” said Annette, “do not look so pale. I am quite
frightened to see you. Here is a fine bustle below stairs, all the
servants running to and fro, and none of them fast enough! Here is a
bustle, indeed, all of a sudden, and nobody knows for what!”

“Who is below besides them?” said Emily, “Annette, do not trifle with
me!”

“Not for the world, ma’amselle, I would not trifle for the world; but
one cannot help making one’s remarks, and there is the Signor in such a
bustle, as I never saw him before; and he has sent me to tell you,
ma’am, to get ready immediately.”

“Good God support me!” cried Emily, almost fainting, “Count Morano is
below, then!”

“No, ma’amselle, he is not below that I know of,” replied Annette,
“only his _Excellenza_ sent me to desire you would get ready directly
to leave Venice, for that the gondolas would be at the steps of the
canal in a few minutes: but I must hurry back to my lady, who is just
at her wits’ end, and knows not which way to turn for haste.”

“Explain, Annette, explain the meaning of all this before you go,” said
Emily, so overcome with surprise and timid hope, that she had scarcely
breath to speak.

“Nay, ma’amselle, that is more than I can do. I only know that the
Signor is just come home in a very ill humour, that he has had us all
called out of our beds, and tells us we are all to leave Venice
immediately.”

“Is Count Morano to go with the Signor?” said Emily, “and whither are
we going?”

“I know neither, ma’am, for certain; but I heard Ludovico say something
about going, after we get to _Terra-firma_, to the signor’s castle
among some mountains, that he talked of.”

“The Apennines!” said Emily, eagerly, “O! then I have little to hope!”

“That is the very place, ma’am. But cheer up, and do not take it so
much to heart, and think what a little time you have to get ready in,
and how impatient the Signor is. Holy St. Mark! I hear the oars on the
canal; and now they come nearer, and now they are dashing at the steps
below; it is the gondola, sure enough.”

Annette hastened from the room; and Emily prepared for this unexpected
flight, as fast as her trembling hands would permit, not perceiving,
that any change in her situation could possibly be for the worse. She
had scarcely thrown her books and clothes into her travelling trunk,
when, receiving a second summons, she went down to her aunt’s
dressing-room, where she found Montoni impatiently reproving his wife
for delay. He went out, soon after, to give some further orders to his
people, and Emily then enquired the occasion of this hasty journey; but
her aunt appeared to be as ignorant as herself, and to undertake the
journey with more reluctance.

The family at length embarked, but neither Count Morano, nor Cavigni,
was of the party. Somewhat revived by observing this, Emily, when the
gondolieri dashed their oars in the water, and put off from the steps
of the portico, felt like a criminal, who receives a short reprieve.
Her heart beat yet lighter, when they emerged from the canal into the
ocean, and lighter still, when they skimmed past the walls of St. Mark,
without having stopped to take up Count Morano.

The dawn now began to tint the horizon, and to break upon the shores of
the Adriatic. Emily did not venture to ask any questions of Montoni,
who sat, for some time, in gloomy silence, and then rolled himself up
in his cloak, as if to sleep, while Madame Montoni did the same; but
Emily, who could not sleep, undrew one of the little curtains of the
gondola, and looked out upon the sea. The rising dawn now enlightened
the mountain-tops of Friuli, but their lower sides, and the distant
waves, that rolled at their feet, were still in deep shadow. Emily,
sunk in tranquil melancholy, watched the strengthening light spreading
upon the ocean, showing successively Venice and her islets, and the
shores of Italy, along which boats, with their pointed latin sails,
began to move.

The gondolieri were frequently hailed, at this early hour, by the
market-people, as they glided by towards Venice, and the lagune soon
displayed a gay scene of innumerable little barks, passing from
_Terra-firma_ with provisions. Emily gave a last look to that splendid
city, but her mind was then occupied by considering the probable
events, that awaited her, in the scenes, to which she was removing, and
with conjectures, concerning the motive of this sudden journey. It
appeared, upon calmer consideration, that Montoni was removing her to
his secluded castle, because he could there, with more probability of
success, attempt to terrify her into obedience; or, that, should its
gloomy and sequestered scenes fail of this effect, her forced marriage
with the Count could there be solemnized with the secrecy, which was
necessary to the honour of Montoni. The little spirit, which this
reprieve had recalled, now began to fail, and, when Emily reached the
shore, her mind had sunk into all its former depression.

Montoni did not embark on the Brenta, but pursued his way in carriages
across the country, towards the Apennine; during which journey, his
manner to Emily was so particularly severe, that this alone would have
confirmed her late conjecture, had any such confirmation been
necessary. Her senses were now dead to the beautiful country, through
which she travelled. Sometimes she was compelled to smile at the
_naïveté_ of Annette, in her remarks on what she saw, and sometimes to
sigh, as a scene of peculiar beauty recalled Valancourt to her
thoughts, who was indeed seldom absent from them, and of whom she could
never hope to hear in the solitude, to which she was hastening.

At length, the travellers began to ascend among the Apennines. The
immense pine-forests, which, at that period, overhung these mountains,
and between which the road wound, excluded all view but of the cliffs
aspiring above, except, that, now and then, an opening through the dark
woods allowed the eye a momentary glimpse of the country below. The
gloom of these shades, their solitary silence, except when the breeze
swept over their summits, the tremendous precipices of the mountains,
that came partially to the eye, each assisted to raise the solemnity of
Emily’s feelings into awe; she saw only images of gloomy grandeur, or
of dreadful sublimity, around her; other images, equally gloomy and
equally terrible, gleamed on her imagination. She was going she
scarcely knew whither, under the dominion of a person, from whose
arbitrary disposition she had already suffered so much, to marry,
perhaps, a man who possessed neither her affection, nor esteem; or to
endure, beyond the hope of succour, whatever punishment revenge, and
that Italian revenge, might dictate.—The more she considered what might
be the motive of the journey, the more she became convinced, that it
was for the purpose of concluding her nuptials with Count Morano, with
that secrecy, which her resolute resistance had made necessary to the
honour, if not to the safety, of Montoni. From the deep solitudes, into
which she was emerging, and from the gloomy castle, of which she had
heard some mysterious hints, her sick heart recoiled in despair, and
she experienced, that, though her mind was already occupied by peculiar
distress, it was still alive to the influence of new and local
circumstance; why else did she shudder at the idea of this desolate
castle?

As the travellers still ascended among the pine forests, steep rose
over steep, the mountains seemed to multiply, as they went, and what
was the summit of one eminence proved to be only the base of another.
At length, they reached a little plain, where the drivers stopped to
rest the mules, whence a scene of such extent and magnificence opened
below, as drew even from Madame Montoni a note of admiration. Emily
lost, for a moment, her sorrows, in the immensity of nature. Beyond the
amphitheatre of mountains, that stretched below, whose tops appeared as
numerous almost, as the waves of the sea, and whose feet were concealed
by the forests—extended the _campagna_ of Italy, where cities and
rivers, and woods and all the glow of cultivation were mingled in gay
confusion. The Adriatic bounded the horizon, into which the Po and the
Brenta, after winding through the whole extent of the landscape, poured
their fruitful waves. Emily gazed long on the splendours of the world
she was quitting, of which the whole magnificence seemed thus given to
her sight only to increase her regret on leaving it; for her,
Valancourt alone was in that world; to him alone her heart turned, and
for him alone fell her bitter tears.

From this sublime scene the travellers continued to ascend among the
pines, till they entered a narrow pass of the mountains, which shut out
every feature of the distant country, and, in its stead, exhibited only
tremendous crags, impending over the road, where no vestige of
humanity, or even of vegetation, appeared, except here and there the
trunk and scathed branches of an oak, that hung nearly headlong from
the rock, into which its strong roots had fastened. This pass, which
led into the heart of the Apennine, at length opened to day, and a
scene of mountains stretched in long perspective, as wild as any the
travellers had yet passed. Still vast pine-forests hung upon their
base, and crowned the ridgy precipice, that rose perpendicularly from
the vale, while, above, the rolling mists caught the sunbeams, and
touched their cliffs with all the magical colouring of light and shade.
The scene seemed perpetually changing, and its features to assume new
forms, as the winding road brought them to the eye in different
attitudes; while the shifting vapours, now partially concealing their
minuter beauties and now illuminating them with splendid tints,
assisted the illusions of the sight.

Though the deep valleys between these mountains were, for the most
part, clothed with pines, sometimes an abrupt opening presented a
perspective of only barren rocks, with a cataract flashing from their
summit among broken cliffs, till its waters, reaching the bottom,
foamed along with unceasing fury; and sometimes pastoral scenes
exhibited their “green delights” in the narrow vales, smiling amid
surrounding horror. There herds and flocks of goats and sheep, browsing
under the shade of hanging woods, and the shepherd’s little cabin,
reared on the margin of a clear stream, presented a sweet picture of
repose.

Wild and romantic as were these scenes, their character had far less of
the sublime, that had those of the Alps, which guard the entrance of
Italy. Emily was often elevated, but seldom felt those emotions of
indescribable awe which she had so continually experienced, in her
passage over the Alps.

Towards the close of day, the road wound into a deep valley. Mountains,
whose shaggy steeps appeared to be inaccessible, almost surrounded it.
To the east, a vista opened, that exhibited the Apennines in their
darkest horrors; and the long perspective of retiring summits, rising
over each other, their ridges clothed with pines, exhibited a stronger
image of grandeur, than any that Emily had yet seen. The sun had just
sunk below the top of the mountains she was descending, whose long
shadow stretched athwart the valley, but his sloping rays, shooting
through an opening of the cliffs, touched with a yellow gleam the
summits of the forest, that hung upon the opposite steeps, and streamed
in full splendour upon the towers and battlements of a castle, that
spread its extensive ramparts along the brow of a precipice above. The
splendour of these illumined objects was heightened by the contrasted
shade, which involved the valley below.

“There,” said Montoni, speaking for the first time in several hours,
“is Udolpho.”

Emily gazed with melancholy awe upon the castle, which she understood
to be Montoni’s; for, though it was now lighted up by the setting sun,
the gothic greatness of its features, and its mouldering walls of dark
grey stone, rendered it a gloomy and sublime object. As she gazed, the
light died away on its walls, leaving a melancholy purple tint, which
spread deeper and deeper, as the thin vapour crept up the mountain,
while the battlements above were still tipped with splendour. From
those, too, the rays soon faded, and the whole edifice was invested
with the solemn duskiness of evening. Silent, lonely, and sublime, it
seemed to stand the sovereign of the scene, and to frown defiance on
all, who dared to invade its solitary reign. As the twilight deepened,
its features became more awful in obscurity, and Emily continued to
gaze, till its clustering towers were alone seen, rising over the tops
of the woods, beneath whose thick shade the carriages soon after began
to ascend.

The extent and darkness of these tall woods awakened terrific images in
her mind, and she almost expected to see banditti start up from under
the trees. At length, the carriages emerged upon a heathy rock, and,
soon after, reached the castle gates, where the deep tone of the portal
bell, which was struck upon to give notice of their arrival, increased
the fearful emotions, that had assailed Emily. While they waited till
the servant within should come to open the gates, she anxiously
surveyed the edifice: but the gloom, that overspread it, allowed her to
distinguish little more than a part of its outline, with the massy
walls of the ramparts, and to know, that it was vast, ancient and
dreary. From the parts she saw, she judged of the heavy strength and
extent of the whole. The gateway before her, leading into the courts,
was of gigantic size, and was defended by two round towers, crowned by
overhanging turrets, embattled, where, instead of banners, now waved
long grass and wild plants, that had taken root among the mouldering
stones, and which seemed to sigh, as the breeze rolled past, over the
desolation around them. The towers were united by a curtain, pierced
and embattled also, below which appeared the pointed arch of a huge
portcullis, surmounting the gates: from these, the walls of the
ramparts extended to other towers, overlooking the precipice, whose
shattered outline, appearing on a gleam, that lingered in the west,
told of the ravages of war.—Beyond these all was lost in the obscurity
of evening.

While Emily gazed with awe upon the scene, footsteps were heard within
the gates, and the undrawing of bolts; after which an ancient servant
of the castle appeared, forcing back the huge folds of the portal, to
admit his lord. As the carriage-wheels rolled heavily under the
portcullis, Emily’s heart sunk, and she seemed, as if she was going
into her prison; the gloomy court, into which she passed, served to
confirm the idea, and her imagination, ever awake to circumstance,
suggested even more terrors, than her reason could justify.

Another gate delivered them into the second court, grass-grown, and
more wild than the first, where, as she surveyed through the twilight
its desolation—its lofty walls, overtopped with briony, moss and
nightshade, and the embattled towers that rose above,—long-suffering
and murder came to her thoughts. One of those instantaneous and
unaccountable convictions, which sometimes conquer even strong minds,
impressed her with its horror. The sentiment was not diminished, when
she entered an extensive gothic hall, obscured by the gloom of evening,
which a light, glimmering at a distance through a long perspective of
arches, only rendered more striking. As a servant brought the lamp
nearer partial gleams fell upon the pillars and the pointed arches,
forming a strong contrast with their shadows, that stretched along the
pavement and the walls.

The sudden journey of Montoni had prevented his people from making any
other preparations for his reception, than could be had in the short
interval, since the arrival of the servant, who had been sent forward
from Venice; and this, in some measure, may account for the air of
extreme desolation, that everywhere appeared.

The servant, who came to light Montoni, bowed in silence, and the
muscles of his countenance relaxed with no symptom of joy.—Montoni
noticed the salutation by a slight motion of his hand, and passed on,
while his lady, following, and looking round with a degree of surprise
and discontent, which she seemed fearful of expressing, and Emily,
surveying the extent and grandeur of the hall in timid wonder,
approached a marble staircase. The arches here opened to a lofty vault,
from the centre of which hung a tripod lamp, which a servant was
hastily lighting; and the rich fret-work of the roof, a corridor,
leading into several upper apartments, and a painted window, stretching
nearly from the pavement to the ceiling of the hall, became gradually
visible.

Having crossed the foot of the staircase, and passed through an
ante-room, they entered a spacious apartment, whose walls, wainscoted
with black larch-wood, the growth of the neighbouring mountains, were
scarcely distinguishable from darkness itself. “Bring more light,” said
Montoni, as he entered. The servant, setting down his lamp, was
withdrawing to obey him, when Madame Montoni observing, that the
evening air of this mountainous region was cold, and that she should
like a fire, Montoni ordered that wood might be brought.

While he paced the room with thoughtful steps, and Madame Montoni sat
silently on a couch, at the upper end of it, waiting till the servant
returned, Emily was observing the singular solemnity and desolation of
the apartment, viewed, as it now was, by the glimmer of the single
lamp, placed near a large Venetian mirror, that duskily reflected the
scene, with the tall figure of Montoni passing slowly along, his arms
folded, and his countenance shaded by the plume, that waved in his hat.

From the contemplation of this scene, Emily’s mind proceeded to the
apprehension of what she might suffer in it, till the remembrance of
Valancourt, far, far distant! came to her heart, and softened it into
sorrow. A heavy sigh escaped her: but, trying to conceal her tears, she
walked away to one of the high windows, that opened upon the ramparts,
below which, spread the woods she had passed in her approach to the
castle. But the night-shade sat deeply on the mountains beyond, and
their indented outline alone could be faintly traced on the horizon,
where a red streak yet glimmered in the west. The valley between was
sunk in darkness.

The scene within, upon which Emily turned on the opening of the door,
was scarcely less gloomy. The old servant, who had received them at the
gates, now entered, bending under a load of pine-branches, while two of
Montoni’s Venetian servants followed with lights.

“Your _Excellenza_ is welcome to the castle,” said the old man, as he
raised himself from the hearth, where he had laid the wood: “it has
been a lonely place a long while; but you will excuse it, Signor,
knowing we had but short notice. It is near two years, come next feast
of St. Mark, since your _Excellenza_ was within these walls.”

“You have a good memory, old Carlo,” said Montoni: “it is thereabout;
and how hast thou contrived to live so long?”

“A-well-a-day, sir, with much ado; the cold winds, that blow through
the castle in winter, are almost too much for me; and I thought
sometimes of asking your _Excellenza_ to let me leave the mountains,
and go down into the lowlands. But I don’t know how it is—I am loth to
quit these old walls I have lived in so long.”

“Well, how have you gone on in the castle, since I left it?” said
Montoni.

“Why much as usual, Signor, only it wants a good deal of repairing.
There is the north tower—some of the battlements have tumbled down, and
had liked one day to have knocked my poor wife (God rest her soul!) on
the head. Your _Excellenza_ must know—”

“Well, but the repairs,” interrupted Montoni.

“Aye, the repairs,” said Carlo: “a part of the roof of the great hall
has fallen in, and all the winds from the mountains rushed through it
last winter, and whistled through the whole castle so, that there was
no keeping one’s self warm, be where one would. There, my wife and I
used to sit shivering over a great fire in one corner of the little
hall, ready to die with cold, and—”

“But there are no more repairs wanted,” said Montoni, impatiently.

“O Lord! Your _Excellenza_, yes—the wall of the rampart has tumbled
down in three places; then, the stairs, that lead to the west gallery,
have been a long time so bad, that it is dangerous to go up them; and
the passage leading to the great oak chamber, that overhangs the north
rampart—one night last winter I ventured to go there by myself, and
your _Excellenza_—”

“Well, well, enough of this,” said Montoni, with quickness: “I will
talk more with thee tomorrow.”

The fire was now lighted; Carlo swept the hearth, placed chairs, wiped
the dust from a large marble table that stood near it, and then left
the room.

Montoni and his family drew round the fire. Madame Montoni made several
attempts at conversation, but his sullen answers repulsed her, while
Emily sat endeavouring to acquire courage enough to speak to him. At
length, in a tremulous voice, she said, “May I ask, sir, the motive of
this sudden journey?”—After a long pause, she recovered sufficient
courage to repeat the question.

“It does not suit me to answer enquiries,” said Montoni, “nor does it
become you to make them; time may unfold them all: but I desire I may
be no further harassed, and I recommend it to you to retire to your
chamber, and to endeavour to adopt a more rational conduct, than that
of yielding to fancies, and to a sensibility, which, to call it by the
gentlest name, is only a weakness.”

Emily rose to withdraw. “Good night, madam,” said she to her aunt, with
an assumed composure, that could not disguise her emotion.

“Good night, my dear,” said Madame Montoni, in a tone of kindness,
which her niece had never before heard from her; and the unexpected
endearment brought tears to Emily’s eyes. She curtsied to Montoni, and
was retiring; “But you do not know the way to your chamber,” said her
aunt. Montoni called the servant, who waited in the ante-room, and bade
him send Madame Montoni’s woman, with whom, in a few minutes, Emily
withdrew.

“Do you know which is my room?” said she to Annette, as they crossed
the hall.

“Yes, I believe I do, ma’amselle; but this is such a strange rambling
place! I have been lost in it already: they call it the double chamber,
over the south rampart, and I went up this great staircase to it. My
lady’s room is at the other end of the castle.”

Emily ascended the marble staircase, and came to the corridor, as they
passed through which, Annette resumed her chat—“What a wild lonely
place this is, ma’am! I shall be quite frightened to live in it. How
often, and often have I wished myself in France again! I little
thought, when I came with my lady to see the world, that I should ever
be shut up in such a place as this, or I would never have left my own
country! This way, ma’amselle, down this turning. I can almost believe
in giants again, and such like, for this is just like one of their
castles; and, some night or other, I suppose I shall see fairies too,
hopping about in that great old hall, that looks more like a church,
with its huge pillars, than anything else.”

“Yes,” said Emily, smiling, and glad to escape from more serious
thought, “if we come to the corridor, about midnight, and look down
into the hall, we shall certainly see it illuminated with a thousand
lamps, and the fairies tripping in gay circles to the sound of
delicious music; for it is in such places as this, you know, that they
come to hold their revels. But I am afraid, Annette, you will not be
able to pay the necessary penance for such a sight: and, if once they
hear your voice, the whole scene will vanish in an instant.”

“O! if you will bear me company, ma’amselle, I will come to the
corridor, this very night, and I promise you I will hold my tongue; it
shall not be my fault if the show vanishes.—But do you think they will
come?”

“I cannot promise that with certainty, but I will venture to say, it
will not be your fault if the enchantment should vanish.”

“Well, ma’amselle, that is saying more than I expected of you: but I am
not so much afraid of fairies, as of ghosts, and they say there are a
plentiful many of them about the castle: now I should be frightened to
death, if I should chance to see any of them. But hush! ma’amselle,
walk softly! I have thought, several times, something passed by me.”

“Ridiculous!” said Emily, “you must not indulge such fancies.”

“O ma’am! they are not fancies, for aught I know; Benedetto says these
dismal galleries and halls are fit for nothing but ghosts to live in;
and I verily believe, if I _live_ long in them I shall turn to one
myself!”

“I hope,” said Emily, “you will not suffer Signor Montoni to hear of
these weak fears; they would highly displease him.”

“What, you know then, ma’amselle, all about it!” rejoined Annette. “No,
no, I do know better than to do so; though, if the Signor can sleep
sound, nobody else in the castle has any right to lie awake, I am
sure.” Emily did not appear to notice this remark.

“Down this passage, ma’amselle; this leads to a back staircase. O! if I
see anything, I shall be frightened out of my wits!”

“That will scarcely be possible,” said Emily smiling, as she followed
the winding of the passage, which opened into another gallery: and then
Annette, perceiving that she had missed her way, while she had been so
eloquently haranguing on ghosts and fairies, wandered about through
other passages and galleries, till, at length, frightened by their
intricacies and desolation, she called aloud for assistance: but they
were beyond the hearing of the servants, who were on the other side of
the castle, and Emily now opened the door of a chamber on the left.

“O! do not go in there, ma’amselle,” said Annette, “you will only lose
yourself further.”

“Bring the light forward,” said Emily, “we may possibly find our way
through these rooms.”

Annette stood at the door, in an attitude of hesitation, with the light
held up to show the chamber, but the feeble rays spread through not
half of it. “Why do you hesitate?” said Emily, “let me see whither this
room leads.”

Annette advanced reluctantly. It opened into a suite of spacious and
ancient apartments, some of which were hung with tapestry, and others
wainscoted with cedar and black larch-wood. What furniture there was,
seemed to be almost as old as the rooms, and retained an appearance of
grandeur, though covered with dust, and dropping to pieces with the
damps, and with age.

“How cold these rooms are, ma’amselle!” said Annette: “nobody has lived
in them for many, many years, they say. Do let us go.”

“They may open upon the great staircase, perhaps,” said Emily, passing
on till she came to a chamber, hung with pictures, and took the light
to examine that of a soldier on horseback in a field of battle.—He was
darting his spear upon a man, who lay under the feet of the horse, and
who held up one hand in a supplicating attitude. The soldier, whose
beaver was up, regarded him with a look of vengeance, and the
countenance, with that expression, struck Emily as resembling Montoni.
She shuddered, and turned from it. Passing the light hastily over
several other pictures, she came to one concealed by a veil of black
silk. The singularity of the circumstance struck her, and she stopped
before it, wishing to remove the veil, and examine what could thus
carefully be concealed, but somewhat wanting courage. “Holy Virgin!
what can this mean?” exclaimed Annette. “This is surely the picture
they told me of at Venice.”

“What picture?” said Emily. “Why a picture—a picture,” replied Annette,
hesitatingly—“but I never could make out exactly what it was about,
either.”

“Remove the veil, Annette.”

“What! I, ma’amselle!—I! not for the world!” Emily, turning round, saw
Annette’s countenance grow pale. “And pray, what have you heard of this
picture, to terrify you so, my good girl?” said she. “Nothing,
ma’amselle: I have heard nothing, only let us find our way out.”

“Certainly: but I wish first to examine the picture; take the light,
Annette, while I lift the veil.” Annette took the light, and
immediately walked away with it, disregarding Emily’s call to stay,
who, not choosing to be left alone in the dark chamber, at length
followed her. “What is the reason of this, Annette?” said Emily, when
she overtook her, “what have you heard concerning that picture, which
makes you so unwilling to stay when I bid you?”

“I don’t know what is the reason, ma’amselle,” replied Annette, “nor
anything about the picture, only I have heard there is something very
dreadful belonging to it—and that it has been covered up in black _ever
since_—and that nobody has looked at it for a great many years—and it
somehow has to do with the owner of this castle before Signor Montoni
came to the possession of it—and—”

“Well, Annette,” said Emily, smiling, “I perceive it is as you say—that
you know nothing about the picture.”

“No, nothing, indeed, ma’amselle, for they made me promise never to
tell:—but—”

“Well,” rejoined Emily, who observed that she was struggling between
her inclination to reveal a secret, and her apprehension for the
consequence, “I will enquire no further—”

“No, pray, ma’am, do not.”

“Lest you should tell all,” interrupted Emily.

Annette blushed, and Emily smiled, and they passed on to the extremity
of this suite of apartments, and found themselves, after some further
perplexity, once more at the top of the marble staircase, where Annette
left Emily, while she went to call one of the servants of the castle to
show them to the chamber, for which they had been seeking.

While she was absent, Emily’s thoughts returned to the picture; an
unwillingness to tamper with the integrity of a servant, had checked
her enquiries on this subject, as well as concerning some alarming
hints, which Annette had dropped respecting Montoni; though her
curiosity was entirely awakened, and she had perceived, that her
questions might easily be answered. She was now, however, inclined to
go back to the apartment and examine the picture; but the loneliness of
the hour and of the place, with the melancholy silence that reigned
around her, conspired with a certain degree of awe, excited by the
mystery attending this picture, to prevent her. She determined,
however, when daylight should have reanimated her spirits, to go
thither and remove the veil. As she leaned from the corridor, over the
staircase, and her eyes wandered round, she again observed, with
wonder, the vast strength of the walls, now somewhat decayed, and the
pillars of solid marble, that rose from the hall, and supported the
roof.

A servant now appeared with Annette, and conducted Emily to her
chamber, which was in a remote part of the castle, and at the very end
of the corridor, from whence the suite of apartments opened, through
which they had been wandering. The lonely aspect of her room made Emily
unwilling that Annette should leave her immediately, and the dampness
of it chilled her with more than fear. She begged Caterina, the servant
of the castle, to bring some wood and light a fire.

“Aye, lady, it’s many a year since a fire was lighted here,” said
Caterina.

“You need not tell us that, good woman,” said Annette; “every room in
the castle feels like a well. I wonder how you contrive to live here;
for my part, I wish myself at Venice again.” Emily waved her hand for
Caterina to fetch the wood.

“I wonder, ma’am, why they call this the double chamber?” said Annette,
while Emily surveyed it in silence and saw that it was lofty and
spacious, like the others she had seen, and, like many of them, too,
had its walls lined with dark larch-wood. The bed and other furniture
was very ancient, and had an air of gloomy grandeur, like all that she
had seen in the castle. One of the high casements, which she opened,
overlooked a rampart, but the view beyond was hid in darkness.

In the presence of Annette, Emily tried to support her spirits, and to
restrain the tears, which, every now and then, came to her eyes. She
wished much to enquire when Count Morano was expected at the castle,
but an unwillingness to ask unnecessary questions, and to mention
family concerns to a servant, withheld her. Meanwhile, Annette’s
thoughts were engaged upon another subject: she dearly loved the
marvellous, and had heard of a circumstance, connected with the castle,
that highly gratified this taste. Having been enjoined not to mention
it, her inclination to tell it was so strong, that she was every
instant on the point of speaking what she had heard. Such a strange
circumstance, too, and to be obliged to conceal it, was a severe
punishment; but she knew, that Montoni might impose one much severer,
and she feared to incur it by offending him.

Caterina now brought the wood, and its bright blaze dispelled, for a
while, the gloom of the chamber. She told Annette, that her lady had
enquired for her, and Emily was once again left to her own sad
reflections. Her heart was not yet hardened against the stern manners
of Montoni, and she was nearly as much shocked now, as she had been
when she first witnessed them. The tenderness and affection, to which
she had been accustomed, till she lost her parents, had made her
particularly sensible to any degree of unkindness, and such a reverse
as this no apprehension had prepared her to support.

To call off her attention from subjects, that pressed heavily on her
spirits, she rose and again examined her room and its furniture. As she
walked round it, she passed a door, that was not quite shut, and,
perceiving, that it was not the one, through which she entered, she
brought the light forward to discover whither it led. She opened it,
and, going forward, had nearly fallen down a steep, narrow staircase
that wound from it, between two stone walls. She wished to know to what
it led, and was the more anxious, since it communicated so immediately
with her apartment; but, in the present state of her spirits, she
wanted courage to venture into the darkness alone. Closing the door,
therefore, she endeavoured to fasten it, but, upon further examination,
perceived, that it had no bolts on the chamber side, though it had two
on the other. By placing a heavy chair against it, she in some measure
remedied the defect; yet she was still alarmed at the thought of
sleeping in this remote room alone, with a door opening she knew not
whither, and which could not be perfectly fastened on the inside.
Sometimes she wished to entreat of Madame Montoni, that Annette might
have leave to remain with her all night, but was deterred by an
apprehension of betraying what would be thought childish fears, and by
an unwillingness to increase the apt terrors of Annette.

Her gloomy reflections were, soon after, interrupted by a footstep in
the corridor, and she was glad to see Annette enter with some supper,
sent by Madame Montoni. Having a table near the fire, she made the good
girl sit down and sup with her; and, when their little repast was over,
Annette, encouraged by her kindness and stirring the wood into a blaze,
drew her chair upon the hearth, nearer to Emily, and said—“Did you ever
hear, ma’amselle, of the strange accident, that made the Signor lord of
this castle?”

“What wonderful story have you now to tell?” said Emily, concealing the
curiosity, occasioned by the mysterious hints she had formerly heard on
that subject.

“I have heard all about it, ma’amselle,” said Annette, looking round
the chamber and drawing closer to Emily; “Benedetto told it me as we
travelled together: says he, ‘Annette, you don’t know about this castle
here, that we are going to?’ ‘No,’ says I, ‘Mr. Benedetto, pray what do
you know?’ But, ma’amselle, you can keep a secret, or I would not tell
it you for the world; for I promised never to tell, and they say, that
the Signor does not like to have it talked of.”

“If you promised to keep this secret,” said Emily, “you do right not to
mention it.”

Annette paused a moment, and then said, “O, but to you, ma’amselle, to
you I may tell it safely, I know.”

Emily smiled, “I certainly shall keep it as faithful as yourself,
Annette.”

Annette replied very gravely, that would do, and proceeded—“This
castle, you must know, ma’amselle, is very old, and very strong, and
has stood out many sieges as they say. Now it was not Signor Montoni’s
always, nor his father’s; no; but, by some law or other, it was to come
to the Signor, if the lady died unmarried.”

“What lady?” said Emily.

“I am not come to that yet,” replied Annette, “it is the lady I am
going to tell you about, ma’amselle: but, as I was saying, this lady
lived in the castle, and had everything very grand about her, as you
may suppose, ma’amselle. The Signor used often to come to see her, and
was in love with her, and offered to marry her; for, though he was
somehow related, that did not signify. But she was in love with
somebody else, and would not have him, which made him very angry, as
they say, and you know, ma’amselle, what an ill-looking gentleman he
is, when he is angry. Perhaps she saw him in a passion, and therefore
would not have him. But, as I was saying, she was very melancholy and
unhappy, and all that, for a long while, and—Holy Virgin! what noise is
that? did not you hear a sound, ma’amselle?”

“It was only the wind,” said Emily, “but do come to the end of your
story.”

“As I was saying—O, where was I?—as I was saying—she was very
melancholy and unhappy a long while, and used to walk about upon the
terrace, there, under the windows, by herself, and cry so! it would
have done your heart good to hear her. That is—I don’t mean good, but
it would have made you cry too, as they tell me.”

“Well, but, Annette, do tell me the substance of your tale.”

“All in good time, ma’am; all this I heard before at Venice, but what
is to come I never heard till today. This happened a great many years
ago, when Signor Montoni was quite a young man. The lady—they called
her Signora Laurentini, was very handsome, but she used to be in great
passions, too, sometimes, as well as the Signor. Finding he could not
make her listen to him—what does he do, but leave the castle, and never
comes near it for a long time! but it was all one to her; she was just
as unhappy whether he was here or not, till one evening, Holy St.
Peter! ma’amselle,” cried Annette, “look at that lamp, see how blue it
burns!” She looked fearfully round the chamber. “Ridiculous girl!” said
Emily, “why will you indulge those fancies? Pray let me hear the end of
your story, I am weary.”

Annette still kept her eyes on the lamp, and proceeded in a lower
voice. “It was one evening, they say, at the latter end of the year, it
might be about the middle of September, I suppose, or the beginning of
October; nay, for that matter, it might be November, for that, too, is
the latter end of the year, but that I cannot say for certain, because
they did not tell me for certain themselves. However, it was at the
latter end of the year, this grand lady walked out of the castle into
the woods below, as she had often done before, all alone, only her maid
was with her. The wind blew cold, and strewed the leaves about, and
whistled dismally among those great old chesnut trees, that we passed,
ma’amselle, as we came to the castle—for Benedetto showed me the trees
as he was talking—the wind blew cold, and her woman would have
persuaded her to return: but all would not do, for she was fond of
walking in the woods, at evening time, and, if the leaves were falling
about her, so much the better.

“Well, they saw her go down among the woods, but night came, and she
did not return: ten o’clock, eleven o’clock, twelve o’clock came, and
no lady! Well, the servants thought to be sure, some accident had
befallen her, and they went out to seek her. They searched all night
long, but could not find her, or any trace of her; and, from that day
to this, ma’amselle, she has never been heard of.”

“Is this true, Annette?” said Emily, in much surprise.

“True, ma’am!” said Annette, with a look of horror, “yes, it is true,
indeed. But they do say,” she added, lowering her voice, “they do say,
that the Signora has been seen, several times since, walking in the
woods and about the castle in the night: several of the old servants,
who remained here some time after, declare they saw her; and, since
then, she has been seen by some of the vassals, who have happened to be
in the castle, at night. Carlo, the old steward, could tell such
things, they say, if he would.”

“How contradictory is this, Annette!” said Emily, “you say nothing has
been since known of her, and yet she has been seen!”

“But all this was told me for a great secret,” rejoined Annette,
without noticing the remark, “and I am sure, ma’am, you would not hurt
either me or Benedetto, so much as to go and tell it again.” Emily
remained silent, and Annette repeated her last sentence.

“You have nothing to fear from my indiscretion,” replied Emily, “and
let me advise you, my good Annette, be discreet yourself, and never
mention what you have just told me to any other person. Signor Montoni,
as you say, may be angry if he hears of it. But what inquiries were
made concerning the lady?”

“O! a great deal, indeed, ma’amselle, for the Signor laid claim to the
castle directly, as being the next heir, and they said, that is, the
judges, or the senators, or somebody of that sort, said, he could not
take possession of it till so many years were gone by, and then, if,
after all, the lady could not be found, why she would be as good as
dead, and the castle would be his own; and so it is his own. But the
story went round, and many strange reports were spread, so very
strange, ma’amselle, that I shall not tell them.”

“That is stranger still, Annette,” said Emily, smiling, and rousing
herself from her reverie. “But, when Signora Laurentini was afterwards
seen in the castle, did nobody speak to her?”

“Speak—speak to her!” cried Annette, with a look of terror; “no, to be
sure.”

“And why not?” rejoined Emily, willing to hear further.

“Holy Mother! speak to a spirit!”

“But what reason had they to conclude it was a spirit, unless they had
approached, and spoken to it?”

“O ma’amselle, I cannot tell. How can you ask such shocking questions?
But nobody ever saw it come in, or go out of the castle; and it was in
one place now, and then the next minute in quite another part of the
castle; and then it never spoke, and, if it was alive, what should it
do in the castle if it never spoke? Several parts of the castle have
never been gone into since, they say, for that very reason.”

“What, because it never spoke?” said Emily, trying to laugh away the
fears that began to steal upon her.

“No, ma’amselle, no;” replied Annette, rather angrily “but because
something has been seen there. They say, too, there is an old chapel
adjoining the west side of the castle, where, any time at midnight, you
may hear such groans!—it makes one shudder to think of them!—and
strange sights have been seen there—”

“Pr’ythee, Annette, no more of these silly tales,” said Emily.

“Silly tales, ma’amselle! O, but I will tell you one story about this,
if you please, that Caterina told me. It was one cold winter’s night
that Caterina (she often came to the castle then, she says, to keep old
Carlo and his wife company, and so he recommended her afterwards to the
Signor, and she has lived here ever since) Caterina was sitting with
them in the little hall, says Carlo, ‘I wish we had some of those figs
to roast, that lie in the store-closet, but it is a long way off, and I
am loath to fetch them; do, Caterina,’ says he, ‘for you are young and
nimble, do bring us some, the fire is in nice trim for roasting them;
they lie,’ says he, ‘in such a corner of the store-room, at the end of
the north-gallery; here, take the lamp,’ says he, ‘and mind, as you go
up the great staircase, that the wind, through the roof, does not blow
it out.’ So, with that, Caterina took the lamp—Hush! ma’amselle, I
surely heard a noise!”

Emily, whom Annette had now infected with her own terrors, listened
attentively; but everything was still, and Annette proceeded:

“Caterina went to the north-gallery, that is the wide gallery we
passed, ma’am, before we came to the corridor, here. As she went with
the lamp in her hand, thinking of nothing at all—There, again!” cried
Annette suddenly—“I heard it again!—it was not fancy, ma’amselle!”

“Hush!” said Emily, trembling. They listened, and, continuing to sit
quite still, Emily heard a low knocking against the wall. It came
repeatedly. Annette then screamed loudly, and the chamber door slowly
opened.—It was Caterina, come to tell Annette, that her lady wanted
her. Emily, though she now perceived who it was, could not immediately
overcome her terror; while Annette, half laughing, half crying, scolded
Caterina heartily for thus alarming them; and was also terrified lest
what she had told had been overheard.—Emily, whose mind was deeply
impressed by the chief circumstance of Annette’s relation, was
unwilling to be left alone, in the present state of her spirits; but,
to avoid offending Madame Montoni, and betraying her own weakness, she
struggled to overcome the illusions of fear, and dismissed Annette for
the night.

When she was alone, her thoughts recurred to the strange history of
Signora Laurentini and then to her own strange situation, in the wild
and solitary mountains of a foreign country, in the castle, and the
power of a man, to whom, only a few preceding months, she was an entire
stranger; who had already exercised a usurped authority over her, and
whose character she now regarded, with a degree of terror, apparently
justified by the fears of others. She knew, that he had invention equal
to the conception and talents to the execution of any project, and she
greatly feared he had a heart too void of feeling to oppose the
perpetration of whatever his interest might suggest. She had long
observed the unhappiness of Madame Montoni, and had often been witness
to the stern and contemptuous behaviour she received from her husband.
To these circumstances, which conspired to give her just cause for
alarm, were now added those thousand nameless terrors, which exist only
in active imaginations, and which set reason and examination equally at
defiance.

Emily remembered all that Valancourt had told her, on the eve of her
departure from Languedoc, respecting Montoni, and all that he had said
to dissuade her from venturing on the journey. His fears had often
since appeared to her prophetic—now they seemed confirmed. Her heart,
as it gave her back the image of Valancourt, mourned in vain regret,
but reason soon came with a consolation which, though feeble at first,
acquired vigour from reflection. She considered, that, whatever might
be her sufferings, she had withheld from involving him in misfortune,
and that, whatever her future sorrows could be, she was, at least, free
from self-reproach.

Her melancholy was assisted by the hollow sighings of the wind along
the corridor and round the castle. The cheerful blaze of the wood had
long been extinguished, and she sat with her eyes fixed on the dying
embers, till a loud gust, that swept through the corridor, and shook
the doors and casements, alarmed her, for its violence had moved the
chair she had placed as a fastening, and the door, leading to the
private staircase stood half open. Her curiosity and her fears were
again awakened. She took the lamp to the top of the steps, and stood
hesitating whether to go down; but again the profound stillness and the
gloom of the place awed her, and, determining to enquire further, when
daylight might assist the search, she closed the door, and placed
against it a stronger guard.

She now retired to her bed, leaving the lamp burning on the table; but
its gloomy light, instead of dispelling her fear, assisted it; for, by
its uncertain rays, she almost fancied she saw shapes flit past her
curtains and glide into the remote obscurity of her chamber.—The castle
clock struck one before she closed her eyes to sleep.



 CHAPTER VI

I think it is the weakness of mine eyes,
That shapes this monstrous apparition.
It comes upon me!
                    JULIUS CÆSAR


Daylight dispelled from Emily’s mind the glooms of superstition, but
not those of apprehension. The Count Morano was the first image that
occurred to her waking thoughts, and then came a train of anticipated
evils, which she could neither conquer, nor avoid. She rose, and, to
relieve her mind from the busy ideas, that tormented it, compelled
herself to notice external objects. From her casement she looked out
upon the wild grandeur of the scene, closed nearly on all sides by
alpine steeps, whose tops, peeping over each other, faded from the eye
in misty hues, while the promontories below were dark with woods, that
swept down to their base, and stretched along the narrow valleys. The
rich pomp of these woods was particularly delightful to Emily; and she
viewed with astonishment the fortifications of the castle spreading
along a vast extent of rock, and now partly in decay, the grandeur of
the ramparts below, and the towers and battlements and various features
of the fabric above. From these her sight wandered over the cliffs and
woods into the valley, along which foamed a broad and rapid stream,
seen falling among the crags of an opposite mountain, now flashing in
the sunbeams, and now shadowed by over-arching pines, till it was
entirely concealed by their thick foliage. Again it burst from beneath
this darkness in one broad sheet of foam, and fell thundering into the
vale. Nearer, towards the west, opened the mountain-vista, which Emily
had viewed with such sublime emotion, on her approach to the castle: a
thin dusky vapour, that rose from the valley, overspread its features
with a sweet obscurity. As this ascended and caught the sunbeams, it
kindled into a crimson tint, and touched with exquisite beauty the
woods and cliffs, over which it passed to the summit of the mountains;
then, as the veil drew up, it was delightful to watch the gleaming
objects, that progressively disclosed themselves in the valley—the
green turf—dark woods—little rocky recesses—a few peasants’ huts—the
foaming stream—a herd of cattle, and various images of pastoral beauty.
Then, the pine-forests brightened, and then the broad breast of the
mountains, till, at length, the mist settled round their summit,
touching them with a ruddy glow. The features of the vista now appeared
distinctly, and the broad deep shadows, that fell from the lower
cliffs, gave strong effect to the streaming splendour above; while the
mountains, gradually sinking in the perspective, appeared to shelve
into the Adriatic sea, for such Emily imagined to be the gleam of
bluish light that terminated the view.

Thus she endeavoured to amuse her fancy, and was not unsuccessful. The
breezy freshness of the morning, too, revived her. She raised her
thoughts in prayer, which she felt always most disposed to do, when
viewing the sublimity of nature, and her mind recovered its strength.

When she turned from the casement, her eyes glanced upon the door she
had so carefully guarded, on the preceding night, and she now
determined to examine whither it led; but, on advancing to remove the
chairs, she perceived, that they were already moved a little way. Her
surprise cannot be easily imagined, when, in the next minute, she
perceived that the door was fastened.—She felt, as if she had seen an
apparition. The door of the corridor was locked as she had left it, but
this door, which could be secured only on the outside, must have been
bolted, during the night. She became seriously uneasy at the thought of
sleeping again in a chamber, thus liable to intrusion, so remote, too,
as it was from the family, and she determined to mention the
circumstance to Madame Montoni, and to request a change.

After some perplexity she found her way into the great hall, and to the
room, which she had left, on the preceding night, where breakfast was
spread, and her aunt was alone, for Montoni had been walking over the
environs of the castle, examining the condition of its fortifications,
and talking for some time with Carlo. Emily observed that her aunt had
been weeping, and her heart softened towards her, with an affection,
that showed itself in her manner, rather than in words, while she
carefully avoided the appearance of having noticed, that she was
unhappy. She seized the opportunity of Montoni’s absence to mention the
circumstance of the door, to request that she might be allowed another
apartment, and to enquire again, concerning the occasion of their
sudden journey. On the first subject her aunt referred her to Montoni,
positively refusing to interfere in the affair; on the last, she
professed utter ignorance.

Emily, then, with a wish of making her aunt more reconciled to her
situation, praised the grandeur of the castle and the surrounding
scenery, and endeavoured to soften every unpleasing circumstance
attending it. But, though misfortune had somewhat conquered the
asperities of Madame Montoni’s temper, and, by increasing her cares for
herself, had taught her to feel in some degree for others, the
capricious love of rule, which nature had planted and habit had
nourished in her heart, was not subdued. She could not now deny herself
the gratification of tyrannising over the innocent and helpless Emily,
by attempting to ridicule the taste she could not feel.

Her satirical discourse was, however, interrupted by the entrance of
Montoni, and her countenance immediately assumed a mingled expression
of fear and resentment, while he seated himself at the breakfast-table,
as if unconscious of there being any person but himself in the room.

Emily, as she observed him in silence, saw, that his countenance was
darker and sterner than usual. “O could I know,” said she to herself,
“what passes in that mind; could I know the thoughts, that are known
there, I should no longer be condemned to this torturing suspense!”
Their breakfast passed in silence, till Emily ventured to request, that
another apartment might be allotted to her, and related the
circumstance which made her wish it.

“I have no time to attend to these idle whims,” said Montoni, “that
chamber was prepared for you, and you must rest contented with it. It
is not probable, that any person would take the trouble of going to
that remote staircase, for the purpose of fastening a door. If it was
not fastened, when you entered the chamber, the wind, perhaps, shook
the door and made the bolts slide. But I know not why I should
undertake to account for so trifling an occurrence.”

This explanation was by no means satisfactory to Emily, who had
observed, that the bolts were rusted, and consequently could not be
thus easily moved; but she forbore to say so, and repeated her request.

“If you will not release yourself from the slavery of these fears,”
said Montoni, sternly, “at least forbear to torment others by the
mention of them. Conquer such whims, and endeavour to strengthen your
mind. No existence is more contemptible than that, which is embittered
by fear.” As he said this, his eye glanced upon Madame Montoni, who
coloured highly, but was still silent. Emily, wounded and disappointed,
thought her fears were, in this instance, too reasonable to deserve
ridicule; but, perceiving, that, however they might oppress her, she
must endure them, she tried to withdraw her attention from the subject.

Carlo soon after entered with some fruit:

“Your _Excellenza_ is tired after your long ramble,” said he, as he set
the fruit upon the table; “but you have more to see after breakfast.
There is a place in the vaulted passage leading to—”

Montoni frowned upon him, and waved his hand for him to leave the room.
Carlo stopped, looked down, and then added, as he advanced to the
breakfast-table, and took up the basket of fruit, “I made bold, your
_Excellenza_, to bring some cherries, here, for my honoured lady and my
young mistress. Will your ladyship taste them, madam?” said Carlo,
presenting the basket, “they are very fine ones, though I gathered them
myself, and from an old tree, that catches all the south sun; they are
as big as plums, your ladyship.”

“Very well, old Carlo,” said Madame Montoni; “I am obliged to you.”

“And the young Signora, too, she may like some of them,” rejoined
Carlo, turning with the basket to Emily, “it will do me good to see her
eat some.”

“Thank you, Carlo,” said Emily, taking some cherries, and smiling
kindly.

“Come, come,” said Montoni, impatiently, “enough of this. Leave the
room, but be in waiting. I shall want you presently.”

Carlo obeyed, and Montoni, soon after, went out to examine further into
the state of the castle; while Emily remained with her aunt, patiently
enduring her ill humour, and endeavouring, with much sweetness, to
soothe her affliction, instead of resenting its effect.

When Madame Montoni retired to her dressing-room, Emily endeavoured to
amuse herself by a view of the castle. Through a folding door she
passed from the great hall to the ramparts, which extended along the
brow of the precipice, round three sides of the edifice; the fourth was
guarded by the high walls of the courts, and by the gateway, through
which she had passed, on the preceding evening. The grandeur of the
broad ramparts, and the changing scenery they overlooked, excited her
high admiration; for the extent of the terraces allowed the features of
the country to be seen in such various points of view, that they
appeared to form new landscapes. She often paused to examine the gothic
magnificence of Udolpho, its proud irregularity, its lofty towers and
battlements, its high-arched casements, and its slender watch-towers,
perched upon the corners of turrets. Then she would lean on the wall of
the terrace, and, shuddering, measure with her eye the precipice below,
till the dark summits of the woods arrested it. Wherever she turned,
appeared mountain-tops, forests of pine and narrow glens, opening among
the Apennines and retiring from the sight into inaccessible regions.

While she thus leaned, Montoni, followed by two men, appeared,
ascending a winding path, cut in the rock below. He stopped upon a
cliff, and, pointing to the ramparts, turned to his followers, and
talked with much eagerness of gesticulation.—Emily perceived, that one
of these men was Carlo; the other was in the dress of a peasant, and he
alone seemed to be receiving the directions of Montoni.

She withdrew from the walls, and pursued her walk, till she heard at a
distance the sound of carriage wheels, and then the loud bell of the
portal, when it instantly occurred to her, that Count Morano was
arrived. As she hastily passed the folding doors from the terrace,
towards her own apartment, several persons entered the hall by an
opposite door. She saw them at the extremities of the arcades, and
immediately retreated; but the agitation of her spirits, and the extent
and duskiness of the hall, had prevented her from distinguishing the
persons of the strangers. Her fears, however, had but one object, and
they had called up that object to her fancy:—she believed that she had
seen Count Morano.

When she thought that they had passed the hall, she ventured again to
the door, and proceeded, unobserved, to her room, where she remained,
agitated with apprehensions, and listening to every distant sound. At
length, hearing voices on the rampart, she hastened to her window, and
observed Montoni, with Signor Cavigni, walking below, conversing
earnestly, and often stopping and turning towards each other, at which
time their discourse seemed to be uncommonly interesting.

Of the several persons who had appeared in the hall, here was Cavigni
alone: but Emily’s alarm was soon after heightened by the steps of some
one in the corridor, who, she apprehended, brought a message from the
Count. In the next moment, Annette appeared.

“Ah! ma’amselle,” said she, “here is the Signor Cavigni arrived! I am
sure I rejoiced to see a christian person in this place; and then he is
so good natured too, he always takes so much notice of me!—And here is
also Signor Verezzi, and who do you think besides, ma’amselle?”

“I cannot guess, Annette; tell me quickly.”

“Nay, ma’am, do guess once.”

“Well, then,” said Emily, with assumed composure, “it is—Count Morano,
I suppose.”

“Holy Virgin!” cried Annette, “are you ill, ma’amselle? you are going
to faint! let me get some water.”

Emily sunk into a chair. “Stay, Annette,” said she, feebly, “do not
leave me—I shall soon be better; open the casement.—The Count, you
say—he is come, then?”

“Who, I!—the Count! No, ma’amselle, I did not say so.”

“He is _not_ come then?” said Emily eagerly.

“No, ma’amselle.”

“You are sure of it?”

“Lord bless me!” said Annette, “you recover very suddenly, ma’am! why,
I thought you were dying, just now.”

“But the Count—you are sure, is not come?”

“O yes, quite sure of that, ma’amselle. Why, I was looking out through
the grate in the north turret, when the carriages drove into the
courtyard, and I never expected to see such a goodly sight in this
dismal old castle! but here are masters and servants, too, enough to
make the place ring again. O! I was ready to leap through the rusty old
bars for joy!—O! who would ever have thought of seeing a christian face
in this huge dreary house? I could have kissed the very horses that
brought them.”

“Well, Annette, well, I am better now.”

“Yes, ma’amselle, I see you are. O! all the servants will lead merry
lives here, now; we shall have singing and dancing in the little hall,
for the Signor cannot hear us there—and droll stories—Ludovico’s come,
ma’am; yes, there is Ludovico come with them! You remember Ludovico,
ma’am—a tall, handsome young man—Signor Cavigni’s lacquey—who always
wears his cloak with such a grace, thrown round his left arm, and his
hat set on so smartly, all on one side, and—”

“No,” said Emily, who was wearied by her loquacity.

“What, ma’amselle, don’t you remember Ludovico—who rowed the
Cavaliero’s gondola, at the last regatta, and won the prize? And who
used to sing such sweet verses about Orlandos and about the
Black-a-moors, too; and Charly—Charly—magne, yes, that was the name,
all under my lattice, in the west portico, on the moonlight nights at
Venice? O! I have listened to him!—”

“I fear, to thy peril, my good Annette,” said Emily; “for it seems his
verses have stolen thy heart. But let me advise you; if it is so, keep
the secret; never let him know it.”

“Ah—ma’amselle!—how can one keep such a secret as that?”

“Well, Annette, I am now so much better, that you may leave me.”

“O, but, ma’amselle, I forgot to ask—how did you sleep in this dreary
old chamber last night?”—“As well as usual.”—“Did you hear no
noises?”—“None.”—“Nor see anything?”—“Nothing.”—“Well, that is
surprising!”—“Not in the least: and now tell me, why you ask these
questions.”

“O, ma’amselle! I would not tell you for the world, nor all I have
heard about this chamber, either; it would frighten you so.”

“If that is all, you have frightened me already, and may therefore tell
me what you know, without hurting your conscience.”

“O Lord! they say the room is haunted, and has been so these many
years.”

“It is by a ghost, then, who can draw bolts,” said Emily, endeavouring
to laugh away her apprehensions; “for I left the door open, last night,
and found it fastened this morning.”

Annette turned pale, and said not a word.

“Do you know whether any of the servants fastened this door in the
morning, before I rose?”

“No, ma’am, that I will be bound they did not; but I don’t know: shall
I go and ask, ma’amselle?” said Annette, moving hastily towards the
corridor.

“Stay, Annette, I have another question to ask; tell me what you have
heard concerning this room, and whither that staircase leads.”

“I will go and ask it all directly, ma’am; besides, I am sure my lady
wants me. I cannot stay now, indeed, ma’am.”

She hurried from the room, without waiting Emily’s reply, whose heart,
lightened by the certainty, that Morano was not arrived, allowed her to
smile at the superstitious terror, which had seized on Annette; for,
though she sometimes felt its influence herself, she could smile at it,
when apparent in other persons.

Montoni having refused Emily another chamber, she determined to bear
with patience the evil she could not remove, and, in order to make the
room as comfortable as possible, unpacked her books, her sweet delight
in happier days, and her soothing resource in the hours of moderate
sorrow: but there were hours when even these failed of their effect;
when the genius, the taste, the enthusiasm of the sublimest writers
were felt no longer.

Her little library being arranged on a high chest, part of the
furniture of the room, she took out her drawing utensils, and was
tranquil enough to be pleased with the thought of sketching the sublime
scenes, beheld from her windows; but she suddenly checked this
pleasure, remembering how often she had soothed herself by the
intention of obtaining amusement of this kind, and had been prevented
by some new circumstance of misfortune.

“How can I suffer myself to be deluded by hope,” said she, “and,
because Count Morano is not yet arrived, feel a momentary happiness?
Alas! what is it to me, whether he is here today, or tomorrow, if he
comes at all?—and that he will come—it were weakness to doubt.”

To withdraw her thoughts, however, from the subject of her misfortunes,
she attempted to read, but her attention wandered from the page, and,
at length, she threw aside the book, and determined to explore the
adjoining chambers of the castle. Her imagination was pleased with the
view of ancient grandeur, and an emotion of melancholy awe awakened all
its powers, as she walked through rooms, obscure and desolate, where no
footsteps had passed probably for many years, and remembered the
strange history of the former possessor of the edifice. This brought to
her recollection the veiled picture, which had attracted her curiosity,
on the preceding night, and she resolved to examine it. As she passed
through the chambers, that led to this, she found herself somewhat
agitated; its connection with the late lady of the castle, and the
conversation of Annette, together with the circumstance of the veil,
throwing a mystery over the subject, that excited a faint degree of
terror. But a terror of this nature, as it occupies and expands the
mind, and elevates it to high expectation, is purely sublime, and leads
us, by a kind of fascination, to seek even the object, from which we
appear to shrink.

Emily passed on with faltering steps, and having paused a moment at the
door, before she attempted to open it, she then hastily entered the
chamber, and went towards the picture, which appeared to be enclosed in
a frame of uncommon size, that hung in a dark part of the room. She
paused again, and then, with a timid hand, lifted the veil; but
instantly let it fall—perceiving that what it had concealed was no
picture, and, before she could leave the chamber, she dropped senseless
on the floor.

When she recovered her recollection, the remembrance of what she had
seen had nearly deprived her of it a second time. She had scarcely
strength to remove from the room, and regain her own; and, when arrived
there, wanted courage to remain alone. Horror occupied her mind, and
excluded, for a time, all sense of past, and dread of future
misfortune: she seated herself near the casement, because from thence
she heard voices, though distant, on the terrace, and might see people
pass, and these, trifling as they were, were reviving circumstances.
When her spirits had recovered their tone, she considered, whether she
should mention what she had seen to Madame Montoni, and various and
important motives urged her to do so, among which the least was the
hope of the relief, which an overburdened mind finds in speaking of the
subject of its interest. But she was aware of the terrible
consequences, which such a communication might lead to; and, dreading
the indiscretion of her aunt, at length, endeavoured to arm herself
with resolution to observe a profound silence on the subject. Montoni
and Verezzi soon after passed under the casement, speaking cheerfully,
and their voices revived her. Presently the Signors Bertolini and
Cavigni joined the party on the terrace, and Emily, supposing that
Madame Montoni was then alone, went to seek her; for the solitude of
her chamber, and its proximity to that where she had received so severe
a shock, again affected her spirit.

She found her aunt in her dressing-room, preparing for dinner. Emily’s
pale and affrighted countenance alarmed even Madame Montoni; but she
had sufficient strength of mind to be silent on the subject, that still
made her shudder, and which was ready to burst from her lips. In her
aunt’s apartment she remained till they both descended to dinner. There
she met the gentlemen lately arrived, who had a kind of busy
seriousness in their looks, which was somewhat unusual with them, while
their thoughts seemed too much occupied by some deep interest, to
suffer them to bestow much attention either on Emily or Madame Montoni.
They spoke little, and Montoni less. Emily, as she now looked on him,
shuddered. The horror of the chamber rushed on her mind. Several times
the colour faded from her cheeks, and she feared, that illness would
betray her emotions, and compel her to leave the room; but the strength
of her resolution remedied the weakness of her frame; she obliged
herself to converse, and even tried to look cheerful.

Montoni evidently laboured under some vexation, such as would probably
have agitated a weaker mind or a more susceptible heart, but which
appeared, from the sternness of his countenance, only to bend up his
faculties to energy and fortitude.

It was a comfortless and silent meal. The gloom of the castle seemed to
have spread its contagion even over the gay countenance of Cavigni, and
with this gloom was mingled a fierceness such as she had seldom seen
him indicate. Count Morano was not named, and what conversation there
was, turned chiefly upon the wars which at that time agitated the
Italian states, the strength of the Venetian armies, and the characters
of their generals.

After dinner, when the servants had withdrawn, Emily learned, that the
cavalier, who had drawn upon himself the vengeance of Orsino, had since
died of his wounds, and that strict search was still making for his
murderer. The intelligence seemed to disturb Montoni, who mused, and
then enquired, where Orsino had concealed himself. His guests, who all,
except Cavigni, were ignorant, that Montoni had himself assisted him to
escape from Venice, replied, that he had fled in the night with such
precipitation and secrecy, that his most intimate companions knew not
whither. Montoni blamed himself for having asked the question, for a
second thought convinced him, that a man of Orsino’s suspicious temper
was not likely to trust any of the persons present with the knowledge
of his asylum. He considered himself, however, as entitled to his
utmost confidence, and did not doubt, that he should soon hear of him.

Emily retired with Madame Montoni, soon after the cloth was withdrawn,
and left the cavaliers to their secret councils, but not before the
significant frowns of Montoni had warned his wife to depart, who passed
from the hall to the ramparts, and walked, for some time, in silence,
which Emily did not interrupt, for her mind was also occupied by
interests of its own. It required all her resolution, to forbear
communicating to Madame Montoni the terrible subject, which still
thrilled her every nerve with horror; and sometimes she was on the
point of doing so, merely to obtain the relief of a moment; but she
knew how wholly she was in the power of Montoni, and, considering, that
the indiscretion of her aunt might prove fatal to them both, she
compelled herself to endure a present and an inferior evil, rather than
to tempt a future and a heavier one. A strange kind of presentiment
frequently, on this day, occurred to her;—it seemed as if her fate
rested here, and was by some invisible means connected with this
castle.

“Let me not accelerate it,” said she to herself: “for whatever I may be
reserved, let me, at least, avoid self-reproach.”

As she looked on the massy walls of the edifice, her melancholy spirits
represented it to be her prison; and she started as at a new
suggestion, when she considered how far distant she was from her native
country, from her little peaceful home, and from her only friend—how
remote was her hope of happiness, how feeble the expectation of again
seeing him! Yet the idea of Valancourt, and her confidence in his
faithful love, had hitherto been her only solace, and she struggled
hard to retain them. A few tears of agony started to her eyes, which
she turned aside to conceal.

While she afterwards leaned on the wall of the rampart, some peasants,
at a little distance, were seen examining a breach, before which lay a
heap of stones, as if to repair it, and a rusty old cannon, that
appeared to have fallen from its station above. Madame Montoni stopped
to speak to the men, and enquired what they were going to do. “To
repair the fortifications, your ladyship,” said one of them; a labour
which she was somewhat surprised, that Montoni should think necessary,
particularly since he had never spoken of the castle, as of a place, at
which he meant to reside for any considerable time; but she passed on
towards a lofty arch, that led from the south to the east rampart, and
which adjoined the castle, on one side, while, on the other, it
supported a small watch-tower, that entirely commanded the deep valley
below. As she approached this arch, she saw, beyond it, winding along
the woody descent of a distant mountain, a long troop of horse and
foot, whom she knew to be soldiers, only by the glitter of their pikes
and other arms, for the distance did not allow her to discover the
colour of their liveries. As she gazed, the vanguard issued from the
woods into the valley, but the train still continued to pour over the
remote summit of the mountain, in endless succession; while, in the
front, the military uniform became distinguishable, and the commanders,
riding first, and seeming, by their gestures, to direct the march of
those that followed, at length, approached very near to the castle.

Such a spectacle, in these solitary regions, both surprised and alarmed
Madame Montoni, and she hastened towards some peasants, who were
employed in raising bastions before the south rampart, where the rock
was less abrupt than elsewhere. These men could give no satisfactory
answers to her enquiries, but, being roused by them, gazed in stupid
astonishment upon the long cavalcade. Madame Montoni, then thinking it
necessary to communicate further the object of her alarm, sent Emily to
say, that she wished to speak to Montoni; an errand her niece did not
approve, for she dreaded his frowns, which she knew this message would
provoke; but she obeyed in silence.

As she drew near the apartment, in which he sat with his guests, she
heard them in earnest and loud dispute, and she paused a moment,
trembling at the displeasure, which her sudden interruption would
occasion. In the next, their voices sunk all together; she then
ventured to open the door, and, while Montoni turned hastily and looked
at her, without speaking, she delivered her message.

“Tell Madam Montoni I am engaged,” said he.

Emily then thought it proper to mention the subject of her alarm.
Montoni and his companions rose instantly and went to the windows, but,
these not affording them a view of the troops, they at length proceeded
to the ramparts, where Cavigni conjectured it to be a legion of
_condottieri_, on their march towards Modena.

One part of the cavalcade now extended along the valley, and another
wound among the mountains towards the north, while some troops still
lingered on the woody precipices, where the first had appeared, so that
the great length of the procession seemed to include a whole army.
While Montoni and his family watched its progress, they heard the sound
of trumpets and the clash of cymbals in the vale, and then others,
answering from the heights. Emily listened with emotion to the shrill
blast, that woke the echoes of the mountains, and Montoni explained the
signals, with which he appeared to be well acquainted, and which meant
nothing hostile. The uniforms of the troops, and the kind of arms they
bore, confirmed to him the conjecture of Cavigni, and he had the
satisfaction to see them pass by, without even stopping to gaze upon
his castle. He did not, however, leave the rampart, till the bases of
the mountains had shut them from his view, and the last murmur of the
trumpet floated away on the wind. Cavigni and Verezzi were inspirited
by this spectacle, which seemed to have roused all the fire of their
temper; Montoni turned into the castle in thoughtful silence.

Emily’s mind had not yet sufficiently recovered from its late shock, to
endure the loneliness of her chamber, and she remained upon the
ramparts; for Madame Montoni had not invited her to her dressing-room,
whither she had gone evidently in low spirits, and Emily, from her late
experience, had lost all wish to explore the gloomy and mysterious
recesses of the castle. The ramparts, therefore, were almost her only
retreat, and here she lingered, till the grey haze of evening was again
spread over the scene.

The cavaliers supped by themselves, and Madame Montoni remained in her
apartment, whither Emily went, before she retired to her own. She found
her aunt weeping, and in much agitation. The tenderness of Emily was
naturally so soothing, that it seldom failed to give comfort to the
drooping heart: but Madame Montoni’s was torn, and the softest accents
of Emily’s voice were lost upon it. With her usual delicacy, she did
not appear to observe her aunt’s distress, but it gave an involuntary
gentleness to her manners, and an air of solicitude to her countenance,
which Madame Montoni was vexed to perceive, who seemed to feel the pity
of her niece to be an insult to her pride, and dismissed her as soon as
she properly could. Emily did not venture to mention again the
reluctance she felt to her gloomy chamber, but she requested that
Annette might be permitted to remain with her till she retired to rest;
and the request was somewhat reluctantly granted. Annette, however, was
now with the servants, and Emily withdrew alone.

With light and hasty steps she passed through the long galleries, while
the feeble glimmer of the lamp she carried only showed the gloom around
her, and the passing air threatened to extinguish it. The lonely
silence, that reigned in this part of the castle, awed her; now and
then, indeed, she heard a faint peal of laughter rise from a remote
part of the edifice, where the servants were assembled, but it was soon
lost, and a kind of breathless stillness remained. As she passed the
suite of rooms which she had visited in the morning, her eyes glanced
fearfully on the door, and she almost fancied she heard murmuring
sounds within, but she paused not a moment to enquire.

Having reached her own apartment, where no blazing wood on the hearth
dissipated the gloom, she sat down with a book, to enliven her
attention, till Annette should come, and a fire could be kindled. She
continued to read till her light was nearly expired, but Annette did
not appear, and the solitude and obscurity of her chamber again
affected her spirits, the more, because of its nearness to the scene of
horror, that she had witnessed in the morning. Gloomy and fantastic
images came to her mind. She looked fearfully towards the door of the
staircase, and then, examining whether it was still fastened, found
that it was so. Unable to conquer the uneasiness she felt at the
prospect of sleeping again in this remote and insecure apartment, which
some person seemed to have entered during the preceding night, her
impatience to see Annette, whom she had bidden to enquire concerning
this circumstance, became extremely painful. She wished also to
question her, as to the object, which had excited so much horror in her
own mind, and which Annette on the preceding evening had appeared to be
in part acquainted with, though her words were very remote from the
truth, and it appeared plainly to Emily, that the girl had been
purposely misled by a false report: above all she was surprised, that
the door of the chamber, which contained it, should be left unguarded.
Such an instance of negligence almost surpassed belief. But her light
was now expiring; the faint flashes it threw upon the walls called up
all the terrors of fancy, and she rose to find her way to the habitable
part of the castle, before it was quite extinguished. As she opened the
chamber door, she heard remote voices, and, soon after, saw a light
issue upon the further end of the corridor, which Annette and another
servant approached. “I am glad you are come,” said Emily: “what has
detained you so long? Pray light me a fire immediately.”

“My lady wanted me, ma’amselle,” replied Annette in some confusion; “I
will go and get the wood.”

“No,” said Caterina, “that is my business,” and left the room
instantly, while Annette would have followed; but, being called back,
she began to talk very loud, and laugh, and seemed afraid to trust a
pause of silence.

Caterina soon returned with the wood, and then, when the cheerful blaze
once more animated the room, and this servant had withdrawn, Emily
asked Annette, whether she had made the enquiry she bade her. “Yes,
ma’amselle,” said Annette, “but not a soul knows anything about the
matter: and old Carlo—I watched him well, for they say he knows strange
things—old Carlo looked so as I don’t know how to tell, and he asked me
again and again, if I was sure the door was ever unfastened. Lord, says
I—am I sure I am alive? And as for me, ma’am, I am all astounded, as
one may say, and would no more sleep in this chamber, than I would on
the great cannon at the end of the east rampart.”

“And what objection have you to that cannon, more than to any of the
rest?” said Emily smiling: “the best would be rather a hard bed.”

“Yes, ma’amselle, any of them would be hard enough for that matter; but
they do say, that something has been seen in the dead of night,
standing beside the great cannon, as if to guard it.”

“Well! my good Annette, the people who tell such stories, are happy in
having you for an auditor, for I perceive you believe them all.”

“Dear ma’amselle! I will show you the very cannon; you can see it from
these windows!”

“Well,” said Emily, “but that does not prove, that an apparition guards
it.”

“What! not if I show you the very cannon! Dear ma’am, you will believe
nothing.”

“Nothing probably upon this subject, but what I see,” said
Emily.—“Well, ma’am, but you shall see it, if you will only step this
way to the casement.”—Emily could not forbear laughing, and Annette
looked surprised. Perceiving her extreme aptitude to credit the
marvellous, Emily forbore to mention the subject she had intended, lest
it should overcome her with idle terrors, and she began to speak on a
lively topic—the regattas of Venice.

“Aye, ma’amselle, those rowing matches,” said Annette, “and the fine
moonlight nights, are all, that are worth seeing in Venice. To be sure
the moon is brighter than any I ever saw; and then to hear such sweet
music, too, as Ludovico has often and often sung under the lattice by
the west portico! Ma’amselle, it was Ludovico, that told me about that
picture, which you wanted so to look at last night, and—”

“What picture?” said Emily, wishing Annette to explain herself.

“O! that terrible picture with the black veil over it.”

“You never saw it, then?” said Emily.

“Who, I!—No, ma’amselle, I never did. But this morning,” continued
Annette, lowering her voice, and looking round the room, “this morning,
as it was broad daylight, do you know, ma’am, I took a strange fancy to
see it, as I had heard such odd hints about it, and I got as far as the
door, and should have opened it, if it had not been locked!”

Emily, endeavouring to conceal the emotion this circumstance
occasioned, enquired at what hour she went to the chamber, and found,
that it was soon after herself had been there. She also asked further
questions, and the answers convinced her, that Annette, and probably
her informer, were ignorant of the terrible truth, though in Annette’s
account something very like the truth, now and then, mingled with the
falsehood. Emily now began to fear, that her visit to the chamber had
been observed, since the door had been closed, so immediately after her
departure; and dreaded lest this should draw upon her the vengeance of
Montoni. Her anxiety, also, was excited to know whence, and for what
purpose, the delusive report, which had been imposed upon Annette, had
originated, since Montoni could only have wished for silence and
secrecy; but she felt, that the subject was too terrible for this
lonely hour, and she compelled herself to leave it, to converse with
Annette, whose chat, simple as it was, she preferred to the stillness
of total solitude.

Thus they sat, till near midnight, but not without many hints from
Annette, that she wished to go. The embers were now nearly burnt out;
and Emily heard, at a distance, the thundering sound of the hall doors,
as they were shut for the night. She, therefore, prepared for rest, but
was still unwilling that Annette should leave her. At this instant, the
great bell of the portal sounded. They listened in fearful expectation,
when, after a long pause of silence, it sounded again. Soon after, they
heard the noise of carriage wheels in the courtyard. Emily sunk almost
lifeless in her chair; “It is the Count,” said she.

“What, at this time of night, ma’am!” said Annette: “no, my dear lady.
But, for that matter, it is a strange time of night for anybody to
come!”

“Nay, pr’ythee, good Annette, stay not talking,” said Emily in a voice
of agony—“Go, pr’ythee, go, and see who it is.”

Annette left the room, and carried with her the light, leaving Emily in
darkness, which a few moments before would have terrified her in this
room, but was now scarcely observed by her. She listened and waited, in
breathless expectation, and heard distant noises, but Annette did not
return. Her patience, at length, exhausted, she tried to find her way
to the corridor, but it was long before she could touch the door of the
chamber, and, when she had opened it, the total darkness without made
her fear to proceed. Voices were now heard, and Emily even thought she
distinguished those of Count Morano and Montoni. Soon after she heard
steps approaching, and then a ray of light streamed through the
darkness, and Annette appeared, whom Emily went to meet.

“Yes, ma’amselle,” said she, “you were right, it is the Count sure
enough.”

“It is he!” exclaimed Emily, lifting her eyes towards heaven and
supporting herself by Annette’s arm.

“Good Lord! my dear lady, don’t be in such a _fluster_, and look so
pale, we shall soon hear more.”

“We shall, indeed!” said Emily, moving as fast as she was able towards
her apartment. “I am not well; give me air.” Annette opened a casement,
and brought water. The faintness soon left Emily, but she desired
Annette would not go till she heard from Montoni.

“Dear ma’amselle! he surely will not disturb you at this time of night;
why he must think you are asleep.”

“Stay with me till I am so, then,” said Emily, who felt temporary
relief from this suggestion, which appeared probable enough, though her
fears had prevented its occurring to her. Annette, with secret
reluctance, consented to stay, and Emily was now composed enough to ask
her some questions; among others, whether she had seen the Count.

“Yes, ma’am, I saw him alight, for I went from hence to the grate in
the north turret, that overlooks the inner courtyard, you know. There I
saw the Count’s carriage, and the Count in it, waiting at the great
door,—for the porter was just gone to bed—with several men on horseback
all by the light of the torches they carried.”

Emily was compelled to smile. “When the door was opened, the Count said
something, that I could not make out, and then got out, and another
gentleman with him. I thought, to be sure, the Signor was gone to bed,
and I hastened away to my lady’s dressing-room, to see what I could
hear. But in the way I met Ludovico, and he told me that the Signor was
up, counselling with his master and the other Signors, in the room at
the end of the north gallery; and Ludovico held up his finger, and laid
it on his lips, as much as to say—There is more going on, than you
think of, Annette, but you must hold your tongue. And so I did hold my
tongue, ma’amselle, and came away to tell you directly.”

Emily enquired who the cavalier was, that accompanied the Count, and
how Montoni received them; but Annette could not inform her.

“Ludovico,” she added, “had just been to call Signor Montoni’s valet,
that he might tell him they were arrived, when I met him.”

Emily sat musing, for some time, and then her anxiety was so much
increased, that she desired Annette would go to the servants’ hall,
where it was possible she might hear something of the Count’s
intention, respecting his stay at the castle.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Annette with readiness; “but how am I to find the
way, if I leave the lamp with you?”

Emily said she would light her, and they immediately quitted the
chamber. When they had reached the top of the great staircase, Emily
recollected, that she might be seen by the Count, and, to avoid the
great hall, Annette conducted her through some private passages to a
back staircase, which led directly to that of the servants.

As she returned towards her chamber, Emily began to fear, that she
might again lose herself in the intricacies of the castle, and again be
shocked by some mysterious spectacle; and, though she was already
perplexed by the numerous turnings, she feared to open one of the many
doors that offered. While she stepped thoughtfully along, she fancied,
that she heard a low moaning at no great distance, and, having paused a
moment, she heard it again and distinctly. Several doors appeared on
the right hand of the passage. She advanced, and listened. When she
came to the second, she heard a voice, apparently in complaint, within,
to which she continued to listen, afraid to open the door, and
unwilling to leave it. Convulsive sobs followed, and then the piercing
accents of an agonizing spirit burst forth. Emily stood appalled, and
looked through the gloom, that surrounded her, in fearful expectation.
The lamentations continued. Pity now began to subdue terror; it was
possible she might administer comfort to the sufferer, at least, by
expressing sympathy, and she laid her hand on the door. While she
hesitated she thought she knew this voice, disguised as it was by tones
of grief. Having, therefore, set down the lamp in the passage, she
gently opened the door, within which all was dark, except that from an
inner apartment a partial light appeared; and she stepped softly on.
Before she reached it, the appearance of Madame Montoni, leaning on her
dressing-table, weeping, and with a handkerchief held to her eyes,
struck her, and she paused.

Some person was seated in a chair by the fire, but who it was she could
not distinguish. He spoke, now and then, in a low voice, that did not
allow Emily to hear what was uttered, but she thought, that Madame
Montoni, at those times, wept the more, who was too much occupied by
her own distress, to observe Emily, while the latter, though anxious to
know what occasioned this, and who was the person admitted at so late
an hour to her aunt’s dressing-room, forbore to add to her sufferings
by surprising her, or to take advantage of her situation, by listening
to a private discourse. She, therefore, stepped softly back, and, after
some further difficulty, found the way to her own chamber, where nearer
interests, at length, excluded the surprise and concern she had felt,
respecting Madame Montoni.

Annette, however, returned without satisfactory intelligence, for the
servants, among whom she had been, were either entirely ignorant, or
affected to be so, concerning the Count’s intended stay at the castle.
They could talk only of the steep and broken road they had just passed,
and of the numerous dangers they had escaped and express wonder how
their lord could choose to encounter all these, in the darkness of
night; for they scarcely allowed, that the torches had served for any
other purpose but that of showing the dreariness of the mountains.
Annette, finding she could gain no information, left them, making noisy
petitions, for more wood on the fire and more supper on the table.

“And now, ma’amselle,” added she, “I am so sleepy!—I am sure, if you
were so sleepy, you would not desire me to sit up with you.”

Emily, indeed, began to think it was cruel to wish it; she had also
waited so long, without receiving a summons from Montoni, that it
appeared he did not mean to disturb her, at this late hour, and she
determined to dismiss Annette. But, when she again looked round her
gloomy chamber, and recollected certain circumstances, fear seized her
spirits, and she hesitated.

“And yet it were cruel of me to ask you to stay, till I am asleep,
Annette,” said she, “for I fear it will be very long before I forget
myself in sleep.”

“I dare say it will be very long, ma’amselle,” said Annette.

“But, before you go,” rejoined Emily, “let me ask you—Had Signor
Montoni left Count Morano, when you quitted the hall?”

“O no, ma’am, they were alone together.”

“Have you been in my aunt’s dressing-room, since you left me?”

“No, ma’amselle, I called at the door as I passed, but it was fastened;
so I thought my lady was gone to bed.”

“Who, then, was with your lady just now?” said Emily, forgetting, in
surprise, her usual prudence.

“Nobody, I believe, ma’am,” replied Annette, “nobody has been with her,
I believe, since I left you.”

Emily took no further notice of the subject, and, after some struggle
with imaginary fears, her good nature prevailed over them so far, that
she dismissed Annette for the night. She then sat, musing upon her own
circumstances and those of Madame Montoni, till her eye rested on the
miniature picture, which she had found, after her father’s death, among
the papers he had enjoined her to destroy. It was open upon the table,
before her, among some loose drawings, having, with them, been taken
out of a little box by Emily, some hours before. The sight of it called
up many interesting reflections, but the melancholy sweetness of the
countenance soothed the emotions, which these had occasioned. It was
the same style of countenance as that of her late father, and, while
she gazed on it with fondness on this account, she even fancied a
resemblance in the features. But this tranquillity was suddenly
interrupted, when she recollected the words in the manuscript, that had
been found with this picture, and which had formerly occasioned her so
much doubt and horror. At length, she roused herself from the deep
reverie, into which this remembrance had thrown her; but, when she rose
to undress, the silence and solitude, to which she was left, at this
midnight hour, for not even a distant sound was now heard, conspired
with the impression the subject she had been considering had given to
her mind, to appall her. Annette’s hints, too, concerning this chamber,
simple as they were, had not failed to affect her, since they followed
a circumstance of peculiar horror, which she herself had witnessed, and
since the scene of this was a chamber nearly adjoining her own.

The door of the staircase was, perhaps, a subject of more reasonable
alarm, and she now began to apprehend, such was the aptitude of her
fears, that this staircase had some private communication with the
apartment, which she shuddered even to remember. Determined not to
undress, she lay down to sleep in her clothes, with her late father’s
dog, the faithful _Manchon_, at the foot of the bed, whom she
considered as a kind of guard.

Thus circumstanced, she tried to banish reflection, but her busy fancy
would still hover over the subjects of her interest, and she heard the
clock of the castle strike two, before she closed her eyes.

From the disturbed slumber, into which she then sunk, she was soon
awakened by a noise, which seemed to arise within her chamber; but the
silence, that prevailed, as she fearfully listened, inclined her to
believe, that she had been alarmed by such sounds as sometimes occur in
dreams, and she laid her head again upon the pillow.

A return of the noise again disturbed her; it seemed to come from that
part of the room, which communicated with the private staircase, and
she instantly remembered the odd circumstance of the door having been
fastened, during the preceding night, by some unknown hand. Her late
alarming suspicion, concerning its communication, also occurred to her.
Her heart became faint with terror. Half raising herself from the bed,
and gently drawing aside the curtain, she looked towards the door of
the staircase, but the lamp, that burnt on the hearth, spread so feeble
a light through the apartment, that the remote parts of it were lost in
shadow. The noise, however, which, she was convinced, came from the
door, continued. It seemed like that made by the undrawing of rusty
bolts, and often ceased, and was then renewed more gently, as if the
hand, that occasioned it, was restrained by a fear of discovery.

While Emily kept her eyes fixed on the spot, she saw the door move, and
then slowly open, and perceived something enter the room, but the
extreme duskiness prevented her distinguishing what it was. Almost
fainting with terror, she had yet sufficient command over herself, to
check the shriek, that was escaping from her lips, and, letting the
curtain drop from her hand, continued to observe in silence the motions
of the mysterious form she saw. It seemed to glide along the remote
obscurity of the apartment, then paused, and, as it approached the
hearth, she perceived, in the stronger light, what appeared to be a
human figure. Certain remembrances now struck upon her heart, and
almost subdued the feeble remains of her spirits; she continued,
however, to watch the figure, which remained for some time motionless,
but then, advancing slowly towards the bed, stood silently at the feet,
where the curtains, being a little open, allowed her still to see it;
terror, however, had now deprived her of the power of discrimination,
as well as of that of utterance.

Having continued there a moment, the form retreated towards the hearth,
when it took the lamp, held it up, surveyed the chamber, for a few
moments, and then again advanced towards the bed. The light at that
instant awakening the dog, that had slept at Emily’s feet, he barked
loudly, and, jumping to the floor, flew at the stranger, who struck the
animal smartly with a sheathed sword, and, springing towards the bed,
Emily discovered—Count Morano!

She gazed at him for a moment in speechless affright, while he,
throwing himself on his knee at the bedside, besought her to fear
nothing, and, having thrown down his sword, would have taken her hand,
when the faculties, that terror had suspended, suddenly returned, and
she sprung from the bed, in the dress, which surely a kind of prophetic
apprehension had prevented her, on this night, from throwing aside.

Morano rose, followed her to the door, through which he had entered,
and caught her hand, as she reached the top of the staircase, but not
before she had discovered, by the gleam of a lamp, another man half-way
down the steps. She now screamed in despair, and, believing herself
given up by Montoni, saw, indeed, no possibility of escape.

The Count, who still held her hand, led her back into the chamber.

“Why all this terror?” said he, in a tremulous voice. “Hear me, Emily:
I come not to alarm you; no, by Heaven! I love you too well—too well
for my own peace.”

Emily looked at him for a moment, in fearful doubt.

“Then leave me, sir,” said she, “leave me instantly.”

“Hear me, Emily,” resumed Morano, “hear me! I love, and am in
despair—yes—in despair. How can I gaze upon you, and know, that it is,
perhaps, for the last time, without suffering all the frenzy of
despair? But it shall not be so; you shall be mine, in spite of Montoni
and all his villany.”

“In spite of Montoni!” cried Emily eagerly: “what is it I hear?”

“You hear, that Montoni is a villain,” exclaimed Morano with
vehemence,—“a villain who would have sold you to my love!—Who—”

“And is he less, who would have bought me?” said Emily, fixing on the
Count an eye of calm contempt. “Leave the room, sir, instantly,” she
continued in a voice, trembling between joy and fear, “or I will alarm
the family, and you may receive that from Signor Montoni’s vengeance,
which I have vainly supplicated from his pity.” But Emily knew, that
she was beyond the hearing of those, who might protect her.

“You can never hope anything from his pity,” said Morano, “he has used
me infamously, and my vengeance shall pursue him. And for you, Emily,
for you, he has new plans more profitable than the last, no doubt.” The
gleam of hope, which the Count’s former speech had revived, was now
nearly extinguished by the latter; and, while Emily’s countenance
betrayed the emotions of her mind, he endeavoured to take advantage of
the discovery.

“I lose time,” said he: “I came not to exclaim against Montoni; I came
to solicit, to plead—to Emily; to tell her all I suffer, to entreat her
to save me from despair, and herself from destruction. Emily! the
schemes of Montoni are insearchable, but, I warn you, they are
terrible; he has no principle, when interest, or ambition leads. Can I
love you, and abandon you to his power? Fly, then, fly from this gloomy
prison, with a lover, who adores you! I have bribed a servant of the
castle to open the gates, and, before tomorrow’s dawn, you shall be far
on the way to Venice.”

Emily, overcome by the sudden shock she had received, at the moment,
too, when she had begun to hope for better days, now thought she saw
destruction surround her on every side. Unable to reply, and almost to
think, she threw herself into a chair, pale and breathless. That
Montoni had formerly sold her to Morano, was very probable; that he had
now withdrawn his consent to the marriage, was evident from the Count’s
present conduct; and it was nearly certain, that a scheme of stronger
interest only could have induced the selfish Montoni to forego a plan,
which he had hitherto so strenuously pursued. These reflections made
her tremble at the hints, which Morano had just given, which she no
longer hesitated to believe; and, while she shrunk from the new scenes
of misery and oppression, that might await her in the castle of
Udolpho, she was compelled to observe, that almost her only means of
escaping them was by submitting herself to the protection of this man,
with whom evils more certain and not less terrible appeared,—evils,
upon which she could not endure to pause for an instant.

Her silence, though it was that of agony, encouraged the hopes of
Morano, who watched her countenance with impatience, took again the
resisting hand she had withdrawn, and, as he pressed it to his heart,
again conjured her to determine immediately. “Every moment we lose,
will make our departure more dangerous,” said he: “these few moments
lost may enable Montoni to overtake us.”

“I beseech you, sir, be silent,” said Emily faintly: “I am indeed very
wretched, and wretched I must remain. Leave me—I command you, leave me
to my fate.”

“Never!” cried the Count vehemently: “let me perish first! But forgive
my violence! the thought of losing you is madness. You cannot be
ignorant of Montoni’s character, you may be ignorant of his
schemes—nay, you must be so, or you would not hesitate between my love
and his power.”

“Nor do I hesitate,” said Emily.

“Let us go, then,” said Morano, eagerly kissing her hand, and rising,
“my carriage waits, below the castle walls.”

“You mistake me, sir,” said Emily. “Allow me to thank you for the
interest you express in my welfare, and to decide by my own choice. I
shall remain under the protection of Signor Montoni.”

“Under his protection!” exclaimed Morano, proudly, “his _protection!_
Emily, why will you suffer yourself to be thus deluded? I have already
told you what you have to expect from his _protection_.”

“And pardon me, sir, if, in this instance, I doubt mere assertion, and,
to be convinced, require something approaching to proof.”

“I have now neither the time, nor the means of adducing proof,” replied
the Count.

“Nor have I, sir, the inclination to listen to it, if you had.”

“But you trifle with my patience and my distress,” continued Morano.
“Is a marriage with a man, who adores you, so very terrible in your
eyes, that you would prefer to it all the misery, to which Montoni may
condemn you in this remote prison? Some wretch must have stolen those
affections, which ought to be mine, or you would not thus obstinately
persist in refusing an offer, that would place you beyond the reach of
oppression.” Morano walked about the room, with quick steps, and a
disturbed air.

“This discourse, Count Morano, sufficiently proves, that my affections
ought not to be yours,” said Emily, mildly, “and this conduct, that I
should not be placed beyond the reach of oppression, so long as I
remained in your power. If you wish me to believe otherwise, cease to
oppress me any longer by your presence. If you refuse this, you will
compel me to expose you to the resentment of Signor Montoni.”

“Yes, let him come,” cried Morano furiously, “and brave _my_
resentment! Let him dare to face once more the man he has so
courageously injured; danger shall teach him morality, and vengeance
justice—let him come, and receive my sword in his heart!”

The vehemence, with which this was uttered, gave Emily new cause of
alarm, who arose from her chair, but her trembling frame refused to
support her, and she resumed her seat;—the words died on her lips, and,
when she looked wistfully towards the door of the corridor, which was
locked, she considered it was impossible for her to leave the
apartment, before Morano would be apprised of, and able to counteract,
her intention.

Without observing her agitation, he continued to pace the room in the
utmost perturbation of spirits. His darkened countenance expressed all
the rage of jealousy and revenge; and a person, who had seen his
features under the smile of ineffable tenderness, which he so lately
assumed, would now scarcely have believed them to be the same.

“Count Morano,” said Emily, at length recovering her voice, “calm, I
entreat you, these transports, and listen to reason, if you will not to
pity. You have equally misplaced your love, and your hatred.—I never
could have returned the affection, with which you honour me, and
certainly have never encouraged it; neither has Signor Montoni injured
you, for you must have known, that he had no right to dispose of my
hand, had he even possessed the power to do so. Leave, then, leave the
castle, while you may with safety. Spare yourself the dreadful
consequences of an unjust revenge, and the remorse of having prolonged
to me these moments of suffering.”

“Is it for mine, or for Montoni’s safety, that you are thus alarmed?”
said Morano, coldly, and turning towards her with a look of acrimony.

“For both,” replied Emily, in a trembling voice.

“Unjust revenge!” cried the Count, resuming the abrupt tones of
passion. “Who, that looks upon that face, can imagine a punishment
adequate to the injury he would have done me? Yes, I will leave the
castle; but it shall not be alone. I have trifled too long. Since my
prayers and my sufferings cannot prevail, force shall. I have people in
waiting, who shall convey you to my carriage. Your voice will bring no
succour; it cannot be heard from this remote part of the castle;
submit, therefore, in silence, to go with me.”

This was an unnecessary injunction, at present; for Emily was too
certain, that her call would avail her nothing; and terror had so
entirely disordered her thoughts, that she knew not how to plead to
Morano, but sat, mute and trembling, in her chair, till he advanced to
lift her from it, when she suddenly raised herself, and, with a
repulsive gesture, and a countenance of forced serenity, said, “Count
Morano! I am now in your power; but you will observe, that this is not
the conduct which can win the esteem you appear so solicitous to
obtain, and that you are preparing for yourself a load of remorse, in
the miseries of a friendless orphan, which can never leave you. Do you
believe your heart to be, indeed, so hardened, that you can look
without emotion on the suffering, to which you would condemn me?—”

Emily was interrupted by the growling of the dog, who now came again
from the bed, and Morano looked towards the door of the staircase,
where no person appearing, he called aloud, “Cesario!”

“Emily,” said the Count, “why will you reduce me to adopt this conduct?
How much more willingly would I persuade, than compel you to become my
wife! but, by Heaven! I will not leave you to be sold by Montoni. Yet a
thought glances across my mind, that brings madness with it. I know not
how to name it. It is preposterous—it cannot be.—Yet you tremble—you
grow pale! It is! it is so;—you—you—love Montoni!” cried Morano,
grasping Emily’s wrist, and stamping his foot on the floor.

An involuntary air of surprise appeared on her countenance. “If you
have indeed believed so,” said she, “believe so still.”

“That look, those words confirm it,” exclaimed Morano, furiously. “No,
no, no, Montoni had a richer prize in view, than gold. But he shall not
live to triumph over me!—This very instant—”

He was interrupted by the loud barking of the dog.

“Stay, Count Morano,” said Emily, terrified by his words, and by the
fury expressed in his eyes, “I will save you from this error.—Of all
men, Signor Montoni is not your rival; though, if I find all other
means of saving myself vain, I will try whether my voice may not arouse
his servants to my succour.”

“Assertion,” replied Morano, “at such a moment, is not to be depended
upon. How could I suffer myself to doubt, even for an instant, that he
could see you, and not love?—But my first care shall be to convey you
from the castle. Cesario! ho,—Cesario!”

A man now appeared at the door of the staircase, and other steps were
heard ascending. Emily uttered a loud shriek, as Morano hurried her
across the chamber, and, at the same moment, she heard a noise at the
door, that opened upon the corridor. The Count paused an instant, as if
his mind was suspended between love and the desire of vengeance; and,
in that instant, the door gave way, and Montoni, followed by the old
steward and several other persons, burst into the room.

“Draw!” cried Montoni to the Count, who did not pause for a second
bidding, but, giving Emily into the hands of the people, that appeared
from the staircase, turned fiercely round. “This in thine heart,
villain!” said he, as he made a thrust at Montoni with his sword, who
parried the blow, and aimed another, while some of the persons, who had
followed him into the room, endeavoured to part the combatants, and
others rescued Emily from the hands of Morano’s servants.

“Was it for this, Count Morano,” said Montoni, in a cool sarcastic tone
of voice, “that I received you under my roof, and permitted you, though
my declared enemy, to remain under it for the night? Was it, that you
might repay my hospitality with the treachery of a fiend, and rob me of
my niece?”

“Who talks of treachery?” said Morano, in a tone of unrestrained
vehemence. “Let him that does, show an unblushing face of innocence.
Montoni, you are a villain! If there is treachery in this affair, look
to yourself as the author of it. _If_—do I say? _I_—whom you have
wronged with unexampled baseness, whom you have injured almost beyond
redress! But why do I use words?—Come on, coward, and receive justice
at my hands!”

“Coward!” cried Montoni, bursting from the people who held him, and
rushing on the Count, when they both retreated into the corridor, where
the fight continued so desperately, that none of the spectators dared
approach them, Montoni swearing, that the first who interfered, should
fall by his sword.

Jealousy and revenge lent all their fury to Morano, while the superior
skill and the temperance of Montoni enabled him to wound his adversary,
whom his servants now attempted to seize, but he would not be
restrained, and, regardless of his wound, continued to fight. He seemed
to be insensible both of pain and loss of blood, and alive only to the
energy of his passions. Montoni, on the contrary, persevered in the
combat, with a fierce, yet wary, valour; he received the point of
Morano’s sword on his arm, but, almost in the same instant, severely
wounded and disarmed him. The Count then fell back into the arms of his
servant, while Montoni held his sword over him, and bade him ask his
life. Morano, sinking under the anguish of his wound, had scarcely
replied by a gesture, and by a few words, feebly articulated, that he
would not—when he fainted; and Montoni was then going to have plunged
the sword into his breast, as he lay senseless, but his arm was
arrested by Cavigni. To the interruption he yielded without much
difficulty, but his complexion changed almost to blackness, as he
looked upon his fallen adversary, and ordered, that he should be
carried instantly from the castle.

In the mean time, Emily, who had been withheld from leaving the chamber
during the affray, now came forward into the corridor, and pleaded a
cause of common humanity, with the feelings of the warmest benevolence,
when she entreated Montoni to allow Morano the assistance in the
castle, which his situation required. But Montoni, who had seldom
listened to pity, now seemed rapacious of vengeance, and, with a
monster’s cruelty, again ordered his defeated enemy to be taken from
the castle, in his present state, though there were only the woods, or
a solitary neighbouring cottage, to shelter him from the night.

The Count’s servants having declared, that they would not move him till
he revived, Montoni’s stood inactive, Cavigni remonstrating, and Emily,
superior to Montoni’s menaces, giving water to Morano, and directing
the attendants to bind up his wound. At length, Montoni had leisure to
feel pain from his own hurt, and he withdrew to examine it.

The Count, meanwhile, having slowly recovered, the first object he saw,
on raising his eyes, was Emily, bending over him with a countenance
strongly expressive of solicitude. He surveyed her with a look of
anguish.

“I have deserved this,” said he, “but not from Montoni. It is from you,
Emily, that I have deserved punishment, yet I receive only pity!” He
paused, for he had spoken with difficulty. After a moment, he
proceeded. “I must resign you, but not to Montoni. Forgive me the
sufferings I have already occasioned you! But for _that_ villain—his
infamy shall not go unpunished. Carry me from this place,” said he to
his servants. “I am in no condition to travel: you must, therefore,
take me to the nearest cottage, for I will not pass the night under his
roof, although I may expire on the way from it.”

Cesario proposed to go out, and enquire for a cottage, that might
receive his master, before he attempted to remove him: but Morano was
impatient to be gone; the anguish of his mind seemed to be even greater
than that of his wound, and he rejected, with disdain, the offer of
Cavigni to entreat Montoni, that he might be suffered to pass the night
in the castle. Cesario was now going to call up the carriage to the
great gate, but the Count forbade him. “I cannot bear the motion of a
carriage,” said he: “call some others of my people, that they may
assist in bearing me in their arms.”

At length, however, Morano submitted to reason, and consented, that
Cesario should first prepare some cottage to receive him. Emily, now
that he had recovered his senses, was about to withdraw from the
corridor, when a message from Montoni commanded her to do so, and also
that the Count, if he was not already gone, should quit the castle
immediately. Indignation flashed from Morano’s eyes, and flushed his
cheeks.

“Tell Montoni,” said he, “that I shall go when it suits my own
convenience; that I quit the castle, he dares to call his, as I would
the nest of a serpent, and that this is not the last he shall hear from
me. Tell him, I will not leave _another_ murder on his conscience, if I
can help it.”

“Count Morano! do you know what you say?” said Cavigni.

“Yes, Signor, I know well what I say, and he will understand well what
I mean. His conscience will assist his understanding, on this
occasion.”

“Count Morano,” said Verezzi, who had hitherto silently observed him,
“dare again to insult my friend, and I will plunge this sword in your
body.”

“It would be an action worthy the friend of a villain!” said Morano, as
the strong impulse of his indignation enabled him to raise himself from
the arms of his servants; but the energy was momentary, and he sunk
back, exhausted by the effort. Montoni’s people, meanwhile, held
Verezzi, who seemed inclined, even in this instant, to execute his
threat; and Cavigni, who was not so depraved as to abet the cowardly
malignity of Verezzi, endeavoured to withdraw him from the corridor;
and Emily, whom a compassionate interest had thus long detained, was
now quitting it in new terror, when the supplicating voice of Morano
arrested her, and, by a feeble gesture, he beckoned her to draw nearer.
She advanced with timid steps, but the fainting languor of his
countenance again awakened her pity, and overcame her terror.

“I am going from hence for ever,” said he: “perhaps, I shall never see
you again. I would carry with me your forgiveness, Emily; nay more—I
would also carry your good wishes.”

“You have my forgiveness, then,” said Emily, “and my sincere wishes for
your recovery.”

“And only for my recovery?” said Morano, with a sigh. “For your general
welfare,” added Emily.

“Perhaps I ought to be contented with this,” he resumed; “I certainly
have not deserved more; but I would ask you, Emily, sometimes to think
of me, and, forgetting my offence, to remember only the passion which
occasioned it. I would ask, alas! impossibilities: I would ask you to
love me! At this moment, when I am about to part with you, and that,
perhaps, for ever, I am scarcely myself. Emily—may you never know the
torture of a passion like mine! What do I say? O, that, for me, you
might be sensible of such a passion!”

Emily looked impatient to be gone. “I entreat you, Count, to consult
your own safety,” said she, “and linger here no longer. I tremble for
the consequences of Signor Verezzi’s passion, and of Montoni’s
resentment, should he learn that you are still here.”

Morano’s face was overspread with a momentary crimson, his eyes
sparkled, but he seemed endeavouring to conquer his emotion, and
replied in a calm voice, “Since you are interested for my safety, I
will regard it, and be gone. But, before I go, let me again hear you
say, that you wish me well,” said he, fixing on her an earnest and
mournful look.

Emily repeated her assurances. He took her hand, which she scarcely
attempted to withdraw, and put it to his lips. “Farewell, Count
Morano!” said Emily; and she turned to go, when a second message
arrived from Montoni, and she again conjured Morano, as he valued his
life, to quit the castle immediately. He regarded her in silence, with
a look of fixed despair. But she had no time to enforce her
compassionate entreaties, and, not daring to disobey the second command
of Montoni, she left the corridor, to attend him.

He was in the cedar parlour, that adjoined the great hall, laid upon a
couch, and suffering a degree of anguish from his wound, which few
persons could have disguised, as he did. His countenance, which was
stern, but calm, expressed the dark passion of revenge, but no symptom
of pain; bodily pain, indeed, he had always despised, and had yielded
only to the strong and terrible energies of the soul. He was attended
by old Carlo and by Signor Bertolini, but Madame Montoni was not with
him.

Emily trembled, as she approached and received his severe rebuke, for
not having obeyed his first summons; and perceived, also, that he
attributed her stay in the corridor to a motive, that had not even
occurred to her artless mind.

“This is an instance of female caprice,” said he, “which I ought to
have foreseen. Count Morano, whose suit you obstinately rejected, so
long as it was countenanced by me, you favour, it seems, since you find
I have dismissed him.”

Emily looked astonished. “I do not comprehend you, sir,” said she, “You
certainly do not mean to imply, that the design of the Count to visit
the double-chamber, was founded upon any approbation of mine.”

“To that I reply nothing,” said Montoni; “but it must certainly be a
more than common interest, that made you plead so warmly in his cause,
and that could detain you thus long in his presence, contrary to my
express order—in the presence of a man, whom you have hitherto, on all
occasions, most scrupulously shunned!”

“I fear, sir, it was a more than common interest, that detained me,”
said Emily calmly; “for of late I have been inclined to think, that of
compassion is an uncommon one. But how could I, could _you_, sir,
witness Count Morano’s deplorable condition, and not wish to relieve
it?”

“You add hypocrisy to caprice,” said Montoni, frowning, “and an attempt
at satire, to both; but, before you undertake to regulate the morals of
other persons, you should learn and practise the virtues, which are
indispensable to a woman—sincerity, uniformity of conduct and
obedience.”

Emily, who had always endeavoured to regulate her conduct by the nicest
laws, and whose mind was finely sensible, not only of what is just in
morals, but of whatever is beautiful in the female character, was
shocked by these words; yet, in the next moment, her heart swelled with
the consciousness of having deserved praise, instead of censure, and
she was proudly silent. Montoni, acquainted with the delicacy of her
mind, knew how keenly she would feel his rebuke; but he was a stranger
to the luxury of conscious worth, and, therefore, did not foresee the
energy of that sentiment, which now repelled his satire. Turning to a
servant who had lately entered the room, he asked whether Morano had
quitted the castle. The man answered, that his servants were then
removing him, on a couch, to a neighbouring cottage. Montoni seemed
somewhat appeased, on hearing this; and, when Ludovico appeared, a few
moments after, and said, that Morano was gone, he told Emily she might
retire to her apartment.

She withdrew willingly from his presence; but the thought of passing
the remainder of the night in a chamber, which the door from the
staircase made liable to the intrusion of any person, now alarmed her
more than ever, and she determined to call at Madame Montoni’s room,
and request, that Annette might be permitted to be with her.

On reaching the great gallery, she heard voices seemingly in dispute,
and, her spirits now apt to take alarm, she paused, but soon
distinguished some words of Cavigni and Verezzi, and went towards them,
in the hope of conciliating their difference. They were alone.
Verezzi’s face was still flushed with rage; and, as the first object of
it was now removed from him, he appeared willing to transfer his
resentment to Cavigni, who seemed to be expostulating, rather than
disputing, with him.

Verezzi was protesting, that he would instantly inform Montoni of the
insult, which Morano had thrown out against him, and above all, that,
wherein he had accused him of murder.

“There is no answering,” said Cavigni, “for the words of a man in a
passion; little serious regard ought to be paid to them. If you persist
in your resolution, the consequences may be fatal to both. We have now
more serious interests to pursue, than those of a petty revenge.”

Emily joined her entreaties to Cavigni’s arguments, and they, at
length, prevailed so far, as that Verezzi consented to retire, without
seeing Montoni.

On calling at her aunt’s apartment, she found it fastened. In a few
minutes, however, it was opened by Madame Montoni herself.

It may be remembered, that it was by a door leading into the bedroom
from a back passage, that Emily had secretly entered a few hours
preceding. She now conjectured, by the calmness of Madame Montoni’s
air, that she was not apprised of the accident, which had befallen her
husband, and was beginning to inform her of it, in the tenderest manner
she could, when her aunt interrupted her, by saying, she was acquainted
with the whole affair.

Emily knew indeed, that she had little reason to love Montoni, but
could scarcely have believed her capable of such perfect apathy, as she
now discovered towards him; having obtained permission, however, for
Annette to sleep in her chamber, she went thither immediately.

A track of blood appeared along the corridor, leading to it; and on the
spot, where the Count and Montoni had fought, the whole floor was
stained. Emily shuddered, and leaned on Annette, as she passed. When
she reached her apartment, she instantly determined, since the door of
the staircase had been left open, and that Annette was now with her, to
explore whither it led,—a circumstance now materially connected with
her own safety. Annette accordingly, half curious and half afraid,
proposed to descend the stairs; but, on approaching the door, they
perceived, that it was already fastened without, and their care was
then directed to the securing it on the inside also, by placing against
it as much of the heavy furniture of the room, as they could lift.
Emily then retired to bed, and Annette continued on a chair by the
hearth, where some feeble embers remained.



 CHAPTER VII

Of aery tongues, that syllable men’s names
On sands and shores and desert wildernesses.
                    MILTON


It is now necessary to mention some circumstances, which could not be
related amidst the events of Emily’s hasty departure from Venice, or
together with those, which so rapidly succeeded to her arrival in the
castle.

On the morning of her journey, Count Morano had gone at the appointed
hour to the mansion of Montoni, to demand his bride. When he reached
it, he was somewhat surprised by the silence and solitary air of the
portico, where Montoni’s lacqueys usually loitered; but surprise was
soon changed to astonishment, and astonishment to the rage of
disappointment, when the door was opened by an old woman, who told his
servants, that her master and his family had left Venice, early in the
morning, for _Terra-firma_. Scarcely believing what his servants told,
he left his gondola, and rushed into the hall to enquire further. The
old woman, who was the only person left in care of the mansion,
persisted in her story, which the silent and deserted apartments soon
convinced him was no fiction. He then seized her with a menacing air,
as if he meant to wreak all his vengeance upon her, at the same time
asking her twenty questions in a breath, and all these with a
gesticulation so furious, that she was deprived of the power of
answering them; then suddenly letting her go, he stamped about the
hall, like a madman, cursing Montoni and his own folly.

When the good woman was at liberty, and had somewhat recovered from her
fright, she told him all she knew of the affair, which was, indeed,
very little, but enough to enable Morano to discover, that Montoni was
gone to his castle on the Apennine. Thither he followed, as soon as his
servants could complete the necessary preparation for the journey,
accompanied by a friend, and attended by a number of his people,
determined to obtain Emily, or a full revenge on Montoni. When his mind
had recovered from the first effervescence of rage, and his thoughts
became less obscured, his conscience hinted to him certain
circumstances, which, in some measure, explained the conduct of
Montoni: but how the latter could have been led to suspect an
intention, which, he had believed, was known only to himself, he could
not even guess. On this occasion, however, he had been partly betrayed
by that sympathetic intelligence, which may be said to exist between
bad minds, and which teaches one man to judge what another will do in
the same circumstances. Thus it was with Montoni, who had now received
indisputable proof of a truth, which he had some time suspected—that
Morano’s circumstances, instead of being affluent, as he had been
bidden to believe, were greatly involved. Montoni had been interested
in his suit, by motives entirely selfish, those of avarice and pride;
the last of which would have been gratified by an alliance with a
Venetian nobleman, the former by Emily’s estate in Gascony, which he
had stipulated, as the price of his favour, should be delivered up to
him from the day of her marriage. In the meantime, he had been led to
suspect the consequence of the Count’s boundless extravagance; but it
was not till the evening, preceding the intended nuptials, that he
obtained certain information of his distressed circumstances. He did
not hesitate then to infer, that Morano designed to defraud him of
Emily’s estate; and in this supposition he was confirmed, and with
apparent reason, by the subsequent conduct of the Count, who, after
having appointed to meet him on that night, for the purpose of signing
the instrument, which was to secure to him his reward, failed in his
engagement. Such a circumstance, indeed, in a man of Morano’s gay and
thoughtless character, and at a time when his mind was engaged by the
bustle of preparation for his nuptials, might have been attributed to a
cause less decisive, than design; but Montoni did not hesitate an
instant to interpret it his own way, and, after vainly waiting the
Count’s arrival, for several hours, he gave orders for his people to be
in readiness to set off at a moment’s notice. By hastening to Udolpho
he intended to remove Emily from the reach of Morano, as well as to
break off the affair, without submitting himself to useless
altercation: and, if the Count meant what he called honourably, he
would doubtless follow Emily, and sign the writings in question. If
this was done, so little consideration had Montoni for her welfare,
that he would not have scrupled to sacrifice her to a man of ruined
fortune, since by that means he could enrich himself; and he forbore to
mention to her the motive of his sudden journey, lest the hope it might
revive should render her more intractable, when submission would be
required.

With these considerations, he had left Venice; and, with others totally
different, Morano had, soon after, pursued his steps across the rugged
Apennines. When his arrival was announced at the castle, Montoni did
not believe, that he would have presumed to show himself, unless he had
meant to fulfil his engagement, and he, therefore, readily admitted
him; but the enraged countenance and expressions of Morano, as he
entered the apartment, instantly undeceived him; and, when Montoni had
explained, in part, the motives of his abrupt departure from Venice,
the Count still persisted in demanding Emily, and reproaching Montoni,
without even naming the former stipulation.

Montoni, at length, weary of the dispute, deferred the settling of it
till the morrow, and Morano retired with some hope, suggested by
Montoni’s apparent indecision. When, however, in the silence of his own
apartment, he began to consider the past conversation, the character of
Montoni, and some former instances of his duplicity, the hope, which he
had admitted, vanished, and he determined not to neglect the present
possibility of obtaining Emily by other means. To his confidential
valet he told his design of carrying away Emily, and sent him back to
Montoni’s servants to find out one among them, who might enable him to
execute it. The choice of this person he entrusted to the fellow’s own
discernment, and not imprudently; for he discovered a man, whom Montoni
had, on some former occasion, treated harshly, and who was now ready to
betray him. This man conducted Cesario round the castle, through a
private passage, to the staircase, that led to Emily’s chamber; then
showed him a short way out of the building, and afterwards procured him
the keys, that would secure his retreat. The man was well rewarded for
his trouble; how the Count was rewarded for his treachery, had already
appeared.

Meanwhile, old Carlo had overheard two of Morano’s servants, who had
been ordered to be in waiting with the carriage, beyond the castle
walls, expressing their surprise at their master’s sudden, and secret
departure, for the valet had entrusted them with no more of Morano’s
designs, than it was necessary for them to execute. They, however,
indulged themselves in surmises, and in expressing them to each other;
and from these Carlo had drawn a just conclusion. But, before he
ventured to disclose his apprehensions to Montoni, he endeavoured to
obtain further confirmation of them, and, for this purpose, placed
himself, with one of his fellow-servants, at the door of Emily’s
apartment, that opened upon the corridor. He did not watch long in
vain, though the growling of the dog had once nearly betrayed him. When
he was convinced, that Morano was in the room, and had listened long
enough to his conversation, to understand his scheme, he immediately
alarmed Montoni, and thus rescued Emily from the designs of the Count.

Montoni, on the following morning, appeared as usual, except that he
wore his wounded arm in a sling; he went out upon the ramparts;
overlooked the men employed in repairing them; gave orders for
additional workmen, and then came into the castle to give audience to
several persons, who were just arrived, and who were shown into a
private apartment, where he communicated with them, for near an hour.
Carlo was then summoned, and ordered to conduct the strangers to a part
of the castle, which, in former times, had been occupied by the upper
servants of the family, and to provide them with every necessary
refreshment.—When he had done this, he was bidden to return to his
master.

Meanwhile, the Count remained in a cottage in the skirts of the woods
below, suffering under bodily and mental pain, and meditating deep
revenge against Montoni. His servant, whom he had dispatched for a
surgeon to the nearest town, which was, however, at a considerable
distance, did not return till the following day, when, his wounds being
examined and dressed, the practitioner refused to deliver any positive
opinion, concerning the degree of danger attending them; but giving his
patient a composing draught and ordering him to be quiet, remained at
the cottage to watch the event.

Emily, for the remainder of the late eventful night, had been suffered
to sleep, undisturbed; and, when her mind recovered from the confusion
of slumber, and she remembered, that she was now released from the
addresses of Count Morano, her spirits were suddenly relieved from a
part of the terrible anxiety, that had long oppressed them; that which
remained, arose chiefly from a recollection of Morano’s assertions,
concerning the schemes of Montoni. He had said, that plans of the
latter, concerning Emily, were insearchable, yet that he knew them to
be terrible. At the time he uttered this, she almost believed it to be
designed for the purpose of prevailing with her to throw herself into
his protection, and she still thought it might be chiefly so accounted
for; but his assertions had left an impression on her mind, which a
consideration of the character and former conduct of Montoni did not
contribute to efface. She, however, checked her propensity to
anticipate evil; and, determined to enjoy this respite from actual
misfortune, tried to dismiss thought, took her instruments for drawing,
and placed herself at a window, to select into a landscape some
features of the scenery without.

As she was thus employed, she saw, walking on the rampart below, the
men, who had so lately arrived at the castle. The sight of strangers
surprised her, but still more, of strangers such as these. There was a
singularity in their dress, and a certain fierceness in their air, that
fixed all her attention. She withdrew from the casement, while they
passed, but soon returned to observe them further. Their figures seemed
so well suited to the wildness of the surrounding objects, that, as
they stood surveying the castle, she sketched them for banditti, amid
the mountain-view of her picture, when she had finished which, she was
surprised to observe the spirit of her group. But she had copied from
nature.

Carlo, when he had placed refreshment before these men in the apartment
assigned to them, returned, as he was ordered, to Montoni, who was
anxious to discover by what servant the keys of the castle had been
delivered to Morano, on the preceding night. But this man, though he
was too faithful to his master quietly to see him injured, would not
betray a fellow-servant even to justice; he, therefore, pretended to be
ignorant who it was, that had conspired with Count Morano, and related,
as before, that he had only overheard some of the strangers describing
the plot.

Montoni’s suspicions naturally fell upon the porter, whom he ordered
now to attend. Carlo hesitated, and then with slow steps went to seek
him.

Barnardine, the porter, denied the accusation with a countenance so
steady and undaunted, that Montoni could scarcely believe him guilty,
though he knew not how to think him innocent. At length, the man was
dismissed from his presence, and, though the real offender, escaped
detection.

Montoni then went to his wife’s apartment, whither Emily followed soon
after, but, finding them in high dispute, was instantly leaving the
room, when her aunt called her back, and desired her to stay.—“You
shall be a witness,” said she, “of my opposition. Now, sir, repeat the
command, I have so often refused to obey.”

Montoni turned, with a stern countenance, to Emily, and bade her quit
the apartment, while his wife persisted in desiring, that she would
stay. Emily was eager to escape from this scene of contention, and
anxious, also, to serve her aunt; but she despaired of conciliating
Montoni, in whose eyes the rising tempest of his soul flashed terribly.

“Leave the room,” said he, in a voice of thunder. Emily obeyed, and,
walking down to the rampart, which the strangers had now left,
continued to meditate on the unhappy marriage of her father’s sister,
and on her own desolate situation, occasioned by the ridiculous
imprudence of her, whom she had always wished to respect and love.
Madame Montoni’s conduct had, indeed, rendered it impossible for Emily
to do either; but her gentle heart was touched by her distress, and, in
the pity thus awakened, she forgot the injurious treatment she had
received from her.

As she sauntered on the rampart, Annette appeared at the hall door,
looked cautiously round, and then advanced to meet her.

“Dear ma’amselle, I have been looking for you all over the castle,”
said she. “If you will step this way, I will show you a picture.”

“A picture!” exclaimed Emily, and shuddered.

“Yes, ma’am, a picture of the late lady of this place. Old Carlo just
now told me it was her, and I thought you would be curious to see it.
As to my lady, you know, ma’amselle, one cannot talk about such things
to her.”

“And so,” said Emily smilingly, “as you must talk of them to somebody—”

“Why, yes, ma’amselle; what can one do in such a place as this, if one
must not talk? If I was in a dungeon, if they would let me talk—it
would be some comfort; nay, I would talk, if it was only to the walls.
But come, ma’amselle, we lose time—let me show you the picture.”

“Is it veiled?” said Emily, pausing.

“Dear ma’amselle!” said Annette, fixing her eyes on Emily’s face, “what
makes you look so pale?—are you ill?”

“No, Annette, I am well enough, but I have no desire to see this
picture; return into the hall.”

“What! ma’am, not to see the lady of this castle?” said the girl; “the
lady, who disappeared to strangely? Well! now, I would have run to the
furthest mountain we can see, yonder, to have got a sight of such a
picture; and, to speak my mind, that strange story is all, that makes
me care about this old castle, though it makes me thrill all over, as
it were, whenever I think of it.”

“Yes, Annette, you love the wonderful; but do you know, that, unless
you guard against this inclination, it will lead you into all the
misery of superstition?”

Annette might have smiled in her turn, at this sage observation of
Emily, who could tremble with ideal terrors, as much as herself, and
listen almost as eagerly to the recital of a mysterious story. Annette
urged her request.

“Are you sure it is a picture?” said Emily, “Have you seen it?—Is it
veiled?”

“Holy Maria! ma’amselle, yes, no, yes. I am sure it is a picture—I have
seen it, and it is not veiled!”

The tone and look of surprise, with which this was uttered, recalled
Emily’s prudence; who concealed her emotion under a smile, and bade
Annette lead her to the picture. It was in an obscure chamber,
adjoining that part of the castle, allotted to the servants. Several
other portraits hung on the walls, covered, like this, with dust and
cobweb.

“That is it, ma’amselle,” said Annette, in a low voice, and pointing.
Emily advanced, and surveyed the picture. It represented a lady in the
flower of youth and beauty; her features were handsome and noble, full
of strong expression, but had little of the captivating sweetness, that
Emily had looked for, and still less of the pensive mildness she loved.
It was a countenance, which spoke the language of passion, rather than
that of sentiment; a haughty impatience of misfortune—not the placid
melancholy of a spirit injured, yet resigned.

“How many years have passed, since this lady disappeared, Annette?”
said Emily.

“Twenty years, ma’amselle, or thereabout, as they tell me; I know it is
a long while ago.” Emily continued to gaze upon the portrait.

“I think,” resumed Annette, “the Signor would do well to hang it in a
better place, than this old chamber. Now, in my mind, he ought to place
the picture of a lady, who gave him all these riches, in the handsomest
room in the castle. But he may have good reasons for what he does: and
some people do say that he has lost his riches, as well as his
gratitude. But hush, ma’am, not a word!” added Annette, laying her
finger on her lips. Emily was too much absorbed in thought, to hear
what she said.

“’Tis a handsome lady, I am sure,” continued Annette: “the Signor need
not be ashamed to put her in the great apartment, where the veiled
picture hangs.” Emily turned round. “But for that matter, she would be
as little seen there, as here, for the door is always locked, I find.”

“Let us leave this chamber,” said Emily: “and let me caution you again,
Annette; be guarded in your conversation, and never tell, that you know
anything of that picture.”

“Holy Mother!” exclaimed Annette, “it is no secret; why all the
servants have seen it already!”

Emily started. “How is this?” said she—“Have seen it! When?—how?”

“Dear, ma’amselle, there is nothing surprising in that; we had all a
little more _curiousness_ than you had.”

“I thought you told me, the door was kept locked?” said Emily.

“If that was the case, ma’amselle,” replied Annette, looking about her,
“how could we get here?”

“Oh, you mean _this_ picture,” said Emily, with returning calmness.
“Well, Annette, here is nothing more to engage my attention; we will
go.”

Emily, as she passed to her own apartment, saw Montoni go down to the
hall, and she turned into her aunt’s dressing-room, whom she found
weeping and alone, grief and resentment struggling on her countenance.
Pride had hitherto restrained complaint. Judging of Emily’s disposition
from her own, and from a consciousness of what her treatment of her
deserved, she had believed, that her griefs would be cause of triumph
to her niece, rather than of sympathy; that she would despise, not pity
her. But she knew not the tenderness and benevolence of Emily’s heart,
that had always taught her to forget her own injuries in the
misfortunes of her enemy. The sufferings of others, whoever they might
be, called forth her ready compassion, which dissipated at once every
obscuring cloud to goodness, that passion or prejudice might have
raised in her mind.

Madame Montoni’s sufferings, at length, rose above her pride, and, when
Emily had before entered the room, she would have told them all, had
not her husband prevented her; now that she was no longer restrained by
his presence, she poured forth all her complaints to her niece.

“O Emily!” she exclaimed, “I am the most wretched of women—I am indeed
cruelly treated! Who, with my prospects of happiness, could have
foreseen such a wretched fate as this?—who could have thought, when I
married such a man as the Signor, I should ever have to bewail my lot?
But there is no judging what is for the best—there is no knowing what
is for our good! The most flattering prospects often change—the best
judgments may be deceived—who could have foreseen, when I married the
Signor, that I should ever repent my _generosity?_”

Emily thought she might have foreseen it, but this was not a thought of
triumph. She placed herself in a chair near her aunt, took her hand,
and, with one of those looks of soft compassion, which might
characterise the countenance of a guardian angel, spoke to her in the
tenderest accents. But these did not sooth Madame Montoni, whom
impatience to talk made unwilling to listen. She wanted to complain,
not to be consoled; and it was by exclamations of complaint only, that
Emily learned the particular circumstances of her affliction.

“Ungrateful man!” said Madame Montoni, “he has deceived me in every
respect; and now he has taken me from my country and friends, to shut
me up in this old castle; and, here he thinks he can compel me to do
whatever he designs! But he shall find himself mistaken, he shall find
that no threats can alter—But who would have believed! who would have
supposed, that a man of his family and apparent wealth had absolutely
no fortune?—no, scarcely a sequin of his own! I did all for the best; I
thought he was a man of consequence, of great property, or I am sure I
would never have married him,—ungrateful, artful man!” She paused to
take breath.

“Dear Madam, be composed,” said Emily: “the Signor may not be so rich
as you had reason to expect, but surely he cannot be very poor, since
this castle and the mansion at Venice are his. May I ask what are the
circumstances, that particularly affect you?”

“What are the circumstances!” exclaimed Madame Montoni with resentment:
“why is it not sufficient, that he had long ago ruined his own fortune
by play, and that he has since lost what I brought him—and that now he
would compel me to sign away my settlement (it was well I had the chief
of my property settled on myself!) that he may lose this also, or throw
it away in wild schemes, which nobody can understand but himself? And,
and—is not all this sufficient?”

“It is, indeed,” said Emily, “but you must recollect, dear madam, that
I knew nothing of all this.”

“Well, and is it not sufficient,” rejoined her aunt, “that he is also
absolutely ruined, that he is sunk deeply in debt, and that neither
this castle, nor the mansion at Venice, is his own, if all his debts,
honourable and dishonourable, were paid!”

“I am shocked by what you tell me, madam,” said Emily.

“And is it not enough,” interrupted Madame Montoni, “that he has
treated me with neglect, with cruelty, because I refused to relinquish
my settlements, and, instead of being frightened by his menaces,
resolutely defied him, and upbraided him with his shameful conduct? But
I bore all meekly,—you know, niece, I never uttered a word of
complaint, till now; no! That such a disposition as mine should be so
imposed upon! That I, whose only faults are too much kindness, too much
generosity, should be chained for life to such a vile, deceitful, cruel
monster!”

Want of breath compelled Madame Montoni to stop. If anything could have
made Emily smile in these moments, it would have been this speech of
her aunt, delivered in a voice very little below a scream, and with a
vehemence of gesticulation and of countenance, that turned the whole
into burlesque. Emily saw, that her misfortunes did not admit of real
consolation, and, contemning the commonplace terms of superficial
comfort, she was silent; while Madame Montoni, jealous of her own
consequence, mistook this for the silence of indifference, or of
contempt, and reproached her with want of duty and feeling.

“O! I suspected what all this boasted sensibility would prove to be!”
rejoined she; “I thought it would not teach you to feel either duty, or
affection, for your relations, who have treated you like their own
daughter!”

“Pardon me, madam,” said Emily, mildly, “it is not natural to me to
boast, and if it was, I am sure I would not boast of sensibility—a
quality, perhaps, more to be feared, than desired.”

“Well, well, niece, I will not dispute with you. But, as I said,
Montoni threatens me with violence, if I any longer refuse to sign away
my settlements, and this was the subject of our contest, when you came
into the room before. Now, I am determined no power on earth shall make
me do this. Neither will I bear all this tamely. He shall hear his true
character from me; I will tell him all he deserves, in spite of his
threats and cruel treatment.”

Emily seized a pause of Madame Montoni’s voice, to speak. “Dear madam,”
said she, “but will not this serve to irritate the Signor
unnecessarily? will it not provoke the harsh treatment you dread?”

“I do not care,” replied Madame Montoni, “it does not signify: I will
not submit to such usage. You would have me give up my settlements,
too, I suppose!”

“No, madam, I do not exactly mean that.”

“What is it you do mean then?”

“You spoke of reproaching the Signor,”—said Emily, with hesitation.
“Why, does he not deserve reproaches?” said her aunt.

“Certainly he does; but will it be prudent in you, madam, to make
them?”

“Prudent!” exclaimed Madame Montoni. “Is this a time to talk of
prudence, when one is threatened with all sorts of violence?”

“It is to avoid that violence, that prudence is necessary.” said Emily.

“Of prudence!” continued Madame Montoni, without attending to her, “of
prudence towards a man, who does not scruple to break all the common
ties of humanity in his conduct to me! And is it for me to consider
prudence in my behaviour towards him! I am not so mean.”

“It is for your own sake, not for the Signor’s, madam,” said Emily
modestly, “that you should consult prudence. Your reproaches, however
just, cannot punish him, but they may provoke him to further violence
against you.”

“What! would you have me submit, then, to whatever he commands—would
you have me kneel down at his feet, and thank him for his cruelties?
Would you have me give up my settlements?”

“How much you mistake me, madam!” said Emily, “I am unequal to advise
you on a point so important as the last: but you will pardon me for
saying, that, if you consult your own peace, you will try to conciliate
Signor Montoni, rather than to irritate him by reproaches.”

“Conciliate indeed! I tell you, niece, it is utterly impossible; I
disdain to attempt it.”

Emily was shocked to observe the perverted understanding and obstinate
temper of Madame Montoni; but, not less grieved for her sufferings, she
looked round for some alleviating circumstance to offer her. “Your
situation is, perhaps, not so desperate, dear madam,” said Emily, “as
you may imagine. The Signor may represent his affairs to be worse than
they are, for the purpose of pleading a stronger necessity for his
possession of your settlement. Besides, so long as you keep this, you
may look forward to it as a resource, at least, that will afford you a
competence, should the Signor’s future conduct compel you to sue for
separation.”

Madame Montoni impatiently interrupted her. “Unfeeling, cruel girl!”
said she, “and so you would persuade me, that I have no reason to
complain; that the Signor is in very flourishing circumstances, that my
future prospects promise nothing but comfort, and that my griefs are as
fanciful and romantic as your own! Is it the way to console me, to
endeavour to persuade me out of my senses and my feelings, because you
happen to have no feelings yourself? I thought I was opening my heart
to a person, who could sympathise in my distress, but I find, that your
people of sensibility can feel for nobody but themselves! You may
retire to your chamber.”

Emily, without replying, immediately left the room, with a mingled
emotion of pity and contempt, and hastened to her own, where she
yielded to the mournful reflections, which a knowledge of her aunt’s
situation had occasioned. The conversation of the Italian with
Valancourt, in France, again occurred to her. His hints, respecting the
broken fortunes of Montoni, were now completely justified; those, also,
concerning his character, appeared not less so, though the particular
circumstances, connected with his fame, to which the stranger had
alluded, yet remained to be explained. Notwithstanding, that her own
observations and the words of Count Morano had convinced her, that
Montoni’s situation was not what it formerly appeared to be, the
intelligence she had just received from her aunt on this point, struck
her with all the force of astonishment, which was not weakened, when
she considered the present style of Montoni’s living, the number of
servants he maintained, and the new expences he was incurring, by
repairing and fortifying his castle. Her anxiety for her aunt and for
herself increased with reflection. Several assertions of Morano, which,
on the preceding night, she had believed were prompted either by
interest, or by resentment, now returned to her mind with the strength
of truth. She could not doubt, that Montoni had formerly agreed to give
her to the Count, for a pecuniary reward;—his character, and his
distressed circumstances justified the belief; these, also, seemed to
confirm Morano’s assertion, that he now designed to dispose of her,
more advantageously for himself, to a richer suitor.

Amidst the reproaches, which Morano had thrown out against Montoni, he
had said—he would not quit the castle _he dared to call his_, nor
willingly leave _another_ murder on his conscience—hints, which might
have no other origin than the passion of the moment: but Emily was now
inclined to account for them more seriously, and she shuddered to
think, that she was in the hands of a man, to whom it was even possible
they could apply. At length, considering, that reflection could neither
release her from her melancholy situation, nor enable her to bear it
with greater fortitude, she tried to divert her anxiety, and took down
from her little library a volume of her favourite Ariosto; but his wild
imagery and rich invention could not long enchant her attention; his
spells did not reach her heart, and over her sleeping fancy they
played, without awakening it.

She now put aside the book, and took her lute, for it was seldom that
her sufferings refused to yield to the magic of sweet sounds; when they
did so, she was oppressed by sorrow, that came from excess of
tenderness and regret; and there were times, when music had increased
such sorrow to a degree, that was scarcely endurable; when, if it had
not suddenly ceased, she might have lost her reason. Such was the time,
when she mourned for her father, and heard the midnight strains, that
floated by her window near the convent in Languedoc, on the night that
followed his death.

She continued to play, till Annette brought dinner into her chamber, at
which Emily was surprised, and enquired whose order she obeyed. “My
lady’s, ma’amselle,” replied Annette: “the Signor ordered her dinner to
be carried to her own apartment, and so she has sent you yours. There
have been sad doings between them, worse than ever, I think.”

Emily, not appearing to notice what she said, sat down to the little
table, that was spread for her. But Annette was not to be silenced thus
easily. While she waited, she told of the arrival of the men, whom
Emily had observed on the ramparts, and expressed much surprise at
their strange appearance, as well as at the manner, in which they had
been attended by Montoni’s order. “Do they dine with the Signor, then?”
said Emily.

“No, ma’amselle, they dined long ago, in an apartment at the north end
of the castle, but I know not when they are to go, for the Signor told
old Carlo to see them provided with everything necessary. They have
been walking all about the castle, and asking questions of the workmen
on the ramparts. I never saw such strange-looking men in my life; I am
frightened whenever I see them.”

Emily enquired, if she had heard of Count Morano, and whether he was
likely to recover: but Annette only knew, that he was lodged in a
cottage in the wood below, and that everybody said he must die. Emily’s
countenance discovered her emotion.

“Dear ma’amselle,” said Annette, “to see how young ladies will disguise
themselves, when they are in love! I thought you hated the Count, or I
am sure I would not have told you; and I am sure you have cause enough
to hate him.”

“I hope I hate nobody,” replied Emily, trying to smile; “but certainly
I do not love Count Morano. I should be shocked to hear of any person
dying by violent means.”

“Yes, ma’amselle, but it is his own fault.”

Emily looked displeased; and Annette, mistaking the cause of her
displeasure, immediately began to excuse the Count, in her way. “To be
sure, it was very ungenteel behaviour,” said she, “to break into a
lady’s room, and then, when he found his discoursing was not agreeable
to her, to refuse to go; and then, when the gentleman of the castle
comes to desire him to walk about his business—to turn round, and draw
his sword, and swear he’ll run him through the body! To be sure it was
very ungenteel behaviour, but then he was disguised in love, and so did
not know what he was about.”

“Enough of this,” said Emily, who now smiled without an effort; and
Annette returned to a mention of the disagreement between Montoni, and
her lady. “It is nothing new,” said she: “we saw and heard enough of
this at Venice, though I never told you of it, ma’amselle.”

“Well, Annette, it was very prudent of you not to mention it then: be
as prudent now; the subject is an unpleasant one.”

“Ah dear, ma’amselle!—to see now how considerate you can be about some
folks, who care so little about you! I cannot bear to see you so
deceived, and I must tell you. But it is all for your own good, and not
to spite my lady, though, to speak truth, I have little reason to love
her; but—”

“You are not speaking thus of my aunt, I hope, Annette?” said Emily,
gravely.

“Yes, ma’amselle, but I am, though; and if you knew as much as I do,
you would not look so angry. I have often, and often, heard the Signor
and her talking over your marriage with the Count, and she always
advised him never to give up to your foolish whims, as she was pleased
to call them, but to be resolute, and compel you to be obedient,
whether you would, or no. And I am sure, my heart has ached a thousand
times, and I have thought, when she was so unhappy herself, she might
have felt a little for other people, and—”

“I thank you for your pity, Annette,” said Emily, interrupting her:
“but my aunt was unhappy then, and that disturbed her temper perhaps,
or I think—I am sure—You may take away, Annette, I have done.”

“Dear ma’amselle, you have eat nothing at all! Do try, and take a
little bit more. Disturbed her temper truly! why, her temper is always
disturbed, I think. And at Thoulouse I have heard my lady talking of
you and Mons. Valancourt to Madame Merveille and Madame Vaison, often
and often, in a very ill-natured way, as I thought, telling them what a
deal of trouble she had to keep you in order, and what a fatigue and
distress it was to her, and that she believed you would run away with
Mons. Valancourt, if she was not to watch you closely; and that you
connived at his coming about the house at night, and—”

“Good God!” exclaimed Emily, blushing deeply, “it is surely impossible
my aunt could thus have represented me!”

“Indeed, ma’am, I say nothing more than the truth, and not all of that.
But I thought, myself, she might have found something better to
discourse about, than the faults of her own niece, even if you had been
in fault, ma’amselle; but I did not believe a word of what she said.
But my lady does not care what she says against anybody, for that
matter.”

“However that may be, Annette,” interrupted Emily, recovering her
composure, “it does not become you to speak of the faults of my aunt to
me. I know you have meant well, but—say no more.—I have quite dined.”

Annette blushed, looked down, and then began slowly to clear the table.

“Is this, then, the reward of my ingenuousness?” said Emily, when she
was alone; “the treatment I am to receive from a relation—an aunt—who
ought to have been the guardian, not the slanderer of my
reputation,—who, as a woman, ought to have respected the delicacy of
female honour, and, as a relation, should have protected mine! But, to
utter falsehoods on so nice a subject—to repay the openness, and, I may
say with honest pride, the propriety of my conduct, with
slanders—required a depravity of heart, such as I could scarcely have
believed existed, such as I weep to find in a relation. O! what a
contrast does her character present to that of my beloved father; while
envy and low cunning form the chief traits of hers, his was
distinguished by benevolence and philosophic wisdom! But now, let me
only remember, if possible, that she is unfortunate.”

Emily threw her veil over her, and went down to walk upon the ramparts,
the only walk, indeed, which was open to her, though she often wished,
that she might be permitted to ramble among the woods below, and still
more, that she might sometimes explore the sublime scenes of the
surrounding country. But, as Montoni would not suffer her to pass the
gates of the castle, she tried to be contented with the romantic views
she beheld from the walls. The peasants, who had been employed on the
fortifications, had left their work, and the ramparts were silent and
solitary. Their lonely appearance, together with the gloom of a
lowering sky, assisted the musings of her mind, and threw over it a
kind of melancholy tranquillity, such as she often loved to indulge.
She turned to observe a fine effect of the sun, as his rays, suddenly
streaming from behind a heavy cloud, lighted up the west towers of the
castle, while the rest of the edifice was in deep shade, except, that,
through a lofty gothic arch, adjoining the tower, which led to another
terrace, the beams darted in full splendour, and showed the three
strangers she had observed in the morning. Perceiving them, she
started, and a momentary fear came over her, as she looked up the long
rampart, and saw no other persons. While she hesitated, they
approached. The gate at the end of the terrace, whither they were
advancing, she knew, was always locked, and she could not depart by the
opposite extremity, without meeting them; but, before she passed them,
she hastily drew a thin veil over her face, which did, indeed, but ill
conceal her beauty. They looked earnestly at her, and spoke to each
other in bad Italian, of which she caught only a few words; but the
fierceness of their countenances, now that she was near enough to
discriminate them, struck her yet more than the wild singularity of
their air and dress had formerly done. It was the countenance and
figure of him, who walked between the other two, that chiefly seized
her attention, which expressed a sullen haughtiness and a kind of dark
watchful villany, that gave a thrill of horror to her heart. All this
was so legibly written on his features, as to be seen by a single
glance, for she passed the group swiftly, and her timid eyes scarcely
rested on them a moment. Having reached the terrace, she stopped, and
perceived the strangers standing in the shadow of one of the turrets,
gazing after her, and seemingly, by their action, in earnest
conversation. She immediately left the rampart, and retired to her
apartment.

In the evening, Montoni sat late, carousing with his guests in the
cedar chamber. His recent triumph over Count Morano, or, perhaps, some
other circumstance, contributed to elevate his spirits to an unusual
height. He filled the goblet often, and gave a loose to merriment and
talk. The gaiety of Cavigni, on the contrary, was somewhat clouded by
anxiety. He kept a watchful eye upon Verezzi, whom, with the utmost
difficulty, he had hitherto restrained from exasperating Montoni
further against Morano, by a mention of his late taunting words.

One of the company exultingly recurred to the event of the preceding
evening. Verezzi’s eyes sparkled. The mention of Morano led to that of
Emily, of whom they were all profuse in the praise, except Montoni, who
sat silent, and then interrupted the subject.

When the servants had withdrawn, Montoni and his friends entered into
close conversation, which was sometimes checked by the irascible temper
of Verezzi, but in which Montoni displayed his conscious superiority,
by that decisive look and manner, which always accompanied the vigour
of his thought, and to which most of his companions submitted, as to a
power, that they had no right to question, though of each other’s
self-importance they were jealously scrupulous. Amidst this
conversation, one of them imprudently introduced again the name of
Morano; and Verezzi, now more heated by wine, disregarded the
expressive looks of Cavigni, and gave some dark hints of what had
passed on the preceding night. These, however, Montoni did not appear
to understand, for he continued silent in his chair, without
discovering any emotion, while, the choler of Verezzi increasing with
the apparent insensibility of Montoni, he at length told the suggestion
of Morano, that this castle did not lawfully belong to him, and that he
would not willingly leave another murder on his conscience.

“Am I to be insulted at my own table, and by my own friends?” said
Montoni, with a countenance pale in anger. “Why are the words of that
madman repeated to me?” Verezzi, who had expected to hear Montoni’s
indignation poured forth against Morano, and answered by thanks to
himself, looked with astonishment at Cavigni, who enjoyed his
confusion. “Can you be weak enough to credit the assertions of a
madman?” rejoined Montoni, “or, what is the same thing, a man possessed
by the spirit of vengeance? But he has succeeded too well; you believe
what he said.”

“Signor,” said Verezzi, “we believe only what we know.”—“How!”
interrupted Montoni, sternly: “produce your proof.”

“We believe only what we know,” repeated Verezzi, “and we know nothing
of what Morano asserts.” Montoni seemed to recover himself. “I am
hasty, my friends,” said he, “with respect to my honour; no man shall
question it with impunity—you did not mean to question it. These
foolish words are not worth your remembrance, or my resentment.
Verezzi, here is to your first exploit.”

“Success to your first exploit,” re-echoed the whole company.

“Noble Signor,” replied Verezzi, glad to find he had escaped Montoni’s
resentment, “with my good will, you shall build your ramparts of gold.”

“Pass the goblet,” cried Montoni. “We will drink to Signora St.
Aubert,” said Cavigni. “By your leave we will first drink to the lady
of the castle.” said Bertolini.—Montoni was silent. “To the lady of the
castle,” said his guests. He bowed his head.

“It much surprises me, Signor,” said Bertolini, “that you have so long
neglected this castle; it is a noble edifice.”

“It suits our purpose,” replied Montoni, “and _is_ a noble edifice. You
know not, it seems, by what mischance it came to me.”

“It was a lucky mischance, be it what it may, Signor,” replied
Bertolini, smiling. “I would, that one so lucky had befallen me.”

Montoni looked gravely at him. “If you will attend to what I say,” he
resumed, “you shall hear the story.”

The countenances of Bertolini and Verezzi expressed something more than
curiosity; Cavigni, who seemed to feel none, had probably heard the
relation before.

“It is now near twenty years,” said Montoni, “since this castle came
into my possession. I inherit it by the female line. The lady, my
predecessor, was only distantly related to me; I am the last of her
family. She was beautiful and rich; I wooed her; but her heart was
fixed upon another, and she rejected me. It is probable, however, that
she was herself rejected of the person, whoever he might be, on whom
she bestowed her favour, for a deep and settled melancholy took
possession of her; and I have reason to believe she put a period to her
own life. I was not at the castle at the time; but, as there are some
singular and mysterious circumstances attending that event, I shall
repeat them.”

“Repeat them!” said a voice.

Montoni was silent; the guests looked at each other, to know who spoke;
but they perceived, that each was making the same enquiry. Montoni, at
length, recovered himself. “We are overheard,” said he: “we will finish
this subject another time. Pass the goblet.”

The cavaliers looked round the wide chamber.

“Here is no person, but ourselves,” said Verezzi: “pray, Signor,
proceed.”

“Did you hear anything?” said Montoni.

“We did,” said Bertolini.

“It could be only fancy,” said Verezzi, looking round again. “We see no
person besides ourselves; and the sound I thought I heard seemed within
the room. Pray, Signor, go on.”

Montoni paused a moment, and then proceeded in a lowered voice, while
the cavaliers drew nearer to attend.

“Ye are to know, Signors, that the Lady Laurentini had for some months
shown symptoms of a dejected mind, nay, of a disturbed imagination. Her
mood was very unequal; sometimes she was sunk in calm melancholy, and,
at others, as I have been told, she betrayed all the symptoms of
frantic madness. It was one night in the month of October, after she
had recovered from one of those fits of excess, and had sunk again into
her usual melancholy, that she retired alone to her chamber, and
forbade all interruption. It was the chamber at the end of the
corridor, Signors, where we had the affray, last night. From that hour,
she was seen no more.”

“How! seen no more!” said Bertolini, “was not her body found in the
chamber?”

“Were her remains never found?” cried the rest of the company all
together.

“Never!” replied Montoni.

“What reasons were there to suppose she destroyed herself, then?” said
Bertolini.—“Aye, what reasons?” said Verezzi.—“How happened it, that
her remains were never found? Although she killed herself, she could
not bury herself.” Montoni looked indignantly at Verezzi, who began to
apologise.

“Your pardon, Signor,” said he: “I did not consider, that the lady was
your relative, when I spoke of her so lightly.”

Montoni accepted the apology.

“But the Signor will oblige us with the reasons, which urged him to
believe, that the lady committed suicide.”

“Those I will explain hereafter,” said Montoni: “at present let me
relate a most extraordinary circumstance. This conversation goes no
further, Signors. Listen, then, to what I am going to say.”

“Listen!” said a voice.

They were all again silent, and the countenance of Montoni changed.
“This is no illusion of the fancy,” said Cavigni, at length breaking
the profound silence.—“No,” said Bertolini; “I heard it myself, now.
Yet here is no person in the room but ourselves!”

“This is very extraordinary,” said Montoni, suddenly rising. “This is
not to be borne; here is some deception, some trick. I will know what
it means.”

All the company rose from their chairs in confusion.

“It is very odd!” said Bertolini. “Here is really no stranger in the
room. If it is a trick, Signor, you will do well to punish the author
of it severely.”

“A trick! what else can it be?” said Cavigni, affecting a laugh.

The servants were now summoned, and the chamber was searched, but no
person was found. The surprise and consternation of the company
increased. Montoni was discomposed. “We will leave this room,” said he,
“and the subject of our conversation also; it is too solemn.” His
guests were equally ready to quit the apartment; but the subject had
roused their curiosity, and they entreated Montoni to withdraw to
another chamber, and finish it; no entreaties could, however, prevail
with him. Notwithstanding his efforts to appear at ease, he was visibly
and greatly disordered.

“Why, Signor, you are not superstitious,” cried Verezzi, jeeringly;
“you, who have so often laughed at the credulity of others!”

“I am not superstitious,” replied Montoni, regarding him with stern
displeasure, “though I know how to despise the common-place sentences,
which are frequently uttered against superstition. I will enquire
further into this affair.” He then left the room; and his guests,
separating for the night, retired to their respective apartments.



 CHAPTER VIII

He wears the rose of youth upon his cheek.
                    SHAKESPEARE


We now return to Valancourt, who, it may be remembered, remained at
Thoulouse, some time after the departure of Emily, restless and
miserable. Each morrow that approached, he designed should carry him
from thence; yet tomorrow and tomorrow came, and still saw him
lingering in the scene of his former happiness. He could not
immediately tear himself from the spot, where he had been accustomed to
converse with Emily, or from the objects they had viewed together,
which appeared to him memorials of her affection, as well as a kind of
surety for its faithfulness; and, next to the pain of bidding her
adieu, was that of leaving the scenes which so powerfully awakened her
image. Sometimes he had bribed a servant, who had been left in the care
of Madame Montoni’s château, to permit him to visit the gardens, and
there he would wander, for hours together, rapt in a melancholy, not
unpleasing. The terrace, and the pavilion at the end of it, where he
had taken leave of Emily, on the eve of her departure from Thoulouse,
were his most favourite haunts. There, as he walked, or leaned from the
window of the building, he would endeavour to recollect all she had
said, on that night; to catch the tones of her voice, as they faintly
vibrated on his memory, and to remember the exact expression of her
countenance, which sometimes came suddenly to his fancy, like a vision;
that beautiful countenance, which awakened, as by instantaneous magic,
all the tenderness of his heart, and seemed to tell with irresistible
eloquence—that he had lost her for ever! At these moments, his hurried
steps would have discovered to a spectator the despair of his heart.
The character of Montoni, such as he had received from hints, and such
as his fears represented it, would rise to his view, together with all
the dangers it seemed to threaten to Emily and to his love. He blamed
himself, that he had not urged these more forcibly to her, while it
might have been in his power to detain her, and that he had suffered an
absurd and criminal delicacy, as he termed it, to conquer so soon the
reasonable arguments he had opposed to this journey. Any evil, that
might have attended their marriage, seemed so inferior to those, which
now threatened their love, or even to the sufferings, that absence
occasioned, that he wondered how he could have ceased to urge his suit,
till he had convinced her of its propriety; and he would certainly now
have followed her to Italy, if he could have been spared from his
regiment for so long a journey. His regiment, indeed, soon reminded
him, that he had other duties to attend, than those of love.

A short time after his arrival at his brother’s house, he was summoned
to join his brother officers, and he accompanied a battalion to Paris;
where a scene of novelty and gaiety opened upon him, such as, till
then, he had only a faint idea of. But gaiety disgusted, and company
fatigued, his sick mind; and he became an object of unceasing raillery
to his companions, from whom, whenever he could steal an opportunity,
he escaped, to think of Emily. The scenes around him, however, and the
company with whom he was obliged to mingle, engaged his attention,
though they failed to amuse his fancy, and thus gradually weakened the
habit of yielding to lamentation, till it appeared less a duty to his
love to indulge it. Among his brother-officers were many, who added to
the ordinary character of a French soldier’s gaiety some of those
fascinating qualities, which too frequently throw a veil over folly,
and sometimes even soften the features of vice into smiles. To these
men the reserved and thoughtful manners of Valancourt were a kind of
tacit censure on their own, for which they rallied him when present,
and plotted against him when absent; they gloried in the thought of
reducing him to their own level, and, considering it to be a spirited
frolic, determined to accomplish it.

Valancourt was a stranger to the gradual progress of scheme and
intrigue, against which he could not be on his guard. He had not been
accustomed to receive ridicule, and he could ill endure its sting; he
resented it, and this only drew upon him a louder laugh. To escape from
such scenes, he fled into solitude, and there the image of Emily met
him, and revived the pangs of love and despair. He then sought to renew
those tasteful studies, which had been the delight of his early years;
but his mind had lost the tranquillity, which is necessary for their
enjoyment. To forget himself and the grief and anxiety, which the idea
of her recalled, he would quit his solitude, and again mingle in the
crowd—glad of a temporary relief, and rejoicing to snatch amusement for
the moment.

Thus passed weeks after weeks, time gradually softening his sorrow, and
habit strengthening his desire of amusement, till the scenes around him
seemed to awaken into a new character, and Valancourt, to have fallen
among them from the clouds.

His figure and address made him a welcome visitor, wherever he had been
introduced, and he soon frequented the most gay and fashionable circles
of Paris. Among these, was the assembly of the Countess Lacleur, a
woman of eminent beauty and captivating manners. She had passed the
spring of youth, but her wit prolonged the triumph of its reign, and
they mutually assisted the fame of each other; for those, who were
charmed by her loveliness, spoke with enthusiasm of her talents; and
others, who admired her playful imagination, declared, that her
personal graces were unrivalled. But her imagination was merely
playful, and her wit, if such it could be called, was brilliant, rather
than just; it dazzled, and its fallacy escaped the detection of the
moment; for the accents, in which she pronounced it, and the smile,
that accompanied them, were a spell upon the judgment of the auditors.
Her _petits soupers_ were the most tasteful of any in Paris, and were
frequented by many of the second class of literati. She was fond of
music, was herself a scientific performer, and had frequently concerts
at her house. Valancourt, who passionately loved music, and who
sometimes assisted at these concerts, admired her execution, but
remembered with a sigh the eloquent simplicity of Emily’s songs and the
natural expression of her manner, which waited not to be approved by
the judgment, but found their way at once to the heart.

Madame _La Comtesse_ had often deep play at her house, which she
affected to restrain, but secretly encouraged; and it was well known
among her friends, that the splendour of her establishment was chiefly
supplied from the profits of her tables. But her _petits soupers_ were
the most charming imaginable! Here were all the delicacies of the four
quarters of the world, all the wit and the lighter efforts of genius,
all the graces of conversation—the smiles of beauty, and the charm of
music; and Valancourt passed his pleasantest, as well as most dangerous
hours in these parties.

His brother, who remained with his family in Gascony, had contented
himself with giving him letters of introduction to such of his
relations, residing at Paris, as the latter was not already known to.
All these were persons of some distinction; and, as neither the person,
mind, nor manners of Valancourt the younger threatened to disgrace
their alliance, they received him with as much kindness as their
nature, hardened by uninterrupted prosperity, would admit of; but their
attentions did not extend to acts of real friendship; for they were too
much occupied by their own pursuits, to feel any interest in his; and
thus he was set down in the midst of Paris, in the pride of youth, with
an open, unsuspicious temper and ardent affections, without one friend,
to warn him of the dangers, to which he was exposed. Emily, who, had
she been present, would have saved him from these evils by awakening
his heart, and engaging him in worthy pursuits, now only increased his
danger;—it was to lose the grief, which the remembrance of her
occasioned, that he first sought amusement; and for this end he pursued
it, till habit made it an object of abstract interest.

There was also a Marchioness Champfort, a young widow, at whose
assemblies he passed much of his time. She was handsome, still more
artful, gay and fond of intrigue. The society, which she drew round
her, was less elegant and more vicious, than that of the Countess
Lacleur: but, as she had address enough to throw a veil, though but a
slight one, over the worst part of her character, she was still visited
by many persons of what is called distinction. Valancourt was
introduced to her parties by two of his brother officers, whose late
ridicule he had now forgiven so far, that he could sometimes join in
the laugh, which a mention of his former manners would renew.

The gaiety of the most splendid court in Europe, the magnificence of
the palaces, entertainments, and equipages, that surrounded him—all
conspired to dazzle his imagination, and reanimate his spirits, and the
example and maxims of his military associates to delude his mind.
Emily’s image, indeed, still lived there; but it was no longer the
friend, the monitor, that saved him from himself, and to which he
retired to weep the sweet, yet melancholy, tears of tenderness. When he
had recourse to it, it assumed a countenance of mild reproach, that
wrung his soul, and called forth tears of unmixed misery; his only
escape from which was to forget the object of it, and he endeavoured,
therefore, to think of Emily as seldom as he could.

Thus dangerously circumstanced was Valancourt, at the time, when Emily
was suffering at Venice, from the persecuting addresses of Count
Morano, and the unjust authority of Montoni; at which period we leave
him.



 CHAPTER IX

The image of a wicked, heinous fault
Lives in his eye; that close aspect of his
Does show the mood of a much-troubled breast.
                    KING JOHN


Leaving the gay scenes of Paris, we return to those of the gloomy
Apennine, where Emily’s thoughts were still faithful to Valancourt.
Looking to him as to her only hope, she recollected, with jealous
exactness, every assurance and every proof she had witnessed of his
affection; read again and again the letters she had received from him;
weighed, with intense anxiety, the force of every word, that spoke of
his attachment; and dried her tears, as she trusted in his truth.

Montoni, meanwhile, had made strict enquiry concerning the strange
circumstance of his alarm, without obtaining information; and was, at
length, obliged to account for it by the reasonable supposition, that
it was a mischievous trick played off by one of his domestics. His
disagreements with Madame Montoni, on the subject of her settlements,
were now more frequent than ever; he even confined her entirely to her
own apartment, and did not scruple to threaten her with much greater
severity, should she persevere in a refusal.

Reason, had she consulted it, would now have perplexed her in the
choice of a conduct to be adopted. It would have pointed out the danger
of irritating by further opposition a man, such as Montoni had proved
himself to be, and to whose power she had so entirely committed
herself; and it would also have told her, of what extreme importance to
her future comfort it was, to reserve for herself those possessions,
which would enable her to live independently of Montoni, should she
ever escape from his immediate control. But she was directed by a more
decisive guide than reason—the spirit of revenge, which urged her to
oppose violence to violence, and obstinacy to obstinacy.

Wholly confined to the solitude of her apartment, she was now reduced
to solicit the society she had lately rejected; for Emily was the only
person, except Annette, with whom she was permitted to converse.

Generously anxious for her peace, Emily, therefore, tried to persuade,
when she could not convince, and sought by every gentle means to induce
her to forbear that asperity of reply, which so greatly irritated
Montoni. The pride of her aunt did sometimes soften to the soothing
voice of Emily, and there even were moments, when she regarded her
affectionate attentions with goodwill.

The scenes of terrible contention, to which Emily was frequently
compelled to be witness, exhausted her spirits more than any
circumstances, that had occurred since her departure from Thoulouse.
The gentleness and goodness of her parents, together with the scenes of
her early happiness, often stole on her mind, like the visions of a
higher world; while the characters and circumstances, now passing
beneath her eye, excited both terror and surprise. She could scarcely
have imagined, that passions so fierce and so various, as those which
Montoni exhibited, could have been concentrated in one individual; yet
what more surprised her, was, that, on great occasions, he could bend
these passions, wild as they were, to the cause of his interest, and
generally could disguise in his countenance their operation on his
mind; but she had seen him too often, when he had thought it
unnecessary to conceal his nature, to be deceived on such occasions.

Her present life appeared like the dream of a distempered imagination,
or like one of those frightful fictions, in which the wild genius of
the poets sometimes delighted. Reflection brought only regret, and
anticipation terror. How often did she wish to “steal the lark’s wing,
and mount the swiftest gale,” that Languedoc and repose might once more
be hers!

Of Count Morano’s health she made frequent enquiry; but Annette heard
only vague reports of his danger, and that his surgeon had said he
would never leave the cottage alive; while Emily could not but be
shocked to think, that she, however innocently, might be the means of
his death; and Annette, who did not fail to observe her emotion,
interpreted it in her own way.

But a circumstance soon occurred, which entirely withdrew Annette’s
attention from this subject, and awakened the surprise and curiosity so
natural to her. Coming one day to Emily’s apartment, with a countenance
full of importance, “What can all this mean, ma’amselle?” said she.
“Would I was once safe in Languedoc again, they should never catch me
going on my travels any more! I must think it a fine thing, truly, to
come abroad, and see foreign parts! I little thought I was coming to be
catched up in an old castle, among such dreary mountains, with the
chance of being murdered, or, what is as good, having my throat cut!”

“What can all this mean, indeed, Annette?” said Emily, in astonishment.

“Aye, ma’amselle, you may look surprised; but you won’t believe it,
perhaps, till they have murdered you, too. You would not believe about
the ghost I told you of, though I showed you the very place, where it
used to appear!—You will believe nothing, ma’amselle.”

“Not till you speak more reasonably, Annette; for Heaven’s sake,
explain your meaning. You spoke of murder!”

“Aye, ma’amselle, they are coming to murder us all, perhaps; but what
signifies explaining?—you will not believe.”

Emily again desired her to relate what she had seen, or heard.

“O, I have seen enough, ma’am, and heard too much, as Ludovico can
prove. Poor soul! they will murder him, too! I little thought, when he
sung those sweet verses under my lattice, at Venice!”—Emily looked
impatient and displeased. “Well, ma’amselle, as I was saying, these
preparations about the castle, and these strange-looking people, that
are calling here every day, and the Signor’s cruel usage of my lady,
and his odd goings-on—all these, as I told Ludovico, can bode no good.
And he bid me hold my tongue. So, says I, the Signor’s strangely
altered, Ludovico, in this gloomy castle, to what he was in France;
there, all so gay! Nobody so gallant to my lady, then; and he could
smile, too, upon a poor servant, sometimes, and jeer her, too,
good-naturedly enough. I remember once, when he said to me, as I was
going out of my lady’s dressing-room—Annette, says he—”

“Never mind what the Signor said,” interrupted Emily; “but tell me, at
once, the circumstance, which has thus alarmed you.”

“Aye, ma’amselle,” rejoined Annette, “that is just what Ludovico said:
says he, Never mind what the Signor says to you. So I told him what I
thought about the Signor. He is so strangely altered, said I: for now
he is so haughty, and so commanding, and so sharp with my lady; and, if
he meets one, he’ll scarcely look at one, unless it be to frown. So
much the better, says Ludovico, so much the better. And to tell you the
truth, ma’amselle, I thought this was a very ill-natured speech of
Ludovico: but I went on. And then, says I, he is always knitting his
brows; and if one speaks to him, he does not hear; and then he sits up
counselling so, of a night, with the other Signors—there they are, till
long past midnight, discoursing together! Aye, but says Ludovico, you
don’t know what they are counselling about. No, said I, but I can
guess—it is about my young lady. Upon that, Ludovico burst out
a-laughing, quite loud; so he put me in a huff, for I did not like that
either I or you, ma’amselle, should be laughed at; and I turned away
quick, but he stopped me. ‘Don’t be affronted, Annette,’ said he, ‘but
I cannot help laughing;’ and with that he laughed again. ‘What!’ says
he, ‘do you think the Signors sit up, night after night, only to
counsel about thy young lady! No, no, there is something more in the
wind than that. And these repairs about the castle, and these
preparations about the ramparts—they are not making about young
ladies.’ Why, surely, said I, the Signor, my master, is not going to
make war? ‘Make war!’ said Ludovico, ‘what, upon the mountains and the
woods? for here is no living soul to make war upon that I see.’

‘What are these preparations for, then?’ said I; why surely nobody is
coming to take away my master’s castle! ‘Then there are so many
ill-looking fellows coming to the castle every day,’ says Ludovico,
without answering my question, ‘and the Signor sees them all, and talks
with them all, and they all stay in the neighbourhood! By holy St.
Marco! some of them are the most cut-throat-looking dogs I ever set my
eyes upon.’

“I asked Ludovico again, if he thought they were coming to take away my
master’s castle; and he said, No, he did not think they were, but he
did not know for certain. ‘Then yesterday,’ said he, but you must not
tell this, ma’amselle, ‘yesterday, a party of these men came, and left
all their horses in the castle stables, where, it seems, they are to
stay, for the Signor ordered them all to be entertained with the best
provender in the manger; but the men are, most of them, in the
neighbouring cottages.’

“So, ma’amselle, I came to tell you all this, for I never heard
anything so strange in my life. But what can these ill-looking men be
come about, if it is not to murder us? And the Signor knows this, or
why should he be so civil to them? And why should he fortify the
castle, and counsel so much with the other Signors, and be so
thoughtful?”

“Is this all you have to tell, Annette?” said Emily. “Have you heard
nothing else, that alarms you?”

“Nothing else, ma’amselle!” said Annette; “why, is not this enough?”
“Quite enough for my patience, Annette, but not quite enough to
convince me we are all to be murdered, though I acknowledge here is
sufficient food for curiosity.” She forbore to speak her apprehensions,
because she would not encourage Annette’s wild terrors; but the present
circumstances of the castle both surprised, and alarmed her. Annette,
having told her tale, left the chamber, on the wing for new wonders.

In the evening, Emily had passed some melancholy hours with Madame
Montoni, and was retiring to rest, when she was alarmed by a strange
and loud knocking at her chamber door, and then a heavy weight fell
against it, that almost burst it open. She called to know who was
there, and receiving no answer, repeated the call; but a chilling
silence followed. It occurred to her—for, at this moment, she could not
reason on the probability of circumstances—that some one of the
strangers, lately arrived at the castle, had discovered her apartment,
and was come with such intent, as their looks rendered too possible—to
rob, perhaps to murder, her. The moment she admitted this possibility,
terror supplied the place of conviction, and a kind of instinctive
remembrance of her remote situation from the family heightened it to a
degree, that almost overcame her senses. She looked at the door, which
led to the staircase, expecting to see it open, and listening, in
fearful silence, for a return of the noise, till she began to think it
had proceeded from this door, and a wish of escaping through the
opposite one rushed upon her mind. She went to the gallery door, and
then, fearing to open it, lest some person might be silently lurking
for her without, she stopped, but with her eyes fixed in expectation
upon the opposite door of the staircase. As thus she stood, she heard a
faint breathing near her, and became convinced, that some person was on
the other side of the door, which was already locked. She sought for
other fastening, but there was none.

While she yet listened, the breathing was distinctly heard, and her
terror was not soothed, when, looking round her wide and lonely
chamber, she again considered her remote situation. As she stood
hesitating whether to call for assistance, the continuance of the
stillness surprised her; and her spirits would have revived, had she
not continued to hear the faint breathing, that convinced her, the
person, whoever it was, had not quitted the door.

At length, worn out with anxiety, she determined to call loudly for
assistance from her casement, and was advancing to it, when, whether
the terror of her mind gave her ideal sounds, or that real ones did
come, she thought footsteps were ascending the private staircase; and,
expecting to see its door unclose, she forgot all other cause of alarm,
and retreated towards the corridor. Here she endeavoured to make her
escape, but, on opening the door, was very near falling over a person,
who lay on the floor without. She screamed, and would have passed, but
her trembling frame refused to support her; and the moment, in which
she leaned against the wall of the gallery, allowed her leisure to
observe the figure before her, and to recognise the features of
Annette. Fear instantly yielded to surprise. She spoke in vain to the
poor girl, who remained senseless on the floor, and then, losing all
consciousness of her own weakness, hurried to her assistance.

When Annette recovered, she was helped by Emily into the chamber, but
was still unable to speak, and looked round her, as if her eyes
followed some person in the room. Emily tried to sooth her disturbed
spirits, and forbore, at present, to ask her any questions; but the
faculty of speech was never long withheld from Annette, and she
explained, in broken sentences, and in her tedious way, the occasion of
her disorder. She affirmed, and with a solemnity of conviction, that
almost staggered the incredulity of Emily, that she had seen an
apparition, as she was passing to her bedroom, through the corridor.

“I had heard strange stories of that chamber before,” said Annette:
“but as it was so near yours, ma’amselle, I would not tell them to you,
because they would frighten you. The servants had told me, often and
often, that it was haunted, and that was the reason why it was shut up:
nay, for that matter, why the whole string of these rooms, here, are
shut up. I quaked whenever I went by, and I must say, I did sometimes
think I heard odd noises within it. But, as I said, as I was passing
along the corridor, and not thinking a word about the matter, or even
of the strange voice that the Signors heard the other night, all of a
sudden comes a great light, and, looking behind me, there was a tall
figure, (I saw it as plainly, ma’amselle, as I see you at this moment),
a tall figure gliding along (Oh! I cannot describe how!) into the room,
that is always shut up, and nobody has the key of it but the Signor,
and the door shut directly.”

“Then it doubtless was the Signor,” said Emily.

“O no, ma’amselle, it could not be him, for I left him busy
a-quarrelling in my lady’s dressing-room!”

“You bring me strange tales, Annette,” said Emily: “it was but this
morning, that you would have terrified me with the apprehension of
murder; and now you would persuade me, you have seen a ghost! These
wonderful stories come too quickly.”

“Nay, ma’amselle, I will say no more, only, if I had not been
frightened, I should not have fainted dead away so. I ran as fast as I
could, to get to your door; but, what was worst of all, I could not
call out; then I thought something must be strangely the matter with
me, and directly I dropt down.”

“Was it the chamber where the black veil hangs?” said Emily. “O! no,
ma’amselle, it was one nearer to this. What shall I do, to get to my
room? I would not go out into the corridor again, for the whole world!”
Emily, whose spirits had been severely shocked, and who, therefore, did
not like the thought of passing the night alone, told her she might
sleep where she was. “O, no, ma’amselle,” replied Annette, “I would not
sleep in the room now for a thousand sequins!”

Wearied and disappointed, Emily first ridiculed, though she shared, her
fears, and then tried to sooth them; but neither attempt succeeded, and
the girl persisted in believing and affirming, that what she had seen
was nothing human. It was not till some time after Emily had recovered
her composure, that she recollected the steps she had heard on the
staircase—a remembrance, however, which made her insist that Annette
should pass the night with her, and, with much difficulty, she, at
length, prevailed, assisted by that part of the girl’s fear, which
concerned the corridor.

Early on the following morning, as Emily crossed the hall to the
ramparts, she heard a noisy bustle in the courtyard, and the clatter of
horses’ hoofs. Such unusual sounds excited her curiosity; and, instead
of going to the ramparts, she went to an upper casement, from whence
she saw, in the court below, a large party of horsemen, dressed in a
singular, but uniform, habit, and completely, though variously, armed.
They wore a kind of short jacket, composed of black and scarlet, and
several of them had a cloak, of plain black, which, covering the person
entirely, hung down to the stirrups. As one of these cloaks glanced
aside, she saw, beneath, daggers, apparently of different sizes, tucked
into the horseman’s belt. She further observed, that these were
carried, in the same manner, by many of the horsemen without cloaks,
most of whom bore also pikes, or javelins. On their heads, were the
small Italian caps, some of which were distinguished by black feathers.
Whether these caps gave a fierce air to the countenance, or that the
countenances they surmounted had naturally such an appearance, Emily
thought she had never, till then, seen an assemblage of faces so savage
and terrific. While she gazed, she almost fancied herself surrounded by
banditti; and a vague thought glanced athwart her fancy—that Montoni
was the captain of the group before her, and that this castle was to be
the place of rendezvous. The strange and horrible supposition was but
momentary, though her reason could supply none more probable, and
though she discovered, among the band, the strangers she had formerly
noticed with so much alarm, who were now distinguished by the black
plume.

While she continued gazing, Cavigni, Verezzi, and Bertolini came forth
from the hall, habited like the rest, except that they wore hats, with
a mixed plume of black and scarlet, and that their arms differed from
those of the rest of the party. As they mounted their horses, Emily was
struck with the exulting joy, expressed on the visage of Verezzi, while
Cavigni was gay, yet with a shade of thought on his countenance; and,
as he managed his horse with dexterity, his graceful and commanding
figure, which exhibited the majesty of a hero, had never appeared to
more advantage. Emily, as she observed him, thought he somewhat
resembled Valancourt, in the spirit and dignity of his person; but she
looked in vain for the noble, benevolent countenance—the soul’s
intelligence, which overspread the features of the latter.

As she was hoping, she scarcely knew why, that Montoni would accompany
the party, he appeared at the hall door, but un-accoutred. Having
carefully observed the horsemen, conversed awhile with the cavaliers,
and bidden them farewell, the band wheeled round the court, and, led by
Verezzi, issued forth under the portcullis; Montoni following to the
portal, and gazing after them for some time. Emily then retired from
the casement, and, now certain of being unmolested, went to walk on the
ramparts, from whence she soon after saw the party winding among the
mountains to the west, appearing and disappearing between the woods,
till distance confused their figures, consolidated their numbers, and
only a dingy mass appeared moving along the heights.

Emily observed, that no workmen were on the ramparts, and that the
repairs of the fortifications seemed to be completed. While she
sauntered thoughtfully on, she heard distant footsteps, and, raising
her eyes, saw several men lurking under the castle walls, who were
evidently not workmen, but looked as if they would have accorded well
with the party which was gone. Wondering where Annette had hid herself
so long, who might have explained some of the late circumstances, and
then considering that Madame Montoni was probably risen, she went to
her dressing-room, where she mentioned what had occurred; but Madame
Montoni either would not, or could not, give any explanation of the
event. The Signor’s reserve to his wife, on this subject, was probably
nothing more than usual; yet, to Emily, it gave an air of mystery to
the whole affair, that seemed to hint there was danger, if not villany,
in his schemes.

Annette presently came, and, as usual, was full of alarm; to her lady’s
eager enquiries of what she had heard among the servants, she replied:

“Ah, madam! nobody knows what it is all about, but old Carlo; he knows
well enough, I dare say, but he is as close as his master. Some say the
Signor is going out to frighten the enemy, as they call it: but where
is the enemy? Then others say, he is going to take away somebody’s
castle: but I am sure he has room enough in his own, without taking
other people’s; and I am sure I should like it a great deal better, if
there were more people to fill it.”

“Ah! you will soon have your wish, I fear,” replied Madame Montoni.

“No, madam, but such ill-looking fellows are not worth having. I mean
such gallant, smart, merry fellows as Ludovico, who is always telling
droll stories, to make one laugh. It was but yesterday, he told me such
a _humoursome_ tale! I can’t help laughing at it now.—Says he—”

“Well, we can dispense with the story,” said her lady.

“Ah!” continued Annette, “he sees a great way further than other
people! Now he sees into all the Signor’s meaning, without knowing a
word about the matter!”

“How is that?” said Madame Montoni.

“Why he says—but he made me promise not to tell, and I would not
disoblige him for the world.”

“What is it he made you promise not to tell?” said her lady, sternly.
“I insist upon knowing immediately—what is it he made you promise?”

“O madam,” cried Annette, “I would not tell for the universe!”

“I insist upon your telling this instant,” said Madame Montoni.

“O dear madam! I would not tell for a hundred sequins! You would not
have me forswear myself madam!” exclaimed Annette.

“I will not wait another moment,” said Madame Montoni. Annette was
silent.

“The Signor shall be informed of this directly,” rejoined her mistress;
“he will make you discover all.”

“It is Ludovico, who has discovered,” said Annette: “but for mercy’s
sake, madam, don’t tell the Signor, and you shall know all directly.”
Madame Montoni said, that she would not.

“Well then, madam, Ludovico says, that the Signor, my master,
is—is—that is, he only thinks so, and anybody, you know, madam, is free
to think—that the Signor, my master, is—is—”

“Is what?” said her lady, impatiently.

“That the Signor, my master, is going to be—a great robber—that is—he
is going to rob on his own account;—to be, (but I am sure I don’t
understand what he means) to be a—captain of—robbers.”

“Art thou in thy senses, Annette?” said Madame Montoni; “or is this a
trick to deceive me? Tell me, this instant, what Ludovico _did_ say to
thee;—no equivocation;—this instant.”

“Nay, madam,” cried Annette, “if this is all I am to get for having
told the secret—” Her mistress thus continued to insist, and Annette to
protest, till Montoni, himself, appeared, who bade the latter leave the
room, and she withdrew, trembling for the fate of her story. Emily also
was retiring, but her aunt desired she would stay; and Montoni had so
often made her a witness of their contention, that he no longer had
scruples on that account.

“I insist upon knowing this instant, Signor, what all this means:” said
his wife—“what are all these armed men, whom they tell me of, gone out
about?” Montoni answered her only with a look of scorn; and Emily
whispered something to her. “It does not signify,” said her aunt: “I
will know; and I will know, too, what the castle has been fortified
for.”

“Come, come,” said Montoni, “other business brought me here. I must be
trifled with no longer. I have immediate occasion for what I
demand—those estates must be given up, without further contention; or I
may find a way—”

“They never shall be given up,” interrupted Madame Montoni: “they never
shall enable you to carry on your wild schemes;—but what are these? I
will know. Do you expect the castle to be attacked? Do you expect
enemies? Am I to be shut up here, to be killed in a siege?”

“Sign the writings,” said Montoni, “and you shall know more.”

“What enemy can be coming?” continued his wife. “Have you entered into
the service of the state? Am I to be blocked up here to die?”

“That may possibly happen,” said Montoni, “unless you yield to my
demand: for, come what may, you shall not quit the castle till then.”
Madame Montoni burst into loud lamentation, which she as suddenly
checked, considering, that her husband’s assertions might be only
artifices, employed to extort her consent. She hinted this suspicion,
and, in the next moment, told him also, that his designs were not so
honourable as to serve the state, and that she believed he had only
commenced a captain of banditti, to join the enemies of Venice, in
plundering and laying waste the surrounding country.

Montoni looked at her for a moment with a steady and stern countenance;
while Emily trembled, and his wife, for once, thought she had said too
much. “You shall be removed, this night,” said he, “to the east turret:
there, perhaps, you may understand the danger of offending a man, who
has an unlimited power over you.”

Emily now fell at his feet, and, with tears of terror, supplicated for
her aunt, who sat, trembling with fear, and indignation; now ready to
pour forth execrations, and now to join the intercessions of Emily.
Montoni, however, soon interrupted these entreaties with a horrible
oath; and, as he burst from Emily, leaving his cloak, in her hand, she
fell to the floor, with a force, that occasioned her a severe blow on
the forehead. But he quitted the room, without attempting to raise her,
whose attention was called from herself, by a deep groan from Madame
Montoni, who continued otherwise unmoved in her chair, and had not
fainted. Emily, hastening to her assistance, saw her eyes rolling, and
her features convulsed.

Having spoken to her, without receiving an answer, she brought water,
and supported her head, while she held it to her lips; but the
increasing convulsions soon compelled Emily to call for assistance. On
her way through the hall, in search of Annette, she met Montoni, whom
she told what had happened, and conjured to return and comfort her
aunt; but he turned silently away, with a look of indifference, and
went out upon the ramparts. At length she found old Carlo and Annette,
and they hastened to the dressing-room, where Madame Montoni had fallen
on the floor, and was lying in strong convulsions. Having lifted her
into the adjoining room, and laid her on the bed, the force of her
disorder still made all their strength necessary to hold her, while
Annette trembled and sobbed, and old Carlo looked silently and
piteously on, as his feeble hands grasped those of his mistress, till,
turning his eyes upon Emily, he exclaimed, “Good God! Signora, what is
the matter?”

Emily looked calmly at him, and saw his enquiring eyes fixed on her:
and Annette, looking up, screamed loudly; for Emily’s face was stained
with blood, which continued to fall slowly from her forehead: but her
attention had been so entirely occupied by the scene before her, that
she had felt no pain from the wound. She now held a handkerchief to her
face, and, notwithstanding her faintness, continued to watch Madame
Montoni, the violence of whose convulsions was abating, till at length
they ceased, and left her in a kind of stupor.

“My aunt must remain quiet,” said Emily. “Go, good Carlo; if we should
want your assistance, I will send for you. In the mean time, if you
have an opportunity, speak kindly of your mistress to your master.”

“Alas!” said Carlo, “I have seen too much! I have little influence with
the Signor. But do, dear young lady, take some care of yourself; that
is an ugly wound, and you look sadly.”

“Thank you, my friend, for your consideration,” said Emily, smiling
kindly: “the wound is trifling, it came by a fall.”

Carlo shook his head, and left the room; and Emily, with Annette,
continued to watch by her aunt. “Did my lady tell the Signor what
Ludovico said, ma’amselle?” asked Annette in a whisper; but Emily
quieted her fears on the subject.

“I thought what this quarrelling would come to,” continued Annette: “I
suppose the Signor has been beating my lady.”

“No, no, Annette, you are totally mistaken, nothing extraordinary has
happened.”

“Why, extraordinary things happen here so often, ma’amselle, that there
is nothing in them. Here is another legion of those ill-looking
fellows, come to the castle, this morning.”

“Hush! Annette, you will disturb my aunt; we will talk of that by and
bye.”

They continued watching silently, till Madame Montoni uttered a low
sigh, when Emily took her hand, and spoke soothingly to her; but the
former gazed with unconscious eyes, and it was long before she knew her
niece. Her first words then enquired for Montoni; to which Emily
replied by an entreaty, that she would compose her spirits, and consent
to be kept quiet, adding, that, if she wished any message to be
conveyed to him, she would herself deliver it. “No,” said her aunt
faintly, “no—I have nothing new to tell him. Does he persist in saying
I shall be removed from my chamber?”

Emily replied that he had not spoken on the subject since Madame
Montoni heard him; and then she tried to divert her attention to some
other topic; but her aunt seemed to be inattentive to what she said,
and lost in secret thoughts. Emily, having brought her some
refreshment, now left her to the care of Annette, and went in search of
Montoni, whom she found on a remote part of the rampart, conversing
among a group of the men described by Annette. They stood round him
with fierce, yet subjugated, looks, while he, speaking earnestly, and
pointing to the walls, did not perceive Emily, who remained at some
distance, waiting till he should be at leisure, and observing
involuntarily the appearance of one man, more savage than his fellows,
who stood resting on his pike, and looking, over the shoulders of a
comrade, at Montoni, to whom he listened with uncommon earnestness.
This man was apparently of low condition; yet his looks appeared not to
acknowledge the superiority of Montoni, as did those of his companions;
and sometimes they even assumed an air of authority, which the decisive
manner of the Signor could not repress. Some few words of Montoni then
passed in the wind; and, as the men were separating, she heard him say,
“This evening, then, begin the watch at sunset.”

“At sunset, Signor,” replied one or two of them, and walked away; while
Emily approached Montoni, who appeared desirous of avoiding her: but,
though she observed this, she had courage to proceed. She endeavoured
to intercede once more for her aunt, represented to him her sufferings,
and urged the danger of exposing her to a cold apartment in her present
state. “She suffers by her own folly,” said Montoni, “and is not to be
pitied;—she knows how she may avoid these sufferings in future—if she
is removed to the turret, it will be her own fault. Let her be
obedient, and sign the writings you heard of, and I will think no more
of it.”

When Emily ventured still to plead, he sternly silenced and rebuked her
for interfering in his domestic affairs, but, at length, dismissed her
with this concession—That he would not remove Madame Montoni, on the
ensuing night, but allow her till the next to consider, whether she
would resign her settlements, or be imprisoned in the east turret of
the castle, “where she shall find,” he added, “a punishment she may not
expect.”

Emily then hastened to inform her aunt of this short respite and of the
alternative, that awaited her, to which the latter made no reply, but
appeared thoughtful, while Emily, in consideration of her extreme
languor, wished to sooth her mind by leading it to less interesting
topics: and, though these efforts were unsuccessful, and Madame Montoni
became peevish, her resolution, on the contended point, seemed somewhat
to relax, and Emily recommended, as her only means of safety, that she
should submit to Montoni’s demand. “You know not what you advise,” said
her aunt. “Do you understand, that these estates will descend to you at
my death, if I persist in a refusal?”

“I was ignorant of that circumstance, madam,” replied Emily, “but the
knowledge of it cannot withhold me from advising you to adopt the
conduct, which not only your peace, but, I fear, your safety requires,
and I entreat, that you will not suffer a consideration comparatively
so trifling, to make you hesitate a moment in resigning them.”

“Are you sincere, niece?” “Is it possible you can doubt it, madam?” Her
aunt appeared to be affected. “You are not unworthy of these estates,
niece,” said she: “I would wish to keep them for your sake—you show a
virtue I did not expect.”

“How have I deserved this reproof, madam?” said Emily sorrowfully.

“Reproof!” replied Madame Montoni: “I meant to praise your virtue.”

“Alas! here is no exertion of virtue,” rejoined Emily, “for here is no
temptation to be overcome.”

“Yet Monsieur Valancourt—” said her aunt. “O, madam!” interrupted
Emily, anticipating what she would have said, “do not let me glance on
that subject: do not let my mind be stained with a wish so shockingly
self-interested.” She immediately changed the topic, and continued with
Madame Montoni, till she withdrew to her apartment for the night.

At that hour, the castle was perfectly still, and every inhabitant of
it, except herself, seemed to have retired to rest. As she passed along
the wide and lonely galleries, dusky and silent, she felt forlorn and
apprehensive of—she scarcely knew what; but when, entering the
corridor, she recollected the incident of the preceding night, a dread
seized her, lest a subject of alarm, similar to that, which had
befallen Annette, should occur to her, and which, whether real, or
ideal, would, she felt, have an almost equal effect upon her weakened
spirits. The chamber, to which Annette had alluded, she did not exactly
know, but understood it to be one of those she must pass in the way to
her own; and, sending a fearful look forward into the gloom, she
stepped lightly and cautiously along, till, coming to a door, from
whence issued a low sound, she hesitated and paused; and, during the
delay of that moment, her fears so much increased, that she had no
power to move from the spot. Believing, that she heard a human voice
within, she was somewhat revived; but, in the next moment, the door was
opened, and a person, whom she conceived to be Montoni, appeared, who
instantly started back, and closed it, though not before she had seen,
by the light that burned in the chamber, another person, sitting in a
melancholy attitude by the fire. Her terror vanished, but her
astonishment only began, which was now roused by the mysterious secrecy
of Montoni’s manner, and by the discovery of a person, whom he thus
visited at midnight, in an apartment, which had long been shut up, and
of which such extraordinary reports were circulated.

While she thus continued hesitating, strongly prompted to watch
Montoni’s motions, yet fearing to irritate him by appearing to notice
them, the door was again opened cautiously, and as instantly closed as
before. She then stepped softly to her chamber, which was the next but
one to this, but, having put down her lamp, returned to an obscure
corner of the corridor, to observe the proceedings of this half-seen
person, and to ascertain, whether it was indeed Montoni.

Having waited in silent expectation for a few minutes, with her eyes
fixed on the door, it was again opened, and the same person appeared,
whom she now knew to be Montoni. He looked cautiously round, without
perceiving her, then, stepping forward, closed the door, and left the
corridor. Soon after, Emily heard the door fastened on the inside, and
she withdrew to her chamber, wondering at what she had witnessed.

It was now twelve o’clock. As she closed her casement, she heard
footsteps on the terrace below, and saw imperfectly, through the gloom,
several persons advancing, who passed under the casement. She then
heard the clink of arms, and, in the next moment, the watch-word; when,
recollecting the command she had overheard from Montoni, and the hour
of the night, she understood, that these men were, for the first time,
relieving guard in the castle. Having listened till all was again
still, she retired to sleep.



 CHAPTER X

And shall no lay of death
With pleasing murmur sooth
Her parted soul?
Shall no tear wet her grave?
                    SAYERS


On the following morning, Emily went early to the apartment of Madame
Montoni, who had slept well, and was much recovered. Her spirits had
also returned with her health, and her resolution to oppose Montoni’s
demands revived, though it yet struggled with her fears, which Emily,
who trembled for the consequence of further opposition, endeavoured to
confirm.

Her aunt, as has been already shown, had a disposition, which delighted
in contradiction, and which taught her, when unpleasant circumstances
were offered to her understanding, not to enquire into their truth, but
to seek for arguments, by which she might make them appear false. Long
habit had so entirely confirmed this natural propensity, that she was
not conscious of possessing it. Emily’s remonstrances and
representations, therefore, roused her pride, instead of alarming, or
convincing her judgment, and she still relied upon the discovery of
some means, by which she might yet avoid submitting to the demand of
her husband. Considering, that, if she could once escape from his
castle, she might defy his power, and, obtaining a decisive separation,
live in comfort on the estates, that yet remained for her, she
mentioned this to her niece, who accorded with her in the wish, but
differed from her, as to the probability of its completion. She
represented the impossibility of passing the gates, secured and guarded
as they were, and the extreme danger of committing her design to the
discretion of a servant, who might either purposely betray, or
accidentally disclose it.—Montoni’s vengeance would also disdain
restraint, if her intention was detected: and, though Emily wished, as
fervently as she could do, to regain her freedom, and return to France,
she consulted only Madame Montoni’s safety, and persevered in advising
her to relinquish her settlement, without braving further outrage.

The struggle of contrary emotions, however, continued to rage in her
aunt’s bosom, and she still brooded over the chance of effecting an
escape. While she thus sat, Montoni entered the room, and, without
noticing his wife’s indisposition, said, that he came to remind her of
the impolicy of trifling with him, and that he gave her only till the
evening to determine, whether she would consent to his demand, or
compel him, by a refusal, to remove her to the east turret. He added,
that a party of cavaliers would dine with him, that day, and that he
expected that she would sit at the head of the table, where Emily,
also, must be present. Madame Montoni was now on the point of uttering
an absolute refusal, but, suddenly considering, that her liberty,
during this entertainment, though circumscribed, might favour her
further plans, she acquiesced, with seeming reluctance, and Montoni,
soon after, left the apartment. His command struck Emily with surprise
and apprehension, who shrank from the thought of being exposed to the
gaze of strangers, such as her fancy represented these to be, and the
words of Count Morano, now again recollected, did not sooth her fears.

When she withdrew to prepare for dinner, she dressed herself with even
more simplicity than usual, that she might escape observation—a policy,
which did not avail her, for, as she repassed to her aunt’s apartment,
she was met by Montoni, who censured what he called her prudish
appearance, and insisted, that she should wear the most splendid dress
she had, even that, which had been prepared for her intended nuptials
with Count Morano, and which, it now appeared, her aunt had carefully
brought with her from Venice. This was made, not in the Venetian, but,
in the Neapolitan fashion, so as to set off the shape and figure, to
the utmost advantage. In it, her beautiful chestnut tresses were
negligently bound up in pearls, and suffered to fall back again on her
neck. The simplicity of a better taste, than Madame Montoni’s, was
conspicuous in this dress, splendid as it was, and Emily’s unaffected
beauty never had appeared more captivatingly. She had now only to hope,
that Montoni’s order was prompted, not by any extraordinary design, but
by an ostentation of displaying his family, richly attired, to the eyes
of strangers; yet nothing less than his absolute command could have
prevailed with her to wear a dress, that had been designed for such an
offensive purpose, much less to have worn it on this occasion. As she
descended to dinner, the emotion of her mind threw a faint blush over
her countenance, and heightened its interesting expression; for
timidity had made her linger in her apartment, till the utmost moment,
and, when she entered the hall, in which a kind of state dinner was
spread, Montoni and his guests were already seated at the table. She
was then going to place herself by her aunt; but Montoni waved his
hand, and two of the cavaliers rose, and seated her between them.

The eldest of these was a tall man, with strong Italian features, an
aquiline nose, and dark penetrating eyes, that flashed with fire, when
his mind was agitated, and, even in its state of rest, retained
somewhat of the wildness of the passions. His visage was long and
narrow, and his complexion of a sickly yellow.

The other, who appeared to be about forty, had features of a different
cast, yet Italian, and his look was slow, subtle and penetrating; his
eyes, of a dark grey, were small, and hollow; his complexion was a
sun-burnt brown, and the contour of his face, though inclined to oval,
was irregular and ill-formed.

Eight other guests sat round the table, who were all dressed in a
uniform, and had all an expression, more or less, of wild fierceness,
of subtle design, or of licentious passions. As Emily timidly surveyed
them, she remembered the scene of the preceding morning, and again
almost fancied herself surrounded by banditti; then, looking back to
the tranquillity of her early life, she felt scarcely less
astonishment, than grief, at her present situation. The scene, in which
they sat, assisted the illusion; it was an ancient hall, gloomy from
the style of its architecture, from its great extent, and because
almost the only light it received was from one large gothic window, and
from a pair of folding doors, which, being open, admitted likewise a
view of the west rampart, with the wild mountains of the Apennine
beyond.

The middle compartment of this hall rose into a vaulted roof, enriched
with fretwork, and supported, on three sides, by pillars of marble;
beyond these, long colonnades retired in gloomy grandeur, till their
extent was lost in twilight. The lightest footsteps of the servants, as
they advanced through these, were returned in whispering echoes, and
their figures, seen at a distance imperfectly through the dusk,
frequently awakened Emily’s imagination. She looked alternately at
Montoni, at his guests and on the surrounding scene; and then,
remembering her dear native province, her pleasant home and the
simplicity and goodness of the friends, whom she had lost, grief and
surprise again occupied her mind.

When her thoughts could return from these considerations, she fancied
she observed an air of authority towards his guests, such as she had
never before seen him assume, though he had always been distinguished
by a haughty carriage; there was something also in the manners of the
strangers, that seemed perfectly, though not servilely, to acknowledge
his superiority.

During dinner, the conversation was chiefly on war and politics. They
talked with energy of the state of Venice, its dangers, the character
of the reigning Doge and of the chief senators; and then spoke of the
state of Rome. When the repast was over, they rose, and, each filling
his goblet with wine from the gilded ewer, that stood beside him, drank
“Success to our exploits!” Montoni was lifting his goblet to his lips
to drink this toast, when suddenly the wine hissed, rose to the brim,
and, as he held the glass from him, it burst into a thousand pieces.

To him, who constantly used that sort of Venice glass, which had the
quality of breaking, upon receiving poisoned liquor, a suspicion, that
some of his guests had endeavoured to betray him, instantly occurred,
and he ordered all the gates to be closed, drew his sword, and, looking
round on them, who stood in silent amazement, exclaimed, “Here is a
traitor among us; let those, that are innocent, assist in discovering
the guilty.”

Indignation flashed from the eyes of the cavaliers, who all drew their
swords; and Madame Montoni, terrified at what might ensue, was
hastening from the hall, when her husband commanded her to stay; but
his further words could not now be distinguished, for the voice of
every person rose together. His order, that all the servants should
appear, was at length obeyed, and they declared their ignorance of any
deceit—a protestation which could not be believed; for it was evident,
that, as Montoni’s liquor, and his only, had been poisoned, a
deliberate design had been formed against his life, which could not
have been carried so far towards its accomplishment, without the
connivance of the servant, who had the care of the wine ewers.

This man, with another, whose face betrayed either the consciousness of
guilt, or the fear of punishment, Montoni ordered to be chained
instantly, and confined in a strong room, which had formerly been used
as a prison. Thither, likewise, he would have sent all his guests, had
he not foreseen the consequence of so bold and unjustifiable a
proceeding. As to those, therefore, he contented himself with swearing,
that no man should pass the gates, till this extraordinary affair had
been investigated, and then sternly bade his wife retire to her
apartment, whither he suffered Emily to attend her.

In about half an hour, he followed to the dressing-room; and Emily
observed, with horror, his dark countenance and quivering lip, and
heard him denounce vengeance on her aunt.

“It will avail you nothing,” said he to his wife, “to deny the fact; I
have proof of your guilt. Your only chance of mercy rests on a full
confession;—there is nothing to hope from sullenness, or falsehood;
your accomplice has confessed all.”

Emily’s fainting spirits were roused by astonishment, as she heard her
aunt accused of a crime so atrocious, and she could not, for a moment,
admit the possibility of her guilt. Meanwhile Madame Montoni’s
agitation did not permit her to reply; alternately her complexion
varied from livid paleness to a crimson flush; and she trembled,—but,
whether with fear, or with indignation, it were difficult to decide.

“Spare your words,” said Montoni, seeing her about to speak, “your
countenance makes full confession of your crime.—You shall be instantly
removed to the east turret.”

“This accusation,” said Madame Montoni, speaking with difficulty, “is
used only as an excuse for your cruelty; I disdain to reply to it. You
do not believe me guilty.”

“Signor!” said Emily solemnly, “this dreadful charge, I would answer
with my life, is false. Nay, Signor,” she added, observing the severity
of his countenance, “this is no moment for restraint, on my part; I do
not scruple to tell you, that you are deceived—most wickedly deceived,
by the suggestion of some person, who aims at the ruin of my aunt:—it
is impossible, that you could yourself have imagined a crime so
hideous.”

Montoni, his lips trembling more than before, replied only, “If you
value your own safety,” addressing Emily, “you will be silent. I shall
know how to interpret your remonstrances, should you persevere in
them.”

Emily raised her eyes calmly to heaven. “Here is, indeed, then, nothing
to hope!” said she.

“Peace!” cried Montoni, “or you shall find there is something to fear.”

He turned to his wife, who had now recovered her spirits, and who
vehemently and wildly remonstrated upon this mysterious suspicion: but
Montoni’s rage heightened with her indignation, and Emily, dreading the
event of it, threw herself between them, and clasped his knees in
silence, looking up in his face with an expression, that might have
softened the heart of a fiend. Whether his was hardened by a conviction
of Madame Montoni’s guilt, or that a bare suspicion of it made him
eager to exercise vengeance, he was totally and alike insensible to the
distress of his wife, and to the pleading looks of Emily, whom he made
no attempt to raise, but was vehemently menacing both, when he was
called out of the room by some person at the door. As he shut the door,
Emily heard him turn the lock and take out the key; so that Madame
Montoni and herself were now prisoners; and she saw that his designs
became more and more terrible. Her endeavours to explain his motives
for this circumstance were almost as ineffectual as those to sooth the
distress of her aunt, whose innocence she could not doubt; but she, at
length, accounted for Montoni’s readiness to suspect his wife by his
own consciousness of cruelty towards her, and for the sudden violence
of his present conduct against both, before even his suspicions could
be completely formed, by his general eagerness to effect suddenly
whatever he was led to desire and his carelessness of justice, or
humanity, in accomplishing it.

Madame Montoni, after some time, again looked round, in search of a
possibility of escape from the castle, and conversed with Emily on the
subject, who was now willing to encounter any hazard, though she
forbore to encourage a hope in her aunt, which she herself did not
admit. How strongly the edifice was secured, and how vigilantly
guarded, she knew too well; and trembled to commit their safety to the
caprice of the servant, whose assistance they must solicit. Old Carlo
was compassionate, but he seemed to be too much in his master’s
interest to be trusted by them; Annette could of herself do little, and
Emily knew Ludovico only from her report. At present, however, these
considerations were useless, Madame Montoni and her niece being shut up
from all intercourse, even with the persons, whom there might be these
reasons to reject.

In the hall, confusion and tumult still reigned. Emily, as she listened
anxiously to the murmur, that sounded along the gallery, sometimes
fancied she heard the clashing of swords, and, when she considered the
nature of the provocation, given by Montoni, and his impetuosity, it
appeared probable, that nothing less than arms would terminate the
contention. Madame Montoni, having exhausted all her expressions of
indignation, and Emily, hers of comfort, they remained silent, in that
kind of breathless stillness, which, in nature, often succeeds to the
uproar of conflicting elements; a stillness, like the morning, that
dawns upon the ruins of an earthquake.

An uncertain kind of terror pervaded Emily’s mind; the circumstances of
the past hour still came dimly and confusedly to her memory; and her
thoughts were various and rapid, though without tumult.

From this state of waking visions she was recalled by a knocking at the
chamber-door, and, enquiring who was there, heard the whispering voice
of Annette.

“Dear madam, let me come in, I have a great deal to say,” said the poor
girl.

“The door is locked,” answered the lady.

“Yes, ma’am, but do pray open it.”

“The Signor has the key,” said Madame Montoni.

“O blessed Virgin! what will become of us?” exclaimed Annette.

“Assist us to escape,” said her mistress. “Where is Ludovico?”

“Below in the hall, ma’am, amongst them all, fighting with the best of
them!”

“Fighting! Who are fighting?” cried Madame Montoni.

“Why the Signor, ma’am, and all the Signors, and a great many more.”

“Is any person much hurt?” said Emily, in a tremulous voice. “Hurt!
Yes, ma’amselle,—there they lie bleeding, and the swords are clashing,
and—O holy saints! Do let me in, ma’am, they are coming this way—I
shall be murdered!”

“Fly!” cried Emily, “fly! we cannot open the door.”

Annette repeated, that they were coming, and in the same moment fled.

“Be calm, madam,” said Emily, turning to her aunt, “I entreat you to be
calm, I am not frightened—not frightened in the least, do not you be
alarmed.”

“You can scarcely support yourself,” replied her aunt; “Merciful God!
what is it they mean to do with us?”

“They come, perhaps, to liberate us,” said Emily, “Signor Montoni
perhaps is—is conquered.”

The belief of his death gave her spirits a sudden shock, and she grew
faint as she saw him in imagination, expiring at her feet.

“They are coming!” cried Madame Montoni—“I hear their steps—they are at
the door!”

Emily turned her languid eyes to the door, but terror deprived her of
utterance. The key sounded in the lock; the door opened, and Montoni
appeared, followed by three ruffian-like men. “Execute your orders,”
said he, turning to them, and pointing to his wife, who shrieked, but
was immediately carried from the room; while Emily sunk, senseless, on
a couch, by which she had endeavoured to support herself. When she
recovered, she was alone, and recollected only, that Madame Montoni had
been there, together with some unconnected particulars of the preceding
transaction, which were, however, sufficient to renew all her terror.
She looked wildly round the apartment, as if in search of some means of
intelligence, concerning her aunt, while neither her own danger, nor an
idea of escaping from the room, immediately occurred.

When her recollection was more complete, she raised herself and went,
but with only a faint hope, to examine whether the door was unfastened.
It was so, and she then stepped timidly out into the gallery, but
paused there, uncertain which way she should proceed. Her first wish
was to gather some information, as to her aunt, and she, at length,
turned her steps to go to the lesser hall, where Annette and the other
servants usually waited.

Everywhere, as she passed, she heard, from a distance, the uproar of
contention, and the figures and faces, which she met, hurrying along
the passages, struck her mind with dismay. Emily might now have
appeared, like an angel of light, encompassed by fiends. At length, she
reached the lesser hall, which was silent and deserted, but, panting
for breath, she sat down to recover herself. The total stillness of
this place was as awful as the tumult, from which she had escaped: but
she had now time to recall her scattered thoughts, to remember her
personal danger, and to consider of some means of safety. She
perceived, that it was useless to seek Madame Montoni, through the wide
extent and intricacies of the castle, now, too, when every avenue
seemed to be beset by ruffians; in this hall she could not resolve to
stay, for she knew not how soon it might become their place of
rendezvous; and, though she wished to go to her chamber, she dreaded
again to encounter them on the way.

Thus she sat, trembling and hesitating, when a distant murmur broke on
the silence, and grew louder and louder, till she distinguished voices
and steps approaching. She then rose to go, but the sounds came along
the only passage, by which she could depart, and she was compelled to
await in the hall, the arrival of the persons, whose steps she heard.
As these advanced, she distinguished groans, and then saw a man borne
slowly along by four others. Her spirits faltered at the sight, and she
leaned against the wall for support. The bearers, meanwhile, entered
the hall, and, being too busily occupied to detain, or even notice
Emily, she attempted to leave it, but her strength failed, and she
again sat down on the bench. A damp chillness came over her; her sight
became confused; she knew not what had passed, or where she was, yet
the groans of the wounded person still vibrated on her heart. In a few
moments, the tide of life seemed again to flow; she began to breathe
more freely, and her senses revived. She had not fainted, nor had ever
totally lost her consciousness, but had contrived to support herself on
the bench; still without courage to turn her eyes upon the unfortunate
object, which remained near her, and about whom the men were yet too
much engaged to attend to her.

When her strength returned, she rose, and was suffered to leave the
hall, though her anxiety, having produced some vain enquiries,
concerning Madame Montoni, had thus made a discovery of herself.
Towards her chamber she now hastened, as fast as her steps would bear
her, for she still perceived, upon her passage, the sounds of confusion
at a distance, and she endeavoured, by taking her way through some
obscure rooms, to avoid encountering the persons, whose looks had
terrified her before, as well as those parts of the castle, where the
tumult might still rage.

At length, she reached her chamber, and, having secured the door of the
corridor, felt herself, for a moment, in safety. A profound stillness
reigned in this remote apartment, which not even the faint murmur of
the most distant sounds now reached. She sat down, near one of the
casements, and, as she gazed on the mountain-view beyond, the deep
repose of its beauty struck her with all the force of contrast, and she
could scarcely believe herself so near a scene of savage discord. The
contending elements seemed to have retired from their natural spheres,
and to have collected themselves into the minds of men, for there alone
the tempest now reigned.

Emily tried to tranquillize her spirits, but anxiety made her
constantly listen for some sound, and often look out upon the ramparts,
where all, however, was lonely and still. As a sense of her own
immediate danger had decreased, her apprehension concerning Madame
Montoni heightened, who, she remembered, had been fiercely threatened
with confinement in the east turret, and it was possible, that her
husband had satisfied his present vengeance with this punishment. She,
therefore, determined, when night should return, and the inhabitants of
the castle should be asleep, to explore the way to the turret, which,
as the direction it stood in was mentioned, appeared not very difficult
to be done. She knew, indeed, that although her aunt might be there,
she could afford her no effectual assistance, but it might give her
some comfort even to know, that she was discovered, and to hear the
sound of her niece’s voice; for herself, any certainty, concerning
Madame Montoni’s fate, appeared more tolerable, than this exhausting
suspense.

Meanwhile, Annette did not appear, and Emily was surprised, and
somewhat alarmed for her, whom, in the confusion of the late scene,
various accidents might have befallen, and it was improbable, that she
would have failed to come to her apartment, unless something
unfortunate had happened.

Thus the hours passed in solitude, in silence, and in anxious
conjecturing. Being not once disturbed by a message, or a sound, it
appeared, that Montoni had wholly forgotten her, and it gave her some
comfort to find, that she could be so unnoticed. She endeavoured to
withdraw her thoughts from the anxiety, that preyed upon them, but they
refused control; she could neither read, nor draw, and the tones of her
lute were so utterly discordant with the present state of her feelings,
that she could not endure them for a moment.

The sun, at length, set behind the western mountains; his fiery beams
faded from the clouds, and then a dun melancholy purple drew over them,
and gradually involved the features of the country below. Soon after,
the sentinels passed on the rampart to commence the watch.

Twilight had now spread its gloom over every object; the dismal
obscurity of her chamber recalled fearful thoughts, but she remembered,
that to procure a light she must pass through a great extent of the
castle, and, above all, through the halls, where she had already
experienced so much horror. Darkness, indeed, in the present state of
her spirits, made silence and solitude terrible to her; it would also
prevent the possibility of her finding her way to the turret, and
condemn her to remain in suspense, concerning the fate of her aunt; yet
she dared not to venture forth for a lamp.

Continuing at the casement, that she might catch the last lingering
gleam of evening, a thousand vague images of fear floated on her fancy.
“What if some of these ruffians,” said she, “should find out the
private staircase, and in the darkness of night steal into my chamber!”
Then, recollecting the mysterious inhabitant of the neighbouring
apartment, her terror changed its object. “He is not a prisoner,” said
she, “though he remains in one chamber, for Montoni did not fasten the
door, when he left it; the unknown person himself did this; it is
certain, therefore, he can come out when he pleases.”

She paused, for, notwithstanding the terrors of darkness, she
considered it to be very improbable, whoever he was, that he could have
any interest in intruding upon her retirement; and again the subject of
her emotion changed, when, remembering her nearness to the chamber,
where the veil had formerly disclosed a dreadful spectacle, she doubted
whether some passage might not communicate between it and the insecure
door of the staircase.

It was now entirely dark, and she left the casement. As she sat with
her eyes fixed on the hearth, she thought she perceived there a spark
of light; it twinkled and disappeared, and then again was visible. At
length, with much care, she fanned the embers of a wood fire, that had
been lighted in the morning, into flame, and, having communicated it to
a lamp, which always stood in her room, felt a satisfaction not to be
conceived, without a review of her situation. Her first care was to
guard the door of the staircase, for which purpose she placed against
it all the furniture she could move, and she was thus employed, for
some time, at the end of which she had another instance how much more
oppressive misfortune is to the idle, than to the busy; for, having
then leisure to think over all the circumstances of her present
afflictions, she imagined a thousand evils for futurity, and these real
and ideal subjects of distress alike wounded her mind.

Thus heavily moved the hours till midnight, when she counted the sullen
notes of the great clock, as they rolled along the rampart, unmingled
with any sound, except the distant foot-fall of a sentinel, who came to
relieve guard. She now thought she might venture towards the turret,
and, having gently opened the chamber door to examine the corridor, and
to listen if any person was stirring in the castle, found all around in
perfect stillness. Yet no sooner had she left the room, than she
perceived a light flash on the walls of the corridor, and, without
waiting to see by whom it was carried, she shrunk back, and closed her
door. No one approaching, she conjectured, that it was Montoni going to
pay his midnight visit to her unknown neighbour, and she determined to
wait, till he should have retired to his own apartment.

When the chimes had tolled another half hour, she once more opened the
door, and, perceiving that no person was in the corridor, hastily
crossed into a passage, that led along the south side of the castle
towards the staircase, whence she believed she could easily find her
way to the turret. Often pausing on her way, listening apprehensively
to the murmurs of the wind, and looking fearfully onward into the gloom
of the long passages, she, at length, reached the staircase; but there
her perplexity began. Two passages appeared, of which she knew not how
to prefer one, and was compelled, at last, to decide by chance, rather
than by circumstances. That she entered, opened first into a wide
gallery, along which she passed lightly and swiftly; for the lonely
aspect of the place awed her, and she started at the echo of her own
steps.

On a sudden, she thought she heard a voice, and, not distinguishing
from whence it came, feared equally to proceed, or to return. For some
moments, she stood in an attitude of listening expectation, shrinking
almost from herself and scarcely daring to look round her. The voice
came again, but, though it was now near her, terror did not allow her
to judge exactly whence it proceeded. She thought, however, that it was
the voice of complaint, and her belief was soon confirmed by a low
moaning sound, that seemed to proceed from one of the chambers, opening
into the gallery. It instantly occurred to her, that Madame Montoni
might be there confined, and she advanced to the door to speak, but was
checked by considering, that she was, perhaps, going to commit herself
to a stranger, who might discover her to Montoni; for, though this
person, whoever it was, seemed to be in affliction, it did not follow,
that he was a prisoner.

While these thoughts passed over her mind, and left her still in
hesitation, the voice spoke again, and, calling “Ludovico,” she then
perceived it to be that of Annette; on which, no longer hesitating, she
went in joy to answer her.

“Ludovico!” cried Annette, sobbing—“Ludovico!”

“It is not Ludovico, it is I—Mademoiselle Emily.”

Annette ceased sobbing, and was silent.

“If you can open the door, let me in,” said Emily, “here is no person
to hurt you.”

“Ludovico!—O, Ludovico!” cried Annette.

Emily now lost her patience, and her fear of being overheard
increasing, she was even nearly about to leave the door, when she
considered, that Annette might, possibly, know something of the
situation of Madame Montoni, or direct her to the turret. At length,
she obtained a reply, though little satisfactory, to her questions, for
Annette knew nothing of Madame Montoni, and only conjured Emily to tell
her what was become of Ludovico. Of him she had no information to give,
and she again asked who had shut Annette up.

“Ludovico,” said the poor girl, “Ludovico shut me up. When I ran away
from the dressing-room door today, I went I scarcely knew where, for
safety; and, in this gallery, here, I met Ludovico, who hurried me into
this chamber, and locked me up to keep me out of harm, as he said. But
he was in such a hurry himself, he hardly spoke ten words, but he told
me he would come, and let me out, when all was quiet, and he took away
the key with him. Now all these hours are passed, and I have neither
seen, nor heard a word of him; they have murdered him—I know they
have!”

Emily suddenly remembered the wounded person, whom she had seen borne
into the servants’ hall, and she scarcely doubted, that he was
Ludovico, but she concealed the circumstance from Annette, and
endeavoured to comfort her. Then, impatient to learn something of her
aunt, she again enquired the way to the turret.

“O! you are not going, ma’amselle,” said Annette, “for Heaven’s sake,
do not go, and leave me here by myself.”

“Nay, Annette, you do not think I can wait in the gallery all night,”
replied Emily. “Direct me to the turret; in the morning I will
endeavour to release you.”

“O holy Mary!” exclaimed Annette, “am I to stay here by myself all
night! I shall be frightened out of my senses, and I shall die of
hunger; I have had nothing to eat since dinner!”

Emily could scarcely forbear smiling at the heterogeneous distresses of
Annette, though she sincerely pitied them, and said what she could to
sooth her. At length, she obtained something like a direction to the
east turret, and quitted the door, from whence, after many intricacies
and perplexities, she reached the steep and winding stairs of the
turret, at the foot of which she stopped to rest, and to reanimate her
courage with a sense of her duty. As she surveyed this dismal place,
she perceived a door on the opposite side of the staircase, and,
anxious to know whether it would lead her to Madame Montoni, she tried
to undraw the bolts, which fastened it. A fresher air came to her face,
as she unclosed the door, which opened upon the east rampart, and the
sudden current had nearly extinguished her light, which she now removed
to a distance; and again, looking out upon the obscure terrace, she
perceived only the faint outline of the walls and of some towers,
while, above, heavy clouds, borne along the wind, seemed to mingle with
the stars, and wrap the night in thicker darkness. As she gazed, now
willing to defer the moment of certainty, from which she expected only
confirmation of evil, a distant footstep reminded her, that she might
be observed by the men on watch, and, hastily closing the door, she
took her lamp, and passed up the staircase. Trembling came upon her, as
she ascended through the gloom. To her melancholy fancy this seemed to
be a place of death, and the chilling silence, that reigned, confirmed
its character. Her spirits faltered. “Perhaps,” said she, “I am come
hither only to learn a dreadful truth, or to witness some horrible
spectacle; I feel that my senses would not survive such an addition of
horror.”

The image of her aunt murdered—murdered, perhaps, by the hand of
Montoni, rose to her mind; she trembled, gasped for breath—repented
that she had dared to venture hither, and checked her steps. But, after
she had paused a few minutes, the consciousness of her duty returned,
and she went on. Still all was silent. At length a track of blood, upon
a stair, caught her eye; and instantly she perceived, that the wall and
several other steps were stained. She paused, again struggled to
support herself, and the lamp almost fell from her trembling hand.
Still no sound was heard, no living being seemed to inhabit the turret;
a thousand times she wished herself again in her chamber; dreaded to
enquire farther—dreaded to encounter some horrible spectacle, and yet
could not resolve, now that she was so near the termination of her
efforts, to desist from them. Having again collected courage to
proceed, after ascending about half way up the turret, she came to
another door, but here again she stopped in hesitation; listened for
sounds within, and then, summoning all her resolution, unclosed it, and
entered a chamber, which, as her lamp shot its feeble rays through the
darkness, seemed to exhibit only dew-stained and deserted walls. As she
stood examining it, in fearful expectation of discovering the remains
of her unfortunate aunt, she perceived something lying in an obscure
corner of the room, and, struck with a horrible conviction, she became,
for an instant, motionless and nearly insensible. Then, with a kind of
desperate resolution, she hurried towards the object that excited her
terror, when, perceiving the clothes of some person, on the floor, she
caught hold of them, and found in her grasp the old uniform of a
soldier, beneath which appeared a heap of pikes and other arms.
Scarcely daring to trust her sight, she continued, for some moments, to
gaze on the object of her late alarm, and then left the chamber, so
much comforted and occupied by the conviction, that her aunt was not
there, that she was going to descend the turret, without enquiring
farther; when, on turning to do so, she observed upon some steps on the
second flight an appearance of blood, and remembering, that there was
yet another chamber to be explored, she again followed the windings of
the ascent. Still, as she ascended, the track of blood glared upon the
stairs.

It led her to the door of a landing-place, that terminated them, but
she was unable to follow it farther. Now that she was so near the
sought-for certainty, she dreaded to know it, even more than before,
and had not fortitude sufficient to speak, or to attempt opening the
door.

Having listened, in vain, for some sound, that might confirm, or
destroy her fears, she, at length, laid her hand on the lock, and,
finding it fastened, called on Madame Montoni; but only a chilling
silence ensued.

“She is dead!” she cried,—“murdered!—her blood is on the stairs!”

Emily grew very faint; could support herself no longer, and had
scarcely presence of mind to set down the lamp, and place herself on a
step.

When her recollection returned, she spoke again at the door, and again
attempted to open it, and, having lingered for some time, without
receiving any answer, or hearing a sound, she descended the turret,
and, with all the swiftness her feebleness would permit, sought her own
apartment.

As she turned into the corridor, the door of a chamber opened, from
whence Montoni came forth; but Emily, more terrified than ever to
behold him, shrunk back into the passage soon enough to escape being
noticed, and heard him close the door, which she had perceived was the
same she formerly observed. Having here listened to his departing
steps, till their faint sound was lost in distance, she ventured to her
apartment, and, securing it once again, retired to her bed, leaving the
lamp burning on the hearth. But sleep was fled from her harassed mind,
to which images of horror alone occurred. She endeavoured to think it
possible, that Madame Montoni had not been taken to the turret; but,
when she recollected the former menaces of her husband and the terrible
spirit of vengeance, which he had displayed on a late occasion; when
she remembered his general character, the looks of the men, who had
forced Madame Montoni from her apartment, and the written traces on the
stairs of the turret—she could not doubt, that her aunt had been
carried thither, and could scarcely hope, that she had not been carried
to be murdered.

The grey of morning had long dawned through her casements, before Emily
closed her eyes in sleep; when wearied nature, at length, yielded her a
respite from suffering.



 CHAPTER XI

Who rears the bloody hand?
                    SAYERS


Emily remained in her chamber, on the following morning, without
receiving any notice from Montoni, or seeing a human being, except the
armed men, who sometimes passed on the terrace below. Having tasted no
food since the dinner of the preceding day, extreme faintness made her
feel the necessity of quitting the asylum of her apartment to obtain
refreshment, and she was also very anxious to procure liberty for
Annette. Willing, however, to defer venturing forth, as long as
possible, and considering, whether she should apply to Montoni, or to
the compassion of some other person, her excessive anxiety concerning
her aunt, at length, overcame her abhorrence of his presence, and she
determined to go to him, and to entreat, that he would suffer her to
see Madame Montoni.

Meanwhile, it was too certain, from the absence of Annette, that some
accident had befallen Ludovico, and that she was still in confinement;
Emily, therefore, resolved also to visit the chamber, where she had
spoken to her, on the preceding night, and, if the poor girl was yet
there, to inform Montoni of her situation.

It was near noon, before she ventured from her apartment, and went
first to the south gallery, whither she passed without meeting a single
person, or hearing a sound, except, now and then, the echo of a distant
footstep.

It was unnecessary to call Annette, whose lamentations were audible
upon the first approach to the gallery, and who, bewailing her own and
Ludovico’s fate, told Emily, that she should certainly be starved to
death, if she was not let out immediately. Emily replied, that she was
going to beg her release of Montoni; but the terrors of hunger now
yielded to those of the Signor, and, when Emily left her, she was
loudly entreating, that her place of refuge might be concealed from
him.

As Emily drew near the great hall, the sounds she heard and the people
she met in the passages renewed her alarm. The latter, however, were
peaceable, and did not interrupt her, though they looked earnestly at
her, as she passed, and sometimes spoke. On crossing the hall towards
the cedar room, where Montoni usually sat, she perceived, on the
pavement, fragments of swords, some tattered garments stained with
blood, and almost expected to have seen among them a dead body; but
from such a spectacle she was, at present, spared. As she approached
the room, the sound of several voices issued from within, and a dread
of appearing before many strangers, as well as of irritating Montoni by
such an intrusion, made her pause and falter from her purpose. She
looked up through the long arcades of the hall, in search of a servant,
who might bear a message, but no one appeared, and the urgency of what
she had to request made her still linger near the door. The voices
within were not in contention, though she distinguished those of
several of the guests of the preceding day; but still her resolution
failed, whenever she would have tapped at the door, and she had
determined to walk in the hall, till some person should appear, who
might call Montoni from the room, when, as she turned from the door, it
was suddenly opened by himself. Emily trembled, and was confused, while
he almost started with surprise, and all the terrors of his countenance
unfolded themselves. She forgot all she would have said, and neither
enquired for her aunt, nor entreated for Annette, but stood silent and
embarrassed.

After closing the door he reproved her for a meanness, of which she had
not been guilty, and sternly questioned her what she had overheard; an
accusation, which revived her recollection so far, that she assured him
she had not come thither with an intention to listen to his
conversation, but to entreat his compassion for her aunt, and for
Annette. Montoni seemed to doubt this assertion, for he regarded her
with a scrutinizing look; and the doubt evidently arose from no
trifling interest. Emily then further explained herself, and concluded
with entreating him to inform her, where her aunt was placed, and to
permit, that she might visit her; but he looked upon her only with a
malignant smile, which instantaneously confirmed her worst fears for
her aunt, and, at that moment, she had not courage to renew her
entreaties.

“For Annette,” said he,—“if you go to Carlo, he will release the girl;
the foolish fellow, who shut her up, died yesterday.” Emily
shuddered.—“But my aunt, Signor”—said she, “O tell me of my aunt!”

“She is taken care of,” replied Montoni hastily, “I have no time to
answer idle questions.”

He would have passed on, but Emily, in a voice of agony, that could not
be wholly resisted, conjured him to tell her, where Madame Montoni was;
while he paused, and she anxiously watched his countenance, a trumpet
sounded, and, in the next moment, she heard the heavy gates of the
portal open, and then the clattering of horses’ hoofs in the court,
with the confusion of many voices. She stood for a moment hesitating
whether she should follow Montoni, who, at the sound of the trumpet,
had passed through the hall, and, turning her eyes whence it came, she
saw through the door, that opened beyond a long perspective of arches
into the courts, a party of horsemen, whom she judged, as well as the
distance and her embarrassment would allow, to be the same she had seen
depart, a few days before. But she staid not to scrutinize, for, when
the trumpet sounded again, the chevaliers rushed out of the cedar room,
and men came running into the hall from every quarter of the castle.
Emily once more hurried for shelter to her own apartment. Thither she
was still pursued by images of horror. She reconsidered Montoni’s
manner and words, when he had spoken of his wife, and they served only
to confirm her most terrible suspicions. Tears refused any longer to
relieve her distress, and she had sat for a considerable time absorbed
in thought, when a knocking at the chamber door aroused her, on opening
which she found old Carlo.

“Dear young lady,” said he, “I have been so flurried, I never once
thought of you till just now. I have brought you some fruit and wine,
and I am sure you must stand in need of them by this time.”

“Thank you, Carlo,” said Emily, “this is very good of you. Did the
Signor remind you of me?”

“No, Signora,” replied Carlo, “his _Excellenza_ has business enough on
his hands.” Emily then renewed her enquiries, concerning Madame
Montoni, but Carlo had been employed at the other end of the castle,
during the time, that she was removed, and he had heard nothing since,
concerning her.

While he spoke, Emily looked steadily at him, for she scarcely knew
whether he was really ignorant, or concealed his knowledge of the truth
from a fear of offending his master. To several questions, concerning
the contentions of yesterday, he gave very limited answers; but told,
that the disputes were now amicably settled, and that the Signor
believed himself to have been mistaken in his suspicions of his guests.
“The fighting was about that, Signora,” said Carlo; “but I trust I
shall never see such another day in this castle, though strange things
are about to be done.”

On her enquiring his meaning, “Ah, Signora!” added he, “it is not for
me to betray secrets, or tell all I think, but time will tell.”

She then desired him to release Annette, and, having described the
chamber in which the poor girl was confined, he promised to obey her
immediately, and was departing, when she remembered to ask who were the
persons just arrived. Her late conjecture was right; it was Verezzi,
with his party.

Her spirits were somewhat soothed by this short conversation with
Carlo; for, in her present circumstances, it afforded some comfort to
hear the accents of compassion, and to meet the look of sympathy.

An hour passed before Annette appeared, who then came weeping and
sobbing. “O Ludovico—Ludovico!” cried she.

“My poor Annette!” said Emily, and made her sit down.

“Who could have foreseen this, ma’amselle? O miserable, wretched,
day—that ever I should live to see it!” and she continued to moan and
lament, till Emily thought it necessary to check her excess of grief.
“We are continually losing dear friends by death,” said she, with a
sigh, that came from her heart. “We must submit to the will of
Heaven—our tears, alas! cannot recall the dead!”

Annette took the handkerchief from her face.

“You will meet Ludovico in a better world, I hope,” added Emily.

“Yes—yes,—ma’amselle,” sobbed Annette, “but I hope I shall meet him
again in this—though he is so wounded!”

“Wounded!” exclaimed Emily, “does he live?”

“Yes, ma’am, but—but he has a terrible wound, and could not come to let
me out. They thought him dead, at first, and he has not been rightly
himself, till within this hour.”

“Well, Annette, I rejoice to hear he lives.”

“Lives! Holy Saints! why he will not die, surely!”

Emily said she hoped not, but this expression of hope Annette thought
implied fear, and her own increased in proportion, as Emily endeavoured
to encourage her. To enquiries, concerning Madame Montoni, she could
give no satisfactory answers.

“I quite forgot to ask among the servants, ma’amselle,” said she, “for
I could think of nobody but poor Ludovico.”

Annette’s grief was now somewhat assuaged, and Emily sent her to make
enquiries, concerning her lady, of whom, however, she could obtain no
intelligence, some of the people she spoke with being really ignorant
of her fate, and others having probably received orders to conceal it.

This day passed with Emily in continued grief and anxiety for her aunt;
but she was unmolested by any notice from Montoni; and, now that
Annette was liberated, she obtained food, without exposing herself to
danger, or impertinence.

Two following days passed in the same manner, unmarked by any
occurrence, during which she obtained no information of Madame Montoni.
On the evening of the second, having dismissed Annette, and retired to
bed, her mind became haunted by the most dismal images, such as her
long anxiety, concerning her aunt, suggested; and, unable to forget
herself, for a moment, or to vanquish the phantoms, that tormented her,
she rose from her bed, and went to one of the casements of her chamber,
to breathe a freer air.

All without was silent and dark, unless that could be called light,
which was only the faint glimmer of the stars, showing imperfectly the
outline of the mountains, the western towers of the castle and the
ramparts below, where a solitary sentinel was pacing. What an image of
repose did this scene present! The fierce and terrible passions, too,
which so often agitated the inhabitants of this edifice, seemed now
hushed in sleep;—those mysterious workings, that rouse the elements of
man’s nature into tempest—were calm. Emily’s heart was not so; but her
sufferings, though deep, partook of the gentle character of her mind.
Hers was a silent anguish, weeping, yet enduring; not the wild energy
of passion, inflaming imagination, bearing down the barriers of reason
and living in a world of its own.

The air refreshed her, and she continued at the casement, looking on
the shadowy scene, over which the planets burned with a clear light,
amid the deep blue æther, as they silently moved in their destined
course. She remembered how often she had gazed on them with her dear
father, how often he had pointed out their way in the heavens, and
explained their laws; and these reflections led to others, which, in an
almost equal degree, awakened her grief and astonishment.

They brought a retrospect of all the strange and mournful events, which
had occurred since she lived in peace with her parents. And to Emily,
who had been so tenderly educated, so tenderly loved, who once knew
only goodness and happiness—to her, the late events and her present
situation—in a foreign land—in a remote castle—surrounded by vice and
violence—seemed more like the visions of a distempered imagination,
than the circumstances of truth. She wept to think of what her parents
would have suffered, could they have foreseen the events of her future
life.

While she raised her streaming eyes to heaven, she observed the same
planet, which she had seen in Languedoc, on the night, preceding her
father’s death, rise above the eastern towers of the castle, while she
remembered the conversation, which has passed, concerning the probable
state of departed souls; remembered, also, the solemn music she had
heard, and to which the tenderness of her spirits had, in spite of her
reason, given a superstitious meaning. At these recollections she wept
again, and continued musing, when suddenly the notes of sweet music
passed on the air. A superstitious dread stole over her; she stood
listening, for some moments, in trembling expectation, and then
endeavoured to recollect her thoughts, and to reason herself into
composure; but human reason cannot establish her laws on subjects, lost
in the obscurity of imagination, any more than the eye can ascertain
the form of objects, that only glimmer through the dimness of night.

Her surprise, on hearing such soothing and delicious sounds, was, at
least, justifiable; for it was long—very long, since she had listened
to anything like melody. The fierce trumpet and the shrill fife were
the only instruments she had heard, since her arrival at Udolpho.

When her mind was somewhat more composed, she tried to ascertain from
what quarter the sounds proceeded, and thought they came from below;
but whether from a room of the castle, or from the terrace, she could
not with certainty judge. Fear and surprise now yielded to the
enchantment of a strain, that floated on the silent night, with the
most soft and melancholy sweetness. Suddenly, it seemed removed to a
distance, trembled faintly, and then entirely ceased.

She continued to listen, sunk in that pleasing repose, which soft music
leaves on the mind—but it came no more. Upon this strange circumstance
her thoughts were long engaged, for strange it certainly was to hear
music at midnight, when every inhabitant of the castle had long since
retired to rest, and in a place, where nothing like harmony had been
heard before, probably, for many years. Long suffering had made her
spirits peculiarly sensible to terror, and liable to be affected by the
illusions of superstition.—It now seemed to her, as if her dead father
had spoken to her in that strain, to inspire her with comfort and
confidence, on the subject, which had then occupied her mind. Yet
reason told her, that this was a wild conjecture, and she was inclined
to dismiss it; but, with the inconsistency so natural, when imagination
guides the thoughts, she then wavered towards a belief as wild. She
remembered the singular event, connected with the castle, which had
given it into the possession of its present owner; and, when she
considered the mysterious manner, in which its late possessor had
disappeared, and that she had never since been heard of, her mind was
impressed with a high degree of solemn awe; so that, though there
appeared no clue to connect that event with the late music, she was
inclined fancifully to think they had some relation to each other. At
this conjecture, a sudden chillness ran through her frame; she looked
fearfully upon the duskiness of her chamber, and the dead silence, that
prevailed there, heightened to her fancy its gloomy aspect.

At length, she left the casement, but her steps faltered, as she
approached the bed, and she stopped and looked round. The single lamp,
that burned in her spacious chamber, was expiring; for a moment, she
shrunk from the darkness beyond; and then, ashamed of the weakness,
which, however, she could not wholly conquer, went forward to the bed,
where her mind did not soon know the soothings of sleep. She still
mused on the late occurrence, and looked with anxiety to the next
night, when, at the same hour, she determined to watch whether the
music returned. “If those sounds were human,” said she, “I shall
probably hear them again.”



 CHAPTER XII

Then, oh, you blessed ministers above,
Keep me in patience; and, in ripen’d time,
Unfold the evil which is here wrapt up
In countenance.
                    SHAKESPEARE


Annette came almost breathless to Emily’s apartment in the morning. “O
ma’amselle!” said she, in broken sentences, “what news I have to tell!
I have found out who the prisoner is—but he was no prisoner,
neither;—he that was shut up in the chamber I told you of. I must think
him a ghost, forsooth!”

“Who was the prisoner?” enquired Emily, while her thoughts glanced back
to the circumstance of the preceding night.

“You mistake, ma’am,” said Annette; “he was not a prisoner, after all.”

“Who is the person, then?”

“Holy Saints!” rejoined Annette; “How I was surprised! I met him just
now, on the rampart below, there. I never was so surprised in my life!
Ah! ma’amselle! this is a strange place! I should never have done
wondering, if I was to live here a hundred years. But, as I was saying,
I met him just now on the rampart, and I was thinking of nobody less
than of him.”

“This trifling is insupportable,” said Emily; “pr’ythee, Annette, do
not torture my patience any longer.”

“Nay, ma’amselle, guess—guess who it was; it was somebody you know very
well.”

“I cannot guess,” said Emily impatiently.

“Nay, ma’amselle, I’ll tell you something to guess by—A tall Signor,
with a longish face, who walks so stately, and used to wear such a high
feather in his hat; and used often to look down upon the ground, when
people spoke to him; and to look at people from under his eyebrows, as
it were, all so dark and frowning. You have seen him, often and often,
at Venice, ma’am. Then he was so intimate with the Signor, too. And,
now I think of it, I wonder what he could be afraid of in this lonely
old castle, that he should shut himself up for. But he is come abroad
now, for I met him on the rampart just this minute. I trembled when I
saw him, for I always was afraid of him, somehow; but I determined I
would not let him see it; so I went up to him, and made him a low
curtesy, ‘You are welcome to the castle, Signor Orsino,’ said I.”

“O, it was Signor Orsino, then!” said Emily.

“Yes, ma’amselle, Signor Orsino, himself, who caused that Venetian
gentleman to be killed, and has been popping about from place to place,
ever since, as I hear.”

“Good God!” exclaimed Emily, recovering from the shock of this
intelligence; “and is _he_ come to Udolpho! He does well to endeavour
to conceal himself.”

“Yes, ma’amselle, but if that was all, this desolate place would
conceal him, without his shutting himself up in one room. Who would
think of coming to look for him here? I am sure I should as soon think
of going to look for anybody in the other world.”

“There is some truth in that,” said Emily, who would now have concluded
it was Orsino’s music, which she had heard, on the preceding night, had
she not known, that he had neither taste, nor skill in the art. But,
though she was unwilling to add to the number of Annette’s surprises,
by mentioning the subject of her own, she enquired, whether any person
in the castle played on a musical instrument?

“O yes, ma’amselle! there is Benedetto plays the great drum to
admiration; and then, there is Launcelot the trumpeter; nay, for that
matter, Ludovico himself can play on the trumpet;—but he is ill now. I
remember once—”

Emily interrupted her; “Have you heard no other music since you came to
the castle—none last night?”

“Why, did _you_ hear any last night, ma’amselle?”

Emily evaded this question, by repeating her own.

“Why, no, ma’am,” replied Annette; “I never heard any music here, I
must say, but the drums and the trumpet; and, as for last night, I did
nothing but dream I saw my late lady’s ghost.”

“Your _late_ lady’s,” said Emily in a tremulous voice; “you have heard
more, then. Tell me—tell me all, Annette, I entreat; tell me the worst
at once.”

“Nay, ma’amselle, you know the worst already.”

“I know nothing,” said Emily.

“Yes, you do, ma’amselle; you know, that nobody knows anything about
her; and it is plain, therefore, she is gone, the way of the first lady
of the castle—nobody ever knew anything about her.”

Emily leaned her head upon her hand, and was, for some time, silent;
then, telling Annette she wished to be alone, the latter left the room.

The remark of Annette had revived Emily’s terrible suspicion,
concerning the fate of Madame Montoni; and she resolved to make another
effort to obtain certainty on this subject, by applying to Montoni once
more.

When Annette returned, a few hours after, she told Emily, that the
porter of the castle wished very much to speak with her, for that he
had something of importance to say; her spirits had, however, of late
been so subject to alarm, that any new circumstance excited it; and
this message from the porter, when her first surprise was over, made
her look round for some lurking danger, the more suspiciously, perhaps,
because she had frequently remarked the unpleasant air and countenance
of this man. She now hesitated, whether to speak with him, doubting
even, that this request was only a pretext to draw her into some
danger; but a little reflection showed her the improbability of this,
and she blushed at her weak fears.

“I will speak to him, Annette,” said she; “desire him to come to the
corridor immediately.”

Annette departed, and soon after returned.

“Barnardine, ma’amselle,” said she, “dare not come to the corridor,
lest he should be discovered, it is so far from his post; and he dare
not even leave the gates for a moment now; but, if you will come to him
at the portal, through some roundabout passages he told me of, without
crossing the courts, he has that to tell, which will surprise you. But
you must not come through the courts, lest the Signor should see you.”

Emily, neither approving these “roundabout passage,” nor the other part
of the request, now positively refused to go. “Tell him,” said she, “if
he has anything of consequence to impart, I will hear him in the
corridor, whenever he has an opportunity of coming thither.”

Annette went to deliver this message, and was absent a considerable
time. When she returned, “It won’t do, ma’amselle,” said she.
“Barnardine has been considering all this time what can be done, for it
is as much as his place is worth to leave his post now. But, if you
will come to the east rampart in the dusk of the evening, he can,
perhaps, steal away, and tell you all he has to say.”

Emily was surprised and alarmed, at the secrecy which this man seemed
to think so necessary, and hesitated whether to meet him, till,
considering, that he might mean to warn her of some serious danger, she
resolved to go.

“Soon after sunset,” said she, “I will be at the end of the east
rampart. But then the watch will be set,” she added, recollecting
herself, “and how can Barnardine pass unobserved?”

“That is just what I said to him, ma’am, and he answered me, that he
had the key of the gate, at the end of the rampart, that leads towards
the courts, and could let himself through that way; and as for the
sentinels, there were none at this end of the terrace, because the
place is guarded enough by the high walls of the castle, and the east
turret; and he said those at the other end were too far off to see him,
if it was pretty duskyish.”

“Well,” said Emily, “I must hear what he has to tell; and, therefore,
desire you will go with me to the terrace, this evening.”

“He desired it might be pretty duskyish, ma’amselle,” repeated Annette,
“because of the watch.”

Emily paused, and then said she would be on the terrace, an hour after
sunset;—“and tell Barnardine,” she added, “to be punctual to the time;
for that I, also, may be observed by Signor Montoni. Where is the
Signor? I would speak with him.”

“He is in the cedar chamber, ma’am, counselling with the other Signors.
He is going to give them a sort of treat today, to make up for what
passed at the last, I suppose; the people are all very busy in the
kitchen.”

Emily now enquired, if Montoni expected any new guests? and Annette
believed that he did not. “Poor Ludovico!” added she, “he would be as
merry as the best of them, if he was well; but he may recover yet.
Count Morano was wounded as bad, as he, and he is got well again, and
is gone back to Venice.”

“Is he so?” said Emily, “when did you hear this?”

“I heard it last night, ma’amselle, but I forgot to tell it.”

Emily asked some further questions, and then, desiring Annette would
observe and inform her, when Montoni was alone, the girl went to
deliver her message to Barnardine.

Montoni was, however, so much engaged, during the whole day, that Emily
had no opportunity of seeking a release from her terrible suspense,
concerning her aunt. Annette was employed in watching his steps, and in
attending upon Ludovico, whom she, assisted by Caterina, nursed with
the utmost care; and Emily was, of course, left much alone. Her
thoughts dwelt often on the message of the porter, and were employed in
conjecturing the subject, that occasioned it, which she sometimes
imagined concerned the fate of Madame Montoni; at others, that it
related to some personal danger, which threatened herself. The cautious
secrecy which Barnardine observed in his conduct, inclined her to
believe the latter.

As the hour of appointment drew near, her impatience increased. At
length, the sun set; she heard the passing steps of the sentinels going
to their posts; and waited only for Annette to accompany her to the
terrace, who, soon after, came, and they descended together. When Emily
expressed apprehensions of meeting Montoni, or some of his guests, “O,
there is no fear of that, ma’amselle,” said Annette, “they are all set
in to feasting yet, and that Barnardine knows.”

They reached the first terrace, where the sentinels demanded who
passed; and Emily, having answered, walked on to the east rampart, at
the entrance of which they were again stopped; and, having again
replied, were permitted to proceed. But Emily did not like to expose
herself to the discretion of these men, at such an hour; and, impatient
to withdraw from the situation, she stepped hastily on in search of
Barnardine. He was not yet come. She leaned pensively on the wall of
the rampart, and waited for him. The gloom of twilight sat deep on the
surrounding objects, blending in soft confusion the valley, the
mountains, and the woods, whose tall heads, stirred by the evening
breeze, gave the only sounds, that stole on silence, except a faint,
faint chorus of distant voices, that arose from within the castle.

“What voices are those?” said Emily, as she fearfully listened.

“It is only the Signor and his guests, carousing,” replied Annette.

“Good God!” thought Emily, “can this man’s heart be so gay, when he has
made another being so wretched; if, indeed, my aunt is yet suffered to
feel her wretchedness? O! whatever are my own sufferings, may my heart
never, never be hardened against those of others!”

She looked up, with a sensation of horror, to the east turret, near
which she then stood; a light glimmered through the grates of the lower
chamber, but those of the upper one were dark. Presently, she perceived
a person moving with a lamp across the lower room; but this
circumstance revived no hope, concerning Madame Montoni, whom she had
vainly sought in that apartment, which had appeared to contain only
soldiers’ accoutrements. Emily, however, determined to attempt the
outer door of the turret, as soon as Barnardine should withdraw; and,
if it was unfastened, to make another effort to discover her aunt.

The moments passed, but still Barnardine did not appear; and Emily,
becoming uneasy, hesitated whether to wait any longer. She would have
sent Annette to the portal to hasten him, but feared to be left alone,
for it was now almost dark, and a melancholy streak of red, that still
lingered in the west, was the only vestige of departed day. The strong
interest, however, which Barnardine’s message had awakened, overcame
other apprehensions, and still detained her.

While she was conjecturing with Annette what could thus occasion his
absence, they heard a key turn in the lock of the gate near them, and
presently saw a man advancing. It was Barnardine, of whom Emily hastily
enquired what he had to communicate, and desired, that he would tell
her quickly, “for I am chilled with this evening air,” said she.

“You must dismiss your maid, lady,” said the man in a voice, the deep
tone of which shocked her, “what I have to tell is to you only.”

Emily, after some hesitation, desired Annette to withdraw to a little
distance. “Now, my friend, what would you say?”

He was silent a moment, as if considering, and then said,—

“That which would cost me my place, at least, if it came to the
Signor’s ears. You must promise, lady, that nothing shall ever make you
tell a syllable of the matter; I have been trusted in this affair, and,
if it was known, that I betrayed my trust, my life, perhaps, might
answer it. But I was concerned for you, lady, and I resolved to tell
you.” He paused.—

Emily thanked him, assured him that he might repose on her discretion,
and entreated him to dispatch.

“Annette told us in the hall how unhappy you were about Signora
Montoni, and how much you wished to know what was become of her.”

“Most true,” said Emily eagerly, “and you can inform me. I conjure you
tell me the worst, without hesitation.” She rested her trembling arm
upon the wall.

“I can tell you,” said Barnardine, and paused.—

Emily had no power to enforce her entreaties.

“I _can_ tell you,” resumed Barnardine,—“but—”

“But what?” exclaimed Emily, recovering her resolution.

“Here I am, ma’amselle,” said Annette, who, having heard the eager
tone, in which Emily pronounced these words, came running towards her.

“Retire!” said Barnardine, sternly; “you are not wanted;” and, as Emily
said nothing, Annette obeyed.

“I _can_ tell you,” repeated the porter,—“but I know not how—you were
afflicted before.—”

“I am prepared for the worst, my friend,” said Emily, in a firm and
solemn voice. “I can support any certainty better than this suspense.”

“Well, Signora, if that is the case, you shall hear.—You know, I
suppose, that the Signor and his lady used sometimes to disagree. It is
none of my concerns to enquire what it was about, but I believe you
know it was so.”

“Well,” said Emily, “proceed.”

“The Signor, it seems, had lately been very wrath against her. I saw
all, and heard all,—a great deal more than people thought for; but it
was none of my business, so I said nothing. A few days ago, the Signor
sent for me. ‘Barnardine,’ says he, ‘you are—an honest man, I think I
can trust you.’ I assured his _Excellenza_ that he could. ‘Then,’ says
he, as near as I can remember, ‘I have an affair in hand, which I want
you to assist me in.’—Then he told me what I was to do; but that I
shall say nothing about—it concerned only the Signora.”

“O Heavens!” exclaimed Emily—“what have you done?”

Barnardine hesitated, and was silent.

“What fiend could tempt him, or you, to such an act!” cried Emily,
chilled with horror, and scarcely able to support her fainting spirits.

“It was a fiend,” said Barnardine in a gloomy tone of voice. They were
now both silent;—Emily had not courage to enquire further, and
Barnardine seemed to shrink from telling more. At length he said, “It
is of no use to think of the past; the Signor was cruel enough, but he
would be obeyed. What signified my refusing? He would have found
others, who had no scruples.”

“You have murdered her, then!” said Emily, in a hollow and inward
voice—“I am talking with a murderer!” Barnardine stood silent; while
Emily turned from him, and attempted to leave the place.

“Stay, lady!” said he, “You deserve to think so still—since you can
believe me capable of such a deed.”

“If you are innocent, tell me quickly,” said Emily, in faint accents,
“for I feel I shall not be able to hear you long.”

“I will tell you no more,” said he, and walked away. Emily had just
strength enough to bid him stay, and then to call Annette, on whose arm
she leaned, and they walked slowly up the rampart, till they heard
steps behind them. It was Barnardine again.

“Send away the girl,” said he, “and I will tell you more.”

“She must not go,” said Emily; “what you have to say, she may hear.”

“May she so, lady?” said he. “You shall know no more, then;” and he was
going, though slowly, when Emily’s anxiety, overcoming the resentment
and fear, which the man’s behaviour had roused, she desired him to
stay, and bade Annette retire.

“The Signora is alive,” said he, “for me. She is my prisoner, though;
his _Excellenza_ has shut her up in the chamber over the great gates of
the court, and I have the charge of her. I was going to have told you,
you might see her—but now—”

Emily, relieved from an unutterable load of anguish by this speech, had
now only to ask Barnardine’s forgiveness, and to conjure, that he would
let her visit her aunt.

He complied with less reluctance, than she expected, and told her,
that, if she would repair, on the following night, when the Signor was
retired to rest, to the postern-gate of the castle, she should,
perhaps, see Madame Montoni.

Amid all the thankfulness, which Emily felt for this concession, she
thought she observed a malicious triumph in his manner, when he
pronounced the last words; but, in the next moment, she dismissed the
thought, and, having again thanked him, commended her aunt to his pity,
and assured him, that she would herself reward him, and would be
punctual to her appointment, she bade him good night, and retired,
unobserved, to her chamber. It was a considerable time, before the
tumult of joy, which Barnardine’s unexpected intelligence had
occasioned, allowed Emily to think with clearness, or to be conscious
of the real dangers, that still surrounded Madame Montoni and herself.
When this agitation subsided, she perceived, that her aunt was yet the
prisoner of a man, to whose vengeance, or avarice, she might fall a
sacrifice; and, when she further considered the savage aspect of the
person, who was appointed to guard Madame Montoni, her doom appeared to
be already sealed, for the countenance of Barnardine seemed to bear the
stamp of a murderer; and, when she had looked upon it, she felt
inclined to believe, that there was no deed, however black, which he
might not be prevailed upon to execute. These reflections brought to
her remembrance the tone of voice, in which he had promised to grant
her request to see his prisoner; and she mused upon it long in
uneasiness and doubt. Sometimes, she even hesitated, whether to trust
herself with him at the lonely hour he had appointed; and once, and
only once, it struck her, that Madame Montoni might be already
murdered, and that this ruffian was appointed to decoy herself to some
secret place, where her life also was to be sacrificed to the avarice
of Montoni, who then would claim securely the contested estates in
Languedoc. The consideration of the enormity of such guilt did, at
length, relieve her from the belief of its probability, but not from
all the doubts and fears, which a recollection of Barnardine’s manner
had occasioned. From these subjects, her thoughts, at length, passed to
others; and, as the evening advanced, she remembered, with somewhat
more than surprise, the music she had heard, on the preceding night,
and now awaited its return, with more than curiosity.

She distinguished, till a late hour, the distant carousals of Montoni
and his companions—the loud contest, the dissolute laugh and the choral
song, that made the halls re-echo. At length, she heard the heavy gates
of the castle shut for the night, and those sounds instantly sunk into
a silence, which was disturbed only by the whispering steps of persons,
passing through the galleries to their remote rooms. Emily now judging
it to be about the time, when she had heard the music, on the preceding
night, dismissed Annette, and gently opened the casement to watch for
its return. The planet she had so particularly noticed, at the
recurrence of the music, was not yet risen; but, with superstitious
weakness, she kept her eyes fixed on that part of the hemisphere, where
it would rise, almost expecting, that, when it appeared, the sounds
would return. At length, it came, serenely bright, over the eastern
towers of the castle. Her heart trembled, when she perceived it, and
she had scarcely courage to remain at the casement, lest the returning
music should confirm her terror, and subdue the little strength she yet
retained. The clock soon after struck one, and, knowing this to be
about the time, when the sounds had occurred, she sat down in a chair,
near the casement, and endeavoured to compose her spirits; but the
anxiety of expectation yet disturbed them. Everything, however,
remained still; she heard only the solitary step of a sentinel, and the
lulling murmur of the woods below, and she again leaned from the
casement, and again looked, as if for intelligence, to the planet,
which was now risen high above the towers.

Emily continued to listen, but no music came. “Those were surely no
mortal sounds!” said she, recollecting their entrancing melody. “No
inhabitant of this castle could utter such; and, where is the feeling,
that could modulate such exquisite expression? We all know, that it has
been affirmed celestial sounds have sometimes been heard on earth.
Father Pierre and Father Antoine declared, that they had sometimes
heard them in the stillness of night, when they alone were waking to
offer their orisons to heaven. Nay, my dear father himself, once said,
that, soon after my mother’s death, as he lay watchful in grief, sounds
of uncommon sweetness called him from his bed; and, on opening his
window, he heard lofty music pass along the midnight air. It soothed
him, he said; he looked up with confidence to heaven, and resigned her
to his God.”

Emily paused to weep at this recollection. “Perhaps,” resumed she,
“perhaps, those strains I heard were sent to comfort,—to encourage me!
Never shall I forget those I heard, at this hour, in Languedoc!
Perhaps, my father watches over me, at this moment!” She wept again in
tenderness. Thus passed the hour in watchfulness and solemn thought;
but no sounds returned; and, after remaining at the casement, till the
light tint of dawn began to edge the mountain-tops and steal upon the
night-shade, she concluded, that they would not return, and retired
reluctantly to repose.



VOLUME 3



 CHAPTER I

I will advise you where to plant yourselves;
Acquaint you with the perfect spy o’ the time,
The moment on ’t; for ’t must be done tonight.
                    MACBETH


Emily was somewhat surprised, on the following day, to find that
Annette had heard of Madame Montoni’s confinement in the chamber over
the portal, as well as of her purposed visit there, on the approaching
night. That the circumstance, which Barnardine had so solemnly enjoined
her to conceal, he had himself told to so indiscreet a hearer as
Annette, appeared very improbable, though he had now charged her with a
message, concerning the intended interview. He requested, that Emily
would meet him, unattended, on the terrace, at a little after midnight,
when he himself would lead her to the place he had promised; a
proposal, from which she immediately shrunk, for a thousand vague fears
darted athwart her mind, such as had tormented her on the preceding
night, and which she neither knew how to trust, nor to dismiss. It
frequently occurred to her, that Barnardine might have deceived her,
concerning Madame Montoni, whose murderer, perhaps, he really was; and
that he had deceived her by order of Montoni, the more easily to draw
her into some of the desperate designs of the latter. The terrible
suspicion, that Madame Montoni no longer lived, thus came, accompanied
by one not less dreadful for herself. Unless the crime, by which the
aunt had suffered, was instigated merely by resentment, unconnected
with profit, a motive, upon which Montoni did not appear very likely to
act, its object must be unattained, till the niece was also dead, to
whom Montoni knew that his wife’s estates must descend. Emily
remembered the words, which had informed her, that the contested
estates in France would devolve to her, if Madame Montoni died, without
consigning them to her husband, and the former obstinate perseverance
of her aunt made it too probable, that she had, to the last, withheld
them. At this instant, recollecting Barnardine’s manner, on the
preceding night, she now believed, what she had then fancied, that it
expressed malignant triumph. She shuddered at the recollection, which
confirmed her fears, and determined not to meet him on the terrace.
Soon after, she was inclined to consider these suspicions as the
extravagant exaggerations of a timid and harassed mind, and could not
believe Montoni liable to such preposterous depravity as that of
destroying, from one motive, his wife and her niece. She blamed herself
for suffering her romantic imagination to carry her so far beyond the
bounds of probability, and determined to endeavour to check its rapid
flights, lest they should sometimes extend into madness. Still,
however, she shrunk from the thought of meeting Barnardine, on the
terrace, at midnight; and still the wish to be relieved from this
terrible suspense, concerning her aunt, to see her, and to sooth her
sufferings, made her hesitate what to do.

“Yet how is it possible, Annette, I can pass to the terrace at that
hour?” said she, recollecting herself, “the sentinels will stop me, and
Signor Montoni will hear of the affair.”

“O ma’amselle! that is well thought of,” replied Annette. “That is what
Barnardine told me about. He gave me this key, and bade me say it
unlocks the door at the end of the vaulted gallery, that opens near the
end of the east rampart, so that you need not pass any of the men on
watch. He bade me say, too, that his reason for requesting you to come
to the terrace was, because he could take you to the place you want to
go to, without opening the great doors of the hall, which grate so
heavily.”

Emily’s spirits were somewhat calmed by this explanation, which seemed
to be honestly given to Annette. “But why did he desire I would come
alone, Annette?” said she.

“Why that was what I asked him myself, ma’amselle. Says I, ‘Why is my
young lady to come alone?—Surely I may come with her!—What harm can _I_
do?’ But he said ‘No—no—I tell you not,’ in his gruff way. Nay, says I,
I have been trusted in as great affairs as this, I warrant, and it’s a
hard matter if I can’t keep a secret now. Still he would say nothing
but—‘No—no—no.’ Well, says I, if you will only trust me, I will tell
you a great secret, that was told me a month ago, and I have never
opened my lips about it yet—so you need not be afraid of telling me.
But all would not do. Then, ma’amselle, I went so far as to offer him a
beautiful new sequin, that Ludovico gave me for a keepsake, and I would
not have parted with it for all St. Marco’s Place; but even that would
not do! Now what can be the reason of this? But I know, you know,
ma’am, who you are going to see.”

“Pray did Barnardine tell you this?”

“He! No, ma’amselle, that he did not.”

Emily enquired who did, but Annette showed, that she _could_ keep a
secret.

During the remainder of the day, Emily’s mind was agitated with doubts
and fears and contrary determinations, on the subject of meeting this
Barnardine on the rampart, and submitting herself to his guidance, she
scarcely knew whither. Pity for her aunt and anxiety for herself
alternately swayed her determination, and night came, before she had
decided upon her conduct. She heard the castle clock strike
eleven—twelve—and yet her mind wavered. The time, however, was now
come, when she could hesitate no longer: and then the interest she felt
for her aunt overcame other considerations, and, bidding Annette follow
her to the outer door of the vaulted gallery, and there await her
return, she descended from her chamber. The castle was perfectly still,
and the great hall, where so lately she had witnessed a scene of
dreadful contention, now returned only the whispering footsteps of the
two solitary figures gliding fearfully between the pillars, and gleamed
only to the feeble lamp they carried. Emily, deceived by the long
shadows of the pillars and by the catching lights between, often
stopped, imagining she saw some person, moving in the distant obscurity
of the perspective; and, as she passed these pillars, she feared to
turn her eyes toward them, almost expecting to see a figure start out
from behind their broad shaft. She reached, however, the vaulted
gallery, without interruption, but unclosed its outer door with a
trembling hand, and, charging Annette not to quit it and to keep it a
little open, that she might be heard if she called, she delivered to
her the lamp, which she did not dare to take herself because of the men
on watch, and, alone, stepped out upon the dark terrace. Everything was
so still, that she feared, lest her own light steps should be heard by
the distant sentinels, and she walked cautiously towards the spot,
where she had before met Barnardine, listening for a sound, and looking
onward through the gloom in search of him. At length, she was startled
by a deep voice, that spoke near her, and she paused, uncertain whether
it was his, till it spoke again, and she then recognised the hollow
tones of Barnardine, who had been punctual to the moment, and was at
the appointed place, resting on the rampart wall. After chiding her for
not coming sooner, and saying that he had been waiting nearly half an
hour, he desired Emily, who made no reply, to follow him to the door
through which he had entered the terrace.

While he unlocked it, she looked back to that she had left, and,
observing the rays of the lamp stream through a small opening, was
certain, that Annette was still there. But her remote situation could
little befriend Emily, after she had quitted the terrace; and, when
Barnardine unclosed the gate, the dismal aspect of the passage beyond,
shown by a torch burning on the pavement, made her shrink from
following him alone, and she refused to go, unless Annette might
accompany her. This, however, Barnardine absolutely refused to permit,
mingling at the same time with his refusal such artful circumstances to
heighten the pity and curiosity of Emily towards her aunt, that she, at
length, consented to follow him alone to the portal.

He then took up the torch, and led her along the passage, at the
extremity of which he unlocked another door, whence they descended, a
few steps, into a chapel, which, as Barnardine held up the torch to
light her, Emily observed to be in ruins, and she immediately
recollected a former conversation of Annette, concerning it, with very
unpleasant emotions. She looked fearfully on the almost roofless walls,
green with damps, and on the gothic points of the windows, where the
ivy and the briony had long supplied the place of glass, and ran
mantling among the broken capitals of some columns, that had once
supported the roof. Barnardine stumbled over the broken pavement, and
his voice, as he uttered a sudden oath, was returned in hollow echoes,
that made it more terrific. Emily’s heart sunk; but she still followed
him, and he turned out of what had been the principal aisle of the
chapel. “Down these steps, lady,” said Barnardine, as he descended a
flight, which appeared to lead into the vaults; but Emily paused on the
top, and demanded, in a tremulous tone, whither he was conducting her.

“To the portal,” said Barnardine.

“Cannot we go through the chapel to the portal?” said Emily.

“No, Signora, that leads to the inner court, which I don’t choose to
unlock. This way, and we shall reach the outer court presently.”

Emily still hesitated; fearing not only to go on, but, since she had
gone thus far, to irritate Barnardine by refusing to go further.

“Come, lady,” said the man, who had nearly reached the bottom of the
flight, “make a little haste; I cannot wait here all night.”

“Whither do these steps lead?” said Emily, yet pausing.

“To the portal,” repeated Barnardine, in an angry tone, “I will wait no
longer.” As he said this, he moved on with the light, and Emily,
fearing to provoke him by further delay, reluctantly followed. From the
steps, they proceeded through a passage, adjoining the vaults, the
walls of which were dropping with unwholesome dews, and the vapours,
that crept along the ground, made the torch burn so dimly, that Emily
expected every moment to see it extinguished, and Barnardine could
scarcely find his way. As they advanced, these vapours thickened, and
Barnardine, believing the torch was expiring, stopped for a moment to
trim it. As he then rested against a pair of iron gates, that opened
from the passage, Emily saw, by uncertain flashes of light, the vaults
beyond, and, near her, heaps of earth, that seemed to surround an open
grave. Such an object, in such a scene, would, at any time, have
disturbed her; but now she was shocked by an instantaneous
presentiment, that this was the grave of her unfortunate aunt, and that
the treacherous Barnardine was leading herself to destruction. The
obscure and terrible place, to which he had conducted her, seemed to
justify the thought; it was a place suited for murder, a receptacle for
the dead, where a deed of horror might be committed, and no vestige
appear to proclaim it. Emily was so overwhelmed with terror, that, for
a moment, she was unable to determine what conduct to pursue. She then
considered that it would be vain to attempt an escape from Barnardine
by flight, since the length and the intricacy of the way she had passed
would soon enable him to overtake her, who was unacquainted with the
turnings, and whose feebleness would not suffer her to run long with
swiftness. She feared equally to irritate him by a disclosure of her
suspicions, which a refusal to accompany him further certainly would
do; and, since she was already as much in his power as it was possible
she could be, if she proceeded, she, at length, determined to suppress,
as far as she could, the appearance of apprehension, and to follow
silently whither he designed to lead her. Pale with horror and anxiety,
she now waited till Barnardine had trimmed the torch, and, as her sight
glanced again upon the grave, she could not forbear enquiring, for whom
it was prepared. He took his eyes from the torch, and fixed them upon
her face without speaking. She faintly repeated the question, but the
man, shaking the torch, passed on; and she followed, trembling, to a
second flight of steps, having ascended which, a door delivered them
into the first court of the castle. As they crossed it, the light
showed the high black walls around them, fringed with long grass and
dank weeds, that found a scanty soil among the mouldering stones; the
heavy buttresses, with, here and there, between them, a narrow grate,
that admitted a freer circulation of air to the court, the massy iron
gates, that led to the castle, whose clustering turrets appeared above,
and, opposite, the huge towers and arch of the portal itself. In this
scene the large, uncouth person of Barnardine, bearing the torch,
formed a characteristic figure. This Barnardine was wrapt in a long
dark cloak, which scarcely allowed the kind of half-boots, or sandals,
that were laced upon his legs, to appear, and showed only the point of
a broad sword, which he usually wore, slung in a belt across his
shoulders. On his head was a heavy flat velvet cap, somewhat resembling
a turban, in which was a short feather; the visage beneath it showed
strong features, and a countenance furrowed with the lines of cunning
and darkened by habitual discontent.

The view of the court, however, reanimated Emily, who, as she crossed
silently towards the portal, began to hope, that her own fears, and not
the treachery of Barnardine, had deceived her. She looked anxiously up
at the first casement, that appeared above the lofty arch of the
portcullis; but it was dark, and she enquired, whether it belonged to
the chamber where Madame Montoni was confined. Emily spoke low, and
Barnardine, perhaps, did not hear her question, for he returned no
answer; and they, soon after, entered the postern door of the gateway,
which brought them to the foot of a narrow staircase that wound up one
of the towers.

“Up this staircase the Signora lies,” said Barnardine.

“Lies!” repeated Emily faintly, as she began to ascend.

“She lies in the upper chamber,” said Barnardine.

As they passed up, the wind, which poured through the narrow cavities
in the wall, made the torch flare, and it threw a stronger gleam upon
the grim and sallow countenance of Barnardine, and discovered more
fully the desolation of the place—the rough stone walls, the spiral
stairs, black with age, and a suit of ancient armour, with an iron
visor, that hung upon the walls, and appeared a trophy of some former
victory.

Having reached a landing-place, “You may wait here, lady,” said he,
applying a key to the door of a chamber, “while I go up, and tell the
Signora you are coming.”

“That ceremony is unnecessary,” replied Emily, “my aunt will rejoice to
see me.”

“I am not so sure of that,” said Barnardine, pointing to the room he
had opened: “Come in here, lady, while I step up.”

Emily, surprised and somewhat shocked, did not dare to oppose him
further, but, as he was turning away with the torch, desired he would
not leave her in darkness. He looked around, and, observing a tripod
lamp, that stood on the stairs, lighted and gave it to Emily, who
stepped forward into a large old chamber, and he closed the door. As
she listened anxiously to his departing steps, she thought he
descended, instead of ascending, the stairs; but the gusts of wind,
that whistled round the portal, would not allow her to hear distinctly
any other sound. Still, however, she listened, and, perceiving no step
in the room above, where he had affirmed Madame Montoni to be, her
anxiety increased, though she considered, that the thickness of the
floor in this strong building might prevent any sound reaching her from
the upper chamber. The next moment, in a pause of the wind, she
distinguished Barnardine’s step descending to the court, and then
thought she heard his voice; but, the rising gust again overcoming
other sounds, Emily, to be certain on this point, moved softly to the
door, which, on attempting to open it, she discovered was fastened. All
the horrid apprehensions, that had lately assailed her, returned at
this instant with redoubled force, and no longer appeared like the
exaggerations of a timid spirit, but seemed to have been sent to warn
her of her fate. She now did not doubt, that Madame Montoni had been
murdered, perhaps in this very chamber; or that she herself was brought
hither for the same purpose. The countenance, the manners and the
recollected words of Barnardine, when he had spoken of her aunt,
confirmed her worst fears. For some moments, she was incapable of
considering of any means, by which she might attempt an escape. Still
she listened, but heard footsteps neither on the stairs, nor in the
room above; she thought, however, that she again distinguished
Barnardine’s voice below, and went to a grated window, that opened upon
the court, to enquire further. Here, she plainly heard his hoarse
accents, mingling with the blast, that swept by, but they were lost
again so quickly, that their meaning could not be interpreted; and then
the light of a torch, which seemed to issue from the portal below,
flashed across the court, and the long shadow of a man, who was under
the arch-way, appeared upon the pavement. Emily, from the hugeness of
this sudden portrait, concluded it to be that of Barnardine; but other
deep tones, which passed in the wind, soon convinced her he was not
alone, and that his companion was not a person very liable to pity.

When her spirits had overcome the first shock of her situation, she
held up the lamp to examine, if the chamber afforded a possibility of
an escape. It was a spacious room, whose walls, wainscoted with rough
oak, showed no casement but the grated one, which Emily had left, and
no other door than that, by which she had entered. The feeble rays of
the lamp, however, did not allow her to see at once its full extent;
she perceived no furniture, except, indeed, an iron chair, fastened in
the centre of the chamber, immediately over which, depending on a chain
from the ceiling, hung an iron ring. Having gazed upon these, for some
time, with wonder and horror, she next observed iron bars below, made
for the purpose of confining the feet, and on the arms of the chair
were rings of the same metal. As she continued to survey them, she
concluded, that they were instruments of torture, and it struck her,
that some poor wretch had once been fastened in this chair, and had
there been starved to death. She was chilled by the thought; but, what
was her agony, when, in the next moment, it occurred to her, that her
aunt might have been one of these victims, and that she herself might
be the next! An acute pain seized her head, she was scarcely able to
hold the lamp, and, looking round for support, was seating herself,
unconsciously, in the iron chair itself; but suddenly perceiving where
she was, she started from it in horror, and sprung towards a remote end
of the room. Here again she looked round for a seat to sustain her, and
perceived only a dark curtain, which, descending from the ceiling to
the floor, was drawn along the whole side of the chamber. Ill as she
was, the appearance of this curtain struck her, and she paused to gaze
upon it, in wonder and apprehension.

It seemed to conceal a recess of the chamber; she wished, yet dreaded,
to lift it, and to discover what it veiled: twice she was withheld by a
recollection of the terrible spectacle her daring hand had formerly
unveiled in an apartment of the castle, till, suddenly conjecturing,
that it concealed the body of her murdered aunt, she seized it, in a
fit of desperation, and drew it aside. Beyond, appeared a corpse,
stretched on a kind of low couch, which was crimsoned with human blood,
as was the floor beneath. The features, deformed by death, were ghastly
and horrible, and more than one livid wound appeared in the face.
Emily, bending over the body, gazed, for a moment, with an eager,
frenzied eye; but, in the next, the lamp dropped from her hand, and she
fell senseless at the foot of the couch.

When her senses returned, she found herself surrounded by men, among
whom was Barnardine, who were lifting her from the floor, and then bore
her along the chamber. She was sensible of what passed, but the extreme
languor of her spirits did not permit her to speak, or move, or even to
feel any distinct fear. They carried her down the staircase, by which
she had ascended; when, having reached the arch-way, they stopped, and
one of the men, taking the torch from Barnardine, opened a small door,
that was cut in the great gate, and, as he stepped out upon the road,
the light he bore showed several men on horseback, in waiting. Whether
it was the freshness of the air, that revived Emily, or that the
objects she now saw roused the spirit of alarm, she suddenly spoke, and
made an ineffectual effort to disengage herself from the grasp of the
ruffians, who held her.

Barnardine, meanwhile, called loudly for the torch, while distant
voices answered, and several persons approached, and, in the same
instant, a light flashed upon the court of the castle. Again he
vociferated for the torch, and the men hurried Emily through the gate.
At a short distance, under the shelter of the castle walls, she
perceived the fellow, who had taken the light from the porter, holding
it to a man, busily employed in altering the saddle of a horse, round
which were several horsemen, looking on, whose harsh features received
the full glare of the torch; while the broken ground beneath them, the
opposite walls, with the tufted shrubs, that overhung their summits,
and an embattled watch-tower above, were reddened with the gleam,
which, fading gradually away, left the remoter ramparts and the woods
below to the obscurity of night.

“What do you waste time for, there?” said Barnardine with an oath, as
he approached the horsemen. “Dispatch—dispatch!”

“The saddle will be ready in a minute,” replied the man who was
buckling it, at whom Barnardine now swore again, for his negligence,
and Emily, calling feebly for help, was hurried towards the horses,
while the ruffians disputed on which to place her, the one designed for
her not being ready. At this moment a cluster of lights issued from the
great gates, and she immediately heard the shrill voice of Annette
above those of several other persons, who advanced. In the same moment,
she distinguished Montoni and Cavigni, followed by a number of
ruffian-faced fellows, to whom she no longer looked with terror, but
with hope, for, at this instant, she did not tremble at the thought of
any dangers, that might await her within the castle, whence so lately,
and so anxiously she had wished to escape. Those, which threatened her
from without, had engrossed all her apprehensions.

A short contest ensued between the parties, in which that of Montoni,
however, were presently victors, and the horsemen, perceiving that
numbers were against them, and being, perhaps, not very warmly
interested in the affair they had undertaken, galloped off, while
Barnardine had run far enough to be lost in the darkness, and Emily was
led back into the castle. As she repassed the courts, the remembrance
of what she had seen in the portal-chamber came, with all its horror,
to her mind; and when, soon after, she heard the gate close, that shut
her once more within the castle walls, she shuddered for herself, and,
almost forgetting the danger she had escaped, could scarcely think,
that anything less precious than liberty and peace was to be found
beyond them.

Montoni ordered Emily to await him in the cedar parlour, whither he
soon followed, and then sternly questioned her on this mysterious
affair. Though she now viewed him with horror, as the murderer of her
aunt, and scarcely knew what she said in reply to his impatient
enquiries, her answers and her manner convinced him, that she had not
taken a voluntary part in the late scheme, and he dismissed her upon
the appearance of his servants, whom he had ordered to attend, that he
might enquire further into the affair, and discover those, who had been
accomplices in it.

Emily had been some time in her apartment, before the tumult of her
mind allowed her to remember several of the past circumstances. Then,
again, the dead form, which the curtain in the portal-chamber had
disclosed, came to her fancy, and she uttered a groan, which terrified
Annette the more, as Emily forbore to satisfy her curiosity, on the
subject of it, for she feared to trust her with so fatal a secret, lest
her indiscretion should call down the immediate vengeance of Montoni on
herself.

Thus compelled to bear within her own mind the whole horror of the
secret, that oppressed it, her reason seemed to totter under the
intolerable weight. She often fixed a wild and vacant look on Annette,
and, when she spoke, either did not hear her, or answered from the
purpose. Long fits of abstraction succeeded; Annette spoke repeatedly,
but her voice seemed not to make any impression on the sense of the
long agitated Emily, who sat fixed and silent, except that, now and
then, she heaved a heavy sigh, but without tears.

Terrified at her condition, Annette, at length, left the room, to
inform Montoni of it, who had just dismissed his servants, without
having made any discoveries on the subject of his enquiry. The wild
description, which this girl now gave of Emily, induced him to follow
her immediately to the chamber.

At the sound of his voice, Emily turned her eyes, and a gleam of
recollection seemed to shoot athwart her mind, for she immediately rose
from her seat, and moved slowly to a remote part of the room. He spoke
to her in accents somewhat softened from their usual harshness, but she
regarded him with a kind of half curious, half terrified look, and
answered only “yes,” to whatever he said. Her mind still seemed to
retain no other impression, than that of fear.

Of this disorder Annette could give no explanation, and Montoni, having
attempted, for some time, to persuade Emily to talk, retired, after
ordering Annette to remain with her, during the night, and to inform
him, in the morning, of her condition.

When he was gone, Emily again came forward, and asked who it was, that
had been there to disturb her. Annette said it was the Signor—Signor
Montoni. Emily repeated the name after her, several times, as if she
did not recollect it, and then suddenly groaned, and relapsed into
abstraction.

With some difficulty, Annette led her to the bed, which Emily examined
with an eager, frenzied eye, before she lay down, and then, pointing,
turned with shuddering emotion, to Annette, who, now more terrified,
went towards the door, that she might bring one of the female servants
to pass the night with them; but Emily, observing her going, called her
by name, and then in the naturally soft and plaintive tone of her
voice, begged, that she, too, would not forsake her.—“For since my
father died,” added she, sighing, “everybody forsakes me.”

“Your father, ma’amselle!” said Annette, “he was dead before you knew
me.”

“He was, indeed!” rejoined Emily, and her tears began to flow. She now
wept silently and long, after which, becoming quite calm, she at length
sunk to sleep, Annette having had discretion enough not to interrupt
her tears. This girl, as affectionate as she was simple, lost in these
moments all her former fears of remaining in the chamber, and watched
alone by Emily, during the whole night.



 CHAPTER II

unfold
What worlds, or what vast regions, hold
Th’ immortal mind, that hath forsook
Her mansion in this fleshly nook!
                    IL PENSEROSO


Emily’s mind was refreshed by sleep. On waking in the morning, she
looked with surprise on Annette, who sat sleeping in a chair beside the
bed, and then endeavoured to recollect herself; but the circumstances
of the preceding night were swept from her memory, which seemed to
retain no trace of what had passed, and she was still gazing with
surprise on Annette, when the latter awoke.

“O dear ma’amselle! do you know me?” cried she.

“Know you! Certainly,” replied Emily, “you are Annette; but why are you
sitting by me thus?”

“O you have been very ill, ma’amselle,—very ill indeed! and I am sure I
thought—”

“This is very strange!” said Emily, still trying to recollect the
past.—“But I think I do remember, that my fancy has been haunted by
frightful dreams. Good God!” she added, suddenly starting—“surely it
was nothing more than a dream!”

She fixed a terrified look upon Annette, who, intending to quiet her,
said “Yes, ma’amselle, it was more than a dream, but it is all over
now.”

“She _is_ murdered, then!” said Emily in an inward voice, and
shuddering instantaneously. Annette screamed; for, being ignorant of
the circumstance to which Emily referred, she attributed her manner to
a disordered fancy; but, when she had explained to what her own speech
alluded, Emily, recollecting the attempt that had been made to carry
her off, asked if the contriver of it had been discovered. Annette
replied, that he had not, though he might easily be guessed at; and
then told Emily she might thank her for her deliverance, who,
endeavouring to command the emotion, which the remembrance of her aunt
had occasioned, appeared calmly to listen to Annette, though, in truth,
she heard scarcely a word that was said.

“And so, ma’amselle,” continued the latter, “I was determined to be
even with Barnardine for refusing to tell me the secret, by finding it
out myself; so I watched you, on the terrace, and, as soon as he had
opened the door at the end, I stole out from the castle, to try to
follow you; for, says I, I am sure no good can be planned, or why all
this secrecy? So, sure enough, he had not bolted the door after him,
and, when I opened it, I saw, by the glimmer of the torch, at the other
end of the passage, which way you were going. I followed the light, at
a distance, till you came to the vaults of the chapel, and there I was
afraid to go further, for I had heard strange things about these
vaults. But then, again, I was afraid to go back, all in darkness, by
myself; so by the time Barnardine had trimmed the light, I had resolved
to follow you, and I did so, till you came to the great court, and
there I was afraid he would see me; so I stopped at the door again, and
watched you across to the gates, and, when you were gone up the stairs,
I whipt after. There, as I stood under the gateway, I heard horses’
feet without, and several men talking; and I heard them swearing at
Barnardine for not bringing you out, and just then, he had like to have
caught me, for he came down the stairs again, and I had hardly time to
get out of his way. But I had heard enough of his secret now, and I
determined to be even with him, and to save you, too, ma’amselle, for I
guessed it to be some new scheme of Count Morano, though he was gone
away. I ran into the castle, but I had hard work to find my way through
the passage under the chapel, and what is very strange, I quite forgot
to look for the ghosts they had told me about, though I would not go
into that place again by myself for all the world! Luckily the Signor
and Signor Cavigni were up, so we had soon a train at our heels,
sufficient to frighten that Barnardine and his rogues, all together.”

Annette ceased to speak, but Emily still appeared to listen. At length
she said, suddenly, “I think I will go to him myself;—where is he?”

Annette asked who was meant.

“Signor Montoni,” replied Emily. “I would speak with him;” and Annette,
now remembering the order he had given, on the preceding night,
respecting her young lady, rose, and said she would seek him herself.

This honest girl’s suspicions of Count Morano were perfectly just;
Emily, too, when she thought on the scheme, had attributed it to him;
and Montoni, who had not a doubt on this subject, also, began to
believe, that it was by the direction of Morano, that poison had
formerly been mingled with his wine.

The professions of repentance, which Morano had made to Emily, under
the anguish of his wound, was sincere at the moment he offered them;
but he had mistaken the subject of his sorrow, for, while he thought he
was condemning the cruelty of his late design, he was lamenting only
the state of suffering, to which it had reduced him. As these
sufferings abated, his former views revived, till, his health being
re-established, he again found himself ready for enterprise and
difficulty. The porter of the castle, who had served him, on a former
occasion, willingly accepted a second bribe; and, having concerted the
means of drawing Emily to the gates, Morano publicly left the hamlet,
whither he had been carried after the affray, and withdrew with his
people to another at several miles distance. From thence, on a night
agreed upon by Barnardine, who had discovered from the thoughtless
prattle of Annette, the most probable means of decoying Emily, the
Count sent back his servants to the castle, while he awaited her
arrival at the hamlet, with an intention of carrying her immediately to
Venice. How this, his second scheme, was frustrated, has already
appeared; but the violent, and various passions with which this Italian
lover was now agitated, on his return to that city, can only be
imagined.

Annette having made her report to Montoni of Emily’s health and of her
request to see him, he replied, that she might attend him in the cedar
room, in about an hour. It was on the subject, that pressed so heavily
on her mind, that Emily wished to speak to him, yet she did not
distinctly know what good purpose this could answer, and sometimes she
even recoiled in horror from the expectation of his presence. She
wished, also, to petition, though she scarcely dared to believe the
request would be granted, that he would permit her, since her aunt was
no more, to return to her native country.

As the moment of interview approached, her agitation increased so much,
that she almost resolved to excuse herself under what could scarcely be
called a pretence of illness; and, when she considered what could be
said, either concerning herself, or the fate of her aunt, she was
equally hopeless as to the event of her entreaty, and terrified as to
its effect upon the vengeful spirit of Montoni. Yet, to pretend
ignorance of her death, appeared, in some degree, to be sharing its
criminality, and, indeed, this event was the only ground, on which
Emily could rest her petition for leaving Udolpho.

While her thoughts thus wavered, a message was brought, importing, that
Montoni could not see her, till the next day; and her spirits were then
relieved, for a moment, from an almost intolerable weight of
apprehension. Annette said, she fancied the Chevaliers were going out
to the wars again, for the courtyard was filled with horses, and she
heard, that the rest of the party, who went out before, were expected
at the castle. “And I heard one of the soldiers, too,” added she, “say
to his comrade, that he would warrant they’d bring home a rare deal of
booty.—So, thinks I, if the Signor can, with a safe conscience, send
his people out a-robbing—why it is no business of mine. I only wish I
was once safe out of this castle; and, if it had not been for poor
Ludovico’s sake, I would have let Count Morano’s people run away with
us both, for it would have been serving you a good turn, ma’amselle, as
well as myself.”

Annette might have continued thus talking for hours for any
interruption she would have received from Emily, who was silent,
inattentive, absorbed in thought, and passed the whole of this day in a
kind of solemn tranquillity, such as is often the result of faculties
overstrained by suffering.

When night returned, Emily recollected the mysterious strains of music,
that she had lately heard, in which she still felt some degree of
interest, and of which she hoped to hear again the soothing sweetness.
The influence of superstition now gained on the weakness of her
long-harassed mind; she looked, with enthusiastic expectation, to the
guardian spirit of her father, and, having dismissed Annette for the
night, determined to watch alone for their return. It was not yet,
however, near the time when she had heard the music on a former night,
and anxious to call off her thoughts from distressing subjects, she sat
down with one of the few books, that she had brought from France; but
her mind, refusing control, became restless and agitated, and she went
often to the casement to listen for a sound. Once, she thought she
heard a voice, but then, everything without the casement remaining
still, she concluded, that her fancy had deceived her.

Thus passed the time, till twelve o’clock, soon after which the distant
sounds, that murmured through the castle, ceased, and sleep seemed to
reign over all. Emily then seated herself at the casement, where she
was soon recalled from the reverie, into which she sunk, by very
unusual sounds, not of music, but like the low mourning of some person
in distress. As she listened, her heart faltered in terror, and she
became convinced, that the former sound was more than imaginary. Still,
at intervals, she heard a kind of feeble lamentation, and sought to
discover whence it came. There were several rooms underneath, adjoining
the rampart, which had been long shut up, and, as the sound probably
rose from one of these, she leaned from the casement to observe,
whether any light was visible there. The chambers, as far as she could
perceive, were quite dark, but, at a little distance, on the rampart
below, she thought she saw something moving.

The faint twilight, which the stars shed, did not enable her to
distinguish what it was; but she judged it to be a sentinel, on watch,
and she removed her light to a remote part of the chamber, that she
might escape notice, during her further observation.

The same object still appeared. Presently, it advanced along the
rampart, towards her window, and she then distinguished something like
a human form, but the silence, with which it moved, convinced her it
was no sentinel. As it drew near, she hesitated whether to retire; a
thrilling curiosity inclined her to stay, but a dread of she scarcely
knew what warned her to withdraw.

While she paused, the figure came opposite to her casement, and was
stationary. Everything remained quiet; she had not heard even a
foot-fall; and the solemnity of this silence, with the mysterious form
she saw, subdued her spirits, so that she was moving from the casement,
when, on a sudden, she observed the figure start away, and glide down
the rampart, after which it was soon lost in the obscurity of night.
Emily continued to gaze, for some time, on the way it had passed, and
then retired within her chamber, musing on this strange circumstance,
and scarcely doubting, that she had witnessed a supernatural
appearance.

When her spirits recovered composure, she looked round for some other
explanation. Remembering what she had heard of the daring enterprises
of Montoni, it occurred to her, that she had just seen some unhappy
person, who, having been plundered by his banditti, was brought hither
a captive; and that the music she had formerly heard, came from him.
Yet, if they had plundered him, it still appeared improbable, that they
should have brought him to the castle, and it was also more consistent
with the manners of banditti to murder those they rob, than to make
them prisoners. But what, more than any other circumstance,
contradicted the supposition, that it was a prisoner, was that it
wandered on the terrace, without a guard: a consideration, which made
her dismiss immediately her first surmise.

Afterwards, she was inclined to believe, that Count Morano had obtained
admittance into the castle; but she soon recollected the difficulties
and dangers, that must have opposed such an enterprise, and that, if he
had so far succeeded, to come alone and in silence to her casement at
midnight was not the conduct he would have adopted, particularly since
the private staircase, communicating with her apartment, was known to
him; neither would he have uttered the dismal sounds she had heard.

Another suggestion represented, that this might be some person, who had
designs upon the castle; but the mournful sounds destroyed, also, that
probability. Thus, enquiry only perplexed her. Who, or what, it could
be that haunted this lonely hour, complaining in such doleful accents
and in such sweet music (for she was still inclined to believe, that
the former strains and the late appearance were connected), she had no
means of ascertaining; and imagination again assumed her empire, and
roused the mysteries of superstition.

She determined, however, to watch on the following night, when her
doubts might, perhaps, be cleared up; and she almost resolved to
address the figure, if it should appear again.



 CHAPTER III

Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp,
Oft seen in charnel-vaults and sepulchres,
Lingering, and sitting, by a new-made grave.
                    MILTON


On the following day, Montoni sent a second excuse to Emily, who was
surprised at the circumstance. “This is very strange!” said she to
herself. “His conscience tells him the purport of my visit, and he
defers it, to avoid an explanation.” She now almost resolved to throw
herself in his way, but terror checked the intention, and this day
passed, as the preceding one, with Emily, except that a degree of awful
expectation, concerning the approaching night, now somewhat disturbed
the dreadful calmness that had pervaded her mind.

Towards evening, the second part of the band, which had made the first
excursion among the mountains, returned to the castle, where, as they
entered the courts, Emily, in her remote chamber, heard their loud
shouts and strains of exultation, like the orgies of furies over some
horrid sacrifice. She even feared they were about to commit some
barbarous deed; a conjecture from which, however, Annette soon relieved
her, by telling, that the people were only exulting over the plunder
they had brought with them. This circumstance still further confirmed
her in the belief, that Montoni had really commenced to be a captain of
banditti, and meant to retrieve his broken fortunes by the plunder of
travellers! Indeed, when she considered all the circumstances of his
situation—in an armed, and almost inaccessible castle, retired far
among the recesses of wild and solitary mountains, along whose distant
skirts were scattered towns, and cities, whither wealthy travellers
were continually passing—this appeared to be the situation of all
others most suited for the success of schemes of rapine, and she
yielded to the strange thought, that Montoni was become a captain of
robbers. His character also, unprincipled, dauntless, cruel and
enterprising, seemed to fit him for the situation. Delighting in the
tumult and in the struggles of life, he was equally a stranger to pity
and to fear; his very courage was a sort of animal ferocity; not the
noble impulse of a principle, such as inspirits the mind against the
oppressor, in the cause of the oppressed; but a constitutional
hardiness of nerve, that cannot feel, and that, therefore, cannot fear.

Emily’s supposition, however natural, was in part erroneous, for she
was a stranger to the state of this country and to the circumstances,
under which its frequent wars were partly conducted. The revenues of
the many states of Italy being, at that time, insufficient to the
support of standing armies, even during the short periods, which the
turbulent habits both of the governments and the people permitted to
pass in peace, an order of men arose not known in our age, and but
faintly described in the history of their own. Of the soldiers,
disbanded at the end of every war, few returned to the safe, but
unprofitable occupations, then usual in peace. Sometimes they passed
into other countries, and mingled with armies, which still kept the
field. Sometimes they formed themselves into bands of robbers, and
occupied remote fortresses, where their desperate character, the
weakness of the governments which they offended, and the certainty,
that they could be recalled to the armies, when their presence should
be again wanted, prevented them from being much pursued by the civil
power; and, sometimes, they attached themselves to the fortunes of a
popular chief, by whom they were led into the service of any state,
which could settle with him the price of their valour. From this latter
practice arose their name—_Condottieri_; a term formidable all over
Italy, for a period, which concluded in the earlier part of the
seventeenth century, but of which it is not so easy to ascertain the
commencement.

Contests between the smaller states were then, for the most part,
affairs of enterprise alone, and the probabilities of success were
estimated, not from the skill, but from the personal courage of the
general, and the soldiers. The ability, which was necessary to the
conduct of tedious operations, was little valued. It was enough to know
how a party might be led towards their enemies, with the greatest
secrecy, or conducted from them in the compactest order. The officer
was to precipitate himself into a situation, where, but for his
example, the soldiers might not have ventured; and, as the opposed
parties knew little of each other’s strength, the event of the day was
frequently determined by the boldness of the first movements. In such
services the _Condottieri_ were eminent, and in these, where plunder
always followed success, their characters acquired a mixture of
intrepidity and profligacy, which awed even those whom they served.

When they were not thus engaged, their chief had usually his own
fortress, in which, or in its neighbourhood, they enjoyed an irksome
rest; and, though their wants were, at one time, partly supplied from
the property of the inhabitants, the lavish distribution of their
plunder at others, prevented them from being obnoxious; and the
peasants of such districts gradually shared the character of their
warlike visitors. The neighbouring governments sometimes professed, but
seldom endeavoured, to suppress these military communities; both
because it was difficult to do so, and because a disguised protection
of them ensured, for the service of their wars, a body of men, who
could not otherwise be so cheaply maintained, or so perfectly
qualified. The commanders sometimes even relied so far upon this policy
of the several powers, as to frequent their capitals; and Montoni,
having met them in the gaming parties of Venice and Padua, conceived a
desire to emulate their characters, before his ruined fortunes tempted
him to adopt their practices. It was for the arrangement of his present
plan of life, that the midnight councils were held at his mansion in
Venice, and at which Orsino and some other members of the present
community then assisted with suggestions, which they had since executed
with the wreck of their fortunes.

On the return of night, Emily resumed her station at the casement.
There was now a moon; and, as it rose over the tufted woods, its yellow
light served to show the lonely terrace and the surrounding objects,
more distinctly, than the twilight of the stars had done, and promised
Emily to assist her observations, should the mysterious form return. On
this subject, she again wavered in conjecture, and hesitated whether to
speak to the figure, to which a strong and almost irresistible interest
urged her; but terror, at intervals, made her reluctant to do so.

“If this is a person who has designs upon the castle,” said she, “my
curiosity may prove fatal to me; yet the mysterious music, and the
lamentations I heard, must surely have proceeded from him: if so, he
cannot be an enemy.”

She then thought of her unfortunate aunt, and, shuddering with grief
and horror, the suggestions of imagination seized her mind with all the
force of truth, and she believed, that the form she had seen was
supernatural. She trembled, breathed with difficulty, an icy coldness
touched her cheeks, and her fears for a while overcame her judgment.
Her resolution now forsook her, and she determined, if the figure
should appear, not to speak to it.

Thus the time passed, as she sat at her casement, awed by expectation,
and by the gloom and stillness of midnight; for she saw obscurely in
the moonlight only the mountains and woods, a cluster of towers, that
formed the west angle of the castle, and the terrace below; and heard
no sound, except, now and then, the lonely watch-word, passed by the
sentinels on duty, and afterwards the steps of the men who came to
relieve guard, and whom she knew at a distance on the rampart by their
pikes, that glittered in the moonbeam, and then, by the few short
words, in which they hailed their fellows of the night. Emily retired
within her chamber, while they passed the casement. When she returned
to it, all was again quiet. It was now very late, she was wearied with
watching, and began to doubt the reality of what she had seen on the
preceding night; but she still lingered at the window, for her mind was
too perturbed to admit of sleep. The moon shone with a clear lustre,
that afforded her a complete view of the terrace; but she saw only a
solitary sentinel, pacing at one end of it; and, at length, tired with
expectation, she withdrew to seek rest.

Such, however, was the impression, left on her mind by the music, and
the complaining she had formerly heard, as well as by the figure, which
she fancied she had seen, that she determined to repeat the watch, on
the following night.

Montoni, on the next day, took no notice of Emily’s appointed visit,
but she, more anxious than before to see him, sent Annette to enquire,
at what hour he would admit her. He mentioned eleven o’clock, and Emily
was punctual to the moment; at which she called up all her fortitude to
support the shock of his presence and the dreadful recollections it
enforced. He was with several of his officers, in the cedar room; on
observing whom she paused; and her agitation increased, while he
continued to converse with them, apparently not observing her, till
some of his officers, turning round, saw Emily, and uttered an
exclamation. She was hastily retiring, when Montoni’s voice arrested
her, and, in a faultering accent, she said,—“I would speak with you,
Signor Montoni, if you are at leisure.”

“These are my friends,” he replied, “whatever you would say, they may
hear.”

Emily, without replying, turned from the rude gaze of the chevaliers,
and Montoni then followed her to the hall, whence he led her to a small
room, of which he shut the door with violence. As she looked on his
dark countenance, she again thought she saw the murderer of her aunt;
and her mind was so convulsed with horror, that she had not power to
recall thought enough to explain the purport of her visit; and to trust
herself with the mention of Madame Montoni was more than she dared.

Montoni at length impatiently enquired what she had to say? “I have no
time for trifling,” he added, “my moments are important.”

Emily then told him, that she wished to return to France, and came to
beg, that he would permit her to do so.—But when he looked surprised,
and enquired for the motive of the request, she hesitated, became paler
than before, trembled, and had nearly sunk at his feet. He observed her
emotion, with apparent indifference, and interrupted the silence by
telling her, he must be gone. Emily, however, recalled her spirits
sufficiently to enable her to repeat her request. And, when Montoni
absolutely refused it, her slumbering mind was roused.

“I can no longer remain here with propriety, sir,” said she, “and I may
be allowed to ask, by what right you detain me.”

“It is my will that you remain here,” said Montoni, laying his hand on
the door to go; “let that suffice you.”

Emily, considering that she had no appeal from this will, forbore to
dispute his right, and made a feeble effort to persuade him to be just.
“While my aunt lived, sir,” said she, in a tremulous voice, “my
residence here was not improper; but now, that she is no more, I may
surely be permitted to depart. My stay cannot benefit you, sir, and
will only distress me.”

“Who told you, that Madame Montoni was dead?” said Montoni, with an
inquisitive eye. Emily hesitated, for nobody had told her so, and she
did not dare to avow the having seen that spectacle in the
portal-chamber, which had compelled her to the belief.

“Who told you so?” he repeated, more sternly.

“Alas! I know it too well,” replied Emily: “spare me on this terrible
subject!”

She sat down on a bench to support herself.

“If you wish to see her,” said Montoni, “you may; she lies in the east
turret.”

He now left the room, without awaiting her reply, and returned to the
cedar chamber, where such of the chevaliers as had not before seen
Emily, began to rally him, on the discovery they had made; but Montoni
did not appear disposed to bear this mirth, and they changed the
subject.

Having talked with the subtle Orsino, on the plan of an excursion,
which he meditated for a future day, his friend advised, that they
should lie in wait for the enemy, which Verezzi impetuously opposed,
reproached Orsino with want of spirit, and swore, that, if Montoni
would let him lead on fifty men, he would conquer all that should
oppose him.

Orsino smiled contemptuously; Montoni smiled too, but he also listened.
Verezzi then proceeded with vehement declamation and assertion, till he
was stopped by an argument of Orsino, which he knew not how to answer
better than by invective. His fierce spirit detested the cunning
caution of Orsino, whom he constantly opposed, and whose inveterate,
though silent, hatred he had long ago incurred. And Montoni was a calm
observer of both, whose different qualifications he knew, and how to
bend their opposite character to the perfection of his own designs. But
Verezzi, in the heat of opposition, now did not scruple to accuse
Orsino of cowardice, at which the countenance of the latter, while he
made no reply, was overspread with a livid paleness; and Montoni, who
watched his lurking eye, saw him put his hand hastily into his bosom.
But Verezzi, whose face, glowing with crimson, formed a striking
contrast to the complexion of Orsino, remarked not the action, and
continued boldly declaiming against cowards to Cavigni, who was slily
laughing at his vehemence, and at the silent mortification of Orsino,
when the latter, retiring a few steps behind, drew forth a stilletto to
stab his adversary in the back. Montoni arrested his half-extended arm,
and, with a significant look, made him return the poniard into his
bosom, unseen by all except himself; for most of the party were
disputing at a distant window, on the situation of a dell where they
meant to form an ambuscade.

When Verezzi had turned round, the deadly hatred, expressed on the
features of his opponent, raising, for the first time, a suspicion of
his intention, he laid his hand on his sword, and then, seeming to
recollect himself, strode up to Montoni.

“Signor,” said he, with a significant look at Orsino, “we are not a
band of assassins; if you have business for brave men, employ me on
this expedition: you shall have the last drop of my blood; if you have
only work for cowards—keep him,” pointing to Orsino, “and let me quit
Udolpho.”

Orsino, still more incensed, again drew forth his stilletto, and rushed
towards Verezzi, who, at the same instant, advanced with his sword,
when Montoni and the rest of the party interfered and separated them.

“This is the conduct of a boy,” said Montoni to Verezzi, “not of a man:
be more moderate in your speech.”

“Moderation is the virtue of cowards,” retorted Verezzi; “they are
moderate in everything—but in fear.”

“I accept your words,” said Montoni, turning upon him with a fierce and
haughty look, and drawing his sword out of the scabbard.

“With all my heart,” cried Verezzi, “though I did not mean them for
you.”

He directed a pass at Montoni; and, while they fought, the villain
Orsino made another attempt to stab Verezzi, and was again prevented.

The combatants were, at length, separated; and, after a very long and
violent dispute, reconciled. Montoni then left the room with Orsino,
whom he detained in private consultation for a considerable time.

Emily, meanwhile, stunned by the last words of Montoni, forgot, for the
moment, his declaration, that she should continue in the castle, while
she thought of her unfortunate aunt, who, he had said, was laid in the
east turret. In suffering the remains of his wife to lie thus long
unburied, there appeared a degree of brutality more shocking than she
had suspected even Montoni could practise.

After a long struggle, she determined to accept his permission to visit
the turret, and to take a last look of her ill-fated aunt: with which
design she returned to her chamber, and, while she waited for Annette
to accompany her, endeavoured to acquire fortitude sufficient to
support her through the approaching scene; for, though she trembled to
encounter it, she knew that to remember the performance of this last
act of duty would hereafter afford her consoling satisfaction.

Annette came, and Emily mentioned her purpose, from which the former
endeavoured to dissuade her, though without effect, and Annette was,
with much difficulty, prevailed upon to accompany her to the turret;
but no consideration could make her promise to enter the chamber of
death.

They now left the corridor, and, having reached the foot of the
staircase, which Emily had formerly ascended, Annette declared she
would go no further, and Emily proceeded alone. When she saw the track
of blood, which she had before observed, her spirits fainted, and,
being compelled to rest on the stairs, she almost determined to proceed
no further. The pause of a few moments restored her resolution, and she
went on.

As she drew near the landing-place, upon which the upper chamber
opened, she remembered, that the door was formerly fastened, and
apprehended, that it might still be so. In this expectation, however,
she was mistaken; for the door opened at once, into a dusky and silent
chamber, round which she fearfully looked, and then slowly advanced,
when a hollow voice spoke. Emily, who was unable to speak, or to move
from the spot, uttered no sound of terror. The voice spoke again; and,
then, thinking that it resembled that of Madame Montoni, Emily’s
spirits were instantly roused; she rushed towards a bed, that stood in
a remote part of the room, and drew aside the curtains. Within,
appeared a pale and emaciated face. She started back, then again
advanced, shuddered as she took up the skeleton hand, that lay
stretched upon the quilt; then let it drop, and then viewed the face
with a long, unsettled gaze. It was that of Madame Montoni, though so
changed by illness, that the resemblance of what it had been, could
scarcely be traced in what it now appeared. She was still alive, and,
raising her heavy eyes, she turned them on her niece.

“Where have you been so long?” said she, in the same tone, “I thought
you had forsaken me.”

“Do you indeed live,” said Emily, at length, “or is this but a terrible
apparition?” She received no answer, and again she snatched up the
hand. “This is substance,” she exclaimed, “but it is cold—cold as
marble!” She let it fall. “O, if you really live, speak!” said Emily,
in a voice of desperation, “that I may not lose my senses—say you know
me!”

“I do live,” replied Madame Montoni, “but—I feel that I am about to
die.”

Emily clasped the hand she held, more eagerly, and groaned. They were
both silent for some moments. Then Emily endeavoured to soothe her, and
enquired what had reduced her to this present deplorable state.

Montoni, when he removed her to the turret under the improbable
suspicion of having attempted his life, had ordered the men employed on
the occasion, to observe a strict secrecy concerning her. To this he
was influenced by a double motive. He meant to debar her from the
comfort of Emily’s visits, and to secure an opportunity of privately
dispatching her, should any new circumstances occur to confirm the
present suggestions of his suspecting mind. His consciousness of the
hatred he deserved it was natural enough should at first lead him to
attribute to her the attempt that had been made upon his life; and,
though there was no other reason to believe that she was concerned in
that atrocious design, his suspicions remained; he continued to confine
her in the turret, under a strict guard; and, without pity or remorse,
had suffered her to lie, forlorn and neglected, under a raging fever,
till it had reduced her to the present state.

The track of blood, which Emily had seen on the stairs, had flowed from
the unbound wound of one of the men employed to carry Madame Montoni,
and which he had received in the late affray. At night these men,
having contented themselves with securing the door of their prisoner’s
room, had retired from guard; and then it was, that Emily, at the time
of her first enquiry, had found the turret so silent and deserted.

When she had attempted to open the door of the chamber, her aunt was
sleeping, and this occasioned the silence, which had contributed to
delude her into a belief, that she was no more; yet had her terror
permitted her to persevere longer in the call, she would probably have
awakened Madame Montoni, and have been spared much suffering. The
spectacle in the portal-chamber, which afterwards confirmed Emily’s
horrible suspicion, was the corpse of a man, who had fallen in the
affray, and the same which had been borne into the servants’ hall,
where she took refuge from the tumult. This man had lingered under his
wounds for some days; and, soon after his death, his body had been
removed on the couch, on which he died, for interment in the vault
beneath the chapel, through which Emily and Barnardine had passed to
the chamber.

Emily, after asking Madame Montoni a thousand questions concerning
herself, left her, and sought Montoni; for the more solemn interest she
felt for her aunt, made her now regardless of the resentment her
remonstrances might draw upon herself, and of the improbability of his
granting what she meant to entreat.

“Madame Montoni is now dying, sir,” said Emily, as soon as she saw
him—“Your resentment, surely will not pursue her to the last moment!
Suffer her to be removed from that forlorn room to her own apartment,
and to have necessary comforts administered.”

“Of what service will that be, if she is dying?” said Montoni, with
apparent indifference.

“The service, at leave, of saving you, sir, from a few of those pangs
of conscience you must suffer, when you shall be in the same
situation,” said Emily, with imprudent indignation, of which Montoni
soon made her sensible, by commanding her to quit his presence. Then,
forgetting her resentment, and impressed only by compassion for the
piteous state of her aunt, dying without succour, she submitted to
humble herself to Montoni, and to adopt every persuasive means, that
might induce him to relent towards his wife.

For a considerable time he was proof against all she said, and all she
looked; but at length the divinity of pity, beaming in Emily’s eyes,
seemed to touch his heart. He turned away, ashamed of his better
feelings, half sullen and half relenting; but finally consented, that
his wife should be removed to her own apartment, and that Emily should
attend her. Dreading equally, that this relief might arrive too late,
and that Montoni might retract his concession, Emily scarcely staid to
thank him for it, but, assisted by Annette, she quickly prepared Madame
Montoni’s bed, and they carried her a cordial, that might enable her
feeble frame to sustain the fatigue of a removal.

Madame was scarcely arrived in her own apartment, when an order was
given by her husband, that she should remain in the turret; but Emily,
thankful that she had made such dispatch, hastened to inform him of it,
as well as that a second removal would instantly prove fatal, and he
suffered his wife to continue where she was.

During this day, Emily never left Madame Montoni, except to prepare
such little nourishing things as she judged necessary to sustain her,
and which Madame Montoni received with quiet acquiescence, though she
seemed sensible that they could not save her from approaching
dissolution, and scarcely appeared to wish for life. Emily meanwhile
watched over her with the most tender solicitude, no longer seeing her
imperious aunt in the poor object before her, but the sister of her
late beloved father, in a situation that called for all her compassion
and kindness. When night came, she determined to sit up with her aunt,
but this the latter positively forbade, commanding her to retire to
rest, and Annette alone to remain in her chamber. Rest was, indeed,
necessary to Emily, whose spirits and frame were equally wearied by the
occurrences and exertions of the day; but she would not leave Madame
Montoni, till after the turn of midnight, a period then thought so
critical by the physicians.

Soon after twelve, having enjoined Annette to be wakeful, and to call
her, should any change appear for the worse, Emily sorrowfully bade
Madame Montoni good night, and withdrew to her chamber. Her spirits
were more than usually depressed by the piteous condition of her aunt,
whose recovery she scarcely dared to expect. To her own misfortunes she
saw no period, inclosed as she was, in a remote castle, beyond the
reach of any friends, had she possessed such, and beyond the pity even
of strangers; while she knew herself to be in the power of a man
capable of any action, which his interest, or his ambition, might
suggest.

Occupied by melancholy reflections and by anticipations as sad, she did
not retire immediately to rest, but leaned thoughtfully on her open
casement. The scene before her of woods and mountains, reposing in the
moonlight, formed a regretted contrast with the state of her mind; but
the lonely murmur of these woods, and the view of this sleeping
landscape, gradually soothed her emotions and softened her to tears.

She continued to weep, for some time, lost to everything, but to a
gentle sense of her misfortunes. When she, at length, took the
handkerchief from her eyes, she perceived, before her, on the terrace
below, the figure she had formerly observed, which stood fixed and
silent, immediately opposite to her casement. On perceiving it, she
started back, and terror for some time overcame curiosity;—at length,
she returned to the casement, and still the figure was before it, which
she now compelled herself to observe, but was utterly unable to speak,
as she had formerly intended. The moon shone with a clear light, and it
was, perhaps, the agitation of her mind, that prevented her
distinguishing, with any degree of accuracy, the form before her. It
was still stationary, and she began to doubt, whether it was really
animated.

Her scattered thoughts were now so far returned as to remind her, that
her light exposed her to dangerous observation, and she was stepping
back to remove it, when she perceived the figure move, and then wave
what seemed to be its arm, as if to beckon her; and, while she gazed,
fixed in fear, it repeated the action. She now attempted to speak, but
the words died on her lips, and she went from the casement to remove
her light; as she was doing which, she heard, from without, a faint
groan. Listening, but not daring to return, she presently heard it
repeated.

“Good God!—what can this mean!” said she.

Again she listened, but the sound came no more; and, after a long
interval of silence, she recovered courage enough to go to the
casement, when she again saw the same appearance! It beckoned again,
and again uttered a low sound.

“That groan was surely human!” said she. “I _will_ speak.” “Who is it,”
cried Emily in a faint voice, “that wanders at this late hour?”

The figure raised its head but suddenly started away, and glided down
the terrace. She watched it, for a long while, passing swiftly in the
moonlight, but heard no footstep, till a sentinel from the other
extremity of the rampart walked slowly along. The man stopped under her
window, and, looking up, called her by name. She was retiring
precipitately, but, a second summons inducing her to reply, the soldier
then respectfully asked if she had seen anything pass. On her
answering, that she had; he said no more, but walked away down the
terrace, Emily following him with her eyes, till he was lost in the
distance. But, as he was on guard, she knew he could not go beyond the
rampart, and, therefore, resolved to await his return.

Soon after, his voice was heard, at a distance, calling loudly; and
then a voice still more distant answered, and, in the next moment, the
watch-word was given, and passed along the terrace. As the soldiers
moved hastily under the casement, she called to enquire what had
happened, but they passed without regarding her.

Emily’s thoughts returning to the figure she had seen, “It cannot be a
person, who has designs upon the castle,” said she; “such a one would
conduct himself very differently. He would not venture where sentinels
were on watch, nor fix himself opposite to a window, where he perceived
he must be observed; much less would he beckon, or utter a sound of
complaint. Yet it cannot be a prisoner, for how could he obtain the
opportunity to wander thus?”

If she had been subject to vanity, she might have supposed this figure
to be some inhabitant of the castle, who wandered under her casement in
the hope of seeing her, and of being allowed to declare his admiration;
but this opinion never occurred to Emily, and, if it had, she would
have dismissed it as improbable, on considering, that, when the
opportunity of speaking had occurred, it had been suffered to pass in
silence; and that, even at the moment in which she had spoken, the form
had abruptly quitted the place.

While she mused, two sentinels walked up the rampart in earnest
conversation, of which she caught a few words, and learned from these,
that one of their comrades had fallen down senseless. Soon after, three
other soldiers appeared slowly advancing from the bottom of the
terrace, but she heard only a low voice, that came at intervals. As
they drew near, she perceived this to be the voice of him, who walked
in the middle, apparently supported by his comrades; and she again
called to them, enquiring what had happened. At the sound of her voice,
they stopped, and looked up, while she repeated her question, and was
told, that Roberto, their fellow of the watch, had been seized with a
fit, and that his cry, as he fell, had caused a false alarm.

“Is he subject to fits?” said Emily.

“Yes, Signora,” replied Roberto; “but if I had not, what I saw was
enough to have frightened the Pope himself.”

“What was it?” enquired Emily, trembling.

“I cannot tell what it was, lady, or what I saw, or how it vanished,”
replied the soldier, who seemed to shudder at the recollection.

“Was it the person, whom you followed down the rampart, that has
occasioned you this alarm?” said Emily, endeavouring to conceal her
own.

“Person!” exclaimed the man,—“it was the devil, and this is not the
first time I have seen him!”

“Nor will it be the last,” observed one of his comrades, laughing.

“No, no, I warrant not,” said another.

“Well,” rejoined Roberto, “you may be as merry now, as you please; you
were none so jocose the other night, Sebastian, when you were on watch
with Launcelot.”

“Launcelot need not talk of that,” replied Sebastian, “let him remember
how he stood trembling, and unable to give the _word_, till the man was
gone. If the man had not come so silently upon us, I would have seized
him, and soon made him tell who he was.”

“What man?” enquired Emily.

“It was no man, lady,” said Launcelot, who stood by, “but the devil
himself, as my comrade says. What man, who does not live in the castle,
could get within the walls at midnight? Why, I might just as well
pretend to march to Venice, and get among all the Senators, when they
are counselling; and I warrant I should have more chance of getting out
again alive, than any fellow, that we should catch within the gates
after dark. So I think I have proved plainly enough, that this can be
nobody that lives out of the castle; and now I will prove, that it can
be nobody that lives in the castle—for, if he did—why should he be
afraid to be seen? So after this, I hope nobody will pretend to tell me
it was anybody. No, I say again, by holy Pope! it was the devil, and
Sebastian, there, knows this is not the first time we have seen him.”

“When did you see the figure, then, before?” said Emily half smiling,
who, though she thought the conversation somewhat too much, felt an
interest, which would not permit her to conclude it.

“About a week ago, lady,” said Sebastian, taking up the story.

“And where?”

“On the rampart, lady, higher up.”

“Did you pursue it, that it fled?”

“No, Signora. Launcelot and I were on watch together, and everything
was so still, you might have heard a mouse stir, when, suddenly,
Launcelot says—Sebastian! do you see nothing? I turned my head a little
to the left, as it might be—thus. No, says I. Hush! said
Launcelot,—look yonder—just by the last cannon on the rampart! I
looked, and then thought I did see something move; but there being no
light, but what the stars gave, I could not be certain. We stood quite
silent, to watch it, and presently saw something pass along the castle
wall just opposite to us!”

“Why did you not seize it, then?” cried a soldier, who had scarcely
spoken till now.

“Aye, why did you not seize it?” said Roberto.

“You should have been there to have done that,” replied Sebastian. “You
would have been bold enough to have taken it by the throat, though it
had been the devil himself; we could not take such a liberty, perhaps,
because we are not so well acquainted with him, as you are. But, as I
was saying, it stole by us so quickly, that we had not time to get rid
of our surprise, before it was gone. Then, we knew it was in vain to
follow. We kept constant watch all that night, but we saw it no more.
Next morning, we told some of our comrades, who were on duty on other
parts of the ramparts, what we had seen; but they had seen nothing, and
laughed at us, and it was not till tonight, that the same figure walked
again.”

“Where did you lose it, friend?” said Emily to Roberto.

“When I left you, lady,” replied the man, “you might see me go down the
rampart, but it was not till I reached the east terrace, that I saw
anything. Then, the moon shining bright, I saw something like a shadow
flitting before me, as it were, at some distance. I stopped, when I
turned the corner of the east tower, where I had seen this figure not a
moment before,—but it was gone! As I stood, looking through the old
arch which leads to the east rampart, and where I am sure it had
passed, I heard, all of a sudden, such a sound!—it was not like a
groan, or a cry, or a shout, or anything I ever heard in my life. I
heard it only once, and that was enough for me; for I know nothing that
happened after, till I found my comrades, here, about me.”

“Come,” said Sebastian, “let us go to our posts—the moon is setting.
Good night, lady!”

“Aye, let us go,” rejoined Roberto. “Good night, lady.”

“Good night; the holy mother guard you!” said Emily, as she closed her
casement and retired to reflect upon the strange circumstance that had
just occurred, connecting which with what had happened on former
nights, she endeavoured to derive from the whole something more
positive, than conjecture. But her imagination was inflamed, while her
judgment was not enlightened, and the terrors of superstition again
pervaded her mind.



 CHAPTER IV

There is one within,
Besides the things that we have heard and seen,
Recounts most horrid sights, seen by the watch.
                    JULIUS CÆSAR


In the morning, Emily found Madame Montoni nearly in the same
condition, as on the preceding night; she had slept little, and that
little had not refreshed her; she smiled on her niece, and seemed
cheered by her presence, but spoke only a few words, and never named
Montoni, who, however, soon after, entered the room. His wife, when she
understood that he was there, appeared much agitated, but was entirely
silent, till Emily rose from a chair at the bedside, when she begged,
in a feeble voice, that she would not leave her.

The visit of Montoni was not to sooth his wife, whom he knew to be
dying, or to console, or to ask her forgiveness, but to make a last
effort to procure that signature, which would transfer her estates in
Languedoc, after her death, to him rather than to Emily. This was a
scene, that exhibited, on his part, his usual inhumanity, and, on that
of Madame Montoni, a persevering spirit, contending with a feeble
frame; while Emily repeatedly declared to him her willingness to resign
all claim to those estates, rather than that the last hours of her aunt
should be disturbed by contention. Montoni, however, did not leave the
room, till his wife, exhausted by the obstinate dispute, had fainted,
and she lay so long insensible, that Emily began to fear that the spark
of life was extinguished. At length, she revived, and, looking feebly
up at her niece, whose tears were falling over her, made an effort to
speak, but her words were unintelligible, and Emily again apprehended
she was dying. Afterwards, however, she recovered her speech, and,
being somewhat restored by a cordial, conversed for a considerable
time, on the subject of her estates in France, with clearness and
precision. She directed her niece where to find some papers relative to
them, which she had hitherto concealed from the search of Montoni, and
earnestly charged her never to suffer these papers to escape her.

Soon after this conversation, Madame Montoni sunk into a dose, and
continued slumbering, till evening, when she seemed better than she had
been since her removal from the turret. Emily never left her, for a
moment, till long after midnight, and even then would not have quitted
the room, had not her aunt entreated, that she would retire to rest.
She then obeyed, the more willingly, because her patient appeared
somewhat recruited by sleep; and, giving Annette the same injunction,
as on the preceding night, she withdrew to her own apartment. But her
spirits were wakeful and agitated, and, finding it impossible to sleep,
she determined to watch, once more, for the mysterious appearance, that
had so much interested and alarmed her.

It was now the second watch of the night, and about the time when the
figure had before appeared. Emily heard the passing steps of the
sentinels, on the rampart, as they changed guard; and, when all was
again silent, she took her station at the casement, leaving her lamp in
a remote part of the chamber, that she might escape notice from
without. The moon gave a faint and uncertain light, for heavy vapours
surrounded it, and, often rolling over the disk, left the scene below
in total darkness. It was in one of these moments of obscurity, that
she observed a small and lambent flame, moving at some distance on the
terrace. While she gazed, it disappeared, and, the moon again emerging
from the lurid and heavy thunder clouds, she turned her attention to
the heavens, where the vivid lightnings darted from cloud to cloud, and
flashed silently on the woods below. She loved to catch, in the
momentary gleam, the gloomy landscape. Sometimes, a cloud opened its
light upon a distant mountain, and, while the sudden splendour
illumined all its recesses of rock and wood, the rest of the scene
remained in deep shadow; at others, partial features of the castle were
revealed by the glimpse—the ancient arch leading to the east rampart,
the turret above, or the fortifications beyond; and then, perhaps, the
whole edifice with all its towers, its dark massy walls and pointed
casements would appear, and vanish in an instant.

Emily, looking again upon the rampart, perceived the flame she had seen
before; it moved onward; and, soon after, she thought she heard a
footstep. The light appeared and disappeared frequently, while, as she
watched, it glided under her casements, and, at the same instant, she
was certain, that a footstep passed, but the darkness did not permit
her to distinguish any object except the flame. It moved away, and
then, by a gleam of lightning, she perceived some person on the
terrace. All the anxieties of the preceding night returned. This person
advanced, and the playing flame alternately appeared and vanished.
Emily wished to speak, to end her doubts, whether this figure were
human or supernatural; but her courage failed as often as she attempted
utterance, till the light moved again under the casement, and she
faintly demanded, who passed.

“A friend,” replied a voice.

“What friend?” said Emily, somewhat encouraged “who are you, and what
is that light you carry?”

“I am Anthonio, one of the Signor’s soldiers,” replied the voice.

“And what is that tapering light you bear?” said Emily, “see how it
darts upwards,—and now it vanishes!”

“This light, lady,” said the soldier, “has appeared tonight as you see
it, on the point of my lance, ever since I have been on watch; but what
it means I cannot tell.”

“This is very strange!” said Emily.

“My fellow-guard,” continued the man, “has the same flame on his arms;
he says he has sometimes seen it before. I never did; I am but lately
come to the castle, for I have not been long a soldier.”

“How does your comrade account for it?” said Emily.

“He says it is an omen, lady, and bodes no good.”

“And what harm can it bode?” rejoined Emily.

“He knows not so much as that, lady.”

Whether Emily was alarmed by this omen, or not, she certainly was
relieved from much terror by discovering this man to be only a soldier
on duty, and it immediately occurred to her, that it might be he, who
had occasioned so much alarm on the preceding night. There were,
however, some circumstances, that still required explanation. As far as
she could judge by the faint moonlight, that had assisted her
observation, the figure she had seen did not resemble this man either
in shape or size; besides, she was certain it had carried no arms. The
silence of its steps, if steps it had, the moaning sounds, too, which
it had uttered, and its strange disappearance, were circumstances of
mysterious import, that did not apply, with probability, to a soldier
engaged in the duty of his guard.

She now enquired of the sentinel, whether he had seen any person
besides his fellow watch, walking on the terrace, about midnight; and
then briefly related what she had herself observed.

“I was not on guard that night, lady,” replied the man, “but I heard of
what happened. There are amongst us, who believe strange things.
Strange stories, too, have long been told of this castle, but it is no
business of mine to repeat them; and, for my part, I have no reason to
complain; our Chief does nobly by us.”

“I commend your prudence,” said Emily. “Good night, and accept this
from me,” she added, throwing him a small piece of coin, and then
closing the casement to put an end to the discourse.

When he was gone, she opened it again, listened with a gloomy pleasure
to the distant thunder, that began to murmur among the mountains, and
watched the arrowy lightnings, which broke over the remoter scene. The
pealing thunder rolled onward, and then, reverbed by the mountains,
other thunder seemed to answer from the opposite horizon; while the
accumulating clouds, entirely concealing the moon, assumed a red
sulphureous tinge, that foretold a violent storm.

Emily remained at her casement, till the vivid lightning, that now,
every instant, revealed the wide horizon and the landscape below, made
it no longer safe to do so, and she went to her couch; but, unable to
compose her mind to sleep, still listened in silent awe to the
tremendous sounds, that seemed to shake the castle to its foundation.

She had continued thus for a considerable time, when, amidst the uproar
of the storm, she thought she heard a voice, and, raising herself to
listen, saw the chamber door open, and Annette enter with a countenance
of wild affright.

“She is dying, ma’amselle, my lady is dying!” said she.

Emily started up, and ran to Madame Montoni’s room. When she entered,
her aunt appeared to have fainted, for she was quite still, and
insensible; and Emily with a strength of mind, that refused to yield to
grief, while any duty required her activity, applied every means that
seemed likely to restore her. But the last struggle was over—she was
gone for ever.

When Emily perceived, that all her efforts were ineffectual, she
interrogated the terrified Annette, and learned, that Madame Montoni
had fallen into a doze soon after Emily’s departure, in which she had
continued, until a few minutes before her death.

“I wondered, ma’amselle,” said Annette, “what was the reason my lady
did not seem frightened at the thunder, when I was so terrified, and I
went often to the bed to speak to her, but she appeared to be asleep;
till presently I heard a strange noise, and, on going to her, saw she
was dying.”

Emily, at this recital, shed tears. She had no doubt but that the
violent change in the air, which the tempest produced, had effected
this fatal one, on the exhausted frame of Madame Montoni.

After some deliberation, she determined that Montoni should not be
informed of this event till the morning, for she considered, that he
might, perhaps, utter some inhuman expressions, such as in the present
temper of her spirits she could not bear. With Annette alone,
therefore, whom she encouraged by her own example, she performed some
of the last solemn offices for the dead, and compelled herself to watch
during the night, by the body of her deceased aunt. During this solemn
period, rendered more awful by the tremendous storm that shook the air,
she frequently addressed herself to Heaven for support and protection,
and her pious prayers, we may believe, were accepted of the God, that
giveth comfort.



 CHAPTER V

The midnight clock has toll’d; and hark, the bell
Of death beats slow! heard ye the note profound?
It pauses now; and now with rising knell
Flings to the hollow gale its sullen sound.
                    MASON


When Montoni was informed of the death of his wife, and considered that
she had died without giving him the signature so necessary to the
accomplishment of his wishes, no sense of decency restrained the
expression of his resentment. Emily anxiously avoided his presence, and
watched, during two days and two nights, with little intermission, by
the corpse of her late aunt. Her mind deeply impressed with the unhappy
fate of this object, she forgot all her faults, her unjust and
imperious conduct to herself; and, remembering only her sufferings,
thought of her only with tender compassion. Sometimes, however, she
could not avoid musing upon the strange infatuation that had proved so
fatal to her aunt, and had involved herself in a labyrinth of
misfortune, from which she saw no means of escaping,—the marriage with
Montoni. But, when she considered this circumstance, it was “more in
sorrow than in anger,”—more for the purpose of indulging lamentation,
than reproach.

In her pious cares she was not disturbed by Montoni, who not only
avoided the chamber, where the remains of his wife were laid, but that
part of the castle adjoining to it, as if he had apprehended a
contagion in death. He seemed to have given no orders respecting the
funeral, and Emily began to fear he meant to offer a new insult to the
memory of Madame Montoni; but from this apprehension she was relieved,
when, on the evening of the second day, Annette informed her, that the
interment was to take place that night. She knew, that Montoni would
not attend; and it was so very grievous to her to think that the
remains of her unfortunate aunt would pass to the grave without one
relative, or friend to pay them the last decent rites, that she
determined to be deterred by no considerations for herself, from
observing this duty. She would otherwise have shrunk from the
circumstance of following them to the cold vault, to which they were to
be carried by men whose air and countenances seemed to stamp them for
murderers, at the midnight hour of silence and privacy, which Montoni
had chosen for committing, if possible, to oblivion the reliques of a
woman, whom his harsh conduct had, at least, contributed to destroy.

Emily, shuddering with emotions of horror and grief, assisted by
Annette, prepared the corpse for interment; and, having wrapt it in
cerements, and covered it with a winding-sheet, they watched beside it,
till past midnight, when they heard the approaching footsteps of the
men, who were to lay it in its earthy bed. It was with difficulty that
Emily overcame her emotion, when, the door of the chamber being thrown
open, their gloomy countenances were seen by the glare of the torch
they carried, and two of them, without speaking, lifted the body on
their shoulders, while the third preceding them with the light,
descended through the castle towards the grave, which was in the lower
vault of the chapel within the castle walls.

They had to cross two courts, towards the east wing of the castle,
which, adjoining the chapel, was, like it, in ruins: but the silence
and gloom of these courts had now little power over Emily’s mind,
occupied as it was, with more mournful ideas; and she scarcely heard
the low and dismal hooting of the night-birds, that roosted among the
ivied battlements of the ruin, or perceived the still flittings of the
bat, which frequently crossed her way. But, when, having entered the
chapel, and passed between the mouldering pillars of the aisles, the
bearers stopped at a flight of steps, that led down to a low arched
door, and, their comrade having descended to unlock it, she saw
imperfectly the gloomy abyss beyond;—saw the corpse of her aunt carried
down these steps, and the ruffian-like figure, that stood with a torch
at the bottom to receive it—all her fortitude was lost in emotions of
inexpressible grief and terror. She turned to lean upon Annette, who
was cold and trembling like herself, and she lingered so long on the
summit of the flight, that the gleam of the torch began to die away on
the pillars of the chapel, and the men were almost beyond her view.
Then, the gloom around her awakening other fears, and a sense of what
she considered to be her duty overcoming her reluctance, she descended
to the vaults, following the echo of footsteps and the faint ray, that
pierced the darkness, till the harsh grating of a distant door, that
was opened to receive the corpse, again appalled her.

After the pause of a moment, she went on, and, as she entered the
vaults, saw between the arches, at some distance, the men lay down the
body near the edge of an open grave, where stood another of Montoni’s
men and a priest, whom she did not observe, till he began the burial
service; then, lifting her eyes from the ground, she saw the venerable
figure of the friar, and heard him in a low voice, equally solemn and
affecting, perform the service for the dead. At the moment, in which
they let down the body into the earth, the scene was such as only the
dark pencil of a Domenichino, perhaps, could have done justice to. The
fierce features and wild dress of the _condottieri_, bending with their
torches over the grave, into which the corpse was descending, were
contrasted by the venerable figure of the monk, wrapt in long black
garments, his cowl thrown back from his pale face, on which the light
gleaming strongly showed the lines of affliction softened by piety, and
the few grey locks, which time had spared on his temples: while, beside
him, stood the softer form of Emily, who leaned for support upon
Annette; her face half averted, and shaded by a thin veil, that fell
over her figure; and her mild and beautiful countenance fixed in grief
so solemn as admitted not of tears, while she thus saw committed
untimely to the earth her last relative and friend. The gleams, thrown
between the arches of the vaults, where, here and there, the broken
ground marked the spots in which other bodies had been recently
interred, and the general obscurity beyond were circumstances, that
alone would have led on the imagination of a spectator to scenes more
horrible than even that which was pictured at the grave of the
misguided and unfortunate Madame Montoni.

When the service was over, the friar regarded Emily with attention and
surprise, and looked as if he wished to speak to her, but was
restrained by the presence of the _condottieri_, who, as they now led
the way to the courts, amused themselves with jokes upon his holy
order, which he endured in silence, demanding only to be conducted
safely to his convent, and to which Emily listened with concern and
even horror. When they reached the court, the monk gave her his
blessing, and, after a lingering look of pity, turned away to the
portal, whither one of the men carried a torch; while Annette, lighting
another, preceded Emily to her apartment. The appearance of the friar
and the expression of tender compassion, with which he had regarded
her, had interested Emily, who, though it was at her earnest
supplication, that Montoni had consented to allow a priest to perform
the last rites for his deceased wife, knew nothing concerning this
person, till Annette now informed her, that he belonged to a monastery,
situated among the mountains at a few miles distance. The Superior, who
regarded Montoni and his associates, not only with aversion, but with
terror, had probably feared to offend him by refusing his request, and
had, therefore, ordered a monk to officiate at the funeral, who, with
the meek spirit of a christian, had overcome his reluctance to enter
the walls of such a castle, by the wish of performing what he
considered to be his duty, and, as the chapel was built on consecrated
ground, had not objected to commit to it the remains of the late
unhappy Madame Montoni.

Several days passed with Emily in total seclusion, and in a state of
mind partaking both of terror for herself, and grief for the departed.
She, at length, determined to make other efforts to persuade Montoni to
permit her return to France. Why he should wish to detain her, she
could scarcely dare to conjecture; but it was too certain that he did
so, and the absolute refusal he had formerly given to her departure
allowed her little hope, that he would now consent to it. But the
horror, which his presence inspired, made her defer, from day to day,
the mention of this subject; and at last she was awakened from her
inactivity only by a message from him, desiring her attendance at a
certain hour. She began to hope he meant to resign, now that her aunt
was no more, the authority he had usurped over her; till she
recollected, that the estates, which had occasioned so much contention,
were now hers, and she then feared Montoni was about to employ some
stratagem for obtaining them, and that he would detain her his
prisoner, till he succeeded. This thought, instead of overcoming her
with despondency, roused all the latent powers of her fortitude into
action; and the property, which she would willingly have resigned to
secure the peace of her aunt, she resolved, that no common sufferings
of her own should ever compel her to give to Montoni. For Valancourt’s
sake also she determined to preserve these estates, since they would
afford that competency, by which she hoped to secure the comfort of
their future lives. As she thought of this, she indulged the tenderness
of tears, and anticipated the delight of that moment, when, with
affectionate generosity, she might tell him they were his own. She saw
the smile, that lighted up his features—the affectionate regard, which
spoke at once his joy and thanks; and, at this instant, she believed
she could brave any suffering, which the evil spirit of Montoni might
be preparing for her. Remembering then, for the first time since her
aunt’s death, the papers relative to the estates in question, she
determined to search for them, as soon as her interview with Montoni
was over.

With these resolutions she met him at the appointed time, and waited to
hear his intention before she renewed her request. With him were Orsino
and another officer, and both were standing near a table, covered with
papers, which he appeared to be examining.

“I sent for you, Emily,” said Montoni, raising his head, “that you
might be a witness in some business, which I am transacting with my
friend Orsino. All that is required of you will be to sign your name to
this paper:” he then took one up, hurried unintelligibly over some
lines, and, laying it before her on the table, offered her a pen. She
took it, and was going to write—when the design of Montoni came upon
her mind like a flash of lightning; she trembled, let the pen fall, and
refused to sign what she had not read. Montoni affected to laugh at her
scruples, and, taking up the paper, again pretended to read; but Emily,
who still trembled on perceiving her danger, and was astonished, that
her own credulity had so nearly betrayed her, positively refused to
sign any paper whatever. Montoni, for some time, persevered in
affecting to ridicule this refusal; but, when he perceived by her
steady perseverance, that she understood his design, he changed his
manner, and bade her follow him to another room. There he told her,
that he had been willing to spare himself and her the trouble of
useless contest, in an affair, where his will was justice, and where
she should find it law; and had, therefore, endeavoured to persuade,
rather than to compel, her to the practice of her duty.

“I, as the husband of the late Signora Montoni,” he added, “am the heir
of all she possessed; the estates, therefore, which she refused to me
in her life-time, can no longer be withheld, and, for your own sake, I
would undeceive you, respecting a foolish assertion she once made to
you in my hearing—that these estates would be yours, if she died
without resigning them to me. She knew at that moment, she had no power
to withhold them from me, after her decease; and I think you have more
sense, than to provoke my resentment by advancing an unjust claim. I am
not in the habit of flattering, and you will, therefore, receive, as
sincere, the praise I bestow, when I say, that you possess an
understanding superior to that of your sex; and that you have none of
those contemptible foibles, that frequently mark the female
character—such as avarice and the love of power, which latter makes
women delight to contradict and to tease, when they cannot conquer. If
I understand your disposition and your mind, you hold in sovereign
contempt these common failings of your sex.”

Montoni paused; and Emily remained silent and expecting; for she knew
him too well, to believe he would condescend to such flattery, unless
he thought it would promote his own interest; and, though he had
forborne to name vanity among the foibles of women, it was evident,
that he considered it to be a predominant one, since he designed to
sacrifice to hers the character and understanding of her whole sex.

“Judging as I do,” resumed Montoni, “I cannot believe you will oppose,
where you know you cannot conquer, or, indeed, that you would wish to
conquer, or be avaricious of any property, when you have not justice on
your side. I think it proper, however, to acquaint you with the
alternative. If you have a just opinion of the subject in question, you
shall be allowed a safe conveyance to France, within a short period;
but, if you are so unhappy as to be misled by the late assertion of the
Signora, you shall remain my prisoner, till you are convinced of your
error.”

Emily calmly said,

“I am not so ignorant, Signor, of the laws on this subject, as to be
misled by the assertion of any person. The law, in the present
instance, gives me the estates in question, and my own hand shall never
betray my right.”

“I have been mistaken in my opinion of you, it appears,” rejoined
Montoni, sternly. “You speak boldly, and presumptuously, upon a
subject, which you do not understand. For once, I am willing to pardon
the conceit of ignorance; the weakness of your sex, too, from which, it
seems, you are not exempt, claims some allowance; but, if you persist
in this strain—you have everything to fear from my justice.”

“From your justice, Signor,” rejoined Emily, “I have nothing to fear—I
have only to hope.”

Montoni looked at her with vexation, and seemed considering what to
say. “I find that you are weak enough,” he resumed, “to credit the idle
assertion I alluded to! For your own sake I lament this; as to me, it
is of little consequence. Your credulity can punish only yourself; and
I must pity the weakness of mind, which leads you to so much suffering
as you are compelling me to prepare for you.”

“You may find, perhaps, Signor,” said Emily, with mild dignity, “that
the strength of my mind is equal to the justice of my cause; and that I
can endure with fortitude, when it is in resistance of oppression.”

“You speak like a heroine,” said Montoni, contemptuously; “we shall see
whether you can suffer like one.”

Emily was silent, and he left the room.

Recollecting, that it was for Valancourt’s sake she had thus resisted,
she now smiled complacently upon the threatened sufferings, and retired
to the spot, which her aunt had pointed out as the repository of the
papers, relative to the estates, where she found them as described;
and, since she knew of no better place of concealment, than this,
returned them, without examining their contents, being fearful of
discovery, while she should attempt a perusal.

To her own solitary chamber she once more returned, and there thought
again of the late conversation with Montoni, and of the evil she might
expect from opposition to his will. But his power did not appear so
terrible to her imagination, as it was wont to do: a sacred pride was
in her heart, that taught it to swell against the pressure of
injustice, and almost to glory in the quiet sufferance of ills, in a
cause, which had also the interest of Valancourt for its object. For
the first time, she felt the full extent of her own superiority to
Montoni, and despised the authority, which, till now, she had only
feared.

As she sat musing, a peal of laughter rose from the terrace, and, on
going to the casement, she saw, with inexpressible surprise, three
ladies, dressed in the gala habit of Venice, walking with several
gentlemen below. She gazed in an astonishment that made her remain at
the window, regardless of being observed, till the group passed under
it; and, one of the strangers looking up, she perceived the features of
Signora Livona, with whose manners she had been so much charmed, the
day after her arrival at Venice, and who had been there introduced at
the table of Montoni. This discovery occasioned her an emotion of
doubtful joy; for it was matter of joy and comfort to know, that a
person, of a mind so gentle, as that of Signora Livona seemed to be,
was near her; yet there was something so extraordinary in her being at
this castle, circumstanced as it now was, and evidently, by the gaiety
of her air, with her own consent, that a very painful surmise arose,
concerning her character. But the thought was so shocking to Emily,
whose affection the fascinating manners of the Signora had won, and
appeared so improbable, when she remembered these manners, that she
dismissed it almost instantly.

On Annette’s appearance, however, she enquired, concerning these
strangers; and the former was as eager to tell, as Emily was to learn.

“They are just come, ma’amselle,” said Annette, “with two Signors from
Venice, and I was glad to see such Christian faces once again.—But what
can they mean by coming here? They must surely be stark mad to come
freely to such a place as this! Yet they do come freely, for they seem
merry enough, I am sure.”

“They were taken prisoners, perhaps?” said Emily.

“Taken prisoners!” exclaimed Annette; “no, indeed, ma’amselle, not
they. I remember one of them very well at Venice: she came two or three
times, to the Signor’s you know, ma’amselle, and it was said, but I did
not believe a word of it—it was said, that the Signor liked her better
than he should do. Then why, says I, bring her to my lady? Very true,
said Ludovico; but he looked as if he knew more, too.”

Emily desired Annette would endeavour to learn who these ladies were,
as well as all she could concerning them; and she then changed the
subject, and spoke of distant France.

“Ah, ma’amselle! we shall never see it more!” said Annette, almost
weeping.—“I must come on my travels, forsooth!”

Emily tried to sooth and to cheer her, with a hope, in which she
scarcely herself indulged.

“How—how, ma’amselle, could you leave France, and leave Mons.
Valancourt, too?” said Annette, sobbing. “I—I—am sure, if Ludovico had
been in France, I would never have left it.”

“Why do you lament quitting France, then?” said Emily, trying to smile,
“since, if you had remained there, you would not have found Ludovico.”

“Ah, ma’amselle! I only wish I was out of this frightful castle,
serving you in France, and I would care about nothing else!”

“Thank you, my good Annette, for your affectionate regard; the time
will come, I hope, when you may remember the expression of that wish
with pleasure.”

Annette departed on her business, and Emily sought to lose the sense of
her own cares, in the visionary scenes of the poet; but she had again
to lament the irresistible force of circumstances over the taste and
powers of the mind; and that it requires a spirit at ease to be
sensible even to the abstract pleasures of pure intellect. The
enthusiasm of genius, with all its pictured scenes, now appeared cold,
and dim. As she mused upon the book before her, she involuntarily
exclaimed, “Are these, indeed, the passages, that have so often given
me exquisite delight? Where did the charm exist?—Was it in my mind, or
in the imagination of the poet? It lived in each,” said she, pausing.
“But the fire of the poet is vain, if the mind of his reader is not
tempered like his own, however it may be inferior to his in power.”

Emily would have pursued this train of thinking, because it relieved
her from more painful reflection, but she found again, that thought
cannot always be controlled by will; and hers returned to the
consideration of her own situation.

In the evening, not choosing to venture down to the ramparts, where she
would be exposed to the rude gaze of Montoni’s associates, she walked
for air in the gallery, adjoining her chamber; on reaching the further
end of which she heard distant sounds of merriment and laughter. It was
the wild uproar of riot, not the cheering gaiety of tempered mirth; and
seemed to come from that part of the castle, where Montoni usually was.
Such sounds, at this time, when her aunt had been so few days dead,
particularly shocked her, consistent as they were with the late conduct
of Montoni.

As she listened, she thought she distinguished female voices mingling
with the laughter, and this confirmed her worst surmise, concerning the
character of Signora Livona and her companions. It was evident, that
they had not been brought hither by compulsion; and she beheld herself
in the remote wilds of the Apennine, surrounded by men, whom she
considered to be little less than ruffians, and their worst associates,
amid scenes of vice, from which her soul recoiled in horror. It was at
this moment, when the scenes of the present and the future opened to
her imagination, that the image of Valancourt failed in its influence,
and her resolution shook with dread. She thought she understood all the
horrors, which Montoni was preparing for her, and shrunk from an
encounter with such remorseless vengeance, as he could inflict. The
disputed estates she now almost determined to yield at once, whenever
he should again call upon her, that she might regain safety and
freedom; but then, the remembrance of Valancourt would steal to her
heart, and plunge her into the distractions of doubt.

She continued walking in the gallery, till evening threw its melancholy
twilight through the painted casements, and deepened the gloom of the
oak wainscoting around her; while the distant perspective of the
corridor was so much obscured, as to be discernible only by the
glimmering window, that terminated it.

Along the vaulted halls and passages below, peals of laughter echoed
faintly, at intervals, to this remote part of the castle, and seemed to
render the succeeding stillness more dreary. Emily, however, unwilling
to return to her more forlorn chamber, whither Annette was not yet
come, still paced the gallery. As she passed the door of the apartment,
where she had once dared to lift the veil, which discovered to her a
spectacle so horrible, that she had never after remembered it, but with
emotions of indescribable awe, this remembrance suddenly recurred. It
now brought with it reflections more terrible, than it had yet done,
which the late conduct of Montoni occasioned; and, hastening to quit
the gallery, while she had power to do so, she heard a sudden step
behind her.—It might be that of Annette; but, turning fearfully to
look, she saw, through the gloom, a tall figure following her, and all
the horrors of that chamber rushed upon her mind. In the next moment,
she found herself clasped in the arms of some person, and heard a deep
voice murmur in her ear.

When she had power to speak, or to distinguish articulated sounds, she
demanded who detained her.

“It is I,” replied the voice—“Why are you thus alarmed?”

She looked on the face of the person who spoke, but the feeble light,
that gleamed through the high casement at the end of the gallery, did
not permit her to distinguish the features.

“Whoever you are,” said Emily, in a trembling voice, “for heaven’s sake
let me go!”

“My charming Emily,” said the man, “why will you shut yourself up in
this obscure place, when there is so much gaiety below? Return with me
to the cedar parlour, where you will be the fairest ornament of the
party;—you shall not repent the exchange.”

Emily disdained to reply, and still endeavoured to liberate herself.

“Promise, that you will come,” he continued, “and I will release you
immediately; but first give me a reward for so doing.”

“Who are you?” demanded Emily, in a tone of mingled terror and
indignation, while she still struggled for liberty—“who are you, that
have the cruelty thus to insult me?”

“Why call me cruel?” said the man, “I would remove you from this dreary
solitude to a merry party below. Do you not know me?”

Emily now faintly remembered, that he was one of the officers who were
with Montoni when she attended him in the morning. “I thank you for the
kindness of your intention,” she replied, without appearing to
understand him, “but I wish for nothing so much as that you would leave
me.”

“Charming Emily!” said he, “give up this foolish whim for solitude, and
come with me to the company, and eclipse the beauties who make part of
it; you, only, are worthy of my love.” He attempted to kiss her hand,
but the strong impulse of her indignation gave her power to liberate
herself, and she fled towards the chamber. She closed the door, before
he reached it, having secured which, she sunk in a chair, overcome by
terror and by the exertion she had made, while she heard his voice, and
his attempts to open the door, without having the power to raise
herself. At length, she perceived him depart, and had remained,
listening, for a considerable time, and was somewhat revived by not
hearing any sound, when suddenly she remembered the door of the private
staircase, and that he might enter that way, since it was fastened only
on the other side. She then employed herself in endeavouring to secure
it, in the manner she had formerly done. It appeared to her, that
Montoni had already commenced his scheme of vengeance, by withdrawing
from her his protection, and she repented of the rashness, that had
made her brave the power of such a man. To retain the estates seemed to
be now utterly impossible, and to preserve her life, perhaps her
honour, she resolved, if she should escape the horrors of this night,
to give up all claims to the estates, on the morrow, provided Montoni
would suffer her to depart from Udolpho.

When she had come to this decision, her mind became more composed,
though she still anxiously listened, and often started at ideal sounds,
that appeared to issue from the staircase.

Having sat in darkness for some hours, during all which time Annette
did not appear, she began to have serious apprehensions for her; but,
not daring to venture down into the castle, was compelled to remain in
uncertainty, as to the cause of this unusual absence.

Emily often stole to the staircase door to listen if any step
approached, but still no sound alarmed her: determining, however, to
watch, during the night, she once more rested on her dark and desolate
couch, and bathed the pillow with innocent tears. She thought of her
deceased parents and then of the absent Valancourt, and frequently
called upon their names; for the profound stillness, that now reigned,
was propitious to the musing sorrow of her mind.

While she thus remained, her ear suddenly caught the notes of distant
music, to which she listened attentively, and, soon perceiving this to
be the instrument she had formerly heard at midnight, she rose, and
stepped softly to the casement, to which the sounds appeared to come
from a lower room.

In a few moments, their soft melody was accompanied by a voice so full
of pathos, that it evidently sang not of imaginary sorrows. Its sweet
and peculiar tones she thought she had somewhere heard before; yet, if
this was not fancy, it was, at most, a very faint recollection. It
stole over her mind, amidst the anguish of her present suffering, like
a celestial strain, soothing, and reassuring her;—“Pleasant as the gale
of spring, that sighs on the hunter’s ear, when he awakens from dreams
of joy, and has heard the music of the spirits of the hill.”*

(*Note: Ossian. [A. R.])


But her emotion can scarcely be imagined, when she heard sung, with the
taste and simplicity of true feeling, one of the popular airs of her
native province, to which she had so often listened with delight, when
a child, and which she had so often heard her father repeat! To this
well-known song, never, till now, heard but in her native country, her
heart melted, while the memory of past times returned. The pleasant,
peaceful scenes of Gascony, the tenderness and goodness of her parents,
the taste and simplicity of her former life—all rose to her fancy, and
formed a picture, so sweet and glowing, so strikingly contrasted with
the scenes, the characters and the dangers, which now surrounded
her—that her mind could not bear to pause upon the retrospect, and
shrunk at the acuteness of its own sufferings.

Her sighs were deep and convulsed; she could no longer listen to the
strain, that had so often charmed her to tranquillity, and she withdrew
from the casement to a remote part of the chamber. But she was not yet
beyond the reach of the music; she heard the measure change, and the
succeeding air called her again to the window, for she immediately
recollected it to be the same she had formerly heard in the
fishing-house in Gascony. Assisted, perhaps, by the mystery, which had
then accompanied this strain, it had made so deep an impression on her
memory, that she had never since entirely forgotten it; and the manner,
in which it was now sung, convinced her, however unaccountable the
circumstances appeared, that this was the same voice she had then
heard. Surprise soon yielded to other emotions; a thought darted, like
lightning, upon her mind, which discovered a train of hopes, that
revived all her spirits. Yet these hopes were so new, so unexpected, so
astonishing, that she did not dare to trust, though she could not
resolve to discourage them. She sat down by the casement, breathless,
and overcome with the alternate emotions of hope and fear; then rose
again, leaned from the window, that she might catch a nearer sound,
listened, now doubting and then believing, softly exclaimed the name of
Valancourt, and then sunk again into the chair. Yes, it was possible,
that Valancourt was near her, and she recollected circumstances, which
induced her to believe it was his voice she had just heard. She
remembered he had more than once said that the fishing-house, where she
had formerly listened to this voice and air, and where she had seen
pencilled sonnets, addressed to herself, had been his favourite haunt,
before he had been made known to her; there, too, she had herself
unexpectedly met him. It appeared, from these circumstances, more than
probable, that he was the musician, who had formerly charmed her
attention, and the author of the lines, which had expressed such tender
admiration;—who else, indeed, could it be? She was unable, at that
time, to form a conjecture, as to the writer, but, since her
acquaintance with Valancourt, whenever he had mentioned the
fishing-house to have been known to him, she had not scrupled to
believe that he was the author of the sonnets.

As these considerations passed over her mind, joy, fear and tenderness
contended at her heart; she leaned again from the casement to catch the
sounds, which might confirm, or destroy her hope, though she did not
recollect to have ever heard him sing; but the voice, and the
instrument, now ceased.

She considered for a moment whether she should venture to speak: then,
not choosing, lest it should be he, to mention his name, and yet too
much interested to neglect the opportunity of enquiring, she called
from the casement, “Is that song from Gascony?” Her anxious attention
was not cheered by any reply; everything remained silent. Her
impatience increasing with her fears, she repeated the question; but
still no sound was heard, except the sighings of the wind among the
battlements above; and she endeavoured to console herself with a
belief, that the stranger, whoever he was, had retired, before she had
spoken, beyond the reach of her voice, which, it appeared certain, had
Valancourt heard and recognised, he would instantly have replied to.
Presently, however, she considered, that a motive of prudence, and not
an accidental removal, might occasion his silence; but the surmise that
led to this reflection, suddenly changed her hope and joy to terror and
grief; for, if Valancourt were in the castle, it was too probable that
he was here a prisoner, taken with some of his countrymen, many of whom
were at that time engaged in the wars of Italy, or intercepted in some
attempt to reach her. Had he even recollected Emily’s voice, he would
have feared, in these circumstances, to reply to it, in the presence of
the men, who guarded his prison.

What so lately she had eagerly hoped she now believed she
dreaded;—dreaded to know, that Valancourt was near her; and, while she
was anxious to be relieved from her apprehension for his safety, she
still was unconscious, that a hope of soon seeing him, struggled with
the fear.

She remained listening at the casement, till the air began to freshen,
and one high mountain in the east to glimmer with the morning; when,
wearied with anxiety, she retired to her couch, where she found it
utterly impossible to sleep, for joy, tenderness, doubt and
apprehension, distracted her during the whole night. Now she rose from
the couch, and opened the casement to listen; then she would pace the
room with impatient steps, and, at length, return with despondence to
her pillow. Never did hours appear to move so heavily, as those of this
anxious night; after which she hoped that Annette might appear, and
conclude her present state of torturing suspense.



 CHAPTER VI

Might we but hear
The folded flocks penn’d in their wattled cotes,
Or sound of pastoral reed with oaten stops,
Or whistle from the lodge, or village cock
Count the night watches to his feathery dames,
’Twould be some solace yet, some little cheering
In this close dungeon of innumerous boughs.
                    MILTON


In the morning Emily was relieved from her fears for Annette, who came
at an early hour.

“Here were fine doings in the castle, last night, ma’amselle,” said
she, as soon as she entered the room,—“fine doings, indeed! Were you
not frightened, ma’amselle, at not seeing me?”

“I was alarmed both on your account and on my own,” replied Emily—“What
detained you?”

“Aye, I said so, I told him so; but it would not do. It was not my
fault, indeed, ma’amselle, for I could not get out. That rogue Ludovico
locked me up again.”

“Locked you up!” said Emily, with displeasure, “Why do you permit
Ludovico to lock you up?”

“Holy Saints!” exclaimed Annette, “how can I help it! If he will lock
the door, ma’amselle, and take away the key, how am I to get out,
unless I jump through the window? But that I should not mind so much,
if the casements here were not all so high; one can hardly scramble up
to them on the inside, and one should break one’s neck, I suppose,
going down on the outside. But you know, I dare say, ma’am, what a
hurly-burly the castle was in last night; you must have heard some of
the uproar.”

“What, were they disputing, then?” said Emily.

“No, ma’amselle, nor fighting, but almost as good, for I believe there
was not one of the Signors sober; and what is more, not one of those
fine ladies sober, either. I thought, when I saw them first, that all
those fine silks and fine veils,—why, ma’amselle, their veils were
worked with silver! and fine trimmings—boded no good—I guessed what
they were!”

“Good God!” exclaimed Emily, “what will become of me!”

“Aye, ma’am, Ludovico said much the same thing of me. ‘Good God!’ said
he, ‘Annette, what is to become of you, if you are to go running about
the castle among all these drunken Signors?’

“‘O!’ says I, ‘for that matter, I only want to go to my young lady’s
chamber, and I have only to go, you know, along the vaulted passage and
across the great hall and up the marble staircase and along the north
gallery and through the west wing of the castle and I am in the
corridor in a minute.’ ‘Are you so?’ says he, ‘and what is to become of
you, if you meet any of those noble cavaliers in the way?’ ‘Well,’ says
I, ‘if you think there is danger, then, go with me, and guard me; I am
never afraid when you are by.’ ‘What!’ says he, ‘when I am scarcely
recovered of one wound, shall I put myself in the way of getting
another? for if any of the cavaliers meet you, they will fall
a-fighting with me directly. No, no,’ says he, ‘I will cut the way
shorter, than through the vaulted passage and up the marble staircase,
and along the north gallery and through the west wing of the castle,
for you shall stay here, Annette; you shall not go out of this room,
tonight.’ So, with that I says—”

“Well, well,” said Emily, impatiently, and anxious to enquire on
another subject,—“so he locked you up?”

“Yes, he did indeed, ma’amselle, notwithstanding all I could say to the
contrary; and Caterina and I and he staid there all night. And in a few
minutes after I was not so vexed, for there came Signor Verezzi roaring
along the passage, like a mad bull, and he mistook Ludovico’s hall, for
old Carlo’s; so he tried to burst open the door, and called out for
more wine, for that he had drunk all the flasks dry, and was dying of
thirst. So we were all as still as night, that he might suppose there
was nobody in the room; but the Signor was as cunning as the best of
us, and kept calling out at the door, ‘Come forth, my ancient hero!’
said he, ‘here is no enemy at the gate, that you need hide yourself:
come forth, my valorous Signor Steward!’ Just then old Carlo opened his
door, and he came with a flask in his hand; for, as soon as the Signor
saw him, he was as tame as could be, and followed him away as naturally
as a dog does a butcher with a piece of meat in his basket. All this I
saw through the key-hole. ‘Well, Annette,’ said Ludovico, jeeringly,
‘shall I let you out now?’ ‘O no,’ says I, ‘I would not—’”

“I have some questions to ask you on another subject,” interrupted
Emily, quite wearied by this story. “Do you know whether there are any
prisoners in the castle, and whether they are confined at this end of
the edifice?”

“I was not in the way, ma’amselle,” replied Annette, “when the first
party came in from the mountains, and the last party is not come back
yet, so I don’t know, whether there are any prisoners; but it is
expected back tonight, or tomorrow, and I shall know then, perhaps.”

Emily enquired if she had ever heard the servants talk of prisoners.

“Ah ma’amselle!” said Annette archly, “now I dare say you are thinking
of Monsieur Valancourt, and that he may have come among the armies,
which, they say, are come from our country, to fight against this
state, and that he has met with some of _our_ people, and is taken
captive. O Lord! how glad I should be, if it was so!”

“Would you, indeed, be glad?” said Emily, in a tone of mournful
reproach.

“To be sure I should, ma’am,” replied Annette, “and would not you be
glad too, to see Signor Valancourt? I don’t know any chevalier I like
better, I have a very great regard for the Signor, truly.”

“Your regard for him cannot be doubted,” said Emily, “since you wish to
see him a prisoner.”

“Why no, ma’amselle, not a prisoner either; but one must be glad to see
him, you know. And it was only the other night I dreamt—I dreamt I saw
him drive into the castle-yard all in a coach and six, and dressed out,
with a laced coat and a sword, like a lord as he is.”

Emily could not forbear smiling at Annette’s ideas of Valancourt, and
repeated her enquiry, whether she had heard the servants talk of
prisoners.

“No, ma’amselle,” replied she, “never; and lately they have done
nothing but talk of the apparition, that has been walking about of a
night on the ramparts, and that frightened the sentinels into fits. It
came among them like a flash of fire, they say, and they all fell down
in a row, till they came to themselves again; and then it was gone, and
nothing to be seen but the old castle walls; so they helped one another
up again as fast as they could. You would not believe, ma’amselle,
though I showed you the very cannon, where it used to appear.”

“And are you, indeed, so simple, Annette,” said Emily, smiling at this
curious exaggeration of the circumstances she had witnessed, “as to
credit these stories?”

“Credit them, ma’amselle! why all the world could not persuade me out
of them. Roberto and Sebastian and half a dozen more of them went into
fits! To be sure, there was no occasion for that; I said, myself, there
was no need of that, for, says I, when the enemy comes, what a pretty
figure they will cut, if they are to fall down in fits, all of a row!
The enemy won’t be so civil, perhaps, as to walk off, like the ghost,
and leave them to help one another up, but will fall to, cutting and
slashing, till he makes them all rise up dead men. No, no, says I,
there is reason in all things: though I might have fallen down in a fit
that was no rule for them, being, because it is no business of mine to
look gruff, and fight battles.”

Emily endeavoured to correct the superstitious weakness of Annette,
though she could not entirely subdue her own; to which the latter only
replied, “Nay, ma’amselle, you will believe nothing; you are almost as
bad as the Signor himself, who was in a great passion when they told of
what had happened, and swore that the first man, who repeated such
nonsense, should be thrown into the dungeon under the east turret. This
was a hard punishment too, for only talking nonsense, as he called it,
but I dare say he had other reasons for calling it so, than you have,
ma’am.”

Emily looked displeased, and made no reply. As she mused upon the
recollected appearance, which had lately so much alarmed her, and
considered the circumstances of the figure having stationed itself
opposite to her casement, she was for a moment inclined to believe it
was Valancourt, whom she had seen. Yet, if it was he, why did he not
speak to her, when he had the opportunity of doing so—and, if he was a
prisoner in the castle, and he could be here in no other character, how
could he obtain the means of walking abroad on the rampart? Thus she
was utterly unable to decide, whether the musician and the form she had
observed, were the same, or, if they were, whether this was Valancourt.
She, however, desired that Annette would endeavour to learn whether any
prisoners were in the castle, and also their names.

“O dear, ma’amselle!” said Annette, “I forget to tell you what you bade
me ask about, the ladies, as they call themselves, who are lately come
to Udolpho. Why that Signora Livona, that the Signor brought to see my
late lady at Venice, is his mistress now, and was little better then, I
dare say. And Ludovico says (but pray be secret, ma’am) that his
_Excellenza_ introduced her only to impose upon the world, that had
begun to make free with her character. So when people saw my lady
notice her, they thought what they had heard must be scandal. The other
two are the mistresses of Signor Verezzi and Signor Bertolini; and
Signor Montoni invited them all to the castle; and so, yesterday, he
gave a great entertainment; and there they were, all drinking Tuscany
wine and all sorts, and laughing and singing, till they made the castle
ring again. But I thought they were dismal sounds, so soon after my
poor lady’s death too; and they brought to my mind what she would have
thought, if she had heard them—but she cannot hear them now, poor soul!
said I.”

Emily turned away to conceal her emotion, and then desired Annette to
go, and make enquiry, concerning the prisoners, that might be in the
castle, but conjured her to do it with caution, and on no account to
mention her name, or that of Monsieur Valancourt.

“Now I think of it, ma’amselle,” said Annette, “I do believe there are
prisoners, for I overheard one of the Signor’s men, yesterday, in the
servants hall, talking something about ransoms, and saying what a fine
thing it was for his _Excellenza_ to catch up men, and they were as
good booty as any other, because of the ransoms. And the other man was
grumbling, and saying it was fine enough for the Signor, but none so
fine for his soldiers, because, said he, we don’t go shares there.”

This information heightened Emily’s impatience to know more, and
Annette immediately departed on her enquiry.

The late resolution of Emily to resign her estates to Montoni, now gave
way to new considerations; the possibility, that Valancourt was near
her, revived her fortitude, and she determined to brave the threatened
vengeance, at least, till she could be assured whether he was really in
the castle. She was in this temper of mind, when she received a message
from Montoni, requiring her attendance in the cedar parlour, which she
obeyed with trembling, and, on her way thither, endeavoured to animate
her fortitude with the idea of Valancourt.

Montoni was alone. “I sent for you,” said he, “to give you another
opportunity of retracting your late mistaken assertions concerning the
Languedoc estates. I will condescend to advise, where I may command.—If
you are really deluded by an opinion, that you have any right to these
estates, at least, do not persist in the error—an error, which you may
perceive, too late, has been fatal to you. Dare my resentment no
further, but sign the papers.”

“If I have no right in these estates, sir,” said Emily, “of what
service can it be to you, that I should sign any papers, concerning
them? If the lands are yours by law, you certainly may possess them,
without my interference, or my consent.”

“I will have no more argument,” said Montoni, with a look that made her
tremble. “What had I but trouble to expect, when I condescended to
reason with a baby! But I will be trifled with no longer: let the
recollection of your aunt’s sufferings, in consequence of her folly and
obstinacy, teach you a lesson.—Sign the papers.”

Emily’s resolution was for a moment awed:—she shrunk at the
recollections he revived, and from the vengeance he threatened; but
then, the image of Valancourt, who so long had loved her, and who was
now, perhaps, so near her, came to her heart, and, together with the
strong feelings of indignation, with which she had always, from her
infancy, regarded an act of injustice, inspired her with a noble,
though imprudent, courage.

“Sign the papers,” said Montoni, more impatiently than before.

“Never, sir,” replied Emily; “that request would have proved to me the
injustice of your claim, had I even been ignorant of my right.”

Montoni turned pale with anger, while his quivering lip and lurking eye
made her almost repent the boldness of her speech.

“Then all my vengeance falls upon you,” he exclaimed, with a horrible
oath. “And think not it shall be delayed. Neither the estates in
Languedoc, nor Gascony, shall be yours; you have dared to question my
right,—now dare to question my power. I have a punishment which you
think not of; it is terrible! This night—this very night—”

“This night!” repeated another voice.

Montoni paused, and turned half round, but, seeming to recollect
himself, he proceeded in a lower tone.

“You have lately seen one terrible example of obstinacy and folly; yet
this, it appears, has not been sufficient to deter you.—I could tell
you of others—I could make you tremble at the bare recital.”

He was interrupted by a groan, which seemed to rise from underneath the
chamber they were in; and, as he threw a glance round it, impatience
and rage flashed from his eyes, yet something like a shade of fear
passed over his countenance. Emily sat down in a chair, near the door,
for the various emotions she had suffered, now almost overcame her; but
Montoni paused scarcely an instant, and, commanding his features,
resumed his discourse in a lower, yet sterner voice.

“I say, I could give you other instances of my power and of my
character, which it seems you do not understand, or you would not defy
me.—I could tell you, that, when once my resolution is taken—but I am
talking to a baby. Let me, however, repeat, that terrible as are the
examples I could recite, the recital could not now benefit you; for,
though your repentance would put an immediate end to opposition, it
would not now appease my indignation.—I will have vengeance as well as
justice.”

Another groan filled the pause which Montoni made.

“Leave the room instantly!” said he, seeming not to notice this strange
occurrence. Without power to implore his pity, she rose to go, but
found that she could not support herself; awe and terror overcame her,
and she sunk again into the chair.

“Quit my presence!” cried Montoni. “This affectation of fear ill
becomes the heroine who has just dared to brave my indignation.”

“Did you hear nothing, Signor?” said Emily, trembling, and still unable
to leave the room.

“I heard my own voice,” rejoined Montoni, sternly.

“And nothing else?” said Emily, speaking with difficulty.—“There again!
Do you hear nothing now?”

“Obey my order,” repeated Montoni. “And for these fool’s tricks—I will
soon discover by whom they are practised.”

Emily again rose, and exerted herself to the utmost to leave the room,
while Montoni followed her; but, instead of calling aloud to his
servants to search the chamber, as he had formerly done on a similar
occurrence, passed to the ramparts.

As, in her way to the corridor, she rested for a moment at an open
casement, Emily saw a party of Montoni’s troops winding down a distant
mountain, whom she noticed no further than as they brought to her mind
the wretched prisoners they were, perhaps, bringing to the castle. At
length, having reached her apartment, she threw herself upon the couch,
overcome with the new horrors of her situation. Her thoughts lost in
tumult and perplexity, she could neither repent of, nor approve, her
late conduct; she could only remember, that she was in the power of a
man, who had no principle of action—but his will; and the astonishment
and terrors of superstition, which had, for a moment, so strongly
assailed her, now yielded to those of reason.

She was, at length, roused from the reverie which engaged her, by a
confusion of distant voices, and a clattering of hoofs, that seemed to
come, on the wind, from the courts. A sudden hope, that some good was
approaching, seized her mind, till she remembered the troops she had
observed from the casement, and concluded this to be the party, which
Annette had said were expected at Udolpho.

Soon after, she heard voices faintly from the halls, and the noise of
horses’ feet sunk away in the wind; silence ensued. Emily listened
anxiously for Annette’s step in the corridor, but a pause of total
stillness continued, till again the castle seemed to be all tumult and
confusion. She heard the echoes of many footsteps, passing to and fro
in the halls and avenues below, and then busy tongues were loud on the
rampart. Having hurried to her casement, she perceived Montoni, with
some of his officers, leaning on the walls, and pointing from them;
while several soldiers were employed at the further end of the rampart
about some cannon; and she continued to observe them, careless of the
passing time.

Annette at length appeared, but brought no intelligence of Valancourt,
“For, ma’amselle,” said she, “all the people pretend to know nothing
about any prisoners. But here is a fine piece of business! The rest of
the party are just arrived, ma’am; they came scampering in, as if they
would have broken their necks; one scarcely knew whether the man, or
his horse would get within the gates first. And they have brought
word—and such news! they have brought word, that a party of the enemy,
as they call them, are coming towards the castle; so we shall have all
the officers of justice, I suppose, besieging it! all those
terrible-looking fellows one used to see at Venice.”

“Thank God!” exclaimed Emily, fervently, “there is yet a hope left for
me, then!”

“What mean you, ma’amselle? Do you wish to fall into the hands of those
sad-looking men! Why I used to shudder as I passed them, and should
have guessed what they were, if Ludovico had not told me.”

“We cannot be in worse hands than at present,” replied Emily,
unguardedly; “but what reason have you to suppose these are officers of
justice?”

“Why _our_ people, ma’am, are all in such a fright, and a fuss; and I
don’t know anything but the fear of justice, that could make them so. I
used to think nothing on earth could fluster them, unless, indeed, it
was a ghost, or so; but now, some of them are for hiding down in the
vaults under the castle; but you must not tell the Signor this,
ma’amselle, and I overheard two of them talking—Holy Mother! what makes
you look so sad, ma’amselle? You don’t hear what I say!”

“Yes, I do, Annette; pray proceed.”

“Well, ma’amselle, all the castle is in such hurly-burly. Some of the
men are loading the cannon, and some are examining the great gates, and
the walls all round, and are hammering and patching up, just as if all
those repairs had never been made, that were so long about. But what is
to become of me and you, ma’amselle, and Ludovico? O! when I hear the
sound of the cannon, I shall die with fright. If I could but catch the
great gate open for one minute, I would be even with it for shutting me
within these walls so long!—it should never see me again.”

Emily caught the latter words of Annette. “O! if you could find it
open, but for one moment!” she exclaimed, “my peace might yet be
saved!” The heavy groan she uttered, and the wildness of her look,
terrified Annette, still more than her words; who entreated Emily to
explain the meaning of them, to whom it suddenly occurred, that
Ludovico might be of some service, if there should be a possibility of
escape, and who repeated the substance of what had passed between
Montoni and herself, but conjured her to mention this to no person
except to Ludovico. “It may, perhaps, be in his power,” she added, “to
effect our escape. Go to him, Annette, tell him what I have to
apprehend, and what I have already suffered; but entreat him to be
secret, and to lose no time in attempting to release us. If he is
willing to undertake this he shall be amply rewarded. I cannot speak
with him myself, for we might be observed, and then effectual care
would be taken to prevent our flight. But be quick, Annette, and, above
all, be discreet—I will await your return in this apartment.”

The girl, whose honest heart had been much affected by the recital, was
now as eager to obey, as Emily was to employ her, and she immediately
quitted the room.

Emily’s surprise increased, as she reflected upon Annette’s
intelligence. “Alas!” said she, “what can the officers of justice do
against an armed castle? these cannot be such.” Upon further
consideration, however, she concluded, that, Montoni’s bands having
plundered the country round, the inhabitants had taken arms, and were
coming with the officers of police and a party of soldiers, to force
their way into the castle. “But they know not,” thought she, “its
strength, or the armed numbers within it. Alas! except from flight, I
have nothing to hope!”

Montoni, though not precisely what Emily apprehended him to be—a
captain of banditti—had employed his troops in enterprises not less
daring, or less atrocious, than such a character would have undertaken.
They had not only pillaged, whenever opportunity offered, the helpless
traveller, but had attacked, and plundered the villas of several
persons, which, being situated among the solitary recesses of the
mountains, were totally unprepared for resistance. In these expeditions
the commanders of the party did not appear, and the men, partly
disguised, had sometimes been mistaken for common robbers, and, at
others, for bands of the foreign enemy, who, at that period, invaded
the country. But, though they had already pillaged several mansions,
and brought home considerable treasures, they had ventured to approach
only one castle, in the attack of which they were assisted by other
troops of their own order; from this, however, they were vigorously
repulsed, and pursued by some of the foreign enemy, who were in league
with the besieged. Montoni’s troops fled precipitately towards Udolpho,
but were so closely tracked over the mountains, that, when they reached
one of the heights in the neighbourhood of the castle, and looked back
upon the road, they perceived the enemy winding among the cliffs below,
and at not more than a league distant. Upon this discovery, they
hastened forward with increased speed, to prepare Montoni for the
enemy; and it was their arrival, which had thrown the castle into such
confusion and tumult.

As Emily awaited anxiously some information from below, she now saw
from her casements a body of troops pour over the neighbouring heights;
and, though Annette had been gone a very short time, and had a
difficult and dangerous business to accomplish, her impatience for
intelligence became painful: she listened; opened her door; and often
went out upon the corridor to meet her.

At length, she heard a footstep approach her chamber; and, on opening
the door, saw, not Annette, but old Carlo! New fears rushed upon her
mind. He said he came from the Signor, who had ordered him to inform
her, that she must be ready to depart from Udolpho immediately, for
that the castle was about to be besieged; and that mules were preparing
to convey her, with her guides, to a place of safety.

“Of safety!” exclaimed Emily, thoughtlessly; “has, then, the Signor so
much consideration for me?”

Carlo looked upon the ground, and made no reply. A thousand opposite
emotions agitated Emily, successively, as she listened to old Carlo;
those of joy, grief, distrust and apprehension, appeared, and vanished
from her mind, with the quickness of lightning. One moment, it seemed
impossible, that Montoni could take this measure merely for her
preservation; and so very strange was his sending her from the castle
at all, that she could attribute it only to the design of carrying into
execution the new scheme of vengeance, with which he had menaced her.
In the next instant, it appeared so desirable to quit the castle, under
any circumstances, that she could not but rejoice in the prospect,
believing that change must be for the better, till she remembered the
probability of Valancourt being detained in it, when sorrow and regret
usurped her mind, and she wished, much more fervently than she had yet
done, that it might not be his voice which she had heard.

Carlo having reminded her, that she had no time to lose, for that the
enemy were within sight of the castle, Emily entreated him to inform
her whither she was to go; and, after some hesitation, he said he had
received no orders to tell; but, on her repeating the question,
replied, that he believed she was to be carried into Tuscany.

“To Tuscany!” exclaimed Emily—“and why thither?”

Carlo answered, that he knew nothing further, than that she was to be
lodged in a cottage on the borders of Tuscany, at the feet of the
Apennines—“Not a day’s journey distant,” said he.

Emily now dismissed him; and, with trembling hands, prepared the small
package, that she meant to take with her; while she was employed about
which Annette returned.

“O ma’amselle!” said she, “nothing can be done! Ludovico says the new
porter is more watchful even than Barnardine was, and we might as well
throw ourselves in the way of a dragon, as in his. Ludovico is almost
as broken-hearted as you are, ma’am, on my account, he says, and I am
sure I shall never live to hear the cannon fire twice!”

She now began to weep, but revived upon hearing of what had just
occurred, and entreated Emily to take her with her.

“That I will do most willingly,” replied Emily, “if Signor Montoni
permits it;” to which Annette made no reply, but ran out of the room,
and immediately sought Montoni, who was on the terrace, surrounded by
his officers, where she began her petition. He sharply bade her go into
the castle, and absolutely refused her request. Annette, however, not
only pleaded for herself, but for Ludovico; and Montoni had ordered
some of his men to take her from his presence, before she would retire.

In an agony of disappointment, she returned to Emily, who foreboded
little good towards herself, from this refusal to Annette, and who,
soon after, received a summons to repair to the great court, where the
mules, with her guides, were in waiting. Emily here tried in vain to
sooth the weeping Annette, who persisted in saying, that she should
never see her dear young lady again; a fear, which her mistress
secretly thought too well justified, but which she endeavoured to
restrain, while, with apparent composure, she bade this affectionate
servant farewell. Annette, however, followed to the courts, which were
now thronged with people, busy in preparation for the enemy; and,
having seen her mount her mule and depart, with her attendants, through
the portal, turned into the castle and wept again.

Emily, meanwhile, as she looked back upon the gloomy courts of the
castle, no longer silent as when she had first entered them, but
resounding with the noise of preparation for their defence, as well as
crowded with soldiers and workmen, hurrying to and fro; and, when she
passed once more under the huge portcullis, which had formerly struck
her with terror and dismay, and, looking round, saw no walls to confine
her steps—felt, in spite of anticipation, the sudden joy of a prisoner,
who unexpectedly finds himself at liberty. This emotion would not
suffer her now to look impartially on the dangers that awaited her
without; on mountains infested by hostile parties, who seized every
opportunity for plunder; and on a journey commenced under the guidance
of men, whose countenances certainly did not speak favourably of their
dispositions. In the present moments, she could only rejoice, that she
was liberated from those walls, which she had entered with such dismal
forebodings; and, remembering the superstitious presentiment, which had
then seized her, she could now smile at the impression it had made upon
her mind.

As she gazed, with these emotions, upon the turrets of the castle,
rising high over the woods, among which she wound, the stranger, whom
she believed to be confined there, returned to her remembrance, and
anxiety and apprehension, lest he should be Valancourt, again passed
like a cloud upon her joy. She recollected every circumstance,
concerning this unknown person, since the night, when she had first
heard him play the song of her native province;—circumstances, which
she had so often recollected, and compared before, without extracting
from them anything like conviction, and which still only prompted her
to believe, that Valancourt was a prisoner at Udolpho. It was possible,
however, that the men, who were her conductors, might afford her
information, on this subject; but, fearing to question them
immediately, lest they should be unwilling to discover any circumstance
to her in the presence of each other, she watched for an opportunity of
speaking with them separately.

Soon after, a trumpet echoed faintly from a distance; the guides
stopped, and looked toward the quarter whence it came, but the thick
woods, which surrounded them, excluding all view of the country beyond,
one of the men rode on to the point of an eminence, that afforded a
more extensive prospect, to observe how near the enemy, whose trumpet
he guessed this to be, were advanced; the other, meanwhile, remained
with Emily, and to him she put some questions, concerning the stranger
at Udolpho. Ugo, for this was his name, said, that there were several
prisoners in the castle, but he neither recollected their persons, nor
the precise time of their arrival, and could therefore give her no
information. There was a surliness in his manner, as he spoke, that
made it probable he would not have satisfied her enquiries, even if he
could have done so.

Having asked him what prisoners had been taken, about the time, as
nearly as she could remember, when she had first heard the music, “All
that week,” said Ugo, “I was out with a party, upon the mountains, and
knew nothing of what was doing at the castle. We had enough upon our
hands, we had warm work of it.”

Bertrand, the other man, being now returned, Emily enquired no further,
and, when he had related to his companion what he had seen, they
travelled on in deep silence; while Emily often caught, between the
opening woods, partial glimpses of the castle above—the west towers,
whose battlements were now crowded with archers, and the ramparts
below, where soldiers were seen hurrying along, or busy upon the walls,
preparing the cannon.

Having emerged from the woods, they wound along the valley in an
opposite direction to that, from whence the enemy were approaching.
Emily now had a full view of Udolpho, with its grey walls, towers and
terraces, high over-topping the precipices and the dark woods, and
glittering partially with the arms of the _Condottieri_, as the sun’s
rays, streaming through an autumnal cloud, glanced upon a part of the
edifice, whose remaining features stood in darkened majesty. She
continued to gaze, through her tears, upon walls that, perhaps,
confined Valancourt, and which now, as the cloud floated away, were
lighted up with sudden splendour, and then, as suddenly were shrouded
in gloom; while the passing gleam fell on the wood-tops below, and
heightened the first tints of autumn, that had begun to steal upon the
foliage. The winding mountains, at length, shut Udolpho from her view,
and she turned, with mournful reluctance, to other objects. The
melancholy sighing of the wind among the pines, that waved high over
the steeps, and the distant thunder of a torrent assisted her musings,
and conspired with the wild scenery around, to diffuse over her mind
emotions solemn, yet not unpleasing, but which were soon interrupted by
the distant roar of cannon, echoing among the mountains. The sounds
rolled along the wind, and were repeated in faint and fainter
reverberation, till they sunk in sullen murmurs. This was a signal,
that the enemy had reached the castle, and fear for Valancourt again
tormented Emily. She turned her anxious eyes towards that part of the
country, where the edifice stood, but the intervening heights concealed
it from her view; still, however, she saw the tall head of a mountain,
which immediately fronted her late chamber, and on this she fixed her
gaze, as if it could have told her of all that was passing in the scene
it overlooked. The guides twice reminded her, that she was losing time
and that they had far to go, before she could turn from this
interesting object, and, even when she again moved onward, she often
sent a look back, till only its blue point, brightening in a gleam of
sunshine, appeared peeping over other mountains.

The sound of the cannon affected Ugo, as the blast of the trumpet does
the war-horse; it called forth all the fire of his nature; he was
impatient to be in the midst of the fight, and uttered frequent
execrations against Montoni for having sent him to a distance. The
feelings of his comrade seemed to be very opposite, and adapted rather
to the cruelties, than to the dangers of war.

Emily asked frequent questions, concerning the place of her
destination, but could only learn, that she was going to a cottage in
Tuscany; and, whenever she mentioned the subject, she fancied she
perceived, in the countenances of these men, an expression of malice
and cunning, that alarmed her.

It was afternoon, when they had left the castle. During several hours,
they travelled through regions of profound solitude, where no bleat of
sheep, or bark of watch-dog, broke on silence, and they were now too
far off to hear even the faint thunder of the cannon. Towards evening,
they wound down precipices, black with forests of cypress, pine and
cedar, into a glen so savage and secluded, that, if Solitude ever had
local habitation, this might have been “her place of dearest
residence.” To Emily it appeared a spot exactly suited for the retreat
of banditti, and, in her imagination, she already saw them lurking
under the brow of some projecting rock, whence their shadows,
lengthened by the setting sun, stretched across the road, and warned
the traveller of his danger. She shuddered at the idea, and, looking at
her conductors, to observe whether they were armed, thought she saw in
them the banditti she dreaded!

It was in this glen, that they proposed to alight, “For,” said Ugo,
“night will come on presently, and then the wolves will make it
dangerous to stop.” This was a new subject of alarm to Emily, but
inferior to what she suffered from the thought of being left in these
wilds, at midnight, with two such men as her present conductors. Dark
and dreadful hints of what might be Montoni’s purpose in sending her
hither, came to her mind. She endeavoured to dissuade the men from
stopping, and enquired, with anxiety, how far they had yet to go.

“Many leagues yet,” replied Bertrand. “As for you, Signora, you may do
as you please about eating, but for us, we will make a hearty supper,
while we can. We shall have need of it, I warrant, before we finish our
journey. The sun’s going down apace; let us alight under that rock,
yonder.”

His comrade assented, and, turning the mules out of the road, they
advanced towards a cliff, overhung with cedars, Emily following in
trembling silence. They lifted her from her mule, and, having seated
themselves on the grass, at the foot of the rocks, drew some homely
fare from a wallet, of which Emily tried to eat a little, the better to
disguise her apprehensions.

The sun was now sunk behind the high mountains in the west, upon which
a purple haze began to spread, and the gloom of twilight to draw over
the surrounding objects. To the low and sullen murmur of the breeze,
passing among the woods, she no longer listened with any degree of
pleasure, for it conspired with the wildness of the scene and the
evening hour, to depress her spirits.

Suspense had so much increased her anxiety, as to the prisoner at
Udolpho, that, finding it impracticable to speak alone with Bertrand,
on that subject, she renewed her questions in the presence of Ugo; but
he either was, or pretended to be entirely ignorant, concerning the
stranger. When he had dismissed the question, he talked with Ugo on
some subject, which led to the mention of Signor Orsino and of the
affair that had banished him from Venice; respecting which Emily had
ventured to ask a few questions. Ugo appeared to be well acquainted
with the circumstances of that tragical event, and related some minute
particulars, that both shocked and surprised her; for it appeared very
extraordinary how such particulars could be known to any, but to
persons, present when the assassination was committed.

“He was of rank,” said Bertrand, “or the State would not have troubled
itself to enquire after his assassins. The Signor has been lucky
hitherto; this is not the first affair of the kind he has had upon his
hands; and to be sure, when a gentleman has no other way of getting
redress—why he must take this.”

“Aye,” said Ugo, “and why is not this as good as another? This is the
way to have justice done at once, without more ado. If you go to law,
you must stay till the judges please, and may lose your cause, at last.
Why the best way, then, is to make sure of your right, while you can,
and execute justice yourself.”

“Yes, yes,” rejoined Bertrand, “if you wait till justice is done
you—you may stay long enough. Why if I want a friend of mine properly
served, how am I to get my revenge? Ten to one they will tell me he is
in the right, and I am in the wrong. Or, if a fellow has got possession
of property, which I think ought to be mine, why I may wait, till I
starve, perhaps, before the law will give it me, and then, after all,
the judge may say—the estate is his. What is to be done then?—Why the
case is plain enough, I must take it at last.”

Emily’s horror at this conversation was heightened by a suspicion, that
the latter part of it was pointed against herself, and that these men
had been commissioned by Montoni to execute a similar kind of
_justice_, in his cause.

“But I was speaking of Signor Orsino,” resumed Bertrand, “he is one of
those, who love to do justice at once. I remember, about ten years ago,
the Signor had a quarrel with a cavaliero of Milan. The story was told
me then, and it is still fresh in my head. They quarrelled about a
lady, that the Signor liked, and she was perverse enough to prefer the
gentleman of Milan, and even carried her whim so far as to marry him.
This provoked the Signor, as well it might, for he had tried to talk
reason to her a long while, and used to send people to serenade her,
under her windows, of a night; and used to make verses about her, and
would swear she was the handsomest lady in Milan—But all would not
do—nothing would bring her to reason; and, as I said, she went so far
at last, as to marry this other cavaliero. This made the Signor wrath,
with a vengeance; he resolved to be even with her though, and he
watched his opportunity, and did not wait long, for, soon after the
marriage, they set out for Padua, nothing doubting, I warrant, of what
was preparing for them. The cavaliero thought, to be sure, he was to be
called to no account, but was to go off triumphant; but he was soon
made to know another sort of story.”

“What then, the lady had promised to have Signor Orsino?” said Ugo.

“Promised! No,” replied Bertrand, “she had not wit enough even to tell
him she liked him, as I heard, but the contrary, for she used to say,
from the first, she never meant to have him. And this was what provoked
the Signor, so, and with good reason, for, who likes to be told that he
is disagreeable? and this was saying as good. It was enough to tell him
this; she need not have gone, and married another.”

“What, she married, then, on purpose to plague the Signor?” said Ugo.

“I don’t know as for that,” replied Bertrand, “they said, indeed, that
she had had a regard for the other gentleman a great while; but that is
nothing to the purpose, she should not have married him, and then the
Signor would not have been so much provoked. She might have expected
what was to follow; it was not to be supposed he would bear her ill
usage tamely, and she might thank herself for what happened. But, as I
said, they set out for Padua, she and her husband, and the road lay
over some barren mountains like these. This suited the Signor’s purpose
well. He watched the time of their departure, and sent his men after
them, with directions what to do. They kept their distance, till they
saw their opportunity, and this did not happen, till the second day’s
journey, when, the gentleman having sent his servants forward to the
next town, maybe to have horses in readiness, the Signor’s men
quickened their pace, and overtook the carriage, in a hollow, between
two mountains, where the woods prevented the servants from seeing what
passed, though they were then not far off. When we came up, we fired
our tromboni, but missed.”

Emily turned pale, at these words, and then hoped she had mistaken
them; while Bertrand proceeded:

“The gentleman fired again, but he was soon made to alight, and it was
as he turned to call his people, that he was struck. It was the most
dexterous feat you ever saw—he was struck in the back with three
stillettos at once. He fell, and was dispatched in a minute; but the
lady escaped, for the servants had heard the firing, and came up before
she could be taken care of. ‘Bertrand,’ said the Signor, when his men
returned—”

“Bertrand!” exclaimed Emily, pale with horror, on whom not a syllable
of this narrative had been lost.

“Bertrand, did I say?” rejoined the man, with some confusion—“No,
Giovanni. But I have forgot where I was;—‘Bertrand,’ said the Signor—

“Bertrand, again!” said Emily, in a faltering voice, “Why do you repeat
that name?”

Bertrand swore. “What signifies it,” he proceeded, “what the man was
called—Bertrand, or Giovanni—or Roberto? it’s all one for that. You
have put me out twice with that—question. Bertrand, or Giovanni—or what
you will—‘Bertrand,’ said the Signor, ‘if your comrades had done their
duty, as well as you, I should not have lost the lady. Go, my honest
fellow, and be happy with this.’ He gave him a purse of gold—and little
enough too, considering the service he had done him.”

“Aye, aye,” said Ugo, “little enough—little enough.”

Emily now breathed with difficulty, and could scarcely support herself.
When first she saw these men, their appearance and their connection
with Montoni had been sufficient to impress her with distrust; but now,
when one of them had betrayed himself to be a murderer, and she saw
herself, at the approach of night, under his guidance, among wild and
solitary mountains, and going she scarcely knew whither, the most
agonizing terror seized her, which was the less supportable from the
necessity she found herself under of concealing all symptoms of it from
her companions. Reflecting on the character and the menaces of Montoni,
it appeared not improbable, that he had delivered her to them, for the
purpose of having her murdered, and of thus securing to himself,
without further opposition, or delay, the estates, for which he had so
long and so desperately contended. Yet, if this was his design, there
appeared no necessity for sending her to such a distance from the
castle; for, if any dread of discovery had made him unwilling to
perpetrate the deed there, a much nearer place might have sufficed for
the purpose of concealment. These considerations, however, did not
immediately occur to Emily, with whom so many circumstances conspired
to rouse terror, that she had no power to oppose it, or to enquire
coolly into its grounds; and, if she had done so, still there were many
appearances which would too well have justified her most terrible
apprehensions. She did not now dare to speak to her conductors, at the
sound of whose voices she trembled; and when, now and then, she stole a
glance at them, their countenances, seen imperfectly through the gloom
of evening, served to confirm her fears.

The sun had now been set some time; heavy clouds, whose lower skirts
were tinged with sulphureous crimson, lingered in the west, and threw a
reddish tint upon the pine forests, which sent forth a solemn sound, as
the breeze rolled over them. The hollow moan struck upon Emily’s heart,
and served to render more gloomy and terrific every object around
her,—the mountains, shaded in twilight—the gleaming torrent, hoarsely
roaring—the black forests, and the deep glen, broken into rocky
recesses, high overshadowed by cypress and sycamore and winding into
long obscurity. To this glen, Emily, as she sent forth her anxious eye,
thought there was no end; no hamlet, or even cottage, was seen, and
still no distant bark of watch-dog, or even faint, far-off halloo came
on the wind. In a tremulous voice, she now ventured to remind the
guides, that it was growing late, and to ask again how far they had to
go: but they were too much occupied by their own discourse to attend to
her question, which she forbore to repeat, lest it should provoke a
surly answer. Having, however, soon after, finished their supper, the
men collected the fragments into their wallet, and proceeded along this
winding glen, in gloomy silence; while Emily again mused upon her own
situation, and concerning the motives of Montoni for involving her in
it. That it was for some evil purpose towards herself, she could not
doubt; and it seemed, that, if he did not intend to destroy her, with a
view of immediately seizing her estates, he meant to reserve her a
while in concealment, for some more terrible design, for one that might
equally gratify his avarice and still more his deep revenge. At this
moment, remembering Signor Brochio and his behaviour in the corridor, a
few preceding nights, the latter supposition, horrible as it was,
strengthened in her belief. Yet, why remove her from the castle, where
deeds of darkness had, she feared, been often executed with
secrecy?—from chambers, perhaps

With many a foul, and midnight murder stain’d.


The dread of what she might be going to encounter was now so excessive,
that it sometimes threatened her senses; and, often as she went, she
thought of her late father and of all he would have suffered, could he
have foreseen the strange and dreadful events of her future life; and
how anxiously he would have avoided that fatal confidence, which
committed his daughter to the care of a woman so weak as was Madame
Montoni. So romantic and improbable, indeed, did her present situation
appear to Emily herself, particularly when she compared it with the
repose and beauty of her early days, that there were moments, when she
could almost have believed herself the victim of frightful visions,
glaring upon a disordered fancy.

Restrained by the presence of her guides from expressing her terrors,
their acuteness was, at length, lost in gloomy despair. The dreadful
view of what might await her hereafter rendered her almost indifferent
to the surrounding dangers. She now looked, with little emotion, on the
wild dingles, and the gloomy road and mountains, whose outlines were
only distinguishable through the dusk;—objects, which but lately had
affected her spirits so much, as to awaken horrid views of the future,
and to tinge these with their own gloom.

It was now so nearly dark, that the travellers, who proceeded only by
the slowest pace, could scarcely discern their way. The clouds, which
seemed charged with thunder, passed slowly along the heavens, showing,
at intervals, the trembling stars; while the groves of cypress and
sycamore, that overhung the rocks, waved high in the breeze, as it
swept over the glen, and then rushed among the distant woods. Emily
shivered as it passed.

“Where is the torch?” said Ugo, “it grows dark.”

“Not so dark yet,” replied Bertrand, “but we may find our way, and ’tis
best not light the torch, before we can help, for it may betray us, if
any straggling party of the enemy is abroad.”

Ugo muttered something, which Emily did not understand, and they
proceeded in darkness, while she almost wished, that the enemy might
discover them; for from change there was something to hope, since she
could scarcely imagine any situation more dreadful than her present
one.

As they moved slowly along, her attention was surprised by a thin
tapering flame, that appeared, by fits, at the point of the pike, which
Bertrand carried, resembling what she had observed on the lance of the
sentinel, the night Madame Montoni died, and which he had said was an
omen. The event immediately following it appeared to justify the
assertion, and a superstitious impression had remained on Emily’s mind,
which the present appearance confirmed. She thought it was an omen of
her own fate, and watched it successively vanish and return, in gloomy
silence, which was at length interrupted by Bertrand.

“Let us light the torch,” said he, “and get under shelter of the
woods;—a storm is coming on—look at my lance.”

He held it forth, with the flame tapering at its point.*

(*Note: See the Abbé Berthelon on Electricity. [A. R.])


“Aye,” said Ugo, “you are not one of those, that believe in omens: we
have left cowards at the castle, who would turn pale at such a sight. I
have often seen it before a thunder-storm, it is an omen of that, and
one is coming now, sure enough. The clouds flash fast already.”

Emily was relieved by this conversation from some of the terrors of
superstition, but those of reason increased, as, waiting while Ugo
searched for a flint, to strike fire, she watched the pale lightning
gleam over the woods they were about to enter, and illumine the harsh
countenances of her companions. Ugo could not find a flint, and
Bertrand became impatient, for the thunder sounded hollowly at a
distance, and the lightning was more frequent. Sometimes, it revealed
the nearer recesses of the woods, or, displaying some opening in their
summits, illumined the ground beneath with partial splendour, the thick
foliage of the trees preserving the surrounding scene in deep shadow.

At length, Ugo found a flint, and the torch was lighted. The men then
dismounted, and, having assisted Emily, led the mules towards the
woods, that skirted the glen, on the left, over broken ground,
frequently interrupted with brush-wood and wild plants, which she was
often obliged to make a circuit to avoid.

She could not approach these woods, without experiencing keener sense
of her danger. Their deep silence, except when the wind swept among
their branches, and impenetrable glooms shown partially by the sudden
flash, and then, by the red glare of the torch, which served only to
make “darkness visible,” were circumstances, that contributed to renew
all her most terrible apprehensions; she thought, too, that, at this
moment, the countenances of her conductors displayed more than their
usual fierceness, mingled with a kind of lurking exultation, which they
seemed endeavouring to disguise. To her affrighted fancy it occurred,
that they were leading her into these woods to complete the will of
Montoni by her murder. The horrid suggestion called a groan from her
heart, which surprised her companions, who turned round quickly towards
her, and she demanded why they led her thither, beseeching them to
continue their way along the open glen, which she represented to be
less dangerous than the woods, in a thunder-storm.

“No, no,” said Bertrand, “we know best where the danger lies. See how
the clouds open over our heads. Besides, we can glide under cover of
the woods with less hazard of being seen, should any of the enemy be
wandering this way. By holy St. Peter and all the rest of them, I’ve as
stout a heart as the best, as many a poor devil could tell, if he were
alive again—but what can we do against numbers?”

“What are you whining about?” said Ugo, contemptuously, “who fears
numbers! Let them come, though they were as many as the Signor’s castle
could hold; I would show the knaves what fighting is. For you—I would
lay you quietly in a dry ditch, where you might peep out, and see me
put the rogues to flight.—Who talks of fear!”

Bertrand replied, with a horrible oath, that he did not like such
jesting, and a violent altercation ensued, which was, at length,
silenced by the thunder, whose deep volley was heard afar, rolling
onward till it burst over their heads in sounds, that seemed to shake
the earth to its centre. The ruffians paused, and looked upon each
other. Between the boles of the trees, the blue lightning flashed and
quivered along the ground, while, as Emily looked under the boughs, the
mountains beyond, frequently appeared to be clothed in livid flame. At
this moment, perhaps, she felt less fear of the storm, than did either
of her companions, for other terrors occupied her mind.

The men now rested under an enormous chesnut-tree, and fixed their
pikes in the ground, at some distance, on the iron points of which
Emily repeatedly observed the lightning play, and then glide down them
into the earth.

“I would we were well in the Signor’s castle!” said Bertrand, “I know
not why he should send us on this business. Hark! how it rattles above,
there! I could almost find in my heart to turn priest, and pray. Ugo,
hast got a rosary?”

“No,” replied Ugo, “I leave it to cowards like thee, to carry
rosaries—I carry a sword.”

“And much good may it do thee in fighting against the storm!” said
Bertrand.

Another peal, which was reverberated in tremendous echoes among the
mountains, silenced them for a moment. As it rolled away, Ugo proposed
going on. “We are only losing time here,” said he, “for the thick
boughs of the woods will shelter us as well as this chesnut-tree.”

They again led the mules forward, between the boles of the trees, and
over pathless grass, that concealed their high knotted roots. The
rising wind was now heard contending with the thunder, as it rushed
furiously among the branches above, and brightened the red flame of the
torch, which threw a stronger light forward among the woods, and showed
their gloomy recesses to be suitable resorts for the wolves, of which
Ugo had formerly spoken.

At length, the strength of the wind seemed to drive the storm before
it, for the thunder rolled away into distance, and was only faintly
heard. After travelling through the woods for nearly an hour, during
which the elements seemed to have returned to repose, the travellers,
gradually ascending from the glen, found themselves upon the open brow
of a mountain, with a wide valley, extending in misty moonlight, at
their feet, and above, the blue sky, trembling through the few thin
clouds, that lingered after the storm, and were sinking slowly to the
verge of the horizon.

Emily’s spirits, now that she had quitted the woods, began to revive;
for she considered, that, if these men had received an order to destroy
her, they would probably have executed their barbarous purpose in the
solitary wild, from whence they had just emerged, where the deed would
have been shrouded from every human eye. Reassured by this reflection,
and by the quiet demeanour of her guides, Emily, as they proceeded
silently, in a kind of sheep track, that wound along the skirts of the
woods, which ascended on the right, could not survey the sleeping
beauty of the vale, to which they were declining, without a momentary
sensation of pleasure. It seemed varied with woods, pastures, and
sloping grounds, and was screened to the north and the east by an
amphitheatre of the Apennines, whose outline on the horizon was here
broken into varied and elegant forms; to the west and the south, the
landscape extended indistinctly into the lowlands of Tuscany.

“There is the sea yonder,” said Bertrand, as if he had known that Emily
was examining the twilight view, “yonder in the west, though we cannot
see it.”

Emily already perceived a change in the climate, from that of the wild
and mountainous tract she had left; and, as she continued descending,
the air became perfumed by the breath of a thousand nameless flowers
among the grass, called forth by the late rain. So soothingly beautiful
was the scene around her, and so strikingly contrasted to the gloomy
grandeur of those, to which she had long been confined, and to the
manners of the people, who moved among them, that she could almost have
fancied herself again at La Vallée, and, wondering why Montoni had sent
her hither, could scarcely believe, that he had selected so enchanting
a spot for any cruel design. It was, however, probably not the spot,
but the persons, who happened to inhabit it, and to whose care he could
safely commit the execution of his plans, whatever they might be, that
had determined his choice.

She now ventured again to enquire, whether they were near the place of
their destination, and was answered by Ugo, that they had not far to
go. “Only to the wood of chesnuts in the valley yonder,” said he,
“there, by the brook, that sparkles with the moon; I wish I was once at
rest there, with a flask of good wine, and a slice of Tuscany bacon.”

Emily’s spirits revived, when she heard, that the journey was so nearly
concluded, and saw the wood of chesnuts in an open part of the vale, on
the margin of the stream.

In a short time they reached the entrance of the wood, and perceived,
between the twinkling leaves, a light, streaming from a distant cottage
window. They proceeded along the edge of the brook to where the trees,
crowding over it, excluded the moonbeams, but a long line of light,
from the cottage above, was seen on its dark tremulous surface.
Bertrand now stepped on first, and Emily heard him knock, and call
loudly at the door. As she reached it, the small upper casement, where
the light appeared, was unclosed by a man, who, having enquired what
they wanted, immediately descended, let them into a neat rustic cot,
and called up his wife to set refreshments before the travellers. As
this man conversed, rather apart, with Bertrand, Emily anxiously
surveyed him. He was a tall, but not robust, peasant, of a sallow
complexion, and had a shrewd and cunning eye; his countenance was not
of a character to win the ready confidence of youth, and there was
nothing in his manner, that might conciliate a stranger.


Ugo called impatiently for supper, and in a tone as if he knew his
authority here to be unquestionable. “I expected you an hour ago,” said
the peasant, “for I have had Signor Montoni’s letter these three hours,
and I and my wife had given you up, and gone to bed. How did you fare
in the storm?”

“Ill enough,” replied Ugo, “ill enough and we are like to fare ill
enough here, too, unless you will make more haste. Get us more wine,
and let us see what you have to eat.”

The peasant placed before them all that his cottage afforded—ham, wine,
figs, and grapes of such size and flavour, as Emily had seldom tasted.

After taking refreshment, she was shown by the peasant’s wife to her
little bed-chamber, where she asked some questions concerning Montoni,
to which the woman, whose name was Dorina, gave reserved answers,
pretending ignorance of his _Excellenza_’s intention in sending Emily
hither, but acknowledging that her husband had been apprized of the
circumstance. Perceiving that she could obtain no intelligence
concerning her destination, Emily dismissed Dorina, and retired to
repose; but all the busy scenes of her past and the anticipated ones of
the future came to her anxious mind, and conspired with the sense of
her new situation to banish sleep.



 CHAPTER VII

Was nought around but images of rest,
Sleep-soothing groves and quiet lawns between,
And flowery beds that slumbrous influence kept,
From poppies breath’d, and banks of pleasant green,
Where never yet was creeping creature seen.
Meantime unnumbered glittering streamlets play’d,
And hurled everywhere their water’s sheen,
That, as they bicker’d through the sunny glade,
Though restless still themselves, a lulling murmur made.
                    THOMSON


When Emily, in the morning, opened her casement, she was surprised to
observe the beauties, that surrounded it. The cottage was nearly
embowered in the woods, which were chiefly of chesnut intermixed with
some cypress, larch and sycamore. Beneath the dark and spreading
branches appeared to the north and to the east the woody Apennines,
rising in majestic amphitheatre, not black with pines, as she had been
accustomed to see them, but their loftiest summits crowned with ancient
forests of chesnut, oak, and oriental plane, now animated with the rich
tints of autumn, and which swept downward to the valley
uninterruptedly, except where some bold rocky promontory looked out
from among the foliage, and caught the passing gleam. Vineyards
stretched along the feet of the mountains, where the elegant villas of
the Tuscan nobility frequently adorned the scene, and overlooked slopes
clothed with groves of olive, mulberry, orange and lemon. The plain, to
which these declined, was coloured with the riches of cultivation,
whose mingled hues were mellowed into harmony by an Italian sun. Vines,
their purple clusters blushing between the russet foliage, hung in
luxuriant festoons from the branches of standard fig and cherry trees,
while pastures of verdure, such as Emily had seldom seen in Italy,
enriched the banks of a stream that, after descending from the
mountains, wound along the landscape, which it reflected, to a bay of
the sea. There, far in the west, the waters, fading into the sky,
assumed a tint of the faintest purple, and the line of separation
between them was, now and then, discernible only by the progress of a
sail, brightened with the sunbeam, along the horizon.

The cottage, which was shaded by the woods from the intenser rays of
the sun, and was open only to his evening light, was covered entirely
with vines, fig-trees and jessamine, whose flowers surpassed in size
and fragrance any that Emily had seen. These and ripening clusters of
grapes hung round her little casement. The turf, that grew under the
woods, was inlaid with a variety of wild flowers and perfumed herbs,
and, on the opposite margin of the stream, whose current diffused
freshness beneath the shades, rose a grove of lemon and orange trees.
This, though nearly opposite to Emily’s window, did not interrupt her
prospect, but rather heightened, by its dark verdure, the effect of the
perspective; and to her this spot was a bower of sweets, whose charms
communicated imperceptibly to her mind somewhat of their own serenity.

She was soon summoned to breakfast, by the peasant’s daughter, a girl
about seventeen, of a pleasant countenance, which, Emily was glad to
observe, seemed animated with the pure affections of nature, though the
others, that surrounded her, expressed, more or less, the worst
qualities—cruelty, ferocity, cunning and duplicity; of the latter style
of countenance, especially, were those of the peasant and his wife.
Maddelina spoke little, but what she said was in a soft voice, and with
an air of modesty and complacency, that interested Emily, who
breakfasted at a separate table with Dorina, while Ugo and Bertrand
were taking a repast of Tuscany bacon and wine with their host, near
the cottage door; when they had finished which, Ugo, rising hastily,
enquired for his mule, and Emily learned that he was to return to
Udolpho, while Bertrand remained at the cottage; a circumstance, which,
though it did not surprise, distressed her.

When Ugo was departed, Emily proposed to walk in the neighbouring
woods; but, on being told, that she must not quit the cottage, without
having Bertrand for her attendant, she withdrew to her own room. There,
as her eyes settled on the towering Apennines, she recollected the
terrific scenery they had exhibited and the horrors she had suffered,
on the preceding night, particularly at the moment when Bertrand had
betrayed himself to be an assassin; and these remembrances awakened a
train of images, which, since they abstracted her from a consideration
of her own situation, she pursued for some time, and then arranged in
the following lines; pleased to have discovered any innocent means, by
which she could beguile an hour of misfortune.

THE PILGRIM*

Slow o’er the Apennine, with bleeding feet,
A patient Pilgrim wound his lonely way,
To deck the Lady of Loretto’s seat
With all the little wealth his zeal could pay.
From mountain-tops cold died the evening ray,
And, stretch’d in twilight, slept the vale below;
And now the last, last purple streaks of day
Along the melancholy West fade slow.
High o’er his head, the restless pines complain,
As on their summit rolls the breeze of night;
Beneath, the hoarse stream chides the rocks in vain:
The Pilgrim pauses on the dizzy height.
Then to the vale his cautious step he press’d,
For there a hermit’s cross was dimly seen,
Cresting the rock, and there his limbs might rest,
Cheer’d in the good man’s cave, by faggot’s sheen,
On leafy beds, nor guile his sleep molest.
Unhappy Luke! he trusts a treacherous clue!
Behind the cliff the lurking robber stood;
No friendly moon his giant shadow threw
Athwart the road, to save the Pilgrim’s blood;
On as he went a vesper-hymn he sang,
The hymn, that nightly sooth’d him to repose.
Fierce on his harmless prey the ruffian sprang!
The Pilgrim bleeds to death, his eye-lids close.
Yet his meek spirit knew no vengeful care,
But, dying, for his murd’rer breath’d—a sainted pray’r!


(*Note: This poem and that entitled _The Traveller_ in vol. ii, have
already appeared in a periodical publication. [A. R.])


Preferring the solitude of her room to the company of the persons below
stairs, Emily dined above, and Maddelina was suffered to attend her,
from whose simple conversation she learned, that the peasant and his
wife were old inhabitants of this cottage, which had been purchased for
them by Montoni, in reward of some service, rendered him, many years
before, by Marco, to whom Carlo, the steward at the castle, was nearly
related. “So many years ago, Signora,” added Maddelina, “that I know
nothing about it; but my father did the Signor a great good, for my
mother has often said to him, this cottage was the least he ought to
have had.”

To the mention of this circumstance Emily listened with a painful
interest, since it appeared to give a frightful colour to the character
of Marco, whose service, thus rewarded by Montoni, she could scarcely
doubt have been criminal; and, if so, had too much reason to believe,
that she had been committed into his hands for some desperate purpose.
“Did you ever hear how many years it is,” said Emily, who was
considering of Signora Laurentini’s disappearance from Udolpho, “since
your father performed the services you spoke of?”

“It was a little before he came to live at the cottage, Signora,”
replied Maddelina, “and that is about eighteen years ago.”

This was near the period, when Signora Laurentini had been said to
disappear, and it occurred to Emily, that Marco had assisted in that
mysterious affair, and, perhaps, had been employed in a murder! This
horrible suggestion fixed her in such profound reverie, that Maddelina
quitted the room, unperceived by her, and she remained unconscious of
all around her, for a considerable time. Tears, at length, came to her
relief, after indulging which, her spirits becoming calmer, she ceased
to tremble at a view of evils, that might never arrive; and had
sufficient resolution to endeavour to withdraw her thoughts from the
contemplation of her own interests. Remembering the few books, which
even in the hurry of her departure from Udolpho she had put into her
little package, she sat down with one of them at her pleasant casement,
whence her eyes often wandered from the page to the landscape, whose
beauty gradually soothed her mind into gentle melancholy.

Here, she remained alone, till evening, and saw the sun descend the
western sky, throw all his pomp of light and shadow upon the mountains,
and gleam upon the distant ocean and the stealing sails, as he sunk
amidst the waves. Then, at the musing hour of twilight, her softened
thoughts returned to Valancourt; she again recollected every
circumstance, connected with the midnight music, and all that might
assist her conjecture, concerning his imprisonment at the castle, and,
becoming confirmed in the supposition, that it was his voice she had
heard there, she looked back to that gloomy abode with emotions of
grief and momentary regret.

Refreshed by the cool and fragrant air, and her spirits soothed to a
state of gentle melancholy by the still murmur of the brook below and
of the woods around, she lingered at her casement long after the sun
had set, watching the valley sinking into obscurity, till only the
grand outline of the surrounding mountains, shadowed upon the horizon,
remained visible. But a clear moonlight, that succeeded, gave to the
landscape, what time gives to the scenes of past life, when it softens
all their harsher features, and throws over the whole the mellowing
shade of distant contemplation. The scenes of La Vallée, in the early
morn of her life, when she was protected and beloved by parents equally
loved, appeared in Emily’s memory tenderly beautiful, like the prospect
before her, and awakened mournful comparisons. Unwilling to encounter
the coarse behaviour of the peasant’s wife, she remained supperless in
her room, while she wept again over her forlorn and perilous situation,
a review of which entirely overcame the small remains of her fortitude,
and, reducing her to temporary despondence, she wished to be released
from the heavy load of life, that had so long oppressed her, and prayed
to Heaven to take her, in its mercy, to her parents.

Wearied with weeping, she, at length, lay down on her mattress, and
sunk to sleep, but was soon awakened by a knocking at her chamber door,
and, starting up in terror, she heard a voice calling her. The image of
Bertrand, with a stilletto in his hand, appeared to her alarmed fancy,
and she neither opened the door nor answered, but listened in profound
silence, till, the voice repeating her name in the same low tone, she
demanded who called. “It is I, Signora,” replied the voice, which she
now distinguished to be Maddelina’s, “pray open the door. Don’t be
frightened, it is I.”

“And what brings you here so late, Maddelina?” said Emily, as she let
her in.

“Hush! signora, for heaven’s sake hush!—if we are overheard I shall
never be forgiven. My father and mother and Bertrand are all gone to
bed,” continued Maddelina, as she gently shut the door, and crept
forward, “and I have brought you some supper, for you had none, you
know, Signora, below stairs. Here are some grapes and figs and half a
cup of wine.” Emily thanked her, but expressed apprehension lest this
kindness should draw upon her the resentment of Dorina, when she
perceived the fruit was gone. “Take it back, therefore, Maddelina,”
added Emily, “I shall suffer much less from the want of it, than I
should do, if this act of good-nature was to subject you to your
mother’s displeasure.”

“O Signora! there is no danger of that,” replied Maddelina, “my mother
cannot miss the fruit, for I saved it from my own supper. You will make
me very unhappy, if you refuse to take it, Signora.” Emily was so much
affected by this instance of the good girl’s generosity, that she
remained for some time unable to reply, and Maddelina watched her in
silence, till, mistaking the cause of her emotion, she said, “Do not
weep so, Signora! My mother, to be sure, is a little cross, sometimes,
but then it is soon over,—so don’t take it so much to heart. She often
scolds me, too, but then I have learned to bear it, and, when she has
done, if I can but steal out into the woods, and play upon my sticcado,
I forget it all directly.”

Emily, smiling through her tears, told Maddelina, that she was a good
girl, and then accepted her offering. She wished anxiously to know,
whether Bertrand and Dorina had spoken of Montoni, or of his designs,
concerning herself, in the presence of Maddelina, but disdained to
tempt the innocent girl to a conduct so mean, as that of betraying the
private conversations of her parents. When she was departing, Emily
requested, that she would come to her room as often as she dared,
without offending her mother, and Maddelina, after promising that she
would do so, stole softly back again to her own chamber.

Thus several days passed, during which Emily remained in her own room,
Maddelina attending her only at her repast, whose gentle countenance
and manners soothed her more than any circumstance she had known for
many months. Of her pleasant embowered chamber she now became fond, and
began to experience in it those feelings of security, which we
naturally attach to home. In this interval also, her mind, having been
undisturbed by any new circumstance of disgust, or alarm, recovered its
tone sufficiently to permit her the enjoyment of her books, among which
she found some unfinished sketches of landscapes, several blank sheets
of paper, with her drawing instruments, and she was thus enabled to
amuse herself with selecting some of the lovely features of the
prospect, that her window commanded, and combining them in scenes, to
which her tasteful fancy gave a last grace. In these little sketches
she generally placed interesting groups, characteristic of the scenery
they animated, and often contrived to tell, with perspicuity, some
simple and affecting story, when, as a tear fell over the pictured
griefs, which her imagination drew, she would forget, for a moment, her
real sufferings. Thus innocently she beguiled the heavy hours of
misfortune, and, with meek patience, awaited the events of futurity.

A beautiful evening, that had succeeded to a sultry day, at length
induced Emily to walk, though she knew that Bertrand must attend her,
and, with Maddelina for her companion, she left the cottage, followed
by Bertrand, who allowed her to choose her own way. The hour was cool
and silent, and she could not look upon the country around her without
delight. How lovely, too, appeared the brilliant blue that coloured all
the upper region of the air, and, thence fading downward, was lost in
the saffron glow of the horizon! Nor less so were the varied shades and
warm colouring of the Apennines, as the evening sun threw his slanting
rays athwart their broken surface. Emily followed the course of the
stream, under the shades, that overhung its grassy margin. On the
opposite banks, the pastures were animated with herds of cattle of a
beautiful cream-colour; and, beyond, were groves of lemon and orange,
with fruit glowing on the branches, frequent almost as the leaves,
which partly concealed it. She pursued her way towards the sea, which
reflected the warm glow of sunset, while the cliffs, that rose over its
edge, were tinted with the last rays. The valley was terminated on the
right by a lofty promontory, whose summit, impending over the waves,
was crowned with a ruined tower, now serving for the purpose of a
beacon, whose shattered battlements and the extended wings of some
sea-fowl, that circled near it, were still illumined by the upward
beams of the sun, though his disk was now sunk beneath the horizon;
while the lower part of the ruin, the cliff on which it stood and the
waves at its foot, were shaded with the first tints of twilight.

Having reached this headland, Emily gazed with solemn pleasure on the
cliffs, that extended on either hand along the sequestered shores, some
crowned with groves of pine, and others exhibiting only barren
precipices of greyish marble, except where the crags were tufted with
myrtle and other aromatic shrubs. The sea slept in a perfect calm; its
waves, dying in murmurs on the shores, flowed with the gentlest
undulation, while its clear surface reflected in softened beauty the
vermeil tints of the west. Emily, as she looked upon the ocean, thought
of France and of past times, and she wished, Oh! how ardently, and
vainly—wished! that its waves would bear her to her distant native
home!

“Ah! that vessel,” said she, “that vessel, which glides along so
stately, with its tall sails reflected in the water is, perhaps, bound
for France! Happy—happy bark!” She continued to gaze upon it, with warm
emotion, till the grey of twilight obscured the distance, and veiled it
from her view. The melancholy sound of the waves at her feet assisted
the tenderness, that occasioned her tears, and this was the only sound,
that broke upon the hour, till, having followed the windings of the
beach, for some time, a chorus of voices passed her on the air. She
paused a moment, wishing to hear more, yet fearing to be seen, and, for
the first time, looked back to Bertrand, as her protector, who was
following, at a short distance, in company with some other person.
Reassured by this circumstance, she advanced towards the sounds, which
seemed to arise from behind a high promontory, that projected athwart
the beach. There was now a sudden pause in the music, and then one
female voice was heard to sing in a kind of chant. Emily quickened her
steps, and, winding round the rock, saw, within the sweeping bay,
beyond, which was hung with woods from the borders of the beach to the
very summit of the cliffs, two groups of peasants, one seated beneath
the shades, and the other standing on the edge of the sea, round the
girl, who was singing, and who held in her hand a chaplet of flowers,
which she seemed about to drop into the waves.

Emily, listening with surprise and attention, distinguished the
following invocation delivered in the pure and elegant tongue of
Tuscany, and accompanied by a few pastoral instruments.

TO A SEA-NYMPH

O nymph! who loves to float on the green wave,
When Neptune sleeps beneath the moonlight hour,
Lull’d by the music’s melancholy pow’r,
O nymph, arise from out thy pearly cave!

For Hesper beams amid the twilight shade,
And soon shall Cynthia tremble o’er the tide,
Gleam on these cliffs, that bound the ocean’s pride,
And lonely silence all the air pervade.

Then, let thy tender voice at distance swell,
And steal along this solitary shore,
Sink on the breeze, till dying—heard no more—
Thou wak’st the sudden magic of thy shell.

While the long coast in echo sweet replies,
Thy soothing strains the pensive heart beguile,
And bid the visions of the future smile,
O nymph! from out thy pearly cave—arise!

(Chorus)—_Arise!_
(Semi-chorus)—_Arise!_


The last words being repeated by the surrounding group, the garland of
flowers was thrown into the waves, and the chorus, sinking gradually
into a chant, died away in silence.

“What can this mean, Maddelina?” said Emily, awakening from the
pleasing trance, into which the music had lulled her. “This is the eve
of a festival, Signora,” replied Maddelina; “and the peasants then
amuse themselves with all kinds of sports.”

“But they talked of a sea-nymph,” said Emily: “how came these good
people to think of a sea-nymph?”

“O, Signora,” rejoined Maddelina, mistaking the reason of Emily’s
surprise, “nobody _believes_ in such things, but our old songs tell of
them, and, when we are at our sports, we sometimes sing to them, and
throw garlands into the sea.”

Emily had been early taught to venerate Florence as the seat of
literature and of the fine arts; but, that its taste for classic story
should descend to the peasants of the country, occasioned her both
surprise and admiration. The Arcadian air of the girls next attracted
her attention. Their dress was a very short full petticoat of light
green, with a boddice of white silk; the sleeves loose, and tied up at
the shoulders with ribbons and bunches of flowers. Their hair, falling
in ringlets on their necks, was also ornamented with flowers, and with
a small straw hat, which, set rather backward and on one side of the
head, gave an expression of gaiety and smartness to the whole figure.
When the song had concluded, several of these girls approached Emily,
and, inviting her to sit down among them, offered her, and Maddelina,
whom they knew, grapes and figs.

Emily accepted their courtesy, much pleased with the gentleness and
grace of their manners, which appeared to be perfectly natural to them;
and when Bertrand, soon after, approached, and was hastily drawing her
away, a peasant, holding up a flask, invited him to drink; a
temptation, which Bertrand was seldom very valiant in resisting.

“Let the young lady join in the dance, my friend,” said the peasant,
“while we empty this flask. They are going to begin directly. Strike
up! my lads, strike up your tambourines and merry flutes!”

They sounded gaily; and the younger peasants formed themselves into a
circle, which Emily would readily have joined, had her spirits been in
unison with their mirth. Maddelina, however, tripped it lightly, and
Emily, as she looked on the happy group, lost the sense of her
misfortunes in that of a benevolent pleasure. But the pensive
melancholy of her mind returned, as she sat rather apart from the
company, listening to the mellow music, which the breeze softened as it
bore it away, and watching the moon, stealing its tremulous light over
the waves and on the woody summits of the cliffs, that wound along
these Tuscan shores.

Meanwhile, Bertrand was so well pleased with his first flask, that he
very willingly commenced the attack on a second, and it was late before
Emily, not without some apprehension, returned to the cottage.

After this evening, she frequently walked with Maddelina, but was never
unattended by Bertrand; and her mind became by degrees as tranquil as
the circumstances of her situation would permit. The quiet, in which
she was suffered to live, encouraged her to hope, that she was not sent
hither with an evil design; and, had it not appeared probable, that
Valancourt was at this time an inhabitant of Udolpho, she would have
wished to remain at the cottage, till an opportunity should offer of
returning to her native country. But, concerning Montoni’s motive for
sending her into Tuscany, she was more than ever perplexed, nor could
she believe that any consideration for her safety had influenced him on
this occasion.

She had been some time at the cottage, before she recollected, that, in
the hurry of leaving Udolpho, she had forgotten the papers committed to
her by her late aunt, relative to the Languedoc estates; but, though
this remembrance occasioned her much uneasiness, she had some hope,
that, in the obscure place, where they were deposited, they would
escape the detection of Montoni.



 CHAPTER VIII

My tongue hath but a heavier tale to say.
I play the torturer, by small and small,
To lengthen out the worst that must be spoken.
                    RICHARD II


We now return, for a moment, to Venice, where Count Morano was
suffering under an accumulation of misfortunes. Soon after his arrival
in that city, he had been arrested by order of the Senate, and, without
knowing of what he was suspected, was conveyed to a place of
confinement, whither the most strenuous enquiries of his friends had
been unable to trace him. Who the enemy was, that had occasioned him
this calamity, he had not been able to guess, unless, indeed, it was
Montoni, on whom his suspicions rested, and not only with much apparent
probability, but with justice.

In the affair of the poisoned cup, Montoni had suspected Morano; but,
being unable to obtain the degree of proof, which was necessary to
convict him of a guilty intention, he had recourse to means of other
revenge, than he could hope to obtain by prosecution. He employed a
person, in whom he believed he might confide, to drop a letter of
accusation into the _Denunzie secrete_, or lions’ mouths, which are
fixed in a gallery of the Doge’s palace, as receptacles for anonymous
information, concerning persons, who may be disaffected towards the
state. As, on these occasions, the accuser is not confronted with the
accused, a man may falsely impeach his enemy, and accomplish an unjust
revenge, without fear of punishment, or detection. That Montoni should
have recourse to these diabolical means of ruining a person, whom he
suspected of having attempted his life, is not in the least surprising.
In the letter, which he had employed as the instrument of his revenge,
he accused Morano of designs against the state, which he attempted to
prove, with all the plausible simplicity of which he was master; and
the Senate, with whom a suspicion was, at that time, almost equal to a
proof, arrested the Count, in consequence of this accusation; and,
without even hinting to him his crime, threw him into one of those
secret prisons, which were the terror of the Venetians, and in which
persons often languished, and sometimes died, without being discovered
by their friends.

Morano had incurred the personal resentment of many members of the
state; his habits of life had rendered him obnoxious to some; and his
ambition, and the bold rivalship, which he discovered, on several
public occasions,—to others; and it was not to be expected, that mercy
would soften the rigour of a law, which was to be dispensed from the
hands of his enemies.

Montoni, meantime, was beset by dangers of another kind. His castle was
besieged by troops, who seemed willing to dare everything, and to
suffer patiently any hardships in pursuit of victory. The strength of
the fortress, however, withstood their attack, and this, with the
vigorous defence of the garrison and the scarcity of provision on these
wild mountains, soon compelled the assailants to raise the siege.

When Udolpho was once more left to the quiet possession of Montoni, he
dispatched Ugo into Tuscany for Emily, whom he had sent from
considerations of her personal safety, to a place of greater security,
than a castle, which was, at that time, liable to be overrun by his
enemies. Tranquillity being once more restored to Udolpho, he was
impatient to secure her again under his roof, and had commissioned Ugo
to assist Bertrand in guarding her back to the castle. Thus compelled
to return, Emily bade the kind Maddelina farewell, with regret, and,
after about a fortnight’s stay in Tuscany, where she had experienced an
interval of quiet, which was absolutely necessary to sustain her
long-harassed spirits, began once more to ascend the Apennines, from
whose heights she gave a long and sorrowful look to the beautiful
country, that extended at their feet, and to the distant Mediterranean,
whose waves she had so often wished would bear her back to France. The
distress she felt, on her return towards the place of her former
sufferings, was, however, softened by a conjecture, that Valancourt was
there, and she found some degree of comfort in the thought of being
near him, notwithstanding the consideration, that he was probably a
prisoner.

It was noon when she had left the cottage, and the evening was closed,
long before she came within the neighbourhood of Udolpho. There was a
moon, but it shone only at intervals, for the night was cloudy, and,
lighted by the torch, which Ugo carried, the travellers paced silently
along, Emily musing on her situation, and Bertrand and Ugo anticipating
the comforts of a flask of wine and a good fire, for they had perceived
for some time the difference between the warm climate of the lowlands
of Tuscany and the nipping air of these upper regions. Emily was, at
length, roused from her reverie by the far-off sound of the castle
clock, to which she listened not without some degree of awe, as it
rolled away on the breeze. Another and another note succeeded, and died
in sullen murmur among the mountains:—to her mournful imagination it
seemed a knell measuring out some fateful period for her.

“Aye, there is the old clock,” said Bertrand, “there he is still; the
cannon have not silenced him!”

“No,” answered Ugo, “he crowed as loud as the best of them in the midst
of it all. There he was roaring out in the hottest fire I have seen
this many a day! I said that some of them would have a hit at the old
fellow, but he escaped, and the tower too.”

The road winding round the base of a mountain, they now came within
view of the castle, which was shown in the perspective of the valley by
a gleam of moonshine, and then vanished in shade; while even a
transient view of it had awakened the poignancy of Emily’s feelings.
Its massy and gloomy walls gave her terrible ideas of imprisonment and
suffering: yet, as she advanced, some degree of hope mingled with her
terror; for, though this was certainly the residence of Montoni, it was
possibly, also, that of Valancourt, and she could not approach a place,
where he might be, without experiencing somewhat of the joy of hope.

They continued to wind along the valley, and, soon after, she saw again
the old walls and moonlit towers, rising over the woods: the strong
rays enabled her, also, to perceive the ravages, which the siege had
made,—with the broken walls, and shattered battlements, for they were
now at the foot of the steep, on which Udolpho stood. Massy fragments
had rolled down among the woods, through which the travellers now began
to ascend, and there mingled with the loose earth, and pieces of rock
they had brought with them. The woods, too, had suffered much from the
batteries above, for here the enemy had endeavoured to screen
themselves from the fire of the ramparts. Many noble trees were
levelled with the ground, and others, to a wide extent, were entirely
stripped of their upper branches. “We had better dismount,” said Ugo,
“and lead the mules up the hill, or we shall get into some of the
holes, which the balls have left. Here are plenty of them. Give me the
torch,” continued Ugo, after they had dismounted, “and take care you
don’t stumble over anything, that lies in your way, for the ground is
not yet cleared of the enemy.”

“How!” exclaimed Emily, “are any of the enemy here, then?”

“Nay, I don’t know for that, now,” he replied, “but when I came away I
saw one or two of them lying under the trees.”

As they proceeded, the torch threw a gloomy light upon the ground, and
far among the recesses of the woods, and Emily feared to look forward,
lest some object of horror should meet her eye. The path was often
strewn with broken heads of arrows, and with shattered remains of
armour, such as at that period was mingled with the lighter dress of
the soldiers. “Bring the light hither,” said Bertrand, “I have stumbled
over something, that rattles loud enough.” Ugo holding up the torch,
they perceived a steel breastplate on the ground, which Bertrand
raised, and they saw, that it was pierced through, and that the lining
was entirely covered with blood; but upon Emily’s earnest entreaties
that they would proceed, Bertrand, uttering some joke upon the
unfortunate person, to whom it had belonged, threw it hard upon the
ground, and they passed on.

At every step she took, Emily feared to see some vestige of death.
Coming soon after to an opening in the woods, Bertrand stopped to
survey the ground, which was encumbered with massy trunks and branches
of the trees, that had so lately adorned it, and seemed to have been a
spot particularly fatal to the besiegers; for it was evident from the
destruction of the trees, that here the hottest fire of the garrison
had been directed. As Ugo held again forth the torch, steel glittered
between the fallen trees; the ground beneath was covered with broken
arms, and with the torn vestments of soldiers, whose mangled forms
Emily almost expected to see; and she again entreated her companions to
proceed, who were, however, too intent in their examination, to regard
her, and she turned her eyes from this desolated scene to the castle
above, where she observed lights gliding along the ramparts. Presently,
the castle clock struck twelve, and then a trumpet sounded, of which
Emily enquired the occasion.

“O! they are only changing watch,” replied Ugo. “I do not remember this
trumpet,” said Emily, “it is a new custom.” “It is only an old one
revived, lady; we always use it in time of war. We have sounded it, at
midnight, ever since the place was besieged.”

“Hark!” said Emily, as the trumpet sounded again; and, in the next
moment, she heard a faint clash of arms, and then the watchword passed
along the terrace above, and was answered from a distant part of the
castle; after which all was again still. She complained of cold, and
begged to go on. “Presently, lady,” said Bertrand, turning over some
broken arms with the pike he usually carried. “What have we here?”

“Hark!” cried Emily, “what noise was that?”

“What noise was it?” said Ugo, starting up and listening.

“Hush!” repeated Emily. “It surely came from the ramparts above:” and,
on looking up, they perceived a light moving along the walls, while, in
the next instant, the breeze swelling, the voice sounded louder than
before.

“Who goes yonder?” cried a sentinel of the castle. “Speak or it will be
worse for you.” Bertrand uttered a shout of joy. “Hah! my brave
comrade, is it you?” said he, and he blew a shrill whistle, which
signal was answered by another from the soldier on watch; and the
party, then passing forward, soon after emerged from the woods upon the
broken road, that led immediately to the castle gates, and Emily saw,
with renewed terror, the whole of that stupendous structure. “Alas!”
said she to herself, “I am going again into my prison!”

“Here has been warm work, by St. Marco!” cried Bertrand, waving a torch
over the ground; “the balls have torn up the earth here with a
vengeance.”

“Aye,” replied Ugo, “they were fired from that redoubt, yonder, and
rare execution they did. The enemy made a furious attack upon the great
gates; but they might have guessed they could never carry it there;
for, besides the cannon from the walls, our archers, on the two round
towers, showered down upon them at such a rate, that, by holy Peter!
there was no standing it. I never saw a better sight in my life; I
laughed, till my sides aked, to see how the knaves scampered. Bertrand,
my good fellow, thou shouldst have been among them; I warrant thou
wouldst have won the race!”

“Hah! you are at your old tricks again,” said Bertrand in a surly tone.
“It is well for thee thou art so near the castle; thou knowest I have
killed my man before now.” Ugo replied only by a laugh, and then gave
some further account of the siege, to which as Emily listened, she was
struck by the strong contrast of the present scene with that which had
so lately been acted here.

The mingled uproar of cannon, drums, and trumpets, the groans of the
conquered, and the shouts of the conquerors were now sunk into a
silence so profound, that it seemed as if death had triumphed alike
over the vanquished and the victor. The shattered condition of one of
the towers of the great gates by no means confirmed the _valiant_
account just given by Ugo of the scampering party, who, it was evident,
had not only made a stand, but had done much mischief before they took
to flight; for this tower appeared, as far as Emily could judge by the
dim moonlight that fell upon it, to be laid open, and the battlements
were nearly demolished. While she gazed, a light glimmered through one
of the lower loop-holes, and disappeared; but, in the next moment, she
perceived through the broken wall, a soldier, with a lamp, ascending
the narrow staircase, that wound within the tower, and, remembering
that it was the same she had passed up, on the night, when Barnardine
had deluded her with a promise of seeing Madame Montoni, fancy gave her
somewhat of the terror she had then suffered. She was now very near the
gates, over which the soldier having opened the door of the
portal-chamber, the lamp he carried gave her a dusky view of that
terrible apartment, and she almost sunk under the recollected horrors
of the moment, when she had drawn aside the curtain, and discovered the
object it was meant to conceal.

“Perhaps,” said she to herself, “it is now used for a similar purpose;
perhaps, that soldier goes, at this dead hour, to watch over the corpse
of his friend!” The little remains of her fortitude now gave way to the
united force of remembered and anticipated horrors, for the melancholy
fate of Madame Montoni appeared to foretell her own. She considered,
that, though the Languedoc estates, if she relinquished them, would
satisfy Montoni’s avarice, they might not appease his vengeance, which
was seldom pacified but by a terrible sacrifice; and she even thought,
that, were she to resign them, the fear of justice might urge him
either to detain her a prisoner, or to take away her life.

They were now arrived at the gates, where Bertrand, observing the light
glimmer through a small casement of the portal-chamber, called aloud;
and the soldier, looking out, demanded who was there. “Here, I have
brought you a prisoner,” said Ugo, “open the gate, and let us in.”

“Tell me first who it is, that demands entrance,” replied the soldier.
“What! my old comrade,” cried Ugo, “don’t you know me? not know Ugo? I
have brought home a prisoner here, bound hand and foot—a fellow, who
has been drinking Tuscany wine, while we here have been fighting.”

“You will not rest till you meet with your match,” said Bertrand
sullenly. “Hah! my comrade, is it you?” said the soldier—“I’ll be with
you directly.”

Emily presently heard his steps descending the stairs within, and then
the heavy chain fall, and the bolts undraw of a small postern door,
which he opened to admit the party. He held the lamp low, to show the
step of the gate, and she found herself once more beneath the gloomy
arch, and heard the door close, that seemed to shut her from the world
for ever. In the next moment, she was in the first court of the castle,
where she surveyed the spacious and solitary area, with a kind of calm
despair; while the dead hour of the night, the gothic gloom of the
surrounding buildings, and the hollow and imperfect echoes, which they
returned, as Ugo and the soldier conversed together, assisted to
increase the melancholy forebodings of her heart. Passing on to the
second court, a distant sound broke feebly on the silence, and
gradually swelling louder, as they advanced, Emily distinguished voices
of revelry and laughter, but they were to her far other than sounds of
joy. “Why, you have got some Tuscany wine among you, _here_,” said
Bertrand, “if one may judge by the uproar that is going forward. Ugo
has taken a larger share of that than of fighting, I’ll be sworn. Who
is carousing at this late hour?”

“His _Excellenza_ and the Signors,” replied the soldier: “it is a sign
you are a stranger at the castle, or you would not need to ask the
question. They are brave spirits, that do without sleep—they generally
pass the night in good cheer; would that we, who keep the watch, had a
little of it! It is cold work, pacing the ramparts so many hours of the
night, if one has no good liquor to warm one’s heart.”

“Courage, my lad, courage ought to warm your heart,” said Ugo.
“Courage!” replied the soldier sharply, with a menacing air, which Ugo
perceiving, prevented his saying more, by returning to the subject of
the carousal. “This is a new custom,” said he; “when I left the castle,
the Signors used to sit up counselling.”

“Aye, and for that matter, carousing too,” replied the soldier, “but,
since the siege, they have done nothing but make merry: and if I was
they, I would settle accounts with myself, for all my hard fighting,
the same way.”

They had now crossed the second court, and reached the hall door, when
the soldier, bidding them good night, hastened back to his post; and,
while they waited for admittance, Emily considered how she might avoid
seeing Montoni, and retire unnoticed to her former apartment, for she
shrunk from the thought of encountering either him, or any of his
party, at this hour. The uproar within the castle was now so loud,
that, though Ugo knocked repeatedly at the hall door, he was not heard
by any of the servants, a circumstance, which increased Emily’s alarm,
while it allowed her time to deliberate on the means of retiring
unobserved; for, though she might, perhaps, pass up the great staircase
unseen, it was impossible she could find the way to her chamber,
without a light, the difficulty of procuring which, and the danger of
wandering about the castle, without one, immediately struck her.
Bertrand had only a torch, and she knew, that the servants never
brought a taper to the door, for the hall was sufficiently lighted by
the large tripod lamp, which hung in the vaulted roof; and, while she
should wait till Annette could bring a taper, Montoni, or some of his
companions, might discover her.

The door was now opened by Carlo; and Emily, having requested him to
send Annette immediately with a light to the great gallery, where she
determined to await her, passed on with hasty steps towards the
staircase; while Bertrand and Ugo, with the torch, followed old Carlo
to the servants’ hall, impatient for supper and the warm blaze of a
wood fire. Emily, lighted only by the feeble rays, which the lamp above
threw between the arches of this extensive hall, endeavoured to find
her way to the staircase, now hid in obscurity; while the shouts of
merriment, that burst from a remote apartment, served, by heightening
her terror, to increase her perplexity, and she expected, every
instant, to see the door of that room open, and Montoni and his
companions issue forth. Having, at length, reached the staircase, and
found her way to the top, she seated herself on the last stair, to
await the arrival of Annette; for the profound darkness of the gallery
deterred her from proceeding farther, and, while she listened for her
footstep, she heard only distant sounds of revelry, which rose in
sullen echoes from among the arcades below. Once she thought she heard
a low sound from the dark gallery behind her; and, turning her eyes,
fancied she saw something luminous move in it; and, since she could
not, at this moment, subdue the weakness that caused her fears, she
quitted her seat, and crept softly down a few stairs lower.

Annette not yet appearing, Emily now concluded, that she was gone to
bed, and that nobody chose to call her up; and the prospect, that
presented itself, of passing the night in darkness, in this place, or
in some other equally forlorn (for she knew it would be impracticable
to find her way through the intricacies of the galleries to her
chamber), drew tears of mingled terror and despondency from her eyes.

While thus she sat, she fancied she heard again an odd sound from the
gallery, and she listened, scarcely daring to breathe, but the
increasing voices below overcame every other sound. Soon after, she
heard Montoni and his companions burst into the hall, who spoke, as if
they were much intoxicated, and seemed to be advancing towards the
staircase. She now remembered, that they must come this way to their
chambers, and, forgetting all the terrors of the gallery, hurried
towards it with an intention of secreting herself in some of the
passages, that opened beyond, and of endeavouring, when the Signors
were retired, to find her way to her own room, or to that of Annette,
which was in a remote part of the castle.

With extended arms, she crept along the gallery, still hearing the
voices of persons below, who seemed to stop in conversation at the foot
of the staircase, and then pausing for a moment to listen, half fearful
of going further into the darkness of the gallery, where she still
imagined, from the noise she had heard, that some person was lurking,
“They are already informed of my arrival,” said she, “and Montoni is
coming himself to seek me! In the present state of his mind, his
purpose must be desperate.” Then, recollecting the scene, that had
passed in the corridor, on the night preceding her departure from the
castle, “O Valancourt!” said she, “I must then resign you for ever. To
brave any longer the injustice of Montoni, would not be fortitude, but
rashness.” Still the voices below did not draw nearer, but they became
louder, and she distinguished those of Verezzi and Bertolini above the
rest, while the few words she caught made her listen more anxiously for
others. The conversation seemed to concern herself; and, having
ventured to step a few paces nearer to the staircase, she discovered,
that they were disputing about her, each seeming to claim some former
promise of Montoni, who appeared, at first, inclined to appease and to
persuade them to return to their wine, but afterwards to be weary of
the dispute, and, saying that he left them to settle it as they could,
was returning with the rest of the party to the apartment he had just
quitted. Verezzi then stopped him. “Where is she? Signor,” said he, in
a voice of impatience: “tell us where she is.” “I have already told you
that I do not know,” replied Montoni, who seemed to be somewhat
overcome with wine; “but she is most probably gone to her apartment.”
Verezzi and Bertolini now desisted from their enquiries, and sprang to
the staircase together, while Emily, who, during this discourse, had
trembled so excessively, that she had with difficulty supported
herself, seemed inspired with new strength, the moment she heard the
sound of their steps, and ran along the gallery, dark as it was, with
the fleetness of a fawn. But, long before she reached its extremity,
the light, which Verezzi carried, flashed upon the walls; both
appeared, and, instantly perceiving Emily, pursued her. At this moment,
Bertolini, whose steps, though swift, were not steady, and whose
impatience overcame what little caution he had hitherto used, stumbled,
and fell at his length. The lamp fell with him, and was presently
expiring on the floor; but Verezzi, regardless of saving it, seized the
advantage this accident gave him over his rival, and followed Emily, to
whom, however, the light had shown one of the passages that branched
from the gallery, and she instantly turned into it. Verezzi could just
discern the way she had taken, and this he pursued; but the sound of
her steps soon sunk in distance, while he, less acquainted with the
passage, was obliged to proceed through the dark, with caution, lest he
should fall down a flight of steps, such as in this extensive old
castle frequently terminated an avenue. This passage at length brought
Emily to the corridor, into which her own chamber opened, and, not
hearing any footstep, she paused to take breath, and consider what was
the safest design to be adopted. She had followed this passage, merely
because it was the first that appeared, and now that she had reached
the end of it, was as perplexed as before. Whither to go, or how
further to find her way in the dark, she knew not; she was aware only
that she must not seek her apartment, for there she would certainly be
sought, and her danger increased every instant, while she remained near
it. Her spirits and her breath, however, were so much exhausted, that
she was compelled to rest, for a few minutes, at the end of the
passage, and still she heard no steps approaching. As thus she stood,
light glimmered under an opposite door of the gallery, and, from its
situation, she knew, that it was the door of that mysterious chamber,
where she had made a discovery so shocking, that she never remembered
it but with the utmost horror. That there should be light in this
chamber, and at this hour, excited her strong surprise, and she felt a
momentary terror concerning it, which did not permit her to look again,
for her spirits were now in such a state of weakness, that she almost
expected to see the door slowly open, and some horrible object appear
at it. Still she listened for a step along the passage, and looked up
it, where, not a ray of light appearing, she concluded, that Verezzi
had gone back for the lamp; and, believing that he would shortly be
there, she again considered which way she should go, or rather which
way she could find in the dark.

A faint ray still glimmered under the opposite door, but so great, and,
perhaps, so just was her horror of that chamber, that she would not
again have tempted its secrets, though she had been certain of
obtaining the light so important to her safety. She was still breathing
with difficulty, and resting at the end of the passage, when she heard
a rustling sound, and then a low voice, so very near her, that it
seemed close to her ear; but she had presence of mind to check her
emotions, and to remain quite still; in the next moment, she perceived
it to be the voice of Verezzi, who did not appear to know, that she was
there, but to have spoken to himself. “The air is fresher here,” said
he: “this should be the corridor.” Perhaps, he was one of those heroes,
whose courage can defy an enemy better than darkness, and he tried to
rally his spirits with the sound of his own voice. However this might
be, he turned to the right, and proceeded, with the same stealing
steps, towards Emily’s apartment, apparently forgetting, that, in
darkness, she could easily elude his search, even in her chamber; and,
like an intoxicated person, he followed pertinaciously the one idea,
that had possessed his imagination.

The moment she heard his steps steal away, she left her station and
moved softly to the other end of the corridor, determined to trust
again to chance, and to quit it by the first avenue she could find;
but, before she could effect this, light broke upon the walls of the
gallery, and, looking back, she saw Verezzi crossing it towards her
chamber. She now glided into a passage, that opened on the left,
without, as she thought, being perceived; but, in the next instant,
another light, glimmering at the further end of this passage, threw her
into new terror. While she stopped and hesitated which way to go, the
pause allowed her to perceive, that it was Annette, who advanced, and
she hurried to meet her: but her imprudence again alarmed Emily, on
perceiving whom, she burst into a scream of joy, and it was some
minutes, before she could be prevailed with to be silent, or to release
her mistress from the ardent clasp, in which she held her. When, at
length, Emily made Annette comprehend her danger, they hurried towards
Annette’s room, which was in a distant part of the castle. No
apprehensions, however, could yet silence the latter. “Oh dear
ma’amselle,” said she, as they passed along, “what a terrified time
have I had of it! Oh! I thought I should have died a hundred times! I
never thought I should live to see you again! and I never was so glad
to see anybody in my whole life, as I am to see you now.” “Hark!” cried
Emily, “we are pursued; that was the echo of steps!” “No, ma’amselle,”
said Annette, “it was only the echo of a door shutting; sound runs
along these vaulted passages so, that one is continually deceived by
it; if one does but speak, or cough, it makes a noise as loud as a
cannon.” “Then there is the greater necessity for us to be silent,”
said Emily: “pr’ythee say no more, till we reach your chamber.” Here,
at length, they arrived, without interruption, and, Annette having
fastened the door, Emily sat down on her little bed, to recover breath
and composure. To her enquiry, whether Valancourt was among the
prisoners in the castle, Annette replied, that she had not been able to
hear, but that she knew there were several persons confined. She then
proceeded, in her tedious way, to give an account of the siege, or
rather a detail of her terrors and various sufferings, during the
attack. “But,” added she, “when I heard the shouts of victory from the
ramparts, I thought we were all taken, and gave myself up for lost,
instead of which, _we_ had driven the enemy away. I went then to the
north gallery, and saw a great many of them scampering away among the
mountains; but the rampart walls were all in ruins, as one may say, and
there was a dismal sight to see down among the woods below, where the
poor fellows were lying in heaps, but were carried off presently by
their comrades. While the siege was going on, the Signor was here, and
there, and everywhere, at the same time, as Ludovico told me, for he
would not let me see anything hardly, and locked me up, as he has often
done before, in a room in the middle of the castle, and used to bring
me food, and come and talk with me as often as he could; and I must
say, if it had not been for Ludovico, I should have died outright.”

“Well, Annette,” said Emily, “and how have affairs gone on, since the
siege?”

“O! sad hurly-burly doings, ma’amselle,” replied Annette; “the Signors
have done nothing but sit and drink and game, ever since. They sit up,
all night, and play among themselves, for all those riches and fine
things, they brought in, some time since, when they used to go out
a-robbing, or as good, for days together; and then they have dreadful
quarrels about who loses, and who wins. That fierce Signor Verezzi is
always losing, as they tell me, and Signor Orsino wins from him, and
this makes him very wroth, and they have had several hard set-to’s
about it. Then, all those fine ladies are at the castle still; and I
declare I am frighted, whenever I meet any of them in the passages—”

“Surely, Annette,” said Emily starting, “I heard a noise: listen.”
After a long pause, “No, ma’amselle,” said Annette, “it was only the
wind in the gallery; I often hear it, when it shakes the old doors, at
the other end. But won’t you go to bed, ma’amselle? you surely will not
sit up starving, all night.” Emily now laid herself down on the
mattress, and desired Annette to leave the lamp burning on the hearth;
having done which, the latter placed herself beside Emily, who,
however, was not suffered to sleep, for she again thought she heard a
noise from the passage; and Annette was again trying to convince her,
that it was only the wind, when footsteps were distinctly heard near
the door. Annette was now starting from the bed, but Emily prevailed
with her to remain there, and listened with her in a state of terrible
expectation. The steps still loitered at the door, when presently an
attempt was made on the lock, and, in the next instant, a voice called.
“For heaven’s sake, Annette, do not answer,” said Emily softly, “remain
quite still; but I fear we must extinguish the lamp, or its glare will
betray us.” “Holy Virgin!” exclaimed Annette, forgetting her
discretion, “I would not be in darkness now for the whole world.” While
she spoke, the voice became louder than before, and repeated Annette’s
name; “Blessed Virgin!” cried she suddenly, “it is only Ludovico.” She
rose to open the door, but Emily prevented her, till they should be
more certain, that it was he alone; with whom Annette, at length,
talked for some time, and learned, that he was come to enquire after
herself, whom he had let out of her room to go to Emily, and that he
was now returned to lock her in again. Emily, fearful of being
overheard, if they conversed any longer through the door, consented
that it should be opened, and a young man appeared, whose open
countenance confirmed the favourable opinion of him, which his care of
Annette had already prompted her to form. She entreated his protection,
should Verezzi make this requisite; and Ludovico offered to pass the
night in an old chamber, adjoining, that opened from the gallery, and,
on the first alarm, to come to their defence.

Emily was much soothed by this proposal; and Ludovico, having lighted
his lamp, went to his station, while she, once more, endeavoured to
repose on her mattress. But a variety of interests pressed upon her
attention, and prevented sleep. She thought much on what Annette had
told her of the dissolute manners of Montoni and his associates, and
more of his present conduct towards herself, and of the danger, from
which she had just escaped. From the view of her present situation she
shrunk, as from a new picture of terror. She saw herself in a castle,
inhabited by vice and violence, seated beyond the reach of law or
justice, and in the power of a man, whose perseverance was equal to
every occasion, and in whom passions, of which revenge was not the
weakest, entirely supplied the place of principles. She was compelled,
once more, to acknowledge, that it would be folly, and not fortitude,
any longer to dare his power; and, resigning all hopes of future
happiness with Valancourt, she determined, that, on the following
morning, she would compromise with Montoni, and give up her estates, on
condition, that he would permit her immediate return to France. Such
considerations kept her waking for many hours; but, the night passed,
without further alarm from Verezzi.

On the next morning, Emily had a long conversation with Ludovico, in
which she heard circumstances concerning the castle, and received hints
of the designs of Montoni, that considerably increased her alarms. On
expressing her surprise, that Ludovico, who seemed to be so sensible of
the evils of his situation, should continue in it, he informed her,
that it was not his intention to do so, and she then ventured to ask
him, if he would assist her to escape from the castle. Ludovico assured
her of his readiness to attempt this, but strongly represented the
difficulty of the enterprise, and the certain destruction which must
ensue, should Montoni overtake them, before they had passed the
mountains; he, however, promised to be watchful of every circumstance,
that might contribute to the success of the attempt, and to think upon
some plan of departure.

Emily now confided to him the name of Valancourt, and begged he would
enquire for such a person among the prisoners in the castle; for the
faint hope, which this conversation awakened, made her now recede from
her resolution of an immediate compromise with Montoni. She determined,
if possible, to delay this, till she heard further from Ludovico, and,
if his designs were found to be impracticable, to resign the estates at
once. Her thoughts were on this subject, when Montoni, who was now
recovered from the intoxication of the preceding night, sent for her,
and she immediately obeyed the summons. He was alone. “I find,” said
he, “that you were not in your chamber, last night; where were you?”
Emily related to him some circumstances of her alarm, and entreated his
protection from a repetition of them. “You know the terms of my
protection,” said he; “if you really value this, you will secure it.”
His open declaration, that he would only conditionally protect her,
while she remained a prisoner in the castle, showed Emily the necessity
of an immediate compliance with his terms; but she first demanded,
whether he would permit her immediately to depart, if she gave up her
claim to the contested estates. In a very solemn manner he then assured
her, that he would, and immediately laid before her a paper, which was
to transfer the right of those estates to himself.

She was, for a considerable time, unable to sign it, and her heart was
torn with contending interests, for she was about to resign the
happiness of all her future years—the hope, which had sustained her in
so many hours of adversity.

After hearing from Montoni a recapitulation of the conditions of her
compliance, and a remonstrance, that his time was valuable, she put her
hand to the paper; when she had done which, she fell back in her chair,
but soon recovered, and desired, that he would give orders for her
departure, and that he would allow Annette to accompany her. Montoni
smiled. “It was necessary to deceive you,” said he,—“there was no other
way of making you act reasonably; you shall go, but it must not be at
present. I must first secure these estates by possession: when that is
done, you may return to France if you will.”

The deliberate villany, with which he violated the solemn engagement he
had just entered into, shocked Emily as much, as the certainty, that
she had made a fruitless sacrifice, and must still remain his prisoner.
She had no words to express what she felt, and knew, that it would have
been useless, if she had. As she looked piteously at Montoni, he turned
away, and at the same time desired she would withdraw to her apartment;
but, unable to leave the room, she sat down in a chair near the door,
and sighed heavily. She had neither words nor tears.

“Why will you indulge this childish grief?” said he. “Endeavour to
strengthen your mind, to bear patiently what cannot now be avoided; you
have no real evil to lament; be patient, and you will be sent back to
France. At present retire to your apartment.”

“I dare not go, sir,” said she, “where I shall be liable to the
intrusion of Signor Verezzi.” “Have I not promised to protect you?”
said Montoni. “You have promised, sir,”—replied Emily, after some
hesitation. “And is not my promise sufficient?” added he sternly. “You
will recollect your former promise, Signor,” said Emily, trembling,
“and may determine for me, whether I ought to rely upon this.” “Will
you provoke me to declare to you, that I will not protect you then?”
said Montoni, in a tone of haughty displeasure. “If that will satisfy
you, I will do it immediately. Withdraw to your chamber, before I
retract my promise; you have nothing to fear there.” Emily left the
room, and moved slowly into the hall, where the fear of meeting
Verezzi, or Bertolini, made her quicken her steps, though she could
scarcely support herself; and soon after she reached once more her own
apartment. Having looked fearfully round her, to examine if any person
was there, and having searched every part of it, she fastened the door,
and sat down by one of the casements. Here, while she looked out for
some hope to support her fainting spirits, which had been so long
harassed and oppressed, that, if she had not now struggled much against
misfortune, they would have left her, perhaps, for ever, she
endeavoured to believe, that Montoni did really intend to permit her
return to France as soon as he had secured her property, and that he
would, in the mean time, protect her from insult; but her chief hope
rested with Ludovico, who, she doubted not, would be zealous in her
cause, though he seemed almost to despair of success in it. One
circumstance, however, she had to rejoice in. Her prudence, or rather
her fears, had saved her from mentioning the name of Valancourt to
Montoni, which she was several times on the point of doing, before she
signed the paper, and of stipulating for his release, if he should be
really a prisoner in the castle. Had she done this, Montoni’s jealous
fears would now probably have loaded Valancourt with new severities,
and have suggested the advantage of holding him a captive for life.

Thus passed the melancholy day, as she had before passed many in this
same chamber. When night drew on, she would have withdrawn herself to
Annette’s bed, had not a particular interest inclined her to remain in
this chamber, in spite of her fears; for, when the castle should be
still, and the customary hour arrived, she determined to watch for the
music, which she had formerly heard. Though its sounds might not enable
her positively to determine, whether Valancourt was there, they would
perhaps strengthen her opinion that he was, and impart the comfort, so
necessary to her present support. But, on the other hand, if all should
be silent! She hardly dared to suffer her thoughts to glance that way,
but waited, with impatient expectation, the approaching hour.

The night was stormy; the battlements of the castle appeared to rock in
the wind, and, at intervals, long groans seemed to pass on the air,
such as those, which often deceive the melancholy mind, in tempests,
and amidst scenes of desolation. Emily heard, as formerly, the
sentinels pass along the terrace to their posts, and, looking out from
her casement, observed, that the watch was doubled; a precaution, which
appeared necessary enough, when she threw her eyes on the walls, and
saw their shattered condition. The well-known sounds of the soldiers’
march, and of their distant voices, which passed her in the wind, and
were lost again, recalled to her memory the melancholy sensation she
had suffered, when she formerly heard the same sounds; and occasioned
almost involuntary comparisons between her present, and her late
situation. But this was no subject for congratulations, and she wisely
checked the course of her thoughts, while, as the hour was not yet
come, in which she had been accustomed to hear the music, she closed
the casement, and endeavoured to await it in patience. The door of the
staircase she tried to secure, as usual, with some of the furniture of
the room; but this expedient her fears now represented to her to be
very inadequate to the power and perseverance of Verezzi; and she often
looked at a large and heavy chest, that stood in the chamber, with
wishes that she and Annette had strength enough to move it. While she
blamed the long stay of this girl, who was still with Ludovico and some
other of the servants, she trimmed her wood fire, to make the room
appear less desolate, and sat down beside it with a book, which her
eyes perused, while her thoughts wandered to Valancourt, and her own
misfortunes. As she sat thus, she thought, in a pause of the wind, she
distinguished music, and went to the casement to listen, but the loud
swell of the gust overcame every other sound. When the wind sunk again,
she heard distinctly, in the deep pause that succeeded, the sweet
strings of a lute; but again the rising tempest bore away the notes,
and again was succeeded by a solemn pause. Emily, trembling with hope
and fear, opened her casement to listen, and to try whether her own
voice could be heard by the musician; for to endure any longer this
state of torturing suspense concerning Valancourt, seemed to be utterly
impossible. There was a kind of breathless stillness in the chambers,
that permitted her to distinguish from below the tender notes of the
very lute she had formerly heard, and with it, a plaintive voice, made
sweeter by the low rustling sound, that now began to creep along the
wood-tops, till it was lost in the rising wind. Their tall heads then
began to wave, while, through a forest of pine, on the left, the wind,
groaning heavily, rolled onward over the woods below, bending them
almost to their roots; and, as the long-resounding gale swept away,
other woods, on the right, seemed to answer the “loud lament;” then,
others, further still, softened it into a murmur, that died into
silence. Emily listened, with mingled awe and expectation, hope and
fear; and again the melting sweetness of the lute was heard, and the
same solemn-breathing voice. Convinced that these came from an
apartment underneath, she leaned far out of her window, that she might
discover whether any light was there; but the casements below, as well
as those above, were sunk so deep in the thick walls of the castle,
that she could not see them, or even the faint ray, that probably
glimmered through their bars. She then ventured to call; but the wind
bore her voice to the other end of the terrace, and then the music was
heard as before, in the pause of the gust. Suddenly, she thought she
heard a noise in her chamber, and she drew herself within the casement;
but, in a moment after, distinguishing Annette’s voice at the door, she
concluded it was her she had heard before, and she let her in. “Move
softly, Annette, to the casement,” said she, “and listen with me; the
music is returned.” They were silent till, the measure changing,
Annette exclaimed, “Holy Virgin! I know that song well; it is a French
song, one of the favourite songs of my dear country.” This was the
ballad Emily had heard on a former night, though not the one she had
first listened to from the fishing-house in Gascony. “O! it is a
Frenchman, that sings,” said Annette: “it must be Monsieur Valancourt.”
“Hark! Annette, do not speak so loud,” said Emily, “we may be
overheard.” “What! by the Chevalier?” said Annette. “No,” replied Emily
mournfully, “but by somebody, who may report us to the Signor. What
reason have you to think it is Monsieur Valancourt, who sings? But
hark! now the voice swells louder! Do you recollect those tones? I fear
to trust my own judgment.” “I never happened to hear the Chevalier
sing, Mademoiselle,” replied Annette, who, as Emily was disappointed to
perceive, had no stronger reason for concluding this to be Valancourt,
than that the musician must be a Frenchman. Soon after, she heard the
song of the fishing-house, and distinguished her own name, which was
repeated so distinctly, that Annette had heard it also. She trembled,
sunk into a chair by the window, and Annette called aloud, “Monsieur
Valancourt! Monsieur Valancourt!” while Emily endeavoured to check her,
but she repeated the call more loudly than before, and the lute and the
voice suddenly stopped. Emily listened, for some time, in a state of
intolerable suspense; but, no answer being returned, “It does not
signify, Mademoiselle,” said Annette; “it is the Chevalier, and I will
speak to him.” “No, Annette,” said Emily, “I think I will speak myself;
if it is he, he will know my voice, and speak again.” “Who is it,” said
she, “that sings at this late hour?”

A long silence ensued, and, having repeated the question, she perceived
some faint accents, mingling in the blast, that swept by; but the
sounds were so distant, and passed so suddenly, that she could scarcely
hear them, much less distinguish the words they uttered, or recognise
the voice. After another pause, Emily called again; and again they
heard a voice, but as faintly as before; and they perceived, that there
were other circumstances, besides the strength, and direction of the
wind, to content with; for the great depth, at which the casements were
fixed in the castle walls, contributed, still more than the distance,
to prevent articulated sounds from being understood, though general
ones were easily heard. Emily, however, ventured to believe, from the
circumstance of her voice alone having been answered, that the stranger
was Valancourt, as well as that he knew her, and she gave herself up to
speechless joy. Annette, however, was not speechless. She renewed her
calls, but received no answer; and Emily, fearing, that a further
attempt, which certainly was, as present, highly dangerous, might
expose them to the guards of the castle, while it could not perhaps
terminate her suspense, insisted on Annette’s dropping the enquiry for
this night; though she determined herself to question Ludovico, on the
subject, in the morning, more urgently than she had yet done. She was
now enabled to say, that the stranger, whom she had formerly heard, was
still in the castle, and to direct Ludovico to that part of it, in
which he was confined.

Emily, attended by Annette, continued at the casement, for some time,
but all remained still; they heard neither lute nor voice again, and
Emily was now as much oppressed by anxious joy, as she lately was by a
sense of her misfortunes. With hasty steps she paced the room, now half
calling on Valancourt’s name, then suddenly stopping, and now going to
the casement and listening, where, however, she heard nothing but the
solemn waving of the woods. Sometimes her impatience to speak to
Ludovico prompted her to send Annette to call him; but a sense of the
impropriety of this at midnight restrained her. Annette, meanwhile, as
impatient as her mistress, went as often to the casement to listen, and
returned almost as much disappointed. She, at length, mentioned Signor
Verezzi, and her fear, lest he should enter the chamber by the
staircase, door. “But the night is now almost past, Mademoiselle,” said
she, recollecting herself; “there is the morning light, beginning to
peep over those mountains yonder in the east.”

Emily had forgotten, till this moment, that such a person existed as
Verezzi, and all the danger that had appeared to threaten her; but the
mention of his name renewed her alarm, and she remembered the old
chest, that she had wished to place against the door, which she now,
with Annette, attempted to move, but it was so heavy, that they could
not lift it from the floor. “What is in this great old chest,
Mademoiselle,” said Annette, “that makes it so weighty?” Emily having
replied, “that she found it in the chamber, when she first came to the
castle, and had never examined it.”—“Then I will, ma’amselle,” said
Annette, and she tried to lift the lid; but this was held by a lock,
for which she had no key, and which, indeed, appeared, from its
peculiar construction, to open with a spring. The morning now glimmered
through the casements, and the wind had sunk into a calm. Emily looked
out upon the dusky woods, and on the twilight mountains, just stealing
in the eye, and saw the whole scene, after the storm, lying in profound
stillness, the woods motionless, and the clouds above, through which
the dawn trembled, scarcely appearing to move along the heavens. One
soldier was pacing the terrace beneath, with measured steps; and two,
more distant, were sunk asleep on the walls, wearied with the night’s
watch. Having inhaled, for a while, the pure spirit of the air, and of
vegetation, which the late rains had called forth; and having listened,
once more, for a note of music, she now closed the casement, and
retired to rest.



 CHAPTER IX

Thus on the chill Lapponian’s dreary land,
For many a long month lost in snow profound,
When Sol from Cancer sends the seasons bland,
And in their northern cave the storms hath bound;
From silent mountains, straight, with startling sound,
Torrents are hurl’d, green hills emerge, and lo,
The trees with foliage, cliffs with flowers are crown’d;
Pure rills through vales of verdure warbling go;
And wonder, love, and joy, the peasant’s heart o’erflow.
                    BEATTIE


Several of her succeeding days passed in suspense, for Ludovico could
only learn from the soldiers, that there was a prisoner in the
apartment, described to him by Emily, and that he was a Frenchman, whom
they had taken in one of their skirmishes, with a party of his
countrymen. During this interval, Emily escaped the persecutions of
Bertolini, and Verezzi, by confining herself to her apartment; except
that sometimes, in an evening, she ventured to walk in the adjoining
corridor. Montoni appeared to respect his last promise, though he had
prophaned his first; for to his protection only could she attribute her
present repose; and in this she was now so secure, that she did not
wish to leave the castle, till she could obtain some certainty
concerning Valancourt; for which she waited, indeed, without any
sacrifice of her own comfort, since no circumstance had occurred to
make her escape probable.

On the fourth day, Ludovico informed her, that he had hopes of being
admitted to the presence of the prisoner; it being the turn of a
soldier, with whom he had been for some time familiar, to attend him on
the following night. He was not deceived in his hope; for, under
pretence of carrying in a pitcher of water, he entered the prison,
though, his prudence having prevented him from telling the sentinel the
real motive of his visit, he was obliged to make his conference with
the prisoner a very short one.

Emily awaited the result in her own apartment, Ludovico having promised
to accompany Annette to the corridor, in the evening; where, after
several hours impatiently counted, he arrived. Emily, having then
uttered the name of Valancourt, could articulate no more, but hesitated
in trembling expectation. “The Chevalier would not entrust me with his
name, Signora,” replied Ludovico; “but, when I just mentioned yours, he
seemed overwhelmed with joy, though he was not so much surprised as I
expected.” “Does he then remember me?” she exclaimed.

“O! it is Mons. Valancourt,” said Annette, and looked impatiently at
Ludovico, who understood her look, and replied to Emily: “Yes, lady,
the Chevalier does, indeed, remember you, and, I am sure, has a very
great regard for you, and I made bold to say you had for him. He then
enquired how you came to know he was in the castle, and whether you
ordered me to speak to him. The first question I could not answer, but
the second I did; and then he went off into his ecstasies again. I was
afraid his joy would have betrayed him to the sentinel at the door.”

“But how does he look, Ludovico?” interrupted Emily: “is he not
melancholy and ill with this long confinement?”—“Why, as to melancholy,
I saw no symptom of that, lady, while I was with him, for he seemed in
the finest spirits I ever saw anybody in, in all my life. His
countenance was all joy, and, if one may judge from that, he was very
well; but I did not ask him.” “Did he send me no message?” said Emily.
“O yes, Signora, and something besides,” replied Ludovico, who searched
his pockets. “Surely, I have not lost it,” added he. “The Chevalier
said, he would have written, madam, if he had had pen and ink, and was
going to have sent a very long message, when the sentinel entered the
room, but not before he had give me this.” Ludovico then drew forth a
miniature from his bosom, which Emily received with a trembling hand,
and perceived to be a portrait of herself—the very picture, which her
mother had lost so strangely in the fishing-house at La Vallée.

Tears of mingled joy and tenderness flowed to her eyes, while Ludovico
proceeded—“‘Tell your lady,’ said the Chevalier, as he gave me the
picture, ‘that this has been my companion, and only solace in all my
misfortunes. Tell her, that I have worn it next my heart, and that I
sent it her as the pledge of an affection, which can never die; that I
would not part with it, but to her, for the wealth of worlds, and that
I now part with it, only in the hope of soon receiving it from her
hands. Tell her—’ Just then, Signora, the sentinel came in, and the
Chevalier said no more; but he had before asked me to contrive an
interview for him with you; and when I told him, how little hope I had
of prevailing with the guard to assist me, he said, that was not,
perhaps, of so much consequence as I imagined, and bade me contrive to
bring back your answer, and he would inform me of more than he chose to
do then. So this, I think, lady, is the whole of what passed.”

“How, Ludovico, shall I reward you for your zeal?” said Emily: “but,
indeed, I do not now possess the means. When can you see the Chevalier
again?” “That is uncertain, Signora,” replied he. “It depends upon who
stands guard next: there are not more than one or two among them, from
whom I would dare to ask admittance to the prison-chamber.”

“I need not bid you remember, Ludovico,” resumed Emily, “how very much
interested I am in your seeing the Chevalier soon; and, when you do so,
tell him, that I have received the picture, and, with the sentiments he
wished. Tell him I have suffered much, and still suffer—” She paused.
“But shall I tell him you will see him, lady?” said Ludovico. “Most
certainly I will,” replied Emily. “But when, Signora, and where?” “That
must depend upon circumstances,” returned Emily. “The place, and the
hour, must be regulated by his opportunities.”

“As to the place, mademoiselle,” said Annette, “there is no other place
in the castle, besides this corridor, where _we_ can see him in safety,
you know; and, as for the hour,—it must be when all the Signors are
asleep, if that ever happens!” “You may mention these circumstances to
the Chevalier, Ludovico,” said she, checking the flippancy of Annette,
“and leave them to his judgment and opportunity. Tell him, my heart is
unchanged. But, above all, let him see you again as soon as possible;
and, Ludovico, I think it is needless to tell you I shall very
anxiously look for you.” Having then wished her good night, Ludovico
descended the staircase, and Emily retired to rest, but not to sleep,
for joy now rendered her as wakeful, as she had ever been from grief.
Montoni and his castle had all vanished from her mind, like the
frightful vision of a necromancer, and she wandered, once more, in
fairy scenes of unfading happiness:

As when, beneath the beam
Of summer moons, the distant woods among,
Or by some flood, all silver’d with the gleam,
The soft embodied Fays thro’ airy portals stream.


A week elapsed, before Ludovico again visited the prison; for the
sentinels, during that period, were men, in whom he could not confide,
and he feared to awaken curiosity, by asking to see their prisoner. In
this interval, he communicated to Emily terrific reports of what was
passing in the castle; of riots, quarrels, and of carousals more
alarming than either; while from some circumstances, which he
mentioned, she not only doubted, whether Montoni meant ever to release
her, but greatly feared, that he had designs, concerning her,—such as
she had formerly dreaded. Her name was frequently mentioned in the
conversations, which Bertolini and Verezzi held together, and, at those
times, they were frequently in contention. Montoni had lost large sums
to Verezzi, so that there was a dreadful possibility of his designing
her to be a substitute for the debt; but, as she was ignorant, that he
had formerly encouraged the hopes of Bertolini also, concerning
herself, after the latter had done him some signal service, she knew
not how to account for these contentions between Bertolini and Verezzi.
The cause of them, however, appeared to be of little consequence, for
she thought she saw destruction approaching in many forms, and her
entreaties to Ludovico to contrive an escape and to see the prisoner
again, were more urgent than ever.

At length, he informed her, that he had again visited the Chevalier,
who had directed him to confide in the guard of the prison, from whom
he had already received some instances of kindness, and who had
promised to permit his going into the castle for half an hour, on the
ensuing night, when Montoni and his companions should be engaged at
their carousals. “This was kind, to be sure,” added Ludovico: “but
Sebastian knows he runs no risk in letting the Chevalier out, for, if
he can get beyond the bars and iron doors of the castle, he must be
cunning indeed. But the Chevalier desired me, Signora, to go to you
immediately, and to beg you would allow him to visit you, this night,
if it was only for a moment, for that he could no longer live under the
same roof, without seeing you; the hour, he said, he could not mention,
for it must depend on circumstances (just as you said, Signora); and
the place he desired you would appoint, as knowing which was best for
your own safety.”

Emily was now so much agitated by the near prospect of meeting
Valancourt, that it was some time, before she could give any answer to
Ludovico, or consider of the place of meeting; when she did, she saw
none, that promised so much security, as the corridor, near her own
apartment, which she was checked from leaving, by the apprehension of
meeting any of Montoni’s guests, on their way to their rooms; and she
dismissed the scruples, which delicacy opposed, now that a serious
danger was to be avoided by encountering them. It was settled,
therefore, that the Chevalier should meet her in the corridor, at that
hour of the night, which Ludovico, who was to be upon the watch, should
judge safest: and Emily, as may be imagined, passed this interval in a
tumult of hope and joy, anxiety and impatience. Never, since her
residence in the castle, had she watched, with so much pleasure, the
sun set behind the mountains, and twilight shade, and darkness veil the
scene, as on this evening. She counted the notes of the great clock,
and listened to the steps of the sentinels, as they changed the watch,
only to rejoice, that another hour was gone. “O, Valancourt!” said she,
“after all I have suffered; after our long, long separation, when I
thought I should never—never see you more—we are still to meet again!
O! I have endured grief, and anxiety, and terror, and let me, then, not
sink beneath this joy!” These were moments, when it was impossible for
her to feel emotions of regret, or melancholy, for any ordinary
interests;—even the reflection, that she had resigned the estates,
which would have been a provision for herself and Valancourt for life,
threw only a light and transient shade upon her spirits. The idea of
Valancourt, and that she should see him so soon, alone occupied her
heart.

At length the clock struck twelve; she opened the door to listen, if
any noise was in the castle, and heard only distant shouts of riot and
laughter, echoed feebly along the gallery. She guessed, that the Signor
and his guests were at the banquet. “They are now engaged for the
night,” said she; “and Valancourt will soon be here.” Having softly
closed the door, she paced the room with impatient steps, and often
went to the casement to listen for the lute; but all was silent, and,
her agitation every moment increasing, she was at length unable to
support herself, and sat down by the window. Annette, whom she
detained, was, in the meantime, as loquacious as usual; but Emily heard
scarcely anything she said, and having at length risen to the casement,
she distinguished the chords of the lute, struck with an expressive
hand, and then the voice, she had formerly listened to, accompanied it.

Now rising love they fann’d, now pleasing dole
They breath’d in tender musings through the heart;
And now a graver, sacred strain they stole,
As when seraphic hands a hymn impart!


Emily wept in doubtful joy and tenderness; and, when the strain ceased,
she considered it as a signal, that Valancourt was about to leave the
prison. Soon after, she heard steps in the corridor;—they were the
light, quick steps of hope; she could scarcely support herself, as they
approached, but opening the door of the apartment, she advanced to meet
Valancourt, and, in the next moment, sunk in the arms of a stranger.
His voice—his countenance instantly convinced her, and she fainted
away.

On reviving, she found herself supported by the stranger, who was
watching over her recovery, with a countenance of ineffable tenderness
and anxiety. She had no spirits for reply, or enquiry; she asked no
questions, but burst into tears, and disengaged herself from his arms;
when the expression of his countenance changed to surprise and
disappointment, and he turned to Ludovico, for an explanation; Annette
soon gave the information, which Ludovico could not. “O, sir!” said
she, in a voice, interrupted with sobs; “O, sir! you are not the other
Chevalier. We expected Monsieur Valancourt, but you are not he! O
Ludovico! how could you deceive us so? my poor lady will never recover
it—never!” The stranger, who now appeared much agitated, attempted to
speak, but his words faltered; and then striking his hand against his
forehead, as if in sudden despair, he walked abruptly to the other end
of the corridor.

Suddenly, Annette dried her tears, and spoke to Ludovico. “But,
perhaps,” said she, “after all, the other Chevalier is not this:
perhaps the Chevalier Valancourt is still below.” Emily raised her
head. “No,” replied Ludovico, “Monsieur Valancourt never was below, if
this gentleman is not he.” “If you, sir,” said Ludovico, addressing the
stranger, “would but have had the goodness to trust me with your name,
this mistake had been avoided.” “Most true,” replied the stranger,
speaking in broken Italian, “but it was of the utmost consequence to
me, that my name should be concealed from Montoni. Madam,” added he
then, addressing Emily in French, “will you permit me to apologise for
the pain I have occasioned you, and to explain to you alone my name,
and the circumstance, which has led me into this error? I am of
France;—I am your countryman;—we are met in a foreign land.” Emily
tried to compose her spirits; yet she hesitated to grant his request.
At length, desiring, that Ludovico would wait on the staircase, and
detaining Annette, she told the stranger, that her woman understood
very little Italian, and begged he would communicate what he wished to
say, in that language.—Having withdrawn to a distant part of the
corridor, he said, with a long-drawn sigh, “You, madam, are no stranger
to me, though I am so unhappy as to be unknown to you.—My name is Du
Pont; I am of France, of Gascony, your native province, and have long
admired,—and, why should I affect to disguise it?—have long loved you.”
He paused, but, in the next moment, proceeded. “My family, madam, is
probably not unknown to you, for we lived within a few miles of La
Vallée, and I have, sometimes, had the happiness of meeting you, on
visits in the neighbourhood. I will not offend you by repeating how
much you interested me; how much I loved to wander in the scenes you
frequented; how often I visited your favourite fishing-house, and
lamented the circumstance, which, at that time, forbade me to reveal my
passion. I will not explain how I surrendered to temptation, and became
possessed of a treasure, which was to me inestimable; a treasure, which
I committed to your messenger, a few days ago, with expectations very
different from my present ones. I will say nothing of these
circumstances, for I know they will avail me little; let me only
supplicate from you forgiveness, and the picture, which I so unwarily
returned. Your generosity will pardon the theft, and restore the prize.
My crime has been my punishment; for the portrait I stole has
contributed to nourish a passion, which must still be my torment.”

Emily now interrupted him. “I think, sir, I may leave it to your
integrity to determine, whether, after what has just appeared,
concerning Mons. Valancourt, I ought to return the picture. I think you
will acknowledge, that this would not be generosity; and you will allow
me to add, that it would be doing myself an injustice. I must consider
myself honoured by your good opinion, but”—and she hesitated,—“the
mistake of this evening makes it unnecessary for me to say more.”

“It does, madam,—alas! it does!” said the stranger, who, after a long
pause, proceeded.—“But you will allow me to show my disinterestedness,
though not my love, and will accept the services I offer. Yet, alas!
what services can I offer? I am myself a prisoner, a sufferer, like
you. But, dear as liberty is to me, I would not seek it through half
the hazards I would encounter to deliver you from this recess of vice.
Accept the offered services of a friend; do not refuse me the reward of
having, at least, attempted to deserve your thanks.”

“You deserve them already, sir,” said Emily; “the wish deserves my
warmest thanks. But you will excuse me for reminding you of the danger
you incur by prolonging this interview. It will be a great consolation
to me to remember, whether your friendly attempts to release me succeed
or not, that I have a countryman, who would so generously protect
me.”—Monsieur Du Pont took her hand, which she but feebly attempted to
withdraw, and pressed it respectfully to his lips. “Allow me to breathe
another fervent sigh for your happiness,” said he, “and to applaud
myself for an affection, which I cannot conquer.” As he said this,
Emily heard a noise from her apartment, and, turning round, saw the
door from the staircase open, and a man rush into her chamber. “I will
teach you to conquer it,” cried he, as he advanced into the corridor,
and drew a stiletto, which he aimed at Du Pont, who was unarmed, but
who, stepping back, avoided the blow, and then sprung upon Verezzi,
from whom he wrenched the stiletto. While they struggled in each
other’s grasp, Emily, followed by Annette, ran further into the
corridor, calling on Ludovico, who was, however, gone from the
staircase, and, as she advanced, terrified and uncertain what to do, a
distant noise, that seemed to arise from the hall, reminded her of the
danger she was incurring; and, sending Annette forward in search of
Ludovico, she returned to the spot where Du Pont and Verezzi were still
struggling for victory. It was her own cause which was to be decided
with that of the former, whose conduct, independently of this
circumstance, would, however, have interested her in his success, even
had she not disliked and dreaded Verezzi. She threw herself in a chair,
and supplicated them to desist from further violence, till, at length,
Du Pont forced Verezzi to the floor, where he lay stunned by the
violence of his fall; and she then entreated Du Pont to escape from the
room, before Montoni, or his party, should appear; but he still refused
to leave her unprotected; and, while Emily, now more terrified for him,
than for herself, enforced the entreaty, they heard steps ascending the
private staircase.

“O you are lost!” cried she, “these are Montoni’s people.” Du Pont made
no reply, but supported Emily, while, with a steady, though eager,
countenance, he awaited their appearance, and, in the next moment,
Ludovico, alone, mounted the landing-place. Throwing a hasty glance
round the chamber, “Follow me,” said he, “as you value your lives; we
have not an instant to lose!”

Emily enquired what had occurred, and whither they were to go?

“I cannot stay to tell you now, Signora,” replied Ludovico: “fly! fly!”

She immediately followed him, accompanied by Mons. Du Pont, down the
staircase, and along a vaulted passage, when suddenly she recollected
Annette, and enquired for her. “She awaits us further on, Signora,”
said Ludovico, almost breathless with haste; “the gates were open, a
moment since, to a party just come in from the mountains: they will be
shut, I fear, before we can reach them! Through this door, Signora,”
added Ludovico, holding down the lamp, “take care, here are two steps.”

Emily followed, trembling still more, than before she had understood,
that her escape from the castle, depended upon the present moment;
while Du Pont supported her, and endeavoured, as they passed along, to
cheer her spirits.

“Speak low, Signor,” said Ludovico, “these passages send echoes all
round the castle.”

“Take care of the light,” cried Emily, “you go so fast, that the air
will extinguish it.”

Ludovico now opened another door, where they found Annette, and the
party then descended a short flight of steps into a passage, which,
Ludovico said, led round the inner court of the castle, and opened into
the outer one. As they advanced, confused and tumultuous sounds, that
seemed to come from the inner court, alarmed Emily. “Nay, Signora,”
said Ludovico, “our only hope is in that tumult; while the Signor’s
people are busied about the men, who are just arrived, we may, perhaps,
pass unnoticed through the gates. But hush!” he added, as they
approached the small door, that opened into the outer court, “if you
will remain here a moment, I will go to see whether the gates are open,
and anybody is in the way. Pray extinguish the light, Signor, if you
hear me talking,” continued Ludovico, delivering the lamp to Du Pont,
“and remain quite still.”

Saying this, he stepped out upon the court, and they closed the door,
listening anxiously to his departing steps. No voice, however, was
heard in the court, which he was crossing, though a confusion of many
voices yet issued from the inner one. “We shall soon be beyond the
walls,” said Du Pont softly to Emily, “support yourself a little
longer, Madam, and all will be well.”

But soon they heard Ludovico speaking loud, and the voice also of some
other person, and Du Pont immediately extinguished the lamp. “Ah! it is
too late!” exclaimed Emily, “what is to become of us?” They listened
again, and then perceived, that Ludovico was talking with a sentinel,
whose voices were heard also by Emily’s favourite dog, that had
followed her from the chamber, and now barked loudly. “This dog will
betray us!” said Du Pont, “I will hold him.” “I fear he has already
betrayed us!” replied Emily. Du Pont, however, caught him up, and,
again listening to what was going on without, they heard Ludovico say,
“I’ll watch the gates the while.”

“Stay a minute,” replied the sentinel, “and you need not have the
trouble, for the horses will be sent round to the outer stables, then
the gates will be shut, and I can leave my post.” “I don’t mind the
trouble, comrade,” said Ludovico, “you will do such another good turn
for me, some time. Go—go, and fetch the wine; the rogues, that are just
come in, will drink it all else.”

The soldier hesitated, and then called aloud to the people in the
second court, to know why they did not send out the horses, that the
gates might be shut; but they were too much engaged, to attend to him,
even if they had heard his voice.

“Aye—aye,” said Ludovico, “they know better than that; they are sharing
it all among them; if you wait till the horses come out, you must wait
till the wine is drunk. I have had my share already, but, since you do
not care about yours, I see no reason why I should not have that too.”

“Hold, hold, not so fast,” cried the sentinel, “do watch then, for a
moment: I’ll be with you presently.”

“Don’t hurry yourself,” said Ludovico, coolly, “I have kept guard
before now. But you may leave me your trombone,* that, if the castle
should be attacked, you know, I may be able to defend the pass, like a
hero.”

(*Note: A kind of blunderbuss. [A. R.])


“There, my good fellow,” returned the soldier, “there, take it—it has
seen service, though it could do little in defending the castle. I’ll
tell you a good story, though, about this same trombone.”

“You’ll tell it better when you have had the wine,” said Ludovico.
“There! they are coming out from the court already.”

“I’ll have the wine, though,” said the sentinel, running off. “I won’t
keep you a minute.”

“Take your time, I am in no haste,” replied Ludovico, who was already
hurrying across the court, when the soldier came back. “Whither so
fast, friend—whither so fast?” said the latter. “What! is this the way
you keep watch! I must stand to my post myself, I see.”

“Aye, well,” replied Ludovico, “you have saved me the trouble of
following you further, for I wanted to tell you, if you have a mind to
drink the Tuscany wine, you must go to Sebastian, he is dealing it out;
the other that Federico has, is not worth having. But you are not
likely to have any, I see, for they are all coming out.”

“By St. Peter! so they are,” said the soldier, and again ran off, while
Ludovico, once more at liberty, hastened to the door of the passage,
where Emily was sinking under the anxiety this long discourse had
occasioned; but, on his telling them the court was clear, they followed
him to the gates, without waiting another instant, yet not before he
had seized two horses, that had strayed from the second court, and were
picking a scanty meal among the grass, which grew between the pavement
of the first.

They passed, without interruption, the dreadful gates, and took the
road that led down among the woods, Emily, Monsieur Du Pont and Annette
on foot, and Ludovico, who was mounted on one horse, leading the other.
Having reached them, they stopped, while Emily and Annette were placed
on horseback with their two protectors, when, Ludovico leading the way,
they set off as fast as the broken road, and the feeble light, which a
rising moon threw among the foliage, would permit.

Emily was so much astonished by this sudden departure, that she
scarcely dared to believe herself awake; and she yet much doubted
whether this adventure would terminate in escape,—a doubt, which had
too much probability to justify it; for, before they quitted the woods,
they heard shouts in the wind, and, on emerging from them, saw lights
moving quickly near the castle above. Du Pont whipped his horse, and
with some difficulty compelled him to go faster.

“Ah! poor beast,” said Ludovico, “he is weary enough;—he has been out
all day; but, Signor, we must fly for it, now; for yonder are lights
coming this way.”

Having given his own horse a lash, they now both set off on a full
gallop; and, when they again looked back, the lights were so distant as
scarcely to be discerned, and the voices were sunk into silence. The
travellers then abated their pace, and, consulting whither they should
direct their course, it was determined they should descend into
Tuscany, and endeavour to reach the Mediterranean, where they could
readily embark for France. Thither Du Pont meant to attend Emily, if he
should learn, that the regiment he had accompanied into Italy, was
returned to his native country.

They were now in the road, which Emily had travelled with Ugo and
Bertrand; but Ludovico, who was the only one of the party, acquainted
with the passes of these mountains, said, that, a little further on, a
by-road, branching from this, would lead them down into Tuscany with
very little difficulty; and that, at a few leagues distance, was a
small town, where necessaries could be procured for their journey.

“But, I hope,” added he, “we shall meet with no straggling parties of
banditti; some of them are abroad, I know. However, I have got a good
trombone, which will be of some service, if we should encounter any of
those brave spirits. You have no arms, Signor?” “Yes,” replied Du Pont,
“I have the villain’s stilletto, who would have stabbed me—but let us
rejoice in our escape from Udolpho, nor torment ourselves with looking
out for dangers, that may never arrive.”

The moon was now risen high over the woods, that hung upon the sides of
the narrow glen, through which they wandered, and afforded them light
sufficient to distinguish their way, and to avoid the loose and broken
stones, that frequently crossed it. They now travelled leisurely, and
in profound silence; for they had scarcely yet recovered from the
astonishment, into which this sudden escape had thrown them.—Emily’s
mind, especially, was sunk, after the various emotions it had suffered,
into a kind of musing stillness, which the reposing beauty of the
surrounding scene and the creeping murmur of the night-breeze among the
foliage above contributed to prolong. She thought of Valancourt and of
France, with hope, and she would have thought of them with joy, had not
the first events of this evening harassed her spirits too much, to
permit her now to feel so lively a sensation. Meanwhile, Emily was
alone the object of Du Pont’s melancholy consideration; yet, with the
despondency he suffered, as he mused on his recent disappointment, was
mingled a sweet pleasure, occasioned by her presence, though they did
not now exchange a single word. Annette thought of this wonderful
escape, of the bustle in which Montoni and his people must be, now that
their flight was discovered; of her native country, whither she hoped
she was returning, and of her marriage with Ludovico, to which there no
longer appeared any impediment, for poverty she did not consider such.
Ludovico, on his part, congratulated himself, on having rescued his
Annette and Signora Emily from the danger, that had surrounded them; on
his own liberation from people, whose manners he had long detested; on
the freedom he had given to Monsieur Du Pont; on his prospect of
happiness with the object of his affections, and not a little on the
address, with which he had deceived the sentinel, and conducted the
whole of this affair.

Thus variously engaged in thought, the travellers passed on silently,
for above an hour, a question only being, now and then, asked by Du
Pont, concerning the road, or a remark uttered by Annette, respecting
objects, seen imperfectly in the twilight. At length, lights were
perceived twinkling on the side of a mountain, and Ludovico had no
doubt, that they proceeded from the town he had mentioned, while his
companions, satisfied by this assurance, sunk again into silence.
Annette was the first who interrupted this. “Holy Peter!” said she,
“What shall we do for money on our journey? for I know neither I, nor
my lady, have a single sequin; the Signor took care of that!”

This remark produced a serious enquiry, which ended in as serious an
embarrassment, for Du Pont had been rifled of nearly all his money,
when he was taken prisoner; the remainder he had given to the sentinel,
who had enabled him occasionally to leave his prison-chamber; and
Ludovico, who had for some time found a difficulty, in procuring any
part of the wages due to him, had now scarcely cash sufficient to
procure necessary refreshment at the first town, in which they should
arrive.

Their poverty was the more distressing, since it would detain them
among the mountains, where, even in a town, they could scarcely
consider themselves safe from Montoni. The travellers, however, had
only to proceed and dare the future; and they continued their way
through lonely wilds and dusky valleys, where the overhanging foliage
now admitted, and then excluded the moonlight; wilds so desolate, that
they appeared, on the first glance, as if no human being had ever trod
them before. Even the road, in which the party were, did but slightly
contradict this error, for the high grass and other luxuriant
vegetation, with which it was overgrown, told how very seldom the foot
of a traveller had passed it.

At length, from a distance, was heard the faint tinkling of a
sheep-bell; and, soon after, the bleat of flocks, and the party then
knew, that they were near some human habitation, for the light, which
Ludovico had fancied to proceed from a town, had long been concealed by
intervening mountains. Cheered by this hope, they quickened their pace
along the narrow pass they were winding, and it opened upon one of
those pastoral valleys of the Apennines, which might be painted for a
scene of Arcadia, and whose beauty and simplicity are finely contrasted
by the grandeur of the snowtopped mountains above.

The morning light, now glimmering in the horizon, showed faintly, at a
little distance, upon the brow of a hill, which seemed to peep from
“under the opening eye-lids of the morn,” the town they were in search
of, and which they soon after reached. It was not without some
difficulty, that they there found a house, which could afford shelter
for themselves and their horses; and Emily desired they might not rest
longer than was necessary for refreshment. Her appearance excited some
surprise, for she was without a hat, having had time only to throw on
her veil before she left the castle, a circumstance, that compelled her
to regret again the want of money, without which it was impossible to
procure this necessary article of dress.

Ludovico, on examining his purse, found it even insufficient to supply
present refreshment, and Du Pont, at length, ventured to inform the
landlord, whose countenance was simple and honest, of their exact
situation, and requested, that he would assist them to pursue their
journey; a purpose, which he promised to comply with, as far as he was
able, when he learned that they were prisoners escaping from Montoni,
whom he had too much reason to hate. But, though he consented to lend
them fresh horses to carry them to the next town, he was too poor
himself to trust them with money, and they were again lamenting their
poverty, when Ludovico, who had been with his tired horses to the
hovel, which served for a stable, entered the room, half frantic with
joy, in which his auditors soon participated. On removing the saddle
from one of the horses, he had found beneath it a small bag,
containing, no doubt, the booty of one of the _Condottieri_, who had
returned from a plundering excursion, just before Ludovico left the
castle, and whose horse having strayed from the inner court, while his
master was engaged in drinking, had brought away the treasure, which
the ruffian had considered the reward of his exploit.

On counting over this, Du Pont found, that it would be more than
sufficient to carry them all to France, where he now determined to
accompany Emily, whether he should obtain intelligence of his regiment,
or not; for, though he had as much confidence in the integrity of
Ludovico, as his small knowledge of him allowed, he could not endure
the thought of committing her to his care for the voyage; nor, perhaps,
had he resolution enough to deny himself the dangerous pleasure, which
he might derive from her presence.

He now consulted them, concerning the sea-port, to which they should
direct their way, and Ludovico, better informed of the geography of the
country, said, that Leghorn was the nearest port of consequence, which
Du Pont knew also to be the most likely of any in Italy to assist their
plan, since from thence vessels of all nations were continually
departing. Thither, therefore, it was determined, that they should
proceed.

Emily, having purchased a little straw hat, such as was worn by the
peasant girls of Tuscany, and some other little necessary equipments
for the journey, and the travellers, having exchanged their tired
horses for others better able to carry them, recommenced their joyous
way, as the sun was rising over the mountains, and, after travelling
through this romantic country, for several hours, began to descend into
the vale of Arno. And here Emily beheld all the charms of sylvan and
pastoral landscape united, adorned with the elegant villas of the
Florentine nobles, and diversified with the various riches of
cultivation. How vivid the shrubs that embowered the slopes, with the
woods, that stretched amphitheatrically along the mountains! and, above
all, how elegant the outline of these waving Apennines, now softening
from the wildness, which their interior regions exhibited! At a
distance, in the east, Emily discovered Florence, with its towers
rising on the brilliant horizon, and its luxuriant plain, spreading to
the feet of the Apennines, speckled with gardens and magnificent
villas, or coloured with groves of orange and lemon, with vines, corn,
and plantations of olives and mulberry; while, to the west, the vale
opened to the waters of the Mediterranean, so distant, that they were
known only by a bluish line, that appeared upon the horizon, and by the
light marine vapour, which just stained the æther above.

With a full heart, Emily hailed the waves, that were to bear her back
to her native country, the remembrance of which, however, brought with
it a pang; for she had there no home to receive, no parents to welcome
her, but was going, like a forlorn pilgrim, to weep over the sad spot,
where he, who _was_ her father, lay interred. Nor were her spirits
cheered, when she considered how long it would probably be before she
should see Valancourt, who might be stationed with his regiment in a
distant part of France, and that, when they did meet, it would be only
to lament the successful villany of Montoni; yet, still she would have
felt inexpressible delight at the thought of being once more in the
same country with Valancourt, had it even been certain, that she could
not see him.

The intense heat, for it was now noon, obliged the travellers to look
out for a shady recess, where they might rest, for a few hours, and the
neighbouring thickets, abounding with wild grapes, raspberries, and
figs, promised them grateful refreshment. Soon after, they turned from
the road into a grove, whose thick foliage entirely excluded the
sunbeams, and where a spring, gushing from the rock, gave coolness to
the air; and, having alighted and turned the horses to graze, Annette
and Ludovico ran to gather fruit from the surrounding thickets, of
which they soon returned with an abundance. The travellers, seated
under the shade of a pine and cypress grove and on turf, enriched with
such a profusion of fragrant flowers, as Emily had scarcely ever seen,
even among the Pyrenees, took their simple repast, and viewed, with new
delight, beneath the dark umbrage of gigantic pines, the glowing
landscape stretching to the sea.

Emily and Du Pont gradually became thoughtful and silent; but Annette
was all joy and loquacity, and Ludovico was gay, without forgetting the
respectful distance, which was due to his companions. The repast being
over, Du Pont recommended Emily to endeavour to sleep, during these
sultry hours, and, desiring the servants would do the same, said he
would watch the while; but Ludovico wished to spare him this trouble;
and Emily and Annette, wearied with travelling, tried to repose, while
he stood guard with his trombone.

When Emily, refreshed by slumber, awoke, she found the sentinel asleep
on his post and Du Pont awake, but lost in melancholy thought. As the
sun was yet too high to allow them to continue their journey, and as it
was necessary, that Ludovico, after the toils and trouble he had
suffered, should finish his sleep, Emily took this opportunity of
enquiring by what accident Du Pont became Montoni’s prisoner, and he,
pleased with the interest this enquiry expressed and with the excuse it
gave him for talking to her of himself, immediately answered her
curiosity.

“I came into Italy, madam,” said Du Pont, “in the service of my
country. In an adventure among the mountains our party, engaging with
the bands of Montoni, was routed, and I, with a few of my comrades, was
taken prisoner. When they told me, whose captive I was, the name of
Montoni struck me, for I remembered, that Madame Cheron, your aunt, had
married an Italian of that name, and that you had accompanied them into
Italy. It was not, however, till some time after, that I became
convinced this was the same Montoni, or learned that you, madam, was
under the same roof with myself. I will not pain you by describing what
were my emotions upon this discovery, which I owed to a sentinel, whom
I had so far won to my interest, that he granted me many indulgences,
one of which was very important to me, and somewhat dangerous to
himself; but he persisted in refusing to convey any letter, or notice
of my situation to you, for he justly dreaded a discovery and the
consequent vengeance of Montoni. He however enabled me to see you more
than once. You are surprised, madam, and I will explain myself. My
health and spirits suffered extremely from want of air and exercise,
and, at length, I gained so far upon the pity, or the avarice of the
man, that he gave me the means of walking on the terrace.”

Emily now listened, with very anxious attention, to the narrative of Du
Pont, who proceeded:

“In granting this indulgence, he knew, that he had nothing to apprehend
from a chance of my escaping from a castle, which was vigilantly
guarded, and the nearest terrace of which rose over a perpendicular
rock; he showed me also,” continued Du Pont, “a door concealed in the
cedar wainscot of the apartment where I was confined, which he
instructed me how to open; and which, leading into a passage, formed
within the thickness of the wall, that extended far along the castle,
finally opened in an obscure corner of the eastern rampart. I have
since been informed, that there are many passages of the same kind
concealed within the prodigious walls of that edifice, and which were,
undoubtedly, contrived for the purpose of facilitating escapes in time
of war. Through this avenue, at the dead of night, I often stole to the
terrace, where I walked with the utmost caution, lest my steps should
betray me to the sentinels on duty in distant parts; for this end of
it, being guarded by high buildings, was not watched by soldiers. In
one of these midnight wanderings, I saw light in a casement that
overlooked the rampart, and which, I observed, was immediately over my
prison-chamber. It occurred to me, that you might be in that apartment,
and, with the hope of seeing you, I placed myself opposite to the
window.”

Emily, remembering the figure that had formerly appeared on the
terrace, and which had occasioned her so much anxiety, exclaimed, “It
was you then, Monsieur Du Pont, who occasioned me much foolish terror;
my spirits were, at that time, so much weakened by long suffering, that
they took alarm at every hint.” Du Pont, after lamenting, that he had
occasioned her any apprehension, added, “As I rested on the wall,
opposite to your casement, the consideration of your melancholy
situation and of my own called from me involuntary sounds of
lamentation, which drew you, I fancy, to the casement; I saw there a
person, whom I believed to be you. O! I will say nothing of my emotion
at that moment; I wished to speak, but prudence restrained me, till the
distant foot-step of a sentinel compelled me suddenly to quit my
station.

“It was some time, before I had another opportunity of walking, for I
could only leave my prison, when it happened to be the turn of one man
to guard me; meanwhile I became convinced from some circumstances
related by him, that your apartment was over mine, and, when again I
ventured forth, I returned to your casement, where again I saw you, but
without daring to speak. I waved my hand, and you suddenly disappeared;
then it was, that I forgot my prudence, and yielded to lamentation;
again you appeared—you spoke—I heard the well-known accent of your
voice! and, at that moment, my discretion would have forsaken me again,
had I not heard also the approaching steps of a soldier, when I
instantly quitted the place, though not before the man had seen me. He
followed down the terrace and gained so fast upon me, that I was
compelled to make use of a stratagem, ridiculous enough, to save
myself. I had heard of the superstition of many of these men, and I
uttered a strange noise, with a hope, that my pursuer would mistake it
for something supernatural, and desist from pursuit. Luckily for myself
I succeeded; the man, it seems, was subject to fits, and the terror he
suffered threw him into one, by which accident I secured my retreat. A
sense of the danger I had escaped, and the increased watchfulness,
which my appearance had occasioned among the sentinels, deterred me
ever after from walking on the terrace; but, in the stillness of night,
I frequently beguiled myself with an old lute, procured for me by a
soldier, which I sometimes accompanied with my voice, and sometimes, I
will acknowledge, with a hope of making myself heard by you; but it was
only a few evenings ago, that this hope was answered. I then thought I
heard a voice in the wind, calling me; yet, even then I feared to
reply, lest the sentinel at the prison door should hear me. Was I
right, madam, in this conjecture—was it you who spoke?”

“Yes,” said Emily, with an involuntary sigh, “you were right indeed.”

Du Pont, observing the painful emotions, which this question revived,
now changed the subject. “In one of my excursions through the passage,
which I have mentioned, I overheard a singular conversation,” said he.

“In the passage!” said Emily, with surprise.

“I heard it in the passage,” said Du Pont, “but it proceeded from an
apartment, adjoining the wall, within which the passage wound, and the
shell of the wall was there so thin, and was also somewhat decayed,
that I could distinctly hear every word, spoken on the other side. It
happened that Montoni and his companions were assembled in the room,
and Montoni began to relate the extraordinary history of the lady, his
predecessor, in the castle. He did, indeed, mention some very
surprising circumstances, and whether they were strictly true, his
conscience must decide; I fear it will determine against him. But you,
madam, have doubtless heard the report, which he designs should
circulate, on the subject of that lady’s mysterious fate.”

“I have, sir,” replied Emily, “and I perceive, that you doubt it.”

“I doubted it before the period I am speaking of,” rejoined Du
Pont;—“but some circumstances, mentioned by Montoni, greatly
contributed to my suspicions. The account I then heard, almost
convinced me, that he was a murderer. I trembled for you;—the more so
that I had heard the guests mention your name in a manner, that
threatened your repose; and, knowing, that the most impious men are
often the most superstitious, I determined to try whether I could not
awaken their consciences, and awe them from the commission of the crime
I dreaded. I listened closely to Montoni, and, in the most striking
passages of his story, I joined my voice, and repeated his last words,
in a disguised and hollow tone.”

“But were you not afraid of being discovered?” said Emily.

“I was not,” replied Du Pont; “for I knew, that, if Montoni had been
acquainted with the secret of this passage, he would not have confined
me in the apartment, to which it led. I knew also, from better
authority, that he was ignorant of it. The party, for some time,
appeared inattentive to my voice; but, at length, were so much alarmed,
that they quitted the apartment; and, having heard Montoni order his
servants to search it, I returned to my prison, which was very distant
from this part of the passage.” “I remember perfectly to have heard of
the conversation you mention,” said Emily; “it spread a general alarm
among Montoni’s people, and I will own I was weak enough to partake of
it.”

Monsieur Du Pont and Emily thus continued to converse of Montoni, and
then of France, and of the plan of their voyage; when Emily told him,
that it was her intention to retire to a convent in Languedoc, where
she had been formerly treated with much kindness, and from thence to
write to her relation Monsieur Quesnel, and inform him of her conduct.
There, she designed to wait, till La Vallée should again be her own,
whither she hoped her income would some time permit her to return; for
Du Pont now taught her to expect, that the estate, of which Montoni had
attempted to defraud her, was not irrecoverably lost, and he again
congratulated her on her escape from Montoni, who, he had not a doubt,
meant to have detained her for life. The possibility of recovering her
aunt’s estates for Valancourt and herself lighted up a joy in Emily’s
heart, such as she had not known for many months; but she endeavoured
to conceal this from Monsieur Du Pont, lest it should lead him to a
painful remembrance of his rival.

They continued to converse, till the sun was declining in the west,
when Du Pont awoke Ludovico, and they set forward on their journey.
Gradually descending the lower slopes of the valley, they reached the
Arno, and wound along its pastoral margin, for many miles, delighted
with the scenery around them, and with the remembrances, which its
classic waves revived. At a distance, they heard the gay song of the
peasants among the vineyards, and observed the setting sun tint the
waves with yellow lustre, and twilight draw a dusky purple over the
mountains, which, at length, deepened into night. Then the _lucciola_,
the fire-fly of Tuscany, was seen to flash its sudden sparks among the
foliage, while the _cicala_, with its shrill note, became more
clamorous than even during the noon-day heat, loving best the hour when
the English beetle, with less offensive sound,

winds
His small but sullen horn,
As oft he rises ’midst the twilight path,
Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum.
                    COLLINS


The travellers crossed the Arno by moonlight, at a ferry, and, learning
that Pisa was distant only a few miles down the river, they wished to
have proceeded thither in a boat, but, as none could be procured, they
set out on their wearied horses for that city. As they approached it,
the vale expanded into a plain, variegated with vineyards, corn, olives
and mulberry groves; but it was late, before they reached its gates,
where Emily was surprised to hear the busy sound of footsteps and the
tones of musical instruments, as well as to see the lively groups, that
filled the streets, and she almost fancied herself again at Venice; but
here was no moonlight sea—no gay gondolas, dashing the waves,—no
_Palladian_ palaces, to throw enchantment over the fancy and lead it
into the wilds of fairy story. The Arno rolled through the town, but no
music trembled from balconies over its waters; it gave only the busy
voices of sailors on board vessels just arrived from the Mediterranean;
the melancholy heaving of the anchor, and the shrill boatswain’s
whistle;—sounds, which, since that period, have there sunk almost into
silence. They then served to remind Du Pont, that it was probable he
might hear of a vessel, sailing soon to France from this port, and thus
be spared the trouble of going to Leghorn. As soon as Emily had reached
the inn, he went therefore to the quay, to make his enquiries; but,
after all the endeavours of himself and Ludovico, they could hear of no
bark, destined immediately for France, and the travellers returned to
their resting-place. Here also, Du Pont endeavoured to learn where his
regiment then lay, but could acquire no information concerning it. The
travellers retired early to rest, after the fatigues of this day; and,
on the following, rose early, and, without pausing to view the
celebrated antiquities of the place, or the wonders of its hanging
tower, pursued their journey in the cooler hours, through a charming
country, rich with wine, and corn and oil. The Apennines, no longer
awful, or even grand, here softened into the beauty of sylvan and
pastoral landscape; and Emily, as she descended them, looked down
delighted on Leghorn, and its spacious bay, filled with vessels, and
crowned with these beautiful hills.

She was no less surprised and amused, on entering this town, to find it
crowded with persons in the dresses of all nations; a scene, which
reminded her of a Venetian masquerade, such as she had witnessed at the
time of the Carnival; but here was bustle without gaiety, and noise
instead of music, while elegance was to be looked for only in the
waving outlines of the surrounding hills.

Monsieur Du Pont, immediately on their arrival, went down to the quay,
where he heard of several French vessels, and of one, that was to sail,
in a few days, for Marseilles, from whence another vessel could be
procured, without difficulty, to take them across the gulf of Lyons
towards Narbonne, on the coast not many leagues from which city he
understood the convent was seated, to which Emily wished to retire. He,
therefore, immediately engaged with the captain to take them to
Marseilles, and Emily was delighted to hear, that her passage to France
was secured. Her mind was now relieved from the terror of pursuit, and
the pleasing hope of soon seeing her native country—that country which
held Valancourt, restored to her spirits a degree of cheerfulness, such
as she had scarcely known, since the death of her father. At Leghorn
also, Du Pont heard of his regiment, and that it had embarked for
France; a circumstance, which gave him great satisfaction, for he could
now accompany Emily thither, without reproach to his conscience, or
apprehension of displeasure from his commander. During these days, he
scrupulously forbore to distress her by a mention of his passion, and
she was compelled to esteem and pity, though she could not love him. He
endeavoured to amuse her by showing the environs of the town, and they
often walked together on the sea-shore, and on the busy quays, where
Emily was frequently interested by the arrival and departure of
vessels, participating in the joy of meeting friends, and, sometimes,
shedding a sympathetic tear to the sorrow of those, that were
separating. It was after having witnessed a scene of the latter kind,
that she arranged the following stanzas:

THE MARINER

Soft came the breath of spring; smooth flow’d the tide;
And blue the heaven in its mirror smil’d;
The white sail trembled, swell’d, expanded wide,
The busy sailors at the anchor toil’d.

With anxious friends, that shed the parting tear,
The deck was throng’d—how swift the moments fly!
The vessel heaves, the farewell signs appear;
Mute is each tongue, and eloquent each eye!

The last dread moment comes!—The sailor youth
Hides the big drop, then smiles amid his pain,
Sooths his sad bride, and vows eternal truth,
“Farewell, my love—we shall—shall meet again!”

Long on the stern, with waving hand, he stood;
The crowded shore sinks, lessening, from his view,
As gradual glides the bark along the flood;
His bride is seen no more—“Adieu!—adieu!”

The breeze of Eve moans low, her smile is o’er,
Dim steals her twilight down the crimson’d west,
He climbs the top-most mast, to seek once more
The far-seen coast, where all his wishes rest.

He views its dark line on the distant sky,
And Fancy leads him to his little home,
He sees his weeping love, he hears her sigh,
He sooths her griefs, and tells of joys to come.

Eve yields to night, the breeze to wintry gales,
In one vast shade the seas and shores repose;
He turns his aching eyes,—his spirit fails,
The chill tear falls;—sad to the deck he goes!

The storm of midnight swells, the sails are furl’d,
Deep sounds the lead, but finds no friendly shore,
Fast o’er the waves the wretched bark is hurl’d,
“O Ellen, Ellen! we must meet no more!”

Lightnings, that show the vast and foamy deep,
The rending thunders, as they onward roll,
The loud, loud winds, that o’er the billows sweep—
Shake the firm nerve, appall the bravest soul!

Ah! what avails the seamen’s toiling care!
The straining cordage bursts, the mast is riv’n;
The sounds of terror groan along the air,
Then sink afar;—the bark on rocks is driv’n!

Fierce o’er the wreck the whelming waters pass’d,
The helpless crew sunk in the roaring main!
Henry’s faint accents trembled in the blast—
“Farewell, my love!—we ne’er shall meet again!”

Oft, at the calm and silent evening hour,
When summer-breezes linger on the wave,
A melancholy voice is heard to pour
Its lonely sweetness o’er poor Henry’s grave!

And oft, at midnight, airy strains are heard
Around the grove, where Ellen’s form is laid;
Nor is the dirge by village-maidens fear’d,
For lovers’ spirits guard the holy shade!




 CHAPTER X

Oh! the joy
Of young ideas painted on the mind
In the warm glowing colours fancy spreads
On objects not yet known, when all is new,
And all is lovely!
                    SACRED DRAMAS


We now return to Languedoc and to the mention of Count De Villefort,
the nobleman, who succeeded to an estate of the Marquis De Villeroi
situated near the monastery of St. Claire. It may be recollected, that
this château was uninhabited, when St. Aubert and his daughter were in
the neighbourhood, and that the former was much affected on discovering
himself to be so near Château-le-Blanc, a place, concerning which the
good old La Voisin afterwards dropped some hints, that had alarmed
Emily’s curiosity.

It was in the year 1584, the beginning of that, in which St. Aubert
died, that Francis Beauveau, Count De Villefort, came into possession
of the mansion and extensive domain called Château-le-Blanc, situated
in the province of Languedoc, on the shore of the Mediterranean. This
estate, which, during some centuries, had belonged to his family, now
descended to him, on the decease of his relative, the Marquis De
Villeroi, who had been latterly a man of reserved manners and austere
character; circumstances, which, together with the duties of his
profession, that often called him into the field, had prevented any
degree of intimacy with his cousin, the Count De Villefort. For many
years, they had known little of each other, and the Count received the
first intelligence of his death, which happened in a distant part of
France, together with the instruments, that gave him possession of the
domain Château-le-Blanc; but it was not till the following year, that
he determined to visit that estate, when he designed to pass the autumn
there. The scenes of Château-le-Blanc often came to his remembrance,
heightened by the touches, which a warm imagination gives to the
recollection of early pleasures; for, many years before, in the
life-time of the Marchioness, and at that age when the mind is
particularly sensible to impressions of gaiety and delight, he had once
visited this spot, and, though he had passed a long intervening period
amidst the vexations and tumults of public affairs, which too
frequently corrode the heart, and vitiate the taste, the shades of
Languedoc and the grandeur of its distant scenery had never been
remembered by him with indifference.

During many years, the château had been abandoned by the late Marquis,
and, being inhabited only by an old steward and his wife, had been
suffered to fall much into decay. To superintend the repairs, that
would be requisite to make it a comfortable residence, had been a
principal motive with the Count for passing the autumnal months in
Languedoc; and neither the remonstrances, nor the tears of the
Countess, for, on urgent occasions, she could weep, were powerful
enough to overcome his determination. She prepared, therefore, to obey
the command, which she could not conquer, and to resign the gay
assemblies of Paris,—where her beauty was generally unrivalled and won
the applause, to which her wit had but feeble claim—for the twilight
canopy of woods, the lonely grandeur of mountains and the solemnity of
gothic halls and of long, long galleries, which echoed only the
solitary step of a domestic, or the measured clink, that ascended from
the great clock—the ancient monitor of the hall below. From these
melancholy expectations she endeavoured to relieve her spirits by
recollecting all that she had ever heard, concerning the joyous vintage
of the plains of Languedoc; but there, alas! no airy forms would bound
to the gay melody of Parisian dances, and a view of the rustic
festivities of peasants could afford little pleasure to a heart, in
which even the feelings of ordinary benevolence had long since decayed
under the corruptions of luxury.

The Count had a son and a daughter, the children of a former marriage,
who, he designed, should accompany him to the south of France; Henri,
who was in his twentieth year, was in the French service; and Blanche,
who was not yet eighteen, had been hitherto confined to the convent,
where she had been placed immediately on her father’s second marriage.
The present Countess, who had neither sufficient ability, nor
inclination, to superintend the education of her daughter-in-law, had
advised this step, and the dread of superior beauty had since urged her
to employ every art, that might prevail on the Count to prolong the
period of Blanche’s seclusion; it was, therefore, with extreme
mortification, that she now understood he would no longer submit on
this subject, yet it afforded her some consolation to consider, that,
though the Lady Blanche would emerge from her convent, the shades of
the country would, for some time, veil her beauty from the public eye.

On the morning, which commenced the journey, the postillions stopped at
the convent, by the Count’s order, to take up Blanche, whose heart beat
with delight, at the prospect of novelty and freedom now before her. As
the time of her departure drew nigh, her impatience had increased, and
the last night, during which she counted every note of every hour, had
appeared the most tedious of any she had ever known. The morning light,
at length, dawned; the matin-bell rang; she heard the nuns descending
from their chambers, and she started from a sleepless pillow to welcome
the day, which was to emancipate her from the severities of a cloister,
and introduce her to a world, where pleasure was ever smiling, and
goodness ever blessed—where, in short, nothing but pleasure and
goodness reigned! When the bell of the great gate rang, and the sound
was followed by that of carriage wheels, she ran, with a palpitating
heart, to her lattice, and, perceiving her father’s carriage in the
court below, danced, with airy steps, along the gallery, where she was
met by a nun with a summons from the abbess. In the next moment, she
was in the parlour, and in the presence of the Countess who now
appeared to her as an angel, that was to lead her into happiness. But
the emotions of the Countess, on beholding her, were not in unison with
those of Blanche, who had never appeared so lovely as at this moment,
when her countenance, animated by the lightning smile of joy, glowed
with the beauty of happy innocence.

After conversing for a few minutes with the abbess, the Countess rose
to go. This was the moment, which Blanche had anticipated with such
eager expectation, the summit from which she looked down upon the
fairy-land of happiness, and surveyed all its enchantment; was it a
moment, then, for tears of regret? Yet it was so. She turned, with an
altered and dejected countenance, to her young companions, who were
come to bid her farewell, and wept! Even my lady abbess, so stately and
so solemn, she saluted with a degree of sorrow, which, an hour before,
she would have believed it impossible to feel, and which may be
accounted for by considering how reluctantly we all part, even with
unpleasing objects, when the separation is consciously for ever. Again,
she kissed the poor nuns and then followed the Countess from that spot
with tears, which she expected to leave only with smiles.

But the presence of her father and the variety of objects, on the road,
soon engaged her attention, and dissipated the shade, which tender
regret had thrown upon her spirits. Inattentive to a conversation,
which was passing between the Countess and a Mademoiselle Bearn, her
friend, Blanche sat, lost in pleasing reverie, as she watched the
clouds floating silently along the blue expanse, now veiling the sun
and stretching their shadows along the distant scene, and then
disclosing all his brightness. The journey continued to give Blanche
inexpressible delight, for new scenes of nature were every instant
opening to her view, and her fancy became stored with gay and beautiful
imagery.

It was on the evening of the seventh day, that the travellers came
within view of Château-le-Blanc, the romantic beauty of whose situation
strongly impressed the imagination of Blanche, who observed, with
sublime astonishment, the Pyrenean mountains, which had been seen only
at a distance during the day, now rising within a few leagues, with
their wild cliffs and immense precipices, which the evening clouds,
floating round them, now disclosed, and again veiled. The setting rays,
that tinged their snowy summits with a roseate hue, touched their lower
points with various colouring, while the bluish tint, that pervaded
their shadowy recesses, gave the strength of contrast to the splendour
of light. The plains of Languedoc, blushing with the purple vine and
diversified with groves of mulberry, almond and olives, spread far to
the north and the east; to the south, appeared the Mediterranean, clear
as crystal, and blue as the heavens it reflected, bearing on its bosom
vessels, whose white sails caught the sunbeams, and gave animation to
the scene. On a high promontory, washed by the waters of the
Mediterranean, stood her father’s mansion, almost secluded from the eye
by woods of intermingled pine, oak and chesnut, which crowned the
eminence, and sloped towards the plains, on one side; while, on the
other, they extended to a considerable distance along the sea-shores.

As Blanche drew nearer, the gothic features of this ancient mansion
successively appeared—first an embattled turret, rising above the
trees—then the broken arch of an immense gateway, retiring beyond them;
and she almost fancied herself approaching a castle, such as is often
celebrated in early story, where the knights look out from the
battlements on some champion below, who, clothed in black armour,
comes, with his companions, to rescue the fair lady of his love from
the oppression of his rival; a sort of legends, to which she had once
or twice obtained access in the library of her convent, that, like many
others, belonging to the monks, was stored with these reliques of
romantic fiction.

The carriages stopped at a gate, which led into the domain of the
château, but which was now fastened; and the great bell, that had
formerly served to announce the arrival of strangers, having long since
fallen from its station, a servant climbed over a ruined part of the
adjoining wall, to give notice to those within of the arrival of their
lord.

As Blanche leaned from the coach window, she resigned herself to the
sweet and gentle emotions, which the hour and the scenery awakened. The
sun had now left the earth, and twilight began to darken the mountains;
while the distant waters, reflecting the blush that still glowed in the
west, appeared like a line of light, skirting the horizon. The low
murmur of waves, breaking on the shore, came in the breeze, and, now
and then, the melancholy dashing of oars was feebly heard from a
distance. She was suffered to indulge her pensive mood, for the
thoughts of the rest of the party were silently engaged upon the
subjects of their several interests. Meanwhile, the Countess,
reflecting, with regret, upon the gay parties she had left at Paris,
surveyed, with disgust, what she thought the gloomy woods and solitary
wildness of the scene; and, shrinking from the prospect of being shut
up in an old castle, was prepared to meet every object with
displeasure. The feelings of Henri were somewhat similar to those of
the Countess; he gave a mournful sigh to the delights of the capital,
and to the remembrance of a lady, who, he believed, had engaged his
affections, and who had certainly fascinated his imagination; but the
surrounding country, and the mode of life, on which he was entering,
had, for him, at least, the charm of novelty, and his regret was
softened by the gay expectations of youth. The gates being at length
unbarred, the carriage moved slowly on, under spreading chesnuts, that
almost excluded the remains of day, following what had been formerly a
road, but which now, overgrown with luxuriant vegetation, could be
traced only by the boundary, formed by trees, on either side, and which
wound for near half a mile among the woods, before it reached the
château. This was the very avenue that St. Aubert and Emily had
formerly entered, on their first arrival in the neighbourhood, with the
hope of finding a house, that would receive them, for the night, and
had so abruptly quitted, on perceiving the wildness of the place, and a
figure, which the postillion had fancied was a robber.

“What a dismal place is this!” exclaimed the Countess, as the carriage
penetrated the deeper recesses of the woods. “Surely, my lord, you do
not mean to pass all the autumn in this barbarous spot! One ought to
bring hither a cup of the waters of Lethe, that the remembrance of
pleasanter scenes may not heighten, at least, the natural dreariness of
these.”

“I shall be governed by circumstances, madam,” said the Count, “this
barbarous spot was inhabited by my ancestors.”

The carriage now stopped at the château, where, at the door of the
great hall, appeared the old steward and the Parisian servants, who had
been sent to prepare the château, waiting to receive their lord. Lady
Blanche now perceived, that the edifice was not built entirely in the
gothic style, but that it had additions of a more modern date; the
large and gloomy hall, however, into which she now entered, was
entirely gothic, and sumptuous tapestry, which it was now too dark to
distinguish, hung upon the walls, and depictured scenes from some of
the ancient Provençal romances. A vast gothic window, embroidered with
_clematis_ and eglantine, that ascended to the south, led the eye, now
that the casements were thrown open, through this verdant shade, over a
sloping lawn, to the tops of dark woods, that hung upon the brow of the
promontory. Beyond, appeared the waters of the Mediterranean,
stretching far to the south, and to the east, where they were lost in
the horizon; while, to the north-east, they were bounded by the
luxuriant shores of Languedoc and Provence, enriched with wood, and gay
with vines and sloping pastures; and, to the south-west, by the
majestic Pyrenees, now fading from the eye, beneath the gradual gloom.

Blanche, as she crossed the hall, stopped a moment to observe this
lovely prospect, which the evening twilight obscured, yet did not
conceal. But she was quickly awakened from the complacent delight,
which this scene had diffused upon her mind, by the Countess, who,
discontented with every object around, and impatient for refreshment
and repose, hastened forward to a large parlour, whose cedar wainscot,
narrow, pointed casements, and dark ceiling of carved cypress wood,
gave it an aspect of peculiar gloom, which the dingy green velvet of
the chairs and couches, fringed with tarnished gold, had once been
designed to enliven.

While the Countess enquired for refreshment, the Count, attended by his
son, went to look over some part of the château, and Lady Blanche
reluctantly remained to witness the discontent and ill-humour of her
step-mother.

“How long have you lived in this desolate place?” said her ladyship, to
the old housekeeper, who came to pay her duty.

“Above twenty years, your ladyship, on the next feast of St. Jerome.”

“How happened it, that you have lived here so long, and almost alone,
too? I understood, that the château had been shut up for some years?”

“Yes, madam, it was for many years after my late lord, the Count, went
to the wars; but it is above twenty years, since I and my husband came
into his service. The place is so large, and has of late been so
lonely, that we were lost in it, and, after some time, we went to live
in a cottage at the end of the woods, near some of the tenants, and
came to look after the château, every now and then. When my lord
returned to France from the wars, he took a dislike to the place, and
never came to live here again, and so he was satisfied with our
remaining at the cottage. Alas—alas! how the château is changed from
what it once was! What delight my late lady used to take in it! I well
remember when she came here a bride, and how fine it was. Now, it has
been neglected so long, and is gone into such decay! I shall never see
those days again!”

The Countess appearing to be somewhat offended by the thoughtless
simplicity, with which the old woman regretted former times, Dorothée
added—“But the château will now be inhabited, and cheerful again; not
all the world could tempt me to live in it alone.”

“Well, the experiment will not be made, I believe,” said the Countess,
displeased that her own silence had been unable to awe the loquacity of
this rustic old housekeeper, now spared from further attendance by the
entrance of the Count, who said he had been viewing part of the
château, and found, that it would require considerable repairs and some
alterations, before it would be perfectly comfortable, as a place of
residence. “I am sorry to hear it, my lord,” replied the Countess. “And
why sorry, madam?” “Because the place will ill repay your trouble; and
were it even a paradise, it would be insufferable at such a distance
from Paris.”

The Count made no reply, but walked abruptly to a window. “There are
windows, my lord, but they neither admit entertainment, nor light; they
show only a scene of savage nature.”

“I am at a loss, madam,” said the Count, “to conjecture what you mean
by savage nature. Do those plains, or those woods, or that fine expanse
of water, deserve the name?”

“Those mountains certainly do, my lord,” rejoined the Countess,
pointing to the Pyrenees, “and this château, though not a work of rude
nature, is, to my taste, at least, one of savage art.” The Count
coloured highly. “This place, madam, was the work of my ancestors,”
said he, “and you must allow me to say, that your present conversation
discovers neither good taste, nor good manners.” Blanche, now shocked
at an altercation, which appeared to be increasing to a serious
disagreement, rose to leave the room, when her mother’s woman entered
it; and the Countess, immediately desiring to be shown to her own
apartment, withdrew, attended by Mademoiselle Bearn.

Lady Blanche, it being not yet dark, took this opportunity of exploring
new scenes, and, leaving the parlour, she passed from the hall into a
wide gallery, whose walls were decorated by marble pilasters, which
supported an arched roof, composed of a rich mosaic work. Through a
distant window, that seemed to terminate the gallery, were seen the
purple clouds of evening and a landscape, whose features, thinly veiled
in twilight, no longer appeared distinctly, but, blended into one grand
mass, stretched to the horizon, coloured only with a tint of solemn
grey.

The gallery terminated in a saloon, to which the window she had seen
through an open door, belonged; but the increasing dusk permitted her
only an imperfect view of this apartment, which seemed to be
magnificent and of modern architecture; though it had been either
suffered to fall into decay, or had never been properly finished. The
windows, which were numerous and large, descended low, and afforded a
very extensive, and what Blanche’s fancy represented to be, a very
lovely prospect; and she stood for some time, surveying the grey
obscurity and depicturing imaginary woods and mountains, valleys and
rivers, on this scene of night; her solemn sensations rather assisted,
than interrupted, by the distant bark of a watch-dog, and by the
breeze, as it trembled upon the light foliage of the shrubs. Now and
then, appeared for a moment, among the woods, a cottage light; and, at
length, was heard, afar off, the evening bell of a convent, dying on
the air. When she withdrew her thoughts from these subjects of fanciful
delight, the gloom and silence of the saloon somewhat awed her; and,
having sought the door of the gallery, and pursued, for a considerable
time, a dark passage, she came to a hall, but one totally different
from that she had formerly seen. By the twilight, admitted through an
open portico, she could just distinguish this apartment to be of very
light and airy architecture, and that it was paved with white marble,
pillars of which supported the roof, that rose into arches built in the
Moorish style. While Blanche stood on the steps of this portico, the
moon rose over the sea, and gradually disclosed, in partial light, the
beauties of the eminence, on which she stood, whence a lawn, now rude
and overgrown with high grass, sloped to the woods, that, almost
surrounding the château, extended in a grand sweep down the southern
sides of the promontory to the very margin of the ocean. Beyond the
woods, on the north-side, appeared a long tract of the plains of
Languedoc; and, to the east, the landscape she had before dimly seen,
with the towers of a monastery, illumined by the moon, rising over dark
groves.

The soft and shadowy tint, that overspread the scene, the waves,
undulating in the moonlight, and their low and measured murmurs on the
beach, were circumstances, that united to elevate the unaccustomed mind
of Blanche to enthusiasm.

“And have I lived in this glorious world so long,” said she, “and never
till now beheld such a prospect—never experienced these delights! Every
peasant girl, on my father’s domain, has viewed from her infancy the
face of nature; has ranged, at liberty, her romantic wilds, while I
have been shut in a cloister from the view of these beautiful
appearances, which were designed to enchant all eyes, and awaken all
hearts. How can the poor nuns and friars feel the full fervour of
devotion, if they never see the sun rise, or set? Never, till this
evening, did I know what true devotion is; for, never before did I see
the sun sink below the vast earth! Tomorrow, for the first time in my
life, I will see it rise. O, who would live in Paris, to look upon
black walls and dirty streets, when, in the country, they might gaze on
the blue heavens, and all the green earth!”

This enthusiastic soliloquy was interrupted by a rustling noise in the
hall; and, while the loneliness of the place made her sensible to fear,
she thought she perceived something moving between the pillars. For a
moment, she continued silently observing it, till, ashamed of her
ridiculous apprehensions, she recollected courage enough to demand who
was there. “O my young lady, is it you?” said the old housekeeper, who
was come to shut the windows, “I am glad it is you.” The manner, in
which she spoke this, with a faint breath, rather surprised Blanche,
who said, “You seemed frightened, Dorothée, what is the matter?”

“No, not frightened, ma’amselle,” replied Dorothée, hesitating and
trying to appear composed, “but I am old, and—a little matter startles
me.” The Lady Blanche smiled at the distinction. “I am glad, that my
lord the Count is come to live at the château, ma’amselle,” continued
Dorothée, “for it has been many a year deserted, and dreary enough;
now, the place will look a little as it used to do, when my poor lady
was alive.” Blanche enquired how long it was, since the Marchioness
died? “Alas! my lady,” replied Dorothée, “so long—that I have ceased to
count the years! The place, to my mind, has mourned ever since, and I
am sure my lord’s vassals have! But you have lost yourself,
ma’amselle,—shall I show you to the other side of the château?”

Blanche enquired how long this part of the edifice had been built.
“Soon after my lord’s marriage, ma’am,” replied Dorothée. “The place
was large enough without this addition, for many rooms of the old
building were even then never made use of, and my lord had a princely
household too; but he thought the ancient mansion gloomy, and gloomy
enough it is!” Lady Blanche now desired to be shown to the inhabited
part of the château; and, as the passages were entirely dark, Dorothée
conducted her along the edge of the lawn to the opposite side of the
edifice, where, a door opening into the great hall, she was met by
Mademoiselle Bearn. “Where have you been so long?” said she, “I had
begun to think some wonderful adventure had befallen you, and that the
giant of this enchanted castle, or the ghost, which, no doubt, haunts
it, had conveyed you through a trap-door into some subterranean vault,
whence you were never to return.”

“No,” replied Blanche, laughingly, “you seem to love adventures so
well, that I leave them for you to achieve.”

“Well, I am willing to achieve them, provided I am allowed to describe
them.”

“My dear Mademoiselle Bearn,” said Henri, as he met her at the door of
the parlour, “no ghost of these days would be so savage as to impose
silence on you. Our ghosts are more civilized than to condemn a lady to
a purgatory severer even, than their own, be it what it may.”

Mademoiselle Bearn replied only by a laugh; and, the Count now entering
the room, supper was served, during which he spoke little, frequently
appeared to be abstracted from the company, and more than once
remarked, that the place was greatly altered, since he had last seen
it. “Many years have intervened since that period,” said he; “and,
though the grand features of the scenery admit of no change, they
impress me with sensations very different from those I formerly
experienced.”

“Did these scenes, sir,” said Blanche, “ever appear more lovely, than
they do now? To me this seems hardly possible.” The Count, regarding
her with a melancholy smile, said, “They once were as delightful to me,
as they are now to you; the landscape is not changed, but time has
changed me; from my mind the illusion, which gave spirit to the
colouring of nature, is fading fast! If you live, my dear Blanche, to
revisit this spot, at the distance of many years, you will, perhaps,
remember and understand the feelings of your father.”

Lady Blanche, affected by these words, remained silent; she looked
forward to the period, which the Count anticipated, and considering,
that he, who now spoke, would then probably be no more, her eyes, bent
to the ground, were filed with tears. She gave her hand to her father,
who, smiling affectionately, rose from his chair, and went to a window
to conceal his emotion.

The fatigues of the day made the party separate at an early hour, when
Blanche retired through a long oak gallery to her chamber, whose
spacious and lofty walls, high antiquated casements, and, what was the
effect of these, its gloomy air, did not reconcile her to its remote
situation, in this ancient building. The furniture, also, was of
ancient date; the bed was of blue damask, trimmed with tarnished gold
lace, and its lofty tester rose in the form of a canopy, whence the
curtains descended, like those of such tents as are sometimes
represented in old pictures, and, indeed, much resembling those,
exhibited on the faded tapestry, with which the chamber was hung. To
Blanche, every object here was matter of curiosity; and, taking the
light from her woman to examine the tapestry, she perceived, that it
represented scenes from the wars of Troy, though the almost colourless
worsted now mocked the glowing actions they once had painted. She
laughed at the ludicrous absurdity she observed, till, recollecting,
that the hands, which had wove it, were, like the poet, whose thoughts
of fire they had attempted to express, long since mouldered into dust,
a train of melancholy ideas passed over her mind, and she almost wept.

Having given her woman a strict injunction to awaken her, before
sunrise, she dismissed her; and then, to dissipate the gloom, which
reflection had cast upon her spirits, opened one of the high casements,
and was again cheered by the face of living nature. The shadowy earth,
the air, and ocean—all was still. Along the deep serene of the heavens,
a few light clouds floated slowly, through whose skirts the stars now
seemed to tremble, and now to emerge with purer splendour. Blanche’s
thoughts arose involuntarily to the Great Author of the sublime objects
she contemplated, and she breathed a prayer of finer devotion, than any
she had ever uttered beneath the vaulted roof of a cloister. At this
casement, she remained till the glooms of midnight were stretched over
the prospect. She then retired to her pillow, and, “with gay visions of
tomorrow,” to those sweet slumbers, which health and happy innocence
only know.

Tomorrow, to fresh woods and pastures new.




 CHAPTER XI

What transport to retrace our early plays,
Our easy bliss, when each thing joy supplied
The woods, the mountains and the warbling maze
Of the wild brooks!
                    THOMSON


Blanche’s slumbers continued, till long after the hour, which she had
so impatiently anticipated, for her woman, fatigued with travelling,
did not call her, till breakfast was nearly ready. Her disappointment,
however, was instantly forgotten, when, on opening the casement, she
saw, on one hand, the wide sea sparkling in the morning rays, with its
stealing sails and glancing oars; and, on the other, the fresh woods,
the plains far-stretching and the blue mountains, all glowing with the
splendour of day.

As she inspired the pure breeze, health spread a deeper blush upon her
countenance, and pleasure danced in her eyes.

“Who could first invent convents!” said she, “and who could first
persuade people to go into them? and to make religion a pretence, too,
where all that should inspire it, is so carefully shut out! God is best
pleased with the homage of a grateful heart, and, when we view his
glories, we feel most grateful. I never felt so much devotion, during
the many dull years I was in the convent, as I have done in the few
hours, that I have been here, where I need only look on all around
me—to adore God in my inmost heart!”

Saying this, she left the window, bounded along the gallery, and, in
the next moment, was in the breakfast room, where the Count was already
seated. The cheerfulness of a bright sunshine had dispersed the
melancholy glooms of his reflections, a pleasant smile was on his
countenance, and he spoke in an enlivening voice to Blanche, whose
heart echoed back the tones. Henri and, soon after, the Countess with
Mademoiselle Bearn appeared, and the whole party seemed to acknowledge
the influence of the scene; even the Countess was so much reanimated as
to receive the civilities of her husband with complacency, and but once
forgot her good-humour, which was when she asked whether they had any
neighbours, who were likely to make _this barbarous spot _ more
tolerable, and whether the Count believed it possible for her to exist
here, without some amusement?

Soon after breakfast the party dispersed; the Count, ordering his
steward to attend him in the library, went to survey the condition of
his premises, and to visit some of his tenants; Henri hastened with
alacrity to the shore to examine a boat, that was to bear them on a
little voyage in the evening and to superintend the adjustment of a
silk awning; while the Countess, attended by Mademoiselle Bearn,
retired to an apartment on the modern side of the château, which was
fitted up with airy elegance; and, as the windows opened upon
balconies, that fronted the sea, she was there saved from a view of the
_horrid_ Pyrenees. Here, while she reclined on a sofa, and, casting her
languid eyes over the ocean, which appeared beyond the wood-tops,
indulged in the luxuries of _ennui_, her companion read aloud a
sentimental novel, on some fashionable system of philosophy, for the
Countess was herself somewhat of a _philosopher_, especially as to
_infidelity_, and among a certain circle her opinions were waited for
with impatience, and received as doctrines.

The Lady Blanche, meanwhile, hastened to indulge, amidst the wild
wood-walks around the château, her new enthusiasm, where, as she
wandered under the shades, her gay spirits gradually yielded to pensive
complacency. Now, she moved with solemn steps, beneath the gloom of
thickly interwoven branches, where the fresh dew still hung upon every
flower, that peeped from among the grass; and now tripped sportively
along the path, on which the sunbeams darted and the checquered foliage
trembled—where the tender greens of the beech, the acacia and the
mountain-ash, mingling with the solemn tints of the cedar, the pine and
cypress, exhibited as fine a contrast of colouring, as the majestic oak
and oriental plane did of form, to the feathery lightness of the cork
tree and the waving grace of the poplar.

Having reached a rustic seat, within a deep recess of the woods, she
rested awhile, and, as her eyes caught, through a distant opening, a
glimpse of the blue waters of the Mediterranean, with the white sail,
gliding on its bosom, or of the broad mountain, glowing beneath the
mid-day sun, her mind experienced somewhat of that exquisite delight,
which awakens the fancy, and leads to poetry. The hum of bees alone
broke the stillness around her, as, with other insects of various hues,
they sported gaily in the shade, or sipped sweets from the fresh
flowers: and, while Blanche watched a butter-fly, flitting from bud to
bud, she indulged herself in imagining the pleasures of its short day,
till she had composed the following stanzas.

THE BUTTER-FLY TO HIS LOVE

What bowery dell, with fragrant breath,
Courts thee to stay thy airy flight;
Nor seek again the purple heath,
So oft the scene of gay delight?

Long I’ve watch’d i’ the lily’s bell,
Whose whiteness stole the morning’s beam;
No fluttering sounds thy coming tell,
No waving wings, at distance, gleam.

But fountain fresh, nor breathing grove,
Nor sunny mead, nor blossom’d tree,
So sweet as lily’s cell shall prove,—
The bower of constant love and me.

When April buds begin to blow,
The prim-rose, and the hare-bell blue,
That on the verdant moss bank grow,
With violet cups, that weep in dew;

When wanton gales breathe through the shade,
And shake the blooms, and steal their sweets,
And swell the song of ev’ry glade,
I range the forest’s green retreats:

There, through the tangled wood-walks play,
Where no rude urchin paces near,
Where sparely peeps the sultry day,
And light dews freshen all the air.

High on a sunbeam oft I sport
O’er bower and fountain, vale and hill;
Oft ev’ry blushing flow’ret court,
That hangs its head o’er winding rill.

But these I’ll leave to be thy guide,
And show thee, where the jasmine spreads
Her snowy leaf, where may-flow’rs hide,
And rose-buds rear their peeping heads.

With me the mountain’s summit scale,
And taste the wild-thyme’s honied bloom,
Whose fragrance, floating on the gale,
Oft leads me to the cedar’s gloom.

Yet, yet, no sound comes in the breeze!
What shade thus dares to tempt thy stay?
Once, me alone thou wish’d to please,
And with me only thou wouldst stray.

But, while thy long delay I mourn,
And chide the sweet shades for their guile,
Thou may’st be true, and they forlorn,
And fairy favours court thy smile.

The tiny queen of fairy-land,
Who knows thy speed, hath sent thee far,
To bring, or ere the night-watch stand,
Rich essence for her shadowy car:

Perchance her acorn-cups to fill
With nectar from the Indian rose,
Or gather, near some haunted rill,
May-dews, that lull to sleep Love’s woes:

Or, o’er the mountains, bade thee fly,
To tell her fairy love to speed,
When ev’ning steals upon the sky,
To dance along the twilight mead.

But now I see thee sailing low,
Gay as the brightest flow’rs of spring,
Thy coat of blue and jet I know,
And well thy gold and purple wing.

Borne on the gale, thou com’st to me;
O! welcome, welcome to my home!
In lily’s cell we’ll live in glee,
Together o’er the mountains roam!


When Lady Blanche returned to the château, instead of going to the
apartment of the Countess, she amused herself with wandering over that
part of the edifice, which she had not yet examined, of which the most
ancient first attracted her curiosity; for, though what she had seen of
the modern was gay and elegant, there was something in the former more
interesting to her imagination. Having passed up the great staircase,
and through the oak gallery, she entered upon a long suite of chambers,
whose walls were either hung with tapestry, or wainscoted with cedar,
the furniture of which looked almost as ancient as the rooms
themselves; the spacious fire-places, where no mark of social cheer
remained, presented an image of cold desolation; and the whole suite
had so much the air of neglect and desertion, that it seemed, as if the
venerable persons, whose portraits hung upon the walls, had been the
last to inhabit them.

On leaving these rooms, she found herself in another gallery, one end
of which was terminated by a back staircase, and the other by a door,
that seemed to communicate with the north-side of the château, but
which being fastened, she descended the staircase, and, opening a door
in the wall, a few steps down, found herself in a small square room,
that formed part of the west turret of the castle. Three windows
presented each a separate and beautiful prospect; that to the north,
overlooking Languedoc; another to the west, the hills ascending towards
the Pyrenees, whose awful summits crowned the landscape; and a third,
fronting the south, gave the Mediterranean, and a part of the wild
shores of Rousillon, to the eye.

Having left the turret, and descended the narrow staircase, she found
herself in a dusky passage, where she wandered, unable to find her way,
till impatience yielded to apprehension, and she called for assistance.
Presently steps approached, and light glimmered through a door at the
other extremity of the passage, which was opened with caution by some
person, who did not venture beyond it, and whom Blanche observed in
silence, till the door was closing, when she called aloud, and,
hastening towards it, perceived the old housekeeper. “Dear ma’amselle!
is it you?” said Dorothée, “How could you find your way hither?” Had
Blanche been less occupied by her own fears, she would probably have
observed the strong expressions of terror and surprise on Dorothée’s
countenance, who now led her through a long succession of passages and
rooms, that looked as if they had been uninhabited for a century, till
they reached that appropriated to the housekeeper, where Dorothée
entreated she would sit down and take refreshment. Blanche accepted the
sweet meats, offered to her, mentioned her discovery of the pleasant
turret, and her wish to appropriate it to her own use. Whether
Dorothée’s taste was not so sensible to the beauties of landscape as
her young lady’s, or that the constant view of lovely scenery had
deadened it, she forbore to praise the subject of Blanche’s enthusiasm,
which, however, her silence did not repress. To Lady Blanche’s enquiry
of whither the door she had found fastened at the end of the gallery
led, she replied, that it opened to a suite of rooms, which had not
been entered, during many years, “For,” added she, “my late lady died
in one of them, and I could never find in my heart to go into them
since.”

Blanche, though she wished to see these chambers, forbore, on observing
that Dorothée’s eyes were filled with tears, to ask her to unlock them,
and, soon after, went to dress for dinner, at which the whole party met
in good spirits and good humour, except the Countess, whose vacant
mind, overcome by the languor of idleness, would neither suffer her to
be happy herself, nor to contribute to the happiness of others.
Mademoiselle Bearn, attempting to be witty, directed her badinage
against Henri, who answered, because he could not well avoid it, rather
than from any inclination to notice her, whose liveliness sometimes
amused, but whose conceit and insensibility often disgusted him.

The cheerfulness, with which Blanche rejoined the party, vanished, on
her reaching the margin of the sea; she gazed with apprehension upon
the immense expanse of waters, which, at a distance, she had beheld
only with delight and astonishment, and it was by a strong effort, that
she so far overcame her fears as to follow her father into the boat.

As she silently surveyed the vast horizon, bending round the distant
verge of the ocean, an emotion of sublimest rapture struggled to
overcome a sense of personal danger. A light breeze played on the
water, and on the silk awning of the boat, and waved the foliage of the
receding woods, that crowned the cliffs, for many miles, and which the
Count surveyed with the pride of conscious property, as well as with
the eye of taste.

At some distance, among these woods, stood a pavilion, which had once
been the scene of social gaiety, and which its situation still made one
of romantic beauty. Thither, the Count had ordered coffee and other
refreshment to be carried, and thither the sailors now steered their
course, following the windings of the shore round many a woody
promontory and circling bay; while the pensive tones of horns and other
wind instruments, played by the attendants in a distant boat, echoed
among the rocks, and died along the waves. Blanche had now subdued her
fears; a delightful tranquillity stole over her mind, and held her in
silence; and she was too happy even to remember the convent, or her
former sorrows, as subjects of comparison with her present felicity.

The Countess felt less unhappy than she had done, since the moment of
her leaving Paris; for her mind was now under some degree of restraint;
she feared to indulge its wayward humours, and even wished to recover
the Count’s good opinion. On his family, and on the surrounding scene,
he looked with tempered pleasure and benevolent satisfaction, while his
son exhibited the gay spirits of youth, anticipating new delights, and
regretless of those, that were passed.

After near an hour’s rowing, the party landed, and ascended a little
path, overgrown with vegetation. At a little distance from the point of
the eminence, within the shadowy recess of the woods, appeared the
pavilion, which Blanche perceived, as she caught a glimpse of its
portico between the trees, to be built of variegated marble. As she
followed the Countess, she often turned her eyes with rapture towards
the ocean, seen beneath the dark foliage, far below, and from thence
upon the deep woods, whose silence and impenetrable gloom awakened
emotions more solemn, but scarcely less delightful.

The pavilion had been prepared, as far as was possible, on a very short
notice, for the reception of its visitors; but the faded colours of its
painted walls and ceiling, and the decayed drapery of its once
magnificent furniture, declared how long it had been neglected, and
abandoned to the empire of the changing seasons. While the party
partook of a collation of fruit and coffee, the horns, placed in a
distant part of the woods, where an echo sweetened and prolonged their
melancholy tones, broke softly on the stillness of the scene. This spot
seemed to attract even the admiration of the Countess, or, perhaps, it
was merely the pleasure of planning furniture and decorations, that
made her dwell so long on the necessity of repairing and adorning it;
while the Count, never happier than when he saw her mind engaged by
natural and simple objects, acquiesced in all her designs, concerning
the pavilion. The paintings on the walls and coved ceiling were to be
renewed, the canopies and sofas were to be of light green damask;
marble statues of wood-nymphs, bearing on their heads baskets of living
flowers, were to adorn the recesses between the windows, which,
descending to the ground, were to admit to every part of the room, and
it was of octagonal form, the various landscape. One window opened upon
a romantic glade, where the eye roved among the woody recesses, and the
scene was bounded only by a lengthened pomp of groves; from another,
the woods receding disclosed the distant summits of the Pyrenees; a
third fronted an avenue, beyond which the grey towers of
Château-le-Blanc, and a picturesque part of its ruin were seen
partially among the foliage; while a fourth gave, between the trees, a
glimpse of the green pastures and villages, that diversify the banks of
the Aude. The Mediterranean, with the bold cliffs, that overlooked its
shores, were the grand objects of a fifth window, and the others gave,
in different points of view, the wild scenery of the woods.

After wandering, for some time, in these, the party returned to the
shore and embarked; and, the beauty of the evening tempting them to
extend their excursion, they proceeded further up the bay. A dead calm
had succeeded the light breeze, that wafted them hither, and the men
took to their oars. Around, the waters were spread into one vast
expanse of polished mirror, reflecting the grey cliffs and feathery
woods, that over-hung its surface, the glow of the western horizon and
the dark clouds, that came slowly from the east. Blanche loved to see
the dipping oars imprint the water, and to watch the spreading circles
they left, which gave a tremulous motion to the reflected landscape,
without destroying the harmony of its features.

Above the darkness of the woods, her eye now caught a cluster of high
towers, touched with the splendour of the setting rays; and, soon
after, the horns being then silent, she heard the faint swell of choral
voices from a distance.

“What voices are those, upon the air?” said the Count, looking round,
and listening; but the strain had ceased. “It seemed to be a
vesper-hymn, which I have often heard in my convent,” said Blanche.

“We are near the monastery, then,” observed the Count; and, the boat
soon after doubling a lofty head-land, the monastery of St. Claire
appeared, seated near the margin of the sea, where the cliffs, suddenly
sinking, formed a low shore within a small bay, almost encircled with
woods, among which partial features of the edifice were seen;—the great
gate and gothic window of the hall, the cloisters and the side of a
chapel more remote; while a venerable arch, which had once led to a
part of the fabric, now demolished, stood a majestic ruin detached from
the main building, beyond which appeared a grand perspective of the
woods. On the grey walls, the moss had fastened, and, round the pointed
windows of the chapel, the ivy and the briony hung in many a fantastic
wreath.

All without was silent and forsaken; but, while Blanche gazed with
admiration on this venerable pile, whose effect was heightened by the
strong lights and shadows thrown athwart it by a cloudy sunset, a sound
of many voices, slowly chanting, arose from within. The Count bade his
men rest on their oars. The monks were singing the hymn of vespers, and
some female voices mingled with the strain, which rose by soft degrees,
till the high organ and the choral sounds swelled into full and solemn
harmony. The strain, soon after, dropped into sudden silence, and was
renewed in a low and still more solemn key, till, at length, the holy
chorus died away, and was heard no more.—Blanche sighed, tears trembled
in her eyes, and her thoughts seemed wafted with the sounds to heaven.
While a rapt stillness prevailed in the boat, a train of friars, and
then of nuns, veiled in white, issued from the cloisters, and passed,
under the shade of the woods, to the main body of the edifice.

The Countess was the first of her party to awaken from this pause of
silence.

“These dismal hymns and friars make one quite melancholy,” said she;
“twilight is coming on; pray let us return, or it will be dark before
we get home.”

The count, looking up, now perceived, that the twilight of evening was
anticipated by an approaching storm. In the east a tempest was
collecting; a heavy gloom came on, opposing and contrasting the glowing
splendour of the setting sun. The clamorous sea-fowl skimmed in fleet
circles upon the surface of the sea, dipping their light pinions in the
wave, as they fled away in search of shelter. The boatmen pulled hard
at their oars; but the thunder, that now muttered at a distance, and
the heavy drops, that began to dimple the water, made the Count
determine to put back to the monastery for shelter, and the course of
the boat was immediately changed. As the clouds approached the west,
their lurid darkness changed to a deep ruddy glow, which, by
reflection, seemed to fire the tops of the woods and the shattered
towers of the monastery.

The appearance of the heavens alarmed the Countess and Mademoiselle
Bearn, whose expressions of apprehension distressed the Count, and
perplexed his men; while Blanche continued silent, now agitated with
fear, and now with admiration, as she viewed the grandeur of the
clouds, and their effect on the scenery, and listened to the long, long
peals of thunder, that rolled through the air.

The boat having reached the lawn before the monastery, the Count sent a
servant to announce his arrival, and to entreat shelter of the
Superior, who, soon after, appeared at the great gate, attended by
several monks, while the servant returned with a message, expressive at
once of hospitality and pride, but of pride disguised in submission.
The party immediately disembarked, and, having hastily crossed the
lawn—for the shower was now heavy—were received at the gate by the
Superior, who, as they entered, stretched forth his hands and gave his
blessing; and they passed into the great hall, where the lady abbess
waited, attended by several nuns, clothed, like herself, in black, and
veiled in white. The veil of the abbess was, however, thrown half back,
and discovered a countenance, whose chaste dignity was sweetened by the
smile of welcome, with which she addressed the Countess, whom she led,
with Blanche and Mademoiselle Bearn, into the convent parlour, while
the Count and Henri were conducted by the Superior to the refectory.

The Countess, fatigued and discontented, received the politeness of the
abbess with careless haughtiness, and had followed her, with indolent
steps, to the parlour, over which the painted casements and wainscot of
larch-wood threw, at all times, a melancholy shade, and where the gloom
of evening now loured almost to darkness.

While the lady abbess ordered refreshment, and conversed with the
Countess, Blanche withdrew to a window, the lower panes of which, being
without painting, allowed her to observe the progress of the storm over
the Mediterranean, whose dark waves, that had so lately slept, now came
boldly swelling, in long succession, to the shore, where they burst in
white foam, and threw up a high spray over the rocks. A red sulphureous
tint overspread the long line of clouds, that hung above the western
horizon, beneath whose dark skirts the sun looking out, illumined the
distant shores of Languedoc, as well as the tufted summits of the
nearer woods, and shed a partial gleam on the western waves. The rest
of the scene was in deep gloom, except where a sunbeam, darting between
the clouds, glanced on the white wings of the sea-fowl, that circled
high among them, or touched the swelling sail of a vessel, which was
seen labouring in the storm. Blanche, for some time, anxiously watched
the progress of the bark, as it threw the waves in foam around it, and,
as the lightnings flashed, looked to the opening heavens, with many a
sigh for the fate of the poor mariners.

The sun, at length, set, and the heavy clouds, which had long impended,
dropped over the splendour of his course; the vessel, however, was yet
dimly seen, and Blanche continued to observe it, till the quick
succession of flashes, lighting up the gloom of the whole horizon,
warned her to retire from the window, and she joined the Abbess, who,
having exhausted all her topics of conversation with the Countess, had
now leisure to notice her.

But their discourse was interrupted by tremendous peals of thunder; and
the bell of the monastery soon after ringing out, summoned the
inhabitants to prayer. As Blanche passed the window, she gave another
look to the ocean, where, by the momentary flash, that illumined the
vast body of the waters, she distinguished the vessel she had observed
before, amidst a sea of foam, breaking the billows, the mast now bowing
to the waves, and then rising high in air.

She sighed fervently as she gazed, and then followed the Lady Abbess
and the Countess to the chapel. Meanwhile, some of the Count’s
servants, having gone by land to the château for carriages, returned
soon after vespers had concluded, when, the storm being somewhat
abated, the Count and his family returned home. Blanche was surprised
to discover how much the windings of the shore had deceived her,
concerning the distance of the château from the monastery, whose vesper
bell she had heard, on the preceding evening, from the windows of the
west saloon, and whose towers she would also have seen from thence, had
not twilight veiled them.

On their arrival at the château, the Countess, affecting more fatigue,
than she really felt, withdrew to her apartment, and the Count, with
his daughter and Henri, went to the supper-room, where they had not
been long, when they heard, in a pause of the gust, a firing of guns,
which the Count understanding to be signals of distress from some
vessel in the storm, went to a window, that opened towards the
Mediterranean, to observe further; but the sea was now involved in
utter darkness, and the loud howlings of the tempest had again overcome
every other sound. Blanche, remembering the bark, which she had before
seen, now joined her father, with trembling anxiety. In a few moments,
the report of guns was again borne along the wind, and as suddenly
wafted away; a tremendous burst of thunder followed, and, in the flash,
that had preceded it, and which seemed to quiver over the whole surface
of the waters, a vessel was discovered, tossing amidst the white foam
of the waves at some distance from the shore. Impenetrable darkness
again involved the scene, but soon a second flash showed the bark, with
one sail unfurled, driving towards the coast. Blanche hung upon her
father’s arm, with looks full of the agony of united terror and pity,
which were unnecessary to awaken the heart of the Count, who gazed upon
the sea with a piteous expression, and, perceiving, that no boat could
live in the storm, forbore to send one; but he gave orders to his
people to carry torches out upon the cliffs, hoping they might prove a
kind of beacon to the vessel, or, at least, warn the crew of the rocks
they were approaching. While Henri went out to direct on what part of
the cliffs the lights should appear, Blanche remained with her father,
at the window, catching, every now and then, as the lightnings flashed,
a glimpse of the vessel; and she soon saw, with reviving hope, the
torches flaming on the blackness of night, and, as they waved over the
cliffs, casting a red gleam on the gasping billows. When the firing of
guns was repeated, the torches were tossed high in the air, as if
answering the signal, and the firing was then redoubled; but, though
the wind bore the sound away, she fancied, as the lightnings glanced,
that the vessel was much nearer the shore.

The Count’s servants were now seen, running to and fro, on the rocks;
some venturing almost to the point of the crags, and bending over, held
out their torches fastened to long poles; while others, whose steps
could be traced only by the course of the lights, descended the steep
and dangerous path, that wound to the margin of the sea, and, with loud
halloos, hailed the mariners, whose shrill whistle, and then feeble
voices, were heard, at intervals, mingling with the storm. Sudden
shouts from the people on the rocks increased the anxiety of Blanche to
an almost intolerable degree: but her suspense, concerning the fate of
the mariners, was soon over, when Henri, running breathless into the
room, told that the vessel was anchored in the bay below, but in so
shattered a condition, that it was feared she would part before the
crew could disembark. The Count immediately gave orders for his own
boats to assist in bringing them to shore, and that such of these
unfortunate strangers as could not be accommodated in the adjacent
hamlet should be entertained at the château. Among the latter, were
Emily St. Aubert, Monsieur Du Pont, Ludovico and Annette, who, having
embarked at Leghorn and reached Marseilles, were from thence crossing
the Gulf of Lyons, when this storm overtook them. They were received by
the Count with his usual benignity, who, though Emily wished to have
proceeded immediately to the monastery of St. Claire, would not allow
her to leave the château, that night; and, indeed, the terror and
fatigue she had suffered would scarcely have permitted her to go
farther.

In Monsieur Du Pont the Count discovered an old acquaintance, and much
joy and congratulation passed between them, after which Emily was
introduced by name to the Count’s family, whose hospitable benevolence
dissipated the little embarrassment, which her situation had occasioned
her, and the party were soon seated at the supper-table. The unaffected
kindness of Blanche and the lively joy she expressed on the escape of
the strangers, for whom her pity had been so much interested, gradually
revived Emily’s languid spirits; and Du Pont, relieved from his terrors
for her and for himself, felt the full contrast, between his late
situation on a dark and tremendous ocean, and his present one, in a
cheerful mansion, where he was surrounded with plenty, elegance and
smiles of welcome.

Annette, meanwhile, in the servants’ hall, was telling of all the
dangers she had encountered, and congratulating herself so heartily
upon her own and Ludovico’s escape, and on her present comforts, that
she often made all that part of the château ring with merriment and
laughter. Ludovico’s spirits were as gay as her own, but he had
discretion enough to restrain them, and tried to check hers, though in
vain, till her laughter, at length, ascended to _my Lady’s_ chamber,
who sent to enquire what occasioned so much uproar in the château, and
to command silence.

Emily withdrew early to seek the repose she so much required, but her
pillow was long a sleepless one. On this her return to her native
country, many interesting remembrances were awakened; all the events
and sufferings she had experienced, since she quitted it, came in long
succession to her fancy, and were chased only by the image of
Valancourt, with whom to believe herself once more in the same land,
after they had been so long, and so distantly separated, gave her
emotions of indescribable joy, but which afterwards yielded to anxiety
and apprehension, when she considered the long period, that had
elapsed, since any letter had passed between them, and how much might
have happened in this interval to affect her future peace. But the
thought that Valancourt might be now no more, or, if living, might have
forgotten her, was so very terrible to her heart, that she would
scarcely suffer herself to pause upon the possibility. She determined
to inform him, on the following day, of her arrival in France, which it
was scarcely possible he could know but by a letter from herself, and,
after soothing her spirits with the hope of soon hearing, that he was
well, and unchanged in his affections, she, at length, sunk to repose.



 CHAPTER XII

Oft woo’d the gleam of Cynthia, silver-bright,
In cloisters dim, far from the haunts of Folly,
With Freedom by my side, and soft-ey’d Melancholy.
                    GRAY


The Lady Blanche was so much interested for Emily, that, upon hearing
she was going to reside in the neighbouring convent, she requested the
Count would invite her to lengthen her stay at the château. “And you
know, my dear sir,” added Blanche, “how delighted I shall be with such
a companion; for, at present, I have no friend to walk, or to read
with, since Mademoiselle Bearn is my mamma’s friend only.”

The Count smiled at the youthful simplicity, with which his daughter
yielded to first impressions; and, though he chose to warn her of their
danger, he silently applauded the benevolence, that could thus readily
expand in confidence to a stranger. He had observed Emily, with
attention, on the preceding evening, and was as much pleased with her,
as it was possible he could be with any person, on so short an
acquaintance. The mention, made of her by Mons. Du Pont, had also given
him a favourable impression of Emily; but, extremely cautious as to
those, whom he introduced to the intimacy of his daughter, he
determined, on hearing that the former was no stranger at the convent
of St. Claire, to visit the abbess, and, if her account corresponded
with his wish, to invite Emily to pass some time at the château. On
this subject, he was influenced by a consideration of the Lady
Blanche’s welfare, still more than by either a wish to oblige her, or
to befriend the orphan Emily, for whom, however, he felt considerably
interested.

On the following morning, Emily was too much fatigued to appear; but
Mons. Du Pont was at the breakfast-table, when the Count entered the
room, who pressed him, as his former acquaintance, and the son of a
very old friend, to prolong his stay at the château; an invitation,
which Du Pont willingly accepted, since it would allow him to be near
Emily; and, though he was not conscious of encouraging a hope, that she
would ever return his affection, he had not fortitude enough to
attempt, at present, to overcome it.

Emily, when she was somewhat recovered, wandered with her new friend
over the grounds belonging to the château, as much delighted with the
surrounding views, as Blanche, in the benevolence of her heart, had
wished; from thence she perceived, beyond the woods, the towers of the
monastery, and remarked, that it was to this convent she designed to
go.

“Ah!” said Blanche with surprise, “I am but just released from a
convent, and would you go into one? If you could know what pleasure I
feel in wandering here, at liberty,—and in seeing the sky and the
fields, and the woods all round me, I think you would not.” Emily,
smiling at the warmth, with which the Lady Blanche spoke, observed,
that she did not mean to confine herself to a convent for life.

“No, you may not intend it now,” said Blanche; “but you do not know to
what the nuns may persuade you to consent: I know how kind they will
appear, and how happy, for I have seen too much of their art.”

When they returned to the château, Lady Blanche conducted Emily to her
favourite turret, and from thence they rambled through the ancient
chambers, which Blanche had visited before. Emily was amused by
observing the structure of these apartments, and the fashion of their
old but still magnificent furniture, and by comparing them with those
of the castle of Udolpho, which were yet more antique and grotesque.
She was also interested by Dorothée the housekeeper, who attended them,
whose appearance was almost as antique as the objects around her, and
who seemed no less interested by Emily, on whom she frequently gazed
with so much deep attention, as scarcely to hear what was said to her.

While Emily looked from one of the casements, she perceived, with
surprise, some objects, that were familiar to her memory;—the fields
and woods, with the gleaming brook, which she had passed with La
Voisin, one evening, soon after the death of Monsieur St. Aubert, in
her way from the monastery to her cottage; and she now knew this to be
the château, which he had then avoided, and concerning which he had
dropped some remarkable hints.

Shocked by this discovery, yet scarcely knowing why, she mused for some
time in silence, and remembered the emotion, which her father had
betrayed on finding himself so near this mansion, and some other
circumstances of his conduct, that now greatly interested her. The
music, too, which she had formerly heard, and, respecting which La
Voisin had given such an odd account, occurred to her, and, desirous of
knowing more concerning it, she asked Dorothée whether it returned at
midnight, as usual, and whether the musician had yet been discovered.

“Yes, ma’amselle,” replied Dorothée, “that music is still heard, but
the musician has never been found out, nor ever will, I believe; though
there are some people, who can guess.”

“Indeed!” said Emily, “then why do they not pursue the enquiry?”

“Ah, young lady! enquiry enough has been made—but who can pursue a
spirit?”

Emily smiled, and, remembering how lately she had suffered herself to
be led away by superstition, determined now to resist its contagion;
yet, in spite of her efforts, she felt awe mingle with her curiosity,
on this subject; and Blanche, who had hitherto listened in silence, now
enquired what this music was, and how long it had been heard.

“Ever since the death of my lady, madam,” replied Dorothée.

“Why, the place is not haunted, surely?” said Blanche, between jesting
and seriousness.

“I have heard that music almost ever since my dear lady died,”
continued Dorothée, “and never before then. But that is nothing to some
things I could tell of.”

“Do, pray, tell them, then,” said Lady Blanche, now more in earnest
than in jest. “I am much interested, for I have heard sister Henriette,
and sister Sophie, in the convent, tell of such strange appearances,
which they themselves had witnessed!”

“You never heard, my lady, I suppose, what made us leave the château,
and go and live in a cottage,” said Dorothée. “Never!” replied Blanche
with impatience.

“Nor the reason, that my lord, the Marquis”—Dorothée checked herself,
hesitated, and then endeavoured to change the topic; but the curiosity
of Blanche was too much awakened to suffer the subject thus easily to
escape her, and she pressed the old housekeeper to proceed with her
account, upon whom, however, no entreaties could prevail; and it was
evident, that she was alarmed for the imprudence, into which she had
already betrayed herself.

“I perceive,” said Emily, smiling, “that all old mansions are haunted;
I am lately come from a place of wonders; but unluckily, since I left
it, I have heard almost all of them explained.”

Blanche was silent; Dorothée looked grave, and sighed; and Emily felt
herself still inclined to believe more of the wonderful, than she chose
to acknowledge. Just then, she remembered the spectacle she had
witnessed in a chamber of Udolpho, and, by an odd kind of coincidence,
the alarming words, that had accidentally met her eye in the MS.
papers, which she had destroyed, in obedience to the command of her
father; and she shuddered at the meaning they seemed to impart, almost
as much as at the horrible appearance, disclosed by the black veil.

The Lady Blanche, meanwhile, unable to prevail with Dorothée to explain
the subject of her late hints, had desired, on reaching the door, that
terminated the gallery, and which she found fastened on the preceding
day, to see the suite of rooms beyond. “Dear young lady,” said the
housekeeper, “I have told you my reason for not opening them; I have
never seen them, since my dear lady died; and it would go hard with me
to see them now. Pray, madam, do not ask me again.”

“Certainly I will not,” replied Blanche, “if that is really your
objection.”

“Alas! it is,” said the old woman: “we all loved her well, and I shall
always grieve for her. Time runs round! it is now many years, since she
died; but I remember everything, that happened then, as if it was but
yesterday. Many things, that have passed of late years, are gone quite
from my memory, while those so long ago, I can see as if in a glass.”
She paused, but afterwards, as they walked up the gallery, added to
Emily, “this young lady sometimes brings the late Marchioness to my
mind; I can remember, when she looked just as blooming, and very like
her, when she smiles. Poor lady! how gay she was, when she first came
to the château!”

“And was she not gay, afterwards?” said Blanche.

Dorothée shook her head; and Emily observed her, with eyes strongly
expressive of the interest she now felt. “Let us sit down in this
window,” said the Lady Blanche, on reaching the opposite end of the
gallery: “and pray, Dorothée, if it is not painful to you, tell us
something more about the Marchioness. I should like to look into the
glass you spoke of just now, and see a few of the circumstances, which
you say often pass over it.”

“No, my lady,” replied Dorothée; “if you knew as much as I do, you
would not, for you would find there a dismal train of them; I often
wish I could shut them out, but they will rise to my mind. I see my
dear lady on her death-bed,—her very look,—and remember all she said—it
was a terrible scene!”

“Why was it so terrible?” said Emily with emotion.

“Ah, dear young lady! is not death always terrible?” replied Dorothée.

To some further enquiries of Blanche Dorothée was silent; and Emily,
observing the tears in her eyes, forbore to urge the subject, and
endeavoured to withdraw the attention of her young friend to some
object in the gardens, where the Count, with the Countess and Monsieur
Du Pont, appearing, they went down to join them.

When he perceived Emily, he advanced to meet her, and presented her to
the Countess, in a manner so benign, that it recalled most powerfully
to her mind the idea of her late father, and she felt more gratitude to
him, than embarrassment towards the Countess, who, however, received
her with one of those fascinating smiles, which her caprice sometimes
allowed her to assume, and which was now the result of a conversation
the Count had held with her, concerning Emily. Whatever this might be,
or whatever had passed in his conversation with the lady abbess, whom
he had just visited, esteem and kindness were strongly apparent in his
manner, when he addressed Emily, who experienced that sweet emotion,
which arises from the consciousness of possessing the approbation of
the good; for to the Count’s worth she had been inclined to yield her
confidence almost from the first moment, in which she had seen him.

Before she could finish her acknowledgments for the hospitality she had
received, and mention of her design of going immediately to the
convent, she was interrupted by an invitation to lengthen her stay at
the château, which was pressed by the Count and the Countess, with an
appearance of such friendly sincerity, that, though she much wished to
see her old friends at the monastery, and to sigh, once more, over her
father’s grave, she consented to remain a few days at the château.

To the abbess, however, she immediately wrote, mentioning her arrival
in Languedoc and her wish to be received into the convent, as a
boarder; she also sent letters to Monsieur Quesnel and to Valancourt,
whom she merely informed of her arrival in France; and, as she knew not
where the latter might be stationed, she directed her letter to his
brother’s seat in Gascony.

In the evening, Lady Blanche and Mons. Du Pont walked with Emily to the
cottage of La Voisin, which she had now a melancholy pleasure in
approaching, for time had softened her grief for the loss of St.
Aubert, though it could not annihilate it, and she felt a soothing
sadness in indulging the recollections, which this scene recalled. La
Voisin was still living, and seemed to enjoy, as much as formerly, the
tranquil evening of a blameless life. He was sitting at the door of his
cottage, watching some of his grandchildren, playing on the grass
before him, and, now and then, with a laugh, or a commendation,
encouraging their sports. He immediately recollected Emily, whom he was
much pleased to see, and she was as rejoiced to hear, that he had not
lost one of his family, since her departure.

“Yes, ma’amselle,” said the old man, “we all live merrily together
still, thank God! and I believe there is not a happier family to be
found in Languedoc, than ours.”

Emily did not trust herself in the chamber, where St. Aubert died; and,
after half an hour’s conversation with La Voisin and his family, she
left the cottage.

During these the first days of her stay at Château-le-Blanc, she was
often affected, by observing the deep, but silent melancholy, which, at
times, stole over Du Pont; and Emily, pitying the self-delusion, which
disarmed him of the will to depart, determined to withdraw herself as
soon as the respect she owed the Count and Countess De Villefort would
permit. The dejection of his friend soon alarmed the anxiety of the
Count, to whom Du Pont, at length, confided the secret of his hopeless
affection, which, however, the former could only commiserate, though he
secretly determined to befriend his suit, if an opportunity of doing so
should ever occur. Considering the dangerous situation of Du Pont, he
but feebly opposed his intention of leaving Château-le-Blanc, on the
following day, but drew from him a promise of a longer visit, when he
could return with safety to his peace. Emily herself, though she could
not encourage his affection, esteemed him both for the many virtues he
possessed, and for the services she had received from him; and it was
not without tender emotions of gratitude and pity, that she now saw him
depart for his family seat in Gascony; while he took leave of her with
a countenance so expressive of love and grief, as to interest the Count
more warmly in his cause than before.

In a few days, Emily also left the château, but not before the Count
and Countess had received her promise to repeat her visit very soon;
and she was welcomed by the abbess, with the same maternal kindness she
had formerly experienced, and by the nuns, with much expression of
regard. The well-known scenes of the convent occasioned her many
melancholy recollections, but with these were mingled others, that
inspired gratitude for having escaped the various dangers, that had
pursued her, since she quitted it, and for the good, which she yet
possessed; and, though she once more wept over her father’s grave, with
tears of tender affection, her grief was softened from its former
acuteness.

Some time after her return to the monastery, she received a letter from
her uncle, Mons. Quesnel, in answer to information that she had arrived
in France, and to her enquiries, concerning such of her affairs as he
had undertaken to conduct during her absence, especially as to the
period for which La Vallée had been let, whither it was her wish to
return, if it should appear, that her income would permit her to do so.
The reply of Mons. Quesnel was cold and formal, as she expected,
expressing neither concern for the evils she suffered, nor pleasure,
that she was now removed from them; nor did he allow the opportunity to
pass, of reproving her for her rejection of Count Morano, whom he
affected still to believe a man of honour and fortune; nor of
vehemently declaiming against Montoni, to whom he had always, till now,
felt himself to be inferior. On Emily’s pecuniary concerns, he was not
very explicit; he informed her, however, that the term, for which La
Vallée had been engaged, was nearly expired; but, without inviting her
to his own house, added, that her circumstances would by no means allow
her to reside there, and earnestly advised her to remain, for the
present, in the convent of St. Claire.

To her enquiries respecting poor old Theresa, her late father’s
servant, he gave no answer. In the postscript to his letter, Monsieur
Quesnel mentioned M. Motteville, in whose hands the late St. Aubert had
placed the chief of his personal property, as being likely to arrange
his affairs nearly to the satisfaction of his creditors, and that Emily
would recover much more of her fortune, than she had formerly reason to
expect. The letter also inclosed to Emily an order upon a merchant at
Narbonne, for a small sum of money.

The tranquillity of the monastery, and the liberty she was suffered to
enjoy, in wandering among the woods and shores of this delightful
province, gradually restored her spirits to their natural tone, except
that anxiety would sometimes intrude, concerning Valancourt, as the
time approached, when it was possible that she might receive an answer
to her letter.



 CHAPTER XIII

As when a wave, that from a cloud impends,
And, swell’d with tempests, on the ship descends,
White are the decks with foam; the winds aloud,
Howl o’er the masts, and sing through ev’ry shroud:
Pale, trembling, tir’d, the sailors freeze with fears,
And instant death on ev’ry wave appears.
                    POPE’S HOMER


The Lady Blanche, meanwhile, who was left much alone, became impatient
for the company of her new friend, whom she wished to observe sharing
in the delight she received from the beautiful scenery around. She had
now no person, to whom she could express her admiration and communicate
her pleasures, no eye, that sparkled to her smile, or countenance, that
reflected her happiness; and she became spiritless and pensive. The
Count, observing her dissatisfaction, readily yielded to her
entreaties, and reminded Emily of her promised visit; but the silence
of Valancourt, which was now prolonged far beyond the period, when a
letter might have arrived from Estuvière, oppressed Emily with severe
anxiety, and, rendering her averse to society, she would willingly have
deferred her acceptance of this invitation, till her spirits should be
relieved. The Count and his family, however, pressed to see her; and,
as the circumstances, that prompted her wish for solitude, could not be
explained, there was an appearance of caprice in her refusal, which she
could not persevere in, without offending the friends, whose esteem she
valued. At length, therefore, she returned upon a second visit to
Château-le-Blanc. Here the friendly manner of Count De Villefort
encouraged Emily to mention to him her situation, respecting the
estates of her late aunt, and to consult him on the means of recovering
them. He had little doubt, that the law would decide in her favour,
and, advising her to apply to it, offered first to write to an advocate
at Avignon, on whose opinion he thought he could rely. His kindness was
gratefully accepted by Emily, who, soothed by the courtesy she daily
experienced, would have been once more happy, could she have been
assured of Valancourt’s welfare and unaltered affection. She had now
been above a week at the château, without receiving intelligence of
him, and, though she knew, that, if he was absent from his brother’s
residence, it was scarcely probable her letter had yet reached him, she
could not forbear to admit doubts and fears, that destroyed her peace.
Again she would consider of all, that might have happened in the long
period, since her first seclusion at Udolpho, and her mind was
sometimes so overwhelmed with an apprehension, that Valancourt was no
more, or that he lived no longer for her, that the company even of
Blanche became intolerably oppressive, and she would sit alone in her
apartment for hours together, when the engagements of the family
allowed her to do so, without incivility.

In one of these solitary hours, she unlocked a little box, which
contained some letters of Valancourt, with some drawings she had
sketched, during her stay in Tuscany, the latter of which were no
longer interesting to her; but, in the letters, she now, with
melancholy indulgence, meant to retrace the tenderness, that had so
often soothed her, and rendered her, for a moment, insensible of the
distance, which separated her from the writer. But their effect was now
changed; the affection they expressed appealed so forcibly to her
heart, when she considered that it had, perhaps, yielded to the powers
of time and absence, and even the view of the hand-writing recalled so
many painful recollections, that she found herself unable to go through
the first she had opened, and sat musing, with her cheek resting on her
arm, and tears stealing from her eyes, when old Dorothée entered the
room to inform her, that dinner would be ready, an hour before the
usual time. Emily started on perceiving her, and hastily put up the
papers, but not before Dorothée had observed both her agitation and her
tears.

“Ah, ma’amselle!” said she, “you, who are so young,—have you reason for
sorrow?”

Emily tried to smile, but was unable to speak.

“Alas! dear young lady, when you come to my age, you will not weep at
trifles; and surely you have nothing serious, to grieve you.”

“No, Dorothée, nothing of any consequence,” replied Emily. Dorothée,
now stooping to pick up something, that had dropped from among the
papers, suddenly exclaimed, “Holy Mary! what is it I see?” and then,
trembling, sat down in a chair, that stood by the table.

“What is it you do see?” said Emily, alarmed by her manner, and looking
round the room.

“It is herself,” said Dorothée, “her very self! just as she looked a
little before she died!”

Emily, still more alarmed, began now to fear, that Dorothée was seized
with sudden frenzy, but entreated her to explain herself.

“That picture!” said she, “where did you find it, lady? it is my
blessed mistress herself!”

She laid on the table the miniature, which Emily had long ago found
among the papers her father had enjoined her to destroy, and over which
she had once seen him shed such tender and affecting tears; and,
recollecting all the various circumstances of his conduct, that had
long perplexed her, her emotions increased to an excess, which deprived
her of all power to ask the questions she trembled to have answered,
and she could only enquire, whether Dorothée was certain the picture
resembled the late marchioness.

“O, ma’amselle!” said she, “how came it to strike me so, the instant I
saw it, if it was not my lady’s likeness? Ah!” added she, taking up the
miniature, “these are her own blue eyes—looking so sweet and so mild;
and there is her very look, such as I have often seen it, when she had
sat thinking for a long while, and then, the tears would often steal
down her cheeks—but she never would complain! It was that look so meek,
as it were, and resigned, that used to break my heart and make me love
her so!”

“Dorothée!” said Emily solemnly, “I am interested in the cause of that
grief, more so, perhaps, than you may imagine; and I entreat, that you
will no longer refuse to indulge my curiosity;—it is not a common one.”

As Emily said this, she remembered the papers, with which the picture
had been found, and had scarcely a doubt, that they had concerned the
Marchioness de Villeroi; but with this supposition came a scruple,
whether she ought to enquire further on a subject, which might prove to
be the same, that her father had so carefully endeavoured to conceal.
Her curiosity, concerning the Marchioness, powerful as it was, it is
probable she would now have resisted, as she had formerly done, on
unwarily observing the few terrible words in the papers, which had
never since been erased from her memory, had she been certain that the
history of that lady was the subject of those papers, or, that such
simple particulars only as it was probable Dorothée could relate were
included in her father’s command. What was known to her could be no
secret to many other persons; and, since it appeared very unlikely,
that St. Aubert should attempt to conceal what Emily might learn by
ordinary means, she at length concluded, that, if the papers had
related to the story of the Marchioness, it was not those circumstances
of it, which Dorothée could disclose, that he had thought sufficiently
important to wish to have concealed. She, therefore, no longer
hesitated to make the enquiries, that might lead to the gratification
of her curiosity.

“Ah, ma’amselle!” said Dorothée, “it is a sad story, and cannot be told
now: but what am I saying? I never will tell it. Many years have
passed, since it happened; and I never loved to talk of the Marchioness
to anybody, but my husband. He lived in the family, at that time, as
well as myself, and he knew many particulars from me, which nobody else
did; for I was about the person of my lady in her last illness, and saw
and heard as much, or more than my lord himself. Sweet saint! how
patient she was! When she died, I thought I could have died with her!”

“Dorothée,” said Emily, interrupting her, “what you shall tell, you may
depend upon it, shall never be disclosed by me. I have, I repeat it,
particular reasons for wishing to be informed on this subject, and am
willing to bind myself, in the most solemn manner, never to mention
what you shall wish me to conceal.”

Dorothée seemed surprised at the earnestness of Emily’s manner, and,
after regarding her for some moments, in silence, said, “Young lady!
that look of yours pleads for you—it is so like my dear mistress’s,
that I can almost fancy I see her before me; if you were her daughter,
you could not remind me of her more. But dinner will be ready—had you
not better go down?”

“You will first promise to grant my request,” said Emily.

“And ought not you first to tell me, ma’amselle, how this picture fell
into your hands, and the reasons you say you have for curiosity about
my lady?”

“Why, no, Dorothée,” replied Emily, recollecting herself, “I have also
particular reasons for observing silence, on these subjects, at least,
till I know further; and, remember, I do not promise ever to speak upon
them; therefore, do not let me induce you to satisfy my curiosity, from
an expectation, that I shall gratify yours. What I may judge proper to
conceal, does not concern myself alone, or I should have less scruple
in revealing it: let a confidence in my honour alone persuade you to
disclose what I request.”

“Well, lady!” replied Dorothée, after a long pause, during which her
eyes were fixed upon Emily, “you seem so much interested,—and this
picture and that face of yours make me think you have some reason to be
so,—that I will trust you—and tell some things, that I never told
before to anybody, but my husband, though there are people, who have
suspected as much. I will tell you the particulars of my lady’s death,
too, and some of my own suspicions; but you must first promise me by
all the saints—”

Emily, interrupting her, solemnly promised never to reveal what should
be confided to her, without Dorothée’s consent.

“But there is the horn, ma’amselle, sounding for dinner,” said
Dorothée; “I must be gone.”

“When shall I see you again?” enquired Emily.

Dorothée mused, and then replied, “Why, madam, it may make people
curious, if it is known I am so much in your apartment, and that I
should be sorry for; so I will come when I am least likely to be
observed. I have little leisure in the day, and I shall have a good
deal to say; so, if you please, ma’am, I will come, when the family are
all in bed.”

“That will suit me very well,” replied Emily: “Remember, then,
tonight—”

“Aye, that is well remembered,” said Dorothée, “I fear I cannot come
tonight, madam, for there will be the dance of the vintage, and it will
be late, before the servants go to rest; for, when they once set in to
dance, they will keep it up, in the cool of the air, till morning; at
least, it used to be so in my time.”

“Ah! is it the dance of the vintage?” said Emily, with a deep sigh,
remembering, that it was on the evening of this festival, in the
preceding year, that St. Aubert and herself had arrived in the
neighbourhood of Château-le-Blanc. She paused a moment, overcome by the
sudden recollection, and then, recovering herself, added—“But this
dance is in the open woods; you, therefore, will not be wanted, and can
easily come to me.”

Dorothée replied, that she had been accustomed to be present at the
dance of the vintage, and she did not wish to be absent now; “but if I
can get away, madam, I will,” said she.

Emily then hastened to the dining-room, where the Count conducted
himself with the courtesy, which is inseparable from true dignity, and
of which the Countess frequently practised little, though her manner to
Emily was an exception to her usual habit. But, if she retained few of
the ornamental virtues, she cherished other qualities, which she seemed
to consider invaluable. She had dismissed the grace of modesty, but
then she knew perfectly well how to manage the stare of assurance; her
manners had little of the tempered sweetness, which is necessary to
render the female character interesting, but she could occasionally
throw into them an affectation of spirits, which seemed to triumph over
every person, who approached her. In the country, however, she
generally affected an elegant languor, that persuaded her almost to
faint, when her favourite read to her a story of fictitious sorrow; but
her countenance suffered no change, when living objects of distress
solicited her charity, and her heart beat with no transport to the
thought of giving them instant relief;—she was a stranger to the
highest luxury, of which, perhaps, the human mind can be sensible, for
her benevolence had never yet called smiles upon the face of misery.

In the evening, the Count, with all his family, except the Countess and
Mademoiselle Bearn, went to the woods to witness the festivity of the
peasants. The scene was in a glade, where the trees, opening, formed a
circle round the turf they highly overshadowed; between their branches,
vines, loaded with ripe clusters, were hung in gay festoons; and,
beneath, were tables, with fruit, wine, cheese and other rural
fare,—and seats for the Count and his family. At a little distance,
were benches for the elder peasants, few of whom, however, could
forbear to join the jocund dance, which began soon after sunset, when
several of sixty tripped it with almost as much glee and airy
lightness, as those of sixteen.

The musicians, who sat carelessly on the grass, at the foot of a tree,
seemed inspired by the sound of their own instruments, which were
chiefly flutes and a kind of long guitar. Behind, stood a boy,
flourishing a tamborine, and dancing a solo, except that, as he
sometimes gaily tossed the instrument, he tripped among the other
dancers, when his antic gestures called forth a broader laugh, and
heightened the rustic spirit of the scene.

The Count was highly delighted with the happiness he witnessed, to
which his bounty had largely contributed, and the Lady Blanche joined
the dance with a young gentleman of her father’s party. Du Pont
requested Emily’s hand, but her spirits were too much depressed, to
permit her to engage in the present festivity, which called to her
remembrance that of the preceding year, when St. Aubert was living, and
of the melancholy scenes, which had immediately followed it.

Overcome by these recollections, she, at length, left the spot, and
walked slowly into the woods, where the softened music, floating at a
distance, soothed her melancholy mind. The moon threw a mellow light
among the foliage; the air was balmy and cool, and Emily, lost in
thought, strolled on, without observing whither, till she perceived the
sounds sinking afar off, and an awful stillness round her, except that,
sometimes, the nightingale beguiled the silence with

Liquid notes, that close the eye of day.


At length, she found herself near the avenue, which, on the night of
her father’s arrival, Michael had attempted to pass in search of a
house, which was still nearly as wild and desolate as it had then
appeared; for the Count had been so much engaged in directing other
improvements, that he had neglected to give orders, concerning this
extensive approach, and the road was yet broken, and the trees
overloaded with their own luxuriance.

As she stood surveying it, and remembering the emotions, which she had
formerly suffered there, she suddenly recollected the figure, that had
been seen stealing among the trees, and which had returned no answer to
Michael’s repeated calls; and she experienced somewhat of the fear,
that had then assailed her, for it did not appear improbable, that
these deep woods were occasionally the haunt of banditti. She,
therefore, turned back, and was hastily pursuing her way to the
dancers, when she heard steps approaching from the avenue; and, being
still beyond the call of the peasants on the green, for she could
neither hear their voices, nor their music, she quickened her pace; but
the persons following gained fast upon her, and, at length,
distinguishing the voice of Henri, she walked leisurely, till he came
up. He expressed some surprise at meeting her so far from the company;
and, on her saying, that the pleasant moonlight had beguiled her to
walk farther than she intended, an exclamation burst from the lips of
his companion, and she thought she heard Valancourt speak! It was,
indeed, he! and the meeting was such as may be imagined, between
persons so affectionate, and so long separated as they had been.

In the joy of these moments, Emily forgot all her past sufferings, and
Valancourt seemed to have forgotten, that any person but Emily existed;
while Henri was a silent and astonished spectator of the scene.

Valancourt asked a thousand questions, concerning herself and Montoni,
which there was now no time to answer; but she learned, that her letter
had been forwarded to him, at Paris, which he had previously quitted,
and was returning to Gascony, whither the letter also returned, which,
at length, informed him of Emily’s arrival, and on the receipt of which
he had immediately set out for Languedoc. On reaching the monastery,
whence she had dated her letter, he found, to his extreme
disappointment, that the gates were already closed for the night; and
believing, that he should not see Emily, till the morrow, he was
returning to his little inn, with the intention of writing to her, when
he was overtaken by Henri, with whom he had been intimate at Paris, and
was led to her, whom he was secretly lamenting that he should not see,
till the following day.

Emily, with Valancourt and Henri, now returned to the green, where the
latter presented Valancourt to the Count, who, she fancied, received
him with less than his usual benignity, though it appeared, that they
were not strangers to each other. He was invited, however, to partake
of the diversions of the evening; and, when he had paid his respects to
the Count, and while the dancers continued their festivity, he seated
himself by Emily, and conversed, without restraint. The lights, which
were hung among the trees, under which they sat, allowed her a more
perfect view of the countenance she had so frequently in absence
endeavoured to recollect, and she perceived, with some regret, that it
was not the same as when last she saw it. There was all its wonted
intelligence and fire; but it had lost much of the simplicity, and
somewhat of the open benevolence, that used to characterise it. Still,
however, it was an interesting countenance; but Emily thought she
perceived, at intervals, anxiety contract, and melancholy fix the
features of Valancourt; sometimes, too, he fell into a momentary
musing, and then appeared anxious to dissipate thought; while, at
others, as he fixed his eyes on Emily, a kind of sudden distraction
seemed to cross his mind. In her he perceived the same goodness and
beautiful simplicity, that had charmed him, on their first
acquaintance. The bloom of her countenance was somewhat faded, but all
its sweetness remained, and it was rendered more interesting, than
ever, by the faint expression of melancholy, that sometimes mingled
with her smile.

At his request, she related the most important circumstances, that had
occurred to her, since she left France, and emotions of pity and
indignation alternately prevailed in his mind, when he heard how much
she had suffered from the villany of Montoni. More than once, when she
was speaking of his conduct, of which the guilt was rather softened,
than exaggerated, by her representation, he started from his seat, and
walked away, apparently overcome as much by self-accusation as by
resentment. Her sufferings alone were mentioned in the few words, which
he could address to her, and he listened not to the account, which she
was careful to give as distinctly as possible, of the present loss of
Madame Montoni’s estates, and of the little reason there was to expect
their restoration. At length, Valancourt remained lost in thought, and
then some secret cause seemed to overcome him with anguish. Again he
abruptly left her. When he returned, she perceived that he had been
weeping, and tenderly begged, that he would compose himself. “My
sufferings are all passed now,” said she, “for I have escaped from the
tyranny of Montoni, and I see you well—let me also see you happy.”

Valancourt was more agitated than before. “I am unworthy of you,
Emily,” said he, “I am unworthy of you;”—words, by his manner of
uttering which Emily was then more shocked than by their import. She
fixed on him a mournful and enquiring eye. “Do not look thus on me,”
said he, turning away and pressing her hand; “I cannot bear those
looks.”

“I would ask,” said Emily, in a gentle, but agitated voice, “the
meaning of your words; but I perceive, that the question would distress
you now. Let us talk on other subjects. Tomorrow, perhaps, you may be
more composed. Observe those moonlight woods, and the towers, which
appear obscurely in the perspective. You used to be a great admirer of
landscape, and I have heard you say, that the faculty of deriving
consolation, under misfortune, from the sublime prospects, which
neither oppression, nor poverty withhold from us, was the peculiar
blessing of the innocent.” Valancourt was deeply affected. “Yes,”
replied he, “I had once a taste for innocent and elegant delights—I had
once an uncorrupted heart.” Then, checking himself, he added, “Do you
remember our journey together in the Pyrenees?”

“Can I forget it?” said Emily.—“Would that I could!” he replied;—“that
was the happiest period of my life. I then loved, with enthusiasm,
whatever was truly great, or good.” It was some time before Emily could
repress her tears, and try to command her emotions. “If you wish to
forget that journey,” said she, “it must certainly be my wish to forget
it also.” She paused, and then added, “You make me very uneasy; but
this is not the time for further enquiry;—yet, how can I bear to
believe, even for a moment, that you are less worthy of my esteem than
formerly? I have still sufficient confidence in your candour, to
believe, that, when I shall ask for an explanation, you will give it
me.”—“Yes,” said Valancourt, “yes, Emily: I have not yet lost my
candour: if I had, I could better have disguised my emotions, on
learning what were your sufferings—your virtues, while I—I—but I will
say no more. I did not mean to have said even so much—I have been
surprised into the self-accusation. Tell me, Emily, that you will not
forget that journey—will not wish to forget it, and I will be calm. I
would not lose the remembrance of it for the whole earth.”

“How contradictory is this!” said Emily;—“but we may be overheard. My
recollection of it shall depend upon yours; I will endeavour to forget,
or to recollect it, as you may do. Let us join the Count.”—“Tell me
first,” said Valancourt, “that you forgive the uneasiness I have
occasioned you, this evening, and that you will still love me.”—“I
sincerely forgive you,” replied Emily. “You best know whether I shall
continue to love you, for you know whether you deserve my esteem. At
present, I will believe that you do. It is unnecessary to say,” added
she, observing his dejection, “how much pain it would give me to
believe otherwise.—The young lady, who approaches, is the Count’s
daughter.”

Valancourt and Emily now joined the Lady Blanche; and the party, soon
after, sat down with the Count, his son, and the Chevalier Du Pont, at
a banquet, spread under a gay awning, beneath the trees. At the table
also were seated several of the most venerable of the Count’s tenants,
and it was a festive repast to all but Valancourt and Emily. When the
Count retired to the château, he did not invite Valancourt to accompany
him, who, therefore, took leave of Emily, and retired to his solitary
inn for the night: meanwhile, she soon withdrew to her own apartment,
where she mused, with deep anxiety and concern, on his behaviour, and
on the Count’s reception of him. Her attention was thus so wholly
engaged, that she forgot Dorothée and her appointment, till morning was
far advanced, when, knowing that the good old woman would not come, she
retired, for a few hours, to repose.

On the following day, when the Count had accidentally joined Emily in
one of the walks, they talked of the festival of the preceding evening,
and this led him to a mention of Valancourt. “That is a young man of
talents,” said he; “you were formerly acquainted with him, I perceive.”
Emily said, that she was. “He was introduced to me, at Paris,” said the
Count, “and I was much pleased with him, on our first acquaintance.” He
paused, and Emily trembled, between the desire of hearing more and the
fear of showing the Count, that she felt an interest on the subject.
“May I ask,” said he, at length, “how long you have known Monsieur
Valancourt?”—“Will you allow me to ask your reason for the question,
sir?” said she; “and I will answer it immediately.”—“Certainly,” said
the Count, “that is but just. I will tell you my reason. I cannot but
perceive, that Monsieur Valancourt admires you; in that, however, there
is nothing extraordinary; every person, who sees you, must do the same.
I am above using common-place compliments; I speak with sincerity. What
I fear, is, that he is a favoured admirer.”—“Why do you fear it, sir?”
said Emily, endeavouring to conceal her emotion.—“Because,” replied the
Count, “I think him not worthy of your favour.” Emily, greatly
agitated, entreated further explanation. “I will give it,” said he, “if
you will believe, that nothing but a strong interest in your welfare
could induce me to hazard that assertion.”—“I must believe so, sir,”
replied Emily.

“But let us rest under these trees,” said the Count, observing the
paleness of her countenance; “here is a seat—you are fatigued.” They
sat down, and the Count proceeded. “Many young ladies, circumstanced as
you are, would think my conduct, on this occasion, and on so short an
acquaintance, impertinent, instead of friendly; from what I have
observed of your temper and understanding, I do not fear such a return
from you. Our acquaintance has been short, but long enough to make me
esteem you, and feel a lively interest in your happiness. You deserve
to be very happy, and I trust that you will be so.” Emily sighed
softly, and bowed her thanks. The Count paused again. “I am
unpleasantly circumstanced,” said he; “but an opportunity of rendering
you important service shall overcome inferior considerations. Will you
inform me of the manner of your first acquaintance with the Chevalier
Valancourt, if the subject is not too painful?”

Emily briefly related the accident of their meeting in the presence of
her father, and then so earnestly entreated the Count not to hesitate
in declaring what he knew, that he perceived the violent emotion,
against which she was contending, and, regarding her with a look of
tender compassion, considered how he might communicate his information
with least pain to his anxious auditor.

“The Chevalier and my son,” said he, “were introduced to each other, at
the table of a brother officer, at whose house I also met him, and
invited him to my own, whenever he should be disengaged. I did not then
know, that he had formed an acquaintance with a set of men, a disgrace
to their species, who live by plunder and pass their lives in continual
debauchery. I knew several of the Chevalier’s family, resident at
Paris, and considered them as sufficient pledges for his introduction
to my own. But you are ill; I will leave the subject.”—“No, sir,” said
Emily, “I beg you will proceed: I am only distressed.”—“_Only!_” said
the Count, with emphasis; “however, I will proceed. I soon learned,
that these, his associates, had drawn him into a course of dissipation,
from which he appeared to have neither the power, nor the inclination,
to extricate himself. He lost large sums at the gaming-table; he became
infatuated with play; and was ruined. I spoke tenderly of this to his
friends, who assured me, that they had remonstrated with him, till they
were weary. I afterwards learned, that, in consideration of his talents
for play, which were generally successful, when unopposed by the tricks
of villany,—that in consideration of these, the party had initiated him
into the secrets of their trade, and allotted him a share of their
profits.” “Impossible!” said Emily suddenly; “but—pardon me, sir, I
scarcely know what I say; allow for the distress of my mind. I must,
indeed, I must believe, that you have not been truly informed. The
Chevalier had, doubtless, enemies, who misrepresented him.”—“I should
be most happy to believe so,” replied the Count, “but I cannot. Nothing
short of conviction, and a regard for your happiness, could have urged
me to repeat these unpleasant reports.”

Emily was silent. She recollected Valancourt’s sayings, on the
preceding evening, which discovered the pangs of self-reproach, and
seemed to confirm all that the Count had related. Yet she had not
fortitude enough to dare conviction. Her heart was overwhelmed with
anguish at the mere suspicion of his guilt, and she could not endure a
belief of it. After a silence, the Count said, “I perceive, and can
allow for, your want of conviction. It is necessary I should give some
proof of what I have asserted; but this I cannot do, without subjecting
one, who is very dear to me, to danger.”—“What is the danger you
apprehend, sir?” said Emily; “if I can prevent it, you may safely
confide in my honour.”—“On your honour I am certain I can rely,” said
the Count; “but can I trust your fortitude? Do you think you can resist
the solicitation of a favoured admirer, when he pleads, in affliction,
for the name of one, who has robbed him of a blessing?”—“I shall not be
exposed to such a temptation, sir,” said Emily, with modest pride, “for
I cannot favour one, whom I must no longer esteem. I, however, readily
give my word.” Tears, in the mean time, contradicted her first
assertion; and she felt, that time and effort only could eradicate an
affection, which had been formed on virtuous esteem, and cherished by
habit and difficulty.

“I will trust you then,” said the Count, “for conviction is necessary
to your peace, and cannot, I perceive, be obtained, without this
confidence. My son has too often been an eye-witness of the Chevalier’s
ill conduct; he was very near being drawn in by it; he was, indeed,
drawn in to the commission of many follies, but I rescued him from
guilt and destruction. Judge then, Mademoiselle St. Aubert, whether a
father, who had nearly lost his only son by the example of the
Chevalier, has not, from conviction, reason to warn those, whom he
esteems, against trusting their happiness in such hands. I have myself
seen the Chevalier engaged in deep play with men, whom I almost
shuddered to look upon. If you still doubt, I will refer you to my
son.”

“I must not doubt what you have yourself witnessed,” replied Emily,
sinking with grief, “or what you assert. But the Chevalier has,
perhaps, been drawn only into a transient folly, which he may never
repeat. If you had known the justness of his former principles, you
would allow for my present incredulity.”

“Alas!” observed the Count, “it is difficult to believe that, which
will make us wretched. But I will not sooth you by flattering and false
hopes. We all know how fascinating the vice of gaming is, and how
difficult it is, also, to conquer habits; the Chevalier might, perhaps,
reform for a while, but he would soon relapse into dissipation—for I
fear, not only the bonds of habit would be powerful, but that his
morals are corrupted. And—why should I conceal from you, that play is
not his only vice? he appears to have a taste for every vicious
pleasure.”

The Count hesitated and paused; while Emily endeavoured to support
herself, as, with increasing perturbation, she expected what he might
further say. A long pause of silence ensued, during which he was
visibly agitated; at length, he said, “It would be a cruel delicacy,
that could prevail with me to be silent—and I will inform you, that the
Chevalier’s extravagance has brought him twice into the prisons of
Paris, from whence he was last extricated, as I was told upon
authority, which I cannot doubt, by a well-known Parisian Countess,
with whom he continued to reside, when I left Paris.”

He paused again; and, looking at Emily, perceived her countenance
change, and that she was falling from the seat; he caught her, but she
had fainted, and he called loudly for assistance. They were, however,
beyond the hearing of his servants at the château, and he feared to
leave her while he went thither for assistance, yet knew not how
otherwise to obtain it; till a fountain at no great distance caught his
eye, and he endeavoured to support Emily against the tree, under which
she had been sitting, while he went thither for water. But again he was
perplexed, for he had nothing near him, in which water could be
brought; but while, with increased anxiety, he watched her, he thought
he perceived in her countenance symptoms of returning life.

It was long, however, before she revived, and then she found herself
supported—not by the Count, but by Valancourt, who was observing her
with looks of earnest apprehension, and who now spoke to her in a tone,
tremulous with his anxiety. At the sound of his well-known voice, she
raised her eyes, but presently closed them, and a faintness again came
over her.

The Count, with a look somewhat stern, waved him to withdraw; but he
only sighed heavily, and called on the name of Emily, as he again held
the water, that had been brought, to her lips. On the Count’s repeating
his action, and accompanying it with words, Valancourt answered him
with a look of deep resentment, and refused to leave the place, till
she should revive, or to resign her for a moment to the care of any
person. In the next instant, his conscience seemed to inform him of
what had been the subject of the Count’s conversation with Emily, and
indignation flashed in his eyes; but it was quickly repressed, and
succeeded by an expression of serious anguish, that induced the Count
to regard him with more pity than resentment, and the view of which so
much affected Emily, when she again revived, that she yielded to the
weakness of tears. But she soon restrained them, and, exerting her
resolution to appear recovered, she rose, thanked the Count and Henri,
with whom Valancourt had entered the garden, for their care, and moved
towards the château, without noticing Valancourt, who, heart-struck by
her manner, exclaimed in a low voice—“Good God! how have I deserved
this?—what has been said, to occasion this change?”

Emily, without replying, but with increased emotion, quickened her
steps. “What has thus disordered you, Emily?” said he, as he still
walked by her side: “give me a few moments’ conversation, I entreat
you;—I am very miserable!”

Though this was spoken in a low voice, it was overheard by the Count,
who immediately replied, that Mademoiselle St. Aubert was then too much
indisposed, to attend to any conversation, but that he would venture to
promise she would see Monsieur Valancourt on the morrow, if she was
better.

Valancourt’s cheek was crimsoned: he looked haughtily at the Count, and
then at Emily, with successive expressions of surprise, grief and
supplication, which she could neither misunderstand, nor resist, and
she said languidly—“I shall be better tomorrow, and if you wish to
accept the Count’s permission, I will see you then.”

“See me!” exclaimed Valancourt, as he threw a glance of mingled pride
and resentment upon the Count; and then, seeming to recollect himself,
he added—“But I will come, madam; I will accept the Count’s
_permission_.”

When they reached the door of the château, he lingered a moment, for
his resentment was now fled; and then, with a look so expressive of
tenderness and grief, that Emily’s heart was not proof against it, he
bade her good morning, and, bowing slightly to the Count, disappeared.

Emily withdrew to her own apartment, under such oppression of heart as
she had seldom known, when she endeavoured to recollect all that the
Count had told, to examine the probability of the circumstances he
himself believed, and to consider of her future conduct towards
Valancourt. But, when she attempted to think, her mind refused control,
and she could only feel that she was miserable. One moment, she sunk
under the conviction, that Valancourt was no longer the same, whom she
had so tenderly loved, the idea of whom had hitherto supported her
under affliction, and cheered her with the hope of happier days,—but a
fallen, a worthless character, whom she must teach herself to
despise—if she could not forget. Then, unable to endure this terrible
supposition, she rejected it, and disdained to believe him capable of
conduct, such as the Count had described, to whom she believed he had
been misrepresented by some artful enemy; and there were moments, when
she even ventured to doubt the integrity of the Count himself, and to
suspect, that he was influenced by some selfish motive, to break her
connection with Valancourt. But this was the error of an instant, only;
the Count’s character, which she had heard spoken of by Du Pont and
many other persons, and had herself observed, enabled her to judge, and
forbade the supposition; had her confidence, indeed, been less, there
appeared to be no temptation to betray him into conduct so treacherous,
and so cruel. Nor did reflection suffer her to preserve the hope, that
Valancourt had been mis-represented to the Count, who had said, that he
spoke chiefly from his own observation, and from his son’s experience.
She must part from Valancourt, therefore, for ever—for what of either
happiness or tranquillity could she expect with a man, whose tastes
were degenerated into low inclinations, and to whom vice was become
habitual? whom she must no longer esteem, though the remembrance of
what he once was, and the long habit of loving him, would render it
very difficult for her to despise him. “O Valancourt!” she would
exclaim, “having been separated so long—do we meet, only to be
miserable—only to part for ever?”

Amidst all the tumult of her mind, she remembered pertinaciously the
seeming candour and simplicity of his conduct, on the preceding night;
and, had she dared to trust her own heart, it would have led her to
hope much from this. Still she could not resolve to dismiss him for
ever, without obtaining further proof of his ill conduct; yet she saw
no probability of procuring it, if, indeed, proof more positive was
possible. Something, however, it was necessary to decide upon, and she
almost determined to be guided in her opinion solely by the manner,
with which Valancourt should receive her hints concerning his late
conduct.

Thus passed the hours till dinner-time, when Emily, struggling against
the pressure of her grief, dried her tears, and joined the family at
table, where the Count preserved towards her the most delicate
attention; but the Countess and Mademoiselle Bearn, having looked, for
a moment, with surprise, on her dejected countenance, began, as usual,
to talk of trifles, while the eyes of Lady Blanche asked much of her
friend, who could only reply by a mournful smile.

Emily withdrew as soon after dinner as possible, and was followed by
the Lady Blanche, whose anxious enquiries, however, she found herself
quite unequal to answer, and whom she entreated to spare her on the
subject of her distress. To converse on any topic, was now, indeed, so
extremely painful to her, that she soon gave up the attempt, and
Blanche left her, with pity of the sorrow, which she perceived she had
no power to assuage.

Emily secretly determined to go to her convent in a day or two; for
company, especially that of the Countess and Mademoiselle Bearn, was
intolerable to her, in the present state of her spirits; and, in the
retirement of the convent, as well as the kindness of the abbess, she
hoped to recover the command of her mind, and to teach it resignation
to the event, which, she too plainly perceived, was approaching.

To have lost Valancourt by death, or to have seen him married to a
rival, would, she thought, have given her less anguish, than a
conviction of his unworthiness, which must terminate in misery to
himself, and which robbed her even of the solitary image her heart so
long had cherished. These painful reflections were interrupted, for a
moment, by a note from Valancourt, written in evident distraction of
mind, entreating, that she would permit him to see her on the
approaching evening, instead of the following morning; a request, which
occasioned her so much agitation, that she was unable to answer it. She
wished to see him, and to terminate her present state of suspense, yet
shrunk from the interview, and, incapable of deciding for herself, she,
at length, sent to beg a few moments’ conversation with the Count in
his library, where she delivered to him the note, and requested his
advice. After reading it, he said, that, if she believed herself well
enough to support the interview, his opinion was, that, for the relief
of both parties, it ought to take place, that evening.

“His affection for you is, undoubtedly, a very sincere one,” added the
Count; “and he appears so much distressed, and you, my amiable friend,
are so ill at ease—that the sooner the affair is decided, the better.”

Emily replied, therefore, to Valancourt, that she would see him, and
then exerted herself in endeavours to attain fortitude and composure,
to bear her through the approaching scene—a scene so afflictingly the
reverse of any, to which she had looked forward!



VOLUME 4



 CHAPTER I

Is all the council that we two have shared,
the hours that we have spent,
When we have chid the hasty-footed time
For parting us—Oh! and is all forgot?

And will you rend our ancient love asunder?
                    MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM


In the evening, when Emily was at length informed, that Count De
Villefort requested to see her, she guessed that Valancourt was below,
and, endeavouring to assume composure and to recollect all her spirits,
she rose and left the apartment; but on reaching the door of the
library, where she imagined him to be, her emotion returned with such
energy, that, fearing to trust herself in the room, she returned into
the hall, where she continued for a considerable time, unable to
command her agitated spirits.

When she could recall them, she found in the library Valancourt, seated
with the Count, who both rose on her entrance; but she did not dare to
look at Valancourt, and the Count, having led her to a chair,
immediately withdrew.

Emily remained with her eyes fixed on the floor, under such oppression
of heart, that she could not speak, and with difficulty breathed; while
Valancourt threw himself into a chair beside her, and, sighing heavily,
continued silent, when, had she raised her eyes, she would have
perceived the violent emotions, with which he was agitated.

At length, in a tremulous voice, he said, “I have solicited to see you
this evening, that I might, at least, be spared the further torture of
suspense, which your altered manner had occasioned me, and which the
hints I have just received from the Count have in part explained. I
perceive I have enemies, Emily, who envied me my late happiness, and
who have been busy in searching out the means to destroy it: I
perceive, too, that time and absence have weakened the affection you
once felt for me, and that you can now easily be taught to forget me.”

His last words faltered, and Emily, less able to speak than before,
continued silent.

“O what a meeting is this!” exclaimed Valancourt, starting from his
seat, and pacing the room with hurried steps, “what a meeting is this,
after our long—long separation!” Again he sat down, and, after the
struggle of a moment, he added in a firm but despairing tone, “This is
too much—I cannot bear it! Emily, will you not speak to me?”

He covered his face with his hand, as if to conceal his emotion, and
took Emily’s, which she did not withdraw. Her tears could no longer be
restrained; and, when he raised his eyes and perceived that she was
weeping, all his tenderness returned, and a gleam of hope appeared to
cross his mind, for he exclaimed, “O! you do pity me, then, you do love
me! Yes, you are still my own Emily—let me believe those tears, that
tell me so!”

Emily now made an effort to recover her firmness, and, hastily drying
them, “Yes,” said she, “I do pity you—I weep for you—but, ought I to
think of you with affection? You may remember, that yester-evening I
said, I had still sufficient confidence in your candour to believe,
that, when I should request an explanation of your words, you would
give it. This explanation is now unnecessary, I understand them too
well; but prove, at least, that your candour is deserving of the
confidence I give it, when I ask you, whether you are conscious of
being the same estimable Valancourt—whom I once loved.”

“Once loved!” cried he,—“the same—the same!” He paused in extreme
emotion, and then added, in a voice at once solemn, and dejected,—“No—I
am not the same!—I am lost—I am no longer worthy of you!”

He again concealed his face. Emily was too much affected by this honest
confession to reply immediately, and, while she struggled to overcome
the pleadings of her heart, and to act with the decisive firmness,
which was necessary for her future peace, she perceived all the danger
of trusting long to her resolution, in the presence of Valancourt, and
was anxious to conclude an interview, that tortured them both; yet,
when she considered, that this was probably their last meeting, her
fortitude sunk at once, and she experienced only emotions of tenderness
and of despondency.

Valancourt, meanwhile, lost in emotions of remorse and grief, which he
had neither the power, nor the will to express, sat insensible almost
of the presence of Emily, his features still concealed, and his breast
agitated by convulsive sighs.

“Spare me the necessity,” said Emily, recollecting her fortitude,
“spare me the necessity of mentioning those circumstances of your
conduct, which oblige me to break our connection for ever.—We must
part, I now see you for the last time.”

“Impossible!” cried Valancourt, roused from his deep silence, “You
cannot mean what you say!—you cannot mean to throw me from you for
ever!”

“We must part,” repeated Emily, with emphasis,—“and that for ever! Your
own conduct has made this necessary.”

“This is the Count’s determination,” said he haughtily, “not yours, and
I shall enquire by what authority he interferes between us.” He now
rose, and walked about the room in great emotion.

“Let me save you from this error,” said Emily, not less agitated—“it is
my determination, and, if you reflect a moment on your late conduct,
you will perceive, that my future peace requires it.”

“Your future peace requires, that we should part—part for ever!” said
Valancourt, “How little did I ever expect to hear you say so!”

“And how little did I expect, that it would be necessary for me to say
so!” rejoined Emily, while her voice softened into tenderness, and her
tears flowed again.—“That you—you, Valancourt, would ever fall from my
esteem!”

He was silent a moment, as if overwhelmed by the consciousness of no
longer deserving this esteem, as well as the certainty of having lost
it, and then, with impassioned grief, lamented the criminality of his
late conduct and the misery to which it had reduced him, till, overcome
by a recollection of the past and a conviction of the future, he burst
into tears, and uttered only deep and broken sighs.

The remorse he had expressed, and the distress he suffered could not be
witnessed by Emily with indifference, and, had she not called to her
recollection all the circumstances, of which Count De Villefort had
informed her, and all he had said of the danger of confiding in
repentance, formed under the influence of passion, she might perhaps
have trusted to the assurances of her heart, and have forgotten his
misconduct in the tenderness, which that repentance excited.

Valancourt, returning to the chair beside her, at length, said, in a
calm voice, “’Tis true, I am fallen—fallen from my own esteem! but
could you, Emily, so soon, so suddenly resign, if you had not before
ceased to love me, or, if your conduct was not governed by the designs,
I will say, the selfish designs of another person! Would you not
otherwise be willing to hope for my reformation—and could you bear, by
estranging me from you, to abandon me to misery—to myself!”—Emily wept
aloud.—“No, Emily—no—you would not do this, if you still loved me. You
would find your own happiness in saving mine.”

“There are too many probabilities against that hope,” said Emily, “to
justify me in trusting the comfort of my whole life to it. May I not
also ask, whether you could wish me to do this, if you really loved
me?”

“Really loved you!” exclaimed Valancourt—“is it possible you can doubt
my love! Yet it is reasonable, that you should do so, since you see,
that I am less ready to suffer the horror of parting with you, than
that of involving you in my ruin. Yes, Emily—I am ruined—irreparably
ruined—I am involved in debts, which I can never discharge!”
Valancourt’s look, which was wild, as he spoke this, soon settled into
an expression of gloomy despair; and Emily, while she was compelled to
admire his sincerity, saw, with unutterable anguish, new reasons for
fear in the suddenness of his feelings and the extent of the misery, in
which they might involve him. After some minutes, she seemed to contend
against her grief and to struggle for fortitude to conclude the
interview. “I will not prolong these moments,” said she, “by a
conversation, which can answer no good purpose. Valancourt, farewell!”

“You are not going?” said he, wildly interrupting her—“You will not
leave me thus—you will not abandon me even before my mind has suggested
any possibility of compromise between the last indulgence of my despair
and the endurance of my loss!” Emily was terrified by the sternness of
his look, and said, in a soothing voice, “You have yourself
acknowledged, that it is necessary we should part;—if you wish, that I
should believe you love me, you will repeat the
acknowledgment.”—“Never—never,” cried he—“I was distracted when I made
it. O! Emily—this is too much;—though you are not deceived as to my
faults, you must be deluded into this exasperation against them. The
Count is the barrier between us; but he shall not long remain so.”

“You are, indeed, distracted,” said Emily, “the Count is not your
enemy; on the contrary, he is my friend, and that might, in some
degree, induce you to consider him as yours.”—“Your friend!” said
Valancourt, hastily, “how long has he been your friend, that he can so
easily make you forget your lover? Was it he, who recommended to your
favour the Monsieur Du Pont, who, you say, accompanied you from Italy,
and who, I say, has stolen your affections? But I have no right to
question you;—you are your own mistress. Du Pont, perhaps, may not long
triumph over my fallen fortunes!” Emily, more frightened than before by
the frantic looks of Valancourt, said, in a tone scarcely audible, “For
heaven’s sake be reasonable—be composed. Monsieur Du Pont is not your
rival, nor is the Count his advocate. You have no rival; nor, except
yourself, an enemy. My heart is wrung with anguish, which must increase
while your frantic behaviour shows me, more than ever, that you are no
longer the Valancourt I have been accustomed to love.”

He made no reply, but sat with his arms rested on the table and his
face concealed by his hands; while Emily stood, silent and trembling,
wretched for herself and dreading to leave him in this state of mind.

“O excess of misery!” he suddenly exclaimed, “that I can never lament
my sufferings, without accusing myself, nor remember you, without
recollecting the folly and the vice, by which I have lost you! Why was
I forced to Paris, and why did I yield to allurements, which were to
make me despicable for ever! O! why cannot I look back, without
interruption, to those days of innocence and peace, the days of our
early love!”—The recollection seemed to melt his heart, and the frenzy
of despair yielded to tears. After a long pause, turning towards her
and taking her hand, he said, in a softened voice, “Emily, can you bear
that we should part—can you resolve to give up a heart, that loves you
like mine—a heart, which, though it has erred—widely erred, is not
irretrievable from error, as, you well know, it never can be
retrievable from love?” Emily made no reply, but with her tears. “Can
you,” continued he, “can you forget all our former days of happiness
and confidence—when I had not a thought, that I might wish to conceal
from you—when I had no taste—no pleasures, in which you did not
participate?”

“O do not lead me to the remembrance of those days,” said Emily,
“unless you can teach me to forget the present; I do not mean to
reproach you; if I did, I should be spared these tears; but why will
you render your present sufferings more conspicuous, by contrasting
them with your former virtues?”

“Those virtues,” said Valancourt, “might, perhaps, again be mine, if
your affection, which nurtured them, was unchanged;—but I fear, indeed,
I see, that you can no longer love me; else the happy hours, which we
have passed together, would plead for me, and you could not look back
upon them unmoved. Yet, why should I torture myself with the
remembrance—why do I linger here? Am I not ruined—would it not be
madness to involve you in my misfortunes, even if your heart was still
my own? I will not distress you further. Yet, before I go,” added he,
in a solemn voice, “let me repeat, that, whatever may be my
destiny—whatever I may be doomed to suffer, I must always love you—most
fondly love you! I am going, Emily, I am going to leave you—to leave
you, for ever!” As he spoke the last words, his voice trembled, and he
threw himself again into the chair, from which he had risen. Emily was
utterly unable to leave the room, or to say farewell. All impression of
his criminal conduct and almost of his follies was obliterated from her
mind, and she was sensible only of pity and grief.

“My fortitude is gone,” said Valancourt at length; “I can no longer
even struggle to recall it. I cannot now leave you—I cannot bid you an
eternal farewell; say, at least, that you will see me once again.”
Emily’s heart was somewhat relieved by the request, and she endeavoured
to believe, that she ought not to refuse it. Yet she was embarrassed by
recollecting, that she was a visitor in the house of the Count, who
could not be pleased by the return of Valancourt. Other considerations,
however, soon overcame this, and she granted his request, on the
condition, that he would neither think of the Count, as his enemy, nor
Du Pont as his rival. He then left her, with a heart, so much lightened
by this short respite, that he almost lost every former sense of
misfortune.

Emily withdrew to her own room, that she might compose her spirits and
remove the traces of her tears, which would encourage the censorious
remarks of the Countess and her favourite, as well as excite the
curiosity of the rest of the family. She found it, however, impossible
to tranquillize her mind, from which she could not expel the
remembrance of the late scene with Valancourt, or the consciousness,
that she was to see him again, on the morrow. This meeting now appeared
more terrible to her than the last, for the ingenuous confession he had
made of his ill conduct and his embarrassed circumstances, with the
strength and tenderness of affection, which this confession discovered,
had deeply impressed her, and, in spite of all she had heard and
believed to his disadvantage, her esteem began to return. It frequently
appeared to her impossible, that he could have been guilty of the
depravities, reported of him, which, if not inconsistent with his
warmth and impetuosity, were entirely so with his candour and
sensibility. Whatever was the criminality, which had given rise to the
reports, she could not now believe them to be wholly true, nor that his
heart was finally closed against the charms of virtue. The deep
consciousness, which he felt as well as expressed of his errors, seemed
to justify the opinion; and, as she understood not the instability of
youthful dispositions, when opposed by habit, and that professions
frequently deceive those, who make, as well as those, who hear them,
she might have yielded to the flattering persuasions of her own heart
and the pleadings of Valancourt, had she not been guided by the
superior prudence of the Count. He represented to her, in a clear
light, the danger of her present situation, that of listening to
promises of amendment, made under the influence of strong passion, and
the slight hope, which could attach to a connection, whose chance of
happiness rested upon the retrieval of ruined circumstances and the
reform of corrupted habits. On these accounts, he lamented, that Emily
had consented to a second interview, for he saw how much it would shake
her resolution and increase the difficulty of her conquest.

Her mind was now so entirely occupied by nearer interests, that she
forgot the old housekeeper and the promised history, which so lately
had excited her curiosity, but which Dorothée was probably not very
anxious to disclose, for night came; the hours passed; and she did not
appear in Emily’s chamber. With the latter it was a sleepless and
dismal night; the more she suffered her memory to dwell on the late
scenes with Valancourt, the more her resolution declined, and she was
obliged to recollect all the arguments, which the Count had made use of
to strengthen it, and all the precepts, which she had received from her
deceased father, on the subject of self-command, to enable her to act,
with prudence and dignity, on this the most severe occasion of her
life. There were moments, when all her fortitude forsook her, and when,
remembering the confidence of former times, she thought it impossible,
that she could renounce Valancourt. His reformation then appeared
certain; the arguments of Count De Villefort were forgotten; she
readily believed all she wished, and was willing to encounter any evil,
rather than that of an immediate separation.

Thus passed the night in ineffectual struggles between affection and
reason, and she rose, in the morning, with a mind, weakened and
irresolute, and a frame, trembling with illness.



 CHAPTER II

Come, weep with me;—past hope, past cure, past help!
                    ROMEO AND JULIET


Valancourt, meanwhile, suffered the tortures of remorse and despair.
The sight of Emily had renewed all the ardour, with which he first
loved her, and which had suffered a temporary abatement from absence
and the passing scenes of busy life. When, on the receipt of her
letter, he set out for Languedoc, he then knew, that his own folly had
involved him in ruin, and it was no part of his design to conceal this
from her. But he lamented only the delay which his ill-conduct must
give to their marriage, and did not foresee, that the information could
induce her to break their connection for ever. While the prospect of
this separation overwhelmed his mind, before stung with self-reproach,
he awaited their second interview, in a state little short of
distraction, yet was still inclined to hope, that his pleadings might
prevail upon her not to exact it. In the morning, he sent to know at
what hour she would see him; and his note arrived, when she was with
the Count, who had sought an opportunity of again conversing with her
of Valancourt; for he perceived the extreme distress of her mind, and
feared, more than ever, that her fortitude would desert her. Emily
having dismissed the messenger, the Count returned to the subject of
their late conversation, urging his fear of Valancourt’s entreaties,
and again pointing out to her the lengthened misery, that must ensue,
if she should refuse to encounter some present uneasiness. His repeated
arguments could, indeed, alone have protected her from the affection
she still felt for Valancourt, and she resolved to be governed by them.

The hour of interview, at length, arrived. Emily went to it, at least,
with composure of manner, but Valancourt was so much agitated, that he
could not speak, for several minutes, and his first words were
alternately those of lamentation, entreaty, and self-reproach.
Afterward, he said, “Emily, I have loved you—I do love you, better than
my life; but I am ruined by my own conduct. Yet I would seek to
entangle you in a connection, that must be miserable for you, rather
than subject myself to the punishment, which is my due, the loss of
you. I am a wretch, but I will be a villain no longer.—I will not
endeavour to shake your resolution by the pleadings of a selfish
passion. I resign you, Emily, and will endeavour to find consolation in
considering, that, though I am miserable, you, at least, may be happy.
The merit of the sacrifice is, indeed, not my own, for I should never
have attained strength of mind to surrender you, if your prudence had
not demanded it.”

He paused a moment, while Emily attempted to conceal the tears, which
came to her eyes. She would have said, “You speak now, as you were wont
to do,” but she checked herself.—“Forgive me, Emily,” said he, “all the
sufferings I have occasioned you, and, sometimes, when you think of the
wretched Valancourt, remember, that his only consolation would be to
believe, that you are no longer unhappy by his folly.” The tears now
fell fast upon her cheek, and he was relapsing into the frenzy of
despair, when Emily endeavoured to recall her fortitude and to
terminate an interview, which only seemed to increase the distress of
both. Perceiving her tears and that she was rising to go, Valancourt
struggled, once more, to overcome his own feelings and to sooth hers.
“The remembrance of this sorrow,” said he, “shall in future be my
protection. O! never again will example, or temptation have power to
seduce me to evil, exalted as I shall be by the recollection of your
grief for me.”

Emily was somewhat comforted by this assurance. “We are now parting for
ever,” said she; “but, if my happiness is dear to you, you will always
remember, that nothing can contribute to it more, than to believe, that
you have recovered your own esteem.” Valancourt took her hand;—his eyes
were covered with tears, and the farewell he would have spoken was lost
in sighs. After a few moments, Emily said, with difficulty and emotion,
“Farewell, Valancourt, may you be happy!” She repeated her “farewell,”
and attempted to withdraw her hand, but he still held it and bathed it
with his tears. “Why prolong these moments?” said Emily, in a voice
scarcely audible, “they are too painful to us both.” “This is too—too
much,” exclaimed Valancourt, resigning her hand and throwing himself
into a chair, where he covered his face with his hands and was
overcome, for some moments, by convulsive sighs. After a long pause,
during which Emily wept in silence, and Valancourt seemed struggling
with his grief, she again rose to take leave of him. Then, endeavouring
to recover his composure, “I am again afflicting you,” said he, “but
let the anguish I suffer plead for me.” He then added, in a solemn
voice, which frequently trembled with the agitation of his heart,
“Farewell, Emily, you will always be the only object of my tenderness.
Sometimes you will think of the unhappy Valancourt, and it will be with
pity, though it may not be with esteem. O! what is the whole world to
me, without you—without your esteem!” He checked himself—“I am falling
again into the error I have just lamented. I must not intrude longer
upon your patience, or I shall relapse into despair.”

He once more bade Emily adieu, pressed her hand to his lips, looked at
her, for the last time, and hurried out of the room.

Emily remained in the chair, where he had left her, oppressed with a
pain at her heart, which scarcely permitted her to breathe, and
listening to his departing steps, sinking fainter and fainter, as he
crossed the hall. She was, at length, roused by the voice of the
Countess in the garden, and, her attention being then awakened, the
first object, which struck her sight, was the vacant chair, where
Valancourt had sat. The tears, which had been, for some time, repressed
by the kind of astonishment, that followed his departure, now came to
her relief, and she was, at length, sufficiently composed to return to
her own room.



 CHAPTER III

This is no mortal business, nor no sound
That the earth owes!
                    SHAKESPEARE


We now return to the mention of Montoni, whose rage and disappointment
were soon lost in nearer interests, than any, which the unhappy Emily
had awakened. His depredations having exceeded their usual limits, and
reached an extent, at which neither the timidity of the then commercial
senate of Venice, nor their hope of his occasional assistance would
permit them to connive, the same effort, it was resolved, should
complete the suppression of his power and the correction of his
outrages. While a corps of considerable strength was upon the point of
receiving orders to march for Udolpho, a young officer, prompted partly
by resentment, for some injury, received from Montoni, and partly by
the hope of distinction, solicited an interview with the Minister, who
directed the enterprise. To him he represented, that the situation of
Udolpho rendered it too strong to be taken by open force, except after
some tedious operations; that Montoni had lately shown how capable he
was of adding to its strength all the advantages, which could be
derived from the skill of a commander; that so considerable a body of
troops, as that allotted to the expedition, could not approach Udolpho
without his knowledge, and that it was not for the honour of the
republic to have a large part of its regular force employed, for such a
time as the siege of Udolpho would require, upon the attack of a
handful of banditti. The object of the expedition, he thought, might be
accomplished much more safely and speedily by mingling contrivance with
force. It was possible to meet Montoni and his party, without their
walls, and to attack them then; or, by approaching the fortress, with
the secrecy, consistent with the march of smaller bodies of troops, to
take advantage either of the treachery, or negligence of some of his
party, and to rush unexpectedly upon the whole even in the castle of
Udolpho.

This advice was seriously attended to, and the officer, who gave it,
received the command of the troops, demanded for his purpose. His first
efforts were accordingly those of contrivance alone. In the
neighbourhood of Udolpho, he waited, till he had secured the assistance
of several of the _condottieri_, of whom he found none, that he
addressed, unwilling to punish their imperious master and to secure
their own pardon from the senate. He learned also the number of
Montoni’s troops, and that it had been much increased, since his late
successes. The conclusion of his plan was soon effected. Having
returned with his party, who received the watch-word and other
assistance from their friends within, Montoni and his officers were
surprised by one division, who had been directed to their apartment,
while the other maintained the slight combat, which preceded the
surrender of the whole garrison. Among the persons, seized with
Montoni, was Orsino, the assassin, who had joined him on his first
arrival at Udolpho, and whose concealment had been made known to the
senate by Count Morano, after the unsuccessful attempt of the latter to
carry off Emily. It was, indeed, partly for the purpose of capturing
this man, by whom one of the senate had been murdered, that the
expedition was undertaken, and its success was so acceptable to them,
that Morano was instantly released, notwithstanding the political
suspicions, which Montoni, by his secret accusation, had excited
against him. The celerity and ease, with which this whole transaction
was completed, prevented it from attracting curiosity, or even from
obtaining a place in any of the published records of that time; so that
Emily, who remained in Languedoc, was ignorant of the defeat and signal
humiliation of her late persecutor.

Her mind was now occupied with sufferings, which no effort of reason
had yet been able to control. Count De Villefort, who sincerely
attempted whatever benevolence could suggest for softening them,
sometimes allowed her the solitude she wished for, sometimes led her
into friendly parties, and constantly protected her, as much as
possible, from the shrewd enquiries and critical conversation of the
Countess. He often invited her to make excursions, with him and his
daughter, during which he conversed entirely on questions, suitable to
her taste, without appearing to consult it, and thus endeavoured
gradually to withdraw her from the subject of her grief, and to awake
other interests in her mind. Emily, to whom he appeared as the
enlightened friend and protector of her youth, soon felt for him the
tender affection of a daughter, and her heart expanded to her young
friend Blanche, as to a sister, whose kindness and simplicity
compensated for the want of more brilliant qualities. It was long
before she could sufficiently abstract her mind from Valancourt to
listen to the story, promised by old Dorothée, concerning which her
curiosity had once been so deeply interested; but Dorothée, at length,
reminded her of it, and Emily desired, that she would come, that night,
to her chamber.

Still her thoughts were employed by considerations, which weakened her
curiosity, and Dorothée’s tap at the door, soon after twelve, surprised
her almost as much as if it had not been appointed. “I am come, at
last, lady,” said she; “I wonder what it is makes my old limbs shake
so, tonight. I thought, once or twice, I should have dropped, as I was
a-coming.” Emily seated her in a chair, and desired, that she would
compose her spirits, before she entered upon the subject, that had
brought her thither. “Alas,” said Dorothée, “it is thinking of that, I
believe, which has disturbed me so. In my way hither too, I passed the
chamber, where my dear lady died, and everything was so still and
gloomy about me, that I almost fancied I saw her, as she appeared upon
her death-bed.”

Emily now drew her chair near to Dorothée, who went on. “It is about
twenty years since my lady Marchioness came a bride to the château. O!
I well remember how she looked, when she came into the great hall,
where we servants were all assembled to welcome her, and how happy my
lord the Marquis seemed. Ah! who would have thought then!—But, as I was
saying, ma’amselle, I thought the Marchioness, with all her sweet
looks, did not look happy at heart, and so I told my husband, and he
said it was all fancy; so I said no more, but I made my remarks, for
all that. My lady Marchioness was then about your age, and, as I have
often thought, very like you. Well! my lord the Marquis kept open
house, for a long time, and gave such entertainments and there were
such gay doings as have never been in the château since. I was younger,
ma’amselle, then, than I am now, and was as gay at the best of them. I
remember I danced with Philip, the butler, in a pink gown, with yellow
ribbons, and a coif, not such as they wear now, but plaited high, with
ribbons all about it. It was very becoming truly;—my lord, the Marquis,
noticed me. Ah! he was a good-natured gentleman then—who would have
thought that he—”

“But the Marchioness, Dorothée,” said Emily, “you were telling me of
her.”

“O yes, my lady Marchioness, I thought she did not seem happy at heart,
and once, soon after the marriage, I caught her crying in her chamber;
but, when she saw me, she dried her eyes, and pretended to smile. I did
not dare then to ask what was the matter; but, the next time I saw her
crying, I did, and she seemed displeased;—so I said no more. I found
out, some time after, how it was. Her father, it seems, had commanded
her to marry my lord, the Marquis, for his money, and there was another
nobleman, or else a chevalier, that she liked better and that was very
fond of her, and she fretted for the loss of him, I fancy, but she
never told me so. My lady always tried to conceal her tears from the
Marquis, for I have often seen her, after she has been so sorrowful,
look so calm and sweet, when he came into the room! But my lord, all of
a sudden, grew gloomy and fretful, and very unkind sometimes to my
lady. This afflicted her very much, as I saw, for she never complained,
and she used to try so sweetly to oblige him and to bring him into a
good humour, that my heart has often ached to see it. But he used to be
stubborn, and give her harsh answers, and then, when she found it all
in vain, she would go to her own room, and cry so! I used to hear her
in the ante-room, poor dear lady! but I seldom ventured to go to her. I
used, sometimes, to think my lord was jealous. To be sure my lady was
greatly admired, but she was too good to deserve suspicion. Among the
many chevaliers, that visited at the château, there was one, that I
always thought seemed just suited for my lady; he was so courteous, yet
so spirited, and there was such a grace, as it were, in all he did, or
said. I always observed, that, whenever he had been there, the Marquis
was more gloomy and my lady more thoughtful, and it came into my head,
that this was the chevalier she ought to have married, but I never
could learn for certain.”

“What was the chevalier’s name, Dorothée?” said Emily.

“Why that I will not tell even to you, ma’amselle, for evil may come of
it. I once heard from a person, who is since dead, that the Marchioness
was not in law the wife of the Marquis, for that she had before been
privately married to the gentleman she was so much attached to, and was
afterwards afraid to own it to her father, who was a very stern man;
but this seems very unlikely, and I never gave much faith to it. As I
was saying, the Marquis was most out of humour, as I thought, when the
chevalier I spoke of had been at the château, and, at last, his ill
treatment of my lady made her quite miserable. He would see hardly any
visitors at the castle, and made her live almost by herself. I was her
constant attendant, and saw all she suffered, but still she never
complained.

“After matters had gone on thus, for near a year, my lady was taken
ill, and I thought her long fretting had made her so,—but, alas! I fear
it was worse than that.”

“Worse! Dorothée,” said Emily, “can that be possible?”

“I fear it was so, madam, there were strange appearances. But I will
only tell what happened. My lord, the Marquis—”

“Hush, Dorothée, what sounds were those?” said Emily.

Dorothée changed countenance, and, while they both listened, they
heard, on the stillness of the night, music of uncommon sweetness.

“I have surely heard that voice before!” said Emily, at length.

“I have often heard it, and at this same hour,” said Dorothée,
solemnly, “and, if spirits ever bring music—that is surely the music of
one!”

Emily, as the sounds drew nearer, knew them to be the same she had
formerly heard at the time of her father’s death, and, whether it was
the remembrance they now revived of that melancholy event, or that she
was struck with superstitious awe, it is certain she was so much
affected, that she had nearly fainted.

“I think I once told you, madam,” said Dorothée, “that I first heard
this music, soon after my lady’s death! I well remember the night!”—
“Hark! it comes again!” said Emily, “let us open the window, and
listen.”

They did so; but, soon, the sounds floated gradually away into
distance, and all was again still; they seemed to have sunk among the
woods, whose tufted tops were visible upon the clear horizon, while
every other feature of the scene was involved in the night-shade,
which, however, allowed the eye an indistinct view of some objects in
the garden below.

As Emily leaned on the window, gazing with a kind of thrilling awe upon
the obscurity beneath, and then upon the cloudless arch above,
enlightened only by the stars, Dorothée, in a low voice, resumed her
narrative.

“I was saying, ma’amselle, that I well remember when first I heard that
music. It was one night, soon after my lady’s death, that I had sat up
later than usual, and I don’t know how it was, but I had been thinking
a great deal about my poor mistress, and of the sad scene I had lately
witnessed. The château was quite still, and I was in the chamber at a
good distance from the rest of the servants, and this, with the
mournful things I had been thinking of, I suppose, made me low
spirited, for I felt very lonely and forlorn, as it were, and listened
often, wishing to hear a sound in the château, for you know,
ma’amselle, when one can hear people moving, one does not so much mind,
about one’s fears. But all the servants were gone to bed, and I sat,
thinking and thinking, till I was almost afraid to look round the room,
and my poor lady’s countenance often came to my mind, such as I had
seen her when she was dying, and, once or twice, I almost thought I saw
her before me,—when suddenly I heard such sweet music! It seemed just
at my window, and I shall never forget what I felt. I had not power to
move from my chair, but then, when I thought it was my dear lady’s
voice, the tears came to my eyes. I had often heard her sing, in her
life-time, and to be sure she had a very fine voice; it had made me cry
to hear her, many a time, when she has sat in her oriel, of an evening,
playing upon her lute such sad songs, and singing so. O! it went to
one’s heart! I have listened in the ante-chamber, for the hour
together, and she would sometimes sit playing, with the window open,
when it was summer time, till it was quite dark, and when I have gone
in, to shut it, she has hardly seemed to know what hour it was. But, as
I said, madam,” continued Dorothée, “when first I heard the music, that
came just now, I thought it was my late lady’s, and I have often
thought so again, when I have heard it, as I have done at intervals,
ever since. Sometimes, many months have gone by, but still it has
returned.”

“It is extraordinary,” observed Emily, “that no person has yet
discovered the musician.”

“Aye, ma’amselle, if it had been anything earthly it would have been
discovered long ago, but who could have courage to follow a spirit, and
if they had, what good could it do?—for spirits, _you know_, ma’am, can
take any shape, or no shape, and they will be here, one minute, and,
the next perhaps, in a quite different place!”

“Pray resume your story of the Marchioness,” said Emily, “and acquaint
me with the manner of her death.”

“I will, ma’am,” said Dorothée, “but shall we leave the window?”

“This cool air refreshes me,” replied Emily, “and I love to hear it
creep along the woods, and to look upon this dusky landscape. You were
speaking of my lord, the Marquis, when the music interrupted us.”

“Yes, madam, my lord, the Marquis, became more and more gloomy; and my
lady grew worse and worse, till, one night, she was taken very ill,
indeed. I was called up, and, when I came to her bedside, I was shocked
to see her countenance—it was so changed! She looked piteously up at
me, and desired I would call the Marquis again, for he was not yet
come, and tell him she had something particular to say to him. At last,
he came, and he did, to be sure, seem very sorry to see her, but he
said very little. My lady told him she felt herself to be dying, and
wished to speak with him alone, and then I left the room, but I shall
never forget his look as I went.”

“When I returned, I ventured to remind my lord about sending for a
doctor, for I supposed he had forgot to do so, in his grief; but my
lady said it was then too late; but my lord, so far from thinking so,
seemed to think light of her disorder—till she was seized with such
terrible pains! O, I never shall forget her shriek! My lord then sent
off a man and horse for the doctor, and walked about the room and all
over the château in the greatest distress; and I staid by my dear lady,
and did what I could to ease her sufferings. She had intervals of ease,
and in one of these she sent for my lord again; when he came, I was
going, but she desired I would not leave her. O! I shall never forget
what a scene passed—I can hardly bear to think of it now! My lord was
almost distracted, for my lady behaved with so much goodness, and took
such pains to comfort him, that, if he ever had suffered a suspicion to
enter his head, he must now have been convinced he was wrong. And to be
sure he did seem to be overwhelmed with the thought of his treatment of
her, and this affected her so much, that she fainted away.

“We then got my lord out of the room; he went into his library, and
threw himself on the floor, and there he staid, and would hear no
reason, that was talked to him. When my lady recovered, she enquired
for him, but, afterwards, said she could not bear to see his grief, and
desired we would let her die quietly. She died in my arms, ma’amselle,
and she went off as peacefully as a child, for all the violence of her
disorder was passed.”

Dorothée paused and wept, and Emily wept with her; for she was much
affected by the goodness of the late Marchioness, and by the meek
patience with which she had suffered.

“When the doctor came,” resumed Dorothée, “alas! he came too late; he
appeared greatly shocked to see her, for soon after her death a
frightful blackness spread all over her face. When he had sent the
attendants out of the room, he asked me several odd questions about the
Marchioness, particularly concerning the manner, in which she had been
seized, and he often shook his head at my answers, and seemed to mean
more, than he chose to say. But I understood him too well. However, I
kept my remarks to myself, and only told them to my husband, who bade
me hold my tongue. Some of the other servants, however, suspected what
I did, and strange reports were whispered about the neighbourhood, but
nobody dared to make any stir about them. When my lord heard that my
lady was dead, he shut himself up, and would see nobody but the doctor,
who used to be with him alone, sometimes for an hour together; and,
after that, the doctor never talked with me again about my lady. When
she was buried in the church of the convent, at a little distance
yonder, if the moon was up you might see the towers here, ma’amselle,
all my lord’s vassals followed the funeral, and there was not a dry eye
among them, for she had done a deal of good among the poor. My lord,
the Marquis, I never saw anybody so melancholy as he was afterwards,
and sometimes he would be in such fits of violence, that we almost
thought he had lost his senses. He did not stay long at the château,
but joined his regiment, and, soon after, all the servants, except my
husband and I, received notice to go, for my lord went to the wars. I
never saw him after, for he would not return to the château, though it
is such a fine place, and never finished those fine rooms he was
building on the west side of it, and it has, in a manner, been shut up
ever since, till my lord the Count came here.”

“The death of the Marchioness appears extraordinary,” said Emily, who
was anxious to know more than she dared to ask.

“Yes, madam,” replied Dorothée, “it was extraordinary; I have told you
all I saw, and you may easily guess what I think, I cannot say more,
because I would not spread reports, that might offend my lord the
Count.”

“You are very right,” said Emily;—“where did the Marquis die?”—“In the
north of France, I believe, ma’amselle,” replied Dorothée. “I was very
glad, when I heard my lord the Count was coming, for this had been a
sad desolate place, these many years, and we heard such strange noises,
sometimes, after my lady’s death, that, as I told you before, my
husband and I left it for a neighbouring cottage. And now, lady, I have
told you all this sad history, and all my thoughts, and you have
promised, you know, never to give the least hint about it.”—“I have,”
said Emily, “and I will be faithful to my promise, Dorothée;—what you
have told has interested me more than you can imagine. I only wish I
could prevail upon you to tell the name of the chevalier, whom you
thought so deserving of the Marchioness.”

Dorothée, however, steadily refused to do this, and then returned to
the notice of Emily’s likeness to the late Marchioness. “There is
another picture of her,” added she, “hanging in a room of the suite,
which was shut up. It was drawn, as I have heard, before she was
married, and is much more like you than the miniature.” When Emily
expressed a strong desire to see this, Dorothée replied, that she did
not like to open those rooms; but Emily reminded her, that the Count
had talked the other day of ordering them to be opened; of which
Dorothée seemed to consider much, and then she owned, that she should
feel less, if she went into them with Emily first, than otherwise, and
at length promised to show the picture.

The night was too far advanced and Emily was too much affected by the
narrative of the scenes, which had passed in those apartments, to wish
to visit them at this hour, but she requested that Dorothée would
return on the following night, when they were not likely to be
observed, and conduct her thither. Besides her wish to examine the
portrait, she felt a thrilling curiosity to see the chamber, in which
the Marchioness had died, and which Dorothée had said remained, with
the bed and furniture, just as when the corpse was removed for
interment. The solemn emotions, which the expectation of viewing such a
scene had awakened, were in unison with the present tone of her mind,
depressed by severe disappointment. Cheerful objects rather added to,
than removed this depression; but, perhaps, she yielded too much to her
melancholy inclination, and imprudently lamented the misfortune, which
no virtue of her own could have taught her to avoid, though no effort
of reason could make her look unmoved upon the self-degradation of him,
whom she had once esteemed and loved.

Dorothée promised to return, on the following night, with the keys of
the chambers, and then wished Emily good repose, and departed. Emily,
however, continued at the window, musing upon the melancholy fate of
the Marchioness and listening, in awful expectation, for a return of
the music. But the stillness of the night remained long unbroken,
except by the murmuring sounds of the woods, as they waved in the
breeze, and then by the distant bell of the convent, striking one. She
now withdrew from the window, and, as she sat at her bedside, indulging
melancholy reveries, which the loneliness of the hour assisted, the
stillness was suddenly interrupted not by music, but by very uncommon
sounds, that seemed to come either from the room adjoining her own, or
from one below. The terrible catastrophe that had been related to her,
together with the mysterious circumstances said to have since occurred
in the château, had so much shocked her spirits, that she now sunk for
a moment under the weakness of superstition. The sounds, however, did
not return, and she retired, to forget in sleep the disastrous story
she had heard.



 CHAPTER IV

Now it is the time of night,
That, the graves all gaping wide,
Every one lets forth his sprite,
In the church-way path to glide.
                    SHAKESPEARE


On the next night, about the same hour as before, Dorothée came to
Emily’s chamber, with the keys of that suite of rooms, which had been
particularly appropriated to the late Marchioness. These extended along
the north side of the château, forming part of the old building; and,
as Emily’s room was in the south, they had to pass over a great extent
of the castle, and by the chambers of several of the family, whose
observations Dorothée was anxious to avoid, since it might excite
enquiry, and raise reports, such as would displease the Count. She,
therefore, requested, that Emily would wait half an hour, before they
ventured forth, that they might be certain all the servants were gone
to bed. It was nearly one, before the château was perfectly still, or
Dorothée thought it prudent to leave the chamber. In this interval, her
spirits seemed to be greatly affected by the remembrance of past
events, and by the prospect of entering again upon places, where these
had occurred, and in which she had not been for so many years. Emily
too was affected, but her feelings had more of solemnity, and less of
fear. From the silence, into which reflection and expectation had
thrown them, they, at length, roused themselves, and left the chamber.
Dorothée, at first, carried the lamp, but her hand trembled so much
with infirmity and alarm, that Emily took it from her, and offered her
arm, to support her feeble steps.

They had to descend the great staircase, and, after passing over a wide
extent of the château, to ascend another, which led to the suite of
rooms they were in quest of. They stepped cautiously along the open
corridor, that ran round the great hall, and into which the chambers of
the Count, Countess, and the Lady Blanche, opened, and, from thence,
descending the chief staircase, they crossed the hall itself.
Proceeding through the servants hall, where the dying embers of a wood
fire still glimmered on the hearth, and the supper table was surrounded
by chairs, that obstructed their passage, they came to the foot of the
back staircase. Old Dorothée here paused, and looked around; “Let us
listen,” said she, “if anything is stirring; Ma’amselle, do you hear
any voice?” “None,” said Emily, “there certainly is no person up in the
château, besides ourselves.”—“No, ma’amselle,” said Dorothée, “but I
have never been here at this hour before, and, after what I know, my
fears are not wonderful.”—“What do you know?” said Emily.—“O,
ma’amselle, we have no time for talking now; let us go on. That door on
the left is the one we must open.”

They proceeded, and, having reached the top of the staircase, Dorothée
applied the key to the lock. “Ah,” said she, as she endeavoured to turn
it, “so many years have passed since this was opened, that I fear it
will not move.” Emily was more successful, and they presently entered a
spacious and ancient chamber.

“Alas!” exclaimed Dorothée, as she entered, “the last time I passed
through this door—I followed my poor lady’s corpse!”

Emily, struck with the circumstance, and affected by the dusky and
solemn air of the apartment, remained silent, and they passed on
through a long suite of rooms, till they came to one more spacious than
the rest, and rich in the remains of faded magnificence.

“Let us rest here awhile, madam,” said Dorothée faintly, “we are going
into the chamber, where my lady died! that door opens into it. Ah,
ma’amselle! why did you persuade me to come?”

Emily drew one of the massy arm-chairs, with which the apartment was
furnished, and begged Dorothée would sit down, and try to compose her
spirits.

“How the sight of this place brings all that passed formerly to my
mind!” said Dorothée; “it seems as if it was but yesterday since all
that sad affair happened!”

“Hark! what noise is that?” said Emily.

Dorothée, half starting from her chair, looked round the apartment, and
they listened—but, everything remaining still, the old woman spoke
again upon the subject of her sorrow. “This saloon, ma’amselle, was in
my lady’s time the finest apartment in the château, and it was fitted
up according to her own taste. All this grand furniture, but you can
now hardly see what it is for the dust, and our light is none of the
best—ah! how I have seen this room lighted up in my lady’s time!—all
this grand furniture came from Paris, and was made after the fashion of
some in the Louvre there, except those large glasses, and they came
from some outlandish place, and that rich tapestry. How the colours are
faded already!—since I saw it last!”

“I understood, that was twenty years ago,” observed Emily.

“Thereabout, madam,” said Dorothée, “and well remembered, but all the
time between then and now seems as nothing. That tapestry used to be
greatly admired at, it tells the stories out of some famous book, or
other, but I have forgot the name.”

Emily now rose to examine the figures it exhibited, and discovered, by
verses in the Provençal tongue, wrought underneath each scene, that it
exhibited stories from some of the most celebrated ancient romances.

Dorothée’s spirits being now more composed, she rose, and unlocked the
door that led into the late Marchioness’s apartment, and Emily passed
into a lofty chamber, hung round with dark arras, and so spacious, that
the lamp she held up did not show its extent; while Dorothée, when she
entered, had dropped into a chair, where, sighing deeply, she scarcely
trusted herself with the view of a scene so affecting to her. It was
some time before Emily perceived, through the dusk, the bed on which
the Marchioness was said to have died; when, advancing to the upper end
of the room, she discovered the high canopied tester of dark green
damask, with the curtains descending to the floor in the fashion of a
tent, half drawn, and remaining apparently, as they had been left
twenty years before; and over the whole bedding was thrown a
counterpane, or pall, of black velvet, that hung down to the floor.
Emily shuddered, as she held the lamp over it, and looked within the
dark curtains, where she almost expected to have seen a human face,
and, suddenly remembering the horror she had suffered upon discovering
the dying Madame Montoni in the turret-chamber of Udolpho, her spirits
fainted, and she was turning from the bed, when Dorothée, who had now
reached it, exclaimed, “Holy Virgin! methinks I see my lady stretched
upon that pall—as when last I saw her!”

Emily, shocked by this exclamation, looked involuntarily again within
the curtains, but the blackness of the pall only appeared; while
Dorothée was compelled to support herself upon the side of the bed, and
presently tears brought her some relief.

“Ah!” said she, after she had wept awhile, “it was here I sat on that
terrible night, and held my lady’s hand, and heard her last words, and
saw all her sufferings—_here_ she died in my arms!”

“Do not indulge these painful recollections,” said Emily, “let us go.
Show me the picture you mentioned, if it will not too much affect you.”

“It hangs in the oriel,” said Dorothée rising, and going towards a
small door near the bed’s head, which she opened, and Emily followed
with the light into the closet of the late Marchioness.

“Alas! there she is, ma’amselle,” said Dorothée, pointing to a portrait
of a lady, “there is her very self! just as she looked when she came
first to the château. You see, madam, she was all blooming like you,
then—and so soon to be cut off!”

While Dorothée spoke, Emily was attentively examining the picture,
which bore a strong resemblance to the miniature, though the expression
of the countenance in each was somewhat different; but still she
thought she perceived something of that pensive melancholy in the
portrait, which so strongly characterised the miniature.

“Pray, ma’amselle, stand beside the picture, that I may look at you
together,” said Dorothée, who, when the request was complied with,
exclaimed again at the resemblance. Emily also, as she gazed upon it,
thought that she had somewhere seen a person very like it, though she
could not now recollect who this was.

In this closet were many memorials of the departed Marchioness; a robe
and several articles of her dress were scattered upon the chairs, as if
they had just been thrown off. On the floor were a pair of black satin
slippers, and, on the dressing-table, a pair of gloves and a long black
veil, which, as Emily took it up to examine, she perceived was dropping
to pieces with age.

“Ah!” said Dorothée, observing the veil, “my lady’s hand laid it there;
it has never been moved since!”

Emily, shuddering, immediately laid it down again. “I well remember
seeing her take it off,” continued Dorothée, “it was on the night
before her death, when she had returned from a little walk I had
persuaded her to take in the gardens, and she seemed refreshed by it. I
told her how much better she looked, and I remember what a languid
smile she gave me; but, alas! she little thought, or I either, that she
was to die that night.”

Dorothée wept again, and then, taking up the veil, threw it suddenly
over Emily, who shuddered to find it wrapped round her, descending even
to her feet, and, as she endeavoured to throw it off, Dorothée
entreated that she would keep it on for one moment. “I thought,” added
she, “how like you would look to my dear mistress in that veil;—may
your life, ma’amselle, be a happier one than hers!”

Emily, having disengaged herself from the veil, laid it again on the
dressing-table, and surveyed the closet, where every object, on which
her eye fixed, seemed to speak of the Marchioness. In a large oriel
window of painted glass, stood a table, with a silver crucifix, and a
prayer-book open; and Emily remembered with emotion what Dorothée had
mentioned concerning her custom of playing on her lute in this window,
before she observed the lute itself, lying on a corner of the table, as
if it had been carelessly placed there by the hand, that had so often
awakened it.

“This is a sad forlorn place!” said Dorothée, “for, when my dear lady
died, I had no heart to put it to rights, or the chamber either; and my
lord never came into the rooms after, so they remain just as they did
when my lady was removed for interment.”

While Dorothée spoke, Emily was still looking on the lute, which was a
Spanish one, and remarkably large; and then, with a hesitating hand,
she took it up, and passed her fingers over the chords. They were out
of tune, but uttered a deep and full sound. Dorothée started at their
well-known tones, and, seeing the lute in Emily’s hand, said, “This is
the lute my lady Marchioness loved so! I remember when last she played
upon it—it was on the night that she died. I came as usual to undress
her, and, as I entered the bed-chamber, I heard the sound of music from
the oriel, and perceiving it was my lady’s, who was sitting there, I
stepped softly to the door, which stood a little open, to listen; for
the music—though it was mournful—was so sweet! There I saw her, with
the lute in her hand, looking upwards, and the tears fell upon her
cheeks, while she sung a vesper hymn, so soft, and so solemn! and her
voice trembled, as it were, and then she would stop for a moment, and
wipe away her tears, and go on again, lower than before. O! I had often
listened to my lady, but never heard anything so sweet as this; it made
me cry, almost, to hear it. She had been at prayers, I fancy, for there
was the book open on the table beside her—aye, and there it lies open
still! Pray, let us leave the oriel, ma’amselle,” added Dorothée, “this
is a heart-breaking place!”

Having returned into the chamber, she desired to look once more upon
the bed, when, as they came opposite to the open door, leading into the
saloon, Emily, in the partial gleam, which the lamp threw into it,
thought she saw something glide along into the obscurer part of the
room. Her spirits had been much affected by the surrounding scene, or
it is probable this circumstance, whether real or imaginary, would not
have affected her in the degree it did; but she endeavoured to conceal
her emotion from Dorothée, who, however, observing her countenance
change, enquired if she was ill.

“Let us go,” said Emily, faintly, “the air of these rooms is
unwholesome;” but, when she attempted to do so, considering that she
must pass through the apartment where the phantom of her terror had
appeared, this terror increased, and, too faint to support herself, she
sat down on the side of the bed.

Dorothée, believing that she was only affected by a consideration of
the melancholy catastrophe, which had happened on this spot,
endeavoured to cheer her; and then, as they sat together on the bed,
she began to relate other particulars concerning it, and this without
reflecting, that it might increase Emily’s emotion, but because they
were particularly interesting to herself. “A little before my lady’s
death,” said she, “when the pains were gone off, she called me to her,
and stretching out her hand to me, I sat down just there—where the
curtain falls upon the bed. How well I remember her look at the
time—death was in it!—I can almost fancy I see her now.—There she lay,
ma’amselle—her face was upon the pillow there! This black counterpane
was not upon the bed then; it was laid on, after her death, and she was
laid out upon it.”

Emily turned to look within the dusky curtains, as if she could have
seen the countenance of which Dorothée spoke. The edge of the white
pillow only appeared above the blackness of the pall, but, as her eyes
wandered over the pall itself, she fancied she saw it move. Without
speaking, she caught Dorothée’s arm, who, surprised by the action, and
by the look of terror that accompanied it, turned her eyes from Emily
to the bed, where, in the next moment she, too, saw the pall slowly
lifted, and fall again.

Emily attempted to go, but Dorothée stood fixed and gazing upon the
bed; and, at length, said—“It is only the wind, that waves it,
ma’amselle; we have left all the doors open: see how the air waves the
lamp, too.—It is only the wind.”

She had scarcely uttered these words, when the pall was more violently
agitated than before; but Emily, somewhat ashamed of her terrors,
stepped back to the bed, willing to be convinced that the wind only had
occasioned her alarm; when, as she gazed within the curtains, the pall
moved again, and, in the next moment, the apparition of a human
countenance rose above it.

Screaming with terror, they both fled, and got out of the chamber as
fast as their trembling limbs would bear them, leaving open the doors
of all the rooms, through which they passed. When they reached the
staircase, Dorothée threw open a chamber door, where some of the female
servants slept, and sunk breathless on the bed; while Emily, deprived
of all presence of mind, made only a feeble attempt to conceal the
occasion of her terror from the astonished servants; and, though
Dorothée, when she could speak, endeavoured to laugh at her own fright,
and was joined by Emily, no remonstrances could prevail with the
servants, who had quickly taken the alarm, to pass even the remainder
of the night in a room so near to these terrific chambers.

Dorothée having accompanied Emily to her own apartment, they then began
to talk over, with some degree of coolness, the strange circumstance,
that had just occurred; and Emily would almost have doubted her own
perceptions, had not those of Dorothée attested their truth. Having now
mentioned what she had observed in the outer chamber, she asked the
housekeeper, whether she was certain no door had been left unfastened,
by which a person might secretly have entered the apartments? Dorothée
replied, that she had constantly kept the keys of the several doors in
her own possession; that, when she had gone her rounds through the
castle, as she frequently did, to examine if all was safe, she had
tried these doors among the rest, and had always found them fastened.
It was, therefore, impossible, she added, that any person could have
got admittance into the apartments; and, if they could—it was very
improbable they should have chosen to sleep in a place so cold and
forlorn.

Emily observed, that their visit to these chambers had, perhaps, been
watched, and that some person, for a frolic, had followed them into the
rooms, with a design to frighten them, and, while they were in the
oriel, had taken the opportunity of concealing himself in the bed.

Dorothée allowed, that this was possible, till she recollected, that,
on entering the apartments, she had turned the key of the outer door,
and this, which had been done to prevent their visit being noticed by
any of the family, who might happen to be up, must effectually have
excluded every person, except themselves, from the chambers; and she
now persisted in affirming, that the ghastly countenance she had seen
was nothing human, but some dreadful apparition.

Emily was very solemnly affected. Of whatever nature might be the
appearance she had witnessed, whether human or supernatural, the fate
of the deceased Marchioness was a truth not to be doubted; and this
unaccountable circumstance, occurring in the very scene of her
sufferings, affected Emily’s imagination with a superstitious awe, to
which, after having detected the fallacies at Udolpho, she might not
have yielded, had she been ignorant of the unhappy story, related by
the housekeeper. Her she now solemnly conjured to conceal the
occurrence of this night, and to make light of the terror she had
already betrayed, that the Count might not be distressed by reports,
which would certainly spread alarm and confusion among his family.
“Time,” she added, “may explain this mysterious affair; meanwhile let
us watch the event in silence.”

Dorothée readily acquiesced; but she now recollected that she had left
all the doors of the north suite of rooms open, and, not having courage
to return alone to lock even the outer one, Emily, after some effort,
so far conquered her own fears, that she offered to accompany her to
the foot of the back staircase, and to wait there while Dorothée
ascended, whose resolution being reassured by this circumstance, she
consented to go, and they left Emily’s apartment together.

No sound disturbed the stillness, as they passed along the halls and
galleries; but, on reaching the foot of the back staircase, Dorothée’s
resolution failed again; having, however, paused a moment to listen,
and no sound being heard above, she ascended, leaving Emily below, and,
scarcely suffering her eye to glance within the first chamber, she
fastened the door, which shut up the whole suite of apartments, and
returned to Emily.

As they stepped along the passage, leading into the great hall, a sound
of lamentation was heard, which seemed to come from the hall itself,
and they stopped in new alarm to listen, when Emily presently
distinguished the voice of Annette, whom she found crossing the hall,
with another female servant, and so terrified by the report, which the
other maids had spread, that, believing she could be safe only where
her lady was, she was going for refuge to her apartment. Emily’s
endeavours to laugh, or to argue her out of these terrors, were equally
vain, and, in compassion to her distress, she consented that she should
remain in her room during the night.



 CHAPTER V

Hail, mildly-pleasing Solitude!
Companion of the wise and good!

Thine is the balmy breath of morn,
Just as the dew-bent rose is born.

But chief when evening scenes decay
And the faint landscape swims away,
Thine is the doubtful, soft decline,
And that best hour of musing thine.
                    THOMSON


Emily’s injunctions to Annette to be silent on the subject of her
terror were ineffectual, and the occurrence of the preceding night
spread such alarm among the servants, who now all affirmed, that they
had frequently heard unaccountable noises in the château, that a report
soon reached the Count of the north side of the castle being haunted.
He treated this, at first, with ridicule, but, perceiving, that it was
productive of serious evil, in the confusion it occasioned among his
household, he forbade any person to repeat it, on pain of punishment.

The arrival of a party of his friends soon withdrew his thoughts
entirely from this subject, and his servants had now little leisure to
brood over it, except, indeed, in the evenings after supper, when they
all assembled in their hall, and related stories of ghosts, till they
feared to look round the room; started, if the echo of a closing door
murmured along the passage, and refused to go singly to any part of the
castle.

On these occasions Annette made a distinguished figure. When she told
not only of all the wonders she had witnessed, but of all that she had
imagined, in the castle of Udolpho, with the story of the strange
disappearance of Signora Laurentini, she made no trifling impression on
the mind of her attentive auditors. Her suspicions, concerning Montoni,
she would also have freely disclosed, had not Ludovico, who was now in
the service of the Count, prudently checked her loquacity, whenever it
pointed to that subject.

Among the visitors at the château was the Baron de Saint Foix, an old
friend of the Count, and his son, the Chevalier St. Foix, a sensible
and amiable young man, who, having in the preceding year seen the Lady
Blanche, at Paris, had become her declared admirer. The friendship,
which the Count had long entertained for his father, and the equality
of their circumstances made him secretly approve of the connection;
but, thinking his daughter at this time too young to fix her choice for
life, and wishing to prove the sincerity and strength of the
Chevalier’s attachment, he then rejected his suit, though without
forbidding his future hope. This young man now came, with the Baron,
his father, to claim the reward of a steady affection, a claim, which
the Count admitted and which Blanche did not reject.

While these visitors were at the château, it became a scene of gaiety
and splendour. The pavilion in the woods was fitted up and frequented,
in the fine evenings, as a supper-room, when the hour usually concluded
with a concert, at which the Count and Countess, who were scientific
performers, and the Chevaliers Henri and St. Foix, with the Lady
Blanche and Emily, whose voices and fine taste compensated for the want
of more skilful execution, usually assisted. Several of the Count’s
servants performed on horns and other instruments, some of which,
placed at a little distance among the woods, spoke, in sweet response,
to the harmony, that proceeded from the pavilion.

At any other period, these parties would have been delightful to Emily;
but her spirits were now oppressed with a melancholy, which she
perceived that no kind of what is called amusement had power to
dissipate, and which the tender and, frequently, pathetic, melody of
these concerts sometimes increased to a very painful degree.

She was particularly fond of walking in the woods, that hung on a
promontory, overlooking the sea. Their luxuriant shade was soothing to
her pensive mind, and, in the partial views, which they afforded of the
Mediterranean, with its winding shores and passing sails, tranquil
beauty was united with grandeur. The paths were rude and frequently
overgrown with vegetation, but their tasteful owner would suffer little
to be done to them, and scarcely a single branch to be lopped from the
venerable trees. On an eminence, in one of the most sequestered parts
of these woods, was a rustic seat, formed of the trunk of a decayed
oak, which had once been a noble tree, and of which many lofty branches
still flourishing united with beech and pines to over-canopy the spot.
Beneath their deep umbrage, the eye passed over the tops of other
woods, to the Mediterranean, and, to the left, through an opening, was
seen a ruined watch-tower, standing on a point of rock, near the sea,
and rising from among the tufted foliage.

Hither Emily often came alone in the silence of evening, and, soothed
by the scenery and by the faint murmur, that rose from the waves, would
sit, till darkness obliged her to return to the château. Frequently,
also, she visited the watch-tower, which commanded the entire prospect,
and, when she leaned against its broken walls, and thought of
Valancourt, she not once imagined, what was so true, that this tower
had been almost as frequently his resort, as her own, since his
estrangement from the neighbouring château.

One evening, she lingered here to a late hour. She had sat on the steps
of the building, watching, in tranquil melancholy, the gradual effect
of evening over the extensive prospect, till the grey waters of the
Mediterranean and the massy woods were almost the only features of the
scene, that remained visible; when, as she gazed alternately on these,
and on the mild blue of the heavens, where the first pale star of
evening appeared, she personified the hour in the following lines:—

SONG OF THE EVENING HOUR

Last of the Hours, that track the fading Day,
I move along the realms of twilight air,
And hear, remote, the choral song decay
Of sister-nymphs, who dance around his car.

Then, as I follow through the azure void,
His partial splendour from my straining eye
Sinks in the depth of space; my only guide
His faint ray dawning on the farthest sky;

Save that sweet, lingering strain of gayer Hours,
Whose close my voice prolongs in dying notes,
While mortals on the green earth own its pow’rs,
As downward on the evening gale it floats.

When fades along the West the Sun’s last beam,
As, weary, to the nether world he goes,
And mountain-summits catch the purple gleam,
And slumbering ocean faint and fainter glows,

Silent upon the globe’s broad shade I steal,
And o’er its dry turf shed the cooling dews,
And ev’ry fever’d herb and flow’ret heal,
And all their fragrance on the air diffuse.

Where’er I move, a tranquil pleasure reigns;
O’er all the scene the dusky tints I send,
That forests wild and mountains, stretching plains
And peopled towns, in soft confusion blend.

Wide o’er the world I waft the fresh’ning wind,
Low breathing through the woods and twilight vale,
In whispers soft, that woo the pensive mind
Of him, who loves my lonely steps to hail.

His tender oaten reed I watch to hear,
Stealing its sweetness o’er some plaining rill,
Or soothing ocean’s wave, when storms are near,
Or swelling in the breeze from distant hill!

I wake the fairy elves, who shun the light;
When, from their blossom’d beds, they slily peep,
And spy my pale star, leading on the night,—
Forth to their games and revelry they leap;

Send all the prison’d sweets abroad in air,
That with them slumber’d in the flow’ret’s cell;
Then to the shores and moonlight brooks repair,
Till the high larks their matin-carol swell.

The wood-nymphs hail my airs and temper’d shade,
With ditties soft and lightly sportive dance,
On river margin of some bow’ry glade,
And strew their fresh buds as my steps advance:

But, swift I pass, and distant regions trace,
For moonbeams silver all the eastern cloud,
And Day’s last crimson vestige fades apace;
Down the steep west I fly from Midnight’s shroud.


The moon was now rising out of the sea. She watched its gradual
progress, the extending line of radiance it threw upon the waters, the
sparkling oars, the sail faintly silvered, and the wood-tops and the
battlements of the watch-tower, at whose foot she was sitting, just
tinted with the rays. Emily’s spirits were in harmony with this scene.
As she sat meditating, sounds stole by her on the air, which she
immediately knew to be the music and the voice she had formerly heard
at midnight, and the emotion of awe, which she felt, was not unmixed
with terror, when she considered her remote and lonely situation. The
sounds drew nearer. She would have risen to leave the place, but they
seemed to come from the way she must have taken towards the château,
and she awaited the event in trembling expectation. The sounds
continued to approach, for some time, and then ceased. Emily sat
listening, gazing and unable to move, when she saw a figure emerge from
the shade of the woods and pass along the bank, at some little distance
before her. It went swiftly, and her spirits were so overcome with awe,
that, though she saw, she did not much observe it.

Having left the spot, with a resolution never again to visit it alone,
at so late an hour, she began to approach the château, when she heard
voices calling her from the part of the wood, which was nearest to it.
They were the shouts of the Count’s servants, who were sent to search
for her; and when she entered the supper-room, where he sat with Henri
and Blanche, he gently reproached her with a look, which she blushed to
have deserved.

This little occurrence deeply impressed her mind, and, when she
withdrew to her own room, it recalled so forcibly the circumstances she
had witnessed, a few nights before, that she had scarcely courage to
remain alone. She watched to a late hour, when, no sound having renewed
her fears, she, at length, sunk to repose. But this was of short
continuance, for she was disturbed by a loud and unusual noise, that
seemed to come from the gallery, into which her chamber opened. Groans
were distinctly heard, and, immediately after, a dead weight fell
against the door, with a violence, that threatened to burst it open.
She called loudly to know who was there, but received no answer,
though, at intervals, she still thought she heard something like a low
moaning. Fear deprived her of the power to move. Soon after, she heard
footsteps in a remote part of the gallery, and, as they approached, she
called more loudly than before, till the steps paused at her door. She
then distinguished the voices of several of the servants, who seemed
too much engaged by some circumstance without, to attend to her calls;
but, Annette soon after entering the room for water, Emily understood,
that one of the maids had fainted, whom she immediately desired them to
bring into her room, where she assisted to restore her. When this girl
had recovered her speech, she affirmed, that, as she was passing up the
back staircase, in the way to her chamber, she had seen an apparition
on the second landing-place; she held the lamp low, she said, that she
might pick her way, several of the stairs being infirm and even
decayed, and it was upon raising her eyes, that she saw this
appearance. It stood for a moment in the corner of the landing-place,
which she was approaching, and then, gliding up the stairs, vanished at
the door of the apartment, that had been lately opened. She heard
afterwards a hollow sound.

“Then the devil has got a key to that apartment,” said Dorothée, “for
it could be nobody but he; I locked the door myself!”

The girl, springing down the stairs and passing up the great staircase,
had run, with a faint scream, till she reached the gallery, where she
fell, groaning, at Emily’s door.

Gently chiding her for the alarm she had occasioned, Emily tried to
make her ashamed of her fears; but the girl persisted in saying, that
she had seen an apparition, till she went to her own room, whither she
was accompanied by all the servants present, except Dorothée, who, at
Emily’s request, remained with her during the night. Emily was
perplexed, and Dorothée was terrified, and mentioned many occurrences
of former times, which had long since confirmed her superstitions;
among these, according to her belief, she had once witnessed an
appearance, like that just described, and on the very same spot, and it
was the remembrance of it, that had made her pause, when she was going
to ascend the stairs with Emily, and which had increased her reluctance
to open the north apartments. Whatever might be Emily’s opinions, she
did not disclose them, but listened attentively to all that Dorothée
communicated, which occasioned her much thought and perplexity.

From this night the terror of the servants increased to such an excess,
that several of them determined to leave the château, and requested
their discharge of the Count, who, if he had any faith in the subject
of their alarm, thought proper to dissemble it, and, anxious to avoid
the inconvenience that threatened him, employed ridicule and then
argument to convince them they had nothing to apprehend from
supernatural agency. But fear had rendered their minds inaccessible to
reason; and it was now, that Ludovico proved at once his courage and
his gratitude for the kindness he had received from the Count, by
offering to watch, during a night, in the suite of rooms, reputed to be
haunted. He feared, he said, no spirits, and, if anything of human form
appeared—he would prove that he dreaded that as little.

The Count paused upon the offer, while the servants, who heard it,
looked upon one another in doubt and amazement, and Annette, terrified
for the safety of Ludovico, employed tears and entreaties to dissuade
him from his purpose.

“You are a bold fellow,” said the Count, smiling, “Think well of what
you are going to encounter, before you finally determine upon it.
However, if you persevere in your resolution, I will accept your offer,
and your intrepidity shall not go unrewarded.”

“I desire no reward, your _Excellenza_,” replied Ludovico, “but your
approbation. Your _Excellenza_ has been sufficiently good to me
already; but I wish to have arms, that I may be equal to my enemy, if
he should appear.”

“Your sword cannot defend you against a ghost,” replied the Count,
throwing a glance of irony upon the other servants, “neither can bars,
nor bolts; for a spirit, you know, can glide through a keyhole as
easily as through a door.”

“Give me a sword, my lord Count,” said Ludovico, “and I will lay all
the spirits, that shall attack me, in the red sea.”

“Well,” said the Count, “you shall have a sword, and good cheer, too;
and your brave comrades here will, perhaps, have courage enough to
remain another night in the château, since your boldness will
certainly, for this night, at least, confine all the malice of the
spectre to yourself.”

Curiosity now struggled with fear in the minds of several of his fellow
servants, and, at length, they resolved to await the event of
Ludovico’s rashness.

Emily was surprised and concerned, when she heard of his intention, and
was frequently inclined to mention what she had witnessed in the north
apartments to the Count, for she could not entirely divest herself of
fears for Ludovico’s safety, though her reason represented these to be
absurd. The necessity, however, of concealing the secret, with which
Dorothée had entrusted her, and which must have been mentioned, with
the late occurrence, in excuse for her having so privately visited the
north apartments, kept her entirely silent on the subject of her
apprehension; and she tried only to sooth Annette, who held, that
Ludovico was certainly to be destroyed; and who was much less affected
by Emily’s consolatory efforts, than by the manner of old Dorothée, who
often, as she exclaimed Ludovico, sighed, and threw up her eyes to
heaven.



 CHAPTER VI

Ye gods of quiet, and of sleep profound!
Whose soft dominion o’er this castle sways,
And all the widely-silent places round,
Forgive me, if my trembling pen displays
What never yet was sung in mortal lays.
                    THOMSON


The Count gave orders for the north apartments to be opened and
prepared for the reception of Ludovico; but Dorothée, remembering what
she had lately witnessed there, feared to obey, and, not one of the
other servants daring to venture thither, the rooms remained shut up
till the time when Ludovico was to retire thither for the night, an
hour, for which the whole household waited with impatience.

After supper, Ludovico, by the order of the Count, attended him in his
closet, where they remained alone for near half an hour, and, on
leaving which, his Lord delivered to him a sword.

“It has seen service in mortal quarrels,” said the Count, jocosely,
“you will use it honourably, no doubt, in a spiritual one. Tomorrow,
let me hear that there is not one ghost remaining in the château.”

Ludovico received it with a respectful bow. “You shall be obeyed, my
Lord,” said he; “I will engage, that no spectre shall disturb the peace
of the château after this night.”

They now returned to the supper-room, where the Count’s guests awaited
to accompany him and Ludovico to the door of the north apartments, and
Dorothée, being summoned for the keys, delivered them to Ludovico, who
then led the way, followed by most of the inhabitants of the château.
Having reached the back staircase, several of the servants shrunk back,
and refused to go further, but the rest followed him to the top of the
staircase, where a broad landing-place allowed them to flock round him,
while he applied the key to the door, during which they watched him
with as much eager curiosity as if he had been performing some magical
rite.

Ludovico, unaccustomed to the lock, could not turn it, and Dorothée,
who had lingered far behind, was called forward, under whose hand the
door opened slowly, and, her eye glancing within the dusky chamber, she
uttered a sudden shriek, and retreated. At this signal of alarm, the
greater part of the crowd hurried down the stairs, and the Count, Henri
and Ludovico were left alone to pursue the enquiry, who instantly
rushed into the apartment, Ludovico with a drawn sword, which he had
just time to draw from the scabbard, the Count with the lamp in his
hand, and Henri carrying a basket, containing provisions for the
courageous adventurer.

Having looked hastily round the first room, where nothing appeared to
justify alarm, they passed on to the second; and, here too all being
quiet, they proceeded to a third with a more tempered step. The Count
had now leisure to smile at the discomposure, into which he had been
surprised, and to ask Ludovico in which room he designed to pass the
night.

“There are several chambers beyond these, your _Excellenza_,” said
Ludovico, pointing to a door, “and in one of them is a bed, they say. I
will pass the night there, and when I am weary of watching, I can lie
down.”

“Good;” said the Count; “let us go on. You see these rooms show
nothing, but damp walls and decaying furniture. I have been so much
engaged since I came to the château, that I have not looked into them
till now. Remember, Ludovico, to tell the housekeeper, tomorrow, to
throw open these windows. The damask hangings are dropping to pieces, I
will have them taken down, and this antique furniture removed.”

“Dear sir!” said Henri, “here is an arm-chair so massy with gilding,
that it resembles one of the state chairs at the Louvre, more then
anything else.”

“Yes,” said the Count, stopping a moment to survey it, “there is a
history belonging to that chair, but I have not time to tell it.—Let us
pass on. This suite runs to a greater extent than I had imagined; it is
many years since I was in them. But where is the bedroom you speak of,
Ludovico?—these are only ante-chambers to the great drawing-room. I
remember them in their splendour!”

“The bed, my Lord,” replied Ludovico, “they told me, was in a room that
opens beyond the saloon, and terminates the suite.”

“O, here is the saloon,” said the Count, as they entered the spacious
apartment, in which Emily and Dorothée had rested. He here stood for a
moment, surveying the reliques of faded grandeur, which it
exhibited—the sumptuous tapestry—the long and low sophas of velvet,
with frames heavily carved and gilded—the floor inlaid with small
squares of fine marble, and covered in the centre with a piece of very
rich tapestry-work—the casements of painted glass, and the large
Venetian mirrors, of a size and quality, such as at that period France
could not make, which reflected, on every side, the spacious apartment.
These had formerly also reflected a gay and brilliant scene, for this
had been the state-room of the château, and here the Marchioness had
held the assemblies, that made part of the festivities of her nuptials.
If the wand of a magician could have recalled the vanished groups, many
of them vanished even from the earth, that once had passed over these
polished mirrors, what a varied and contrasted picture would they have
exhibited with the present! Now, instead of a blaze of lights, and a
splendid and busy crowd, they reflected only the rays of the one
glimmering lamp, which the Count held up, and which scarcely served to
show the three forlorn figures, that stood surveying the room, and the
spacious and dusky walls around them.

“Ah!” said the Count to Henri, awaking from his deep reverie, “how the
scene is changed since last I saw it! I was a young man, then, and the
Marchioness was alive and in her bloom; many other persons were here,
too, who are now no more! There stood the orchestra; here we tripped in
many a sprightly maze—the walls echoing to the dance! Now, they resound
only one feeble voice—and even that will, ere long, be heard no more!
My son, remember, that I was once as young as yourself, and that you
must pass away like those, who have preceded you—like those, who, as
they sung and danced in this once gay apartment, forgot, that years are
made up of moments, and that every step they took carried them nearer
to their graves. But such reflections are useless, I had almost said
criminal, unless they teach us to prepare for eternity, since,
otherwise, they cloud our present happiness, without guiding us to a
future one. But enough of this; let us go on.”

Ludovico now opened the door of the bedroom, and the Count, as he
entered, was struck with the funereal appearance which the dark arras
gave to it. He approached the bed with an emotion of solemnity, and,
perceiving it to be covered with the pall of black velvet, paused;
“What can this mean?” said he, as he gazed upon it.

“I have heard, my Lord,” said Ludovico, as he stood at the feet,
looking within the canopied curtains, “that the Lady Marchioness de
Villeroi died in this chamber, and remained here till she was removed
to be buried; and this, perhaps, Signor, may account for the pall.”

The Count made no reply, but stood for a few moments engaged in
thought, and evidently much affected. Then, turning to Ludovico, he
asked him with a serious air whether he thought his courage would
support him through the night? “If you doubt this,” added the Count,
“do not be ashamed to own it; I will release you from your engagement,
without exposing you to the triumphs of your fellow-servants.”

Ludovico paused; pride, and something very like fear, seemed struggling
in his breast; pride, however, was victorious;—he blushed, and his
hesitation ceased.

“No, my Lord,” said he, “I will go through with what I have begun; and
I am grateful for your consideration. On that hearth I will make a
fire, and, with the good cheer in this basket, I doubt not I shall do
well.”

“Be it so,” said the Count; “but how will you beguile the tediousness
of the night, if you do not sleep?”

“When I am weary, my Lord,” replied Ludovico, “I shall not fear to
sleep; in the meanwhile, I have a book that will entertain me.”

“Well,” said the Count, “I hope nothing will disturb you; but if you
should be seriously alarmed in the night, come to my apartment. I have
too much confidence in your good sense and courage to believe you will
be alarmed on slight grounds; or suffer the gloom of this chamber, or
its remote situation, to overcome you with ideal terrors. Tomorrow, I
shall have to thank you for an important service; these rooms shall
then be thrown open, and my people will be convinced of their error.
Good night, Ludovico; let me see you early in the morning, and remember
what I lately said to you.”

“I will, my Lord; good night to your _Excellenza_; let me attend you
with the light.”

He lighted the Count and Henri through the chambers to the outer door.
On the landing-place stood a lamp, which one of the affrighted servants
had left, and Henri, as he took it up, again bade Ludovico good night,
who, having respectfully returned the wish, closed the door upon them,
and fastened it. Then, as he retired to the bed-chamber, he examined
the rooms through which he passed, with more minuteness than he had
done before, for he apprehended that some person might have concealed
himself in them, for the purpose of frightening him. No one, however,
but himself, was in these chambers, and leaving open the doors through
which he passed, he came again to the great drawing-room, whose
spaciousness and silent gloom somewhat awed him. For a moment he stood,
looking back through the long suite of rooms he had quitted, and as he
turned, perceiving a light and his own figure reflected in one of the
large mirrors, he started. Other objects too were seen obscurely on its
dark surface, but he paused not to examine them, and returned hastily
into the bedroom, as he surveyed which, he observed the door of the
oriel, and opened it. All within was still. On looking round, his eye
was arrested by the portrait of the deceased Marchioness, upon which he
gazed for a considerable time with great attention and some surprise;
and then, having examined the closet, he returned into the bedroom,
where he kindled a wood fire, the bright blaze of which revived his
spirits, which had begun to yield to the gloom and silence of the
place, for gusts of wind alone broke at intervals this silence. He now
drew a small table and a chair near the fire, took a bottle of wine and
some cold provision out of his basket, and regaled himself. When he had
finished his repast, he laid his sword upon the table, and, not feeling
disposed to sleep, drew from his pocket the book he had spoken of.—It
was a volume of old Provençal tales. Having stirred the fire into a
brighter blaze, he began to read, and his attention was soon wholly
occupied by the scenes which the page disclosed.

The Count, meanwhile, had returned to the supper-room, whither those of
the party who had attended him to the north apartment had retreated,
upon hearing Dorothée’s scream, and who were now earnest in their
enquiries concerning those chambers. The Count rallied his guests on
their precipitate retreat, and on the superstitious inclination which
had occasioned it, and this led to the question, whether the spirit,
after it has quitted the body, is ever permitted to revisit the earth;
and if it is, whether it was possible for spirits to become visible to
the sense. The Baron was of opinion, that the first was probable, and
the last was possible, and he endeavoured to justify this opinion by
respectable authorities, both ancient and modern, which he quoted. The
Count, however, was decidedly against him, and a long conversation
ensued, in which the usual arguments on these subjects were on both
sides brought forward with skill, and discussed with candour, but
without converting either party to the opinion of his opponent. The
effect of their conversation on their auditors was various. Though the
Count had much the superiority of the Baron in point of argument, he
had considerably fewer adherents; for that love, so natural to the
human mind, of whatever is able to distend its faculties with wonder
and astonishment, attached the majority of the company to the side of
the Baron; and, though many of the Count’s propositions were
unanswerable, his opponents were inclined to believe this the
consequence of their own want of knowledge on so abstracted a subject,
rather than that arguments did not exist which were forcible enough to
conquer his.

Blanche was pale with attention, till the ridicule in her father’s
glance called a blush upon her countenance, and she then endeavoured to
forget the superstitious tales she had been told in her convent.
Meanwhile, Emily had been listening with deep attention to the
discussion of what was to her a very interesting question, and,
remembering the appearance she had witnessed in the apartment of the
late Marchioness, she was frequently chilled with awe. Several times
she was on the point of mentioning what she had seen, but the fear of
giving pain to the Count, and the dread of his ridicule, restrained
her; and, awaiting in anxious expectation the event of Ludovico’s
intrepidity, she determined that her future silence should depend upon
it.

When the party had separated for the night, and the Count retired to
his dressing-room, the remembrance of the desolate scenes he had lately
witnessed in his own mansion deeply affected him, but at length he was
aroused from his reverie and his silence. “What music is that I hear?”
said he suddenly to his valet, “Who plays at this late hour?”

The man made no reply, and the Count continued to listen, and then
added, “That is no common musician; he touches the instrument with a
delicate hand; who is it, Pierre?”

“My lord!” said the man, hesitatingly.

“Who plays that instrument?” repeated the Count.

“Does not your lordship know, then?” said the valet.

“What mean you?” said the Count, somewhat sternly.

“Nothing, my Lord, I meant nothing,” rejoined the man
submissively—“Only—that music—goes about the house at midnight often,
and I thought your lordship might have heard it before.”

“Music goes about the house at midnight! Poor fellow!—does nobody dance
to the music, too?”

“It is not in the château, I believe, my Lord; the sounds come from the
woods, they say, though they seem so near;—but then a spirit can do
anything!”

“Ah, poor fellow!” said the Count, “I perceive you are as silly as the
rest of them; tomorrow you will be convinced of your ridiculous error.
But hark!—what voice is that?”

“O my Lord! that is the voice we often hear with the music.”

“Often!” said the Count, “How often, pray? It is a very fine one.”

“Why, my Lord, I myself have not heard it more than two or three times,
but there are those who have lived here longer, that have heard it
often enough.”

“What a swell was that!” exclaimed the Count, as he still listened,
“And now, what a dying cadence! This is surely something more than
mortal!”

“That is what they say, my Lord,” said the valet; “they say it is
nothing mortal, that utters it; and if I might say my thoughts—”

“Peace!” said the Count, and he listened till the strain died away.

“This is strange!” said he, as he turned from the window, “Close the
casements, Pierre.”

Pierre obeyed, and the Count soon after dismissed him, but did not so
soon lose the remembrance of the music, which long vibrated in his
fancy in tones of melting sweetness, while surprise and perplexity
engaged his thoughts.

Ludovico, meanwhile, in his remote chamber, heard, now and then, the
faint echo of a closing door, as the family retired to rest, and then
the hall clock, at a great distance, strike twelve. “It is midnight,”
said he, and he looked suspiciously round the spacious chamber. The
fire on the hearth was now nearly expiring, for his attention having
been engaged by the book before him, he had forgotten everything
besides; but he soon added fresh wood, not because he was cold, though
the night was stormy, but because he was cheerless; and, having again
trimmed his lamp, he poured out a glass of wine, drew his chair nearer
to the crackling blaze, tried to be deaf to the wind, that howled
mournfully at the casements, endeavoured to abstract his mind from the
melancholy that was stealing upon him, and again took up his book. It
had been lent to him by Dorothée, who had formerly picked it up in an
obscure corner of the Marquis’s library, and who, having opened it and
perceived some of the marvels it related, had carefully preserved it
for her own entertainment, its condition giving her some excuse for
detaining it from its proper station. The damp corner into which it had
fallen had caused the cover to be disfigured and mouldy, and the leaves
to be so discoloured with spots, that it was not without difficulty the
letters could be traced. The fictions of the Provençal writers, whether
drawn from the Arabian legends, brought by the Saracens into Spain, or
recounting the chivalric exploits performed by the crusaders, whom the
Troubadors accompanied to the east, were generally splendid and always
marvellous, both in scenery and incident; and it is not wonderful, that
Dorothée and Ludovico should be fascinated by inventions, which had
captivated the careless imagination in every rank of society, in a
former age. Some of the tales, however, in the book now before
Ludovico, were of simple structure, and exhibited nothing of the
magnificent machinery and heroic manners, which usually characterised
the fables of the twelfth century, and of this description was the one
he now happened to open, which, in its original style, was of great
length, but which may be thus shortly related. The reader will perceive
that it is strongly tinctured with the superstition of the times.

THE PROVENÇAL TALE


“There lived, in the province of Bretagne, a noble Baron, famous for
his magnificence and courtly hospitalities. His castle was graced with
ladies of exquisite beauty, and thronged with illustrious knights; for
the honour he paid to feats of chivalry invited the brave of distant
countries to enter his lists, and his court was more splendid than
those of many princes. Eight minstrels were retained in his service,
who used to sing to their harps romantic fictions, taken from the
Arabians, or adventures of chivalry, that befel knights during the
crusades, or the martial deeds of the Baron, their lord;—while he,
surrounded by his knights and ladies, banqueted in the great hall of
his castle, where the costly tapestry, that adorned the walls with
pictured exploits of his ancestors, the casements of painted glass,
enriched with armorial bearings, the gorgeous banners, that waved along
the roof, the sumptuous canopies, the profusion of gold and silver that
glittered on the sideboards, the numerous dishes, that covered the
tables, the number and gay liveries of the attendants, with the
chivalric and splendid attire of the guests, united to form a scene of
magnificence, such as we may not hope to see in these _degenerate
days_.

“Of the Baron, the following adventure is related. One night, having
retired late from the banquet to his chamber, and dismissed his
attendants, he was surprised by the appearance of a stranger of a noble
air, but of a sorrowful and dejected countenance. Believing, that this
person had been secreted in the apartment, since it appeared impossible
he could have lately passed the ante-room, unobserved by the pages in
waiting, who would have prevented this intrusion on their lord, the
Baron, calling loudly for his people, drew his sword, which he had not
yet taken from his side, and stood upon his defence. The stranger
slowly advancing, told him, that there was nothing to fear; that he
came with no hostile design, but to communicate to him a terrible
secret, which it was necessary for him to know.

“The Baron, appeased by the courteous manners of the stranger, after
surveying him, for some time, in silence, returned his sword into the
scabbard, and desired him to explain the means, by which he had
obtained access to the chamber, and the purpose of this extraordinary
visit.

“Without answering either of these enquiries, the stranger said, that
he could not then explain himself, but that, if the Baron would follow
him to the edge of the forest, at a short distance from the castle
walls, he would there convince him, that he had something of importance
to disclose.

“This proposal again alarmed the Baron, who could scarcely believe,
that the stranger meant to draw him to so solitary a spot, at this hour
of the night, without harbouring a design against his life, and he
refused to go, observing, at the same time, that, if the stranger’s
purpose was an honourable one, he would not persist in refusing to
reveal the occasion of his visit, in the apartment where they were.

“While he spoke this, he viewed the stranger still more attentively
than before, but observed no change in his countenance, or any symptom,
that might intimate a consciousness of evil design. He was habited like
a knight, was of a tall and majestic stature, and of dignified and
courteous manners. Still, however, he refused to communicate the
subject of his errand in any place, but that he had mentioned, and, at
the same time, gave hints concerning the secret he would disclose, that
awakened a degree of solemn curiosity in the Baron, which, at length,
induced him to consent to follow the stranger on certain conditions.

“‘Sir knight,’ said he, ‘I will attend you to the forest, and will take
with me only four of my people, who shall witness our conference.’

“To this, however, the Knight objected.

“‘What I would disclose,’ said he, with solemnity, ‘is to you alone.
There are only three living persons, to whom the circumstance is known;
it is of more consequence to you and your house, than I shall now
explain. In future years, you will look back to this night with
satisfaction or repentance, accordingly as you now determine. As you
would hereafter prosper—follow me; I pledge you the honour of a knight,
that no evil shall befall you;—if you are contented to dare
futurity—remain in your chamber, and I will depart as I came.’

“‘Sir knight,’ replied the Baron, ‘how is it possible, that my future
peace can depend upon my present determination?’

“‘That is not now to be told,’ said the stranger, ‘I have explained
myself to the utmost. It is late; if you follow me it must be
quickly;—you will do well to consider the alternative.’

“The Baron mused, and, as he looked upon the knight, he perceived his
countenance assume a singular solemnity.”

[Here Ludovico thought he heard a noise, and he threw a glance round
the chamber, and then held up the lamp to assist his observation; but,
not perceiving anything to confirm his alarm, he took up the book again
and pursued the story.]

“The Baron paced his apartment, for some time, in silence, impressed by
the last words of the stranger, whose extraordinary request he feared
to grant, and feared, also, to refuse. At length, he said, ‘Sir knight,
you are utterly unknown to me; tell me yourself,—is it reasonable, that
I should trust myself alone with a stranger, at this hour, in a
solitary forest? Tell me, at least, who you are, and who assisted to
secrete you in this chamber.’

“The knight frowned at these latter words, and was a moment silent;
then, with a countenance somewhat stern, he said,

“‘I am an English knight; I am called Sir Bevys of Lancaster,—and my
deeds are not unknown at the Holy City, whence I was returning to my
native land, when I was benighted in the neighbouring forest.’

“‘Your name is not unknown to fame,’ said the Baron, ‘I have heard of
it.’ (The Knight looked haughtily.) ‘But why, since my castle is known
to entertain all true knights, did not your herald announce you? Why
did you not appear at the banquet, where your presence would have been
welcomed, instead of hiding yourself in my castle, and stealing to my
chamber, at midnight?’

“The stranger frowned, and turned away in silence; but the Baron
repeated the questions.

“‘I come not,’ said the Knight, ‘to answer enquiries, but to reveal
facts. If you would know more, follow me, and again I pledge the honour
of a Knight that you shall return in safety.—Be quick in your
determination—I must be gone.’

“After some further hesitation, the Baron determined to follow the
stranger, and to see the result of his extraordinary request; he,
therefore, again drew forth his sword, and, taking up a lamp, bade the
Knight lead on. The latter obeyed, and, opening the door of the
chamber, they passed into the ante-room, where the Baron, surprised to
find all his pages asleep, stopped, and, with hasty violence, was going
to reprimand them for their carelessness, when the Knight waved his
hand, and looked so expressively upon the Baron, that the latter
restrained his resentment, and passed on.

“The Knight, having descended a staircase, opened a secret door, which
the Baron had believed was known only to himself, and, proceeding
through several narrow and winding passages, came, at length, to a
small gate, that opened beyond the walls of the castle. Meanwhile, the
Baron followed in silence and amazement, on perceiving that these
secret passages were so well known to a stranger, and felt inclined to
return from an adventure that appeared to partake of treachery, as well
as danger. Then, considering that he was armed, and observing the
courteous and noble air of his conductor, his courage returned, he
blushed, that it had failed him for a moment, and he resolved to trace
the mystery to its source.

“He now found himself on the heathy platform, before the great gates of
his castle, where, on looking up, he perceived lights glimmering in the
different casements of the guests, who were retiring to sleep; and,
while he shivered in the blast, and looked on the dark and desolate
scene around him, he thought of the comforts of his warm chamber,
rendered cheerful by the blaze of wood, and felt, for a moment, the
full contrast of his present situation.”

[Here Ludovico paused a moment, and, looking at his own fire, gave it a
brightening stir.]

“The wind was strong, and the Baron watched his lamp with anxiety,
expecting every moment to see it extinguished; but, though the flame
wavered, it did not expire, and he still followed the stranger, who
often sighed as he went, but did not speak.

“When they reached the borders of the forest, the Knight turned, and
raised his head, as if he meant to address the Baron, but then, closing
his lips in silence, he walked on.

“As they entered beneath the dark and spreading boughs, the Baron,
affected by the solemnity of the scene, hesitated whether to proceed,
and demanded how much further they were to go. The Knight replied only
by a gesture, and the Baron, with hesitating steps and a suspicious
eye, followed through an obscure and intricate path, till, having
proceeded a considerable way, he again demanded whither they were
going, and refused to proceed unless he was informed.

“As he said this, he looked at his own sword, and at the Knight
alternately, who shook his head, and whose dejected countenance
disarmed the Baron, for a moment, of suspicion.

“‘A little further is the place, whither I would lead you,’ said the
stranger; ‘no evil shall befall you—I have sworn it on the honour of a
knight.’

“The Baron, reassured, again followed in silence, and they soon arrived
at a deep recess of the forest, where the dark and lofty chesnuts
entirely excluded the sky, and which was so overgrown with underwood,
that they proceeded with difficulty. The Knight sighed deeply as he
passed, and sometimes paused; and having, at length, reached a spot,
where the trees crowded into a knot, he turned, and, with a terrific
look, pointing to the ground, the Baron saw there the body of a man,
stretched at its length, and weltering in blood; a ghastly wound was on
the forehead, and death appeared already to have contracted the
features.

“The Baron, on perceiving the spectacle, started in horror, looked at
the Knight for explanation, and was then going to raise the body and
examine if there were yet any remains of life; but the stranger, waving
his hand, fixed upon him a look so earnest and mournful, as not only
much surprised him, but made him desist.

“But, what were the Baron’s emotions, when, on holding the lamp near
the features of the corpse, he discovered the exact resemblance of the
stranger his conductor, to whom he now looked up in astonishment and
enquiry? As he gazed, he perceived the countenance of the Knight
change, and begin to fade, till his whole form gradually vanished from
his astonished sense! While the Baron stood, fixed to the spot, a voice
was heard to utter these words:—”

[Ludovico started, and laid down the book, for he thought he heard a
voice in the chamber, and he looked toward the bed, where, however, he
saw only the dark curtains and the pall. He listened, scarcely daring
to draw his breath, but heard only the distant roaring of the sea in
the storm, and the blast, that rushed by the casements; when,
concluding, that he had been deceived by its sighings, he took up his
book to finish the story.]

“While the Baron stood, fixed to the spot, a voice was heard to utter
these words:—*

(*Note: This repetition seems to be intentional. Ludovico is picking up
the thread.)


“The body of Sir Bevys of Lancaster, a noble knight of England, lies
before you. He was, this night, waylaid and murdered, as he journeyed
from the Holy City towards his native land. Respect the honour of
knighthood and the law of humanity; inter the body in christian ground,
and cause his murderers to be punished. As ye observe, or neglect this,
shall peace and happiness, or war and misery, light upon you and your
house for ever!”

“The Baron, when he recovered from the awe and astonishment, into which
this adventure had thrown him, returned to his castle, whither he
caused the body of Sir Bevys to be removed; and, on the following day,
it was interred, with the honours of knighthood, in the chapel of the
castle, attended by all the noble knights and ladies, who graced the
court of Baron de Brunne.”



Ludovico, having finished this story, laid aside the book, for he felt
drowsy, and, after putting more wood on the fire and taking another
glass of wine, he reposed himself in the arm-chair on the hearth. In
his dream he still beheld the chamber where he really was, and, once or
twice, started from imperfect slumbers, imagining he saw a man’s face,
looking over the high back of his arm-chair. This idea had so strongly
impressed him, that, when he raised his eyes, he almost expected to
meet other eyes, fixed upon his own, and he quitted his seat and looked
behind the chair, before he felt perfectly convinced, that no person
was there.

Thus closed the hour.



 CHAPTER VII

Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber;
Thou hast no figures, nor no fantasies,
Which busy care draws in the brains of men;
Therefore thou sleep’st so sound.
                    SHAKESPEARE


The Count, who had slept little during the night, rose early, and,
anxious to speak with Ludovico, went to the north apartment; but, the
outer door having been fastened, on the preceding night, he was obliged
to knock loudly for admittance. Neither the knocking, nor his voice was
heard; but, considering the distance of this door from the bedroom, and
that Ludovico, wearied with watching, had probably fallen into a deep
sleep, the Count was not surprised on receiving no answer, and, leaving
the door, he went down to walk in his grounds.

It was a grey autumnal morning. The sun, rising over Provence, gave
only a feeble light, as his rays struggled through the vapours that
ascended from the sea, and floated heavily over the wood-tops, which
were now varied with many a mellow tint of autumn. The storm was
passed, but the waves were yet violently agitated, and their course was
traced by long lines of foam, while not a breeze fluttered in the sails
of the vessels, near the shore, that were weighing anchor to depart.
The still gloom of the hour was pleasing to the Count, and he pursued
his way through the woods, sunk in deep thought.

Emily also rose at an early hour, and took her customary walk along the
brow of the promontory, that overhung the Mediterranean. Her mind was
now not occupied with the occurrences of the château, and Valancourt
was the subject of her mournful thoughts; whom she had not yet taught
herself to consider with indifference, though her judgment constantly
reproached her for the affection, that lingered in her heart, after her
esteem for him was departed. Remembrance frequently gave her his
parting look and the tones of his voice, when he had bade her a last
farewell; and, some accidental associations now recalling these
circumstances to her fancy, with peculiar energy, she shed bitter tears
to the recollection.

Having reached the watch-tower, she seated herself on the broken steps,
and, in melancholy dejection, watched the waves, half hid in vapour, as
they came rolling towards the shore, and threw up their light spray
round the rocks below. Their hollow murmur and the obscuring mists,
that came in wreaths up the cliffs, gave a solemnity to the scene,
which was in harmony with the temper of her mind, and she sat, given up
to the remembrance of past times, till this became too painful, and she
abruptly quitted the place. On passing the little gate of the
watch-tower, she observed letters, engraved on the stone postern, which
she paused to examine, and, though they appeared to have been rudely
cut with a pen-knife, the characters were familiar to her; at length,
recognising the hand-writing of Valancourt, she read, with trembling
anxiety the following lines, entitled

SHIPWRECK

’Til solemn midnight!  On this lonely steep,
Beneath this watch-tow’r’s desolated wall,
Where mystic shapes the wonderer appall,
I rest; and view below the desert deep,
As through tempestuous clouds the moon’s cold light
Gleams on the wave.  Viewless, the winds of night
With loud mysterious force the billows sweep,
And sullen roar the surges, far below.
In the still pauses of the gust I hear
The voice of spirits, rising sweet and slow,
And oft among the clouds their forms appear.
But hark! what shriek of death comes in the gale,
And in the distant ray what glimmering sail
Bends to the storm?—Now sinks the note of fear!
Ah! wretched mariners!—no more shall day
Unclose his cheering eye to light ye on your way!


From these lines it appeared, that Valancourt had visited the tower;
that he had probably been here on the preceding night, for it was such
a one as they described, and that he had left the building very lately,
since it had not long been light, and without light it was impossible
these letters could have been cut. It was thus even probable, that he
might be yet in the gardens.

As these reflections passed rapidly over the mind of Emily, they called
up a variety of contending emotions, that almost overcame her spirits;
but her first impulse was to avoid him, and, immediately leaving the
tower, she returned, with hasty steps, towards the château. As she
passed along, she remembered the music she had lately heard near the
tower, with the figure, which had appeared, and, in this moment of
agitation, she was inclined to believe, that she had then heard and
seen Valancourt; but other recollections soon convinced her of her
error. On turning into a thicker part of the woods, she perceived a
person, walking slowly in the gloom at some little distance, and, her
mind engaged by the idea of him, she started and paused, imagining this
to be Valancourt. The person advanced with quicker steps, and, before
she could recover recollection enough to avoid him, he spoke, and she
then knew the voice of the Count, who expressed some surprise, on
finding her walking at so early an hour, and made a feeble effort to
rally her on her love of solitude. But he soon perceived this to be
more a subject of concern than of light laughter, and, changing his
manner, affectionately expostulated with Emily, on thus indulging
unavailing regret; who, though she acknowledged the justness of all he
said, could not restrain her tears, while she did so, and he presently
quitted the topic. Expressing surprise at not having yet heard from his
friend, the Advocate at Avignon, in answer to the questions proposed to
him, respecting the estates of the late Madame Montoni, he, with
friendly zeal, endeavoured to cheer Emily with hopes of establishing
her claim to them; while she felt, that the estates could now
contribute little to the happiness of a life, in which Valancourt had
no longer an interest.

When they returned to the château, Emily retired to her apartment, and
Count De Villefort to the door of the north chambers. This was still
fastened, but, being now determined to arouse Ludovico, he renewed his
calls more loudly than before, after which a total silence ensued, and
the Count, finding all his efforts to be heard ineffectual, at length
began to fear, that some accident had befallen Ludovico, whom terror of
an imaginary being might have deprived of his senses. He, therefore,
left the door with an intention of summoning his servants to force it
open, some of whom he now heard moving in the lower part of the
château.

To the Count’s enquiries, whether they had seen or heard Ludovico, they
replied in affright, that not one of them had ventured on the north
side of the château, since the preceding night.

“He sleeps soundly then,” said the Count, “and is at such a distance
from the outer door, which is fastened, that to gain admittance to the
chambers it will be necessary to force it. Bring an instrument, and
follow me.”

The servants stood mute and dejected, and it was not till nearly all
the household were assembled, that the Count’s orders were obeyed. In
the mean time, Dorothée was telling of a door, that opened from a
gallery, leading from the great staircase into the last ante-room of
the saloon, and, this being much nearer to the bed-chamber, it appeared
probable, that Ludovico might be easily awakened by an attempt to open
it. Thither, therefore, the Count went, but his voice was as
ineffectual at this door as it had proved at the remoter one; and now,
seriously interested for Ludovico, he was himself going to strike upon
the door with the instrument, when he observed its singular beauty, and
withheld the blow. It appeared, on the first glance, to be of ebony, so
dark and close was its grain and so high its polish; but it proved to
be only of larch wood, of the growth of Provence, then famous for its
forests of larch. The beauty of its polished hue and of its delicate
carvings determined the Count to spare this door, and he returned to
that leading from the back staircase, which being, at length, forced,
he entered the first ante-room, followed by Henri and a few of the most
courageous of his servants, the rest awaiting the event of the enquiry
on the stairs and landing-place.

All was silent in the chambers, through which the Count passed, and,
having reached the saloon, he called loudly upon Ludovico; after which,
still receiving no answer, he threw open the door of the bedroom, and
entered.

The profound stillness within confirmed his apprehensions for Ludovico,
for not even the breathings of a person in sleep were heard; and his
uncertainty was not soon terminated, since the shutters being all
closed, the chamber was too dark for any object to be distinguished in
it.

The Count bade a servant open them, who, as he crossed the room to do
so, stumbled over something, and fell to the floor, when his cry
occasioned such panic among the few of his fellows, who had ventured
thus far, that they instantly fled, and the Count and Henri were left
to finish the adventure.

Henri then sprung across the room, and, opening a window-shutter, they
perceived, that the man had fallen over a chair near the hearth, in
which Ludovico had been sitting;—for he sat there no longer, nor could
anywhere be seen by the imperfect light, that was admitted into the
apartment. The Count, seriously alarmed, now opened other shutters,
that he might be enabled to examine further, and, Ludovico not yet
appearing, he stood for a moment, suspended in astonishment and
scarcely trusting his senses, till, his eyes glancing on the bed, he
advanced to examine whether he was there asleep. No person, however,
was in it, and he proceeded to the oriel, where everything remained as
on the preceding night, but Ludovico was nowhere to be found.

The Count now checked his amazement, considering that Ludovico might
have left the chambers, during the night, overcome by the terrors,
which their lonely desolation and the recollected reports, concerning
them, had inspired. Yet, if this had been the fact, the man would
naturally have sought society, and his fellow servants had all declared
they had not seen him; the door of the outer room also had been found
fastened, with the key on the inside; it was impossible, therefore, for
him to have passed through that, and all the outer doors of this suite
were found, on examination, to be bolted and locked, with the keys also
within them. The Count, being then compelled to believe, that the lad
had escaped through the casements, next examined them, but such as
opened wide enough to admit the body of a man were found to be
carefully secured either by iron bars, or by shutters, and no vestige
appeared of any person having attempted to pass them; neither was it
probable, that Ludovico would have incurred the risk of breaking his
neck, by leaping from a window, when he might have walked safely
through a door.

The Count’s amazement did not admit of words; but he returned once more
to examine the bedroom, where was no appearance of disorder, except
that occasioned by the late overthrow of the chair, near which had
stood a small table, and on this Ludovico’s sword, his lamp, the book
he had been reading, and the remnant of his flask of wine still
remained. At the foot of the table, too, was the basket with some
fragments of provision and wood.

Henri and the servant now uttered their astonishment without reserve,
and, though the Count said little, there was a seriousness in his
manner, that expressed much. It appeared, that Ludovico must have
quitted these rooms by some concealed passage, for the Count could not
believe, that any supernatural means had occasioned this event, yet, if
there was any such passage, it seemed inexplicable why he should
retreat through it, and it was equally surprising, that not even the
smallest vestige should appear, by which his progress could be traced.
In the rooms everything remained as much in order as if he had just
walked out by the common way.

The Count himself assisted in lifting the arras, with which the
bed-chamber, saloon and one of the ante-rooms were hung, that he might
discover if any door had been concealed behind it; but, after a
laborious search, none was found, and he, at length, quitted the
apartments, having secured the door of the last ante-chamber, the key
of which he took into his own possession. He then gave orders, that
strict search should be made for Ludovico not only in the château, but
in the neighbourhood, and, retiring with Henri to his closet, they
remained there in conversation for a considerable time, and whatever
was the subject of it, Henri from this hour lost much of his vivacity,
and his manners were particularly grave and reserved, whenever the
topic, which now agitated the Count’s family with wonder and alarm, was
introduced.

On the disappearing of Ludovico, Baron St. Foix seemed strengthened in
all his former opinions concerning the probability of apparitions,
though it was difficult to discover what connection there could
possibly be between the two subjects, or to account for this effect
otherwise than by supposing, that the mystery attending Ludovico, by
exciting awe and curiosity, reduced the mind to a state of sensibility,
which rendered it more liable to the influence of superstition in
general. It is, however, certain, that from this period the Baron and
his adherents became more bigoted to their own systems than before,
while the terrors of the Count’s servants increased to an excess, that
occasioned many of them to quit the mansion immediately, and the rest
remained only till others could be procured to supply their places.

The most strenuous search after Ludovico proved unsuccessful, and,
after several days of indefatigable enquiry, poor Annette gave herself
up to despair, and the other inhabitants of the château to amazement.

Emily, whose mind had been deeply affected by the disastrous fate of
the late Marchioness and with the mysterious connection, which she
fancied had existed between her and St. Aubert, was particularly
impressed by the late extraordinary event, and much concerned for the
loss of Ludovico, whose integrity and faithful services claimed both
her esteem and gratitude. She was now very desirous to return to the
quiet retirement of her convent, but every hint of this was received
with real sorrow by the Lady Blanche, and affectionately set aside by
the Count, for whom she felt much of the respectful love and admiration
of a daughter, and to whom, by Dorothée’s consent, she, at length,
mentioned the appearance, which they had witnessed in the chamber of
the deceased Marchioness. At any other period, he would have smiled at
such a relation, and have believed, that its object had existed only in
the distempered fancy of the relater; but he now attended to Emily with
seriousness, and, when she concluded, requested of her a promise, that
this occurrence should rest in silence. “Whatever may be the cause and
the import of these extraordinary occurrences,” added the Count, “time
only can explain them. I shall keep a wary eye upon all that passes in
the château, and shall pursue every possible means of discovering the
fate of Ludovico. Meanwhile, we must be prudent and be silent. I will
myself watch in the north chambers, but of this we will say nothing,
till the night arrives, when I purpose doing so.”

The Count then sent for Dorothée, and required of her also a promise of
silence, concerning what she had already, or might in future witness of
an extraordinary nature; and this ancient servant now related to him
the particulars of the Marchioness de Villeroi’s death, with some of
which he appeared to be already acquainted, while by others he was
evidently surprised and agitated. After listening to this narrative,
the Count retired to his closet, where he remained alone for several
hours; and, when he again appeared, the solemnity of his manner
surprised and alarmed Emily, but she gave no utterance to her thoughts.

On the week following the disappearance of Ludovico, all the Count’s
guests took leave of him, except the Baron, his son Mons. St. Foix, and
Emily; the latter of whom was soon after embarrassed and distressed by
the arrival of another visitor, Mons. Du Pont, which made her determine
upon withdrawing to her convent immediately. The delight, that appeared
in his countenance, when he met her, told that he brought back the same
ardour of passion, which had formerly banished him from
Château-le-Blanc. He was received with reserve by Emily, and with
pleasure by the Count, who presented him to her with a smile, that
seemed intended to plead his cause, and who did not hope the less for
his friend, from the embarrassment she betrayed.

But M. Du Pont, with truer sympathy, seemed to understand her manner,
and his countenance quickly lost its vivacity, and sunk into the
languor of despondency.

On the following day, however, he sought an opportunity of declaring
the purport of his visit, and renewed his suit; a declaration, which
was received with real concern by Emily, who endeavoured to lessen the
pain she might inflict by a second rejection, with assurances of esteem
and friendship; yet she left him in a state of mind, that claimed and
excited her tenderest compassion; and, being more sensible than ever of
the impropriety of remaining longer at the château, she immediately
sought the Count, and communicated to him her intention of returning to
the convent.

“My dear Emily,” said he, “I observe with extreme concern, the illusion
you are encouraging—an illusion common to young and sensible minds.
Your heart has received a severe shock; you believe you can never
entirely recover it, and you will encourage this belief, till the habit
of indulging sorrow will subdue the strength of your mind, and
discolour your future views with melancholy and regret. Let me
dissipate this illusion, and awaken you to a sense of your danger.”

Emily smiled mournfully, “I know what you would say, my dear sir,” said
she, “and am prepared to answer you. I feel, that my heart can never
know a second affection; and that I must never hope even to recover its
tranquillity—if I suffer myself to enter into a second engagement.”

“I know, that you feel all this,” replied the Count; “and I know, also,
that time will overcome these feelings, unless you cherish them in
solitude, and, pardon me, with romantic tenderness. Then, indeed, time
will only confirm habit. I am particularly empowered to speak on this
subject, and to sympathise in your sufferings,” added the Count, with
an air of solemnity, “for I have known what it is to love, and to
lament the object of my love. Yes,” continued he, while his eyes filled
with tears, “I have suffered!—but those times have passed away—long
passed! and I can now look back upon them without emotion.”

“My dear sir,” said Emily, timidly, “what mean those tears?—they speak,
I fear, another language—they plead for me.”

“They are weak tears, for they are useless ones,” replied the Count,
drying them, “I would have you superior to such weakness. These,
however, are only faint traces of a grief, which, if it had not been
opposed by long continued effort, might have led me to the verge of
madness! Judge, then, whether I have not cause to warn you of an
indulgence, which may produce so terrible an effect, and which must
certainly, if not opposed, overcloud the years, that otherwise might be
happy. M. Du Pont is a sensible and amiable man, who has long been
tenderly attached to you; his family and fortune are
unexceptionable;—after what I have said, it is unnecessary to add, that
I should rejoice in your felicity, and that I think M. Du Pont would
promote it. Do not weep, Emily,” continued the Count, taking her hand,
“there _is_ happiness reserved for you.”

He was silent a moment; and then added, in a firmer voice, “I do not
wish, that you should make a violent effort to overcome your feelings;
all I, at present, ask, is, that you will check the thoughts, that
would lead you to a remembrance of the past; that you will suffer your
mind to be engaged by present objects; that you will allow yourself to
believe it possible you may yet be happy; and that you will sometimes
think with complacency of poor Du Pont, and not condemn him to the
state of despondency, from which, my dear Emily, I am endeavouring to
withdraw you.”

“Ah! my dear sir,” said Emily, while her tears still fell, “do not
suffer the benevolence of your wishes to mislead Mons. Du Pont with an
expectation that I can ever accept his hand. If I understand my own
heart, this never can be; your instruction I can obey in almost every
other particular, than that of adopting a contrary belief.”

“Leave me to understand your heart,” replied the Count, with a faint
smile. “If you pay me the compliment to be guided by my advice in other
instances, I will pardon your incredulity, respecting your future
conduct towards Mons. Du Pont. I will not even press you to remain
longer at the château than your own satisfaction will permit; but
though I forbear to oppose your present retirement, I shall urge the
claims of friendship for your future visits.”

Tears of gratitude mingled with those of tender regret, while Emily
thanked the Count for the many instances of friendship she had received
from him; promised to be directed by his advice upon every subject but
one, and assured him of the pleasure, with which she should, at some
future period, accept the invitation of the Countess and himself—If
Mons. Du Pont was not at the château.

The Count smiled at this condition. “Be it so,” said he, “meanwhile the
convent is so near the château, that my daughter and I shall often
visit you; and if, sometimes, we should dare to bring you another
visitor—will you forgive us?”

Emily looked distressed, and remained silent.

“Well,” rejoined the Count, “I will pursue this subject no further, and
must now entreat your forgiveness for having pressed it thus far. You
will, however, do me the justice to believe, that I have been urged
only by a sincere regard for your happiness, and that of my amiable
friend Mons. Du Pont.”

Emily, when she left the Count, went to mention her intended departure
to the Countess, who opposed it with polite expressions of regret;
after which, she sent a note to acquaint the lady abbess, that she
should return to the convent; and thither she withdrew on the evening
of the following day. M. Du Pont, in extreme regret, saw her depart,
while the Count endeavoured to cheer him with a hope, that Emily would
sometimes regard him with a more favourable eye.

She was pleased to find herself once more in the tranquil retirement of
the convent, where she experienced a renewal of all the maternal
kindness of the abbess, and of the sisterly attentions of the nuns. A
report of the late extraordinary occurrence at the château had already
reached them, and, after supper, on the evening of her arrival, it was
the subject of conversation in the convent parlour, where she was
requested to mention some particulars of that unaccountable event.
Emily was guarded in her conversation on this subject, and briefly
related a few circumstances concerning Ludovico, whose disappearance,
her auditors almost unanimously agreed, had been effected by
supernatural means.

“A belief had so long prevailed,” said a nun, who was called sister
Frances, “that the château was haunted, that I was surprised, when I
heard the Count had the temerity to inhabit it. Its former possessor, I
fear, had some deed of conscience to atone for; let us hope, that the
virtues of its present owner will preserve him from the punishment due
to the errors of the last, if, indeed, he was a criminal.”

“Of what crime, then, was he suspected?” said a Mademoiselle Feydeau, a
boarder at the convent.

“Let us pray for his soul!” said a nun, who had till now sat in silent
attention. “If he was criminal, his punishment in this world was
sufficient.”

There was a mixture of wildness and solemnity in her manner of
delivering this, which struck Emily exceedingly; but Mademoiselle
repeated her question, without noticing the solemn eagerness of the
nun.

“I dare not presume to say what was his crime,” replied sister Frances;
“but I have heard many reports of an extraordinary nature, respecting
the late Marquis de Villeroi, and among others, that, soon after the
death of his lady, he quitted Château-le-Blanc, and never afterwards
returned to it. I was not here at the time, so I can only mention it
from report, and so many years have passed since the Marchioness died,
that few of our sisterhood, I believe, can do more.”

“But I can,” said the nun, who had before spoke, and whom they called
sister Agnes.

“You then,” said Mademoiselle Feydeau, “are possibly acquainted with
circumstances, that enable you to judge, whether he was criminal or
not, and what was the crime imputed to him.”

“I am,” replied the nun; “but who shall dare to scrutinize my
thoughts—who shall dare to pluck out my opinion? God only is his judge,
and to that judge he is gone!”

Emily looked with surprise at sister Frances, who returned her a
significant glance.

“I only requested your opinion,” said Mademoiselle Feydeau, mildly; “if
the subject is displeasing to you, I will drop it.”

“Displeasing!”—said the nun, with emphasis.—“We are idle talkers; we do
not weigh the meaning of the words we use; _displeasing_ is a poor
word. I will go pray.” As she said this she rose from her seat, and
with a profound sigh quitted the room.

“What can be the meaning of this?” said Emily, when she was gone.

“It is nothing extraordinary,” replied sister Frances, “she is often
thus; but she had no meaning in what she says. Her intellects are at
times deranged. Did you never see her thus before?”

“Never,” said Emily. “I have, indeed, sometimes, thought, that there
was the melancholy of madness in her look, but never before perceived
it in her speech. Poor soul, I will pray for her!”

“Your prayers then, my daughter, will unite with ours,” observed the
lady abbess, “she has need of them.”

“Dear lady,” said Mademoiselle Feydeau, addressing the abbess, “what is
your opinion of the late Marquis? The strange circumstances, that have
occurred at the château, have so much awakened my curiosity, that I
shall be pardoned the question. What was his imputed crime, and what
the punishment, to which sister Agnes alluded?”

“We must be cautious of advancing our opinion,” said the abbess, with
an air of reserve, mingled with solemnity, “we must be cautious of
advancing our opinion on so delicate a subject. I will not take upon me
to pronounce, that the late Marquis was criminal, or to say what was
the crime of which he was suspected; but, concerning the punishment our
daughter Agnes hinted, I know of none he suffered. She probably alluded
to the severe one, which an exasperated conscience can inflict. Beware,
my children, of incurring so terrible a punishment—it is the purgatory
of this life! The late Marchioness I knew well; she was a pattern to
such as live in the world; nay, our sacred order need not have blushed
to copy her virtues! Our holy convent received her mortal part; her
heavenly spirit, I doubt not, ascended to its sanctuary!”

As the abbess spoke this, the last bell of vespers struck up, and she
rose. “Let us go, my children,” said she, “and intercede for the
wretched; let us go and confess our sins, and endeavour to purify our
souls for the heaven, to which _she_ is gone!”

Emily was affected by the solemnity of this exhortation, and,
remembering her father, “The heaven, to which _he_, too, is gone!” said
she, faintly, as she suppressed her sighs, and followed the abbess and
the nuns to the chapel.



 CHAPTER VIII

Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damn’d,
Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell,
Be thy intents wicked, or charitable,

I will speak to thee.
                    HAMLET


Count de Villefort, at length, received a letter from the advocate at
Avignon, encouraging Emily to assert her claim to the estates of the
late Madame Montoni; and, about the same time, a messenger arrived from
Monsieur Quesnel with intelligence, that made an appeal to the law on
this subject unnecessary, since it appeared, that the only person, who
could have opposed her claim, was now no more. A friend of Monsieur
Quesnel, who resided at Venice, had sent him an account of the death of
Montoni who had been brought to trial with Orsino, as his supposed
accomplice in the murder of the Venetian nobleman. Orsino was found
guilty, condemned and executed upon the wheel, but, nothing being
discovered to criminate Montoni, and his colleagues, on this charge,
they were all released, except Montoni, who, being considered by the
senate as a very dangerous person, was, for other reasons, ordered
again into confinement, where, it was said, he had died in a doubtful
and mysterious manner, and not without suspicion of having been
poisoned. The authority, from which M. Quesnel had received this
information, would not allow him to doubt its truth, and he told Emily,
that she had now only to lay claim to the estates of her late aunt, to
secure them, and added, that he would himself assist in the necessary
forms of this business. The term, for which La Vallée had been let
being now also nearly expired, he acquainted her with the circumstance,
and advised her to take the road thither, through Thoulouse, where he
promised to meet her, and where it would be proper for her to take
possession of the estates of the late Madame Montoni; adding, that he
would spare her any difficulties, that might occur on that occasion
from the want of knowledge on the subject, and that he believed it
would be necessary for her to be at Thoulouse, in about three weeks
from the present time.

An increase of fortune seemed to have awakened this sudden kindness in
M. Quesnel towards his niece, and it appeared, that he entertained more
respect for the rich heiress, than he had ever felt compassion for the
poor and unfriended orphan.

The pleasure, with which she received this intelligence, was clouded
when she considered, that he, for whose sake she had once regretted the
want of fortune, was no longer worthy of sharing it with her; but,
remembering the friendly admonition of the Count, she checked this
melancholy reflection, and endeavoured to feel only gratitude for the
unexpected good, that now attended her; while it formed no
inconsiderable part of her satisfaction to know, that La Vallée, her
native home, which was endeared to her by it’s having been the
residence of her parents, would soon be restored to her possession.
There she meant to fix her future residence, for, though it could not
be compared with the château at Thoulouse, either for extent, or
magnificence, its pleasant scenes and the tender remembrances, that
haunted them, had claims upon her heart, which she was not inclined to
sacrifice to ostentation. She wrote immediately to thank M. Quesnel for
the active interest he took in her concerns, and to say, that she would
meet him at Thoulouse at the appointed time.

When Count de Villefort, with Blanche, came to the convent to give
Emily the advice of the advocate, he was informed of the contents of M.
Quesnel’s letter, and gave her his sincere congratulations, on the
occasion; but she observed, that, when the first expression of
satisfaction had faded from his countenance, an unusual gravity
succeeded, and she scarcely hesitated to enquire its cause.

“It has no new occasion,” replied the Count; “I am harassed and
perplexed by the confusion, into which my family is thrown by their
foolish superstition. Idle reports are floating round me, which I can
neither admit to be true, nor prove to be false; and I am, also, very
anxious about the poor fellow, Ludovico, concerning whom I have not
been able to obtain information. Every part of the château and every
part of the neighbourhood, too, has, I believe, been searched, and I
know not what further can be done, since I have already offered large
rewards for the discovery of him. The keys of the north apartment I
have not suffered to be out of my possession, since he disappeared, and
I mean to watch in those chambers, myself, this very night.”

Emily, seriously alarmed for the Count, united her entreaties with
those of the Lady Blanche, to dissuade him from his purpose.

“What should I fear?” said he. “I have no faith in supernatural
combats, and for human opposition I shall be prepared; nay, I will even
promise not to watch alone.”

“But who, dear sir, will have courage enough to watch with you?” said
Emily.

“My son,” replied the Count. “If I am not carried off in the night,”
added he, smiling, “you shall hear the result of my adventure,
tomorrow.”

The Count and Lady Blanche, shortly afterwards, took leave of Emily,
and returned to the château, where he informed Henri of his intention,
who, not without some secret reluctance, consented to be the partner of
his watch; and, when the design was mentioned after supper, the
Countess was terrified, and the Baron, and M. Du Pont joined with her
in entreating, that he would not tempt his fate, as Ludovico had done.
“We know not,” added the Baron, “the nature, or the power of an evil
spirit; and that such a spirit haunts those chambers can now, I think,
scarcely be doubted. Beware, my lord, how you provoke its vengeance,
since it has already given us one terrible example of its malice. I
allow it may be probable, that the spirits of the dead are permitted to
return to the earth only on occasions of high import; but the present
import may be your destruction.”

The Count could not forbear smiling; “Do you think then, Baron,” said
he, “that my destruction is of sufficient importance to draw back to
earth the soul of the departed? Alas! my good friend, there is no
occasion for such means to accomplish the destruction of any
individual. Wherever the mystery rests, I trust I shall, this night, be
able to detect it. You know I am not superstitious.”

“I know that you are incredulous,” interrupted the Baron.

“Well, call it what you will, I mean to say, that, though you know I am
free from superstition—if anything supernatural has appeared, I doubt
not it will appear to me, and if any strange event hangs over my house,
or if any extraordinary transaction has formerly been connected with
it, I shall probably be made acquainted with it. At all events I will
invite discovery; and, that I may be equal to a mortal attack, which in
good truth, my friend, is what I most expect, I shall take care to be
well armed.”

The Count took leave of his family, for the night, with an assumed
gaiety, which but ill concealed the anxiety, that depressed his
spirits, and retired to the north apartments, accompanied by his son
and followed by the Baron, M. Du Pont and some of the domestics, who
all bade him good night at the outer door. In these chambers everything
appeared as when he had last been here; even in the bedroom no
alteration was visible, where he lighted his own fire, for none of the
domestics could be prevailed upon to venture thither. After carefully
examining the chamber and the oriel, the Count and Henri drew their
chairs upon the hearth, set a bottle of wine and a lamp before them,
laid their swords upon the table, and, stirring the wood into a blaze,
began to converse on indifferent topics. But Henri was often silent and
abstracted, and sometimes threw a glance of mingled awe and curiosity
round the gloomy apartment; while the Count gradually ceased to
converse, and sat either lost in thought, or reading a volume of
Tacitus, which he had brought to beguile the tediousness of the night.



 CHAPTER IX

Give thy thoughts no tongue.
                    SHAKESPEARE


The Baron St. Foix, whom anxiety for his friend had kept awake, rose
early to enquire the event of the night, when, as he passed the Count’s
closet, hearing steps within, he knocked at the door, and it was opened
by his friend himself. Rejoicing to see him in safety, and curious to
learn the occurrences of the night, he had not immediately leisure to
observe the unusual gravity, that overspread the features of the Count,
whose reserved answers first occasioned him to notice it. The Count,
then smiling, endeavoured to treat the subject of his curiosity with
levity, but the Baron was serious, and pursued his enquiries so
closely, that the Count, at length, resuming his gravity, said, “Well,
my friend, press the subject no further, I entreat you; and let me
request also, that you will hereafter be silent upon anything you may
think extraordinary in my future conduct. I do not scruple to tell you,
that I am unhappy, and that the watch of the last night has not
assisted me to discover Ludovico; upon every occurrence of the night
you must excuse my reserve.”

“But where is Henri?” said the Baron, with surprise and disappointment
at this denial.

“He is well in his own apartment,” replied the Count. “You will not
question him on this topic, my friend, since you know my wish.”

“Certainly not,” said the Baron, somewhat chagrined, “since it would be
displeasing to you; but methinks, my friend, you might rely on my
discretion, and drop this unusual reserve. However, you must allow me
to suspect, that you have seen reason to become a convert to my system,
and are no longer the incredulous knight you lately appeared to be.”

“Let us talk no more upon this subject,” said the Count; “you may be
assured, that no ordinary circumstance has imposed this silence upon me
towards a friend, whom I have called so for near thirty years; and my
present reserve cannot make you question either my esteem, or the
sincerity of my friendship.”

“I will not doubt either,” said the Baron, “though you must allow me to
express my surprise, at this silence.”

“To me I will allow it,” replied the Count, “but I earnestly entreat
that you will forbear to notice it to my family, as well as everything
remarkable you may observe in my conduct towards them.”

The Baron readily promised this, and, after conversing for some time on
general topics, they descended to the breakfast-room, where the Count
met his family with a cheerful countenance, and evaded their enquiries
by employing light ridicule, and assuming an air of uncommon gaiety,
while he assured them, that they need not apprehend any evil from the
north chambers, since Henri and himself had been permitted to return
from them in safety.

Henri, however, was less successful in disguising his feelings. From
his countenance an expression of terror was not entirely faded; he was
often silent and thoughtful, and when he attempted to laugh at the
eager enquiries of Mademoiselle Bearn, it was evidently only an
attempt.

In the evening, the Count called, as he had promised, at the convent,
and Emily was surprised to perceive a mixture of playful ridicule and
of reserve in his mention of the north apartment. Of what had occurred
there, however, he said nothing, and, when she ventured to remind him
of his promise to tell her the result of his enquiries, and to ask if
he had received any proof, that those chambers were haunted, his look
became solemn, for a moment, then, seeming to recollect himself, he
smiled, and said, “My dear Emily, do not suffer my lady abbess to
infect your good understanding with these fancies; she will teach you
to expect a ghost in every dark room. But believe me,” added he, with a
profound sigh, “the apparition of the dead comes not on light, or
sportive errands, to terrify, or to surprise the timid.” He paused, and
fell into a momentary thoughtfulness, and then added, “We will say no
more on this subject.”

Soon after, he took leave, and, when Emily joined some of the nuns, she
was surprised to find them acquainted with a circumstance, which she
had carefully avoided to mention, and expressing their admiration of
his intrepidity in having dared to pass a night in the apartment,
whence Ludovico had disappeared; for she had not considered with what
rapidity a tale of wonder circulates. The nuns had acquired their
information from peasants, who brought fruit to the monastery, and
whose whole attention had been fixed, since the disappearance of
Ludovico, on what was passing in the castle.

Emily listened in silence to the various opinions of the nuns,
concerning the conduct of the Count, most of whom condemned it as rash
and presumptuous, affirming, that it was provoking the vengeance of an
evil spirit, thus to intrude upon its haunts.

Sister Frances contended, that the Count had acted with the bravery of
a virtuous mind. He knew himself guiltless of aught, that should
provoke a good spirit, and did not fear the spells of an evil one,
since he could claim the protection of a higher Power, of Him, who can
command the wicked, and will protect the innocent.

“The guilty cannot claim that protection!” said sister Agnes, “let the
Count look to his conduct, that he do not forfeit his claim! Yet who is
he, that shall dare to call himself innocent!—all earthly innocence is
but comparative. Yet still how wide asunder are the extremes of guilt,
and to what a horrible depth may we fall! Oh!—”

The nun, as she concluded, uttered a shuddering sigh, that startled
Emily, who, looking up, perceived the eyes of Agnes fixed on hers,
after which the sister rose, took her hand, gazed earnestly upon her
countenance, for some moments, in silence, and then said,

“You are young—you are innocent! I mean you are yet innocent of any
great crime!—But you have passions in your heart,—scorpions; they sleep
now—beware how you awaken them!—they will sting you, even unto death!”

Emily, affected by these words and by the solemnity, with which they
were delivered, could not suppress her tears.

“Ah! is it so?” exclaimed Agnes, her countenance softening from its
sternness—“so young, and so unfortunate! We are sisters, then indeed.
Yet, there is no bond of kindness among the guilty,” she added, while
her eyes resumed their wild expression, “no gentleness,—no peace, no
hope! I knew them all once—my eyes could weep—but now they burn, for
now, my soul is fixed, and fearless!—I lament no more!”

“Rather let us repent, and pray,” said another nun. “We are taught to
hope, that prayer and penitence will work our salvation. There is hope
for all who repent!”

“Who repent and turn to the true faith,” observed sister Frances.

“For all but me!” replied Agnes solemnly, who paused, and then abruptly
added, “My head burns, I believe I am not well. O! could I strike from
my memory all former scenes—the figures, that rise up, like furies, to
torment me!—I see them, when I sleep, and, when I am awake, they are
still before my eyes! I see them now—now!”

She stood in a fixed attitude of horror, her straining eyes moving
slowly round the room, as if they followed something. One of the nuns
gently took her hand, to lead her from the parlour. Agnes became calm,
drew her other hand across her eyes, looked again, and, sighing deeply,
said, “They are gone—they are gone! I am feverish, I know not what I
say. I am thus, sometimes, but it will go off again, I shall soon be
better. Was not that the vesper-bell?”

“No,” replied Frances, “the evening service is passed. Let Margaret
lead you to your cell.”

“You are right,” replied sister Agnes, “I shall be better there. Good
night, my sisters, remember me in your orisons.”

When they had withdrawn, Frances, observing Emily’s emotion, said, “Do
not be alarmed, our sister is often thus deranged, though I have not
lately seen her so frantic; her usual mood is melancholy. This fit has
been coming on, for several days; seclusion and the customary treatment
will restore her.”

“But how rationally she conversed, at first!” observed Emily, “her
ideas followed each other in perfect order.”

“Yes,” replied the nun, “this is nothing new; nay, I have sometimes
known her argue not only with method, but with acuteness, and then, in
a moment, start off into madness.”

“Her conscience seems afflicted,” said Emily, “did you ever hear what
circumstance reduced her to this deplorable condition?”

“I have,” replied the nun, who said no more till Emily repeated the
question, when she added in a low voice, and looking significantly
towards the other boarders, “I cannot tell you now, but, if you think
it worth your while, come to my cell, tonight, when our sisterhood are
at rest, and you shall hear more; but remember we rise to midnight
prayers, and come either before, or after midnight.”

Emily promised to remember, and, the abbess soon after appearing, they
spoke no more of the unhappy nun.

The Count meanwhile, on his return home, had found M. Du Pont in one of
those fits of despondency, which his attachment to Emily frequently
occasioned him, an attachment, that had subsisted too long to be easily
subdued, and which had already outlived the opposition of his friends.
M. Du Pont had first seen Emily in Gascony, during the lifetime of his
parent, who, on discovering his son’s partiality for Mademoiselle St.
Aubert, his inferior in point of fortune, forbade him to declare it to
her family, or to think of her more. During the life of his father, he
had observed the first command, but had found it impracticable to obey
the second, and had, sometimes, soothed his passion by visiting her
favourite haunts, among which was the fishing-house, where, once or
twice, he addressed her in verse, concealing his name, in obedience to
the promise he had given his father. There too he played the pathetic
air, to which she had listened with such surprise and admiration; and
there he found the miniature, that had since cherished a passion fatal
to his repose. During his expedition into Italy, his father died; but
he received his liberty at a moment, when he was the least enabled to
profit by it, since the object, that rendered it most valuable, was no
longer within the reach of his vows. By what accident he discovered
Emily, and assisted to release her from a terrible imprisonment, has
already appeared, and also the unavailing hope, with which he then
encouraged his love, and the fruitless efforts, that he had since made
to overcome it.

The Count still endeavoured, with friendly zeal, to sooth him with a
belief, that patience, perseverance and prudence would finally obtain
for him happiness and Emily: “Time,” said he, “will wear away the
melancholy impression, which disappointment has left on her mind, and
she will be sensible of your merit. Your services have already awakened
her gratitude, and your sufferings her pity; and trust me, my friend,
in a heart so sensible as hers, gratitude and pity lead to love. When
her imagination is rescued from its present delusion, she will readily
accept the homage of a mind like yours.”

Du Pont sighed, while he listened to these words; and, endeavouring to
hope what his friend believed, he willingly yielded to an invitation to
prolong his visit at the château, which we now leave for the monastery
of St. Claire.

When the nuns had retired to rest, Emily stole to her appointment with
sister Frances, whom she found in her cell, engaged in prayer, before a
little table, where appeared the image she was addressing, and, above,
the dim lamp that gave light to the place. Turning her eyes, as the
door opened, she beckoned to Emily to come in, who, having done so,
seated herself in silence beside the nun’s little mattress of straw,
till her orisons should conclude. The latter soon rose from her knees,
and, taking down the lamp and placing it on the table, Emily perceived
there a human skull and bones, lying beside an hour-glass; but the nun,
without observing her emotion, sat down on the mattress by her, saying,
“Your curiosity, sister, has made you punctual, but you have nothing
remarkable to hear in the history of poor Agnes, of whom I avoided to
speak in the presence of my lay-sisters, only because I would not
publish her crime to them.”

“I shall consider your confidence in me as a favour,” said Emily, “and
will not misuse it.”

“Sister Agnes,” resumed the nun, “is of a noble family, as the dignity
of her air must already have informed you, but I will not dishonour
their name so much as to reveal it. Love was the occasion of her crime
and of her madness. She was beloved by a gentleman of inferior fortune,
and her father, as I have heard, bestowing her on a nobleman, whom she
disliked, an ill-governed passion proved her destruction.—Every
obligation of virtue and of duty was forgotten, and she prophaned her
marriage vows; but her guilt was soon detected, and she would have
fallen a sacrifice to the vengeance of her husband, had not her father
contrived to convey her from his power. By what means he did this, I
never could learn; but he secreted her in this convent, where he
afterwards prevailed with her to take the veil, while a report was
circulated in the world, that she was dead, and the father, to save his
daughter, assisted the rumour, and employed such means as induced her
husband to believe she had become a victim to his jealousy. You look
surprised,” added the nun, observing Emily’s countenance; “I allow the
story is uncommon, but not, I believe, without a parallel.”

“Pray proceed,” said Emily, “I am interested.”

“The story is already told,” resumed the nun, “I have only to mention,
that the long struggle, which Agnes suffered, between love, remorse and
a sense of the duties she had taken upon herself in becoming of our
order, at length unsettled her reason. At first, she was frantic and
melancholy by quick alternatives; then, she sunk into a deep and
settled melancholy, which still, however, has, at times, been
interrupted by fits of wildness, and, of late, these have again been
frequent.”

Emily was affected by the history of the sister, some parts of whose
story brought to her remembrance that of the Marchioness de Villeroi,
who had also been compelled by her father to forsake the object of her
affections, for a nobleman of his choice; but, from what Dorothée had
related, there appeared no reason to suppose, that she had escaped the
vengeance of a jealous husband, or to doubt for a moment the innocence
of her conduct. But Emily, while she sighed over the misery of the nun,
could not forbear shedding a few tears to the misfortunes of the
Marchioness; and, when she returned to the mention of sister Agnes, she
asked Frances if she remembered her in her youth, and whether she was
then beautiful.

“I was not here at the time, when she took the vows,” replied Frances,
“which is so long ago, that few of the present sisterhood, I believe,
were witnesses of the ceremony; nay, ever our lady mother did not then
preside over the convent: but I can remember, when sister Agnes was a
very beautiful woman. She retains that air of high rank, which always
distinguished her, but her beauty, you must perceive, is fled; I can
scarcely discover even a vestige of the loveliness, that once animated
her features.”

“It is strange,” said Emily, “but there are moments, when her
countenance has appeared familiar to my memory! You will think me
fanciful, and I think myself so, for I certainly never saw sister
Agnes, before I came to this convent, and I must, therefore, have seen
some person, whom she strongly resembles, though of this I have no
recollection.”

“You have been interested by the deep melancholy of her countenance,”
said Frances, “and its impression has probably deluded your
imagination; for I might as reasonably think I perceive a likeness
between you and Agnes, as you, that you have seen her anywhere but in
this convent, since this has been her place of refuge, for nearly as
many years as make your age.”

“Indeed!” said Emily.

“Yes,” rejoined Frances, “and why does that circumstance excite your
surprise?”

Emily did not appear to notice this question, but remained thoughtful,
for a few moments, and then said, “It was about that same period that
the Marchioness de Villeroi expired.”

“That is an odd remark,” said Frances.

Emily, recalled from her reverie, smiled, and gave the conversation
another turn, but it soon came back to the subject of the unhappy nun,
and Emily remained in the cell of sister Frances, till the midnight
bell aroused her; when, apologising for having interrupted the sister’s
repose, till this late hour, they quitted the cell together. Emily
returned to her chamber, and the nun, bearing a glimmering taper, went
to her devotion in the chapel.

Several days followed, during which Emily saw neither the Count, nor
any of his family; and, when, at length, he appeared, she remarked,
with concern, that his air was unusually disturbed.

“My spirits are harassed,” said he, in answer to her anxious enquiries,
“and I mean to change my residence, for a little while, an experiment,
which, I hope, will restore my mind to its usual tranquillity. My
daughter and myself will accompany the Baron St. Foix to his château.
It lies in a valley of the Pyrenees, that opens towards Gascony, and I
have been thinking, Emily, that, when you set out for La Vallée, we may
go part of the way together; it would be a satisfaction to me to guard
you towards your home.”

She thanked the Count for his friendly consideration, and lamented,
that the necessity for her going first to Thoulouse would render this
plan impracticable. “But, when you are at the Baron’s residence,” she
added, “you will be only a short journey from La Vallée, and I think,
sir, you will not leave the country without visiting me; it is
unnecessary to say with what pleasure I should receive you and the Lady
Blanche.”

“I do not doubt it,” replied the Count, “and I will not deny myself and
Blanche the pleasure of visiting you, if your affairs should allow you
to be at La Vallée, about the time when we can meet you there.”

When Emily said that she should hope to see the Countess also, she was
not sorry to learn that this lady was going, accompanied by
Mademoiselle Bearn, to pay a visit, for a few weeks, to a family in
lower Languedoc.

The Count, after some further conversation on his intended journey and
on the arrangement of Emily’s, took leave; and many days did not
succeed this visit, before a second letter from M. Quesnel informed
her, that he was then at Thoulouse, that La Vallée was at liberty, and
that he wished her to set off for the former place, where he awaited
her arrival, with all possible dispatch, since his own affairs pressed
him to return to Gascony. Emily did not hesitate to obey him, and,
having taken an affecting leave of the Count’s family, in which M. Du
Pont was still included, and of her friends at the convent, she set out
for Thoulouse, attended by the unhappy Annette, and guarded by a steady
servant of the Count.



 CHAPTER X

Lull’d in the countless chambers of the brain,
Our thoughts are link’d by many a hidden chain:
Awake but one, and lo! what myriads rise!
Each stamps its image as the other flies!
                    PLEASURES OF MEMORY


Emily pursued her journey, without any accident, along the plains of
Languedoc towards the north-west; and, on this her return to Thoulouse,
which she had last left with Madame Montoni, she thought much on the
melancholy fate of her aunt, who, but for her own imprudence, might now
have been living in happiness there! Montoni, too, often rose to her
fancy, such as she had seen him in his days of triumph, bold, spirited
and commanding; such also as she had since beheld him in his days of
vengeance; and now, only a few short months had passed—and he had no
longer the power, or the will to afflict;—he had become a clod of
earth, and his life was vanished like a shadow! Emily could have wept
at his fate, had she not remembered his crimes; for that of her
unfortunate aunt she did weep, and all sense of her errors was overcome
by the recollection of her misfortunes.

Other thoughts and other emotions succeeded, as Emily drew near the
well-known scenes of her early love, and considered, that Valancourt
was lost to her and to himself, for ever. At length, she came to the
brow of the hill, whence, on her departure for Italy, she had given a
farewell look to this beloved landscape, amongst whose woods and fields
she had so often walked with Valancourt, and where he was then to
inhabit, when she would be far, far away! She saw, once more, that
chain of the Pyrenees, which overlooked La Vallée, rising, like faint
clouds, on the horizon. “There, too, is Gascony, extended at their
feet!” said she, “O my father,—my mother! And there, too, is the
Garonne!” she added, drying the tears, that obscured her sight,—“and
Thoulouse, and my aunt’s mansion—and the groves in her garden!—O my
friends! are ye all lost to me—must I never, never see ye more!” Tears
rushed again to her eyes, and she continued to weep, till an abrupt
turn in the road had nearly occasioned the carriage to overset, when,
looking up, she perceived another part of the well-known scene around
Thoulouse, and all the reflections and anticipations, which she had
suffered, at the moment, when she bade it last adieu, came with
recollected force to her heart. She remembered how anxiously she had
looked forward to the futurity, which was to decide her happiness
concerning Valancourt, and what depressing fears had assailed her; the
very words she had uttered, as she withdrew her last look from the
prospect, came to her memory. “Could I but be certain,” she had then
said, “that I should ever return, and that Valancourt would still live
for me—I should go in peace!”

Now, that futurity, so anxiously anticipated, was arrived, she was
returned—but what a dreary blank appeared!—Valancourt no longer lived
for her! She had no longer even the melancholy satisfaction of
contemplating his image in her heart, for he was no longer the same
Valancourt she had cherished there—the solace of many a mournful hour,
the animating friend, that had enabled her to bear up against the
oppression of Montoni—the distant hope, that had beamed over her gloomy
prospect! On perceiving this beloved idea to be an illusion of her own
creation, Valancourt seemed to be annihilated, and her soul sickened at
the blank, that remained. His marriage with a rival, even his death,
she thought she could have endured with more fortitude, than this
discovery; for then, amidst all her grief, she could have looked in
secret upon the image of goodness, which her fancy had drawn of him,
and comfort would have mingled with her suffering!

Drying her tears, she looked, once more, upon the landscape, which had
excited them, and perceived, that she was passing the very bank, where
she had taken leave of Valancourt, on the morning of her departure from
Thoulouse, and she now saw him, through her returning tears, such as he
had appeared, when she looked from the carriage to give him a last
adieu—saw him leaning mournfully against the high trees, and remembered
the fixed look of mingled tenderness and anguish, with which he had
then regarded her. This recollection was too much for her heart, and
she sunk back in the carriage, nor once looked up, till it stopped at
the gates of what was now her own mansion.

These being opened, and by the servant, to whose care the château had
been entrusted, the carriage drove into the court, where, alighting,
she hastily passed through the great hall, now silent and solitary, to
a large oak parlour, the common sitting room of the late Madame
Montoni, where, instead of being received by M. Quesnel, she found a
letter from him, informing her that business of consequence had obliged
him to leave Thoulouse two days before. Emily was, upon the whole, not
sorry to be spared his presence, since his abrupt departure appeared to
indicate the same indifference, with which he had formerly regarded
her. This letter informed her, also, of the progress he had made in the
settlement of her affairs, and concluded with directions, concerning
the forms of some business, which remained for her to transact. But M.
Quesnel’s unkindness did not long occupy her thoughts, which returned
the remembrance of the persons she had been accustomed to see in this
mansion, and chiefly of the ill-guided and unfortunate Madame Montoni.
In the room, where she now sat, she had breakfasted with her on the
morning of their departure for Italy; and the view of it brought most
forcibly to her recollection all she had herself suffered, at that
time, and the many gay expectations, which her aunt had formed,
respecting the journey before her. While Emily’s mind was thus engaged,
her eyes wandered unconsciously to a large window, that looked upon the
garden, and here new memorials of the past spoke to her heart, for she
saw extended before her the very avenue, in which she had parted with
Valancourt, on the eve of her journey; and all the anxiety, the tender
interest he had shown, concerning her future happiness, his earnest
remonstrances against her committing herself to the power of Montoni,
and the truth of his affection, came afresh to her memory. At this
moment, it appeared almost impossible, that Valancourt could have
become unworthy of her regard, and she doubted all that she had lately
heard to his disadvantage, and even his own words, which had confirmed
Count De Villefort’s report of him. Overcome by the recollections,
which the view of this avenue occasioned, she turned abruptly from the
window, and sunk into a chair beside it, where she sat, given up to
grief, till the entrance of Annette, with coffee, aroused her.

“Dear madam, how melancholy this place looks now,” said Annette, “to
what it used to do! It is dismal coming home, when there is nobody to
welcome one!”

This was not the moment, in which Emily could bear the remark; her
tears fell again, and, as soon as she had taken the coffee, she retired
to her apartment, where she endeavoured to repose her fatigued spirits.
But busy memory would still supply her with the visions of former
times: she saw Valancourt interesting and benevolent, as he had been
wont to appear in the days of their early love, and, amidst the scenes,
where she had believed that they should sometimes pass their years
together!—but, at length, sleep closed these afflicting scenes from her
view.

On the following morning, serious occupation recovered her from such
melancholy reflections; for, being desirous of quitting Thoulouse, and
of hastening on to La Vallée, she made some enquiries into the
condition of the estate, and immediately dispatched a part of the
necessary business concerning it, according to the directions of Mons.
Quesnel. It required a strong effort to abstract her thoughts from
other interests sufficiently to attend to this, but she was rewarded
for her exertions by again experiencing, that employment is the surest
antidote to sorrow.

This day was devoted entirely to business; and, among other concerns,
she employed means to learn the situation of all her poor tenants, that
she might relieve their wants, or confirm their comforts.

In the evening, her spirits were so much strengthened, that she thought
she could bear to visit the gardens, where she had so often walked with
Valancourt; and, knowing, that, if she delayed to do so, their scenes
would only affect her the more, whenever they should be viewed, she
took advantage of the present state of her mind, and entered them.

Passing hastily the gate leading from the court into the gardens, she
hurried up the great avenue, scarcely permitting her memory to dwell
for a moment on the circumstance of her having here parted with
Valancourt, and soon quitted this for other walks less interesting to
her heart. These brought her, at length, to the flight of steps, that
led from the lower garden to the terrace, on seeing which, she became
agitated, and hesitated whether to ascend, but, her resolution
returning, she proceeded.

“Ah!” said Emily, as she ascended, “these are the same high trees, that
used to wave over the terrace, and these the same flowery thickets—the
liburnum, the wild rose, and the cerinthe—which were wont to grow
beneath them! Ah! and there, too, on that bank, are the very plants,
which Valancourt so carefully reared!—O, when last I saw them!”—she
checked the thought, but could not restrain her tears, and, after
walking slowly on for a few moments, her agitation, upon the view of
this well-known scene, increased so much, that she was obliged to stop,
and lean upon the wall of the terrace. It was a mild, and beautiful
evening. The sun was setting over the extensive landscape, to which his
beams, sloping from beneath a dark cloud, that overhung the west, gave
rich and partial colouring, and touched the tufted summits of the
groves, that rose from the garden below, with a yellow gleam. Emily and
Valancourt had often admired together this scene, at the same hour; and
it was exactly on this spot, that, on the night preceding her departure
for Italy, she had listened to his remonstrances against the journey,
and to the pleadings of passionate affection. Some observations, which
she made on the landscape, brought this to her remembrance, and with it
all the minute particulars of that conversation;—the alarming doubts he
had expressed concerning Montoni, doubts, which had since been fatally
confirmed; the reasons and entreaties he had employed to prevail with
her to consent to an immediate marriage; the tenderness of his love,
the paroxysms of this grief, and the conviction that he had repeatedly
expressed, that they should never meet again in happiness! All these
circumstances rose afresh to her mind, and awakened the various
emotions she had then suffered. Her tenderness for Valancourt became as
powerful as in the moments, when she thought, that she was parting with
him and happiness together, and when the strength of her mind had
enabled her to triumph over present suffering, rather than to deserve
the reproach of her conscience by engaging in a clandestine
marriage.—“Alas!” said Emily, as these recollections came to her mind,
“and what have I gained by the fortitude I then practised?—am I happy
now?—He said, we should meet no more in happiness; but, O! he little
thought his own misconduct would separate us, and lead to the very evil
he then dreaded!”

Her reflections increased her anguish, while she was compelled to
acknowledge, that the fortitude she had formerly exerted, if it had not
conducted her to happiness, had saved her from irretrievable
misfortune—from Valancourt himself! But in these moments she could not
congratulate herself on the prudence, that had saved her; she could
only lament, with bitterest anguish, the circumstances, which had
conspired to betray Valancourt into a course of life so different from
that, which the virtues, the tastes, and the pursuits of his early
years had promised; but she still loved him too well to believe, that
his heart was even now depraved, though his conduct had been criminal.
An observation, which had fallen from M. St. Aubert more than once, now
occurred to her. “This young man,” said he, speaking of Valancourt,
“has never been at Paris;” a remark, that had surprised her at the time
it was uttered, but which she now understood, and she exclaimed
sorrowfully, “O Valancourt! if such a friend as my father had been with
you at Paris—your noble, ingenuous nature would not have fallen!”

The sun was now set, and, recalling her thoughts from their melancholy
subject, she continued her walk; for the pensive shade of twilight was
pleasing to her, and the nightingales from the surrounding groves began
to answer each other in the long-drawn, plaintive note, which always
touched her heart; while all the fragrance of the flowery thickets,
that bounded the terrace, was awakened by the cool evening air, which
floated so lightly among their leaves, that they scarcely trembled as
it passed.

Emily came, at length, to the steps of the pavilion, that terminated
the terrace, and where her last interview with Valancourt, before her
departure from Thoulouse, had so unexpectedly taken place. The door was
now shut, and she trembled, while she hesitated whether to open it; but
her wish to see again a place, which had been the chief scene of her
former happiness, at length overcoming her reluctance to encounter the
painful regret it would renew, she entered. The room was obscured by a
melancholy shade; but through the open lattices, darkened by the
hanging foliage of the vines, appeared the dusky landscape, the Garonne
reflecting the evening light, and the west still glowing. A chair was
placed near one of the balconies, as if some person had been sitting
there, but the other furniture of the pavilion remained exactly as
usual, and Emily thought it looked as if it had not once been moved
since she set out for Italy. The silent and deserted air of the place
added solemnity to her emotions, for she heard only the low whisper of
the breeze, as it shook the leaves of the vines, and the very faint
murmur of the Garonne.

She seated herself in a chair, near the lattice, and yielded to the
sadness of her heart, while she recollected the circumstances of her
parting interview with Valancourt, on this spot. It was here too, that
she had passed some of the happiest hours of her life with him, when
her aunt favoured the connection, for here she had often sat and
worked, while he conversed, or read; and she now well remembered with
what discriminating judgment, with what tempered energy, he used to
repeat some of the sublimest passages of their favourite authors; how
often he would pause to admire with her their excellence, and with what
tender delight he would listen to her remarks, and correct her taste.

“And is it possible,” said Emily, as these recollections returned—“is
it possible, that a mind, so susceptible of whatever is grand and
beautiful, could stoop to low pursuits, and be subdued by frivolous
temptations?”

She remembered how often she had seen the sudden tear start in his eye,
and had heard his voice tremble with emotion, while he related any
great or benevolent action, or repeated a sentiment of the same
character. “And such a mind,” said she, “such a heart, were to be
sacrificed to the habits of a great city!”

These recollections becoming too painful to be endured, she abruptly
left the pavilion, and, anxious to escape from the memorials of her
departed happiness, returned towards the château. As she passed along
the terrace, she perceived a person, walking, with a slow step, and a
dejected air, under the trees, at some distance. The twilight, which
was now deep, would not allow her to distinguish who it was, and she
imagined it to be one of the servants, till, the sound of her steps
seeming to reach him, he turned half round, and she thought she saw
Valancourt!

Whoever it was, he instantly struck among the thickets on the left, and
disappeared, while Emily, her eyes fixed on the place, whence he had
vanished, and her frame trembling so excessively, that she could
scarcely support herself, remained, for some moments, unable to quit
the spot, and scarcely conscious of existence. With her recollection,
her strength returned, and she hurried toward the house, where she did
not venture to enquire who had been in the gardens, lest she should
betray her emotion; and she sat down alone, endeavouring to recollect
the figure, air and features of the person she had just seen. Her view
of him, however, had been so transient, and the gloom had rendered it
so imperfect, that she could remember nothing with exactness; yet the
general appearance of his figure, and his abrupt departure, made her
still believe, that this person was Valancourt. Sometimes, indeed, she
thought, that her fancy, which had been occupied by the idea of him,
had suggested his image to her uncertain sight: but this conjecture was
fleeting. If it was himself whom she had seen, she wondered much, that
he should be at Thoulouse, and more, how he had gained admittance into
the garden; but as often as her impatience prompted her to enquire
whether any stranger had been admitted, she was restrained by an
unwillingness to betray her doubts; and the evening was passed in
anxious conjecture, and in efforts to dismiss the subject from her
thoughts. But, these endeavours were ineffectual, and a thousand
inconsistent emotions assailed her, whenever she fancied that
Valancourt might be near her; now, she dreaded it to be true, and now
she feared it to be false; and, while she constantly tried to persuade
herself, that she wished the person, whom she had seen, might not be
Valancourt, her heart as constantly contradicted her reason.

The following day was occupied by the visits of several neighbouring
families, formerly intimate with Madame Montoni, who came to condole
with Emily on her death, to congratulate her upon the acquisition of
these estates, and to enquire about Montoni, and concerning the strange
reports they had heard of her own situation; all which was done with
the utmost decorum, and the visitors departed with as much composure as
they had arrived.

Emily was wearied by these formalities, and disgusted by the
subservient manners of many persons, who had thought her scarcely
worthy of common attention, while she was believed to be a dependant on
Madame Montoni.

“Surely,” said she, “there is some magic in wealth, which can thus make
persons pay their court to it, when it does not even benefit
themselves. How strange it is, that a fool or a knave, with riches,
should be treated with more respect by the world, than a good man, or a
wise man in poverty!”

It was evening, before she was left alone, and she then wished to have
refreshed her spirits in the free air of her garden; but she feared to
go thither, lest she should meet again the person, whom she had seen on
the preceding night, and he should prove to be Valancourt. The suspense
and anxiety she suffered, on this subject, she found all her efforts
unable to control, and her secret wish to see Valancourt once more,
though unseen by him, powerfully prompted her to go, but prudence and a
delicate pride restrained her, and she determined to avoid the
possibility of throwing herself in his way, by forbearing to visit the
gardens, for several days.

When, after near a week, she again ventured thither, she made Annette
her companion, and confined her walk to the lower grounds, but often
started as the leaves rustled in the breeze, imagining, that some
person was among the thickets; and, at the turn of every alley, she
looked forward with apprehensive expectation. She pursued her walk
thoughtfully and silently, for her agitation would not suffer her to
converse with Annette, to whom, however, thought and silence were so
intolerable, that she did not scruple at length to talk to her
mistress.

“Dear madam,” said she, “why do you start so? one would think you knew
what has happened.”

“What has happened?” said Emily, in a faltering voice, and trying to
command her emotion.

“The night before last, you know, madam—”

“I know nothing, Annette,” replied her lady in a more hurried voice.

“The night before last, madam, there was a robber in the garden.”

“A robber!” said Emily, in an eager, yet doubting tone.

“I suppose he was a robber, madam. What else could he be?”

“Where did you see him, Annette?” rejoined Emily, looking round her,
and turning back towards the château.

“It was not I that saw him, madam, it was Jean the gardener. It was
twelve o’clock at night, and, as he was coming across the court to go
the back way into the house, what should he see—but somebody walking in
the avenue, that fronts the garden gate! So, with that, Jean guessed
how it was, and he went into the house for his gun.”

“His gun!” exclaimed Emily.

“Yes, madam, his gun; and then he came out into the court to watch him.
Presently, he sees him come slowly down the avenue, and lean over the
garden gate, and look up at the house for a long time; and I warrant he
examined it well, and settled what window he should break in at.”

“But the gun,” said Emily—“the gun!”

“Yes, madam, all in good time. Presently, Jean says, the robber opened
the gate, and was coming into the court, and then he thought proper to
ask him his business: so he called out again, and bade him say who he
was, and what he wanted. But the man would do neither; but turned upon
his heel, and passed into the garden again. Jean knew then well enough
how it was, and so he fired after him.”

“Fired!” exclaimed Emily.

“Yes, madam, fired off his gun; but, Holy Virgin! what makes you look
so pale, madam? The man was not killed,—I dare say; but if he was, his
comrades carried him off: for, when Jean went in the morning, to look
for the body, it was gone, and nothing to be seen but a track of blood
on the ground. Jean followed it, that he might find out where the man
got into the garden, but it was lost in the grass, and—”

Annette was interrupted: for Emily’s spirits died away, and she would
have fallen to the ground, if the girl had not caught her, and
supported her to a bench, close to them.

When, after a long absence, her senses returned, Emily desired to be
led to her apartment; and, though she trembled with anxiety to enquire
further on the subject of her alarm, she found herself too ill at
present, to dare the intelligence which it was possible she might
receive of Valancourt. Having dismissed Annette, that she might weep
and think at liberty, she endeavoured to recollect the exact air of the
person, whom she had seen on the terrace, and still her fancy gave her
the figure of Valancourt. She had, indeed, scarcely a doubt, that it
was he whom she had seen, and at whom the gardener had fired: for the
manner of the latter person, as described by Annette, was not that of a
robber; nor did it appear probable, that a robber would have come
alone, to break into a house so spacious as this.

When Emily thought herself sufficiently recovered, to listen to what
Jean might have to relate, she sent for him; but he could inform her of
no circumstance, that might lead to a knowledge of the person, who had
been shot, or of the consequence of the wound; and, after severely
reprimanding him, for having fired with bullets, and ordering diligent
enquiry to be made in the neighbourhood for the discovery of the
wounded person, she dismissed him, and herself remained in the same
state of terrible suspense. All the tenderness she had ever felt for
Valancourt, was recalled by the sense of his danger; and the more she
considered the subject, the more her conviction strengthened, that it
was he, who had visited the gardens, for the purpose of soothing the
misery of disappointed affection, amidst the scenes of his former
happiness.

“Dear madam,” said Annette, when she returned, “I never saw you so
affected before! I dare say the man is not killed.”

Emily shuddered, and lamented bitterly the rashness of the gardener in
having fired.

“I knew you would be angry enough about that, madam, or I should have
told you before; and he knew so too; for, says he, ‘Annette, say
nothing about this to my lady. She lies on the other side of the house,
so did not hear the gun, perhaps; but she would be angry with me, if
she knew, seeing there is blood. But then,’ says he, ‘how is one to
keep the garden clear, if one is afraid to fire at a robber, when one
sees him?’”

“No more of this,” said Emily, “pray leave me.”

Annette obeyed, and Emily returned to the agonizing considerations,
that had assailed her before, but which she, at length, endeavoured to
sooth by a new remark. If the stranger was Valancourt, it was certain
he had come alone, and it appeared, therefore, that he had been able to
quit the gardens, without assistance; a circumstance which did not seem
probable, had his wound been dangerous. With this consideration, she
endeavoured to support herself, during the enquiries, that were making
by her servants in the neighbourhood; but day after day came, and still
closed in uncertainty, concerning this affair: and Emily, suffering in
silence, at length, drooped, and sunk under the pressure of her
anxiety. She was attacked by a slow fever, and when she yielded to the
persuasion of Annette to send for medical advice, the physicians
prescribed little beside air, gentle exercise and amusement: but how
was this last to be obtained? She, however, endeavoured to abstract her
thoughts from the subject of her anxiety, by employing them in
promoting that happiness in others, which she had lost herself; and,
when the evening was fine, she usually took an airing, including in her
ride the cottages of some of her tenants, on whose condition she made
such observations, as often enabled her, unasked, to fulfil their
wishes.

Her indisposition and the business she engaged in, relative to this
estate, had already protracted her stay at Thoulouse, beyond the period
she had formerly fixed for her departure to La Vallée; and now she was
unwilling to leave the only place, where it seemed possible, that
certainty could be obtained on the subject of her distress. But the
time was come, when her presence was necessary at La Vallée, a letter
from the Lady Blanche now informing her, that the Count and herself,
being then at the château of the Baron St. Foix, purposed to visit her
at La Vallée, on their way home, as soon as they should be informed of
her arrival there. Blanche added, that they made this visit, with the
hope of inducing her to return with them to Château-le-Blanc.

Emily, having replied to the letter of her friend, and said that she
should be at La Vallée in a few days, made hasty preparations for the
journey; and, in thus leaving Thoulouse, endeavoured to support herself
with a belief, that, if any fatal accident had happened to Valancourt,
she must in this interval have heard of it.

On the evening before her departure, she went to take leave of the
terrace and the pavilion. The day had been sultry, but a light shower,
that fell just before sunset, had cooled the air, and given that soft
verdure to the woods and pastures, which is so refreshing to the eye;
while the rain drops, still trembling on the shrubs, glittered in the
last yellow gleam, that lighted up the scene, and the air was filled
with fragrance, exhaled by the late shower, from herbs and flowers and
from the earth itself. But the lovely prospect, which Emily beheld from
the terrace, was no longer viewed by her with delight; she sighed
deeply as her eye wandered over it, and her spirits were in a state of
such dejection, that she could not think of her approaching return to
La Vallée, without tears, and seemed to mourn again the death of her
father, as if it had been an event of yesterday. Having reached the
pavilion, she seated herself at the open lattice, and, while her eyes
settled on the distant mountains, that overlooked Gascony, still
gleaming on the horizon, though the sun had now left the plains below,
“Alas!” said she, “I return to your long-lost scenes, but shall meet no
more the parents, that were wont to render them delightful!—no more
shall see the smile of welcome, or hear the well-known voice of
fondness:—all will now be cold and silent in what was once my happy
home.”

Tears stole down her cheek, as the remembrance of what that home had
been, returned to her; but, after indulging her sorrow for some time,
she checked it, accusing herself of ingratitude in forgetting the
friends, that she possessed, while she lamented those that were
departed; and she, at length, left the pavilion and the terrace,
without having observed a shadow of Valancourt or of any other person.



 CHAPTER XI

Ah happy hills! ah pleasing shade!
Ah fields belov’d in vain!
Where once my careless childhood stray’d,
A stranger yet to pain!
I feel the gales, that from ye blow,
A momentary bliss bestow,
As waving fresh their gladsome wing,
My weary soul they seem to sooth.
                    GRAY


On the following morning, Emily left Thoulouse at an early hour, and
reached La Vallée about sunset. With the melancholy she experienced on
the review of a place which had been the residence of her parents, and
the scene of her earliest delight, was mingled, after the first shock
had subsided, a tender and undescribable pleasure. For time had so far
blunted the acuteness of her grief, that she now courted every scene,
that awakened the memory of her friends; in every room, where she had
been accustomed to see them, they almost seemed to live again; and she
felt that La Vallée was still her happiest home. One of the first
apartments she visited, was that, which had been her father’s library,
and here she seated herself in his arm-chair, and, while she
contemplated, with tempered resignation, the picture of past times,
which her memory gave, the tears she shed could scarcely be called
those of grief.

Soon after her arrival, she was surprised by a visit from the venerable
M. Barreaux, who came impatiently to welcome the daughter of his late
respected neighbour, to her long-deserted home. Emily was comforted by
the presence of an old friend, and they passed an interesting hour in
conversing of former times, and in relating some of the circumstances,
that had occurred to each, since they parted.

The evening was so far advanced, when M. Barreaux left Emily, that she
could not visit the garden that night; but, on the following morning,
she traced its long-regretted scenes with fond impatience; and, as she
walked beneath the groves, which her father had planted, and where she
had so often sauntered in affectionate conversation with him, his
countenance, his smile, even the accents of his voice, returned with
exactness to her fancy, and her heart melted to the tender
recollections.

This, too, was his favourite season of the year, at which they had
often together admired the rich and variegated tints of these woods and
the magical effect of autumnal lights upon the mountains; and now, the
view of these circumstances made memory eloquent. As she wandered
pensively on, she fancied the following address

TO AUTUMN

Sweet Autumn! how thy melancholy grace
Steals on my heart, as through these shades I wind!
Sooth’d by thy breathing sigh, I fondly trace
Each lonely image of the pensive mind!
Lov’d scenes, lov’d friends—long lost! around me rise,
And wake the melting thought, the tender tear!
That tear, that thought, which more than mirth I prize—
Sweet as the gradual tint, that paints thy year!
Thy farewell smile, with fond regret, I view,
Thy beaming lights, soft gliding o’er the woods;
Thy distant landscape, touch’d with yellow hue
While falls the lengthen’d gleam; thy winding floods,
Now veil’d in shade, save where the skiff’s white sails
Swell to the breeze, and catch thy streaming ray.
But now, e’en now!—the partial vision fails,
And the wave smiles, as sweeps the cloud away!
Emblem of life!—Thus checquer’d is its plan,
Thus joy succeeds to grief—thus smiles the varied man!


One of Emily’s earliest enquiries, after her arrival at La Vallée, was
concerning Theresa, her father’s old servant, whom it may be remembered
that M. Quesnel had turned from the house when it was let, without any
provision. Understanding that she lived in a cottage at no great
distance, Emily walked thither, and, on approaching, was pleased to
see, that her habitation was pleasantly situated on a green slope,
sheltered by a tuft of oaks, and had an appearance of comfort and
extreme neatness. She found the old woman within, picking vine-stalks,
who, on perceiving her young mistress, was nearly overcome with joy.

“Ah! my dear young lady!” said she, “I thought I should never see you
again in this world, when I heard you were gone to that outlandish
country. I have been hardly used, since you went; I little thought they
would have turned me out of my old master’s family in my old age!”

Emily lamented the circumstance, and then assured her, that she would
make her latter days comfortable, and expressed satisfaction, on seeing
her in so pleasant a habitation.

Theresa thanked her with tears, adding, “Yes, mademoiselle, it is a
very comfortable home, thanks to the kind friend, who took me out of my
distress, when you were too far off to help me, and placed me here! I
little thought!—but no more of that—”

“And who was this kind friend?” said Emily: “whoever it was, I shall
consider him as mine also.”

“Ah, mademoiselle! that friend forbade me to blazon the good deed—I
must not say, who it was. But how you are altered since I saw you last!
You look so pale now, and so thin, too; but then, there is my old
master’s smile! Yes, that will never leave you, any more than the
goodness, that used to make him smile. Alas-a-day! the poor lost a
friend indeed, when he died!”

Emily was affected by this mention of her father, which Theresa
observing, changed the subject. “I heard, mademoiselle,” said she,
“that Madame Cheron married a foreign gentleman, after all, and took
you abroad; how does she do?”

Emily now mentioned her death. “Alas!” said Theresa, “if she had not
been my master’s sister, I should never have loved her; she was always
so cross. But how does that dear young gentleman do, M. Valancourt? he
was a handsome youth, and a good one; is he well, mademoiselle?”

Emily was much agitated.

“A blessing on him!” continued Theresa. “Ah, my dear young lady, you
need not look so shy; I know all about it. Do you think I do not know,
that he loves you? Why, when you were away, mademoiselle, he used to
come to the château and walk about it, so disconsolate! He would go
into every room in the lower part of the house, and, sometimes, he
would sit himself down in a chair, with his arms across, and his eyes
on the floor, and there he would sit, and think, and think, for the
hour together. He used to be very fond of the south parlour, because I
told him it used to be yours; and there he would stay, looking at the
pictures, which I said you drew, and playing upon your lute, that hung
up by the window, and reading in your books, till sunset, and then he
must go back to his brother’s château. And then—”

“It is enough, Theresa,” said Emily.—“How long have you lived in this
cottage—and how can I serve you? Will you remain here, or return and
live with me?”

“Nay, mademoiselle,” said Theresa, “do not be so shy to your poor old
servant. I am sure it is no disgrace to like such a good young
gentleman.”

A deep sigh escaped from Emily.

“Ah! how he did love to talk of you! I loved him for that. Nay, for
that matter, he liked to hear me talk, for he did not say much himself.
But I soon found out what he came to the château about. Then, he would
go into the garden, and down to the terrace, and sit under that great
tree there, for the day together, with one of your books in his hand;
but he did not read much, I fancy; for one day I happened to go that
way, and I heard somebody talking. Who can be here? says I: I am sure I
let nobody into the garden, but the Chevalier. So I walked softly, to
see who it could be; and behold! it was the Chevalier himself, talking
to himself about you. And he repeated your name, and sighed so! and
said he had lost you for ever, for that you would never return for him.
I thought he was out in his reckoning there, but I said nothing, and
stole away.”

“No more of this trifling,” said Emily, awakening from her reverie: “it
displeases me.”

“But, when M. Quesnel let the château, I thought it would have broke
the Chevalier’s heart.”

“Theresa,” said Emily seriously, “you must name the Chevalier no more!”

“Not name him, mademoiselle!” cried Theresa: “what times are come up
now? Why, I love the Chevalier next to my old master and you,
mademoiselle.”

“Perhaps your love was not well bestowed, then,” replied Emily, trying
to conceal her tears; “but, however that might be, we shall meet no
more.”

“Meet no more!—not well bestowed!” exclaimed Theresa. “What do I hear?
No, mademoiselle, my love was well bestowed, for it was the Chevalier
Valancourt, who gave me this cottage, and has supported me in my old
age, ever since M. Quesnel turned me from my master’s house.”

“The Chevalier Valancourt!” said Emily, trembling extremely.

“Yes, mademoiselle, he himself, though he made me promise not to tell;
but how could one help, when one heard him ill spoken of? Ah! dear
young lady, you may well weep, if you have behaved unkindly to him, for
a more tender heart than his never young gentleman had. He found me out
in my distress, when you were too far off to help me; and M. Quesnel
refused to do so, and bade me go to service again—Alas! I was too old
for that!—The Chevalier found me, and bought me this cottage, and gave
me money to furnish it, and bade me seek out another poor woman to live
with me; and he ordered his brother’s steward to pay me, every quarter,
that which has supported me in comfort. Think then, mademoiselle,
whether I have not reason to speak well of the Chevalier. And there are
others, who could have afforded it better than he: and I am afraid he
has hurt himself by his generosity, for quarter day is gone by long
since, and no money for me! But do not weep so, mademoiselle: you are
not sorry surely to hear of the poor Chevalier’s goodness?”

“Sorry!” said Emily, and wept the more. “But how long is it since you
have seen him?”

“Not this many a day, mademoiselle.”

“When did you hear of him?” enquired Emily, with increased emotion.

“Alas! never since he went away so suddenly into Languedoc; and he was
but just come from Paris then, or I should have seen him, I am sure.
Quarter day is gone by long since, and, as I said, no money for me; and
I begin to fear some harm has happened to him: and if I was not so far
from Estuvière and so lame, I should have gone to enquire before this
time; and I have nobody to send so far.”

Emily’s anxiety, as to the fate of Valancourt, was now scarcely
endurable, and, since propriety would not suffer her to send to the
château of his brother, she requested that Theresa would immediately
hire some person to go to his steward from herself, and, when he asked
for the quarterage due to her, to make enquiries concerning Valancourt.
But she first made Theresa promise never to mention her name in this
affair, or ever with that of the Chevalier Valancourt; and her former
faithfulness to M. St. Aubert induced Emily to confide in her
assurances. Theresa now joyfully undertook to procure a person for this
errand, and then Emily, after giving her a sum of money to supply her
with present comforts, returned, with spirits heavily oppressed, to her
home, lamenting, more than ever, that a heart, possessed of so much
benevolence as Valancourt’s, should have been contaminated by the vices
of the world, but affected by the delicate affection, which his
kindness to her old servant expressed for herself.



 CHAPTER XII

Light thickens, and the crow
Makes wing to the rooky wood:
Good things of day begin to droop, and drowse;
While night’s black agents to their preys do rouse.
                    MACBETH


Meanwhile Count De Villefort and Lady Blanche had passed a pleasant
fortnight at the château de St. Foix, with the Baron and Baroness,
during which they made frequent excursions among the mountains, and
were delighted with the romantic wildness of Pyrenean scenery. It was
with regret, that the Count bade adieu to his old friends, although
with the hope of being soon united with them in one family; for it was
settled that M. St. Foix, who now attended them into Gascony, should
receive the hand of the Lady Blanche, upon their arrival at
Château-le-Blanc. As the road, from the Baron’s residence to La Vallée,
was over some of the wildest tract of the Pyrenees, and where a
carriage-wheel had never passed, the Count hired mules for himself and
his family, as well as a couple of stout guides, who were well armed,
informed of all the passes of the mountains, and who boasted, too, that
they were acquainted with every brake and dingle in the way, could tell
the names of all the highest points of this chain of Alps, knew every
forest, that spread along their narrow valleys, the shallowest part of
every torrent they must cross, and the exact distance of every
goat-herd’s and hunter’s cabin they should have occasion to pass,—which
last article of learning required no very capacious memory, for even
such simple inhabitants were but thinly scattered over these wilds.

The Count left the château de St. Foix, early in the morning, with an
intention of passing the night at a little inn upon the mountains,
about half way to La Vallée, of which his guides had informed him; and,
though this was frequented chiefly by Spanish muleteers, on their route
into France, and, of course, would afford only sorry accommodation, the
Count had no alternative, for it was the only place like an inn, on the
road.

After a day of admiration and fatigue, the travellers found themselves,
about sunset, in a woody valley, overlooked, on every side, by abrupt
heights. They had proceeded for many leagues, without seeing a human
habitation, and had only heard, now and then, at a distance, the
melancholy tinkling of a sheep-bell; but now they caught the notes of
merry music, and presently saw, within a little green recess among the
rocks, a group of mountaineers, tripping through a dance. The Count,
who could not look upon the happiness, any more than on the misery of
others, with indifference, halted to enjoy this scene of simple
pleasure. The group before him consisted of French and Spanish
peasants, the inhabitants of a neighbouring hamlet, some of whom were
performing a sprightly dance, the women with castanets in their hands,
to the sounds of a lute and a tamborine, till, from the brisk melody of
France, the music softened into a slow movement, to which two female
peasants danced a Spanish Pavan.

The Count, comparing this with the scenes of such gaiety as he had
witnessed at Paris, where false taste painted the features, and, while
it vainly tried to supply the glow of nature, concealed the charms of
animation—where affectation so often distorted the air, and vice
perverted the manners—sighed to think, that natural graces and innocent
pleasures flourished in the wilds of solitude, while they drooped
amidst the concourse of polished society. But the lengthening shadows
reminded the travellers, that they had no time to lose; and, leaving
this joyous group, they pursued their way towards the little inn, which
was to shelter them from the night.

The rays of the setting sun now threw a yellow gleam upon the forests
of pine and chesnut, that swept down the lower region of the mountains,
and gave resplendent tints to the snowy points above. But soon, even
this light faded fast, and the scenery assumed a more tremendous
appearance, invested with the obscurity of twilight. Where the torrent
had been seen, it was now only heard; where the wild cliffs had
displayed every variety of form and attitude, a dark mass of mountains
now alone appeared; and the vale, which far, far below had opened its
dreadful chasm, the eye could no longer fathom. A melancholy gleam
still lingered on the summits of the highest Alps, overlooking the deep
repose of evening, and seeming to make the stillness of the hour more
awful.

Blanche viewed the scene in silence, and listened with enthusiasm to
the murmur of the pines, that extended in dark lines along the
mountains, and to the faint voice of the izard, among the rocks, that
came at intervals on the air. But her enthusiasm sunk into
apprehension, when, as the shadows deepened, she looked upon the
doubtful precipice, that bordered the road, as well as on the various
fantastic forms of danger, that glimmered through the obscurity beyond
it; and she asked her father, how far they were from the inn, and
whether he did not consider the road to be dangerous at this late hour.
The Count repeated the first question to the guides, who returned a
doubtful answer, adding, that, when it was darker, it would be safest
to rest, till the moon rose. “It is scarcely safe to proceed now,” said
the Count; but the guides, assuring him that there was no danger, went
on. Blanche, revived by this assurance, again indulged a pensive
pleasure, as she watched the progress of twilight gradually spreading
its tints over the woods and mountains, and stealing from the eye every
minuter feature of the scene, till the grand outlines of nature alone
remained. Then fell the silent dews, and every wild flower, and
aromatic plant, that bloomed among the cliffs, breathed forth its
sweetness; then, too, when the mountain-bee had crept into its
blossomed bed, and the hum of every little insect, that had floated
gaily in the sunbeam, was hushed, the sound of many streams, not heard
till now, murmured at a distance.—The bats alone, of all the animals
inhabiting this region, seemed awake; and, while they flitted across
the silent path, which Blanche was pursuing, she remembered the
following lines, which Emily had given her:

TO THE BAT

From haunt of man, from day’s obtrusive glare,
Thou shroud’st thee in the ruin’s ivy’d tow’r.
Or in some shadowy glen’s romantic bow’r,
Where wizard forms their mystic charms prepare,
Where Horror lurks, and ever-boding Care!
But, at the sweet and silent ev’ning hour,
When clos’d in sleep is ev’ry languid flow’r,
Thou lov’st to sport upon the twilight air,
Mocking the eye, that would thy course pursue,
In many a wanton-round, elastic, gay,
Thou flit’st athwart the pensive wand’rer’s way,
As his lone footsteps print the mountain-dew.
From Indian isles thou com’st, with Summer’s car,
Twilight thy love—thy guide her beaming star!


To a warm imagination, the dubious forms, that float, half veiled in
darkness, afford a higher delight, than the most distinct scenery, that
the sun can show. While the fancy thus wanders over landscapes partly
of its own creation, a sweet complacency steals upon the mind, and

Refines it all to subtlest feeling,
Bids the tear of rapture roll.


The distant note of a torrent, the weak trembling of the breeze among
the woods, or the far-off sound of a human voice, now lost and heard
again, are circumstances, which wonderfully heighten the enthusiastic
tone of the mind. The young St. Foix, who saw the presentations of a
fervid fancy, and felt whatever enthusiasm could suggest, sometimes
interrupted the silence, which the rest of the party seemed by mutual
consent to preserve, remarking and pointing out to Blanche the most
striking effect of the hour upon the scenery; while Blanche, whose
apprehensions were beguiled by the conversation of her lover, yielded
to the taste so congenial to his, and they conversed in a low
restrained voice, the effect of the pensive tranquillity, which
twilight and the scene inspired, rather than of any fear, that they
should be heard. But, while the heart was thus soothed to tenderness,
St. Foix gradually mingled, with his admiration of the country, a
mention of his affection; and he continued to speak, and Blanche to
listen, till the mountains, the woods, and the magical illusions of
twilight, were remembered no more.

The shadows of evening soon shifted to the gloom of night, which was
somewhat anticipated by the vapours, that, gathering fast round the
mountains, rolled in dark wreaths along their sides; and the guides
proposed to rest, till the moon should rise, adding, that they thought
a storm was coming on. As they looked round for a spot, that might
afford some kind of shelter, an object was perceived obscurely through
the dusk, on a point of rock, a little way down the mountain, which
they imagined to be a hunter’s or a shepherd’s cabin, and the party,
with cautious steps, proceeded towards it. Their labour, however, was
not rewarded, or their apprehensions soothed; for, on reaching the
object of their search, they discovered a monumental cross, which
marked the spot to have been polluted by murder.

The darkness would not permit them to read the inscription; but the
guides knew this to be a cross, raised to the memory of a Count de
Beliard, who had been murdered here by a horde of banditti, that had
infested this part of the Pyrenees, a few years before; and the
uncommon size of the monument seemed to justify the supposition, that
it was erected for a person of some distinction. Blanche shuddered, as
she listened to some horrid particulars of the Count’s fate, which one
of the guides related in a low, restrained tone, as if the sound of his
own voice frightened him; but, while they lingered at the cross,
attending to his narrative, a flash of lightning glanced upon the
rocks, thunder muttered at a distance, and the travellers, now alarmed,
quitted this scene of solitary horror, in search of shelter.

Having regained their former track, the guides, as they passed on,
endeavoured to interest the Count by various stories of robbery, and
even of murder, which had been perpetrated in the very places they must
unavoidably pass, with accounts of their own dauntless courage and
wonderful escapes. The chief guide, or rather he, who was the most
completely armed, drawing forth one of the four pistols, that were
tucked into his belt, swore, that it had shot three robbers within the
year. He then brandished a clasp-knife of enormous length, and was
going to recount the wonderful execution it had done, when St. Foix,
perceiving, that Blanche was terrified, interrupted him. The Count,
meanwhile, secretly laughing at the terrible histories and extravagant
boastings of the man, resolved to humour him, and, telling Blanche in a
whisper, his design, began to recount some exploits of his own, which
infinitely exceeded any related by the guide.

To these surprising circumstances he so artfully gave the colouring of
truth, that the courage of the guides was visibly affected by them, who
continued silent, long after the Count had ceased to speak. The
loquacity of the chief hero thus laid asleep, the vigilance of his eyes
and ears seemed more thoroughly awakened, for he listened, with much
appearance of anxiety, to the deep thunder, which murmured at
intervals, and often paused, as the breeze, that was now rising, rushed
among the pines. But, when he made a sudden halt before a tuft of cork
trees, that projected over the road, and drew forth a pistol, before he
would venture to brave the banditti which might lurk behind it, the
Count could no longer refrain from laughter.

Having now, however, arrived at a level spot, somewhat sheltered from
the air, by overhanging cliffs and by a wood of larch, that rose over
the precipice on the left, and the guides being yet ignorant how far
they were from the inn, the travellers determined to rest, till the
moon should rise, or the storm disperse. Blanche, recalled to a sense
of the present moment, looked on the surrounding gloom, with terror;
but giving her hand to St. Foix, she alighted, and the whole party
entered a kind of cave, if such it could be called, which was only a
shallow cavity, formed by the curve of impending rocks. A light being
struck, a fire was kindled, whose blaze afforded some degree of
cheerfulness, and no small comfort, for, though the day had been hot,
the night air of this mountainous region was chilling; a fire was
partly necessary also to keep off the wolves, with which those wilds
were infested.

Provisions being spread upon a projection of the rock, the Count and
his family partook of a supper, which, in a scene less rude, would
certainly have been thought less excellent. When the repast was
finished, St. Foix, impatient for the moon, sauntered along the
precipice, to a point, that fronted the east; but all was yet wrapt in
gloom, and the silence of night was broken only by the murmuring of
woods, that waved far below, or by distant thunder, and, now and then,
by the faint voices of the party he had quitted. He viewed, with
emotions of awful sublimity, the long volumes of sulphureous clouds,
that floated along the upper and middle regions of the air, and the
lightnings that flashed from them, sometimes silently, and, at others,
followed by sullen peals of thunder, which the mountains feebly
prolonged, while the whole horizon, and the abyss, on which he stood,
were discovered in the momentary light. Upon the succeeding darkness,
the fire, which had been kindled in the cave, threw a partial gleam,
illumining some points of the opposite rocks, and the summits of
pine-woods, that hung beetling on the cliffs below, while their
recesses seemed to frown in deeper shade.

St. Foix stopped to observe the picture, which the party in the cave
presented, where the elegant form of Blanche was finely contrasted by
the majestic figure of the Count, who was seated by her on a rude
stone, and each was rendered more impressive by the grotesque habits
and strong features of the guides and other attendants, who were in the
back ground of the piece. The effect of the light, too, was
interesting; on the surrounding figures it threw a strong, though pale
gleam, and glittered on their bright arms; while upon the foliage of a
gigantic larch, that impended its shade over the cliff above, appeared
a red, dusky tint, deepening almost imperceptibly into the blackness of
night.

While St. Foix contemplated the scene, the moon, broad and yellow, rose
over the eastern summits, from among embattled clouds, and showed dimly
the grandeur of the heavens, the mass of vapours, that rolled half way
down the precipice beneath, and the doubtful mountains.

What dreadful pleasure! there to stand sublime,
Like shipwreck’d mariner on desert coast,
And view th’enormous waste of vapour, tost
In billows length’ning to th’horizon round!
                    THE MINSTREL


From this romantic reverie he was awakened by the voices of the guides,
repeating his name, which was reverbed from cliff to cliff, till a
hundred tongues seemed to call him; when he soon quieted the fears of
the Count and the Lady Blanche, by returning to the cave. As the storm,
however, seemed approaching, they did not quit their place of shelter;
and the Count, seated between his daughter and St. Foix, endeavoured to
divert the fears of the former, and conversed on subjects, relating to
the natural history of the scene, among which they wandered. He spoke
of the mineral and fossile substances, found in the depths of these
mountains,—the veins of marble and granite, with which they abounded,
the strata of shells, discovered near their summits, many thousand
fathom above the level of the sea, and at a vast distance from its
present shore;—of the tremendous chasms and caverns of the rocks, the
grotesque form of the mountains, and the various phenomena, that seem
to stamp upon the world the history of the deluge. From the natural
history he descended to the mention of events and circumstances,
connected with the civil story of the Pyrenees; named some of the most
remarkable fortresses, which France and Spain had erected in the passes
of these mountains; and gave a brief account of some celebrated sieges
and encounters in early times, when Ambition first frightened Solitude
from these her deep recesses, made her mountains, which before had
echoed only to the torrent’s roar, tremble with the clang of arms, and,
when man’s first footsteps in her sacred haunts had left the print of
blood!

As Blanche sat, attentive to the narrative, that rendered the scenes
doubly interesting, and resigned to solemn emotion, while she
considered, that she was on the very ground, once polluted by these
events, her reverie was suddenly interrupted by a sound, that came in
the wind.—It was the distant bark of a watch-dog. The travellers
listened with eager hope, and, as the wind blew stronger, fancied, that
the sound came from no great distance; and, the guides having little
doubt, that it proceeded from the inn they were in search of, the Count
determined to pursue his way. The moon now afforded a stronger, though
still an uncertain light, as she moved among broken clouds; and the
travellers, led by the sound, recommenced their journey along the brow
of the precipice, preceded by a single torch, that now contended with
the moonlight; for the guides, believing they should reach the inn soon
after sunset, had neglected to provide more. In silent caution they
followed the sound, which was heard but at intervals, and which, after
some time entirely ceased. The guides endeavoured, however, to point
their course to the quarter, whence it had issued, but the deep roaring
of a torrent soon seized their attention, and presently they came to a
tremendous chasm of the mountain, which seemed to forbid all further
progress. Blanche alighted from her mule, as did the Count and St.
Foix, while the guides traversed the edge in search of a bridge, which,
however rude, might convey them to the opposite side, and they, at
length, confessed, what the Count had begun to suspect, that they had
been, for some time, doubtful of their way, and were now certain only,
that they had lost it.

At a little distance, was discovered a rude and dangerous passage,
formed by an enormous pine, which, thrown across the chasm, united the
opposite precipices, and which had been felled probably by the hunter,
to facilitate his chace of the izard, or the wolf. The whole party, the
guides excepted, shuddered at the prospect of crossing this alpine
bridge, whose sides afforded no kind of defence, and from which to fall
was to die. The guides, however, prepared to lead over the mules, while
Blanche stood trembling on the brink, and listening to the roar of the
waters, which were seen descending from rocks above, overhung with
lofty pines, and thence precipitating themselves into the deep abyss,
where their white surges gleamed faintly in the moonlight. The poor
animals proceeded over this perilous bridge with instinctive caution,
neither frightened by the noise of the cataract, nor deceived by the
gloom, which the impending foliage threw athwart their way. It was now,
that the solitary torch, which had been hitherto of little service, was
found to be an inestimable treasure; and Blanche, terrified, shrinking,
but endeavouring to recollect all her firmness and presence of mind,
preceded by her lover and supported by her father, followed the red
gleam of the torch, in safety, to the opposite cliff.

As they went on, the heights contracted, and formed a narrow pass, at
the bottom of which, the torrent they had just crossed, was heard to
thunder. But they were again cheered by the bark of a dog, keeping
watch, perhaps, over the flocks of the mountains, to protect them from
the nightly descent of the wolves. The sound was much nearer than
before, and, while they rejoiced in the hope of soon reaching a place
of repose, a light was seen to glimmer at a distance. It appeared at a
height considerably above the level of their path, and was lost and
seen again, as if the waving branches of trees sometimes excluded and
then admitted its rays. The guides hallooed with all their strength,
but the sound of no human voice was heard in return, and, at length, as
a more effectual means of making themselves known, they fired a pistol.
But, while they listened in anxious expectation, the noise of the
explosion was alone heard, echoing among the rocks, and it gradually
sunk into silence, which no friendly hint of man disturbed. The light,
however, that had been seen before, now became plainer, and, soon
after, voices were heard indistinctly on the wind; but, upon the guides
repeating the call, the voices suddenly ceased, and the light
disappeared.

The Lady Blanche was now almost sinking beneath the pressure of
anxiety, fatigue and apprehension, and the united efforts of the Count
and St. Foix could scarcely support her spirits. As they continued to
advance, an object was perceived on a point of rock above, which, the
strong rays of the moon then falling on it, appeared to be a
watch-tower. The Count, from its situation and some other
circumstances, had little doubt, that it was such, and believing, that
the light had proceeded from thence, he endeavoured to reanimate his
daughter’s spirits by the near prospect of shelter and repose, which,
however rude the accommodation, a ruined watch-tower might afford.

“Numerous watch-towers have been erected among the Pyrenees,” said the
Count, anxious only to call Blanche’s attention from the subject of her
fears; “and the method, by which they give intelligence of the approach
of the enemy, is, you know, by fires, kindled on the summits of these
edifices. Signals have thus, sometimes, been communicated from post to
post, along a frontier line of several hundred miles in length. Then,
as occasion may require, the lurking armies emerge from their
fortresses and the forests, and march forth, to defend, perhaps, the
entrance of some grand pass, where, planting themselves on the heights,
they assail their astonished enemies, who wind along the glen below,
with fragments of the shattered cliff, and pour death and defeat upon
them. The ancient forts, and watch-towers, overlooking the grand passes
of the Pyrenees, are carefully preserved; but some of those in inferior
stations have been suffered to fall into decay, and are now frequently
converted into the more peaceful habitation of the hunter, or the
shepherd, who, after a day of toil, retires hither, and, with his
faithful dogs, forgets, near a cheerful blaze, the labour of the chace,
or the anxiety of collecting his wandering flocks, while he is
sheltered from the nightly storm.”

“But are they always thus peacefully inhabited?” said the Lady Blanche.

“No,” replied the Count, “they are sometimes the asylum of French and
Spanish smugglers, who cross the mountains with contraband goods from
their respective countries, and the latter are particularly numerous,
against whom strong parties of the king’s troops are sometimes sent.
But the desperate resolution of these adventurers, who, knowing, that,
if they are taken, they must expiate the breach of the law by the most
cruel death, travel in large parties, well armed, often daunts the
courage of the soldiers. The smugglers, who seek only safety, never
engage, when they can possibly avoid it; the military, also, who know,
that in these encounters, danger is certain, and glory almost
unattainable, are equally reluctant to fight; an engagement, therefore,
very seldom happens, but, when it does, it never concludes till after
the most desperate and bloody conflict. You are inattentive, Blanche,”
added the Count: “I have wearied you with a dull subject; but see,
yonder, in the moonlight, is the edifice we have been in search of, and
we are fortunate to be so near it, before the storm bursts.”

Blanche, looking up, perceived, that they were at the foot of the
cliff, on whose summit the building stood, but no light now issued from
it; the barking of the dog too had, for some time, ceased, and the
guides began to doubt, whether this was really the object of their
search. From the distance, at which they surveyed it, shown imperfectly
by a cloudy moon, it appeared to be of more extent than a single
watch-tower; but the difficulty was how to ascend the height, whose
abrupt declivities seemed to afford no kind of pathway.

While the guides carried forward the torch to examine the cliff, the
Count, remaining with Blanche and St. Foix at its foot, under the
shadow of the woods, endeavoured again to beguile the time by
conversation, but again anxiety abstracted the mind of Blanche; and he
then consulted, apart with St. Foix, whether it would be advisable,
should a path be found, to venture to an edifice, which might possibly
harbour banditti. They considered, that their own party was not small,
and that several of them were well armed; and, after enumerating the
dangers, to be incurred by passing the night in the open wild, exposed,
perhaps, to the effects of a thunder-storm, there remained not a doubt,
that they ought to endeavour to obtain admittance to the edifice above,
at any hazard respecting the inhabitants it might harbour; but the
darkness, and the dead silence, that surrounded it, appeared to
contradict the probability of its being inhabited at all.

A shout from the guides aroused their attention, after which, in a few
minutes, one of the Count’s servants returned with intelligence, that a
path was found, and they immediately hastened to join the guides, when
they all ascended a little winding way cut in the rock among thickets
of dwarf wood, and, after much toil and some danger, reached the
summit, where several ruined towers, surrounded by a massy wall, rose
to their view, partially illumined by the moonlight. The space around
the building was silent, and apparently forsaken, but the Count was
cautious; “Step softly,” said he, in a low voice, “while we reconnoitre
the edifice.”

Having proceeded silently along for some paces, they stopped at a gate,
whose portals were terrible even in ruins, and, after a moment’s
hesitation, passed on to the court of entrance, but paused again at the
head of a terrace, which, branching from it, ran along the brow of a
precipice. Over this, rose the main body of the edifice, which was now
seen to be, not a watch-tower, but one of those ancient fortresses,
that, from age and neglect, had fallen to decay. Many parts of it,
however, appeared to be still entire; it was built of grey stone, in
the heavy Saxon-gothic style, with enormous round towers, buttresses of
proportionable strength, and the arch of the large gate, which seemed
to open into the hall of the fabric, was round, as was that of a window
above. The air of solemnity, which must so strongly have characterised
the pile even in the days of its early strength, was now considerably
heightened by its shattered battlements and half-demolished walls, and
by the huge masses of ruin, scattered in its wide area, now silent and
grass grown. In this court of entrance stood the gigantic remains of an
oak, that seemed to have flourished and decayed with the building,
which it still appeared frowningly to protect by the few remaining
branches, leafless and moss-grown, that crowned its trunk, and whose
wide extent told how enormous the tree had been in a former age. This
fortress was evidently once of great strength, and, from its situation
on a point of rock, impending over a deep glen, had been of great power
to annoy, as well as to resist; the Count, therefore, as he stood
surveying it, was somewhat surprised, that it had been suffered,
ancient as it was, to sink into ruins, and its present lonely and
deserted air excited in his breast emotions of melancholy awe. While he
indulged, for a moment, these emotions, he thought he heard a sound of
remote voices steal upon the stillness, from within the building, the
front of which he again surveyed with scrutinizing eyes, but yet no
light was visible. He now determined to walk round the fort, to that
remote part of it, whence he thought the voices had arisen, that he
might examine whether any light could be discerned there, before he
ventured to knock at the gate; for this purpose, he entered upon the
terrace, where the remains of cannon were yet apparent in the thick
walls, but he had not proceeded many paces, when his steps were
suddenly arrested by the loud barking of a dog within, and which he
fancied to be the same, whose voice had been the means of bringing the
travellers thither. It now appeared certain, that the place was
inhabited, and the Count returned to consult again with St. Foix,
whether he should try to obtain admittance, for its wild aspect had
somewhat shaken his former resolution; but, after a second
consultation, he submitted to the considerations, which before
determined him, and which were strengthened by the discovery of the
dog, that guarded the fort, as well as by the stillness that pervaded
it. He, therefore, ordered one of his servants to knock at the gate,
who was advancing to obey him, when a light appeared through the
loop-hole of one of the towers, and the Count called loudly, but,
receiving no answer, he went up to the gate himself, and struck upon it
with an iron-pointed pole, which had assisted him to climb the steep.
When the echoes had ceased, that this blow had awakened, the renewed
barking,—and there were now more than one dog,—was the only sound, that
was heard. The Count stepped back, a few paces, to observe whether the
light was in the tower, and, perceiving, that it was gone, he returned
to the portal, and had lifted the pole to strike again, when again he
fancied he heard the murmur of voices within, and paused to listen. He
was confirmed in the supposition, but they were too remote, to be heard
otherwise than in a murmur, and the Count now let the pole fall heavily
upon the gate; when almost immediately a profound silence followed. It
was apparent, that the people within had heard the sound, and their
caution in admitting strangers gave him a favourable opinion of them.
“They are either hunters or shepherds,” said he, “who, like ourselves,
have probably sought shelter from the night within these walls, and are
fearful of admitting strangers, lest they should prove robbers. I will
endeavour to remove their fears.” So saying, he called aloud, “We are
friends, who ask shelter from the night.” In a few moments, steps were
heard within, which approached, and a voice then enquired—“Who calls?”
“Friends,” repeated the Count; “open the gates, and you shall know
more.”—Strong bolts were now heard to be undrawn, and a man, armed with
a hunting spear, appeared. “What is it you want at this hour?” said he.
The Count beckoned his attendants, and then answered, that he wished to
enquire the way to the nearest cabin. “Are you so little acquainted
with these mountains,” said the man, “as not to know, that there is
none, within several leagues? I cannot show you the way; you must seek
it—there’s a moon.” Saying this, he was closing the gate, and the Count
was turning away, half disappointed and half afraid, when another voice
was heard from above, and, on looking up, he saw a light, and a man’s
face, at the grate of the portal. “Stay, friend, you have lost your
way?” said the voice. “You are hunters, I suppose, like ourselves: I
will be with you presently.” The voice ceased, and the light
disappeared. Blanche had been alarmed by the appearance of the man, who
had opened the gate, and she now entreated her father to quit the
place; but the Count had observed the hunter’s spear, which he carried;
and the words from the tower encouraged him to await the event. The
gate was soon opened, and several men in hunters’ habits, who had heard
above what had passed below, appeared, and, having listened some time
to the Count, told him he was welcome to rest there for the night. They
then pressed him, with much courtesy, to enter, and to partake of such
fare as they were about to sit down to. The Count, who had observed
them attentively while they spoke, was cautious, and somewhat
suspicious; but he was also weary, fearful of the approaching storm,
and of encountering alpine heights in the obscurity of night; being
likewise somewhat confident in the strength and number of his
attendants, he, after some further consideration, determined to accept
the invitation. With this resolution he called his servants, who,
advancing round the tower, behind which some of them had silently
listened to this conference, followed their Lord, the Lady Blanche, and
St. Foix into the fortress. The strangers led them on to a large and
rude hall, partially seen by a fire that blazed at its extremity, round
which four men, in the hunter’s dress, were seated, and on the hearth
were several dogs stretched in sleep. In the middle of the hall stood a
large table, and over the fire some part of an animal was boiling. As
the Count approached, the men arose, and the dogs, half raising
themselves, looked fiercely at the strangers, but, on hearing their
masters’ voices, kept their postures on the hearth.

Blanche looked round this gloomy and spacious hall; then at the men,
and to her father, who, smiling cheerfully at her, addressed himself to
the hunters. “This is a hospitable hearth,” said he, “the blaze of a
fire is reviving after having wandered so long in these dreary wilds.
Your dogs are tired; what success have you had?” “Such as we usually
have,” replied one of the men, who had been seated in the hall, “we
kill our game with tolerable certainty.” “These are fellow hunters,”
said one of the men who had brought the Count hither, “that have lost
their way, and I have told them there is room enough in the fort for us
all.” “Very true, very true,” replied his companion, “What luck have
you had in the chace, brothers? We have killed two izards, and that,
you will say, is pretty well.” “You mistake, friend,” said the Count,
“we are not hunters, but travellers; but, if you will admit us to
hunters’ fare, we shall be well contented, and will repay your
kindness.” “Sit down then, brother,” said one of the men: “Jacques, lay
more fuel on the fire, the kid will soon be ready; bring a seat for the
lady too. Ma’amselle, will you taste our brandy? it is true Barcelona,
and as bright as ever flowed from a keg.” Blanche timidly smiled, and
was going to refuse, when her father prevented her, by taking, with a
good humoured air, the glass offered to his daughter; and Mons. St.
Foix, who was seated next her, pressed her hand, and gave her an
encouraging look, but her attention was engaged by a man, who sat
silently by the fire, observing St. Foix, with a steady and earnest
eye.

“You lead a jolly life here,” said the Count. “The life of a hunter is
a pleasant and a healthy one; and the repose is sweet, which succeeds
to your labour.”

“Yes,” replied one of his hosts, “our life is pleasant enough. We live
here only during the summer, and autumnal months; in winter, the place
is dreary, and the swoln torrents, that descend from the heights, put a
stop to the chace.”

“’Tis a life of liberty and enjoyment,” said the Count: “I should like
to pass a month in your way very well.”

“We find employment for our guns too,” said a man who stood behind the
Count: “here are plenty of birds, of delicious flavour, that feed upon
the wild thyme and herbs, that grow in the valleys. Now I think of it,
there is a brace of birds hung up in the stone gallery; go fetch them,
Jacques, we will have them dressed.”

The Count now made enquiry, concerning the method of pursuing the chace
among the rocks and precipices of these romantic regions, and was
listening to a curious detail, when a horn was sounded at the gate.
Blanche looked timidly at her father, who continued to converse on the
subject of the chace, but whose countenance was somewhat expressive of
anxiety, and who often turned his eyes towards that part of the hall
nearest the gate. The horn sounded again, and a loud halloo succeeded.
“These are some of our companions, returned from their day’s labour,”
said a man, going lazily from his seat towards the gate; and in a few
minutes, two men appeared, each with a gun over his shoulder, and
pistols in his belt. “What cheer, my lads? what cheer?” said they, as
they approached. “What luck?” returned their companions: “have you
brought home your supper? You shall have none else.”

“Hah! who the devil have you brought home?” said they in bad Spanish,
on perceiving the Count’s party, “are they from France, or Spain?—where
did you meet with them?”

“They met with us, and a merry meeting too,” replied his companion
aloud in good French. “This chevalier, and his party, had lost their
way, and asked a night’s lodging in the fort.” The others made no
reply, but threw down a kind of knapsack, and drew forth several brace
of birds. The bag sounded heavily as it fell to the ground, and the
glitter of some bright metal within glanced on the eye of the Count,
who now surveyed, with a more enquiring look, the man, that held the
knapsack. He was a tall robust figure, of a hard countenance, and had
short black hair, curling in his neck. Instead of the hunter’s dress,
he wore a faded military uniform; sandals were laced on his broad legs,
and a kind of short trowsers hung from his waist. On his head he wore a
leathern cap, somewhat resembling in shape an ancient Roman helmet; but
the brows that scowled beneath it, would have characterised those of
the barbarians, who conquered Rome, rather than those of a Roman
soldier. The Count, at length, turned away his eyes, and remained
silent and thoughtful, till, again raising them, he perceived a figure
standing in an obscure part of the hall, fixed in attentive gaze on St.
Foix, who was conversing with Blanche, and did not observe this; but
the Count, soon after, saw the same man looking over the shoulder of
the soldier as attentively at himself. He withdrew his eye, when that
of the Count met it, who felt mistrust gathering fast upon his mind,
but feared to betray it in his countenance, and, forcing his features
to assume a smile, addressed Blanche on some indifferent subject. When
he again looked round, he perceived, that the soldier and his companion
were gone.

The man, who was called Jacques, now returned from the stone gallery.
“A fire is lighted there,” said he, “and the birds are dressing; the
table too is spread there, for that place is warmer than this.”

His companions approved of the removal, and invited their guests to
follow to the gallery, of whom Blanche appeared distressed, and
remained seated, and St. Foix looked at the Count, who said, he
preferred the comfortable blaze of the fire he was then near. The
hunters, however, commended the warmth of the other apartment, and
pressed his removal with such seeming courtesy, that the Count, half
doubting, and half fearful of betraying his doubts, consented to go.
The long and ruinous passages, through which they went, somewhat
daunted him, but the thunder, which now burst in loud peals above, made
it dangerous to quit this place of shelter, and he forbore to provoke
his conductors by showing that he distrusted them. The hunters led the
way, with a lamp; the Count and St. Foix, who wished to please their
hosts by some instances of familiarity, carried each a seat, and
Blanche followed, with faltering steps. As she passed on, part of her
dress caught on a nail in the wall, and, while she stopped, somewhat
too scrupulously, to disengage it, the Count, who was talking to St.
Foix, and neither of whom observed the circumstance, followed their
conductor round an abrupt angle of the passage, and Blanche was left
behind in darkness. The thunder prevented them from hearing her call
but, having disengaged her dress, she quickly followed, as she thought,
the way they had taken. A light, that glimmered at a distance,
confirmed this belief, and she proceeded towards an open door, whence
it issued, conjecturing the room beyond to be the stone gallery the men
had spoken of. Hearing voices as she advanced, she paused within a few
paces of the chamber, that she might be certain whether she was right,
and from thence, by the light of a lamp, that hung from the ceiling,
observed four men, seated round a table, over which they leaned in
apparent consultation. In one of them she distinguished the features of
him, whom she had observed, gazing at St. Foix, with such deep
attention; and who was now speaking in an earnest, though restrained
voice, till, one of his companions seeming to oppose him, they spoke
together in a loud and harsher tone. Blanche, alarmed by perceiving
that neither her father, nor St. Foix were there, and terrified at the
fierce countenances and manners of these men, was turning hastily from
the chamber, to pursue her search of the gallery, when she heard one of
the men say:

“Let all dispute end here. Who talks of danger? Follow my advice, and
there will be none—secure _them_, and the rest are an easy prey.”
Blanche, struck with these words, paused a moment, to hear more. “There
is nothing to be got by the rest,” said one of his companions, “I am
never for blood when I can help it—dispatch the two others, and our
business is done; the rest may go.”

“May they so?” exclaimed the first ruffian, with a tremendous
oath—“What! to tell how we have disposed of their masters, and to send
the king’s troops to drag us to the wheel! You were always a choice
adviser—I warrant we have not yet forgot St. Thomas’s eve last year.”

Blanche’s heart now sunk with horror. Her first impulse was to retreat
from the door, but, when she would have gone, her trembling frame
refused to support her, and, having tottered a few paces, to a more
obscure part of the passage, she was compelled to listen to the
dreadful councils of those, who, she was no longer suffered to doubt,
were banditti. In the next moment, she heard the following words, “Why
you would not murder the whole _gang?_”

“I warrant our lives are as good as theirs,” replied his comrade. “If
we don’t kill them, they will hang us: better they should die than we
be hanged.”

“Better, better,” cried his comrades.

“To commit murder, is a hopeful way of escaping the gallows!” said the
first ruffian—“many an honest fellow has run his head into the noose
that way, though.” There was a pause of some moments, during which they
appeared to be considering.

“Confound those fellows,” exclaimed one of the robbers impatiently,
“they ought to have been here by this time; they will come back
presently with the old story, and no booty: if they were here, our
business would be plain and easy. I see we shall not be able to do the
business tonight, for our numbers are not equal to the enemy, and in
the morning they will be for marching off, and how can we detain them
without force?”

“I have been thinking of a scheme, that will do,” said one of his
comrades: “if we can dispatch the two chevaliers silently, it will be
easy to master the rest.”

“That’s a plausible scheme, in good faith,” said another with a smile
of scorn—“If I can eat my way through the prison wall, I shall be at
liberty!—How can we dispatch them _silently?_”

“By poison,” replied his companions.

“Well said! that will do,” said the second ruffian, “that will give a
lingering death too, and satisfy my revenge. These barons shall take
care how they again tempt our vengeance.”

“I knew the son, the moment I saw him,” said the man, whom Blanche had
observed gazing on St. Foix, “though he does not know me; the father I
had almost forgotten.”

“Well, you may say what you will,” said the third ruffian, “but I don’t
believe he is the Baron, and I am as likely to know as any of you, for
I was one of them, that attacked him, with our brave lads, that
suffered.”

“And was not I another?” said the first ruffian, “I tell you he is the
Baron; but what does it signify whether he is or not?—shall we let all
this booty go out of our hands? It is not often we have such luck at
this. While we run the chance of the wheel for smuggling a few pounds
of tobacco, to cheat the king’s manufactory, and of breaking our necks
down the precipices in the chace of our food; and, now and then, rob a
brother smuggler, or a straggling pilgrim, of what scarcely repays us
the powder we fire at them, shall we let such a prize as this go? Why
they have enough about them to keep us for—”

“I am not for that, I am not for that,” replied the third robber, “let
us make the most of them: only, if this is the Baron, I should like to
have a flash the more at him, for the sake of our brave comrades, that
he brought to the gallows.”

“Aye, aye, flash as much as you will,” rejoined the first man, “but I
tell you the Baron is a taller man.”

“Confound your quibbling,” said the second ruffian, “shall we let them
go or not? If we stay here much longer, they will take the hint, and
march off without our leave. Let them be who they will, they are rich,
or why all those servants? Did you see the ring, he, you call the
Baron, had on his finger?—it was a diamond; but he has not got it on
now: he saw me looking at it, I warrant, and took it off.”

“Aye, and then there is the picture; did you see that? She has not
taken that off,” observed the first ruffian, “it hangs at her neck; if
it had not sparkled so, I should not have found it out, for it was
almost hid by her dress; those are diamonds too, and a rare many of
them there must be, to go round such a large picture.”

“But how are we to manage this business?” said the second ruffian: “let
us talk of that, there is no fear of there being booty enough, but how
are we to secure it?”

“Aye, aye,” said his comrades, “let us talk of that, and remember no
time is to be lost.”

“I am still for poison,” observed the third, “but consider their
number; why there are nine or ten of them, and armed too; when I saw so
many at the gate, I was not for letting them in, you know, nor you
either.”

“I thought they might be some of our enemies,” replied the second, “I
did not so much mind numbers.”

“But you must mind them now,” rejoined his comrade, “or it will be
worse for you. We are not more than six, and how can we master ten by
open force? I tell you we must give some of them a dose, and the rest
may then be managed.”

“I’ll tell you a better way,” rejoined the other impatiently, “draw
closer.”

Blanche, who had listened to this conversation, in an agony, which it
would be impossible to describe, could no longer distinguish what was
said, for the ruffians now spoke in lowered voices; but the hope, that
she might save her friends from the plot, if she could find her way
quickly to them, suddenly reanimated her spirits, and lent her strength
enough to turn her steps in search of the gallery. Terror, however, and
darkness conspired against her, and, having moved a few yards, the
feeble light, that issued from the chamber, no longer even contended
with the gloom, and, her foot stumbling over a step that crossed the
passage, she fell to the ground.

The noise startled the banditti, who became suddenly silent, and then
all rushed to the passage, to examine whether any person was there, who
might have overheard their councils. Blanche saw them approaching, and
perceived their fierce and eager looks: but, before she could raise
herself, they discovered and seized her, and, as they dragged her
towards the chamber they had quitted, her screams drew from them
horrible threatenings.

Having reached the room, they began to consult what they should do with
her. “Let us first know what she had heard,” said the chief robber.
“How long have you been in the passage, lady, and what brought you
there?”

“Let us first secure that picture,” said one of his comrades,
approaching the trembling Blanche. “Fair lady, by your leave that
picture is mine; come, surrender it, or I shall seize it.”

Blanche, entreating their mercy, immediately gave up the miniature,
while another of the ruffians fiercely interrogated her, concerning
what she had overheard of their conversation, when, her confusion and
terror too plainly telling what her tongue feared to confess, the
ruffians looked expressively upon one another, and two of them withdrew
to a remote part of the room, as if to consult further.

“These are diamonds, by St. Peter!” exclaimed the fellow, who had been
examining the miniature, “and here is a very pretty picture too,
“faith; as handsome a young chevalier, as you would wish to see by a
summer’s sun. Lady, this is your spouse, I warrant, for it is the
spark, that was in your company just now.”

Blanche, sinking with terror, conjured him to have pity on her, and,
delivering him her purse, promised to say nothing of what had passed,
if he would suffer her to return to her friends.

He smiled ironically, and was going to reply, when his attention was
called off by a distant noise; and, while he listened, he grasped the
arm of Blanche more firmly, as if he feared she would escape from him,
and she again shrieked for help.

The approaching sounds called the ruffians from the other part of the
chamber. “We are betrayed,” said they; “but let us listen a moment,
perhaps it is only our comrades come in from the mountains, and if so,
our work is sure; listen!”

A distant discharge of shot confirmed this supposition for a moment,
but, in the next, the former sounds drawing nearer, the clashing of
swords, mingled with the voices of loud contention and with heavy
groans, were distinguished in the avenue leading to the chamber. While
the ruffians prepared their arms, they heard themselves called by some
of their comrades afar off, and then a shrill horn was sounded without
the fortress, a signal, it appeared, they too well understood; for
three of them, leaving the Lady Blanche to the care of the fourth,
instantly rushed from the chamber.

While Blanche, trembling, and nearly fainting, was supplicating for
release, she heard amid the tumult, that approached, the voice of St.
Foix, and she had scarcely renewed her shriek, when the door of the
room was thrown open, and he appeared, much disfigured with blood, and
pursued by several ruffians. Blanche neither saw, nor heard any more;
her head swam, her sight failed, and she became senseless in the arms
of the robber, who had detained her.

When she recovered, she perceived, by the gloomy light that trembled
round her, that she was in the same chamber, but neither the Count, St.
Foix, nor any other person appeared, and she continued, for some time,
entirely still, and nearly in a state of stupefaction. But, the
dreadful images of the past returning, she endeavoured to raise
herself, that she might seek her friends, when a sullen groan, at a
little distance, reminded her of St. Foix, and of the condition, in
which she had seen him enter this room; then, starting from the floor,
by a sudden effort of horror, she advanced to the place whence the
sound had proceeded, where a body was lying stretched upon the
pavement, and where, by the glimmering light of a lamp, she discovered
the pale and disfigured countenance of St. Foix. Her horrors, at that
moment, may be easily imagined. He was speechless; his eyes were half
closed, and, on the hand, which she grasped in the agony of despair,
cold damps had settled. While she vainly repeated his name, and called
for assistance, steps approached, and a person entered the chamber,
who, she soon perceived, was not the Count, her father; but, what was
her astonishment, when, supplicating him to give his assistance to St.
Foix, she discovered Ludovico! He scarcely paused to recognise her, but
immediately bound up the wounds of the Chevalier, and, perceiving, that
he had fainted probably from loss of blood, ran for water; but he had
been absent only a few moments, when Blanche heard other steps
approaching, and, while she was almost frantic with apprehension of the
ruffians, the light of a torch flashed upon the walls, and then Count
De Villefort appeared, with an affrighted countenance, and breathless
with impatience, calling upon his daughter. At the sound of his voice,
she rose, and ran to his arms, while he, letting fall the bloody sword
he held, pressed her to his bosom in a transport of gratitude and joy,
and then hastily enquired for St. Foix, who now gave some signs of
life. Ludovico soon after returning with water and brandy, the former
was applied to his lips, and the latter to his temples and hands, and
Blanche, at length, saw him unclose his eyes, and then heard him
enquire for her; but the joy she felt, on this occasion, was
interrupted by new alarms, when Ludovico said it would be necessary to
remove Mons. St. Foix immediately, and added, “The banditti, that are
out, my Lord, were expected home, an hour ago, and they will certainly
find us, if we delay. That shrill horn, they know, is never sounded by
their comrades but on most desperate occasions, and it echoes among the
mountains for many leagues round. I have known them brought home by its
sound even from the Pied de Melicant. Is anybody standing watch at the
great gate, my Lord?”

“Nobody,” replied the Count; “the rest of my people are now scattered
about, I scarcely know where. Go, Ludovico, collect them together, and
look out yourself, and listen if you hear the feet of mules.”

Ludovico then hurried away, and the Count consulted as to the means of
removing St. Foix, who could not have borne the motion of a mule, even
if his strength would have supported him in the saddle.

While the Count was telling, that the banditti, whom they had found in
the fort, were secured in the dungeon, Blanche observed that he was
himself wounded, and that his left arm was entirely useless; but he
smiled at her anxiety, assuring her the wound was trifling.

The Count’s servants, except two who kept watch at the gate, now
appeared, and, soon after, Ludovico. “I think I hear mules coming along
the glen, my Lord,” said he, “but the roaring of the torrent below will
not let me be certain; however, I have brought what will serve the
Chevalier,” he added, showing a bear’s skin, fastened to a couple of
long poles, which had been adapted for the purpose of bringing home
such of the banditti as happened to be wounded in their encounters.
Ludovico spread it on the ground, and, placing the skins of several
goats upon it, made a kind of bed, into which the Chevalier, who was
however now much revived, was gently lifted; and, the poles being
raised upon the shoulders of the guides, whose footing among these
steeps could best be depended upon, he was borne along with an easy
motion. Some of the Count’s servants were also wounded—but not
materially, and, their wounds being bound up, they now followed to the
great gate. As they passed along the hall, a loud tumult was heard at
some distance, and Blanche was terrified. “It is only those villains in
the dungeon, my Lady,” said Ludovico. “They seem to be bursting it
open,” said the Count. “No, my Lord,” replied Ludovico, “it has an iron
door; we have nothing to fear from them; but let me go first, and look
out from the rampart.”

They quickly followed him, and found their mules browsing before the
gates, where the party listened anxiously, but heard no sound, except
that of the torrent below and of the early breeze, sighing among the
branches of the old oak, that grew in the court; and they were now glad
to perceive the first tints of dawn over the mountain-tops. When they
had mounted their mules, Ludovico, undertaking to be their guide, led
them by an easier path, than that by which they had formerly ascended,
into the glen. “We must avoid that valley to the east, my Lord,” said
he, “or we may meet the banditti; they went out that way in the
morning.”

The travellers, soon after, quitted this glen, and found themselves in
a narrow valley that stretched towards the north-west. The morning
light upon the mountains now strengthened fast, and gradually
discovered the green hillocks, that skirted the winding feet of the
cliffs, tufted with cork tree, and ever-green oak. The thunder-clouds
being dispersed, had left the sky perfectly serene, and Blanche was
revived by the fresh breeze, and by the view of verdure, which the late
rain had brightened. Soon after, the sun arose, when the dripping
rocks, with the shrubs that fringed their summits, and many a turfy
slope below, sparkled in his rays. A wreath of mist was seen, floating
along the extremity of the valley, but the gale bore it before the
travellers, and the sunbeams gradually drew it up towards the summit of
the mountains. They had proceeded about a league, when, St. Foix having
complained of extreme faintness, they stopped to give him refreshment,
and, that the men, who bore him, might rest. Ludovico had brought from
the fort some flasks of rich Spanish wine, which now proved a reviving
cordial not only to St. Foix but to the whole party, though to him it
gave only temporary relief, for it fed the fever, that burned in his
veins, and he could neither disguise in his countenance the anguish he
suffered, nor suppress the wish, that he was arrived at the inn, where
they had designed to pass the preceding night.

While they thus reposed themselves under the shade of the dark green
pines, the Count desired Ludovico to explain shortly, by what means he
had disappeared from the north apartment, how he came into the hands of
the banditti, and how he had contributed so essentially to serve him
and his family, for to him he justly attributed their present
deliverance. Ludovico was going to obey him, when suddenly they heard
the echo of a pistol-shot, from the way they had passed, and they rose
in alarm, hastily to pursue their route.



 CHAPTER XIII

Ah why did Fate his steps decoy
In stormy paths to roam,
Remote from all congenial joy!
                    BEATTIE


Emily, meanwhile, was still suffering anxiety as to the fate of
Valancourt; but Theresa, having, at length, found a person, whom she
could entrust on her errand to the steward, informed her, that the
messenger would return on the following day; and Emily promised to be
at the cottage, Theresa being too lame to attend her.

In the evening, therefore, Emily set out alone for the cottage, with a
melancholy foreboding, concerning Valancourt, while, perhaps, the gloom
of the hour might contribute to depress her spirits. It was a grey
autumnal evening towards the close of the season; heavy mists partially
obscured the mountains, and a chilling breeze, that sighed among the
beech woods, strewed her path with some of their last yellow leaves.
These, circling in the blast and foretelling the death of the year,
gave an image of desolation to her mind, and, in her fancy, seemed to
announce the death of Valancourt. Of this she had, indeed, more than
once so strong a presentiment, that she was on the point of returning
home, feeling herself unequal to an encounter with the certainty she
anticipated, but, contending with her emotions, she so far commanded
them, as to be able to proceed.

While she walked mournfully on, gazing on the long volumes of vapour,
that poured upon the sky, and watching the swallows, tossed along the
wind, now disappearing among tempestuous clouds, and then emerging, for
a moment, in circles upon the calmer air, the afflictions and
vicissitudes of her late life seemed portrayed in these fleeting
images;—thus had she been tossed upon the stormy sea of misfortune for
the last year, with but short intervals of peace, if peace that could
be called, which was only the delay of evils. And now, when she had
escaped from so many dangers, was become independent of the will of
those, who had oppressed her, and found herself mistress of a large
fortune, now, when she might reasonably have expected happiness, she
perceived that she was as distant from it as ever. She would have
accused herself of weakness and ingratitude in thus suffering a sense
of the various blessings she possessed to be overcome by that of a
single misfortune, had this misfortune affected herself alone; but,
when she had wept for Valancourt even as living, tears of compassion
had mingled with those of regret, and while she lamented a human being
degraded to vice, and consequently to misery, reason and humanity
claimed these tears, and fortitude had not yet taught her to separate
them from those of love; in the present moments, however, it was not
the certainty of his guilt, but the apprehension of his death (of a
death also, to which she herself, however innocently, appeared to have
been in some degree instrumental) that oppressed her. This fear
increased, as the means of certainty concerning it approached; and,
when she came within view of Theresa’s cottage, she was so much
disordered, and her resolution failed her so entirely, that, unable to
proceed, she rested on a bank, beside her path; where, as she sat, the
wind that groaned sullenly among the lofty branches above, seemed to
her melancholy imagination to bear the sounds of distant lamentation,
and, in the pauses of the gust, she still fancied she heard the feeble
and far-off notes of distress. Attention convinced her, that this was
no more than fancy; but the increasing gloom, which seemed the sudden
close of day, soon warned her to depart, and, with faltering steps, she
again moved toward the cottage. Through the casement appeared the
cheerful blaze of a wood fire, and Theresa, who had observed Emily
approaching, was already at the door to receive her.

“It is a cold evening, madam,” said she, “storms are coming on, and I
thought you would like a fire. Do take this chair by the hearth.”

Emily, thanking her for this consideration, sat down, and then, looking
in her face, on which the wood fire threw a gleam, she was struck with
its expression, and, unable to speak, sunk back in her chair with a
countenance so full of woe, that Theresa instantly comprehended the
occasion of it, but she remained silent. “Ah!” said Emily, at length,
“it is unnecessary for me to ask the result of your enquiry, your
silence, and that look, sufficiently explain it;—he is dead!”

“Alas! my dear young lady,” replied Theresa, while tears filled her
eyes, “this world is made up of trouble! the rich have their share as
well as the poor! But we must all endeavour to bear what Heaven
pleases.”

“He is dead, then!”—interrupted Emily—“Valancourt is dead!”

“A-well-a-day! I fear he is,” replied Theresa.

“You fear!” said Emily, “do you only fear?”

“Alas! yes, madam, I fear he is! neither the steward, nor any of the
Epourville family, have heard of him since he left Languedoc, and the
Count is in great affliction about him, for he says he was always
punctual in writing, but that now he has not received a line from him,
since he left Languedoc; he appointed to be at home, three weeks ago,
but he has neither come, nor written, and they fear some accident has
befallen him. Alas! that ever I should live to cry for his death! I am
old, and might have died without being missed, but he”—Emily was faint,
and asked for some water, and Theresa, alarmed by the voice, in which
she spoke, hastened to her assistance, and, while she held the water to
Emily’s lips, continued, “My dear young mistress, do not take it so to
heart; the Chevalier may be alive and well, for all this; let us hope
the best!”

“O no! I cannot hope,” said Emily, “I am acquainted with circumstances,
that will not suffer me to hope. I am somewhat better now, and can hear
what you have to say. Tell me, I entreat, the particulars of what you
know.”

“Stay, till you are a little better, mademoiselle, you look sadly!”

“O no, Theresa, tell me all, while I have the power to hear it,” said
Emily, “tell me all, I conjure you!”

“Well, madam, I will then; but the steward did not say much, for
Richard says he seemed shy of talking about Mons. Valancourt, and what
he gathered was from Gabriel, one of the servants, who said he had
heard it from my lord’s gentleman.”

“What did he hear?” said Emily.

“Why, madam, Richard has but a bad memory, and could not remember half
of it, and, if I had not asked him a great many questions, I should
have heard little indeed. But he says that Gabriel said, that he and
all the other servants were in great trouble about M. Valancourt, for
that he was such a kind young gentleman, they all loved him, as well as
if he had been their own brother—and now, to think what was become of
him! For he used to be so courteous to them all, and, if any of them
had been in fault, M. Valancourt was the first to persuade my lord to
forgive them. And then, if any poor family was in distress, M.
Valancourt was the first, too, to relieve them, though some folks, not
a great way off, could have afforded that much better than he. And
then, said Gabriel, he was so gentle to everybody, and, for all he had
such a noble look with him, he never would command, and call about him,
as some of your quality people do, and we never minded him the less for
that. Nay, says Gabriel, for that matter, we minded him the more, and
would all have run to obey him at a word, sooner than if some folks had
told us what to do at full length; aye, and were more afraid of
displeasing him, too, than of them, that used rough words to us.”

Emily, who no longer considered it to be dangerous to listen to praise,
bestowed on Valancourt, did not attempt to interrupt Theresa, but sat,
attentive to her words, though almost overwhelmed with grief. “My
Lord,” continued Theresa, “frets about M. Valancourt sadly, and the
more, because, they say, he had been rather harsh against him lately.
Gabriel says he had it from my Lord’s valet, that M. Valancourt had
_comported_ himself wildly at Paris, and had spent a great deal of
money, more a great deal than my Lord liked, for he loves money better
than M. Valancourt, who had been led astray sadly. Nay, for that
matter, M. Valancourt had been put into prison at Paris, and my Lord,
says Gabriel, refused to take him out, and said he deserved to suffer;
and, when old Gregoire, the butler, heard of this, he actually bought a
walking-stick to take with him to Paris, to visit his young master; but
the next thing we hear is, that M. Valancourt is coming home. O, it was
a joyful day when he came; but he was sadly altered, and my Lord looked
very cool upon him, and he was very sad, indeed. And, soon after, he
went away again into Languedoc, and, since that time, we have never
seen him.”

Theresa paused, and Emily, sighing deeply, remained with her eyes fixed
upon the floor, without speaking. After a long pause, she enquired what
further Theresa had heard. “Yet why should I ask?” she added; “what you
have already told is too much. O Valancourt! thou art gone—for ever
gone! and I—I have murdered thee!” These words, and the countenance of
despair which accompanied them, alarmed Theresa, who began to fear,
that the shock of the intelligence Emily had just received, had
affected her senses. “My dear young lady, be composed,” said she, “and
do not say such frightful words. You murder M. Valancourt,—dear heart!”
Emily replied only by a heavy sigh.

“Dear lady, it breaks my heart to see you look so,” said Theresa, “do
not sit with your eyes upon the ground, and all so pale and melancholy;
it frightens me to see you.” Emily was still silent, and did not appear
to hear anything that was said to her. “Besides, mademoiselle,”
continued Theresa, “M. Valancourt may be alive and merry yet, for what
we know.”

At the mention of his name, Emily raised her eyes, and fixed them, in a
wild gaze, upon Theresa, as if she was endeavouring to understand what
had been said. “Aye, my dear lady,” said Theresa, mistaking the meaning
of this considerate air, “M. Valancourt may be alive and merry yet.”

On the repetition of these words, Emily comprehended their import, but,
instead of producing the effect intended, they seemed only to heighten
her distress. She rose hastily from her chair, paced the little room,
with quick steps, and, often sighing deeply, clasped her hands, and
shuddered.

Meanwhile, Theresa, with simple, but honest affection, endeavoured to
comfort her; put more wood on the fire, stirred it up into a brighter
blaze, swept the hearth, set the chair, which Emily had left, in a
warmer situation, and then drew forth from a cupboard a flask of wine.
“It is a stormy night, madam,” said she, “and blows cold—do come nearer
the fire, and take a glass of this wine; it will comfort you, as it has
done me, often and often, for it is not such wine as one gets every
day; it is rich Languedoc, and the last of six flasks that M.
Valancourt sent me, the night before he left Gascony for Paris. They
have served me, ever since, as cordials, and I never drink it, but I
think of him, and what kind words he said to me when he gave them.
‘Theresa,’ says he, ‘you are not young now, and should have a glass of
good wine, now and then. I will send you a few flasks, and, when you
taste them, you will sometimes remember me your friend.’ Yes—those were
his very words—me your friend!” Emily still paced the room, without
seeming to hear what Theresa said, who continued speaking. “And I have
remembered him, often enough, poor young gentleman!—for he gave me this
roof for a shelter, and that, which has supported me. Ah! he is in
heaven, with my blessed master, if ever saint was!”

Theresa’s voice faltered; she wept, and set down the flask, unable to
pour out the wine. Her grief seemed to recall Emily from her own, who
went towards her, but then stopped, and, having gazed on her, for a
moment, turned suddenly away, as if overwhelmed by the reflection, that
it was Valancourt, whom Theresa lamented.

While she yet paced the room, the still, soft note of an oboe, or
flute, was heard mingling with the blast, the sweetness of which
affected Emily’s spirits; she paused a moment in attention; the tender
tones, as they swelled along the wind, till they were lost again in the
ruder gust, came with a plaintiveness, that touched her heart, and she
melted into tears.

“Aye,” said Theresa, drying her eyes, “there is Richard, our
neighbour’s son, playing on the oboe; it is sad enough, to hear such
sweet music now.” Emily continued to weep, without replying. “He often
plays of an evening,” added Theresa, “and, sometimes, the young folks
dance to the sound of his oboe. But, dear young lady! do not cry so;
and pray take a glass of this wine,” continued she, pouring some into a
glass, and handing it to Emily, who reluctantly took it.

“Taste it for M. Valancourt’s sake,” said Theresa, as Emily lifted the
glass to her lips, “for he gave it me, you know, madam.” Emily’s hand
trembled, and she spilt the wine as she withdrew it from her lips. “For
whose sake!—who gave the wine?” said she in a faltering voice. “M.
Valancourt, dear lady. I knew you would be pleased with it. It is the
last flask I have left.”

Emily set the wine upon the table, and burst into tears, while Theresa,
disappointed and alarmed, tried to comfort her; but she only waved her
hand, entreated she might be left alone, and wept the more.

A knock at the cottage door prevented Theresa from immediately obeying
her mistress, and she was going to open it, when Emily, checking her,
requested she would not admit any person; but, afterwards,
recollecting, that she had ordered her servant to attend her home, she
said it was only Philippe, and endeavoured to restrain her tears, while
Theresa opened the door.

A voice, that spoke without, drew Emily’s attention. She listened,
turned her eyes to the door, when a person now appeared, and
immediately a bright gleam, that flashed from the fire,
discovered—Valancourt!

Emily, on perceiving him, started from her chair, trembled, and,
sinking into it again, became insensible to all around her.

A scream from Theresa now told, that she knew Valancourt, whom her
imperfect sight, and the duskiness of the place had prevented her from
immediately recollecting; but his attention was immediately called from
her to the person, whom he saw, falling from a chair near the fire;
and, hastening to her assistance,—he perceived, that he was supporting
Emily! The various emotions, that seized him upon thus unexpectedly
meeting with her, from whom he had believed he had parted for ever, and
on beholding her pale and lifeless in his arms—may, perhaps, be
imagined, though they could neither be then expressed, nor now
described, any more than Emily’s sensations, when, at length, she
unclosed her eyes, and, looking up, again saw Valancourt. The intense
anxiety, with which he regarded her, was instantly changed to an
expression of mingled joy and tenderness, as his eye met hers, and he
perceived, that she was reviving. But he could only exclaim, “Emily!”
as he silently watched her recovery, while she averted her eye, and
feebly attempted to withdraw her hand; but, in these the first moments,
which succeeded to the pangs his supposed death had occasioned her, she
forgot every fault, which had formerly claimed indignation, and
beholding Valancourt such as he had appeared, when he won her early
affection, she experienced emotions of only tenderness and joy. This,
alas! was but the sunshine of a few short moments; recollections rose,
like clouds, upon her mind, and, darkening the illusive image, that
possessed it, she again beheld Valancourt, degraded—Valancourt unworthy
of the esteem and tenderness she had once bestowed upon him; her
spirits faltered, and, withdrawing her hand, she turned from him to
conceal her grief, while he, yet more embarrassed and agitated,
remained silent.

A sense of what she owed to herself restrained her tears, and taught
her soon to overcome, in some degree, the emotions of mingled joy and
sorrow, that contended at her heart, as she rose, and, having thanked
him for the assistance he had given her, bade Theresa good evening. As
she was leaving the cottage, Valancourt, who seemed suddenly awakened
as from a dream, entreated, in a voice, that pleaded powerfully for
compassion, a few moments attention. Emily’s heart, perhaps, pleaded as
powerfully, but she had resolution enough to resist both, together with
the clamorous entreaties of Theresa, that she would not venture home
alone in the dark, and had already opened the cottage door, when the
pelting storm compelled her to obey their requests.

Silent and embarrassed, she returned to the fire, while Valancourt,
with increasing agitation, paced the room, as if he wished, yet feared,
to speak, and Theresa expressed without restraint her joy and wonder
upon seeing him.

“Dear heart! sir,” said she, “I never was so surprised and overjoyed in
my life. We were in great tribulation before you came, for we thought
you were dead, and were talking, and lamenting about you, just when you
knocked at the door. My young mistress there was crying, fit to break
her heart—”

Emily looked with much displeasure at Theresa, but, before she could
speak, Valancourt, unable to repress the emotion, which Theresa’s
imprudent discovery occasioned, exclaimed, “O my Emily! am I then still
dear to you! Did you, indeed, honour me with a thought—a tear? O
heavens! you weep—you weep now!”

“Theresa, sir,” said Emily, with a reserved air, and trying to conquer
her tears, “has reason to remember you with gratitude, and she was
concerned, because she had not lately heard of you. Allow me to thank
you for the kindness you have shown her, and to say, that, since I am
now upon the spot, she must not be further indebted to you.”

“Emily,” said Valancourt, no longer master of his emotions, “is it thus
you meet him, whom once you meant to honour with your hand—thus you
meet him, who has loved you—suffered for you?—Yet what do I say? Pardon
me, pardon me, mademoiselle St. Aubert, I know not what I utter. I have
no longer any claim upon your remembrance—I have forfeited every
pretension to your esteem, your love. Yes! let me not forget, that I
once possessed your affections, though to know that I have lost them,
is my severest affliction. Affliction—do I call it!—that is a term of
mildness.”

“Dear heart!” said Theresa, preventing Emily from replying, “talk of
once having her affections! Why, my dear young lady loves you now,
better than she does anybody in the whole world, though she pretends to
deny it.”

“This is insupportable!” said Emily; “Theresa, you know not what you
say. Sir, if you respect my tranquillity, you will spare me from the
continuance of this distress.”

“I do respect your tranquillity too much, voluntarily to interrupt it,”
replied Valancourt, in whose bosom pride now contended with tenderness;
“and will not be a voluntary intruder. I would have entreated a few
moments attention—yet I know not for what purpose. You have ceased to
esteem me, and to recount to you my sufferings will degrade me more,
without exciting even your pity. Yet I have been, O Emily! I am indeed
very wretched!” added Valancourt, in a voice, that softened from
solemnity into grief.

“What! is my dear young master going out in all this rain!” said
Theresa. “No, he shall not stir a step. Dear! dear! to see how
gentlefolks can afford to throw away their happiness! Now, if you were
poor people, there would be none of this. To talk of unworthiness, and
not caring about one another, when I know there are not such a
kind-hearted lady and gentleman in the whole province, nor any that
love one another half so well, if the truth was spoken!”

Emily, in extreme vexation, now rose from her chair, “I must be gone,”
said she, “the storm is over.”

“Stay, Emily, stay, mademoiselle St. Aubert!” said Valancourt,
summoning all his resolution, “I will no longer distress you by my
presence. Forgive me, that I did not sooner obey you, and, if you can,
sometimes, pity one, who, in losing you—has lost all hope of peace! May
you be happy, Emily, however wretched I remain, happy as my fondest
wish would have you!”

His voice faltered with the last words, and his countenance changed,
while, with a look of ineffable tenderness and grief, he gazed upon her
for an instant, and then quitted the cottage.

“Dear heart! dear heart!” cried Theresa, following him to the door,
“why, Monsieur Valancourt! how it rains! what a night is this to turn
him out in! Why it will give him his death; and it was but now you were
crying, mademoiselle, because he was dead. Well! young ladies do change
their mind in a minute, as one may say!”

Emily made no reply, for she heard not what was said, while, lost in
sorrow and thought, she remained in her chair by the fire, with her
eyes fixed, and the image of Valancourt still before them.

“M. Valancourt is sadly altered! madam,” said Theresa; “he looks so
thin to what he used to do, and so melancholy, and then he wears his
arm in a sling.”

Emily raised her eyes at these words, for she had not observed this
last circumstance, and she now did not doubt, that Valancourt had
received the shot of her gardener at Thoulouse; with this conviction
her pity for him returning, she blamed herself for having occasioned
him to leave the cottage, during the storm.

Soon after her servants arrived with the carriage, and Emily, having
censured Theresa for her thoughtless conversation to Valancourt, and
strictly charging her never to repeat any hints of the same kind to
him, withdrew to her home, thoughtful and disconsolate.

Meanwhile, Valancourt had returned to a little inn of the village,
whither he had arrived only a few moments before his visit to Theresa’s
cottage, on the way from Thoulouse to the château of the Count de
Duvarney, where he had not been since he bade adieu to Emily at
Château-le-Blanc, in the neighbourhood of which he had lingered for a
considerable time, unable to summon resolution enough to quit a place,
that contained the object most dear to his heart. There were times,
indeed, when grief and despair urged him to appear again before Emily,
and, regardless of his ruined circumstances, to renew his suit. Pride,
however, and the tenderness of his affection, which could not long
endure the thought of involving her in his misfortunes, at length, so
far triumphed over passion, that he relinquished this desperate design,
and quitted Château-le-Blanc. But still his fancy wandered among the
scenes, which had witnessed his early love, and, on his way to Gascony,
he stopped at Thoulouse, where he remained when Emily arrived,
concealing, yet indulging his melancholy in the gardens, where he had
formerly passed with her so many happy hours; often recurring, with
vain regret, to the evening before her departure for Italy, when she
had so unexpectedly met him on the terrace, and endeavouring to recall
to his memory every word and look, which had then charmed him, the
arguments he had employed to dissuade her from the journey, and the
tenderness of their last farewell. In such melancholy recollections he
had been indulging, when Emily unexpectedly arrived to him on this very
terrace, the evening after her arrival at Thoulouse. His emotions, on
thus seeing her, can scarcely be imagined; but he so far overcame the
first promptings of love, that he forbore to discover himself, and
abruptly quitted the gardens. Still, however, the vision he had seen
haunted his mind; he became more wretched than before, and the only
solace of his sorrow was to return in the silence of the night; to
follow the paths which he believed her steps had pressed, during the
day; and, to watch round the habitation where she reposed. It was in
one of these mournful wanderings, that he had received by the fire of
the gardener, who mistook him for a robber, a wound in his arm, which
had detained him at Thoulouse till very lately, under the hands of a
surgeon. There, regardless of himself and careless of his friends,
whose late unkindness had urged him to believe, that they were
indifferent as to his fate, he remained, without informing them of his
situation; and now, being sufficiently recovered to bear travelling, he
had taken La Vallée in his way to Estuvière, the Count’s residence,
partly for the purpose of hearing of Emily, and of being again near
her, and partly for that of enquiring into the situation of poor old
Theresa, who, he had reason to suppose, had been deprived of her
stipend, small as it was, and which enquiry had brought him to her
cottage, when Emily happened to be there.

This unexpected interview, which had at once shown him the tenderness
of her love and the strength of her resolution, renewed all the
acuteness of the despair, that had attended their former separation,
and which no effort of reason could teach him, in these moments, to
subdue. Her image, her look, the tones of her voice, all dwelt on his
fancy, as powerfully as they had late appeared to his senses, and
banished from his heart every emotion, except those of love and
despair.

Before the evening concluded, he returned to Theresa’s cottage, that he
might hear her talk of Emily, and be in the place, where she had so
lately been. The joy, felt and expressed by that faithful servant, was
quickly changed to sorrow, when she observed, at one moment, his wild
and frenzied look, and, at another, the dark melancholy, that overhung
him.

After he had listened, and for a considerable time, to all she had to
relate, concerning Emily, he gave Theresa nearly all the money he had
about him, though she repeatedly refused it, declaring, that her
mistress had amply supplied her wants; and then, drawing a ring of
value from his finger, he delivered it her with a solemn charge to
present it to Emily, of whom he entreated, as a last favour, that she
would preserve it for his sake, and sometimes, when she looked upon it,
remember the unhappy giver.

Theresa wept, as she received the ring, but it was more from sympathy,
than from any presentiment of evil; and before she could reply,
Valancourt abruptly left the cottage. She followed him to the door,
calling upon his name and entreating him to return; but she received no
answer, and saw him no more.



 CHAPTER XIV

Call up him, that left half told
The story of Cambuscan bold.
                    MILTON


On the following morning, as Emily sat in the parlour adjoining the
library, reflecting on the scene of the preceding night, Annette rushed
wildly into the room, and, without speaking, sunk breathless into a
chair. It was some time before she could answer the anxious enquiries
of Emily, as to the occasion of her emotion, but, at length, she
exclaimed, “I have seen his ghost, madam, I have seen his ghost!”

“Who do you mean?” said Emily, with extreme impatience.

“It came in from the hall, madam,” continued Annette, “as I was
crossing to the parlour.”

“Who are you speaking of?” repeated Emily, “Who came in from the hall?”

“It was dressed just as I have seen him, often and often,” added
Annette. “Ah! who could have thought—”

Emily’s patience was now exhausted, and she was reprimanding her for
such idle fancies, when a servant entered the room, and informed her,
that a stranger without begged leave to speak with her.

It immediately occurred to Emily, that this stranger was Valancourt,
and she told the servant to inform him, that she was engaged, and could
not see any person.

The servant, having delivered his message, returned with one from the
stranger, urging the first request, and saying, that he had something
of consequence to communicate; while Annette, who had hitherto sat
silent and amazed, now started up, and crying, “It is Ludovico!—it is
Ludovico!” ran out of the room. Emily bade the servant follow her, and,
if it really was Ludovico, to show him into the parlour.

In a few minutes, Ludovico appeared, accompanied by Annette, who, as
joy rendered her forgetful of all rules of decorum towards her
mistress, would not suffer any person to be heard, for some time, but
herself. Emily expressed surprise and satisfaction, on seeing Ludovico
in safety, and the first emotions increased, when he delivered letters
from Count De Villefort and the Lady Blanche, informing her of their
late adventure, and of their present situation at an inn among the
Pyrenees, where they had been detained by the illness of Mons. St.
Foix, and the indisposition of Blanche, who added, that the Baron St.
Foix was just arrived to attend his son to his château, where he would
remain till the perfect recovery of his wounds, and then return to
Languedoc, but that her father and herself purposed to be at La Vallée,
on the following day. She added, that Emily’s presence would be
expected at the approaching nuptials, and begged she would be prepared
to proceed, in a few days to Château-le-Blanc. For an account of
Ludovico’s adventure, she referred her to himself; and Emily, though
much interested, concerning the means, by which he had disappeared from
the north apartments, had the forbearance to suspend the gratification
of her curiosity, till he had taken some refreshment, and had conversed
with Annette, whose joy, on seeing him in safety, could not have been
more extravagant, had he arisen from the grave.

Meanwhile, Emily perused again the letters of her friends, whose
expressions of esteem and kindness were very necessary consolations to
her heart, awakened as it was by the late interview to emotions of
keener sorrow and regret.

The invitation to Château-le-Blanc was pressed with so much kindness by
the Count and his daughter, who strengthened it by a message from the
Countess, and the occasion of it was so important to her friend, that
Emily could not refuse to accept it, nor, though she wished to remain
in the quiet shades of her native home, could she avoid perceiving the
impropriety of remaining there alone, since Valancourt was again in the
neighbourhood. Sometimes, too, she thought, that change of scenery and
the society of her friends might contribute, more than retirement, to
restore her to tranquillity.

When Ludovico again appeared, she desired him to give a detail of his
adventure in the north apartments, and to tell by what means he became
a companion of the banditti, with whom the Count had found him.

He immediately obeyed, while Annette, who had not yet had leisure to
ask him many questions, on the subject, prepared to listen, with a
countenance of extreme curiosity, venturing to remind her lady of her
incredulity, concerning spirits, in the castle of Udolpho, and of her
own sagacity in believing in them; while Emily, blushing at the
consciousness of her late credulity, observed, that, if Ludovico’s
adventure could justify Annette’s superstition, he had probably not
been here to relate it.

Ludovico smiled at Annette, and bowed to Emily, and then began as
follows:

“You may remember, madam, that, on the night, when I sat up in the
north chamber, my lord, the Count, and Mons. Henri accompanied me
thither, and that, while they remained there, nothing happened to
excite any alarm. When they were gone I made a fire in the bedroom,
and, not being inclined to sleep, I sat down on the hearth with a book
I had brought with me to divert my mind. I confess I did sometimes look
round the chamber, with something like apprehension—”

“O very like it, I dare say,” interrupted Annette, “and I dare say too,
if the truth was known, you shook from head to foot.”

“Not quite so bad as that,” replied Ludovico, smiling, “but several
times, as the wind whistled round the castle, and shook the old
casements, I did fancy I heard odd noises, and, once or twice, I got up
and looked about me; but nothing was to be seen, except the grim
figures in the tapestry, which seemed to frown upon me, as I looked at
them. I had sat thus for above an hour,” continued Ludovico, “when
again I thought I heard a noise, and glanced my eyes round the room, to
discover what it came from, but, not perceiving anything, I began to
read again, and, when I had finished the story I was upon, I felt
drowsy, and dropped asleep. But presently I was awakened by the noise I
had heard before, and it seemed to come from that part of the chamber,
where the bed stood; and then, whether it was the story I had been
reading that affected my spirits, or the strange reports, that had been
spread of these apartments, I don’t know, but, when I looked towards
the bed again, I fancied I saw a man’s face within the dusky curtains.”

At the mention of this, Emily trembled, and looked anxiously,
remembering the spectacle she had herself witnessed there with
Dorothée.

“I confess, madam, my heart did fail me, at that instant,” continued
Ludovico, “but a return of the noise drew my attention from the bed,
and I then distinctly heard a sound, like that of a key, turning in a
lock, but what surprised me more was, that I saw no door where the
sound seemed to come from. In the next moment, however, the arras near
the bed was slowly lifted, and a person appeared behind it, entering
from a small door in the wall. He stood for a moment as if half
retreating, with his head bending under the arras which concealed the
upper part of his face except his eyes scowling beneath the tapestry as
he held it; and then, while he raised it higher, I saw the face of
another man behind, looking over his shoulder. I know not how it was,
but, though my sword was upon the table before me, I had not the power
just then to seize it, but sat quite still, watching them, with my eyes
half shut as if I was asleep. I suppose they thought me so, and were
debating what they should do, for I heard them whisper, and they stood
in the same posture for the value of a minute, and then, I thought I
perceived other faces in the duskiness beyond the door, and heard
louder whispers.”

“This door surprises me,” said Emily, “because I understood, that the
Count had caused the arras to be lifted, and the walls examined,
suspecting, that they might have concealed a passage through which you
had departed.”

“It does not appear so extraordinary to me, madam,” replied Ludovico,
“that this door should escape notice, because it was formed in a narrow
compartment, which appeared to be part of the outward wall, and, if the
Count had not passed over it, he might have thought it was useless to
search for a door where it seemed as if no passage could communicate
with one; but the truth was, that the passage was formed within the
wall itself.—But, to return to the men, whom I saw obscurely beyond the
door, and who did not suffer me to remain long in suspense, concerning
their design. They all rushed into the room, and surrounded me, though
not before I had snatched up my sword to defend myself. But what could
one man do against four? They soon disarmed me, and, having fastened my
arms, and gagged my mouth, forced me through the private door, leaving
my sword upon the table, to assist, as they said, those who should come
in the morning to look for me, in fighting against the ghosts. They
then led me through many narrow passages, cut, as I fancied, in the
walls, for I had never seen them before, and down several flights of
steps, till we came to the vaults underneath the castle; and then
opening a stone door, which I should have taken for the wall itself, we
went through a long passage, and down other steps cut in the solid
rock, when another door delivered us into a cave. After turning and
twining about, for some time, we reached the mouth of it, and I found
myself on the sea-beach at the foot of the cliffs, with the château
above. A boat was in waiting, into which the ruffians got, forcing me
along with them, and we soon reached a small vessel, that was at
anchor, where other men appeared, when setting me aboard, two of the
fellows who had seized me, followed, and the other two rowed back to
the shore, while we set sail. I soon found out what all this meant, and
what was the business of these men at the château. We landed in
Rousillon, and, after lingering several days about the shore, some of
their comrades came down from the mountains, and carried me with them
to the fort, where I remained till my Lord so unexpectedly arrived, for
they had taken good care to prevent my running away, having blindfolded
me, during the journey, and, if they had not done this, I think I never
could have found my road to any town, through the wild country we
traversed. After I reached the fort I was watched like a prisoner, and
never suffered to go out, without two or three companions, and I became
so weary of life, that I often wished to get rid of it.”

“Well, but they let you talk,” said Annette, “they did not gagg you
after they got you away from the château, so I don’t see what reason
there was to be so very weary of living; to say nothing about the
chance you had of seeing me again.”

Ludovico smiled, and Emily also, who enquired what was the motive of
these men for carrying him off.

“I soon found out, madam,” resumed Ludovico, “that they were pirates,
who had, during many years, secreted their spoil in the vaults of the
castle, which, being so near the sea, suited their purpose well. To
prevent detection they had tried to have it believed, that the château
was haunted, and, having discovered the private way to the north
apartments, which had been shut up ever since the death of the lady
marchioness, they easily succeeded. The housekeeper and her husband,
who were the only persons, that had inhabited the castle, for some
years, were so terrified by the strange noises they heard in the
nights, that they would live there no longer; a report soon went
abroad, that it was haunted, and the whole country believed this the
more readily, I suppose, because it had been said, that the lady
marchioness had died in a strange way, and because my lord never would
return to the place afterwards.”

“But why,” said Emily, “were not these pirates contented with the
cave—why did they think it necessary to deposit their spoil in the
castle?”

“The cave, madam,” replied Ludovico, “was open to anybody, and their
treasures would not long have remained undiscovered there, but in the
vaults they were secure so long as the report prevailed of their being
haunted. Thus then, it appears, that they brought at midnight, the
spoil they took on the seas, and kept it till they had opportunities of
disposing of it to advantage. The pirates were connected with Spanish
smugglers and banditti, who live among the wilds of the Pyrenees, and
carry on various kinds of traffic, such as nobody would think of; and
with this desperate horde of banditti I remained, till my lord arrived.
I shall never forget what I felt, when I first discovered him—I almost
gave him up for lost! but I knew, that, if I showed myself, the
banditti would discover who he was, and probably murder us all, to
prevent their secret in the château being detected. I, therefore, kept
out of my lord’s sight, but had a strict watch upon the ruffians, and
determined, if they offered him or his family violence, to discover
myself, and fight for our lives. Soon after, I overheard some of them
laying a most diabolical plan for the murder and plunder of the whole
party, when I contrived to speak to some of my lord’s attendants,
telling them what was going forward, and we consulted what was best to
be done; meanwhile my lord, alarmed at the absence of the Lady Blanche,
demanded her, and the ruffians having given some unsatisfactory answer,
my lord and Mons. St. Foix became furious, so then we thought it a good
time to discover the plot, and rushing into the chamber, I called out,
‘Treachery! my lord count, defend yourself!’ His lordship and the
chevalier drew their swords directly, and a hard battle we had, but we
conquered at last, as, madam, you are already informed of by my Lord
Count.”

“This is an extraordinary adventure,” said Emily, “and much praise is
due, Ludovico, to your prudence and intrepidity. There are some
circumstances, however, concerning the north apartments, which still
perplex me; but, perhaps, you may be able to explain them. Did you ever
hear the banditti relate anything extraordinary of these rooms?”

“No, madam,” replied Ludovico, “I never heard them speak about the
rooms, except to laugh at the credulity of the old housekeeper, who
once was very near catching one of the pirates; it was since the Count
arrived at the château, he said, and he laughed heartily as he related
the trick he had played off.”

A blush overspread Emily’s cheek, and she impatiently desired Ludovico
to explain himself.

“Why, my lady,” said he, “as this fellow was, one night in the bedroom,
he heard somebody approaching through the next apartment, and not
having time to lift up the arras, and unfasten the door, he hid himself
in the bed just by. There he lay for some time in as great a fright, I
suppose—”

“As you were in,” interrupted Annette, “when you sat up so boldly to
watch by yourself.”

“Aye,” said Ludovico, “in as great a fright as he ever made anybody
else suffer; and presently the housekeeper and some other person came
up to the bed, when he, thinking they were going to examine it,
bethought him, that his only chance of escaping detection, was by
terrifying them; so he lifted up the counterpane, but that did not do,
till he raised his face above it, and then they both set off, he said,
as if they had seen the devil, and he got out of the rooms
undiscovered.”

Emily could not forbear smiling at this explanation of the deception,
which had given her so much superstitious terror, and was surprised,
that she could have suffered herself to be thus alarmed, till she
considered, that, when the mind has once begun to yield to the weakness
of superstition, trifles impress it with the force of conviction.
Still, however, she remembered with awe the mysterious music, which had
been heard, at midnight, near Château-le-Blanc, and she asked Ludovico
if he could give any explanation of it; but he could not.

“I only know, madam,” he added, “that it did not belong to the pirates,
for I have heard them laugh about it, and say, they believed the devil
was in league with them there.”

“Yes, I will answer for it he was,” said Annette, her countenance
brightening, “I was sure all along, that he or his spirits had
something to do with the north apartments, and now you see, madam, I am
right at last.”

“It cannot be denied, that his spirits were very busy in that part of
the château,” replied Emily, smiling. “But I am surprised, Ludovico,
that these pirates should persevere in their schemes, after the arrival
of the Count; what could they expect but certain detection?”

“I have reason to believe, madam,” replied Ludovico, “that it was their
intention to persevere no longer than was necessary for the removal of
the stores, which were deposited in the vaults; and it appeared, that
they had been employed in doing so from within a short period after the
Count’s arrival; but, as they had only a few hours in the night for
this business, and were carrying on other schemes at the same time, the
vaults were not above half emptied, when they took me away. They
gloried exceedingly in this opportunity of confirming the superstitious
reports, that had been spread of the north chambers, were careful to
leave everything there as they had found it, the better to promote the
deception, and frequently, in their jocose moods, would laugh at the
consternation, which they believed the inhabitants of the castle had
suffered upon my disappearing, and it was to prevent the possibility of
my betraying their secret, that they had removed me to such a distance.
From that period they considered the château as nearly their own; but I
found from the discourse of their comrades, that, though they were
cautious, at first, in showing their power there, they had once very
nearly betrayed themselves. Going, one night, as was their custom, to
the north chambers to repeat the noises, that had occasioned such alarm
among the servants, they heard, as they were about to unfasten the
secret door, voices in the bedroom. My lord has since told me, that
himself and M. Henri were then in the apartment, and they heard very
extraordinary sounds of lamentation, which it seems were made by these
fellows, with their usual design of spreading terror; and my lord has
owned, he then felt somewhat more, than surprise; but, as it was
necessary to the peace of his family, that no notice should be taken,
he was silent on the subject, and enjoined silence to his son.”

Emily, recollecting the change, that had appeared in the spirits of the
Count, after the night, when he had watched in the north room, now
perceived the cause of it; and, having made some further enquiries upon
this strange affair, she dismissed Ludovico, and went to give orders
for the accommodation of her friends, on the following day.

In the evening, Theresa, lame as she was, came to deliver the ring,
with which Valancourt had entrusted her, and, when she presented it,
Emily was much affected, for she remembered to have seen him wear it
often in happier days. She was, however, much displeased, that Theresa
had received it, and positively refused to accept it herself, though to
have done so would have afforded her a melancholy pleasure. Theresa
entreated, expostulated, and then described the distress of Valancourt,
when he had given the ring, and repeated the message, with which he had
commissioned her to deliver it; and Emily could not conceal the extreme
sorrow this recital occasioned her, but wept, and remained lost in
thought.

“Alas! my dear young lady!” said Theresa, “why should all this be? I
have known you from your infancy, and it may well be supposed I love
you, as if you were my own, and wish as much to see you happy. M.
Valancourt, to be sure, I have not known so long, but then I have
reason to love him, as though he was my own son. I know how well you
love one another, or why all this weeping and wailing?” Emily waved her
hand for Theresa to be silent, who, disregarding the signal, continued,
“And how much you are alike in your tempers and ways, and, that, if you
were married, you would be the happiest couple in the whole
province—then what is there to prevent your marrying? Dear dear! to see
how some people fling away their happiness, and then cry and lament
about it, just as if it was not their own doing, and as if there was
more pleasure in wailing and weeping, than in being at peace. Learning,
to be sure, is a fine thing, but, if it teaches folks no better than
that, why I had rather be without it; if it would teach them to be
happier, I would say something to it, then it would be learning and
wisdom too.”

Age and long services had given Theresa a privilege to talk, but Emily
now endeavoured to check her loquacity, and, though she felt the
justness of some of her remarks, did not choose to explain the
circumstances, that had determined her conduct towards Valancourt. She,
therefore, only told Theresa, that it would much displease her to hear
the subject renewed; that she had reasons for her conduct, which she
did not think it proper to mention, and that the ring must be returned,
with an assurance, that she could not accept it with propriety; and, at
the same time, she forbade Theresa to repeat any future message from
Valancourt, as she valued her esteem and kindness. Theresa was
afflicted, and made another attempt, though feeble, to interest her for
Valancourt, but the unusual displeasure, expressed in Emily’s
countenance, soon obliged her to desist, and she departed in wonder and
lamentation.

To relieve her mind, in some degree, from the painful recollections,
that intruded upon it, Emily busied herself in preparations for the
journey into Languedoc, and, while Annette, who assisted her, spoke
with joy and affection of the safe return of Ludovico, she was
considering how she might best promote their happiness, and determined,
if it appeared, that his affection was as unchanged as that of the
simple and honest Annette, to give her a marriage portion, and settle
them on some part of her estate. These considerations led her to the
remembrance of her father’s paternal domain, which his affairs had
formerly compelled him to dispose of to M. Quesnel, and which she
frequently wished to regain, because St. Aubert had lamented, that the
chief lands of his ancestors had passed into another family, and
because they had been his birth-place and the haunt of his early years.
To the estate at Thoulouse she had no peculiar attachment, and it was
her wish to dispose of this, that she might purchase her paternal
domains, if M. Quesnel could be prevailed on to part with them, which,
as he talked much of living in Italy, did not appear very improbable.



 CHAPTER XV

Sweet is the breath of vernal shower,
The bees’ collected treasures sweet,
Sweet music’s melting fall, but sweeter yet
The still, small voice of gratitude.
                    GRAY


On the following day, the arrival of her friend revived the drooping
Emily, and La Vallée became once more the scene of social kindness and
of elegant hospitality. Illness and the terror she had suffered had
stolen from Blanche much of her sprightliness, but all her affectionate
simplicity remained, and, though she appeared less blooming, she was
not less engaging than before. The unfortunate adventure on the
Pyrenees had made the Count very anxious to reach home, and, after
little more than a week’s stay at La Vallée, Emily prepared to set out
with her friends for Languedoc, assigning the care of her house, during
her absence, to Theresa. On the evening, preceding her departure, this
old servant brought again the ring of Valancourt, and, with tears,
entreated her mistress to receive it, for that she had neither seen,
nor heard of M. Valancourt, since the night when he delivered it to
her. As she said this, her countenance expressed more alarm, than she
dared to utter; but Emily, checking her own propensity to fear,
considered, that he had probably returned to the residence of his
brother, and, again refusing to accept the ring, bade Theresa preserve
it, till she saw him, which, with extreme reluctance, she promised to
do.

On the following day, Count De Villefort, with Emily and the Lady
Blanche, left La Vallée, and, on the ensuing evening, arrived at the
Château-le-Blanc, where the Countess, Henri, and M. Du Pont, whom Emily
was surprised to find there, received them with much joy and
congratulation. She was concerned to observe, that the Count still
encouraged the hopes of his friend, whose countenance declared, that
his affection had suffered no abatement from absence; and was much
distressed, when, on the second evening after her arrival, the Count,
having withdrawn her from the Lady Blanche, with whom she was walking,
renewed the subject of M. Du Pont’s hopes. The mildness, with which she
listened to his intercessions at first, deceiving him, as to her
sentiments, he began to believe, that, her affection for Valancourt
being overcome, she was, at length, disposed to think favourably of M.
Du Pont; and, when she afterwards convinced him of his mistake, he
ventured, in the earnestness of his wish to promote what he considered
to be the happiness of two persons, whom he so much esteemed, gently to
remonstrate with her, on thus suffering an ill-placed affection to
poison the happiness of her most valuable years.

Observing her silence and the deep dejection of her countenance, he
concluded with saying, “I will not say more now, but I will still
believe, my dear Mademoiselle St. Aubert, that you will not always
reject a person, so truly estimable as my friend Du Pont.”

He spared her the pain of replying, by leaving her; and she strolled
on, somewhat displeased with the Count for having persevered to plead
for a suit, which she had repeatedly rejected, and lost amidst the
melancholy recollections, which this topic had revived, till she had
insensibly reached the borders of the woods, that screened the
monastery of St. Clair, when, perceiving how far she had wandered, she
determined to extend her walk a little farther, and to enquire about
the abbess and some of her friends among the nuns.

Though the evening was now drawing to a close, she accepted the
invitation of the friar, who opened the gate, and, anxious to meet some
of her old acquaintances, proceeded towards the convent parlour. As she
crossed the lawn, that sloped from the front of the monastery towards
the sea, she was struck with the picture of repose, exhibited by some
monks, sitting in the cloisters, which extended under the brow of the
woods, that crowned this eminence; where, as they meditated, at this
twilight hour, holy subjects, they sometimes suffered their attention
to be relieved by the scene before them, nor thought it profane to look
at nature, now that it had exchanged the brilliant colours of day for
the sober hue of evening. Before the cloisters, however, spread an
ancient chesnut, whose ample branches were designed to screen the full
magnificence of a scene, that might tempt the wish to worldly
pleasures; but still, beneath the dark and spreading foliage, gleamed a
wide extent of ocean, and many a passing sail; while, to the right and
left, thick woods were seen stretching along the winding shores. So
much as this had been admitted, perhaps, to give to the secluded votary
an image of the dangers and vicissitudes of life, and to console him,
now that he had renounced its pleasures, by the certainty of having
escaped its evils. As Emily walked pensively along, considering how
much suffering she might have escaped, had she become a votaress of the
order, and remained in this retirement from the time of her father’s
death, the vesper-bell struck up, and the monks retired slowly toward
the chapel, while she, pursuing her way, entered the great hall, where
an unusual silence seemed to reign. The parlour too, which opened from
it, she found vacant, but, as the evening bell was sounding, she
believed the nuns had withdrawn into the chapel, and sat down to rest,
for a moment, before she returned to the château, where, however, the
increasing gloom made her now anxious to be.

Not many minutes had elapsed, before a nun, entering in haste, enquired
for the abbess, and was retiring, without recollecting Emily, when she
made herself known, and then learned, that a mass was going to be
performed for the soul of sister Agnes, who had been declining, for
some time, and who was now believed to be dying.

Of her sufferings the sister gave a melancholy account, and of the
horrors, into which she had frequently started, but which had now
yielded to a dejection so gloomy, that neither the prayers, in which
she was joined by the sisterhood, nor the assurances of her confessor,
had power to recall her from it, or to cheer her mind even with a
momentary gleam of comfort.

To this relation Emily listened with extreme concern, and, recollecting
the frenzied manners and the expressions of horror, which she had
herself witnessed of Agnes, together with the history, that sister
Frances had communicated, her compassion was heightened to a very
painful degree. As the evening was already far advanced, Emily did not
now desire to see her, or to join in the mass, and, after leaving many
kind remembrances with the nun, for her old friends, she quitted the
monastery, and returned over the cliffs towards the château, meditating
upon what she had just heard, till, at length she forced her mind upon
less interesting subjects.

The wind was high, and as she drew near the château, she often paused
to listen to its awful sound, as it swept over the billows, that beat
below, or groaned along the surrounding woods; and, while she rested on
a cliff at a short distance from the château, and looked upon the wide
waters, seen dimly beneath the last shade of twilight, she thought of
the following address:

TO THE WINDS

Viewless, through heaven’s vast vault your course ye steer,
Unknown from whence ye come, or whither go!
Mysterious pow’rs! I hear ye murmur low,
Till swells your loud gust on my startled ear,
And, awful! seems to say—some God is near!
I love to list your midnight voices float
In the dread storm, that o’er the ocean rolls,
And, while their charm the angry wave controls,
Mix with its sullen roar, and sink remote.
Then, rising in the pause, a sweeter note,
The dirge of spirits, who your deeds bewail,
A sweeter note oft swells while sleeps the gale!
But soon, ye sightless pow’rs! your rest is o’er,
Solemn and slow, ye rise upon the air,
Speak in the shrouds, and bid the sea-boy fear,
And the faint-warbled dirge—is heard no more!
Oh! then I deprecate your awful reign!
The loud lament yet bear not on your breath!
Bear not the crash of bark far on the main,
Bear not the cry of men, who cry in vain,
The crew’s dread chorus sinking into death!
Oh! give not these, ye pow’rs!  I ask alone,
As rapt I climb these dark romantic steeps,
The elemental war, the billow’s moan;
I ask the still, sweet tear, that listening Fancy weeps!




 CHAPTER XVI

Unnatural deeds
Do breed unnatural troubles:  infected minds
To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.
More needs she the divine, than the physician.
                    MACBETH


On the following evening, the view of the convent towers, rising among
the shadowy woods, reminded Emily of the nun, whose condition had so
much affected her; and, anxious to know how she was, as well as to see
some of her former friends, she and the Lady Blanche extended their
walk to the monastery. At the gate stood a carriage, which, from the
heat of the horses, appeared to have just arrived; but a more than
common stillness pervaded the court and the cloisters, through which
Emily and Blanche passed in their way to the great hall, where a nun,
who was crossing to the staircase, replied to the enquiries of the
former, that sister Agnes was still living, and sensible, but that it
was thought she could not survive the night. In the parlour, they found
several of the boarders, who rejoiced to see Emily, and told her many
little circumstances that had happened in the convent since her
departure, and which were interesting to her only because they related
to persons, whom she had regarded with affection. While they thus
conversed the abbess entered the room, and expressed much satisfaction
at seeing Emily, but her manner was unusually solemn, and her
countenance dejected. “Our house,” said she, after the first
salutations were over, “is truly a house of mourning—a daughter is now
paying the debt of nature.—You have heard, perhaps, that our daughter
Agnes is dying?”

Emily expressed her sincere concern.

“Her death presents to us a great and awful lesson,” continued the
abbess; “let us read it, and profit by it; let it teach us to prepare
ourselves for the change, that awaits us all! You are young, and have
it yet in your power to secure ‘the peace that passeth all
understanding’—the peace of conscience. Preserve it in your youth, that
it may comfort you in age; for vain, alas! and imperfect are the good
deeds of our latter years, if those of our early life have been evil!”

Emily would have said, that good deeds, she hoped, were never vain; but
she considered that it was the abbess who spoke, and she remained
silent.

“The latter days of Agnes,” resumed the abbess, “have been exemplary;
would they might atone for the errors of her former ones! Her
sufferings now, alas! are great; let us believe, that they will make
her peace hereafter! I have left her with her confessor, and a
gentleman, whom she has long been anxious to see, and who is just
arrived from Paris. They, I hope, will be able to administer the
repose, which her mind has hitherto wanted.”

Emily fervently joined in the wish.

“During her illness, she has sometimes named you,” resumed the abbess;
“perhaps, it would comfort her to see you; when her present visitors
have left her, we will go to her chamber, if the scene will not be too
melancholy for your spirits. But, indeed, to such scenes, however
painful, we ought to accustom ourselves, for they are salutary to the
soul, and prepare us for what we are ourselves to suffer.”

Emily became grave and thoughtful; for this conversation brought to her
recollection the dying moments of her beloved father, and she wished
once more to weep over the spot, where his remains were buried. During
the silence, which followed the abbess’ speech, many minute
circumstances attending his last hours occurred to her—his emotion on
perceiving himself to be in the neighbourhood of Château-le-Blanc—his
request to be interred in a particular spot in the church of this
monastery—and the solemn charge he had delivered to her to destroy
certain papers, without examining them.—She recollected also the
mysterious and horrible words in those manuscripts, upon which her eye
had involuntarily glanced; and, though they now, and, indeed, whenever
she remembered them, revived an excess of painful curiosity, concerning
their full import, and the motives for her father’s command, it was
ever her chief consolation, that she had strictly obeyed him in this
particular.

Little more was said by the abbess, who appeared too much affected by
the subject she had lately left, to be willing to converse, and her
companions had been for some time silent from the same cause, when this
general reverie was interrupted by the entrance of a stranger, Monsieur
Bonnac, who had just quitted the chamber of sister Agnes. He appeared
much disturbed, but Emily fancied, that his countenance had more the
expression of horror, than of grief. Having drawn the abbess to a
distant part of the room, he conversed with her for some time, during
which she seemed to listen with earnest attention, and he to speak with
caution, and a more than common degree of interest. When he had
concluded, he bowed silently to the rest of the company, and quitted
the room. The abbess, soon after, proposed going to the chamber of
sister Agnes, to which Emily consented, though not without some
reluctance, and Lady Blanche remained with the boarders below.

At the door of the chamber they met the confessor, whom, as he lifted
up his head on their approach, Emily observed to be the same that had
attended her dying father; but he passed on, without noticing her, and
they entered the apartment, where, on a mattress, was laid sister
Agnes, with one nun watching in the chair beside her. Her countenance
was so much changed, that Emily would scarcely have recollected her,
had she not been prepared to do so: it was ghastly, and overspread with
gloomy horror; her dim and hollow eyes were fixed on a crucifix, which
she held upon her bosom; and she was so much engaged in thought, as not
to perceive the abbess and Emily, till they stood at the bedside. Then,
turning her heavy eyes, she fixed them, in wild horror, upon Emily,
and, screaming, exclaimed, “Ah! that vision comes upon me in my dying
hours!”

Emily started back in terror, and looked for explanation to the abbess,
who made her a signal not to be alarmed, and calmly said to Agnes,
“Daughter, I have brought Mademoiselle St. Aubert to visit you: I
thought you would be glad to see her.”

Agnes made no reply; but, still gazing wildly upon Emily, exclaimed,
“It is her very self! Oh! there is all that fascination in her look,
which proved my destruction! What would you have—what is it you came to
demand—Retribution?—It will soon be yours—it is yours already. How many
years have passed, since last I saw you! My crime is but as
yesterday.—Yet I am grown old beneath it; while you are still young and
blooming—blooming as when you forced me to commit that most abhorred
deed! O! could I once forget it!—yet what would that avail?—the deed is
done!”

Emily, extremely shocked, would now have left the room; but the abbess,
taking her hand, tried to support her spirits, and begged she would
stay a few moments, when Agnes would probably be calm, whom now she
tried to sooth. But the latter seemed to disregard her, while she still
fixed her eyes on Emily, and added, “What are years of prayers and
repentance? they cannot wash out the foulness of murder!—Yes, murder!
Where is he—where is he?—Look there—look there!—see where he stalks
along the room! Why do you come to torment me now?” continued Agnes,
while her straining eyes were bent on air, “why was not I punished
before?—O! do not frown so sternly! Hah! there again! ’tis she herself!
Why do you look so piteously upon me—and smile, too? smile on me! What
groan was that?”

Agnes sunk down, apparently lifeless, and Emily, unable to support
herself, leaned against the bed, while the abbess and the attendant nun
were applying the usual remedies to Agnes. “Peace,” said the abbess,
when Emily was going to speak, “the delirium is going off, she will
soon revive. When was she thus before, daughter?”

“Not of many weeks, madam,” replied the nun, “but her spirits have been
much agitated by the arrival of the gentleman she wished so much to
see.”

“Yes,” observed the abbess, “that has undoubtedly occasioned this
paroxysm of frenzy. When she is better, we will leave her to repose.”

Emily very readily consented, but, though she could now give little
assistance, she was unwilling to quit the chamber, while any might be
necessary.

When Agnes recovered her senses, she again fixed her eyes on Emily, but
their wild expression was gone, and a gloomy melancholy had succeeded.
It was some moments before she recovered sufficient spirits to speak;
she then said feebly—“The likeness is wonderful!—surely it must be
something more than fancy. Tell me, I conjure you,” she added,
addressing Emily, “though your name is St. Aubert, are you not the
daughter of the Marchioness?”

“What Marchioness?” said Emily, in extreme surprise; for she had
imagined, from the calmness of Agnes’s manner, that her intellects were
restored. The abbess gave her a significant glance, but she repeated
the question.

“What Marchioness?” exclaimed Agnes, “I know but of one—the Marchioness
de Villeroi.”

Emily, remembering the emotion of her late father, upon the unexpected
mention of this lady, and his request to be laid near to the tomb of
the Villerois, now felt greatly interested, and she entreated Agnes to
explain the reason of her question. The abbess would now have withdrawn
Emily from the room, who being, however, detained by a strong interest,
repeated her entreaties.

“Bring me that casket, sister,” said Agnes; “I will show her to you;
yet you need only look in that mirror, and you will behold her; you
surely are her daughter: such striking resemblance is never found but
among near relations.”

The nun brought the casket, and Agnes, having directed her how to
unlock it, she took thence a miniature, in which Emily perceived the
exact resemblance of the picture, which she had found among her late
father’s papers. Agnes held out her hand to receive it; gazed upon it
earnestly for some moments in silence; and then, with a countenance of
deep despair, threw up her eyes to Heaven, and prayed inwardly. When
she had finished, she returned the miniature to Emily. “Keep it,” said
she, “I bequeath it to you, for I must believe it is your right. I have
frequently observed the resemblance between you; but never, till this
day, did it strike upon my conscience so powerfully! Stay, sister, do
not remove the casket—there is another picture I would show.”

Emily trembled with expectation, and the abbess again would have
withdrawn her. “Agnes is still disordered,” said she, “you observe how
she wanders. In these moods she says anything, and does not scruple, as
you have witnessed, to accuse herself of the most horrible crimes.”

Emily, however, thought she perceived something more than madness in
the inconsistencies of Agnes, whose mention of the Marchioness, and
production of her picture, had interested her so much, that she
determined to obtain further information, if possible, respecting the
subject of it.

The nun returned with the casket, and, Agnes pointing out to her a
secret drawer, she took from it another miniature. “Here,” said Agnes,
as she offered it to Emily, “learn a lesson for your vanity, at least;
look well at this picture, and see if you can discover any resemblance
between what I was, and what I am.”

Emily impatiently received the miniature, which her eyes had scarcely
glanced upon, before her trembling hands had nearly suffered it to
fall—it was the resemblance of the portrait of Signora Laurentini,
which she had formerly seen in the castle of Udolpho—the lady, who had
disappeared in so mysterious a manner, and whom Montoni had been
suspected of having caused to be murdered.

In silent astonishment, Emily continued to gaze alternately upon the
picture and the dying nun, endeavouring to trace a resemblance between
them, which no longer existed.

“Why do you look so sternly on me?” said Agnes, mistaking the nature of
Emily’s emotion.

“I have seen this face before,” said Emily, at length; “was it really
your resemblance?”

“You may well ask that question,” replied the nun,—“but it was once
esteemed a striking likeness of me. Look at me well, and see what guilt
has made me. I then was innocent; the evil passions of my nature slept.
Sister!” added she solemnly, and stretching forth her cold, damp hand
to Emily, who shuddered at its touch—“Sister! beware of the first
indulgence of the passions; beware of the first! Their course, if not
checked then, is rapid—their force is uncontrollable—they lead us we
know not whither—they lead us perhaps to the commission of crimes, for
which whole years of prayer and penitence cannot atone!—Such may be the
force of even a single passion, that it overcomes every other, and
sears up every other approach to the heart. Possessing us like a fiend,
it leads us on to the acts of a fiend, making us insensible to pity and
to conscience. And, when its purpose is accomplished, like a fiend, it
leaves us to the torture of those feelings, which its power had
suspended—not annihilated,—to the tortures of compassion, remorse, and
conscience. Then, we awaken as from a dream, and perceive a new world
around us—we gaze in astonishment, and horror—but the deed is
committed; not all the powers of heaven and earth united can undo
it—and the spectres of conscience will not fly! What are
riches—grandeur—health itself, to the luxury of a pure conscience, the
health of the soul;—and what the sufferings of poverty, disappointment,
despair—to the anguish of an afflicted one! O! how long is it since I
knew that luxury! I believed, that I had suffered the most agonizing
pangs of human nature, in love, jealousy, and despair—but these pangs
were ease, compared with the stings of conscience, which I have since
endured. I tasted too what was called the sweet of revenge—but it was
transient, it expired even with the object, that provoked it. Remember,
sister, that the passions are the seeds of vices as well as of virtues,
from which either may spring, accordingly as they are nurtured. Unhappy
they who have never been taught the art to govern them!”

“Alas! unhappy!” said the abbess, “and ill-informed of our holy
religion!” Emily listened to Agnes, in silent awe, while she still
examined the miniature, and became confirmed in her opinion of its
strong resemblance to the portrait at Udolpho. “This face is familiar
to me,” said she, wishing to lead the nun to an explanation, yet
fearing to discover too abruptly her knowledge of Udolpho.

“You are mistaken,” replied Agnes, “you certainly never saw that
picture before.”

“No,” replied Emily, “but I have seen one extremely like it.”
“Impossible,” said Agnes, who may now be called the Lady Laurentini.

“It was in the castle of Udolpho,” continued Emily, looking steadfastly
at her.

“Of Udolpho!” exclaimed Laurentini, “of Udolpho in Italy!” “The same,”
replied Emily.

“You know me then,” said Laurentini, “and you are the daughter of the
Marchioness.” Emily was somewhat surprised at this abrupt assertion. “I
am the daughter of the late Mons. St. Aubert,” said she; “and the lady
you name is an utter stranger to me.”

“At least you believe so,” rejoined Laurentini.

Emily asked what reasons there could be to believe otherwise.

“The family likeness, that you bear her,” said the nun. “The
Marchioness, it is known, was attached to a gentleman of Gascony, at
the time when she accepted the hand of the Marquis, by the command of
her father. Ill-fated, unhappy woman!”

Emily, remembering the extreme emotion which St. Aubert had betrayed on
the mention of the Marchioness, would now have suffered something more
than surprise, had her confidence in his integrity been less; as it
was, she could not, for a moment, believe what the words of Laurentini
insinuated; yet she still felt strongly interested, concerning them,
and begged, that she would explain them further.

“Do not urge me on that subject,” said the nun, “it is to me a terrible
one! Would that I could blot it from my memory!” She sighed deeply,
and, after the pause of a moment, asked Emily, by what means she had
discovered her name?

“By your portrait in the castle of Udolpho, to which this miniature
bears a striking resemblance,” replied Emily.

“You have been at Udolpho then!” said the nun, with great emotion.
“Alas! what scenes does the mention of it revive in my fancy—scenes of
happiness—of suffering—and of horror!”

At this moment, the terrible spectacle, which Emily had witnessed in a
chamber of that castle, occurred to her, and she shuddered, while she
looked upon the nun—and recollected her late words—that “years of
prayer and penitence could not wash out the foulness of murder.” She
was now compelled to attribute these to another cause, than that of
delirium. With a degree of horror, that almost deprived her of sense,
she now believed she looked upon a murderer; all the recollected
behaviour of Laurentini seemed to confirm the supposition, yet Emily
was still lost in a labyrinth of perplexities, and, not knowing how to
ask the questions, which might lead to truth, she could only hint them
in broken sentences.

“Your sudden departure from Udolpho”—said she.

Laurentini groaned.

“The reports that followed it,” continued Emily—“The west chamber—the
mournful veil—the object it conceals!—when murders are committed—”

The nun shrieked. “What! there again!” said she, endeavouring to raise
herself, while her starting eyes seemed to follow some object round the
room—“Come from the grave! What! Blood—blood too!—There was no
blood—thou canst not say it!—Nay, do not smile,—do not smile so
piteously!”

Laurentini fell into convulsions, as she uttered the last words; and
Emily, unable any longer to endure the horror of the scene, hurried
from the room, and sent some nuns to the assistance of the abbess.

The Lady Blanche, and the boarders, who were in the parlour, now
assembled round Emily, and, alarmed by her manner and affrighted
countenance, asked a hundred questions, which she avoided answering
further, than by saying, that she believed sister Agnes was dying. They
received this as a sufficient explanation of her terror, and had then
leisure to offer restoratives, which, at length, somewhat revived
Emily, whose mind was, however, so much shocked with the terrible
surmises, and perplexed with doubts by some words from the nun, that
she was unable to converse, and would have left the convent
immediately, had she not wished to know whether Laurentini would
survive the late attack. After waiting some time, she was informed,
that, the convulsions having ceased, Laurentini seemed to be reviving,
and Emily and Blanche were departing, when the abbess appeared, who,
drawing the former aside, said she had something of consequence to say
to her, but, as it was late, she would not detain her then, and
requested to see her on the following day.

Emily promised to visit her, and, having taken leave, returned with the
Lady Blanche towards the château, on the way to which the deep gloom of
the woods made Blanche lament, that the evening was so far advanced;
for the surrounding stillness and obscurity rendered her sensible of
fear, though there was a servant to protect her; while Emily was too
much engaged by the horrors of the scene she had just witnessed, to be
affected by the solemnity of the shades, otherwise than as they served
to promote her gloomy reverie, from which, however, she was at length
recalled by the Lady Blanche, who pointed out, at some distance, in the
dusky path they were winding, two persons slowly advancing. It was
impossible to avoid them without striking into a still more secluded
part of the wood, whither the strangers might easily follow; but all
apprehension vanished, when Emily distinguished the voice of Mons. Du
Pont, and perceived, that his companion was the gentleman, whom she had
seen at the monastery, and who was now conversing with so much
earnestness as not immediately to perceive their approach. When Du Pont
joined the ladies, the stranger took leave, and they proceeded to the
château, where the Count, when he heard of Mons. Bonnac, claimed him
for an acquaintance, and, on learning the melancholy occasion of his
visit to Languedoc, and that he was lodged at a small inn in the
village, begged the favour of Mons. Du Pont to invite him to the
château.

The latter was happy to do so, and the scruples of reserve, which made
M. Bonnac hesitate to accept the invitation, being at length overcome,
they went to the château, where the kindness of the Count and the
sprightliness of his son were exerted to dissipate the gloom, that
overhung the spirits of the stranger. M. Bonnac was an officer in the
French service, and appeared to be about fifty; his figure was tall and
commanding, his manners had received the last polish, and there was
something in his countenance uncommonly interesting; for over features,
which, in youth, must have been remarkably handsome, was spread a
melancholy, that seemed the effect of long misfortune, rather than of
constitution, or temper.

The conversation he held, during supper, was evidently an effort of
politeness, and there were intervals in which, unable to struggle
against the feelings, that depressed him, he relapsed into silence and
abstraction, from which, however, the Count, sometimes, withdrew him in
a manner so delicate and benevolent, that Emily, while she observed
him, almost fancied she beheld her late father.

The party separated, at an early hour, and then, in the solitude of her
apartment, the scenes, which Emily had lately witnessed, returned to
her fancy, with dreadful energy. That in the dying nun she should have
discovered Signora Laurentini, who, instead of having been murdered by
Montoni, was, as it now seemed, herself guilty of some dreadful crime,
excited both horror and surprise in a high degree; nor did the hints,
which she had dropped, respecting the marriage of the Marchioness de
Villeroi, and the enquiries she had made concerning Emily’s birth,
occasion her a less degree of interest, though it was of a different
nature.

The history, which sister Frances had formerly related, and had said to
be that of Agnes, it now appeared, was erroneous; but for what purpose
it had been fabricated, unless the more effectually to conceal the true
story, Emily could not even guess. Above all, her interest was excited
as to the relation, which the story of the late Marchioness de Villeroi
bore to that of her father; for, that some kind of relation existed
between them, the grief of St. Aubert, upon hearing her named, his
request to be buried near her, and her picture, which had been found
among his papers, certainly proved. Sometimes it occurred to Emily,
that he might have been the lover, to whom it was said the Marchioness
was attached, when she was compelled to marry the Marquis de Villeroi;
but that he had afterwards cherished a passion for her, she could not
suffer herself to believe, for a moment. The papers, which he had so
solemnly enjoined her to destroy, she now fancied had related to this
connection, and she wished more earnestly than before to know the
reasons, that made him consider the injunction necessary, which, had
her faith in his principles been less, would have led to believe, that
there was a mystery in her birth dishonourable to her parents, which
those manuscripts might have revealed.

Reflections, similar to these, engaged her mind, during the greater
part of the night, and when, at length, she fell into a slumber, it was
only to behold a vision of the dying nun, and to awaken in horrors,
like those she had witnessed.

On the following morning, she was too much indisposed to attend her
appointment with the abbess, and, before the day concluded, she heard,
that sister Agnes was no more. Mons. Bonnac received this intelligence,
with concern; but Emily observed, that he did not appear so much
affected now, as on the preceding evening, immediately after quitting
the apartment of the nun, whose death was probably less terrible to
him, than the confession he had been then called upon to witness.
However this might be, he was perhaps consoled, in some degree, by a
knowledge of the legacy bequeathed him, since his family was large, and
the extravagance of some part of it had lately been the means of
involving him in great distress, and even in the horrors of a prison;
and it was the grief he had suffered from the wild career of a
favourite son, with the pecuniary anxieties and misfortunes consequent
upon it, that had given to his countenance the air of dejection, which
had so much interested Emily.

To his friend Mons. Du Pont he recited some particulars of his late
sufferings, when it appeared, that he had been confined for several
months in one of the prisons of Paris, with little hope of release, and
without the comfort of seeing his wife, who had been absent in the
country, endeavouring, though in vain, to procure assistance from his
friends. When, at length, she had obtained an order for admittance, she
was so much shocked at the change, which long confinement and sorrow
had made in his appearance, that she was seized with fits, which, by
their long continuance, threatened her life.

“Our situation affected those, who happened to witness it,” continued
Mons. Bonnac, “and one generous friend, who was in confinement at the
same time, afterwards employed the first moments of his liberty in
efforts to obtain mine. He succeeded; the heavy debt, that oppressed
me, was discharged; and, when I would have expressed my sense of the
obligation I had received, my benefactor was fled from my search. I
have reason to believe he was the victim of his own generosity, and
that he returned to the state of confinement, from which he had
released me; but every enquiry after him was unsuccessful. Amiable and
unfortunate Valancourt!”

“Valancourt!” exclaimed Mons. Du Pont. “Of what family?”

“The Valancourts, Counts Duvarney,” replied Mons. Bonnac.

The emotion of Mons. Du Pont, when he discovered the generous
benefactor of his friend to be the rival of his love, can only be
imagined; but, having overcome his first surprise, he dissipated the
apprehensions of Mons. Bonnac by acquainting him, that Valancourt was
at liberty, and had lately been in Languedoc; after which his affection
for Emily prompted him to make some enquiries, respecting the conduct
of his rival, during his stay at Paris, of which M. Bonnac appeared to
be well informed. The answers he received were such as convinced him,
that Valancourt had been much misrepresented, and, painful as was the
sacrifice, he formed the just design of relinquishing his pursuit of
Emily to a lover, who, it now appeared, was not unworthy of the regard,
with which she honoured him.

The conversation of Mons. Bonnac discovered, that Valancourt, some time
after his arrival at Paris, had been drawn into the snares, which
determined vice had spread for him, and that his hours had been chiefly
divided between the parties of the captivating Marchioness and those
gaming assemblies, to which the envy, or the avarice, of his brother
officers had spared no art to seduce him. In these parties he had lost
large sums, in efforts to recover small ones, and to such losses the
Count De Villefort and Mons. Henri had been frequent witnesses. His
resources were, at length, exhausted; and the Count, his brother,
exasperated by his conduct, refused to continue the supplies necessary
to his present mode of life, when Valancourt, in consequence of
accumulated debts, was thrown into confinement, where his brother
suffered him to remain, in the hope, that punishment might effect a
reform of conduct, which had not yet been confirmed by long habit.

In the solitude of his prison, Valancourt had leisure for reflection,
and cause for repentance; here, too, the image of Emily, which, amidst
the dissipation of the city had been obscured, but never obliterated
from his heart, revived with all the charms of innocence and beauty, to
reproach him for having sacrificed his happiness and debased his
talents by pursuits, which his nobler faculties would formerly have
taught him to consider were as tasteless as they were degrading. But,
though his passions had been seduced, his heart was not depraved, nor
had habit riveted the chains, that hung heavily on his conscience; and,
as he retained that energy of will, which was necessary to burst them,
he, at length, emancipated himself from the bondage of vice, but not
till after much effort and severe suffering.

Being released by his brother from the prison, where he had witnessed
the affecting meeting between Mons. Bonnac and his wife, with whom he
had been for some time acquainted, the first use of his liberty formed
a striking instance of his humanity and his rashness; for with nearly
all the money, just received from his brother, he went to a
gaming-house, and gave it as a last stake for the chance of restoring
his friend to freedom, and to his afflicted family. The event was
fortunate, and, while he had awaited the issue of this momentous stake,
he made a solemn vow never again to yield to the destructive and
fascinating vice of gaming.

Having restored the venerable Mons. Bonnac to his rejoicing family, he
hurried from Paris to Estuvière; and, in the delight of having made the
wretched happy, forgot, for a while, his own misfortunes. Soon,
however, he remembered, that he had thrown away the fortune, without
which he could never hope to marry Emily; and life, unless passed with
her, now scarcely appeared supportable; for her goodness, refinement,
and simplicity of heart, rendered her beauty more enchanting, if
possible, to his fancy, than it had ever yet appeared. Experience had
taught him to understand the full value of the qualities, which he had
before admired, but which the contrasted characters he had seen in the
world made him now adore; and these reflections, increasing the pangs
of remorse and regret, occasioned the deep dejection, that had
accompanied him even into the presence of Emily, of whom he considered
himself no longer worthy. To the ignominy of having received pecuniary
obligations from the Marchioness Chamfort, or any other lady of
intrigue, as the Count De Villefort had been informed, or of having
been engaged in the depredating schemes of gamesters, Valancourt had
never submitted; and these were some of such scandals as often mingle
with truth, against the unfortunate. Count De Villefort had received
them from authority which he had no reason to doubt, and which the
imprudent conduct he had himself witnessed in Valancourt, had certainly
induced him the more readily to believe. Being such as Emily could not
name to the Chevalier, he had no opportunity of refuting them; and,
when he confessed himself to be unworthy of her esteem, he little
suspected, that he was confirming to her the most dreadful calumnies.
Thus the mistake had been mutual, and had remained so, when Mons.
Bonnac explained the conduct of his generous, but imprudent young
friend to Du Pont, who, with severe justice, determined not only to
undeceive the Count on this subject, but to resign all hope of Emily.
Such a sacrifice as his love rendered this, was deserving of a noble
reward, and Mons. Bonnac, if it had been possible for him to forget the
benevolent Valancourt, would have wished that Emily might accept the
just Du Pont.

When the Count was informed of the error he had committed, he was
extremely shocked at the consequence of his credulity, and the account
which Mons. Bonnac gave of his friend’s situation, while at Paris,
convinced him, that Valancourt had been entrapped by the schemes of a
set of dissipated young men, with whom his profession had partly
obliged him to associate, rather than by an inclination to vice; and,
charmed by the humanity, and noble, though rash generosity, which his
conduct towards Mons. Bonnac exhibited, he forgave him the transient
errors, that had stained his youth, and restored him to the high degree
of esteem, with which he had regarded him, during their early
acquaintance. But, as the least reparation he could now make Valancourt
was to afford him an opportunity of explaining to Emily his former
conduct, he immediately wrote, to request his forgiveness of the
unintentional injury he had done him, and to invite him to
Château-le-Blanc. Motives of delicacy withheld the Count from informing
Emily of this letter, and of kindness from acquainting her with the
discovery respecting Valancourt, till his arrival should save her from
the possibility of anxiety, as to its event; and this precaution spared
her even severer inquietude, than the Count had foreseen, since he was
ignorant of the symptoms of despair, which Valancourt’s late conduct
had betrayed.



 CHAPTER XVII

But in these cases,
We still have judgment here; that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague the inventor:  thus even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poison’d chalice
To our own lips.
                    MACBETH


Some circumstances of an extraordinary nature now withdrew Emily from
her own sorrows, and excited emotions, which partook of both surprise
and horror.

A few days followed that, on which Signora Laurentini died, her will
was opened at the monastery, in the presence of the superiors and Mons.
Bonnac, when it was found, that one third of her personal property was
bequeathed to the nearest surviving relative of the late Marchioness de
Villeroi, and that Emily was the person.

With the secret of Emily’s family the abbess had long been acquainted,
and it was in observance of the earnest request of St. Aubert, who was
known to the friar, that attended him on his death-bed, that his
daughter had remained in ignorance of her relationship to the
Marchioness. But some hints, which had fallen from Signora Laurentini,
during her last interview with Emily, and a confession of a very
extraordinary nature, given in her dying hours, had made the abbess
think it necessary to converse with her young friend, on the topic she
had not before ventured to introduce; and it was for this purpose, that
she had requested to see her on the morning that followed her interview
with the nun. Emily’s indisposition had then prevented the intended
conversation; but now, after the will had been examined, she received a
summons, which she immediately obeyed, and became informed of
circumstances, that powerfully affected her. As the narrative of the
abbess was, however, deficient in many particulars, of which the reader
may wish to be informed, and the history of the nun is materially
connected with the fate of the Marchioness de Villeroi, we shall omit
the conversation, that passed in the parlour of the convent, and mingle
with our relation a brief history of

LAURENTINI DI UDOLPHO,


who was the only child of her parents, and heiress of the ancient house
of Udolpho, in the territory of Venice. It was the first misfortune of
her life, and that which led to all her succeeding misery, that the
friends, who ought to have restrained her strong passions, and mildly
instructed her in the art of governing them, nurtured them by early
indulgence. But they cherished their own failings in her; for their
conduct was not the result of rational kindness, and, when they either
indulged, or opposed the passions of their child, they gratified their
own. Thus they indulged her with weakness, and reprehended her with
violence; her spirit was exasperated by their vehemence, instead of
being corrected by their wisdom; and their oppositions became contest
for victory, in which the due tenderness of the parents, and the
affectionate duties of the child, were equally forgotten; but, as
returning fondness disarmed the parents’ resentment soonest, Laurentini
was suffered to believe that she had conquered, and her passions became
stronger by every effort, that had been employed to subdue them.

The death of her father and mother in the same year left her to her own
discretion, under the dangerous circumstances attendant on youth and
beauty. She was fond of company, delighted with admiration, yet
disdainful of the opinion of the world, when it happened to contradict
her inclinations; had a gay and brilliant wit, and was mistress of all
the arts of fascination. Her conduct was such as might have been
expected, from the weakness of her principles and the strength of her
passions.

Among her numerous admirers was the late Marquis de Villeroi, who, on
his tour through Italy, saw Laurentini at Venice, where she usually
resided, and became her passionate adorer. Equally captivated by the
figure and accomplishments of the Marquis, who was at that period one
of the most distinguished noblemen of the French court, she had the art
so effectually to conceal from him the dangerous traits of her
character and the blemishes of her late conduct, that he solicited her
hand in marriage.

Before the nuptials were concluded, she retired to the castle of
Udolpho, whither the Marquis followed, and, where her conduct, relaxing
from the propriety, which she had lately assumed, discovered to him the
precipice, on which he stood. A minuter enquiry than he had before
thought it necessary to make, convinced him, that he had been deceived
in her character, and she, whom he had designed for his wife,
afterwards became his mistress.

Having passed some weeks at Udolpho, he was called abruptly to France,
whither he returned with extreme reluctance, for his heart was still
fascinated by the arts of Laurentini, with whom, however, he had on
various pretences delayed his marriage; but, to reconcile her to this
separation, he now gave repeated promises of returning to conclude the
nuptials, as soon as the affair, which thus suddenly called him to
France, should permit.

Soothed, in some degree, by these assurances, she suffered him to
depart; and, soon after, her relative, Montoni, arriving at Udolpho,
renewed the addresses, which she had before refused, and which she now
again rejected. Meanwhile, her thoughts were constantly with the
Marquis de Villeroi, for whom she suffered all the delirium of Italian
love, cherished by the solitude, to which she confined herself; for she
had now lost all taste for the pleasures of society and the gaiety of
amusement. Her only indulgences were to sigh and weep over a miniature
of the Marquis; to visit the scenes, that had witnessed their
happiness, to pour forth her heart to him in writing, and to count the
weeks, the days, which must intervene before the period that he had
mentioned as probable for his return. But this period passed without
bringing him; and week after week followed in heavy and almost
intolerable expectation. During this interval, Laurentini’s fancy,
occupied incessantly by one idea, became disordered; and, her whole
heart being devoted to one object, life became hateful to her, when she
believed that object lost.

Several months passed, during which she heard nothing from the Marquis
de Villeroi, and her days were marked, at intervals, with the frenzy of
passion and the sullenness of despair. She secluded herself from all
visitors, and, sometimes, remained in her apartment, for weeks
together, refusing to speak to every person, except her favourite
female attendant, writing scraps of letters, reading, again and again,
those she had received from the Marquis, weeping over his picture, and
speaking to it, for many hours, upbraiding, reproaching and caressing
it alternately.

At length, a report reached her, that the Marquis had married in
France, and, after suffering all the extremes of love, jealousy and
indignation, she formed the desperate resolution of going secretly to
that country, and, if the report proved true, of attempting a deep
revenge. To her favourite woman only she confided the plan of her
journey, and she engaged her to partake of it. Having collected her
jewels, which, descending to her from many branches of her family, were
of immense value, and all her cash, to a very large amount, they were
packed in a trunk, which was privately conveyed to a neighbouring town,
whither Laurentini, with this only servant, followed, and thence
proceeded secretly to Leghorn, where they embarked for France.

When, on her arrival in Languedoc, she found, that the Marquis de
Villeroi had been married, for some months, her despair almost deprived
her of reason, and she alternately projected and abandoned the horrible
design of murdering the Marquis, his wife and herself. At length she
contrived to throw herself in his way, with an intention of reproaching
him, for his conduct, and of stabbing herself in his presence; but,
when she again saw him, who so long had been the constant object of her
thoughts and affections, resentment yielded to love; her resolution
failed; she trembled with the conflict of emotions, that assailed her
heart, and fainted away.

The Marquis was not proof against her beauty and sensibility; all the
energy, with which he had first loved, returned, for his passion had
been resisted by prudence, rather than overcome by indifference; and,
since the honour of his family would not permit him to marry her, he
had endeavoured to subdue his love, and had so far succeeded, as to
select the then Marchioness for his wife, whom he loved at first with a
tempered and rational affection. But the mild virtues of that amiable
lady did not recompense him for her indifference, which appeared,
notwithstanding her efforts to conceal it; and he had, for some time,
suspected that her affections were engaged by another person, when
Laurentini arrived in Languedoc. This artful Italian soon perceived,
that she had regained her influence over him, and, soothed by the
discovery, she determined to live, and to employ all her enchantments
to win his consent to the diabolical deed, which she believed was
necessary to the security of her happiness. She conducted her scheme
with deep dissimulation and patient perseverance, and, having
completely estranged the affections of the Marquis from his wife, whose
gentle goodness and unimpassioned manners had ceased to please, when
contrasted with the captivations of the Italian, she proceeded to
awaken in his mind the jealousy of pride, for it was no longer that of
love, and even pointed out to him the person, to whom she affirmed the
Marchioness had sacrificed her honour; but Laurentini had first
extorted from him a solemn promise to forbear avenging himself upon his
rival. This was an important part of her plan, for she knew, that, if
his desire of vengeance was restrained towards one party, it would burn
more fiercely towards the other, and he might then, perhaps, be
prevailed on to assist in the horrible act, which would release him
from the only barrier, that withheld him from making her his wife.

The innocent Marchioness, meanwhile, observed, with extreme grief, the
alteration in her husband’s manners. He became reserved and thoughtful
in her presence; his conduct was austere, and sometimes even rude; and
he left her, for many hours together, to weep for his unkindness, and
to form plans for the recovery of his affection. His conduct afflicted
her the more, because, in obedience to the command of her father, she
had accepted his hand, though her affections were engaged to another,
whose amiable disposition, she had reason to believe, would have
ensured her happiness. This circumstance Laurentini had discovered,
soon after her arrival in France, and had made ample use of it in
assisting her designs upon the Marquis, to whom she adduced such
seeming proof of his wife’s infidelity, that, in the frantic rage of
wounded honour, he consented to destroy his wife. A slow poison was
administered, and she fell a victim to the jealousy and subtlety of
Laurentini and to the guilty weakness of her husband.

But the moment of Laurentini’s triumph, the moment, to which she had
looked forward for the completion of all her wishes, proved only the
commencement of a suffering, that never left her to her dying hour.

The passion of revenge, which had in part stimulated her to the
commission of this atrocious deed, died, even at the moment when it was
gratified, and left her to the horrors of unavailing pity and remorse,
which would probably have empoisoned all the years she had promised
herself with the Marquis de Villeroi, had her expectations of an
alliance with him been realised. But he, too, had found the moment of
his revenge to be that of remorse, as to himself, and detestation, as
to the partner of his crime; the feeling, which he had mistaken for
conviction, was no more; and he stood astonished, and aghast, that no
proof remained of his wife’s infidelity, now that she had suffered the
punishment of guilt. Even when he was informed, that she was dying, he
had felt suddenly and unaccountably reassured of her innocence, nor was
the solemn assurance she made him in her last hour, capable of
affording him a stronger conviction of her blameless conduct.

In the first horrors of remorse and despair, he felt inclined to
deliver up himself and the woman, who had plunged him into this abyss
of guilt, into the hands of justice; but, when the paroxysm of his
suffering was over, his intention changed. Laurentini, however, he saw
only once afterwards, and that was, to curse her as the instigator of
his crime, and to say, that he spared her life only on condition, that
she passed the rest of her days in prayer and penance. Overwhelmed with
disappointment, on receiving contempt and abhorrence from the man, for
whose sake she had not scrupled to stain her conscience with human
blood, and, touched with horror of the unavailing crime she had
committed, she renounced the world, and retired to the monastery of St.
Claire, a dreadful victim to unresisted passion.

The Marquis, immediately after the death of his wife, quitted
Château-le-Blanc, to which he never returned, and endeavoured to lose
the sense of his crime amidst the tumult of war, or the dissipations of
a capital; but his efforts were vain; a deep dejection hung over him
ever after, for which his most intimate friend could not account, and
he, at length, died, with a degree of horror nearly equal to that,
which Laurentini had suffered. The physician, who had observed the
singular appearance of the unfortunate Marchioness, after death, had
been bribed to silence; and, as the surmises of a few of the servants
had proceeded no further than a whisper, the affair had never been
investigated. Whether this whisper ever reached the father of the
Marchioness, and, if it did, whether the difficulty of obtaining proof
deterred him from prosecuting the Marquis de Villeroi, is uncertain;
but her death was deeply lamented by some part of her family, and
particularly by her brother, M. St. Aubert; for that was the degree of
relationship, which had existed between Emily’s father and the
Marchioness; and there is no doubt, that he suspected the manner of her
death. Many letters passed between the Marquis and him, soon after the
decease of his beloved sister, the subject of which was not known, but
there is reason to believe, that they related to the cause of her
death; and these were the papers, together with some letters of the
Marchioness, who had confided to her brother the occasion of her
unhappiness, which St. Aubert had so solemnly enjoined his daughter to
destroy: and anxiety for her peace had probably made him forbid her to
enquire into the melancholy story, to which they alluded. Such, indeed,
had been his affliction, on the premature death of this his favourite
sister, whose unhappy marriage had from the first excited his tenderest
pity, that he never could hear her named, or mention her himself after
her death, except to Madame St. Aubert. From Emily, whose sensibility
he feared to awaken, he had so carefully concealed her history and
name, that she was ignorant, till now, that she ever had such a
relative as the Marchioness de Villeroi; and from this motive he had
enjoined silence to his only surviving sister, Madame Cheron, who had
scrupulously observed his request.

It was over some of the last pathetic letters of the Marchioness, that
St. Aubert was weeping, when he was observed by Emily, on the eve of
her departure from La Vallée, and it was her picture, which he had so
tenderly caressed. Her disastrous death may account for the emotion he
had betrayed, on hearing her named by La Voisin, and for his request to
be interred near the monument of the Villerois, where her remains were
deposited, but not those of her husband, who was buried, where he died,
in the north of France.

The confessor, who attended St. Aubert in his last moments, recollected
him to be the brother of the late Marchioness, when St. Aubert, from
tenderness to Emily, had conjured him to conceal the circumstance, and
to request that the abbess, to whose care he particularly recommended
her, would do the same; a request, which had been exactly observed.

Laurentini, on her arrival in France, had carefully concealed her name
and family, and, the better to disguise her real history, had, on
entering the convent, caused the story to be circulated, which had
imposed on sister Frances, and it is probable, that the abbess, who did
not preside in the convent, at the time of her noviciation, was also
entirely ignorant of the truth. The deep remorse, that seized on the
mind of Laurentini, together with the sufferings of disappointed
passion, for she still loved the Marquis, again unsettled her
intellects, and, after the first paroxysms of despair were passed, a
heavy and silent melancholy had settled upon her spirits, which
suffered few interruptions from fits of frenzy, till the time of her
death. During many years, it had been her only amusement to walk in the
woods near the monastery, in the solitary hours of night, and to play
upon a favourite instrument, to which she sometimes joined the
delightful melody of her voice, in the most solemn and melancholy airs
of her native country, modulated by all the energetic feeling, that
dwelt in her heart. The physician, who had attended her, recommended it
to the superior to indulge her in this whim, as the only means of
soothing her distempered fancy; and she was suffered to walk in the
lonely hours of night, attended by the servant, who had accompanied her
from Italy; but, as the indulgence transgressed against the rules of
the convent, it was kept as secret as possible; and thus the mysterious
music of Laurentini had combined with other circumstances, to produce a
report, that not only the château, but its neighbourhood, was haunted.

Soon after her entrance into this holy community, and before she had
shown any symptoms of insanity there, she made a will, in which, after
bequeathing a considerable legacy to the convent, she divided the
remainder of her personal property, which her jewels made very
valuable, between the wife of Mons. Bonnac, who was an Italian lady and
her relation, and the nearest surviving relative of the late
Marchioness de Villeroi. As Emily St. Aubert was not only the nearest,
but the sole relative, this legacy descended to her, and thus explained
to her the whole mystery of her father’s conduct.

The resemblance between Emily and her unfortunate aunt had frequently
been observed by Laurentini, and had occasioned the singular behaviour,
which had formerly alarmed her; but it was in the nun’s dying hour,
when her conscience gave her perpetually the idea of the Marchioness,
that she became more sensible, than ever, of this likeness, and, in her
frenzy, deemed it no resemblance of the person she had injured, but the
original herself. The bold assertion, that had followed, on the
recovery of her senses, that Emily was the daughter of the Marchioness
de Villeroi, arose from a suspicion that she was so; for, knowing that
her rival, when she married the Marquis, was attached to another lover,
she had scarcely scrupled to believe, that her honour had been
sacrificed, like her own, to an unresisted passion.

Of a crime, however, to which Emily had suspected, from her frenzied
confession of murder, that she had been instrumental in the castle of
Udolpho, Laurentini was innocent; and she had herself been deceived,
concerning the spectacle, that formerly occasioned her so much terror,
and had since compelled her, for a while, to attribute the horrors of
the nun to a consciousness of a murder, committed in that castle.

It may be remembered, that, in a chamber of Udolpho, hung a black veil,
whose singular situation had excited Emily’s curiosity, and which
afterwards disclosed an object, that had overwhelmed her with horror;
for, on lifting it, there appeared, instead of the picture she had
expected, within a recess of the wall, a human figure of ghastly
paleness, stretched at its length, and dressed in the habiliments of
the grave. What added to the horror of the spectacle, was, that the
face appeared partly decayed and disfigured by worms, which were
visible on the features and hands. On such an object, it will be
readily believed, that no person could endure to look twice. Emily, it
may be recollected, had, after the first glance, let the veil drop, and
her terror had prevented her from ever after provoking a renewal of
such suffering, as she had then experienced. Had she dared to look
again, her delusion and her fears would have vanished together, and she
would have perceived, that the figure before her was not human, but
formed of wax. The history of it is somewhat extraordinary, though not
without example in the records of that fierce severity, which monkish
superstition has sometimes inflicted on mankind. A member of the house
of Udolpho, having committed some offence against the prerogative of
the church, had been condemned to the penance of contemplating, during
certain hours of the day, a waxen image, made to resemble a human body
in the state, to which it is reduced after death. This penance, serving
as a memento of the condition at which he must himself arrive, had been
designed to reprove the pride of the Marquis of Udolpho, which had
formerly so much exasperated that of the Romish church; and he had not
only superstitiously observed this penance himself, which, he had
believed, was to obtain a pardon for all his sins, but had made it a
condition in his will, that his descendants should preserve the image,
on pain of forfeiting to the church a certain part of his domain, that
they also might profit by the humiliating moral it conveyed. The
figure, therefore, had been suffered to retain its station in the wall
of the chamber, but his descendants excused themselves from observing
the penance, to which he had been enjoined.

This image was so horribly natural, that it is not surprising Emily
should have mistaken it for the object it resembled, nor, since she had
heard such an extraordinary account, concerning the disappearing of the
late lady of the castle, and had such experience of the character of
Montoni, that she should have believed this to be the murdered body of
the lady Laurentini, and that he had been the contriver of her death.

The situation, in which she had discovered it, occasioned her, at
first, much surprise and perplexity; but the vigilance, with which the
doors of the chamber, where it was deposited, were afterwards secured,
had compelled her to believe, that Montoni, not daring to confide the
secret of her death to any person, had suffered her remains to decay in
this obscure chamber. The ceremony of the veil, however, and the
circumstance of the doors having been left open, even for a moment, had
occasioned her much wonder and some doubts; but these were not
sufficient to overcome her suspicion of Montoni; and it was the dread
of his terrible vengeance, that had sealed her lips in silence,
concerning what she had seen in the west chamber.

Emily, in discovering the Marchioness de Villeroi to have been the
sister of Mons. St. Aubert, was variously affected; but, amidst the
sorrow, which she suffered for her untimely death, she was released
from an anxious and painful conjecture, occasioned by the rash
assertion of Signora Laurentini, concerning her birth and the honour of
her parents. Her faith in St. Aubert’s principles would scarcely allow
her to suspect that he had acted dishonourably; and she felt such
reluctance to believe herself the daughter of any other, than her, whom
she had always considered and loved as a mother, that she would hardly
admit such a circumstance to be possible; yet the likeness, which it
had frequently been affirmed she bore to the late Marchioness, the
former behaviour of Dorothée the old housekeeper, the assertion of
Laurentini, and the mysterious attachment, which St. Aubert had
discovered, awakened doubts, as to his connection with the Marchioness,
which her reason could neither vanquish, nor confirm. From these,
however, she was now relieved, and all the circumstances of her
father’s conduct were fully explained: but her heart was oppressed by
the melancholy catastrophe of her amiable relative, and by the awful
lesson, which the history of the nun exhibited, the indulgence of whose
passions had been the means of leading her gradually to the commission
of a crime, from the prophecy of which in her early years she would
have recoiled in horror, and exclaimed—that it could not be!—a crime,
which whole years of repentance and of the severest penance had not
been able to obliterate from her conscience.



 CHAPTER XVIII

Then, fresh tears
Stood on her cheek, as doth the honey-dew
Upon a gather’d lily almost wither’d
                    SHAKESPEARE


After the late discoveries, Emily was distinguished at the château by
the Count and his family, as a relative of the house of Villeroi, and
received, if possible, more friendly attention, than had yet been shown
her.

Count De Villefort’s surprise at the delay of an answer to his letter,
which had been directed to Valancourt, at Estuvière, was mingled with
satisfaction for the prudence, which had saved Emily from a share of
the anxiety he now suffered, though, when he saw her still drooping
under the effect of his former error, all his resolution was necessary
to restrain him from relating the truth, that would afford her a
momentary relief. The approaching nuptials of the Lady Blanche now
divided his attention with this subject of his anxiety, for the
inhabitants of the château were already busied in preparations for that
event, and the arrival of Mons. St. Foix was daily expected. In the
gaiety, which surrounded her, Emily vainly tried to participate, her
spirits being depressed by the late discoveries, and by the anxiety
concerning the fate of Valancourt, that had been occasioned by the
description of his manner, when he had delivered the ring. She seemed
to perceive in it the gloomy wildness of despair; and, when she
considered to what that despair might have urged him, her heart sunk
with terror and grief. The state of suspense, as to his safety, to
which she believed herself condemned, till she should return to La
Vallée, appeared insupportable, and, in such moments, she could not
even struggle to assume the composure, that had left her mind, but
would often abruptly quit the company she was with, and endeavour to
sooth her spirits in the deep solitudes of the woods, that overbrowed
the shore. Here, the faint roar of foaming waves, that beat below, and
the sullen murmur of the wind among the branches around, were
circumstances in unison with the temper of her mind; and she would sit
on a cliff, or on the broken steps of her favourite watch-tower,
observing the changing colours of the evening clouds, and the gloom of
twilight draw over the sea, till the white tops of billows, riding
towards the shore, could scarcely be discerned amidst the darkened
waters. The lines, engraved by Valancourt on this tower, she frequently
repeated with melancholy enthusiasm, and then would endeavour to check
the recollections and the grief they occasioned, and to turn her
thoughts to indifferent subjects.

One evening, having wandered with her lute to this her favourite spot,
she entered the ruined tower, and ascended a winding staircase, that
led to a small chamber, which was less decayed than the rest of the
building, and whence she had often gazed, with admiration, on the wide
prospect of sea and land, that extended below. The sun was now setting
on that tract of the Pyrenees, which divided Languedoc from Rousillon,
and, placing herself opposite to a small grated window, which, like the
wood-tops beneath, and the waves lower still, gleamed with the red glow
of the west, she touched the chords of her lute in solemn symphony, and
then accompanied it with her voice, in one of the simple and affecting
airs, to which, in happier days, Valancourt had often listened in
rapture, and which she now adapted to the following lines.

TO MELANCHOLY

Spirit of love and sorrow—hail!
Thy solemn voice from far I hear,
Mingling with ev’ning’s dying gale:
Hail, with this sadly-pleasing tear!

O! at this still, this lonely hour,
Thine own sweet hour of closing day,
Awake thy lute, whose charmful pow’r
Shall call up Fancy to obey:

To paint the wild romantic dream,
That meets the poet’s musing eye,
As, on the bank of shadowy stream,
He breathes to her the fervid sigh.

O lonely spirit! let thy song
Lead me through all thy sacred haunt;
The minister’s moonlight aisles along,
Where spectres raise the midnight chaunt.

I hear their dirges faintly swell!
Then, sink at once in silence drear,
While, from the pillar’d cloister’s cell,
Dimly their gliding forms appear!

Lead where the pine-woods wave on high,
Whose pathless sod is darkly seen,
As the cold moon, with trembling eye,
Darts her long beams the leaves between.

Lead to the mountain’s dusky head,
Where, far below, in shade profound,
Wide forests, plains and hamlets spread,
And sad the chimes of vesper sound,

Or guide me, where the dashing oar
Just breaks the stillness of the vale,
As slow it tracks the winding shore,
To meet the ocean’s distant sail:

To pebbly banks, that Neptune laves,
With measur’d surges, loud and deep,
Where the dark cliff bends o’er the waves,
And wild the winds of autumn sweep.

There pause at midnight’s spectred hour,
And list the long-resounding gale;
And catch the fleeting moonlight’s pow’r,
O’er foaming seas and distant sail.


The soft tranquillity of the scene below, where the evening breeze
scarcely curled the water, or swelled the passing sail, that caught the
last gleam of the sun, and where, now and then, a dipping oar was all
that disturbed the trembling radiance, conspired with the tender melody
of her lute to lull her mind into a state of gentle sadness, and she
sung the mournful songs of past times, till the remembrances they
awakened were too powerful for her heart, her tears fell upon the lute,
over which she drooped, and her voice trembled, and was unable to
proceed.

Though the sun had now sunk behind the mountains, and even his
reflected light was fading from their highest points, Emily did not
leave the watch-tower, but continued to indulge her melancholy reverie,
till a footstep, at a little distance, startled her, and, on looking
through the grate, she observed a person walking below, whom, however,
soon perceiving to be Mons. Bonnac, she returned to the quiet
thoughtfulness his step had interrupted. After some time, she again
struck her lute, and sung her favourite air; but again a step disturbed
her, and, as she paused to listen, she heard it ascending the staircase
of the tower. The gloom of the hour, perhaps, made her sensible to some
degree of fear, which she might not otherwise have felt; for, only a
few minutes before, she had seen Mons. Bonnac pass. The steps were
quick and bounding, and, in the next moment, the door of the chamber
opened, and a person entered, whose features were veiled in the
obscurity of twilight; but his voice could not be concealed, for it was
the voice of Valancourt! At the sound, never heard by Emily, without
emotion, she started, in terror, astonishment and doubtful pleasure,
and had scarcely beheld him at her feet, when she sunk into a seat,
overcome by the various emotions, that contended at her heart, and
almost insensible to that voice, whose earnest and trembling calls
seemed as if endeavouring to save her. Valancourt, as he hung over
Emily, deplored his own rash impatience, in having thus surprised her:
for when he had arrived at the château, too anxious to await the return
of the Count, who, he understood, was in the grounds, he went himself
to seek him, when, as he passed the tower, he was struck by the sound
of Emily’s voice, and immediately ascended.

It was a considerable time before she revived, but, when her
recollection returned, she repulsed his attentions, with an air of
reserve, and enquired, with as much displeasure as it was possible she
could feel in these first moments of his appearance, the occasion of
his visit.

“Ah Emily!” said Valancourt, “that air, those words—alas! I have, then,
little to hope—when you ceased to esteem me, you ceased also to love
me!”

“Most true, sir,” replied Emily, endeavouring to command her trembling
voice; “and if you had valued my esteem, you would not have given me
this new occasion for uneasiness.”

Valancourt’s countenance changed suddenly from the anxieties of doubt
to an expression of surprise and dismay: he was silent a moment, and
then said, “I had been taught to hope for a very different reception!
Is it, then, true, Emily, that I have lost your regard for ever? am I
to believe, that, though your esteem for me may return—your affection
never can? Can the Count have meditated the cruelty, which now tortures
me with a second death?”

The voice, in which he spoke this, alarmed Emily as much as his words
surprised her, and, with trembling impatience, she begged that he would
explain them.

“Can any explanation be necessary?” said Valancourt, “do you not know
how cruelly my conduct has been misrepresented? that the actions of
which you once believed me guilty (and, O Emily! how could you so
degrade me in your opinion, even for a moment!) those actions—I hold in
as much contempt and abhorrence as yourself? Are you, indeed, ignorant,
that Count de Villefort has detected the slanders, that have robbed me
of all I hold dear on earth, and has invited me hither to justify to
you my former conduct? It is surely impossible you can be uninformed of
these circumstances, and I am again torturing myself with a false
hope!”

The silence of Emily confirmed this supposition; for the deep twilight
would not allow Valancourt to distinguish the astonishment and doubting
joy, that fixed her features. For a moment, she continued unable to
speak; then a profound sigh seemed to give some relief to her spirits,
and she said,

“Valancourt! I was, till this moment, ignorant of all the circumstances
you have mentioned; the emotion I now suffer may assure you of the
truth of this, and, that, though I had ceased to esteem, I had not
taught myself entirely to forget you.”

“This moment,” said Valancourt, in a low voice, and leaning for support
against the window—“this moment brings with it a conviction that
overpowers me!—I am dear to you then—still dear to you, my Emily!”

“Is it necessary that I should tell you so?” she replied, “is it
necessary, that I should say—these are the first moments of joy I have
known, since your departure, and that they repay me for all those of
pain I have suffered in the interval?”

Valancourt sighed deeply, and was unable to reply; but, as he pressed
her hand to his lips, the tears, that fell over it, spoke a language,
which could not be mistaken, and to which words were inadequate.

Emily, somewhat tranquillized, proposed returning to the château, and
then, for the first time, recollected that the Count had invited
Valancourt thither to explain his conduct, and that no explanation had
yet been given. But, while she acknowledged this, her heart would not
allow her to dwell, for a moment, on the possibility of his
unworthiness; his look, his voice, his manner, all spoke the noble
sincerity, which had formerly distinguished him; and she again
permitted herself to indulge the emotions of a joy, more surprising and
powerful, than she had ever before experienced.

Neither Emily, nor Valancourt, were conscious how they reached the
château, whither they might have been transferred by the spell of a
fairy, for anything they could remember; and it was not, till they had
reached the great hall, that either of them recollected there were
other persons in the world besides themselves. The Count then came
forth with surprise, and with the joyfulness of pure benevolence, to
welcome Valancourt, and to entreat his forgiveness of the injustice he
had done him; soon after which, Mons. Bonnac joined this happy group,
in which he and Valancourt were mutually rejoiced to meet.

When the first congratulations were over, and the general joy became
somewhat more tranquil, the Count withdrew with Valancourt to the
library, where a long conversation passed between them, in which the
latter so clearly justified himself of the criminal parts of the
conduct, imputed to him, and so candidly confessed and so feelingly
lamented the follies, which he had committed, that the Count was
confirmed in his belief of all he had hoped; and, while he perceived so
many noble virtues in Valancourt, and that experience had taught him to
detest the follies, which before he had only not admired, he did not
scruple to believe, that he would pass through life with the dignity of
a wise and good man, or to entrust to his care the future happiness of
Emily St. Aubert, for whom he felt the solicitude of a parent. Of this
he soon informed her, in a short conversation, when Valancourt had left
him. While Emily listened to a relation of the services, that
Valancourt had rendered Mons. Bonnac, her eyes overflowed with tears of
pleasure, and the further conversation of Count De Villefort perfectly
dissipated every doubt, as to the past and future conduct of him, to
whom she now restored, without fear, the esteem and affection, with
which she had formerly received him.

When they returned to the supper-room, the Countess and Lady Blanche
met Valancourt with sincere congratulations; and Blanche, indeed, was
so much rejoiced to see Emily returned to happiness, as to forget, for
a while, that Mons. St. Foix was not yet arrived at the château, though
he had been expected for some hours; but her generous sympathy was,
soon after, rewarded by his appearance. He was now perfectly recovered
from the wounds, received, during his perilous adventure among the
Pyrenees, the mention of which served to heighten to the parties, who
had been involved in it, the sense of their present happiness. New
congratulations passed between them, and round the supper-table
appeared a group of faces, smiling with felicity, but with a felicity,
which had in each a different character. The smile of Blanche was frank
and gay, that of Emily tender and pensive; Valancourt’s was rapturous,
tender and gay alternately; Mons. St. Foix’s was joyous, and that of
the Count, as he looked on the surrounding party, expressed the
tempered complacency of benevolence; while the features of the
Countess, Henri, and Mons. Bonnac, discovered fainter traces of
animation. Poor Mons. Du Pont did not, by his presence, throw a shade
of regret over the company; for, when he had discovered, that
Valancourt was not unworthy of the esteem of Emily, he determined
seriously to endeavour at the conquest of his own hopeless affection,
and had immediately withdrawn from Château-le-Blanc—a conduct, which
Emily now understood, and rewarded with her admiration and pity.

The Count and his guests continued together till a late hour, yielding
to the delights of social gaiety, and to the sweets of friendship. When
Annette heard of the arrival of Valancourt, Ludovico had some
difficulty to prevent her going into the supper-room, to express her
joy, for she declared, that she had never been so rejoiced at any
_accident_ as this, since she had found Ludovico himself.



 CHAPTER XIX

Now my task is smoothly done,
I can fly, or I can run
Quickly to the green earth’s end,
Where the bow’d welkin low doth bend,
And, from thence, can soar as soon
To the corners of the moon.
                    MILTON


The marriages of the Lady Blanche and Emily St. Aubert were celebrated,
on the same day, and with the ancient baronial magnificence, at
Château-le-Blanc. The feasts were held in the great hall of the castle,
which, on this occasion, was hung with superb new tapestry,
representing the exploits of Charlemagne and his twelve peers; here,
were seen the Saracens, with their horrible visors, advancing to
battle; and there, were displayed the wild solemnities of incantation,
and the necromantic feats, exhibited by the magician _Jarl_ before the
Emperor. The sumptuous banners of the family of Villeroi, which had
long slept in dust, were once more unfurled, to wave over the gothic
points of painted casements; and music echoed, in many a lingering
close, through every winding gallery and colonnade of that vast
edifice.

As Annette looked down from the corridor upon the hall, whose arches
and windows were illuminated with brilliant festoons of lamps, and
gazed on the splendid dresses of the dancers, the costly liveries of
the attendants, the canopies of purple velvet and gold, and listened to
the gay strains that floated along the vaulted roof, she almost fancied
herself in an enchanted palace, and declared, that she had not met with
any place, which charmed her so much, since she read the fairy tales;
nay, that the fairies themselves, at their nightly revels in this old
hall, could display nothing finer; while old Dorothée, as she surveyed
the scene, sighed, and said, the castle looked as it was wont to do in
the time of her youth.

After gracing the festivities of Château-le-Blanc, for some days,
Valancourt and Emily took leave of their kind friends, and returned to
La Vallée, where the faithful Theresa received them with unfeigned joy,
and the pleasant shades welcomed them with a thousand tender and
affecting remembrances; and, while they wandered together over the
scenes, so long inhabited by the late Mons. and Madame St. Aubert, and
Emily pointed out, with pensive affection, their favourite haunts, her
present happiness was heightened, by considering, that it would have
been worthy of their approbation, could they have witnessed it.

Valancourt led her to the plane-tree on the terrace, where he had first
ventured to declare his love, and where now the remembrance of the
anxiety he had then suffered, and the retrospect of all the dangers and
misfortunes they had each encountered, since last they sat together
beneath its broad branches, exalted the sense of their present
felicity, which, on this spot, sacred to the memory of St. Aubert, they
solemnly vowed to deserve, as far as possible, by endeavouring to
imitate his benevolence,—by remembering, that superior attainments of
every sort bring with them duties of superior exertion,—and by
affording to their fellow-beings, together with that portion of
ordinary comforts, which prosperity always owes to misfortune, the
example of lives passed in happy thankfulness to God, and, therefore,
in careful tenderness to his creatures.

Soon after their return to La Vallée, the brother of Valancourt came to
congratulate him on his marriage, and to pay his respects to Emily,
with whom he was so much pleased, as well as with the prospect of
rational happiness, which these nuptials offered to Valancourt, that he
immediately resigned to him a part of the rich domain, the whole of
which, as he had no family, would of course descend to his brother, on
his decease.

The estates, at Thoulouse, were disposed of, and Emily purchased of
Mons. Quesnel the ancient domain of her late father, where, having
given Annette a marriage portion, she settled her as the housekeeper,
and Ludovico as the steward; but, since both Valancourt and herself
preferred the pleasant and long-loved shades of La Vallée to the
magnificence of Epourville, they continued to reside there, passing,
however, a few months in the year at the birth-place of St. Aubert, in
tender respect to his memory.

The legacy, which had been bequeathed to Emily by Signora Laurentini,
she begged Valancourt would allow her to resign to Mons. Bonnac; and
Valancourt, when she made the request, felt all the value of the
compliment it conveyed. The castle of Udolpho, also, descended to the
wife of Mons. Bonnac, who was the nearest surviving relation of the
house of that name, and thus affluence restored his long-oppressed
spirits to peace, and his family to comfort.

O! how joyful it is to tell of happiness, such as that of Valancourt
and Emily; to relate, that, after suffering under the oppression of the
vicious and the disdain of the weak, they were, at length, restored to
each other—to the beloved landscapes of their native country,—to the
securest felicity of this life, that of aspiring to moral and labouring
for intellectual improvement—to the pleasures of enlightened society,
and to the exercise of the benevolence, which had always animated their
hearts; while the bowers of La Vallée became, once more, the retreat of
goodness, wisdom and domestic blessedness!

O! useful may it be to have shown, that, though the vicious can
sometimes pour affliction upon the good, their power is transient and
their punishment certain; and that innocence, though oppressed by
injustice, shall, supported by patience, finally triumph over
misfortune!

And, if the weak hand, that has recorded this tale, has, by its scenes,
beguiled the mourner of one hour of sorrow, or, by its moral, taught
him to sustain it—the effort, however humble, has not been vain, nor is
the writer unrewarded.












THE TRAGEDY OF ROMEO AND JULIET

by William Shakespeare




Contents

THE PROLOGUE.

ACT I
Scene I. A public place.
Scene II. A Street.
Scene III. Room in Capulet’s House.
Scene IV. A Street.
Scene V. A Hall in Capulet’s House.

ACT II
CHORUS.
Scene I. An open place adjoining Capulet’s Garden.
Scene II. Capulet’s Garden.
Scene III. Friar Lawrence’s Cell.
Scene IV. A Street.
Scene V. Capulet’s Garden.
Scene VI. Friar Lawrence’s Cell.

ACT III
Scene I. A public Place.
Scene II. A Room in Capulet’s House.
Scene III. Friar Lawrence’s cell.
Scene IV. A Room in Capulet’s House.
Scene V. An open Gallery to Juliet’s Chamber, overlooking the Garden.

ACT IV
Scene I. Friar Lawrence’s Cell.
Scene II. Hall in Capulet’s House.
Scene III. Juliet’s Chamber.
Scene IV. Hall in Capulet’s House.
Scene V. Juliet’s Chamber; Juliet on the bed.

ACT V
Scene I. Mantua. A Street.
Scene II. Friar Lawrence’s Cell.
Scene III. A churchyard; in it a Monument belonging to the Capulets.




 Dramatis Personæ

ESCALUS, Prince of Verona.
MERCUTIO, kinsman to the Prince, and friend to Romeo.
PARIS, a young Nobleman, kinsman to the Prince.
Page to Paris.

MONTAGUE, head of a Veronese family at feud with the Capulets.
LADY MONTAGUE, wife to Montague.
ROMEO, son to Montague.
BENVOLIO, nephew to Montague, and friend to Romeo.
ABRAM, servant to Montague.
BALTHASAR, servant to Romeo.

CAPULET, head of a Veronese family at feud with the Montagues.
LADY CAPULET, wife to Capulet.
JULIET, daughter to Capulet.
TYBALT, nephew to Lady Capulet.
CAPULET’S COUSIN, an old man.
NURSE to Juliet.
PETER, servant to Juliet’s Nurse.
SAMPSON, servant to Capulet.
GREGORY, servant to Capulet.
Servants.

FRIAR LAWRENCE, a Franciscan.
FRIAR JOHN, of the same Order.
An Apothecary.
CHORUS.
Three Musicians.
An Officer.
Citizens of Verona; several Men and Women, relations to both houses;
Maskers, Guards, Watchmen and Attendants.

SCENE. During the greater part of the Play in Verona; once, in the
Fifth Act, at Mantua.




THE PROLOGUE


 Enter Chorus.

CHORUS.
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;
Whose misadventur’d piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love,
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
Which, but their children’s end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;
The which, if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

 [_Exit._]




ACT I

SCENE I. A public place.


 Enter Sampson and Gregory armed with swords and bucklers.

SAMPSON.
Gregory, on my word, we’ll not carry coals.

GREGORY.
No, for then we should be colliers.

SAMPSON.
I mean, if we be in choler, we’ll draw.

GREGORY.
Ay, while you live, draw your neck out o’ the collar.

SAMPSON.
I strike quickly, being moved.

GREGORY.
But thou art not quickly moved to strike.

SAMPSON.
A dog of the house of Montague moves me.

GREGORY.
To move is to stir; and to be valiant is to stand: therefore, if thou
art moved, thou runn’st away.

SAMPSON.
A dog of that house shall move me to stand.
I will take the wall of any man or maid of Montague’s.

GREGORY.
That shows thee a weak slave, for the weakest goes to the wall.

SAMPSON.
True, and therefore women, being the weaker vessels, are ever thrust to
the wall: therefore I will push Montague’s men from the wall, and
thrust his maids to the wall.

GREGORY.
The quarrel is between our masters and us their men.

SAMPSON.
’Tis all one, I will show myself a tyrant: when I have fought with the
men I will be civil with the maids, I will cut off their heads.

GREGORY.
The heads of the maids?

SAMPSON.
Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads; take it in what sense
thou wilt.

GREGORY.
They must take it in sense that feel it.

SAMPSON.
Me they shall feel while I am able to stand: and ’tis known I am a
pretty piece of flesh.

GREGORY.
’Tis well thou art not fish; if thou hadst, thou hadst been poor John.
Draw thy tool; here comes of the house of Montagues.

 Enter Abram and Balthasar.

SAMPSON.
My naked weapon is out: quarrel, I will back thee.

GREGORY.
How? Turn thy back and run?

SAMPSON.
Fear me not.

GREGORY.
No, marry; I fear thee!

SAMPSON.
Let us take the law of our sides; let them begin.

GREGORY.
I will frown as I pass by, and let them take it as they list.

SAMPSON.
Nay, as they dare. I will bite my thumb at them, which is disgrace to
them if they bear it.

ABRAM.
Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?

SAMPSON.
I do bite my thumb, sir.

ABRAM.
Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?

SAMPSON.
Is the law of our side if I say ay?

GREGORY.
No.

SAMPSON.
No sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir; but I bite my thumb, sir.

GREGORY.
Do you quarrel, sir?

ABRAM.
Quarrel, sir? No, sir.

SAMPSON.
But if you do, sir, I am for you. I serve as good a man as you.

ABRAM.
No better.

SAMPSON.
Well, sir.

 Enter Benvolio.

GREGORY.
Say better; here comes one of my master’s kinsmen.

SAMPSON.
Yes, better, sir.

ABRAM.
You lie.

SAMPSON.
Draw, if you be men. Gregory, remember thy washing blow.

 [_They fight._]

BENVOLIO.
Part, fools! put up your swords, you know not what you do.

 [_Beats down their swords._]

 Enter Tybalt.

TYBALT.
What, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds?
Turn thee Benvolio, look upon thy death.

BENVOLIO.
I do but keep the peace, put up thy sword,
Or manage it to part these men with me.

TYBALT.
What, drawn, and talk of peace? I hate the word
As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee:
Have at thee, coward.

 [_They fight._]

 Enter three or four Citizens with clubs.

FIRST CITIZEN.
Clubs, bills and partisans! Strike! Beat them down!
Down with the Capulets! Down with the Montagues!

 Enter Capulet in his gown, and Lady Capulet.

CAPULET.
What noise is this? Give me my long sword, ho!

LADY CAPULET.
A crutch, a crutch! Why call you for a sword?

CAPULET.
My sword, I say! Old Montague is come,
And flourishes his blade in spite of me.

 Enter Montague and his Lady Montague.

MONTAGUE.
Thou villain Capulet! Hold me not, let me go.

LADY MONTAGUE.
Thou shalt not stir one foot to seek a foe.

 Enter Prince Escalus, with Attendants.

PRINCE.
Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,
Profaners of this neighbour-stained steel,—
Will they not hear? What, ho! You men, you beasts,
That quench the fire of your pernicious rage
With purple fountains issuing from your veins,
On pain of torture, from those bloody hands
Throw your mistemper’d weapons to the ground
And hear the sentence of your moved prince.
Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word,
By thee, old Capulet, and Montague,
Have thrice disturb’d the quiet of our streets,
And made Verona’s ancient citizens
Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments,
To wield old partisans, in hands as old,
Canker’d with peace, to part your canker’d hate.
If ever you disturb our streets again,
Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.
For this time all the rest depart away:
You, Capulet, shall go along with me,
And Montague, come you this afternoon,
To know our farther pleasure in this case,
To old Free-town, our common judgement-place.
Once more, on pain of death, all men depart.

 [_Exeunt Prince and Attendants; Capulet, Lady Capulet, Tybalt,
 Citizens and Servants._]

MONTAGUE.
Who set this ancient quarrel new abroach?
Speak, nephew, were you by when it began?

BENVOLIO.
Here were the servants of your adversary
And yours, close fighting ere I did approach.
I drew to part them, in the instant came
The fiery Tybalt, with his sword prepar’d,
Which, as he breath’d defiance to my ears,
He swung about his head, and cut the winds,
Who nothing hurt withal, hiss’d him in scorn.
While we were interchanging thrusts and blows
Came more and more, and fought on part and part,
Till the Prince came, who parted either part.

LADY MONTAGUE.
O where is Romeo, saw you him today?
Right glad I am he was not at this fray.

BENVOLIO.
Madam, an hour before the worshipp’d sun
Peer’d forth the golden window of the east,
A troubled mind drave me to walk abroad,
Where underneath the grove of sycamore
That westward rooteth from this city side,
So early walking did I see your son.
Towards him I made, but he was ware of me,
And stole into the covert of the wood.
I, measuring his affections by my own,
Which then most sought where most might not be found,
Being one too many by my weary self,
Pursu’d my humour, not pursuing his,
And gladly shunn’d who gladly fled from me.

MONTAGUE.
Many a morning hath he there been seen,
With tears augmenting the fresh morning’s dew,
Adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs;
But all so soon as the all-cheering sun
Should in the farthest east begin to draw
The shady curtains from Aurora’s bed,
Away from light steals home my heavy son,
And private in his chamber pens himself,
Shuts up his windows, locks fair daylight out
And makes himself an artificial night.
Black and portentous must this humour prove,
Unless good counsel may the cause remove.

BENVOLIO.
My noble uncle, do you know the cause?

MONTAGUE.
I neither know it nor can learn of him.

BENVOLIO.
Have you importun’d him by any means?

MONTAGUE.
Both by myself and many other friends;
But he, his own affections’ counsellor,
Is to himself—I will not say how true—
But to himself so secret and so close,
So far from sounding and discovery,
As is the bud bit with an envious worm
Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air,
Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.
Could we but learn from whence his sorrows grow,
We would as willingly give cure as know.

 Enter Romeo.

BENVOLIO.
See, where he comes. So please you step aside;
I’ll know his grievance or be much denied.

MONTAGUE.
I would thou wert so happy by thy stay
To hear true shrift. Come, madam, let’s away,

 [_Exeunt Montague and Lady Montague._]

BENVOLIO.
Good morrow, cousin.

ROMEO.
Is the day so young?

BENVOLIO.
But new struck nine.

ROMEO.
Ay me, sad hours seem long.
Was that my father that went hence so fast?

BENVOLIO.
It was. What sadness lengthens Romeo’s hours?

ROMEO.
Not having that which, having, makes them short.

BENVOLIO.
In love?

ROMEO.
Out.

BENVOLIO.
Of love?

ROMEO.
Out of her favour where I am in love.

BENVOLIO.
Alas that love so gentle in his view,
Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof.

ROMEO.
Alas that love, whose view is muffled still,
Should, without eyes, see pathways to his will!
Where shall we dine? O me! What fray was here?
Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all.
Here’s much to do with hate, but more with love:
Why, then, O brawling love! O loving hate!
O anything, of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness! serious vanity!
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms!
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!
Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!
This love feel I, that feel no love in this.
Dost thou not laugh?

BENVOLIO.
No coz, I rather weep.

ROMEO.
Good heart, at what?

BENVOLIO.
At thy good heart’s oppression.

ROMEO.
Why such is love’s transgression.
Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast,
Which thou wilt propagate to have it prest
With more of thine. This love that thou hast shown
Doth add more grief to too much of mine own.
Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs;
Being purg’d, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes;
Being vex’d, a sea nourish’d with lovers’ tears:
What is it else? A madness most discreet,
A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.
Farewell, my coz.

 [_Going._]

BENVOLIO.
Soft! I will go along:
And if you leave me so, you do me wrong.

ROMEO.
Tut! I have lost myself; I am not here.
This is not Romeo, he’s some other where.

BENVOLIO.
Tell me in sadness who is that you love?

ROMEO.
What, shall I groan and tell thee?

BENVOLIO.
Groan! Why, no; but sadly tell me who.

ROMEO.
Bid a sick man in sadness make his will,
A word ill urg’d to one that is so ill.
In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.

BENVOLIO.
I aim’d so near when I suppos’d you lov’d.

ROMEO.
A right good markman, and she’s fair I love.

BENVOLIO.
A right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit.

ROMEO.
Well, in that hit you miss: she’ll not be hit
With Cupid’s arrow, she hath Dian’s wit;
And in strong proof of chastity well arm’d,
From love’s weak childish bow she lives uncharm’d.
She will not stay the siege of loving terms
Nor bide th’encounter of assailing eyes,
Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold:
O she’s rich in beauty, only poor
That when she dies, with beauty dies her store.

BENVOLIO.
Then she hath sworn that she will still live chaste?

ROMEO.
She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste;
For beauty starv’d with her severity,
Cuts beauty off from all posterity.
She is too fair, too wise; wisely too fair,
To merit bliss by making me despair.
She hath forsworn to love, and in that vow
Do I live dead, that live to tell it now.

BENVOLIO.
Be rul’d by me, forget to think of her.

ROMEO.
O teach me how I should forget to think.

BENVOLIO.
By giving liberty unto thine eyes;
Examine other beauties.

ROMEO.
’Tis the way
To call hers, exquisite, in question more.
These happy masks that kiss fair ladies’ brows,
Being black, puts us in mind they hide the fair;
He that is strucken blind cannot forget
The precious treasure of his eyesight lost.
Show me a mistress that is passing fair,
What doth her beauty serve but as a note
Where I may read who pass’d that passing fair?
Farewell, thou canst not teach me to forget.

BENVOLIO.
I’ll pay that doctrine, or else die in debt.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. A Street.

 Enter Capulet, Paris and Servant.

CAPULET.
But Montague is bound as well as I,
In penalty alike; and ’tis not hard, I think,
For men so old as we to keep the peace.

PARIS.
Of honourable reckoning are you both,
And pity ’tis you liv’d at odds so long.
But now my lord, what say you to my suit?

CAPULET.
But saying o’er what I have said before.
My child is yet a stranger in the world,
She hath not seen the change of fourteen years;
Let two more summers wither in their pride
Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.

PARIS.
Younger than she are happy mothers made.

CAPULET.
And too soon marr’d are those so early made.
The earth hath swallowed all my hopes but she,
She is the hopeful lady of my earth:
But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart,
My will to her consent is but a part;
And she agree, within her scope of choice
Lies my consent and fair according voice.
This night I hold an old accustom’d feast,
Whereto I have invited many a guest,
Such as I love, and you among the store,
One more, most welcome, makes my number more.
At my poor house look to behold this night
Earth-treading stars that make dark heaven light:
Such comfort as do lusty young men feel
When well apparell’d April on the heel
Of limping winter treads, even such delight
Among fresh female buds shall you this night
Inherit at my house. Hear all, all see,
And like her most whose merit most shall be:
Which, on more view of many, mine, being one,
May stand in number, though in reckoning none.
Come, go with me. Go, sirrah, trudge about
Through fair Verona; find those persons out
Whose names are written there, [_gives a paper_] and to them say,
My house and welcome on their pleasure stay.

 [_Exeunt Capulet and Paris._]

SERVANT.
Find them out whose names are written here! It is written that the
shoemaker should meddle with his yard and the tailor with his last, the
fisher with his pencil, and the painter with his nets; but I am sent to
find those persons whose names are here writ, and can never find what
names the writing person hath here writ. I must to the learned. In good
time!

 Enter Benvolio and Romeo.

BENVOLIO.
Tut, man, one fire burns out another’s burning,
One pain is lessen’d by another’s anguish;
Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning;
One desperate grief cures with another’s languish:
Take thou some new infection to thy eye,
And the rank poison of the old will die.

ROMEO.
Your plantain leaf is excellent for that.

BENVOLIO.
For what, I pray thee?

ROMEO.
For your broken shin.

BENVOLIO.
Why, Romeo, art thou mad?

ROMEO.
Not mad, but bound more than a madman is:
Shut up in prison, kept without my food,
Whipp’d and tormented and—God-den, good fellow.

SERVANT.
God gi’ go-den. I pray, sir, can you read?

ROMEO.
Ay, mine own fortune in my misery.

SERVANT.
Perhaps you have learned it without book.
But I pray, can you read anything you see?

ROMEO.
Ay, If I know the letters and the language.

SERVANT.
Ye say honestly, rest you merry!

ROMEO.
Stay, fellow; I can read.

 [_He reads the letter._]

_Signior Martino and his wife and daughters;
County Anselmo and his beauteous sisters;
The lady widow of Utruvio;
Signior Placentio and his lovely nieces;
Mercutio and his brother Valentine;
Mine uncle Capulet, his wife, and daughters;
My fair niece Rosaline and Livia;
Signior Valentio and his cousin Tybalt;
Lucio and the lively Helena. _


A fair assembly. [_Gives back the paper_] Whither should they come?

SERVANT.
Up.

ROMEO.
Whither to supper?

SERVANT.
To our house.

ROMEO.
Whose house?

SERVANT.
My master’s.

ROMEO.
Indeed I should have ask’d you that before.

SERVANT.
Now I’ll tell you without asking. My master is the great rich Capulet,
and if you be not of the house of Montagues, I pray come and crush a
cup of wine. Rest you merry.

 [_Exit._]

BENVOLIO.
At this same ancient feast of Capulet’s
Sups the fair Rosaline whom thou so lov’st;
With all the admired beauties of Verona.
Go thither and with unattainted eye,
Compare her face with some that I shall show,
And I will make thee think thy swan a crow.

ROMEO.
When the devout religion of mine eye
Maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fire;
And these who, often drown’d, could never die,
Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars.
One fairer than my love? The all-seeing sun
Ne’er saw her match since first the world begun.

BENVOLIO.
Tut, you saw her fair, none else being by,
Herself pois’d with herself in either eye:
But in that crystal scales let there be weigh’d
Your lady’s love against some other maid
That I will show you shining at this feast,
And she shall scant show well that now shows best.

ROMEO.
I’ll go along, no such sight to be shown,
But to rejoice in splendour of my own.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE III. Room in Capulet’s House.

 Enter Lady Capulet and Nurse.

LADY CAPULET.
Nurse, where’s my daughter? Call her forth to me.

NURSE.
Now, by my maidenhead, at twelve year old,
I bade her come. What, lamb! What ladybird!
God forbid! Where’s this girl? What, Juliet!

 Enter Juliet.

JULIET.
How now, who calls?

NURSE.
Your mother.

JULIET.
Madam, I am here. What is your will?

LADY CAPULET.
This is the matter. Nurse, give leave awhile,
We must talk in secret. Nurse, come back again,
I have remember’d me, thou’s hear our counsel.
Thou knowest my daughter’s of a pretty age.

NURSE.
Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour.

LADY CAPULET.
She’s not fourteen.

NURSE.
I’ll lay fourteen of my teeth,
And yet, to my teen be it spoken, I have but four,
She is not fourteen. How long is it now
To Lammas-tide?

LADY CAPULET.
A fortnight and odd days.

NURSE.
Even or odd, of all days in the year,
Come Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen.
Susan and she,—God rest all Christian souls!—
Were of an age. Well, Susan is with God;
She was too good for me. But as I said,
On Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen;
That shall she, marry; I remember it well.
’Tis since the earthquake now eleven years;
And she was wean’d,—I never shall forget it—,
Of all the days of the year, upon that day:
For I had then laid wormwood to my dug,
Sitting in the sun under the dovehouse wall;
My lord and you were then at Mantua:
Nay, I do bear a brain. But as I said,
When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple
Of my dug and felt it bitter, pretty fool,
To see it tetchy, and fall out with the dug!
Shake, quoth the dovehouse: ’twas no need, I trow,
To bid me trudge.
And since that time it is eleven years;
For then she could stand alone; nay, by th’rood
She could have run and waddled all about;
For even the day before she broke her brow,
And then my husband,—God be with his soul!
A was a merry man,—took up the child:
‘Yea,’ quoth he, ‘dost thou fall upon thy face?
Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit;
Wilt thou not, Jule?’ and, by my holidame,
The pretty wretch left crying, and said ‘Ay’.
To see now how a jest shall come about.
I warrant, and I should live a thousand years,
I never should forget it. ‘Wilt thou not, Jule?’ quoth he;
And, pretty fool, it stinted, and said ‘Ay.’

LADY CAPULET.
Enough of this; I pray thee hold thy peace.

NURSE.
Yes, madam, yet I cannot choose but laugh,
To think it should leave crying, and say ‘Ay’;
And yet I warrant it had upon it brow
A bump as big as a young cockerel’s stone;
A perilous knock, and it cried bitterly.
‘Yea,’ quoth my husband, ‘fall’st upon thy face?
Thou wilt fall backward when thou comest to age;
Wilt thou not, Jule?’ it stinted, and said ‘Ay’.

JULIET.
And stint thou too, I pray thee, Nurse, say I.

NURSE.
Peace, I have done. God mark thee to his grace
Thou wast the prettiest babe that e’er I nurs’d:
And I might live to see thee married once, I have my wish.

LADY CAPULET.
Marry, that marry is the very theme
I came to talk of. Tell me, daughter Juliet,
How stands your disposition to be married?

JULIET.
It is an honour that I dream not of.

NURSE.
An honour! Were not I thine only nurse,
I would say thou hadst suck’d wisdom from thy teat.

LADY CAPULET.
Well, think of marriage now: younger than you,
Here in Verona, ladies of esteem,
Are made already mothers. By my count
I was your mother much upon these years
That you are now a maid. Thus, then, in brief;
The valiant Paris seeks you for his love.

NURSE.
A man, young lady! Lady, such a man
As all the world—why he’s a man of wax.

LADY CAPULET.
Verona’s summer hath not such a flower.

NURSE.
Nay, he’s a flower, in faith a very flower.

LADY CAPULET.
What say you, can you love the gentleman?
This night you shall behold him at our feast;
Read o’er the volume of young Paris’ face,
And find delight writ there with beauty’s pen.
Examine every married lineament,
And see how one another lends content;
And what obscur’d in this fair volume lies,
Find written in the margent of his eyes.
This precious book of love, this unbound lover,
To beautify him, only lacks a cover:
The fish lives in the sea; and ’tis much pride
For fair without the fair within to hide.
That book in many’s eyes doth share the glory,
That in gold clasps locks in the golden story;
So shall you share all that he doth possess,
By having him, making yourself no less.

NURSE.
No less, nay bigger. Women grow by men.

LADY CAPULET.
Speak briefly, can you like of Paris’ love?

JULIET.
I’ll look to like, if looking liking move:
But no more deep will I endart mine eye
Than your consent gives strength to make it fly.

 Enter a Servant.

SERVANT.
Madam, the guests are come, supper served up, you called, my young lady
asked for, the Nurse cursed in the pantry, and everything in extremity.
I must hence to wait, I beseech you follow straight.

LADY CAPULET.
We follow thee.

 [_Exit Servant._]

Juliet, the County stays.

NURSE.
Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE IV. A Street.

 Enter Romeo, Mercutio, Benvolio, with five or six Maskers;
 Torch-bearers and others.

ROMEO.
What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse?
Or shall we on without apology?

BENVOLIO.
The date is out of such prolixity:
We’ll have no Cupid hoodwink’d with a scarf,
Bearing a Tartar’s painted bow of lath,
Scaring the ladies like a crow-keeper;
Nor no without-book prologue, faintly spoke
After the prompter, for our entrance:
But let them measure us by what they will,
We’ll measure them a measure, and be gone.

ROMEO.
Give me a torch, I am not for this ambling;
Being but heavy I will bear the light.

MERCUTIO.
Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.

ROMEO.
Not I, believe me, you have dancing shoes,
With nimble soles, I have a soul of lead
So stakes me to the ground I cannot move.

MERCUTIO.
You are a lover, borrow Cupid’s wings,
And soar with them above a common bound.

ROMEO.
I am too sore enpierced with his shaft
To soar with his light feathers, and so bound,
I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe.
Under love’s heavy burden do I sink.

MERCUTIO.
And, to sink in it, should you burden love;
Too great oppression for a tender thing.

ROMEO.
Is love a tender thing? It is too rough,
Too rude, too boisterous; and it pricks like thorn.

MERCUTIO.
If love be rough with you, be rough with love;
Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.
Give me a case to put my visage in: [_Putting on a mask._]
A visor for a visor. What care I
What curious eye doth quote deformities?
Here are the beetle-brows shall blush for me.

BENVOLIO.
Come, knock and enter; and no sooner in
But every man betake him to his legs.

ROMEO.
A torch for me: let wantons, light of heart,
Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels;
For I am proverb’d with a grandsire phrase,
I’ll be a candle-holder and look on,
The game was ne’er so fair, and I am done.

MERCUTIO.
Tut, dun’s the mouse, the constable’s own word:
If thou art dun, we’ll draw thee from the mire
Or save your reverence love, wherein thou stickest
Up to the ears. Come, we burn daylight, ho.

ROMEO.
Nay, that’s not so.

MERCUTIO.
I mean sir, in delay
We waste our lights in vain, light lights by day.
Take our good meaning, for our judgment sits
Five times in that ere once in our five wits.

ROMEO.
And we mean well in going to this mask;
But ’tis no wit to go.

MERCUTIO.
Why, may one ask?

ROMEO.
I dreamt a dream tonight.

MERCUTIO.
And so did I.

ROMEO.
Well what was yours?

MERCUTIO.
That dreamers often lie.

ROMEO.
In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.

MERCUTIO.
O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Over men’s noses as they lie asleep:
Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners’ legs;
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;
Her traces, of the smallest spider’s web;
The collars, of the moonshine’s watery beams;
Her whip of cricket’s bone; the lash, of film;
Her waggoner, a small grey-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm
Prick’d from the lazy finger of a maid:
Her chariot is an empty hazelnut,
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o’ mind the fairies’ coachmakers.
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers’ brains, and then they dream of love;
O’er courtiers’ knees, that dream on curtsies straight;
O’er lawyers’ fingers, who straight dream on fees;
O’er ladies’ lips, who straight on kisses dream,
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are:
Sometime she gallops o’er a courtier’s nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;
And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig’s tail,
Tickling a parson’s nose as a lies asleep,
Then dreams he of another benefice:
Sometime she driveth o’er a soldier’s neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscados, Spanish blades,
Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes;
And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two,
And sleeps again. This is that very Mab
That plats the manes of horses in the night;
And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs,
Which, once untangled, much misfortune bodes:
This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,
That presses them, and learns them first to bear,
Making them women of good carriage:
This is she,—

ROMEO.
Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace,
Thou talk’st of nothing.

MERCUTIO.
True, I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
Which is as thin of substance as the air,
And more inconstant than the wind, who woos
Even now the frozen bosom of the north,
And, being anger’d, puffs away from thence,
Turning his side to the dew-dropping south.

BENVOLIO.
This wind you talk of blows us from ourselves:
Supper is done, and we shall come too late.

ROMEO.
I fear too early: for my mind misgives
Some consequence yet hanging in the stars,
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
With this night’s revels; and expire the term
Of a despised life, clos’d in my breast
By some vile forfeit of untimely death.
But he that hath the steerage of my course
Direct my suit. On, lusty gentlemen!

BENVOLIO.
Strike, drum.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE V. A Hall in Capulet’s House.

 Musicians waiting. Enter Servants.

FIRST SERVANT.
Where’s Potpan, that he helps not to take away?
He shift a trencher! He scrape a trencher!

SECOND SERVANT.
When good manners shall lie all in one or two men’s hands, and they
unwash’d too, ’tis a foul thing.

FIRST SERVANT.
Away with the join-stools, remove the court-cupboard, look to the
plate. Good thou, save me a piece of marchpane; and as thou loves me,
let the porter let in Susan Grindstone and Nell. Antony and Potpan!

SECOND SERVANT.
Ay, boy, ready.

FIRST SERVANT.
You are looked for and called for, asked for and sought for, in the
great chamber.

SECOND SERVANT.
We cannot be here and there too. Cheerly, boys. Be brisk awhile, and
the longer liver take all.

 [_Exeunt._]

 Enter Capulet, &c. with the Guests and Gentlewomen to the Maskers.

CAPULET.
Welcome, gentlemen, ladies that have their toes
Unplagu’d with corns will have a bout with you.
Ah my mistresses, which of you all
Will now deny to dance? She that makes dainty,
She I’ll swear hath corns. Am I come near ye now?
Welcome, gentlemen! I have seen the day
That I have worn a visor, and could tell
A whispering tale in a fair lady’s ear,
Such as would please; ’tis gone, ’tis gone, ’tis gone,
You are welcome, gentlemen! Come, musicians, play.
A hall, a hall, give room! And foot it, girls.

 [_Music plays, and they dance._]

More light, you knaves; and turn the tables up,
And quench the fire, the room is grown too hot.
Ah sirrah, this unlook’d-for sport comes well.
Nay sit, nay sit, good cousin Capulet,
For you and I are past our dancing days;
How long is’t now since last yourself and I
Were in a mask?

CAPULET’S COUSIN.
By’r Lady, thirty years.

CAPULET.
What, man, ’tis not so much, ’tis not so much:
’Tis since the nuptial of Lucentio,
Come Pentecost as quickly as it will,
Some five and twenty years; and then we mask’d.

CAPULET’S COUSIN.
’Tis more, ’tis more, his son is elder, sir;
His son is thirty.

CAPULET.
Will you tell me that?
His son was but a ward two years ago.

ROMEO.
What lady is that, which doth enrich the hand
Of yonder knight?

SERVANT.
I know not, sir.

ROMEO.
O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
As a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear;
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows
As yonder lady o’er her fellows shows.
The measure done, I’ll watch her place of stand,
And touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.
Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight!
For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.

TYBALT.
This by his voice, should be a Montague.
Fetch me my rapier, boy. What, dares the slave
Come hither, cover’d with an antic face,
To fleer and scorn at our solemnity?
Now by the stock and honour of my kin,
To strike him dead I hold it not a sin.

CAPULET.
Why how now, kinsman!
Wherefore storm you so?

TYBALT.
Uncle, this is a Montague, our foe;
A villain that is hither come in spite,
To scorn at our solemnity this night.

CAPULET.
Young Romeo, is it?

TYBALT.
’Tis he, that villain Romeo.

CAPULET.
Content thee, gentle coz, let him alone,
A bears him like a portly gentleman;
And, to say truth, Verona brags of him
To be a virtuous and well-govern’d youth.
I would not for the wealth of all the town
Here in my house do him disparagement.
Therefore be patient, take no note of him,
It is my will; the which if thou respect,
Show a fair presence and put off these frowns,
An ill-beseeming semblance for a feast.

TYBALT.
It fits when such a villain is a guest:
I’ll not endure him.

CAPULET.
He shall be endur’d.
What, goodman boy! I say he shall, go to;
Am I the master here, or you? Go to.
You’ll not endure him! God shall mend my soul,
You’ll make a mutiny among my guests!
You will set cock-a-hoop, you’ll be the man!

TYBALT.
Why, uncle, ’tis a shame.

CAPULET.
Go to, go to!
You are a saucy boy. Is’t so, indeed?
This trick may chance to scathe you, I know what.
You must contrary me! Marry, ’tis time.
Well said, my hearts!—You are a princox; go:
Be quiet, or—More light, more light!—For shame!
I’ll make you quiet. What, cheerly, my hearts.

TYBALT.
Patience perforce with wilful choler meeting
Makes my flesh tremble in their different greeting.
I will withdraw: but this intrusion shall,
Now seeming sweet, convert to bitter gall.

 [_Exit._]

ROMEO.
[_To Juliet._] If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this,
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

JULIET.
Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.

ROMEO.
Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?

JULIET.
Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.

ROMEO.
O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do:
They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.

JULIET.
Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake.

ROMEO.
Then move not while my prayer’s effect I take.
Thus from my lips, by thine my sin is purg’d.
[_Kissing her._]

JULIET.
Then have my lips the sin that they have took.

ROMEO.
Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urg’d!
Give me my sin again.

JULIET.
You kiss by the book.

NURSE.
Madam, your mother craves a word with you.

ROMEO.
What is her mother?

NURSE.
Marry, bachelor,
Her mother is the lady of the house,
And a good lady, and a wise and virtuous.
I nurs’d her daughter that you talk’d withal.
I tell you, he that can lay hold of her
Shall have the chinks.

ROMEO.
Is she a Capulet?
O dear account! My life is my foe’s debt.

BENVOLIO.
Away, be gone; the sport is at the best.

ROMEO.
Ay, so I fear; the more is my unrest.

CAPULET.
Nay, gentlemen, prepare not to be gone,
We have a trifling foolish banquet towards.
Is it e’en so? Why then, I thank you all;
I thank you, honest gentlemen; good night.
More torches here! Come on then, let’s to bed.
Ah, sirrah, by my fay, it waxes late,
I’ll to my rest.

 [_Exeunt all but Juliet and Nurse._]

JULIET.
Come hither, Nurse. What is yond gentleman?

NURSE.
The son and heir of old Tiberio.

JULIET.
What’s he that now is going out of door?

NURSE.
Marry, that I think be young Petruchio.

JULIET.
What’s he that follows here, that would not dance?

NURSE.
I know not.

JULIET.
Go ask his name. If he be married,
My grave is like to be my wedding bed.

NURSE.
His name is Romeo, and a Montague,
The only son of your great enemy.

JULIET.
My only love sprung from my only hate!
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
Prodigious birth of love it is to me,
That I must love a loathed enemy.

NURSE.
What’s this? What’s this?

JULIET.
A rhyme I learn’d even now
Of one I danc’d withal.

 [_One calls within, ‘Juliet’._]

NURSE.
Anon, anon!
Come let’s away, the strangers all are gone.

 [_Exeunt._]




ACT II


 Enter Chorus.

CHORUS.
Now old desire doth in his deathbed lie,
And young affection gapes to be his heir;
That fair for which love groan’d for and would die,
With tender Juliet match’d, is now not fair.
Now Romeo is belov’d, and loves again,
Alike bewitched by the charm of looks;
But to his foe suppos’d he must complain,
And she steal love’s sweet bait from fearful hooks:
Being held a foe, he may not have access
To breathe such vows as lovers use to swear;
And she as much in love, her means much less
To meet her new beloved anywhere.
But passion lends them power, time means, to meet,
Tempering extremities with extreme sweet.

 [_Exit._]

SCENE I. An open place adjoining Capulet’s Garden.

 Enter Romeo.

ROMEO.
Can I go forward when my heart is here?
Turn back, dull earth, and find thy centre out.

 [_He climbs the wall and leaps down within it._]

 Enter Benvolio and Mercutio.

BENVOLIO.
Romeo! My cousin Romeo! Romeo!

MERCUTIO.
He is wise,
And on my life hath stol’n him home to bed.

BENVOLIO.
He ran this way, and leap’d this orchard wall:
Call, good Mercutio.

MERCUTIO.
Nay, I’ll conjure too.
Romeo! Humours! Madman! Passion! Lover!
Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh,
Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied;
Cry but ‘Ah me!’ Pronounce but Love and dove;
Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word,
One nickname for her purblind son and heir,
Young Abraham Cupid, he that shot so trim
When King Cophetua lov’d the beggar-maid.
He heareth not, he stirreth not, he moveth not;
The ape is dead, and I must conjure him.
I conjure thee by Rosaline’s bright eyes,
By her high forehead and her scarlet lip,
By her fine foot, straight leg, and quivering thigh,
And the demesnes that there adjacent lie,
That in thy likeness thou appear to us.

BENVOLIO.
An if he hear thee, thou wilt anger him.

MERCUTIO.
This cannot anger him. ’Twould anger him
To raise a spirit in his mistress’ circle,
Of some strange nature, letting it there stand
Till she had laid it, and conjur’d it down;
That were some spite. My invocation
Is fair and honest, and, in his mistress’ name,
I conjure only but to raise up him.

BENVOLIO.
Come, he hath hid himself among these trees
To be consorted with the humorous night.
Blind is his love, and best befits the dark.

MERCUTIO.
If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.
Now will he sit under a medlar tree,
And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit
As maids call medlars when they laugh alone.
O Romeo, that she were, O that she were
An open-arse and thou a poperin pear!
Romeo, good night. I’ll to my truckle-bed.
This field-bed is too cold for me to sleep.
Come, shall we go?

BENVOLIO.
Go then; for ’tis in vain
To seek him here that means not to be found.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. Capulet’s Garden.

 Enter Romeo.

ROMEO.
He jests at scars that never felt a wound.

 Juliet appears above at a window.

But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!
Arise fair sun and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou her maid art far more fair than she.
Be not her maid since she is envious;
Her vestal livery is but sick and green,
And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.
It is my lady, O it is my love!
O, that she knew she were!
She speaks, yet she says nothing. What of that?
Her eye discourses, I will answer it.
I am too bold, ’tis not to me she speaks.
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,
As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright
That birds would sing and think it were not night.
See how she leans her cheek upon her hand.
O that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek.

JULIET.
Ay me.

ROMEO.
She speaks.
O speak again bright angel, for thou art
As glorious to this night, being o’er my head,
As is a winged messenger of heaven
Unto the white-upturned wondering eyes
Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him
When he bestrides the lazy-puffing clouds
And sails upon the bosom of the air.

JULIET.
O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name.
Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.

ROMEO.
[_Aside._] Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?

JULIET.
’Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What’s Montague? It is nor hand nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O be some other name.
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for thy name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.

ROMEO.
I take thee at thy word.
Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptis’d;
Henceforth I never will be Romeo.

JULIET.
What man art thou that, thus bescreen’d in night
So stumblest on my counsel?

ROMEO.
By a name
I know not how to tell thee who I am:
My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,
Because it is an enemy to thee.
Had I it written, I would tear the word.

JULIET.
My ears have yet not drunk a hundred words
Of thy tongue’s utterance, yet I know the sound.
Art thou not Romeo, and a Montague?

ROMEO.
Neither, fair maid, if either thee dislike.

JULIET.
How cam’st thou hither, tell me, and wherefore?
The orchard walls are high and hard to climb,
And the place death, considering who thou art,
If any of my kinsmen find thee here.

ROMEO.
With love’s light wings did I o’erperch these walls,
For stony limits cannot hold love out,
And what love can do, that dares love attempt:
Therefore thy kinsmen are no stop to me.

JULIET.
If they do see thee, they will murder thee.

ROMEO.
Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye
Than twenty of their swords. Look thou but sweet,
And I am proof against their enmity.

JULIET.
I would not for the world they saw thee here.

ROMEO.
I have night’s cloak to hide me from their eyes,
And but thou love me, let them find me here.
My life were better ended by their hate
Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.

JULIET.
By whose direction found’st thou out this place?

ROMEO.
By love, that first did prompt me to enquire;
He lent me counsel, and I lent him eyes.
I am no pilot; yet wert thou as far
As that vast shore wash’d with the farthest sea,
I should adventure for such merchandise.

JULIET.
Thou knowest the mask of night is on my face,
Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek
For that which thou hast heard me speak tonight.
Fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny
What I have spoke; but farewell compliment.
Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say Ay,
And I will take thy word. Yet, if thou swear’st,
Thou mayst prove false. At lovers’ perjuries,
They say Jove laughs. O gentle Romeo,
If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully.
Or if thou thinkest I am too quickly won,
I’ll frown and be perverse, and say thee nay,
So thou wilt woo. But else, not for the world.
In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond;
And therefore thou mayst think my ’haviour light:
But trust me, gentleman, I’ll prove more true
Than those that have more cunning to be strange.
I should have been more strange, I must confess,
But that thou overheard’st, ere I was ’ware,
My true-love passion; therefore pardon me,
And not impute this yielding to light love,
Which the dark night hath so discovered.

ROMEO.
Lady, by yonder blessed moon I vow,
That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops,—

JULIET.
O swear not by the moon, th’inconstant moon,
That monthly changes in her circled orb,
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.

ROMEO.
What shall I swear by?

JULIET.
Do not swear at all.
Or if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self,
Which is the god of my idolatry,
And I’ll believe thee.

ROMEO.
If my heart’s dear love,—

JULIET.
Well, do not swear. Although I joy in thee,
I have no joy of this contract tonight;
It is too rash, too unadvis’d, too sudden,
Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be
Ere one can say “It lightens.” Sweet, good night.
This bud of love, by summer’s ripening breath,
May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.
Good night, good night. As sweet repose and rest
Come to thy heart as that within my breast.

ROMEO.
O wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?

JULIET.
What satisfaction canst thou have tonight?

ROMEO.
Th’exchange of thy love’s faithful vow for mine.

JULIET.
I gave thee mine before thou didst request it;
And yet I would it were to give again.

ROMEO.
Would’st thou withdraw it? For what purpose, love?

JULIET.
But to be frank and give it thee again.
And yet I wish but for the thing I have;
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.
I hear some noise within. Dear love, adieu.
[_Nurse calls within._]
Anon, good Nurse!—Sweet Montague be true.
Stay but a little, I will come again.

 [_Exit._]

ROMEO.
O blessed, blessed night. I am afeard,
Being in night, all this is but a dream,
Too flattering sweet to be substantial.

 Enter Juliet above.

JULIET.
Three words, dear Romeo, and good night indeed.
If that thy bent of love be honourable,
Thy purpose marriage, send me word tomorrow,
By one that I’ll procure to come to thee,
Where and what time thou wilt perform the rite,
And all my fortunes at thy foot I’ll lay
And follow thee my lord throughout the world.

NURSE.
[_Within._] Madam.

JULIET.
I come, anon.— But if thou meanest not well,
I do beseech thee,—

NURSE.
[_Within._] Madam.

JULIET.
By and by I come—
To cease thy strife and leave me to my grief.
Tomorrow will I send.

ROMEO.
So thrive my soul,—

JULIET.
A thousand times good night.

 [_Exit._]

ROMEO.
A thousand times the worse, to want thy light.
Love goes toward love as schoolboys from their books,
But love from love, towards school with heavy looks.

 [_Retiring slowly._]

 Re-enter Juliet, above.

JULIET.
Hist! Romeo, hist! O for a falconer’s voice
To lure this tassel-gentle back again.
Bondage is hoarse and may not speak aloud,
Else would I tear the cave where Echo lies,
And make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine
With repetition of my Romeo’s name.

ROMEO.
It is my soul that calls upon my name.
How silver-sweet sound lovers’ tongues by night,
Like softest music to attending ears.

JULIET.
Romeo.

ROMEO.
My dear?

JULIET.
What o’clock tomorrow
Shall I send to thee?

ROMEO.
By the hour of nine.

JULIET.
I will not fail. ’Tis twenty years till then.
I have forgot why I did call thee back.

ROMEO.
Let me stand here till thou remember it.

JULIET.
I shall forget, to have thee still stand there,
Remembering how I love thy company.

ROMEO.
And I’ll still stay, to have thee still forget,
Forgetting any other home but this.

JULIET.
’Tis almost morning; I would have thee gone,
And yet no farther than a wanton’s bird,
That lets it hop a little from her hand,
Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,
And with a silk thread plucks it back again,
So loving-jealous of his liberty.

ROMEO.
I would I were thy bird.

JULIET.
Sweet, so would I:
Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing.
Good night, good night. Parting is such sweet sorrow
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.

 [_Exit._]

ROMEO.
Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast.
Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest.
Hence will I to my ghostly Sire’s cell,
His help to crave and my dear hap to tell.

 [_Exit._]

SCENE III. Friar Lawrence’s Cell.

 Enter Friar Lawrence with a basket.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
The grey-ey’d morn smiles on the frowning night,
Chequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light;
And fleckled darkness like a drunkard reels
From forth day’s pathway, made by Titan’s fiery wheels
Now, ere the sun advance his burning eye,
The day to cheer, and night’s dank dew to dry,
I must upfill this osier cage of ours
With baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers.
The earth that’s nature’s mother, is her tomb;
What is her burying grave, that is her womb:
And from her womb children of divers kind
We sucking on her natural bosom find.
Many for many virtues excellent,
None but for some, and yet all different.
O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies
In plants, herbs, stones, and their true qualities.
For naught so vile that on the earth doth live
But to the earth some special good doth give;
Nor aught so good but, strain’d from that fair use,
Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse.
Virtue itself turns vice being misapplied,
And vice sometime’s by action dignified.

 Enter Romeo.

Within the infant rind of this weak flower
Poison hath residence, and medicine power:
For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part;
Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart.
Two such opposed kings encamp them still
In man as well as herbs,—grace and rude will;
And where the worser is predominant,
Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.

ROMEO.
Good morrow, father.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Benedicite!
What early tongue so sweet saluteth me?
Young son, it argues a distemper’d head
So soon to bid good morrow to thy bed.
Care keeps his watch in every old man’s eye,
And where care lodges sleep will never lie;
But where unbruised youth with unstuff’d brain
Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign.
Therefore thy earliness doth me assure
Thou art uprous’d with some distemperature;
Or if not so, then here I hit it right,
Our Romeo hath not been in bed tonight.

ROMEO.
That last is true; the sweeter rest was mine.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
God pardon sin. Wast thou with Rosaline?

ROMEO.
With Rosaline, my ghostly father? No.
I have forgot that name, and that name’s woe.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
That’s my good son. But where hast thou been then?

ROMEO.
I’ll tell thee ere thou ask it me again.
I have been feasting with mine enemy,
Where on a sudden one hath wounded me
That’s by me wounded. Both our remedies
Within thy help and holy physic lies.
I bear no hatred, blessed man; for lo,
My intercession likewise steads my foe.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift;
Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift.

ROMEO.
Then plainly know my heart’s dear love is set
On the fair daughter of rich Capulet.
As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine;
And all combin’d, save what thou must combine
By holy marriage. When, and where, and how
We met, we woo’d, and made exchange of vow,
I’ll tell thee as we pass; but this I pray,
That thou consent to marry us today.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Holy Saint Francis! What a change is here!
Is Rosaline, that thou didst love so dear,
So soon forsaken? Young men’s love then lies
Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.
Jesu Maria, what a deal of brine
Hath wash’d thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline!
How much salt water thrown away in waste,
To season love, that of it doth not taste.
The sun not yet thy sighs from heaven clears,
Thy old groans yet ring in mine ancient ears.
Lo here upon thy cheek the stain doth sit
Of an old tear that is not wash’d off yet.
If ere thou wast thyself, and these woes thine,
Thou and these woes were all for Rosaline,
And art thou chang’d? Pronounce this sentence then,
Women may fall, when there’s no strength in men.

ROMEO.
Thou chidd’st me oft for loving Rosaline.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
For doting, not for loving, pupil mine.

ROMEO.
And bad’st me bury love.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Not in a grave
To lay one in, another out to have.

ROMEO.
I pray thee chide me not, her I love now
Doth grace for grace and love for love allow.
The other did not so.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
O, she knew well
Thy love did read by rote, that could not spell.
But come young waverer, come go with me,
In one respect I’ll thy assistant be;
For this alliance may so happy prove,
To turn your households’ rancour to pure love.

ROMEO.
O let us hence; I stand on sudden haste.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE IV. A Street.

 Enter Benvolio and Mercutio.

MERCUTIO.
Where the devil should this Romeo be? Came he not home tonight?

BENVOLIO.
Not to his father’s; I spoke with his man.

MERCUTIO.
Why, that same pale hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline, torments him so
that he will sure run mad.

BENVOLIO.
Tybalt, the kinsman to old Capulet, hath sent a letter to his father’s
house.

MERCUTIO.
A challenge, on my life.

BENVOLIO.
Romeo will answer it.

MERCUTIO.
Any man that can write may answer a letter.

BENVOLIO.
Nay, he will answer the letter’s master, how he dares, being dared.

MERCUTIO.
Alas poor Romeo, he is already dead, stabbed with a white wench’s black
eye; run through the ear with a love song, the very pin of his heart
cleft with the blind bow-boy’s butt-shaft. And is he a man to encounter
Tybalt?

BENVOLIO.
Why, what is Tybalt?

MERCUTIO.
More than Prince of cats. O, he’s the courageous captain of
compliments. He fights as you sing prick-song, keeps time, distance,
and proportion. He rests his minim rest, one, two, and the third in
your bosom: the very butcher of a silk button, a duellist, a duellist;
a gentleman of the very first house, of the first and second cause. Ah,
the immortal passado, the punto reverso, the hay.

BENVOLIO.
The what?

MERCUTIO.
The pox of such antic lisping, affecting phantasies; these new tuners
of accent. By Jesu, a very good blade, a very tall man, a very good
whore. Why, is not this a lamentable thing, grandsire, that we should
be thus afflicted with these strange flies, these fashion-mongers,
these pardon-me’s, who stand so much on the new form that they cannot
sit at ease on the old bench? O their bones, their bones!

 Enter Romeo.

BENVOLIO.
Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo!

MERCUTIO.
Without his roe, like a dried herring. O flesh, flesh, how art thou
fishified! Now is he for the numbers that Petrarch flowed in. Laura, to
his lady, was but a kitchen wench,—marry, she had a better love to
berhyme her: Dido a dowdy; Cleopatra a gypsy; Helen and Hero hildings
and harlots; Thisbe a grey eye or so, but not to the purpose. Signior
Romeo, bonjour! There’s a French salutation to your French slop. You
gave us the counterfeit fairly last night.

ROMEO.
Good morrow to you both. What counterfeit did I give you?

MERCUTIO.
The slip sir, the slip; can you not conceive?

ROMEO.
Pardon, good Mercutio, my business was great, and in such a case as
mine a man may strain courtesy.

MERCUTIO.
That’s as much as to say, such a case as yours constrains a man to bow
in the hams.

ROMEO.
Meaning, to curtsy.

MERCUTIO.
Thou hast most kindly hit it.

ROMEO.
A most courteous exposition.

MERCUTIO.
Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy.

ROMEO.
Pink for flower.

MERCUTIO.
Right.

ROMEO.
Why, then is my pump well flowered.

MERCUTIO.
Sure wit, follow me this jest now, till thou hast worn out thy pump,
that when the single sole of it is worn, the jest may remain after the
wearing, solely singular.

ROMEO.
O single-soled jest, solely singular for the singleness!

MERCUTIO.
Come between us, good Benvolio; my wits faint.

ROMEO.
Swits and spurs, swits and spurs; or I’ll cry a match.

MERCUTIO.
Nay, if thy wits run the wild-goose chase, I am done. For thou hast
more of the wild-goose in one of thy wits, than I am sure, I have in my
whole five. Was I with you there for the goose?

ROMEO.
Thou wast never with me for anything, when thou wast not there for the
goose.

MERCUTIO.
I will bite thee by the ear for that jest.

ROMEO.
Nay, good goose, bite not.

MERCUTIO.
Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting, it is a most sharp sauce.

ROMEO.
And is it not then well served in to a sweet goose?

MERCUTIO.
O here’s a wit of cheveril, that stretches from an inch narrow to an
ell broad.

ROMEO.
I stretch it out for that word broad, which added to the goose, proves
thee far and wide a broad goose.

MERCUTIO.
Why, is not this better now than groaning for love? Now art thou
sociable, now art thou Romeo; now art thou what thou art, by art as
well as by nature. For this drivelling love is like a great natural,
that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole.

BENVOLIO.
Stop there, stop there.

MERCUTIO.
Thou desirest me to stop in my tale against the hair.

BENVOLIO.
Thou wouldst else have made thy tale large.

MERCUTIO.
O, thou art deceived; I would have made it short, for I was come to the
whole depth of my tale, and meant indeed to occupy the argument no
longer.

 Enter Nurse and Peter.

ROMEO.
Here’s goodly gear!
A sail, a sail!

MERCUTIO.
Two, two; a shirt and a smock.

NURSE.
Peter!

PETER.
Anon.

NURSE.
My fan, Peter.

MERCUTIO.
Good Peter, to hide her face; for her fan’s the fairer face.

NURSE.
God ye good morrow, gentlemen.

MERCUTIO.
God ye good-den, fair gentlewoman.

NURSE.
Is it good-den?

MERCUTIO.
’Tis no less, I tell ye; for the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the
prick of noon.

NURSE.
Out upon you! What a man are you?

ROMEO.
One, gentlewoman, that God hath made for himself to mar.

NURSE.
By my troth, it is well said; for himself to mar, quoth a? Gentlemen,
can any of you tell me where I may find the young Romeo?

ROMEO.
I can tell you: but young Romeo will be older when you have found him
than he was when you sought him. I am the youngest of that name, for
fault of a worse.

NURSE.
You say well.

MERCUTIO.
Yea, is the worst well? Very well took, i’faith; wisely, wisely.

NURSE.
If you be he, sir, I desire some confidence with you.

BENVOLIO.
She will endite him to some supper.

MERCUTIO.
A bawd, a bawd, a bawd! So ho!

ROMEO.
What hast thou found?

MERCUTIO.
No hare, sir; unless a hare, sir, in a lenten pie, that is something
stale and hoar ere it be spent.
[_Sings._]
    An old hare hoar,
    And an old hare hoar,
  Is very good meat in Lent;
    But a hare that is hoar
    Is too much for a score
  When it hoars ere it be spent.
Romeo, will you come to your father’s? We’ll to dinner thither.

ROMEO.
I will follow you.

MERCUTIO.
Farewell, ancient lady; farewell, lady, lady, lady.

 [_Exeunt Mercutio and Benvolio._]

NURSE.
I pray you, sir, what saucy merchant was this that was so full of his
ropery?

ROMEO.
A gentleman, Nurse, that loves to hear himself talk, and will speak
more in a minute than he will stand to in a month.

NURSE.
And a speak anything against me, I’ll take him down, and a were lustier
than he is, and twenty such Jacks. And if I cannot, I’ll find those
that shall. Scurvy knave! I am none of his flirt-gills; I am none of
his skains-mates.—And thou must stand by too and suffer every knave to
use me at his pleasure!

PETER.
I saw no man use you at his pleasure; if I had, my weapon should
quickly have been out. I warrant you, I dare draw as soon as another
man, if I see occasion in a good quarrel, and the law on my side.

NURSE.
Now, afore God, I am so vexed that every part about me quivers. Scurvy
knave. Pray you, sir, a word: and as I told you, my young lady bid me
enquire you out; what she bade me say, I will keep to myself. But first
let me tell ye, if ye should lead her in a fool’s paradise, as they
say, it were a very gross kind of behaviour, as they say; for the
gentlewoman is young. And therefore, if you should deal double with
her, truly it were an ill thing to be offered to any gentlewoman, and
very weak dealing.

ROMEO. Nurse, commend me to thy lady and mistress. I protest unto
thee,—

NURSE.
Good heart, and i’faith I will tell her as much. Lord, Lord, she will
be a joyful woman.

ROMEO.
What wilt thou tell her, Nurse? Thou dost not mark me.

NURSE.
I will tell her, sir, that you do protest, which, as I take it, is a
gentlemanlike offer.

ROMEO.
Bid her devise
Some means to come to shrift this afternoon,
And there she shall at Friar Lawrence’ cell
Be shriv’d and married. Here is for thy pains.

NURSE.
No truly, sir; not a penny.

ROMEO.
Go to; I say you shall.

NURSE.
This afternoon, sir? Well, she shall be there.

ROMEO.
And stay, good Nurse, behind the abbey wall.
Within this hour my man shall be with thee,
And bring thee cords made like a tackled stair,
Which to the high topgallant of my joy
Must be my convoy in the secret night.
Farewell, be trusty, and I’ll quit thy pains;
Farewell; commend me to thy mistress.

NURSE.
Now God in heaven bless thee. Hark you, sir.

ROMEO.
What say’st thou, my dear Nurse?

NURSE.
Is your man secret? Did you ne’er hear say,
Two may keep counsel, putting one away?

ROMEO.
I warrant thee my man’s as true as steel.

NURSE.
Well, sir, my mistress is the sweetest lady. Lord, Lord! When ’twas a
little prating thing,—O, there is a nobleman in town, one Paris, that
would fain lay knife aboard; but she, good soul, had as lief see a
toad, a very toad, as see him. I anger her sometimes, and tell her that
Paris is the properer man, but I’ll warrant you, when I say so, she
looks as pale as any clout in the versal world. Doth not rosemary and
Romeo begin both with a letter?

ROMEO.
Ay, Nurse; what of that? Both with an R.

NURSE.
Ah, mocker! That’s the dog’s name. R is for the—no, I know it begins
with some other letter, and she hath the prettiest sententious of it,
of you and rosemary, that it would do you good to hear it.

ROMEO.
Commend me to thy lady.

NURSE.
Ay, a thousand times. Peter!

 [_Exit Romeo._]

PETER.
Anon.

NURSE.
Before and apace.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE V. Capulet’s Garden.

 Enter Juliet.

JULIET.
The clock struck nine when I did send the Nurse,
In half an hour she promised to return.
Perchance she cannot meet him. That’s not so.
O, she is lame. Love’s heralds should be thoughts,
Which ten times faster glides than the sun’s beams,
Driving back shadows over lowering hills:
Therefore do nimble-pinion’d doves draw love,
And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings.
Now is the sun upon the highmost hill
Of this day’s journey, and from nine till twelve
Is three long hours, yet she is not come.
Had she affections and warm youthful blood,
She’d be as swift in motion as a ball;
My words would bandy her to my sweet love,
And his to me.
But old folks, many feign as they were dead;
Unwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead.

 Enter Nurse and Peter.

O God, she comes. O honey Nurse, what news?
Hast thou met with him? Send thy man away.

NURSE.
Peter, stay at the gate.

 [_Exit Peter._]

JULIET.
Now, good sweet Nurse,—O Lord, why look’st thou sad?
Though news be sad, yet tell them merrily;
If good, thou sham’st the music of sweet news
By playing it to me with so sour a face.

NURSE.
I am aweary, give me leave awhile;
Fie, how my bones ache! What a jaunt have I had!

JULIET.
I would thou hadst my bones, and I thy news:
Nay come, I pray thee speak; good, good Nurse, speak.

NURSE.
Jesu, what haste? Can you not stay a while? Do you not see that I am
out of breath?

JULIET.
How art thou out of breath, when thou hast breath
To say to me that thou art out of breath?
The excuse that thou dost make in this delay
Is longer than the tale thou dost excuse.
Is thy news good or bad? Answer to that;
Say either, and I’ll stay the circumstance.
Let me be satisfied, is’t good or bad?

NURSE.
Well, you have made a simple choice; you know not how to choose a man.
Romeo? No, not he. Though his face be better than any man’s, yet his
leg excels all men’s, and for a hand and a foot, and a body, though
they be not to be talked on, yet they are past compare. He is not the
flower of courtesy, but I’ll warrant him as gentle as a lamb. Go thy
ways, wench, serve God. What, have you dined at home?

JULIET.
No, no. But all this did I know before.
What says he of our marriage? What of that?

NURSE.
Lord, how my head aches! What a head have I!
It beats as it would fall in twenty pieces.
My back o’ t’other side,—O my back, my back!
Beshrew your heart for sending me about
To catch my death with jauncing up and down.

JULIET.
I’faith, I am sorry that thou art not well.
Sweet, sweet, sweet Nurse, tell me, what says my love?

NURSE.
Your love says like an honest gentleman,
And a courteous, and a kind, and a handsome,
And I warrant a virtuous,—Where is your mother?

JULIET.
Where is my mother? Why, she is within.
Where should she be? How oddly thou repliest.
‘Your love says, like an honest gentleman,
‘Where is your mother?’

NURSE.
O God’s lady dear,
Are you so hot? Marry, come up, I trow.
Is this the poultice for my aching bones?
Henceforward do your messages yourself.

JULIET.
Here’s such a coil. Come, what says Romeo?

NURSE.
Have you got leave to go to shrift today?

JULIET.
I have.

NURSE.
Then hie you hence to Friar Lawrence’ cell;
There stays a husband to make you a wife.
Now comes the wanton blood up in your cheeks,
They’ll be in scarlet straight at any news.
Hie you to church. I must another way,
To fetch a ladder by the which your love
Must climb a bird’s nest soon when it is dark.
I am the drudge, and toil in your delight;
But you shall bear the burden soon at night.
Go. I’ll to dinner; hie you to the cell.

JULIET.
Hie to high fortune! Honest Nurse, farewell.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE VI. Friar Lawrence’s Cell.

 Enter Friar Lawrence and Romeo.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
So smile the heavens upon this holy act
That after-hours with sorrow chide us not.

ROMEO.
Amen, amen, but come what sorrow can,
It cannot countervail the exchange of joy
That one short minute gives me in her sight.
Do thou but close our hands with holy words,
Then love-devouring death do what he dare,
It is enough I may but call her mine.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
These violent delights have violent ends,
And in their triumph die; like fire and powder,
Which as they kiss consume. The sweetest honey
Is loathsome in his own deliciousness,
And in the taste confounds the appetite.
Therefore love moderately: long love doth so;
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.

 Enter Juliet.

Here comes the lady. O, so light a foot
Will ne’er wear out the everlasting flint.
A lover may bestride the gossamers
That idles in the wanton summer air
And yet not fall; so light is vanity.

JULIET.
Good even to my ghostly confessor.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Romeo shall thank thee, daughter, for us both.

JULIET.
As much to him, else is his thanks too much.

ROMEO.
Ah, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy
Be heap’d like mine, and that thy skill be more
To blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath
This neighbour air, and let rich music’s tongue
Unfold the imagin’d happiness that both
Receive in either by this dear encounter.

JULIET.
Conceit more rich in matter than in words,
Brags of his substance, not of ornament.
They are but beggars that can count their worth;
But my true love is grown to such excess,
I cannot sum up sum of half my wealth.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Come, come with me, and we will make short work,
For, by your leaves, you shall not stay alone
Till holy church incorporate two in one.

 [_Exeunt._]




ACT III

SCENE I. A public Place.


 Enter Mercutio, Benvolio, Page and Servants.

BENVOLIO.
I pray thee, good Mercutio, let’s retire:
The day is hot, the Capulets abroad,
And if we meet, we shall not scape a brawl,
For now these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.

MERCUTIO.
Thou art like one of these fellows that, when he enters the confines of
a tavern, claps me his sword upon the table, and says ‘God send me no
need of thee!’ and by the operation of the second cup draws him on the
drawer, when indeed there is no need.

BENVOLIO.
Am I like such a fellow?

MERCUTIO.
Come, come, thou art as hot a Jack in thy mood as any in Italy; and as
soon moved to be moody, and as soon moody to be moved.

BENVOLIO.
And what to?

MERCUTIO.
Nay, an there were two such, we should have none shortly, for one would
kill the other. Thou? Why, thou wilt quarrel with a man that hath a
hair more or a hair less in his beard than thou hast. Thou wilt quarrel
with a man for cracking nuts, having no other reason but because thou
hast hazel eyes. What eye but such an eye would spy out such a quarrel?
Thy head is as full of quarrels as an egg is full of meat, and yet thy
head hath been beaten as addle as an egg for quarrelling. Thou hast
quarrelled with a man for coughing in the street, because he hath
wakened thy dog that hath lain asleep in the sun. Didst thou not fall
out with a tailor for wearing his new doublet before Easter? with
another for tying his new shoes with an old riband? And yet thou wilt
tutor me from quarrelling!

BENVOLIO.
And I were so apt to quarrel as thou art, any man should buy the fee
simple of my life for an hour and a quarter.

MERCUTIO.
The fee simple! O simple!

 Enter Tybalt and others.

BENVOLIO.
By my head, here comes the Capulets.

MERCUTIO.
By my heel, I care not.

TYBALT.
Follow me close, for I will speak to them.
Gentlemen, good-den: a word with one of you.

MERCUTIO.
And but one word with one of us? Couple it with something; make it a
word and a blow.

TYBALT.
You shall find me apt enough to that, sir, and you will give me
occasion.

MERCUTIO.
Could you not take some occasion without giving?

TYBALT.
Mercutio, thou consortest with Romeo.

MERCUTIO.
Consort? What, dost thou make us minstrels? And thou make minstrels of
us, look to hear nothing but discords. Here’s my fiddlestick, here’s
that shall make you dance. Zounds, consort!

BENVOLIO.
We talk here in the public haunt of men.
Either withdraw unto some private place,
And reason coldly of your grievances,
Or else depart; here all eyes gaze on us.

MERCUTIO.
Men’s eyes were made to look, and let them gaze.
I will not budge for no man’s pleasure, I.

 Enter Romeo.

TYBALT.
Well, peace be with you, sir, here comes my man.

MERCUTIO.
But I’ll be hanged, sir, if he wear your livery.
Marry, go before to field, he’ll be your follower;
Your worship in that sense may call him man.

TYBALT.
Romeo, the love I bear thee can afford
No better term than this: Thou art a villain.

ROMEO.
Tybalt, the reason that I have to love thee
Doth much excuse the appertaining rage
To such a greeting. Villain am I none;
Therefore farewell; I see thou know’st me not.

TYBALT.
Boy, this shall not excuse the injuries
That thou hast done me, therefore turn and draw.

ROMEO.
I do protest I never injur’d thee,
But love thee better than thou canst devise
Till thou shalt know the reason of my love.
And so good Capulet, which name I tender
As dearly as mine own, be satisfied.

MERCUTIO.
O calm, dishonourable, vile submission!
[_Draws._] Alla stoccata carries it away.
Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk?

TYBALT.
What wouldst thou have with me?

MERCUTIO.
Good King of Cats, nothing but one of your nine lives; that I mean to
make bold withal, and, as you shall use me hereafter, dry-beat the rest
of the eight. Will you pluck your sword out of his pilcher by the ears?
Make haste, lest mine be about your ears ere it be out.

TYBALT.
[_Drawing._] I am for you.

ROMEO.
Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up.

MERCUTIO.
Come, sir, your passado.

 [_They fight._]

ROMEO.
Draw, Benvolio; beat down their weapons.
Gentlemen, for shame, forbear this outrage,
Tybalt, Mercutio, the Prince expressly hath
Forbid this bandying in Verona streets.
Hold, Tybalt! Good Mercutio!

 [_Exeunt Tybalt with his Partizans._]

MERCUTIO.
I am hurt.
A plague o’ both your houses. I am sped.
Is he gone, and hath nothing?

BENVOLIO.
What, art thou hurt?

MERCUTIO.
Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch. Marry, ’tis enough.
Where is my page? Go villain, fetch a surgeon.

 [_Exit Page._]

ROMEO.
Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.

MERCUTIO.
No, ’tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door, but ’tis
enough, ’twill serve. Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a
grave man. I am peppered, I warrant, for this world. A plague o’ both
your houses. Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a cat, to scratch a man to
death. A braggart, a rogue, a villain, that fights by the book of
arithmetic!—Why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your
arm.

ROMEO.
I thought all for the best.

MERCUTIO.
Help me into some house, Benvolio,
Or I shall faint. A plague o’ both your houses.
They have made worms’ meat of me.
I have it, and soundly too. Your houses!

 [_Exeunt Mercutio and Benvolio._]

ROMEO.
This gentleman, the Prince’s near ally,
My very friend, hath got his mortal hurt
In my behalf; my reputation stain’d
With Tybalt’s slander,—Tybalt, that an hour
Hath been my cousin. O sweet Juliet,
Thy beauty hath made me effeminate
And in my temper soften’d valour’s steel.

 Re-enter Benvolio.

BENVOLIO.
O Romeo, Romeo, brave Mercutio’s dead,
That gallant spirit hath aspir’d the clouds,
Which too untimely here did scorn the earth.

ROMEO.
This day’s black fate on mo days doth depend;
This but begins the woe others must end.

 Re-enter Tybalt.

BENVOLIO.
Here comes the furious Tybalt back again.

ROMEO.
Again in triumph, and Mercutio slain?
Away to heaven respective lenity,
And fire-ey’d fury be my conduct now!
Now, Tybalt, take the ‘villain’ back again
That late thou gav’st me, for Mercutio’s soul
Is but a little way above our heads,
Staying for thine to keep him company.
Either thou or I, or both, must go with him.

TYBALT.
Thou wretched boy, that didst consort him here,
Shalt with him hence.

ROMEO.
This shall determine that.

 [_They fight; Tybalt falls._]

BENVOLIO.
Romeo, away, be gone!
The citizens are up, and Tybalt slain.
Stand not amaz’d. The Prince will doom thee death
If thou art taken. Hence, be gone, away!

ROMEO.
O, I am fortune’s fool!

BENVOLIO.
Why dost thou stay?

 [_Exit Romeo._]

 Enter Citizens.

FIRST CITIZEN.
Which way ran he that kill’d Mercutio?
Tybalt, that murderer, which way ran he?

BENVOLIO.
There lies that Tybalt.

FIRST CITIZEN.
Up, sir, go with me.
I charge thee in the Prince’s name obey.

 Enter Prince, attended; Montague, Capulet, their Wives and others.

PRINCE.
Where are the vile beginners of this fray?

BENVOLIO.
O noble Prince, I can discover all
The unlucky manage of this fatal brawl.
There lies the man, slain by young Romeo,
That slew thy kinsman, brave Mercutio.

LADY CAPULET.
Tybalt, my cousin! O my brother’s child!
O Prince! O husband! O, the blood is spill’d
Of my dear kinsman! Prince, as thou art true,
For blood of ours shed blood of Montague.
O cousin, cousin.

PRINCE.
Benvolio, who began this bloody fray?

BENVOLIO.
Tybalt, here slain, whom Romeo’s hand did slay;
Romeo, that spoke him fair, bid him bethink
How nice the quarrel was, and urg’d withal
Your high displeasure. All this uttered
With gentle breath, calm look, knees humbly bow’d
Could not take truce with the unruly spleen
Of Tybalt, deaf to peace, but that he tilts
With piercing steel at bold Mercutio’s breast,
Who, all as hot, turns deadly point to point,
And, with a martial scorn, with one hand beats
Cold death aside, and with the other sends
It back to Tybalt, whose dexterity
Retorts it. Romeo he cries aloud,
‘Hold, friends! Friends, part!’ and swifter than his tongue,
His agile arm beats down their fatal points,
And ’twixt them rushes; underneath whose arm
An envious thrust from Tybalt hit the life
Of stout Mercutio, and then Tybalt fled.
But by and by comes back to Romeo,
Who had but newly entertain’d revenge,
And to’t they go like lightning; for, ere I
Could draw to part them was stout Tybalt slain;
And as he fell did Romeo turn and fly.
This is the truth, or let Benvolio die.

LADY CAPULET.
He is a kinsman to the Montague.
Affection makes him false, he speaks not true.
Some twenty of them fought in this black strife,
And all those twenty could but kill one life.
I beg for justice, which thou, Prince, must give;
Romeo slew Tybalt, Romeo must not live.

PRINCE.
Romeo slew him, he slew Mercutio.
Who now the price of his dear blood doth owe?

MONTAGUE.
Not Romeo, Prince, he was Mercutio’s friend;
His fault concludes but what the law should end,
The life of Tybalt.

PRINCE.
And for that offence
Immediately we do exile him hence.
I have an interest in your hate’s proceeding,
My blood for your rude brawls doth lie a-bleeding.
But I’ll amerce you with so strong a fine
That you shall all repent the loss of mine.
I will be deaf to pleading and excuses;
Nor tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses.
Therefore use none. Let Romeo hence in haste,
Else, when he is found, that hour is his last.
Bear hence this body, and attend our will.
Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. A Room in Capulet’s House.

 Enter Juliet.

JULIET.
Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,
Towards Phoebus’ lodging. Such a waggoner
As Phaeton would whip you to the west
And bring in cloudy night immediately.
Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,
That runaway’s eyes may wink, and Romeo
Leap to these arms, untalk’d of and unseen.
Lovers can see to do their amorous rites
By their own beauties: or, if love be blind,
It best agrees with night. Come, civil night,
Thou sober-suited matron, all in black,
And learn me how to lose a winning match,
Play’d for a pair of stainless maidenhoods.
Hood my unmann’d blood, bating in my cheeks,
With thy black mantle, till strange love, grow bold,
Think true love acted simple modesty.
Come, night, come Romeo; come, thou day in night;
For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night
Whiter than new snow upon a raven’s back.
Come gentle night, come loving black-brow’d night,
Give me my Romeo, and when I shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night,
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
O, I have bought the mansion of a love,
But not possess’d it; and though I am sold,
Not yet enjoy’d. So tedious is this day
As is the night before some festival
To an impatient child that hath new robes
And may not wear them. O, here comes my Nurse,
And she brings news, and every tongue that speaks
But Romeo’s name speaks heavenly eloquence.

 Enter Nurse, with cords.

Now, Nurse, what news? What hast thou there?
The cords that Romeo bid thee fetch?

NURSE.
Ay, ay, the cords.

 [_Throws them down._]

JULIET.
Ay me, what news? Why dost thou wring thy hands?

NURSE.
Ah, well-a-day, he’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead!
We are undone, lady, we are undone.
Alack the day, he’s gone, he’s kill’d, he’s dead.

JULIET.
Can heaven be so envious?

NURSE.
Romeo can,
Though heaven cannot. O Romeo, Romeo.
Who ever would have thought it? Romeo!

JULIET.
What devil art thou, that dost torment me thus?
This torture should be roar’d in dismal hell.
Hath Romeo slain himself? Say thou but Ay,
And that bare vowel I shall poison more
Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice.
I am not I if there be such an I;
Or those eyes shut that make thee answer Ay.
If he be slain, say Ay; or if not, No.
Brief sounds determine of my weal or woe.

NURSE.
I saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes,
God save the mark!—here on his manly breast.
A piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse;
Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaub’d in blood,
All in gore-blood. I swounded at the sight.

JULIET.
O, break, my heart. Poor bankrout, break at once.
To prison, eyes; ne’er look on liberty.
Vile earth to earth resign; end motion here,
And thou and Romeo press one heavy bier.

NURSE.
O Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had.
O courteous Tybalt, honest gentleman!
That ever I should live to see thee dead.

JULIET.
What storm is this that blows so contrary?
Is Romeo slaughter’d and is Tybalt dead?
My dearest cousin, and my dearer lord?
Then dreadful trumpet sound the general doom,
For who is living, if those two are gone?

NURSE.
Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished,
Romeo that kill’d him, he is banished.

JULIET.
O God! Did Romeo’s hand shed Tybalt’s blood?

NURSE.
It did, it did; alas the day, it did.

JULIET.
O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face!
Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?
Beautiful tyrant, fiend angelical,
Dove-feather’d raven, wolvish-ravening lamb!
Despised substance of divinest show!
Just opposite to what thou justly seem’st,
A damned saint, an honourable villain!
O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell
When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend
In mortal paradise of such sweet flesh?
Was ever book containing such vile matter
So fairly bound? O, that deceit should dwell
In such a gorgeous palace.

NURSE.
There’s no trust,
No faith, no honesty in men. All perjur’d,
All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.
Ah, where’s my man? Give me some aqua vitae.
These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old.
Shame come to Romeo.

JULIET.
Blister’d be thy tongue
For such a wish! He was not born to shame.
Upon his brow shame is asham’d to sit;
For ’tis a throne where honour may be crown’d
Sole monarch of the universal earth.
O, what a beast was I to chide at him!

NURSE.
Will you speak well of him that kill’d your cousin?

JULIET.
Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?
Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name,
When I thy three-hours’ wife have mangled it?
But wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin?
That villain cousin would have kill’d my husband.
Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring,
Your tributary drops belong to woe,
Which you mistaking offer up to joy.
My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain,
And Tybalt’s dead, that would have slain my husband.
All this is comfort; wherefore weep I then?
Some word there was, worser than Tybalt’s death,
That murder’d me. I would forget it fain,
But O, it presses to my memory
Like damned guilty deeds to sinners’ minds.
Tybalt is dead, and Romeo banished.
That ‘banished,’ that one word ‘banished,’
Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt’s death
Was woe enough, if it had ended there.
Or if sour woe delights in fellowship,
And needly will be rank’d with other griefs,
Why follow’d not, when she said Tybalt’s dead,
Thy father or thy mother, nay or both,
Which modern lamentation might have mov’d?
But with a rear-ward following Tybalt’s death,
‘Romeo is banished’—to speak that word
Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,
All slain, all dead. Romeo is banished,
There is no end, no limit, measure, bound,
In that word’s death, no words can that woe sound.
Where is my father and my mother, Nurse?

NURSE.
Weeping and wailing over Tybalt’s corse.
Will you go to them? I will bring you thither.

JULIET.
Wash they his wounds with tears. Mine shall be spent,
When theirs are dry, for Romeo’s banishment.
Take up those cords. Poor ropes, you are beguil’d,
Both you and I; for Romeo is exil’d.
He made you for a highway to my bed,
But I, a maid, die maiden-widowed.
Come cords, come Nurse, I’ll to my wedding bed,
And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead.

NURSE.
Hie to your chamber. I’ll find Romeo
To comfort you. I wot well where he is.
Hark ye, your Romeo will be here at night.
I’ll to him, he is hid at Lawrence’ cell.

JULIET.
O find him, give this ring to my true knight,
And bid him come to take his last farewell.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE III. Friar Lawrence’s cell.

 Enter Friar Lawrence.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Romeo, come forth; come forth, thou fearful man.
Affliction is enanmour’d of thy parts
And thou art wedded to calamity.

 Enter Romeo.

ROMEO.
Father, what news? What is the Prince’s doom?
What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand,
That I yet know not?

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Too familiar
Is my dear son with such sour company.
I bring thee tidings of the Prince’s doom.

ROMEO.
What less than doomsday is the Prince’s doom?

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
A gentler judgment vanish’d from his lips,
Not body’s death, but body’s banishment.

ROMEO.
Ha, banishment? Be merciful, say death;
For exile hath more terror in his look,
Much more than death. Do not say banishment.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Hence from Verona art thou banished.
Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.

ROMEO.
There is no world without Verona walls,
But purgatory, torture, hell itself.
Hence banished is banish’d from the world,
And world’s exile is death. Then banished
Is death misterm’d. Calling death banished,
Thou cutt’st my head off with a golden axe,
And smilest upon the stroke that murders me.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
O deadly sin, O rude unthankfulness!
Thy fault our law calls death, but the kind Prince,
Taking thy part, hath brush’d aside the law,
And turn’d that black word death to banishment.
This is dear mercy, and thou see’st it not.

ROMEO.
’Tis torture, and not mercy. Heaven is here
Where Juliet lives, and every cat and dog,
And little mouse, every unworthy thing,
Live here in heaven and may look on her,
But Romeo may not. More validity,
More honourable state, more courtship lives
In carrion flies than Romeo. They may seize
On the white wonder of dear Juliet’s hand,
And steal immortal blessing from her lips,
Who, even in pure and vestal modesty
Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin.
But Romeo may not, he is banished.
This may flies do, when I from this must fly.
They are free men but I am banished.
And say’st thou yet that exile is not death?
Hadst thou no poison mix’d, no sharp-ground knife,
No sudden mean of death, though ne’er so mean,
But banished to kill me? Banished?
O Friar, the damned use that word in hell.
Howling attends it. How hast thou the heart,
Being a divine, a ghostly confessor,
A sin-absolver, and my friend profess’d,
To mangle me with that word banished?

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Thou fond mad man, hear me speak a little,

ROMEO.
O, thou wilt speak again of banishment.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
I’ll give thee armour to keep off that word,
Adversity’s sweet milk, philosophy,
To comfort thee, though thou art banished.

ROMEO.
Yet banished? Hang up philosophy.
Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,
Displant a town, reverse a Prince’s doom,
It helps not, it prevails not, talk no more.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
O, then I see that mad men have no ears.

ROMEO.
How should they, when that wise men have no eyes?

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Let me dispute with thee of thy estate.

ROMEO.
Thou canst not speak of that thou dost not feel.
Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love,
An hour but married, Tybalt murdered,
Doting like me, and like me banished,
Then mightst thou speak, then mightst thou tear thy hair,
And fall upon the ground as I do now,
Taking the measure of an unmade grave.

 [_Knocking within._]

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Arise; one knocks. Good Romeo, hide thyself.

ROMEO.
Not I, unless the breath of heartsick groans
Mist-like infold me from the search of eyes.

 [_Knocking._]

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Hark, how they knock!—Who’s there?—Romeo, arise,
Thou wilt be taken.—Stay awhile.—Stand up.

 [_Knocking._]

Run to my study.—By-and-by.—God’s will,
What simpleness is this.—I come, I come.

 [_Knocking._]

Who knocks so hard? Whence come you, what’s your will?

NURSE.
[_Within._] Let me come in, and you shall know my errand.
I come from Lady Juliet.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Welcome then.

 Enter Nurse.

NURSE.
O holy Friar, O, tell me, holy Friar,
Where is my lady’s lord, where’s Romeo?

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
There on the ground, with his own tears made drunk.

NURSE.
O, he is even in my mistress’ case.
Just in her case! O woeful sympathy!
Piteous predicament. Even so lies she,
Blubbering and weeping, weeping and blubbering.
Stand up, stand up; stand, and you be a man.
For Juliet’s sake, for her sake, rise and stand.
Why should you fall into so deep an O?

ROMEO.
Nurse.

NURSE.
Ah sir, ah sir, death’s the end of all.

ROMEO.
Spakest thou of Juliet? How is it with her?
Doth not she think me an old murderer,
Now I have stain’d the childhood of our joy
With blood remov’d but little from her own?
Where is she? And how doth she? And what says
My conceal’d lady to our cancell’d love?

NURSE.
O, she says nothing, sir, but weeps and weeps;
And now falls on her bed, and then starts up,
And Tybalt calls, and then on Romeo cries,
And then down falls again.

ROMEO.
As if that name,
Shot from the deadly level of a gun,
Did murder her, as that name’s cursed hand
Murder’d her kinsman. O, tell me, Friar, tell me,
In what vile part of this anatomy
Doth my name lodge? Tell me, that I may sack
The hateful mansion.

 [_Drawing his sword._]

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Hold thy desperate hand.
Art thou a man? Thy form cries out thou art.
Thy tears are womanish, thy wild acts denote
The unreasonable fury of a beast.
Unseemly woman in a seeming man,
And ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!
Thou hast amaz’d me. By my holy order,
I thought thy disposition better temper’d.
Hast thou slain Tybalt? Wilt thou slay thyself?
And slay thy lady, that in thy life lives,
By doing damned hate upon thyself?
Why rail’st thou on thy birth, the heaven and earth?
Since birth, and heaven and earth, all three do meet
In thee at once; which thou at once wouldst lose.
Fie, fie, thou sham’st thy shape, thy love, thy wit,
Which, like a usurer, abound’st in all,
And usest none in that true use indeed
Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit.
Thy noble shape is but a form of wax,
Digressing from the valour of a man;
Thy dear love sworn but hollow perjury,
Killing that love which thou hast vow’d to cherish;
Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love,
Misshapen in the conduct of them both,
Like powder in a skilless soldier’s flask,
Is set afire by thine own ignorance,
And thou dismember’d with thine own defence.
What, rouse thee, man. Thy Juliet is alive,
For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead.
There art thou happy. Tybalt would kill thee,
But thou slew’st Tybalt; there art thou happy.
The law that threaten’d death becomes thy friend,
And turns it to exile; there art thou happy.
A pack of blessings light upon thy back;
Happiness courts thee in her best array;
But like a misshaped and sullen wench,
Thou putt’st up thy Fortune and thy love.
Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable.
Go, get thee to thy love as was decreed,
Ascend her chamber, hence and comfort her.
But look thou stay not till the watch be set,
For then thou canst not pass to Mantua;
Where thou shalt live till we can find a time
To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,
Beg pardon of the Prince, and call thee back
With twenty hundred thousand times more joy
Than thou went’st forth in lamentation.
Go before, Nurse. Commend me to thy lady,
And bid her hasten all the house to bed,
Which heavy sorrow makes them apt unto.
Romeo is coming.

NURSE.
O Lord, I could have stay’d here all the night
To hear good counsel. O, what learning is!
My lord, I’ll tell my lady you will come.

ROMEO.
Do so, and bid my sweet prepare to chide.

NURSE.
Here sir, a ring she bid me give you, sir.
Hie you, make haste, for it grows very late.

 [_Exit._]

ROMEO.
How well my comfort is reviv’d by this.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Go hence, good night, and here stands all your state:
Either be gone before the watch be set,
Or by the break of day disguis’d from hence.
Sojourn in Mantua. I’ll find out your man,
And he shall signify from time to time
Every good hap to you that chances here.
Give me thy hand; ’tis late; farewell; good night.

ROMEO.
But that a joy past joy calls out on me,
It were a grief so brief to part with thee.
Farewell.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE IV. A Room in Capulet’s House.

 Enter Capulet, Lady Capulet and Paris.

CAPULET.
Things have fallen out, sir, so unluckily
That we have had no time to move our daughter.
Look you, she lov’d her kinsman Tybalt dearly,
And so did I. Well, we were born to die.
’Tis very late; she’ll not come down tonight.
I promise you, but for your company,
I would have been abed an hour ago.

PARIS.
These times of woe afford no tune to woo.
Madam, good night. Commend me to your daughter.

LADY CAPULET.
I will, and know her mind early tomorrow;
Tonight she’s mew’d up to her heaviness.

CAPULET.
Sir Paris, I will make a desperate tender
Of my child’s love. I think she will be rul’d
In all respects by me; nay more, I doubt it not.
Wife, go you to her ere you go to bed,
Acquaint her here of my son Paris’ love,
And bid her, mark you me, on Wednesday next,
But, soft, what day is this?

PARIS.
Monday, my lord.

CAPULET.
Monday! Ha, ha! Well, Wednesday is too soon,
A Thursday let it be; a Thursday, tell her,
She shall be married to this noble earl.
Will you be ready? Do you like this haste?
We’ll keep no great ado,—a friend or two,
For, hark you, Tybalt being slain so late,
It may be thought we held him carelessly,
Being our kinsman, if we revel much.
Therefore we’ll have some half a dozen friends,
And there an end. But what say you to Thursday?

PARIS.
My lord, I would that Thursday were tomorrow.

CAPULET.
Well, get you gone. A Thursday be it then.
Go you to Juliet ere you go to bed,
Prepare her, wife, against this wedding day.
Farewell, my lord.—Light to my chamber, ho!
Afore me, it is so very very late that we
May call it early by and by. Good night.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE V. An open Gallery to Juliet’s Chamber, overlooking the Garden.

 Enter Romeo and Juliet.

JULIET.
Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day.
It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierc’d the fearful hollow of thine ear;
Nightly she sings on yond pomegranate tree.
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.

ROMEO.
It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
No nightingale. Look, love, what envious streaks
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east.
Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.
I must be gone and live, or stay and die.

JULIET.
Yond light is not daylight, I know it, I.
It is some meteor that the sun exhales
To be to thee this night a torchbearer
And light thee on thy way to Mantua.
Therefore stay yet, thou need’st not to be gone.

ROMEO.
Let me be ta’en, let me be put to death,
I am content, so thou wilt have it so.
I’ll say yon grey is not the morning’s eye,
’Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia’s brow.
Nor that is not the lark whose notes do beat
The vaulty heaven so high above our heads.
I have more care to stay than will to go.
Come, death, and welcome. Juliet wills it so.
How is’t, my soul? Let’s talk. It is not day.

JULIET.
It is, it is! Hie hence, be gone, away.
It is the lark that sings so out of tune,
Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.
Some say the lark makes sweet division;
This doth not so, for she divideth us.
Some say the lark and loathed toad change eyes.
O, now I would they had chang’d voices too,
Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray,
Hunting thee hence with hunt’s-up to the day.
O now be gone, more light and light it grows.

ROMEO.
More light and light, more dark and dark our woes.

 Enter Nurse.

NURSE.
Madam.

JULIET.
Nurse?

NURSE.
Your lady mother is coming to your chamber.
The day is broke, be wary, look about.

 [_Exit._]

JULIET.
Then, window, let day in, and let life out.

ROMEO.
Farewell, farewell, one kiss, and I’ll descend.

 [_Descends._]

JULIET.
Art thou gone so? Love, lord, ay husband, friend,
I must hear from thee every day in the hour,
For in a minute there are many days.
O, by this count I shall be much in years
Ere I again behold my Romeo.

ROMEO.
Farewell!
I will omit no opportunity
That may convey my greetings, love, to thee.

JULIET.
O thinkest thou we shall ever meet again?

ROMEO.
I doubt it not, and all these woes shall serve
For sweet discourses in our time to come.

JULIET.
O God! I have an ill-divining soul!
Methinks I see thee, now thou art so low,
As one dead in the bottom of a tomb.
Either my eyesight fails, or thou look’st pale.

ROMEO.
And trust me, love, in my eye so do you.
Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu.

 [_Exit below._]

JULIET.
O Fortune, Fortune! All men call thee fickle,
If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him
That is renown’d for faith? Be fickle, Fortune;
For then, I hope thou wilt not keep him long
But send him back.

LADY CAPULET.
[_Within._] Ho, daughter, are you up?

JULIET.
Who is’t that calls? Is it my lady mother?
Is she not down so late, or up so early?
What unaccustom’d cause procures her hither?

 Enter Lady Capulet.

LADY CAPULET.
Why, how now, Juliet?

JULIET.
Madam, I am not well.

LADY CAPULET.
Evermore weeping for your cousin’s death?
What, wilt thou wash him from his grave with tears?
And if thou couldst, thou couldst not make him live.
Therefore have done: some grief shows much of love,
But much of grief shows still some want of wit.

JULIET.
Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss.

LADY CAPULET.
So shall you feel the loss, but not the friend
Which you weep for.

JULIET.
Feeling so the loss,
I cannot choose but ever weep the friend.

LADY CAPULET.
Well, girl, thou weep’st not so much for his death
As that the villain lives which slaughter’d him.

JULIET.
What villain, madam?

LADY CAPULET.
That same villain Romeo.

JULIET.
Villain and he be many miles asunder.
God pardon him. I do, with all my heart.
And yet no man like he doth grieve my heart.

LADY CAPULET.
That is because the traitor murderer lives.

JULIET.
Ay madam, from the reach of these my hands.
Would none but I might venge my cousin’s death.

LADY CAPULET.
We will have vengeance for it, fear thou not.
Then weep no more. I’ll send to one in Mantua,
Where that same banish’d runagate doth live,
Shall give him such an unaccustom’d dram
That he shall soon keep Tybalt company:
And then I hope thou wilt be satisfied.

JULIET.
Indeed I never shall be satisfied
With Romeo till I behold him—dead—
Is my poor heart so for a kinsman vex’d.
Madam, if you could find out but a man
To bear a poison, I would temper it,
That Romeo should upon receipt thereof,
Soon sleep in quiet. O, how my heart abhors
To hear him nam’d, and cannot come to him,
To wreak the love I bore my cousin
Upon his body that hath slaughter’d him.

LADY CAPULET.
Find thou the means, and I’ll find such a man.
But now I’ll tell thee joyful tidings, girl.

JULIET.
And joy comes well in such a needy time.
What are they, I beseech your ladyship?

LADY CAPULET.
Well, well, thou hast a careful father, child;
One who to put thee from thy heaviness,
Hath sorted out a sudden day of joy,
That thou expects not, nor I look’d not for.

JULIET.
Madam, in happy time, what day is that?

LADY CAPULET.
Marry, my child, early next Thursday morn
The gallant, young, and noble gentleman,
The County Paris, at Saint Peter’s Church,
Shall happily make thee there a joyful bride.

JULIET.
Now by Saint Peter’s Church, and Peter too,
He shall not make me there a joyful bride.
I wonder at this haste, that I must wed
Ere he that should be husband comes to woo.
I pray you tell my lord and father, madam,
I will not marry yet; and when I do, I swear
It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate,
Rather than Paris. These are news indeed.

LADY CAPULET.
Here comes your father, tell him so yourself,
And see how he will take it at your hands.

 Enter Capulet and Nurse.

CAPULET.
When the sun sets, the air doth drizzle dew;
But for the sunset of my brother’s son
It rains downright.
How now? A conduit, girl? What, still in tears?
Evermore showering? In one little body
Thou counterfeits a bark, a sea, a wind.
For still thy eyes, which I may call the sea,
Do ebb and flow with tears; the bark thy body is,
Sailing in this salt flood, the winds, thy sighs,
Who raging with thy tears and they with them,
Without a sudden calm will overset
Thy tempest-tossed body. How now, wife?
Have you deliver’d to her our decree?

LADY CAPULET.
Ay, sir; but she will none, she gives you thanks.
I would the fool were married to her grave.

CAPULET.
Soft. Take me with you, take me with you, wife.
How, will she none? Doth she not give us thanks?
Is she not proud? Doth she not count her blest,
Unworthy as she is, that we have wrought
So worthy a gentleman to be her bridegroom?

JULIET.
Not proud you have, but thankful that you have.
Proud can I never be of what I hate;
But thankful even for hate that is meant love.

CAPULET.
How now, how now, chopp’d logic? What is this?
Proud, and, I thank you, and I thank you not;
And yet not proud. Mistress minion you,
Thank me no thankings, nor proud me no prouds,
But fettle your fine joints ’gainst Thursday next
To go with Paris to Saint Peter’s Church,
Or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither.
Out, you green-sickness carrion! Out, you baggage!
You tallow-face!

LADY CAPULET.
Fie, fie! What, are you mad?

JULIET.
Good father, I beseech you on my knees,
Hear me with patience but to speak a word.

CAPULET.
Hang thee young baggage, disobedient wretch!
I tell thee what,—get thee to church a Thursday,
Or never after look me in the face.
Speak not, reply not, do not answer me.
My fingers itch. Wife, we scarce thought us blest
That God had lent us but this only child;
But now I see this one is one too much,
And that we have a curse in having her.
Out on her, hilding.

NURSE.
God in heaven bless her.
You are to blame, my lord, to rate her so.

CAPULET.
And why, my lady wisdom? Hold your tongue,
Good prudence; smatter with your gossips, go.

NURSE.
I speak no treason.

CAPULET.
O God ye good-en!

NURSE.
May not one speak?

CAPULET.
Peace, you mumbling fool!
Utter your gravity o’er a gossip’s bowl,
For here we need it not.

LADY CAPULET.
You are too hot.

CAPULET.
God’s bread, it makes me mad!
Day, night, hour, ride, time, work, play,
Alone, in company, still my care hath been
To have her match’d, and having now provided
A gentleman of noble parentage,
Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly allied,
Stuff’d, as they say, with honourable parts,
Proportion’d as one’s thought would wish a man,
And then to have a wretched puling fool,
A whining mammet, in her fortune’s tender,
To answer, ‘I’ll not wed, I cannot love,
I am too young, I pray you pardon me.’
But, and you will not wed, I’ll pardon you.
Graze where you will, you shall not house with me.
Look to’t, think on’t, I do not use to jest.
Thursday is near; lay hand on heart, advise.
And you be mine, I’ll give you to my friend;
And you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the streets,
For by my soul, I’ll ne’er acknowledge thee,
Nor what is mine shall never do thee good.
Trust to’t, bethink you, I’ll not be forsworn.

 [_Exit._]

JULIET.
Is there no pity sitting in the clouds,
That sees into the bottom of my grief?
O sweet my mother, cast me not away,
Delay this marriage for a month, a week,
Or, if you do not, make the bridal bed
In that dim monument where Tybalt lies.

LADY CAPULET.
Talk not to me, for I’ll not speak a word.
Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee.

 [_Exit._]

JULIET.
O God! O Nurse, how shall this be prevented?
My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven.
How shall that faith return again to earth,
Unless that husband send it me from heaven
By leaving earth? Comfort me, counsel me.
Alack, alack, that heaven should practise stratagems
Upon so soft a subject as myself.
What say’st thou? Hast thou not a word of joy?
Some comfort, Nurse.

NURSE.
Faith, here it is.
Romeo is banished; and all the world to nothing
That he dares ne’er come back to challenge you.
Or if he do, it needs must be by stealth.
Then, since the case so stands as now it doth,
I think it best you married with the County.
O, he’s a lovely gentleman.
Romeo’s a dishclout to him. An eagle, madam,
Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye
As Paris hath. Beshrew my very heart,
I think you are happy in this second match,
For it excels your first: or if it did not,
Your first is dead, or ’twere as good he were,
As living here and you no use of him.

JULIET.
Speakest thou from thy heart?

NURSE.
And from my soul too,
Or else beshrew them both.

JULIET.
Amen.

NURSE.
What?

JULIET.
Well, thou hast comforted me marvellous much.
Go in, and tell my lady I am gone,
Having displeas’d my father, to Lawrence’ cell,
To make confession and to be absolv’d.

NURSE.
Marry, I will; and this is wisely done.

 [_Exit._]

JULIET.
Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend!
Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn,
Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue
Which she hath prais’d him with above compare
So many thousand times? Go, counsellor.
Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.
I’ll to the Friar to know his remedy.
If all else fail, myself have power to die.

 [_Exit._]




ACT IV

SCENE I. Friar Lawrence’s Cell.


 Enter Friar Lawrence and Paris.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
On Thursday, sir? The time is very short.

PARIS.
My father Capulet will have it so;
And I am nothing slow to slack his haste.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
You say you do not know the lady’s mind.
Uneven is the course; I like it not.

PARIS.
Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt’s death,
And therefore have I little talk’d of love;
For Venus smiles not in a house of tears.
Now, sir, her father counts it dangerous
That she do give her sorrow so much sway;
And in his wisdom, hastes our marriage,
To stop the inundation of her tears,
Which, too much minded by herself alone,
May be put from her by society.
Now do you know the reason of this haste.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
[_Aside._] I would I knew not why it should be slow’d.—
Look, sir, here comes the lady toward my cell.

 Enter Juliet.

PARIS.
Happily met, my lady and my wife!

JULIET.
That may be, sir, when I may be a wife.

PARIS.
That may be, must be, love, on Thursday next.

JULIET.
What must be shall be.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
That’s a certain text.

PARIS.
Come you to make confession to this father?

JULIET.
To answer that, I should confess to you.

PARIS.
Do not deny to him that you love me.

JULIET.
I will confess to you that I love him.

PARIS.
So will ye, I am sure, that you love me.

JULIET.
If I do so, it will be of more price,
Being spoke behind your back than to your face.

PARIS.
Poor soul, thy face is much abus’d with tears.

JULIET.
The tears have got small victory by that;
For it was bad enough before their spite.

PARIS.
Thou wrong’st it more than tears with that report.

JULIET.
That is no slander, sir, which is a truth,
And what I spake, I spake it to my face.

PARIS.
Thy face is mine, and thou hast slander’d it.

JULIET.
It may be so, for it is not mine own.
Are you at leisure, holy father, now,
Or shall I come to you at evening mass?

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
My leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now.—
My lord, we must entreat the time alone.

PARIS.
God shield I should disturb devotion!—
Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse ye,
Till then, adieu; and keep this holy kiss.

 [_Exit._]

JULIET.
O shut the door, and when thou hast done so,
Come weep with me, past hope, past cure, past help!

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
O Juliet, I already know thy grief;
It strains me past the compass of my wits.
I hear thou must, and nothing may prorogue it,
On Thursday next be married to this County.

JULIET.
Tell me not, Friar, that thou hear’st of this,
Unless thou tell me how I may prevent it.
If in thy wisdom, thou canst give no help,
Do thou but call my resolution wise,
And with this knife I’ll help it presently.
God join’d my heart and Romeo’s, thou our hands;
And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo’s seal’d,
Shall be the label to another deed,
Or my true heart with treacherous revolt
Turn to another, this shall slay them both.
Therefore, out of thy long-experienc’d time,
Give me some present counsel, or behold
’Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife
Shall play the empire, arbitrating that
Which the commission of thy years and art
Could to no issue of true honour bring.
Be not so long to speak. I long to die,
If what thou speak’st speak not of remedy.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Hold, daughter. I do spy a kind of hope,
Which craves as desperate an execution
As that is desperate which we would prevent.
If, rather than to marry County Paris
Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself,
Then is it likely thou wilt undertake
A thing like death to chide away this shame,
That cop’st with death himself to scape from it.
And if thou dar’st, I’ll give thee remedy.

JULIET.
O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,
From off the battlements of yonder tower,
Or walk in thievish ways, or bid me lurk
Where serpents are. Chain me with roaring bears;
Or hide me nightly in a charnel-house,
O’er-cover’d quite with dead men’s rattling bones,
With reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls.
Or bid me go into a new-made grave,
And hide me with a dead man in his shroud;
Things that, to hear them told, have made me tremble,
And I will do it without fear or doubt,
To live an unstain’d wife to my sweet love.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Hold then. Go home, be merry, give consent
To marry Paris. Wednesday is tomorrow;
Tomorrow night look that thou lie alone,
Let not thy Nurse lie with thee in thy chamber.
Take thou this vial, being then in bed,
And this distilled liquor drink thou off,
When presently through all thy veins shall run
A cold and drowsy humour; for no pulse
Shall keep his native progress, but surcease.
No warmth, no breath shall testify thou livest,
The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade
To paly ashes; thy eyes’ windows fall,
Like death when he shuts up the day of life.
Each part depriv’d of supple government,
Shall stiff and stark and cold appear like death.
And in this borrow’d likeness of shrunk death
Thou shalt continue two and forty hours,
And then awake as from a pleasant sleep.
Now when the bridegroom in the morning comes
To rouse thee from thy bed, there art thou dead.
Then as the manner of our country is,
In thy best robes, uncover’d, on the bier,
Thou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault
Where all the kindred of the Capulets lie.
In the meantime, against thou shalt awake,
Shall Romeo by my letters know our drift,
And hither shall he come, and he and I
Will watch thy waking, and that very night
Shall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua.
And this shall free thee from this present shame,
If no inconstant toy nor womanish fear
Abate thy valour in the acting it.

JULIET.
Give me, give me! O tell not me of fear!

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Hold; get you gone, be strong and prosperous
In this resolve. I’ll send a friar with speed
To Mantua, with my letters to thy lord.

JULIET.
Love give me strength, and strength shall help afford.
Farewell, dear father.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. Hall in Capulet’s House.

 Enter Capulet, Lady Capulet, Nurse and Servants.

CAPULET.
So many guests invite as here are writ.

 [_Exit first Servant._]

Sirrah, go hire me twenty cunning cooks.

SECOND SERVANT.
You shall have none ill, sir; for I’ll try if they can lick their
fingers.

CAPULET.
How canst thou try them so?

SECOND SERVANT.
Marry, sir, ’tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers;
therefore he that cannot lick his fingers goes not with me.

CAPULET.
Go, begone.

 [_Exit second Servant._]

We shall be much unfurnish’d for this time.
What, is my daughter gone to Friar Lawrence?

NURSE.
Ay, forsooth.

CAPULET.
Well, he may chance to do some good on her.
A peevish self-will’d harlotry it is.

 Enter Juliet.

NURSE.
See where she comes from shrift with merry look.

CAPULET.
How now, my headstrong. Where have you been gadding?

JULIET.
Where I have learnt me to repent the sin
Of disobedient opposition
To you and your behests; and am enjoin’d
By holy Lawrence to fall prostrate here,
To beg your pardon. Pardon, I beseech you.
Henceforward I am ever rul’d by you.

CAPULET.
Send for the County, go tell him of this.
I’ll have this knot knit up tomorrow morning.

JULIET.
I met the youthful lord at Lawrence’ cell,
And gave him what becomed love I might,
Not stepping o’er the bounds of modesty.

CAPULET.
Why, I am glad on’t. This is well. Stand up.
This is as’t should be. Let me see the County.
Ay, marry. Go, I say, and fetch him hither.
Now afore God, this reverend holy Friar,
All our whole city is much bound to him.

JULIET.
Nurse, will you go with me into my closet,
To help me sort such needful ornaments
As you think fit to furnish me tomorrow?

LADY CAPULET.
No, not till Thursday. There is time enough.

CAPULET.
Go, Nurse, go with her. We’ll to church tomorrow.

 [_Exeunt Juliet and Nurse._]

LADY CAPULET.
We shall be short in our provision,
’Tis now near night.

CAPULET.
Tush, I will stir about,
And all things shall be well, I warrant thee, wife.
Go thou to Juliet, help to deck up her.
I’ll not to bed tonight, let me alone.
I’ll play the housewife for this once.—What, ho!—
They are all forth: well, I will walk myself
To County Paris, to prepare him up
Against tomorrow. My heart is wondrous light
Since this same wayward girl is so reclaim’d.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE III. Juliet’s Chamber.

 Enter Juliet and Nurse.

JULIET.
Ay, those attires are best. But, gentle Nurse,
I pray thee leave me to myself tonight;
For I have need of many orisons
To move the heavens to smile upon my state,
Which, well thou know’st, is cross and full of sin.

 Enter Lady Capulet.

LADY CAPULET.
What, are you busy, ho? Need you my help?

JULIET.
No, madam; we have cull’d such necessaries
As are behoveful for our state tomorrow.
So please you, let me now be left alone,
And let the nurse this night sit up with you,
For I am sure you have your hands full all
In this so sudden business.

LADY CAPULET.
Good night.
Get thee to bed and rest, for thou hast need.

 [_Exeunt Lady Capulet and Nurse._]

JULIET.
Farewell. God knows when we shall meet again.
I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins
That almost freezes up the heat of life.
I’ll call them back again to comfort me.
Nurse!—What should she do here?
My dismal scene I needs must act alone.
Come, vial.
What if this mixture do not work at all?
Shall I be married then tomorrow morning?
No, No! This shall forbid it. Lie thou there.

 [_Laying down her dagger._]

What if it be a poison, which the Friar
Subtly hath minister’d to have me dead,
Lest in this marriage he should be dishonour’d,
Because he married me before to Romeo?
I fear it is. And yet methinks it should not,
For he hath still been tried a holy man.
How if, when I am laid into the tomb,
I wake before the time that Romeo
Come to redeem me? There’s a fearful point!
Shall I not then be stifled in the vault,
To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,
And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?
Or, if I live, is it not very like,
The horrible conceit of death and night,
Together with the terror of the place,
As in a vault, an ancient receptacle,
Where for this many hundred years the bones
Of all my buried ancestors are pack’d,
Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,
Lies festering in his shroud; where, as they say,
At some hours in the night spirits resort—
Alack, alack, is it not like that I,
So early waking, what with loathsome smells,
And shrieks like mandrakes torn out of the earth,
That living mortals, hearing them, run mad.
O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught,
Environed with all these hideous fears,
And madly play with my forefathers’ joints?
And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud?
And, in this rage, with some great kinsman’s bone,
As with a club, dash out my desperate brains?
O look, methinks I see my cousin’s ghost
Seeking out Romeo that did spit his body
Upon a rapier’s point. Stay, Tybalt, stay!
Romeo, Romeo, Romeo, here’s drink! I drink to thee.

 [_Throws herself on the bed._]

SCENE IV. Hall in Capulet’s House.

 Enter Lady Capulet and Nurse.

LADY CAPULET.
Hold, take these keys and fetch more spices, Nurse.

NURSE.
They call for dates and quinces in the pastry.

 Enter Capulet.

CAPULET.
Come, stir, stir, stir! The second cock hath crow’d,
The curfew bell hath rung, ’tis three o’clock.
Look to the bak’d meats, good Angelica;
Spare not for cost.

NURSE.
Go, you cot-quean, go,
Get you to bed; faith, you’ll be sick tomorrow
For this night’s watching.

CAPULET.
No, not a whit. What! I have watch’d ere now
All night for lesser cause, and ne’er been sick.

LADY CAPULET.
Ay, you have been a mouse-hunt in your time;
But I will watch you from such watching now.

 [_Exeunt Lady Capulet and Nurse._]

CAPULET.
A jealous-hood, a jealous-hood!

 Enter Servants, with spits, logs and baskets.

Now, fellow, what’s there?

FIRST SERVANT.
Things for the cook, sir; but I know not what.

CAPULET.
Make haste, make haste.

 [_Exit First Servant._]

—Sirrah, fetch drier logs.
Call Peter, he will show thee where they are.

SECOND SERVANT.
I have a head, sir, that will find out logs
And never trouble Peter for the matter.

 [_Exit._]

CAPULET.
Mass and well said; a merry whoreson, ha.
Thou shalt be loggerhead.—Good faith, ’tis day.
The County will be here with music straight,
For so he said he would. I hear him near.

 [_Play music._]

Nurse! Wife! What, ho! What, Nurse, I say!

 Re-enter Nurse.

Go waken Juliet, go and trim her up.
I’ll go and chat with Paris. Hie, make haste,
Make haste; the bridegroom he is come already.
Make haste I say.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE V. Juliet’s Chamber; Juliet on the bed.

 Enter Nurse.

NURSE.
Mistress! What, mistress! Juliet! Fast, I warrant her, she.
Why, lamb, why, lady, fie, you slug-abed!
Why, love, I say! Madam! Sweetheart! Why, bride!
What, not a word? You take your pennyworths now.
Sleep for a week; for the next night, I warrant,
The County Paris hath set up his rest
That you shall rest but little. God forgive me!
Marry and amen. How sound is she asleep!
I needs must wake her. Madam, madam, madam!
Ay, let the County take you in your bed,
He’ll fright you up, i’faith. Will it not be?
What, dress’d, and in your clothes, and down again?
I must needs wake you. Lady! Lady! Lady!
Alas, alas! Help, help! My lady’s dead!
O, well-a-day that ever I was born.
Some aqua vitae, ho! My lord! My lady!

 Enter Lady Capulet.

LADY CAPULET.
What noise is here?

NURSE.
O lamentable day!

LADY CAPULET.
What is the matter?

NURSE.
Look, look! O heavy day!

LADY CAPULET.
O me, O me! My child, my only life.
Revive, look up, or I will die with thee.
Help, help! Call help.

 Enter Capulet.

CAPULET.
For shame, bring Juliet forth, her lord is come.

NURSE.
She’s dead, deceas’d, she’s dead; alack the day!

LADY CAPULET.
Alack the day, she’s dead, she’s dead, she’s dead!

CAPULET.
Ha! Let me see her. Out alas! She’s cold,
Her blood is settled and her joints are stiff.
Life and these lips have long been separated.
Death lies on her like an untimely frost
Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.

NURSE.
O lamentable day!

LADY CAPULET.
O woful time!

CAPULET.
Death, that hath ta’en her hence to make me wail,
Ties up my tongue and will not let me speak.

 Enter Friar Lawrence and Paris with Musicians.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Come, is the bride ready to go to church?

CAPULET.
Ready to go, but never to return.
O son, the night before thy wedding day
Hath death lain with thy bride. There she lies,
Flower as she was, deflowered by him.
Death is my son-in-law, death is my heir;
My daughter he hath wedded. I will die
And leave him all; life, living, all is death’s.

PARIS.
Have I thought long to see this morning’s face,
And doth it give me such a sight as this?

LADY CAPULET.
Accurs’d, unhappy, wretched, hateful day.
Most miserable hour that e’er time saw
In lasting labour of his pilgrimage.
But one, poor one, one poor and loving child,
But one thing to rejoice and solace in,
And cruel death hath catch’d it from my sight.

NURSE.
O woe! O woeful, woeful, woeful day.
Most lamentable day, most woeful day
That ever, ever, I did yet behold!
O day, O day, O day, O hateful day.
Never was seen so black a day as this.
O woeful day, O woeful day.

PARIS.
Beguil’d, divorced, wronged, spited, slain.
Most detestable death, by thee beguil’d,
By cruel, cruel thee quite overthrown.
O love! O life! Not life, but love in death!

CAPULET.
Despis’d, distressed, hated, martyr’d, kill’d.
Uncomfortable time, why cam’st thou now
To murder, murder our solemnity?
O child! O child! My soul, and not my child,
Dead art thou. Alack, my child is dead,
And with my child my joys are buried.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Peace, ho, for shame. Confusion’s cure lives not
In these confusions. Heaven and yourself
Had part in this fair maid, now heaven hath all,
And all the better is it for the maid.
Your part in her you could not keep from death,
But heaven keeps his part in eternal life.
The most you sought was her promotion,
For ’twas your heaven she should be advanc’d,
And weep ye now, seeing she is advanc’d
Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself?
O, in this love, you love your child so ill
That you run mad, seeing that she is well.
She’s not well married that lives married long,
But she’s best married that dies married young.
Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary
On this fair corse, and, as the custom is,
And in her best array bear her to church;
For though fond nature bids us all lament,
Yet nature’s tears are reason’s merriment.

CAPULET.
All things that we ordained festival
Turn from their office to black funeral:
Our instruments to melancholy bells,
Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast;
Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change;
Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse,
And all things change them to the contrary.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Sir, go you in, and, madam, go with him,
And go, Sir Paris, everyone prepare
To follow this fair corse unto her grave.
The heavens do lower upon you for some ill;
Move them no more by crossing their high will.

 [_Exeunt Capulet, Lady Capulet, Paris and Friar._]

FIRST MUSICIAN.
Faith, we may put up our pipes and be gone.

NURSE.
Honest good fellows, ah, put up, put up,
For well you know this is a pitiful case.

FIRST MUSICIAN.
Ay, by my troth, the case may be amended.

 [_Exit Nurse._]

 Enter Peter.

PETER.
Musicians, O, musicians, ‘Heart’s ease,’ ‘Heart’s ease’, O, and you
will have me live, play ‘Heart’s ease.’

FIRST MUSICIAN.
Why ‘Heart’s ease’?

PETER.
O musicians, because my heart itself plays ‘My heart is full’. O play
me some merry dump to comfort me.

FIRST MUSICIAN.
Not a dump we, ’tis no time to play now.

PETER.
You will not then?

FIRST MUSICIAN.
No.

PETER.
I will then give it you soundly.

FIRST MUSICIAN.
What will you give us?

PETER.
No money, on my faith, but the gleek! I will give you the minstrel.

FIRST MUSICIAN.
Then will I give you the serving-creature.

PETER.
Then will I lay the serving-creature’s dagger on your pate. I will
carry no crotchets. I’ll re you, I’ll fa you. Do you note me?

FIRST MUSICIAN.
And you re us and fa us, you note us.

SECOND MUSICIAN.
Pray you put up your dagger, and put out your wit.

PETER.
Then have at you with my wit. I will dry-beat you with an iron wit, and
put up my iron dagger. Answer me like men.
    ‘When griping griefs the heart doth wound,
      And doleful dumps the mind oppress,
    Then music with her silver sound’—
Why ‘silver sound’? Why ‘music with her silver sound’? What say you,
Simon Catling?

FIRST MUSICIAN.
Marry, sir, because silver hath a sweet sound.

PETER.
Prates. What say you, Hugh Rebeck?

SECOND MUSICIAN.
I say ‘silver sound’ because musicians sound for silver.

PETER.
Prates too! What say you, James Soundpost?

THIRD MUSICIAN.
Faith, I know not what to say.

PETER.
O, I cry you mercy, you are the singer. I will say for you. It is
‘music with her silver sound’ because musicians have no gold for
sounding.
      ‘Then music with her silver sound
      With speedy help doth lend redress.’

 [_Exit._]

FIRST MUSICIAN.
What a pestilent knave is this same!

SECOND MUSICIAN.
Hang him, Jack. Come, we’ll in here, tarry for the mourners, and stay
dinner.

 [_Exeunt._]




ACT V

SCENE I. Mantua. A Street.


 Enter Romeo.

ROMEO.
If I may trust the flattering eye of sleep,
My dreams presage some joyful news at hand.
My bosom’s lord sits lightly in his throne;
And all this day an unaccustom’d spirit
Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.
I dreamt my lady came and found me dead,—
Strange dream, that gives a dead man leave to think!—
And breath’d such life with kisses in my lips,
That I reviv’d, and was an emperor.
Ah me, how sweet is love itself possess’d,
When but love’s shadows are so rich in joy.

 Enter Balthasar.

News from Verona! How now, Balthasar?
Dost thou not bring me letters from the Friar?
How doth my lady? Is my father well?
How fares my Juliet? That I ask again;
For nothing can be ill if she be well.

BALTHASAR.
Then she is well, and nothing can be ill.
Her body sleeps in Capel’s monument,
And her immortal part with angels lives.
I saw her laid low in her kindred’s vault,
And presently took post to tell it you.
O pardon me for bringing these ill news,
Since you did leave it for my office, sir.

ROMEO.
Is it even so? Then I defy you, stars!
Thou know’st my lodging. Get me ink and paper,
And hire post-horses. I will hence tonight.

BALTHASAR.
I do beseech you sir, have patience.
Your looks are pale and wild, and do import
Some misadventure.

ROMEO.
Tush, thou art deceiv’d.
Leave me, and do the thing I bid thee do.
Hast thou no letters to me from the Friar?

BALTHASAR.
No, my good lord.

ROMEO.
No matter. Get thee gone,
And hire those horses. I’ll be with thee straight.

 [_Exit Balthasar._]

Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee tonight.
Let’s see for means. O mischief thou art swift
To enter in the thoughts of desperate men.
I do remember an apothecary,—
And hereabouts he dwells,—which late I noted
In tatter’d weeds, with overwhelming brows,
Culling of simples, meagre were his looks,
Sharp misery had worn him to the bones;
And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,
An alligator stuff’d, and other skins
Of ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves
A beggarly account of empty boxes,
Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds,
Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses
Were thinly scatter’d, to make up a show.
Noting this penury, to myself I said,
And if a man did need a poison now,
Whose sale is present death in Mantua,
Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.
O, this same thought did but forerun my need,
And this same needy man must sell it me.
As I remember, this should be the house.
Being holiday, the beggar’s shop is shut.
What, ho! Apothecary!

 Enter Apothecary.

APOTHECARY.
Who calls so loud?

ROMEO.
Come hither, man. I see that thou art poor.
Hold, there is forty ducats. Let me have
A dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear
As will disperse itself through all the veins,
That the life-weary taker may fall dead,
And that the trunk may be discharg’d of breath
As violently as hasty powder fir’d
Doth hurry from the fatal cannon’s womb.

APOTHECARY.
Such mortal drugs I have, but Mantua’s law
Is death to any he that utters them.

ROMEO.
Art thou so bare and full of wretchedness,
And fear’st to die? Famine is in thy cheeks,
Need and oppression starveth in thine eyes,
Contempt and beggary hangs upon thy back.
The world is not thy friend, nor the world’s law;
The world affords no law to make thee rich;
Then be not poor, but break it and take this.

APOTHECARY.
My poverty, but not my will consents.

ROMEO.
I pay thy poverty, and not thy will.

APOTHECARY.
Put this in any liquid thing you will
And drink it off; and, if you had the strength
Of twenty men, it would despatch you straight.

ROMEO.
There is thy gold, worse poison to men’s souls,
Doing more murder in this loathsome world
Than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell.
I sell thee poison, thou hast sold me none.
Farewell, buy food, and get thyself in flesh.
Come, cordial and not poison, go with me
To Juliet’s grave, for there must I use thee.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. Friar Lawrence’s Cell.

 Enter Friar John.

FRIAR JOHN.
Holy Franciscan Friar! Brother, ho!

 Enter Friar Lawrence.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
This same should be the voice of Friar John.
Welcome from Mantua. What says Romeo?
Or, if his mind be writ, give me his letter.

FRIAR JOHN.
Going to find a barefoot brother out,
One of our order, to associate me,
Here in this city visiting the sick,
And finding him, the searchers of the town,
Suspecting that we both were in a house
Where the infectious pestilence did reign,
Seal’d up the doors, and would not let us forth,
So that my speed to Mantua there was stay’d.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Who bare my letter then to Romeo?

FRIAR JOHN.
I could not send it,—here it is again,—
Nor get a messenger to bring it thee,
So fearful were they of infection.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Unhappy fortune! By my brotherhood,
The letter was not nice, but full of charge,
Of dear import, and the neglecting it
May do much danger. Friar John, go hence,
Get me an iron crow and bring it straight
Unto my cell.

FRIAR JOHN.
Brother, I’ll go and bring it thee.

 [_Exit._]

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Now must I to the monument alone.
Within this three hours will fair Juliet wake.
She will beshrew me much that Romeo
Hath had no notice of these accidents;
But I will write again to Mantua,
And keep her at my cell till Romeo come.
Poor living corse, clos’d in a dead man’s tomb.

 [_Exit._]

SCENE III. A churchyard; in it a Monument belonging to the Capulets.

 Enter Paris, and his Page bearing flowers and a torch.

PARIS.
Give me thy torch, boy. Hence and stand aloof.
Yet put it out, for I would not be seen.
Under yond yew tree lay thee all along,
Holding thy ear close to the hollow ground;
So shall no foot upon the churchyard tread,
Being loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves,
But thou shalt hear it. Whistle then to me,
As signal that thou hear’st something approach.
Give me those flowers. Do as I bid thee, go.

PAGE.
[_Aside._] I am almost afraid to stand alone
Here in the churchyard; yet I will adventure.

 [_Retires._]

PARIS.
Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew.
O woe, thy canopy is dust and stones,
Which with sweet water nightly I will dew,
Or wanting that, with tears distill’d by moans.
The obsequies that I for thee will keep,
Nightly shall be to strew thy grave and weep.

 [_The Page whistles._]

The boy gives warning something doth approach.
What cursed foot wanders this way tonight,
To cross my obsequies and true love’s rite?
What, with a torch! Muffle me, night, awhile.

 [_Retires._]

 Enter Romeo and Balthasar with a torch, mattock, &c.

ROMEO.
Give me that mattock and the wrenching iron.
Hold, take this letter; early in the morning
See thou deliver it to my lord and father.
Give me the light; upon thy life I charge thee,
Whate’er thou hear’st or seest, stand all aloof
And do not interrupt me in my course.
Why I descend into this bed of death
Is partly to behold my lady’s face,
But chiefly to take thence from her dead finger
A precious ring, a ring that I must use
In dear employment. Therefore hence, be gone.
But if thou jealous dost return to pry
In what I further shall intend to do,
By heaven I will tear thee joint by joint,
And strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs.
The time and my intents are savage-wild;
More fierce and more inexorable far
Than empty tigers or the roaring sea.

BALTHASAR.
I will be gone, sir, and not trouble you.

ROMEO.
So shalt thou show me friendship. Take thou that.
Live, and be prosperous, and farewell, good fellow.

BALTHASAR.
For all this same, I’ll hide me hereabout.
His looks I fear, and his intents I doubt.

 [_Retires_]

ROMEO.
Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death,
Gorg’d with the dearest morsel of the earth,
Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,

 [_Breaking open the door of the monument._]

And in despite, I’ll cram thee with more food.

PARIS.
This is that banish’d haughty Montague
That murder’d my love’s cousin,—with which grief,
It is supposed, the fair creature died,—
And here is come to do some villainous shame
To the dead bodies. I will apprehend him.

 [_Advances._]

Stop thy unhallow’d toil, vile Montague.
Can vengeance be pursu’d further than death?
Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee.
Obey, and go with me, for thou must die.

ROMEO.
I must indeed; and therefore came I hither.
Good gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man.
Fly hence and leave me. Think upon these gone;
Let them affright thee. I beseech thee, youth,
Put not another sin upon my head
By urging me to fury. O be gone.
By heaven I love thee better than myself;
For I come hither arm’d against myself.
Stay not, be gone, live, and hereafter say,
A madman’s mercy bid thee run away.

PARIS.
I do defy thy conjuration,
And apprehend thee for a felon here.

ROMEO.
Wilt thou provoke me? Then have at thee, boy!

 [_They fight._]

PAGE.
O lord, they fight! I will go call the watch.

 [_Exit._]

PARIS.
O, I am slain! [_Falls._] If thou be merciful,
Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.

 [_Dies._]

ROMEO.
In faith, I will. Let me peruse this face.
Mercutio’s kinsman, noble County Paris!
What said my man, when my betossed soul
Did not attend him as we rode? I think
He told me Paris should have married Juliet.
Said he not so? Or did I dream it so?
Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet,
To think it was so? O, give me thy hand,
One writ with me in sour misfortune’s book.
I’ll bury thee in a triumphant grave.
A grave? O no, a lantern, slaught’red youth,
For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes
This vault a feasting presence full of light.
Death, lie thou there, by a dead man interr’d.

 [_Laying Paris in the monument._]

How oft when men are at the point of death
Have they been merry! Which their keepers call
A lightning before death. O, how may I
Call this a lightning? O my love, my wife,
Death that hath suck’d the honey of thy breath,
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.
Thou art not conquer’d. Beauty’s ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,
And death’s pale flag is not advanced there.
Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet?
O, what more favour can I do to thee
Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain
To sunder his that was thine enemy?
Forgive me, cousin. Ah, dear Juliet,
Why art thou yet so fair? Shall I believe
That unsubstantial death is amorous;
And that the lean abhorred monster keeps
Thee here in dark to be his paramour?
For fear of that I still will stay with thee,
And never from this palace of dim night
Depart again. Here, here will I remain
With worms that are thy chambermaids. O, here
Will I set up my everlasting rest;
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last.
Arms, take your last embrace! And, lips, O you
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death.
Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide.
Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark.
Here’s to my love! [_Drinks._] O true apothecary!
Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.

 [_Dies._]

 Enter, at the other end of the Churchyard, Friar Lawrence, with a
 lantern, crow, and spade.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Saint Francis be my speed. How oft tonight
Have my old feet stumbled at graves? Who’s there?
Who is it that consorts, so late, the dead?

BALTHASAR.
Here’s one, a friend, and one that knows you well.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Bliss be upon you. Tell me, good my friend,
What torch is yond that vainly lends his light
To grubs and eyeless skulls? As I discern,
It burneth in the Capels’ monument.

BALTHASAR.
It doth so, holy sir, and there’s my master,
One that you love.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Who is it?

BALTHASAR.
Romeo.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
How long hath he been there?

BALTHASAR.
Full half an hour.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Go with me to the vault.

BALTHASAR.
I dare not, sir;
My master knows not but I am gone hence,
And fearfully did menace me with death
If I did stay to look on his intents.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Stay then, I’ll go alone. Fear comes upon me.
O, much I fear some ill unlucky thing.

BALTHASAR.
As I did sleep under this yew tree here,
I dreamt my master and another fought,
And that my master slew him.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Romeo! [_Advances._]
Alack, alack, what blood is this which stains
The stony entrance of this sepulchre?
What mean these masterless and gory swords
To lie discolour’d by this place of peace?

 [_Enters the monument._]

Romeo! O, pale! Who else? What, Paris too?
And steep’d in blood? Ah what an unkind hour
Is guilty of this lamentable chance?
The lady stirs.

 [_Juliet wakes and stirs._]

JULIET.
O comfortable Friar, where is my lord?
I do remember well where I should be,
And there I am. Where is my Romeo?

 [_Noise within._]

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
I hear some noise. Lady, come from that nest
Of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep.
A greater power than we can contradict
Hath thwarted our intents. Come, come away.
Thy husband in thy bosom there lies dead;
And Paris too. Come, I’ll dispose of thee
Among a sisterhood of holy nuns.
Stay not to question, for the watch is coming.
Come, go, good Juliet. I dare no longer stay.

JULIET.
Go, get thee hence, for I will not away.

 [_Exit Friar Lawrence._]

What’s here? A cup clos’d in my true love’s hand?
Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end.
O churl. Drink all, and left no friendly drop
To help me after? I will kiss thy lips.
Haply some poison yet doth hang on them,
To make me die with a restorative.

 [_Kisses him._]

Thy lips are warm!

FIRST WATCH.
[_Within._] Lead, boy. Which way?

JULIET.
Yea, noise? Then I’ll be brief. O happy dagger.

 [_Snatching Romeo’s dagger._]

This is thy sheath. [_stabs herself_] There rest, and let me die.

 [_Falls on Romeo’s body and dies._]

 Enter Watch with the Page of Paris.

PAGE.
This is the place. There, where the torch doth burn.

FIRST WATCH.
The ground is bloody. Search about the churchyard.
Go, some of you, whoe’er you find attach.

 [_Exeunt some of the Watch._]

Pitiful sight! Here lies the County slain,
And Juliet bleeding, warm, and newly dead,
Who here hath lain this two days buried.
Go tell the Prince; run to the Capulets.
Raise up the Montagues, some others search.

 [_Exeunt others of the Watch._]

We see the ground whereon these woes do lie,
But the true ground of all these piteous woes
We cannot without circumstance descry.

 Re-enter some of the Watch with Balthasar.

SECOND WATCH.
Here’s Romeo’s man. We found him in the churchyard.

FIRST WATCH.
Hold him in safety till the Prince come hither.

 Re-enter others of the Watch with Friar Lawrence.

THIRD WATCH. Here is a Friar that trembles, sighs, and weeps.
We took this mattock and this spade from him
As he was coming from this churchyard side.

FIRST WATCH.
A great suspicion. Stay the Friar too.

 Enter the Prince and Attendants.

PRINCE.
What misadventure is so early up,
That calls our person from our morning’s rest?

 Enter Capulet, Lady Capulet and others.

CAPULET.
What should it be that they so shriek abroad?

LADY CAPULET.
O the people in the street cry Romeo,
Some Juliet, and some Paris, and all run
With open outcry toward our monument.

PRINCE.
What fear is this which startles in our ears?

FIRST WATCH.
Sovereign, here lies the County Paris slain,
And Romeo dead, and Juliet, dead before,
Warm and new kill’d.

PRINCE.
Search, seek, and know how this foul murder comes.

FIRST WATCH.
Here is a Friar, and slaughter’d Romeo’s man,
With instruments upon them fit to open
These dead men’s tombs.

CAPULET.
O heaven! O wife, look how our daughter bleeds!
This dagger hath mista’en, for lo, his house
Is empty on the back of Montague,
And it mis-sheathed in my daughter’s bosom.

LADY CAPULET.
O me! This sight of death is as a bell
That warns my old age to a sepulchre.

 Enter Montague and others.

PRINCE.
Come, Montague, for thou art early up,
To see thy son and heir more early down.

MONTAGUE.
Alas, my liege, my wife is dead tonight.
Grief of my son’s exile hath stopp’d her breath.
What further woe conspires against mine age?

PRINCE.
Look, and thou shalt see.

MONTAGUE.
O thou untaught! What manners is in this,
To press before thy father to a grave?

PRINCE.
Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while,
Till we can clear these ambiguities,
And know their spring, their head, their true descent,
And then will I be general of your woes,
And lead you even to death. Meantime forbear,
And let mischance be slave to patience.
Bring forth the parties of suspicion.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
I am the greatest, able to do least,
Yet most suspected, as the time and place
Doth make against me, of this direful murder.
And here I stand, both to impeach and purge
Myself condemned and myself excus’d.

PRINCE.
Then say at once what thou dost know in this.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
I will be brief, for my short date of breath
Is not so long as is a tedious tale.
Romeo, there dead, was husband to that Juliet,
And she, there dead, that Romeo’s faithful wife.
I married them; and their stol’n marriage day
Was Tybalt’s doomsday, whose untimely death
Banish’d the new-made bridegroom from this city;
For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pin’d.
You, to remove that siege of grief from her,
Betroth’d, and would have married her perforce
To County Paris. Then comes she to me,
And with wild looks, bid me devise some means
To rid her from this second marriage,
Or in my cell there would she kill herself.
Then gave I her, so tutored by my art,
A sleeping potion, which so took effect
As I intended, for it wrought on her
The form of death. Meantime I writ to Romeo
That he should hither come as this dire night
To help to take her from her borrow’d grave,
Being the time the potion’s force should cease.
But he which bore my letter, Friar John,
Was stay’d by accident; and yesternight
Return’d my letter back. Then all alone
At the prefixed hour of her waking
Came I to take her from her kindred’s vault,
Meaning to keep her closely at my cell
Till I conveniently could send to Romeo.
But when I came, some minute ere the time
Of her awaking, here untimely lay
The noble Paris and true Romeo dead.
She wakes; and I entreated her come forth
And bear this work of heaven with patience.
But then a noise did scare me from the tomb;
And she, too desperate, would not go with me,
But, as it seems, did violence on herself.
All this I know; and to the marriage
Her Nurse is privy. And if ought in this
Miscarried by my fault, let my old life
Be sacrific’d, some hour before his time,
Unto the rigour of severest law.

PRINCE.
We still have known thee for a holy man.
Where’s Romeo’s man? What can he say to this?

BALTHASAR.
I brought my master news of Juliet’s death,
And then in post he came from Mantua
To this same place, to this same monument.
This letter he early bid me give his father,
And threaten’d me with death, going in the vault,
If I departed not, and left him there.

PRINCE.
Give me the letter, I will look on it.
Where is the County’s Page that rais’d the watch?
Sirrah, what made your master in this place?

PAGE.
He came with flowers to strew his lady’s grave,
And bid me stand aloof, and so I did.
Anon comes one with light to ope the tomb,
And by and by my master drew on him,
And then I ran away to call the watch.

PRINCE.
This letter doth make good the Friar’s words,
Their course of love, the tidings of her death.
And here he writes that he did buy a poison
Of a poor ’pothecary, and therewithal
Came to this vault to die, and lie with Juliet.
Where be these enemies? Capulet, Montague,
See what a scourge is laid upon your hate,
That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love!
And I, for winking at your discords too,
Have lost a brace of kinsmen. All are punish’d.

CAPULET.
O brother Montague, give me thy hand.
This is my daughter’s jointure, for no more
Can I demand.

MONTAGUE.
But I can give thee more,
For I will raise her statue in pure gold,
That whiles Verona by that name is known,
There shall no figure at such rate be set
As that of true and faithful Juliet.

CAPULET.
As rich shall Romeo’s by his lady’s lie,
Poor sacrifices of our enmity.

PRINCE.
A glooming peace this morning with it brings;
The sun for sorrow will not show his head.
Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things.
Some shall be pardon’d, and some punished,
For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.

 [_Exeunt._]







_The_
BLUE CASTLE

_A NOVEL_

BY
L. M. MONTGOMERY

NEW YORK
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
MCMXXVI




CONTENTS

 CHAPTER I
 CHAPTER II
 CHAPTER III
 CHAPTER IV
 CHAPTER V
 CHAPTER VI
 CHAPTER VII
 CHAPTER VIII
 CHAPTER IX
 CHAPTER X
 CHAPTER XI
 CHAPTER XII
 CHAPTER XIII
 CHAPTER XIV
 CHAPTER XV
 CHAPTER XVI
 CHAPTER XVII
 CHAPTER XVIII
 CHAPTER XIX
 CHAPTER XX
 CHAPTER XXI
 CHAPTER XXII
 CHAPTER XXIII
 CHAPTER XXIV
 CHAPTER XXV
 CHAPTER XXVI
 CHAPTER XXVII
 CHAPTER XXVIII
 CHAPTER XXIX
 CHAPTER XXX
 CHAPTER XXXI
 CHAPTER XXXII
 CHAPTER XXXIII
 CHAPTER XXXIV
 CHAPTER XXXV
 CHAPTER XXXVI
 CHAPTER XXXVII
 CHAPTER XXXVIII
 CHAPTER XXXIX
 CHAPTER XL
 CHAPTER XLI
 CHAPTER XLII
 CHAPTER XLIII
 CHAPTER XLIV
 CHAPTER XLV




THE BLUE CASTLE




CHAPTER I


If it had not rained on a certain May morning Valancy Stirling’s whole
life would have been entirely different. She would have gone, with the
rest of her clan, to Aunt Wellington’s engagement picnic and Dr. Trent
would have gone to Montreal. But it did rain and you shall hear what
happened to her because of it.

Valancy wakened early, in the lifeless, hopeless hour just preceding
dawn. She had not slept very well. One does not sleep well, sometimes,
when one is twenty-nine on the morrow, and unmarried, in a community
and connection where the unmarried are simply those who have failed to
get a man.

Deerwood and the Stirlings had long since relegated Valancy to hopeless
old maidenhood. But Valancy herself had never quite relinquished a
certain pitiful, shamed, little hope that Romance would come her way
yet—never, until this wet, horrible morning, when she wakened to the
fact that she was twenty-nine and unsought by any man.

Ay, _there_ lay the sting. Valancy did not mind so much being an old
maid. After all, she thought, being an old maid couldn’t possibly be as
dreadful as being married to an Uncle Wellington or an Uncle Benjamin,
or even an Uncle Herbert. What hurt her was that she had never had a
chance to be anything but an old maid. No man had ever desired her.

The tears came into her eyes as she lay there alone in the faintly
greying darkness. She dared not let herself cry as hard as she wanted
to, for two reasons. She was afraid that crying might bring on another
attack of that pain around the heart. She had had a spell of it after
she had got into bed—rather worse than any she had had yet. And she was
afraid her mother would notice her red eyes at breakfast and keep at
her with minute, persistent, mosquito-like questions regarding the
cause thereof.

“Suppose,” thought Valancy with a ghastly grin, “I answered with the
plain truth, ‘I am crying because I cannot get married.’ How horrified
Mother would be—though she is ashamed every day of her life of her old
maid daughter.”

But of course appearances should be kept up. “It is not,” Valancy could
hear her mother’s prim, dictatorial voice asserting, “it is not
_maidenly_ to think about _men_.”

The thought of her mother’s expression made Valancy laugh—for she had a
sense of humour nobody in her clan suspected. For that matter, there
were a good many things about Valancy that nobody suspected. But her
laughter was very superficial and presently she lay there, a huddled,
futile little figure, listening to the rain pouring down outside and
watching, with a sick distaste, the chill, merciless light creeping
into her ugly, sordid room.

She knew the ugliness of that room by heart—knew it and hated it. The
yellow-painted floor, with one hideous, “hooked” rug by the bed, with a
grotesque, “hooked” dog on it, always grinning at her when she awoke;
the faded, dark-red paper; the ceiling discoloured by old leaks and
crossed by cracks; the narrow, pinched little washstand; the
brown-paper lambrequin with purple roses on it; the spotted old
looking-glass with the crack across it, propped up on the inadequate
dressing-table; the jar of ancient potpourri made by her mother in her
mythical honeymoon; the shell-covered box, with one burst corner, which
Cousin Stickles had made in her equally mythical girlhood; the beaded
pincushion with half its bead fringe gone; the one stiff, yellow chair;
the faded old motto, “Gone but not forgotten,” worked in coloured yarns
about Great-grandmother Stirling’s grim old face; the old photographs
of ancient relatives long banished from the rooms below. There were
only two pictures that were not of relatives. One, an old chromo of a
puppy sitting on a rainy doorstep. That picture always made Valancy
unhappy. That forlorn little dog crouched on the doorstep in the
driving rain! Why didn’t _some one_ open the door and let him in? The
other picture was a faded, passe-partouted engraving of Queen Louise
coming down a stairway, which Aunt Wellington had lavishly given her on
her tenth birthday. For nineteen years she had looked at it and hated
it, beautiful, smug, self-satisfied Queen Louise. But she never dared
destroy it or remove it. Mother and Cousin Stickles would have been
aghast, or, as Valancy irreverently expressed it in her thoughts, would
have had a fit.

Every room in the house was ugly, of course. But downstairs appearances
were kept up somewhat. There was no money for rooms nobody ever saw.
Valancy sometimes felt that she could have done something for her room
herself, even without money, if she were permitted. But her mother had
negatived every timid suggestion and Valancy did not persist. Valancy
never persisted. She was afraid to. Her mother could not brook
opposition. Mrs. Stirling would sulk for days if offended, with the
airs of an insulted duchess.

The only thing Valancy liked about her room was that she could be alone
there at night to cry if she wanted to.

But, after all, what did it matter if a room, which you used for
nothing except sleeping and dressing in, were ugly? Valancy was never
permitted to stay alone in her room for any other purpose. People who
wanted to be alone, so Mrs. Frederick Stirling and Cousin Stickles
believed, could only want to be alone for some sinister purpose. But
her room in the Blue Castle was everything a room should be.

Valancy, so cowed and subdued and overridden and snubbed in real life,
was wont to let herself go rather splendidly in her day-dreams. Nobody
in the Stirling clan, or its ramifications, suspected this, least of
all her mother and Cousin Stickles. They never knew that Valancy had
two homes—the ugly red brick box of a home, on Elm Street, and the Blue
Castle in Spain. Valancy had lived spiritually in the Blue Castle ever
since she could remember. She had been a very tiny child when she found
herself possessed of it. Always, when she shut her eyes, she could see
it plainly, with its turrets and banners on the pine-clad mountain
height, wrapped in its faint, blue loveliness, against the sunset skies
of a fair and unknown land. Everything wonderful and beautiful was in
that castle. Jewels that queens might have worn; robes of moonlight and
fire; couches of roses and gold; long flights of shallow marble steps,
with great, white urns, and with slender, mist-clad maidens going up
and down them; courts, marble-pillared, where shimmering fountains fell
and nightingales sang among the myrtles; halls of mirrors that
reflected only handsome knights and lovely women—herself the loveliest
of all, for whose glance men died. All that supported her through the
boredom of her days was the hope of going on a dream spree at night.
Most, if not all, of the Stirlings would have died of horror if they
had known half the things Valancy did in her Blue Castle.

For one thing she had quite a few lovers in it. Oh, only one at a time.
One who wooed her with all the romantic ardour of the age of chivalry
and won her after long devotion and many deeds of derring-do, and was
wedded to her with pomp and circumstance in the great, banner-hung
chapel of the Blue Castle.

At twelve, this lover was a fair lad with golden curls and heavenly
blue eyes. At fifteen, he was tall and dark and pale, but still
necessarily handsome. At twenty, he was ascetic, dreamy, spiritual. At
twenty-five, he had a clean-cut jaw, slightly grim, and a face strong
and rugged rather than handsome. Valancy never grew older than
twenty-five in her Blue Castle, but recently—very recently—her hero had
had reddish, tawny hair, a twisted smile and a mysterious past.

I don’t say Valancy deliberately murdered these lovers as she outgrew
them. One simply faded away as another came. Things are very convenient
in this respect in Blue Castles.

But, on this morning of her day of fate, Valancy could not find the key
of her Blue Castle. Reality pressed on her too hardly, barking at her
heels like a maddening little dog. She was twenty-nine, lonely,
undesired, ill-favoured—the only homely girl in a handsome clan, with
no past and no future. As far as she could look back, life was drab and
colourless, with not one single crimson or purple spot anywhere. As far
as she could look forward it seemed certain to be just the same until
she was nothing but a solitary, little withered leaf clinging to a
wintry bough. The moment when a woman realises that she has nothing to
live for—neither love, duty, purpose nor hope—holds for her the
bitterness of death.

“And I just have to go on living because I can’t stop. I may have to
live eighty years,” thought Valancy, in a kind of panic. “We’re all
horribly long-lived. It sickens me to think of it.”

She was glad it was raining—or rather, she was drearily satisfied that
it was raining. There would be no picnic that day. This annual picnic,
whereby Aunt and Uncle Wellington—one always thought of them in that
succession—inevitably celebrated their engagement at a picnic thirty
years before, had been, of late years, a veritable nightmare to
Valancy. By an impish coincidence it was the same day as her birthday
and, after she had passed twenty-five, nobody let her forget it.

Much as she hated going to the picnic, it would never have occurred to
her to rebel against it. There seemed to be nothing of the
revolutionary in her nature. And she knew exactly what every one would
say to her at the picnic. Uncle Wellington, whom she disliked and
despised even though he had fulfilled the highest Stirling aspiration,
“marrying money,” would say to her in a pig’s whisper, “Not thinking of
getting married yet, my dear?” and then go off into the bellow of
laughter with which he invariably concluded his dull remarks. Aunt
Wellington, of whom Valancy stood in abject awe, would tell her about
Olive’s new chiffon dress and Cecil’s last devoted letter. Valancy
would have to look as pleased and interested as if the dress and letter
had been hers or else Aunt Wellington would be offended. And Valancy
had long ago decided that she would rather offend God than Aunt
Wellington, because God might forgive her but Aunt Wellington never
would.

Aunt Alberta, enormously fat, with an amiable habit of always referring
to her husband as “he,” as if he were the only male creature in the
world, who could never forget that she had been a great beauty in her
youth, would condole with Valancy on her sallow skin—

“I don’t know why all the girls of today are so sunburned. When _I_ was
a girl my skin was roses and cream. I was counted the prettiest girl in
Canada, my dear.”

Perhaps Uncle Herbert wouldn’t say anything—or perhaps he would remark
jocularly, “How fat you’re getting, Doss!” And then everybody would
laugh over the excessively humorous idea of poor, scrawny little Doss
getting fat.

Handsome, solemn Uncle James, whom Valancy disliked but respected
because he was reputed to be very clever and was therefore the clan
oracle—brains being none too plentiful in the Stirling connection—would
probably remark with the owl-like sarcasm that had won him his
reputation, “I suppose you’re busy with your hope-chest these days?”

And Uncle Benjamin would ask some of his abominable conundrums, between
wheezy chuckles, and answer them himself.

“What is the difference between Doss and a mouse?

“The mouse wishes to harm the cheese and Doss wishes to charm the
he’s.”

Valancy had heard him ask that riddle fifty times and every time she
wanted to throw something at him. But she never did. In the first
place, the Stirlings simply did not throw things; in the second place,
Uncle Benjamin was a wealthy and childless old widower and Valancy had
been brought up in the fear and admonition of his money. If she
offended him he would cut her out of his will—supposing she were in it.
Valancy did not want to be cut out of Uncle Benjamin’s will. She had
been poor all her life and knew the galling bitterness of it. So she
endured his riddles and even smiled tortured little smiles over them.

Aunt Isabel, downright and disagreeable as an east wind, would
criticise her in some way—Valancy could not predict just how, for Aunt
Isabel never repeated a criticism—she found something new with which to
jab you every time. Aunt Isabel prided herself on saying what she
thought, but didn’t like it so well when other people said what _they_
thought to _her_. Valancy never said what _she_ thought.

Cousin Georgiana—named after her great-great-grandmother, who had been
named after George the Fourth—would recount dolorously the names of all
relatives and friends who had died since the last picnic and wonder
“which of us will be the first to go next.”

Oppressively competent, Aunt Mildred would talk endlessly of her
husband and her odious prodigies of babies to Valancy, because Valancy
would be the only one she could find to put up with it. For the same
reason, Cousin Gladys—really First Cousin Gladys once removed,
according to the strict way in which the Stirlings tabulated
relationship—a tall, thin lady who admitted she had a sensitive
disposition, would describe minutely the tortures of her neuritis. And
Olive, the wonder girl of the whole Stirling clan, who had everything
Valancy had not—beauty, popularity, love,—would show off her beauty and
presume on her popularity and flaunt her diamond insignia of love in
Valancy’s dazzled, envious eyes.

There would be none of all this today. And there would be no packing up
of teaspoons. The packing up was always left for Valancy and Cousin
Stickles. And once, six years ago, a silver teaspoon from Aunt
Wellington’s wedding set had been lost. Valancy never heard the last of
that silver teaspoon. Its ghost appeared Banquo-like at every
subsequent family feast.

Oh, yes, Valancy knew exactly what the picnic would be like and she
blessed the rain that had saved her from it. There would be no picnic
this year. If Aunt Wellington could not celebrate on the sacred day
itself she would have no celebration at all. Thank whatever gods there
were for that.

Since there would be no picnic, Valancy made up her mind that, if the
rain held up in the afternoon, she would go up to the library and get
another of John Foster’s books. Valancy was never allowed to read
novels, but John Foster’s books were not novels. They were “nature
books”—so the librarian told Mrs. Frederick Stirling—“all about the
woods and birds and bugs and things like that, you know.” So Valancy
was allowed to read them—under protest, for it was only too evident
that she enjoyed them too much. It was permissible, even laudable, to
read to improve your mind and your religion, but a book that was
enjoyable was dangerous. Valancy did not know whether her mind was
being improved or not; but she felt vaguely that if she had come across
John Foster’s books years ago life might have been a different thing
for her. They seemed to her to yield glimpses of a world into which she
might once have entered, though the door was forever barred to her now.
It was only within the last year that John Foster’s books had been in
the Deerwood library, though the librarian told Valancy that he had
been a well-known writer for several years.

“Where does he live?” Valancy had asked.

“Nobody knows. From his books he must be a Canadian, but no more
information can be had. His publishers won’t say a word. Quite likely
John Foster is a nom de plume. His books are so popular we can’t keep
them in at all, though I really can’t see what people find in them to
rave over.”

“I think they’re wonderful,” said Valancy, timidly.

“Oh—well—” Miss Clarkson smiled in a patronising fashion that relegated
Valancy’s opinions to limbo, “I can’t say I care much for bugs myself.
But certainly Foster seems to know all there is to know about them.”

Valancy didn’t know whether she cared much for bugs either. It was not
John Foster’s uncanny knowledge of wild creatures and insect life that
enthralled her. She could hardly say what it was—some tantalising lure
of a mystery never revealed—some hint of a great secret just a little
further on—some faint, elusive echo of lovely, forgotten things—John
Foster’s magic was indefinable.

Yes, she would get a new Foster book. It was a month since she had
_Thistle Harvest_, so surely Mother could not object. Valancy had read
it four times—she knew whole passages off by heart.

And—she almost thought she would go and see Dr. Trent about that queer
pain around the heart. It had come rather often lately, and the
palpitations were becoming annoying, not to speak of an occasional
dizzy moment and a queer shortness of breath. But could she go to see
him without telling any one? It was a most daring thought. None of the
Stirlings ever consulted a doctor without holding a family council and
getting Uncle James’ approval. _Then_, they went to Dr. Ambrose Marsh
of Port Lawrence, who had married Second Cousin Adelaide Stirling.

But Valancy disliked Dr. Ambrose Marsh. And, besides, she could not get
to Port Lawrence, fifteen miles away, without being taken there. She
did not want any one to know about her heart. There would be such a
fuss made and every member of the family would come down and talk it
over and advise her and caution her and warn her and tell her horrible
tales of great-aunts and cousins forty times removed who had been “just
like that” and “dropped dead without a moment’s warning, my dear.”

Aunt Isabel would remember that she had always said Doss looked like a
girl who would have heart trouble—“so pinched and peaked always”; and
Uncle Wellington would take it as a personal insult, when “no Stirling
ever had heart disease before”; and Georgiana would forebode in
perfectly audible asides that “poor, dear little Doss isn’t long for
this world, I’m afraid”; and Cousin Gladys would say, “Why, _my_ heart
has been like that for _years_,” in a tone that implied no one else had
any business even to have a heart; and Olive—Olive would merely look
beautiful and superior and disgustingly healthy, as if to say, “Why all
this fuss over a faded superfluity like Doss when you have _me_?”

Valancy felt that she couldn’t tell anybody unless she had to. She felt
quite sure there was nothing at all seriously wrong with her heart and
no need of all the pother that would ensue if she mentioned it. She
would just slip up quietly and see Dr. Trent that very day. As for his
bill, she had the two hundred dollars that her father had put in the
bank for her the day she was born. She was never allowed to use even
the interest of this, but she would secretly take out enough to pay Dr.
Trent.

Dr. Trent was a gruff, outspoken, absent-minded old fellow, but he was
a recognised authority on heart disease, even if he were only a general
practitioner in out-of-the-world Deerwood. Dr. Trent was over seventy
and there had been rumours that he meant to retire soon. None of the
Stirling clan had ever gone to him since he had told Cousin Gladys, ten
years before, that her neuritis was all imaginary and that she enjoyed
it. You couldn’t patronise a doctor who insulted your
first-cousin-once-removed like that—not to mention that he was a
Presbyterian when all the Stirlings went to the Anglican church. But
Valancy, between the devil of disloyalty to clan and the deep sea of
fuss and clatter and advice, thought she would take a chance with the
devil.




CHAPTER II


When Cousin Stickles knocked at her door, Valancy knew it was half-past
seven and she must get up. As long as she could remember, Cousin
Stickles had knocked at her door at half-past seven. Cousin Stickles
and Mrs. Frederick Stirling had been up since seven, but Valancy was
allowed to lie abed half an hour longer because of a family tradition
that she was delicate. Valancy got up, though she hated getting up more
this morning than ever she had before. What was there to get up for?
Another dreary day like all the days that had preceded it, full of
meaningless little tasks, joyless and unimportant, that benefited
nobody. But if she did not get up at once she would not be ready for
breakfast at eight o’clock. Hard and fast times for meals were the rule
in Mrs. Stirling’s household. Breakfast at eight, dinner at one, supper
at six, year in and year out. No excuses for being late were ever
tolerated. So up Valancy got, shivering.

The room was bitterly cold with the raw, penetrating chill of a wet May
morning. The house would be cold all day. It was one of Mrs.
Frederick’s rules that no fires were necessary after the twenty-fourth
of May. Meals were cooked on the little oil-stove in the back porch.
And though May might be icy and October frost-bitten, no fires were
lighted until the twenty-first of October by the calendar. On the
twenty-first of October Mrs. Frederick began cooking over the kitchen
range and lighted a fire in the sitting-room stove in the evenings. It
was whispered about in the connection that the late Frederick Stirling
had caught the cold which resulted in his death during Valancy’s first
year of life because Mrs. Frederick would not have a fire on the
twentieth of October. She lighted it the next day—but that was a day
too late for Frederick Stirling.

Valancy took off and hung up in the closet her nightdress of coarse,
unbleached cotton, with high neck and long, tight sleeves. She put on
undergarments of a similar nature, a dress of brown gingham, thick,
black stockings and rubber-heeled boots. Of late years she had fallen
into the habit of doing her hair with the shade of the window by the
looking-glass pulled down. The lines on her face did not show so
plainly then. But this morning she jerked the shade to the very top and
looked at herself in the leprous mirror with a passionate determination
to see herself as the world saw her.

The result was rather dreadful. Even a beauty would have found that
harsh, unsoftened side-light trying. Valancy saw straight black hair,
short and thin, always lustreless despite the fact that she gave it one
hundred strokes of the brush, neither more nor less, every night of her
life and faithfully rubbed Redfern’s Hair Vigor into the roots, more
lustreless than ever in its morning roughness; fine, straight, black
brows; a nose she had always felt was much too small even for her
small, three-cornered, white face; a small, pale mouth that always fell
open a trifle over little, pointed white teeth; a figure thin and
flat-breasted, rather below the average height. She had somehow escaped
the family high cheek-bones, and her dark-brown eyes, too soft and
shadowy to be black, had a slant that was almost Oriental. Apart from
her eyes she was neither pretty nor ugly—just insignificant-looking,
she concluded bitterly. How plain the lines around her eyes and mouth
were in that merciless light! And never had her narrow, white face
looked so narrow and so white.

She did her hair in a pompadour. Pompadours had long gone out of
fashion, but they had been in when Valancy first put her hair up and
Aunt Wellington had decided that she must always wear her hair so.

“It is the _only_ way that becomes you. Your face is so small that you
_must_ add height to it by a pompadour effect,” said Aunt Wellington,
who always enunciated commonplaces as if uttering profound and
important truths.

Valancy had hankered to do her hair pulled low on her forehead, with
puffs above the ears, as Olive was wearing hers. But Aunt Wellington’s
dictum had such an effect on her that she never dared change her style
of hairdressing again. But then, there were so many things Valancy
never dared do.

All her life she had been afraid of something, she thought bitterly.
From the very dawn of recollection, when she had been so horribly
afraid of the big black bear that lived, so Cousin Stickles told her,
in the closet under the stairs.

“And I always will be—I know it—I can’t help it. I don’t know what it
would be like not to be afraid of something.”

Afraid of her mother’s sulky fits—afraid of offending Uncle
Benjamin—afraid of becoming a target for Aunt Wellington’s
contempt—afraid of Aunt Isabel’s biting comments—afraid of Uncle James’
disapproval—afraid of offending the whole clan’s opinions and
prejudices—afraid of not keeping up appearances—afraid to say what she
really thought of  anything—afraid of poverty in her old age.
Fear—fear—fear—she could never escape from it. It bound her and
enmeshed her like a spider’s web of steel. Only in her Blue Castle
could she find temporary release. And this morning Valancy could not
believe she had a Blue Castle. She would never be able to find it
again. Twenty-nine, unmarried, undesired—what had she to do with the
fairy-like chatelaine of the Blue Castle? She would cut such childish
nonsense out of her life forever and face reality unflinchingly.

She turned from her unfriendly mirror and looked out. The ugliness of
the view always struck her like a blow; the ragged fence, the
tumble-down old carriage-shop in the next lot, plastered with crude,
violently coloured advertisements; the grimy railway station beyond,
with the awful derelicts that were always hanging around it even at
this early hour. In the pouring rain everything looked worse than
usual, especially the beastly advertisement, “Keep that schoolgirl
complexion.” Valancy _had_ kept her schoolgirl complexion. That was
just the trouble. There was not a gleam of beauty anywhere—“exactly
like my life,” thought Valancy drearily. Her brief bitterness had
passed. She accepted facts as resignedly as she had always accepted
them. She was one of the people whom life always passes by. There was
no altering that fact.

In this mood Valancy went down to breakfast.




CHAPTER III


Breakfast was always the same. Oatmeal porridge, which Valancy loathed,
toast and tea, and one teaspoonful of marmalade. Mrs. Frederick thought
two teaspoonfuls extravagant—but that did not matter to Valancy, who
hated marmalade, too. The chilly, gloomy little dining-room was
chillier and gloomier than usual; the rain streamed down outside the
window; departed Stirlings, in atrocious, gilt frames, wider than the
pictures, glowered down from the walls. And yet Cousin Stickles wished
Valancy many happy returns of the day!

“Sit up straight, Doss,” was all her mother said.

Valancy sat up straight. She talked to her mother and Cousin Stickles
of the things they always talked of. She never wondered what would
happen if she tried to talk of something else. She knew. Therefore she
never did it.

Mrs. Frederick was offended with Providence for sending a rainy day
when she wanted to go to a picnic, so she ate her breakfast in a sulky
silence for which Valancy was rather grateful. But Christine Stickles
whined endlessly on as usual, complaining about everything—the weather,
the leak in the pantry, the price of oatmeal and butter—Valancy felt at
once she had buttered her toast too lavishly—the epidemic of mumps in
Deerwood.

“Doss will be sure to ketch them,” she foreboded.

“Doss must not go where she is likely to catch mumps,” said Mrs.
Frederick shortly.

Valancy had never had mumps—or whooping cough—or chicken-pox—or
measles—or anything she should have had—nothing but horrible colds
every winter. Doss’ winter colds were a sort of tradition in the
family. Nothing, it seemed, could prevent her from catching them. Mrs.
Frederick and Cousin Stickles did their heroic best. One winter they
kept Valancy housed up from November to May, in the warm sitting-room.
She was not even allowed to go to church. And Valancy took cold after
cold and ended up with bronchitis in June.

“None of _my_ family were ever like that,” said Mrs. Frederick,
implying that it must be a Stirling tendency.

“The Stirlings seldom take colds,” said Cousin Stickles resentfully.
_She_ had been a Stirling.

“I think,” said Mrs. Frederick, “that if a person makes up her mind
_not_ to have colds she will not _have_ colds.”

So that was the trouble. It was all Valancy’s own fault.

But on this particular morning Valancy’s unbearable grievance was that
she was called Doss. She had endured it for twenty-nine years, and all
at once she felt she could not endure it any longer. Her full name was
Valancy Jane. Valancy Jane was rather terrible, but she liked Valancy,
with its odd, out-land tang. It was always a wonder to Valancy that the
Stirlings had allowed her to be so christened. She had been told that
her maternal grandfather, old Amos Wansbarra, had chosen the name for
her. Her father had tacked on the Jane by way of civilising it, and the
whole connection got out of the difficulty by nicknaming her Doss. She
never got Valancy from any one but outsiders.

“Mother,” she said timidly, “would you mind calling me Valancy after
this? Doss seems so—so—I don’t like it.”

Mrs. Frederick looked at her daughter in astonishment. She wore glasses
with enormously strong lenses that gave her eyes a peculiarly
disagreeable appearance.

“What is the matter with Doss?”

“It—seems so childish,” faltered Valancy.

“Oh!” Mrs. Frederick had been a Wansbarra and the Wansbarra smile was
not an asset. “I see. Well, it should suit _you_ then. You are childish
enough in all conscience, my dear child.”

“I am twenty-nine,” said the dear child desperately.

“I wouldn’t proclaim it from the house-tops if I were you, dear,” said
Mrs. Frederick. “Twenty-nine! _I_ had been married nine years when I
was twenty-nine.”

“_I_ was married at seventeen,” said Cousin Stickles proudly.

Valancy looked at them furtively. Mrs. Frederick, except for those
terrible glasses and the hooked nose that made her look more like a
parrot than a parrot itself could look, was not ill-looking. At twenty
she might have been quite pretty. But Cousin Stickles! And yet
Christine Stickles had once been desirable in some man’s eyes. Valancy
felt that Cousin Stickles, with her broad, flat, wrinkled face, a mole
right on the end of her dumpy nose, bristling hairs on her chin,
wrinkled yellow neck, pale, protruding eyes, and thin, puckered mouth,
had yet this advantage over her—this right to look down on her. And
even yet Cousin Stickles was necessary to Mrs. Frederick. Valancy
wondered pitifully what it would be like to be wanted by some
one—needed by some one. No one in the whole world needed her, or would
miss anything from life if she dropped suddenly out of it. She was a
disappointment to her mother. No one loved her. She had never so much
as had a girl friend.

“I haven’t even a gift for friendship,” she had once admitted to
herself pitifully.

“Doss, you haven’t eaten your crusts,” said Mrs. Frederick rebukingly.

It rained all the forenoon without cessation. Valancy pieced a quilt.
Valancy hated piecing quilts. And there was no need of it. The house
was full of quilts. There were three big chests, packed with quilts, in
the attic. Mrs. Frederick had begun storing away quilts when Valancy
was seventeen and she kept on storing them, though it did not seem
likely that Valancy would ever need them. But Valancy must be at work
and fancy work materials were too expensive. Idleness was a cardinal
sin in the Stirling household. When Valancy had been a child she had
been made to write down every night, in a small, hated, black notebook,
all the minutes she had spent in idleness that day. On Sundays her
mother made her tot them up and pray over them.

On this particular forenoon of this day of destiny Valancy spent only
ten minutes in idleness. At least, Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles
would have called it idleness. She went to her room to get a better
thimble and she opened _Thistle Harvest_ guiltily at random.

“The woods are so human,” wrote John Foster, “that to know them one
must live with them. An occasional saunter through them, keeping to the
well-trodden paths, will never admit us to their intimacy. If we wish
to be friends we must seek them out and win them by frequent, reverent
visits at all hours; by morning, by noon, and by night; and at all
seasons, in spring, in summer, in autumn, in winter. Otherwise we can
never really know them and any pretence we may make to the contrary
will never impose on them. They have their own effective way of keeping
aliens at a distance and shutting their hearts to mere casual
sightseers. It is of no use to seek the woods from any motive except
sheer love of them; they will find us out at once and hide all their
sweet, old-world secrets from us. But if they know we come to them
because we love them they will be very kind to us and give us such
treasures of beauty and delight as are not bought or sold in any
market-place. For the woods, when they give at all, give unstintedly
and hold nothing back from their true worshippers. We must go to them
lovingly, humbly, patiently, watchfully, and we shall learn what
poignant loveliness lurks in the wild places and silent intervales,
lying under starshine and sunset, what cadences of unearthly music are
harped on aged pine boughs or crooned in copses of fir, what delicate
savours exhale from mosses and ferns in sunny corners or on damp
brooklands, what dreams and myths and legends of an older time haunt
them. Then the immortal heart of the woods will beat against ours and
its subtle life will steal into our veins and make us its own forever,
so that no matter where we go or how widely we wander we shall yet be
drawn back to the forest to find our most enduring kinship.”

“Doss,” called her mother from the hall below, “what are you doing all
by yourself in that room?”

Valancy dropped _Thistle Harvest_ like a hot coal and fled downstairs
to her patches; but she felt the strange exhilaration of spirit that
always came momentarily to her when she dipped into one of John
Foster’s books. Valancy did not know much about woods—except the
haunted groves of oak and pine around her Blue Castle. But she had
always secretly hankered after them and a Foster book about woods was
the next best thing to the woods themselves.

At noon it stopped raining, but the sun did not come out until three.
Then Valancy timidly said she thought she would go uptown.

“What do you want to go uptown for?” demanded her mother.

“I want to get a book from the library.”

“You got a book from the library only last week.”

“No, it was four weeks.”

“Four weeks. Nonsense!”

“Really it was, Mother.”

“You are mistaken. It cannot possibly have been more than two weeks. I
dislike contradiction. And I do not see what you want to get a book
for, anyhow. You waste too much time reading.”

“Of what value is my time?” asked Valancy bitterly.

“Doss! Don’t speak in that tone to _me_.”

“We need some tea,” said Cousin Stickles. “She might go and get that if
she wants a walk—though this damp weather is bad for colds.”

They argued the matter for ten minutes longer and finally Mrs.
Frederick agreed rather grudgingly that Valancy might go.




CHAPTER IV


“Got your rubbers on?” called Cousin Stickles, as Valancy left the
house.

Christine Stickles had never once forgotten to ask that question when
Valancy went out on a damp day.

“Yes.”

“Have you got your flannel petticoat on?” asked Mrs. Frederick.

“No.”

“Doss, I really do not understand you. Do you want to catch your death
of cold _again_?” Her voice implied that Valancy had died of a cold
several times already. “Go upstairs this minute and put it on!”

“Mother, I don’t _need_ a flannel petticoat. My sateen one is warm
enough.”

“Doss, remember you had bronchitis two years ago. Go and do as you are
told!”

Valancy went, though nobody will ever know just how near she came to
hurling the rubber-plant into the street before she went. She hated
that grey flannel petticoat more than any other garment she owned.
Olive never had to wear flannel petticoats. Olive wore ruffled silk and
sheer lawn and filmy laced flounces. But Olive’s father had “married
money” and Olive never had bronchitis. So there you were.

“Are you sure you didn’t leave the soap in the water?” demanded Mrs.
Frederick. But Valancy was gone. She turned at the corner and looked
back down the ugly, prim, respectable street where she lived. The
Stirling house was the ugliest on it—more like a red brick box than
anything else. Too high for its breadth, and made still higher by a
bulbous glass cupola on top. About it was the desolate, barren peace of
an old house whose life is lived.

There was a very pretty little house, with leaded casements and dubbed
gables, just around the corner—a new house, one of those houses you
love the minute you see them. Clayton Markley had built it for his
bride. He was to be married to Jennie Lloyd in June. The little house,
it was said, was furnished from attic to cellar, in complete readiness
for its mistress.

“I don’t envy Jennie the man,” thought Valancy sincerely—Clayton
Markley was not one of her many ideals—“but I _do_ envy her the house.
It’s such a nice young house. Oh, if I could only have a house of my
own—ever so poor, so tiny—but my own! But then,” she added bitterly,
“there is no use in yowling for the moon when you can’t even get a
tallow candle.”

In dreamland nothing would do Valancy but a castle of pale sapphire. In
real life she would have been fully satisfied with a little house of
her own. She envied Jennie Lloyd more fiercely than ever today. Jennie
was not so much better looking than she was, and not so very much
younger. Yet she was to have this delightful house. And the nicest
little Wedgwood teacups—Valancy had seen them; an open fireplace, and
monogrammed linen; hemstitched tablecloths, and china-closets. Why did
_everything_ come to some girls and _nothing_ to others? It wasn’t
fair.

Valancy was once more seething with rebellion as she walked along, a
prim, dowdy little figure in her shabby raincoat and three-year-old
hat, splashed occasionally by the mud of a passing motor with its
insulting shrieks. Motors were still rather a novelty in Deerwood,
though they were common in Port Lawrence, and most of the summer
residents up at Muskoka had them. In Deerwood only some of the smart
set had them; for even Deerwood was divided into sets. There was the
smart set—the intellectual set—the old-family set—of which the
Stirlings were members—the common run, and a few pariahs. Not one of
the Stirling clan had as yet condescended to a motor, though Olive was
teasing her father to have one. Valancy had never even been in a
motorcar. But she did not hanker after this. In truth, she felt rather
afraid of motorcars, especially at night. They seemed to be too much
like big purring beasts that might turn and crush you—or make some
terrible savage leap somewhere. On the steep mountain trails around her
Blue Castle only gaily caparisoned steeds might proudly pace; in real
life Valancy would have been quite contented to drive in a buggy behind
a nice horse. She got a buggy drive only when some uncle or cousin
remembered to fling her “a chance,” like a bone to a dog.




CHAPTER V


Of course she must buy the tea in Uncle Benjamin’s grocery-store. To
buy it anywhere else was unthinkable. Yet Valancy hated to go to Uncle
Benjamin’s store on her twenty-ninth birthday. There was no hope that
he would not remember it.

“Why,” demanded Uncle Benjamin, leeringly, as he tied up her tea, “are
young ladies like bad grammarians?”

Valancy, with Uncle Benjamin’s will in the background of her mind, said
meekly, “I don’t know. Why?”

“Because,” chuckled Uncle Benjamin, “they can’t decline matrimony.”

The two clerks, Joe Hammond and Claude Bertram, chuckled also, and
Valancy disliked them a little more than ever. On the first day Claude
Bertram had seen her in the store she had heard him whisper to Joe,
“Who is that?” And Joe had said, “Valancy Stirling—one of the Deerwood
old maids.” “Curable or incurable?” Claude had asked with a snicker,
evidently thinking the question very clever. Valancy smarted anew with
the sting of that old recollection.

“Twenty-nine,” Uncle Benjamin was saying. “Dear me, Doss, you’re
dangerously near the second corner and not even thinking of getting
married yet. Twenty-nine. It seems impossible.”

Then Uncle Benjamin said an original thing. Uncle Benjamin said, “How
time does fly!”

“_I_ think it _crawls_,” said Valancy passionately. Passion was so
alien to Uncle Benjamin’s conception of Valancy that he didn’t know
what to make of her. To cover his confusion, he asked another conundrum
as he tied up her beans—Cousin Stickles had remembered at the last
moment that they must have beans. Beans were cheap and filling.

“What two ages are apt to prove illusory?” asked Uncle Benjamin; and,
not waiting for Valancy to “give it up,” he added, “Mir-age and
marri-age.”

“M-i-r-a-g-e is pronounced _mirazh_,” said Valancy shortly, picking up
her tea and her beans. For the moment she did not care whether Uncle
Benjamin cut her out of his will or not. She walked out of the store
while Uncle Benjamin stared after her with his mouth open. Then he
shook his head.

“Poor Doss is taking it hard,” he said.

Valancy was sorry by the time she reached the next crossing. Why had
she lost her patience like that? Uncle Benjamin would be annoyed and
would likely tell her mother that Doss had been impertinent—“to
_me_!”—and her mother would lecture her for a week.

“I’ve held my tongue for twenty years,” thought Valancy. “Why couldn’t
I have held it once more?”

Yes, it was just twenty, Valancy reflected, since she had first been
twitted with her loverless condition. She remembered the bitter moment
perfectly. She was just nine years old and she was standing alone on
the school playground while the other little girls of her class were
playing a game in which you must be chosen by a boy as his partner
before you could play. Nobody had chosen Valancy—little, pale,
black-haired Valancy, with her prim, long-sleeved apron and odd,
slanted eyes.

“Oh,” said a pretty little girl to her, “I’m so sorry for you. You
haven’t got a beau.”

Valancy had said defiantly, as she continued to say for twenty years,
“I don’t _want_ a beau.” But this afternoon Valancy once and for all
stopped saying that.

“I’m going to be honest with myself anyhow,” she thought savagely.
“Uncle Benjamin’s riddles hurt me because they are true. I _do_ want to
be married. I want a house of my own—I want a husband of my own—I want
sweet, little fat _babies_ of my own—” Valancy stopped suddenly aghast
at her own recklessness. She felt sure that Rev. Dr. Stalling, who
passed her at this moment, read her thoughts and disapproved of them
thoroughly. Valancy was afraid of Dr. Stalling—had been afraid of him
ever since the Sunday, twenty-three years before, when he had first
come to St. Albans’. Valancy had been too late for Sunday School that
day and she had gone into the church timidly and sat in their pew. No
one else was in the church—nobody except the new rector, Dr. Stalling.
Dr. Stalling stood up in front of the choir door, beckoned to her, and
said sternly, “Little boy, come up here.”

Valancy had stared around her. There was no little boy—there was no one
in all the huge church but herself. This strange man with the blue
glasses couldn’t mean her. She was not a boy.

“Little boy,” repeated Dr. Stalling, more sternly still, shaking his
forefinger fiercely at her, “come up here at once!”

Valancy arose as if hypnotised and walked up the aisle. She was too
terrified to do anything else. What dreadful thing was going to happen
to her? What _had_ happened to her? Had she actually turned into a boy?
She came to a stop in front of Dr. Stalling. Dr. Stalling shook his
forefinger—such a long, knuckly forefinger—at her and said:

“Little boy, take off your hat.”

Valancy took off her hat. She had a scrawny little pigtail hanging down
her back, but Dr. Stalling was shortsighted and did not perceive it.

“Little boy, go back to your seat and _always_ take off your hat in
church. _Remember!_”

Valancy went back to her seat carrying her hat like an automaton.
Presently her mother came in.

“Doss,” said Mrs. Stirling, “what do you mean by taking off your hat?
Put it on instantly!”

Valancy put it on instantly. She was cold with fear lest Dr. Stalling
should immediately summon her up front again. She would have to go, of
course—it never occurred to her that one could disobey the rector—and
the church was full of people now. Oh, what would she do if that
horrible, stabbing forefinger were shaken at her again before all those
people? Valancy sat through the whole service in an agony of dread and
was sick for a week afterwards. Nobody knew why—Mrs. Frederick again
bemoaned herself of her delicate child.

Dr. Stalling found out his mistake and laughed over it to Valancy—who
did not laugh. She never got over her dread of Dr. Stalling. And now to
be caught by him on the street corner, thinking such things!

Valancy got her John Foster book—_Magic of Wings_. “His latest—all
about birds,” said Miss Clarkson. She had almost decided that she would
go home, instead of going to see Dr. Trent. Her courage had failed her.
She was afraid of offending Uncle James—afraid of angering her
mother—afraid of facing gruff, shaggy-browed old Dr. Trent, who would
probably tell her, as he had told Cousin Gladys, that her trouble was
entirely imaginary and that she only had it because she liked to have
it. No, she would not go; she would get a bottle of Redfern’s Purple
Pills instead. Redfern’s Purple Pills were the standard medicine of the
Stirling clan. Had they not cured Second Cousin Geraldine when five
doctors had given her up? Valancy always felt very sceptical concerning
the virtues of the Purple Pills; but there _might_ be something in
them; and it was easier to take them than to face Dr. Trent alone. She
would glance over the magazines in the reading-room a few minutes and
then go home.

Valancy tried to read a story, but it made her furious. On every page
was a picture of the heroine surrounded by adoring men. And here was
she, Valancy Stirling, who could not get a solitary beau! Valancy
slammed the magazine shut; she opened _Magic of Wings_. Her eyes fell
on the paragraph that changed her life.

“_Fear is the original sin_,” wrote John Foster. “_Almost all the evil
in the world has its origin in the fact that some one is afraid of
something._ It is a cold, slimy serpent coiling about you. It is
horrible to live with fear; and it is of all things degrading.”

Valancy shut _Magic of Wings_ and stood up. She would go and see Dr.
Trent.




CHAPTER VI


The ordeal was not so dreadful, after all. Dr. Trent was as gruff and
abrupt as usual, but he did not tell her her ailment was imaginary. After
he had listened to her symptoms and asked a few questions and made a
quick examination, he sat for a moment looking at her quite intently.
Valancy thought he looked as if he were sorry for her. She caught her
breath for a moment. Was the trouble serious? Oh, it couldn’t be,
surely—it really hadn’t bothered her _much_—only lately it had got a
little worse.

Dr. Trent opened his mouth—but before he could speak the telephone at
his elbow rang sharply. He picked up the receiver. Valancy, watching
him, saw his face change suddenly as he listened,
“’Lo—yes—yes—_what_?—yes—yes”—a brief interval—“My God!”

Dr. Trent dropped the receiver, dashed out of the room and upstairs
without even a glance at Valancy. She heard him rushing madly about
overhead, barking out a few remarks to somebody—presumably his
housekeeper. Then he came tearing downstairs with a club bag in his
hand, snatched his hat and coat from the rack, jerked open the street
door and rushed down the street in the direction of the station.

Valancy sat alone in the little office, feeling more absolutely foolish
than she had ever felt before in her life. Foolish—and humiliated. So
this was all that had come of her heroic determination to live up to
John Foster and cast fear aside. Not only was she a failure as a
relative and non-existent as a sweetheart or friend, but she was not
even of any importance as a patient. Dr. Trent had forgotten her very
presence in his excitement over whatever message had come by the
telephone. She had gained nothing by ignoring Uncle James and flying in
the face of family tradition.

For a moment she was afraid she was going to cry. It _was_ all
so—ridiculous. Then she heard Dr. Trent’s housekeeper coming down the
stairs. Valancy rose and went to the office door.

“The doctor forgot all about me,” she said with a twisted smile.

“Well, that’s too bad,” said Mrs. Patterson sympathetically. “But it
wasn’t much wonder, poor man. That was a telegram they ’phoned over
from the Port. His son has been terribly injured in an auto accident in
Montreal. The doctor had just ten minutes to catch the train. I don’t
know what he’ll do if anything happens to Ned—he’s just bound up in the
boy. You’ll have to come again, Miss Stirling. I hope it’s nothing
serious.”

“Oh, no, nothing serious,” agreed Valancy. She felt a little less
humiliated. It was no wonder poor Dr. Trent had forgotten her at such a
moment. Nevertheless, she felt very flat and discouraged as she went
down the street.

Valancy went home by the short-cut of Lover’s Lane. She did not often
go through Lover’s Lane—but it was getting near supper-time and it
would never do to be late. Lover’s Lane wound back of the village,
under great elms and maples, and deserved its name. It was hard to go
there at any time and not find some canoodling couple—or young girls in
pairs, arms intertwined, earnestly talking over their little secrets.
Valancy didn’t know which made her feel more self-conscious and
uncomfortable.

This evening she encountered both. She met Connie Hale and Kate Bayley,
in new pink organdy dresses with flowers stuck coquettishly in their
glossy, bare hair. Valancy had never had a pink dress or worn flowers
in her hair. Then she passed a young couple she didn’t know, dandering
along, oblivious to everything but themselves. The young man’s arm was
around the girl’s waist quite shamelessly. Valancy had never walked
with a man’s arm about her. She felt that she ought to be shocked—they
might leave that sort of thing for the screening twilight, at least—but
she wasn’t shocked. In another flash of desperate, stark honesty she
owned to herself that she was merely envious. When she passed them she
felt quite sure they were laughing at her—pitying her—“there’s that
queer little old maid, Valancy Stirling. They say she never had a beau
in her whole life”—Valancy fairly ran to get out of Lover’s Lane. Never
had she felt so utterly colourless and skinny and insignificant.

Just where Lover’s Lane debouched on the street, an old car was parked.
Valancy knew that car well—by sound, at least—and everybody in Deerwood
knew it. This was before the phrase “tin Lizzie” had come into
circulation—in Deerwood, at least; but if it had been known, this car
was the tinniest of Lizzies—though it was not a Ford but an old Grey
Slosson. Nothing more battered and disreputable could be imagined.

It was Barney Snaith’s car and Barney himself was just scrambling up
from under it, in overalls plastered with mud. Valancy gave him a
swift, furtive look as she hurried by. This was only the second time
she had ever seen the notorious Barney Snaith, though she had heard
enough about him in the five years that he had been living “up back” in
Muskoka. The first time had been nearly a year ago, on the Muskoka
road. He had been crawling out from under his car then, too, and he had
given her a cheerful grin as she went by—a little, whimsical grin that
gave him the look of an amused gnome. He didn’t look bad—she didn’t
believe he was bad, in spite of the wild yarns that were always being
told of him. Of course he went tearing in that terrible old Grey
Slosson through Deerwood at hours when all decent people were in
bed—often with old “Roaring Abel,” who made the night hideous with his
howls—“both of them dead drunk, my dear.” And every one knew that he
was an escaped convict and a defaulting bank clerk and a murderer in
hiding and an infidel and an illegitimate son of old Roaring Abel Gay
and the father of Roaring Abel’s illegitimate grandchild and a
counterfeiter and a forger and a few other awful things. But still
Valancy didn’t believe he was bad. Nobody with a smile like that could
be bad, no matter what he had done.

It was that night the Prince of the Blue Castle changed from a being of
grim jaw and hair with a dash of premature grey to a rakish individual
with overlong, tawny hair, dashed with red, dark-brown eyes, and ears
that stuck out just enough to give him an alert look but not enough to
be called flying jibs. But he still retained something a little grim
about the jaw.

Barney Snaith looked even more disreputable than usual just now. It was
very evident that he hadn’t shaved for days, and his hands and arms,
bare to the shoulders, were black with grease. But he was whistling
gleefully to himself and he seemed so happy that Valancy envied him.
She envied him his light-heartedness and his irresponsibility and his
mysterious little cabin up on an island in Lake Mistawis—even his
rackety old Grey Slosson. Neither he nor his car had to be respectable
and live up to traditions. When he rattled past her a few minutes
later, bareheaded, leaning back in his Lizzie at a raffish angle, his
longish hair blowing in the wind, a villainous-looking old black pipe
in his mouth, she envied him again. Men had the best of it, no doubt
about that. This outlaw was happy, whatever he was or wasn’t. She,
Valancy Stirling, respectable, well-behaved to the last degree, was
unhappy and had always been unhappy. So there you were.

Valancy was just in time for supper. The sun had clouded over, and a
dismal, drizzling rain was falling again. Cousin Stickles had the
neuralgia. Valancy had to do the family darning and there was no time
for _Magic of Wings_.

“Can’t the darning wait till tomorrow?” she pleaded.

“Tomorrow will bring its own duties,” said Mrs. Frederick inexorably.

Valancy darned all the evening and listened to Mrs. Frederick and
Cousin Stickles talking the eternal, niggling gossip of the clan, as
they knitted drearily at interminable black stockings. They discussed
Second Cousin Lilian’s approaching wedding in all its bearings. On the
whole, they approved. Second Cousin Lilian was doing well for herself.

“Though she hasn’t hurried,” said Cousin Stickles. “She must be
twenty-five.”

“There have not—fortunately—been many old maids in our connection,”
said Mrs. Frederick bitterly.

Valancy flinched. She had run the darning needle into her finger.

Third Cousin Aaron Gray had been scratched by a cat and had
blood-poisoning in his finger. “Cats are most dangerous animals,” said
Mrs. Frederick. “I would never have a cat about the house.”

She glared significantly at Valancy through her terrible glasses. Once,
five years ago, Valancy had asked if she might have a cat. She had
never referred to it since, but Mrs. Frederick still suspected her of
harbouring the unlawful desire in her heart of hearts.

Once Valancy sneezed. Now, in the Stirling code, it was very bad form
to sneeze in public.

“You can always repress a sneeze by pressing your finger on your upper
lip,” said Mrs. Frederick rebukingly.

Half-past nine o’clock and so, as Mr. Pepys would say, to bed. But
First Cousin Stickles’ neuralgic back must be rubbed with Redfern’s
Liniment. Valancy did that. Valancy always had to do it. She hated the
smell of Redfern’s Liniment—she hated the smug, beaming, portly,
be-whiskered, be-spectacled picture of Dr. Redfern on the bottle. Her
fingers smelled of the horrible stuff after she got into bed, in spite
of all the scrubbing she gave them.

Valancy’s day of destiny had come and gone. She ended it as she had
begun it, in tears.




CHAPTER VII


There was a rosebush on the little Stirling lawn, growing beside the
gate. It was called “Doss’s rosebush.” Cousin Georgiana had given it to
Valancy five years ago and Valancy had planted it joyfully. She loved
roses. But—of course—the rosebush never bloomed. That was her luck.
Valancy did everything she could think of and took the advice of
everybody in the clan, but still the rosebush would not bloom. It
throve and grew luxuriantly, with great leafy branches untouched of
rust or spider; but not even a bud had ever appeared on it. Valancy,
looking at it two days after her birthday, was filled with a sudden,
overwhelming hatred for it. The thing wouldn’t bloom: very well, then,
she would cut it down. She marched to the tool-room in the barn for her
garden knife and she went at the rosebush viciously. A few minutes
later horrified Mrs. Frederick came out to the verandah and beheld her
daughter slashing insanely among the rosebush boughs. Half of them were
already strewn on the walk. The bush looked sadly dismantled.

“Doss, what on earth are you doing? Have you gone crazy?”

“No,” said Valancy. She meant to say it defiantly, but habit was too
strong for her. She said it deprecatingly. “I—I just made up my mind to
cut this bush down. It is no good. It never blooms—never will bloom.”

“That is no reason for destroying it,” said Mrs. Frederick sternly. “It
was a beautiful bush and quite ornamental. You have made a
sorry-looking thing of it.”

“Rose trees should _bloom_,” said Valancy a little obstinately.

“Don’t argue with _me_, Doss. Clear up that mess and leave the bush
alone. I don’t know what Georgiana will say when she sees how you have
hacked it to pieces. Really, I’m surprised at you. And to do it without
consulting _me_!”

“The bush is mine,” muttered Valancy.

“What’s that? What did you say, Doss?”

“I only said the bush was mine,” repeated Valancy humbly.

Mrs. Frederick turned without a word and marched back into the house.
The mischief was done now. Valancy knew she had offended her mother
deeply and would not be spoken to or noticed in any way for two or
three days. Cousin Stickles would see to Valancy’s bringing-up but Mrs.
Frederick would preserve the stony silence of outraged majesty.

Valancy sighed and put away her garden knife, hanging it precisely on
its precise nail in the tool-shop. She cleared away the severed
branches and swept up the leaves. Her lips twitched as she looked at
the straggling bush. It had an odd resemblance to its shaken, scrawny
donor, little Cousin Georgiana herself.

“I certainly have made an awful-looking thing of it,” thought Valancy.

But she did not feel repentant—only sorry she had offended her mother.
Things would be so uncomfortable until she was forgiven. Mrs. Frederick
was one of those women who can make their anger felt all over a house.
Walls and doors are no protection from it.

“You’d better go uptown and git the mail,” said Cousin Stickles, when
Valancy went in. “_I_ can’t go—I feel all sorter peaky and piny this
spring. I want you to stop at the drugstore and git me a bottle of
Redfern’s Blood Bitters. There’s nothing like Redfern’s Bitters for
building a body up. Cousin James says the Purple Pills are the best,
but I know better. My poor dear husband took Redfern’s Bitters right up
to the day he died. Don’t let them charge you more’n ninety cents. I
kin git it for that at the Port. And what _have_ you been saying to
your poor mother? Do you ever stop to think, Doss, that you kin only
have one mother?”

“One is enough for me,” thought Valancy undutifully, as she went
uptown.

She got Cousin Stickles’ bottle of bitters and then she went to the
post-office and asked for her mail at the General Delivery. Her mother
did not have a box. They got too little mail to bother with it. Valancy
did not expect any mail, except the _Christian Times_, which was the
only paper they took. They hardly ever got any letters. But Valancy
rather liked to stand in the office and watch Mr. Carewe, the
grey-bearded, Santa-Clausy old clerk, handing out letters to the lucky
people who did get them. He did it with such a detached, impersonal,
Jove-like air, as if it did not matter in the least to him what
supernal joys or shattering horrors might be in those letters for the
people to whom they were addressed. Letters had a fascination for
Valancy, perhaps because she so seldom got any. In her Blue Castle
exciting epistles, bound with silk and sealed with crimson, were always
being brought to her by pages in livery of gold and blue, but in real
life her only letters were occasional perfunctory notes from relatives
or an advertising circular.

Consequently she was immensely surprised when Mr. Carewe, looking even
more Jovian than usual, poked a letter out to her. Yes, it was
addressed to her plainly, in a fierce, black hand: “Miss Valancy
Stirling, Elm Street, Deerwood”—and the postmark was Montreal. Valancy
picked it up with a little quickening of her breath. Montreal! It must
be from Doctor Trent. He had remembered her, after all.

Valancy met Uncle Benjamin coming in as she was going out and was glad
the letter was safely in her bag.

“What,” said Uncle Benjamin, “is the difference between a donkey and a
postage-stamp?”

“I don’t know. What?” answered Valancy dutifully.

“One you lick with a stick and the other you stick with a lick. Ha,
ha!”

Uncle Benjamin passed in, tremendously pleased with himself.

Cousin Stickles pounced on the _Times_ when Valancy got home, but it
did not occur to her to ask if there were any letters. Mrs. Frederick
would have asked it, but Mrs. Frederick’s lips at present were sealed.
Valancy was glad of this. If her mother had asked if there were any
letters Valancy would have had to admit there was. Then she would have
had to let her mother and Cousin Stickles read the letter and all would
be discovered.

Her heart acted strangely on the way upstairs, and she sat down by her
window for a few minutes before opening her letter. She felt very
guilty and deceitful. She had never before kept a letter secret from
her mother. Every letter she had ever written or received had been read
by Mrs. Frederick. That had never mattered. Valancy had never had
anything to hide. But this _did_ matter. She could not have any one see
this letter. But her fingers trembled with a consciousness of
wickedness and unfilial conduct as she opened it—trembled a little,
too, perhaps, with apprehension. She felt quite sure there was nothing
seriously wrong with her heart but—one never knew.

Dr. Trent’s letter was like himself—blunt, abrupt, concise, wasting no
words. Dr. Trent never beat about the bush. “Dear Miss Sterling”—and
then a page of black, positive writing. Valancy seemed to read it at a
glance; she dropped it on her lap, her face ghost-white.

Dr. Trent told her that she had a very dangerous and fatal form of
heart disease—angina pectoris—evidently complicated with an
aneurism—whatever that was—and in the last stages. He said, without
mincing matters, that nothing could be done for her. If she took great
care of herself she might live a year—but she might also die at any
moment—Dr. Trent never troubled himself about euphemisms. She must be
careful to avoid all excitement and all severe muscular efforts. She
must eat and drink moderately, she must never run, she must go upstairs
and uphill with great care. Any sudden jolt or shock might be fatal.
She was to get the prescription he enclosed filled and carry it with
her always, taking a dose whenever her attacks came on. And he was hers
truly, H. B. Trent.

Valancy sat for a long while by her window. Outside was a world drowned
in the light of a spring afternoon—skies entrancingly blue, winds
perfumed and free, lovely, soft, blue hazes at the end of every street.
Over at the railway station a group of young girls was waiting for a
train; she heard their gay laughter as they chattered and joked. The
train roared in and roared out again. But none of these things had any
reality. Nothing had any reality except the fact that she had only
another year to live.

When she was tired of sitting at the window she went over and lay down
on her bed, staring at the cracked, discoloured ceiling. The curious
numbness that follows on a staggering blow possessed her. She did not
feel anything except a boundless surprise and incredulity—behind which
was the conviction that Dr. Trent knew his business and that she,
Valancy Stirling, who had never lived, was about to die.

When the gong rang for supper Valancy got up and went downstairs
mechanically, from force of habit. She wondered that she had been let
alone so long. But of course her mother would not pay any attention to
her just now. Valancy was thankful for this. She thought the quarrel
over the rosebush had been really, as Mrs. Frederick herself might have
said, Providential. She could not eat anything, but both Mrs. Frederick
and Cousin Stickles thought this was because she was deservedly unhappy
over her mother’s attitude, and her lack of appetite was not commented
on. Valancy forced herself to swallow a cup of tea and then sat and
watched the others eat, with an odd feeling that years had passed since
she had sat with them at the dinner-table. She found herself smiling
inwardly to think what a commotion she could make if she chose. Let her
merely tell them what was in Dr. Trent’s letter and there would be as
much fuss made as if—Valancy thought bitterly—they really cared two
straws about her.

“Dr. Trent’s housekeeper got word from him today,” said Cousin
Stickles, so suddenly that Valancy jumped guiltily. Was there anything
in thought waves? “Mrs. Judd was talking to her uptown. They think his
son will recover, but Dr. Trent wrote that if he did he was going to
take him abroad as soon as he was able to travel and wouldn’t be back
here for a year at least.”

“That will not matter much to _us_,” said Mrs. Frederick majestically.
“He is not _our_ doctor. I would not”—here she looked or seemed to look
accusingly right through Valancy—“have _him_ to doctor a sick cat.”

“May I go upstairs and lie down?” said Valancy faintly. “I—I have a
headache.”

“What has given you a headache?” asked Cousin Stickles, since Mrs.
Frederick would not. The question had to be asked. Valancy could not be
allowed to have headaches without interference.

“You ain’t in the habit of having headaches. I hope you’re not taking
the mumps. Here, try a spoonful of vinegar.”

“Piffle!” said Valancy rudely, getting up from the table. She did not
care just then if she were rude. She had had to be so polite all her
life.

If it had been possible for Cousin Stickles to turn pale she would
have. As it was not, she turned yellower.

“Are you sure you ain’t feverish, Doss? You sound like it. You go and
get right into bed,” said Cousin Stickles, thoroughly alarmed, “and
I’ll come up and rub your forehead and the back of your neck with
Redfern’s Liniment.”

Valancy had reached the door, but she turned. “I won’t be rubbed with
Redfern’s Liniment!” she said.

Cousin Stickles stared and gasped. “What—what do you mean?”

“I said I wouldn’t be rubbed with Redfern’s Liniment,” repeated
Valancy. “Horrid, sticky stuff! And it has the vilest smell of any
liniment I ever saw. It’s no good. I want to be left alone, that’s
all.”

Valancy went out, leaving Cousin Stickles aghast.

“She’s feverish—she _must_ be feverish,” ejaculated Cousin Stickles.

Mrs. Frederick went on eating her supper. It did not matter whether
Valancy was or was not feverish. Valancy had been guilty of
impertinence to _her_.




CHAPTER VIII


Valancy did not sleep that night. She lay awake all through the long
dark hours—thinking—thinking. She made a discovery that surprised her:
she, who had been afraid of almost everything in life, was not afraid
of death. It did not seem in the least terrible to her. And she need
not now be afraid of anything else. Why had she been afraid of things?
Because of life. Afraid of Uncle Benjamin because of the menace of
poverty in old age. But now she would never be old—neglected—tolerated.
Afraid of being an old maid all her life. But now she would not be an
old maid very long. Afraid of offending her mother and her clan because
she had to live with and among them and couldn’t live peaceably if she
didn’t give in to them. But now she hadn’t. Valancy felt a curious
freedom.

But she was still horribly afraid of one thing—the fuss the whole
jamfry of them would make when she told them. Valancy shuddered at the
thought of it. She couldn’t endure it. Oh, she knew so well how it
would be. First there would be indignation—yes, indignation on the part
of Uncle James because she had gone to a doctor—any doctor—without
consulting HIM. Indignation on the part of her mother for being so sly
and deceitful—“to your own mother, Doss.” Indignation on the part of
the whole clan because she had not gone to Dr. Marsh.

Then would come the solicitude. She would be taken to Dr. Marsh, and
when Dr. Marsh confirmed Dr. Trent’s diagnosis she would be taken to
specialists in Toronto and Montreal. Uncle Benjamin would foot the bill
with a splendid gesture of munificence in thus assisting the widow and
orphan, and talk forever after of the shocking fees specialists charged
for looking wise and saying they couldn’t do anything. And when the
specialists could do nothing for her Uncle James would insist on her
taking Purple Pills—“I’ve known them to effect a cure when _all_ the
doctors had given up”—and her mother would insist on Redfern’s Blood
Bitters, and Cousin Stickles would insist on rubbing her over the heart
every night with Redfern’s Liniment on the grounds that it _might_ do
good and _couldn’t_ do harm; and everybody else would have some pet
dope for her to take. Dr. Stalling would come to her and say solemnly,
“You are very ill. Are you prepared for what may be before you?”—almost
as if he were going to shake his forefinger at her, the forefinger that
had not grown any shorter or less knobbly with age. And she would be
watched and checked like a baby and never let do anything or go
anywhere alone. Perhaps she would not even be allowed to sleep alone
lest she die in her sleep. Cousin Stickles or her mother would insist
on sharing her room and bed. Yes, undoubtedly they would.

It was this last thought that really decided Valancy. She could not put
up with it and she wouldn’t. As the clock in the hall below struck
twelve Valancy suddenly and definitely made up her mind that she would
not tell anybody. She had always been told, ever since she could
remember, that she must hide her feelings. “It is not ladylike to have
feelings,” Cousin Stickles had once told her disapprovingly. Well, she
would hide them with a vengeance.

But though she was not afraid of death she was not indifferent to it.
She found that she _resented_ it; it was not fair that she should have
to die when she had never lived. Rebellion flamed up in her soul as the
dark hours passed by—not because she had no future but because she had
no past.

“I’m poor—I’m ugly—I’m a failure—and I’m near death,” she thought. She
could see her own obituary notice in the Deerwood _Weekly Times_,
copied into the Port Lawrence _Journal_. “A deep gloom was cast over
Deerwood, etc., etc.”—“leaves a large circle of friends to mourn, etc.,
etc., etc.”—lies, all lies. Gloom, forsooth! Nobody would miss her. Her
death would not matter a straw to anybody. Not even her mother loved
her—her mother who had been so disappointed that she was not a boy—or
at least, a pretty girl.

Valancy reviewed her whole life between midnight and the early spring
dawn. It was a very drab existence, but here and there an incident
loomed out with a significance out of all proportion to its real
importance. These incidents were all unpleasant in one way or another.
Nothing really pleasant had ever happened to Valancy.

“I’ve never had one wholly happy hour in my life—not one,” she thought.
“I’ve just been a colourless nonentity. I remember reading somewhere
once that there is an hour in which a woman might be happy all her life
if she could but find it. I’ve never found my hour—never, never. And I
never will now. If I could only have had that hour I’d be willing to
die.”

Those significant incidents kept bobbing up in her mind like unbidden
ghosts, without any sequence of time or place. For instance, that time
when, at sixteen, she had blued a tubful of clothes too deeply. And the
time when, at eight, she had “stolen” some raspberry jam from Aunt
Wellington’s pantry. Valancy never heard the last of those two
misdemeanours. At almost every clan gathering they were raked up
against her as jokes. Uncle Benjamin hardly ever missed re-telling the
raspberry jam incident—he had been the one to catch her, her face all
stained and streaked.

“I have really done so few bad things that they have to keep harping on
the old ones,” thought Valancy. “Why, I’ve never even had a quarrel
with any one. I haven’t an enemy. What a spineless thing I must be not
to have even one enemy!”

There was that incident of the dust-pile at school when she was seven.
Valancy always recalled it when Dr. Stalling referred to the text, “To
him that hath shall be given and from him that hath not shall be taken
even that which he hath.” Other people might puzzle over that text but
it never puzzled Valancy. The whole relationship between herself and
Olive, dating from the day of the dust-pile, was a commentary on it.

She had been going to school a year, but Olive, who was a year younger,
had just begun and had about her all the glamour of “a new girl” and an
exceedingly pretty girl at that. It was at recess and all the girls,
big and little, were out on the road in front of the school making
dust-piles. The aim of each girl was to have the biggest pile. Valancy
was good at making dust-piles—there was an art in it—and she had secret
hopes of leading. But Olive, working off by herself, was suddenly
discovered to have a larger dust-pile than anybody. Valancy felt no
jealousy. Her dust-pile was quite big enough to please her. Then one of
the older girls had an inspiration.

“Let’s put all our dust on Olive’s pile and make a tremendous one,” she
exclaimed.

A frenzy seemed to seize the girls. They swooped down on the dust-piles
with pails and shovels and in a few seconds Olive’s pile was a
veritable pyramid. In vain Valancy, with scrawny, outstretched little
arms, tried to protect hers. She was ruthlessly swept aside, her
dust-pile scooped up and poured on Olive’s. Valancy turned away
resolutely and began building another dust-pile. Again a bigger girl
pounced on it. Valancy stood before it, flushed, indignant, arms
outspread.

“Don’t take it,” she pleaded. “Please don’t take it.”

“But _why_?” demanded the older girl. “Why won’t you help to build
Olive’s bigger?”

“I want my own little dust-pile,” said Valancy piteously.

Her plea went unheeded. While she argued with one girl another scraped
up her dust-pile. Valancy turned away, her heart swelling, her eyes
full of tears.

“Jealous—you’re jealous!” said the girls mockingly.

“You were very selfish,” said her mother coldly, when Valancy told her
about it at night. That was the first and last time Valancy had ever
taken any of her troubles to her mother.

Valancy was neither jealous nor selfish. It was only that she wanted a
dust-pile of her own—small or big mattered not. A team of horses came
down the street—Olive’s dust pile was scattered over the roadway—the
bell rang—the girls trooped into school and had forgotten the whole
affair before they reached their seats. Valancy never forgot it. To
this day she resented it in her secret soul. But was it not symbolical
of her life?

“I’ve never been able to have my own dust-pile,” thought Valancy.

The enormous red moon she had seen rising right at the end of the
street one autumn evening of her sixth year. She had been sick and cold
with the awful, uncanny horror of it. So near to her. So big. She had
run in trembling to her mother and her mother had laughed at her. She
had gone to bed and hidden her face under the clothes in terror lest
she might look at the window and see that horrible moon glaring in at
her through it.

The boy who had tried to kiss her at a party when she was fifteen. She
had not let him—she had evaded him and run. He was the only boy who had
ever tried to kiss her. Now, fourteen years later, Valancy found
herself wishing that she had let him.

The time she had been made to apologise to Olive for something she
hadn’t done. Olive had said that Valancy had pushed her into the mud
and spoiled her new shoes _on purpose_. Valancy knew she hadn’t. It had
been an accident—and even that wasn’t her fault—but nobody would
believe her. She had to apologise—and kiss Olive to “make up.” The
injustice of it burned in her soul tonight.

That summer when Olive had the most beautiful hat, trimmed with creamy
yellow net, with a wreath of red roses and little ribbon bows under the
chin. Valancy had wanted a hat like that more than she had ever wanted
anything. She pleaded for one and had been laughed at—all summer she
had to wear a horrid little brown sailor with elastic that cut behind
her ears. None of the girls would go around with her because she was so
shabby—nobody but Olive. People had thought Olive so sweet and
unselfish.

“I was an excellent foil for her,” thought Valancy. “Even then she knew
that.”

Valancy had tried to win a prize for attendance in Sunday School once.
But Olive won it. There were so many Sundays Valancy had to stay home
because she had colds. She had once tried to “say a piece” in school
one Friday afternoon and had broken down in it. Olive was a good
reciter and never got stuck.

The night she had spent in Port Lawrence with Aunt Isabel when she was
ten. Byron Stirling was there; from Montreal, twelve years old,
conceited, clever. At family prayers in the morning Byron had reached
across and given Valancy’s thin arm such a savage pinch that she
screamed out with pain. After prayers were over she was summoned to
Aunt Isabel’s bar of judgment. But when she said Byron had pinched her
Byron denied it. He said she cried out because the kitten scratched
her. He said she had put the kitten up on her chair and was playing
with it when she should have been listening to Uncle David’s prayer. He
was _believed_. In the Stirling clan the boys were always believed
before the girls. Valancy was sent home in disgrace because of her
exceedingly bad behavior during family prayers and she was not asked to
Aunt Isabel’s again for many moons.

The time Cousin Betty Stirling was married. Somehow Valancy got wind of
the fact that Betty was going to ask her to be one of her bridesmaids.
Valancy was secretly uplifted. It would be a delightful thing to be a
bridesmaid. And of course she would have to have a new dress for it—a
pretty new dress—a pink dress. Betty wanted her bridesmaids to dress in
pink.

But Betty had never asked her, after all. Valancy couldn’t guess why,
but long after her secret tears of disappointment had been dried Olive
told her. Betty, after much consultation and reflection, had decided
that Valancy was too insignificant—she would “spoil the effect.” That
was nine years ago. But tonight Valancy caught her breath with the old
pain and sting of it.

That day in her eleventh year when her mother had badgered her into
confessing something she had never done. Valancy had denied it for a
long time but eventually for peace’ sake she had given in and pleaded
guilty. Mrs. Frederick was always making people lie by pushing them
into situations where they _had_ to lie. Then her mother had made her
kneel down on the parlour floor, between herself and Cousin Stickles,
and say, “O God, please forgive me for not speaking the truth.” Valancy
had said it, but as she rose from her knees she muttered, “But, O God,
_you_ know I did speak the truth.” Valancy had not then heard of
Galileo but her fate was similar to his. She was punished just as
severely as if she hadn’t confessed and prayed.

The winter she went to dancing-school. Uncle James had decreed she
should go and had paid for her lessons. How she had looked forward to
it! And how she had hated it! She had never had a voluntary partner.
The teacher always had to tell some boy to dance with her, and
generally he had been sulky about it. Yet Valancy was a good dancer, as
light on her feet as thistledown. Olive, who never lacked eager
partners, was heavy.

The affair of the button-string, when she was ten. All the girls in
school had button-strings. Olive had a very long one with a great many
beautiful buttons. Valancy had one. Most of the buttons on it were very
commonplace, but she had six beauties that had come off Grandmother
Stirling’s wedding-gown—sparkling buttons of gold and glass, much more
beautiful than any Olive had. Their possession conferred a certain
distinction on Valancy. She knew every little girl in school envied her
the exclusive possession of those beautiful buttons. When Olive saw
them on the button-string she had looked at them narrowly but said
nothing—then. The next day Aunt Wellington had come to Elm Street and
told Mrs. Frederick that she thought Olive should have some of those
buttons—Grandmother Stirling was just as much Wellington’s mother as
Frederick’s. Mrs. Frederick had agreed amiably. She could not afford to
fall out with Aunt Wellington. Moreover, the matter was of no
importance whatever. Aunt Wellington carried off four of the buttons,
generously leaving two for Valancy. Valancy had torn these from her
string and flung them on the floor—she had not yet learned that it was
unladylike to have feelings—and had been sent supperless to bed for the
exhibition.

The night of Margaret Blunt’s party. She had made such pathetic efforts
to be pretty that night. Rob Walker was to be there; and two nights
before, on the moonlit verandah of Uncle Herbert’s cottage at Mistawis,
Rob had really seemed attracted to her. At Margaret’s party Rob never
even asked her to dance—did not notice her at all. She was a
wallflower, as usual. That, of course, was years ago. People in
Deerwood had long since given up inviting Valancy to dances. But to
Valancy its humiliation and disappointment were of the other day. Her
face burned in the darkness as she recalled herself, sitting there with
her pitifully crimped, thin hair and the cheeks she had pinched for an
hour before coming, in an effort to make them red. All that came of it
was a wild story that Valancy Stirling was rouged at Margaret Blunt’s
party. In those days in Deerwood that was enough to wreck your
character forever. It did not wreck Valancy’s, or even damage it.
People knew _she_ couldn’t be fast if she tried. They only laughed at
her.

“I’ve had nothing but a second-hand existence,” decided Valancy. “All
the great emotions of life have passed me by. I’ve never even had a
grief. And have I ever really loved anybody? Do I really love Mother?
No, I don’t. That’s the truth, whether it is disgraceful or not. I
don’t love her—I’ve never loved her. What’s worse, I don’t even like
her. So I don’t know anything about any kind of love. My life has been
empty—empty. Nothing is worse than emptiness. Nothing!” Valancy
ejaculated the last “nothing” aloud passionately. Then she moaned and
stopped thinking about anything for a while. One of her attacks of pain
had come on.

When it was over something had happened to Valancy—perhaps the
culmination of the process that had been going on in her mind ever
since she had read Dr. Trent’s letter. It was three o’clock in the
morning—the wisest and most accursed hour of the clock. But sometimes
it sets us free.

“I’ve been trying to please other people all my life and failed,” she
said. “After this I shall please myself. I shall never pretend anything
again. I’ve breathed an atmosphere of fibs and pretences and evasions
all my life. What a luxury it will be to tell the truth! I may not be
able to do much that I want to do but I won’t do another thing that I
don’t want to do. Mother can pout for weeks—I shan’t worry over it.
‘Despair is a free man—hope is a slave.’”

Valancy got up and dressed, with a deepening of that curious sense of
freedom. When she had finished with her hair she opened the window and
hurled the jar of potpourri over into the next lot. It smashed
gloriously against the schoolgirl complexion on the old carriage-shop.

“I’m sick of the fragrance of dead things,” said Valancy.




CHAPTER IX


Uncle Herbert and Aunt Alberta’s silver wedding was delicately referred
to among the Stirlings during the following weeks as “the time we first
noticed poor Valancy was—a little—_you_ understand?”

Not for worlds would any of the Stirlings have said out and out at
first that Valancy had gone mildly insane or even that her mind was
slightly deranged. Uncle Benjamin was considered to have gone entirely
too far when he had ejaculated, “She’s dippy—I tell you, she’s dippy,”
and was only excused because of the outrageousness of Valancy’s conduct
at the aforesaid wedding dinner.

But Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles had noticed a few things that
made them uneasy _before_ the dinner. It had begun with the rosebush,
of course; and Valancy never was really “quite right” again. She did
not seem to worry in the least over the fact that her mother was not
speaking to her. You would never suppose she noticed it at all. She had
flatly refused to take either Purple Pills or Redfern’s Bitters. She
had announced coolly that she did not intend to answer to the name of
“Doss” any longer. She had told Cousin Stickles that she wished she
would give up wearing that brooch with Cousin Artemas Stickles’ hair in
it. She had moved her bed in her room to the opposite corner. She had
read _Magic of Wings_ Sunday afternoon. When Cousin Stickles had
rebuked her Valancy had said indifferently, “Oh, I forgot it was
Sunday”—and _had gone on reading it_.

Cousin Stickles had seen a terrible thing—she had caught Valancy
sliding down the bannister. Cousin Stickles did not tell Mrs. Frederick
this—poor Amelia was worried enough as it was. But it was Valancy’s
announcement on Saturday night that she was not going to go to the
Anglican church any more that broke through Mrs. Frederick’s stony
silence.

“Not going to church any more! Doss, have you absolutely taken leave——”

“Oh, I’m going to church,” said Valancy airily. “I’m going to the
Presbyterian church. But to the Anglican church I will not go.”

This was even worse. Mrs. Frederick had recourse to tears, having found
outraged majesty had ceased to be effective.

“What have you got against the Anglican church?” she sobbed.

“Nothing—only just that you’ve always made me go there. If you’d made
me go to the Presbyterian church I’d want to go to the Anglican.”

“Is that a nice thing to say to your mother? Oh, how true it is that it
is sharper than a serpent’s tooth to have a thankless child.”

“Is that a nice thing to say to your daughter?” said unrepentant
Valancy.

So Valancy’s behaviour at the silver wedding was not quite the surprise
to Mrs. Frederick and Christine Stickles that it was to the rest. They
were doubtful about the wisdom of taking her, but concluded it would
“make talk” if they didn’t. Perhaps she would behave herself, and so
far no outsider suspected there was anything queer about her. By a
special mercy of Providence it had poured torrents Sunday morning, so
Valancy had not carried out her hideous threat of going to the
Presbyterian church.

Valancy would not have cared in the least if they had left her at home.
These family celebrations were all hopelessly dull. But the Stirlings
always celebrated everything. It was a long-established custom. Even
Mrs. Frederick gave a dinner party on her wedding anniversary and
Cousin Stickles had friends in to supper on her birthday. Valancy hated
these entertainments because they had to pinch and save and contrive
for weeks afterwards to pay for them. But she wanted to go to the
silver wedding. It would hurt Uncle Herbert’s feelings if she stayed
away, and she rather liked Uncle Herbert. Besides, she wanted to look
over all her relatives from her new angle. It would be an excellent
place to make public her declaration of independence if occasion
offered.

“Put on your brown silk dress,” said Mrs. Stirling.

As if there were anything else to put on! Valancy had only the one
festive dress—that snuffy-brown silk Aunt Isabel had given her. Aunt
Isabel had decreed that Valancy should never wear colours. They did not
become her. When she was young they allowed her to wear white, but that
had been tacitly dropped for some years. Valancy put on the brown silk.
It had a high collar and long sleeves. She had never had a dress with
low neck and elbow sleeves, although they had been worn, even in
Deerwood, for over a year. But she did not do her hair pompadour. She
knotted it on her neck and pulled it out over her ears. She thought it
became her—only the little knot was so absurdly small. Mrs. Frederick
resented the hair but decided it was wisest to say nothing on the eve
of the party. It was so important that Valancy should be kept in good
humour, if possible, until it was over. Mrs. Frederick did not reflect
that this was the first time in her life that she had thought it
necessary to consider Valancy’s humours. But then Valancy had never
been “queer” before.

On their way to Uncle Herbert’s—Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles
walking in front, Valancy trotting meekly along behind—Roaring Abel
drove past them. Drunk as usual but not in the roaring stage. Just
drunk enough to be excessively polite. He raised his disreputable old
tartan cap with the air of a monarch saluting his subjects and swept
them a grand bow. Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles dared not cut
Roaring Abel altogether. He was the only person in Deerwood who could
be got to do odd jobs of carpentering and repairing when they needed to
be done, so it would not do to offend him. But they responded with only
the stiffest, slightest of bows. Roaring Abel must be kept in his
place.

Valancy, behind them, did a thing they were fortunately spared seeing.
She smiled gaily and waved her hand to Roaring Abel. Why not? She had
always liked the old sinner. He was such a jolly, picturesque,
unashamed reprobate and stood out against the drab respectability of
Deerwood and its customs like a flame-red flag of revolt and protest.
Only a few nights ago Abel had gone through Deerwood in the wee sma’s,
shouting oaths at the top of his stentorian voice which could be heard
for miles, and lashing his horse into a furious gallop as he tore along
prim, proper Elm Street.

“Yelling and blaspheming like a fiend,” shuddered Cousin Stickles at
the breakfast-table.

“I cannot understand why the judgment of the Lord has not fallen upon
that man long ere this,” said Mrs. Frederick petulantly, as if she
thought Providence was very dilatory and ought to have a gentle
reminder.

“He’ll be picked up dead some morning—he’ll fall under his horse’s
hoofs and be trampled to death,” said Cousin Stickles reassuringly.

Valancy had said nothing, of course; but she wondered to herself if
Roaring Abel’s periodical sprees were not his futile protest against
the poverty and drudgery and monotony of his existence. _She_ went on
dream sprees in her Blue Castle. Roaring Abel, having no imagination,
could not do that. _His_ escapes from reality had to be concrete. So
she waved at him today with a sudden fellow feeling, and Roaring Abel,
not too drunk to be astonished, nearly fell off his seat in his
amazement.

By this time they had reached Maple Avenue and Uncle Herbert’s house, a
large, pretentious structure peppered with meaningless bay windows and
excrescent porches. A house that always looked like a stupid,
prosperous, self-satisfied man with warts on his face.

“A house like that,” said Valancy solemnly, “is a blasphemy.”

Mrs. Frederick was shaken to her soul. What had Valancy said? Was it
profane? Or only just queer? Mrs. Frederick took off her hat in Aunt
Alberta’s spare-room with trembling hands. She made one more feeble
attempt to avert disaster. She held Valancy back on the landing as
Cousin Stickles went downstairs.

“Won’t you try to remember you’re a lady?” she pleaded.

“Oh, if there were only any hope of being able to forget it!” said
Valancy wearily.

Mrs. Frederick felt that she had not deserved this from Providence.




CHAPTER X


“Bless this food to our use and consecrate our lives to Thy service,”
said Uncle Herbert briskly.

Aunt Wellington frowned. She always considered Herbert’s graces
entirely too short and “flippant.” A grace, to be a grace in Aunt
Wellington’s eyes, had to be at least three minutes long and uttered in
an unearthly tone, between a groan and a chant. As a protest she kept
her head bent a perceptible time after all the rest had been lifted.
When she permitted herself to sit upright she found Valancy looking at
her. Ever afterwards Aunt Wellington averred that she had known from
that moment that there was something wrong with Valancy. In those
queer, slanted eyes of hers—“we should always have known she was not
entirely _right_ with eyes like that”—there was an odd gleam of mockery
and amusement—as if Valancy were laughing at _her_. Such a thing was
unthinkable, of course. Aunt Wellington at once ceased to think it.

Valancy was enjoying herself. She had never enjoyed herself at a
“family reunion” before. In social functions, as in childish games, she
had only “filled in.” Her clan had always considered her very dull. She
had no parlour tricks. And she had been in the habit of taking refuge
from the boredom of family parties in her Blue Castle, which resulted
in an absent-mindedness that increased her reputation for dulness and
vacuity.

“She has no social presence whatever,” Aunt Wellington had decreed once
and for all. Nobody dreamed that Valancy was dumb in their presence
merely because she was afraid of them. Now she was no longer afraid of
them. The shackles had been stricken off her soul. She was quite
prepared to talk if occasion offered. Meanwhile she was giving herself
such freedom of thought as she had never dared to take before. She let
herself go with a wild, inner exultation, as Uncle Herbert carved the
turkey. Uncle Herbert gave Valancy a second look that day. Being a man,
he didn’t know what she had done to her hair, but he thought
surprisedly that Doss was not such a bad-looking girl, after all; and
he put an extra piece of white meat on her plate.

“What herb is most injurious to a young lady’s beauty?” propounded
Uncle Benjamin by way of starting conversation—“loosening things up a
bit,” as he would have said.

Valancy, whose duty it was to say, “What?” did not say it. Nobody else
said it, so Uncle Benjamin, after an expectant pause, had to answer,
“Thyme,” and felt that his riddle had fallen flat. He looked
resentfully at Valancy, who had never failed him before, but Valancy
did not seem even to be aware of him. She was gazing around the table,
examining relentlessly every one in this depressing assembly of
sensible people and watching their little squirms with a detached,
amused smile.

So these were the people she had always held in reverence and fear. She
seemed to see them with new eyes.

Big, capable, patronising, voluble Aunt Mildred, who thought herself
the cleverest woman in the clan, her husband a little lower than the
angels and her children wonders. Had not her son, Howard, been all
through teething at eleven months? And could she not tell you the best
way to do everything, from cooking mushrooms to picking up a snake?
What a bore she was! What ugly moles she had on her face!

Cousin Gladys, who was always praising her son, who had died young, and
always fighting with her living one. She had neuritis—or what she
called neuritis. It jumped about from one part of her body to another.
It was a convenient thing. If anybody wanted her to go somewhere she
didn’t want to go she had neuritis in her legs. And always if any
mental effort was required she could have neuritis in her head. You
can’t _think_ with neuritis in your head, my dear.

“What an old humbug you are!” thought Valancy impiously.

Aunt Isabel. Valancy counted her chins. Aunt Isabel was the critic of
the clan. She had always gone about squashing people flat. More members
of it than Valancy were afraid of her. She had, it was conceded, a
biting tongue.

“I wonder what would happen to your face if you ever smiled,”
speculated Valancy, unblushingly.

Second Cousin Sarah Taylor, with her great, pale, expressionless eyes,
who was noted for the variety of her pickle recipes and for nothing
else. So afraid of saying something indiscreet that she never said
anything worth listening to. So proper that she blushed when she saw
the advertisement picture of a corset and had put a dress on her Venus
de Milo statuette which made it look “real tasty.”

Little Cousin Georgiana. Not such a bad little soul. But dreary—very.
Always looking as if she had just been starched and ironed. Always
afraid to let herself go. The only thing she really enjoyed was a
funeral. You knew where you were with a corpse. Nothing more could
happen to _it_. But while there was life there was fear.

Uncle James. Handsome, black, with his sarcastic, trap-like mouth and
iron-grey side-burns, whose favourite amusement was to write
controversial letters to the _Christian Times_, attacking Modernism.
Valancy always wondered if he looked as solemn when he was asleep as he
did when awake. No wonder his wife had died young. Valancy remembered
her. A pretty, sensitive thing. Uncle James had denied her everything
she wanted and showered on her everything she didn’t want. He had
killed her—quite legally. She had been smothered and starved.

Uncle Benjamin, wheezy, pussy-mouthed. With great pouches under eyes
that held nothing in reverence.

Uncle Wellington. Long, pallid face, thin, pale-yellow hair—“one of the
fair Stirlings”—thin, stooping body, abominably high forehead with such
ugly wrinkles, and “eyes about as intelligent as a fish’s,” thought
Valancy. “Looks like a cartoon of himself.”

Aunt Wellington. Named Mary but called by her husband’s name to
distinguish her from Great-aunt Mary. A massive, dignified, permanent
lady. Splendidly arranged, iron-grey hair. Rich, fashionable beaded
dress. Had _her_ moles removed by electrolysis—which Aunt Mildred
thought was a wicked evasion of the purposes of God.

Uncle Herbert, with his spiky grey hair. Aunt Alberta, who twisted her
mouth so unpleasantly in talking and had a great reputation for
unselfishness because she was always giving up a lot of things she
didn’t want. Valancy let them off easily in her judgment because she
liked them, even if they were in Milton’s expressive phrase, “stupidly
good.” But she wondered for what inscrutable reason Aunt Alberta had
seen fit to tie a black velvet ribbon around each of her chubby arms
above the elbow.

Then she looked across the table at Olive. Olive, who had been held up
to her as a paragon of beauty, behaviour and success as long as she
could remember. “Why can’t you hold yourself like Olive, Doss? Why
can’t you stand correctly like Olive, Doss? Why can’t you speak
prettily like Olive, Doss? Why can’t you make an effort, Doss?”

Valancy’s elfin eyes lost their mocking glitter and became pensive and
sorrowful. You could not ignore or disdain Olive. It was quite
impossible to deny that she was beautiful and effective and sometimes
she was a little intelligent. Her mouth might be a trifle heavy—she
might show her fine, white, regular teeth rather too lavishly when she
smiled. But when all was said and done, Olive justified Uncle
Benjamin’s summing up—“a stunning girl.” Yes, Valancy agreed in her
heart, Olive was stunning.

Rich, golden-brown hair, elaborately dressed, with a sparkling bandeau
holding its glossy puffs in place; large, brilliant blue eyes and thick
silken lashes; face of rose and bare neck of snow, rising above her
gown; great pearl bubbles in her ears; the blue-white diamond flame on
her long, smooth, waxen finger with its rosy, pointed nail. Arms of
marble, gleaming through green chiffon and shadow lace. Valancy felt
suddenly thankful that her own scrawny arms were decently swathed in
brown silk. Then she resumed her tabulation of Olive’s charms.

Tall. Queenly. Confident. Everything that Valancy was _not_. Dimples,
too, in cheeks and chin. “A woman with dimples always gets her own
way,” thought Valancy, in a recurring spasm of bitterness at the fate
which had denied her even one dimple.

Olive was only a year younger than Valancy, though a stranger would
have thought that there was at least ten years between them. But nobody
ever dreaded old maidenhood for her. Olive had been surrounded by a
crowd of eager beaus since her early teens, just as her mirror was
always surrounded by a fringe of cards, photographs, programmes and
invitations. At eighteen, when she had graduated from Havergal College,
Olive had been engaged to Will Desmond, lawyer in embryo. Will Desmond
had died and Olive had mourned for him properly for two years. When she
was twenty-three she had a hectic affair with Donald Jackson. But Aunt
and Uncle Wellington disapproved of that and in the end Olive dutifully
gave him up. Nobody in the Stirling clan—whatever outsiders might
say—hinted that she did so because Donald himself was cooling off.
However that might be, Olive’s third venture met with everybody’s
approval. Cecil Price was clever and handsome and “one of the Port
Lawrence Prices.” Olive had been engaged to him for three years. He had
just graduated in civil engineering and they were to be married as soon
as he landed a contract. Olive’s hope chest was full to overflowing
with exquisite things and Olive had already confided to Valancy what
her wedding-dress was to be. Ivory silk draped with lace, white satin
court train, lined with pale green georgette, heirloom veil of Brussels
lace. Valancy knew also—though Olive had not told her—that the
bridesmaids were selected and that she was not among them.

Valancy had, after a fashion, always been Olive’s confidante—perhaps
because she was the only girl in the connection who could not bore
Olive with return confidences. Olive always told Valancy all the
details of her love affairs, from the days when the little boys in
school used to “persecute” her with love letters. Valancy could not
comfort herself by thinking these affairs mythical. Olive really had
them. Many men had gone mad over her besides the three fortunate ones.

“I don’t know what the poor idiots see in me, that drives them to make
such double idiots of themselves,” Olive was wont to say. Valancy would
have liked to say, “I don’t either,” but truth and diplomacy both
restrained her. She _did_ know, perfectly well. Olive Stirling was one
of the girls about whom men do go mad just as indubitably as she,
Valancy, was one of the girls at whom no man ever looked twice.

“And yet,” thought Valancy, summing her up with a new and merciless
conclusiveness, “she’s like a dewless morning. There’s _something_
lacking.”




CHAPTER XI


Meanwhile the dinner in its earlier stages was dragging its slow length
along true to Stirling form. The room was chilly, in spite of the
calendar, and Aunt Alberta had the gas-logs lighted. Everybody in the
clan envied her those gas-logs except Valancy. Glorious open fires
blazed in every room of her Blue Castle when autumnal nights were cool,
but she would have frozen to death in it before she would have
committed the sacrilege of a gas-log. Uncle Herbert made his hardy
perennial joke when he helped Aunt Wellington to the cold meat—“Mary,
will you have a little lamb?” Aunt Mildred told the same old story of
once finding a lost ring in a turkey’s crop. Uncle Benjamin told _his_
favourite prosy tale of how he had once chased and punished a now
famous man for stealing apples. Second Cousin Jane described all her
sufferings with an ulcerating tooth. Aunt Wellington admired the
pattern of Aunt Alberta’s silver teaspoons and lamented the fact that
one of her own had been lost.

“It spoiled the set. I could never get it matched. And it was my
wedding-present from dear old Aunt Matilda.”

Aunt Isabel thought the seasons were changing and couldn’t imagine what
had become of our good, old-fashioned springs. Cousin Georgiana, as
usual, discussed the last funeral and wondered, audibly, “which of us
will be the next to pass away.” Cousin Georgiana could never say
anything as blunt as “die.” Valancy thought she could tell her, but
didn’t. Cousin Gladys, likewise as usual, had a grievance. Her visiting
nephews had nipped all the buds off her house-plants and chivied her
brood of fancy chickens—“squeezed some of them actually to death, my
dear.”

“Boys will be boys,” reminded Uncle Herbert tolerantly.

“But they needn’t be ramping, rampageous animals,” retorted Cousin
Gladys, looking round the table for appreciation of her wit. Everybody
smiled except Valancy. Cousin Gladys remembered that. A few minutes
later, when Ellen Hamilton was being discussed, Cousin Gladys spoke of
her as “one of those shy, plain girls who can’t get husbands,” and
glanced significantly at Valancy.

Uncle James thought the conversation was sagging to a rather low plane
of personal gossip. He tried to elevate it by starting an abstract
discussion on “the greatest happiness.” Everybody was asked to state
his or her idea of “the greatest happiness.”

Aunt Mildred thought the greatest happiness—for a woman—was to be “a
loving and beloved wife and mother.” Aunt Wellington thought it would
be to travel in Europe. Olive thought it would be to be a great singer
like Tetrazzini. Cousin Gladys remarked mournfully that _her_ greatest
happiness would be to be free—absolutely free—from neuritis. Cousin
Georgiana’s greatest happiness would be “to have her dear, dead brother
Richard back.” Aunt Alberta remarked vaguely that the greatest
happiness was to be found in “the poetry of life” and hastily gave some
directions to her maid to prevent any one asking her what she meant.
Mrs. Frederick said the greatest happiness was to spend your life in
loving service for others, and Cousin Stickles and Aunt Isabel agreed
with her—Aunt Isabel with a resentful air, as if she thought Mrs.
Frederick had taken the wind out of her sails by saying it first. “We
are all too prone,” continued Mrs. Frederick, determined not to lose so
good an opportunity, “to live in selfishness, worldliness and sin.” The
other women all felt rebuked for their low ideals, and Uncle James had
a conviction that the conversation had been uplifted with a vengeance.

“The greatest happiness,” said Valancy suddenly and distinctly, “is to
sneeze when you want to.”

Everybody stared. Nobody felt it safe to say anything. Was Valancy
trying to be funny? It was incredible. Mrs. Frederick, who had been
breathing easier since the dinner had progressed so far without any
outbreak on the part of Valancy, began to tremble again. But she deemed
it the part of prudence to say nothing. Uncle Benjamin was not so
prudent. He rashly rushed in where Mrs. Frederick feared to tread.

“Doss,” he chuckled, “what is the difference between a young girl and
an old maid?”

“One is happy and careless and the other is cappy and hairless,” said
Valancy. “You have asked that riddle at least fifty times in my
recollection, Uncle Ben. Why don’t you hunt up some new riddles if
riddle you _must_? It is such a fatal mistake to try to be funny if you
don’t succeed.”

Uncle Benjamin stared foolishly. Never in his life had he, Benjamin
Stirling, of Stirling and Frost, been spoken to so. And by Valancy of
all people! He looked feebly around the table to see what the others
thought of it. Everybody was looking rather blank. Poor Mrs. Frederick
had shut her eyes. And her lips moved tremblingly—as if she were
praying. Perhaps she was. The situation was so unprecedented that
nobody knew how to meet it. Valancy went on calmly eating her salad as
if nothing out of the usual had occurred.

Aunt Alberta, to save her dinner, plunged into an account of how a dog
had bitten her recently. Uncle James, to back her up, asked where the
dog had bitten her.

“Just a little below the Catholic church,” said Aunt Alberta.

At that point Valancy laughed. Nobody else laughed. What was there to
laugh at?

“Is that a vital part?” asked Valancy.

“What do you mean?” said bewildered Aunt Alberta, and Mrs. Frederick
was almost driven to believe that she had served God all her years for
naught.

Aunt Isabel concluded that it was up to her to suppress Valancy.

“Doss, you are horribly thin,” she said. “You are _all_ corners. Do you
_ever_ try to fatten up a little?”

“No.” Valancy was not asking quarter or giving it. “But I can tell you
where you’ll find a beauty parlor in Port Lawrence where they can
reduce the number of your chins.”

“_Val-an-cy!_” The protest was wrung from Mrs. Frederick. She meant her
tone to be stately and majestic, as usual, but it sounded more like an
imploring whine. And she did not say “Doss.”

“She’s feverish,” said Cousin Stickles to Uncle Benjamin in an agonised
whisper. “We’ve thought she’s seemed feverish for several days.”

“She’s gone dippy, in my opinion,” growled Uncle Benjamin. “If not, she
ought to be spanked. Yes, spanked.”

“You can’t spank her.” Cousin Stickles was much agitated. “She’s
twenty-nine years old.”

“So there is that advantage, at least, in being twenty-nine,” said
Valancy, whose ears had caught this aside.

“Doss,” said Uncle Benjamin, “when I am dead you may say what you
please. As long as I am alive I demand to be treated with respect.”

“Oh, but you know we’re all dead,” said Valancy, “the whole Stirling
clan. Some of us are buried and some aren’t—yet. That is the only
difference.”

“Doss,” said Uncle Benjamin, thinking it might cow Valancy, “do you
remember the time you stole the raspberry jam?”

Valancy flushed scarlet—with suppressed laughter, not shame. She had
been sure Uncle Benjamin would drag that jam in somehow.

“Of course I do,” she said. “It was good jam. I’ve always been sorry I
hadn’t time to eat more of it before you found me. Oh, _look_ at Aunt
Isabel’s profile on the wall. Did you ever see anything so funny?”

Everybody looked, including Aunt Isabel herself, which of course,
destroyed it. But Uncle Herbert said kindly, “I—I wouldn’t eat any more
if I were you, Doss. It isn’t that I grudge it—but don’t you think it
would be better for yourself? Your—your stomach seems a little out of
order.”

“Don’t worry about my stomach, old dear,” said Valancy. “It is all
right. I’m going to keep right on eating. It’s so seldom I get the
chance of a satisfying meal.”

It was the first time any one had been called “old dear” in Deerwood.
The Stirlings thought Valancy had invented the phrase and they were
afraid of her from that moment. There was something so uncanny about
such an expression. But in poor Mrs. Frederick’s opinion the reference
to a satisfying meal was the worst thing Valancy had said yet. Valancy
had always been a disappointment to her. Now she was a disgrace. She
thought she would have to get up and go away from the table. Yet she
dared not leave Valancy there.

Aunt Alberta’s maid came in to remove the salad plates and bring in the
dessert. It was a welcome diversion. Everybody brightened up with a
determination to ignore Valancy and talk as if she wasn’t there. Uncle
Wellington mentioned Barney Snaith. Eventually somebody did mention
Barney Snaith at every Stirling function, Valancy reflected. Whatever
he was, he was an individual that could not be ignored. She resigned
herself to listen. There was a subtle fascination in the subject for
her, though she had not yet faced this fact. She could feel her pulses
beating to her finger-tips.

Of course they abused him. Nobody ever had a good word to say of Barney
Snaith. All the old, wild tales were canvassed—the defaulting
cashier-counterfeiter-infidel-murderer-in-hiding legends were thrashed
out. Uncle Wellington was very indignant that such a creature should be
allowed to exist at all in the neighbourhood of Deerwood. He didn’t
know what the police at Port Lawrence were thinking of. Everybody would
be murdered in their beds some night. It was a shame that he should be
allowed to be at large after all that he had done.

“What _has_ he done?” asked Valancy suddenly.

Uncle Wellington stared at her, forgetting that she was to be ignored.

“Done! Done! He’s done _everything_.”

“_What_ has he done?” repeated Valancy inexorably. “What do you _know_
that he has done? You’re always running him down. And what has ever
been proved against him?”

“I don’t argue with women,” said Uncle Wellington. “And I don’t need
proof. When a man hides himself up there on an island in Muskoka, year
in and year out, and nobody can find out where he came from or how he
lives, or what he does there, _that’s_ proof enough. Find a mystery and
you find a crime.”

“The very idea of a man named Snaith!” said Second Cousin Sarah. “Why,
the name itself is enough to condemn him!”

“I wouldn’t like to meet him in a dark lane,” shivered Cousin
Georgiana.

“What do you suppose he would do to you?” asked Valancy.

“Murder me,” said Cousin Georgiana solemnly.

“Just for the fun of it?” suggested Valancy.

“Exactly,” said Cousin Georgiana unsuspiciously. “When there is so much
smoke there must be some fire. I was afraid he was a criminal when he
came here first. I _felt_ he had something to hide. I am not often
mistaken in my intuitions.”

“Criminal! Of course he’s a criminal,” said Uncle Wellington. “Nobody
doubts it”—glaring at Valancy. “Why, they say he served a term in the
penitentiary for embezzlement. I don’t doubt it. And they say he’s in
with that gang that are perpetrating all those bank robberies round the
country.”

“_Who_ say?” asked Valancy.

Uncle Wellington knotted his ugly forehead at her. What had got into
this confounded girl, anyway? He ignored the question.

“He has the identical look of a jail-bird,” snapped Uncle Benjamin. “I
noticed it the first time I saw him.”

“‘A fellow by the hand of nature marked,
Quoted and signed to do a deed of shame’,”


declaimed Uncle James. He looked enormously pleased over managing to
work that quotation in at last. He had been waiting all his life for
the chance.

“One of his eyebrows is an arch and the other is a triangle,” said
Valancy. “Is _that_ why you think him so villainous?”

Uncle James lifted _his_ eyebrows. Generally when Uncle James lifted
his eyebrows the world came to an end. This time it continued to
function.

“How do _you_ know his eyebrows so well, Doss?” asked Olive, a trifle
maliciously. Such a remark would have covered Valancy with confusion
two weeks ago, and Olive knew it.

“Yes, how?” demanded Aunt Wellington.

“I’ve seen him twice and I looked at him closely,” said Valancy
composedly. “I thought his face the most interesting one I ever saw.”

“There is no doubt there is something fishy in the creature’s past
life,” said Olive, who began to think she was decidedly out of the
conversation, which had centred so amazingly around Valancy. “But he
can hardly be guilty of _everything_ he’s accused of, you know.”

Valancy felt annoyed with Olive. Why should _she_ speak up in even this
qualified defence of Barney Snaith? What had _she_ to do with him? For
that matter, what had Valancy? But Valancy did not ask herself this
question.

“They say he keeps dozens of cats in that hut up back on Mistawis,”
said Second Cousin Sarah Taylor, by way of appearing not entirely
ignorant of him.

Cats. It sounded quite alluring to Valancy, in the plural. She pictured
an island in Muskoka haunted by pussies.

“That alone shows there is something wrong with him,” decreed Aunt
Isabel.

“People who don’t like cats,” said Valancy, attacking her dessert with
a relish, “always seem to think that there is some peculiar virtue in
not liking them.”

“The man hasn’t a friend except Roaring Abel,” said Uncle Wellington.
“And if Roaring Abel had kept away from him, as everybody else did, it
would have been better for—for some members of his family.”

Uncle Wellington’s rather lame conclusion was due to a marital glance
from Aunt Wellington reminding him of what he had almost forgotten—that
there were girls at the table.

“If you mean,” said Valancy passionately, “that Barney Snaith is the
father of Cecily Gay’s child, he _isn’t_. It’s a wicked lie.”

In spite of her indignation Valancy was hugely amused at the expression
of the faces around that festal table. She had not seen anything like
it since the day, seventeen years ago, when at Cousin Gladys’ thimble
party, they discovered that she had got—SOMETHING—in her head at
school. _Lice_ in her head! Valancy was done with euphemisms.

Poor Mrs. Frederick was almost in a state of collapse. She had
believed—or pretended to believe—that Valancy still supposed that
children were found in parsley beds.

“Hush—hush!” implored Cousin Stickles.

“I don’t mean to hush,” said Valancy perversely. “I’ve hush-hushed all
my life. I’ll scream if I want to. Don’t make me want to. And stop
talking nonsense about Barney Snaith.”

Valancy didn’t exactly understand her own indignation. What did Barney
Snaith’s imputed crimes and misdemeanours matter to her? And why, out
of them all, did it seem most intolerable that he should have been
poor, pitiful little Cecily Gay’s false lover? For it _did_ seem
intolerable to her. She did not mind when they called him a thief and a
counterfeiter and jail-bird; but she could not endure to think that he
had loved and ruined Cecily Gay. She recalled his face on the two
occasions of their chance meetings—his twisted, enigmatic, engaging
smile, his twinkle, his thin, sensitive, almost ascetic lips, his
general air of frank daredeviltry. A man with such a smile and lips
might have murdered or stolen but he could not have betrayed. She
suddenly hated every one who said it or believed it of him.

“When _I_ was a young girl I never thought or spoke about such matters,
Doss,” said Aunt Wellington, crushingly.

“But I’m not a young girl,” retorted Valancy, uncrushed. “Aren’t you
always rubbing that into me? And you are all evil-minded, senseless
gossips. Can’t you leave poor Cissy Gay alone? She’s dying. Whatever
she did, God or the Devil has punished her enough for it. _You_ needn’t
take a hand, too. As for Barney Snaith, the only crime he has been
guilty of is living to himself and minding his own business. He can, it
seems, get along without you. Which _is_ an unpardonable sin, of
course, in your little snobocracy.” Valancy coined that concluding word
suddenly and felt that it was an inspiration. That was exactly what
they were and not one of them was fit to mend another.

“Valancy, your poor father would turn over in his grave if he could
hear you,” said Mrs. Frederick.

“I dare say he would like that for a change,” said Valancy brazenly.

“Doss,” said Uncle James heavily, “the Ten Commandments are fairly up
to date still—especially the fifth. Have you forgotten that?”

“No,” said Valancy, “but I thought _you_ had—especially the ninth. Have
you ever thought, Uncle James, how dull life would be without the Ten
Commandments? It is only when things are forbidden that they become
fascinating.”

But her excitement had been too much for her. She knew, by certain
unmistakable warnings, that one of her attacks of pain was coming on.
It must not find her there. She rose from her chair.

“I am going home now. I only came for the dinner. It was very good,
Aunt Alberta, although your salad-dressing is not salt enough and a
dash of cayenne would improve it.”

None of the flabbergasted silver wedding guests could think of anything
to say until the lawn gate clanged behind Valancy in the dusk. Then—

“She’s feverish—I’ve said right along she was feverish,” moaned Cousin
Stickles.

Uncle Benjamin punished his pudgy left hand fiercely with his pudgy
right.

“She’s dippy—I tell you she’s gone dippy,” he snorted angrily. “That’s
all there is about it. Clean dippy.”

“Oh, Benjamin,” said Cousin Georgiana soothingly, “don’t condemn her
too rashly. We _must_ remember what dear old Shakespeare says—that
charity thinketh no evil.”

“Charity! Poppy-cock!” snorted Uncle Benjamin. “I never heard a young
woman talk such stuff in my life as she just did. Talking about things
she ought to be ashamed to think of, much less mention. Blaspheming!
Insulting _us_! What she wants is a generous dose of spank-weed and I’d
like to be the one to administer it. H-uh-h-h-h!” Uncle Benjamin gulped
down the half of a scalding cup of coffee.

“Do you suppose that the mumps could work on a person that way?” wailed
Cousin Stickles.

“I opened an umbrella in the house yesterday,” sniffed Cousin
Georgiana. “I _knew_ it betokened some misfortune.”

“Have you tried to find out if she has a temperature?” asked Cousin
Mildred.

“She wouldn’t let Amelia put the thermometer under her tongue,”
whimpered Cousin Stickles.

Mrs. Frederick was openly in tears. All her defences were down.

“I must tell you,” she sobbed, “that Valancy has been acting very
strangely for over two weeks now. She hasn’t been a bit like
herself—Christine could tell you. I have hoped against hope that it was
only one of her colds coming on. But it is—it must be something worse.”

“This is bringing on my neuritis again,” said Cousin Gladys, putting
her hand to her head.

“Don’t cry, Amelia,” said Herbert kindly, pulling nervously at his
spiky grey hair. He hated “family ructions.” Very inconsiderate of Doss
to start one at _his_ silver wedding. Who could have supposed she had
it in her? “You’ll have to take her to a doctor. This may be only
a—er—a brainstorm. There are such things as brainstorms nowadays,
aren’t there?”

“I—I suggested consulting a doctor to her yesterday,” moaned Mrs.
Frederick. “And she said she wouldn’t go to a doctor—wouldn’t. Oh,
surely I have had trouble enough!”

“And she _won’t_ take Redfern’s Bitters,” said Cousin Stickles.

“Or _anything_,” said Mrs. Frederick.

“And she’s determined to go to the Presbyterian church,” said Cousin
Stickles—repressing, however, to her credit be it said, the story of
the bannister.

“That proves she’s dippy,” growled Uncle Benjamin. “I noticed something
strange about her the minute she came in today. I noticed it _before_
today.” (Uncle Benjamin was thinking of “m-i-r-a-z-h.”) “Everything she
said today showed an unbalanced mind. That question—‘Was it a vital
part?’ Was there any sense at all in that remark? None whatever! There
never was anything like that in the Stirlings. It must be from the
Wansbarras.”

Poor Mrs. Frederick was too crushed to be indignant.

“I never heard of anything like that in the Wansbarras,” she sobbed.

“Your father was odd enough,” said Uncle Benjamin.

“Poor Pa was—peculiar,” admitted Mrs. Frederick tearfully, “but his
mind was never affected.”

“He talked all his life exactly as Valancy did today,” retorted Uncle
Benjamin. “And he believed he was his own great-great grandfather born
over again. I’ve heard him say it. Don’t tell _me_ that a man who
believed a thing like _that_ was ever in his right senses. Come, come,
Amelia, stop sniffling. Of course Doss has made a terrible exhibition
of herself today, but she’s not responsible. Old maids are apt to fly
off at a tangent like that. If she had been married when she should
have been she wouldn’t have got like this.”

“Nobody wanted to marry her,” said Mrs. Frederick, who felt that,
somehow, Uncle Benjamin was blaming her.

“Well, fortunately there’s no outsider here,” snapped Uncle Benjamin.
“We may keep it in the family yet. I’ll take her over to see Dr. Marsh
tomorrow. _I_ know how to deal with pig-headed people. Won’t that be
best, James?”

“We must have medical advice certainly,” agreed Uncle James.

“Well, that’s settled. In the meantime, Amelia, act as if nothing had
happened and keep an eye on her. Don’t let her be alone. Above all,
don’t let her sleep alone.”

Renewed whimpers from Mrs. Frederick.

“I can’t help it. Night before last I suggested she’d better have
Christine sleep with her. She positively refused—_and locked her door_.
Oh, you don’t know how she’s changed. She won’t work. At least, she
won’t sew. She does her usual housework, of course. But she wouldn’t
sweep the parlour yesterday morning, though we _always_ sweep it on
Thursdays. She said she’d wait till it was dirty. ‘Would you rather
sweep a dirty room than a clean one?’ I asked her. She said, ‘Of
course. I’d see something for my labour then.’ Think of it!”

Uncle Benjamin thought of it.

“The jar of potpourri”—Cousin Stickles pronounced it as spelled—“has
disappeared from her room. I found the pieces in the next lot. She
won’t tell us what happened to it.”

“I should never have dreamed it of Doss,” said Uncle Herbert. “She has
always seemed such a quiet, sensible girl. A bit backward—but
sensible.”

“The only thing you can be sure of in this world is the multiplication
table,” said Uncle James, feeling cleverer than ever.

“Well, let’s cheer up,” suggested Uncle Benjamin. “Why are chorus girls
like fine stock raisers?”

“Why?” asked Cousin Stickles, since it had to be asked and Valancy
wasn’t there to ask it.

“Like to exhibit calves,” chuckled Uncle Benjamin.

Cousin Stickles thought Uncle Benjamin a little indelicate. Before
Olive, too. But then, he was a man.

Uncle Herbert was thinking that things were rather dull now that Doss
had gone.




CHAPTER XII


Valancy hurried home through the faint blue twilight—hurried too fast
perhaps. The attack she had when she thankfully reached the shelter of
her own room was the worst yet. It was really very bad. She might die
in one of those spells. It would be dreadful to die in such pain.
Perhaps—perhaps this was death. Valancy felt pitifully alone. When she
could think at all she wondered what it would be like to have some one
with her who could sympathise—some one who really cared—just to hold
her hand tight, if nothing else—some one just to say, “Yes, I know.
It’s dreadful—be brave—you’ll soon be better;” not some one merely
fussy and alarmed. Not her mother or Cousin Stickles. Why did the
thought of Barney Snaith come into her mind? Why did she suddenly feel,
in the midst of this hideous loneliness of pain, that _he_ would be
sympathetic—sorry for any one that was suffering? Why did he seem to
her like an old, well-known friend? Was it because she had been
defending him—standing up to her family for him?

She was so bad at first that she could not even get herself a dose of
Dr. Trent’s prescription. But eventually she managed it, and soon after
relief came. The pain left her and she lay on her bed, spent,
exhausted, in a cold perspiration. Oh, that had been horrible! She
could not endure many more attacks like that. One didn’t mind dying if
death could be instant and painless. But to be hurt so in dying!

Suddenly she found herself laughing. That dinner _had_ been fun. And it
had all been so simple. She had merely _said_ the things she had always
_thought_. Their faces—oh, their faces! Uncle Benjamin—poor,
flabbergasted Uncle Benjamin! Valancy felt quite sure he would make a
new will that very night. Olive would get Valancy’s share of his fat
hoard. Olive had always got Valancy’s share of everything. Remember the
dust-pile.

To laugh at her clan as she had always wanted to laugh was all the
satisfaction she could get out of life now. But she thought it was
rather pitiful that it should be so. Might she not pity herself a
little when nobody else did?

Valancy got up and went to her window. The moist, beautiful wind
blowing across groves of young-leafed wild trees touched her face with
the caress of a wise, tender, old friend. The lombardies in Mrs.
Tredgold’s lawn, off to the left—Valancy could just see them between
the stable and the old carriage-shop—were in dark purple silhouette
against a clear sky and there was a milk-white, pulsating star just
over one of them, like a living pearl on a silver-green lake. Far
beyond the station were the shadowy, purple-hooded woods around Lake
Mistawis. A white, filmy mist hung over them and just above it was a
faint, young crescent. Valancy looked at it over her thin left
shoulder.

“I wish,” she said whimsically, “that I may have _one_ little dust-pile
before I die.”




CHAPTER XIII


Uncle Benjamin found he had reckoned without his host when he promised
so airily to take Valancy to a doctor. Valancy would not go. Valancy
laughed in his face.

“Why on earth should I go to Dr. Marsh? There’s nothing the matter with
my mind. Though you all think I’ve suddenly gone crazy. Well, I
haven’t. I’ve simply grown tired of living to please other people and
have decided to please myself. It will give you something to talk about
besides my stealing the raspberry jam. So that’s that.”

“Doss,” said Uncle Benjamin, solemnly and helplessly, “you are not—like
yourself.”

“Who am I like, then?” asked Valancy.

Uncle Benjamin was rather posed.

“Your Grandfather Wansbarra,” he answered desperately.

“Thanks.” Valancy looked pleased. “That’s a real compliment. I remember
Grandfather Wansbarra. He was one of the few human beings I _have_
known—almost the only one. Now, it is of no use to scold or entreat or
command, Uncle Benjamin—or exchange anguished glances with Mother and
Cousin Stickles. I am not going to any doctor. And if you bring any
doctor here I won’t see him. So what are you going to do about it?”

What indeed! It was not seemly—or even possible—to hale Valancy
doctorwards by physical force. And in no other way could it be done,
seemingly. Her mother’s tears and imploring entreaties availed not.

“Don’t worry, Mother,” said Valancy, lightly but quite respectfully.
“It isn’t likely I’ll do anything very terrible. But I mean to have a
little fun.”

“Fun!” Mrs. Frederick uttered the word as if Valancy had said she was
going to have a little tuberculosis.

Olive, sent by her mother to see if _she_ had any influence over
Valancy, came away with flushed cheeks and angry eyes. She told her
mother that nothing could be done with Valancy. After _she_, Olive, had
talked to her just like a sister, tenderly and wisely, all Valancy had
said, narrowing her funny eyes to mere slits, was, “_I_ don’t show my
gums when I laugh.”

“More as if she were talking to herself than to me. Indeed, Mother, all
the time I was talking to her she gave me the impression of not really
listening. And that wasn’t all. When I finally decided that what I was
saying had no influence over her I begged her, when Cecil came next
week, not to say anything queer before him, at least. Mother, what do
you think she said?”

“I’m sure I can’t imagine,” groaned Aunt Wellington, prepared for
anything.

“She said, ‘I’d rather like to shock Cecil. His mouth is too red for a
man’s.’ Mother, I can never feel the same to Valancy again.”

“Her mind is affected, Olive,” said Aunt Wellington solemnly. “You must
not hold her responsible for what she says.”

When Aunt Wellington told Mrs. Frederick what Valancy had said to
Olive, Mrs. Frederick wanted Valancy to apologise.

“You made me apologise to Olive fifteen years ago for something I
didn’t do,” said Valancy. “That old apology will do for now.”

Another solemn family conclave was held. They were all there except
Cousin Gladys, who had been suffering such tortures of neuritis in her
head “ever since poor Doss went queer” that she couldn’t undertake any
responsibility. They decided—that is, they accepted a fact that was
thrust in their faces—that the wisest thing was to leave Valancy alone
for a while—“give her her head” as Uncle Benjamin expressed it—“keep a
careful eye on her but let her pretty much alone.” The term of
“watchful waiting” had not been invented then, but that was practically
the policy Valancy’s distracted relatives decided to follow.

“We must be guided by developments,” said Uncle Benjamin. “It
is”—solemnly—“easier to scramble eggs than unscramble them. Of
course—if she becomes violent——”

Uncle James consulted Dr. Ambrose Marsh. Dr. Ambrose Marsh approved
their decision. He pointed out to irate Uncle James—who would have
liked to lock Valancy up somewhere, out of hand—that Valancy had not,
as yet, really done or said anything that could be construed as proof
of lunacy—and without proof you cannot lock people up in this
degenerate age. Nothing that Uncle James had reported seemed very
alarming to Dr. Marsh, who put up his hand to conceal a smile several
times. But then he himself was not a Stirling. And he knew very little
about the old Valancy. Uncle James stalked out and drove back to
Deerwood, thinking that Ambrose Marsh wasn’t much of a doctor, after
all, and that Adelaide Stirling might have done better for herself.




CHAPTER XIV


Life cannot stop because tragedy enters it. Meals must be made ready
though a son dies and porches must be repaired even if your only
daughter is going out of her mind. Mrs. Frederick, in her systematic
way, had long ago appointed the second week in June for the repairing
of the front porch, the roof of which was sagging dangerously. Roaring
Abel had been engaged to do it many moons before and Roaring Abel
promptly appeared on the morning of the first day of the second week,
and fell to work. Of course he was drunk. Roaring Abel was never
anything but drunk. But he was only in the first stage, which made him
talkative and genial. The odour of whisky on his breath nearly drove
Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles wild at dinner. Even Valancy, with
all her emancipation, did not like it. But she liked Abel and she liked
his vivid, eloquent talk, and after she washed the dinner dishes she
went out and sat on the steps and talked to him.

Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles thought it a terrible proceeding,
but what could they do? Valancy only smiled mockingly at them when they
called her in, and did not go. It was so easy to defy once you got
started. The first step was the only one that really counted. They were
both afraid to say anything more to her lest she might make a scene
before Roaring Abel, who would spread it all over the country with his
own characteristic comments and exaggerations. It was too cold a day,
in spite of the June sunshine, for Mrs. Frederick to sit at the
dining-room window and listen to what was said. She had to shut the
window and Valancy and Roaring Abel had their talk to themselves. But
if Mrs. Frederick had known what the outcome of that talk was to be she
would have prevented it, if the porch was never repaired.

Valancy sat on the steps, defiant of the chill breeze of this cold June
which had made Aunt Isabel aver the seasons were changing. She did not
care whether she caught a cold or not. It was delightful to sit there
in that cold, beautiful, fragrant world and feel free. She filled her
lungs with the clean, lovely wind and held out her arms to it and let
it tear her hair to pieces while she listened to Roaring Abel, who told
her his troubles between intervals of hammering gaily in time to his
Scotch songs. Valancy liked to hear him. Every stroke of his hammer
fell true to the note.

Old Abel Gay, in spite of his seventy years, was handsome still, in a
stately, patriarchal manner. His tremendous beard, falling down over
his blue flannel shirt, was still a flaming, untouched red, though his
shock of hair was white as snow, and his eyes were a fiery, youthful
blue. His enormous, reddish-white eyebrows were more like moustaches
than eyebrows. Perhaps this was why he always kept his upper lip
scrupulously shaved. His cheeks were red and his nose ought to have
been, but wasn’t. It was a fine, upstanding, aquiline nose, such as the
noblest Roman of them all might have rejoiced in. Abel was six feet two
in his stockings, broad-shouldered, lean-hipped. In his youth he had
been a famous lover, finding all women too charming to bind himself to
one. His years had been a wild, colourful panorama of follies and
adventures, gallantries, fortunes and misfortunes. He had been
forty-five before he married—a pretty slip of a girl whom his goings-on
killed in a few years. Abel was piously drunk at her funeral and
insisted on repeating the fifty-fifth chapter of Isaiah—Abel knew most
of the Bible and all the Psalms by heart—while the minister, whom he
disliked, prayed or tried to pray. Thereafter his house was run by an
untidy old cousin who cooked his meals and kept things going after a
fashion. In this unpromising environment little Cecilia Gay had grown
up.

Valancy had known “Cissy Gay” fairly well in the democracy of the
public school, though Cissy had been three years younger than she.
After they left school their paths diverged and she had seen nothing of
her. Old Abel was a Presbyterian. That is, he got a Presbyterian
preacher to marry him, baptise his child and bury his wife; and he knew
more about Presbyterian theology than most ministers, which made him a
terror to them in arguments. But Roaring Abel never went to church.
Every Presbyterian minister who had been in Deerwood had tried his
hand—once—at reforming Roaring Abel. But he had not been pestered of
late. Rev. Mr. Bently had been in Deerwood for eight years, but he had
not sought out Roaring Abel since the first three months of his
pastorate. He had called on Roaring Abel then and found him in the
theological stage of drunkenness—which always followed the sentimental
maudlin one, and preceded the roaring, blasphemous one. The eloquently
prayerful one, in which he realised himself temporarily and intensely
as a sinner in the hands of an angry God, was the final one. Abel never
went beyond it. He generally fell asleep on his knees and awakened
sober, but he had never been “dead drunk” in his life. He told Mr.
Bently that he was a sound Presbyterian and sure of his election. He
had no sins—that he knew of—to repent of.

“Have you never done anything in your life that you are sorry for?”
asked Mr. Bently.

Roaring Abel scratched his bushy white head and pretended to reflect.

“Well, yes,” he said finally. “There were some women I might have
kissed and didn’t. I’ve always been sorry for _that_.”

Mr. Bently went out and went home.

Abel had seen that Cissy was properly baptised—jovially drunk at the
same time himself. He made her go to church and Sunday School
regularly. The church people took her up and she was in turn a member
of the Mission Band, the Girls’ Guild and the Young Women’s Missionary
Society. She was a faithful, unobtrusive, sincere, little worker.
Everybody liked Cissy Gay and was sorry for her. She was so modest and
sensitive and pretty in that delicate, elusive fashion of beauty which
fades so quickly if life is not kept in it by love and tenderness. But
then liking and pity did not prevent them from tearing her in pieces
like hungry cats when the catastrophe came. Four years previously Cissy
Gay had gone up to a Muskoka hotel as a summer waitress. And when she
had come back in the fall she was a changed creature. She hid herself
away and went nowhere. The reason soon leaked out and scandal raged.
That winter Cissy’s baby was born. Nobody ever knew who the father was.
Cecily kept her poor pale lips tightly locked on her sorry secret.
Nobody dared ask Roaring Abel any questions about it. Rumour and
surmise laid the guilt at Barney Snaith’s door because diligent inquiry
among the other maids at the hotel revealed the fact that nobody there
had ever seen Cissy Gay “with a fellow.” She had “kept herself to
herself” they said, rather resentfully. “Too good for _our_ dances. And
now look!”

The baby had lived for a year. After its death Cissy faded away. Two
years ago Dr. Marsh had given her only six months to live—her lungs
were hopelessly diseased. But she was still alive. Nobody went to see
her. Women would not go to Roaring Abel’s house. Mr. Bently had gone
once, when he knew Abel was away, but the dreadful old creature who was
scrubbing the kitchen floor told him Cissy wouldn’t see any one. The
old cousin had died and Roaring Abel had had two or three disreputable
housekeepers—the only kind who could be prevailed on to go to a house
where a girl was dying of consumption. But the last one had left and
Roaring Abel had now no one to wait on Cissy and “do” for him. This was
the burden of his plaint to Valancy and he condemned the “hypocrites”
of Deerwood and its surrounding communities with some rich, meaty oaths
that happened to reach Cousin Stickles’ ears as she passed through the
hall and nearly finished the poor lady. Was Valancy listening to
_that_?

Valancy hardly noticed the profanity. Her attention was focussed on the
horrible thought of poor, unhappy, disgraced little Cissy Gay, ill and
helpless in that forlorn old house out on the Mistawis road, without a
soul to help or comfort her. And this in a nominally Christian
community in the year of grace nineteen and some odd!

“Do you mean to say that Cissy is all alone there now, with nobody to
do anything for her—_nobody_?”

“Oh, she can move about a bit and get a bite and sup when she wants it.
But she can’t work. It’s d——d hard for a man to work hard all day and
go home at night tired and hungry and cook his own meals. Sometimes I’m
sorry I kicked old Rachel Edwards out.” Abel described Rachel
picturesquely.

“Her face looked as if it had wore out a hundred bodies. And she moped.
Talk about temper! Temper’s nothing to moping. She was too slow to
catch worms, and dirty—d——d dirty. I ain’t unreasonable—I know a man
has to eat his peck before he dies—but she went over the limit. What
d’ye sp’ose I saw that lady do? She’d made some punkin jam—had it on
the table in glass jars with the tops off. The dawg got up on the table
and stuck his paw into one of them. What did she do? She jest took holt
of the dawg and wrung the syrup off his paw back into the jar! Then
screwed the top on and set it in the pantry. I sets open the door and
says to her, ‘Go!’ The dame went, and I fired the jars of punkin after
her, two at a time. Thought I’d die laughing to see old Rachel run—with
them punkin jars raining after her. She’s told everywhere I’m crazy, so
nobody’ll come for love or money.”

“But Cissy _must_ have some one to look after her,” insisted Valancy,
whose mind was centred on this aspect of the case. She did not care
whether Roaring Abel had any one to cook for him or not. But her heart
was wrung for Cecilia Gay.

“Oh, she gits on. Barney Snaith always drops in when he’s passing and
does anything she wants done. Brings her oranges and flowers and
things. There’s a Christian for you. Yet that sanctimonious, snivelling
parcel of St. Andrew’s people wouldn’t be seen on the same side of the
road with him. Their dogs’ll go to heaven before they do. And their
minister—slick as if the cat had licked him!”

“There are plenty of good people, both in St. Andrew’s and St.
George’s, who would be kind to Cissy if _you_ would behave yourself,”
said Valancy severely. “They’re afraid to go near your place.”

“Because I’m such a sad old dog? But I don’t bite—never bit any one in
my life. A few loose words spilled around don’t hurt any one. And I’m
not asking people to come. Don’t want ’em poking and prying about. What
I want is a housekeeper. If I shaved every Sunday and went to church
I’d get all the housekeepers I’d want. I’d be respectable then. But
what’s the use of going to church when it’s all settled by
predestination? Tell me that, Miss.”

“Is it?” said Valancy.

“Yes. Can’t git around it nohow. Wish I could. I don’t want either
heaven or hell for steady. Wish a man could have ’em mixed in equal
proportions.”

“Isn’t that the way it is in this world?” said Valancy
thoughtfully—but rather as if her thought was concerned with something
else than theology.

“No, no,” boomed Abel, striking a tremendous blow on a stubborn nail.
“There’s too much hell here—entirely too much hell. That’s why I get
drunk so often. It sets you free for a little while—free from
yourself—yes, by God, free from predestination. Ever try it?”

“No, I’ve another way of getting free,” said Valancy absently. “But
about Cissy now. She _must_ have some one to look after her——”

“What are you harping on Sis for? Seems to me you ain’t bothered much
about her up to now. You never even come to see her. And she used to
like you so well.”

“I should have,” said Valancy. “But never mind. You couldn’t
understand. The point is—you must have a housekeeper.”

“Where am I to get one? I can pay decent wages if I could get a decent
woman. D’ye think I like old hags?”

“Will I do?” said Valancy.




CHAPTER XV


“Let us be calm,” said Uncle Benjamin. “Let us be perfectly calm.”

“Calm!” Mrs. Frederick wrung her hands. “How can I be calm—how could
anybody be calm under such a disgrace as this?”

“Why in the world did you let her go?” asked Uncle James.

“_Let_ her! How could I stop her, James? It seems she packed the big
valise and sent it away with Roaring Abel when he went home after
supper, while Christine and I were out in the kitchen. Then Doss
herself came down with her little satchel, dressed in her green serge
suit. I felt a terrible premonition. I can’t tell you how it was, but I
seemed to _know_ that Doss was going to do something dreadful.”

“It’s a pity you couldn’t have had your premonition a little sooner,”
said Uncle Benjamin drily.

“I said, ‘Doss, _where are you going_?’ and _she_ said, ‘I am going to
look for my Blue Castle.’”

“Wouldn’t you think _that_ would convince Marsh that her mind is
affected?” interjected Uncle James.

“And _I_ said, ‘Valancy, what _do_ you mean?’ And _she_ said, ‘I am
going to keep house for Roaring Abel and nurse Cissy. He will pay me
thirty dollars a month.’ I wonder I didn’t drop dead on the spot.”

“You shouldn’t have let her go—you shouldn’t have let her out of the
house,” said Uncle James. “You should have locked the door—anything——”

“She was between me and the front door. And you can’t realise how
determined she was. She was like a rock. That’s the strangest thing of
all about her. She used to be so good and obedient, and now she’s
neither to hold nor bind. But I said _everything_ I could think of to
bring her to her senses. I asked her if she had no regard for her
reputation. I said to her solemnly, ‘Doss, when a woman’s reputation is
once smirched nothing can ever make it spotless again. Your character
will be gone for ever if you go to Roaring Abel’s to wait on a bad girl
like Sis Gay.’ And she said, ‘I don’t believe Cissy was a bad girl, but
I don’t care if she was.’ Those were her very words, ‘I don’t care if
she was.’”

“She has lost all sense of decency,” exploded Uncle Benjamin.

“‘Cissy Gay is dying,’ she said, ‘and it’s a shame and disgrace that
she is dying in a Christian community with no one to do anything for
her. Whatever she’s been or done, she’s a human being.’”

“Well, you know, when it comes to that, I suppose she is,” said Uncle
James with the air of one making a splendid concession.

“I asked Doss if she had no regard for appearances. She said, ‘I’ve
been keeping up appearances all my life. Now I’m going in for
realities. Appearances can go hang!’ _Go hang!_”

“An outrageous thing!” said Uncle Benjamin violently. “An outrageous
thing!”

Which relieved his feelings, but didn’t help any one else.

Mrs. Frederick wept. Cousin Stickles took up the refrain between her
moans of despair.

“I told her—we _both_ told her—that Roaring Abel had certainly killed
his wife in one of his drunken rages and would kill her. She laughed
and said, ‘I’m not afraid of Roaring Abel. He won’t kill _me_, and he’s
too old for me to be afraid of his gallantries.’ What did she mean?
What _are_ gallantries?”

Mrs. Frederick saw that she must stop crying if she wanted to regain
control of the conversation.

“_I_ said to her, ‘Valancy, if you have no regard for your own
reputation and your family’s standing, have you none for _my_
feelings?’ She said, ‘None.’ Just like that, _‘None!’_”

“Insane people never _do_ have any regard for other people’s feelings,”
said Uncle Benjamin. “That’s one of the symptoms.”

“I broke out into tears then, and she said, ‘Come now, Mother, be a
good sport. I’m going to do an act of Christian charity, and as for the
damage it will do my reputation, why, you know I haven’t any
matrimonial chances anyhow, so what does it matter?’ And with that she
turned and went out.”

“The last words I said to her,” said Cousin Stickles pathetically,
“were, ‘Who will rub my back at nights now?’ And she said—she said—but
no, I cannot repeat it.”

“Nonsense,” said Uncle Benjamin. “Out with it. This is no time to be
squeamish.”

“She said”—Cousin Stickles’ voice was little more than a whisper—“she
said—_‘Oh, darn!’_”

“To think I should have lived to hear my daughter swearing!” sobbed
Mrs. Frederick.

“It—it was only imitation swearing,” faltered Cousin Stickles, desirous
of smoothing things over now that the worst was out. But she had
_never_ told about the bannister.

“It will be only a step from that to real swearing,” said Uncle James
sternly.

“The worst of this”—Mrs. Frederick hunted for a dry spot on her
handkerchief—“is that every one will know now that she is deranged. We
can’t keep it a secret any longer. Oh, I cannot bear it!”

“You should have been stricter with her when she was young,” said Uncle
Benjamin.

“I don’t see how I could have been,” said Mrs. Frederick—truthfully
enough.

“The worst feature of the case is that that Snaith scoundrel is always
hanging around Roaring Abel’s,” said Uncle James. “I shall be thankful
if nothing worse comes of this mad freak than a few weeks at Roaring
Abel’s. Cissy Gay _can’t_ live much longer.”

“And she didn’t even take her flannel petticoat!” lamented Cousin
Stickles.

“I’ll see Ambrose Marsh again about this,” said Uncle Benjamin—meaning
Valancy, not the flannel petticoat.

“I’ll see Lawyer Ferguson,” said Uncle James.

“Meanwhile,” added Uncle Benjamin, “let us be calm.”




CHAPTER XVI


Valancy had walked out to Roaring Abel’s house on the Mistawis road
under a sky of purple and amber, with a queer exhilaration and
expectancy in her heart. Back there, behind her, her mother and Cousin
Stickles were crying—over themselves, not over her. But here the wind
was in her face, soft, dew-wet, cool, blowing along the grassy roads.
Oh, she loved the wind! The robins were whistling sleepily in the firs
along the way and the moist air was fragrant with the tang of balsam.
Big cars went purring past in the violet dusk—the stream of summer
tourists to Muskoka had already begun—but Valancy did not envy any of
their occupants. Muskoka cottages might be charming, but beyond, in the
sunset skies, among the spires of the firs, her Blue Castle towered.
She brushed the old years and habits and inhibitions away from her like
dead leaves. She would _not_ be littered with them.

Roaring Abel’s rambling, tumble-down old house was situated about three
miles from the village, on the very edge of “up back,” as the sparsely
settled, hilly, wooded country around Mistawis was called vernacularly.
It did not, it must be confessed, look much like a Blue Castle.

It had once been a snug place enough in the days when Abel Gay had been
young and prosperous, and the punning, arched sign over the gate—“A.
Gay, Carpenter,” had been fine and freshly painted. Now it was a faded,
dreary old place, with a leprous, patched roof and shutters hanging
askew. Abel never seemed to do any carpenter jobs about his own house.
It had a listless air, as if tired of life. There was a dwindling grove
of ragged, crone-like old spruces behind it. The garden, which Cissy
used to keep neat and pretty, had run wild. On two sides of the house
were fields full of nothing but mulleins. Behind the house was a long
stretch of useless barrens, full of scrub pines and spruces, with here
and there a blossoming bit of wild cherry, running back to a belt of
timber on the shores of Lake Mistawis, two miles away. A rough, rocky,
boulder-strewn lane ran through it to the woods—a lane white with
pestiferous, beautiful daisies.

Roaring Abel met Valancy at the door.

“So you’ve come,” he said incredulously. “I never s’posed that ruck of
Stirlings would let you.”

Valancy showed all her pointed teeth in a grin.

“They couldn’t stop me.”

“I didn’t think you’d so much spunk,” said Roaring Abel admiringly.
“And look at the nice ankles of her,” he added, as he stepped aside to
let her in.

If Cousin Stickles had heard this she would have been certain that
Valancy’s doom, earthly and unearthly, was sealed. But Abel’s
superannuated gallantry did not worry Valancy. Besides, this was the
first compliment she had ever received in her life and she found
herself liking it. She sometimes suspected she had nice ankles, but
nobody had ever mentioned it before. In the Stirling clan ankles were
among the unmentionables.

Roaring Abel took her into the kitchen, where Cissy Gay was lying on
the sofa, breathing quickly, with little scarlet spots on her hollow
cheeks. Valancy had not seen Cecilia Gay for years. Then she had been
such a pretty creature, a slight, blossom-like girl, with soft, golden
hair, clear-cut, almost waxen features, and large, beautiful blue eyes.
She was shocked at the change in her. Could this be sweet Cissy—this
pitiful little thing that looked like a tired, broken flower? She had
wept all the beauty out of her eyes; they looked too big—enormous—in
her wasted face. The last time Valancy had seen Cecilia Gay those
faded, piteous eyes had been limpid, shadowy blue pools aglow with
mirth. The contrast was so terrible that Valancy’s own eyes filled with
tears. She knelt down by Cissy and put her arms about her.

“Cissy dear, I’ve come to look after you. I’ll stay with you
till—till—as long as you want me.”

“Oh!” Cissy put her thin arms about Valancy’s neck. “Oh—_will_ you?
It’s been so—lonely. I can wait on myself—but it’s been so _lonely_.
It—would just be like—heaven—to have some one here—like you. You were
always—so sweet to me—long ago.”

Valancy held Cissy close. She was suddenly happy. Here was some one who
needed her—some one she could help. She was no longer a superfluity.
Old things had passed away; everything had become new.

“Most things are predestinated, but some are just darn sheer luck,”
said Roaring Abel, complacently smoking his pipe in the corner.




CHAPTER XVII


When Valancy had lived for a week at Roaring Abel’s she felt as if
years had separated her from her old life and all the people she had
known in it. They were beginning to seem remote—dream-like—far-away—and
as the days went on they seemed still more so, until they ceased to
matter altogether.

She was happy. Nobody ever bothered her with conundrums or insisted on
giving her Purple Pills. Nobody called her Doss or worried her about
catching cold. There were no quilts to piece, no abominable
rubber-plant to water, no ice-cold maternal tantrums to endure. She
could be alone whenever she liked, go to bed when she liked, sneeze
when she liked. In the long, wondrous, northern twilights, when Cissy
was asleep and Roaring Abel away, she could sit for hours on the shaky
back verandah steps, looking out over the barrens to the hills beyond,
covered with their fine, purple bloom, listening to the friendly wind
singing wild, sweet melodies in the little spruces, and drinking in the
aroma of the sunned grasses, until darkness flowed over the landscape
like a cool, welcome wave.

Sometimes of an afternoon, when Cissy was strong enough, the two girls
went into the barrens and looked at the wood-flowers. But they did not
pick any. Valancy had read to Cissy the gospel thereof according to
John Foster: “It is a pity to gather wood-flowers. They lose half their
witchery away from the green and the flicker. The way to enjoy
wood-flowers is to track them down to their remote haunts—gloat over
them—and then leave them with backward glances, taking with us only the
beguiling memory of their grace and fragrance.”

Valancy was in the midst of realities after a lifetime of unrealities.
And busy—very busy. The house had to be cleaned. Not for nothing had
Valancy been brought up in the Stirling habits of neatness and
cleanliness. If she found satisfaction in cleaning dirty rooms she got
her fill of it there. Roaring Abel thought she was foolish to bother
doing so much more than she was asked to do, but he did not interfere
with her. He was very well satisfied with his bargain. Valancy was a
good cook. Abel said she got a flavour into things. The only fault he
found with her was that she did not sing at her work.

“Folks should always sing at their work,” he insisted. “Sounds
cheerful-like.”

“Not always,” retorted Valancy. “Fancy a butcher singing at his work.
Or an undertaker.”

Abel burst into his great broad laugh.

“There’s no getting the better of you. You’ve got an answer every time.
I should think the Stirlings would be glad to be rid of you. _They_
don’t like being sassed back.”

During the day Abel was generally away from home—if not working, then
shooting or fishing with Barney Snaith. He generally came home at
nights—always very late and often very drunk. The first night they
heard him come howling into the yard, Cissy had told Valancy not to be
afraid.

“Father never does anything—he just makes a noise.”

Valancy, lying on the sofa in Cissy’s room, where she had elected to
sleep, lest Cissy should need attention in the night—Cissy would never
have called her—was not at all afraid, and said so. By the time Abel
had got his horses put away, the roaring stage had passed and he was in
his room at the end of the hall crying and praying. Valancy could still
hear his dismal moans when she went calmly to sleep. For the most part,
Abel was a good-natured creature, but occasionally he had a temper.
Once Valancy asked him coolly:

“What is the use of getting in a rage?”

“It’s such a d——d relief,” said Abel.

They both burst out laughing together.

“You’re a great little sport,” said Abel admiringly. “Don’t mind my bad
French. I don’t mean a thing by it. Jest habit. Say, I like a woman
that ain’t afraid to speak up to me. Sis there was always too meek—too
meek. That’s why she got adrift. I like you.”

“All the same,” said Valancy determinedly, “there is no use in sending
things to hell as you’re always doing. And I’m _not_ going to have you
tracking mud all over a floor I’ve just scrubbed. You _must_ use the
scraper whether you consign it to perdition or not.”

Cissy loved the cleanness and neatness. She had kept it so, too, until
her strength failed. She was very pitifully happy because she had
Valancy with her. It had been so terrible—the long, lonely days and
nights with no companionship save those dreadful old women who came to
work. Cissy had hated and feared them. She clung to Valancy like a
child.

There was no doubt that Cissy was dying. Yet at no time did she seem
alarmingly ill. She did not even cough a great deal. Most days she was
able to get up and dress—sometimes even to work about in the garden or
the barrens for an hour or two. For a few weeks after Valancy’s coming
she seemed so much better that Valancy began to hope she might get
well. But Cissy shook her head.

“No, I can’t get well. My lungs are almost gone. And I—don’t want to.
I’m so tired, Valancy. Only dying can rest me. But it’s lovely to have
you here—you’ll never know how much it means to me. But Valancy—you
work too hard. You don’t need to—Father only wants his meals cooked. I
don’t think you are strong yourself. You turn so pale sometimes. And
those drops you take. _Are_ you well, dear?”

“I’m all right,” said Valancy lightly. She would not have Cissy
worried. “And I’m not working hard. I’m glad to have some work to
do—something that really wants to be done.”

“Then”—Cissy slipped her hand wistfully into Valancy’s—“don’t let’s
talk any more about my being sick. Let’s just forget it. Let’s pretend
I’m a little girl again—and you have come here to play with me. I used
to wish that long ago—wish that you could come. I knew you couldn’t, of
course. But how I did wish it! You always seemed so different from the
other girls—so kind and sweet—and as if you had something in yourself
nobody knew about—some dear, pretty secret. _Had_ you, Valancy?”

“I had my Blue Castle,” said Valancy, laughing a little. She was
pleased that Cissy had thought of her like this. She had never
suspected that anybody liked or admired or wondered about her. She told
Cissy all about her Blue Castle. She had never told any one about it
before.

“Every one has a Blue Castle, I think,” said Cissy softly. “Only every
one has a different name for it. _I_ had mine—once.”

She put her two thin little hands over her face. She did not tell
Valancy—then—who had destroyed her Blue Castle. But Valancy knew that,
whoever it was, it was not Barney Snaith.




CHAPTER XVIII


Valancy was acquainted with Barney by now—well acquainted, it seemed,
though she had spoken to him only a few times. But then she had felt
just as well acquainted with him the first time they had met. She had
been in the garden at twilight, hunting for a few stalks of white
narcissus for Cissy’s room when she heard that terrible old Grey
Slosson coming down through the woods from Mistawis—one could hear it
miles away. Valancy did not look up as it drew near, thumping over the
rocks in that crazy lane. She had never looked up, though Barney had
gone racketting past every evening since she had been at Roaring
Abel’s. This time he did not racket past. The old Grey Slosson stopped
with even more terrible noises than it made going. Valancy was
conscious that Barney had sprung from it and was leaning over the
ramshackle gate. She suddenly straightened up and looked into his face.
Their eyes met—Valancy was suddenly conscious of a delicious weakness.
Was one of her heart attacks coming on?—But this was a new symptom.

His eyes, which she had always thought brown, now seen close, were deep
violet—translucent and intense. Neither of his eyebrows looked like the
other. He was thin—too thin—she wished she could feed him up a bit—she
wished she could sew the buttons on his coat—and make him cut his
hair—and shave every day. There was _something_ in his face—one hardly
knew what it was. Tiredness? Sadness? Disillusionment? He had dimples
in his thin cheeks when he smiled. All these thoughts flashed through
Valancy’s mind in that one moment while his eyes looked into hers.

“Good-evening, Miss Stirling.”

Nothing could be more commonplace and conventional. Any one might have
said it. But Barney Snaith had a way of saying things that gave them
poignancy. When he said good-evening you felt that it _was_ a good
evening and that it was partly his doing that it was. Also, you felt
that some of the credit was yours. Valancy felt all this vaguely, but
she couldn’t imagine why she was trembling from head to foot—it _must_
be her heart. If only he didn’t notice it!

“I’m going over to the Port,” Barney was saying. “Can I acquire merit
by getting or doing anything there for you or Cissy?”

“Will you get some salt codfish for us?” said Valancy. It was the only
thing she could think of. Roaring Abel had expressed a desire that day
for a dinner of boiled salt codfish. When her knights came riding to
the Blue Castle, Valancy had sent them on many a quest, but she had
never asked any of them to get her salt codfish.

“Certainly. You’re sure there’s nothing else? Lots of room in Lady Jane
Grey Slosson. And she always gets back _some_ time, does Lady Jane.”

“I don’t think there’s anything more,” said Valancy. She knew he would
bring oranges for Cissy anyhow—he always did.

Barney did not turn away at once. He was silent for a little. Then he
said, slowly and whimsically:

“Miss Stirling, you’re a brick! You’re a whole cartload of bricks. To
come here and look after Cissy—under the circumstances.”

“There’s nothing so bricky about that,” said Valancy. “I’d nothing else
to do. And—I like it here. I don’t feel as if I’d done anything
specially meritorious. Mr. Gay is paying me fair wages. I never earned
any money before—and I like it.” It seemed so easy to talk to Barney
Snaith, someway—this terrible Barney Snaith of the lurid tales and
mysterious past—as easy and natural as if talking to herself.

“All the money in the world couldn’t buy what you’re doing for Cissy
Gay,” said Barney. “It’s splendid and fine of you. And if there’s
anything I can do to help you in any way, you have only to let me know.
If Roaring Abel ever tries to annoy you——”

“He doesn’t. He’s lovely to me. I like Roaring Abel,” said Valancy
frankly.

“So do I. But there’s one stage of his drunkenness—perhaps you haven’t
encountered it yet—when he sings ribald songs——”

“Oh, yes. He came home last night like that. Cissy and I just went to
our room and shut ourselves in where we couldn’t hear him. He
apologised this morning. I’m not afraid of any of Roaring Abel’s
stages.”

“Well, I’m sure he’ll be decent to you, apart from his inebriated
yowls,” said Barney. “And I’ve told him he’s got to stop damning things
when you’re around.”

“Why?” asked Valancy slily, with one of her odd, slanted glances and a
sudden flake of pink on each cheek, born of the thought that Barney
Snaith had actually done so much for _her_. “I often feel like damning
things myself.”

For a moment Barney stared. Was this elfin girl the little, old-maidish
creature who had stood there two minutes ago? Surely there was magic
and devilry going on in that shabby, weedy old garden.

Then he laughed.

“It will be a relief to have some one to do it for you, then. So you
don’t want anything but salt codfish?”

“Not tonight. But I dare say I’ll have some errands for you very often
when you go to Port Lawrence. I can’t trust Mr. Gay to remember to
bring all the things I want.”

Barney had gone away, then, in his Lady Jane, and Valancy stood in the
garden for a long time.

Since then he had called several times, walking down through the
barrens, whistling. How that whistle of his echoed through the spruces
on those June twilights! Valancy caught herself listening for it every
evening—rebuked herself—then let herself go. Why shouldn’t she listen
for it?

He always brought Cissy fruit and flowers. Once he brought Valancy a
box of candy—the first box of candy she had ever been given. It seemed
sacrilege to eat it.

She found herself thinking of him in season and out of season. She
wanted to know if he ever thought about her when she wasn’t before his
eyes, and, if so, what. She wanted to see that mysterious house of his
back on the Mistawis island. Cissy had never seen it. Cissy, though she
talked freely of Barney and had known him for five years, really knew
little more of him than Valancy herself.

“But he isn’t bad,” said Cissy. “Nobody need ever tell me he is. He
_can’t_ have done a thing to be ashamed of.”

“Then why does he live as he does?” asked Valancy—to hear somebody
defend him.

“I don’t know. He’s a mystery. And of course there’s something behind
it, but I _know_ it isn’t disgrace. Barney Snaith simply couldn’t do
anything disgraceful, Valancy.”

Valancy was not so sure. Barney must have done _something_—sometime. He
was a man of education and intelligence. She had soon discovered that,
in listening to his conversations and wrangles with Roaring Abel—who
was surprisingly well read and could discuss any subject under the sun
when sober. Such a man wouldn’t bury himself for five years in Muskoka
and live and look like a tramp if there were not too good—or bad—a
reason for it. But it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she was
sure now that he had never been Cissy Gay’s lover. There was nothing
like _that_ between them. Though he was very fond of Cissy and she of
him, as any one could see. But it was a fondness that didn’t worry
Valancy.

“You don’t know what Barney has been to me, these past two years,”
Cissy had said simply. “_Everything_ would have been unbearable without
him.”

“Cissy Gay is the sweetest girl I ever knew—and there’s a man somewhere
I’d like to shoot if I could find him,” Barney had said savagely.

Barney was an interesting talker, with a knack of telling a great deal
about his adventures and nothing at all about himself. There was one
glorious rainy day when Barney and Abel swapped yarns all the afternoon
while Valancy mended tablecloths and listened. Barney told weird tales
of his adventures with “shacks” on trains while hoboing it across the
continent. Valancy thought she ought to think his stealing rides quite
dreadful, but didn’t. The story of his working his way to England on a
cattle-ship sounded more legitimate. And his yarns of the Yukon
enthralled her—especially the one of the night he was lost on the
divide between Gold Run and Sulphur Valley. He had spent two years out
there. Where in all this was there room for the penitentiary and the
other things?

If he were telling the truth. But Valancy knew he was.

“Found no gold,” he said. “Came away poorer than when I went. But such
a place to live! Those silences at the back of the north wind _got_ me.
I’ve never belonged to myself since.”

Yet he was not a great talker. He told a great deal in a few
well-chosen words—how well-chosen Valancy did not realise. And he had a
knack of saying things without opening his mouth at all.

“I like a man whose eyes say more than his lips,” thought Valancy.

But then she liked everything about him—his tawny hair—his whimsical
smiles—the little glints of fun in his eyes—his loyal affection for
that unspeakable Lady Jane—his habit of sitting with his hands in his
pockets, his chin sunk on his breast, looking up from under his
mismated eyebrows. She liked his nice voice which sounded as if it
might become caressing or wooing with very little provocation. She was
at times almost afraid to let herself think these thoughts. They were
so vivid that she felt as if the others _must_ know what she was
thinking.

“I’ve been watching a woodpecker all day,” he said one evening on the
shaky old back verandah. His account of the woodpecker’s doings was
satisfying. He had often some gay or cunning little anecdote of the
wood folk to tell them. And sometimes he and Roaring Abel smoked
fiercely the whole evening and never said a word, while Cissy lay in
the hammock swung between the verandah posts and Valancy sat idly on
the steps, her hands clasped over her knees, and wondered dreamily if
she were really Valancy Stirling and if it were only three weeks since
she had left the ugly old house on Elm Street.

The barrens lay before her in a white moon splendour, where dozens of
little rabbits frisked. Barney, when he liked, could sit down on the
edge of the barrens and lure those rabbits right to him by some
mysterious sorcery he possessed. Valancy had once seen a squirrel leap
from a scrub pine to his shoulder and sit there chattering to him. It
reminded her of John Foster.

It was one of the delights of Valancy’s new life that she could read
John Foster’s books as often and as long as she liked. She could read
them in bed if she wanted to. She read them all to Cissy, who loved
them. She also tried to read them to Abel and Barney, who did not love
them. Abel was bored and Barney politely refused to listen at all.

“Piffle,” said Barney.




CHAPTER XIX


Of course, the Stirlings had not left the poor maniac alone all this
time or refrained from heroic efforts to rescue her perishing soul and
reputation. Uncle James, whose lawyer had helped him as little as his
doctor, came one day and, finding Valancy alone in the kitchen, as he
supposed, gave her a terrible talking-to—told her she was breaking her
mother’s heart and disgracing her family.

“But _why_?” said Valancy, not ceasing to scour her porridge pot
decently. “I’m doing honest work for honest pay. What is there in that
that is disgraceful?”

“Don’t quibble, Valancy,” said Uncle James solemnly. “This is no fit
place for you to be, and you know it. Why, I’m told that that jail-bird,
Snaith, is hanging around here every evening.”

“Not _every_ evening,” said Valancy reflectively. “No, not quite every
evening.”

“It’s—it’s insufferable!” said Uncle James violently. “Valancy, you
_must_ come home. We won’t judge you harshly. I assure you we won’t.
We will overlook all this.”

“Thank you,” said Valancy.

“Have you no sense of shame?” demanded Uncle James.

“Oh, yes. But the things _I_ am ashamed of are not the things _you_ are
ashamed of.” Valancy proceeded to rinse her dishcloth meticulously.

Still was Uncle James patient. He gripped the sides of his chair and
ground his teeth.

“We know your mind isn’t just right. We’ll make allowances. But you
_must_ come home. You shall not stay here with that drunken,
blasphemous old scoundrel——”

“Were you by any chance referring to _me_, _Mister_ Stirling?” demanded
Roaring Abel, suddenly appearing in the doorway of the back verandah
where he had been smoking a peaceful pipe and listening to “old Jim
Stirling’s” tirade with huge enjoyment. His red beard fairly bristled
with indignation and his huge eyebrows quivered. But cowardice was not
among James Stirling’s shortcomings.

“I was. And, furthermore, I want to tell you that you have acted an
iniquitous part in luring this weak and unfortunate girl away from her
home and friends, and I will have you punished yet for it——”

James Stirling got no further. Roaring Abel crossed the kitchen at a
bound, caught him by his collar and his trousers, and hurled him
through the doorway and over the garden paling with as little apparent
effort as he might have employed in whisking a troublesome kitten out
of the way.

“The next time you come back here,” he bellowed, “I’ll throw you
through the window—and all the better if the window is shut! Coming
here, thinking yourself God to put the world to rights!”

Valancy candidly and unashamedly owned to herself that she had seen few
more satisfying sights than Uncle James’ coat-tails flying out into the
asparagus bed. She had once been afraid of this man’s judgment. Now she
saw clearly that he was nothing but a rather stupid little village
tin-god.

Roaring Abel turned with his great broad laugh.

“He’ll think of that for years when he wakes up in the night. The
Almighty made a mistake in making so many Stirlings. But since they are
made, we’ve got to reckon with them. Too many to kill out. But if they
come here bothering you I’ll shoo ’em off before a cat could lick its
ear.”

The next time they sent Dr. Stalling. Surely Roaring Abel would not
throw him into asparagus beds. Dr. Stalling was not so sure of this and
had no great liking for the task. He did not believe Valancy Stirling
was out of her mind. She had always been queer. He, Dr. Stalling, had
never been able to understand her. Therefore, beyond doubt, she was
queer. She was only just a little queerer than usual now. And Dr.
Stalling had his own reasons for disliking Roaring Abel. When Dr.
Stalling had first come to Deerwood he had had a liking for long hikes
around Mistawis and Muskoka. On one of these occasions he had got lost
and after much wandering had fallen in with Roaring Abel with his gun
over his shoulder.

Dr. Stalling had contrived to ask his question in about the most
idiotic manner possible. He said, “Can you tell me where I’m going?”

“How the devil should I know where you’re going, gosling?” retorted
Abel contemptuously.

Dr. Stalling was so enraged that he could not speak for a moment or two
and in that moment Abel had disappeared in the woods. Dr. Stalling had
eventually found his way home, but he had never hankered to encounter
Abel Gay again.

Nevertheless he came now to do his duty. Valancy greeted him with a
sinking heart. She had to own to herself that she was terribly afraid
of Dr. Stalling still. She had a miserable conviction that if he shook
his long, bony finger at her and told her to go home, she dared not
disobey.

“Mr. Gay,” said Dr. Stalling politely and condescendingly, “may I see
Miss Stirling alone for a few minutes?”

Roaring Abel was a little drunk—just drunk enough to be excessively
polite and very cunning. He had been on the point of going away when
Dr. Stalling arrived, but now he sat down in a corner of the parlour
and folded his arms.

“No, no, mister,” he said solemnly. “That wouldn’t do—wouldn’t do at
all. I’ve got the reputation of my household to keep up. I’ve got to
chaperone this young lady. Can’t have any sparkin’ going on here behind
my back.”

Outraged Dr. Stalling looked so terrible that Valancy wondered how Abel
could endure his aspect. But Abel was not worried at all.

“D’ye know anything about it, anyway?” he asked genially.

“About _what_?”

“Sparking,” said Abel coolly.

Poor Dr. Stalling, who had never married because he believed in a
celibate clergy, would not notice this ribald remark. He turned his
back on Abel and addressed himself to Valancy.

“Miss Stirling, I am here in response to your mother’s wishes. She
begged me to come. I am charged with some messages from her. Will
you”—he wagged his forefinger—“will you hear them?”

“Yes,” said Valancy faintly, eyeing the forefinger. It had a hypnotic
effect on her.

“The first is this. If you will leave this—this——”

“House,” interjected Roaring Abel. “H-o-u-s-e. Troubled with an
impediment in your speech, ain’t you, Mister?”

“—this _place_ and return to your home, Mr. James Stirling will himself
pay for a good nurse to come here and wait on Miss Gay.”

Back of her terror Valancy smiled in secret. Uncle James must indeed
regard the matter as desperate when he would loosen his purse-strings
like that. At any rate, her clan no longer despised her or ignored her.
She had become important to them.

“That’s _my_ business, Mister,” said Abel. “Miss Stirling can go if she
pleases, or stay if she pleases. I made a fair bargain with her, and
she’s free to conclude it when she likes. She gives me meals that stick
to my ribs. She don’t forget to put salt in the porridge. She never
slams doors, and when she has nothing to say she don’t talk. That’s
uncanny in a woman, you know, Mister. I’m satisfied. If she isn’t,
she’s free to go. But no woman comes here in Jim Stirling’s pay. If any
one does”—Abel’s voice was uncannily bland and polite—“I’ll spatter the
road with her brains. Tell him that with A. Gay’s compliments.”

“Dr. Stalling, a nurse is not what Cissy needs,” said Valancy
earnestly. “She isn’t so ill as that, yet. What she wants is
companionship—somebody she knows and likes just to live with her. You
can understand that, I’m sure.”

“I understand that your motive is quite—ahem—commendable.” Dr. Stalling
felt that he was very broad-minded indeed—especially as in his secret
soul he did not believe Valancy’s motive _was_ commendable. He hadn’t
the least idea what she was up to, but he was sure her motive was not
commendable. When he could not understand a thing he straightway
condemned it. Simplicity itself! “But your first duty is to your
mother. _She_ needs you. She implores you to come home—she will forgive
everything if you will only come home.”

“That’s a pretty little thought,” remarked Abel meditatively, as he
ground some tobacco up in his hand.

Dr. Stalling ignored him.

“She entreats, but I, Miss Stirling,”—Dr. Stalling remembered that he
was an ambassador of Jehovah—“_I command._ As your pastor and spiritual
guide, I command you to come home with me—this very day. Get your hat
and coat and come _now_.”

Dr. Stalling shook his finger at Valancy. Before that pitiless finger
she drooped and wilted visibly.

“She’s giving in,” thought Roaring Abel. “She’ll go with him. Beats
all, the power these preacher fellows have over women.”

Valancy _was_ on the point of obeying Dr. Stalling. She must go home
with him—and give up. She would lapse back to Doss Stirling again and
for her few remaining days or weeks be the cowed, futile creature she
had always been. It was her fate—typified by that relentless, uplifted
forefinger. She could no more escape from it than Roaring Abel from his
predestination. She eyed it as the fascinated bird eyes the snake.
Another moment—

“_Fear is the original sin_,” suddenly said a still, small voice away
back—back—back of Valancy’s consciousness. “_Almost all the evil in the
world has its origin in the fact that some one is afraid of
something._”

Valancy stood up. She was still in the clutches of fear, but her soul
was her own again. She would not be false to that inner voice.

“Dr. Stalling,” she said slowly, “I do not at present owe _any_ duty to
my mother. She is quite well; she has all the assistance and
companionship she requires; she does not need me at all. I _am_ needed
here. I am going to stay here.”

“There’s spunk for you,” said Roaring Abel admiringly.

Dr. Stalling dropped his forefinger. One could not keep on shaking a
finger forever.

“Miss Stirling, is there _nothing_ that can influence you? Do you
remember your childhood days——”

“Perfectly. And hate them.”

“Do you realise what people will say? What they _are_ saying?”

“I can imagine it,” said Valancy, with a shrug of her shoulders. She
was suddenly free of fear again. “I haven’t listened to the gossip of
Deerwood teaparties and sewing circles twenty years for nothing. But,
Dr. Stalling, it doesn’t matter in the least to me what they say—not in
the least.”

Dr. Stalling went away then. A girl who cared nothing for public
opinion! Over whom sacred family ties had no restraining influence! Who
hated her childhood memories!

Then Cousin Georgiana came—on her own initiative, for nobody would have
thought it worth while to send her. She found Valancy alone, weeding
the little vegetable garden she had planted, and she made all the
platitudinous pleas she could think of. Valancy heard her patiently.
Cousin Georgiana wasn’t such a bad old soul. Then she said:

“And now that you have got all that out of your system, Cousin
Georgiana, can you tell me how to make creamed codfish so that it will
not be as thick as porridge and as salt as the Dead Sea?”

* * * * * * *

“We’ll just have to _wait_,” said Uncle Benjamin. “After all, Cissy Gay
can’t live long. Dr. Marsh tells me she may drop off any day.”

Mrs. Frederick wept. It would really have been so much easier to bear
if Valancy had died. She could have worn mourning then.




CHAPTER XX


When Abel Gay paid Valancy her first month’s wages—which he did
promptly, in bills reeking with the odour of tobacco and
whiskey—Valancy went into Deerwood and spent every cent of it. She got
a pretty green crêpe dress with a girdle of crimson beads, at a bargain
sale, a pair of silk stockings, to match, and a little crinkled green
hat with a crimson rose in it. She even bought a foolish little
beribboned and belaced nightgown.

She passed the house on Elm Street twice—Valancy never even thought
about it as “home”—but saw no one. No doubt her mother was sitting in
the room this lovely June evening playing solitaire—and cheating.
Valancy knew that Mrs. Frederick always cheated. She never lost a game.
Most of the people Valancy met looked at her seriously and passed her
with a cool nod. Nobody stopped to speak to her.

Valancy put on her green dress when she got home. Then she took it off
again. She felt so miserably undressed in its low neck and short
sleeves. And that low, crimson girdle around the hips seemed positively
indecent. She hung it up in the closet, feeling flatly that she had
wasted her money. She would never have the courage to wear that dress.
John Foster’s arraignment of fear had no power to stiffen her against
this. In this one thing habit and custom were still all-powerful. Yet
she sighed as she went down to meet Barney Snaith in her old
snuff-brown silk. That green thing had been very becoming—she had seen
so much in her one ashamed glance. Above it her eyes had looked like
odd brown jewels and the girdle had given her flat figure an entirely
different appearance. She wished she could have left it on. But there
were some things John Foster did not know.

Every Sunday evening Valancy went to the little Free Methodist church
in a valley on the edge of “up back”—a spireless little grey building
among the pines, with a few sunken graves and mossy gravestones in the
small, paling-encircled, grass-grown square beside it. She liked the
minister who preached there. He was so simple and sincere. An old man,
who lived in Port Lawrence and came out by the lake in a little
disappearing propeller boat to give a free service to the people of the
small, stony farms back of the hills, who would otherwise never have
heard any gospel message. She liked the simple service and the fervent
singing. She liked to sit by the open window and look out into the pine
woods. The congregation was always small. The Free Methodists were few
in number, poor and generally illiterate. But Valancy loved those
Sunday evenings. For the first time in her life she liked going to
church. The rumour reached Deerwood that she had “turned Free
Methodist” and sent Mrs. Frederick to bed for a day. But Valancy had
not turned anything. She went to the church because she liked it and
because in some inexplicable way it did her good. Old Mr. Towers
believed exactly what he preached and somehow it made a tremendous
difference.

Oddly enough, Roaring Abel disapproved of her going to the hill church
as strongly as Mrs. Frederick herself could have done. He had “no use
for Free Methodists. He was a Presbyterian.” But Valancy went in spite
of him.

“We’ll hear something worse than _that_ about her soon,” Uncle Benjamin
predicted gloomily.

They did.

Valancy could not quite explain, even to herself, just why she wanted
to go to that party. It was a dance “up back” at Chidley Corners; and
dances at Chidley Corners were not, as a rule, the sort of assemblies
where well-brought-up young ladies were found. Valancy knew it was
coming off, for Roaring Abel had been engaged as one of the fiddlers.

But the idea of going had never occurred to her until Roaring Abel
himself broached it at supper.

“You come with me to the dance,” he ordered. “It’ll do you good—put
some colour in your face. You look peaked—you want something to liven
you up.”

Valancy found herself suddenly wanting to go. She knew nothing at all
of what dances at Chidley Corners were apt to be like. Her idea of
dances had been fashioned on the correct affairs that went by that name
in Deerwood and Port Lawrence. Of course she knew the Corners’ dance
wouldn’t be just like them. Much more informal, of course. But so much
the more interesting. Why shouldn’t she go? Cissy was in a week of
apparent health and improvement. She wouldn’t mind staying alone in the
least. She entreated Valancy to go if she wanted to. And Valancy _did_
want to go.

She went to her room to dress. A rage against the snuff-brown silk
seized her. Wear _that_ to a party! Never. She pulled her green crêpe
from its hanger and put it on feverishly. It was nonsense to feel
so—so—naked—just because her neck and arms were bare. That was just her
old maidishness. She would not be ridden by it. On went the dress—the
slippers.

It was the first time she had worn a pretty dress since the organdies
of her early teens. And _they_ had never made her look like this.

If she only had a necklace or something. She wouldn’t feel so bare
then. She ran down to the garden. There were clovers there—great
crimson things growing in the long grass. Valancy gathered handfuls of
them and strung them on a cord. Fastened above her neck they gave her
the comfortable sensation of a collar and were oddly becoming. Another
circlet of them went round her hair, dressed in the low puffs that
became her. Excitement brought those faint pink stains to her face. She
flung on her coat and pulled the little, twisty hat over her hair.

“You look so nice and—and—different, dear,” said Cissy. “Like a green
moonbeam with a gleam of red in it, if there could be such a thing.”

Valancy stooped to kiss her.

“I don’t feel right about leaving you alone, Cissy.”

“Oh, I’ll be all right. I feel better tonight than I have for a long
while. I’ve been feeling badly to see you sticking here so closely on
my account. I hope you’ll have a nice time. I never was at a party at
the Corners, but I used to go sometimes, long ago, to dances up back.
We always had good times. And you needn’t be afraid of Father being
drunk tonight. He never drinks when he engages to play for a party.
But—there may be—liquor. What will you do if it gets rough?”

“Nobody would molest me.”

“Not seriously, I suppose. Father would see to that. But it _might_ be
noisy and—and unpleasant.”

“I won’t mind. I’m only going as a looker-on. I don’t expect to dance.
I just want to _see_ what a party up back is like. I’ve never seen
anything except decorous Deerwood.”

Cissy smiled rather dubiously. She knew much better than Valancy what a
party “up back” might be like if there should be liquor. But again
there mightn’t be.

“I hope you’ll enjoy it, dear,” she repeated.

Valancy enjoyed the drive there. They went early, for it was twelve
miles to Chidley Corners, and they had to go in Abel’s old, ragged
top-buggy. The road was rough and rocky, like most Muskoka roads, but
full of the austere charm of northern woods. It wound through
beautiful, purring pines that were ranks of enchantment in the June
sunset, and over the curious jade-green rivers of Muskoka, fringed by
aspens that were always quivering with some supernal joy.

Roaring Abel was excellent company, too. He knew all the stories and
legends of the wild, beautiful “up back,” and he told them to Valancy
as they drove along. Valancy had several fits of inward laughter over
what Uncle Benjamin and Aunt Wellington, _et al._, would feel and think
and say if they saw her driving with Roaring Abel in that terrible
buggy to a dance at Chidley Corners.

At first the dance was quiet enough, and Valancy was amused and
entertained. She even danced twice herself, with a couple of nice “up
back” boys who danced beautifully and told her she did, too.

Another compliment came her way—not a very subtle one, perhaps, but
Valancy had had too few compliments in her life to be over-nice on that
point. She overheard two of the “up back” young men talking about her
in the dark “lean-to” behind her.

“Know who that girl in green is?”

“Nope. Guess she’s from out front. The Port, maybe. Got a stylish look
to her.”

“No beaut but cute-looking, I’ll say. ’Jever see such eyes?”

The big room was decorated with pine and fir boughs, and lighted by
Chinese lanterns. The floor was waxed, and Roaring Abel’s fiddle,
purring under his skilled touch, worked magic. The “up back” girls were
pretty and prettily dressed. Valancy thought it the nicest party she
had ever attended.

By eleven o’clock she had changed her mind. A new crowd had arrived—a
crowd unmistakably drunk. Whiskey began to circulate freely. Very soon
almost all the men were partly drunk. Those in the porch and outside
around the door began howling “come-all-ye’s” and continued to howl
them. The room grew noisy and reeking. Quarrels started up here and
there. Bad language and obscene songs were heard. The girls, swung
rudely in the dances, became dishevelled and tawdry. Valancy, alone in
her corner, was feeling disgusted and repentant. Why had she ever come
to such a place? Freedom and independence were all very well, but one
should not be a little fool. She might have known what it would be
like—she might have taken warning from Cissy’s guarded sentences. Her
head was aching—she was sick of the whole thing. But what could she do?
She must stay to the end. Abel could not leave till then. And that
would probably be not till three or four in the morning.

The new influx of boys had left the girls far in the minority and
partners were scarce. Valancy was pestered with invitations to dance.
She refused them all shortly, and some of her refusals were not well
taken. There were muttered oaths and sullen looks. Across the room she
saw a group of the strangers talking together and glancing meaningly at
her. What were they plotting?

It was at this moment that she saw Barney Snaith looking in over the
heads of the crowd at the doorway. Valancy had two distinct
convictions—one was that she was quite safe now; the other was that
_this_ was why she had wanted to come to the dance. It had been such an
absurd hope that she had not recognised it before, but now she knew she
had come because of the possibility that Barney might be there, too.
She thought that perhaps she ought to be ashamed for this, but she
wasn’t. After her feeling of relief her next feeling was one of
annoyance with Barney for coming there unshaved. Surely he might have
enough self-respect to groom himself up decently when he went to a
party. There he was, bareheaded, bristly-chinned, in his old trousers
and his blue homespun shirt. Not even a coat. Valancy could have shaken
him in her anger. No wonder people believed everything bad of him.

But she was not afraid any longer. One of the whispering group left his
comrades and came across the room to her, through the whirling couples
that now filled it uncomfortably. He was a tall, broad-shouldered
fellow, not ill-dressed or ill-looking but unmistakably half drunk. He
asked Valancy to dance. Valancy declined civilly. His face turned
livid. He threw his arm about her and pulled her to him. His hot,
whiskied breath burned her face.

“We won’t have fine-lady airs here, my girl. If you ain’t too good to
come here you ain’t too good to dance with us. Me and my pals have been
watching you. You’ve got to give us each a turn and a kiss to boot.”

Valancy tried desperately and vainly to free herself. She was being
dragged out into the maze of shouting, stamping, yelling dancers. The
next moment the man who held her went staggering across the room from a
neatly planted blow on the jaw, knocking down whirling couples as he
went. Valancy felt her arm grasped.

“This way—quick,” said Barney Snaith. He swung her out through the open
window behind them, vaulted lightly over the sill and caught her hand.

“Quick—we must run for it—they’ll be after us.”

Valancy ran as she had never run before, clinging tight to Barney’s
hand, wondering why she did not drop dead in such a mad scamper.
Suppose she did! What a scandal it would make for her poor people. For
the first time Valancy felt a little sorry for them. Also, she felt
glad that she had escaped from that horrible row. Also, glad that she
was holding tight to Barney’s hand. Her feelings were badly mixed and
she had never had so many in such a brief time in her life.

They finally reached a quiet corner in the pine woods. The pursuit had
taken a different direction and the whoops and yells behind them were
growing faint. Valancy, out of breath, with a crazily beating heart,
collapsed on the trunk of a fallen pine.

“Thanks,” she gasped.

“What a goose you were to come to such a place!” said Barney.

“I—didn’t—know—it—would—be like this,” protested Valancy.

“You _should_ have known. Chidley Corners!”

“It—was—just—a name—to me.”

Valancy knew Barney could not realise how ignorant she was of the
regions “up back.” She had lived in Deerwood all her life and of course
he supposed she knew. He didn’t know how she had been brought up. There
was no use trying to explain.

“When I drifted in at Abel’s this evening and Cissy told me you’d come
here I was amazed. And downright scared. Cissy told me she was worried
about you but hadn’t liked to say anything to dissuade you for fear
you’d think she was thinking selfishly about herself. So I came on up
here instead of going to Deerwood.”

Valancy felt a sudden delightful glow irradiating soul and body under
the dark pines. So he had actually come up to look after her.

“As soon as they stop hunting for us we’ll sneak around to the Muskoka
road. I left Lady Jane down there. I’ll take you home. I suppose you’ve
had enough of your party.”

“Quite,” said Valancy meekly. The first half of the way home neither of
them said anything. It would not have been much use. Lady Jane made so
much noise they could not have heard each other. Anyway, Valancy did
not feel conversationally inclined. She was ashamed of the whole
affair—ashamed of her folly in going—ashamed of being found in such a
place by Barney Snaith. By Barney Snaith, reputed jail-breaker,
infidel, forger and defaulter. Valancy’s lips twitched in the darkness
as she thought of it. But she _was_ ashamed.

And yet she was enjoying herself—was full of a strange
exultation—bumping over that rough road beside Barney Snaith. The big
trees shot by them. The tall mulleins stood up along the road in stiff,
orderly ranks like companies of soldiers. The thistles looked like
drunken fairies or tipsy elves as their car-lights passed over them.
This was the first time she had even been in a car. After all, she
liked it. She was not in the least afraid, with Barney at the wheel.
Her spirits rose rapidly as they tore along. She ceased to feel
ashamed. She ceased to feel anything except that she was part of a
comet rushing gloriously through the night of space.

All at once, just where the pine woods frayed out to the scrub barrens,
Lady Jane became quiet—too quiet. Lady Jane slowed down quietly—and
stopped.

Barney uttered an aghast exclamation. Got out. Investigated. Came
apologetically back.

“I’m a doddering idiot. Out of gas. I knew I was short when I left
home, but I meant to fill up in Deerwood. Then I forgot all about it in
my hurry to get to the Corners.”

“What can we do?” asked Valancy coolly.

“I don’t know. There’s no gas nearer than Deerwood, nine miles away.
And I don’t dare leave you here alone. There are always tramps on this
road—and some of those crazy fools back at the Corners may come
straggling along presently. There were boys there from the Port. As far
as I can see, the best thing to do is for us just to sit patiently here
until some car comes along and lends us enough gas to get to Roaring
Abel’s with.”

“Well, what’s the matter with that?” said Valancy.

“We may have to sit here all night,” said Barney.

“I don’t mind,” said Valancy.

Barney gave a short laugh. “If you don’t, I needn’t. I haven’t any
reputation to lose.”

“Nor I,” said Valancy comfortably.




CHAPTER XXI


“We’ll just sit here,” said Barney, “and if we think of anything worth
while saying we’ll say it. Otherwise, not. Don’t imagine you’re bound
to talk to me.”

“John Foster says,” quoted Valancy, “‘If you can sit in silence with a
person for half an hour and yet be entirely comfortable, you and that
person can be friends. If you cannot, friends you’ll never be and you
need not waste time in trying.’”

“Evidently John Foster says a sensible thing once in a while,” conceded
Barney.

They sat in silence for a long while. Little rabbits hopped across the
road. Once or twice an owl laughed out delightfully. The road beyond
them was fringed with the woven shadow lace of trees. Away off to the
southwest the sky was full of silvery little cirrus clouds above the
spot where Barney’s island must be.

Valancy was perfectly happy. Some things dawn on you slowly. Some
things come by lightning flashes. Valancy had had a lightning flash.

She knew quite well now that she loved Barney. Yesterday she had been
all her own. Now she was this man’s. Yet he had done nothing—said
nothing. He had not even looked at her as a woman. But that didn’t
matter. Nor did it matter what he was or what he had done. She loved
him without any reservations. Everything in her went out wholly to him.
She had no wish to stifle or disown her love. She seemed to be his so
absolutely that thought apart from him—thought in which he did not
predominate—was an impossibility.

She had realised, quite simply and fully, that she loved him, in the
moment when he was leaning on the car door, explaining that Lady Jane
had no gas. She had looked deep into his eyes in the moonlight and had
known. In just that infinitesimal space of time everything was changed.
Old things passed away and all things became new.

She was no longer unimportant, little, old maid Valancy Stirling. She
was a woman, full of love and therefore rich and significant—justified
to herself. Life was no longer empty and futile, and death could cheat
her of nothing. Love had cast out her last fear.

Love! What a searing, torturing, intolerably sweet thing it was—this
possession of body, soul and mind! With something at its core as fine
and remote and purely spiritual as the tiny blue spark in the heart of
the unbreakable diamond. No dream had ever been like this. She was no
longer solitary. She was one of a vast sisterhood—all the women who had
ever loved in the world.

Barney need never know it—though she would not in the least have minded
his knowing. But _she_ knew it and it made a tremendous difference to
her. Just to love! She did not ask to be loved. It was rapture enough
just to sit there beside him in silence, alone in the summer night in
the white splendour of moonshine, with the wind blowing down on them
out of the pine woods. She had always envied the wind. So free. Blowing
where it listed. Through the hills. Over the lakes. What a tang, what a
zip it had! What a magic of adventure! Valancy felt as if she had
exchanged her shop-worn soul for a fresh one, fire-new from the
workshop of the gods. As far back as she could look, life had been
dull—colourless—savourless. Now she had come to a little patch of
violets, purple and fragrant—hers for the plucking. No matter who or
what had been in Barney’s past—no matter who or what might be in his
future—no one else could ever have this perfect hour. She surrendered
herself utterly to the charm of the moment.

“Ever dream of ballooning?” said Barney suddenly.

“No,” said Valancy.

“I do—often. Dream of sailing through the clouds—seeing the glories of
sunset—spending hours in the midst of a terrific storm with lightning
playing above and below you—skimming above a silver cloud floor under a
full moon—wonderful!”

“It does sound so,” said Valancy. “I’ve stayed on earth in my dreams.”

She told him about her Blue Castle. It was so easy to tell Barney
things. One felt he understood everything—even the things you didn’t
tell him. And then she told him a little of her existence before she
came to Roaring Abel’s. She wanted him to see why she had gone to the
dance “up back.”

“You see—I’ve never had any real life,” she said. “I’ve just—breathed.
Every door has always been shut to me.”

“But you’re still young,” said Barney.

“Oh, I know. Yes, I’m ‘still young’—but that’s so different from
_young_,” said Valancy bitterly. For a moment she was tempted to tell
Barney why her years had nothing to do with her future; but she did
not. She was not going to think of death tonight.

“Though I never was really young,” she went on—“until tonight,” she
added in her heart. “I never had a life like other girls. You couldn’t
understand. Why,”—she had a desperate desire that Barney should know
the worst about her—“I didn’t even love my mother. Isn’t it awful that
I don’t love my mother?”

“Rather awful—for her,” said Barney drily.

“Oh, she didn’t know it. She took my love for granted. And I wasn’t any
use or comfort to her or anybody. I was just a—a—vegetable. And I got
tired of it. That’s why I came to keep house for Mr. Gay and look after
Cissy.”

“And I suppose your people thought you’d gone mad.”

“They did—and do—literally,” said Valancy. “But it’s a comfort to them.
They’d rather believe me mad than bad. There’s no other alternative.
But I’ve been _living_ since I came to Mr. Gay’s. It’s been a
delightful experience. I suppose I’ll pay for it when I have to go
back—but I’ll have _had_ it.”

“That’s true,” said Barney. “If you buy your experience it’s your own.
So it’s no matter how much you pay for it. Somebody else’s experience
can never be yours. Well, it’s a funny old world.”

“Do you think it really is old?” asked Valancy dreamily. “I never
believe _that_ in June. It seems so young tonight—somehow. In that
quivering moonlight—like a young, white girl—waiting.”

“Moonlight here on the verge of up back is different from moonlight
anywhere else,” agreed Barney. “It always makes me feel so clean,
somehow—body and soul. And of course the age of gold always comes back
in spring.”

It was ten o’clock now. A dragon of black cloud ate up the moon. The
spring air grew chill—Valancy shivered. Barney reached back into the
innards of Lady Jane and clawed up an old, tobacco-scented overcoat.

“Put that on,” he ordered.

“Don’t you want it yourself?” protested Valancy.

“No. I’m not going to have you catching cold on my hands.”

“Oh, I won’t catch cold. I haven’t had a cold since I came to Mr.
Gay’s—though I’ve done the foolishest things. It’s funny, too—I used to
have them all the time. I feel so selfish taking your coat.”

“You’ve sneezed three times. No use winding up your ‘experience’ up
back with grippe or pneumonia.”

He pulled it up tight about her throat and buttoned it on her. Valancy
submitted with secret delight. How nice it was to have some one look
after you so! She snuggled down into the tobaccoey folds and wished the
night could last forever.

Ten minutes later a car swooped down on them from “up back.” Barney
sprang from Lady Jane and waved his hand. The car came to a stop beside
them. Valancy saw Uncle Wellington and Olive gazing at her in horror
from it.

So Uncle Wellington had got a car! And he must have been spending the
evening up at Mistawis with Cousin Herbert. Valancy almost laughed
aloud at the expression on his face as he recognised her. The pompous,
bewhiskered old humbug!

“Can you let me have enough gas to take me to Deerwood?” Barney was
asking politely. But Uncle Wellington was not attending to him.

“Valancy, how came you _here_!” he said sternly.

“By chance or God’s grace,” said Valancy.

“With this jail-bird—at ten o’clock at night!” said Uncle Wellington.

Valancy turned to Barney. The moon had escaped from its dragon and in
its light her eyes were full of deviltry.

“_Are_ you a jail-bird?”

“Does it matter?” said Barney, gleams of fun in _his_ eyes.

“Not to me. I only asked out of curiosity,” continued Valancy.

“Then I won’t tell you. I never satisfy curiosity.” He turned to Uncle
Wellington and his voice changed subtly.

“Mr. Stirling, I asked you if you could let me have some gas. If you
can, well and good. If not, we are only delaying you unnecessarily.”

Uncle Wellington was in a horrible dilemma. To give gas to this
shameless pair! But not to give it to them! To go away and leave them
there in the Mistawis woods—until daylight, likely. It was better to
give it to them and let them get out of sight before any one else saw
them.

“Got anything to get gas in?” he grunted surlily.

Barney produced a two-gallon measure from Lady Jane. The two men went
to the rear of the Stirling car and began manipulating the tap. Valancy
stole sly glances at Olive over the collar of Barney’s coat. Olive was
sitting grimly staring straight ahead with an outraged expression. She
did not mean to take any notice of Valancy. Olive had her own secret
reasons for feeling outraged. Cecil had been in Deerwood lately and of
course had heard all about Valancy. He agreed that her mind was
deranged and was exceedingly anxious to find out whence the derangement
had been inherited. It was a serious thing to have in the family—a very
serious thing. One had to think of one’s—descendants.

“She got it from the Wansbarras,” said Olive positively. “There’s
nothing like that in the Stirlings—nothing!”

“I hope not—I certainly hope not,” Cecil had responded dubiously. “But
then—to go out as a servant—for that is what it practically amounts to.
Your cousin!”

Poor Olive felt the implication. The Port Lawrence Prices were not
accustomed to ally themselves with families whose members “worked out.”

Valancy could not resist temptation. She leaned forward.

“Olive, does it hurt?”

Olive bit—stiffly.

“Does _what_ hurt?”

“Looking like that.”

For a moment Olive resolved she would take no further notice of
Valancy. Then duty came uppermost. She must not miss the opportunity.

“Doss,” she implored, leaning forward also, “won’t you come home—come
home tonight?”

Valancy yawned.

“You sound like a revival meeting,” she said. “You really do.”

“If you will come back——”

“All will be forgiven.”

“Yes,” said Olive eagerly. Wouldn’t it be splendid if _she_ could
induce the prodigal daughter to return? “We’ll never cast it up to you.
Doss, there are nights when I cannot sleep for thinking of you.”

“And me having the time of my life,” said Valancy, laughing.

“Doss, I can’t believe you’re bad. I’ve always said you couldn’t be
bad——”

“I don’t believe I can be,” said Valancy. “I’m afraid I’m hopelessly
proper. I’ve been sitting here for three hours with Barney Snaith and
he hasn’t even tried to kiss me. I wouldn’t have minded if he had,
Olive.”

Valancy was still leaning forward. Her little hat with its crimson rose
was tilted down over one eye. Olive stared. In the moonlight Valancy’s
eyes—Valancy’s smile—what had happened to Valancy! She looked—not
pretty—Doss couldn’t be pretty—but provocative, fascinating—yes,
abominably so. Olive drew back. It was beneath her dignity to say more.
After all, Valancy must be both mad _and_ bad.

“Thanks—that’s enough,” said Barney behind the car. “Much obliged, Mr.
Stirling. Two gallons—seventy cents. Thank you.”

Uncle Wellington climbed foolishly and feebly into his car. He wanted
to give Snaith a piece of his mind, but dared not. Who knew what the
creature might do if provoked? No doubt he carried firearms.

Uncle Wellington looked indecisively at Valancy. But Valancy had turned
her back on him and was watching Barney pour the gas into Lady Jane’s
maw.

“Drive on,” said Olive decisively. “There’s no use in waiting here. Let
me tell you what she said to me.”

“The little hussy! The shameless little hussy!” said Uncle Wellington.




CHAPTER XXII


The next thing the Stirlings heard was that Valancy had been seen with
Barney Snaith in a movie theatre in Port Lawrence and after it at
supper in a Chinese restaurant there. This was quite true—and no one
was more surprised at it than Valancy herself. Barney had come along in
Lady Jane one dim twilight and told Valancy unceremoniously if she
wanted a drive to hop in.

“I’m going to the Port. Will you go there with me?”

His eyes were teasing and there was a bit of defiance in his voice.
Valancy, who did not conceal from herself that she would have gone
anywhere with him to any place, “hopped in” without more ado. They tore
into and through Deerwood. Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles, taking a
little air on the verandah, saw them whirl by in a cloud of dust and
sought comfort in each other’s eyes. Valancy, who in some dim
pre-existence had been afraid of a car, was hatless and her hair was
blowing wildly round her face. She would certainly come down with
bronchitis—and die at Roaring Abel’s. She wore a low-necked dress and
her arms were bare. That Snaith creature was in his shirt-sleeves,
smoking a pipe. They were going at the rate of forty miles an
hour—sixty, Cousin Stickles averred. Lady Jane could hit the pike when
she wanted to. Valancy waved her hand gaily to her relatives. As for
Mrs. Frederick, she was wishing she knew how to go into hysterics.

“Was it for this,” she demanded in hollow tones, “that I suffered the
pangs of motherhood?”

“I will _not_ believe,” said Cousin Stickles solemnly, “that our prayers
will not yet be answered.”

“Who—_who_ will protect that unfortunate girl when I am gone?” moaned
Mrs. Frederick.

As for Valancy, she was wondering if it could really be only a few
weeks since she had sat there with them on that verandah. Hating the
rubber-plant. Pestered with teasing questions like black flies. Always
thinking of appearances. Cowed because of Aunt Wellington’s teaspoons
and Uncle Benjamin’s money. Poverty-stricken. Afraid of everybody.
Envying Olive. A slave to moth-eaten traditions. Nothing to hope for or
expect.

And now every day was a gay adventure.

Lady Jane flew over the fifteen miles between Deerwood and the
Port—through the Port. The way Barney went past traffic policemen was
not holy. The lights were beginning to twinkle out like stars in the
clear, lemon-hued twilight air. This was the only time Valancy ever
really liked the town, and she was crazy with the delight of speeding.
Was it possible she had ever been afraid of a car? She was perfectly
happy, riding beside Barney. Not that she deluded herself into thinking
it had any significance. She knew quite well that Barney had asked her
to go on the impulse of the moment—an impulse born of a feeling of pity
for her and her starved little dreams. She was looking tired after a
wakeful night with a heart attack, followed by a busy day. She had so
little fun. He’d give her an outing for once. Besides, Abel was in the
kitchen, at the point of drunkenness where he was declaring he did not
believe in God and beginning to sing ribald songs. It was just as well
she should be out of the way for a while. Barney knew Roaring Abel’s
repertoire.

They went to the movie—Valancy had never been to a movie. And then,
finding a nice hunger upon them, they went and had fried
chicken—unbelievably delicious—in the Chinese restaurant. After which
they rattled home again, leaving a devastating trail of scandal behind
them. Mrs. Frederick gave up going to church altogether. She could not
endure her friends’ pitying glances and questions. But Cousin Stickles
went every Sunday. She said they had been given a cross to bear.




CHAPTER XXIII


On one of Cissy’s wakeful nights, she told Valancy her poor little
story. They were sitting by the open window. Cissy could not get her
breath lying down that night. An inglorious gibbous moon was hanging
over the wooded hills and in its spectral light Cissy looked frail and
lovely and incredibly young. A child. It did not seem possible that she
could have lived through all the passion and pain and shame of her
story.

“He was stopping at the hotel across the lake. He used to come over in
his canoe at night—we met in the pines down the shore. He was a young
college student—his father was a rich man in Toronto. Oh, Valancy, I
didn’t mean to be bad—I didn’t, indeed. But I loved him so—I love him
yet—I’ll always love him. And I—didn’t know—some things. I
didn’t—understand. Then his father came and took him away. And—after a
little—I found out—oh, Valancy,—I was so frightened. I didn’t know what
to do. I wrote him—and he came. He—he said he would marry me, Valancy.”

“And why—and why?——”

“Oh, Valancy, he didn’t love me any more. I saw that at a glance. He—he
was just offering to marry me because he thought he ought to—because he
was sorry for me. He wasn’t bad—but he was so young—and what was I that
he should keep on loving me?”

“Never mind making excuses for him,” said Valancy a bit shortly. “So
you wouldn’t marry him?”

“I couldn’t—not when he didn’t love me any more. Somehow—I can’t
explain—it seemed a worse thing to do than—the other. He—he argued a
little—but he went away. Do you think I did right, Valancy?”

“Yes, I do. _You_ did right. But he——”

“Don’t blame him, dear. Please don’t. Let’s not talk about him at all.
There’s no need. I wanted to tell you how it was—I didn’t want you to
think me bad——”

“I never did think so.”

“Yes, I felt that—whenever you came. Oh, Valancy, what you’ve been to
me! I can never tell you—but God will bless you for it. I know He
will—‘with what measure ye mete.’”

Cissy sobbed for a few minutes in Valancy’s arms. Then she wiped her
eyes.

“Well, that’s almost all. I came home. I wasn’t really so very unhappy.
I suppose I should have been—but I wasn’t. Father wasn’t hard on me.
And my baby was so sweet while he lived. I was even happy—I loved him
so much, the dear little thing. He was so sweet, Valancy—with such
lovely blue eyes—and little rings of pale gold hair like silk floss—and
tiny dimpled hands. I used to bite his satin-smooth little face all
over—softly, so as not to hurt him, you know——”

“I know,” said Valancy, wincing. “I know—a woman _always_ knows—and
dreams——”

“And he was _all_ mine. Nobody else had any claim on him. When he died,
oh, Valancy, I thought I must die too—I didn’t see how anybody could
endure such anguish and live. To see his dear little eyes and know he
would never open them again—to miss his warm little body nestled
against mine at night and think of him sleeping alone and cold, his wee
face under the hard frozen earth. It was so awful for the first
year—after that it was a little easier, one didn’t keep thinking ‘this
day last year’—but I was so glad when I found out I was dying.”

“‘Who could endure life if it were not for the hope of death?’”
murmured Valancy softly—it was of course a quotation from some book of
John Foster’s.

“I’m glad I’ve told you all about it,” sighed Cissy. “I wanted you to
know.”

Cissy died a few nights after that. Roaring Abel was away. When Valancy
saw the change that had come over Cissy’s face she wanted to telephone
for the doctor. But Cissy wouldn’t let her.

“Valancy, why should you? He can do nothing for me. I’ve known for
several days that—this—was near. Let me die in peace, dear—just holding
your hand. Oh, I’m so glad you’re here. Tell Father good-bye for me.
He’s always been as good to me as he knew how—and Barney. Somehow, I
think that Barney——”

But a spasm of coughing interrupted and exhausted her. She fell asleep
when it was over, still holding to Valancy’s hand. Valancy sat there in
the silence. She was not frightened—or even sorry. At sunrise Cissy
died. She opened her eyes and looked past Valancy at
something—something that made her smile suddenly and happily. And,
smiling, she died.

Valancy crossed Cissy’s hands on her breast and went to the open
window. In the eastern sky, amid the fires of sunrise, an old moon was
hanging—as slender and lovely as a new moon. Valancy had never seen an
old, old moon before. She watched it pale and fade until it paled and
faded out of sight in the living rose of day. A little pool in the
barrens shone in the sunrise like a great golden lily.

But the world suddenly seemed a colder place to Valancy. Again nobody
needed her. She was not in the least sorry Cecilia was dead. She was
only sorry for all her suffering in life. But nobody could ever hurt
her again. Valancy had always thought death dreadful. But Cissy had
died so quietly—so pleasantly. And at the very last—something—had made
up to her for everything. She was lying there now, in her white sleep,
looking like a child. Beautiful! All the lines of shame and pain gone.

Roaring Abel drove in, justifying his name. Valancy went down and told
him. The shock sobered him at once. He slumped down on the seat of his
buggy, his great head hanging.

“Cissy dead—Cissy dead,” he said vacantly. “I didn’t think it would ’a’
come so soon. Dead. She used to run down the lane to meet me with a
little white rose stuck in her hair. Cissy used to be a pretty little
girl. And a good little girl.”

“She has always been a good little girl,” said Valancy.




CHAPTER XXIV


Valancy herself made Cissy ready for burial. No hands but hers should
touch that pitiful, wasted little body. The old house was spotless on
the day of the funeral. Barney Snaith was not there. He had done all he
could to help Valancy before it—he had shrouded the pale Cecilia in
white roses from the garden—and then had gone back to his island. But
everybody else was there. All Deerwood and “up back” came. They forgave
Cissy splendidly at last. Mr. Bradly gave a very beautiful funeral
address. Valancy had wanted her old Free Methodist man, but Roaring
Abel was obdurate. He was a Presbyterian and no one but a Presbyterian
minister should bury _his_ daughter. Mr. Bradly was very tactful. He
avoided all dubious points and it was plain to be seen he hoped for the
best. Six reputable citizens of Deerwood bore Cecilia Gay to her grave
in decorous Deerwood cemetery. Among them was Uncle Wellington.

The Stirlings all came to the funeral, men and women. They had had a
family conclave over it. Surely now that Cissy Gay was dead Valancy
would come home. She simply could not stay there with Roaring Abel.
That being the case, the wisest course—decreed Uncle James—was to
attend the funeral—legitimise the whole thing, so to speak—show
Deerwood that Valancy had really done a most creditable deed in going
to nurse poor Cecilia Gay and that her family backed her up in it.
Death, the miracle worker, suddenly made the thing quite respectable.
If Valancy would return to home and decency while public opinion was
under its influence all might yet be well. Society was suddenly
forgetting all Cecilia’s wicked doings and remembering what a pretty,
modest little thing she had been—“and motherless, you know—motherless!”
It was the psychological moment—said Uncle James.

So the Stirlings went to the funeral. Even Cousin Gladys’ neuritis
allowed her to come. Cousin Stickles was there, her bonnet dripping all
over her face, crying as woefully as if Cissy had been her nearest and
dearest. Funerals always brought Cousin Stickles’ “own sad bereavement”
back.

And Uncle Wellington was a pall-bearer.

Valancy, pale, subdued-looking, her slanted eyes smudged with purple,
in her snuff-brown dress, moving quietly about, finding seats for
people, consulting in undertones with minister and undertaker,
marshalling the “mourners” into the parlour, was so decorous and proper
and Stirlingish that her family took heart of grace. This was not—could
not be—the girl who had sat all night in the woods with Barney
Snaith—who had gone tearing bareheaded through Deerwood and Port
Lawrence. This was the Valancy they knew. Really, surprisingly capable
and efficient. Perhaps she had always been kept down a bit too
much—Amelia really was rather strict—hadn’t had a chance to show what
was in her. So thought the Stirlings. And Edward Beck, from the Port
road, a widower with a large family who was beginning to take notice,
took notice of Valancy and thought she might make a mighty fine second
wife. No beauty—but a fifty-year-old widower, Mr. Beck told himself
very reasonably, couldn’t expect everything. Altogether, it seemed that
Valancy’s matrimonial chances were never so bright as they were at
Cecilia Gay’s funeral.

What the Stirlings and Edward Beck would have thought had they known
the back of Valancy’s mind must be left to the imagination. Valancy was
hating the funeral—hating the people who came to stare with curiosity
at Cecilia’s marble-white face—hating the smugness—hating the dragging,
melancholy singing—hating Mr. Bradly’s cautious platitudes. If she
could have had her absurd way, there would have been no funeral at all.
She would have covered Cissy over with flowers, shut her away from
prying eyes, and buried her beside her nameless little baby in the
grassy burying-ground under the pines of the “up back” church, with a
bit of kindly prayer from the old Free Methodist minister. She
remembered Cissy saying once, “I wish I could be buried deep in the
heart of the woods where nobody would ever come to say, ‘Cissy Gay is
buried here,’ and tell over my miserable story.”

But this! However, it would soon be over. Valancy knew, if the
Stirlings and Edward Beck didn’t, exactly what she intended to do then.
She had lain awake all the preceding night thinking about it and
finally deciding on it.

When the funeral procession had left the house, Mrs. Frederick sought
out Valancy in the kitchen.

“My child,” she said tremulously, “you’ll come home _now_?”

“Home,” said Valancy absently. She was getting on an apron and
calculating how much tea she must put to steep for supper. There would
be several guests from “up back”—distant relatives of the Gays’ who had
not remembered them for years. And she was so tired she wished she
could borrow a pair of legs from the cat.

“Yes, home,” said Mrs. Frederick, with a touch of asperity. “I suppose
you won’t dream of staying here _now_—alone with Roaring Abel.”

“Oh, no, I’m not going to stay _here_,” said Valancy. “Of course, I’ll
have to stay for a day or two, to put the house in order generally. But
that will be all. Excuse me, Mother, won’t you? I’ve a frightful lot to
do—all those ‘up back’ people will be here to supper.”

Mrs. Frederick retreated in considerable relief, and the Stirlings went
home with lighter hearts.

“We will just treat her as if nothing had happened when she comes
back,” decreed Uncle Benjamin. “That will be the best plan. Just as if
nothing had happened.”




CHAPTER XXV


On the evening of the day after the funeral Roaring Abel went off for a
spree. He had been sober for four whole days and could endure it no
longer. Before he went, Valancy told him she would be going away the
next day. Roaring Abel was sorry, and said so. A distant cousin from
“up back” was coming to keep house for him—quite willing to do so now
since there was no sick girl to wait on—but Abel was not under any
delusions concerning her.

“She won’t be like you, my girl. Well, I’m obliged to you. You helped
me out of a bad hole and I won’t forget it. And I won’t forget what you
did for Cissy. I’m your friend, and if you ever want any of the
Stirlings spanked and sot in a corner send for me. I’m going to wet my
whistle. Lord, but I’m dry! Don’t reckon I’ll be back afore tomorrow
night, so if you’re going home tomorrow, good-bye now.”

“I _may_ go home tomorrow,” said Valancy, “but I’m not going back to
Deerwood.”

“Not going——”

“You’ll find the key on the woodshed nail,” interrupted Valancy,
politely and unmistakably. “The dog will be in the barn and the cat in
the cellar. Don’t forget to feed her till your cousin comes. The pantry
is full and I made bread and pies today. Good-bye, Mr. Gay. You have
been very kind to me and I appreciate it.”

“We’ve had a d——d decent time of it together, and that’s a fact,” said
Roaring Abel. “You’re the best small sport in the world, and your
little finger is worth the whole Stirling clan tied together. Good-bye
and good-luck.”

Valancy went out to the garden. Her legs trembled a little, but
otherwise she felt and looked composed. She held something tightly in
her hand. The garden was lying in the magic of the warm, odorous July
twilight. A few stars were out and the robins were calling through the
velvety silences of the barrens. Valancy stood by the gate expectantly.
Would he come? If he did not——

He was coming. Valancy heard Lady Jane Grey far back in the woods. Her
breath came a little more quickly. Nearer—and nearer—she could see Lady
Jane now—bumping down the lane—nearer—nearer—he was there—he had sprung
from the car and was leaning over the gate, looking at her.

“Going home, Miss Stirling?”

“I don’t know—yet,” said Valancy slowly. Her mind was made up, with no
shadow of turning, but the moment was very tremendous.

“I thought I’d run down and ask if there was anything I could do for
you,” said Barney.

Valancy took it with a canter.

“Yes, there is something you can do for me,” she said, evenly and
distinctly. “Will you marry me?”

For a moment Barney was silent. There was no particular expression on
his face. Then he gave an odd laugh.

“Come, now! I knew luck was just waiting around the corner for me. All
the signs have been pointing that way today.”

“Wait.” Valancy lifted her hand. “I’m in earnest—but I want to get my
breath after that question. Of course, with my bringing up, I realise
perfectly well that this is one of the things ‘a lady should not do.’”

“But why—why?”

“For two reasons.” Valancy was still a little breathless, but she
looked Barney straight in the eyes, while all the dead Stirlings
revolved rapidly in their graves and the living ones did nothing
because they did not know that Valancy was at that moment proposing
lawful marriage to the notorious Barney Snaith. “The first reason is,
I—I”—Valancy tried to say “I love you” but could not. She had to take
refuge in a pretended flippancy. “I’m crazy about you. The second
is—this.”

She handed him Dr. Trent’s letter.

Barney opened it with the air of a man thankful to find some safe, sane
thing to do. As he read it his face changed. He understood—more perhaps
than Valancy wanted him to.

“Are you sure nothing can be done for you?”

Valancy did not misunderstand the question.

“Yes. You know Dr. Trent’s reputation in regard to heart disease. I
haven’t long to live—perhaps only a few months—a few weeks. I want to
_live_ them. I can’t go back to Deerwood—you know what my life was like
there. And”—she managed it this time—“I love you. I want to spend the
rest of my life with you. That’s all.”

Barney folded his arms on the gate and looked gravely enough at a
white, saucy star that was winking at him just over Roaring Abel’s
kitchen chimney.

“You don’t know anything about me. I may be a—murderer.”

“No, I don’t. You _may_ be something dreadful. Everything they say of
you may be true. But it doesn’t matter to me.”

“You care that much for me, Valancy?” said Barney incredulously,
looking away from the star and into her eyes—her strange, mysterious
eyes.

“I care—that much,” said Valancy in a low voice. She was trembling. He
had called her by her name for the first time. It was sweeter than
another man’s caress could have been just to hear him say her name like
that.

“If we are going to get married,” said Barney, speaking suddenly in a
casual, matter-of-fact voice, “some things must be understood.”

“Everything must be understood,” said Valancy.

“I have things I want to hide,” said Barney coolly. “You are not to ask
me about them.”

“I won’t,” said Valancy.

“You must never ask to see my mail.”

“Never.”

“And we are never to pretend anything to each other.”

“We won’t,” said Valancy. “You won’t even have to pretend you like me.
If you marry me I know you’re only doing it out of pity.”

“And we’ll never tell a lie to each other about anything—a big lie or a
petty lie.”

“Especially a petty lie,” agreed Valancy.

“And you’ll have to live back on my island. I won’t live anywhere
else.”

“That’s partly why I want to marry you,” said Valancy.

Barney peered at her.

“I believe you mean it. Well—let’s get married, then.”

“Thank you,” said Valancy, with a sudden return of primness. She would
have been much less embarrassed if he had refused her.

“I suppose I haven’t any right to make conditions. But I’m going to
make one. You are never to refer to my heart or my liability to sudden
death. You are never to urge me to be careful. You are to
forget—absolutely forget—that I’m not perfectly healthy. I have written
a letter to my mother—here it is—you are to keep it. I have explained
everything in it. If I drop dead suddenly—as I likely will do——”

“It will exonerate me in the eyes of your kindred from the suspicion of
having poisoned you,” said Barney with a grin.

“Exactly.” Valancy laughed gaily. “Dear me, I’m glad this is over. It
has been—a bit of an ordeal. You see, I’m not in the habit of going
about asking men to marry me. It is so nice of you not to refuse me—or
offer to be a brother!”

“I’ll go to the Port tomorrow and get a license. We can be married
tomorrow evening. Dr. Stalling, I suppose?”

“Heavens, no.” Valancy shuddered. “Besides, he wouldn’t do it. He’d
shake his forefinger at me and I’d jilt you at the altar. No, I want my
old Mr. Towers to marry me.”

“Will you marry me as I stand?” demanded Barney. A passing car, full of
tourists, honked loudly—it seemed derisively. Valancy looked at him.
Blue homespun shirt, nondescript hat, muddy overalls. Unshaved!

“Yes,” she said.

Barney put his hands over the gate and took her little, cold ones
gently in his.

“Valancy,” he said, trying to speak lightly, “of course I’m not in love
with you—never thought of such a thing as being in love. But, do you
know, I’ve always thought you were a bit of a dear.”




CHAPTER XXVI


The next day passed for Valancy like a dream. She could not make
herself or anything she did seem real. She saw nothing of Barney,
though she expected he must go rattling past on his way to the Port for
a license.

Perhaps he had changed his mind.

But at dusk the lights of Lady Jane suddenly swooped over the crest of
the wooded hill beyond the lane. Valancy was waiting at the gate for
her bridegroom. She wore her green dress and her green hat because she
had nothing else to wear. She did not look or feel at all
bride-like—she really looked like a wild elf strayed out of the
greenwood. But that did not matter. Nothing at all mattered except that
Barney was coming for her.

“Ready?” said Barney, stopping Lady Jane with some new, horrible
noises.

“Yes.” Valancy stepped in and sat down. Barney was in his blue shirt
and overalls. But they were clean overalls. He was smoking a
villainous-looking pipe and he was bareheaded. But he had a pair of
oddly smart boots on under his shabby overalls. And he was shaved. They
clattered into Deerwood and through Deerwood and hit the long, wooded
road to the Port.

“Haven’t changed your mind?” said Barney.

“No. Have you?”

“No.”

That was their whole conversation on the fifteen miles. Everything was
more dream-like than ever. Valancy didn’t know whether she felt happy.
Or terrified. Or just plain fool.

Then the lights of Port Lawrence were about them. Valancy felt as if
she were surrounded by the gleaming, hungry eyes of hundreds of great,
stealthy panthers. Barney briefly asked where Mr. Towers lived, and
Valancy as briefly told him. They stopped before the shabby little
house in an unfashionable street. They went in to the small, shabby
parlour. Barney produced his license. So he _had_ got it. Also a ring.
This thing was real. She, Valancy Stirling, was actually on the point
of being married.

They were standing up together before Mr. Towers. Valancy heard Mr.
Towers and Barney saying things. She heard some other person saying
things. She herself was thinking of the way she had once planned to be
married—away back in her early teens when such a thing had not seemed
impossible. White silk and tulle veil and orange-blossoms; no
bridesmaid. But one flower girl, in a frock of cream shadow lace over
pale pink, with a wreath of flowers in her hair, carrying a basket of
roses and lilies-of-the-valley. And the groom, a noble-looking
creature, irreproachably clad in whatever the fashion of the day
decreed. Valancy lifted her eyes and saw herself and Barney in the
little, slanting, distorting mirror over the mantelpiece. She in her
odd, unbridal green hat and dress; Barney in shirt and overalls. But it
was Barney. That was all that mattered. No veil—no flowers—no guests—no
presents—no wedding-cake—but just Barney. For all the rest of her life
there would be Barney.

“Mrs. Snaith, I hope you will be very happy,” Mr. Towers was saying.

He had not seemed surprised at their appearance—not even at Barney’s
overalls. He had seen plenty of queer weddings “up back.” He did not
know Valancy was one of the Deerwood Stirlings—he did not even know
there _were_ Deerwood Stirlings. He did not know Barney Snaith was a
fugitive from justice. Really, he was an incredibly ignorant old man.
Therefore he married them and gave them his blessing very gently and
solemnly and prayed for them that night after they had gone away. His
conscience did not trouble him at all.

“What a nice way to get married!” Barney was saying as he put Lady Jane
in gear. “No fuss and flub-dub. I never supposed it was half so easy.”

“For heaven’s sake,” said Valancy suddenly, “let’s forget we _are_
married and talk as if we weren’t. I can’t stand another drive like the
one we had coming in.”

Barney howled and threw Lady Jane into high with an infernal noise.

“And I thought I was making it easy for you,” he said. “You didn’t seem
to want to talk.”

“I didn’t. But I wanted you to talk. I don’t want you to make love to
me, but I want you to act like an ordinary human being. Tell me about
this island of yours. What sort of a place is it?”

“The jolliest place in the world. You’re going to love it. The first
time I saw it I loved it. Old Tom MacMurray owned it then. He built the
little shack on it, lived there in winter and rented it to Toronto
people in summer. I bought it from him—became by that one simple
transaction a landed proprietor owning a house and an island. There is
something so satisfying in owning a whole island. And isn’t an
uninhabited island a charming idea? I’d wanted to own one ever since
I’d read _Robinson Crusoe_. It seemed too good to be true. And beauty!
Most of the scenery belongs to the government, but they don’t tax you
for looking at it, and the moon belongs to everybody. You won’t find my
shack very tidy. I suppose you’ll want to make it tidy.”

“Yes,” said Valancy honestly. “I _have_ to be tidy. I don’t really
_want_ to be. But untidiness hurts me. Yes, I’ll have to tidy up your
shack.”

“I was prepared for that,” said Barney, with a hollow groan.

“But,” continued Valancy relentingly, “I won’t insist on your wiping
your feet when you come in.”

“No, you’ll only sweep up after me with the air of a martyr,” said
Barney. “Well, anyway, you can’t tidy the lean-to. You can’t even enter
it. The door will be locked and I shall keep the key.”

“Bluebeard’s chamber,” said Valancy. “I shan’t even think of it. I
don’t care how many wives you have hanging up in it. So long as they’re
really dead.”

“Dead as door-nails. You can do as you like in the rest of the house.
There’s not much of it—just one big living-room and one small bedroom.
Well built, though. Old Tom loved his job. The beams of our house are
cedar and the rafters fir. Our living-room windows face west and east.
It’s wonderful to have a room where you can see both sunrise and
sunset. I have two cats there. Banjo and Good Luck. Adorable animals.
Banjo is a big, enchanting, grey devil-cat. Striped, of course. I don’t
care a hang for any cat that hasn’t stripes. I never knew a cat who
could swear as genteelly and effectively as Banjo. His only fault is
that he snores horribly when he is asleep. Luck is a dainty little cat.
Always looking wistfully at you, as if he wanted to tell you something.
Maybe he will pull it off sometime. Once in a thousand years, you know,
one cat is allowed to speak. My cats are philosophers—neither of them
ever cries over spilt milk.

“Two old crows live in a pine-tree on the point and are reasonably
neighbourly. Call ’em Nip and Tuck. And I have a demure little tame
owl. Name, Leander. I brought him up from a baby and he lives over on
the mainland and chuckles to himself o’ nights. And bats—it’s a great
place for bats at night. Scared of bats?”

“No; I like them.”

“So do I. Nice, queer, uncanny, mysterious creatures. Coming from
nowhere—going nowhere. Swoop! Banjo likes ’em, too. Eats ’em. I have a
canoe and a disappearing propeller boat. Went to the Port in it today
to get my license. Quieter than Lady Jane.”

“I thought you hadn’t gone at all—that you _had_ changed your mind,”
admitted Valancy.

Barney laughed—the laugh Valancy did not like—the little, bitter,
cynical laugh.

“I never change my mind,” he said shortly.

They went back through Deerwood. Up the Muskoka road. Past Roaring
Abel’s. Over the rocky, daisied lane. The dark pine woods swallowed
them up. Through the pine woods, where the air was sweet with the
incense of the unseen, fragile bells of the linnæas that carpeted the
banks of the trail. Out to the shore of Mistawis. Lady Jane must be
left here. They got out. Barney led the way down a little path to the
edge of the lake.

“There’s our island,” he said gloatingly.

Valancy looked—and looked—and looked again. There was a diaphanous,
lilac mist on the lake, shrouding the island. Through it the two
enormous pine-trees that clasped hands over Barney’s shack loomed out
like dark turrets. Behind them was a sky still rose-hued in the
afterlight, and a pale young moon.

Valancy shivered like a tree the wind stirs suddenly. Something seemed
to sweep over her soul.

“My Blue Castle!” she said. “Oh, my Blue Castle!”

They got into the canoe and paddled out to it. They left behind the
realm of everyday and things known and landed on a realm of mystery and
enchantment where anything might happen—anything might be true. Barney
lifted Valancy out of the canoe and swung her to a lichen-covered rock
under a young pine-tree. His arms were about her and suddenly his lips
were on hers. Valancy found herself shivering with the rapture of her
first kiss.

“Welcome home, dear,” Barney was saying.




CHAPTER XXVII


Cousin Georgiana came down the lane leading up to her little house. She
lived half a mile out of Deerwood and she wanted to go in to Amelia’s
and find out if Doss had come home yet. Cousin Georgiana was anxious to
see Doss. She had something very important to tell her. Something, she
was sure, Doss would be delighted to hear. Poor Doss! She _had_ had
rather a dull life of it. Cousin Georgiana owned to herself that _she_
would not like to live under Amelia’s thumb. But that would be all
changed now. Cousin Georgiana felt tremendously important. For the time
being, she quite forgot to wonder which of them would go next.

And here was Doss herself, coming along the road from Roaring Abel’s in
such a queer green dress and hat. Talk about luck. Cousin Georgiana
would have a chance to impart her wonderful secret right away, with
nobody else about to interrupt. It was, you might say, a Providence.

Valancy, who had been living for four days on her enchanted island, had
decided that she might as well go in to Deerwood and tell her relatives
that she was married. Otherwise, finding that she had disappeared from
Roaring Abel’s, they might get out a search warrant for her. Barney had
offered to drive her in, but she had preferred to go alone. She smiled
very radiantly at Cousin Georgiana, who, she remembered, as of some one
known a long time ago, had really been not a bad little creature.
Valancy was so happy that she could have smiled at anybody—even Uncle
James. She was not averse to Cousin Georgiana’s company. Already, since
the houses along the road were becoming numerous, she was conscious
that curious eyes were looking at her from every window.

“I suppose you’re going home, dear Doss?” said Cousin Georgiana as she
shook hands—furtively eyeing Valancy’s dress and wondering if she had
_any_ petticoat on at all.

“Sooner or later,” said Valancy cryptically.

“Then I’ll go along with you. I’ve been wanting to see you _very_
especially, Doss dear. I’ve something quite _wonderful_ to tell you.”

“Yes?” said Valancy absently. What on earth was Cousin Georgiana
looking so mysterious and important about? But did it matter? No.
Nothing mattered but Barney and the Blue Castle up back in Mistawis.

“Who do you suppose called to see me the other day?” asked Cousin
Georgiana archly.

Valancy couldn’t guess.

“Edward Beck.” Cousin Georgiana lowered her voice almost to a whisper.
“_Edward Beck._”

Why the italics? And _was_ Cousin Georgiana blushing?

“Who on earth is Edward Beck?” asked Valancy indifferently.

Cousin Georgiana stared.

“Surely you remember Edward Beck,” she said reproachfully. “He lives in
that lovely house on the Port Lawrence road and he comes to our
church—regularly. You _must_ remember him.”

“Oh, I think I do now,” said Valancy, with an effort of memory. “He’s
that old man with a wen on his forehead and dozens of children, who
always sits in the pew by the door, isn’t he?”

“Not dozens of children, dear—oh, no, not dozens. Not even _one_ dozen.
Only nine. At least only nine that count. The rest are dead. He _isn’t_
old—he’s only about forty-eight—the prime of life, Doss—and what does
it matter about a wen?”

“Nothing, of course,” agreed Valancy quite sincerely. It certainly did
not matter to her whether Edward Beck had a wen or a dozen wens or no
wen at all. But Valancy was getting vaguely suspicious. There was
certainly an air of suppressed triumph about Cousin Georgiana. Could it
be possible that Cousin Georgiana was thinking of marrying again?
Marrying Edward Beck? Absurd. Cousin Georgiana was sixty-five if she
were a day and her little anxious face was as closely covered with fine
wrinkles as if she had been a hundred. But still——

“My dear,” said Cousin Georgiana, “Edward Beck wants to marry _you_.”

Valancy stared at Cousin Georgiana for a moment. Then she wanted to go
off into a peal of laughter. But she only said:

“Me?”

“Yes, you. He fell in love with you at the funeral. And he came to
consult me about it. I was such a friend of his first wife, you know.
He is very much in earnest, Dossie. And it’s a wonderful chance for
you. He’s very well off—and you know—you—you——”

“Am not so young as I once was,” agreed Valancy. “‘To her that hath
shall be given.’ Do you really think I would make a good stepmother,
Cousin Georgiana?”

“I’m sure you would. You were always so fond of children.”

“But nine is such a family to start with,” objected Valancy gravely.

“The two oldest are grown up and the third almost. That leaves only six
that really count. And most of them are boys. So much easier to bring
up than girls. There’s an excellent book—‘Health Care of the Growing
Child’—Gladys has a copy, I think. It would be such a help to you. And
there are books about morals. You’d manage nicely. Of course I told Mr.
Beck that I thought you would—would——”

“Jump at him,” supplied Valancy.

“Oh, no, no, dear. I wouldn’t use such an indelicate expression. I told
him I thought you would consider his proposal favourably. And you will,
won’t you, dearie?”

“There’s only one obstacle,” said Valancy dreamily. “You see, I’m
married already.”

“Married!” Cousin Georgiana stopped stock-still and stared at Valancy.
“Married!”

“Yes. I was married to Barney Snaith last Tuesday evening in Port
Lawrence.”

There was a convenient gate-post hard by. Cousin Georgiana took firm
hold of it.

“Doss, dear—I’m an old woman—are you trying to make fun of me?”

“Not at all. I’m only telling you the truth. For heaven’s sake, Cousin
Georgiana,”—Valancy was alarmed by certain symptoms—“don’t go crying
here on the public road!”

Cousin Georgiana choked back the tears and gave a little moan of
despair instead.

“Oh, Doss, _what_ have you done? What _have_ you done?”

“I’ve just been telling you. I’ve got married,” said Valancy, calmly
and patiently.

“To that—that—aw—that—_Barney Snaith_. Why, they say he’s had a dozen
wives already.”

“I’m the only one round at present,” said Valancy.

“What will your poor mother say?” moaned Cousin Georgiana.

“Come along with me and hear, if you want to know,” said Valancy. “I’m
on my way to tell her now.”

Cousin Georgiana let go the gate-post cautiously and found that she
could stand alone. She meekly trotted on beside Valancy—who suddenly
seemed quite a different person in her eyes. Cousin Georgiana had a
tremendous respect for a married woman. But it was terrible to think of
what the poor girl had done. So rash. So reckless. Of course Valancy
must be stark mad. But she seemed so happy in her madness that Cousin
Georgiana had a momentary conviction that it would be a pity if the
clan tried to scold her back to sanity. She had never seen that look in
Valancy’s eyes before. But what _would_ Amelia say? And Ben?

“To marry a man you know nothing about,” thought Cousin Georgiana
aloud.

“I know more about him than I know of Edward Beck,” said Valancy.

“Edward Beck _goes to church_,” said Cousin Georgiana. “Does Bar—does
your husband?”

“He has promised that he will go with me on fine Sundays,” said
Valancy.

When they turned in at the Stirling gate Valancy gave an exclamation of
surprise.

“Look at my rosebush! Why, it’s blooming!”

It was. Covered with blossoms. Great, crimson, velvety blossoms.
Fragrant. Glowing. Wonderful.

“My cutting it to pieces must have done it good,” said Valancy,
laughing. She gathered a handful of the blossoms—they would look well
on the supper-table of the verandah at Mistawis—and went, still
laughing, up the walk, conscious that Olive was standing on the steps,
Olive, goddess-like in loveliness, looking down with a slight frown on
her forehead. Olive, beautiful, insolent. Her full form voluptuous in
its swathings of rose silk and lace. Her golden-brown hair curling
richly under her big, white-frilled hat. Her colour ripe and melting.

“Beautiful,” thought Valancy coolly, “but”—as if she suddenly saw her
cousin through new eyes—“without the slightest touch of distinction.”

So Valancy had come home, thank goodness, thought Olive. But Valancy
was not looking like a repentant, returned prodigal. This was the cause
of Olive’s frown. She was looking triumphant—graceless! That outlandish
dress—that queer hat—those hands full of blood-red roses. Yet there was
something about both dress and hat, as Olive instantly felt, that was
entirely lacking in her own attire. This deepened the frown. She put
out a condescending hand.

“So you’re back, Doss? Very warm day, isn’t it? Did you walk in?”

“Yes. Coming in?”

“Oh, no. I’ve just been in. I’ve come often to comfort poor Aunty.
She’s been so lonesome. I’m going to Mrs. Bartlett’s tea. I have to
help pour. She’s giving it for her cousin from Toronto. Such a charming
girl. You’d have loved meeting her, Doss. I think Mrs. Bartlett did
send you a card. Perhaps you’ll drop in later on.”

“No, I don’t think so,” said Valancy indifferently. “I’ll have to be
home to get Barney’s supper. We’re going for a moonlit canoe ride
around Mistawis tonight.”

“Barney? Supper?” gasped Olive. “What _do_ you mean, Valancy Stirling?”

“Valancy Snaith, by the grace of God.”

Valancy flaunted her wedding-ring in Olive’s stricken face. Then she
nimbly stepped past her and into the house. Cousin Georgiana followed.
She would not miss a moment of the great scene, even though Olive did
look as if she were going to faint.

Olive did not faint. She went stupidly down the street to Mrs.
Bartlett’s. _What_ did Doss mean? She couldn’t have—that ring—oh, what
fresh scandal was that wretched girl bringing on her defenceless family
now? She should have been—shut up—long ago.

Valancy opened the sitting-room door and stepped unexpectedly right
into a grim assemblage of Stirlings. They had not come together of
malice prepense. Aunt Wellington and Cousin Gladys and Aunt Mildred and
Cousin Sarah had just called in on their way home from a meeting of the
missionary society. Uncle James had dropped in to give Amelia some
information regarding a doubtful investment. Uncle Benjamin had called,
apparently, to tell them it was a hot day and ask them what was the
difference between a bee and a donkey. Cousin Stickles had been
tactless enough to know the answer—“one gets all the honey, the other
all the whacks”—and Uncle Benjamin was in a bad humour. In all of their
minds, unexpressed, was the idea of finding out if Valancy had yet come
home, and, if not, what steps must be taken in the matter.

Well, here was Valancy at last, a poised, confident thing, not humble
and deprecating as she should have been. And so oddly, improperly
young-looking. She stood in the doorway and looked at them, Cousin
Georgiana timorous, expectant, behind her. Valancy was so happy she
didn’t hate her people any more. She could even see a number of good
qualities in them that she had never seen before. And she was sorry for
them. Her pity made her quite gentle.

“Well, Mother,” she said pleasantly.

“So you’ve come home at last!” said Mrs. Frederick, getting out a
handkerchief. She dared not be outraged, but she did not mean to be
cheated of her tears.

“Well, not exactly,” said Valancy. She threw her bomb. “I thought I
ought to drop in and tell you I was married. Last Tuesday night. To
Barney Snaith.”

Uncle Benjamin bounced up and sat down again.

“God bless my soul!” he said dully. The rest seemed turned to stone.
Except Cousin Gladys, who turned faint. Aunt Mildred and Uncle
Wellington had to help her out to the kitchen.

“She would have to keep up the Victorian traditions,” said Valancy,
with a grin. She sat down, uninvited, on a chair. Cousin Stickles had
begun to sob.

“Is there _one_ day in your life that you haven’t cried?” asked Valancy
curiously.

“Valancy,” said Uncle James, being the first to recover the power of
utterance, “did you mean what you said just now?”

“I did.”

“Do you mean to say that you have actually gone and
married—_married_—that notorious Barney
Snaith—that—that—criminal—that——”

“I have.”

“Then,” said Uncle James violently, “you are a shameless creature, lost
to all sense of propriety and virtue, and I wash my hands entirely of
you. I do not want ever to see your face again.”

“What have you left to say when I commit murder?” asked Valancy.

Uncle Benjamin again appealed to God to bless his soul.

“That drunken outlaw—that——”

A dangerous spark appeared in Valancy’s eyes. They might say what they
liked to and of her but they should not abuse Barney.

“Say ‘damn’ and you’ll feel better,” she suggested.

“I can express my feelings without blasphemy. And I tell you you have
covered yourself with eternal disgrace and infamy by marrying that
drunkard——”

“_You_ would be more endurable if you got drunk occasionally. Barney is
_not_ a drunkard.”

“He was seen drunk in Port Lawrence—pickled to the gills,” said Uncle
Benjamin.

“If that is true—and I don’t believe it—he had a good reason for it.
Now I suggest that you all stop looking tragic and accept the
situation. I’m married—you can’t undo that. And I’m perfectly happy.”

“I suppose we ought to be thankful he has really married her,” said
Cousin Sarah, by way of trying to look on the bright side.

“If he really has,” said Uncle James, who had just washed his hands of
Valancy. “Who married you?”

“Mr. Towers, of Port Lawrence.”

“By a Free Methodist!” groaned Mrs. Frederick—as if to have been
married by an imprisoned Methodist would have been a shade less
disgraceful. It was the first thing she had said. Mrs. Frederick didn’t
know _what_ to say. The whole thing was too horrible—too nightmarish.
She was sure she must wake up soon. After all their bright hopes at the
funeral!

“It makes me think of those what-d’ye-call-’ems,” said Uncle Benjamin
helplessly. “Those yarns—you know—of fairies taking babies out of their
cradles.”

“Valancy could hardly be a changeling at twenty-nine,” said Aunt
Wellington satirically.

“She was the oddest-looking baby I ever saw, anyway,” averred Uncle
Benjamin. “I said so at the time—you remember, Amelia? I said I had
never seen such eyes in a human head.”

“I’m glad _I_ never had any children,” said Cousin Sarah. “If they
don’t break your heart in one way they do it in another.”

“Isn’t it better to have your heart broken than to have it wither up?”
queried Valancy. “Before it could be broken it must have felt something
splendid. _That_ would be worth the pain.”

“Dippy—clean dippy,” muttered Uncle Benjamin, with a vague,
unsatisfactory feeling that somebody had said something like that
before.

“Valancy,” said Mrs. Frederick solemnly, “do you ever pray to be
forgiven for disobeying your mother?”

“I _should_ pray to be forgiven for obeying you so long,” said Valancy
stubbornly. “But I don’t pray about that at all. I just thank God every
day for my happiness.”

“I would rather,” said Mrs. Frederick, beginning to cry rather
belatedly, “see you dead before me than listen to what you have told me
today.”

Valancy looked at her mother and aunts, and wondered if they could ever
have known anything of the real meaning of love. She felt sorrier for
them than ever. They were so very pitiable. And they never suspected
it.

“Barney Snaith is a scoundrel to have deluded you into marrying him,”
said Uncle James violently.

“Oh, _I_ did the deluding. I asked _him_ to marry me,” said Valancy,
with a wicked smile.

“Have you _no_ pride?” demanded Aunt Wellington.

“Lots of it. I am proud that I have achieved a husband by my own
unaided efforts. Cousin Georgiana here wanted to help me to Edward
Beck.”

“Edward Beck is worth twenty thousand dollars and has the finest house
between here and Port Lawrence,” said Uncle Benjamin.

“That sounds very fine,” said Valancy scornfully, “but it isn’t worth
_that_”—she snapped her fingers—“compared to feeling Barney’s arms
around me and his cheek against mine.”

“_Oh_, Doss!” said Cousin Stickles. Cousin Sarah said, “Oh, _Doss_!”
Aunt Wellington said, “Valancy, you need not be indecent.”

“Why, it surely isn’t indecent to like to have your husband put his arm
around you? I should think it would be indecent if you didn’t.”

“Why expect decency from her?” inquired Uncle James sarcastically. “She
has cut herself off from decency forevermore. She has made her bed. Let
her lie on it.”

“Thanks,” said Valancy very gratefully. “How you would have enjoyed
being Torquemada! Now, I must really be getting back. Mother, may I
have those three woollen cushions I worked last winter?”

“Take them—take everything!” said Mrs. Frederick.

“Oh, I don’t want everything—or much. I don’t want my Blue Castle
cluttered. Just the cushions. I’ll call for them some day when we motor
in.”

Valancy rose and went to the door. There she turned. She was sorrier
than ever for them all. _They_ had no Blue Castle in the purple
solitudes of Mistawis.

“The trouble with you people is that you don’t laugh enough,” she said.

“Doss, dear,” said Cousin Georgiana mournfully, “some day you will
discover that blood is thicker than water.”

“Of course it is. But who wants water to be thick?” parried Valancy.
“We want water to be thin—sparkling—crystal-clear.”

Cousin Stickles groaned.

Valancy would not ask any of them to come and see her—she was afraid
they _would_ come out of curiosity. But she said:

“Do you mind if I drop in and see you once in a while, Mother?”

“My house will always be open to you,” said Mrs. Frederick, with a
mournful dignity.

“You should never recognise her again,” said Uncle James sternly, as
the door closed behind Valancy.

“I cannot quite forget that I am a mother,” said Mrs. Frederick. “My
poor, unfortunate girl!”

“I dare say the marriage isn’t legal,” said Uncle James comfortingly.
“He has probably been married half a dozen times before. But _I_ am
through with her. I have done all I could, Amelia. I think you will
admit that. Henceforth”—Uncle James was terribly solemn about
it—“Valancy is to me as one dead.”

“Mrs. Barney Snaith,” said Cousin Georgiana, as if trying it out to see
how it would sound.

“He has a score of aliases, no doubt,” said Uncle Benjamin. “For my
part, I believe the man is half Indian. I haven’t a doubt they’re
living in a wigwam.”

“If he has married her under the name of Snaith and it isn’t his real
name wouldn’t that make the marriage null and void?” asked Cousin
Stickles hopefully.

Uncle James shook his head.

“No, it is the man who marries, not the name.”

“You know,” said Cousin Gladys, who had recovered and returned but was
still shaky, “I had a distinct premonition of this at Herbert’s silver
dinner. I remarked it at the time. When she was defending Snaith. You
remember, of course. It came over me like a revelation. I spoke to
David when I went home about it.”

“What—_what_,” demanded Aunt Wellington of the universe, “has come over
Valancy? _Valancy!_”

The universe did not answer but Uncle James did.

“Isn’t there something coming up of late about secondary personalities
cropping out? I don’t hold with many of those new-fangled notions, but
there may be something in this one. It would account for her
incomprehensible conduct.”

“Valancy is so fond of mushrooms,” sighed Cousin Georgiana. “I’m afraid
she’ll get poisoned eating toadstools by mistake living up back in the
woods.”

“There are worse things than death,” said Uncle James, believing that
it was the first time in the world that such a statement had been made.

“Nothing can ever be the same again!” sobbed Cousin Stickles.

Valancy, hurrying along the dusty road, back to cool Mistawis and her
purple island, had forgotten all about them—just as she had forgotten
that she might drop dead at any moment if she hurried.




CHAPTER XXVIII


Summer passed by. The Stirling clan—with the insignificant exception of
Cousin Georgiana—had tacitly agreed to follow Uncle James’ example and
look upon Valancy as one dead. To be sure, Valancy had an unquiet,
ghostly habit of recurring resurrections when she and Barney clattered
through Deerwood and out to the Port in that unspeakable car. Valancy,
bareheaded, with stars in her eyes. Barney, bareheaded, smoking his
pipe. But shaved. Always shaved now, if any of them had noticed it.
They even had the audacity to go in to Uncle Benjamin’s store to buy
groceries. Twice Uncle Benjamin ignored them. Was not Valancy one of
the dead? While Snaith had never existed. But the third time he told
Barney he was a scoundrel who should be hung for luring an unfortunate,
weak-minded girl away from her home and friends.

Barney’s one straight eyebrow went up.

“I have made her happy,” he said coolly, “and she was miserable with
her friends. So that’s that.”

Uncle Benjamin stared. It had never occurred to him that women had to
be, or ought to be, “made happy.”

“You—you pup!” he said.

“Why be so unoriginal?” queried Barney amiably. “Anybody could call me
a pup. Why not think of something worthy of the Stirlings? Besides, I’m
not a pup. I’m really quite a middle-aged dog. Thirty-five, if you’re
interested in knowing.”

Uncle Benjamin remembered just in time that Valancy was dead. He turned
his back on Barney.

Valancy _was_ happy—gloriously and entirely so. She seemed to be living
in a wonderful house of life and every day opened a new, mysterious
room. It was in a world which had nothing in common with the one she
had left behind—a world where time was not—which was young with
immortal youth—where there was neither past nor future but only the
present. She surrendered herself utterly to the charm of it.

The absolute freedom of it all was unbelievable. They could do exactly
as they liked. No Mrs. Grundy. No traditions. No relatives. Or in-laws.
“Peace, perfect peace, with loved ones far away,” as Barney quoted
shamelessly.

Valancy had gone home once and got her cushions. And Cousin Georgiana
had given her one of her famous candlewick spreads of most elaborate
design. “For your spare-room bed, dear,” she said.

“But I haven’t got any spare-room,” said Valancy.

Cousin Georgiana looked horrified. A house without a spare-room was
monstrous to her.

“But it’s a lovely spread,” said Valancy, with a kiss, “and I’m so glad
to have it. I’ll put it on my own bed. Barney’s old patch-work quilt is
getting ragged.”

“I don’t see how you can be contented to live up back,” sighed Cousin
Georgiana. “It’s so out of the world.”

“Contented!” Valancy laughed. What was the use of trying to explain to
Cousin Georgiana. “It is,” she agreed, “most gloriously and entirely
out of the world.”

“And you are really happy, dear?” asked Cousin Georgiana wistfully.

“I really am,” said Valancy gravely, her eyes dancing.

“Marriage is such a serious thing,” sighed Cousin Georgiana.

“When it’s going to last long,” agreed Valancy.

Cousin Georgiana did not understand this at all. But it worried her and
she lay awake at nights wondering what Valancy meant by it.

Valancy loved her Blue Castle and was completely satisfied with it. The
big living-room had three windows, all commanding exquisite views of
exquisite Mistawis. The one in the end of the room was an oriel
window—which Tom MacMurray, Barney explained, had got out of some
little, old “up back” church that had been sold. It faced the west and
when the sunsets flooded it Valancy’s whole being knelt in prayer as if
in some great cathedral. The new moons always looked down through it,
the lower pine boughs swayed about the top of it, and all through the
nights the soft, dim silver of the lake dreamed through it.

There was a stone fireplace on the other side. No desecrating gas
imitation but a real fireplace where you could burn real logs. With a
big grizzly bearskin on the floor before it, and beside it a hideous,
red-plush sofa of Tom MacMurray’s régime. But its ugliness was hidden
by silver-grey timber wolf skins, and Valancy’s cushions made it gay
and comfortable. In a corner a nice, tall, lazy old clock ticked—the
right kind of a clock. One that did not hurry the hours away but ticked
them off deliberately. It was the jolliest looking old clock. A fat,
corpulent clock with a great, round, man’s face painted on it, the
hands stretching out of its nose and the hours encircling it like a
halo.

There was a big glass case of stuffed owls and several deer
heads—likewise of Tom MacMurray’s vintage. Some comfortable old chairs
that asked to be sat upon. A squat little chair with a cushion was
prescriptively Banjo’s. If anybody else dared sit on it Banjo glared
him out of it with his topaz-hued, black-ringed eyes. Banjo had an
adorable habit of hanging over the back of it, trying to catch his own
tail. Losing his temper because he couldn’t catch it. Giving it a
fierce bite for spite when he _did_ catch it. Yowling malignantly with
pain. Barney and Valancy laughed at him until they ached. But it was
Good Luck they loved. They were both agreed that Good Luck was so
lovable that he practically amounted to an obsession.

One side of the wall was lined with rough, homemade book-shelves filled
with books, and between the two side windows hung an old mirror in a
faded gilt frame, with fat cupids gamboling in the panel over the
glass. A mirror, Valancy thought, that must be like the fabled mirror
into which Venus had once looked and which thereafter reflected as
beautiful every woman who looked into it. Valancy thought she was
almost pretty in that mirror. But that may have been because she had
shingled her hair.

This was before the day of bobs and was regarded as a wild, unheard-of
proceeding—unless you had typhoid. When Mrs. Frederick heard of it she
almost decided to erase Valancy’s name from the family Bible. Barney
cut the hair, square off at the back of Valancy’s neck, bringing it
down in a short black fringe over her forehead. It gave a meaning and a
purpose to her little, three-cornered face that it never had possessed
before. Even her nose ceased to irritate her. Her eyes were bright, and
her sallow skin had cleared to the hue of creamy ivory. The old family
joke had come true—she was really fat at last—anyway, no longer skinny.
Valancy might never be beautiful, but she was of the type that looks
its best in the woods—elfin—mocking—alluring.

Her heart bothered her very little. When an attack threatened she was
generally able to head it off with Dr. Trent’s prescription. The only
bad one she had was one night when she was temporarily out of medicine.
And it _was_ a bad one. For the time being, Valancy realised keenly
that death was actually waiting to pounce on her any moment. But the
rest of the time she would not—did not—let herself remember it at all.




CHAPTER XXIX


Valancy toiled not, neither did she spin. There was really very little
work to do. She cooked their meals on a coal-oil stove, performing all
her little domestic rites carefully and exultingly, and they ate out on
the verandah that almost overhung the lake. Before them lay Mistawis,
like a scene out of some fairy tale of old time. And Barney smiling his
twisted, enigmatical smile at her across the table.

“What a view old Tom picked out when he built this shack!” Barney would
say exultantly.

Supper was the meal Valancy liked best. The faint laughter of winds was
always about them and the colours of Mistawis, imperial and spiritual,
under the changing clouds were something that cannot be expressed in
mere words. Shadows, too. Clustering in the pines until a wind shook
them out and pursued them over Mistawis. They lay all day along the
shores, threaded by ferns and wild blossoms. They stole around the
headlands in the glow of the sunset, until twilight wove them all into
one great web of dusk.

The cats, with their wise, innocent little faces, would sit on the
verandah railing and eat the tidbits Barney flung them. And how good
everything tasted! Valancy, amid all the romance of Mistawis, never
forgot that men had stomachs. Barney paid her no end of compliments on
her cooking.

“After all,” he admitted, “there’s something to be said for square
meals. I’ve mostly got along by boiling two or three dozen eggs hard at
once and eating a few when I got hungry, with a slice of bacon once in
a while and a jorum of tea.”

Valancy poured tea out of Barney’s little battered old pewter teapot of
incredible age. She had not even a set of dishes—only Barney’s
mismatched chipped bits—and a dear, big, pobby old jug of robin’s-egg
blue.

After the meal was over they would sit there and talk for hours—or sit
and say nothing, in all the languages of the world, Barney pulling away
at his pipe, Valancy dreaming idly and deliciously, gazing at the
far-off hills beyond Mistawis where the spires of firs came out against
the sunset. The moonlight would begin to silver the Mistawis dusk. Bats
would begin to swoop darkly against the pale, western gold. The little
waterfall that came down on the high bank not far away would, by some
whim of the wildwood gods, begin to look like a wonderful white woman
beckoning through the spicy, fragrant evergreens. And Leander would
begin to chuckle diabolically on the mainland shore. How sweet it was
to sit there and do nothing in the beautiful silence, with Barney at
the other side of the table, smoking!

There were plenty of other islands in sight, though none were near
enough to be troublesome as neighbours. There was one little group of
islets far off to the west which they called the Fortunate Isles. At
sunrise they looked like a cluster of emeralds, at sunset like a
cluster of amethysts. They were too small for houses; but the lights on
the larger islands would bloom out all over the lake, and bonfires
would be lighted on their shores, streaming up into the wood shadows
and throwing great, blood-red ribbons over the waters. Music would
drift to them alluringly from boats here and there, or from the
verandahs on the big house of the millionaire on the biggest island.

“Would you like a house like that, Moonlight?” Barney asked once,
waving his hand at it. He had taken to calling her Moonlight, and
Valancy loved it.

“No,” said Valancy, who had once dreamed of a mountain castle ten times
the size of the rich man’s “cottage” and now pitied the poor
inhabitants of palaces. “No. It’s too elegant. I would have to carry it
with me everywhere I went. On my back like a snail. It would own
me—possess me, body and soul. I like a house I can love and cuddle and
boss. Just like ours here. I don’t envy Hamilton Gossard ‘the finest
summer residence in Canada.’ It is magnificent, but it isn’t my Blue
Castle.”

Away down at the far end of the lake they got every night a glimpse of
a big, continental train rushing through a clearing. Valancy liked to
watch its lighted windows flash by and wonder who was on it and what
hopes and fears it carried. She also amused herself by picturing Barney
and herself going to the dances and dinners in the houses on the
islands, but she did not want to go in reality. Once they did go to a
masquerade dance in the pavilion at one of the hotels up the lake, and
had a glorious evening, but slipped away in their canoe, before
unmasking time, back to the Blue Castle.

“It was lovely—but I don’t want to go again,” said Valancy.

So many hours a day Barney shut himself up in Bluebeard’s Chamber.
Valancy never saw the inside of it. From the smells that filtered
through at times she concluded he must be conducting chemical
experiments—or counterfeiting money. Valancy supposed there must be
smelly processes in making counterfeit money. But she did not trouble
herself about it. She had no desire to peer into the locked chambers of
Barney’s house of life. His past and his future concerned her not. Only
this rapturous present. Nothing else mattered.

Once he went away and stayed away two days and nights. He had asked
Valancy if she would be afraid to stay alone and she had said she would
not. He never told her where he had been. She was not afraid to be
alone, but she was horribly lonely. The sweetest sound she had ever
heard was Lady Jane’s clatter through the woods when Barney returned.
And then his signal whistle from the shore. She ran down to the landing
rock to greet him—to nestle herself into his eager arms—they _did_ seem
eager.

“Have you missed me, Moonlight?” Barney was whispering.

“It seems a hundred years since you went away,” said Valancy.

“I won’t leave you again.”

“You must,” protested Valancy, “if you want to. I’d be miserable if I
thought you wanted to go and didn’t, because of me. I want you to feel
perfectly free.”

Barney laughed—a little cynically.

“There is no such thing as freedom on earth,” he said. “Only different
kinds of bondages. And comparative bondages. _You_ think you are free
now because you’ve escaped from a peculiarly unbearable kind of
bondage. But are you? You love me—_that’s_ a bondage.”

“Who said or wrote that ‘the prison unto which we doom ourselves no
prison is’?” asked Valancy dreamily, clinging to his arm as they
climbed up the rock steps.

“Ah, now you have it,” said Barney. “That’s all the freedom we can hope
for—the freedom to choose our prison. But, Moonlight,”—he stopped at
the door of the Blue Castle and looked about him—at the glorious lake,
the great, shadowy woods, the bonfires, the twinkling
lights—“Moonlight, I’m glad to be home again. When I came down through
the woods and saw my home lights—mine—gleaming out under the old
pines—something I’d never seen before—oh, girl, I was glad—glad!”

But in spite of Barney’s doctrine of bondage, Valancy thought they were
splendidly free. It was amazing to be able to sit up half the night and
look at the moon if you wanted to. To be late for meals if you wanted
to—she who had always been rebuked so sharply by her mother and so
reproachfully by Cousin Stickles if she were one minute late. Dawdle
over meals as long as you wanted to. Leave your crusts if you wanted
to. Not come home at all for meals if you wanted to. Sit on a sun-warm
rock and paddle your bare feet in the hot sand if you wanted to. Just
sit and do nothing in the beautiful silence if you wanted to. In short,
do any fool thing you wanted to whenever the notion took you. If _that_
wasn’t freedom, what was?




CHAPTER XXX


They didn’t spend all their days on the island. They spent more than
half of them wandering at will through the enchanted Muskoka country.
Barney knew the woods as a book and he taught their lore and craft to
Valancy. He could always find trail and haunt of the shy wood people.
Valancy learned the different fairy-likenesses of the mosses—the charm
and exquisiteness of woodland blossoms. She learned to know every bird
at sight and mimic its call—though never so perfectly as Barney. She
made friends with every kind of tree. She learned to paddle a canoe as
well as Barney himself. She liked to be out in the rain and she never
caught cold.

Sometimes they took a lunch with them and went berrying—strawberries
and blueberries. How pretty blueberries were—the dainty green of the
unripe berries, the glossy pinks and scarlets of the half ripes, the
misty blue of the fully matured! And Valancy learned the real flavour
of the strawberry in its highest perfection. There was a certain sunlit
dell on the banks of Mistawis along which white birches grew on one
side and on the other still, changeless ranks of young spruces. There
were long grasses at the roots of the birches, combed down by the winds
and wet with morning dew late into the afternoons. Here they found
berries that might have graced the banquets of Lucullus, great
ambrosial sweetnesses hanging like rubies to long, rosy stalks. They
lifted them by the stalk and ate them from it, uncrushed and virgin,
tasting each berry by itself with all its wild fragrance ensphered
therein. When Valancy carried any of these berries home that elusive
essence escaped and they became nothing more than the common berries of
the market-place—very kitchenly good indeed, but not as they would have
been, eaten in their birch dell until her fingers were stained as pink
as Aurora’s eyelids.

Or they went after water-lilies. Barney knew where to find them in the
creeks and bays of Mistawis. Then the Blue Castle was glorious with
them, every receptacle that Valancy could contrive filled with the
exquisite things. If not water lilies then cardinal flowers, fresh and
vivid from the swamps of Mistawis, where they burned like ribbons of
flame.

Sometimes they went trouting on little nameless rivers or hidden brooks
on whose banks Naiads might have sunned their white, wet limbs. Then
all they took with them were some raw potatoes and salt. They roasted
the potatoes over a fire and Barney showed Valancy how to cook the
trout by wrapping them in leaves, coating them with mud and baking them
in a bed of hot coals. Never were such delicious meals. Valancy had
such an appetite it was no wonder she put flesh on her bones.

Or they just prowled and explored through woods that always seemed to
be expecting something wonderful to happen. At least, that was the way
Valancy felt about them. Down the next hollow—over the next hill—you
would find it.

“We don’t know where we’re going, but isn’t it fun to go?” Barney used
to say.

Once or twice night overtook them, too far from their Blue Castle to
get back. But Barney made a fragrant bed of bracken and fir boughs and
they slept on it dreamlessly, under a ceiling of old spruces with moss
hanging from them, while beyond them moonlight and the murmur of pines
blended together so that one could hardly tell which was light and
which was sound.

There were rainy days, of course, when Muskoka was a wet green land.
Days when showers drifted across Mistawis like pale ghosts of rain and
they never thought of staying in because of it. Days when it rained in
right good earnest and they had to stay in. Then Barney shut himself up
in Bluebeard’s Chamber and Valancy read, or dreamed on the wolfskins
with Good Luck purring beside her and Banjo watching them suspiciously
from his own peculiar chair. On Sunday evenings they paddled across to
a point of land and walked from there through the woods to the little
Free Methodist church. One felt really too happy for Sunday. Valancy
had never really liked Sundays before.

And always, Sundays and weekdays, she was with Barney. Nothing else
really mattered. And what a companion he was! How understanding! How
jolly! How—how Barney-like! That summed it all up.

Valancy had taken some of her two hundred dollars out of the bank and
spent it in pretty clothes. She had a little smoke-blue chiffon which
she always put on when they spent the evening at home—smoke-blue with
touches of silver about it. It was after she began wearing it that
Barney began calling her Moonlight.

“Moonlight and blue twilight—that is what you look like in that dress.
I like it. It belongs to you. You aren’t exactly pretty, but you have
some adorable beauty-spots. Your eyes. And that little kissable dent
just between your collar bones. You have the wrist and ankle of an
aristocrat. That little head of yours is beautifully shaped. And when
you look backward over your shoulder you’re maddening—especially in
twilight or moonlight. An elf maiden. A wood sprite. You belong to the
woods, Moonlight—you should never be out of them. In spite of your
ancestry, there is something wild and remote and untamed about you. And
you have such a nice, sweet, throaty, summery voice. Such a nice voice
for love-making.”

“Shure an’ ye’ve kissed the Blarney Stone,” scoffed Valancy. But she
tasted these compliments for weeks.

She got a pale green bathing-suit, too—a garment which would have given
her clan their deaths if they had ever seen her in it. Barney taught
her how to swim. Sometimes she put her bathing-dress on when she got up
and didn’t take it off until she went to bed—running down to the water
for a plunge whenever she felt like it and sprawling on the sun-warm
rocks to dry.

She had forgotten all the old humiliating things that used to come up
against her in the night—the injustices and the disappointments. It was
as if they had all happened to some other person—not to her, Valancy
Snaith, who had always been happy.

“I understand now what it means to be born again,” she told Barney.

Holmes speaks of grief “staining backward” through the pages of life;
but Valancy found her happiness had stained backward likewise and
flooded with rose-colour her whole previous drab existence. She found
it hard to believe that she had ever been lonely and unhappy and
afraid.

“When death comes, I shall have lived,” thought Valancy. “I shall have
had my hour.”

And her dust-pile!

One day Valancy had heaped up the sand in the little island cove in a
tremendous cone and stuck a gay little Union Jack on top of it.

“What are you celebrating?” Barney wanted to know.

“I’m just exorcising an old demon,” Valancy told him.




CHAPTER XXXI


Autumn came. Late September with cool nights. They had to forsake the
verandah; but they kindled a fire in the big fireplace and sat before
it with jest and laughter. They left the doors open, and Banjo and Good
Luck came and went at pleasure. Sometimes they sat gravely on the
bearskin rug between Barney and Valancy; sometimes they slunk off into
the mystery of the chill night outside. The stars smouldered in the
horizon mists through the old oriel. The haunting, persistent croon of
the pine-trees filled the air. The little waves began to make soft,
sobbing splashes on the rocks below them in the rising winds. They
needed no light but the firelight that sometimes leaped up and revealed
them—sometimes shrouded them in shadow. When the night wind rose higher
Barney would shut the door and light a lamp and read to her—poetry and
essays and gorgeous, dim chronicles of ancient wars. Barney never would
read novels: he vowed they bored him. But sometimes she read them
herself, curled up on the wolf skins, laughing aloud in peace. For
Barney was not one of those aggravating people who can never hear you
smiling audibly over something you’ve read without inquiring placidly,
“What is the joke?”

October—with a gorgeous pageant of color around Mistawis, into which
Valancy plunged her soul. Never had she imagined anything so splendid.
A great, tinted peace. Blue, wind-winnowed skies. Sunlight sleeping in
the glades of that fairyland. Long dreamy purple days paddling idly in
their canoe along shores and up the rivers of crimson and gold. A
sleepy, red hunter’s moon. Enchanted tempests that stripped the leaves
from the trees and heaped them along the shores. Flying shadows of
clouds. What had all the smug, opulent lands out front to compare with
this?

November—with uncanny witchery in its changed trees. With murky red
sunsets flaming in smoky crimson behind the westering hills. With dear
days when the austere woods were beautiful and gracious in a dignified
serenity of folded hands and closed eyes—days full of a fine, pale
sunshine that sifted through the late, leafless gold of the
juniper-trees and glimmered among the grey beeches, lighting up
evergreen banks of moss and washing the colonnades of the pines. Days
with a high-sprung sky of flawless turquoise. Days when an exquisite
melancholy seemed to hang over the landscape and dream about the lake.
But days, too, of the wild blackness of great autumn storms, followed
by dank, wet, streaming nights when there was witch-laughter in the
pines and fitful moans among the mainland trees. What cared they? Old
Tom had built his roof well, and his chimney drew.

“Warm fire—books—comfort—safety from storm—our cats on the rug.
Moonlight,” said Barney, “would you be any happier now if you had a
million dollars?”

“No—nor half so happy. I’d be bored by conventions and obligations
then.”

December. Early snows and Orion. The pale fires of the Milky Way. It
was really winter now—wonderful, cold, starry winter. How Valancy had
always hated winter! Dull, brief, uneventful days. Long, cold,
companionless nights. Cousin Stickles with her back that had to be
rubbed continually. Cousin Stickles making weird noises gargling her
throat in the mornings. Cousin Stickles whining over the price of coal.
Her mother, probing, questioning, ignoring. Endless colds and
bronchitis—or the dread of it. Redfern’s Liniment and Purple Pills.

But now she loved winter. Winter was beautiful “up back”—almost
intolerably beautiful. Days of clear brilliance. Evenings that were
like cups of glamour—the purest vintage of winter’s wine. Nights with
their fire of stars. Cold, exquisite winter sunrises. Lovely ferns of
ice all over the windows of the Blue Castle. Moonlight on birches in a
silver thaw. Ragged shadows on windy evenings—torn, twisted, fantastic
shadows. Great silences, austere and searching. Jewelled, barbaric
hills. The sun suddenly breaking through grey clouds over long, white
Mistawis. Icy-grey twilights, broken by snow-squalls, when their cosy
living-room, with its goblins of firelight and inscrutable cats seemed
cosier than ever. Every hour brought a new revelation and wonder.

Barney ran Lady Jane into Roaring Abel’s barn and taught Valancy how to
snowshoe—Valancy, who ought to be laid up with bronchitis. But Valancy
had not even a cold. Later on in the winter Barney had a terrible one
and Valancy nursed him through it with a dread of pneumonia in her
heart. But Valancy’s colds seemed to have gone where old moons go.
Which was luck—for she hadn’t even Redfern’s Liniment. She had
thoughtfully bought a bottle at the Port and Barney had hurled it into
frozen Mistawis with a scowl.

“Bring no more of that devilish stuff here,” he had ordered briefly. It
was the first and last time he had spoken harshly to her.

They went for long tramps through the exquisite reticence of winter
woods and the silver jungles of frosted trees, and found loveliness
everywhere.

At times they seemed to be walking through a spellbound world of
crystal and pearl, so white and radiant were clearings and lakes and
sky. The air was so crisp and clear that it was half intoxicating.

Once they stood in a hesitation of ecstasy at the entrance of a narrow
path between ranks of birches. Every twig and spray was outlined in
snow. The undergrowth along its sides was a little fairy forest cut out
of marble. The shadows cast by the pale sunshine were fine and
spiritual.

“Come away,” said Barney, turning. “We must not commit the desecration
of tramping through there.”

One evening they came upon a snowdrift far back in an old clearing
which was in the exact likeness of a beautiful woman’s profile. Seen
too close by, the resemblance was lost, as in the fairy-tale of the
Castle of St. John. Seen from behind, it was a shapeless oddity. But at
just the right distance and angle the outline was so perfect that when
they came suddenly upon it, gleaming out against the dark background of
spruce in the glow of that winter sunset they both exclaimed in
amazement. There was a low, noble brow, a straight, classic nose, lips
and chin and cheek-curve modelled as if some goddess of old time had
sat to the sculptor, and a breast of such cold, swelling purity as the
very spirit of the winter woods might display.

“‘All the beauty that old Greece and Rome, sung painted, taught,’”
quoted Barney.

“And to think no human eyes save ours have seen or will see it,”
breathed Valancy, who felt at times as if she were living in a book by
John Foster. As she looked around her she recalled some passages she
had marked in the new Foster book Barney had brought her from the
Port—with an adjuration not to expect _him_ to read or listen to it.

“‘All the tintings of winter woods are extremely delicate and
elusive,’” recalled Valancy. “‘When the brief afternoon wanes and the
sun just touches the tops of the hills, there seems to be all over the
woods an abundance, not of colour, but of the spirit of colour. There
is really nothing but pure white after all, but one has the impression
of fairy-like blendings of rose and violet, opal and heliotrope on the
slopes—in the dingles and along the curves of the forest-land. You feel
sure the tint is there, but when you look at it directly it is gone.
From the corner of your eye you are aware that it is lurking over
yonder in a spot where there was nothing but pale purity a moment ago.
Only just when the sun is setting is there a fleeting moment of real
colour. Then the redness streams out over the snow and incarnadines the
hills and rivers and smites the crest of the pines with flame. Just a
few minutes of transfiguration and revelation—and it is gone.’

“I wonder if John Foster ever spent a winter in Mistawis,” said
Valancy.

“Not likely,” scoffed Barney. “People who write tosh like that
generally write it in a warm house on some smug city street.”

“You are too hard on John Foster,” said Valancy severely. “No one could
have written that little paragraph I read you last night without having
seen it first—you know he couldn’t.”

“I didn’t listen to it,” said Barney morosely. “You know I told you I
wouldn’t.”

“Then you’ve got to listen to it now,” persisted Valancy. She made him
stand still on his snowshoes while she repeated it.

“‘She is a rare artist, this old Mother Nature, who works “for the joy
of working” and not in any spirit of vain show. Today the fir woods are
a symphony of greens and greys, so subtle that you cannot tell where
one shade begins to be the other. Grey trunk, green bough, grey-green
moss above the white, grey-shadowed floor. Yet the old gypsy doesn’t
like unrelieved monotones. She must have a dash of colour. See it. A
broken dead fir bough, of a beautiful red-brown, swinging among the
beards of moss.’”

“Good Lord, do you learn all that fellow’s books by heart?” was
Barney’s disgusted reaction as he strode off.

“John Foster’s books were all that saved my soul alive the past five
years,” averred Valancy. “Oh, Barney, look at that exquisite filigree
of snow in the furrows of that old elm-tree trunk.”

When they came out to the lake they changed from snowshoes to skates
and skated home. For a wonder Valancy had learned, when she was a
little schoolgirl, to skate on the pond behind the Deerwood school. She
never had any skates of her own, but some of the other girls had lent
her theirs and she seemed to have a natural knack of it. Uncle Benjamin
had once promised her a pair of skates for Christmas, but when
Christmas came he had given her rubbers instead. She had never skated
since she grew up, but the old trick came back quickly, and glorious
were the hours she and Barney spent skimming over the white lakes and
past the dark islands where the summer cottages were closed and silent.
Tonight they flew down Mistawis before the wind, in an exhilaration
that crimsoned Valancy’s cheeks under her white tam. And at the end was
her dear little house, on the island of pines, with a coating of snow
on its roof, sparkling in the moonlight. Its windows glinted impishly
at her in the stray gleams.

“Looks exactly like a picture-book, doesn’t it?” said Barney.

They had a lovely Christmas. No rush. No scramble. No niggling attempts
to make ends meet. No wild effort to remember whether she hadn’t given
the same kind of present to the same person two Christmases before—no
mob of last-minute shoppers—no dreary family “reunions” where she sat
mute and unimportant—no attacks of “nerves.” They decorated the Blue
Castle with pine boughs, and Valancy made delightful little tinsel
stars and hung them up amid the greenery. She cooked a dinner to which
Barney did full justice, while Good Luck and Banjo picked the bones.

“A land that can produce a goose like that is an admirable land,” vowed
Barney. “Canada forever!” And they drank to the Union Jack a bottle of
dandelion wine that Cousin Georgiana had given Valancy along with the
bedspread.

“One never knows,” Cousin Georgiana had said solemnly, “when one may
need a little stimulant.”

Barney had asked Valancy what she wanted for a Christmas present.

“Something frivolous and unnecessary,” said Valancy, who had got a pair
of goloshes last Christmas and two long-sleeved, woolen undervests the
year before. And so on back.

To her delight, Barney gave her a necklace of pearl beads. Valancy had
wanted a string of milky pearl beads—like congealed moonshine—all her
life. And these were so pretty. All that worried her was that they were
really too good. They must have cost a great deal—fifteen dollars, at
least. Could Barney afford that? She didn’t know a thing about his
finances. She had refused to let him buy any of her clothes—she had
enough for that, she told him, as long as she would need clothes. In a
round, black jar on the chimney-piece Barney put money for their
household expenses—always enough. The jar was never empty, though
Valancy never caught him replenishing it. He couldn’t have much, of
course, and that necklace—but Valancy tossed care aside. She would wear
it and enjoy it. It was the first pretty thing she had ever had.




CHAPTER XXXII


New Year. The old, shabby, inglorious outlived calendar came down. The
new one went up. January was a month of storms. It snowed for three
weeks on end. The thermometer went miles below zero and stayed there.
But, as Barney and Valancy pointed out to each other, there were no
mosquitoes. And the roar and crackle of their big fire drowned the
howls of the north wind. Good Luck and Banjo waxed fat and developed
resplendent coats of thick, silky fur. Nip and Tuck had gone.

“But they’ll come back in spring,” promised Barney.

There was no monotony. Sometimes they had dramatic little private spats
that never even thought of becoming quarrels. Sometimes Roaring Abel
dropped in—for an evening or a whole day—with his old tartan cap and
his long red beard coated with snow. He generally brought his fiddle
and played for them, to the delight of all except Banjo, who would go
temporarily insane and retreat under Valancy’s bed. Sometimes Abel and
Barney talked while Valancy made candy for them; sometimes they sat and
smoked in silence _à la_ Tennyson and Carlyle, until the Blue Castle
reeked and Valancy fled to the open. Sometimes they played checkers
fiercely and silently the whole night through. Sometimes they all ate
the russet apples Abel had brought, while the jolly old clock ticked
the delightful minutes away.

“A plate of apples, an open fire, and ‘a jolly goode booke whereon to
looke’ are a fair substitute for heaven,” vowed Barney. “Any one can
have the streets of gold. Let’s have another whack at Carman.”

It was easier now for the Stirlings to believe Valancy of the dead. Not
even dim rumours of her having been over at the Port came to trouble
them, though she and Barney used to skate there occasionally to see a
movie and eat hot dogs shamelessly at the corner stand afterwards.
Presumably none of the Stirlings ever thought about her—except Cousin
Georgiana, who used to lie awake worrying about poor Doss. Did she have
enough to eat? Was that dreadful creature good to her? Was she warm
enough at nights?

Valancy was quite warm at nights. She used to wake up and revel
silently in the cosiness of those winter nights on that little island
in the frozen lake. The nights of other winters had been so cold and
long. Valancy hated to wake up in them and think about the bleakness
and emptiness of the day that had passed and the bleakness and
emptiness of the day that would come. Now she almost counted that
night lost on which she didn’t wake up and lie awake for half an hour
just being happy, while Barney’s regular breathing went on beside her,
and through the open door the smouldering brands in the fireplace
winked at her in the gloom. It was very nice to feel a little Lucky cat
jump up on your bed in the darkness and snuggle down at your feet,
purring; but Banjo would be sitting dourly by himself out in front of
the fire like a brooding demon. At such moments Banjo was anything but
canny, but Valancy loved his uncanniness.

The side of the bed had to be right against the window. There was no
other place for it in the tiny room. Valancy, lying there, could look
out of the window, through the big pine boughs that actually touched
it, away up Mistawis, white and lustrous as a pavement of pearl, or
dark and terrible in the storm. Sometimes the pine boughs tapped
against the panes with friendly signals. Sometimes she heard the little
hissing whisper of snow against them right at her side. Some nights the
whole outer world seemed given over to the empery of silence; then came
nights when there would be a majestic sweep of wind in the pines;
nights of dear starlight when it whistled freakishly and joyously
around the Blue Castle; brooding nights before storm when it crept
along the floor of the lake with a low, wailing cry of boding and
mystery. Valancy wasted many perfectly good sleeping hours in these
delightful communings. But she could sleep as long in the morning as
she wanted to. Nobody cared. Barney cooked his own breakfast of bacon
and eggs and then shut himself up in Bluebeard’s Chamber till supper
time. Then they had an evening of reading and talk. They talked about
everything in this world and a good many things in other worlds. They
laughed over their own jokes until the Blue Castles re-echoed.

“You _do_ laugh beautifully,” Barney told her once. “It makes me want
to laugh just to hear you laugh. There’s a trick about your laugh—as if
there were so much more fun back of it that you wouldn’t let out. Did
you laugh like that before you came to Mistawis, Moonlight?”

“I never laughed at all—really. I used to giggle foolishly when I felt
I was expected to. But now—the laugh just comes.”

It struck Valancy more than once that Barney himself laughed a great
deal oftener than he used to and that his laugh had changed. It had
become wholesome. She rarely heard the little cynical note in it now.
Could a man laugh like that who had crimes on his conscience? Yet
Barney _must_ have done something. Valancy had indifferently made up
her mind as to what he had done. She concluded he was a defaulting bank
cashier. She had found in one of Barney’s books an old clipping cut
from a Montreal paper in which a vanished, defaulting cashier was
described. The description applied to Barney—as well as to half a dozen
other men Valancy knew—and from some casual remarks he had dropped from
time to time she concluded he knew Montreal rather well. Valancy had it
all figured out in the back of her mind. Barney had been in a bank. He
was tempted to take some money to speculate—meaning, of course, to put
it back. He had got in deeper and deeper, until he found there was
nothing for it but flight. It had happened so to scores of men. He had,
Valancy was absolutely certain, never meant to do wrong. Of course, the
name of the man in the clipping was Bernard Craig. But Valancy had
always thought Snaith was an alias. Not that it mattered.

Valancy had only one unhappy night that winter. It came in late March
when most of the snow had gone and Nip and Tuck had returned. Barney
had gone off in the afternoon for a long, woodland tramp, saying he
would be back by dark if all went well. Soon after he had gone it had
begun to snow. The wind rose and presently Mistawis was in the grip of
one of the worst storms of the winter. It tore up the lake and struck
at the little house. The dark angry woods on the mainland scowled at
Valancy, menace in the toss of their boughs, threats in their windy
gloom, terror in the roar of their hearts. The trees on the island
crouched in fear. Valancy spent the night huddled on the rug before the
fire, her face buried in her hands, when she was not vainly peering
from the oriel in a futile effort to see through the furious smoke of
wind and snow that had once been blue-dimpled Mistawis. Where was
Barney? Lost on the merciless lakes? Sinking exhausted in the drifts of
the pathless woods? Valancy died a hundred deaths that night and paid
in full for all the happiness of her Blue Castle. When morning came the
storm broke and cleared; the sun shone gloriously over Mistawis; and at
noon Barney came home. Valancy saw him from the oriel as he came around
a wooded point, slender and black against the glistening white world.
She did not run to meet him. Something happened to her knees and she
dropped down on Banjo’s chair. Luckily Banjo got out from under in
time, his whiskers bristling with indignation. Barney found her there,
her head buried in her hands.

“Barney, I thought you were dead,” she whispered.

Barney hooted.

“After two years of the Klondike did you think a baby storm like this
could get me? I spent the night in that old lumber shanty over by
Muskoka. A bit cold but snug enough. Little goose! Your eyes look like
burnt holes in a blanket. Did you sit up here all night worrying over
an old woodsman like me?”

“Yes,” said Valancy. “I—couldn’t help it. The storm seemed so wild.
Anybody might have been lost in it. When—I saw you—come round the
point—there—something happened to me. I don’t know what. It was as if I
had died and come back to life. I can’t describe it any other way.”




CHAPTER XXXIII


Spring. Mistawis black and sullen for a week or two, then flaming in
sapphire and turquoise, lilac and rose again, laughing through the
oriel, caressing its amethyst islands, rippling under winds soft as
silk. Frogs, little green wizards of swamp and pool, singing everywhere
in the long twilights and long into the nights; islands fairy-like in a
green haze; the evanescent beauty of wild young trees in early leaf;
frost-like loveliness of the new foliage of juniper-trees; the woods
putting on a fashion of spring flowers, dainty, spiritual things akin
to the soul of the wilderness; red mist on the maples; willows decked
out with glossy silver pussies; all the forgotten violets of Mistawis
blooming again; lure of April moons.

“Think how many thousands of springs have been here on Mistawis—and all
of them beautiful,” said Valancy. “Oh, Barney, look at that wild plum!
I will—I must quote from John Foster. There’s a passage in one of his
books—I’ve re-read it a hundred times. He must have written it before a
tree just like that:

“‘Behold the young wild plum-tree which has adorned herself after
immemorial fashion in a wedding-veil of fine lace. The fingers of wood
pixies must have woven it, for nothing like it ever came from an
earthly loom. I vow the tree is conscious of its loveliness. It is
bridling before our very eyes—as if its beauty were not the most
ephemeral thing in the woods, as it is the rarest and most exceeding,
for today it is and tomorrow it is not. Every south wind purring
through the boughs will winnow away a shower of slender petals. But
what matter? Today it is queen of the wild places and it is always
today in the woods.’”

“I’m sure you feel much better since you’ve got that out of your
system,” said Barney heartlessly.

“Here’s a patch of dandelions,” said Valancy, unsubdued. “Dandelions
shouldn’t grow in the woods, though. They haven’t any sense of the
fitness of things at all. They are too cheerful and self-satisfied.
They haven’t any of the mystery and reserve of the real wood-flowers.”

“In short, they’ve no secrets,” said Barney. “But wait a bit. The woods
will have their own way even with those obvious dandelions. In a little
while all that obtrusive yellowness and complacency will be gone and
we’ll find here misty, phantom-like globes hovering over those long
grasses in full harmony with the traditions of the forest.”

“That sounds John Fosterish,” teased Valancy.

“What have I done that deserved a slam like that?” complained Barney.

One of the earliest signs of spring was the renaissance of Lady Jane.
Barney put her on roads that no other car would look at, and they went
through Deerwood in mud to the axles. They passed several Stirlings,
who groaned and reflected that now spring was come they would encounter
that shameless pair everywhere. Valancy, prowling about Deerwood shops,
met Uncle Benjamin on the street; but he did not realise until he had
gone two blocks further on that the girl in the scarlet-collared
blanket coat, with cheeks reddened in the sharp April air and the
fringe of black hair over laughing, slanted eyes, was Valancy. When he
did realise it, Uncle Benjamin was indignant. What business had Valancy
to look like—like—like a young girl? The way of the transgressor was
hard. Had to be. Scriptural and proper. Yet Valancy’s path couldn’t be
hard. She wouldn’t look like that if it were. There was something
wrong. It was almost enough to make a man turn modernist.

Barney and Valancy clanged on to the Port, so that it was dark when
they went through Deerwood again. At her old home Valancy, seized with
a sudden impulse, got out, opened the little gate and tiptoed around to
the sitting-room window. There sat her mother and Cousin Stickles
drearily, grimly knitting. Baffling and inhuman as ever. If they had
looked the least bit lonesome Valancy would have gone in. But they did
not. Valancy would not disturb them for worlds.




CHAPTER XXXIV


Valancy had two wonderful moments that spring.

One day, coming home through the woods, with her arms full of trailing
arbutus and creeping spruce, she met a man who she knew must be Allan
Tierney. Allan Tierney, the celebrated painter of beautiful women. He
lived in New York in winter, but he owned an island cottage at the
northern end of Mistawis to which he always came the minute the ice was
out of the lake. He was reputed to be a lonely, eccentric man. He never
flattered his sitters. There was no need to, for he would not paint any
one who required flattery. To be painted by Allan Tierney was all the
_cachet_ of beauty a woman could desire. Valancy had heard so much
about him that she couldn’t help turning her head back over her
shoulder for another shy, curious look at him. A shaft of pale spring
sunlight fell through a great pine athwart her bare black head and her
slanted eyes. She wore a pale green sweater and had bound a fillet of
linnæa vine about her hair. The feathery fountain of trailing spruce
overflowed her arms and fell around her. Allan Tierney’s eyes lighted
up.

“I’ve had a caller,” said Barney the next afternoon, when Valancy had
returned from another flower quest.

“Who?” Valancy was surprised but indifferent. She began filling a
basket with arbutus.

“Allan Tierney. He wants to paint you, Moonlight.”

“Me!” Valancy dropped her basket and her arbutus. “You’re laughing at
me, Barney.”

“I’m not. That’s what Tierney came for. To ask my permission to paint
my wife—as the Spirit of Muskoka, or something like that.”

“But—but—” stammered Valancy, “Allan Tierney never paints any but—any
but——”

“Beautiful women,” finished Barney. “Conceded. Q. E. D., Mistress
Barney Snaith is a beautiful woman.”

“Nonsense,” said Valancy, stooping to retrieve her arbutus. “You _know_
that’s nonsense, Barney. I know I’m a heap better-looking than I was a
year ago, but I’m not beautiful.”

“Allan Tierney never makes a mistake,” said Barney. “You forget,
Moonlight, that there are different kinds of beauty. Your imagination
is obsessed by the very obvious type of your cousin Olive. Oh, I’ve
seen her—she’s a stunner—but you’d never catch Allan Tierney wanting to
paint her. In the horrible but expressive slang phrase, she keeps all
her goods in the shop-window. But in your subconscious mind you have a
conviction that nobody can be beautiful who doesn’t look like Olive.
Also, you remember your face as it was in the days when your soul was
not allowed to shine through it. Tierney said something about the curve
of your cheek as you looked back over your shoulder. You know I’ve
often told you it was distracting. And he’s quite batty about your
eyes. If I wasn’t absolutely sure it was solely professional—he’s
really a crabbed old bachelor, you know—I’d be jealous.”

“Well, I don’t want to be painted,” said Valancy. “I hope you told him
that.”

“I couldn’t tell him that. I didn’t know what _you_ wanted. But I told
him _I_ didn’t want my wife painted—hung up in a salon for the mob to
stare at. Belonging to another man. For of course I couldn’t buy the
picture. So even if you had wanted to be painted, Moonlight, your
tyrannous husband would not have permitted it. Tierney was a bit
squiffy. He isn’t used to being turned down like that. His requests are
almost like royalty’s.”

“But we are outlaws,” laughed Valancy. “We bow to no decrees—we
acknowledge no sovereignty.”

In her heart she thought unashamedly:

“I wish Olive could know that Allan Tierney wanted to paint me. _Me!_
Little-old-maid-Valancy-Stirling-that-was.”

Her second wonder-moment came one evening in May. She realised that
Barney actually liked her. She had always hoped he did, but sometimes
she had a little, disagreeable, haunting dread that he was just kind
and nice and chummy out of pity; knowing that she hadn’t long to live
and determined she should have a good time as long as she did live; but
away back in his mind rather looking forward to freedom again, with no
intrusive woman creature in his island fastness and no chattering thing
beside him in his woodland prowls. She knew he could never love her.
She did not even want him to. If he loved her he would be unhappy when
she died—Valancy never flinched from the plain word. No “passing away”
for her. And she did not want him to be the least unhappy. But neither
did she want him to be glad—or relieved. She wanted him to like her and
miss her as a good chum. But she had never been sure until this night
that he did.

They had walked over the hills in the sunset. They had the delight of
discovering a virgin spring in a ferny hollow and had drunk together
from it out of a birch-bark cup; they had come to an old tumble-down
rail fence and sat on it for a long time. They didn’t talk much, but
Valancy had a curious sense of _oneness_. She knew that she couldn’t
have felt that if he hadn’t liked her.

“You nice little thing,” said Barney suddenly. “Oh, you nice little
thing! Sometimes I feel you’re too nice to be real—that I’m just
dreaming you.”

“Why can’t I die now—this very minute—when I am so happy!” thought
Valancy.

Well, it couldn’t be so very long now. Somehow, Valancy had always felt
she would live out the year Dr. Trent had allotted. She had not been
careful—she had never tried to be. But, somehow, she had always counted
on living out her year. She had not let herself think about it at all.
But now, sitting here beside Barney, with her hand in his, a sudden
realisation came to her. She had not had a heart attack for a long
while—two months at least. The last one she had had was two or three
nights before Barney was out in the storm. Since then she had not
remembered she had a heart. Well, no doubt, it betokened the nearness
of the end. Nature had given up the struggle. There would be no more
pain.

“I’m afraid heaven will be very dull after this past year,” thought
Valancy. “But perhaps one will not remember. Would that be—nice? No,
no. I don’t want to forget Barney. I’d rather be miserable in heaven
remembering him than happy forgetting him. And I’ll always remember
through all eternity—that he really, _really_ liked me.”




CHAPTER XXXV


Thirty seconds can be very long sometimes. Long enough to work a
miracle or a revolution. In thirty seconds life changed wholly for
Barney and Valancy Snaith.

They had gone around the lake one June evening in their disappearing
propeller, fished for an hour in a little creek, left their boat there,
and walked up through the woods to Port Lawrence two miles away.
Valancy prowled a bit in the shops and got herself a new pair of
sensible shoes. Her old pair had suddenly and completely given out, and
this evening she had been compelled to put on the little fancy pair of
patent-leather with rather high, slender heels, which she had bought in
a fit of folly one day in the winter because of their beauty and
because she wanted to make one foolish, extravagant purchase in her
life. She sometimes put them on of an evening in the Blue Castle, but
this was the first time she had worn them outside. She had not found it
any too easy walking up through the woods in them, and Barney guyed her
unmercifully about them. But in spite of the inconvenience, Valancy
secretly rather liked the look of her trim ankles and high instep above
those pretty, foolish shoes and did not change them in the shop as she
might have done.

The sun was hanging low above the pines when they left Port Lawrence.
To the north of it the woods closed around the town quite suddenly.
Valancy always had a sense of stepping from one world to another—from
reality to fairyland—when she went out of Port Lawrence and in a
twinkling found it shut off behind her by the armies of the pines.

A mile and a half from Port Lawrence there was a small railroad station
with a little station-house which at this hour of the day was deserted,
since no local train was due. Not a soul was in sight when Barney and
Valancy emerged from the woods. Off to the left a sudden curve in the
track hid it from view, but over the tree-tops beyond, the long plume
of smoke betokened the approach of a through train. The rails were
vibrating to its thunder as Barney stepped across the switch. Valancy
was a few steps behind him, loitering to gather June-bells along the
little, winding path. But there was plenty of time to get across before
the train came. She stepped unconcernedly over the first rail.

She could never tell how it happened. The ensuing thirty seconds always
seemed in her recollection like a chaotic nightmare in which she
endured the agony of a thousand lifetimes.

The heel of her pretty, foolish shoe caught in a crevice of the switch.
She could not pull it loose.

“Barney—Barney!” she called in alarm.

Barney turned—saw her predicament—saw her ashen face—dashed back. He
tried to pull her clear—he tried to wrench her foot from the prisoning
hold. In vain. In a moment the train would sweep around the curve—would
be on them.

“Go—go—quick—you’ll be killed, Barney!” shrieked Valancy, trying to
push him away.

Barney dropped on his knees, ghost-white, frantically tearing at her
shoe-lace. The knot defied his trembling fingers. He snatched a knife
from his pocket and slashed at it. Valancy still strove blindly to push
him away. Her mind was full of the hideous thought that Barney was
going to be killed. She had no thought for her own danger.

“Barney—go—go—for God’s sake—go!”

“Never!” muttered Barney between his set teeth. He gave one mad wrench
at the lace. As the train thundered around the curve he sprang up and
caught Valancy—dragging her clear, leaving the shoe behind her. The
wind from the train as it swept by turned to icy cold the streaming
perspiration on his face.

“Thank God!” he breathed.

For a moment they stood stupidly staring at each other, two white,
shaken, wild-eyed creatures. Then they stumbled over to the little seat
at the end of the station-house and dropped on it. Barney buried his
face in his hands and said not a word. Valancy sat, staring straight
ahead of her with unseeing eyes at the great pine woods, the stumps of
the clearing, the long, gleaming rails. There was only one thought in
her dazed mind—a thought that seemed to burn it as a shaving of fire
might burn her body.

Dr. Trent had told her over a year ago that she had a serious form of
heart-disease—that any excitement might be fatal.

If that were so, why was she not dead now? This very minute? She had
just experienced as much and as terrible excitement as most people
experience in a lifetime, crowded into that endless thirty seconds. Yet
she had not died of it. She was not an iota the worse for it. A little
wobbly at the knees, as any one would have been; a quicker heart-beat,
as any one would have; nothing more.

Why!

_Was it possible Dr. Trent had made a mistake?_

Valancy shivered as if a cold wind had suddenly chilled her to the
soul. She looked at Barney, hunched up beside her. His silence was very
eloquent. Had the same thought occurred to him? Did he suddenly find
himself confronted by the appalling suspicion that he was married, not
for a few months or a year, but for good and all to a woman he did not
love and who had foisted herself upon him by some trick or lie? Valancy
turned sick before the horror of it. It could not be. It would be too
cruel—too devilish. Dr. Trent _couldn’t_ have made a mistake.
Impossible. He was one of the best heart specialists in Ontario. She
was foolish—unnerved by the recent horror. She remembered some of the
hideous spasms of pain she had had. There must be something serious the
matter with her heart to account for them.

But she had not had any for nearly three months.

Why?

Presently Barney bestirred himself. He stood up, without looking at
Valancy, and said casually:

“I suppose we’d better be hiking back. Sun’s getting low. Are you good
for the rest of the road?”

“I think so,” said Valancy miserably.

Barney went across the clearing and picked up the parcel he had
dropped—the parcel containing her new shoes. He brought it to her and
let her take out the shoes and put them on without any assistance,
while he stood with his back to her and looked out over the pines.

They walked in silence down the shadowy trail to the lake. In silence
Barney steered his boat into the sunset miracle that was Mistawis. In
silence they went around feathery headlands and across coral bays and
silver rivers where canoes were slipping up and down in the afterglow.
In silence they went past cottages echoing with music and laughter. In
silence drew up at the landing-place below the Blue Castle.

Valancy went up the rock steps and into the house. She dropped
miserably on the first chair she came to and sat there staring through
the oriel, oblivious of Good Luck’s frantic purrs of joy and Banjo’s
savage glares of protest at her occupancy of his chair.

Barney came in a few minutes later. He did not come near her, but he
stood behind her and asked gently if she felt any the worse for her
experience. Valancy would have given her year of happiness to have been
able honestly to answer “Yes.”

“No,” she said flatly.

Barney went into Bluebeard’s Chamber and shut the door. She heard him
pacing up and down—up and down. He had never paced like that before.

And an hour ago—only an hour ago—she had been so happy!




CHAPTER XXXVI


Finally Valancy went to bed. Before she went she re-read Dr. Trent’s
letter. It comforted her a little. So positive. So assured. The writing
so black and steady. Not the writing of a man who didn’t know what he
was writing about. But she could not sleep. She pretended to be asleep
when Barney came in. Barney pretended to go to sleep. But Valancy knew
perfectly well he wasn’t sleeping any more than she was. She knew he
was lying there, staring through the darkness. Thinking of what? Trying
to face—what?

Valancy, who had spent so many happy wakeful hours of night lying by
that window, now paid the price of them all in this one night of
misery. A horrible, portentous fact was slowly looming out before her
from the nebula of surmise and fear. She could not shut her eyes to
it—push it away—ignore it.

There could be nothing seriously wrong with her heart, no matter what
Dr. Trent had said. If there had been, those thirty seconds would have
killed her. It was no use to recall Dr. Trent’s letter and reputation.
The greatest specialists made mistakes sometimes. Dr. Trent had made
one.

Towards morning Valancy fell into a fitful doze with ridiculous dreams.
One of them was of Barney taunting her with having tricked him. In her
dream she lost her temper and struck him violently on the head with her
rolling-pin. He proved to be made of glass and shivered into splinters
all over the floor. She woke with a cry of horror—a gasp of relief—a
short laugh over the absurdity of her dream—a miserable sickening
recollection of what had happened.

Barney was gone. Valancy knew, as people sometimes know
things—inescapably, without being told—that he was not in the house or
in Bluebeard’s Chamber either. There was a curious silence in the
living-room. A silence with something uncanny about it. The old clock
had stopped. Barney must have forgotten to wind it up, something he had
never done before. The room without it was dead, though the sunshine
streamed in through the oriel and dimples of light from the dancing
waves beyond quivered over the walls.

The canoe was gone but Lady Jane was under the mainland trees. So
Barney had betaken himself to the wilds. He would not return till
night—perhaps not even then. He must be angry with her. That furious
silence of his must mean anger—cold, deep, justifiable resentment.
Well, Valancy knew what she must do first. She was not suffering very
keenly now. Yet the curious numbness that pervaded her being was in a
way worse than pain. It was as if something in her had died. She forced
herself to cook and eat a little breakfast. Mechanically she put the
Blue Castle in perfect order. Then she put on her hat and coat, locked
the door and hid the key in the hollow of the old pine and crossed to
the mainland in the motor boat. She was going into Deerwood to see Dr.
Trent. She must _know_.




CHAPTER XXXVII


Dr. Trent looked at her blankly and fumbled among his recollections.

“Er—Miss—Miss—”

“Mrs. Snaith,” said Valancy quietly. “I was Miss Valancy Stirling when
I came to you last May—over a year ago. I wanted to consult you about
my heart.”

Dr. Trent’s face cleared.

“Oh, of course. I remember now. I’m really not to blame for not knowing
you. You’ve changed—splendidly. And married. Well, well, it has agreed
with you. You don’t look much like an invalid now, hey? I remember that
day. I was badly upset. Hearing about poor Ned bowled me over. But
Ned’s as good as new and you, too, evidently. I told you so, you
know—told you there was nothing to worry over.”

Valancy looked at him.

“You told me, in your letter,” she said slowly, with a curious feeling
that some one else was talking through her lips, “that I had angina
pectoris—in the last stages—complicated with an aneurism. That I might
die any minute—that I couldn’t live longer than a year.”

Dr. Trent stared at her.

“Impossible!” he said blankly. “I couldn’t have told you that!”

Valancy took his letter from her bag and handed it to him.

“Miss Valancy Stirling,” he read. “Yes—yes. Of course I wrote you—on
the train—that night. But I _told_ you there was nothing serious——”

“Read your letter,” insisted Valancy.

Dr. Trent took it out—unfolded it—glanced over it. A dismayed look came
into his face. He jumped to his feet and strode agitatedly about the
room.

“Good heavens! This is the letter I meant for old Miss Jane Sterling.
From Port Lawrence. She was here that day, too. I sent you the wrong
letter. What unpardonable carelessness! But I was beside myself that
night. My God, and you believed that—you believed—but you didn’t—you
went to another doctor——”

Valancy stood up, turned round, looked foolishly about her and sat down
again.

“I believed it,” she said faintly. “I didn’t go to any other doctor.
I—I—it would take too long to explain. But I believed I was going to
die soon.”

Dr. Trent halted before her.

“I can never forgive myself. What a year you must have had! But you
don’t look—I can’t understand!”

“Never mind,” said Valancy dully. “And so there’s nothing the matter
with my heart?”

“Well, nothing serious. You had what is called pseudo-angina. It’s
never fatal—passes away completely with proper treatment. Or sometimes
with a shock of joy. Have you been troubled much with it?”

“Not at all since March,” answered Valancy. She remembered the
marvellous feeling of re-creation she had had when she saw Barney
coming home safe after the storm. Had that “shock of joy” cured her?

“Then likely you’re all right. I told you what to do in the letter you
should have got. _And_ of course I supposed you’d go to another doctor.
Child, why didn’t you?”

“I didn’t want anybody to know.”

“Idiot,” said Dr. Trent bluntly. “I can’t understand such folly. And
poor old Miss Sterling. She must have got your letter—telling her there
was nothing serious the matter. Well, well, it couldn’t have made any
difference. Her case was hopeless. Nothing that she could have done or
left undone could have made any difference. I was surprised she lived
as long as she did—two months. She was here that day—not long before
you. I hated to tell her the truth. You think I’m a blunt old
curmudgeon—and my letters _are_ blunt enough. I can’t soften things.
But I’m a snivelling coward when it comes to telling a woman face to
face that she’s got to die soon. I told her I’d look up some features
of the case I wasn’t quite sure of and let her know next day. But you
got her letter—look here, ‘Dear Miss S-t-_e_-r-l-i-n-g.’”

“Yes. I noticed that. But I thought it a mistake. I didn’t know there
were any Sterlings in Port Lawrence.”

“She was the only one. A lonely old soul. Lived by herself with only a
little home girl. She died two months after she was here—died in her
sleep. My mistake couldn’t have made any difference to her. But you! I
can’t forgive myself for inflicting a year’s misery on you. It’s time I
retired, all right, when I do things like that—even if my son was
supposed to be fatally injured. Can you ever forgive me?”

A year of misery! Valancy smiled a tortured smile as she thought of all
the happiness Dr. Trent’s mistake had bought her. But she was paying
for it now—oh, she was paying. If to feel was to live she was living
with a vengeance.

She let Dr. Trent examine her and answered all his questions. When he
told her she was fit as a fiddle and would probably live to be a
hundred, she got up and went away silently. She knew that there were a
great many horrible things outside waiting to be thought over. Dr.
Trent thought she was odd. Anybody would have thought, from her
hopeless eyes and woebegone face, that he had given her a sentence of
death instead of life. Snaith? Snaith? Who the devil had she married?
He had never heard of Snaiths in Deerwood. And she had been such a
sallow, faded, little old maid. Gad, but marriage _had_ made a
difference in her, anyhow, whoever Snaith was. Snaith? Dr. Trent
remembered. That rapscallion “up back!” Had Valancy Stirling married
_him_? And her clan had let her! Well, probably that solved the
mystery. She had married in haste and repented at leisure, and that was
why she wasn’t overjoyed at learning she was a good insurance prospect,
after all. Married! To God knew whom! Or what! Jail-bird? Defaulter?
Fugitive from justice? It must be pretty bad if she had looked to death
as a release, poor girl. But why were women such fools? Dr. Trent
dismissed Valancy from his mind, though to the day of his death he was
ashamed of putting those letters into the wrong envelopes.




CHAPTER XXXVIII


Valancy walked quickly through the back streets and through Lover’s
Lane. She did not want to meet any one she knew. She didn’t want to
meet even people she didn’t know. She hated to be seen. Her mind was so
confused, so torn, so messy. She felt that her appearance must be the
same. She drew a sobbing breath of relief as she left the village
behind and found herself on the “up back” road. There was little fear
of meeting any one she knew here. The cars that fled by her with
raucous shrieks were filled with strangers. One of them was packed with
young people who whirled past her singing uproariously:

“My wife has the fever, O then,
My wife has the fever, O then,
My wife has the fever,
Oh, I hope it won’t leave her,
For I want to be single again.”


Valancy flinched as if one of them had leaned from the car and cut her
across the face with a whip.

She had made a covenant with death and death had cheated her. Now life
stood mocking her. She had trapped Barney. Trapped him into marrying
her. And divorce was so hard to get in Ontario. So expensive. And
Barney was poor.

With life, fear had come back into her heart. Sickening fear. Fear of
what Barney would think. Would say. Fear of the future that must be
lived without him. Fear of her insulted, repudiated clan.

She had had one draught from a divine cup and now it was dashed from
her lips. With no kind, friendly death to rescue her. She must go on
living and longing for it. Everything was spoiled, smirched, defaced.
Even that year in the Blue Castle. Even her unashamed love for Barney.
It had been beautiful because death waited. Now it was only sordid
because death was gone. How could any one bear an unbearable thing?

She must go back and tell him. Make him believe she had not meant to
trick him—she _must_ make him believe that. She must say good-bye to
her Blue Castle and return to the brick house on Elm Street. Back to
everything she had thought left behind forever. The old bondage—the old
fears. But that did not matter. All that mattered now was that Barney
must somehow be made to believe she had not consciously tricked him.

When Valancy reached the pines by the lake she was brought out of her
daze of pain by a startling sight. There, parked by the side of old,
battered ragged Lady Jane, was another car. A wonderful car. A purple
car. Not a dark, royal purple but a blatant, screaming purple. It shone
like a mirror and its interior plainly indicated the car caste of Vere
de Vere. On the driver’s seat sat a haughty chauffeur in livery. And in
the tonneau sat a man who opened the door and bounced out nimbly as
Valancy came down the path to the landing-place. He stood under the
pines waiting for her and Valancy took in every detail of him.

A stout, short, pudgy man, with a broad, rubicund, good-humoured face—a
clean-shaven face, though an unparalysed little imp at the back of
Valancy’s paralysed mind suggested the thought, “Such a face should
have a fringe of white whisker around it.” Old-fashioned, steel-rimmed
spectacles on prominent blue eyes. A pursey mouth; a little round,
knobby nose. Where—where—where, groped Valancy, had she seen that face
before? It seemed as familiar to her as her own.

The stranger wore a green hat and a light fawn overcoat over a suit of
a loud check pattern. His tie was a brilliant green of lighter shade;
on the plump hand he outstretched to intercept Valancy an enormous
diamond winked at her. But he had a pleasant, fatherly smile, and in
his hearty, unmodulated voice was a ring of something that attracted
her.

“Can you tell me, Miss, if that house yonder belongs to a Mr. Redfern?
And if so, how can I get to it?”

Redfern! A vision of bottles seemed to dance before Valancy’s eyes—long
bottles of bitters—round bottles of hair tonic—square bottles of
liniment—short, corpulent little bottles of purple pills—and all of
them bearing that very prosperous, beaming moon-face and steel-rimmed
spectacles on the label.

Dr. Redfern!

“No,” said Valancy faintly. “No—that house belongs to Mr. Snaith.”

Dr. Redfern nodded.

“Yes, I understand Bernie’s been calling himself Snaith. Well, it’s his
middle name—was his poor mother’s. Bernard Snaith Redfern—that’s him.
And now, Miss, you can tell me how to get over to that island? Nobody
seems to be home there. I’ve done some waving and yelling. Henry,
there, wouldn’t yell. He’s a one-job man. But old Doc Redfern can yell
with the best of them yet, and ain’t above doing it. Raised nothing but
a couple of crows. Guess Bernie’s out for the day.”

“He was away when I left this morning,” said Valancy. “I suppose he
hasn’t come home yet.”

She spoke flatly and tonelessly. This last shock had temporarily bereft
her of whatever little power of reasoning had been left her by Dr.
Trent’s revelation. In the back of her mind the aforesaid little imp
was jeeringly repeating a silly old proverb, “It never rains but it
pours.” But she was not trying to think. What was the use?

Dr. Redfern was gazing at her in perplexity.

“When you left this morning? Do you live—over there?”

He waved his diamond at the Blue Castle.

“Of course,” said Valancy stupidly. “I’m his wife.”

Dr. Redfern took out a yellow silk handkerchief, removed his hat and
mopped his brow. He was very bald, and Valancy’s imp whispered, “Why be
bald? Why lose your manly beauty? Try Redfern’s Hair Vigor. It keeps
you young.”

“Excuse me,” said Dr. Redfern. “This is a bit of a shock.”

“Shocks seem to be in the air this morning.” The imp said this out loud
before Valancy could prevent it.

“I didn’t know Bernie was—married. I didn’t think he _would_ have got
married without telling his old dad.”

Were Dr. Redfern’s eyes misty? Amid her own dull ache of misery and
fear and dread, Valancy felt a pang of pity for him.

“Don’t blame him,” she said hurriedly. “It—it wasn’t his fault. It—was
all my doing.”

“You didn’t ask him to marry you, I suppose,” twinkled Dr. Redfern. “He
might have let me know. I’d have got acquainted with my daughter-in-law
before this if he had. But I’m glad to meet you now, my dear—very glad.
You look like a sensible young woman. I used to sorter fear Barney’d
pick out some pretty bit of fluff just because she was good-looking.
They were all after him, of course. Wanted his money? Eh? Didn’t like
the pills and the bitters but liked the dollars. Eh? Wanted to dip
their pretty little fingers in old Doc’s millions. Eh?”

“Millions!” said Valancy faintly. She wished she could sit down
somewhere—she wished she could have a chance to think—she wished she
and the Blue Castle could sink to the bottom of Mistawis and vanish
from human sight forevermore.

“Millions,” said Dr. Redfern complacently. “And Bernie chucks them
for—that.” Again he shook the diamond contemptuously at the Blue
Castle. “Wouldn’t you think he’d have more sense? And all on account of
a white bit of a girl. He must have got over _that_ feeling, anyhow,
since he’s married. You must persuade him to come back to civilisation.
All nonsense wasting his life like this. Ain’t you going to take me
over to your house, my dear? I suppose you’ve some way of getting
there.”

“Of course,” said Valancy stupidly. She led the way down to the little
cove where the disappearing propeller boat was snuggled.

“Does your—your man want to come, too?”

“Who? Henry. Not he. Look at him sitting there disapproving.
Disapproves of the whole expedition. The trail up from the road nearly
gave him a conniption. Well, it _was_ a devilish road to put a car on.
Whose old bus is that up there?”

“Barney’s.”

“Good Lord! Does Bernie Redfern ride in a thing like that? It looks
like the great-great-grandmother of all the Fords.”

“It isn’t a Ford. It’s a Grey Slosson,” said Valancy spiritedly. For
some occult reason, Dr. Redfern’s good-humoured ridicule of dear old
Lady Jane stung her to life. A life that was all pain but still _life_.
Better than the horrible half-dead-and-half-aliveness of the past few
minutes—or years. She waved Dr. Redfern curtly into the boat and took
him over to the Blue Castle. The key was still in the old pine—the
house still silent and deserted. Valancy took the doctor through the
living-room to the western verandah. She must at least be out where
there was air. It was still sunny, but in the southwest a great
thundercloud, with white crests and gorges of purple shadow, was slowly
rising over Mistawis. The doctor dropped with a gasp on a rustic chair
and mopped his brow again.

“Warm, eh? Lord, what a view! Wonder if it would soften Henry if he
could see it.”

“Have you had dinner?” asked Valancy.

“Yes, my dear—had it before we left Port Lawrence. Didn’t know what
sort of wild hermit’s hollow we were coming to, you see. Hadn’t any
idea I was going to find a nice little daughter-in-law here all ready
to toss me up a meal. Cats, eh? Puss, puss! See that. Cats love me.
Bernie was always fond of cats! It’s about the only thing he took from
me. He’s his poor mother’s boy.”

Valancy had been thinking idly that Barney must resemble his mother.
She had remained standing by the steps, but Dr. Redfern waved her to
the swing seat.

“Sit down, dear. Never stand when you can sit. I want to get a good
look at Barney’s wife. Well, well, I like your face. No beauty—you
don’t mind my saying that—you’ve sense enough to know it, I reckon. Sit
down.”

Valancy sat down. To be obliged to sit still when mental agony urges us
to stride up and down is the refinement of torture. Every nerve in her
being was crying out to be alone—to be hidden. But she had to sit and
listen to Dr. Redfern, who didn’t mind talking at all.

“When do you think Bernie will be back?”

“I don’t know—not before night probably.”

“Where did he go?”

“I don’t know that either. Likely to the woods—up back.”

“So he doesn’t tell you his comings and goings, either? Bernie was
always a secretive young devil. Never understood him. Just like his
poor mother. But I thought a lot of him. It hurt me when he disappeared
as he did. Eleven years ago. I haven’t seen my boy for eleven years.”

“Eleven years.” Valancy was surprised. “It’s only six since he came
here.”

“Oh, he was in the Klondike before that—and all over the world. He used
to drop me a line now and then—never give any clue to where he was but
just a line to say he was all right. I s’pose he’s told you all about
it.”

“No. I know nothing of his past life,” said Valancy with sudden
eagerness. She wanted to know—she must know now. It hadn’t mattered
before. Now she must know all. And she could never hear it from Barney.
She might never even see him again. If she did, it would not be to talk
of his past.

“What happened? Why did he leave his home? Tell me. Tell me.”

“Well, it ain’t much of a story. Just a young fool gone mad because of
a quarrel with his girl. Only Bernie was a stubborn fool. Always
stubborn. You never could make that boy do anything he didn’t want to
do. From the day he was born. Yet he was always a quiet, gentle little
chap, too. Good as gold. His poor mother died when he was only two
years old. I’d just begun to make money with my Hair Vigor. I’d dreamed
the formula for it, you see. Some dream that. The cash rolled in.
Bernie had everything he wanted. I sent him to the best schools—private
schools. I meant to make a gentleman of him. Never had any chance
myself. Meant he should have every chance. He went through McGill. Got
honours and all that. I wanted him to go in for law. He hankered after
journalism and stuff like that. Wanted me to buy a paper for him—or
back him in publishing what he called a ‘real, worthwhile,
honest-to-goodness Canadian Magazine.’ I s’pose I’d have done it—I
always did what he wanted me to do. Wasn’t he all I had to live for? I
wanted him to be happy. And he never was happy. Can you believe it? Not
that he said so. But I’d always a feeling that he wasn’t happy.
Everything he wanted—all the money he could spend—his own bank
account—travel—seeing the world—but he wasn’t happy. Not till he fell
in love with Ethel Traverse. Then he was happy for a little while.”

The cloud had reached the sun and a great, chill, purple shadow came
swiftly over Mistawis. It touched the Blue Castle—rolled over it.
Valancy shivered.

“Yes,” she said, with painful eagerness, though every word was cutting
her to the heart. “What—was—she—like?”

“Prettiest girl in Montreal,” said Dr. Redfern. “Oh, she was a looker,
all right. Eh? Gold hair—shiny as silk—great, big, soft, black
eyes—skin like milk and roses. Don’t wonder Bernie fell for her. And
brains as well. _She_ wasn’t a bit of fluff. B. A. from McGill. A
thoroughbred, too. One of the best families. But a bit lean in the
purse. Eh! Bernie was mad about her. Happiest young fool you ever saw.
Then—the bust-up.”

“What happened?” Valancy had taken off her hat and was absently
thrusting a pin in and out of it. Good Luck was purring beside her.
Banjo was regarding Dr. Redfern with suspicion. Nip and Tuck were
lazily cawing in the pines. Mistawis was beckoning. Everything was the
same. Nothing was the same. It was a hundred years since yesterday.
Yesterday, at this time, she and Barney had been eating a belated
dinner here with laughter. Laughter? Valancy felt that she had done
with laughter forever. And with tears, for that matter. She had no
further use for either of them.

“Blest if I know, my dear. Some fool quarrel, I suppose. Bernie just
lit out—disappeared. He wrote me from the Yukon. Said his engagement
was broken and he wasn’t coming back. And not to try to hunt him up
because he was never coming back. I didn’t. What was the use? I knew
Bernie. I went on piling up money because there wasn’t anything else
to do. But I was mighty lonely. All I lived for was them little notes
now and then from Bernie—Klondike—England—South
Africa—China—everywhere. I thought maybe he’d come back some day to his
lonesome old dad. Then six years ago even the letters stopped. I didn’t
hear a word of or from him till last Christmas.”

“Did he write?”

“No. But he drew a check for fifteen thousand dollars on his bank
account. The bank manager is a friend of mine—one of my biggest
shareholders. He’d always promised me he’d let me know if Bernie drew
any checks. Bernie had fifty thousand there. And he’d never touched a
cent of it till last Christmas. The check was made out to Aynsley’s,
Toronto——”

“Aynsley’s?” Valancy heard herself saying Aynsley’s! She had a box on
her dressing-table with the Aynsley trademark.

“Yes. The big jewellery house there. After I’d thought it over a while,
I got brisk. I wanted to locate Bernie. Had a special reason for it. It
was time he gave up his fool hoboing and come to his senses. Drawing
that fifteen told me there was something in the wind. The manager
communicated with the Aynsleys—his wife was an Aynsley—and found out
that Bernard Redfern had bought a pearl necklace there. His address was
given as Box 444, Port Lawrence, Muskoka, Ont. First I thought I’d
write. Then I thought I’d wait till the open season for cars and come
down myself. Ain’t no hand at writing. I’ve motored from Montreal. Got
to Port Lawrence yesterday. Enquired at the post-office. Told me they
knew nothing of any Bernard Snaith Redfern, but there was a Barney
Snaith had a P. O. box there. Lived on an island out here, they said.
So here I am. And where’s Barney?”

Valancy was fingering her necklace. She was wearing fifteen thousand
dollars around her neck. And she had worried lest Barney had paid
fifteen dollars for it and couldn’t afford it. Suddenly she laughed in
Dr. Redfern’s face.

“Excuse me. It’s so—amusing,” said poor Valancy.

“Isn’t it?” said Dr. Redfern, seeing a joke—but not exactly hers. “Now,
you seem like a sensible young woman, and I dare say you’ve lots of
influence over Bernie. Can’t you get him to come back to civilisation
and live like other people? I’ve a house up there. Big as a castle.
Furnished like a palace. I want company in it—Bernie’s wife—Bernie’s
children.”

“Did Ethel Traverse ever marry?” queried Valancy irrelevantly.

“Bless you, yes. Two years after Bernie levanted. But she’s a widow
now. Pretty as ever. To be frank, that was my special reason for
wanting to find Bernie. I thought they’d make it up, maybe. But, of
course, that’s all off now. Doesn’t matter. Bernie’s choice of a wife
is good enough for me. It’s my boy I want. Think he’ll soon be back?”

“I don’t know. But I don’t think he’ll come before night. Quite late,
perhaps. And perhaps not till tomorrow. But I can put you up
comfortably. He’ll certainly be back tomorrow.”

Dr. Redfern shook his head.

“Too damp. I’ll take no chances with rheumatism.”

“Why suffer that ceaseless anguish? Why not try Redfern’s Liniment?”
quoted the imp in the back of Valancy’s mind.

“I must get back to Port Lawrence before rain starts. Henry goes quite
mad when he gets mud on the car. But I’ll come back tomorrow. Meanwhile
you talk Bernie into reason.”

He shook her hand and patted her kindly on the shoulder. He looked as
if he would have kissed her, with a little encouragement, but Valancy
did not give it. Not that she would have minded. He was rather dreadful
and loud—and—and—dreadful. But there was something about him she liked.
She thought dully that she might have liked being his daughter-in-law
if he had not been a millionaire. A score of times over. And Barney was
his son—and heir.

She took him over in the motor boat and watched the lordly purple car
roll away through the woods with Henry at the wheel looking things not
lawful to be uttered. Then she went back to the Blue Castle. What she
had to do must be done quickly. Barney _might_ return at any moment.
And it was certainly going to rain. She was thankful she no longer felt
very bad. When you are bludgeoned on the head repeatedly, you naturally
and mercifully become more or less insensible and stupid.

She stood briefly like a faded flower bitten by frost, by the hearth,
looking down on the white ashes of the last fire that had blazed in the
Blue Castle.

“At any rate,” she thought wearily, “Barney isn’t poor. He will be able
to afford a divorce. Quite nicely.”




CHAPTER XXXIX


She must write a note. The imp in the back of her mind laughed. In
every story she had ever read when a runaway wife decamped from home
she left a note, generally on the pin-cushion. It was not a very
original idea. But one had to leave something intelligible. What was
there to do but write a note? She looked vaguely about her for
something to write with. Ink? There was none. Valancy had never written
anything since she had come to the Blue Castle, save memoranda of
household necessaries for Barney. A pencil sufficed for them, but now
the pencil was not to be found. Valancy absently crossed to the door of
Bluebeard’s Chamber and tried it. She vaguely expected to find it
locked, but it opened unresistingly. She had never tried it before, and
did not know whether Barney habitually kept it locked or not. If he
did, he must have been badly upset to leave it unlocked. She did not
realise that she was doing something he had told her not to do. She was
only looking for something to write with. All her faculties were
concentrated on deciding just what she would say and how she would say
it. There was not the slightest curiosity in her as she went into the
lean-to.

There were no beautiful women hanging by their hair on the walls. It
seemed a very harmless apartment, with a commonplace little sheet-iron
stove in the middle of it, its pipe sticking out through the roof. At
one end was a table or counter crowded with odd-looking utensils. Used
no doubt by Barney in his smelly operations. Chemical experiments,
probably, she reflected dully. At the other end was a big writing desk
and swivel-chair. The side walls were lined with books.

Valancy went blindly to the desk. There she stood motionless for a few
minutes, looking down at something that lay on it. A bundle of
galley-proofs. The page on top bore the title _Wild Honey_, and under
the title were the words “by John Foster.”

The opening sentence—“Pines are the trees of myth and legend. They
strike their roots deep into the traditions of an older world, but wind
and star love their lofty tops. What music when old Æolus draws his bow
across the branches of the pines—” She had heard Barney say that one
day when they walked under them.

So Barney was John Foster!

Valancy was not excited. She had absorbed all the shocks and sensations
that she could compass for one day. This affected her neither one way
nor the other. She only thought:

“So this explains it.”

“It” was a small matter that had, somehow, stuck in her mind more
persistently than its importance seemed to justify. Soon after Barney
had brought her John Foster’s latest book she had been in a Port
Lawrence bookshop and heard a customer ask the proprietor for John
Foster’s new book. The proprietor had said curtly, “Not out yet. Won’t
be out till next week.”

Valancy had opened her lips to say, “Oh, yes, it _is_ out,” but closed
them again. After all, it was none of her business. She supposed the
proprietor wanted to cover up his negligence in not getting the book in
promptly. Now she knew. The book Barney had given her had been one of
the author’s complimentary copies, sent in advance.

Well! Valancy pushed the proofs indifferently aside and sat down in the
swivel-chair. She took up Barney’s pen—and a vile one it was—pulled a
sheet of paper to her and began to write. She could not think of
anything to say except bald facts.


“Dear Barney:—

I went to Dr. Trent this morning and found out he had sent me the wrong
letter by mistake. There never was anything serious the matter with my
heart and I am quite well now.

I did not mean to trick you. Please believe that. I could not bear it
if you did not believe that. I am very sorry for the mistake. But
surely you can get a divorce if I leave you. Is desertion a ground for
divorce in Canada? Of course if there is anything I can do to help or
hasten it I will do it gladly, if your lawyer will let me know.

I thank you for all your kindness to me. I shall never forget it. Think
as kindly of me as you can, because I did not mean to trap you.
Good-bye.

Yours gratefully,

VALANCY.”


It was very cold and stiff, she knew. But to try to say anything else
would be dangerous—like tearing away a dam. She didn’t know what
torrent of wild incoherences and passionate anguish might pour out. In
a postscript she added:


“Your father was here today. He is coming back tomorrow. He told me
everything. I think you should go back to him. He is very lonely for
you.”


She put the letter in an envelope, wrote “Barney” across it, and left
it on the desk. On it she laid the string of pearls. If they had been
the beads she believed them she would have kept them in memory of that
wonderful year. But she could not keep the fifteen thousand dollar gift
of a man who had married her out of pity and whom she was now leaving.
It hurt her to give up her pretty bauble. That was an odd thing, she
reflected. The fact that she was leaving Barney did not hurt her—yet.
It lay at her heart like a cold, insensible thing. If it came to
life—Valancy shuddered and went out——

She put on her hat and mechanically fed Good Luck and Banjo. She locked
the door and carefully hid the key in the old pine. Then she crossed to
the mainland in the disappearing propeller. She stood for a moment on
the bank, looking at her Blue Castle. The rain had not yet come, but
the sky was dark, and Mistawis grey and sullen. The little house under
the pines looked very pathetic—a casket rifled of its jewels—a lamp
with its flame blown out.

“I shall never again hear the wind crying over Mistawis at night,”
thought Valancy. This hurt her, too. She could have laughed to think
that such a trifle could hurt her at such a time.




CHAPTER XL


Valancy paused a moment on the porch of the brick house in Elm Street.
She felt that she ought to knock like a stranger. Her rosebush, she
idly noticed, was loaded with buds. The rubber-plant stood beside the
prim door. A momentary horror overcame her—a horror of the existence to
which she was returning. Then she opened the door and walked in.

“I wonder if the Prodigal Son ever felt really at home again,” she
thought.

Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles were in the sitting-room. Uncle
Benjamin was there, too. They looked blankly at Valancy, realising at
once that something was wrong. This was not the saucy, impudent thing
who had laughed at them in this very room last summer. This was a
grey-faced woman with the eyes of a creature who had been stricken by a
mortal blow.

Valancy looked indifferently around the room. She had changed so
much—and it had changed so little. The same pictures hung on the walls.
The little orphan who knelt at her never-finished prayer by the bed
whereon reposed the black kitten that never grew up into a cat. The
grey “steel engraving” of Quatre Bras, where the British regiment
forever stood at bay. The crayon enlargement of the boyish father she
had never known. There they all hung in the same places. The green
cascade of “Wandering Jew” still tumbled out of the old granite
saucepan on the window-stand. The same elaborate, never-used pitcher
stood at the same angle on the sideboard shelf. The blue and gilt vases
that had been among her mother’s wedding-presents still primly adorned
the mantelpiece, flanking the china clock of berosed and besprayed ware
that never went. The chairs in exactly the same places. Her mother and
Cousin Stickles, likewise unchanged, regarding her with stony
unwelcome.

Valancy had to speak first.

“I’ve come home, Mother,” she said tiredly.

“So I see.” Mrs. Frederick’s voice was very icy. She had resigned
herself to Valancy’s desertion. She had almost succeeded in forgetting
there was a Valancy. She had rearranged and organised her systematic
life without any reference to an ungrateful, rebellious child. She had
taken her place again in a society which ignored the fact that she had
ever had a daughter and pitied her, if it pitied her at all, only in
discreet whispers and asides. The plain truth was that, by this time,
Mrs. Frederick did not want Valancy to come back—did not want ever to
see or hear of her again.

And now, of course, Valancy was here. With tragedy and disgrace and
scandal trailing after her visibly. 

“So I see,” said Mrs. Frederick. “May I ask why?”

“Because—I’m—not—going to die,” said Valancy huskily.

“God bless my soul!” said Uncle Benjamin. “Who said you were going to
die?”

“I suppose,” said Cousin Stickles shrewishly—Cousin Stickles did not
want Valancy back either—“I suppose you’ve found out he has another
wife—as we’ve been sure all along.”

“No. I only wish he had,” said Valancy. She was not suffering
particularly, but she was very tired. If only the explanations were all
over and she were upstairs in her old, ugly room—alone. Just alone! The
rattle of the beads on her mother’s sleeves, as they swung on the arms
of the reed chair, almost drove her crazy. Nothing else was worrying
her; but all at once it seemed that she simply could not endure that
thin, insistent rattle.

“My home, as I told you, is always open to you,” said Mrs. Frederick
stonily, “but I can never forgive you.”

Valancy gave a mirthless laugh.

“I’d care very little for that if I could only forgive myself,” she
said.

“Come, come,” said Uncle Benjamin testily. But rather enjoying himself.
He felt he had Valancy under his thumb again. “We’ve had enough of
mystery. What has happened? Why have you left that fellow? No doubt
there’s reason enough—but what particular reason is it?”

Valancy began to speak mechanically. She told her tale bluntly and
barely.

“A year ago Dr. Trent told me I had angina pectoris and could not live
long. I wanted to have some—life—before I died. That’s why I went away.
Why I married Barney. And now I’ve found it is all a mistake. There is
nothing wrong with my heart. I’ve got to live—and Barney only married
me out of pity. So I have to leave him—free.”

“God bless me!” said Uncle Benjamin. Cousin Stickles began to cry.

“Valancy, if you’d only had confidence in your own mother——”

“Yes, yes, I know,” said Valancy impatiently. “What’s the use of going
into that now? I can’t undo this year. God knows I wish I could. I’ve
tricked Barney into marrying me—and he’s really Bernard Redfern. Dr.
Redfern’s son, of Montreal. And his father wants him to go back to
him.”

Uncle Benjamin made a queer sound. Cousin Stickles took her
black-bordered handkerchief away from her eyes and stared at Valancy. A
queer gleam suddenly shot into Mrs. Frederick’s stone-grey orbs.

“Dr. Redfern—not the Purple Pill man?” she said.

Valancy nodded. “He’s John Foster, too—the writer of those nature
books.”

“But—but—” Mrs. Frederick was visibly agitated, though not over the
thought that she was the mother-in-law of John Foster—“_Dr. Redfern is
a millionaire_!”

Uncle Benjamin shut his mouth with a snap.

“Ten times over,” he said.

Valancy nodded.

“Yes. Barney left home years ago—because of—of some
trouble—some—disappointment. Now he will likely go back. So you see—I
had to come home. He doesn’t love me. I can’t hold him to a bond he was
tricked into.”

Uncle Benjamin looked incredibly sly.

“Did he say so? Does he want to get rid of you?”

“No. I haven’t seen him since I found out. But I tell you—he only
married me out of pity—because I asked him to—because he thought it
would only be for a little while.”

Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles both tried to speak, but Uncle
Benjamin waved a hand at them and frowned portentously.

“Let _me_ handle this,” wave and frown seemed to say. To Valancy:

“Well, well, dear, we’ll talk it all over later. You see, we don’t
quite understand everything yet. As Cousin Stickles says, you should
have confided in us before. Later on—I dare say we can find a way out
of this.”

“You think Barney can easily get a divorce, don’t you?” said Valancy
eagerly.

Uncle Benjamin silenced with another wave the exclamation of horror he
knew was trembling on Mrs. Frederick’s lips.

“Trust to me, Valancy. Everything will arrange itself. Tell me this,
Dossie. Have you been happy up back? Was Sn—Mr. Redfern good to you?”

“I have been very happy and Barney was very good to me,” said Valancy,
as if reciting a lesson. She remembered when she studied grammar at
school she had disliked the past and perfect tenses. They had always
seemed so pathetic. “I have been”—it was all over and done with.

“Then don’t worry, little girl.” How amazingly paternal Uncle Benjamin
was! “Your family will stand behind you. We’ll see what can be done.”

“Thank you,” said Valancy dully. Really, it was quite decent of Uncle
Benjamin. “Can I go and lie down a little while? I’m—I’m—tired.”

“Of course you’re tired.” Uncle Benjamin patted her hand gently—very
gently. “All worn out and nervous. Go and lie down, by all means.
You’ll see things in quite a different light after you’ve had a good
sleep.”

He held the door open. As she went through he whispered, “What is the
best way to keep a man’s love?”

Valancy smiled wanly. But she had come back to the old life—the old
shackles. “What?” she asked as meekly as of yore.

“Not to return it,” said Uncle Benjamin with a chuckle. He shut the
door and rubbed his hands. Nodded and smiled mysteriously round the
room.

“Poor little Doss!” he said pathetically.

“Do you really suppose that—Snaith—can actually be Dr. Redfern’s son?”
gasped Mrs. Frederick.

“I see no reason for doubting it. She says Dr. Redfern has been there.
Why, the man is rich as wedding-cake. Amelia, I’ve always believed
there was more in Doss than most people thought. You kept her down too
much—repressed her. She never had a chance to show what was in her. And
now she’s landed a millionaire for a husband.”

“But—” hesitated Mrs. Frederick, “he—he—they told terrible tales about
him.”

“All gossip and invention—all gossip and invention. It’s always been a
mystery to me why people should be so ready to invent and circulate
slanders about other people they know absolutely nothing about. I can’t
understand why you paid so much attention to gossip and surmise. Just
because he didn’t choose to mix up with everybody, people resented it.
I was surprised to find what a decent fellow he seemed to be that time
he came into my store with Valancy. I discounted all the yarns then and
there.”

“But he was seen dead drunk in Port Lawrence once,” said Cousin
Stickles. Doubtfully, yet as one very willing to be convinced to the
contrary.

“Who saw him?” demanded Uncle Benjamin truculently. “Who saw him? Old
Jemmy Strang _said_ he saw him. I wouldn’t take old Jemmy Strang’s word
on oath. He’s too drunk himself half the time to see straight. He said
he saw him lying drunk on a bench in the Park. Pshaw! Redfern’s been
asleep there. Don’t worry over _that_.”

“But his clothes—and that awful old car—” said Mrs. Frederick
uncertainly.

“Eccentricities of genius,” declared Uncle Benjamin. “You heard Doss
say he was John Foster. I’m not up in literature myself, but I heard a
lecturer from Toronto say that John Foster’s books had put Canada on
the literary map of the world.”

“I—suppose—we must forgive her,” yielded Mrs. Frederick.

“Forgive her!” Uncle Benjamin snorted. Really, Amelia was an incredibly
stupid woman. No wonder poor Doss had gone sick and tired of living
with her. “Well, yes, I think you’d better forgive her! The question
is—will Snaith forgive _us_!”

“What if she persists in leaving him? You’ve no idea how stubborn she
can be,” said Mrs. Frederick.

“Leave it all to me, Amelia. Leave it all to me. You women have muddled
it enough. This whole affair has been bungled from start to finish. If
you had put yourself to a little trouble years ago, Amelia, she would
not have bolted over the traces as she did. Just let her alone—don’t
worry her with advice or questions till she’s ready to talk. She’s
evidently run away in a panic because she’s afraid he’d be angry with
her for fooling him. Most extraordinary thing of Trent to tell her such
a yarn! That’s what comes of going to strange doctors. Well, well, we
mustn’t blame her too harshly, poor child. Redfern will come after her.
If he doesn’t, I’ll hunt him up and talk to him as man to man. He may
be a millionaire, but Valancy is a Stirling. He can’t repudiate her
just because she was mistaken about her heart disease. Not likely he’ll
want to. Doss is a little overstrung. Bless me, I must get in the habit
of calling her Valancy. She isn’t a baby any longer. Now, remember,
Amelia. Be very kind and sympathetic.”

It was something of a large order to expect Mrs. Frederick to be kind
and sympathetic. But she did her best. When supper was ready she went
up and asked Valancy if she wouldn’t like a cup of tea. Valancy, lying
on her bed, declined. She just wanted to be left alone for a while.
Mrs. Frederick left her alone. She did not even remind Valancy that her
plight was the outcome of her own lack of daughterly respect and
obedience. One could not—exactly—say things like that to the
daughter-in-law of a millionaire.




CHAPTER XLI


Valancy looked dully about her old room. It, too, was so exactly the
same that it seemed almost impossible to believe in the changes that
had come to her since she had last slept in it. It
seemed—somehow—indecent that it should be so much the same. There was
Queen Louise everlastingly coming down the stairway, and nobody had let
the forlorn puppy in out of the rain. Here was the purple paper blind
and the greenish mirror. Outside, the old carriage-shop with its
blatant advertisements. Beyond it, the station with the same derelicts
and flirtatious flappers.

Here the old life waited for her, like some grim ogre that bided his
time and licked his chops. A monstrous horror of it suddenly possessed
her. When night fell and she had undressed and got into bed, the
merciful numbness passed away and she lay in anguish and thought of her
island under the stars. The camp-fires—all their little household jokes
and phrases and catch words—their furry beautiful cats—the lights
agleam on the fairy islands—canoes skimming over Mistawis in the magic
of morning—white birches shining among the dark spruces like beautiful
women’s bodies—winter snows and rose-red sunset fires—lakes drunken
with moonshine—all the delights of her lost paradise. She would not let
herself think of Barney. Only of these lesser things. She could not
endure to think of Barney.

Then she thought of him inescapably. She ached for him. She wanted his
arms around her—his face against hers—his whispers in her ear. She
recalled all his friendly looks and quips and jests—his little
compliments—his caresses. She counted them all over as a woman might
count her jewels—not one did she miss from the first day they had met.
These memories were all she could have now. She shut her eyes and
prayed.

“Let me remember every one, God! Let me never forget one of them!”

Yet it would be better to forget. This agony of longing and loneliness
would not be so terrible if one could forget. And Ethel Traverse. That
shimmering witch woman with her white skin and black eyes and shining
hair. The woman Barney had loved. The woman whom he still loved. Hadn’t
he told her he never changed his mind? Who was waiting for him in
Montreal. Who was the right wife for a rich and famous man. Barney
would marry her, of course, when he got his divorce. How Valancy hated
her! And envied her! Barney had said, “I love you,” to _her_. Valancy
had wondered what tone Barney would say “I love you” in—how his
dark-blue eyes would look when he said it. Ethel Traverse knew. Valancy
hated her for the knowledge—hated and envied her.

“She can never have those hours in the Blue Castle. They are _mine_,”
thought Valancy savagely. Ethel would never make strawberry jam or
dance to old Abel’s fiddle or fry bacon for Barney over a camp-fire.
She would never come to the little Mistawis shack at all.

What was Barney doing—thinking—feeling now? Had he come home and found
her letter? Was he still angry with her? Or a little pitiful. Was he
lying on their bed looking out on stormy Mistawis and listening to the
rain streaming down on the roof? Or was he still wandering in the
wilderness, raging at the predicament in which he found himself? Hating
her? Pain took her and wrung her like some great pitiless giant. She
got up and walked the floor. Would morning never come to end this
hideous night? And yet what could morning bring her? The old life
without the old stagnation that was at least bearable. The old life
with the new memories, the new longings, the new anguish.

“Oh, why can’t I die?” moaned Valancy.




CHAPTER XLII


It was not until early afternoon the next day that a dreadful old car
clanked up Elm Street and stopped in front of the brick house. A
hatless man sprang from it and rushed up the steps. The bell was rung
as it had never been rung before—vehemently, intensely. The ringer was
demanding entrance, not asking it. Uncle Benjamin chuckled as he
hurried to the door. Uncle Benjamin had “just dropped in” to enquire
how dear Doss—Valancy was. Dear Doss—Valancy, he had been informed, was
just the same. She had come down for breakfast—which she didn’t
eat—gone back to her room, come down for dinner—which she didn’t
eat—gone back to her room. That was all. She had not talked. And she
had been let, kindly, considerately, alone.

“Very good. Redfern will be here today,” said Uncle Benjamin. And now
Uncle Benjamin’s reputation as a prophet was made. Redfern was
here—unmistakably so.

“Is my wife here?” he demanded of Uncle Benjamin without preface.

Uncle Benjamin smiled expressively.

“Mr. Redfern, I believe? Very glad to meet you, sir. Yes, that naughty
little girl of yours is here. We have been——”

“I must see her,” Barney cut Uncle Benjamin ruthlessly short.

“Certainly, Mr. Redfern. Just step in here. Valancy will be down in a
minute.”

He ushered Barney into the parlour and betook himself to the
sitting-room and Mrs. Frederick.

“Go up and tell Valancy to come down. Her husband is here.”

But so dubious was Uncle Benjamin as to whether Valancy could really
come down in a minute—or at all—that he followed Mrs. Frederick on
tiptoe up the stairs and listened in the hall.

“Valancy dear,” said Mrs. Frederick tenderly, “your husband is in the
parlour, asking for you.”

“Oh, Mother.” Valancy got up from the window and wrung her hands. “I
cannot see him—I cannot! Tell him to go away—_ask_ him to go away. I
can’t see him!”

“Tell her,” hissed Uncle Benjamin through the keyhole, “that Redfern
says he won’t go away until he _has_ seen her.”

Redfern had not said anything of the kind, but Uncle Benjamin thought
he was that sort of a fellow. Valancy knew he was. She understood that
she might as well go down first as last.

She did not even look at Uncle Benjamin as she passed him on the
landing. Uncle Benjamin did not mind. Rubbing his hands and chuckling,
he retreated to the kitchen, where he genially demanded of Cousin
Stickles:

“Why are good husbands like bread?”

Cousin Stickles asked why.

“Because women need them,” beamed Uncle Benjamin.

Valancy was looking anything but beautiful when she entered the
parlour. Her white night had played fearful havoc with her face. She
wore an ugly old brown-and-blue gingham, having left all her pretty
dresses in the Blue Castle. But Barney dashed across the room and
caught her in his arms.

“Valancy, darling—oh, you darling little idiot! Whatever possessed you
to run away like that? When I came home last night and found your
letter I went quite mad. It was twelve o’clock—I knew it was too late
to come here then. I walked the floor all night. Then this morning Dad
came—I couldn’t get away till now. Valancy, whatever got into you?
Divorce, forsooth! Don’t you know——”

“I know you only married me out of pity,” said Valancy, brushing him
away feebly. “I know you don’t love me—I know——”

“You’ve been lying awake at three o’clock too long,” said Barney,
shaking her. “That’s all that’s the matter with you. Love you! Oh,
don’t I love you! My girl, when I saw that train coming down on you I
knew whether I loved you or not!”

“Oh, I was afraid you would try to make me think you cared,” cried
Valancy passionately. “Don’t—don’t! I _know_. I know all about Ethel
Traverse—your father told me everything. Oh, Barney, don’t torture me!
I can never go back to you!”

Barney released her and looked at her for a moment. Something in her
pallid, resolute face spoke more convincingly than words of her
determination.

“Valancy,” he said quietly, “Father couldn’t have told you everything
because he didn’t know it. Will you let _me_ tell you—everything?”

“Yes,” said Valancy wearily. Oh, how dear he was! How she longed to
throw herself into his arms! As he put her gently down in a chair, she
could have kissed the slender, brown hands that touched her arms. She
could not look up as he stood before her. She dared not meet his eyes.
For his sake, she must be brave. She knew him—kind, unselfish. Of
course he would pretend he did not want his freedom—she might have
known he would pretend that, once the first shock of realisation was
over. He was so sorry for her—he understood her terrible position. When
had he ever failed to understand? But she would never accept his
sacrifice. Never!

“You’ve seen Dad and you know I’m Bernard Redfern. And I suppose you’ve
guessed that I’m John Foster—since you went into Bluebeard’s Chamber.”

“Yes. But I didn’t go in out of curiosity. I forgot you had told me not
to go in—I forgot——”

“Never mind. I’m not going to kill you and hang you up on the wall, so
there’s no need to call for Sister Anne. I’m only going to tell you my
story from the beginning. I came back last night intending to do it.
Yes, I’m ‘old Doc. Redfern’s son’—of Purple Pills and Bitters fame. Oh,
don’t I know it? Wasn’t it rubbed into me for years?”

Barney laughed bitterly and strode up and down the room a few times.
Uncle Benjamin, tiptoeing through the hall, heard the laugh and
frowned. Surely Doss wasn’t going to be a stubborn little fool. Barney
threw himself into a chair before Valancy.

“Yes. As long as I can remember I’ve been a millionaire’s son. But when
I was born Dad wasn’t a millionaire. He wasn’t even a doctor—isn’t yet.
He was a veterinary and a failure at it. He and Mother lived in a
little village up in Quebec and were abominably poor. I don’t remember
Mother. Haven’t even a picture of her. She died when I was two years
old. She was fifteen years younger than Father—a little school teacher.
When she died Dad moved into Montreal and formed a company to sell his
hair tonic. He’d dreamed the prescription one night, it seems. Well, it
caught on. Money began to flow in. Dad invented—or dreamed—the other
things, too—Pills, Bitters, Liniment and so on. He was a millionaire by
the time I was ten, with a house so big a small chap like myself always
felt lost in it. I had every toy a boy could wish for—and I was the
loneliest little devil in the world. I remember only one happy day in
my childhood, Valancy. Only one. Even you were better off than that.
Dad had gone out to see an old friend in the country and took me along.
I was turned loose in the barnyard and I spent the whole day hammering
nails in a block of wood. I had a glorious day. When I had to go back
to my roomful of playthings in the big house in Montreal I cried. But I
didn’t tell Dad why. I never told him anything. It’s always been a hard
thing for me to tell things, Valancy—anything that went deep. And most
things went deep with me. I was a sensitive child and I was even more
sensitive as a boy. No one ever knew what I suffered. Dad never dreamed
of it.

“When he sent me to a private school—I was only eleven—the boys ducked
me in the swimming-tank until I stood on a table and read aloud all the
advertisements of Father’s patent abominations. I did it—then”—Barney
clinched his fists—“I was frightened and half drowned and all my world
was against me. But when I went to college and the sophs tried the same
stunt I didn’t do it.” Barney smiled grimly. “They couldn’t make me do
it. But they could—and did—make my life miserable. I never heard the
last of the Pills and the Bitters and the Hair Tonic. ‘After using’ was
my nickname—you see I’d always such a thick thatch. My four college
years were a nightmare. You know—or you don’t know—what merciless
beasts boys can be when they get a victim like me. I had few
friends—there was always some barrier between me and the kind of people
I cared for. And the other kind—who would have been very willing to be
intimate with rich old Doc. Redfern’s son—I didn’t care for. But I had
one friend—or thought I had. A clever, bookish chap—a bit of a writer.
That was a bond between us—I had some secret aspirations along that
line. He was older than I was—I looked up to him and worshipped him.
For a year I was happier than I’d ever been. Then—a burlesque sketch
came out in the college magazine—a mordant thing, ridiculing Dad’s
remedies. The names were changed, of course, but everybody knew what
and who was meant. Oh, it was clever—damnably so—and witty. McGill
rocked with laughter over it. I found out _he_ had written it.”

“Oh, were you sure?” Valancy’s dull eyes flamed with indignation.

“Yes. He admitted it when I asked him. Said a good idea was worth more
to him than a friend, any time. And he added a gratuitous thrust. ‘You
know, Redfern, there are some things money won’t buy. For instance—it
won’t buy you a grandfather.’ Well, it was a nasty slam. I was young
enough to feel cut up. And it destroyed a lot of my ideals and
illusions, which was the worst thing about it. I was a young
misanthrope after that. Didn’t want to be friends with any one. And
then—the year after I left college—I met Ethel Traverse.”

Valancy shivered. Barney, his hands stuck in his pockets, was regarding
the floor moodily and didn’t notice it.

“Dad told you about her, I suppose. She was very beautiful. And I loved
her. Oh, yes, I loved her. I won’t deny it or belittle it now. It was a
lonely, romantic boy’s first passionate love, and it was very real. And
I thought she loved me. I was fool enough to think that. I was wildly
happy when she promised to marry me. For a few months. Then—I found out
she didn’t. I was an involuntary eavesdropper on a certain occasion for
a moment. That moment was enough. The proverbial fate of the
eavesdropper overtook me. A girl friend of hers was asking her how she
could stomach Doc. Redfern’s son and the patent-medicine background.

“‘His money will gild the Pills and sweeten the Bitters,’ said Ethel,
with a laugh. ‘Mother told me to catch him if I could. We’re on the
rocks. But pah! I smell turpentine whenever he comes near me.’”

“Oh, Barney!” cried Valancy, wrung with pity for him. She had forgotten
all about herself and was filled with compassion for Barney and rage
against Ethel Traverse. How dared she?

“Well,”—Barney got up and began pacing round the room—“that finished
me. Completely. I left civilisation and those accursed dopes behind me
and went to the Yukon. For five years I knocked about the world—in all
sorts of outlandish places. I earned enough to live on—I wouldn’t touch
a cent of Dad’s money. Then one day I woke up to the fact that I no
longer cared a hang about Ethel, one way or another. She was somebody
I’d known in another world—that was all. But I had no hankering to go
back to the old life. None of that for me. I was free and I meant to
keep so. I came to Mistawis—saw Tom MacMurray’s island. My first book
had been published the year before, and made a hit—I had a bit of money
from my royalties. I bought my island. But I kept away from people. I
had no faith in anybody. I didn’t believe there was such a thing as
real friendship or true love in the world—not for me, anyhow—the son of
Purple Pills. I used to revel in all the wild yarns they told of me. In
fact, I’m afraid I suggested a few of them myself. By mysterious
remarks which people interpreted in the light of their own
prepossessions.

“Then—you came. I _had_ to believe you loved me—really loved _me_—not
my father’s millions. There was no other reason why you should want to
marry a penniless devil with my supposed record. And I was sorry for
you. Oh, yes, I don’t deny I married you because I was sorry for you.
And then—I found you the best and jolliest and dearest little pal and
chum a fellow ever had. Witty—loyal—sweet. You made me believe again in
the reality of friendship and love. The world seemed good again just
because you were in it, honey. I’d have been willing to go on forever
just as we were. I knew that, the night I came home and saw my
homelight shining out from the island for the first time. And knew you
were there waiting for me. After being homeless all my life it was
beautiful to have a home. To come home hungry at night and know there
was a good supper and a cheery fire—and _you_.

“But I didn’t realise what you actually meant to me till that moment at
the switch. Then it came like a lightning flash. I knew I couldn’t live
without you—that if I couldn’t pull you loose in time I’d have to die
with you. I admit it bowled me over—knocked me silly. I couldn’t get my
bearings for a while. That’s why I acted like a mule. But the thought
that drove me to the tall timber was the awful one that you were going
to die. I’d always hated the thought of it—but I supposed there wasn’t
any chance for you, so I put it out of my mind. Now I had to face
it—you were under sentence of death and I couldn’t live without you.
When I came home last night I had made up my mind that I’d take you to
all the specialists in the world—that something surely could be done
for you. I felt sure you couldn’t be as bad as Dr. Trent thought, when
those moments on the track hadn’t even hurt you. And I found your
note—and went mad with happiness—and a little terror for fear you
didn’t care much for me, after all, and had gone away to get rid of me.
But now, it’s all right, isn’t it, darling?”

Was she, Valancy being called “darling”?

“I _can’t_ believe you care for me,” she said helplessly. “I _know_ you
can’t. What’s the use, Barney? Of course, you’re sorry for me—of course
you want to do the best you can to straighten out the mess. But it
can’t be straightened out that way. You couldn’t love me—me.” She stood
up and pointed tragically to the mirror over the mantel. Certainly, not
even Allan Tierney could have seen beauty in the woeful, haggard little
face reflected there.

Barney didn’t look at the mirror. He looked at Valancy as if he would
like to snatch her—or beat her.

“Love you! Girl, you’re in the very core of my heart. I hold you there
like a jewel. Didn’t I promise you I’d never tell you a lie? Love you!
I love you with all there is of me to love. Heart, soul, brain. Every
fibre of body and spirit thrilling to the sweetness of you. There’s
nobody in the world for me but you, Valancy.”

“You’re—a good actor, Barney,” said Valancy, with a wan little smile.

Barney looked at her.

“So you don’t believe me—yet?”

“I—can’t.”

“Oh—damn!” said Barney violently.

Valancy looked up startled. She had never seen _this_ Barney. Scowling!
Eyes black with anger. Sneering lips. Dead-white face.

“You don’t want to believe it,” said Barney in the silk-smooth voice of
ultimate rage. “You’re tired of me. You want to get out of it—free from
me. You’re ashamed of the Pills and the Liniment, just as she was. Your
Stirling pride can’t stomach them. It was all right as long as you
thought you hadn’t long to live. A good lark—you could put up with me.
But a lifetime with old Doc Redfern’s son is a different thing. Oh, I
understand—perfectly. I’ve been very dense—but I understand, at last.”

Valancy stood up. She stared into his furious face. Then—she suddenly
laughed.

“You darling!” she said. “You do mean it! You do really love me! You
wouldn’t be so enraged if you didn’t.”

Barney stared at her for a moment. Then he caught her in his arms with
the little low laugh of the triumphant lover.

Uncle Benjamin, who had been frozen with horror at the keyhole,
suddenly thawed out and tiptoed back to Mrs. Frederick and Cousin
Stickles.

“Everything is all right,” he announced jubilantly.

Dear little Doss! He would send for his lawyer right away and alter his
will again. Doss should be his sole heiress. To her that had should
certainly be given.

Mrs. Frederick, returning to her comfortable belief in an overruling
Providence, got out the family Bible and made an entry under
“Marriages.”




CHAPTER XLIII


“But, Barney,” protested Valancy after a few minutes, “your
father—somehow—gave me to understand that you _still_ loved _her_.”

“He would. Dad holds the championship for making blunders. If there’s a
thing that’s better left unsaid you can trust him to say it. But he
isn’t a bad old soul, Valancy. You’ll like him.”

“I do, now.”

“And his money isn’t tainted money. He made it honestly. His medicines
are quite harmless. Even his Purple Pills do people whole heaps of good
when they believe in them.”

“But—I’m not fit for your life,” sighed Valancy. “I’m not—clever—or
well-educated—or——”

“My life is in Mistawis—and all the wild places of the world. I’m not
going to ask you to live the life of a society woman. Of course, we
must spend a bit of the time with Dad—he’s lonely and old——”

“But not in that big house of his,” pleaded Valancy. “I can’t live in a
palace.”

“Can’t come down to that after your Blue Castle,” grinned Barney.
“Don’t worry, sweet. I couldn’t live in that house myself. It has a
white marble stairway with gilt bannisters and looks like a furniture
shop with the labels off. Likewise it’s the pride of Dad’s heart. We’ll
get a little house somewhere outside of Montreal—in the real
country—near enough to see Dad often. I think we’ll build one for
ourselves. A house you build for yourself is so much nicer than a
hand-me-down. But we’ll spend our summers in Mistawis. And our autumns
travelling. I want you to see the Alhambra—it’s the nearest thing to
the Blue Castle of your dreams I can think of. And there’s an old-world
garden in Italy where I want to show you the moon rising over Rome
through the dark cypress-trees.”

“Will that be any lovelier than the moon rising over Mistawis?”

“Not lovelier. But a different kind of loveliness. There are so many
kinds of loveliness. Valancy, before this year you’ve spent all your
life in ugliness. You know nothing of the beauty of the world. We’ll
climb mountains—hunt for treasures in the bazaars of Samarcand—search
out the magic of east and west—run hand in hand to the rim of the
world. I want to show you it all—see it again through your eyes. Girl,
there are a million things I want to show you—do with you—say to you.
It will take a lifetime. And we must see about that picture by Tierney,
after all.”

“Will you promise me one thing?” asked Valancy solemnly.

“Anything,” said Barney recklessly.

“Only one thing. You are never, under any circumstances or under any
provocation, to cast it up to me that I asked you to marry me.”




CHAPTER XLIV




E_xtract from letter written by Miss Olive Stirling to Mr. Cecil
Bruce:_

“It’s really disgusting that Doss’ crazy adventures should have turned
out like this. It makes one feel that there is no use in behaving
properly.

“I’m _sure_ her mind was unbalanced when she left home. What she said
about a dust-pile showed that. Of course I don’t think there was ever a
thing the matter with her heart. Or perhaps Snaith or Redfern or
whatever his name really is fed Purple Pills to her, back in that
Mistawis hut and cured her. It would make quite a testimonial for the
family ads, wouldn’t it?

“He’s such an insignificant-looking creature. I mentioned this to Doss
but all she said was, ‘I don’t like collar ad men.’

“Well, he’s certainly no collar ad man. Though I must say there is
something rather distinguished about him, now that he has cut his hair
and put on decent clothes. I really think, Cecil, you should exercise
more. It doesn’t do to get too fleshy.

“He also claims, I believe, to be John Foster. We can believe _that_ or
not, as we like, I suppose.

“Old Doc Redfern has given them two millions for a wedding-present.
Evidently the Purple Pills bring in the bacon. They’re going to spend
the fall in Italy and the winter in Egypt and motor through Normandy in
apple-blossom time. _Not_ in that dreadful old Lizzie, though. Redfern
has got a wonderful new car.

“Well, I think I’ll run away, too, and disgrace myself. It seems to
pay.

“Uncle Ben is a scream. Likewise Uncle James. The fuss they all make
over Doss now is absolutely sickening. To hear Aunt Amelia talking of
‘my son-in-law, Bernard Redfern’ and ‘my daughter, Mrs. Bernard
Redfern.’ Mother and Father are as bad as the rest. And they can’t see
that Valancy is just laughing at them all in her sleeve.”




CHAPTER XLV


Valancy and Barney turned under the mainland pines in the cool dusk of
the September night for a farewell look at the Blue Castle. 

Mistawis
was drowned in sunset lilac light, incredibly delicate and elusive. Nip
and Tuck were cawing lazily in the old pines. Good Luck and Banjo were
mewed and mewing in separate baskets in Barney’s new, dark-green car
_en route_ to Cousin Georgiana’s. Cousin Georgiana was going to take
care of them until Barney and Valancy came back. Aunt Wellington and
Cousin Sarah and Aunt Alberta had also entreated the privilege of
looking after them, but to Cousin Georgiana was it given. Valancy was
in tears.

“Don’t cry, Moonlight. We’ll be back next summer. And now we’re off for
a real honeymoon.”

Valancy smiled through her tears. She was so happy that her happiness
terrified her. But, despite the delights before her—‘the glory that was
Greece and the grandeur that was Rome’—lure of the ageless Nile—glamour
of the Riviera—mosque and palace and minaret—she knew perfectly well
that no spot or place or home in the world could ever possess the
sorcery of her Blue Castle.

THE END





